More Stupidity

Last weekend I met up with some of the usual suspects out here in OHGACK! Good conversation, good tunes, and good folks. The only problem was that I was supposed to meet my friend Reiko early the next morning to hang out in Nagoya, and getting to sleep at 3 AM isn't exactly the best thing to do when that's your plan, but I was up at 8, in Nagoya by 10, and at Nagoya castle by noon. Nagoya castle's grounds are pretty cool, a super giant moat, lots of greenery, a nice park where we witnessed a bunch of creepy dudes following a girl around who would stop and pose periodically at different scenic locations... but I'm off on a tangent now. I guess what I was trying to get at was that, even though I enjoyed visiting the castle, it's more of a museum to the old castle than it is a living monument. The inside has way too many visible modern conveniences and an elevator, so I was a bit disappointed. Regardless, though, it was good times.

We headed out to Osu next to meet up with the usual Nagoya suspects for lunch. Reiko wanted to eat specialties specific to Nagoya, so we had miso-katsu, and later on we had tebasaki (super salty chicken wings) and IT WAS GOOD! (imagine the Rock reading Genesis so you can get what I was going for there) Reiko ended up coming back to OHGACK where we met up with the same usual suspects and chatted for a bit and watched a Pteradon video, as well as video from the super awesome 38-band punk festival I went to in Tokyo last week (you're gonna have to wait to read about that one!).

The next day, Reiko had to catch the bullet train back home to meet up with her boyfriend, whose birthday it was, so we stopped off at my favorite Brazilian place for lunch. AND IT WAS GOOD! By chance, there were some pamphlets on the table for an art festival happening in town, but I didn't think much of it, even though I had heard a bit about a different music festival happening at the same time. On the way back to the station to drop off Reiko we happened upon this art gallery whose walls and floor were covered in scrawled gibberish, kind of like a horror movie set or something. It was tight. We also walked through an underground tunnel with rocks that moved on their own accord. N?

Reiko left and I decided to check out more of the festival, which actually ended up being pretty cool. There was a really cool book compiled featuring photos of signs from all over OHGACK, and a camera obscura bus thingy that you could ride inside of and see images from outside the bus projected onto a screen inside. If I ever figure out how to transfer photos from my cell phone to the computer, you may actually see some of the stuff someday, but for now this insufficient description must suffice.

My friend Josh's band was playing as part of the music festival that evening, but since it was raining, they moved the performance into this giant gym so the sound was pretty awful. I was impressed by Josh's skills though, so that was N. The band that performed before him was made up of a bunch of 16 year olds, one of whom was wearing a tuxedo vest, and another who was wearing a sweater-shawl combo thingy. They looked goofy, but they could all shred, so who am I to diss these 16 old prodigies???

Anyway, the next Tuesday a bunch of us went back to check out the art and music again, this time to see some OHGACK hip-hop. There was a giant dude in a Yankees jersey who kept on pronouncing Ogaki as OHGACK, doing his best American-thug impersonation. One of the other bands was this really sleazy, all-girl psychadelic band. Not sleazy in a racy sense, but more just that their music was super dirty and garagey sounding, it was actually alright.

I was pretty jazzed to see some art and culture in Ogaki, even though it was kind of disappointing to find that so few people knew about what was going on, and the events didn't seem too well attended.

Tonight I finally found the one club in Ogaki that hosts live music, and some of us are thinking about starting a band, so keep your eyes open for what may come...

Ah yes, yet another stupid post, hurried due to my rush to finish it before my tenuous internet connection stolen from my neighbor's wireless signal fades...

PEACE!