"cruising"

yesterday was interesting. i decided to go be more pro-active and see more live music here in tokyo. a lot of it is really bad and i have wasted my money plenty of times by going to shows at random, so i had kind of shied away from it recently. however, last night i figured if i did proper research, it wouldnt be such a bummer. i stumbled across this righteous website called Tokyo Gig Guide - and just looked at the schedules for all the venues in shibuya, shinjuku and ebisu, since that's all relatively close to where i live. after about 30 minutes of research i decided to go to this venue in ebisu. they had this open art night, with rock music, a skate ramp, and photo exibitions. great place to meet cats, i thought, so to ebisu i went. i had copied the map from the website and was pretty sure as to where to look... but three hours later i still hadn't found the pad, damn. actually, i was laughing at myself this entire time, i trip myself out sometimes. reminds me of when i used to live in rotterdam and hung out in amsterdam a lot. would stroll the streets with my headphones on. usually id be listening to brant bjork's solo records. then, towards the end the night, i would go into a coffeeshop, buy a few grams of weed to save for back home, and would get a nice joint to smoke on my way back to the station. i always smoked it quick so that when i got on my train not much later i would feel it creeping up on me, and be wrapped in this warm blanket as i put on the brant bjork and the operators record. to this day whenever i put that record on i still get that feeling, so it's the perfect record to stroll the streets to.
some tangental spiel here, max going off on things. anyway, no weed of course last night. havent had no weed in a long time, and i like it that way. but after my search for the pad proved futile i did find this nice little playground where i sat down and rested my weary bones for a good little while. sat on the swing. hadn't been on a swing for a while, probably not since august in san francisco, hanging out with scott taking care of wang's kids, so i decided to swing again. and man, it was rad! i love playgrounds, man, feeling like a little kid and being active and all that, it's a ton of fun! at 10PM i called up my mother for just a few minutes, to share this mindfuck with her, and hopped on my train back home. got home around 1030 and konked out an hour after that, after doing some work on the 'puter.

i was exhausted, so i woke up pretty late the next morning, must have been 6AM or something. got up, took a shower and did my stretches and all that. went on to fix some breakfast and listened to the May 13th 2007 Watt From Pedro Show podcast. featured an interview with krist noveselish (i know i spelled that wrong, sorry krist!) which was quite righteous. watt's been doing a lot of japan-related stuff lately, which is tripping me out, since that's been happening over the past year, kind of got a parallel universe thing going on there somewhere, somehow. i was still weary from the day before, so i took a little one-hour nap from 12 to 1. when i woke up again i handled some emails and decided to go buy a map so i could finally cycle to yoyogi park, without paying the 320YEN for a return ticket every time. so at 2 o clock i got on my bike. ooh man, it felt so good, cruising through the streets of tokyo. it's suburbia, but it's fun all the same. you ride your bike on the sidewalks, you see, so you have to constantly manouver yourself around pedestrians and other folks, and this makes it real exiting, especially when you build up some speed. it's what i always used to do as a kid, and i love it. once you get to the bigger roads it gets quite slope-y here and there, so you can build up some righteous speed. with the right music on it can get pretty rad! got to yoyogi park after 13 kilometers (i dont know, 8 or 9 miles or something?), drank my water, hung out with my marrocan friend mohammed for a little while and headed back home at 430. i was a little tired, but the 13 kilometers would prove to be no big deal. i even made a little 4 kilometer detour to shinjuku to stop by this righteous, cheap bagel place. handmade bagels in all kinds of flavours, even alternative grains to wheat. so i had this righteous rye-basil-tomato bagel which was really good, since i hadnt eaten all day. ate my bagel and i went on home. it was then i realized that i ride my bike like a skateboard. i dont sit down a lot, but i kind of peddle, got some speed going, and then cruise, until i need to peddle again to get some more speed. it made a lot of sense, been doing that intuitively for years, but what a trip to finally draw that line! got home at a little past 6, and as soon as i got off my bike i went inside, grabbed my two empty gallon jugs and headed for the super market to fill them up with water. needless to say, when i got back 30 minutes ago i was pretty tired. but i should say weathered, because it feels really good. it feels like i actually did something today. glad i didnt stay inside, that's for sure. for my closing statement, well, check out this bad motherfucker! cheers, my friends!