Roadkill in Japan

Have you ever thought that your presence in this world wouldn’t be missed much if you suddenly died? You may be right. Whoever ran over the black cat and just left it there in the middle of my parking lot so all cars coming in or going out would run over it again and again, fuck you.
I wrapped it in my carwash towel and placed it in a nearby caged dumpster; luckily today was trash day.
This roadkill thing really gets to me, though. Roadkill is never cleaned up in Japan. When my pal Gatson’s dad came to visit, he observed this is because “it’s no one’s job to clean up roadkill in Japan, so it just stays there.” Pretty smart guy.
I remember a dachshund that got run over at the exit ramp of a highway in Osaka. The ramp had a traffic light that you almost always needed to stop at, so over the period of six months or so, I got to see this dog corpse in varying stages of decomposition. The most revolting stage was the maggot infestation, which happened fairly early on. Toward the end, it looked like a mummy with two big gaping eyeholes in the dessicated skin still stretched over its skull. The funny thing was that I never caught a whiff of it, even when it must have smelled really ripe, cause that’s just how fucking rank certain parts of Osaka get all year round.

Monkey’s Uncle

As in, mean ol’ uncle Pete:
“New” giant ape found in DR Congo
Somewhere, Michael Crichton is raising a glass of wine and thinking, “I told you so.” And I for one give him full props – he even got the country right! It sounds like the primatologist, Shelly Williams, got extremely lucky she didn’t end up like Misulu:

Something struck him lightly in the chest. At first he thought it was an insect but, glancing down at this khaki shirt, he saw a spot of red, and a fleshy bi of red fruit rolled down his shirt to the muddy ground. The damned monkeys were throwing berries. He bent over to pick it up. And then he realized that it was not a piece of fruit at all. It was a human eyeball, crushed and slippery in his fingers, pinkish white with a shred of white optic nerve still attached at the back…
…And he saw Misulu. Misulu lay on his back, in a kind of halo of blood. His skull had been crushed from the sides, the facial bones shattered, the face narrowed and elongated, the mouth open in an obscene yawn, the one remaining eye wide and bulging. The other eye had exploded outward with the force of impact.

Bad, bad monkeys!

Capoeira: Getting Inverted

capoeira01.jpg
Yesterday we went to a capoeira meet at the Budokan at Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka. We were invited by Adam’s pal from Kumamoto, Luke. We were supposed to meet other friends there, but they ranked because they are weak/married, etc.
Luke is a fascinating man who was born in South Africa and has travelled around the world studying various forms of martial arts. He has the kind of posture, a way of movement, that says: Hardcore. Basically, he was more focused than most of the instructors that showed up for the meet, and that impressed the hell out of me.
This being my first exposure to capoeira (commonly defined as an Afro-Brazilian dance form that incorporates martial arts moves), I brought along my aging camera and did some damage. Check out the extended entry linked below for the rest of the photos.

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Hi, Huck!

Huck is coming to Japan next week. I’m going to make everyone practice their greetings in English in big, loud voices so Huck will be happy to meet them!
I am such a good host. I feel like the future of East-West relations lies in my hands… CRUNCH! Ooops! I killeded it mama, I killeded it! Waaaa!