Takako and I started watching FX’s infamous Nip/Tuck this fall and, on a Christmas day unlike any other, we finished season 3. At its best Nip/Tuck was the story of three friends; plastic surgeons Dr. Sean McNamara, Dr. Christian Troy and their med school crush (now Sean’s wife,) Julia all locked in a three way tug of war in which their family and business practice were all hanging in the balance. At its worst, it was sensationalist, misery porn which pushed boundaries at the expense of being true to its characters. To the show’s credit, the first three seasons somehow managed to temper the shock and awe nonsense with the tug of war and ended about where it should.

So that’s why Takako and I quit. With the show’s multiple season spanning Carver arc ended, Julia and Sean having found themselves through mutual self destruction and then reinvention, and Christian having finally rediscovered the family he has in them and their son (his son) Matt and the end of his self flagellation, what more needed to be said?

Apparently a lot. The damn thing went on for 6 or 7 seasons of which the internet writes: “all that needs to be said about the last season of Nip/Tuck is that Matt becomes a mime thief.”

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Translated by: Brian Stewart & Takako Sakuma

Have you seen Inception yet?

If not stop reading and go watch one of the year’s best films and more proof that Christopher Nolan can do no wrong. Read no further. There be spoilers ahead.

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Sup proud men and women of the Inu Nation? I just wanted to drop a quick line about the updates over the last several days. In an effort to hone my storytelling skills anew, I’ve begun writing essays again. Every time I have the urge to facebook, I’ll come here instead. Hopefully, when I have time, I’ll put some of these creative impulses into my format of choice, video. But until then Uncle boo’s old fashioned words n’ jpegs will have to suffice.

You’ll notice that this new batch of oven fresh entries get a lot more personal and a lot more real than my previous ones. With child on the way, the time for hiding behind walls is over. Or wait… maybe it’s just begun? Peek-a-boo…

I also started translating the new albums by Mr. Children and Bump of Chicken. I’m committed to finishing each although Bump may kill me with all their time slip, self introspection nonsense magic!

It seemed like such an innocent notion… bring home a real goddamn Christmas tree this year. One of the perks of my job as a TV news magazine producer is that every so often I get to literally take my work home with me. In this case that work was the product of a story I did on how to find and cut down your own real live Xmas tree for the holidays. Also, it wasn’t really work. It was a motherforking tree!!

Well right from the get go this thing was needy. For one, it was too big. So I had to go and buy a hacksaw and some work gloves in order to chop it down to a reasonable, Charlie Brown’s Christmas size. Second, it needed a stand. Now you would think that they would sell those at just about every BLANKmart and Gas Station from here to Pennsylvania but you would only be half right. Yes, they did sell them, at some undisclosed time in the recent past, but they were most certainly sold out by the time we pulled our Hyundai into the holiday funzone.

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We have a lot of catching up to do, you and I, oh anonymous utau-inu reader.

Anyone who has known me in the better part of the last 10 years, knows I have a snakeskin wallet. Or had a snakeskin wallet. It was a gift from my wife that she bought from Tokkyuu Hands while we were in Japan. It was also a concession which followed my brief infatuation with snakeskin pants. Hey, I was chasing the rock star dream. I still think they’re cool! Anyway that brief affair obviously ended with me agreeing to forgo the pants in lieu of the wallet.

And so it was for 8 years that me and my snakeskin wallet took great pride in giving all the girls in the service industry something to admire/make fun of. With “Snakey,” a nickname I never ever actually called my wallet, I always felt like I was carrying a little piece of that rock star dream with me. Alas, as the years wore on the scales began to peel off the leather underneath until poor Snakey began going bald.

One day I had to look into those sad eyes and make the grown up decision to replace him.

I searched far and wide. And I would have replaced the words “far” and “wide” with links to pictures of one wallet that looked like it was for a Desperado with skulls and roses and another that looked like the Necronomicon if not for the fact that both of them sold out. I wavered for a moment but taste won out in the end.

Or did it?

This wallet I found on etsy.com. The place to go if you want something someone else’s kid made for you in art class. I kid. I need things made for me. If I could I’d have all my clothing tailored to fit. This is a good start. The words were custom printed for me. Don’t look at me like that! Octopus like crabs. It’s one of their favorite foods! You don’t want to know what they’ll do to get them!

RIP Snakey. So begins the era of the octopus!

Notes:

Notes: This is just my interpretation but I feel uniquely qualified to offer it since I’m on the other side of thirty. Sakurai is being the old man in a rocking chair, decrying the state of this generation. Although the last line kind of negates the bitterness. “I” isn’t Sakurai or the singer. It’s the self-centered character of a generation. It’s “I” instead of us, them, or you. I think it’s a specifically chosen symbol. In English “I” stands alone, it visually resembles  a person by themselves.

Translated by: Brian Stewart & Takako Sakuma

Notes: I think the old bearded guy is his grandfather, and that he dies shortly after giving him the stuffed bear/dog. This works with the context of the lyric block which talks about the realities under the surface of his childhood.