Free LP!! She Wants Revenge - "Valleyheart" Album

Free vinyl record of She Wants Revenge's new album, Valleyheart! If you're reading this line, the contest is still open!  Skip to the bottom of this post for details.

The Band: She Wants Revenge

Justin Warfield and Adam Bravin are the brains behind the band She Wants Revenge. For their third album, Valleyheart, they have teamed up with drummer Scott Ellis and guitarist Thomas Froggatt. Valleyheart will be released May 23, 2011.

The alternative band is already receiving raves for their new single and video, “Must Be the One”. If you haven't heard it yet, you can watch the video on Youtube. See below:




Order Valleyheart by clicking here.
Buy the single, "Must be the One" from iTunes here.
Use this coupon from Best Buy to get it for $7.99. (valid till 6/4/11)

The Concert: WRZX May Day Festival

On May 28, 2011, She Wants Revenge will be playing in the WRZX May Day Festival at Verizon Wireless Music Center.  If you're interested in finding X103 May Day ticket drop locations, click here.  To go ahead and buy the tickets yourself, click here.

The Contest: Free Valleyheart Vinyl Record

Entering the contest is super easy. All you have to do is send an email to indianapolisbloggers@gmail.com. However, there are a number of ways you can increase your odds of winning. For each thing you do, you will get an extra point. For each point, you get your name thrown in the hat again.

1) Add our Feed to your reader. (1 Point)
2) Follow us on Twitter. (1 Point)
3) Friend us on Facebook. (1 Point)
4) Retweet or Share this page to tell your friends. (1 Point)
5) Refer a friend who then signs up for the contest. (1 Point)
6) Send us a check for $10,000 USD. (2 Points)
7) Send us a check for $1,000,000 USD. (The album is yours)

When you send your email, just list all the things you've done. Make sure you tell us if a friend referred you, so they will get their extra point. If we find you have lied about anything, you will be automatically disqualified and it's no wonder you're still here after the Rapture. Just leave a comment if you have any questions. Good luck!

IB Reviews
Are you a blogger in Indianapolis? If you are and you write a post about She Wants Revenge's new album, or the concert in Indianapolis, write to us and let us know! We'll add a link to your post here. Click the links below to see what folks in Indianapolis have to say:

(check back often)

Setsuden, Not Teiden: The Cry From Japan, Advice Please!

Heavy rains today in Japan, especially in Tokyo, where the Toei Subway lines were shut down during the afternoon due to "blackout" (停電 teiden). That's just 4 lines out of some 15, as the rest of the Metro and the JR lines and everyone else were ok. We know it is coming, a long, hot summer, and there is a lot of discussion now about how to deal with electricity shortages.

"Reduce electricity" (節電 setsuden) then of course is not just a slogan, it is an urgent cry for help and consideration. If, and this is a huge issue right now, IF we can all pull together and all reduce electricity consumption, then we may be able to avoid the blackouts. Doesn't that seem like a thing that Japanese people - and everyone living here, foreigners included, companies and public entities and towns and cities - should be able to accomplish?

"Save energy" (省エネルギー shou enerugii).

We need every good piece of advice there is.

Quoting The Asahi, Japan Probe notes:

The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, has estimated that 2.5 to 3.1 gigawatts of electricity can be saved if households within the Tokyo region follow through with the following measures:

“Even if individual families can reduce only modest amounts of electricity, the aggregate savings will become substantial,” it said.

Specifically, 640 megawatts can be slashed if households set air conditioners one degree higher. Unplugging appliances can save 380 megawatts, while 220 to 440 megawatts can be cut by keeping air conditioner filters clean. Not overloading fridges can lead to savings of 370 megawatts, while 150 to 360 megawatts can be saved by turning off lights frequently. In addition, if washing, cleaning and cooking are done in the morning or at night, power consumption can fall by 430 megawatts in the afternoon.

(Kilowatts, megawatts and gigawatts are units that are explained here and putting it simply, 380 megawatts is 380,000 kilowatts and so on)

In the comment section, Japan Probe readers are particularly critical of the Pachinko parlours, that seem to be ignoring the current crisis. Pachinko is an electricity intensive leasure/gambling activity, that is mostly run by people who do not seem to care a whole lot about Japan and its current crisis. Blogger Roy Berman at Mutant Frog noted that Pachinko is a huge headache for Tokyo Metropolitan Government:

I have been collecting links related to the energy situation and several other aspects of the ongoing crisis and recovery efforts and will probably be blogging quite a bit on such topics, but for now I want to just post translations of a series of brief comments on energy conservation in Kanto from Tokyo Vice-mayor Inose Naoki (who I believe will remain in his job allegedly doing most of the real work serving under Ishihara following his unfortunate reelection) that he tweeted a week ago.

#1: The pachinko industry said in a protest message to Governor Ishihara that “the maximum power usage of their 4000 game parlors in the Tepco region” is no more than 840,000 kilowatts” and this is where I learned precise numbers... Since Toei and Metro [Tokyo’s subway systems] together are a maximum of 360,000 kilowatts, this is pretty big.

#2: Pachinko parlor electricity consumption is 40% air conditioning, 30% pachinko machines, 20% lighting. To reduce the gap in power supply during summer peak demand time, [we] must reevaluate [our] lifestyles. To speak half-jokingly and half-seriously, the pachinko industry must themselves come forward with plans such as operating only at night, or running without their coolers on during the day.

So, why not close down the entire Pachinko gambling industry during peak hours, since they contribute zilch to tax revenue anyway, and we could all continue to live and work in peace, more or less. With a little less lights on, but possibly even keeping a minimum of air conditioning on, in summer? Politically, what IS the right decision, now? Sucking teeth, just won't do. Advice please!

Just for the subways, Toei and Metro together use a maximum of 360,000 kilowatts during rush hour, according to Tokyo Vice-mayor Inose Naoki. Again, Pachinko is as much as 840,000 kilowatts. Advice...?

Prime Minister Kan has ordered the Hamaoka nuclear plant to close down, but why not ask the bloody Pachinko parlours too? In fact, there were angry demonstrations in Shinjuku 2 weeks ago, with people shouting and trying to get the electric gamblers to come to their senses... I'd love to see that in the news. Advice!

Setsuden, thus, is the buzz word all over the Internet right now. There is a "reduce electricity consumption" page at METI, the government ministry, thanking you for turning off your electrical toilet and other appliances. There is even main stream media pitching in, as well as industry pages and blogs.

And here is Vangelis, Twilight (thanks Tom).



Hi ga Kureru
Sore wa Toki no Mahou
Asu Onaji Toki
Mata Chigau Mahou
Sore wa Iro ga Kaori ni
Kaori ga Iro ni Kawaru Toki
Soshite Kage wa Kagirinai
Ao ni Tokeru

The day falls into the twilight.
It is a magic of time.
The same time tomorrow,
there'll be another magic.
It is when colours turn to flavours,
and flavours turn to colours.
And it is when
shadows melt into deep blue.

Magical.

Eco News from Japan and Asia!

Cyndi Lauper in Japan, 2011

I just love Cyndi Lauper. She didn't cancel her tour in March and went on to do some very wonderful shows in Tokyo, Osaka and other places. Truly an inspiration. She also mentions how she first connected with this place back in 1986 at a concert in the Budokan, when she sang True Colours a capella, and got such an amazing response from her Japanese fans.

The Memphis Blues Japan Tour website is nice too, with photos from her trip here last month.

Videos from Osaka March 22, 2011.

True Colours:



Fearless/Time After Time/Don't Wanna Cry:



From the CNN interview, where she notes that she was the only act this spring to perform in Japan: "They are coming to see me, I'm singing my guts out, I'm trying my best... They were so kind to me, my whole life I have been coming here... All the artists should pitch in. This is the place we came all through the 1980s, these people have been generous to us, and I think we should be generous back":



Toku is the stage name of the fluegelhorn player, who has performed with major Japanese bands like Exile. His website is toku-jazz.

Eco News from Japan and Asia!

100 Years Of Aviation In Japan: The Pioneers

No aviation without brave pilots: There were people fascinated with flight even in the Edo period, such as Ukita Kokichi from Okayama, who made attempts at calculating what wingspan would be needed to let man soar like a bird, something he seems to have achieved in 1785:

Ukita studied how birds fly. He finally concluded, "Compute the ratio of the wing's area to the body's weight and use that ratio to create an artificial wing. Humans may use them to fly like a bird."

His skill of paperhanging was very useful for making wings. He made the wings' ribs of bamboo, covered them with paper and fabric and varnished the surface with lacquer from Japanese persimmons.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Fast forward to the late 19th century, and we have Chuhachi (Tyuuhaci) Ninomiya, who made paper planes that may have been able to carry a man. The first airplane flight in Japan was likely on 29 April 1891, when a propeller-driven unmanned plane took off and flew about 10 meters at a height of one meter and 36 meters at a height of six meters the following day. He even tried to interest the military, who thought he was crazy!

(Source: Russel Naughton website, quoting Japanese websites that unfortunately do not work, except the one that goes to the Hiko Shinto shrine that Ninomiya founded near Kyoto, to "pray for the repose of victims of airplane accidents around the world").

Around this time, in April, 1911, Yoshitoshi Tokugawa made the first flights at Yoyogi, Tokyo and Tokorozawa, Saitama, 100 years ago.

Top image by painter Shigeo Koike shows the then state-of-the-art French biplane designed by Henri Farman, used by Tokugawa in his pioneering flights.

There were several female aviators too that deserve to be remembered. Ninamiji Yone from Wakayama prefecture was the first Japanese female pilot, getting her licence at the Schiller Airplane School in the U.S. in 1912. I'm not sure about the name, could that be near the O'Hare Airport in Chicago?



Hyodo Tadashi from Ehime prefecture is more famous, having gotten her licence in Japan, the first woman to do so.

This book, Hyodo Tadashi: Sora wo Tobimasu! has all the details about her and her young collegues.

She was the inspiration for a NHK drama in 1976, called Kumo no Juutan, which made lead actress Asaji Yoko famous.

In the drama, a 1936 Boeing A75 was used, with the registration number J-3641. A fast biplane that was sturdy and still used in the 1940s for what the agricultural chemical industries call "crop dusting" i e spraying dangerous pesticides on huge farm fields...

Apparently, the real airplane is exhibited in a Nasu, Tochigi prefecture museum dedicated to Japan's WW1 veterans. Looks like a rather unusual place, could be worth a visit, except here at Kurashi, we are very sensitive, or should I say strongly adverse, to war.

The airplane Ms. Tadashi used in 1922 (when she was in her early 20s) was a slender Curtiss JN-4 Jenny, according to the book.

I haven't found any images from that 1976 NHK drama series, but the OTS song is nice!

雲のじゅうたん


I think it is only fair to include two Korean female pilots from the pioneering era. There has been some controversy over a 2005 film called Blue Swallow, that dramatizes and romanticizes the (short) life of Park Kwang-yong:

24 July 1901 - 7 August 1933. Birth place: Taegu City Kyongsang-Do in Korea.
She was 168cm, which was very tall for women at that time. On 1 February 1926, she entered Tokyo Nippon Airplane school in Tokyo. In 1927, she got a third-class pilot license. When a reporter asked her about boyfriends, she answered "My boyfriend is my airplane." In 1928, she got a second-class pilot license. In 1933, she tried to fly over the Korean Strait, but she crashed into Gengadake Mountain in Atami city and died.

(Source: Paperback Centrism blog)

Why controversial? Because it turns out that Ms. Park was (probably) not first at all. That honour goes to Pyongyang-born Kwon Ki-ok, who instead of going to Japan decided to study aviation in China, graduating from the Yunnan Airforce School, affiliated with Chang Kai-chek, in 1925. She became a captain of Central Airforce of the Kuomintang in China, and survived WW2. The Blue Swallow film had to change some of its descriptions about Ms. Park, as the Korean public are very sensitive about any claims involving Imperial Japan...

Anyway, if you enjoy early era aviation as much as I do, here is the Blue Swallow trailer, with a lot of computer graphics to brighten your weekend!

青ツバメ



More aviation history on Kurashi:
100 Years Of Aviation In Japan: Part 1
100 Years Of Aviation In Japan: The Music (updated)
100 Years Of Aviation In Japan: Leaving on a Jetplane

Eco News from Japan and Asia!

100 Years Of Aviation In Japan: Leaving On A Jet Plane

I feel strongly for everyone who left Japan in a hurry in March. It is a remarkable, extraordinary time. I chose to stay, others left. Hope to see you all back here soon again. Meanwhile, here is John Denver, Leaving on a jetplane:



I'm also reminded of a commercial that was popular when JAL was in better financial shape. With fuel costs going through the roof, commercial airlines are facing impossible odds.

JAL, established in 1951, has seen a lot of such odds over the years. 100 years of aviation, but flying was never meant to be this cheap.

浪漫飛行　Roman Hikou is possibly one of Japan's most expensive TV commercials back then in the bubble era. Here is Kome Kome Club, a CM for leasure trips back in April 1990 to Okinawa:



Long before there were jets in the sky, the airplanes where smaller, and more simple, but still got you from A to B. In the 1930s, you could buy a ticket and fly from Tokyo all over with commerical services, using Lockheed P-38 and other modern aircrafts. (Much later, the company became more known here for its bribery scandal involving the Prime Minister Tanaka, after the U.S. government had bailed out the company in 1971).

The Japanese government was a strong backer of commercial aviation, though the early companies struggled to maintain their operations through the 1920s. To promote civil aviation in the country, on October 30, 1928, the Japanese government helped set up a national flag carrier known as Japan Air Transport Corporation (JAT).

From 1931, for example, the government freely used JAT's civilian aircraft, mostly the Dutch Fokker Super Universal. The Greater Japan Airways also used domestically built versions of the Douglas DC-3.

In 1938, JAT carried nearly 70,000 passengers, representing 2.6 percent of the world's passenger traffic.

Source: The Origins of Commercial Aviation in Japan

Some of the passanger planes made in Japan in the 1930s were built by Nakajima in Gunma prefecture and Mitsubishi in Aichi prefecture.





Paintings by Shigeo Koike, an amazing artist, famous among airplane model builders around the world for his package art work for the Hasegawa company!

The Nakajima plane (bottom image) is a Japan-built DC-2. Nakajima had huge factories in western Tokyo, including Ogikubo, Musashino and Tama, as well as in Ota in Gunma. They built the best engines in Japan around this time, some 7,000 for civilian aircrafts.


The engines, based on the Bristol Jupiter, were called Kotobuki, and there were several later models with many improvements. Actually, workers at Nakajima had it rather good, with "a welfare program" that was admired by others, according to the un-official history, found here.

At least as long as it lasted. Anyway, to tie in with the music theme, and the title of this post, did you know that Imperial Japan actually attempted to build jet planes? Neither did I. Read more about the small Kyushu Shinden jet here and more technical details about the Nakajima Kikka here.

Eco News from Japan and Asia!

100 Years Of Aviation In Japan: The Music

Aviation has touched a nerve here in Japan for a long time. Here is an early tune celebrating the amazing Tachikawa-to-Paris-And-London flight of the Ki-15 Kamikaze in April 1937. How about it?

Kamikaze Dakara (Because there is the Divine Wind)



No, this is not a tune for the suicide pilots who had no other means but to attack, later on.

This is a song from before the war. Departing from Tachikawa April 6, 1937, they went to Taipei, Hanoi, and over the next four days reaching Athens, Rome, Paris, and finally Croydon Aerodrome, London, UK. I just love the samples of aircraft engine noise. Lyrics? All about going from the east to the weat, and what a dazzling hero the 26 year old pilot is. You'll hear the singers mention Paris and London.

The pilot was Iinuma Masaaki from Nagano, and his navigator was Tsukagoshi Kenji, from Gunma (his father was a Japanese lawyer and his mother was British). The aircraft was a Mitsubishi plane, registered as J-BAAI. They broke the world record, peacefully, and were able to attend events related to the coronation of King George (of the Oscar-winning King's Speach fame).

I'll be blogging more about their trip at another date.

Back to aviation-related hits: In 1973, Yuming had her first huge hit with a song called Hikouki Gumi.

The white sloping road
continued into the sky
flickering heat haze
envelopes the child

Nobody noticing, all alone.
that child keeps ascending
she fears nothing
and then she soars

Longing for the sky
she soars across the sky
that child's life is a contrail



Earlier this year in 2011, AKB48 has made a hit with the same name (which means "airplane cloud" or contrail):



A very popular NHK drama, Saka no Ue no Kumo, about the winds of change in early modern Japan, had a hit song called Stand Alone in 2009, written by Joe Hisaishi, sung in Japanese by Sarah Brightman, the UK star. Historical dramas like this one are very popular here.

Here is a nice version with English subtitles:

坂の上の雲 (Stand Alone)


What I would like to end this post with is the Google Earth6 Flight simulation, soaring slowly over the mountains in Hokkaido in northern Japan:

Eco News from Japan and Asia!

Conductor Zubin Mehta in Japan

This weekend, Tokyo welcomes classical music conductor Zubin Mehta, who will be performing with the NHK Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, for the benefit of the earthquake survivors in Tohoku.

NHK World:

Acclaimed conductor Zubin Mehta has arrived in Japan to conduct a charity concert benefitting the survivors of the March 11th disaster.

Mehta arrived in Tokyo from Russia on Friday. He held a rehearsal with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, which will perform Beethoven's Symphony Number 9 in Tokyo on Sunday. All proceeds will go to the disaster-hit areas.

Before the rehearsal, Mehta told orchestra members that he hopes for Japan's recovery, and that his thoughts are with the people.

The concert was planned at his request, to support areas affected by the disaster. The conductor said he wants to do what he can to lift the spirits of the Japanese people and help them believe in the power of music.

Mehta was in Tokyo on the day of the quake that hit eastern Japan. He returned to Italy when his concerts were canceled. Many foreign musicians canceled their concerts after the natural disaster and the trouble at a Fukushima nuclear plant.

Indian-born Mehta has conducted the world's most renowned orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic.

Here he conducts the Israel Philarmonic Orchestra, Beethoven's 7th, first movement.

Eco News from Japan and Asia!

Enka: Minatomachi Monogatari

If you liked Port Town Blues, you will love Minatomachi Monogatari (Stories from a harbour town). Yokohama, Nagasaki, main ports that are so very well known around the world. Also, Hakodate, which perhaps only a few of my regular Kurashi readers can find on a map.



The Swedish Foreign Ministry still treats all of Japan as a "no fly zone" in the sense that noone is recommended to travel to these parts. I find that rather silly. They also have similar advice for other trouble zones, like India, but then their advice is limited to the region they think you should not visit (Kashmir).

Japan has some 43 prefectures, and only 3 or 4 are directly affected by the current disaster: Fukushima, Iwate, Ibaraki. Late tonight, another big earthquake in Miyagi.

But!

Kyushu, Shikoko and Hokkaido are not affected at all... Of course Osaka and the Kyoto and Nara regions are OK. That is called Kansai, and they must be rather upset down there that once again, the Kanto region is getting all the attention.

We are suddenly, and very rapidly, learning to live with less, consuming less, and I hope others around the world are also paying attention. Maybe the sad enka songs will carry us through. I think they have the power to heal, to make people cry, and go on and work hard, tomorrow. We live on a small planet. Japan in a sense is the experiment, whatever happens here can happen anywhere.

How will you deal with it? That is the story...

Eco News from Japan and Asia!

Power-Down

Learning to live with less, being innovative and finding ways to consume as little as possible, going with the trend to be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

Tepco is actually cancelling some planned blackouts because people are doing well, not using more than they need. I see a lot of drink machines that have been turned off, or at least the lamps are off. Factories are running daytime only, many offices tell workers to go home early. It can be done. What does it mean for the economy? Right now, we are all more worried about the workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plants and praying for their success and health and whatever it is that one prays for when one thinks of guys having to do shifts in dark, unknown, unsafe conditions like that.

Power-down is taking its toll but so far we are lucky, as it is spring, and not too cold in Tokyo. Good citizens of Tokyo, we are all doing our part, aren't we? Some have left, others stay. How long can we power-down for? We knew in the back of our minds that something like this could happen. But could it happen to us? Are you prepared? Power-down doesn't mean no power, it just means we learn how to live with less, appreciating what we have more. Reduce, rather than stay caught up in the consume-more economy that made noone that much happier anyway. It seems Japan is once again being poised as a teacher, as noted by Crystal K. Uchino on Ten Thousand Things.

Japan has been a power-engine for the global economy since, well, a long time. This is going to affect us all. Even big media is beginning to take note. Wall Street Journal notes that everything is being re-examined:

In response to calls for conserving electricity, many businesses in Tokyo already are operating with dimmed lights, prompting some to post "open for business" signs on front entrances. The Tokyo metropolitan government turned off about half the city's street lights and many elevators in public facilities in the aftermath of the quake. Train service has been suspended on several routes because of the power shortage. Even the wattage of ubiquitous vending machines on nearly every street corner has been turned down.

Coming from a more interesting point of view, here is Bill McKibben at OurWorld 2.0:

Imagine, for instance, a nation that got most of its power from rooftop solar panels knitted together in a vast distributed grid. It would take investment to get there – we’d have to divert money from other tasks, slowing some kinds of growth, because solar power is currently more expensive than coal power. We might not have constant access to unlimited power at every second of every day. In the end, though, you’d have not only less carbon in the atmosphere, but also a country far less failure-prone.

The solar panels on my roof could break tonight — and I’d have a problem if they did — but it wouldn’t ramify into rolling blackouts across the continent (and no one would need to stand in my driveway with a Geiger counter). Such changes wouldn’t make the world safe: climatologists promise us we’ve already put enough carbon out there to raise our planet’s temperature two degrees in the decades to come, which will make for a miserably difficult century. But they also promise that if we don’t stop burning coal and oil, that number will double, and miserable will become impossible.

With Japan’s horror still unfolding, there’s nothing to do for the moment except watch, pray, and try to find some small ways to help people caught up in forces beyond their control. But the lesson we should learn, perhaps, is that it’s time to back off a little. Suddenly squat and plain words — “durable”, “stable”, “robust” — sound sweeter to the ear.

And elsewhere, such as in Germany, the anti-nuke Green Party makes strides in an important local election, sailing to power as The Mainichi puts it. Not sure anyone thinks this is going to be easy, but at least the press is trying to be cheerful.

Here is Falling by Japanese indie band Buddhistson:

http://buddhistson.com/press.html

I also liked Eyes in the Dark from 2009.

Eco News from Japan and Asia!

Port Town Blues

Here are a couple of videos with views from many different harbours and port towns around Japan, and an enka melody first released by Shinichi Mori back in 1969. Here is the karaoke version:



Do watch the version by Teresa Teng from Taiwan, who was a popular artist with a large fan base in Asia. The fan video is dedicated to the victims of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami:

We express great sympathy to those who suffered from disasters in the following port towns in this song: 函館 (Hakodate), 宮古 (Miyako), 釜石 (Kamaishi), 気仙沼 (Kesen-numa), and in many other areas.

I like how Asahi Shinbun wove this old standard into a fine essay about the fisheries of the region. Is a unique fishing culture lost forever?

"Minato-machi Burusu" (Port town blues), an old hit by popular singer Shinichi Mori, mentions the then-fine ports of Miyako, Kamaishi and Kesennuma. Strung along a saw-toothed coastline, these port towns were flattened by tsunami waves that crashed into the bay from all directions.

Cold and warm sea currents merge off the Sanriku coast, rendering the area one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Blessed with plentiful resources, local fishermen employed varied fishing methods, and boasted that the sea groomed them all into "true professionals."

Depending on which of these port towns they were from, the fishermen engaged in oceanic, near-sea or coastal fishing. Fish farming and seafood processing businesses also flourished, generating a "fish culture" unique to the region.

But, as often is the case, the version I like the best is the original, from 1969...



The pictures in the Teresa Teng video reflect these local port towns, mentioned in the lyrics, in this order:
函館 (Hakodate)
宮古 (Miyako)
釜石 (Kamaishi)
気仙沼 (Kesen-numa)
三崎 (Misaki)
焼津 (Yaizu) (Not Yaezu)
御前崎 (Omaezaki)
高知 (Kochi)
高松 (Takamatsu)
八幡浜 (Yawatahama) (Not Yahatahama)
別府 (Beppu)
長崎 (Nagasaki)
枕崎 (Makurazaki)
鹿児島 (Kagoshima)
桜島 (Sakurajima)

Eco News from Japan and Asia!

cotton candy "top notch and first rate."

sorry to post 3 youtube videos in a row, but this one has been blowing my mind... i plan on writing a review of the cotton candy album soon. it's probably the weirdest thing in the past year.



also i like how evelyn hurley is making a big deal out of the download code in the record. it's so goofy!