Land of the rising...

Many of you will recognize this derriere belonging to Scarlet Johannsen. It was lovingly captured in the opening credits of Lost in Translation, which some may argue is a chick flick. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it.

The film chronicles the exploits of a man, played brilliantly by Bill Murray, on a business trip and the strange environment he finds himself in, complete with odd food, odd customs, and odd stocking fetishes.

In the past 20+ years in advertising I've worked on every one of the major Japanese auto companies accounts, Lexus, Nissan, Infiniti, Toyota, Honda and Acura. If memory serves, and often it doesn't, I've also worked on Suzuki, Mitsubishi and Daihatsu.

In all that time, I have never been invited to visit the factory or summoned to a business meeting on the other side of the pond, the big pond, the Pacific.

I'm told it's quite an adventure. After the umpteenth viewing of Lost in Translation with my wife, I expressed my desire to visit Japan. My wife, who can see through me like a sheet of single ply toilet paper, laughed and said, "You're just dreaming of running into your own Scarlet Johannsen and fantasizing about some fantastically impossible May/December type fling on the other side of the international dateline."

And then she added, with cutting accuracy, "I tell you what. If you find some lonely 24-year old American woman with breathtaking beauty and a body to match who wants to climb aboard the Rich Siegel train with its unwanted hair and excessive flatulence, well then by all means you should do more than give her a kiss and whisper something in her ear."

Ouch, I said, reeling from the 1-2 combination of sarcasm and insight.

But I got off the mat and brought her to my computer to show her the real, OK one of the real, reasons why I want to visit the island nation.

And make sure you watch the video past the 41 second mark.