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ReallyFastEddie
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Name: Eddie
Country: Japan
Metro: Tokyo
Birthday: 10/2/1971
Gender: Male
Interests: Writing, making music, engaging in a wide variety of creative endeavors...
Expertise: Professional Jazz Musician, bandleader and recording artist.
main instrument : Hammond Organ, but I teach and coach most instruments plus vocal.
11/03 - 12/05 - - owner, founder, musical director of Tokyo Jazz venue Eddie's Lounge !
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  shakehip@aol.com
MSN: eddiebox71@hotmail.com
Member Since:
9/26/2005
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| Gone fishing !http://eddielandsberg.livejournal.com/
I have decided to give LIVEJOURNAL a shot. You can read my new blog at here. | | |
| bull shit...
There was an interesting article in the news today about a bull - - for
the first time in Mexican bullfighting history JUMPING the ring, and
going mad in the stands. Fortunately it only injured two
people (non-fatally) before, to the horror of 1000s of observing Vegans
and PETA members, it was put to sleep forcibly. (*Hey, ever see a bunch of
Mexicans haul ass so quickly???)
In all honesty, I don't get bullfighting, but I can tell you a story
about a man I much came to admire. He was neither Mexican,
nor did he fight bulls. He was however, relatively low
class, white and fought buses. No, I'm not kidding...
buses as in public transportation.
Now at first, this might sound silly, but he did it, and made money,
usually in settlements of about $10,000 at a time from the local public
transportation company.
Here in Japan, really big guys known as sumo wrestlers fight each
other. In other parts of the world people box, wrestle,
kick and beat the shit out
of each other in all sorts of competitive ways, but as for
formidable oponents, buses are as big as you can get.
You just can't take on a bus (or in that case an airplane or deisel
truck) and win - - not unless you have a really really really good
method and are a well trained professional. And it is for this
reason that I think this guy was dealt an unfair blow in life when he
finally got 15 years due to "insurance fraud".
Instead of
being incarcerated, a new sport should have been created in his
name, Olympiad Bus Dodging, and he should have been given a productive
job as a coach. -
- Slip and fall at 2:00 in the morning on some old ladies front
curb when there is no
wittnesses may be cowardly... but allowing oneself to get broadsided by
a bus intentionally in my humble opinion represents true skill and
bravery. My hat goes of to this bold little felon, wherever
he is today. And that leads me to another Mexico related
story in the News.
Apparently the biggest drug smuggling tunel of all time was discovered
leading from a factory somewhere past the border in Mexico, to a
factory somewhere in San Diego. The thing that really
amazed me about it was that it actually makes the premise to Hogan's
Heroes seem more credible. And for that, I will be ever
in dept to these bold drug smugglers, who incidentally were smuggling
Marijuana... something, that if legal could easily been grown
domestically in anybody's own backyard. Hmmmmmm, how
strange. The U.S. wants to make it hard for Mexicans who want to
support their families to sneak
into the U.S. to find cheap paying jobs (that few American's) want anyway, but at the same time, have laws that deprive
many other young Americans from engaging in certain types of
potentially harmless entrepreneurial and agricultural work of their
own. My conclusion : who needs pot to make people lazy... Why not just ban
work altogether ???
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| A Brief History of the Middle Easthttp://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/30/denmark.cartoon.ap/index.html
The gunmen demanded an apology from Denmark and Norway and said
citizens of the two countries would be prevented from entering the Gaza
Strip.>>
What ??? Do Scandinavian people actually see the Gaza Strip as a major tourist destination ???
I think we have the case of one group of people who've probably eaten
too much smoked fish and spent too much time in the cold, vs. another
group who've probably drunk too much black coffee. You know
you're slipping when you're burning Norwegian flags and banning people
from coming to a war zone.
I do not think it is a major world tourist destination.
Personally speaking, the Middle East isn't anywhere on my "list of
places I want to go" record. If I want to each Shawarama,
I can do it in Akihabara... And if I want to go some place hot
and with a lot of sand, I should point out that Atlantic City, NJ
happens to have not only the Atlantic Ocean and a beach full of broken
seas shells, monstrous jelly fish, remarkably salty water, and a
whole miscellaneous hodge podge of fun from discarded condom wrappers
and hyperdermic syringe needles to play with, but amusement parks and take out
Chinese restaurants to boot. And if you want danger, try going a
block from the casino 10 seconds after dark. It is not the
Israelis or Arabs who are going to kill you but good warm hearted
Americans who will mug and kill you just because they like your
sneakers (or need the money to buy CRACK.) Of course, a mile or
so
down, there is somewhat of a Jewish
occupation (a relative of mine has a house there) but the natives don't
really care much and they're probably smart enough to realize that they
get flooded every time it rains anyway, which is one of the advantages
to living in the low income high rise housing project .
But as for J. vs. A. (the Jews vs. the Arabs)
the way I see it is this. Both these people were once a
consortium of Nomadic Tribes who wandered back and forth around the
sweaty desert since the beginning of time. Like balls in a
pachinko machine,
yes, on occasion the cousins did battle and collide, but that was life
for them. They didn't have TV or video games to amuse themselves
in pre-Biblical times. Fighting over concubines, wells and
who did what in who's sand was the only entertainment they had. I
think the big problem came when the Toffee Eating British from N.
Europe came along and decided to SETTLE the land, as in building a
permanent infrastructure. The problem with this is that in
traditional Middle Eastern culture, the tribes set their tents, and
when the time came picked up and moved on. Maybe they left their
unseperatable trash behind, but the next people to come along were
probably delightful to pick through it for scraps. In the
case of the
Europeans, picking up and moving may have been in the agenda, but in a
different way. It was like a game of "tag" - - once they claimed
the land and said "you're it", in their view, it was theirs forever,
meaning you had to live by their rules and pay rent to them whether
they were there or not, and just to make sure you do, they'd always train goons (from among your people) to look over your shoulder...
With the advent of Judaism and Islam this became an even greater issue
since it united many of the tribes into a smaller number of peoples, all who
all their own land to claim and cling to. - - so when
things heated up, the Toffee Eaters decided to get out, but have one
last laugh... since they couldn't return things to the way it was, they
simply promised the same land to both people, went on their way and had
a jolly good laugh about it. Eventually, the Jews who
had been away on a milenium long vacation (ironically themselves in
Europe and later the Catskills) decided to come back home, and boom...
everyone was wanting to CLAIM and SETTLE the same land permanantly so they'd
have really nice places to play with the sea shells and build
sandcastles. Only the Jewish people got really good at
developing the land (doing to the Middle East what the Italian and
their own respective mafias did to Las Vegas) and they built some
pretty enviable cities that swung and were a real gas (atleast from a
middle eastern perspective.) And soon, people started playing
musical chairs, trying to grab whatever they could and push out whoever
they thought was necessary. Each time a land was claimed, a
chair was removed and the fight for the remaining chairs (or reclaiming
already claimed chairs) became more intense. Tribes fought
tribes, and in the end, even though tribal and ethnic differences
existed, the difference between the Jews and Arabs were enough to unite
all the fighting factions on one side against the other... and now
everyone is trying to take over the same casino and resort - - and all
being able to legitimately say that their ancestors once occupied the
land. SHIT, they all did... they were nomads. That's what nomads do... they wander in circles.
In the end, I think it is funny. After WWII many Jews
wanted their own land... Though the "Holy Land" had more of a
religious significance, and Siberia was just - - well well too freeze your balls off,
I think the whole problem could have been solved by giving the Jews NYC
and the Catskills... and letting the Arabs keep the Middle East and let
them Schvitz and fight among each other. Unfortunately, back
then even the U.S. was discriminatory and didn't EXACTLY want the Jews (or in that case the Arabs)
either (read VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED.) As a result, the Jews
wound up reclaiming their ancestral homeland.... and that is the mess
we are in Today... Two Nomadic peoples trying to claim each and every
piece of real estate that any of their ancestors ever shit, showered
and shaved at over a 10,000 year history, each and everyone believing
that not only do they own the same land, but being all too
willing to fight for and defend the sanctity of their land.
Personally speaking, I think both the Jews and Arabs need to come to
their senses. In terms of being a "Holy Land", yes, the
wonders of the middle east are culturally significant.... but trust me,
if you want to have, see a show, and enjoy the girls.. Las Vegas is the
place to be ! Both could unite and take it over in a day. As a foot note, the Chinese have taken over
my neighborhood back in Philly, and London is now over-run by the
Indians. Go figure...
| | |
| Porta on the Go ! ! !Moved the B-3 Portable from my apartment yesterday, for the first time.
While the day has not yet come when Hammond Suzuki will ever be able to run an advertisement on TV that goes like this :
Wow ! I just bought my new B-3
organ, and playing it is just half the fun. What I really enjoy
is taking it apart, putting it back together and carrying up and down
steps, through narrow corridors, and loading it in and out of the
car. That's the real fun in owning a spanking new B-3...
the joy you get from the physical exertion moving it around.
...the truth is while this day has not arrived yet, and probably will
not arrive until technologies such as VASE II are surpassed by
breakthroughs in Quantum Physics, Nanotechnology and the advent of
pocket size Star Trek Like teleporter devices, the truth is that the
New B-3 Portable is relatively easy to take apart and put
together. Very little screwing, bolting and connecting
necessary. (You know, just a side thought here : I think that
would be a name for a nice and nasty Wynonie Harris type blues tune, "I'm Going Screwing, Bolting and Connecting with My Baby Tonight"
!!!) All in all, I'd say it only took about 5 minutes each time
to take it apart and put it back together. And once it was
up and running, there were no problems. Sadly though,
despite the fact that it was relative easy to lift and move, we had
some tricky corridors to navigate, and I can't say I'm feeling too
"genki" today. Pain being a relative thing though... I'd say the
lower back pain and bruised ribs are MILD as compared with prevoius
moves.
So how did it sound? Well, the upper part to my Leslie System 21
hasn't arrived yet, meaning that technically speaking I was playing the
organ without a "Leslie" (that's to say no rotary effect) and also
without the treble speaker. The Leslie is a key factor in
warming up the sound of a Hammond, yet even without it the organ did
sound pretty warm and punchy, especially during the blues set I sat in
on. Word of advice : One of the secrets of playing a Hammond
without a Leslie is knowing how to use the swell pedal. If you
know how to control the expression pedal, you can actually create a
very authentic Leslie effect without actually having Leslie as long as
you run it through a good speaker, and in fact, if you don't know how
to use your swell pedal and only floor the thing, you can actually kill
the Leslie effect ! Anyway, the clip below is proof... I
think its hard to tell that I'm not playing a "real" tonewheel B-3, and
further, the absence of the Leslie is not so apparent. Have
a listen...
http://www.tokyojazz.net/blue.aif
Not such a bad waste of money, huh.
Anyway, yesterday was an unusual day for me...
I woke up at 8:00 AM (the time I'm normally going to bed.)
Moved the organ. Rehearsal in Shinjuku at 10:00.
Rock band (!) rehearsal at night at Shinjiku, then sat in at a blues session.
Then went to bed at 11:00 PM.
Oh shit, I just realized why I pulled so many muscles... It probably
had something to do with the stuff I had to take to GET to bed...
I guess that's why they call it a muscle relaxant. Because
it relaxes the muscles... ergo, muscle relaxant... Doh ! I
did this once before.
Young, frisky, on the go...
| | |
| Bobby Ologun 
O.K. There's good news and bad news.
Even though he's a K-1 Boxer, he's funny and non-threatening.
Bad news... this kind of fucked humor went out with Amos and Andy.
If you're Japanese and you think there's anything funny about this guy,
rent the Spike Lee movie Bamboozled, and you'll realize how unharmless this is. And if you're foreign and you're not familiar with this guy's wonderful routine here it is. Don't get me wrong. I think AMOS AND ANDY were funny... but this
type of humor went out a long time ago. Japan is basically an island with a lot of technology and an almost George Bush
like lack of understanding of the outside world. Many
Japanese realize this and strive to become more cosmopolitan and even
learn about neighboring countries who are even more foreign to them
than Europe or the U.S. The mass media, however, isn't
really in on the game - - and while there are many intelligent white
gaijin talent on TV, the image of black people in general is
awful (which is ironic, because it seems to me that many aspects of
Afro-American culture are indeed more popular here than in the U.S.)
In general, however, if there is a black talent on Japanese TV
he will
inevitably have two qualities - - the perfect mix of being loveable yet
savage like. My answer to this - - many Japanese themselves
feel STRAIGHJACKETED because they are not allowed to be as diverse as
they want... so in presenting a less diversified image of foreigners it
is hurting the Japanese themselves. It is giving the
message : See, those are people are non-diverse too, so we should
all be the same too... otherwise we will laugh at you in an exagerated Kansai dialect and hit you on the head with our hats.
This joker, Bobby Ologun made headline news the other night after a
dispute with the talent agent he worked for. Apparently he
wrecked the office. Upon release from police custody he
immediately went into his routine before the press curling up his lip and making monkey
faces.
My admonishment to the Japanese public. If the guy stutters
and talks like that because he's brain damaged, I think its cruel to
laugh at him. And if he isn't brain damaged, whether the
public who think he's funny either are. Then again I'm sure
he's laughing all the way to the bank, but at who's expense ?
Oh... some more good news... He makes Bob Sapp look like Jesse Jackson...
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