Other than staging the 5 things I had to "or else", and making a grocery and sake run to H Mart, I didn't accomplish much. Other than a load of laundry - which is a big thing for me. And it's almost dry now, the next day. Weather's warming up again.
I got a Voldyne session in and a shakuhachi practice. When I did that sport I'm so evasive about, for the first month or so I just practiced it, without thinking a lot about it. Then a small competition came up, and I asked if I'm "good enough" to compete in it. I was told I was (the more ppl pay in, the bigger the prize for the winner - of course I was good enough). And in the competition, I came in 2nd to last.
But I kept going. I guess mainly I had the idea the sport would help me get back into the Army, because I'd already figured out that life would be better in the Army than I could do on my own, and that kept me going. That hope kept me plugging along, right through my first Nationals, where I placed 14th or so, and my second Nationals, which I won. So it wasn't just that I liked the sport but I felt it would get me somewhere.
I don't think playing the shakuhachi will get me back into the Army, but I do think it will differentiate me from just another useless old bum. I anticipate another year of masking and distancing, which means no busking. But my strength is growing on the shakuhachi and when I think about it, 2-3 years from now, all the places I could play it to do some good. I remember in high school we went up Lunalilo Home Road to, tell, the Lunalilo Home where we sang for a lot of old Hawaiian people.
Well, there are Japanese old folks' homes here in this area. And there are all sorts of things where a shakuhachi player would be very welcome. I'm sure Rinban Sakamoto is an ace player, studying all those years with Koga-san as he has, but he's spread awfully thin. He can't go around to everything.
I left here at 2. I stopped at the lunch truck out front and spent $2.50 on a breakfasty egg and sausage sandwich. I put that in the bike bag and rode to Japantown, dropped off my trash and bottles in a trash can and settling down on the steps of the Issei building to eat my sandwich. It was really good too. I left the bread out for the birds.
I rode up to Dai Thanh to try to find one of these back massage things one of my Vietnamese co-workers used to use back in the 80s. It's a solid rubber ball on a springy flat metal shaft, and a handle. You use it to sort of thump your back, and it seemed like something I should try. But they don't have them. The gal there showed me a Salux, and then a back scratcher, and it was just no deal. They're very helpful there.I guess if I want one I'll get it online.
I stopped in at the Amazon place for bubble mailers and the advanced Masayuki Koga book I'd ordered. It cost me a little over $75. And, it's really advanced stuff. Like I need to get his 2nd book (I'm working out of his 1st) before going on to this, 3rd I guess, book. It's a lot for a book but probably about what one lesson with him would cost, at least by the time I counted in the transportation up to where he is.
I rode back to Nijiya and parked the bike up by The Arsenel because there were 2 bikes already by Nijiya. That's OK; I went into the Arsenel and looked around - they have some larger brush pens I want one of. I want to get good at transcribing music into kinko notation. There are lots of minyo which are little kids' songs and those are what I need to learn next. But written collections of minyo are hard to get, so if I can transcribe them off of YouTube I can build up a collection of them. (This is not so different from when I was a kid and kept collections of the lyrics to the "naughty" songs we sang when we were off on our own to blow off steam and get back at our parents. I was a regular Alan Lomax of forbidden songs.)
That's another mental block I think I'm getting over. When I was messing around with shakuhachi before, I realized that it's not a Western instrument and while some manage to play some Western music on it, that's not really what it's about or where it's at its best. So one must learn the world of music the shakuhachi is native to. As someone who loves rock and jazz and a good Eagles or Steely Dan guitar solo as much as anyone, that was a bit hard to stomach. What's pulled me back is that the instrument is so expressive. And I think about those admiring patrons at Whole Foods, who loved my playing but could not tell me *what* I was playing. Obviously they loved what I was doing enough to part with a few dollars or a $5 or a $20. So it's the emotion, or "soul", coming through regardless of the external form of a known tune.
The most "believable" speech I've heard in my life was by the mayor of Hiroshima. It was amazing, and I didn't understand a word.
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