Sylvester Stallone: "At Least The Japs Still Love Me"

Sylvester Stallone, visiting Tokyo to promote his shitty ass new movie "Rocky Balboa," (called "Rocky the Final" in Japan) which totally tanked at the US box office, is happy to finally be around people that he thinks appreciate him.

"Hey, you know, American critics have said that this is my late-life crisis movie, or that it is a preposterous and unnecessary sequel or that they thought I was already dead, or that all the plastic surgery I've had has actually changed the topography of the earth," Stallone explained at a press conference. "So, you know, it's nice to be in a country where people will walk up and say, 'Hey, Sylvester, you've got great big muscles. That inspires me.' That's great to hear, you know?"

Stallone was flanked by Japanese actress Rei Dan, who has never seen a Rocky movie but was eager to agree that Stallone's muscles were "amazingly large. Like, totally big."

Oh My God, This Magical Cherry Blossom Just Said Something!

What? What did you say, cherry blossom? You like my glasses? Oh, stop kidding! Really? They make me look smarter? And cuter? Nu-uh. I mean, I kind of thought so, but nobody in my school or at home even seemed to notice when I got them. Well, my friend Yuki looked at me funny and said, "Something's different, Kumiko." But then she just yawned, picked a booger out of her nose, and went back to reading her book on North American birds.

I asked my mom if she noticed anything different about me today and she told me that she hoped I was at least wearing different underwear. That's so mean and dismissive, right? She so totally doesn't understand me. But you do, cherry blossom. Too bad you're already dying. I could really use a friend right now. I just failed an algebra test and got caught by that mean old Masako writing Yoshi's name on my spiral notebook in English class.

What? Masako's missed her last two periods? That's great news! Thanks, cherry blossom!

Silver Medalist Daisuke Takahashi Wants to Know If You Can Do Any Better

Ice skater Daisuke Takahashi, who won the silver medal at the 2007 World Figure Skating Championship, wants you to get off your fucking ass and prove that you can do any better. Sure, he didn't win the gold medal. That honor went to boyishly handsome French skater Brian Joubert, who also wore black but chose to show a little bit more skin, muscle, and sinew. But screw you, a silver medal is fine, bitches. Damn. When's the last time you won any kind of medal, except for that one you got in 2006 for being a total douchebag.

Monday Morning with Goldar and Friends

It's Monday morning and Japablum can't even spell the word cohearent (coherrent? coherhent?), so we'll do what we always do when words fail us and let Goldar and Co. speak for us. The Space Giants always make Japablum feel smarter and better dressed. That's why we're such good friends.

Tinkerbell and Her Round-faced Minions Are Here to Sell You a Cell Phone, Suck Your Soul Out of the Base of Your Neck

And we're warning you; it takes a LOT of souls to keep these girls happy.

Microsoft Windows Vista Rep: "For Some Reason, Asian Chicks Are Kind of Into Me"

"I don't know what it is about me, but whenever I do one of these junkets in an Asian country like China or Tokyo, all these sweet little Asian hotties in spangled cowboy hats, bikini tops, and short frilly skirts, or sometimes spandex tubetops and painted-on hotpants, will saddle up to me excitedly to have their pictures taken. Sometimes there'll be two, three, five at a time, all vying for my attention while the photographers snap their clickers.

I mean, it's not like I'm not used to being oggled at trade shows back home. But these geisha women are something else. And they're never over the age of 20. Yeah, I attract the young ones. They're always so eager to stand next to me with their arms alluringly folded in front of them in an elaborate Asian slipknot, or hold the Windows Vista box in their smooth, supple hands, or bend over a keyboard as I show them how to use the operating system, or simply stand next to me and point to the big Vista box in my hand, or sometimes tongue-kiss each other while rubbing themselves all over with the Vista. Ok, OK! I made that last one up. But believe me, these little Asian genies would probably be up for it! They know what a guy into computers wants to see!"

Japablum Jukebox: Pizzicato Five

We here at Japablum have been a little under the weather this week, which means our regular chunky bites of deliciously useless blog wisdom have been few and far between. We'd like to say a special thank-you to both of our readers, who sent sweet messages of concern and encouragement during our seemingly endless bout of bird flu. One thing, though: next time, we'd prefer it if you said it with money.

So here it is, our first baby step back into the chaos, credulity, and indifference of the internets: a Jukebox posting of a song by Tokyo's Pizzicato Five. It's a sweet, sweet lullabye to wrap yourself in as you desperately cling to the porcelain trough puking up bile from your gullet and tearfully pleading for a merciful, nullifying death.

Warning: She sings in English in this one, kiddies, so hold on to your hats.

Track: "Baby Love Child"
Number of costume changes: incalculable

Staring Contest Between Godzilla and Giant Salaryman Entering Forty-ninth Hour

Japablum has just learned that an impromptu staring contest that started at an office party in Tokyo between giant lizard Godzilla and even more giant salaryman Nobu has just entered its forty-ninth hour.

"It all started when Godzilla made a harmless comment about Nobu needing a haircut," a fellow office worker, Megumi Sato, said. "And, damn, Nobu got pissed."

"They both had had a little to drink by that time," she continued. "Things just started getting a little out of hand. I mean, they wouldn't stop staring silently at each other."

"It was really awkward at first," another colleague, Tomofumi Ueno, said. "But after the first hour, everyone else just went back to talking and drinking. We weren't going to let their staring contest ruin Takeo's management promotion party. That's not fair to him."

"You know," Megumi continued, "Nobu is a little bit sensitive about being so gigantic. Sometimes his sensitivity spills over into abject paranoia. We're all fine with his size. It doesn't bother us at all. We even built a special 10-story warehouse adjacent to our main building so he could have his own office but still, you know, hear what's happening around the water cooler."

"But when Godzilla made that comment about his hair, he just snapped, and that's when the staring started."

The party was declared officially over by the ceremonial ringing of the "party over" bell at 11:30pm, but the staring continued into the night and all day Saturday. By Sunday, the two were still at it and neither showed any signs of ceding ground.

"This is the most incredible staring contest I've ever witnessed," Tetsuo the nighwatchman said. "It's so much more intense and bitter than that one last Christmas between Mothra and Michiko the 50-foot woman in human resources.

Japablum Jukebox: Shonen Knife

Original cute Osaka weirdos Shonen Knife wear furry hot-pink hats and matching boots so you don't have to.

Track: E.S.P.
Special Feature: Peppermint Swirls

Japablum's Random Nightmare Realized

Japablum had a horrible, horrible dream. We were walking through a big fancy house with our cat under one arm and a Diet Pepsi in the other. The sounds of the Psychedelic Furs' Talk Talk Talk album is coming from a room at the end of a long velvet long hallway. We walk towards it, figuring that if they have a Psychedelic Furs album up in this house they're bound to have some Echo and the Bunymen and maybe even a Teardrop Explodes or two.

But as we pad down the hallway, our cat mouthing the words to "All of This and Nothing" and our Diet Pepsi leaking out of a slit at the bottom of the can, we see that the distance between us and the room is not closing; yes, it is getting longer. Just like that scene in Poltergeist when Jobeth Williams runs up the stairs after escaping the murderous swimming pool and all its hungry corpses and she's all like "Get away from my babies! Get away!" and then the hallway gets really long and she has to sprint to outrun the elongating hallway and then when she finally gets to the room she ends up almost being sucked into a giant inflamed vagina. It is just like that.

Anyway, we trot down to the end of the hallway and reach the door, which is red and smells like french fries. We knock on the door and a silver-haired, besuited Japanese man opens, smiling with yellow teeth. He asks no questions and gestures for us to come in. The room is a perfect cube with white walls, a shiny yellow floor, and a bright red table in the center. Another man in a suit stands against the wall and, at the table with a giant pair of headphones on (from whence came the Furs song) is none other than Ronald McDonald. And sitting across the table from him is this:


A chilling, chilling image, yes. But it gets even more lurid and horrible. This cupcake-like character hops across the table, right into Ronald's lap, and the two start having a tickle party. The two gentleman in suits laugh maniacally as Ronald McDonald stands up, his cupcake lover on his shoulder, and walks over to us. He is joined by the two suited men, and together they walk closer and closer. When Ronald is finally face to face with us, he presses our nose like a button and then reaches out and puts the headphones over our ears. But it isn't the Psychedelic Furs we hear. Or Echo and the Bunnymen. Hell, it's not even Falco or A-ha. It's a Rascal Flats song. We scream, pass out, and wake up.

We clamber over to the computer and get on the internets. And we are chilled to the bone when we see this news item:

Japan McDonald's Holdings and Japan's mobile giant NTT DoCoMo have agreed to jointly promote e-marketing to use NTT DoCoMo's electronic wallet mobile phone service.

Ok, that didn't make any sense to us, but this photo did:




Japan McDonald's Holdings CEO Eiko Harada (R) and Japan's mobile giant NTT DoCoMo President Masao Nakamura (L) smile with McDonald's character McDonald (C) holding soft toys of DoCoMo's character Dokomodake

We knew Japablum's powers were great. But we had no idea we could predict gigantic corporate mergers in our sleep.

Also, clowns and cute cupcake dolls? F**king creepy.

Nicholas Cage Happy to Let Fuyuki Moto Explain Ghost Rider

American actor Nicholas Cage, visiting Tokyo to promote his latest lump of shit movie Ghost Riders, was happy to hand the reigns over to Japanese funnyman Fuyuki Moto, allowing the leather-clad entertainer to bear the burden of explaining what the fuck this shit-ass movie has to offer the world.

Mr. Cage, who seems to be intent on draining away every last ounce of American goodwill with every single lame fucking movie he has attached his name to in the past decade, clearly hopes that Moto's sway with the Japanese public will help negate the seriously shitty pre-release press on the movie and allow it to at least not totally bomb at the Japanese box office.

For his part, Mr. Moto is hoping that this press conference will put him in good with Cage and hopefully seal the deal for the zany Japanese-American buddy movie he's written a script for called "Stark Raving Suzuki" that just needs a hot American star to give it the greenlight.

Japablum thinks wooing Mr. Cage for the project will not be a problem. After all, this asshole agreed to appear in National Treasure and the godawful remake of The Wicker Man. Seriously, has he ever said "no" to anything?

Japablum Jukebox: Cornelius

To celebrate the announcement that reclusive Japanese wunderkind Cornelius, aka Keigo Oyamada, will be touring the U.S. to support his new album Sensuous (news that rocked the world, we know), today's Jukebox looks back at the heady days of 1997 when we were all young and so much more attractive. Enjoy this little bite off of his Fantasma fandango.

Track: Star Fruit Surf Rider

Bilk: The Future of Vomitous Hangovers is Finally Here

You know when you're at a bar enjoying an ice cold beer, and you're thinking to yourself, "this beer tastes almost perfect, but it's missing something that I can't quite put my finger on." Well, what if we told you that that "something" is most certainly the taste of creamy, white, pasteurized milk. You would stab us in the eyeballs, right?

Well put down that ice pick because it wasn't our idea. It was Chitoshi Nakahara's. Nakahara-san is head of the Nakahara liquor shop on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, and he and his cronies came up with the idea of fusing two wildly dissimilar beverages into one enticing, wildly pukey alcoholic libation. Taking advantage of the increased supply of milk thanks to the decreasing consumption of milk by his countrymen (Hokkaido alone disposed of 900 tonnes of milk last March), Nakahara created Bilk, a new bottled beverage that is 30% milk, 70% beer, and 100% nausealicious!



We feel like we're gonna bilk right now.