My all time favorite food is pizza. Unfortunately, you can’t really find a good pizza here in Tokyo, so after searching for years, I finally found a local importer where I can buy pepperoni in 5 lb bags so now I can make my own. I think it’s safe to say that my pizza is the best in town. I’d invite you over but there’s only enough for me.
These are some of my archtop guitars. I got interested in these several years ago when a friend of mine (Spider Tetsu), got me interested in old swing jazz and blues. I have had a few Harmony H62’s (now down to one 1954 H62), a late 50’s Harmony 1385, a 1959 Silvertone 1427, a couple of Gibson ES-175’s (1950 and 1971), an ES-125 (1950) and the king of them all, a 1953 ES-350, and a few others that I can’t recall right now.
Here are a few snapshots of me playing my new Signature model guitar, built for me by genius luthier Shin Ichikawa. I’m planning to write more about the guitar and how it came to be, but in the meantime, these shots will have to suffice. That’s Shin photobombing the last pic.
This is a Tele I put together myself. The body is a pine body that I bought on eBay, the neck is from a Fender Road Worn Tele, and the parts are various bits and pieces that I had laying around at the time. It’s light weight, sounds quite good and the neck is comfortable and easy to play on. Like all my guitars, the fretwork and setup was done by my friend, genius luthier Shin Ichikawa. Shin also built my signature guitar, which I will write about here any day now. Promise!
This is my friend Spider Tetsu with his band “redipS.” It took me a long time to realize that “redipS” is “Spider” spelled backwards. I’m a little slow sometimes. This was taken at a club called Blue Heat in Yotsuya 3-chome, Tokyo. I used a Fuji X100T. The image was processed from raw in Adobe Lightroom and converted to B&W in Silver Efex Pro.
I think this was the reddest I have ever seen the sky. It was very difficult to capture the color with a digital camera. Even this shot with the Fuji X-T1 doesn’t really show it in all its splendor. You can see Mt. Fuji at the left, just getting ready to go to sleep.
One of the reasons I got the new iPhone 6 Plus is the improved camera. Unfortunately, back problems have limited my movements for the past couple of months so I haven’t been shooting much (or at all). But I couldn’t resist a snap of this really delicious chicken kiev I had at a hotel here in Tokyo. Once in a while it’s fun to treat yourself to something special.
While wondering around Kichijoji the other day I came across this cute girl passing out flyers for a new store. I couldn’t resist asking her for a picture and she said ok. She looks so happy.
A sunny day on my way to the office. I walked by a temple and saw this shadow on the ground. An iPhone shot edited in Snapseed.
My first real car was a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle. I loved that car and still miss it to this day. I always wanted a Karmann Ghia and a Bus too, but could never afford them. Now it’s impractical for me to own a Beetle, Ghia or Bus here in Tokyo, so instead I collect models. This model of a ’66 Karmann Ghia was given to me as a birthday present by my friend Shin Ichikawa (the guy who also built my signature model guitar for me). Shin said he spent about 6 months working on this model, so it is a real honor for me to have it. It’s now the center of my collection.
