Idolminded

Idol Thought For The Day: Sickness And Compulsion

Ray Mescallado — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:00:22 +0000

I’ll keep this short and the whining to a minimum. From around noontime Sunday to one AM on Monday, I’ve been sick like a dog. It’s something I ate, definitely; most likely, not something prepared at home. Anyway, the twelve hours plus was spent in bed, my guts being wrenched inside-out, with frequent trips to the bathroom and a deathly fear of coughing or sneezing too hard. My family was quite indulgent of me, I was able to call off from work, and set aside other non-blogging obligations for the day.

The one thing I managed to do while sick was finish up the day’s Rec Reading – a little late, but no more so than I sometimes do. (The Sunday Funnies and Haikucandy were done and scheduled before the illness kicked in, thankfully.) I could have begged off on it, could have asked for some staffers to fill in for me, or just posted a short note that we’ll resume Monday. I didn’t go with any of that, though, mostly because it was the one thing I could do that was manageable and… Well, I couldn’t let it slide.

That’s what blogging is, ideally – a compulsion, a routine that will be ingrained in your life. it’s something that if you don’t do, will nag at you until you do it. And you may not always get to do it – if I was sicker than I was, or if it lasted longer than it did, IM would’ve gone silent – but when you can, you do.

And thinking about that, it seems kind of ludicrous – really, I should’ve just stayed in bed. But even then, I would’ve just used my tablet instead of my netbook to do the post. It’s not much of a life lesson, but maybe it’s an insight on the blogging impulse? Maybe. I guess the trick is to make the compulsion work for you, and not for you to work for the compulsion.

Today’s Haikucandy: Rio

Ray Mescallado — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:00:52 +0000

Let me swing my bat,
I guarantee there will be
Joy in your Mudville.

Sunday Funnies: Lessons Learned

Ray Mescallado — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:16:29 +0000

Idol Thought For The Day: Helping Out a Friend

Chiima — Sun, 19 May 2013 09:00:01 +0000

All links will be at the bottom of the page, thank you.

The post I am writing today is not about Idols or music, but about helping out a friend and also requesting help for this friend. I hope that you do read this, and also hope that you all bear with me.

Now, we all have friends in our life that we want to help out; they can be friends that we have met personally and know from everyday life, or friends that we have met and made online – either way, they are our friends and we truly care for them, and want to help them as much as we can when they need us. Even the smallest bit of help that we can offer is of great value to them because, as we say here in England (from a Tesco’s advert, no less) ‘Every Little Helps’. And really, a little can go a long way to one person, whether it is asking for help from others, or giving them advice or a little money to help them along the way.

Which brings me to the friend I want to help as much as I can, and I will also ask for your help as well.

Recently a friend of mine, Wotutu Mummy – who is a blogger, mother and drawing commissioner – asked for help on Facebook from people; she needs help in being able to raise money to buy a laminator in order to continue to sell her drawings to keep herself and her young daughter afloat and to make ends meet – and this is pretty much all she wants, a laminator to keep her work going, because Wotutu can not do any other sort of work away from home.

Here is the summary from the site where Wotutu hopes to raise money:

Hi, I’m Wotutu a 24 year old single mother. As my daughter has epilepsy I am her full-time carer and can’t get a job due to this. In recent times money has gone down and down and prices of food, electricity has gone higher, I used to be able to make ends meet from doing commissions, but now I’ve run so low on materials that I can’t afford to replace them. Food is a struggle. I’m running out of things to sell to keep our heads above water.

I don’t want handouts, I just want to be able to work to earn again. Qcon is coming up and I’m hoping to be able to make rent money from this.

However this is not the first time that Wotutu has struggled to try and earn money; there have been times in the short past where Wotutu has asked for help from friends, asking to buy commissions, just so that she can look after her daughter and keep them with a roof over their heads. As she explained in the summary, she does not have a job to support them as she is a full-time caregiver for her daughter, so she only has her commissions for others to keep her going right now.

As a friend of Wotutu Mummy, I am asking you all to help her out as much as you can. It doesn’t matter whether or not it is a big or small amount of help, just know that your help is of great value to Wotutu Mummy herself. Please aid her in getting a new laminating machine and supplies so that she can continuing doing her commissions in order to support not only herself, but her daughter as well. I know that times are tough and that we do not all have the leisure of money, but even if you help just a little, such as buying or making a commission, donating money or even just sharing this information, I know that it will all be of great help to her and her family.

Thank you for reading, everyone. Wotutu is a great friend. She has supported me from when I was still a new blogger and has been a great friend to me, so right now I want to help her out as much as I can, and I hope that you will be able to help her out as much as you can, too.

Wotutu’s Draws – Facebook
Wotutu’s Draws – Store
Wotutu’s Donation Campaign

Today’s Haikucandy: Yuma Asami

Ray Mescallado — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:23:39 +0000

The way you tickle
My ivories, these chopsticks
Grow into tree trunks.

Idol Thought For The Day: My Own Tanaka Reina Fandom

Ray Mescallado — Sat, 18 May 2013 09:00:20 +0000

I’ve been enjoying Chiima’s look back on Tanaka Reina’s career highlights on Okay! Musume Time, and it’s made me nostalgic. I used to love Tanaka Reina dearly as an idol… and then I didn’t. Actually, I learned to loathe her, feeling more than a little betrayed. Which sounds melodramatic, but feelings can run deep with idols, as any wota can attest, and Reina zigged when I thought she’d zag. Looking back now, I have no hard feelings and wish her the best, though I’ll still make a crack or two just to be a dick.

I know exactly what made me fall for Reina in the first place, and I even blogged about it back on Cult of Pop 2.0, circa 2005: Reina’s “Futarigoto” and Reina’s “Memory”, as in “Memory Seishun no Hikari”. Here’s the actual video, night time version, if you’ve never seen it. Watching it even now, I am in awe of her performance, of how powerfully she projects a certain vulnerability and truly sells the song. To me, Reina owns this song, not Natsumi Abe.

And I also vividly remember when I began to have my doubts – Reina’s solo performance of Tanpopo’s “Koi wo Shichaimashita” in Hong Kong. You can see a clip of it here. It’s painful to watch even now, not only because she’s practically winking out semaphore messages and making aegyo look bad, but because in retrospect this was a crossroads for her idol persona, if not her career.

I have to admit, the Hong Kong performance didn’t sour me on Reina right away – I mentioned it with as little judgment as possible in Chokkan 2 Close-Up: Reina. But it was the beginning of the end, and the more Reina became Winky, the less interested I was in her. Finally, I just stopped caring and moved on to other Musumes. Chokkan 2, by the way, was when I finally saw the virtues in Sayumi.

There are other idols I’ve fallen for, only to grow distant from later on. Kago Ai and Tsugunaga Momoko also come to mind, though each had different circumstances: Kago wore me down with scandal fatigue, while I just got tired of Momoko’s shtick. (Mostly. Every once in a while I get a hankering for Momoko still.) In Reina’s case, I admired the way she projected a certain earnestness and candor – the Yankee image was only a part of it, though it was an important part. It could’ve been just an act, but it was a very convincing act for me.

And when she decided to go all Winky and over-cute, the artifice of that was all wrong – for me, at least. Some idols can get away with it – Sayumi did, though she gave it an edge with her clever, sharp tongue – but on Reina it rang just a bit too hollow for me, it felt like she was doing a parody of an idol instead of being one. I understand it now as a smart career move, but she seemed to be hiding behind her idol persona instead of expressing herself with it. I could be horribly wrong on this, but like I said, being a wota is an emotional thing much of the time. And maybe I could have found it in me to re-assess and find myself a Reina fan again, but there wasn’t much motivation or interest in doing so, especially as the rest of Morning Musume eventually bored me and drove me away.

So now we’re at the end of her time as a Musume, and where does she stand? With the Chokkan 2 profile, I wrote,

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with Reina’s future post-Momusu, but I think she’s got enough careerism in her to set herself up for as many possibilities as she can create. She can become more of a rock diva (think “Yuujou”) with a funky Yankee or street look; she can go for the gentler power-ballad diva approach and perhaps get away with it; she can even believably lead her own unit, perhaps continuing Aa! and making them a Melon Kinenbi Version 2.0…

As it turns out, she’s now leading her own unit after all, and it has a bit of a rock image to it. And this may be a chance to become a Reina fan again, to give her another chance to win me over. I don’t think it’s going to happen, though, there are too many other idols who already demand my attention. Still, I wish her and all her current fans the best of luck with Lovendor. Whatever else I may think of her, I know she’s worked hard to get where she is, and she deserves whatever success she gets post-Musume.

Today’s Haikucandy: Sasaki Kokone

Ray Mescallado — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:00:42 +0000

Avengers tribute?
Now I get it! Those are Nick
Fury’s eyepatches!

Idolminded

Idol Thought For The Day: Sickness And Compulsion

Recommended Reading: May 19th, 2013

Thennary’s Picks

Ray’s Picks

Today’s Haikucandy: Rio

Sunday Funnies: Lessons Learned

Idol Thought For The Day: Helping Out a Friend

Recommended Reading: May 18th, 2013

Thennary’s Picks

Ray’s Picks

Today’s Haikucandy: Yuma Asami

Idol Thought For The Day: My Own Tanaka Reina Fandom

Recommended Reading: May 17th, 2013

Thennary’s Picks

Ray’s Picks

Today’s Haikucandy: Sasaki Kokone