Posts from March 2006
March 31, 2006
Crybaby craft
I was in a small studio the other day recording some tracks for a friend's New Age album. He plays electric guitar and guzheng (¥jºå) at the same time. Anyway, this got me thinking about what it is musically that excites me these days. People are always asking me why I stopped playing professionally, and I'm running out of things to say. All I can muster, is "I just couldn't do it anymore."
Like this morning, I woke up to an album my wife put on of a 15 year old pianist named Austin Peralta. Peralta is signed to my friend's jazz label at Sony, and is backed by Ron Carter and Billy Kilson. You can't get a much better platform to start your career. Sony, Ron Carter, 15. Yet, beyond the chops, I couldn't feel anything he was playing. He wasn't saying anything meaningful to me, and I woke up grumpy, discombobulated, and thinking about what I would say if I was still making music. Would I be saying anything meaningful?
I think it's this - Once you've been through the entire process, the entire value chain of the music industry, you realize that the energy and time and passion you pour out to create and perform music and develop your music career is about as important to Mr. Average Joe Blow consumer who picks up a copy of your CD as is the type of aluminum used in the machine which produced the soap he showered with today, or the cans per minute the dog food canning processor machine can squirt out his dog's food ration, or the time it took a team to design the injection mold used to form the casing on his ergonomic cellphone.
I think as a musician, more so than playing music, you want to matter to someone. You want people to understand your pain, you want people to delve into your art, appreciate your years of effort, respect your talent. So music is actually a very selfish crybaby craft.
I find it refreshing to see people who are wrapped up in their music. The engineer who tracked the session was so proud to have been in Japan with Jay Chou, and in HK with Richie Ren. He had his MI (Musician's Institute) sticker proudly displayed on his mixing console, with stacks of Sound Recording magazine next to the sofa. It seemed all so distant to me.
But it got me thinking again, and maybe thinking about music will get me motivated, and maybe the motivation will lead to something else. As long as it says something to someone.
March 30, 2006
Love that chocopie
"The Lotte Chocopie is soft biscuit with the good taste of enrobing
chocolate and more chewing marshmallow.
We are happy to serve the Lotte Chocopie with your pleasure."
One of my favorite treats is a cup of hot green tea with a chocopie. Beats Little Debbie creme-filled chocolate cupcakes every time.
March 19, 2006
Where does he think he is?
I was making a left turn with about 20 cars and almost drove right over this aggravated European standing in the middle of the crosswalk with both hands in the air like he was saying "WTF?" What was he trying to do crossing the street at a crosswalk? The nerve of some people...
March 09, 2006
Fitness is for the dogs
You have to check out this work out video by Mariko Takahashi.
Those wacky Japanese.
March 06, 2006
Got Milk?
I was trolling around the Forumosa.com website today, and found this hilarious post about roommates...
"I had a roommate who used to steal my milk. I had 3 roommates at the time so wasn't sure who was doing it.
When the carton was about half empty I pee'd in it and masturbated in it....then marked the level.
When I saw the level had dropped I walked into the living room where all of my roommates were seated and said "To whoever drank my milk, the reason it tasted funny was because I pissed and came in it."
Two of them smiled....the other started yelling about how he didn't drink it....but that I was a sick f**k. So it was pretty obvious who was stealing it."
Bummer.
I've never figured out whether it's pronounced "Moe's (like owned by one of three stooges) or Moss (like that guy out of Bonanza), but the one down the hill from me is open until 2am most days, which means that if I get out of the club early enough, I can catch the best burger in town, the muo si la bao or the Spicy Mos Burger. They have lots of jalapenos and 
