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Time for some good old fashioned party report.

Sunday and Monday was Nagisa Music Festival and it was pretty damn cool.

One of the first nice thing about Nagisa is that it’s quite the value pack of music festivals. At ¥1,500 a day, you can hardly go wrong: we are talking cheaper than most regular club nights in Tokyo (certainly cheaper than the indecent ¥8,500 you’ll have to cough up for one single evening of Electraglide next month). At that price, one had to wonder where they cut the cost, and just hope it wasn’t on porta-potties or by using their home stereo to power the main stage. It wasn’t.

Essentially, I think, the low cost comes from a rather “modest” lineup, more fitting of a big underground rave than of a massive music festival. Only a few international names, with lots of local and smaller acts in the middle. Which is certainly nothing I would ever complain about: trust me when I tell you that most world-famous headliner DJs are nowhere near worth the effort. I wasn’t there last year, so couldn’t compare, but it seems the place wasn’t fully packed, likely due to the mediocre weather… There again not an issue as far as I was concerned: there were enough friendly smiles and energy to make it up entirely without having to elbow your way around to bust a move…

Music was overall good quality and enjoyable, even in fairly sober attendance mode: on the main stage, Kenji Williams was doing some nice tricks on a live electronica beat with a violin. Then this couple came on, and although they looked quite upbeat, they still seemed like middle-aged tourists that had just gotten lost on their way to the Meridien hotel next door. It took me forever to recognize System 7, and even after they tore the non-existent roof off with the perennial Alpha Wave track, I was still not convinced they were the same blokes I had seen a decade ago playing with Richie Hawtin: man, if the scene and the drugs do that, good thing I’ve stopped already. Anyway: very talented and led to hours of frenzied jumping around rhythmically.

Less talented, on the other hand, was Mr. François Kevorkian (aka François K). It’s now been about four or five times I saw him live and… while he sure is a worthy producer with a few awesome tracks, the man still can’t match a beat to save his life. One would think after 20 years, he would finally have it down pat… How he still manages to get booked with that major headliner status he enjoys in Japan, is beyond me. Or rather, it’s just yet another example of that asinine push by the public to make DJs out of producers and vice-versa. When he broke continuity for the twentieth time with some very forgettable minimalist techno, we called it a quit and went around to check out the Trance stage. Which says a lot when you know me and the seething hatred I usually keep for the genre.

Truth be told, the Trance stage around 7pm-9pm (Tokage and Ta-Ka, according to the schedule) wasn’t half bad. Some of the latter stuff sounded more like electro-ish techno than the usual cybercrap fare you usually get in the city. The small House stage also had a really nice Deep set going on, but unfortunately a rather weak sound system and perhaps a slightly less than energetic crowd, which dampened the ambience a bit.

All along, the usual suspects had finally all made it there. First Deny wearing an orange beacon visible from miles away, then Madoka and her party gang and finally the one and only Last Samurai, in between two glamourous fashion shootings and preparation for his eurotrip (getting lost in Paris’ public transit as we speak, if everything went well).

Only small downside of Nagisa was its strange “two days broken in two” setup, which makes things end unfathomably early (9pm) each day, with nothing but the afterparty at Ageha (wasn’t tempted at all) in between. The Plan was to go home, sleep sound and get there early the next day. But then The Plan got acquainted with Reality, in the form of a work-related phone call at 8am, reminding him that Monday wasn’t a bank holiday in other parts of the world, and that some emergency had to be dealt with. Thus, working until past 7pm and by then noticing the miserable weather all over Tokyo, I cowardly traded David Morales for my comforter and a hot chocolate.

Made the best out of Sunday anyway: even managed to catch an extra 30 minutes on the official closing schedule, in some smaller indoor stage (inside a giant teepee) where the DJ had the awesome taste of closing with the best club track of all times. Not so much drinking (for me, at least), but hours of dancing as I had not done in many weeks now… Which reminded me I really need to get out and do it more often these next two months.

There are a few blurry pics of the day in the keitai logs, Deny took heaps too: I’ll upload them as soon as she gets around to sending them.

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Anybody in charge of that Web 2.0 thing?

I feel it’s time I tell you about my business plan for http://p.et/s.

This time around, we’ll be using AJAX and RSS technologies. You won’t have to reload a single page to order your dog food. Just. Brilliant.

Please send your contributions to the first round of funding via Paypal.

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I rarely (read: never) bore you with the minutiae of my daytime occupations; and for good reasons: they aren’t all that fascinating.

Actually, some of them are, but I’m too much of a sissy to risk getting dooced just to bring you tasty anecdotes of the life of an aspiring genius salaryman gaijin in Tokyo, so these will have to wait until I’m out of sight from Japanese shores.

In the meantime, I thought I’d point you to a few of the small side-projects I’ve been involved in, over the past year or so. If only because I couldn’t skip such a perfect occasion to reinforce my public image as a tree-hugger pinko commie with a taste for artsy schmaltzy stuff.

Neither one of these sites I consider the pinnacle of my coding skills (some of the HTML markup isn’t even mine), but I thought they deserved a little mention here:

ForestAlert.org:

The first website is for a non-profit organization called ForestAlert.org, that deals with the problem of illegal logging and timber trade. The ruthless exploitation of non-renewable timber resources in third-world countries threatens to annihilate entire regions: destroying millenia-old primary forests, their ecosystems and the indigenous tribes that depend on them… Usually to end up as construction material in Japan or copy paper in about every other corporate office in the world.

ForestAlert.org is aimed at drawing attention to this problem, by continuously reporting on ongoing illegal activities condoned by public companies, exposing the global trade mechanisms that allow this traffic and tippin you on some easy steps you can take in your everyday-life to help prevent this ecological disaster.

Currently, the focus is on trade currents between Asian countries (Indonesia, New Guinea, Japan) and content is bilingual (English and Japanese), but the site is slowly extending its reach to cover every area of the globe.

Note that ForestAlert.org doesn’t ask for any money, just a bit of your time and some help spreading the word.

Pinx Photo:

In a much lighter tone, I also gave a hand to our very own Samurai Atsushi‘s management agency: you can now see the work of a few talented Tokyo photographers and stylists on Pinx Tokyo‘s official website. That includes Mr. Atsushi Nishikiori himself, on his way to become the Helmut Newton of the East.

Don’t be frightened by the few kanjis here and there: one doesn’t need to speak a word of Japanese to browse and appreciate the pretty pictures in all their glossy photographic CSS glory.

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This one dedicated to Jeff:

I was enjoying a peaceful late lunch and tea break at the small eatery next-door with E., somewhere between lovemaking session #5 and arguing session #253, when a noisy discussion, one table over, draw our attention:

Three obatarians were seated, twice as many teapots in front of them, loudly and excitingly commenting over what looked like exercise sheets scattered on the table. From the style of the exercises and the tone of their comments, it seemed like at least one of them was learning how to write kanjis: a peculiar explanation, seeing how they all sounded positively natives, with little chance of belonging to the 1% illiterate people in Japan.

But then, listening more carefully to their attempt at pronouncing strange guttural tchaw‘s and yow‘s and taking a closer look at their papers, we realized they weren’t working their Japanese kanjis: these little old women were indeed feverishly teaching each other Korean. At that point, I could clearly see the ghost of Bae Yong Joon hovering above the table and reflecting into their glistening pupils.

I suppose until that moment, I had woefully underestimated the spread of Yong-sama-mania among the greying Japanese masses, but E. confirmed that even her aging slightly xenophobic grandma had all but started to learn Korean, secondary to that mop-head single-handedly bringing Korea to the forefront of sappy insipid drama production for the Asian market.

And I naively thought that peace and understanding between countries would have to be slowly built over mutual respect and appreciation for millennia-old cultures.

by ·Comments Off on Dr Dave’s Predicate of Razor Blade Infinity

Let Z be a euclidean space of dimension equal to or less than your house, let X be the finite set of all razor handles you can extract from Z.

We can postulate there exists an infinite number of mountable razor blades within Z and not a single one of them will fit your fucking handles.

Extension of Z to the bathroom aisle of your local supermarket is left as a trivial exercise to the reader.

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Found my entire tie rack behind the couch where it had fallen two months ago.

Never quite bought this whole “necktie-eating monster” explanation anyway…

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Dr Dave, 3 days after Landing, attempting to convey to a befuddled bank clerk that the damn ATM outside refuses to take his US card (conversation transcribed to English for clarity purposes):

“Me… money… want… money… please…”

Ten months and twenty full pages of Japanese phrasebook later: trying to open a bank account in order to cash my first paycheck. After literally half-a-dozen fruitless attempts, I find one bank (みずほ, if you must know) that doesn’t mind the fact that I have: 1) no relatives born within 50 miles of the branch, 2) not been living a few decades on the island, 3) no inkan emblazoned with my kanji name and 4) a suspiciously pale skin color, compared to the local shade in fashion. I am not about to ask if they have multilingual staff on the premises.

In Japan, whenever a foreigner steps into a business asking for service, it is customary for staff to hastily draw straws. Failing that, they seek the one employee who has foreign country’s experience (usually a one-week honeymoon in Thailand). Failing that, they send the youngest trainee with instructions to commit seppuku if things get out of hand.

Two hours, many outdated Japanese-English dictionaries and one slightly rattled employee later, I have a Japanese bank account. It only took us 40 minutes to figure how to spell my name in katakana. It will only take me a few more months to figure out how to withdraw money from it.

Three years later: “Hi, I just lost my cash card in Paris, need to change my two-year out-of-date address, make a bank transfer (without my card) and, oh yea, gimme 50,000 yens in cash, by the way that’s a lovely necklace you got here. kthanx.”

Somehow even ended up with her personal phone number on the back of my checkbook.

This language thing is becoming way too easy, high time to leave the country.

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  • Arrival: Plane is 2 hour late. A dozen obnoxious sunburnt thirty-something, straight from Club Med Pataya, manage to ward 200 people off the whole luggage area thanks to their skillful use of carts and an utter disregard for basic courtesy. Oblivious to the sign reading “Information” hanging over his head, counter guy basically laughs in my face when I show up to ask where bus #305 departs. Finally sends me in the opposite direction. Welcome to France.
  • Caffeine consumption for last 3 days before turning in paper: Regain Black (3 bottles), Black Black chewing gums (2 packs), Red Bull Extra (1 can), Pure Arabica ground coffee (approx. 2 gallons).
  • Monkeys: Of course, aforementioned caffeine dosage made it somewhat difficult to sleep, even after report was finally completed. You wouldn’t believe the sort of useful stuff you learn, watching French TV at 4 in the morning. Did you know that, when you put a baboon in front of a large mirror, said baboon will never tire of attacking or threatening its own reflection, whereas the only other primate, beside Man, able to finally realize it is standing in front of itself, are chimpanzees. These critters are so smart, it’s crazy! Never will I call the POTUS, “chimpy”, ever again: that’s just mean to our brother chimpanzees.
  • Schoolmates from way back then are all finished or finishing with their studies. Most of them have embarked on lucrative careers in finances abroad. Some are getting married. A frightening number has already started investing in real estate. All in all makes me feel like I’m growing old backwards.
  • Picnic: The monastic life ended just in time for a delicious picnic organized by a bunch of French bloggers, blessed by one of the last few days of sunny Parisian weather for the year, and amidst the gorgeous setting of the Parc Floral de Paris. The oddities of my own internal clock, conjugated with the counterblow of two months of frenetic studies suddenly screeching to a halt, made for a rather contemplative, slightly sleepy and altogether not very talkative dr Dave, but it was nice to see the sun again after all this time.
  • Partying did take place. Maybe it was jetlag kicking in, or maybe my body had learnt to metabolize caffeine on its own by then, but I finally regained enough energy for a couple long evenings, busy arguing over world domination plots, drinking champagne and checking out the mind-blowing view of the city from Pierre’s terrace (technically the highest appartement within the limits of Paris, and definitely showing). Some much-needed comforting that Parisian life can be more than grey skies and malcontent cab drivers.
  • Language: Pierre noted that my French was substantially better this time around. Granted, “better” here, is the difference between a masterfully trained foreign spy and an authentic native, but Pierre’s notorious anal-retentiveness toward the French language gives extra importance to such compliment. I hang it on spending my entire month in French textbooks and going additional lengths to stay immersed in the language, so as to avoid some of the distracting back-and-forth that usually goes in my head when I try tackling a Math question in French. It’s a sad reality that, no matter how fluent a language, you will lose it if not practicing daily. Conclusion being that I ought to do something to keep things going in that direction, especially if I’ll be residing there in three months. Expect a special announcement very soon.
  • Airport: I now officially hate Paris CDG airport with a passion. I might even contemplate running over a few employees with my cart, next time I’m there. On the other hand: props to the lovely Cathay Pacific airline employee who did her best to get me on next-day’s flight back, at no cost, and even though they were in no way responsible for the retarded information counter agent who sent me to the wrong terminal on the other side of the airport (a grand total of 80 minutes to get there, realize his mistake and rush back to the correct one: enough to miss my plane).
  • Home sweet home. It’s good to be back in Tokyo. Three more month to come to terms with it and prepare psychologically to move to Paris for a more substantial duration.

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As promised, here is the straight dope on dr. Dave, straight from the mouth of his personal assistant’s best friend’s cousin in law.

Ultrabob started things somewhat abruptly with a simple and direct:

What the fuck?

I see we got the hardball questions out already. No beating around the bush.

Now this is a tough question, I tend to ask this myself at least once a day, if not more. I asked my cat too, with very little results.
Eventually, to such a vast and essential question encompassing all of Man’s struggle for understanding, I could only summon my best jesuitic education, and retort by what is, in my own humble opinion, both the real question and the answer:

Why the fuck not?

Martine then kindly worried about the possible repercussions of this new fad and asked:

why the sudden urge for transparency?

I could probably spout the usual clichés about real personality laying deeper than silly life factoids and the secret Me being safe from cold, information-prying people out to get me… But the truth is I was mildly bored with this blog with no time to offer anything else, and I have already posted pictures of me naked. Call that pushing the boundaries. Or stepping down the dangerous path of addiction.

Seriously though: I am well aware of the bum-biting potential of too much transparency, which is why one of the only rule carved in stone for this blog is that my full name is never used. Anybody with some motivation and a bit of skills could dig it (and a lot of people reading this know it anyway), but as you said, I quite like the comfort of knowing that a tentative employer’s or significant other’s Google search for my name doesn’t yield any of my blog entries about that episode with the three czech hookers and the pound of colombian pure (and the monkey).

For the rest, in the realm of things that have or haven’t been said on this blog, I will actually backtrack and invoke the old cliché: it’s not the things you show, it’s the things you don’t. Or less cryptically and in the words of an author I like: “I’m not overly worried about showing my ass, so long as I don’t have to show my heart”…

Moving on, with a series of down-to-earth questions, by our ever down-to-earth j-ster:

I’d like to know your underwear size, and your favourite number, and the number of different colours your hair has been.

  • 29 (I like them snug), with teddy-bears holding little hearts on it.
  • 8. I think..
  • Ahem, that’s a tough one. Hold on a sec… That’d be eight: blond, platinum, silver, blue, purple, red, orange and of course, every once in a while: natural. Not counting shades and variations thereof, nor highlights (my London years were essentially spent with a blue on silver combination). I think of all them, blue lasted the longest: I probably had it for a good three years…

Neuro asks:

  • what is yhour prefered meal?
  • what is your prefered beer?
  • do you like ice cream?
  • [good] Indian food… Anything not seafood or fish-related.
  • Bière Dodo! Although a nice white Belgian beer…
  • Not a huge fan of the traditional French or Anglo-saxon kind… But I definitely like gelato, and not against some of the more interesting j-flavors (no, not kujira).

Xavier and Junior respectively ask:

Spit or swallow ?

How many licks *does* it take [Dr. Dave] to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?

Both of which I will have to give the same answer:

Dunno, I never made it without biting.

To C, anxious to hear about WPPM: I promise I’ll make a special announcement next week.

Last minute add-on.

Bob is back and asks:

Is it, or is it not true, that your actual full title is:
Dr. Jordan P. Dave, Phd and friend of Captain Solo

I’m sorry Bob, I cannot comment on this: see mention above, about omitting my real name. Beside Han has also made a special request not to be cited by name in these pages (something about Leia googling him a while back and finding a whole recount of what has gone to be known as the “Wookie Nanny” episode).

And now back to extra-navelian blogging.