• Performance Schedule:
  Saturday 16 September: Stick Seminar @ MI JAPAN
  Tuesday 19 September @ Rakuza

This is Luna. I discovered him late last week, wandering around by himself outside our apartment crying for food. I ended up bringing him up to the entryway to our building, where I prepared a makeshift bed and a place for him to eat. I wanted to make a safe place for him, because there are several stray cats in our neighborhood and one particularly large tom was giving the little guy a hard time. Since we already have two house cats (one a kitten who came to us in June), I was a bit reluctant to bring in a third. However, Chicaco and I really fell in love with him, so after a few days we gave in … and now the felines outnumber the people at our place.

• Performance Schedule:
  ramuji @ Rakuza on Friday 14 July

It seems that I am having trouble with the mail server I have set up for my website. I have discovered twice in the past month that I never received email sent to me on my ramuji.com account. I’m usually pretty good at responding to email, so if you haven’t heard back from me within a few days, you may want to try contacting me through the “Comments” link at the bottom of every blog entry.

• Performance Schedule:
  ramuji @ Rakuza on Friday 14 July

After my show with Kanamaru-san at Rakuza, I was getting into a good pattern of regular practice and songwriting for at least a couple of hours every day. But, that came to an abrupt end this past Saturday. The reason is shown in the photo to the right.

This is Ebon, the newest addition to our family. She and a sister were found abandoned by Gale, a friend who lives in Kyoto, when they were only about a week old. Gale took care of them on his own for three weeks, but doesn’t currently have the space to keep even one cat. So, he brought them along on his most recent trip to Hiroshima. I took one, and Maggie adopted the other.

We also have a male adult cat, Chai, and since Ebon is still only a month old and weak (but healthy), we are careful to keep the two separated until she gets a bit bigger and stronger. That, plus the fact that all babies demand a lot of attention has taken a bit of a toll on me the past several days. Ebon wants to be held constantly, and will only curl up and sleep if she is being cradled in someone’s lap. Last night she finally seemed to get used to the idea of sleeping alone for a few hours, and so I was able to get more than 4 hours of sleep for the first time since Saturday.

Performance Schedule: Kanamaru & ramuji @ Rakuza on Saturday 27 May

I’m in the process of rearranging the website, hopefully making it easier for me to organize. I’ve been racking my brain for the past two days trying to figure out how to program all the new code, and I think I almost have it now. It’s still a little rough around the edges, so I’ll be doing some more clean up and reorganization over the next few days.

Another sad loss. RIP, Richard Pryor.

RIP, Rosa Parks

I’ve made some additions and minor changes to the website, including an RSS feed that will let you know when my website has been updated.

Click on the orange RSS button to jump to the RSS channel, where you can copy the URL to paste it into your favorite RSS reader (such as My Yahoo!, My Netscape, etc.). A simpler alternative for those not familiar with RSS readers is to click on the orange icon appearing in the lower right corner of your Mozilla Firefox browser. (This function is only available with Mozilla Firefox.) Select either “Subscribe to ‘www.ramuji.com [English]” or “Subscribe to www.ramuji.com [Japanese]”, and a folder containing the latest website updates will be added to your bookmarks.

With both options, there will be a list of the latest entries to this journal. Each of the links will bring you to the top page, from where you will need to scroll down to see the journal you want to read.

I’ve noticed some display issues when viewing this website in Internet Explorer. I’m not yet sure how I will address these problems. The site displays fine in both Firefox and Safari.

Tickets to Bob Culbertson’s concert on 12 November are now available for purchase from Yamaha music store, and Kawai music store.

We had a lot of fun at the San In Beach Party over the weekend. Despite the bad weather, I’m told that this was the best turnout they’ve had since the event started 5 years ago, with almost 800 tickets sold this year. Although I was probably in the minority, I actually liked the fact that it rained all weekend; since I’m not much of a summer or beach person, it was nice that the temperature remained mild with low humidity. But, I was still easily irritated by having sand everywhere I didn’t want it to be.

About 10 of us made the trip in two cars (one a rental) stuffed with musical gear, clothing, food, etc. We finally left Hiroshima at 11pm on Friday, arriving at the party site at exactly 4am Saturday. As soon as we arranged accomodations, parking, etc. with the organizers and got our things unloaded into our rooms, the timing was just perfect for us to get down on the beach to enjoy a beautiful (although overcast) sunrise. The water was so refreshing, and I bet I wasn’t the only one who would have liked to have stayed on the beach just a little bit longer. But we were all exhausted (especially the drivers) and we knew that we would need to wake up at 10am at the latest to get all the gear set up for the afternoon performances.

I find it endlessly fascinating how, when people are put in situations such as this weekend where we were all tired, sleep deprived, and under varying levels of stress, one can begin to catch glimpses of a person’s inner personality, those areas that we may be more likely to hide or suppress in normal social situations. I wonder what sides of my “hidden” personality may have slipped out for the others to see? (Other than my near-obsessive fight to keep sand out of my futon, blanket, and pillow; I did manage to keep from barking at people to stop tracking sand into the room, but just barely.)

Later in the day on Saturday, I was having some trouble with my MacRack. Luckily it didn’t happen during my solo set, only later when I was jamming with Jamie, Gale, and a drummer whose name I didn’t catch. I think the problem was in the MOTU interface, and not the Mac itself, but I still need to spend some time checking it out. Saturday evening while we were moving gear out of the way to make room for other musicians, the power cable to my Mac was inadvertently unplugged while the computer was still on. Although I believe this isn’t a major no-no, it certainly isn’t the best way to shutdown a computer. Just a few hours ago, while unpacking my gear at home, I noticed that the “sleep mode” lamp on the Mac was flashing. Hmmm? How can that be? Well, it seems that when the power cable was unplugged, the battery automatically came on. Which means that the Mac had been running since Saturday evening - through the bumps and impacts that come with loading and unloading from vehicle to room, room to vehicle, vehicle to vehicle, and the 5-hour trip back to Hiroshima. I suppose I can’t complain too much if the Mac acts a bit testy the next time I power it up, but I hope I didn’t do any serious damage.

This has been another long blank period for me musically, but I’m going to need to get back in the swing of things since I have three performances coming up soon. The first will be the monthly open mic at El Barco this month, followed by the San In Beach Party in Tottori during the first weekend of July, and then an outdoor musical event in Alice’s Garden on 17 July in support of Amnesty International. See the Schedule section for more information. (I’ll post more details regarding times and performers as soon as I have that information.)

During the last weekend of April, I started cycling again, a hobby that I’ve had since my college days but drifted away from a few years ago. I wasn’t sure I’d stick with it (since I have a bad habit of just dabbling in things briefly and then forgetting about them), but I’ve done well, cycling at least 3 days a week, averaging over 175km a week. Work and an irregular sleep cycle have conspired to keep me off of the bicycle for the past week, but I hope to correct that this weekend.

I chipped one of my front teeth last week, and so went to the dentist yesterday to have it looked at. It didn’t hurt at all, and I could still eat as normal, but I figured it would be best to have it capped to prevent decay. They used some kind of quick-drying cement to fill it in and then filed and buffed it down to the right shape. I was amazed when I got home and looked in the mirror. It is almost impossible for me to see the difference.

I got an interesting call late last night. Apparently Bob Sapp, the former NFL player, K-1 athlete, professional wrestler, and now movie star, is in town today and tomorrow (for public relations and interviews I assume), and the promoter was rushing around at the last minute trying to find an interpreter for him over the next two days. Chicaco and I never miss a televised K-1 event if possible, and I would have loved the opportunity to meet Mr. Sapp. Unfortunately, I don’t work freelance and my regular job keeps me busy on weekdays. So, it didn’t work out, but I understand that they found someone else after speaking with me.

I’ve just expanded the Links section. From the beginning, it was always my intention to include non-Stick and non-musical links, I’ve just been slow in getting it done.

Upcoming musical events where I will be performing include the El Barco open mic on 29 May, and an Amnesty International event in Alice’s Garden on 17 July. Jamie has also said that the owner of Rendezvous was very pleased with Sunday night’s event, and would like to have more live music in the future. The restaurant has a great atmosphere, so it would be wonderful if something could be worked out.