Which has nothing to do with my story, however.
Okay, that's all for now.
That's all fine and dandy.
But after Obon ya gotta send all those souls back to where they came. And that is where you have festivals with paper lanterns floating down rivers and what not.
Eh, paper lanterns down rivers is wimp stuff.
Here the dead get sent back in style!
First, they make these enormous straw and bamboo structures (see picture below) and stake them out all up and down the beach. Inside are stuffed all sorts of fireworks btw. You learn that later when you're running for your life from a stray bottle rocket.
So.
They have dozens of these broom stick thingys all along the shore and everyone gathers and waits. When it gets dark they start lighting fires beside each broom stick thing. Then the fun begins. People grab these ropes that have tied to their ends kerosine soaked towels and they dip them into the fires. Next, they begin to spin them around and around, faster and faster until they feel the moment is right and they hurl them at the enormous broom. At first there is a lot of misses and the crowd on the other side of the broom flees or simply moves aside as not to get hit by the large fire ball. This is exciting enough for me.
But it gets darker and darker and everyone is working themselves into a frenzy trying to land one of those kerosine soaked balls into the upended part of the broom. Chants, calling, screams of encouragement. Quite a bit of drunken laughter.
And it happens!
And they burn.
And they blaze and rain down sparks and flames and explode and eventually set off the fireworks that have been so carefully tucked into their centers. It's pandemonium!
And I'm thinking what else could possible happen? When suddenly people begin to jump on those holding ropes to shake the fire down. It's friggin hot! I smell burnt hair. Is it mine?
There are no lines to stand behind, no one saying this dangerous stay back, everyone there is totally crazed in the moment hooting and hollarin' with total abandon.
Me too!
①My first big 'star' was Henry Rollins back when he was in Black Flag. Yea. This is what he looked like then.
The extent of our conversation went something like this:
(he was coming out of a phone booth and saw me and my then boyfriend)
Him: "Yo! Going to the show?"
Me: "Wouldn't miss it!"
Him: "Cool."
I was ecstatic.
②Various Sumo dudes. Here I am with Koto no Waka.
I'm pretty sure no one knows of him. But he was fairly big (ahem) in his day. No longer around (retired, not dead). I actually got to talk to Konishiki (the enormous Hawaiian wrestler). Here's a picture I took where he's a tad perturbed at the camera man beside him.
He no longer fights anymore either. Does children shows. Looks like this:
③Carmine Appice. Drummer from vanilla Fudge, Cactus, BBA, Blue Murder. This meeting was absolutely HUGE to me, you can imagine how shocked and devastate I was to learn that the disk that had all the pictures of us is now corrupted. I am currently scouring the hard disk of my old computer to find them and will get them on here when I do. We got along soooo great. There was even a kissy-kissy pic. Um, he didn't look exactly like this in the kissy-kissy photo, he's a bit more...mature these days.
④ and ⑤ were the big-biggies though. Viggo Mortensen and Karl Urban. We're talking Lord of the Rings, Aragorn and Eomer.
My good friend called me one night and left a panicky, indecipherable message on the machine. A few hours later we left our family and were on a night bus to Tokyo. We stayed in some fancy-shmancy hotel and woke early to stand in line with the three hundred other Viggo fans (Karl was a surprise, he wasn't even supposed to be there). And man we just barely made it. We thought we were early leaving the hotel at five thirty for getting entrance tickets that are going to be handed out at ten. We arrive to find that already 262 fans are already in line! (many from the night before). We jump onto the tail which runs several blocks away and through a park full of homeless men and two more people come up behind us and the security guy stops the line. No more! and starts sending the hundreds of fans that come after that back home. Some came as far as the southern islands of Japan...sorry, you can't get in. That was painful to watch. Needless to say, being last in line we ended up getting all kinds of gifts to give to Viggo. These were real die-hard fans.
It was all day standing and all night standing but eventually they opened the doors and we got in--all 266 of us. The guys were so incredibly nice. Gave us all chocolates, drank Australian beer, stood on the chair and sang (well Karl did). You know it's hard to be cool when you're munching a gourmet truffle grand mariner. I tried though. Karl was super personable and we chatted so long his manager lady-chick came and pulled him away. But not before he could give me some music recommendations.
The one thing I came away with at each of these meetings was the intense desire to work harder, to learn more, and to be 'famous' myself. Oh, maybe not standing on a pile of dirt wearing a silk thong, but doing what I do. Sometimes I think it would be nice just to be a little famous. And then othertimes I ponder what it would be like to be crazy famous.
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