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justfollowmyhansel · 6 years

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October 13th – By the Gold Light of Your Halo

And the end of this sentence has never been truer. I was almost close enough to touch him…. (Not quite, but I sort of tried to a couple of times since I was literally second row aisle seat.) But I’m getting ahead of myself. Or is that a-Hed? You decide.

I was actually awake when Miya’s alarm went off the first time. Pretending to be asleep, but I’d checked my phone a time or two already.

Shortly after, my mom texted saying she’d talk with my favourite person at the bank about my debit card. I had more than enough to cover what I had tried to buy with it and yet…. Both she and Vicki were going to try to get down to the bottom of this because clearly, this wasn’t good.

I decided to answer the message when I actually got up. Which as it happened was about an hour later when John posted.

Of course 4G in Japan is still super slow and it takes forever to load, but whatever. It’s still John.

The previous afternoon, it was announced that there was no stagedooring. A little disappointing, but the stagedooring aspect was making nervous. What if I said something stupid to him like ‘You were great except for .“ Or "What the fuck is up with your wardrobe? Don’t you know how to dress yourself?” What if I lost the ability to speak my first language? (“John, ich lebe dich. Du bist der Hellstestern, meine Schöner.”)

I mean…. That’s the sort of thing that he might appreciate more if he actually KNEW me and knew that I was meaning that as teasing and that I wouldn’t actually want him to change the way he dresses or that I’m not actually all that fussed about whatever line changes there were (that weren’t supposed to be there.) I know it must be frustrating as hell for him when he forgets his lines or loses track of where he is in the script, but I think it’s cute. Very Hedwig. Very rock n roll. Very…. Robbie Williams. That man sold out STADIUMS and still would forget the lyrics to his hits. (Now he has a teleprompter XD)

Miya and I had breakfast. I had bought a waffle-thing at the store the previous night, but instead I tried some of the raisin sandwiches that I had purchased the night before. They were a sort of hard biscuit cookie with a soft, almost whipped, crème with raisins in it. And tea made with the lactose free coffee creamers that Miya had generously bought for me the night before.

We packed up our stuff to go to the theatre and ride the train. On the way down, I photographed every few stops so that I know where I’m going. On the way in, I saw an ad for a record store. Tower Records. I briefly daydreamt about running into John there. I know we probably wouldn’t if we went, but…. Still. Records. John. Not only two things I love, but things that actually go together.

The station we arrived at was actually under construction, the usual signs in English and Japanese having either been covered or taken down because of the diversions. In their place were signs reading only in Japanese and with arrows. I took photos of the ones I needed to remember to either turn at or follow.

Miya showed me around the Hikarie a little. In the back of my mind, this word sounds familiar to me, but it’s not until the next day that I can begin place it. The tour is more or less just walking by the various shops, occasionally discussing what they are, but more often discussing what’s likely going to happen with the show or Japanese culture questions. We actually went to lunch shortly after arriving.

For lunch, we picked the sushi 🍣 place on the 6th floor. The entire 6th floor is restaurants. Some of the other floors have restaurants and cafes too, like the 11th has a cafe right outside of it, but I wouldn’t know that for a few more hours.)

We go in and are seated.The restaurant has a very Deep Space Nine ordering system. You can click for your own language on the wall-mounted menu, there’s pictures, you tell it how much of everything you want, and the food comes on a short little track thing that looks like one of those short train things you used to see in westerns. And there’s a sushi conveyor belt. Very cool.

Miya remembered that sometimes shops in the Hikarie give discounts if you have a ticket to that day’s/that night’s show at the Orb. She calls it up on her iPad and then calls over the waitress. We get free drinks because we’re seeing Hedwig! I ordered tea, Miya stuck with the water and matcha powder.

We cancel the drink order off of our digital menu and then get down to actually ordering lunch. Miya orders one of the lunch specials, whereas I go a la carte.

The first things I picked were a tuna roll and two pieces of salmon avocado. I miss avocado. I miss when avocados didn’t cost $5 per fruit…. The food arrives and is incredible. The best salmon with avocado I’ve ever had…. It was one of the few times in my life that I have ever had avocado that was light and melt-in-your-mouth and the salmon was So. Fresh. just… so fresh.

I then opted to try some of the conveyor belt, pre-made sushi that was circulating around the restaurant. I grabbed the first thing that looked interesting – some small fried shrimp on top of a small pad of rice that was then all wrapped in seaweed. It had a nice, surprising yet mild heat to it. Feeling less certain in my ability to put the whole thing in my mouth, I picked some of the shrimp off of the first piece with my chopsticks. I also tried squid with a little bit of rice.

What I had forgotten about squid from the other time I had it at Wasabi is that it’s a very chewy piece of fish that’s hard to break pieces off of. Which in turn, makes it very hard to eat any of without putting the whole thing in your mouth. And when you swallow it, gives the unpleasant sensation that the whole thing is about ready to come back up.

The last unique thing I ordered was a couple of pieces of red fish on top of rice. I think this one was also tuna, but I’m not sure. And another salmon with avocado.

After we ate, Miya and I went to Bic Camera.

What necessitated going to Bic Camera was getting printer ink. And what necessitated the ink was that Miya wanted to give me maps to help with the getting around. At this point, I was just happy to be along for the ride. I’d never been to any of these places and possibly wouldn’t get a chance to go to them again anytime soon so why not? Just because it’s seemingly mundane, doesn’t mean comparing the differences isn’t interesting. We arrived at Bic Camera and were told that we actually needed to be in a different building for Bic Camera. Later, looking at the map of Shibuya that the Hikarie had for tourists, I learned that there are actually three buildings for Bic Camera in a relatively short amount of space. Who would have guessed!

Once at the correct Bic Camera, we went upstairs to get the printer ink. This building of the BC was set up like a department store, but entirely for computers, cameras, phones, and other electronics with a single floor dedicated to laptops, a different one for printers, a different one for phones, and phone cases hanging off of the edges of the levels as you rode the escalator up. This is the one of the stores I would love to have had the time to truly explore, but this was one of the few days where everything didn’t seem like it was going in such a rush to go here or go there or get this and get that.

We bought the ink and returned to the initial building for Bic Camera. Miya showed me some of the shampoos on offer since I had mentioned wanting to buy some the previous night. I explained that I had meant that I would buy her more of her own shampoo as a thank you for letting me stay with her! (They didn’t actually have her kind of shampoo and then we both forgot about it before I left Japan.)

The next thing on our list of things to do was to pick up the movie ticket for How to Talk to Girls at Parties. About two weeks before the start of the trip, it was announced that John was going to have his Japanese premiere of the film at the end of the week he was performing Hedwig. Of course, the tickets were again done by lottery and while we had won tickets to all of the Hedwig performances, I wasn’t certain that our luck would hold out enough to substantiate changing the plane ticket and extending my hotel reservation on the off chance that this would be the thing we weren’t lucky on. As a sort of consolation, when it was announced that fans could buy advanced tickets for when the movie actually opened in Japan, Miya offered to buy a ticket and give me the promotional pins that came with it. I had thanked her and offered to buy the ticket for her, again as a way of thanks. She had that said she did want to see the movie, that wouldn’t be necessary.

What was interesting then and what’s interesting to me still now is how many buildings in Japan have that department store structure. Where either it’s a multi-floor building that all of the shops belong to one business and you pay on at each floor or where it’s multiple businesses that are still interconnected and you have to walk through a shoe store to get to a dollar store. Being from the midwest where department stores are kind of the sole purview of malls and most businesses only get a single, possibly up to three levels, of their own, this was a fascinating anthropological difference. It wasn’t until I got to Osaka that I started to see more stand alone single story businesses.

We picked up the ticket, and I picked up some flyers for the movie. Miya stuck the pins and the ticket into her bag so that they wouldn’t get lost in my relatively huge Hello Kitty duffle bag that I had brought with me to carry my things and then we went back to the Hikarie. We still had over three hours before the show was supposed to start and had exhausted all of the errands that we had to do that day.

Miya asked what I wanted to do, if there was any shops that had caught my eye, or if there was any particular type of store that I wanted to visit and I remembered seeing the billboard ad for Tower Records on the way in. Off of the prompt ‘record store’ (cos I couldn’t remember the name), Miya found where we needed to be and we set off again, past Bic Camera, and arrived at the record store.

What I was looking for most was David Bowie or Queen things. Both musicians are ones that I have numerous antidotes and stories both from and about in Japan. Freddie in particular absolutely adored Japan and had his house decorated in a Japanese/Victorian England style and David, well Japan was the first time that David felt like a success. (In addition – the story that he told in one of Mick Rock’s books about how he was given a beautiful cape that had writing on it, that he used in his Ziggy shows a lot, but didn’t know what it meant for over 20 years. It was his name.)

We entered on the second floor, and like I usually do in record stores, I found the clearance/discount section on the floor I wanted and started looking through. I didn’t find anything for David, but I did find some Beatles and George Harrison. It wasn’t until we started looking through the aisles that I found David. His section had the last photo that was ever taken of him as the header section – it’s by Jimmy King, it was taken on his birthday, I was not expecting to see that photo on that day. I started looking through the collected CDs, finding a few that I took photos of for later purchasing or eBay searching. (At this point, I was still using the money converter to estimate about how much each thing would cost.) All the while, I’m telling Miya little antidotes about David or about the recording of each particular album, session, or concert. It’s the first time this trip that I nearly start crying…..

Eventually, we leave the section – or rather, I decide that we have to leave the section – and go looking for Queen. It occurred to me in the process of making that decision how silly it would be to be crying on the day that I was seeing Hedwig for the first time.

Along the way, I found Freddie’s solo section. The price for his singles was just a little too high for what I was willing to pay at the moment, but I took yet another photo of the back for later research when I had the time and wasn’t anticipating potentially buying a lot of merchandise at the show. So far, the only things that had been announced were the t-shirt and the program, but in the back of my mind, I kept thinking that more things might have been announced. And of course, dropping a LOT of money on Hedwig merch was the reason I had come out to Japan right now anyway. Well, that and seeing John.

Unfortunately, the Queen section was the same story – I either already had it or didn’t want to pay as much as the asking price for it. According to Miya, it’s because of the import charge. I found this highly ironic since in the US, it’s usually the Japanese things that have the extreme import charges.

Since that was it for that floor, after a brief flick-through of the clearance section up front, I purchased a David interview CD, a small magazine for my mother with The Smiths on the cover, and a bag of record sleeves since they were cheaper to buy here than to wait to get in the US.

We walked back down to the floor that we thought Ataru’s music would most likely be on and outside, I picked up some more flyers and booklets for things that I thought sounded interesting or cool. I ended up buying one of Ataru’s CDs – her most recent – before we moved onto the last floor we visited that day: soundtracks and movies.

That particular Tower Records had nothing for Hedwig nor RENT on the day that we visited, but I was able to snag some photos of the press for Trainspotting 2 (my favourite film with a US release this year) before we left.

We headed back to the Hikarie again and still had about an hour and a half before the show was going to start. Miya asked if I wanted to go get something on one of the lower levels or at the cafe outside the theatre, but since re-entering the building, it was all about Hedwig. Every part of me was focused on Hedwig. And like I usually am before seeing a show I’m highly anticipating or talking to a crush, I was trying not to vibrate out of my skin. Definitely too nervous to eat.

We went to the convenience store outside of the theater, this time a Lawson and not a 7/11, and I bought a pack of something that was shoved into my bag for later and a hot bottle of tea. The flavour of the tea was what I’d imagine hot barley to taste like, not bad, but not really….flavoured at all. Not that it mattered. Not that any of it mattered since it was getting down to ACTUALLY seeing the show.

A few minutes of nervously waiting outside the theatre passed and Miya opted to take another swing around the building again. We take some photos out of the windows at the now, very night time, Tokyo and then literally walk around the building. When we return, the doors have opened to go upstairs. We take the escalator, show our tickets, and are allowed into a room with posters advertising the program, a tv screen showing the currently static stage, the merchandise booth, and the many, many cosplayers for the evening. (While we had been waiting, I had looked up to one of the upper levels and very, very briefly mistaken one of the cosplayers for John.)

I bought the merchandise for myself and for Risa, Miya bought a program for herself, and then we went to find our seats. Our SECOND ROW seats.

They were playing Love Will Keep Us Together as we sat down and I was trying not to completely freak out since it’s one of the songs mentioned in the script! And then immediately after, Young Americans by David Bowie. Another song referenced in the script!! When they played Lust for Life by Iggy Pop, I figured the show would be starting since it was traditional that Iggy was usually the last artist played before the show started. In Japan, it wasn’t. Light My Fire by The Doors was.

And the show started with Ataru coming from one of the side doors and announcing “Ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, Hedwig!!! Hed-wig! Hed-wig! Hed-wig!” getting the audience to cheer and chant for Hedwig, clapping for her arrival into the venue. I was turned, looking at Ataru, clapping of course, chanting for Hedwig’s arrival when the show started.

On Broadway, Hedwig had descended from the ceiling; Off-Broadway, she had come from the back of the venue, sauntering up to the stage…. but here, here Hedwig was standing behind the screen projecting an image of the Berlin Wall with graffiti on the Western side and stark nothing on the East. As the audience chants, the wall develops cracks in the middle, eventually exploding from the middle with Hedwig standing triumphant, beautiful…. in the sudden divide between East and West. I… had been looking in the wrong direction.

I whipped my head back towards the stage so quickly you’d have developed second-hand whiplash watching me.

Part of the performance, I’m watching the show completely amazed that this is happening, that this is real. That I’m actually in the same room as my favourite show being performed. I’m not sure I blinked the entire time I was watching the show. The other part of the performance, the part that features Yitzhak more than Hedwig, I’m still looking at John, looking to see how he is reacting to Yitzhak as Hedwig or simply being Hedwig without speaking and without making grand movements at that point. Mostly just…. being. To me, it’s fascinating, being in the second row. Being able to see all of the little reactions, expressions, costume alterations behind semi-opaque screens. In a way, it’s like a “How It’s Made” of my favourite show. Sometimes, during these moments I feel like I should probably actually be watching Yitzhak since she’s the one driving the action at that point….

The show was staged completely different from any version of Hedwig I’d ever seen before with new lines, new alterations to the script and to the format. For the first time since the movie, I’m seeing a production that doesn’t either actually have Emily Hubbly’s drawings or someone imitating her style. The design of the animations is specifically more Japanese than the other versions, which of course makes sense being as the show is set in Japan.

The show was also basically a public dress rehearsal; something that annoyed some of the people on Twitter later (apparently), but I found completely wonderful. Again, this is a show that I know so well that I can follow international versions where I don’t speak the language just based off of intuiting a few words, of course I want to see a messier version of the show. A less polished version in terms of performance. My two favourite differences that weren’t in the script were 1.) where Hedwig is talking about masturbating Tommy in the bath and her wig completely popped off. She looked very surprised for a moment before picking up her wig and continuing perfectly. And 2.) the line change that Hedwig had in Wicked Little Town Reprise? She sang it so confidently for being the absolute wrong lyrics…. And of course, a million other little improv things stood out, like Hedwig calling Yitzhak her “oto” and then asking “what’s the other one again? [Yitzhak supplies word] Oh that’s right.” And the golden Hello Kitty patch on her ass (up towards her hip more than centered like the handprints were on Broadway.)

At the end of the show, I felt like I had probably smiled through 90% of the show it was performed so well. John, of course was amazing. And Ataru was completely incredible. I had anticipated loving her from the things that I had seen of her on YouTube and she blew away any expectations that I had had of her, she was so good.

Afterwards, as Miya and I walked out of the venue, she asked what I wanted to get for dinner/snack after the show. I said I didn’t care; wherever she wanted was fine because I had literally just had one of the best experiences of my life.

We opted to go back to the sushi restaurant, this time actually sitting at the bar/lunch counter. She ordered some a la carte sushi this time, I took more things off of the sushi conveyor belt. Since we had seen the show now, we were technically entitled to more free drinks. I opted to go for a not-free option of cold sake and Miya had…. I think iced tea? Maybe more matcha.

Honestly, cold sake tastes exactly like hot sake, but just a little bit smoother. While I liked the smoothness of it, I think the hotness of the hot sake helped it out a little bit more. I definitely would not drink sake on a regular basis, but it is interesting to me to see how that strong of a taste when blended into a sauce for Chinese food is completely minimized outside of an afterburn when you swallow. Miya had a sip or two of it too and I don’t think she was all that impressed with it either. I accidentally knocked over my glass at one point, getting the menu and the counter wet and sake-covered. I think the waiter thought I was drunk, but truly, I was just that clumsy.

While we ate, I searched for that one video I had remembered John posting about being worried about a lot of serious things and then his ass. I thought it would be a good idea to say “I don’t know about the other things, but your ass looked amazing from the second row!” I swear to you, I came up with that before I even thought about ordering the sake.

We paid and left both the restaurant and the Hikarie. I was feeling very optimistic. And a little sleepy.

The journey back went very smoothly and unlike the previous night, we did not stop at the 7/11 before going back to Miya’s.

Back at her apartment, I flipped through my own copy of the program by cell phone flashlight before falling asleep. Only a few Instagram posts by John of various backstage photos and rehearsal video keeping me awake.

#travel diary #travel diary japan #japan day 3

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stingchronicity · 7 years

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do............. all of them

omg emily thank you ily

Purple: 10 facts about my room

1. the walls are a terrible shade of green (not my choice)

2. my favourite poster on my wall is my Brain Salad Surgery poster and sometimes i spend hours just looking at Keith bc he makes me happy

3. i don’t have any shelves so i keep my records lined up on the floor and there are so many of them that they take up approx. 1/3 of my floor

4. i have a glass drafting table that i love, and when i did more graphite drawings i used to have it tilted up all the time, but ever since i started doing more paintings, it’s been set flat (plus there’s a bunch of shit on it)

5. there is a caricature of myself and keith emerson holding hands on my wall (done by a lovely woman i met in the last hospital i stayed in)

6. i also have a lot of my own art on my walls (foxtrot painting, abacab fantasies, steve winwood painting, bloody piano, rush logo, smirky tony banks, red keith, a thing i did for david bowie, a bloody flower, and the valentine i made for keith)

7. i have 4 (used to have 5) calendars on my wall and they’re all out of date

8. i have a copy of queen’s Hot Space vinyl on my wall and also a ceramic mask with balloons on it

9. the records i can see from the spot i’m sitting at right now are Honky by Keith Emerson, the first Asia album, The Kids Are Alright by the Who, and Love Beach by ELP

10. i keep the following things on my bed: first off i have my purple/pink/blue comforter and the matching sheets and pillow cases (2 pillows), and then i have a throw blanket that’s black and white and very soft; a really thin and cool to the touch Mickey Mouse sheet that was my mom’s in the 70s (i like to snuggle it in the summer bc its somehow always cold); greg lake pillow (from my own redbubble); a star shaped rainbow pillow (i call him carl !!) which i got from my sister; a hello kitty bunny (don’t remember the character’s name) plushie with a carrot (i call him keith ♥️️) which is one of the toys i had as a baby; Mr. Bonks the giant panda plushie which was a valentine’s gift; and most importantly !! keith blanket (from the amazing @moogotron) and keith pillow (which i bought myself) !! my most prized possessions !!

Blue: 9 facts about my family

1. we’re chinese/costa rican

2. we usually just speak english but sometimes we speak ~spanglish~

3. i have a love/hate relationship with my sister

4. i’m decently close with my parents although my dad can be an asshole

5. my brother is dead to me bc he gave me PTSD and basically killed my innocence

6. my entire family is fairly ableist except my mom who at least tries to be understanding

7. i have one nephew (age 6) who is my brother’s child, and two nieces (aged almost 2 and the other is 1 month) and they’re my sister’s children

8. i have 2 kitties !! they’re twins from my old cat and their names are Coda and Kenai (from Brother Bear) !! coda is my smol and good prince and he spends every night in my bed (he’s actually asleep next to me rn) and is like,, in love with me (krista calls him a “humany” bc hes like the opposite of a furry). kenai is enormous like a vet once told me he’s the largest cat she’s ever seen and its true he’s very bode and that’s like,, the only way to tell them apart bc they look exactly the same except their weight, and kenai has a kink in the very end of his tail

9. i’m not that close with my family i don’t know what else to say

Green: 8 facts about appearance

1. hmm my hair is really dark brown and it’s feathered

2. i have a singular white hair that i was born with and still have

3. i have long legs but short arms

4. smol and sad (but perky) boobs

5. i do like my cute nose and lips

6. i have a really tiny waist and rather wide hips

7. i’m 5′7″?? idk

8. my back hurts rn

Yellow: 7 facts about my childhood

1. it was terrible

2. i didn’t have a childhood

3. we were extremely poor and everyone ignored me bc they were too busy dealing with my siblings’ legal trouble and such

4. my body was used and nobody cared

5. i was a “gifted” child so nobody read me bedtime stories or helped me or like,, spent time with me after the age of like 4

6. i never really had friends, and nobody my age lived near me so i spent every weekend alone and neither of my siblings seemed to even remember i existed, nor my parents, so

7. my dad yelled at me so much for bothering him or asking him questions or asking to hang out with him that i’m perpetually scared of people yelling and will cry if someone yells at me

Orange: 6 facts about my home town

1. i do not even think i can fit in 6 facts about my hometown

2. its less than 700 people

3. more churches than homes

4. we have a single eatery and basically its a parking lot with a tiny building where you go up to the window and order things like hot dogs (theyre actually p good not gonna lie)

5. ummmmmmmmmmmmm

6. i hate it

Red: 5 facts about my best friend

i don’t want any of my friends to feel left out here so i’ll give u a fact abt my closest pals

1. @moogotron is a slut (jk heres a real fact abt her: she once fell out of a stationary car and now has a scar on her temple)

2. @auroreamethyste has the same special interest as me !!! eeeee !!! (actually when i first thought of a fact for you, my mind went to the nutcracker story but i don’t know if it’s okay to share it XD)

3. @dumbfaceadventureland knows so much about birds???? i am truly amazed and whenever i see birds i think of her

Pink: 4 facts about my parents

1. my dad has seen pink floyd like 3 times

2. my mom once had a fax conversation with jon bon jovi

3. todd rundgren took my dad sledding in the 80s (they lived in the same town, woodstock NY)

4. my dad was in the studio with the band when foghat recorded “slow rider” (to sum it up my dad knows a lot of famous musicians)

White: 3 facts about my personality

1. aaa difficult question hmm well i spend about 3/4s of my day in a childish mood where i kinda feel like i’m 5 years old and i want to cuddle up in cute pyjamas and stuff idk how to describe this it just happens

2. bold and brash (aka belongs in the trash) seriously though i’m not bold or brash at all (but i do belong in the trash)

3. i’m more like a soft mouse who likes to spend a lot of time thinking

Grey: 2 facts about my favorite things

favourite material items?

1. keith pillow !! and keith blanket !! the two most wonderful objects i own they’re so soft and covered with my beautiful keith

2. i carry them around constantly like, literally everywhere i go i take keith pillow with me (easier to carry than keith blanket, though i take him with me sometimes too)

Black: 1 fact about the person I like

1. beautiful blue eyes, soft sandy brown hair, plays a various amount of keyboards, is in emerson lake and palmer

eeee thanks again !

#ask #/long post #emily #dumbfaceadventureland

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