After years of wanting to get an invite to Japan, I was invited to the Daidogei Buskers World Cup in 2006. It was a great experience going to Japan! I ate sushi with lots of wasabi for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.

 

Everything in Japan was so different for me. They had diagonal crosswalks, no-smoking cities and people pick up little tiny pieces of trash with giant tweezers, the street lights have little attachments that work just like loading bars on a computer to tell you how long you have to wait before the light changes and most packaged drinks come with little tiny plastic toys.

 

I was amazed by the crowds at this festival. They would actually get in long long lines to see street acts and to leave their tip as well. They really take courtesy to the extreme, which is cool, I guess. Many people carried collapsable aluminum risers all over the city so that they could have a good view from the back row.

The experience of Japan for me was great, but the experience with the organizers of the festival was terrible! Things got off on a bad foot right away. We were all coming from the airport on a bus to Shizuoka when I noticed in the festival program that they had me down as a walking act. That wouldn’t have been a problem if they had let me known in advance that they wanted me to walk, but they didn’t, and so I didn’t bring the cart that’s necessary to pull my amplifier around for walking while playing. The next day the bosses, Ryo-Kuji Iguchi and his boss, Hamada-san told me that I walk & play or I don’t get paid. When I said that I had a contract and it said nothing about walking in it, they said that if I so much as open my mouth once more that they would cancel my return ticket to Italy and leave me stranded in Japan. Now, I’ve seen some nasty stupid people running big festivals before who try to cover their own mistakes by making other people pay for it, but I have never seen any trick so completely criminal and dirty as that. They have no honor.

 

When I got back to Italy, I talked with a lawyer about going to court for the contract. He informed me that It would cost 6 times as much as the contract was worth to sue them. In fact, he said that even by printing this true story I would be opening myself up to a lawsuit by them for slander. I said that it wasn’t slander, it was the truth. He said that it didn’t matter.

 

If that’s what this world has come to, then sue me. I just don’t care anymore.

 

 

©2007 StranieroVision