nude highway driving

So the past three days have been the epitome of what drives journalists to drink, do drugs, leave the profession to hook themselves on street corners or just sit in a shrub and drool a lot while throwing poo at passers-by.

Two nights I worked 9 a.m.-11 p.m. trying to bring together a big-ass follow-up to a story that was huge for our readers. Tonight (though technically last night since it’s 2:40 a.m.) I worked 9-9 just because Fridays are insane out here. All the reporters try to turn everything in on Friday so they don’t have to come in on weekends unless there’s an emergency. That means I get most of the stories around 4, which means the scheduled 6 p.m. end-of-shift time is not my reality. Especially when I’m trying to make sure everything’s in its proper place on the news budget for the next few days and reporters are calling me from all over Asia to talk about story edits or cool shit they saw. It’s a fun stress, but it’s still stress

I needed a break. I needed food and beer. I got the food at Tengu, the previously mentioned restaurant (the logo of which is a guy with a penis nose) where you just pick lots of little shit from the menu and eat different things. I had tasty gyoza, rice, shitake mushrooms, miso soup, prosciutto and chicken meatballs. Fuel for madness.

Reawakening to more energy in my body, I started the night at Mogambo, one of the groovier shots bars in Roppongi. I started talking to some expats (not The Expats) — two Americans and an Englishwoman (and a non-expat Japanese person). Laid-back grooviness and hanging, but there seemed to be some inner-group drama going on (the Englishwoman, girlfriend of one of the American guys, flirting with her other male friends) so I needed to bolt.

I went back to Train Bar, one of my favorite spots. It’s the rockingest bar in Roppongi, and Roy the owner was flying high and cranking the tunage. I ran into the guy I met there the night of the Bowie show, and he had brought some of his friends from the Tokyo office of Deutsche Bank.

He pointed at a wiry little Japanese dude at the end of the bar and said “See that guy? He fucking loves AC/DC. Wait till Roy plays some AC/DC, he’s going to flip out!” I forgot about it, but then suddenly heard the opening riff of some AC/DC song I can’t remember the name of.

The transformation was frightening. The little Japanese guy’s eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth opened slightly then curved upside-down into the full-on Angus Young expression. He started banging his head and doing air guitar. Before I knew it, he was on top of the bar — a very long bar — going up and down in a perfect Angus Young strut, holding his air guitar in the perfect position and banging his head with his mouth open and his legs kicking. The little Japanese dude was Angus Fucking Young … I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone come close to replicating him like that.

The bar went apeshit, everyone screaming their support and throwing down the devil horns while Roy ran around with a bottle of vodka on his head, pouring shots for whomever felt inspired. My stress vanished and I stopped worrying about what time it was and the fact that I had to be at work at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning the next day. This was rock and roll, pure and raw. The little Japanese man was possessed harder than Linda Blair and it made my night.

Now that I’ve figured out how to transfer pictures from my camera onto the computers at work, I’ll soon be able to share a visual snippet of the night’s rock-star glory. Hopefully I can squeeze in five hours of sleep before then.