Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from August, 2018

That Time I Was Almost a Pop Star

Anri's Circuit of Rainbow music video (That's me on the right!) It was what I'd always imagined life would be like as a big-time singer. The massive, metallic stage opens like Moses parting the Red Sea...the recognizable guitar riff blaring throughout Tokyo's legendary Budokan arena. Five of us dancers on pedestals of varying heights, box-step and bounce...summoning the tens of thousands of screaming Japanese fans to get louder. Anticipation builds with every "Come on!" Let's go! Get it up!" we declare. Finally, the beloved Anri dances on to the stage...and the crowd goes wild... The year was 1988. I had dropped out of college for two semesters after a fighter-pilot-older-brother-of-my-high-school-friend told me he "saw Americans working" at Tokyo Disneyland . "You should go do that, Tracy!" he said, standing in my family's Tampa, Florida kitchen during Christmas break of my sophomore year. I called nearby D