its a quarter to eight PM. i just woke up. yes, woke up. i descided to konk early as i have rehearsal coming up tonight, from midnight till four in the morning, trippy. could have opted for a more normal slot, but that would have meant we couldnt get a date together till next monday, which'd be a week from the previous practice. everyone realises that the harder we work, the sooner we can start doing gigs, and the sooner we can start working on maybe getting a tour together. boy, they sure want to do that, tour. makes me glad, they're motivated. and from the little feedback my friend mark has given me, and from what my own ears tell me objectively, its pretty darn tight as it is. could blow minds right here right now, i do believe.
i worried that i'd overslept a little, since i konked pretty deep for a good three or four hours, but as it turned out it was only the time you read at the beginning of this post. actually, 'twas earlier, but i twisted and turned quite some time before i realised i had to get some stuff off my mind.
i had a dream, and it was composed of two primary things, one of which i was pondering before i went to bed, which was guitar speaker cabinets and amplifiers (as i need to get a small little tube amp once i start playing a few gigs, to save money) and the other one i realised just now. most of it was situated at the beach. i was on this island, and it had two distinct part, each beautifull in their own way. one was this beautifull sandy, white beach. clear blue water, with palm trees like in venice los angeles and dunes like in my hometown. i figure this might have something to do with what my friend simon told me about his vacation to this okinawan island before he headed back to england (will try and get a picture up). but, the other part of this island was this huge, shallow water. a kind of muddy plain with clear water about knee deep. and in this water was empty, exept for a sparse population of creatures. they looked like brown rocks, but they'd inflate themselves like a blowfish and come up to the surface. they looked spiky but where soft to the touch. so one day, i was hanging out at the pretty beach (blue water, white sand and all) with my family and friends. had a pretty big amplifier down there, because we was doing a generator based gig on the beach. cool. i got tired, though, tired of too many people, so i explained (in my best japanese) that i was going to see the little blowup rock-fish-thingies. as i walked away i was playing guitar (had this long chord attached to the amplifier). it unplugged after a little while, but i kept on walking. then they's all started calling my name (i was in trance, didnt know how much time had passed). even as i was visibly running back theys was still calling my name. when i got back, the amplifiers speaker cloth was trashed and there was a brick stuck in it. for some reason it was ported on the bottom, so that was filled with litter from the beach people. a stranger helped me clean it out and he told me this kind of shit happens a lot, should watch out and take care of the amplifier.
and then i woke up. now this made me realise one thing, man, i haven't been out of a, or better yet, the - city for over two months now. and even though ill be going to korea pretty soon, i will still go to seoul... you guessed it, a city. when you're living on anywhere from 3 to 6 dollars a day, anything that deviates from that is a pretty big expense. made me think back on the week i was stranded at a friends loft appartment in some part of LA. you could walk in any direction for hours and still get nowhere. you could take the bus, but to get anywhere would take the better part of your day. i just stayed inside for the duration of that week, wrote one or two songs, but spend most of my time getting mildly stoned, listening to john coltrane and crosby, stills and nash. so compared to that, i have quite some more freedom in japan. but lord, i wish i had a motorbike or a car, and could go see the countryside. maybe do something crazy and attempt a stint by bike, but i dont even have a bike. need to get one, so i can start getting around. one of the places i haven't visited yet is yokohama, which is about 30 kilometers east of tokyo, and takes about 40 minutes by train. it's about my day budget (1000 YEN) for a train ticket, so that (and the weather) has been keeping me from going, but i am pondering it now. it's nowhere near a countryside thing, though, but it'd be something new to explore. leave the guitar at home and just relax. maybe i should check out this side of the bay too, and see what's up there. too far away for a bike, but quite righteous by train, i do believe.
so that's what's going through my mind right now. am going to get some more eyeshut before i leave for a 4 hour prac (looking forward to it, man!). sound like insanity to me... take care
