What is True (Real) Love? An Example of a Dying Man

Not that anyone probably really cares, but I had promised a while back to write about the situation concerning my ill father now on hospice. I had briefly made a post before, here, and have been struggling on what, exactly, to put to paper. If you've ever dealt with, or seen, one of your parents or grandparents on hospice, then you'll know what a messy and terrible experience that it can be.


This is not designed to be a complaint or attack on anyone. It is just thoughts jotted down on paper.


Once on hospice there are no miracles for the ill. There isn't even any faith or hope for a miracle or any "getting better" on hospice. There is only an attempt to comfort the sick. There is only waiting for "the end." 


This lack of faith begins to do strange things to the survivors, it seems. This, for me, is the most disturbing part of the human reaction to those around the dying; the lack of faith and the morality this situation creates among the living.


As when Jesus walked on water in Matthew 14:



 ²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
 ²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
 ²⁹ “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 
³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

The worst part of a hospice situation is the lack of hope and, often, even the lack of faith. Perhaps there needn't be any faith to cure the ill. All mortals die. But the lack of faith of those who remain is the part that bothers me most. This is the most tragic part of this; the lack of faith. 


This lack of faith can take many forms. It can be a lack of faith in the Maker or it can come as a lack of faith in fellow humanity who seem to be motivated by money or greed.


Too often it seems that there are those who are around and near the dying who are not motivated by love and that is what contributes to a lack of dignity for the dying. Admittedly, there can be many reasons and stress that cause ordinarily decent people to act insane. 


As I wrote before in this very blog:

They say that when someone in a family gets a serious illness, like, say, cancer, everyone in that household gets cancer. Well, I think it must be true.

My dad is extremely sick and near death... But everyone is this household is extremely sick.

I don't want to bother nor bore you with details of what has transpired to my father. There are many. But let me give one example that is a microcosm of the entire affair. This is a distasteful incident but it will lead me into the purpose of this post and what I want to say about "What is true love?" 

Here is a brief explanation of just one incident that I had to relate to another family member (please bear with me as it will be soon explained what this has to do with the subject of True Love):

One night, my father was seriously constipated and in great pain. His primary caregiver decided he needed an enema. She ordered me to help hold up my father in a sitting on hands and knees position as he is too weak and frail to do so by himself. I did as I was told. He was heavy. 

She administered the enema. 

The stool was greatly impacted and my father was screaming in intense pain. I could see the impacted stool from my position. It wasn't coming out. My father kept screaming to the primary caregiver, "Sandra! (not her real name) Put your finger in there and pull it out." 


Sandra refused to do that. 

She screamed at him, "I am not going to do that! I am not your wife!"

I was appalled at what she said. I held up my father with my right arm and then held out my left hand and told Sandra, "Give me the gloves, I'll do it." I couldn't move my position as, if I did, my father would have collapsed and he was already in great pain.

For some God-knows-why reason, Sandra refused to give me a glove. She was adamant and said "No!"

Then, my father, screaming in agony, stuck his own finger in his anus and shoveled out the stool. 

He was in terrible pain and swearing to God almighty. His primary caregiver refused to do this basic function of a nurse and caregiver. She was berating him for soiling the bed.

Nurses shovel out stool all the time. She refused. Things are going to get worse.

Once again, I'm sorry for the disgusting play by play, but that's the way things are everyday on hospice. The lucky ones are the ones who have primary caregivers who do what they do for love. 


When she said, "...I am not your wife!" I felt sorry for my father and for her too. It has nothing to do with being a wife. It has to do with human empathy and suffering. Be it love of the sick or love of humanity, it doesn't matter. 


Love is an integral part towards giving the dying dignity. And, who hasn't heard, "What goes around, comes around?"

I am saddened to say that I wish my father's primary caregiver had more love and empathy. That she doesn't shows just how ill she really is and how much she needs to be pitied.

When I told my wife of this story she said to me, "When that happens to you. Don't worry, I will do that for you." 


I know she will. 

My wife and I have True Love. I hope you do and, if you don't, I hope you can get it someday too.

Let me now explain what this has to do with the title of this post: What is True Love?

There are three kinds of love: Fall in Love, True Love and Spiritual Love.

Fall in Love is easy. People do it all the time. Most people will do this, perhaps,  dozens and dozens of times during their lives. Fall in Love usually starts in puberty when a youth falls in love with some star they've seen in magazines or on TV... Or they "Fall in Love" with a classmate that they've never really gotten to know. Fall in Love is "love" of someone, or more specifically speaking, "falling in love" with the "image" of someone. It is not falling in love with that true person. It is falling in love with who you think that person is, or wish them to be.

But don't think that Fall in Love is childish or silly. It is not. It could be the first step to True Love.

Too many people today get married merely when they Fall in Love. That's why divorce is so high. People marry when they Fall in Love and then, once reality sets in, and they really get to know their partner, they decide that they weren't really in love at all, so they divorce. 

They divorce because building True (real) Love requires a lot of work and acceptance of one another's fault's and shortcomings. Building True Love is not an easy process and takes years of give and take.

A very good friend of mine once told me that he could tell that my wife and I have True Love. He said that one big part of True Love is that it is not physical or involving animalistic tendencies or imagination. True Love involves and requires great sympathy. Sympathy for each other and all the things that we have to suffer through in life.

I think he is right. In a weird sense, I feel sorry for my wife. We have a wonderful life together and we have a wonderful son. We have a home, food and a job... But we are getting older. We are going to die. Perhaps she could have married someone better than me? Perhaps I stole her youth and took away her chances? It's a bizarre notion for most people to think this way, I believe, but it is this sympathy for your partner that is a strong bond for True Love.

True Love is what, hopefully, our parents have for each other. Of course, it takes decades to build.

The last real love is Spiritual Love. This is the love between a person and their god or a mother and her child. No matter what happens, Spiritual Love cannot be broken. Whereas the other forms of love can be broken, Spiritual Love lives on even in death. A child could be a terrible criminal yet that child's mother will always love them. That is Spiritual Love.

It is the very lucky and fortunate few who marry when they Fall in Love, then they work to build True Love and, one day, are blessed with Spiritual Love.

It is this True Love or Spiritual Love that blesses far too few of the dying today in our society.

Building True and Spiritual Love is a long process that can require years, if not decades. 

I hope you have it. It doesn't come easy. You must work to build it.

If there is any lesson to be learned from my father's experience, then please remember this, and start building True Love today. For it is from True Love that Spiritual Love is born.

True Love requires that you open your heart and accept your partner for what they are and not what you imagine them to be. 

For tomorrow and your death will be here before you know it. As one of my good friend's always says, "Dream as if you will live forever. Live as if you will die tomorrow."

For married partners or those living together, True Love can be yours. Dedication, even in death, can create Spiritual Love.


It is yours to create.

Thanks to Alan Tanaka, Sharon Kennedy, Yuri Tsujimoto whose own stories helped inspire this post. Hopefully it might help even one other person in the future. Thanks my friends.

The Business World’s Poster Child for Failure 2011: Groupon

Groupon is about to go IPO in the USA. The failing stock market, the Euro problems, the faltering US Dollar and Groupon's own consistent mistakes make me think that Groupon's IPO will either be postponed or a great disappointment for investors.


I've said many times that Groupon was going to be a massive failure. The most recent was a post about how Groupon has disappeared from the face of the earth (in Japan). For more on that, refer to The Great Groupon Disappearing Act:


Recently, Groupon Japan has completely dropped off the map. I never see their online ads anymore at all (sign of over extension) yet you see their competition all over the place.

The biggest two that seem to be kicking Groupon (hereinafter referred to as "Groupoff") in the royal behind is a new-comer called G-Market and Recruit's own Pompare.

You see online banner ads for these two constantly. I haven't seen an online ad for Groupon for 9 weeks in a row now (and trust that I am on the Internet constantly).

The other thing that makes me realize that Groupon Japan is almost as messed up as Groupon in the USA is the fact that, while you see no banner ads for Groupon in Japan on the Internet anymore, if you watch a minor cable TV network (I think it is J-com) you see their ads every once in a while.


Let me ask you a question: What kind of an idiot advertises an internet business on TV yet doesn't advertise on the internet at all?


Last year, when start-up Groupon refused a $6 billion dollar offer from Google, you just knew that CEO Andrew Mason and Groupon owners must be smoking some very good weed. Couple that with his stupid followup to the Japan New Year's Oseichi Ryori disaster, along with Groupon's cost versus sales reports and you have a sure-fire loser.

Groupon advertised the above and delivered the below.

Then the Groupon CEO insulted people with an amateurish and crass apology.

It all goes back to a well worn stubborn and obstinate attitude that foreigners have when they bring heir business to Japan. Please refer to Groupon Ex-Partner Chimes In:  


Groupon has committed the Cardinal sin that many companies from the west committed before in this country; they came to Japan and didn't make the effort to understand the Japanese and this country well enough. Now they will pay the price for that mistake. I've written before in an article entitled, "How New Companies Can Succeed in Japan - and How They Fail." It's about  how, in spite of the fact that giant players from the west came to Japan, with great products and a successful track record in the west - such as Pepsi Cola, Universal Studios, E-Bay, Carrefours, etc. - they failed miserably because they didn't take the time to learn the intricacies of Japan and how to do business here.

The companies that do well here, Disney, Coca-Cola etc. Did bother to understand the market and now they dominate. McDonald's, in fact, even changed their name to fit in with Japanese pronunciation! McDonald's in Japan is not McDonald's. It is "Makudonarudo." Go up to any Japanese and ask them where a McDonald's is and they won't have any idea what you are talking about.

But I digress...

Groupon, I predict is the next in a long line of failures in Japan. In fact, today I met with a friend who is the head editor of one of the biggest magazines in Japan and this editor said, "There's no way for that company, Groupon... Their reputation is already shot. And, in Japan, reputation is everything. The women don't trust it."

This was the first time that someone who knows how the average Japanese woman feels telling me what I had already suspected; Groupon Japan has a terrible reputation with the women in Japan and it's getting worse. 


Now, today, once again, we have another example of Groupon gross mismanagement. 


When a company files for the right to sell Initial Public Offerings (IPO) they must, according to SEC rules, go into a "quiet period" whereby potential investors are able to go over their company reports and sales, etc. to come up with ideas of potential value. It is against rules for that company to be making public announcements that may slant or create unjust publicity for that company.


But, just as with the inept handling of the Japan New Year's deal, Groupon CEO Mason has gotten himself in trouble again with making company announcements that he must have known would be leaked to the public.


Yahoo reports:

Commentary: Has the company run afoul of quiet-period rules?

Daily-deal pioneer Groupon Inc. appears to be hell-bent on becoming the poster child for business schools and budding entrepreneurs on how not to go public.

Since the company filed its IPO prospectus for potential investors on June 2, Groupon appears to be close to running afoul of the "quiet period" that is required of businesses once they file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Last month, Chief Executive Andrew Mason wrote a memo to employees about a story he had read (in the car, while driving alone, apparently). The report, one in a barrage of negative stories in recent months, wondered whether Groupon is running out of cash. Mason wrote a long defense of his company's business model, its stance against rivals and an explanation of the bizarre accounting metric used in Groupon's financials that raised eyebrows with regulators. (His message to the troops was obtained by our colleagues over at AllThingsD. Read Mason's full memo.

Last week, an outside PR person for Groupon pointed another reporter in the direction of that same email, fueling speculation that the memo was written by Mason knowing that it would be leaked. Read Private Equity Hub's run-in with Groupon.

Let me predict right here that the Groupon IPO will either be postponed or a failure. Couple this bad publicity and inept management with the current serious decline in stock prices and you have the ripe situation for Groupon IPO to be valued at something like $20 a share. That would be a massive failure.

The situation gets worse when you see that the recently hired PR expert by Groupon has already quit and you can just smell the scent of an organization that is demoralized and in disarray.

In addition to the furor over the email sent to staff, Silicon Valley PR veteran Brad Williams, hired only two months ago as Groupon's head of corporate communications, recently quit. A Groupon spokeswoman said it was a mutual decision; Williams did not return calls, but reports indicate that he may have butted heads with Mason.

"It just doesn't seem to get uglier than this," said Rocky Agrawal, an entrepreneur who advises start-ups, of the company's IPO process so far. Agrawal has found serious problems in Groupon's financials and has written about his concerns.

Attorneys appear to be split on whether Groupon has violated the SEC's rules, and whether employee communications can be considered speaking to potential investors. In 1996, San Francisco-based Wired had to pull its IPO after magazine publisher Louis Rossetto wrote a similar rally-the-troops email. In 2005, the SEC revamped its rules, albeit slightly.

It is reasonable to think that Mason wrote the memo purely to spur morale, feeling frustrated by the restrictions imposed by the SEC. But how he handled this communication is calling attention to his leadership.

Seriously? After all these screw ups, with the Super Bowl ads, Japan, etc., etc., people are just now figuring out that something isn't quite right with the CEO? You're kidding me!

Mason has fashioned himself as a sort of David Letterman CEO — quirky and funny, with an odd sense of humor that pervades the company, its deals and even its poorly received Super Bowl ads in February.

But he cannot be so naive as to not realize that sending out a lengthy, defensive-sounding email to thousands of employees would not end up in the press eventually. There are other, more concise ways Mason could have communicated. He also barely reminded employees of the regulatory restrictions that Groupon is under, only to say "we've refrained from defending ourselves publicly," and that "for now we must patiently and silently endure a bit more public criticism as we prepare to birth this IPO baby."

Under the harsh spotlight of the IPO, when companies are required to refrain from actions that might be seen as pumping up the stock ahead of the debut, Mason's behavior seems childish and impetuous.

"I have been doing this a long time," said Scott Sweet, senior managing partner at the IPO Boutique, about following the market for initial public offerings. "That IPO really bothers me."

Sweet's concerns include the issues that have been noted in recent months: the firm's high marketing costs, major competitors and heavy losses. But he is also now calling out Mason, Groupon's eccentric chief.

"No matter how the CEO spins it, he is not talking to the choir," Sweet added. "He is talking to his ego."

Whether this brouhaha will affect how Groupon is received by investors has yet to be seen. The company has not yet started its road show to tell its story. But so far, it's serving as a textbook case on what not do to during the IPO process.

Here's a few more tidbits that I have gathered about Groupon that alert readers may be interested in: Groupon grossed $700 M (USD) but spent $413 M (USD) on advertising.

What is the Groupon business model? It is SPAM. Send people spam. In the day and age of Social Media and Social Media Marketing the utter idea that Groupon would attempt to grow their business without a marketplace or social media component and just email seems to be to be absurd. This is a massive failure.

Groupon in Japan has over 600 people employed in sales going door to door trying to get deals. They use email to sell. That they wouldn't create a marketplace, not have any plan to, shows a lack of understanding of Internet 2.0 and today's Internet users.

Groupon was a great business model two years ago, when there were no competitors. But now, there are many. And those competitors have or are building marketplace portals. I cannot comment too much about the rest of the world, but, at least in Japan, Groupon is dead. 

There are also stories all over the Internet about Groupon shady accounting practices and these all point to Groupon painting a much rosier picture than reality. 

Like I said, the failing stock market, the Euro problems, the faltering US Dollar and Groupon's own consistent (and constant) mistakes make me think that Groupon's IPO will either be postponed or a great disappointment for investors.

Of course it will. There's too many bad factors running against Groupon.

Come to think of it, have you heard anything good about that company in the last 6 months? I haven't. 

Groupon, I predict, will be the business world's poster child for these turbulent times; a highly touted and very visible new company jumps from the starting gates on the crash headlong into reality and the real world. Throw in shady business and accounting practices and you have a model reflection of the US government...

Shady business and accounting practices? US government? Everyone knows how well the US government is doing!


Hello Groupon! welcome to IPO in the stock market crash of Autumn 2011. As with everything you've done so far, your timing is impeccable. 


UPDATE: As I predicted:

DealBook: Groupon May Delay Its Plans to Go Public http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/groupon-weighs-delay-to-i-p-o/?emc=eta1http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/groupon-weighs-delay-to-i-p-o/?emc=eta1 By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED The online coupon giant is considering pushing back its long-awaited initial public offering amid the continuing market volatility.

Thanks to Jeff Behr

TV isn't Dead... It Just Smells Bad!

Just returning from a trip to the USA whereby I spent the last week trying to help out a primary caregiver with my very ill father on hospice. 


It was/is a terrible situation and I hope that you don't have to go through this with any of your parents soon. But many will, so before that, won't you take one minute to take a look at this short message concerning that subject?


While there, I made some observations about television. It wasn't hard to do. I was staying at a household with my now 80-year-old father and his 80-year old live-in partner and caregiver where the TV was on from the first thing in the morning to the last thing, besides the kitchen light, to be turned off at night before bed.


Observing these folks watching TV was painful. The primary caregiver was constantly talking to the TV as if the conversation were all hers (seriously) and my dad was constantly complaining about how idiotic the TV was... Yet, on the TV stayed.... 


The situation with the TV on forever drove me crazy!


That house is, in my opinion, the typical TV household of the year 2011 and beyond. It represents the core of who are TV's main viewers today and it also represents why TV, in its current configuration, is dead. I've written about it before in "Part Two: Why the Digital Conversion Will Kill TV Tokyo and TBS":


These are folks who have seen TV all their lives. The Internet is still a new thing to them. My in-laws are the kinds of folks who turn on the TV when they wake up in the morning and leave it on all day whether they are watching it or not. They are terrestrial TV's prime audience.

Why are these people the typical prime target for a station like TV Tokyo or TBS? Think about it.

Who has the time to sit around and really watch TV for 2 or 3 hours a day, everyday (like people did 30 years ago)? Well, the only people who do have the time to do so are either:

1) Inactive
2) Poor
3) Retired or aged
4) Handicapped or ill

Think about that. Now, if you were a sponsor, would you spend money on TV advertising for people who fit any of the descriptions above? No. You wouldn't.

That's one huge problem for these dinosaur TV stations that have thousands of employees and a dropping revenue base.


This problem is universal. Perhaps countries like India or China haven't (nor will they???) face these challenges... (But I know that in India, people still use 45 rpm records and cassette tapes, so maybe they will someday soon!)


Japan and the USA are in the same boat, though, when it comes to TV. Here are some things I noticed while in the USA that just confirmed and consolidated my opinion on that:


TV in the USA is now playing a defensive strategy that I have seen stations play in Japan. It is a strategy doomed to failure. I have seen this with my own eyes and even argued this point against program directors and station managers as far back as 1998.


The strategy that these stations are trying can't possibly work in the long run. It goes like this: The audience of TV viewers is shrinking. So, instead of pursuing an aggressive policy to reach out to younger people and gather new viewers and a new audience, the stations pursue a defensive strategy to prevent erosion of their current audience (old people). The stations will, instead of making efforts to attract new viewers, will make efforts to keep their old veiwers and prevent them from switching channels to the other competing station (who is pursuing the same policies). This might be fine, but when you realize that your core audience is numbers 1 ~ 4 above, this is not an audience that is growing. This is an audience that is dying off and shrinking.


Now, it doesn't take a genius to realize that this sort of strategy is a sure-fire way to fail. Most promising new business plans attack new, growing markets; not old and shrinking ones.


A good piece of evidence for this is the many FM radio stations that are still playing Bob Seeger, Journey, Foreigner and Steve Miller Band; the same music they were playing 30 years ago! The current sad financial state of today's FM stations - in Japan and the USA - is a testament to the failure of this policy.


My conclusions about network TV in the USA pursuing this policy were reinforced by the commercials I saw. They were very heavily geared to an older audience. One particularly memorable commercial was for a boxed set of DVD's of Shirley Temple movies. Now, I like Shirley Temple as much as the next movie fan (OK, maybe not that much) but for lack of a better description, when I saw the commercial, I thought, "This is not 'cool'!" 


Now, who in the world would want to buy a Shirley Temple boxed set of movies? Anyone under 50-years-old? No? How about under 70? How about 75? 


One of the stations that my ill father and his caregiver watched constantly was ABC. I surmise that their favorite TV show is Good Morning America that has been on since before I moved to Japan in 1984. This show has definitely declined in quality and popularity (I could deduce that by watching shots of the audience). The main host Regis Philbin is retiring so he has good timing. These stations are trying to do anything to pump some life into their lifeless format but it fails miserably. 


It used to be only on late night TV like David Letterman that when the station returned from a TV commercial, would the audience scream and yell while clapping. But now, even on the morning TV shows, they do that. It used to be just polite clapping on morning shows. Now, it's a bunch of people yelping and screaming like a high school sports match or American Idol (which is the intelligence level of this nonsense).

It might have been OK to have these people screaming loudly like a bunch of junior high school kids excepting that one time, on Good Morning America, they foolishly showed the audience and there weren't twenty people standing there. Probably most people don't notice that, but I caught it immediately.


Twenty years ago, it would have been a few hundred people trying to gain their 15 seconds of fame. Now? 


In a related note, as I predicted long ago, many Japanese have turned away from TV. I predicted that the digital conversion would see Japanese TV stations voluntarily throw away 20 ~ 30% of their core audeince. Some people scoffed. I had written in Why the Digital Conversion Will Kill TV Tokyo and TBS:

It seems obvious to me that there's no doubt about it...  Basically:

1) People with money do not watch TV
2) The only people who do watch a lot of TV have either no money or too much time on their hands; they are not active
3) Advertising to people with no money and who are not active is a waste of money.
4) When digital goes online fully, then the only people who don't have the digital equipment are poor people
5) Poor people are the only ones who watch TV Tokyo and TBS now (see #2 above)

The countdown has begun. The digital TV conversion will kill TV Tokyo and TBS.

People aren't scoffing about what I predicted anymore. The TV people are panicking. It has happened and is happening right before your very eyes. The end of an era is upon us. TV, as we have know it for decades, is on its last legs and there is no one in that business (that I have met) who understands he problem enough to fix it. It is too late. The audience is gone.

Japan has lost a huge slice of existing viewers by cutting them off from digitial. They will not return. The USA still has the fashionable senior citizen crowd on Medicaid and Medicare....  

Japanese Are Turning Off the TVs.


Tokyo-- The Japanese, once one of the most TV-addicted people on the planet, are drifting away from the tube -- forcing networks to scramble for other sources of revenue, from pic production, satellite services, Internet streaming sites and other new technologies.

Daily TV viewing time, which averaged more than five hours in the 1970s, shrank to 3 hours and 28 minutes by 2010, according to figures compiled by the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute.

Males aged 10 to 20 are watching less than two hours a day.

Meanwhile, program ratings have been trending downward for terrestrial networks, pubcaster NHK and commercial rivals TV Asahi, NTV, TBS, Fuji TV and TV Tokyo, despite spikes for major sport events and other special programming.

In June not one show on commercial TV in the 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. "Golden Time" slot won a rating of 10 or above -- once considered the minimum for survival.

Even long-running shows that once seemed immortal have either been axed or are on the brink. One that recently got the heave-ho after 43 seasons is period drama "Mito komon," which bowed in 1969. At its peak, the show's ratings reached as high as 43.7, but recently it has struggled to achieve double digits. Its last episode will air in December on MBS, an affiliate of TBS.

Various causes have been advanced for the ratings slide. Like other countries, Japanese families no longer sit around the TV watching the same show, as viewers did in the industry's 1960-to-1990s heyday. The Japanese now consume entertainment on a range of platforms, including PCs, smartphones and game consoles.

Also, an estimated 100,000 households, including a lot of elderly "Mito komon" fans, failed to make the switch from analog to digital in July, and have effectively given up TV entirely.

But the biggest cause, says Hiro Otaka, a media analyst for the Bunka Tsushin entertainment news services, is that "the programs have become boring."

Otaka blames network execs who have responded to falling ratings by cutting costs and hedging their bets.

There is no media in the world who can survive when the under 30-year-old crowd do not care about it. Can't be done. And under 30-year-old in Japan definitely do not care about TV... Come to think of it, why should they?


TV isn't dead... Yet. It just smells really bad.

Cardinal Sin of Bloggers: Not Blogging Due to Death

I have committed the cardinal sin of bloggers. After more than one year of consistent blogging and never missing a day, even once, I have missed one. I have, in fact, missed several.


I was brought up in Los Angeles and always dreamed of being a Hollywood star. I went to university and studied television and was one of the very few lucky ones to actually get a job in that business and to make a good living.


Why I mention that is because, in show business, we have a saying, "The only way you'd ever miss a live broadcast or performance is a death in the family.... And that death had better be yours!"


In the early nineties, I was the host of the most popular late night music and talk radio show in Tokyo. One day, I received a call from my wife. She was sobbing. She told me that my mother had died earlier that day in a car accident. 


The world stopped. I didn't know what to say. I still don't.


Nevertheless, the show must go on. I went to my program that night and I did an excellent show. No one knew how sad I was. And I did that for every night from then on too...


That's what the difference is between a professional and an amateur.


I guess I am not a professional blogger yet. I have missed three or four days of blogging.


On Saturday morning I received a call that my father was being removed from life support and, if it didn't kill him, he would be sent home on hospice. I was asked to come to America immediately. My wife was sobbing when she told me this news. 


I didn't want to come to the USA, but my wife convinced me that, just this one last time, I must.


My father and the kind lady he has been staying with for over 15 years are very old. They are both past 80. They have no Internet connection. I was expecting that a dear old friend of mine would be here. She lives close by and has an Internet connection. I was counting on using her connection to blog everyday.


I couldn't. She had gone off to Mexico. There's no way for me to access the Internet here. 


Do you realize how difficult it is to find any sort of information without an Internet? I opened the Yellow Pages and searched. I couldn't find anything. 


That's OK. From what I understand, the Yellow Pages are now notorious for being useless. 


As I said, my dad and the lady he lives with are over eighty. They have no Internet. They do, though, have the TV on constantly. The TV is like a window into the past. There's so much absolutely crap on TV it is nearly unbearable. A house with no Internet and just TV is like living in the 1960's - and no, it's not retro and it's not cool. It is driving me mad. I have to get out of here.


I will write about how there are still pockets of resistance to the Internet in the world today and how these pockets are filled with handicapped, poor or retired people; and how TV is trying, but failing, to survive on this audience in a few days when I get back to Japan, but, for now, I must hurry and return to their house as I am needed there. 


The following is excerpts from a message I wrote my partner in business about the situation here. Perhaps you can read this and, by understanding the above, see why I haven't posted on my blog. This is not an excuse, just I want everyone to know this as I reckon most people might go through a similar experience... Hopefully not soon.

Dear Rick (not his real name):

It is Thursday 9/1. I have driven what seems like 10+ minutes to a Barnes & Noble store to use a computer (I think this is the only place around here). So I wanted to catch up as much as I can. 

This situation where my dad is staying is terrible. The lady my dad has been living with for 15 + years and my brothers do not talk to each other directly so everything is royally messed.... Probably much my own fault. 

My dad can't do anything by himself. He can't stand up, sit down, walk, take off his clothes. Unbutton his shirt? Can't do it.......He can't urinate by himself so he is wearing a device called a catheter (sp?) and can't really go anywhere. 

There's a million and one things wrong and things he can't do.... Things that he could do just a year ago or so. It is amazing how fast they deteriorate. When I arrived and walked in the door, he looked like he was already dead like one of those near death people you see in those old films of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Every night he coughs uncontrollably and cannot sleep well. When he is awake, he hiccups all the time. After he eats, only soft food of course, he feels like throwing up. For 2 of the 4 nights I have been here I expected him to die any moment. And would not have been the least bit surprised if he did.

Every second word out of his mouth is "I'm dying!" I thought about calling an ambulance twice but then found out that when someone signs up for hospice, they cannot call an ambulance nor go to the hospital anymore.

I can't describe how bad this is. Thank god my older brother is there handling this situation with a calm and cool head otherwise this would be a complete disaster.

I thought the lady my dad has been staying with all these years was having a nervous breakdown last night because she got extremely angry at me for simply passing on a message from the nurse. "WTF!? I'm just telling her what the nurse asked me too and she's yelling at me?" She continued to berate me and talk down to me, complaining about the nurses and help that's coming to the house and my brothers and how poorly may dad treats her, how people talk down to her (maybe that's why she did that to me?) etc. etc., on and on....

She complained about the nurses and how she doesn't want them or other strangers in her house, but I cannot see how she can handle this situation by herself. 

On the one hand, she says that she can't handle the situation. On the other hand she says she can (she has for 6 months!)... She is under tremendous stress.

When she began to get angry at me, at first I was offended, then I soon realized that this women is close to having a breakdown so I thought it best that I shut up and let her talk. (I also realized that she had already started drinking so I shouldn't comment or ask too many questions). Then she started smoking cigarettes and continued drinking much more....(I had never seen her smoke before!)... 

Then, after 4 hours of drinking and smoking she was visibly drunk (never seen her drunk before either). She then switched between anger and sobbing and crying and spilling her heart out to me. She went on about how when she was a nurse long ago but she didn't have enough empathy for people and didn't care for her husband enough... Her husband died of cancer many years ago... She wished she could have done more...

This went on for a few more hours until she seemed to get tired.

Finally, I realized the true gravity of this situation. They say that when someone in a family gets a serious illness, like, say, cancer, everyone in that household gets cancer. Well, I think it must be true.

My dad is extremely sick and near death... But everyone is this household is extremely sick. At least my father knows he is sick. The lady he is staying with doesn't realize the extent of her illness.

I have to leave here soon or this will make me sick too. Anyhow, I'm leaving on Sunday. It will be good to be back in Japan.

Mike

I will blog again, at least by Sept. 6, when I get back to the 21st century and away from this time machine into the past that I have slipped into.

In the meantime, please don't forget to hug your kids and hug your parents.