Name: Segun "Shuggi", aka "Shuggi"
Web Site: http://www.shuggi.net
Bio: An academic if there ever was one. Segun "Shuggi" De Silva chooses to live life to it's chaotic extremes. An avid fan of "Game Theory" and "Chaos Theory" his perceptions on human nature have been shaped by a life of adventure.
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Blue Boy – Remember Me
March 19th, 2012Maxwell, The Roots and the various artists that make up “Neo Soul” are accreditted with reintroducing funk and emotion into soul music.
Before blowing up globally, the stage had been primed by the genre altering Acid Jazz movement.
Shuggi Day Movie
January 16th, 2011
Simple Minds – Don’t You (Forget About Me)
January 2nd, 2011The only thing I understood, at the end of the movie, I could sing along “LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA LA LA ALA LA LA LA.”
One of the best parts about having a mom who worked her butt off, you had a VCR, cable and a cool TV in the early 80′s. Beyond the classic children movies of the 80′s, we also owned every film from John Hughes. I don’t fully understand where these movies came from, just the characters that would define my idealized future teenage years.
Was it unhealthy to have a 5 year old watch Breakfast Club, not so much when you consider the books I read. The Breakfast Club highlighted the madness of what high school could be, before I fully understood cliques. The only thing I understood, at the end of the movie, singing along to “LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA LA LA ALA LA LA LA.”
Simple Minds, a band I never really cared to follow or even knew their name, had my jam. The haunting plea to be remembered by another, meant nothing beyond how good it sounded. Lucky for me and my sister, there isn’t video evidence of us singing along at the end of the film. We just rocked this song hard.
To this day, even though the songs meaning is clear in my mind. It reminds me of those fun moments of my sister and I simply getting along laughing. Movies were such a foundation of our childhood and those soundtracks in the 80′s always had one standout track.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpc7TBhilFI
Nitin Sawhney – Mausam
January 1st, 2011Living life in one colour,
My dear is not a good thing,
Sadness and happiness are two paths,
Travelling on one path is not a good thing.As the season (mausam?) changes,
Happiness comes and sadness goes.- Mausam
Who am I? Well, it all depends on who and when you ask somebody. Life is about truth, only lies and ignorance can allow you to live a life always in a state of happiness and disillusionment, disdain and knowledge in sorrow. The Catholic Church in centuries past, believed that speaking to the ignorant, in a language they couldn’t understand about god was their best path to the joys of heaven. Did it work? Who clearly knows that answer because, we aren’t capable of doing a headcount in heaven. The modern form of sorrow can be found in those decaying urban cities where children deal drugs, hyper-aware of the true limitations and possibilities in society.
The beauty of Eastern philosophy, one lost upon it’s western counterparts is the understanding of balance. Life is about embracing both to gain a greater insight and appreciation for both. In a song, introduced by my father because, his great love for Nitin Sawhney had to be shared. While most of the tracks were in English, including “Letting Go,” a song that could have easily found itself on this list. Mausam spoke to me, even though I couldn’t understand the lyrics, my soul somehow had.
For somebody who choose to carefully acknowledge life as a time of seasons, I enjoyed floating between the two. Why worry about suffering if at any given point, I can choose to be happy? Why worry about happiness, when the realities of life prevent you from ever staying there? The problem is when you get stuck, unable to acknowledge the other reality or worse, fear what it symbolizes. In being exposed to all these philosophies, life can never truly conform to a society that states any deviance requires a pill.
People should listen to Mausam only to experience the lyrics and if it feels them with a sense of calm. It was only last year that I felt inclined to find the lyrics to the song. Upon finding them, I understood why, I had fallen in love with it so many years ago. Seasons do change and life consists of paths we can choose. To follow one, which I clearly don’t, prevents you from truly living life.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQx9XAKcc4I
David Bowie – Magic Dance
December 31st, 2010Ask anybody who watched Labyrinth and they will universally make a “You remind me of the babe. What babe? The babe with the power” reference.
The greatest movie of my childhood, without question was Labyrinth. There isn’t a debate on the merits of Dark Crystal, The Last Unicorn and Carebears The Movie all being outstanding and touching movies, but nothing compares to a coked up David Bowie in a codpiece. Labyrinth is a musical that by todays standards might be rated R, considering the grotesque nature of Bowie playing with a baby would create howls of improper relations.
Ask anybody who watched Labyrinth and they will universally make a “You remind me of the babe. What babe? The babe with the power” reference. If they don’t, well they have no sense of joy in their lives. The pure cult of personality that was Bowie was not lost on a generation that knew nothing of his music. What we did know was, he was always singing throughout the movie and had an accent.
Everything about the soundtrack reminds you of that wonderfully whimsical film. The whole thing just took your little brain, scrambled it and showed you a totally new and amazing world. One where it was acceptable to have a clearly drugged Bowie hitting on what appeared to be a 13 year old Jennifer Connelly. Seriously, when you look on this movie as an adult, it is seriously creepy. Yet, as a child it was an adventure that included a song about spells and and magic dancing. We were too oblivious to the suggestion, slapping a baby would set it free. No, we were too busy singing along and dancing to understand child abuse.
Bowie will forever be remembered for his shameless pop opus, Magic Dance. From the heroin addicted creepy guy, to child movie icon, only in the 80′s folks. A time when Jim Henson and his puppets made Bowie seem soft and human. I own the blue ray, I own the soundtrack, because BABY SAID, buy it.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViftZTfRSt8
Wu Tang Tang – I Can’t Go To Sleep
December 31st, 2010Stop all this crying and be a man.– Issac Hayes from I Can’t Go To Sleep
Protect Yo Neck! Diversify Yo Bonds! Konichiwa, Bitch! Cream get that money! Ghost and Rza decide it’s time to provide an ethnographic piece on the struggle of black people in America. The lyrics and story speak for themselves.
Guilty Pleasure
December 31st, 2010Scorn, I can’t over emphasize how disgusted my dad was with getting Happy 2B Hardcore 2
Everyone has a guilty pleasure, mine just happens to be Track 7 & 8 off a Happpy 2B Hardcore album. The redheaded stepchild of the dance scene (sorry, gabber), with it’s needlessly fast BPM and joyous use of vocal samples. Damn that Crown Chakra for it’s inability to stay closed to a slightly distorted vocal of any quality.
Scorn, I can’t over emphasize how disgusted my dad was with getting Happy 2B Hardcore 2. I was over visiting his house and he just said, “here, this is totally you.” Everything he hated about dance music could be found in that album, repetitive beats, annoying samples and slightly below average production. He would have slipped the disc into my bags, just to remove it from his house.
Just how bad is my love of this album and the two standout tracks in my mind. Josh and Legs both hate it and they are electronic music junkies. When, they’re laughing at you and suggesting you breakout the gabber to improve, you know something is wrong.
hospitality business in Japan
December 30th, 2010Segun DeSilva
Rec 3999
The hospitality business in Japan is multifaceted and serves basically the same purpose to make a tidy profit. The various hotels range in the capsule hotels that serve company men, love hotels for lovers, hotels in coastal areas and the traditional 4 star style hotels. While living in a small town has its select perks the benefit towards doing research for Rec 3999 was interesting because the owner of one of the local love hotels my students parents. This allowed me visit the hotel and ask some basic questions about what services they cater to. While in Tokyo my first night in Japan I had the pleasure of experience one of the better capsule hotels in town that was located in Roppongi. The other hotel branch I have had the pleasure of visiting is a normal hotel that my host brothers best friend owns. The 3 various hotels I have visited since being in Japan have shown me some of the standard values that all hotels cater to while the drastic differences can sometimes make the similarities invisible.
The capsule hotel was an unexpected stay given the fact I had a reservation I canceled at a small little hotel on the other side of Tokyo in the Ueno area. However, I had dinner plans with my friends and being it my only night in Tokyo decided to spend it in the Shibuya Ku. I landed in Tokyo without hotel accommodations as I fully expected to stay at an internet café all night long. While this seems like a very impractical ideal they have become the accommodation of choice among the younger company men given the ability to use the internet, play video games, watch DVDs, read Comics, and enjoy free drinks and the shower that is readily available. A far stretch from the common image of a wide open space shared by many users the Japanese internet café has private rooms in the size of cubicles with lockers and slippers and robes for its guests. There is a light night owl cost at many and in some cases they have room for 2. The rate is around 15 dollars making it an extremely choice for around 7 hours of rest and entertainment.
I was not able to partake in my normal one night in a city stay given that my friends wanted me to stay in a proper hotel or at least a capsule. The result was me getting on a bus to Roppongi to stay in a capsule hotel which was more then I expected. My great fear was that the place would just be a series of capsules stacked on top of each other with a grungy shower and that I would be fairly uncomfortable within one. Come to find out for 40 dollars I was in what could be considered a pretty fine hotel. The only problem being that the 2 women working the front desk had no control of the English language. This was not a tourist hotel and it catered to Japanese only, luckly my friend spoke English although the fact she was female meant she was separated from me and any problem I had they would wake her up to solve. With that I took my key and locker and went to my room upstairs. I forgot to note that my shoes had been taken off even to come into the registration area. Upstairs I walked by about 30 set of the art massage chairs with TVs, next to that were the lockers that stored towels and a change of clothes into teal blue Pjs and a place for your belongings. Because I am huge by Japanese standards I wound up sleeping in my clothes with my bag all fitting into the capsule. I felt this was extremely amazing given the fact that I am about 6 foot 3 and my feet did not stick out, and I had room for my bag and could still turn around. The capsule held personal environmental controls, an 8 inch TV, and an alarm clock plus a light. The capsule provided privacy via a nice little screen that pulled down which drowned outside light but not my horrible snoring.
The next morning I had more of a chance to explore as I placed my bag into my locker, it was a weekday morning around 6am and the amount of people awake was astounding. They were getting massages, and soaking in the massive bath which was easily 20 feet long and 6 feet wide. The shower room was extremely nice and had a fully selection of toiletries, and next to that was a room dedicated to shaving and hair. Each vanity had hair dryers and other things needed to look ones best. I didn’t really care about that because I was extremely embarrassed to shower in a group of men. The bathroom required bathroom slippers that had to have been a size 9, because I couldn’t even fit my foot into them. The urinals were all the latest no flush Toto and the toilets all western style and shaped like a home toilet but clearly built for hospitality needs. I decided to go downstairs to explore the rest of the hotel only too find even more massage recliners. In addition there were 4 spa rooms that contained 4 different type of massage treatments which were reasonably priced at 30 dollars a half hour. A little past that was a dinner room for a fully stocked kitchen that cooked food to order. The water pot was located there along with beers and the such. The only problem I really had found was that smoking was allowed in the eating area only which was a pain. I think I would have never thought all those services would have been there nor provided for such a reasonable price. I ended up checking out with the help of my friend who then made sure I found out how to get to the airport for my connecting flight ok.
The next adventure was at a love hotel which is a hotel that is used mostly for sex or romantic evenings out. The lack of space and proximity to neighbors or children has made love hotels extremely popular for their privacy and mood settings. Love hotels also feature no front desk staff and the guest never sees anyone as they enter and exist the hotel. The kids who happen to live behind the hotel in their family home seem very well adjusted considering the type of hotel their family runs. The hotels feature garages that the visitor drives into, then cover the identity of the car with a door or curtain. They then walk through a special door that normally leads directly
Coconut Oil: the emerging substitute on the Global market
December 30th, 2010I have a feeling this was for Dr. Meredith’s South East Asian Economic Geography class. You can tell it was a rush job because, I didn’t even post a class. This is a draft, I couldn’t find the final version. However, I thought it warranted being posted. Only to show, what a rush job of mine looks like, kinda similar to the other rush jobs.
Raise of a Nationalistic Propaganda Machine
December 30th, 2010The Geography department was lovely to me. They allowed me to write whatever I wanted and never proofread my work. The beauty was, they were so darn supportive and interested in their students, you wanted to learn. I highly suggest anybody with a chance to experience a course taught by Dr. Meredith
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