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[personal profile] imomus
An open letter to the women of Japan
Dear women of Japan, walking around the streets of your delightful capital, Tokyo, and catching your eye on trains, on escalators, on the street and in stores, I can't help noticing your perplexed reactions to me, Momo. "What the fuck is that?" you seem to be saying to yourselves. "Is it a clown? Will it produce some balls and start juggling? Or is it just an old, ugly, ridiculously-dressed gaijin who thinks he'll score points with us by trying to look 'interesting' in a totally weird way?"



I, Momo, have seen these thoughts passing all-too-obviously through your head, and been slightly saddened, I must confess. Yes, I'm old, and foreign, and a bit eccentric. Sure, I could pass for Momo the Clown, or some kind of walking black flower. But there's something you should know. I am, more or less, Nino.

Nino. Ninomiya from boy band Arashi. He's your favourite current man, isn't he? He's everywhere, with his child-monkey charm and delicate, intelligent, feminine features. Look, there, in the Wii SuperMario Brothers poster! And here in the au by KDDI commercial!

[Error: unknown template video]

What a fun boyfriend Nino would be! What good children he'd make, and how well he'd help you raise them! You dream of Arashi, you keep them under your pillow and take them out at night, and when anyone asks your favourite you say "Nino!" If you saw him on the street you'd scream. But if you saw Momo on the street... well, you'd scream!



And that's what I'm writing to tell you today. There's actually a lot less difference than you think between Momo and Nino! We both make you scream, that's a start! But it goes so much deeper than that! Let me prove to you that Momo equals Nino, more or less!

Up to 60% of the human body is water, which means that me and Nino are already 60% the same thing. Water! It's not like Nino's water is sexy and Momo's is weird. No, that 60% majority component of Nino and Momo is identical. Water!

It doesn't stop there, either. Nino and Momo both have two eyes, a nose, a mouth on the front of our heads. Okay, Momo has one eye that's shriveled like a grape, so let's give him 75% eyes compared with Nino's 100% eyes, but, you know, 75% ain't bad, girls! Momo has less hair than Nino, but, you know, it's hair!



And look at their jobs! Momo and Nino are both singers! Okay, Arashi might perform at the Yokohama Arena while Momo just sings karaoke over an iPod at a Tokyo art gallery, but what's an audience gap of tens of thousands when the profession is the same?

There are some other striking similarities. Momo's middle name is John, and Nino is managed by Johnny's Entertainment. Nino is hot, Momo is not, but there's only one letter difference between those words, which makes them 66% the same. Nino's sperm is young and healthy, whereas Momo produces slightly damaged old man sperm, but even old man sperm can make a perfectly good baby, if you don't mind the fact that it wouldn't be racially 100% pure (it would, though, be racially 50% pure, which is good enough for anyone except sticklers).

I want to conclude this open letter to you, dear Women of Japan, by saying, in your delightful language, yoroshiku; be nice to me. Next time you see me on the street, say to yourself "There -- but for a few insignificant details and my own blind Darwinian prejudices -- walks Nino from Arashi!" And allow yourself a small scream. A nice, excited scream, not the terrified one you normally do.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 03:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] microworlds.livejournal.com
You're scaring me, Momus.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 03:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] microworlds.livejournal.com
DO NOT TEMPT ME TO OPEN UP PHOTOSHOP, MOMO.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 03:40 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Look on the bright side. You're probably only another decade's worth of wrinkles away from crossing into cute old man status

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 03:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Good point. Nino will also be a cute old man relatively soon (in terms of the evolutionary scale, the speed of glaciers, heat death of the universe, and so on, at more or less the identical moment).

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 04:05 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I worry about you. Are you growing completely out of sync with reality? Am I watching a talented musician spiral into creepy old man who refuses to do what he's really good at (while refusing to die). Or have you lived so long in your own head during these past few years, riding the praise of numerous art mags and bloggers that ...

*sigh* It is good that you are ending this blog. It is a shame you "ended" your music.
-Edge

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 05:26 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
C'mon, "Edge", concern-trolling in 2009 with "I worry about you..." is just lazy. Raise your game, as Momo the Clown would put it.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 03:17 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
LOVED your playing on "the joshua tree"

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 04:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] telemeister.livejournal.com
If I may say so, with no agendum, merely as an observation, you look great sans stubble. It probably reduces the amount of ladies' screams too.

Random lurkers from the Internet can't be wrong!

Date: 2009-12-17 04:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dahlink.livejournal.com
Well, I'd scream with glee if I saw you on the street, anyway. I'm not Japanese and I live in Detroit, not anywhere near Japan, but I share 99.9% of DNA with your average Japanese woman. :P

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 04:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] milky-eyes.livejournal.com
not so fast.... I almost believed you there for a minute. You are very convincing.
But I had a slight weird feeling in my gut so I did what I always do at times like this and I did the old Mr. Emoto water test....

I first uttered Nino's lovely crisp name.... and with my micro camera produced this:
Image

I then whispered your name... momus... also a nice name.... and got these results...
Image

I shuttered a bit at the results but it is clear.... and water doesnt lie....
but I believe there is hope.... you must kidnap Nino and do a water transplate.

Give him all your water, and take all of his.... then... well.... you might also be in trouble... maybe dont do this

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 06:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] subalpine.livejournal.com
don't be taken in by this, 'Momo'! (<- incidentally, i have a cousin by that name - for real..)
conveniently glossed over here are the dozens upon dozens of shots the micro camera took to produce ones that jived with Mr. milky_Emoto's preconceptions.

> water doesnt lie
newage micro cameras do

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 06:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] subalpine.livejournal.com
> I shuttered a bit at the results

best double entendre of the day!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 08:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] niemandsrose.livejournal.com
Aw, come off it. When was the last time you squealed over a female your own age, Momo?

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 10:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] viceanglais.livejournal.com
Come on, Momo, stop chasing the fickle approval of hoity-toity foreign bits. Come back to the UK, where they welcome all comers, so long as you're a right LOL!

Image

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 10:58 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
old, ugly, ridiculously-dressed gaijin

Is it turning fifty that's suddenly got you all concerned about your age and appearance? It wasn't so long ago that you were claiming to be still in your middle youth and you were beating off women who wanted to have sex with you with a stick... and now, suddenly you feel you're out of the game. Zero chance of picking up a cute girl on the subway. But that's OK, isn't it, you've already cashed out of the game with your cute two-decades-younger Japanese girlfriend...

I'd love to see you do a proper post before the end of Click Opera about ageing, being middle-aged, feeling yourself slipping out of the sexual loop, feeling your body decay and all the rest. How does it feel now that most of your life is behind you rather than in front of you? Do you think more about illness and death? Or maybe less, out of fear? But no doubt there are a lot of upsides to being old, too. Why don't you tell us?

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 09:56 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
geez loueez, that not very nice, that rude, rudy pitooty!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 11:01 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
“It’s important to remember that rebellion -- in other words, the part of our value system that is determined by position, by dialectics, by reaction -- is a kind of collaboration with the things rebelled against. For instance, right now I’m wearing a t-shirt turned inside out, because I’ve decided t-shirts with slogans or images on them are naff. I’m listening to a very abstract piece of music by David Toop, partly to erase or complicate the courtyard ambience of Michael Jackson hits and make the soundscape in my flat a bit “classier”. In both cases, my stance is a collaboration with the “naff” things I’m deliberately snubbing. They become the ground to my figure, the thing that makes it connote. I really have to thank the people I’m rebelling against for “collaborating” with me in this way! Without them, I couldn’t be me.”

Maybe you're getting what you really want. Or perhaps young Japanese girls aren't allowed to play dialectics?

I don't know whether to thank you for being so open (vulnerable) or condemn you for being too open. I worry - and I won't be alone in this - that I will still be concerned about these things when I'm my father's age, in the same way that he appears to be (and you appear to be). Part of me hopes that my sex drive will have kindly departed leaving me able to enjoy life free from its incessant nagging.

So when we're reminded that this probably won't happen, it constellates fear, and a certain amount of frustration at the person reminding us; it becomes an unavoidable fate. And the worst of it is that you're not allowed those feelings at that age, you get called, as you frequently do on here, a 'dirty old man' (sometimes you even call yourself it). Perhaps we need to reframe the 'dirty old man'. Rethink him; or, maybe just sit down and really think him for a change, instead of chucking the label at him and then running the hell away. After all, its a fate that awaits a good number of us ...

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 11:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tropigalia.livejournal.com
momus i had a dream last night that you invited me over for a date and i was so happy

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 02:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Having met you in Philly this year, Tropigalia, I have to say a date with you would be fun. You're very pretty, for a start!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 02:45 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
She's not exactly the stick-thin type you prefer though Momus, is she?

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 04:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tropigalia.livejournal.com
fat girls have more fun

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 04:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tropigalia.livejournal.com
i could arrange that!

also thank you! of all the times i have awkwardly hit on you on livejournal, this has been my favorite

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 04:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tropigalia.livejournal.com
i need to stop commenting on this entry

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 11:36 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I like this new, vulnerable, look-how-old-and-decrepit-I-am Momus that has emerged in the past few months. Male vulnerability is sexy! Sometimes Click Opera is so relentlessly pleased with itself, so continually trumpeting what a wonderful, full and exotic life Momus leads, that one starts to wonder whether it's all a bit like Winnie in Beckett's Happy Days. No doubt there's a darker, sadder Momus in there somewhere as well. One that worries about death, about what his life has amounted to, about the ever-widening gulf between himself and the objects of his sexual fantasies. A Momus that scours rock encyclopedias in bookshops, existentially struck by the fact that he's not mentioned in any of them... and then he puts on his happy brave face and knocks out another Click Opera entry...

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 11:46 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
the only upside to getting old is that people ignore you - completely. This is useful; you may now play the role of the invisible observer - it depressed me for a while - all this moving away from being young and flirtatious etc. but, you know, it's OK ... it's just life: deal with it - go back to your Art and make incredible things; lose the introspection you have about the loss of your being an object of desire - play the 'funny uncle' and have fun!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 11:48 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Your second name is John? Nicholas John? Your parents weren't terribly imaginative in the baby names department, were they?

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 12:15 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
When I clicked on the comments section, I thought I would be adding my voice to the chorus congratulating Momus on his rarely showcased comic genius. This was hilarious.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 12:27 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I keep pushing M to let me meet you so that we can go up a high building and look at the view, or anything really. And I'm young, female and wouldn't get excited at all if I saw Nino on the street, so don't be sad!

/A

the terrified Darwinian scream

Date: 2009-12-17 01:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pay-option07.livejournal.com


I't been years since I've seen this Tyrolean vid. Quite the opposite to the "Widow Twanky's" meloncholic dirge.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 02:13 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Well if appealing to young Japanese women still matters to you, there are things you could do. Shaving off the homeless man beard is a good start, but really, you'll have to bin the pantomime costume. Eccentric, yes, interesting, yes, sexy, NO! The way for the older man to look sexy is to smarten up a bit. Try a stylish, well-cut suit. I think you'd look fantastic like that. And smartening up wouldn't mean losing your eccentric touch (look at Lord Whimsy, for chrissake). Try it, and watch the girls swoon!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 03:07 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
申し訳ありません。あなたも、日本の女の子のために古いです。

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 04:31 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
MOMUS YOU ARE ABOUT TO EMBARK ON YOUR SIXTH DECADE OF YOUR LIFE. YOU ARE OLD! YOUR FACE IS GAUNT, YOUR HAIR IS THIN! GIRLS IN THEIR TWENTIES ARE NOT GENERALLY ATTRACTED TO BALDING FIFTY YEAR OLD MEN WHO WEAR CLOWN SUITS! NOT EVEN JAPANESE GIRLS! PLEASE GET USED TO THIS FACT! IT IS NOT HARD TO UNDERSTAND!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 04:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tropigalia.livejournal.com
GIRLS IN THEIR TWENTIES ARE NOT GENERALLY ATTRACTED TO BALDING FIFTY YEAR OLD MEN WHO WEAR CLOWN SUITS!

wrong!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 04:46 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I appreciate the originality, eccentricity and the effort, but I'm not really feeling your new outfit, Momus. You look like a frumpish, middle-aged lady from 1926. No wonder you've scared the Tokyo girls off.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 05:12 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Oh Momus, Momus my dearest. Why do you open yourself for trolls so much? You must have known they’d have a field day.

(Btw I’m mid-20 and would totally and have sex with you all night. A shame I am a boy.)

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 08:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
We can switch the light off.

Hey, I'll tell you what makes you feel even more mortal than being old. Earth tremors. The building just shook with one!

just shook

Date: 2009-12-17 11:34 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Isn't a new 110 story Tokyo tower opening in 2011?

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 10:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mandyrose.livejournal.com
Those outfits are totally ridiculous. You look like the whitest white person ever, like there should be a Scottish flag over your face in every photo! It is cute, but not necessarily what I'd call sexy. Then again, I'm over 30 and American. And according to your calculations, I'm more like Nino than you are?

You seem to have carefully cultivated that Gainsbourg "I am all about sex, therefore I am sexy" persona.

I've always found you singularly off-putting and adorable. Like looking in the refrigerator to get out a piece of bread, and finding that the bread has pink mold all over it, but that the mold has grown in a perfectly fuzzy pink circular mound that looks like a pink baby chicken or a Snow Ball cake.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-17 11:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eclectiktronik.livejournal.com
thats his look!

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-18 01:19 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I think the really interesting thing here is that Momus' first encounters with Japan saw him feted as a pop star, and set on a pedestal. But what's happened over the years is a complete reversal of that situation. Now, for Momus, it's Japan itself -- ordinary, everyday Japan -- which is on the pedestal. He bows, kneels, even goes into Tokyo Bopper and squeals to see a "pop star" who's, in fact, just a shop assistant.

There's something endearing about this. Sure, most celebs will say nice things about a culture which embraces them. But how many will keep saying those things, and keep coming back, when they're forgotten?

"If your love changed into hate / Would my love have been a mistake? / La la la..."

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-18 01:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] count-vronsky.livejournal.com
Next time they scream at Momo in horror, just say, "why are you frightened? I'm the one who has to walk back through the forest alone."

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-18 01:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Ha ha ha!

This is turning into a scene from a Takashi Miike film.

if i only had a brain

Date: 2009-12-18 01:53 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
http://www.bilerico.com/2008/10/wiz%20of%20oz_scarecrow.jpg

Re: if i only had a brain

Date: 2009-12-18 02:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] milky-eyes.livejournal.com
oh fuck...

so this is the real deal momus,

look to the Bowie.

He's the one that got you into this mess and he's the one that can get you out.

He's donned quite a few seemingly unretrieveable fashion and live situations. And has always made it back with his plumes sailing at full mast.

Look deep inside your 'Bowie Mind' and find that crystal gleaming showing you the path to true world domination.

But also realize, you're probably a little jetlaged and, maybe just a bit flustered.

also, if you just tweet that costume a bit... you'll look amazing. serious.


Re: if i only had a brain

Date: 2009-12-18 06:05 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
bowie's had a heart attack, given up smoking and now dresses in smart J.Crew. just saying.

(no subject)

Date: 2009-12-19 09:36 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
You want my honest opinion? I'd rather have sex with you than with this Nino. You are a tender pervert, and it would be so fun; With Nino, I'd feel like I'm fucking a chick with a dick.

- Mazie.

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