a post-blog
When I went to New York in early January, I stayed at my sister's apartment, and in my stack of mail that had come for me over the year, there was a cut-out page from the marriage/birth/death notes from the alumni magazine for my sister's university. She had circled a marriage note about a Patrick Harlan from the Class of 1993:
| Married: Patrick Harlan and Mei Koinuma, "twice in fact - once in Tokyo on March 28, 2004 with many celebs in attendance and the ceremony covered on national TV, and once in Colorado on Septembet 12 with the people who really matter...My career as a comedian and TV personality is going swimmingly. In fact, I got only two days off to fly to America, get married and come back. Honeymoon, shmoneymoon." |
Me: "Why did you cut this out?"
Sister: "I thought you might know who that guy is."
Me: "Yeah, he's this gaijin talent guy who goes by the name Pakkun."
Sister: "He sounds like a real tool."
Brother-in-law (comes in the room): "Are you talking about that alumni notes cut-out? Yeah, who is that guy? He sounds like a total loser."
Wait, so having the life goal of being a B-list television personality in Japan is uncool?
Posted by marxy at January 20, 2005 6:44 PMI'd take any job in the country before I'd lower myself to being tarento, especially token gaijin taretno
Posted by: Chris_B at January 21, 2005 2:53 PMIt's one thing to accidentally become the first gaijin talent. It's another to move to Japan for that sole purpose and then in your decade long push towards that goal, never figure out that being a gaijin talent is a terribly demeaning and ultimately thankless existence. Yes, people know who you are but few actually actively like you. Pakkun is Japan's Carrottop, but less original.
Posted by: marxy at January 21, 2005 8:27 PM