Weird Shit From Russia!

[Currently Listening To: Talking Heads - Remain in Light]



By now it's no secret that I spend a lot of time traversing the globe. I've been to a lot of countries, and seen the type of cool shit you expect to see in foreign lands - old buildings, exotic food, etc. But since I'm always traveling on business, finding myself in major cities with little time to thoroughly explore, my favorite way of discovering other countries has been to mine them for weird shit. The States have become such a wasteland of blandness, such a vapid expanse of corporate sameness, that any opportunity I can find to score some strange foreign crap is more than welcome. To that end, something I often find dismaying about the world outside of America (here's a handy map for those of you confused as to what that might be) is the alarming lack of weird shit. The angry beast of globalization has spread its red-white-and-blue blandness across the earth with insatiable aggression, ensuring that in exotic-sounding places like, say, Budapest, where I am right now, there's still a Burger King down the street, The Simpsons Movie at the local cinema (in English), Coke Zero in the vending machines, and "My Humps" playing loudly on the radio. Like cultural HIV, America continues to spread unfettered.

I love Japan because it's one of the few places I've been to whose uniqueness seems impervious to the American disease, managing to filter U.S. influence through its own bizarre cultural lens and present it as something entirely its own. And for the same reason, it was a pleasure to recently visit Russia for the first time, and find with much relief that there still is some weird shit in Europe after all (although the rest of Europe likes to exclude Russia from the precious title of "European," geography places Moscow and St. Petersburg firmly within the boundaries of the European continent).

To an American, Russia seems a strange and backwards place - a country struggling to get its shit together after centuries of chaos and turmoil. Things don't seem to work the way they should, no one seems to have discovered deodorant, and you are warned from the beginning that corruption is rampant: Stay inside the main cities, because more or less anything goes in the outskirts, and you're likely to be kidnapped. Keep your passport on you, because if you get stopped by the corrupt police and don't have it, they might kidnap you. Don't take taxis, because many of them aren't real taxis, and they'll kidnap you. We had to fly from Moscow to St. Petersburg instead of driving, because on the country highways, sometimes you'll find a broken down truck blocking the road. Stop and get out to help, and you'll be met by men with guns, who will kidnap you. Kidnapping is apparently all the rage in Russia. It's also, by its nature, a terrifying concept, mostly because it's so vague. The term "kidnapping" describes only the act of being taken away itself, and leaves the rest of your life after that point open to any sort of possibility. Will you get killed? Anally raped? Held for ransom? Sold into prostitution? The future is an open book! With all of that in mind, I stuck to the central parts of Moscow and St Petersburg, and found them to be refreshingly nice places, especially for a country that completely collapsed a couple decades ago. Sure, you can't drink the tap water, but come on - baby steps.

So now, sit back, and let me now take you on a wonderfully xenophobic tour of the strangest moments from my extremely brief and limited Russian experience. For your enjoyment, I've decorated this post with deliciously homoerotic stickers I found of this mulleted Russian pop star. Mullets, by the way, are still high fashion in Russia. Anyway, let's begin...

The People.................

There are a handful of stereotypes about Russian people, and at least one of them is true: those fuckers like to drink. As soon as they get off work - and sometimes before they get off work - they flood outdoor gathering areas and chug beer and vodka on the streets like there's no tomorrow. On my first night in Moscow, while walking through an underground passage near Red Square, my friend and I encountered an absurdly drunk Russian dude, dancing to terrible techno music and shouting loudly. He was wearing one of those big furry Russian hats, and his shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his pasty, sweaty gut, which jiggled as he danced. This is him:



He leapt in front of me and yelled something about Russia. He seemed to desire some sort of response, but I can understand Russian about as well as I can menstruate, so I was clueless. In a situation like that, what else could I do? I handed my camera to my friend, and started an impromptu Russian dance party. Homeboy put his big furry Russian hat on me, and for approximately forty five seconds, we partied like few have partied before. Scope the unbelievably hot dance moves:



That was pretty much the high point of my entire time in Russia.

The Food.................

I'm still not exactly sure what exactly constitutes Russian food, but expectedly, meat plays a heavy role. So how could I pass up a restaurant with an incredibly straightforward sign like this one?



As soon as we saw that, there wasn't really any other option for lunch that day. Inside, the waiters wore strange fur hunting outfits, and every wall was decorated eerily with dead animals and primitive weapons. The whole place was a sort of morbid celebration of carnivores where animals stared at you while you ate their relatives. Near our table were creepy squirrels on the wall, and a genuinely terrifying wolf:



The selection of meat on the menu was no less bizarre than the decorations:



I was going to avoid stating the obvious, but fuck it: "Beaver with cowberry sauce" might be the best new euphemism for a menstruating vagina since "muff marinara." And of course, I tried it. When it Rome, right? Bear was actually my first choice, but they were out. Big rush on bear. So beaver it was. You're probably wondering what cowberry sauce is, and I'm afraid that after eating it I'm no closer to having an answer for you. I can, however, assure you that beaver meat is without question the most nauseatingly awful thing I have ever had the misfortunate of putting in my mouth. I've eaten some gnarly shit in my time, and I have a seemingly iron-clad stomach when it comes to weird food, but this time I nearly puked before the meat even hit my throat. It was impressively terrible. It tasted like disease. Like pure, miserable death. Pretty much what I imagine rat meat tastes like. So, lesson learned: If you ever see beaver on the menu and you're feeling adventurous (or just want an excuse to make a sophomoric sexual pun), don't do it. You will be very sorry. Try the wild boar instead.

The Arts.................

One of my favorite things in Russia is how they've adapted the beloved tradition of the matryoshka - the Russian nesting dolls - for the 21st century. In Russian souvenir stands, the variety of hand-painted matryoshkas ranges from quaint and traditional to utterly, fantastically bizarre. Consider, for example, my new prized possession, the George W. Bush Russian Doll - complete with the "I'm a fucking tool" cowboy hat that characterizes our great President so very well:



That's just the beginning, though. Strangely, Osama Bin Laden has been immortalized in Matryoshka form, with other terrorists and dictators nesting inside him:



You can also find dolls for various Soviet dictators, British and French politicians, and even a Bill Clinton matryoshka with a doll inside for each of his many women. None of them, however, can compete with the selection of dolls from the music world:



The greatest compliment I can give the Russian artisans who created this unique masterpiece is that they have captured with alarming accuracy the spiritual essence of Freddie Mercury's overwhelming gayness. You can almost smell the butt sex. Here's another stunning masterpiece:



When I was a wee child, if a magical fairy had come down from the stars and told me that some day, my journey through life would somehow bless me with a genuine traditional matryoshka doll adorned with a hand-painted portrait of Jon Bon Jovi in all his trashy 1980's glory, and that if I cracked him open it would reveal yet another doll featuring Richie Sambora's stupid fat face, I would have said "No, magical fairy, you are a liar, for I could not imagine a life so good for myself." And yet, here I am. But alas, it gets even better. For even as I delighted in the glory of the Bon Jovi Russian doll, I knew not that my next discovery would be...

THE MANY FACES OF MICHAEL JACKSON RUSSIAN DOLL PLAYSET (OR: THE GREATEST THING EVER CRAFTED BY MAN):


Look at it! Feast upon its greatness!! My favorite part is how only the last and tiniest doll portrays Michael when he was still black.

If my funds had been unlimited, I probably would have bought every bizarre Russian doll the country had to offer. Some of the other ones I saw included Britney Spears, Elvis, Metallica, Kobe Bryant, Madonna, AC/DC, Depeche Mode, and many more.

Assorted Weird Shit................. Here are some miscellaneous photos of weird shit from Russia: These are some super cool Russian music dudes. Most importantly, check the terrifying guy at the top. He wants to eat your soul. It was really nice of Kevin Smith to lend a hand on the bongos, too.
Loosely translated, this Russian t-shirt says "I don't drink with gays." Tied with this for best Russian t-shirt ever.	Speaking of homophobia, it's ironic that the Russian police force, often criticized for violence and discrimination against gays, has "HOMO" written backwards on all their uniforms. LOL @ TEH HOMO PATROL!!!!1
I guess Jessica Simpson has fallen on hard times lately, as she's apparently been forced to take up work as a Russian escort.	This is my new favorite drink.
Here's a strange and incredibly unpleasant-looking trans-species stuffed animal, which I can't imagine has any effect other than to frighten children.	Look how tough this dude thinks he is with his Yoda tattoo.
This is a statue that was on the street. Children were getting their pictures taken with it.	Like Germany, there's a lot of highly questionable fashion in Russia. I saw more than a few women dressed like my Grandma's couch.

Well, that just about concludes our tour of Russia. I'm confident that it accurately represented all aspects of the entire country. If for some reason you want more, I took some arty tourist photos of Moscow and St. Petersburg and put them up here. They're actually very beautiful cities.

And before I go, please enjoy the unique musical stylings of an old Russian dude playing Celine Dion on a saw, interrupted by a strange dancing man:






EDIT: I can't believe I forgot about this - just a few hours after my tragic encounter with beaver meat, I saw this t-shirt at a souvenir stand. I have no idea what it says (my bet is on sexual innuendo), but it was so eerily appropriate I had to pick it up:

More Curiosities From Japan's Porno Shops

[Currently Listening To: UNKLE - War Stories]


Tokyo's Akihabara neighborhood is a sort of Mecca for consumerist nerds. Anyone obsessed, as I am, with toys and gadgets, electronics and video games, robots and action figures would be hard pressed to find a greater place to whittle away their life savings. Last month, I lost myself in Akihabara's endless neon labyrinth of awesomeness for many hours, dashing around wide-eyed like a kid in a candy store. Every corner I turned in every shop was a new discovery of some wonderful thing that I desperately needed more than anything else in the world, although I hadn't known it until then. I left that shiny paradise a much poorer man than I had entered - but I didn't leave it without another trip to the legendary seven-floor adult superstore I discovered two years ago on my last trip to Japan. And since the bizarre treasures I brought home from that trip proved so popular, I figured it's time for another round of show and tell from the the dark, horny underbelly of Tokyo.

It's unfortunate that the giant porn store doesn't allow photographs, because it's hard to capture the uniquely creepy atmosphere with words alone. I think most Americans feel a bit uncomfortable browsing any sex shop, but Japan turns the Weird-O-Meter up a few notches, especially in this store. As with any shop in Tokyo, space counts, so an impressive amount of merchandise has been Tetrissed into narrow little aisles. Any amount of foot traffic in the store makes it extremely difficult to move around, forcing you to silently negotiate an awkwardly physical passage with anyone in your way as you attempt to navigate the claustrophobic walkways. This means you'll have to acknowledge the Japanese businessman carefully studying a strap-on dildo far more intimately than you'd probably prefer.

To make things worse, the store is almost dead silent, except for the bondage floor, where the unnerving soundtrack is the signature high-pitched wail of a Japanese woman crying and screaming from horrors unknown. Unknown, at least, until you notice the television in the back corner, where said Japanese woman, her naked body dripping in hot wax, is being led around someone's basement on all fours by a leash. Her endless crying would seem to be the result of the thirty or so metal clamps attached mercilessly to exactly the last parts of one's body most people would ever choose to clamp. Behind the cash register, polaroid pictures cover the wall the way a New York deli would post pictures of celebrities who had stopped in for a bite to eat. Except, instead of pictures of the cashier giving thumbs up next to Jay Leno or Regis Philbin, these are pictures of the cashier tied up and ball-gagged, bent over with a leather-clad woman sticking various objects into his hairy Japanese ass. It seemed the photos were souvenirs from some sort of bondage party held by people who work at the store. I was never more thankful for the Japanese aversion to touching hands when exchanging money.

Unfortunately, most of the weird new treasures I found this time around were too expensive to buy, and I couldn't photograph them in the store. But alas, through the magical tubes of the internets I was able to find pictures and even links for almost everything I saw, so let's begin the tour...


The Plasma Sperm



The Plasma Sperm is a home microscope kit designed especially for men to view their little testicular tadpoles up close and personal. That's right boys - next time you blow a load all over your stomach looking at celebrity nip slip galleries, don't reach for that dirty gym sock - reach for the Plasma Sperm, and see how your little swimmers are holding up.



I actually bought one of these, but it was a gag gift for a friend, so I was sadly unable to personally test out this ingenious device. However, from the looks of it there seems to be nothing to differentiate it from any other home microscope, save the spectacular packaging.



Unable to read Japanese, I can't exactly tell you what their selling points are with this thing, beyond the irresistible novelty of seeing the would-be offspring you've sentenced to death by Kleenex. This website seems to be selling the Plasma Sperm as a cost effective tool for men with potentially low sperm counts who are trying to conceive a child. But since I don't know Japanese, I'll turn to Google's trusty translator for help:

"This actualizing price low with the contents which are the high function where also the professional is surprised! [sutairiishiyu] design the near future forum the [ku] the [ri] increases the intellectual search heart of the man immediately. In present! In experiment! In investigation! The door to the micro which participates with all scenes."

Ah, that explains it!


Strange Masturbatory Devices

Last time I told you (in way too much detail) about the popular Japanese "vagina-in-a-can," or Vagican, or Cangina as it was later coined. You can see a wide variety of Vagicans on this page. The Vagican is an unapologetically economical masturbatory solution, and thus lacks some of the bells and whistles of more elaborate artificial vaginas. That's where the Vagican Vibrator comes in:



Just insert your favorite Cangina into the machine, and instantly you have a vibrating Cangina! It's kind of like an erotic paint shaker. The translation calls it the "Electric Man," and the best part is that it's not just for Canginas - it's also for rubber hands, creating an amazing vibrating handjob machine:



Or if that looks a little too vanilla, try this uncomfortable-looking ball-grabbing device - I call it "The Clapper":




Anime Love Dolls

One of the more interesting new additions at the sex shop was a section of life-sized love dolls. Love dolls are a sex toy staple around the world, but like everything else, Japan adds its own creepy twists - like favoring plush dolls that look like pubescent anime characters:



The product page for this doll details its eerie face, which will be staring blankly through you as you make love to its unique interchangeable vagina. An interchangeable vagina, you say? How does it work? Once again, Google Translator explains:

When the underpants are made to disperse, the hole for hole installing opens. Because hole hole diameter 45×30mm is small, “the love body Kumi private hole” of selling separately is agreeable.

I see... But what I want to know is how do you wash something like this? It's plush, which is fabric, so there's going to be a certain amount of absorbency when it's exposed to, say, the various excretions of a profusely sweating overweight Japanese man crushing poor Kumi under his weight as he furiously pumps his hairy little ding-dong into her "private hole." It sounds like a recipe for something that doesn't smell very good after a few uses.

If you're looking for something more realistic terrifying, you might want to try this... thing:



This lovely armless lass and her friends (seen at the top of the page) come permanently fixed in a pose that never says no, and an interchangeable face only a serial killer could love:



It also is home to the world's least sexy artificial vagina:



This comic, from the detail page, explains everything you need to know about these high-tech artificial orifices:



These dolls are highly customizable, so if you want to channel your inner psychopath by taking off the doll's limbs, reducing its breasts to undeveloped nubs, dressing it in little girl underwear and giving it a face that says "please Daddy don't touch me there" - you're in luck!



Most terrifying of all is this thing, a doll that should be murdering people in a bad '80's horror movie, not being lusted after by lonely Japanese men:



This doll has, according to its translated page, an artificial hymen for you to break. They really did think of everything, didn't they?

All of the above dolls are fairly deluxe, and will run you into the hundreds of dollars. But if you're on a budget and still need something life-size you can desperately pretend is a real woman, check out the wide variety of weird blow-up dolls. Thankfully, they still retain the creepy anime face:



And, if you're on even more of a budget, you might just want specific parts - like a personal titty-fucker, or a grotesquely hairy rubber rear end vagina thing, or a pocket anus, or a curious little guy I like to call "The Pirana Plant".


Something For The Ladies

Fear not girls, Japan hasn't left you out, and it understands that your desire to masturbate can happen suddenly, where you least expect it. That's why you need to carry your vibrator discreetly - say, disguised as a zuccini, or better yet, an ear of corn:



No one will think it's weird if they see an ear of corn in your purse. Or a carrot, or a banana.

If vegetables aren't your thing, maybe fingers are. Not just any fingers - vibrating fingers molded directly from the hands of a famous Japanese actor - specifically, this guy:



Oh, and in case you were worried, Japan is still the leading producer of the world's cutest vibrators:




Capsule Figures

Toy figures definitely aren't just for kids in Japan. Like last time, I tried my luck in one of the adult-themed capsule toy machines. This time I got a tiny plastic tied-up girl, complete with a box of "accessories" (for size reference, those are laptop keyboard keys behind her):



As strange as it is, the attention to detail is impressive. The girl's box of fun includes what must be the world's smallest sex toys - several dildos, a butt plug, a speculum, anal beads, and the always useful bottle of lube:



All that's missing is a miniature butt funnel.

Well, that's all for this year. For more from Japan's dirty side, keep exploring this site, or just go here and cry yourself to sleep tonight.

P.S. - Even though it's better suited for my previous entry, I can't help but include this Japanese man wearing boobs on his nose. Because Japanese men with boob noses are always funny:

Japan Super Happy Fun Time First Part! Mega Fun Costume Party Explosion!!

[Currently Listening To: Queens Of The Stone Age - Era Vulgaris]

If you've been here a while, you're probably aware of my love affair with Japan - in particular my keen interest in its unnatural abundance of weird shit. I'm far from being one of those mouth-breathing gaijin boys who immerses himself in anime, jacks off to tentacle porn, and is known by a Japanese nickname on internet forums (okay, maybe once I jacked off to tentacle porn, but I swear I was drunk); I just find Japan to be an incredible place with a culture so unique and far-removed from Western sensibilities that it can truly feel like a different planet. Most importantly though, everything in Japan just seems like a lot more fun. Hell, even parking is more fun in Japan.

We dined at a popular theme restaurant called The Lockup, where you are handcuffed and escorted to a prison cell to dine in. Skulls decorate the dungeon-esque walls, and specialty drinks come in syringes and test tubes. We found many, many arcades (long dead in the States, but thriving in Japan) with amazingly sophisticated photo sticker booths, which resulted in grotesquely awesome pictures like these:



I should add those aren't Photoshopped in any way at all - that's exactly how they come out of the photo booth after some fun touch-screen customization. Why we don't have shit like that over here is beyond baffling to me.

Of course, the best part for a nerd like me is the toys. Japan, without question, is home to the coolest and widest selection of toys in the world. So cool, in fact, that some of the toy stores have to be guarded by giant terrifying Japanese puppy monsters:



I went to several multi-level toy stores, notably Hakuhinkan in Ginza, and Kiddy Land in Harajuku, trying to keep my bank account in tact as I gazed in wonder at the endless aisles of incredibly cool stuff. At Hakuhinkan, a whole aisle of goofy Japanese masks and party outfits revealed that Japanese costume parties are probably way more fun than American ones - if for no other reason than the strange popularity of creepy drag costumes for Japanese men:



Although, far scarier is this Japanese Michael Jackson costume I found:



When I was a kid I loved Michael Jackson so much that I dressed up like him for Halloween one year. It's scary to think that my six year old self adored Jacko so much, that if I'd somehow met him, he probably could have talked me into letting him touch my peepee with minimal hassle - no Jesus Juice required. Call me a cheap date.

Anyway, in looking at some of the pictures I took of the costumes, I noticed a web site listed for the manufacturer. That led me to the oddly-named JIG Paradise, a Japanese costume catalog with the most incredible assortment of funny/creepy photos of costumed Japanese men perhaps ever assembled. For example, check out Japanese Britney Spears, looking almost as ugly as the real thing:



Japanese and rockabilly always make for humorously awkward bedfellows:



Even common costume fodder like the trusty "muscle chest" outfit seems much more exciting in a Japanese package:



And then there's these guys:



The costume on the left, in case you're wondering, is a takoyaki - a fried octopus ball - a hugely popular Japanese snack, and a gooey, vomit-enducing nightmare to even the most daring Western tastebuds.

But if that's all a bit too mainstream, maybe you want to attend your next costume party as a cannibalistic turnip, or a... red... thing? What's that meant to be on the right?



And for that matter, what the hell are these costumes? Other than some kind of tree from a Dr. Seuss book, I can't even guess what these might be:



Strangely, the most popular costume in Japan seems to be the simply-titled "party costume":



The party costume a one-piece, one-color outfit worn by dancing, large-headed men whose little ding-dongs poke out playfully from underneath:



Add some metallic colors and face paint, and you get something straight out of my nightmares:



What would you do if those two dudes on the right approached you in a dark alley, just smiling, saying nothing? I would pee in my pants and sob uncontrollably is what I would do. I expect to see them showing up in the next David Lynch movie.

Spend some time browsing around "JIG Paradise" for more awesome photos - they even have costumes for your penis:



Damnit Japan, you've really thought of everything.

Story Time: The Best Little Whorehouse In Amsterdam (Or Not)

[Currently Listening To: Bill Hicks - Salvation]


     In addition to being solicited by one of Boy George's mantoys and watching a transvestite sex show in jaw-dropped disbelief, there were a couple other bizarre stories from Europe that I'd meant to write down at the time, but never got around to. This is one of them... (this is a long post, but I had some time on an airplane this evening and I wanted to write this down so I wouldn't forget the details - read it or don't read it, I don't give a fuck)

     At some point in the middle of our European trip, we stopped in Amsterdam for exactly one night off before we were to catch a flight to Spain the next day. We were tired from traveling but determined nonetheless to make something of the few hours we had in a city with a reputation for trouble. So myself and a couple friends set out on foot towards the famed red light district, where adventure surely awaited us. Or did it? We quickly discovered that even Amsterdam, the city of sin, is dead as balls on a sunday night. After an hour of walking, the novelty of looking at weathered hookers standing in little red fish tanks was quickly fading, and all we wanted was someplace to sit down and have a drink - but every bar seemed to be closed or closing. Only one dingy-looking tavern on the corner of a dark sidestreet showed signs of life - in fact, it was overflowing with loud, drunken European men. Even from the outside it looked filthy and cramped and potentially dangerous, but damnit, it was open, so we decided to give it a shot.

     The entrance to the bar was a tunnel of large, scarred, skinheaded British rugby thugs whose boisterous drunken conversations gave way to silent scowls when we - three pale, skinny, black-clad Americans - squeezed our way past them to get in. Clearly, we were not particularly welcome in this place, but it seemed like it was too late to turn back at that point.

     The bar's interior was truly a wretched hive of scum and villainy; a dark, narrow, rotting dump of a place which looked as old as time and smelled even older. The musty, humid air was thick with cigarette smoke which, along with the succulent aroma of stale beer, vomit, and body odor, seemed to have been collecting on every surface of the room for two hundred years, unchallenged by proper cleaning or ventilation. From somewhere in the back, a dying jukebox blasted a cacophony of Irish drinking music cranked too loud for the capabilities of the weathered speakers. All manors of unsavory characters filled every corner of the room - laughing and shouting and drinking heavily - and many of them cast their eyes suspiciously upon us as we walked in. I felt like C-3PO stepping into the Mos Eisley Cantina - I was half expecting one of the bartenders to point at us and say, "we don't serve their kind here!"

     We sat down reluctantly at the bar, still taking in the breadth of our surroundings. As I adjusted my stool, I accidently bumped gently into the back of a rather large man next to me. He spun around and glared at me with a soul-piercing look of death and said, in the thickest of consonant-free cockney accents: "watch it." I sheepishly apologized and scooted my stool so far in the other direction I was practically sitting in my friend's lap. It was definitely time for some drinks. My friend Dave got the attention of a wiry old man bartender with a big hook nose, a horseshoe of stringy white hair, and an apron so filthy it was stained in colors I didn't even know existed. He spoke no English but understood the word "vodka," and that was all we really needed. He presented us with three shots (mixers, I presumed, were a foreign concept here) which we quickly gulped down (it was the cheapest, most throat-searing vodka I've ever tasted) and asked for another round. The bartender took our dirty glasses, dunked them in a sink filled with dark brown dishwater, and set them back in the stack of clean glasses, where they were immediately picked up by the second bartender and filled anew for some other customers.

     After a couple rounds, we eased up a bit and began to enjoy the atmosphere, spending the next hour or so people-watching, bullshitting, having a great time. By that point the crowd was thinning out, and at 2am the bar's bright overhead lights turned on, announcing closing time in the most disorienting of ways. The question, of course, was now what? Surely there must be somewhere else to go and continue our night. My friend Jason, a couple shots drunker than Dave and myself, called for the attention of the other, English-speaking bartender. He was a large middle-aged man with an accent of undetermined Eastern European origin. He had a barrel chest, a leathery face, a buzz cut, and a bowling shirt with the name "Frankie" embroidered on the breast. He walked over to us, keeping one eye on a trouble-making drunk over in the corner, and told us "no more drink, bar is closed."
     "No," Jason explained, "we want to go to another bar. Do you know anywhere around here that's still open where we could get a drink?"
     Frankie thought about it for a minute, then nodded slowly and said, "yes, I know of good place."
     "A bar?"
     "Yes. It is sex club. But it is bar. It have drinks. It good."
     We looked at each other suspiciously. Jason asked if there were any normal bars still open.
     "No," Frankie replied, "bars all closed. Only sex club open now."
     "But it's a bar, right? I mean, they serve drinks?"
     "Yes, yes, it bar. Drinks. I call car for you. I get you there. You get there, you tell them Frankie send you." Frankie flipped open a beat-up cell phone from his pocket and disappeared to the other side of the bar, apparently making a phone call. Dave and Jason and I huddled together to discuss. Jason assured us that he'd been to one of these "sex clubs" last time he was in Europe - that it was just a bar, but with girls hanging out who you can purchase and take upstairs if you'd like.
     "If you don't want any girls," Jason told us, "you don't have to get any. We can just sit there and drink."
     "So it's a whorehouse?" I asked.
     "No, well... I mean, yeah, but it's classier than that. It'll be just like any other bar. Look, it's the only place to go right now, and it'll be an adventure."
     Dave was not convinced - rather, he was beginning to panic: "That guy is calling us a fucking car right now, and if we get in that car, we're dead. Do you see that guy's watch? That's a fucking ten thousand dollar Rolex. You think he makes that kind of money washing dishes behind a bar? No, he makes money robbing naive tourists like us. We're going to end up in fucking pieces inside Frankie's trunk."
     "Dude, I don't think he's making that much money from robbing tourists. I mean, how many tourists would even come in this place?"
     "Oh come on - 'Frankie sent us'?? That's fucking code for 'gut these witless Americans and dump them in the river'!"
     Just then, Frankie returned, and said, "I have arrange for you. Car is come to get you."
     "Actually," I said, "if you could just give us the address, we'll catch a cab there - we need to, uh, pick up a couple friends."
     Frankie shrugged and said he would get the address for us, then disappeared again.
     "There," I told Dave, "now we don't have to ride in Frankie's car."
     "I still don't trust this guy."
     Frankie came back with an address of gibberish Dutch street names scribbled on a dirty napkin. "You go here, you tell them Frankie send you." Thanks, Frankie. Then he leaned forward, and said, "Tell me - you are in band, no?"
     "Uh, yeah," I said, appeasing him. "Yeah, we're in a band." We weren't, of course, but I guess we looked the part.
     Frankie's face lit up. "I knew this! I am friend with many rock and roll band. Last week I meet Keith Richard from Rolling Stone!" He ducked down behind the bar and pulled out a photo album, then leafed through it until he found a photo of himself standing next to the corpse drummer from The Rolling Stones. "You see? Keith Richard!"
     "Oh, wow. Cool, man. Real cool."
     Frankie beamed, clearly very proud. "I have to clean up bar now. In thirty minute, I see you at club, and then we talk."
     Yeah. Sure. That'll be great. I can't wait for our talk, Frankie. We said goodbye, headed out to the street, and grabbed a cab.

     On the ride to Frankie's mysterious sex club, we grilled the cab driver for clues about our destination. He told us that there were about five of these clubs in the city, some of them more expensive than others. This one, he told us, was not one of the expensive ones. We weren't sure if that was a good or a bad thing, but what did we care - all we wanted was a fucking drink.

     The cab came to a stop on a dark, residential-looking street. "This is it," the cab driver told us.
     "Um... where?"
     "Right there." He pointed to the unmarked door of an apartment building, indistinct from a dozen other doors of a dozen other adjacent apartment buildings. There was no sign, no people outside, no lights on in the windows - no evidence at all that this was anyplace other than the residence of someone who had long since retired for bed. Still, we got out of the cab, determined to investigate. Jason knocked on the door..... Nothing.
     Dave was flipping out: "Dude, this is fucked, this is fucked, we're going to die right now for sure."
     I was beginning to agree, as Jason knocked again with no results. "Yeah, this is pretty weird. We should get out of here." Jason nodded, and we turned to walk back towards the cab.
     Just then, from somewhere above us, a voice shouted "Hey!" We stopped and looked up - a rugged-looking old black woman was leaning out of a window on what must have been the third floor, peering down at us.
     "What you want?" she yelled in a gruff, heavily accented voice.
     "Uh... is this a bar?"
     She paused. "Frankie send you?"
     "Um, yes. Frankie sent us."
     She slammed the window shutters closed. We all gave each other the same look of "what the fuck is going on here?"
     "Dude," Dave said, "let's get out of here. This is fucking weird."
     I glanced over at the cab driver, still waiting for us at the curb. "Yeah, let's go."

     And then, just as our minds were made up, the front door swung open, and there was the old black woman, standing there leering at us. She was probably sixty years old, and had frazzled black hair with streaks of gray. Deep dark circles hung under her eyes, and what few teeth she still had were crooked and yellow. She was wearing a faded silk slip - something that might have been sexy when it was worn by the woman who originally purchased it, thirty years and seven owners ago, before it was retrieved out of a dumpster by the beast who stood before us. It had stains of unknown origin scattered across it, and one of the straps was held together with a safety pin. From the bottom of the slip emerged a pair of scrawny, veiny legs, capped by the filthiest pair of slippers I'd ever seen. "Come in," she told us, in a tone used more commonly for demands than invitations.

     We exchanged glances - should we go in this creepy place? My every instinct was screaming "run for the fucking hills." But Jason, buzzed and adventurous, stepped forward. "C'mon, how bad could it be?" What we saw inside hinted at the answer.

     The room we walked into was dark and empty. There were no people, there was no music. There were no signs of life. In one corner, a ripped up old couch sat next to a dying plant. The other side of the room was mostly occupied by a shoddily-constructed bar with five or six almost-empty bottles of nondescript liquor sitting behind it. Another corner of the room had a pole in it - the stripper kind, not the fireman kind. The air smelled like cigarettes and death.
     "Sit down," the old woman told us.
     "Wait," Dave said, "is this a bar? Is this a club?"
     "Yes, it is club."
     "Are there... people here? Anybody?" I asked.
     "Yes, people here. Sit down. I call girls for you." She disappeared down a hallway and up some stairs.
     We sat down at the small bar and laughed nervously. "What the FUCK is going on here?"

     Then, a shorter, fatter old black woman emerged from the hallway, and walked behind the bar. Acknowledging us only with a disinterested glance, she flicked a switch that turned on an overhead light, which momentarily illuminated the dark room, then flickered, and fizzled out. She pulled out a remote from behind the bar and pointed it at a tiny television mounted high up on the wall above the bar. A fuzzy image wobbled into place on the screen - some sort of European music video was playing. It wasn't up very loud, but at least finally there was something other than dead silence in the room. The woman set glasses down in front of each of us, and then looked at us expectedly. Oh, I get it, she's the bartender. "Vodka," Jason said. Dave and I nodded.
     The woman poured our drinks from a plastic bottle with the word "vodka" written on it with a Sharpie. We toasted, "to Amsterdam," and emptied the glasses quickly. The woman filled them up again and said, "So. You know Frankie?"
     "Yes," Jason said, "we met Frankie tonight. Uh, nice guy."
     She nodded unenthusiastically. We did another shot. Dave, still nervous about the situation, sat down on the dirty couch, his eyes darting around suspiciously.

     Just then, a woman came in from the hallway, and slumped down on the stool next to me. She was probably 21 but looked 40 - rake thin and pale, with greasy unwashed hair, a wart on her cheek, and teeth so yellow they were closer to brown. An expression of disdain carved creases into her weathered face as she sucked on a cigarette like it was oxygen at the bottom of the ocean. And she just sat there, looking straight ahead, not acknowledging us. Squirming awkwardly, I turned towards Jason and Dave and joked, "back off guys, she's mine." Jason snickered. I turned back to the girl and decided I might as well make this entertaining. "Hey there," I said, in the lightest tone I could muster. She continued smoking, without looking at me. "So... uh... where you from?" She turned her head towards me, scowling, giving me the death stare.
     "Mars," she replied bitterly, in a tone you might use to speak to someone who had just killed your mother.
     I chuckled awkwardly. "Mars, huh? It's, uh, pretty hot there this time of year, isn't it?" She grunted unintelligibly and resumed her smoking. For a girl who was expecting me to solicit her for sex, she really wasn't selling herself very well.

     At that point two more girls came in from upstairs, both of them as hideous and unfriendly as the first. One sat down next to Dave, and the other next to Jason. No one said anything. The atmosphere was getting creepier and creepier. I turned to Jason and whispered, "I think we're all getting AIDS just from sitting here. We need to get the hell out of this place. At some point they're going to expect us to pay these girls for sex, and I don't think they're going to be happy when they realize we're not interested in that." Jason nodded. But just as I was getting up to tell Dave the same thing, the old black woman reappeared, and said, "You have girl now. Rooms are upstairs. More girls coming." We all glanced at each other.

     Suddenly the doorbell rang. Now what? Frankie? "I hope that's not Frankie..." Jason mumbled.
     "It is more girls," the woman said, moving towards the door, "I call more girls for you." Great, just what we need. She opened the door, and there was Frankie, wearing a clean shirt and a shiny gold necklace. He said something unintelligible to the old woman, and then the plot thickened: They embraced, and kissed sloppily and passionately. I think I threw up a little when I saw that.
     Frankie looked around and smiled. "You are here! Good! Many beautiful girl for you. Have fun with girls. Then we talk. Much to talk about. I want know about your band."
     Dave, starting to freak out, did exactly what I hoped he wouldn't do, and explained to Frankie, "Look man, we actually don't want any girls tonight. We just wanted a drink. So..."
     "What you mean no girls!" Frankie interrupted, sounding offended. "You must have girl! It is Amsterdam! This is sex club! You will take girl. This one," he gestured at the putrid troll sitting next to Dave, "she do anything for you. Beautiful girl."

     So at this point we find ourselves in a bit of situation. We're in a foreign country, in a seemingly vacant part of town miles away from our hotel, in the creepiest whorehouse in the world, without any means to call a cab, being pressured by a large Russian man to have sex with possibly the ugliest girls in Europe. How the fuck were we going to get out of this one?

     The doorbell rang again. "Ah, that is girls," the old woman said. She opened the door, and to our surprise, it was the cab driver. The cab driver! The fucking cab driver came back. To this day, I do not know why he returned, but it didn't matter. It was a Godsend. His arrival was like some sort of divine intervention. Thank the fucking Lord, I thought to myself. We're saved!

     Immediately I jumped up from my seat. "Oh, hey, Jason, there's the cab driver! Remember you forgot your jacket in the cab?" He looked at me, confused.
     "No, I di--" You could almost see the light bulb illuminate above his head. "Oh, riiiight! My jacket! Yeah, let's go look for that!" We quickly shoved our way past Frankie and the woman and ran outside to the cab. "We'll be right back, just getting something from the car!" The cab driver, confused, followed us outside and watched us leap into the back seat of the car.
     "Come on!" I yelled at the cabbie, "let's go!"
     "You... you want to leave?"
     "YES!!"
     "Fuck, where's Dave?" Jason shouted. Dave hadn't followed us outside.
     "Fuck fuck fuck!" I jumped out of the car and ran to the doorway, leaned in, and said "Dave, we need your help with something out here!" He shrugged and came towards the door. I grabbed his arm and pulled him outside. "Come on, dumbass, we're getting out of here!"

     As we piled into the cab the woman had caught on and ran out the door screaming "Where you going!! You can no leave!! I call girls for you, you have to pay!!" Like a scene from a movie, I yelled at the driver to "step on it" as the woman ran towards the cab. The car peeled out, and we laughed hysterically as we watched the woman run down the street after us, cursing and screaming, with Frankie standing behind her dumbfounded.

     On the ride home, we couldn't stop laughing, about Frankie and the creepy ugly prostitutes and the dingy bar and how, at the end, Dave had actually thought we were going to the car to fetch Jason's jacket. The driver asked us if we wanted to try a better club. No thanks, we told him. We'd had more than enough of Amsterdam.

Doing battle with Japanese toilets - and other oddities from the East

I had some other non-porn-related items of interest left over from my trip to Japan that I hadn't gotten around to posting - so I'm going to do that now.

First of all, Japanese people take pooping very seriously. My hotel room was equipped with one of Japan's notorious electronic bidet toilets, which I affectionately refer to as the Robotoilet. It features a heated seat and a wireless LCD control panel. This is a close-up of the control panel:



The buttons at the top control Robotoilet's most exciting feature: a little motorized device which extends out from underneath the toilet seat and shoots your puckered brownhole with a blast of warm water, sending a brief shiver up your spine and leaving your formerly poop-encrusted asshole feeling oh so fresh and so clean. The sensation is odd but not entirely unpleasant, although it's alarming how accurate the device's aim is. You'll see in the picture that the icons on the buttons represent butts, and water spraying at said butts. I never pressed the pink "bidet" button - that one's for the ladies - but I assume it's the same thing, only aimed a bit differently to target a different hole. In retrospect, since I don't have a vagina it probably would have sprayed my balls, which might have been interesting. Ah well, live and learn.

Anyway, when you've decided that your bits and pieces are good and clean (it's up to the user to determine how long the spray continues), you can finish up with a gust of warm air that comfortably blow-dries your ass. I have absolutely no idea what the LCD panel is meant to display, but maybe it has something to do with temperature of the drier or the heated seat (which, by the way, is a much nicer luxury than you might imagine).

I was so fascinated by the ass-cleaning Robotoilet that I wanted to see it in action when no one was sitting on it. I tried pressing the "wash" button with the lid open, but nothing happened. Robotoilet, it seemed, had outsmarted me, by way of a sensor somewhere which informed it that no one's asshole was present to receive a cleansing. So I waved my hand around near the toilet seat, continually pressing the button until I found where the sensor was. You see that, Robotoilet? I'm smarter than you after all. Holding my hand over the sensor, I watched in delight as the little spraying device extended mechanically from within the toilet, and took its position a few inches underneath where a dirty butthole would normally reside. This is so exciting! It's going to spray! And then it sprayed - all over me. Robotoilet, angry at my sphincter deception, had retaliated with a powerful blast of water! The pressure was far greater than I'd anticipated, and, without an ass to break its trajectory, the stream of water shot high above the toilet seat and out onto my pants and my shoes and the floor. This photograph I found at Wikipedia illustrates the situation pretty well, just imagine me on the receiving end of that spray:



Robotoilet: 1. Rob: 0.

But if Robotoilet is the pinnacle of pooping luxury, the traditional Japanese "squat toilets" are, to use a terrible pun, the dumps. The squat toilets are often found in public restrooms throughout much of Asia, and, instead of the chair-based toilets we're used to, are built into the ground, requiring one to squat over them in order to take a shit. This is what they look like - this is not some kind of urinal, or bidet, but an all-purpose toilet:



I'd heard about these before, but I was strangely excited when I saw one (so much so that I took that picture) - it was one of those "Oh look it's funny how foreign people go poo" moments. Observation, however, was not enough. I wanted to try this thing. I wanted the full experience. So I waited, and waited, and waited, until a rumbling in my bowels told me the time was right, and I rushed to the nearest squat toilet for a one-of-a-kind immersion into Eastern culture. As it turned out, it wasn't as easy or fun as I'd imagined. Maybe I have weak legs, but squatting over something so low was extremely tricky, particularly while concerning myself with keeping my ass out far enough to avoid shitting all over my pants. I had to stabilize myself with one hand against the wall while my skinny little trembling legs (my bad knee didn't enjoy any of this one bit) fought to keep me from collapsing into a pile of my own fecal matter. The sheer effort involved in preventing poop from falling onto my pulled-down pants left me convinced that I was doing something wrong. Do Japanese people take their fucking clothes off when they do this? Do they have some kind of third leg we don't know about, to prop them up? How else does this set-up even begin to make sense? What the hell happens if you have explosive diarrhea? I left the toilet stall with a sore knee, a great deal of questions, and a strange new affection for my old nemesis Robotoilet.

For everything you ever wanted to know and then some about Japanese toilets, check out Wikipedia's page on the subject.

Now let's move backwards up the digestive tract to the subject of food. Japanese food, as you know, can be exceptionally good. It can also be incredibly, inedibly horrific.

I am adventurous when it comes to unusual food - I'll try anything once, just for the experience. Of the many weird food items I punished myself with in Japan, by far the most horrible were "octopus balls." I found them at a small stand in Shibuya which exclusively served these delicious treats - and how could I see a big sign that said "octopus balls" and not need to know what all the fuss is about? I thought maybe they'd be some sort of fried thing, like calamari. I like calamari. Instead, octopus balls were doughy, gooey balls of octopus parts (lots of tentacle chunks and suction cups) and unidentifiable slime, covered with soy sauce, mayonnaise, and unbelievably smelly fish flakes. If that sounds bad, I can assure you that eating it was a thousand times worse. And the smell... Oh God, the smell. I made the mistake of attempting to eat the octopus balls in a car, and the stench of dead fish became so unbearable I had to throw them out the window.

A similar snack we discovered was a giant bag of squid tentacles, sold on a rack alongside potato chips and chocolates. We saw the package - pictured below on the left - and couldn't believe that we'd open it up and find exactly what was shown on the front. Well, we did - the contents of the package are picture below on the right.



They didn't even look real, they looked like rubber toys. They tasted like rubber toys as well, but slimier and fishier. Yes, I tried one. I regretted it.

Tentacled snacks aside, even a couple days of good Japanese food left us craving something familiar. So when we passed a Shakey's Pizza - the last thing we ever expected to see in Japan - it called to us with the promise of delicious American comfort food. I wouldn't even notice a Shakey's Pizza in the states - it's not even very good pizza, I don't think I've eaten there in years. In fact, do they even exist anymore? Whatever the case, Shakey's suddenly seemed like the best thing in the world. Unfortunately, the familiarities we were so craving were nowhere to be found. Shakey's served its pizza buffet-style, with several options laid out on a table for you to pick from. Missing were the staple selections like pepperoni, cheese, sausage, etc. In