Sunday, April 1, 2007

the different days in rock`n`rol`e - part 1

after the recent death, or should i say incapacitation, of my laptop computer i havent been up to the task of writing log as much. thankfully, i have been able to keep up my email correspondance, mostly due to the fact that im able to use the house computer at the pad im staying at. but, today i felt obliged to chimp a new edition of my homebrew spiel, as it will cover a rather interesting event ive been telling folks about for a little while now. so lets start at the beginning.

about a month ago, maybe just a few days after coming to japan, i went out to shibuya to buy myself a camera. id told the people back home that i really didnt know what to get for my birthday, but it might be a good call to contribute some money so i could go out and buy a camera, and send you all some pictures of my travels. the gift that gives back. well, obviously, my laptop is currently incapacitated, so i have no ability to upload these photos now, but, some of you have received them by email. i am going out to get my computer fixed next week, so hopefully, it wont be long. i could do it myself, but i just do not have the time or tools, but nevermind that, im getting sidetracked....
just before i walked into さくらや (sakuraya), tokyos big discount electronics store, a japanese man approached me, in english, and asked me if he could ask me some questions. now this was odd, since i hadnt used (or been able to use) english to communicate with japanese people yet. he explained to me he was scouting models for an upcoming fashion show. so he asked me about the nature of my stay in japan, my length, height, weight, the whole nine yards. after the spiel had run its course, he showed me last years magazine/catalog from this `fashion show`. it turned out to be this really high-end, popular designer brand (that ofcourse laymen, and especially near-monks like me, have never heard of). the agency doing the styling and design was www.femme-de.com - he gave me his buisness card and wrote down his email adress. masato was his name. interesting, genuininely nice guy with a good sense of humor. his email adress included the words `saigonostarman` which losely translates to `the number one star man` - thatll give you some kind of clue, dr delay. we swapped emails and he told me that he might contact me for an audition on the 10th, if his boss liked the pictures he took of me with his phone`s camera (those phone-cameras have been big in japan before they ever even got introduced in europe, its a trip). we said our goodbyes and went on our seperate ways. i was left a little tripped out by the experience. i am not oblivious to the fact that i seem to have my looks working for me, but i figured my clothing and wooden shoes would cancel that out a great deal. what made it even funnier is that i hadnt showered for much longer than usual (and usual is seven days...) so i just cracked up thinking back on it. now, i must say, i can go without taking a showever for weeks without smelling or looking too awfull, so mostly people dont notice.
then a few days later, the 8th of march, i do believe, i was walking from yoyogi-kouen to harajuku station, and i got stopped by yet another english-spieling japanese cat. same spiel, same agency, just a different cat scouted me. i didnt tell him id been approached by someone else from his company about the same thing before, i just went with it, played the game, gave him my measurements and mail, told him i would come to that audition the 10th if they asked me to, and parted ways. this again left me tripped out a little bit, because now id gotten scouted twice by the same agency, by two different cats, even. and as far as i was concerned, i still looked much more plain than your average guy walking the streets. made me laugh, man.

the 10th came and went and i didnt hear anything. didnt surprise me much, so i kind of just let it go. i kind of thought to myself - what a shame, i could have used the money (30000-40000 yen) - but you cant count on those sort of things, i told myself. so i went on with my life. found a new pad to crash, started going to yoyogi-park on a regular basis, you know, the regular drill. but then, out of the blue, i got an email if i could come to the auditon on the 21st. still remembering the fact that it was a paid gig, i said; sure, ill be there. unfortunatly, communication through email went difficult (they often lamented the fact that i dont have a cellphone) and they didnt give me directions to the place. the 21st came and i had an adress written down, but i didnt really feel like going that day and by the afternoon i found myself jamming with a bass player and completely spaced on the audition. oh well, i told myself - who wants to deal with the hassles of the fashion world anyway. the money would have been nice, but it probably wouldnt have been worth all that trouble anyway. ill just play out on the streets some more. and with that i let it go, and felt good about it. but then, when i got home, i got yet another email, and what do you recon it said.....

thats it for part one - part two coming up real soon. in the mean time, some youtube for while you wait. oh, and its a joke, in case you dont know too much about monk...