The Fans

Hanging out with the Wu, causes firestorms of fans. It's great when they're so obvious. They'll follow him into a shop and pretend to be looking around, they'll snap photos in the most obvious way, they'll go nuts full knowing that it's annoying, yet, they're the true fans who'll be there day or night. The mid sentence thing is the best. I guess it happens so often, that Daniel will talk about something, break for a photo with someone, then come back and finish his sentence. 

Issimo Restaurant Shanghai

The restaurant within JIA hotel in Shanghai where I'm staying features a restaurant that's highly recommended. It's called Issimo. It's Italian, which is odd choice of food, considering, I'm far from home in Asia, but this place doesn't disappoint. First off, it was filled, and you're supposed to reserve ahead of time. Being a last second person, it was a "kitchen" seat which is basically a front row to the kitchen counter seat. 

The simple salad is actually really nice. You can crush salt and pepper and you can do your own dressing. Balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Bruschetta is always a winner. It's simple, bread, some tomatoes, but this one features the white part. The fat off of pork, which works almost like cheese. It's super thin, and I'd guess a lot wouldn't know it was fat, they'd think it's cheese.

Grilled vegetables on a skewer with cheese on top. I don't eat dairy products, so I opted to not have any on it. But in the end, cheese and pork fat, are just about the same, except the pork fat won't make me sick.

You order pasta for two. I guess you can get a single portion, at more than half the price of the normal portion which is priced for two. 

Simple and good. 

931 West Nanjing Road, Shanghai
Telephone: (86-21) 6287 9009

Nike building at the 798

What can't Nike do? Now they're in art areas. I had to shoot a bit of video to show you their gallery building or whatever you want to call it. It's pretty amazing. Imagine, the Olympics are sponsored by Adidas, but Nike sure has a large foot in the door. Upon talking to Colin at W+K, I guess they're sponsoring tons of athletes, so you'll see them wearing the gear, but on the podium, you won't see them with the gear. I figured their strategy was to do the cool stuff around the Olympics and be just as influential, but let Adidas have the sponsorship and be commercial, but I guess Nike is doing both, anyway. Amazing building.

art in china 798

Yes, art in China rocks. I'm not even talking about the Mao looking work that's all influenced by the Cultural Revolution, but I'm talking about just talent that's showing at the 798 which is an art area. It's easy to say, that art in China is hot, but it's also hot in Japan as well, and I'm sure it's hot in other spots, but walking around, I saw a lot of great work. So much all around, it's amazing. You'll see more later for sure. That's Daniel with an artist we met, Wang Fei.

Richard Mille

Want to know what a watch worth more than a house can look like? Richard Mille watches are high end, so high end, they often don't have any in their shops. They might have more employees sitting around than watches. This one's titanium with a lot of bling added. Tons of diamonds and a solid feel. It's actually quite thick and it's all hand made. Different version of their watches are for different people, and they are often customized.

See the balls of metal that roll around to help keep the time right? That's how a pendulum system should work. There's something like 20,000 parts that make this watch tick. Guess where this watch sells the most? I know the answer thanks to the rep, and I guessed it on my second try.

Geisai Museum 2

One of the best parts about Geisai is running into some of the folks who are older friends, and some who are new. Some are well known, and some unknown. People come out to Geisai. who are as great and influential as KAWS and Masamichi Katayama.

Sashie with his hair cut.

I won't even try. 

Mr Ohata

Earthquake Sichuan

Thanks for the well wishes from many of you. I'm in China, but the Earthquake is quite far away. I was in a plane, and the devastation looks terrible especially since it happened in a poorer province. The news here in China shows no information except weird graphics and two heads on TV. We also felt multiple quakes in Tokyo. 6.8 was the largest that was 100 miles off shore. Although China seems hunky dory, you don't get the news quickly.

For relaxing times, eat Sushi at Totoyamichi

Sushi in Japan is notoriously expensive. So the cut that cost you hit a conveyor belt spot. Totoyamichi is a smaller chain around Tokyo that I'd suggest. The pink plates are about $1 for two pieces. The green is $2.50. And the selection is enormous. You can just sit and order and not even touch the stuff that's revolving. It's not the greatest, but really, it's pretty good. For the price, if that's a factor, it's amazing. The one we went to wasn't in a touristy area, and we accessed it by car, so it might be tougher to get to. For 5 people and we were all full, it was under $70. This was a great last place to eat, since today, I'm going to Shanghai then Beijing. See you there.

That's a funny smile by Kohei Yamashita who is mountain mountain. He wears green which is his color. 

His work looks like this. In the world of character design, a lot of folks jump in make something and hop out and move on. Kohei sticks to his style and expands on his characters to realize an entire vision. I like the long term over the short term. But neither are necessarily better than the other. 

Littered with Sushi.

This was the mochi dessert. It was really good. You actually pour a black sugar syrup on top and it turns out amazing. 

Ai Yamaguchi and Madsaki

Shingo and Ai's little dude Rei is a picky eater and didn't make it out. So this is the best I got. We ate at an izakaya place called Gomaya, which translates to something like sesame seed shop. You guessed it, that's the theme, sesame. Michelle may be vegan, but somehow she's getting through this trip unscathed, yet, it seems like it's all about veggies. Tomato, cucumber, fava beans, tofu, soba, and stuff like that. The occasional rice ball, and it seems to be working. I'm sort of glad, I'm able to explain what a vegan means in Japan. You can say, no fish, no eggs, no this or that, but until you say, no dashi (which is from bonito fish), then they trip out. 

This is Shu, he does art and also helps Ai and Shingo. He's a quiet dude who I'll guess always takes that middle path.

That's Ai and Shingo. I haven't seen them in a year and a half. They're showing me pics.

That's Miss Premium Yuko who helps out Ai on the weekend. In front is a veggie medley, cooked simple and it was good. The egg behind it was amazing, my blood orange juice of course great, behind the OJ was the sesame tofu which was almost dessert like. Impressive. I've had it before, and don't remember it being as sweet. It was powdered with sesame. I'd suggest this to anyone who's into tofu. To the right is gobo, flattened and seasoned like a chip.

Rice ball. The piece of seaweed kept flopping over like a comb over hair cut. They often refer to it as a bar code, but I found out that it's sort of taboo to make fun of that.

Madsaki is a Japanese artist who lived in the states for years, but now rock in Tokyo. We met him for coffee. He seems like a good guy.

In case you don't know her work, this is what some of Ai Yamaguchi's work looks like below. Take a look at more pics where it came from: Edition Works.

Soba and Nine Courses

Soba Made by Hand. It sort of rhymes with Castles Made of Sand, a song by Jimmy Hendrix. This is the one I like best. Duck in the hot dipping sauce "tsuyu"... the soba was amazing. It's great when you can taste the freshness, and the green onion which are those huge chunks, were actually quite sweet. Ate this at a spot in Saitama. It's pointless to even guide you there. It's about an hour north of Tokyo in a tiny spot that I'd never be able to find. You can get this at most soba spots that have variety, but not with fresh noodles.

Dinner time was another story. Sumireya is an amazing spot. I didn't shoot another city scape but it's on floor 42. The elevator gets you up in 5 seconds, literally. This, above is sort of like an appetizer, but it ends up being, that the entire meal was like many appetizers. I think I liked the seasoned squid on the bottom left. The scallop in the cup was good and the tiny green vegetables were seasoned with ume. They were crispy. The shrimp was a sushi with I think potato under it, mashed. 

This sashimi will mess with you. The tuna was chu toro. That alone was amazing. Name the other two. 

Cold Chawanmushi, that had this super bony fish in it. I think it takes a special technique to cut it and rid the bones. That's uni on top. Great uni makes uni great. (how's that sentence?).

Tuna that's fried seared. Amazing, and it's not because it was fried.

This wasn't even mine, and it was good. Chicken. Cooked well.

With Mr Arai, we discussed pachinko futures and gangster business techniques.

Gelantinous seafood puck. This wasn't sweet, but every bite was a party in your mouth.

Sir Loin on fire. This was good. Perfect amount, if you got a 10 oz steak of this, you'd have passed out at 6 oz sporting a woodrow.

The rice is white but it had bits of fish. Was it Spanish Mackerel. Red dashi miso soup, the best kind, and pickles.

Dessert was a mousse cake, with fruit.

Shiodome City Center D4Tokyo 41F, 1-5-2 Higashishimbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Here's a site for the four restaurants. I guess I'll have to try the other three. One's a bar. Here's the big site.

Seonna Hong Viscery Loves Company Kaikaikiki gallery

I made it to Tokyo in time to see Seonna Hong's art show at Kaikaikiki gallery called, Viscery Loves Company. Her paintings were large sized, much larger than anything I've seen from her before. I actually saw these pieces in the works at her studio, but seeing them up on a nice large wall was amazing. She's able to mix her old sharp 2d style that was heavily graphic oriented, to now using paint brush strokes and showing them off, while not abandoning her craft elements of using pre printed papers for her character's outfits. I have a feeling, these new works will be part of a great future in painting for her. 

mediarights.org short list

This came out today at mediarights.org. It's a life of documentaries that I suggest. I probably have seen 3 or 4 more that should be in it. I think the idea is this list should be a starting point of discussion. Maybe some of you disagree with some of these are being good ones, but it's what inspires me. Check out the list, and maybe comment and add other ones. Docs are fun, and it seems like people are giving them more notice lately.

Mediarights.org.

JAL and Tokyo and Dehara

Japan Airlines is a pretty good airline. Seafood curry works, and they even give you the fukujinzuke (red pickles) to eat with it. Seems like one that you shouldn't blow, and they didn't. The green salad is pedestrian, that was probably made in LA. The salmon was great as was the fish cake, and the burdock root. The dessert was fluffy and not too sweet. All this was an encouraging start to a long trip. I'm surprised at how decent this was. 

I got hungry and asked for snacks, here's what they brought. 1) I got a toothbrush, since I forgot mine. 2) the Coca Cola cup actually has their special Yuzu beverage, which is quite nice. It's not too sweet. One the left is their no frills rice cracker mix, which is great. Then it's a two piece fancier rice cracker bag, then a granola, and then potato sticks!

This meal didn't work for me, I don't dig the pasta cream sauce along with the chicken. But the small container of noodles were good. Potato salad and fish, and the fruit was all fine. 

Pryor takes it off with Dehara and Yoko. They all drink a lot.

Since Michelle is vegan, this is what she gets. Rabbit food.

At a bar in Golden street area... There's maybe 100 bars in the area, most are tiny, but this one was a cool one. Dehara is a good sport and if you haven't, check out his work at gr2.

Jacob Magraw art on Chuck Palahniuk Book Rant.

I'm at LAX looking at books for a second, then I see this one. It's Jacob Magraw art on the cover. I thought about buying it, but I'm already holding two. The name of the author makes me think he must be from that Nordic area of the Reindeer people. Congrats Jacob for the book, and his new baby along with Rachell Sumpter, Mica Ruth Mickelson. Next stop for me: Tokyo.

Flavor Flav Under One Roof

Flavor Flav. I can't believe I used to be a fan of this guy in 1988. Public Enemy was the best group around. It was hiphop with a message, and you couldn't not listen to them. They were fighting the man with music, and creating an effort to bring up people's education and consciousness of unjust issues around the world. The music threw down energy, but food for thought. Chuck D was the man, and he's gone on to who knows what, including a radio show which is now gone. That didn't impress, but he's still the man. But the sidekick, Flavor Flav was amazing. He was this clown like character who wore weird clocks and always had crazy glasses and hair. Basically, he was a weird crackhead type of guy back in the day, but he had talent. The entire time he was in the group, people wondered if he'd do a solo album where he'd go off in his weird style. He'd have a few songs that were solo, and they were always nutty and weird, but a solo album never happened.

Now he has this show, and even the funny intro rap is sort of like Fresh Prince type stuff. Is he another casualty of the industry? I know he's making his money which is great, he's probably needing it, and probably didn't keep what he had from his PE days. His edge is now gone. Any solo album now will probably be cheesy, but his Q rating is going up for sure. 

Here's when he was a bad ass.