Tokyo Day 19 June 7, 2008

Day 19 began with me stumbling out of Secco Bar in Shibuya. It was only 4 am but the sun was already making its way up and I was running on fumes and vapors. I made my way back to YoungTreePress to pick up some clean clothes and my hard drive and managed my way over to Ebis House to do some video editing. Part of having an art show at an independent film distribution screening room, gallery and restaurant is the opportunity to also show short independent films by friends, colleagues and myself. I host a two hour set with works that might not get broadcast on a projected screen. It is like dessert to the dinner for me to have a show at Uplink. My hope is to show the work to a broader audience and also for me to see what the videos look like on screen. I enjoy this part of the exhibition, I like to Big Up my friends who do screen work as part of their creative extension. For my part of the show, I brought some shorts I've already done in the last two years but specially for this show, I wanted to try to show the trip I've had in the last three weeks in japan. I wanted to incorporate stills with motions all shot with a canon 1000 point and shoot. The video capabilities for the camera shoots in 640x 480 and the stills are all high quality 7 megs of visual, it was just a matter of dropping it into an editing program and run the course. In Ebis House, I borrowed Etsuko's G5 Station. It was the weekend so I coordinated with Etsuko. She was very generous to allow me to borrow the computer for the two days before the video event. I began my three week trip's editing after a quick nap on the couch. I woke up at 8 am and went to work. I did the laundry during this time and managed a breakfast and a shower. By 3 pm, I had the foundation down for the look and feel of the short. I went back to Young Tree Press for a quick nap. On my agenda was a 6 pm art opening with Chris Mendoza, Aiko Nakagawa, Martha Cooper and Chris Rabino and a 7 pm live Taiwanian Music event. Unfortunately, I over slept and woke up to a phone call from Kumetani Satoshi asking me where I was at 8 pm. I missed the taiwanese live music but made the tail end of the Artist Reception. We hung out with celebrity japanese hip hop djs and media folks as we celebrated the two day art show in Hiroo. We went to a bar after the gallery closed. I had a round of mojitos and some scooby snack pizza. Afterwards, we all parted ways and Kumetani Satoshi and I returned back to Ebis House to finish editing.