r.i.p
Desmond Dekkar, 007, rest in peace.
« September 2005 | Main | June 2006 »
May 27, 2006
May 21, 2006
kinda sad when you know the results
At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years.
- Arthur C. Clarke
wasn't he into little girls and stuff? must be bored. or very british.
May 18, 2006
hahaha
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
- Albert Einstein
May 17, 2006
somebody, help
god, why am i so intense? can't i learn how to bleedin' be chill? probably, not.
i am the reclusive entrepreneur. i look like shit this week. feel ok though, apart from this intenstiy.
now, my social range is very limited at the moment. it always has been in a way, since i am a shy little boy who doesn't like talking to people that don't relate. but, since what i am up to at the moment is more pre production, and i can't be forwarding about ideas, the people i talk to regularly are very few. my best friend, is you, powerbook. without you, i am nothing. if you were human and female, i would probably buy you flowers every day to show appreciation.
ideas are intense, thoughts are intense, pretty much the whole time i'm awake. i am now back to not remembering what i dreamt of, at all. i bet it's some bambi like fairly tale that i never thought i'd imagine. or something kinky, i don't know, cos i don't remember any of it. i think, i think, i think, i note them down, tell people about it, get feedback, get inspuried, think, think, think, look, look, look, note, write, think, eat, read, think, think, think, east and then collapse to sleep. i am in countdown now.
steve jobs, please, please, please introduce the world's first "plug in". i will be a guinea pig. my mind is not that dirty, so i won't mind other people seeing it that much.
i have been looking at my stars just out of curiosity. i am what they refer to as a cancer. i am apparently moody. it feels good to be reminded that. now i can excuse myself for being moody, because i am a cancer.
good night, though it is 7:15am. tokyo time.
May 16, 2006
Go on, laugh your head off
To celebrate my mates, the Fishmans appearing at the Fuji Rock Festival in July, I'm going to reveal a bit of my past. Here it is, the Fishmans, featuring me. (c) 1996 Polydor/Universal. You can't sue me cos I'm on it.
Remember, this was only a B side and was done as a LAUGH, the entire thing was done in an evening. I happened to be there, they were out of ideas, Shinji Satoh (RIP) had a bit of scribble scrap, called me and I scribbled something in English in literally a matter of minutes, my part is take 3, take 1 did not size fit, take 2 is basically it with mistakes, take 3, finito. I wanted to do more, Zak said "waste of time, next".
After the take whilst Zak was mixing, Shinji took me to the local Denny's for a meal. I think I had a hamburger. I am not credited under my name, forgot what it was. I think I asked my real name to be credited on the best of reissues last year. I had to do this live a few times, once in front of 20 or 30,000 people. The band wanted me to suffer, on stage. I did. They looked like ants, I was petrified.
Then Shinji died, the band became a cult legend, f**k 'em I say, support the living, not the dead. Mystique carries a B side a looooong way.......... I'm being cynical. If the band asks me to do this at Fuji, I'll do it, but I'll change the words so that my respect for Shinji will be apparent in irony. It's the least I can do for a friend and would be a right laugh.
May 14, 2006
it's like tennis
You got to play with someone better than you to learn.........
former John McEnroe freak
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/04/google_bigdaddy_chaos/
May 12, 2006
Indeed it is
A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.
- John le Carre
Minoru in central Shibuya, scheming, thinking
RIP
Sud, you were my favourite dog in Tokyo.
May 11, 2006
http://bush-of-ghosts.com/
May 8, 2006
I thought you knew
That it was mutual.
taste
People often tell me that I have good taste. "Sense" as they say in Japan. Personally, I think I tend to have an aquired taste for most things, a "narrow spot", that when it hits me, it hits me very hard.
It's always been like that for me, let me think, people I've fancied, food, films, comedy, etc. It's probably not as distinct with music and such, but there are things just excite me for no rationale, whatsoever.
Girls are a prime example. I'm just imagining a mental picture of the women, all fine people, that I've fancied. Some I was lucky to court, some were a one way road. Aesthetically, they do not match whatsoever. Short, tall, round, sharp, black, blonde, brunette. They do have this "thing" in common which I find very difficult to explain in words, it's an aura, a resonating frequency.
Then there's the non living form of women, musical instruments. This one just excites me so BADLY. She's Italian.
I receieve email from Ebay about certain search terms. I usually don't buy that much nowadays, not since 2002 or 2003, when I probably spent waaaaaaaayyy too much on microphones. But there's certain things I like to look at, like six stringed women. I just look at them and sigh.
This woman really makes me sigh........ she probably sounds too original, but I don't care, it's that total vibe that she emits. She might be a hard one to use, but I'll take the challenge.
Problem is, there are connoisseurs of such women globally. This is one woman I may not be able to handle, at least for now. But I'll keep thinking about her...............
May 7, 2006
r.i.p
I dunno, it's a weird year, losing people that you don't think too often but miss. While I'm at it, I'll make it official. Terry-san, you will be missed, you were one fuckin' character that will be missed at all the usual clubs and festivals. We need more madmen like you around. I don't care how drunk you were, you didn't kill anyone. At least I got to see you briefly last summer and you had that smile, with your teeth sticking out.
as usual
I was going through websites, looking up the current info in this incest oriented business I'm in, called music.
Then I saw a name which rang a bell. Her name rings a bell every time I hear about it, but I keep forgetting.
The story is that a friend of mine from college, M, is now one of the more prominent DJ's in Japan. I haven't seen her since college though and I dropped out, started seeing the $ too early. But I think we went to 69 a few times together back then, the infamous reggae bar in the dead centre of the gay district in Shinjuku. I was talking about it with J and her friend the other day, of all those places back then in the late 80's and early 90's. I think 69's gone now, at least I don't think I can do those dance hall moves anymore, well, maybe if I was under the influence.
I had my dance partner Shara back then as well. Shara was some dandy dude, he had a cool collection of mostly soul and doo wop I think it was. God, I used to have some kind of T shirt I really liked back then, ska thingy, I forget.......... anyway, Shara and I used to go to those clubs together. I've always been the insular type, mostly keeping to myself, but Shara sometimes had me do my thang. I should ask Ken what's up with Shara these days, last time I heard, he was married, had a kid and bought a house and regretted it or something........that was a while ago.
Fuck, I remember that we went out and bought a full turntable set. I had my friend Mike Daikubara from college, Shara, and me. We got one Technics SL1200, that was like $600? then we couldn't afford another, so we bought a Gemini copy for $400? Then the mixer was pre DJ revolution, so we bought something called a discomaster I think, because it had a 15 band graphic EQ on the main outputs buss....... I think I ended up owning the mixer, and it going to Ken..............fucking 'ell man, Ken, I want it back, that EQ should sound NASTY and quite usable now........anyway, god, that's embarassing, I had an Atari 1040ST running Steinberg Pro 24 and my sampler was I think a Roland S550...... had a Tascam 16 channel 4 buss mixer that distorted quite well.........fuck, i'm not going to even think further about all the embarassing things that went on with that stuff.........Ken, I just want my mixer back, I know you read this sometimes. Give it back.
Aaaaanyway, wonder if it's worthwhile to look up M for the stuff I'm doing? She should have a faint memory of me, since I was one of the very few men in the department.
That was another problem with college, I couldn't remember every damn girl's name, it was all those "Hi Minoru's" and I was "yeah, I know your face......."........if i wanted to chat up a girl, i had to find out the name, but the problem was, I couldn't ask a girl, since they would be "wtf?", then I'd think of asking a guy and he's be "don't know either".......... then some of them would tell me in their drunken moments that they fancied me when it was too late.........oh well.
I'd quite fancy seeing all them Bunuel, Godard, Fellini and whatever else fancy films I used to frequently see during high school again. They used to show all that stuff in the cinemas regularly in Tokyo, but because of rentsal DVD's and the like, they've gone into hiding into the home. It's kind of sad to see that stuff at home, alone though.
wow
As they say in Blighty, cor. Crikey.
I was just looking through old stuff from 2005, there is definitely stuff there I don't want people to see. I never knew I could be in a state of such, er, behaviour. I'll keep that behaviour quite private, thank you.
If by any chance you would like to read it, you have to be very nice to me.
another oldie
i liked this one.
Steve Jobs
Do What You Love: Time is Too Short to do Anything Else ...
"I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The First Story is About Connecting the Dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.
Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: 'We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?' They said: 'Of course.' My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition.
After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5犬 deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.
Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My Second Story is About Love and Loss.
I was lucky--I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation--the Macintosh--a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.
And then I got fired.
How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down--that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.
I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me--I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
Fired From Apple
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it.
Don't settle.
My Third Story is About Death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.'
It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Diagnosed With Cancer
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer.
I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.
My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery.
I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.
And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma--which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.
This was in the late 1960s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.
It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: 'Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.' It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much."
The Stanford (University) Report June 14, 2005
Posted by Minoru on September 11, 2005 11:37 AM | Permalink
right now
I had just found out that I was getting constant hits on one of my posts from last September. It is a bit personal, but for the sake of the people wanting to read it, here it is in reproduced form.
I won't elaborate on it much but it's probably quite obvious that I was feeling quite hurt back then. I say this with intent, but if the people reading this post often are those involved, I'd say don't, because it's not going to create anything. If it's somebody that finds me thinking like this amusing, fine, I've amused you, I should note that I have a lot more than this under my sleeve.
The golden wand people mentioned are a form of holistic massage. They use rods made of gold to discharge negative charges within the body. Laugh as much as you want, I didn't believe it till I went. It works. They are virtually unknown, for they do not advertise and their services are on a referral basis only. They are quite busy though, catering to many children, old people, politicians, rich people, rock stars, etc. I go there when things get really rough. Maybe I should discharge before the summer. Thing is though, it shocks your body quite a bit, so sometimes if I'm really bad, it makes be obsolete for a few days. Anyway, read on if this is what you want.
Right now
All I really want is my time back. Wasted a lot of time and potential on things that are in the reality of the world, so small and useless.
However, time cannot be bought, it has to be earnt. I'm trying, gradually.
Went to the golden wand people again today, this is actually the first time I've been treated within a short time frame.
It didn't hurt as much today, but the effects are nonetheless, effective. I felt wrinkles or creases, like creases that would be made from a cotton shirt happening to the scalp of my head. I nearly freaked out on that but it felt so good elsewhere.
Apparently, I fell asleep for about 30 minutes after that and I don't remember any of it. Which is a welcome change from all the nightmares I've been having at recent. At times of crisis like this, I reflect on what life has been for me and if it has been worthwhile. The conclusion is the same. I am not old enough to be making any conclusive decision on life and that you always learn something, so it goes on.
8 hours after the fact, I still feel good from the effects of the golden wand, my legs are tired, my back hurts, but all in a proper way, like it was meant to be so.
I think I will be falling asleep after this diary, I hope I sleep well.
After the golden wand people, I went to Yoyogi park for a bit and saw some crap band playing, maybe I'll attach photos of that later. Emailed my friend J in NY about the wand experience using the phone and also saw this shop specialising in baby cars, so took a picture and emailed it to my friend A in NYC who is expecting later in the year.
Went to Shibuya, hung out at books shops, records shops, Tokyu Hands.
Then I talked to my friend Junko who works at a record company. She said she was going to Thailand for a week's holiday, the lucky sod. We should get together soon and talk business.
Went to see Honda at Honda Soundworks in Ebisu about gear for my friend J, since he lost some at a recent show. honda it seems wanted to talk to me about stuff so I hung out with him for a few hours.
Had some ramen in Ebisu. Two things I misst not having outside of Japan, ramen and teishoku. The latter can be sort of had, but in NY, proper ramen is IMPOSSIBLE. I gave up altogether. I haven't had ramen for a while, so enjoyed it.
Walked down to Nakameguro, taking some pictures of the nightlife, autumn is near, which means it's featival season with all the decoration "chochin" lights that the shops of each town display with their business names on it, kinda looks nice. I remembered that Lost In Translation had a scene from Nakameguro, so took a picture of that road.
Walked my way to Yuutenji, took the train, voila!
Wasting time can be good, as long as it's productive.
Looking forward to seeing my friend Eric who is in town from the UK. Share some mutual jokes about Martin H maybe.
Posted by Minoru on September 16, 2005 04:28 PM | Permalink
May 6, 2006
neu!
This is a new blog. Again.
I erased the old one, just wanting to clean it up a bit. Then I erased the wrong file. Ooops. Sometimes, the all so robotic Minoru makes mistakes. I actually do bleed.
My typing is becoming worse, I make many typos. What is wrong with me? I should use this as an opportunity to fusion my thoughts whilst at the same time, trying to type properly.
Enjoy these for the moment, these are new compilations of the waste of time I've been having on youtube.com in the past few months.