Category: Society & Culture

There’s a memorable profile on Karl Taro Greenfeld, written by the man himself, over at Time Asia:
Tokyo Popped
His writing, as always, is vivid and enjoyable. Sometimes I suspect he and Gibson go out for strolls into the Tokyo night, each mentally recording all they see.

Wataru-kun must have lost his price tag again.
So it begins:
School to put electronic tags on students to monitor safety
Paired with the Ministry of Health’s decision to implant foreign dogs (actual canines, not gaijin) with microchips to “prevent rabies,” I think it’s fairly obvious where this is heading. The next time any of you have to renew your visa, don’t be surprised when they ask you to submit to a subdermal implant… On the brighter side, would this mean we no longer have to carry around our gaijin cards?

My only memory of an authentic Philly cheesesteak (in the sense that I had it in Philadelphia when my dad took us; I don’t think it was from a reknowned shop), almost twenty years ago, is much the same as this man experienced:

I’m standing in the street in line with some obviously neighborhood guys talking college basketball betting, just like in Armour Square but instead of talking Illinois, Notre Dame and Wisconsin they’re talking Syracuse and Holy Cross. I asked them what I should get on my sandwich and this guy with a gold Italian horn and a green, white and red T-shirt tells me to get cheese-whiz. Cheese-Whiz!?! I don’t know from Philly but in Chicago no Italian neighborhood guy is gonna tell you to put cheese-whiz on anything.
So I resisted this Italian Stallion’s advice and got mine with provolone. The result was a very bland sandwich. The bread was soft and chewy instead of snappy, like Italian bread that been kept in a plastic bag. The meat was bland and overall this was a colorless, blah sandwich.

Find the full write up and an interesting comment thread here:
http://www.roadfood.com/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2912
I just discovered the Roadfood site today via a link on Deliverance. Roadfood looks like it might be a good cross reference for Chowhound, which we used on our trip back to the states last year to find the best eatery in Thai Town.
It was also the first time for me to visit Deliverance, where I found a well-founded rant about brake dust, the invincible enemy of People Who Somewhat Give a Shit About Their Car’s Appearance.

Behold the bold statement of my camera-pic in the sidebar (if you are a late comer see it here), gritty resolution and all… Beach, blue sky, familiar-yet-slightly-changed beverage container (as people in countries that the Mekong river flows through are fond of saying, “same same but different”). What does it all mean? Say it with me now: Guarana!
That’s right, Coca-Cola’s new C2 drink tastes like a watery guarana-based drink. I have no idea if it actually contains guarana or not because I only had the patience to read the first line or so of the ingredients in heavily katakana-ed Japanese. It listed the usual suspects, you know, sucralose, phenylkeurolepticemphasemiatidisestablishmentitariffic acid, and the common marigold, so it didn’t really capture my attention, so to speak. One sip was all I needed to determine that I had tasted a similar soda pop before: Antarctica Guarana, a product of Brazil. I am quite sure of this because I remember downing a six pack of it mixed with a fifth of cane sugar alcohol, then getting sick in a garbage can all night with Los Fabulosos Cadillacs jamming incessantly in the background. Ay. Anyway, C2 tastes like a watery version of Antarctica Guarana. As in, not quite ass but not very good, either. As such, I predict C2 will be a failure because of the numbers:
Calories: Half
Sugar: Half
Carbs: Half
Taste: Much less than half as good as regular Coke.
Coca-Cola is apparently after the fence-sitting target segment of consumerland with this product – people who can’t decide on Coke or Diet Coke. A possible indication of failure to come is this: I would rather drink half a portion of regular Coke than a full portion of C2, and surprisingly, I also prefer the taste of Diet Coke to C2. In fact, I’d rather STICK MY LEFT NIPPLE IN THE BLENDER WITH TWO HEAPING TABLESPOONS OF ABORTED MONKEY FETUS AND SET THE BEER BONG TO “STUN” THAN DRINK C FUCKING 2.
Note: In the middle of the last paragraph I bit the inside of my mouth pretty hard while chomping down on a cough drop. Could ya tell? Sorry. Those are just the breaks. I’d edit it but – time constraints, you know? (If you are an influential member of the Great Cola Conspiracy, I might be able to find the time to rewrite it before the US release. For a Small Fee. If you make me bite myself again, however, I will retaliate by changing the title of this post to: C2 Review: Low-carb Felchwater!.)

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere.”
– Ronald Reagan
Without a doubt, that’s the most useful leadership advice anyone has ever given me. My own tribute is simple:
I cried for you with my classmates and my teacher the day you got shot. The principal came by the classroom to make sure everyone understood what had happened. He said, “a very bad man tried to kill our president.” I’m not sure we all understood the full meaning of this statement. What I do know is that you were a hero to us, and none of us wanted to see you go.
Rest in peace.

Hey, I know it’s a total fucking joke now, but I grew up with rap. LL Cool J’s Radio was the first cassette tape I remember buying. The Adventures of Slick Rick was the first CD I ever bought. So this headline makes me yearn for the days of Peter Piper and Paid in Full:
Ice-T And David Hasselhoff Team Up For Rap Album
Whatever happened to the hard line of, say, Six in the Morning?
Rhyme Pays, indeed.

The Japanese title for “The Karate Kid” is “Best Kid“, which is kind of funny if you think about why they felt compelled to replace a perfectly understandable title (to the average Jiro or Hanako, anyway) for one that makes a hell of a lot less sense and sounds, well, kinda wack (You the bestest, Daniel-san! Done waxing the floor?). The soundtrack for this movie is so synthesizically enhanced it makes me embarrassed to have grown up in the same era. Otherwise, I find it a pleasure to watch once every few years or so.
Imagine my surprise when I found the Cobra-kai in real life. They have high-ranking fighters in the Japanese PANCRASE “hyper-wrestling” league, and they live up to their movie reputation. Basically, they all wear black short-sleeve gi and act like assholes during the tournaments, especially after they win.
What is our motto, ladies?
Strike First! Strike Hard! No Mercy, Sir!

Oh great. As soon as I give props to a band, they turn around and insert shiv directly in my spinal column. The MTV page I linked to in my previous post has a link on the right side:
Audioslave’s Tom Morello To Protest Taco Bell
Hey Tom (or is that Mr. Nightwatchman?), stop quoting Cesar Chavez and shut the fuck up! The fucking chihuahua loves Cesar Chavez, but if you bring down the Evil Empire and leave us with nothing but Green Burrito/Carls Jr. franchises and Delfucking Tacos, I’ll be really pissed.

A mix between Back in Black and The Joshua Tree would be interesting but the only thing I really care about is that it doesn’t SUCK. This is one of the only recent bands worth listening to. Period.
I may have a line on some studio recordings for the second album. I will update on this later. Just remember, I had the full Battle of Los Angeles CD in stere-ereo a full month before it went on sale (of course, so did half of the other Hotline haxxors). But that was a long time ago. Let’s just say that an old friend happened by the other day.
Here is a good Audioslave bio, including a bit that my brother and I disputed often regarding the rumors of a break up before their first album.
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