Back from the Land Of The Rising Sun... almost in one piece.

Presently I am once again on an airplane, already bored senseless only a half hour into my 13 hour flight from Australia back to LA. I just endured one of the most ludicrously long journeys through airport security I've ever experienced. It started when I made the mistake of trying to carry on board my $150 Star Wars Master Replicas Force FX Luke Skywalker Light Saber that I bought in Melbourne, instead of checking it with my luggage. This light saber is the coolest thing in the world, it lights up and makes sound effects when you swing it around, and basically just kicks all sorts of ass. Even right now if you're reading this and thinking "what a fucking nerd" - which you undoubtedly are - I can guarantee that you would change your tune if you saw this thing in person, and instead say, "holy fuck I want one." I do not, however, advise trying to bring it on an airplane with you. The mongoloids at airport security were baffled when they watched it pass through the x-ray machine, and took it out of the box to inspect it suspiciously. I told them that I didn't want to check it for fear of it breaking, as it was a gift for my little brother. Of course, I don't have a little brother, but I figured that would garner more compassion than the sad reality of a full grown man playing with a light-up laser sword. But it mattered not, the light saber was clearly a major security issue, and required the undivided attention of a whole group of people with various badges on. And so was assembled a crack team of highly trained security professionals, with whom the good people of Australia have entrusted their airborne security, who spent a half hour looking it over, turning it on and off, discussing whether or not it could be considered a weapon. When they couldn't reach an initial conclusion, they called upon the expertise of their superiors to further study my menacing plastic stick and join in the debate over just how lethal it actually might be. Rolling my eyes, I tried gently to remind them that although the magic of Hollywood special effects made it appear as though light sabers could cut the arms off a Wampa with the flick of a wrist, that's only in the land of make-believe, and this CHILDREN'S TOY I was carrying was really just a big plastic glowing cylinder which could in fact inflict no damage at all to anyone whatsoever in this or any other universe. Still, they were not convinced. I actually heard one of them say that she'd heard light sabers were very dangerous. Are you fucking with me? Is this a joke? Is Ashton Kutcher about to pop out with a hidden camera and tell me I'm being punked? Only memories of the worst airport security cavity search horror stories kept me from screaming in exasperation, "YOU FUCKING IMBECILES, THIS IS A TOY!! A HARMLESS PLAYTHING FOR CHILDREN AND AGE-REGRESSED ADULTS!! IT IS NOT A REAL LASER SWORD!! SUCH THINGS DO NOT EXIST!" The least retarded of the security monkeys told me it was less the actual threat of the light saber, and more the perceived threat of the light saber to paranoid passengers (fifteen minutes prior I would have had to ask if there really could be anyone stupid enough to see a toy light saber and perceive it as a threat). He told me that, particularly with my face sliced up as it is (I'll get to that later), I might look pretty menacing on a plane wielding an illuminated "sword." I argued that me standing in an airplane threatening the passengers with a glowing stick would unquestionably be the shortest, most ludicrous, and least-successful hijacking attempt in the history of modern transportation. Still, the vigilant security team at the Sydney airport stood unwavering in their decision, and insisted on checking my light saber as a "security item." Unbelievable.

Next up was the second check point, at the gate, where a security person looks at your passport and boarding pass, and then "randomly" decides if you can carry on about your merry way, or if you'll be sentenced to fifteen minutes being felt up while some lunkhead carelessly rifles through your belongings. No surprise that I was "randomly" sent over for the full treatment. Yeah, me, the kid wearing black with his face all mangled - of course they're going to pick me. Ol' scarface looks like a trouble-maker, for sure. I joined a long line of other misfits who were clearly chosen one hundred percent arbitrarily: A lanky stoner kid with long hair and dark sunglasses, an asian rock chick with camo pants, an Indian woman and her daughter, and a tall brown-skinned bald man of undetermined ethnicity. Meanwhile, a steady flow of clean-cut white people proceeded past us without delay.
When it was finally my turn for the cavity search, I discovered why the line was moving so slowly: The girl checking the bags couldn't have escaped being officially classified as mentally retarded by more than a few IQ points. As she looked through the many strange and potentially hazardous items in my bags, the conversation went something like this:

Her: "What's this?"
Me: "That's a hard drive."
Her: "It's a computer?"
Me: "No. Well... No."
Her: "Does it turn on? Where's the screen?"
Me: "It doesn't have a screen. It turns on if you connect it to a computer."
Her: "Well what does it do?"

Have you ever been asked a question that's so simple you have no idea how to even answer it? Something that blind-sides you with how complex it is in its noncomplexity, and you don't even know what to say? How do I describe to the fucking missing link here what a hard drive is? How do I even begin to approach that? "Um... you... you put stuff on it? I don't know." Thankfully, she didn't want to venture down this bumpy road any more than I did. Our conversation continued:

Her: "Hmm... okay... What's this?"
Me: "That's a battery charger."
Her: "How do you put batteries in here?"
Me: "It's not for alkaline batteries. It's for a battery pack, for a camera."
Her: "You charge a whole pack of batteries at once?"
Me: "No, it... Yes. Yes, that's what you do."
Her: "Oooh, is this one of those Playstations?"
Me: "It's a PSP, yes."
Her: "Is it cool? Is it like a Playstation?"
Me: "Yup, like a little Playstation."
Her: "How much does it cost?"
Me: "Um, I don't know. $250, or something."
Her: "That's an awful lot... Does it play DVDs?"
Me: "Look at it. Look at this size of it. It clearly, unquestionably, is smaller than a DVD. How, then, in a world bound to the laws of physics, could it possibly play a DVD, you utter retard?"

Okay, I didn't say that last bit out loud. But oh, how I wanted to.

The flight I'm on right now is returning me home from a week spent in Japan, which was a fantastic time despite some drunk asshole smashing a beer bottle across my face one night on a street corner. Yeah, good times. He was fucking with these two girls I was talking to outside the bar we'd been at, and I told him to fuck off, leave them alone. So he starts getting in my face, talking like a fucking wigger (he's American, go figure), and I tell him again to fuck off - not trying to anger him, just genuinely trying to diffuse the situation. It may come as a huge surprise to some of you, but I'm not much of a fighter. I'm actually rather skinny, and probably punch like a girl (although I wouldn't know, because I've never punched anyone). But at the same time, I'm also too ballsy for my own good, so when this guy took things up a notch by shoving me, I instinctually shoved him back - hard - and started to once again tell him to fuck off, and that's when he pulled a bottle out of nowhere and shattered it across my face. It didn't knock me down, or even phase me much, as I think he was expecting (thank you Jack Daniels), so he ran away. Fucking bottled me and ran, just like that, like a fucking pussy, with me screaming at him as he disappeared around the corner, "what the fuck was that, you fucking wuss!! Get back here!!" Thinking I'd escaped unscathed, I turned and looked at the girls, who were cupping their mouths in horror. That's when I put my hand to my face, and found it to be gushing blood. There was a LOT of blood - I mean, fucking pools of it cascading down to the sidewalk. My clothes were covered in it. I ran back into the bar, hand to my face, plowing through the dense crowd of people trying to get to the bathroom to find something to stop the bleeding. People screamed in horror and jumped away from me as I moved past them. I was leaving a trail of blood the whole way through. I got to the bathroom, and of course there weren't any paper towels. By then, though, someone who worked at the bar had caught up with me and brought me a towel. Long story short, I hopped a cab to a nearby hospital and got all stitched up - seven stitches on my nose and cheek - and woke up the next day with a black eye and a swollen face.

This is me outside the emergency room:



And this is me all stitched and bandaged up:



Lookin' good, no? Yeah. It's real fucking fantastic. I actually scare children now. I frighten babies. I was in an elevator, and a woman was in there with her baby, and the baby looked at me and I smiled, forgetting that my face was covered in bandages and dried blood, and my eye was the color of a plum. The baby just looked at me, eyes wide with horror, and you could see the emotional buildup. You could see the pressure rising as the tears welled up. You could see the dam about to burst. And then, all at once - screaming. Crying, sobbing, ear-piercing shrieks of terror. A cascade of tears. All because of the scary gore-faced man. The mother, alarmed, scowled at me, the source of her precious child's misery. Yes, sorry Ma'am, I should have known better than to make eye contact. I'm terrifying. Sorry. It's a humbling feeling to look at yourself in the mirror and say, "I make babies cry." I should just play it up. Just roll with it. Get me an eye patch and a hook, and walk around limping, laughing maniacally and saying "ARRR!! Stay away, kiddies! I'm Scarface The Horrible, and I eat little children for breakfast! ARRRR!!"

But, looking on the bright side, I'm going to have a pretty rad scar. I get the stitches out later today, so maybe I won't be quite as frightening.

Other than random acts of violence, though, Japan is a fantastic place, and I never feel like I've spent enough time there. Unlike Europe, Japan doesn't share the same western roots as America, and therefore is one of the few places left that truly feels like a different world. Walking through Tokyo is like being in the future - but not America's future, which is almost certainly a smoldering radioactive wasteland - rather, the future of a society that has its shit together. A densely-populated metropolis that still manages to be clean and largely devoid of crime. People who are polite and respectful, and who take pride in their work, no matter how menial their job might be. A culture that's rich with tradition but isn't held back by it. The antithesis of America's selfish, lazy, rude, excessive, greed-driven culture. Oh, and they have really cool toys. Lots and lots of really cool toys. I am returning from Japan at least a couple thousand dollars poorer, but far wealthier in the currency of neat stuff. My bounty includes a new digital camera, a host of unreleased video games, a giant Optimus Prime figure, a variety of incredibly bizarre Godzilla toys, some evil robot panda bears, a tiny puppy that lives inside a cube, tons of weird little Nintendo toys, and best of all... Little radio-controlled robots that play soccer. Okay, it's cooler than it sounds. Time to put up more toy shelves.

I'm going to post more really insane crap from Japan, probably tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this video I just found that I thought I'd lost - a creepy midget woman with most of her teeth missing singing songs on the streets of Amsterdam.