Not By the Hair on my Chinny Chin Chin

About 5 years ago, when I was living in Japan, I decided I would let my hair grow out to about shoulder length. I thought it would be good to have a change. Plus, it just seemed like a part of the island lifestyle. It was a bit of a slow process getting it long enough. There were several phases involved: 1.) time for a haircut phase, 2.) awkward, goofy looking phase, 3.) your hair’s getting long phase, and 4.) comfortable with my long hair phase. Phase 2 is the toughest and, unfortunately, longest phase. Anyway, after 5 years, I decided that it was once again time for a change. Enjoy the photos.

                Before                                                After

The Difference

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Sassified Sushi Singer

The Rocky Mountain JET Alumni Association (RMJETAA), which I am involved with, had its annual Sing Into Spring event last night. The event gives people, including former and future JETs and friends of JETs, a chance to sample the flavors of raw Japanese cuisine and then demonstrate their vocal stylings, usually after imbibing generously. I spent the months before the event in much anticipation as I hadn’t partaken in karaoke since I had returned to the US. My excitement to get my sing on was mixed with a bit of anxiety because I knew that karaoke in the US was not quite the same as in Japan or China. Japan and China take it upon themselves to protect innocent bystanders from the screams and yells of ordinary people trying to make, or at least imitate, music by enclosing the would-be singers in a room that could well become their own audio prison. In the US, however, karaoke is set up in an “America’s Got Talent” atmosphere where singers perform for, or force into submission, the entire bar. I had sung US karaoke once before in Florida. I was there to introduce a couple of friends of mine who were both musical artists and somehow got pulled up to the front of the restaurant to sing Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way”. I learned quickly that singing in the car with the radio does not always equal being able to sing a song on your own. In Japan, I was a big proponent of karaoke, always joining friends and colleagues at the karaoke box. I was looking forward to reliving my karaoke experiences

in Japan here in the US. I hoped that they would have some of the Japanese songs that I knew, so that I could spread a little bit of my nostalgia to the people in the audience. I was relieved of this hope by Jessica Oppenheim on the way to the event, when she informed me that most karaoke djs don’t have any Japanese songs. After drying my tears, I started the car and continued down the road, which I am sure made the line of drivers waiting behind me on I-25 very happy.



Jessica getting down

This year’s Sing Into Spring was held at a quaint little place in Denver called Sushi Hai. Leading up to the event, I wondered what the Hai in Sushi Hai meant, and after spending the evening there, I still don’t know what it’s supposed to mean. Anyway, the restaurant has a nice atmosphere and even gives an air of prestige, and no not the Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale type, to those who enter as their entrance signifies that they know the geographic location of the restaurant. However, finding the restaurant is not the entire trick. Navigating the labyrinth that composes the full restaurant/bar to find your friends is the icing on the prestige cake. The RMJETAA function was strategically located in a VIP-like section of the bar around the billiards tables and in front of the restrooms. This location must have been chosen to ensure that any people desiring to attend the event who got lost in the labyrinth would find it upon locating the restrooms. The “VIP” area was also strategically located slightly above the rest of the bar no doubt so that we could look down on the masses of people trying to fight their way in, if we so chose. Ok, maybe it wasn’t that prestigious, but it was a great choice of venue.



Can you find the VIP in this picture?

Several trays of sushi and sashimi supplemented by edamame, gyoza, and tempura were elegantly laid out on a table for people to drool over until the invisible barrier holding them at bay was removed by RMJETAA President, Stephen Cacciatore, who opened the ceremony with a brief explanation of the event and a thank you to the attendees (I would love to give a detailed description of the sushi and sashimi, but whether it was due to the low lighting, my place near the back of the line, or the dizziness caused by my severe hunger pangs, I can’t really remember too much about how the food looked. I can verify, however, that it was delicious). Once it was clear that it was open season on the food, the people lined up to set the Guiness Book of World Records on how fast they could make several hundred dollars worth of sushi disappear. Thankfully, especially for the people at the back of the line, RMJETAA collected $5 from each person attending so that more sushi could be ordered if the initial offering was insufficient. This was inevitable, but Jessica was able to fend off the hungry hoards long enough to put in the second order.

Sushi wasn't the only thing on the menu

By the time the sushi was gone, half-empty stomachs and pints full of ale had put most people into the mood of carrying on conversations with people they knew, and even people they didn’t know. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. The bar staff were setting up the karaoke booth. The time had come. I managed to procure a karaoke book of songs from one of the billiards tables. Unfortunately, it was organized by song title, so I had to arrange a trade with another table that had a book organized by artist. They had a list of demands, but I promptly ignored it, took their book, and deposited mine. I think everything happened so fast that they didn’t realize how they had been duped. Back at my table, I scoured the pages of the book looking for a song that would please the crowd. Celine Dion? No, this wasn’t the usual Japanese crowd that would be transfixed by the Canadian diva’s lyrics. Oasis? No, there weren’t any Brits that would appreciate it. Michael Jackson? I didn’t want to find out if anyone would appreciate that. I finally settled on Hootie and the Blowfish, which was my warm up at karaoke nights in Japan. The song doesn’t traverse too many octaves, which makes it easy on the vocal cords. I quickly jotted my selection down on a slip of paper and handed it to the karaoke dj. She informed me that my song was about 20th on the waiting list. I was shocked, but I’m a patient man, so I grabbed a seat and prepared to wait it out. I passed some of the time by playing billiards with Sam, some of it playing games with my used chopsticks, and most of it by cheering on my fellow karaoke-ers. A trick I learned in Japan was to cheer and whistle for people singing when they were struggling or their sound was getting lost among conversation. Apparently, this is one of those things that is trans-cultural as it seemed to spur others in the crowd to do the same and encouraged the singers. As the night wore on, people from the party gradually made their way out of the bar in groups of twos and threes. After saying goodbye to a few of the people that I came with, I realized that I was one of the last people from the party left to uphold the RMJETAA reputation, luckily for those who left. When I checked with the karaoke dj, my song had jumped from 20th to next in line. The people who left had either just missed out on the greatest performance of their karaoke lives or had just escaped with their eardrums intact. The rest of the night was a combination of karaoke songs and dj grooves that turned the bar into our own private dance party. As I walked out of the bar and into the light of a new day, the bar staff said, “Thanks for coming”, but in my mind I heard “Arigatou gozaimasu!”

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Friends With Girl/Boyfriends

I recently went to see a concert here. It was at a nice, small venue, called the Walnut Room. Very intimate setting. It reminded me of the Metro in Chicago. It was a great place to see my first live show back in the US. It’s set up in a very interesting way. There is a bar with a patio out front. The live venue is in a back room, behind the bar. It gives it an almost underground feel, like you’re a member of some secret society just because you even know where it is.

It was quite the coincidence that I even found out about it. I was surfing the net looking for live shows in the area, and the name of the artist, and the fact that she was playing the next day, caught my attention. Her name is Meiko, an obviously Japanese name, that is normally pronounced May-koh. For some reason, she has changed the pronunciation to Mee-koh, but has kept the spelling the same. Apparently, she is one-fourth Japanese, which explains the name. According to Wikipedia, she and her sister took on Japanese names when they were young to connect with their Japanese grandmother on their mother’s side, and only realized after quite some time that they were mispronouncing their names (her sister calls herself Keiko, which she pronounces Kee-koh). I spent the entire concert wondering if she even knows what her name means in Japanese. It’s hard to say with any accuracy without seeing the actual Japanese characters, but the most common characters for women with this name are:

The first character means bud or sprout, the second means cloth or clothing, and the third means child, so together, they can mean bud cloth child or child of the budding cloth or simply bud. The nuance behind the name is likely that the child is like a flower bud that has yet to bloom into a beautiful flower or the child is like a piece of fabric covered with bud designs, which would likely be considered a beautiful piece. Anyway, after she had my attention, I had a look around and found some of her songs on the web. I listened to a few and, being quite entertained, I decided to check out the show.

The opening act was a pleasant surprise. It was a band named Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons. They were excellent, definitely worth a listen if you get a chance. They had a pretty wide array of songs, ranging from upbeat and funny to heartbroken and crying on the floor. A few of the songs also had a spiritual undertone, making reference to some of the minor prophets. It was nice to shake Mr. Chisel’s hand and give him a verbal pat on the back after the show.

Meiko was also great. She reminded me a lot of folky, female singers that I have enjoyed in the past, like Jewel, Sarah Masen, and Jessica Riddle, so it was somewhat of a trip down Amnesia Lane only better. Arguably Meiko’s most popular, but definitely favorite, song is one called “Boys With Girlfriends”.

It’s a song about a good friend of hers who basically ended their friendship because his girlfriend was jealous. I’m sure I could scour the internet and figure out who this guy is, but suffice it to say that he is still involved with her music, either in the band or on the tour, because she kept making references to him all night. She even played a couple of new songs, one was called “Good Looking Loser” and the other was called “Real Real Sweet”. “Good Looking Loser” came off as a bit of a cut on the guy who she used to be friends with, calling him a good looking loser and saying that she, Meiko, was the one who got away. The other new song was a vengeful dirge focused at her ex-friend’s girlfriend. The theme of the song is basically that every time he wasn’t physically with his girlfriend, he was “with” Meiko and he was “real real sweet”. Essentially, the song plays on the girlfriend’s jealousy and aims to confirm that all her jealous intuitions were right. Before Meiko played it, she prefaced it by saying that it was all untrue and just a way to get back at the girlfriend for ruining their friendship. Meiko spent a good part of her energy at the show on this lost friendship. It got me thinking about friendships with members of the opposite sex and how romantic relationships with people outside the friendship affect the friendships themselves.

From my experience when you are involved in a romantic relationship, any friendships you have with members of the opposite sex outside that romantic relationship put a real strain on the romantic relationship. The strain is caused by jealousy which is rooted in doubt, doubt that the person with the friend is fully devoted to the romantic relationship. When the person in the romantic relationship with the friend is confronted by the strain that s/he is causing, s/he has two choices: 1.) don’t change anything and let the strain take its course, likely ending the romantic relationship, or 2.) end any and all friendships with the opposite sex that are causing the strain and give the romantic relationship a real chance to thrive. Option 1 is the right choice if your friendships mean more to you than the person you’re romantically involved with. However, if you really care about the person you’re romantically involved with and you think that s/he might be the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, option 2 is the choice that makes sense. If you want to really give the romantic relationship a chance, you have to do what you can to relieve any stress on the relationship. Relationships are about compromising, meeting in the middle. It’s not always about what you want, but what “we” want.

Of course, standing on the outside as the friend, it can be very difficult to understand and deal with. It’s natural to feel like you’ve been betrayed or the girl/boyfriend has brainwashed your friend into ending your friendship, but the truth is that we, as friends, are angry and jealous that our friend has chosen them over us. This is the point when we usually complain to other friends about how this friend is “throwing away our friendship for someone that s/he hasn’t known for very long”, “that person just isn’t right for them”, and “her/his girl/boyfriend shouldn’t be jealous”. We try to gather support for our side of the argument, but what we fail realize at first, and sometimes second or third, is that romance sometimes requires taking risks. Of course our friends don’t know if this person is the one they will spend the rest of their lives with, and the relationships don’t always work out, but if they don’t take the risk, they will never know. It’s difficult to get to a point where we understand and accept it. Sometimes we have to experience it from the romantic side before we truly get it. It may not be how it should be, but from experience, my own and others, I can say that many times this is how it is. The only thing we can really do is to recognize it and support our friends in their decisions, even if we disagree with them. The world isn’t perfect and neither are the people in it, so while we can dream about an ideal society, we still have to live in the real world each day.

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