MACAO....THE VENETIAN AND GAMBLING...

Chocolates in the Venetian, Macao

On March 7, we had half the day in Tokyo, with a lobby call around 1:30. We got to Haneda Airport…went through the departure routine through immigration and customs and boarded up. We were delayed a bit…were supposed to have wheels up at 4, but it wound up being a bit after 5. Landing time was supposed to be 8:30pm, but with the delay and a fairly strong headwind, we didn’t get there until a little after 10. Our good friend Herren Hickingbotham was already there with his partner Todd Hill of Park Hill Collections. Herren has been a financial partner with the company for years. They make some classy high end furnishings and accessories for interior designs….a top notch outfit.

We didn’t really plan on getting up with him, but I gave him a call just to see if he had arrived…he and Todd had been in Hong Kong the day before and I wasn’t sure if he would be there. He was…and told us to meet him at Morton’s Steak House in the HUGE Venetian Hotel where we were staying and where we would play. We welcomed his offer to buy us a couple of cocktails and have a light bite with them. 

Casa Leavell

That put us in a nice relaxed mood and after saying goodnight to them, we went off to wind down and go to bed. 

3/8

An off day for us. Since the air quality was so poor it didn't really appeal to us to go for a walk.  Plus we were in quite a remote area and not near the Portuguese part of town that was the old city. In fact the only thing left of the old town was one wall of a historic building.

View from our hotel window

We explored the facilities…which was crazy…hundreds of shops in what we were told is the world’s fourth largest indoor structure. Every designer shop known to man was represented there, and many other boutique shops we’d never heard of. There was nothing we wanted to buy, so it was all window shopping and walking around. We were also amazed at the size of the Casino at the Venetian…and with the construction that was going on around the complex that we could see outside the window of our hotel room. Later someone told us that Macao gets more than 7 times the casino revenue per year that Las Vegas gets. Amazing….and that caused me to investigate some gaming stocks that I wound up investing in a few weeks after we returned to the US.

The Venetian Shopping Arcade

Later that evening, we wound up having a drink at the Four Seasons hotel at Herren’s suggestion. While we were there, a group of folks at a table not far away recognized me and one of them came over to introduce himself. He was a Chiropractor, named Tony Dawson. Very nice guy, and invited us over to meet some of the others. One was Royal Rowe, the manager of the Four Seasons there and who apparently is responsible for opening up several other Four Seasons in that part of the world. Another was Linda Switzer, who manages the MGM in Macau and who is a huge Stones fan. I wound up getting her some hospitality passes to the upcoming Shanghai show. We had a nice chat with all of them and then went out to dinner with Herren and Todd at Portofino.  Then, we retired for the night.

3/9

Show day…this was at the Cotai Arena in the Venetian, a capacity of just over 10,000. Very similar to doing the MGM Grand in Vegas, which we have done so many times. A good show, and a very responsive crowd. There were quite a lot of ExPats in the audience, but there were more locals that we thought there might be, which was cool. After the show we had some drinks with Herren and Todd back at Morton’s. The manager of the place was very good to us, as it was after hours for food, but he accommodated us….with drinks as well. It was a nice way to ease down from the show and to spend time with good friends. We said goodnight to them and headed up for bed. They would both be coming to Shanghai, so it was only a temporary separation. 

Japan 2014

More Fun in Tokyo....

The Ginza-Kaiga School

So, we finished up the first show, and as usual I had made a plan to
meet some Japanese Artists and learn something new. I googled up The Ginza School of Art (http://ginza-kaiga.com) and found it that it was located just 4 blocks from the Peninsula Hotel. The concierge helped me sort out the details and found out that it was $50 per hour so I could have two classes for $100.
I opted to take a calligraphy class and also drawing. It was an exciting event for me. English was spoken there so I felt comfortable about the adventure. Ameba Shogain was my instructor.

Ameba Shogain

His English was limited, but he guided me through the materials. Showed me how to dissolve the ink block and hold my brush properly. Then, he did a demonstration for me. My first word was river...I like that as I live close to the Ocmulgee River and it reminded me of home. Then we did several other single sheet words and this was done on a very find grade of rice paper about the size of a sheet of regular paper.

Calligraphy

I learned Forever, Spring, Car, Year of the Horse, Me Painting, the date, and several others. We did multiple repetitions of these and ended up doing a scroll with several characters going from right to left. At the end of the class I got to choose my favorites and affix the Ginza stamp and also Japan Stamp signifying the place. It was a very rewarding lesson. I loved the simplicity of it all.

Painting and drawing class

Painting Class

My time was up for that class and I moved

Rose Lane's Charcoal.

across the foyer into the waiting class of men and women who were doing various paintings and drawings. I chose to do a charcoal since it had been years when I had learned to work with charcoal while studying with House Smith in Macon, Ga. Alas, my two plus hours was over, and I retreated back to the hotel. I marveled at my opportunity to learn new ideas and network with people. I made a promised that once I returned to America and had a chance that I would buy a book on Japanese calligraphy and explore it further. A very worthy outing for me....
The next night was a really fun event. Keith Richards hosted a Rabattinaki dinner for the tour girls. Of course, he didn't attend but Patty was our hostess. There are 24 women on tour with The Rolling Stones. Over the past few years we have all become very good friends.
It was a riotous evening. The restaurant was Inakaya and the cuisine is grilled meats, veggies, and lots of sake....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfOfPVUhgso.

Inakaya

Lordy, we had a riotous time. The food just kept coming! and we were having loads of fun. More sake; more fun! So, there were 24 seats around the cook station and at the beginning they kept out the two seats to the far left of the bar. The management was adamant that we should not sit there. Cheryl Ceretti and Elizabeth Curran had not arrived since they were still at The Dome.

The Rolling Stonettes

We all sat down and started eating and drinking. Along comes a Japanese couple to take the seats???? They had no idea what a party they had come upon. After a bit the gentlemen realized that we were Rolling Stonettes and that he was the only guy in the midst of a bunch of women. He stood up and pounded his chest.
Bravado! Then, he realized he was sitting close to Lisa Fisher who had just the night before won the Oscar (along with others) for 20 Steps From Stardom. Personally, I thought she stole the show, but then I am partial!!! It was all a good laugh after them realizing what was going on. Elizabeth and Cheryl finally came in so we were all there. Amazing.

Chefs at the grill

Finally, we had our fill and started saying good night around the table. The crew girls were staying outside our district. The rest of us had about a 5 block walk to the hotel. As we were leaving we all made a comment on how beautiful the basket/cask was that held the Sake. The server told us we had drunk the whole cask!!!!! Fun, fun, fun. Thanks so much to Keith Richards.

Back to works as usual. We had 2 more shows to do at the Egg Dome each sold out, and it was just get on with it! Chuck and I had some more lovely meals in town, and one was with our friend Toshie Onishie. We have know here since the 80's when Chuck was hired to record with The Privates. We enjoyed meeting up with her again. She was doing private tickets for the promoted and was working at the show, too.
So, now it was time to leave for Macao, China. Bernard Fowler had mentioned that the Chinese breakfast at our hotel was great. In honor of our going there we opted to have that as our parting meal. It was great, and we left very happy.

TOKYO Week 2 and Chuck says:

Wasting Time in Tokyo

After that first show, we had four days off…and again, it became a challenge to kill the time. This is not the best time of year to be in Tokyo….it was cold and rained quite a lot, so not all that great for getting around the city or going to gardens, etc. I had contacted my pal Athan Billias, who works for Yamaha and while he lives in Southern California, often goes over to Japan for business…and fortunately, he was there. We arranged to tour the Yamaha Building on March 1…Matt Clifford and Mike Klvana joined us as well as a nice Japanese fellow named Taku. They took us to lunch at a sushi place and then gave the tour. It was all in Ginza, so a short distance. We saw a couple of their performance rooms…one of which was quite impressive with the design of specific woods on the walls, floors and even the seats…mahogany, cyprus, maple and I believe spruce were used in various ways…all for acoustic properties. It was a lovely room that seated about 300 or so. There was a classical piano concert going on…but we didn’t stay for it…just got a glimpse of the room and were given the story on it. Then we visited several of the other floors…one with the digital musical instruments, guitars and so on…one had all the brass and reed instruments….one sold cds, one had nothing but sheet music. They were very gracious to us and it made for a nice few hours.

The next day we had arranged to meet up with our friend Rio Takahashi. Rio used to work for KORG many years ago, and that is how we met. We became friends and stayed in touch through all the years. Some 10-12 years or so ago he had a tragic stroke and lost some use of one of his arms, and contracted a limp. It was a tough blow for him, but to his credit, he took up the challenge of trying to bring attention to folks in Japan that had suffered strokes by taking long bicycle rides between cities and in some cases walking. He sent us some articles about it over the years. But since then, he’s had more difficulty…in and out of hospitals, nearly dying…losing the capability to walk, then regaining it….barely. So when we saw him, it was not a surprise to see him worse off than we have ever seen him…but not easy to see. He drools and his speech is very slurred, and he can barely walk…but to his credit, he is tough and keeps on trying his best to recover. He is a great guy…but somewhat stressed out, which is one reason he had a stroke in the first place. In any case, we met him in the lobby of the hotel with his girlfriend (can’t remember her name) who has been with him a long time and who looks after him with great love and affection…his middle son, Rio…and his new wife (again, couldn’t get name) and a couple of friends. We all went to Rio’s friend’s restaurant…Mr. Obsuto. Rio has taken us there a couple of times before. A very small tempura restaurant….very good. Obsuto-San speaks enough English to get his points across, and his wife, who assists him at the restaurant speaks quite good English. We all made a good time of it….talking about our various ventures in recent years and what was and is happening in our respective lives.

Rio picked up the tab, God bless him…and then we caught cabs back to the Peninsula, saying our goodbyes at the front door. Rose Lane and I went back to our room as they made their way back home. 

3/4/

Show day number two….finally! Great to get back on track and back on the stage. Rose Lane usually leaves for the gig before I do these days, as she helps get things in order for Caroline Clements (makeup) and Isobel Work (wardrobe). I went with our usual team…Darryl, Bernard, Lisa, Tim and Bobby…as well as some of the staff. Rio and his folks would be there and I had arranged VIP passes for them. I went through the routine of doing the set list draft, practicing some in the dressing room, doing sound check and finalizing the set list with Mick. Then to catering for a bite to eat. As show time approached, I made my way (waaaaay across the Tokyo Dome to the opposite side) to see Rio and company. I had suggested, (and thank heaven his family had agreed) to put him him a wheelchair to get him around the Dome. It is such a HUGE facility. I had also asked Shelley Lazar, our ticket rep, to get Rio and isle seat so he could settle in without too much trouble, and she kindly accommodated. It was good to see them all again…and they were very excited about the show. I stayed as long as I could, but as showtime was approaching, had to say goodbye to them again and head to “the office”. 

The show that night was much better than the first one. Everyone was on top of their game, and the audience was enthusiastic and responded strongly. Afterwards it was back to the room, sip some wine and wind down.

Guitar World

3/5

This is the day I had arranged to do a session with my pal Kunio Kishida. He picked me up at 1pm with a nice young fellow that drove for us named “Pony” and we made our way to the studio. It was quite close to our hotel…maybe only a mile or two. Kunio had never used it, but had found out about it and they apparently made him a great deal…he was very happy about it. It was indeed a very good studio…with a fine 9’ Model D Steinway piano that sounded great. The folks there were as nice as they could be and had everything set up for us. Kunio had demos of some six songs that he had written, so we went to work. I wanted to do a good job for him…he’s a fine man and has been so nice to me through the years when I see him….which granted is not often, but I just wanted to pull out all the stops and spice up his project. After doing the first track, which didn’t take long…I asked them if they had a Hammond B-3. Luckily they did, and went to fetch it. I wound up putting piano and organ on all six tracks and Kunio and all the folks there seemed to be pleased with the results. After doing those, Kunio and I jammed with just the two of us on a couple of blues tracks, so he had some bonus material. All went well and we were done by 7pm. Pony drove us back to the hotel and we said our goodbyes…they were going to a club called Red Shoes where some of our crew was to play and Kunio was to sit in. I was invited, but Rosie and I had dinner plans with an old school chum of mine….Shigeru Mayagawa. I  went to Jr. High with him back in Tuscaloosa, but have not seen him since then…maybe 45 years! He had found me through the Internet and we re-connected. It turns out that he is Professor of Linguistics at MIT and has now taken a position with the University of Tokyo as well, as Director of Online Courses.

So he was already waiting at the lobby of the hotel…and I invited him up to the room to chat with us a bit before heading to dinner. We wound up going back to the Bangkok Gardens…and had a wonderful time catching up about our families, our “missing years” and life in general. So all this made for a really fun and productive day…

3/6

Only in Japan....

Last show in Tokyo. Again, a great one. I didn’t make it to the VIP to see Shigeru, but we had already said our farewells the night before. It was even better then the second show, so we left on a high note. One fun part of it was that we had a special guest…Tomoyasu Hotei. He is HUGE in Japan as a guitar player and artist. He had a big worldwide hit with an instrumental song called “Battle Without Honor or Humanity”. It was a main theme in the “Kill Bill” film. He has sold over 40 million records in Japan. I went to meet him in his dressing room…and he was as nice as he could be. Even mentioned Sea Level, which as a surprise. Not long after, we met in Mick’s dressing room to go over “Respectable”, which was the song he guested on. Ronnie popped in with him and we had a good time going through it. We also did it at sound check with the whole band, which went well.

When Mick introduced him, he got a tremendous response, and played great. He stayed through all the set and as we departed the stage to do the “runner”, he was there to say goodbye to everyone. Very cool.

That ended our stint in Tokyo….a fun and productive stay. In some ways we hated to leave…but it was time to move on and get the show back on the road.