080731 Lollapalooza Chicago, PreDay

On The Tour Adventures wid Jonny Santos and Mike Ming


Jonny Santos


Mike Ming

The END





Dell Summer Rocks Dome. Lollapalooza. 2008


Chicago is the first stop of a six stop music festival tour. Im running around getting the organize. please enjoy the flicks.



Dome

Supplimentary vol. 1

This is the visual supplimentary to when my blog just suddenly turned all wordy. Not in correct time order but clumps of images from that wordy journal moments. Vol. 1 represents the Shonan Part of the Trip. Please refer back to archives to kinda get back to that old feeling. Or not. Enjoy the visuals! -editor

Tokyo Day 22 June 10~June 11 2008

Day 22 was me waking up in a hammock in Young Tree Press, mi casa lway from mi asakita. My flight was a five oclock pm to chicago, then transfer to new york. It was me walking around aimlessly in Narita airport looking at things, buying snacks and drinking sake bought from the conveniece mart in the airport. I was passed out on my flight from Narita to O'Hare, chicago, Thank GOD! Unfortunately or fortunately, my chicago to new york flight had us stranded on the tarmac for 4 hours before returning to O'Hare and on a line to rebooking my current canceled flight for a flight the following day at 6:45 am flight to LaGuardia because of unpredictable electrical storm that had planes grounded and the airports shut down on the northeast coast. I was booked into a jacuzzi roomed Best Western, 4 minutes from the airport by hotel voucher taxi cab. I went to the nearest White Chicken Convenience Market in the mall adjacent to my hotel and bought a beer and ate my japanese convenience snack food from Narita in chicago for dinner in the jacuzzi. I took a two hour nap and checked out at 4:20 am, stumbled around O'Hare for two hours waiting for my connecting flight and slept until LaGuardia. I arrived in LaGuardia at 10:15 am, about 25 hours from my departing time. I got home and unpacked. Waited for the jet lag to kick me in my ass and Day 23 came to a close, as did my trip. The End.

Tokyo Day 21 June 9 2008

Day 21 began with a morning trip to tsukiji, the famed old School Tokyo Fish Market for fresh sushi 9:30 am. After all the traffic to get to the far east side of tokyo, we arrived at what looked to me like a fish harbor port from films of yesteryor and deep asia. It was vendors and stores all right next to each other all bunched up with sushi restaurants and some noodle shops. It's flavor was a working port, local fish mongers, tourist commodities, dried market goods, stuffed animals, jars and platewear and hardware. The streets were all alley like and some streets were in between building through ways. It felt old and familiar and ancient and medievel. Maybe too many similes but really felt just like that. We went into a throughway within a through way to a sushi counter inside a fish market alleyway. There was a live upside down sea snail that looked like ... a puckered up snail sucker moving and looking like trying to escape. The fish dish was tasty and the snail was actually quite hypnotically inviting, grotesque and brilliant like an orchid. I had the opportunity to eat a giant oyster that took about four bites, not dainty bites, mind you. Big chompers. It was thick and bursting with sea water and gritty like sand and felt sweaty and really really wet. ~WET. Do you know what I mean?
After breakfast, it was time to clean up and pack up to get ready for my flight the next day. Packed up the things I needed and put away the things that were fragile deep in my clothes and all the books and such to surround the fragile. After some time, I coordinated with Hitotzuki Clan and paid my visit to see the new hitotzuki. A beautiful three month looking one month boy named Kai Sei. Beautiful. Of course he is going to be amazing like mom and dad. Much Blessings! The plan for the evening was a skate session at the secret Burton Bowl in deep Shibuya Tokyo. Before that, the digital photo documenting of the art show, '!!NEXT!!'. The bowl riders represented some sick line up of ill tokyo Skaters, Royal Hawaiian and Legendary Illuminaries and current Rippers. I was thoroughly getting a lesson in bowl riding. There couldn't be a more ill session before leaving Japan back to Brooklyn, inspired. Big Up to Ishihara, the legendary, Wataru, the Royal Hawaiian, RIP, the tokyo KiLLER, Kami, Hitotzuki, Takashi, Burton, Billy, Lui Araki, Tokyo and all the ill skaters who sessioned, DJ KOGEE, Kumetani Satoshi, BIG UP!!!! Of course, in classic tokyo send off style, the party rolled over to shibuya curry and Aoyama Dance night Classics a la, Le Baron. There before me on the one and twos is the time zone traveled dj , DJ ALEX from Tokyo, who I just ran into in Rivington Hotel in New York, a week before arriving in Tokyo! As well as DJ SHINSKATETHING! WHAaaatttT?! He has always looked out for me since day one, 1991. Thank YOu SHIN!!! ALWAYS!!!! What the hell?! Day 21 looks like a wrap.

Tokyo Day 20 June 8 2008

Day 20 was the short independent film show case. This is the deep underground film showing. Sometimes so deep, no one has even seen it because it was never released! You couldn't even You Tube, it's held on lock down. The show began at 2.30 pm promptly and the list of film directors are as it was viewed.

. Space Showers time lapse Mural Project. dir. Mike Ming
. Kenji Hirata and DJ Clock time lapse Felt project. dir. Joey Garfield and Kenji Hirata
.'Invisible Kingdom' dir. Cameron Lombsbread
.RJD2 Video dir. Joey Garfield
.'Two Days..' dir. Mike Ming
.'Collective Improvisation' dir. Ryuichi Strush Wheels
.'Street Sounds' dir. Yuri Shibuya
.'!!NEXT!!' dir. Mike Ming

The films were musical and Visually Oriented. Some were skateboarding oriented and mostly abstract documentary film vision. Special Thanks goes to all the film contributors and directors for creating their audio visual ideas and the incredible audience that joined us for the presentation. Thank YOU!! We went out and celebrated with Yakitori and Kushi!!

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.

Tokyo Day 18 June 6, 2008

Day 18 was the opening day for Uplink Gallery's '!!NEXT!!" group show. I got ready for the show. I took my shower, I brushed my teeth and put on some clean clothes. I was at the gallery by 5 pm and the opening was from 6 pm until 10 pm. We had conflicting schedules from Uplink , as they had booked a going away suits party right next door to us at their adjacent restaurant Tabela. There were speeches, merry making and some confusion as to which party was which. We had an opening reception but also had an opening party at a closer venue in a place called 'ROOTS'. It is a reggae Bar and Live Spot. For the reception, we had Dedication Studio's DJ Mikey spinning and a live dub band, Trial Productions representing the "!!NEXT!!' Show. The Uplink art show filled up the gallery and our party ended up spilling out to the Tabela party. Fortunately, Uplink director, Mister Kuramochi, seperated the two events with a partition wall. We became an independent closed door secret room gallery. At 9 pm we asked everyone to join us at 'ROOTS' to attend the Trial Production Live set. It was a magnificent 10 piece live band and the place was in full attendance. Thank you goes to Roots for putting up with our show, Trial Productions for putting on the show, Studio Dedication for holding it down, Uplink Gallery for having our art show, all the artists for showing their art works, Yuri Shibuya, Jonas Kaku, Chris Mendoza, Aiko Nakagawa, Kenji Hirata and Mike Ming, Kumetani Satoshi for coordinating the event and for all in attendance. Thank YOU. After the opening, a gang of us filled with aomori, beers, mixed drinks and wine all made our way to Shibuya's Secco Bar. We were invited by Kleptomaniac and Aki who was having a silent art auction dance party. It was a night which my memory goes blank. Blank enough to end the story here and night and day becomes an utter blur.