what the fuck is wrong with this city? I’m willing to pay for wifi, but they won’t sell you the service unless you live in this shithole? gimme a fucking break. I just need to get online to find a vintage guitar shop! NOT that I can afford buying anything that they have; from my experience, anything that has USA on it is about 20-30% overpriced. what I’m looking for is domestic vintage; we talkin’ old Ibanez, Aria Pro, Tokai etc. I’m also hoping to find cooler-looking Zo-3s aka Fernandes Nomads. but encountering any of these things is not possible until I find my way through this place.

being inside a train is rarely fun in Tokyo – you don’t get to do shit. it’s either way too packed to move a finger, or too quiet to have a conversation. besides, I’m hyper-aware so that I don’t miss my stop – actually, I’m never 100% sure that I’m on the right train in the first place, so I keep looking through one of these things to see where I am and where I should be going. I don’t know about you, but shit’s too intense for a casual visitor like me, even with the language ability. after all I’m a country boy; Toyama only has one major station and I still never used public trans when I lived there. we drove and/or rode a bike everywhere (kinda like LA, hence the last 11 years of my life). so I’m looking thru this circuit board of subway lines, and I have to goddamn pee. must be that big mug of coffee I had with Sawada this morning at Doutour, and you know what else caffeine does, well, at least for me? I HAVE TO DEFECATE. I can feel it. it’s coming and it’s coming for sure.

the situation turns serious in nano seconds. it’s always a game changer when you’ve got the urge, let alone in a packed train surrounded by salary-men and schoolgirls. and if I know my body, this one’s gonna be wet. I mean, REAL WET. even a slight release of the cheek muscle would unleash the beast that is sure to KILL. senses of smell, your social standing, the humanity…ALL THINGS would all be destroyed. I have to get the funk off this train, PRONTO. next stop is Ikebukuro – shit I’ve never been there in my entire life, but I’m sure I can find a restroom in the station. let’s just hope that I don’t make no mess trying to squeeze myself out of this train though. the train stops and there’s a crowd on the platform waiting to get on. suimasen, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY. or else you’ll get shit on, literally.

5 minutes later – that was close. I’m sweating balls but I’m alive. thank Buddha. I could have gotten right back on a next train, but I was like, shit I have so many hours to kill all by myself today, why not explore? I’m sure Ikeburuko has something to offer even though I had no idea what. it’s only a buck and a half I spent on this ticket, let’s be spontaneous. so I step out of the station and start walking. this seems to be a pretty good size city, I see Bic Camera (kinda like BEST BUY on steroid, one time MJ rented this place out for the whole day all to himself) and a few Pachinko joints which are not rare, a long line in front of some pretzel joint (I don’t know why they like waiting in line so much – there used to be 2 1/2 hour wait for Krispy Kreme in Shinjuku). let’s see if I can find wifi and figure out where they have around here – and that’s where the shit got frustrating. I mean, I can just randomly walk around but from the surface it looks about the same as anywhere in Tokyo, how would I know which direction I should walk to? and above all, I have an iPhone. it’s supposed to be able to do shit like this, as long as I have wifi. let’s hit one of them McD’s where they supposedly have free wifi.

must be my amerika-nized brain, but it kinda freaks me out to see all the kids smoking like chimneys inside McDonald’s, the home of happy meals. and they always have better-looking girls at the front (but it might just be the uniform), selling that smile and the fattening fries. at least you get smiles here while you pay to get one step closer to heart attack. hey, let’s not get distracted and check to see if I see any network – but all I see is a few that are locked. do I see any password on their wall? NO. I walk up to one of the cuties behind the counter and ask for the wifi situation.

“yes sir, we offer free unlimited wifi for our customers.”

“is there a pass for your network?”

“no, it should be open and you don’t need any password.”

“hmm, seems like all the networks here are locked though.”

I show her my iPhone but she clearly does not own one.

“uh, lemme get my supervisor, could you excuse me for a moment?”

she brings another cutie wearing the exact same uniform except in blue. she seems a little more mature. but alas, she’s no help either. she also gives off the vibe that she’s too busy to deal with some kind of IT issue which she obviously has no training for. you look like you’re geeky enough to be able to figure this kind of shit out yourself, so why don’t ya whack off on your precious 3GS and lemme get back to whipping other highschoolers to flip burgers? – or so I heard in my noggin. oh well, I’m starting to get used to their version of “oh I don’t know, it ain’t my problem.” and who knows if that’s sincere or not, but at least they don’t act like an ass and make you feel shitty about your bothering to talk to them in the first place. and you know what, that first one that I talked to? she actually stopped me while I was turning around to step out and went,

“there IS an internet cafe around the corner from here…”

GREAT – like I said I’m willing to pay for it. besides I know internet cafes around here can be pretty slick. I wouldn’t mind spending an hour or so, sipping free refills of melon soda and browsing through facebook while I figure out my next move. why not. give it to me. and it literally was right around the corner from there.

step into an elevator and it’s a scene from Tron already – whoa, this one might be kinda pricey. but at this point I just wanna see what this place looks like. start taking pictures. the door opens and the lobby looks exactly like it did inside the elevator. keep taking pictures. walk on through the hallway and I see the registration, which kinda reminds me of the space station from 2001, predominantly white and simplistic. but the girl behind the counter is wearing something that a maid-cafe employee would wear. I guess that’s the type of clientele they deal with daily. she asks for my ID to create a membership card, or I won’t get in. it doesn’t cost me nothing so yea, why not. I give her my passport and she looks puzzled. she looks through the pages to find my picture but cannot. I point to the LAST page where my lame picture is on. she laughs and goes,

“I’ve never seen a passport before.”

“not much of a traveler, are you?”

“no, never been abroad.”

“too expensive?”

“I don’t wanna have to deal with speaking English.”

that is fine, ma’am. just give me a goddamn membership and take my money. she does just that and I proceed to the inside, which in turn is all black and grey. and is SILENT. I see a “shower room” on the way to my booth. oh I get it, people must take a nap in here. I did see an “overnight” option at the front. I open the door to my booth and it makes more sense. it is tiny (I mean, it’s still Tokyo) but they have a not-so-luxurious version of la-z-boy in front of a PC monitor and a TV. I hear other booths have beds also. I can definitely get comfortable in here, let’s go get some soda. I get back to my booth and check my email/twitter to connect with the folks I’m meeting tonight, the folks I hung out the last few days, and the folks in LA. I really feel like I could get by with just an internet connection even if it weren’t for a phone line. I wish I had an AirPort in my brain so I can get online without any device. I wanna be able to wiki anything inside my noggin. Augmented Reality on my retina. why not. computer IS the next step of human evolution, isn’t it?

all the scifi talk exhausted me. it’s no surprise after 2 days of walking and drinking and eating with average 3 hours of sleep per day, after 11 and half on a place including 6 hours of Super Mario playing time under influence, in addition to the drama No.2 on a packed train earlier today. well, they do have a shower room which I definitely could take an advantage of right now. what have you got to lose, I wanna see what it’s like inside. you can rent a towel for free, a toothbrush for $0.20, a razor $0.30, shampoo, conditioner and body soap for $0.50 altogether. and I just want a quick rinse. let’s do it. so I do just that and again, it was NOT Bellagio but it does its job. for 2 years I used to live in a dorm/apartment with shared bathroom and a coin shower room that takes 2 minutes for hot water to come out, so this is piece of cake. I feel refreshed and come back to my room (it certainly starts to feel like so) and put my ass on a la-z-boy. boy did that hit the spot. I mean if I closed my eyes right now I could easily start to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz