Happy New Year (よいお年を)
私は皆がよい年を過すことを望む。
がんばって。
- Just a peasant
posted by Just a peasant at Wednesday, January 01, 2014
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
About Me
- Name: Just a peasant
- Location: in the Land of the Lotus Eaters
First a bass guitarist, then a biologist, now college faculty, as well as a medical student, and still anonymous. But it is still quite an adventure and I would rather die a man of great knowledge than a man of great wealth - even if it means living as a peasant.
Previous Posts
- Just another day（別の日だけ）
- Third World Reality（第三世界のリアリティ）
- Cloud Atlas
- Kaselehlie
- Misaki Ito – Years passing by ( 伊東美咲 - 通り過ぎる年)
- Apologies – of course（謝罪 - もちろん）
- Tranquility （穏やか）
- Mangrove
- Deepside Deejays (深いサイドディージェイ)
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (熱いトタン屋根の猫)
13 Comments:
happy new year :)
Hi girl on the run! I hope you are doing well.
Hi Just-a-Peasant,
Happy New Year. I always wanted to ask you, if you still play music, and if you have any plans to form a band again in Pohnpei ?
Michael
Happy New Year Michael! I no longer play music. I left that very stressful career behind me when I chose biology. Though I occasionally find myself inadvertently constructing a new tune. And I certainly fall in love with new music every year - I just don't listen much to stuff over ten years old. I should write a post about it. Anyway, I am hoping for some awesome results from your research this year!
Hi Just-a-Peasant, thats too bad that you don't play any more. For me, who for too long time played only privately, its is a big step that last year we buildt a band here at the research center in Munich. We play mainly for our own fun, but occasionally colleagues invite us to pep up their institute retreats with some rock and pop tunes.
Do you know, b.t.w., that Jimmy Page, who celebrates his 70th birthday today, in his very early years of guitar playing was dreaming of a career in biomedical research ?
I posted an 1957 BBC interview with him on my blog:
http://broken-radius.blogspot.de/2014/01/70-years-on-stairway-to-heaven-jimmy.html
greetings,
Michael
Happy new year JP, I wish you the best. Here in Toronto we had white icy Christmas :):)
Cheers,
Hiva
Hi Hiva! I hope you have a great year too! Snow? Ice? I think I have forgotten the feel of them. Hahaha!
Hey Michael, it's very excellent that you guys have fun playing music and get to do some gigs. That's what really counts - doing the things you enjoy. For myself, the entertainment industry was a huge frustration. And trying to craft a gold or platinum song just about broke my brain.
A biomedical researcher? Science can be frustrating too - as you well know.
By the way, what instrument do you play? What kind of rig do you use?
Hi Just-a-Peasant, for me it happens definitely more often that a lot of efford at work finishes with a frustration (when one has a nice hypothesis, but the extensive experiments disprove this, or when a proposal or manuscript is rejected, although much work was put in). With the music (because we do it on an amateur level, without any plan to earn a living from it) it is usually very satisfying. We play only cover songs, so we know how it should sound at the end, and its usually not too bad to impress the audience. My wife Marina even announced that she will come to the next concert together with our dog Ivo, to keep the groupies away.
I play guitar, now I have an Epiphone SG, but I also have the whole house full of acoustic guitars.
This was the set list of our recent performance: (in order of my preference)
Today (Smashing Pumpkins)
I will Survive (Gloria Gaynor/Cake)
Knocking on Heavens Door (N.Young)
Creep (Radiohead)
Like a Stone (Audioslave)
Bee Yourself (Audioslave)
Billy Jean (M.Jackson)
Last Cristmas (Wham)
Now we practise Led Zeppelin (Whole lotta love), Beatles (Something), Jimmy Hendrix (Hey Joe, All Along the Watchtower), Neil Young (Hey Hey - Out of the Black).
For me this is all the best recovery I can imagine.
best greetings
Michael
PS: What type of music do the natives on Pohnpei play or sing ? Is it like Hawaiian music ?
Hi Michael,
I see you guys have a nice selection - but Wham? Really? I'm just kidding. I actually recorded in the studio with a Grammy-award winning sound engineer who also did a Neil Young album. People here listen to pop music but many of them like to play the ukulele. Many also sing in the church choirs.
Hi Just-a-Peasant,
Wham was only supposed to be something like a starter cause the gig was before X-mas, and we thought to have one piece that is in sharp contrast to the other. The other titles sounded really "dirty", what I liked a lot since nowadays there is so much sophisticated equipment and auto-tune, that sometimes one really longs for some human sounding tunes.
At the moment, however, I have to push the other guys to carry on. Some say they are too busy at work, another guitar player says he has two more band projects to do rehearsals. I hope it was not a single event that brought us together.
Hope you are doing well. Did you hear the recent news about turning ordinary cells into stem cells simply by treatment with acidic pH ?
Some Japanese from RIKEN institute reported this. It sounds amazing, and I am already waiting for the first alternative healers to offer autologous stem-cell replacement, from peripheral blood mixed with some lemon juice or vinegar. They will promise to cure every possible disease, and I'm sure many will believe them and pay any price for this.
best regards
Michael
Hi Michael,
Well, as you may have observed, as people become entrenched in their daily routines, they seldom sacrifice time for other pursuits. I understand how frustrating it is. When we were young,only music mattered and all else was a distraction - including jobs and relationships.
Yes I did see the article about Dr. Obokata's STAP cells. Very interesting. It's also amusing considering how carefully we made sure the pH was correct when we cultured stem cells. If only I had skipped that step. Darn!
The last time I searched, I found five clinics world wide that could cure everything with stem cells. OMG, the one in Mexico even used bovine stem cells. Also, the one in China has cured everything - EVERYTHING. We are in the wrong business my friend.
Hi Just-a-Peasant, the five clinics first of all cured the financial needs of their owners. It always worries me if they promise you heaven on earth, when you only pay them enough. (Reminds me of Frank Zappas' Cosmic Debries:
He said, for a nominal service charge,
I could reach nervonna t'nite
If I was ready, willing 'n able
To pay him his regular fee
Honestly, if I would ever discover such a universal cure, I would only deliver it to a few people who I like and love very much (for free, of course). But to the vast majority of fellows who come up with loads of money to pay, I would refuse it.
best wishes, Michael
PS: with playing music and the commitments at the job I don't see it neccessarily as a conflict. My own experience is that neglecting music for a long time is an indication that I am also professionally in a crisis. If I feel that at work I do some nice progress, I also feel the desire to play a bit. I have never heard that somebody seriously failed at his job, because he played to often music. I don't think that Jimmy Page would have really become a great biologist if he would have skipped music earlier. And I hope he has never regret it.
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