Who are the Brain Police?
Despite a 7 year investigation involving 170,000 police and list of 110,000 suspects, the crime remains unsolved to this day.
I Don’t Know War
Terayama liked to tell people his own father was executed as a war criminal. The truth was more mundane.
Tomorrow’s Joe
The Japanese Red Army militants who hi-jacked a JAL plane to Pyongyang in 1970 claimed “we are Tomorrow’s Joe.” The survivors remain in Pyongyang today and are now on Twitter.
The Seagull Laughs
The “Queen of the Japanese Underground” stuck to her unique personal style – long black dress, dark glasses, cloud of cigarette smoke
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
By then she had jettisoned her hippy chanteuse persona and joined Blues Creation, featuring Japan’s answer to Jeff Beck, Kazuo Takeda on guitar.
Terayama on Life, Death and Fathers
Matsu-san the sushi chef died in a car accident. Mari the hostess committed suicide and my father Hachiro died of disease when fighting in the war. My young cousin Tatsuo was stabbed to death.
John Cleese on Abenomics
“So apart from achieving full employment and doubling stock prices in two years, what has Abenomics done for us? Absolutely nothing!”
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
Yoshida’s fibs were meat and drink to foreign journalists eager to emphasize the uniqueness of Japan’s depravity….
Terayama’s Mama
Two of Shuji Terayama’s maternally-themed tanka poems from the early 1960s.
Tokyo Dick
“Dick didn’t do macroeconomics. He didn’t do Japan. He didn’t do Limeys and he didn’t do listening. Dick just did Dick”