Randomness Update

Some randomness from a random sort of guy in a random sort of place.

I haven’t updated the goings-on here in a while because I got a job, an actual real job, much sooner than anticipated, and it has kept me BIZZ-E!

Folks in the US (both Japanese and American) said I should have no problem finding employment as an English teacher once I’m in Japan. Even so, with my rusty understanding of grammar and lack of English teaching experience, I assumed it might take me anywhere from three to six months to land a position at one of the many English schools in Tokyo. By the end of my first month, I had turned down two offers and accepted a third. I’m now a very busy full-time teacher at a school chain that caters to mostly children and am zipping back and forth every day from Tokyo to Chiba to Yokohama.

With studio (a word the Japanese pronounce Su-Ta-Jio) locations all over the map, I put a lot of hours in on the trains here and I'm quickly learning how to do things like use the Hyperdia transit planner on my iPhone and ask non-English-speaking transit workers directions to the correct platform. This involves a lot of pointing to my cell-phone train schedule shrugging and pointing and bowing and pointing and bowing. I’m fairly certain it also involves (once I’m out of sight) a lot of laughing and head-shaking.

ANYWAY. I’ve been one busy guy. But since I wasn’t expecting to get a stable full-time job as soon as people said I would, I had gone around to a few acting/yodeling agencies. Yodeling? No, that’s a typo. I meant modeling.

Acting. In the US, it’s extremely difficult to get an agent in the entertainment industry. Agencies only want experienced actors and models. You can’t get experience without an agent. No one wants to hire you unless you’re represented by a legit agency. A vicious cycle. It can take several years to convince any agent to represent you. Once you do manage to somehow sign with an agency in America, you’re pretty much only with that one agency, and they are very picky about what professional headshots you have. You generally sign an exclusivity contract, which says that you won’t go with any other agency of that type (ie, commercial/print, theatre, or tv/film). This contract will also say that your agent gets 10% or 15% of your paycheck for jobs booked, depending on the type of job and your union status. This is standard and strictly regulated by the unions and laws in America.

In Japan, PSSSSHHH! Shyeah, right. No unions, very little, if any, regulations, and no exclusivity among agencies. There are several agencies here in Tokyo that service only foreigners. You can sign on with as many of them as you want: just go in during business hours and fill out the registration form, they’ll snap a couple quick pictures(for free! No $800 headshot package!), explain how they work, thank you for coming, and push you out the door so they can get back to work. Off you go down the street to the next agency. Repeat the process. Diversify and multiply.

The ups: They’ll take pretty much anyone, no experience necessary (and I was banking on the hope that my (cough!) experience as a hoity-toity Hollywood actor would put me in the forefront of their minds). And multiple Japanese agencies will be submitting you to all kinds of projects, instead of one American guy maybe choosing one of his other clients over you. When multiple Japanese agencies submit you for the same project, you get to pick which one will represent you at the audition (if you’re wise, you’ll choose the one that takes the smaller percentage out of your paycheck.)

The downs: No actors unions and a lack of industry ethics and regulations means that the agencies can take whatever percentage they want, and many take around 60% of your paycheck (some more, some less). MWAHAHAHAAA! (Rubbing hands together and twirling long black mustache).

Generally they’ll tell you what percentage they take when you sign on (if you remember to ask) and when they call with a potential audition, they tell you what you’ll take home if you book that job. I think you can generally trust that you're getting the agreed percentage (although it can take months to receive your check!). Their way of thinking is that without them, you wouldn’t get the job in the first place, so it’s like a partnership where 50% or more would make sense. As an actor, this seems wrong when I point out that the agency has scores of clients constantly earning them money, whereas, as an individual actor, I’m the only one earning money for myself. Therefore, no need to be greedy, let's go with the American standard of 10% to The Man.

However, rumor has it that a foreigner can still make a comfortable living as an actor in Japan more easily than in America, where less than 10% of actors work enough to support themselves on acting alone. Anywhere you go, though, an actor’s life is unstable, never knowing when and how much the next paycheck will be. As a family man, this gives me pause. Hence, my full-time job.

I only got to go to one audition before I got my “real job.” By the way, anyone who ever thinks that professional actors don’t have a “real job” never looked at the crazy hours of continuous training and freebie plays and film projects, auditioning, headshot renewing, resume writing/mailing/submitting we do, not to mention the amount of money personally invested in the above exploits, and all for the hope of booking one single job. It really adds up (especially considering that the average day on set is 12 hours). Serious actors are hard workers; it’s a little-known fact. I was on the way to my first and only audition in Japan when I ran across this little pet shop in Roppongi. Check out what they’re selling:

I kind of feel bad because Meerkats are social creatures. I hope whoever buys this one gets two.

The audition, btw, was for a series of videos for an English school teaching little kids English, a direct competitor of the place I now work for. One of my agents met me outside of the station to walk me through the audition process and act as translator as I was told by the director to make the form of “W” with my body, and to be VERY excited about it. I didn’t book that job.

This was back around Halloween. Also about that time, I got a package in the mail one day, a mysterious box courtesy of Mom:

Price: roughly $40. It was SO worth it. I love me my Halloween.

The things that come in boxes over here and the prices attached always surprise me. A couple of melons are no big deal in the US. In Tokyo, $50 will get you this:

I've learned that a really-really nice gift to someone in Japan, especially if they aren't feeling well, is a cantalope or honeydew. Very expensive!

And now for our trip to Costco! The idea that Costco is now in Japan baffles me. Japan is notorious for having no extra room for storage, and therefore, things come in smaller sizes, food is bought fresh and eaten immediately, and the idea of bulk is often for the rich and excessive. So Costco, who deals almost completely in large bulk packages, shouldn’t logically work out here, right?

Well, pinch my toes and call me a jelly donut, the place is very popular. Although, the crowd in Costco (a very long drive from where we live) is a little weird. Turns out it’s a popular hang-out for the local housewives and their babies. Maybe it’s the novelty factor, I don’t know. But there are so many women just standing around there with their strollers and Ergos with sleeping babies, heads all-a-flopping, grabbing the famed Costco samples by the armload. Japanese people LOVE samples. They’re ALLABOUT samples. If a bakery announces fresh samples at a shopping center, the mobs that show up rival the zombie hoards of “World War Z”.

Maybe this is why Costco works here, because of the samples. I’m just spit-balling. What do I know. They have peanut butter and oatmeal. That's all I care about.

Some of the things they offer here that I haven’t seen in the ones in California:

"Git yer fresh Octopi, git’um while they last!" And those are fish eggs, to the right. I use them for bait. Japanese consumers use them for entrees.

Pancakes. Individually sorted and divided in a protective plastic case. To be eaten without toppings of any kind. "Blasphemy!" says I. "Just punch a hole in that plastic case and pump in maple syrup until its full to bursting, then give me a straw", says I.

The drive home was interesting. Many Costco virgins buy more in the heat of the moment than their cars can hold. Japan is not a place of American-style, unneccesarily over-sized decadence. Their cars fit their roads. But not so much their Costco loads ;)

In other news, I just signed the papers for our very own apartment! And when I say “I just signed,” I mean that I sat between my wife and Dad for three hours while they did all the talking and signing. At the time, I was suffering from both a bad cough and Japan’s lack of NyQuil, and was trying not to cough so hard that I was shaking in spasms. I didn’t have a mask on, so coughing would be considered rude and irresponsible. Over here, if there is a bug going around, people will wear facemasks out in public, on the train, at work, everywhere.

They either don’t want to spread what they have when they cough or sneeze, or they are healthy and want to stay that way. So white surgeon masks are a normal sight. Is this the basis for Americans’ belief in the mysterious Japanese Ninja?

Food for thought…