My preamble to this post is to say that when someone finds disgust in the treatment or fate of a certain animal or species, for instance the torturous murder of baby harp seals or the killing of domestic cats in the testing of tainted cat food, or the wearing of fur, I want to ask them what they ate for dinner. The most vital personal act one can undertake to affect immediate change in the environment and the lives of all creatures, including us humans, is to change one's diet. The food choices one makes dramatically exceeds the impact of changing lightbulbs, driving a hybrid, or recycling. Of course, doing all of the above would be kinda nice.

Having said that, we need to embrace any compassionate cause that will help specific animals in immediate need. This is certainly one of those. Each letter or call will make a difference. If you're a teacher, perhaps you could have your class make a project out of writing to their representative. -kv

Your Help Is Needed Now to Save The Polar Bears - Here Is What You Can Do:
*Contact your Representative and Senators and urge them to cosponsor and strongly support The Polar Bear Protection Act. (http://www.kintera.org/TR.aspID=M724695074208855642500565 ) Ask them to close the loophole that allows sport hunters to kill polar bears in Canada and bring their "trophies" back into the US.

*Write to the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Interior Department (mailto:Polar_Bear_Finding@fws.gov ) before April 9th and urge them to list polar bears as a threatened species. Let them know these species deserve a break from climate change as well as trophy hunters.

Then please pass this alert on to everyone you know(http://www.kintera.org/TR.aspID=M724695084208855642500565 ) and urge them to save the polar bears before it's too late.

For the animals,
Fred O'Regan
President and CEO

P.S. Please follow up your email with a 30-second phone call. To find your legislator's contact information, go to www.congress.org. (http://www.kintera.org/TR.aspID=M724695094208855642500565 ) When you call simply say, "I am a constituent of [Representative/Senator] and I am calling to urge him/her to support the "Polar Bear Protection Act" to close the loophole that allows sport hunters to kill polar bears and bring the heads and hides of these animals into the US. Now is the time to act to ensure the polar bears' survival."

late yesterday afternoon...I sat and watched a little Green Heron fishing alone. An amazing bird to share time with. A pair of bluebirds were frolicking about a barn on Southeast Street. But the most striking development was the colors already changing in great numbers. We've had a few nights dipping into the 30's, and they've kicked Autumn into high gear. Oh, and I guess I shouldn't forget my pet skunk who pays a visit most nights to the compost heap. Usually he's pretty quiet about his business, but yesterday he was fiesty and caused Tofu to thump numerous times.

A bit different than Burbank...but then again, Burbank had late night possums.

And now back to rock n' roll.

Oh wait, it's only the first day.
Oh wait, I'm always on vacation.
Well, anyways (is that a word?)...went for an evening bike ride this, uh, evening.
'twas amazing to see how the critter life changes in just a few days. I shared my ride with: a mom mallard teaching her kid how to swim, jump on a log, then off again...probably on their way to soccer practice. A snake slithering across the bike path seconds before my tires filled to the brim at 110psi of cold pressed Massachusetts man air, turned him into 2 snakes. Cat birds (currently my favorite summer crooners..they have such an astounding set list), bank swallows, a kingfisher, robins (highly underrated birds), a baby red squirrel, several rabbits, a beaver swimming fast towards his bridge..lots of work to be done-there are still a couple trees standing, red-winged black birds, a mockingbird, house wrens (loudest bird per capita), bull frogs, green frogs, phoebes (who fly as if they're flying high on hallucinogens), goldfinches, chickadees (the Mass. state bird, in case you want to use that at a party), a killdeer (no, they don't kill deer, they make a sound like "keel dear keel dear"), and a pair of horses scratching each other with their heads. And to top it all off, the sunset was spectacular tonight as I rode off into it.

Not a bad way to begin summer. If you get a chance, get out there and see nature's reality teevee!

Still thinking about the great weekend in Chicago, but also happy to be home with my flying, swimming, slithering, hopping, and scratching friends.

kv

I just received this letter from Greenpeace...a real great victory!

Dear Kyle,

I have the best news of the year to share with you - are you ready for it? The Gorton's fisherman and his Japanese parent company have agreed to get out of whaling. That's right, thanks to you, we've proven that whaling is bad for business.
And I want us all to take a minute to celebrate together.

More than 25,000 of you wrote to Gorton's, sent postcards, attended whale watching parties, folded origami whales and made generous contributions, all to send Gorton's
a clear message: Get out of the whale killing business. Well, in less than four short months, you've managed to get the largest corporate shareholder in commercial whaling to agree to get out of the whaling business altogether.

And that's not all...the rest of the corporate shareholders in the Japanese whaling fleet have also decided to divest their shares of the business rather than face your wrath.

This doesn't mean an end to so-called "scientific" whaling, but it does mean that public pressure is gaining momentum and forcing corporations to jump ship. I can't tell you what a tremendous milestone this is, and words can't express how grateful I am for everything you've done to make this happen.

This is the most important victory I've seen since commercial whaling was officially banned in 1986. You have so much to be proud of. But the fight is far from over, and now we're gearing up for what could be the greatest threat yet. The next meeting of
the International Whaling Commission will be taking place in June, and Japan is threatening to win the majority vote and overturn the commercial whaling moratorium.

For years, the Japanese government has spent billions of Yen buying votes on the commission, and this year could be the critical year that they manage to turn the tide. Our own government will have a critical role to play, and we expect a lot more from them than we've seen lately if we're going to prevent this from happening. So stay tuned for the next round.

Now that you can see for yourself how effective your actions have been, I hope you won't pull any punches come June. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish together.

Thanks again!

Your Friend,
John Hocevar
Oceans Campaigner

The zombie-like state of west to east jet lag seems to be easing, although sometimes it hits you after a week, so we'll see.

Went to connect with nature today before the official commencement of recording the next album, with a break to go do a show for my pals in California (which just happens to coincide with Opening Day at AT&T Bell Stick B.C. Park)

Long bike ride where, funny enough, the loudest sounds were the frogs (ka-eru) celebrating their new life. The highlight of the day was that I watched a beaver constructing his dam, which I had never witnessed live before. It's just incredible to see how he or she was so dedicated to building this huge dam.

The birds were out in force as well: Chickadees, Mockingbirds, Red Winged Blackbirds, Bluebirds, Tufted Titmice, Starlings, Robins, Crows, Canadian Geese, Mourning Doves, and many more I didn't identify. Also saw at least 2 dozen turtles sunning themselves on logs.

The frogs were the loudest and proudest and happiest today, sadly they are living in a small water shed that abuts a soon-to-be built condo project. The town is fighting it tooth and nail, so maybe it will be scaled back or ditched altogether. I'm going to try and return there in the next day or so and record their sweet song.

I love long bike rides because they give you time to reflect, and of course, I'm reflecting still on my trip. I'm receiving the kindest emails, and talk of a return is already beginning!

I have a bunch of photos that I haven't got up yet, which I will, and also a vid clip you need to see.

I keep thinking of some oddities or differences between the U.S. and Japan that I may or may not have mentioned:

-Bikes everywhere. Not for recreation, but for transportation. And they are skilled cyclists!
-Trash cans on the street are small, because there's less paper use I suppose
-Public bathrooms have no paper towels. Some have electric dryers that are cool, not like ours with a big round opening, but there's a slot that you put your hands into and within a few seconds your hands are dried by this massive force of hot air. You can see the ripples on your skin as the machine does its thing
-No napkins at most restaurants. Yes, most of the time you get the warm, moist towellette at the start of your meal, but no napkins.
-People sleep anywhere they can catch a catnap...overworked I tell ya.
-Woman don't come first. By habit I always open doors and let the ladies go first, but this just isn't understood in Japan. They don't get offended, they just pause and wonder why the heck this silly American is holding up traffic .
-Much smaller portions at meals.
-Cars, like Tsutomu's, have a feature where when you turn off the engine, the side mirrors automatically fold inward..very cool to watch, and very intelligent for parking.
-Hotel rooms are smaller than you can even imagine. I'm talking closet size where I had to leap over my suitcases to make it to bed.
-Very few SUVs or large cars, most are very fuel efficient smaller, but tall cars.
-"Sumimasen", (pardon me), is the most common word in Japan. Learn this and you'll be OK.
-Growing up in the U.S. we pretty much know 2 Japanese words, "Aso" and "Sayonara". Well, I think I heard Sayonara twice and Aso once. Damn McCale's Navy reruns!
-Diet in Japan is very high in sodium, but I'm thinking the high consumption of rice may offset the negatives of that a bit. Just a hunch.
-No cereal. That really was a change for someone who consumes about an acre of breakfast cereal each day.
-Rice rice, everywhere rice. I LOVE rice, don't get me wrong, but geez, how many rice balls can one eat in a day?
-Fresh fruit is not a big priority, especially in the late winter, unless you want to pay $4 per apple- no lie!
-The train ticket guy bows every time he enters or leaves a train car, even if the car is empty.
-You must learn which side of the escalator to walk or stand on. I'm not kidding, it actually changes depending upon which city you are in. I was always getting it wrong, which is a serious blunder, in fact, there was a war fought over this between Osaka and Kyoto a long time ago. OK, not about escalators, but stairs. I may have missed something in the translation, but I believe Osaka won the right to go up on the right, whereas Kyoto had to continue going up the left. Tokyo is a whole 'nother matter, and don't even get me started about those cats in Kobe!

Thanks for the zillionth time to all who made this experience such a joy. I am counting the days until we all meet up again.

ma-ta-ne (see ya later)
Kaeru

-

3.28

We awoke, had our free breakfast (where I "borrowed" some cool Japanese cereal samples to take home), and returned to the Peace Park at the Memorial for another guided tour, this time of the outside grounds. This park is huge and is very well set up. There was a building still standing that had survived the blast. One of the most poignant stories that I had heard was of a teacher in a classroom who reached down to pick up a pencil just as the blast wave hit the school, an act which saved her life, avoiding the blown in glass and debris.

We walked across the T-bridge, the target that the pilot of the Enola Gay used to drop his weapon, and then we went to the actual ground zero, where the bomb had exploded only 500 meters directly above a hospital. The hospital was revived and is still operational. It was said that nothing would grow in Hiroshima for 75 years after the bomb dropped, but the trees have returned, grass grows, and birds can be found singing—and even a heron fishing alone on the bank of the river.

Quite an emotional day and a half in a great city, a place where I would like to spend much more time, and plan to. The Peace Memorial is a very sad visit, yet also very inspiring, and I will take home with me a part of Hiroshima.

We said goodbye to our friend Tsutomu, and left for our last ride on the bullet train back to Osaka to meet up with Masaki who was unable to make the trip to Hiroshima. In the Osaka train station we sat in a booth and had a nice Italian lunch (I swear, I don´t know what it is that they put in the Italian food over here, even the cheap airport lounge´s version of Italian has a different flavor that rivals any Italian food I´ve had in the U.S.), and all began feeling heavy from the impending parting.

This was going to be a tough goodbye for me because not only had I been treated like a complete rockstar, but also treated like an equal accepted friend, even though I did not speak much of the language. They took me to places I had requested to see, I had attention paid to my food fussiness, and been given time to rest and look pretty, but I had also met some new friends, who up until now had only known about my music. We now knew about each other´s personalities and quirks, and became very close friends in the space of 10 days.

After last second purchases to use up some of my Japanese funny money, we made our way to the Osaka airport. Masaki had to catch a plane to Tokyo a bit earlier than mine left so we had our final goodbye in which we both agreed that the friendships made were more important than even the music and the business done.

I was then left with my 3 female companions, poor poor me, as we started to tear up and say our goodbyes. I have found most Japanese to not be very comfortable with hugging or public shows of affection, even friendly, so I held back the American hugs until the very last second when I was to go thru security for the last time. We all let the cultural restrictions go by the wayside and had a very warm goodbye. I really suck at goodbyes, always have, in part because I like to live in denial that the moment has actually arrived—a weakness I guess, but this one was especially difficult.

From our morning hotel meal to the final goodbyes at the Osaka airport, I was holding back emotion most of the day. 10 days with people who keep telling you how much your music has meant to them, some for 20 years, will do a number on you. Add to that the incredible kindess and sacrifices on my behalf, and I am truly at a loss for words to explain just how important, special, moving, inspiring, and life-affecting this trip was.

Seeing the faces of Junko, Ryoko, and Yohko staring down at me from behind the glass wall as I made my final walk onto the jetway is a sight I will never forget. With Masaki and Tsutomu, Toto, Kaori, and many others, I consider those girls 3 of my closest friends, after only 10 days.

I had a long, lonely walk down the jetway to the plane, promising myself to return to Japan to play new songs from a new album as soon as possible. We have established quite a following over there in several cities, and next time it will be easier to fill the venues.

I will be writing more, much more as the days and the memories come to me…there is much I need to fill in and some needing to be corrected (like I put my feet in the Pacific Ocean, not the Sea of Japan!), so this journal will be open ended for a while and we´ll archive the photos. There will be many new photos coming up in the next few days as well.

Thanks to my American music friends too who have written me to say how much they are enjoying the reports. I can´t wait to come back and play some shows where I don´t have to cover my piano with cheat sheets of Japanese intros to the songs (which they refer to as "cunning paper"!)

Even though my biz upgrade didn´t go thru, it was a half full flight so I could stretch out over 4 seats to begin the recovery from jet lag, which will take about 2 weeks. There was a Japanese flight attendant who knew me so I could keep speaking the language on the way home—I must be prepared for the next tour.

It´s 2AM in Massachusetts and I´m wide awake..anyone up for a game of frisbee?

Awoke in Kobe feeling well rested and looking forward to the return of Ryoko, who would be joining us at the Kobe station and then us all hopping on the train to greet Tsutomu in Hiroshima. Unfortunately, the Talent (me), had a hotel room that over-looked a gondola/tram ride that went up a beautiful mountain side--they really should know better than to put me in a room with such a view. Naturally, when we all met in the lobby, I couldn´t resist asking my security team if we had enough time to take the tram and still make the Shinkansen. Ryoko said if we ran the entire way, went up, went down, ran back, we could make the Shinkansen in time. We did the running part, to and fro, and took the tram up, got off for one minute of photo ops, took it down and missed our train.

Luckily, the ever peaceful Yohko is an assistant´s assistant, and spent most of her time on this tour getting me out of potential trouble schedule-wise. She´s very quick on her feet, which is in contrast to her calm and quiet demeaner, and snuck us on the Nozomi super bullet train, which costs a bit more, doesn't take my Japan Rail Pass, but gets you there quicker with speeds nearing 200 mph. Ryoko had brought more rice balls wrapped in seaweed, 3 different varieties for my consumption. These girls have taken such unbelievable care of me, I just can´t put it all into words because most of what they do is the little things that just make traveling, especially in a foreign land, that much more easy. I owe them a bale of gratitude for what they have done.

We arrived in Hiroshima to be met by the always smiling Tsutomu, soft-spoken and always with some sort of rare musical pop gem in his possesion. The attention to detail on this trip was astounding. I was impressed by how close to the original schedule everything stuck to. They had it all figured out in advance almost down to the minute, from who was going to be responsible for me, to what sights we´d visit.

On this afternoon, Tsutomu had arranged for a VIP personally guided tour of the large Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, near ground zero to where the atomic bomb had been dropped. The museum alone is worth a visit to Japan, and I was very encouraged by all the kids and Americans there, most of us with somber faces as we saw genuine photographs of the horrific effects of the bomb. I was especially taken by a small tricycle that was very badly charred, but survived. Of course, the boy it had carried on many summer afternoon explorations, did not survive. Our guide was a very passionate speaker who told us things that no American textbook ever has.

After our tour, we went to a private area where there was a classroom, in which Miyoko-sama, a woman in her 70´s who was less than a mile from ground zero, was waiting to greet us. She was a lovely lady dressed in a green and red sweater who appeared younger than her years. We sat down and listened to her tell us her story of the morning of August 6, 1945. She recalled calling out to her friends and not hearing any replies. She was 12 years old and suffered burns on her arms, which she showed us. She has had many health problems, and speaks deliberately, but has a sharp mind and a quick wit. She travels the world telling her story, one that needs to be heard by all.

Miyoko-sama spoke of someday hoping to learn how to sing, so for my gift to her, I asked if I may present her with a song, teach her the chorus, and have her sing it accapella with me. Tsutomu had already done the Japanese translation for "Petals of Peace", (this guy is one slick character---he zoomed in on one of the photos he took at a gig and was able to print up the lyric from my cheat sheet!) We sang the song together and then Miyoko asked me to please keep her message alive as most of the survivors will be gone within 10 years. I promised her that I would do my best, and we said our goodbyes.

Next up was the last show of my first, and absolutely not last, Japan tour, at Kapone´s in Hiroshima. This is a nice intimate venue with a very gracious owner. Tsutomu had printed up tickets, posters, had the stage set up, and probably had the street repaved and the moon repositioned before my arrival..he's that good. My dream is to have enough funding to be able to hire Masaki, Ryoko, Yohko, Junko, and Tsutomu to come on the road with me full time on the next world tour!

The show was good. It was a bit of a clam bake (meaning I made many mistakes), but several shows here I have done so, maybe it´s still getting used to the time, maybe it´s trying too hard to be perfect for my new fans, but usually the audience only notices about 10 percent of my flubs, so it was fine. The audience was astounding. Very nice people, one of whom had come from very far away to have me sign her Candy album, some others who found out about me through the power pop shop they operate, and yet others were recruited to be fans by Tsutomu saying, "Hey, you should listen to this", which is how Masaki had created a fan base as well. Since it now costs over 2 million dollars to break a pop artist on the U.S. radio, this word of mouth thing is our only shot. I was also very pleased with the myspace turnout at all of the shows. People who visited my site there came up and introduced themselves to me--a very cool tool for turning new people onto the music.

After the gig, and the club owner giving me the largest glass of red wine I´ve ever seen, which I downed because it was my last night in Japan and I was thirsty, we stumbled to the hotel to confirm my flight stuff and then met up again for late night falafel in the red light district. I´m not sure what all these girls were doing on the corners and alleyways, but oh how nice they were to us. They kept wanting to have us join them and go somewhere, perhaps for a bite to eat or something?, I´m not sure, but wow, how nice the locals can be at 1AM in Hiroshima. We turned down their gracious invites and retreated back to the hotel for a 9am wake up call, as my last night in Japan came to a close. By the way, you may want to view one of the WANTED posters soon to be uploaded.

3.26.06

After getting a whopping 5, count ´em five hours of sleep, we made our way to the Sunday noon gig in Shimokitazawa at Club 440. Soundcheck was at 10:30, which may be a world´s record for earliest soundcheck in history, at least it is in MY history. The club was located in a great neighborhood with loads of small shops just starting to wake up for the Sunday rush. Sunday is a very bustling day in Tokyo—some come for a weekend of shopping, while many businessmen make the trip into the city early to beat the morning traffic. This was to be the only Tokyo show that was opened to the public, so I was eagerly anticipating who, if anyone, would show up. To my present surprise, as I walked on stage the place was full with enthusiastic fans. Masaki suggested that I go out into the audience right before beginning my show and meeting each and every person. This is a great way to loosen everyone up and make us all one big happy family. Masaki is an absolute natural at promotion/tour management.

The audience was with me and I with them for the entire show. This will go down as one of my all-time favorite performance that I've ever done--every note just came from the deepest part of me, and every bad joke, even the ones in English, worked. I didn´t want to stop playing so I did a very long set, giving all my voice could give. I´m thinking that maybe the trick is to not sleep, after all these years of thinking a well-rested voice was the way to go. Just think of what I could've done with all those wasted sleeping hours?! After the gig we took tons of photos together with some of my best, longest enduring, and most dedicated fans/friends, including a pen pal of Dana's (Dana & Mary) who came down for the show. I was bowled over by the responses to the songs, and then meeting the individuals and taking a moment to speak with each of them. This was exactly how I wanted to say sayonara to Tokyo.

After the show we went back to the hotel to catch a train for Kobe, a seaside stop for sleep on the way to Hiroshima. Kaori, her new husband, and Yoshi accompanied us to the train station to see us off. They each purchased tickets as if they were taking a local train just to come to the platform and stay with us. Can this country´s people be any more welcoming? I think not. At the station there was a big poster/advertisement that featured the exact Sakura tree that is featured in the journal photo page, but in full color. I whispered to Yohko about maybe asking a station agent if they might have an extra one lying around. As usual, she was right on it and did her thing to make the Talent happy. Unfortunately the big station boss said no, but Yoshi told me he´d return in the middle of the night with a mask on and steal me one. I like the way Yoshi thinks...except... Somewhere between the hotel and the Shinkansen, my 400 yen green automatic umbrella with the cool fake wood handle went mysteriously missing. Since Yoshi was offering to swipe a poster for me, wouldn´t it make sense that he´s suspect #1 in the Great Tokyo Umbrella Caper of ´06? Hmmmm.

Arriving at Kobe station by midnight, it was straight to bed to be sure we would be up in time to make the train to Hiroshima for a jam packed day.

3.25.06
Masaki met me in the lobby for our big day at his pad in Chiba. Yohko was off on her own to no doubt get lost on a variety of trains. Masaki-san and I took the train, past the new IKEA, (which I like to call CrapKea), and Disney Japan. Since I missed my sushi lesson at his father-in-law´s house, Sumiyo (Masaki´s wife) agreed to have us come over to make up the class. Masaki filmed the entire lesson which came off not unlike a TV Food show which we´ll try to get up soon.

Sushi making is quite an involved endeavour, and Sumiyo was a great teacher. We argued a bit over the amount of sugar in the rice, I wanted to use maple syrup instead, but soon I relented and realized that she may have a bit better understanding of sushi than I.

The fruits of our labor were celebrated by eating our creations. Masaki and Sumiyo, and probably their daughter Akari and the 2 cats, were all giggling over how my sushi pieces looked like triangles. Yeah, well, you just wait until I open up a chain of "Kyle´s Maple Sushi Triangles" restaurants in Japan, it´s a no-lose venture.

Masaki´s 2 cats, Merilyn and Maria, love nori (dried seaweed—the stuff that sushi is wrapped in), and soon a melee broke out between me and the 2 critters over who was going to have the last piece of the salty delights. I´m still spitting up fur, but they´ve got hair products on their tongues, so I´m calling it a draw.

After showing me around his neighborhood, the highlight of which included a stop at a Toto Toilet retail outlet in a mall, where I got a brochure, a quick sales pitch, and then confused the lady when I asked her how much electricity the warming feature used, Masaki and I made our way back into town for the show that night.

Apparently miracles do happen as Yohko managed to find her way back to the hotel, although not before making a few wrong transfers, including a stopover in Bali.

This one was a special exclusive "Fan Fund" event, held for those who had joined the group set up by Masaki, consisting of fans from around Japan who contributed to cover the expense of making this tour happen. This alone made for a very special evening, as I kept thinking, looking out during a song, of how people living around the globe from where the music was created, came together to hear some songs sung in a foreign language by someone they had never met. It never seizes to amaze me that I have such dedicated friends of the music. I do sing for you.

After the show, special t-shirts commemorating this tour were distributed, tons of photos were taken, and even more Candy LP autographs were given (I swear, in the U.S we must´ve sold about 200 of those things, but in Japan it´s gotta be in the thousands because I´ve already signed a bunch)

Finally off to bed for about 5 hours of sleep before an early wake-up call and an, oh no, NOON gig…will review it after my sleep tonight. Photos up in the morning, or night for you, or something like that.