NEWS
AND
ACTIVISM:
For example, TokyoProgressive,
which has been in operation since 1997. It started out as a
memorial for
my cat Chibi.
But
it quickly
grew as a resource for my students. And then it became an
activist-alternative news site. You can also hear visit some of
the sites where my music lives.
OTHER
SITES: And, if you wan't you can see
some of my pictures.
Or pictures of some of my family from
the
50s up till now. And some photos from recent years.Or even some funny
faces
of myself. There
are also some poems
I have written. And,
most recently,
a whole bunch of websites with my songs
STUDENTS: If you
are a student, you can visit the student
research
pages. And
if you are doing something non-profit, neat, and
progressive, I might be able to give you free some web
space, sowrite me and
tell me what
you do and what you want the space for.
SUPPORT
US:In
addition to providing news and commentary, TokyoProgressive gives free
space to like-minded people. If you want to support the work of
TokyoProgressive, you can do one of several things, buy books,
DVDs,
or
CDs.
Or donate
whatever you think
is a
fair amount.
Most of the songs come form one or more
of theabove sites. For purchase on CD Baby or free with a
donation to TokyoProgressive.
2006
|
Soundclick:
Rippling Sea, Each Day is Different, The Highway Song, I'd Like
to Sit
Downby You, Bar at Midnight, There's a Lesson to be Learned in the
Trees, Go Down You Broken Old Man, Pressures of the World, The
Revision,
The Night is Young (all with lyrics)
MUSIC
RECORDINGS FROM NOW BACK TO THE
60s
Things lying
around the house in boxes of cassettes, a number of which
probaby are worth keeping.
1998
| I Would Like to Sit Down By You
(collection mostly from the 80s and 90s)
Part
1:I Would Like To Sit Down by you, Spider Song,
It
is Enough (opera), Tofu Spaghetti, Oyogi Taiyaki-kun, Rippling
Sea, Each Day is
Different, The Night is Young,
Three Months Ago.
BONUS- Animated cartoon idea: Stripey Meets Godzilla and
The Barber's Cadillac Seville Parody from the late 1970s.
Mid
'80s | In the Bar at
Midnight (collection)
Part
1: In the Bar at
Midnight, My Lady's a
Wild Flying Dove, Nakeba ii, Dogs at Midnight, Suzanne, Une Calme Nuit,
Two Swedish Songs, Guantanamera
Part
2:Or
here.
There's a Lesson to
be learned in the
Trees, Shinda Otoko Wa Nokoshita Mono Wa, Pressures of the World, Close
Your Eyes, Castles in the Air, Chiisana Nikki, Oh My Friend, Drunken
Sailor.
1966-1981 | Huge Anthology
from 1966-1981:
Lots of stuff here, mostly in rough, unpolished sersions. My favorites
are listed in the sections, divided into periods. None of these were
intended
for broadcast, but they are the only records of my older songs, which
date from late elementary school. The war in Vietnam was in full
bloom. Many of these are various out takes, with starts and
stops,
also sound drop outs due to damage to the tape, or--in the case of one
song (Portraits of Love, Py5)--deliberate playing around with the
left-right balance for some silly reason.
The Bullet of LBJ (On the Death of Martin Luther King)
Government Men
Brown Shirts
I Plucked a Dandelion
The Children
We Are Your Mentors
There's a Fire in the Sky
Pt4: 1968-1969
I'll love you in the morning (I didn't know the song I thought
was an imitation of Suzanne--That's No Way to Say Goodbye--was written
by the same person, Leonard Cohen, so this is my imitation of the
imitation.
Lost Against Fear
We Sit in the Moonlight
Pt5: 1970-'71
Portrait of Love (a nice love song with an ocean theme)
Mr. and Mrs. America (an anti-war song)
The Greenest Trees (an allegory, based on a traditional song-Railroad
Boy?)
RADIO ENGLISH: 2002-3 |
Chofu FM
"One Point Eikaiwa This
was a public service language program on which I appeared and for which
I created the lessons. A few appearances by Stripey.
ANIMATION:
Early-Mid 80s | Stripey
Skits (Stripey
is a stuffed animal/fantasy character, known for his innocense and
purity. Most are these were not intended for public consumption but
they are here just for the hell of it.)
NOTE: The file
File
1:
Kletchmer Stripey
Luciban Denwa Announcement,
Luciban Denwa Song (Silent Night), Stripey condom commercial, Stripey
Unchi Cologne, Tiger Language (SHK Ho-so-), Stripey Zappa Rock
Performance
File
2:
Little Lost Tiger,
Stripey Symphony Orchestra
File
3: I got the Burrrrrus Again, Mister
Bojangles, Les Jeus Interdits
EDUCATION:Early
80s--
Stories I
wrote for Listening
Classes at Nichibei Kaiwa Gakuin: At
that time, we had a coordinator who only wanted "happy selections" and
who therefore eliminated some of the sadder ones here from
the curriculum. That includes the first selection, Morris. original was
on a single tape. I have divided them up nto single files.
File 1:Morris,
a
story
about an old man who refuses to believe that getting old means losing
the dreams of childhood.
File
2:
Uncle Aunt, about
an
insect who takes a trip to a human city beleiving that people liked
bugs, only to find out things are not as they seem.
File
3: Michael and Susan,
two lovers, are at the railway station a beautiful, sunny day. Michael
is going off to war.
twenty gum chewing heros stood grouped in a circle
and pointing the bulging eyes of their cameras
toward the mass of death before them
hurriedly cocked the shutters
as if to catch a lingering last breath
before death closed in to silence the struggle in the eyes
and spoil the shots for the folks back home
--written at the close of the Vietnam war
the living end
baby boy child just hit baby girl child
but mama will not intervene
mama is too busy making mellow dreams frim corncob
and papa will not heal the hurt
for papa does not know he's papa
where he's parked in one dark corner
taking in a drop of sunshine
perhaps george washinton
upside down on a dayglo wall
will speak the words to soothe the wounds
and lead the children from their pain
to some safer, softer game
--1967
leaving
with our throats made sore
by tears pushed back
our sadness shining in the wetness of our eyes
we stand
and sense the coming of the going
and the end of a rainbow
here where we hold a moment heavy in our breasts
we hope against all odds the train will not leave
it leaves
washed down the tracks by our tears
its groaning coaches downing our weeping
and in the mirror of our parting
we say goodbye to yesterday's stranger
and catch a glimpse of something
stronger
sweeter
greater
than the whiskies that we'll drink to forget
forget that in one aging moment we could cry
and that in that moment we could feel
and that in that moment
we were alive
--Norway, 1975
poem written on a train between geneve and lucerne
as frieght trains in the night go by
so our lives like chains
grow long
and not so simple as we'd like
them to
the last car rememering not the first
nor caboose brakeman, engineer
but as the names of passing makes of
dogfood, cars and napalm bombs
pass like camera shutter clicks
before our child eyes
so we live and then forget
the moments fleeing by
we stand at dawn
like children for the whistle listening
left then breathless by the mass of rolling boxcars
we soon loose count
and left there stunned
we watch the last one passing
--1974
Paul's peoms continued
who?
who-
in this hide yourself
be silent sea of blank stare faces
captives of the 9 to 5
and 6 days sold to 6 nights' numbing-
will be the one?
will it be you?
.....then who?
who-
who has ever wearied of feelings leashed to inlaid smiles
that even wives and hsubands in love's heat half mustered
can't remove-
will be the first to laugh off cue
and let the game come second for a change?
who-
in this sea unrippled
will dare be first-
i ask because
i know it cannot yet be me
--1981
winterbound
let love linger while it may
then die so gently
like a great grey seagul
here today and later gone
to where its wingdreams are reborn
love seldom sings forever
but only now and then
and sometime ages pass
before its whirling winds return
to catch us in their dizzy grasp
like leaves that linger through the night
of autums come
and summers going father south
so our souls are winter bound
to sleep apart and then perhaps
unite again one day
lifeturning
like sunlight surely
is a certainty that mends our wounds
and drains the old blood from our dreams
to our our new ones better wings
--1974
o say can you see?
not even the swiftly sinking
stinking filing order
of uncle sam stuff
dreams are made of
corporate men
nor corpse machines
can transplant this exiled tree
into the red, white and blue arm
of sanity
--1974
two poems written on a mountain
night falls
and caterpillar rain
sings in the darkness
above me
beneath me the ground swells up in sweet fatique
and sighs
a song drifts off asleep and dies
the branches now must bear the weight of birddreams
the sun is shy
at first
faint in the sky
then louder it lights uo the meadows of flowers
where butterflies fly
and get drunk
--1974, Harriman State Park, New York
hidden wires
when i was born a girl
i looked into my father's eyes
and saw what i thought were tears of joy
but now i know
there was also a hint of disappointment in them too
still, i thought life was great
and at first i did not understand
why they gave me so much freedom
or why my brothers had to study hard,
their spirits tamed and moulded
into lonely bonsais of success
but it was soon i saw the hidden wires
that shaped my own destiny
dragging me along the road
from dolla house dreams to name brand schools
where girls becoming women learn
the princess poses that they'll need
to lure a seed to womb
in childhood i was free, unlike my brothers
but now, there i was in offices
pouring tea for men whose suits
were the leaves of the lonely bonsais
that my brothers too had become
like the dreams of our husbands
now chained to desks and whiskey nights
the dreams we had were not our own
and our real life dollhouses are now
so cold, so empty
