New Year's Eve!

In the year 2016, somebody stole the metabolism from my body. Whoever did it, please give it back to me immediately, or if you find it on the street, please throw it to this poor middle-aged man.....

Only one way to end this year! Work out to the dust! 🏋️‍♀️ No pain, no gain! Aaaaaaargh!!

Have very happy new year, friends!! 🎈🎉

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clark

 

Jaco

 

車輪の下（ヘルマン・ヘッセ）

"Beneath the Wheel" by Hermann Hesse

 

The last performance of the year 2016!

Hello, how are you, friends~~😄😄😄

It’s winter. It’s the season for knit caps, scarfs, gloves and hot cocoa. Well, here in Los Angeles is in winter as well but the temperature went up to 80F (26C) yesterday! 🤣 Sun is shining and lots of trees are still lively with full of green leaves🌴🌴🌴 What a winter. Now I’m a bit worried about what the summer looks like in here.

Anyway, I played at the musicians union in Hollywood as usual. I don’t have a count-down gig this year, so that was it for the performing side the year 2016 for me. That was a fun!

Only three days left this year! To tell the truth, without seeing snow or icicles outside of the window, I cannot quite bring myself to believe that this IS the end of the year, but I’ll go with the flow. Ha-ha. I’ll just keep practicing and keep reading books.

八甲田山死の彷徨（新田次郎）

"Death March on Mount Hakkoda" by Jiro Nitta.

 

風立ちぬ（堀辰雄）

"The wind has risen" by Tatsuo Hori

 

ハツカネズミと人間（ジョン・スタインベック）

"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck

 

思考の整理学（外山滋比古）

 

Voice recognition technology...in a lift...in Scotland

I usually don't repost this kinda things but this is just way too gut-bustingly hilarious! As a Japanese, I am constantly fighting against Siri on my iPhone and I can totally relate to this.

Oh man. I so wanna go to Scotland after I saw this skit! (This skit is from "Burnistoun" on BBC Scotland in 2011)

テヘランでロリータを読む（アーザル・ナフィーシー）

"Reading Lorita in Tehran" by Azer Nafisi.

 

"What If?" by Randall Munroe

 

You guys have to read this book! 📚 This is "What If?" by Randall Munroe. The book is funny as hell! The guy is explaining some ridiculous what-if's scientifically in detail and all his stories are cracking me up! 😆😆😆

....Some addition. I just found the video clip below on YouTube. That's when the author, Randall Munroe, was giving a speech on Vancouver TED Talk on March 2014. It's also funny.

文明崩壊（ジャレド・ダイアモンド）

"Collapse" by Jared Diamond

フューチャー・イズ・ワイルド（ドゥーガル・ディクソン＆ジョン・アダムス）

"The Future is Wild" by Dougal Dixon & John Adams

 

起きていることはすべて正しい（勝間和代）

 

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Alexander Freed

 

Christmas Eve! 🎄🎂🎅🎉

Happy Holidays, friends.

Since I’m on diet, I really resisted against this beautiful limited time only Peppermint Bark Sundae from Häagen-Dazs. Resistance was futile.

Well, this is the time to celebrate. This is the right time of the year to feast away. Better to over-pig-out than under-pig-out, I say. I’ll continue my diet from the new year. I burnt some calories at the gym earlier, so I can go overboard a bit.

Have good holidays, everyone! 😆👍 Well, what should I eat tomorrow?🤣

世紀の空売り (マイケル・ルイス)

"The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

 

悲劇の誕生（ニーチェ)

"The Birth of Tragedy" by Friedrich Nietzsche

 

道徳形而上学原論（カント）

"Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals" by Immanuel Kant

 

Making promotion materials at the Musicians Union in Hollywood! (Day 2)

I come to the musicians union in Hollywood every Wednesday. Yesterday was the second day that we recorded a promo. Well, I was handed the charts that I have almost never seen or never seen, then the bandleader said "let's do a take" without rehearsing. Wow 😳 I think this is the real Hollywood style. I've heard that, especially in the old days, musicians had to do overwhelming amount of recordings, so composers, arrangers, orchestrators and copyists were writing furiously round the clock till half an hour before the recording, toss the music to the players, then the players just did the takes one after another because they didn’t have a time to rehearse. Well, the one we did last night was just for promo and wasn’t so dramatic or full-on but I certainly had a taste of it, the taste of the real world, the taste of the real La La Land which is not so happy dreamy place as everyone thinks.

I feel like I got a lot of homework. This place is kicking my butt which is a good thing! 😆👍

Star Wars: Rogue One!

Star Wars: Rogue One! IMAX 3D!!
😆😆😆

I've waited long time for this! Ha-ha-ha!! This is the story about right before Episode 4!! In the very beginning of Episode 4, the opening crawl says “The Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR,” and this is the story about stealing the blueprint of Death Star risking their lives!

Christmas Party!!

🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅

Happy holidays, friends!

😆🍰🎉😆🍰🎉😆🍰🎉

It's about that time of the year. I played for a Christmas party on the other day. I think Los Angeles is the warmest place I have ever played so-called Christmas standards. Now I wonder how Angelenos are taking the Christmas songs like "White Christmas," "Sleigh Ride," "Let It Snow," etc. which associate with snow or coldness, which pretty much all the Christmas songs are. How about Aussies? They must be having over 100F (40C) weather in there right now, and Frosty the snowman wouldn't survive for 10 minutes. ⛄️ Hmm, I wonder. 🤔

Recording Sanshin!

Just put the sanshin track down with my brother Adrien! 😆 That was a fun recording session! I'll bring shamisen next time!

Musicians Union in Hollywood!!

Hello, I got fat.

I ate like no tomorrow a few days ago on my birthday and now all the abs are gone. Six pack became one pack. It's amazing that human bodies can transform like this just in one day.

Anyway I went to the Musicians Union in Hollywood again. Today we were taking some stills while we were playing. Now everyone can see our pretty faces. We are hoping to get more gigs with this. Crossing fingers.

George Takei's Allegiance!!

I'm in good attire and wearing my favorite flat cap. I came to watch George Takei's Allegiance which I wanted to watch for a long time!

I have too many movies I wanna watch this month! I'm going bankrupt with all the movie tickets, popcorn and L-sized Pepsi! 😆😆😆👍👍👍

These are only a few of what I want to watch.....

My birthday!!! 😆🎂🎉🎊

Thank you everyone for the sweetest and kindest birthday messages! I just turned twenty. Yes, I turned twenty 23 times and I have no problem with that.

Well, since I'm in a new place and started over a new life, I thought of doing something I've never done. I have never been good at partying so I thought maybe throwing a birthday party was a good idea...... well, maybe next year. Instead, and as every birthday, I just went everywhere and ate like the earth explodes tomorrow. Oh, I was so literally ballooned.

I'm in the middle of turning my life and my music career around in LA. It's a total change. I'm giving a 180 degrees turn. In this age, I finally learnt the importance of never giving up, so I'm pulling a Rocky Balboa in me.

Friends, thanks again!

The biggest birthday gift to myself was to go to my favorite Japanese used book store, Book Off! They happened to do the bargain sale till my birthday!

Sprited Away: 15th Anniversary Celebration!

Spirited Away: 15th Anniversary Celebration!🎉 Special screenings for just three days, and I was able to catch the last screening! I think that was the first time for me to watch the English dubbed version!

Aaaaaaa, that was sooooo really good! This kind of good movies make all the stresses in real life blow away to somewhere. Japanese animations are the best! 😆👍🇯🇵

Screenings of Princess Mononoke are coming up next month!

Of course I'm going to come back next week for the spin-off of Star Wars!

Video shoot at Musicians Union in Hollywood! (1st attempt)

I'm at Musicians Union in Hollywood, again.

We were going to shoot a promo video today but we postponed it for now and just did a regular rehearsal. Well, it didn't matter if it were a video shoot or a rehearsal. A fun session was a fun session!

Hoping to shoot a video next week!