Seaside Lovers - Memories In Beach House (Bernie Grundman Remaster) (2020) [24bit FLAC]

On late autumn days, when the sun hangs in the air for hours, even in descent, I usually walk out the door towards the strip of land known as the International District, here. One of the more underrated parts of the city, it slopes downward from just near my apartment towards the bay, and as one goes down, by foot or by the modern streetcar that uses the same road, you go through the territories of the various immigrant communities - in order as you descend: Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese. The order designates approximately when the larger portion of the immigrants arrived. The Chinese, here at the start, in both the shipping and railway boom that began the city, nearest the bay, the Japanese soon after from, not entirely but notably, the luxurious steam lines that ran to Seattle (first in the US to have such), and the Vietnamese expatriates last of all, forced out from Saigon when it fell.

It is really quite a vibrant place, if a bit dirty and old - positioned too near the industrial areas to the south, but more importantly, to the seedy areas that surround and are underneath the interstate, where the homeless camp, in The Jungle, as part of the snaking territory has been so affectionately named. The food is cheap and there is always that language barrier which, if embraced, introduces always an element of chance that comes from that which is lost in translation.

What has always struck me are the many travel agencies all throughout the territory. They are nearly always empty, and the store front is decorated with fading signs of new flights operating out of the airport here. They seem to all originate from that glorious period before the '97 crash, when all of Asia seemed on fire - everything converging upon the prosperity of Japan, which by then, incidentally, was quite a ways into one of its lost decades.

So I listen to this album as I walk towards the bay. On better days the sun reflects off the water up to me at the top of the hill, and the sun throwing a strange light on the Olympics beyond, looking like those wonderful painted backdrops they made for older films. I come across these ads, which before seemed so muted, depressing, detached, come to life before me, thanks to the music now playing. I see the promise they had, the lifestyle they encompassed, and imagine myself an international businessman stationed out of here, back then, before the 90s, in the 80s, when Japan was miracle, and those with Pacific gazes saw all the rim as playground to the new elite.

Notable are some older ones from Hawaii - I imagine myself living there, back in the 80s, as Honolulu boomed. In this life of mine, I'm a ways away from the city, though near enough to go for visits - at a luxurious house near the shore. Of money there are no worries - I spend my time on my scooter going up and down the more private beaches here, shades on my face and an unironic Hawaiian shirt. I converse often with neighbors, all also recent arrivals, rich from the excesses of the boom a couple thousand miles east - but reformed since then. It all seems so set up to fall, to feel empty, but inexplicably its not. Everything is genuine, and emotional as well - the primary problems being that of coming to terms with this new life, new loves. I spend my spare time tanning or scuba diving in turn. At times I dream of the businesses world from which all this luxury emanated from, the life I left behind.

I'd imagine that recurring dream would be not dissimilar to the business card one in American Psycho, but the color of choice would be a pale orange like the color of the album, instead of an eggshell white, and there would be no pent up outrage on behalf of any of us, but instead a mutual 'chill' appreciation of the gamut of pastels on the table, our cards like a strange color wheel.