blue belt life

Starting Local (and then moving outward)

By bluebeltlife January 19, 2015 Ginza Farmers Market, Vegetarian Recipes

MasterDebator, the most sensible critic of my stand on Christmas, has once again spurred me to consider my worldview from a different angle. In a recent discussion he posed the following: what power do we have to really affect the suffering of people beyond our immediate family and community? One might even go further and say how can you really affect anything beyond yourself – and do we really even have control over that? I’ll answer that definitively – while we may not have ultimate control over even our own suffering, we do have control over our thoughts, actions, and emotions – that is unless we give that control over…

A Day at the Ginza Farmers Market

By bluebeltlife January 12, 2015 Ginza Farmers Market, Videos

This week goes out to my second home, the Ginza Farmers Market. We put in the finishing touches on the video over the last week, and although there is some more fine-tuning to do within YouTube, I think it is ready for wider release. Though this has only cracked the shell of the egg, so to speak, of an infinite topic in which I am interested, this has been the largest project I have undertaken since my exit from my former life. I am truly indebted to everyone who made this work possible. Below, allow me to acknowledge the many collaborators who made this video possible, and who support the…

The Ginza Farmers Market (a primer)

By bluebeltlife January 5, 2015 Ginza Farmers Market, Music

My opinions on Christmas have sparked some further controversy, as people come up against a potential change to their beloved institution. Check last week’s comments for some further debate on the topic. Well, luckily that’s all behind us and we can move on to discrediting the New Year as a time for new beginnings, Valentine’s Day as a day to celebrate love, and birthdays as days to celebrate life. The basic answer – let’s do these every day – I swear it’s doable, but you might have to turn off the game or the evening news to make time for it. Oh, the controversy! But much as I know people…

The Gauntlet (and how to opt out of Christmas, continued)

By bluebeltlife December 29, 2014 Music, Videos

Last week I mentioned some tough critique I had received for my questionable beliefs about the stranglehold the Christmas holidays have over Western society. In particular, MasterDebator had the following to say to my first piece on opting out of Christmas: “Why don’t YOU completely give up Christmas yourself, hurt everyone’s feelings to do so and see how it goes before you broadcast to everyone that this is the morally right thing to do.” Now, I know a gauntlet when I see one. And this particular person has been challenging me to new heights from eating dog food in elementary school to jumping into San Francisco Bay just last year.…

A Christmas Piano Tutorial

By bluebeltlife December 22, 2014 Videos

Well, sort of. As always, I was ambitious with my words last week – classic American over-promise and under-deliver – hard to shake some aspects of the culture we grow up in. I originally planned to make a tutorial on how to play music by ear, but the universe intervened, flinging my phone into a a sharp corner – no chance for the case to protect, it was a direct blow to the head, instantly fatal. These things happen in the early blue belt life. In my first year I had two computers fail on me and now the phone. To replace the computers I built a new one, and…

How to Opt Out of Christmas

By bluebeltlife December 15, 2014 Blue Belt Weekly

Alright, the grinch of Thanksgiving is back as Christmas day closes in on us. Honestly though, how many of us wouldn’t simply opt out of the entire holiday if given the opportunity – the unnecessary gift giving, house parties for every affiliated company and group of friends, “All I Want for Christmas” blaring in every retail outlet. Seriously on the music – there are some catchy tunes but when I’m buying organic milk at Peacock?1 Someone posted this article to me this week and everyone should read it immediately. I also watched the timeless B-movie “They Live” which has some insightful underlying messages about our modern society. Needless to say…

My Little Flipper Girl

By bluebeltlife December 8, 2014 Blue Belt Weekly, Videos

Five years ago on a train station bench in Enoshima, I sang the first lines of this song to my one and only. And here we are now, together and going strong after a difficult transition to this blue belt life. I’m grateful every day to have her by my side – my best friend and greatest critic – this week goes out to you, Flipper Girl.1 1 For those of you who don’t know her, she prefers I keep her photos and personal details off the internet, but to give you an idea the Chilean artist Nacho Vargas did a pretty accurate rendering of her here.

Making the Most of the Holidays

By bluebeltlife December 1, 2014 Blue Belt Weekly, Videos

I don’t mean to rain on everyone’s turkey feasting parades. OK I sort of do – it’s a typically American holiday built around frivolous consumption disguised as giving and gratitude. And don’t forget, Christmas is right around the corner! We need to make giving and gratitude a part of our daily experience and not rely on culturally accepted institutions as convenient times to express these, just my two cents. Alright, now that I’ve grinched everyone out, I’ll admit that I indulged in TWO separate tgiving festivities, and I think I made the most of them (see above). Contrary to the normal concept of the holidays as a time to relax…

What I Do for Fun

By bluebeltlife November 24, 2014 Blue Belt Weekly, Videos

Check it – OmokageDevTV released the video we made last Saturday in the YouTube green room. It has English subs if you can’t hang with my super-pithy and on-point nihongo. A question I get a lot since giving up alcohol, meat, and spending any money outside the Ginza Farmers Market, is what do I do for fun? Part of me feels that I gave up fun, at least in the modern-day socially accepted sense, to do my life’s work. But then that goes against my other belief that we should emulate children, who have boundless energy and imagination. Even though there is great work to be done here, it is…

Blue Belt Hits the Green Room

By bluebeltlife November 17, 2014 Blue Belt Weekly, Investing

This Saturday I tested out the green room at Youtube Tokyo with my colleague from OmokageDevTV. My manager is going to kill me for dressing like “a homeless” and not fixing my hair, but who knew I was going to be doing an interview?! In reality we just had some fun in front of the screen and I will share what Omokage-san comes up with (he’s a budding effects enthusiast) – make sure to check him out and subscribe even if you don’t speak Japanese – learn Japanese and support the blue belt community! So this week we ran into some PC problems, delaying the release of “Flipper Girl”, but…

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