Well, we are finally into the second chapter of Arisugawa Park and to celebrate lets have a big dinner. These literary posts get surprisingly few reads so let me spice it up with a Bloom County comic that just about sums up the national mood among white people and bassalopes. Living on the Left Coast I guess we are spared the "Make America Great" cap (and shockingly crass Xmas ornament) but there are probably still a few closet Trumpists out there who deserve a lump of coal in their stocking. I have a major "quips" edition saved up, don't worry. 

​#endwriter #AriPark

There are those defining moments that everyone can recall. The Kennedy assassination works for the dwindling members of a certain generation. In tandem with that, shared memories when they first saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or heard that John Lennon had died. Nirvana was my generation's pseudo Beatles... 

I will say that I remember the first time I saw Teen Spirit (cast party for a high school production of Romeo & Juliet, drunk for the first time). By the time he died had given up on Kurt Cobain and the movement he represented. As progressive as he might have been, there was not a lot of hope in his music and that it was so popular was deeply disturbing––to him, at the end. I realized quick that grunge acolytes were proto-Trumpers and that little hope lay in the carcass-of-American-greatness in the currents of pop music. There were no wise, loopy Beatles to unify a generation. The splintering had begun.

The next defining moment of mass recollection would have to be 9-11. Despite the unspeakable tragedy involved, I was scarred less than most. Two months into a job that stretched nearly five years teaching English in Japan, exploring a culture unlike my own, I did not own a television or have Internet. I got my news from AFAN radio and was thus brought to a new reality by the quavery voice of Mayor Rudy Giuliani addressing live the people of New York, sounding very afraid. Learning of the towers' collapse, I was in a funk for a couple days but did not have the luxury of skipping a day of work. 
​
On the first day my Japanese students consoled me, on the second or third day 9-11 had ceased to be the prevalent topic of conversation. What was happening in their own country was of much more pressing interest, US events and Islamic threats were far from any known reality. I had to get over it, kick myself in gear, get past all angry thoughts of retribution that, as we know, festered in the American psyche for years and created demons that were not released in the long festering slog of Iraqi involvement.

Trump was also scarred by 9-11 and took it so personally that he turned his hatred inward, toward those within the country he held to blame. If Hitler had his months in the trenches to solidify existing prejudices into maniacal hatred, Trump had the destruction of what he felt he had constructed. A perfect world of money, steel, pussy, and concrete. The dreams of Richie Rich shattered

15 years later, give or take a month, I was a year into a tumultuous sojourn in the Philippines which saw populist fist-bumping Duterte elected and steered his country toward very dangerous shoals. I saw the ingrained habit of laughing at adversity and singing videoke turn into something much more volatile.... the gradual transition from democracy to dictatorial corralling of power.  It is a chilling process, having read enough history books to realize that what seemed remote, inconceivable, has happened all too often before. And that a critical mass of people have to suffer grave injustice before the masses wake up enough not to want it to occur again.
​
Even with these portents, I had a certain sense of ingrained optimism.  Of "fighting the good fight" through recording inclusive tribal flute deluxe Fabric - Chasing the Sun. I believed the establishment media enough to think that Brexit, Duterte, were isolated cases, that progress toward a greener, more equitable, more democratic tomorrow was not coming undone. 

On election day I was on a 12 hour ferry from Boracay to Manila, again unconnected, adrift. I took a long nap in my bunk, hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Woke up and they had a weak television signal and through the lines I saw the crowds, a female figure excitedly addressing the masses from a stage. "Ok as expected, Hillary won." A closer look on the way to the bathroom revealed this leader to be an imposter in drag, presiding over some inane Philippine game show. Two hours later, reawakening from nap, the words on the screen were unmistakably vivid "Trump President." The blood drained and never came back. And now I have come back to US and it is deja vu, the same feeling I had after Duterte was elected. All the previous certainties are gone,  a sense of the bull being let out in the ring before the bloodletting. 

#endwriter

Words on a napkin at Bamboo Grande with Nils, thinking of the rise of a certain type of intimidation as a focal point of government policy and the long shadow cast by generations past. The international resource extraction industry, stubbornly denying climate change, and yes armaments manufacturers are determined to have their way. They have won a great victory and the opposition is in disarray.

The earth will not allow it––foolish humans who think they will not get scorched by the sun.

Thank god for music. We create a song in a day at Strawberry Jam, working with Mark and Burn. The anchor, as per the conceptual imperatives of Fabric (let extended members define the moment) is Nils' rhythm. We build up a sound of gravel-voiced mystery, paranoia––counterpoint to chants of extended fervor, abiding hope.

Turned out I had jammed with Mark and Burn, as part of Talahiv, several months before in Malate at Cafe 512. Far as I can tell, they are the preeminent psych-infused tribal jam unit in Manila.

Diesel Christ directing traffic at the crossing,
Hasta la Vista Social Club, 
The drums of zealots, the cries of martyrs,
​My Fabric you are born.

How do you ask the elephant if it exists 
when it is already in the room?

Bringing a solid end to the Fabric - Chasing Sun recording odyssey. 

​#endwriter #ChasingSun

I just want to remind all you "incredible people," of the "very special" effort we are going to have to understand Trumpspeak in the coming years. No dream is too big.

I'll follow any guy with mutton chops.

Trump's response to the current surge in hate crimes (apparently exceeding the aftermath of 9-11) will be an important bellwether of his Presidency.

I read Michael Moore's article "5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win" 6 months ago and half dismissed it... well..

So basically... once you stop labeling it Obamacare you wind up with plain old math and hyper inflated medical industry costs... partially due to greed and partially to huge litigation awards and resulting insurance costs. 
​
Trade? Why golly, it is really automation to blame for deserting factory jobs. If Apple or Ford builds a new plant in the US it will not involve many humans working. 

It will be really interesting for Reps to learn that what they spent years vilifying was the system they created.*

I say... start growing your own vegetables, thinking beyond the current system, and don't fight Trump... see if he is smart enough to get out of all the boxes those who demand "change" (while expecting business as usual) have put him in. 

Actually... I would like to leave my rose-tinted glasses on but I hate to see us lose the last chance we really have to slow global warming. 

Acceleration is crazy likely to occur at this point.

#endwriter

Carolina Tiger's Milk. My cousins Peter and Paul along with some of the finest jazzers around. From Bullfrog to Maceo. No electronic beats or other cheats. Diversity thrives in NC state, despite the naysayers. Actually, this was the bonus "bootleg album" from about three years ago. Anyway it still rocks.

Check it on iTunes!

It has been quite a while, no doubt, since your last visit to the Bar Milwaukee. Here, another generous slice of Arisugawa Park a la mode.

​​“How’s life in the pen?”

“Same old cobwebs gathering––on the bright side, robins are starting to nest outside the window.”

“The path of the known recedes as stars arise.”

“Basho?” Hayao asked.

Yoshi shook his head and turned back to the counter with a slight smile. One of his originals.

“Know anything about last night at love hotel, unexplained bodies in the night?”

“I heard something, unknown victim and the assailant… she was either new in Roppongi or kept out of view. Maybe she worked in Ginza, Shibuya. You’re the first to come shaking the tree.”

“Any lurkers?”

“Not that I know of, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Does a shadow announce itself?”

“Basho?”

“Bruce Lee.” 

Hayao took a long sip and finished his beer. He had been hopeful of quick resolution, but nothing was nothing. Yoshi was on the alert now, something would surely find its way to him. Anyway, there were more bartenders, hostesses, and dealers to finesse as the night progressed.

“Game of billiards?” Yoshi asked, preemptively lifting his pool cue from its slot under the counter. Hayao nodded, “and another beer,” he said, taking out wallet and passing over a bill that accounted for ten drinks. Down payment. Yoshi did not provide change as their attention shifted to the wide table, rare pleasure in the crack of racked legions and the settling of balls into deep pockets.

A half hour later Hayao walked up the steps a little unsteady and braced himself––the wind had picked up, chilling semi-arthritic bones. As he walked down the street toward Roppongi Crossing a man in tan overcoat with unmistakable hammer nose rounded the corner––Kobayashi, his old batch-mate and one-time ally––one of the half dozen on whom suspicion had settled and never quite left when life went off the rails. There was just time for their eyes to meet, not quite enough time for a nod––no inclination on either’s part to stop.

​Hayao's persistent sense of drifting gave way to a sharp question, a kick to the system less than a block from the love hotel. Meeting accidental? Probably. Coincidence that they were both trawling the same streets? He thought not.

The album art to Fabric, as with the sounds themselves, took a path that could not have been predicted and reflects the assistance of a number of people: Aletheia, Dyck, and April, in a variety of locales. The music is not so varied and frenetic, it is a little misleading... but you cannot argue with art.

Whatever you think of the music...* this Yoko Ono quote makes perfect (fabric) sense.

“I come from the Asian tradition of making music with anything, almost like a warrior,” Ms. Ono said during a recent interview at her home at the Dakota, the red-brick redoubt on Manhattan’s Upper West Side where she has lived since the early 1970s. She nibbled a celery stick, sipped tea and offered a parable that reflected her approach to music. Recalling the tale of “a very famous Japanese warrior” who once welcomed a visitor, she said: “This guest asked, ‘How do you make music?’ There was a pan, which was sitting right in the middle of the irori [sunken hearth], and the warrior just took that and said, ‘This is my music.’ I thought that was beautiful.”

The election season is upon us and, as they said at Woodstock, watch out for that dude with the fake dreads....
​
"The president of one of America’s largest anti-government armed militia groups, the Oath Keepers, called on members last week to take part in undercover poll-watching under the moniker of Operation Sabot 2016. In a bizarre set of instructions to the group’s reported 30,000 members “That may mean wearing a Bob Marley, pot leaf, tie-die [sic] peace symbol, or ‘Che’ Guevara T-Shirt, etc,” Rhodes, who declined to be interviewed,wrote in an online callout to members."​

#endwriter #ChasingSun

* The laudatory review of "Why" somewhat sold me on the overshadowed merits of Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band (1970).