Rock And Roll In Osaka

In light of my disaster with Kumiko, I wanted to indulge in a wild weekend. I wanted an unhinged person to accompany me who would encourage irrational behaviour and a lack of decency. I decided to go to Osaka and the person I asked to accompany me was Russ. Having an unhinged person to with you on a drunken weekend is fine, but having someone like this whilst on a bus in the middle of a traffic jam is horrendous. The bus journey from Iida to Osaka was meant to be four hours, but due to an accident on the expressway, it lasted eight hours. Russ was hollering at the driver to change lanes, or to intimidate cars ahead to move out the way. He would then spit out expletives as to the cause of the traffic jam.
To occupy ourselves during this arduous journey within the unbearable heat of the bus, we devised an incredibly juvenile but entertaining game entitled: Wank.
The rules consisted of replacing a word in a famous film title with the word Wank. The possibilities were endless, which was just the thing we needed to dampen the volcanic anger that was brewing in each of us towards the crawling cars ahead.
My personal favourites from this tasteless game were: Ace Ventura Wank Detective; Wank on a Hot Tin Roof; Wank Hard 2: Wank Harder and Wank Russia with Love. We had exhausted the game when we finally arrived in Osaka, and I felt as if we were on the verge of insanity. One more game of Wank and I was certain I would have been led off to an insane asylum. We alighted from the bus, and breathed in the air for the first time in eight hours.
The time was now 11.30pm and we were starving. It took three minutes of speed-walking through the fluorescent lighted streets of Shinsaibashi to find a small sushi restaurant tucked away on a side street. As we sat down in front of a long table, with the customers on one side and the sushi chefs on the other, I was handed a menu by a quivering wreck of a waiter. He looked as if he had just experienced a guided tour of hell. I observed the other chefs across the table from us, all of whom had the same ghostly expression. The explanation for this was due to the continuous orders from the customers. Sushi restaurants are essentially fast-food restaurants, and customers expect fast-service. If you order one piece of sushi, a good sushi chef will prepare it in 20 seconds. But with a multitude of orders flying at the chefs in different directions, I imagine it must be bloody hard to keep track of who ordered what. No wonder they looked as though their souls had evaporated from their bodies. As much as I felt a modicum of pity for them, this didn’t stop me from adding to their woes and ordering a belt-breaking bundle of sushi. From sea-bream to crab, you name it, I ordered it, and when my order came, I slurped it up and gobbled it down in an exaggerated style like a ravenous cartoon character.
Russ and I left the restaurant and made our way to a nearby Hip-Hop club called Pure. It was 3,500 yen to enter and then free drinks all night. It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it. We paid the entrance fee and went inside.
The place was uncomfortably crowded, and the music was painfully loud. But these gripes were soon forgotten when we found the bar and started to deplete the club's stock of alcohol. Russ and I knocked back half a dozen tequilas in quick succession and followed them up with beer and vodka. I could already hear my brain yell, “Abandon ship!” It was good to its word because the remainder of the evening passed in a fuzzy haze of lights, girls and thumping music. I berated myself for drinking too quickly and as a result I stumbled around the dance floor like a one legged goose.
I attempted to speak to a Japanese girl standing nearby looking bored. I straightened up, slicked back my hair, and focused my eyes. I stood in front of her but before I could say “Konichiwa,” I ran to the toilet to vomit. I came back and saw her still standing there. I slicked my hair back again, chewed on a mint and wandered over to her, still feeling queasy. “Konnichiwa,” I said. “Konnichiwa,” she said. This fascinating conversation was stopped short on account of me charging towards the toilet to vomit again. I came back for my third encounter. She was still standing there. “Konnichiwa,” I said, one eye wide open, the other half closed. “Fuck off,” she said, and took her leave. I sat on a step next to the toilet and watched everyone having a good time, whilst I was in a pit of despair. I was drunk, tired, and depressed about such a shocking start to my supposed weekend of fun.
I was scanning the club for Russ in order to drag him out and find another club for a fresh start. I spotted him in a passionate embrace with a girl. I figured that in my incapacitated state I couldn’t hold a conversation and would have appeared a drooling idiot to people. I decided to leave the club and sleep on a pavement outside. This was lower than a nadir. This was a nadir tunnelling further than it’s ever gone before, searching for a world record in tunnelling. I came for fun, what I got was a shit stained pavement.
I wasn’t sure how long I slept, but I was woken by a man who was holding some smelling salts under my nose. I rubbed my eyes and the man came into focus. He was old, had a tangled beard which had coins dangling from it, and wore a baseball cap turned back to front. He was also wearing a ripped waistcoat and some long-johns with a t-shirt that read Stop Staring at my Tits.
I was confused.
“Yeah?” I said with a groaky voice. “Wake up, boy,” he said, in English. “What’s the problem?” “You’re the one with the problem. You’re sleeping in garbage,” he said, and pointed at the fast-food hamburger boxes I was using as a blanket. “You’re in need of some luck,” he continued, and grabbed my hand. “What the-” I said, startled. He studied my palm for a few seconds and made some satisfactory grunts. He let go of my and said, “The next time you come back to Osaka, you will find happiness.” “What kind of happiness?” “Come back and you will find out,” he said, and held out his palm. “Listen, I’m not going to read your palm,” I stated firmly. “No. I want money,” he said. I gave him a hamburger box. “That’s for not telling me what the happiness will involve,” I said and walked off. Dawn was breaking, so I figured the club would close very soon. I wondered if it was worth waiting for Russ to appear. If he was still exploring the tonsils of the girl he picked up in the club, I would have been superfluous to requirements. I was about to check myself into a nearby capsule hotel when Russ emerged from the exit, without the girl from earlier. “What happened?” I asked. “I told her the rules of Wank: The Game and she left!” he said, incredulously. We decided not to get some sleep at a capsule hotel because we weren't tired. Besides, our bus journey back to Iida was scheduled at 3.30pm and we wanted to see as much of Osaka as we could. The chances of finding something mentally stimulating at this early hour were slim but we were still mildly drunk so continued to aimlessly walk the littered streets whilst playing Wank. We were stopped in our path outside another club by two lads, one wearing a baseball cap and the other wearing a big puffer jacket. They were asking us to pay a visit to their club called Beer Guzzlers the following night. I told them we were leaving Osaka that afternoon.
They seemed like sprightly characters so Russ and I continued the conversation.
"Where are you guys from?" I slurred.
"I'm originally from Ghana," said baseball hat.
"And I'm from New York," said puffer-jacket.
"That's cool. What are your names?" I said.
"I'm Roy," said Ghana baseball hat.
"And I'm Rock. Rock Adams," said New York puffer jacket.
I waited a moment to see whether Rock was joking about his name. He fixed his glare on me, not flinching. With a mixture of drunken fearlessness and stupidity I proceeded to goad him about his ridiculous name. “Come on! You’re not called Rock,” I heckled.
"Hey man, you don't believe me? Check this out," and he swiped a Beer Guzzler's card out of his wallet. Emblazoned above the title Executive Manager was the name Rock Adams.
"That doesn't mean anything!" I protested. "I could get cards with the name Napoleon Bonaparte printed on the front, doesn't mean it's my real name." I then started to laugh as if this was the funniest thing in the world.
What was I doing? This guy was built like a brick shit-house, and if I've learnt anything in my life it’s never to get into a fight with a fella named Rock.
Luckily, Rock took my little jibe well and started to laugh in a booming style.
Roy asked where Russ and I were heading. We shrugged and pointed northwards. He beamed and said we should walk together because he was going home and the train station was in the same direction. We said goodbye to Rock, who nearly broke my hand with his handshake, and walked with Roy to the train station.
On our way to the station, Roy gave us an in depth analysis of his sexual exploits from around the world, whilst Russ and I would nod without interest.
Just as Roy was about to descend the stairs to the train station Russ stopped him and gave him some business advice.
"You should call yourself Roll," he said.
Roy looked confused.
"Then you can call yourselves Rock and Roll. It'd be a great business move," Russ said.
Roy laughed and carried on laughing as he walked down the steps until we heard his chortle echoing from below the subway.
The hour was still horrendously early, so we grabbed some coffee and eggs from a cafe. During breakfast, we decided, for want of anything better to do, to head towards the nearby aquarium and beat the queues before the opening time of 9am.
It was a highlight in my rough guide to Osaka, which meant it must be good. That's what I thought, anyway. The rough guide doesn't, however, give a warning to avoid this place whilst suffering from a grim hang-over.
We beat the queues as expected, but I didn't appreciate the aquatic delights on display as we shambled through the place like zombies. Instead of focusing my attention on the majestic and graceful movements of the sea-creatures I was more concerned about stopping myself puking in the otter tank.
With each new tank displaying a wonder of the deep, all I could think about was when this little tour finished such was my dire state. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw the exit door. I gave an eager wave to a gang of portly penguins and lunged out into the open air.
Russ and I decided to head back into the centre of town and linger until our bus came. We were definitely not in eager tourist mode. We were barely in functioning human mode.