Hardcore Zen_ Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality - Brad Warner [21]
I spent the next several months being totally blinded by my good fortune, walking around in a complete daze.
This was some weird kinda mojo for sure. How had such a thing happened? As I became aware of just how impossible it was, I started to get a little scared. In my view of the world at that point, things like this just could not possibly happen. It was utterly impossible. If I hadn’t been so blinded by happiness I would have gone nuts. Maybe I did go a bit nutty. But I managed to keep it in check. Sort of.
WHENEVER I’VE REFLECTED on what happened, I am struck by the phenomenal string of coincidences that brought me to Tsuburaya. How had I just happened to pick that particular prefecture in Japan as the place to work? How had I come across that particular book in that particular book store? How had life conspired for Yuka and me to meet? How had it just so happened that I sent my letter to Tsuburaya right after the last American who worked there quit? How had I even made it to Japan in the first place? And that room full of monsters I’d dreamed of as a kid, had I somehow known I’d end up working at such a place? My head was spinning. If daffodils had flown out my ass, I couldn’t have been more astounded.
I’d had a zillion jobs by then, mostly through temp agencies. As thrilled as I was, I nonetheless had an inkling that the best job in the world was still just a job. Even Johnny Ramone said that being a rock and roll guitar player was a pretty good job, but that, in the end, it also sucked just like any other job.
Yet, I knew—I just knew—that I had landed The Perfect Job. My life would never be dull, dreary, or disappointing again. These people got paid good money to sit around and look through Ultraman books, to write the scripts for Ultraman shows, to dress up in rubber dinosaur costumes and trash model cities! (Not to mention that there were some mind-bogglingly hot-looking babes in the sales department.)
Johnny Ramone was obviously wrong. Buddha was wrong—life wasn’t suffering, life was great! A job at Tsuburaya Productions was definitely not suffering. Maybe there were people in the world who could get tired of such a life. But not me, boy! No way in the world! This was it. Stupid as my dreams were, I had just realized them all in one bound. Maybe it was because my dreams were so small that I’d been able to realize them all. Whatever. I didn’t want to be a rich rock and roller or movie star or dictator of a nation. Maybe I’d stumbled onto the secret for eternal happiness: Keep your dreams small and stupid.
All I knew was this was paradise on earth and nothing would ever, ever, ever change that.
Famous last words…
IF ONLY...
You may find that having is not so
pleasing a thing as wanting.
This is not logical but it is often true.
MISTER SPOCK
Rivers of sweat spilling down my forehead and into my eyes, my brain liquefying under the heat of the giant arc lamps, I rip the heavy fiberglass and latex monster mask off my head and collapse to my knees.
The skintight wetsuit transformed by the Tsuburaya Productions’ costume department into the monster’s silver-and-black-striped body threatens to rip open in a particularly embarrassing way. “Cut!” the director yells, no longer even bothering to hide his disgust and anger at yet another take ruined by the foreigner dressed as that transdimensional menace Alien Dada, one of Ultraman’s most fearsome enemies. I fall into a useless heap on the floor while the rest of the monsters get into position for the next take.
The opening sequence of Let’s Learn English with Ultraman! features six of Ultraman’s greatest monster foes dancing behind a ten-year-old half-Japanese half-American singer named Nadia. There is a huge Ultraman live show going