Yes, the most blush-inducingly named cafe in Japan. Oopsy, what a boob.

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This is like Elvis all over again. I should know, I grew up in Church of Elvis. Yeah, me and Elvie Boy, we’re like that.

Not that I’m Church of Michael or anything. Nor do I wish to get all evangelical. But who in their right mind couldn’t say he was a pop genius? And that level of fame and fortune is surely beyond anything. You could visit a tribal village in Africa and they’d probably know the moonwalk. Even my beloved Susanna Hoffs…she could moonwalk down the aisles of Asda and no-one would bat an eyelid. (Would quite like to see it, though.)

My brother had a battered up cassette of the ‘Bad’ album when we were little, and we used to mime to it whist jumping all over the three-piece suite. We never got to the bottom of who that ‘John Moore’ guy was, though. Something to do with Liverpool, no? And is Annie really OK? Answers on a postcard, please.

Speaking of which, I’ve just been glued to YouTube for the last couple of days watching all the old footage, and was horrifed when I came across the ‘Living With Michael Jackson’ debacle. Poor old unsuspecting Mikey Boy, sucked in like that. If it was Madonna, I’m sure she would’ve headbutted that journalist in the stomach and winded him on the spot.

The rebuttal, ‘Living with Michael Jackson, Take Two’, is way better, though. For all Wacko’s foibles, you gotta just kinda throw caution to the wind and consider another point of view. Not that the answer is blowing in the wind, mind you.

My friend, MJ. We’re not quite like me ‘n’ Elvis, but we’re getting there.

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Builder’s bum is a most ghastly site. Sight beholds us sometimes in a, yes, most ghastly manner. No manners at all.

Not in Japan, though. No, no.

Meandering past a J-building site, you’d be hard pushed for a bacon sarnie, let alone a wolf whistle. Phew-phew (in both senses).

So how about this for an antithesis? Construction in central Umeda sees not even any unsitely scaffolding, but a cordoned off white wall area resplendent with…a window box! And not even phoney plastic flowers from the ￥100 shop, but real ones…fresh as a daisy. Marigolds, pansies and, yes, daisies!

What more do you want, red roses?

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Fortunately there are Swing Jazz dance lessons every Wednesday at Shinsaibashi’s Sam and Dave club in Osaka.

Start is 7pm until about 10.30pm – just turn up and join in. Some of the members and teachers speak a little English so you can get by without any Japanese. Mostly it’s just watch and follow.

A great atmosphere and a free drink is included in the Y1,500 cover fee.

More info (Japanese) on their website

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Dressed to the nine(s), good heavens, it’s 2009!

Maybe we should make that an unequivocal あけ・おめ　こと・よろ type of thing between friends.

To the sacreligious, a slight cringe if you want to be sacked from sticking religiously to J-culture too much. Just a mere abbreviation of 「あけましておめでとうございます」and「今年も宜しくお願いします」, it’s so deliciously tempting to let rip with the 「あけ・おめ　こと・よろ」thing just to see all the squirms. Especially on 年賀状, the Japanese equivalent of a Crimble card, but meant only for New Year and taken waaay more seriously. It’s not uncommon to receive a bundle of over a hundred of the things on New Year’s Day, even if it’s from someone you only say hi to once a year, namely New Year. Call it 義理 (obligation), call it 和 (Japanese harmony spirit), call it what you want, it’s all rather sweet and becoming. Incidently, I proudly received three.

Wanting to seize the essence of the 和 to the hilt I plumped for a New Year’s Eve in Kyoto. Not just because it’s usually freezing as Frosty the Snowman’s armpits, but because I wanted to stay up all night and be naughty.

It wasn’t even planned. We’d finished our sushi (see what I mean about 和 spirit?!) and felt like it was the right thing to do (see what I mean about 義理?!), so off we trotted (yes, it WAS cold!) to the epicentre of all Japanese New Year celebrations that is Kiyomizu Temple. Considering it was, like, 1am you would have thought it was a post-afternoon-tea-on-Sunday conspiracy.

People. PEOPLE. Everywhere. At every turn. D i  z   z    y.  D I  Z   Z    Y.

But all rather glorious, in fact. Not to mention the ringing of the monstrous temple bell 108 times at earth-shattering volume to banquish all of our 108 earthly desires. I think I might have some more if I count carefully enough. Those poor monks would’ve been there a lot longer, they should count their blessings.

And if you like soba noodles, no problem whatsoever. They were flogging them until they saw the light of day, literally.

And thus, in was beckoned Year of the Ox. Happy 2009 yo.

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Amitabha Buddhist Center‘s teacher is a friendly Japanese nun who lived in New York for many years and has been studying, practising and teaching Buddhism in Japan for almost five years.

Contact:
Web: www.meditationinjapan.com
Cell: 090 4256 0393
Email: info@meditationinjapan.com

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 The time of year comes when all you want to do is get yer flip-flops on and get sunburnt. And what better way to do it than with some loud guitars in a big field. Yes, another year and another Summer Sonic.

After last years’s arse up with the buses (either traipsing miles to find one like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow or rubbishy queueing systems provoking even the meekest of polite J-people to get rrriled, grrr) all was redeemed on the transport front.

Buuut! Booo…who on Earth came up with the scheduling this year? They go and put the best two bands of 2008 on at the same ruddy time. Grrr again! So it was a toss up between Vampire Weekend and MGMT. Gutted I missed the latter, but very chuffed I chose the former. They were bloody ace. I went with my fellow music-obsessive pal, Maki-chan, and half-way through their set, we spontaneously decided to form the Rostam Fan Club. Any Vampire Weekend fan worth their fangs will know exactly why.

Moving on, The Ting Tings looked quite a bit older in real life than in the airbrushed videos, but were worth a quick bop to.

Hoorah, I finally got to see my old bandmate Ty in her fab new band, New Young Pony Club. We went out for a spot of okonomiyaki until the wee hours the night before, but no sleep deprivation or jetlag was ever going to compromise one of the genki-est performances of the whole weekend. They rocked in a 4-4 disco (heart)beat kind of a way and yey, yey, yey, yey! Plus, they have the best girl drummer I’ve ever seen. Apart from my beloved Bangle, Debbi Peterson, of course.

I’m not kidding in the slightest when I say Super Furry Animals sounded exactly like Status Quo.

And then the headliners, Coldplay. Hmmm, Coldplay. I used to quite like them around the time of ‘Clocks’, and had no idea that song would become a such karaoke classic with my friends all those years later. Completely lost interest after the unanimously-agreed rubbishy third album, but everyone quite liked what they dished up for Summer Sonic. A mix of greatest hits coupled with some rather nice stage ideas, and the gimmick of playing two songs on a raised platform right in the centre of the huge crowd where me and Maki were. Somehow we ended up at the feet of Chris Martin, to which were we a bit indifferent, but it was all rather sweet nevertheless. He seemed like a rather affable chap, bless him. Give us Rostam any day of the week, though!

The second day kicked off with Los Campesinos! Generally, I don’t like bands with anything over five members, and this was no exception. Very genki, granted, but the songs were, like, half an hour long each, and without any memorable choruses I don’t think I’ll  be chasing the album in a hurry.

I had high hopes for Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, as I loved the debut single, ‘Lucio Starts Fires’, and it complied completely with my ethos of ‘the shorter the song the better’. I can’t put my finger on it, but something just wasn’t quite right. Why should it be? After all, I love anything doo-wop and vaguely 60′s-ish; I like a nice bit of raucous racket sometimes; and I like a provocative front person. Yet I was somehow left disappointed. Maybe it was because there was no interplay between the members, it was like they were all on their fixed agenda to get to the end of the song first. Joe Lean was a great performer, though, you can’t take that away from him. Thesp, very thesp. Dressed in his frills and drainpipes, he wouldn’t look amiss in a local production of ‘Hamlet’. Could he ham(let) it up any more?!

Next…hold your breath…

…came highlight of the weekend…

SANTOGOLD

OMG, I’m still foaming at the mouth after it. The most exciting and original live performance I’ve seen in absolutely aaages, the earth moved and I was literally left shaking. She was sooo coool! And her band were sooo coool tooo! They were all dressed in 1950s American diner uniforms a la Fonz, complete with two avant garde dancer/backing singers in frilly waitress outfits doing jerky robotic movements in synch with the music. Santogold is a complete natural onstage and she has the most gorgeous ニコニコ smile ever, I wanted to take them home with me.

Anything after that would only pale in significance for the rest of the day. Which is why I left after a song and a half of The Kills. Yawn.

The same could be said for Panic(!) At The Disco. Thought they might be on the better end of (ex-)emo, but a bit of a letdown in all honesty.

Only The Verve could redeem us, then. Ressurected for the third time or somthing stoopid, Mad Richard saved the day. Believe it or not, they were the very first band I ever saw back in 1991, when they were simply called ‘Verve’. They were supporting Ride, of all embarrassing things. I must admit, though, I did have a soft spot for Ride around the time of their debut album, ‘Nowhere’. It was like The Byrds meets white noize! Anyway, yes, The Verve. They used to be sooo shoegaze back in those days, too. The first album was such a trip, it really was. My favourite was their second album, ‘A Northern Soul’, especially the song ‘On your Own’. The emotion, in his voice, oh my. You knew he meant it. So many people used to say the chorus in that song is depressing, but he is just stating a fact. Sad, but true, and you have to love it. Anyway, they never even played it! Their set was rather beautiful, though. Obviously, they have some top tunes to whip out of the hat, and also they have a really special chemistry together. Something weird happens when they play together, almost supernatural. And the sun set just as they were playing ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, and set the sky ablaze a million different colours. It couldn’t have been any more perfect.

Which is more than I can say for the Sex Pistols. The idea of them reforming in the first place was bad enough (stinks of a cash-in, no?…very un-punk, I must say), but in the flesh it was even worse. Why? Because if sounding polished isn’t the biggest contradiction in terms I’ve ever heard, then I don’t know what is. For the mother of all supposed punk bands to end up sounding like Bon Jovi is nothing less an insult. I genuinely felt offended.

Me and Maki stormed off halfway through their set (along with half of the audience, it seemed) and instead plumped for the Prodigy. From dinosaur punk to dinosaur rave, from bad to worse. Call me a prude, but it sounded evil. Plus, I don’t want anything to do with a band that refers to women like they did in that deliberately controversial song.

What was left? Paul well I never Weller. On to dinosaur MOR, then. Oh dear. Still, at least an early departure meant no yucky bus queueing nightmares. 

Me feet’re still killin’ me, but blimey Charlie, what a super sonic Summer Sonic!

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Today in Japan is what’s camply known as ‘Doll’s Festival’.

No, not any mannequins to smother in lace or cake with make-up like Miss Girl’s World, but rather an excuse to make a show of some nice cutie-pie figurines you might have lying around, which – let’s face it - is often the case.

Traditionally, I heard that the origin of Doll’s Festival came from people throwing dolls into the river to exorcise evil spirits. That’s even more scary in itself, though, don’t you think? Can you imagine…there you are trying to enjoy your nice spring picnic and suddenly a bunch of doll parts come floating downstream? How positively and literally frightful.

These days, however, people are more content to use their figurine displays as a means of eliciting “Kawaiiiii” as many times as humanly possible. Completely inescapable, and we love it and hate it at the same time.

As if that wasn’t ‘kawai’ enough, there are even custom-made lunch boxes to mark the occasion containing egg rolls with inscriptions of our very own Kitty-chan…dressed up as a doll!

Hate to state the obvious but…

Kawaiiiii…

Maybe I need a lie down.

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This morning, I randomly found myself in Kyoto.

It dawned on me that living in the heart Osaka can sometimes deprive a boy of all things traditionally Japanese, so in a bid to get to the heart of the Japanese heart, I randomly found myself in the heart of a plum blossom viewing festival being held at kitano Tenmangu Shrine.

Is there some kind of weird repetition thing going on here or something?

Is there some kind of weird repetition thing going on here or something?

Anyway.

At the risk of calling me a big flower, it was absolutely beautiful.  Pastel hues blossoming right, left and centre. There was even an ikebana flower arranging contest. The whole thing was completely dripping with the very essence of the Japanese ‘wa’, or harmony. Anyone who knows me, knows I am utterly obessed with this. It’s what makes Japan so incredibly special.

After scoffing a hot bowl of ramen noodles, I braved it on the bus back to the station. What another quintessentially Kyoto experience. For a country with such an obsessive fettish with mobile phones, not a single one in sight! And the bus was rammed like sheep (no rams, mind). Is that what you call patience or saving Kyoto face? So different from Osaka! (Keitai a-go go!) To ham up the whole ‘wa’ thing even more, the entire bus was effectively a calligraphy exhibition on wheels. Every available inch of wall space was taken up with the local primary school’s efforts at kanji practice. Amazing! Not just yer mundane slogans like ‘Rice balls going cheap at yer local 7-11′, but rather completey adorable things like 「温かい心」, 「新風」 and 「希望」.

Hurrah for the ‘wa’, where would we be without it?

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 Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to take a stab at the (in)famous Japanese Language Proficiency Test, level 2.

Having never studied in a proper formal fashion, I brought out my tweed suit and employed the services of a professional Japanese teacher for the last month or so. After a couple of lessons of reading braincrushing academic articles, she politely told me in no uncertain terms that I would be in need of a small miracle to pass the exam.

Quite. How right could she be, OMG.

I frolicked through the misty autumn leaves to the test site, trying to act all pensive and preppy. I reunited with my dear friend Angelito (not Puff the Magic Dragon!), who had just come off a long-haul international flight and had impressively played an all-night gig on 3 hours sleep. He looked the picture of nonchalance. I suddenly felt my early night and nice cup of tea were most unrock-and-roll. Oh well.

Literally hundreds of poor lambs put themselves to the slaughter of the exam, most of whom were Chinese and Korean, which I feel is distinctly unfair seeing as they have the upper hand of either having kanji characters or similar words and grammar patterns in their languages. Maybe it was a conspiracy, hmmm.

It lasted aaall bloody day! Perversely, though, I rather enjoyed the whole shebang. It was just so Japanese in every way, from the formality of the setting to the questions themselves. One slight move, and they whip out a red card with a samurai sword.

The listening section literally made me laugh out loud. Really funny things, like which photo best described the dude that got porky after he graduated from uni and entered the institution of his company.  And the reading section was just plain ridiculous with questions ranging from modern motivational study factors to factory machinery breaking down in the blazing Japanese summer heat.

Yep, foregone conclusion, really. Guess there’s always next year. Sigh. 

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