Wow

Wow, I am like, really, looking forward to going back to L.A.

Not that I dislike where I am now.

It's just...wow, it's exciting.

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.

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.).

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Good Morning Sunshine

Just came out of a car's radio four stories below.

I noticed the other day a unique kind of peace in the air that I had never before experienced in my life at home, and that was: there were no helicopters flying in the air above me. Back in L.A., I had come to think of police helicopters flying above me no matter where I was - my backyard, a show, my grandma's house - as something that just was (though I had never stopped being bothered by it). Last night, as I walked around a dark, people-less river area looking for fireflies, I noticed that I had slipped into a very special, thin sheet of silence in which the only man-made sounds were the low roars of cars as they sped down the nearby road. There were no helicopters flying above me, chopping the air, shining their floodlights, and hovering over people. I thought, Wow, I could get used to this; this is really nice. I woke up today and feel very at peace.

Video

This is a really good video for Abe Vigoda's "World Heart" I think.



Now, Silver Daggers. I appear to be in a Los Angeles music nostalgia dimension.