New Videos! Freedom! Hamburgers! Trains! And Laundry...

Woo! New videos are up...they're throughout this post, so scroll on down!



Two more days are gone...we'll never get them back. Did you live them to the fullest? Did you squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of 'em? You won't see 'em again, so I hope so...but to be honest...I'm not sure I capitalized on their potential either, so you're not alone.

We haven't seen a show or done an interview in the last two days. Yesterday, at around 5PM, my right shoulder started to inexplicably ache. What's going on, I wondered. Did I fall recently? Did I sleep on it wrong? No...Well what's wrong? OH! I'm not carrying the 30lb. camera case across the city to film a show! That's what's wrong with this picture.



So after accepting the fact that I wasn't lugging gear, I sat back mixed another whisky-coke, and got down and dirty with some Flash animation. I'm starting to design a website for myself, where I can post photographs/video clips/music etc. Am I going too far with this whole internet thing? I mean, I didn't even have facebook until senior year of college...and I would have said, "F(*& blogs" up until this trip...so I don't know...



I'm kind of torn...I mean, just the fact that I'm writing this right now is kind of rediculous. I guess I do it because instead of e-mailing the 15 or so people I want to share the trip with, I can put all that in this one spot, and leave the rest up to you guys. Call it laziness. I call it efficient. So why do I need a website then? I guess my feeling is that I'm a recent graduate working on a temporary project in Tokyo, but very soon I'll be an un-employed dude living in his Mom's basement, who happened to go to college once upon a time. A website won't change this directly...but it's a step towards working in professional art situations. And that's one step in the right direction.

Plus it's a fun escape. Animating is a lot like painting for me. I'll start working, and lose track of time, only to realize 6 hours later that I haven't eaten all day, I need to shower, and I still haven't put on my contacts. Now that's fun!

So yesterday, I worked on my website-to-be...still lots to do. Today was a bit more eventful. This morning we went back to the studio where we saw Tranko and rented out the space for 2 hours. Our band, Return To Hamburger, has been laying down some tunes, getting ready for our show the 26th of September. We're gonna be playing in front of a bunch of the musicians we've met, so we gotta come up with some good stuff. Don't want them to think we're chumps. I think we're doing pretty good...we have 3 songs as of now...none are finished, but the ideas are there. We've been talking about handing out hamburgers to everyone at the show...there's only gonna be 15-30 people in all likelihood (no more can fit in Muryako Muzenji) so hitting up the 100yen ($1) menu at McDonald's may be in our future. I mean, who doesn't like a show where they get a free burger? C'mon, that's the American dream...in Tokyo.



So after playing, I went solo and headed to Akihabara, the electronics capital of Tokyo, Japan, and possibly the world. This place is a gadget wonderland. If it's electronic, it's here. You can find anything/everything. I bought myself a new pair of Sony headphones. The pair I brought here busted at a show, and only one ear now works. The new ones sound great...I've been using the free pair from the plane ride here for the last few weeks, and they sound like the music is being played out of a hollow baked-bean can at the end of a dingy alley, with rusty scrapmetal clanking in the wind. This is not an exagerration. So I've been listening to tunes very pleasureably since I came home.

This evening, Lewis and I went and took some footage of trains arriving, people bustling, neon lights flashing, yakitori customers eating, and other Japanese scenes. We were told to stop filming at Yoyogi station, so we just hopped on a train, and set up at the next station. At Shinjuku, we filmed trains arriving, people pouring out, people pouring in, trains leaving, and then the whole thing repeating itself. Many of these were static shots, so we'll probably experiment with speeding up the footage (think Koyaanisqatsi). Should make for good transition material in the film.

Lewis took a few production stills and shots of vending machines while we were out. Hope you like em.

Oh yeah, I did laundry today. Exciting right? This is my second time since being here. And it's really a pain in the @$$. I mean, it costs 200yen to run the tiny machine. Then the dryer doesn't really work, unless you use it like 4 times in a row. So I just hang up my clothing in my room, but my room is so small that there's not enough room to hang everything. There are 3 pairs of shorts and a shirt drying on the chair I'm sitting on right now.

So that's all I got for yah.

Adios Amigos!

Ian