Romance and Diplomacy
Three issues in, and the seams are starting to show. People are getting ornery and deadlines are being missed, ignored, or openly ridiculed. Like any romantic relationship, ours has reached the critical six month mark, that moment where you’ve tried every sexual position there is more than a few times, talked until dawn about your dreams and your childhood and your dashed hopes and plans, you’ve even taken showers together and sadly it seems the infatuation is starting to wear off, and you’re realizing the other person isn’t some Gift from God with superpowers, he/she is just another flawed human with issues and baggage and emphatically NO, they’re not going to save you from yourself, that monumental task is still in your own hands.
Which is a good thing.
Who knows you better than you know yourself? That’s why I my part of the foreword the title “Romance and Diplomacy”, and yes it does have the slightest allusion to Prez Obama cruising through these parts recently to make sure the Japanese and Chinese still believe in The American Dream, even if no one in America believes in it anymore. Point being, you’ve got to sell yourself on some dream, romance, wealth, fame, beauty, importance, invention, immortality, a nice bowl of soup, Viagra, something has to get you out of your bed in the morning, and then it’s up to you to make it happen.
I’ve had this idea for a film in my head since I arrived here. It goes something like this; A frazzled and more-than-slightly bereft dude from Brooklyn with a shady background arrives in a medium-sized city in present-day Japan. He immediately falls in love with a beautiful and traditional Japanese girl whose family, naturally, doesn’t approve of the young couple’s budding Forbidden Romance. This is in no small part due to the Brooklyn dude’s non-Japanese-ness, as well as the pervading sense of conservative-ness and overall closed-mindedness of the local city they live in.
They go underground.
Their passion stirs up trouble in the community where they live, and an all out race war bubbles to the surface, throwing age-old prejudices out into the open. The young couple is torn apart in the ensuing chaos, and the Brooklyn dude spends lots of time in this old ramen restaurant wondering how to get, keep, and maintain The Women He Loves. Her friends and family, meanwhile, employ every tactic and means at their disposal to destroy and otherwise create mayhem for her, all the while trying to convince her that they are acting in her best interest. Yeah, right, so why doesn’t it feel that way? Innocence is lost.
Exactly like our fair city of Nagoya, the location of the film’s setting has an international cast of characters, Russians, Americans, Aussies, Brits, Brazilians, Africans, Persians, Phillipinos, etc. The gang’s all here..
At film’s end, everyone learns some kind of vague lesson about tolerance and acceptance and the importance of community and creativity and there’s even some silly “love conquers all” theme running throughout the story. J7 calls it “Romeo and Juliet meets Crash”, I can buy that, throw in a little “Lost In Translation” and maybe “The Wanderers” and that’s the flick. (I also call it "What if Beat Takeshi was American, But Still Made Yakuza Movies."--Ed.) Can’t divulge the ending but I swear, it’s coming soon to a theater near you, killer soundtrack and all. Submit songs if you have any.
Know any producers? Directors? Anyone with a camera? Let’s make this movie and we can all become famous millionaires and then we can buy a big house with a two-car garage out in Owariasahi and live happily ever after..
FutureTrippin'
Yo-- Did you also notice, its 20- TEN? No more sayin' "it's the year 2__K" or "two-thousand___ " for the year... Wow... Twenty-Ten... So where the hell are the flying cars, why can't I vacation on the moon, why isn't my best friend an alien from Jupiter... When can I hop aboard the Discovery and argue with HAL about opening the damn pod-bay doors, and when can I jump on a speeder bike on the third moon of Endor and party with those fuzzy, lovable Ewoks? Hell this is Japan, so I'd guess we're one step closer than the rest of the world in doing any of that... After all, they're goin' ahead with plans to build the Super-Shinkansen-- Nagoya to Tokyo in 1 hour flat. Coming in Twenty Twenty-Five or so...
Hell, ain't we supposed to be there already though? Where's the money for that supposed to come from, and wait... Can't we already get to Tokyo pretty fast on the regular Shink already? Why do we need to get to TOKYO that quick for anyway? I'd rather have Meitetsu build something where I can get to Utsumi in 15 minutes from Mei-eki during summertime... You would too if you saw some of the Goodness that is summer at Utsumi beach. What are they gonna do with the Tokaido Shinkansen when the Chuo Super-MagLev-Fast-O-Matic Shinkansen opens? Replace it with a moving sidewalk?
This is Japan... It's gonna get replaced with the transporter off the Enterprise from Star Trek.
Beam me the F up, Scottie, there's no sign of intelligent life 'round these parts...
In this issue, we’ve got Jap Cops, sex workers, insane people, a dude who lives in a Denny’s, RAN ZOO and Blanka (no-- not from StreetFighter).
What more do you want really? Romance? Diplomacy? (No! I want a damn speeder-bike!)
Welcome to Issue Number 3 of Ran Magazine.
Peace and Blessings.
tdh & jlg
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