Satan's Luau

I suppose that the worst thing about the redistricting a few years back is that I no longer live in district two for the congressional races here. Too bad, it seems like these have been ... and are again the best, well actually most interesting races

After watching the "forum" tonight, a few things were very evident to me:

"Young" did better than "Old" in the format, yet has the charisma of hmmm ... J. Kerry, comes to mind, in other words -- bland. Yes, handsome cannot save you if you are bland. Seeming more articulate than a 80-something is really not saying much, if you're bland.

What to say about "Old" -- you know, I think that there are other qualities of effectiveness besides I can speak on TV better than you -- a major basis for the election of our current gov, mind you. However, I think working behind the scenes in congress is a much more important criteria than speaking decent on TV

"Old" looked old last night, and "Young" looked well ... less old. That's about it, it was about as boring an hour of TV, I've seen in a long time.

---

In a related note, the commercial that "old" put out this week, to compare his effectiveness to "young" was ridiculously high on the unintentional comedy scale. I mean, it was basically, pick me ... i am the slightly less ineffective one -- I mean, those stats cited ... both of them are more than ineffective on the basis of the measurables, they appear to be incompetent according to the statistics. And the comparisons of "old" to other name democrats ... I couldn't laugh more, when you see names like JK, BO, all "presidential" candidate material supposedly

Ehhh, I don't live there ... that's good, I guess

Posted by at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A special commentary by Keith Olbermann on the comments of Rumsfeld

Here

Posted by at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I saw an unexpected thing last night.

Crayon Shinchan has been added to the adultswim lineup.

It is dubbed in engelbert, with US cultural references added to the dialog, and a voice for CS that makes him sound like the nelson on the simpsons, post puberty ... in other words, he sounds like a dee-duh-dee

I was sitting there, thinking ... man, this show is so much better in the nihongo, oh well

And now, your reminder that we live in the last days
Here

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Ignorance is a killer, isn't it? Or, sometimes one's lack of perspective does cost money

There are ups and downs in life, that is one of life's great or harsh truths that we all must learn. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

$3.00

Providing some context, I know that people left and right could really care less about three bucks nowadays. In fact, that seems to be the business model of successful juicing and coffee franchises, isn't it? Or maybe it's $5 that people are indifferent about, anyway ...

However, $3 could be the price of un per gallon right now at the pump if there were a cap. So, most could be saving, yes, at least $3.00 per fill up., and some with larger tanks a bit more. But, because our lawmakers thought we would bust them at the polls this year, no price control ... we will pay the same higher price or more for the rest of our lives. Personally I cannot recall a time when dealers decided to drop prices, can you?

I could really care less about the intricacies of the gas industry and its marketing here -- or listen to some free market BS from people who do not understand why A. Smith wrote what he did. What I do have to say is, why is it that something like the gas cap, which had low prices and high prices, seem almost like a comment on our life?

First and foremost, I think we must have some really f/d up concept of how much gas should cost -- basically I think most subconsciously believe gas should be very affordable. And of course, if one compares it to say, boxes of cereal, the cost of a smoothie or mocha -- all very expensive, especially cereal here ...hooboy. A gallon of gas is one of the most affordable things, considering how much a driver uses

The other thing is this, I think the cap disgruntled people really missed the boat, even though their behavior suggested they understood. If the price is high, don't buy as much, use your car wisely, or wait out the next drop. Because there were some who thought it was too high for too long -- umm, which is less, $3.25 or $3.00?

I suppose I'm some esoteric moron who makes up bad parables, but in many ways the cap was like life -- ups and down, and one adjusts. When things are good, hey no problem; when things are bad, you adjust -- what was so hard about that?

So some believed that if we didn't have the cap, prices would drop like they did on the continent for a while. Well, gas cap removed -- is that crickets I hear chirping, or the coqui? Did the prices go down, post GC, when prices in the upper 49 went down for a bit??? ... do I need to say the answer?

All that monku: "I don't like the gas cap, I don't think it works" -- gas would have been $3.00 this week, and at some future point could have been $3.40, but for me, I didn't see changing prices from week to week as that much of a problem. Why? Because I don't think most people pay that much attention to $5-10 bucks a week. And sure if you make it over a year, people go .. OH, wow that was $500 bucks, well people don't pay attention that hard on a daily or weekly basis to notice it

But boy, did they pretend like they did ... and now the price will only change in the bad direction. And don't you think if the gas dealers cared about the trends in pricing, that they would have lowered prices this week rather than still charge you the same ... still waiting for that post cap drop in prices

Who knew that a lack of perspective could cost money?

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Awesome ... deafening ... visually interesting

And let me say, the concert hall as a venue for a full on, sans symphony rock show is actually surprisingly good ... and I had my doubts. We had seats a little off center in the first row of the balcony, and these were actually remarkably good as well -- actually I feel converted to possibly sitting here with regularity when we see symphony shows

But that aside, if you could see one band every five years or so -- and could have confidence that the show would live up to and in many ways exceed your expectations going in, this is the band to see.

Perfect and very loud. There are very few bands that play as tightly as Tool, with as much precision given the unique time signatures of the music or the perfectly blended improvisations within these constraints. The crowd energy was weird in that it seemed like people were absorbing it for most of the show, and after the encore let it all out with great energy

The first thing that really stood out to me was Danny's drumming. Sheer power, precision, technical excellence, agility -- with Tool, it is all kept within the context of songs, no gratuitous solos to show off, but man, what a drumming performance. He is often considered to be one of the finest in the industry ... I would echo that

The two guitars, lead and bass -- again, Tool is machine-like in its technical precision, so not too much doodling and showing off. Just playing parts and making sounds from their instruments that made me go WOW, you can get that kind of sound or tone out of a guitar/bass. Very cool

The audio mix was interesting, yet as I recall, similar to the 2001 show, where the vocals are super tuned down in the mix, while the drums and lead guitar are really up ... again since it was very loud, it was very much a sonic assault on the audience, in a good way. It was really an exercise in the idea that some music sounds even better loud -- though honestly at times, there were guitar notes and gong crashes that caused to audience to wince in pain or cover up

The stage layout was interesting. Two risers in the back, one for the drums, the other for Maynard, with the two guitar players up front. As always, the visuals were interesting and complemented the music very well, this time there were four segments of screens, sometimes keeping separate images, sometimes stretching one large image over them.

One of the stranger aspects to me is that although Maynard is the "iconic" person in the band, and given conventions about lead singers as being out front, over the top, and the focus ... again, this was hardly the case, he was more like a dancing shadow, hard to make out, a grey shaded figure that moved compellingly in at times frantic, at times easy. He seemed to be keeping his accessories simple, at times wearing a cowboy hat, and I think had something that looked like a nano strapped to his arm ... if I were to speculate, it almost seemed like a take on the ubiquitous and shade heavy, red fruit music player commercials ... and Maynard was particularly economical with his words (so unlike other singers that do the cheap pop, it's great to be here jazz) only saying:

Night two, deja vu
We hope to be back in the new year, keep your fingers crossed

And the I never saw that before moment of the night was at the end of the first set, where the members just stopped playing and sat on the vocal riser, resting, while the audience applauded. Then for no rhyme and reason, bounced up and played the encore songs ... then threw towels and picks in the crowd ... no bows, just shuffled right off stage. This band is so weird at times, yet that was the best I've seen so far this year

Setlist:
Stinkfist
The Pot
46 & 2
Jambi
Schism
Rosetta Stoned
Sober
Right in Two
Lateralus
--
Vicarious
Aenema

SD called the setlist, very greatest hits like. They played basically the same set the night before, substituting Right in Two from 10,000KD, and I know message board fans have been complaining that this has been the same basic set so far this tour. But, to me, anytime you see a great band play their great songs, how can you possibly complain -- I would rather have something like this than overemphasis on the new album, there was a very nice balance of old and new

And if they do return to town after the Aussie swing in early 2007 for an arena show, pretty sure we'll be there ... not too many bands put on such a great show.

Posted by at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Afterwards we went over to a bon dance at our temple. Maybe it's been a while since I've been to one, but wow, there were like 3-4 rings of dancers. I was surprised at how many people were there, and how hard it is to find parking in Manoa at night ... that's a story for another time

And what is it exactly that makes people want to go cuckoo for undagi at these things, that line was very long. The thing I have always liked to eat at our temple events is the fire grilled shoyu corn on the cob -- last night it fully lived up to past memories and then some, that was so good

I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere nowadays, but it seems like everyone has a greater awareness of taiko drumming ... and has some kind of exhibition, last night there was a taiko performance as well. Got to see my 2nd cousin perform and he is a pretty amazing drummer

And of course, you always see someone you don't expect to. Saw some family friends, hey you never know what people's hobbies are ... they like to dance, interesting

Posted by at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, we finally made it over to see AIT at the varsity. A funny thing happened on the way to sitting down. The first thing is, who knew that the theatre did not take cards ... luckily that'smahbank is very nearby

The other thing is that we bought some snacks because we figured we would be eating late at the bon dance. So we grabbed our stuff, and admittedly we were late ... so I go to cash out and the amount was like something and 50 cents. So I give the lady a bill and 50 cents ... and she gives me change plus my 50 cents back ... uhhhhh yeah

But that's neither here nor there, is it?

AIT is somewhat surprising in that I personally do not view Al G. as the most charismatic person, or effective public speaker -- let's just say, that I did not believe that I would enjoy him ... as I have not enjoyed him in public speaking in the past. I find him a bit too unnecesarily pointy headed and self-referential for my taste

And well, those irksome traits are there in the movie ... and it is noticeable, and while it slightly bugged me -- I thought that the overall presentation of the film was done in a very interesting and easy to understand way -- and that should be applauded.

I'm not really going to hash out the factoids and interesting bits, I just think that it's a good movie to see and it really makes one think about where our priorities should be placed in order to keep the earth's environment from succumbing totally to the greenhouse effect.

I know, the topic doesn't sound all that sexy -- and really it isn't, but I think that the movie is rather thought-provoking and stimulates a ton of post-movie conversation, which to me is a good measure of how effective a movie is.

In many ways, whether or not this movie is a force for change, it seems like we are in for a very interesting future -- there are many critical environmental factors that the residents of planet E must come to terms with -- ironically, many are so at odds with how we live here in our country, or for that matter in our state

I think the overarching important concept from the movie is that now is not the time to be more selfish, or have your head in the sand, or live really large, consume as much as you can life -- now is the time to care about these things, do practical things to make changes, and see yourself as part of something way bigger

I guess the thing that bothers me most about this kind of movie is that sometimes it feels like these movies are preaching to the choir ... I mean, like what good is it for a progressive like myself to see it? -- there are so many things that I notice in everyday life that makes me feel like no one cares about anything except themselves, their pleasure, their fulfillment, their consumption ... there really is no thinking about how all this affects our planet, our resources, our common future ... really I don't think that many care

They just don't ... and that's a sad commentary about where we are in the present

So in the final analysis, I would love it if many saw this movie and were moved by it. I just have so little faith -- a) that the ones who need to see it ... will; and b) that the very ones who need to change ... will; and c) that people like me will start leading ... finally

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This dares to challenge the why of life ... with zest, wonder, and humor

Ham plus CD player equals good times

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