Sunday, April 8, 2007

the different days in rock`n`rol`e - part 2

so, now for part two in a series on my experiences in the fashion world. where to start....? ah yes, that email, what do you reckon it said. well it said; max, why didnt you come today? needless to say i was surprised they cared so much. good, if they care that much, ive got some leverage. so i told them i tried to come but i couldnt find the place, since i hadnt been given proper directions. this was ofcourse a lie, but only a white lie. i had indeed not been given proper directions, but, i didnt even try hard to get to the audition that day. i just woke up feeling quite indiffrent. who wants to be bothered with dealing with all that fashion nonsense, anyway. theyre probably gonna wanna put makeup on me, do stuff to my hair and lord knows what else. i am not going to sell myself like that, fuck that. needless to say, i was giving myself all kinds of imaginary reasons not to go, truth was, i didnt know what in the world they where trying to do... but i didnt care, i just spent my day in the park. march 21st, the first day of spring - a national holiday. jammed around. met up with these interesting bunch of bilingual people getting ready to play today, with their kids with them (around my age, always a trip, though). turned out to be christian missionaries all communially living together, interesting thing to learn after the fact...... but they was righteous people all the same, did the hang for a little while, watched them play and went on my way after a few hours. then i spotted a bass player walking in the park. how do you spot bass players? i dont know, but this one had an acoustic bass guitar (guitar, not upright) with him, so needless to say, i stopped him immideatly and asked if he wanted to jam. you dont just meet bass players everyday, so i figured this would be a valuable oppertunity. turned out to be pretty good, jammed for a few hours, till it started getting dark, and we went to akihabara to search for a part for my laptop. the guy treated me to vegetable tenpura (click here for the wikipedia article), which was allright. beats southern-style deepfried food, but its still fried.... interesting experience all the same, not one to turn down free food either, and this being vegetables, it was allright. for the record, i do not concider meat or fish to be food, so theres no such thing as free food when it comes to those things. take that with a smile and a grain of salt, cause to each his own cup of coffee. i like mine without sugar and milk, and without caffeine, if possible. ofcourse, nothing beats hot water. sayu, as the japanese call it. yes, the japanese actually concider hot water to be a seperate beverage, though some young cats dont even know the word, nowadays. seems like the old culture is slowly being forgotten. even rice is a relatively new thing to most classes of people. up untill about a 150 years ago, or a 100 even, most all people exept for the rich and priveleged would eat stuff like millet. rice was only for the wealthy.

but back to the fashion show, because i went on a tangent about the day i skipped the audition. i eventually went to the audition two days later, as requested per email. i met up with the same guy that first scouted me, masato, at shibuya station. he told me to wait a little bit while he gathered a bunch of other cats coming to audition, and then we walked to the office/auditioning place. i talked to a few cats and they where all around my age or younger. theys was all telling me how they felt hungover from going out the night before, and how they didnt get to bed untill nine in the morning. they all had quite a bit of modeling experience, and most of them where studying japanese, teaching english or both. still in school, some of them brought there moms to this audition. a lot of them seemed to be british. i felt kind of uncomfortable and nervous around this crowd, something that wouldnt return in my subsequent visits to the fashion places. i just hate having to be judged by a bunch of cats. but the harmonica got me cool again. even though i had just barely started a few days ago, i could already fake it pretty well. stuff like black sabbaths the wizard and all of that. i looked like a slob (or whatever you want to call my appearance on the picture you see below) compared to them other cats, but that was quite allright. when we got to the place we sat down for a little bit, but i was the second one to change clothes and do the thing. what tripped me out was that they had the rolling stones exile on mainstreet album playing. they put me in a suit, or better said; a jacked and a black pair of pants. no shirt. no shirt!? that tripped me out man, preying and abusing my boyish good looks huh? i guess that makes for sex appeal in the mainstream world, exposing the upper part of the chest. i got my own views on that, but after tripping out on it for a few seconds i just put on my grin, took my ties out of my hair and they called me out. they asked me to walk a little bit, asked me some questions, in japanese once they figured i spoke some. asked for my height, width, length (as im typing this the minutemen song comes to mind; "well give it up for mike watt, hes only a skeleton. his bodys a series of points, no height, width, length..." groove on that, one reporters opinion its called, i do believe. youll probably be able to find it on youtube). they took a picture and told me i could go. that tripped me out, since some other cats where getting asked to wear 2, 3 different outfits. i figured i was too out of place and probably sucked so bad they just descided to cut me short. which was just fine by me, cause all that fashion mumbo-jumbo tripped me out. fuck that, ill just play my harp, i told myself, and left, bursted out in laughing as soon as i turned the corner. it was just funny as hell. all this uptight fashion stuff, but at the same time they had the rolling stones playing in the background. what in the world is this? at that point in time, i did not yet see the connection between the two.......

check back soon for part three. looks like this might become a four parter, its just intense to write up on everything in detail, and i dont want to cut anything out, so ill keep some suspense going and make it a series!