dubtribe sound system ~ farewell tour ~

after eight years, DUBTRIBE SOUND SYSTEM announces their long-anticipated return to toronto for a final live performance of beautiful and organic, deep, funky house grooves. during the height of the underground party movement of the 90's, dubtribe helped define the era with favourites such as "equitoreal" "do it now", and "sunshine's theme", while boasting releases on top labels such as bmg, jive electro + defected, as well as their own imprint, imperial dub recordings. this loving san francisco duo is world-renowned, attracting caravans from far and wide to witness their awe-inspiring and infectious live sets that spread the message of goodwill, peace and love. please join us as we celebrate their farewell performance and share one more dance together in the beautiful and historic steamwhistle brewery.

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So I arrived at the steamwhistle brewery just around 11:30pm (my bike ride allowed me to get there in 15 minutes! yes!!!! LOL) to check out this show. By the time I got there, Hali was at the deck already mixing for his set.

I was supposed to meet a frind, Charles there, so I looked for him, only bumping into so many of my great old buddies there. I was especially so very happy to see Melanie.

This girl has such a warm and truly sweet smile. The words can not describe the way this girl smiles. One thing that I can tell ya is that she is REAL. She is so honest with her feelings and she is a very strong gal. I love and admire such part of her, and it makes me feel great whenever I see her smile, cause I know she is not faking it, but being true to her feelings, ya know??????

She was hanging around with Matt and Pete, a couple other music lovers and musically talented individuals, whom I have known since I first moved here in the year of 2000. It was absolutely wicked how I got to share a little bit of my life update with them. I felt like blushing after I shared what I had to say (because Mel, Matt and Pete surrounded me and just quietly listened to what I had to share with them when there is great music playing and dance flor to bust your moves!! LOL), but it was very very touching how they shared their time listening to my story and engaging in a talk with me.

You know, I never dislike the idea of going to the club or party for the sake of socializing with others. I go there to listen and feel the music and gain positive energy from the experience and apply the gained elements and energy into my own life (inspiration/insightful/nurturing/fulfilling/manifesting/new creative ideas, you name it, being a part of wonderful music performance is my passion, as it has always reminded me to be true to who I am). So if I encounter a soul that gives me great vibe, I am happy for such treasure, but not something that I expect, knowing the nature of clubbing business and how people tend to use the venue to get off their negative energy in such openly and sometime reluctant manner.

Anyway, my point was that, I was very glad that after years of partying, these people that I met from the online music community, tribe are kind of individuals who are there for the music and all about sharing the great vibes, because just like my another friend, Norm puts it, "there is no meaning in life if there is no music". ;) So enuff of my rants about my great buddies here in Toronto (i just wanted to express how thankful I am to have them here!!)

The show It was one of the most touching, inspiring, insightful, beautiful, deep, and soulfully and musically wonderful live PA I have ever experienced in my life. I experienced so many different emotions during their performance: excitement, craziness, funkiness, deep, insightful, touching, sadness, appreciation, wishful, hopeful, fulfilled and thankful… A couple moments and at the end of the show, I could not help but let my tears fall off my eyes. I am very thankful that Hali (the poundhouse crew) made this happen and bringing them to Toronto for their farewell tour. All I want to say to DSS is "thank you" for all the love and positive will that they have shared and spread thru their wonderful music. I feel that whenever I remember this show, I will get to remind myself to be always true to myself and be loving and friendly to all around me and all we have in our life :)

One of my favorite dubtribe songs: "Do it now"

You say you're lonely
Don't care anymore
Emptiness abounds
and love surrounds
the hole besides your heart

You're feeling so sad,
And it's never been this bad before

Don't wanna change the world
But I'm gonna change your mind
I'll only say that if you stay
Love is what you'll find
But you're gone... 'cause love takes so long

You say you're empty
Don't feel anymore
Loneliness abounds
And the music pounds around and around and around...

You're moving way too fast
Like nothing ever lasts
Just keep on ... pushing

Could be anything you want
Could do anything you feel
Love is all around you
but you don't believe it's real
Just be fearless
Baby be fearless...

Do it now.
Do it now.
Do it now.
Do it now.

All my life I sit and wonder
Why you put yourself down
What's so bad, what's so bad, what's so bad, what's so bad
About what we have now?
Raise your hands... in the twilight
Raise your hands... to the sky
and say "I love you"
No fear anymore
Happiness is found
Let love come down
and shine inside your heart

You're beautiful inside
I'm in love with your mind and your heart and your soul and your eyes
Could be anything you want
Could do anything you feel
Love is all around you
but you don't believe it's real

Open up your mind
Listen to your heart
Leave loneliness behind
Come on, come on, come on

Do it now.
Do it now.
Do it now.
Do it now... :)

Have not seen me so dark like this!

So before get going for my day, I decided to take a snap photo of myself (yeah, I got the nokia phone that comes with the photo/video audio tools installed) , only to realize how tanned I am after 3 visits to the beaches/lakes this year. Pretty impressive I thought (as I was always known as a pale-looking girl), so here they are: the tanned Kumi-let me know what u think~~~

;)

A great drawing of me by Vincenzo

My Great (new) friend, Vincenzo kindly did this amazing drawing of me (from a childhood photo)...I am amazed at this work. Wow!!!! I feel super special. Vince, I would love to return you a great favour!!!! Thank you very much for your time and your great work!!!


SWEET!

How generous can you be?

My mind is blown away and I am very speechless after seeing this 100 dollar bill in my wallet after stopping over at the Shopper's Drug Mart a few minutes ago.

So my question is: how generous can you be? to someone you know for less than a month and be 120 % supportive to all you are trying to do in your life?

Here is my story...
I became such close friends with this boy since returning here in Toronto less than a month ago. He is now my roommate and I have been completely speechless realizing how generous and kind-hearted person he is.

-He does not accept any of my money when we go to grocery shopping at China Town/Kensington Market, simply because I have not found a job yet (no source of income), and he does not want to see me getting broke once he departs for his trip to Ukraine to meet his friends and family there.

-Although we made an agreement that I pay half of the 2 bedroom apartment rent as his roommate, he does not accept my money and covers 20 % of my initially agreed rent.

-He just departed for his travel this evening, and I found two cheques in the cabinet: one covering the whole August rent and one covering his rent, leaving it up to me to decide which cheque to use based on my financial situation. He does not ask me how my wallet is doing, but just modestly extends options as this.

-And I realized that he sneakingly left his 100 dollar bill in my wallet, when I went to the shoper's drug mart and opened my wallet for the first time today.

-He is a type of a person who would call his friends to fix my bike without me asking for his help, but purely based on his pure generousity and great consideration to make my life easy.

-I appreciate his friendship and my new friendships with his friends, so I made the Japanese dinner and invited some of his friends over. I realized that I was missing some stuff for the dinner, so asked him to go and get some for me. He left but came back shortly after leaving and asked me to get his paper (or something I do not really recall right now). When I passed the stuff to him, he sort of checked my height and thanked me and left. An hour later, he came back with this huge fresh cut flowers that covered my whole head. I then knew why he checked my height before leaving....

....

Especially after gaining PTSD, I find myself asking how much generousity to give to others, simply because I do not want to get hurt by trusting them 100%. But having Ilya who is genuingly so giving and considerate to others make me feel that I can extend my generousity without doubts or suspicious mind, as long as my actions is based on pure consideration, care and love to others (based on my decision, I should be 100 % responsible for my actions).

I feel very special that I have someone like him who can teach me a lot of things in human generousity and true samurai spirit (once he said: "Real samurais never show their feeling , but actions"). Thank you very very much, Ilya. Although you did not have to do all these, I am very thankful for your great consideration and care. Spasiva Illushe-chika!!

Having Tomomi over for dinner

I wanted my friend, Tomomi to meet Ilya before Ilya departing for Ukraine, so she came over to our place for dinner last nite. Due to my busy schedule and not having had a chance to do much grocery shopping over the weekend, I prepared some food based on what we had in the fridge, but all turned out fairly well, and once again, I was happy with the dishes: We had teriyaki flavoured chicken with steamed carrots, sweet potatoes and sugar snaps. Chickpea and Potato Curry, edamame, steamed brown and wild rice and miso soup.

We had a little bit of sake from our previous Japanese dinner with a bunch of Russian friends, so we had a sip of that as well :) For desert, we had semi-dark and white chocolate chips and cashew cookies, strawberry bubble tea and mango sherbet (thanks to Tomomi).

Ilya's friend, Sasha made a surprise visit, so he joined with our dinner for a little bit :)
Here is Tomomi enjoying the chickpea and potato curry :)

It was such a great pleasure having friends over for dinner. You know, the past numerous years, I cooked meals and ate all alone by myself (most of the time), and I hated it!!! I grew up in a big family, so I have such a great pleasure sharing food and enjoying the meal together with others under family oriented farm envirnoment, you know? So it was super great that Tomomi and Sasha joined our dinner.

After Sasha left, all of us explored Ilya's great music collections, especially within Tibetian music. Ilya recently had a huge crash on the music performed by a couple asian (Japanese) musicians who played some ancient Tibetian (nepalian) instruments at the Kensington Market, and Tomomi turned out to be friends with them. LOL And while going thru many of Tomo's photos in her digital camera, we realized that the people whom she took a photo of were actually ilya's friends as well. So it was quite interesting evening realizing how small world we have, especially having it the first evening for Ilya and Tomomi to communicate with each other (encountering new inspiring people and learning they were friends of our friend).

But like Tomo said the other day, I believe that we have the power/magnet to attract the type of people who share the same wavelength (similar energy)...so maybe this is why friends connect good friends after another in this world :)