"When you start looking for something you tend to find it

A train hits a bus load of Catholic school girls and they all perish.

They are all in heaven trying to enter the pearly gates past St. Peter.

St. Peter asks the first girl, "Jessica, have you ever had any contact with a penis?"

She giggles and shyly replies, "Well I once touched the head of one with the tip of my finger."

St. Peter says, "OK, dip the tip of your finger in The Holy Water and pass through the gate."

St. Peter asks the next girl the same question, "Jennifer have you ever had any contact with a penis?"

The girl is a little reluctant but replies, "Well once I fondled and stroked one."

St. Peter says, "OK, dip your whole hand in The Holy Water and pass through the gate."

All of a sudden there is a lot of commotion in the line of girls, one girl is pushing her way to the front of the line.

When she reaches the front of the line St. Peter says, "Lisa! What seems to be the rush?"

The girl replies, "If I'm going to have to gargle that Holy Water, I want to do it before Tiffany sticks her ass in it

An old cowboy sat down at the Starbucks and ordered a cup of coffee.

As he sat sipping his coffee, a young woman sat down next to him.

She turned to the old cowboy and asked, 'Are you a real cowboy?'

He replied, 'Well, I've spent my whole life breaking colts, working cows, going to rodeos, fixing fences, pulling calves, bailing hay, doctoring calves, cleaning my barn, fixing flats, working on tractors, and feeding my dogs, so I guess I am a cowboy.'

She said, 'I'm a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women.

As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women. When I shower, I think about women. When I watch TV, I think about women.

I even think about women when I eat.

It seems that everything makes me think of women.'

The two sat sipping in silence.

A little while later, a man sat down on the other side of the old cowboy and asked, 'Are you a real cowboy?'

He replied, 'I always thought I was, but I just found out that I'm a lesbian.'

Have you heard?
Have you tried to understand?
It´s all right
It gets easy on with time
How are you?
Are you ever comming back?
I´ve changed
And I´ve realized I was wrong

I was wrong
Now I´ll never see your face, anymore
Oh my love,
I´d give anything for one more day with you

I´m getting through
Wish you felt the way I do
I´ve changed
And I´ve realized I was wrong

I was wrong
Now I´ll never see your face, anymore
Oh my love,
I´d give anything for one more day with you

I was wrong, I was wrong
Now I´ll never see your face, anymore
Oh my love,
I´ll do anything for one more day with you
I´ll do anything for one more day
I´d give anything for one more day with you

animosity is for cowards. show yourself or be silenced forever.

J-Pop’s Definition and History

What is J-Pop?
J-pop is an abbreviation of Japanese pop. It refers to Western-influenced Japanese popular music. The term J-pop was coined by J-Wave, an FM radio station, to denote what was once called “New Music.” The term is widely used in Japan to describe many different musical genres including pop, rock, dance, rap, and soul.

History of J-pop
J-pop can be traced to the jazz music which became popular during the early Sho-wa period. Jazz reintroduced many musical instruments, previously used only to perform classical music and military marches, to bars and clubs. It also added an element of “fun” to the Japanese music scene. As a result “Ongaku Kissa” (lit. music cafe) became a very popular venue for live jazz music.

Under pressure from the Imperial Army during World War II the performance of jazz music was temporarily halted. After the war ended the United States soldiers and the Far East Network - who were occupying Japan at the time - introduced a number of new musical styles to the country. Boogie-woogie, Mambo, Blues, and Country music were performed by Japanese musicians for the American troops. Songs like Shizuko Kasagi’s “Tokyo Boogie-Woogie” (1948), Eri Chiemi’s “Tennessee Waltz” (1951), Misora Hibari’s “Omatsuri Mambo”, and Izumi Yukimura’s “Omoide no Waltz” became popular. Foreign musicians and groups including JATP and Louis Armstrong visited Japan to perform. 1952 was declared the “Year of the Jazz Boom” but the genre itself demanded a high level of technical proficiency and was difficult to play. As a result many amateur Japanese musicians turned to country music which was far easier to learn and perform. This in turn led to a proliferation of country-based music.

In 1956 the rock-and-roll craze began thanks to a country music group known as Kosaka Kazuya and the Wagon Masters and their rendition of Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel. The rock-and-roll movement would reach its peak in 1959 with the release of a movie featuring performances by a number of Japanese rock-and-roll bands. However, the demise of rock-and-roll in the United States was quickly followed by its downfall in Japan due to the fact that many groups were heavily influenced by their American counterparts. Some performers attempted to merge traditional Japanese pop music with rock-and-roll. One of few musicians to be successful in this effort was Sakamoto Kyu- with the song “Ue wo Muite Aruko-” (lit. “Let’s Look Up and Walk”), known in other parts of the world as “Sukiyaki”. Other performers decided instead to play the music and translate the lyrics of popular American songs resulting in the birth of “cover pop.” The popularity of these individuals faded though as radio and television gave every household the opportunity to watch real musicians perform. However the concept of karaoke and its subsequent popularity can arguably be attributed to the cover pop phenomenon.

During the period from the early 70s to the mid 80s the emphasis shifted from simple songs with a single guitar accompaniment to more complex musical arrangements known as New Music. Instead of social messages the songs focused on love and other personal events. Takuro Yoshida and Yosui Inoue are two notable New Music artists.

In the 80s the term City Pop came to describe a type of popular music with a big city theme. Tokyo in particular inspired many songs of this form. It is difficult to draw a distinction between City Pop and New Music and many songs fall under both categories. Wasei Pop (lit. Japan-made pop) quickly became a common word to describe both City Pop and New Music. By the 1990s, J-pop became the common term to describe most popular songs.

The late 1980s saw the emergence of one of Japan’s most famous rock groups of all time, Chage & Aska. A massively popular male singer/songwriter duo consisting of Chage (Shuji Shibata) and Ryo Aska (Shigeaki Miyazaki), they released a string of consecutive monster hits throughout the 1980s and 1990s, establishing themselves as Asia’s most popular rock group. Their “Asian Tour II / Mission Impossible” tour was the single largest concert tour ever put on by a Japanese group - the tickets for all 61 concerts in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan sold out on the first day. Ryo Aska is widely considered today to be one of Japan’s greatest songwriters. However, with the advent of the Japanese dance-pop music pioneered by Namie Amuro and Tetsuya Komuro in the mid- to late-1990s, the popularity of rock groups like Chage & Aska has declined.

R&B got popular in Japan in the late 90’s, when young singer-songwriter Utada Hikaru debuted with her 1st single Automatic/time will tell. Her 1st album, First Love sold around 7 500 000 copies, making it the best selling Japanese album of all time, and the best selling debut album ever in the country. While she sold millions with her R&B sounds, pop music was still popular in Japan with solo female singers such as Hamasaki Ayumi, Kuraki Mai and Ami Suzuki, and female pop groups like SPEED and Morning Musume sold millions of records with their pop-techno sounds.

Now in the early 00’s, R&B and Hip Hop influences in Japanese music are stronger than ever. J-Hiphop/rock bands such as ORANGE RANGE and Ketsumeishi are at the top of the Oricon charts, with some older pop/rock groups like Mr.Children, B’z and Southern All Stars. The current charts are mainly ruled by male only bands and solo male singers, female pop has declined a lot since the 90’s but pop singers like Hamasaki Ayumi and Otsuka Ai still get to #1 with most of their releases.

From. ASIAFINEST

you may be disinclined to find the love we've left behind

"Let's face it -- English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant
nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins
weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are
candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that
quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is
neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't
groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the
plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index,
2 indices?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you
comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch
of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats
vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps
you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum
for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and
play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that
run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and
wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while
quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell
one day and cold as hell another.

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are
absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a
sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who
was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those
people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house
can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out
and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the
creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That
is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are
out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but
when I wind up this essay, I end it." __________________

(Black flash)
Black flash over my own love
Tell me of my eyes
Black flash come though my own life
Telling these things
And I believe them
And I believe in you

White flash sees the sky
And it turns its side from you
She won't turn my back
And I know you turn so blue
And you know
And your sky is feeling blue
And your heart
So cold when I'm with you
And you feel
Like no one told you to
And your time is your side
And your time with me
Ah, don't talk to me
Ah, don't talk to me
Don't talk to me

You know
Like no one told you how
But you know
Though the king that howls has howled
But you feel like sentimental
But you don't care
If I just share it in your heart
(heart...)

Hopelessly
So hopelessly
I'm breaking through for you and me
And you don't
Though no one told you to
And you found out
Where you were going, where to
You're through with me
But I know that you will be back
For more

You know
And though no one told you so
And you know, blue sky
Like a harder shade of blue
And you walk
When you want
To let go
Me, I'm the outside, tell me fade away
Drop me down but don't break me
In your sleep

In your sleep, inside
It's in your heart and mine
Whole sea is dark
It's in your heart and mine

Sweetly, those will come
Loving is on your side walking through
So let me in your heart
Your beat is like something...

They...
Run...
See say you're sad and reach by
So say you're sad above beside
Oh stay you're sad over midnight
So stay sad above we said

You know I don't
No one told you how
(and you don't)
(and you wipe sweat off your white brow)
And you care
And no one told you tried
And your heart
Is left out from the side

And the rain beats down
And the shame goes down
And this rain keeps on coming down
And this sky
Tonight...

You know "S" "O" "N" "G", why
You're going go join to God
You know "S" "O" "N" "G", why
Give away some him no lie
Give away some my de day no

You know
And though no one told you sky
And you feel
Like you pretend you can
You say go, you live
Go live outside of me
Don't you leave
Don't leave out part of me
Then can feel
Like I feel before
Like I hurt now
And I see the floor
If you pick me up
Bits and pieces on this floor

how much of human life is lost in waiting?

We walked together often
On our usual street
While under the moonlight
A sorrowful melody

I didn’t want to show such a face
But it’s because I just like you
I made you sad
The tears that day

I want to see you but
No matter how I try I can’t get
my feelings across
If my overflowing words could reach you
I want to sing out my thoughts of you

I want to see you but
No matter how I try I can’t get
my feelings across
Tonight too I am only thinking of one thing
I am still loving you

To meet would be just selfish
When I sometimes talked too much
You just smiled and forgave me
Just like an adult

When you were lonely I thought
If I could recognize it
If I reached softly with my hand
Your warmth and after this
would we be together?

I want to see you but
No matter how I try I can’t get
my feelings across
If my overflowing words could reach you
I want to sing out my thoughts of you

If I could return to that day
All these would be no more
Tonight too I am only thinking of one thing
I am still loving you

My feelings that can’t be put into words
I want to convey them through this song
If my overflowing words could reach you
I want to sing out my thoughts of you

Tonight too I’m looking at the sky
Towards where the moon is shining
I want to walk there with my important person
Forever, forever I want to be beside you

Please don’t let go of my hand

if you want something with all your heart
the universe conspires for you to get it for you.

a dream when destroyed makes your world a void.
your love is not your's anymore.........
your life is a barren core
why does this happen?
when this heart sobs..........
around me the howling winds toss
and my life seems totally lost.

Obama’s Harmony of Intellect and Intuition

by Bono 11-07-2008

Mr. President, Barack,

Every room I have ever been in with you was a much easier room for your presence.

It’s rare to meet a person like you, where intellect and intuition make such a perfect rhyme.

Your intuition tells you that the well-being of the American people, spiritually as well as physically, is connected with America’s role in the world. I know you know that the prosperity of your fellow Americans, though hard fought, is less fulfilling knowing there is so much more that can be done to alleviate poverty and suffering in the developing world. You know that less than 1 percent of government income as a contribution from the world’s richest economy to the world’s poorest is not a fair tithe — even in times like these — which is why you have promised to double foreign assistance. As with our own personal sojourn, so it is with country and community -– we discover who we are in service to others.

I know your intellect — fashioned in the halls of Harvard and on the floor of the United States Senate — has weighed up the evidence on how effective American tax dollars are, when converted into smart, targeted, focused aid. Putting children into school where they can think freely of freedom. Giving farmers on the parched land seed varieties that double the size of their crop yields. Giving mothers 20 cent immunizations to protect their newborns from the deadly viruses that they pass on through childbirth. I know your intellect has taken in the data and seen the analysis on the transformative power of effective aid in places where the United States flag is currently not one smiled at. I know you know how much cheaper it is to make friends of potential enemies than to defend yourself at a later date. I know you know all this stuff.

My prayer for you is that your instinct and intellect stay in harmony in the difficult months and triumphant years ahead.

Me no mae ni iru kimi ga sukoshi kagayaki
Mawari ga mienai
Watashitachi wa doko ni iru no

Zawameki hajimeta keshiki no naka ni
Mada kienaide ne
Mou nannimo kikoenai
But I can feel you breathe

Odoroku hodo kimagure na tenkai ni sukoshi dake
Watashi rashikunai kitai wo oh oh shiteru

I wanna be here eternally
Kono mama mitsume atte itai
I can feel you close to me
Itsu mademo soba ni wa irarenai
Kono shunkan dake wa zutto eien ni

Tatakai ni dekakeru mae no hitoyasumi
Anata to sugoshitai
Yakusoku wa kondo aeta toki ni
Can you hear me breathe?

Odoroku hodo de wa nai tenkai ni mo
Kandou shichau toki ga dare ni datte oh oh aru

I wanna be here eternally
Dare ni mo mitsukaranai tokoro ni
I can see you're all I need
Ashita made tasuke wa iranai
Kono shunkan sae mo kitto just a fantasy

I can feel you close to me
Ano basho ni kaeranaku nattemo
Ima no kimochi dake wa zutto eien

I wanna be here eternally
I can see you are all I need
Kono shunkan dake wa eien ni

Sunday Dispatch .405

Contrary to common belief, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distraction."

In 1984, Huxley added, people are controled by inflicting pain. in Brave New World, they are controled by inflicting pleasure.

In short, Orwell feared what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.



~from Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

everyday i sit and daydream about you. alas our lives are nothing like my dreams. i'm here, rotting away in my despair. you're across the globe, oblivious to me. if only you could see that i'm everything you want, need.
so far away, yet so close.

You and me
Are the world
She said
Nothing else is real
The two of us
Is all there is
The rest
Is just a dream

Always meant to be
I can't feel it
Like the destiny
And fate
Written in the stars
Inescapable fate
It's out of my hands
Falling into your arms

And I don't want
To get in a ?
But I would love you
To take your time
We're on the edge
Of a beautiful thing
She said
So come on
Stay here for awhile

Oooooh, girl
He is the one for sure
Oooooh, girl
He is the perfect boy

Yeah
Me and you
Are the world
I said
But not the only one
I need
The two of us
Is never all there is
That doesn't happen
For real
If it was
Meant to be us
It was meant to be now
Don't see
The sense in wasting
(Wasted?) time
If you're so sure
About this ??
Well then tonight
You're mine

And I don't want
To get obvious
But I have to be
Gone by three
We're on the edge
Of a beautiful thing
He said
So come on
Jump with me

Oooooh, girl
He's not the one
For sure
Oooooh, girl
He's not
So wonderful
Oooooh, girl
He's not the one
For sure
Oooooh, girl
He's not
The perfect boy
At all

You and me
Are the world
She said
Nothing else is real
The two of us
Is all there is
The rest
Is just a dream

And her heart
May be broken
A hundred times
But her hope?
We'll never destroy
Her heart?
The happy ever
After girl
Will never find
The perfect boy

well another cousin got married. and another one will be getting married in may. i'm still single of course, what a surprise, and i'm older than all of them.
lonely old age here i come.

Don't worry about the banks, the crash, or the bailout. Sure, they're awful. And yes, things will get worse. A lot worse. Worse than you ever imagined, probably. But you've been in tough spots before. Remember when you lost your job and went on unemployment for a while? This will be like that, only it will last for years. But you're a New Yorker. You're tough. Or at least you like to act that way when you've been drinking and listening to Nas. You'll pull through, if you economize. And the new Depression will help by forcibly trimming some of the flab from your personal operating budget. Here are nine ways that will happen:

1. No more gym memberships. A small cadre of Alphas will do all the brain-work. We cubicle monkeys will be carrying hods and mixing cement in the new Public Works Administration, and what a workout that'll be. Good thing you've still got a closet full of loose-and-comfy jeans and a drawer full of comfortable Gap t-shirts for those long days in the sun. Remember to keep your knees bent. And breathe! (But if you're doing demolition, keep your particle mask on.)

2. No more illegal drugs. $120 an ounce for weed*? $50 a gram for coke? It's true that some poor people already take these drugs and others, but we are still in days of affluence, if only our last ones; a poor tweaker can currently do some manual labor, or hook, to get meth. Soon you will be doing these things to buy food and shelter. When all else fails you could, like the tweaker, turn to crime, but when people have less money, you will have to mug more of them to buy drugs, increasing your opportunities for arrest. Console yourself with the return of generic beer, which you will gloomily down in your cold-water flat while the rich trust-fund hipsters tipple PBR.

3. No more Jenny Craig. There'll be no need to pay someone to tell you not to eat.

4. No more $19 cocktails. Dive bars are in! Real ones, we mean. And the days when you had to dress fly and spend big to pick someone up are also gone; like as not, you'll just have to offer them a sandwich.

5. No more pro sports tickets. Admit it: When you heard the new Yankee Stadium and the Mets' new Citi Field would be more expensive to attend than the old ballparks, you wondered if you'd have the courage to resist giving the bastards your money, didn't you? Well, wonder no more. When it costs $19 to watch the Mets blow the 2009 season from the upper deck, you will discover the alternate pleasure of watching gang initiations from your fire escape.

6. No more tech upgrades. Those of you who have grown accustomed to grabbing the latest iThing as soon as it hits the blond-wood shelves will learn to live with whatever you're currently holding until it dies, and then scrounging for rich people's cast-offs at the newly popular Salvation Army Thrift Stores. But what you lose in computing power, you'll gain in stimulating creative challenges. Remember the Atari music retro scene? Cash-strapped knowledge workers will find themselves doing similarly amazing things with Kaypros, Wordstar, and MacPaint.

7. No more expensive grooming products. Soap and hot water will be your new skin care regime. You will be able, and called upon, to shampoo less. Get a hat; there's more than one reason why everyone wore them in the last Depression.

8. No more upscale entertainments. Broadway? Nokia Theatre? A bottle club? Maybe on your birthday if your uncle dies and leaves you money. When you're not throwing craps or whittling, you'll head to the cineplex to watch Seth Rogen, the Wallace Beery of the new Depression, and hope they're giving away dishes. But everybody else will, too, and over time the price of underattended plays, concerts, and much other nightlife may drop into your league. The swells will go to the opera and swank nightclubs; you will catch glimpses of their highlife back at the movies, when Seth Rogan bumbles into the Copa to belabor the oily villain, Will Ferrell.

9. No more big plans. This is the biggest $avings of all! Have you expected to rise in your profession, occupying ever larger offices, gaining ever more exalted titles and salaries? Have you planned to move from your little apartment to a bigger condo, and thence to a nice house, maybe with a spouse and some well-cared-for children? You had a perfect right, and a pretty good chance; but both are now diminished. Where once you merely had to be a less than total screw-up to advance, in our new hard times you will have to be both endlessly ambitious and utterly ruthless -- Horatio Alger cross-bred with Scarface. If you're not, accustom yourself to a new dream: three squares and a warm place to sleep.

But take this comfort: to whom little is given, little may be expected. You won't make much but you probably won't have to take work home with you, and no one with be calling you at night from the job when the power grid goes down. When you lose your pre-Depression advantages, you will also lose the need to strive, to keep up, to run yourself ragged. You may find yourself cultivating pleasant, inexpensive hobbies, like writing, painting, or maintaining a pigeon coop. Your kids, deprived of constant day-care and supervision, may play in sandlots or in the streets, using bats made out of broom handles to hit spaldeens. You may even find yourself adjusting quite happily to a life with lower expectations.

That is, if you don't contract tuberculosis or scurvy.