Casuparu Plays With Jam

Konichiwa everybody!

Now for the promised blog on Caspar's jam session at What the Dickens. Tuesday night two weeks ago (again I am two weeks late for this thing) Caspar and I went to What the Dickens for a night of jamming. Caspar had heard about it one of our earlier trips there and had decided that he wanted to get up on stage and jam with other equal minded folks.

(On the subway line to What the Dickens)

When we came there, the place was already filled with people and the atmosphere was great. Happy people all around and good music on stage from the jamming musicians. There was a board with different categories based on musical instruments and Caspar put his name down under the guitar category, obviously. There were a few other persons on the board before him, so we just sat down at a table with a pint of Bass - a very tasty beer.

We sat down at a table with another person that was also going to play up on stage. He was a saxophonist and pretty damn good. I didn't get to talk too much with him as I went around and took photos. Sadly the technology inside my camera shows its shortcomings when I am in a dark place, trying to photograph moving people. My camera makes the photos very grainy at higher ISOs which is what I need to use to get more light in my images while still having a shutter speed fast enough to capture moving people. ISO is the light sensitivity of the sensor that captures the photo. It can be adjusted to higher settings but the sensor in my camera gets confused when it has to capture more light like that. Some of the pixels in the sensor takes a wrong reading, resulting in a mis-color in that specific spot. And when a lot of these pixels make a wrong reading, there will be a grainy look in the photo. All this explanation I just wrote is only to excuse the poor quality of the photos.

Now for some of the better ones from that night. Below is the saxophonist I mentioned earlier.

(The saxophonist sitting at the table)

(The saxophonist jamming on stage)

(Caspar playing at the table)

(A very happy and upbeat guitarist)

(Here I tried to capture people dancing)

When it was finally Caspar's turn to get on stage that thing called "bad luck" played up. The singer that was also put on the board to be singing at the same time Caspar was playing had a very asshole-ish attitude like "I own this place and the other musicians are just here to play for me". That is not really the attitude you should put up on a jam night. When he got up on stage and saw that Caspar was rigging up his guitar, he started yelling for a guy called Bill; "We want Bill on guitar! Where is Bill?! Get Bill up here!". He yelled these three short sentences many times while Caspar was trying to explain to him that he was scheduled to play before this Bill guy. The arrogant asshole just ignored Caspar and his explanations until he couldn't ignore him anymore without seeming too much like the asshole he really was to everybody else.

After that frustrating start, the music they played was kind of okay, but afterwards Caspar didn't feel like he had nearly as much fun as he had hoped for in the beginning of the night. Below are some photos of the guy; very big designer sunglasses at night and a scarf on with 25 or so degrees Celsius outside. Really café smart. This, along with his attitude, didn't give him much of a pleasing appearance in my eyes.

(The guy that made things not fun)

(Caspar playing and having as much fun 

as he could under the circumstances)

(A photo of the full stage)

The late time slot Caspar was given meant that we didn't have much time after he was done playing, before we had to catch the last metro train back to our place. It actually meant that we missed the last train from the last station and we then had to walk home. Luckily enough, the way was simple as we just had to follow one road until we reached home.

All in all it was a good night that just turned sour in the end.

That was it for this time.

Until next issue of Toyboy in Tokyo hits the streets, take care!

Squid Balls

Konichiwa everybody!

I decided to do a little quickie before my tales of Caspar's jam playing. One of the days last week, Annette and I walked to the Tokyo Dome to get some air, while Caspar had some translation work to do. We didn't really have an aim, other than an anime shop, so after we had been there, we walked around a little while until we saw a place where they sold Takoyaki. This is a Japanese gastronomical unit containing Tako - Japanese for octopus. It is a little ball with notable similarities to a Danish dessert called æbleskiver (Danish donuts) from the outside. When you take the first bite, however, you will be able to notice where the two foods stop the similarities. Just to make a graphical example of what I am trying to explain, I included a photo below.

(Squid ball!)

If you click on the photo, you will see a larger version of it. On there you can see what the purple thing sticking out of the ball is. I will say that it tastes very good. This was just an unfortunate result of a bite, which made it look slightly unappetizing for a brief moment.

That was all I wanted to say for this entry.

Take care!

Go! Rockets Go!

Friday the first of October, I got my camera back. There was much rejoicing! From my part at least. I didn't have to pay a ridiculous amount of Japanese gold to get it repaired, as it was due to the malfunction I explained about in this blog entry and not due to wear. This meant that I "only" needed to pay 30.000 pieces of Japanese gold and not 90.000. Very good.

On top of the joy of having the camera back, it came back just in time for a rugby match that same evening which furthermore added to my joy. One of Annette's friends is seeing a rugby player and thus get free tickets for herself and her friends - including me! So, that evening Annette and I went to the stadium. Caspar had already made plans to go play guitar, so he didn't have time to come see the game, unfortunately.

When we came to the stadium we were supposed to meet up with Annette's friend but she was nowhere to be found. This was a bit disappointing, but we found a couple of seats in the area that her and Annette had been sitting the previous time. She finally showed up about ten minutes into the game. That was after Annette and I had realized that we were sitting among the fans cheering for the opposite team. To make this even worse, we were sitting with green flags (the game we were cheering for is called the NEC Green Rockets) and cheering out loud for our team. When Annette's friend finally showed up, we swiftly changed seats to the area where people were dressed in green colors.

Most of the first half of the game we were shouting something in the lines of "RUN, RUN, RUN!" and "NOOO, NO, NO, NO!" and "GET THAT BALL!". Once in a while the words "that has got to hurt" got into the vocabulary as well. They were not holding back from full speed contact and every now and then players would get airborne from the collisions. 

(One of the milder collisions)

(The aftermath of one of the heavier collisions)

While we were sitting in our area, we could see on the other side of the arena that there was a group with a more organized way of shouting. We decided to move over there for the second half of the game.

(The more organized fans on the other side) 

(This is a view from where we were sitting

the first half of the game)

I understood most of the rules in the game and I learned more and more as I watched. For example, in order to advance up the field towards the opponent's goal line, the team would kick the ball out over the side line further down the field, so that there would be a throw in, giving both teams the chance to get the ball again. The advancement down the field was apparently worth the risk of losing the ball to the other team.

 (A throw in from the side line)

When the referee blew his whistle to signal the end of the first half, we made our way down to the field, as Annette's friend had something to give to the player she is seeing. Unfortunately he didn't see us, so we just went to the other side, where all the organized fans were sitting.

(Standing and waiting for the player)

(A more complete view of the stadium)

During the second half of the game, we had some professional shouters to help us shout the right thing in a unified way. The chants were "GO! ROCKETS GO!", "NEC!", and "DEFENSE, DEFENSE, DEFENSE!". The last one we used a lot, sadly, as the opponents were running our team off the field.

(The professional shouters with the "GO! ROCKETS GO!" sign)

(A fellow photographer)

At the end of the game, the statistics didn't look good. The Green Rockets had only scored on a penalty kick while the opposing team had made a good show of their talents. The benches that had previously been occupied with cheering Rockets fans were getting empty before the game was finished. Not the most cheerful experience I have had at a sport event. Below is a photo of the scoreboard after the last whistle blow.

(3-45 is not a good score in any game if you are the one with 3)

After the game, there was not many happy faces around in the area we sat in. Annette and I took the metro home with the hope that the next game would be better. The next game is tomorrow, so we will find out soon enough. All three of us will be going to a hopefully uplifting experience.

Oh, I almost forgot. There was also a profound lack of cheerleaders present at the game. I am pretty sure that if the Rockets had had some pretty girls cheering for them, their spirit would have had a bit of a boost. I know I would have thought the game to be more interesting if there had been cheerleaders to lift up the mood.

So, that was it for this time. Next thing on the list is about Casuparu at What the Dickens playing with jam (also known as marmalade).

Until then, take care!

I Am Back With Karaoke!

Konichiwa everybody!

I am back to blogging and this time with a short recollection about our first karaoke experience. This happened Wednesday two weeks ago.

We met with a guy named Zack, which Caspar met some time ago and whom we have spent a few Wednesday nights with, and some of his friends in Shinjuku, one of the bigger party areas of Tokyo, to try out what it had to offer us karaoke wise. First, though, we went to a bar to get a drink first. Here we all got to talk with each other before going to sing. One of Zack's friends, Thomas, is also a keen photographer and he was actually interested in buying a lens that I rarely use. I have been wanting to get a different lens instead of the one I don't use, and if I can sell it, I can use the money to get the other lens - yay!

Anyways, we also met Reed and his wife Ami which are two of Thomas' friends. Everybody seemed friendly and open minded and it was a good indicator for how the evening eventually would turn out.

After one drink we all went to the karaoke bar and got a room with a karaoke set and free drinks for two hours for 1600 yen. It was a very tight fit in the room for all of us, but we had a lot of fun singing almost all genres of music and ordering beers. Below is a photo of the room and the people.

(From lower left to right it is Reed, Ami, Thomas, 

Annette, Zack, me, and Casuparu)

Some songs were uite difficult to sing for some of us, though. Especially as they were in Japanese. Below is a picture of Zack (pretty much fluent in Japanese) singing a Japanese song with Caspar on the other microphone already giving up on following the text on the TV.

.

After the karaoke, we went to different bars around Shinjuku having a very amusing night.

The Wednesday after, we ended up in one of the same bars with Zack and another of his friends from work. Without me noticing it, we had made a slight impression on some of the regulars at that bar and that night I ended up speaking to an American guy who had lived in Sweden for three years and we had most of our conversation in Scandee speak. Just a fun little piece of information for you there. Below is a photo of us on that night with me, Klyve, Zack, Annettu and Casuparu.

Okay, this was a short one. More to follow! Rugby will be next on my list of things to blog about.

Enjoy the anticipation!