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Thursday, February 22, 2001
well, look who's actually blogging! I've neglected my poor little blog. gomen ne. but i've been feeling a little yucky lately. the other day i got scared that i was reverting back to old habits and old self-defeating thinking patters. i got scared about what i was gonna do with my life, once again. even though i thought i had discussed that to death with myself and finally came to some satisfiying conclusions. i'm feeling less ill-at-ease today. i helped my dad a bit with my taxes. (nice to have accountants for parents i guess) leave it to my furukawa tomo obsession to make me feel a bit better. watching him in guniw vids always makes me get all these lofty ideas about where my sad little existence is going. i wanna be a furu. ^^; i'll most likely never be a rock star, but i wouldn't mind having his work ethic and prolific creativity, not to mention his ability to inspire (whether he tries to or not). in fact, the other day i finished a pencil drawing of him from the looser sugar pv. my last real drawing (of asaki) took *forever* while this took a couple of days. (i usually work for hours on a drawing then leave it for like a week or more(!) so that i can come back to it with new eyes. although, laziness plays a part. heh) it started out as just a doodle of his face but turned into hours of watching the pv over and over, pressing pause, examining it for details, and incorporating it into an image of my own that isn't a straight recreation of one of his poses (like with the asaki pic). it was a bit of a pain in the ass trying to figure out what the top of his cane was. at first i thought it might have been a frog. but i'm pretty sure now that it's an owl. plus i suddenly have all these other images of him in my head that i want to draw. i haven't drawn so much in literally years. it feels good. anyway, i signed up to have my site hosted at digital rice finally. so this thing is packing up and moving. story of my life. heh. plus, i'm buying a new pc. i think it should be arriving in around a week (they gotta build it first ^^). thank god. i've been itching to get my hands into more web design and this pathetic thing ain't cutting it. but it has served me well for the past 4 years or so, and i thank it. ^_^
Saturday, February 10, 2001
Current Mood: Genki! CD player: I swapped out most of the moody stuff for Bauhaus and Kenshin Theme songs. heh. Anyway, i just got back from dropping off some film to be developed and getting some In-N-Out. I *finally* got around to taking some pics for Priss's Guniw Tools collages. She's been asking me forever! >.< I hope they turn out well otherwise i'm not giving any to her! Those collages are for Furu you know. He even put her last one up on the oldriver index page. ^^ At In-N-Out, I saw the weather man. LOL
Current Conditions: CD player: Cocteau Twins ~ Garlands Radiohead ~ Kid A Lush ~ Spooky My Bloody Valentine ~ Loveless Ocean Blue ~ Cerulean Weather: Cold, Rain (sometimes hard) Mood: Anxious, Cold, Quiet, somewhat Introspective, slightly Overwhelmed. Films watched since last blogging: Right now:
Saturday, February 03, 2001
I finally had time to go to school and grab a readmission application. (To update you, I'm taking time off from school. Actually, I took the Spring '99 semester off because everything seemed to be going wrong in my life back then. I went back and completed the summer and fall semesters and started the Spring 2000 semester. But instead of going to class, i stayed in bed for the first part of the Spring '00 semester and primarily left the house to get chinese food and rent movies. Pretty sad ne? I guess i behaved that way because i was feeling lost and didn't know why i was in school. And i gained like 10 pounds! Serves me right. So i took the rest of the semester off and haven't been back since. In the interim, i got a job at an e-commerce site, got laid off when the site shut down, got rehired when they started it back up on a smaller scale, went to Tokyo, went back to work, decided i was bored out of my mind, then quit. So that was most of the year 2000 for me. heh) The traffic to the Richmond-San Rafael bridge sucked. It's probably going to be a hassle commuting to school from Mill Valley. But i suppose i've got to make some sacrifices for my cheap rent, especially in an area with such a high cost of living. I got lucky. In fact, as i was walking down Telegraph Ave., some guy asked me if I knew anyone who was looking for a roommate. nope, sorry. One bad thing about walking around Telegraph (something i miss after moving away from campus) is my tendency to go shopping crazy. Clothes, music, books, comic books, and a plethora of other crap. From the artisans selling their wares on the street and the many independently owned shops to the corporate owned chain stores that are beginning to take over the area, there's always something that separates me from my money. This time around, i bought some vanilla soap and peppermint soap from one of the street artisans. (You have to be an artisan to sell stuff on the sidewalk on Telegraph. Otherwise, it would just be a swapmeet.) Then i found myself in a sanrio store where i bought a badtz maru picture/credit card wallet type thing and a little Purin mirror. I wanted a Purin wallet but they didn't have one. I love Purin. I mean, he's got an x-shaped butthole for godsake! I think that's hilarious. Then i went music shopping. There's Tower, Rasputin's, and Amoeba all in walking distance of eachother, plus a couple smaller electronic/dj oriented record stores. I only made it through Rasputin's before i decided to quit for the day because i had just spent about $95 on cds and records. And that's me being conservative! I go through phases where i won't buy CDs for a long time then i'll go and spend a couple hundred dollars on a whole bunch of CDs all at one time. Amoeba is marked for next time though. That store's even worse for me to go into. And i haven't even discussed my internet buying habits, which are really bank account draining because of the high price to import all those japanese CDs i covet. ::sigh:: Anyway, here's what i got: &rarr R.E.M. - Pop Screen (VHS)
Friday, February 02, 2001
Alright, I'm back...again. PIG, Schwein...Watt's has also collaborated on another project called SOW...what's next? Pork? lol Anyway, I forgot to mention that PIG's song "No One Gets Out of Her Alive" (the one with both Atsushi and Hisashi on it) is in the movie, Beowulf. I don't recall hearing it when i watched it the other night but it's in the credits. I don't recommend it. But what did I expect of a movie from the makers of Mortal Kombat? heh Get the soundtrack instead. It was pretty cool...dancy industrial and techno. I've got PIG's album Wrecked with that song on it, but i can't hear A-chan. -__- But, back to the news at hand. I managed to find some info and now i'm not sure what A-chan and Hisashi's statuses are with the band. Are they actual members or are they just contributing? Damn it, i want them to tour with Schwein in the US. And even that is up in the air. The band will tour Japan in June after the release of the new album on BMG Records Japan, Schweinstein, which is slated for April. Nothing set for a US release or tour yet. There doesn't appear to be an official Schwein site. But I got the info from a couple PIG related sites: hmm...i don't remember where i saw it originally, but there's a picture of a sweaty A-chan during a concert, pointing out at the audience while talking into a megaphone. He was wearing a t-shirt that said Find it, Fuck it, Forget it. Apparently, that's a PIG song. heh. Perhaps the pic is from when BT and PIG toured together.
Okay. That's it. I feel like doing cartwheels! Awhile back in the KMFDM newsgroup, i read that Sascha was doing a side project called Schwein with Raymond Watts of PIG (who used to be in KMFDM which, by the way, is now MDFMK) and a couple guys from a Japanese band called Buck-Tick. O_o Needless to say, I got really excited. But just now, I was reading through the posts at the BT-Catalogue's BBS and found out that the couple of guys are Atsushi and Hisashi, and that they plan to release an album this spring with a US tour to follow!!! This is all i know and saj seems pretty well informed about BT things so i trust the info. But now i have to go research this. I need names and dates, dammit! I was pretty bummed that one of the One Life, One Death tour dates didn't coincide with my trip to Japan, so i'm overjoyed that at least A-chan and Imai-chan will come to me, even if it's a side project. Oh god, i can't wait.
For the past week and a half, I've been listening to Hide Tribute Spirits in the car. I love that cd. I mean really, songs written by an incredible musician interpreted by other incredible musicians! I must say that i really like Shame's cover of Lemoned. I think I'll try to check out some of their own stuff. And of course nothing beats Buck-Tick...ever. (Well, Guniw Tools ties for my favorite Japanese band...) So I'm glad they covered Doubt since that's one of my favorite Hide songs. Anyway, Buck-Tick's Six-Nine album just replaced HTS in my portable car CD player though...heh. And Sex Stream Liner is in the cd carousel in my room. I think Taboo is in there too...along with Dazzle by Guniw Tools and Stone Roses self-titled 1st album. Just can't get enough of Atsushi Sakurai's voice! I swear, sometimes i go to BT's official site just to hear him say, "Happy Millenium. Welcome to Buck-Tick Website." And then i'll hit refresh a couple times more. LOL But it's been changed so they cut out the Happy Millenium part. Too bad, 'cause i loved how, when he said "happy", it sounded a bit breathy. (^^); Well, as far as i'm concerned, he's the sexiest man alive with the sexiest voice to match! >.< I was gonna link to the Korean fansite of this one girl because she has some really gorgeous pics of him but the page is gone now. Damn. But BT-Catalogue has quite a few pics, including some of the ones from the Korean site, and is an all around great BT fansite. I'd post a pic of my own but my PC refuses to let me upload anything but text files. ::sigh:: I really need a new PC. Anyway, ain't he beautiful. God, those eyes. He looks good with the short hair after it got a bit shaggier, like in the Sasayaki video. *nose bleed* But i absolutely loved his long hair and i'm glad that it looks like he's growing it back out. Okay, I'll stop gushing now. I do like him (and the band) for more than his looks. They're just incredible. I love the lyrics to which I've found translations. And I admire how they've managed to stay true to themselves (often having to switching labels in order to do so) and still managing to, not only stay together after so many years, but consistently reinvent themselves with albums that just seem to keep getting better. I'm amazed. (Especially at the fact that i've managed to listen to Miu at least once almost everyday for what seems like forever, and not get sick of it. lol)
Monday, January 29, 2001
Yay!!! Finally!!! I have phone access! The guy from Pacific Bell finally came today. Thank god. I felt so...disconnected. No internet. No telemarketers. No incessant calls from mom. Chotto hen deshita... I've been arranging my room, taking photographs of the backyard (this big storm the other day swelled the stream), and obsessively playing Vagrant Story. (^^);
Wednesday, January 24, 2001
HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! I hope my mom sends me a big, fat red envelope full o' money! j/k Right now I'm at my friend's house. It was her birthday on the 22nd. I gave her Dir en Grey's Macabre. Although i don't know why she didn't buy it sooner when she loves them so. We didn't do much though. We all just ate Tandoori chicken sandwiches and watched Lupin ~ The Fuma Conspiracy. But I've been here since and we've just been sitting around playing video games. (I must say that House of the Dead 2 for Dreamcast is quite fun. It's wonderfully theraputic to blast the heads off of approaching wiggly dead people. ^^;) I want to say that Yesasia sucks because they're making my friend resign because they don't want to pay her salary anymore, claiming that it's too much (even though she actually does several jobs that could be individual positions) and claim to dislike her attitude and other crap. Sorry but their japanese section got *so* much better after she started working there. To top it off, she's *pregnant* and in her 2nd trimester. *sigh* Anyway...I'm sorry for that huge rant from the other day. I know I must seem bipolar. *cough* lol I've just been sitting here going around and posting to different BBSs. Mic...'cause I haven't visited her in awhile. Monophobia...'cause it just changed servers and i wanted to say hi to Ki-chan. And the one for this Cali//gari site that I just stumbled upon...owned by the creater of Pocket-Bishounen no less. ^^ I also listened to some Ozworld mp3s because I was interested in trying them out but I think I'll refrain from buying their CDs for now. They're not bad, not at all, but I'm not in love...so...
Saturday, January 20, 2001
Ima wa Guniw Tools no Steel Leaf o kikimasu. Right now I'm listening to Steel Leaf by Guniw Tools. (I've linked to Emrys' Hush and Cool site if you want to hear the song. i hesitate to link to the zip file directly. It's a great site. She worked hard on it. So look at it.) I love this song. It means a lot to me. Actually, many of Full's songs hold a lot of meaning for me...the ones that i can understand at least. But the ones that i don't understand lyrically, i can understand from the music and from the sound of his voice. Guniw music is very evocative. Especially Steel Leaf. It's one of the only songs originally in japanese that Full wrote a translation for. His english is awkward, but I can still see where he manages to play with the language. The more times I read it, the more I understand what he's saying. At least I think so. I especially love the line: Dokomade ga tsumi ka wakarazu obie. I know the feeling.
Dear Dad, Fuck You. FUCK YOU. Be thankful that I can sit here and give you a big fat FUCK YOU. Because if you had said that shit to me 2 years ago, you'd be attending my funeral. I wouldn't have been able to swallow it, like I swallow everything else. Maybe you're right. Maybe I am self-centered. I mean, hell, I'm writing daily in a weblog with the assumption that someone might give a rat's ass what goes on in my insignificant life. And why not? I've spent my entire life trying to be everyone else, to please or impress everyone else. I would tell myself that that is not what I'm doing, that I'm the one who wants these things. I basically brainwashed myself. So i can't blame anyone else but me. But i don't want to do that anymore. I'm so tired. You say that I'm going nowhere, that i should just go home. That's not home to me anymore, that's the place where I would go to bury myself, to waste away into oblivion while mom does my laundry. I can't allow that. You guys are so worried, that you forgot that a little vote of confidence goes a long way. You must think that I'm just wasting time and I have no thoughts of the future. All i ever think about is the future. It taunts me and overwhelms me yet looks so lovely in the distance. Sometimes i say that I'll like today better...tomorrow. Yes, i'm 21 years old and you were hoping that I'd graduate this year. But a lot of people take time off from school for various reasons. Some don't go back. But i'm "self-centered" enough that I will not only go back and finish, but finish at Berkeley. I worked hard to get there and i gave up a lot without even realizing it. If that makes me some kind of intellectual snob that only cares about the name, then so be it. I grew up with the subconcious belief that the name was all that counted anyway. And in the real world, that's true. So i'm gonna go back and reclaim that name as mine then spit in everyone else's faces. But you have to understand that it takes time. How does one erase 21 years of inadequacy, anxiety, and self-loathing in a moment? You must think that I'm so old and I should have straightened my life out by now. Well, I'm sorry that I didn't realize how fucked up I was until now, that my view of myself, the world, and my place in it was so skewed. I've always known that there was something wrong. Perhaps, that's one source of my ever present anxiety. I looked everywhere, trying to figure out what it was. Absorbing bullshit psycho-babble and blaming everything and everyone. I had to hit rock bottom before I found it. And i'm only just beginning to understand it. All kinds of things that I tucked away in the back of my head. Things I wanted and things that you and others have said. If you didn't know, that's what I've been doing for the past year or so. I didn't get that job just because of the money. I was trying to feel my way and see if that was something I wanted. It's not. So i quit. I didn't go to Japan just because I'm a crazy fangirl or because I was trying to be escapist. I just wanted to see if i could. To see if I could plan out something I really wanted and follow through with it, rather than just sitting around and just wishing. There's a method to my madness, even the little things. It's fascinating to rediscover yourself. And a relief. But i'm only just *beginning* to feel comfortable in my own skin. I'm sure there are other people with worse problems that are handling life way better than I am. But for me, the fact that I no longer cry myself to sleep praying, "Please don't let me wake up. Please don't let me wake up," anymore is a major achievement. I'm strong because i'm alive. I feel different somehow. So for you to tell me that I'm going nowhere and doing nothing, really kills me. It almost effectively rendered everything that I've tried to do meaningless. I don't care what other people think of me. I hope that they like me but if they don't then that's fine. I'd just like to know why and then move on. But you guys are my parents. One harsh word, just the tone of your voice can send me into an angry tirade or tears. For you to be so critical of everything right down to the way I dress, makes me feel so tiny. So fuck you for that. I know you aren't bad people and that you mean well. I'm glad that I recognize that otherwise I'd hate you. You worry too much and I love you for it but you're driving me crazy. You are more afraid of my downfall than I am. So much so that you are willing to rub out what little grasp I have on who I am as an individual in order to obtain mundane security. You can't protect me from my life or from myself. You have to allow me to mess up. I can't live in a state of limbo where you cover my eyes with your hands so i don't see the bad bad world, because you blind me from where I need to go at the same time. I can't stand how you both call your lectures "suggestions" and then tell me that I don't listen. I'm glad that you heard me crying just then. I haven't cried that hard in a long long time. I'm surprised that I reacted so strongly. I was fucking hyperventilating. I never do that. But from that I hope you can understand even an ounce of how bad you made me feel just now and how bad i've felt most of my life. Trust me, I *will* mess up. No one can help that. And life makes no promises so I can't guarantee that "everything will be okay" because I'd be deluding myself if I went around telling myself that. And, again, I don't want to do that anymore. It is afterall my life even if it doesn't turn out the way you intended as a parent. Please let me live it....at my own pace.
I'm certainly in a good mood right now. I'm watching VH1's 100 Greatest Rock Albums. I *love* documentaries on the history of rock 'n' roll! >.< Beat on the brat. Beat on the brat. Beat on the brat with a baseball bat! Oh ya, oh ya, oh oh! *LOL* I should make a note to myself to buy Bitches Brew by Miles Davis though...it sounds so cool. I feel like changing the name of this site...Satori Experience sounds so pretentious! I think I'll just call the whole thing Jabberwocky. But I'm so fickle, i'll probably change the name everytime I change the layout, which I'm doing. I constucted a frameset for the main page. But for some reason my jpegs won't upload...hmmm. stoopid Geosh*ties. Maybe I'll move the site to DigitalRice. They give 25MB of storage rather than just 15. Not that I need all that space, at least not yet. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars!!!! Oh god I love that album. I bought it for 99 cents at a used record store. The sleeve was really tattered but the record itself was just fine. MUST...GET...RECORD...PLAYER...FIXED!!! >.< Bowie is bishounen...*laugh* There's your visual kei right there....Glam Rock baby! ha ha Oh my goodness! Thriller by Michael Jackson...ha ha. I'm reminiscing. (^^) I used to love that tape when I was little. He was my favorite. I would listen to the Vincent Price part a lot and I'd sing along to Billy Jean and I'd do the moonwalk on the tiles in the kitchen. gya ha ha ha! *silly little kid* Wow, number 20 is It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back by Public Enemy. It's so high up! I love that album too! (erm...if you can't tell, I'm pretty eclectic...love music.) I used to carry the cassette around in my pocket...until it got washed with the laundry. >.< 19 is the VELVET UNDERGROUND! Yahooooo! I have their box set. You can peel the banana. *laugh* Would you believe that I don't own Nevermind the Bullocks, Here's the Sex Pistols?! It's on my mental list of stuff to buy but i always end up buying something else. This is bad. I'm itching to go record shopping! Amoeba here i come! U2's drummer never seems to age. And he's cute too! >.< Joshua Tree is great but I think I like Achtung Baby! best. The Beatles...surprise surprise. They hold 5 of the top 11 albums. LOL But who doesn't love the Beatles? Who hasn't been influenced by them? My father raised me on the Beatles and the Doors. He used to sing Yellow Submarine too me when I was little. (^^) O_o Shadow of the Vampire? Nani? (sorry...just saw the trailer) I forgot that i totally want to watch that movie! Willem Dafoe looks just like Max Shreck! Plus I love John Malkovich and I have this thing for really old black and white horror/cult/macabre movies. Nosferatu seems cheesy by today's standards but it looks really cool, has great visuals. The Beach Boys are number 3? Nirvana is number 2?! Wow. I'm surprised. heh. Although...um...I'd be the last to say that Nevermind didn't change my life...as corny as that sounds. I don't know how i would be or what I'd be listening to now if I hadn't bought that album, if i hadn't seen the video for some song called Smells Like Teen Spirit by some obscure band, in the middle of the night on Headbanger's Ball. Hell, Come As You Are is the only thing I can play on the guitar. (^^); Revolver is number 1. And well it should be. Tomorrow Never Knows is my favorite Beatles/Lennon song. Oh my god! A Gary Oldman profile on Bravo! I wonder if Bowie is from South London too...similar accent... I know Bowie grew up in the suburbs though. ahhhh....Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious....as Beethoven. I didn't know that Gary actually played the Beethoven pieces himself in the movie. Impressive. He does accents so well too. Definitely one of my favorite actors. Yay! Anthony Hopkins. Another of my absolute faves. *laugh* He just said Gary is a destructive crazy man (in a good way). He's definitely a very sexy man. Whoa! wrote a lot there... I guess I'll stop now. Blogging is addicting.
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