Gaijin Tonic

Just as soft drugs supposedly lead to harder drugs, in Japan booze inevitably leads to… karaoke. And, my, what a nasty path that is.

Late at night, after a party, some sadistic bastard always proposes a karaoke jam, and you must then decide between the last train home, or five hours of liver abuse and aural torture in a karaoke booth. A no-brainer if you’re sober, but common sense tends to fly out the window when you’ve been drinking sake.

Once inside, the most inarticulate, slurring wino grabs the microphone, and the musical misery begins. Excessive drinking is required to drown out the cacophony.
And so you find yourself trapped for the night in a tiny room with the same handful of people. A claustrophobic, black room where men and women fight over the mike and scream themselves hoarse, emotions are laid bare, beer is spilled. It’s a bit like “Cube” or “Saw,” but with a worse soundtrack. In the karaoke box, no-one can hear you scream.

Blood, as well as beer, is often spilled. One guy I know was head-banging so vigorously to his own rendition of Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” that he smashed his face into the table -Thwack!!- and bust his head open. He was unconscious on the floor in a mess of blood for quite a while.

Aggressive lunges are made for the remote control as people squabble over whose song is next. A tambourine appears from somewhere. An inch of beer is sloshing around on the floor.
Slowly darkness descends, your vision blurs….

Eventually you wake up, ears ringing, on a bench in the street somewhere, the scuff-marks on the toes of your shoes indicating that you had been dragged there by the thankless karaoke-box staff, and you can barely believe that you had been foolish enough to go back to karaoke yet again.