WOOFIt! (the final part)

WOOFIt! (part 6)

WOOFIT! (part 5)

WOOFIT! (part 4)

WOOFIT! (part 3)

WOOFIT! (part 2)

WOOFIT! (part 1)

i don't want you in my dreams anymore

comic book collaboration (work in progress)

Coffe and Cake

Chocolate Orange cake, from the new menu at the orange cafe.

Tadashi and Yukiko

Graffiti found drawn on a bridge in Sapporo

inside the chocolate factory

bird on doraemon's head (picture not drawn by me)

The Girl With Spiders in Her Hair

the tree

Captain the Parrot

I played Captain the Parrot to some people. They laughed. This made me happy.

They asked, "What kind of music is this?"

It was a good question.

"It's like POp! music, for aliens" I said. And I thought that sounded like a pretty good description.

*

Captain the Parrot

I now present ....

CAPTAIN THE PARROT! THE SECOND SESSION!

JOIN OUR HEROES: ALEX! ANDY! AND KATSUHIKO! ON A JOURNEY TO THE OUTER REACHES OF THE COSMOS! ALL ABOARD! CAPTAIN THE PARROT!

THIRTEEN IMPROVISED POP SONGS! RECORDED IN A CAVE IN SAPPORO! ON ONE NIGHT! WITH ONE MICROPHONE!

Stream the audio or right-click on the song name to download. Please enjoy. Feedback welcome.

Come And See Me Anytime You Want To

Richard Nixon's Eternal Calculator

Your Incomplete Questionnaire

Fearsome Forces Face Fire

Gank

Sleeping in the Arms of the Bear

Doc. Cosmic

Captain the Parrot

The Exorcism of Candy Caramel

The Yogurt Disaster

Copacetic Child Driver

11:30am Eternal

Photon Wrote On

*

Triangles

at the aquarium

The Terrible Octopus-Boy was guarding the entrance to the aquarium in Otaru which was a fairly short train ride from Sapporo.

At the aquarium there were various sea creatures of different shapes and sizes. That's what you get when you go to an aquarium. There was even a big walrus. That was very exciting.

My favourite thing at the aquarium was the penguin show. There were loads of kids on a school outing and they were excited to see the penguin show too. The penguins were standing around in their enclosure wondering what all the fuss was about.

A man with a bucket of fish entered the enclosure, and proceeded to try to coax the penguins into doing tricks by offering them fish from his bucket. The penguins were wise to his game. They waddled around, gladly taking the fish but stubbornly refused to jump over the little hurdles, jump off the platform into the water or whatever, yet they still go their tasty snacks. They considered doing tricks beneath them.

For the human it was a hilarious failure. For the penguins it was a victory.

And I loved it.

THE TERRIBLE OCTOPUS-BOY.

Meeting The Monster

(untitled)

The Loneliest Sight (From a Window Over The Sea)

Looking down from the window of an airplane, somewhere out over the sea off the coast of Japan, the ripples on the surface of the water appear silver in the blazing sun.

You can see a small, lone, fishing boat, surrounded by infinite blue. It's a long way away from anything.

And then you think that maybe it mirrors a feeling inside of your heart.

I Tried to Make Friends

Sapporo

So I went to Sapporo. You can read some stuff about it here and here.

Maybe I will write something about it at a later date.

at the park. under the system for collecting cosmic energy (the silver thing)

(unititled)

the terrible insect.

the girl with the hair

Transmissions From The City

Today you powered up on two bowls of miso soup, two bowls of rice and two cups of coffee. Later you will sit under the mural of the big tree and drink more coffee while you finish your latest picture book.

Your thoughts turn to past times, when you weren't so much powered up by food and caffeine as you were by a kind of love that cursed through your veins and arteries. Now, in this version of the present, you exist as a single point somewhere on a map of space-time. You trace a lone trajectory these days.

The high school girls move in packs. They form a closed set of points in space-time moving incredibly slowly as though they never want to arrive at their destination. White shirts, blue skirts and the same blue bags render them almost identical to one another. Collections of stuffed toys with dead eyes hang lifelessly from their bags, like the cull of a hunter who stalks the shops of the city.

On the train you look over to see a girl carrying a stuffed Donald Duck in a plastic bag. The stuffed Donald Duck is about the same size as a child. It disturbs you greatly. You are reminded of the horrors of the game centre, where stuffed toys languish in perspex cases underneath metal claws that are controlled by hopeful punters wanting to grab a Hello Kitty, a Doraemon or some other hapless character trapped in one of those boxes of terror.

Lately, you carry a notebook around with you and make notes about the things going on around you. On the chikatetsu the people around you take out their mobile phones and start sending emails. You take out your notebook and pen.

Seems like everybody around me is furiously sending emails to people they know and I am writing notes to myself.

You write.

i rode all over the galaxy on the space-horse.

it was fucking amazing.

i taught the forest creature about the power of mathematics.

Lion-Sheep

Emi drew a Lion-Sheep.

"I'm happy to meet the Lion-Sheep again." She said.

"What's it like?" I asked.

"It's a very gentle animal. It only eats flowers."

The Really Really Free Market

The Really Really Free Market is part of the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial.

At The Really Really Free Market you can take things from the market for free. You can also leave things for other people to take. I spoke to the organisers for a while. They were very enthusiastic about their project.

I made some CDs to leave there - recordings of some noise I was involved in making in Sapporo last year. I made and drew covers for them. A girl involved in organising the project stole one of them from me before I could put it on the shelf.

I wonder if somebody will take another of my CDs.

listen here

my black heart story.

click me

from the table of fucked-up toys.

pictures not drawn by me.

(untitled)

the fish-woman shone brilliantly.

world

i will

remember

this world.

sheep story.

click me

muffin on blue plastic plate.

Notes from a Notebook

You had a plan. A mission:

you were going to uncover the soul of Japan.

You were going to slay Godzilla, make friends with robots, learn the name of every Pokemon character and play Nintendo until your fingers bled.

Notes pile up in your head, some make it into your notebook. Hypotheses and theories are formed, tested and mostly discarded. Perhaps you are getting close to finding the soul of this country, perhaps you are getting further away. It's hard to know.

You write these words in a smokey train station cafe over a morning cup of coffee. You intend to type them up later at home. You aren't sure why you are here - it's a work morning, but you seem to have a spare fifteen minutes or so. The coffee is bad. Nothing can be learnt from a bad cup of coffee. Opposite the cafe is a shop selling cheap toys - mainly stuff to swizz up a mobile phone. And you're thinking, is the soul of Japan to be found in tacky merchandise featuring a mind-boggling array of cute characters? You find it difficult to draw any conclusions. It's time to move on.

A bit later. Nozomi, the high-speed bullet train, pulls into the station. Is she the soul of Japan? With her sleek aerodynamic nose-shape, rounded white body, she looks as though she would be just as comfortable in space as she is pulling into a train station. You might even say she is beautiful. There was the time you rode on her to Tokyo. You spent the entire time looking out of the window at the cities and the countryside speeding past outside. Have you come any closer to finding whatever you are looking for since then?

Now on your slower, but equally clean and modern, train, you spot an advertisement for mentaiko - spicy fish eggs - a popular food in this city and something it is famous for. Your friend once told you about her job taking telephone orders for mentaiko. She told you how customers would sometimes tell her long stories about their life. Thinking about this, you feel closer to the soul. It must exist somewhere amid the humdrum of everyday life.

It's later now, after work, and on the train you pull out your notebook. You are remembering a time you felt something like the soul of this country. It was staring at you with forty pairs of eyes, and you were behind a drumkit. Your bandmate holding a guitar was falling over into the amplifier. The music was terrible. There was certainly no soul there. But there was something in the moment. You can't be sure, but it may have had something to do with your mission.

Another memory. The time you danced with the 7-up girl in a nightclub under a hotel. The beat of the music echoing around concrete walls. You shared something for a while. It turned out to be a short summer affair. Is this somehow connected to finding the soul?

Your search continues.

it was a fierce shower

big bird.

the triangle spirits came for me.

in the city

evil bastard bunny

bear attack!

what's in the box?