West Of Jesus

I just finished an incredible book that I highly recommend called "West Of Jesus" by Steven Kotler. No, this isn't some cheesy contemporary-Christian b.s. Kotler is actually Jewish. This book is about: surfing/surf movies, Lyme disease, radiohead, Eastern religions/yogic arts in the U.S., near-death/out of body experiences, sports medicine, government weather control experiments, Joseph Campbell and his theories on the "hero" archetype, Maori/Polynesian culture, and neuroscience. Confused yet? Actually, all is relative; that becomes apparent in this book. This book is essentially about the origins of spirituality, how and why we perceive spirituality and mortality, and how one journalist goes to the ends of the earth to investigate these topics concomitantly through his love of surfing. Not unlike "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell (which Kotler also references), this book totally captured my interest and imagination from cover to cover. I have never read such an intelligent piece on surfing, religion, and philosophy, and how it relates to our human condition. But don't think that you have to enjoy surfing to appreciate this book. There's so much more to it. Kotler loves, respects, fears, and is behumbled by the sport, and ultimately recovers from Lyme disease through it. I can relate to his passion for it; I love surfing too, have loved it since high school when I taught myself how to surf. Funny thing is, I was never a "surfer" in high school. Being that I graduated from a high school only 3 blocks from the beach, surfers ruled the school, and the majority of them were mean-spirited, arrogant, snotty little shits. Quentin Tarantino summed it up best in his description of the epic surf film, "Big Wednesday", in which he stated "this movie is too good for surfers", meaning that the film was so good, surfers didn't deserve to call it their own; you see Tarantino grew up in Southern California where he and his friends were tormented by surfers. But, back to the point, this book really got me thinking about why we as a culture get locked into certain mental pathways/mindsets, and what shapes our thought processes. If you like this book, you also need to watch "What The 'Bleep' Do We Know". It'll blow your mind...............dude.



(In the photo above, the man on the left is none other than Mr. Pipeline, Gerry Lopez, the man who conquered Hawaii's Bonzai Pipeline. Bit of trivia - he had small roles in the films "Big Wednesday" and "Conan The Barbarian", directed by surfer/director John Milius)

Recent Ramblings - Pt. 2

OK, so here's the second part to last week's post. Last Sunday, we took a trip to a town in Yokohama called Kawasaki. Akemi was actually born there. First, we visited an area called Kawasaki-Daishi, site of a huge temple not unlike the one in Asakusa, Tokyo. Then, we walked around a massive shopping mall called Lazona, which had just about every brand-named store you can imagine, but was a complete 3-ring circus since the next day was yet another Japanese holiday. Geez, how many Japanese holidays are there? Way more than our piddly 10 little crappy federal holidays in the U.S., the nation that actually gives it's citizens the least number of vacation days compared to the rest of the world. Wake up Americans - we're being robbed of our precious time off! No wonder so many people call in "sick" on a regular basis. The holiday on 24 September was in celebration of the Vernal Equinox. Can you believe they actually get a day off from work in observance of the planetary start of autumn? What kind of bogusness is that? Anyway, I diverge. By that time, it was beer o'clock, so we quenched our thirst at The Tavern, a Japanese chain of British pubs, then headed to an izikaya called Amataro, located on the 29th floor of an office building near the train station. Akemi had worked there many years ago and was curious to see how it had changed. I was really impressed. We had a counter seat along the window, giving us a gorgeous view of the sunset over the city. And like all technological conveniences in Japan, this place featured a personal computer tablet from which you could place your order. No need to track down a waiter if you don't need to. God bless 'em!

Check out these pics, fool!

Recent Ramblings - Pt. 1

Here's a few additional random pics taken around the Port of Yokohama and Chinatown last Monday following our trip to the Great Japan Beer Fest. Later I'll post some pics from this past weekend when we went up to Kawasaki.








By the way, I've updated my links list to the left to include a few more of my favorites. Check 'em out...

Warbling The Night Away

So my recent most favorite band is The Shins. I've been listening the heck out of their latest album, "Wincing The Night Away". I was turned on to them a few months ago by my friend Paul, purveyor of all things hip (except for blogsites, of which he currently has none), and now I'm hooked. As usual, it took some time because I was initially exposed to them by that movie "Garden State", which I was a little apprehensive about. Not that I didn't like it, or that I don't like Zach Braff or Natalie Portman, but I just felt that movie was marketed as the ultimate definition of aloof coolness (kind of like the Wes Anderson movies, which of late have become so intensely cool, it hurts to watch them), and that if you "didn't get it", well then, you're just not hip! But I digress. The Shins are truly the American incarnation of Belle & Sebastian, which in turn are derivative of The Smiths, which like it or not they emulate in style and look, if not in sound. It's funny that in all of the reviews of "Wincing", not once do I see any comparison to Morrissey; maybe the reviewers are too young. Lead singer James Mercer even makes a Mozzer reference in the album's liner notes. This album is their third, and their rich, melodic, varying style just keeps improving with age. Incidentally, iTunes goofed with this album and made it available almost 3 months ahead of it's planned release (23 Jan 07), and immediately withdrew it once they realized the error. I just finally bought it last week after burning out "Chutes Too Narrow" and "Oh, Inverted World"; I'm the latecomer, as usual. So I recommend checking out this album and "wince the night away", or wither away in uncoolness. Natalie Portman said so.

Great Japan Beer Festival 2007

Yesterday we went down to the port of Yokohama to a new convention center there to attend the "Great Japan Beer Festival 2007" with our friends, Mika and Mikio. It was a 3-day event, and yesterday was the last day and also 'Respect For The Elderly Day', a national holiday in Japan. Price of admission was ¥4,000, and included a small glass which you took from station to station trying unlimited samples of various beers from Japan, Belgium, Germany, and probably a few other countries as well. There were probably 30-40 different vendors on site. I don't think that there were so many serious beer connoisseurs as there were people there that just wanted to get schnockered on as many varieties of beer as possible! We did happen to run into the owners of two of our favorite pubs, Cheers and Trafalgar, who were there to try some new potential wares as well as pass out fliers for their businesses. My favorite beers were definitely the Belgian varieties, especially the wheat beers, though there were a couple excellent German weizens also. Amongst the more exotic brews I tried were wasabi beer (yes, which was green), shiso (beefsteak herb) beer, and peach beer. Good thing is there were a few sinks on hand to rinse your glass between stations, though I saw a few tipsy-poobahs stagger up for refills with remnants of their old beer unfinished. Probably a pretty toxic mix! And yes, once or twice I heard the clang of glass breaking. Additional (or replacement!) glasses were ¥700. We headed out for lunch in Chinatown while everybody was still feeling up-and-up! Here's some pics! Cheers to drinking on a work day!

Kyoho-No-Oka Half Marathon...Ganbarimashita!

Ganbarimashita! ("We did our best!")

Yesterday, I ran my 4th half-marathon event for this year. This one was up in Yamanashi Prefecture, famous for it's countless steep hills peppered with grape vineyards. This race was very challenging, maybe not as much as the Hi-Matsuri run, but tough nonetheless. The first half of the run consisted of endless steep inclines, snaking their way up the hills, culminating in a turn-around point 800 meters above the starting point. My reaction about 15 minutes into the race was - "Motherfucker! What have I gotten myself into!" - but as I began to catch my breath and work into a nice pace, it actually became fairly enjoyable. On the downhill portion (i.e. the second half of the run), I felt relieved and almost ecstatic as the endorphins were really kicking in. The weather was pleasant, with temperature in the low 80s and long periods of cloud cover keeping most of the intense sunlight at bay. My overall time was 1:48 (and some seconds) - almost the identical amount of time I took at Hi-Matsuri. This was Akemi's first official road race; she ran the 10K and finished smashingly at 1:00:01 (one hour and one second that is!). The end prize for finishing this time was a big box of Kyoho grapes - they're big, sweet, purple grapes, almost like Concorde's. That's really unique because at most races they just give away a t-shirt. The only drawback to the whole event was the bus ride, which took about 3 hours going up and about 5 and a half ass-burning hours returning - due mostly to the fact that the day after (Monday) was a Japanese holiday and also there had been a landslide in Hakone due to recent heavy rains shutting down part of the highway for several hours. Incidentally, we'll do three more road races before we leave Japan. Like a dumbass, I forgot to bring our camera this time, so below is a graphic illustration courtesy of Akemi to commemorate the event. Just do!!

Chotto Matte Kudasai...

It's been a while since I posted, but don't fret, more updates are coming soon! There's plenty going on here - just today we ran a 9K run from our house to Kamakura. We changed clothes there and did some window shopping. Tomorrow we will run up in Yamanashi Prefecture - the Kyoho-No-Oka Half Marathon. Akemi will do her first 10K, so wish her luck. I have Monday and Tuesday off, so Monday we will attend the International Beer Exposium in Yokohama. Should be good fun! Here's a couple pics from a recent little get-together we had at our house to tide you over until next time...

Yakatabune In Yokohama

Last night we partied on the water in celebration of the 95th birthday of the Navy Dental Corps. We booked a Japanese yakatabune, which is a sort of flat-bottomed party boat that cruises around in the bay while entertaining its guests with food, booze, and karaoke. It's a traditional summertime activity, especially around hanabi (fireworks) season, that goes back to the old Edo era. Part of the tradition involves wearing a yukatta, or cotton kimono worn comfortably in the summer. Our cruise was run by the Suzuyoshi Yakatabune company in Yokohama, most gracious hosts that showed us an excellent time! They gave us a hell of deal too, charging ¥9,000 per person for a 2 1/2 hour cruise and dinner that normally goes for ¥10,500 per person. We had a total of 23 people in attendance, Japanese and American, dentists and family members. It goes without saying that a good time was had by all at this uniquely Japanese experience! Also, it was a very bittersweet time for me as this is the last time I will celebrate this event as a member of the armed services (my papers are in for release from active duty), hence I was emcee for the event. Following our cruise, the party continued at The Green Sheep, an Irish pub in Yokohama. Here's a bunch of photos - Enjoy!