Herro Flom Japan

Why does every attention-whoring foreigner who stays more than a few months start calling himself "Tokyo" (yournamehere?) And why is it only guys? As far as I know, there's only ever been a "Tokyo Rose" but never a "Tokyo Beth" or "Tokyo Christina."

If anyone ever calls me "Tokyo Rich" I will kick their ass. You've seen me play Wii Boxing, so you know what kind of damage I'm capable of. You've been warned.

So, the subject of this post is TokyoCooney, a popular YouTube vlogger. I've only seen one of his videos so far, and it was only a few minutes ago. I might watch a few more.

On Oliver's last night in Tokyo, he wanted to go to the Tokyo Comedy Store so we went, although I was skeptical that we'd witness anything actually funny, seeing as how Japan is as far from the English language comedy club circuit as you can get.

I was right. It was painfully, annoyingly, unbearably not funny. What was even worse was that people who were painfully, annoyingly, unbearably not funny were attempting improvisational comedy. Not surprisingly, it was a lot like watching people make complete asses of themselves on stage. When we could no longer take any more, Oliver and I paid the bill (over 10,000 yen for cover charge, a few beers and some meager finger food) then went to a convenience store and bought a bottle of whiskey to extricate ourselves from our lingering foul mood.

Perhaps you've noticed that I don't normally complain about or insult people. But the no-talent hacks at the Tokyo Comedy Story really, really sucked. Neither of us could figure out why the audience was laughing at everything. It. Wasn't. Funny.

The only exception was Kevin Cooney. He was genuinely funny and had an excellent stage presence. We quoted his jokes to each other as we passed the whiskey bottle between us. (Oliver drinks whiskey like a pussy, BTW. Can't take a swig without scrunching up his face. Friggin' lightweight.)

In summary, Tokyo Comedy Store: bad. Keven Cooney: good. Oliver: whiskey pussy.

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via Joi Ito

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You'll, ah, want to listen to this with headphones. The people around you might not be as in tune as you to the deep and profound wisdom in the message.

I can just picture all the people in the control booth and behind the cameras, completely speechless. Maybe you can tell, but I have the utmost respect for people who can willfully and proudly expose themselves as complete basket cases in front of a large audience. They have a sense of freedom I can't even begin to imagine possessing myself. If I were to somehow unload like that on TV, I'd have to live under a pseudonym and move to another country…oh, wait.

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I just came across a blog called "Hanzi Smatter," which chronicles the butchering of Chinese and Japanese writing in the west.

Oh. My. God.

I can't stop repeating that over and over as I see some of the tattoos people have gotten. They're so horrible they're not funny.

Let's use this one for an example. It's no better or worse than any of the others, and that's what's so horrifying. It's really, really bad.

First we have an old character for "money." One of those big ancient coins, I think. Next, "fugu," "buku" which means "poisonous blowfish." absolutely nothing. Next, "a." (Just the sound "ah." No meaning whatsoever.) After that, "ouch." And finally, "love". Roughly translated, this means, "I'm a complete imbecile."

Not even to mention the font. It looks like it came out of an inkjet printer.

Honestly, I don't know what to say. I mean, I see people all the time here wearing T-shirts with English gibberish on them, but for chrissake, they can take the damn things off at the end of the day and throw them in the wash.

If anyone out there has a kanji tattoo, please, don't ever ask me to translate it. Don't even show it to me. After seeing so many really, really bad ones, I get the feeling that there's probably no such thing as a "good one."

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