nude highway driving

One beer my ass.

My first full day of work here Thursday seemed like it was going to be easy after I bounded out of bed at 5 a.m., but quickly turned rough when the 2 p.m. crash began to settle in. I spent almost an hour staring at the same story on the screen, exhausted and groggy but with a wicked pulse. I was convinced I was going to die right there in a crappy-ass office chair with a glazed look in my eyes and perhaps some drool decorating my chin.

Despite this jet lag pain, I decided to go out to dinner with a bunch of managers after work. We hit Tengu — named after mythical beings with penis noses — a groovy little place where you sit at a big table and order tons of little dishes that everyone shares (as well as a few big pitchers of beer that everyone shares). Thanks to either the beer or the jet lag (or the cow tongue, followed by a nice glass of seaweed) I got a second wind just in time for someone to suggest we keep the action going at a fine Roppongi drinking establishment. Cool — no problem.

Then my coworker said: “We’ll go to Gaspanic for one beer.”

This was a blatant lie. Nobody ever gets out of Gaspanic after only one beer. Every time I come to Tokyo, I tell this coworker he won’t drag me to Gaspanic. And every time I end up there drinking all night.

Gaspanic is a special place where the beers are only 400 yen (about $4, less than half the cost of a beer at most Tokyo bars) and annoying Americans (usually military) are out in full force, trying to hook up with the Japanese girls who come there to meet Americans. Signs everywhere kindly remind you that you must be drinking something at all times to be allowed to stay in the club, and the bouncers check. The bouncers aren’t all that intimidating to look at, but they all have the skills to plant a foot in your head before you even see them spin. Around midnight people start dancing on bartops. Going there is kinda like going to a frat party — you don’t want to admit it, but you actually have a fun time, even though now that you’ve done it you probably won’t go back because it still is the lowest common denominator.

Yeah, we went there for one beer. I think I got home around 2:45 after several bottles of Asahi and a few shots from little plastic shot glasses on strings. I saw one coworker arm-wrestle a few of the bouncers and another slump over the bar, licking his coat. It was a new kind of work bonding.

Walking home from Roppongi is kinda like playing tag, only there are about 20 people who are “it” and they’re all Chinese girls in big coats asking you if you want “massagee.” Not massage, massagee. The extra vowel is important because it makes you think you’re a young soldier boy back in ‘Nam looking for someone to love you long time. For the most part they keep to the secret code, though that night I had one walk up to me and say “Blowjob, five dollars.” What??? “Blowjob, five dollars.” This is wrong on a couple levels:

1) You’re supposed to keep to the code. It’s entertaining when someone’s asking you if you want massagee and gives you that knowing smile. Even though you walk away, you have this secret connection that the lesser tourists don’t understand. Many clueless people wander around Roppongi thinking that massage therapists are just really aggressive in Japan.

2) Five dollars? What are you, nuts? I would never give a blowjob for five bucks, and neither should Chinese girls in big coats. There are drunk-ass stupid Americans all over the place at night, and you can easily get them to fork over $50. Everyone knows everything’s more expensive in Tokyo. C’mon — be proud of your oraltory skills. You offer that service for $5 and the discerning customer is going to think you’re a guy.

I made it home alive, sans massagee, and crawled into bed for my four and a half hours of quality sleep. The reason Bill Murray is so brilliant in “Lost in Translation” is because that fuzzy fog of consciousness he depicts is so very real when you first come here. He didn’t even have to act — they just flew him to Tokyo and let him wander around and try to do his lines without any direction. They had to film the whole thing in the first few days or he’d eventually snap out of it and be a regular person. I don’t think I’ll become a regular person.

Just rolled in from D.C., and boy do my ribs hurt! No, but seriously folks — I love this town. I’ll be here all week … er, two months.

I can honestly after the past day that United licks American Airlines’ shiny metallic ass. Total class warfare potential on the plane. When I flew AA to Tokyo last year, we had a little monitor on every seat back, allowing us to choose between various channels (movie, prepackaged TV crap or the live map of where the plane is). On United, this option only exists for the first class. Us main cabin folk were relegated to one crappy-ass, misaligned projection screen at the front of the cabin with our entertainment chosen for us. (Please oh please show “Sinbad” again.) Couple this with the new federal regulation that you can’t whiz in the upper-classes’ bathrooms, and there could be plane riots in no time.

Fewer snacks on United, too. When they brought the beef & rice (final snack of the flight) I swear I heard people up front singing “Food, Glorious Food” from “Oliver.” The chicken and rice was decent, and so was the Chinese noodle soup, but that damn lemon cookie is about as welcome in my stomach right now as Richard Simmons at a monster truck rally.

Note:Even though I logically know I’m toast if my plane crashes from 39,000 feet up, for some reason I get way more paranoid when we hit turbulence while flying over arctic waters off the Alaskan coast than if we were over land. We had a bad spell that lasted about 15 minutes, prompting people in the cabin to start hootin’ & hollerin’ like they were at Six Flags.

I feel kinda worldly having gone from Hurricane, W.Va., to Tokyo within 48 hours. One day I’m scrapin’ possum off the highway for dinner and the next I’m at a cozy little joint near Nishi-Azabu, downing some Japanese-made pizza with prawn balls (no, I don’t know how they get their little legs apart). Barely made it through dinner — hell, I was hallucinating by the time we got to Rainbow Bridge. Traffic going into Tokyo from Narita was great until we hit the bridge, then it took us half an hour to cross the bridge. One bridge. Between the “Blade Runner” cityscape, the giant-ass neon Ferris wheel you see as you’re coming in and a complete absence of sleep on my part I had some amazing visions. During dinner I think I felt my soul leave my body. Do they ever slip blotter acid into those lemon cookies?

I melted into my bed by 10:30, set the alarm for 7, and left this world immediately … only to wake up wide-eyed at 5 a.m. Part of this is due to the trip and complete change of schedule (Tokyo is 14 hours ahead of D.C.), and part is due to the fact that, just before going to bed, I realized I forgot to take my credit card out of the ATM machine at the American hotel after getting my yen. Oh yes, Uncle Sid’s a bright one. This means I’ll be spending my morning praying that the machine sucked it back in as I try to get the bank to come open it.

Despite this really, really bad move to make at the beginning of the trip, I feel amazing as I type this at 7 a.m. I’m in a damn great mood. Why? Three words: Heated toilet seats. God, I love the Japanese.

Dear National Aquarium in Baltimore: Is there any way we can have two entrances to your beautiful building? One for regular visitors, and a special “annoying-ass, loud-field-trip-of-kids entrance”? Thanks. Also, can we have a separate tour for stupid people? Seriously, I shouldn’t be embarrassed to be a human while looking at wildlife. Here are two things overheard at the aquarium, spoken by parents:

   "I wish they would make this water stop moving so we can see better!"
   "Ugh — it smells like the ocean in here." (near the ray tank)

Dear pilots and weathermen who deal with West Virginia: Is it physically possible to land a plane at Yeager Airport (in Charleston) in a non-nauseating manner? I’ve never seen it happen. It’s already hard enough flying in on a tiny-ass plane to an airport that was built on a damn mountain. There’s not much room for error at this very special airport — you must stop by a certain point when landing and you must lift off by a certain point when leaving. Is it too much to ask that the air be computer-controlled so we don’t all want to barf? Just checking.

As I slowly wade through the stress of preparing for the trip to Tokyo and worrying about how I’ll perform in my new, temporary duties, I realize I must transform myself in order to bring honor to my family and fully embrace Japan. I can’t merely think a little different or act a little different … I must become the culture. Therefore I have decided to morph into pure anime, and will retain this form for a few months, along with a suite of ninja-like super powers that can deal merciless blows to any attack from marauding monsters or nonbelievers.

I was able to make this fairly accurate depiction of myself (the anime eyes are a stretch but de vogel says the smirk appears on every driver’s license photo) with this groovy site. I don’t understand Spanish, but it’s pretty easy to figure out what to do. Thanks to rttgirl for pointing it out.

Now I am ready for the challenges that await me and my people.

Your weapons are useless.

Humphry F. Osmond, the British-born psychiatrist who invented the word “psychedelic,” has died at 86. He created the term to describe the effects of the LSD and mescaline he was administering to volunteers … one of whom was Aldous Huxley. (Huxley had suggested the word “phanerothyme” to describe the experience.)

Note: Washington Post link. Use urgh@mailinator.com as login and “badpost” as password.