イタチ

I can play, too.

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 01:44:10 GMT

(For those interested parties.)

Not concerned with losing any sort of strategy (as if there is much at this point) I may as well put up my English Track Fall 2006 VA Draft Cast...since I should use this LJ for something:

Sakura: Michelle Ruff
Tomoyo: Rachael Lillis
Shaoran: Tara Strong
Meilin: Nicole Bouma
Yuki: Jay Hickamn
Toya: Kevin Collins
Fujitaka: Michael Kopsa

2 Extra Characters: TBD

Ruff played Tomoyo in the BZ! movie 2 dub, and obviously supremely well, but, of course, she'd be just as wonderful in her spunkier characterization as Sakura. Lillis, too, could play either of the two lead girls, but her soft, sweet and slightly but adorably deranged characterizations (say, like a younger Kanaka Ohno from Genshiken) fit Tomoyo perfectly. I really feel with these two actresses alone, this is the best cast I've ever been able to draft. Those two are so versatile I never have to worry about being short in some area of the cast.

I drafted Strong for Shaoran because I (and evidently a number of others) completely forgot about another favorite, Kelli Cousins. After I realized this I planned on grabbing Cousins and moving Strong to one of the extra characters, Spinel (though she'd be fun for Kero, as well, but I had Georgette Reilly ably cinched up for that already). Oh, well. Tara Strong is another amazingly versatile voice actress with experience in most of the characters up for casting in this draft. And her boy voices have range of their own, from ages 5 to 13, unlike many anime VAs who do that duty.

The rest are fairly self explanatory. Though more on Reilly, I really like her rough-talkin' and spunky approach to the Osaka-ben characterization--gives someone like Kero a whole lot of attitude and personality. She was my first choice for that role (same as Hickman and Bouma for their characters) and matched up the best in my head to the almost untouchable Aya Hisakawa original.

State of the Union

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:19:03 GMT

In the spirit of full disclosure (or just because other people are sort of doing it...) I guess I can give my status report on my current "fandom level".

I'm currently collecting three anime series: Hare+Guu, Ninja Nonsense and Fantastic Children. All about two to three volumes from being done. I'll of course grab the FLCL Ultimate Edition in November, but except for one thing, Ergo Proxy, I'll be taking a break from buying any other titles in the foreseeable future and focus a little on catching up on some titles I missed, like snatching that cheap L/R bundle Right Stuf has available.

Non-anime, too. The last Kids in the Hall season comes out next month as well as the fourth Loony Tunes set, and after that there's probably the newly announced Saturday Night Live first season, but movies are pretty much done after Disney's latest Robin Hood release and the Oldboy collector edition, also in November.

That's a big deal. I've never been anywhere near a prodigious buyer of anime and other DVDs, but I've been putting away $100 to $200 a month on it for probably five to six years straight. (Wow, that sounds...weird. Bad, too. But weird.) TV series I don't mind being on the lookout for; but like some others, most movies I'll pretty much be transitioning over to heavy NetFlix use and waiting to see how HD formats shake out. I'm happy about all that. Burn out is part of it, but when it comes down to it long term, as long term stands right now, I can't really afford to keep going as usual.

(And not that I've slackened too much on my first hobby: the graphic novels (manga, you name it) that I enjoy every week.)

One comment, on the subject of burn out. Ninja Nonsense helped. It was nice to find something so uninhibitedly crazy and funny to take my mind off of all the little annoying things in fandom. I remember The Daichis did the same thing for me last year. Fantastic Children, on the dramatic end, also helped to reintroduce some wonder and amazement that had been lacking. They also both have reminded me that I'm not simply becoming one of those dreaded older fans who makes the foolish assumption that nothing good is made anymore.

After all, it's not the art form that generally changes, it's us. If you can accept that, you have a better chance of finding something worthwhile in it again; or if it has to happen, finding a smoother and more forgiving transition out of the hobby. Denying it, however, makes for a very bitter divorce.

A spurious opinion...

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 08:21:46 GMT

...or another good title for a blog.

No, I don't feel superior, not in this particular circumstance. I do however feel somewhat vindicated, but in an empty sort of way.

Lesson of the day: there is a difference, though slight, between voicing an opinion and engendering incitement.

(Yes, I no longer have any new Galaxy Angel to watch so things are back to their normal cynical state.)

On plastic, blackjack and sweet-potato ravioli

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 07:42:37 GMT

Oh, dear.

Never much one for them before, I fear my fervent purchase for this little 4" Komaki Asagiri figurine from Kujibiki Unbalance (the original character design version from Genshiken, not the upcoming TV spin-off) at Anime Vegas has sparked a nascent desire for more little plastic and rubber approximations of two-dimensional fictional Japanese cartoon characters. Maybe it was because I happened to unexpectedly stumble upon the KujiUn figures amidst a sea of Naruto and Bleach merchandise; or maybe it's because, of three little individual figure packages left in the box, the very last one (of two I bought, with the third in-between being graciously purchased by geoduck) was the only one I really wanted, and it seemed, well, destined. (I could have simply bought the whole set of six figures as these !StoryImageFigure! toys are commonly sold. But hey. Oh, and the first figure I bought in Russian Roulette fashion was mushroom-fiend Tokino, by the way, which I certainly can't knock. Guess I should probably get Izumi now.)

I also procured a Takkun the Cat plushy from FLCL, but that one isn't threatening my sanity. Though I really should have tried to have Jennifer Sekiguchi pose with it for a photograph. Ah, well.

It was good to meet geoduck again, and arcitaka for the first time. Good conversation, and thanks again for the driving. The smaller from last year but no less varied array of voice actor and director guests were also very fun, and very funny. I did not this time have the opportunity to gamble with any of them (and in fact I didn't do too much gambling myself anyway--though I did come out ahead with the small funds I allocated for the purpose) but that was also because they seemed this year to disperse much more widely across the strip in an effort to disrupt the VA Scavenger Hunt.

Yes, the Wynn buffet is indeed par excellence.

Aaaaand...coming back from a four day break, online anime fandom continues to suck. But there are no shrieking teenage fangirls (at least not of the audible variety) so I can't complain too much.

Merrie Melodies

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 22:39:21 GMT

So that Wes Montgomery album from last entry? I loaned it to my dad, as I usually do, with the Prine and Mclean as well, but he grabbed the Montgomery liner notes immediately. When he used to live in New York back in the mid-sixties, he used to frequent the Half Note. He couldn't be sure, of course, but he could very well have been at that recording. He'd certainly seen Wes there a time or two. Kind of cool. Some of the people he'd seen in New York at that time were the ones who I was first introduced to in jazz growing up: Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Cannonball Adderly, George Shearing, The Modern Jazz Quartet.

And something completely unrelated... I was looking around You Tube a few days ago, which I hadn't really done before, except for a link here and there that people would point me to. So I did what was natural. Tried to rediscover my childhood. I was an 80s child throughout, so I looked for 321 Contact first (though only the intro is up there). Of course I became sidetracked with cartoons. There had been a thread in the Anime on DVD Off-Topic forum about the Disney 80s cartoon Gummi Bears, the show that kicked off the studio's TV animation resurgence for the next two decades. I thought I must have missed it when I was a kid, but watching the opening I suddenly realized I had watched it, but I couldn't remember much about it. From that time (mid-late 80s) I was more fixated on Voltron, Thundercats, etc. At least until my holy grail of cartoons from my younger days: Tiny Toons.

I literally hadn't seen a second of Tiny Toons in the last nine years or so, the last time I watched some of it in syndication on Cartoon Network. But watching the opening it was as if I had just seen it the day before. There's a good amount of TT material currently on YouTube, mostly the "music video" stuff the show excelled at (and the nightmarish licensing of which I imagine is the hold up on a DVD release) but unlike almost every other cartoon show from my childhood and middle-school years, this one didn't feel dated or too pandering for an adult audience. My oldest brother, 12 years my senior, used to watch it with me at the time, along with Batman:TAS, of course, and I see why. Like Gummi Bears for Disney, Tiny Toons was the marked resurgence of Warner Bros. animation, period, and the animators were going to make sure they kept the tradition going from the old Termite Terrace days: make cartoons not simply for kids, make them for ourselves (the animators, adults basically). Over a decade removed, I get many more of the jokes, and I see the history of the animation itself--I grew up with Saturday morning Looney Tunes that featured mostly the fifties shorts of Chuck Jones and Friz Freling, so I didn't get the relation of Tiny Toons to its progenitor, but now I see TT as being very much influenced in style and content from the classic Bob Clampett shorts of the thirties and forties, and they're even more appealing than the were when I first saw them.

It wasn't all perfect in retrospect, though. One YouTube short features the somewhat infamous episode of Buster, Plucky and Hampton getting drunk and literally killing themselves from one bottle of beer. An almost (or literally, I don't know) MADD-ordained morality tale not typical of Tiny Toons or WB animation in general and somewhat unfortunate. My own little scientific experiment: watching the short as a young middle-schooler, and now fifteen years later, I can say, no, I didn't get the "message" in the first instance. I understood it, of course, but I remember it as a bizarrely funny short (Buster to Plucky, driving a stolen police car: "So how does it feel to be driving while intoxicated?" Answers Plucky, "That's ridiculous. I don't know how to drive!") and not that it was supposed to teach me something. That sort of thing simply doesn't work for most kids, I think. (Ironically, I believe after a certain point that episode couldn't be syndicated once broadcast rule changes prohibited cartoon characters from appearing drunk.) But I suppose it depends on one's upbringing, mine being an open and honest respect for alcohol that made the "message" somewhat ridiculous.

But I'd like to end this suddenly long story with a confession: I always loved Babs Bunny. She was the first really compelling female animated character I had the pleasure of watching. Just watch what they did with her here.

She gets it on like the Easter Bunny

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:39:43 GMT

Not having bought much music lately, I hit Second Spin again a couple times over the last week. One rock, two mid-60s post-Bop, one country, and one collection of art song. If you like any of the other selections you won't necessarily like the "art song" one--I like both artists but its challenging stuff and the jury's still out.


Tom Petty: Highway Companion	Jackie McLean: it's time!	Wes Montgomery: Smokin' at the Half Note


John Prine: In Spite Of Ourselves	Brad Mehldau/Renee Fleming: Love Sublime

I have decided to collect every John Prine album, of course. Can't believe this is only my first one after hearing him off and on for years. This collection from 1999 with, as Prine says in the notes, his "favorite girl singers" is all classic and sometimes obscure "meetin', cheatin', & retreatin' songs". Good old country with the likes of Iris DeMent, Melba Montgomery and Connie Smith. His more folksy and rockin' music, full of wry humor, is what I'm more familiar with, but I can't help but love this, even though five years ago I probably would have not given it a second listen. (This entry's title comes from the album's title song, in classic Prine style, performed with DeMent.)

I did also pick up William Shatner's brilliant and excellent Has Been last month, by the way.

What else on the music front... I finally watched Princess Tutu Vol. 6 and I can now claim it a semi-success: it finally featured Romeo and Juliet from Serge Prokofiev, but unless I missed some earlier, no Stravinsky! (One might recall I wondered earlier how a show about ballet did not yet have any ballet music from one of its modern masters...) Oh, but the show and dub and whatever else was wonderful, of course.

Do you think you could break a twenty?

Sat, 19 Aug 2006 09:12:22 GMT

So Japanese retro blues rock band Samurai Delicatessen will be playing Anime Vegas. (SD manager to band: "Your first gig in the States will be in VEGAS, baby! Oh, did I mention it's a mid-sized anime convention full of teenage otaku who may or may not appreciate your music, not the Bellagio?") Well, they will be in Vegas no matter what.

They sound pretty fun from what I've heard of them. Stripped down throwback blues rock, bit of pop styling, but not too much. I'll check em' out. Question is:

Do I cosplay as John Belushi or not?

Minor Updates

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:49:09 GMT

The banality of the livejournal tempts me again. Inescapable, it seems.

A few things, as they come:

1.) Despite my gushing appraisal of the Tour de France a couple weeks ago, I'm not going to go into the whole Floyd Landis thing more than what I have in a thread about it on the AoD Off-Topic forum. I'll just wait. Football's started already and baseball's going strong so I'll probably forget about it after awhile anyway. Unfortunate situation all around, though.

2.) Since I finally have Princess Tutu volume 6 in my hands after its year and a half journey (even though I haven't watched it yet) I can drop the reference to its biggest "controversy" (the kind of controversy that deserves cynical quote punctuation) from my AoD signature. Of course, no one ever called me on its slight error all these months. "Duck, Duck, Kari", a reference to the child's game of "duck, duck, goose" with "goose" in Japanese, actually read more accurately as "duck, duck, wild goose". "Duck, Duck, Gachou" would have been more accurate. But after I realized my mistake it had been so long I didn't care much.

Maybe people just had no idea of what it meant in the first place, besides it being part of the Orange Duck Revolution.

3.) Hideyuki Kurata, creator of R.O.D and KamiChi and scribe for Battle Athletes, Now and Then, Here and There and a number of other recent popular shows will be one of two Japanese guests at the upcoming AnimeVegas. No, I will not bring up any of my criticism of KamiChu with him... Didn't know he did composition and screenplay on Akitaro Daichi's NTHT, though. Pretty cool, that might be worth inquiring about.

4.) Josei manga fans who are also dub fans might be few based on response to my Nodame Cantabile fantasy cast thread in AoD's English Track. Of course, the show not having been made yet might have something to do with that.

Speaking of, I think Haruhi is going to go to the one studio that has not been given a cast for the show: Blue Water. Yep. Some will cry, I'm sure, but I'll finally have an excuse to get a BW dub--something I've been eager to do.

5.) As usual, I am unhappy with the Dodgers, adversary of my Rockies all bitter season long. Though I expect LA to deservedly win the very hard-fought NL Western Division.

6.) Bang Zoom! producer Eric P. Sherman lurks in the English Track. Not a surprise, and he’s assuredly not the only so far invisible studio rep out there.

Pop goes the weasel: unmitigated opinion time

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 01:51:10 GMT

If it wasn't already apparent, there's a very good reason I use the ironic "unmitigated opinion time" title for these posts. I believe 30-40 percent of posts in a common on-line forum are wholly unqualified. Most are harmless, usually for fun or innocent ignorance or desire for inclusion, but more than a few are either sloppy, or worse, deliberate misinterpretations. The latter made according to unspoken, but painfully obvious and therefore pathetic agendas.

Just off the wire...

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 05:35:44 GMT

Though this is about three days late, I wrote most of it out last night and I may as well not waste it.

I left off last Wednesday, on my way out of town, with American cyclist Floyd Landis suddenly out of the Tour de France, already pretty exciting to watch this year and holding my interest even with the American seemingly done with. And the British Open in the golf world was starting the next day. On my parents' DVR I made to record the last four stages of the Tour plus the last (Sunday) round of the Open (used to be this vacation coincided with the US Open in June, now it's the British in July, and my dad can't catch a break--DVR has made that easier to take, assuming final day news accounts are steadily ignored, but he needs me to make the timers...) Good thing I recorded, absurdly, all four final days of the Tour instead of the traditionally staid 20th stage on Sunday, because it was all about Thursday. When I saw the Friday sports headlines, I couldn’t wait to see what really happened when I returned Monday night.

I wondered at the stories saying few Americans would watch the Tour de France this year because Lance Armstrong is now retired mostly because I doubted many Americans watched it even during his record run in the first place. I don't play the pity game some US soccer fans take saying that's a "shame", since it often comes off, to me, as a backhanded inference that Americans don't like sports in general if they don't like the "most popular sport in the world", which is patently ridiculous. (And I am a soccer fan, to note here, though I watched less of the Cup this year than I did the last, unfortunately.) But saying all that--many people did miss one of the greatest sports "come backs" in the history of any sport.

8:00+ minutes down in the 17th stage of the Tour, with the last and greatest hill climb left to ride, is nearly impossible to overcome. No, it was supposed to be impossible, period.

7 runs down in the bottom of the ninth inning (though my Rockies almost pulled that one off last month...and I’m starting to think it cursed them somehow with what they’ve done since).

10 strokes back of the last grouping in a major golf tournament on the last day.

28 points down with under 3 minutes in the NFL.

That's what Floyd Landis did last Thursday when he not only made back all but 30 seconds of his deficit on then race leader Oscar Pereiro, but roared ahead of the field and won the stage itself.

He clinches the enormous regained momentum two days later in a stunning time trial, winning the three-week Tour by 57 seconds. Watching stage 17's coverage and the double-takes of the lead pack as Landis reached them and beat them (he and his Phonak team didn't make the break until 8 minutes after the leaders sprinted ahead of the Pelaton) looked more like a scripted movie than real life. The expressions were right out of Breaking Away or American Flyers.

Beyond that, I was very impressed by OLN's coverage during the entirety of the Tour that I watched. They've really come on as a high-quality sports network. I'm so jaded and outright bothered by ESPN (and ABC sports in general) these days, so its nice to see the professionalism they put out and the people they've managed to hire. They're changing their name to "Versus" in September, however, I believe in an effort to reflect the content they serve now, away from the "bass fishing" stigma of "Outdoor Life Network". (Getting the NHL already made that oxymoronic enough.) Interesting thing though, is that the old audience OLN used to go for, the possibly stereotypical fishing and hunting NASCAR fan I think would have enjoyed, if many did not, the Tour de France. It's basically the same, watching it on television: a big group of racers bunched together for hours on end, then stringing out as leaders emerge, the occasional thrilling though sickening crash and amazing sprints to the finish. The egos and team dynamics are the same as well.

Oh, and Tiger Woods has won 3 out of the last 7 majors of the last two years. Now 11 total after a commanding finish Sunday. He's about as washed up as the sun is at providing heat and light. It was a compelling moment after his last putt--his father's death was on everyone's mind, and the media was close by to capture almost everything, tragic and beautiful as it was. But in a way, that's the legacy of Tiger and Earl Woods. In the golf world, Tiger pretty much grew up in the sport's media--his father a savvy promoter--and down to even past the end of Earl's life that continued, and will continue.

And the Rockies…well, I don’t have much to say about them right now. (Ohh, but my Broncos are going to win the Superbowl. I need to remember to make a bet on that in Vegas little over a month from now.)

Not so unmitigated opinion time

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 05:02:08 GMT

Walter Cronkite is still right, of course. The role of the press is not to protect the free speech of the public or even its own. Its role is to guarantee the public's right to know.

This fantastic abnormality

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:22:18 GMT

This is an annual or sometimes semi-annual ritual: leaving town for a few days without online access. Of course, for this life-long (for me) annual vacation time with my family for various stretches of time, that's the point. Into the mountains, no phone (no cell service without driving out of the valley) no TV. Those exist there of course, plus DSL, in the property owner's house, for instance, but there's no reason to seek the services out. The point being rest and relaxation and other attendant distractions from normal life.

Trips out we'll grab the newspaper every other day or so, or catch a brief recap in a sports bar out to lunch one day. This time that was important for two reasons, and the subject of a follow-up post later. Otherwise it's about not worrying, or, at least, not over-worrying about any of that. (I believe there was a small little border dispute somewhere in the Middle East as well, wasn't there?)

Back to that ritual, though: at least these days, it involves fretting over being disconnected from all this for more than simply a couple of days. But once I return and re-connect, I always wonder, deflated, why I would care so much. And for the first day back or so, even after "catching up" I don't like very much what I am seemingly an inescapable part of. Dependence is a funny condition, and not something inherent on things that make it easy, like certain narcotics or binge-drinking or simple addictive personality genetics; regular consumption of high-sugar or especially high-fat foods can trigger the condition ("cravings" are a big part of the fast food business, after all). Sometimes it ain't so bad: regular cardiovascular exercise for many people is a prime example. Or simply adrenaline--no matter the cause it's all "chemical" dependence, of course, as it hinges on the reactions and interactions of a multitude of chemicals in the brain. And so too is much of this virtual existence, teasing its users with fantastic approximations of otherwise mundane matters, or mundane adventures of fantastic abnormality.

On the other hand this is simply as much life as anything not connected to a fiber-optic backbone, as it weaves more and more into the logic and working of the world. But it's still damn annoying on occasion.

Liam O'Brien is my hero

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 21:48:41 GMT

Larissa Wolcott is playing Eimi in ADV's Comic Party Revolution. Good job by director Campbell for using the "Excel Connection". Plus Luci Christian as Mizuki, to me the Texas equivalent of Rachael Lillis, does make this more of a viable purchase.

But now it depends on who Taishi is going to be.

Other news: small mix-up in the May ADR vote. A vote was changed--before the deadline--and we missed it, simple as that. Not a big problem in the least, really. Once we're back to blind voting for the July vote this rough patch of trying to cram three months of Awards into two months of space just to get back on schedule should be behind us.

"No, I'm not. I should know."

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 09:33:33 GMT

I'm finally caught up on Oban Star Racers. Missed the first two episodes at first and went ahead and watched the third, but fortunately the first two were repeated a couple weeks ago, so I'm caught up through episode 6, awaiting 7. Have been watching them (rather, recording by DVR) on ToonDisney in their hyper annoying Jetix block. Maybe I'll try the premier slot on ABC Family on Sunday and see if at least the commercial breaks are less annoying.

Oban has cross-age appeal, of course, but it's being targeted to the younger crowd, teens and older children. But did the stuff I watched at that age have this much commercialization and flash and bang, each commercial yelling louder and pulsating brighter than the last in order to grab kids' wavering attentions? Before you answer--yes, actually, it did, I just never noticed it as much at the time. The three commercial breaks a half-hour, however, are annoying as hell, especially when it's during a show only designed for one or two. (Again, thank you, DVR...)

Oban is great, by the way. I love the English dub out of Vancouver by Airwaves. Chiara Zanni is now one of my favorites up there, and she's delightful to listen to. I only heard her previously as the excellent nut-ball Faina in Infinite Ryvius, but here I get to hear her more...positive side, or everything Faina was not, really. If TV premieres were eligible for the ADR Awards I'd vote for her. (Of course, if/when it comes out on DVD it will be eligible if I still have a say in it.) Ron Halder as Don Wei is great, as well. And I love the animation so far, spontaneous and vibrant, with original and oddly fluid design. Only drawback is that generic replaced OP song for the English version.

Can't remember the exchange exactly, but the quote above is Molly talking to Setis (Brian Drummond), the servant of the mysterious race organizer Avatar, when she was feeling dejected and unimportant. Setis says, "You're too young to think that way." And Molly responds accordingly. I love that she acts exactly as you'd expect a 15 year old to act, even down to her relationship with her father.

"Ei-mi Oh-ba!"

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:21:24 GMT

Even though, to me, I think, my last post has generated good conversation, a favored occupation of mine, the first line looks like I'm beating a quickly dying horse, doesn't it? My apologies. The reappearance for me of a certain poster on AoD resembling a dessert confection and a mythical creature sparked the already formulated responses that followed. I'm always pretty good at ignoring pesky people, but blogs are a dangerous outlet, I've found. Something I'll want to watch for from now on.

But speaking of AoD, the guessing game for ADV's Comic Party Revolution has started in the English Track. And it makes me sad at first. But then watching Slayers: The Motion Picture last night for, I don't know, the fifth or sixth time (this time with the Martinez/Manison/Greenfield commentary which I had wanted to finally get to) I was reminded that I do sometimes like to hear multiple takes on a single character, whether it's Ortiz/Martinez with Lina or Cesario/Marlowe/Stevens with Belldandy. It's sometimes a great and fun opportunity. So I might check the show out eventually, but it's not a priority.

I am however amused by all the choices of Larissa Wolcott for Eimi Ohba. Awesome.

Unmitigated Opinion Time

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 23:51:33 GMT

Seriously, CMX haters, get over yourselves.

The word "boycott" should be boycotted when it applies to a luxury. It is soulless sloganeering and lacks any meaning of true sacrifice or an honest attempt to cooperate for a solution.

I also don't like how the word "censorship" is used in reference to what publishers have done or continue to do. Words that loaded and important, like "fascism", should only apply to their worst and most apt examples in today's overloaded information age, in this case: the removal or restriction of material by those in a position of lawful power, i.e., the government. Characterizing the former as being on the same level as the latter dangerously weakens the warning inscribed in its meaning, history and widespread execution throughout the world. But I'm sure I already lost this battle.

In other news, my baseball team limped into the All-Star break out of nowhere, and the AL won the All-Star game, continually proving that people who institute ill thought-out ideas in an effort to deflect criticism of their waning administration should be right out. (And I was referring to Bud Selig and the World Series home field advantage provision--jeez, who'd you think I was talking about?) Back to the game, I just hope Trevor Hoffman can keep collapsing like that when the Rockies play his team the rest of the season...

Drum soloooo!

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 22:54:49 GMT

Random opinion of the day: I just don't like drum solos in jazz. In the thousands of pieces I've heard, barely a handful don't ruin the song almost entirely by wrenching me out of it with an almost egotistical display of random disconnected drumming prowess that often has no connection to even the general rhythm of the song, let alone the melody or anything else--which being drummers they can't do anyway. Want to be in the rhythm section and solo? Play bass. This is one of the points of my rocky relationship with listening to drum great, Art Blakey.

There are, of course, numerous 5-10 second breakdowns that work wonderfully. As for solos I like? One always comes readily to mind. Joe Morello on Take Five from The Dave Brubeck Quartet's famous Time Out album, and other Brubeck/Desmond tunes. But Morello in general with his trademark polyrhythmic style is one of the very, very few drummers who I think "gets it" with a rhythm solo in jazz.

(This also excludes drum solos in rock, which are awesome. See title and go watch Wayne's World.)

Anyway, I hit a local used CD store I often use yesterday, the Denver branch of Second Spin out of California...

I've heard plenty of the horror stories from people trying to sell used DVDs and CDs to them online (which all go through their main store in California) but I've never had a problem in person with them, and they're the only place in town where it's actually a pleasant experience to shop for used stuff. Anyway, they were having a 20% off sale of all used CDs and I had a little luck.

I can cross Blood Money off my 'Tom Waits to buy' list, as well as that John Hammond Jr. Wicked Grin album. Hammond Jr. (son of Legendary (with a capital 'L') producer/scout John Hammond) I don't believe I'd heard anything from before, except on a couple radio blues shows, but he's quite good. Wicked Grin, made up of all Waits songs, was also produced by Waits and are some of the better versions of his compositions I've heard. Bluesy and gritty. Much recommended for Waits and blues fans in general.

Looking for something else, I also stumbled upon a good version of Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, replete with the Khachaturian Violin Concerto. Never had a version of either before, and since I could get it for about $5.60 I figured it was a good deal. This is one of the RCA Victor "Living Stereo" remastered releases of some of their classic recordings, this time of Fritz Reiner's stint at the Chicago Symphony from 1959. It was back when Nevsky, and many other things, had its choral parts in English instead of Russian, but that's okay for me, and this sounds very good. I suppose I now might want a latter recording of Nevsky, in Russian, to go along with it. Need to get around to finally seeing the movie while I'm at it. The Violin Concerto is with Leonid Kogan as the soloist and Pierre Monteux with the Boston Symphony from 58', and sounds very good despite what that second Amazon customer review says in the above link.

I obviously need more Aram Khachaturian, I've always known it.

Big in Japan

Sat, 08 Jul 2006 22:56:55 GMT

I was in the middle of writing a post here late last night about something music related, partly inspired by martialstax's recent post about his jazz philosophy when I accidentally deleted the whole thing. But in the midst of it I realized how little I actually know about most of the music I've always listened to. It was going to talk about how I'm getting back into buying more music now (DVDs and graphic novels supplanted the musical passion for a number of years, but I'm trying to balance things out again), and how I'm in the habit of focusing on a couple artists at a time and collecting most of their catalogues with a half-crazed completionist bent.

It reminded me of the artist I started doing that for, Oscar Peterson; but I soon realized how little I have even of him, and probably not even those recordings I would love to have more than what I have now. (In-sort-of-short-fashion: collecting Oscar starts with my favorite recording of his, Benny Golson's excellent composition, I Remember Clifford, off his London House Sessions, which I went searching for last night online since the only recording I have of that is off of one of Polygram's old Compact Jazz compilations, Oscar Peterson Plays Jazz Standards, one of the three CDs, with Kind of Blue and Time Out that defined jazz for me growing up. But once I found that I stumbled onto Peterson Trio recordings I should by all rights have had by now, The Oscar Peterson Trio at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival and At the Concertgebouw, both featuring the Herb Ellis / Ray Brown version of his trio in their finest.)

My love of piano jazz comes from Peterson, of course, and in the future I'll have to go more into that, from Bud Powell and Horace Silver to Monty Alexander, Brad Mehldau and The Bad Plus, among others.

But all that wasn't even supposed to be the point of the original post. Tom Waits was. He's the guy I'm in the serious process of buying every album he's made. Though so far I have but nine, in chronological order:

Closing Time
Heart of Saturday Night
Nighthawks at the Diner
Small Change
Swordfishtrombones
Rain Dogs
Mule Variations
Alice
Real Gone

Favorite so far? Mule Variations. One of my top favorites of the last decade--title of this piece is the first track. Nighthawks is a sentimental favorite, though. But I'm almost half way there. Which means I need the following:

Foreign Affairs
Blue Valentine
Heartattack and Vine
One From the Heart (soundtrack)
Franks Wild Years
Big Time (live, best of)
Night on Earth (soundtrack)
Bone Machine
The Black Rider
Blood Money

And probably also John P. Hammond's Wicked Grin while I'm on it, all bluesy renditions of Waits' tunes. And when I'm caught up on Tom, I'll find some other artist I should have more of, maybe Yes or Dylan. And after getting a couple (great) Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros albums a month back I realize I have no freakin' Clash. Probably follow that journey from there, too, go onto The Smiths or something. Like to restart my classical section, too. More Brahms. And anime-crack show, Princess Tutu reminds me for more Stravinsky (unless there's some in the sixth volume, how do you not have any Stravinsky in a show about ballet!?) plus other modern composers.

For my possible Seattle area readers...

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 04:10:43 GMT

Wow. I didn't expect that. Josh Fogg was incredible. 2 hit complete game shut-out. Faced the minimum. Did so in the shortest game in Rockies history. And Safeco history, I believe. I mean, the pitching's done well this year, but this was the best so far.

And with Moyer for the Mariners having a pretty good game himself. Great pitching duel for most of the game.

Ahem, anyway. So much for talking about only on line activities.

Unmitigated Opinion Time

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:42:31 GMT

I really like CMX. Their sudden and continued appearance on the AoD Manga forums a couple months ago in an official capacity, along with the introduction of an appropriate rating system and other positive production changes show a company that has listened and is willing to adapt and move forward positively.

This, of course, will not do for some.

I have more written, but it was even more weasely than a journal titled "weasel" needed.

The image here is not Scott Pilgrim related, but it is otherwise self-explanatory for this subject. And Yotsuba cures all ills.

Unmitigated Opinion Time

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:04:34 GMT

I actually enjoy respecting people with wildly different or opposite opinions to my own. It's my centrist nature. But those I do not respect are those who do not think for themselves, who live by dogma alone, who follow a simple play-book and ignore all but the most validating perspectives.

Fools, by one name. Cowards by another.

Speaking of this sort of post, I have at least a temporary title. Read the subtitle and the title of the Friend's page and you'll figure it out. It's in Japanese because most of this journal will be talking about my activity in the realm of Japanese cartoons and comics, so Japanese characters are, you know, cool and stuff. They also hide somewhat the stupidity of the title, except to those who read Japanese, which includes the nation of Japan. So I only look stupid to around 130 million people, very few of which will ever read this, so I think I'm okay. As the title of a blog, it was inspired by a tongue-in-cheek comment martialstax made a short time back.

EDIT: Oh, and that image there, continuing with Scott Pilgrim, is crazy Chinese-Canadian teeny-bopper, Knives Chau.

Down the rabbit hole

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 00:19:06 GMT

I hadn't desired a livejournal or blog of any kind, really. But then I had to suggest the idea of something for the Anime Dub Recognition Awards (adr_awards) to my fellow administrators, mordath and benphillips, both lj regulars, and put myself into the position of needing an account just to help with that. So here I am. When updated here, I'll most likely constrain content to my online activities, so for all those curious about my real life as an international political operative to the stars and ridiculously successful author will have to wait. Until any of that actually happens.

Avatars/userpipcs/etc. Always liked making these things. Here I'll take on a new theme for the time being: Scott Pilgrim. The awesomest awesome comic ever made. Specifically the girls of Scott Pilgrim, starting with my personal favorite, Kimberly "Kim" Pine, drummer of Scott's band, Sex Bob-omb. Might also include some other non-SP O'Malley images of note.

I'm also still messing around with how this all looks, when I have time.