Last night I got a stack of large pieces of equipment cleaned up and ready to list, but didn't feel like working past midnight so I set them aside for the next day.
I got in a Voldyne session and practiced good old page 23 in the shakuhachi book. Those little 4-note figures once really defeated me. But between the Voldyne and my determination to play the figures in one breath with a nice little "tail" on the last note, I'm starting to learn how to pump some air.
As has been said, "Old guys with one lung are masters of this instrument" but I also read something about "Beginners need to play as loud as they can in the beginning" in other words, learning to pump some serious air and then with some years put in, they learn to be efficient too.
It's making me wonder if I should get into jogging again because that had me very air-efficient when I last did it back in the early 90s. My lungs felt huge.
In trumpet, you actually don't want to take in too much air and puff yourself up, it's more about pressure and efficiency. Well, this is a different kind of efficiency. And I think a far healthier one.
In any case I am happy with the progress I'm making. I assume that I have 20 or 30 more years left, and since the shakuhachi teachers I admire all have 30-40-50 years in, I know I'm entering a long-term game. It will be nice being back in Hawaii where there are shakuhachi sessions 2X a week at the Buddhist Study Center near the University of Hawaii.
So last night I played through each 4-note figure 3-5 times, doing a pretty good job of keeping my middle fingers down also. I have a bit of the beginner "death grip" but that will relax in time once good habits are settled in.
I went to bed around 4, woke up around 8 or so to whiz and took a small cup of sake, and went back to sleep until about 11:30. There was still sake left over when I got up so ... that's progress.
With all this staying in, my cooking game has gotten better by leaps and bounds. There's no way I could afford the $1000/month for a T1 line or whatever it takes to post on YouTube from a technological backwater like this but I'd fantasize about doing YouTube videos of myself cooking or preparing food, like tons of others like Outdoor Chef Life or Kimagure Cook.
So I'd look at my hands while preparing my food, and it finally struck me that my hands do not look like a white person's hands. Or even Kimagure's, who is unusually tall and lanky for a Japanese. No, my hands resemble those of Hiroyiki Terada, the "Diary Of A Sushi Chef" guy. It made me think about how brown my mom really was, and made me finally accept that I really am white/west Asian, and that accounts for that Karen picking on me a while ago and lots of other little incidents over the years.
When I was a young adult in Hawaii, I really tried to be "mainland". That's probably why I wasn't happy there. I think this happens with non-white immigrants to the mainland US of all origins. They want to be "American" and live this Dick And Jane life that really only applied from about 1950-1970 and you had to be a pure white male.
I am so glad I have the perspective now to appreciate Hawaii! The main thing right now, in this next shutdown year, is to work diligently on the shakuhachi so when we can get together again, I can show Rinban Sakamoto that I've been putting some real work in. He, himself, actually takes lessons from Masayuki Koga up in Oakland, a thing I can't afford to do. But maybe if I can show I've put in some serious work, he'll give me some pointers if he notices anything lacking in my playing, and also there was a shakuhachi group at one time and maybe I could help getting it together again, mailing out newsletters and so on.
I packed more packages bringing the total up to 23, loaded up the bike, and headed out a little after 5. I also brought along my shakihachi book, reasoning that there will be less people at FedEx on a Friday evening than on a Saturday, and I really wanted to get the book spiral-bound.
I went to the post office first and did my drop offs, then FedEx, where there wasn't really a line, just a couple of people waiting as they made people wait to not go over their capacity limit. After handing off my packages I got out the book and said I want to get it spiral-bound. I had to go inside for that, and get that started and also grabbed some paper. I had to go outside to wait so I talked with the skinny red-haired kid out front, about Fry's closing and whatnot. It's a friendly bunch at FedEx. When the job was done I was called back in and paid, wow having a book spiral-bound costs about $7. Worth it if you're spending a lot of time with the book though. They said they had another customer who got all their quilting books done.
I didn't find much packing stuff coming back, found a couple of bell peppers, a squash, and a head of Romaine lettuce at the veggie dumpster along with 3 bunches of bananas. It all went into the bike trailer and meanwhile I was thinking, I really want to get something to eat from some restaurant around here, but it's Friday night so they'll all be busy... I slowly rode up the parking lot to Grill-'Em to check the menu. They have a kind of neat setup. There's a little table with an umbrella in each lined parking space in front. There's a menu in a heavy duty plastic holder hanging off of the umbrella pole. I was in the process of talking myself out of spending $11 on wings when the waitress came out, and I said I was interested in the "dry rubbed" wings and she said they're popular. So I got those.
While I was waiting, a bunch of guys of the type we call "chuds" were talking a couple of spaces over. My ears pricked up when I noticed they were talking about music. When one mentioned a band called "Die-O" I put in, "It was Ronnie James Dio" and the music talk was off and running. We ran down all the classic bands and which ones started here in the Bay Area and the different generations of music from folk to WWII - era protest stuff, the Beats, the hippies, etc. We had a good old time, talking about music. We talked about growing up with it, and he, being 10 years younger than I, had parents who were actual ex-hippies and I said mine were Silents but I got to listen to tons of hippy music or anything I wanted when the family split up due to being poor. How there were all these "head shops" full of underground comics and crazy music was playing everywhere back there in Hawaii in the 70s.
The waitress came out with my wings and charged me $9-something for them so maybe she gave me some kind of a discount. I said thanks and the guy and I said it was nice talking with each other and I said, "Any talk about music is always good" and he said "Stay safe" a couple of times and I took off.
I left the bananas on top of this one dumpster on the corner of Queen's Lane where anyone might see them and if they need them, take them. And came in here and tried the wings. If not "the" best wings I've ever had they're very close to it. A serving of wings is like a whole meal and there were carrot and celery slices too. I wrote a good review on Google too. In the Before Times my impression of that place was not too good. I thought the prices were high, but never tried the food. It just seemed like Chud Central and it probably was and still is.
But for some killer wings and a deep discussion of Deep Purple's groundbreaking album, Machine Head, that has the amazing track Highway Star? I'm up for it.
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