84 S. Park St, Oberlin

Time passes so quickly. Winter Term is running down to its last few days and I still have a lot to do with this recording project. Ken and I have run into tensions. He seems to have flip-flopped and instead of being stressed about getting it done, he’s not so concerned about it and tells me not to stress or worry about getting it done. He said something the other day which I think really puts it into perspective. He said the project is more mine than his. And that’s the main source of the tension because that one comment made us both look unfavorably on the project.

He does have a point, though. They are his songs, he did the writing and it’s his expression, but the recording is my production and more of me is going into these songs than he would ever intend. Maybe I’m diluting the songs by putting a dimension of me into them and so I think he thinks I’m trying to usurp the songs or the project. Which would explain why I’ve been losing sleep doing this project. But if he’s disassociating himself from the project because he thinks I’m taking control of it, that makes me disassociate from it because these aren’t my songs, they aren’t my expression, I’m not the talent involved here. The value of my work only exists if he sees value in it.

Today I worked for about five hours on “The Ballad of Charlie Ohara”, “The Damage is Done”, and “Seven Years”, getting them ready for Ken to put down vocals. I ran into the time that we had agreed to get together and I think he was pissed at having to wait. It pretty much summed up the tension between us. But when he put down some vocals and they turned out really well, I think he was happier about that because he could finally hear results of what we’ve been doing. But then I think I pissed him off again by cutting things short because I had to meet Pasha and Ann for dinner and I wasn’t about to cancel on time with Pasha.

Weekend had more babies. I’ve got thirteen gerbils in that ten gallon tank. There were eight new babies total, but two died. Such innocence. Such life, not knowing anything, just doing what it does - live. Then being crushed, having that life squeezed out and feeling pain, but not really since it didn’t know what pain is. Then being dead. Was that a soul right there, come and gone?

84 S. Park St, Oberlin

Today was a pretty bad day. My car broke down again and recording hasn’t been going optimally. I think I’m going to leave the car in New Jersey after this semester. I don’t know enough about cars to warrant having one. If the only solution to problems is shelling out money, I don’t want it. I don’t want to be like the ‘rents. So until I can get rid of it, I’ll just have to live with the stress and remember that the ‘rents are paying for it. It’s not my car, it’s not even my life yet. It’s their life, so what the fuck ever.

There is only a week until college stuff starts up and Ken has been stressed about getting the recording done. I can sort of understand his frustration. He doesn’t see what’s getting done because I like working alone. And there was also a load of prep work that needed to get done and no tangible results came out of that. Things like planning tracks, recording click tracks, deciding on orchestrations, learning the songs, etc.

84 S. Park St, Oberlin

Winter Term
For Winter Term, Ken and I are arranging and recording a bunch of his songs on my four-track. I finally accepted how good his songs are and I approached him last semester about recording them. When I first heard his songs I was able to admit they were clever, but I condescendingly brushed them off as being lightweight because they were humorous. I think it was a blow to my pride to admit that he was a much better songwriter than I am.

But the more I heard and the more he played them at coffeehouses, there was no denying that he is an exceptional songwriter. He writes a lot of songs with Asian American issues and themes and what he invokes with his lyrics are stunning. The more I get to know the songs, I’m realizing that this is quality material in every aspect. The lyrics are amazing, the melodies are catchy, the music is simple but solid, the stories are developed, and the subject matter relevant.

My doubts are now about whether I can rise to the occasion and contribute to them without taking anything away from them. My own stuff is pretty inaccessible and I think my arrangements are also overly complicated and equally inaccessible. So my approach in recording Ken’s songs will have to emphasize simplicity and taste.

Aside from recording Ken's songs and rehearsing with the steel drum band, which I just rejoined after they were kind enough to let me back in (after I quit for a semester because I didn't like being the only person of color in an all white band playing black music), I’m re-recording the vocals of the "One After Another" set of songs I recorded in 1989. My voice back then was so bad that I can hardly bring myself to listen to those songs. But it’s bad, that collection was done, why can’t I just let it rest? That’s what I did back then, why can’t I just accept them the way they are? I hope this isn’t the pattern of my life where I’m constantly going back to re-do things that I should just let go of. Two steps forward, one step back. I’ll make an exception for this project because I think re-recording these vocals will be a significant improvement over what’s on tape now.

Future insertion: Songs with vocals/guitar re-recorded during this time period:

You Don't Have To

I guess you got a problem if you're only happy hurting yourself

But who am I to say it's a problem?

After all, you're happy

There are some things you'll never do

Some things you'll never say

Some things put off for another day

Any time now, any time

Why not tomorrow?

Why not today?

Right now, right, right now

If it's really right

I guess you got a problem if you got a goal no one can agree with

I guess you got a problem if you're stuck on labels of the human myth

I guess you got a problem if you're caught between expectations and images

I guess you got a problem with communication

I guess you got a problem with relationships

I guess you got a problem if your only wish is to be someone like yourself

Hey there, over there, are you waiting for something?

Something you know may never come

Something you're sure has already begun

And you tell me you'll never see the stars the same way again

In each one lies a memory, but in each one also lies a destiny to choose

And you choose 'cos you have nothing to lose

So you lose it and you can't decide on how you're gonna prove it's alright

Your vision's still in sight or so you think once or twice every day

So you know it as a fact but is that all there may be

To keep your ideals intact and what about your sanity?

A string of indecision may be all you may need

To find yourself off the track, are you scared you won't see?

The crossing up ahead is not for safety

It's not gonna make your crossing risk-free

You may be free of care, but still not carefree

Instead you're gonna have to realize

How many people survive to keep you alive

Some people tell you to be more serious

Some tell you to stop thinking so much

Some people tell you to be more social

Some tell you to stop drinking so much

Some people tell you to not burn yourself out

Some tell you you're not doing enough

Some people tell you you're much too blatant

Some tell you you're not open enough

Some people know that they know it all

You think you know nothing at all

Some people kill to get up that ladder

You're willing to let yourself fall

Because they tell you keep it on the inside

Don't let it out, don't let anyone know

And don't care that you don't want them to cry

'Cause believe me, they'll cry

Though you may keep on asking them why

So where do you draw the line?

They don't want your kind around here

Don't bring your suicides around here

Can you only draw the line?

Will you ever realize?

I guess you got a problem if you're only happy hurting yourself

The Flow of Water, part II

That razor's gonna fall

That razor's gonna fall

Someone is gonna stand at the top

Of the Empire State Building and drop

The contents of a telephone box

All the words that were were complex verses

Poetry in motion, Times Square in a clock

Unusual habits of usual plots

Unusual habits of usual plots

I've been told many times before

To not play games I can't afford

I'm ashamed pathetic and I'm terribly bored

Of this rat race where everybody wants more

That's one game for which I'm totally broke

For which my engines are throwing up smoke

The one thing certain can't stand to debate

But it's a losing endeavor to change a fate

So I throw the rubber ball

To anyone at all interested

In some genuine moonshine

Revealing contrails against the sky

The paths of maximum resistance

Leads to lesser known planes without assistance

It's a tricky charade to a better existence

Oh I know, do I know?

How would I know?

That day is gonna come

That day is gonna come

That day is when you're shocked by the truth

That you never knew you let go of your youth

And the world from which you thought you were safe

Is here in your hometown throwing guilt in your face

And you can't ignore it and you can't escape

The social Frankenstein we all create

Oh, I can see America at night

And I can see it without any life

I'm scared plenty by the armies of ants

And the giants who crush them with their chemical plants

Oh, one more schoolgirl out on parade

In a fashion show with an image they made

With a conscience overloading heavy in red

With a load of coal for a heart that's dead

Oh, I know, dropping spit on birds

Catching venomous words, flash of light

Retrieving manuals from the Western land

To form the expose of demands

In the house of our ideal

We hear heads against walls, cooking chickens for meals

And the creaking of the stairs to the kitchen revealed

Oh sunshine, the sun shines

Some still shine

So what do we do now after all we have done?

Do we settle and feed the ending we have begun?

It isn't right, it can't be right

To prove the instance of our worth

Crawling on the edge of the railing

At the crux of our birth

This isn't what technology's about

To make us lazy and not care throughout

The process made to detach our doubts

That we may be crashing on our way out

It takes one moment in infinite time

To finally reveal we're in the firing line

To acknowledge our role in accepting our crime

To impersonalize our human kind

It's our loss if we just shake our hands

And tie knots with rubber bands

To weave our tongues within the rotting frame

Seeking someone else to take the blame

In the image of our peers

We know nothing to hear or remove the stains

So we drag the years through finger paints

So we cover our balls to conceal our pain

And we flash our smiles to pretend we're saints

Are we saints? To re-paint or remain?

A Living Room

You and I we sit

Our living room is lit by moonlight

Inside our retreat from the rest of the world

We can see the outside through closed eyes

The traffic goes by

The Hudson seems still out our cold living room window

Ripples shatter reflections of the glow of the city on the other shore

The glow is like a solid dome keeping warm the children safe at home

Streetlamps and windows make patterns of the nightlife's flesh and bones

Points of lights rise into the night from airstrips that stretch and moan

Thousands of crawlers we watch make our gazes towards each other freeze like stone

You and I, we sit

The dawn filters through the trees and we kiss

The sun never shines in the daytime or keeps us warm in this soul abyss

Trapped in mist

We'll stay on these cliffs

The chill air of autumn is a Saturday review of Monday

We close our eyes and ears and hear the cars on the parkway on their winding trip

Seasons twist their romantic shows and leave their marks by the side of the road

Reaching like vines spiraling, it's everything they'll ever know

Caught between the earth and sky confused by which way to go

Traveling through gravid space, it's a hand over hand searching for some room to grow

You and I, we sit

We don't know where to turn, but we know we just can't quit

To leave this sacred ground just leads us to the same perspective shift

In your mercury-lit heaven do you find your dreams so dimly lit?

But how do you just live off bits destined to drift?

And how do you just defy the mould you comfortably fit?

And how do you justify when you can't even admit something's wrong?

How do you?

How do you do?

You and I, we sit

The world is eerily lit by sunlight

Growing up in a way to find that growing up is growing apart and on your guard

Playing so many parts

Each moment is a lifetime

Each sight makes me tremble

My mind assembles fantasies

That send me to the precipice of this towering cliff

  
I’m also recording three new songs. I’m getting the feeling that I want to stop doing my own music after this. It’s just too painful. It’s hard to write and writing makes me look too closely at my source of inspiration, and everything I write is borne out of pain. Every feeling I have is borne out of pain. It’s my very nature, the result of my life experience. When I laugh and make jokes, it’s all out of pain. There’s nothing I feel or am that doesn’t relate back to being in pain. If that’s all that’s in me, if that’s all that I have to express, why bother? Everyone has their own problems.

The three "new" songs from that period:

Hype Money (Not Far Enough)

Here I am, wondering what goes on

At home now I'm on my own

Out here on my own

After so many years of neglect

I wonder if it's had an effect on

Do they worry about me?

Do they know what they have done?

Do they feel any responsibility?

How do they see just what went on?

God, what went on?

Here I am, but what went on in their minds?

When their lives were gripped in distilled expectancy?

Here I am now, here I may be

But what about the time before my memory?

When I could have been anyone

Anyone I could have become

A lump of clay in trusted hands

Trusting hearts for trust in any...

It could have been anyone

Looking for questions to answers I know

And thinking of things I never would show

Rearing and raising, nurturing and aiding

What's the point if you never let them grow?

Should I tell them how they are mistaken?

Cause nothing's given when nothing's taken

Don't tell me I'm one of you

It doesn't feel like I'm one of you

What do I have to prove?

Here I am, but tell me where I should stand

Here among the distant people I call friends

Funny how they try to look like me

Seeing how they never even look at me

Should I try to be somebody?

Should I try to see what they see?

On the edge of the far periphery

Counting time in the skyline by the riverside

Counting time in the skyline by the riverside

By the riverside I touched the water

I touched the water and somebody called my name

Somebody called my name and I came alive

It's so hard to tell what to think of us

Of you, of me, of we, community

Tell me something wrong with what's in common

Between you and me, between you and me

Between you and me

I won't compromise my lifestyle

By refusing to compromise my lifestyle

Open doors after open doors

So many options on as many piles

Just because thoughts are on ink and pages

Don't think they're there for ages on ages

Though you've bled no one knows

What you meant or what you said

Here I am, but I can't figure it out

Trying to see what you're about

Means so much to me

Indigo and Grey

I've got nothing to say

And no one wants to listen to the nothing I've got to say

So I keep my mouth closed, I keep my eyes shut tight

I keep my ears plugged, and my hands out of the daylight

I don't think I wanna know the candy from home

Where the people only judge your pain by their own

They could've sent a life jacket, a cradle or a cousin

I thought it was a girlfriend, when I kissed it I found it wasn't

It could've been a maniac by the way it groveled and moaned

And the way that it asked me, "what is so important about all this flesh and bone?"

He said, "that's the way that we speak"

My attention was drawn and I turned to look

God, how I wanted to be

Be part of that scene, part of something going on

Part of someone else, part of somewhere I'd belong

Maybe I'm half dreaming, half wanting only a fantasy

But it's not enough, it's not enough, not enough

Everything keeps looking blue, but is it exactly blue?

Or is it one of the thousands of shades between indigo and grey?

Is it my imagination that leads the parade?

Like a funeral procession to its final deception

That there really is no blue, and there really is no grey

And there's really no today, tomorrow or yesterday

How can I think what I say?

It's a trick, it's a loss, it's a double-cross

It's when people ask me to stay

When I can't stand them, I stay there anyway

When I wanna kill them, they tell me it's a beautiful day

I'd really like to see them, but why can't they see me first?

They always seem to give up

So I take my .44 to prove I can make it worse

How do you learn to see the sickness?

When it always seems so absurd

This is how we speak, this is how we speak

How do we learn to be heard?

Well I see something lacking in me 'cos I'm not what I'm supposed to be

It's something to hide, and realize and brutalize and never come to terms inside

And Hollywood never had a chance it could've in a second glance

See that it wasn't good, for me, for you, and still it comes in simple words

I guess I finally blew my cover

I guess I let myself get scared

I guess with what I found, should I let myself drown?

I guess I couldn't face another round

God forbid, treating me this way is just to much in such a little space

And alcohol is something not addressed tho' I can see that I'm a mess

This isn't personal, I'm much too busy running from whatever I see coming

And it's near again to me, to you, and still it comes in simple words

I pulled my hands out of my pocket

And rolled the cuffs up on my jacket

I felt the chill of the wind

I wondered where I had been

And turned to looked for where to begin

My Room

I've got four walls and a door

Music for two and a picture of you

Sunlight and spring with winter melting

Shade from trees, a distant bell rings

2 o'clock in the early afternoon

Two plus five is being alive

When we can do whatever we want to

I want to love you the way you love me

If only these dreams could be reality

Future come faster, I'm tired of waiting

It's so cold when you're not here

And I can't hear you whisper in my ear

That there's no more to fear

Take and touch a little and not too much

Be careful with your concrete

It's only where your feet touch the ground

Be careful with your concrete

A soul poured into a shell of a man

That's all you see, that's all that I am

Do you love me for my clever company

With conversations that always seem to be

No more than a kiss in the afternoon?

Who can you trust when you near the end

And all your friends are so uncertain you have to hide?

Their friendly smiles try to conceal

Their prying eyes all in disguise

Best to stay alone

Somewhere to lay down your load

With you within my home

I've got four walls and a door

Music for two and a song for you

Sunlight and spring with winter melting

Shade from trees, a distant bell rings

A kiss from you in the early afternoon

Future addendum (recording notes):

All of these songs were recorded on a first generation Tascam PortaOne Ministudio 4-track cassette tape recorder.

The big difference for me between the tracks of the vocal re-recordings and the new recordings at the time was that for the new recordings the drums were recorded in the Oberlin Can Consortium steel drum band's panyard on our drummer's Yamaha kit with Paiste cymbals (I later turn out to be an adherent of Yamaha drums, and Paiste cymbals are also my favorite, but I don't use them because they break too easily for my style of playing).

The older "One After Another" collection drums were recorded on a cheap Remo Pre-Tuned Head Series set with ridiculously bad cymbals.

A key reason for the re-recordings was that Boss came out with a reverb stomp box that previously didn't exist. Reverb effect boxes otherwise were prohibitively expensive. The original vocals from 2 years prior didn't have any reverb, which was part of the reason they were unlistenable. As bad as the vocals are here, they were originally even worse, believe it or not. 

The guitars were an Ovation that I later sold when I was trying to quit music and I think some tracks used a Guild 12-string acoustic guitar that was later irreparably broken during a "make out" session with some woman named Hiromi.

My bass guitar was a Kramer Duke headless bass that I bought during high school and it also got ruined not long after I graduated from college.

The keyboard was a Roland Juno-106 analog synthesizer that I sold years later after I went to California, which is something I regret since it is now considered a vintage synthesizer.

84 S. Park St, Oberlin

Something’s wrong. I’m back at my apartment in Oberlin.

Myung is gone - academic suspension. It wasn’t his fault, he had to go through a lot, and the only reason he got canned was because one petty professor refused to cut him slack. He was a white East Asian Studies professor and Myung had made noise about why there are no classes on Korea in the East Asian Studies department. He also made noise over why all the professors in the EAS department are white.

I wish I had appreciated him more. I had all these preconceptions of him and I looked down on him. I didn’t want to be his friend, so we were cordial housemates and we kept our distance. But by the end of last semester I realized what a great person he is and what a great friend he should be.

I looked down on him because he had lived in Asia House and liked it, he was moneyed and had high tastes, superficial. Superficial stuff, though. He is also strongly principled, a loyal friend, always willing to help, intelligent, humble.

Adding to the academic pressure last semester, he met his natural mother for the first time in his memory. After he was born, his parents separated and his father prohibited her from having contact with him. Finally, last semester his father decided it was OK for them to meet and gave him her address - in Tenafly, NJ! So that drama played out last semester, fortunately they got along great, but it still was a lot to go through. I’ll be living alone with Myung gone.

I swear I felt a presence when I walked in the door. Maybe a ghost has been here while I was gone. I drove all night with Wendell and Lisa. We arrived in the morning with the sun bright and cold in the sky. Ohio looked frozen. I dropped those two off at their homes, delivered Bi-khim’s computer to her dorm room, and then drove here. I swung open the door, walked in, felt a presence, and then closed the door.

I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to be a part of anything. I’m glad to have this apartment to myself. I can shut out and shut off. I needed to get away from New Jersey. I had a fight with the ‘rents on Friday night. They were so fucking rude and made it clear that I’m not a part of that family. Neither my friends or I am welcome in that house. Then they used their favorite tactic to resolve the fight: pretend it never happened. Idiots. They are nothing to me and I owe them nothing. The whole time I’ve lived in their houses? It never happened.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

My life has really fallen apart without my noticing it. Everything just went wrong and fell apart last semester. I have nothing. I had Sakuko and I lost her. Now I have nothing. No plans, no possibilities, no potential.

I really need to change. Before we broke up, I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t be the one to break up the relationship because I wasn’t sure whether I’d be doing it for real, legitimate reasons, or if it was because of my psychology. If it was my psychology, not only would it have been solely my fault, but it would be inevitable and I’d be responsible for putting Sakuko through shit that she nor nobody deserved.

It didn’t work, I ended up repressing a lot of bad feelings towards her and they’ve all been coming out since breaking up. It still was my psychology, there was no avoiding it. To me, “getting to know someone” means collecting their faults until my mind decides that they are too imperfect for me. Or rather that they are imperfect period. There were problems with the relationship, but there were more problems about me. And the problems about me probably caused the problems with the relationship.

There was probably little wrong with Sakuko. She was perfect for me in many ways. What more could I have asked for? She was devoted, kind, pretty, sexy, considerate, intelligent, caring. Good lord, what more am I asking for?

Instead I chose a perspective that emphasized her imperfections. It doesn’t have to be that way. It can’t be that way anymore or I’m doomed to be alone. How to change, I haven’t the slightest idea. I haven’t even a grasp on my problem.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Parents
They live, work, make money, and then they’ll die and no one is going to care. Their lifestyle is such a nightmare to me, to think how close it is to me and that I could have fallen into it. What if I wasn’t the way I am and wanted to be like them and have such paltry goals in life. To be so afraid of confronting the world that I made it my aim to make enough money so that I would never have to.

They live such insular lives, they hole themselves up in their room and don’t come out unless there’s a reason. When they’re done doing what they have to, they go scurrying back into their rooms. When they want something, they’re given a price, they pay it, they get what they want, they’re happy. Fully functional and non-confrontational.

A very tiny world, no conception of the wider scheme of things and their role in it. Money takes care of everything. That’s no way to live, that ain’t living. When they die, no one’s going to remember them. No one is going to care.