Snap Away From SMAP: No, There Is Nothing Wrong With Being Naked

SMAP pop band member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi got into trouble this week in a public park at 3 AM, and some humourless neighbour called the cops. Turned out he was singing, and naked, and generally having a great time (it was a very warm late April night). When the cops told him to calm down he refused saying "What’s wrong with being naked?!"

No, there is nothing wrong with being naked. If this is any defence of Mr Weed's behaviour, I'm so glad he didn't do a Gary Glitter or a Phil Spector, and he also doesn't seem to apologize for his behaviour (nothing to apologize for really, he is a grown man, after all).

I'd say, he has now officially snapped out of SMAP in style. Welcome to the real world. No, so far we hadn't heard of a single Bono bone in his frail frame, and I never expected him to rally for poverty issues In Africa or human rights in Asia - but why not? He is only 34. But, he has spent time in Thailand to learn more about orphans there and documented the trip for a television special of SMAP's weekly variety program SMAP X SMAP... So?

How about a solo come-back, with some original tunes, perhaps at Fuji Rock or the next Earth Day celebration? Don't Japan's long-suffering pop fans deserve better than the current mix of coy boy bands, all sounding exactly as exciting as the MSG that is added to the noodles and poodles they promote on terrestial TV to make a living?

Incidentally, a feeling I remember from Salman Rushdie, in another time and place, popped to my mind: Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, you have been inside an "ailing balloon" for too long, up against the granite, heartless certainties of "Actually Existing" Japanese Media; now you are facing the "utter intransignance, the philistine scorn" of so much of said Actually Existing Japanese Media (your "reality instructors" including the camera men up there inside the Late Night Live News helicopters) - but you did actually manage to escape, yes! for a brief moment, from the "shackles of the Thought Police..."

Freedom. Now your balloon is sunk into the "bottomless chasm" and you are no longer trapped. Wow, well done. You are no longer inside the bubble. You are, as it were, dis-em-bubbled. Congratualations, young man. Hope you never turn back, and never let all your real fans down.



Tsuyoshi Kusanagi at 1:10 in the video, in case you wondered who on Earth he is.

Sekai Ni Hitotsu Dake No Hana
(A Flower There's Only One Of In The World)

I looked at all kinds of flowers
Lined up in front of the flower shop
Each person prefers a different type
But they are all beautiful
None of them fight
Over who is the best
They just stand up tall and proud
In their buckets
So how come we people
Want to compare ourselves like this?
Why do we want to be the best
When everybodys different?

Yes, each of us is
A flower there is only one of in the whole world
Each of us has their own seeds
So lets just do our best
To make them grow into flowers
There are people whose smiles are strained
Because they are completely lost
But it doesn't matter
Because every flower thats worked so hard to grow is beautiful
Eventually someone came
Out of the flower shop
Carrying a bunch of flowers in all different colours
His face looked so happy...

"A Flower Unlike Any Other in the World" (2003) is still very popular in Japan and has sold over two million copies. A must if you want to do karaoke in style. Hey, even Chris Martin from Coldplay managed to get it (mostly) right at the August 10 2008 Summer Sonic live in Chiba, or how about this rather lovely version the day before, in Osaka.