Land Of The Setting Sun

Japanese Lawmakers Chastised for Reading Manga
By Prime Minister Koizumi

"Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi chastised junior members of the Japanese parliament Thursday for reading manga during legislative sessions. The Asahi newspaper reported that the dressing-down took place during a luncheon. According to the article, Koizumi told the lawmakers, "Don't send e-mail on your cell phones or read comic books in Parliament while in session."

When I was coming home from Tokyo to Yokohama this evening, for what will probably be the last time for a while, I noticed an ageing Japanese businessman staring at my girlfriend with an intensely dark and lustful look upon his face. I wasn't surprised. My girlfriend's very sexy and, after all, being a beautiful western woman out here in Japan she must appear quite exotic. It's not the first time I've noticed Japanese men looking at her in this openly passionate way. I've seen them tracing the curves of her naked body beneath her skimpy summer clothes, their eyes lingering on her small firm breasts, unconsciously licking their lips almost hypnotised by the rhythmical swaying of her hips as she walks along Japans humid city streets.
You can see the Oriental mind at work behind the eyes of those men. I know what they're thinking. I think it myself when I look at her. Devilish thoughts that only men can think. I've lost count of the times I've had to stare these guys down when they've noticed that I've noticed them. I do it in a firm but fair way. I say to them, with my eyes,
"Stop. I know you're a man. I know you want this woman, you slit eyed baby killing monster. But you've looked enough now." Firm but fair. Eye to Eye. Man to Man. That usually does it.
It's only the older guys who behave like this though. The younger men seem quite timid in comparison. They're nervy and awkward. They are not the "Kamikaze" generation. They are a neutered and sexless breed. They look away. The older generation of men, those who are in their eighties now, the ones who tortured my grandfather and his brother Willy in prisoner of war camps in Burma for three long, hellish years until they both looked like skeletons and not even their own Mothers and wives recognised them when they came home at last. Those are the men who still seem to be "Real" men in this country. Those murdering, suicidal bastards who terrorised the South Pacific trying stop "Our" homicidal, thieving, gutter scum from continuing to do the same.
I've never seen one of these old Nazi's reading a "Manga" comic book but the younger men never seem to read anything else. "Manga" can be extremely graphic in it's violent and sexual content but there are strict rules about depicting internal organs. The old boys stick firmly to politics and sport with maybe a little gardening thrown in for good measure. They've seen enough internal organs to last a lifetime. Their's was the generation that saw Hiroshima, Nagasaki and an empire ruled by a living god in the human form of the Emperor.
The young men of Japan to day have Junichiro Koizumi, a prime minister with the strangest hair cut in world politics. A great admirer of the country that nuked Japan into surrender in 1945 and it's current president/dictator George W. Bush, Koizumi has been called the "Japanese Richard Gere". When he met his "Look alike" at a film premiere in Tokyo they did an old style ballroom dance together but Gere insisted on leading and being "The man" . Koizumi is also a huge Elivis fan and once sang a duet with Tom Cruise of Presley's "I want you, I need you, I love you."
What's even more worrying is that now, under Koizumi, Japan is considering rearming fully so that it will no longer just have and military designed for purely defensive purposes. This rearmament will of course be aided by the United States, a country that already enjoys far to much military freedom in the world. Imagine Japans new "Manga" addicted troops unable to even look a woman travelling on the subway in the eye.
There's a rumour going around now that Japan will soon suffer a terrorist attack by the elusive "Al Quaeda". I guarantee that it will. This will allow the only fully developed Asian country to follow its military agenda and re-arm itself to the teeth with American and British made weaponry. Koizumi will declare a state of emergency, form a coalition government and, with himself at the helm, will achieve full dictatorial powers in all but name thereby finding the loophole that will allow him to avoid giving up office after the obligatory two terms. Or if that fails he might star in a Japanese remake of "An officer And A Gentleman."

The Truth About Lies

"The liars punishment is, not in the least that he cannot be believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else."

George Bernard Shaw.

I've always been a liar. No honestly. I have. I began when I was very young. One of my earliest memories is of telling a lie. I got caught in school at the age of seven with some extremely hardcore pornographic magazines that I had found on top of my fathers wardrobe. These were really strong Dutch publications specialising in the most deviant forms of sexual behaviour. I was caught red handed by the headmaster in the school playground showing some of my favourite pages to my good friend Ian Burt. The headmaster took me immediately to his office. He was a "Christian" and as soon as we stepped through the door of his room he began to give me a sermon about sexual morality and the sanctity of love between a man and a woman. Remember, I was only seven years old and I was also terrified of him.

"Where did you get these!?" He demanded as he turned the pages in wide eyed amazement. "Answer me, boy!"
Well, I had to think as fast as my young brain would allow me. I might have been terrified of the Headmaster but I was even more scared of my Father who I knew, out of a sense of shame and embarrassment, would beat me savagely when he found out what I'd done.
"I found them in the woods, Sir. There was a big cardboard box full of them." I lied.
For some reason I thought that he would believe this simple and ill conceived story and that would be the end of it. But of course it wasn't. He phoned my parents and they had to come to the school and receive their own sermon from him. My Father did indeed beat me savagely when I got home from school that afternoon and despite looking on top of his wardrobe for many years afterwards I never found any more good pornography there again.
Believe it or not, it was fear that drove me to lie. Fear and a sense of self preservation. I'm not blaming my parents or more specifically my Father for my tendency to lie. We're all just people and we all make mistakes but I think fear is the main motivation behind most lies. Fear of punishment and reprisals. Fear of ridicule and isolation. Fear of appearing stupid. Fear of loss. It's only natural I suppose. We've all told lies or been "economical" with the truth or sometimes said nothing at all, told silent lies, if you like.
If you're going to lie, and you are going to, you've either got to have a good memory or be able to tell new and even more convincing lies to cover for the ones that you forgot you told in the first place. Try to keep your lies big but simple and open ended enough or your story could collapse under the weight of it's own embellishment. Don't ever expect people to lie for you. It never works. People can't, in general, keep secrets and if something goes wrong you have to be prepared to be betrayed so make your lies your own and keep your cards close to your chest. Never keep a record of you lies. You don't need to be compromised by hard evidence written in black and white. But don't take my word for it...

V. Christ.

On Line Dating

I always get a little nervous before an On-Line date. I never know what to wear or which cologne suits my mood. Am I passionate and unpredictable or passive and understanding? What if my date stands me up? Will I get there on time? It's easy to make a mistake with Time zone differences. What if I turn up and at 8:00 p.m. my time but it's three in the morning where they are!? And what if the girl/boy I'm meeting doesn't have a banana stuck up their arse like they did in the photo on the web site that I found them on? What if they've died or never even existed? What then?
When I look through the seemingly infinite number of people available for "No strings attached-Easy going-Sexy-Mature-Bi curious-Horse loving-Gay-Single-Divorced-Student-Straight-Professional-Ex Services-Bookish-GSOH-Islamic-Judeo-Christian" good times my head just reels.
"Where do I fit in to this equation?" I ask myself. Do I have enough facets to my personality to be fully embraced by this "Special" section of society. Do I need my own vibrator?
The twilight world of On-Line daters is a strange and dimly lit place where the inhabitants wear nothing but incomplete sets of underwear. You know the kind of thing. Suspenders without knickers. Cup-less bras and chokers or long white socks and nothing else. Their strangely pixelated faces stare lustfully back at me from the Phone-Cam photos of themselves that they post on dead sites all over the Internet like images from the "Readers Wives" sections of a cheap soft porn magazine. It is an out of focus world that becomes harder to see the closer you get to it.
The guys are quite often shirtless and holding dumbbells or sitting in the driving seats of rented sports cars or both. The girls have names like "Angel" or "Trixie".The boys call themselves "Chuck" or "Rock".
What I can't figure out is why, if all of these people are so great and so attractive and fun loving, do they need to get a date this way. Can't they just go out and meet people? Is it just for easy sex? Is this just boredom? Or are there status and fashion issues here that they are trying to address?
I think perhaps a deep fear of meeting real people is all part of this phenomenon as well. There's a real "Damaged Goods" look about most of the people I've seen advertising themselves on-line. There's a faint trace of hysteria or nymphomania on the faces and in the eyes of the women and all the men seem to be very shady characters hiding something dark and violent behind their fake after shave model smiles. I get the feeling they're wife beaters or emotionally dysfunctional in a deeply dangerous and unpredictable way.

But, of course, On-Line dating can offer a few interesting things to those who decide to use it. If relationships have gone badly wrong in the past it can provide you with a certain amount of "Human" contact while still giving you the feeling that you have a little anonymity and a safety net of some kind.
People posting back comments can bring a touch of humour and an ego massage for free as well. I can imagine groups of girlfriends who are all members of On-Line dating sites getting together and comparing the replies and attempts at seduction by would-be suitors and laughing their fucking tits off.
But just remember...It's a little like buying something from a cut price catalogue. You have to be prepared to be disappointed. When your order finally arrives it's probably not going to fit or go with anything else that you've got and it won't look at all like it did in the photograph which in this case might not be such a bad thing.

V. Christ.

Is the Pope Catholic?

Name:Joseph Alois Ratzinger.
Alias:Pope Benedict XVI.
Born:April 16th 1927.
Pace of Birth:Schultrasse 11, Marktl am inn.
Parents: Father-Joseph Ratzinger Sr. Police officer. Mother-Maria Ratzinger (nee Peintner). Barmaid.
Siblings:George (living) and Mariam (deceased)
Current Address: The Vatican Rome
Occupation:Pope.

The Rumours have spread well beyond the walls of the Vatican city. The Lies and accusations have been hurled and disputed ever since Joseph Alois Rat-zinger was Elected Pope Benedict "Benny" XVI after the death of Pope John Paul George and Ringo II (known to his close friends as "shaky"). Is the Pope Catholic? The answer is not an easy one. To get anywhere near the truth we'll have to go back to the beginnings of this secretive and sometimes hostile mans story.
Rat-zinger was born on the 16th of April 1927 at Schultrasse 11, Marktl am inn, Germany. His father, Joseph Ratzinger Sr. was a police officer with close ties to the Catholic Church. Ratzingers father met his mother Maria, a barmaid, during one of his many drinking bouts which were semi-legendary in the small hamlet where they both lived.
Ratizinger junior was a quiet and peace loving, some would say effeminate, boy. He joined the the Hitler Youth at the age of 14 in an attempt to escape his fathers plans for him to become a clergyman.
At age 16 he joined the "FLaK" anti-aircraft artillery corps which guarded the BMW aircraft engine plant north of Munich. He also served in telephone communications where he began to hone his talent for public speaking. He also had a stint setting up anti-tank defences in the Hungarian border area of Austria.
A few weeks before the end of the war Ratzinger deserted from the by now defeated German army. Ratzinger was briefly interned in a prisoner-of-war camp near Ulm and was repatriated on June 19, 1945. The family was reunited when his brother, George, returned after being repatriated from a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy.
After he was repatriated in 1945, he and his brother entered Saint Michael Seminary in Traunstein, and then studied at the Ducal Georgianum (Herzogliches Georgianum) of the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. This was when Ratzinger began his rise through the echelons of the Roman Catholic Church that would eventually lead to his pontification in 2005. But before then a few mildly interesting things happened.
Ratzinger played a key role in silencing liberation theologians and the clergy in Latin America in the 1980s which will of course be remembered as an era defined by right-wing Reaganite policy and the rule of Fascistic and brutal regimes in Chile, Columbia and Argentina which were, in general, financed and trained by American C.I.A. operatives at the infamous "School of the Americas" .
During the pedophile scandals that have plagued the Catholic church he drafted and sent a letter to every bishop in the Roman Catholic Church reminding them of the strict penalties facing those who revealed confidential details concerning enquiries into allegations against priests of certain "Grave Ecclesiastical crimes", including sexual abuse. Lawyers acting for victims of alleged abuses claim that by sending the letter the then cardinal had in fact conspired to obstruct justice.
Ratzinger has been closely link to the prophesies of Our Lady Of Fatima. Lúcia dos Santos, the last of the three children to have been visited by the apparition of the Virgin at Fatima in Portugal was under orders not to discuss the revelations publicly unless given the freedom to do so by the then Cardinal Ratzinger who was one of the seven people known to have read the "Third Message" put into writing in 1944.
In 1984, an interview with Ratzinger, who is well know for his wicked sense of humour, said the letter deals with "dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian and therefore of the world", while stating that it marks the beginning of the end-times.Ha Ha. What a kidder!
So this brings us back to our initial question. Is the Pope Catholic? I think we can clear his name now once and for all. His record speaks for itself. No. The Pope is not Catholic. He's a Nazi.

V. Christ.

A drunk in yonder red light slum

The slum fair was a happy go lucky kind of occasion. I'd wandered into it by accident on my way to buy some cigarettes and beer. There's always a shop open around here on route 16. The place never stops moving. You've got the 24 hour supermarkets serving dog biscuits and clap cream right next door to the all night sex clubs like "Sharon" just up the road from here. I always exchange a nod or a knowing wink with the guys on the door in their dinner jackets with dyed orange hair. They're kind of reassuring in a strange way. You get the feeling there's always someone on watch, guarding the turf. So I feel quite at home around here. It's safer than East London any day of the week. So why should a little slum fair be a problem?
There were all kinds of stalls and side shows and booths. The local Yakuza were out with their girls who carried small rat-like dogs on their tanned and slender tattooed arms. Small kids were accidentally killing gold fish as they tried to scoop them out of a plastic bathtub into the freezer bags and polystyrene food containers that they had brought with them to take their catch home in.
I was just wandering from stall to stall, dodging the crowds as best I could trying not to tread on any dogs. Plumes of greasy smoke engulfed me as the road side chefs flipped their sweet and sour "Pork" kebabs from side to side trying to get an even burn. Everything was going well. Old ladies with broken yellow teeth we're throwing 10,000 yen notes down as they bet in a cockroach race, cackling insanely whether they won or lost. It was the sense of occasion that kept the mood high and buoyant.
I was passing the children's street theatre performance of the "Rape of Najing" when suddenly I was violently struck in the stomach by a broom handle held by one of the small child actors dressed as a Japanese soldier.
"You Yankee! You die!" He cried as he thrust at me again with his imaginary bayonet.
I looked around me and , feeling a little embarrassed and not wanting to lose face which is a terrible thing in Japan, I hit the boy as hard as I could with a solid right hook which knocked most of his naturally crooked front teeth out. I followed this with a few powerful kicks to his stomach until I heard a satisfying cracking sound. He was down and out. Fair fight.
A crowd had by this time gathered around the boy and myself. He was still breathing but he couldn't walk so he had to be lifted onto a wheel barrow that was near by to be taken to the herbalists.
I turned to the crowd, lit a cigarette and wiped the boys blood from my fist.
"The Rape of Najing is a lie." I shouted at the top of my voice. A cheer went up from the crowd.
"It was a lie made up by shadowy and sinister powers in league with the cowardly Chinese to discredit the brave and fearless soldiers of the Japanese Imperial army." The crowd cheered again.
"I am not an American." Another cheer.
"I am British. This was never our war. This was a war that we we're both tricked into fighting by wall street bankers who were the only people to profit from the tragedy that robbed both our countries of their once glorious empires."
By this time I was held high on the shoulders of those around me as they carried me all the way home in a delirious slum procession that stretched along route 16 back to "Lions Mansions".

V. C.

Language & Food Special

So you want to learn to speak English? Of course it would be my pleasure to help you....

Well, the best way to learn English, or any language is to learn how to cook with an foreign language speaker. Some people say that making love is a great way to learn about a language but I disagree. Usually during love making it's only the same two words that are repeated over and over again. It's usually "yes..yes..yessss" or "no..no..nooo". So it's not very good for expanding your vocabulary. But learning to cook a dish that you love can really help you to pick up those little bits of everyday English like a "pinch" of salt or a "drizzle" of olive oil.
The Ingredients are very important to. It is absolutely essential to get at least four very beautiful, young and charming women. They must be fresh. You can usually tell how fresh they are by giving them a gentle squeeze. They should be soft but still quite firm. Japanese women are generally preferable because they stay fresher for much longer. Add to this a full moon. You will also need a quantity of alcohol. This will keep the chef happy and when he's happy he works well. At this point you should gradually add a few jokes and a light sprinkling of female laughter. This should make the evening rise very evenly. Now take all of your ingredients and allow them to cook gently for about 3-4 hours. Gradually pour in a little Japanese politics add one Richard Gere (two will be very sickly) or a Vincent Gallo if you can catch one and a Yokohama Red Light district slum. Serve with warmth and humour...and enjoy.xxx

Please stop kissing me

It's not easy being universally loved. Everywhere I go people are "High Fiving" me and slapping my back enthusiastically. I'm treated like a long lost close member of the family by people I've just met. I can walk into a bar anywhere in the world and people are saying "put your money away old boy. This round's on me." I can't remember the last time I payed for a drink or even bought any food.
If I tell a joke, no matter how bad it is or if it's one of the oldest going, the whole bar will crack up in crying laughter and when the screaming of those splitting their sides dies down I find myself with another table full of drinks.
I got into a cab the other day to take a short journey across town to a lunch date I had with a girl I'd just met that morning, but I never made it, because the cab driver took me back to his place to meet his thirteen year old daughter. He wanted me to marry her! When I told him that I had no interest in marriage he started to plead with me saying that it didn't matter if I married her but that I could at least to sleep with the girl. She was a virgin and he wanted her to lose her virginity to me.
Eventually I had to except the money that he was now offering me and so I made love to girl, who told me that I was an amazing lover, just to get out of there. When her father saw that I was leaving he gave me the keys to his car.
Sometimes I cant even get to my own front door because of the of marriage proposals and job offers that are piled up there in scented envelopes. Outside it's worse. Parcels and flowers all the way to the curb. It's best not to leave the house most of the time. At least there I'm safe in my own company.
It wasn't always like this though. Once life was a quite affair. In fact most people ignored me and I had no real friends. Animals always seemed to like me though. I can't put my finger on the precise moment that everything changed but I think it was around the time that I won 23 million and the band got signed.

V.C.

Killer Queen

"There are forces at work in this country of which we have no knowledge"

The Queen of Great Britain said that once and I understood her completely. On an instinctual level it made absolute sense to me. She was on my side, crying for help from inside her gilded prison. It was a basic admission that there had in fact been a coup d'état and Brittania was under the control of the "Hidden Hand". In the past the gates would have been stormed by the manipulated and herd-like masses who would have wiped out the entire Royal bloodstock in a hail of chinese bullets. But that was in the good old days. The methods in use now are much more subtle and sinister. Princess Margret knew what was happening. She dropped acid every day and drank herself to death trying to escape what she realised at a very early age was inevitable. Peter Sellars told her everything one evening on the way back from an orgy at Lord Lucans Mayfair home. Peter was already clinically insane by then but he knew enough about the press to talk with the inspired clarity of some kind of medieval sooth sayer on the subject.
The roles had been reversed. The Royals had become the court jesters of the British public. The commons ruled and all they had to provide were bread and games for the consumption of the mob and while these theatrical distractions worked their evil the real work of dividing the country and the world between its new rulers could begin.
This was too much for both Peter and Margret. Sellars realised that true satire was dead and spent the rest of his life as a childrens entertainer with a fake french accent walking into tables and Margret, when she realised that her life had never really been her own, worked her way up gradually to twelve bottles of Remy Martin a day until she had to be confined to a wheelchair and have her double chin continually wiped by her lady in waiting.
Thats why J.F.K. shot himself....

V. Christ.

Family Entertainment

It took me ages took get the kids down last night. They we're crying and screaming so much that the neighbours came round banging on my door and threatened to call the Police so I had to give them half of my "Shanghai black" opium and 2000 Yen just to smooth things over.
The children were much harder to please. They said they wanted to go home but I told them that it was impossible until I had all of the ransom money. They still had four fingers each so I told them that it could be at least a week before they could go free. But you know what kids are like. They want everything NOW!
I still had some of the "Special bedtime medicine" and coulple of old syringes knocking around, so once again, I had to play "Doctor Daddy". Two minutes to myself. Thats all I wanted. I still had to edit the video footage from earlier in the day. A lot of it was too grainy or out of focus to use. Those damn kids would never keep still and if you tied them up it just didn't look "natural". But still, there were a couple of good scenes and I already had a buyer in Luxemboug for most of my "Art Movies".
I blame the television for the childrens behaviour. There's so much violence and bad language.
It distorts their perspective and encourages them to chase after unobtainable goals. Lets face it, television is crowd control. Soap Operas are the most insidious and powerful of all the media propoganda devices. Crowd control. Three times a week at the same time on each of those days you know where at least, lets say, 8 million people are in the country broadcasting the soap. 8 million people. Thats one hell of an army if you could just get it motivated to aim its guns in one direction. But these people don't want any kind of revoloution. They just want stereotype Alpha males and females a token black and a comedy queer and the same recycled script again and again. Thats why I decided to make my own "Entertainment".
Vincent Christ.

Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb?

"A man without legs
Cannot run a marathon
Or go to buy beer"

That was my first attempt at a Haiku. I thought that while I was here in Japan I'd get into the cultural swing of things. School girl underpants, tramp murder and ritual suicide are on the list as well. But one thing at a time.
Of course I'm eating my "Pocky" and drinking a "Draft One" but I hanker after something a little more rewarding but, and rightly so, the days of the Samauri gone. I think the last of them were vapourised at Hiroshima August 6th 1945. That was the day my mother was born. A wonderful event never made the news that day. The eyes of the worlds media were elsewhere and the papers were full of pictures of delerious de-mobbed allied troops and the care worn faces of our crest fallen enemies. "Power is power". Thats what the Japanese say and I think they fully understand the meaning of that expression.
There's a huge electrical storm building over the sea just off the coast of Yokohama right now. It's expected to last about three to four days and it looks as though it could be quite spectacular. The sky is full of white hot electricity and is turning an unearthly and biblical shade of red. This could be an "Etherquake" and should go quite well with the tremors that we get down here on the ground every few days. I love these kind of dramatic weather fronts. I'm quite excited and feel a little childish. There's mischief afoot on a night like this...

Vincent Christ.

State Terrorism

Okay, so I've lost all my Government benefits. I forgot to sign on man. Obviously I'm out here in Japan but what happened to the "Global Economy"? It just doesn't make any sense...still, what are my problems in comparison to the impending energy crisis and the tightening grip of our world plutocracy? A drop of mercury in a sterile ocean.
I guess it's a by the book thing for those in the employment of the civil service. I just thank all the world loving gods that I read a more human and well metered prose...anyway.
It seems obvious to me that Iran has the bomb already, right? Why all this brinkmanship all of a sudden? Would you go to gang rape without a video camera? Exactly! They bought the bomb or the material to make one at least ten years ago, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. You can count on it. With Uncle Sam running around with the biggest cosh on the block they need one. Christ! I've been trying to buy one on E-Bay for about six months now. In the future, like mobile phones, we'll all have one so pray to god you don't get into a bar fight. Wear white and carry tinned food at all times. And for gods sake dont drink anything but boiled water! Jesus, this Sake is good.
Downstairs, at "Club Wife", there seem to be a lot of stray cats milling around. I think one of the Russian hostesses has died. She's far away from home and far, far away from her family. Funerals are expensive in Japan, especially if you want to get into heaven and not just hang around in limbo by the ornate gates they have there. So I reckon the guys on the door have cut her body up and dumped it in a bag by the "Boss" vending machine.
The brown skinned tramp I see picking through the sacks of left-overs every morning will find it, no doubt. These Japs! They recycle everything.