Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Happy New Year 2004!
Till next time... 'Mela
11:01 AM
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
© 2003 Pamela MacCarthy
All rights reserved
"The Lotus Pond"
Gouache on Canvas
65 cm x 80.5 cm
This is my last painting for this year.
The subject was located in the Ueno Park Boat Pond.
I wrote a blog about that day in August,
the absolute hottest
day of the year:
The lotuses in Ueno Park..
Till next time... 'Mela
9:28 PM
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Merry Christmas!
Till next time... 'Mela
6:21 PM
Monday, December 22, 2003
"Mary Christmas"
© 2003 Pamela MacCarthy
Digital
"Mary Christmas"
'Till Next Time... 'Mela
7:54 PM
Friday, December 19, 2003
On Dec 20, 1990, we landed at Kansai Airport.
A long non-stop flight, not our first-
My son had a passport at 9 mos.
But this time,
it was one way...
I remember first the smell of mikans,
and the cold in the small room we stayed in.
I remember crying because I could see my breath in the cold room
after a long flight from a radiator/ steam heated apt in New Jersey.
My husband and my in-laws are from a Jingya-
Which is the Shinto version of a church.
Akio left this obligation as the oldest son
to take over the shrine gig,
to become a student of music; theory,& composition
at Berklee College of Music.
He became a tenor man, composer, and teacher instead.
I think he made the right choice.
Jingya life doesn't suit him-
It sure didn't suit me.
We stayed in Osaka about a month before we moved to Tokyo.
We had a cargo plane carry our stuff over from the US.
It was difficult to get accustomed to sharing life in a place so different from my home.
Akio's family tryed very hard to be hospitable.
It wasn't anything they did wrong,
it was mainly adjustment issues...
I was afraid to sleep at night with the kerosene heaters,
and baths were only taken at night,
no morning showers...
And don't get me started on the toilet issue.
But, we made it.
1 month later,
we drove a big moving van from Osaka
to our new mansion apartment,
in the burbs of Tokyo,
that we have lived in for the duration...
Time has passed-
Events connect.
Careers move, seasons change...
My son started kindergarten the year we came,
now he is in high school.
Someday, I will write more about my life and times here,
pre-weblog
but not today...
Today is for acknowledging the end of the 13th
and beginning of my 14th year in Japan.
I feel like we are like the bonsai tree.
Twisted and grizzled into shape-
But beautiful...
Love is funny or it's sad
it's quiet or it's mad
It's a good thing or it's bad
But Beautiful
Beautiful to take a chance and if you fall, you fall
And I'm thinking I wouldn't mind at all
Love is tearful or it's gay
It's a problem or it's play
It's a heartache either way
But Beautiful
-Johnny Burke/ James Van Heusen
Till next time... 'Mela
6:33 PM
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Creativity is in everyone of us.
It sits dormant like a cat on a doily
on the back of an overstuffed chair
in a warm room-
Or it runs with the reckless abandonment of a child
opening gifts on Christmas morning.
You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she open gifts.
I remember as a child,
my mother used to drive us all crazy
the way she so carefully opened our gifts to her-
Savoring each piece of tape; each tie of the ribbon,
careful not to rip the delicate wrapping paper...
Now, I do the same thing!
When you are a child,
the excitement lies in the item itself,
rather than the thought behind it...
Creativity is such.
I believe a person's best works are done in maturity.
Combining the fires of pure
creative spirit
with the tempering of experience-
It is this belief that keeps me
rolling on-
Faith in the tempering.
But a person's early works are as important-
They serve to measure as a starting point in the evolution...
My son is at the beginning-
He is quite a creative person,
but the fire he has
he is shy to acknowledge.
Like looking at a flame under ice...
Was I not the same?
It Was A Very Good Year
When I was seventeen,
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small
town girls and soft summer nights.
We'd hide from the lights on the village green When I was seventeen
When I was twenty-one,
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for city
girls who lived up the stairs
With all that perfumed hair and it came undone
When I was twenty-one
When I was thirty-five,
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for blue-blooded
girls of independent means
We'd ride in limousines,
their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five
But now the days are short,
I'm in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage
wine from fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
It poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year
Taken From 'Swing When You're Winning'
[Elvin Drake] -Frank Sinatra
Till next time... 'Mela
6:30 PM
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
I returned from The Park Tower Blues Festival
Sunday night,
which was fab by the way-
I met Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown,
who at 79 is still goin' strong.
Also met his Hammond B-3 organ and piano player,
Joe Krown.
A great show.
But when I got home,
there to greet me on the kitchen table
was a little postcard,
with a horns blowin'- people dancing-
and general makings of the merriment-
postage stamp.
A perfect match to one I got about a month ago
which said I was an official "applicant".
It was from The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2004.
In the words of Richard M. Nixon: [also born the same day as me]
They won't have me to kick around.
Their explanation: 90% of their acts are from Louisiana-
The remaining 10% is given to people with larger names
than mine.
Maybe I should change my name to Free Beer.
C'est la VIE,eh?
Now, I concentrate on the J-O-B
at hand.
My Christmas Eve gig at B-FLAT AKASAKA...
It's going to be a great line up:
Pamela MacCarthy- vocals
Mike Price- trumpet, fluegelhorn
Tom Pierson- piano
Tomoya Hara- guitar
Michio Takanashi- bass
Yoshitaka Uematsu- drums
Till next time... 'Mela
5:50 PM
Friday, December 12, 2003
What a night last night.
One of the beauties of a jazz person's life
is the surprise at who comes to your show.
It's really just as Duke Ellington said:
"One never knows, do one?"
My dear friends Kenji,
and Kamitori-san were there,
and some others dropped by.
Later in the evening,
a group dropped in from Belgium.
They were all visiting, except for Pierre.
Pierre Marcolini
is a chocolatier here from Belgium,
with a shop of his fine Belgian chocolates in Ginza.
He was packin' some outta-site samples,
that anyone would love,
but you know a girl who does not smoke or drink
appreciates a good chocolate.
It was a fun night,
with Hiroshi Tanaka on piano,
and Ichi Takata on bass.
I'm now listening to The Waitresses
singing "Christmas Rapping"...
It's a story of a "bah hum bug" girl all alone at Christmas,
and taking a trip to an all night grocery store to get a forgotten
tin of cranberries-
Girlfriend finds something extra...
Serendipity is one of my favorite words!
Till next time... 'Mela
10:10 PM
Saturday, December 06, 2003
Today I remembered a feeling I had many years ago,
after a long, long journey
on a cross country bus,
from NY to LA-
I finally made the last bit of stretch down highway 101,
seeing palm trees and a sky bluer than any I had ever seen back east.
Listening to Jim Morrison's
LA WOMAN,
I had a feeling of exhilaration at being part of something,
not knowing yet of what ...
I was nearing the end of my journey,
but the beginning
of the long space trip.
By some persistant egging on of fate,
and me finally taking the bait,
I got a ticket.
Sweating blood with the angst of uncertainty,
I must've lost 10 lbs
on the first leg of my trip.
But as I travelled on,
the sun hit the landscape differently
and somehow along the way,
I felt a transformation.
East to west?
Maybe,
but it felt like much more...
I just let go.
I guess it only comes after some grand illusion is either set up or torn down.
How good it felt to be the recipient
of my own convictions,
for the first time completely trusting my own idea.
It is that egging on I'm feeling again,
after all these years.
What will I do with it this time...?
Well, i just got into town about an hour ago
took a look around,
see which way the wind blow
with the little girls in their Hollywood bungalows
are you a lucky little lady in the city of light
or just another lost angel...
-Jim Morrison
Today is my beautiful sister Debbie's birthday.
The unconventional Sagittarius.
We will share the same age until my birthday Jan. 9th.
I'm kind of passing her the torch to her new year,
and I'm hoping it will be one of great things.
Happy Birthday Debbie!
Till next time... 'Mela
6:20 PM
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
1 year ago, one of my bestest buddies passed away.
Corky Alexander.
We use to crack each other up with email jokes.
He would send me these funny jokes from his computer
from the office of the BIGGEST CHEESE
at the Tokyo Weekender.
I would reciprocate by sending jokes my sister Debbie sent me...
We had a world-wide joke chain going on...
I'm going to dedicate a song for Corky tonite...
Till next time.... 'Mela
10:10 PM
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Photo: Michio Yves Ueda
