Tairyu

 The highlight of yesterday was that I was on YouTube and happened to catch an "ask me anything" session with Shawn "Tairyu" Head, who's a hell of a shakuhachi player. 

I asked some great questions. Although he's actually composed for the clarinet, it appears his background is in classical violin and viola, and he was working, playing in orchestras. Considering how competitive those instruments are, I'd suppose he has no lack of work ethic. 

I was able to ask about the smoothness of a shakuhachi bore (smooth is generally good and louder, contradicting the woo-woo Monty Levinson trades in) about the Shakuhachi Yuu (actually a bit hard to play, but consistent so that a teacher playing one can tell their student playing one, "do this" and will get the same thing) and PVC shakuhachi (surprisingly good for what they are, and not discouraged). 

I was even able to ask how he got into the shakuhachi, thinking (since he was wearing a chain with a cross around his neck - ew) that maybe he'd grown up in Japan, son of missionaries or something. Nope he'd lived in the most boring flyover places, and had simply fallen in love with the sound, which he'd heard on anime and Samurai movies. I was amazed and mentioned growing up in Hawaii and not knowing about it. He said that's not surprising at all, that in Japan maybe 5% at most of people have seen one "in person" and it's generally, "Oh, my grandfather played that". 

So regardless of his wearing a symbol showing he's a member of a cult that wants to see me and people I care about dead, it was a real treat and a big help to me. Maybe as a Buddhist I should wear a swastika around my neck haha. 

After packing and hunting for things all day I did a post office and FedEx run, and at FedEx they said about today, Veterans' Day, "It's not a holiday for us!" so I'd be wise to make another run today. Then I photo'd the 35 things I had lined up and listed 15 of them and by that time it was midnight and I was pretty sleepy so I went to bed around 1AM. 

I woke up at 8 maybe, then again at 10. I've got a guy welding and grinding on some things... looks like stands for signs or something, made out of heavy steel pipe. The empty space in front of the roll-up door here is just too tempting for these guys I guess and he made a good alarm clock.