New Writings, part the first

Okay.

I haven't updated in a long time. A lot of things have happened. Good things and bad things. But here's a partial update taken from writing that I haven't gotten around to uploading. More coming soon, hopefully.

Here goes:

Tuesday, 21 March 2006.

Welcome Camel, or How To Fail and Then Recover From That Failure By Eating At Denny's

Hmm...okay, a story by request. For Becca. Here goes:

Well, my "band" - Iain and I - played our first gig as Welcome Camel last Tuesday in the little city of Inuyama. To put it mildly, we sucked. I sucked into a microphone, so all the more suck for me. And it was mostly me; I was crazily nervous, which made me forget words in almost every song. The friends who made the 45-minute trip for this 40-minute mistake said that we did well, minus a few mistakes.

But then isn't that what friends are supposed to say? [sigh]

So needless to say, I'm not too happy how it went; which makes me all the more worried for the next show this Saturday - it'll be bigger and more of my friends/acquaintances will be there. I'm practicing every day, but I'm getting more and more nervous. I'm afraid I'm going to freeze up or have a nervous breakdown!

Anyway, after the debut-debacle, I proceeded to the bar:
Thom: Kei, whiskey kudasai (please).
Kei: What kind?
Thom: BIG.
Kei: Jack Daniels?
Thom: If it's a double, it's fine!

So after a rather generous serving of Mr. Daniels, I started to calm down a little. Fifteen minutes later, I was feeling decent again. Iain got back up and played a few covers, which I could finally sing along with pretty well. After that we played some drinking games, which I handled pretty well by knowing an inordinate amount of famous people's names, with the kids who stayed around.

[Moral of the story: Drink the whiskey first, rock the house second.]

I met a cute English girl (not the vampire one) named Megan and we started talking. Things were going really well, I somehow managed to say funny things and she laughed at them and kept touching my hand. I was golden. Then she asked me where in the States I was from. So I told her Minnesota. She said, "Oh, my boyfriend is from Texas. Is that near Minnesota?" Double dog damn.


We finally left around 4am, Megan decided to head home with Iain's flatmate Darius, and Iain, our friend Mitchell, and I went to Denny's...

Yes, Denny's. Across the road from Iain's flat is the Home of the All-American Grand Slam. Note though: Japanese All-American Grand Slams are not the same as American All-American Grand Slams. The Japanese kind contains noodles. Don't ask me how, like many things in Japan, it defies all logic. I didn't get the All-American Grand Slam.

So we sit down, order, start talking. Twenty minutes later, while we're eating, Iain's phone rings:
Iain: Hello?
Darius: Where are you?
Iain: At Denny's. Where are you?
Darius: What are you doing at Denny's?
Iain: Umm...eating?
Darius: Okay, I'm coming over.
Iain: Wait, what? What're yo-
[Three minutes later Darius literally stumbles in, looks around the nearly deserted restaurant twice, and totters over.]
Iain: Are you okay? What happened to Megan?
Darius: Who?
Iain: Megan! The girl you went home with! What happened man?!
Darius: I fell down.
All of us: WHAT?!?!
Darius: I fell down. Feel my head. [starts to show Iain his head through the BLT Iain's trying to eat]
Iain: Where did you fall? Where's Megan? Is she still in the flat? Did you get INTO the flat?
Darius: I don't know. Feel my head.

To make a long story shorter, Darius apparently became a victim of alcohol-induced gravity somewhere in the vicinity of his apartment, the lovely Megan decided that she DID love her boyfriend and went home, I ate french toast in Denny's at 4:30am, and we crashed at Iain's sometime after the sun came up.

The End?

Next Post: Hounen-sai Festival - AKA, Penis Fest 2006.