Hold the Seaweed

As Tim mentioned in a post, some of our band members are not exactly politically correct. But I guess political correctness depends on your take on life anyway and everyone is weird in their own way.

Every country is full of politically incorrect and bizarre people, and Japan (in particular Tokyo) is no exception. After living here for so many years there are a few things which still puzzle me, so perhaps someone out there can shed some light on something which has been bothering me for some time.

In many professions, especially in 'Chain stores/restaurants', the staff in Japan have a tendency to follow the rules to the letter. One of my many incidents was in Harajuku when I went to a spaghetti restaurant which served reasonably good spaghetti, the only drawback being that they put seaweed (nori) on some of the dishes. I politically asked for 'No Seaweed' on my spaghetti and I was very politely told by the waitress (and the manager later on...who bowed to 90 degrees 3 times) that the rules stipulated that seaweed must be put on top of the spaghetti and there were no exceptions to this rule... This got my blood running so I got inspired and wrote a song about it that night until about 3 am. I then got my mate to help me make a music video and spread the word - perhaps my small efforts will lead to some change at some point in the future?
Anyway, here's a video I made about it a few years back.



Rich.