Wigged Out

Um, what is it with me, taiko and wigs? Now, I know when you play taiko, there is often costume involved. Sometimes it involves masks. Sometimes it involves stale old happi coats and super tight momohiki. Sometimes it involves trying to figure out how the #$%* you tie your obi. But wigs? I haven't worn more wigs in the past 6 months than I've ever worn in my lifetime. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. But my latest gig is for halloween and involves, um, a wig. On halloween we're going to do a thing in the City and yesterday me and Janet met went through her stash of old kimono and fabrics. She's thinking ondeko. She showed me her get-up. It involved kimono and shiny gold fabric and, uh, a wig. We found some silver fabric (you know how much I LOVE to wear silver") and a kimono, and "we" decided that I needed a wig to make the outfit. So we headed over to the local costume/theater shop, and on display were a fantastic number of wigs. There was a white one that she had had her eye on, but it was gone by the time we got there. I picked out a silver/gray one that would have gone well with the kimono/fabric thing we had already chosen, but when I put it on, I looked more like Eddie Munster than anything. She liked the shape of the Neptune hair/beard get-up and in the end we chose that.

So last night I was gettin' crafty again (thank goodness I decided to take that semester of sewing class in high school to fulfill that graduation prerequisite, whatever it was), and managed to piece together the silver fabric to the kimono and came up with this. It looks a little better when I'm actually wearing the thing with the red obi and of course, the wig. We're thinking white and red demon/kabuki face paint.


Hopefully I'll get some blog-worthy pics when we actually do the gig. It actually sounds really fun--it's at a famous musician's house (shouldn't say who tho) and there's a good turn-out for the thing. I have a special place in my heart for scaring the &$*# out of children, so hopefully this will involve some of that. If not, it's a great opportunity to wear, uh, a wig.

Chekere Making, Part III

I received my new gourd dye in the mail the other day and I've just been dyeing to tell you...Get it? Dyeing? Gourd dye? Heh heh, ha, . . . um. Yes I'm a dork. So last night I put a bunch of newspaper down in the bathtub and climbed in and got to work with my new gourd dye. I also got a special gourd dye applicator thingie that worked out well. Here's the end result:

When it dried, it ended up looking a little less red. But then when you've got it under the light it looks red again. I think I like it, depending on the light. The dye works fabulously. Goes on nice and even and smooth and stains it rich and dark. Comes in 17 colors. Hardly got any on my hands thanks to the applicator thingie. Varnishing tonight and then, ack, the dreaded next step: beading. Haven't even got the beads yet--was thinking of going to look for those this weekend. I just hope I get ones that sound good because I don't want to get done with all the macrame work only to find out that the chekere goes fizz when I want it to go CLACK. Ah well, live and learn.

LA and stuff

Just got back from LA. Boy was I a busy girl down there. Left the house at 5 am on Thursday and drove the six hours to get there. At one point during the drive my Dad called and asked what time I'd be there and I said 11. And sure enough at 11 on the dot (Dad said it was 11:01, the stickler) I pulled up in the driveway where he was washing a car and I exclaimed what'd I say? I have good timing. I took vacation time for this trip, but it wasn't a vacation, believe me. I cleaned the house (I can clean that house for days because it's inhabited by two very sloppy guys--heck I could spend days just cleaning the floors), dug a 3'x3'x3' hole to plant an ailing tree in (digging holes is great for the muscles by the way. If you want to feel the burn for days afterward, go dig yourself a hole), weed-wacked the ailing lawn, pulled the weeds that a weed-wacker won't wack if a weed wacker could wack weeds, baked chocolate chip cookies, muffin tin cookies and a batch of cream puffs (also made the dough for another batch of cookies, chilled it for 3 hours, but when it was time to put them on the baking trays I realized that I had forgot to put the eggs in! Du-oh!!), made a slew of won tons, picked up a tray of sushi, went grocery shopping, and during all that I managed to find time to see friend Mary. We went out and had dinner and then because it's Mary, found our way to the ocean and chatted on the cold beach for hours and I didn't get home until 5 in the morning. I froze my butt off but it was so worth it since I only get to see her a few times a year. Then I had to wake up 2 hours later to get ready for my sister-in-law's baby shower. I'm gonna be an Aunty!! Did I already tell you that? And it's gonna be a girl! Busy busy all that day. I didn't get any pics worth posting. A lot of baby-shower-gift-opening pics, but those would bore you. This morning I woke up at 3:45 in the morning and drove back up here to Oakland. I don't know if I'm sleep deprived or not because I'm on my third cup of coffee right now.

What day is it anyway?

Chekere Making, Part II

So after waiting anxiously at my mailbox, my order for the gourd cleaning balls finally came in:

For the past two nights, I've been on the bathroom floor with my drill gun and the gourd cleaners. They're actually called "Easy Cleaner" balls, but I think the "easy" part is a misnomer. I think they should be called "More Civilized Than a Bent Coathanger But Not as Easy As You Would Think Cleaner Balls." The gook on the bottom of the gourd is tenacious, and it's really hard to see inside the gourd when you've got a drill gun (heavy!) stuck in it, and it's dark in there too, so I've been straining my neck and arms to point a flashlight and manouever these cleaner balls around. It feels a little like dentistry. Anyhow, I'm making headway and I can already hear a nice bass sound when I thump the bottom of the gourd.

I also bought a gourd dye, but when I tried it out, it looked exactly like the color of blood. Exactly. The color disturbs me, especially since I've already named the gourd "Alex's Head," since it kind of looks like my little brother's head--mostly round but flat in the back (sorry bro--that was my first impression of the gourd when I picked it out at the store, and first impressions stick, yo). I put in another order for a different color dye, and sigh, I'm waiting at the mailbox and despairing over the shipping costs. I love this whole shopping-on-the-internet thing, but if I were smart, I'd have gone into the shipping business since they're the real ones making a killing on it.

Anyhow. Spending another night on the bathroom floor again. Then tomorrow it's off to LA for a baby shower. Apparently I know how to make sushi and am in charge of that (it's a lie. I've enlisted one of my aunties to teach me how to make sushi, which is exciting. She also said we're gonna buy a couple trays of ready-made too. She's smart. I like her).

Menudito!!

I went to the grocery store by my work the other day, and to my absolute delight, I found menudito! I was so happy that I actually jumped up and down and screamed out loud MENUDO! The store by my house is too fru-fru and white bread to carry menudo. This stuff is comfort food. This stuff will pull me through the gloominess of a rainy day any old time. Whenever I go to LA and if it's a Sunday, my dad will take me out to get a piping hot bowl of this stuff. True, you need a refined palatte and a solid constitution to take on menudo, and while I think my older brother will eat it, I don't think I've ever seen little bro ever get close to the stuff. No, he makes desserts with teeny tiny blow torches* and throws words like amuse bouche around, but I don't think his bouche would find the likes of menudo amuse-ing at all. Yes, it's made out of tripe and hominy--food of the people--but hey, give me a fistful of tortillas and a glass of coke (gotta have the coke to help wash it down) and I'm a happy girl.

*(hey little bruddah, when are you gonna make something like that for me?)

Chekere Making, Part 1

So Friday night I was sitting at home, wondering what I was going to do with myself this weekend, and then I remembered! Hey, why don't I make a chekere? There are instructions on how to make them on the internet, and they don't seem that intimidating. The chekere I'm playing now was made by master artisan Jenny Fuss, who made all of Emeryville Taiko's drums plus a slew (sp?) of taiko stands and other taiko essentials--and not just for E'ville. I'd considered asking her if she had any chekere for sale, but I wanted to take this challenge on. I'm all for supporting artists, especially local ones, but she is my inspiration and chekere role-model, so maybe one day I too can have as much craftiness as she has in her little finger. It's gotta start somewhere, with something, right? Anyhow, there are basically just a few steps:

1. Get a gourd. Gourds can be found on the internet (I bought a couple online, but they weren't quite what I wanted as far as shape went--every gourd is different) and you can also find them in some stores. I went to the Caning Shop in Berkeley. They have a friendly staff, but I think they were a little low on inventory (the time of year, I think). You can get gourds two ways: dried, or uh, undried. Undried gourds require you to store them somewhere for several months while they dry out and accumulate mold and gook. All the gross stuff washes off, but eh, I'm impatient, so I opted for the already-dried gourd:



Look at the pretty markings on the skin. I think that's from the mold. But then, I wouldn't know first hand since I'm lazy.

Step 2. Cut the top off and clean out the insides. This is the step I'm on right now.



I got a gourd with a narrower neck since that is what I'm used to playing, but I can't fit my hand in there. On the internet everyone said that how they cleaned out the gourds is to use whatever you've got: bent coat hangers, spoons, grapfruit knives, old drumsticks, whatever. I got the mass of seeds and other gourd linings out, but there is a layer of other stuff in there--kind of like when you peel an orange, and there's the white membrane still stuck to the fruit. Anyhow, it's hard to scrape off. I tried coathangers and stuff, but it's too far in there, so I had to stop. My tools were blunt and uncivilized:



I showed this pic to a friend of mine and she said, ooh, that's a scary picture. And then I was like, yeah, that's probably what the gourd is thinking too! Luckily, there are people out there who are crazy about gourds and gourd crafting, and I went to a website that supplied all the paraphanalia of gourd-addiction. They've not only got gourds, but dyes and wood burning tools and cutting tools and scraping tools and just about everything you could want. Since I've got a power drill, I opted for the gourd-inside-cleaning-out tool. Basically it looks like an abrasive ball on a long drill bit. It oughta do the job, but I have to wait a couple days for it to come.

More updates on step 2 when I get the bit. And then on to step 3: dying, and then the dreaded step 4: beading. Step 5: Playing has already been well documented.

Circus Show!

Circus show today! And no, I don't mean our show was a circus act. We were surrounded by many many talented young performers (school-age, mostly) who put on wonderful, jaw-dropping acts. Stilt-walkers, acrobats, trapeze artists, lion dancers and more. And most of them weren't even in high school! I can't even do a pull up, but a pair of girls were doing work on a trapeze that would leave you in tears.

I have a lot to learn about stage-stuff. Terminology, mostly. The one thing that I do know about stage is that if you don't know what you're supposed to be doing or where you're going, then get the #@^! out of the way and ask the right person. Yesterday as we were doing tech stuff, the director guy asked me to move my drum downstage, and I was like, oh my god what is he asking me to do? I turned over to Janet and frantically whispered, which way is downstage? And she told me. This morning Bean was telling me that Janet told her that story, but if it was Bean, Janet probably would have let her suffer. I guess I'm pretty lucky. Not that it's an excuse to be lazy, because I need to learn that basic stage language, and because I'd really like to get good at this kind of stuff. Janet can walk into a tech like we did yesterday and know her way around even though none of us knew what they wanted exactly. Plus, it's in my blood. My Dad used to teach stagecraft, and my little brother pretty much ran the technical aspect of the theater program in high school. He'd be up in the catwalks and in the booth running things. I'm very impressed. I can do it. I have to say that one of the most important things that my Dad has taught us is to use our ingenuity. His thing is to take what you've got and just work it. I was always amazed when I'd be packing up my stuff to go home for the summer in college, and he'd be able to fit all my junk into the car. Or last summer when I was in downtown LA for the taiko conference I was trying to go home, but got all turned around and went off the map my Dad had laid out for me (it was great--he actually drove with me to LA and showed me which streets went where, then he took the bus home while I went to STI) and then I was like, OK, I'm off the map, but I've got loads of common sense, so I used that and I found the freeway--the right freeway--because there are like a million different freeways down there. And I was so proud of myself because I was like, ok, I've got nothing to go on but the common sense my parents have worked so hard on instilling me my whole life, and look where it got me! Back home to them! I'm off the subject now, but I really wanted to let you know how awesome my parents have been to me.

The show was great folks. It was a packed house in a really big auditorium. I don't think I've ever played anywhere as big as that before. We played Mokuyobi and I am very happy with my solo. Imagine that. Happy.

Taiko practice is postponed for the month of October, but that's gonna give me a chance to work on my own stuff. I need to start running again, and I have to work on those Okinawan clacker things (sanba, I think they're called) and maybe chekere, and maybe some art stuff, and now I'm a little inspired to try to work on my pull-ups. It's an exciting time. I'm loving this.