Sunday, June 7, 2009

Coolest Restaurant Ever

Having worked in multimedia nightlife event promotion (a fact I'm not entirely proud of), I know that while popularity may be fleeting, there are a shitload of restaurants and clubs that thrive on gimmicks, chicanery, and bullshit in general.

The Demachi location of Gyoza no Osho in Kyoto, Japan is the real deal. From the article in The Mainichi Daily News (via Tokyomango), Gyoza no Osho is a fast food chain serving up pot sticker dumplings, noodles, rice, and other traditional budget-friendly fare. The Demachi location is close to Kyoto University and Doshisha University, and as you can imagine, hungry students are plentful. Sadahiro Inoue, the manager at the Demachi location, has hung up a sign for the past 27 years promising free meals to those who promise to wash dishes for 30 minutes after eating.

Holy Shit.

He keeps in touch with many of his former dishwashers and thinks of them as family - much as an elderly couple took care of him and his wife when they were young, struggling newlyweds. He hopes that they go on to do good deeds for others. Stuff like this makes me still believe in altruism.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Horror Fiction Now in Two-Ply!

I look high and low for stuff that will amuse me and sometimes I find shit that just stops me dead in my friggin' tracks. As much as I would try to resist making inappropriate comments, I remember that old adage, "To thine own bastard be true." So here we go kids. Strap your helmets on, because it's gonna be a bumpy ride, bitches

I've never been one for the trend in movies to assrape a piece from one culture and "adapt" it to fit a different market. It's happened notably in modern horror movies with Japan & the US (e.g. "The Grudge," "The Ring," "The Steaming Crock of Shit"). It's happened in cartoons, and usually those efforts have failed miserably. Still, this doesn't hurt a huge collector's niche market that will eagerly swallow any tripe that's translated, subbed, or fansubbed. Borders Books has sections devoted to anime and manga.

I say this to prepare you for this lovely little nugget.

Let's look at a few points in this article, shall we?
1) "Drop," set in a public restroom, takes up about three feet (90 centimeters) of a roll and can be read in just a few minutes, according to the manufacturer." Given the horror motif, I think "Splatter" would have been a better title. It's more familiar a term to horror, and in the john, what's worse - something that drops or something that splatters?

2) The company promotes the toilet paper, which will sell for 210 yen ($2.20) a roll, as "a horror experience in the toilet." You could get a horror experience in the toilet after a sack of sliders from White Castle. Then again, the former Senator Larry Craig has his own horror experience in the toilet.

3)Toilets in Japan were traditionally tucked away in a dark corner of the house due to religious beliefs. For example, "Holy Shit, Jiri, what the fuck did you eat, you nasty bastard? Light a match!"

4)Parents would tease children that a hairy hand might pull them down into the dark pool below. If your kid is pinching loaves that look like hairy hands, then your kid needs to go to a gastroenterologist toot fucking sweet.

How long do you think it will take some douchebag Hollywood producer (I know, I know - I'm being redundant) to option "Drop" for a movie? And then a musical? And then a movie based on the musical based on the movie based on a fucking roll of toilet paper?

And if this is from the author of "The Ring," does this make "Drop" a "Ring" piece?