Japanese People Going Crazy Like Americans - Is it the Food or the Water? Japan Gulps American Fast Food

Japan is going nuts, my friends. What I mean by that is Japan is becoming more and more like the USA day by day and it's not good. I've said for a long time that Japan was thirty or forty years behind the USA and I stand by that statement. Several decades ago, America was generally a good place to live, had good industry and service was done with a smile. 

Today, Japan still has good service with a smile and industry... But for how much longer?


I even remember when McDonald's had the campaign in the USA that burgers were a dollar but the smiles were free. Not anymore in the nuthouse that today's USA has become. I lived in the USA as a kid in the sixties and seventies. I think it was the golden age of the richest country in history. Those days are long gone. 


Unfortunately for Japan, as I said, I believe my axiom holds true: Japan is thirty or forty years behind the USA... Today Japan is now heading into some very bad times and I don't see a way to avoid them. Please refer to: Japan's Collapse Will Be Absolute and it Cannot be Stopped - Here's Some BIG Reasons Why.


Like a rash that at first starts off small and slowly spreads, the symptoms of Japan's decline have started to appear and are unmistakable for those who are alert enough to notice them. 


Things are happening in Japan today that were unheard of just a few years ago. Did you know two women got into an altercation at a pub yesterday in Nishi Arai (Adachi ku, Tokyo) that resulted in one of the women dying? It hasn't hit the English language news services in Japan as far as I can see but here's a Japanese link from Yahoo Japan. What happened was that it seems two women went separately to a pub. There, for some reason, a argument broke out between them. Soon the argument turned into into a fist fight with one woman using a beer mug to hit the other woman in the face and over the head. When the woman who was stuck by the beer mug collapsed to the floor, the other woman jumped on her and began kicking her repeatedly while she was on the ground. 


The collapsed woman was taken to a hospital where she died.


Now, if this were the United States, we'd all say, "Ho-hum. So what's new?" But in Japan? This is unheard of. To prove that this is not an unusual occurance in today's USA, I went to Youtube and searched "Fight at McDonald's" I got over 5,500 results. "Fight at Chuck E. Cheese" resulted in over 15,700 results. "Fight at restaurant" received 8,530 results (and climbing)...


To compare with Japan, I searched "Fight at restaurant"（レストラン 喧嘩）and found 76 results. None involved people fighting. The top video was of some pigeons fighting over food. 


What is the cause of this? Scoff now, my friends, but I am convinced that it is all a part of the Zeigeist of the times and has much to do with the food and water people consume. Now, it's come to Japan. The rise - and current dominance - of the western diet and fast food culture in Japan will result in more crime, dissatisfaction, clinical depression, medical maladies and an more unhealthy populace in general. And, "unhealthy populace" means not just physically unhealthy, but mentally unhealthy too. 


Some people will argue this but it's laughable to think that eating chemicals and processed, unnatural foodstuffs won't cause all sorts of problems. Think about this: Do you know why homeless people generally go crazy after about two months on the street? Well, it should come to no surprise to learn that homeless people do not eat well and consume lots of fast food. Just add two and two and you'll get four. 


I was just telling a friend of mine yesterday that, 15 or 20 years ago, you never saw very fat Japanese people. But you see them now. I find it not just a coincidence that, as the Japanese increase vastly their intake of  western food they become more and more obese like Americans.


This chart is a bit dated but we can compare it with what I'm saying: 15 ~ 20 years ago, you rarely ever saw a Japanese person who was fat... Sumo? Yes. Obese people? I mean really fat people like you see in the USA? No. This chart compares the obesity rate of many countries around the world including Japan:

Country by country comparison of obesity

As you can see, twenty years ago, in 1990, about 2.5% of the Japanese population were considered obese... Trust that there aren't that many sumo running around so we can figure that this rate is pretty true. Compare that with the '88 ~ '94 rate of the USA that was about 24%. 

By the mid-1980s the American inspired fast food fueled boom was deeply entrenched in Japan amongst an entire generation of young people. Those twenty-year olds of 1980 are now 50-year-olds today... Gee, I wonder how that has affected Japan's obesity problems? I'm not exactly sure about that and have no data but it is common knowledge that today's Japan is beginning to have an obesity problem too. 

I do have anecdotal evidence in the fact that the word, "Metabo" became a common word in the Japanese vernacular over these past 5 years. "Metabo" is short for "Slow metabolism." It is the lame excuse that overweight people use for being fat as in,

Fat person: "Oh, I am getting over-weight. It's that darn slow-metabolism!" 

Me: "No. It's not your slow metabolism. It's because you eat too much junk like a pig and don't exercise."

Of course the obesity problem in Japan is nowhere near the crisis porportions of the USA but judging from the chart below, we might get a good idea where we're heading.

The next chart give us clues. It is an interesting chart on the exponential growth of obesity in America. I haven't any chart like this for Japan with regards to up-to-date information, but while Japan is still decades behind the USA in the overweight department, Japan is growing exponentially too... Thank you McDonald's!

But it's not just obesity and all the health problems that follow the American diet wherever it goes around the world. I've mentioned mental health problems. I submit to you that insanity also follows along with the Standard American Diet (SAD).


The SAD diet is chock full of chemicals and preservatives. People think eating that hamburger is just food that goes right through you and out the other side. Wrong! Thinking that way is just plain ignorant. That food doesn't go though you folks, it goes in you and is processed by your body. It becomes you.


They don't say, "You are what you eat" for no reason. Eat junk, become junk. 


And on that note, did you know that cancers and heart diseases were unheard of diseases in Japan and Asian countries before the 1950's? Yep. It's true. There's even a movie about it. It's called Knives Over Forks. Here's a trailer.

Over the years, I've heard many anecdotal stories about America going crazy and have told my fair share myself too. The noticeable thing is that these stories get more and more common and wilder and wilder. I've often wondered if it was fluoridation of the water or the poisoning of the food. Let me guess though, it's both. It's everything. It's all the crap that people ingest in their food, water and air.


Everyone knows about the fights and insanity going on in America... Now that we have fast food in Japan on every street corner, Japan is indeed becoming more and more like the United States.


This isn't turn out good. Just look at the USA to see what's going to happen... 

The Japanese Riot! Demanding Withdrawal From Korea! And Closure of Narita!

Yesterday I posted the story about how far American society has collapsed with the story and video of fighting - as well as people getting run over by a car - while they waited in line for a job at McDonald's. 

Things are very bad in the USA and they are going to get much worse. 

The economic problems in Japan are very bad too, but there is one saving grace about Japan and the Japanese... They don't riot and protest and go batsh*t crazy and violent like the Americans do. Do they?

Here's a link sent by regular reader diego.a with a 1961 video about a "riot" against US troops.

More proof to add to your article: Japanese Students Riot Demanding US Withdrawal

No riot gear costumes, tasers, or pepper-spray. Few nightsticks, but lots of pushing and shoving. You could get more injuries at a soccer match riot. Even their motives were better than US rioters. They are even better dressed. I even had to go back to 1961 to get this!

Thanks diego.a. Cool video!!! But wait a minute! Is it true that the Japanese are too docile and absolutely will not riot like westerners? I'm not too sure about that. Here is a video from Oct. 20, 1985 of a left wing group known as Chuukakuha leading a riot in an attempt to stop Narita airport expansion. Especially pay attention from about 1:00.... This will blow your mind. The sh*t really starts hitting the fan from 2:00 ~

Here's some more from riots and demonstrations against the original construction of Narita in the late 1970s.  I remember these well. In the first video, the demonstrators actually took over, sacked and occupied the control tower at Narita:

(The sound on this one is missing for the first 2'50" or so)

The next video is from a collection of unedited videos of the riots. I have added the first of the series here for you.

(The sound on this one is missing for the first 40 seconds or so)

If you wish to see the rest of the series, click here: NARITA STRUGGLE 1978 成田空港管制塔占拠. If you want to see many riot videos in Japan, click here. 

Oh, and there's lots more where these came from. Here's a photo of Japanese students rioting against the renewal of the US-Japan Security Treaty in 1960:

So, perhaps thinking that the Japanese won't riot and are too docile maybe a bit presumptuous... What happens when Japan is no longer an extremely wealthy country and the youth have no jobs?... Like it was in 1960?

The McDonald's Effect: Why Music, Literature, Cinema and the Arts Have Become Mediocre - Just Like Processed Cheese

I call it the McDonald's effect. The McDonald's effect is the action and mind-set of making things into a mass production type of set-up; into a boring, "this one same as the last one," process oriented system. Great if you run a factory in China. If you are trying to do anything unique and creative with your life and business, you'd better stop this.

The "process oriented system" reminds me of an old TV commercial I saw once. The owner of a hamburger stand was always thinking of ways to cut corners. He cut corners and cut corners... Finally, he came to the idea of using reusable plastic pickles because "nobody ate the pickles anyway."


Genius idea... If you are running a mass production, everything is the same as the last one, type of setup like McDonald's.


Pardon me, but I hate McDonald's (except the coffee) and think the food there tastes terrible.


I think that just about everything today, when it comes to music, literature, cinema or the arts seems to me to have become mediocre or is moving quickly in the direction of the McDonald's effect. In fact, when it comes to these "arts" it is much like what is happening to business; things are moving more and more away from individualism and creativity and more and more towards production. Everything seems to be getting cheaper and cheaper and more and more like McDonald's food. 


Everything in big business and big, corporate "art" seems to be moving from a "results oriented" base to a "process oriented" base. 


Results oriented means just that: the end product and how the end product is made is what is important. Sometimes it is very slow but the end product is intended to be unique or of very high quality.


Processed oriented means that making the largest amount of the end product at the cheapest price possible is important. Processed orientated businesses are like factories stamping things out of molds. They reward cutting corners and costs and quality to the minimum.


What I mean to say is that, it seems to me, there is nothing at all recently that is capturing the hearts and imaginations of the young people of the world. How can it? When everything becomes like McDonald's food, what's to capture hearts and minds?


Or is it just the way I perceive it as being? Read on and see if you agree with me...


The Harry Potter movies were fun in 2001... At least the first ones were. Now it's been ten years and, well, Harry at 18 years old is not nearly as cute as Harry at 8. Oh? The books? Oh those... Well, compared to say, Dickens or Tolkien, JK Rowling is 'pablum.'


The Star Wars movies were great, as far as comic books go, in the late 1970s.


Movies in the golden days of the 1930s and 40s up until the 60s were great. Today? Comic books from the sixties are turned into Hollywood "Hits."


Besides cinema, what else has become like chewing cardboard? 


Michael Jackson, probably the last of his kind, electrified the entire world with Billie Jean in 1982 and then self-destructed in 1993 with a rumored 16 million dollar out-of-court settlement for child molestation and entry into drug rehab... The he overdosed... That's been happening a lot recently.


And speaking of music and self-destruction, the other day the Grammy Awards were held. How many other people besides me view the entire charade as fake and plastic? Even when it comes to memorializing the deaths of former great performers, these types of ceremonies trivialize and cheapen things. Or, as my friend described the Grammy Awards, "...They turned everything into processed cheese." 


Today's movies, music, literature and arts all seem like they are rarely good. I think as a whole we are in a cultural funk. 


Though, do not misunderstand, there are individuals who I think are very good. And that is the key here: the individuals.


I remember when I was a child in the sixties, whenever a new major motion picture was released or a new album by a big star, like, say the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, it was a big deal. Today? "What release?" And, "are those guys still together?"


I work with many people in TV and radio and can tell you that I can count on two fingers the people who I know who do world-class work or even try to. The rest of the 99.8%? Why bother? They are all in the wrong business. They should all be working for banks and punching time clocks. 


I can't tell you why cinema or literature or music have become so much like processed cheese. I have a guess. But I can tell you why one part of the arts has gone to hell in a hand basket. I can tell you why the broadcast arts are so poor today. 


Some people will tell you that TV and radio broadcasting are so bad because of lack of money. But I think that is just an excuse. That is using the "which came first? The chicken or the egg?" Problem as an excuse for making a poor product that no one wants to buy.


Why don't the TV and radio stations have any money? Because they have no sponsors. Why don't they have any sponsors? Because they've lost all their listeners and viewers. Why don't they have any listeners and viewers? Because the programming is boring. Why is the programming boring? Ah! They'll tell you because they have no money.


See? It's an excuse. Here's the real answer:


1) The programming is boring because 99% of the people do a half-assed job.


2) 99% of the stations have been cutting corners for so long that when competition came up (like the Internet) they were caught off-guard. 


You really have to wonder how it is that some guy, somewhere, alone in his house could come up with better and more interesting content than a TV or radio station with hundreds of millions of dollars of staff and equipment could... But he did, they did, she did and the results are here for everyone to see. This is where the results oriented individual comes in: His primary purpose is not a processed oriented result. It is a results oriented outcome. He wants quality.


Let me give you an example that I am very familiar with. It is about the FM radio business... As far as #1 (above) is concerned, take the case of radio Deejays; 99.7% of them are lazy and do the minimum they need to do to get by. They make no effort to learn about new music; they don't go out; they don't read (or if they do read, they read music magazines! Ha!) They think it is not their duty to learn about new music and to bring it to the masses, so they don't. Most Deejays don't even go to stores or search the Internet for new music to play. They are puppets who are told what to play. Or, even worse, they are stuck in the past and continually play what they liked in high school!


Fools! Can you imagine, say, a fashion magazine constantly running articles and ads from the sixties? Sure, retro fashion might be cool, but at least it is updated. Old music is just that: Old music. It has its place but it will rarely capture the imagination of the youth.


In Japan, these Deejays learn new music from Billboard Hit CD compilations from the USA! Billboard? Billboard is a magazine that list things like the Top 40. If it is in Billboard, it is already old.


When Rock radio was new and exciting in the 1950s and 1960s, Deejays found new music and played it. Deejays were personalities. Today? Nope. Like I said puppets; people with no faces and no names.


Don't believe me? Quick! Give me the name of one radio program! Can't do it? That's OK. Most people can't.


It is pretty obvious by the state of radio today if this situation that has been going on for the last twenty years has been good for the health of the industry or not. I use the example of radio, but this has been going on in TV, cinema, literature and the arts now for decades...


The arts are like a once popular mom and pop hamburger shop. 


When the mom and pop hamburger shop was first started, it was delicious and very popular. All the kids and people loved it. It was always crowded. But as time went on corners were cut and costs lowered in order to increase the profit line. That made for smaller and smaller burgers and french fries. It made for Cokes with more and more ice in the cup. Along with the smaller burgers, cheaper and cheaper ingredients were used. The good taste began to disappear...


One day, the owners of the burger shop started noticing that their fan and customer base started shrinking. What did they do? Well, they began cutting more and more corners. Instead of coming up with creative solutions, they fell back into old fashioned thinking and continued to do the only thing they knew how to do: Make smaller and smaller burgers and cut more and more corners.


Soon, one day, they were barely holding on. They had 1/20th the customers that they enjoyed just ten short years ago. If it weren't for government or outside help, they'd surely be bankrupt.


Their answer to the problem? Cut more corners and make smaller portions. And the cycle continues today. 

Now you know why so many things have become so mediocre. It is obvious why, isn't it? Cutting corners and doing a half-assed job. But every once in a while someone like a Bukowski comes along... Someone with no money who is results oriented and art hiccups... For a moment at least...


Entertainment people can blame a loss of revenue all they want, but the cutting of corners and laziness began when the revenue was still good and they were king.


And that brings us back to the McDonald's Effect. Are you in a creative or sales oriented business? In today's economy, we're all in sales; and, if so, are you cutting corners and, when you stop to think about it, are you slipping into a process oriented behavior? If you are, you need to get out of that rut.


If you are doing any sort of creative or sales type of work, then you need to get out of the "punching the time card" type of mentality. You need to start working on results and not processes... Processes are for McDonald's or convenience store owners. 


Unless you already own a McDonald's, then you'd better stop thinking how you can create plastic reuseable pickles.  

Music (Almost) Ruined My Life: Don't Let it Ruin Yours! Creative Work Can Be a Curse - Choose Your Career Carefully

Here I go quoting Confucius two days in a row: "Choose a job that you love and you will never have to work a day in your life."


Diana Ross also said something along the lines of, "You had better like the songs you sing, because you're going to be singing them for the rest of your life."

Know it. Learn it. Live it.

This post is about choosing your job, using music as an example. I use music because that is what I know best. It could also apply to food, design, cinema, or any of the so-called "Creative Arts." To paraphrase Diana; "You had better like the career you choose, because you're going to be doing it the rest of your life." 


Choose your career carefully. If I had know then, what I know today, I would have never chosen to work in music... Here's why...

These guys changed my life...

I've worked in music, in one capacity or another, since 1978. While I will say that, when I first started, I think I loved music, now I can definitively say that I don't really like music. I don't want to sugar-coat this. It's the truth. I can't really say that I hate music. But, perhaps like an old marriage that has grown cold tired and loveless (and sexless), I have no interest in music at all any more. The fire that was once there has grown cold and lifeless...There rarely comes along something that really piques my interest and makes me take notice. I blame the industry (but what person wants to blame themselves?)


I think the last well known things that really caught my eye were, Fatboy Slim, Suede, Sex Pistols and Punk, and David Bowie (in that reverse chronological order). Music today, like cinema today, is boring as hell.

He was the first to change my life...

All my life I've had a few very unusual talents. One is that, even though I can never remember anyone's name, I always remember their telephone number - or just about any number. I can remember numbers that are over eight digits long no problem in the world. I've been able to do that since I was a young boy. I can even remember, to this day, our family telephone number when I was 8 and living in Minnesota! I can also remember the lyrics of songs even if I have only heard them in passing on the radio a few times and even if I don't like them. I've also been able to do that since the mid-sixties when garage music was Top 40...


"You're pushing to hard, pushing to hard, pushing to hard on me.... Too hard..." Oh, trivia...


Seriously folks, I've always hated sobbing piano corporate trash like Billy Joel (showing my age here) but can still remember all the lyrics to a song like, say, "Uptown Girl" of which I've only been exposed to a few times and hated with a passion from the first time. Today, I can't say that I hate Lady Gaga (can't name a single song she has done), Madonna, Justin Beiber, whatever, and so on... (insert your favorite pop star's name here).... Because I've gotten to the point where I just don't care about them at all.


Most artists, if they have a clue, will want people to either love or hate them. People like me who don't care at all are their demise.

I cannot try go to sleep with any music on at all. I won't sleep. If music is on, as I try to sleep, the lyrics will pop into my head and I won't be able to sleep. Even songs I hate, I remember the lyrics. It is a serious ailment for which modern science has no cure, or even a name for. 


So, whenever I go to a restaurant or hear music, awake or when trying to sleep, I play a sort of "Name that Tune" in my head (Really, I can get most of them in 4 or 5 notes without a hint). It's maddening. So, if I try to sleep and music is on, my mind clicks into "Name that Tune" mode.. Then, if there is a song I don't know - well, forget sleeping for another hour or two. (And trust that I have a massive library of data stored in the noggin; from the 1940's until late 1990's.) 


I met a girl once who had a similar illness when it came to classical music. Since she studied classical piano since she was a 5-year-old girl and then practiced everyday, a few hours a day, and even went to a university and graduated with a degree in classical piano (?) If she hears classical music while trying to sleep, she sees the sheet music rolling past her head and will not be able to sleep.... 


Later on, that girl and I got married. She is my current wife. We don't listen to music at home unless we are having a party and guests are over.


Music has been a friend and a curse to both of us all our lives. 

Rodney Bingenheimer is a real DJ. Probably the last of a dying breed.

Rodney is real. I am a cheap Japanese copy.

I suppose I'd better give a short rundown on my "music history." I played in a 70s Los Angeles punk band. We were one-hit wonders. Supposedly, we sold a lot of records. Rodney Bingenheimer at world-famous KROQ in Los Angeles once told me that our song was the most requested song in the history of his radio program and that show has been on since 1974 or so. The band was shitty. But it was fun... Well, sorta...


If you've ever played in a band that had even minimal success then you know that playing in a band can be fun. It can be LOTS of fun... If you tour you know that touring can be fun but it, seems to me, usually is not. My band wasn't fun to be around because they were always fighting like poncy hairdressers.


After the band relieved itself, and the listening public, from its misery by breaking up, I carried records and cleaned toilets for people at a radio station. Later, in Japan, I began doing my own radio programs in 1986 or 87. My first radio show in Japan was for a station in Osaka... The station's name was Radio Kansai, can't remember the name of the show.

Typical radio Deejay with a face (and body) perfect for radio

Let me break here tell you about the "magical dream" - before the days of the Internet - that working at a radio station was. Back before 1990, radio was king. If you wanted to hear new music, the only place was radio. I had been a fan of radio since I was a little boy. My parents would have to drive to a place for my mother's work. The lady who owned the place was named Mrs. Snap. My parents would try to goad me into the 1 hour car ride to Mrs. Snap's office . I'd never want to go (even though she was a nice lady), but if they let me sit in front and zap the am radio tuner, I'd eagerly go. 


My brothers were such uncool turds that, even at the height of the sixties Brit Invasion, they didn't care. I loved it. I loved the music. I loved the radio. (In the sixties, punk was Top 40 - like the above mentioned Seeds song, "Pushin' Too Hard.")


Anyway, most people who love music want to be musicians. But few of us have any talent to speak of. Let's face it, I had none. None! Nein! Zip! Nada! Zero!... So, after my punk band, I fancied going into radio. In those days, before one joins a radio station, like little children at Christmas with images of toys dancing in their heads, newbies at radio think they will be hanging out with rock stars and getting hundreds of the new albums by the hottest artists all for free...


Well, the hanging out with rock stars part isn't true at all. Rock stars might come to the station but they'll rarely remember your face, name, who you are, or even that they were on your very same show just last year! And the stacks of free records and CDs you'll get? Sure. You'll get them. But they'll all be crap that you don't want. You'll just have bags of junk to carry home and have more sh*t to throw away on trash day!


Seriously, if you receive 100 albums from record labels, then out of that 100, only 1 might be good. That is unless, of course, you think Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber are good. Almost everything you get is corporate rock trash. Good new artists rarely have the money or the label backing to put out sample recordings to stations. And, in the 25 years of being the DJ, producer, song selector of some of the highest rated (alternative) music radio shows in Tokyo, I can honestly say that I have only met three promoters who did their jobs properly.


Think about it; I make a show that plays underground and alternative music only and some dumb promoter is putting Justin Beiber's newest CD in my mailbox and asking me to play it on my show? Gee. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my program. I'll make sure I play your songs after they fish the CD out of the river when I throw it out the window!!!!


Arrrggghhhhh!!!!!


Oh? Where was I? Oh yeah, I was complaining about how much radio and the music industry sucks and how, using this example, you need to choose your career carefully.


Let me also interject that the music business (and radio too) has a lot of low class, dishonest people in them. It's been my experience that these dishonest types are usually gone within 3 ~ 6 years, but, through some miracle, some of the really sneaky and dishonest ones hold on. I think it's because they've made a deal with the devil... Rock and roll and all that, ya know.

I've met lots of people who signed contracts with this dude. What for?

To be a musician or DeeJay on radio!? What? Are these people stupid?

I blew it in radio. Besides the above, how was I to know, in the mid eighties that the Internet was going to come along and ruin everything? I couldn't. I started a TV and radio production company in 1992 that focused on the niche market of alternative music (no one was doing that in Japan) and so the die was cast.


Today, the internet is king and no one listens to radio anymore and no one watches music TV. Why bother? You can just go to Youtube and see what you want, when you want it without having to sit through 20 minutes of crap you don't like.


Now? I never listen to music and, if I do, it is only for work. Like I said, I rarely hear things that I like (the things I do like, I play) and, when not at work, I enjoy silence.


We have no TV at my home and we have no large stereo. We have a small CD player that we use for background music when guests come over so it is turned on, perhaps, three or four times a year. At my house, silence is golden.


People ask me, "Mike! What kind of music do you like?" I usually answer, "I am a fair person. I hold all Pop music in equal disdain." If I do listen to "music for pleasure," I listen to the birds singing in the garden, the crash of the ocean waves, or, in the car, Mozart.

Real music: Mozart, birds singing, Pianistar Hiroshi (click the link, you gotta watch this guy! He's amazing!)

Some lovers of music might say that this is tragic and a waste. Perhaps. But I like to think of it more akin to what a professional chef would do at a famous French restaurant. I fact, one I know told me the following and it reminded me of how I am. He said,


"Mike, I enjoy my work. I cannot say I love cooking. I enjoy my work. When I am at home, my wife wants me to cook, but I cannot stand to cook when I am at home. When I am at home, I don't want to eat anything... It's much too much trouble..."


He then added;


"Mike, I like McDonald's hamburgers. I am amazed at how fast they can turn them out and they are all exactly the same."


Get it? He likes McDonald's hamburgers. Why? Not because of the taste but because, as a professional chef, he is fascinated by how they can churn out these products and each and every one is exactly the same as the others. This is a goal of all professional chefs at fine restaurants.


Maybe he does like the taste. But I don't think that's what intrigues him; he likes the technique. He doesn't really "taste" the product. If he really tasted McDonald's hamburgers, he certainly wouldn't like them (But, then again, who knows? Some people might like eating chemicals and salt). 

McDonald's vs. Lobster? Hmmmm.... Tough choice, eh?

It's the same with me. I don't really "taste" the music anymore. I judge it by a certain level of quality, melody, and, I think, "Can I use this for my show or not?" That's it.


If this is tragic, then so be it. 


It think it is what it is and it is the fact that I enjoy my job. I cannot honestly say that I love music.


Had I known then what I know today, I would have chosen a different career.

Music isn't a hugely profitable career. There's not much upside. And there are a lot of dishonest sneaky people. Even though I cannot complain and can say that I don't really feel that I've ever worked "hard," (hard work is chopping down trees or working in construction, etc.) I could have made twice as much money in a different career had I made that decision long ago.

As it is, I am fading out music now. I started to do so at age 52. It's not too late.

But there is a lesson here for everyone: If people read this and can really understand what this is all about then, it's not sad, it is actually what makes a professional. Passion is always important, but having a detached, discerning eye is of utmost importance to the successful business man or woman. 


Have a discerning eye. Use good judgement. Choose your career well. 

Pianistar Hiroshi - Bohemian Rhapsody

Watch this. This is awesome!

NOTE: You can see a weekly Top 5 of music videos that I like here at George Williams's site (www.georgewilliams.jp). George and I pick these songs every week: http://www.georgewilliams.jp/wp/category/ranking/ 




Thanks to Allison Sayne

Star Wars and Earth Wars: Robots, Droids, Drones and People

"I'm C3PO human cyborg relationship and this is my counterpart R2-D2" - C3PO to Luke

Robots? I love them.


Droids? Excellent!


Drones? Not so much. I don't really like them. 


Don't confuse robots, droids and drones. They are all very different. I like the kind of droids you'd see in a Star Wars movie like R2D2 or C3PO. It's drones that I don't like... Besides metallic casings, I might be talking about the kind of drones many people might refer to as "suits."


Actually, in this case, it could even be worse than "suits." At least the "suits" are usually people with what is at least referred to as a "higher education." Chuckle. I mean, they paid big money and got themselves into major debt by avoiding reality after high school by going to college. You know what I mean? College and university are great places to screw around and waste time while you figure out what you want to do with your life and postpone the inevitable as long as possible.

In all fairness, and for the sake of complete disclosure, let me state openly that I did go to university and waste, not four, but six years. But let me also say that I was lucky and, upon graduation, I wasn't even one cent in debt. I worked my way through college.... Hell, it was better than studying! I wrote about how John Belushi convinced me to go to university once. Please refer to: John Belushi, Japan and me - or How the Movie Animal House Changed my Life


But I digress....


I'm talking about Robots, Droids and Drones.


Japan is way, way, way ahead of the United States when it comes to this sort of thing. You can go into Tokyo, say Shinjuku, Shibuya or Akihabara - especially Akihabara - and see robots, droids and drones everywhere you look. In Japan, these things are not unusual so people don't bat an eye.


Don't believe me? It's absolutely true, so help me god. Let me explain. First, I suppose we have to clarify our definitions.

Robot: "A device that automatically performs tasks, sometime repetitively." "A mechanism guided by automatic controls." "A fictional machine whose lack for the capacity of human emotions is often emphasized."


Droid (exactly: Android): "A mobile robot with usually a human form." "A Linux based operating system for cell phones and computers."


Drone: "A stingless male bee that has the role of mating with the queen. It does not work by gathering nectar or pollen." "One that lives on the labor of others." "A vessel guided by remote control."

Drones do stupid things like get hacked or shot down. 

Just lifeless shells is all they really are.

Aha! Got that about drones? They are "vessels guided by remote control." Keep that in mind. That's really what this article is about. I will get onto that in a minute, but first let me continue my train of thought...


Now we're ready? Okay! 


Like I said, Japan is way ahead of the United States (and I include Europe in that too) when it comes to this sort of "mechanical thingy" thing. Need evidence? Let's examine!

Early American toaster (left) - Modern Japanese toaster (right)

Robots. Of course, in every one's house there are many robots that perform simple tasks. My favorite home robot is the kitchen toaster. The toaster was invented in the 1870's in England, but much refined by the Japanese in the 1960's. The friendly kitchen toaster is my favorite robot because it is cheap and can provide much more entertainment on a cold winter night than any TV program on the lobotomy box ever could! Toast? Ummmm! Which would you rather have to warm you up with that hot sexy someone under the blankets on the sofa? A hot piece of buttered toast and fresh strawberry jam that can be munched together or 30 minutes of Dog the Bounty Hunter reruns? Not a difficult call to make, is it?

Interestingly, both "Toast" and "Dog" have roughly the same IQ 

In Tokyo, robots are everywhere and they are fashionable and stylish... In the stylish area, we also have much gratitude to give to the French and the Italians who are excellent at making things that look fabulous, but don't work so well and break down quickly.


Some examples of French and Italian things that look nice but don't work are the Maginot Line, Alitalia, and Fiat automobiles.

Fiat getting well over 100 kilometers per liter of gasoline!

If you really think about it, robots are not such a big deal anymore. Like I mentioned about toasters. What home doesn't have a toaster today?


Now, let's look at androids (we'll call them droids). Android phones are everywhere in Tokyo. In fact, recently, I think I've been seeing more of those than iPhones recently. If the definition of a Droid (above) is correct then, we even have one in my home. It's called a "iRobot Roomba." Okay, well I take that back. Actually, I think it is not called a "Roomba." Roomba is the famous one. Those are very expensive. We bought a Korean made model (forget the name) that does the same thing for half the cost. This automatic vacuuming droid is just like R2D2. Really! He does a good job for certain tasks but can be awful stubborn and does dumb things sometimes like falling down the stairs, so you have to be careful with his programming on where you specify are his work areas. I like the fact that he can vacuum the carpeted floor, then go to the tatami floor, then over to the wooden floor and all under the dining tables and chairs without my wife lifting a finger. Pretty cool.

This android was unveiled in 2005... 

I often wondered what year she'll be "deflowered" in?

It is also awesomely cool in that the fact, get this, the guy himself (sorry about calling it a "he" - my wife insists that the "butler do the vacuuming"), when done, automatically searches and finds his home station and parks himself there after the job is done so his batteries can be recharged... He also beeps and pings like R2D2. Really!


In Tokyo, we also have robots and droids that make ice cream, sushi, and manufacturers cars and work on assembly lines too. Of course.

Yeah, yeah. He vacuums and does everything. But if I ever catch him in bed with my wife, out he goes! Unless, of course, he can introduce me to one of his android friends. 

Wow! Isn't life in the modern world wonderful? Well, yes and no. If you are a robot or droid and have a useful function to fulfill, then you are probably happy until the days that your circuits burn out. If you are a human and you have a good job with a good future, and a nice family, a place to live, then you are probably happy.... But if you are a drone? Oh no! If you are a drone, then you are nothing; you are just a shell, you have no life; you are the lowest of the low; even robots and droids don't respect you. 


And, if you are a human drone?


Human drones? Now, that's the worst thing in the world.


Folks, we have human drones. In fact, if you think about it, they are all around us: These are the people who can't think for themselves. They have be told what to do and what to think. They cannot function without someone showing them the way and telling them exactly what to do. The worst ones are the ones who need to be repeatedly told (programmed) to perform a function before they will do it - even if it is the very same function everyday! They have human drones in America and they have them in Japan. Are they the same? In many ways, yes, but in many ways, no.

To go too deeply into the subject of human drones and the difference between one in Japan and the west, would take volumes of books written by someone with a PhD. who is much more intelligent than me. I can only write about surface issues that I witness with my own eyes. I do not know the deeper issues; the "why's" and "what for." And I don't want to talk about human drones in the USA. Let me off the hook easy by allowing me to only tell you about human drones in Japan.


Human drones are everywhere in this country. Poor folks.... No! I take that back. Maybe they aren't folks to be pitied; maybe they are to be envied. Heck, if they are happy, then I envy them... Thing is that I have never seen a happy drone. 


In Japan, these human drones work at menial labor jobs everywhere you go. You see them at restaurants and working at cash registers. They are the ones doing the lowest of the menial labor tasks. Since Japan doesn't have a problem with an influx of foreign laborers, then, you will see Japanese young people performing these tasks.


I suppose that, if I am to pity these human drones, then I must criticize the Japanese educational system and Japanese society as a whole for teaching too much conformity and not enough creativity... But I am hesitant to do that and criticize Japan for too much conformity. Why? Well, what example am I to hold over Japan to say, "See? This is how it's done!" I think I certainly cannot use the example of the social decline and the resultant level of crime in the west as and yard of measure. I do believe, though, that the Japanese educational system is guilty of not teaching enough critical thought and too much conformity... I can say that because I had children who spent a few years in both Japanese public schooling and in International schools in Japan and high school in America.    


Oh pity the human drones... Well, at least they have a job.


Now, parents of high school kids or young people just out on their first jobs, don't confuse what I am saying here. I am not saying that everyone who cleans tables or stands behind a cash register or works at a convenience store is a drone. Far from it. I'm saying the ones who do not smile, are not energetic, do not think for themselves and must do everything by the manual; the ones who show no life in their faces; no enthusiasm for their work those are drones. They are the ones to be pitied.


There are far too many of them in Japan.


Now, do you understand what I mean by a human drone? They could be the guy working at a bank or a bureaucrat like in the Kurosawa movie, "Ikiru." Or it could be like the people you see when you go shopping or to a cheap restaurant. There they are: lifeless, the walking dead. Those are the people who should be pitied.


Well, now, there I've done it. I think I took what was a fun and full of life article at the start and turned it into a real bummer by the ending. Sorry about that. So with that, let me tell you about a story that I heard from a friend last night about his recent experience with a human drone at a cheap eatery.


In Japan, whenever two or three (more?) adults go into any sort of cheap eatery or restaurant, when the patrons are finished and about to pay the bill, it is customary that the clerk will ask them, "Will you pay the bill together or separately?" In Japan, asking this to customers is a "rule." This rule is a part of what is called, "Manual Dori" or "By the Book" (マニュアル通り).  The reason why Japanese companies (and companies like McDonald's, etc.) have to create these "Manuals" is that they aren't really hiring rocket scientists. No, folks, they are hiring, in many cases, human drones - of course they wouldn't if they could find spry, alert, and gregarious, positive outgoing people - alas...

Anyway, back to my story about my friend's experience with the human drone. My friend is the father of two handsome young boys who are of junior high school age, about 13 and 14 years of age. Together, the three of them went to eat at Yoshinoya Gyudon. Gyudon is known in the west as "Beef bowl." It is a bowl of rice that has beef and vegetables cooked in a sauce that is poured over the rice. Many Japanese men (and some women) on the go love to eat this. I used to also until I just about stopped eating beef.


Upon finishing their food, the father and the two boys walked up to the cash register where they met their human drone for that day.


Now, if you were at the cash register and saw a guy in his late forties, maybe early fifties, with two boys half his size that looked to be junior high school students, deeply immersed in their held held DS computer games, what would you think? Do you think:


A) "Gee! This looks like a dad with his two kids. That'l be $9.00, please. Do you need a receipt?"
B) "I wonder if these three gentlemen are all gainfully employed or are they Yakuza gangsters about to rob the restaurant at gunpoint?"
C) "I wonder when the new DS game software comes out?"
D) Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You don't have a single synapse. You repeat the manual like a drone.


If you said, "D" then you are a winner.


My friend is standing there, with his wallet open. The two kids next to him are playing Super Mario and the clerk says, "Will you pay the bill together or separately?" Doh!


Parents! Don't let your children grow up to be drones. Why? Well, if they are drones, one of these days someone is going to come out with a useful robot, like a toaster and your kid will be out of a job. Don't they deserve better than that? I hope so.