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.

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.

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.

For instance -

+

+

= 13,500 yen including express shipping to Japan.

So. Awesome.

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.

So I take my ass down to the apple store hoping for an exchange on a six week old router, show them the discussion thread on the support forums, explain every single step I attempted in solving the issue, and explain how my time and email are too valuable to try and fix some rare Apple bug.

The staff girl talked with the genius upstairs, who had never heard of the issue and wanted to check it out.

Fine, I say. Oh, but they are booked for the rest of the day. Can you come back tomorrow.

What. The. Fuck.

I’ve already made on trip to your store for this rare issue. Now you want me to make another trip because your support queue is filled with people who can’t get the fucking iPods to work?

This is the biggest issue with Apple support. Giving everyone personal support is great, but if a customer says your product is broken, then don’t make them have to come back to prove it. Provide an exchange or facilitate sending it off to support. It literally doesn’t take a fucking genius to tell me what I already know. The thing is broken, fix it, give me a new one, or let me be. Lacking the ability to trust or handle customers other with anyone other than the three trained assholes dealing with iPods and people who don’t know how to use mail.app is not an acceptable excuse.

Tasty Indian food. Check.

Looking forward to the last bite on the fork. Check.

The disappointment of losing that last bite off the fork. Palpable.

Being shown a picture of that precious moment. Priceless.