Haha Name

Haha, and now I call L.A. Los Angeles.

Oh man movie

Oh man, I hope this is still playing when I get back to L.A.!

http://ny.remezcla.com/2010/latin/la-mission/

And way to have a new, tight version of Be Thankful For What You Got in the preview, right as I was getting into that song again, hehe.

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.

Everything

(Everything that's been happening lately is making me say) It's time to go back.

Argh! Thoughts After Getting Upset

California Campus Sees Uneasy Race Relations

Ah! It's unacceptable that after reading this I thought, "Oh yeah, this is what college is like," as if remembering an essential part of upper education that I had forgotten exists. Even more, then I thought, "Do I really want to go back to school (and deal with all this again)?" which is terrible! Then, "And people wonder why so little minority students go through with upper education!" Not only do we have to deal with established economic inequalities; racism prominent in every aspect of our society; violence, drugs, and alcoholism right in our communities; and out-of-control, immune, violently aggressive white people; when we finally get to college, we have to study our best in the face of ignorant, privileged people telling us they don't want us there. It never ends.

Ugh.

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.

LA

I want to read and I want to go to Latin America again. I'll save the latter for later, though (unless you count L.A.).

Westerns

(possible spoilers?)

Man, some of the Italian Westerns are pretty interesting to watch, and have some pretty good music, but damn the monumental racism just takes away from the experience so much. Extreme masculinity and white supremacy are such strong themes throughout some of these movies that it just waters down any cinematic grip the film has on you. I thought The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was bad, but man, For a Few Dollars More is just terrible. Every time I see a white guy in brown-face, which is a lot of times, it just kills the mood of the movie completely, and this time they even featured a "Chinese" guy for a moment. Nothing gets across the horrible, damaging feel of the movie across more clearly than the good old boy dialogue at the very end of the movie, right before Clint Eastwood goes driving off with a truckload of dead Mexicans. Man, I can honestly say I did not enjoy watching that movie, no matter how genius white fanboys claim it must be. Someone really needs to redo this genre. Way of the Gun may be the closest thing to a good Western-style movie that I can actually enjoy. And to think how much of U.S. culture and world views of the U.S. have been shaped by this movie phenomenon (interesting that it originates from outside the U.S. - does that point the way toward other possibilities?). A lot of work needs to be done.

Edit: Now that I think about it, Robert Rodriguez did do some good stuff that reshaped the genre to a degree.

Does

Does a near-obsession with the problems of (people in) the U.S. and a desire to contribute something to fixing them suddenly rising up in me indicate that I should be coming back to home/it all? I mean, this is possibly getting up to like high school levels of caring and wanting to do things for others and a better change. My state of mind is like I'm in the U.S. I just looked out my window and suddenly thought about what I was going to do the rest of the day and got a bit of a shock at remembering I'm in Japan.

Thoughts on a New Change

Something changed culturally in the '60s and '70s.

Something needs to change now. There needs to be a cultural change.

We can't bring the change in the same way people did in the '60s and '70s.

We have to make a new way to change.

Our change can't be based on the desire-driven movement of people without a strong cultural foundation. It has to be new, but it has to be based on tradition. It has to resurrect and reinforce, and it has to create, tradition.

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.

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.

Initial Reactions

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