Re-Telling Someone Else's Story

The ability to summon Asperger-ish focus upon a task is mixed blessing: on the one hand, I always manage to complete a project to satisfaction by deadline; on the other hand, everything else gets sidelined. The closer I come to completing a mammoth project, the more I become a kind of music-studio Gollum: a wretched, washed-out creature that exists to the outside world only in rumour.

Then comes the happy day that I achieve my goal and can rush outside, arms outstretched to welcome the world back within me. Of course, this time, it was more a case of rushing outside only to jump back into a cargo van and heave away on a month-long national tour - hopscotching from one great undertaking to the next. Not that this is a problem. I love touring Japan, if only because truckstop service area food actually resembles food. But then the coffee's never strong enough. Trade-offs!

Anyway, enjoying a brief breather between jaunts, I figured it was high time I unveil what's had me waylaid for the past month: my new solo album, a collection of genre pieces & "re-scores" inspired by indelible scenes from various films I love.



Over the winter holidays, as per usual, I spent a couple-dozen hours on planes with nothing better to do than drink cheap whiskey and watch eight movies back-to-back. I actually quite enjoyed most of the movies I watched (with the notable exception Drive) yet found myself thinking, more often than not, that I could've composed a better film score. Perhaps it was the booze talking, but it seemed a wager worth taking.

Of course, unless I was content to sit around & wait for my first commission, I'd have to work with pre-existing material. The initial plan was to re-score a entire film from start to finish, but I couldn't imagine who'd want to sit through a whole movie, stripped of dialogue & sound-effects, simply to hear several variations on a single theme. Instead, I selected a handful of films that whose visual content offered a reasonable amount of stylistic leeway - films that didn't scream out for another blustering Holst knock-off or the moronic thrum of bad techno. From each of these films, I chose a scene or two whose mood & pace would benefit from musical support and set about giving it to 'em.

I continued watching movies for fun in my free time. Recently, though, I'd been revisiting the ol' poliziotteschi, those gloriously amoral Italian cop movies from the 1970s that apparently all star either Franco Nero or Maurizio Merli. So naturally, a couple of weeks into the writing process, I began churning out generic themes to the best & bloodiest of Italian B-movies, attempting my best impressions of maestros Morricone, Piccioni, Ferrio, Micalizzi and - as seen below - Cipriani.



In the end, three of these genre pieces landed on the album; the other twelve tracks, however, were are written specifically to picture. It'd be silly, of course, to compose soundtracks whose visual component would go unseen, so I've made a YouTube playlist of the songs synced with their respective scenes for all to enjoy. So... enjoy!

It's Jesus' Birthday!

He has risen! Well, it looks like something's a-risin' at any rate...

All the best to ye & y'all's, people of earth. Shalom aleichem & A-Salamu Alaykum as well.

Like Flies

Well, the second-craziest despot to rule a third-world autocracy has become the newest member in Ozymandias' Infernal Big Band. That is, he's dead. Neither will he be missed, nor will anyone hesitate to celebrate his demotion to mere worm-meal as Jong-Il's death is unencumbered by gruesome criminal circumstance. Good ol' fashioned natural causes as opposed to, say, occupational hazard.

That being said, given that no one has the slightest notion what North Korea's contingency plan was once Dear Leader slipped this mortal coil, I'm suddenly very happy to be exiting the Orient for the next few weeks...

In Collusion With Virgin Trains

Everyone laughs at that perennially-quoted quip from The Big Lebowski - you know the one, The Dude's weary reprimand that "You're not wrong, Walter, you're just an asshole." Everyone laughs. But a few among us wish Walter would've shot back at Lebowski: "Yeah? So?"

A happy-49th tip of my hat to six-string strangler, sound engineer, and celebrated food blogger Steve Albini, a man whose initials might as well be embroidered on my own bag of tricks. May cultural politesse continue to tremble in his presence.

I'm In a Good Mood Today

How good? This good.

Speaking of musicians who got sleeve-tattoos of their influences yet were "ferociously and utterly contemporary"...

Happy Something Something

I know there's some epochal event being celebrated today... but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. The Bolshevik murder of Tsar Nicholas II?

No, that's not right. The opening of the Tuskeegee Institute? The birth of the Crab Nebula? The ascension of the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire?

Oh! Silly me, how could I possibly have been so mistaken. Happy 201st Anniversary of the French Occupation of Amsterdam, everyone! Cassez-vous, the Dutch!

Solitaire With a Deck of Fifty-One

Hey, why haven't you been writing anything on your blog recently?

Uh... wait, you actually read my blog?

Well, yeah, it was kinda interesting back during that whole earthquake/tsunami clusterfuckalypse. Not to mention you're one of the top hits on Google searches for "I Hate Animal Collective", "lonesome cosmonaut", and "Thijs Van Leer".* But you've more or less vanished recently, what's up?

Well, I've been busy. Most of May was recording, then it was mixing, and now it's back to gigging. I'm spending my birthday playing some nicotine-tarred, beer-stank basement outside an American military base. Which has a certain unshaven charm to it, but I'd rather just stay at home, eat some cake, and listen to this Harmonia record my wife got me. Then play it backwards to see if there's any discernable dissemblance.

That's your excuse? Two months of near total silence because you're playing with microphones and compressors? Dude, Steve motherfuckin' Albini has engineered over a thousand records and he still finds time for a food blog.

Yeah, well, that's why he's Steve Albini and I'm not. Besides, when it came time to mix my own band's album, no one had a clue what they wanted it to sound like - roomy & loose? Cold & claustrophobic? Aspirationally big? It was a long road with many detours and much backtracking.

Why not write about the whole process of making an album then?

No. Certainly not before the album's actually out. The only thing duller than specialized tech-talk is when there isn't even any music to supplement the conversation.

So that's really it, you've just been locked indoors de-essing vocals and tweaking spring reverb for six weeks?

And look how stir-crazy it's made me: I've started thinking in duologue with some phantasmic other! But recently, I also finished reading a couple of books about the internet's oppressive demand for participation and its dilution of politics. Hell, Adam Curtis just aired a new documentary series about that very subject.

That was pretty good. Except for the second episode, it lacked the narrative cohesion of his earlier work, but they can't all be home runs.

Ain't that the truth.

So you've been a bit put off of self-important polemics & pop-cultural diatribes?

I mean, how much can I really contribute to the juvenile snickering or Malcolm Tuckerish political spinning of Weinergate?

I will, however, say this about last week's riot in Vancouver: watching the chaos unfurl on live TV, it was striking that news anchors repeatedly referred to the drunken miscreants as "protestors". Protesting what? That Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo played with all the skill of three pool noodles roped together? I don't know if it was an unfortunate tongue-slip or deliberate semiotic sculpture, but either way, it's disturbing to see that "protest" being impoverished as a legitimate tool of political struggle by directly associating the word with boozy troglodytes burning cars and smashing storefronts.

Sure enough, slanderous suggestions that the chaos was in fact an opportunist operation by the Black Bloc have proven completely false: it was the work of a bunch of beer-soaked bourgeois kids who were looking for an excuse to explode.

It's interesting to see the role social media played in the riot: on one hand, the mere presence of hundreds of gawkers wielding iPhone cameras must have egged on the more ambitiously destructive delinquents; on the other, the excess of close-range documentation did away with the anonymity of the crowd, effectively unmasking & shaming those who did the most damage. Do you think-

Look, that's a topic that absolutely merits more discussion, but I've gotta pack my gear for the gig tonight.

Okay, go on then. Well, come back soon and keep writing. If nothing else, you need the mental exercise if you're spending so much time locked indoors away from summer's swelter. Oh, and happy birthday!

Thanks.

* - I'm not making this up.

Gip, Gip, Hooray!

In (dis)honour of what would've been Ronnie's centennial, please take note of Tim Kreider's reflections upon Reagan's passing in 2004:

If there was any justice in this world his Presidential Library would contain nothing but boys' adventure books and bad cowboy movies, and the only things named after him would be shopping malls and Potter's Fields. Let the earth where he is buried be seeded with salt.

And a merry, merry (if somewhat late) Christmas to me...

War of Attrition on the Listener's Attention

As irresistible as list-making may be, it presents a problem that I've purchased precisely zero albums released within the last calendar year. I've been given quite a few records by friends, but I can't convince myself (let alone anyone else) that the best albums of 2010 happen to be by all my buddies' bands, whom you've never heard.

But I've not been incurious as a listener; I think I've explored a wider array of new sounds than I have in at least several years. It just so happens that almost none of this exploration has been contemporary - not that contemporary music has encouraged me to explore it much. (Seriously, with Best-Of lists like these, who needs Worst-Of lists?) Thanks to the Internet's obliteration of the over-/underground divide, even the most subterranean acts are tempted by the possibility of a pop crossover, implicitly depressing experimental daring.

The other problem posed by the Internet is what Patton Oswalt dubs "etewaf": Everything That Ever Was - Available Forever. New musicians must compete not only with each other, but with the sum-total of musical history which is now but a right-click away. Rather than liberating listeners from the dull hegemony of current trends, this suffocates them with option paralysis. From this, the modern audience appears to bifurcate into obedient contemporaneity on one hand, conservative retrovision on the other.

This presents career-minded musicians with three wholly unpleasant options:

• Craft face-punchingly moronic Aspartame pop that seizes listeners within the first 30 seconds and fails to disappoint by going precisely nowhere.
• Pattern your tunes after a tried-and-true template (be it Springsteen, Toni Basil, or Klaus Schulze) with plagiaristic fidelity.
• Give up and enjoy your obscurity.

And the first two options all but guarantee music that is dogmatically diatonic, rhythmically regular, and grindingly dull.

Many would argue that the very curse of the internet is its blessing: everything that ever was - available forever! But, as Oswalt explains, "that creates weak otakus. Etewaf doesn’t produce a new generation of artists — just an army of sated consumers. Why create anything new when there’s a mountain of freshly excavated pop culture to recut, repurpose, and manipulate on your iMovie?" Indeed, this is the fundamental problem of the digital environment in general, as Jodi Dean elaborates in her brilliant book, Blog Theory:

...no authority tells the subject what to do, what to desire, how to structure its choices. Žižek argues, however, that in fact the result of the Master's decline is unbearable, suffocating closure. The online environment Second Life clearly demonstrates this closure: able to do or create anything (there aren't even laws of gravity), the majority of users end up with avatars that are sexier versions of themselves walking around shopping, gambling, fixing up their houses, and trying to meet people ("meet" can be read euphemistically here). It's not only boring - it's stifling as it confronts users with their lack of skills and imagination.

To be sure, there are those (myself included) to whom "etewaf" has been a boon. Anyone with a dram more discipline than the average subcultural tourist has access to whole goldmines that before were largely inaccessible by time, distance, and/or cost. Then again, we're the very people who, in Ye Olde Offline Times, had the curiosity & dedication to pursue our niche manias despite the prohibitions of time, distance, and/or cost.

As such, my chief means of musical exploration is the same now as fifteen years ago: talking with friends nerdier than myself. Ergo, to give credit where it's truly due, here are the top 5 influences upon my listening habits across 2010.

1. Watching Too Many Old Movies

As I mentioned a month ago, I was recently inducted into the gruesome world of giallo cinema. What's odd is the genre's initial appeal lies not in its cinematic strengths (which, depending on the film, are frequently few) but in its soundtracks. The friend who introduced me to gialli made no attempt to sell the genre on its Swiss-cheese screenwriting or Mexican soap-opera acting; instead, he pointed me towards the tonal warp of Bruno Nicolai's strings and the violent arrhythmia of Ennio Morricone's scores for Dario Argento.

If a score was particularly striking, I'd actually get around to watching the movie. Occasionally, the movie would exceed my (admittedly minimal) capacity for guts 'n' gore, which sent me in search of less graphic films of the same vintage. Spy thrillers fit this bill perfectly, from the cartoonish Danger: Diabolik to the more cultivated Harry Palmer trilogy. What these films held in common with the gialli is that the soundtracks often outstripped the films themselves in quality - especially John Barry's ominously exotic score for The IPCRESS File.

2. Co-Producing a Hip-Hop Album

The friend who introduced me to the giallo films had an ulterior interest in their obscure & outlandish scores: as a largely-untapped source of samples. For a couple of years, he's been quietly piecing together a hip-hop album that, even in its unfinished state, is more musically compelling than damn near any album since Fantastic Damage. I was flattered & a little intimidated when he asked me to help sculpt the record's sound, given that I'd yet to produce any hip-hop. This prompted me to research as much left-of-center hip-hop as I could handle, starting with prolific oddballs Madlib and his brother Michael "Oh No" Jackson. Though their total lack of self-editing makes for an uneven discography, I far prefer their analog grime to the slick digital minimalism that currently dominates mainstream hip-hop.

3. Talking To Other Bands On Tour

Obviously, what I've enjoyed the most about being back on the road is playing gigs. But it's also the perfect idiom to geek out as a listener - after all, what greater music nerds than musicians themselves? Our March tour with Lostage was especially enjoyable, whether it was comparing the spoils of some dedicated crate-digging (Karp for ¥300!) or turning each other on to unfamiliar acts. I'm especially grateful for the introduction to Z, whom I became immediately convinced are the best band in Japan.

4. Attending Salford University's Noise Conference

When in spring I blagged my way into an academic conference on "noise," it became suddenly incumbent that I know what I was talking about. I've never actually been a great fan of noise music: I usually find it either a pompous incursion into the "unintentional" soundworld, or just plain boring. But if I was going to participate in a 3-day conference on the subject, I'd better be on more intimate terms with it than merely having attended a My Bloody Valentine concert. Mercifully, I'd chose to focus primarily on the No Wave scene, whose "noise" was less noise outright and more about the expansive blurring of rock's outermost boundaries. This way, I got to listen to my Swans & Sonic Youth records on loop and legitimately call it "research."

The conference itself was every bit the brain-massage I'd hoped. Not only did everyone have something interesting to say, they were quite affable & easy-going. I was thrilled to have found a social milieu where the slurry pub talk would be about, say, the apparent dearth of right-wing prog rock. This niche of ne plus ultra nerdom also exposed me to musical cul-de-sacs of which I had no previous knowledge. Who knew that the Madchester sound owed its very existence to the early-'80s Sheffield scene, and why hadn't they told me before about long-forgotten visionary acts like Hula?

5. Not Being Sated By All the Above

Finally, the maniac's calling card is that there is never enough. Despite musical riches heaped upon my ears by the above experiences, I still craved more strange sounds, more uncharted territory, more unfamiliar artists - which is why I have to acknowledge a certain debt to the "etewaf" phenomenon. Between online retailers like the unequaled Aquarius Records and such appetent blogs as Son of Zamboni, Dayvan Zombear, and OngakuBaka, I became acquainted with countless enthralling artists I'd not yet had the pleasure of hearing: library funkmeister Janko Nilovic, space-rock svengali Walter Wegmüller, Ulaan Khol's rustic soundscapes, and (possibly my most oft-spun album of 2010) Getatchew Mekurya's barnburning collaboration with Dutch post-punks The Ex. I eagerly anticipate what exotic & intriguing sounds I'll be exposed to in the coming year.

And to you, I give a small cross-section of the fruits of the explorations detailed above. Click on the mix title to download, and all the best for 2011.

The War of Attrition On the Listener's Attention

1. John Barry - "Main Title" from The IPCRESS File OST
2. Tyler, the Creator - "French!"
3. Karp - "Forget the Minions"
4. Sonic Youth - "Major Label Chicken Feed"
5. Hula - "Red Mirror"
6. Ennio Morricone - "Trafelato" from Giornata Nera Per l'Ariete OST
7. Walter Wegmüller - "Der Wagen"
8. Getatchew Mekurya & the Ex - "Ethiopia Hagere"
9. Oh No - "Smoky Winds"
10. Z - "新今日"

My Connection to the Second Resurrection

Two years ago, I sat in our emptied Hamburg apartment, wiling away a few idle hours before our red-eye flight to Baltimore. Feeling productive but a bit blighted for inspiration, I hammered out what could be charitably considered a seasonal cover version of the Brian Jonestown Massacre classic, "Jesus". I posted it on this blog, but that link has long since gone dead and I've now gotten hip to this "streaming" business, so I present my meager gift to you...

Jesus by Seb Roberts

Happy holidays, whatever your spiritual proclivities may be. I shall return with more shortly.

If I could be, for only an hour...

Well, it's Hallowe'en weekend. If you're a foreigner in Tokyo, this means partying hard on the Yamanote train with a bunch of other white people, though in recent years these impromptu costumed hullabaloos have drawn fire from not only embarrassed foreigners but an increasingly strident hard-right. Personally, I'm not particularly bothered. The Yamanote parties are hardly a utopian T.A.Z. and combating xenophobia doesn't begin by dressing up like Borat and acting like a douche; yet it hardly bears complaining that the train transforms into a mobile drunk tank on October 31 - as opposed to any other night.

Of course, people everywhere concoct all manner of fanciful excuse for the explicit purpose of playing the fool in public. Such saturnalia are exhaust valves for the populace's pent-up frustration & compounded stress, which otherwise might be channeled into some kind of radical political expression - and we certainly can't have that! So when Japanese wag their fingers at an American holiday that is little more than culturally-sanctioned juvenile terrorism, lest they forget they spend summertime getting drunk & playing with explosives.

Really, though, to be content with such intermittent tomfoolery is missing the big picture. Just become a musician. Then you can act like a complete asshole 'round the clock and get paid for it!

Then again, musicians are often as discontent to be themselves as anyone else. (Even moreso in some instances.) This is why the musical masquerade of cover songs is impossible to resist. Yes indeed, it makes good P.R. to associate yourself with an established act, not to mention trumpet your own impeccable taste. But no one's ever kicked out a Jimi Hendrix or Stooges cover who didn't want to be Jimi or Iggy (who also wanted little more than to be their respective heroes). Hell, some bands make entire careers out of hollow impersonations of their idols. As an audience, we owe thanks to those talented few who only unveil their influences occasionally & purposefully.

So instead of the usual ghosts 'n' ghoulies Hallowe'en mix (which you can grab here if you really want), here's an amusing selection of musicians playing at being other people. Click on the mix title to download.

In a Stupid-Ass Way

1. Scott Walker - "Jackie"
2. Tricky - "Lyrics of Fury"
3. Teddy and His Patches - "Suzy Creamcheese"
4. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - "I Put a Spell On You"
5. The Fall - "Mr. Pharmacist"
6. The Toreno Brass - "Eleanor Rigby"
7. Sonic Youth - "My New House"
8. The Wooden Glass feat. Billy Wooten - "In the Rain"
9. Melvins - "Going Blind"
10. Dick Hyman - "Green Onions"
11. Shirley Bassey - "Light My Fire"
12. The Chico Magnetic Band - "Crosstown Traffic"
13. La Tia Leonor Y Sus Sobrinos - "Marcha a la Turca"
14. Alex Chilton - "Jumpin' Jack Flash"
15. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - "Wanted Man"
16. Pavement - "The Classical"
17. Faith No More - "Easy"
18. Martin Denny - "Midnight Cowboy"

The 27 Club

Of which I can now never officially be a member.

Two Hundred and Fifty Yen, Bitches!

In case you don't know how much that is.

And in case you don't know what this is.

More conversation on record collecting in Tokyo a bit later... now's the time for a celebratory spin!

A Fantastic Life!

Happy 53rd, Mark.

Back Up & Way Out

Well, I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Japan is The Land Of Convenience for anything but the shit that matters. It comforts me to know that, at any hour of day or night, I can purchase Hello Kitty flip-flops, a half-gallon of grain alcohol, and/or a six-pack of ladies undergarnments. But when it comes to something like obtaining antibiotics, transferring currency, or securing internet access... count on more red tape than the binding on that mongoloid bastard of an American healthcare bill.

But, for want of proper content, here's a few minor Christmas miracles:

• Finally, the ISP acknowledged that our apartment building is not an "error" on Google Maps, but a proper building, and so finally got us online.
• The next full-length (yeah, didn't know that was in the works, did ya?) is done - barring, of course, revisions, reconsiderations, and mastering next month. Details to follow.
• And now, I'm fucking off to an east African country with a fuel shortage & political unrest. Happy holidays!

Scare Tactics

Hallowe'en has never been a big deal in Japan. This is largely because of the absence of the entire cultural context (however flimsy & fabricated) for the holiday, but also because there's already more than enough opportunity to apply ghoulish makeup and extravagant costumery. This year, however, appears to be different: paper skeletons & plastic jack-o-laterns are ubiquitous, and every nightclub (as opposed to only the ones that cater to foreigners) is hosting some kind of haunted happening. Granted, I've been absent the past two years, but my friends here confirm that this sudden enthusiasm in All Hallow's Eve has arrived without warning. I'm convinced this is an economic stimulus effort that's helping to resurrect the Japanese economy: hype an accessory-emphatic holiday, pushing everyone to purchase the necessary accoutrement.

I doubt that Hallowe'en will become a staple of the fall season, though. Other countries have had fleeting love affairs with the holiday, only to discard it once the novelty wore off and the candy hangovers kicked in. In the early part of this decade, that bastion of high culture France "went batty" over Hallowe'en, reclaiming their stake in the ancient European celebration while enjoying its New World lunacy. A few years later, of course, the French lived up to their reputation and quickly ditched Hallowe'en like the autumnal fad it was. Now, Hallowe'en is little more than an excuse for an extra ladies' night on a nightclub's event calendar.

Which isn't to say nothing scary happens on Hallowe'en in France. Last year, I witnessed in Paris some of the most ghetto bullshit I've seen since leaving Baltimore. Traveler's Tip: when some drunk steps to you in the 11th arrondissement, let it slide and believe him when he says he makes bank. I don't care about their military history, the French will fuck you up if they have to.

Click on the mix title to download.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

1. Black Sabbath - "Black Sabbath"
2. The Birthday Party - "Release the Bats"
3. Chain & the Gang - "Cemetary Map"
4. Public Image Ltd. - "Graveyard"
5. Wendy Carlos - "The Shining (Main Titles)"
6. The Caretaker - "Haunted Ballroom"
7. The Jesus & Mary Chain - "Nineteen666"
8. Scientist - "The Voodoo Curse"
9. Pete Rugolo - "Finger of Fear"
10. Suicide - "Ghost Rider"
11. Big Lazy - "Just Plain Scared"
12. Johnny Pearson - "Graveyard"
13. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - "Fire"
14. David Bowie - "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)"
15. Teeth Mountain - "Ghost Science"
16. The Bourbons - "A Dark Corner"
17. The Fall - "Mansion"
18. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - "Red Right Hand"
19. Lucifer - "Exorcism"
20. Lord Dent & His Invaders - "Wolf Call"
21. Sonic Youth - "Hallowe'en"

Talent Borrows, Genius Steals

And I've taken enough cues & clues from this man that he's due at least a tip o' my hat.





To the most quotable man this side of Liam Gallagher, happy birthday.

Four for 4th

Sorry I've been silent this week - it's been spent maddeningly clawing my way up the learning curve on some new gadgetry. Proliferating grey hairs aside, the good news is the recent caffeine-fueled screaming matches with compressors & MOTU have yielded something reasonably exciting that's just about to be let off the leash... Not to mention a fresh batch of hatorade is being cooked up.

AYMFY: awkwardly rockin' decade-old slang since '05!

In the meantime, all y'all Yankee types enjoy the pretty explosions. I can't begrudge your nation completely, far from it really, as the Constitution is (yawningly, yes) an incredible document, and the gubbamint was kind enough to allow me residence for nine years. (Seven of those legally!)









And in the interest of wishing my own people a belated joyous Canada Day...

One More Spin Around the Sun

Now that Facebook is whupping its ass, MySpace is returning to its roots as a spam generator: the front page is an obnoxious overlay of banner ads that almost make Shibuya look modest, with gurning pseudolebrities tying products into a Moebius-like infotainment bow. Recently, there was an ad informing me that the chick from the Harry Potter movies is the "new face of Burberry" - which I thought was specific pattern of tartan and shows how much I know about fashion.

Anyway, the point is that I glanced at the pic, glanced again, and thought, "Christ, she's actually kind of a knockout." I then smacked myself across the face because she's the chick from the Harry Potter movies. Gah! Graying though my hair may be, I'm far too bloody young to be an ODB yet. Hell, I'm not even close to old enough to be her father - not even her uncle. Some cold comfort came from a Google search, which confirmed that she is (in the most crass of terms) "legal" and, besides, considering a 19-year-old walking study in cosmetic construction & public-image topiary attractive is hardly perverse.

Still... what with the event of a new Potter film semi-annually for the past decade, the girl's grown up in public. Consequently, my mental image of her is of a blurry pan-adolescent, at once every age between 10 and 20 and all the more grotesque as a result. But Christ, if it's that confusing for me, I can't fathom how confusing it is for her.

One of my sisters told me she always thinks of me as 23, even though she's past that herself. Then on the other hand, I've been nicknamed The Old Man by friends and foes alike since high school. This mantle I wear rather comfortably, if only because I haven't felt like a child (or even a kid) since I could swear in front of my parents without reprimand. Living now in Tokyo does nothing to dissuade viewing myself as a premature curmudgeon: dermatologically gifted as they are, Japanese people invariably look ten years younger than their age, which leads them to assume comparatively that I'm somewhere between 35 and 45 years old.

That said, I sure as shit am not an adult. I'm not even a grown-up. My C.V. would barely be impressive if I were just out of university; what honed skills I do possess are better suited to busking than gainful employment; I'm shackled by no long-term commitments, neither financial, legal, nor logistical. For all I've seen, done, said, and eaten, I still feel very much the way I did when I first struck out on my own in my eighteenth year - though now, my teeth are a bit worse and I can grow a proper moustache.

As it should be, I suppose. Until I've earned a wealth of tried-and-true wisdom and I can beatifically recline and drop knowledge on whoever will listen to an old man, I'm perfectly happy just being... some guy. So my career path looks more like a gravel road to nowhere than a driveway alongside a picket fence - you know what they say about the road less traveled. For most of my life, I'd suspected that much of the métier of adulthood was amassing lots o' needlessly expensive accoutrement & shiny crap, and that the "stoic resolve" of adults was largely a head-in-the-sand disavowal of the panic realized by, well, being alive.

The same sister who imagines me permanently at 23 once made the distinction between most grown-ups - that is, taller, fatter, hairier children with drinking problems - and Real Adults. There are indeed some who carry with themselves a veteran stillness or wizened grit, who seemingly sprang from the womb a fully-formed 40-year-old, balding or with nicotine-stained teeth. These are the people, my sister said, whose seasoned, weathered voice you'd want to explain what shit is hitting which fan and when; whose steady hand you'd trust to chart a course through choppy waters. My sister's archetypal Real Adult was the Don of Canadian broadcast journalism, Peter Mansbridge. My personal exemplar would be someone closer to Tom Waits.

I'd like to think I possess at least some small measure of such worldly acumen and certitude of self. But as I said, for now I'm happy knowing that everyone is basically winging it every day of their existence. Perhaps the highest-karat kernel of knowledge I receive from my parents was when I, at 14 and upset over something undoubtedly more trivial than I could tell, asked my mother if "it ever gets any easier." Without a moment's hesitation and not one hint of melancholy, she said, "No." She didn't even look up from the sink as she said it.

What a lot of drama & worry that one word has saved me. Here's to another year on planet earth.