What a fool I was (but I have learnt my lesson now!)

Getting home last night I took a toke from my can in the hermetically sealed bathroom, cracked open a cold one, and decided it would be a good idea to reread all the emails I had received from the clinic concerning my clinical trial. My heart froze when I read these words down at the bottom of one email (strangely I hadn't noticed it before): "Refrain from:
"Exercise, alcohol, and recreational drugs, and pharmaceuticals.
There will be a recreational drug screening."

Errr... how long does marijuana stay in your system anyway?

My clinical trial screening was due to begin in less than 36 hours, and I had a cold beer in my hand, and plenty of hot THC buzzing through my cells! What was I going to do?

BioTrax International, an independent volunteer information, advisory and support group, claims that generally trial volunteers are "are required to abstain from social drugs for a minimum period of 28 days prior to participation in medical trials. Clinics will perform medical tests to confirm this." And according to my agent down in Kawasaki, the Kagoshima clinic would hold tests concentrating, in particular, "on things like cannabis and so on."

My blood ran cold.

A paranoid delusion began to form itself in my mind: the clinic would detect traces or by-traces of marijuana in my body, and report me to the police. The police, who failed to convict me back in May when I was arrested with Maniac High busting out of a Shimokitazawa karaoke box without paying the bill, would seize this opportunity to finally put me away, forever. I quickly hid my stash of choco in a can of green tea. I deleted any recent emails from Maniac, Crystal Meth, and others, even vaguely touching on a drug subcultural theme.

I am just glad I didn't follow Maniac High's advice, which was basically to drink a lot of water (and eat half a Japanese daikon radish), in order to try fool the lab technicians. As if they haven't seen it all before, all the various desperate tricks used by desperate druggies, to influence the test results. When I told my agent Maniac High's scheme for cheating the drug test, he laughed.

So anyway, I have a lump of choco in my apartment and nearly a full month to refrain myself from smoking it, which is actually not that hard for me, so long as I have something to drink. Alcohol is for me far more of a crutch than pot, much as I like getting stoned. I am I guess what you would call a heavy drinker, although that might be set to change in the near future, when I come to appreciate how much money I can save by not drinking. It would be in the order of US$5000 a year, enough to fund me a full month of drinking and riotous behavior in Reykjavik Iceland, or somewhere cool like that. The problem I face today, which was an otherwise excellent Tokyo autumn day, is that with the trial screening less than a week away, the time has come to really bite the bullet, and refrain from drinking as well. They are going to do a liver function test down there in Kagoshima, and several volunteers have already failed, for having by-products of alcohol in their system. It is time to go sober for nearly a whole week -- and maybe for a whole lot longer, maybe forever...

What is a liver function test, and what are some of the things they look for? How can alcohol give you away in a clinical screening environment? Here is one chart I found on the Internet, which describes some of the common liver function indicators, especially in connection to alcohol use (and abuse):

TABLE 1 Helpful Hints for Interpreting Liver Function Tests Situation Comments Mildly elevated ALT level (less than 1.5 times normal) ALT value could be normal for gender, ethnicity or body mass index. Consider muscle injury or myopathy. Alcoholic hepatitis Laboratory values can appear cholestatic, and symptoms can mimic cholecystitis. Minimal elevations of AST and ALT often occur. AST level greater than 500 U per L The AST elevation is unlikely to result from alcohol intake alone. In a heavy drinker, consider acetaminophen toxicity. Common bile duct stone Condition can simulate acute hepatitis. AST and ALT become elevated immediately, but elevation of AP and GGT is delayed. Isolated elevation of GGT level This situation may be induced by alcohol and aromatic medications, usually with no actual liver disease. Isolated elevation of AP level (asymptomatic patient with normal GGT level) Consider bone growth or injury, or primary biliary cirrhosis. AP level rises in late pregnancy. Isolated elevation of unconjugated bilirubin level Consider Gilbert syndrome or hemolysis. Low albumin level Low albumin is most often caused by acute or chronic inflammation, urinary loss, severe malnutrition or liver disease; it is sometimes caused by gastrointestinal loss (e.g., colitis or some uncommon small bowel disease). Normal values are lower in pregnancy. Blood ammonia level Blood ammonia values are not necessarily elevated in patients with hepatic encephalopathy. Determination of blood ammonia levels is most useful in patients with altered mental status of new onset or unknown origin. ALT=alanine aminotransferase; AST=aspartate aminotransferase; AP=alkaline phosphatase; GGT=gamma-glutamyltransferase.

Earlier this week, I played the role of an extra in a Japanese World War Two movie, which was filmed in the beautiful Ibaraki Prefecture north of Tokyo. Me and my crew played the roles of American soldiers during the Occupation in 1946, and according to the script, we were supposedly stationed on the southern island of Kyushu. In the story we stumble upon a vintage kamikaze plane left out in the fields, and in our anti-Japanese hate, we burn the plane down! Yes, that is right, this was another role in which foreigners are cast as devils, insensitive to the hurts they inflict on pure-hearted Japanese folk. But what the hell, it was a great day out in the sun, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day. I earnt 12,000 Yen (about US$120) for my efforts. I got to see a part of Japan I had never seen before (maybe I will be back there one day.) When the shooting was over and I was back in Tokyo, I headed out to Kichijoji, to team up with old Aussie bud Garnet. We decided to head in to Shibuya, to take photos of all the girls on the street, and all the cool shops.

CLINICAL TRIALS IN THE UK: Click here.
You can email them on grpecho-osaka@mist.ocn.ne.jp, or call production manager Hikaru Furukawa on this number: 03/5282 5321. Group Echo have branches in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.

Below lie some forbidden photos from the shoot in Ibaraki Prefecture, and some photos from my jaunt around Shibuya and Harajuku later in the day, with my buddy Garnet Mae:

It is funny how things can change fast, when luck is on your side. In the past month or so my life has been getting better on an almost daily basis, although there have been some big upsets as well. But I am beginning to think that my life is taking off and I am doing the things I want to do (like working as a restaurant reviewer for one of the magazines in Tokyo.) It is just the start of the good times and plenty of more good things are on the way.

I know some people sometimes promise the world and then don't deliver on their promises, but I have got a good feeling about being able to meet with them. My angle when I do meet them is going to be that I am Garnet's assistant -- I am his script writer, and I am doing some research for a movie he wants to make in Iceland. So I am going to ask them to show me some places we could feature in the movie -- like bars, nightclubs, that sort of thing, and if they could introduce me to some of the local characters (celebrities, rock bands, etc.) You have got to remember that Iceland has a population of only 300,000 people, so it probably isn't that hard to get to know even the famous people there. Reykjavik the capital is smaller than Wollongong. It is a hell of a lot more interesting, though.

My plan is, a few times a year I will do a stint in a clinical trial in Japan, which is supposed to be something of a junket in itself (you get flown down to the southern island of Kyushu, spend a week or two in hospital, and then at the end get treated to an all-expenses paid couple of nights in a beachside hotel). Once the trial is done and I have got my money (which could be up to US$9000), I will bank a proportion of it for the future (say a third of so), and then head to one of my international home away from home's: Iceland, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Australia, Greenland, wherever. And once in my new location I will set to work developing media contacts and collecting materials for my web. It is the perfect life plan for me, and it will give me the chance to "live" in a lot more countries than just Japan. It will enable me to become an International Vagabond at last. But even if I go down the medical/clinical trial path, I am still going to have to spend at least half of every year in Japan. That is not so bad, because there are endless pleasures to be had in this land, and endless new vistas open before the jaded traveller no matter how many years he or she has lived here. Here are some photos I took today, in the Shinjuku skyscaper district of Tokyo:

The nature of my life is this: long periods of stability and stagnation, followed by rapid and amazing bursts of creativity and change and growth, taking me up to a whole new level of existence. Ever since the start of last month, I have been in one of these upward thrusts. For me these seem to happen every five years -- the last Upwave took place in 2001, when I was new to Japan and earning big money as an English teacher in the elementary school system. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then -- I have spent five whole years in Japan! I have spent more than five years in Japan! Since that heady time my life has stagnated a lot, although I still remember 2003 as the best year of my life -- mainly because I had a freelance lifestyle that year and a lot of free time, an escalating series of girlfriends, and I made a trip to Iceland in that year. 2004 and to a lesser extent 2005 were downer years compared to 2003, and I lost my freelancer lifestyle, even though I gained a permanent girlfriend, compared with the flaker girlfriends of the previous years. Come May 2006 and suddenly, unexpectedly, my so-called permanent girlfriend is gone, the freelancer lifestyle is back, and in fact I look set to take it to a totally cool and sublime level -- that of the International Vagabond. The International Vagabond is here, waiting to assume command of my life. According to my own astrological forecasts and understandings, I have entered the Scorpio Upwave. During the last Upwave which kicked in at the end of 2000, I left behind my old deadend job in Australia, and moved to Japan. It has been a heady and exciting time since then, and despite a lot of hardships I have established myself in this country, forever. I want to live here forever, and now I have the contacts and the means to achieve that goal. Living in Japan has always been exciting, a new experience every day, and I have done things that I would never have done back in Australia. But despite the novelty factor of being a stranger in a strange land, during the past two years I have started to feel like I am wasting my time, missing out on life, getting left behind by the pack. Little by little, my life in Japan has come to resemble my deadend life in Australia, with even less of a chance to escape. Astrologically (according to the Uncloned World creed of astrology at least!), 2004 and 2005 were the years of the Scorpio Downwave. According to my astrological theories, this was the time when the element of Scorpio was introduced to my life... but in a negative way. Or rather, shortcomings were revealed in my life which are to be resolved and transcended in the Scorpio Upwave, which will run from 2006 to 2009. It is only just the start of the Upwave, it is just the opening chapter. But I can already see what these three years will be about, and I have an inkling of the ways in which I will be transformed.

Here are the traits I have to overcome in this Scorpio Age of my life, according to the Esoteric Astrology of Alice Bailey and Djwhal Khul:

Category I
Sex - the relation of the pairs of opposites. These can be selfishly utilized or divinely blended.
Physical comfort - life conditions, selfishly appropriated.
Money - selfishly cornered (if I may use such a phrase).

Category II
Fear - which conditions activity today.
Hate - which is a factor in conditioning relationships.
Ambition - conditioning objectives.

Category III
Pride - which is intellectual satisfaction, making the mind the barrier to soul control.
Separativeness - which is the isolated attitude and which makes the mind the barrier to right group relations.
Cruelty - which is satisfaction with personality methods and which makes the mind the instrument of the sense of power.

When these faults are realized and are overcome, the result is twofold: the establishing of right relations with the soul and also with the environment. These two results are the goal of all tests in Scorpio.

Chris is a master of manipulating the Tokyo media -- in association with the recent The Da Vinci Code boom, he played Jesus Christ in some biblical documentary on Japanese TV. He showed us the video and I kind of thought, he looked more Charles Manson, than Jesus Christ. Check out the photos below -- what do you think?

This job was a kind of hip-hop video/shoes commercial crossover, filmed in one of the first clubs I ever visited in Japan: Club Asia at Shibuya. Along with a crew of some ten foreigners and about 40 or 50 Japanese, my job was to basically dance in the background while three beautiful women -- a new hip-hop group being promoted in the video -- pranced around in the foreground. That's right, you read that right -- my job was to dance, their job was to prance! There was a lot of time between takes which gave me the chance to become acquainted with my fellow extras -- the good fellows I was alluding to before! -- and they were good, believe me! About half of the group were Russian chicks of the kind who often turn up to film shoots like this -- they are housewives of Japanese gents for the most part, looking to having a little fun and making a little mon during the daylight hours (when hub's away). Of the non-Russians?Cthere was one Canadian guy called Jeff who said he had set up a website to allow foreign models to meet Japanese women (interesting idea). Jeff encouraged me to keep on going with the development of my website?Cuntil I push into the realms of profitability. He also said something which was to hang with me for the rest of the month: "It is possible to make all your dreams come true in Japan?Cbut you have to get out there and make it happen." It made me feel like I have been missing out on life these past few years. Well, it is time I did some catching up!