And...

On the semi-bright side, everybody you have to cancel on is really understanding, probably because they've all had to do it before, too.

You know...

Usually, I think of the similarities between Latino/Chicano and Japanese culture, you know, like emphasis on the family, respect for elders, and all that good stuff. Today, I was reminded of a major point of difference: planning. Oh my gosh, why does everybody here have to make a plan for every little thing they do?

Another lesson in living in Japan: when your boss/mentor suddenly gives you a call a little ticked off that you haven't told him your family's plans for when they visit so he knows what days to take them sightseeing, is very taken aback to learn that you don't have any specific plans to work around, but still wants to meet to make up a plan, you cancel your own plans for the night so you can talk to him.

Although I've heard of people canceling dates and outings with friends which they've been planning on for a long time because their boss wants them to do something suddenly, this is the first time I've experienced it. I guess it's another part of learning to live in this country. Would've been a sweet show though...

Oh, also

I can see an obsession with "Where the Boys Are" coming on.

Old Enough to Cry

Although, listening to his often-grating voice can take a little bit too much energy to relax to sometimes. Plus, I feel like if all these great artists from the 60s were predecessors to musical developments, like trance-building rock-pop, which would continue to unfold from there on, Ray Peterson might be called an early harbinger of emo. Still, really good.

Man

Man, I love Ray Peterson's voice.

Recollections from Last Night

I don't really think it's that cool when I'm in a darts and billiards bar at 1 in the morning and the group next to me has a pre-k-age kid with them. I don't know if I've ever before seen a little girl so tired and disoriented-looking.

I had fugu last night! It was good. Pretty cool.

So, so many, so, so good

I'm like making a list of songs I want to play. This song is so beautiful and powerful.

OH MAN!

OHH MAN!! Barbara Lewis's "Hello Stranger" just came on randomly while I was playing a period mix I just downloaded and making okonomiyaki. I KNEW that "shoo bop shoo bop, my baby" and ran over and YES!, it was Ooo "Seems Like a Mighty Long Time" (as I've always known the song, hah). But I hadn't even thought of that song in so long! That's what I love about going on this massive oldies exploration - there are so many songs whose melodies and small little repeating parts I remember and have stored somewhere in my mind and in my heart, and even if I can't search them out or remember them, I know when they come. And when they hit me, it's magical. It's childhood. And it's now.

Oh My Gosh!

Oh my gosh! And "What is it Good For?" too!

Cisco

WAR's "The Cisco Kid" would be a good one to coverize too.

the 60s

So, is that why people are so interested in the '60s? When I was a kid, all I knew was it when everything was crazy and there were hippies and lots of drugs. Now, it seems like that's when everything changed, like things were beginning to change at the beginning of the decade, and they were completely transformed by the end. I just finished listening to Vanilla Fudge's take on "Keep Me Hanging On" from '67 and then Bobby Darin's "Dream Lover," written the year before the decade began. Interesting. I want to say things change so fast, but where we are musically now is completely different from where we were 7 years ago, too. But is it that different? Of course, things must have been changing for years and years leading up to the '60s, and maybe greater change actually happened before (or after) it, but it sure seems incredible right now.

Music! from a long time Ago!

Whoa, I just found found songs I made and recorded back from December, 2005! And wow, they're so interesting! One of my first reactions was, "Haha, I sounded a lot more like Sonic Youth and Hello Astronaut, Goodby Television back then." But then another one of my first reactions was, "Damn! I was on it then!" There's so much more passion and fast strumming than I have now and I can just feel the energy in the hits! Or so I thought for a moment. In any case, I need to get back to playing music more devotedly and with electricity, and, hopefully, with other people.

Keep

I keep reading the USC Dept. of American Studies and Ethnicity Graduate Students page and getting all excited.

Muri

I gotta say, this book, Muri, has been a little bit of a disappointment. When I read that it would be about people living in a merged, rural town in Japan, my mind automatically went to stories of people trying to make it in despite of economic and population decline while dealing with a society moving away from traditions and being left behind by the government. I thought it would reflect something of what I saw in my own town and that there would be some kind of critical analysis of why things have turned out the way they have.

Instead, it's a book about a whole bunch of weak, corrupt, and opportunistic people who live in a town that seems to be driven to slow destruction by their own failings. The most common representative of the demise of the rural town is women. It makes it difficult to read the book knowing that somewhere in the chapter, I'm going to have to get through some part associating women with the decline of society. Usually, it's a single mom lazily living off welfare, whose own fault it is that her past husbands have left her because she didn't act "mother-like". Either that, or it's deceptive women who cheat on their husbands or sleep with their friend's husbands. There's also the middle aged women, who the author almost always associates with wearing overpowering makeup, who herd together, following cultish religious groups or a single activist organizer. Besides this, whenever introducing a female character, the author always writes in detail whether she is good-looking or not. There is only one female in the whole book so far who does not get this treatment, a high schooler trying to get into college in Tokyo.

The second most common theme associated with the decline of the rural town is foreigners. So far, Brazilian laborers are the main target. They wear baggy clothes, fight with the local students (who are also described almost completely as soon-to-be dropouts or people without any future), loiter and mess around with vending machines, and pull knives on people. They get a minimal sympathetic treatment by the acknowledgment that people are racist against them (individually, not systematically) and that they've traveled half-way across the world. In the end, though, like with most of the female characters, the reader never gets a look into their perspective and they remain pretty flat characters. Also, Filipina prostitutes just made an appearance in the book, as part of an entourage to a corrupt male politician (one of the main characters, whose own bad deeds and cheating on his wife is written about without any judgement). There is no mention of the sex trade in Japan for which Japanese kidnap young women from other countries, especially the Philippines, or trick them with promises of acting or singing careers.

All in all, a pretty disappointing read in terms of sympathy and meaningful criticism.

But I keep reading it. I'm not sure why, but I think it might have to do with the writing style. I've been able to get to page 113 at a pretty good speed, which is encouraging, and have been reading a chapter a day for about half a week or so. I like the words the author uses to describe actions and emotions, a lot of which I haven't encountered up until now. It's definitely good Japanese practice. On the other hand, the main reason I bought the book, after the fact that it deals with decline in merged, rural towns in Japan, which was that there were multiple main characters, all of which seemed fairly interesting, didn't pan out very well, either. Most of the characters are pretty flat and uninteresting still, and I'm already a fifth of the way through the book. I could stand reading about characters with which I cannot sympathesize, but if they're not even deep to boot...The author also holds to a rule of devoting one chapter to each character in a fixed order. So, I've read three chapters on each character now, and not much has developed. Still, since I seem to be going through the book and finding some kind of pleasure in reading it, I figure I'll keep reading it. It'd be cool to finish it.

Man, and what am I even talking about? You don't want to read a bunch of paragraphs about a book I'm reading, do you? Sorry if that was boring. I'm listening to Radiohead again.

L.A. and School

I feel like there is just something about academia in L.A.
I can't wait to be there already!

I kind of wish I had gotten ready to apply to grad school this year, but then I wouldn't have figured out and experienced all that I have these past few months. And this way, I have a whole year until applications and then another 8 months or so until school starts again to do oh so many things I want to do.

I'm getting excited about lots of "things" and the future now! A specifically academic environment!

Man, and I also admire those people who go right through college, to a masters, to a PhD, knowing what they want and deciding things for themselves as they go. I feel like I might be kind of a latecomer to grad school when I get there, but that may not be true, and it might not even matter anyway.

Wee!

Looking at grad schools is fun!
Especially when you run into old friends on the current graduate students page, haha.

You know...

You know, Japan is going to lose out on a lot of passionate researchers if its universities continue to present humanity and civilization as East Asia and the West.

Wowzas Kabuki!

Holy Moly, I'm going here tonight!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minami-za

Let the Good Times Roll

First Ray Charles experience. Damn!

Chicano Power

Thee Midniters, Chicano Power

I never realized the drummer for Thee Midniters was so good! Jump, Jive, and Harmonize?! Not even just the breakdown in that song, but that rhythm switch-up/pause thing toward the end rocks!

Things

The Ronettes, (The Best Part of) Breakin' Up

Things are becoming clearer.

Walk

Walking In The Rain came on as I was walking in the rain.

Wow

After a passage through Talking Heads and getting more and more into the Supremes, I think the Ronettes finally knocked Roy Orbison from my top listening position.

Tried

I tried to listen to some long, relaxing songs so I could calm down and maybe get some writing done and go to sleep and not listen to Be My Baby again. I couldn't. So won't you please...

Los Angeles Music

What if the next big (underground (for now)) music movement in L.A. was made up of artists inspired by the pop music of the '60s reinterpreting it with the addition of the noise, psychadelic, electronic, and other musical-artistic elements that have developed since that time?

Time Piece

Oh my gosh, am I going to turn into one of those people who dresses in clothes from a certain time period?

Oh my gosh!

This song is life-changing!!

Inspiration

And major inspiration strikes when I hear the sounds of the screaming fans making an incredible background to "Be My Baby" in that live video.

Oh my gosh. The Ronettes, "Be My Baby"

Uh, wow. I don't know if I'd ever heard this song before, but hearing it this week, it struck something huge in me and I feel like I've grown up with it somehow. Apparently, the Youtube video can't be embedded in a webpage, so I'll put up the link, and I would really, really recommend watching it. Oh my gosh, the passion and just the way lead singer Veronica Bennett gets into it all is so awesome! I can totally relate to what I see in that video. It's interesting and cool, though, because I haven't really seen that kind of "spazzing" out by performers of pop music in the '60s. I am inspired. And I also now have a huge musician crush.

Apparently this song was "a worldwide hit, reaching #2 on the U.S. pop chart, #4 on the R&B chart, and #4 on the UK chart and sold over 2 million copies." Actually the whole wikipedia article on the Ronettes is really interesting when it talks about how the creators of the Ronettes used subtle details to cultivate the group's image (like small, yet leaping, deviations from the lyrical norm at the time - ie. addressing the listener directly with "I love you," instead of "I love him" for a more seductive or "bad girl" (direct?) image) and this "Wall of Sound" technique by Hal Blaine. Really, when you listen to this song with that in mind, it seems already like a modern, experimental take on U.S. '60s pop with its uncountable layers of percussion and melodies. Looks like the people who were making this music upped My Bloody Valentine and Deerhunter by a few decades. (You can also totally hear those kind of drums in "I Have A Boyfriend," by the Chiffons, too, which could also be described as a "wall of sound" - no mesmerizing castanets, though...:(). You can hear the intricacy of the song better on this studio version (and also look at some lovely lowrider art, hehe. Actually, I first found that video in a Youtube playlist of Chicano oldies someone had loaded up, so I actually probably have heard this, possibly numerous times, in my little years and just didn't remember it specifically.)

I don't think I've gotten this excited about a song or type of music in a long time! Those voices!

As

The Supremes, "Baby Love"

From a twitter of a professor:
"'Is Chicanismo dead?'" The question is more illuminating if we analyze the underlying assumption that it's unchanging."

As I live in Japan.
As I realize: I am now in Japan solely for the purpose of building up experiences living in Japan, and, yes, I now live in Japan.
As I try to learn Spanish while I try to learn Japanese.
As I title my new songs in English and Japanese.
As I just might have decided to study neocolonialism and decolonization for however many more years in school.
As I want to pursue my dream of making music in Japan.
As I want to pursue my dream of making music in L.A.
As I want people to talk to each other more, respect each other more, learn from each other more.
As I want people to work together, for everyone.
As I want just for myself to be a human being functional to the capacity of my and others' dreams.
As I realize how personal the reaches of decolonization must go.
As I realize the depths to which colonization penetrates that we must dig it out from that far within.
As I don't need to go back to the U.S., and moreso L.A. (violent, dirty, dry).
As I need to go back to the U.S., especially L.A. (beautiful people of color changing and shaping reality, people "weird" in a way I can relate to instantly, dirty).
As I think about whether to go to grad school in Japan or the U.S.

Whoa

A quick search on Youtube of "sitting in the park Chicano" shows me I hugely underestimated the presence this song has had in Chicano music. There's a lot of old school rap ones, too.

Sitting in the Park

I just got a hankering to listen to this song and found out the version I grew up listening to was a cover. Hahaha. And I can't find the version I want on the internet! Who did the "Chicano" version of this song?!

I want my "la la la"s and Latin percussion...but in the meantime, I'll listen to this beauty.

Oh My Gosh!

Look what I just found on my way back from another driving course in preparation for taking the license test this Tuesday?















There's a used book store on the corner down from my house and I saw some nice-looking books with those slide covers, so I decided to check them out. Before long, names I recognized from Modern Japanese Literature class senior year popped up, starting with Kawabata Yasunari. I got excited and kept looking and eventually found Mishima Yukio and Akutagawa Ryunosuke, too! The only thing left to determine whether I would buy them or not was the price - after all, these may be used but they were nice books. I went into the store for the first time and asked the guy: 100 yen each. That's about $1.20 for each 300-500 page book of classic modern literature each. YES, very YES.

I don't even know how well I can read these, but I was excited to see a couple of stories I recognized from that class or from having read the English version, and that was enough to get me going. Still, I still am not anywhere near the end of 1Q84 by any stretch of the imagination and I also bought a new book recently called Muri (「無理」), which is about the lives of five people living in a small town in Japan being forced by the government to merge with other small towns, a trend that's been very common lately during the recession and pretty much only benefits the government while disrupting the economies and societies of the towns. There are so many things to learn about! I feel like a total nerd, in the best way. I am so excited, not only by learning new things, but just at the possibility of learning new things!!

Hm

That was interesting. I just "Zoom In"ed a bunch of times and read the whole article. It's pretty short and a fast read. And the author used one of the same authors I used in my thesis (!). Interesting read.

By the Way, Help

By the way, does anyone know how to print out articles like these without all the stuff on the side? Like make a printable version of it? Or make it bigger and more readable without copying and pasting the whole thing into a Word document?

http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/8/3/7/3/pages183732/p183732-1.php

cuz I really wanna read it.

Always Sunny in Philadelphia Foils

Oh my gosh, whenever I try to sit down and watch Blue Velvet by David Lynch, I keep getting sidetracked by the thought that I could actually instead watch another episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And this is made easier by the fact that 1) I just downloaded the first four seasons of the show, 2) anyone who's seen a David Lynch film knows what s/he is getting into and the amount of concentration that is required when they sit down to watch one, and 3) I can eat oranges and get up to use the bathroom in the middle without feeling like I'm interrupting the show. So, today I watched like four episodes of Always Sunny. It's so funny, so freaking hilarious, but once you watch too much, you just start to feel bad because the characters are all such horrible, terrible people. Ahh.

Well, at least I got a pretty good amount of reading in John Dower's Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II done today. And I may have developed a pretty good system of taking notes when reading academic works, too. It started with when I was first reading 1Q84, then I used it when I started picking up Spanish studying more seriously again the other day, and now I've tried using it in a context similar to that of school research. Will it be useful again when I get to grad school...?? Methinks yes.

By the way, my fever is gone now (yippee!) and all that's left is a sore-ish throat and some mocos. But tomorrow is looking like a beautiful day (today had an amazingly cloudy, gray, and sublime cover over the world) and I'm looking forward to it.

No more t.v. for me and time to go to sleep. Also, Dead Mellotron, "Dress Rehearsal," awesome. The same goes for "Untitled," and, actually, the entire album Ghost Light Constellation is good, good, good. ;)

あっ

Neocolonial studies

Hm

What is it about being stuck at home with a fever that makes me suddenly motivated to get so much done?

Salesmen

Damn, I feel so bad turning down salesmen in Japan sometimes. Just now, this guy was bowing down to me all the way past his waist and using all sorts of honorifics on me. Before I even really put up much resistance, he was begging me, "Please, please!" ("Onegaishimasu, onegaishimasu!") and his face was all twisted up looking like he was going to cry. That, alternating with bursts of fake laughter, jokes, and flattery, really made the whole experience pretty awkward. It really didn't seem like such a terrible deal (?) - three months of daily newspaper subscription for 90 bucks, with a 30 buck refund in market-convenience store gift certificates and some laundry detergent - but I just don't go for sudden offers without a chance to think it over. If I had just been thinking how much I need to get the newspaper maybe...

Oh yeah, and I forgot to include the cost of the check-up in my last post, so actually I ended up paying about 34 bucks to the doctors. On the other hand, I also actually received four different types of antibiotics and not just two. In any case, it was a way better deal than anything I've ever experienced in the U.S. Why do so many people immigrate to the U.S. and not Japan, again? (Or do they?)

Another Awesome Thing about Japan

This:














I went into a local clinic without an appointment, was seen and diagnosed within 45 minutes, went to the pharmacy nextdoor, and got enough cough medicine, two different types of antibiotics, gargling medicine, and throat lozenges to last me forever plus a thermometer for 2,200 yen, the equivalent of about 24 dollars. Plus, I also got this neat little calendar for free.












Now, of course, I'm sure you're all wondering why I had to go to a clinic, which brings me to the not so good news. I've got some kind of fever. On the upside, though the doctor didn't tell me it was necessarily the H1N1 flu, and even said if it goes down by tomorrow with the medicine he prescribed me it might not be a full-blown flu. Good thing I caught it early. Actually, I'd had a little bit of a runny nose for a couple (to a few) weeks before, but I thought, Hey, you know, it's probably fine. And it was, until yesterday, when I actually started to feel like I had a cold. Alas, I started to feel sore and a little feverish today and I had to decide that my usual anti-sick method of drinking lots of water, eating lots of oranges, sleeping a lot, and spitting a lot wouldn't suffice anymore. I guess I showed some good judgment (for once)!

This comes at a pretty bad time (though I guess there are no good times to get a fever), when I need to schedule a driving course, meet an interesting person I met when going in for a job interview last Saturday (a fun, interesting story in itself), go see an incredible show on Sunday, and take the driver's license test (again) next Tuesday. Well, I'll just hope it's a 24-hour flu and get all the rest I can.

But, I'm fine :)

Wow

I fought God in a dream last night.

!!

Oh my gosh, the Dokuros are playing a show in a couple of weeks!! And with an incredible veteran band called Niplets I saw the other week!! Holey moley!, is this some kind of return concert!? And it's at a venue I really love! I'm totally going! I can't wait!!

Blondertoungeaudiobaton

Wow, I get Swirlies' Blondertongueaudiobaton more now. This is cool.

Comfort Music

Modest Mouse's "Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks" is comfort music. It kind of brings back feelings of insulation, warmth, darkness and dim lighting, comfort, experimentation, and the ever-presence of friends I had my first year of college.

Listening to Eve 6's self-titled album also feels good somehow. It feels like the good parts of middle school age - boyness and good friends.

Talking Heads

Listening to Talking Heads on the way up to Iya Valley this weekend sparked an urge in me to try listening to them again, and, oh my gosh, this music is awesome! I like it way more than I did when I first gave them a listen so many years ago. I can totally relate to the way David Byrne sings too!, haha. Actually, I think most of the singing I do in my songs sounds like his more than any other established or famous singer I've heard, if I had to choose. Pretty cool. I really like the seemingly random sounds he makes that don't really narrate anything directly but put out a lot of feeling and atmosphere into the song. I just listened to "77" and "More Songs About Buildings and Food" and, man, those things are like weird dance parties in themselves. It seems like you can hear some kind of hints at trancing into long repetitive loops, too; it's just that these ones end early instead of actually going on, into, and through them like lots of songs do. I think. It reminds you, and lets you feel more directly, the influence of disco. Could I be moving out of the early-mid-60s and into the more recent late-70s-80s? Can I straddle both at the same time?! Actually, David Byrne's singing style also reminds me of ? from ? and the Mysterians; it's just a little more spastic and less soul, pop, and rock. Onto more music!

Nice! Warmth!

Oh yeah, and now my apartment barely even seems cold at all! You think Japanese homes have no insulation, try a spacious, 300-year old one made almost entirely of wood and earth on the side of a mountain. Still, that in itself was awesome, too. Ah.

Back!

I'm back from a four-day trip to Iya Valley in Tokushima where a bunch of people including me stayed in a 300-year old house and cut thatch from fields to repair its roof. So great!

Here's a quote from Bobby Darin's "Nature Boy,"
"The greatest thing you will ever learn
is just to love and be loved in return."

Amelie, again

Amelie twice in one week. Haha, whoa. This movie is keeping me going right now. I'm going to take advice from it and just forget about all my "stratagems" and just go for things and do them as they come and as I feel them. Like Amelie, I can think of all the romantic, magical ways to say simple things I want, but as long as they only work in my head and I don't go through with the whole point of them in the first place, it doesn't get anyone anywhere. Perhaps this is how one melds one's way of life, by which the world is an idealized place where things just work out and people who are supposed to connect connect, to reality, where people suffer loneliness when they're alone, are happy when they're together, and cannot bridge the gap between the two by continuing on the way they always have. This could be a big change. They make a reference to Amelie getting a "reality check," and trying to ignore it, at one point in the movie. Perhaps this is mine, and I had better take it fully to heart right now.

Hahaha!

Hahaha! Bad day made great at the end by the genius of some very U.S. American humor in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Right when I needed to move myself and my mind out of Japan for a bit, I get a perfectly timed email from a friend telling me to watch an episode. Oh, "kitten mittons."

Songs

Songs I keep fantasizing about covering:

Working for the Man, Roy Orbison
I Have a Boyfriend, The Chiffons
Stop! In the Name of Love, The Supremes
I Just Don't Understand, Ann Margret

Songs I just started fantasizing about playing:

House of the Rising Sun, Eric Burdon and the Animals
You Don't Own Me, Lesley Gore
Surfin' Bird, The Trashmen

Imagine these. !!

You know...

A part of me thinks I really should stop listening to all these sappy love songs,
but they're just so good!



Hmmm.

AHH

IIIII HAAAAATTTTEEEE THEE JAPANESEEEEEE LICENSEEE TESTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!

Or rather, the government's bureaucratic system that provides such a terrible environment for converting a foreign driver's license into a Japanese one.

On the bright side (there always has to be one doesn't there?), as someone who's now had to go through the process two times and gotten refused a license both times for ridiculous reasons, I now understand through experience that there really is a lot of unfairness going against non-Japanese trying to get Japanese licenses and it's not just because they're too arrogant to try to understand how to interact with the culture and society to get the best result. On a wider scale, I learned another lesson on not judging anybody, especially when I haven't experienced what they've experienced myself.

The process of converting a driver's license from a foreign country into a Japanese one sucks, whether you try to do things the Japanese way or not. Damn it. What a shitty day. I wonder if I can turn it around, and if I can get more positive feelings out of the past 10 hours I just spent going through that extremely frustrating process.

Amelie

Oh my gosh, Amelie is so good! I never appreciated it as much as I do now! Seeing it tonight was like watching a completely different movie than the first time I saw it. Could not have watched it at a better time in my life.

I am

A romantic on the edge of reality.

Whoa

Whoa, I must have been pretty upset when I wrote that last post, but, hey, that's to be expected when you witness something like that. I realized after I might have come off as a little arrogant toward anyone who doesn't agree with me, and I may have been a little harsh with the words, so sorry if I hurt any friends. I suppose what I wrote down was a pretty unfiltered response.

Anyways, I just made another song. I discovered suddenly an awesome chord progression tonight and went forward into uncharted waters of music with it. The result was good :)

My Japanese is getting worse as a result of not having a job where I am constantly interacting with and communicating with people.

I'm gotten considerable hints to go to grad school in Japan.

We had a birthday party for a friend tonight! It was more of a dinner, but it was fun!

THIS is why white people are out of control:

This guy lives in the same prefecture as me and all the way up to Halloween was posting Facebook status updates excitedly talking about how he was going to dress up as a "ghetto black guy because in jland that's okay." The comment he left under the top picture was, "damn you cant tell we both are coated in black oily camouflage makeup, i like how akinas lipstick is way overdone hahaha."

This is the kind of shit that is very obviously NOT okay, and obviously, this white guy (from the U.S.) knows it, but he's taking advantage of the fact that he's living in a country where people don't care.

This is what people are talking about when they say they're wary of comedians of color making fun of people of color because, even though it's funny as an inside joke, white people end up flocking to those kinds of comedic shows so they can laugh at people of color, too, and not feel guilty about it, because "hey, they said it themselves."

This is also why it's hard to think of white people as more than drifting entities without any time-hardened set of values to anchor them and keep them from simply floating from one thing that makes them happy to another. It's hard to think of them as mature or as having any real conception of the world outside themselves.

When I see this kind of stuff, it just reinforces in my head that yes, white people are always on the lookout for any chance to do what feels good to them. This guy was in a country that doesn't have a problem with blackface, so he decided he would do blackface, too, not even for any real reason except that he can. And I think again of what seems to be the general guideline for the typical white person: if it feels good, if it's "self-expression," if it means you're "free" to do whatever you want, and if it gets you ahead, it's a good thing.

Not surprisingly, this guy is also constantly putting Facebook statuses up about how frustrated he is with his job as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) on JET and how backwards Japanese people are. This considering he signed up to do two years of the job and makes about 3,000 dollars a month doing nothing, as any ALT can.

I understand that this entry might offend some of my friends and readers, and in the past I've refrained from putting up entries that expressed frustrations like these in the interest of not upsetting anyone, but the pictures I posted up above are of things that really happened, and my frustrations with them and the system that continues to cater to and elevate white people across the world, producing and justifying these kinds of situations, are real and valid.

No, this one white guy is not an exception to the rule that most white people understand the way things are now but every now and then you just get one of those bad ones. He's not an anomaly. His behavior is completely in line with the attitude I've seen exhibited by nearly every white person I've met while in Japan - that since they aren't confronted with racism in the way they used to be and since they now see themselves as "the minority" (It's amazing how fast they take it upon themselves to adopt this label) they don't need to give much thought to racism. This white guy is only another example of how many white people do not have any concern for the way racism affects peoples' lives and, without being forced to behave in a civil way or at least pretend they care, will sink to the lowest levels without reflection or remorse.

(Also, I know it's also important that the girl, Akina (?), is also doing blackface, but I think she might be Japanese, as in lived in Japan up to this point, which incites a whole different kind of frustration that is different than what I've expressed above.)

The Song

This song is my existence right now.

At first I thought the video this person made for it was just okay, but it grows on me every time I see it. In the roughly 12 hours since I first heard this song, it rocketed to my number-one listened to song on my music playing program, outstripping all the other songs I've been listening to since the summer at over 50 plays. Hah. Wow. So now you can understand a bit more what I mean by it being my existence. It is all around me, all the time, and defining and shaping and molding my mood. To something much more and higher. And yet so definitely from something within.

I suppose it's natural that a song like this would totally take me to heaven, right while I'm in the midst of my (first ever) late 50s-to-late 60s obsession/basin of swirling feeling and emotion. That sound, plus the washy, distortion-laden world of sound, the overdriven cooing, and the swaying beat...it all just feels so good. And so L.A. And so nostalgic. And, just so, good.

Duh

Oh, of course!















White people = good chocolate!

Duh.

(After taking this picture and laughing at the even more ridiculous commercials playing on a small t.v. below, I bought a package of white chocolate almonds.)

Chicken Katsu

Oh my gosh, making chicken katsu for the first time ever. Whoaaa, haha, that was a fun adventure.

!?

What the F*?! It's almost 2010?! 2009 was like 2 minutes!! GAHH, what the heck! I guess this is why they say life goes by fast and before you know it you're looking back on the past 60 years. I better get movin' on stuff!!

Oh hey, Culture Day

Oh hey, and today was Culture Day. How about that? "Appropriate" thoughts on the last entry, I suppose! (I guess I'll label this post with "culture.")

Yes! Kick! Martial Arts.

Yes! I went to a budousai, ie. martial arts festival!!, in town today. It was awesome! I got to try some basics of nippon kenpou (which apparently is just the characters for "Japan" followed by those for "kung fu"), even though we showed up a little late. So, yes, there was initially a little drama, but after that was quickly overcome, it was a good time.

*Also, quick observation:
When we started practicing, the young kenpo guys all went to the three white people I was with to start helping them out, and I practiced without a partner for most of it at the beginning, but then the headmaster-instructor himself started coming up to me and giving me advice and having me practice on him, which was reeaaally cool! Kind of went along with what I've supposed might be, and have been experiencing greatly to be, the case in Japan with me: not being white, and thus not having white features (like white skin and light brown, blond, or red hair) usually leads me to not get the so-called "special treatment" a lot of Japanese give foreigners (mostly comprised of people putting you on a pedestal and asking you how amazing it is in "America" and complementing you on everything, giving you free stuff, etc.), especially with young people, who don't see me as that "neat" or "exciting" because, hey, I look kind of like them (in the joking words of one of my past middle school students, "Man, you just have dark brown hair even though you're a foreigner, that's sad." My response: "You better not dye your hair. Dark hair is the most beautiful!"). On the other hand, I've noticed that people in general tend to feel more at-ease around me and tell me they can relate to me well, even forgetting the fact that I'm not Japanese. Lots of times, older people, especially in their near 40s and mid-50s, tend to hang out with me in a really relaxed atmosphere, not stuffed up with all that Japanese-foreigner hype. It feels like a cultural affinity, only reinforced by the relative physical similarity we share (ie. We aren't joltingly reminded just by looking at each other that we're different.). I kind of sensed that when the older kenpo master, who maybe not as interested as his younger pupils in white girls and big, red-haired white guys, took me under his wing, if even for that short period of time, to teach me how to do the attacks the right way and even let me practice on him (HIM! as in the guy who watches the matches and tells us what to do - definitely not the same as practicing on young students who played the role of sparring partner for the people taking the workshop). Anyways, that was cool. It confirmed some of those observations I've had from the outset, but recently come to appreciate more from experience and not be so bitter about. I'd take my position in this society as it is any day.*

Later, we got to see demonstrations of all sorts of martial arts, including judo, kendo, junkendo (kendo with rifles), karate, sumo, aikido, kyudo (bow and arrow), naginata (long spear/staff?), shorinji, nippon kenpo, taekwondo and maybe a couple other ones that were really cool but I forgot. It was cool to get to appreciate the differences between the arts better. I definitely started feeling again like I'm going to want to make martial arts a constant fixture of my life from now on. I mean, it has been up to now at certain points of my life, but it'd be cool to really pursue one, or try experiencing different ones, from now on throughout the next few years or more of my life. It just feels so good. Anyways, I really liked the weaponless martial arts, as I thought I would, in particular nippon kenpo, karate, and shorinji. Aikido was cool, too, ESPECIALLY the flipping and sparring all done from the sitting position. Really sweet.
That's what I did today. Then I got home and was so tired that I fell asleep curled up in a blanket, still wearing the clothes from that day, and with my face rested nicely on the hard tatami mat floor.

I also got a call from an old friend today. A reminder of time spent having a lot of fun - drinking with random Japanese people, exchanging info, and ending up hanging out with them for the next couple of days, then hosting them when they came to visit Los Angeles. Wow. Life is looking up, and I'm looking up toward a new way of having fun and just living. Woohoo!

Also, I'm super excited about the possibility of doing this grass-thatchcutting in a couple of weekends. I was invited sincerely by our mutual friend who's name begins with an A, and just watching this video got me suuuper psyched to help out if I can! Oh my gosh, wouldn't this just be the coolest opportunity ever! Or that you've heard of recently!? Who knew thatching could be so cool! Actually, the working hard and sweating and laboring together with other people toward a common goal is what initially drew my attention, but also the cultural and historical aspect of it is cool! And looking at some of these other related videos about thatching...man, it looks like a cool process and trade/skill to have. To Life!!

Goal

Alright, I've got a goal now. Make my way back to Latin America while keeping my Japanese connection. How can I do this in the next couple of years.

Día!

Oh yeah, I also really want to go to a Día de los muertos festival!!, but am pretty unsure about the chances of there being one even in the nearest big cities like Osaka, Kyoto, or Kobe. I really, really want to go. I never realized how much I was used to going to Self-Help Graphics every year in L.A. until last year, and this year I'm about to miss it again! Ah! Well, I've got the day of to see what I can find, if I just go straight to Osaka or something and look from there. But I have this work I have to get done for my new job, too...Oops, I forgot again!: living by yourself in another country is not easy!! Hahaha, well, good thing I reminded myself again.

Speaking of work, I saw a fireworks show from my new workplace over the weekend. It was really awesome because they launch the fireworks from really close to the school buildings, so everyone there was pretty much looking straight up and feeling the impact of the fireworks through the air at the same time as they heard and saw them explode. Cooool stuff. Good food. Good, fun, funny conversation. Met more interesting people. I should just write a book.

Music

Oh my gosh, this past week has been a time of incredible output of music for me. I've made over five pretty complete-feeling songs and so many more mini-songs and riffs and the like. For better or worse, some situations lead to extreme, or increased, emotional output, and for me, that's meant lots of expression through my voice, guitar, and other means since Saturday morning 8 days ago. Wow. And all this is for the most part in a new direction. Most of it's fairly calm, more succinct, more lyrically-centered, and exploratory of some new, or different from the past, emotions. I really like it. I'll keep going with it, into it, and see where things go from here.

Sunny/Rainy

Today's actually very overcast but I made a song about flying through a sunny sky. Before I knew it, the lyrics were just out of me and into the rest of the world. Now I've made a song.

BLONDEnewHALF

I just found these videos. Man, how have I been neglecting to see this band for so long?! Their name is all over fliers for the places I usually go to.





I'm seeing them first chance I next get.

Hm...Music

Hm...to go all the way to Osaka to see awesome band/kind of friends I haven't talked to in a while, or not to go all the way to blah blah blah blah blah blah in a while.





The answer is looking more and more apparent.

I made okonomiyaki today.

I made okonomiyaki today.




















I put bacon and kimchi in it. It was good, if I do say so myself :)

Tonight was the third time I've bought and cooked with meat (after using shrimp in my fried rice two times). I really thought about it for a long time and almost didn't buy it, but I didn't want to just put kimchi in the okonomiyaki, and after not being able to find any blocks of mochi, I felt time's pull and just went with the pork. It tasted good, though. Maybe cooking with and eating meat is like murder, and it gets easier every time.

Really, though, it feels good to be getting a handle on basic cooking now. Once you get the sense of things, you can pretty much carry it into anything else and even stuff you thought was completely unrelated to stuff you've made before becomes easier. That was a long sentence.

No update for a while, huh. Sorry 'bout that.

Tonight, I felt the mood again. That mysterious mood that seems to come on when the lights are low (this time, I had just a lamp on my desk switched on). I felt it (listening to Lotus Plaza and Deerhunter), overcame a temptation to laziness, and felt better for it! I took out my Spanish newspapers, which I had been using for practice, and drew on them with pens and colored pencils. It's back! So, now I have some new decorations to put up around the place, in addition to my Rody sheet and unagi-don (teriyaki eel rice bowl) poster. Mmm.

Reloj

I've been dancing a lot more lately. Granted, in my room, but like...everywhere I go and any time I do anything I do in my room. And then there's bikeride/dancing. That's really fun. I don't know if it's because of my suddenly listening to pretty much nothing but Cuban music or my mood - or both are combined! I'm going to keep going with this :)

Mm Yeah!

Yeah! This is awesome! I forgot what it was like to be fun me! This rocks! And is so much more fun!

Mhm

Ralfi Pagan ~ Ain't No Big Thing!

!

Hm, maybe it would be a lot different if I looked forward as I went, rather then down at my feet to make sure I'm stable.

Weird, yet Real, I Suppose

It's weird to notice that everything I feel, no matter how strongly, seems to always change and morph into something new, which dictates the way I move through that day, that moment, and then changes again into a new kind of feeling. It kind of feels like I'm riding some tilting piece of wood over waves moving toward me. It takes some getting used to to learn how to move with it, stay on top of things, and keep moving forward. I'll keep going with it.

Work

I got a job! And there's a good story to go with it, too, but I've told it so many times, one of them in struggling Japanese (not an excellent day for Japanese today), that I'm a little too tired to write it out. It's good, though, so I want to put it up eventually. In any case, I've got a job now, with no major long-term commitment, but with major long-term opportunities. Exciting things. Biting things. Things are changing, around me and in me. I came back to Japan to learn a whole lot.

I also went for an hour-long practice run around a driving course in town today with an instructor. I take my driver's license driving test on Wednesday, so I'm getting ready. Hereee we goo!

I wonder where things will go from here. Where I will take them, and what will happen to me.

Ya Me Voy

"Yo me voy"

Means this is the beginning of a new life, and the good guy who gets fucked around with by other people is over.

Manuel Guajiro Mirabal - Deuda

Okay

Okay, really starting to miss friends now.

I miss having people who just understand the way I feel, with whom I can relate so easily without even having to say much, who enjoy doing the same kinds of things as me, who care a lot about the world and people besides themselves, who can just chill out and enjoy themselves, who laugh incessantly about really nerdy or random things that don't even make sense to other people, with whom I feel so immediately at ease that I never quite noticed it or appreciated it as much as I do now. It's hard to find/make good friends and amazing when you do. It's exciting to travel on my own and go out and meet new people and make new friendships, but when it comes down to it and I'm really all by myself, it's hard not being able to see your friends at a moment's ease. It's amazing how much I actually need to be around or in communication with my friends, just to remind me subconsciously that there are people who care about me and that I mean something to someone else. I don't know if this is a common thing, but I feel like it can't just be me who feels this way. Even for all my independence, without that constant reminder, I seem to forget. Maybe because I'm in a foreign country, completely separated from a major part of my culture and the comforts in the way I live. I think that maybe I tend to "wash out to sea," if you will. Lose myself in the mass of swirling people and lives and forget about the identity that kept me so reinforced while I was back at home. Maybe I really do need to go out and find more Latinos here. So much of what makes up what I am is so far away, and although it's all inside me really, it's hard to feel it strongly when all the reminders of it are few and far between.

Culture and friends.

I still haven't been able to find a job, and sometimes I wonder now why I came back to Japan. I've had an insane amount of learning and interesting experiences, and if I hadn't come back I know I would've regretted it, so I know it was good to come back, but damn, what is happening right now? I seem to always be struggling to keep a grip on things. I really want to change the way I'm living, with my head neither here nor there, but I can't seem to grasp what I need to do.

(Ibrahim Ferrer)

Okay, let's go for this again

Okay, this is probably the fourth time I've re-written this post. I'm going to keep it short, in order to keep it from getting too negative - fast.

I sense myself going in a bad direction, ie. last December. But maybe this time, I will be aware enough to head it off using my experience from before. There are new factors involved in this time, though. We'll see what I can do.

In other news, though, I finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It was awesome! It felt good to read a book again, and this one was just right up my alley. I'm inspired to turn my energies toward writing again.

Aaand, I'm going to end it there.

(Modest Mouse - Tundra/Desert - this song from 1:33 is exactly how I feel.)

Unless?...

Unless,...maybe I can put it in my Mexican hot chocolate when I make that? Not like that really needs anything, but it's worth an experimentation, I suppose...Man, this thing is really on my mind @_@ Haha.

Sorry, but...

Sorry if this is too much information, but the curse of that wretched cinnamon just came back to get me when I went pee right now.

Canela

Recently, I suddenly got the urge to drink some canela (I don't know why, but I like the way it looks in italics), so I was very excited in my search for cinnamon sticks at the market today. After mucho, mucho looking I was about to finally give up (toward the end I even thought there might be some hope in the "ethnic" (ohmygosh so problematic) Asian food aisle. "Hey," I thought, "maybe those Thai people use that stuff, too, I mean, you never know..." It wasn't there.). When suddenly I found it!

I was so excited I bought two packs! So I get back tonight, and you know, as things start to wind down, I decide to go make some canela to warm down the evening, and...






What the F is that?!









Serious! They call that a cinnamon stick?! That thing's not even as big as my middle finger! And what with all its curls nicely wrapped up into itself, how's any flavor going to find it's way off of this thing!? It's so hard! And thick! And unflaky! And the smell! Agh! It makes me almost gag just sniffing it! It smells like someone sprinkled cinnamon powder all over these things. Seriously, what can you do with cinnamon sticks like these?? Where's the mustiness? The subtle, almost-not sweetness (or even complete lack of sweetness!)? That woody, earthy taste? I don't want to drink a cake, for crying out loud.

Blegh. Well, anyways, I decided to give it a try. At ten minutes in, then's barely any brown in the water. At 15, the water's pretty brown, but tastes just like tap water. Let's see where we're at now.







Looks dubious.








Well, I'm going to give it a try. Will report back in the morning...

Ugh, I just tried it. It's going to take some real experimentation to make this work. I could've just boiled some tap water and sprinkled cinnamon powder in it for this...:'(

Oh well, back to The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, so I can feel like I'm reading one of the spooky stories my family tells whenever they get together. :)

Buena

Dang, listening to Buena Vista Social Club kinda makes me want to learn to dance better. Sounds good.

International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People

I wish I could be in L.A. for International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People.

I like Venezuela's take on the day - Day of Indigenous Resistance.

I've actually been thinking a lot lately about the legacy of pain that Europeans' conquest of the globe has left for the hundreds of years up to now, and the way it is directly connected to the mire non-white people, particularly of the Americas, must tear themselves out of today. It's incredible, and incredibly sad. Yet, for some reason, it feels like right now there is some sort of hope.

These kinds of thoughts make me feel like I really should take my future in the direction of understanding how to contribute to doing away with the order of normalized racist atrocities we live in now and move us on toward a new, healthier, freer way of being. If now is the time, then what can I do?

It's Happened...

Oh no, it's happened. I've become a weird American.

People here always talk about how if they or their friends live outside of Japan for a long period of time, they become "weird Japanese" (変な日本人). I always have gone along with it, feeling like it was somehow connected to Japanese cultural centricism but not especially terrible or far-fetched (I just got a really strong urge to type, "Farfetch! Farfetch!"...and I did...). When people have asked me if I ever get told I'm a "weird American," I've always replied, "No," while thinking of how a lot of people in the U.S. and Japan probably don't even think of me as American at all on a daily basis. But I've always thought, "Could I even become a weird American? I mean, there are so many different types of people and sub-cultures in the U.S., and the U.S. doesn't really have a coherent culture anyways....."

But no, I am pretty sure I am now a "weird American."

In describing how I want to stay in my small town because it's a challenge to find a job here, rather than move to a big city where one would be easy to get, I used the word "masochistic."

Uh...okay, what? Japanese people use the masochist-sadist dichotomy to describe things as simple as aggressive and passive personalities, but...not native English-speakers. Needless to say that was a little weird, but I realized it as I was saying it and kind of...still said it, but maybe the other person picked up on the fact that I had just confused myself.

I think that is weird no matter what kind of American you are.

That plus:

Last time I offered to walk a woman back to her car after finishing a one-on-one English lesson after dark, I got a confused, yet polite, laugh = Japanese society is filled with less immediate physical danger everywhere and usually says that women are supposed to do things for men = no need for a walk back = I get culturally confused when going on actual dates with non-Japanese woman and make little boo-boos :(

I was in a rush to get out the door the other night and really had to get somewhere as soon as possible but I had to write a note to myself really quick so I got a piece of paper and...nicely, and slowly folded it so as to make a nice little square that I could gently tear off, write on it not to forget the milk, and place nicely on my kitchen counter. Then I was out the door.

I think it's time to put the brakes on this cultural infusion. If only just to took a look around my internal environment and get a better hold on things before continuing on, haha.

(The Dokuros, "Koi Wazura No Onna")

Rainwater

Oh my gosh, I got it. Rainwater Cassette Exchange by Deerhunter. SO GOOD.

The Dokuros

I can't explain how, but I feel like The Dokuros have been a huge influence on me.

Ever since I started listening to them, their music's just always felt like it was part of my life. Whenever I think of bands that've influenced my musical styling, they're always one of the first to pop into my mind. This, even though I myself can't really see much resemblence between the music I make and the music they made.

Maybe it was when I first bought one of their CDs about two and a half years ago that I started to open up to the wonders of pop music. When I first saw them live, their combination of weirdness with good, catchy rock hit me slowly, crept up as I watched them, sandwiched between the screaming noise groups I had come to see that night at U-La-La in Kyoto. I'm so glad that that first psychadelic duo wasn't selling any CDs, leading me to buy The Dokuros' just released third album on a good feeling. This may have been the beginning of the breakdown of my musical elitism, my movement from overwrought principles of creating "new" music to releasing music that feels good and right.

The Dokuros make music that just feels good. And for people who feel more at home with a lifestyle separated from the mainstream, it feels really good. But it doesn't feel to me like a crusade to progress; it's music that fits different parts of our lives, and brings people together. And if it blends genres, is psychadelic, and screams its head off at the same time, it's just the way they, and we, feel.



And man, listen to that singer's voice! I remember listening to that third album of theirs for the first time and thinking they had gotten a man to sing the first song - a very weird-sounding man. Then, as I listened to the rest of the album, I started thinking it had to be one of the coolest and most unique singing voices I'd ever heard! It's one of my musical dreams to be able to sing a mix of that style and my own.

There's also something about their style, their dress, in the way they carry themselves on-stage and off. For me, it feels if anything like the granting of a musician's dream (or them granting it for themselves). Starting the band as first-years in college, they've changed members a couple of times, gone through huge musical change, and continued up until somewhere in their thirties. And the attitude of it all is still so normal. Rather, almost because of all they've done it seems normal. Watching them, and talking to them, you feel like you're witnessing proof that some people do just make music for a living. And not "a living" as in making end's meet - I'm sure every member must be working a separate job to support themselves moneywise - but meaning in their free time, to fulfill themselves, they make music and feel so enlivened by it that they continue to do it for years and continuously give more creativity and life to a community of people over time. That is amazing.



I got to meet The Dokuros a few times since I first went to see one of their shows (and completely failed) after coming to Japan this time. If I saw them after their shows, sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was awkward, sometimes it was really funny. I ended up getting to know the drummer the most. We talked for a while after their last show, before the drummer and lead guitarist were to leave. Turns out she's traveled a lot. We talked about L.A. and Mexico. She said L.A. looked like it was made out of jewels and that she liked Mexicans because they're おおさっぱ,　ozappa, or don't stress about the details, completely different from the typical Japanese and also both positive and negative. Before I left that night I bought the last CD and record I didn't have by them and said bye to them together for the last time.

Since then, I've seen the lead singer/guitarist and bass player play a show as a duo, which was pretty good, especially since they played some of the new stuff The Dokuros had been working on as a band before they broke up. But, やっぱり, it wasn't the same, without the lead guitarist, and without the drummer - the whole mood and atmosphere was different. The lead singer's loud personality was no longer countered by the chill drummer's observing expressions, nor the cringingly shy lead guitarist's demeanor, and even though I hung around at the venue for a little while after the show, I didn't really talk to them that much.

Since then, I haven't gone to see The Dokuros, though I recently checked their site and saw that the singer and bassist are still playing shows as a duo act and are sometimes joined by the rest of the band from the halfway through the performance. I'd like to see them again. I've been out of the music loop for a while, and it might be good for me to get back into things and start saying hi to people again. I think it would be nice to say hey to The Dokuros again, and see where our talks go this time.

http://www.myspace.com/dokuros

Their myspace only has their most recent songs up, which, while good, don't give the listener a taste of their louder, more rockish side. If anyone would like I can send them those songs, too.

So, how have they influenced my life, musically and otherwise...I don't know. But I definitely feel it. I think sometimes, that if The Dokuros' influence suddenly started becoming apparent in the music I was making it would be a cool, exciting, and satisfying thing to notice. But, I think it might even be better if I never knew where it was coming from, nor to where it was going.

Frog

I just saw the most beautifully colored frog on the way back from getting ice cream tonight. I'm glad I went.

Mm

Haha, well, I meant that last post to be a self-deprecating joke more than anything else (you know how I love those), so I hope no one thought I was like depressed and cursing the day which bore me.

In other news, I have been making this a lot lately. With only one new kitchen item, my new stock of corn tortillas from home, I can make this, my POWER BREAKFAST!!
















And with a little more extra something I brought from home...SUPER SALSA POWER BREAKFAST!!
















Just bought a new fresh batch of eggs and potatoes last night, so these babies are going to be making their appearances very often now. Mmm. Nothing transforms some normal, everyday scrambled eggs like some good, fried tortilla strips. Ironically, since I started eating these, the situation described above and in the last post began to develop (or decompose?) into a more confusing state, so maybe these delicious meals have actually sucked my power rather than given it to me, like some sort of mouth-watering, digestible succubus. Worth it? Hmm...

Also, I just applied to a job as an officer worker at an international center in the nearby biggish town. It would be really cool if I could get it; the only thing is this is like an actual...Japanese job. I'm going to be competing with Japanese people for this job. Granted they'll be other college students and recent college grads, but that still kicks the difficulty level up quite a bit (Haha, when I first saw that, I thought, 'Oh well, that'll work to my advantage since I'm not straight out of college!' Next thought: 'Uh...you're still not much different.'). I sent in the application yesterday, but in one month I'm going to have to take two tests: an English exam (in Japanese), and a general education test...in Japanese! So, I better get studying for that last one. From what I've seen of books that help you prepare for those...it looks a wee bit challenging for a non-native Japanese speaker. We'll see, though. The pay isn't even that great, but the job looks really interesting and I need anything I can get.

Besides that, I've been doing private tutoring for the past 10 days or so at about 20 bucks an hour, one hour a day. That has been awesome! Basically like hanging out with a friend and helping her with English conversation and interview practice for an hour. If I could get enough people to be able to make a secure living off of that, well that would just be fine with me. I don't need a lot of money, just an interesting job and enough finances to keep me stable while allowing for some fun things. I suppose I'll get going on those fliers and cards now then!

A friend of mine who works at a nearby restaurant recently saw me writing in my journal while eating there and asked me about it - I realized: I write in my journal nearly every single day. I've been writing in a journal since I was a kid, and especially often since I got to college, and since I went to study abroad. Every once and a while I look back on an older journal and see what I was thinking. Haha. It's interesting. Before, I would often write with the idea of keeping a record of things. Since coming to Japan this time, I've written often to alleviate the loneliness of not having anyone to talk to (more around this time last year up until winter) and now to guide me through and help me think out the situations I find myself in. Writing in my journal has really become an anchor in my life. And I like it.

WellHAH(?!)

I now officially place my understanding of all things girl/woman at 0%.

Pixies, "Where Is My Mind?"

...What?

My head just got rocketed into the most confused state it has ever been in.

No Matter

No matter all the stuff you have on your mind, you can't help but be happy when you listen to Yo La Tengo.

So, so happy.

Language

Some things I've really come to like about the Japanese language (and by extension, culture?):
apologizing instead of saying thank you,
saying you're going to "receive the favor of being allowed to do something" rather than that you're "going to do it,"
and finally,
things go zaku-zaku.

and...

and I also get the feeling that it's not just going to come around, but
that I'm helping to make all this come around too.

(breakthroughs today)

Okay

Okay, enough sitting around, it's time for me to get off my butt and actually start doing this music thing. I'm here now, completely situated and loving every bitter and heavenly moment, so what better time? Lotus Plaza and the possibility of getting a car and license again, plus the realization of how close everything is around here if you actually do use a car, are inspiring me. As well as hearing from a good friend about all the music endeavors he's excited about pursuing on his own. Of course, this inspiration to undergo such an expensive, time-consuming, and devotion-requiring project of an experience is peaking at a time when I do not have a stable income or job, but it seems to me, like if things keep going the way they are, something very good is going to come around sooner or later. and I think sooner.

(Lotus Plaza)

Today

Today was such a cool day filled with so many good experiences. I so made the right decision to come back here. There is still so much for me to experience here!

Blegh

Blegh for another example of how white people in Japan are full of it. It's amazing how some people can completely construct their own world to live in while physically being surrounded by other actual, real people. No matter how much they move locations, they seem to relate to their surroundings in their signature, constantly ego-centric way. Maybe more on this later, when I'm not so eager to go to bed.

P.S. Today was pretty intense and full of experiences. Think: the smelliest town in the world and navigating the stormy seas of Japanese bureaucracy with a constantly improving ship known as my Japanese!

(Roy Orbison's "Love Hurts")

Life

Life is so wonderous and amazing, even as it is so sorrowful and distressing.

I am excited, in part because I have no idea what's coming. But I'm taking hold of something and going.

Rice

Two cups of Spanish rice equals food for a very, very long time. :)

Music Stuff

(I really have a bunch of stuff I want to talk and write about, but for now I'll just say:)

Randomly getting back into Cibo Matto makes me also randomly get back in Gorillaz. Then I realized: I love anything that intersects with Miho Hattori or Damon Albarn. Are these bands to which I'm destined to always come back?

Yes, I'm back in Japan. I enjoyed my time/vacation back at home more than I thought I would and almost didn't want to come back, but now I'm back and happy to be so ^o^

I've also been thinking a lot about what to do in the future of me and my education. All I can come up with is: I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING!! Well, I may have a little more direction than that, but not too much.

Also been going back and forth between how much hope there is for humanity to go in a more positive direction rather than just descend into further depravity. It always hits me pretty deeply when I hear about unimaginably horrible things happening, usually done by fellow humans, to innocent human beings. I'm talking about the murder of Annie Le. Ugh, and with all the tons of police cars I saw all over L.A., the instantly apparent and familiar U.S. culture (?) of pushing violence further and further and of doing and taking as much as you can because it's your right, contrasted with recent thoughts about the U.S. as less of a country and more of an anchorless, foundationless experiment taking us all with it as it spins through space and hell...For crying out loud, I listened to some of my own relatives talking about how the bad guy "really tears 'em up" in some new horror movie and describing with excitement all the gruesome ways he dismembers innocent people. I mean...this cannot be natural.

I don't feel completely at ease with the point of view that things are better now than they used to be, just because we've "come a long ways." But I suppose I also don't know much. Maybe it's fruitless to think about whether things are better now than they used to be, but the thought keeps coming to mind that the "culture" that we have in the U.S. is just not healthy for humans.

I also recently had the thought that the worst thing those in control can do is make us think we're at the end of history. But damn, if we're up against "people" who can do that...

For some reason I got into this odd state of mind these past couple of months that says things in terms of colonization are better than they used to be across the world just because (?). I've been coming out of that and thinking about nearly everything in terms of colonialism and neo-colonialism. The difference this time is I feel more collected, a little more positive, and like I have a better comprehension, or grip, on these ideas now. I'd like to try thinking in another paradigm, though.

To do something to help the world, do I go with what's been coming to my head most naturally thus far, or go in a newer, interesting direction? (I ask myself)

To change the topic...I love Korean Air. The last time I rode it was three (?) years ago when I was leaving to study abroad in Japan and Pomona's study abroad fund was paying the bill. Imagine my delight when I found this normally extremely expensive airline to be the 2nd cheapest for my trip back to Japan this week! I spent the 11 or so hours of the flight (before the transfer at Seoul) watching the equivalent of four movies and playing Tetris.

During the flight, I was really surprised to randomly stumble upon Dog Day Afternoon while channel surfing and so I watched that one and a half times. I really, really liked it, but the ending was probably one of the more terrible things I've seen (in cinema), not as in it was made badly but as in it ripped my heart apart and almost made me start to cry. If I had to introduce someone to the U.S. by media I would show them this movie. After that, I watched the first half (or so? i dont' know) of Wolverine (I don't even think that's its name), which was incredibly terrible. Have I ever seen a movie so saturated with awkward, super-masculine male bonding? ...hm, have I?...I don't know. Anyways, I realized soon that I could be watching sweet Korean movies that I never get a chance to watch but are in the airplane's movie libraries so I checked that out and came up with a winner. My Girlfriend's an Agent was really funny and had everything I needed at that moment to make me laugh: hilariously badly staged action sequences, East Asian-style xenophobic stereotypes, and great off-beat jokes. I'm very happy I saw that movie. After that I forced my soon-to-be-bloodshot eyes through another epic drama, I Corrupt All Cops. It's a Hong Kong film, I think, or at least it was about corruption in Hong Kong in the 1960s-70s, and by the looks of the characters, the Chinese title might be something like "Golden Empire"...? Anyways, it was pretty good, although the style seemed discontinuous at times. A little too violent for my tastes at some points, but even then it was done pretty well I think.

Man, I remember when airplanes didn't even have all that stuff. It still blows my mind.

And since when did this blog become a movie review site?

Well, anyways, I'm back in Japan and looking for what's next, I had a great time back at home visiting family and friends, and I'm seeing a lot of good happening in my life.

Oops, I wrote it all.

Back

Back in Japan, as of three days ago.

(Focused) Thoughts

So, that's really why people (re)invented Aztlan!

We need something new.

Hey, pt. 2

So, here's the rest of my update:

I'm here in La La Land until the 17th of Sep., after which I gear up for Me in Japan pt. 2. Actually, this second chapter may have already begun when I ended my job, fought to keep an apartment, started looking for jobs in a foreign country not through a nice little college-style application process, underwent a massive cleanup of my place, applied for unemployment in a foreign country/language (The amount of anxiety and aversion I felt about going to the unemployment office was really surprising and I suppose ultimately understandable - I feel like not having a job, any kind of job, has got to rank up there as one of the most shameful things for someone raised pretty traditionally Mexican-American), and took my trip back home.

I'm really excited for this next part, especially thinking about how much I've learned in what's actually only been a month since my occupation came to a screeching end. New priorities include: focusing on languages more, reading a lot more (this might mean some inner negotiating with my cheap self who doesn't want to pay for shipping books transcontinentally, unless I can figure out another way...), and thinking more specifically about where to take my formal education next. All while continuing to live and learn to move with the flow, which has been cool so far.

I came back home and found my old Kind of Blue CD that my jazz band teacher gave me when I graduated from middle school. This album is so good. I've been listening to it every morning (I keep waking up at sunrise) (although today I listened to Carsick Cars). Amazing how you come to appreciate things over time.

Haha, I just talked to my grandma over the phone right now. Here's an excerpt from her telling me about a senior citizens' travel group trip to Washington D.C.: "Oh yeah, over there they have that thing for the, what do you call them, the soldados, you know where they have the names of all the soldiers that died. That sounds interesting. I don't really want to go to the White House or nothing like that. I don't know if they're gonna make us go there if we're in a group, but you know, they're all caca-heads over there. You know, we vote and vote and vote, and it doesn't matter if they're black, or white, or Mexican, you know, they don't do anything." I love my grandma so much :)

Some of the things I've been happiest about experiencing again since being back:
beans Mexicano style, tortillas, being able to make quesadillas at home easily, my charango, my accordion, a picture of my dad my sister put on the fridge that has the caption, "Hey! Watchate!" by it, my mom's cooking, my dog Chloe!!, concrete and asphault outside, Los Angeles air (okay, not just the smog, smoke, and exhaust, but you know...the atmosphere and wind as cars go by and...you know what I mean, right?!), seeing so many different types of people all together!, beautiful brown people walking on the street and sitting on their porches, having my dad show me all the Japanese Buddhist temples in Boyle Heights, doing a "refresher course" of some of my family's usual hangout spots (plus some new ones!!, which include the Korean chain cafe and bakery Paris Baguette), and you know, just seeing family in general. It's been nice. I'm really surprised at how relaxed I feel. This is really a good vacation. And a good trip home. I'm glad I made it. I'm glad I'm here.

Initial Reactions

Everything is big!!, service here sucks!, I'm not sweating constantly, convenience stores are more aesthetically pleasing here. :)

Hey

Hey, I've been really bad about letting people know, but I'm in L.A. now. It's nice.

Reading Rainbow!

Reading Rainbow is ending?! Man, this is really sad.
I have so many memories of watching this show and trying to write down the information for all the books they reviewed, then trying to find the books at the library! I wonder what kind of programming is even on PBS nowadays. And how is it that these sorts of things (continue to) happen, anyway?
Well, it played a big role in my childhood and growing up, and I'll always be grateful to and love it for that (and to my parents too for showing it to me :)).

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112312561

Hm.

Could the Ventures be progenitors to video game music??...Anybody??
Live in Japan '65 certainly sounds like a whole bunch of video game music that started coming out soon after...

Also, I would bet 2 fistfuls of cookie dough that Quentin Tarentino got his inspiration for the announcer in Jack Rabbit Slim's from the guy who spoke in between all the songs during that show...unless announcers just sounded like that in general back then.

Chuck Berry's songs are starting to all sound the same to me so much that it just made me laugh to listen to the beginning of Big Ben. I'd better take a break for now, haha.

Jose Hernandez to launch into space!

This is so cool on so many levels. Haha, all the parts about his parents constantly emphasizing the importance of education sound so familiar :)

http://www.thecalifornian.com/article/20090821/NEWS01/90821020/1002/rss

A Satisfying Lunch

A satisfying homemade lunch was had today by me.　　(I forgot to take pictures. I was really hungry.)

Takikomi Gohan (Basically rice cooked along with other things like warabi, shimeji mushrooms, and other goodies)
















Tofu with ponzu and sesame seeds (Sudachi is so the best.) (Like this but with just the sauce and sesame seeds sprinkled on top, sans the onion)
















Bancha hand-picked by one of my old elementary school's English teacher















Plus, Korean seaweed over a month expired from my trip last spring! (Sorry the picture's kind of bad, but this is the exact kind I bought! Made with olive oil!, ahhh, drool)














Psh, expiration dates shmexpiration dates, that seaweed was delicious.

All with a nice soundtrack of ? and the Mysterians, the Kinks, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Charlie Feathers, Chuck Berry, and Ricky Nelson.

Reality Bites?

I just watched Reality Bites for the first time. I always had this image of it in my head from seeing Winona Ryder, Ben Stiller, and Ethan Hawke's faces stretched out in steel teal tint on billboards from the bottom of the backseat car window as a kid, then when I was reminded of it while in Japan I thought, "Hey, this movie actually sounds interesting now and relevant to my life." And it was to a degree, but as often happens with these films that are supposed to be about youthful angst and rebellion I just can't relate that much to the main characters.

I can't sympathize with a main character who struggles to find a job in the professional field of her choice but is incapacitated by pride from working at a fast-food place, makes jokes about "selling fruit on street corners," and in the end turns to stealing from her parents rather than just getting a "normal" job (which is celebrated in the film).

I mean the movie was okay. I got some things out of it. I related to Ben Stiller's character the most and one thing that he said that actually really clicked with me was, "Hey, we're all human beings." Lately, I've been thinking that, as I realize I can be kind of judgmental (as this post may attest, haha), toward myself and others. Really though, everyone is a unique, complex human being, despite how preppy, douche-baggy, or misguided we may seem, and it seems like a waste of time and energy to form judgments against people whom we don't really know on a deep, or true, level. So that was one thing I connected to in this film.

But man, when are we going to get some more coming-of-age, youth-centered films about people with problems working-class people who aren't white can relate to?! I mean, can you imagine Reality Bites with Mexicans?? Okay, well first off all those people would've probably still been living at home instead of renting out an apartment they couldn't afford. The whole jobless part of the movie would've been completely out cuz you know they'd all be working as many jobs as they could to support them AND their families. Man, and if one of them got a BMW for free from their loaded dad (an impossible scenario) they would've sold that thing so fast. I suppose these things would all make the movie less interesting to lots of people, but hey, I'd be able to relate to the characters more.

I suppose this movie was made in 1994 (Man, I'm always astounded when I watch a movie from the mid-90s how much more obvious the racism is - the black guy runs the news station for which Winona Ryder is over-qualified, selling produce in the street is a joke, also I suppose Asians and Latinos don't exist in this fictional world either), and there are definitely more coming-of-age movies that speak to the experiences of young people of color now, but I always feel like there are never enough. If you read this and have any suggestions, can you leave some here to share? Cuz I'd love to check them out.

All in all, Reality Bites was pretty good, but not the "pretty good" where you kind of accent the words and drag out the vowels. I got some things out of it, but I think I like the weird image of the billboard imprinted on my mind more. It is also really possible the movie's not hitting me as directly because my generation's a little off. What would be my generation's post-college-graduation film(s) (if this movie could really even be called representative of the '90s generation)?...That would have come out somewhere around last year, right?...I don't think I've seen one I really relate to, that really captures the way things are and feel.

The cappuccino reference was funny, is that back when that was becoming popular (by the way, was this movie made pre-Starbucks? I feel like it was...)? This is all making me feel really young...

Also the soundtrack was pretty lame. Just think: Pulp Fiction came out that same year.