Stories — Recap

I started writing this post while Hideki Yamamoto was recording his show for Central Pacific Time, an online radio station that me and Lei started earlier this year. Hideki provided a vibe, as usual (I miss DJing with him and Oliver every month at Soul Time In Hawaii — in March, we decided to scale back the Soul Time parties from monthly to a few times per year) as I typed furiously at the keyboard. We didn't say much throughout that hour. He was focused on selection and mixing, I was focused on recounting our experiences in Japan in April...

Words come in and out of trend frequently in the English language. I'm sure in other languages this is also true, but for the USA a lot of these words are related to food, technology, and slang. "Organic" is one of them, of course. The funny thing is, "organic" is how Nick Kurosawa described our recent trip to Japan; a full three weeks of going with the flow and doing what felt most natural. I totally agree. There were, on almost every single day, so many coincidences that happened to us it's been a task to recount every one of...

The last time I went to New York was roughly 2005, it was for a family vacation with my grandparents and older brother. We stayed in Manhattan, saw a show on Broadway, drank some Manhattans in the hotel lobby bar. We spent all of our time together, with the exception of one afternoon when my family wanted to see David Letterman live, so I decided to go check out FatBeats. I was actively collecting records and making my own beats back then. This was a time before smartphones were everywhere. Asking the front desk for directions to the FatBeats store...

Records stores, chance meetings, last minute errands, longtime friends, free beer, and the first train in the morning. A recap of Soul Time in Tokyo 2017.

I suppose I didn't anticipate working from 9am to 9pm every day on this project. One of the most important things is the power of connecting with people. We created deep relationships between people who were worlds apart, but now here in Hawaii working passionately on this documentary film. I am forever changed because of this.