CMON BABY, KUREIJI is CRAZY!kyoto, kyoto desu. we took the shinkansen to kyoto and arrived there some days ago (truth be told we're already in Osaka!). the first night saw aaron and millions of other people around the world trying to sort out international Visa problems while David went off to explore the red lantern lit section of the kyoto downtown known as Gion, where geishas mix with simulation french restaurants mid winding alleyways (such as the famous ponto-cho) split by the lovely takase river. some more geographical notes: the city of kyoto is essentially divided by the massive kyoto train station. the north side is where gaijin like to go and drop mad cash at expensive bars and restaurants. even though it's way over-priced it's got its beautiful points and up north is also where most of the sweet shrines and temples are located. on the south side where we were staying in a way chilled out ryokan, there's basically nothing but Family Marts and other kinds of marts... and oh yeah, the most happening kids on the planet who come out every night to hold it down on the streets, and by hold it down i mean dance like crazy to little boom boxes until the early morning rolls around and they roll out. but yeah. i (this is aaron by the way) could write forever about these kids. they are super inspiring! super bangin'! super-everything that northside kyoto is not... but... i am... digressing a lot. so our second night in kyoto we go out to see what ponto-cho is all about. david had found a neat bar his first out and we'd heard about a lot of places all stacked up along this one street called kiyamachi-dori. the first place we hit was called Mushroom. see for yourself: 
Mushroom was fun but we peaced out pretty quick after one drink. and unfortunately the instrument i am trying to rock out on in the above picture was out of batteries! but hey, it's cool man. next we went to a bar called ING, supposedly the most rocking bar in kyoto. and yes, oh yes. the bartender kept the music rocking and rolling, from led zeppelin to the byrds' sweetheart of the rodeo. but oh how can i explain? this is where the story begins my friends. for when we set foot inside that unassuming bar with the menus made from old record jackets who could've predicted the insanity that was soon to follow? we ordered a few drinks and sat down at a table in the back, just two gaijin out on the town. a minute or two later we were approached by an interesting nihonjin fellow in a white hat not unlike those worn by many a godard anti-hero. he introduced himself in confident english as Naoki and introduced his friend Hiro as well, a brooding young man with good taste in music and movies. we got to talking and Naoki expressed his wish to be american and live in new york "ASAP." turns out he'd been to new york and loved the fuck out of it. he even saw beauty and the beast on broadway! did he cry? he denied it, but later that night (or morning really) in a ramen joint somewhere between gion and the station, he called out in despair for his BEEAAASSTTT!!! the girls sitting in the next booth seemed... well... to ignore us. anyways, i'm jumping the gun. here's a picture to get you into the groove:
as you can see, that's Naoki on the left, Hiro in the center and me on the right. needless to say, we had a few drinks. when a middle-aged british dude with a bad attitude joined the table things began to get quite existential. he expressed his philosophy that the first 15 years of one's life are shit and therefore one's true age is one's age minus 15. i'm not sure what he was getting at. Hiro, who can't speak very much english (but does love Afrirampo, Miike movies and NANA!!!), split for the bar to sit with the tender (obviously a former prog-rock star in the 70s), another middle aged gaijin and a woman we never met. then the old dude at our table (i forget his name all of a sudden) started giving david some shit for smoking. something about cancer and death? of course, this guy had smoked for 22 years. well, he was pretty drunk i imagine because he told us (as some way of apologizing for his harshness which david fairly pointed out to him perhaps?) that he had an incredibly small penis and this was why he never had children. is this part of the story important? i doubt it. after a brief and refreshing talk with his canadian friend named Ron and more drinks, the youthful ones, i.e., Naoki, Hiro, David and Aaron, (AGE ZERO mothafuckaz) hit the streets in gleeful spirits with many a "C'mon baby" from Naoki (or was it C'mon David? hard to tell, perhaps both at different points). Naoki was on a mission... but just what was this mission? to show us what japanese culture was all about? to simply trash this pretentious town? to soothe the woes of no longer living in his hometown of Osaka? or perhaps... it was TO GO CRAZY. any of you ever seen the movie Pierrot le Fou (Pierrot Goes Wild)? well... there should be a sequel with Naoki in the title role. did i mention that he's a walkie-talkie salesman? well, he is! anyways, the first place we hit was, strangely enough, a restaurant where Hiro and Naoki had once worked. why did we go there? why did Naoki introduce us to his old boss? i have no idea, but we left pretty quickly. Naoki justified it all with another of his American catch phrases: It's cool man. then he got on his cell phone to call up some japanese girls. it was quite late and public transportation in kyoto ends around 11:30pm. nonetheless, after disappearing for about ten minutes, Naoki returned with a lovely young woman named Mae (!?!). after everyone in the group agreed that karaoke was shit and that we didn't want to do it, Naoki took us to a karaoke place! just like paying money to get your "dick blown" ("because we're just regular guys man! japanese custom!" naoki speaking of course), this Japanese version of Neal Cassady told us it was cool man and next thing you know David and I are having our first karaoke experience in japan. the drinks kept coming, somehow endlessly, and we sang a whole lot of great tunes including, amazingly, TWILIGHT by E.L.O., Like a Rolling Stone, Misery by the Beatles, God sav
e the Queen, Rock N Roll Radio, some japanese rap, or reggae or whatever, and Mae sang a few j-pop ballads (she really impressed me with her singing prowess!) well, next the sake showed up and Naoki began forcing it down our throats, but hey, it's cool man. more pictures? yes!
before anyone could know it, glasses were being smashed left and right and Naoki was tearing the fuck out of the karaoke booth. you see those things on the wall in the above picture? well, none of them were there at the end of the night! who can even tell when Mae decided to split? she felt sick and i can't blame her. two ashtrays and a billion broken glasses of sake and whatever else later, the night rounded up with Naoki singing "I want it that way" by the Backstreet Boys. Indeed he'd been talking about it all night. C'mon Baby! Hiro could only sigh with amusement as I nearly lost consciousness from laughing so hard. here are some more pictures of the karaoke insanity:
after the karaoke wound up and we saw the damage we had wrought on our booth, Hiro urged us to book it down the escalators and so we did. at the front desk the price came to 1240 yen, which seems impossible given the number of drinks we had, the time spent there, etc... and as for the damage... i still can't believe they didn't call the police, although the true criminality was yet to come. outside the karaoke place we waited as Naoki haggled with the man at the desk about god only knows what. david and i threw down some cash but we think maybe Naoki was trying to put it on his credit card and pocket the cash but the place wouldn't take his card? did Naoki pocket the cash and run out without paying? probably! in the meantime Hiro informed us that in Japan, as in America, the word for crazy is crazy, and this is the word he used time and again to describe his friend Naoki. i think it was around this point in the night when Naoki lost his hat (but didn't seem to mind) and stole an umbrella or two, broke them to make lock picks, and started trying to steal a bicycle. by the end of the night i think maybe three bikes were stolen? should i be writing this? will i get arrested? do i care? as Naoki said, we're all in this together, if we die, we all die together. we rolled to eat some ramen and it was delicious. "my treat" the kind Naoki informed us. Hiro soon split on his own non-stolen bicycle and Naoki insisted that we take a cab back to the station where we could walk back to our ryokan. i guess Naoki would then take the cab back to wherever he lives, having given up on the bicycle idea. when we were in the cab Naoki produced an egg. yes, an egg. i have no idea how or where he got it, but then it was mine! the night ended with me slinging that egg at kyoto station. strangey, the egg didn't break. david took pictures with his non-digital camera, so maybe someday you will see them. when we hit our tatamis the sun was rising.
