nude highway driving

So, um, I’m going to Tokyo in about a week.

For two months.

The bills are taken care of, the apartment-sitting is arranged, the passport has been found, the Japanese-language books have been unearthed, the 14-hour-flight entertainment currently is being planned, Domo is excited and my stress levels are pretty high. I’ll be filling in as Japan bureau chief, working with reporters, performing first edits on copy and generally enjoying the lack of an angry deadline steaming toward me every day. The Tokyo office has a much saner workday than the copy desk here in D.C. — hell, they actually take lunches — and I welcome the change of pace and duties. (Actually, I’m just highly jealous of Jimbo’s work travels and need some of my own.)

Unlike last year’s trip, about which I had only one entry upon return, I vow to actually post frequently from Japan and try to come up with interesting things to say. I’m taking an older PowerBook 1400 I bought cheap last year on eBay (for the purpose of writing more, though I haven’t used it much because it can’t talk to my G4) and hope to have quality Doogie Howser moments in my room at night. It’s a decent computer, and I hope to shed my spoiled OS X exclusivity and learn to make the most of my little friend with 32 megs of RAM and OS 8.6. (Any advice for getting the most from this setup would be greatly appreciated.) I think I can make my camera talk to the older PCs in the office, which means I might be able to post photos, too … such as when I’m attacked by a giant bisexual mouse in Roppongi.

Speaking of Roppongi, my room is only a few blocks away, which means wonderfully easy access to Mogambo and other fine gaijin drinking establishments. I’m also a short walk from a Denny’s, where you can get tasty tuna omelets for breakfast and enjoy the reality shift of seeing an overly polite server in a Denny’s uniform. No shag-carpeting art on the walls, though.

I hope to explore more during this year’s trip, so if anyone has suggestions for adventure please let me know. I’m already sporting massive wood after finding out that Bowie is playing two nights at Budokan while I’m there.

“The faces of those not heeding our request will be blackened and their heads will be shaved.”

I think someone’s a little bitter about Valentine’s Day this year.

With the recent tirade of FCC Chairman Michael Powell (the guy who has no problem letting a couple groups control all that you see and hear) over a boob and the whole Massachusetts thing, not to mention America’s bigger religious problem, I think the following quote should be burned into our brains.

“A large portion of the American populace espouses a moral code that can be accurately described as Puritanical. Although this code is wrapped in religious language, it is fundamentally a denial of the goodness of creation, finding the source of evil in material things of pleasure (as tobacco, alcohol, art, and so on) rather than in the disordered human will to misuse the good things nature affords us. The Puritans’ fondness for legal prohibitions as well as their presumption of their own moral superiority have given religion a bad name in America.”

— G.K. Chesterton

Sometime in third grade, my music teacher called my parents to inform them that I was gifted. I showed a strong aptitude for music, she said, urging them to get me lessons in anything I wanted — didn’t matter what it was, just as long as I started playing something.

I’ll never know why, but I picked the viola. Perhaps I decided it was cooler than the other instruments — violins were too common, cellos too girly, the stand-up bass too intimidating. And I really couldn’t handle any instrument that involved spit. We went to the rental store and, due to my small size, I went home with a violin custom-fitted with viola strings. I was sure that I was destined for the musical greatness my music teacher imagined.

When I wasn’t at lessons with a lady who was shorter than I was, I practiced at home in the living room, right inside the front door. The family didn’t hang out there, there was a family room for that (NOTE: I could have these labels wrong — I never knew the difference between a living room and a family room, all I know is there’s a room where everyone watches TV and there’s usually a room where furniture exists but nobody really goes there, which is where I was). In this room there was a stand-up piano, my parents’ AM/FM receiver/8-track-player/turnable combo stereo, a couch and my parents’ nice dining table, which later would be the computer desk for our Apple II+. The doorway to the hall which led to the rest of the house was decorated with those hanging wooden beads that people liked a lot in the 70s.

Before long, practice began to bore the living shit out of me. I just couldn’t handle playing the same, simple notes over and over, and I was pissed that I wasn’t immediately capable of playing “Orange Blossom Special.” Patience never has had a large hold on my life. I was supposed to stay and practice for a set amount of time, so leaving to play in my room or outside was not an option.

But I was alone in there … alone with the stereo. It was only a matter of time before I started putting my KISS records on the turntable, setting the volume just right so my parents wouldn’t hear them from the family room, and turning the room into Detroit rock city. As the afternoon sun crept in through the giant windows, I would rockingly transform from a 9-year-old trying to figure out “Mary Had a Little Lamb” into Gene Simmons, jumping around the living room jamming on my faux viola as imaginary columns of flame shot up around me and (during “God of Thunder”) blood spewed from my mouth. I stomped around like I had demon boots on my feet, cranking on my viola/guitar as I tried to keep it from getting nicked by my “Destroyer” belt buckle. If only Mom had let me get that thing under my tongue cut (I asked) I would be an unstoppable rock god.

One day she walked in on me. She did not see an intimidating rock god; she saw her kid tossing away money spent on lessons and instrument rental. She was not impressed that I was refining my rock star stage moves, especially when I still couldn’t play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” very well. We had a talk, and soon the viola/violin mutant was on its way back to the music store. Lessons were canceled, and I was free. (The concerts eventually continued in my room with Giant Tinkertoys.)

Except for a brief stint with a drum pad a few years later, I never tried to learn an instrument again. Sometimes I wonder if my music teacher was right, if I would be rocking for a living if only I had stuck to the lessons. A musical genius fallen victim to the short attention span of a 9-year-old.

Nah … I don’t think I have any musical skills. I can’t even sing (unless we’re talking Kajagoogoo karaoke), even though that never keeps me from torturing the newsroom with my channeling of Ethel Merman.

No, I suspect my music teacher called the parents of every child to let them know them their kid has an incredible musical talent and should receive lessons immediately. She’s probably still doing it! Hundreds of kids are dragging their parents to the music store to rent instruments they’ll never play. Meanwhile, my music teacher is in some dark alley, at a designated location, picking up two carefully hidden boxes in plain brown paper wrappers stuffed with cash … left behind by the music-store owner and the little music-lessons lady.