Plaidophile

The year began just hours after my grandmother died.

If you follow me on Twitter you probably saw some of these get posted when I "earned" them:

• Familiar desparation (eat at a foreign McDonald's)
• That s(t)inking feeling (remember why you never eat at McDonald's regardless of location)
• Dr. Takai, M.D. (Visit a hospital in Tokyo)
• He hits me because He's Lovin' Me (despite better judgment, eat at McDonald's again)

There's a lot of other stuff I should have granted myself achievements for, such as going to the cow-mooing meadow (drink a bottle of Skal) and having a temporary Groundhog Day loop, and perhaps one for being an intense shutterbug.

Oh, and after this week I'm a lot better at reading kana. I'm maybe at a two-year-old level now.

Very few things demonstrate the gap between any two given cultures so well as how one prepares the breakfast of another. Tastes can vary so much that in some cases it seems that aliens from outer space who had never even heard of "break fast" are likely to do a more accurate job.

The Japanese take on an American breakfast is a prime example. What do Americans eat? Sausage, eggs, fruit, potatoes, that sort of thing. What kind of sausage? Well, the most popularly-eaten sausage in America is hot dogs. Oh, and those are often served on a bun with chili and onions. Fruit? How about some nice berries... like tomatoes and bell peppers? Potatoes are easy to cook; here's a nice recipe for roasted potatoes, served with carrots and green beans. And how better to scramble eggs than by making an emulsion?

This isn't to say that any of this is BAD, of course, but if you happen to be in Japan and happen to be homesick for America, ordering a nice American breakfast probably isn't the best way to alleviate this.

Of course, it's hard to fault them for trying. Ask any given American to prepare a Japanese style breakfast and you'll probably end up with wasabi corn flakes.

As usual, I forgot to pack a bag in which to sequester my dirty laundry. I found that in a pinch, a dirty piece of clothing (shirt, pair of pants, etc.) could be used as a makeshift one instead.

Japan's clock is 15 hours in the future. This is a natural consequence of its location on the rotating supermassive ball of dirt.

Japan's vending machines are 15 months in the future. Dozens of selections in every sort of drink category (coffee, tea, beer, vodka drinks), all of them are smart enough to refine your selections based on the inserted amount of money (some with large dynamic touchscreen displays), and some of them take electronic payment schemes that put Google Wallet to shame.

Japan's elevators are 15 years in the future. Banks of elevators are scheduled on-the-fly such that they know which cars are going to stop at which floors so as to maximize their throughput. As soon as you press the elevator call button you know which car is going to arrive first. The soothing chimes and voice tell you where you are and where you're going and where the elevator is going to stop next. The door close button actually closes the door.

Japan's bathrooms are 15 decades in the future. They sense when they are sat upon and start warming the seat. They use a precision-targeted stream of water to clean the user's anus. They intelligently flush. Even the scummiest dive bars have perfectly-maintained self-cleaning robo-bidet toilets.

I just had a rather interesting dining experience at the Shinagawa Prince Annex Tower mall food court.

When you enter, there is a sign saying "this is a self-service facility." There is nothing else to direct you. Looking around, there are a number of stations, next to which there are what look like touchscreen vending machines. You put your money into the vending machine, and make your selections; then it gives you your change and several tickets that you run to the stations. They give you a little call box to let you know when your order is ready, and you get it from the pass yourself. Then when you're finished with your meal, you take your tray to the bussing station yourself.

It all seems very Japanese, and once you figure it out it's especially easy because you don't have to deal with language barriers or whatever (the touchscreen ordering systems have menus in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, although it took me a while to figure out that's what the buttons along the bottom of the screen did - and the English text was pretty minimal, and even the button to complete your order is in Japanese the whole time).

Anyway, I got a Margherita Pizza, which was about the only thing I thought I could stomach (most of the menus were full of greasy fried stuff and rich seafood udon, and even the pizza menu was primarily made of, well, typically Japanese takes on pizza), as well a melon soda, which was very, very green.

おいしいでした。

In Tokyo, the emergency room is staffed with enough people that everyone has multiple attendants always taking care of them, whereas in the US it can often be hours between check-ins by the staff.

In an American emergency room, it is up to the patient to undress themselves and put on a gown; if they are unable to do that, the staff will cut the clothing off. In Japan, they do as much as possible without removing any clothing, and are exceptionally conscientious about the patient's comfort.

In a Japanese emergency room, the language barrier is something they attempt to overcome and make sure that everyone knows the same amount of information; in an American emergency room, the attending staff tends to not communicate or even listen to the patient.

In an American emergency room, regardless of what's going on they always hook you up to a saline drip, while in a Japanese emergency room, that is considered a treatment that they only perform when it appears to be necessary.

In an American emergency room, if you have to use the bathroom it takes quite a lot of time before an attending nurse even finds out that you need to, and they just give you a jar to pee in before disappearing. In a Japanese emergency room, they accompany you to the bathroom and make sure that you're doing okay.

An American emergency room bills you later, via the convoluted process of American medical insurance. A Japanese emergency room either bills your insurance directly and asks you to pay the difference (if you have insurance), or just bills you directly and has you pay before you leave (and provides receipts for reimbursement with foreign insurance claims later). Fortunately, the overall uninsured bill of a Japanese emergency room is less than the copayments involved in an American emergency room, so even if one doesn't get reimbursed you still end up ahead.

An American emergency room is doing good if they keep track of your name and mailing address. A Japanese emergency room issues you a personalized smart card that keeps track of your medical history with them for easy access later.

On the other hand, an American emergency room understands that people come in all sorts of sizes and shapes, whereas in a Japanese emergency room, the beds are very small and cramped, the slippers they give you for going to the bathroom (you don't wear shoes!) are tiny, and the adhesive on the tape sticks exceptionally well to a hirsute-American's arms.

Neither one can figure out what the hell is wrong with me.

For the last several days I've been back in NYC for the first time in six years, for Song Fight Live. The show went pretty well; there were some logistical problems and some equipment issues and of course things didn't go as amazingly as most people ever expect them to, but there isn't really anything new there. It was fun and a good time, when maintaining an appropriate perspective on what it was we were actually doing (PROTIP: we are not actually rock stars).

The main thing I was worried about is that much of our time would be spent treading old ground that represents about a year's worth of really bad memories for me, and I did everything I could to ignore the fact that I was physically in a place where mentally I was very bad off. Trying to ignore the familiar sight of the L train and Union Square and the like, in particular, made me feel twinges of ickiness (even obsessively pre-planning transit before flying here made me feel twinges of deep pit-of-the-stomach sickness), and I very purposefully let Mike (a fellow songfighter from Seattle with whom I was sharing a room and most of my time) lead the way everywhere, and basically played willfully ignorant about how to get around.

Last night, though, I ended up getting, shall we say, sufficiently intoxicated, and ended up getting separated from Mike, having gone with a different group that was going to do some further bar-hopping, but certain members of that group had much better judgement than myself and said I should probably head back to the hotel rather than drink more. (I fortunately had enough sense to realize that I was probably on the verge of feeling like I was going to die if I didn't get some water and lie down very soon. Even if it meant less time hanging out with certain friends who will remain nameless.)

So, of course, the way back to the hotel was very familiar: the L to Union Square, then the 6 up to my hotel in Midtown. It had aspects of trips I'd done many times before, and normally the majority of that would have been in order to go to work (L to 5th Ave, F/V to 25th St - or just walk, if no train was there). I also used to take a bit of extra time to myself to just walk to Union Square after work to clear my head further, so that particular station is also quite familiar to me.

But it might have just been the alcohol but I just plain didn't care. The whole journey was simple and easy and came completely naturally, and it was actually comforting in a way to be alone in the middle of a crowd of strangers. I got to thinking about my relationship with NYC and so on. I came to the realization that I'd gone to NYC to begin with because I needed to launch my career and I was just so desperate that I was willing to take anything, and the reason I put up with the hell I was in was simply because I had no self-worth to speak of. But now I know better, and while I still wouldn't want to live in NYC, I no longer hate it, because it's where I finally started to learn to appreciate myself.

For those in or near NYC and wanting to see me perform live or otherwise see the various Song Fight shenanigans, here is the current schedule of events. Hopefully there will be a real website soon although it seems that we seem to get less good at organization every year.

• An ophthalmologist equipment box (with no equipment inside — he had plenty of equipment but I just really liked the box)
• A few more of my grandma's pots (she was a fairly well-known potter in her day) and a glass ashtray
• A collection of small bottles - several classic bitters bottles (my grandma's), several old prescription bottles for phenylbarbitol (my grandpa's), and three really old, unopened, still-with-now-rather-concentrated-fluid-inside travel samplers of various liqueurs (could be either)
• My great-grandfather's (my grandma's dad, b.1875, d.1964) ceremonial "deputy sheriff" badge; he claimed that this gave him actual police officer privileges (which the accompanying certificate makes the case for) but apparently he was just a pretty big ol' braggart and wanted to be the big man around town. There's no date on it but it's signed by Sheriff Elmer Michael Walsh which dates it sometime between 1946 and 1950.
• A really awesome 50' tape measure from Sears and Roebuck Corporation
• A broken-but-repairable "brownie" camera (Falcon Minicam Junior); the optics are dirty and foggy and there's a puncture hole on the casing which would need to be covered by electrical tape, but there is still a manufacturer of 127-format film (in Croatia!), so maybe I could take some (very foggy) pictures with it (although I suspect that processing it will be a major pain)
• An excellent-condition Miranda T (35mm film camera), in excellent condition except that I can't seem to figure out how to open the film (and the controls are a bit wacky compared to more modern cameras); it has two lenses, a 50mm f/1.9 and a 135mm f/3.5. Both smell strongly of my grandpa's house. I really wish Silicon Film had ever made it to market.
• My ophthalmology records from when he was still practicing. Age 13, glasses deferred. (Age 32, I still don't need them most of the time.)
• An exposed roll of Kodachrome KR 135 print film. I believe I will be sending some business to Dwayne's rather shortly.
• An eclectic collection of ties
• A rather nice leather jacket

Most of these will of course just be on display as nice decor-fitting reminders of my ancestry.

This past week and a half has been a bit of a whirlwind, but in the interest of best preserving the memory of my grandfather I will try to only focus on the good things.

Sadly, this is the best performance I've had so far, I think. Note to self for next time: practice Sometimes It's Hard To Keep Yourself Moving without looking at the guitar neck, because the microphone is in the way and it's hard to play barre chords by feel.

Also, stop rushing.

As great as technology was for my road trip (giving me a lot of flexibility and ad-hoc decision making without a lot of preparation), where my road tech of choice fell flat, it caused a lot of aggravation which seems like it would be pretty easy to make better.

Most of these are related to the Google Nexus One, but I have a couple of iPod issues too.

• Took 101 on the way down. Kept regretting taking that instead of 1. Then I hit LA and traffic got terrible but I repeat myself. I think the extra time for 1 would have made the final part that much more annoying.
• Thursday night went to Tokyo Wako, which is a terrible, terrible restaurant. I was hoping for some simple sushi but everything there was best characterized as "too much of everything." Both rolls I got (one spider roll, one unagi roll — helpfully called "eel roll" instead for us poor Americans) were loaded up with avocado and disgustingly-sweet teriyaki sauce, and the pieces were too large to fit in my mouth and fell apart and so on. It's basically a local chain version of Benihana. NOT RECOMMENDED.
• Friday I went to the aquarium, which was nice, except that it happened to be the same day that a lot of LA elementary schools were taking a field trip, so I had a hard time taking any pictures or reading the signs or enjoying a nice quiet day at the aquarium. So, not very nice.
• Went to Zephyr, had half a grilled tofu sandwich (which was good but I didn't have much of an appetite before my set and after my set it was too late for me to eat anything per GERD treatment protocol), and had a great performance after a couple of false starts. Unfortunately, the stream crapped out just as I was getting good (or at least, I like to think so, but I haven't listened to the recordings yet). Got most of the musicians in the crowd to join me for a rousing chorus of Night Terrors, which was a wonderful trainwreck (in a good way).
• Saturday, wandered around the area near the hotel before going to a barbecue at Ross Durand's house. I showed up early (because traffic was way better than expected), and met his family, and slowly other Song Fight people trickled in, although the two who I really wanted to see again (MintyHandy and Johnny Cashpoint) couldn't make it due to bad circumstances. But that's okay. Got the next fight's title from Spud over the phone, and Alex (of the Seamus Collective) wrote an absolutely brilliant song, which we recorded in bluegrass style. I played cello. We're probably going to collaborate on improving parts of it over the next several days pre-submission (Ross wasn't feeling comfortable enough with his dulcimer playing to record it along with us, for example, and I'd like to record a separate cello part for the bridge and maybe some vocal harmonies) but even as recorded live it was wonderful. I got video, which I will post after the fight goes live.
• This morning, woke up at 5 AM and couldn't fall back to sleep. At 7 AM a badly-organized gay pride parade circled around the lagoon by the Hyatt. There were maybe 20 people in it, and their chant was: "What do we want? JUSTICE! When do we want it? NOW!" and of course it was not in a place that it would be seen or heard by anyone except tired out-of-towners.
• Now I'm just trying to figure out if I want to take 101 back (semi-pretty drive, but I've already seen it), or 1 (very pretty but also a grueling endurance test), or I-5 (a little faster than 101, boring). Will definitely be stopping at Chris's on the way in any case.

So I'm in Long Beach to perform in a concert. Here is where it will be broadcast. Be horrified as you discover what I really look like, and how much worse I am at playing live than in the studio!

I've neglected to mention it here, but for those in the LA area, I'm doing a gig at the Zephyr Vegetarian Cafe in Long Beach next Friday (May 14th) along with a few other Song Fight folks, including and especially the inimitable Johnny Cashpoint. The show starts at 7. Be there, or don't.

It often seems as if many people who use BART could use a bit of a reminder in how to keep the entire experience pleasant and efficient for everyone. If you keep a few simple things in mind, you can make it more pleasant for others, which in turn makes it more pleasant for yourself.

Of course, much of this also applies to other transit systems. Feel free to use the suitable parts accordingly.

While flying over Seattle, I couldn't help but notice how after living there for two years I recognized dozens of landmarks around the city which had various special meanings to me — places friends and I had lived, worked, and hung out, bridges I'd gone over, and so on. I thought about how it's strange how after the same amount of time in San Francisco I still didn't really know San Francisco very well and felt no such attachment to the city, after a week of talking about how much I missed Seattle and thinking of ways I could end up moving back there eventually. I felt intensely homesick and even considered "accidentally" missing my connecting flight.

But then I got back to San Francisco, and the smell was familiar and comforting, and I got on BART and the smell was familiar and (oddly) comforting. While on BART home from the airport, a woman was having trouble reading her tourist map and figuring out which BART station to get off at for her hotel. I asked where it was and she pointed to a station on her street map (which didn't label the stations), and I immediately told her, "Oh, yeah, that's Powell. I'm pretty familiar with that part of town."

Then I realized that this place is somewhere I know after all.

We are streaming the show live on the Internet. The show starts at 6 PM PDT tonight. My set is scheduled to start at 9:30 PM (the headliner!) but you should watch the whole show, especially since I'll be drumming for Naked Philosophy (the opening act) and singing in John Benjamin's chorus at 8:30ish.

I'll also be in a few of tomorrow's sets (Jon Eric and Octothorpe and maybe others?) but we don't have a lineup scheduled just yet. I also forget when the show itself starts.

9:15 Thinking about getting a massage here. Seattle airport massages still cheaper than San Francisco non-airport massages.

9:30 Finally justified in going to a Starbucks to use this gift card, and they don't take gift cards. Typical.

9:40 iPhone isn't getting a data connection even w full EDGE signal. Probably collusion between the airport WiFi provider and AT&T.

9:42 oh did I mention I only got 2 hours of sleep last night? freaking tired. got an iced tea at mini-uwajimaya (mm oolong)

9:43 where did my iced tea go? did I lose it already?

9:43 oh there it is

9:46 Can't think of any decent lyrics for the live fight title (They Meet). maybe time to just play my PSP some more.

9:47 all the beans I had for dinner last night are doing a good job of maximizing other peoples' airport agony. I please to aim.

9:55 laptop can see attwifi network, iPhone can't. laptop would cost $8 to authenticate, iPhone would be free. typical.

9:58 meh, just half an hour before I board. I can handle this.