The Browns' Draft

I spent Saturday afternoon parked in front of the TV watching the NFL draft. I think the first draft I ever watched was probably about 1987 or 1988, and I've watched all the drafts since that I have been in the country for. The Cleveland Browns usually have pretty crappy drafts, but this year I think that they may have done just enough to start to turn the franchise around. Trading next year's No. 1 in order to get a 2nd first round pick this year and take Brady Quinn at QB was the sort of bold move that the team has shied away from for most of my life, so it was nice to see them take the chance. Of course, it could be a disaster, but the thing about the draft is that you just never know. Once in a while you have to roll the dice.

We'll see what happens in the fall, but I think 6-10 or 7-9 would be reasonable

Spring...finally!

What a weekend, is all I can say really. It was 70-75 degrees and sunny both Saturday and Sunday, and the Lovely Mina and I tried to take advantage. We grilled some short ribs and corn on the cob yesterday and spent the day out today. It was nice to grab an iced coffee at one of the local coffee shops and sit outside reading this afternoon. Tomorrow it's supposed to be just as nice, but I've got enough work to do that I will probably find a room with no windows to study in.

Not much else going on, really. Hit the hay early tonight to be ready for a full day of writing tomorrow.

Akiko Suwanai

This past weekend the Lovely Mina and I drove back to Cleveland to see my favorite living violinist, Ms. Akiko Suwanai, play a recital. We had seen her twice before, both times in Tokyo and both times from seats very far away from the action, so we were (or at least I was) looking forward to this small venue recital.

Previously we had seen her play Bruch's 1st Violin Concerto at Tokyo Opera City, which is a simply stunning venue, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto at Tokyo's International Forum, which is honestly not the greatest place to see a concert. Both concerts were fantastic, however. The Beethoven was particularly well played, in my opinion, and she had built up so much tension in the crowd by the end of the 1st movement that there was an audible release of breath from the audience when it ended. I had never experienced anything quite like that at a concert before.

In any event, the recital we saw last weekend was at the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Cleveland, a venue that seats only 1,200. We had very nice seats on the balcony and were able to see quite well. The first and last tunes, a Bach and then a Brahms Sonata, were excellent, though the choice of Bartok in the middle was less than inspired from my point of view (worse, from my Dad's, probably).

It was a very nice concert at an interesting venue, though, and I am glad we were fortunate enough to be able to see Akiko Suwanai play again. For those interested, here are a couple of links.

Akiko Suwanai's CD of the Bruch Violin Concerto 1 and Scottish Fantasy at Amazon.com
Akiko Suwanai's Home Page (Japanese)
Akiko Suwanai at Wikipedia (English)

So, you've got all these battleships...*

Those who know me well probably know about my love of battleships. It really has never been a secret and before we get to the technical part of this entry, here are a couple of entertaining photos of me at the U.S.S. North Carolina museum in Wilmington, NC, one from when I was about 20 or 21 and one fro when I was 2 or 3.

Anyway, last night on NOVA the topic was the sinking of the Japanese super-battleship Yamato (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/supership/). Of course, I watched and all in all the program was reasonably well done. It spent too much time on the general history of the war in the Pacific for my tastes, but it was a program for the casual viewer. They couldn't very well have said at the outset, "If you don't know the basics, go watch all 13 hours of "Victory at Sea" and then come back."

So, a couple of things that the program wasn't exactly accurate about, in my opinion. The program oversimplified the Washington Treaty of 1922, implying that the U.S. and Great Britain forced the 5:5:3 ratio on the Japanese when there was actually a relatively strong "Treaty Faction" in the Japanese navy that understood that the 5:5:3 ratio effectively guaranteed the Japanese naval superiority in the Pacific given the American and British two-ocean navy requirements. The program also never mentioned that there was a sister ship to the Yamato (the Musashi) that was sunk by U.S. aircraft at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in 1944 (6 months before the Yamato was sunk), nor that a 3rd ship in the class (the Shinano) was started but converted to an aircraft carrier following the Battle of Midway. Shinano was actually the largest aircraft carrier built until the U.S.S. Forrestal was completed in the 1950's.

Oh, the Lovely Mina and I went to the U.S.S. Massachusetts museum in Fall River last summer, which was nice. One of these days I will drag her to Mobile, AL to see the U.S.S. Alabama. I am sure she is very excited and looking forward to that!

* This is the opening line of my brother David's always humorous impression of me.

April showers bring May flowers, but what do April snow showers bring?

Is it really Spring?

Yesterday, the Lovely Mina and I went shopping, as we usually do on Saturdays. It was cold, cold, cold and snowing here in the 'Cuse.

I suppose we are making up for having a warm December, but I think we are all ready for 65 degrees and sunny. I fear that before we know it, it's going to be 95 and humid and we'll have missed Spring.

Anyway, today we've got lake effect snow in the forecast and it's below freeaing at 10:30 in the morning. "Luckily" I get the spend most of the day looking up corporate governance variables for a paper I am working on with some colleagues on stock options backdating. After that, a little more reading about top management teams and about Japanese women in the workplace for other papers.

Time to turn on some Beethoven and get down to it.

Albums that Changed my Life

Watching BBC America this evening and there's a documentary on about Britpop. I'll never forget the first time I heard Oasis (on NPR, September of 1994) or what that sound meant at the time. Granted, their shit now, but then?

In any event, this got me thinking about albums (CDs, whatever) that I have heard that just changed everything. We all have them in our lives, I think, so here are a few thoughts on important albums in my life.

Paul Simon, Graceland, 1986: My uncle Bob gave me this CD before I ever had a CD player. I think I probably saw the You can Call Me Al video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5oA9kUoVJg) on MTV and the Diamonds on the Sould of Her Shoes performance on Saturday Night Live before I ever got around to hearing the album, but once I heard it there really wasn't any going back. Likely, my journey toward relative liberalism politically started with just the little consciousness of what was going on in South Africa with Apartheid that this record gave me. The drum lines and the vocals were more intricate than anything I'd been conscious of at 15 years old. It was just an incredible moment in my life and I listened to that album more while I was on my foreign exchange in Turkey than anything else.

The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses, 1989: Still, the band I never got a chance to see in concert that I most wish I'd gotten to see (if that makes sense). I can still listen to "This is the One" or "I am the Resurection" and be amazed. There were stories of people rioting in pubs in England if that record came on and wasn't played all the way through. I don't know that there's been a better album since.

Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville, 1993: Liz has gone a little too pop for my tastes, but this CD was an absolute revelation when I was in the lost years of my life. She was just so angry and nasty. I was probably looking for someone a bit like her...and of course I found a couple of them...in those days. Again, an album that just hasn't been surpassed for me in terms of first to last track listening.

Next time: my first Jimmy Buffett, Okuda Tamio, Bedhead, and Bruch's Scottish Fantasy.

Anyone else care to comment on the albums that changed their lives?

I usually allow myself about an hour of TV per night on weekdays as a way of decompressing after 11.5 hours at school. That generally lets me eat, hang out with the Lovely Mina and then spend that hour not really thinking about anything before I study again for a couple of hours before bed. Not the most exciting life, I know, but there you have it.

Today Mina showed me a ranking of the Top 20 Pre-2000 Japanese TV Dramas that people over there would like to see once again. The list, for those interested, is here http://www.rankingjapan.com/ranking.php?page=753

Now, I was interested to see that 3 of the Top 10 were dramas I'd include in my Top 10 (Tokyo Love Story, Beach Boys, and Hitotsu Yane no Shita (All Under One Roof), but I was pretty surprised to see that Long Vacation, Beautiful Life (actually from 2000, so right on the border), and a couple of others didn't make the ranking. Anyway, you knew this was coming, but here's my ranking with links where I can find them:

1. Tokyo Love Story (1990): The original "Post-Trendy" Drama and one that really still holds up over time. I was absolutely shocked to see that it is number one in that poll linked to above. Still, I guess that if you're going to watch only one J-Drama, this has to be it. Oda Yuji pretty much looks the same as he did 27 years ago, which is remarkable; he's like a latter day Dick Clark. You had to root for Suzuki Honami's character, despite the nose, even if you knew she was never going to get the guy. She was the first post-modern Japanese woman and every strong female character in J-Drama leans on her example. Don't take it from me, check out this book http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Asian-Modernities-Transnational-Consumption/dp/9622096328/ref=sr_1_1/104-4730234-0586329?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175826958&sr=1-1

2. Long Vacation (1996 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-a6EOJWoMw): The quintessential Takuya Kimura drama and what an incredible cast when you think about it. Takuya, Yamaguchi Tomoko at her absolute peak, Takenouchi Yutaka, Inamori Izumi, Matsu Takako before she was Matsu Takako, and even an episode with Hirosue Ryoko as a 15 year-old no-name. Really one of the ultimate mid-90s Japanese dramas.

3. Hitotsu Yane no Shita (1993): Again, one of the great "Post-Trendy" dramas and another outstanding cast with Eguchi Yosuke, Sakai Noriko (see my Hall of Fame J-Actresses below), Fukuyama Masaharu, Uchida Yuki, etc. The sequel was good as well, but I'd rather watch the original, personally.

4. Kamisama mousukoshi dake (神様もう少しだけ - 1998 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xd466ek-HA): This drama woke young people in Tokyo up to the HIV/AIDS problem. There was even a spike in the number of people getting tested weekly while the drama was going on. Too bad they ruined it by having the HIV+ heroine sleep with her boyfriend, get pregnant, and give birth all without either the dad or the kid being HIV+. I was so steamed I actually wrote to Fuji TV about how irresponsible that was of them...

5. Doku (1996): I can only imagine what my dear brother will say about this one, but while it was actually a silly drama about a Vietnamese immigrant to Japan, I really enjoyed it. Likely, this had something to do with the relatively simple Japanese that the characters used in communicating with our hero (Katori Shingo) and the fact that I could understand it, but, hey, there it is.

Anyway, those are the five that I would want to watch again if I could. Maybe I'll expand the list to 10 one of these days to bring in "Boku no Ikiru Michi" and a couple of others. Next time, though, I think we'll cover the American shows I always like to watch in reruns.

So, what do you do when you've got writer's block and can't think of where to take your research paper on 3rd Culture Development in International Joint Ventures? Take a break and write something different, I guess... I should be reading some for another paper I am writing about females in the Japanese work place, but that can wait a few minutes while I ramble on here.

Last weekend, the Lovely Mina and I went off to Ashtablula, OH for my 4th incarnation on the staff at the LEIMUN (the artist formerly known as KSUAC MUN) high school Model UN conference. It was nice to see old friends and good to meet some new people as well. It was also nice to have my mind occupied by something other than school for a couple of days, even if I am paying for it now. In any event, to any of my delegates who read this post, congratulations, you all did a very nice job.

OK, back to reality. A couple of hours on "Office Ladies and Salaried Men" by Yuko Ogasawara before heading home for dinner. Hopefully, I'll be able to bang out another page or two of this paper on IJVs after dinner this evening...