Last night I went out with Hiroshi Maruyama, Takeshi Yagi, Norman England and Jim Ballard. Those of you who don't know your Japanese monster movie stuff will not recognize those names. Which is fine. I don't wish the level of geek-dom required to recognize that list of names on many people.But if you are geeky enough you might even be impressed. Maruyama designed most of the Ultraman characters and the monsters they fought from 1995 till maybe 2007 or so when he, like me, was fired from Tsuburaya Productions by the new management (who, themselves, have recently quit the company). Yagi was the director and/or producer of numerous episodes of the Ultraman TV shows as well as the oddly titled theatrical film Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers (you can tell the English titles given after I left the company!). Norman England has written more articles about Godzilla than anyone can possibly count. He's been in Japan since forever reporting on the Japanese monster scene for Fangoria, Hobby Japan and others. He's also made his own movies. My favorite is The Idol. Jim Ballard is a writer for the Sci Fi Japan website.
These people are from a part of my life that I don't think the readers of this blog really care a whole lot about. Which, again, is fine. I'm not saying you should. But I talk about it because all of us in this Zen game get here from somewhere. Most Zen teachers don't talk about their personal lives or what they do outside of when they're being Zen teachers. And that too is A-OK by me. There are a lot of perfectly good reasons for a Zen teacher not to talk much about her or his personal life.
But I think that stuff is interesting. Me, I don't so much want to hear my teachers talk about the ultimate level of reality as I want to hear them talk about where they work when they're not gazing at the walls. I feel the same way when I read about some of the rock'n'roll people I like. I mean, I know most of the indie rockers these days can't possibly make a living by music alone. So how do they manage? I remember reading how Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips kept his job at Long John Silver's even after the band got signed to Warner Brothers. That kind of info turns my crank.
It was cool to geek out with the people I used to work with. I haven't seen most people from Tsuburaya for a long time. And we spent so much time together. I learned a lot of very deep Zen lessons at that little film company in Kinuta. It's gone now. Even the buildings have been razed. There's still a Tsuburaya Productions in name. But it's hardly the same anymore. So sad...Oh! The photo at the top I snapped yesterday afternoon in Shibuya. Completely unposed. So THIS is where you get Zen from! Genpo Roshi was wrong!
