My visa shit...

I dunno why would this happen.

I told her that I am supposed to get the visa before July 5. She just didn't get it.

Now I dunno what is going to happen to me.

Hope I'm not fucked.

...

Damn...

.38

"You better stop," he told himself, "this is totally not worth it! Not at all!"

Maybe she meant a lot to him, more than himself, but he doesn't worth anything to her.

Plus, she already had someone.

He logged on to his Friendster, he's not among her top friends, same thing happened in Facebook -- after all these that he had done to her.

He began to wonder why.

Girls are hard to understand, he told himself.

Is that really so?

Night. He was scratching his head, sipping his beer, getting dizzier and dizzier. He looked at himself in the mirror. All of a sudden, he thought he was the ugliest and weakest motherfucker on earth.

There went the bottle.

The mirror smashed, but his hands just got started to punched the remaining pieces on the frame. Blood splattering. Fists painted in crimson.

He panted like a beasts, twisted open another bottle cover, kissed the bottle for a sip.

* * * * * *

She gave Frank a deep stamp on the lips.

"Don't worry baby," she told him, "however well he treated me, you're still the only one for me."

* * * * * *

His fists stopped bleeding, his eyes closed, his chests still rising and falling for more oxygen.

"You better stop man," he told himself, "you don't mean shit to her. You better stop NOW..."

Tears flowing.

Last drops of beer dripping.

All he wished is he had a .38. Yes, .38 is enough. Enough to finish himself.

A Tribute to Leroy Jenkins

The death of a legend is a loss.

But in the same time, it indicates the starting of a test --- a test that would ultimately show how persistent is one's work through time, how long does it sustain.

For Leroy Jenkins' case, his test just started.

However, nobody can deny his influence towards all of us improvising string players. As I wrote in the Leroy Jenkins guestbook: Thanks for bringing us OUT of the box ----- WAYYYY out of the box!

The piece was "New York" by Jenkins.

The size of the ensemble, approximately 40 string players. (50 is not true if you look at it in a glance)

I was lucky enough to be invited to play in this event and play with great musicians like Reggie Workman, Ken Filiano, Mark Feldman, Jason Kao Hwang, Ron Lawrence, Mark Chung, etc.

Billy Bang was the director.

During the rehearsal, a guy came over to my stand and asked me, "Can I share with you?"

I looked up, it was Mark Feldman.

Crazy shit, haha! (Jules, u know what I mean...)

Yeah so we stood together and play, even in the concert too.

Jing Wen came, I was really happy, made my day.

Also met some other people I know, very very random... Guess Leroy Jenkins will pass his test after all. :P

Blue In Green

Back to NY...

Was listening to Miles Davis' Blue in Green, got me emo... whenever I hear it, I get emo...

It's a whole different life now, I feel.

My lil sister moved in, have a little feeling of responsibility to look after, which I think is a good thing. I've been all by myself a little too long, like a leaf that floats on water, drifing everywhere without a direction.

At least now I have someone to relate to, and someone who would share her thoughts and talk to me...

Met Kee Yong and his family today, he's got a cute and lively daughter, his wife is very nice too. Beautiful little family.

Also met Nicholas again just now, brought lil sis and Kee Yong together.

I will say bye bye to this place again in two weeks... strange feeling...

Someone say I'm a "flying man", well, for these two months, maybe I am...

Night time now... ready to get a beer and sleep...

Madison, Wisconsin -- La Salle-Peru, IIlinois

It's almost the end of my trip, so I think I should write down bits and pieces of experience I had here.

It's been a wonderful trip, I have to say, mainly because of the superb hospitality that Chien and Jenny provided for me in Madison. The host family in Illinois, Jim and Chris Coughlin were also great hosts that gave us a lot of convenience.

I had so much fun in Madison, not because there were much to do here, simply because it's so relaxing here. Had so much time spent with Ka Ming, one of the nicest chaps and budding violin virtuoso.

Chien brought me to his favourite acitivity: Fishing.

That the first time in my life fishing for real, it was fun! And Chien told me that I learned very fast.

So I went to shore fishing, fly fishing, and boat fishing. We might go to cat fishing, because he wants me to take a picture with a big fish before I go home.

If Madison is relaxing, then La Salle-Peru, Illinois, would totally stop human evolution.

It's almos an all-white town, u hardly see one Asian there. People are very nice and also conservative and religious.

The Maud Powell Music Festival was alright. My job was basically playing in the pit orchestra and also playing in the institute orchestra, helping the kids to play in an ensemble.

I found good food in Peru: Grilled chicken with Bourbon sauce from Mike's Place!

I'm not exaggerating, that was one of the best chicken I ever. Anybody that tried it would be hooked by it!

In the festival, my improvisational skill came to use, when Dr David Becker, our conductor found out that I can improvise and asked me to improvise in the encore piece, Hoedown. It's a country song, and I had to play bluegrass style!! Oh my fuckin' God, I failed an audition in New York before because I couldn't really play bluegrass,and now I'm asked to play it IN FRONT of a bunch of MIDWESTERNERS?!!

I took it anyway, and it turned out well.

Also, the man-in-charge of Powell Festival, Dr Kevin McMahon, also asked me to fill in for a group that cancelled their performance in the final day outdoor performance. I wrote two very simple tunes to play with bassist Dave. I used all the gimmicks I know, like bow chops and electric guitar sound, because I know people here have never even heard of jazz violin.

It was effective! They loved it and wondered how the hell can I do all those sound.

Funny thing was I played right after the great violinist, Rachel Barton. Later she asked me how did I learn all those things... I didn't know how to answer her, hehe...

Chien's Quote of the Day

"You must learn to fake, my son."

--- Goh Chia-Chien


*Chien made this comment after he found out that his student couldn't play with the ensemble and looked dumb. So he told him he used to get paid 50,000 bucks a year to fake professionally.

Cliche

It is true

It is the end of the story

And also a continuation of mine

Or rather

A repitition

It is nothing but a joke

So are my stories

Done at last!!

At last...this is the last words I will type inside the bathroom studio. No more...

First thing in the morning after I woke up (except brushing my teeth) was recording the "A natural" version of the "Road to Fang Fang" cue.

Fuck you Ken. Fuck you very much.

But I'm glad that it's done!!!

48K 16-bit... bullshit...

I'm going back to real music-making.

48K 16-Bit

Why the fuck do you movie people use this sample format anyway? Pisses me off!!

Luckily I figured a (very mafan/troublesome) way to do it!!

Otherwise your movie is fucked!!

My ultra-simple home studio

No, it's not in my home.

It's in my friend's place in Madison, Wisconsin. Oh yeah, that's where I am right now.

Nope, it's not in a garage or anything like that.

It's in a bathroom in the basement.

Don't laugh, it's true. It's the only most quiet place in the house.

The equipment:

My stupid DELL laptop that has a flashing screen
A pair of Creative speakers that I got from Chien
An MD mic
A pair of headphones/earphones (at first it was headphones, but I later found a pair of earphones from Jenny, Chien's wife)

That's it?! Yes. That's it.

So now what? Record of course!

So my buddy Ka Ming and me started to get stuck in the room for a looooooong time.

It's much harder than recording in a studio. It's fucking frustrating because we're under equipped! Not like some big equipments but we're just under equipped of a headphone splitters.

So Ka Ming had to listen to the headphones while I follow his cues. You know how frustrating it is and how many times we fucked up?!!!

Gosh...

We have to play every part by our own, overdubbing and overdubbing until we could remember every single part!!

We don't have a cellist yet, she's coming in on Tuesday.

Wish me luck...

Oh by the way, what's the project?

Giovanni Chen's 30-minute short "The Wait"
Music by Ken Hor (aka Ken Whore)
The cue is "Closing Theme", calling for a string orchestra without doublebass
Cues to come: Road to Fang Fang, scored for solo violin and piano
Fang Fang Opening, scored for string orchestra without doublebass

Dammit... I wish this will be over soon...

The Use of Midi Strings

Seriously, I never liked the sound of Midi strings in recordings. It's so fake, artificial, plastic, emotionless...

I would go all the way to oppose the usage of it in any recordings!

One exception though: If you are in a place where you can't find string players that play in tune.

Sometimes when you talk about the genuine sound of live strings, you tend to forget to consider the realistic problem. Do you want the real sound but out of tune, or a fake sound, but in tune?

Personally I would go for the one in tune. Fake strings, though fake as it is, intonation will still be there; as for out-of-tune real strings,what for we need them if it bugs our ears?

So, if it's in Hollywood, yeah, fuck Midi! We go for the real shit.

But if it's not in a very musically inclined part of the world, hm...think again.