The “New” Generation of Comedians appearing on Ametalk
As pretty much any returning reader to this blog knows, I am an “owarai geinin” in Japan. Why don’t I just call myself a comedian? Because the more and more time I spend in the Japanese entertainment industry, the more I’ve come to understand that comedians and geinin are two completely different categories of roles/people entirely.
With the novel coronavirus pretty much putting everything on hold everywhere in the world, now is the perfect time to take of stock of how the Japanese entertainment world has changed or shifted over the last couple of years.
Hey there and welcome to the first post of the post-new domain name era of my crappy blog/website. In case you didn’t notice or were otherwise unaware, incrediblylongblogtitle.wordpress.com is no more. In its place is the much more streamlined, sexy, and exciting stephentetsu.com. Welcome.
Is it a little conceited of me to name my website after myself? Of course.
Is it a better potential representation of me and my person brand (don’t laugh)? Yes.
Does it cost me a bit of money? Yup.
Is it going to go on my business cards? Yessir-ee.
So what’s going to change now that I’m paying for a website that literally has my name on it? Not a whole lot. I’m still the social miscreant that I’ve always been and I’m still the lazy bastard that started this blog. In other words, expect posts to be as infrequent and as consistently underwhelming as they’ve been from the start. After all, I’m an adult.
Anyways, feel free to gossip about me and my inability to not spend my money on stupid things like websites or just pass my stuff along to your friends. Or just ignore me. Yeah, that’s probably the best option.
StephenTetsu.com, where the author hates himself more than you do.
So in my every expending quest to never sleep again, I decided to go the news anchor route and bring some of the news from Japan to you, the beloved reader/viewer/stalker on a new endeavor I am calling I Think I’m Turning JapaNEWS or just JapaNEWS for short.
A little bit of background: Way back in the day, I used to do a podcast with my friend called The Mark and Stephen Show, a show in which Mark did most of the work while I sat around in the back of the room and did the typical goofy sidekick shtick. While our numbers weren’t ever mind-blowing or anything, they started to get on a bit of an up-tick thanks to a bit of radio exposure (it’s a long story but Mark has a tendency to make friends with people in convenient places). And then, things sorta fell apart, burnout ensued, and the Mark and Stephen Show vanished into the ether, never to be heard from again.
That was something like three or four years ago at this point and I seem to remember enjoying the whole semi-organized show thingy far more than I probably did at the time. So I’ve been looking for any excuse to do a show of some sort and the move to Japan finally provided me with enough fodder for one. For the past couple of months, I’ve been mulling over the precise format of what it is that I want to do. Last week, I put out a test podcast on my Soundcloud account (FOUND HERE) but honestly, the end result was a little more bloated than I wanted and, honestly, not that good (which isn’t to say that this new attempt is good either).
Living in Japan, I’ve come to notice how bad most international media is at providing news stories about the country aside from the occasional “FUKUSHIMA IS GOING TO MELT ALL OUR FACES OFF!”, “No one in Japan is having sex!!!!!”, or “Look at how weird Japan is! ROFL” stories. This of course does nothing to account for the other 99% of things going on in the country at any given time. I Think I’m Turning JapaNEWS is my sad little attempt at showing off some of these other events (along with the occasional “Japan is into some weird stuff” story).
This show is obviously a work in progress and it will probably be several more weeks before I even begin to feel comfortable reading the news and then subsequently ad-libbing on camera/mic. As I’m obviously the guy compiling/translating/writing/reading the news stories on this show, the content is going to be a bit smarmier and edgier than a straight forward news show. (Disclaimer: I am a huge fan of SNL’s Weekend Update and the Daily Show so that is consequently how I like my news.)
Now, as for how to find my show…
As of right now, I plan on ultimately offering the JapaNEWS via two main channels: a visual newsdesk-style show via my Youtube channel and an audio podcast feed via an as yet unestablished RSS Feed/ Podcast hosting service. Those of you expecting or wanting a written version of my show will either be sadly disappointed or have to transcribe the show yourself (even if I do have a copy of the script containing the bare bones version of the show itself). Those of you looking for a Braille version of my show are probably better served just doing something else or listening to the audio feed.
When it comes to the frequency of the show, I am going to try to maintain a weekly schedule, which is of course dependent on how busy I am at work and whether or not I’m sick. If something major happens, you can probably expect me to issue some special edition episodes to talk about stuff in a timely manner.
If you would like to contact me about the show and/or are an expert in some Japan news related field, please feel free to do so either through my twitter account or the comments section here or via another yet unestablished email address. Also if an awesome person wants to come up with a cool looking logo for the show, I would love you forever and totally sell you my kidney.
It’s been a while since I’ve shared my videos on this page but since I’m feeling sick and much too tired to write up an actual post today, I’m just going to round up some of my non-written content over the past couple of weeks or so, mainly from my youtube channel, on which I usually just eat food and occasionally talk at a camera.
I got a new mic and to test it out I made a couple of videos. These were the result:
Stephen Eats Weird(ish) Japan
In this long series of videos, I pretty much pull stuff from off the shelves of my local convenience store and claim it’s weird and then eat it. Not very exciting but if you’re into junk food, this is probably in your wheelhouse.
For more videos and stuff featuring me in general, just check out (or subscribe to… or both) my Youtube Channel page here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChj5O1kpXH4kxVQqQBFuPVg
Stephen Tetsu 