Entries this day: Funday

Funday

8:45am JST Monday 7 September 2009 (day 14411)

Sunday was a fun day yesterday. Started with a great trip to Michael's house near Hase Station (near the big buddha statue in Kamakura) but off the tourist-path, where he and Junko have a house and garden in a nook in the mountain. Got to see how dirt can be made from compost during a tour of his garden (which he plans and plants four times a year). Enjoyed chowing all sorts of healthy foods, most of which had grown after planting them in his garden. Drank some barley tea, plus some red shiyo (sp) juice, a bottle of which he gave me cause I enjoyed it so much.

I headed home with a jar of pickles, a jar of pickled herbs to put on rice, the bottle of red juice, a small pumpkin, and a squash. Amazing!

Zoom shower, then zoom to Shibuya where I made a mistake and bad communication with Soness (though we worked it out (*)). Met Mike and Mary, then got pictures of her hooping in the middle of Shibuya crossing. Awesome.

Went to The Crocodile to see M and U Entertainment's presentation of Enuf (FB reg required), which featured monologues by 7 women, and 1 man, plus some musical performances. Soness, who used her hoola hoop as a picture frame for several pictures with various people around the room, plus the four of us (me, Mike, Mary, and our new CS friend Ruth, who had happened to meet Spring Day on the train (Spring was The Lady in Yellow, or Green, I think) and had わにパスター (crocodile (or alligator) pasta)), seemed quite genki and outgoing as always.

Also present was Tatiana from my RC group, and her bf, whose name I don't know. Said HI a bit to her, and will see her again on Saturday, my last(???) RC meeting. She's the only person there with whom I really want to chat.

The show itself was quite heartfelt in its presentation, though a bit rough around some edges. I most enjoyed The Lady in Purple (Deeana?) who seemed to be from Eastern Europe, and The Lady in Red, who seemed to be from Jamaica. Soness and I both liked The Lady in Blue, though she wasn't my favorite.

After the show, Mike and Mary, and Ruth all headed home, and Soness and I headed from The Crocodile to The Pink Cow to catch the end of Cow Jam where Soness helped her new Navy friend Woodrow eat his guacamole and chips because he got those plus the huge Pink Cow burrito, and couldn't eat it all.

We basically followed Dave around the restaurant, chatting with him in the back, before and after his performance on stage during which we were right on the front row, albeit on the stage left wall.

David was performing alone for the first couple of songs, and then was like, "hey Jeremy (?) would you like to play drums?" and then "is there a bassist in the house?" and a guy called ま came out of the audience and went to get his bass. It looked pretty skinny and he pulled it out. Ah cool an electric bass, and then he put the peg in the bottom. Wow!! An upright electric bass!! He had never played with David before, but picked up the bassline like nothin, including some cool sliding techniques to pull the notes into place. It sounded really awesome and I was like, dang! the cat can just freestyle bass; that's awesome!!

But then it got even better when the song ended. Ma goes, "uh, can you give me an E?" to David, and then tuned his bass from there. The shit had been way out of tune and he still made it sound great!! David commented on that, "now there's a true musician, starts playing, 'that's not right,' and then adjusts it mid song. Fantastic."

They played another song or two and then David finished off his set with solo performances of Cathedral and I forget what else.

Then it became open mic jam time, and Soness sang a quote from Albert Einstein, though I can't find it online.

Soness chatted a bit longer with David after the show, and I asked Woodrow about the Navy and his experiences; he said a lot of what they do is keep civilian ships on task if they try to get out of line and sell some bombs to some terrorist (not on the US approved-terrorist-list, I guess)

(*) On the way home I aplogizexplained to Soness what had been my experience coming off the train when I got the message that she was also just getting off the train, I thought we could meet and I thought she was asking "where are you?" so we could meet, so I planted myself near Yamanote Line where we could meet. Stayed planted there for too long, especially considering she hadn't necessarily wanted to meet me before she got changed into Crocodile clothes.

I found myself in a state of trying to be supportive and realizing my efforts were misplaced, but not being able to tear myself away from my self-appointed task.

"So, I'm sorry I got mad at you; I was mad at myself."

And then, in Shinagawa, Soness was hoola hooping on the platform, and a Japanese guy came up and wanted to fight me, saying we were mocking Japan, and we should go back to our country, etc. I watched him in stupification; Soness translated faced me the whole time and translated what he was saying. We got on the train, and he got on the train, and started complaining about us to another Japanese man who gently but firmly push-kicked the noisy guy off the train. The noisy guy then jumped on and grabbed the guy's bag, taking it off the train; Soness jumped up and helped him get his bag back, and then the noisy Japanese guy was like, "you wanna fight?" (in Japanese) to the other Japanese guy who said, "just get off the train" in Japanese, and Soness called the police who said they would send peeps to the next station (Kawasaki) cause the train was in motion by then. The noisy guy got off in Kawasaki, though no police nor even JR security nor staff was there. Soness gave our new Japanese friend and I a stick of gum. The End. (true story)