Sadly, things have gotten stagnant here at the Pagoda. Trying to complete my first novel probably doesn’t help matters. I only recently passed the 100,000-point mark on Monday evening, a mark I should have passed at least six weeks ago, and was hoping to have completed the first draft by then (I still intend to have it done by Labor Day).
So, this means an end of an era. This will be the last post at Stuck In A Pagoda.
Thankfully, a change of scenery and a light at the end of the tunnel are within sight. Follow me….
If I have one bad habit as a writer – and in the interest of completely disclosing my own self-analysis, I have more than one – it’s having too many ideas. A published author that I met over this past weekend (Savannah Russe, author of the Darkwing Chronicles series) told me in conversation that there is nothing wrong with having too many ideas, and I have to agree. The only caveat is, there are unfortunately not enough hours in the day to actually put all those ideas to use.
At the time I am writing this, it is around 8:30 at night on June 24, 2008. I have a lot on my mind concerning things both at and away from my laptop. I have a novel manuscript I want to finish by the end of summer, a non-fiction book project whose outline and sample chapters were recently sent (with me hoping that they got there OK – electronic submissions are easy to accomplish but, unlike the world of snail mail with its delivery confirmation sheets and green return receipts for the mailman to send back, hard to trace the path of), two short story ideas that are screaming to be finished, and a shitload of other ideas sitting in various fragmented states on my hard drive – some of which were transferred to my present computer via a CD-R I had fortuitously burned as backup days before my beloved 2004 Apple PowerBook G4 achieved ex-parrot status this past St. Patrick’s Day. There’s a bunch of CD and single reviews I’ve been wanting to do for this blog for several weeks, and I intend to do at least a few of them at some point. (I’ll do one this week, I promise.) (more…)
For the record, this survey goes for both the Pagoda and So Hot She Shits Fire. Also, for the curious, I liked Vee’s answers the best of all. (It’s a Cancerian thing).
Brian, I hope you got the results you were looking for with this survey. I’m curious as to see his summary of everything. (more…)
Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama just passed its 2nd Anniversary mark recently. I didn’t make a big deal about it for several reasons… For one, I didn’t make a big deal last year either, and second, the actual date of this blog’s debut has been lost in the ether thanks to the ineptitude of a hair-metal-oldies-band drummer and his not-so-wonderful web hosting staff. I’m guessing that it was April 8th, 2006 when I started this blog, while at the same time I am tempted to make the “official” date April 11th because last year on that day I got to see The Stooges.
Rather than go through some lengthy bullshit on the past, I thought I’d take a cure from the liner notes of Fatboy Slim’s recent greatest-hits anthology and list some of the things this blog and its author have gone through since I started this project:
Two webhosts (only one of which I recommend, Bluehost)
Three laptops (a 2004 Apple PowerBook G4 until 3.17.08, a Dell Inspiron borrowed from my mother, and my present Dell XPS M1530)
Two iPods
Seven Morning Musume singles (counting “Resonant Blue”)
Seven personnel changes in Morning Musume
Three and a half Morning Musume albums (the “half album” being the 7.5 Fuyu Fuyu EP)
Six Berryz Koubou singles
One and a half Berryz Koubou albums (the “half album” being their misnumbered (3) Natsu Natsu Mini Berryz)
Five C-ute singles (all of their major-label releases)
Two and a half C-ute albums
Six Stooges albums (two of those being the remastered editions of their Elektra albums, another being a 180-gram pressing of Raw Power)
Two Koharu Kusumi albums
Four New York Dolls albums (three of those being vinyl editions of all three studio albums)
Four Puffy AmiYumi albums
Four Mission of Burma albums (three of them being the new vinyl reissues on Matador)
Two Panic! At The Disco albums
Two copies of Flyleaf’s first album (one autographed)
Two autographed Sick Puppies CDs
One guitar autographed by Iggy Pop and the Asheton Brothers
Four books autographed by Henry Rollins
One book autographed by Sen. Arlen Specter
One e-mail from Henry Rollins
Two e-mails from Jello Biafra
Three day trips to New York where I spent over $700 combined in one store (Virgin Megastore) alone
Four visits to Apple Stores where I spent $0 (and wish I had been able to spend several times what I spent at Virgin)
Five day trips to Philadelphia
Two day trips to Syracuse, NY
One Stooges concert
One Bon Jovi concert (goddamn motherfucking fuck!)
Two Flyleaf concerts
Two Evanescence concerts
Two Sick Puppies concerts
One missed Puffy AmiYumi concert (goddamn motherfucking fuck!)
Two 100-count spindles of CD-R’s
Two Palm Treo 680 smartphones
Four SD cards
Two phonograph needles (accidentally broke the first one)
Three disbanded Hello! Project groups
Three new Hello! Project groups (not counting Kira Pika and Milky Way)
Two people parting company with Hello! Project altogether one way or another
One Hello! Project-related project getting released in the States (Yo-Yo Girl Cop)
Six Wordpress themes
Four domain names (three for the Pagoda alone, the other for the Reina blog)
Two different Reina Tanaka/Robert Fripp header graphics (Vee improved on the original)
Two years without Ai Kago
One W album that’s gone the way of the original version of SMiLE
One Guns N’ Roses album finally being finished and handed in (whether it gets released may be another story!)
Two knocked-up MoMusus
Two instances where I bitched about Nozomi Tsuji getting knocked up
Three instances where I remarked about what a lucky bastard Taiyo Sugiura is
Three snarky remarks made by me about Avril Lavgine
One snarky remark made by “Reina” about Jamie Lynn Spears
One snarky remark made by me to “Reina” about Beyonce Knowles
Countless snarky remarks about American Idle
Three American Idle contestants losing their recording contracts
Four Reina Tanaka photobooks
One tire
Two illnesses
Two back-to-back NaNoWriMo wins
Three book projects (two simultaneous, one on hold)
One published short story (”The Man In The Hummer” in Deliver Us From Evil, available from Jaded Silence Press)
All three versions of American Wota
One nomination at the IntlWota Awards
Two jokes stolen from Jeff Dunham
One joke stolen from Nothing Nice To Say
Reina Tanaka’s 18th birthday
My 40th birthday
Mike Watt’s 50th birthday
Iggy Pop’s 60th birthday
Several boxes of CD sleeves
Countless mouse and camera batteries
Countless VitaminWaters
Countless instances where I took to heart David Peel’s adage that “fuck” is not a dirty word
A year and a half of lost blog archives (Fuck you, “Vikki Stixx”!)
Not enough trips to Starbucks
More money spent at CDJapan than at Gallery of Sound
More money spent this year on vinyl than CDs
And one girlfriend, since upgraded to fiancée.
Stuck In A Pagoda is amongst the nominees for Best Established Blog at International Wota’s inaugural awards.
I am flattered to receive this nomination because of the company I am keeping, and yet I am also embarrassed since many of the entries that led to this nomination no longer exist, thanks to the ineptitude and greed incurred by “Vikki Stixx” and his Aqua-Net-poisoned hosting company, which seems to play second fiddle to his equally inept and Aqua-Net-poisoned oldies band.
In conclusion, as far as the awards themselves go… I’m rooting for my fellow Cancerian Vee.
5. Alvin & The Chipmunks “Christmas Don’t Be Late”. Original, OLD-SCHOOL Alvin and company. No CGI or ProTools involved.
4. Joey Ramone & Friends “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight Tonight)”. A live rendition from the last show Joey ever performed (12.11.01).
3. Reina Tanaka “Kira Kira Fuyu No Shiny G” . Not really a Christmas song, but it was on Morning Musume’s 7.5 Fuyu Fuyu EP that came out right beforehand, and what Tanakachiii fanatic wouldn’t want The Wonkylicious Sex Bomb under their tree?
2. PetitMoni “Pittari Shirari Xmas”. A live version. This one’s for Vee, who adores Hitomi as much as I adore Reina.
1. Spinal Tap “Christmas With The Devil”. From their appearance on Saturday Night Live… in May of 1984, complete with the interview that preceded. At least there wasn’t an 18-inch Stonehenge this time around.
And finally… one of my short stories, “The Man In The Hummer”, was accepted for publication by Jaded Silence Press for their horror anthology Deliver Us From Evil, to be released in early 2008. More on a release date when I get it. I found out Saturday afternoon and sent them the corrected final draft yesterday.
With NaNoWriMo 2007 now an accomplished memory, I decided that I couldn’t wait to share the new novel-in-progress with everyone. So, without any further adieu, here’s the prelude to Here Is The Wonderland. (more…)
In a 4,000-word-plus writing marathon, I passed the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words tonight. As of this posting, there are 50.124 words written. I will be completing the story itself during the rest of the year, but the accomplishment, for the second time in a row, feels absolutely wonderful.
I intend to complete this novel,Here Is The Wonderland, first. My first NaNoWriMo-spawned project from 2006, Play It All Night Long, has started to grow so large that I may end up with a Dark Tower-sized multi-volume epic at this rate. Either way, my resolve to write continues.
Postings here will start to return to normal soon. Now that I am not under a NaNoWriMo deadline, I can work on any writing project I want to, and work on any writing project I want to, I will.
Originally, it was going to be My Idea Of Fun after the Stooges song, but I found out recently that Iggy Pop had gotten the idea for the song from a novel of the same name, which, title-wise, took me back to square one. Like a lot of ideas of mine, this came up while I had my iPod on while doing something (in this case, vaccumming.). And yes, trainspotters, the title is pretty much from one of the lyrics of this song.
