Last week was one of great joy. Not only did my oldest son turn three (and my boys’ birthdays are more like a true Father’s Day in my opinion), but my cousin Mike, the oldest grandchild of the Nakamoto family (of which my grandmother had 14 children) was finally married. The week started with my son’s birthday and for a three year old’s birthday party, it was a blast. I played duck, duck, goose, tee-ball, in the sandbox, and had a water balloon fight in which I was the target. Out of a couple hundred balloons, I wasn’t touched once. I felt fleet of foot again for one day. It was like I was playing touch football in the sixth grade and I was Walter Payton. Of course, when you have kids and moms throwing water balloons at you, it’s not all that hard to dodge them. I did nail Eddy Zucko good though. He was trying to tie a balloon for one of the kids (maybe even my own son) and I tossed a nice one on his chest that exploded like a grenade. What a bastard I was. Oh, to be a young child again.

I didn’t have to work the entire week leading up to the 4th of July, but my wife did so I hung out with the kids and my sister came over and helped out as well. On Tuesday a bunch of us went to The New Century Cinemas in San Francisco for a small bachelor party for Mike. It’s obviously a strip club. What, you think we went to the movies or something? My cousin Tomiko who just came down with her family from Oregon asked me if her boyfriend could come with us. I think she had a decent idea where we were going. I hesitated a bit, because there’s a golden rule when you go out to strip clubs with your boys. Our golden rule was that “whatever happens at the Cinemas, stays at the Cinemas.” Now I didn’t know if he would understand that rule since we barely met the guy. But, he did, and oh did he have the best time. Let me tell you a little about this strip club. This is the type of strip club that ruins relationships. This is the type of strip club that has guys proposing to strippers. This is the kind of…, wait, my wife might be reading this. This is the kind of strip club where the girls don’t get naked and just wear school girl outfits and read us stories. Anyway, the best part of night had to be when… Whoops, I almost broke the golden rule. Well, I’ll give you one crumb. The DJ, who was just a young dude, got on stage before one of the strippers was going to dance and wanted to get the crowd fired up. He wanted us to scream louder than we had been. He was going to give the loudest guy, a free adult film on video cassette. My cousin Bruce, who is a big Japanese guy won the contest and was given his prize. The tape was called The Luckiest Fat Man in the World. Damn right he was.

The next night, all the girls decided to go out. Mike’s bride to be, Kim and the girls rode in a limo where they decided to drink, drink, and drink some more. Let’s just say that at the end of the night the bride to be was probably telling the toilet bowl how much she loved it. While the girls decided to have their night of fun, the guys decided to get together again. But this time, we were good. Everyone came over and played cards. You figure that a card game is pretty innocent, especially when this specific card game ended with everyone getting their money back. My uncle Gary, who lives in Tucson, Arizona and my uncle Joe are brothers. You look at the two of them and you’d never think they were brothers. They just don’t look alike. And personality wise, they’re different too. Anyway, the game being played was Acey Ducey. Basically two cards would be flipped over, and whoever’s turn it was, that person would bet a specific amount of money that the next card turned over, would be in between the two cards already on the table (a three of spades is in between a two and four of spades). The pots really get big in this type of game. And I didn’t even play in this game so I might even have the rules wrong. But, it doesn’t really matter. My uncle Gary was dealing the cards and it was Joe’s turn. Now to describe Joe is simple. He’s your average hustler. He’s a great bowler, card player, pool player, and probably plays a mean set of dominoes. And on this night, he was winning pretty big. Before Gary dealed the cards to Joe, Mike said that if this game wasn’t done by the time Carol (my wife) got home from the bachelorette party, everyone would go home with the same amount of money they came with. So Gary dealed the cards and it came to be the best hand Joe could ever get. It was like a two and a king. All Joe had to get with his next card flip was something in between those cards and he would win big. So obviously, he bet big. And low and behold, to the delight of most playing the game, he lost. I think he flipped an ace, which would be the only card that could’ve beat him. The table roared with laughter. They weren’t mean spirited, but it was funny that the man who was smiling his ass off and had his chips already counted, flaunting his luck, lost. Then Carol came home. At that time, everyone took their money, smiled one more time at Joe’s inability to hustle them, and went home.

The next day was the 4th of July and also Aunt Margie’s birthday party. As is usually the case, the Nakamoto’s get together at my Aunt Pat and Uncle Hank’s house. Let me take that back. This is no regular house. It’s a monster of a house. Huge backyard where you could probably fit an entire block of houses. Olympic sized swimming pool. Patio fit for a king. This 4th was special because almost everyone was there. The Romans from Oregon were there. Uncle Gary, Aunt Millie and granddaugther Amelia (who was Brian’s favorite playmate) were there. And on this day, G Funk N Blues performed for us. Before I tell you about G Funk N Blues, I want to let you know that these aren’t average parties. Family members actually put together skits to perform as an event. I remember being a little guy and break dancing with my older cousins and watching my mom sing Memories. My dad and cousin Mike performed a song for my grandmother on her birthday under their moniker of Rice and Beans (my dad’s Mexican and Mike’s Japanese). But the most memorable from a performance standpoint were when Davey and I went on stage as the Bad Boys. We rapped, lip synched, and danced our way into the hearts of millions. Okay, counting our friends and family, maybe about 50 people. But we were still in their hearts. Our last number was Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down. That Davey could mumble his butt off. He got stage fright and forgot the words. But hell, you can’t really understand Puff Daddy when he performs it either. Back to G Funk N Blues. My uncle Gary has been a harmonica freak for the past couple years. You can’t catch that guy without a harmonica in his pocket. He and my cousin Mike put together a session of guitar and harmonica and played a bunch of blues songs. My dad was even coaxed on stage by Aunt Margie (Bruce’s mom) to sing LaBamba with Gary and Mike playing the instrumental. They always make the Mexican guy sing the Spanish songs.

Friday was the wedding rehersal and dinner. The rehersal part went fine, with the exception of the sound guy being very untechnical. He couldn’t figure out how to check the sound correctly. He even played it out of the wrong channel as the CD that was made for the wedding was only playing the instrumentals. The guy was horrendous. But, other than that, it went fine. Pastor Greg Sumi was going to be marrying Mike and Kim and I hadn’t seen him in a long time. Mike couldn’t get married without him. The dinner was at my mom’s house. She made menudo and Mike’s mom, my Aunt Susie made other dishes. We had a toast for the soon to be bride and groom and we told stories about each of them. My dad told the story of how he first met Mike. He and my mom were dating at the time and he showed up to pick up my mom. Mike and Annette (Tomiko’s mom) were young and were playing with a soccer ball in the street. My dad had his leather jacket on and was thinking he was Mr. Cool Guy. But Mike and Annette weren’t buying it. So my dad decided to try and break the ice and decided to kick the ball with Mike. He did more than break the ice. He broke wind. As his leg went up to kick the ball, he let out a loud emission, and let’s just say, the ice was broken.

Finally, on Saturday, the wedding was here. As much as I was happy to see Mike and Kim married, it took me back to when I was in high school. Probably since I was the age of 16, Mike was really the guy I went to when I had questions about anything, whether it was life, girls, love, or Bruce Lee. He’s the biggest Bruce Lee fan ever, so I had to throw that in there. In a sense, he was a mentor. He told me stories about when he was my age, and in his stories, he was the coolest guy ever. To hear this man tell a story was legendary. He would say stuff like, “When I was 22, no wait, was I 22 or 23, or maybe I was 19. Yah I was 19. One day, a bunch of dudes decided to mess with me because I wasn’t the tallest or the biggest dude on the block. But after that day, they never messed with me anymore. The biggest and baddest dude came up to me and I gave him one shot. He took his one shot and missed and I threw a karate kick to his chest, he went down, and I jumped on top of him and he didn’t know what hit him. I was the motherfucker that day. Then I yelled at the others, ‘Does anyone else want to limp?’ Oh wait, that was Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours.” I never thought anyone could be so cool, but I went along. He partied, drank with the adults when he was 16, swept all the chicks off their feet, and damn near beat up everyone at his school defending himself and Shoa Lin Temple. Man, I was so uncool. But as I grew up, my experiences started to get closer and closer to his, and even though I rarely partied, never took a drink of alcohol, waited until 17 to start charming the chicks, and never really got into a fight, all his stories helped me understand what a weird stage of my life high school really was. At the end of the day, it was all about how you were as a person. He helped me get over relationships by being logical and making sure I wasn’t dumb in the head. So in reality, it wasn’t just my cousin who was getting married, it was one of my best friends, my mentor, one of the only people in my life, that I was sure would never steer me wrong. So when he asked me to be in his wedding several months ago, it was a supreme honor.

That day, everything went off without a hitch. They were both as nervous as could be. I don’t think I’d ever seen Bruce Lee sweat like that. Anytime Mike ever had nerves, he could go smoke a cigarette and it was done. But not this time. He was on stage. He and Kim were showstoppers. And when Pastor Greg Sumi told Mike to kiss his bride, it was over. And then in true fashion, Michael Jackson’s You Rock My World came out of the speakers and we hopped down the ailse in fashion.

When my cousin used to call me up, my dad would answer the phone and he would say that Michael was on the phone. I would say, “Michael who, Michael from Good Times (JJ’s little brother)?” These were good times,  and JJ might even say they were dynomite.

PS: The Adventures of Low Jones is coming.

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