The Protean RushTuesdayCream Abdul Babar => very very good.
Melt Banana => very very very good.
Velvet => extra supremo packed to capacity; many out-of-towners, yet there were no fights
My boss => rad for giving me Wednesday off so I could have unrestrained fun & up-lateness
WednesdayVelvet staff and their Others took Melt Banana to the beach for oysters. The Mighty (hungry) Bel appalled these nice Japanese people by devouring: oysters. crawfish. mussels. shrimp. crab legs. crazy crab claws. sausage. Oh, and PBR, of course. The whole band split the same enormous platter that Tony and I ate ourselves (plus the bucket of oysters that I put away alone.) I think they enjoyed themselves & the food - it's hard to be sure, seeing as they barely BARELY speak English and none of us speak Japanese at all. Or maybe they speak plenty of English and just didn't want to talk to us, which is also possible. No, they were really nice, and the guy who'd begged us to find him oysters seemed plenty thrilled. We all dug the stray cats roaming around & the howling yowling cats in the trees overhead.
They've been on tour for nearly fifty days now and have another handful to go, then they leave the US and tour Europe. Having tagged along on legs of a few tours, in my home country, only for a few days at a time, I can't imagine what it must be like for them - foreign language, foreign culture, the shitty discomfort of touring, the mental strain & personality conflicts that brew up quickly after being boxed in a van, the exertion of having to perform almost every day, the stress of getting paid & working out accommodations... man, you'd have to be strong or crazy to do this.
I've watched strong people GO crazy doing it. I hope it was worth it. It wouldn't be worth it, to me.
[11/12/2002 11:38:21 AM | Mehitobel Wilson]
Why Bother?No real reason to update this today, other than a demonstration of the Often
Low-Key Life that is Bel's.
Sopranos: I liked last week's episode; it felt a little more par for the
course than most have this season. Last night's episode, however, was like
a homecoming. Rock on.
ICHI THE KILLER: Ed Lee sent me this movie, along with a copy of Asian Cult
Cinema in which he'd reviewed it. Since watching the movie I've checked out
a few other reviews, and all are the same: unwatchably gory, offensively
exploitative, detatched, etc. Meanwhile, not only did I think it was a
great movie, I thought the gore was... fine. Not excessive or even unusual.
It's a visually sharp movie; I'm a big Tekken fan and the movie makes Tekken
nods galore, from physical moves, to locations (such as the arena-like
closing showdown locale) to costumes. The music was great (turns out to be
a side project of the Boredoms, so there ya go - though I was disappointed
to learn that, because here I'd thought I was about to expand my little
musical horizons some more, and lo, it's a band I already know.) The
characterization was interesting, with the stylized morals and motivations
of a fable, but a murderous one. I'd call this Artgore if there weren't
more to it than that; most of the reviewer who called it "exploitation
cinema" would doubtless call it Artgore, but there was a genuine plot &
intriguing, if withdrawn, characters. I suppose the Thrill Kill-style blood
spray, which was hilarious - hell, the fact that the goriest effects were
often played with comedy - might piss some people off, especially in the
harsher context of the plot proper, but I saw them as theatrical shorthand,
the visual (bloody) equivalent of cacophonous music.
Gotta say, though, that no matter how entertaining the flick was, my
attention kept being pulled a bit to the right, where my new big fat heavy
18" bloody ol' Leatherface figure (scored for dick cheap yesterday from a
toy outlet) was standing there, looking motherfucking, um, killer.
(I also got a Nina Williams figure from Tekken 3. They had Soul Calibur
figures, too, but no sign on the carding of a Voldo - time now to research
whether one exists at all.)
Next door to the toy outlet was a book outlet. I resisted going into either
one of them, but ze arm, she twists, and the lunch/beer/bill money, she
rapidly drains out of ze pockets when confronted with cheap Leatherfaces and
cheap new books. (I did not buy the stuffed hammerhead shark that, when his
belly is pressed, says informative things like "I'm a Hammerhead Shark, and
I have no bones," in The Continental's voice. I will go back for him after
payday.)
Tonight's a night. Tomorrow, however, is likely to be Big Fun, because I
get to see Melt Banana and Cream Abdul Babar at Velvet. Big loud. Big
twisted. Big fun.
posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 11:38 AM 
