Life as experienced by Kyle Abbott.
I was reading the Far Side last night before I went to bed. . . well, I mean I was already in bed when I read it in bed but I read it before I went to sleep.
Anyway, I was reading some of the cartoons that were made in the 70s-80s-90s (I don’t really know when they were made) and I found this one. The newspaper in it says September, 2 2005! Even though it’s not September 2, it is still September and it is 2005 so that’s purty neat! . . for no particular reason.
I’m wanting to make the shamisen but before that, it’d be a good idea to finish the banjo so that’s what we did. We are almost in the skin stretching stage but we have to make the metal ring first. We had these 1/2″ long and 1/4″ in diameter metal tubes
We made a copy of the wood pot to bend the metal over. It worked pretty well but as I was hammering the bendy metal over the copy, the clamp holding the metal to the wood slipped and almost hit my foot. This happened a few times and then when I was hammering the metal on the copy, the top part of the wood broke off which made it hard to bend the right angle. Fortunately, we also had another angle shaped out for bending but that broke too. All in all, it was out of shape. Later, I used the vise grip to bend it and that pretty much got it into shape but what really brought it together was just lightly clamping the metal to the original pot and then ever so slightly tightening it. That worked thankfully ’cause it was getting frustrating.
After that, I had to get some practice using the arc welder since we weren’t gonna use the torch. The welding stick kept sticking to the metal and I had a hard time making the arc without holding it to the metal (which made it stick). When I did get an arc, I couldn’t tell how close it was to the metal and I eventually lost it (the arc). Much later, I got the hang of it and made a little puddle of mettalic goop. The hard part was the visor/helmet. When I put the black glass (which protects the eyes from the super duper bright light) over my eyes, I couldn’t see what I was doing until I got an arc but most of the time I didn’t get an arc ’cause it either was stuck to the metal or the welding stick wasn’t even close to the metal ’cause where I thought it was wasn’t where it was. ( ’cause couldn’t see where it was ’cause I had the glass over my eyes).
Last week, Kevin (my shamisen teacher) told me that there was a workshop gonna happen with Ryo Hagiwara and Pierre (sounds French) Ono. They are some famous players in Tokyo. Anyway, so I decided to go and a week later, I did. I brought my shirt that makes me look five years older (so Luke says). That’s not the reason why I brought it though. I brought it ’cause it has a pocket where I can put my DV camera. I went a few minutes early so I wouldn’t miss anything and I sure didn’t. I passed the time playing some of the guitars. Finally, they were all tuned up ‘n ready and about fifteen people were there so they started. Boy, it was unsuprisingly loud! Loud as any rock concert (even though I’ve never been to one) and none of the shamisens were plugged in! They were slapping away at the traditional tunes and there was a tiny bit of chit-chat after each song and later they went on to a novelty song. The song itself was rather traditional (Tsugaru Jongara Bushi) but how they preformed it was entertaining. They each played a little section one after the other and later Pierre (who actually isn’t French) stopped playing and waited. A little later, Pierre went up behind Ryo and pressed down the strings while Ryo plucked them. I’ve seen Jack and Billy (some Bluegrass friends) do that with the banjo. It’s hard to describe the rest of it but if you’ve ever seen The Best of Victor Borge (the part when the Turkish guy and Victor shared a piano), you’d know what it was like.
After the Traditional tunes, they did one medly of famous songs that weren’t so Japanese. The first one I heard was them doing the Little Feuge. I first heard the Brass Quartet do that at Victor’s 80th birthday gala. Anyway, it was neat to hear that on Shamisen.
I brought my camera to record them but I saw somebody record it with a much better camera so I just figured I’d ask him for a copy afterwards.
After the performance, they let people try out a Shamisen. I was one of three (out of fifteen) who tried it. Ryo showed me how to do that famous rolling sound that’s always done on the shamisen. I’ve always wanted to learn how to do that and I finnally did. He kept telling me to strike the strings harder (’cause I’m used to San Kyoku/Naga Uta). Afterwards, I took measurements of Pierre’s Shamisen (’cause I’m gonna make my own Shamisen [$1800+ is too much for that thing]) The neck is thicker and the body is bigger. It turns out he made a shamisen before and he said it was easy. (which is relative of course) After some measurements, I left.
About 3/4 way home, I remembered that I forgot to ask the guy for a copy of the video! I knew that would happen!
So, the time came for the UCSC O.P.E.R.S Field Day. Thing where all the “arts” classes showed there stuff. Since the Karate class sure needs some students, we decided to do a little thing.
So, when we got there, we had a hard time finding our table. We were wandering around all the wierdos but couldn’t find our table! Finally, Jumbo (who believe me, isn’t at all jumbo or tubby at all) came up and showed us where our table was. We were right by the Brazilian Jujutsu club table. They sure had spirit. They were walking around giving people flyers and telling ‘em that if they haven’t done Brazilian Jujutsu, they haven’t done real fighting (which I doubt). Roody and John came so we were in action! We were handing out flyers left and right and in front of us, Luke made eye-gouging – I mean catching signs and we got lots of names and email addresses to put on our spam list! . . Just kidding! It started to rain an I happened to be right next to the Jujutsu tent so I just kinda leaned into it a bit. A minute later, it cleared up.
We saw another Karate-ish table and Luke wanted me to pick up a flyer from that table. I went there and one of the students/members saw me in my gi and said I was already for their class. Then I told them I was already doing Shotokan. They said that their Karate was a mix of Karate and Aikido. I acted interested and asked for the flyer I wanted. They gave one to me and suggested that I put my name and email address on the paper. I didn’t really want to get a newsletter so I wrote my name and email in my normal handwriting (unintelligable [though I can read it]) but the teacher/student was looking at me write it so I rewrote it better.
I saw a Ninjutsu class. It looked rather interesting. I asked if it was the Tokagure-Ryo style and he said it was a mix of all nine styles. It’s probably not the most traditional but who knows, I might take it to learn some stealth walking and Shurikenjutsu. It’s $30 for four months which is a pretty good deal too.
It was time for the demo so we found the stage which was some mats on the ground (which didn’t line up so if you weren’t careful, you’d trip during the kata). Josh MCeed it and it was a bit more explained then I thought it would be. Than we did the Bunkai of the Kata. (Kind of a Kata in Action! you could say) That went worse than I imagined. Timing was off, people didn’t fall down and it could’ve been better. Oh well, It’s a musician thing. It was fine.
Afterwards, it looked like there was free food so Luke went and got some Churros. We used to get those all the time at Costco before they got rid of them 6+ years ago. Like all fried foods, it has to be eaten fresh and these weren’t fresh. They were chewy but still tasted fine. After that, some guy who saw our demo came up and said he wanted to fight. You know, he just wanted to get kicked. Luke turned over the situation to John who turned it over to Josh. So the guy told Josh that he wanted to just fight (he didn’t sound like he’d hold back his punches) but Josh said that there’s too many witnesses around in case somebody gets hurt.
After that, Josh taught a class. It’s awkward after not doing Karate for a week. (since I was kinda sick)
At 8:00, we went home.
Today, I was doing something in room A. A lady we know comes into room B and I can smell her scent (perfume) from all across the room! I mean for being smelly, I’m one to talk but let me tell you that it is not right to be able to smell somebody from across the room. I mean I thought the point of perfume was when somebody’s walking by, they think, “hmm, a distinct banana smell, delicious! I’d like to get to know her better.” Not, “Hit the floor! I smell Miss Sprig (no offense to anybody named Sprig. I’m just coming up with a name at random) across the city! ” You shouldn’t be able to smell somebody without seeing them first. (unless you are blindfolded and the perfumed person is sneaking up on you)
Of course, I wouldn’t know any of this.