G juice on Gs.

As the world, at least the world as it exists in my circle in Japan, is absorbed in important events like the celebration of international brotherly love, game playing, and nationalist pride in Beijing, it seems crude and out-of-place to say anything about the Soviet---oops I mean Russian---invasion of Georgia. One should not let mere politics interfere with the innocent purity of sports and the making of large globs of profits from them while we root for folks from our country to reconfirm our superiority over folks from other countries. Besides, the Russian invasion of Georgia is, as usual, at least partially the fault of the US. If Dick Cheney had been running it, it would even be worse than what Russia has done. Not that Russia is wrong, of course.

Oh. Back to G juice.

Last spring around the anniversary of the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway by Aum Shinrikyou, I was sitting in a Starbucks near Akasaka Mitsuke/Tameikesanno in Tokyo at about 7AM. Suddenly I smelled a very strong, unpleasant odor which quickly began to burn my nose and eyes. Oh My God! thought I. Sarin! Oh no, we're all going to die!

After a minute or so of panic and burning eyes and nose I began to feel somewhat nauseous. I looked around for the source of the deadly fumes. Nothing. Then I noticed an old barcode head (G* with comb-over) sitting a few tables away. The nauseating stench had not been around until gramps sat down. He was the source. He was not, as far as I could tell a member of any cult. In fact, the foul chemical that he had apparently been drinking and bathing in for the last 5 years seemed somewhat familiar---I remembered a similar scent from when my grandfather applied the hair tonic (he called it hair oil) Vitalis. Since he had usually only applied a teaspoon or less, I was not really familiar with the scent of a full barrel's worth.

Now in this case it was a bit confusing as the old geezer in Starbucks had almost no hair on top of his head except for the few remaining strands making up his barcode, so why would he douse himself with hair tonic? Do the old ladies get turned on by the scent? Does it make the barcode easier to read at checkout? Does it keep flies away (likely) or the grim reaper?

I have recently noticed this odor a lot, and it is always emanating from men of more than 60. Often they have being going bald for about 25 years or more. What's amazing is that even though the stuff smells repulsive, they seem to be completely unaware of it. Not only are the old fudds who pour a tanker ship's worth of G juice per day on their skull unaware of the smell, but everyone around them pretends to be too. The people around him are faking. I wish that I were that good at acting, but that day I had to move as soon as I found the source of the stink and I still flee every time he comes in while I am there.

The old boy is still working too. Bet he's popular in his office. The babes must get goosebumps when the man with a comb-over walks in smelling like Chernobyl.

Now back to the important stuff: The shirt-pulling contest is on TV. What's it called? Judo?

*G. GG. jiji. Ojiisan. eg Masahiko Fujiwara.