Carnet de Voyage

“I’m OK, writing music, doing all of my domestic chores, hiking around since we have no car, and so on. The sun is out and that’s very nice.”

I went to lunch with Asmar at Sushi West in Long Beach yesterday. I have known Asmar since I was 18. One of the connections that we have is the fact that we are both of mixed decents. Asmar is half Palestinian and half Japanese. We often talk about everything that all of that entails. All the ways and degrees of identifications we both make to each part of our heritage.

One of the similarities that he and I have is that we both grew up outside the States. Asmar, as a child, lived in Kuwait and Japan. We often discuss how those experiences shift our views, particularly our ideas of friendships or relationships. Sometimes we wonder if we hold those ideas somewhat differently, because we both have seen how people in other parts of the world view those ideas.

He and I are also one of those crazy liberals. We rarely let our conversations end without a good political and social jab or two. It’s all the product of two awared, like-minded individuals who are a little frustrated by the things we see. In the end, I don’t think we are unlike any other individuals in that regard.

Over the last year, Asmar and I have been getting together pretty consistently. Once a week you can find us at Sushi West eating some Japanese food and catching up on our lives. Other times we would hit the streets of Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles really late at night. And, of course, there are also those times that we go out to try new culinary places when we hear about them.

When I told Asmar that I was going to take a picture of him, he gave me a nonchalant look. He said to me that he has never liked seeing himself in pictures. I think most people know what that is like. So I told him that I was going to take a nice photo of him. He saw this picture, and he said to me, with a smile and a little laugh, “Accurate.”