Tokyo, Day 4 - Christmas, Milk, and Soda Water

On this cold winter's night in Tokyo, my buttocks gently tingle with the vestigial titillation imparted by the sense that for two hours or so, in a strictly karmic manner, the entire universe puckered up and kissed my ass.

This feeling, however, was not because of the start of my day. I arose early enough, but dawdled at the computer waiting for 11AM, which is the magical hour when guitar shops open... I had a Christmas breakfast of a doughnut and some Pocari Sweat and I was off to look at guitars...

I went to Shinjuku, which is apparently much better after dark. But the guitar stores would be closed then!!!

I found two of them while stumbling around, and looked for a third and fourth, but didn't find them. I saw a couple of interesting things, but nothing to scream about. I took a few pictures, too, but mostly just to appease my mother.

Still, here's Shinjuku in daylight:

But let's face it, any of you that read this with any regularity couldn't donate a rodent's posterior about anything I did before 6pm today.

And in retrospect, neither can I.

I came back to my hotel around 2, ate (yet another) pork chop sandwich from 7-11 (the women that work there giggle and shoot glances at each other when I go there, because I am certain they've figured out that their 7-11 is my major source for food in Tokyo).

I bathed meticulously, not just because I wanted to be clean for the evening, but because I had typically overdressed and then walked all over Shinjuku, thus making myself a sweaty mess.

Who hadn't bathed in a day, but it was cold and I'm on vacation. Go screw.

I stuffed myself into the tiny (but nicely deep) bathtub, sipping Pocari Sweat and listening to my perennial Christmas playlist:

Bruce Springsteen's cover of Santa Claus is Coming to Town Bryan Adams' (I know, I know) cover of Run Run Rudolph The Kinks' Father Christmas and

Billy Squier's Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You(laugh all you want; can youplay slide like that?).

I play those songs only one day a year. And today I realized just how often I hear them alone.

Truism #1: weird ain't free. You don't get to have Christmas at home andChristmas with AV stars in Tokyo. It's one or the other, and with benefits come costs. The luxury of having a lot of time to yourself comes at the cost of having a lot of time to yourself.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

But who cares?

I washed my @ss, got dressed, and left nice and early to make sure I was not late. Which is not as stupid as it sounds. This was the first time I would be on the Tokyo metro system during rush hour. I have so far studiously avoided it.

And now I know why. The first part of the journey wasn't so bad, but the closer I got to where I needed to go, the denser the cars got, until I was being summarily shoved about like everyone else. But I must say it was all rather impersonal and business-like, so I took no offense. I just wanted to make sure I got where I needed to go. I wasn't sure, for example, if I could really change trains where I thought I could, but it turns out I was right.

Thank God.

I arrived at the appointed place and a few minutes (and photographs for my mother) later, I met my interpreter for the evening, Motoki. He has been handed this weird assignment by our own Golden Rock, who gets big points for pulling my fat hairy @ss out of the crack marked "find an interpreter in a city where you know no one within three days." Granted, the interpretee (interpretty...) helped.

After shaking hands, I immediately gave him one of the box of chocolates I bought at the airport to give to his girlfriend, whom I still say has the heart of a saint and the trust of an altar boy...

Shortly thereafter, we were found by the AV star's manager, Mr. Hashiguchi   . I assume he recognized me, since I had sent him a photo (and I was the tallest, whitest person at the place).

I realize just now that up to this point, out of paranoia of queering the whole weird thing, that I have for no good reason kept this woman's name a (semi-) secret.

Her name is Nana Natsume, and a search for her name will bring up all manner of interesting results.

Even the ones with words instead of pictures, though I have yet to look at those...

She was finishing up recording one of her radio shows, so we went across the street to wait for her. We chatted a little and before long a woman walked up to us and introduced herself.

She was wearing a long winter coat with a fur-trimmed hood, jeans and those Eskimo boots that seem so popular here. She stuck out her hand and said "Hello, I'm Nana."

I knew that.

I grinned moronically.

It's what I do.

Then I introduced myself.

We walked to the restaurant, and out of nowhere she asked me how old I was. I said 42 and she said I didn't look it. So I went into my usual bit about how expats tend to bend their elbows a lot while holding a glass or can of booze in their hand, which ages them. Thus, my not drinking has allowed me to curtail that effect somewhat, and of course it is heightened through contextualization (among a bunch of booze-swilling loons) . 

I tried very hard to be witty and make people (with breasts) laugh. So when she asked me why I stopped drinking, I said it was because I was tired of waking up in jail. She laughed, which sounded very nice, and asked if I did bad things when I was drunk. I told her that I usually had no recollection of events, another reason for stopping. She found that amusing, and I found that endearing...

We sat down in the restaurant, a very private place where we had our own sort of cubicle. It was not easy to fit into the seat; it was one of those places where the floor is recessed under the table, and the whole space was none too big. But watching me trying to wedge my overgrown @ss into the space seemed to simultaneously amuse and concern her, so I was happy.

Do we see the pattern here?

Because then she said something to the effect that I was very big, and I admit, a large Life Completion block slid into place as a grin spread across my countenance.

Because now I know itmust be true.

Part of my job is to ignore the reality of celebrity, of that weird magic that the screen imparts to people (like Cherrie Ying Choi Yi). Sometimes it is easier than others.

And sometimes people don't help. Nana Natsume is very easy to look at, and it made me feel nice when I did. But I didn't want to stare. I mean, I did, I just didn't want to get caught.

As we started dinner and made general conversation, somehow the table got turned on me and she asked mea lot of questions.

I think it started when I nonchalantly ate all the things presented to me without batting an eye. She asked if I was just being polite eating them, and I said no, I always eat local food (and realize a lot of expats don't, which is probably where her question came from), don't eat Western food where I live since there is none, blah blah blah...

This sadly morphed into questions about my living situation. I got stuck saying I was divorced, but happily so. She was amused. I was happily so happy.

She said she hasn't had a boyfriend in 10 years. I asked why, and she said it was her personality.

I was tempted to ask if she was taking applications.

She asked if I was single, but not in any leading way. I said yes, I was, but thank you for reminding me. She was amused. I was happier.

Without meaning to, I ended up having to admit that I spent a lot of time alone, and she asked me if I was lonely. I sheepishly admitted that sometimes I was, and she said no, I always have Nana.

I remember thinking, Has she seen my Internet History??? I also remember thinking that either it was an inordinately nice thing to say, or I am just that deprived for consideration.

Soon enough (and luckily for me), we turned to the heart of the evening; I got to ask two people directly involved in the production of Japanese AV about it. I learned a lot.

One of the first things I learned was not to look at her too much. Because she would smile at me, and I couldn't bear it. I'm fairly certain I must have blushed at least once, and maybe she was just amusing herself by continuing to do it.

I had my notebook in my lap, and she would occasionally try to sneak a glance at what I had written in there. Not that it matters, since she can read about as much English as I can Japanese. But it was, like most everything she did, disarmingly cute.

I realize I sound like some pathetic geek saying that, and maybe I am, but you had to see it.

Besides, as we all know, my life is utterly devoid of non-remunerated female interaction, so I am perhaps overly sensitive to it.

But as the dinner wore on, I found myself fascinated by the things she would say and the way she would say them. She matter-of-factly informed me that the best cure for the burning sensation male effluence causes in the eyes (while it is being deposited on the face) is the direct application of milk. Before she learned this, she was in fact hospitalized once. Now there's an episode of ER I'd watch. This becomes especially important when one is doing a film in which 100 men perform this particular act.

That's not a rough estimate. That's a (cleaned-up) translation of the title of the film...

Oh, and if one is to be swallowing any quantity of said effluence, it is best to drink soda water before hand so as to avoid an upset tummy.

I didn't get the impression that she swallowed a hundred, but to be honest  I was still trying to cope with the general ambiance of the initial thought and I may not have gotten all the details.

But I should also say that one of my deepest impressions was of a woman who has no regrets about what she did and genuinely and honestly sees nothing wrong with it. She didn't necessarily enjoy all of it, but how many of us like everything about ourjobs?

Then, just when I thought I was safe, her manager asked me how I felt about her, if I thought she was pretty, if I liked to look at her.

I answered positively to all  those questions, but said that when I first found out she was an AV star, I felt vaguely guilty about looking at her pictures, and now that I had met her, I would feel terribly guilty looking at them.

Except when I was lonely.

She thought that was funny.

I did too.

We talked about her acting in films after her retirement. She has a small part in Sasori, the upcoming Joe Ma film with Miki Mizuno. They have a fight in a shower that is nearly stomach-turning in its brutality. But she acquits herself well, and I told her so.

Especially considering that she's in a bra and panties that are wet the whole time.

She filmed that part in Hong Kong in 2006, and it was very cold, she said. Between takes she would stand as close to the lights as she could. Her manager said that during filming, she made friends with everyone even though she couldn't talk to them, and made it sound like some amazing task.

I wonder if he ever looked at her.

Or if he has any idea of the socio-sexual status large-breasted (G, if you want to know) Japanese women have in the eyes of Hong Kong men (like film crews).

Or men who'd like to have it in the eyes of a Japanese woman, but now I'm just being gross...

She asked me if I had seen her other films, and I said that I would like to see them but they have no English subtitles. She said that they weren't necessary, that I would understand her body language.

I told her I would watch the films when I was lonely. She laughed.

It looked and sounded really nice.

As dinner wound down, I presented she and her manager with gifts I had brought them. I said that on one hand, they had given me invaluable insight into something that you simply can't read about (at least anything reputable). On the other hand, it's Christmas, and that's what you do.

I gave her manager the bottle of Chivas I got on the plane, and I gave her the big box of Peninsula chocolates. She said she really liked them, and I said I was very glad because I hoped I could get her a gift she liked. She smiled at me and under the table, she grabbed my leg between her feet.

For just a moment, I felt like what I imagine Louis Koo or Daniel Wu feel like when they walk into a room and every woman in the place loses her motherf#$%ing mind. I have never felt so good about myself before in my Godforsaken life.

I asked her to sign my 'tour itinerary,' the fake cover I put on my notebook whenever I go somewhere that holds all my travel info and assorted other stuff. It has my favorite picture of her. It may be my favorite picture ever.I'll frame it when I get home.We took pictures, and for some reason, in one of them she reached back and put her hand on my chest.I was tempted to reciprocate, but I had somehow managed not to f@#$ up the evening for its entirety and was so close to the end that I decided to just let it go."This guy behind me? He'shuge !"After we took the pictures, she huggedme. I almost fainted.

But I persevered, and we left the restaurant. We stood outside talking, and she took out a piece of paper. She gave me her email address and said we can be 'mail friends,' that I can teach her English and she will teach me Japanese.

I almost wet my pants, and not in the adult way.

As we walked towards the train station, I just kept breathing the clean air and smiling, and sometimes looked at her. She and I were walking alongside one another while Motoki and her manager were talking.

She turned to me and spoke in English. "Mr. Sean," she said.

"Sean," I said.

"What is your blood type?"

Huh? I thought.

"A positive," I said, a term she needed translated. I asked her why she wanted to know, and Motoki told me that it was a very Japanese kind of question that relates to things like fortune telling.

I told him to tell her it was the only A+ I ever got, and she laughed.

I liked that.

At the train station we said our goodbyes, and Nana hugged me again. She hugged Motoki too. But I felt so good I wasn't even jealous. I was glad for him too. So was he.

Mr. Hashiguchi went with me on the train to my stop to make sure I got home okay. Most people wouldn't expect that kind of thing from a 'pornographer,' but that just goes to show you how wrong people and their assumptions can be.

Tomorrow I will meet Mr. 

Hashiguchi   at his office to be given a tour of the place. Nana won't be there, but it will still be fun.

I rented a phone the day I got here. It has yet to ring. I may email her the # and ask her to call me just so I hear it ring once.

Oh, and so I can tell people that Nana Natsume called me.

If life is truly defined by the few moments in it that sound great even when objectively stated, I hope that one of you will be good enough to make sure that my headstone reads thus:Sean Tierney

1966-2XXX

Had Christmas Dinner With Nana Natsume, 2008

Gave Her a Christmas Gift and She Liked It

Just for tonight, I am cooler than you.The next time I feel lonely, I'll remember what she said, and I won't feel so lonely.Thank you, Nana, for everything.