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I saw my first concert in Japan on Monday night and it was a perfect convergence — Bowie @ Budokan. I’ve always wanted to see a show at Budokan ever since KISS played there when I was a kid, and David Bowie is a perfect Tokyo show. It was his first time performing here in eight years, and Tokyo was stoked (two shows sold out).

Despite feeling like complete death after a rough day of work (on my day off), I hopped a train to Kudanshita, the station nearest Budokan. I figured I needed an adventure, and that things would somehow work out. I had no ticket, but after following the mass of people quickly found the groups of eager scalpers. I ended up paying 10,000 yen (about $100), for a ticket with a face value of 8,750 yen (think $87). Not too bad of a markup!

Thanks to some Australians who read kanji I found my seating area and eventually was guided to my seat by a patient usher. Sitting next to me was a 20-something girl in full kimono garb — looking very formal and proper. I figured there was no way she was going to appreciate the thrashing about that later would ensue, but I didn’t care. In fact, nothing bothered me at this point. I was feeling good about just going off on an unplanned adventure and making it happen. I don’t do that enough anymore. Here I was, in a packed and energetic Budokan, waiting for fucking David Bowie to take the stage. For the first time in a long time I felt no stress about anything and was full of radical excitement. The workday had vanished.

Bowie opened with “Rebel Rebel,” played some new song, did “Fame” and then did a killer cover of the Pixies’ “Cactus” (from “Surfer Rosa”). Whoa. By this time I had discovered that the girl in the kimono was rocking out almost as much as I was, definitely more than most of the people in our area. There was dancing and clapping and screaming (whenever Bowie looked in our general direction), but nobody was truly flailing except me and my kimono’d friend.

There were many highlights to the show:

1. “All The Young Dudes,” “Never Grow Old,” and “Heroes,” which closed the set, brought tears to my eyes. Just perfect renditions. I only heard “Never Grow Old” once before, and immediately felt it click inside me. Hearing it live was sensory overload.

2. Just like in 1996, Bowie and the bald bass player chick did “Under Pressure,” with her singing Freddie’s part. Just like in 1996, it blew people away.

3. Reeves Gabriels no longer plays guitar for Bowie, which means no more uncomfortable Tin Machine-type solos that stick out in older Bowie songs like a penis in a bowl of Cheerios.

4. The encore. As a coworker predicted, the main show ended exactly at 9 p.m. It often frightens me how precise things are in Japan. I was ecstatic to see the band come back onstage. I almost died (and went to Heaven) when they started playing “Five Years.” More misty eyes — I could write a million words and still not express how beautiful the song was at that moment. Next they played “Suffragette City,” then ended the evening with “Ziggy Stardust.” I was flying high and loving Life. It had become a perfect night.

The event staff was so polite in asking everyone to get out. They walk around with megaphones and ask you to “please” exit in an orderly fashion. None of the “get the fuck out of here” that I’m used to in America. And the crowd on the sidewalk actually did leave in an orderly fashion! When’s the last time you saw that happen at a concert or game? Seriously, they all swarmed politely. All the merch booths were outside, and there was a barrier line set up and staffed by workers to ensure too many people didn’t crowd around the merch tables. People politely queued up for their turn to go look at overpriced T-shirts and towels.

Outside of the gate near the faux merchandise I met two English chicks who asked me how I liked the show. After I raved about it, they said “Yeah, but the European tour was so much better.” Killing me. I asked if they were following Bowie around the world, and they said “Yeah.” (NOTE: OK, I know Europeans get something like four months of mandatory vacation a year, but how the hell do people afford to follow a concert around the world? Really, I want to know how this happens. These were not rich-ass business types. I think airlines give all non-Americans free tickets so they can be more worldly than we.) They had an extra ticket to the next night’s show (on the floor!) and offered to sell it to me at face value the next night. (I actually did stop by the next night to take them up on their offer, but couldn’t find them … when I had asked how I would find them the reply was “We’ll see you out front!” Budokan holds thousands.)

Could the night get any cooler? Yes it could. If I hadn’t been jacked up on adrenaline from the show I would have been curled up in a fetal position overcome by hunger pains — I didn’t get a chance to eat in my rush to get to Budokan. As I walked back to the train station, feeling my stomach begin to foment an armed revolution (“the intestines will flow with the bile of the nonbelievers!), I saw the light … the light of a sidewalk food vendor, and on his grill I saw okonomiyaki, the perfect late-night food (or night-of-drinking food, or Jesus-Christ-I’m-fucking-starving food). I got my okonomiyaki, sprinkled some seaweed on it, squirted mayonnaise on top of that, then commenced to entertain the locals with my impassioned chomping euphoria. Seriously, I would have had sex with that okonomiyaki if I hadn’t been so busy eating it.

The night ended at the Train Bar, a legendary little spot in Roppongi where rock stars often hang after shows (I had to try, you never know … ). I was drinking with and telling Bowie stories to an American guy who acts on Japanese TV while Roy, the owner, cranked all kinds of KISS classics in honor of them coming to Budokan in May (after I leave, damnit). I was coming down gently from my night of last-minute harebrained schemes, grand musical madness, perfectly-timed food and encounters with excited, fun people.

Definitely a good night to be alive.

Yes, that’s about $40 for one fairly small cantaloupe. You can pay more than $100 for the special square ones.

Hey: I’ll try to get better at posting frequency. The laptop plan isn’t working so smoothly … I still love the PowerBook 1400, but my only way to have it communicate with anything else is by diskette. For some reason, the annoying-ass PCs at work cannot read diskettes I save to with the Mac, even if they are formatted on a work PC. (What the hell???) We have Macs in Graphics, but of course they are G4s and therefore have no disk drive. I ended up finding an old PowerMac 9600 that nobody uses yet still is hooked into the Net. I can’t even come in at night and use the work PC because they lock the building at 10, after which I ramble best. The workday is too insane to do much more than flimsy-ass posts like this one. High-priced melons is the best I can offer today. What’s the world coming to when cantaloupe costs more than a blowjob?

From a New York Times story about human washing machines hitting the elder-care market in Japan. (See BugMeNot if you need registration.)

Caught between Japan’s high labor costs and anti-immigrant sentiment, some mainstream politicians have even suggested exporting some of Japan’s elderly to Thailand and the Philippines, but that has never won much popular support.

These guys were hanging around outside an arcade in Shibuya last night. Yes, the giant pink thing scares me, too. He’s from a little plastic toy that just sits on your desk and bobs his head around in a zenlike manner. When you walk into Kiddy Land and see a giant stack of these things all bobbing their heads, you really want to stop licking South American toads.

I took this shot while walking back to the subway station from The Maple Leaf, a not-so-creatively-named Canadian bar where I enjoyed a bacon cheddar cheeseburger and a Moosehead while a Canadian girl told me over and over how disgusting meat is. A TV that shared a tree-stump-lined wall with a Canadian flag showed some soccer game. Two guys from South America were flirting with little Japanese girls and the girls in our group were making plans to attend “Women’s Fest” on Sunday. The night began at TGI Friday’s, which was packed (with mostly Japanese — I guess they love crap, too). Yes, I was out with The Expats again.

On Monday night I went out for Korean barbecue with some expats and two Japanese dudes. We ordered all sorts of meat (more tongue!) and veggies and sat around two grills, cooking our dinner. Instead of free bread we each got a little saucer that contained a slice of raw salmon and potato salad. Amazingly, these two things go together very well. For only about $20 apiece we filled our tummies with damn good food and beer and enjoyed hours of conversation. And it’s the conversation that blows me away — the eight people in our group were talking in four different languages at the same time. English, Japanese, French and Spanish. I love moments like that. (NOTE: We started our night with happy hour at TGI Friday’s. It cracks me up that this is a gathering spot for international merrymaking, but they do cut all drink prices in half for a couple hours. If you’re feeling under the weather, like I was, I recommend the Ultimate Lights of Havana, cause it has lots of juice in it.)

Work has given me a cell phone to use while I’m here. When it rings, Mickey Mouse screams at me in Japanese. I’m sure he’s saying something adorable and sweet, but to a gaijin he sounds really pissed off, like he’s getting a colonoscopy with no drugs. The phone has a camera and I can link photos to phone numbers so that when someone calls the embarrassing-ass shot I took of them pops up on the front screen. It also can act as an FM radio.

The fabulous dancing Japanese sailors! (This is a real commercial to get people to join the Maritime Self-Defense Force. It will be broadcast on the giant billboard screens in Shibuya. Nobody, and I mean nobody swivels their hips like a Japanese sailor.)

I’ve said it before and I’ll probably write at length about it again … heated toilet seats. I’m stealing the damn thing and taking it back to the States. Mornings aren’t so dreary when your ass is warm.