＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
Many nicknames are easy to guess from the name, such as “Akko-san” for Wada Akiko and “Deko-chan” for Takamine Hideko, but there are also nicknames that you can’t know until you hear their origin.
１．Shoken
In March 2019, Hagiwara Kenichi, affectionately known as “Shoken,” passed away at the age of 68.
There used to be a trio of delinquents all named “Ken” who used to hang out at the Roppongi club “Tom’s.” The largest of them was nicknamed “Daiken,” followed by “Chuken,” and the smallest was “Shoken.” As he was the smallest of them all, he was nicknamed “Shoken,” which is how the nickname came about.
As the vocalist of The Tempters, he shared the popularity with Sawada Kenji of The Tigers. Even after entering the entertainment industry, he had a turbulent life with many scandals. He is 68 years old, one year younger than the baby boomer generation, so he seems still young to die, but recently we have been hearing more and more about the deaths of people his age.
２．Julie
Speaking of Sawada Kenji , the commotion he caused when he canceled his Saitama Super Arena concert in October 2018 is still fresh in our memory, but his nickname “Julie” is also a bit puzzling. Especially since “Julie” is a woman’s name.
The truth is, when she was making her debut as the vocalist for The Tigers, the president of Watanabe Productions “liked Julie Andrews,” so they said, “Okay, you go with Julie.”
By the way, speaking of Julie Andrews, she dubbed Audrey Hepburn’s songs in the movie “My Fair Lady” and also showed off her “beautiful four-octave voice” in “The Sound of Music,” which deeply moved me.
As an aside, Kishibe Ittoku, a band member of The Tigers, is now demonstrating his superb acting skills as a “dignified character actor with the vibe of a final boss whose thoughts are hard to read,” but he apparently went by the name “Sally” since his amateur days.
This was apparently taken from the famous Western song “Long Tall Sally” (the original was by Little Richard, and is known in Japan as a cover of the Beatles song) because he was 181 cm tall.
３．Hei-chan
On TV, Ohashi Kyosen would affectionately call Ishizaka Koji “Hei-chan, Hei-chan.” This is because his real name is Muto Heikichi , but it’s a rather wrinkled name that doesn’t really suit him.
Speaking of Ohashi Kyosen , he was a genius at coming up with nicknames, and he gave nicknames to each of the performers on the shows he hosted as MC, such as Quiz Derby.
Kurogane Hiroshi is the “traitorous raccoon,” Shinozawa Hideo is the “professor,”Hara Taira is the “alien,” Kent Gilbert is “Negilbert,” Chuck Wilson is “Kechak,” and so on.