Big In Japan

Am back from another filming day at Festival of the West in Phoenix (well, Scottsdale). We had a lot of fun shooting Tequila, our host, with camera and guns (blanks...blanks!!!). I swear I'm going to sleep all day tomorrow! The it's time to shift gears and work with AMERICAN RIFLEMAN, the NRA's show. We're headed out to Rigby, the super-expense African safari gun manufacturer, and Weatherby in a week or so. Hopefully, my brain will have turned back on by then.

In the meantime, I'm pondering this story from the BBC:

Chewing gum can 'enhance breasts'

A chewing gum which the makers say can help enhance the size, shape and tone of the breasts has proved to be a big hit in Japan.

B2Up says its Bust-Up gum, when chewed three or four times a day, can also help improve circulation, reduce stress and fight ageing.

The gum works by slowly releasing compounds contained in an extract from a plant called Pueraria mirifica.

Well golly! I can just see legions of Japanese schoolgirls chewing away, sending quick instant messages to each others' cell phones chronicling each silly millimeter'd difference. Sort of like a real-life anime festival.

Aah when you're big in Japan-tonight...
Big in Japan-be-tight...
Big in Japan... ooh the eastern sea's so blue
Big in Japan-alright,
Pay! -- Then I'll sleep by your side
Things are easy when you're big in Japan
Oh when you're big in Japan

— Alphaville
"Big In Japan"

I'm reading Randy Wayne White's most recent paperback, TAMPA BURN. I've got to say that I think it's his best work yet. I have some issues with the Doc Ford series, but I have to say that Randy Wayne and I have spent far more time pondering the inescapable magic of beer as opposed to discussing plot elements. One of my fondest memories of my time in Florida was ripping around in Randy Wayne's flats boat in the middle of the night, visiting the sites from his first Doc Ford book. And that's not to mention being trapped on some island with Randy Wayne, the wonderful novelist Peter Matthiessen, a class of wannabe writers and only the leftover remains of a firefighters' picnic — cold chicken, cold baked beans, flat beer and rum — we'd bought for, like, $50, for food and sustenance.

I seem to recall the writers coming to the house we were holed up in for food when Randy Wayne, Matthiessen and I were perhaps suffering from degraded performance specs. "It's okay," Randy Wayne said to the writers. "Peter, Michael and I are professionals at this."

I was, of course, older then; I'm younger than that now.