Hello. First of all, could you tell me about the concept behind this place, and give a simple explanation of what you do with the space?

Toshio:We sell Jomon-style clay flutes, hold festivals, events, and workshops, and operate the space as a place for people to get together.

Shizuko:We call the kind of festivals we hold, “punk kagura” where we make strange noises and bang on drums. It’s the kind of place where the neighbors look at us funny and tell us, “please stop your religious activities” and stuff. We even had the police called on us once. (laughs) Really it’s not all that, though.

I see. What do the two of you consider yourselves to be doing?

Shizuko:We’re just having fun. Some people think we’re improvisational musicians, some people think we’re festival-holders, and some think we’re colossal morons. (laughs)
Toshio:We hold fun festivals, blessing the earth, enlivening the land and the town. We’re just holding events to go with each encounter that comes along. That’s all.

So put in simple terms, you’re improvisational musicians who put on festivals, I guess? What have you been doing, and where have you been doing it?

Toshio:We’ve been to most places in the Kanto region. Sano, Kogawa, Ashikaga, Maebashi, Takasaki, Shimonita, Tochigi, Mashiko, Kasama, and Izu. Places that you can get to easily from Tokyo but aren’t really visible. We called it the Autonomous Republic of Kanto and took our Kagura Entertainer’s Troupe and did a performance tour.

Shizuko:We go around to each place and put on a festival, and we’re really good at taking the energy level through the roof. (laughs) At first, we didn’t know how to bring that high energy level back down and it was really tough. Everyone would get into a festival mood and we’d wind up in a psychological state that made it hard to return to everyday life. (laughs)

No matter what scale you are working in, going to a place where you don’t know anyone and organizing a festival, going in as a non-local and getting the locals involved must be a huge task. There are issues of leadership, money problems, and I imagine a lot more as well. How do you pull off such a monumental feat? How have you managed to make this your livelihood?

Shizuko:I think in some ways it’s easier to be accepted by people because we’re not locals. Also, if we enjoy each moment, like, “As long as we’re having fun now, what’s the problem?” then I think things just come together naturally. With money too, someone always comes along in the nick of time to help us scrape through. Someone will bring vegetables, or rice, or dishes, and thanks to these miracles we’ve managed to keep on living, enjoying our lifestyle of peace and freedom.

Toshio:If we get everyone together and put on a meal, we use rice and vegetables that the local farmers have grown, we use locally crafted dishes to serve the food, local writers and artists come, people who are really good at cooking, people who roast coffee, we get everyone to participate and that’s how we hold our events. There are so many amazing intellectuals and craftspeople in the countryside, but despite living in the same area, they aren’t connected to each other. We go to places with people like that, and we go slowly at first, listening politely to what people say. Then, when it’s time to do it, we suddenly pull everyone into our world and get them all to play the parts we’ve assigned. (laughs) Then, just as everything is starting to get exciting, the festival ends. We’ve been doing that over and over.

Shizuko:Toshi-chan has given lectures in front of those intellectuals, and I’ve performed music in front of those hidden genius musicians. From their perspective, we’re huge idiots. (laughs) But that’s alright. I think they must feel as though we outsiders have come in and done what they can’t do themselves. But, by putting them up on center stage, everyone’s blood starts flowing and they get a lot of their energy back. We want to help this happen and take great care in each event we put on.

Toshio:The two of us want to help people become aware of the un-heard, the un-seen, the air and the atmosphere. We want to try to be a catalyst for that.

I see. Now that I’ve heard your story, I see how deep your work is. Now, what kind of dream or vision do you have for the future?

Shizuko:My job is to connect the past to the future by enjoying the now and living in the now through festivals and music.

Toshio:I want to do things that we can do as Japanese people. We could bring our style of festivals from Japan over to Asia, and on to the land of Africa.

Hello. I’ve always enjoyed your work. I’ve already read all about your group on webDICE so I know all about you. Mr. Inui, you were originally at the Bungaku Company and you formed this group with the people you met there, isn’t that right?

Inui ： Oh, is that how it happened? You know actually, it started when Misao Ushijima and I were students at Tamagawa Gakuen. You know those guys in university who are always talking big with nothing to show for it? That was us. (laughs) And one day I was saying, “I’m going to write a screenplay and get famous someday.” And Misao said, “Well then let’s do it. Let’s do it together.” And we tried it once while we were still in university. But it was just the one time.

Misao: And I kept doing it after that.

Inui: After I graduated I joined the Bungaku Company. I had wanted to learn how to direct, but I wasn’t able to do what I wanted and quit the company. Then I asked Misao if he wanted to do something together. That’s how we started Tetsuwari. We started absorbing more and more people and swelled up to our current size.

Murakami: I was in a band called the Backdrops, and I wound up doing some stuff with Tetsuwari. At first I thought, “These guys are kind of freaky. How unsettling.” I approached them with real caution at first, but now we’re working together.

Misao: Now Murakami is of one of our freakier members. (laughs)

I just can’t wrap my head around how a performance group like Tetsuwari forms its works. How do you do it? Is there some kind of blueprint?

Inui: We’ve all come from a theater background, so we came from a desire to tear down the theater form. But we hadn’t actually watched all that many plays, so I don’t think we truly understood. What else? Oh yeah, we wanted to be like Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

It’s really hard to explain what kind of group Tetsuwari is, isn’t it?

Inui: Once, in English conversation class, I had to do a presentation about what I was doing. When I explained it all to the teacher, he said it was called “Marginal Performance.” What we’re doing is influenced by folklore, by the old legends and entertainment that used to be done in rural areas. For example, African tribal music, American blues, Japanese dragon dance, sumo, kabuki, bunraku, and so on. I feel like what we do is an imitation of that kind of popular travelling entertainment.

Masao: The name Tetsuwari also comes from that history. Long ago there was a man named Kumazo Tetsuwari who led a group of performers who did tricks with their feet, called the Tetsuwari Family. They’d spin tubs on their feet and stuff.

Inui: I think it was something like an Edo-era circus. They went over to America and made a living by performing their foot tricks. I read about them in a book by Shoichi Ozawa (Chairman of the Shabondama Theater Company, essayist, and entertainment scholar) and I liked the sound of it, so I named us Tetsuwari. Albatross is a kind of bird, but it’s also the name of songs I like, both one by Fleetwood Mac and one by PiL, so we added it to our name.

Oh, I see. So that was the reason.

Inui: Actually, you’ll never believe it, but our website is tetsuwari.com, and we were contacted by a Japanese guy living in America, saying, “Why are you using the name Tetsuwari?” And so we explained, “This is this and that is that, and that’s why we’re Tetsuwari.” And the reply came, “Kumazo Tetsuwari was my great-grandfather.” Apparently he’d even appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show once.

What a remarkable story. Now, I’d like to know what your wacky group of misfits is planning to do next.

Inui: We’ve just been continuing on like this without any particular goals, so I don’t know what we’ll do. Don’t you think it’s amazing that we’ve come this far despite all that?

Misao: I don’t really feel like continuing, and I never made any passionate promises or anything. (laughs) Inui, your goal is to be popular with the ladies, isn’t it?

Inui: Yeah. I mean, I’d like to meet one. (laughs) Ah well, simply put, we’re like a bunch of middle school kids who put a band together. I mean, we’re all friends. So I don’t know what to say when someone comes up to me all serious about acting and asks to join the group.

Murakami: We climb the mountain because it’s there type of thing, you know?

Inui: I think the existence of Tetsuwari has been very vital for me. It’s like my hobby is Tetsuwari. Take away Tetsuwari and what have I got? Nothing but boring hobbies like reading and watching movies. I’m the leader and I write the scripts and stuff, but it’s like I’m the one who replaces the battery in the clock, and after I change the battery, it’s “Everyone gather together under the clock!” and then all my friends comes and pass time under the clock. It’s like that.

Misao: What the hell kind of literary expression is that? (laughs) It sounds like we’re prisoners of time or something. Are you okay with that?

Inui: Okay then, everyone gather together under the mad clock!?

Speaking of friends or group members, everyone in Tetsuwari seems to be quite individualistic. It’s remarkable that everyone’s managed to stick together so well.

Misao: We didn’t go out of our way to find people like that, they just came together somehow. But I think we do get along because we all bring something different to the group. It’s like, we’re not friends because we’ve all watched the same movies, we’re friends because we’ve all watched different ones.

Murakami: I entered the group after it had already been going for a while, and one thing that really strikes me is how at first I thought, “These people are freaky.” but over time, we became friends and I realised, “Oh, they’re just normal.” When I first started, people told me things like, “one of them is a pyromaniac” and “one of them is a murderer” so I thought they were really dangerous people, people I wouldn’t even be able to have a normal conversation with. But once we started rehearsing together everyone was really normal, and I was so relieved.

Inui: What! When I first saw you, I was scared! I was like, who is this guy!? (laughs)

But, I can see where you’re coming from, feeling that the Tetsuwari people are “normal.” I’m getting that feeling myself. In that sense, the popular image that Tetsuwari is a motley crew of cranks and oddballs is slightly off the mark.

Murakami: Also, people think we don’t try very hard, but that’s not true. We can’t say we’re able to entertain everyone, and we can’t say that “people who don’t understand us are stupid.” I mean, we don’t have a core, so it’s very scary to do what we do. That’s why I think we’re putting in a lot of effort.

Inui: It’s true. We are trying hard. When I’m directing, I just say stuff like, “Murakami, do some pee pee paa paa there,” but when I work at writing the script, I’m very serious about what I do. There’s no sense of being laid back or easygoing.

Misao: Personally, I don’t feel like I’m trying that hard. But I do want to see things other than what I already know to be entertaining, so I do try hard to produce that. I guess you could call it spite. (laughs) I think about stuff like, “what can Murakami do to bring out his charm?” It’s fun to try and produce something where it’s hard to tell whether it’s acting or not. I do make an effort to do that.

Inui: Aaah, I hate doing stuff where the actors can confidently say, “It’s pretty neat, isn’t it!” It’s like, I’m the one writing the script, but I can never tell whether it’s funny or not, so how can they be so confident! (laughs)

I see. But Tetsuwari is pretty neat. I wonder why that is?

Murakami: I’ve thought seriously about how people enter the sleep state when they go to bed, and I think it’s something like that. When you’re falling asleep, words that aren’t words, “te-ni-o-ha” with no grammar or logic get connected together and we fall asleep. I think that state when the mind is just floating is similar to what Tetsuwari does on stage. While watching the short programmes, your mind gets more and more floaty. In other words, I think Tetsuwari is a theater group that does performances that are like daydreams.

Tetsuwari Schedule 2009

11th September-13th September
Azumabashi Dance Crossing

26th September
Event at Nasu

12th November – 17th November
Performance at the Suzunari theatre

Firstly, could you tell me what is special about Sakurajima-yaki pottery?

It depends on the item, but there is a silver sheen in it called “ginsai” which is unique. The clay has a lot of iron and minerals in it, and when it’s fired at 1300 degrees, it develops a silver luster.

It gives a certain sense of the magic of nature, doesn’t it?

We believe that there is a certain natural energy dwelling in the material that produces the uniquely rugged yet refined look in the works.

What kind of history does Sakurajima-yaki have?

Actually, Sakurajima-yaki isn’t a style of pottery with a long history or tradition. Sakurajima itself has been around for many tens of thousands of years, so the clay itself surely has a very long history, but Sakurajima-yaki pottery was started by my father.

So, your father was a potter then, I suppose?

No. Originally, he was a local civil servant who worked in the Sakurajima town office in the tourism department. A bureaucrat. I don’t know what he was thinking, but suddenly he established a kiln. I imagine he’d gone to someplace like Ijuin, which is a place famous for Satsuma-yaki ceramics, and had some kind of revelation.

In rural areas, working as a civil servant is one of the best, most stable jobs you can get! Why did he quit?

That’s true. He never talked about it with his family, he just said, “I’ve submitted my resignation papers,” and started doing pottery. I was still just a high schooler then and I didn’t really understand. I just thought, “What on earth has he done?” He was in his late-forties and he made a big life decision. The family was too busy to object; he had us all helping out at the kiln! (laughs) Kagoshima men are all stubborn, so once he made up his mind he wouldn’t have listened to what we said anyway.

That’s an amazing story. If he was willing to make such a decision, he must have been very attracted to pottery, or a very good sense about it.

Of course my father had a certain amount of interest in Satsuma-yaki. But he was so badly coordinated, and he’d never done pottery before. He started the workshop in 1972, and it was just a constant run of errors. He’d study a bit then make something, study and make again. Over and over.

If he started the kiln up without any preparation in advance, then you must have had no income at all for quite a while.

Yes, that’s right. He just spent every day working at it, and he kept at that for two years. In other words, we went two years without an income. He had no sense of how to run a business. He did set up a store at the workshop, but he had never done that kind of business before, and the shop looked just like a house, with a gate and everything.

You operated the business as a family, isn’t that right?

Yes. My father did the firing, my sister turned the wheel, and I did the glazing. There were two other staff as well. My mother was running a fruit shop. I think that’s how we were able to stay alive . Even so, we were up to our ears in debt. The fear of the bills at the end of every month is something I can’t forget even now. But other than that, we were quite laid back. We had the attitude, “As long as we make it, it’ll sell someday.” We’d talk about how, “Pottery doesn’t have an expiry date.” So we just kept building up our stock. (laughs)

When did things finally start selling?

That was when the tourist boom happened. It was around 1976. Back then it wasn’t easy to take trips overseas. Everyone took their holidays within Japan. Miyazaki and Kagoshima were particularly popular. For honeymoons, people didn’t go to places like Hawaii, Guam, and Saipan like they do now. A lot of people came to Kyushu. So people would come to Kagoshima and visit Sakurajima, come to our shop and buy some things to take home. We started getting more and more customers like that.

In one sense, it’s quite amazing that the kiln got on track in just one generation.

We had our low points – we were taken by a wholesaler for a few million yen once, but during the bubble years in the 1980s, our stuff just flew off the shelves. Our huge parking lot was packed with cars. We sometimes ran out of things to sell. Even then, the customers wanted to buy something to take home, so they waited outside for the pieces to be fired.

They were buying fresh-baked dishes straight out of the oven!

Yes they were. They’d look inside the kiln at the pots and say, “I’ll take one of these and one of those.” When I think about it now I can hardly believe it myself.

What are your thoughts on how to proceed now?

Actually, the founder, my father, passed away last year. The economy isn’t very good now, so I can’t say we’re doing well, but the Kyushu Shinkansen bullet train service is starting in 2011. I’m hoping that will bring some more visitors to Kagoshima’s Sakurajima. Well, we already know what it’s like to hit rock bottom, so in that sense we have nothing to fear. (laughs) I hope we can continue to manage the business debt-free, and keep providing good products for our customers.

I’m sure your father would be very happy to know that the family is still carrying on his life’s work.

I think so too. But I wish I had asked him, “Why did you become a potter?” That’s one thing I still don’t know, even now. (laughs)

Hello, thank you for making time for us at such a short notice. I heard that you run a sake brewery and wondered if you would tell us a little bit about sake making.

No, no, I’m now a president and not the managing director so I don’t really ‘run’ the brewery. I only experiment and prepare for the next fight. You might be able to call it research and development, to put it simply.

I see, so you are developing new sake products! I was always curious about how sake was being produced.

Well, in my case, I come up with the name first. The name comes first, then I start thinking about the taste. It might be more accurate to say that I weave a story from the name and then start experimenting with the taste. After that, when I think I’ve done enough research and development, I pass it onto the brewery and the actual production gets going from there.

So you’re adopting this somewhat obscure way of sake making.

I think it’s now an interesting era for people who brew sake seriously, because these days, women have started drinking sake too. The fact that ladies – who are great story lovers – indulge in sake is intriguing. They have an acute sense of taste but taste in the end is just a perceptual illusion, you see. (laughs)

What? Taste is just an illusion? I can kind of understand that women love stories but what do you mean by taste is just an illusion?

For instance, there is this concept that “flowers are beautiful.” But that’s because there is an assumption in human minds that “flowers should be beautiful.” The beauty lies not in the flowers but in human brains. Don’t you think?

Well, that’s confusing….

Flowers are nothing more than flowers. It’s neither beautiful nor ugly if there is no one to appreciate it and it’s people who add the perception of beauty to it. And the same goes for the taste of sake. So making stories that human brains perceive as ‘tasty’ is one of the aspects of what I’m doing.

Okay, I’m starting to get it a little bit now. Can you give us an actual example?

It’s really simple. For example, there is a non-fiction author called Mayumi Mori and she once published a critical biography of Ogai Mori called “Ogai no Saka.” We were asked to brew new sake to commemorate the book’s publication and the idea I got at the time was to use 100 year-old yeast – because the book was about Ogai Mori. He was an author from Meiji Period, and that’s about 100 years ago, you see?

Oh, indeed. It’s certainly romantic to read the book while drinking sake made with yeast from 100 years ago. But you still need proper skills, right?

Of course we do. If the story isn’t based on skills that produce a high quality, it all becomes fictional. I suppose it’s important to have something to back it up.

I see. But you are a hard worker and perhaps you were born with that kind of frame of mind.

(Laughs) I’m not a hard worker, I’m just having fun. I call it research and development, but all I’m doing is moving my hands. I’m not using my brain all that much either. Everyone tries to think with their head but if you keep your hands moving, then they’ll discover and think it all for you. It’s so easy. What’s more, sake koji mold is really hardworking and once I put them in the tank, they do the job for you. There is nothing more beautiful than that. (laughs)

Um, there is an indescribable depth to your words…. I’m starting to see why people in Ikazaki were saying that they feel manipulated by you.

I’m not manipulating anyone or anything. But then most Japanese people don’t follow things up as much as they should so words are lost on each other even though we are speaking the same language. For instance, if someone gets angry and tries to leave the room, I say “Hey, wait, we have some sake here, why don’t you have a glass? Here’s a set of Hanafuda (Japanese playing cards) too.” That’s the kind of follow up you need. Communications are prone to get vague but maybe it’s all about confirming and not leaving things vague as they are.

By the way, we heard that you are also a facilitator in town-building amongst other things.

I have participated in activities to preserve the scenery of the Oda River. That was fun. The prefecture is efficiency-oriented so they destroy the nature and try to do major bank protection works using concrete. I thought that wasn’t good so I went along to the prefectural government but they flatly refused to listen and wouldn’t even give me the time of the day. So I made the next move and started paying visits to ministry offices in Kasumigaseki. I travelled back and forth on Shinkansen week after week. Then I was able to meet a bureaucrat from the River Bureau of the Construction Ministry and as I kept bringing him things like my sake and daikon radish from my field, we eventually became friends. He said “Mr. Kame, I want to see the Oda River in Ikazaki with my own eyes” and came all the way down here. The officials from the prefecture were in such a panic. They quickly changed their attitude and gave us an almost red-carpet welcome. (laughs)

I suppose bank protection works are strange things, meaning, they destroy the scenery for disasters that rarely happen. And what happened after that?

Eventually, it was decided that the “Neo-Natural River Reconstruction Method” (a method that takes the natural scenery of the river into account) developed in Switzerland should be introduced for the first time in Japan. And a couple of years after that, the Construction Ministry has issued instructions for the prefectural governments across Japan to introduce the method too. Well, for someone like me, who adores Che Guevara and empathises with him, it feels great to be able to do something like that. Empathising might be a talent of a sort, actually.

That’s really amazing. You effectively changed the entire river projects in Japan! What’s the secret of your so-called black magic?

One, people should not be trusted, but loved. Two, there is no such thing as a majority decision – always forward with your own strength. Three, do not have such delusion that people can be persuaded by words. Four, life, money, status and honour are all mere stage props; there is no need for them if there is no drama to be performed on stage.

This neighborhood still has a lot of character. It’s nice. Were you born here?

Yes, I was. I was born in Arakawa-ku (in 1947) and raised here too. It used to be all craftsmen living around here. My father was a craftsman. He used to make the necks for shamisen.

So with shamisen craftspeople the work is divided up then, is it? Do you have a specialty, Mr. Katoh?

I’m a hide stretcher. My father told me, “The people stretching the hides make good money, so you should become a hide stretcher.” So when I graduated from junior high school, I began my apprenticeship under a hide stretcher. (laughs)

You started working as a craftsman straight out of junior high school. I can’t even imagine that.

I was fifteen, so I didn’t even really think about it. I just became a craftsman. Every day, learning new techniques, that was my job.

It must have been really tough.

Oh, but I was really lucky because the place I was apprenticing at had a lot of books. The first book I read there was Hesse’s Beneath the Wheel. My world opened up and I began to think about a lot of things. “Well, am I going to continue like this, as a mere shamisen hide stretcher, for the rest of my life?” and other things like that. And that was when I decided to work as a craftsman while going to night school.

Is that right? Speaking of which, how many years did you spend apprenticing to be a craftsman?

Seven years. After I finished, I was twenty-two years old and I set out on a trip. For two years, I hitch-hiked and slept outside, walking all over Japan. I didn’t have any money, so sometimes I took on temporary jobs that included room and board, and just travelled around at my own whim. If I saw a beautiful sunset somewhere, I’d say to myself, “Alright, I’ll camp here for the night.” It was that kind of trip. You could say I was a certain type of idiot. (laughs) But at that time, there were lots of people in Japan that we called the “kani-zoku.”

Kani-zoku? What’s that?

In the 1960s and 70s, people would carry 30 kilo packs on their backs and take off on long journeys without any money. Those two years I spent travelling, that was wasted time. But it was my “precious wasted time,” I suppose you could say. (laughs) I don’t know how it’s helping me, but those two years of experiences are stored away, and they’ve had a big influence on my life since then.

I see. You’re a shamisen maker, but there’s a certain rock’n’roll sense of freedom in your workshop. That could be where it comes from. I wonder if that helped give you the inspiration to make an electric shamisen?

In all actuality, I really don’t know. The electric shamisen itself
was originally made after I saw a musician playing a shamisen in a live concert. He was performing with a stand mic, but the shamisen was drowned out by the sounds of the other instruments. I started thinking about how to fix that problem, and began doing research and
development on an electric shamisen. That was back when I’d just started this shop, in 1989.

Did you want to take that beautiful natural shamisen sound and change it to an electric sound?

That’s not quite it. Actually, the truth is I wanted to take the natural sound and make it beautiful by using electricity. I mean, the guitar, the bass, the drums, if you want to go on stage with modern instruments like that you’ve normally got to play into a stand mic, and it’s very hard to hear the shamisen.

What do you mean exactly?

All the stand mic picks up are the attack notes and all of the lingering tones are lost. The other instruments use a line to pick up the sound, and drums are loud to begin with. He wanted to play on stage with those instruments, and in order to be heard, he had to use an electric line. That’s why the original point of making an electric shamisen wasn’t to create an unusual sound, but to accurately reproduce the beautiful and subtle tones of the shamisen. We went through a lot of trial and error to make it, but thanks to our hard work, our shamisen have shared a stage with the famous taiko drummer Eitetsu Hayashi.

Wow, is that right! That’s kind of revolutionary, isn’t it?

In one way, we just connected tradition with the future. Even so, “Shamisen, for the next millenium!” was the last thing on our minds. (laughs) Even so, I like to do futuristic stuff for my own enjoyment.

I see. “Futuristic stuff.” I think I get what you’re talking about.

For example, the shamisen concert advertised on this poster. This is the kind of futuristic stuff I’m trying out. The performers are really famous. Hiromitsu Agatsuma, he’s famous, right? And how about Shinichi Kinoshita and Hidetaro Honjo? I’m talking about the A-list of the shamisen world here.

Mr. Katoh, are you the promoter behind this star-studded event? I don’t mean to be rude, but craftspeople don’t usually go arranging concerts…

Yes. There’s no direct connection between the events and my business, and my wife is always saying, “Maybe it’s time you stopped?” (laughs) But really, I belonged to a theater company when I was younger, and I’m used to stage work. I used to act when I wasn’t working. That experience is serving me well now. Also, the participants are all customers of mine.

I see… It really is worthwhile to pursue things outside your regular career, isn’t it? You really are a rock’n’roll kind of guy. And on top of that, you make musical instruments that can make a sound that satisfies the top musicians. I just thought you had an interesting product and came to see you, but I clearly underestimated you! I’m very sorry.

Well, I’m good at just going with the flow. I don’t think, I just do what’s necessary in each situation, trying things out in the field, and using the results of that in my work. Years of repeating that work style has taken me to where I am now. In that sense, I think my young years travelling as a kani-zoku have served me well. (laughs)

I think that’s a really wonderful, happy thing!

Oh, I think you’re right. People who have everything but don’t know what they want to do in life must lead a pretty boring existence. Even in a tough, poor environment, if you know what you should do, if you manage to find a dream, you’re going to be a happy man. Making things I can get excited about and putting on stages is what does it for me. But, I pay for it. After an event is over is the toughest… Last year, the day after the concert I couldn’t even climb the stairs in the subway station I was so burned out. (laughs)