JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

This is a photo of one of the North American lizards.

(Click on image to view large size)

For those of you who were at Bar JET towards the end of July, the “documentary” that was being filmed is supposed to be airing on NHK at 8:00 a.m. Sunday, 20 August 2006, according to the info told to Taki. For those of you who were not at the bar during the filming, here is some background info. NHK, the Japanese version of PBS, was filming the musicians of the local music scene in the Okinawa City area last month. From what Taki was told, it was supposed to be a documentary. Therefore, we had an entire production crew at the bar. Normally, I would not care much, as long as the crew was filming from the observational perspective (without interfering with business as normal). Unfortunately, usually that is not the case. What does usually happen is these “documentaries” end up with a choreographed sequence of events (similar to promotional films) that have nothing to do with the real weekend to weekend bar scene.

It should be noted that you should not be seeing me in the documentary for several reasons:

1) The manner in which the documentary was explained, in order to get approval to film at the bar, was that the documentary was supposed to be about the band, not me or the club.
2) I was cured of the “fame” bug a long, long time ago (almost 25 years ago in fact)….after I did a local TV commercial for butter cookies that ran on the airwaves for many years, but I never received even one yen for. (As far as I know, the local agent that booked that gig and never paid me, is no longer in business for having the same business ethics with other people that she booked gigs for.) Therefore, I straight out told the crew prior to filming that I was not giving my permission to be filmed or recorded – which Taki had already explained to them earlier. (Of course, that did not stop them from filming and recording things (such as me and the counter) that they were told were not to be included in the “documentary about the local musicians”, despite the producer previously agreeing not to.)
3) The behavior of the crew described above just reinforced my NOT wanting to be filmed or recorded despite several other attempts made by the crew to change my mind. (I tried my hardest to conduct business as usual without ending-up in the film crew’s floodlights that lit up the club as if it was an awards show.)

Anyway, for those of you who were at Bar JET those weekends, and want to see how the “documentary” turned out, do not forget to put the time and date on your calendars.