The Apocalypse D0well Show: Episode 76 - a podcast by ApocD

Clickhereto download this episode. Season 4 episode 11 of 13.

I tried something new and ended up with a short episode. Here's the full episode text, so if you don't want to listen to the episode, you can just read it.


Begin

Hello, hello, welcome to the show, I'm Apocalypse D0well, a guy from KY who lives in beautiful Takatsuki, Japan, and this is a show about my life here in Japan. I'm trying out a new format this week, so please bear with me as I work it out. I think if it turns out okay I'll mix up shows like this with outdoor recording shows and regular format shows. I'll keep you guessing.

I got the idea to do this after listening to the most recentThis American Life. If it bombs, please blame them.


Movies

I saw two movies this week. Both of them had characters who believed they were acting in a movie when the action around them was real. Both of these films, of course, fall short of the king of this genre,The Man Who Knew Too Littlestarring Bill Murray. I saw it once and hated it. When I came to Japan, my Australian flatmate made me watch it again, and I loved it. He also made me watch every episode of theYoung Ones, but that's a story for another episode.

The first movie wasTropic Thunder. This was the first time I've seen a movie on Blu-ray, and I have to say the picture quality, the sound, the whole experience was...pretty much the same as DVD. Maybe if I had a bigger TV I could see the difference, but really, I just don't care. DVDs are fine.

I liked Downey, Jr. It was great to see Steve Coogan, Mr. Alan Partridge himself. Back of the net! Cheap, average gags filled most of the movie, and the rest was just incomprehensible. Why was Jack Black in this movie? His character farted. That was it. He did nothing interesting at all in the entire movie. Jack Black should be angry at Stiller for not giving him any more to do in this movie, or he should be mad at himself for taking the role. Maybe both. I also can't understand why Tom Cruise was in the movie. I had trouble understanding why his character danced, until I saw in the extras that Cruise had added the dance in the make up test. I guess Stiller felt uncomfortable telling Cruise the dance was stupid, so they added it to the script. Stupid. Too stupid even for this movie.

The second, much better film wasThe Magic Hour. It was written and directed by Koki Mitani, the same guy who wrote and directedUchoten Hotel, which is worth watching not only because it's funny and well-written, but also because Ryoko Shinohara plays a call girl.

The Magic Houris about a guy who gets involved with a local mob boss' girl. The mob boss is played by Toshiyuki Nishida, the head guy onTante Knight Scoop. In order to live, the guy has to find a hit man and bring him to the boss. Instead of actually finding the hit man, he instead decides to hire an actor to play the hit man. He tells the actor he's making a movie and makes him think the mobsters are actors. Okay, it sounds stupid, but for a plot device like this it's well-done. The actor interacts with the mobsters in-character and hilarity ensues. I love it when hilarity ensues. This movie is so good, it even has Fumiyo Kohinata, the guy who played Kita Yoshio. He's playing the Paul Giamatti part in the upcoming Japanese version ofSideways.

SkipTropic Thunder, check outThe Magic Hour, and if you've seen The Man Who Knew Too Little only once and hated it, watch it again. You might like it.

Shiroi Haru

The wife and I have been watching a drama calledShiroi Haru. It stars Hiroshi Abe, the guy fromTrick, and the little girl who sang that annoyingPonyosong. Seriously, the song's cute the first ten times, but on the 100th listen, it made me want to punch the wall. The worst part is when kids on the street sing it. It's just too catchy. I won't hold that against this drama, though.

Abe plays Haruo, a former Yakuza who has just gotten out of the pen, the slammer, the cooler, the joint, the stoney lonesome. As soon as he gets out he gets robbed, and then he finds out his girlfriend is dead. Quite a day. Not only is his girlfriend dead, but he finds out she was with some other guy before she died, some baker with his own shop. See, his ex-girlfriend was supposed to get some money for the job Haruo did that got him in the slammer, but he thinks this baker has it, so conflict ensues. I love it when conflict ensues.

Although it can be melodramatic, like many Japanese dramas, it's still good and worth a watch.

French Restaurant

I have an unrefined pallet. I like plain, hot food in large quantities, so I stay away from French restaurants. Last Wednesday, though, I went to a French restaurant and not only did I go, but I liked it.

Why did I like it? Well, there was only one chef—the only worker in the whole place—and he asked me what I liked before he made it. He actually understood what it meant when he was told I'm a vegetarian. I had salad, ratatouille, croquette, and a pizza. Sure, pizza's not French, but the guy was cool and hooked me up. I even got double dessert for being a foreigner. Although I'm having trouble recalling any funny chefs, I'd have to guess that he's the funniest around. He made jokes the whole time and tried to break out English on me when he could. He told me I'm the second coolest guy in the world, right after himself. So, I'm left unable to tell people I hate French food, so it feels like a part of me has died, but I know I'm better for it.


Birthday

The wife's birthday was last Sunday. It was also the day for Takatsuki Jazz Street. There were musical performances all day around Takatsuki. We headed out around eleven and walked down to the park. You'll remember it from my running episode a few weeks ago. The little paths were lined with artists and peddlers. There was even a Korea, Soul of Asia booth. Asian countries advertise a lot here in Japan. The Malaysia commercials drive me crazy. Malaysia truly Asia. They show people traveling there and having a good time, but they don't show you the shops opening late, or the pushy salespeople following you around the shopping mall. Show me that and maybe I'll go back. Recently, they've been showing India commercials. Incredible India. Anyway, that's enough of that.

We headed on to a nearby junior high school and saw a performance outside. It was made up of foreigners and Japanese players. They were pretty good until they did an original song. We left.

We hit three more spots around town, stopped at Subway, rested at home, and then headed out again. The performances were all free, and it was fun to make fun of people we saw.

We sat on the grass in my running park and watched a performance in the late afternoon. A group made up of mostly foreigners decided to sit on the grass near us. They spoke English, but it wasn't their native language.

Foreign guy #1: Do you want to sit here on the grass?
Foreign guy #2: Okay.
Foreign guy #1: You're standing on my chair.
Foreign guy #2: Oh, I'm so sorry.

I turned so they couldn't see me laugh. I don't know what was so funny about it, maybe just their delivery. Yeah, I'll go with delivery since it's something I can't recreate here.

After that, we headed home and the father-in-law picked us up. We had birthday dinner for the wife at the in-laws. The mother-in-law makes some mean spring rolls. Their wiener dog once again fell in love with my leg.

Karaoke

We had a sayonara party for one of my coworkers on Saturday night. We started out at an Irish bar, where I had an excellent salad with avocado and mozzarella. From there, we hit the karaoke box. When we go out to karaoke, we usually hit the chains, like Jumbo. I'd never heard of this place. It was seedy. It was grimy. Sometimes, living in Japan, this place feels like Disneyland, so it was nice to be in a rough place. It was nice to go somewhere real.

The doors on the booths had a lot of glass, so as we walked to our booth we could see people merrymaking. Roughneck businessmen stood and belted out tunes. Women with dyed hair and tough, Osaka faces sang pop songs. That karaoke joint stands alone.

A guy I work with—we'll call him the Hawaiian—knocked out some Bon Jovi and a Sean Paul song that I didn't know but should. I gave them some House of Pain and Mongol 800. Unlike the first time we all went out together, the Hawaiian didn't lose his glasses, so the evening was a success.


Poor Tsuyoshi

The media frenzy over SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi seems to have settled down. I bet Tsuyoshi's hiding in his apartment saying, “Go swine flu!” Sorry, I'm assuming everyone knows what happened. I'm sure the well-informed listeners of this audio program already know, but I'll go over it for you just in case.

A couple of weeks ago, Tsuyoshi got totally ripped. Around two o'clock in the morning, after drinking with friends, he went to a park and took off his clothes. He made some noise and the police came. He was so ripped he couldn't understand what was happening, the police took him in and searched his apartment. Tsuyoshi's commercials were taken off TV, he's lost lots of money, and now we don't know when he'll get back to work.

As I said in a blog post right after it happened, it's not a big deal; the media are just trying to make it a big deal. It's just like swine flu. Tsuyoshi should get back on TV right now and give the media the finger, the middle. If this were America, he'd go to rehab, come out and proclaim himself clean, and get right back to being filthy rich. Why am I defending a guy who little talent who probably shouldn't be famous? Because I hate media hype more than low-talent performers.


Sauce

I work with an Australian—let's call him G—who's a lot like me. He hates it when people on bicycles ring their bells. He hates it when old people push start themselves on bikes instead of just sitting down and pedaling. We have a lot of hate in common.

I sometimes use the line “I'll be thinking about swimming pools” when I mean that I'll go through the motions of doing something without thinking about it at all. Do you remember that movieAirheads? Yeah, I don't want to admit I remember it, either. In that movie, someone asks Adam Sandler's character what he's thinking of, and he answers “Swimming pools.” I'm not sure why he gives that answer, if it's part of the plot or just some Sandler randomness, but it stuck with me. It's a throwaway line I use to fill space.

I used it the other day, and the Australian, meaning G, asked me why I had said it and then immediately asked if it was because of his story. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he told me the story.

It seems a few days or weeks—I can't really remember—earlier, he had made penne pasta with a creamy sauce. The sauce was so good, he closed his eyes and imagined himself swimming in the sauce. As he imagined himself swimming in the sauce, he moved his arms through the air as if he were actually swimming. As he imagined himself swimming in the sauce and moved his arms through the air, he opened his mouth and imagined that he was eating the sauce as he swam. His wife asked him what he was doing, he explained, and she called him an idiot. I'm not sure if she used the word idiot, but I'm sure it was a synonym. Maybe nimrod. “Stop pretending you're swimming in carbonara sauce, you nimrod!” Well, I'm unable to confirm the swim-worthiness of the sauce, because it has meat in it. If he makes a meatless version, though, I just might go for a swim.

Out

Well, that's it for this week. You can contact me at (e-mail) or leave a comment on the blog at http://halfinafrenzy.blogspot.com. You can check out my podcast novels at http://www.freepodcastnovel.com. Thanks for listening. I'm out.

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