HOME

MUSIC

2001 Archives:
May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2002 Archives:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2003 Archives:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2004 Archives:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

2005 Archives:
January, February


ENLOWSPEAK

GAMES

Song of the Day
(on permanent hiatus)


AIM: Lenlow1
lenlow@gmail.com

......Friends......
Brother Matt
Sister Kate
DRS1
RedBill
Millinerd
Shmannie
Abe
Hannah
......Other......
Fark
MetaFilter
B3ta
Friendster
Internet Movie Db
Parallax View

......Web Rings......
< ? bostonites # >
< ? Blog+Philes # >
< ? spellage # >



Clix.

I think I forgot to share a song with you. A young Scottish laddie by the name of SCO put this together: it's Katie singing Monica's "Angel of Mine" (originally by Eternal) over "Canon in D" played by the all-girl quartet "BOND". I know, it's confusing. But the result is downright purty.

SCO - Angel (ft. Katie Enlow)

---

Okay, San Francisco. Let's see what I can remember from two weeks ago.

I left Tokyo Thursday afternoon, and nine hours later I was in San Fran Thursday morning. It turns out going back in time can be really nauseating... it was either that or the dodgy Japanese noodles I had for lunch. At any rate, the flight was not fun. It wasn't the kind of sickness where one trip to the bathroom cleared everything up, either. But these aren't the details you're looking for. And these aren't the droids you're looking for. So onward...

Anyhoo, I didn't feel like painting the town red that night, but I did walk a few blocks to a bar where Adrian and the Mysterious D were spinning. They're cool. Very nice peeps, and quite hospitable the whole weekend. That night was the first time I had heard one of my tunes played out (by someone other than myself), so that was cool. After a few ginger ales and some convo with A & D, I was on my way.

The next day I decided to walk to Fisherman's Wharf. It didn't look like much of a hike on my map, but it wasn't a topographical map. Turns out San Fran is hilly. And the biggest hill stood between me and F-Wharf. But I made it. And took some pictures. At the top of the hill I had a good view of the bay and Alcatraz (pictured at right). At the bottom I took some more pics of Alcatraz. This one has a submarine in it.

One thing that greatly amused me a I walked around the wharf was how familiar I was with the whole area. Not because I was there when I was 13. It was because of the San Francisco level of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater video game. I guess they paid good attention to detail... I mean I was all ready to grind along the railing next to the sea lions so the fishermen dropped their fish to feed the sea lions. That's one reason I was OK with not touring Alcatraz; I've already skated every inch of it. The sea lions were pretty entertaining, by the way. So I took a bunch of pictures of them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Here's some boats and part of the SF skyline. Here's me getting ready to crooked grind the pier railing.

Friday night there was a concert put on by the radio station Live105 called "Not So Silent Night". Muse, Interpol, Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand and the Killers. Pretty sweet lineup. My boy Party Ben works for Live105, so he hooked me up with a VIP ticket. (Party Ben is the guy who made "Boulevard of Broken Songs", the hugely popular Green Day/Oasis mashup which you may have heard on the radio. PB's a cool dude, too.) The VIP room was mashup-themed, and on the wheels of steel were Adrian and the Mysterious D, Earworm, Party Ben, and Mark Vidler (aka Go Home Productions, pictured with me at right). Earworm, also a cool dude, is another talented American mashup producer. Keep an eye out for his Stairway to Heaven boot, and his latest masterpiece, George Michael vs Scissor Sisters vs Aretha Franklin vs Beatles. England's Go Home Productions is one of the most talented and famous mashup producers there is. He's the one who Bowie hired to mash/remix him, and run Bowie's mashup contest earlier this spring. Half of the tunes I play at Mash Ave are Mark's. So it was great to meet him. Also: cool dude.

Pics from Friday night:
Mysterious D, Adrian, Mark... and again
Interpol giving autographs
Muse
Party Ben and Mark
D & PB holdin' it down
PB in the place to be
On the way to the after party
GHP & D
Dada, GHP, A+D, PB
AfterParty Ben takes the wheel from Afrika Bambaata (!)
Ben teaching Interpol's bassist a thing or two

Saturday night was Bootie, America's first regular mashup night. They've been going strong for over a year, thanks to the hard work of Adrian & the Mysterious D, Party Ben, Dada, and more supporting cast. A great time was had by all. I got to meet several more people I've encountered on the ol' discussion forum, like DJ Jay-R, DJ Tripp, and Matt Hite. All cool dudes.

Bootie pics:
Party Ben & D
GHP, D, PB
Earworm & Mark
Dada on the ones and twos
Kris Kringle in the hizzy
Party peopllllllle
Earworm & Jay-R
Mark
D, Ben, Dada and Mark congratulate each other on a job well done

Phew.

---

Coming soon... a San Fran update. Probably. Heh.

Until then...

Kudos are in order for my Mash Ave partner in crime DJ BC. He just released a nine-track compilation of his Beastie Boys vs Beatles mashups: "Beastles". They're rather good. And they're attracting a lot of attention from the interweb... he's received linkage and contactage from some significant sites and publications. So that's very exciting.

Oh and some of you will be ecstatic to learn that I finally met my match at Boggle. Many matches, actually. And when I say "matches", I mean "superiors". I was playing online at Weboggle, and was getting outscored by several people on a regular basis. If you like to play, go check it out. It's easy and addictive. It's pretty intense though... I like a little more time between my games.

---

Oops, I forgot to blog about San Fran. That's because I was making a new tune. Here it is: "A Freak Needs To Be Told". Uses "A Man Needs To Be Told" by the Charlatans UK, and "Freak Like Me" by Adina Howard. You can't dance to it, but I think it's right purty.

---

OK now Japan. Tokyo was pretty cool... it's enormous, and there are lights everywhere. But what I noticed most is how not-so-super-friendly most Japanese people are. Maybe it was just because I was coming from super-friendly Seoul, or maybe not. The Japanese didn't speak nearly as much English as the Koreans, and that probably played a large part in my opinion. But anyhoo, Tokyo was cool. I just wouldn't pay to take a vacation there. What with the price of cantaloupe and all.

Okay pictures...
Here's the view from my hotel room. You could see Mount Fuji in the distance, which was neato. And the TV stations were great... I got to catch up on how my fantasy "go" league was going. Here's the view from the top (30th floor) of our hotel. Again, Mount Fuji is in the distance, but the sun's too bright to see it.

Early on Todd and I just walked around to look at stuff. One of the first things I saw was welcome sight... but that was just because I thought it said "I Love Enlow". After further inspection I think that may be a capital N, and it may have said "SNOW". Whatever. The first dinner we had was where we had the best sushi of our lives. That melt-in-your-mouth stuff. But it's also where we saw the first evidence of the Japanese replacing L with R in writing. Choose from our dericious menu! We had some other sushi later but it wasn't quite as delicious. Cheap though... maybe there's a correlation.

When we asked people what we should see in Tokyo, they said Roppongi, because that's where the tourists hang out. But when we got to Roppongi, we were all, "eh". But on a whim we visited to Shibuya (pictured right), and that was really cool. You can see how many people were roaming the streets. And that big screen on the side of that building is the same screen that Scarlett Johanssen was watching a brontosaurus walk across in Lost In Translation. That whole area was pretty fun to walk around.

Here was a cool spiral staircase at the Reebok office. It was on the side of a reflective pool so it looked like you were like WALKING INTO THE POOL it was so awesome.

Here's a shot from Shinjuku. All them purty lights were fun to look at, but over all the place was a little shady. Dodgy, if you will.

Here's a little car.

And now my favorite part... some more Engrish. Some of it is just a little funny (kneerength???)... but then there's other stuff that's priceless. I mean come on. MEN'S? Pocky for men????? What does that mean? The picture on the box is exactly the same!!!! Is regular Pocky just for women? I have so many questions. But methinks they will remain unanswered.

Merry Xmas Smile! And Smile is Best Makeup! For the amount of ads urging citizens to smile, there's surprisingly little smiling that goes on over there.

Next I'll give a San Fran update. Well here's the short version: it was wicked mint.

---

Well, I got a few hours before my plane departs for San Fran... so this would be a good time to update the ol' blog. Maybe I'll just summarize Seoul in this post. Oh and I borrowed a doohickey that works with Matt's camera doohickey, so I am able to share all my pictures. Doohickey. I should have posted every day... I'm forgetting a lot of what I wanted to say, and having pictures isn't helping as much as I thought it would. Oh and sorry bout the size of the pics, but I can't be arsed to crop them. Oh speaking of "crop", you'll see pictures of a woman named Reby, who normally works out of Reebok's Hong Kong office. She kept saying "I crapped the picture!" and it took us a few moments to stop laughing and realize that she meant "cropped". And then several more moments of laughing. But this was nothing compared to when she tried to say "peanuts".

In Seoul we stayed at Hotel Amiga, which was very nice. Here's a picture of the lobby at night. It was great because the hotel staff were all rather fluent in English, and very very friendly. Another perk is that it was close to the office. (I looked out my window and there it was.)

Pictured at right is where we ate lunch the first day. (From left: Reby, Se-Yong, Young-Bo, Len-lo.) We ended up going to this restaurant about four times; not only was it close to the office, but it was delicious. In that picture we're eating "bibimbap", which is where they throw about 12 ingredients in a bowl and mix it up. This was probably my second-favorite meal in Seoul. My favorite was the beef barbecue that we had at the same restaurant. (From left: Todd, Tae, Joseph, me.) And here's Young-Bo eating some... food. I forget what exactly that was, but it wasn't that exciting.

Now for some Engrish. Todd and I saw some funny poop as we were walking the streets of Seoul at night. One of the first things was a store called Hello Beans, pictured at right. Todd thought hello was the type of bean, but I'm convinced that they're saying hello to the beans. At any rate, we didn't go inside and find out. I think we were worried that if we had partaken, we would have experienced GAS PANIC!!!! OK, that was in Roppongi (Tokyo), but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to mention it in the same sentence as Hello Beans. By the way, a great time was had by all in Gas Panic, believe it or not. It was a club for younger people, with a rather American feel to it. But the music was great, and so was the scenery.

But back to Seoul... I LOL'ed when I saw this store... shame it was closed. This place was closed too... pity. You Young Sauna I think was open for business, but I didn't want to patronize an establishment that called me names.

Here's a guy doing something to a pig head. About five feet from where people were enjoying their meal. A meal of pig head, I presume. And hello beans. Here's Todd contemplating a midnight snack of cute little bunny rabbit. Okay maybe they weren't for eating, who knows.

Okay I guess that's all for now. Updates from Japan and San Fran may have to wait for Monday or Tuesday. SF will be weird... there's about a dozen DJ's and producers there with whom I've communicated with over the interweb, and I'm finally meeting them this weekend. That'll be cool. And remember... ah-ha OK what's up here?

---

Another Tokyo story for you... this morning on the way to work I saw something amazing. When we got off our train, people were getting onto the train opposite us, and it was the most packed train I have ever seen in my life. People's faces were pressed against the window and stuff. But that's not the weird part. There was a woman trying to get on the train... and she kind of got her arm through the sea of bodies , but her body was still clearly in the way of the door, with no room to get in. She struggled a while to get in, and then two of the train employee dudes approached her. I assumed they were going to tell her to get off the train, but... no. The two men lowered their shoulders into the woman and pushed the woman until the doors could close. I couldn't believe it. These guys were putting all their might into getting that woman in there.

Oh and the average commuting time for Tokyo citizens is an hour and a half. Our coworker Joseph, who has visited Tokyo a few times, says that one time on the train here his feet didn't touch the ground. Can you imagine commuting like that? And people here work about 12 hours a day, every day. It's amazing. No wonder the suicide rate is so high. (Don't worry about me; we lazy Americans have been busting out of the office after about 8 hours.)

But at least cantaloupes here are only $150 US. And oranges only $73.

---

So until I get home, the only pictures I can post are ones that Todd (my boss) took. But he's been slacking a little in the photog capacity, so this is all I got so far.



Here's me taking a picture of a street in Itaewon, which is a part of Seoul. (Click for bigness.) Does the orange sign on the left say "Beautifer Emporium"?



Here's me on the way to work this morning (Tokyo). It was so crowded... I almost didn't make it on the train with my coworkers. I would have been completely lost, since I didn't know where the office was, and Todd has all our Yen.

P.S. There's someone here by the name of Supaporn.

---

Tokyo's pretty darn cool. Our first night, last night, I had the best sushi I've ever had in my life. And it's not even a close call. The anago (eel) just melted in my mouth... hard to explain, but... wow.

So far I think the only thing I preferred about Seoul is the amount of English around. People in Tokyo, even the hotel workers, seem to know much less English. We had a much easier time getting around Seoul, but that may be just because we always had local hosts to help us order food and stuff. And in Seoul we didn't have to use public transportation. But we haven't met any of our Japanese coworkers yet; maybe life will get easier then.

There's so much I want to blog about, but I'm going to wait until my pictures are online. But I will say: not only do the Japanese replace L with R when speaking, but I have photographic evidence of it happening in writing. That was some funny poop.

---

Yeah, I was exaggerating a little about how nobody speaks English here. Exaggerating a lot. Everyone knows basic English hello and thank you (that's all I know in Korean too)... but most people know quite a bit more. You see, if someone here wants to learn a second language, they learn English, and don't really consider anything else. I think it's the same in most of the rest of the world too. But even though most people know some English, very very few are any good at it. At least half the time, there are English "subtitles" on store signs, menus, road signs, etc. Which is nice. Everything in my hotel is in English. Which is nice.

Oh and sorry if I offended anyone by saying "Renrow"... but the thing is, it's not really a "stereotype" if it's true, is it? I mean, it's a fact that East Asians have a LOT of trouble with the letter L. I'm not poking fun or anything, I'm just doing as the Romans do.

My Seoul stay got extended yet another day, so I'll be flying to Tokyo tomorrow. But the good news is that we wrapped stuff up surprisingly fast this morning, and I don't have much to do. I might get a half day out of it. Maybe I'll get out and see what Seoul is like more than two blocks from my hotel.

---

Greetings from Seoul! I am alive and well. The flight was looooooong... but international business class is a thing of beauty. And I successfully avoided jet lag altogether by staying up all night before my 6:30 AM flight. Slept through the more than half of the 18-hour trip, and then my first night in Seoul I slept like a baby from 11 PM to 7 AM Korea time (9:00 AM - 5 PM Boston time). I just hope the return trip goes as smoothly.

I was supposed to fly to Tokyo today, but I extended my stay here to help the local employees with some Notes application issues. There was some frustration due to both the language barrier and the complexity of the work we were doing, but everything's working out fine.

I've been taking a few pictures with Matt's camera, but since I don't have the software they'll have to wait till I get back. Bummer. Seoul's pretty cool, though I haven't seen too much of it. Believe it or not, it's different from the USA. Yeah, it is. People don't speak good English and stuff. Except for the two children who came up to me, said "hello!" and ran away giggling. And the food's all different and stuff. But it's delicious. This commentary sucks... I wish I could show pictures.

A couple of Lenlow items: two of my tunes are among the nine that have made it to the Culture Deluxe Hall of Fame. I don't know what the criteria is, but I'm happy with that. If you want you can register on the site and rank my tunes.

Another cool thing is that my "Last Night" got played on the radio in Columbus, and the recording of that radio broadcast is online. Riko had made an hour-long mix featuring "Last Night" and sent the whole mix to the DJ, and my part got played, but the DJ credited it to Riko. No big deal though. The good news is he liked it and played it.

Sincerery,
- Renrow

---