Quick Shots

On The Road Again
Next week, I'll be going to Queensland and then WETA down in Wellington NZ as I accompany a host of Japanese producers doing a feasibility tour of shooting one of their bigger pictures, down-under. The raationale goes the lead actor is only available during December and January, but the script calls for scenes in the wilderness and an underwater fight scene, so naaturally they're trying to get their heads around shooting in the opposite season.

Anyway, with some luck I'll convince them it's feasible and then get a job working on the production. We'll see how it goes. :)

The Writings Of Cho Seung-Hui
One of the tragedies in this world is that overnight, 183 people might die in Baghdad and nobody raises an eyebrow, not even an eyelash; but should a crazed Korean go on a shooting-spree rampage through an American educational insitution killing 32, it's world-wide front-page news. *Ugh*

In the ensuing media-circus (which is fit for a poke here on these pages) it has been rvealed that Cho was a creative writng student (*Ugh* x2) and that he has produced 2 little plays. Becaue the world is all digital and fucked up, we can now get some insight into the wretched soul that was Cho Seung-Hui here.

I will report that yes, I have read one of them, but not the other. There's only so much crap one can handle.

Brian Lara Calls It A Day
In other news, Brian Lara has decided to retire at the end of the current Cricket World Cup.

Over a 17-year international career, Lara achieved every individual accolade a batsman could. At the end of his career, he is the greatest Test match run scorer of all time (11,953) and boasts the highest-ever Test and first-class scores.

At St John's in 1994 against England, he broke Sir Garfield Sobers' mythical total of 365, and then bettered it again when Matthew Hayden dared to set a new mark, when he made 400 at same venue against England 10 years later. His first-class total of 501 for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994 is still unsurpassed.

He scored the most runs in a Test over (28), most runs for the West Indies, the second most double centuries (eight), the second most Test centuries (34), the most runs in a losing team (351 v Sri Lanka in 2001) and took second most Test catches (168).

In his 131-Test career, he faced the three greatest Test wicket takers of all time, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Muttiah Muralitharan, while he played alongside the fourth in Courtney Walsh. In an era of golden cricketers, Lara not only competed, but dominated many of them.

Alongside Sachin Tendulkar, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting, he stood on that second level behind the incomparable Sir Donald Bradman.

It's always sad when a great has to call it a day.

My Song Of The Week

Astronaughty

A few weeks back, we saw the news on NASA Astronaught and US Navy Captain Lisa Nowak's strange misadventure. So I wrote a song about it.
It's an irony-filled number about love lost, and being an astronaut. The Right Stuff sure ain't what it used to be.

Quick Shots

Working
I've been helping out 32 Hundred Lighting for a few weeks now. It's a bit of casual temping on the side. It's really interesting to see the events/promotions world from the other side of the producing ledger. The place is filled with great people so stay tuned for fun stories.

On The Court
I'm back to having regular hits on the tennis court. I think I've got my movement back and my strokes are pretty clean. My backhand comes and goes depending on my footwork but my forehand is in a groove. It's good to feel healthy.

Jack Kerouac Memorial League Season Starts!
My goodness it's taken me a fortnight to get to mention it but the MLB season is on for young and old again. The only thing that kept me sane through the Northern winter this yar was watching cricket and Tennis, which is no substitute for the joys of reading the box scores on Yahoo.

My draft this year was very rookie heavy:
1. (1) Johan Santana SP
2. (20) David Wright 3B
3. (21) Derek Jeter SS
4. (40) Mariano Rivera RP
5. (41) Huston Street RP
6. (60) Jered Weaver SP
7. (61) Takashi Saito RP
8. (80) Brian McCann C
9. (81) "King" Félix Hernández SP
10. (100) Cole Hamels SP
11. (101) Adam Dunn LF
12. (120) Delmon Young RF
13. (121) Todd Helton 1B
14. (140) Ryan Freel 2B,3B,LF,CF,RF
15. (141) Tadahito Iguchi 2B
16. (160) Akinori Otsuka RP
17. (161) Dennys Reyes RP
18. (180) Kei Igawa SP
19. (181) Reed Johnson LF,CF,RF
20. (200) Bobby Crosby SS
21. (201) B.J. Upton 2B,3B
22. (220) Austin Kearns RF
23. (221) Alex Gordon 3B
24. (240) Matt Murton LF
25. (241) J.D. Drew

Since then I've traded Santana for Dice-K (which raised eyebrows); cast aside Matt Murton for a 5th starter to fill in for a DL-ed Jared Weaver; looked for a pitcher for holds, but at the end of 2 weeks, I'm on top. Which promises absolutely nothing, but we'll see. Adam Dunn has been a revelation, but his friend Austin Kearns has been pretty slow to start. Nick Johnson (a.k.a OBP Jesus) was out injured for the season while Todd Helton has simply been grizzly.

I'm high on all these rookies, and so far BJ Upton, Delmon Young, Dice-K have been as advertised. Helton, Jeter and Mo are old on this squad!
Plus, I have King Felix, Cole Hamels and Jared Weaver. If only I could find a good 5th starter out of John Maine, Kei Igawa and Zach Greinke, I am Mr. Pitching Depth.

Alex Gordon has been slow, having had 3 hits in 29 ABs or so. One of those was a homerun - I'm going to be patient. After all, he was he most likely to be star prospect in just about everybody's forecast. He may supersede David Wright as the Combat Wombat 3B of the future.
On a related note, I'm really excited BJ Upton has finally arrived for the Devil Rays, and he's done so as a 2B. I foolishly parted with Chase Utley (I'm still trying to remember the reasoning as it was clearly stupid in retrospect). Upton hits like Jeter in the 2B hole, I'm a happy lad.

Question: Why is Orlando Hudson hitting in the 3 hole for the Arizona Diamondbacks? And why is he producing so much thus far? Very spooky, but I've decided to imbibe the Kool-aid to see what it's about. I've dropped Iguchi in favor of Hudson.

AFL Fantasy League
Encouraged by my 7th/16 place finish in the AFL last year, I have signed on again to take on the Jennings boys.
Here's my team for the year:

1. BIRCHALL, Grant (HAW)
2. CORNES, Chad (PTA)
3. BOYLE, Tim (HAW)
4. RICHARDS, Ted (SYD)
5. MILLER, Brad J. (MEL)
6. GLASS, Darren (WCE)
7. EGAN, Matthew (GEE)
8. CROSS, Daniel (WBD)
9. JUDD, Chris (WCE)
10. BRUCE, Cameron (MEL)
11. HODGE, Luke (HAW)
12. GOODES, Adam (SYD)
13. THOMAS, Lindsay (KAN)
14. EVERITT, Peter (SYD)
15. MOONEY, Cameron (GEE)
16. LUCAS, Scott (ESS)
17. O'KEEFE, Ryan (SYD)
18. THOMAS, Dale (COL)
19. HALE, David (KAN)
20. HALL, Barry (SYD)
21. JETTA, Leroy (ESS)
22. MCGRATH, Ashley (BRL)

Bench:
Torney, Jason
Mackenzie, Eric
Hurn, Shannon
Collins, Brett
Wood, Cameron
Taylor, Simon
MacDougall, Andrew
Phillips, Simon

It's a salary-capped league so you have to choose your stars wisely.
This year my tack is no longer "Stars & Scrubs", but depth. Because you can only have 20 trades in a 20 round season, you just can't afford to have a roster with holes where people don't play.
The guys who fluctuate do fluctuate wildly, but nothing hurts the bottomline as a guy who is on your roster who does not play. Last year, I didn't value the contribution of my scrubs enough and so spent most of my 20 trades looking for people to fill my holes. That was bad.

This all meant I had to fill in the likes of Shannon Hurn and Leroy Jetta before choosing my stars. In turn, it meant I had to forego Kane Cornes, Dean Cox, Dane Swan and so on - a real Bummer. Fortunately I retained Luke Hodge who I think is primed for a good year. I also managed to pick up Peter Everitt again, which amuses me in as much as he's moved to Sydney and I think he's under-valued. he's only 1 year out from a monster season and he's still very capable.

I also have familiar names from last year's squad in Barry Hall, Matthew Egan, Dale Thomas, Grant Birchall and Scott Lucas.
Who knows? It might work this year.

My Song Of The Week

How Can It Be... Love?

I wrote this song when I was 17.
Well, most of it anyway. It was the first thing I recorded on my cassette deck, way back when. This is a new rendition I decided to undertake because I don't think the song ever got its dues in my old bands and all the while I felt it was quite an okay tune. So I guess it was time, as I exorcise ghosts. In fact I am only now understanding what the band Japan may have meant when they wrote that song. Such is life.
But do check it out.

CyberBach 8 BWV 549

I Did This! :)

Art's Art Book

Amazingly, I Have A Book Coming Out
To be specific, it's not really 'my' book. I only translated it. But it's coming out over at Amazon.com so check it out here. It officially launches on 1 June 2007, but if you pre-order now, you get a 34% Discount.
I've received my copy and true to all things printed in Japan, it's a gorgeous book.
The Amazon Editorial Book Review says:

Book Description
Recently the West has been inundated by a steady flow of images from manga, anime, and the video games that are a key part of today's Japanese visual culture. At the same time, Japanese contemporary artists are gaining a higher profile overseas: many Westerners are already familiar with
Takashi Murakami's brightly colored, cartoonlike characters, or with Junko Mizuno's "grotes-cute" Lolita-style girls. Perhaps less familiar are the absurd fighting machines of Kenji Yanobe, the many disguises of Tomoko Sawada, or the bizarre fairytale landscapes of Tomoko Konoike. Warriors of Art
features the work of forty of the latest and most relevant contemporary Japanese artists, from painters and sculptors, to photographers and performance artists, with lavish full-color spreads of their key works. Author Yumi Yamaguchi offers an insightful introduction to the main themes of each
artist, and builds up a fascinating portrait of the society that has given birth to them: a Japan that still bears the scars of atomic destruction, a Japan with a penchant for the cute and the childish, a Japan whose manga and anime industries have come to dominate the world.

Warriors of Art takes its title from a phrase used to describe Taro Okamoto (1911-1996), perhaps the first truly influential contemporary artist to emerge in postwar Japan, who fought to bring modern art to a wider audience. Following in Okamoto's footsteps, the forty artists featured in this
book are a new generation of warriors, attacking our senses with a shocking mix of the cute, the grotesque, the sexy, and the violent, forcing us to sit up and take notice of their vision of Japan.

About the Author
Yumi Yamaguchi is a Tokyo-based art critic who writes on art for a wide variety of Japanese magazines, and is the author of several books on the subject. This is the first time she has been published in English.

No mention of me, the translator, but hey, what do you expect? :)
If you're even remotely interested in art, this book is worth it's weight in US Dollars!

Art Book

Amazingly, I Have A Book Coming Out
To be specific, it's not really 'my' book. I only translated it. But it's coming out over at Amazon.com so check it out here. It officially launches on 1 June 2007, but if you pre-order now, you get a 34% Discount.
I've received my copy and true to all things printed in Japan, it's a gorgeous book.
The Amazon Editorial Book Review says:

Book Description Recently the West has been inundated by a steady flow of images from manga, anime, and the video games that are a key part of today's Japanese visual culture. At the same time, Japanese contemporary artists are gaining a higher profile overseas: many Westerners are already familiar with
Takashi Murakami's brightly colored, cartoonlike characters, or with Junko Mizuno's "grotes-cute" Lolita-style girls. Perhaps less familiar are the absurd fighting machines of Kenji Yanobe, the many disguises of Tomoko Sawada, or the bizarre fairytale landscapes of Tomoko Konoike. Warriors of Art
features the work of forty of the latest and most relevant contemporary Japanese artists, from painters and sculptors, to photographers and performance artists, with lavish full-color spreads of their key works. Author Yumi Yamaguchi offers an insightful introduction to the main themes of each
artist, and builds up a fascinating portrait of the society that has given birth to them: a Japan that still bears the scars of atomic destruction, a Japan with a penchant for the cute and the childish, a Japan whose manga and anime industries have come to dominate the world.

Warriors of Art takes its title from a phrase used to describe Taro Okamoto (1911-1996), perhaps the first truly influential contemporary artist to emerge in postwar Japan, who fought to bring modern art to a wider audience. Following in Okamoto's footsteps, the forty artists featured in this
book are a new generation of warriors, attacking our senses with a shocking mix of the cute, the grotesque, the sexy, and the violent, forcing us to sit up and take notice of their vision of Japan.

About the Author Yumi Yamaguchi is a Tokyo-based art critic who writes on art for a wide variety of Japanese magazines, and is the author of several books on the subject. This is the first time she has been published in English.

No mention of me, the translator, but hey, what do you expect? :)
If you're even remotely interested in art, this book is worth it's weight in US Dollars!

My Song Of The Week

Expert, Textpert...

I did a cover of 'I Am The Walrus'.
You can find it at this link. I did change the line to "Expert, Sexpert" just to be funny.