Gaijin Tonic

This is the first in an occasional series of tributes to noteworthy Japanese booze-hounds. There are less of these hedonistic characters in Japan than in most countries- I’ll be hard-pressed to find the Japanese equivalent of, say, Oliver Reed, (over here it’s considered deeply shameful to get shit-faced on television talk shows and take your trousers off,) but I’ll give it a shot.

One of Japan’s most notorious hell-raisers was the writer Osamu Dazai. The acclaimed author of such classic works as “The Setting Sun,” Dazai was infamous for his excessive and decadent lifestyle in the post-war years. Getting stinking drunk was his favourite pastime.

It couldn’t be said that he was a happy drunk- he was a suicidal alcoholic and made several attempts to off himself before finally succeeding in 1948, in a suicide-pact with his married mistress. Needless to say, there were no pina coladas, karaoke-jams or limbo-dancing at his parties.

Dazai was a self-destructive rebel from an early age, neglecting his studies at high-school, and blowing his allowance on booze and hookers. His wild misadventures included running away from his university with a geisha, and fathering a child out of wedlock with a fan. He sounds like a latter-day Pete Docherty.

Ironically, for a guy who drank so much, he once wrote in his book “Seascape with Figures in Gold”, that his favourite tipple was milk. “The cold half pint of milk I drank each morning was the only thing that gave me a certain peculiar sense of the joy in life”. Too bad he died before the invention of Kellogg’s Frosties- he could have poured the milk on them and doubled the fun.

Here are some more well-informed links about the bloke:
Wikipedia
Dazai Bio
Another Dazai Bio
Litweb

I don’t know what the band below were thinking when they chose their name, but I hope they brought clean pairs of pants to the concert.

Part of the fun of writing a blog is that you get to see all the weird phrases that people have typed into search engines, which led them to your site. Some of the search terms I’ve seen are truly peculiar. Below are the more unusual ones I’ve read recently:

-”Tokyo sightseeing crazy sex MC Hammer”
-”Photos of Penises”
-”Lascivious Japanese ladies”
-”Pictures of Captain Birdseye”
-”Bizarre labia”
-”Fun toilet bars”

I’d be interested to know what on Earth the person who wrote “Tokyo sightseeing crazy sex MC Hammer” was hoping to find! Or, indeed, what a “toilet bar” is. I have to say, though, it pleases me that someone was searching for porn using the word “lascivious.” Endearingly literate, for a perv!
Finally, in the interest of attracting some new readers, I’d just like to say a few words: lesbian schoolgirls, big tits, free money and viagra.

The advertising executives who came up with the ad below must have been racking their brains for days to come up with such a complex slogan.

This vending machine caught me in a particularly petty mood. The big bottle of water and the small bottle are exactly the same price. Why? This unnerves me.

Below is a list I’ve lovingly compiled of Japanese bars with weird but charming English names. Presumably the owners thought that the exotic, foreign words would make their establishments sound more international and cosmopolitan to the locals, and yet unwittingly they sound extremely parochial and idiosyncratically Japanese to everyone else. Still, a crazy moniker adds to the allure of a bar for me. I come from England where there are 500-year-old pubs with ridiculous names like “Ye Olde Cheddar Cheese” and “The Fiddling Monkey,” so I have a natural fascination with these oddly-named watering holes. Here they are, in no particular order:

Jam Jam Drag on the Market
Bubble3
Bar Isn’t It?
Bingo Love
Happy Cock
John Henry’s Study
Knuckles

Wonder Cafe
Nakasu Comic Pub Academy
Gas Panic
The Crazy Cock
Dad’s Bar
Whoopee’s
Gross
Fanfan
Panic Paradise
Freeza
Star Eyes
Senba Booty
Cyberspace On
Jazz Inn Lovely
Bollocks Paradium
Ing
Post Coitus
The Green Sheep
The Full Monty

Boozee
Pub Smell
Dr Jikyll & Mr.Hyde
Piggietail Connection
White Lover
Bar Bar Bar
Booze Cafe
Cafe De Jumpin’ Jumpin’
Our Boozer
Halloween
Christmas
Bar Baby Queen
Bogey
Plastic Factory
Free Culture
Electric Ship Bar
Positively
Labia
Rad Brothers
Drink Drank
Papa Don’t Preach
Arty Farty
Woody House
My Bar
Elephant’s Nest
Shaft
Bar Sushi and Men
Loveshine
Cry Baby

Come On
Kewl
Bar Breadline
Baby Gang
Spooky Angel
Bar Cheeky
Shot Bar TRKKK
Bitter End
Party Animals
Zoid
Pub Zipper
Louisiana Hurricane
Jazz Swan
Dining Bar FATMAM
Salon Bar “Loss”
Bar Jerk

The designers of this ad for NOVA corporation clearly weren’t thinking too hard. Their mascot is the NOVA Usagi, a hybrid pink rabbit with a beak. As if looking like a deformed chimera that’s escaped from a genetics lab wasn’t enough, in the picture below, the Usagi appears to be waving his winky around like a depraved flasher!

After spotting this huge sign I spent the rest of the day pondering what its profound slogan could mean. The deep, philosophical message left me baffled. Is life inherently a great deal? Should you value each moment of your life as if it were a wonderful bargain? What on earth were they trying to tell me?
Then somebody explained to me that it was just a department store called “Life” that was having a bargain sale. Hmph.

“Wesley” is a legendarily mental bar in Fujisawa city, down a side-street near the station. I have been there countless times but never before about two AM. A trip to Wesley is always eventful, you meet new people, and lots of fun and surreal occurrences happen. The walls of the place are evidence of this, plastered with a photos of past customers, and covered with the gibberish marker-pen writings of over-excited drunkards. It’s a bona fide history museum, a rogues’ gallery of generations of wasted English teachers.

What really makes the place is the eccentric bar-owner, Yo-Chan, an affable host who looks not unlike a Japanese John Lennon, complete with round spectacles and a middle-parting. A big fan of music, Yo-Chan named his bar after a Jazz musician called Wesley…something. If you’re lucky, Yo Chan will get out his guitar for a sing-along.

Yo-Chan always persuades his customers to drink his specialty, the “Shine Shine” (”die die!”) a huge, milky monster of a cocktail, which renders the rest of the night a total blur. Oddly, everyone in the place seems to drink it, though. If you’re feeling particularly foolhardy, I’d recommend the snappily named “Shine Shine with red shit,” a turbo-charged, hardcore version of the the original Shine Shine. The “red shit” is a kind of intensely strong Jamaican Rum, but the name could just as easily mean that your shit will be red the next day.

If you’re in Fujisawa, pop in. Leave your mark on the wall for posterity, and neck a Shine Shine or two.

Info:
Tel: 0466-28-4493
You can see the address and a map at this web page.