Since I nominally "cut back on drinking" over a month ago, things have been pretty smooth. Maybe alcohol is, in fact, the root of all my petty grievances. Again, just by the numbers, I haven't cut back that much. Two to four drinks less per day, but still averaging around 12 over the course of the whole day. All I know is that I haven't been feeling like death daily, good enough for me.

I don't know if it's related, but I've since been getting to the gym ahead of my membership expiring in June, and getting out on bike weather permitting. I think I even rode over 200 miles total, a monthly benchmark, in April. Performance is still way down, but so are expectations. Don't have to worry about failure when just doing something is the goal.

Sleeping during the past month was fine until yesterday and today when back-end insomnia returned. I'd stopped keeping track of my sleep before then so I can't say if there was any correlation between drinking and insomnia after cutting back. 

I suspected not. Even when I noticed sleeping well after cutting back on drinking, I still expected insomnia to not be affected and to randomly return, and it has. 

During the month of sleeping well, I haven't noticed any dreams, but with insomnia the dream level is so shallow that memory is more possible. Family still making appearances despite my recent realizations that I have nothing to do with them anymore and no reason to ever visit them again. 

I'm not saying I won't, but if they want me to visit, their overtures have to be pretty convincing. As it seems, nobody gives a rat's ass if I ever visit again, and I'm fine with that. 

I also had another Amina dream. Very unusual at this juncture since that is such a far gone part of my life. In the dream, she was deeply in love with and committed to me, but there were forces (she's Muslim) conspiring to keep us apart that we were willing to go against.

In a nutshell, I used to consider her the love of my life, but all of that and any concept related to romantic love has been negated for me. When you negate the concept of romantic love, no individual stands a chance. As an ex, she now rarely comes to mind and never as anything special, but rather even as a lapse.

I suppose there's some subconscious suggestion involved in her still appearing in my dreams, perhaps that it's nice to feel loved. In this life, being involved with her did have a deep experiential impression upon my feeling being loved. Subconscious notwithstanding, in the waking world now it's not anywhere on my radar of what I could possibly want or pursue.

The insomnia did interrupt my morning sitting. Morning sitting has become conceptually the most important thing to do every day. Sometimes I'd wake up and feel like cancelling, but within a few minutes realizing that is not an option. The physical and psychic toll of insomnia beat that.

I wish there were a way to describe the journey of regular sitting over years and years . . . decades, even if it's just 45-50 minutes every morning. But I can't because the experience changes so much. The only thing to do is to do it, understanding that a daily regimen of meditation is a personal journey. The experience varies, but if regular meditation becomes a bug of one's experience, the journey and what one discovers on it is pretty priceless.

I wonder what it would be like if I had found a teacher in this lifetime. I've eschewed teachers and gone at it on my own. The idea of having a teacher never resonated, maybe because of karma. Some teachings describe the teacher as indispensable, and I accept that. Just not for me in this lifetime; that's just instinct.

I do probably need a teacher, but I'm still figuring out teachings I've received in the past, either in this or previous lives, on my own. When I discover the need for a teacher in a future lifetime, I'll go back to seeking one out. When it becomes pressing, I'll do it.

06. Quicksand Box
I actually like this song. In fact, years and years after I completed this tape and had forgotten how the songs went, I was still able to easily figure out the guitar part and played it for a few friends because I like the sound of crickets. The sound of crickets is so much more prevalent after I play a song for people.

I had the chords for the A and B sections and the first verse kicking around for years before I finally decided to try to complete the song for this collection.

And it kinda shows, the first verse is existential angst (with theatrical and angel references) and tries to have some clever (sometimes called 'pretentious') turns of phrase or plays on words, characteristic of influences from Marillion and Genesis (I would maintain that the chameleon reference has nothing to do with the Marillion song "She Chameleon", because it doesn't).

The inspiration for the verse was from the idea that our lives are like plays on a stage, and dying is nothing more than walking off stage and then we change characters and that's reincarnation. Sometimes we're not thrilled by the roles we take.

Then the second A/B section is straight-forward about Amina :p (the "means lead to ends" was not-so-cleverly derived from the sound of her name, believe it or not. It's a hidden MEANing, hahaha! not).

The first of the break verses wasn't targeted at anyone but was supposed to, I suppose, characterize a dichotomy between Amina and me. It started with the "there was a death in the family" line that I think I also had been wanting to use for a long time and once I had the chords, the rest of the verse fell into place. The second break verse reverts to Amina. No mystery there.

The final B verse references an idea I had about reincarnation and how I may have been aiming to be reborn in Japan and ended up in a womb that would within 9 months be taken to the U.S., and also a reference to how my parents used to tell me that I wasn't theirs and they had found me on a rock in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a joke. I thought they were serious. I was very disappointed when I found out it was supposed to be a joke. I did not find it very funny.

The main rhythm guitar part was my Takamine run through the Small Clone and with a capo on the 2nd fret. I had a rough relationship with the bass line. The final bass line is the same or very similar to the initial one I came up with, but for a long time I didn't think it was right.

I dunno, it was too distinct? Distracting? After vacillating for a long time and trying other ideas, I decided I liked the original idea. Or I had just gotten used to hearing it like that. These are the pitfalls of working alone. I didn't have anyone else to give me an opinion either way.

The guitar solo was my Peavey run prominently through a Boss Super Phaser (I love that box), and I think was recorded pretty late in the process, and I wasn't trying for anything elaborate or sounding very "solo-ish", so it's a more textural solo with not a lot of notes.

No audition, typecast in doubt

In a strange role-reversal, costume inside-out

Red lights, dead ends, I try to forget my lines again

Step into wings to change what my character has been

Up to my knees, concrete conformity

Chameleon fit to what's surrounding me

And chameleon fit to what I would never dream

Chameleon dropped in a quicksand box

Let my guard down, let you too far in

Didn't know you didn't know me and means lead to ends

I could have laughed at how you tried to sound sincere

Using all the same excuses that I used for years

Your family, models of chemistry

Chameleon fit to what you're supposed to be

And chameleon fit to how people want to see

Chameleon dropped in a quicksand box

There was a death in the family that you never knew about

A crime of principle that you never cared about

A breach of confession that you never told about

A death that no one knew, no one cared, no one came to tell me

I couldn't do a thing that you ask

You ask too much of my limited past

I can't make much sense of what you made us to be

Or how you made it to depend on me

So me I'm faced with what I could never have been

Never have hoped and never could believe in

The ground dissolves, look to the clouds above

Chameleon dragged by its tail across the sea

And chameleon found on a rock right next to me

Chameleon dropped in a quicksand box

05. Track 5
The reason why this song isn't titled is because at some point I thought of the perfect title for it and then forgot what it was. In self-protest, I refused to settle on some other title. Either I remembered that perfect title, or it would remain untitled. Guess what came to pass.

(Actually, there is a precedent for this. On the first collection of songs I recorded, there were two songs that were unrelated and lacking titles. Then I came up with a good title for one and realized it could be applied to the other and so I gave them both the same title, part one and part two. Then I forgot the title and refused to try to come up with alternate titles, but that time I eventually did remember the title I wanted).

It's also the song I like least among this collection. I don't know what I was doing with it or where I was going with it. The music started with the uninspired opening rhythm guitar part, upon which I formed the bass line, which I do like, and then the keyboard melody, which I don't. It's kinda sterile and contrived. The drums, I think, are OK except for the break which sounds awkward and is only there because I couldn't figure out how to get back to the main riff musically. Lame.

The song ostensibly is about memory and its reliability, but is a patchwork of sources and not very successful. A part of the concept was sourced in a coffee table book I had of black and white photos shot by Ansel Adams of the Manzanar Japanese American concentration camp during World War II.

And I'm pretty sure that part of the inspiration was my friend's song about the Japanese American experience in the early 20th century that I posted earlier. I wasn't trying to add anything, but his song was so good and I had these ideas from the Ansel Adams book, that it seemed OK to borrow his basic idea as a starting point.

In his song, the protagonist ends up stuck, unable to leave, perhaps metaphorically, in the desert heat of the concentration camp after being betrayed by his adopted country, after betraying himself and his original country. In my song, the idea is of a former Japanese American concentration camp prisoner decades later looking at pictures of the camps and thinking, "that's not what it was like".

Another source was a pile of 8mm home movies from my childhood that I had no idea existed and found by accident in my brother's room. And curiously, I have absolutely no recollection of when it was that I found them. With incidents such as this, I can usually place somewhere in the timeline of my life, but not this one. Selective memory clearly engaged.

Also curiously, I have no idea where those 8mm reels are now. I'm even doubting their existence or whether my finding them ever really happened, because not only was there the film, but also . . . it wasn't a projector, but a machine that I watched them on where you set up the reels and spooled the film through a mechanism that lit the film onto a screen. Yea, sounds suspicious to me, too.

This is weird because the more I describe it, the more I'm doubting this ever happened. A machine like that just doesn't go missing. The film is real, actually. I do remember my father did have a projector, and when he got back a reel of film from being developed, the family would get together and watch it.

What I remember about finding and watching the film, whether that happened or not, is seeing my parents in a light that I never knew. They were acting as parents. There was footage of my oldest brother's kindergarten graduation. Seeing my parents acting like parents was very conflicting for me, and it was hard for me to reconcile that it happened like that. I think I even actually felt guilty for a while about hating them.

The film is fact, the pictures don't lie, but if our subjective memory and reality are in conflict with them, then what's the truth? Here was physical evidence of my parents acting like parents, but in my memory and reality, my parents were merely a bank. They provided funds, but were uninvolved and emotionally unavailable.

So what I was trying to get at was, whether it's historical or personal, does the documentary evidence contain actual truth. No, it contains a record, but the truth is subjective.

I used to be a pyromaniac when I was a kid and used to light fires in a small set of woods near my elementary school. Nothing major, but at one point the fire department was called. And shit, it seems harmless in retrospect and I never thought anything of it, but that's clear evidence that I was already one fucked up, sociopath of a kid. Or I was trying to get attention. But you have to get caught to get attention. I was 8 or 9 years old.

And then the lyrics get further muddy because I start reflecting on my relationship with Amina and start ranting on about her. Real mature. So many things to dislike about this song. And at 5 minutes long, it was a failure at the short and concise concept (most of the songs from my first collection were ridiculously long, most over 5 minutes).

Force a pause

Pass under lighted tracks of memories hung up in galleries

Desert sand still seems to fall from my hands

Black and white photographs, but it never looked like that

Lost in my thoughts

Lots to be guilty of when history haunts me in home movies

The pictures lie, they can't testify to facts

Childhood reality check, it didn't happen quite like that

Thirty years between being the same age

Through my eyes not much has changed

From the forest fire and the match I found

On the cold barren ground

To decide from a yes to a no

Have to stay, no way that I'm gonna go

Under desert rocks froze in snow

My confession, little forgiveness for the un- or underblessed

Trapped in the mess of burned barracks, government shacks

I recall a last night on the phone

Triggered something from a long time ago

Losing you was really no loss at all

It seemed so much better than it actually was

From a point of view it was nothing new

It should have come as no surprise

And as it goes around, it still comes around

I could have read between the lines

You, your glazed ceramic smile

Made of mud and blazed in fire so cold

The wrong shade of red lipstick

Little too brown, too bright

In the sun it made you look too white-eyed

Burned to brown like a native skin, tattooed Indian

Give me control over what I know

I only doubt what I found when I find none of it sound

I have no memory and no feelings and I'm free to leave

03. Withdrawal
Hm, I thought the title of this song was "Wishlist". Not sure how it got changed. It might be a mistake. Or not. I have no idea.

I'm pretty sure this song started with the opening lyric which then got slapped on top of the bass verse riff, which I'm pretty sure is the origin of the music. The guitar part was just what fit over the bass part and then used to develop the other portions.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that for this collection, the music writing and lyric writing were very separate processes. So while I was developing and recording the music over here, lyric ideas were being scrawled down over there, and the two were mashed together at a later point.

I'm a little embarrassed by both the confessional and meltdown nature of the lyrics. There is little hiding my preoccupation with various ways of dying and self-destruction and my inability to bring anything to fruition in that regard, story of my life. But I did try to have a little fun with it, too. I mean what's death and self-destruction if you're not having at least a little bit of fun? Just morbid. And I am not morbid.

At the time I had recently broken up with the purported "love of my life" Amina, and some reference to her crops up in a few of these songs, and they are immature, snide jabs at her. She's Pakistani and had a Caucasian nose that I always felt was poking me when we kissed. There's more in other songs.

The Simpsons impression in the repeated verse may be related via the South Asia connection, but her mother being English, she spoke with a British Indian accent, and not a full-on Apu Indian accent. It's indirect, but it was conscious.

I forget what all the different "voices" for the repeated verse were supposed to be. Aside from Apu, one of them was "Tom Waits". Another was "meltdown". I think one I wrote down as "about-to-crack". One sounds like it should've been labeled "constipated".

Other lyric elements came from various sources. "Four and twenty bishops" was an expression from my Contracts professor that I liked, used to emphasize the importance of evidence versus innuendo attested to by "four and twenty bishops".

There's a reference to angels which was a thing for me late in college. One of my favorite films at the time was Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire" and I think I even wrote a paper on angels for a religion seminar. How flaky is that? (not as flaky as the field "angelology"). There's more in other songs.

The internet is an assumed part of modern life now, but back then it was just coming into wider use, being touted in the media with the catchphrase "information superhighway". I was being topical! Imagine how much lamer it would be if I had mentioned Infoseek or Lycos. Or Alta Vista. All pre-Google search engines. All had to be used to find the optimum result.

The line about being allergic to myself was about an elusive skin condition I have. It's nothing major, just an oddity as far as I can tell, and unlike other physical anomalies, this one has never gone away.

My skin is sensitive and if I scratch it even lightly it turns red and leads to more itching. If I scratch it because of itching, it leads to prominent, unsightly welts wherever I scratch it. So the reference was a joke about being allergic to just being myself.

The reference to being "discharged" was simply in my mind about being discharged from mental institutions, which I have been twice in my life, so this was referencing that deranged period of my life.

I don't want to be too harsh against the people who had me committed, nor about how they were just doing their jobs and had no clue what was going on. Looking at the scenes objectively, I think they were justified, but ultimately my case was beyond their psychiatric analysis, and kudos for them for realizing it. Something was clearly "wrong" (from their point of view), but it was beyond their purview of what they could understand, much less treat. So they let me go.

The guitar part was played on my acoustic Takamine running through an auto-wah and the bass line in the verses is slapped on my Riverhead. I'm not a slap bassist, but it's a lot of fun, and at the time I was experimenting with slapping without a lot of popping, or at least not popping in a higher register on a higher string. The electric drums are on the Phil Collins setting and there's also a second distorted guitar part that was done on the Takamine. Meaning this song was likely recorded before I bought the Peavey Predator.

I want to die a bloody, violent death

Smashed against the rocks below the cliffs, amidst the surf
But the hands around my neck keep stopping me

Surf to servant, lifted up by wings that never worked

And I owe my whole likeness to the kindness

Of the winds that blew me kisses from a lotus flower

Stood around me by some four and twenty bishops 

Giving me the finger with a sneer they said, "You wish"

My number one priority

Is finding the only wish I had left

As I'm flipping through my filofax

For that wish I have left

I wish I could find a way to decide

I wish there was a way I could survive

I wish I could be buried alive

I wish everyone would leave me alone

Seems to me to be one more life decision

Every heartbeat murmurs secrets only time can tell me

Met Jesus on my path, nearly stepped on him

Searched for God on the information interstate

She crowned me in a romantic bravado

It's your classic fairy tale scenario we all know

Bring me to a better understanding

Bring me people who would never ever leave me

My number one priority

Is to not stand stupid in some idiot's pose

Kissing ass, distracted by your pointed nose

I don't think I would want to be that wise

I don't want to live just to survive

I don't want to find what's behind my eyes

I don't think I should be thinking these things

Someday I'll drown in my own sense of privacy 

Where no one can help me to be who I want to be

Eggshell exiles scrambled in cups of tea

Porcelain lips kiss my grasp on reality

(repeat 5x)

Why am I allergic to myself?

I get a rash everytime I come down and try to be real

Ask me about my drinking problem

That's one way to get a prime example of denial

I smeared myself with 80 proof holy water

I'm a failure of religious guidance, social science

I'm next in line to be discharged and I feel better

On my way home gotta make it look like an accident

I haven't been remembering dreaming much lately, and even if I remembered that I had been dreaming, I had no recollection of the content of the dream. This time I woke up from the dream, remembered the dream and it happened to be an Amina dream.

Was it because it was an Amina dream that I was unconsciously particularly inspired to remember it? Meaning nothing else in my subconscious has been worthy of being remembered? And the whole Amina thing – hey, it's old. Or is it?

I was in the foyer area of a mansion, classic European-looking, perhaps Victorian? I'm not sure what that looks like. It was brightly lit by a large chandelier and had high ceilings. I was halfway up a curving staircase facing down towards the foyer area, and Amina was behind me, I couldn't see her, and I was shielding her because she was in some sort of state of undress. And I was being chivalrous.

I don't know who I was shielding her from, because down in the foyer were some completely naked, large and curvy women who were completely casual, didn't even take note of me there, and two of them separately walked by the staircase in all their glory into another unseen room.

My reaction was a bit of astonishment, but mindful of Amina behind me, we started to back our way up the stairs, where I knew on the next landing there was a bathroom that I could easily back her into and she could have her privacy. But when we got to the door, where I expected to stop and she could go in and close the door, we both continued in, and then she closed the door with both of us inside.

Calculating the situation and concluding my being there was consensual, I turned around and saw her for the first time in the dream. She was modestly dressed in a negligee and she was stunningly gorgeous, my reaction not being too far from the first time I saw her. Calculating some more, I concluded it was also consensual for me to approach her and start kissing her and then the camera of my perspective goes askew and I woke up.

So why did I remember this dream of all dreams? Was it because of Amina or because it dealt with romantic issues?

It's not because of Amina. Amina is most certainly now a fiction. So it probably had more to do with what Amina might still represent, which is romance, the human biological imperative, the crude human version of spiritual male/female union that represents a divine unity and oneness. Or not.

In the bright light of day, if I was in that same situation with Amina, I don't think my impulse now would be to kiss her. To love her. I don't think. Love is no longer a part of my equations anymore, I tell myself. Even if I could romantically love another person, which I doubt, my software then runs the program asking what next? What do I want from such a relationship? Do I want a relationship? Well, do I, punk?

But then why the dream? Why it was Amina is clear; it was because she was some sort of pinnacle, the love of my life I called her; but if I had the chance to even meet her again in this lifetime, I would probably decline unless she had some reason that was compelling enough for me to accept. Some love of my life.

I made the mistake when I was in New Jersey to mention to my sister-in-law my last relationship and the year it occurred, and smart cookie as she is being a medical doctor and all, she calculated how long it had been since I'd been in a relationship and made an exclamation to that effect.

Needless to rehash details, I'm clearly so out of practice that I can't be considered being able to give an objective assessment of the situation. It's simply out of my reality for even consideration. From the empirical evidence, I'm not even interesting, much less attractive, much less a pursuit, much less a catch. That's just reality and I have considered it and accepted it. It's even perfect.

I think I'm just going to have to relegate Amina dreams such as these as inconveniences of the human condition. Just because we're human beings, we crave love, attention, and we lust. If we can achieve communion with another human being, great, good for you. It's still an instinct for me, but it's not reality.

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1989 (mix CD of every year of my life series):
1. Monkey Gone to Heaven (The Pixies)
2. Mexican Seafood (Nirvana) (official audio)
3. The Mayor of Simpleton (XTC) (what makes this song great)
4. Roam (B-52's)
5. Diamonds <ダイアモンド> (Princess Princess) Japan
6. Lie Still, Little Bottle (They Might Be Giants) (unofficial upload) (official audio)
7. John the Fisherman (Primus) (unofficial upload) (official audio)
8. Higher Ground (Red Hot Chili Peppers) (unofficial upload) (official audio)
9. Shake Your Rump (The Beastie Boys)
10. Asadoyayunta (Ryuichi Sakamoto) Japan (unofficial upload)
11. Be Kind to My Mistakes (Kate Bush)
12. Love's Recovery (Indigo Girls) (official audio)
13. I Want It All (Queen)
14. Janie's Got a Gun (Aerosmith)
15. Crossfire (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble)
16. Rooms On Fire (Stevie Nicks)
17. My Finest Hour (The Sundays) (audio only)
18. Mania (Throwing Muses) (unofficial upload)
19. Kimi no Koto Bakari (Gyoza Daioh) Japan
20. Negative Creep (Nirvana)
21. The Blue Bus Blues (Bakufu Slump) Japan (unofficial upload)

I think I'm gonna go on record and state 1989 is among my less 'successful' mixes. I'll attribute it to the times (including possibly the adjacent mixes). These were my college years which were expanding my horizons, but since a lot of these songs I didn't get into at the time, I think changes and crossroads in the music scene, or various music scenes, are also reflected. The collection is just a smorgasbord of conflicting tastes and disjunct segues. It doesn't necessarily work, but as a reflection of the times it's probably perfect. NB: less successful ≠ I don't like it.

1988:
1. What I Am (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians)
2. Peek-A-Boo (Siouxsie & the Banshees)
3. Turn the Page (live) (Rush) (unofficial upload) (official audio)
4. みん なのうた Minna no Uta (Southern All-Stars) Japan (official audio)
5. Bonin' in the Boneyard (Fishbone)
6. Angel of Harlem (U2)
7. Junkie (Steve Vai) (official audio)
8. Strange Weather (live) (Tom Waits) (unofficial upload)
9. Brenda, Brenda ("Bagdad Cafe")
10. On Children (Sweet Honey in the Rock) (audio only)
11. M (Princess Princess) Japan
12. Juno (Throwing Muses) (unofficial upload)
13. Jane Says (Jane's Addiction) (unofficial upload)
14. Where is My Mind? (The Pixies) (unofficial upload) (official audio)
15. 僕 の右手 Boku no Migite (The Blue Hearts) Japan (unofficial upload)
16. Handle With Care (The Traveling Wilburys)
17. Teenage Riot (Sonic Youth)
18. Don't Believe the Hype (Public Enemy)

When I was in college at Oberlin, I was playing the Edie Brickell & New Bohemians CD in my dorm room with my door open and a woman knocked on the door and then just stared at me looking puzzled, obviously listening to the music. Turns out she was from Dallas and knew the band from the local scene and hadn't known they'd made their major label debut. She let me copy a cassette she had of a demo that they sold at shows which had a lot of the songs on the CD. 

The Steve Vai song is an anachronism that I'm allowing under the circumstances. Times were changing in the mid-80s and Steve Vai's career was also in flux as he finished his stint with Frank Zappa and released his debut album in 1984 on cassette on a tiny label, but it went no where. CDs very quickly and suddenly burst in popularity as the consumer choice for audio recordings. In 1988, Vai's debut album was re-released on a different label and on CD and who knows when or if I'd come across the album if that hadn't happened. The CD had a 1988 copyright and that's why I always thought it was released that year.

And it was totally weird how the CD got to me. I was hanging out with Amina in her room (same dorm as mentioned above (Third World House), but I think at least a year later) and I dug the plain CD, no packaging, out of a crack in the wall panel where someone had jammed it. She had no idea who it was or how it got there. I recognized Steve Vai's name but knew next to nothing about him and she said I could have it. I ended up quite liking the CD (much of it being quite strange) and at one point played "Junkie" for Amina and she was like, "this is so painful!", laughing uncomfortably because it was such over-the-top, heart-on-sleeve heroin withdrawal despair. I'm chewing on glass but I don't even bleed. 

1987:
1. Moon (Rebecca) Japan (unofficial upload)
2. I've Got My Mind Set On You (George Harrison)
3. Never Let Me Down Again (Depeche Mode)
4. Shogunade (Ryuichi Sakamoto) Japan (unofficial upload)
5. Miuzi Weighs a Ton (Public Enemy) (official audio)
6. Time Stand Still (Rush)
7. Who Needs Information? (Roger Waters) (official audio)
8. Tux On (Marillion) (official audio)
9. Drink Before the War (Sinead O'Connor) (official audio)
10. Telephone Call from Istanbul (Tom Waits) (unofficial upload)
11. Tom's Diner (Suzanne Vega) (unofficial upload)
12. The Funky Avocado (live) (Michael Hedges) (unofficial fancam upload)
13. In God's Country (U2)
14. The Painted Desert (10,000 Maniacs) (audio only)
15. 世界でいちばん熱い夏 Sekai de Ichiban Atsui Natsu ('92 mix) (Princess Princess) Japan (unofficial upload) (official video)
16. Here On Earth (Love and Rockets)
17. Beds Are Burning (Midnight Oil)
18. It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (R.E.M.)
19. 終わらない歌 Owaranai Uta (The Blue Hearts) Japan (unofficial upload)

1986:
1. Kiss (Prince)
2. Walk Like an Egyptian (The Bangles)
3. Willie the Wimp (live) (Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble) (unofficial upload)
4. Wild Wild Life (Talking Heads)
5. Who Made Who (AC/DC)
6. V Thirteen (Big Audio Dynamite)
7. A Kind of Magic (Queen)
8. You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon)
9. Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel)
10. 大 きな玉ねぎの下で Under the Big Onion (Budokan) (Bakufu Slump) Japan (unofficial upload)
11. Fall On Me (R.E.M.)
12. Blue Chair (Elvis Costello & the Attractions) (official audio)
13. She's An Angel (They Might Be Giants) (official audio)
14. There is a Light That Never Goes Out (The Smiths) (official audio)
15. Left of Center (Suzanne Vega)
16. Don't Get Me Wrong (The Pretenders)
17. Green (Throwing Muses) (audio only)
18. Another Day (live) (Sting) (official audio)
19. Dear God (XTC)
20. The Brazilian (Genesis) (unofficial upload) (computer re-creation of the lightshow, pretty much how it looked)

1982-1985

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So Bobby Burgess wrote on May 4, 2008:

top fears and doubts (unordered):

• i meet my father and find out he has no qualities i admire and strive toward. i've only met him a couple times. haven't talked to him since high school. a couple months ago he mailed me a check for $5000 and invited me to visit in nicaragua. i'm flying there in july.
• my not being career-minded will me leave me destitute in someone's garage, wasting away in a bathrobe watching game show reruns.
• i die before my mother.
• my teeth rot and fall out. my teeth are fine now, but sometimes i want extract them with pliers so they can never turn black and crumble. ugh.
• i break sarah's heart. i met sarah in georgia while at a training seminar for my job. she's gooey sweet with the cutest southern accent, but...
• i'm too insular, isolated. i sit around and think too much. i don't go out. i wander around alone, wondering about stuff, looking at clouds and ferns.
• i'm too american, too industrialized. this culture shapes me more than i realize. i invest in mutual funds. you know what that makes me? that makes me the man. i own a sliver of every major company. yes, i recycle and conserve electricity in my house, but i own all the corporations that rape this planet and exploit people's brain chemistry. i am a CEO of destruction. so i can grow my savings 8% to 10% a year.
• i exhausted my creative drive in my early 20s. i don't know. i used to take a hundred pictures a day, but a lone weed growing through a chain link fence isn't that profound to me anymore.
• sasha died thinking she made a mistake. sasha was my obstinate rottweiler puppy back home. she died from an abdominal infection after being spayed. heartstabbing, yes, but you have to accept that. i did. many months later. but i'm scared that when she was writhing in her death throes in the corner of the basement, she thought it was her fault, or that she did something wrong. you didn't do anything wrong, sash. it was just germs.
• i'm not having enough sex. my sex-having is probably average, but it could be above average. hot young sex! all the time! yeah!

Bouncing off his post:

• I know my father and I don't want to say he has no qualities I admire and strive towards, but I probably have to. He's effectively retired, but my mother forces him to do a little work at the office so he doesn't fall over dead. He's old and acts it and has ignored my entreaties to write down his story to keep his mind sharp in his old age, and because for god's sake no one knows it. His children sure don't, and when he goes, a lot of his value, meaning his life story stored in his brain, will also disappear like a hard drive crashing with nothing saved. I don't want the story for myself, but for 1) his memory; 2) his grandchildren, who should have access to this piece of their family history. My parents always pay my travel expenses when I visit, otherwise I likely wouldn't go.
• My not being career-minded has left me metaphorically destitute in someone's garage, watching game show re-runs, but I'm still more glad that I paid attention to the things I considered important to life, rather than being career-minded.
• My goal is to die before my mother, otherwise my life will have been a waste.
• My teeth rot and fall out. My teeth are fine now, but they shouldn't be. I don't take care of them. I realize how lucky I am to have healthy teeth, but even so, I know that won't last forever. Or even necessarily for much longer. I see the human condition in the metaphor of teeth.
• I'm not afraid of breaking anyone's heart. No one's interested in letting me handle theirs, but...
• I'm too insular, isolated. I sit around and think too much. I don't go out. I wander around alone, wondering about stuff, looking at clouds and ferns. And walking through the candy store.
• Maybe I'm not very "american". I don't invest, I pay off my credit card every month. I just read Maxed Out and I'm useless to the credit card company. But I treat them like a legitimate business so that they can go about their real business of making sure many "americans" are perpetually in debt. I don't have savings to speak of. Whenever I've saved something, I consequently quit my job and spent it. I'm thinking of doing that now again. I guess, here, "american" means "capitalist", which means screwing someone or getting screwed.
  
• I exhausted my creative drive in my late-20s. That's arguable. But it's alright. What I've lost in creativity, I've replaced with appreciation, whether it be seeing things in movies other people don't see, or K-pop girl groups, or 30 Rock, or my 14,500 song strong iPod.
• Sesame died in Amina's care. And she did. And I don't even remember if it was Sesame. I had so many gerbils in college. When Amina told me, I just felt bad that I had put her in a position that she had to tell me my gerbils had died.
• I'm not having enough sex. Wait, I'm not having any sex. I'll never have sex again. And I probably won't. Deal!

Salma Hayek: I cannot marry him because of a terrible secret. Please don't ask me what it is.
Tina Fey: I won't. I don't want to know. Are you a man?
Salma Hayek: Really? That's your guess? A man? Do you want to see me naked?
Tina Fey: Kinda.

It's been a while, I think, since I had an Amina dream. I keep a recorder on my night stand because of the idea that I should be recording my dreams, but alas, I haven't been using it, even during last month or the month before when I was getting ridiculous amounts of sleep, enough to remember dreams upon waking.

But I awoke from this dream and started reviewing it mentally and had the presence of mind to reach for the recorder.

I think recording dreams is better than writing them down, because recording dreams allows you to stay in a muted state of consciousness and spontaneously reflect on what you remember about the dream.

Writing dreams down requires heightened conscious brain functions that might influence the final recollection of the dream. Indeed, from when I did this before, there were times that I would revisit a recording, and there would be stuff that I didn't remember at all.

In this dream, Amina and I had just gotten together. She was exactly who she was so many years ago when we did get together, my feelings for her were exactly what they were so many years ago, but I was who I am today.

The surrounding cast of characters were some people I know now, some I'm not sure of, and the setting was unfamiliar. I don't know where it was.

In the dream, we had just spent some time apart, and we were in a room talking, and it wasn't really clear that we were together, but it was clear there were feelings between us. We were enjoying being back together and being with each other.

She mentioned something about Mars, whether I had seen Mars rising underneath the Moon. We were in this room late at night because I had been out late. I asked her what time and she said after midnight. I was surprised that she was asking this because I didn't think she had an interest in astronomy or what was going on in the night sky.

I asked her why she knew about where Mars was and she said that (during our time apart) she had met someone who had written a book on astronomy and they had talked about it, and that's how she knew. I thought that was great. I'm always happy meeting people with an interest in astronomy.

Then the dream switches slightly and it's still late at night, but we're about to go to sleep on a very large bed, and there are also a bunch of other people there. We're about to go to sleep on the left side of the bed, other people would occupy the other parts of the bed, and at this point the feeling was very clear that we were together and enjoying each others' company.

One of my current co-workers is there and he notices us and realizes that we're together and makes a questioning gesture to that effect, and Amina is like, 'yea', and I'm like, 'yea, who woulda thunk someone like her would go for someone like me'.

I remember thinking, 'There's sure going to be a lot of people on this bed'. Some other guy, maybe someone else I've met in Taiwan, but he has no further role in the dream, is stretched out along the foot of the bed. Some other people were on the right side of the bed, but then they disappeared.

The dream switches slightly again, and we're still about to go to sleep, but we're in the back of my old car, which is the same size of that large bed, meaning it's still basically the same space we were in. It's just Amina, me and that co-worker there.

Actually, there was something right before that transition. The other people in the room were getting the room ready for all of us to go to sleep, and Amina and I were lying on the bed chatting, not in anyone's way, with the understanding that we would put everything away in the morning.

In the back of the car, it starts pouring rain, so I quickly reach over to pull down the glass hatchback window. She says, 'quick, drop the radio!'. I have no idea what she's talking about, but she says, 'quick, drop the radio, that's what you're supposed to do if you're in a car that's not running in a rainstorm'.

I'm like, 'what? I've never heard of that', but she repeats, 'yea, quick, drop the radio!'. My co-worker jumps under the dash and does something to it - ostensibly 'dropping the radio'. She explains what it means to drop the radio, and I'm trying to make sense of it, asking if it has something to do with grounding the car in case of lightning, and she says, no, the car is already grounded, tapping the dash, and I'm just like, 'OK, I'd never heard of that before, but of course there are things I don't know'.

I think this part of the dream was subconsciously referencing and acknowledging my general arrogance. How does she know something I don't know about? Why doesn't everyone know everything I know about? But I'm working on it, getting rid of that arrogant attitude, and I think the dream was addressing that, too. It's just not natural yet, it's still a cognitive step. I'm aware of the arrogance and that there's something wrong about it.

Mind you, I have little to be arrogant about. Except at work, maybe, where I can't believe some of the mistakes they allow to go to final print. DOH!

The aspect of the dream changes then, and we are in the car because we were on some kind of honeymoon, some bohemian roadtrip before I went back to start working for my parents (which is a current reality which my parents are pushing me to do).

The last scene in the dream felt like it was in the same physical space, but instead of the car or the bedroom, it was in a kitchen, and the co-worker was still there (he might represent Amina's current husband, come to think of it).

She had just cooked dinner and was wondering if it was alright that she wasn't working and was just being housewifey, and I said it was cool and that working for my parents, everything was stable, and she should do whatever she needed to do to settle down. If she wanted to work, that was fine, if not, also fine.

This part of the dream might have been referencing my oldest brother's situation, where there are tensions regarding their roles. In the dream, I was still doing music and wanting to work on music after coming home from work, but also feeling I should be aware of and attending to Amina's wants and needs.

Remembering back to the first scene of the dream when we were alone together in the room and it wasn't clear we were going out, but it was the actual point where we were getting together and getting to know each other more deeply, I asked her what magazines she was into. I was inquiring about her interests, knowing that when I was growing up, I had regular subscriptions to Astronomy magazine, and that said something about me. She said she used to read "Sixteen", so that probably indicates that scene was supposed to be from way earlier, long ago in my past.

I came out of the dream with the feeling that everything was going great, and everything would continue to go great. Uh, yea.

"They say that when you meet the love of your life, time stops." - Ed Bloom (older), Big Fish

For me, time only stopped for one person. Only one person I remember perfectly vividly the first time I laid eyes on her. Only one person made such an impression that she was seared into my memory. I remember what she was wearing, the length of her hair, the direction she was walking, where we were, and the very specific words that crossed my mind, "...most beautiful woman I've ever seen". I'd call that time stopping.

Josephine, I can probably pinpoint pretty close to the day I met her, but only because we met during a Summer semester in Thailand, and that arrival had a definite date that I probably have recorded in black & white archives. But no recollection of an exact moment.

Shiho, I should. I saw her picture in my brother's yearbook before I went to that school and met her. I was into all things Japanese at that time, and still no recollection of when I first met her. Time definitely didn't stand still. Not until years later, at least, when she left. And I had already met her, so that doesn't count. Time stopped for a different reason.

Hiromi, I'm surprised I don't remember since I'm sure I thought she was gorgeous the moment I saw her. But truth to tell, I see a lot of people I think are gorgeous the moment I see them, and time doesn't stop. And time didn't stop for Hiromi. She did have her other significant impact, though, which is if I could go back and re-live a period of my life, it would probably be the semester with her, when dear friend Amina was in Dublin.

Nope, and no one else. So what was that and what happened? Just plain stupidity maybe. I think Amina would love that movie, too, with its treatment of narrative and multiple layers. But that was a long time ago, what do I know about her now? I think I'm gonna hunt down the DVD at Blockbusters so I can see it without commercials. I remember when the film came out, I wanted to see it because it looked interesting and very different from Tim Burton's other films, and it used Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" in the trailer. But I think 2 other films at that time also were using it, and that kinda ruined it.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2:30 p.m.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 3:02 a.m. - Maishuai Bridge #1. Night riding.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8 - Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super.

Nanjing E. Rd., Sec. 5 looking east.

What are we if we are just our memories?

What are we if we don't have our memories? If our memories have no bearing on reality?

I was wrong when I said Josephine was gone for good. Josephine, ex-girlfriend from 10 years ago, having found me through one of my fotologs, then disappeared for several months, has reappeared with a new fotolog of her own and has started posting her own photos.

I thought I shut down any possibility of us meeting up again, but I oddly opened the possibility of her coming to one of my band's gigs. Her coming to a gig would mean something on the lines of meeting up again. Curious. How did that happen?

Who are you? What are you doing here?

It's alright. Anything that might let me connect with . . . something that might have seemed real before . . . .

If it were Amina, I don't know, just some strange immersion? I call her the love of my life but there's nothing there anymore. It's totally irrational now. If it's a past life thing, I think that she was a stranger I happened to pass upon and then subconciously internalized in some quasi-obsessive way, and then pursued in this life having run into her.

Losing her was only natural. It wasn't based on anything real. Nothing deep, nothing meaningful. It was all one-way. It wasn't reciprocated in the way something with meaning should. She never returned, so there was never a circle. Circles are all-important in nature.

If it were Shiho, . . . she did go deep in this lifetime. She had the advantage of years and music over Amina. I recently saw the movie Linda! Linda! Linda!, which has become one of my favorite films for more than one reason. The least of which was one of the minor characters plays a song on stage that when I heard, I immediately recognized but didn't know what it was.

I knew I knew it because I could hum along to the melody and knew what was coming next. A perusal of the end credits and a web search and then a limewire download revealed to me that I had the Unicorn song on a cassette tape in New Jersey in a box of Shiho-things when we used to send mix tapes to each other.

A night spent on YouTube looking up music related to songs Shiho Nakai put on mix tapes makes me realize how deep Shiho had gotten just using music. But using music to get through to me is more about me. The music still means something to me, but Shiho somewhere out there might have absolutely no feeling or relevant memory relating to me whatsoever.

More than half of what I looked up on YouTube, although maybe sourced in what Shiho introduced me to, was what I found on my own. Shiho does not get credit for that.

Shiho, out of sight, out of mind, is just a memory. Not real. Even with the music to haunt. Amina, out of sight, out of mind, is just a memory. Even with the pervasion into fabric. Josephine, in sight, in mind, is fucking scary, not something I can handle as something on the road in front of me.

As much as I loved Josephine, she was no Amina, she was no Shiho. That is totally fucked. I need to think about why.

What are we if we are just our memories?

So to sum up the last week, I moved to a new apartment. My old apartment was just outside the southern Taipei border in Xindian, and I moved to Songshan District in Taipei, off Nanjing East Road, Section 5 – way eastward, but not as far east as Taipei goes.

I live less than half a mile from the Key Lime River, where it bends east and heads out of town. Well, where it flows into town, actually. Across the river is Neihu District, which everyone considers "far" (even people who live in Neihu (this is before the MRT brown line extension into and through Neihu -fut. ed.)).

I like it here in my new place, verging on loving it. I wonder how long this honeymoon will last. So far, after a week, no nasty realizations, surprises or regrets, no dead rats like in the second place I lived. Quite the opposite.

Even the lack of internet and TV isn’t bothering me. Quite the opposite. I was thinking that internet is necessary, and I would probably crack and get internet service installed, but if a nearby café has free wireless, I’m gonna see how much longer I can hold out. I really like an apartment without internet. I was wasting so much time.

I thought I loved my old apartment, but maybe after a year of living in a place, I was stagnating. I needed this move and I didn’t even know it. Now I feel like I’m discovering Taipei anew. It helps that the sun came out for my move, and was out for a week before it started raining again today.

I even started running and riding after moving. I just couldn’t get the motivation to start my season before. I started with a measured 3 mile that I pushed, and established an average 7:25 mile. The idea being that now 7:25 miles are my goal as I extend my distances.

My second run was a measured 4 mile easy, and running easy I did it averaging 8:22 miles. The idea is that as I extend my distances, the average goal will be still be 7:25 miles, not easy for me once I’m doing 6 or more miles.

And then this ache in my gut. I want to blame it on the sit-ups I did as a part of my warm-up, but I think the ache started before I started running. My gut feels like a rock. I even played with the idea that it was alcohol related, and it’s getting serious now.

No joke, no game. If I don’t want to die soon, I need to stop drinking now. Immediately, and even that’s no guarantee I can turn things around. But don’t I want to die soon? That’s what I’m playing with.

Diem said her alcoholic uncle died when he was 34. Ritu died when she was 34, and even though it was a suicide, she was definitely alcoholic. There’s no way I can have been drinking the way that I have for the past 10 years, and not have a major problem looming. Girlfriends did curb my drinking, and it’s been that long since my drinking has been curbed. Like any practice, my drinking has improved.

Josephine was my last girlfriend. She actually found one of my fotologs a few months ago and started leaving me comments. Then she just as abruptly stopped. I think she’s gone for good now.

She hinted at meeting up, but I neutralized that. And it was after I mentioned that I never want to have kids and was principally opposed to it that she stopped leaving comments. She had an 18 month old son.

I actually didn’t get her current situation clear. She said she had married after we broke up and she returned to Taiwan (our relationship was in San Francisco), but her husband was killed in an accident. That happened long before the 18 months ago when she had this baby, so I don’t know if she re-married or what.

Anyway, we were able to express some things leading towards the closure we never had. She said she’s at peace, and that said a lot to me. If she said she was happy, that would say she was great and things were going well, and I wouldn’t want anything to do with her anyway. Why rain on her parade?

But she said she was at peace, and you only get to peace after going through an ordeal, a trial, and it sounds like she did that. I really loved her, and cared for her. It makes me think of the other people I loved and cared for, and who went on with their lives without me.

I assume they went on with their lives happily without me. I never considered whether they went through an ordeal like Josephine did. I assumed Amina and Shiho were perfectly happily married with careers and popping out babies. That always pissed me off. But what if they weren’t? What if they went through ordeals, what if their husbands died?

I would much rather be pissed off and they be happy, than them having to go through what darling Josephine went through. The pitfalls of losing contact with people you love, even exes.

I was reminded of Amina when I moved. Once when I moved in Oberlin, when we were still “just friends”, she came over and helped me clean my new place. From that, I got it in my head that a new place isn’t home until it’s given a proper cleaning, until I’ve put my hands over all the surfaces. So I came a day in advance to clean before I moved.

It seems my apartment was designed for a left-handed midget. Everything seems to be on the wrong side of where I want it. And low surface areas. Or maybe the surfaces in my old place were unusually high. I stoop to make coffee.

random memory:
Amina: Do you want some coffee?
Me: Um, sure.
Amina: Great, can you make me a cup, too?

I'm glad that just about the only thing I remember Amina saying still cracks me up.

SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 5:20-5:21 p.m. - Farewell old apartment.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 10:09 a.m. - Hello new.

1:30 p.m. - Taida main library stitch.

2:24 p.m. - Maishuai Bridge #1 and Taipei 101.

FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 9:43 p.m. - Just what Taiwan needs. Hyper-caffeinated white men as role models for our kids.

SUNDAY, MARCH 9 - Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super. New neighborhood riverside park photostroll:

MARCH 10, 6:09 p.m.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

I'm in a relatively calm space these days, having taken a leave of absence and visiting family in Kaohsiung.

I went on a bus tour in Central Taiwan for 3 days with my aunt and a tour group related to my uncle's business, and was supposed to leave tomorrow for another 3-day trip to Kinmen Island in the Taiwan Straits tomorrow, but I managed to cancel on that trip.

It's a family thing. Travelling with my uncle is never a smooth affair, and I really need to learn what I already know – never travel with him. I came down to Kaohsiung with a mild cold, so I went to bed early, and a little while later, my uncle comes in and tells me he's not going on the Central Taiwan trip. OK, it's not changing anything major, and he does tend to nag, so there are tangible pros to his not going, balancing out the cons.

The next morning I find out the Kinmen Island trip is postponed because of certain of his responsibilities, which makes me happy because I'm already foreseeing becoming batty by these travels. I start re-adjusting my plans. Then during the trip, I'm told the Kinmen trip is back on, my uncle doesn't have to stay in Kaohsiung during that time, and I almost plotz. Not happy. Fortunately, one of my aunt's friends who was on the trip decided she would like to visit Kinmen, so she took my spot, and I'm free to head back up to Taipei tomorrow to prepare to go to the U.S. next Tuesday.

During that bus trip, I had Amina dreams both nights, which I've already noted is an unusual occurrence. I didn't have a recording device with me so I have absolutely no details about the dreams aside from that they were Amina dreams.

One thing about one of the dreams I do remember was that there was another woman involved. It was someone I didn't recognize, but it was someone I was apparently possibly getting involved with while Amina was still a presence. But just as a friend, and I remember in the dream thinking that regardless of how I felt about Amina, priority goes to this other person with whom something might actually be happening. The only image in the dream I remember is lying on a bed with this mystery woman for the first time, and at one point my head coming to rest on her arm. Her not pulling away was an indication that there was something forming between us.

Later in the day, recalling the dream, it was with a bit of horror that I realized the mystery woman might have been a younger version of my aunt's friend, the one taking my place on the Kinmen trip. She speaks pretty good English and we did have a bit of a bonding moment in a discussion the first night. And on the second night at dinner, she came over to our table a few times to get food, and inappropriately pressed up against me while leaning over. At one time it was the front of her hip pushing against my arm, and I was thinking, "um, this is definitely inappropriate touching", but I didn't pull away from it.

As many of you don't know, although friends in San Francisco might, I have this thing about attracting older woman. I'm sort of a Granny Whisperer. Perhaps a future Max Bialystock in "The Producers", schtuping the old ladies on the Upper East Side for investment money.

To her credit, although in her 50's, looking past the facade of age, she did have a light of life in her that attracts me. A liveliness, a zest, a passion. And in the dream, it was definitely a 20's or 30's version of her. I emphasize I do not have a granny fetish. Yuck. I don't even like using my granny gear on my bike.

The memorable feeling from the dream scene on the bed was how nice it was to fall in love or be in love, which is totally counter my feeling in waking life. The idea of meeting someone and being mutually interested and falling in love fills me with dread. I think of the one thing leading to another and what do you end up with?

Not to brush aside the value of all the good things involved, but my emphasis ends up on the aging, getting sick, dying, loss, suffering.

Last night I met up with 姿慧 and found that she has scars and burns on her arm. I'm not thinking there are any deep parallels in our lives, I don't think her scars mean to her what mine mean to me, even though I don't know what hers mean to her, but I do think it's uncanny.

These scars are a point of connection between people who have them. I remember a co-worker at the law firm I worked at in San Francisco noticing my scars once, and then pulling me into her cube and showing me hers. We didn't say anything, we just grasped each others hands and smiled knowingly at each other. What we knew, I don't know, we just did.

I have a fantasy that's both a little violent and very intimate. Internally violent in ourselves, not a violence that is conveyed between two people. I want to coerce, pressure 姿慧 into showing me her scars, all of them, wherever they are. Pin her down lightly even, but always maintaining a safe atmosphere, and keeping a pulse on not pushing too hard, or going too far. Violent because the violence is already there. She could do the same to me if she wants.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2:47 p.m. - Cingjing sheep farm, Nantou County, in the central mountains of Taiwan

3:26-3:29 p.m. - Plenty of sheep and other wildlife.

3:36 p.m. - Euro-forming the mountains for tourists.

Sheep. Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super. 

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 7:41 a.m. - Day 2, Aowanda forest recreational area and Sun Moon Lake.

9:57 a.m.

12:25 p.m. - Very hairy driving on mountain roads. Inches to spare.

4:41 p.m. - Shooting out of my comfort zone in terms of subject matter. I also learned I can't do black and white landscape.

4:49 p.m. - Photos don't lie, this actually happened!

5:11-5:14 p.m.

Sun Moon Lake, Nantou County.

Wenwu Temple

My comfort zone is easy small life snapshots.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9, 12:11-12:14 p.m. - Last day. A Euro-style resort.

Ripples.