Pat Metheny in L.A.

Pat Metheny "Orchestrions" live was held the other day in Disney hall in L.A. Actually it was the first time to go to his live performance, including in Japan, and it turned out that I expected too much for him.

The concept of the Orchestrions is in that he does everything with a high-tech music devices such as synthesized drums and pianos. It is like singing Karaoke subject to the ready-made sounds. Singing Karaoke, Metheny's guitar, might be based on improvisation, but the other elements of music is very boring.

It's almost established fact that the machine can never substitute a human.
Where is he going? What does he want to do? Where is the competitive improvisation among players?
I got a littel worried about him.

I want him to regain that good and old brisk music.


However, his play, his improvisd guitar is the best in the world in way of refreshing and pleasant tune. Nobody can follow him.


P.S.
The audience is almost over 50s or 60s. Maybe I was the youngest. Is Pat's music for older people? Jazz is not popular among young Americans anymore? Even his music? What's going on in the U.S.?

Useless Expedia!!

After I booked the hotel near the place to take the bar exam through Expedia, I noticed that I needed to cancel the booking of the hotel for some reason. Then I tried to cancel it through the Expedia HP, but there was no button to cancel in the canceling page.

Then, I had to call the service representative to cancel the booking.
They said "NO" with strong Indian accent even just after a few minutes I booked through the HP, because of their policy.

I called again and another operator answered and said the same thing with strong Indian accent. I did not catch their English because of such strong accent.

Expedia seems to have very strict policy for cancellation.

I never experienced in failing to cancel the booking of hotel in Japan, whatever the reason is. Plus it is not nice to know the call is always transferred to India with people who have no athority.

I think it's better to try to book the hotel through the hotel's homepage just after seraching the ideal hotel through using the Expedia HP. Sometimes it is much cheaper and secured for cancellation.

I strongly recommend that! Otherwise, we'd have to spend 3hrs or more for waiting for their picking up and answering my phone in India while listening to the same music.

One of the terrible experiences in U.S.

Thai Restaurant in L.A.

I went to the Thai restaurant in L.A. with my Thai friends. They said that almost all Thai foods in L.A. are americanized, but the foods in this restaurant are authentic and No. 1 in L.A. As they said, the dishes were very good, I though they had the same tastes as I had in Thailand. Americanized Thai foods seemed to me very sweet, not sour, without any herbs.

It is really good to have such authentic reastaurant in L.A., not only about Thail but also other Asian restaurants.

However, I never found the authentic Japanese restaurant here in L.A.

I guess Japanese dishes tend to reflect its natural flavor on each ingredients, so as long as there are not made in Japan, we cannot feel it is authentic. I'm not sure of that.

At least, California rice is totally different from Japaense rice, such as Koshihikari or Akitakomachi, even if they use the same seeds.

 

 

 

 

UCLA sucks?

There is an event to warm up the football game of USC v. UCLA for the next week. The above picure, a bear?,  is the symbol of UCLA, which then will be burnt down as below at the end of this event. UCLA was being slagged off by the moderator of the event, saying like this!  

(Moderator) UCLA!

(Audience) Sucks!

(Moderator) UCLA!

(Audience) Sucks!

(Moderator) UCLA!

(Audience) Sucks!

I don't know how much they are competed here. Maybe it's like a rugby or a baseball gabe between Waseda vs. Keio in Japan.

I was just wondering why they have gone so far as to burn down the UCLA symbol in public. Does UCLA do the same thing as this at the campus? I'm sure it must be a good way to kindle our fighting spirits before the game!! But......

 

 

 

 

Out of nowhere, the Ferris wheel emerged in fron of the library at the campus all of a sudden as below. What's this?

Fishing in lake Irvine

I tried fishing for the first time with my friends in the U.S. I went to Lake Irvine which is located about 1.5 hours from Los Angeles by car. As the lake is privately owned, I had to pay about 20 dollars to enter the premises of the lake. The weather was quite good that day, so we could enjoy walking around the lake after fishing.

The lake was very large; large enough to drive a motor boat. We needed to search many places to catch a fish on the lake and cast our rods many times. Finally we ended up with no fish. I just got sunburned by strong sunlight reflected by the surface of the lake. We were supposed to catch fish such as Blackbass and catfish, in the lake, though.

At the same time, there was a festival where people dressed up like medieval farmeres for dancing and singing. A girl, who really looked like a farmer, asked us to try rock-climbing on the artificial climbing facility. I was really wondering what kind of festival this was at the time. Actually I heard cosplay is getting popluar in the U.S. too.

After we finished fishing about 5 p.m., we cooked BBQ at an equipped BBQ pit by the lake. Earlier in the day, I bought charcoals at my neighborhood Ralphs. But the charcoals were not good and they did not ignite a fire at all. we had to eat beaf which was not baked so mcuh.

This trip was a bummer for us. Plus I really feel sorry for my frinds because of my bad arrangements.