Fit As a Fiddle

By Adam Brownstein – Tokyo, Japan – May 4, 2023

Having spent more than two decades in tech, I’ve recently been meditating on the notion of compounding variables. Classic among these is Moore’s Law (the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years). There is also, of course, the Power Law (a small % of firms capture a large % of industry returns). Presently, the ample and just focus around AI will yield, I am sure, some kind of compounding principle of generative AI and LLMs.

In my own family we also have pattern laws. Notable among these is my wife’s rule around compounding negative escalation. Put in approachable parlance it stipulates that just when you think something is really bad it can actually get far worse. A first principal example of this is that man buns are bad, and man buns sported by middle-aged men are worse. Middle-aged men with man buns riding skateboards up the ante even further. And so on and so on.

This kind of escalation mindset can be applied to most things in life. My wife does not appreciate it when I mansplain something. A simple comment she makes about an appealing biryani recipe will trigger me to launch into a condescending and boring history of Mughal influence in the Deccan.

Worse than mansplaining is, of course, dadsplaining. Mansplaining casts its dire effects on one victim at a time, while dadsplaining inflicts emotional damage on many innocent children. Recently over a Sunday breakfast of my famous waffles (for those readers interested in the provenance of waffles you can trace them back to18th century in Belgium, where it became a popular street food) my 9-year-old son asked me if I had worked at Sony. This triggered a long and unnecessary monologue about the first 25 years of Japan’s most celebrated brand save for Hello Kitty and Super Mario.

“Did you know that the very first Product Sony ever marketed was actually an electric RICE cooker in 1946???” I expounded.

“Wow dad. I did not KNOW that,” he quipped facetiously.

“Yes!” I retorted, sensing how engrossed my audience had become. “It was a very simple design, merely lacing aluminum electrodes which were connected to the bottom of a wooden tub. How cool is THAT?”

“So cool,” my 12-year-old daughter chimed in. “You know sooooo much, Dad. How did you become this smart and interesting???”

Suckling at the teat of my own narrative, I paid no mind to my daughter’s acerbic dig . And thus I continued with the dadsplaining.

“In 1955 Sony designed and marketed the first-of-its-kind transistor radio, the famed TR-55, released in 1955. If memory serves, it was the first radio to use transistors instead of vacuum tubes, which made it smaller and lighter than previous models.”

At this point I glanced up to find both children backing away from me into far more interesting affairs.

This episode made me consider the transistor radio in great depth. As the Puget Sound based futurist Brian Saab likes to say, “. . . old technologies never die; they simply find new use cases.” In the modern age the transistor radio is alive and well. It is mainly favored by men over 60 astride tiny BMX bikes made for 12-year-olds. They are usually pedaling said bikes in a serpentine manner in public parks and along boardwalks. Solitary in nature, they favor oversized concert t-shirts through much of the year. Sadly in summer, they often ride shirtless.

The Radio Pirates have ranks across the globe. As a student in Philadelphia, I would spy them along the banks of the Schuylkill River. During long runs on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago I would weave amongst them, the angry speak of AM radio pundits clear and plain and coming through fine on their Radio Shack B-7’s.

Tokyo, like any sprawling metropolis, has its fair share of Radio Pirates. I reckon this is due to over a quarter of Japanese being over the age of 60. Komazawa Park, a nearby treasure of cherry blossom groves, sporting fields and my favorite 2.1 kilometer running course has a few of these fellows. One biking buccaneer who I regularly spy fashions his hair like Lenny of Laverne & Shirley fame. It handsomely compliments his creased khakis and sparkling chrome Mongoose bike.

The Great Savanna of Africa has innumerable kinds of wildlife, and Komazawa Park has the same in the form of human beings. Beyond the lone-wolf Radio Pirates there are the Tai-Chi Stretchers, the slow walkers and the fast walkers. Not to be overlooked are the septuagenarians adorned in the latest ASICS walking trainers but never seem to move. There are the chatty yenta aunties, who commandeer benches on the playgrounds to gossip about the news of the world. The playgrounds often come along with a “kawaii” name. My three-year-old’s favorite is the Buta Koen (”Pig Park”), famed for its enormous slide in the shape of a pink porcine wonder.

Best of all, there are the tribes of runners that circle the park day and night. Mid mornings on Saturday you can catch a wispy glimpse of the Komazawa University Cross Country Team (6 minute miles aka “Apfelberg/Schilling” Velocity). Wednesdays at 5:30 AM I cross paths with a group of pink-shirted harriers, the words “Early & Happy” strewn in sky blue sans serif across their ruddy bibs.

The apex predators of running are a gaggle of cheerful 80-somethings who gather on weekday mornings for a gentle lap around Komazawa Park. Just before the daily “rajio taiso” (a 10-minute series of stretches and calisthenics on NHK Radio from 6:30 AM to 6:40 AM, the Apex Group counts out 100 calf raises. I endeavored to join them recently and almost gave up somewhere in the mid-seventies.

I tried to place why I appreciated the Apex Group so much, and then I came to it. My dad turned 79-years-young this Spring. At each tick of the sundial he celebrates by doing the number of push-ups of his age. Like many Baby Boomers, my dad enjoys capturing his accomplishment on video and filling the inboxes of family and friends with his Herculean feat of strength. In 2021 his original Vimeo fell into mischievous hands, resulting in a TikTok meme set to the tune of “Strong Grandpa” (spoofed off of Shy Ronnie by Rihanna and our very own Andy Samberg).

It makes me happy that my dad does push-ups and goes for walks with my stepmom. It makes me happy that my stepmom is wedded to her yoga practice. I love that my favorite auntie and uncle power walk through their little slice of Tampa. And I’m thankful that my in-laws make their way around Komazawa Park, too. My mother-in-law ticks along at a 16-minute/mile walking pace, and my father-in-law jogs at a 17-minute/mile pace. Weird, I know, but generally true.

My hats off to all of them. As they grow older and wiser, they stay fit as a fiddle.