Why should I be ashamed to let people know about my books? I worked hard on them, am proud of my work, and honestly didn’t write them for glory and money — though I admit I certainly wouldn’t turn away either — but merely put a smile on some sad faces out there or a twinkle in a few eyes dulled by bad TV and too many computers and smart phones.
It’s genuinely hard to wrap my head around this literary excursion. It’s been thirteen years since I got serious about writing full-length books. Yes, it all started in 2008 while I was teaching English right here in Tambasasayama, now my permanent hometown. Little did I know back then I’d marry a lovely Japanese lady and then so enthusiastically embrace the idea of making Japan my permanent place of residence. Petrocelli was my first novel, written in my spare time between teaching classes. Now I have a total of 13 finished, published works, another novel coming out in spring 2022 — Love Connection: Romance in the Land of the Rising Sun. There’s also a completed travel/fantasy/cookbook which may never see the light of day called What Do Mermaids Eat? — I’m still looking for a publisher).
Wow! Fifteen books in 13 years! “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” (Why does that sound familiar?)
Anyway . . . moving on to the self-promotion, shameless or not. Until January 1st, all of the ebooks pictured at the top of the page are 50-75% off at Smashwords, a premium ebook sales channel. If you want to dive in, the links can be found HERE.
Oh . . . but there’s more! Amazon has a special on The Man Who Loved Too Muchtrilogy Kindle ebooks. Are you ready for this? Only 99 cents each!
Okay … the title is hyperbole. No religion is actually fun. Most seem preoccupied with scary demons, suffering, sacrifice, gnashing, weeping, incantations, uncomfortable positions, and men dressed in funny clothes.
But at least some Buddhists have a sense of humor!
We rode a chair lift to get toMatsuyama Castle!
My lovely wife, Masumi, arranged a three-day holiday this past weekend to Shikoku. We ate great noodles — Shikoku is the world udon capital — visited shrines and temples, saw some spectacular landscapes, and were taken by surprise and incredibly charmed by the island’s largest city, Matsuyama. There we ate local cuisine at an area restaurant, walked the streets and visited the shopping arcade, a feature which is part of every decent-sized Japanese city. We spent the better part of an afternoon at Matsuyama Castle, one of the biggest in Japan, and from my experience to date, the most spectacular in every respect. It’s over 500 years old and its sprawling compound sits on a hill overlooking the city.
The castle was phenomenal but the high-point — literally — of our very short trip for me personally was our visit to the sprawling grounds of Jizou-ji Temple. It’s located in Itano, Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku (the northeast region of the island, shortly after crossing the bridge from Awaji). Mind you, this temple was founded over 12 centuries ago and even has a big, knobby gingko tree which is over 800 years old. I suggest it was the high-point because it is situated on top of the highest mountain in the area, requiring us to to take a ropeway lift just to get within hiking distance.
Serene grounds of Jizou-Ji Temple.
What makes this temple truly unique are the 500 life-sized statues of 500 arhats. These men are enlightened followers of Buddha. None of them have hair.
Enlightened Buddhist monks offering their reaction to the human condition.
It seemed that just about every human emotion was on display, so I asked Masumi what exactly the point of this holy menagerie was. She explained that they were expressing the entire range of possible reactions to the idiocy of human behavior: their disbelief, shock, disapproval, bewilderment, disdain, disgust, mockery, denial, their resignation, horror, pleas for sanity, hope for improvement, futile escape from the undeniable truth.
These statues line the walkways, peak out from behind trees, sitting, standing, kneeling, offering their take on human folly and the ridiculous mess we tend to make out of things. You can see for yourself, their expressions are priceless.
As grim as many of them might appear, frankly it was impossible to not see the humor in the enterprise. A huge dose of irreverence tossed in with requisite piety.
This is sure a far-cry from the “religion” I got when I was growing up. Of course, this is a subject for a multi-volume tome — probably the most boring memoir ever written — but suffice it to say I grew up Catholic, even went to Catholic school for six years, under the tutelage of female sado-masochists, aka nuns. There are only two emotions entertained by Catholicism: shame and fear. I will confess, as the class clown for my elementary school, to at least trying to generate some comic relief. Which only lasted until either I was beaten with a ruler or long wooden pointer, or sent to the torture chamber of Mother Superior, the school’s official Reichsführer and final solution disciplinarian.
I realize there’s a pandemic destroying the economies, families and communities across the planet, but you’d be hard-pressed to find evidence of it here in Japan. People are out and about having fun. Most of them are Buddhists. Some of them are just wild and crazy.
Love Connection: Romance in the Land of the Rising Sun is unlike any love story you’ve ever read. Set in Japan and East Africa, it is based on real events.
Arriving this coming spring. ARCs will be available in February 2022. Pre-orders will begin in April.
This is from the Author’s Closing Personal Comment at the end of the book:
As a society, the Japanese people may be the most honest in the world. There are legendary stories of individuals forgetting their wallets, handbags, computers, shopping bags, leaving them in plain sight in highly-trafficked public places. They return hours later and their valuables are right where the left them. Or have been turned into the police, everything still there, even credit cards and cash. We expect of others what we see in ourselves. Meaning, Japanese trust others because they themselves can be trusted. The problem is that this level of integrity can backfire when confronting others who are not so morally sound. It can be extremely destructive at every level when manipulated to personal advantage by individuals who are cunning, ruthless, sociopathic.
We have a nickname for our friend Keiko Iwashita. My wife and I call her “Bangladesh Lady”. There’s a very inspiring story behind this.
Keiko and her husband 岩下八司 (Hachiji) have an NPO (non-profit organization) called Polli Unnoyon Shonsta, which raises money to establish schools mainly in Bangladesh.
Keiko and Hachiji currently have 27 schools in Bangladesh, 2 in Nepal, 1 in Myanmar.
With 163 million people, Bangladesh is the eighth most populous country in the world, and one of the most densely populated. 98% of the people are Bengalis and over 90% are Muslims. The economy has recently been growing at an impressive rate but in terms of per capita GDP, it still ranks 164th in the world.
When the rich countries prefer to protect their privilege by committing billions of dollars to defending themselves against largely imagined foreign threats, competing in pursuit of infinite growth on a finite planet, much of the generated wealth funneled into the holdings of the already obscenely wealthy, it is only through individual efforts like that of Keiko and Hachiji that the enormous gap between rich and poor nations can be reduced. Maybe on paper it doesn’t look like much. But the difference they are making in the lives of those children who attend their schools is profound.
Charity begins at home? Actually, charity in this case begins at someone else’s homes, and those homes are 4,500 kilometers away — it’s 2,799 miles from Osaka to Dhaka.
Then again, Bangladesh is like a second home for this amazing couple.
People often say they want to “change the world”, do something positive, contribute to the betterment of humankind, but feel overwhelmed by all of the problems we face. Life is so complex and convoluted, usually it’s hard to know how and where to begin.
Lord Russell’s writing made a huge impression on me. Though at the time I was reading mostly science and math books, the enterprise of looking at the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom from the broad perspective of a philosopher made deep roots in my sub-conscious and thus my first year of college I changed my major from chemistry to philosophy.
Even more central to the development of my world view and political priorities was the focus of this monumental book on the madness of arming ourselves with nuclear weapons. Here’s the abstract:
“Written at the height of the Cold War in 1959, Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare was published in an effort ‘to prevent the catastrophe which would result from a large scale H-bomb war’. Bertrand Russell’s staunch anti-war stance is made very clear in this highly controversial text, which outlines his sharp insights into the threat of nuclear conflict and what should be done to avoid it. Russell’s argument, that the only way to end the threat of nuclear war is to end war itself, is as relevant today as it was on first publication.”
Compared to today, those were innocent times. 1959 in my view was hardly the height of the Cold War, rather a way station for subsequent ramping up of tensions, which would first peak during the Cuban Missile Crisis at the end of 1962, discernably slow down with the resolution of that confrontation first part of 1963, then again continue to build until 1986 when Russia and the U.S. between them had nearly 65,000 nuclear bombs. Here’s a of the nuclear arms race between the two super-powers:
So in 1959, there were about 12,000 nuclear weapons available for mass annihilation. It is notable that most of those were in the U.S. arsenal, that of the U.S.S.R. less than 10% of the total. The U.S. continued its huge advantage until the U.S.S.R. finally reached parity twenty years later.
We now have active and immediately deployable about 8,000 nuclear weapons. If we count “inactivated” nukes which while not immediately deployable, could very quickly be put online, the total is slightly over 12,000, about the same as 1959. I say that the late 50s represented more innocent times for two reasons. First, back then as I just pointed out, the U.S. had almost all the nukes. The U.S.S.R. certainly wasn’t going to launch their 100+. It would have been almost instantaneous suicide. And while there was some talk a little later about destroying the “commies” both in China and the U.S.S.R. while we had the upper hand, sanity and some shred of moral conscience prevailed. The second reason we are less innocent now and in fact find ourselves living among the greatest threats to human survival in history is simple. Nukes are now in the hands of seven more nations. Three of them don’t inspire much confidence. North Korea, Pakistan, and India are considered “unstable” and U.S. policy toward them doesn’t exactly incentivize them to be less volatile. Likewise with China, which the U.S. openly antagonizes, insults, provokes, and officially has declared it will eventually have to go to war with to keep it from becoming a peer power. China has around 350 nuclear bombs, enough to destroy life on Earth 3 1/2 times over. India and Pakistan combined have about 300 nukes and have made no secret about their intent to use them if they end up in a major war with one another.
Have we learned anything from our flirtation with self-engineered extinction?
What really captured my attention and fired my imagination was Bertrand Russell’s open and highly public opposition. He wasn’t a cowering academic. And because there were still a few sane thought leaders in the world at that time who had high visibility and enormous public respect, Lord Russell was not alone in his passionate appeals for ending the scourge of war.
It’s tempting to say we haven’t learned anything in the past seven decades. But that’s a ridiculous conclusion. The truth is we knew back then and know now exactly what’s wrong and what needs to be done. We had celebrations across the globe recently when the 50th nation ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the U.N. “officially” declared nuclear weapons illegal. Any sane, decent human being knows nuclear weapons have no place in the world now or ever, and are a death sentence for the human species waiting for signature — which will be the first mushroom cloud over a major city anywhere on the planet. Of course, none of the nations who have nuclear weapons signed the treaty, there’s no way to enforce the treaty, and the nuclear nations will do whatever they damn please regardless.
Bertrand Russell speaking at a Ban The Bomb rally.
Which requires us to pause and inhale a deep breath . . . OF REALITY.
For seven decades I’ve been listening to the same painful moans and pitiful mantras. About a whole host of crises and problems: poverty, famine, war, terror, infanticide, genocide, war crimes, bioweapons, oppression, exploitation, on and on and on. And anyone my age will tell you the same. Not much has changed. The excuses are more compelling, the euphemisms are cleverer, the blame-game is Olympic Gold Medal material, the talking heads delivering the 24/7 stream of non-sequiturs prettier and more handsome. Yeah, there are incremental improvements here and there. But SEVENTY YEARS? We’ve put humans in space, transplanted organs, created self-driving cars, mass-produced a telephone-camera-computer-video conferencing computer that fits in the palm of a hand, yet 24,000 people still starve to death EVERY DAY. And we’re still snarling at one another like rabid hyenas threatening war and flirting with extinction. Come on!
The one lesson that obviously has not sunk in is that . . . ALL OF THESE STRUGGLES ARE ABOUT POWER: Those who have it and those who don’t. We can — as Lord Russell did and many good, well-meaning contemporary activists currently do — say all of the right things. But those fighting the good fight DON’T HAVE THE POWER. Those who subject the rest of the human race to indignities, oppression, the sickening homicidal wars, DO HAVE THE POWER and they are not listening. Not to us anyway. They listen to themselves, they serve themselves, their only loyalty is to an agenda that will keep them in power and secure their ability to use and abuse that power as they see fit.
THAT is the lesson we haven’t learned. We know that nuclear weapons are a death warrant. We know that they are a suicide pact. But there they are and there they will continue to sit, ready to unleash more death and destruction — and if not the annihilation of the human species at least the end of anything resembling civilization — than ever before imagined.
If we stop to think, to look at it objectively, the vast majority of people in the world want no part of this. It is a tiny, power-drunk, empire-obsessed, sociopathic few who hold us hostage to their psychotic fantasies.
Let’s break it down . . .
We know what needs to be done.
The lunatics are not now and will never listen to us.
We know how to change everything to make a better world.
The lunatics have their own plan and refuse to change.
It was a tense few hours a week ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It wasn’t a large crowd that had gathered — 50 or 60 — but they were focused, angry, and determined to right a grotesque situation which one angry protester said “had gone on way too long.”
The object of their derision and evident nausea was the marble rendering of Venus de Milo by Alexandros of Antioch, a Greek sculptor of the Hellenistic Age.
The incensed mob, wielding ropes, pick axes, and sledgehammers fought their way past the security guards attempting to block the entrance doors, then rushed at the offending sculpture. Had not the museum’s director intervened, no question that this masterpiece, which had graced the lobby for several decades, would within minutes have been turned into a pile of over-priced gravel.
A spokesperson who might have just arrived from an Insane Clown Posse concert or an Extinction Rebellion rally shouted through a bullhorn.
“How can you have such a disgusting symbol of primitive values in full sight of not just undeserving adults but the thousands of children who come here? It’s exploitative, gender rigid, misogynistic, insensitive — just plain WRONG, WRONG, WRONG on every level. How many innocent boys have been turned into haters and rapists by this sexualized carving, this symbol of moral mayhem, this overt enticement to erotic anarchy? How many young girls been body-shamed and driven to suicide by its faux submission to modesty and subliminal glorification of coquetry?”
Without having any clue what the leader of the woke mob was saying, Max Hollein, current Appointed Director of the Met, managed to calm the irate protesters down, and convince the grumbling, weeping, giggling, frantic, but mostly neutered protestors that something could be worked out, a compromise was possible. No way was Mr. Hollein going to stand by while such a masterpiece was turned into rubble.
The world-renowned museum was closed for three days. Behind the locked doors, the woke protesters went to work. There was understandably a lot of back-and-forth between the woke crowd and the staff who ignorantly still embraced a traditional world view, but eventually compromises were made, the museum re-opened, and visitors hungry for the enrichment of great art were able to fully enjoy an “acceptable”, fully PC-friendly version of the disputed sculpture, one which was pan-gender sensitive and fully inclusive.
As one of the protesters promoting the transformation of society to a higher state of woke consciousness said: “My gender is neutrois and my pronouns are xe, xem xyr. Xe think this is great! We are one step closer to a world which makes sense for everybody, not just some lascivious old white men.”
Alright . . . it’s not Elle or Guns & Ammo or The Atlantic. But it’s a real magazine and it’s out of San Antonio, Texas. A POETRY MAGAZINE!
Let’s face it. You won’t find the big bucks in poetry. So you can’t expect a four-color cover and glossy 80# photo stock, printed in one of the world-class print houses in Italy. Or ads for it during the half-time show at the Superbowl.
Lone Stars Magazine. Texas is the “Lone Star State”. Get it? And notice this is Issue #97. Meaning they’ve been at this for a while. This is not some impulse dreamed up between a rodeo and a local paint ball war games tournament.
So . . . why am I bringing any of this up?
Well . . . I’m darn proud to say that a recent poem of mine got published in this particular issue. A miracle if there ever was one!
I’ve made it clear in the past — if anyone was paying attention — I’m not a poet, I’ve never wanted to be a poet, any resemblance between my attempts at poetry and actual poetry is purely coincidental. But for some reason, these poetry magazines seem to think I’m the real deal. Who am I to argue?
I even wrote a satirical piece, making fun of poetry and the whole process of writing it:
[ I had a photo here of a newspaper article but a reporter at the Kobe Shinbun said I was infringing on their copyright and it should be removed. I’m speechless. It was a charming article which it seems to me sharing here makes the newspaper look good, gives them free advertising, etc. But I’ve complied. Sorry that my blog doesn’t make as much sense. ]
Yes, here we have another example of hard-core law enforcement here in my hometown.
Pictured is a local police officer and his wife. They’ve taken it upon themselves to make an Amabie doll for their Koban — their local community police station — and extend an open invitation to everyone in the neighborhood to stop by.
While much of the world appears to be reeling from Covid-19, with piles of bodies filling the streets and morgues in cities across the globe, life is pretty normal here. We do have a declared “state of emergency”, meaning some events have been canceled, a few restaurants are closed. But honestly, other than not being able to travel internationally, my life is quite normal. Deaths in Japan are not up from previous years. In fact, overall they are down!
What’s Japan’s secret?
Well, I’m not a medical expert nor am I here to give medical advice and risk the wrath of the WHO, Facebook, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the CDC. If I get censored, the six people who normally would read this article won’t see it. That would be a tragedy of epic proportions. So I’m just reporting what’s happening here on the ground.
From Wikipedia: “Amabie (アマビエ) is a legendary Japanese mermaid or merman with a bird-beak like mouth and three legs or tail-fins, who allegedly emerges from the sea, prophesies either an abundant harvest or an epidemic, and instructed people to make copies of its likeness to defend against illness.”
You caught that last sentence?
“To defend against illness.”
Fact: We’ve had few people sick with Covid-19 here in Tambasasayama and no deaths!
You can’t argue with results. AMABIE!
While people in the U.S. are arguing about the effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, ramping up to get everyone vaccinated — including now even kids — we have here a police officer making available to those visiting his Koban, a handmade doll based on a mythical mermaid, because legend has it that Amabie is the key to staying healthy.
But wait . . . what has this got to do with police work?
The short answer is nothing. But frankly, he’s not exactly busy. A crime wave here is a person parking their motorbike on the sidewalk. Even that doesn’t happen very often.
Being a news junkie of sorts and a U.S. citizen, I try to keep up with what’s going on in the homeland. I can’t say it’s encouraging or inspiring. Putting aside the circus/nightmare of the politics there; the appalling health care crisis exacerbated by the complete failure in properly handling Covid-19; the censorship and childish level of what is tolerated, even lauded, as debate and discussion of important issues; America’s compulsive meddling in the affairs of everyone else on Earth, while the U.S. itself falls apart; there’s the frightening rise of what can only be called a police state. Thus when I scan the headlines, I’m treated to a seemingly endless parade of stories about police harassing, beating, and shooting people, everyday citizens many unarmed, most of them with skin of the darker shades. It’s truly sickening and though I’m not one to easily succumb to paranoia, I can honestly say I have no desire to return in the foreseeable future just to see how good I am at dodging bullets or how well I handle pepper spray, zip ties, or being assaulted by thugs in or out of uniform.
It’s hard to exaggerate the contrast of what looks like the horror show of police brutality in the U.S. with what life is like here. But I’ve tried to capture it in a few stories. I wrote Police Power III back in March of this year.
Police Power I and Police Power II are part of my collection of 63 anecdotes about life in the REAL JAPAN for me as an expat. It’s getting fantastic reviews and I believe it will put a lot of smiles out into the world, as well as valuable insights into this fascinating country. Available across the globe for the asking, you are welcome to visit the dedicated page on my author website and get a copy from the online bookstore of your choice.
An interesting side note to close on: There are quite a few Koban here in town. By sheer coincidence, the Koban featured in the article pictured at the top happens to be one that I wrote about in my book. It’s right in front of the yurt where I used to teach English. Here’s what this police officer’s office/home looks like front and back.
That’s about it. Not very exciting, eh? But I’ll keep you posted if there are any shoot-outs, gang battles, drive-by killings, riots, or if some hardened criminal parks his motor scooter on the sidewalk.
It’s always overwhelming to arrive in a new country, especially if the culture is completely different than what you’re familiar with. Certainly coming to Japan in July 2007 was that way for me, even though I’d already made some stops in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and China, and at least had been introduced to the “East”.
The first few days are pure overload. There’s so much to take in, you’re not sure what to look at or even what you’re seeing. You’re distracted by just trying to function, trying to communicate in an unfamiliar tongue, trying to pantomime and fake your way from one scene to the next, hope upon hope you’re not offending someone.
Slowly, one-by-one, things begin to come into focus.
I distinctly remember the first thing that caught me somewhat baffled eye here in Japan.
Vending machines!
They seemed to be everywhere, often in places I certainly didn’t expect to see them. Like out in the open on the side of a busy road!
Of course, everything is convenient here. If I’m not mistaken, Japan invented the コンビニ — the convenience store.
What could be more convenient than being able to pull your car over just about anywhere, pull out some coins and buy . . . buy what your heart desires! As you can see from the pic at the top, there are vending machines for snacks, cakes and sweets, tofu, ramen, noodles, even strawberries.
And as I pointed out back in March, my wife Masumi discovered a vending machine for . . . OYSTERS! I personally have never had a craving for oysters in the middle of the night, but if I ever do I’ll just go look for the nearest oyster vending machine and start slurping.
By the way, I’ve also seen vending machines for beer and other alcoholic drinks. Since Japan has such strict drug laws, I’m not expecting to see any for marijuana anytime soon. Maybe they have those in Amsterdam.
I know it looks like I’ve already been hitting the sake, but I hadn’t opened it yet. It’s just that I’m very old.
I’ve written before about the uniquely wonderful national holidays Japan celebrates. It’s also talked about in my book LIVE FROM JAPAN!
This past Monday was 敬老の日, Keirō no Hi, Respect for the Aged Day here, my wife had the day off from teaching, and we had a barbecue celebration with her mother (definitely an aged person) and her older daughters. It was a splendid little party in the pergola I built a couple years ago.
Just before our festivities got fully rolling, I got a visit from one of my neighbors. The word had reached the highest government institutions. John Rachel turned 75 this summer, making me an official member of the “aged”. Not to diminish the prestige or importance of reaching this chronological benchmark, it’s not really a very exclusive club. People live very long lives here, and Japan this year recorded more people age 100 or above than ever in its history.
In any case, my neighbor brought with him gifts, those in the photo at the top.
The box of treats, including crackers and tea, was from the greater Tambasasayama area community. The bottle of expensive sake was from the mayor! He even wrote a letter of congratulations.
I suspect that this lovely gift-giving gesture was probably just a practice of my home town and other similar ones, modest size cities with more cohesion and sociability, and not the norm in the big cities.
But what a great touch on top of having a whole national holiday dedicated to us old folks!
And what a great way to make an “outsider” like me feel welcome in this charming and always amazing country, full of heart and adventure.
Finally, I have to draw attention to one of the treats.
My wife, Masumi, says these are really yummy!
Here is the rough translation of the messages on the package.
Life begins at 70.
When the angel comes for you at 70, tell him you’re not home.
When the angel comes for you at 80, tell him it’s too early.
When the angel comes for you at 90, tell him you’re not in a hurry.
When the angel comes for you at 100, tell him when the time comes you’ll be there.
Hmm. I assume the angel(s) speak Japanese. I think I better get cracking and make sure I’m up to speed with my command of the language!
COMING SPRING 2022!
Are you ready?
Love Connection: Romance in the Land of the Rising Sun is unlike any love story you’ve ever read. Set in Japan and East Africa, it is based on real events.
Arriving this coming spring. ARCs will be available in February 2022. Pre-orders will begin in April.
This is from the Author’s Closing Personal Comment at the end of the book:
As a society, the Japanese people may be the most honest in the world. There are legendary stories of individuals forgetting their wallets, handbags, computers, shopping bags, leaving them in plain sight in highly-trafficked public places. They return hours later and their valuables are right where the left them. Or have been turned into the police, everything still there, even credit cards and cash. We expect of others what we see in ourselves. Meaning, Japanese trust others because they themselves can be trusted. The problem is that this level of integrity can backfire when confronting others who are not so morally sound. It can be extremely destructive at every level when manipulated to personal advantage by individuals who are cunning, ruthless, sociopathic.