Head in the sand and the boob show

("Beach Dogg" sign at the Beach Cafe')

Listen to your wife George, she is always right.

– My sisters.

My original Blog plan was to write all of the wild wondrous things that have happened to me here in Japan starting at the beginning when I arrived in 1995 and end up in the  present.  I have a lot of journal material and some e-mails to friends that I thought would make for some good reading.

After my wife read my blog, however, she pointed out that blogs are all about the present and what’s happn’en now, and not so much a novel format.  As usual, she is probably right.

 So enough of the past for now, let’s jump to the present.   Let me tell you my recent adventures including my experience with “the head in the sand” and “the boob show.”  

It all started way back when I left the house this morning. Kaori had a big day meeting with film people to talk about the sound correction on her film and then off to meet friends in Tokyo.  That left the day to me.  I didn’t have too much to do except return the video “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers” and study Japanese for my Monday night lesson.           

I thought I’d get a bit of exercise on the bike.  I’d ride into town, drop the video and then head to the beach to study.  If you have to study somewhere, and the beach is a bike ride away, why not?!  Library Schmibrary.

When I get to the beach, I lock the bike and headed down to the water. As usual, I head to the left, my natural tendency, and end up at my favorite café.  In Kamamkura during the summer, they build these massive buildings on the beach just for the summer.  These are no hot-dog shacks.  They are full on summer shops, sometimes two stories with a full bar, bath and shower, boogie boards, all kinds of foods, -  you name it.

 My favorite place is much smaller than the normal beach malls.  It’s basically a wooden bar with a small round charcoal BBQ grill and some beach chairs out front.  You can get a beer and take your beach chair and umbrella anywhere you like on the beach.  A very laid-back joint. When I walked down the beach a few weeks earlier, and watched them build the places, most shops had professional builders.  This place was put together by some college students and an older guy with a hammer telling people what to do.

  The place has character.

 I grab a chair and a sun umbrella near the water and crack the books.  After little while, I hear some commotion down by the water.  I look up and there are five guys with tattoos and a few missing teeth, (Yakuza?)  digging a hole by the water laughing.  They are full on digging and when it is deep enough to bury a body, the big guy points at one of the guys who helped dig the hole and he jumped in laughing.  They buried him up to his neck and poured water on top to make the sand heavier.  Still laughing hysterically, they then jumped up and down all around him to pack the sand in place.  “Funny” I thought.  “They’ll leave him there for a bit and then dig him out." 

… Two hours later …

 The best thing about watching a guy buried up to his neck in the sand at the beach, is not the guy as much as the people who walk by and look at him. He was obviously struggling to get out, and most just walked by glancing over at him and shaking their heads.  A few lifeguards did that, and a number of girls stopped by to take pictures next to him.  He became quite a celebrity for a while.  Only a few people actually stopped by to offer help. I couldn’t help but think of the movie “Life of Brian” where Brian is up on the cross and everyone stops by to say goodbye and what a great guy Brian was, without offering to help.

  My favorite of the head’s visitors were two very little kids, maybe a four year old girl and her little brother who stopped by and held up their plastic shovels and buckets, as if to say, “Hey, we’ve got the tools and know how to help.” He politely declined with a nod as this was obviously a rite of passage to some new level of acceptance in the group and having to little kids dig him out, would have meant eternal shame.  (I of course was going to give him a hand, but watched him turn the first few people away, and figured I would wait until the tide came up a bit. 

A few people were scouring the beach for shells and didn’t see the head until the last minute and were rather startled when they finally found him.  A flash of “Young Frankenstein” came to me. “I ain't got no body, and nobody cares for me. Yakka tak ta a yakka tak ta ha!”

 An few older people walked by and glanced over at him and then just kept walking.  A foreign couple stopped and took loads of pictures sitting next to him.  “Great picture!” the guy kept shouting.  They lowered the camera to the head so he could see just how funny the situation was.

 I was getting a bit worried after an hour or so, but his friends came down and gave the head a shot of tequila, poured bucket of water over the head and then went back to beach hut.

 After two hours of wiggling, he finally got an arm free and dug himself out part way.  The friends noticed and brought the shovels down and then buried him again.  This time higher than before. 

 Just before I finally left half an hour later, the owner of one of the shops came down and made them finally dig him up.  He would have made it though.  He had one arm free and was working on the other one.

 I jumped on my bike and headed home up the main drag, past the big Hachimangu shrine, and up the mountain.

(Hachimangu Shrine)
When I finally got home, I turned on the TV and found there was a new comedy/ drama called “Kabe Yama.”  “Kabe” means wall. “Yama” means mountain. The show was a drama about a woman who worked at a handbag shop at a department store.  The main character was a manger and was in-charge of a new hire who was rather well endowed.  (The Yama)  She, however, was not so lucky and everyone teased her about how flat she was. (The wall.) She had stress nightmares about this and would dream she was climbing a mountain wall and would fall off into the valley below.  

Now, in America, this would have been a plastic surgery show, but in Japan, they just showed her getting teased by her colleagues and the stress of her current situation.  (One of her co-workers scandalously secretly used an inflatable bra!) 

 I, of course,  just watched the show to work on my Japanese listening skills.  I did have a Japanese lesson the following evening and had to prepare.  With the head in the sand, it was difficult to concentrate at the beach. 

 The series just started and I must say, I’m curious to see how many different episodes they will be able to write around this premise. 

 Well, that should be enough of the present.  Next time I’ll dive back into the past to write about the first dog I met in Japan that knew more Japanese than I did.