Back In Japan - America's Lame Health Care

I'm back in Japan for a few months and have had a little time to reflect back on our relocation to the states all all things involved with becoming American again. There has been a lot of good things but also a lot of disappointments as well. One, is the American health care system. I would agree that America has great doctors and cutting edge technology but the truth is that only rich people can afford it. The insurance system is the worst of all the developed countries.

I was reading an article yesterday in a Japanese English language newspaper about it. In Japan by the way, everybody has health insurance, yes everybody. When I mention to people here that in America 16 percent of people (46 million) do not have health insurance, they react like it was the weirdest thing they had ever heard. All people living in Japan have coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions and the deductible is maybe ten percent at most. They deduct from my check every month the premium. It is grouped together with the Japanese version of social security and equals about ten percent of your monthly paycheck. So if you were making four grand a month, you would have to fork over 400 bucks. Pretty good deal I think, considering that when you go to the doctor, you only have to pay maybe seven or eight bucks. It is a better deal for someone making half of that.

Now lets compare that to what the same person in the states would pay. Keep in mind that what you earn doesn't effect anything. A five thousand deductible PPO (meaning that just like Japan, you can go to any doctor you want) costs about four hundred dollars a month. I'll say it again just to make sure you heard me: FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR DEDUCTIBLE! That means that if I get sick I'll have to pay the first five grand out of my pocket, on top of this, I'm already paying about five grand a year in premiums. This makes America's health care system the world's most expensive. And if you are sickly, you can't get insurance anyways.

The government should pass a law that makes it against the law to decline people with health problems. Premiums should be tax deductible. And health insurance should be available at a discounted premium for people in lower income brackets.

The Death of Internet Radio?

It is five minutes to midnight on internet radio's digital clock. Time is ripening to its doom it would seem. I'll give you the short version and let you decide for yourselves what you want to do about it. First let me give you a short marketing lesson. The general formula for selling records (for the commercial music business) traditionally goes like this: Make a bunch of CDs, distribute them everywhere, use financial leverage to get commercial radio to play them nonstop and the result is that brainwashed (or earwashed) consumers will buy them by the truckload. But something happened and changed everything. The digital revolution happened.

First of all the digital revolution made it easy for independent artists to record their own music. They no longer needed financing from the record industry. Next it gave them a method to sell their music. As you know, independent music gets sold from artist websites (like chrisjuergensen.com), internet retailers (like cdbaby.com) and download sites (like iTunes or magnatune.com). No need for carpet bombing methods of distribution anymore.

The digital revolution also gave artists a way to promote themselves through internet radio and podcasts. As we speak (or as I write this) less than 10 percent of music played on FM/AM radio is independent music while internet radio plays close to 40 percent and I imagine if you looked at the statistics for podcasts, you would find that at least 90 percent of the music played is Indie music. This is about all the record industry could take and have come up with a plan to crush us like grapes. To make it worse, they claim that they are trying to protect artists but this is a big facade.

At the request of the Recording Industry Association of America, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, increased Internet radio's royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and is thereby jeopardizing the industry’s future.

The rate is only increasing from 7/100 of a penny per song streamed to 19/100 of a penny per song streamed over a 5-year period which may not seem like much but take a look at the other conditions:

No Revenue based Royalty Option - Prior to this decision all small webcasters and some large webcasters had the choice of paying royalties based on a percentage of their revenue that typically equaled 10-12%. But the CRB decision did not offer a revenue-based royalty option for any webcasters.

Retroactive Impact - The CRB decision is effective as of January 2006, so if it actually becomes effective for only one day its impact will be immediate as the past due royalties alone will be enough to bankrupt virtually all small and mid-sized webcasters.

Per Station Minimum - The CRB piled on even more, by imposing a $500 per channel minimum royalty that for many services will far exceed the annual royalties that would otherwise be due even after the CRB decision. One advantage of Internet radio is that it is not limited by spectrum capacity or bandwidth capacity, which enables several services literally to offer 10,000 or 100,000 stations and more. By penalizing this innovation and creativity the CRB further ensures that Internet radio will become less creative, less dynamic, less of an opportunity for non-mainstream artists and genres, and will look more like broadcast radio in the future.

Internet radio is like FM radio fifty years ago, DJs pick and play what they like with little regard for what big business has to say. It is refreshing to say the least, honest radio, it sounds like an oxymoron. With revenues shrinking for the big labels they have their sites on internet radio and claim that it is for me, the artist who deserves more money. It will mean less money for me because most of the radio stations that play me will be out of business. They can not be allowed to do it.

What you can do:

Save Net Radio

Back in the US

Thats right, back in Los Angeles after fifteen years in Japan. Feels strange to say the least, like I never really left. Getting back into th music scene a little at a time but I am mostly just letting my family get used to their new lives in a new country. My daughter loved the beach and can't get enough of it. The warm southern California weather keeps us there a few times a week. Anyone who will be at the NAMM show next week, let me know. I'll be demonstrating at the K-T-S booth.


Links:

• NAMM
• K-T-S

Top Ten Japanese Misconceptions

I've been living here in Japan for 15 years now and I always get a good crack up when I talk to my fellow Americans about Japanese culture and customs. I've written up a top ten list of Japanese misconceptions:

10. Japanese people are worried about "saving face" - I have never even heard a Japanese person use that expression. Japanese people are just like the rest of us and pretty much want to get ahead and could give a flying crap about how people perceive them. The Japanese do however hate to be embarrassed and try to avoid situations that may lead the an embarrassing outcome. Still, the concept that the Japanese are more concerned than the rest of us about how they are perceived is news to me.

9. Japanese women are submissive. Ha! My wife would kick my ass if I tried to make her do some kind of mystical oriental sex technique on me. 99.9 percent of married women do the finances and make the decisions around the house. Granted most married Japanese women don't work but they don't take orders from anyone. Submissive? Don't make me laugh.

8. Japanese guys all know Karate. Ha! I've never even met a Japanese cat who knows Karate. Judo is definitely a better bet because they have a Judo team in high school. Kung Fu is Chinese by the way as well as Bruce Lee.

7. Japanese people have a better appreciation of nature - Oh yeah right! You couldn't find a blade of grass anywhere in this country. Or a natural beach for that matter. Japan is completely paved over. Japanese people like to tell you that they have a special appreciation of nature but it is a bunch of crap. I will say however that Japanese people do keep the place clean. You would be pretty hard pressed to find any garbage anywhere in this country but everything has to be paved over first. Safe and clean, but far from natural.

6. Most people in Japan speak and understand English - No way. Japanese and white Americans are similar in this way. Neither speak a language other than their native tongue. I hear it a lot; "It must have been a big adjustment living in Japan. But most Japanese people speak English right?" Wrong. Although it is true that all Japanese kids start studying English in middle school, they never learn how to speak it. They don't have any desire to do so. The reason is pretty simple: they don't need to, every expensive hotel anywhere in the world caters to the Japanese and has someone who speaks Japanese for them. English and Japanese would seem to be the international hotel language. When you have a bunch of cash, you don't need to be bilingual. Go to Taiwan for example and it seems most everybody speaks a few languages.

5. Japanese, Chinese and Koreans are all pretty much the same - If you believe this you deserve a slap in the head. Geographically, spiritually, culturally completely different. The only thing Japanese have in common with the Chinese is that they borrowed the Chinese characters (known in Japanese as Kanji) ages ago and not until the Heian period (794-1185) did they start developing their own written language. Even though they borrowed Chinese characters a few thousand years ago, the spoken language is completely different. Japan, compared to their Chinese neighbor is tiny, a tiny island or actuall a series of islands, and completely safe and clean. If I had only one thing to say about Japan and nothing else, I would tell you the it is the only place in Asia where it is safe to drink the water. The Chinese and Koreans hate the Japanese for the most part because they have yet to make amends for World War II where China and Korea paid the price for Japanese aggression. Japanese culture was outlawed in Korea until recently but have been enjoying cross cultural exchanges lately. There is a decent sized hall inside the Japanese embassy in Seoul because that was the only place you could hear live Japanese music in Korea at one time (I know because I played there once as a guest of Japan). Although the Japanese love Chinese and Korean food, Japanese food is completely different. Delicate I suppose with the lack garlic and strong spices. Different in every way, don't confuse Japan with its neighbors.

4. Japanese people are all spiritual - You're killing me here. It is pretty much standard behavior for a Japanese person to have a Christian wedding and a Buddhist or Shinto funeral. Japanese people all generally have a formal religion (actually two of them) but are by nature Atheists. But, one thing I will give credit to the Japanese for is that for a bunch of Atheists they have managed to keep their country relatively safe and as a whole the Japanese are pretty scrupulous people. Americans tend to believe in God more and live by his rules less. Japanese tend to follow the rules of their religions and both Buddhism and Shinto do play a part in society but it is more of a tradition more so than a spiritual belief and most Japanese do not believe in a God or spirit or afterlife, heaven or hell. Regardless, I have traveled all over the world and can say honestly that Japan is the safest country I have ever been to. So much for Religion.

3. Japanese chicks are hot for foreign guys - Nope. Sorry, there are some women who like foreign guys but most of them would never marry you. The Japanese women who would marry a foreign guy usually are the ones who want to have careers of their own. Most Japanese women have little interest in working after they are married and most parents would forbid their daughters to marry a gaijin or foreigner anyways. Also, Japanese women hate hairy men. Second, they hate muscles, they prefer men that pluck their eyebrows. Granted they do enjoy the manners of Western men who tend to pull out chairs and open doors for them unlike their Japanese boyfriends. But all and all they find foreign men more of a nuisance than anything else.

2. Japan is too expensive to live a normal life - This has changed in the last fifteen years that I have been here. True, it isn't an inexpensive country but take it from someone who lives in both Tokyo and Los Angeles, Los Angeles is more expensive. Japan has gone through deflation for as long as I have been here and I have slowly watched prices come down. I remember thinking American guitars were out of hand back when I first got here but now it is about the same. Rent is expensive but so is the rent in LA. Both Tokyo and Los Angeles sport about $2,000 a month price tags for a two bedroom in a good area. Rent is cheap in the suburbs, maybe an hour out of Tokyo. Food will set you back a little more here in Tokyo, especially the price of produce but you can still find a health Japanese lunch for about four bucks. You also have to remember that you don't need a car to get around in Tokyo and most companies pay your transportation fees. Also, everybody is on the national health care system so health care is cheap. Property is more expensive in Los Angeles thanks to the Fed. Granted it is safe to assume that per square meter, Japan is more expensive but considering that a condo in LA is 500 grand you have to be making some cash to buy your own place. A slightly smaller place in Tokyo would set you back less. I'm not sure what the statistics are but take it from someone living in both cities, Los Angeles is a money black hole, especially considering that you can make more money in Tokyo and you a guaranteed a bonus two times a year and severance whether you quit or get fired.

1. Japanese put soy sauce on everything - This is one of my pet peeves regarding Americans. Anytime I go out to eat Japanese cuisine in the states, I always get grossed out by the way Americans insist on putting soy sauce in their rice. In Japan I have never seen any Japanese people do this. I think the only reason they put soy sauce on the table on Japanese restaurants in the states is because Americans keep asking for it. The trick with eating Japanese food is balancing out the rich flavor of certain foods with the white rice. Even with Sushi, you are supposed to sort of brush the fish side of the Sushi in the soy sauce, not the rice side. And Sushi and Sashimi, is one of the few foods that you actually put soy sauce on. Japanese tend to cook with soy sauce but it doesn't get too much attention other wise. So see if you can lay off the soy sauce or at least refrain from drowning your rice in it, the cook is peaking out of the kitchen laughing.

Links

• Cost of living in Japan
• Japanese food
• Religion in Japan

Recording Using the new SSL Board

Got the chance to record using the new "Duality" console made by Solid State Logic. It is probably the first commercial recording done using the board, so I sort of made recording history yesterday. SSL consoles are pretty much the standard mixing consoles since the early 90s, they are in just about every commercial recording studio. They became popular because of the advanced automation feature I suppose, in other words, the board remembers the mix and recalls it. The boards are analog and the new one was designed to interact seamlessly with Pro-Tools. I wrote the song for my old flame and Joey Carbone (legendary Los Angeles producer, song writer) came in to play the keyboards and did the perfect arrangement for the tune. There is some stuff I still want to fix (my guitar especially) but it came out pretty good I think. Have a listen but keep in mind it isn't mastered. Takashi Fujimura did the mix. We're a bunch of goofballs so after the session someone said; "Let's all take a photo in front of the SSL console to commemorate the the first ever recording using it!" We took a look at the photo and discovered you can't even see the console because we are blocking it. If you want a good look, check the link below.

Links:

• "Long Time Wondering" MP3
• SSL Duality Info