I can think of a million things to say about why I love traveling, but very little about touring because touring is not traveling. Traveling is an adventure, and a tour is a job and a hard one. In theory, one has to get somewhere at a specific time while on tour, which means waiting for the train to arrive or killing time in a hotel near the station. On the other hand, traveling is a profound and earth-shattering adventure. But doing a tour is a lot of hard work and not very romantic, at the very least.
We have been staying in a series of hotels near the train station, primarily due to the luggage that we have on hand, which is a lot. There are four of us. Lun*na and Saori of Les Sewing Sisters, Jeff, the filmmaker, and John, a professional tour manager and translator. I love them all, especially my wife, but I wonder if I’m meant to serve as someone who tours with the band, especially at 69. Maybe I’m more of a Brian Wilson or Andy Partridge of XTC who doesn’t travel but stays in their home studio to write the hits. My idea of travel is living in a hotel, even a business hotel, and doing nothing but writing. Once in a while, I go out of the hotel room to see the landscape and rush back to the work desk to write about my experiences. Which, due to my nature, is minimal.
We did a series of shows in the Japanese countryside, which were beautiful. The people who live in these places are lovely, and we had great meals with them. My job is to introduce Les Sewing Sisters in front of whatever audience and then interview the homeowners of the property. And that has been going very well. I’m a natural in doing this type of work, but what is not felt by others is my depression. That is not a secret, but it is also something that people don’t think of me as being depressed. I don’t wear depression like others; I wear that feeling as a Dandy. It’s the only way to cope with this criminally sad world, which makes me feel depressed.
It’s easier for me to cope with my sadness by being in a large city like Osaka, for example. Seeing people move around and living a worthy life makes me feel better. The countryside is tranquil; therefore, one is alone with one's thoughts, which is not bad because one needs time to reflect on whatever ills them. But one can’t escape such a feeling. It’s best to accept it and move on. I don’t think there is a cure for this feeling of sadness. I suffered from the loss of two family members a year ago, but people have to deal with this regularly, and there is nothing special about the grief over death.
What is extraordinary is taking that loss or depression to another level. Ever since my father’s sudden death when I was twenty years old, I have accepted this change in my life neither as a negative nor positive thing but as something that happened and was terrible. There is no way I can make it into a lightness when it was so ugly in the first place. I’m sad, but then again, wouldn’t any sane person be anything but painful?
Les Sewing Sisters is about life. It’s about the clothing industry and the nature of being a woman or human involved with the fascinating instrument that is the sewing machine. Lun*na and Saori are doing a series of intimate and quite revolutionary shows regarding how pop music is made for only a few. It’s not about the masses or how much money one can make but the nature of a solitary concert for the few in their home, and to be exact, in their closet space. And to do this in Japan is extraordinary. And I do bitch, and ache about what I’m doing here, but I know it’s an essential service to art, and when everything else is failing like crazy, it is the art that will win out in the end.
I watched a performance on YouTube following your post; I totally agree.
I sometimes travel for art installs and I always think that I will have time to have fun on the side but really your just in work mode and exhausted by the end of the day. A meal a drink then wake up and do it again. Travel though sounds dreamy