Last weekend, plus leaving Japan

I was out extra special late Friday and Saturday night this past weekend. Both times I was a total wet blanket by the end of the night because I stopped drinking about a week ago, and who the hell stays out till 6am anyway? I don’t care how drunk you are. That’s olympic-scale recreating.

Friday, Banjo and his Canadian-style girlfriend, Sandy, met me at the train station. Steve didn’t come because he suffers from severe lameness. From there we jiggled 15 minutes to nearby Ota where Banjo led the way through an astonishingly barren streetscape, populated solely by Johns standing at similar intervals from one another, eying us as we passed, and the typical drunk stumblers here and there. Neither Sandy nor I seemed to know where Banjo was leading us, and what for. It seemed awfully quite for 9 o’clock on a Friday night.

About another 15 minutes later we stopped in front of an unassuming bar with confusingly incomplete decorations out front. Blank Guiness chalk board, empty chair sitting on an inexplicable deck, slate metal door, three seashells - though not the enigmatic chrome ones from Demolition Man. Just three, ordinary seashells, hanging out. Through the door, around the corner, and into a bomb shelter-style room, we met with some of Banjo’s friends from… somewhere, who were already halfway through very large mugs of beer. Not sure what the count was up to by then. I caved and let them order on mixed drink for me which didn’t taste like it had any alcohol at all in it.

Not drinking is like being magic. While everyone gets dumber, you look like a genius because you’re not slurring your sentences and you can stand. But these are all things people know. Experiencing it is something to remember. Like finishing in the top ten of a triathlon. LIVE LIFE. Speaking of triathlons, I feel better. And speaking of speaking of triathlons… that sounds exciting. Might have to look into that.

We were at that bar for a few hours, then hopped to one down the street that happened to be owned by Banjo’s boss. I suppose that’s no coincidence, and is more likely the reason we were in that area to begin with. By then I was plain old tired where the rest of the group was getting their second wind, excluding Sandy, who I hadn’t seen have more than one drink all night. Banjo’s boss was a total VIXEN who inherited the bar from her mother and built the school at which Banjo works from the ground up, literally. The rest of the staff was populated by similarly beautiful women, including one with the flattering handle “Bulldog”. The title is a reference to her conduct and not her physical appearance. Very aggressive and loud.

I’m sure I was exploding “I WANT TO LEAVE” when 5am rolled around. Someone had arranged for Banjo’s boss to give us a lift home. Cool. I managed to go on and on about The Ocean pretty much the entire way there. I’m not sure if it was because everyone was too tired to talk or because I was excited and on a roll because I was finally going to get to sleep… or some sad combination of the two. We were dropped off and parted company at Banjo’s apartment.

Sleep.

While Friday was a spur-of-the-moment decision, Saturday was more premeditated, having been loosely scheduled earlier in the week. Maja’s living in Tokyo during a school break (he studies in the States). I couldn’t justify leaving Japan without hanging out with The Fooj! Steve came along this time, and Dave met us about an hour and a half later. My sobriety couldn’t have been more ill-timed with this weekend marathon, but I stuck with it, ordering a $5 tomato juice at the restaurant where we started our evening out. From there it was a no-brainer: el karaoke.

We walked to a bar we had scoped earlier and traveled to the seventh floor, where there was a chick already passed out on the wrap-around sofa in the lounge. Classy. Somehow she still tastefully avoided a public panty shot. I swear, the chicks around here are like ninjas with that. They wear their skirts so short, but I have yet to see anything jui- oh god! I’m not going to finish that sentence.

This karaoke bar actually inhabited the top three floors of the building. We got our shit sorted and went another two stories to where our room was hidden. The remainder of the night was hounded by technical difficulties with remotes running out of batteries and microphones being too quiet. But we managed to have a good time anyway, despite the fact that no one was really drinking very much. Except for Dave who was making a total ass of himself… as Steve’s filmed it. I’ll have to look into getting that footage on the internet.

We had gone for a package that charges each person about $35 to use a room for essentially the entire night. So we stayed there until about 3:00am. Again. I have no idea how these people do this so long. I became disinterested like an hour in. Plus I had thrashed my throat going all crazy with songs I didn’t know. Not from screaming, like you might think. I did a few screamers throughout the night. But the real backyard killer is improper technique.

Finally, we headed back to Maja’s box in the next district. We had originally planned to crash out there and head back home in the morning. But after seeing the sheer small-ocity of his pad, we inaudibly agreed to stay awake playing video games until the trains started again at 5. An hour and a half of Smash Bros and WarioWare later we jumped on the second train through which would have us home a little after 7. Son of balls. We made it and then I began to sleep.

END OF WEEKEND.

Those two nights managed to completely eff off my precious sleeping schedule again. Happily, it’s for the better since I recently bought a ticket to London. Scheduled departure time is Sunday morning. Now I’m synced up with the UK. Furthermore, I’m going to have to get to the airport Saturday night, because the trains don’t start early enough in the morning for me to get there in time. If I time it right, I should be able to sleep through the plane ride.

Not that it would matter though, because I just got my fancy new Cybook! It’s one a few devices showing up lately dedicated to portable ebook reading. Sounds gimmicky, I know. But I firmly believe that this sort of technology - combined with the multi-touch interfaces Microsoft and Apple are both playing with and maybe even Wacom’s stylus driven products - will revolutionize our society and even mankind in a way the Segway promised but miserably failed. Those things are fast though! A lot faster than you’d think.

And I have a theory that the reason I don’t read more often is because I absolutely abhor paper. I hate owning it, handling it and especially writing on it. Give me an email, web page or digital tablet any day over paper. Or should I say “gay-per”. I think I should.

I’ve been feverishly writing and rewriting material for the tracks I’ve gotten from Daor so far. I’m making a conscious effort to balance out the terrible lyric-writing that plagues modern metal.

I’ve also had a few possible projects flying around, but I can’t commit to anything with the immediate future being so uncertain. I did rough up a concept for a Trapt t-shirt which got slapped down into my face like so much basketball. In that regard, I’m looking forward to having control of Daor’s image. IT WILL BE SEXY. I’ve also given consideration to what I might do for a solid cash flow when I get to the UK. There’s a company I’m looking at that hires freelancers which could be nice and stable. But, at the same time, trying to do too many creative things at once could cause me to go insane. Maybe I’ll take up bar tending. Seems like a sexy gig. And I could be the mysterious bar tender who doesn’t drink. “Hey baby, how about one on the house?” *takes a shot of vitamin water, then has sex*