Brad Warner & Hardcore Zen

[mgkeller]

One of the coolest things about events like the Asian Film Festival of Dallas (which I'm right in the middle of as I write this) are the interesting characters you meet and the cool information they impart to you. For the past few days I've become somewhat aquainted with independent filmmaker Marc Rosenbush (whose film Zen Noir we're currently showing) and he told me about his friend, Brad Warner. Brad spent the early 80s in Akron, Ohio, and achieved a moderate amount of fame fronting the punk rock bands Zero Defex and Dementia 13. After rocking it out for a few years, he moved to Japan and got a job with Tsuburaya. He started out helping with their english translation department, but eventually he would actually end up in some of their shows as a "token american" and even got to wear a monster suit at least once! If all this wasn't enough, he has since gone on to become an ordained zen master, and still keeps his job at Tsuburaya. He's written a book called which details his experiences, and Marc said that he's interested in making a documentary about Brad. Sounds like something I (and probably a few of you) definitely need to investigate more.
is Brad's website.

[August]