Merely two weeks have passed since Buffalo Yo* (see resume) rode into Gotham City, making his triumphal entry, and rumors are already swirling around him like the tornadoes which used to menace him as he once grappled with the Red, White & Blue, All-American English language in the MidWest cornrows of Nebraska and Kansas when just a teenager.

There's chatter he's been spotted just a table away from Gohei Nishikawa's Steinway, and in the booth with The Englishman in New York, DJ Neal. However, reliable sources claim that he's already become Jean-Michel Basquiat to Norville Parchment's Andy Warhol.

Jayson Blair, formerly of the New York Times, is rumored to have asked him, but don't quote us on this, "do you see yourself as a Japanese artist, or as a Japanese-American artist?" Yo reportedly shot back, "Do you see yourself as an African-American plagiarist?" Touché!

Although he is just as likely to show up in the dugout next to Godzilla (Hideki Matsui), he's even more likely to suit up for the Red Bulls with the name Mothra stenciled on his back. Bend it like Beckham has nothing on this ace midfielder when he goes on a bender, although some nostalgists claim his style is more like Hidetoshi Nakata with the looks of Shunsuke Nakamura. By the way the girls scream in ecstasy when he sets foot on the pitch, he's the fifth Beatle, and he'll be the first to tell you that, no, Yoko Ono is not is real mother.

It will take more than his word alone, however, to dispel the even more vicious tabloid drivel that he was dating both Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda and Miho Hattori at the same time! He swears he's into far younger women, that he's not partial to Yamato Nadeshiko, though one shouldn't put it past him having a one-night stand with Madonna, if she was the last person in the bar.

Whatever his next move, it is already clear that the (karaoke) lounges of Vegas had become too cramped for this (punk rock) crooner, his agent having decided only weeks before, while drunk at a 4th of July Barbecue party--with rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air--that it was high time to get the hell out of Dodge and take a bite out of the BIG APPLE.

Who is this man, part samurai, part sweet and tender hooligan, said to have been raised by wolves on the Hokkaido tundra, or as some tell it, along the unforgiving shores of Fukui Prefecture? No one really knows for certain where he came from, but sometime, not long after God created man in His own image, out of fistfuls Shigaraki clay (or was it Joseon?), the DNA of the wandering nomad had already been created. This became clear to Yo himself only lifetimes later, as he roamed the prairies like a tumbleweed in search of gopher pelts, Indian arrowheads and other fragments of vanishing Americana. The realization that he carried strands of this very same DNA must have been painful indeed.**

As for his football (now pronounced sahr-kur***) career, often thought of as more of a sideshow, Yo made the grade in Lincoln, Nebraska, back in 1997 with indoor soccer's FC South Park, before he stepped outdoors and into the silver jersey of FC Porto International. It was only a matter of time before he was inevitably scouted by the Rangers. It doesn't surprise anyone now, that he even donned the fabled orange kit of the indomitable Woodpeckers International futsal club for a season.

Though Paul Bunyan-esque legends abound of him being the source of crop circles, or the father of five-card stud poker, one thing is certain--it's out of the frying pan and into the fire for the greatest embodiment of kamikaze ninja Japanese clichés ever to set foot in Times Square. Raise that Threat Level to RED. BANZAI! BANZAI!!

[The above information meets and exceeds the Falsification Standards set forth in Patriot Act I and Patriot Act II, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. -Proverbs 20:1.]

*Disambiguation: William Frederick Buffalo Bill Cody

**Disambiguation: Human, rather than Raëlian DNA

***Disambiguation: Soccer, also known as Association football

Compiled from various news feeds. Posted by Rob.

Is it just the ART you're into?

MUTO, animation on walls by blu on Vimeo.

Discovered by Andrew. Posted by Rob.

Alex's brother Ben sent me this video response to my comment on his sinkfull of dirty dishes, and my informing him that Vegemite contains GMOs (which is just a terrible rumor I heard), and that he should switch to Marmite. Thanks for the live painting Ben!

Photo stolen from Ben's facebook. Thanks for the photo too!

Posted by Rob.

Tags: NFTOS, Ben Brooke, Rob, portrait, Vegemite, Marmite, art, painting, cracker, blackmail, dirty, dishes, kitchen, sink, lemon, Tokyo, 東京, 台所, アート

News From The Other Side started out as an online community on groups.msn.com in early 2001. It served as a travel blog and art gallery, and provided the network for our first group art show in Seoul, Korea, in 2004. Since then we've had 3 more group shows, 2 in Osaka and one in Tokyo.

In the 7 years which have passed, the old MSN community got deleted once and came back, and this weblog and podcast have since emerged. Most who know about NFTOS are probably only familiar with the latter, while many more have probably only seen the NFTOS videos on YouTube, MySpace or Revver.

So, what's next? Hopefully another art show in the not so distant future, but for now, Makiko and I are in New Zealand staying with friends Claire and Andrew (a regular participant in NFTOS art shows). We'll be doing some volunteer organic farming, or wwoofing, then we'll probably try to find jobs and it will be back to business as usual. In the meantime, you can help keep this thing going by telling your art-culture-music-travel oriented friends about NFTOS. Make sure to subscribe to us on iTunes--newsfromtheotherside--it's free! And, if you're feeling generous, send us a PayPal donation!

Posted by Rob.

A collage by captured on cellphone by Rob and set to music by Quest a.k.a. Hayden. Collage by Charles Billard captured by cell phone video camera with original audio--English, French and Japanese--set to music by Quest a.k.a. Hayden. For the first version uploaded sans music, click here.

Back in the summer I got a disk with 14 Quest tracks on it, from which I've drawn from quite liberally in recent Talk Shows. I'd like to upload some of them as .mp3s once I get a list of track names from Hayden.

Posted by Rob.

Tags: NFTOS, Charles, Billard, Rob, Quest, Hayden, collage, art, Uehommachi, Osaka, Japan, Yannic, Alex Brooke, Learn, Japanese, French, voices, 大阪

View it! Details within. Posted by Rob.



Tags: NFTOS, DJ Wes, Hitomi Nova, Rob a.k.a. El Gringo, Chove Chuva, Higobashi, Osaka, Japan

Here's a link to my brother Rolf's artwork, which I believe mostly dates back to his college days. I wish he'd do some new stuff! Right now he's more into building LEGO models. Have a look!

http://pic5.piczo.com/rolfholbrook/?g=26633837&cr=5

and

http://pic5.piczo.com/rolfholbrook/?g=6114877&cr=5

Posted by Rob.

The process of creating abstract art. Posted by Rob.

Here are new pieces of art created by B Chan's 8 year old nephew.

 

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Here's another one from Noisivelvet (Joe Baldwin) in Chicago. I'll ask him if we can add this one to iTunes. Posted by Rob.