It's Official: Kobayashi Takeru is out!

This just in, Kobayashi Takeru is out of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest!!

Regular readers of my blog will recall my post about the Kobayashi Takeru vs. Joey "Jaws" Chestnut on-going battle to be the hot dog eating champion of the world. At that time, I'd hinted that Kobayashi might not make it out to Coney Island due to the fact he was still mourning his mother's recent passing and might not be in the mental shape to compete.

Well this just in: Kobayashi is sitting out this year's championship-- but not for the reasons I predicted; but from a jaw injury. Read on:

Kobayashi: 'My jaw refused to fight'

The world's most famous competitive eater finally bit off more than he could chew.

Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi, who has won six straight Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contests, suffered a serious jaw injury while training for the July 4 event, according to Agence France-Presse.

The Japanese eating legend was diagnosed with jaw arthritis and can barely open his mouth. In an entry on his blog entitled "Occupational hazard,'' Kobayashi said: "My jaw refused to fight any more.'' "I feel ashamed that I couldn't notice the alarm bells set off by my own body,'' he said. "But with the goal to win another title with a new record, I couldn't stop my training so close to the competition. "I was continuing my training and bearing with the pain but finally I destroyed my jaw.''

Kobayashi, 29, set his first world record as a rookie in the Nathan's Famous contest in 2001. He ate 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes, nearly doubling the previous record. He upped the ante last year with 53¾.

Joey "Jaws" Chestnut of San Jose, Calif., recently broke that record by downing 59½ dogs in a Nathan's Famous regional qualifier, setting the stage for a showdown next month.

Kobayashi's injury puts his status in doubt, though he said on his blog that he wants to compete at Coney Island. "I want to be the pride of my mother,'' he said. Kobayashi's mother died earlier this year and he halted his competitive eating activities for several months while mourning.

A niche celebrity in Japan and America, Kobayashi still holds world records in many eating competitions, including hamburgers, bratwurst sausages, lobster rolls, cows' brains and rice balls. (link)



This must be a occupational injury but I look forward to Kobayashi speeding his way to good health so we can see the battle to end all battles (of eating) at some point soon. Godspeed!

JTB Space Travel Insurance: You'll no longer have to worry about being uninsured!

JTB to offer space travel insurance

TOKYO — Travel agency JTB Corp will launch Japan's first space travel insurance next April. A joint venture between JTB and American International Group Inc has cooperated with Lloyds Japan Co to develop the insurance, the premium for which could be around 7% of an insured amount against 0.03% for conventional overseas travel insurance products, JTB said.

JTB has been offering space travel plans since October 2005, including a 12 billion yen trip to the moon, a 3 billion yen trip to the International Space Station, which is currently under construction, as well as a 12 million yen trip to experience space around 100 kilometers above the earth's surface. So far, 11 people have applied for the 12 million yen trip. (Kyodo News) (Link)

I, for one, am glad to see that JTB is looking for new insurance horizons. And while no, it ain't cheap (and I'd hate to see what the deductible will be) I'll rest easier knowing that my space travels are covered in case of an accident.

Question: does the insurance cover hostile alien encounters? For example, I would imagine that a ship to ship attack would be covered but how would answering a SOS call on an unexplored planet that leads to an alien contamination, a chest-burster, and a creature with acid for blood that runs rough-shod on your drilling barge and kills your entire crew be classified?

New York Asian Film Festival is up and running, so why aren't you there??

The title of this post sez it all and I woulda made a more timely 'get out there and support good Asian cinema' post last Friday, but I was out of town.

Be that as it may, the New York Asian Film Festival is running RIGHT NOW and you should be there every night enjoying the freaked out madness and hard to see in the theater brilliance that they always program.

I've been told by my friends running the festival that attendance has been generally strong for the first couple of days, with several of the screenings selling out. That said, there's some concern about upcoming ticket sales.

So as they would point out, why see yet another Hollywood blockbuster sequel or gamble on a film that might suck? The five fine blokes who make up Subway Cinema have done the leg-work for you and have programmed films that you should see and will like.

Seriously, if you live in the greater NY region, go and watch. You won't regret it.

NOBORIKAWA SEIJIN (登川誠仁 aka. 'Seigwa'): The Okinawan Jimi Hendrix!

Ohhh, yeah.... Noborikawa Seijin is an old bad-ass. Because what, I ask you, can be more wicked than a grandpa tearing up a thousand years of Ryukyu island musical traditional with nothing more than a snake skin three string banjo called a 'Sanshin'? I see you nodding your heads in agreement. You're right, nothing.

As I've posted previously, I spent some months in Okinawa over the last year and while I still know [very] little about the people and the culture, I truly fell in love with this unique culture and the little piece of island paradise it inhabits.

To give the penny description of the Okinawan island and people it can be described as a combination of Chinese, Japanese and Polynesian culture. But in truth it is its own unique ethnography that still (proudly) retains a surprisingly large amount of its traditional Ryukyu heritage. Traditional Okinawan music fits into this and the Sanshin is a unique instrument that it strikes me is quite hard to play well.

Sounding similar to but different than the Shamisan, (one of the main differences is that the Sanshin is made out of snake skin and not dog or cat skin like the Shamisan!) it is closer in sound and appearance to the Chinese Sanxian. The player uses a plectrum (or plectra) made out of bone, tusk or bamboo to pluck the three strings as they sing along. In Okinawa, group participation is practically required, and if you have the pleasure of seeing a show at a bar where much Awamori (rice made spirit similar to Shochu) has flowed, the audience members will whistle and sing loudly and occasionally get up, shove aside some tables and use their zai makura (seat cushions) as fans to spin around and pump like a football team standard!!


Noborikawa Seijin (aka. 'Seigwa'), then, is of note because he a) doesn't suck (at least to these ears and if you don't believe me, then you haven't seen how much he is loved and revered in Okinawa) and b) is the head of the Ryukyu Minyo Kyokai (Okinawan Traditional Music Society) and is still regarded as the single most important living musician in the Southern Islands.

I was recently given a copy of 'Seigwa's newly released best of CD entitled "It's only Seigwa- The Best of Seijin Noborikawa 1975-2004" and I love it. I'm sure part of my admiration comes from my associative memories to Okinawa, but there's something else comforting about hearing this piece of unique mingei (folk art) because it isn't pretentious, ironic, over-produced crap that is designed for a cheap cash-in. The music is performed by someone who clearly loves what they do and wants to share the happiness.

It's that simple.

This isn't cynical music; it is something that is made as a gift to the world out of admiration for its beauty. (Now if only I could achieve that level of spiritual tranquility!)

Link to UK sales page at Far Side Music Ltd.
Link to sound sample.
Link to IMDB page.

REAL DOLL DOCTOR Screening Date Announced for Rooftop Film Festival

Regulars to this blog know that my 2002 short documentary REAL DOLL DOCTOR has been scheduled to screen at the NYC Rooftop Film Festival. (See previous posts here and here.)

Well, I just got an email from Dan, the head of the festival, and he told me the following info about my screening:

"...[REAL DOLL DOCTOR will be] screening on Friday, July 20th, as part of our shorts program called “The Way We Get By.” The screening will be on the lovely lawn at Automotive High School at 50 Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, directly across from McCarren Park.

The music will start at 8:30 and the movies at 9:00 and there will be a party afterwards at Bar Matchless, just a couple of blocks away, with an open bar for two hours for everyone who comes to the screening."

An OPEN BAR!!?? Did you all see that? Well, if my film isn't enough impetus to get out to this screening, then the prospect of free booze should be enough. (Provided, of course, that the bar is a 'booze bar' and not a 'juice bar'.)

Alas, I won't be able to attend since I don't live in NYC any more and they don't fly little speck-sized filmmakers (that refers to our reputation, not our physical size, you know) out to festivals like this. <*sniff*>

Drink one for me, if you go...

Japan needs to do something about its excess of male virgins...

Brothers doing it for themselves at the Japan Cherry Boy Association

The Japan Cherry Boy Association is facing a crisis after the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research revealed that almost one in four Japanese men aged 30 to 34 remains a virgin, according to Weekly Playboy (7/2).

"This is only the tip of the iceberg," Japan Cherry Boy Association founder and president Shin Watanabe (himself an unscathed 34-year-old) tells Weekly Playboy. "The real situation is much worse than this."

Watanabe argues that there are lots more Japanese men who are virgins than they are prepared to admit, saying that very few people surveyed about their virginity would be prepared to openly admit to not having broken their drought.

"There are 11 percent of people who gave an invalid answer to the survey and I bet you the vast majority of them would be virgins. And though there is also 65 percent who said they have had sex, that also includes the guys whose only experience is a single session at the brothel and nothing since, so there are a lot of virtual virgins in amongst them, too," Watanabe says.

The Japan Cherry Boy Association currently boasts of 517 members whose ages range from their teens to their 40s. Many join the association in the hopes that women will visit its website and try to pick them up. Some members, albeit only a few, actually succeed in "graduating" from the club by successfully experiencing sex.

"I'm the chairman of the association and I still can't get any sex, so I must admit I have mixed feelings when someone graduates," Watanabe says. "Guys who succeed change instantly, wanting to de-register immediately or patronizing other members by leaving them messages like 'You guys hurry up and get it over and done with, too.' I really hate it. I'd like guys who do succeed to stay around and offer advice to other members and tell them about their experience. But it seems once people have lost their virginity, they want to forget about ever having been a virgin in the first place."

Japan Cherry Boy Association members meet regularly for parties, where they frequently tell stories about how they cope with not having had sex, including this tale from a 32-year-old member.

"I've been going to yoga classes for ages and can finally get my body flexible enough to move however I want it to," he tells Weekly Playboy. "Just the other day, I finally achieved my dream of giving myself fellatio."

Cherry Boys Association members can't just be lumbered into the single lump of virgins, either. "Now, there are progressive virgins, who are striving to lose their virginity, and conservative virgins, who do everything they can to protect it," Watanabe says.

Conservative virgins argue that they've had enough of real women and would prefer two-dimensional types such as those found in manga and anime, who are also not going to lead them to the pain of rejection.

Some virgins, who call themselves liberated, go to ever further extremes.

"Most human worries stem from sex, right? Guys chat up women because they want to satisfy their sexual desire, which also motivates them to get a good job. You want to get along well with a woman, but you're filled with lust and thinking so much about sex it makes it hard to get along well with the woman anyhow," says a 30-year-old member who bought female hormones online to stifle his sexual urges. "Without lust, I'm doing much better with work and with women than I ever have."

Watanabe argues that Japan needs to do something about its excess of male virgins.

"We've got a declining birthrate, which means that the younger generations are going to have to look after the elderly. I can see a generation clash coming on. Why should young people who know nothing of sex have to look after old fogeys who can't get it up for sex any more?" he asks Weekly Playboy rhetorically. "To avoid that clash, those weak at love need to have love made smoother for them so they can enjoy it, get married and have children. I wonder if the media knows how much it hurts virgins and makes them feel isolated when it says that anybody at all is capable of love. We need a society kinder on virgins. We need to smile more at virgins." (Link)

日本の形 - Nihon no Katachi (aka. The Japanese Tradition)

Last summer, my friend Marc forward me a hilariously dry comedic 'how-to' video on eating Sushi. Totally brilliant and just subtle enough to screw with those who don't really know Japanese culture that well.


The other night, my lady and I spent an evening looking up funny stuff on YouTube and we found a whole trove of these NIHON NO KATACHI videos. Woah.

The brainchildren of comedy troupe 'Rahmenz' (aka. ラーメンズ) (about whom I know amazingly little), directed by the mysteriously named "Namikibashi" and produced by the if-ever-there-was-a-fake-company-this-is-it "Japan Culture Lab," these videos are short perversions of Japanese 'traditional' culture featuring riffs on Origami, the correct protocol when bowing, tea ceremony and other things 'Japonica'.

I highly recommend these videos and while they don't always hit, enough of it does that it's well worth your time. (While there are some English subtitles and voice overs, Japanese ability is recommended...)

I've embedded two recent favorites: "HOW TO USE CHOPSTICKS" and "HOW TO MAKE RICE BALLS"





As a final note, apparently these were included Short Film Competition at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival. I wondered how many people these videos duped? (link)