Sunday, July 1, 2001

A Cigar, In Japan, With You (by Scott VanDusen)

WHoo! What at time to be around I must declare.

Whew.

So hey goddamn this is Scott and what do you know here I am again sitting on my blue chair I stole from the sodaigomi (large general garbage pile) facing my computer on a saturday night again. (I do believe we can perceive a pattern here, capn). I've spent almost the entire day playing old school video games (Blockout to be exact) and listening to internet radio (destroyradio.com! Oh yeah you CAN be 14 years old twice!). But now it is time to actually do something PRODUCTIVE and all that.

You know, ever since the previous magazine that I used to write these cigar reviews for evaporated, I always thought, well, that's it you know. Over and out the end of an era so long thanks for everything yadayadayada but LIKE THE PHOENIX I RISE. Yeah right. More like the Millennium Falcon which never quite seems to make that jump into hyperspace, just that wa wa waaaaaaa sound....

Ok ok ok ok enough of this TALK. Entirely too academic. For I am certain that ears such as yours are burning with the past and the future now you know more now you know less and everything in motion making you a little bit ill but hell it will. Outside the evening light has stained the sky with powder burns and mascara laden cotton balls. After 5 days of continual rain, the air blankets the city heavy and still. The sparrows are silent, fluorescent lights flicker across the street, the city settles down to shows about eating, shows about cooking- I swear the ONLY thing on Japanese TV these days are these culinary programs which make me want to turn bulemic. You know, I never really noticed the parallel between food and sex, but they certainly are related, are they not? What could be more frustrating than watching these rich skinny Japanese robots consume expensive and impossible dishes, while my sink is filled with garbage the fridge is filled with garbage even the garbage can... well you know.... and all the flirting and double edged sentences flying back and forth, it's no wonder it's no surprise that we are so impossibly hungry.

Well let's skip the stone and gnaw the bone and allow me to introduce myself. Wait, already did that. Ok HEY I KNOW I'LL TALK ABOUT THE FAT CIGAR I AM ABOUT TO SHOVE IN MY FACE. How about that? Ha ha ha ha ha ah goddamn sometimes I make myself chortle. CHORTLE CHORTLE. Yeah ok anyway here is the Cigar; It's a "Cabanas". That's all that I know! And the fucking thing has got to be the John Holmes of cigars. I don't know WHO chose this thing for me to review (Mr. Stivers, paging Mr. Stivers...) but FUCKINGHELL this thing is WAY more than any NORMAL person needs. In fact, you may consider me to be a bit of a WUSS, but I have decided to CUT the thing in half! Save some for later. After all, it is my LAST cigar until I head off to the states in a couple of weeks, and you know I'm going to want SOMETHING to smoke on the shinkansen...

So before you can say "nuclear missile defense strategy is fucking DUMB AS FUCK but HEY it's more money for LOCKHEED", this cigar has been snipped and lit and I'm a puffin daddy. It's allright. Considering that this thing cost 5 bucks, but I get to smoke it TWICE as it were, it's gotta be the BARGAIN of the century. Actually, I wonder how big the biggest cigar on earth ever made is/was? If anyone knows, EMAIL me at scott@waveofwords.com and I will MENTION you in the next issue! HEy Look at ME! WHoo deeee doooooooo!!!

Alright it's burning and the wine the WINE children the WINE is, who coulda guessed, FROM CALIFORNIA!! I hear that california's annual GDP exceeds that of FRANCE, BTW. And the wine ain't that bad. Too bad California is such a shitty place. No offense, mom. But CHEAP WINE is sometimes the only option, and as I have no money at all, Franzia californian red is a o k.

While I was hacking out that last sentence, it started POURING again outside. "Fall rain fall rain beautiful rain don't disturb me beautiful rain ohhh come (never come) ohhh come to me beautiful rain" Checkitout the night before last, at about 4:30 in the morning, it was THUNDERIN And a LIGHTNINTINININN and I coulda swore one of those explosions happened RIGHT OVER MY APARTMENT. Shook the whole building, left my hair standing on end, and was really erotic! LOVE those thunderstorms! Like cross tops for the soul. Maybe I should move to the desert, Arizona or something and build a teepee and wait for the rain! But hang on, do they have cable modem access in the Air-uh-zona desert yet? Maybe my friendly TIME WARNER AT&T CNN sales rep can help me out! HERE's MY MONEY just KEEP me away from those NASTY pornograffers and those SCARY hackers and CONTROVERSIAL sites! Yep! Walled Garden where NOBODY can see out but EVERYONE ELSE can see in HANG ON WAIT WHAT THE GODDAMN!

So this cigar is right on. It sure makes me wish that I could be at a Pavement show though. You know. Maybe sing along with boys that are dying on these streets or something. Or on a road trip to see Neil Young in the Gorge high on mushrooms under a full moon with THIS VERY CIGAR. But that's a million miles away, for time is the greatest distance between two places. Maybe instead I'll put on some TS Elliot reading TS ELLIOT and take a bath with this very bottle of wine... I dunno though. Smoking a cigar in the bathtub would kinda suck, wouldn't it. Aww fuckit maybe I'll just talk about Japan for those that are listening:

And Here's The News In Japan; I'm sure everyone heard about that guy that went into an elementary school in Osaka a couple of weeks ago with two cutting knives, slashed up more than 20 1st and 2nd graders. Sad sad sad. Evidently, the guy that did it was whacked out on 20 times the normal dosage of antipsychotic drugs and had a history of schizophrenia. The guy's father was interviewed, he said something like "I have no son. I disowned him 25 years ago" Hmmmm. Notice any connection? So many of these mass murderers had shitty relationships with their parents. I say, put the parents on trial WITH the kids. Now There's an Idea. That way we could have BOTH Bush Jr. AND Senior fry for failing to comply with the Kyoto accord, failure to EVER pardon anyone on death row no matter HOW fucked up the actual trial was, failure to do ANYTHING but bend the people of America OVER for the Military Industrial Complex. (whoo there horse slow it down! Jeez I think I got a little bit of pent up HOSTILITY going on over here... sorry about that. Its just that I am so sick of BUSH and the fact that all I can do to change anything is sit around and bitch and smoke and drink and listen to old school punk rock. Hmmmm depressing.

Oh yeah. The cigar. Keen.

Lessee what else is going on over here in Japan? Well, a guy I know is getting extradited for taking "voyeuristic" photos. He got caught trying to snap a photo of a 13 year old girl in the little girls room. Thing is, I never thought of this guy as being THAT fucked in the head, you know? I mean, I had helped him fix his computer and he seemed like an allright guy and all that, but I guess you never know, do you...

Here's more fun. My girlfriend lives down in Tokyo, on the second story of an apartment. The other night she calls me at 2 in the morning because someone is trying to CLIMB UP onto her balcony. She hears this racket, looks out the back window and there is this arm and head visible through the hanging laundry. She screams and slams the window shut and calls the police, who upon arriving, cannot BELIEVE that anyone could actually CLIMB that wall (something like 15 feet up!). They attributed the attempt to some pervert after her underwear.

Her best friend, this girl from Australia, has similar stories of sexual harassment. Allegedly, since she came to Japan 4 months ago, she has had no less than 3 guys flash her in public. One was masturbating behind her as she was walking home. I mean, what the fuck? I'm beginning to become one of those reverse misogynists. As In, MEN are SHIT. The more I think about it, the more I am forced to conclude that the MAJORITY of these murders and assaults and wars and shit are all perpetrated by men. What do you think? I mean, come on do you think that the desert storm trading card "carpet bombing" would have ever gone to the press if a woman was in charge? I dunno. Maybe. But I doubt it.

Heavy heavy falls the night and at least the internet radio person has decided to put on that sleepy dreamy version of yo la tengo's sugarcube. Maybe I should relax more, you know ENJOY this cigar these wisps and fragments of truth before they disappear like socks, unnoticed and simple. "And in evenings in spring the windows and doors were open and the music came outdoors. Sometimes, all the lights would go out, except for a large chandelier they hung from the ceiling. Couples would come outside, to the relative privacy of the alleyway. You could see them, kissing behind ash pits and telephone poles. Such was the compensation for lives that passed like mine, without any change or adventure..." Aw shit I guess all I really need is Tennessee Williams, Raymond Carver, and a pesto pizza with roasted garlic...

So HEY kids, I'm going to wrap this up and torch it. Dig? I hope that my ramblings were somewhat coherent. So hard to drink the coffee through the 'stash, as someone said.

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