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peobo bryson and michael jordan, mar 26 - april 26, 2002
first off happy birthday to dad who is ..... thirty three years old!
...it's a sweater!
[for those of you who did not catch the above obscure reference, your knowledge of classic steve martin 80's comedies is shameful.]
um........hi! i lost the old weeklysteve mailing list when i changed mail accounts so i basically put everyone in my addressbook in the new one just so i can say the weekly steve mailing list now has 43 members! neat. as usual, if anyone wants off the list, let me know and i'll make sure you don't receive any future 'installments'.
so it's been a while and i've had nothing much to write but tons of things to say. i tried real hard to think up a great april fool's story, but i couldn't think of any that were believable. plus, april's almost over now so it has more or less lost any humour appeal it could have possibly possessed. so i guess i have to resort to telling you an embarrassing story about a fool in april. in this week's issue i am michael jordan; i am peabo bryson. enjoy!
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--oh say can you sing?--
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last week i went on another business trip to give this year's final report to the president of the other company we're working with in our research. the presentation would be friday morning at eight, but we arrived the day before to hang out and do some quality nomikai shmoozing. the day was pretty slow until 5 o'clock rolled around and we went to a nice restaurant where we ate and drank and watched baseball from 6 until 10. i had a grand time. our hostess is an awesome lady of fifty something years of age who is one of the top execs in the company we're working with. she is funny, graceful, smart, watches baseball with surprising passion, and i can't help falling in love with her even though there are at least three long decades between us. she amuses us all as she pours, mixes, and stirs drinks without taking her eyes from the giants game. "WOOOHOOOT! did you see that, susumu, did you see that?!" she screams, slapping my co-worker on the back as he's trying to sip his beer. he spills it on his shirt and gripes "oioioi! not while i'm drinking!". we all laugh and she's too busy commenting on the instant replay to care what we're laughing at.
after many many bottles of beer and other asorted magic liquids, we left and headed to a snack. you might remember me mentioning snacks before, the places where nice women mix you drinks and put your karaoke requests into the karaoke machine and laugh at your jokes and clap at your drunken tone-deafness. very patient ladies...anyway, we went to a snack and i danced the one two, chachacha, one two chachacha with out hostess and she made fun of me for being horrid at it. she then began doing some taichi as kenichi and i closed the night out with a rather well-done (in my opinion) rendition of "let it be" [steebu steebu! letto itto be! ai labu john lenon!]. i was a singing fool that night. i sang enka, the traditional sad japanese music likened to country and western, though arguably less annoying. i vibrato-ed, i falsetto-ed, i crescendo-ed and whispered...i was a star!
and the night was over so we headed back to the hotel at about midnight. i had not bathed yet so i decided to take advantage of the onsen at midnight ten-ish. i fumble into my yukata and stagger down stairs, realizing at this point just how much i had been drinking that night. oh jeez, i'm still happy and goofily laughing as i walk into the glorious hot springs. i looked around in amazement because i was completely and utterly alone. hot steam rose out of the pool and a trickle of water could be heard spattering and pattering on the rocks of the floor. "beautiful!" i say out loud, remarking at how well my voice echoed off the walls. so i smiled and sat down in front of a tap and began washing. finished washing i head to the pool and soak for a bit, sitting and relaxing; alone in my euphoria (drunken and natural, for i just love onsens). and then...for some reason that made complete sense at the time...i sing! oh the glorious echo! i am splashing in the boiling hot pool, singing the first thing that came to my head "Oooohhhhhhh.....
saay can you see[vibrato]? BY the dawn's early nnaiii[vibrato]ght-ah!"
my right hand swaying in the air, the left on my chest, indicating to my audience of rocks, walls and water my emotions felt on each syllable. "as the twilight's last gleam ing!" oh the echo is brilliant! my vibrato stunning! when did i become this eloquent master of melodious verse? this nocturnal onsen muse? i am now standing, wading through the water towards the door that leads to the rotenburo (the outside pool), singing selected parts of our national anthem, "o'er the ramparts we blah!" and delight in my operetic vibrato. i reach the door and pull the lever. "huh?" nothing happened. so i fumble a little switch up and pull. nothing. so i fumble the switch back down and pull. nothing. had i been a little less stupid, i would have read the sign on the door that said "closed after 11pm" or remembered the fact that it closed at 11pm last time i stayed at this hotel and that almost every hotel with an onsen i've stayed at so far closes it's rotenburo at 11 or 12 at night. but that was before i was a naked peabo bryson belting a heartfelt rendition of our national melody to the millions of expectant fans, waiting to start the world series!
i am in america, land of the free, where no one locks rotenburos at 11pm! "the bombs bursting in air------!, why. won't. you. open!!!" oops. i looked down and the door handle was broken and in my hands. hmm.... "GAVE TRUUUUUUTH THROUGH THE NIGHT!" and i head back to the pool and sit on the side, my feet dangling in the hot water, broken door handle in my hand. i am still naked and alone and by now thoroughly enjoying and taking seriously my responsibility as official national anthem singer for the world series of baseball.
i am leaning back on my hands, my feet kicking in the hot water. the song is reaching it's climax."ohh say [splash] does [splash] tha hat [splash] star[splash] spain [splash] gulled [splash]
BAAAANNNNNNEEEEERRRRRRRRRRR YEHET WAYEEE YAYYYYYVE-uh!!!....[dramatically, i pause. now building] for the lannnddddd of the ffreEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE[vibrato]!! and the HOME! of the-huh! [pause. and now fortississimo!] BRAAAAAVE[vibrato!]!!!vah!". i fall back in pure enjoyment, "bravo! bravo! encore!" the applause of falling water slowly dripping me off to unconciousness.
i am laying flat on my naked back on the floor of the onsen. a broken door handle in my right hand. the appluading water is still falling. i no longer feel the urge to sing. i want to do nothing save go to bed. i have no idea what time it is. i have no idea how long i have been passed out here. i have no idea if anyone has molested me in my publicly nude state. the water falls indignantly. the rocks stare blankly. my contacts are dry. i try pretty poorly at replacing the broken door handle and quickly settle on setting it precariously in place so the next person who touches it will break it. ingenious. i splash some water in my face and stumble back to my yukata and take the elevator upstairs, only to realize i have forgotten my toiletry bag downstairs in the onsen. i would have left it but it had my contact case in there and my eyes felt like dry balls of rubber. so back down i go to fetch my bag, listlessly shuffling, only the thought of a cool bed and a dreamless sleep powering me through all the motions. it was three fifty something when i finally got to bed, the only known witnesses of my night's idiocy the silent wet rocks and misty walls of the onsen.
remarkably i felt fine at six the next morning. my stomache a bit full, but not too sick. i slept as late as i could, and hurried to breakfast at the last second. i struggled to stay awake through our presentation and the meaningless babble that followed, finally finding solace in the silent bus to the train station. once again, i am amazed at business trips. i know we accomplished something of value to our research during our two day trip, though what it is i am sure will forever in my memory be drowned out by a naked peabo bryson's echoing vibrato.
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--basketball hollowfame--
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so the company had their annual intra-mural basketball championship tournament this past week. all the different groups in the company sign up to compete. two years ago my very own research group were crowned champions. mainly due to foster, a 6 foot something american intern who worked here before i did and a guy named honma who is pretty good (though this year would not be playing on our team). needless to say, people had high hopes from me because everyone knows all americans are good at basketball.
i go down to the first game. i haven't played basketball since the last time i screwed around on the court at rose. i haven't shot a basketball since a tiny bit last summer. ah well. we'll see what happens. i am blue number seven. there are six people on our team. there are like 10 people on the opponent's team. great. one substitute and two ten minute halves.
a jump ball starts the game and i immediately get the ball. i dribble up, pass, and get the ball again, so i shoot. score. woohoo. "steve! you're great!" they say. i think, "i can't believe that went in!". a couple minutes go by and i realize how this is going to work. i sit back and watch passes go flying out of bounds, i watch in complete laughter from center court as three people from each team are jumping up and down underneath the net, shooting six, seven, eight times all missing. i am on the floor laughing when the referree whistles and says "red ball!". i lay up, i pass, i rebound, i steal, i score. oh man. in the end the score is a pitiful 18 to 6 (one of their guys got two three pointers) and i scored 14/18 shots. it's pitiful because in twenty minutes we only got 18 points. people are commenting on the beauty of my bounce pass, the way which i did that switch reverse lay up, my surprising rebound ability and jump shots. at first i take the comments for what they are, just japanese guys complimenting you a bit too much because it's what they'd want to hear if it were them who scored 78% of the team's points. but after a while, i actually started feeling good about myself. holy bejeezus, they're right! i am michael jordan! fear me!!!
the next game rolls around and we are playing guys in the basketball club who practice each week. they are tall. they are actually kind of good. i squirm. "i am michael jordan i am michael jordan" i tell myself. we still only had 6 people. our opponents this time had 13. 4 of which were really good. oh well, we'll see what happens. i am michael jordan. i AM michael jordan. we're in two seconds and the other team already scored. oh jeez. absolutely no defense on our part, good passes and shots by theirs. tall guys don't let me shoot so i have to crazy dribble and drive and pass. we foul. we get fouled. and i am very surprised that everyone knows so much about basketball. the other team is shooting a free throw. a tall skinny nerd guy with glasses on the other team is pointing and telling everyone where they're supposed to stand. "no, no, no...it goes red, blue, red. red, blue, red. you stand there. and you can't cross this line till he shoots. duh?" the referree gets upset with himself for doing the wrong hand signal for a personal foul. how do these guys know so much and still be so ... inadept?
i say inadept but in the end i am humbled. i am not michael jordan. i get 6 points. the sad part is, that's 66.67% of our total. my percentages are down....the other team? yeah well... they had 24. it was a massacre. so, foster, i am sorry to report that i could not live up to your basketball legacy. although we had a tiny taste of victory, Šî‘bŒ¤ did not win the championship. well, at least i don't think i'm michael jordan anymore, though i can't seem to shake the fact that everyone else still thinks i am. such is the life of a poor white superstar i presume...
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--nice to meet you, i already know you--
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a long time ago, during the the fabled lost wallet crisis of 2001, i mentioned a bit about the way information travels in japan. this week i had another interesting similar experience. for the first time the destination of our business trip was in yamagata prefecture in a place called higashine, famous for cherries and other frooits. four hours on the shinkansen and a bit of walking brought us to the nice town on tuesday evening. i then ate a humongous plate of itasoba and then took the hotel's courtesy bicycle out for a spin around town just for the hell of it. it was only nine and the place was still dead though the hotel was right next to the heart of the seedy/non-seedy pubs/bars/strip clubs. i kept on getting called to by strange guys in trench coats asking if i wanted to spend an insane amount of money for nice women to be illicitly beautiful just for me. i resist because i am broke and fall asleep in the hotel with the window open. through the night i am waken occasionaly by drunk "sayonara!"'s of salarymen throughout the night and the "tsukaresan!"'s of the throaty transvestites saying goodbye at 5 am.
the next day i went to our sister company and sat through a meeting. when the meeting was finished, we chatted about normal stuff: "why is your japanese so good?" "it's not that good" "why can't i speak english even though i studied over ten years" "because you only studied english words for ten years. that's why you know what a zephyr is but can't say 'where is the restroom?'". then, my conversation partner mentions, "but you have a japanese girlfriend." and i say "no...no i don't.", and he says "oh come on! i know you've got a japanese girlfriend." , "yeah...", another guy i had just met joins in, "wasn't her name sa....sa....sa" and he struggles to remember the name of my heartache. "what?! you even know her name?!" i exclaimed. i explained that "yes, but that was a long time ago, etc" but i couldn't help being in awe over the fact that people i had never met in a place five hours away from my tiny apartment by the train tracks knew the name of my ex-girlfriend. sheesh. in a similar bit of news, i went out with my boss, kenichi, and the head of the research center last night. while drinking our warm rice wine the head of the research center looks over and says, "hey, how was that date a while ago?" "date? i didn't have a date." "oh come on, you went to tokyo to eat thai food with two girls, right? how was it?" "oh that!...those chicks were just friends" and i laughed increduously, mentioning how fast information travels around this place. then kenichi said something like "it's not information that travels quickly, it's just *this* kind of information that travels quickly". oh...i get it...
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--quick math--
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--easy--
when asked how old grandpa is, he decides to be clever. he says:
"my grandson is about as many days as my son is weeks, and my grandson is as many months as i am in years. my grandson, my son and i together are 160 years." so for anyone bored enough, how old is grandpa?
the quality of brain teasers that are quickly found on the web is a bit disappointing...
ooh, here's something i ganked from the math club at princeton. neat.
--a bit more fun--
Show how to cut a cube into six tetrahedra, all with the same volume. Remember that a tetrahedron is a pyramid with a triangle base, and that its volume is given by hb/3, where h is its height, and b is the area of its base.
this message has been brought to you by your local steve.
...and the peabo bryson fan club.
what the hell kind of name is peabo anyway? peabo....