#thst was supposed to say 5 hours behind me

[bonschai]

i don't understand time zone conversions and at thus point i don't have the energy to figure it out

[lunartearrose]

Ugggfhhh vent under the cut cuz i do nottt wanna depress ppl but like. Real struggle

So like. By now its been two days ago since i got in a head on car crash, right? Dealing with the trauma of it sucks

I feel like i died for a split second. Like, one of the worst possible things that could happen to a person happened and yet. Somehow im lucky enough to be able to walk

Still quite injured in a way ive never been before tho. I still lick at my lip and feel that first sensation i felt. I had put my arms up in a protect my face block last second (arms paralell like you learn in self defense classes) and what i walked away with was seatbelt bruises, a bloody lip and what feels like a broke shoulder. It still hurts, but holy shit im alive. It was horror, but i lived. Adrenaline feels like bees running down your legs abd also thank god the airbags worked

My poor mom though - i really think she's broken in several spots... it makes me not wanna drive ever seriously i was lagging behind on a license getting experience but now FUCK that dont want it rlly dont

But like, holy shit. Holy shit holy shit does trauma fuck you over so bad. My brain wants to block out what happened so bad but it keeps on dumping off minor details with it and i swear my whole word remembering and memory is worse for ware overall

Also nobody fucking. Tells you that smell is such a deep routed part of trauma. Just like rhe impact and the sound, just like the moment of air getting into bed feels like the jolt of you almost going flying and getting pumped full of adrenaline as your soul almost leaves, just like every bang of cabinets and doors and even sitting too hard sounds just like the impact, reignites the sound of cars crumpling and windshield breaking all at once like its happening fresh fresh right there. My god the smell is the worst. The smell of burning oil and exposed car engine and leaking fluids and whatever the fuck else is smoking, its strong and awful and it was so soaked into the clothes i had to wear for hours while waiting to see if mom was ok, and if i was ok, and it sucked and as soon as i got home so late i changed and gavoned some cold food because holy fuck i was alive. But holy fuck i did not make it unscathed

And the worst of the smells. Is that if your brain. When so close to accident, smells a smell it doesnt like, like say the smell thats supposed to be gross not-mint of vapor rubs that relax those bruised muscles, it turns into that burning awful oil car smell, and suddenly you're there again with your poor panicked mom screaming to get out of the car because the road is bad and youve never had this happen and youve never known what you should do so you run like a dizzy dear to her side in a muddy hill and try to calm her down because its all you can think to do. And the smell is still there, the smell is always lurking behind hated smells, the bad turning to its worst the moment you smell it.

And that ever traumatized child in you is back, feeeling all the pain and fear with you. It decides it wants to buy cosmic brownies in your instacart for the milk you went in your stupid car to stupidly go to the convenience store in but got smashed by an idiot who tried to just go for it on a turn thst should have stop lights, stop signs, anything.

And you have to tell the kid we were the passenger and its not our fault. Because thats true

You hold the tiny traumatized kid in your traumatized arms as you're held by the funny little bug with mismatched horns in your mind. Watching the big scar in your mindscape bleed hot car oil fluid smell

And you decide to sit outside the next day and sketch a plan to keep cats contained, because you do not want your cats run over but you want them outside in the sobering air with you

Yes thats a car with a gun im funny

Shout out to douglas, who got me socks in the hospital bc i didnt wear socks in my shoes bc i thought id be home in under 5 mins. He was rlly kind and helped my mom too

Shoutout to the instacart lady i had the next day that couldnt speak english much, but sent me pictures of replacements and said, "like? 😀" and like. Yes i like and i am in love with the sweet people like you that keep my brain from dissolving in trauma fear

She also picked nice yellow bags. I like the yellow bags. Five stars with extra thank you's everywhere.

And also hugs everywhere for my siblings and grandma who wre home when i dared to ride w mom for milk and cleaned up all this stuff and brought pasta and pizza. And keep letting me have all the hugs i want bc its nice and keep telling me they'rehappy we made it home alive. Anyways im crying tears bc good humans are so very great... and im happy to be near them

I never wanna be in an accident again. I just wanna cuddle my cats man

[mysynthfetish]

ONDEKOZA again.

So lemme just start by saying this is the second attempt at thumbfucking this post out on my phone in the Stumblr app. First time I was almost all the way through the post when I dipped out to grab a link to a video and when I flipped back to this app guess what, fucking post had fucked off into fuck knows where. Pissed. Me. Off. Anyway.

Exactly one month ago I was visited by opportunity in the form of a Saturday work day which I was told at the last minute (on Friday) that I didn’t actually need to attend. Mental wheels started frantically spinning. What was it that I had thought about doing or going to but in the end gave up on the idea because of travel time and difficulty finding a place to stay... oh shit yeah, Ondekoza is playing kinda sorta nearby. Righty-O then. I immediately got busy contacting the boss (this woman I live with who is the mother of our children) and asked her if she minded if I took the car and fugged off for the weekend. She was like “how soon can you be gone?” Hahaha no not really. She just said sure go ahead just be careful. Then I got in touch with Naoto, the one member of Ondekoza who I talk with regularly, and asked if it’d be ok for me to drive out and stay with them and help set up and tear down for their show and whatever. A positive reply came rather quickly so a last minute plan came together and Saturday morning off I went.

They were doing workshops and fun things, as well as playing a full concert (outdoors, on a stage set up in the middle of a terraced rice field area) to bring a week-long artsyfartsy event to a close. What was the event called again? Something like Umi-no-Stage 2019 (Umi means ocean, sea or beach), featuring workshops and performances by mostly off the wall/weirdo/wacky artists (right up my alley) held in a wee rustic hamlet (so small it’s almost not on maps) called Tagarasu (literally means Rice Field Crow, I dig it) near Obama City (yes, they made a big deal outta that when Drumpf’s predecessor was in office), in Fukui Prefecture (not “fuckyouey” hahaha no, “fooh-kooh-wee”) on the Sea of Japan side. Enough parentheses in that last sentence for you? Hehe. So as you can see on the map, google maps said it would be a two hour drive if I took the non-toll roads. Lemme tell you, freeways are anything but free here. The routes on the left and right on that map had tolls of $40 and $50 each, one way, so I was like the hell with that. It was an easy drive anyway once I got out of the urban sprawl and traffic jam factory of Kyoto City itself. Then it was twisty mountain roads, fresh, cool air, and scenic routes through mountain forests and alongside rivers in valleys. I thought it quite ironic and a helluva coincidence that I ended up driving the westernmost length of a road which I had ran the easternmost part of a few weeks prior on an overnighter with the third graders for work. Here’s a shot of the road sign:

ACCIIIIIIIIIIEEED!!!!!! So before I knew it I arrived in one piece, parked at a beach access parking lot that said “$10 a day, pay at the front” but I was like “I’m with Ondekoza, can I park here? Oh by the way do you know which house they’re in right now?” And the confused looking lady in charge grabbed a guy who was event staff and had him take me to where I needed to go, and in the end I found out that the fee is for people who want to go fishing out on the breakwaters there so whatever.

No sooner had I walked in the door and exchanged greetings than they tell me “we’ve got a job for you today.” Cool. I thought they’d ask me to write up something in English, or maybe do some lettering like make a sign or something, chalk art, whatever. Nope. “We want you to play shime-daiko for a five minute or so attention-getter we’re gonna play to fire people up for tomorrow’s show. It’s a mashup of Utsu Hachijo and Yatai Bayashi. Cool?” Jeeeeezus are you kidding me? Yeah ok I’m familiar with those pieces but it’s been ages, literally 27 years since I practiced them with the then-members of Ondekoza when they came to my hometown and stayed a few weeks during the latter part of their America Marathon Tour (I think maybe it was called the Odyssey tour?). Anyway. Moro-kun (the newest/youngest member?) and I sit down and start brainstorming. We talk out the arrangement of the piece and how it will progress, then do a “rehearsal” drumming out our parts on the table there. All was good. He was sweating bullets, really nervous about the whole thing. I was like “when are we supposed to do this?” And he said “in about half an hour.” HOLY SHIT FOR REAL?! Yikes. Ok ok ok, let’s run through this one more time, cool? We did. No problem. Moro-kun was still a bundle of nerves. I was like “Right. We got this. Let’s go! It’ll all work out in the end.”

Before we were on though, a small, quite out-there modern dance outfit called Monochrome Circus put on a performance at the hamlet’s shrine, so we hit that on our way. Here’s a photo of the entrance as seen from the street:

Fantastic atmosphere. The director of the group gave a short introduction, then explained what the first performance would be. In Japan, there’s a super popular style of comic called the yon-koma-manga (four-frame comic strip). Quite like the funnies in the daily newspapers back home actually. They would set a scene somewhere within the shrine grounds, then one person at a time would enter the scene, strike a pose and freeze, until four people had entered and then the audience would be prompted to say “FINISHED!” For the first one, the group members showed what the deal was so everyone would get it. From the second one on, they asked members of the audience to join in. I ran over to the stairs you can see in the photo, whipped out my iPhone and sat down, pretending to be messing with it—an homage to the modern mindless moron that today’s society overflows with so profusely. The second person came and stood behind me looking over my shoulder. I couldn’t see where the third or fourth people ended up. FINISHED!!! This kept on for a few more rounds, then the group did a few dances, which were really nice actually, and not SO out there. Then it was time to go. Righty-O. Let’s go!

Yeah so when we got to the seawall there, I didn’t get stage fright until it was time to take off my shoes and socks and sit down in front of the drum. Biggest goof? Forgetting to take off my damn sunglasses. Duhhhhhh. At least I managed to keep in time and didn’t fuck up disastrously, though the sticks were a helluva lot thicker and longer than the sticks I’m used to (Ondekoza makes all their drumsticks by hand). But it ain’t everyday you get to play with Ondekoza, so I’m glad I had the chance.

After that we just hung out, did dinner, then walked around checking out the sunset.

Not too shabby. In the evening, a wacko but fun group called something like the Tōhoku Six Prefecture Rock-n-rollers gave a show at the same stage Ondekoza would be using the next day so we went and saw that. Fun, crazy shit. Then off to bed.

The next morning we were up by 5:45, and then it was off on the daily 6am run. Everyone split up and went off on their own though and I was like WHAAAT?! So instead of going solo and getting completely the fuck lost, I tagged along with Naoto. What a scenic run! Through tunnels and down twisty roads that hugged the coastal sides of the smallish mountains there. The view was fantastic. We reached a turnaround point and Naoto said “I’ve got breakfast duty so I need to head back.” No problem. I followed him back, then ran an extra 1km and a bit. Still it totalled about 7km, three short of their daily 10km run (they don’t strictly adhere to this distance though, they’ve become a bit more flexible and I don’t think it’s a bad thing—when they were founded and when they ran in the US when I spent time with them they all ran together as a group but not anymore). Shower, breakfast, then a full-on day of setting up. After the setting up part was done, they had a soundcheck and mini rehearsal. I snapped this photo while that was going on.

What a place. Beautiful. Absolute nightmare for music though, as far as acoustics are concerned. But it all worked out. Two o’clock arrived and concertgoers started mozying in. We retreated to a large tent that was set up as a dressing room. They changed into their performing outfits, and I just zoned out for a bit. Before they go on, they always do this ritual of making a circle and doing warmup exercises, then adjacent members hold hands, and they do a little pre-game cheer of sorts. I was invited to join in all this so I was pleasantly surprised. Then it was GAME ON!!! I shot video of the whole show, and here’s a photo from Instagram of them playing Ōdaiko with me at the right shooting video.

Hahaa a cameo. Gimme a break. Anyway I’ll put a link to the video here in a sec but I just want to say they told the audience that video and photos were prohibited, so I set the video to “unlisted” and the only way to see it is if you have the link. They don’t really mind people seeing the video, it’s more a concern about people taking photos or video and then trying to sell it. Right then, here you go:

It’s about an hour twenty minutes or so. Hope you have nice speakers too. Yeah. So it was a fantastic show in an idyllic, beautiful environment. Then it was time to tear down and pack up. We had quite a bit of help this time so it was over within about an hour. Then they were gonna drive north along the Sea of Japan, heading to catch a ferry way up in Aomori, on their way to their annual Hokkaidō camp and concert, before heading off to a two week stint in China. I said a sincere thanks for being allowed to tag along, let them know that I really appreciated it, and then the director (Mr Matsuda) said “C’mon, you’re family! And besides that, you get shit done! Having you here was a huge help and it’s you who should be thanked.” I was floored. Did not expect to be told that. Wow. So it was in very high spirits thst I made the drive back home, arriving safely, but still full of adrenaline. What a weekend.

The next time I’ll get to fool around with them will be in September when they’ll be in Nagoya for a concert. I’m cooking up a plan to design and have vinyl stickers made for them to sell at shows and events while I’m back in the US this summer. 123stickers.com man, vinyl fucking stickers for reasonable prices and the damn things last forever. I’ve slapped a shitload of small ones here and there around Osaka and Kyoto over the years and they’re still there, in great shape. Graffiti background bared for all to see huh? Hahaha. Anyway. That’s all I have to say about that!