July 12th, 2006
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Fame (I’m gonna live forever)
Last Friday night things got a little out of hand, as usual something (primarily) innocent ended up growing in to a large, seething, resource-absorbing, sweaty-toothed beast that placed me in the debt of two stalwart supporters. Fortunately, this time it involved no women, no regrettable words, and no collision of solid objects. Lucky, yes. Boilermakers, no.
In any case, a couple of my co-workers and I went to Ootaru, a cheap suds house favored by Nakameguro’s young and not-so-affluent. Though not my original design, we ended up staying there until closing, taking full advantage of the discount bottles of Sapporo beer. After this, it was obviously too late to catch a train, and one of our colleagues was without a bicycle. So I did what I always do when going someplace with less bicycles than people: lowered the seat on my noble steed and lent her to my comrade. Thus I lead the way from Nakameguro to Udagawachou on foot, pressing a full, fevered run the several miles uphill to our next watering hole.
The catch in the story is not me running down the street ahead full with basketed bicycles following, it is that at this point I was thoroughly soused, feeling good, and very hot, so I thought it necessary to strip off my shirt to better ventilate my finely tuned machine. In America, while uncommon, it’s not unheard of to see some burly dude running down a suburban street in Nikes with no shirt on. However, in Japan, down the strip of one of the most active entertainment districts in Tokyo at 2:00am, this is a slightly different story. I wasn’t stopped by any cops or anything, but halfway down Dogenzaka hill I realized I was turning a fair number of heads. For here was a sinewy, furry-chested Italian-American streaking down the sidewalk, glistening in the neon of karaoke halls, massage parlors, and noodle stalls. As I waited to take the elevator up to my perennial darkened whiskey bar of choice, The S, Rob caught up with me and said, “Why don’t we put our shirt on now, big fella?” Sure. That’s cool.
Show’s over for the night, folks. Thanks, I’ll be here all week.
