I just watched “Lost in Translation” again last night probably for the 25th time.

It’s rare that you find a movie that sticks with you long after you’ve seen it for the first time. “Lost in Translation” was like that for me, for some reason. Maybe it stems from a time in my life where I was living and working in Tokyo and spent many days and nights at the very Park Hyatt this was filmed. Usually meeting with Western colleagues to de-cipher and untangle the day’s events and interchanges with my Japanese colleagues.

It had great appeal to me, despite the nature of being very much on my own there. I could relate to Murray’s character and the Japanese scenarios were almost too realistic making me cringe at points.

Perhaps that’s why “Lost in Translation” had the impact it did. Bill Murray, who plays Bob Harris, is in a strange country and cannot sleep, and he meets Charlotte, played wonderfully by Scarlett Johansson, who is also in the same situation, but almost totally alone as her new husband has other things to do.

They connect with each other out of their need to be with something familiar. Being in Japan with no English spoken, these two naturally relate and spend a lot of time together over the next few days, trying to hold onto this amazing thing they’ve found amidst their loneliness.

The movie did a superb job of bringing the audience into the emotions going on inside these two. You actually can almost feel what they are going through and how they long to just “be “ with each other.

And that brings us to the end of the movie. Bob has to leave, the filming is done on his TV commercial, and it’s time to go home and that means leaving Charlotte behind. But that’s the end really, they had no future, they were both married and their time was up. You felt their pain in ending the short relationship, but what other choice was there?

So Bob gets into his limo and is taken away, while Charlotte heads out onto the streets, back to wandering aimlessly like she did before, alone and out of place in this strange country.

But Bob stops, goes back and finds her walking in Shinjuku near the Hyatt…I know that exact street

They look at each other for a moment, and then they just hold each other. He whispers something to her, which makes her cry, makes her smile. They kiss, and she continues walking down the sidewalk, tears flowing, but a new look of happiness on her face. Bob gets into the limo and is gone.

I loved the movie, and I loved the final song in it so much that I now own the “Jesus and Mary Chain” album Psychocandy that it came from.

So the big mystery for all that saw it was this: What did he say to her?

Some wise words of comfort from an older man that allowed her to move on? That he’d see her again? That he loved her?

Well, we now know. Someone took the scene and digitally enhanced the sentence that Bill Murray whispers to Charlotte and posted the video on YouTube. Sorry the link is no longer on YouTube.

It was hard to hear, but I think they got it right.

Now, not everyone wants to know. The way it ended was perfect in my opinion, leaving it up to us to decide what he said to her. It was fitting and obviously kept people thinking about it afterwards.

So if you don’t want to know, don’t watch the video or read on after this point. But if you do, check it out below.

Here is the final line from him again, if you didn’t watch it or want to see it again:

Bob: “I have to be leaving…but I wont let that come between us, okay?”

Charlotte: “Okay.” *gasp*

This exchange seems totally fitting to me. But the real meaning behind it will always remain a mystery. Did that mean he was coming back to her? Or was he just leaving her with hope. That in having this hope, she wouldn’t be completely miserable and lonely. Her gasp at the end was like a breath of relief escaping her, so the words he said were the right ones.

I don’t know what it means. I don’t think we ever will. They are both married, so the real guy inside me wants to think that they just return to their lives, but another part of me hopes they end up together.

What do you think? Does it make a difference knowing what he said? Am I the only one who really enjoyed this film?

I wrote this a few year back but given the new pressures of our crazy US economy I though I should repost it.

It appears laughter is strong medicine. Really.

Did you know that when you laugh, you not only exercise almost all of the 53 facial muscles; you also spark a series of chemical reactions within the body? No one knows exactly what process takes place, but studies show definite benefits:

Levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol, are reduced. This leads to a strengthened immune system and lower blood pressure.

You mean I’m taking Norvasc every day to control my blood pressure and all I needed was a tickle?

My friend is an advocate of natural health. While I am not ready to give up the Norvasc just yet a twice-a-day tickle therapy seems to help…although using this method may drive your neighbors crazy listening to uncontrolled laughter. I am definitely less stressed out since employing tickle therapy.

Stress is also associated with damage to the protective barrier lining our blood vessels. This can cause fat and cholesterol to build-up in the arteries and could ultimately lead to a heart attack.

So laughing is even thought to help protect the heart.

Endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers, are released when we laugh, producing a general sense of well being.

The conscious thought process is bypassed – it’s like taking a weight off the mind! Hmmm…Sounds a little like hemp!

The reduction of stress-related hormones has also been linked to enhanced creativity and beneficial effects on conditions as diverse as insomnia, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.

Everyone in Tokyo is so stressed out and serious…maybe they could employ a bit of “tickle” therapy! So the next time you are crammed in the subway next to some stressed out salary man…give him a little goose and see what happens.

Look at this shot…no wonder Tokyo makes me stressed. The conductors are actually pushing the passengers into the packed train! At least they are wear clean white gloves.

Tokyo was an incredible city back in the bubble years…some of the clubs and shows were incredible…this spot is like a night in Tokyo in the late 80″s early 90′s…Club Gold, Club Orange and One Eyed Jack when they had a casino. There was even a club with mermaids swimming behind the bar.

This spot looks like it was shot in the Russian restaurant in the basement called Volga. Lost in Translation was great at showing a side of the city that people think was over the top but having lived there I can tell you it was the real deal.

Tokyo is still a wild place but during the bubble it was surreal, 24/7.

Shot of Volga near Tokyo Tower

http://www.high.org/moma.aspx#/Picasso-to-Warhol/landing

This game was created by Sega in 1994…I created the hero and villain characters for a TV commercial in Japan two years before called “Comic Hero.” Amblin Films Steven Spielberg’s company produced the TV commercial for me when I was at McCann Eirickson in Tokyo. I used all the same team from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

I just found this on YouTube….I don’t even have a copy of the game anymore. Wow, video games have really advanced since that time!

Joe Frazier, the former heavyweight champion whose furious and intensely personal fights with a taunting Muhammad Ali endure as an epic rivalry in boxing history, died tonight. I grew to love boxing in those Ali-Frazier years.

Known as Smokin’ Joe, Frazier stalked his opponents around the ring with a crouching, relentless attack — his head low and bobbing, his broad, powerful shoulders hunched — as he bore down on them with an onslaught of withering jabs and crushing body blows, setting them up for his devastating left hook.

It was an overpowering modus operandi that led to versions of the heavyweight crown from 1968 to 1973. Frazier won 32 fights in all, 27 by knockouts, losing four times — twice to Ali in furious bouts and twice to George Foreman. He also recorded one draw.

A slugger who weathered repeated blows to the head while he delivered punishment, Frazier proved a formidable figure. But his career was defined by his rivalry with Ali, who ridiculed him as a black man in the guise of a Great White Hope. Frazier detested him.

Ali vs. Frazier was a study in contrasts. Ali: tall and handsome, a wit given to spouting poetry, a magnetic figure who drew adulation and approbation alike, the one for his prowess and outsize personality, the other for his anti-war views and Black Power embrace of Islam. Frazier: a bull-like man of few words with a blue-collar image and a glowering visage who in so many ways could be on an equal footing with his rival only in the ring.

Frazier won the undisputed heavyweight title with a 15-round decision over Ali at Madison Square Garden in March 1971, in an extravaganza known as the Fight of the Century. Ali scored a 12-round decision at the Garden in a non-title bout in January 1974. Then came the Thrilla in Manila championship bout, in October 1975, regarded as one of the greatest fights in boxing history. It ended when a battered Frazier, one eye swollen shut, did not come out for the 15th round.

The Ali-Frazier battles played out at a time when the heavyweight boxing champion was far more celebrated than he is today, a figure who could stand alone in the spotlight a decade before an alphabet soup of boxing sanctioning bodies arose, making it difficult for the average fan to figure out just who held what title.

The rivalry was also given a political and social cast. Many viewed the Ali-Frazier matches as a snapshot of the struggles of the 1960s. Ali, an adherent of the Nation of Islam, came to represent rising black anger in America and opposition to the Vietnam War. Frazier voiced no political views, but he was nonetheless depicted, to his consternation, as the favorite of the establishment. Ali called him “ignorant,” likened him to a gorilla and said his black supporters were Uncle Toms.

“Frazier had become the white man’s fighter, Mr. Charley was rooting for Frazier, and that meant blacks were boycotting him in their heart,” Norman Mailer wrote in Life magazine following the first Ali-Frazier bout.

Frazier, wrote Mailer, was “twice as black as Clay and half as handsome,” with “the rugged decent life-worked face of a man who had labored in the pits all his life.”

Frazier could never match Ali’s charisma or his gift for the provocative quote. He was essentially a man devoted to a brutal craft, willing to give countless hours to his spartan training-camp routine and unsparing of his body inside the ring.

“The way I fight, it’s not me beatin’ the man: I make the man whip himself,” Frazier told Playboy in 1973. “Because I stay close to him. He can’t get out the way.” He added: “Before he knows it — whew! — he’s tired. And he can’t pick up his second wind because I’m right back on him again.”

In his autobiography, “Smokin’ Joe,” written with Phil Berger, Frazier said his first trainer, Yank Durham, had given him his nickname. It was, he said, “a name that had come from what Yank used to say in the dressing room before sending me out to fight: ‘Go out there, goddammit, and make smoke come from those gloves.’ “

As the largest pediatric health care system in the U.S., Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta expects more than 1,200 patients in their hospitals during the last two weeks of the year. In an effort to convey the authentic, emotionally charged stories of their patients, parents and staff, Children’s has teamed up with Atlanta advertising agency BKV, producer Gerald Gentemann, director Bill VanderKloot, as well as the Verizon Foundation, to launch a digital campaign of social sharing during this holiday season.

“The ‘Share the Hope’ video is not about theatrics but instead is an honest look into the lives of these amazing children. The concept was centered around one hospital, during one day, shot on one camera. This is storytelling at its most genuine and emotional level,” said Scott Hodoval, Vice President of Development at Children’s.

Launching today, Children’s is unveiling their “Share the Hope” video on the organization’s customized microsite, YouTube channel, Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account. The effort doesn’t stop at just sharing the video, but also includes the opportunity to share a message of hope with the patients who will be spending their holidays at Children’s. Donations will also be accepted digitally during this time, with the initial contribution coming from Verizon Foundation, who has pledged a gift of $1 per view of the “Share the Hope” video.

“Although the campaign will live in traditional media as well, it will be fueled and sustained by social,” said Hodoval. Messages for the patients will be accepted through December 31, 2011 and will be displayed on closed-circuit TVs throughout the hospital during the last two weeks of the year. Visit ShareWithChildrens.org to let a young patient at Children’s know you’re thinking about them this holiday season, and all year long.

Ben Franklin once wrote of his disappointment over the decision to choose the bald eagle as the symbol for our country.

Franklin preferred the turkey actually.

However from this small excerpt his description of the bald eagle may actually describe how our the country could be perceived today. On Wall Street? Our Tax system?

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.”

These days I feel a lot like a Fishing Hawk!

I read an interesting article in USAToday about the correlation between drinking soft drinks and violence. I could not believe the numbers but it is something to think about and perhaps after thinking about it make yourself a smoothie or something more healthy than a Coke.

Teens who drink lots of soda seem to be prone to violence, new research suggests. But the study authors concede that sodas are probably not the direct cause of the aggression.

While there’s a chance that the sugar and caffeine from carbonated drinks contributes to violent behavior, the study shows an association, not a cause-and-effect. Soda consumption, for example, may be a marker of heightened violent tendencies already present in the teen, or of poor parenting, the researchers said.

“Soda (could be) a red flag that is indicating something else is wrong,” said study co-author Sara Solnick, an associate professor of economics at the University of Vermont in Burlington.

The study is published in the Oct. 24 online issue of Injury Prevention.

The researchers asked high school students how many non-diet sodas they drank during the last week, as well as whether they carried a weapon or had been violent toward family members or peers.

Nearly 43% of teens who drank 14 or more cans of soda a week said they carried a weapon at some point, compared with 23% of teens who drank less than one can of soda a week.

The researchers also saw an association between soda and weapons even when kids drank less than 14 cans. About 33% of teens who drank two to four cans a week said they’d carried a knife or a gun at some point, as did 38% of teens who drank five to seven cans of soda.

There was a similar “dose relationship” on other measures of violence. About 27% of teens who drank 14 or more cans of soda a week admitted to violence against a romantic partner, compared with 15% of those drinking less than one can a week.

And 59% of those drinking 14 or more cans a week had been violent toward peers, compared with 35% of those drinking one can or less. Teens who drank lots of soda were also more likely to be aggressive toward a sibling — 45% compared with 25% among teens who drank little soda.

The authors were able to control for a number of factors including gender, race and tobacco and alcohol use but not for some other important factors that could affect the likelihood of violence, such as quality of parenting and poverty.

Those who reported drinking lots of soda were also more likely to have also used alcohol or smoked cigarettes. Nearly 30% of the ninth- to 12th-graders said they drank more than five cans of soda a week.

It’s possible that the association is explained by the soda itself, researchers said. Teens who drink lots of soda could be missing important micro-nutrients found in healthier foods, according to background information in the study, or could be drinking soda to combat low blood sugar, which is linked to irritability or violence.

Soft drinks also contain sugar and caffeine, which might affect behavior.

But the studies on the effect of caffeine and sugar on behavior are inconclusive, said another expert. “There’s no definitive explanation that this explains how or if this might affect behavior,” said Alan Manevitz, a psychiatrist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Alternatively, “soda could be showing that this person is not having a healthy diet or they don’t have a great upbringing,” Solnick said. “Those things are connected to violence.”

In the study, the authors make mention of the infamous “Twinkie Defense” in which defendant Dan White was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter instead of homicide in the deaths of San Francisco city district supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1979.

White’s lawyers argued that the crime wasn’t premeditated because White was hyped up on junk food and Coca-Cola.

Since then, other studies have further probed possible effects of unhealthy food, with one study finding poor mental health among Norwegian teens who drank a lot of soft drinks. Another study found antisocial tendencies among U.S. college students who consumed a lot of soda.

Nonprofit Rock the Vote is increasing its focus on mobile for the upcoming primary season and into the 2012 presidential election as a way to deliver important content to hard-to-reach consumers and drive ongoing engagement. 

Rock the Vote, which focuses on empowering the young in the political process, began using mobile in 2008 with the sole goal of building a mobile opt-in database. However, as mobile use as grown in the past four years, the organization is now ramping up its efforts and using mobile polling, at live events and to drive voter registration and turnout.

“We use mobile in all of the registration and election Get Out the Vote pushes that we do,” said Chrissy Faesen, vice president of marketing and communications at Rock the Vote, Washington.

“It is very core to our program strategies and is integrated throughout out all of our work,” she said.

Mobile drives turnouts

Rock the Vote focuses on young people 18 to 29 years old, with a heavy concentration on young Hispanics, African-Americans, women and those who are underrepresented in the larger political process.

“Our ability to reach them at times is tough but they all have mobile phones,” Ms. Faesen said.

“Mobile is an easy way to communicate with them,” she said. “We can send a text message with a link to an app where they can register to vote.”

The results are promising in terms of mobile’s ability to drive voter turnout.

“Mobile is crucial to our turnout campaigns,” Ms. Faesen said.

“We’ve done testing at primaries and we can actually see a 2-4 percent increase in turnouts on election days if we send a text the day before,” she said.

Rock the Vote is also tapping its mobile database for opinion polls.

The mobile opinion polls are a quick and easy way for Rock the Vote to generate content that can be used on its Web site and in its publications.

Starting in August, Rock The Vote worked with Mozes to power a coupon code campaign that gave its Facebook fans the chance to gain immediate access to Spotify without having to wait for an invite. The polling effort incorporated Mozes’ data capture abilities, asking participants to text their email address in order to receive their Spotify link and answer questions about issues, which were posted online.

“Rock the Vote is recognizing that if want to reach younger audiences, anything mobile is going to get a higher recognition,” said Dorrian Porter, CEO at Mozes.