WOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it seems that Hiroshi's moment of fame was like a camera flash in the dark. He's still around, now appearing on TV commercials (always accompanied by somber violins), but his popularity among young people has quickly faded to oblivion. Now there's a new, much more exotic, and totally enigmatic flavor of the month. Feast your eyes on wrestler-turned-comedian Razor Ramon Sumitani:



Perhaps not surprisingly, his working stage name is "Hard Gay", and he is just that. Blatantly homosexual and oozingly proud of it.

His schtick is basically to flirt with male celebrities in an obnoxious and harassing manner, always punctuated with his characteristic "WOOOOOOOH" howl. When he's not doing that, he's getting laughs (for some incomprehensible reason) by rapidly thrusting his tight-leather-clad pelvis at either a fellow performer or the camera until he sports an obvious erection.

Normally I would shake my head, sigh, and wait till this fad passes, as they all do. However, at my school, not only can that damned "WOOOOOH" be heard just about everywhere you go at all times of the day, but now gay definitely seems to be "in". It's unbelievable the (increasing) number of boys who are not only loudly boasting of their newly revised sexual orientation, but make a very obnoxious display of it any time they are able.

I remember in my own school days, for a guy, being called a "fag" was one of the worst insults imaginable. I had one classmate in high school who was openly gay (and totally harmless...actually a very cool and likable guy, if eccentric), and he was treated with horrible cruelty by the macho-obsessed boys around him.

Even Japan has always been a very macho-centric culture, maybe even more than the U.S.. At least among people in their late 20s and up, the rule is still "men are men, and therefore belch and fart as loudly and frequently as possible, and women are women, and therefore clean up after men's bodily functions while never showing any of their own." When I started work at my school back in '96, I very nearly beat the tar out of a 10th-grade punk who told his friends he refused to greet me as a teacher, saying, "I don't talk to homos" (apparently since I didn't belch and fart loudly in public). The way you dressed, walked, and talked immediately marked you as either sufficiently masculine or swishy.

Well, now swishy is "in". In fact, it is very noisily and obnoxiously "in".

I've always been a firm believer in freedom of choice and non-interference in people's private lives (hence the fact that I've had admittedly gay friends over the years without any stigma attached). This, however, goes beyond any lines of sensibility. To call it overkill would be an understatement. In fact, I'm starting to get sick to death of that damned howl...and if any of those kids turns his "horny gay boy" theatrics on me, I'm liable to do a comedian impersonation of my own, in this case, "Boot to the Head".