Eeh!

Get ready to leave my home of almost two years for Los Angeles tomorrow afternoon??...okaayyyy....!! Ah! I should ship back my internet modem pretty soon. I had a humongous, beautiful goodbye party last night, and man, I feel different. I've said goodbye to pretty much everyone who's been a part of my life for the past 21 months here, and I feel at peace in some ways, and then also like I want to go see all of them again and talk to them and keep meeting them every week or so often for the next however long like I've been doing up to now. I'm going to finish up this apartment cleaning and packing! Aaaaaahhhhh!!

Old Goodbyes

I wonder how people long ago used to say goodbye, before there was email, telephone, or even letter-writing. It must have been something amazing. Or maybe it was something very simple. In any case, it must have been so much different.

Na

I went to Nagoya and it was really cool.

College

It's kind of a bummer, but mostly just weird, that I usually feel a little uncomfortable talking about college and grad school with most of my friends. I suddenly realize how uncommon it is for someone from my group of friends and family to continue school for years past adolescence. I suddenly feel different, like I stick out awkwardly from the people I love, even though there was nothing different between us only a moment ago. I feel a little spoiled for having the opportunity to go to college and even further on to graduate school if I want. I felt this for the first time in a while talking to some of my friends last night. I realized that most of the friends I've made in Japan, too, didn't go to college or quit high school after a year or two. Talking about leaving everyone and going back to the U.S. to go to graduate school makes me feel so separated from them, like a privileged child who takes for granted all the opportunity that's been laid right in front of me without me having to do anything. I know somewhere inside that it can be good to talk about college and education with loved ones who haven't pursued education that far, but it feels so arrogant. These aren't little kids you're trying to inspire to take their education as far as they can, they're grown adults who can shape their own lives by their own decisions. But maybe there are still some who want to try again, go back to school, and pursue a dream they have. Then, maybe it is right to talk about, or at least mention, my education and career goals non-awkwardly, just normally, and maybe one of my friends who's been thinking about that will find some inspiration in it. But really, who am I to think of myself as someone to give inspiration to others? Unless I am capable of doing it as any human is, as a gift from one human to another.

Ahh

When I listen to William DeVaughn's Be Thankful For What You Got, I can clearly recall the feelings of riding in the backseat of the car with one of my parents driving and playing this song on a mix when I was little. I remember not really knowing what 'gangsta whitewalls' were, nor being able to understand quite what he was saying when he said, 'tv antennas in the back.' But I felt some joy when I heard him say, 'You may not have a car at all,' because I could understand that quite clearly and it brought the meaning of the rest of what he was saying but that I couldn't understand together. I still don't know what 'gangsta whitewalls' are, nor can I really pick up what he's saying when he says 'tv..enters..in the back' But man do I love this song.

I also remember that guitar, that unique guitar, when it comes in strongly and matches partially with the vocals, but at the same time is kind of off. I remember always being in awe of that guitar. It made my skin crawl and sent a sense of subtle irritation down me from head to toe because it was so strong and intrusive and didn't exactly fit what it seemed it was trying to fit. At the same time, it did fit, just right, and it raised the energy level of everything and made it sound prettier, too. I still get those feelings listening to the song today. I like that guitar, but I don't really like it. I anticipate its arrival with a sense of almost dread and excitement.

This song is my growing up. It is a part of my childhood so powerful that upon hearing it senses and memories flood back into the front of my consciousness. And you know, looking back at all these songs I was listening to as a child, it's not a wonder I turned out the way I did. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Here it is for your listening pleasure:

Whoa

Oh my gosh, Lady GaGa is awesome! Soo, soo awesome!

I Can't Believe This

Japanese Hip-Hop producer Nujabes dies

I never saw this coming. Holy shit, this guy made such amazing, beautiful music, I can't even believe it. I can't believe he's no longer alive. And only at 36. Why did something like that have to happen?

After reading that, I thought, "Wow, I guess life really is short. It can end at any time. You really have to live, every second, every single moment of it, with all the feeling and love you can. You have to live every moment of your life as it if could end at any time. Because it can."

Sometimes, you just suddenly feel, very, very clearly, the truth that your life could disappear from you at any moment. You understand at a deep, primitive level the quickness and lack of any warning or signal with which your life could wisp away from your body before you even know it. You know truly, then, that you have no control. I felt all that very clearly when I found out that Nujabes had died in a car accident at 36.

I spent so much time listening to his album, Modal Soul, when I was in the depths of some kind of depression I couldn't even grasp in over a year ago's fall and winter. I can clearly recall the feelings of driving in that small, blue car down a dusky, thin, night road, going nowhere, just driving to let myself think, to leave the house that pushed down on me with an oppressive presence, just to get away. Listening to his music alone at night in that car, driving, I somehow was able to diffuse negative feelings into the air around me. Even remembering some parts of that album now pull at my insides, making me feel like crying a bit. I may have even been listening to him that night I pulled over on the side of the road and wanted to cry so badly but couldn't. Maybe that feeling is still somewhere in me. It was something I felt more than once on those drives.

I remember thinking his music was so beautiful and being moved by it when I first heard it. I still have those feelings, and ones like them, when I listen to his music today. I don't know if it "got me through a hard time," or if I just happened to be listening to it when I was going through harsh experiences, but his music penetrated deep into my soul, and it mixed with whatever was going on in it at that time. It's part of my soul's memory, history, now. I'll always feel connected to this album, and to Nujabes's music.

Rest in peace.

Thinking again,

I think the music of transitions may be the most interesting.
Or at least very interesting in its own unique way.

Trans-music: The transition from 20 months in the Japanese countryside to an uncertain Los Angeles is interesting

The soundtrack for this person's transition from 20 months in countryside Japan to open-future Los Angeles includes a lot of Japanese psychedelia (Jacks, Apryl Fool, Happy End, Asakawa Maki), U.S. Oldies (Smokey Robinson, The Matadors, Francisco Aguabella, Skip Mahoney & the Casuals), mariachi (Los Camperos, Vicente Fernández, Pedro Fernández, Javier Solís), and alternative Japanese rock (Friction, Iwamano Kiyoshiro).

Whoa.

Wow.

Addendum

Also of note from that dinner:

H. Apparently wealthy, tall, pale. Talks often of having a Dutch mother. Steadily, openly dating 50-something-year old professor from past college. Interested in linguistics and philosophy.

She bought a rabbit half a year ago and found, over the course of some weeks, that it was unfriendly, not so cute, and bit nearly everyone who came in contact with it. This winter, she decided it wasn't worth it to take care of it anymore, took it up into the mountains, and left it by itself.


Why are these the people who have money, power, and authority? Why are these the people who are welcomed with open arms and longing gazes when they travel to other countries? I want to ask, "Why are these the people who don't have to work for anything," but upon quick reflection I realize that that is part of what makes them what they are. (By the way, the descriptive paragraphs for both H and M are just meant to be descriptions, not what I'm frustrated about). Irresponsibility and self-love are bred so rife in privileged circles. Why do they have to have things so easy? Why do I have to go through the trouble of speaking up whenever they say something racist believing it to be accepted truth (which it is to so many people)? Is this ever going to change?

Man

M. Slightly heavyset, curly hair. Talks often of being Jewish. Dating a Japanese boy.

"I was asked today by one of my students which one Americans eat more typically, bread or rice, and I, of course, answered, 'Bread.'"

Me, "Really? You think so?"

"Well, yeah. As a side dish, most people eat bread, not rice."

An "uh-huh" from the girl sitting next to her, a doubting mumble from the boy sitting next to me.

"But what about all the people who eat rice at home? I eat rice every day at home. There are lots of people from other countries who eat rice as a main part of a meal."

"Well, yeah, like from Asia. Those are all imported cultures. I'm talking about actual American food."

Further agreement from the girl to my left, further dismay from the guy to my right.

"Yeah, Asian, like Asian-American."

"Okay, if you go to a restaurant, what you normally get served like as an appetizer or a side dish is a bread basket or something like that."

The sounds of agreement and disagreement grow even louder, into pronounced, "yeah!"s and shocked, "what are you talking about?"s.

"What kind of restaurant are you talking about? At Mexican restaurants all the food comes with rice. Bread almost never comes with it. You're talking about European-American food."

"Ah! Nevermind, just forget it, let's change the subject."

The girl from the side adds, "Yeah, come on guys, she was looking for support here."

"What? Why should I support that?" the two guys respond.

Hanging her head and covering her face, M, "Ah, anyways, let's talk about something else."

"...but you were the one who brought it up."

M changes the topic to something else. The two-person quiet conversation tries its best to continue on. Then, from across the table, the older Japanese woman, who was in charge of the dinner and Japanese class we were all attending, asks, "But, it's different according to region, isn't it?"

Haha, laughter, a "hai!" from me and the guy next to me as the three of us begin to talk about Cuban food the teacher had in Florida once. M laughs with frustration and begins a new conversation with the other girl.


This person was hired by the government and is paid an enormous amount of money to teach the children of Japan.

Quotes

Quotes from old men who look after me

"Mexicans are really smart. Do you know why? Because they're relatively pure-blooded. Koreans are smart, right? Chinese are smart, right? Blacks are smart, Japanese are smart. It's because they're blood isn't mixed. When you start mixing blood, things get weird."

"The quality of Japanese people has gone down since the end of the war. There aren't very many good people in Japan anymore. There were a lot before the war, but now, there are very few good Japanese people."

"Japanese people are becoming stupider and stupider. They barely even read books anymore, and just read manga all the time now, even full-grown adults."

"Japanese are different than they used to be before the war. Just last week, a 2nd year middle school boy was almost killed by three 3rd year boys. They just started beating him up, and luckily someone came by and saved him. Everybody watches variety shows that just make fun of people, anyone who's heavyset, or small, or old. Kids watch these shows and come to school and just make fun of each other and put each other down. In Osaka, you hear about young people beating up and killing homeless people all the time. The Japanese have become a people who pick on those who are weaker than them."

"You know how young Japanese people all dye their hair brown now? It's because they wish they could be like Westerners."

"Mexican women are really beautiful. You know why? It's because they're all mixed-blood. People with mixed-blood are really good-looking."

"As a Japanese, it really makes you feel good to hear that someone decided to study Japanese not because they saw some anime and thought the girls in it were cute or something, but because they thought the language itself was beautiful."

"The thing about Japanese is that if one person starts doing something, everybody else will start doing it too, until the whole country is doing it. It's part of the way we are. There have been good cases of it, Japan took in a lot of good ideas from other countries that way, but there are also bad cases. Young women only started dying their hair brown and trying to look more Western about ten years ago. Before then, no one was doing that. But all it takes is for it to become popular with one small group of people and everyone else who sees them will think they should do it, too. That's why so many people in Japan dye their hair."

"Whenever I hear him speak English, it sounds so cool to me."
"That's because that's how Japanese have been raised to think since the war. That's MacArthur's doing."

"The girls here are close to what women used to be like in Japan."

"It might be bad for me to tell you after you've come all this way and studied Japanese so much, but you should study Chinese. The future is in China. Japan's just going to continue going downhill from here. Economically, that is. Culturally, it'll keep cultivating itself - that's what happens in harsh economic times."

"I'm looking forward to seeing where you go from here."

Isn't It Crazy?

Isn't it crazy that I am listening to the new album by a Japanese experimental music group from Nagoya which I know of only because I met the original bassist in Bolivia two and a half years ago while I was doing college research and while she was taking a break from her band and life in Japan and traveling around Latin America?

Smiled

Today, I continued my streak of being able to wake up early and got up at 8, two hours before my alarm was to go off! I made breakfast, cleaned up around the apartment, got dressed, and started with the things I had planned on doing since the night before. I went to go pay my water bill at the gas station next door, owned by the landlord of my apartment and recently under renovations which include the addition of a car wash! Then, I went to the bank and withdrew some money, mailed a postcard off, and got to the bus stop 14 minutes ahead of time to wait for the bus that would take me to my next destination...

Himeji! Yes, I was off to the nearby town, the nearest place you might actually call a "big city," to look at books! I had had the craving to surround myself with lots of interesting, cheap books and look through them thoroughly one at a time for the past week and it was about time I got out of my little town, so I was off! I fell asleep about halfway through the ride, then woke up when we were almost at the end. I got off at the second to last stop, because it leaves you off not at the train station but right in front of a huge 100 yen shop that connects to a massive used bookstore! I went straight inside, and headed right to the rows and rows of books and just dove right in.

I spent a pretty good amount of time there and boy was I happy I had come. There was a special deal going on for all the books that were re-priced at 100 yen (which was about half of them) which lowered their price to 50 yen at one and 100 yen for three! I was so excited, I felt like a little child a little bit. I also felt like a huge nerd because I was walking fast all over the whole store seeing if I could find any other 100 yen books. But I also felt like a thrifty nerd, because I thought of how fun it would be to play a game in which I try to get the best three books possible for only 100 yen.

Looking around, I had a chance encounter with my past when I noticed a lot of books by an author named Yamada Amy. Most of the books seemed like they had to do with her relationship with African-Americans. I looked her up in my phone (technology can be useful sometimes) and found out that she's a celebrated Japanese writer who feels really connected to African-American culture and writes a lot about it. Then, I remembered that I had read about her when I was writing my thesis senior year of college. The author of the article I was citing had used her work as evidence of the prevalent, condescending attitude in Japan toward blacks, calling Yamada's books more akin to racist pornography than the bold, taboo-defying work it was said to be. Looking at the titles of some of her books, such as Animal Logic and Make Me Sick, I could see what the author had meant. Nevertheless, if she's such a prominent writer in Japan today, and the books are already used and only 100 yen, I figured I would do well to find out what her work was like for myself. Plus, one of her most celebrated novels, like much of her work, isn't about African-Americans at all, but the youth in modern Japan, so I bought that one, too. Alright, I was set with two books, After-School Music and Bedtime Eyes.

The third book was a little harder to find - once I started actually looking for names, I lost momentum - but I ended up going with the only Oe Kenzaburo book in the store, Until the Savior is Punched: The Burning Tree, Part 1. This one didn't feel as good as the first two, mainly because it looked way harder to read taking into account the length and the complex, abstract, psychological topics Oe usually deals with. But I wanted to get a work of his, so I went with it. Maybe I'll read it one day. On my last search around the store, I found a little book called I Worked as an Office Lady for Ten Years, which looked like really interesting and funny light reading, so I got that, too. Yeah! Four books for 150 yen! That's $1.67 for all you U.S. people out there. Very nice!

I left the bookstore in a good mood, checking the 100 yen shop on the way out to see if they had any take-fumi (little pads you can step on to massage your feet and improve your circulation), but they didn't. So, I headed on down to the station, picking up a delicious and huge chicken sandwich for pretty cheap from a Brazilian food cart on the way. I had recently been inspired by a friend of mine who listens to language tapes whenever he drives and is constantly studying languages. I found, when I went for a ride with him, that I could understand his Chinese and Russian instructional tapes, even though they were based in Japanese, and got excited to try getting some tapes of my own to listen to while I'm doing other things. The bookstore at the station, bigger than the last one and only dealing in new items, had a few for the languages I was interested in (Korean and Filipino), but they were really expensive and not worth the money. While I was there, I also searched for anything else that would be good in my study of Japanese, but didn't find much. I left the store with nothing, but still had a hard time getting out, as I do often with bookstores - there's just so much to see.

After that, I went to a store called Mujirushi Ryouhin (or Muji, for short), which sells clothing and household goods store and was right below. I needed some pants. I found some great black levis, too, which then turned out to be a little over 4,000 yen, which was waayy over my price range, so nothing came of that. I found a cool long-sleeved shirt that was striped green and gray, but the neck was too low. I left and went to the underground shopping mall.

I decided I need a break right then and there!, so I went to a little bakery/cafe place where I got a yomogi-red bean bun and brought it to the register.

"That'll be 140 yen," said the girl at the register.
"Oh, and I'll have an iced milk, too, please," I added. I called the item by the name I've usually heard it called in these kinds of bakery/cafes, "aisu miruku." As I was finishing speaking, the girl, looking down, motioned up to the LCD screen where the price was written in green numbers. I paused for a second.
"An iced milk?" I asked again. She looked up. Her eyes were wide and she looked very confused.
"Um, do you have iced milk?" I tried again. She looked at me blankly. "Gyunyu?" I used the Japanese word for just milk this time. I laughed a little bit and smiled to ease her what seemed like combination of fear and anxiousness.
"Uhh...all the items we have are written here," the girl motioned geometric-softly up to her right, where there was a chalkboard with drinks written on them. She seemed at a total loss for what to do.
I looked up at the chalkboard, hoping I wasn't going to have to explain what an iced milk was, and found it second from the top: aisu miruku, iced milk. I pointed up and asked,
"Iced milk?"
She looked up and back down, looking even more bewildered than before. Her senpai, or older, employee had been standing next to her since the confusion began, and to her the girl said hesitantly,
"Iced milk?"
The older girl looked down and nodded, biting her lips. A smile was coming out of the corners.
"Okay!" the younger girl said. She snapped back into action, ringing up the order, and the older employee went to the back, called out,
"Iced milk!"
and began to prepare the drink. It was all ready before I even found a place to sit down. I relaxed, snacked on my meal, and looked over my new books excitedly, as the girls talked and laughed loudly behind me. They seemed to be the only employees working at the time, and it looked like they got along well. They both instantly seemed a lot younger as soon they were talking at ease amongst themselves.

After that, I went up a flight of stairs and outside to look for another used bookstore I had seen before on my trips to Himeji but never gone in. I hadn't been able to find it earlier today, but this time I went a little bit further and found it in a little alley! This place was amazing! From the entrance to the skinny staircase that led from the sidewalk up and across every single wall in the small little room, everything was lined with books! I got really excited in this place, too. I was moved all over the place, exclaiming to myself at all the neat books they had (the owner had moved downstairs to the next-door cafe he runs once I got up, leaving the place to only me!). I even found such familiar items as Condorito comic books, works on Nihilism (translated) (There was also a full Nietzsche set in German!), and a Rainbow Fish book! This place was beautiful, and I stayed in there just reveling in it for probably an hour at least. In one corner of the room, I found a beautiful big volume of a book on Latin America with lots of photographs and information for only 100 yen (marked down from 300)! I was tempted to buy it, but figured I didn't really need it, it would be cool if a Japanese person came in and found it and had their interest sparked by it (or something like that), and put it back. After a while another guy came in, and I, also thinking of how I'd been missed buses consecutively in order to stay longer in the store, left after a little bit.

Afterward, I went into the cafe next door and accidentally kicked over the owners wooden "We're Open" sign, which called him out of the cafe and prompted a "Sorry!" out of me. I went in and ordered a coffee. It was a little much, but I reasoned I was paying for the environment and that the money was going in a good direction. The cafe was in a similar state as the shop, lined completely on one wall with bookshelves that leaned like they were ready to fall over onto you but you knew (or figured) they wouldn't. I like that, the way some portions of bookshelves in used bookstores like this look like they're ready to tumble over, while others look as securely and immovably stuck in place as possible. I found out about a photography show that was going to be held in a gallery upstairs above the cafe next week, then I left.

I walked down a ways to a restaurant I like to go to when I'm out in the city and can find it. I ordered a salt-grilled sanma (pike or saury, a type of fish) set meal from the machine, but it gave me a ticket for curry rice. I didn't notice until it was too late, but upon thinking about it a bit I figured I would only bring it up if it was more expensive than what I had originally wanted (a flashing feeling to my life in the U.S.). It was about 200 yen cheaper, so I went with it. A blessing (or hint) from the heavens. I missed the bus I had been planning on taking so I could relax and eat, so after finishing dinner I went back to the first bookstore, which is also attached to a movie and music shop, and hung around for a while there. I was looking for "The Good, the Bad, and the Weird," that movie recently made in Korea, but I couldn't find it. I decided I wasn't going to miss another bus to keep looking so I booked it on down the main street, got and out of the bus station and to the bus one minute before it was set to leave. Good timing.

Entering the bus, the only seat open was the long one in the back, where a high school girl was sitting all the way to the right. I sat all the way to the left. On the way back, I hummed to myself, as I often do on these long bus rides back from the city, confident and comforted in knowing that my vocal vibrations would be drowned out to all others by the sounds of the bus's engines. Somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes into the ride, I fell asleep pretty hard, and then woke up 10 minutes before arrival. I felt nice and rested, but still tired and in that good groggy state. It had been a good day.

Whoa

'People's History' author Howard Zinn dies at 87

Whoa.

I think his is an inspiring story. I read it right when I'm trying to figure out if I really want to go to graduate school.

kasuppa

They're three students at Kobe University who met two and a half years earlier through a school club.

I saw them play last night, bought their CD, and talked to the drummer.

Fourth Newspaper Salesman in Two Months

*Doorbell chime* *Knock knock knock!* *Doorbell chime* "Hello!?" *Knock knock knock!*
(I open door)

"Oh! You're a foreigner!"
Short, bald, snapping turtle-looking man in a khaki overcoat.
"...Oh, yeah..."
"Oh, well then you can't read Japanese can you."
"Uh...no, I can't."
"You don't get the newspaper, right?"
"Oh, no...the newspaper people already came before..."
"Oh. Where are you from? Brazil?"
"Uh, America."
"Oh, America?! Wow, but you can't read Japanese, can you?"
"Uh, well...I can read Japanese, but..."(stupid pride, I knew I shouldn't have said that)
He leaned his face closer and his body more into the doorway.
"Oh, so then, one of your parents must be Japanese, right? Your mother or father?"
"Oh, I'm Mexican-American."
"Oh, really? Well, okay. You still don't want a newspaper? They're cheap!"
"Oh no, that's okay, thank you, I'm probably fine."
"Okay then, 'I'm sorry' (in English), thank you, goodbye."
He leaned over behind the other side of my door to get his bag and I closed the door.

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.

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

Clangy

(The Kinks - "Sunny Afternoon")

Today's a beautiful day.

I went to my most rural school's principal's house for lunch today. It was really great. He lives way up in the mountains in this awesome, small complex of a residence with his parents and wife. We talked about what I should do when I got back to the U.S., his travels around Eastern Europe and the U.S., and a blog and webpage he's working on. He told me about how he thought it would be better if there were tours for tourists in Japan that covered nature walks and stuff in the inaka (countryside). He said people come to Japan and just see big cities like Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe, which is nice, but that they don't really get a sense for what normal, everyday life is like for the rest of the country. In the same way, he said, Japanese people who travel to Los Angeles, go see Universal Studios, Hollywood, and Santa Monica, ride around in a bus full of other Japanese people, then go fly back home to Japan don't really know what it's like to live in the city. They need to go to other places, like Downtown and Chinatown. For his vacation to California, he rented a car with his family and drove down the coast from San Francisco to L.A., then all around the city on his own. It was really cool to hear about. It's just really inspiring to hear the stories of, and be around, people who don't fit in exactly with the rest of society.

I ended up exchanging blog addresses with him, too! 今日はありがとうございます、藤原先生！

I came home and made my signature tofu dish again. I'm getting it done in record time now, somewhere around 25 minutes. I mixed in the sauce-thickening powder (? 片栗粉) today really well today, too, and didn't have any clumps! It was a nice, circular, quick yet graceful stirring motion! I also added some chopped up ginger, which was a good idea. I'm just working on the details now, like how to make the green onions look more apetitizing (add them in later so they're still bright green when everything's finished). Yes!

I'm ending this post on the same song on which I began it.