Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.144

Japanese school year ends in March, and it’s the time for good-byes. I, for one, had my fair share of good-byes in March. It was March when I left my hometown. A few years before that, I saw my best teacher off crying at the train station, also in March. She was my homeroom teacher when I was a freshman in high school. I had never had so helpful, close teacher as her in my life. Every time I felt gloomy, she somehow sensed it and encouraged me. Whenever I was talking with my friends after class, she joined to hear my stories, which she really liked because she thought I was funny. She saved me from my otherwise dismal school days during the year. One day, I heard that she was going to transfer to a distant city. I had felt so sad from then on. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. One morning, I was walking to a train station for school as usual. Near the station, a steep slope led to a small bridge over a filthy, smelly, purple river from some factories. While I was walking on the slope toward the bridge, from nowhere, a song came to my mind. That was the first song I ever wrote and was about my teacher. At her farewell party, I sang my song with playing the guitar in front of people for the first time. Although I played and sang flawlessly, nobody applauded. Instead, everybody cried. My teacher was crying for the whole song. My first song was probably too sad for the occasion…

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.143

My cell phone is almost exclusively used to receive coupons from shops and restaurants via e-mail. I got a special coupon for big burgers from McDonald’s. It’s only valid for three days and makes the big burger at $2 each. I rushed to McDonald’s today and used the coupon. There were quite a few people ordering at the counter but to my surprise, no one was using a coupon although the deal was exceptionally good. They had a cell phone, all right, but were looking at it for other purposes, not for a coupon. When I think about what to eat, I give priority to coupons. But watching people order randomly and pay at its list price, I was wondering if I was crazy to try to save money to the maximum. Since the coupon was for two burgers at one purchase per customer, I actually exited the place once after I got two, then entered again, and placed an order for another two. That certainly no one was doing…

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.142

Cherry blossoms begin to bloom. That means it’s the season for Japanese people’s customary cherry blossom-viewing picnic. It sounds lovely but the reality is a dreadfully gross event. Every once in a while, they feel the need to confirm their unity as a nation by doing the same thing at the same time. Their cherry blossom picnic is the perfect example. Before the full bloom, they save a spot a few days ahead with a tarp. On the picnic, they get together with their colleagues and bosses if they are office workers, or seniors and juniors if they are college students. And they drink beer into a stupor sitting on the tarp. A couple of people are killed by acute alcoholic poisoning every year. Parks and the areas with cherry blossoms are crammed with the tarps and people on them. It’s a completely miserable sight to me not only because of the tarps but also because it has become an obligation. They have to do this not to disturb the harmony in their community. I enjoy cherry blossoms every year by taking a walk near my apartment, because I’ve never been under obligation of any kind. I’m so outside of any community...

Friday, March 26, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.141

To me, the best guitarist is Toshiyuki Abe of Tulip. Once, he came to a local radio show, which was recorded with the audience. My past best friend and I were determined to go to the studio because Mr. Abe hardly appeared on TV and the only chance to see him had been Tulip’s concerts. We called the radio station for the location and it was a 30-minute bus ride plus a one-hour train ride with a number of connections. It was Saturday and the only way for us to make it was going there as soon as school was over, as we were still high school students. We were tired from a long trip with our heavy school bags when we arrived. But to our huge shock, we found that we came to the wrong studio since the radio station had two studios at the totally different locations and the phone operator had told us the wrong one by mistake. It took another one hour to the other studio by train. We finally reached the studio exhausted, and the security guard at the gate didn’t let us in because we didn’t have the required pass which existence we didn’t know. After all the toil, we were denied on the spot. We were standing at a loss when we saw two girls beckoning to us at the gate. They had the pass and although we were completely strangers, they told the guard that we were their friends and came here together. The two girls looked like angels. The show had already begun but because Mr. Abe was the main attraction, his appearance was the last part, for which we were barely in time. I had never seen him so closely. We spent about four hours of turmoil in total on that day for Mr. Abe’s 15-minute appearance. It was so worthwhile, really…

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.140

My lifelong favorite band is a Japanese band called Tulip. When I was in high school, I saw their performance on TV and got fascinated by their music instantly. I became a big fan of them. One day, I made a detour on my way home from school to a shop carrying goods related to popular musicians, and bought stickers of Tulip. That was when my past best friend whom I introduced yesterday came to my mind for the first time. Although we were in the same school since junior high, we had scarcely talked each other. But I had heard that she was also a big fan of Tulip. I thought she might not have one of those and got the stickers for her too. The next day, I handed them to her, and she was greatly touched by it much more than I expected. In return, she lent me all her albums of Tulip so that I could record them and save money. Tulip was the reason why I became a musician, and it also brought me a best friend…

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.139

Yesterday was my best friend’s birthday. We shared a favorite band and got along when we were seniors in high school. Even after she moved out of town for college, we got together at least once a year. Then, I moved to Tokyo for music, and she visited me once a year at my wretched apartment. While my career hit rock bottom for years, she sent me an enormous amount of postcards for encouragement and kept visiting me with lots of expensive gifts. As my career had somehow started picking up a little gradually, our friendship had taken on a different aspect, though. We had less and less in common to talk about because by then, she had become a surgeon and I was a musician. She stopped visiting me, her postcards got fewer and she didn’t write back anymore after I moved to the U.S. I reached to her by her e-mail address that she had given me, but soon she changed it. I finally got the message. She didn’t want me to be her friend. I couldn’t, still can’t, figure out how I offended her so badly in the course of those years. We’ve been out of touch for many years, but every year on her birthday, I can’t help thinking of her…

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.138

Without my knowledge, my blog has been popping up an unrelated ad for a couple of days. I sincerely apologize for the unpleasant inconvenience to everybody who has been reading my blog. Although I’m not computer-savvy, it appears to be caused by some sort of virus on MySpace’s blogs, which is cured now. I came to know the problem thanks to my kind friend who has been a big help in many ways. I was just rambling on about my daily life in a merry mood and little did I know that my blog had bothered the readers…

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.137

Japan is at the peak of the pollen season now. Lots of people have a pollen allergy and are wearing a medical mask outside. Without a mask, they sneeze and have running nose constantly. The allergy is caused by pollen of a Japanese cedar. The government planted them heavily after lumbering because they were cheap. It blundered about the pollen. We are surrounded by a massive amount of Japanese cedars and suffering from the allergy consequently. Luckily, I don’t have the allergy. I used to feel pity for those with a mask because it seemed inconvenient and didn’t look so cool. A few years ago, I heard that people without the allergy could start having one anytime if they don’t take precaution. I dreaded to think about having the allergy, and have kept wearing a mask outside in this season as a precaution ever since. It’s already no difference to actually having the allergy…

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.136

Come to think of it, I was determined to finish our new song by the end of last year. It’s middle of March, already. Since coming close to the completion, I’ve encountered problems one after another. Recent ones relate to the overall volume that is too low. I’ve tried various kinds of solution to boost it, and each work was so tiresome and fruitless. While working on it today, I happened to notice a tiny, mysterious button on the mixer. It’s labeled ‘Gain’ in the fine print. By turning it, the volume got enhanced easily. I’ve been using this software for music for six years and haven’t had the slightest idea of this button until today. If you look for a monumental fool, here I am..

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.135

One day, when I visited my grandparents’ house, my grandmother on my mother’s side asked me to sing a song. I sang the then popular song with dancing in front of my grandparents and my parents. I was about seven or eight years old and it was just casual singing. While everybody was laughing, my grandmother alone seemed very impressed. She seriously said to me, ‘You should become a singer when you grow up.’ And turning to my mother, she said to her, ‘You should make her a singer.’ Although my mother shrugged it off as rubbish, there was no joke in her suggestion. She herself loved singing. In her later years, she learned Japanese old traditional singing, which had a unique, slow melody on a Chinese old poem. She often told people around her, including me, that she wanted to be skilled at singing one particular song for celebration so that she could sing it at my wedding. Eventually, I became a singer, but she passed away last September without singing at my wedding because I still stay single…

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.134

My grandmother on my mother’s side was a funny, smart, and lively person. I loved her because she was quite opposite to my grandmother on my father’s side, with whom I lived. Every time she visited my house, she brought me a gift. It was almost always a biography of a historically famous figure such as Mozart, Beethoven, Marie Curie and so on. All biographies I had were from her and she provided most of my knowledge about successful people. As a child, I sensed somehow, that she expected me to be one of them in the future, because she had five grandchildren and I was the only one who constantly received biographies from her. In spite of her silent, subtle guidance, I haven’t become any important figure. So far, anyway…

Monday, March 15, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.133

After the big one in Chile, there were three earthquakes in the past four days in Japan. One of them was not so small and one of them had its seismic center right beneath the area I live in. Two of them made me jump out of bed. An earthquake occurred when I stayed at my grandparents’ house one New Year. The New Year’s holiday was the only time in a year that wives were allowed to spend the night at their parents’ home as a custom of my hometown. My mother used to stay overnight at her parents’ home once a year in New Year accordingly, along with my father, my younger sister and me. When the earthquake happened, it was early in the morning and I was sleeping with my sister between my parents and my grandmother on the tatami floor. My grandmother jumped out of her futons and without hesitation, grabbed me to carry me down the hallway. She was dragging me with all her strength rather than carrying me. Because I was eleven years old and already quite big, I could have run faster by myself…

Friday, March 12, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.132

March 14 is ‘White Day’ in Japan, which the confectionery industry invented for sales. Its stupid concept is for men to give women sweets in return for Valentine’s Day that is for women to give men chocolates. What really annoys me is not only its foolish name but also the Japanese tendency to differentiate between genders in every field. I shun this relatively new custom, but for some reason, my father sends me something on the day every year. It’s not sweet as it sounds, because he never approves of me being a musician and hardly forgets to include a criticizing note about me…

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.131

Curry rice is the most popular dish in Japan. Probably people have it at least every ten days. It’s a thick curry stew put over rice. It’s regarded as a kid’s favorite, but it used to be my least favorite. My parents were busy for work as farmers and cooking was my grandmother’s task. She was as stingy as my grandfather was and she would stretch curry by thinning it with water. As a result, the curry of our family was like curry-flavored hot water that drowned rice. When I got older, I realized that I’d had the wrong curry rice and the right one existed, and it became my favorite. Today, I cooked curry rice. For dieting, and saving money, I put it over barley instead of rice. Rice is ironically expensive in Japan because the government controls its price. Yuck. But barley didn’t fill my stomach so well and left me hungry. So I ate some snacks after finishing it. Am I really dieting…?

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.130

Most of the time, a computer is loyal to me. But sometimes, it acts by a quirk. Today was one of those days. In the process of mixdown for our new song, I needed to gain volume of some MIDI tracks by mixing them down as audio tracks. To do so, other tracks must be muted. Although I double-checked it, one track remained unmuted for some reason and got mixed together. Because I noticed it at the end of today’s work, most of it went up in smoke. I checked work of the last time, and found the similar problem. I spent two days working for almost nothing…

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.129

I found a tall wooden shelf discarded at a garbage dump of my apartment. It was as good as new and I carried it into my place. March is the end of both fiscal and academic year in Japan, which means it’s the season of a move. The shelf seemed to be a product of someone’s move. I cleaned it and made it my new shoe shelf. I felt so good seeing my shoes arranged beautifully on the shelves. The pitiful thing is, though, that almost all the shoes cost less than $20, mainly $10, and about half of them are worn out and have holes and cracks…

Monday, March 8, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.128

I’m an avid fan of Formula One racing. It’s ironic that a person like me who is too afraid of speed to get a driver’s license likes Formula One so much. I’ve been watching it over 20 years. I love the cars’ beauty and the technical and psychological competition on and off the circuit. Its new season begins this weekend and I’m so excited. It’s going to be a fantastic season, as one of my favorite drivers Fernando Alonso joined Ferrari and my most favorite driver’s comeback was imminent. He is Jacques Villeneuve. He has been away from Formula One for three years but at least three teams had mentioned his name as their driver all winter. It wasn’t a matter of whether he would come back, but a matter of which team he would drive for. I made a lot of predictions and expectations about the team with so much joy. But one by one, the teams announced other drivers, and last week, only possible team announced its withdrawal. I had been thrilled about which team to cheer for Jacques, but his comeback itself vanished…

Friday, March 5, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.127

I increased the volume of our new song’s vocal track by using the normalize function. The track had been already processed by an auto-gate effect so that the unwanted noise was removed. Although I had spent a whole day to decide the best setting of the effect, the normalization spoiled the setting and I had to work on it all over again. This setback is nothing compared to the ones I experienced many times in the old days, though. When I first used a sequencer for our songs, I would enter all data by working over 12 hours, and often delete everything by accidentally stepping on its power cord, because the way of a backup was an external tape recorder back then. I’m so used to working very hard for something that eventually ends in vain…

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.126

Stores have removed winter clothes from their floors, but I know one particular store that has out-of-season clothes left unsold at great discount prices. I went there and bingo! I found a nice down jacket at half price. I paid with my credit card and to get more discounts, with a $5 gift certificate, a 5% off coupon, and a 2-cent discount for bringing my bag instead of using their plastic bag. As you can see, it’s confusing, and the salesperson made a mistake on the total charge. I pointed it out but he didn’t know how to fix it. He called another salesperson for help. He explained all the discounts showing the incorrect receipt to her. They read aloud the receipts together for whatever the reason was, and just gazed somewhere vacantly. It seemed that they thought doing just that would make the problem disappear. After a few more readings and gazing, they called one more person for help. She repeated exactly what had already happened and in dismay, they started looking for something all around the counter. Finally, they came to their senses and began to enter digits on the cash register. They cancelled the former total and charged the correct one. It took a long time and three people to do that. This kind of thing happens to me all the time because I always try to get a maximum discount by every conceivable means…

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.125

Today is the Doll’s Festival in Japan. It’s for celebrating girls and they decorate old style dolls on stepped shelves. The one I had when I was 12 years old coincided with the day to know whether I passed or failed the entrance examination for the best private junior high school in the city. In Japan, each candidate is given an applicant number and a school releases the numbers of the passed ones on big boards put up in a school. After excruciating two years that I attended the supplementary private school for the exam additionally after finishing a whole day at the elementary school, I was reasonably confident. I went to see the announcement boards with my parents and my younger sister. It was a big day for my family, as the result would more or less decide my future. In front of the boards, I was astounded. My number wasn’t there. I failed. On our way home, we stopped at a bakery for cake for the Doll’s Festival. While my mother and my sister went in the bakery, I was waiting in the car with my father. It started to snow. I still can vividly picture those snowflakes falling and melting on the windshield. I had never felt so devastated before. In the evening, my mother took a bath with me and she wailed saying ‘I’m so disappointed!’ again and again. Because I wasn’t used to seeing her crying, my despair turned fear. The fear that I made a fatal, catastrophic error. Since then, every year on the Doll’s Festival, I remember that year’s festival…

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Hidemi's Rambling No.124

The season of entrance examinations for school is now in full swing in Japan. People like to label everything, and the school name is very important for them. They evaluate a person not by what they do, but by the school they go to. So, to get in a renowned school, students are prepared for years ahead for their future. I wasn’t an exception among those who were caught up in this stupid trend a long time ago. My mother was feverish to get me in the best junior high school in the city where I grew up. She didn’t want me to be a highly paid worker at a big company in the future since the society was male-dominated. She wanted me to be in the best school out of vanity and in order to boost the possibility for me to meet a future candidate of a highly paid worker and marry him. I even took the entrance examination for an eminent supplementary private school to attend after classes of the elementary school, to be prepared for an entrance examination of a junior high school…