June 30, 2008 at 1:08 pm (emotions)
Tags: anime, harriet, japan, samurai champloo, tsutchie
The summer’s where I spend all my time watching anime… those are damn good summers. I’ve had two of them. And I dunno… as much as I want this summer to be an anime-filled summer, too, it’s just not happening. I’m too busy to watch anime or I’m too tired. Plus, the lack of great anime in my life doesn’t help either. I remember being so hungry for Champloo or RahXephon and just being so engrossed in every episode. THat just doesn’t happen anymore… I haven’t seen an anime in so long where I just couldn’t wait for the next episode. I’m enjoying The Melancholy of Harhui Suzumiya immensely, but I’m not hooked. I just really enjoy it. I need an anime that’ll turn my head and make me so excited.
I love sitting here listening to the music from champloo. Not only is it amazing music, but it just makes me think of such fond things: summer, Japan, champloo, other emotions associated with anime. Harriet keeps mentioning every so often the idea of moving to Japan to be a doctor. I keep saying “yeah, that’d be sweet,” but just the other day I realized how much I absolutely adore that idea. I think the only thing stopping me from jumping up and parading around that she’d actually want to move to Japan is the fact I’m just a bit scared of committing to the idea. Let’s face it: I DONT KNOW THE LANGUAGE! But once I get a year or two of Japanese under my belt… I get the grand feeling I’ll be calling her down in New Orleans saying, “Hey, we’re going to Japan. We must.”
Japan is such an amazing country. So full of contrast. There’s your ultimate beauty in the countryside and also within the magnificent cities; but there’s also evil lurking in the streets and around every corner. If you want it, you can find it in Japan. Every emotional and physical need can be met in some way. Harriet first thought I was a bit strange for loving Japan so much… but rather quickly she discovered why I enjoy it so much.
Fuck I’m tired. I’ll go watch some anime.
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June 29, 2008 at 11:15 pm (Uncategorized)
Sometimes perfection is really easy to find. You just gotta be patient and allow the world to flow around you.
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June 28, 2008 at 11:20 pm (emotions)
Tags: graduating, harriet, parties
Fuck, the things I want to say about tonight. I don’t know if I’ll remember every thought and I want to write an important letter as well as watch some anime… so we’ll see how much I really write, but there are quite a few thoughts to share about Harriet’s graduation party. I’ll try to just go through the sequence of events and hit all my thoughts that way.
So Allen and I arrived and it was pretty hard to stomach. Didn’t know anyone, Harriet was busy with her mingling- just couldn’t do much. THen Allen’s glasses broke (but we fixed em! more on that later)… so I dunno. Things were just going alright. But then I got some confidence when I found Anna and I pulled her over, “Look. Even though your mom said no games like hide n seek and no balls or frisbees- we’re playing ghost in the graveyard.” Then Neil offered to use his house. “Meet in your front yard at nine, we go to neil’s- SPREAD THE WORD.” The look on her face was priceless: she was so happy. Everyone else was too: the word spread like wildfire and everyone was getting pumped. From that point on I went around and mingled with all sorts of people. Throughout the night I hung with Neil’s friends, Anna’s friends, Harriet’s DGS friends, and even said hello to jenny and ed and hung with dan and nick for a while. I even watched as Harriet and “her kids” drew for a bit and I talked with Mr. Barratt and I chatted with Harriet’s friend Catie- I was all over the place. All these people I talked to stayed in their little groups while I went around and made sure to hit up everyone. It’s not even my party and I went around. But it was my lover’s party… and for her sake I went around and tried to show I was having a good time. And in the end? Allen and I ended up making the party a blast for everyone.
All the kids were gone at nine to play ghost in the graveyard. While Anna was crying having “Her moment” with everyone, I lightened up the mood and got everything laughing and talking again. The only time Harriet seemed truly happy was when her and I and allen were dancing and then she got to dance with her dad. oh, right. The dancing? Started by Harriet and I. I pulled her aside and said, “Let’s dance,” to which the adults began doing so as well after a bit. I loved Mrs. Barratt’s comment of “Good dancing” which failed to meet my eyes and seemed so smug. It felt more like a “It’s hard to admit this… but…” Then Allen and I got her a pretty damned good gift, if I do say so myself. It’s not the gift that counts as much as the laughter and good vibes it can produce.
I dunno. I realized tonight why Harriet loves me. Because I give her every reason to do so. I try my absolute best to be her Prince Charming and Mr. Wonderful and I like to think I succeed.
Anyways. Time to write an important letter now.
Goodnight.
p.s.- I don’t highlight it enough… but Allen helped a lot. It was us together feeding off the good vibes of one another that make us party hard and make everyone join up with us.
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June 23, 2008 at 9:33 am (Romancing The Angels, music)
Tags: music, Romancing The Angels
Okay, here we go. My new musical revelation. Let’s get it down as best as I can. There are a ton of things floating in my head and they’re gonna be out of place, but they’ll all be documented. Ready?
I’m not where I want to be musically. <— That means so many different things. The other night I watched Start the Machine, the new Angels & Airwaves documentary, and fell in love. I was also hurt by it. But also completely inspired. Watching Tom Delonge make music with a bunch of like-minded guys was so fucking rad. Seeing his own home studio be a stronghold for brand new musical ideas was incredible to watch. Hearing all the AVA songs being put together as people sat around and bounced ideas to each other just left me yearning for that same thing. Tom is basically living the dream that I have (did I steal it from him?). One thing I realized while watching though is that I’m not where I belong musically.
My biggest desire (musically) is to make it big with Romancing the Angels. More than anything I wanna play those songs live. Yet I can’t get anywhere: I don’t know of any like-minded musicians and my musical style isn’t appreciated here. I realized these two things yesterday and today. While watching the dvd Tom would just play simple power chord stuff and I thought it just sounded so brilliant. So simple, yes, but that’s not the point, the point is it’s all sonically beautiful and I love it. However, while working with Allen on a song yesterday I suggested him to just play the notes straight forward and he made just such a screwed up face and was like, “I’ve never been a fan of that, really” and it made me realize completely I’m not making music with like-minded individuals. Granted, my position in Appastar works perfectly: I’m just the bassist and I add harmonies when necessary. I don’t have to be in the same musical realm as them because my job description doesn’t need me to. But it just made me realize that I’m not making the kind of music I wanna be making. Granted, I love playing in Appastar, it’s a lot of fun… But when I see myself playing on a big stage to a huge fan-base… Appa’s music isn’t the kind of music I wanna be playing. Butt- allow me to explain myself a little more: that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna drop out of Appa or stop enjoying it… I’m just saying, my dream is to be playing a different style of music on stage. My style of music.
However, there’s a huge problem. I hardly get any plays on my Myspace and my songs are generally met with mediocre reviews. I don’t believe that to be me just playing mediocre music… I believe that to be that yet again, I’m not in the right place musically. While watching that dvd, it made me realize something: what those guys are all talking about and playing, that is my fucking music scene. I’m not appreciated because no one here likes the music I play. It’s just not their style in the least. The people who have shit their pants while listenign to my music are also huge blink/ava/tom delonge fans… and that’s fine, because that’s exactly the audience I want. My dad, Harriet, and John have been my biggest fans over the years… and they all love blink-182. Granted, I’m definitely a mix of the Pillows, blink, and AVA… but even then, my biggest Pillows influenced songs got the attention of people like Allen and Glenn. So it’s like… I’m making fucking great music… I just need to appeal to the right people… and the right people are nowhere near me. Tripwire had Glenn telling me more than once how much he loved it; Dance With Me got Judd AND Allen to write vocals for it; the Ballad of Johnny Nova left Harriet speechless; my album, Blue Season, made my dad more proud of me than he’s ever been; How To Use Your Materia inspired people- I truly do believe I’m making great music… it just needs to be the right style for people. Like, a ton of people around here don’t like blink or AVA, the two bands my style most takes after (that’s what happens when you listen to blink religiously during the years where I first learned to play bass and guitar)… so it’s only natural they might not dig it…
So yeah. That’s my musical world in a nutshell: I am not where I belong musically and I know exactly why. And I know that success is on my side so long as I’m in the right place.
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June 22, 2008 at 11:13 pm (emotions)
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