KJ's American Adventure

Chapter 177

2011-01-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

THE FINAL CHAPTER

Here it is folks. The end of the American Adventure. The last and final Chapter of KJ’s American Adventure. I started this blog with a desire to save these precious memories for both myself and my family and all my friends. This has been yet another huge chapter in my life in every single aspect and boy has it truly been an adventure!

So much has happened in so little time - well, not that little actually - but time has a weird way of acting in relevance to how you live your life. I’ve never in my life admitted to myself that time went by quickly simply because I never did fill my time as much as I have in these past period. But now, now that I’ve tasted what it’s like to have so much to do with so little time to do it, I truly feel like time is whizzing by at the speed of a fast whizzing thing. A frisbee. Thrown by dynamite. On a jet plane.

In this adventure I’ve seen and heard some amazing musicians, met some truly eclectic people, found many loving friends, seen an ever evolving culture, experienced a taste of the world, shared life with both the rich and the poor, and encountered God at every step of the way. It’s incredible just how much your life can change in such a short time.

But now the journey comes to an end. The American Adventure has run its course and God has a new direction for me. A new season in life.

This is to all the people who have been in some way or another involved in the great American Adventure. I raise my glass to you, take my hat off to you, and every other form of salutation to you.

This is KJ, signing off for KJ’s American Adventure.

Thank you for watching.

-THE END-

Chapter Yumzzz

2011-01-24T22:31:00.000-08:00

You may or may not have seen a not so recent twitter post regarding an awesome argentinian grill by the name of Lala's.

I went there again recently because it was just awesome.

And here's a bonus shot of what I call a good night. A cold beer, and a good game.

Tales from MI - Chapter 14

2011-01-20T13:56:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the final chapter of Tales from MI. It's taken a while to sit down a get this all down in my blog, but I felt it needed to be here as a representation of my fantastic time at MI and all the people I've met.

We finish up today with the much anticipated Schroeder Ensemble.

The Schroeder Ensemble is a group class led by the amazing legend that is Carlton Schroeder. The man is a genius. His musical knowledge is so immense it would take years just to pick at it. He's quite the eccentric person as well, as you would expect from musical geniuses.

In this class we form a band just like the Jazz LPW, but it isn't only for one quarter, it lasts for as long as the band wants to play together. We get a good ol' fashioned jazz standard when we get in there and basically the class is about improvisation around the jazz standard. And we get to trade eights just like good ol' fashioned jazz standards.

This class is probably the most amount of fun I've ever had and the biggest exposure to actual jazz playing that I've ever got.

The drum teacher in this class is world famous Chuck Flores, who's played with many of my jazz heroes in his lifetime. He's like 75 years old now and is a wealth of musical knowledge. And he's incredibly funny.

The man himself, Mr Carlton Schroeder.

And the other champion, Mr Chuck Flores.

And here's some pics of some of the people I played with in this awesome class.

Here's to awesome memories of my stint at an awesome music college.

*Salute*

Chapter avlntnauvleanvlu

2011-01-19T19:42:00.000-08:00

So this past weekend I had the opportunity to do something that I absolutely love. I got invited to be part of the worship band for a high school winter camp organized by a church around the area. It's been what, 3 years since my last one, the awesomeness that is TeenStreet? So it was incredible to be doing it again.

Started off with a 2 and a bit hour drive up the mountains to alpine meadows.

Pics from the road.

Gas stop..

As the sun started to set we soon arrived at our destination. A nice little place with cabins inside and a warm hall. Our little worship spot..

For those wondering, or for those assuming, I was on keys and vocals. Not on the drums this time. But equally as much fun. More tiring actually. Respects to singer musicians who do these kind of things. You know who you are.

Chillin' in the cabin after the first night.

My buddy Joe and Spencer's foot.

The view from outside the cabin in the morning.

And how often do you get to see a snow filled pool?

Lastly some pictures of what went on those couple of days.
Lots of music, lots of teaching. Goooooood stuff.

Our awesome soundman Brian! Soundmen are highly under-appreciated!

And the band!
From left to right
Joe, Me, Spencer and Patrick.

And the band blocked by high school pastor Josh.

Band and soundman Brian!

It was a great weekend. Lots and lots of fun. I might just update this thing and post a little more stories but until then.

Ciao.

chapter tooth and Chips part 2

2011-01-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

If you remember part one, awesome. If not, go look it up.

So the part of my tooth that came off and was replaced has fallen off again. I sorta knew it was going to happen eventually because the dentist didn't do a very good job. So there you go. Kinda sucks.

Moving on.

Some really cool updates across the board here. I realised that I had taken some pictures recently and forgot to put them up here so here we go. Starting from Christmas wayyyyyyy back in 2010.

To answer a famous question that has been asked like a million times...

Yes. That is a real tree. It needs water. It's alive. And green. And soft. And smells good.

Isn't it purdy?

More house decor...

The daytime isn't especially flattering to the lights eh.. They did look good though.

All set for CHRISTMAS PARTY! (on the 18th... church christmas party hosted at the house I'm staying in)..

I didn't take that many pictures... I'm getting less trigger happy with my camera. It's not good.

END OF CHRISTMAS RELATED POST.

NEXT.

Random shot of quadruple B'day celebration with friends.

More stuff coming up later! Had a great weekend adventure this past weekend. Look forward to that.

KJ over and out.

Tales from MI - chapter 13

2011-01-13T14:22:00.000-08:00

We resume the final chapters of Tales from MI. So that I can get them out of the way for some new stuff coming up.

You've been introduced to all my classes and my teachers so far so now let's move to the extra stuff. Starting off with the Traditional Jazz LPW.

I participated in this LPW for 5 out of the 6 quarters that I was at MI. It was one of my favourite things to do at MI besides the Schroeder Ensemble. We got charts for traditional jazz arrangements by some fantastic jazz composers and it was great to be able to be part of a band and rehearse on a regular basis each week. And well, it's jazz. I love anything to do with it.

Each week we'd turn up and play the chart down with guidance from a teacher for each instrument. I got to hang with Keita Akutsu, an MI graduate from some years ago, and perhaps the most laid back teacher in the entire school. He is an amazing player and I also got to see him live at LACMA once.

There are some other pics with my band(s) and such that I might put up, or you can be a smart one and go look up some links on facebook with me tagged in it, or check out my photobucket albums.

Also on this chapter we meet the insanity that is Bernie Galane. Look this guy up. He is ridiculous. And I got to meet him for his open counselings. OCs are basically open hours with the instructors for anyone to walk in and ask any kind of questions. It was just amazing to have an insight into this monsters playing skills and technique.

Next time on TALES FROM MI, we finish up with the great and amazing Schroeder Ensemble! You don't want to miss the grand finale!

Chapter 04011988 (Part 3)

2011-01-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

WARNING! INSIDE JOKE!

Ready?

1...
2...
3...
4!

Ling ling a ling a long
ling ling a long
Ling long a ling ling ling longgg!!!

Ling ling a ling a long
ling ling a ling a long!
ling ling long
LING LING LONG!!!

Chapter 04011988 (Part 2)

2011-01-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

I strongly suggest you turn up your volume (assuming Vimeo hasn't blocked the song in your region) and blow this up to full screen to enjoy the full effect of it.

It's my birthday, but there's much more to celebrate than just 23 years of life...

Chapter 04011988 (Part 1)

2011-01-03T19:38:00.000-08:00

Chapareter

2011-01-03T08:39:00.001-08:00

asdafasdzxx

Welcome to KJ’s wrap up of the New Year.

It’s been a while since I’ve said this but 2010 was a GREAT YEAR. It was a fantastic year. And it’s been a while since I’ve been able to reflect on a year and be proud of it.

Before I got my butt into the States, I was living a very dull and unproductive life. I was teaching music part time for three years almost and doing really nothing in between. The years were filled with much time wasting, much procrastination, failed university applications and a lot more stuff not worth mentioning. I used to wake up each day asking myself - what on earth is God doing in my life right now and what on earth am I doing about it?

It wasn’t a waste. It was a time of maturing and growing and preparation for the life I would live outside my home, away from my family and into a brand new environment. There were ups and downs and there were highs and lows. That was before this American Adventure began.

The pursuit for musical excellence and a career in music began after I graduated ‘A’ levels, at the age of 17. Even before I finished that, I had already decided it would be music. It was a strange decision coming from me, the boy who studied sciences and did reasonably well at them. Coming from the person who used to want to build mechanical arms for a living. Then again, I remember clearly my ambition to become Doc Brown from Back to the Future so obviously I know nothing about my own ambitions. I’m 22 now verging on 23 in a couple of days (YIKES!) and that brings my pursuit for this to five and a half years now. Five and a half years and more than half of that time was quite unproductive.

God’s way of doing things usually never coincides with how we want to do things. I believe that’s because we’re just so far from God sometimes that we don’t want what He wants. And what He wants for us is always the best. If we truly were with Him and know Him, we’d do what He wants because we know He knows best. The journey to where I am today was completely not my choosing. It deviated entirely from the plan I was making. I arrived in a school I had not originally intended to go to, I spent over two years longer than I would’ve liked waiting to get here, and so on and so on.

But reflecting upon the journey until today, God really does know best. I always imagine what it would be like if I arrived in this country at the age of 19. I think my mom would be completely freaked out with her every waking moment.

But I deviate. I’m telling the story of 2010, not the story of 2005-2010. It is necessary to give some context though to give you an idea why I say I’ve never really had the chance to call a year ‘great’. Perhaps my idea of ‘some’ is somewhat thwarted. Yet again I digress.

2010 has been a year of fulfilling. It has been a year of faithfulness. It has been a year of fulfilled promises.

For the most part the year was taken up by music college. Until September my days were filled with productive classes, training and practice. The tough part came when graduation came closer and closer each and every passing week. The question of ‘what are you going to do next?’ kept coming at me like a pesky insect that I didn’t want to deal with at that point in time. But it was coming and I knew it. The day was coming when I would be out of school and out into the working world.

So began the exploration of options. I basically did everything within my power and left the rest entirely to God. I sent out applications to another school, not sure whether I was even going to go to school for more. I looked online for jobs, sent out resumes, called phone numbers, met people, did all I can to try and get some kind of work - including my one audition for a cruise ship. I gave it all I got. I gave it my best shot. The rest was literally up to God. I had no idea if any of it would work. I was never sure if I was ever going to make it as a working musician.

All this has only served to build my faith in Him and trust His faithfulness.

God has been faithful to provide me a job.
God has been faithful to provide me places to live within my budget.
God has been faithful to provide great friends, great community.
God has been faithful to provide great teachers who’ve helped me mature in my Christian life.
God has been faithful to provide relationships that will last forever.
God has been faithful to literally provide all I need, and then some.

One entire year, just witnessing the faithfulness of God. Witnessing Him fulfilling His promises that He will take care of me, that He will not forsake me, that He has my best interests at heart, that He is in control of everything and as long as I trust Him, He will be there for me.

2010 has been also an incredible year of learning. There’s more to college life than learning academics. There’s a lot more to college life outside on your own than learning your profession. You learn to live. As cliche as it sounds, it’s the first real taste of the world, cuddled safely around the normality of study life. There is still a routine, there is still something to do each day, but there are also aspects of life that will continue on forever.

It’s life. Managing finances, managing meals, managing time, managing resources, balancing social life with work or study, learning to live in close proximity with people as neighbours, learning tolerance, learning how to show grace - learning how to live life on your own. A taste of what life will be like once we’re all grown up. Learning how our parents do it.

It’s also been an incredible year of learning about Christ. I’ve been so blessed to have had great mentors in my life every step of the way. God has always provided men of wisdom and men of faith and men of love around me to teach me and show me what it means to be a Christian and what it means to live by faith and what it means to live for Jesus.

I’d highlight some awesome events during the year, but honestly there are quite too many that I can’t keep track of them all. That’s what twitter is for I suppose. I wish there were some better way of going through my old tweets.

2011 - Here I come. A brand new adventure.

Chapter appyhay ewnay earyay

2010-12-31T08:23:00.000-08:00

Today is new year's eve. And I thought I'd show you something 'interesting'.

Instead of posting on twitter the random boring stuff that happens today, I will show you just how uninteresting my new year's eve can be by posting a regular update on this blog post.

Here we go.

It's now 8:22. Had a short brief chat with family members back home when I woke up.
Best quote
"Why can hear children?"
"Because there is a children."
Made coffee. Sat down. Typed this.

Stay tuned for more gripping events as they happen.

8:32 - second cup of coffee. Let's go wild!

8:54 - playing some music on itunes. Darrell Evans' version of trading my sorrows is my favourite. There are some songs you grow up with that you will never let go. This is one of them.

9:06 - writing a year end essay. Pulitzer for sure. Or whatever award you give to essays. Someone needs to pay me to write these things. Anyone? Anyone?

9:19 - Things are going crazy! It's time to up the ante and wash some dishes!

10:27 - Now the real fun begins. Things are really hotting up and getting crazy here on New Year's Eve. Now I'm going to go help some people move house! Isn't that awesome! Let's DO THIS!

11:33 - Haha! Friend brought a drink shaker for tonight's entertainment! Sweet.

14:00 - Pizza lunch time! Crazy stuff!

15:27 - Done and done. Tired. Time to go pick up 'tonight's entertainment'.

16:15 - Look at the queue. Everyone at the store with their selected poison for the night. Me? A bottle of olives, some gin, and some dry vermouth. Yums.

16:25 - Home at last. Rest up before the 'big party'.

16:57 - SWEEEEET!!! My I Fight Dragons T-shirt arrived in the mail. http://store.ifightdragons.com/2010/04/22/umbrella-t-shirt/

17:10 - Oh MY GOODNESS! Things just got incredibly crazy here at the HUGE PARTY that I'm having with myself. First beer of the evening! Hoowah!

17:14 - Oh no, oh no! Things are getting really wild. Some friends from around the world just showed up on skype! This can only mean one thing! - STARCRAFT! See you on the other side of the match.

17:42 - Game 1 over! Looks like some people need to take a breakfast break. Yeap that's right. Malaysian friend decided to not eat breakfast and play first. Funny.
Oh and by the way .... VICTORY! Yay!

18:06 - woah the epitome of fun - watching videos on youtube. I am just that awesome. This party is going wild.

18:10 - Game 2 of international Starcraft begins!

18:39 - Game 2 over! Victory! Totally won by my allies. Starcraft done. Friend in the UK needs to sleep. Fun times!

18:42 - Time to bring out the BIG GUN in entertainment and super crazy fun time. Happy awesome power! I'm going to play some digital legos now. LEGO DIGITAL DESIGNER!

19:39 - Finished dinner. Home made kuay teow soup. Time to build more legos before the first martinis are served.

20:14 - The first martinis are made. Time to get crazy!

20:49 - Martini number 2! Time to shake things up and watch some basketball!

21:05 - Wow, things just got even more exciting! Now we're swapping in and out between the basketball game and the movie Zodiac. HAVE YOU HAD THIS MUCH CRAZY FUN IN YOUR LIFE?

22:12 - Martini 3. I need gloves to shake my martinis in this cold weather. Still watching Zodiac.

22:28 - I'ma have some CHIPS and DIP.

00:10 - oh .look it's new years. I dozed off watching ZOdiac drinking martinis. There's fireworks going off everywhere.

Happy new year.

Chapter Eve Eve

2010-12-24T00:11:00.000-08:00

Yet another satisfying night of moving stuff around.

It's Christmas Eve today (exactly 5 minutes past midnight) and I just spend the eve of the Eve doing exactly what I did last year. Points if you remember it from last year when I blogged about it.

Yes, we have Christmas Eve service at a church building and right before it, on the Eve eve, they run a toy drive for the neighbourhood families where they basically give out free toys for Christmas. So because we need to use the space on the Eve, we spend the Eve eve clearing up the area and packing away stuff.

It's no big thing really. Just a bunch of people from the church gathering together to perform some required labour. No big deal, nothing fancy. Nothing glamourous.

Yet there is a real joy in doing something tangible like this. Sure it's all good to be doing service in many ways but to me there's something about doing manual labour that's just extra satisfying. The fact that the group of us will probably receive no attention for it (except the far away attention that I'll get from telling you all about it here) and we'll get no real credit or whatsoever for doing it brings more joy to it because all glory goes to God.

Service in secret. Service with joy. Service like no other.

Merry Christmas Eve eve, and Merry Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas tomorrow.

Tales from MI - Chapter 12

2010-12-18T15:52:00.000-08:00

Final bits of Level 3 before we move on to the miscellaneous classes and stuff! Lots more to get through!

So we have the Latin class in level 3. Taught by Latin supremo Chuck Silverman.

I actually heard of Chuck way back when I was visiting the Drummerworld.com forums. And then when I got over here and saw him on the list of instructors I was really stoked about it. I signed up for almost all the classes he was teaching and eventually when I got to the final 6 months of my MI stint, I got to take his Latin drumming class.

The class covered drumset styles inspired by Brazilian rhythms and Cuban rhythms. Everything from samba to bossa to cha-cha to songo... I learned as many of them as possible. A whole bunch of them really helped out in my audition so this was definitely one of the most informative classes.

Also, Chuck is a supremo when it comes to latin rhythms. He's your typical white canadian man, but he's fallen so deeply in love with these rhythms that he's spent so much time pursuing it and learning it and playing it. He's been to all these places and seen the actual traditional rhythms like Cuba and Brazil. He's managed to encompass all these rhythms in his own playing. This is great motivation for guys like us who aren't in any way brazilian or Cuban.

I also took private lessons with Chuck for a semester and it was great. Lots of chart reading and tough songs and rhythms to play. Really good real world training.

I had a second private lesson for my last semester there. Taught by jazz extraordinaire Jason Harnell.

Jason was such a wealth of knowledge regarding jazz music. He's also such an awesome player with such great finesse it was such a joy to have him listen to my playing and offer constructive criticism. I had the opportunity to watch him live at the Baked Potato and it was just incredible seeing all the skills we talked about translated onto the drum kit.

I also bought a couple of his CDs. Good stuff.

Stay tuned for the next few episodes as we wrap up the electives and LPWs and the fantastic Schroeder Ensemble!

Tales from MI - Chapter 11

2010-12-16T13:43:00.000-08:00

Next up is another real treat. From the next class - Ensemble playing technique - taught by none other than the legendary Ralph Razze.

THE RALPH RAZZE!

You have no idea how much of an honor it is to see and hear this man on the drums. Big band playing legend, sessions legend.. LEGEND.

While the class itself wasn't too taxing - we basically learned how to interpret charts in a real life setting (which by the way really helped when it came to my cruise audition) - and I breezed through most of the class, it was incredible to witness Ralph blasting his way through these charts.

Also incredible was the fact that Ralph is an incredible library of amazing music. He's worked on GI JOE commercials - which I HAVE THE TRACKS FOR NOW - and a lot of like cool 80's big band funk and all sorts of stuff. He's just worked on so much stuff and in his class we got a taste of all the stuff he's worked on in the many years.

Equally mind blowing was our next level 3 class - Odd meter - taught by another legend, Ed Roscetti.

Composer extraodinaire, innovative legend, world music genius and perhaps one of the greatest educators I've ever met. Together there with the live band we played in class. Ed is an incredible educator. His approach to learning and teaching is just so thorough and effective it makes it hard to believe that few others teach the same way.

I also did get the chance to see Ed live several times and one of the greatest encouragements is that he IS what he talks. To use a cruddy cliche - he talks the talk and walks the walk. Everything I saw him teach and talk about I also saw him use in a live setting. There are no tricks, no special moves, no hidden secrets. He teaches the way he plays and his own approach to becoming good in what he does. It's incredible.

That and he reduces the notion of playing in weird odd numbers into a super systematic method of learning.

And of course the best part is that he's so vocal with his teaching. A trait I think all drummers should have. He sings beats and rhythms and everything with his mouth. He then plays it with his body. He encompasses the instrument so well.

Great two classes. Awesome experience. Tune in for more!

Tales from MI - Chapter 10

2010-12-14T17:22:00.000-08:00

Moving on now to LEVEL 3! Why was level 2 so short, I hear you ask. Well the rest of the classes were the same as Level 1, just a lot harder. There still was the ever testing RSW class and reading and technique. So now we move on to LEVEL 3!

And we kick it off with one of my favourite classes - Studio Drums.

In here we got to sit in the recording lab and play to a professional track and record drums over that. And then force ourselves to sit through the horror of our own ugly mistakes. We crossed several genres, but stuck around mostly pop, rock and a little funky stuff.

Some weeks were pretty good and some were just terrible. It was an incredible learning experience though. I've never been in the studio before nor have I even recorded myself prior to coming to MI. So this was quite a refreshing and educating experience. Nothing teaches better than the recorder. And nothing motivates more than listening to myself. I see how crappy I am, but I also notice some of the awesome stuff I manage to do.

My final from the class is in an earlier post titled Chapter Z26. Go check it out for a sample of what goes on in this class.

I did have immense fun in there. Overall one of the best classes at MI and it really helped prepare for future studio recordings should I ever do any.

And our teacher, Mr Charlie Waymire, was always on the ball. He was incredibly keen eyed (and eared) in spotting my errors and telling me how to correct them. And he's also one of the funniest dudes at school. Good stuff. And where else can you go except music college where your teachers have mohawks and join in the photograph fun like this?

Tales from MI - Chapter 9

2010-12-13T15:54:00.000-08:00

More tales from MI!

Now we go into our next LEVEL 2 class - contemporary drum concepts, or better known back in the day as ROCK DRUMS.

This is the class where I learn pretty much just how bad I am at playing rock. I'm terrible at it. My volume levels are all jacked and I have terrible power behind my strokes. I hit the toms like a sissy and I pedal my bass like I'm stepping on a hamster. Woah, scary analogy.

Yes. Rock drums. And a whole bunch of stuff that came with it too. We had a double pedal portion of the class too - you can see my failed attempts at it on my youtube page. Double bass disaster. Pretty much sums up just how much I enjoyed that portion of class.

We did also have some crazy paradiddle permutations and linear patterns and stuff that were really cool though. And some great triplet-y fill ideas and all sorts of other really cool bits in class. And this was the other class that we got to play with a live band every week. I'm not particularly a fan of playing in that class though because quite frankly I did stink at playing rock.

But all that changed after going to MI. Now I can back beat like a caveman with a club and I'm pretty darn sure I'm capable of smacking the bass drum straight through. And then some. It's not just about the volume though - it's about the balance of sound.

And none of it would be possible without the ever awesome super cool Scott Wittenberg.

More tales from MI coming up!

Tales from MI - Chapter 8

2010-12-09T17:17:00.000-08:00

More classes to talk about. Entering the second batch of classes after 6 months, also known as LEVEL 2 (yeah like a character level up you know? add more skills and attributes and pwn more enemies.. I'm getting off topic here), we now have a couple of new classes.

First one is Jazz. Now I've been a jazz fanatic pretty much all my growing up life. I know it's weird for a 10 year old to get into jazz and fall in love with it but I did and I've always loved listening to it. I thought myself pretty darn good at it already and certainly thought I'd ace the class. It was fun to be able to get to play with a live band each class. Basically we got to play a chorus of a standard, have some solos, and then trade 4's or 8's with the soloists. Pretty standard stuff.

It did throw me off guard right away. I've never had the opportunity to play jazz with a live trio before. I've only ever played with tracks that I owned so it was a new experience. I fuddled it up quite a bit here and there.

But then I got myself a new private instructor for my next stint and he was, as they call him, the grease monkey. None other than Jazz guru Tim McIntyre. T-Mac, as he is also known as, also taught the jazz class and so I got a pretty good dose of jazz lessons.

While I may have had the skills and coordination to pull off most of the exercises he gave me, I didn't have the right idea about the sound of jazz. We spent lots of time playing around with the idea of making the thing sound right and having the right feel. And it was a lot of revamping on my part and putting my mind in the right place.

Also spent a lot of time listening to all sorts of material on youtube and from his personal collection. Great stuff.

It's because of this and my affinity with jazz that I started to become the jazz monkey in my batch. Me and a few other guys started nailing it down pretty good. And that helped in the Schroeder ensemble. More on that later.

Tales from MI - Chapter 7

2010-12-07T15:22:00.000-08:00

Continuing my catalogue of my MI experience - very delayed I know.

So you've seen technique with rob carson, and now we move on.

We're only on day 3 to be honest. More RSW and more reading.. and not much else. I'll cover my electives and other stuff later.

So on to day 4. New class is music minus one. It's a simple class. We're given a bunch of tracks and we're to play along to them with some lead sheet charts. Stuff is open for interpretation and there are a couple of hits to make and stuff. It's more a class to just have fun and play along to minus one tracks.

Looking back at it now, it was good training for my audition because sure enough I had to play to some pre recorded tracks. It's tough at first lining up perfectly with the track and carefully playing in time and catching every thing. Gary Hess takes this class once again and his approach is always the most simple and effective. In retrospect this was perhaps a crucial class for me to score that audition. Learning how to do things the easy way and making sure they worked was certainly a big help when I had to learn 3 charts on the fly in less than an hour.

We had some fun in this class and some crazy ideas among students. Also the tracks are mine to keep and they are actually pretty darn good ones too. Apparently John Pattitucci recorded the bass on some of them. Pro level minus one tracks? Any day.

Day 5 wraps up with the programming bit of Digital Drumming with Donny Gruendler. Here we learned how to program backing tracks and all sorts of stuff to do with technology - the part I'm actually very unfamiliar about. Protools, Reason, Ableton etc.. all the good stuff.

And that's Level 1 for ya. Next we move on to the classes that added on as the months went by. Stay tuned.

PRAISE THE LORD!

2010-11-29T09:42:00.001-08:00

JOB LANDED!!!!!

CONFIRMED!

WUAHAHAHAHHA!!!!

POP THE CHAMPAGNE!

Chapter waaaaaaa

2010-11-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

So long no update?!!

Such is my life at the moment - nothing happening. So sad. No money go anywhere. No vehicle go anywhere. No motivation to go anywhere.

No job. No work.

Very bored.

But fear not!

I just had a very interesting audition experience just this last Monday.

It was an audition over the phone. Yeah, you read that right. Audition over the phone for a company called proship entertainment. Yep, KJ is applying for more cruise gigs because they are just awesome jobs.

So before we get to the juicy details that only relatives can possibly care about - like how it went and when I'll hear back from them and whether I'll get the job - let's go into the juicy details that I am obviously good at describing. The audition itself.

It was a very weird experience. I've never done any auditions over the phone, heck I've barely done any auditions live but I do know what it's like to play stuff for people on the spot, but in the same room with a tangible human. I did that all the time at school.

But over the phone? Not even skype? Not even a video conference? On my cell phone?

You'd think it'd be impossible, but they seem to have the process down very good.

So the guy calls me at ten in the morning and directs me to a website where I download a whole bunch of mp3's for the audition later. I give all of them a quick listen, my heart thumping like mad and my fingers cold with nervousness, I say out loud to myself 'Hoowah, let's do this' in my best ~~Arnold Shwasz... shcawsz... schwayzsy... shwazszrenger...~~ Terminator voice and hop on my bike and get down to the studio.

Oh wait, I forgot to mention I also had charts to work on. I had 3 songs charted out and these weren't your basic lead sheet charts. Oh no, they tried to confuse me as best as they could with their weird phrase lengths and changing beats and weird broadway 2 beat boomchak 'botak' groove charts. Now I didn't have a printer handy at all. Thankfully there was a printing shop right next to the studio I was headed to.

25 cents a print.

WHAT!!! You're insane lady!

Considering that a printer costs a lot more than that, I decided to pay quietly for my charts. A quick glance at them and a swear word later I was in the studio, panicking.

Wait... No I wasn't. That's because the stupid studio guys opened LATE! ARGH. I lost 15 minutes of precious prep time. I told them ten in the morning. And they showed up at 10:30. Only served to feed my panic.

So there I was frantically trying to set everything up. It did serve well that I used that very same studio the night before and everything was already in place.

I had an hour between the first call at ten before the guy would call again for the audition. Half an hour of that prep time had gone. I started working through the charts. Initial reaction was 'Oh crap these are HARD!!! ARGHHH!'

Thankfully, I've proven to be a systematic learner. The more I played the more I got.

11 o'clock. RINGGGG!!

Here we go.

So the guy runs me through the process and I put down the phone, not hang up mind you, and sit it right next to my drums, put the tracks on and here we go.

Part 1 of the audition required me to play a total of 8 different styles like swing, funk, rock, samba, rhumba, broadway, etc (strangely no blues) and some brush work. MI training came in handy immediately. I racked my knowledge of latin styles and pulled out my grooves to perfection. And it totally helped that I spent the last six months at school working on my brush technique. I was the 'brush dude' in class. Nobody saw me without my brushes for that period of time.

SCORE!

Then came the terrifying charts. But then the audition-er told me something that totally calmed me down - they weren't going to cut me off if I messed up. I got two chances, and they will be impressed with the ability to fix stuff and improve quickly.

Luckily for me, I am a master at fixing my errors off the bat. All that playing in LPW's in school had totally prepped me for that. I used to play once, get my teacher's advice on what was crap and immediately sound like a pro the second time I played it. And this was no exception.

I CAN DO THIS (Terminator voice)

The whole idea of doing it over the phone made it seem more awkward than it needed to be. But I got through it nonetheless. I video-d the whole thing and packed it up and sent it off to them over the internet.

It took almost an hour to get through all the material and then I had some extra stuff to do for the video. But at the end of that, I was totally exhausted. And hungry.

I went home, ate, and totally crashed the whole afternoon. Maybe my nerves had tired me out. But still, it was incredibly exhausting.

So there you go. That was my audition.

I've gotten two calls back so far to check up on some details and initial reports say I did well in the audition.

The kind lady at proship called me today to ask if I would be interested in a six month contract on the Celebrity Millennium. I said yes without a second thought.

Go look that ship up. If I get that job, I start in march. Unless they whip up something earlier for me.

It's not confirmed yet, but it does look very hopeful. Keep praying. Hard.

Chapter 79.625 - You're never too far from home part 5

2010-11-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

To the peeps around the world - You are NEVER too far from home.

Post tasting observation

- Product is made in Colombia. Wow.

- Taste much less sweet than Malaysian version. Without sugar, 5 table spoons in one cup is still not sweet.

- More chocolatey? Not by much.

What's to be said? Buatan Malaysia version better. Long live Milo Ais at the mamak.

Tales from MI - Chapter 6.5

2010-11-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

Continued from the previous post regarding my playing technique class.

Rob's finals have always been some of the most challenging. They aren't hard, they just require the most amount of rehearsal. He often includes snare drum pieces and exercises that include all sorts of rudiments, dynamics and tempos.

The very last final was a particularly tough challenge. Here's my original piece that we had to write for the final. Take a look at it and see if you dare play it.

So there you are. I wrote something regarding the title some time ago so if you didn't read that story, here it is.

Diddles and Mangoes

And now comes the kicker - me actually playing the damn thing. There was a small mistake in the middle section where I stopped and restarted, but for the most part, it sounded pretty good.

Here's the insanity.

There you go. That's the culmination of 18 months of intense physical training and coordination. Questions regarding the piece? Anyone want to attempt it?

I didn't think so.

Till the next part.

Chapter 300309922

2010-10-26T01:55:00.000-07:00

Random update. I know I haven't posted stuff in a while. To be honest, there hasn't been much going on except that I'm still hunting for work. It's been more than a month now and still nothing develops. New York has yet to reply me as well so nothing on the American Adventure volume 2 has opened up.

As for the 'Tales from MI' series that I've been posting, I've been delaying that simply because I keep forgetting to upload my picture and video that I need for the next update. I want to keep it chronological so it'll wait until the day I actually remember to put that darn picture on my mac.

Unless I decide to take an Adventure somewhere. Which I think I will. Stay tuned for that. Apparently there's an awesome free holiday destination somewhere in LA that I am yet to visit. So I might just go for it. We'll see about that.

Till the next time...

Tales from MI - Chapter 6

2010-10-07T00:45:00.000-07:00

Just to clear things up, I'm not attempting to write a day by day account of my life at MI. Even I, who's certainly capable of writing nonsense to that amount, can not account for every single day spent at MI. What I am doing is taking a class by class approach. To make it systematic so that I don't glance over classes I'm going through them in the chronological order in which I took them. This brings us to the final class of day 2 - Playing Technique.

I was looking forward to this class a lot upon coming to MI. The one thing I was never sure about when I taught myself was my technique. I'd escaped any form of drumming injury in my 10 years of playing experience and had not come across anything which I couldn't eventually learn in my rudimental playing. For the drum-uneducated, rudiments are like drumming scales. They are fundamental exercises which every drummer does to make sure his hands are in check and that he can play any kind of stroke required on the drums.

Having never confronted my own technique and cross examining it with someone who actually knows what their doing, I've always feared that my technique harboured some bad habits which needed to be fixed. As such I was looking forward to a class that would actually make sure that my technique was up to par with what was required of me as a drummer.

It of course helps that the class is taught by 3 time world champion super snare drummer Rob Carson.

Rob teaches in a mixture of intense physical training, zen mastery and mental preparation. I'm not all for the zen mastery that envelopes some of his talks but he doesn't force it on anyone. It's his own little way of approach and it's cool. But man is he a monster for speed and hand condition. His curriculum contains hand exercises that are designed to just screw with your physical capabilities and they push the limits of what the hands can do. They build around all the drum rudiments and require control, speed, power, and everything else a drummer's hands need to do.

I managed to make my way through his 18 months crash course relatively unscarred. Well, scarred in a good way - my hands are no longer the same ones that I had when I left but are now these machines that are capable of things I only dreamed of doing.

It's an intense class. And it requires a lot of ritualistic practice. It takes up a huge bulk of my time in the labs - at least an hour every single day - and it's the most difficult thing about practicing drums. It's exactly like scales. It's tedious and uninspiring, but necessary for advancement. I'm glad I muscled through it.

And those DC 10s.. will never forget those. The insane heavy weapons for the technique war that is Rob's class.

A picture I posted a year ago and more. Just a reminder of how epic the size of these things are.

There's more that I can say about this class and that'll be next chapter. Plus you'll get to see a transcription and a video of my solo piece for my final - the one and only 'I SQUEEZE YOUR MANGOES'.

Laterszszzzzsss.

Tales from MI - Chapter 5

2010-10-04T23:08:00.000-07:00

The Hess part 2.

So you've met gary in our previous chapter. He wounded up as my private instructor for my first 6 months too. I'm incredibly grateful for that. Gary's not the man with a million chops, but he's got everything he's got so solid you couldn't move it with a nuclear bomb.

And that helped me a lot because that's exactly what I needed - some good solid foundational stuff to build on. I've never had a teacher before coming to MI and so none of my skills were properly grounded. And Gary fixed that up real quick. It took him no less than 5 minutes into our first lesson to give me something that completely messed with the way I was positioned behind the kit. He slapped a little 16th note funk chart in front of me that totally screwed up my hands and how I was hitting the drums, immediately requiring a fix.

Best part about working with Gary was the fun big bang charts we did in the second quarter. I've never played to jazz charts before in my life, let alone big band stuff so it was incredibly fun. Coupled with his reading class, I started to get the hang of reading charts right off the bat and now I can do it pretty easily. Setting up figures and stuff is a lot of fun when you've got a whole brass section behind you and you nail those notes right on the head.

I also had Gary for my music minus one class.. but that's day four. We'll get there when we get there. We're in day 2 and that's no where near getting done.

Stay tuned for the next chapter - Playing technique with 3 time world champion snare drum master, Rob Carson.

Chapter Z26 - The last Hurrah

2010-10-02T17:55:00.001-07:00

Perhaps my last video ever from MI. Perhaps.

Chapter I - Intermissionsionsion

2010-09-29T23:55:00.000-07:00

I went to see McCoy Tyner, the great jazz composing legend, today at the Catalina.

It was fantastic right up to the point McCoy walked off the stage because some a-hole was recording him on a video camera or some shit.

Which got me thinking - I want to come to a point where I'm established enough to be able to walk off stage whenever I want. It's a weird ambition, I admit.

Right now I'm at the point where I'll smile and take as much bull crap as I can handle, then some more, because clearly I need the work.

But one day...

I really need to punch that moron. If only I weren't so skinny.

Tales From MI - Chapter 4

2010-09-26T22:43:00.000-07:00

Today's episode is dedicated to the Hess. That's Mr. Gary Hess, Mr. PIT for you.

First quarter, Mr. Hess was in charge of a bunch of my classes. And he was my private instructor for the first 6 months.

Gary's known for being a little scary. He actually joked about not smiling in my picture and I told him 'it looks more natural'. Well, I'm kidding. He's an awesome instructor and a crazy great player. He's just incredibly honest when it comes to his classes. He'll tell it like it is. If it sucked and if you come in unprepared, he'll give it to you right there. No sugar coating with the Hess.

I remember day 2 at MI in one of his other classes - Developing Your Groove. That class basically puts your whole basic coordination to the test to find out just what you can't do and what you can. All sorts of coordination patterns against ride surfaces and stuff. It's actually a good class - aside from the fact that there are 10 other drummers in the same class bashing away and burying the click.

First time off the gun, everyone totally rushed the metronome. Eager horses, everyone.

And then there's Gary's famous metronome ending. He gives the rat-tat-tat-tat-tat ending (in music notes, it's C_G_G-A_G-B-C with the _ meaning going down.. you'll know it once you hear it) and we give the last two smacks on the B-C and then he turns on the tuning tone through the PA and we make as much noise as possible.

More on the Hess later on.

Tales From MI - Chapter 3

2010-09-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

Day one isn't quite done yet.

On day 1 we were introduced to the wonder that is Digital Drumming. Going into the class, I didn't quite have a clue what it was going to be about. Turns out it's about playing in the world of modern music with backing tracks and loops and stuff. Perhaps one of the most important classes I've taken here at MI.

You listen to all those pop tracks that come out on the radio - even when there's live drums being played on it, there is still so much effects and loops that are going on in the tune. Essential information. So begins my struggle to play with a music loop and a backing track.

This was also the class where I began practicing my skill of identification. I've heard countless times of the idea of something 'ahead' or 'behind' but never quite sat down and made myself do it. So this is where the fun began and gosh it was hard.

But the greatest thing about this class was meeting my teacher for the first time - Donny Gruendler.

The man himself. No shortage in the amount of jokes told in class, no shortage of fun. He's an awesome instructor and gets the lesson across really well. Really glad to have been under his tutelage.

And no shortage of 'Storytime with Uncle Donny'.

Cheers, Donny G.

Chapter pixtorial 2 - some pics from graduation with friends.

2010-09-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Tales from MI - chapter 2

2010-09-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

We're still in Day 1 of MI. The fantastic fun didn't stop at stumbling in reading class with the Hess. Oh no, the fun was just about to begin.

Welcome to RSW1 - rhythm section workshop 1.

The very first class that we were to play with a live rhythm section. My teacher was Andy Megna (who is unfortunately the only teacher I didn't manage to get a picture with in the last weeks of school) and he was a monster. He played at our little 'welcoming orientation' thing so I got a glimpse of just how great this man was going to be.

They plonked a chart in front of us. It was the simplest of things, but it would later turn out to be the crucible in which all drummers would stumble and fall. It was the Billy Jean groove - that's 1 and 3 on the kick and 2 and 4 on the snare. Every drummer knows this groove and every drummer thinks they can play it. Well, we're expected to play it.

Many, or perhaps all of us, brushed it off as a piece of cake. But then we sat down at the drums and tweaked every thing to our perfect adjustment, ready to just show how awesome we were.

And all of us just bombed. The simplest of things - we can't do it.

Which vindicates my belief that that groove is still the hardest thing that a drummer is required to do. Just to do that and make it sound good. Man that was a great wake up call. Our great teachers who wrote the curriculum knew exactly what was going to happen when they gave us that chart and groove. They knew exactly the medicine we needed to show us just how much work there needed to be done. Every weakness was exposed at that point.

I will never ever forget that first RSW class. Nothing short of an eye opener. It made me realise that although I had been playing that groove for the longest time, at that point in time no one would pay me to play it the way I was doing it.

Well, now I see the importance of it. I see just how important that first class was that set the tone for the rest of what I was going to learn. Now I can Billy Jean the crap out of any groove.

But that's not the end of day one. Mr Donny Gruendler is coming up next and that's just the awesome-st thing.

Tales from MI - chapter 1

2010-09-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

The pictures are going to take a little delay because I've got to get the cable from my friend before they get on my computer. I'll kick off a series of stories, as many as I can remember, with tales from dear MI. I'm gonna miss that place badly. Especially all the great instructors I've had the pleasure of studying under.

I can still remember day one of getting into college. A little nervous I must admit, but that's because at the time, I hadn't been in school for more than 4 years. I'd not had a proper routine of classes for a long time and sitting in the classroom environment after that period of time was a little interesting.

First day of classes took me by surprise. It was Gary Hess' reading class. That man is a machine when it comes to reading rhythms. He wrote the EORR - the encyclopedia of reading rhythms - that we use as our curriculum. He's got ridiculously perfect time and he's a metronome in himself.

That first class caught me off my feet and I stumbled terribly. It wasn't so much that I wasn't able to read. I had the skills and I had the knowledge. It's just that the presence of twenty other drummers in the room banging away at these rhythms and the pressure to not screw up and throw everyone off was just incredible. I tested into level two reading, so the guys who were around me were experienced in the ways of Gary's classes. I, on the other hand, had barely a clue how to keep up.

It took a while for me to get comfortable in there. Soon, my years of reading knowledge began to work themselves back into gear. The cogs of the machine were beginning to move once again. A little rusty, but certainly not damaged in any way. It took a while to get comfortable in Gary's reading class. Thanks to the EORR, or the rhythm bible as we call it, and Gary's whole reading curriculum, I got suited to reading again. And then he comes and throws charts at us. Which once again I wasn't entirely prepared for.

The thing is that I've been trained before. I know what I'm doing. Those particularly brain cells were fast asleep due to years of being idle. Eventually they got working and I started to feel comfortable again.

And it certainly helped that Gary was my private instructor for the first 6 months. But that's another chapter in the....

TALES FROM MI!

Tune in for chapter 2.

Chapter pixtorial - KJ version 4.0.0.6

2010-09-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

Yes I know I look good.

VOLUME 2 - CHAPTER 1

2010-09-16T23:04:00.000-07:00

And so volume 1 of KJ's American Adventure comes to a close. It has been an amazing 18 months and it has come to a beautiful and satisfying end. This part of my great journey is now complete. A new volume is about to begin.

I've met some amazing musicians from all over the world and I've learned so much from every single one of them. That's the difference coming to a music college like this as opposed to studying privately back home - I may have gotten the same level of training but there is no way I could've gotten the same amount of exposure.

I've seen many of my classmates become phenomenal monsters behind the kit and I've been able to draw from them. There is no better inspiration to practice that the spur of competition. Alongside them, I've managed to establish myself as a worthy adversary and they've kept me on my toes and I've done likewise. I've managed to carve a small little space that I can call my own that no one else can replicate. I'm starting to sound like me.

And that's an awesome thing.

Initially the desire was to do what everyone else was doing and beat them at it. That's what you think when the words 'being the best' come to mind. But it slowly becomes revealed that there is no way in the world that one can achieve that. Everyone is different. Just as I am different from everyone else. There are things that I can do that no one else can. I may not be the best drummer as of right now in certain things, but there are also certain things that I can kick way more butt than most others.

And that is a lesson you cannot learn anywhere else.

It has been an incredible volume in my adventure. Cumulative hours of practice in these past months goes beyond 2000 easily. I've broken countless pairs of sticks. I actually had a picture of my stick collection, but that was in my camera which I lost.

Yes mum. I lost my camera. Don't ask me how or where because it happened in the final weeks of school and my brain was in no condition to attempt a backtrack of my steps to figure out where I lost it. The bottom line is that it's gone. I'm sorry. It served me well for a year and a half. Maybe it just wanted retirement.

Back to practicing. I've also cracked 3 cymbals in the course of my adventure. The greatest thing I'm going to miss about MI itself is the 24/7 availability of my practice space. I cannot tell you what a joy it is for me to be able to go to school at any hour I like and play drums without worry of noise or time or anything. I can just sit down and play to my heart's content. I work best in the wee hours of the morning despite my mum's constant pleas for me to go home. After 18 months she still hasn't quite realised that it has little or no bearing on my urge to practice up till 4 or 5 am.

Scold or nag if you must, but I think I can still afford to do that now. Especially when my physical condition can still take it.

That's another thing. This experience will never be replicated again in my life. There will never again be a time of such intensive focus on my instrument. Waking up each day, going to class with 15 credit hours of drums. Nothing but drums. Who would've thought that they could create an entire 90 credit program for drums and drums alone. Classes, practice, classes, practice... entire days swallowed up by just drums. Nothing is more fantastic for a drummer. Such joy. Tiring. But incredibly joyful.

I'll be writing a lot more over the next 2 weeks trying to reflect back on the many adventures I've had in school for the past 18 months.

Volume 1 has come to an end. But volume 2 is just beginning. And it's just as exciting. By the sweat of my brow and the strength of the Lord, I will pursue this to the very end. It will be a volume of new challenges and exciting opportunities. It's exciting to see where God will lead me and where He'll put me.

I'll end here for now. There's a lot more to come. I'll end with this little thing I posted on twitter which I would like to repeat. Upon reflecting, I've found that I can come up with some really profound stuff sometimes. I guess the Holy Spirit has His way sometimes.

"If I leave my life in God's hands it doesn't mean I don't need to take care of myself. It means I can afford to fall, and land in His arms."

Chapter 0 - back to the beginning.

2010-09-10T14:14:00.001-07:00

And so the rollercoaster ends.

*more updates later*

Chapter slomo

2010-08-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

It's a classic scene. By some inevitable circumstance you find yourself stuck in slow motion. The world moves by a lot slower than it normally does, sometimes slowing down to a crawl. You can see every eye turn your direction slowly and some mouths open in slowed down gasps of horror.

The world tilts slightly. Everything starts to go out of shape. Yet your consciousness perceives the world normally. Your hand loses it's grip and you notice the million seconds it takes for that to happen. Your foot loses contact with the ground. You know what's coming. You can feel it. You can see it happening, but there is nothing you can do about it.

Your body is frozen like the time. Your mind races to try and coax your now useless limbs into action. Something has to be done. You will your hands to move into position but they do nothing. They flail about like those whacky waving arm flailing inflatable tube men.

You see the floor closer than ever. The time passes so slowly that you can see every speck of dirt on the floor. You try and brace yourself for the inevitable. You know it's going to hurt.

Then the voice comes.

In slow motion.

'Ohhhhhh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!'

Or some vulgar variation.

And then you hit the floor. Stinging.

You know?

Well, none of that happened to me.

All that went through my head were two thoughts. Car door. Floor. That was it.

I had a spectacular bike crash yesterday on Hollywood Boulevard. I was riding on my side of the street when this parked car clearly didn't bother looking in his mirrors and flung his car door open. I smacked right into it. I was going at a good speed to.

See, none of that slow motion crap happened to me. All I know was the the interior of his door was orange, and I hit the floor pretty bad. I landed on my back, which makes me inclined to believe I performed a spectacular cartwheel. I have no clue which way I tumbled but looking at the damage done to the fella's car, it had to be amazing.

I was almost completely unhurt save for some scratches on my pinky and my chest. No bruises, no aches in the morning, nothing. The bike came away unharmed too. Which is quite miraculous because the car door was a total wreck. It could barely close properly. I bet if I had put in a little more speed I could have taken the door off. And that would be even more awesome.

See this is how my brain works. After the crash only one thought repeated itself in my mind. Not 'I'm safe, thank God' which should have been it. Not 'oh crap, oh crap, oh crap,' which most people encounter.

No, the thought in my head was 'at least I wrecked his door.'

Chapter 0.001 - Pindah

2010-08-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

Pindah Rumah!

Updates to come!

Chapter chapter chapter chapter

2010-08-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

Left for school.

Forgot my mac adapter.

Raced back home.

Left keys at school.

Raced back to school.

Raced back home.

Raced back to school.

Out of breath.

Stupid.

Chapter R.I. not so P

2010-08-14T00:07:00.001-07:00

No I haven't died.

I've been busy.

With stuff.

So here's some things to keep you informed.

I'm moving at the end of the month.

My own room.

The privacy will be most welcome.

While it lasts.

I'm applying to a school in New York.

Waiting for my teachers to write me recommendation letters.

One of my teachers said 'Bleep school. Get out and play.'

Very encouraged by that.

If work finds me in LA then screw New York.

I'd love to go there one day and play eventually.

Final quarter is busy as crap.

I've had little time to go grocery shopping.

Spaghetti and Tamales 4 days in a row now.

Writing my own solo for my final.

Don't think I'm putting as much time as I should into it.

But then again, I've got a lot of other crap to work on.

Question of priorities.

Do I want to sit and write for a final grade worth 2 credits?

Or do I want to practice stuff that will make me more badass?

Priorities. They are tough.

Some pictures coming up later.

Went to see one of my teachers perform.

Crazy amazing stuff.

Hopefully I'll get a gig like that someday.

Printing some business cards for the future.

And a whole bunch of other crap.

Recording some more demo tracks.

Have you checked the myspace page?

Missing home.

Missing friends.

Missing my TeenStreet gang.

Circle of Trust.

Missing Ramadan food.

But having a blast.

More to come later.

I haven't died.

Check the new blog - lyricparodies.blogspot.com

Yes I said I was busy.

A man needs a hobby to stay sane.

Mine's writing.

So that's what I put that up for.

Not that I have too much time on my hands.

Which I don't.

But have fun and try to sing along.

Happy Merdeka Day.

Sing my Jalur Gemilang version on that special day.

Until next time.

Which won't be too far away I hope.

I'm not dead.

I'm surely alive.

I'm just playing drums.

Cheers.

Chapter 88 - New Music

2010-07-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Lots of new music added to the myspace page.

I'll link some of it here, but there's a handy little myspace link on the right side so head on over and check it out.

I'm particularly proud of my 'Alianza' recording.

More coming your way!

Chapter D - The scare.

2010-07-27T02:01:00.001-07:00

My brief scare with death. Well, not death. But close. Well not very close.

This just occurred minutes before writing this.

Squeamish people please stop here. Also parents please stop here too. Or read and just be quiet and please don't nag. It's not as bad as I make it sound.

***

Doctors Log.

Patient was in Drum Lab packing up equipment.

Patient exited Drum Lab and proceeded to unlock locker.

Patient noticed that there was liquid on his folder.

Patient noticed blood.

Patient didn't feel wound at all initially.

Bleeding profusely from small wound in the finger.

Patient went to wash wound and found small scratch.

Patient discovered metal shards inside wound.

Patient attempted to remove by running water.

Shards were stuck firmly in flesh.

Patient quickly retired to apartment.

Tools were sterilized - needle and tweezers - in boiling water.

Doctor proceeded to examine metal shards.

First two shards were removed with ease.

Final shard remained deep in wound.

Doctor continued to attempt to reach it.

Attempt abandoned due to fear of pushing shard deeper into wound.

Doctor braced patient for alternative attempt.

Skin was pierced from opposite direction with needle in order to reach the shard from the opposite direction - not the entry of the wound.

Shard was pushed close to surface.

After 15 minutes of tension, final shard was finally removed.

Patient writes blog.

Doctor needs a beer.

****

(INSERT SWEAR WORD HERE) THAT WAS SCARY.

I don't know how I got those shards in my finger. It was definitely from my cymbal. I will have to inspect it closer tomorrow when I'm not panicking.

That was a real scare. It's not like removing splinters. These things are crazy sharp and they cut really deep into the skin. Thankfully my doctor skills have saved my life.

I nearly freaked the crap out. So bad that I was looking for '24 hour doctors' online.

Phew.

Chapter 1776 - Picture post

2010-07-14T03:20:00.000-07:00

4th of July pictures!

Attempt at artistic out of focus background shots!

Dinner at friends place with authentic chinese food shots!

Chapter L

2010-07-13T03:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, only a cow will do.

Sometimes peanuts will make you sneeze,
sometimes eating them turns you blue.
Sometimes kangaroos like a breeze,
sometimes only a cow will do.

A cow will do, a cow will do
no angry queens,
no lima beans.
A cow will do, a cow will do,
no candy canes,
no window panes.

Sometimes we shiver when it's cold,
sometimes we haven't got a clue.
Sometimes we paint our ceilings gold
sometimes only a cow will do.

A cow will do, a cow will do,
no chicken pies,
no bitter lies.
A cow will do, a cow will do,
no frozen lakes,
no rattlesnakes.

A cow will do, a cow will do,
no spider legs
no scrambled eggs.
A cow will do, a cow will do,
no kitty hairs,
no grizzly bears.

Only one thing remains true,
sometimes only a cow will do.

( I don't know why a cow will do,
I don't know why I say it's so
I don't know why I wrote this too
I should have slept a while ago

I don't quite know what all this brings
I'm not quite sure what, why or how
I don't know why I say these things
I don't know why I chose the cow.

I should end here, so tootle-loo
or should I say, tootle-moo.
When given a choice between the two,
sometimes only a cow will do.)

Chapter 1- Here we go again.

2010-07-10T02:16:00.000-07:00

This is it. The very last stint. It's incredible to know that I've gone 5 quarters now - 5 sets of 3 month stints. Yes, that much time has gone by ladies and gentlemen.

And now it's time to do it all over again for the final stint.

15 months I've lived in Hollywood. 15 months I've lived in the middle of pure unadulterated madness. And so far it seems I've kept my sanity.

Bullet point thoughts ready to fire cap'n!

- My hands and feet are in constant wear and tear from all the practicing. Let's put it this way, this will be like a stint of powerful extreme workouts to achieve a level where I can sit back and cruise on my own skill level.

- Speaking of skill level, as some of you have heard from my emails that it's hard to guesstimate your own skill level amidst all the classes and stuff. But looking back at where I started, I can say what a vast difference it has really made.

- The vending machine is my friend. I would not have survived last quarter without it, what with two days in a week going straight through from morning till evening with no lunch break. And it looks like my trusty friend will be needed to help me through the rest of this quarter too.

- I am a jazz musician. Nothing can stop that. But I play the crap out of anything else too. Which makes me leaps ahead of the others. Though there may be some things others do better than I, I take rest in knowing that my jazz skills are well developed.

- I look forward to graduating in 3 months. We'll see what the world has in store for the plucky Malaysian drummer who remains unknown to the world. For now.

- I'll admit. I do truly miss malaysian food. Sri Melaka trips with my family... oh the Nyonya fantastibulousness. And also durians. How I miss durians. No cuisine is better than Malaysian hands down. Too much diversity. Can't compare.

- If there is one place in the church that I know I belong it's behind the drums. Sure I do all sorts of other things too and I'm pretty capable of handling them, but there is no greater joy in my heart than playing my soul out on those drums for Heavenly Daddy to hear. No greater joy. It's taken more than a year of not playing to come to terms with that fact again. I do belong in the church playing drums. Nothing will ever stop me from doing so, wherever I may be.

- Due to my personality and my laziness, I've stayed away from temptations to splurge on certain things. I spend my money where it's most needed. Although the occasional vending machine treat is necessary for those late nights when I forget to pack my sandwich, I have stayed well away from pies, oversized pancake batter which could last me a decade, cakes, donuts, drinks other than water, posh seafood like shrimp and salmon, steaks etc. While all these may be tempting, my typical thought to self goes 'Eh.. maybe not.'

- There is NOTHING that cannot be done on the drums. NOTHING.

- My attempt to buff up at the gym has not worked. After almost a year of constant workouts (increased to 3 times a week lately) I am still as skinny as ever. The concept of lifting weights and eating proteins to build muscle does not seem to apply to my body. Maybe I should be studied by scientists. I can gain no fat nor muscle. I wonder what my weight consists of then - grey matter?

- I've cracked 3 cymbals, broken dozens of sticks, almost broken my pedal and created two distinct ripped patches on my jeans at the knees.

- I've bought 2 white hats. I haven't bought any other clothes. I want to buy a pair of orange sneakers. Why? Because the type that I want doesn't exist in my size back home. Here, I have relatively small feet. Should make finding exotic shoes easier.

- In all honesty, if I were to play the way I do now at the church back home, people would kill me. That is if they don't go deaf first. I don't hit harder. I've just learned to maximise the amount of sound I'm getting from the drums.

- My menu has grown to where it is no longer boring. For the chefs of the home, I know what it's like trying to figure out what to cook each and every meal. It's no easy feat.

- There has been much spiritual feeding in my life. While God's holiness never changes and our sinful nature never improves, my realisation of the wide gap that spans God's holiness and me constantly increases. Daily I preach to myself the Gospel - the fact that I may continue to sin each and every day but God still accepts me into His family. My brain has worked out everything. He loves me. Why? Because He made me. He named me. He gave me life.

He loves me. How? Because He sent his Son to die for me.

Why?

Because I am a sinner. And God's perfect holiness cannot accept sin. There was no way I could have done anything to change that fact - I could not have reached the standard of God. But God's love for me meant He wanted to be with me. He wanted to connect with me. While He could not tolerate my sin, He still loved me. The only solution is grace. His Son, Jesus, paid for my sin. And now, clothed in His righteousness, I can have fellowship with God.

How?

I have faith in Jesus Christ my saviour. I believe in all my heart that He died for me and that by that very act of love, I am free from sin.

That sounds too easy.

It's easy for me, but a huge price was paid. I paid nothing, but Jesus paid it all.

Salvation by grace through faith. I know what that means.

There is much now that I would do differently from the way I grew up doing them. Things in my spiritual life that seemed so redundant and meaningless back then - I know what they are now and I cherish every bit of it. There is much 'tradition' and 'religion' and plain repetitive rituals left in me still. But now I look at all I do and see if my heart is right.

Why do we worship? Because He deserves it. Worship isn't singing songs or clapping hands. Worship is a heart of total thankfulness in response to God for who He is and what He's done.

He gave His life for me. There can only be one response. Just as how there is a proper response to eating a delicious burger or a proper response to riding a rollercoaster, there is only one response to what God has done for me - God, I give You my all. I want to tell the world about what You've done.

There is a lot more that I've learned to do.

Social justice.

Serve the city.

Gospel neighbouring.

Living in community.

Wow.

Woah wait. I wasn't really intending on writing that. Super sidetracked. Back to bullet points.

- I should probably print some business cards. I need to make a name for myself.

- Is it weird that I have a 'welcome home' look prepared in my mind in the event I get to holiday home? You'd be surprised what it looks like.

- If nothing else, my visit to the states is totally vindicated by my exposure to music. That's what I came here for. To see and hear the pros at work. We don't get that many back home, but here they come in abundance. It's amazing. I've also caught some of my favourite Christian bands in action. Nothing beats David Crowder live in concert. Best worship leader ever.

- I haven't had a haircut in 15 months. Mumsies hasn't stop complaining.

- The shiny bit on my sneakers (refer first blog post on blogsome) is still shiny. Amazing. Even Yosemite has not destroyed it.

- 22 and still single. Tis a travesty. God, please don't intend celibacy for me. Please? (AAHAHAHAHAHAH I actually laughed at myself for typing that.)

- I have a faint thought in the back of my head when the time comes for me to do some teaching which will eventually happen. I didn't enjoy teaching back home because it was always with little kids who practiced close to nothing every week and they remained complete amateurs. Should I end up teaching some slightly advanced kids, I might enjoy myself. I have a whole lot of material to work with thanks to this MI curriculum.

I've run out of things to say.

This has been KJ's thoughts radio channel.

NOW WHAT?

DUN DUN DUN!

Chapter R - You're never too far from home Pt 3

2010-06-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

NGGG!

Ok I haven't been updating much. Not much has been happening. I'm on holiday. I've been jamming to some older worship songs on stickam.com and spending time at home writing my new novel. You'll see that here sooner or later. It's on my google docs account so I'll make it public soon. It's funny. Trust me.

Anyway.

Holiday. So not much happening. But adventures only happen if you make them happen. So today I decided to have a mini adventure.

Not so long ago, or quite long ago, I was at The Grove for Christmas. If you remember the video of the faux snow some time ago, that's where I was. Well, right next to this place was the Farmer's Market and it has this kind of food court area. A stall there caught my eye and I made a mental note to myself to go there at least once just for the heck of it. And so today I did.

It was the first home styled food outlet I found since I've been here and so I decided to check it out. They had the whole fare - laksa, nasi goreng, mi goreng, roti canai, all sorts of curry... the whole deal. It was run by this Indonesian fellow and I must say the man knows how to cook. It was actually pretty darn decent!

I ordered myself a beef rendang and some cendol.

Tadaaa!! Looks pretty good no?

I was actually surprised he made the nasi kunyit. The kunyit wasn't very strong, but I could tell it was present.

It was very decent. The only thing was that it wasn't spicy enough. I guess the chef had to tame it down for the gwai lou. But it had the original coconut milk creaminess. Sedap.

Dessert!

Looks ok no? The ice was a bit rough. And it wasn't traditional gula melaka. It was something actually pretty close. At first taste it tasted almost exactly alike, but then there's a little different fragrance to it after a while. Close enough.

So there. After 15 months in the States I finally succumbed to my needs and had some good ol' Malaysian food.

Chapter dappy hothers fay

2010-06-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

The sequel.

*Cue opening credits*

I'm far away, I'm not in sight,

it is an eighteen hour flight.

I have not cash nor space nor time

so all I'll do is write this rhyme.

I've given my dear Mum her share

and figure that it's only fair

to use what skill I still possess

and come up with more thankfulness,

forced into rhyme for all to see

and get a laugh or two or three.

Dad's not into the rhyming word

which makes this all the more absurd.

But what the heck, I'll have a go,

it might just work, we'll never know.

The one thing I can't comprehend

is how my dad can truly spend

hours, hours back to back

reading from a giant stack

of books that I don't understand.

He really does deserve a hand.

It is a trait I do respect

but one that I, for now, reject.

I don't think that my scrawny rear

can sit that long and live, I fear.

Dad's not the most outgoing type,

he's not one to join in the hype

of things that artsy people do

and most of what I am into

like music, movies, games or art

so he just tends to not take part.

Looking back some years ago

I recognise, and now I know

that while Dad didn't catch my style

he spent a pretty darn long while

taking both his children to

the things that we wanted to do.

The stuff the two of us enjoyed

was stuff that I think he'd avoid.

Like ACE VENTURA at the screens -

while we'd be laughing at the scenes

amidst the noisy cheering crowd

he'd be asleep and snoring loud.

While you might think that's no big deal

if you know dad, you'll know it's real

how much a loving thing it is

for all those many instances

where he has taken time to be

with my brother and with me.

He may not be a superdad

but I am still incredibly glad.

He's my dad and so I can

loudly proclaim - Dad. He's the man.

Chapter B - CELEBRATION WOHOO

2010-06-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

LA lakers just won the NBA finals.

Streets are going nuts.

Random people shouting.

Cars honking.

People selling T-Shirts.

"Lakers Just Won"

"Boston Sucks".

Wish I had my camera.

Walking down the Boulevard.

Madness.

Insane.

Noise can be heard from my apartment.

Still going on now after 2 hours.

Cops will be busy tonight.

Finals done.

Went to see one of my teachers gig.

Awesome jazz gig.

Great way to celebrate.

Relax.

Enjoy.

Will update shortly.

HOLIDAY.

Whee.

Chapter 4.25 - Funny occurances.

2010-06-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

Two funny things just happened.

Scene 1.

At a junction, a dude stopped his car and asked me where Motel 6 was.

I pointed to the large blue motel behind me and said 'there'.

Scene 2 - How to disarm survey takers.

Survey : Excuse me, we're looking to improve the public transportation -

Me : It's perfect already! It's absolutely fantastic! Good job guys!

Survey : ....

P.S. If you haven't checked out my new darling, look in the post below.

Chapter A - AA RR?

2010-06-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

My new baby has arrived!

This is my 'intermediate' purchase. Once I go pro, I'll upgrade further.

Time to test this sucker out.

* * * * * *

UPDATE

IT SOUNDS GORGEOUS! I'M IN LOVE!!!!

***

SECOND UPDATE

This baby sounds gorgeous on the recordings. DELICIOUZ BEATZ.

Check it out.

Donna Lee | Musicians Available

Chapter 2 - Mission control, we have made contact...

2010-06-08T21:58:00.001-07:00

FILLER POST.

I AM NOT ALONE.

TODAY, JUNE 8 2010, AT 2027 HOURS, SUBJECT KJ WONG MADE CONTACT WITH FELLOW MALAYSIANS. 2 OF THE HOME SPECIES HAVE BEEN FOUND AT MUSICIAN'S INSTITUTE.

Wow.

I am not the only one after all.

Time for us to take over the whole of Hollywood.

Chapter Bihun

2010-06-05T03:01:00.001-07:00

Bihun Bersambung.

Chapter vv = w

2010-05-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

Moar muzik 4 u.

kthxbai.

All The Things You Are | Musicians Available

Chapter P

2010-05-29T05:40:00.001-07:00

HEE HEE HEE

Chapter D for Dedication

2010-05-21T00:27:00.000-07:00

Fairly well acquainted with the phrase 'blood, sweat and tears'?

Sweat and tears are easy, but only the few true and strong truly shed blood for their passion.

DEDICATION. EAT MY STICKS.

(And yes, that is blood on my sticks.)

Chapter 3+4=7 - The BIG Weekend Adventure.

2010-05-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

YO, SAM! EAT TEA!

Yosemite.

Not Yos Mite, marmite, dust mite.

Yosemite.

I'm not going to break this post up like I normally do, so it'll be long. LOOONNNGGGG. And there's 14 minutes of video and 200 pictures at the end of it so be ready for a real adventure.

I was there over the Mother's Day weekend for a nice weekend getaway. All I knew was that it was in the middle of the forest, containing North America's tallest waterfall. Thank goodness I didn't have a class on Friday so I was able to leave with one group on thursday and spend the whole of Friday exploring the forest reserve. Twas a long drive - 5 hours or so. We left at about 9 at night after dinner and a break and got there somewhere at 2 in the morning. It got quite chilly at night reaching about 5 degrees C. It's up in the hills so it does get kind of cold and it is still spring after all.

If my camera had worked the way I wanted it to, I could've taken a shot of the night sky because it was super starry. Like cheesy-Hong-Kong-serial-love-scene-stare-at-the-sky-too-many-stars-to-be-remotely-real kind of starry. Sadly my camera refused to take a picture of that so just imagine it. It was great.

We stayed in a cabin that one of our friend's family owned. It was a great big wooden cabin and it looked fantastic. You'll see some pictures of it later. It was perfectly quiet at night. And apparently there's bears out there. Whee.

Well, it being 2am, we quietly went to bed and got ready for the great adventure.

Day 1.

Springtime is actually incredible when you actually get to experience it. The sun is up relatively early and the air is cool and comfy. Plus the fact that we were in a 1200 square mile forest reserve does make a great springtime locale. There's bees and butterflies everywhere. Birds chirping - I got a real close up picture of one, and some other wildlife too.

And trees.

Oh the trees. There are trees so tall here that if you tried to look up one of them you'd break your neck. It's like that upward staring feeling you get when you stare up a really tall building from its base. Lots of trees. And we started Friday off with a trip to a Californian treasure - the Giant Sequoias. Yup. Those magical trees with all the vowels in them. The really tall really fat tree. The tree with the greatest volume of tree there ever was. If you go to wikipedia and look up giant sequoia you'll see the 'Grizzly Giant' on the right. I saw that very tree and it was huggggeeee... Pictures in the slides below.

It was a 2 mile hike from the carpark to where the sequoias were. Lots of photos of the scenery and trees and wildlife along the way on that hike. And snow. Yes there was still snow. I wasn't expecting it. A friend told me there would still be snow there but I wasn't sure about that. But there was snow. There were bits of it hardened on the side of the hills and more of it at the falls, more on that later.

I took a couple of shots of the trees and I hope I did justice to the sheer size of them because it's amazing how huge they are. And to think that they grow from a single cone 7cm big. No wait. They grow from a seed from the cone 5mm big. Yes. A tree of more 5-7 meters in diameter and more than 50 meters tall grows from something 5mm wide. That is nothing short of 1000 times the rate of growth.

It only points me to one verse - Mark 4:20. God's kingdom is like the mustard seed, small but grows to be great. And that's just how God does things. That's His MO if you will. His method. His style. And these giant trees are proof of that too.

I wish we had more time. There were some other significant trees that we didn't have time to go check out. I got the biggest one of the grove though - the Grizzly. There was a Fallen Tunnel Tree there too that you can find on the wiki page of 'Mariposa Grove'. I got a picture of the 'Bachelor and Three Graces'. And some others that I saw. Just so huge. So immense. So amazing.

Wonderful isn't it. You never knew someone could rave on about trees for this long.

Anyway, that was day 1.

Night 1.

We just relaxed in the cabin, waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive. Two other cars were making it up on Friday night. A bunch of us broke out a jigsaw puzzle of yosemite falls. And we were strangely compelled to finish it. I seriously doubt a jigsaw could've been any more fun than it was that night. I guess when a bunch of people come together to do a really hard jigsaw, cracking all sorts of jokes, it becomes quite a joy to do.

Stayed up till 2 in the morning again to finish it. Don't know why. Deep regret the next morning. 7 pieces missing. You'll see a picture of that too.

Day 2.

The big day. The crew's gathered together and we're heading out to the Falls. Yosemite Falls is made up of the upper and lower falls, making it the tallest in North America. And I would climb all the way up to the top.

So that's where I went. We went to the base of lower falls and I got really close to it. A small bunch of us climbed the rocks to get right to the base where the water was crashing down and got really soaked. It was a rush getting that close to the falls. The sound was deafening and the wind was strong and the mist of water was so strong and thick, I got soaked in mere seconds. Wasn't planning on it, but it was certainly a lot of fun.

And then we attempted the upper falls. I must say that once again my relentless idiocy took over. It's exactly the same as that time that I said I was going to climb Mount Kinabalu. I just said I was going to. I was in no way prepared for it and no way in shape to actually do it.

It hurt. Bad.

But I did make it all the way to the top. My feet were ruined. My knees were ruined. My ankles were ruined. My thighs were ruined. My hips were ruined. My shoes were ruined. My whole lower half was ruined. I look back now and although the end destination was something totally spectacular and of incredible novelty value - one that no one else would've ever experienced had they not gone all the way to the top - I regretted it. I would've been fine appreciating the lower falls. I didn't NEED to take that long and tough hike to the top. But I did. Because I said I was going to. But I didn't need to. That would've been fine by me.

That being said, I am proud of myself.

The falls were amazing. The sound as I got nearer and nearer to it resembled roaring thunder. It doesn't quite come through in the videos but trust me, it's like powerful thunder roaring every second. Just immense power crashing on the rocks with so much force. There can only be one word - awesome. In its original intended meaning. Awe inspiring. I was in total awe at the power and force and splendour and beauty of the falls.

I made it to the top. There was some snow along the way. I made it to the top. Relentless idiocy. Exactly like the Kinabalu climb. I was ruined. I could've used a nice beer after that.

You'll see lots of pictures of scenery along the climb. I just kept snapping because it was just so beautiful. Tired.

Night 2.

Had some asian style noodles for dinner. If only there was laksa soup. Oh yes, I do miss asam laksa as of now. And curry laksa.

Mint brownies for dessert. Spot it in the pictures. Brownies with green cream. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Mint and chocolate is a match made in heaven.

After that we had some incredible post dinner conversations and discussions. Interesting foray into 5102938 different topics.

Day 3.

Time to head home. What a weekend. We had church in the woods with some praising and reading the Word of God together.

Then the 5 hour drive home.

What an adventure.

Here's the pictures and video. Be warned, there are a ton of scenery pictures of pretty much the same thing, but it's so gorgeous I can't help myself. I'm not captioning any of the pictures either, so make of it what you will. Some pictures are on friends' cameras and I'll get the ones I want some time later. One of our group has compiled all the photos and we'll find a way to circulate them. There are some shots that I do want from some other cameras.

Enjoy Yosemite. I'm sure I did.

Yosemite from kengjoon on Vimeo.

Filler Post

2010-05-15T02:49:00.000-07:00

I have not been uploading LPWs for a while now. Long story short, I'm filling up my credits with only two LPWs - both of which have no current recordings. One because I'm not allowed, and the other because I'll only record it on the final.

So instead of LPW videos, I'm now branching into actual music. Some of these tunes will serve as demos for me to use in the event that someone does ask me for samples of my music. Crappy as they are now, they are bound to improve.

So here you go. Real music.

Enjoy.

Take the A Train | Music Codes

The Gargantuan Yosemite Post is coming. I just finished uploading my pictures. Now to arrange my videos. Patience my dears.

Chapter Bleach Breach

2010-05-14T02:59:00.001-07:00

I have a hat. It's white. I like it. But it gets dirty. Fast. Not a problem. I bleach it. Every now and then. If it gets too dirty. It works. It comes out shimmering white. It's good. It's easy. Restores the white. Removes the stains. Good as new. So I bought some bleach. Because I ran out of it. White hat was especially dirty. Blame Yosemite. Forest trekking. More on that later. Anyway, bleach. Yes, lots of it. Soaked the hat. Left it there for a while. Maybe a little too long while. It's as good as new. Then I take it out. And brush off the last stains. And it tears. Yes it rips. Not at the seams. Not at a damaged part. It just rips. Everywhere. With the slightest touch. It tears. Into pieces.

I. Bleached. My. Hat. Into. Destruction.

The fabric is destroyed. It falls apart like soggy cardboard. Ew. Gross. I know. I paid the price. Over-bleaching. Over-soaking. Silly me. My hat is ruined. It's in ribbons. And pieces. It's in the trash bin. Now I have to get a new one. Thankfully it's cheap. I've learned my lesson. Never bleach for too long. Stubbornly, I'll still wear white. I like white hats. Distinctly KJ now. So yes. Buying another. Sigh. I'd take pictures, but they're too traumatising. The images might scare you. I'll leave it for now.

Bleach.

Destruction.

Hat.

Gone.

Boo.

Yosemite coming next. Stay tuned. Not in short sentences. I think. Unless I'm lazy. Again.

(If you're reading this and you're actually stopping at every period, there must be something wrong with you.. or my evil plan to make a post seem longer than it looks is actually working.)

Chapter Yo Sam Eat Tee

2010-05-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

Yosemite Adventure over the weekend.

TONS OF PICTURES!

TONS OF VIDEO!

ALL THIS AND MORE!

COMING SOON!

(seriously. I have to arrange all my photos and videos and it'll take a while. Watch this space.)

Chapter dappy hothers may

2010-05-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

I'll be away over the weekend for more adventures, so I thought I'd post this out now.

Time to flex those writing muscles again.

Dedicated to mumsies.

___________________________

It seems a day a year is really no big deal for some

and others simply cannot wait for that one day to come

It's just like Christmas day, New Years or Valentine's

it comes around just once a year and I think that's just fine.

But people say to take one day and make it such a fuss

is not the slightest bit sincere to anyone and, thus,

they simply do not bother and they call us hypocrites

But I say that on these people this title truly fits.

I don't know why they make me out to be so bad or worse

At least I took to time to sit and write this little verse.

I know that I don't really say it quite enough at all

and true my actions simply show how well I drop the ball

the things I might have said and things I didn't do or did

all merely prove how much I'm really still a dumb ol kid.

I may not be the model son, the best in history

although at times I tend to think that person's really me

my constant disobediences, my witty rebel tongue,

my sarcastic personality deserves to be hung.

So I would say your greatest triumph in the world must be

despite all these shortcomings you still put up with me.

I'd like to say I haven't got a clue to how or why

But that would just be nothing but a 100 percent lie.

I do know why, I do know how, it's clear for all to see

it isn't rocket science, it's simple - mum loves me.

So this collection of my words I dedicate to you

It isn't much at all but it's the best that I can do

Happy Mother's Day dear mum, I'll say it till I'm blue

for all to see and read - Dear Mumsies, I love you.

Chapter sawng

2010-04-24T15:19:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the beautiful day to write a song.

Beautiful day - KJ

I wake up to the sun

Shining through my window.

Not a cloud in sight

Everything's all aglow.

I feel the sunshine on my face

I feel the rustling breeze

The birds are singing in the sky

It's a beautiful day.

I look up to the blue sky and...

God, I thank you

For this beautiful day.

God, I thank you,

For this beautiful day.

I see the vibrant colours

You've painted across your world.

Every season you've made

a canvas so wonderful.

I see a smile on every face

The joy of being alive

The cross, the face of Jesus,

It's a beautiful day.

I look up to the blue sky and....

God, I thank you

For this beautiful day

God, I thank you,

God, I thank you

For this beautiful day.

Even though the clouds return

Even when the rain must fall

Even when the colours fade

When this beauty has all gone

Even when the good things end

When the sun no longer shines

I know that a new day comes

With the rising of Your Son

God, I thank you

For this beautiful day

God, I thank you,

God, I thank you

For this beautiful day!!

****EDIT****

Ok, so I know that it says 'song' when all you see are words. So, to help you sing along with me, I made a scratch track.

The mix is all rubbish because this was made with nothing but 'Garageband' and to top it off, I have the flu which means my nose is blocked. And I sound like a duck.

I hereby invite anyone who reads and hears this to spread it around, re-record it, overdub it, make a video with it, or just sing along with it.

Enjoy.

Beautiful Day | Upload Music

Chapter meciidne

2010-04-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

Firstly, new section on your right.

I am now on myspace. Go to www.myspace.com/kjwongdrummer

More music for you.

Details in video.

Cheers.

Chapter Vroooom vrooooom speeding kena saman mati

2010-04-17T01:35:00.001-07:00

Self explanatory.

Chapter m.o.m.

2010-04-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

Mumsies are hilarious.

In response to my 'nose bleed' tweet, mum sent the following email.

"so what happened?
first time?
a lot?
seen a doctor?
talk to me!"

You'd think I was on the verge of dying.

Chapter p8d67 - Trainz

2010-04-10T22:54:00.000-07:00

Lack of posting. I should know better. My faithful readers, you must be torn to shreds with disappointment. Fear not, for I will keep you no longer from the evil of absence. I shall fill you with stories that will satisfy the very core of your souls.

Or not.

Anyway.

I don't have pictures of my latest adventure, but I do have stories. And they involve lots of trains.

Now being here in America, I had one mission (among many) that I needed to fulfill. I had to complete the task of watching at least one (or a few) of my favourite Christian bands live in concert. I just had to. Not many of them come to Malaysia and so I had to take this opportunity to go see them live. And so, when the Rock And Worship Roadshow came to town, I had to go. 10 dollars for 5 major bands? A steal.

Now if you're not familiar with my personal travel adventure persistence - actually how could you since most of the time I explore the world on my own anyways - I'm the kind of person who will go anywhere by any means. I will go onto google maps and find out my location and then proceed to plan my route and execute it. So this time around, I found my location - Long Beach Arena - found the nearest train station and found my connecting trains. I had my route set and I had my directions set. I was good to go. The trouble was I did not account for traveling time. I totally underestimated how far long beach really was and how long it would actually take to get there.

My only frame of reference was the dinky map at the station that showed how many 'stops' there were on my route. I assumed an hour would be sufficient. I was greatly mistaken.

You see, my connecting train to my destination wasn't a subway train. I had not accounted for the fact that this train was running on the roads. And it had to stop for traffic lights. My entire journey took me 2 hours or so. Thankfully, concerts NEVER start on time. So I missed the first band , FEE, but got to enjoy the rest of it.

So there I was. In long beach arena. By myself - my friend bailed on me sadly - seated somewhere near the back because I was late watching Fee, Francesca Battistelli, Family Force 5, David Crowder Band, and Mercy Me. Yep that's right. I saw both the Crowder Band AND Mercy Me in the same concert, same night. How amazing is that.

I must say that I have seriously forgotten the energy and the joy of being in a live worship concert. I haven't had the opportunity to go mad for Christ in a long long time. The feeling of pure joy and singing at the top of my lungs because everyone else is drowning me out anyway, the sheer volume of the music blasting away... Not to mention the fact that a David Crowder worship session is ALWAYS a massive load of fun.

Nostalgia.

It brings me back to my memories of those crazy Planet Shakers concerts back home.. and the Delirious concert which was amazing too. And Chris Tomlin. Thankfully, my number of live Christian concerts has doubled thanks to this one event. It was great.

But the adventure doesn't stop there. Oh no.

I had to endeavour the train ride back. Which was even slower than the one down to long beach due to construction work on one of the stations that we were passing. Thankfully I got to the station just in time to catch the train otherwise I would've had to wait a half hour for the next one.

On the train journey back, there was a female hobo on the train. She was totally and literally crazy. She had soft toys that she would put on the seats and she would be randomly scolding people who had said nothing to her to begin with. Thankfully she gave up the offensive and stuffed her fingers in her ears to shut out the 'angry noise' of the people on the train who weren't saying anything. It was rather... strange. Thankfully she didn't share my journey all the way back to Downtown LA.

So yes. I spent 4 hours on a train to go to a 3 hour concert. It was worth it I tell you. There's lots more music to come. Spring/Summer is coming back to LA and it's time for the music festivals to break out again.

Yay.

________________________________________

Train adventures don't stop yet. I had a whole weekend of train sitting. I had to figure out my next destination immediately the next day.

I retook my Toefl for a future plan since my old score has expired. So I made two journeys. One on Friday to figure out where this darn place was, and one more just this morning to get there and take the darn test.

It was the first time in years that I've been up so early in the morning. Why? Because I initially signed up for the test without any regard to what time it was. Lo and behold, it was an 8am test. I had to be there at 7:30. And I had a 30 minute trip there. Plus a 10 minute walk to the station. So I had to get up at 6. Eat breakfast. Shower. No wait... I didn't even shower. Change. Get there.

Stupid test is so darn easy I was in and out before some other people arrived. How cool is that. A test that normally takes people 4 hours or so took me 2. What can I say.

It's been a weekend of trains. I'm sorely behind on my practice times as of now due to all these things. I'm making the excuse that it's the first week and I'm not buried in practice yet... but I will be soon. So no more excuses. It's back to power drumming round the clock.

Till the next time we meet. EXCELSIOR!

Or whatever.

Chapter 365 (Photo updated. Read again thanks!)

2010-03-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

A YEAR AGO TODAY,

- I was in McDonalds, in KLIA, as per tradition.

- My arms were aching from carrying my guitar across the airport.

- I hugged and said farewell to family and friends.

- I disembarked on my journey, as so many others have before me.

- I flew halfway across the world.

- I ate a lot of crappy food in a long metal tube high in the sky.

- I broke my in flight console twice.

A YEAR AGO TODAY...

I ARRIVED IN AMERICALAND.

Remember it.

*UPDATE 1*

Time to flex my poetry muscles.

A sonnet.

A year ago today, the twenty eight,

I took a journey cross the open sea.

Twas on this one and only fateful date

I left my home with I, myself and me.

I said goodbye to friends convened around

and to the members of my family,

there were sad voices and the tears did sound

we knew, that way, it surely was to be.

I waved my last farewell across the hall

while sight still lasted 'tween themselves and I,

and with a final nod behind to all

I crossed the gates and got prepared to fly.

The hours spent imprisoned in my chair,

a flight of many hours, eighteen long.

I was prepared for it and to be fair

I thought me fine, but I was oh so wrong.

Twas agony to be sustained in flight

with naught to do but sit and wait and sigh

with none but cloud and sky and sea in sight

I waited for the landing to draw nigh.

So finally my feet did find the land

the boredom of the flight cut with a knife.

Adventure waited, journeys were at hand,

A chapter, new, bestowed upon my life.

A year ago today does not seem long

and God has kept me well and safe and strong.

Much more to come, adventure all along,

For now, here ends my sonnet and my song.

*FINAL EDIT*

Before and after picture. Of me. Duh. Who else.

This was me a year ago. I'm sure you remember it from the old blog.

Witness the transformation.

And the mutation.

Mum, I dare you to print those and frame them up at home. I dare you.

*END OF POST*

Chapter 3 3 3

2010-03-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

TRIPLE THREAT LPW!

The Jazz LPW final. Enjoy.

Chapter AwwwwwwSum!

2010-03-19T12:17:00.001-07:00

If you've been reading my blog, you would've heard of the great Catalina Jazz Club.

It's legendary. So many of my great heroes performed there.

And last Tuesday night, I had the opportunity to perform on that very stage.

I'm going to give the facts. You might think it's downplaying it's awesomeness but that's your opinion.

I played 2 songs.

1 of them was truly Jazz. I think the only Jazz song performed that night. Which made me feel even more amazing.

The concert was a showcase of the Guitar Department's graduating class.

The concert was put together by MI.

The audience consisted mainly of teachers, students, and parents, but it was open to the public so there could've been others.

Those are the facts. Sure it wasn't a full gig. Sure it wasn't the most public exposure.

BUT I got to enjoy the stage of one of the greatest jazz clubs in town, and I got to perform an awesome Jazz song together with an awesome band.

I'm completely blown away by the experience.

And if you're not, you're not my friend anymore.

PICTURES!!!! (albeit blurry ones. My camera does not do dark shots very well)

Apparently there's video too. The Guitar Department filmed the whole thing so I'll wait for that to release and then I'll clip my performances out and share them with you.

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Chapter BrBrrBrrrrBrrrrr Lawnmower! - The Mammoth Adventure Pt 3.56

2010-03-17T15:54:00.001-07:00

IT's Sunday!

No it isn't.

But it is.

In this story anyways.

So yes. I need to wrap up the Mammoth adventure. It's been like 2 weeks already. I'm busy. But I have to get it done because I have more adventures to post and some tasty LPW videos. So onwards!

So Sunday morning. I wake up with aches all over my body. It's ridiculous really. But nonetheless me and Karen (refer to previous Mammoth post for picture) decided to take a hike in the morning to see the mountain town while the rest of the crew went for Day 2 on the Mountain. I would've joined them, but I couldn't afford it. Both financially and physically.

Sigh, I miss the snow already just reminiscing about it now.

To reiterate how much snow there was that day, here's your everyday street sign. Covered in snow.

Yes, it was that high. Fun eh.

More random images. Street clearing.

Gorgeous beautiful white snow!

A pair of hilarious snow shoes at some random shop.

I found the next series of images to be utterly hilarious. With all the snow, you see vehicles moving around town with what I call 'snow cakes' on them.

Then of course, some vehicles have been still for a little too long.

That's supposed to be a van. I think.

I make my first lethal projectile.

Sadly my plan to have everybody pelt me with snowballs failed. And I wasn't about to pelt myself with one. So I settled for some snow art instead.

But then my hands got too cold. So instead of a snowman, I settled for a crudely made 5-second snow-face.

Everything is so white that my camera is all screwed up. I don't even know what settings to put it on. It all looks so dark in the pictures, but in reality it's all shining white. It's so white it's almost blue. Seriously.

After our little hike, we met back at the Ski Lodge. While waiting for the rest to finish up, a few of the non-skiers went for a walk around the place. Some more random images.

Some plaster cast footprints of animals in the wild; Canyon Lodge where we were; Mammoth; A random bear; a random skier.

Lunch was stew. Yum.

And finally, it was time to head home.

The road back. The beginning of what will be KJ's photo tour of the mountains. The next slideshow of images will be available for postcard printings at a cheap $1 each!!! Order yours today!

And that concludes our Mammoth Adventure. But Nature wasn't done showing off yet. The night finished with this amazing moon.

_____________________________

Stay tuned for my little performance at the Catalina Jazz Club. Yes. The very same you've seen me post in the past. Very exciting stuff.

Cheers.

Chapter Brr Brr Brrrr.... Motorbike... - The Mammoth Adventure Pt 3

2010-03-13T11:14:00.001-08:00

As much as I like the previous post, we must continue onwards into the mountains before my other future posts start to creep up on me. I have some more LPW videos coming. I realise I haven't posted that many lately, but 3 are coming up right away back to back to back.

Sooo..

Where did we leave off?

Oh yeah.

The videos on Saturday.

As you can see, I'm quite out of breath most of the time. That's because it's ruddy tiring. And because it's ruddy cold. Check out all that snow.

So yes. Break for lunch. A beer and some sandwiches.

I'm surprised my sandwiches actually remained in tact. Having no bag for the sake of convenience, they rode in my ski pant pockets with me all the way down the hill 3 times, enduring the first runs that resulted in so many crashes. They were pretty flattened after that, but they survived. And they still tasted delicious.

And that beer sure felt good. A fresh cold beer is just as comforting in the blasting cold as it is in the blasting hot. Maybe beer is magical.

I skied (I just realised the past tense of ski is skied. Sounds like sky-ed) pretty much the whole day. Determined to not let the mountain defeat me and determined to get my money's worth, I opted to ski until the day went dark. Of course it didn't by the time I called it quits. But I sure as heck defeated the mountain.

But the adventure doesn't end there.

Being Asian, the ultimate highlight is...

DINNER!

Look familiar? Yay for steamboat.

Doesn't come close to steamboat at home, but hey you take what you get. And it certainly felt awesome.

And here's a snapshot of the gang.

From left to right top first - Colleen, Sean, Jodie, Baby Carter, Amy, Karen, Bryant, Ryan, Albert.

Me taking. And I missed out one more guy, Benny. I totally left him out. I apologise.

That concludes Saturday.

Stay tuned to the final part on Sunday which brings us home, and some of the most spectacular mountain scenery ever, or as I call them - postcard pictures. Assuming of course I've managed to capture them properly with my feeble camera abilities.

Till then.

Biex ikunu Kontinwazzjoni!!

Chapter not so Brrr

2010-03-10T18:56:00.000-08:00

Are you ready?

Are you ready for some awesomeness?

Like really awesome?

Like awesome beyond awesome?

Like angelic outburst of song and dance with fireworks of gold and silver and cherubim?

Are you ready?

Behold, the awesomeness of my Jazz band, and a professional recording.

Chapter Brrrrrr Brrrrrr - The Mammoth Adventure Pt 2

2010-03-07T20:22:00.000-08:00

Day 2 of the weekend.

It's saturday morning and the view out the window looked like this.

And the car looked like this.

And I looked like this.

It was snowing all night long and it literally buried the cars outside. It's ridiculous. Our car was actually shaded from the wind by trees and stuff so it didn't get the worst of it. But it did get stuck in the snow.

And that's me by the way, in case you've forgotten what I look like now. Full skiing garb on. Ski pants, gloves dangling on the side, scarf, hat, and skis. Ready to take on the world. Well, maybe not the world. But a small hill covered in snow. Well, maybe not a small hill. A big mountain. But not the whole mountain. Just a tiny bit of the mountain. Well, maybe not a tiny bit, it's a whole slope. It took one lift chair ride up. Well, okay, maybe just a tiny bit because the mountain is huge. Well, maybe not that tiny because for a n00b like me, it's huge. Well, maybe not that huge.

Outside in the snow ridden world is a plethora of hazards. Yes I used the world plethora. Almost every house is riddled with these.

I tried to take 'artistic' photos of them because that would be neat, but since I'm just as useless at photography as I am in skiing, they ended up like that. I'm sure someone with a much better sense of photography could capture those in a manner that would make you go 'WOW' and 'Woah!!' and 'Ah!' an 'OOooh!' and whatever non-human noises you are capable of making, but for whatever it's worth, they made me make those noises when I first saw them.

I should've knocked some of them down and held them as a trophy. I saw a kid with one the next day - which I didn't take a picture of because that would be rude - and it was bigger than him.

They are hazards, yes. They can spear your brains if they land on you. Or maybe not. I can't remember the verdict on mythbusters, but I'm pretty sure they do kill you. I'm not about to test it though.

So, after breakfast it's off to the ski lifts.

I got my 'Noob' ticket.

There's so many things insulting about that ticket. Adult beginner. Makes you sound like an old lady behind the computer for the first time. Oh wait, those are called 'mothers'. And that 'Access these chairs only' makes me sound like a little kid. 'No you can't go there. It's too dangerous for you'.

Pfft.

So up the hill we go.

You might be wondering if it's really that dark. Well, it wasn't. But it was cloudy. And it snowed a ton. So it didn't make for the best picture taking in the world. And I know it doesn't look that steep here. But it got much steeper nearing the bottom of the run.

I considered strapping my camera somewhere on my body and filming a run down the hill. But considering the fact that I crashed so many times, I decided against it. It would've made for a good video though. It was either risk destroying my camera for a good video, or bore you instead with written descriptions of my ski run that would do no justice to explaining the sensation of skiing to you who sit there in the sun and rain all year long. I opted for the latter as you can tell because I knew the destruction of my camera would most certainly cause major disappointment to all of you guys who are so fond of my face and my other appendages.

I'm trying to be funny with words. Do laugh.

Since I typed so much this time, I'll grace you with some video next post. And the conclusion of my ski run.

It keeps suspense.

And I get to do this again.

Upang maging patuloy na!!!

DUN DUN DUN!

Chapter Brrrrrr - The Mammoth Adventure Pt1

2010-03-04T02:17:00.001-08:00

It's finally here! I have over 60 pictures to share. Most of them are what I call 'postcard' pictures. Well, there are a couple with me in them, but for the most part - since I'm the one taking the pictures - they are of mountains and stuff. But they're certainly pretty.

Ok where to begin.

At the beginning I suppose.

Day 1.

I went up to Mammoth this last weekend. A weekend in the mountains, with the cold and the snow. It was quite a bit of fun I must say. It was a long drive - 5 hours on the road. Well, more than that because it was snowing pretty heavily on Friday night. We left in the afternoon and hit snow after dinner. Had Mexican for dinner. Tortilla chips and salsa can be ridiculously addictive. Especially when you have a free flow of it.

I must admit, I forgot to take pictures of EVERYTHING which I normally do. I dunno, my mind was perhaps preoccupied with snow. Waiting to see snow and experience it, I forgot to periodically whip out my camera and snap pictures of everything. So let me mention the other things I missed out of my photos.

When we hit snow, one of our cars had to get chains on. That's for snow grip.

It was snowing pretty hard on Friday night. Imagine night driving. Now add snow. It's even harder to see through than rain. Because it blocks out your headlights.

Ok, I guess I didn't forget that many things. Picture time.

On the road to Mammoth.

First sight of our snowy mountains.

Arriving at our destination. You can see how heavy it was snowing.

Path to our cabin.

Me outside.

First foray into the white stuff.

As you can see, I obviously had the wrong shoes on. I asked my buddy if my sneakers would suffice. Clearly they wouldn't. They were covered in snow and when it started to melt, my shoes were soaked. Thankfully there was a large heating vent in the cabin (which I forgot to take a picture of. It was 'clothes drying central' there. Boots, scarves, gloves, hats, shoes, jackets... everything that was wet ended up in that corner. It was hilarious.)

And here's our cosy little cabin.

It's small and comfy. Snug is the word I'd use.

And here's the video log of Day 1. Bear with the accent. I'm in 'American Mode'.

And that's Day 1. First experience of snow. We called it an early night and got ready for the big adventure up into the mountains. Stay tuned. There's lots more to come.

LOTS.

Like... really.... LOTS.

FORTGESETZT WERDEN!

Chapter []-[] - more student musings and other stuff...

2010-03-01T20:00:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it's march already?

Lots to blog about. Had a great weekend. But that later. I have some weird random pictures to get out of the way first.

So my roomie suddenly decided to buy a gamecube. We had a ridiculously huge TV that we got off the street or something. I was actually going to suggest throwing it away - it was taking up precious table space. But then he went and got this. And I just cracked up at the thought.

My trusty multi purpose bowl has finally given in. It has served me well this one year almost. It has taken so much stress... I shall write an ode to my bowl.

Bowl.

A powerful tool you have been,

the best-est bowl I have ever seen.

All the food that you held in,

the abundant space you had within.

Bowl.

The heat you managed to sustain,

the cold you took again and again,

the battering of a metal spoon,

all in a single afternoon.

Bowl.

You've served me well all through this year,

with loyalty that knows no fear.

The damage done I can't repair,

But do not wallow in despair

for though you are broken in two

my daily meals owe themselves to you

You are the bowl others admire,

so with love I now let you retire.

_____________________

So my watch has been with me for many years now. And I guess the wear and tear is starting to show. The strap is about to give up on me.

But to the rescue comes duct tape.

So yes. My watch strap is being held together with duct tape. In two places. It's going to be three very soon.

______________________

That's the nonsense I have to post. The big weekend adventure is coming. Let me organise my pictures and videos first.

So while that's happening, here's my special 'red filter' effect.

No extra props, software, or photo editing.

Points for guessing how it's done.

Cheers.

Chapter Tooth and Chips

2010-02-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed my little blurb on twitter about my tooth. Well yes, it chipped. I went to the dentist and now it's fixed. That could be the end of it, but the creative writer in me won't let it be so.

Actually, this story was conceived while sitting in the hot seat with these two moguls over me. There's nothing to do but wait. So my mind wanders. And it thought this up.

Sooooo...

_________________

Scene 1 - Many years ago....

Incisor 1 : Careful, careful, CAREFUL!

Incisor 2 : We're gonna crash! AUGHHHH!!

Molar : Quit yer yapping, we'll be fine.

Incisor 1 : Easy for you to say. You're way back there.

*CRASH*

Incisor 1 : OWWW! THAT HURT!

Incisor 2 : Oh, I think I broke something.

Incisor 1 : OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS! YOU'RE BROKEN IN HALF!

Incisor 2 : I can't feel my legs...

Incisor 1 : This stupid idiot just landed face first on you, my dear friend...

Incisor 2 : I don't feel well...

Incisor 1 : I don't feel well either. GET US TO THE DENTIST YOU DUMB NUT!

__________________

Scene 2 - at the dentist

Incisor 1 : How you hanging in there chap?

Incisor 2 : Not too bad actually. The pain's sorta gone now.

Incisor 1 : I'm still throbbing... But thankfully I didn't break anything.

Dentist : Now open wide....

Incisor 1 : Woah what is this woman doing with that... thing???

Incisor 2 : AUGH! GET AWAY FROM ME! GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!

*drilling noises*

Some time later...

Incisor 1 : How you feeling?

Incisor 2 : All weird. I feel like there's this huge concrete brick stuck on my face.

Incisor 1 : That's probably because there is a big cement block on your face right now.

Incisor 2 : Oh gosh! I look hideous! SHE DID A BOTCH JOB!

Incisor 1 : Oh stop fussing.

Incisor 2 : I don't like these freaking prosthetic limbs. They feel... unnatural.

Incisor 1 : Quit babbling already and live with it.

Incisor 2 : Oh, you have no idea what it's like. You watch out in the future....

Incisor 1 : Watch out for what? You are the one who took the fall. You got busted. Not me.

Incisor 2 : Oh yeah? It's just a matter of time...

_____________________________

Scene 3 - present day...

Incisor 1 : I don't feel so good...

Molar : Why the heck are you two always the ones with problems??

Incisor 1 : Oh shut up. You worry about ol' Wisdom boy back there.

Wis 1 : Oi! It's not my fault I didn't point the right direction...

Incisor 1 : Yeah yeah yeah..

Tongue : Ewww what's this??? *ppptttuiiii*

Incisor 2 : What was that?

Tongue : Some kind of stone or something.

Incisor 1 : OH. MY. GOSH. AHHHHHHHHHHH!

Incisor 2 : What? What?

Incisor 1 : A PART OF MY BODY JUST DROPPED OFF!

Incisor 2 : What th-

Incisor 1 : DO SOMETHING!

Incisor 2 : Like what?

Incisor 1 : I DON'T KNOW! ANYTHING! HELP MEE!!! WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?

Incisor 2 : I sure as heck don't know.. I think that thing all those years back is catching up to you

Incisor 1 : I DON'T CARE! I'M DYING HERE!

Incisor 2 : Who's the fussbucket now?

Incisor 1 : GET ME FIXED DARN YOU!

Me : I can't you dumb nut. You're not hurting or anything. Shut up. I'm going to bed.

_____________________

Scene 4 - the morning after

Incisor 2 : How're you holding up buddy?

Incisor 1 : Shut up. I'm not talking to you.

Incisor 2 : Come on.. it's not that bad.

Incisor 1 : Oh?

Incisor 2 : Yeah... at least your internal organs aren't exposed. No sensitivity.

Incisor 1 : Oh, and you're trying to say you suffered worse than me?

Incisor 2 : It's just a tiny bit.

Incisor 1 : It's a tiny bit of my soul. Now go away.

Incisor 2 : I can't. I'm rooted. I can't go anywhere.

Incisor 1 : Then just stop talking.

Me : Yes I'd like to make an appointment for today at....

Incisor 1 : What's he doing?

Me : I'm getting you fixed you stupid idiot.

Incisor 1 : Oh yeah? But you just brushed it off last night. Why not do it again?

Me : Because it might get worse and you might die on me.

Incisor 2 : And besides he loves you.

Incisor 1 : Yeah. Because I wasn't a fake. Not anymore. Maybe he'll start liking his bottom incisors now.

Incisor 3 : But you guys don't even come into contact with us. We barely know you.

Incisor 4 : Yeah. Always up front. Hiding us behind.

Incisor 1 : It's not my fault okay? Blame Mr. Jaw here for being so tiny.

Jaw : Wha? Someone call me?

Incisor 1 : Shut up.

Incisor 2 : Oh my goodness this dude is late for his appointment.

Incisor 1 : Did he get lost or something?

Incisor 2 : I don't know. He had a freaking map in his head.

Incisor 1 : Hey where the heck are we going now? WRONG WAY SUCKER! WRONG WAY! TURN BACK! TURN BACK!

Some time later....

Incisor 1 : See I told you it was there. The freaking huge building as well. How'd you miss it?

Me : I was looking for a sign outside the building okay? How'd I know it was in an office building thing.

Incisor 1 : You're such a useless owner you know that? Not only did you manage to destroy both your frontmen, but you couldn't even find the dentist on time.

Me : Shut it you. I'm paying to get you fixed. I could always choose not to.

Incisor 1 : Oh yeah? And leave all the delicious food waiting for you? I think not. You need me.

Me : And you need me. Now shut it.

Incisor 2 : You know, I don't recall ever making this much fuss when I was getting repaired.

Incisor 1 : That's because we were younger then. We're older now. Much more mature. Much more grumpy.

_______________

Scene 5 - the Dentist

Incisor 1 : What's taking so long?

Incisor 2 : I don't know. There's all these papers he's filling out.

Incisor 1 : Sheesh. Paperwork, paperwork. A signature for every damn thing. Sign here to agree to sign there to agree that you have been asked to sign somewhere. What the heck is with all this signing.

Incisor 2 : Just be patient.

Incisor 1 : Finally! We're getting somewhere...

Incisor 2 : This young chap looks like a friendly guy.

Incisor 1 : Yeah, let's just hope he knows what he's doing. I don't want a crappy oversized botch job like yours.

Incisor 2 : I kind of like it now. It makes me look bigger than you.

Incisor 1 : And that's a good thing because?

Incisor 2 : Good point.

Incisor 1 : GAH! WHAT IS THIS LIGHT!?

Incisor 2 : I think they're taking a picture of you.

Incisor 1 : A picture? What the heck for? I'm not a celebrity or anything! Geez get away! NOW WHAT?

Incisor 2 : I think it's an X-ray. Smile for the camera.

Incisor 1 : But I'm broken! STOP TAKING PICTURES!

Incisor 2 : Look on the screen! That's you!

Incisor 1 : Wow.. this clinic is pretty darn awesome. We've got a computer screen all to ourselves.

Incisor 2 : And the dude's playing jazz music too. Doesn't quite drown out the drilling, but at least they're making an effort.

Incisor 1 : Yeah.. but it's such typical Hollywood-ness isn't it? My dental assistant is a bass player....

Incisor 2 : Hey maybe we should jam with him sometime.

Incisor 1 : Yeah? Form a band with my dentist. How thick exactly are you?

Incisor 2 : The light's on. Here's your moment.

Incisor 1 : What is that thing he's... wait.. wait WAIT!!!

*Dental Sound Effects*

Incisor 1 : GAH WHAT IS HE DOING?

Incisor 2 : I think he's polishing you for the bonding later on.

Incisor 1 : Well tell him to stop. I've had enough.

Incisor 2 : Just sit tight and you'll be fixed in a jiffy.

Incisor 1 : Ewww what's this thingggg..... Stop putting foreign objects on me!!!

Incisor 2 : That's the cement you dolt. That's your prosthetics.

Incisor 1 : I don't want it.

Incisor 2 : It's going on anyway.

Incisor 1 : WHAT'S THIS BLUE LIGHT NOW? AM I GOING TO DIE?

Incisor 2 : Geez you're such a baby..

Incisor 1 : I didn't deserve this! I wasn't injured! I didn't get into any fights! Why me?! Why!!!

Incisor 2 : The dentist said you were just weakened in that old accident. Now it's finally caught up with you.

Incisor 1 : How undignified.

Incisor 2 : There you're all fixed now. Happy?

Incisor 1 : No.

Incisor 2 : Oh what is it now?

Incisor 1 : I feel weird.

Incisor 2 : You'll get used to it.

Incisor 1 : Bah. This sucks.

Incisor 2 : Yes it does. Now shut up.

Incisor 1 : At least I look a damn sight better than you do.

Incisor 2 : Oh, look. We get gift cards for our friends and family.

Incisor 1 : To the freakin' dentist?

Incisor 2 : It would appear so..

Incisor 1 : How much did it cost to fix me again?

Me : You don't wanna know...

***************

Here ends my trip to the dentist. Pray it remains the only one I have to make.

P.S. I would've given you some before and after pics. But my teeth would gross you out.

Chapt-

2010-02-19T13:50:00.001-08:00

Looks like I didn't land the boat audition.

Maybe next time.

Chapter blurb

2010-02-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

It's Chinese New Year.

Which marks the second major event I'm not home for. The first being Christmas.

And I quite miss it.

The food.

The gambling. The 'healthy' gambling.

The unceasing laughter.

The family togetherness.

The food.

Did I mention the food?

Oh yes.

Ok, I'm out of things to say.

This is just a short blurb. I'm going to the mountains for some snow in 2 weeks time. Last chance before the heat comes back and melts it all.

So till then.

Happy New Year.

Chapter 1001 - The Superbowl Adventure

2010-02-11T02:18:00.000-08:00

Ok I know my updates have been sparse as of late. Sorry la. Busy.

My blog. My rules. Quit complaining.

Firstly, let me direct your attention to the post below. The 'Flood' post. There are now pictures and a video for you to take a look at. Why on earth you would want to do that is beyond me, but I put them on here anyway. I guess it's more for me than anything. I don't know why but that whole ordeal is probably going to be one I don't forget in a long long time. And it's a nice anecdote to have - I saved my apartment from flooding.

So yes, check that out below.

Now onward.

Last Sunday was the Superbowl. It's the climax of the American Football season.

A team played another team.

There were some points involved.

There was some whistle blowing.

There were some intervals.

There were alot of commercials (you can actually view them on youtube).

Some players got injured.

A team scored more points than the other.

That team won.

The other lost.

There was a trophy.

It was handed to the winning team.

The losing team didn't get a trophy.

There were a lot of fingerprints on the trophy.

There was a lot of confetti in the stadium.

How exciting.

In all honesty though, the whole deal is probably just yet another excuse to eat lots of junk together with friends. We had tamales, nachos, hot wings, soda, lemonade, brownies... And I was eating more than I was watching the game.

I'm not a real sporty person to begin with, so I guess it's just me. But I certainly get more kick out of watching the Rugby world cup.

So anyway.

Food for the day.

Wings. Delicious wings.

Nachos.

Cheese dip.

Salsa.

Guacamole.

Tamales.

The ZONE.

The Gang.

I sure had fun. I ate a ton of junk. I cheered for a team I had never heard of before in my entire life. I got excited when other people did. I went 'ooh' and 'aah' at the strategic plays which I understood as much as I understand Portuguese. I ate a lot of delicious brownies.

And I'm got a sore throat.

Don't worry. I'm fine-ish now. I hope.

_________________________________

Here's a much delayed LPW video to round things off.

Till next time. Whenever that is. Hopefully soon. Unless I get buried in rehearsals again. Cheers.

Chapter 100 - No really.

2010-02-06T04:12:00.000-08:00

It's my 100th post. Hurrah.

Well, technically counting the ones from the 'blogsome' experience, this exceeds 100. But who's keeping count.

And what a way to commemorate this event.

It's 4am as of writing.

I'm not asleep.

Why, you ask?

Because I got home. In the rain. The heaviest rain we've had here in a long time. I mean like historically heavy. Biblically heavy. Okay, maybe not that heavy. But heavy. Heavy-ish. Not as heavy as the rain back home that hurts when it hits you. But heavy enough to cause some major problems.

And I got home in that rain.

My roomies are fast asleep. They don't have a clue what's transpiring in our apartment.

The rain. Oh the rain. The wonderful rain I love so much, I have now grown to hate. Despise. It enrages me. It frustrates me. It wiggles and squirms its way into the unpleasant chambers of my heart and soul.

Yes.

I came home.

And the whole apartment was tormented with leaks.

LEAKS!

EVERYWHERE!

HUGE ONES!

DRIPPING NOISES!

EVERYWHERE!

LOUD ONES!

WATER!

WET CLOTHES!

EVERYWHERE!

Ok that last one not everywhere. I just happen to have a sweater hung on a chair that was directly beneath the leakage. And it's now soaked.

There's water behind the paint in the walls. There's soaking wet ceiling tiles. There's a puddle forming in our electric fireplace. I've been up and about for an hour now, putting pots beneath the leaks, soaking up the water with rags.

I don't even own this house and yet I have to bother with maintenance? Are you kidding me? I'm not a home owner! Spare me! Please! I only live here because I have to! I'm sorry!

Curse you rain.

I now know how my mum feels with the leaking roof. It's frustrating. Like trying to thread a needle with a spoon. I don't even know how that analogy is supposed to work. I bet it's really frustrating.

It's 4 am. I'm tired and sleepy. But my apartment is slowly being flooded. I may wake up tomorrow in a swimming pool. Or I may drown in my sleep. Or I may be swept away by a sudden tidal wave.

Or I may not.

Or I may just be overreacting.

First thing in the morning - cry for help.

It's going to keep raining. And I need to stop my apartment from being turned into an aquarium. Lest I want to be Aquaman.

Last I heard, Aquaman wasn't a very good drummer. So no thanks.

Someone better do something.

Before we all live in a yellow submarine.

*----*----*----*----*----*----*

POST MAYHEM EDIT

So the rain has stopped for now. Clouds haven't completely cleared. Might rain again.

The leaks have dwindled down to a slow slow drip. The bucket is still there.

Out in the battlefield are two pans, three pots, a bowl, a cup, and the bucket.

I've spent 4 hours emptying them so that they wouldn't overflow.

I haven't slept a wink yet.

Management has been notified regarding the leaks.

My mattress is in the middle of the apartment because there's no where else to put it.

I'm tired, sleepy, hungry, all at the same time.

I have pictures and videos of the thing which I will keep for my remembrance of the 'Flood'.

***********************UPDATE****************************

Here's some pics and vids regarding last weekend's 'flooding' of the apartment.

Now, pictures and videos were taken when I was free to take them - which meant that the dripping you hear or see wasn't at its most severe. Trust me, it was worse. That bucket dripping you hear in the video was when it was least potent. Yes, you heard me right.

Anyway.

The first ensemble.

And the next.

That's the two water bubbles behind the paint. They got bigger. And sank lower.

And yes that's another pot in there.

And here's the video. Notice the ensemble grew as the night went along.

Chapter kthxlolbbq!

2010-01-30T02:47:00.001-08:00

LOOK WHAT I FOUND!

This is an LPW I didn't record for some reason, and someone else did! Featuring me! Yay!

The joys of youtube. There's actually another one with me in it, but you can't see me. You can look on this dude's videos and find the 'North, South, East and West' one to hear me playing if you want to. Yay!

Oh and here's a little something extra for you. Turn the volume down. You have been warned.

One more LPW coming. Once I get round to editing it.

chapter w00-10

2010-01-28T21:37:00.000-08:00

Yes it's the victor wooten night.

I had a shitty seat that night. The club was packed to overflowing and we had to share a table with some other people. There was a pillar right smack in front of me because technically I wasn't in a proper seat. They just skooshed me in somehow.

Thankfully though, the pillar was blocking the part of the stage that Victor decided not to stand on. It wasn't the best of views, but it wasn't completely obscured.

Pictures. Yes.

Surprisingly, those came out quite clear.

Fun facts of the night

- I don't know if you can see from the pictures, but Victor was wearing what must be the most horrendous looking polo-T I have ever seen. You'll NEVER catch me wearing something like that. But then again... who am I to judge fashion sense?

- There was a dude behind me who was sleeping throughout Victor's ridiculously powerful and exhilarating solo. I could hear him snoring. I mean come on... you paid 30 bucks to watch a hard thumping bass man and you sleep during his solo? That's just.... nevermind.

- Many people left before Victor was done. I don't quite understand what that indicates. Was he boring? Did they have other appointments? Was it late? I don't get it. Pay and sit through the show. Why leave 10 minutes before he's done?

- Victor didn't play an encore. The lazy bum.

There's something about seeing this dude live. Sure I've seen the countless youtube videos showing off his impossible abilities to manipulate the bass guitar. But to actually watch it in person is a whole different experience. His hand is literally too fast for the human eye. It's ridiculous.

I want to jam with this man one day. I want to make the Gregg Bissonette face when he does his ridiculous chops in front of me.

Th-th-th-that's all folks!

Chapter 1337

2010-01-25T23:55:00.000-08:00

1 4m t3h 1337z0r5

LOL!!!!11!1

Chapter continue

2010-01-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

Short blurb.

To let you know I haven't died.

I'm still here.

Busy.

Very busy.

3 bands?!

Yes three.

Rehearsals.

Practices.

Did I mention 3 bands?

But I'm still here.

Just so you know.

Victor Wooten concert was amazing.

Chapter Jive - Just Jamming Jiving Jazz

2010-01-16T00:23:00.000-08:00

Uptempo jazz practice session.

Recording is crap as usual. Will attempt a better one soon. Bear with it.

Chapter 1+1=1 - the Chili Adventure (Pt 1)

2010-01-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

Wow, I haven't written anything for the past 10 days.

Not much has been going on. I report that I am safe, alive, healthy, breathing, moving etc.

Just school's been happening. It's good to be back. I suspect I'm falling in love with school life too much. I enjoy it too much. And I hate it when it's cancelled for a holiday, like next monday - Martin Luther King Day. As much as I respect Mr. King, I want my school day thanks. You owe me one.

Anyway.

I bought this recently.

Yes. I've suddenly realised I miss heat in my cooking. I've been doing fine so far. But now I'm just not satisfied.

So, the next couple of purchases are going to be experiments - to try and file the scale of chili heat and see if I can find my perfect match. I've tried the top end of the scale - mexican hot sauce - and that's a bit too much. So now I begin at the bottom end.

And it's pathetic. What was I thinking. Chili powder? The stuff you sprinkle on your pizzas? Clearly, this was rubbish. Now to take it up a notch.

Stay tuned for the upcoming Chili exploration adventures.

Oh and here's the first LPW of the Year.

Chapter 1.00 - A new beginning

2010-01-01T01:13:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!

****UPDATE***UPDATE***UPDATE***UPDATE***UPDATE***

Ok, so I was spose to write this on New Years Day. But I got lazy. And it's now a day after... so before it all goes pear shaped I better get things together.

Firstly, this is how I spent New Year's Eve. No party, no countdown... and I loved it.

A couple of beers (later on some rum and sprite), a box of leftover Christmas chocolates, my music on my laptop and a book to read.

So a year has gone by. It almost feels like 2009 never happened. So much has gone on in 2009 that my mind hasn't had the opportunity to sit on anything in particular and let it really set into my brain. You could say there's soup in my brain now, and nothing's really fixed in it's solid place. But I do know that I've learned loads in every aspect of my life and alot of great things have happened throughout the year. It's just that it's gone past in the blink of an eye that I haven't felt like a whole year of stuff has happened.

I'm rambling. As I normally do. I curse this ability to string tangible sentences together without ever making a point.

Here's some fun stuff.

KJ'S LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS

I. FOOD I CAN COOK NOW

My menu has grown considerably. Here's the things I'm now proficient in cooking

- brilliant rice (A primary achievement... in a pot....)

- Brilliant Fried Rice (it's a start ok.. bear with me.. the list gets good)

- brilliant fried noodles

- brilliant (but not as brilliant as mom's) spaghetti

- brilliant onion soup

- brilliant fish and chips

- brilliant potatoes (roasted, sauteed, mash)

- brilliant roast chicken

- brilliant pork chops

- brilliant pie fillings (I don't make pastry.. just the filling.. hey it's just as good)

- brilliant glazed ham

and alot of interestingly brilliant recipes.

II. NEW DRUM SKILLZZ

- very fast and accurate rimshots

- very fast and accurate double paradiddles

- very fast and accurate triple paradiddles

- very fast and accurate flams

- very fast and accurate pull out accents

- real samba and bossa nova and other latin skills

- real jazz improvisational skills

- proper hand percussion skills

- double bass skills

- hi hat syncopation skills

- heel toe skills

- right hand lead skills

- transcription skills

- playing to a click (and still learning to master... it's not as easy at it sounds)

and alot of other uber cool coordination skills, rudiments and such.

III. RANDOM NEW THINGS

- music programming skills

- iMovie editing and stuff

- recording drum covers over existing tracks and syncing audio and video

- managing money (VERY IMPORTANT LESSON LEARNT)

- weekly exercise

IV. GOD'S LIFE LESSONS

God's taken this time in the States to really teach me things. I feel this area being the biggest area of growth in my life. I've learned a ton in school and living on my own for 9 months now, but I feel I've learned so much in regards my faith. God's been teaching me all over again what it really meant the day I believed in grace and the cross of Jesus. He's taught me and reminded me that I was in need of rescue without even knowing it and He sent Jesus to live the life I couldn't live, and died the death I should've died for my sins. He's been reminding me of grace and the righteousness I now receive in Christ. I have been claimed by Jesus as His own even in the state of my own sin.

He's taught me what it really means to worship Him. What worship really is - it is a response to Him for who He is and what He's done for me. Any experience generates a response in us. Riding a rollercoaster makes us respond 'AHHHHH!' or 'WHEEEE!'. Eating a delicious burger makes us respond 'mmmmmmmmmmm'. In the same way the gift of Jesus on the Cross of Calvary makes me respond 'Wow wow wow wow wow. God I'll do anything for You. God I want to tell the world about You'. In the same way that we do not respond to someone else's experience - we don't scream when we see someone ride a rollercoaster nor do we go 'mmmm' when hearing about someone else eating something delicious - worship is my own personal response for what Jesus has done for ME. My sin was what nailed Him to the cross but it is HIS love for a sinner like me that kept Him there. And now I'm blown away and all my life is dedicated to Him to proclaim of His amazing work on the Cross.

I don't know what it is, but I've never been so responsive to the Word of God in my life. I've never sat in church and paid this much attention before. I've never heard the Word and remembered so much of it before in my life. It's like God's turned me into a sponge this year and just laid it on me day after day after day.

I am blessed. I am saved.

I am a Christian. Ask me why.

**************************

For those of you who're up for some extra reading, here's how I start my New Year.

Especially this year. 2010 is the year of GREAT THINGS with God.

CLICK HERE

Chapter Hydrocarbon - CHristmas Adventure Final Pt

2009-12-31T12:02:00.000-08:00

The roundup of the Christmas Adventures.

First Category - The Christmas Foods.

During this wonderfully festive month, I decided to treat myself to some extra delicious food. Some of you following me on twitter might have seen my delicious shrimp cocktail dinner on Christmas eve. If not, here it is again with some extra Christmas Meal roundups.

Shrimp!

My own roast bird - looks impressive no? I assure you it was very very good.

Star Patties - I only took this picture because the formation in the middle was cool.

Christmas Dinner - It only occurred to me after I left to take pictures of my hosts. I will in the future. Great friends.

Christmas Ham before...

... and after....

Second Category - The Christmas Trees

Here's the last couple of pictures from around town featuring some Christmas trees and other decorations. The biggest one on display was strangely the one made by the scientologists. Don't quite understand how that irony works...

L. Ron Hubbard's Winter Wonderland - the scientologist one.

Decor at The Grove

Tried to get Santa and the moon...

The Grove Tree

Smaller tree at the Farmer's Market

The Highland Center tree.

Front

Snuggie Chair at the back

Final Category - The Christmas Adventure.

The last Christmas Adventure - to The Grove.

An outdoor styled shopping complex. I've been there before when I got my Macbook. But this time around, I'm glad I went because it snowed.

Yes you heard me. It snowed right here in Hollywood.

See for yourself.

Ok, fine it wasn't really snowing. It was a nice little gimmick done by the complex to tease its shoppers. I just kept smiling when it happened because there's something magical about seeing your first snowfall - even if it's a fake one. And it's not even snow they're shooting from those things up there - it's actually really fine bubbles that look and behave like snow. It was still fun nonetheless.

And that rounds up the Christmas Adventures.

And goodbye 2009, hello 2010.

Happy New Year to you all. 2010 will be the year of great things with the Lord. I just know it.

Cheers.