3E Fatboys: 2-0!

So I play for a competitive basketball team here in Shanghai, the 3E Fatboys. Why are we the 3E Fatboys? Well, 3E is one of our very generous sponsors and the Fatboys part I guess comes from the body image problem some members of the team are currently grappling with.

We've been playing for about a year and a half now and have amassed a nice little record over the 18-month period, losing only 3 or 4 games that we can remember. We are now engaged in two leagues so far this year, the ASAS league (which we have never won, but should be contenders for this year) and the prestigious, invite-only Elite league. After our first weekend of play, we are 2-0! Nice job, right? Did I forget to mention that we defeated the Elite league defending champion by 17? Pretty boner-inspiring, I know. I've posted the recaps to the games below, you can also go to the 3E Fatboys and Shanghai Elite Basketball League websites linked on the right to follow our progress throughout the season.

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Our first weekend of ASAS and Elite league basketball ended on Sunday and the Fatboys went 2-0 in their opening weekend. Nice job Fatties. How did it all go down? Glad you asked!

On Saturday, the FBs matched up with Shanghai Hoops. And while the game never felt out of our reach, the FBs couldn’t close the deal and allowed SH Hoops to stay in it til the end. Down 10 with around three minutes to play and with Henry “Loud Noises” Wang screaming at anyone who happens to be near him, the light turned on and SH Hoops went down. Spurred by a bevy of forced turnovers and quick layups, The FBs regained the lead with a little over a minute to play. An untimely turnover by Henry gave Hoops a chance to tie. With the game tied and a series of unsuccessful attempts to score the winning bucket, the Boys were given the ball under their own basket with only a few seconds left in regulation. A crafty, no-look pass from Sean Spang to James “Did You See That Shit Go In!” Burbridge on a pick-the-picker variation ended up being the deciding basket. It was official following a whirlwind final seconds where the Hoops nearly tied it with a putback on an air-balled 3. So the Fatboys are 1-0 in the ASAS SIBL.

As for the Elite league…

Fat Boys 3e 67 vs. Chicks that Spit 49
Monday, February 13, 2012

In a rematch from the author’s first competitive basketball game in Shanghai, the 3E Fatboys come up victorious against a shorthanded Chicks that Spit. From the get go, the Boys knew the game plan: run, run, run. When the fast breaks weren’t presenting themselves, the pinpoint passes of Sean Spang and Henry Wang picked apart the Chick’s zone and presented a plethora of easy buckets. But like that semi-unstable girl who you hooked up with the night before at the “all you can drink” club and had alcohol-induced dreams of a wedding and kids, the Chicks just would not go away. Even after a 3-point dagger from Henry W. to end the first half, the Chicks were persistent and played hard ‘til the end. The wave after wave of Fatboys coming off the bench eventually proved too much for the lone substitute for the Chicks and the lead grew too large to overcome. A valiant effort nonetheless.

The Oliver Miller Player of the Game (awarded henceforth to the MVP of the Fatboy’s victories) has to go to Sean S. and his near triple-double. Other notable performances were turned in by Xiao Hao, who had to go head-to-head with the big bodied Chicks and finished with 17 pts and 11 boards to go along with numerous, uncounted blocks.

VIOLINS!!!

Epic new song from Kavinsky. Supposedly going to be on a new album later this year. Guarantee this gets used for some kind of car commercial or movie trailer within the next six months.

Chicago Bulls > Superman

Some excellent writing from Alex Banks for Hypebeast examining a possible Dwight Howard-to-Chicago trade and highlighting the faults in such a move. A sampling of the wordsmithery...

"Pairing Dwight Howard with Derrick Rose would be made up of the same steady and methodical construction as a deep-dish pizza. Built on top of a steady and thick crust boasting Tom Thibodeau’s staunch commitment to defense, Derrick Rose would still easily be able to serve opposing teams with buttery splashes of spicy finishes at the rim, leaving defenders cheesing like mozzarella. But would those two alone, paired with a suddenly undermanned bench really be able to challenge Miami in the East and OKC in the West? In short: no. It’s the Bulls core outside of D. Rose that makes them such a blue-collar charmer."

Great shit. Read the rest here...
http://hypebeast.com/2012/02/keeping-score-dwight-howard-should-wait-to-be-a-bull/

Well I'll be good god danmed, guess who's back?

All hail, Chairman Mao!

So after a 4 year hiatus (can't believe its been that long, but the date lines don't lie) and numerous requests from friends and family during my trip home, I have decided to revive and update the blog of my happenings and  goings on. Going to be the same type of stuff I wrote about before, probably more random links to shite that interests me or that I think others should see. Hopefully lots more photos taken with my new camera.

So if you want this project to survive, subscribe, share, comment, do whatever you can to let me know that you actual read my incoherent ramblings and keep me interested. It's a bit more of a hassle doing this in China, with the Great Fire Wall and all, so keep that in mind.

Summer おやすみ '09

Alright, so if I haven't already told everyone, I'm goin to Europe for 3 weeks this August. First time for Europe so I'm pretty stoked about this. The itinerary goes something like this: 2 days Amsterdam/2 days Brussels/2 days Paris/2-3 days Rome/1-2 days Naples/3-4 days Croatia/6? days in Prague and maybe a side trip out of Prague as well. But before all that we have a beautiful flight that takes us through Taipei for the 3 1/2 layover, then to Bangkok to pick up some more people before we begin our trip to Amsterdam. All in all this should take around 20-22 hours, give or take.
So we are currently in the Taipei airport now. Pretty damn bland, but they do have free wireless internet which is already years ahead of the Japanese airports. I wish there was more to write about here, but there just isn't. Seeing lots more white people and, unfortunetly, white girls. Good bye my Asian lovelies. What will I do without you? I'll be back soon enough...
So yeah, I try to post more regularly throughout the trip. Try to intersperse some stories from the end of my last semester as well.
(I say this knowing full well that I write this in every post and that I fall well short of this unlofty goal. Let's be reasonable and say 1 more post from Europe and then another in another 2 months...capiche?)

Mr. James, fuck you???

They should consider changing the job title to something that reflects the amount of downtime involved. Maybe something like “Literature Analyst and Coffee Consumption Specialist.” I can comfortably say that I spend more time on a daily basis either reading or studying Japanese, all the while drinking coffee, than I do actually teaching anyone anything. I’m not complaining; that would be stupid. It’s a cushy job and there are occasional lapses in the boredom, like the other day when the new P.E. teacher pushed the student body president across the outdoor commons area/quarter mile track with one hand around his neck and the other with a fistful of hair. It would have been a quiet little incident had it not been in front of the entire school and he wouldn’t have be yelling god knows what in the kid’s face. I need to ask around to find out what actually happened to incite such a reaction. The new P.E. teacher is kind of a dick, I guess that’s all the reason there need be.

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A note on discipline in Japanese Junior High Schools… I would be remiss if I said there was none, exemplified by the previous entry and the incident last term when the mass fight broke out in the hallway between some 3rd years and a few of the teachers. A more accurate description of the punishment scale can be found in two words: “fuck you.” Or in my case, fuck me.

Exhibit 1) the most common English used in my 2nd year English classes, on average.
1) Shut up – this phrase started the year strong, becoming a quick “go-to” phrase used in any and all situations. But, like all fads, it was quickly usurped by…
2) Fuck you – the new standard at Koito JHS. I was initially shocked when I heard this one, broken out when the student realized that shut up had lost its luster with me (he thus decided to upgrade his arsenal; I guess I should credit the initiative shown…). What’s odd about this one is that it has caught the imagination of all the students, not just the shitheads. Even the studious and mild-mannered have been captivated by its puzzling strength and mysterious meaning. They know it’s a biggie, they have no clue what it means. In an effort to combat its usage (especially towards myself, being as I am its target 98% of the time) I have begun telling the students that’s its usage usually leads to a severe ass kicking and that it is the most insulting word in the English language. This seems to be working to an extent, and granted that the students never learn the truth of “fuck” or how often their beloved James sensei uses it.
3) Pig/Gorilla/Pig-gorilla – This is a specialty word, used primarily by Mrs. Watanabe’s students directed at her. In context it usually comes out “Mrs. Watanabe is a pig/gorilla/gorilla-pig,” or “She is a pig,” or my favorite, “Mr. James, repeat after me, Mrs. Watanabe is a pig, right?”
4) And finally, masturbate – or masturbation. I can’t remember when this one popped up, but I can count on hearing it several times a day from as far away as 50 feet, plus inquiries into my practices.

Exhibit 2) 3rd year favorites (since this aren’t nearly as good as the 2nd years, this will be abbreviated).
1) Penis – almost all conversations I have with this group of students involve my genitals. The favorite now is analogous words, the current pole-sitter being “James, nice elephant,” which is accompanied by the acting out of an elephant spraying water or eating with it’s trunk, except the movement emanates from the loins rather than the sinus cavity.
2) Clitoris – I nearly lost my shit when I heard this one. This 200 lb bundle of joy, Hoshii, is a strange one. Everyday is an adventure with him, my first encounter with him ended with him jumping back and nearly buckling my knees in the process. Penis was his catchphrase for about 2 ½ months, then when that got old (to me, not him) he moved onto the small c-bomb. Making it all the more awkward was the fact that he dropped the bomb with Ms. Ozeki in the room, the only attractive junior high school teacher I have encountered in my +1 years on the job.

Now, venture a guess of what kind of response these phrases get from our teachers and resident pig impersonator? (She’s a little stout, but not fat, at least by American standards, nor is she pig-like). Nothing. Nada. A momentary scornful look maybe, and that’s for repeat offenders. How they can justify such extreme action when they let the kids escalate their behavior without repercussions is absolutely beyond me. Mind you most of this is going on during class, so aside from being a nuisance to myself, it is also a nuisance to the rest of the kids in class.
I consider myself a resilient person, born of meaty, American stock, able to take a beatin’ and keep on tickin’, so to speak, so the nuisance to myself is of little importance. But I do get angry when I feel as though their behavior is detrimental to the rest of the students. In a society with so much riding on academic performance, you would think that this would have crossed someone’s mind at one time or another. But apparently the Japanese “right to education” (essentially that every child has the inalienable right to an education) translates to “right to an education continually interrupted by douchebags and shitheads.”
In a way, I guess it’s a real world education…

Who is that handsome white devil?

So here's the story. I get my haircut from this place here in town called Misa. Its a nice place, with moderately priced haircuts that was recommended to me by my basketball team. It turns out that one of the girls on the team has a sister who works there. It also turns out that she is smokin' hot. Anyways, so I have been getting my haircut here for the past few months. One day, about 2 weeks after a previous cut, I get a peculiar email that goes like this...

Hello Mr. James How are you? There was asking and it E-mailed today. Could you become the model of the advertisement of the issue on April 7? The advertisement is distributed to Kimitsu, Kisarazu, Sodegaura, and Futtsu. The hairstyle is extent that makes best use of now, and it cuts a little. Taking a picture: at 17 o'clock March 23. The place: hair salon plage misa. Please act as a model by all means. Please give the answer to me. Thank you very much. ~Yukari Kenmotu

Naturally, I was a little taken aback by the proposal. Apparently they are either looking to draw more of a foreign clientele and are attempting to display the work on western, non-black or straight hair, or they are looking to capitalize off of one of the recognizable foreigners in town and hope that this will attract attention to their business. Either way, I was down.

So I go after school and we nail down the details with smatterings of each other's languages. Initially they asked me to wear a black suit, but to their surprise I do not own a black suit, I instead own one blue and two gray of differing hues (I know, I know, why did I buy two gray suits before I bought the quintessential black suit, the most versatile of work suits? I like gray suits, what more can I say...)

So they ask me to wear the light gray suit with no tie. On the day of the shoot (I feel like such a douche calling it a shoot, but what else would I call it? If it were up to me I'd just call "photo shoots" "photographic dick stroking exhibitions", but I don't think it would catch on) I arrive with my suit, but also wearing a tie since I wore the suit to school earlier in the day. The experience began with a haircut, essentially a trim of what I had received two weeks earlier, but this one a little more dolled up, a little more "peacockish" if I may.

With the hair finished, its on to the stylists, by which I mean the men at the salon advising me and adorning me with gobs of hideous jewelery and accessories that they were taking off of themselves and placing on me. Rings, necklaces, a wrist band and at one point a bolo tie (no idea who in the hell was wearing a bolo tie at the place). I must have looked pretty uncomfortable in it all because they instead opted in none of the bells and whistles. I was told to remove my undershirt and unbutton the top two buttons of my shirt though. A give and take I guess...

So the photographer arrives with the owner of the salon, who speaks fairly good English. We chat about this and that and he pulls out a magazine and points to the cover telling me this is the look we are going for. Since I don't have the picture, I will attempt to describe it. The very, very tanned Japanese man is sporting a thin lip mustache along the lines of John Waters, only more masculine, to go along with a v-shaped, neatly manicured goatee. He is wearing several silver necklaces dangling on his hairless, well built chest. And I swear he only has two buttons on his shirt buttoned up. And then there is his face, or rather the look adorning his face. Dislike isn't a strong enough word. I don't think hatred is even strong enough. The look on this man's face says nothing but disdain and loathing for everyone around him.

So this is the look that I am supposed to recreate. First of all, I have no facial hair and when I attempt to have facial hair it looks more like 8th grade hygiene negligence than Tom Selleck. Second, as anyone who has ever met me can attest to, I am not a tanned person. I do not tan easily. I am in a perpetual state of whiteness. I'm lucky if I can achieve a corn flake color in the summer time. This is especially true of the skin that doesn't see regular sunlight, i.e. the torso and thighs areas. My chest comes in a nice opaque pink-ish hue with hints of blue and a few straggly strands of chest hair. This only proves to be problematic when A) I go the the beach, but I have comes to terms with this years ago, and B) when Japanese hairdressers explore the boundaries of good taste and continue to unbutton my shirt. Lastly, the face of the apocalypse...I did my damnedest to look as mean as possible, mean mugging as hard as my facial muscles would allow me. The results were less than menacing.

So we finish the "shoot" and chat for a little bit. They give me a small gift, some shampoo and conditioner, as a thank you and I get a ride home. Now, to address the question of compensation...that would be the shampoo and conditioner. I agreed to do it thinking it would be fun and it might score me some points with Yukari, which I could parlay into a date. Well, a few days pass, an acceptable amount of time goes by where I can ask her out and still look coolly unimpressed and only slightly interested. She just started dating someone the previous month. :( Here's the kicker. I asked her sister, Mai, about her, trying to get some inside information, find out if she was seeing anyone, etc. AT THE TIME, she wasn't and I was advised to wait and continue studying Japanese. I thought this a wise decision, so I wait and I study, only to get dashed by some other dude...at least I got some shampoo out of the deal.


Oh what could have been...