Category: Japan Living

December 5, 2016

Dear Virtual Diary

Location: Singh’s Kitchen (Nipponbashi Area)

I exit the subway and come up to the area of Nipponbashi. The bustling crowd buzzing with the electricity of Osaka-Life on a Saturday, and I become utterly lost amongst its magnificence. After traversing the streets, sometimes in circles, I finally find Singh’s Kitchen, a small Indian restaurant. I am confused though, “I am supposed to be performing here?”, I ponder. I hear someone say “Do—way—n-san” behind me, it’s Ken and he is carrying a large carrying case, probably for his DJ equipment. We exchange pleasantries before he leads me to a narrow hall behind the Indian restaurant. He opens the door and I step into what seems to be a small little venue for live events. The venue reminds me of some of the ones down around Queen and Bathurst in Toronto.

We set up and then go have dinner…I had the butter chicken. It was really good.

By 10pm people start to showing up. The music is loud, the alcohol is flowing, the guys are drunk, the girls are dressed for a fashion show and I sit quiet and anxiously anticipate my set time. Ken kept saying that I was way too serious. Which led to him feeding me drinks and me becoming so drunk that I began to worry if I’d remember my lines or not.

There were a bunch of other really good sets before me. One group, totally forgot their names, but there was a DJ, bass player and a vocalist. The DJ would play a drum loop and the bass player would play accordingly to it. Then the DJ would scratch the record while the bass player played off the flow of the tuen. Never seen anything like it before and they were really vibing out.

It seems my earlier concern for forgetting the lyrics were not needed as the alcohol truly assisted in a pretty good performance. For me, performing is an euphoric sensation, very similar to any hard drug. The moment you are done you can’t help but think “when’s the next time?”. I felt light throughout my entire set; This probably due to the alcohol. It was as if I was going to just lift off and float to the ceiling. I remember every minute and thanks to a couple friends taking videos I was able to see most of the performance and I am happy with how it all turned out.

Osaka is probably the lightest place in all of Japan.

“I remember late nights both of us chilling

You climbing over ceilings

Paving the way for your children

I just want you to be happy

Never knew you happy would mean my life would reside and lay in such a tragedy”

Dear Virtual Diary,

Love is something I have been able to witness and learn a lot more about in Japan.  Up until now love to me has been defined by my previous surroundings. It is the end result to a concoction of my influences, be it my friends, family as well as the overbearing construct of the socially normative.  But all of these things together provide the foundation for my personal idea of love. Consequently, I have brought that 31-year old fortified construct, that serves as my foundation for understanding Love, with me to Japan, where the wrecking ball that is Japanese culture often collides with it and shakes it to its core.

Even though I prescribe to many of these social norms, created in of my habitat, I must admit that I don’t see these bonds as unbreakable. In fact, I am always looking to tear down my current construct in hopes of building myself new ones.
“I thought you knew, only thing better than good is NEW”

My challenge was always tearing down and re-building these constructs, in the same habitat. It kind of seems redundant after a while.
“Why tear down a house just to rebuild it on the same block?”

If you could build a house really well and then live in it until you die, is that better than building a new house every few years?…Building a house once and stopping completely may cause your skills to atrophy and when you finally go to build a house again it may end up collapsing on you.

During a recent dinner with some friends the topic of different methods of marriage proposals came up. That is when I learned that one of the man had walked from Hiroshima to Kurahashi Island (46 kms) to profess his love for his now wife.

I should mention, when using public transport this trip usually takes around two hours. I think I remember him saying it took him the whole day and he left Hiroshima at 4:30am and arrived in the early evening. I couldn’t believe it and was slightly jealous of him. I don’t think I have met any woman that pulls those types emotions out of me. But after listening to his story having feelings like that for someone has got to be pretty euphoric.

Also I am pretty confident if I did that for any of my past loves or future loves they’d think me to be psychotic. That may just be North American’s understanding of love I guess.

But I don’t think this man is crazy. To me, didn’t he put his money where his mouth is and really display his dedication for his wife? Before enter into marriage there was a serious commitment displayed. I mean the logic is there.

Back home I feel like that display of love would be seen as weak and regrettable.

But with me building new walls, this seems like a vital source and ingredient for mixing the cement for foundation.

“Something about leaving your surroundings

Going to a place where duplicates are never found in

No more water cooler talks and paper to push

Just bamboo stocks and poetry books”

Dear Virtual Diary,

On December 3^rd I will be performing for my 3^rd time in Japan. I have a show lined up in Osaka. I skyped with a good friend of mine and partner in crime to this music stuff, and we were able to curate a solid 20-minute set. The set this time around, compared to my set last year, is more mellow and relaxed.

My first couple performances in Japan were a blur. All I remember is wanting to jam pack my set with as many songs as possible. I think I performed around 12 songs last time. This time I am only performing 8 and I have about the same amount of stage time as last year.

The set encompassed many songs that were cut in half.  For example, with some songs I only performed a verse and a chorus or sometimes just a verse. This way I was able to perform more songs.

My new set has less songs, but I will perform the entirety of them.

Check out the set below:

Rap is Like Sports

Weak

Like So

Regardless

Annicha

Tadaima

Dear Karma

I Love Black People 

My main goal is to enjoy every minute of my performance. The first time around I was much more nervous but I don’t seem to be this time. I think more than anything this set list is going to be something that I will enjoy performing.

In both of my crowds collectively, from my two shows last year, there was only one man who could understand/speak English, but from the response the crowds showed me you’d think everyone could comprehend what I was saying. Music truly, and money, is a universal language. To me, it wasn’t my lyrics, but my emotion that was conveyed to them. I was shocked and surprised after my first show and consequently I am looking forward to this one.

Music the one true conduit for sending emotions to complete strangers. Or something along those lines I guess….