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Bentô time
Eric is a guy who used to work for Japan Echo. He left the company earlier this year and has finally settled into a new job–selling Malaysian bentô lunches up around Toda Kôen station in Saitama. There’s a website for the operation and everything. Just need to wait until the company grows profitable and massive and starts delivering to Uchisaiwai-chô now!
The Jeff Concert
Well, actually the group isn’t called “Jeff.” It’s “Antony and the Johnsons.” But Jeff is the bassist in it. He’s also a guy I went to school with in the 1970s and early 1980s . . . Some of the last memories I have of living in Oregon before leaving for Japan involve the Commodore 64 in his room and Jumpman. Oh, and sitting up on his roof until dawn, for some reason.
A and the Js played a show in San Francisco recently. The non-Peter Durfees all attended. Here they be:
For Boyd.
Boyd writes:
Durf,
You need to spice up your blog.
I read it every other day.
Maybe you can mention me in it sometime?
sb#21
You got it, baby! “Steve Boyd.” The following post is a reprint of something from this old page, and it’s all for you.
OKUTAMA FESTIVAL!
In summers past the Bochi crowd would take weekends off, fleeing western Tokyo for evern more western parts of Tokyo. Okutama! We would head up the hill to the six-lane and hit that rental shop for tents and camping mats. It was too warm to need many sleeping bags, but we took some along all the same because of the rocks. The damn rocks.
We would head up on the train–Tama Bochi Mae to Musashi Sakai to Tachikawa to Ome to Okutama. End of the line, near the tallest peak in Tokyo Prefecture, Kumotoriyama. It’s a pleasant place to spend time, and many people do just that, and by the time we got there all the good camping spots were generally taken, and we would head closer to the river bank, with the big rocks. The ones that went right under our tents.
The river runs cold and clear there, except when heavy rains hit the area, sweeping mud and silt off the hills and into the river. You see the results in the pictures. One result you don’t see is the river rising, affecting–who else?–the idiots camped on the banks. Every time we headed up there a typhoon would hit, and up would come the river level. The loudspeakers would broadcast their message of doom: “Get off of the river bank now!” (Scary sidenote: a few years ago some people didn’t, and when the dam gates were opened the water rushed down and washed most of them away.)
Four fine fotos above. (1) The crew in a lull in the rain. Me, Misa, Duke, Boyd, Beach, Sherry, Glas, and Jen. Beach is no longer with us. Jen should not have been with us at that point (but Glas insisted). And Boyd should not have been in that hat. (2) Cooling our heels, part one. Crap, now I’m in the hat. Glaser could lift a smaller one. Boyd is wondering what to do with his noodles. (3) Boyd figures out what to do with the yakisoba. Beach is less than thrilled, but the other three of us are! (4) We took a walk up the road and found a karaoke club. A fat man grilled meat on the barbecue on the balcony overlooking a branch of the river. We talked with him and his friends, drinking beer they offered us, and when we realized Boyd was gone we looked for him and found him in the bar–singing his little heart out. “New York, New York.” His desire to entertain never dried up, and it has earned him an Emmy, by the way . . .
Not that Boyd is a Bochi. He never spent his night on Perv Mountain. But since I am a good guy I include him on this page anyway.
Congrats to the reporter!
Ken Silverstein and T. Christian Miller, of the Los Angeles Times, won the Malcolm Forbes Award for best business reporting from abroad in newspapers or wire services for “The Politics of Petroleum.” (Found here.)
I wonder if this one comes with a hefty cash prize. Congrats!
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