The John Lennon Museum, Saitama

When we arrived to the museum very near the Saitama's Super Arena, there was a sea of Japanese teenage girls - thousands of them - waiting to enjoy a concert from S. Korea's hottest boy bands, TVXQ (Tohoshinki in Japan). Sadly, the picture above is of the museum as we were leaving (when the show was already in progress). It was a curious juxtaposition between a pop icon from 40 years ago to a spectacularly popular boy band in Asia that I'd never heard of. I wandered how many of these teenage girls would shriek in tears when Joongie showed his muscles?

John and Yoko spent time around the Saitama area when they were in Japan and in 2000, Yoko established the John Lennon Museum and adulation center there. It is a nice modest museum located very near the station and can be fully appreciated in about two hours.Despite many many worldview differences and the fact that I find may of Lennon's lyrics (mostly latter solo stuff) totally wrongheaded and occasionally reprehensible, he is still my favorite Beatle...on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I'm a fan, but I never paid too much attention to his personal life beyond the main points. The museum provides a pretty basic depiction of his life and career that may be redundant for true aficionados, but was informative for me. I learned several things about the man (and the woman) that I had not known before, though nothing that changed my overall impressions. As a die-hard Dylan fan, I did note there was only one brief mention of Bob (a cliche reference to him as a protest singer) and no mention at all of him in describing John's transition from pop star to "serious" artist, which was a central theme of the museum. An even more noticeable omission was any narrative regarding his first wife, beyond a cursory mention. Nevertheless, the exhibits touched on most of the significant stuff - particularly where it concerned Yoko and John's deliverance from unhappiness.

The early period, too, was well represented with school aged notebooks and his first instruments lovingly preserved behind glass. I noticed that his handwriting was much nicer as a lad than it was as a Beatle (something I imagine was by design). His artwork, too, was a little more interesting to me when he was a boy, like the shot below, than his later minimalist scribblings that graced his books.I had never realized that, despite coming from a broken home and raised mainly by his aunt Mimi, John grew up in a nice comfortable and spacious home that his fellow Beatles did not enjoy. This combination seemed to make John the least-happy and most self-centered Beatle.

Several display cases covered the early pre-Please Please Me years of the Beatles. The most handsomely laid out display case is shown below. Heavy use of black leather and brown brick convey the atmosphere of the night club days.
Here's the two track recording machine used during the Sgt. Pepper sessions.
Here's a replication of sorts of the zany Yoko ceiling art that played a part with John and Yoko's initial meeting. One must climb the steps to get an insight into Yoko's genius.The genius, of course, was a plain word printed on the ceiling which made the trek up and down the staircase hardly seem worth the effort. Not only did I not fall in love with Yoko upon ascending the stairs, but I was a little resentful that she played me for a fool. I must say, when thinking about Yoko, I'm always reminded of a joke Dave Foley said on the show Newsradio. Foley's character was trying to provide solace for one of the other characters, who considered herself a Yoko-type figure. He tried to defend that stigma by offering, with a studder (quoting from memory): "Well, there are those that think her work on Double Fantasy wasn't...completely...destructive." The stuttering made the joke. I've always thought she was a poor artist, but an interesting character. I can't say I understand what attracted Lennon to her, but I can kinda understand his later obsession with her. She is a weird and fascinating person - probably just as bizarre to the Japanese as she is to Americans like myself. And just when I think I might warm up to some of her antics, I see stuff like "Bagism" which makes me wonder what anyone sees in either of the two.It's impossible for me to separate the irreverent stupidity John often displayed with his irreverent cleverness. Bagism seems to be on the side of stupid. I've often tried to look into John's eyes, but can never get past the glasses.

Here's the Primal Scream book that influenced John's first (and best) solo album. I haven't read the book, but I can't help but think that the way John sang earlier songs, like "Twist and Shout", he was achieving a similar cathartic release.
The "seal" of John's country. Ar! Ar!A pipe John enjoyed while in Japan. I was hoping the picture of John in the background was his own creation but it was not. The spare style of Japanese art - especially silk screens and ink on paper - is infinitely fascinating. Occasionally, John's own scribbles remind me of that.The second to the last room of the museum was very white and had a wall of his lyrics written in Japanese with a clear plexi-glass wall showing the same lyrics in English. This room looked like something John would have come up with (kudos, I guess, to Yoko and her contractors) and was a good place for photos.Throught the displays, I was reminded time and again just how selfish John and Yoko seemed through most of their lives. John seemed to go through phases so fast that today he would be accused of having ADD. And Yoko - I don't even know where to begin with her.

Nihon-ji Daibutsu, Nokogiri-yama

The temple Kenkon-zan Nihon-ji on the Chiba peninsula off Tokyo Bay dates back to 725 A.D., but the daibutsu (large Buddha figure), itself, was chiseled in 1780. The temple has changed hands between various sects over those 1300 years and currently belongs to the Soto Zen sect. The main attractions of the temple grounds, in addition to the daibutsu, are three summit overlooks on Mt. Nokogori, which towers over the rocky coast of Tokyo Bay, 1500 smaller statues depicting various Arhats (novice practitioners who have achieved nirvana), a very tall relief of the Bodhisattva of Mercy, Kannon...and much more along the temple's immaculate trails. The following guide shows some of this:
View from the parking lot looking at the entrance to the temple grounds. This is about one third of the way up Mt. Nokogiri. The daibutsu is to the right of this shot.The daibutsu is 31 meters tall on its Lotus pedestal and is the largest in Japan, significantly taller than the daibutsu in Nara (18.8 meters) and over twice the height of the more famous Japanese daibutsu in Kamakura (13.3 meters). It has had its share of erosion over the years and received an overhaul in the 1960s. Still, you can see scars of the erosion all over its body. Keeping the erosion in check will no doubt be a challenge. There is a small moat running along the front edges of the stone statue. The prayer bell and donation box in front of the statue attracted a steady stream of visitors while we were there and, assuming each prayer was accompanied with a 5 or 50 yen donation, the sect made out well on that day.
The figure is Yakushi Nyorai, the Medicine Buddha or the Buddha of Healing. The Indian name for this buddha is Bhaiṣajyaguru, which is short for Bhaiṣajyaguruvaidūryaprabha. It was made by the popular artist Jingoro Eirei Ono and his 27 apprentices over the course of three years.
A profile shot of the daibutsu against the mountain. The trail of stairs is not visible in the picture but winds up steeply past the head of the statue just below the forest canopy. As with several of the photos in this post, the vertical nature of the mountain and its trails is not adequately displayed.
Here is the view from the daibutsu area overlooking Tokyo Bay.If you squint your eyes you can make out the small but sacred Bodhi Tree in the picture below. It comes from the branch of a famous Bodhi Tree in India and was presented to the temple by an Indian sect in 1989 as a gesture of world peace.
Another praying area with piles of little prayer statues.As with the prayer bell nearby, there was incense burning periodically.The pathway that leads up to the top is scenic but brutal on the legs. It was a chilly and damp day, and yet, by the time I reached the top, I was pretty sweaty. The daibutsu is below and to the right of these steps.Along the way to the summit are numerous caves and inlets in the rock face which house 1500 Arhats all made by Ono and his 27 apprentices. Each statue is unique. Several of the statues have been worn down by erosion, or too often, defaced by an anti-Buddhist movement during the Meiji Era. Still, enough of these remain intact that I would imagine it would take some feverish radical Islamists several months to deface all of them.The stones used for the statues were brought in from the Izu peninsula. Work on the statues began in 1779 and was finished by 1798.It was rainy on the day of our visit, which revealed how manicured the mountain is. Instead of simply keeping the pristine natural beauty of the mountain, the Japanese, having a hands-on approach to nature, provide impressive bridges and stone walkways along the path to add a human touch to the surroundings. Below, a small waterfall rains over one of the statues. In other parts of the trail you can see where drainage trenches were carved in the rock to control the flow. The overall result is very appealing to the eyes.
The cliff from the summit went straight down and was more dramatic than this photo indicates. The weather was overcast and hid much of the view in the photo.The name of Mt. Nokogiri derives from the word for "saw" and this picture of the section cut out of the mountain demonstrates why it has that name. Like the view from the summit, this photo does not capture how dramatic this view is. To the right of the people in the photo is the second of the large stone carvings on the mountain...Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Mercy. I'm not sure how old this particular carving is, but it is about 30 meters tall and pretty impressive in its almost interior looking surroundings. I expected to see Dr. Jones with a few local guides making their way to this spot.A section of bamboo off the trail during the descent.
This shot shows some of the buildings on the temple grounds housing the priests. There were apparently several other buildings housing priests and monks, but those were not visible from the trail. This is a shot taken from the car showing the scene off the coastal road that leads to Mt. Nokogiri.

Eddie Arnold passed away at 89

I love cattle songs, and Cattle Call was the cream of the crop! His voice was as smooth as silk and so soothing he could turn a Bremer bull into Kobe beef.

Trees of Mystery, California

Tourist slides from Redwood National Park in 1979:

Approaching Trees of Mystery
Paul Bunyan
Babe the Blue Ox
Elephant Tree
Family Tree
Upside-Down Tree

Happy Easter!

The Liverputty staff would like to give a shout out to the real Messiah. The King of Kings. Mr. J.C.

This ad is creeping me out!

Much more than She-Bubba’s phone-call at 3 a.m. commercial. For someone who thinks it’s a sad reflection on today’s political discourse when someone dares to stoop so low as to say his middle name, Barrack Hussein Obama (oops! I gone and dood it!) doesn’t shy away from a commercial that is essentially just his last name. As Mark Steyn aptly observed of Stevie Wonder’s lyrically challenged ditty:

It would be hard to believe you could come up with a Barack Obama campaign song thinner in content than a Barack Obama campaign speech, but Mr. Wonder has apparently accomplished it.

This isn't that very same song, but it fits in the same Obama hymnal.

In the spirit of separation of church and state, isn’t it a bad idea to vote the messiah of his own religion into the White House?

Several pundits on the Left have bemoaned the passing of civil discourse with the death of William F. Buckley (as Joe Gillis posthumously said: "Funny how gentle people are with you once you’re dead"), leaving them with only racist scat-flinging barbarians like Rush Limbaugh. I think that assessment is horse-hockey. But what threat there is to free speech and wholesome debate can be found in the holier-than-thou attitude on behalf of the Obama campaign that paints every criticism or slight as below the belt politics. If Obama’s got a problem with his middle name, he should take it up with his parents. Couple that with his supporters that are seemingly infatuated with his last name and it's enough for alarm. I like to think that voters will expect more than vapid arguments that cover up a far left post-nationalist worldview – but who knows. When I see the glossed over eyes of his believers that seem to say "Why vote for Obama? Because Obama!" I get nervous.

Gone fishin'

be back after awhile....

建国記念の日!

or Happy Nation Day! On this day 2668 years ago the first emperor in the Japanese royal family set up shop in Kyushu. Jimmu was his name and he was a mythical badass. The royal line is actually only traced back to ca AD 600 but that still makes it the longest unbroken royal bloodline in the world. In 1872, after the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the day was made into a national holiday to help unify the country under the Emperor. Since WWII, sentiments of nationalism are generally frowned upon making this day just another work holiday.

A Conservative’s Guide: How to Vote for McCain and Know It’s the Right Thing To Do

A lot of conservatives are choking with rage over the prospect of a McCain candidacy and, after so many years of his fingers poking the eyes of the conservative movement, it’s easy to see why. But now he’s pretty much got the nomination sewn up, and it’s time to swallow all the personal animosity generated over the past several years and get on board the “Straight Talk Express”. That doesn’t mean that McCain should have a free pass, or that the man won’t drive conservatives batty over borders or daffy over global warming (less than 8 years left!) – if elected, there will be plenty of opportunities to give McCain hell. But as it stands now, there are reasons to appreciate that alternative McCain provides to the Obamessiah or H. Clinton and reasons why a vote for the man will be the right thing to do:

1) The War. This alone is sufficient reason to support McCain and the rest is gravy. It isn’t so much about Iraq these days. By the time a Democrat can get in the White House to snatch defeat from victory, the road to success might already be irreversible. Plus, there’s the possibility that the Obamessiah or H. Clinton, won’t be so anxious to lose Iraq on his/her watch (not a prudent assumption to make). But nothing is certain and it is still important to support the fledgling democracy. But what about the next central front on the War? Whether it’s Iran or Pakistan or somewhere else, we need a president that is not hesitant about defending our interests – and it is relatively safe to think that McCain will be that type of president. The inexperience of the Obamessiah and H. Clinton would invite unwanted testing by American enemies that are licking their chops at the prospect of a dovish Democrat who thinks the worst blunder in American history was the liberation of Iraqis.

2) Supreme Court appointees – McCain may not be as reliable as Rudy, Romney or Thompson – and he probably won’t appoint the likes of Thomas or Alito – but, at the very least, he should be able to hold the court steady with center right appointees, which is preferable to taking anywhere from 1 to 6 steps back.

3) Pork & Earmarks – McCain is against both. As a Bush Republican, I’ve always felt that Bush was unfairly criticized for “spending like a drunken sailor” – but I have to acknowledge that he has been largely absent (until this year) on the battle against ear-marks. This seems to be a fight that McCain is passionate about and, if effective, he can really advance the conservative cause.

4) Tax Cuts – Despite being against the Bush tax cuts initially, he’s pledged his support to make them permanent. Whether he will or not….who knows.

If McCain is successful in these four areas, then conservatives should be singing his praises. The decision to vote for him is as simple as pie.

Winning is Gut Pride

Several weeks of pouring over the NFL Super Bowl Films has finally come to fruition with a post over at the House. Check it out.

Enterprise (Square) is dead

Recently, I was updating the List of Stuff I Want to Do with My Life, an idea I stole from John Goddard. As my updates center around showing my 3 boys things around the country, I went searching for Enterprise Square, a museum befitting one of the most conservative states in the nation. To my dismay, the Oklahoma Ciy museum shut its doors in 2002, probably more due to mismanagement than to the 2001 economic downturn.

And what a shame. I visited the museum only once, but anything that starts off with a hall of dead animatronic presidents sticks in your head. There were a number of video games centered around traditional kid entrepreneurship - how much money to charge for mowing lawns or a cup of lemonade, given the costs. Alas, the experience exposed my lack of business saavy that firmly tethered me to a career of working for the Man.

The pinnacle of my failure at free enterprise was the final challenge - as CEO of a car company in postwar America. Not realizing that my expenses had to be divvied up across several areas of the business, I sunk my entire budget into advertising. I didn't have a product to sell, but my company sure made some entertaining commercials. We held on until 1948.

President Clinton says he personally saw voter intimidation in Las Vegas

Unfortunately, a credible witness could not be found.I'm torn on who not to believe. Unions and non-secret ballots are a bad mix - yet, every time you see Slick Willy pointing his finger, he's usually got on the triangulation grease. He needs to holster that thing or else it's going to go off.

The Japanese military is....er....cute?

The Obammassiah & Iraq

Don't get me wrong, I'm legally obligated to point out that I think the man is likable & has some dignity about him, but I think he's infinitely and dangerously naive. In the debate last night when he asserted that the Democrat victory in 2006 is what sparked the Sunni tribes in Anbar to turn against the terrorists, it reminded me (well, 'remind' is not an accurate word since I'd never forgotten) what worries me so much about the Democrats....virtually all of them. In contrast, I found this analysis of the war, which is the best macro take I've seen in a long long time. It elaborates on the flypaper theory and describes the box al Qaeda and its affiliates found themselves in concerning Iraq. It defies the "conventional wisdom" the MSM and the Left have been defining for the past several years, but then again, so does reason. Defending and praising Rumsfeld these days is a bit tough, even to conservatives - that's how successful the scat flinging and accusations have been in tarnishing him - but the above piece does so admirably.

What on earth did I think about Charlie Wilson's War?

beyond that it was worth waging?....Go to the House Next Door to find out.

Upon watching 141 Ronin

A Japanese tradition for New Year's Day (not sure how far it dates back or exactly how extensive it is) is to watch one of the many versions of the famous Japanese story of the Loyal 47 (aka The 47 Ronin....aka Chushingura). There are countless versions of the story on film and the stage. The picture above depicts a kabuki performance, but if puppet plays are your thing, then there's a 1748 banraku version to satisfy you as well. In Japan, there are numerous made-for-TV versions, which seem to come out every couple of years, often featuring the hottest stars of the day (I believe the last one I heard about starred a SMAP member or two). You'd be hard pressed to find a prominent Japanese actor who hasn't been in one of these film or tv versions. If you are interested in giving the story a whirl, you can read a brief summary here or a summary of the puppet play here. There are several film versions available on DVD in the U.S.: Kenji Mizoguchi's version from 1941 is long, but if you don't mind deliberately paced tracking shots and long shots of loyal samurai at the end of their emotional tether, it will be worth your time. The wartime bushido subtext adds a layer of historical interest to the story. It was originally released in two parts in consequitive years ('41 and '42), notably before the war turned sour for the Imperial forces. Hiroshi Inagaki's version from 1962 is also long (any version of the story will be) but moves a bit faster and is more exciting. To date, though, I haven't come across a good print of it. Another one to consider is Kon Ichikawa's 1994 version which is slower than the Inagaki version, but has some pleasant visuals.