George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7mo ago
Quick question: WHY?
Like many, I have Spotify, and pay for it to avoid the constant ads and improve the sound quality. Like many, I have it on my television because the March of Time has somehow created a situation where I have no stereo player in my home. I still have CDs that sit on a shelf unused and probably need to be sent to a recycle shop or sold or thrown in a landfill. I also have some (gulp) LPs but they adorn my office shelves like tchotchkes of a bygone area--even the millennial guy I know who collected vinyl has stopped doing so because it's "too expensive." I threw out my last turntable about 15 years ago but I keep the records. Sentimental, probably
Back to Spotify. I was making a holiday playlist for putting up our tree this year. I prefer the oldies to the newies, and the medium oldies like Driving Home for Christmas. Anyway as I was browsing I decided to look (and this is on my TV app) at the various genres thinking maybe there would be one called holiday.
There wasn't. What there was, well. That's why I decided to post this.
What there was were the expected playlists like Made for You (which had songs that are algorithmically linked to the account meaning songs my wife and sons click on). Also the expected K-Pop, Top Hits, Jazz, Hip Hop, In the Car, Chill, Punk, Party, Blues and even Educational, Kids & Family, Latin, and Ambient. All this is fine.
Then I saw a Playlist called Glow. Hm. Glow? Turns out this is subtitled "Songs from the Community." The community being the ineffable LGBTQ+ community. There is also a Spotify-produced playlist called EQUAL. This one? You guessed it. Songs exclusively made by women. Then there was FREQUENCY which, no, wasn't the top requested songs, but was a playlist of music made exclusively by black folks. The subtitle: "All Black like the Cover of Essence."
Question is Why? Why is this needed? Audiophiles want genres that have something to do with the music, no? Who decides to listen to music just because it was produced/written/performed by a gay group? Is this just Spotify pandering? And if so, who signed off thinking this was a swell idea? What does the performer being gay have to do with the sound? Do people actually care about this?
My best steelman is that they are trying to signal boost "underrepresented groups" but of the three groups mentioned arguably only women are underrepresented in music.
Theories appreciated.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2yr ago
Today on the morning train nothing of import happened. This is not unusual. I should say nothing happened that would make me want to write a haiku, or villanelle, or sestina, or whatever. It was a usual day. The usual day is as follows:
Wake: 4 a.m. Yes, 4 a.m. This is 5 days a week. You get used to it, even at my age. Do the usual hygiene things. Suit or whatever has been laid out by me the night previously, so insert myself into whatever getup I imagined.
Walk: To the train. I used to bicycle, but my bicycle of ten years eventually turned into a pile of moving junk and was a deathtrap with capricious gears and dubious brakes, so when the recycle truck guy came by chanting his chant for computers, bicycles, old fridges, I flagged him down, scraped off my ID sticker, and threw my bike in the back of his truck. Now I walk. This only sucks if it is raining. The walk at that hour is dark as a motherfuck in the winter, but this time of year is almost bright, and I find my best clear thinking happens at this time. All the rebuttals I might have made. all the best arguments I might make, every clear thought and esprit d'escalier I might have had in the previous week or day or two crystallizes at this time, on this walk. I see no one and say nothing and walk the whole length in silence. Sometimes I quietly sing Billy Joel's My Life and think of the proper piano chords I might play and that will get me a third of the way.
Arrive: At the station around 4:45. Yeah I get ready fast. It takes about 20 minutes to walk. Train leaves at 5:03. On the train is a bald construction worker guy who is always on the platform with me. He always squats on the platform, and plays apparently some inane mobile game on his phone--I heard the wakawaka sound this morning as he was playing it. One asshole old man who wears a bucket hat and button-down shirts with a suit. One woman with long, perfect legs down the end whose face I have never seen but who looks vaguely, from a distance, like a Japanese Ingrid Bergman to my Humphrey Bogart. I'll never speak to her. I love my wife, after all.
Ride: The train. The first of three. The first is the longest, a local, lasts around 40-ish minutes. I typically read a book, browse The Motte (TM), or do something like DuoLingo so I don't lose my place in the Diamond League.
Ride again: The next train This one is more of a subway and lasts about 10 minutes. For some reason this one is always overly cold. In the afternoon on the return version of this same commute you can sometimes see the prostitutes from Tobita shinchi heading home. That's a whole other post.
Eat: I have a coffee, usually from the McDonald's. Sometimes there is an old woman there who reminds me of Bathilda Bagshot from the Harry Potter movies--if you don't know what that means I guess you don't have kids the age of my sons, which is fine. Bathilda Bagshot in the films is actually a serpent, and there is a scene where she transmogrifies into said serpent (we later learn its name is Nagini, and even later learn this serpent is actually not Bathilda nor a serpent but originally a fairly hot Asian woman). Anyway that scene where the old woman reverts into a giant Anaconda-like magic snake thing is disturbing as hell, as far as disturbing CGI snake images in fantasy films go--and this woman at the McDonald's, I am not saying she is a magic evil snake Horcrux, but if somehow it turned out that she were let me say I would not be surprised, not in the slightest. Her voice is too deep. She possesses a dark look in her eyes; her irises and pupils are the same oily black. Not cool, is what I'm saying. Her sclera appears to be dun-colored. Something seems really really wrong. It's probably in my head.
Ride again: The final train. This train arrives 6:21. On it one finds those youthful souls returning from nights out. Girls in immodest dress, once two guys in tightish jeans holding hands as they slept on the bench with their mouths lolling open. Once a girl with raven hair and sneakers, looking like what I would imagine a girl who had spent some time in LA might look, lay half fallen over on the bench, drowsing off a drunk or a really good time, and whatever Bluetooth or other technical function allowed her Iphone to play music out of something besides its speakers had come undone, and her phone lay splat on the floor blurting out Hip Hop. Big no-no here.
Ever the hero, I walked over and sat beside her, knowing enough that I couldn't touch her even to wake her. I nevertheless tried to accomplish this by speaking to her with authority, lowering my voice intentionally, but keeping a kind tone. They say if you hear your own name when you are asleep you will wake--this is probably bullshit. Nevertheless I tried Yuki, and Misato, and Moe and similar, but nothing worked. She kept sleeping, her phone kept blatting out its insufferable American hiphop.
Eventually I get to my final stop and ride the bus to work, which as it happens is a hospital. There is a a cardiologist who rides the same bus as I do, but I never speak to him and he never speaks to me. I think we both realize that if we ever did speak we would have to then speak every day for eternity, and who wants that? Or maybe I'm just a rude shit.
This started out with me imagining it would be more interesting than it actually is. If you got this far, thank you. Happy Friday, all. I really enjoy this place, as crazy as some of you drive me with your bullshit.
Echoing @OracleOutlook, I will say the Japanese Tokyo Disneyland /Disneysea experience is one of perfect Baudrillard hyperreality--clean, well-swept, devoid of stench, and as ordered as a massively crowded theme park can probably be. Disney Sea is distinct as its own (albeit adjacent) park with its own ticket, in which alcohol may be served--and is, at pretty steep prices. Still from experience no beer is too expensive after a day of hustling around watching Mickey parades and making sure you're at the line at the right time because you bought that one ticket three hours ago that says you can line up at point X.
I've always wanted to go to that Florida Star Wars exhibit (the last time I was at Disney World was pre-Epcot, if that tells you anything). Just to see that Millennium Falcon. My own boys, alas, are aging somewhat out of the age of wonder (I am not certain I ever have) and the days when we took them in costume around Halloween to TDL are behind us (older boy was Luke Skywalker, younger Darth Vader without mask--masks on patrons aren't allowed, and only Disney character costumes, and these only at certain times of the year).
I will note that I don't remember seeing many middle-aged women in Mickey ears, but high school and twenty somethings by the bargeful. The Japanese female obsession with Disney is real. I try hard not to armchair analyze it. But I suspect it has to do with the usual shutting out the harsher realities of growing up. I once dated a girl (well, young woman, she would've been around 27, a flight attendant then) who related to me a story of how when she was at TDL "Mickey" hugged her and she cried. "But why cry?" I remember asking, and her response put paid whatever dinner it was I had bought that night: "Because I knew he would never hurt me."
I was apparently unable to match Mickey and I remember the night of our inevitable breakup as she stood there telling me she was fine just having sex, she didn't mind anything, she just didn't want to be alone--and I, of course, left her alone. At that exact moment the twin towers were coming down, September 11, 2001. Vibrates in the memory. Music, when soft voices die, etc.
It's interesting to read other women who aren't Japanese have this same preoccupation with Disney. A deep well, no doubt.
Edited for typos
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2yr ago
Without the metaphorical trappings I believe the principle is "Make whatever point(s) you may have without acting like an asshole to people even if you think they're wrong, outgroup, of presumable lower IQ, etc."
The problem is some people legitimately cannot fathom why this is necessary, and/or have been acclimated to assholery by years of online interaction, and therefore don't even realize what's happening.
Frankly this rule is one of the reasons I joined this sub (and followed it over here.)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1yr ago
Paging @CanIHaveASong
To OP, look I am no professional, but one of the best bits of advice I ever read was that if you get ghosted, just move on. Sometimes no response is, in fact, a response. You're right, it isn't fun to be ignored, it sucks, it's demoralizing. But it doesn't matter.
If you want reassurances, here they are:
- This has happened to every guy who has tried this, more than once, at one time or another.
- If she is your sorta friend, as you say, you will see her again someday. A woman's prerogative is to change her mind. Just don't feel the need to bring this ignoring up as if it's important. It isn't.
- These hurt feelings are just chemicals inside your brain.
- Women could have a dozen reasons for not responding. They are in a relationship with someone else, they secretly like someone else, they don't want to hurt your feelings and have no idea how to respond, they fear the endless back-and-forth if they do say no and you persist, they fear some other frightening reprisal because Male, or something else.. Don't take rejection as a personal attack on your own desirability.
- It's okay that you are asking this question and asking it here. It shows you're trying to figure things out the way we all do. Don't feel bad about any of this, you'll get better at interactions with women as you mature and develop confidence.
- Good for you for giving it a shot and not just pining away.
Without knowing you, her, or how you interact it's impossible to comment on your stated question of what's wrong with your message. It comes off to me as cloyingly sweet, which is of course no crime. But depending on how you two interact there could be a humor I'm not getting. You don't need a sanity check, but you do need to put your focus elsewhere than this particular person, at least for a good while.
Finally: Send no more texts to this person, ever, for any reason, if you do not receive a reply. If you've already done so, stop. 🛑
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11mo ago
The CNN headline on my tablet: "Trump Speech Interrupted by Secret Service." You couldn't make this shit up.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1yr ago
I love reading through these. I feel like I'm on here a lot and for a lot of time but I didn't see the vast majority of these the first time around. One of the best features of this site, I think.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4mo ago
Sam Altman and his husband had a kid.
Let me say outright I wish him, him, and the child well. Certainly growing up in a wealthy family affords a child many benefits that would not be had without that wealth, so good for the kid. Let me also say I am, as a person tangentially involved in medicine and medical science, not adamantly opposed to IVF, personally, though admittedly I have not spent a lot of time poring over the moral aspects of it. It seems like one of those things that generally contributes toward the good, inasmuch as it is creative, in the most literal sense of the word, and not destructive. My mind might be changed by a persuasive argument.
What irks me though, is that in the linked article there is no mention whatsoever of the mother of this child, the woman who carried the child in her womb, from whose egg the child generated (whether you view this as the mother or not is of course up to you.) It is as if the two men just somehow had a child, as if that is the most natural thing in the world, and there should be no questioning of it by anyone for to do so would be, I don't know, wrong or backward-ass.
Yet here I am, wondering. Should there not be at least a rhetorical nod toward the woman, a phrase in some sentence saying that the child was brought into the world via gestational surrogacy--a good way to introduce the term into people's vocabulary, the regular working men and women among us who may have never thought of the term. Yet there is nothing. Nada y pues nada. Can anyone steelman this beyond the assertion that it is a required newspeak in our Brave New World?
If I were to be dramatic, I'd say a woman has been literally erased here-- a maternal unpersoning. I know at least one woman (white, American) who "had" a child via gestational surrogacy--she is now both divorced and living about 4,800 miles (7,725 km) apart from her daughter. Life's a bitch. I never outright asked her about the woman who carried the child to term, though I know that this was a so-called "commercial surrogacy" and the woman who did carry the child was from India, probably without much financial means, and the whole affair was generally unpalatable to me. But I loved the (egg) mother as a sister, though she is unrelated to me, and still do, though she is a little nuts.
But Altman and Mulherin are both men, and thus the egg came from neither of them. I don't know, I just wish the goddam media would throw me a bone sometimes.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10mo ago
I don't know maybe it's age but all I can think of here is how nice it was to be in a room with my parents listening to them talk about whatever, when they were both alive.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11mo ago
As an American abroad for some time it's odd to see the US from the outside in the current era. There's no conspiracy speculation in Japan that I have heard of in the news regarding Biden's health, but it all seems bizarrely obviously a set-up in banana republic-type proportions.
Biden says he will only step down for health reasons. It is conveniently announced that he has COVID. He vanishes, tweeting out his disinclination to stand for re-election (though does not mention health anywhere in said tweet). In fact no one really mentions his health except to say he is on meds. Word trickles down that his staffers are surprised by his tweet.
His next presence is days later in a voice (not Zoom, not video) call, of course praising Harris as the inheritor of the mantle. A happy, positive old man gracious praise of Harris, who seems tickled pink and gushes how Joe and Jill are just like family (who gives a f**k?) It's bizarre. Am I just online too much or reading too many conspiracy types? Even taken at face value this all seems odd.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1yr ago
I don't have an insightful answer to your question but I hate tats myself. A lot of my friends, even if roughly my age, have them, and the tattooing stories all sound inane to me.
The popular belief about Japan is that tattoos are a signal of organized criminal membership (Yakuza) and this has been my own experience. The view that Japanese therefore find tattoos "scary," however, I'd take issue with. Japanese are very aware generally that tattoo cultural norms are different outside Japan, and seeing a tattooed foreigner isn't particularly traumatizing, but probably does seem like a class signal. In other words because the yaks generally attract the socially disaffected (e g. burakumin or Zainichi Korean, etc.) and then gang members have the irezumi (traditionally tattooed with bamboo needles) sleeves and back-tats etc., to be seen tattooed is to be unconsciously associated with the dregs of society. Like seeing someone with a gold incisor, even if you know they're not in some gang or whatever.
For this reason many places where all or part of the full body is on view such as pools, hot spring resorts, or sento (public baths) have signs everywhere that tattooed patrons are forbidden. (Although I've seen at least one Japanese man at a hot spring with a tattoo on his shoulder, and to my awareness nothing was ever said to him and he certainly was not kicked out. Then again he was a big dude and onsen staff are generally dainty women or old spent dudes. If tattoo guy had the stones to wade into the hot spring without fear of social rebuke, he pretty much was home free.)
There are also sento baths that do not forbid tattoos and these are usually straightforward, no-nonsense public baths in dingier areas.
I was raised to see tattoos as trashy. My dad was in the Navy and apparently this view lodged in his mind. He also liked Catholics, though wasn't one himself, because he said the Catholic guys were the one group that didn't immediately visit brothels at port. (I cannot verify the accuracy of this.)
Back on topic: Lots of young Japanese women now seem much more interested in tattoos than their parents, but only seemingly those already immature in their social development or mildly out-of-step anyway (e.g. they are also interested in foreigners.) For guys if you're a musician or otherwise resolved to stay on the fringe (artist, bar owner, etc.) you can get away with tats, probably.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1yr ago
I don't get the fascination with her. At all.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1yr ago
Man here.
A properly done Ironman suit would cost 2K easily, more if you're hardcore purist who wants fit, accuracy, and lighty up thingies that really drive the women wild. Poorly done unpainted knockoffs a few hundred bucks.
I've a Graflex 3-cell flash tube I bought in 2001 for about 150 bucks that, along with the bubble strip from an early 70s Exactra calculator I also acquired, now looks like this. though that link is not my photo. Total sunk cost about 250 bucks, worth about twice that or considerably more now were I to strike while the iron is hot. (It's not as hot as it used to be.) Which I won't.
I am far in the low ranks of true geekdom, but I am definitely in those ranks somewhere. You shall know me by my Follano stormtrooper armor, though that's a whole nother conversation.
Ah. Let me explain myself. As well to ＠5434a
Because I often make typos it is possible one word seemed to be typed mistakenly, but wasn't. The word on. On (恩) means basically when i do you a favor, you owe me some sort of favor in return (恩返し) . To "accrue undesirable on" then would be to do [something] for someone where they then had a debt to me. My example in this case is the tending of the park--trimming the bushes, weeding unsightly plants, etc. For me to do this alone, in a way for the benefit of the neighborhood, might seem just civic responsibility for an American (or even just a harmless way for a neighbor to pass the time). In Japan however this puts everyone else in the neighborhood in the awkward position of being ever-so-subtly in debt to me, particularly if I am out there often enough, or seem to be applying myself strenuously.
A neighbor who brings you a bag of tomatoes from her back garden has been generous, but you'd do well to in some way take her kids a basket of muffins or whatever. Not the very next day, no need to be too obvious about it, but without too much delay. This is how the wheels of social intercourse stay greased.
None of this is peculiar to Japan, of course, except in the way these norms are adhered to by pretty much all but the most socially inept, fools, or, yes, foreigners. I have lived here long enough that some of this has finally been internalized.
I suspect in the public sphere (certainly in business, at least) the degree to which this kind of behavior scales could dance very close to what would be considered corruption. Reams of text have been published advising non-Japanese how to interact with Japanese representatives--and Japanese as well adjust their norms (at times perhaps hamhandedly) to suit "foreign" behavior. (Scare quotes because for many Jaoanese that term seems to be a monolithic catchall, as if all "foreigners" have the same kind of behavior.
The neighborhood, within about a year, formed a committee of residents represented by a dozen people (who rotate out and in every year or two) and one of the projects the committee created was to have people weed the park. What then happened was that because so many had been recruited to do this cleaning there were more hands than necessary, resulting in a lot of grass that should have stayed in the soil to keep it from eroding getting yanked up and bagged by well-meaning people who couldn't just loaf when there was ostensible work to do. Circle of life.
It's tempting for me to dismiss as odd and dysfunctional a lot of the ways Japanese culture(s) seem to work, but then I have only to think of my own upbringing to realize I shouldn't be casting stones.
If none of this makes sense I will try and clarify.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2yr ago
Listen I am all ready to walk you through your entire relationship from this point forward, just to see if my madskillz actually work. Short of that, if you wisely choose to decline, I would say to you that you may possibly be approaching commitment assbackwards. Let me explain what I mean.
At some point you need to project into eternity. Do you want kids? Or, a kid? As a father myself twice over (both boys) I would say that there is nothing quite like it--you imbue them with the movies you grew up on, your music, your food tastes, your general approach to life, pretty much everything. They will no doubt eventually reject much of it, but there was nothing like that first time I sat my sons down and we all watched the 1963 version of Jason and the Argonauts and they asked to watch it again, eventually knowing the music as well as I do. There was the added benefit that they understood more of the Greek myths that I read to them when they were too young to know anything but sounds.
This is not me being flippant. Having children is huge. It is, arguably, why any of us are here. So ADHD. Believe me, you can not have ADHD and still get bored AF with your significant other. As it happened I was utterly smitten with my wife during our courting phase, and even now I have moments (usually improbable times such as when I leave early in the morning and see her lying in bed with her mouth open, having stolen all the covers) when I love her completely, when I would die or kill to protect her. But there are also those moments where she pisses me off, where I think WTF woman? There are moments when I walk through the city and see 20 women who I would rather know carnally than my missus. But I realize, or--have realized, late in life--that all of that is bullshit.
This romantic gloaming is, I would argue, inevitable. Do not imagine pairing yourself with a female will be roses and lust ad aeternum. Perhaps it is, for some. But I seriously doubt it.
Where does this leave us then? Other than having read the ramblings of an old man, that is?
Well, back where you are right now. I am not saying you should throw yourself onto the pyre of forever love, but I am saying: Don't be such a doubter. Marriage ain't about the one true one. It's about making a goddam decision and choosing. And just like the cheese tray that comes around, there's always a bunch of camembert, or gruyere, or Stilton, or havarti, or even American fuckin' cheddar. As my former Aussie roommate of 20 years ago (thrice married) once said: "At some point you gotta take your hand off it."
I don't typically post primary level comments in CW threads but I was having a conversation with my wife last night that prompted me. It's not particularly explosive and treads much of the same ground as many more nuanced posts before it.
Last night I'm in the middle of sorting out a chicken lasagna among other things and I get this text from my wife: Something shocking happened at work today.
I checked the clock. I sleep very early most nights and I calculated roughly what time she'd be getting home, added how much time she'd need to decelerate and actually sit down for dinner, how long after that she'd get the story tellable in her mind, then how long it would take to hear it, factoring in my own responses, if any, her reactions to those, and keeping in mind the obvious unknown variable that maybe the story would, indeed, be shocking. I knew I'd be sleeping later than usual.
Because none of the trivialities of my day mean anything to anyone here I'll get to the point. A temp worker at her company under her tutelage has made noises that she may be leveling some sort of harassment suit (edit: complaint) (power probably). Not against my wife, but against her direct supervisor. The reason? This temp worker has three complaints that I can tell:
-
She was said to resemble a well-known (by other people, not me) celebrity chef on her first day. It may be relevant that I do not know what this chef looks like or whether being compared to her might be taken as an insult or compliment. This, to me, seems to matter, but maybe it doesn't, as simply the acknowledgement that the temp worker has an observable appearance and that this appearance has made some impression may, in the end, be the sin at hand.
-
She was asked if she is on Facebook.
-
She was asked her birthday.
2 and 3 were asked because apparently the supervisor was prompted by Facebook to "friend" a person with the same name as the relevant temp worker. Unsure and with no profile photo to go on, but assuming it might be her as the kanji for her name is rare and matched that of the recommended person, he unwisely and perhaps naively made his inquiry. I assume he asked her birthday for the same reason (that seems to be the case.) All of the above was done in full earshot and view of my wife and others in the office. This suggests it was not a hamhanded prelude to some attempt at making contact for an out-of-office assignation.
All this has erupted in now a series of slightly delayed-reaction texts from this woman to her work group (of which my wife is a part.) Asking whether the company has any sort of guidelines on this (my wife used a different word than guidelines but I can't remember it) and prodding that her complaints be sent up the company chain-of-command. Presumably to the mainest of main offices. The first step of this is already occurring.
I sat there listening and kept thinking to myself how Japan always seems to import the worst of American culture. From shitty hiphop styles (I'm old) to self-entitled behavior when dealing with service personnel (many convenience stores now have a term: customer harassment [kasuhara] because people are such assholes to workers. And I mean assholes. Like getting the worker to dougeza because of some imagined infraction. It doesn't help that this is a country where people commit suicide over hurt feelings.) To now a willingess to go Defcon 4 over what, to me, seem the mildest of social grievances. The triumph of HR.
I've no idea if this woman has a legitimate legal case. Recently a Hyogo prefectural governor came under fire for the kind of inappropriate behavior one would expect from a Thai royal. Or is it? In some ways it's par-for-the-course in what has always been a very hierarchical society. Sempai lord their authority over kohai who grumble but then become sempai a year later and do the same thing to their underlings. But the Hyogo guy's vwry public scandal has put the term powaah hara in the public lexicon.
But then I don't necessarily expect much from the law here, which sometimes seems applied with such bizarre reasoning it makes me wonder if I should GTFO now.
The terms sekuhara, powaah hara, kasuhara and whatever else are all abbreviated forms of borrowed terms from English (sexual harassment, power harassment, customer harassment, etc.)
Anyway we'll see. My wife is upset because she wonders at the repercussions on her supervisor, whom she likes, and with whom she has a friendly working relationship. "If it becomes like this," she said, "how will anyone be able to work together at all?"
Possibilities: I'm hearing this at least once removed. Tone, language used, body language, eye contact, all are unknown to me (but will also be unknown to anyone who adjudicates this). Maybe this supervisor guy leers at the tempworker and my wife just isn't aware of it. Maybe the temp company assured her that at this work no one would ever ask her anything personal about anything and now that's happened. Maybe the temp worker is aware of some other infractions that have occurred in her sight and this is her way of bringing all into the harsh cleansing light. Maybe, as Jordan Peterson has suggested, men and women just may not be able to work together, despite common sense western (and eastern) assumptions.
I nodded. She was right: It was shocking. But I slept earlier than I had expected.
For years as a younger man I considered myself allied with feminist causes. In undergrad back in the day I marched in a Take Back the Night rally, I took at least two women's studies courses in grad school (one about language and sex differences, which was interesting, though my professor marked me down I believe for a write-up of a conversation I had recorded in which I suggested the female actually seemed to have the power, another I can't even remember the name of the class but what it taught me, what I learned from taking it, was no doubt not at all what I was supposed to have learned. I learned the women in it were mostly self-entitled princesses. Yes I was the only male in the class.)
I am not remotely at the level of misogyny one at times seems displayed in these pages (I use that word to mean essentially "woman hating," not in any esoteric or typically progressive sense) but my views on the fragility and vulnerability of women and the horribleness of men have, let's say, altered.
I'm still pretty moored to how I was raised in my perspective, but how I was raised in a way conflicted with the approach of seeing women as tough-girl badasses that was dinned into me over the years of my younger self. Living in Japan, and perhaps having witnessed the situation of women in places like Thailand, I have to say many of the tropes about paygaps and women not being taken seriously and extremely limited options for women are very true, or at least much, much more true than in, say, the US, which strikes me as a demented zoo when it comes to what seem to me to be mainstream views on men and women (I am not even getting into trans).
None of this is very specific but my bus is arriving so I am ending in typical abrupt fashion.
Edit because this is infuriating word salad: My mistake was buying into the idea that Women Are Wonderful. But even with this mistake in mind I still like women, just not in the same dewy-eyed, trusting way. No. More in a stern-eyed, doubting way.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1yr ago
Am I the only one who couldn't get through this? I like longform posts and I'm not uninterested in the trials of young women but I found myself skipping ahead and losing patience.
Part Deux of this post
The return commute from work is more hectic--the crepuscular calm of the 5:03 (edit: I realize belatedly that crepuscular actually means twilight, which would be the opposite of dawn, but I am not changing it because I like the consonance.) is miles away from the rush hour bustle of the late afternoon trains--I avoid the buses on this end, usually walking the leisurely half hour to the station, then again walking home on the last leg, which takes about 20 minutes. I do a lot of walking, every day. I have come to understand that although walking burns just as many calories as running (at least in the brief walks I take), it doesn't provide any real sort of cardio unless the walk is strenuous, and even then, once you reach a certain threshold, in order to get the benefits you may want you probably have to go ahead and run. I don't. It's just too damn hot.
We are in summer now. Started June 21st. It hit 90 on my walk to the first return station the other day. I had foregone the jacket and tie for a polo shirt like Daniel Craig in Haiti in the misjudged and underrated film Quantum of Solace. When I am LARPing in that particular getup I like to scrape my keys off the table in Craig fashion, and wait patiently for someone to ask if someone is a friend of mine, so I can remark without humor: "I don't have any friends." As it happens I do, but the line was a good one. If you haven't seen the movie you have no idea what I'm on about.
The first train ride takes me to a commuter hub, where you can actually travel to one of the international airports in my area. You see a lot of Chinese, Korean, Thai, probably other Asians as well. I recognize the first three first on dress and style, then usually on language--I don't understand Chinese, Korean, or Thai, but I know them when I hear them. The Chinese tend to sit on the train expansively, two members of the family on one side, two others on the other. They speak in regular speaking tones on the train. They don't make themselves small or seem to care if anyone else needs a seat (perhaps they do care, and care very much, but they don't show it in any way I can understand.) The Koreans are usually wearing expensive watches and rather fashionable clothes, if of a sort of nouveau riche type often with conspicuous labels and such (very similar to many Japanese, though the labels are slightly different), and have smart haircuts and very well done plastic surgery, in particular the women. The Thais are louder and fewer, and probably much more fun to talk to. Often any of the above will, if I scootch over (my computer is telling me scootch is not a word--maybe I am spelling it wrong?) anyway if I move over they will say "Thank you," to me in very well-pronounced English. Japanese people never respond to me in English--well, almost never.
Once I am at the hub I stride purposefully through the crowds--I have learned over the years to walk quickly and with confidence through massive crowds, like a character in an action film who finds himself in a rousing nightclub--you ignore everyone and everything around you, no matter how interesting, and push your way through as if towards something much more important than the carnal rabble writhing around you. I take a subway, which takes me past the oldest brothel district in this part of Japan, and one of the oldest in the country. If I am lucky, one of the girls has just finished and is getting on the subway home--she will be wearing something either very provocative and ignore everyone--once I saw a girl in a tan/flesh-colored skin-tight one-piece wearing a fucking bucket hat--or will be with another girl and wearing clothes that are almost nondescript, but I always know. Or convince myself that i do. Once I am positive I saw a girl headed to work, though if you were to pin me and ask me "How could you possibly know?" my best answer would be Intuition.
The brothel district is a long street which, at night, has poles with white globes on them. There is a poster on the side of at least one building which says something similar to "Let's keep our brothel district clean!" There is a police box one block outside the district, and police on bicycles cruising through are not unheard of. There is a rather massive apartment complex just east of this block or two of whorehouses, and if you were enterprising and lived in these apartments nothing really would stop you from buying a telescope and camera and documenting exactly who comes and goes. But it's Japan, and something tells me no one does this. I probably would, just as a diversion.
I wrote that it's a street. It's not, really, it's a block or two of parallel streets. These have nicknames, if you must know. One is known as 青春通り (seishun doori or "youth street"). Here you will find girls who are very likely university students somewhere (probably somewhere at least mildly distant) and who are making some extra cash. The signs say the smallest amount of time you can pay for is a 20-minute booking. I have had a discussion with one of these girls, and learned that she gets 60% of whatever is paid. For 20 minutes the price the last time I bothered to look was 16,000 yen, which is roughly 115 USD at current exchange rates.
You walk down the street and you see the genkans--which means the doorway where in a normal house you'd take your shoes off and hang your coat. In these establishments the genkan is open to the air, and while there is a place to put your shoes, instead of a coatrack you will see a girl sitting in a zaisu, a chair flush to the ground with a back, and she may have a blanket modestly draped over her thighs if it's cold. If not, she may be in a bikini, may be dressed like some sort of fairy, may be in a maid's costume, a balldress, even, yes, and you knew this was coming--a high school uniform. In other words, some type of thing that is geared toward the fetish/fantasy of the dudes who end up here. And Japan is nothing if not a fetish/fantasy wonderland. Or cesspool, depending of course on one's perspective. What is remarkable to me is that the times I have beheld this tableau the women have almost all been strikingly beautiful.
Anyway. I don't want to bog this account of my commute down too much with prurient description of the brothel area. I am by no means an expert on the area but I probably know more than a lot of people simply because I have lived here so long, have walked down the street several times, etc. (These stories are less interesting than they probably sound.) Anyway I will leave this whole part of the story in stasis for now. Thank Christ for anonymity online--I only mention any of this because no one on here knows who the hell I am. One reason I like the "privacy" filter or whatever it is. I used to write all sorts of stories on reddit and have now deleted them all (in as much as reddit would allow me). For a long time I liked writing about my life, and I was approached by randos in DMs asking to use my stories in their podcasts. I always agreed with one caveat: Tell me where I can listen to it. They always agreed. And none of them ever got back to me.
Subway takes me to yet another train--my first of the morning, last of the day. Again, in the late afternoon it is very crowded. If I go at a certain time of day and board the right car there is a woman with what I am sure is Proteus syndrome, or what they suspect Joseph Merrick had--her face is incredibly, implausibly distorted. I expect the COVID wave of mask-wearing was a boon for her. She wears a prim blouse and either a skirt or slacks of some sort, and has a bag, and always stands and faces the door, perhaps so she doesn't have to look across the aisle and pretend she doesn't notice everyone forcing themselves not to acknowledge her.
The cars are almost always crowded. There is one woman who always gets on the same car as I do if I have timed it wrong, and she will lunge for any empty seat like a jackal for a wounded bird. Opportunistic bitch. I do not say this. Like everyone else, I stare into the middle distance, or at my phone, or wherever else is convenient to not acknowledge the actions of others. I often will wave another to a seat that comes available and which is within my ass-reach. I have some sort of mental scale which tells me whether I should just sit down or give the seat to someone else. I am sure if I were more Motte-y I would calibrate exactly what quantitative values I weigh in my head in this process. I'm not going to.
When I get to my terminus station I always see two women, striking in their beauty, whose lives appear to be in the reverse order of mine--which is to say where I am going to they are coming from, and vice versa. I wonder if anyone ever notices me in this way. Neither of these women ever look at me and I never say a word to either of them nor do I acknowledge them in any way. But they are milestones on my daily journey. And, oddly, I notice if they aren't there on some days. A cold, perhaps.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5mo ago
One of the great internet disappointments for me, Reddit. It was so good in its day. Perverted in parts, poisonous, like a loaded gun ready to go off--though even loaded guns are harmless if you know how to handle them. But also brilliant, funny, expansive, daring, poetic, a real scope into the lives of others, worse and better, and of course of our own familiars far off.
Now it's like an IV where you push for more stupidity and lies, push the button, push, until it euthanizes you.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
9mo ago
I've never been a father
Please locate me in the world someday when you are a dad to a daughter and let's revisit this topic.
Graduated UA undergrad in 1990. The Greek system there is, depending on whom you ask, a destructive pathogen that infects nearly everyone, an indispensable generator of alumni dollars, a wild fun time, or a necessary evil. It's probably all of the above. When it maneuvers politically it is known as The Machine. There have been articles written about it in TIME.
The sorority girls have as their counterpart of course the frat boys. Houses in each (Sigma Chi was the power frat in the day; I believe it was suspended several times and maybe disbanded for some dubious activities. And in those days the really gorgeous but respectable girls were ΑΧΩ.) have their own hierarchy of clout. Freshmen Greeks drive to campus in Porsches and Mercedes and similar.
To not pledge makes you a kind of social outcast and, if you're male, in large part cuts you out of consideration for dating. There are also the GDIs, or "God Damned Independents" who make hating the Greek system an identity (we did not use the word identity like this back then, but it fits.)
This is all a very unwelcome memory, like having an LSD flashback but insert Greek letters. I was not in a fraternity so my views are through a glass darkly.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11mo ago
You may be seriously underestimating. Only from the most literal-minded, nothing-unless-quantifiable perspective is this a non-event. A former president and current presidential contender came within inches of having his head blown apart on live television. (If he had been killed in such a macabre display, presumably that would have been "something happening" in your view?)
To be sure, what you suggest about how it will all become, and is already becoming "discourse fodder" is true. That doesn't take away from the historical nature of the event. Presumably you acknowledge there are a lot of unanswered questions?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11mo ago
You're joking, right?
Valentine's Day post 2025
This all happened years ago when I was younger. The first part.
I once fell for this girl really hard. Thought about her all the time. Like, minute-to-minute. I couldn't eat sometimes, I was so enamored. I used to live my days wondering what she was doing, as if every space she filled were magical. Was she eating? With whom? Was some guy making her laugh? Would it be okay to send her a short message? Sometimes I would then send one on inspiration--a joke, a link to music, something else inane--then ride the buoyant wave of anticipation for a while, until I got no answer and no answer, and eventually my face burned with shame at my own fey sentimentality. Was I not a man? Had I not been raised to be tougher than this weak sniveller? God damn it.
Just being around her, though, was a thrill I had without questioning it, something I felt without having asked for it or willed it. I sometimes saw her from the bus, me riding, her out there walking and my heart skipped--literally I could feel that palpitation. She was a good deal younger than I was--tall, willowy, sure of herself. Beautiful. Her hair was in a popular style at the time, though rare now. When I did see her, time stood still. They say you should plan dates and do fun things--and it is true, you should, you must--but to me, truly just sitting on a bench with her was better than sailing to the Bahamas (which yes, I've done), if she were there on the bench with me. Just staring into air. All very corny. Pathetic even. What I'd warn anyone not to feel. The stuff of saccharine pop.
She left, though, and like a teenage girl I spent my time pining over her. Tried not to show it, did show it when drunk. My closest drinking buddy at the time was sympathetic but couldn't relate and told me just to move on, move on. Cease all communication. I tried. It worked for awhile. Still I'd wonder where she was. I could even stir a perfectly benign moment like waiting for a bus into an existential crisis of jealousy by simply imagining: "What if right now she is with some guy?" I ruined my own day many times by doing this.
I always wondered what it would be like to know her forever, and I actually envied her family--that they might know her for so many years, whereas I would almost surely be forgotten, and soon. It took a lot of alcohol and sinking into shallow self-indulgence to shut her out of my mind.
Then this and that happened and I married her and I left her sleeping this morning with her feet sticking out of the covers.
"Life is a trick. Life is a kitten in a sack." --Anne Sexton
More options
Context Copy link