Pinkerton: The Rivers' End

Pinkerton, the second album of Weezer, which was released at September 1996, is the most enchanting album of them for me. It was released just after Rivers Cuomo, the frontman of Weezer, had begun his study at Harvard University. Despite its bearish selling, actually one of the worst selling album of Weezer, it's really emotional and personal that make it the best Weezer album ever for me.

This album is named after the the character B.F. Pinkerton from Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and the album plays as a concept album based loosely around the opera. Just like the opera itself, this album is much affected by the Japanese culture. Its cover is Kambara yoru no yuki ("Night Snow at Kambara"), a print by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hiroshige. The Japanese concept of this album may have been chosen based on the Japanese content of the songs inside.

Rivers' passion about Japanese culture (and woman) is no secret anymore. He's really up into the Japanese culture and sometimes he even sings one or two lines of Japanese nursery rhymes in Weezer concert. However, his passion about Japanese things in this album was quite specific, since it mainly talked about love. His personal style of writing in this album revealed his sensitive side as a normal man, who wants to love and being loved by a woman of his life. His searching of a soul-mate finally paid off about ten years after this album release, for he was finally married to a Japanese (oh, finally, the Japanese again) woman and settle down, just like he wanted to be in this album. Here is some of the songs of Pinkerton that I loved the most:

1. Across the Sea

Actually, this is my most favorite song in this album, maybe the best Weezer song ever for me. I really love the story behind this song. This song is based on Rivers' true story about a Japanese fan who send letters to him. Just like another ordinary girl, this girl wanted to know anything about Rivers. His birthday, his hobby, his favorite food (well, at that time, there was no facebook whatsoever so you can't guess and has to do some old fashioned things like sending letters). Rivers, however, fell in love with this girl just because of reading her letters. So, he started to have a fantasy about this girl but at the same time realizing the truth that he would never be with her, as he really did not know any real thing about the girl. Well, she could be a mad man and pretended to be a teenage girl, who knows? The girl said that she was 18 year old, but as Rivers said, she could even be just 13 or 14 year old and pretend to be older. Anyway, besides the physical distance between them, there was also an age gap, since Rivers was 26 at that time, and he felt that he was too older for her. All of those thought seemed frustrated him a lot and he pitied himself on this song, emotionally.

After all, in my opinion, this song was about nothing but a loneliness. How come a rich and famous man fell in love so deeply to a girl that he doesn't even know anything about, just because some letters, if he is not in a deep despair of searching a true love?


2. El Scorcho

This song is started by a wacky drum beat and then you can hear Brian Bell (the guitarist) said "El Scorcho...Rock and Roll" with awkward voice. That witty beginning is followed by hilarious look that Rivers made in the video clip and then a "swear" word about a girl. Yeah, this is another song about a girl, (again) a Japanese girl. It was about a man who fell in love with a girl but didn't know what to do, and so did the girl. So, it was like a dead-end love story. But, this song has a sequel, so we can get another piece of the story from that. Its sequel was believed to be "Falling for You" track. Both of those songs used the same phrase to express the feeling, that is "falling for you".

3. Pink Triangle

Although "El Scorcho" and "Falling for You" are connected, but in this album, they are separated with this song. This is another favorite song of mine from Weezer and also based on Rivers' personal experience. As the songs above explained, at that time, Rivers was (at least) a bit lonely man who was looking for his true love. Then this song is started with "When I'm stable long enough, I start to look around for love". Yes, after officially had been a Harvard student, Rivers started to look for a girl in his college. It is said that he met several "potential" girls that he did not brave enough to make a move into. However, he finally found a girl in his campus whom he thought he search for. Unfortunately, that girl is a lesbian and so Rivers again came into a heartache. That's this song is all about.

4. Falling for You

As explained before, this is a sequel of "El Scorcho". In this song, the man in question finally has summoned the courage to speak to the girl, but he is now questioning himself on whether he deserves his position, and how to deal with it. The girl is said to be much younger than him, so that he was a little bit afraid of that condition, although he likes that girl too much. The man also started to think to marry that young girl, "get fat and old" with her as he was really desperate to settle down. However, their age gap made him feel so tangled since he felt that the girl may deserve a brighter future ahead, and also he thought that he, as an "old goat", didn't deserve to be a man for such a "young chick". Therefore, the man is afraid that he is falling for her, as the song said "my baby I'm afraid I'm falling for you...". Quite funny,though.

5. Butterfly

Finally, this personal album is ended by this song. "Butterfly" is told from Pinkerton's point of view in the opera Madame Butterfly. Known for its sincere lyrics and simplicity, "Butterfly" remains Weezer's only completely acoustic song to be commercially released.(Source : www.weezerpedia.com)

The album is actually containing ten songs, but here, I only give a review of my favorite tracks. You can also try to hear another songs from this album which are also good. As I said before, despite its emotional background, this album had a commercial failure. Rivers said that he would never want to write with such personal style anymore. And yes, I didn't find another Weezer songs that has such personal style like this album's anymore, and it make me love this album even more.

NB: All of the italic lines between brackets in this post were taken from its lyrics.

Here is "Across the Sea" for your eagerness to finish reading this post. Thank you very much!

The Scientist

ALERT: This post is quite long. Reading this post may cause a complication of boring, misunderstanding, apathetic, or a dizzy feeling.

“...nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be so hard”

For all this time, I’ve been a person who always follow my head and almost never listen to my heart. I don’t even know how sweet a love could be. I’ve always been a people watcher when it comes to love. It’s like watching drama on television and in some scenes you can even cry or be very touched, but you’ll never be in the movie. So I just give a (big) smile when I see an old man holding his wife’s hand (who is also old, of course) in the street, a man who try to sell whatever he can sell at the train, just to feed his family, or a father who hold his youngster gently at malls. Wait, did I just mention the love shown by MEN?

As I said, I’ve been so heartless before. But somehow, lately, I feel very touched when I see the love shown by men. I don’t know why. It even tears me up while smiling when I see a father trying to calm his crying baby at the train. Maybe it’s time for me to “get into the movie”. However, to some extent, I really hate to be that sensitive.

Why do I hate to feel the love? That’s the question I’m trying to answer. And that’s not easy as I feel like I’ve never been in love, but I think I know just what love is. If you think that my older posts in this blog were about love, maybe you’re wrong. That person to whom “I fell in love with” in this blog is the one to whom “my brain fell in love with” actually. No, it doesn’t mean that he is a torture genius scientist or something like that (just like this post titled), he doesn’t even like to go to school very much and had been graduated with just “fine” GPA. But, as I saw him occasionally around my second semester in college, my brain started to calculate various complicated permutations. And then, as I continued to do the research about him for the next three years after that, my brain decided to fall in love with him.

I know it may seem a little bit odd to do the research about your crush, but it’s just the beginning. I even try to model him! And you know, according to my research, he is so damn hot. He’s got almost every mental checklist that I think I need from a man. He’s my opposite in many aspects. I’m quite flexible while he’s rigidly discipline. I’m very scientific while he’s very “snobby”. We must come from a different pole. However, according to my brain – and it has been argued by the latest natural science that a woman will more likely be attracted by an “opposite” man, vice versa – he is all that I need to answer my nature call. And for the worse, I even think that if we had a baby, that would be a beautiful perfect baby. His DNA just seemed to fits mine.

As my brain started to be overwhelmed by him, finally my heart follows it. I, then, after more than two years of researching him, felt very blue to find him with another girl. My jealousy frustrated me. I cried in my bed sometimes just to wonder why such a “perfect” person for me was so far away from me. Then I realized something. It’s not love. It’s just an estimation result of a complicated model based on a very odd and long primary data. And I don’t feel very blue anymore.

“…question of science, science in progress, do not speak as loud as my heart…”


This business is really lame, and I feel grateful just to be able to mend my broken heart (or mind). Feeling blue by a broken mind (or heart) have hold my productivity back, and by mending it, my productivity also boosts. That’s why I don’t really like to be sensitive. Then it came a period where I handled several job projects and I felt very determined. I was proud of my job accomplishments at that time until something happen. It’s a feeling. In the middle of my brain’s superiority, I feel something. My heart started to try to speak.

Emptiness. That’s all my heart tries to tell me about. Yeah, I do feel the emptiness. I started to wonder what I’m going to be, about my purpose in life. I’m a (I hope, I try to be) religious person, so that my purpose in life has to be based on the God’s will, as I believed. I lived my life to obey Him. Then I realized that according to my religion, it’s being a good wife, a good mother, and a good human being for those around me that matters much. It never mentioned being a successful career woman, a genius professor, or a multimillionaire as the purpose in life. Therefore, getting married is a part (one of the biggest part) of the God’s will. Anyone who tries to deny it will just find the emptiness.

NB: The two Italic lines in brackets are for the courtesy of Coldplay “Scientist”. The song is given below

Out of Limit Part 2

here is the ultimate episode of this "out-of-limit" thing, I hope
because he's taken...from forever ago

it has been destined to be like this
but I was just too blind to see
I was just too scared to feel
if you think that this post is about love, then it's not.

It's just about a smile, trust me :)

Out of Limit Part 1

hi, I'm a 22-year-old girl, single, and...

hahaha...no no..I'm not going to "promote" myself. I just want to post my story, my mind story, I mean, my mind interpretation about what happen to me.

Yes I'm definitely single and searching, and, although I'm not a teenage girl anymore, I still have big "possession" with male public figures. Here they are :



Kimi Raikkonen

born in 1979, an F1 World Champion 2007, and the man that I really like since the first time I saw him in Sauber-Petronas launching in 2001. I was just like "OMG, is that an F1 driver? How come he could be that cute?" at that time, and just adoring him then.
I like him because he has a strong personality. He's the one who lives his dream, took a dare at his young age, and remain firmly at the ground despite his success and sky-rocketed wealth, not to mention that he's so nice looking. He's now married to Jenni Dahlman, a Finland model.


Rivers Cuomo

a frontman of my favorite band, Weezer, a Harvard graduate, and a very adorable man. He may looks a little bit nerd with his non-expressive face and his sunglasses, but is still totally cute for me. I remembered his songs like "Island in the Sun" or "Keep Fishin" that I always waited for to be played at the MTV's "whatever things" every morning before I went to a school when I was in a high school.
Now I'm just realizing the hidden meaning in the songs like "El Scorcho", "Falling for You", or "So Low" that is just making me love him more :D
I adore him for his unique yet soulful touch on his songs. That really proves that he's really a smart guy. I've read one of his essay in Harvard about celebacy and also find his sensitive side, which made me smile right over. Now, he is also a husband of a Japanese woman (what a lucky lady) and a father of a little girl named Mia.


David Eric Grohl

Popular as a drummer of Nirvana and a front-man of Foo Fighters, Dave probably is one of rare multi-talented musician who took a big success on both playing drums and being a singing-rhythm-guitarist. Despite his young age at the time Nirvana gained a sudden success, Dave kept himself low profile without trying to escape the sudden popularity by getting in drugs or doing something destructive. His strong personality then made him a successful frontman of Foo Fighters. Though he is known by his strong leadership in the band, he is also known as a very goofy guy. From his songwriting then I also find that he is a very soulful and adorable man.
He has a beautiful wife now and two little daughters.


...and several more (hehe). Mark Hoppus of Blink 182 and Orlando Bloom "Will Turner" are also on my list.

Alright then, what it all has to do with the title?
Yup, all of them share one same characteristic. They are already TAKEN. That's why they are out of limit,haha :D

El Regol

Damn you half Eastern boy
Do it to me every time
Oh, the redhead said you shred the cello
and I'm the jello, baby

You won't talk, won't look won't think of me
I'm an epitome of public enemy
Why you wanna go and do me like that
Come down on the street and dance with me

I'm a lot like you so please, hello, I'm here, I'm waiting
I think I'd be good for you and you'd be good for me

I'd never ask you to go to JT concert
Coz I know I don't deserve it
How cool is that?
So I went to your room and read your description
"watching NBL and feel a little bit stable" oh yeah
listening to the anything, fall in love all over again

I'm a lot like you so please, hello, I'm here, I'm waiting
I think I'd be good for you and you'd be good for me

How stupid is it? I can't talk about it
I'm gonna sing about it and make a record of my heart
How stupid is it? Won't you give a minute
Just come up to me and say hello to my heart
How stupid is it? For all I know you see me too
and maybe you just don't know what to do
or maybe you're scared to say "I'm falling for you"

I wish I could get my head out of the sand
Coz I think we'd make a good team
And you'll keep my fingernails clean
but that's just a stupid dream that I won't realize
coz I can't even look in your eyes without shaking, and I'm not faking
I'll bring home the turkey if you bring me home, baby

I'm a lot like you,I'm waiting
I'm good for you and you are good for me

Wait and think...

I think I've found everything that I've been looking for from a man in him...
but, I don't know if he will find me the same way someday...

So, I'll wait for anything that could happen to me regarding this

I don't want to wait for him...I'm not waiting for him.

M.I.S.S

Dear you are...


Yeah...just like I thought before (or does it happen because I HAVE THOUGHT about it before???), he still rules the heart...but I think we're getting more and more separated than before.

Now I don't even know where he is and ooohhh there's a thousand songs that could tell you about what I think about this situation now...

the Lionel Richie's one (he knows the song well)
the Jamie Scott's one (finally that song becomes my REAL soundtrack now, almost each and every words, as I thought before about two years ago)
many Beatles' emotionally sappy songs written by the great John

and the other tearjerkers songs about a heart, hope and mind journey to find something that you really consider as the precious one...something that you don't want to live without, something that you can proud of for yourself, and some place to come back for more for the rest of your life...

and yes, I'm searching for it..I'm on that journey...I'm looking for you, psychically and mentally

but I think I've found you...when I'm feeling down or gloomy, it's you that shed some light on me, though you never realized it...and so, my runaway it's you

...wishing you were here by me, to end this misery...

With hope,
to my little runaway