I’m still out of it and kind of low energy, so my song of the day is that affirmation that it just takes some time. You’re in the middle of the ride. Everything will be just fine. Everything will be all right, alright.
Had a chill little 00’s electro-indie throwback set today. Was good fun!
Here are some songs that stood out to me today:
New Songs Attempted
Forgot about Dre – Dr Dre
Clocks – Coldplay
Sober – Tool
Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride – Moana
Works in Progress
I Lava U – Moana
Blue Skies – Irving Berlin
Obstacle 1 – Interpol
96 Quite Bitter Beings – CKY
Learned Songs Revisited
Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads
Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
New Slang – The Shins
Pumped up Kicks – Foster The People
Song of the Day: Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars
Chasing Cars is pretty straightforward to play on ukulele, and its got some great lyrics that are pretty fun to sing. You can pluck it, you can strum it (I do both in different sections!), and its also about laying here, which is all I can do (being stuck in bed an all). Bonus!
Let’s try out this format: new songs I tried out, songs I worked on, old songs I revisited, and my favorite song of the day. This wont be every song that I played through the day, but maybe just some notable ones. Maybe this will be simple enough for me to handle when I’m exhausted at the end of a stream.
New songs:
Touched – VAST
NYC – Interpol
Jump Around – House of Pain
Works in progres:
Blue Skies – Irving Berlin
Danger Zone – Kenny Loggins
Old Songs:
Never Fade Away – Cyberpunk 2077
I really want to stay at your house – Cyberpunk 2077
The more I think about it, the more I feel like Kaijima: Why Sing When You Can Warble? is actually a horror show, not just a cute slice of life propaganda piece. The show revolves around a large mysterious bird-monster that the main character encounters and proceeds to bring home. It speaks Russian and Japanese, and quickly integrates itself into the home – eating their food and meddling in their affairs. His “unfiltered” observations and behaviors from a foreign perspective brings the family back together and they all live happily ever after. Or so it seems.
Upon closer inspection, it seems like the show both highlights the hypocrisy and alienation inherent in the “traditional-modern” Japanese nuclear family, from the parents never being around because they are both working to the older brother becoming a recluse after failing his college exams, which is apparently his only prospect for a bearable future. And the only way the parent know how to support this endavor is by allowing him to “study” in his room every minute of every day and not get in his way.
Enter Kaijima, the monster who doesn’t get it, who breaks all the rules, makes noise, and disturbs the entire household with his ignorance of local norms and bestial instincts. But its exactly this disturbance that sets the family back on track. Kind of. He sort of acts as another sibling who brings parents interest back on to the household, but doesn’t really do much to help the older brother pass his exams. Mostly he seems to keep the main character company, even to the extent of avoiding is actually human classmates / friends. It’s all wrapped in a cute veneer, celebrating Japanese foods and customs.
But from a slightly different perspective, its about a family secretly harboring an alien creature that leeches affection and food by being cute and acting innocent. Kaijima doesn’t actually resolve any of the family’s problems, but rather just inserts itself into their lives and demands to be cared for. And the family is so starved for connection that they willingly embrace it. It’s actually a story about a family harboring a dark secret, and this secret is what ultimately holds them together.
The more I think about it, the more I think it demonstrates the irrationality of the expectations of Japanese society. The scary part though is that the production team seems entirely unaware of this, and actively created this media to perpetuate the values that are the root of the problem in the first place. Kaijima’s faux pas are corrected and explained away, and never consequential enough to actually move the plot forward.
Kaijima is basically a story of “if only all of our problems could be solved by a benevolent magical creature.” But the picture it paints of the family’s problems are, to me, indictive of a society that is rotten at its core. Instead of advocating for change, facing your problems, and overcoming the harshness of reality, they chose to show relief from system only by miraculous intervention. It’s rather horrifying.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think American culture is superior at all. But as a media product, this anime is kind of amazing. On the surface its pretty average. The story, animation, comedic beats, its all fairly mediocre. The crazy part is its subversive without even realizing that its subversive. They set out to make a “whoo lets love japanese culture” propaganda piece and instead highlighted everything wrong with the worldview they’re selling.
It was another tough weekend after the migraine on Friday, I didn’t sleep well and I didn’t get to play Tokon as much as I would have liked, but we’re still alive and breathing. This week’s show is named after Kaijima: Why Sing When you Can Warble? which was… well, an anime of all time. It was almost hit my fabled strike zone of “perfectly average” where its really not great, but not so bad as to be abrasive. Perfect for watching with a migraine where you don’t need to care about the characters or plot, or even if you stay awake really.
Electric uke Mondays are always a good time, and I started the day with some “work” on sheet music that I realized I should be doing after my last voice lesson. Then a new buddy popped into the stream and we spent the day exploring songs, which was fun. I’m on stream to meet and entertain, so the work will just have to get done in the down time.
Apparently I was so tired yesterday after the stream that I just signed off without making a follow up post. I guess I did too much yesterday because I woke up today with a migraine. Luckily the medicine kicked in just in time to start the stream, but it was a pretty rough morning. The stream was mostly chill, but a bunch of folk came in toward the end and I -attempted- to sing some of the anisongs I know. Apologies to the Japanese language. Anyway, I’m still feeling not great so I’ll keep this short. At least I remembered this time!
Started the day with some random roulette, and finished with a nice block of 90’s alt songs. I’m still so tired. I’m still debating about getting Marvel Tokon when it comes out tomorrow, partially because I might be feeling to tired to have fun learning the new game. I don’t know. At a time like this I would normally make a deal with myself to get the new game in exchange for committing to get more work done, but I don’t know if I really want it or really care. Depression is rough.
Played a lot of new songs today that I didn’t add to the list yet because… I was playing video games all weekend. This project was supposed to be like work, yes, where you do things you don’t always like to do to create outcomes you want, but as I wrote in my monthly review, I’ve been having kind of a rough time lately. So, I give myself the grace to not do the work, and to not beat myself up about it. At least I’m practicing and singing. All the plans for the future rest on me getting good at that anyway.
Another Electric Ukulele Monday after a weekend playing UBass. I almost wanted to do a RockSmith stream but its extra work to set up. Might try it eventually. Gotta be careful not to wear out my hands though. My streams are 3 hours long because that’s about as much as my voice can handle, but if I keep using my hands afterwards it can get too much too. People often forget that playing music is a very physical, athletic activity. It’s entirely about how you use your muscles, just in a very different way than how we approach sports or exercise.
I was supposed to figure out a template for these post stream reviews, but I forgot. And I’m still too tired after streaming to function well. I thought I would get used to it eventually, but it just hasn’t happened yet.
Well, we made it through the week! Had a nice block of Hawaiian music today, as well as a bit of the 80’s / gothy stuff. Also did a bunch of new songs that weren’t on the list yet. Since its the end of the month, I need to do my month in review post and update the song list, but I’m feeling lazy. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have energy and can do work instead of a migraine like the past two weeks. We shall see.