Back in high school, my best friend Mike and I were riding in my oh-so-cool blue 1978 GT Toyota Celica, most likely with Phil Collins music blaring in the background (because that’s pretty much what we always listened to in those days – if not Peter Gabriel, Bryan Adams, or anything from my “Miami Vice” soundtrack).  I don’t remember the exact context of the conversation, but most likely as a wanna-be-filmmaker I had been dreaming up another idea for one of our many VHS camera recorded mini-film adventures, when I proposed,

“And then one of the Japs comes flying down with his plane…”

Mike suddenly turned to me with that wry half-grin of his and said, “Japs?”

“What?” I responded, clueless at what he was getting at.

“Japs, Steve?  Really?”

You see, a little background here: Mike was (or I guess still technically is) half-Japanese – his mother, an immigrant from Japan after marrying Mike’s American military dad.  If anything, Mike somewhat more favors the Japanese side in terms of looks.

But to me, Mike was just…Mike.  My best friend. Continue reading