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.