There are these people around now who want to talk about rugs and glasses and eye-glasses and I am pretty sure that I have to die soon. They want to show us a rug. They were going to buy a rug they saw in one place but then they found the same rug for this much at another place. The price was less at the other place. Same rug. Here's a hardcover book about rugs on a table on top of the previously mentioned rug. Did we tell you the story about the table?
My girlfriend is looking at the table, the rug, and then at me, and then at me reflected in our host's eyeglasses. The hostess is hanging on the host's arm and beaming with pride; she is holding a glass of wine with a specific shape in a specific color with a specific taste bought from somewhere she found. Evidently the store didn't exist until she found it. My girlfriend is listening with rapt attention and is probably tallying up some numbers in her head. My girlfriend is talking to the hostess about a mutual friend's wedding. The hostess hooks her digital camera up to the laptop on the kitchen counter to show us pictures from the wedding. I don't know who any of the people are in the picture other than myself, my girlfriend, the host and the hostess. We are looking at pictures of ourselves at the wedding and my girlfriend and the hostess are talking about how much weight the bride had lost to fit into her dress. They are talking about how the growth in the bride's vagina, thank goodness, was benign, and the hostess has pulled out some scans from the MRI.
The host wants to talk to me about the winter Olympics, and is angry that I don't know anything about who got what medal from which country. Then he asks me a series of questions about Canada but I don't know the answers. I explain to him that I am not from Canada and I don't know the population of Canada. We make vague guesses at the population of Canada while my girlfriend and the hostess laugh about some mutual friend and something this friend did when they were all sixteen years old.
The host is telling me about how he goes surfing and then says a bunch of technical surfing terms and smiles widely at the recognition he believes he sees in my face. The hostess overhears the conversation and she tells the host to get his surfboard and his wetsuit to show us. The host very modestly protests this. The hostess begs him to get his surfboard and his wetsuit and he laughs and protests. My girlfriend joins in and begs him to get his surfboard and his wetsuit. This goes on for a very long time and I want to smoke a cigarette, but can't in this clean house and want my girlfriend to go with me to stand and smoke on the tiny veranda. But she is still begging the host to get his surfboard. Finally the host, while still protesting, goes into the other room and comes out with the surfboard and the wetsuit and my girlfriend is yelling with shock and admiration at him. Or maybe she is yelling at the surfboard. The ceiling is too low for him to stand it up so he is holding it awkwardly in his arms. My girlfriend and the hostess are looking at it and he is talking about the beaches and the best trains to take to get there. The hostess has forgotten what side she is on and is matching my girlfriend's exaggerated reactions to the surfboard and the wetsuit. My girlfriend is looking at the wetsuit and nodding while the host tells us about the difference between the waves in Australia and Tokyo. My girlfriend hands me the wetsuit and I am calculating how long I have to look at it and nod before I can hand it back. I am not sure what do with the wetsuit and hand it back to my girlfriend.
They serve us some food which is flavorless boiled vegetables and rice. The hostess talks to us about macrobiotics and explains to us the virtue of flavorless food, and how it has not only made her more healthy, but more positive. She now understands things about nature, and the implication is, that no one else does. My girlfriend has now matched the the hostesses zeal and is talking about healthy food and chiding me for eating curry and ramen. This is my girlfriend, who lives on a diet of noodles, soup, rice omelettes, garlic, menthol cigarettes, and alcohol.
The host wants to ask me some questions about Eminem and what he is doing these days. Do Americans still like Eminem? Do Black people in America like Eminem? Is America really like the America depicted in the movie "8 Mile"?
Now I am praying for the earthquake that they have been threatening me with since I came to this country. But I feel bad about this, thinking about Haiti. But then again if the big one came it would bury all of the filing cabinets and all of the information on me which I have been racking up since I set foot in this country. Would I feel bad? I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt. Could the earthquake just localize to the immigration office, my apartment, the university, and this apartment with the rugs and wine? I would feel bad, I guess, if anyone got hurt. Present company excluded.
Showing posts with label tragedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tragedy. Show all posts
1.28.2010
11.27.2009
ALLY MCBEAL/JON BON JOVI BUTT-SNIFFING
So I just got off the phone with my brother, and he was telling me about how he has been teaching in this new building which has men and womens bathrooms on alternating floors. He ended up bumping into one of his students as he was leaving the men's room and they started up a conversation. There was a flush and a girl came out of one of the stalls and started talking to my brother and his student, and my brother was shocked that a girl was using the men's room. Apparently she didn't feel like going all the way upstairs or something. And my brother said it was a strange situation. A girl in the men's room.
And this reminded me of something. When I first came to Japan I would end up in conversations where girls would be asking me if it was really normal to have co-ed bathrooms in American office buildings. More than once. More than a few times I was asked this and it was pretty confusing.
It turned out that this was a major setting in the television show "Ally Mcbeal". There was a co-ed bathroom where the male and female characters would hang out together and talk. And this must have had some penetration into the consciousness of all these Japanese girls who watched that show. (In a similar but different way, I am constantly asked if it is normal in America for people to sit with their shoes on, in or on top of their bed. Of course it isn't. But I guess it happens a lot on American TV shows and movies. And in this country people leave their shoes at the door so I guess it is doubly horrifying to see someone sitting on a bed resting their shoes on the covers).
The thing is, I had never really watched Ally Mcbeal at all until a few years ago. The first time I really watched Ally Mcbeal was in Japan, dubbed in Japanese. My girlfriend of the time bought all of the seasons for cheap from a video store that was going out of business. And I would watch episodes of Ally Mcbeal with my ex, her little sister, and her roommate. They were hooked and watched multiple episodes every day.
I don't know if you have ever watched Ally Mcbeal. I have watched huge chunks of Ally Mcbeal. Not by choice. Ally Mcbeal makes no sense. Everything the characters say and do, all of their desires, hopes, and dreams are entirely unlike any actual person who has ever lived or died. They work in a law firm which has a co-ed toilet that they hang out in and talk about love and their biological clocks and flirt in a hollywood baroque robot manner. They hang out at a bar that is lit like a porno-scene where some women plays a piano and sings lite fm. Sometimes the songs directly relate to what has happened in the episode, sometimes the characters sing on stage. The artifice of Ally Mcbeal would be insulting if it wasn't completely baffling. This compounded by the fact that I was watching it with three girls who kept turning to me and asking "Is America really like this?"
The people on TV do shit, say shit, wear clothing, and end up in situations completely unlike our lives and what we know. Mike has double-booked with two dates to the prom and his best friend's name is Boner. There is a little girl with three daddies who looks like a troll and talks like a retard but every line she says illicits cooing or uproarious laughter from the studio audience. Kimmie Gibbler and Urkel are your neighbors and walk into your house uninvited, also, they exist. The boys have a frat party in the Hollywood hills and there is a fire raging across California; Donna Martin gets caught in the fire with a baby deer and waits to be rescued, eventually she is, and the deer reunites with its family. Family Doubledare and Michael Knight's chest hair. Melrose Place. Mr. Drummond. The Real World Road Rules Challenge and the romance that ensues. Night Court. Cosby Show sweaters and earrings and every character on Friends. Daytime advertisements for adjustible beds.
The point I am trying to make is that the majority of TV has never made sense to me, nor has it ever even seemed to me that it is supposed to be in anyway representative of the world that I live in. And for some reason Ally Mcbeal is even worse. It's not that it was "over the top", "edgy" or "stylized" (perhaps that was its intention), just that there was not one single character, emotion, or situation I could even relate to on a basic human level. In every soap-operatic instance of love, desire, sex, jealousy, etc. every character is a deranged mannequin doing and saying things that basically make no sense.
So I started telling my brother about the co-ed bathroom thing in Ally Mcbeal and how I am frequently asked if this is the norm in America, and how I have basically only ever seen Ally Mcbeal dubbed in Japanese. My brother has never seen the show and I started describing to him how strange and unattractive all the characters are, and how they do and say things that no one would ever do. While trying to describe this I remembered one of the strangest things I had seen on that show.
Specifically a scene in which Ally Mcbeal sniffs Jon Bon Jovi's ass.
I don't really remember the set up. Ally Mcbeal and one of her friends are walking down the street having a conversation in neo-nineties Cathy Guisewite language, when they see a bunch of construction workers. These construction workers are all attractive hunks of young men, the way most construction workers aren't, and one of them is Jon Bon Jovi looking like no one, including Jon Bon Jovi, should look. I wish I could remember what the fuck the rationale or the set up for this was, but Ally Mcbeal's friend describes how you just want to sniff a hot construction worker's ass like a dog would. Then Ally Mcbeal is chided by her friend into sniffing Bon Jovi's ass, and is caught by Bon Jovi in that embarrassing situation that I'm sure no one can relate to. Also Ally Mcbeal looks like a ninety-pound seahorse caucasoid lemur woman. Also she later meets up with Bon Jovi and embarrassedly apologizes for sniffing his ass and they end up dating after that awkward first meeting.
So there I was watching this in Japanese with three Japanese girls who keep asking me if all of the insane bullshit happening on this TV show is the norm in America and they don't believe me when I deny it.
Look. I like butts. I'll sniff a girl's butt. I love that. If I had to choose, I would choose an ass over any body part as a point of desire. But, if you had to sniff a stranger's ass on the street, I would guarantee that a construction worker on the job would have the foulest ass. Is this supposed to be cute? Is this supposed to be a subversion of cultural sexual mores to have Ally Mcbeal sniffing a strange man's ass on the street?
And as I am describing this bizarre butt-sniffing scene to my brother on the phone tonight I still can't believe it, to the point that I feel like I must be remembering it wrong. Like when you have memories from early childhood that are mixed up with dreams. IE "Oh like the time I was four and my stuffed animals started levitating, or maybe that was a dream I had when I was four." As I was describing the Bon Jovi ass sniffing scene to my brother I started doubting whether it was real. So I googled "Ally Mcbeal Bon Jovi Ass Butt Sniffing" and sifted through the internet.
Yes it is real. Salon, Oct. 7 2002:
(Bon Jovi) found himself filled with pity for the "Ally McBeal" star during his stint on her show.
"I never met this kid before, and on the first day, our first scene together she has to sniff my rear end. I'm bent over and she has to sniff my butt like a dog," he recalls. "I thought this is a tough gig, nice to meet ya."
Fuck you television. Fuck you internet. Happy Thanksgiving.
And this reminded me of something. When I first came to Japan I would end up in conversations where girls would be asking me if it was really normal to have co-ed bathrooms in American office buildings. More than once. More than a few times I was asked this and it was pretty confusing.
It turned out that this was a major setting in the television show "Ally Mcbeal". There was a co-ed bathroom where the male and female characters would hang out together and talk. And this must have had some penetration into the consciousness of all these Japanese girls who watched that show. (In a similar but different way, I am constantly asked if it is normal in America for people to sit with their shoes on, in or on top of their bed. Of course it isn't. But I guess it happens a lot on American TV shows and movies. And in this country people leave their shoes at the door so I guess it is doubly horrifying to see someone sitting on a bed resting their shoes on the covers).
The thing is, I had never really watched Ally Mcbeal at all until a few years ago. The first time I really watched Ally Mcbeal was in Japan, dubbed in Japanese. My girlfriend of the time bought all of the seasons for cheap from a video store that was going out of business. And I would watch episodes of Ally Mcbeal with my ex, her little sister, and her roommate. They were hooked and watched multiple episodes every day.
I don't know if you have ever watched Ally Mcbeal. I have watched huge chunks of Ally Mcbeal. Not by choice. Ally Mcbeal makes no sense. Everything the characters say and do, all of their desires, hopes, and dreams are entirely unlike any actual person who has ever lived or died. They work in a law firm which has a co-ed toilet that they hang out in and talk about love and their biological clocks and flirt in a hollywood baroque robot manner. They hang out at a bar that is lit like a porno-scene where some women plays a piano and sings lite fm. Sometimes the songs directly relate to what has happened in the episode, sometimes the characters sing on stage. The artifice of Ally Mcbeal would be insulting if it wasn't completely baffling. This compounded by the fact that I was watching it with three girls who kept turning to me and asking "Is America really like this?"
The people on TV do shit, say shit, wear clothing, and end up in situations completely unlike our lives and what we know. Mike has double-booked with two dates to the prom and his best friend's name is Boner. There is a little girl with three daddies who looks like a troll and talks like a retard but every line she says illicits cooing or uproarious laughter from the studio audience. Kimmie Gibbler and Urkel are your neighbors and walk into your house uninvited, also, they exist. The boys have a frat party in the Hollywood hills and there is a fire raging across California; Donna Martin gets caught in the fire with a baby deer and waits to be rescued, eventually she is, and the deer reunites with its family. Family Doubledare and Michael Knight's chest hair. Melrose Place. Mr. Drummond. The Real World Road Rules Challenge and the romance that ensues. Night Court. Cosby Show sweaters and earrings and every character on Friends. Daytime advertisements for adjustible beds.
The point I am trying to make is that the majority of TV has never made sense to me, nor has it ever even seemed to me that it is supposed to be in anyway representative of the world that I live in. And for some reason Ally Mcbeal is even worse. It's not that it was "over the top", "edgy" or "stylized" (perhaps that was its intention), just that there was not one single character, emotion, or situation I could even relate to on a basic human level. In every soap-operatic instance of love, desire, sex, jealousy, etc. every character is a deranged mannequin doing and saying things that basically make no sense.
So I started telling my brother about the co-ed bathroom thing in Ally Mcbeal and how I am frequently asked if this is the norm in America, and how I have basically only ever seen Ally Mcbeal dubbed in Japanese. My brother has never seen the show and I started describing to him how strange and unattractive all the characters are, and how they do and say things that no one would ever do. While trying to describe this I remembered one of the strangest things I had seen on that show.
Specifically a scene in which Ally Mcbeal sniffs Jon Bon Jovi's ass.
I don't really remember the set up. Ally Mcbeal and one of her friends are walking down the street having a conversation in neo-nineties Cathy Guisewite language, when they see a bunch of construction workers. These construction workers are all attractive hunks of young men, the way most construction workers aren't, and one of them is Jon Bon Jovi looking like no one, including Jon Bon Jovi, should look. I wish I could remember what the fuck the rationale or the set up for this was, but Ally Mcbeal's friend describes how you just want to sniff a hot construction worker's ass like a dog would. Then Ally Mcbeal is chided by her friend into sniffing Bon Jovi's ass, and is caught by Bon Jovi in that embarrassing situation that I'm sure no one can relate to. Also Ally Mcbeal looks like a ninety-pound seahorse caucasoid lemur woman. Also she later meets up with Bon Jovi and embarrassedly apologizes for sniffing his ass and they end up dating after that awkward first meeting.
So there I was watching this in Japanese with three Japanese girls who keep asking me if all of the insane bullshit happening on this TV show is the norm in America and they don't believe me when I deny it.
Look. I like butts. I'll sniff a girl's butt. I love that. If I had to choose, I would choose an ass over any body part as a point of desire. But, if you had to sniff a stranger's ass on the street, I would guarantee that a construction worker on the job would have the foulest ass. Is this supposed to be cute? Is this supposed to be a subversion of cultural sexual mores to have Ally Mcbeal sniffing a strange man's ass on the street?
And as I am describing this bizarre butt-sniffing scene to my brother on the phone tonight I still can't believe it, to the point that I feel like I must be remembering it wrong. Like when you have memories from early childhood that are mixed up with dreams. IE "Oh like the time I was four and my stuffed animals started levitating, or maybe that was a dream I had when I was four." As I was describing the Bon Jovi ass sniffing scene to my brother I started doubting whether it was real. So I googled "Ally Mcbeal Bon Jovi Ass Butt Sniffing" and sifted through the internet.
Yes it is real. Salon, Oct. 7 2002:
(Bon Jovi) found himself filled with pity for the "Ally McBeal" star during his stint on her show.
"I never met this kid before, and on the first day, our first scene together she has to sniff my rear end. I'm bent over and she has to sniff my butt like a dog," he recalls. "I thought this is a tough gig, nice to meet ya."
Fuck you television. Fuck you internet. Happy Thanksgiving.
11.25.2009
11.04.2009
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