New gym!

I had been using the small fitness room at my apartment building but there were not heavy enough dumbbells or weight machines, so I joined a real gym close by. Machines are beautiful. Dumbbells are still not heavy enough but they will do for now.

I can finally carry out my high intensity workout plan. I call it the height of masochism. Hee-hee. I’ll be bigger! I’ll look like a WWE wrestler in a month!

The first tour of the year is over!

After the storm.....

Wow rough ocean. These raging waves are kinda scary. I love it. I forgot to mention that the town we played, Kill Devil Hills, is the place where the famous Wright Brothers flew the first airplane, Kitty Hawk, in the history of mankind. That was a great place to come for my first tour of the year because I'm about to fly high and do something new.

We arrived there safely, the concert was successful and now we are driving the minivan to Boston. A little worried about the aftermath of the blizzard in NYC area. Well, we'll find out.

Arrived!

WE ARRIVED!!
AND WE ARE ALIVE!!
AAAAARGH!!

We drove sixteen hours, went through nine states, conquered all the blizzard, heavy snow, coldness, gusts, whiteout, torrential rain, floods, high tides and all that. We reached the destination. We won. We are the champions, my friends. This is how professional traveling musicians live!

On the way to North Carolina

The quest continues! We are driving right through the snowstorm. Wow, I haven't seen "whiteout" quite sometime. Scary and exciting at the same time! People in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina! International String Trio is coming to town! The concert is on on Saturday night!

Short tour to North Carolina!

I've been checking and recharging the equipments for the short three-day tour starting tomorrow. We are heading to North Carolina driving right through the blizzard for twelve hours. It's going to be like the documentary of The Day After Tomorrow according to the weather forecast.

Well, I think I became a real traveling musician over the years and I developed the tolerance on physical and mental sufferings. In the year 2015 alone, I saw (and had troubles with) deer, bears, bisons, fresh-eating parrots, -20F (-30C) temperature, deadly desert, 100 mph wind gusts etc. After I went through all that, I take the natural disasters like blizzards come with it as a matter of course. To tell the truth, I'm almost looking forward to facing up to the blizzard. Hee-hee. Bring it on. I'm feeling the adrenaline rush already.

English pronunciation correction!

This is my new textbook for English pronunciation. Wow, what are these diagrams and pictures? Is this a medical book or something? Oh well, this is going to be a long journey.

I had a headache just by browsing through the textbook. Japanese has only five vowels but American English has 37 vowels! (FYI, British English has 30 vowels). Sigh. Plus 28 consonants. (Japanese has only fourteen). Sighs and more sighs. Why the heck do you guys need so many of them!? Eh!? Don't you guys know the famous proverb "simple is the best!?" Eh!? Eh!? Hey, American friends (& Canadians & Aussies & Kiwis & Brits & Irish & South African friends), you guys don’t know how lucky you are. You all should learn Japanese just because it’s so easy for you guys.

According to the textbook, my Japanese accent is going to be radically reduced in three months. Really? See you guys in three months if I don’t shoot myself before that.

The Revenant!

Came to kinda deserted mall by a shipyard. Wow, even the shipyard is deserted. Like an impulse buying, I suddenly decided to impulse-watch a movie! Ha-ha, coming to a movie theater in the daytime in weekdays is the perks of musicians. Well, I'll enjoy life as much as possible while I'm not touring!

The Revenant, here we come! The new DiCaprio's movie!

The Japan Society of Boston New Year Party!

I performed for the New year party of The Japan Society of Boston yesterday. It was the duo of Mika & Richard Stoltzman and I was supporting them with Hideki Hiromoto on drums and Emily Shibata on vocal.

New year is a big deal for us Asians and that was a big new year party so I was expecting that everybody would be shouting, drinking, dancing and partying hard. I thought we were going to do the background-kind of music. Well, lest we forget, that was not a usual party but a Japanese party. Everybody was siting down nicely and quietly, and waiting for us to play. When I saw the audience from the stage all sitting noiselessly, I was stunned because I was expecting completely opposite.

That was the first concert of the year for me and it was a good one. I have a feeling that I’ll be playing lots of good shows this year!

Working out!

Completely destroying quads & abs today! If my knees are shaking after the workout, I win! If I cannot bend my knees and cannot walk straight tomorrow morning, I win! Hee-hee-hee.

New Challenge! Speed-reading!

This is the new challenge of the year 2016. This book is about mastering the fast-reading. I tried to master speed-reading when I was young and my reading speed did get about twice faster but that was as fast as I got. I have a feeling I'll make it this time and also this is totally necessary technic for what I want to do in the future. I'll master it in both Japanese and English like the author of the book, Dr. Tomabechi. Give me six to twelve months.

Boston welcomes cold weather once again

Ippei the smiling musician here. Well, maybe it's hard to tell I'm smiling but I am, and hard to tell it's me but it's me. As you can see, It is so bloody cold in Boston. This morning, it was 12F (-11C) and the real feel was -6F (-21C). It was like 40F (5C) a few days back which was like Hawaii for Bostonians. I guess we are back to normal, or back to abnormal.

Happy new year! Time for Osechi!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

The year 2016 started with the new year party at my friend, Aiko’s place like the last year or the year before and I stuffed myself with the delicious beautiful Japanese traditional new year dish called Osechi. Thank you, Aiko-san!

I am not making new year’s resolution but I’ll just keep doing what I have been doing since last year which is self-coaching. I did a lot of things but the bottom line is that, first and foremost, I’ll make myself happy. This is it. In order to achieve that, I’ll keep in mind very basic stuff like, not to be too patient, not to be too scared, not hiding my true self too much, and most importantly, I do what I want to but not what I have to. The truth is that, if you are not kind to yourself, you cannot be kind to others. I did not know this truth till I became 41. Although I am glad I reached to the point to find out this truth in this age, I cannot say that I don’t regret why I could not find such a simple thing when I was 30. Well, I’m happy now so it’s all okay. To the young people around 30 or so, please be kind to yourself and try to do whatever you want to do now. Don't postpone.

Wonderful year to all of us!