For those who want to review, who couldn’t hear us clearly, or can’t listen when they want to for any reason, here’s a transcript of the Inaugural edition of Seijigiri.

D = Garrett De Orio

W = Ken Worsley

(Intro music)

D: From Trans-Pacific Radio in Tokyo, this is the inaugural edition of Seijigiri. I’m Garrett De Orio and with me is your co-host Ken Worsley. In today’s show, we’re going to give you a primer on current Japanese politics - the major players, their parties and factions, the places that matter, and, of course, we’ll try to put it all together. First, though, a brief explanation of Seijigiri and what we aim to do in this podcast. Ken?

W: While today’s show is a primer to get things going, Seijigiri, which means, loosely, “cut politics,” will be a regular podcast focused on the news, politics, and current events of Northeast Asia, with an emphasis on Japan. We’re doing this because we think it fills a gap in the mainstream coverage of the region. We hope Seijigiri will make the events of Japan and the region more accessible and will provide the English-speaking audience with more depth and different analyses than they’re likely to get from the usual sources, certainly from other podcasts or radio shows. From time to time, we’ll also put out some special features to explain or discuss certain issues in greater depth, give you more historical background, or discuss issues that fall outside the normal purview of the regular podcast.

D: Today’s primer as a case in point. In future podcasts, we’ll have guest panelists on for discussion and debate and give our own thoughts and opinions to flesh out the headlines. What we’re not going to do is podcast a litany of the weird events and facets of Japan or East Asia. No talk of cute robots, anime, or adult videos featuring schoolgirls here - there’s enough of that in other places, like. . . under Ken’s bed. If you’re interested in what’s going on in the region and how it fits in with what’s going on in the rest of the world, or if you’re interested in politics or international affairs in general, then this is the show for you.

W: OK. That’s Seijigiri in a nutshell. Before we get started, we’d like to thank you for listening and hope you enjoy the show.

Now, without further ado. . .

D: The Japanese government.

The first thing you need to know is that Japan’s government is parliamentary. The parliament is called the Diet, the upper, less powerful chamber, somewhat like an elected version of the UK’s House of Lords, is called the House of Councillors. The lower, more powerful chamber is called the House of Representatives. Most of the big legislative events and most of the people we’re going to talk about today are in the House of Representatives.

I think a good place to start here would be with the current Prime Minister, Koizumi Junichiro. He’s been Prime Minister since April 2001, which makes him the longest-serving post-War Prime Minister in Japan. He’s a member of the very powerful Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, which has run Japan pretty much entirely since its inception in 1955. (Right.) However, he’s to step down as Prime Minister in September because of internal party rules that determine how long someone can be president of the LDP.

W: And according to those internal LDP party rules, one may serve as the president for two successive three-year terms. Those rules were amended in 2002. Previously, you could serve two consecutive two-year terms. This, of course, is the reason why Koizumi’s the longest-serving post-War Prime Minister.

D: Thank you, Ken.

Now, Koizumi comes from a political family, which you’ll notice is a trend amongst powerful Japanese politicians. His father, Junya, was the director-general of the Japan Defense Agency and his grandfather was the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, which, in a bit of foreshadowing, Matajiro Koizumi was an early proponent of postal privatization. This, of course, was the issue that led to last year’s snap elections and the LDP’s subsequent surprising success.

While controversial for many reasons, including his visits to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Koizumi the reformer has had a few key legislative victories, not least of which was his long-sought postal reform or privatization. He pushed this over the opposition of many entrenched LDP members and was forced carry through on his threat to dissolve the lower house when the upper house blocked the reform bill. To the amazement, even of Koizumi himself, the LDP routed its main rival, the Democratic Party of Japan, or DPJ, in an election widely viewed as a referendum on postal privatization.

W: Prior to that election, Garrett, a lot of people felt that the DPJ was in a strong position to challenge the LDP. Why do you think the DPJ essentially fell apart and lost so many seats to the LDP?

D: Well. . . I don’t know that it’s the DPJ falling apart so much as the LDP just doing a master, masterful bit of politics there. I think that, um. . . Koizumi framed the issue, which the DPJ also supported, in such a way that there was no way for them to oppose him.

W: I see, I see.

D: Now, despite such success, due to LDP rules, as Ken mentioned before, Koizumi, the Lionheart, the maverick, will have to step down as president of the Party. This means that he can’t continue, of course, to be the Prime Minister.

Now, most Prime Ministers have named their own successors, but Koizumi has allowed, more or less, true Party elections. Since Koizumi’s former Cabinet Secretary, the elder statesman, Fukuda Yasuo, decided back in July not to run, the field has been narrowed to three real contenders: Aso Taro, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tanigaki Sadakazu, the current Finance Minister, and Abe Shinzo, the current Cabinet Secretary.

W: I’d like to mention quickly that we are using names here in the Japanese order, with the familt name first. At times you might hear us read names in the Western order with the given name first and then the family name, but. . .

D: Right. Hopefully, you’ll be able to follow that Koizumi Junichiro and Junichiro Koizumi are the same person, and, in most cases, just as would talking about politics anywhere else, we’ll use only surnames, family names.

W: Sure.

D: Should anyone other than Abe win this election, even the winner will be shocked, I’m sure. Um, Abe is very clearly the front-runner, so we’ll look at him next.

Abe Shinzo, like Koizumi, is also from a prominent political family. His father, Shintaro, was the popular Secretary General of the LDP and long represented the first district of Yamaguchi prefecture, which Abe Shinzo has represented since 1993.

Abe, while not hand-selected by Koizumi, is more similar to him than the other candidates are. Not least for saying that he intends to visit Yasukuni, which means that he’s unlikely to see any kind of conciliatory move as a way of improving ties with China or South Korea. Like Koizumi, he’s also on the side of those who’d like to see an amendment to the pacifist Article 9 of the Constitution, which is probably the article best-known outside of Japan, which states that Japan forever renounces war as a means of settling disputes.

W: And, as we’ll see soon, the LDP is now in a position where it can push through constitutional reforms and constitutional amendments.

D: Right, and is quite likely to. They definitely have the power to do it now.

He would like to see Japan take a more active role in world affairs and this could include an expansion of such things, as we’ve seen, as Japan sending the Ground SDF, basically the infantry, to Iraq.

We’ve mentioned the LDP a lot, so let’s take a look at some of the major parties that are involved here and see who else is there, even though the LDP is definitely the dominant force. Ken?

W: Well, let’s start by taking a look at Japan’s four major political parties. Of these four, as we’ve mentioned, the Liberal Democratic Party, or “LDP” for short, is the largest and, by far, the most powerful. In Japanese, it’s known as the Jiyuminshutou, or simply Jimintou. Formed in 1955 as a merger between the conservative Liberal and Japan Democratic Parties, the Liberal Democratic Party, contrary to what its name might suggest, is Japan’s most conservative major party. It is also Japan’s largest political party and has ruled the land continuously, with almost no interruption, since 1955.

D: Right, and it’s worth pointing out here that, unlike most Western countries, Japan, in terms of mainstream politics, is a lot more conservative than most other developed countries and even moreso than their own electorate. Wouldn’t you say so, Ken?

W: I would. I would agree. Yeah, certainly, certainly.

In terms of ideology, the LDP does not espouse any clear, defined ideoogy, although in recent years it has generally championed the privatization of Japanese industry. The party, however, is not without internal opposition to this cause. Most recently, LDP party president and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pushed through his postal reforms in late 2005 despite substantial opposition from many party members.

Koizumi stuck to his guns over this issue and when the postal reform bill failed to pass in the upper house, Koizumi dissolved the more powerful lower house and called a general election, the snap election. The LDP won this election by a landslide and, along with its coalition partner, the New Komeito, gained a two-thirds majority in the lower house, which now allows the LDP to pass legislation in the lower house without the consent of the upper house.

D: Right, and it’s worth pointing out here that they were so successful that they increased their majority even though New Komeito, their coalition partner, lost seats. This also kind of gave the lie to the party that Ken’s going to talk about next, the DPJ’s popularity in cities, especially in Tokyo, where they lost pretty convincingly.

W: Hm, yeah, that’s true.

We should also mention that that two-thirds majority not only allows the passage of legislation, but will also allow the government to approve constitutional amendments, which also have to be voted on in a referendum.

D: This allows them to go, to push things past the House of Councillors as well, which would normally have a party. . . a, a power, which would normally have a power,. . .

W: (To block. . .)
D: . . . somewhat like the Senate in the US or the House of Lords in the UK, to block this.

W: Right. Right, exactly.

Getting to the DPJ, the Democratic Party of Japan. Former LDP member Ichiro Ozawa now serves as the president of the Democratic Part of Japan. He’s the third president in recent memory. They’re known as the Minshutou in Japanese. In recent years, the DPJ has been the main and, in reality, only opposition to the LDP. The Democratic Party itself was formed in 1998 by a merger of four previously independent parties. They were the former Democratic Party of Japan, the Good Governance Party, the New Fraternity Party, and the Democratic Reform Party. Although each of these parties generally held liberal or social democratic stances, in 2003 the DPJ merged with the center-right Liberal Party.

You’ll see that often the names of parties in Japan don’t actually have much bearing on their politics.

But this Liberal Party, this small party, was headed by current DPJ president Ichiro Ozawa. After this merger, again in 2003, the new DPJ won 178 seats in the Fall 2003 elections. This was a strong display of the Party’s power and, perhaps, the public’s growing displeasure with the ruling LDP. Naoto Kan, the DPJ’s president at the time, predicted that the result would create, quote, “A two-party system that will enable changes of government to take place.”

D: This is difficult considering that the DPJ, which should be the more liberal party, as we think of liberal, has had a hard time being pro-business and coming out against the reforms that Koizumi wants, so they haven’t been able to take a truly oppositional stance.

W: True, Koizumi has corenered them, essentially, I think.

D: Right.

W: Getting back to Naoto Kan, the former president of the DPJ. As we just said, in 2003 he spoke of the two-party system that would enable changes of government. Well, Kan spoke too soon.

Soon after that election, Kan himself was involved in a scandal that saw many lawmakers not making their obligatory pension system payments and he was forced to resign.

New party president Katsuya Okada led the DPJ into the 2005 snap elections only to be trounced and resign soon afterwards.

D: Now, at the same time that Kan got in trouble over the pension things, the DPJ also lost a lot of credibility because of what would seem to be more petty scandals, such as not actually going to UCLA and things like that.
W: This is true, true: falsified resumes. . .

D: So, do you think, Ken, that that, uh, that hurt their standing in the public. . . (unintelligible)?

W: Well, I do, uh, obviously it affects the public trust when, um, you have lawmakers who claim they graduated from Pepperdine and, um, y’know, maybe took one class there. . .

D: And Pepperdine was the third choice, right?

W: Yeah.

D: First he said UCLA, which he had never attended, then he said he made a mistake and meant CULA, which he’d also never attended. . .

W: You can fired from, um, McDonald’s for lying on your resume. I don’t see why a politician should not have their feet held to the fire.

D: Although, it’s worth pointing out that Koizumi claims to have been a student of the University of London, right?

W: Yeah, this is true, London School of Economics.

D: London School of Economics.

W: Right.

D: And how many classes did he attend there and how much English does he actually speak for that matter?

W: Good point.

D: It’s unlikely that he was actually a London College of Economics student.

W: (Laughs.)

D: At least in any serious way.

W: Yeah. Well, when he comes on, we’ll ask him.

D: Right.

W: We’ll be the ones to put his feet to the fire over that, I’m sure.

D: We’ll have him on the show we have George Bush and Kim Jong Il.

W: All at the same time?

D: Right.

W: Oh, for the video. . .

D: The Battle Royal episode.

W: The Battle Royal. We’ll have that.

Another thing about the DPJ that’s worth noting is that they count among their Diet members several individuals of non-Japanese heritage, including Finnish-born Marutei Tsurunen.

The Party counts on blue-collar workers and the liberal middle class for much of its support. The media frequently alludes to the DPJ’s growing popularity amongst women and urban voters, although evidence of this is anecdotal at best.

D: Right. Um, as we mentioned before, their support is definitely not among women and urban voters now, considering that they lost pretty much every seat they had in Tokyo.

W: Part of that, the media, as I recall in 2004 - 2005 pumped up Okada as this kind of, the kind of guy that urban women like, that he could bring them to the polls.

D: Right. They were really in love with this image of Okada as the kind of handsome, slick, Western-style politician. . .

W: Right, right.

D: . . . which is not a very influential figure in Japan.

W: No, this is true. (Laughs.) So, as we head into the 2006 elections, which are only a few weeks off at this point, the question remains: Can the DPJ get back on its feet, back into the groove, and pick up some seats in the Diet? Or will hopes for a two-party system in Japan continue to erode?

D:　Now, Ken, you mentioned before the LDP’s coalition partner, the New Komeito.

W: Right.

D: The Clean Government Party?

W: (The Clean Government Party.)

D: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about them?

W: Sure. Yeah, the New Komeito is the LDP’s coalition partner in the Diet. The Party itself was formed in 1998, same year that the DPJ was founded, through a merger of the Komeito and the New Peace Party. The Party shares much of its support base, such as white-collar bureaucrats and rural voters, with the LDP, but also enjoys support from religious leaders and groups.

D: Why is that?

W: Well, the New Komeito is well-known for following a conservative, Buddhist-influenced ideology. Much of the grass roots support work for the Party is done by the Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai, which some of you may have heard of.

For those interested in further investigating the links between these two groups, our website, transpacificradio.com, will have links and suggestions for continued reading.

D: It makes some pretty interesting reading.

W: It does, yeah, it does.

In the 2003 - 2004 elections the New Komeito enjoyed successful results and, thanks to its coalition with the LDP, it’s now a major player on the Japanese political scene. I think as Garrett mentioned before, though, in 2005 the New Komeito actually did lose seats in the Diet.

Well, the final major political party in Japan is the Social Democratic Party, known as the Shakaiminshutou, or simply Shamintou, in Japanese. Until 1991, it was known as the Japan Socialist Party. The Party labels itself as a social democratic party and is currently led by Party president Mizuho Fukushima, the only female to head up one of Japan’s major political parties. Although the Party held a majority in 1947 and considerable sway until the mid-1990s, the rise of the Democratic Party of Japan and the New Komeito have left the SDP behind.

D: Now, this is the same party that was the only one to wrest power away from the LDP at any time since the LDP was founded, right?

W: Right, this is in the ’90s.

D: 1993 and ‘94?

W: Yeah, right, exactly.

D: I think it’s safe to say that that was the apex of their power and influence.

W: The apex of their, say, post-Cold War power and influence, certainly.

D: Or post-1955 power and influence, perhaps.
W: (Sure.) Yeah, I would agree with that.

Currently, the Social Democratic Party has seven members serving in the Diet, which is actually up from what it was a few years ago. In terms of public image, the SDP has suffered greatly due to its ongoing support, vocal support, of North Korea. The upcoming Fall elections could very well sound a death knell for this continually shrinking party.

D: Right. It’s not hard to imagine how dangerous and stupid that is for a major political party. As much as. . .
W: Vocally support North Korea. Um, yeah. . .

D: For those of you who are not in Japan listening, you’re probably in another, English-speaking country. Think of what vocal support among a major political party for North Korea would be at home, multiply that by a couple thousand, and that’s what you have in Japan. I mean. . .

W: Yeah.

D: North Korea is. . .

W: Political suicide, essentially.

D: (Right.) Well, it’s a byword for all that is evil and unsavory.

W: This is true.

Those are the four major political parties in Japan. In addition, there are several smaller parties that exist and even have a member or two serving in the Diet. Many of these are splinter parties and several were formed in the wake of Prime Minister Koizumi’s dissolution of the lower house in 2005. Of these minor parties, the good old Japanese Communist Party, or Nihon Kyousantou, has the largest representation in the Diet, with nine members currently serving. As one might imagine, the JCP stands for the abolition of Capitalism and the establishment of a society based on Socialism and peace. Somewhat contrary to its name, however, the Japanese Communist Party believes that Democracy should continue to be the main form of governmental dialogue in Japan.

It’s worth noting that the Japanese Communist Party counts 400,000 members in its ranks, as opposed to the Communist Party of the United States, which boasts an enrollment of 15,000.

D: Right, it’s also worth pointing out that many of the members of the Japanese Communist Party are occasionally. . . not high.

W: This is true. Right, not U-Mass, Amherst students.

D: Right.

W: Right. Um, the Japanese Communist Party does tend to be quite popular in local elections, though. Um, despite the fact that they’re not well-represented in the Diet, they do tend to be well-represented on the local level, in local assemblies.

D: Right and despite the fact that the LDP is quite a conservative party, this really isn’t as big a jump as it might seem. The LDP has held power for decades through an elaborate and extensive system of patronage, especially of relatively powerful rural districts.

W: Certainly.

D: So it’s the road construction, the building the bridge, the building the dam. . .

W: Farm subsidies.

D: Right. All these things have kept the LDP very popular outside of the cities and, until quite recently, um, they were all single-member districts. . .

W: (Mh-hm.)

D: . . . which helped the LDP win a lot of elections.

W: It did, it did. OK, so the People’s New Party, the New Party Nippon, and the New Party Daichi were each formed as LDP splinter parties in 2005. At this time, the People’s New Party has two members serving in the Diet, while the others each have one.

D: Right. All of these parties were formed by the so-called “renegades” of the LDP, right?

W: Right, those who rejected the postal reform.

D: Right. I don’t think we mentioned before that when Koizumi called the snap elections in August of 2005, and then the elections themselves were in September, he recruited so-called “assassins” to run against renegades.

W: (Exactly.) Those lower house members who voted against the postal reform did so fully well-aware that the LDP would not support them in the event that a snap election would be called.

D: Right, well he explicitly said they wouldn’t receive any support.

W: (Right, right.)

D: And a lot of them did, when they did the reballoting after the House of Concillors rejected the bill, um, a lot of them did switch their votes, which shows you where their. . ., how strong their backbones are.

W: Right.

D: Now, a lot of the assassins that Koizumi ran did win, the most high-profile of these cases, however, was Horiemon.

W: Right. Who ran against Kamei (in Hiroshima. . . and lost.)
D: Who ran against Kamei in Hiroshima and. . . lost. And then, Kamei is quite a powerful figure in the LDP.

W: He is.

D: And, while this is speculation, perhaps conspiracy theory, investiagations for illegal things that Horie had done. . . quickly followed and Horie is now sitting in prison. Have to wonder. . .

W: Y-you. Don’t put two and two together.

D: Right.

W: Right. Well, finally, uh, we, uh, the last party to talk about is the Liberal League, which is Japan’s answer to the Liberatarian Party.

D: Except without the NRA.

W: Without the NRA.

In 2005, the Liberal League’s only sitting lower house member declined to run for reelection, leaving the Liberal League with just a single member sitting in the Diet.

And that’s all for our look at Japan’s political parties. Now, we’ll turn back over to Garrett De Orio.

D: OK, we’re running a little bit long here, so the last thing we need to mention to make our subsequent podcasts make a little more sense is who exactly is in the Cabinet right now.

Now, we’ve mentioned Koizumi Junichiro, the current Prime Minister, and we’ve mentioned Abe Shinzo, who’s the current Cabinet Secretary. We’ve also mentioned Yasuo Fukuda, who is the previous Cabinet Secretary and is really an elder statesman type of guy. He, um. . . Had he decided to run in the party elections, he could have given Abe a run for his money and really no one else could have.

W: Well, Garrett, one second, I think this is an important thing worth noting. Had Fukuda decided to run against Abe, Fukuda quite vocally has said that there’s no way he’s going to visit the Yasukuni Shrine and, given the timing of North Korea’s missile launch and whatnot and the kind of rise of patriotic feelings, it seems that Abe has the public support there.

D: Right, that’s definitely an issue. Um, Japan has the pacifist Article 9 in the Constitution and really hasn’t been deeply involved in an actual hands-on way in a lot of foreign affairs - at least nothing that would require any kind of military presence. Sending troops to Southern Iraq was the first time they had sent the Self-Defense Forces overseas since the end of World War II, which is really saying something, especially given the economic clout and weight that the country has.

Now, there has been a rise in nationalism and Koizumi is somewhat more nationalistic than LDP predecessors, who were somewhat more conservative, have been and, yes, Fukuda did say that he didn’t want to visit Yasukuni if he became Prime Minister, he’s been part of a group of people who have supported, um, creating a separate secular shrine. The, uh, well, the controversy over Yasukuni deals with it being a shrine to basically honor war dead, um, starting from back in the middle of the nineteenth century and the Bonin War, continuing through World War II, and the most recent enshrinement in 1978 and ‘79, was it?

W: ‘78.

D: . . . Included enshrining the fourteen Class A war criminals, including guys such as Tojo Hideki. Um, from this point on, we learned recently, even the Showa Emperor, better known as Emperor Hirohito to English-speakers, did not visit the Shrine, which ostensibly for people who died in service to him. That’s, that’s really saying something. So, this is really a divisive issue and it really might have played a part in Fukuda thinking he could save some kind of face or it would be better for him to step down; that he might not have been able to beat the more nationalistic Abe.

W: I don’t think he wanted to bring Yasukuni to a referendum. . .
D: (Right, right.)

W: . . . essentially.

D: While it’s unclear which way the Japanese public would go on this, creating a separate shrine. . .

W: Well, recent opinion polls show them at about 55 to 56 percent in support of Yasukuni visits.

D: Right. And I think a lot of this has to do with fear over North Korea launching missiles and a general realization that Japan really isn’t doing what it could - I’m not saying what it should - but what it could be doing in terms of using its weight in international affairs.

W: Do you think that, um, Abe’s recent activities in the United Nations following the North Korea launch show this new weight that Japan might be able to throw around?

D: I. . . I think so. I think that, uh, that’s the stance Abe was trying to take and I think that a lot of that was political, to help him shore up his position in the party elections.

W: Sure, it was a lot of posturing.

D: But I also think it’s to be noted that that resolution was rather quietly dropped.

W: It was.

D: So, um. . . Moving on with the people in the, in the Party Cabinet. Um, other big players that you might hear mentioned or that definitely play a big role are the Minister of Internal Affairs, Heizo Takenaka, Aso Taro, who is also running for the LDP presidency, although. . .

W: And from time to time we will, um, bring out some of Mr. Aso’s quotes, which are highly amusing.

D: Highly amusing, yes. He is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, so he, he will appear a lot in things we’re talking about, especially because, um, rivalries with China and Korea are really an important issue, even in domestic politics, and I think part of the rising nationalism, although it’s not extreme, I don’t want to make this sound like there are people running down the streets waving flags and stuff. . .

W: There were about three days ago in this neighborhood.

D: Right. (Laughs.)

W: Well, they were in trucks, black trucks.

D: But even so, I mean you’re not going to pull into a used car lot and see, and see the Hinomaru, the Japanese flag, as you would in the States, where it’s everywhere. It’s almost odd if you don’t have have. . .

W: The Hinomaru is everyhwere in the States?

D: No, no, the American flag.

W: Oh, OK.

D: Where it’s almost odd if you don’t have an American flag and. . .

W: You’re a Communist.

D: Well, yes, yes. Well, I like to think I’m a reformed Communist. I’m a Communist who’s for having no taxes.

W: I see. You listen to the instrumental versions of Bob Dylan’s records.

D: Well, yeah, and I, uh, I hum the “Internationale.”

W: There you go. OK. I see.

D: Anyway, yes, Aso Taro is a definite prominent figure and the rise of China and Japan’s worry about losing its position in the region is definitely a major factor in, in a lot of issues.

OK, that’s about all we have time for today. We don’t want to make this run so long that nobody listens to it, so. . .

W: Good point, even ourselves.

D: Right. (Laughs.) So, um, there are issues we would’ve like to have covered. Important places, a little bit more about Yasukuni, but, this being the summer of 2006, with the elections coming up, you’ll be hearing a lot in our regular podcasts about the elections, about Yasukuni, and other related issues.

W: This is true. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of updates to come, a lot of new things to happen, and we’ll be back with the election results soon.
D: That’s right. So, once again, I’m Garrett De Orio.

W: I’m Ken Worsley.

(Music.)

D: You’re listening to Seijigiri on Trans-Pacific Radio.

W: Thank you for listening.

D: Thank you for listening.

For more information, please visit our site at transpacificradio.com.

____________________

Well, there you have it - a full, complete, verbatim transcript of the Inaugural edition of Seijigiri. Print it out, send it to us, and, if you include postage, we’ll sign it and put coffee rings and cigarette ash marks on it, so it’ll be worth a fortune when you’re older.

By the way, if you’ve read this transcript because you’re hearing impaired or because you’re studying English. . . or because you’re studying Japanese politics, for that matter, let us know. Drop us a line at transpacificradio@gmail.com or leave a post on this site.

Thanks. We consider you one of our best friends. We’re not just saying that either. We’re not even the slightest bit inebriated. We just like you that much because you’re clearly a person of impeccable taste. The fact that you’re so good-looking doesn’t hurt, but we here at TPR like you for you.

Seriously.

- Garrett De Orio