Just when you thought it was safe.

There are few things in this world that bring me the ever so fleeting joy I require to keep from offing my sorry ass by jumping in front of a super rapid ultra heavy duty express train thing. Unfortunately the past month or so has felt like one long rapid succession of bad news after bad news after bad things happening to me in the shower when I bend over to pick up the soap. It’s been so bad that I’m surprised that the jumping and the death thing hasn’t happened yet.

Much to the dismay of those of you who were looking forward to seeing my brains splattered all over the tracks, something great and wonderful recently transpired that made me want to drop whatever I was doing, go to tower records, buy a copy of Handel’s Messiah, then go to the local electronics district, buy the largest and most expensive stereo I could find and shoehorn it into my small apartment. I will then throw the CD in and crank the volume to eleven before playing it and as the building shakes down upon my head to the majestic sounds of Halleluiah, I will run around like an idiot pumping my fists and grinning broadly.

19 are breaking up.

Let me write it again, just so it sinks in.

19 are breaking up.

I just love the way it sounds as I repeat it over and over and over again.

19 are breaking up.

At least, if I’d managed to get this damn column finished on time, this news would have been new and current and in and with-it and all those other hip, happening terms all you young people use to describe something that’s cool. Leave me alone you noisy whippersnappers or I’ll beat you soundly about the head and neck area with my cane! Leave me in peace so I can listen to my old Seiko Matsuda albums and remember a time when the music in this country would get me all hot and bothered and damn sexy to boot. Now I find myself constantly weak and impotent, day in and day out.

So to be more with-it, let me say it this way.

19 broke up.

Never again will I have to deal with their lame ass bullshit songs coupled with a look better served towards all the horrible, horrible punk music that the youth of Japan think is so cool. I will gladly dance on the grave of the ill-conceived musical group that was known as 19.

Now I just hope and pray that the other 50 or so groups that I hate all simultaneously decide to end their miserable lives. Literally, figuratively or both, I don’t care.

Of course, then I might have to deal with something even more disgusting and depraved than the existences of the 50 or so groups I don’t like.

200+ solo artists, most of which suck even worse that the groups because ¾ of them are the members who could only sing back up and dance.

It recently dawned on me just how little Japanese music I’ve been buying these days. The time where I had more Japanese artists than western ones ended a while ago. Hard to believe they even existed.

In other news, I yearn to have sex with every single member of The Scanty. Yes, even To-Bu. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that she’s the best one of the lot in the sack. Though after seeing them live, I’m pretty sure Yoppy would give just as much bang for her buck, what will all the shrieking and flailing and jumping and headbanging she did.

The bass player has to be the lankiest female I’ve seen this side of Kaori Ida, with a long, tree-like torso and arms that could probably scratch her feet without bending at the waist. The neck of her bass looked to be approximately 7 feet in length to compensate for this.

One thing has been puzzling me though. Did they ever have an indies period or did Masahide Sakuma, the guy who wrote their two singles, pick four cute chicks and put together his own version of Judy and Mary/Hysteric Blue?

You know old Masahide. The same guy who produced Pierrot and most importantly, Glay?

It makes a man wonder.

Then again, I’m sure a ton of you are wondering why I went to a Scanty concert given the generally low opinion myself and my cohorts hold of them, using such witticisms as “scanty talent” and other mind bendingly intellectual things that make you laugh so hard that you wet yourself, twice. I went because I wanted to stare at Yoppy and not be arrested for doing so because that’s just creepy. That and the tickets were cheap. The fact that they put on one hell of a show was a pleasant surprise and I’d actually like to see them again. I’ll even forgive that they wouldn’t talk to any of the fans waiting desperately by the loading docks of Club Quattro.

One hour too and I so wanted a picture with one of them.

In other news, we’re entering my most favoritist time of the universe in the land of the rising prices and sun!

(Insert dramatic pause here.)

(For those of you who want to simulate this, go take a dump or something. Maybe watch one of those hideously horrible Pepsi commercials that butcher an already terrible song by the Brian Setzer Orchestra. That should get the plumbing working, in either direction)

The Summer!!!!

Yay!

(Another short pause while Da Crank does an elaborately choreographed dance of joy)

Whew!

(Now for an even longer span where he towels himself off, takes a shower and changes his soaked clothes because he sweat out the weight equivalent of a small child while doing the aforementioned dance)

Well, actually it’s even better than that. After passing the Japanese Spring, which lasts approximately as long as most bathroom breaks, we get the rainy season. One happy, fun-filled month of rain, rain and more rain, and wet laundry, so I hope you have a month’s supply of underwear at the ready because you sure as hell aren’t going to be able to dry anything.

But wait, there’s more!

Now let’s get to the humidity. We all know humidity, I hope. Where the air is thick and disgusting, everything is sticky and gross and large stains of sweat cover every inch of your body, making it look like you just got doused in large buckets of phlegm. Where the only recourse is to immerse yourself in a pool, stand in front of an industrial strength air conditioner or slit your throat. Logistically speaking you could walk around naked but I doubt that would go over too well with the locals, especially with your extra large foreigner wang hanging out from between your hairy legs.

The worst part is, very few Japanese people seem to sweat at all, except for anyone participating in a sports, bands onstage at a concert and old men.

In short, if there was a reason for leaving this country, it would be the fact that the summers simultaneously suck and blow.

Ah, Alaska, my new home.

Pull yer cranium out from yer anus.