Does It Matter If My Kid Only Comes In Tenth?

A couple of weeks ago my kids’ elementary school held their annual class-by-class road race. Though I don't think “race” is quite the right word. Standing on the side of the road, watching them all go by, I saw it as a stripping of the soul. A study in human response.

Thanksgiving Shout to a Guy in a Bookstore in Tokyo

This Thanksgiving I want to send a shout out to the one guy in a city of 13 million who was willing to give me a shot.

If writing a book is like climbing a mountain, then marketing one is like taking on Everest. Marketing one in a country where hardly anyone speaks or reads your language is like taking on Everest with no oxygen. And no clothes. Hungover.

The goal was to convince one of the bigger booksellers in Tokyo to let me hold a book signing in one of their stores. So I started calling around.

“Sorry, we don’t do that kind of thing,” said the first person I spoke to once they’d deciphered my Japanese. “We don’t have many foreign customers,” said another. Someone from one of Japan’s largest and best-known chains told me to call back once I was famous – assuring that I wouldn’t.

I put down the phone. This shit was going nowhere.

I Was Plogging and I Didn't Even Know It

I heard once that the French don't care what you do as long as you pronounce it correctly. I don't know how far one can push that idea without garnering some major embarrassment if not a night in Jail du Nord. I do know that my French sucks, so they probably don't want me saying much of anything. After a certain episode in Nice in 1992 they haven't really wanted me there at all.

The Japanese have words for things that in other languages take half a day to explain. But I'm not sure they have a word for what I've been up to recently. Until the other day I didn't think anyone had a word for it. Then I discovered the Swedish term "plogging".

Mark Twain's Pre-Twitter Indictment of the Justice System Applies Even More Today

Mark Twain's aversion to describing anything in simple terms seems to have been so severe one might be forgiven for believing the simple act of writing a trite phrase on a piece of paper would cause him to break out in hives.

Consider this line from "Roughing It", a 500-page account of his time in the American west during the mid-nineteenth-century Gold Rush:

“The men who murdered Virginia's original twenty-six cemetery-occupants were never punished."

Cemetery occupants?! If I ever find opportunity to use a phrase of Twain's in conversation I totally want it to be that one. I may get my teeth knocked out for it but I'm absolutely sure it will be worth it.

Japanese Shinto Hits the Maga Nail on the Head

This was going to be a short, snarky post

about a passage from a book I just read.

But some ideas, once explored,

can not be justly ignored.

Shinto, Japan’s ancient indigenous religion, is wrapped in mystery. There are no sacred scriptures or writings. There exists no central authority. There is little, if any, evidence of the origins of their rituals and beliefs. No one knows for sure how many kami there are in the Shinto pantheon; gods inhabit all manner of Nature, from rocks and trees to mountains and oceans. The Shinto priests recite age-old prayers in a language barely resembling Japanese. I don't think they even know what they are saying.

Watching My Kids Take On the World, One Mini-Marathon at a Time

This week the kids at the local grammar school were out once again running their annual mini-marathon. And once again, watching my daughter struggling to keep up – an enormous and ultimately impossible task – my heart was both bursting with pride at her spirit and aching with the knowledge that her struggles will never completely end.

A week or so ago, arriving to pick her up at the after-school center she sometimes goes to, I heard her talking to another girl. From their conversation it was apparent they were in the process of deciding to go outside and play together. It also seemed that they did not know each other too well, because as I stood off to the side trying not to be noticed I heard my daughter tell the other girl very matter-of-factly that she looked kind of funny when she ran – and then asked the girl not to laugh.

Memory, Resonance & My Reptilian Brain

Shiojiri, north of the Kiso Valley.

Saturday morning, and I’m on a train headed for Nagoya. The guy in the seat in front of me is dressed in a suit. His head turns side to side, slowly, barely perceptible as he peruses the newspaper in his hands. Watching him, I think of how each of us takes in the world around us.

For the next twenty minutes we’ll be passing through fields of rice, soba and grapes. Then the land will rise up and close in on both sides and we'll be rolling down into the steep, narrow Kiso Valley. We’ll follow the line cut by the ancient the Kiso River, along the Kyoto-Tokyo path the daimyo traveled when these places were known by different names.

The Kiso Valley

South of Nakatsugawa the land will open up again, bringing more fields and towns I fear are slowly sinking toward extinction. The generations are no longer content with small-town tradition. By the time I get off this train we’ll be in Japan’s third largest city, a place that, though I’ve been to and through it many times, has left me with few lasting memories.

I do recall the time I bumped into my friend Hiroshi as we were both changing trains at Nagoya Station. He was on his way to nearby Gifu, to visit family still living in the town he grew up in. I was on my way further south with my then-girlfriend. All three of us were living in Fukushima at the time. In the middle of a crowded platform we laughed at our chance meeting. We snapped a quick picture to memorialize it. Then we continued on our respective ways.

If not for Hiroshi I might not remember I’d gone through Nagoya at all.

Jobs YO! Pay LO!

Online Job-Hunting in Japan

As a self-employed individual I am always on the lookout for new opportunities that will pay me for my creativity (such that it is). My wife might beg to differ, maintaining I am always on the lookout for opportunities that will get me out of doing the dishes.

Regardless, my vigilance recently paid off when I discovered an employment site here in Japan called YOLO.

Already you’re certainly wondering: ‘Kevin, what sort of lucrative creative outlet did you find?’

Answer: Are you kidding me?

YOLO may be a great job resource for some people. And I wish them well. But for me, YOLO is a gold mine of another sort.

I ran into yet another foreigner the day who said he was looking for pretty much anything besides teaching English. He was the kind of guy who, in the space of twenty seconds, could shift from that to the cost of living in Japan to his screaming extroversion to his friends’ opinions of him to the Rape of Nanking. It was all I could do to keep up. So I never got around to telling him about YOLO and how he could work outside where there are always tons of people to talk to as he took his aggressions out on the pigeons for poverty-level pay.

I just noticed the picture next to this ad. This pigeon-coping work looks like serious business. And how about the job listed right below. How exciting it would apparently be to work in a convenience store for up to $12 an hour!

I’m sorry. For some people – college students or illegal visa overstayers from China, for example – this would be the perfect opportunity. Easy, part-time work for some pocket change (or, like, food), where all the Japanese you need to know are numbers, a few standard bits of politeness and “Do you want this piece of processed shit warmed up?” Since this is Japan there’s no Christmas bonus, but also since this is Japan there’s pretty much zero chance you’ll get held up at gunpoint.

Speaking of not getting held up at gunpoint, here’s an interesting gig.

The uniform for this job in Tokyo’s hoity-toity Shinagawa neighborhood evidently includes a one-size-fits-one-size necktie, possibly the one used by the last employee who we might guess was fired for patrolling his nethers in the bathroom on company time.

As I look through these job postings I’m starting to think that somewhere there’s got to be a need for a marketing consultant. Not for this place in Osaka, where the employees enjoy a yellow safety vest and lenient facial hair rules and are therefore happy…

…but for this place, where at least one employee looks about ready to puke in her box and chuck it at her boss.

The companies I suspect will get the most applicants are the ones who can show that the job involves sombreros, booze and little gothic mariachi voodoo dolls – clearly a winning combo.

So maybe I’ll track that guy down and tell him what I found. Meantime I should keep a closer eye on YOLO myself. This opportunity was just posted two days ago.

Six articles. Six hundred bucks. My kind of gig.

Posted two flipping days ago - and the application period has already closed.

Maybe they’ll bump up the hourly on that gig with the pigeons…

A Short Post About Short Kids

and snacks on a pile of ancient dirt.

We could have just sat at the kitchen table and had cocoa. But the crisp blue sky was too much to ignore. So I bundled up the kids and tossed them in the car for the quick ride to Kobo-yama.

It's usually just a few minutes' walk from the creek where we park and through the tree-covered slopes up to the top of this oversized hill. On this day it took a bit longer with all the snow that still prevails on the northern side but for the kids, who already have little sense of time, how long it takes is irrelevant. Only the fun factor matters. At least until the frostbite sets in.

We'd been here before, in the spring, when the west-facing half of the hill becomes a pink and white blanket of cherry blossoms. Then too I'd tried to impress my kids with the fact that the top of this big hill is actually a burial mound dating back to the 3rd Century. They didn't care then, and they didn't care now - particularly my daughter, who thinks anything that happened anytime in her four years of existence was 'yesterday'. That none of us will be here in another century is equally unimpressive.

And that's cool.

I'm just happy they like it out here enough to forget all about the kitchen table.

Indonesia Takes China & Japan For A Ride

Question: How do you get the second and third largest economies in the world to kiss your ass?

Answer: Tell them you want to spend $5 billion on a train that goes really fast.

Indonesia, as the fourth most populous nation in the world, is bound to have a few clever characters hanging around. And one of them, we find, has been stringing China and Japan along for months with talk of wanting to build a high-speed railway linking Jakarta and Bandung. China and Japan, blinded by the amount of cash to be made - mainly by the politicians bucking for the deal - have been going totally ga-ga over the idea.

It's a scientific fact that you can't think straight when you are going totally ga-ga.

"Thanks so much for dinner, but...I'm just not ready to commit..."

Pope Francis Brings His Climate Change Game

Conservatives Respond by Whining About His Eligibility to Play

"See you at the Big Dance, boys..."

Back in April the Christian Science Monitor reported that “on Tuesday, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and other organizations hosted a summit at the Vatican called “Protect the Earth, Dignify Humanity: The Moral Dimensions of Climate Change and Sustainable Development,” billed as a meeting to help strengthen “the global consensus” on the issue.” One intended effect of this meeting is, we are told, “to influence this year’s United Nation’s Climate Change Conference.”

In their own press conference on Monday, before even hearing what Pope Francis had to say, conservative groups held a press conference to denounce the Pope’s stance on the environment. In doing so, certain conservatives did a fine job exposing the truth: that they are contradictory, hypocritical and unwitting masters of irony.

 

NOTE: I said ‘certain’ conservatives, not all. Because labeling someone does not give you the right to decry them. You have to wait until they say something stupid.

You can check out the Christian Science Monitor article on the subject here. Or keep reading for the two-minute breakdown of some grown men whining about a guy in a white robe.

"No, no, you're not going to Hell if you become a climate scientist, don't listen to those guys..."

Jeb Bush Speaks Volumes

But There Are Problems with the Con-Text

“Jeb Bush sought to cast himself as a political outsider during his first big speech as a presidential candidate on Monday…”

So begins the guardian’s take on Jeb Bush and his brand spanking new campaign. The sub-headline of the article, by the way, refers to Jeb’s touting of his “re-invention of his brother’s compassionate conservatism”.

Look, little brother. To use big brother’s words, either you are with him or you are against him. None of this re-inventing BS.

 

My name's Jeb, ya see, so I'm kind of like an outsider.

The guardian (they don’t capitalize their name, why should I?) goes on to tell us that ole Jeb is trying to “counter criticism that he represents the establishment wing of the Republican party.”

Let’s try to take his word for it, shall we?

Those Moving Piles of Water Are Called Waves

And Other Helpful Hints for Rowing Your Boat Across the Ocean

You need a few things if you’re going to try to row a boat 6,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean. A decent boat. A light on your decent boat. A bit of fortitude. A clue.

Sonya Baumstein had none of these. But she went for it anyway.

Gotta love the enthusiasm.

 



"...and I've even got extra oars in case my arms get tired..."

 The Orange County Register had by far the best account of Sonya’s poorly-planned adventure on the high seas I've seen. In other words, it gave the most detail. And the details are so flipping funny it would be rude not to share them.

30-year-old Sonya wanted to be the first woman to row solo across the Pacific.

That takes some guts. So far so good. But we learn from the we-don’t-color-our-news OC Register that after departing on June 7th “she spent several days after her departure relatively close to shore as she waited for her sea sickness to subside.”

Seasickness.

If Sonya was allergic to cats she would have wanted to become a lion tamer.

Categorical Bullshit! On...Jeopardy!

[ Cue theme music...Switch to Camera 1 for a swinging shot of the contestants and Mr. Trebek...aaaaand, guy in the booth! ]

"And now...Back...To…Jeopardy!"

Trebek: Welcome back everyone, we're ready to start the second round. I believe it's Kevin's turn to go first?

 

Contestant Kevin: I’ll take Bullshit Writers for $200, Alex.

 

Normally we don't tolerate swearing on the show, but considering the category,

let's sling some shit, shall we? 

Trebek: Okay, here’s your answer. ‘It’s how 95% of today’s travel writers do their travel research.’

Kevin: What is…Google?

Trebek: Right you are, Kevin. You pick again.

Kevin: I think I’ll stick with Bullshit for $400, Alex.

Trebek: For $400. She wrote the recent idiotic Investopedia article entitled ‘Best Cities To Retire To In Japan’.

Kevin: Who is Jean Folger?

Trebek: Right again! You’re on a roll.

Kevin: Gotta go with what I know. Bullshit Writers for $600 please.

Trebek: For $600 and a share of the lead. This city was recently ranked by a writer who has never been there as one of Japan’s best places to retire, despite the snot-freezing winters that last six months and the biggest attractions being skiing, getting drunk in Susukino and, in February, battling the 2 million people who descend on the annual Snow Festival.

Johnny Manziel, Firing Away

Don’t Mind My Poolside Manners

"All right, that's it you annoying little autograph seeker!"

Observation: ESPN and Jim Basquil need to lay off the how’s-this-for-a-story sauce.

Consider the opening line in the video accompanying this article: “JOHNny ManZIEL, harASSED by a FAN at the AT&T Byron Nelson Golf Tournament.”

Seriously? All that emphasis because someone was bothering someone next to a pool? So what if one of the someones was a professional quarterback? Is this really a reason to put on a striped shirt-striped tie combo and get all worked up?

Jimmy baby, save your serotonin for the part about what color his girlfriend’s bikini was.

A close and properly journalistic look at the situation, however, is worth a peek. That, my friends, is why we are here.

“FIRST, the HIGH lights.”

7 Silly Quotes From Obama's Gulf Allies Summit

And What They Really Mean

"I was told this was a six-nation summit, why are there eight of us here?"

Reuters reports that Barack Obama held a summit this Thursday at Camp David for the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. (Okay, everyone reports it but Reuters gets the nod for the most usable quotes.) Why the US is hosting such an event let alone attending one is bizarre enough. What was said makes the event a true oil slick of political bilge.

To wit:


"President Barack Obama vowed on Thursday to back Gulf allies against any external attack."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only external attacks on the Middle East I can recall were by the US.

"Obama pledged that the United States would consider using military force to defend them."
So the promise is to BACK our Gulf Allies (is that oxymoronic or just moronic?), while the pledge is to CONSIDER military force. 'Guys, we got your back. You know...from back here.'

My Advice To You Is To Start Drinking Heavily

The Benefits of Solid Research

Raise your income by drinking a whooooole lot of this.

Coffee or green tea?

The question used to make that angel-devil combo pop up on my shoulders.

"Green tea is sooooo much healthier," my angel would coo. "AND it's traditional." She'd drag out that last word in her sweet sarcasm that makes me want to punch her in her cherub.

"The coffee," my devil would growl, like he already knew he was going to win. "Coffee milk coffee sugar coffee coffee coffee!!"

I used to listen to my angel much more often. I blame the kids.

Thanks to the findings of this new study the sides of my conscience don't have to argue anymore.





Drinking Coffee, Green Tea Lowers Health Risks, Study Suggests

Yes, according to Japan’s National Cancer Center, "a study of about 90,000 people aged between 40 and 69 suggests that regularly drinking the beverages may lower health risks including death from heart and cerebrovascular diseases."

Wow, 90,000 subjects. That's a pretty reliable sample size.

The article goes on to explain how "the cancer center and the University of Tokyo followed the drinking habits and health of the people for an average period of 19 years in the study, which started in 1990."

Hot dog, 19 years! These people are mighty patient and thorough. And we can assume, nicely funded.

"The participants only supplied their coffee and green tea drinking habits at the beginning of the study."

WHAT?? Chotto matte, patient and thorough National Cancer Center people. You asked 90,000 people what they drank the day before, checked in on them 19 years later and now you proudly "suggest" my angel-devil team can just turn in their wings and their pitchforks?

If this is what passes for research then allow me to proudly suggest a few of my own findings.

Putting a Lid on California's Drought

In A Nutshell

If you aren’t in tune with California’s ongoing drought you are either (a) steadfastly oblivious to the news or (b) you have zero regard for the welfare of California.

I fall into both (a) and (b) so imagine my surprise when, after clicking on a picture of a woman in a bikini (because the caption said I might get rich if I did) I was presented with the following headline:

Starbucks to cease Ethos bottling in California due to drought

My shock, as you can well imagine, reverberated on several levels of perception.

My first thought as a writer was “Shouldn’t every word in a headline be capitalized?”

My next thought was something like “God this instant coffee tastes like crap.”

Then after one final fleeting thought of my days as a rich man in a bikini I decided that Starbucks must be one fine organization. ‘Ethos’ water? Sounds like they’ve really got their moral elements all in a row, contributing to the health of all their non-coffee-drinking customers by way of a mass manufacturing of plastic bottles.

When the Coffee Machine Breaks

Idiotic Advice From An Unexpected Source

The editors over at Entrepreneur.com are a bunch of god damn geniuses. Day after day they crank out new articles, many of them with numbered lists in the titles, all on the subject of how to succeed in business. And day after day people gobble this stuff up, in the same way those insatiable housewives read every issue of Cosmo for their fix of 10 New Ways to Drive Their Man Wild in Bed.

Sarcasm aside – a rarity around here – Entrepreneur’s cadre of contributors regularly come through with some quality advice. The only thing that is usually lacking is the electric shock reinforcement therapy for a certain unnamed person around here who forgets the advice faster than it takes to read the article. 

So when an article like the one I just read gets published I have to call it out. 18 Unusual Habits That Boost Your Energy More Than Coffee reads like an internal moral struggle on the part of the writer who can’t decide if he should give real advice or just go for the affiliate clicks. As most of us do when our conscience is at odds with itself, the guy tries to do both, hoping the good stuff will in the long run make up for the instant gratification of the bad stuff. Come on, I’ll make you breakfast in bed.

Question: Why 18 Unusual Habits?

Couldn’t think of two more for an even 20? Didn’t want to miss out on any affiliate clicks by rounding down to 10 or 12 or even 15?

Here’s what the author – and Co-Founder of Empact – had to say: “To understand unique and healthy ways to consistently and quickly boost energy daily, I interviewed the country’s top ambitious young entrepreneurs, honorees of the Empact Showcase…”

Nice self-promo there.

OK, let’s see what advice the 18 Empact Showcase honorees have for us in exchange for a link.

Salaryman No More

Yen Pro Quo

There's a real good reason this is my first post since last Fall.
It has to do with that picture - more specifically, what's in it.

I moved my family back to Japan in July 2014. During our month in Fukushima, during which we did our best to decompress while simultaneously gearing up for our intended move to Nagano, I managed to land an interview for a teaching gig.

I don't know why I keep doing this. It is an undeniable fact that me and full-time jobs are about as compatible as Binyamin Netanyahu and any randomly-chosen sane person. I guess it's the idea that as a husband and father I'm supposed to do shit like this.

I enjoy teaching people, don't get me wrong. I get a kick out of it actually. As long as my students are all okay with having a good time first and are willing to consider any real learning a bonus they I'd say we're golden.

The downside is that my students - and my bosses too - expect me to show up every day. And on their schedule. No negotiating, no deal-making. Evening class means evening class, no switching to the morning so I can go home and eat dinner with my family like a real husband and father. Can't even move class across the street to the yakitori bar.

So while I liked my bosses, enjoyed my students and looked forward to seeing the other teachers at our weekly chat which everyone had a habit of callling a 'staff meeting', the immovable object that was the sum of demands of the job met with the irresistable force of my need for self-determination and I decided to return the keys to the company roadster you see in the picture.

So once again I am the master of my own schedule. I can use each hour of my day as I see fit. I can leave those neckties in the closet, stash the attache and settle down to dinner with my family.

Of course, now I have to figure out just who's going to pay for all that food on the table.