It is a strange thing to say for a man, but I always had a vision of how my own wedding would play out. Call me a new romantic, or just a little bitch, but I always saw a close group of friends watching me walk down the aisle in Tadao Ando’s Church of Light, dressed in a made-to-measure Tom Ford suit, with a gorgeous bride dressed in a Vera Wang gown soon following me. I dreamed of a hybrid between the traditional and non-traditional, a statement of who I am as a person, but more importantly who I am as a member of a team; one that from that day forward would be inexorably tied together not just by the bonds of love, but by the bonds if marriage. Surely it is hubris to plan such an event without the hint of who or when, but sometimes dreams do come true.

Mine did.

Except my dream wasn’t realized for me, but for two of my dearest friends, Robert and Marlena Love.

I don’t think that I have ever been happier, nor as emotional, as I was at their wedding. To see two individuals who have shared so much, who put away fears and past trespasses to allow love to conquer what circumstance could have easily torn apart, take their vows was a unique privilege that I will treasure forever. To see them share the same sort of wedding dream that I had held privately, down to the Tom Ford suit and the Vera Wang gown, could easily be written off as coincidence. However, one dismisses such coincidence at their own peril.

Rather I took it to be a confirmation of their love through the my own personal experiences. To accept no compromise. To want the best for your partner. To see it through no matter what bad cards are dealt along the path. All of these are emotions I’ve felt in my own personal wedding fantasy, and seeing two people who shared this fantasy, but also made it a reality, gives me supreme confidence that not only are their feelings true, but they will certainly be lasting.

In a way there was a certain melancholy that came with seeing them wed. They had found their happy ending in a mirror image of what I always thought mine would be. But any bittersweet feelings were overcome by the joy I had in seeing two of my most beloved friends make official in their own way, with their own dreams and words and vows, what I had known and continue to know to be true. While it takes courage and maturity to believe, compromise and patience to sustain, love truly conquers all.

Robert and Marlena proved it to me when I had come to doubt it myself. It was a gift worth more than the hours or miles of distance traveled, and it is one for which I am eternally grateful.

Enjoy your lives together. May your happiness and love grow stronger each day.

For the past 14 months, I have been working with my friend Max in my free time to create an iPhone app. It’s called Cue Play DJ, and it is basically the best mobile DJing solution available for any platform other than your laptop.

We set out to make something that would distill the experience of Traktor and put it into your hand. I think we have succeeded, but I would love for you all to check it out yourselves.

One of the best parts of the project for me has been showing it to my DJ friends. From Ferry Corsten, who was on-board the project at a very early stage and has been incredibly supportive, to Mike Koglin, who literally could not let go of the app, to all the DJs who play with me at my residency at Club Joule, it has been an absolute blast to see people realize what we can do on mobile devices now. A radio DJ who does the lunchtime slot daily for Tokyo radio station J-Wave (www.j-wave.co.jp) is even going to use our app on an iPad to DJ his next non-stop megamix!

The best part is, it is only going to get better. Mikami-san always told me that getting into the nitty gritty parts of production from zero to the finish line was the best way to learn things, and he could not have been more correct.

Anyways, if you are interested in the app and want a promo code, I will pick a few people from the comments and send one out. Make sure to include your email address in the required field so I can get ahold of you.

This course scares me just watching it. At 1:35, he tags a nasty boulder and lets out a yelp that is almost pure terror.

I was having a kinda bummed out night, but strangely, this made me a little happier.

Alexander McQueen was an inspiration to me.

There was something daring about his clothes. Something naughty and slightly off-kilter. They were about taking the places inside that we keep private, and transforming them into these intricately cut garments that forced them to the surface. Walking into his boutique in Osaka was one of my favorite things to do, just to feel the clothes, look at how they were tailored, dream of having the money, and the audacity, to wear something more than one of his skull scarves or a t-shirt.

This is the L.A. store. I visited it back in October, and I loved being there. The man hanging from the rafters is now prophetic and sad. He isn’t actually hanging though.

I loved his Puma collaboration. My white trainers came with a sharp metal fang that I loved too much to remove from the shoes, until they began to scar the outside of the white leather. I eventually took the fang off, not because I disliked what it was doing to the shoes, but because I never wanted to look down and see it missing.

Then there was the women’s wear. Whether he was misogynistic or not, as a man, a woman dressed in McQueen was scary and desiring. His last collection (where Lady GaGa premiered Bad Romance) was about these computer generated scale prints, vaguely reptilian or fish like, but when I saw them paraded down the runway, I thought that he had created a feminine praying mantis. They were scary, and deadly, and incredibly alluring.

However, my favorite collection was probably Autumn 2007. Themed after the witch hunts, he played with long sleek shapes, tall hairdos, and darkness. Models walked a red pentagram drawn on a dark floor, lit only by spotlights following them. A few weeks after I saw this show on TV, I walked into PlatinumGames for the first time and saw Bayonetta. She is, and always will be, the Alexander McQueen model of video games to me. I saw her and instantly I identified his influence in her.

Watch that, and tell me if you still think Bayonetta’s proportions are “off”. Alexander McQueen used scissors and fabric to make these women look larger than life. And yet they still seem dangerous, and intensely sexy. If Bayonetta were real, I bet she would have adored Alexander McQueen.

But now he is gone. Life is a little bit more mundane. Women are a little less sexy. The world is a little less dangerous.

Thank you.

A little speculation from GameTrailers on what’s next…
My lips are sealed, as always.

Silver Week is upon us, and the best way to celebrate your last free night, Tuesday 9/22, is by coming to Joule in Osaka.

Come check me spinning house up on the Terrace at Joule (open to non-VIP patrons for the first time since the big move) while Ken Ishii, Q’Hey, and Dai tear apart the main room with the best Japanese techno has to offer.

Guest list is, of course, a given – so hit me up in the comments if you need to be added to the list.

It has been ages since I’ve posted on this blog.

Part of it has to do with the complete and total implosion of my personal life (Mai and I broke up after six years a little less than four months ago). The other part has to do with a faulty AirPort Extreme that didn’t let me blog from home.

But putting all that aside, I suppose I should blog about this awesome art exhibition I went to today.

Art Osaka was held at the Dojima Hotel, an upscale design hotel in Umeda. They took over four floors of the hotel and had a gallery turn each room into a mini-exhibition for their shop. There were tons of slightly deformed, dark takes on the human form, which seemed to be a trend at the show. But my own personal interests trending more towards the pop side of things, I thought I would introduce some works that caught my eye.

BTW – I don’t often go to art galleries/shows, but I really enjoy them. I went alone this time, but if anyone is interested in going to a show, or going to Geisai with me next year, drop me a line.

This is a work by Chih-Wei Chiu, an artist from Taiwan. I really like the focus on the eyes, and the vaguely sexual imagery going on. Use of color is incredibly as well. Very cool.

These are supposed to be steampunk robots that protect infant babies. The one in the center has a pacifier on its chain, and the hawk is actually a bottle. I don’t think you could call these simple figures, nor could you call them sculptures. They are a nice high-low juxtaposition that really attracts me. Very cool resin models.

This is by Masako Higashi, a 25 year old girl from Osaka who is currently working at a game company. Her work was my favorite at the show, and I wanted to buy a particular painting that matched the color scheme of my apartment. I like the mix of anger and innocence, and it is easy to imagine the emotions inside a Japanese girl that would encourage these kinds of works. It is a mix of the pop art cultural influences that youth in Japan are raised in, along with early 20s angst and a kawaii design aesthetic. I spoke with her for a while (she is very cute… I wish I could have gotten her number) and her work is awesome.

So there was my Sunday. Off to bed now. I ate too many homemade tacos and am damn near in a food coma.

Dante’s Inferno is a book and a game concept very close to my heart. Inserting Dante references subtly into game scripts is one of my calling cards, most obviously in the stage names and achievements for Devil May Cry 4.

My initial reaction to EA’s Inferno trailer was shock at how much I liked it… Until I saw the guy fighting and jamming crosses in heads.

I’ve been thinking about it more and more, and I think it is more like he is going through a conception of Dante’s Hell, loosely based of Dantean Cosmography. Evidence of this is coming from the trailer, which they briefly flash a map seemingly inspired by the existing carvings of Dante’s hell.

Also, the main site, seems focused on the Gates of Hell – with the Thinker from Rodin’s gate, and the eternal pain line on the sign-up screen being taken from the translation on the gate in Inferno itself.

I still have issues with the main character. It seems like a man fighting his way into hell, where it would be a more interesting plot for a man to fight his way out, especially with how boring the lower circles, devoted to betrayers, are. If you figure that Judas is essentially being eternally gnawed upon, and the rest of the circle is just men frozen solid in various contortions, it would be the most anti-climatic final stage of all time. The character design is also not the direction I would have taken, but oh well.

Anyways, I wish that team the best of luck, and a huge part of me wishes that I was on this one with them. I think there is still a wonderful Dante game to be made, incorporating many elements of the man and the book, as opposed to playing an original story set in his world.

The strong yen and insane Christmas sales has been devastating my wallet, but some of these deals are too good to pass up.

For instance -

+

+

= 13,500 yen including express shipping to Japan.

So. Awesome.

Well, I can now access my website after exchanging my AirPort Extreme base station for a new one.

If it didn’t work, I was going to sell it on ebay and take Gregg’s recommendation, but thankfully I am back for the attack. I may hate Apple service, but I love AirDisk, which is why the AirPort Extreme is perfect for me. Screw the TimeCapsule.

So, yeah, back on the attack… And speaking of on the attack, SEGA opened up the official MadWorld page today.

http://www.madworldgame.com/

Check it out when you get the chance.