Jounetsu/Passion

A friend and I exchanged Saint Nicholas gifts the other day and all I can say is that if my ego weren’t already about five times the size of the moon, the look on her face as she worked out what the paper I had strategically placed inside of the enormous collection of Shakespeare’s works was (she likes Shakespeare–this wasn’t a joke gift), she would have made it grow to at least that size. Maybe bigger, but whatever.

In short, we’re going to see Dir en Grey* live at The Guvernment on February 9th.

To elaborate on what that one sentence means: my good friend adores Dir en Grey, and we missed the chance last year to go see the band perform (with other bands that time) in a big stadium full of people. Now, we’re going to see them as the main attraction (with, I think, two opening bands), in a place that can host no more than 1600 people (and that’s really pushing it, they say). I’m pretty sure she owes me her firstborn for these tickets.

Not to mention, the Guvernment nightclub’s in Toronto, meaning we’ll probably be staying there the whole weekend (as opposed to staying there only for the Friday and then leaving as soon as possible to go back home). I’m pretty sure I can work it out so that we stay with my cousin that weekend (the same cousin who was cool enough to watch Gokusen with me), and then we’ll thus also be able to get in some good shopping time or something. Which is usually the only reason I ever go to Toronto, so everything works out in my mind.

I’ll be honest and admit that the present was as much for her as it was for me, but hell, I’m still going to bask in the glory of being the universe’s best friend ever. I have no idea what I’m going to get her next year, because nothing can really top this gift…

*Dir en Grey is (I think) a fairly popular J-Rock/metal band from Japan.

I often find myself in some kind of a predicament due to my absolute inability to satisfy my own curiousity. I never seem to find enough information about an interest to make me stop once I come very close to the point of obsession.

I’ll submit my recent obsession–Kamenashi Kazuya.

Originally, I didn’t even know who he was. I mean, I knew the band to which he belonged (KAT-TUN) through Wendy, who is an ardent supporter of KAT-TUN’s Akanishi Jin, and who happens to publish (whether on purpose or not, I don’t really know) everything they do–including their adventures in the world of acting.

I first encountered Kamenashi-sama through a drama that Wendy was re-watching (Nobuta wo Produce), and was absolutely blown away by how naturally he seemed to act on stage. So, the obsessive little ferret that I am, I dug around at D-Addicts to see if he was in anything else I could get my grubby little fingers on. Just my luck! He was in a show called Gokusen 2! And it was about teaching! Just perfect for a prospective teacher, I thought, since I didn’t believe myself at quite the stage of fanatic that I probably already was.

I know I’ve hit the stage of fan now: I actually watched Gokusen first, and now I’m watching Gokusen 2 (episodes 8-10 have yet to be released with English subtitles), and I’ve downloaded almost every KAT-TUN song I could find… and I like almost all of them (except for the ballads, but that’s more a personal preference thing–I’ve never been that much into J-ballads anyway).

That said–a review of KAT-TUN’s Best of CD will probably be put up here some time in the near future (maybe on the weekend). Why? Because I can’t stop listening to it. I’ve probably listened to the thing consistently for the past two days I’ve had it.

I’m probably not going to take this fervent admiration of mine as far as I did for others (Gackt, Malice Mizer, Nightmare, and Zeljko Joksimovic come to mind), but it’s useful for those around me, I believe, to know that I’ll probably try mentioning KAT-TUN or Kazuya-sama at least once in every conversation I have. With anyone. So be prepared.

I don’t think I’ll ever quite get the whole “emo” (A.K.A “emoh”) mindset. I mean, before, it was pretty damned cool. Stood for emotional. Was a style of music deemed emotionally-driven punk rock. Okay, so that doesn’t quite make sense, since all punk rock was emotionally charged (you have HEARD the Sex Pistols, right?), but whatever. I mean, bands like Beefeater, Grey Matter, Fire Party, and Marginal Man were the leaders of emo in the first generation (I’m talking 1985-ish here). And they were pretty fucking awesome. They were angry, they screamed, they sounded like LSD-addled versions of Johnny Rotten. Which means they weren’t bad.

Then came the new wave of Emo. The, “I listen to Bullet for my Valentine,” version. And everything went straight to Hell. Emo’s not cool anymore. It’s not some off-shoot of punk anymore. What is it now? A room full of striped shirts, thick-framed glasses, Fifties running shoes, and passive, resigned self-loathing. I mean, get a grip, you morons. If you wanted to join a culture of self-loathing, why couldn’t you have joined the new Goth scene being perpetuated by those stupid kinder goths who sit there with their black makeup and poorly-done white face paint? The ones who go around saying things like, “I’m forever doomed to suffer from the Hell in which I live,” and think it’s a cardinal fucking rule not to smile? Why’d you have to go and ruin another, musically-good culture (I’m sorry, but Sisters of Mercy and everything except for Siouxsie and the Banshees and a couple of the Bauhaus songs sucked ass, Goths of the world)?

Way to ruin emo for me, you idiots. Christ. What I still don’t understand is how emo could have gone from anger at the man to anger at oneself and from kick-ass angrier punk to general angst and depression. It went from cool and aggressive to, well, just plain gay. Even girls are less emo than the emo boys these days. Yeah, we’re passive-aggressive and hate ourselves, but we still bitch at people and gossip behind their backs like there’s no tomorrow. Whereas emo people are too caught up feeling sorry for themselves and crying as they listen to something like Copeland or Yellowcard because those pussy-ass bands, “know exactly how [they] feel.” I mean, can you feel the anger and hatred boiling up inside of me? Emo? Worst. Social Class. Ever.

It makes me wish I was a rivet-head. Then, I could kick the shit out of those stupid little “emo” dinks. You know, just go completely apeshit on them. And the best part is they wouldn’t even defend themselves. They’d probably just go curl up in a corner and lie in the fetal position crying to themselves about how sad and emo they are.

Pussies.