The Thrilling Finale Of …wait for it…Japanese Observances

Japan – A Musical Country
What a country, I tell you. This place is so melodic and musical. I’m not talking about the American regurgitated tripe on the radio they call J-pop, though. Man, steer clear. That stuff will hurt your soul’s soul. I write of everything else. The melodies that can’t be purchased in on flat circular discs packaged in flat plastic squares. Well, actually, I don’t know that. Maybe there is a compilation out there of what I like to call the Score For The Everyday or Japan: A Symphony Of Trains and Garbage Trucks. Everything sings here and by everything I mean about six things but just roll with it, people. Today, for example, I was crooned to by the chimes on the train platform, serenaded by the muzak in the elevator and awoken to the melodies of the city garbage truck. The music is never anything above midi-quality stuff a seven year old couldn’t play on a Casio keyboard but the music is ever present here. In some cities I’ve visited it’s pumped into the streets by big speakers ahead. It’s a bit intrusive, I admit. Vending machines here will have television screens inside showcasing products and they, of course, come complete with their own soundtrack. I’ve mentioned the train platform Driedel but there have been other more blatant Japanese knockoffs. What about that Yodabshi Camera’s plagiarism of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Man, they are dipping back into the 1800s for that one. Then there are the “I just hit the demo button” versions of songs you will hear in shopping arcades which always seem to be hits of the 80s. Girls Just Want To Have Fun never sounded better then it has using a child’s toy keyboard as your only musical source. At least the elevator music seems marginally professional. The garbage truck song is actually very similar to the one made by our classroom telephones. Oh yes, our phones sing to us too. Now, this also sounds a lot like the jingling of the ice cream man back in the day when ice cream man rode wild and free. Here I hear the sound, get all jazzed for a Rainbow Rocket Pop and instead I get garbage bags. Phoooey. But it doesn’t stop there. Train station push carts sing, there’s the ring tones of cell phones, can’t forget those train stop jingles and then there are my least favorite of Japanese daily un-requested musical numbers: the grocery store bop. Ohhhh, the grocery store bop can drive you grocery store batty. These places actually have a small stereo set up in the meat section or the baked good sections or EVERY SECTION playing out different songs on a loop, most which only last about five seconds which brings you listening count of them in one single shopping period to about a thousand and sixty! Really, the music isn’t so bad outside of enduring it while trying to find a good slice of ham. It has become such a part of my daily life that chimes have become ingrained directions. This chime means: train will come. This chime means: doors will open. This chime means: get off the elevator, stupid. I’ve actually been in alternate places and heard somebody with a ring tone that sounds like a train chime and my body wants to react and board a nonexistent train. I just wish they’d beef things up a bit. Instead of the musical box chimes why not, ohhh, I don’t know, an Anthrax guitar solo? RAWK ON!!!!!!!

You Want Your Change You’re Gonna’ Have To Work For It
I think the designers of the vending machines here had a personal vengeance against the elderly. Maybe before the time of the vending machines the elderly folk had some sort of sales union. Lets call it Japanese Old People’s Organization of Goods Sellers, or JOPOGS for short. So the JOPOGS folk run the racket of carbonated beverages and potatoed chips and chocolated bars in little pink push carts placed on street corners. They get a nice stool and the union offers them an eye brow plucking plan. Oh, and the JOPOGS Christmas parties are funkadelic festivals of fun! Things are going well for the old folk and their pink carts of junk-fooded wonders. Then, one of their son’s turns to the dark side and with the help of Emperor Palpatine he…wait…let me try this again. Then one of their son’s turns to the dark side and with the help of Emperor Palpatine…okay, I got it this time. Then one of their son’s start spending a lot time in the basement. Nothing to discerning about a boy wanting to be alone in a dark place, right. He probably found the magazine stash. But then comes the clanging and the banging and the chicken noises…well, maybe not chicken noises…and then slow the garage door opens and out of the mist is wheeled the Vendonator 2001 ½! The Vendonator 2001 ½ boasts quicker dispensing times then old people, cooler cans of Bubble Man and a heating system which uses recent advancements in Monkey With Zippo technology. The elderly are obsolete, retired and best used as Soylant Green but before such a tragic fate they are give small lightsabers and with the help of Emperor Palpatine they are employed as traffic and parking coordinators. The elderly band together to wage an uprising against the machines that is nothing like Judgement Day so that they wouldn’t get sued but due to the fact that Matlock came on…um, JAPANESE Matlock came on….none of them made it out the door and the machines were forgotten in the Metamucil haze by the first commercial break. Today the JOPOGS have faded into legend and in their stead have been placed thousands of metal dispensing units now simply called Vendo-rama-fun-blast-ing-machines…or vending machines, for short. Some still long for the days where one could purchase a Snickers or a 7-up from an actual person, share in a few minutes of jovial banter before going about your day. It is said that at this very moment a elderly man sits in a garage of his own in front of a gleaming pink cart, drill and blueprints in hand, biding his time. And this is why Japanese vending machines have change dispensers about a foot off the ground! Man, I think it’s a pain to have to get down so slow to get my coins with holes in them but I could just imagine the old folk breaking ribs in the process. Is these things were back in Canada your change would belong to the snowbank blocking the dispensing hole. Why could this thing could not have been placed a little higher…like arms reach higher? Unless you are an orangutan this is a major vending machine inconvenience and a terrible design flaw that knocks my review down to only a thumb halfway up and two and a half pumpernickel bagels out of six.

Entrance Sink, Entrance Sink…does whatever an Entrance Sink Can
And finally we come to the restaurant entrance way sink. I know I seem to complain and grip a lot about aspects of this culture, mainly for comedic value, but let me end it all by writing of a great idea that should be incorporated the world over for sanitary peace of mind. Not all of them, but a good lot of Japanese restaurants have sinks right in the entrance way of the place for all your hand washing needs. I think this is great as it allows you to cleans before your meal without having to hit the bathroom. Of course this begs the question on why have two sinks at all but let’s not blight the entrance way sink. It’s a time saver. Okay, true I’ve never seen ANYBODY use it but it’s there and it’s waiting. No soap or any lotions but there’s a nice white towel for you and while some might argue that wiping with the same towel as dozens of others has it’s own sanitary issues PLEASE let’s not blight the entranceway sink. Alright, it just MIGHT be used only be the cleaning staff like those train station platform sinks but damn it’s a sink, it’s the first thing you see when you walk in and wouldn’t it be nice if it were for your hands. Don’t you want clean hands when you touch restaurant cutlery? I know I do. Better yet, don’t you want a nice sink at the door as you leave wash with? Well maybe you don’t but by God the entrance sink will catch on. This I vow! I won’t turn my back on you, entrance sink. Hell, who needs the restaurant? We’ll just start a chain of entrances, you and I…shrines to you and your offspring, entrance sink.