To recap:
An earthquake of historic proportions hit northeastern Japan on March 11. That triggered a massive tsunami that flooded a wide swath of the Japanese mainland. Millions were left without power, and the loss of power also caused malfunctions at a nuclear plant, which has been leaking radiation ever since. More than 9,800 bodies have been recovered so far, another 17,500 are still missing; the majority of those are probably dead. Even now, more than 600,000 homes are without water, more than 200,000 still without power. Hundreds of thousands remain homeless.
We have a faithful reader named Phro whose frequent comments make me laugh or feel queasy (or sometimes both). He’s an American living and working in the Tokyo area. On March 16, at the end of one of our more widely read posts, called “Our World”, we passed along an appeal from Phro for contributions to the relief effort in Japan. And then, in an update to the post, we explained that Phro had offered an extra inducement: if NCS and its readers could meet or exceed the goal of raising $500 for Japanese relief, Phro promised to do something inappropriate and ridiculous (e.g., wear a maid skirt and dance around akihabara) and send us photographic evidence.
We exceeded that goal — and Phro has now paid off. (details – and photos – after the jump . . .)
To be specific, through Phro’s good works, we raised $515 for the Japanese relief effort, and when you count additional money Phro had a hand in helping to raise in Japan (and we count here a very generous contribution from Phro’s gf), the total exceeded $800.
Phro is very grateful. So are we. In a world filled with disappointments, including cretins in the U.S. who rejoiced in this disaster, thinking it was some kind of retribution for Pearl Harbor, what Phro did was very cool. To him, and to those of you who contributed and e-mailed us with the amounts of your contributions, thank you. Misery cares nothing for national boundaries, and sometimes, neither does kindness.
We would have forgiven Phro if he had delayed the payoff on his offer to the point when everyone would have just forgotten about it. But he didn’t forget. He sent us photos, with this note:
Ive done it.
Holy shit, that was embarrassing.
A quick note to all who donated:
Thank you for proving that metal heads are both generous and awesome humans! We may be few, but our strength is greater than our numbers. Also, there’s nothing a school girl skirt, fat bass lines, growly vocals, and some tentacles can’t fix.
Phro
And here’s one more shot of Phro and his girl in one of those pirikura booths, with the name of our very own site scrawled on the pic (thanks dude):
As you can see, Phro wisely obscured the face of his gf to protect the innocent, because we sure as fuck don’t have any innocents around here.
In closing, the shit is still flying in Japan, and the people trying to help provide relief are still looking for money. We can’t promise any more ridiculous photos of Phro, but if you feel like throwing a few dollars to that cause, here’s the same link we provided on March 16:
17 Responses to “PHRO MAKES GOOD”
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Hey there, hot legs, call me 😉
It may take Phro a while to get back to you. I’ve been taping copies of the photos on bathroom stalls with his phone number on them, and he’s probably got a stack of calls to return.
You’re the one!
Why didn’t you at least go to an aquarium and give some to the squids!?
Hey, the day is still young. I’ll hit the aquarium right after the stalls at the Greyhound bus terminal.
You’ll find tentacles in both places….
Super kinky with the army boots! You’ve got some sense of fashion tentacle-man!
Thanks. I thinks i was a riot grrl in a past life.
Wait, i don’t believe in reincarnation……
Freudian slip?
How did you know $515 was donated by the way?
In the original post, I asked everyone who contributed to e-mail me and tell me the amount of their contribution, trusting that people would be honest about it, and I feel sure they were..
Ah, then it’s even more, because I contributed a modest amount and didn’t e-mail you.
Add 5 bucks to the score! Yay! (I’m not cheap, I was just running low on funds.)
Thanks for doing that man. Phro and I were hoping for just a few dollars from anyone who might want to help, because no one has got big piles of cash lying around with no plans for it. So we got contributions like yours, but we also got some surprisingly large ones. And I would bet there are other people who gave and didn’t e-mail me about it. Anyway, it was a cool experience.
That’s how it works: many hands make light work is what they say in Dutch.
I’ve heard that expression in English too and just looked it up. It’s attributed to a 16th Century English playwright and poet named John Heywood, who also appears to be one of the earliest sources of the phrase, “Rome was not built in one day”, and this one, which I like: “Those who agree with us may not be right, but we admire their astuteness.”
Wow, the dude practically invented all expressions. His wiki also says he probably died in Mechelen, Belgium, which could explain why we also have a Dutch version.
Digging further: There was a Dutch philosopher named Erasmus who predated Heywood and who compiled a massive collection of Latin and Greek adages from his reading of classical literature, and his collection included “many hands make light work”. I think Heywood just translated some of the Erasmus adages into English. Check this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adagia
Sweet, so it’s all just from Latin. Makes sense.
That Erasmus dude is quite a famous chap by the way. There’s a university and a bridgenamed after him in Rotterdam, as well as an international exchange program of university students.
It’s amazing how many phrases first spoken and written thousands of years ago have survived and continue to be repeated to this day. Most of the time, we’re not even aware of it.