I have discovered more ambitions products in Eindhoven! Now, as well as having canned Ambition (mackeral or tuna flavour), you can get frozen Ambition (shrimp), or a big box of Ambition "Breed".



You can never have to much Ambition.

Various product labels that have surprised me recently. The top two are from local asian supermarkets around the Netherlands, the bottom is from a bizarre little shop in Brixton, London, that sold herbal rememdies, tonics and "spells" that more often than not carried the legally required prefix "alleged".

I know I could sometimes sure use a can of extra ambition.

yes there is a place in Eindhoven, The Netherlands known as Crackstate. Its a kind of run down housing projects style suburb, don't get caught there after dark.... but being caught anywhere is better than getting stuck in Ennemaborg....

Gijs Bakker and Ted Noten examining my silver toilet brush.

Floor Thing..... I just did a workshop with the designer and author Stuart Walker here at the Design Academy Eindhoven, where I now study. I think I mentioned that there would be little Japanese stuff from now on? Anyway, there were some really interesting designs from the class, but this thing really grabbed my attention. It was made by some fellow students (Sonja Baumel, Rachel Baker, Andrea Trimachi, and Simone Farresin) based on an old electronic product, but no-one was really sure what the product was.... hair curler, hand massager...? Enjoy.

Beers of Japan!

And not the boring watery beers from the big players (Kirin, Sapporo, Yebisu, etc) but real Jibiru, from small scale and local boutique breweries. This photo is from the restuarant in a brewery in the Hide region I visited earlier this year. Taken with my keitai, so not so great on quality unfortunately. I have tried maybe a dozen or so Jibiru from various parts of Japan, and the real star is the beer from the the Takayama Brewery, its the 16th bottle from the right, with a red graphic on a black label. Their special high strength special brew is possibly the best beer I have ever tasted, it puts most Belgian beers to shame.

My cousin Gus and his mates from the Bang Gang, along with Cut Copy, the Presets and other Modular acts came to Tokyo last night. Fun. But passed out when I got home, before I turned the fan on, and woke up on the tatami mat covered in sweat like a sweaty pustular snail......urgh.

NIN gig at Ageha. Last weekend I saw Nine Inch Nails play at Ageha, which is down somewhere near Tokyo Disneyland. I spent most of the gig near the front exchanging sweat with a remarkably ordinary looking cross-section of Japanese youth. Who nevertheless were able to pack themselves in around the stage tighter and harder than any other concert I have ever attended. I think this ability comes from practise via the daily peak hour commute on the Tokyo subway.

SO this sardine tin action continued for the whole gig, and then Trent Reznor played the last song, Head Like a Hole; the audience stopped pushing and stood equally apart and still, their arms raised in supplicaton as Trent sang the refrain "Bow down before the one you serve, you"re going to get what you deserve." And as one and in perfect order the crowd sang along while bowing their heads. No-one does spontaneous group behaviour quite like the Japanese. Brought a tear to my eye.....-_-; ...damm, I leave this country tomorrow....gonna miss it.

Syringes make good candy.

I thought participating in a clinical drug trial was a good, albiet harsh, way to cure a needle phobia. But obviously I had not considered this; indoctrination of the young via the colorful shapes and graphics of candy. Whats a charming way to cure the youngsters of their fear of going to the doctor! And when they are older, perhaps their natural distaste for that first whack of smack won't be so great either.

Sorry the photo of the second package has a few reflections, so there are some closeups; notice poor Missus Rabbit - she gets it in the fuckin' eye!

I never got to try these; my girlfriend took them to Australia to share around with her friends. But actually she went to a party during her first weekend back home and some pinging Aussie guys looked in her bag and it was all over. Within 15 minutes every bag had been rippped open and consumed in an orgy of sensual homage to the synthetic.

If you are still reading; the syringes are filled with a kind of glucose syrup - you can 'paint' shapes with it on the disc shape 'sugar bread'. The second packet also has some sickly sweet 'pills'.

Boob Pudding from Japan. This is from Niigata. It's custard pudding. Apparently quite popular. The girl inside is saying "Please eat me gently."

UPDATE 05/05/2007 - Boob chocolate from Belgium!

Found this on the web, but actually I will be moving to Holland, near the Belgian border later this year where I will endeavour to photograph these delicies myself. I suppose this post marks the first instance of a shift away from Tokyo weird shit to weird shit of a more European flavour.

Crazy Toys from Japan Part 2.

Well, this is my Xmas present from my girlfriend (although I actually picked it out, paid for it and carried it home - no girl in their right mind would willingly buy one of these things....)



Its a Centipede by the toy maker Gakken. Its comes in a kit and you assemble it yourself. One of the finer pleasures of my adult life so far I think. The charm is how as you slowly understand the way it works, part by part, as you assemble it, but its strange hypnotic movement is still a surprise the first time its turned on.

Anyway, it ran out batteries pretty quick so I think I'm going to dissemble it and paint it some funky colors. To match the living room table its crawling across.

Anyway, for more information you can check out this detailed review It includes how to get one if you don't live in Japan.

And if thats not geeky enough for you, this guy has added some kind of sensor so the centipede moves around itself (as opposed to being user-controlled by the remote)

But wait it gets worse -
this muthafuka has rigged his centipede so it runs on steam! Jezzis krist!

Crazy Toys from Japan Part 1.

This post and the next few will document some of the fucking weird toys you can buy here in Japan. This one is my favourite - Russian Roulette by Play Avenue. What a great idea to plant in the mind of small children. Bought from Toys R Us too, not a dingy little local toy store (though those ones sell the replica AK-47 and Uzi toy guns Toys R Us won't touch @_@!).






















The gun works by blowing up a ballon and placing inside a ring extending from the gun chamber (there is no barrel as such). A pin in one of the chambers pops should you be so unlucky. Actually I haven't actually played with the toy yet - its just looks to good in its packaging for me to open!

And how about the dodgy skull graphics! Copyrighted in 1994!

Warning - don't over-inflate the balloon!






And as a compliment to this wonderful toy for a ripping party, I suggest this bottle of Russian Roulette vodka I picked it up in Mejiro. The vodka is really from Russia too, but the packaging is American. The label on the back says (in bold caps) "THE NAME RUSSIAN ROULETTE IS NOT INTENDED TO ENCOURAGE THE FIREARM GAME OF CHANCE RUSSIAN ROULETTE."























Postscript: FYI, in case anyone is under the misapprehension Russian Roulette is a joking matter, I just spent a few very enjoyable days with my father, who visited me in Tokyo. He told me a story about when he was a young British RAF officer stationed in Eindhoven, Holland. A young recruit had been drinking and decided to try and impress his friends by playing Russian Roulette. As my father tells the story, the man had obviously not been in the RAF very long because he was not familiar with the technique of greasing the barrel so that the weight of the bullet will cause the loaded chamber to fall to the bottom when the barrel is spun. He ended up killing himself. My father was the officer charged with making a report; he went to the mess and, while the body had quickly been removed, he was struck by the enormous size and shape of the blood stain on the wall. This was just post WW2 and my father remarked that there was no enquiry, nor investigation. It was quickly put down to incompetence and a short respectful, but blunt, letter was written to the man"s family.

This poster was up at the train station near my work - rougth translation "somebody is WATCHING!" - to discourage all the hentai (perverts) from touching school girl bums. I wonder if its effective. Maybe I should show it to the horny litter police dog.

I went to a really great party on Saturday: "Linda" at Furinkaikan in Tokyo. Never heard of the venue before, but from the look of the velvet couches, catwalk and dancer's swing, I dare say it was an old strip club or hostess bar. Reminded me of my early days doofing at similar run-down establishments in Sydney 10 years ago...... In anycase, here are my two favourite photos of the night by Gallermic Tanaka, The Fashion Ramone. Gallermic is an exceptional photographer. His photos are full of life and I like the lighting especially; I think he manages to show off nitty gritty fantastic fashion details really well, but preserves the dark mystery of nights in clubland.

Some strange drawings I did in Europe. There is a better and perhaps slightly less offensive one on my portfolio site also.

ok nothing up for ages cos I have been in europe. But here's a new logo for the website.

White Mice: Clinical Drug Trials in Japan is the name of my new website, a journal of my experiences being a test subject in a clinical drug trial. It was a pretty interesting experience, not least because when I started I had a bit of a problem with needles. I sure don't anymore thats for sure; over the past two weeks I've poked, pricked and drained of blood so many times my arms look like they've had a dirty weekend in Bangkok without me.

Theatre of Disco's gig at Yellow in Roppongi fuckin rocked. Here are some pics. I wanted to catch them at their later gig but was unable, however there is some 'footage' going around of the night, which apparently was even better than Yellow.

Theatre of Disco are coming to Tokyo!!! Formed in Berlin and shoving it up the butts of the BangGang boys in Sydney recently, the will now hit Yellow on the 2nd of June (with Rekindle and The Plastic Fantastic Machine) and Aoiheya, Shibuya on the 10th of June with the awesome No Tokyo crew). So check em out.

some more info here
gig at Yellow

and here
gig at NoTokyo
and more pics below

Horny Litter Police Dog. A wonderful sign in the middle of the nature reserve at Kamakura, outside Tokyo. Innocent or kinky? Is the dog concerned about the girl littering, or does he have another agenda? What the hell is a little girl doing with an empty can anyway?

Just installed StatCounter. So now I can get all the juicy info (IP no, location, browser, referring link, gender preference) from my my 13 annual visitors. YUGYUG.com - proudly boasting of more than 1 hit a month.

More Giant Kawasaki Penis. These photos by Rich Finn Gregory. Check out his website at finngregory.com. I really never worked out what this festival was about, fecundity perhaps. And below is a picture, also by Rich, of the dude who made the penis and pussy shaped candy, which can be seen in the top left corner.

This Giant Penis Festival in Kawasaki. One of the delightfully odd things that happen in Japan. Big penises made out of plaster, smaller ones sold as candy (pictured below) and dozens of very ugly Japanese transvestites (pictured above).

Quick n Dirty Chinese Thai Hip-Hop Fusion Curry. ... I had a recipe here for a couple of days and then I thought, jezziz krist what am i thinking!?! and I took it down.

Ceiling Cat is Still Watching. Another goddam YTMND. When I told my girlfriend about this she said "kudaranai" meaning in Japanese "congratulations, what a waste of time." But she doesn't know what she's talking about, cos this one got 5'd.

Origami Dinosaur 1988 Acidhouse Freak Out. My most recent ytmnd. At one stage it had 4 and a half stars - proof ^_^ LOL!!!11

Piano bar in Shibuya. The same night I saw the Aoyama street mannequins, I went to this nifty little bar called Piano in Shibuya. Very chicand very small, even for Tokyo standards: 3 bar seats downstairs, about 6 people could sit upstairs confortably. The stair well is as wide as a bar stool seat, the stairs more closely resembling a ladder. Its very velveted and very chandelier'd. The stuffed animals add well to the ambience. The wine list is extensive and entirely French.

We had one beer each and got hit with a ¥1000 per head table charge. We should have told them to shove it, but its a sweet little place and I guess we had thoughts of going back there at some stage with some girls, a foreign rock band and a big bag of something to snort. Better keep the management sweet.

UPDATE! I found Piano's sister bar Red Bar around the corner in Shibuya. Its heaps cool - it has similar decor but the the drinks are all ¥500 (sweet) and its was really pumping in the early hours of saturday morning last week. Plus its a little bigger; there is room to turn around if you really need to. Some chick spilt beer on me and spent nearly half an hour trying to wipe it off my leg while apologizing (she was totally gone) and some dude kept shouting out to the whole bar that because he was ugly he had to talk loudly in order to impress chicks. Actually he was quite good looking and was only annoying the chicks, but I found it funny.

Aoyama street mannequins. For some technical reason I can't title my posts, so each post from now will start with a short description of the post. Which should BE the post really. Aoyama street mannequins.

My cryptic previous post was me trying to phone blog. Unfortunately I can't blog pictures tho. This was the picture I meant to upload. I think that while I am in Japan I might as well take a lot of photos and comment on them here.

My comment for this one is: smoking kills.

i like japanese signs

... ... and to satisfy my completist urge, here are links to my older websites from about 2002 and 2004. Some of the links won't work and the information is out of date but what the hey.

my blog site

First order of business is to link to the my old website. Took it down because enough people complained about its tricky navigation to matter. My design website guykeulemans.com seemed to work out pretty well so this will be similar except with more profanity no doubt. And different content.