nude highway driving

At Yebisu Garden Place (or Ebisu, depending on whom you ask), a mind-blowing urban development project that is the result of some scary-great planning and features all sorts of sights, shopping and dining, anything goes. Including, apparently, sex with dominant geese.

Walking through the area at night was surreal, partly due to the design of the place but mostly because of the Fernando Botero exhibit. I was walking among big-ass, bronze supersized naked people and tiny-ass Japanese dogs, all interwoven by eerie lighting and air that sticks to your lungs if you don’t breathe out fast enough.

Speaking of which, I have a new appreciation for the term mushi atsui. I’m told it means “hot and humid.” I think the direct translation is: “Holy shit, it’s so painfully humid I don’t want to make any movement whatsoever. Feel free to stab me to death as long as you use a knife that’s been sitting in a freezer for a few hours.” D.C., built on a swamp by some people who were obviously high, has nothing on Tokyo. Hell, southern Louisiana has nothing on Tokyo. While I am proud of my magic powers for bringing an abrupt end to rainy season, I now think I might bring it back.

But not until I climb Fuji-san.

Radiohead rules: When you’ve had a long-ass day at work, and that day ended with an annoying-ass cross-continental meeting with way too many damn people on a conference call, there are few better ways to unwind and get all pensive in your room than listening to Radiohead, specifically “Pyramid Song” and “Karma Police.” (I’m a late-comer to the whole Radiohead appreciation thing — the song “Creep” was so amazingly awful that I just stopped paying attention to them and missed all their accomplishments until about a month ago when a co-worker let me borrow “Amnesiac” and “OK Computer.” Now I understand the rabidity of my friends who are fans.)

Codeine rocks: And it’s an over-the-counter drug in Japan! I started feeling like crap last Monday and still have a cough that won’t go away unless I’m medicated. A Japanese co-worker took me to a local pharmacy and explained my nagging cough to the little old bald guy behind the counter. He pulled out a box and started telling her what to tell me. He said “Don’t take too much or you will get great ideas.” That sounds awesome! She explained later that he said that because it was cough syrup with codeine. I had heard about codeine’s magical powers, but never experienced it myself. My doses were too small to get any “whoa” feelings, but that stuff kills coughs dead … until it wears off after four or five hours. I was amazed. I like codeine. Codeine is my friend.

I have magical powers: A couple weeks ago was the beginning of rainy season … when we’re subjected to three to four weeks of nothing but resentment-inducing rain here in Tokyo. You think walking through Shibuya or Roppongi is hard on a normal day when you don’t do crowds very well, try doing it during rainy season, when the same amount of people still go out but they’re all carrying lethal weapons at eye level. I was told you see many people with eye patches during this time of year, and it’s often because of umbrella clashes. Wasn’t enjoying the rainy season. But then … last Sunday I emerged from a night of mayhem only to find a clear, sunny day. I declared then that rainy season ended early and would not come back. All my Japanese friends scoffed and laughed at the foolish gaijin. Now it’s the following Sunday and we’ve had eight days in a row of sunshine and blue skies. Don’t ever doubt me!

Rasputin was a straight-up porn star. No wonder other men wanted him dead.

This ranks right up there with the time I was attacked by a giant, bisexual mouse during my work trip here last year.

So I went out drinking last Wednesday with some overseas co-workers who were in town for business. Per custom we stopped at Geronimo for a few drinks. As we’re spilling out onto the sidewalk, I look up just in time to see a flash of pink flying toward me, with appendages waving madly through the air and screams emanating from the head. I yell back, and it turned around.

It’s a man. In a skin-tight pink bodysuit. With a silver cape. Riding a unicycle.

He raised his arms and screamed again, swooping past our party a couple more times. He then headed smack into the middle of the crowd gathering to traverse Roppongi Crossing, screaming and waving and shining bright. He sorta hovered in the middle of the crowd for a bit, kinda like a cornered animal when it’s not sure where to go, then took off into the decadent night.

Where do you go from there? Another bar, of course. I felt like the bridge operator in “It’s A Wonderful Life” when Clarence the angel starts telling Jimmy Stewart who he is. It was this brief, really fun moment of complete chaos, but now I needed another drink. If we were in any other city I would have marched back up to the bar, demanding to know what they added to our shots. Instead the complete absurdity of it all inspired us and lifted the night’s mood even more. Like other random-ass Tokyo moments, it just made everything fun. I’m all about embracing absurdity.

I figured that was the beginning and the end of Crazy Pink Unicycle Man, that it was just a one-night thing. I had a couple kinda-fuzzy pictures (like people in Washington state have of Bigfoot) and the story to tell my friends. Either the guy was fulfilling a lost bet or acting on a dare … or he opened his closet that night and found a pink costume, a unicycle and one last hit of acid and thought “what the fuck?”

On Sunday I went with two co-workers (one who just arrived over the weekend) to Harajuku and Yoyogi Park. Harajuku’s where you’re guaranteed to find freaks — actually, people who want you to think they’re freaks — and Yoyogi just plain rules on a sunny day, which it was despite being in the middle of rainy season. (In fact, we’ve had two sunny days in a row. YeY!)

We got off the subway at Meiji-jingumae, and were coming up the stairs to go through the turnstyles. My co-workers were lost in conversation when they heard me scream and then start yelling “It’s him! It’s him! It’s him!” They turned around to see what I was yelling about.
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Today’s Japanese phrase is mushi atsui. It means “hot and humid as a motherfucker,” and that’s exactly what tonight is. And this is only the second day of rainy season. Ahhhhhh!

But I can deal with it. In fact, I am dealing with it. By drinking a kahlua & milk and connecting to the Net at amazingly high speeds for free. I finally found free Wi-Fi in this town, where the concept of giving a free wireless hookup to the Net hasn’t quite caught on like it has in the States. I love the fact that as I’m answering e-mails a truck full of menacing cans of Coke pulls up for a photo op.

I actually found this cafe by accident. I was heading to my normal high-speed hangout, a dessert-coffee shop that offers one of the many paid Wi-Fi services but has thin walls through which someone’s free signal seeps. I saw the sign for Media and noticed the word “freespot.” One of the commercial services in Tokyo is called “Hotspot,” so I gave it a shot. The manager explained in broken English that they do have a free Internet signal. The amazingly patient waitress read most of the Japanese menu to me and helped me find one of the greatest dishes in the world — tuna and avocado over warm rice in a bowl. Pure fucking crack. Love it. Num num.

Now I come here several times a week, whenever I need a high-speed Internet fix or just a hankerin’ for some kick-ass food. I found out there are other places in Tokyo that offer free Wi-Fi, too. You just have to look. They probably will get my business. As has been discussed on BoingBoing, it takes almost nothing to offer free Wi-Fi and guarantees customers will keep coming. When you charge, however, you suddenly have all these costs associated with billing and it makes people like me all bitter. Come on, Tokyo, take a lesson from D.C.’s National Mall!

This place is great, though. They have a little deck which slightly hangs over the sidewalk, and as you can see gives me a great view of Roppongi and all the madness moving past. On some weekend nights they have live DJs spinning some mad jams. The staff is super groovy (and eternally helpful to gaijin), and it’s not a far walk from home. I know I lived with dialup for nine years (21 if you count accessing CompuServe through a 300-baud modem on an Apple IIe), but after enjoying DSL for three years I just can’t go back to my room and dial into work, which is what I have to do from my residence. Please no.

As you know, the greatest force behind the early- to mid-80s punk rock scene died recently. I was searching old articles in our library to find out when Reagan visited Japan during his presidency, and found a piece from 1986 that cracked me up. He was visiting former Prime Minister Nakasone and attending a summit on world security issues, and was calling on America’s allies to band together in “the campaign against terrorism.”

I thought it was funny.