After the Fundoshi: Yokozuna Out to Farm

When athletes retire from other sports, they usually retreat into a life full of terrible clothes, even worse golf and lots and LOTS of apparently really good food. If you have any doubts about what that means, look no further than our favorite big man from yesteryear, Sir Charles Barkley…
Clearly the man has not missed a meal!

But what happens when you’re already a big guy, say for example, a sumo wrestler? The recent retirement of the the baby-faced (but drunk and violently tempered) yokozuna, Asashoryu, had me thinking: what do sumo wrestlers do when they leave the sport? Do they go for what they know and take up coaching? Or do they get in to showbiz? Or do they spend their later years knocking down residual groupies? We see you #23!!!
Read more »

Form Over Function Much???

I know I’m not alone here when I saw that the Winter Olympics are such a bore! But more than a few residents of the City Under Red Sun have still found a way to get their collective panties in a bunch, and his name is Kazuhiro Kokubo (seen above). The problem was he showed up at Vancouver International looking like this!

My first (and second and third) thought was: カッコイイ!!! [read: kakkoii - dope!!!] But the Japanese media was not impressed! The ill sag, the untucked shirt, the nose stud and the locks to top it…. the media was NOT having it. Instead, they labeled him as  somehow “unrepresentative of Japan”. Even politicians were making statements about his “regrettable appearance”!

Read more »

Well, If You Say Like That….

So you should know from my last post that I HATE being pointed at! There’s perhaps nothing ruder or more threatening than an index finger extended, stabbing the air! The only thing worse – besides actually drawing blood, that is – would have to be someone saying “Hey, you!”. It makes my blood boil! And if finger pointing arouses my “fight or flight” response, a “Hey, you!” is a sure way to get me to stick around and teach you some manners

There is of course always an exception to the rule! And ladies and gentlemen, behold the exception to the rule:

Well, if you say it like that….. LOL But Nakata is ALWAYS the exception to the rule! I mean look at him!!!

Roppongi Bar Touts

So I was enjoying a very pleasant birthday dinner with a real-life Coco-hime, when through the window I became acutely aware of a huddle of touts scowling and pointing… at me!? At ME!!!

WTF!!!

Years of experience have taught me that this is the time when one should raise his personal threat to orange-red! But my fourth SoCo mojito had me feeling very nice. And in my relaxed state, I imagined that they were instead pointing at the very lovely ladies I was dining with. You know, some guys are so crass, picking their women like they pick meat a meat market! Unfazed by their un-gentleman behavior, I continued to enjoy my evening as a rare reprieve from the endless drama that’s become my life as of late.

With hugs and kisses and promises to “do brunch”, we parted ways in front of the restaurant. And I turned to make my way down Gai-en-Higashi-dori, aka the Gaunlet, when I heard from behind: “Yeah, that’s him! GET HIM!!!”

Read more »

And the Earth Moved… Black Love Below for Haiti

Living in Japan, I’ve developed a great respect for earthquakes. With my heightened gaijin senses, I am keenly aware that my beloved city is long overdue for its next “great” earthquake. And every respiration of the city immediately triggers my flight instinct only to later give way to the realization that it’s just the wind or the subway or…. anything but the end of the world disaster that I’ve so vividly envisioned in my mind.

But a month ago today, my worst fears were realized when I realized that that interesting fog of the Haitian capital wasn’t fog at all but the dust cloud covering a city of some 3,000,000 people in ruins. My heart sunk! Like most Black Americans I share a special affinity for Haiti. My affinity is even more personal because of my relationship with my fraternity and my resident Haitian old head, Etienne aka “Mr. Liberte or La Mort!”. Watching the sheer devastation of the city, my prayers were for my Brother and hiw wife, their families and all the people of Haiti who have too long been treated as the pariah of the Western Hemisphere.

Read more »

Get ‘Em Tiger!

“It’s been a long time! I shouldn’t've left you….”

Indeed, it’s been a minute since my last post! So long so, I have to start off by saying, “Happy New Year!!!” And it’s damn near the middle of February! How pathetic is that!?! In any case, I’m back and I don’t plan on leaving you again any time soon. And now with that out of the way, on to the post….

*************************************************

The Gregorian New Year started 40 days ago but the Traditional Chinese New Year doesn’t start until Sunday, February 14th. As you must know by now, according to the Chinese zodiac this is – and will be soon in China – the year of the tiger! Tiger years are often described as being a time of great personal and social upheaval. But for the brave and the strong, this is the time to show courage, to summon great inner strength and rebelliously throw the things and ideas that have held you back. In short, it’s a time of personal revolution.

So I ask you what are your goals for 2010? What is your personal revolution?

All Things In Their Season: Strawberries

Japanese folk are keen on saying that Japan has four seasons. Sorry, J-folk, but y’all a dead wrong on that one! Because once you include rainy season, there’s at least 5! And that opens the door to all the countless other seasons which come and go, fleetingly, but demanding to be recognized and appreciated in its own right. Unwittingly, Japanese people have quietly acknowledged this in a kind of “all things in their season” reflected ever so subtly everywhere.

Being in the City Under Red Sun, I’m a little cut off from the seasonal tells of the natural world. But that’s nothing a trip to my special konbini – you know, the one with my bank’s ATM – couldn’t rectify. Sure enough, the plethora of new products all flavoured in strawberry marked the arrival of what has to be my favorite season of them all, strawberry season.

Goodness knows I LOVE strawberries! And the Japanese flavor goods have really brought there A-game this season.

1. Sapporo’s Ichigo Soda With natural strawberry flavor, it tastes like you’re drinking strawberry juice…. you know, if there were such a thing.

2. Nestle’s Sparkling Strawberry KitKat I abso-effing-lutely adore all the different flavored KitKats available here. On the low, it’s another one of those little things that keeps me here. The past few years, I went out of my head for Strawberry KitKats, but this year they threw in a twist…. sparkling Strawberry. It’s subtle at first but there’s definitely a fizzy, bubbly feeling that brings to mind a nice strawberry flavored champagne, making for the perfect combination of chocolate, strawberries and fine, French fizzy.

3. Morinaga’s Luxurious Strawberry Crepe I can’t remember exactly when I got in to ice cream crepes. They are ridiculously good but you gotta them with the quickness because unlike M&M’s they will melt in your hands. This one is strawberry ice cream with strawberry jam inside and topped with strawberry hand candy sprinkles, all wrapped in a strawberry crepe. I’m gonna miss this when it’s gone!

If you see any other strawberry flavored goodies about, lemme know! I’m such a fiend for strawberries….

2009 Kanji of the Year

It’s that time again!!!

Japan Today reports that the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation has conducted it’s annual Kanji of the Year survery. And in a public opinion to find of which single character out of the 3,000 over so Chinese characters used in standard Japanese best represents and reflects the events of the past year, voters selected 新 [shin - new] as this year’s character.

With a new prime minister, new American president, and a “new flu”, 2009 has been a year of new things in both Japan and the that mystical land, known here affectionately as, 外国 [gaikoku - foreign country]. The announcement was made in Kyoto, with a priest at the famed Kiyomizu Temple ceremoniously writing the character on traditional Japanese paper. Ironically enough, the announcement was presided over by the new president of the foundation as the last was arrested for mispropriety. How’s that for “new”?

Anyway, it may be the Kanji of the Year for 2009, but I’m co-opting it for 2010. See, 2010 is a new year, one filled with endless possibilities to start over, do it better and get it right!  Here’s to 新!!!

Music: Lady Gaga

Most of thought Kanye was off his rocker when he said some months ago that Lady Gaga was the new Madonna. Y’all were like, Lady Who??? Yeah, I know! I dug her first couple of songs. But I’m gay, and this stereotype is true, GAY MEN LOVE POP LOVE MUSIC! I mean Poker Face was in heavy rotation in 2-chome and the children were getting their lives!

It’s taken the rest of you a while to get in to her. She’s out there! Waaaaaay out there, like from the Oort Cloud! And that’s before you even really notice what she’s wearing, which is a best described as a hodge-podge of Madonna-inspired 80’s punk, ultra-modern European haute couture and apparently the Spring/Summer line of her home planet’s hottest fashion designer whose name can’t be properly expressed in any written Earth language but sounds alot like “Bob”. There’s also of course the matter of her live performances which are nothing if not intense. Still, all that aside, y’all can’t deny her sheer brilliance. I mean, at the end of the day, she can actually sing!

In her latest video, she combines the hottest Sea Monkey fashions, a bit of MJ’s (May the King rest in peace) Thriller, and more intergalactic haute couture than any three fashionistas styled personally by Kanye the God could shake a stick at!

You’ve seen it before, but I KNOW you want to see it again!

Fame Monster

Music: Kid Cudi

Earlier this year, in my daily worship at the altar of Kanye I discovered a new GOOD Music artist by the name of Kid Cudi. The video for his lead single Day and Nite really grabbed my attention. Sure, it was mad creative, but what would you expect from one of Kanye’s artists? Still, the video resonated with because it’s really just a guy going about his day imagining his life as something other than it is… walking in his own daydreams as it were. If you know me for real, you know that’s pretty much me!

Listening to the album, Kid Cudi really takes you there with the depth of introspection and emotion. He’s something like Kanye minus the ego, something like hip hop emo. And I was feeling it from track 1. Months after I first “acquired” it, Cudi’s Man on the Moon is still in heavy rotation. It’s something the soundtrack to my day on the grind! And perhaps no song primes me up for that daily grind more so than this track here….Pursuit of Happiness!

Grind with me on this one!!!

If you ain’t up Man on the Moon yet, you LATE AS HELL! Lemme help you though…

Man on the Moon: The End of the Day