Went up to Tokyo the other night - last night in fact - for the first time in a couple of months, and was reminded of why I don't go up there very often. Got out at Shibuya to change trains at 6 pm, every carriage packed to the gunwhales, but managed to squeeze in a doorway - and was then impressed by the technique used to squeeze and squash a few more sweaty bodies in to the sardine tin. They spot an empty space in the doorway large enough to put one foot in, pirouette and heave backwards - if we hadn't all been so tightly packed in the first place we would have fallen over.
Thankfully it was only one stop to Ebisu, where I found myself on the 4th floor of a shopping block in a British pub - British/Irish beer, pub grub, the Clash on the video, British bar staff. Dark, smokey - so not so British these days. My friend is playing - starts off on acoustic guitar solo, is joined by a Japanese singer for a couple of numbers, then a lead guitar and drums for some ZZ Top/U2 type stuff, then a wannabee John Otway type singer. All good stuff. Find myself mulling over just what it is to be an artist, versus an entertainer, versus a self-publicist, not for the first time, and come to little conclusion - other than an artist is someone who somehow sings for us, on our behalf, somehow, as well as for him/herself. Someone who touches something in the core of our humanity. Take Wreck on the Highway for instance, by Springsteen - he may never have witnessed a road accident, and nor may we, but we can all empathise with such a tragedy, which is what he puts into a few simple words.
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Last night I was out driving
Coming home at the end of the working day
I was riding alone through the drizzling rain
On a deserted stretch of a county two-lane
When I came upon a wreck on the highway
There was blood and glass all over
And there was nobody there but me
As the rain tumbled down hard and cold
I seen a young man lying by the side of the road
He cried Mister, won't you help me please
An ambulance finally came and took him to Riverside
I watched as they drove him away
And I thought of a girlfriend or a young wife
And a state trooper knocking in the middle of the night
To say your baby died in a wreck on the highway
Sometimes I sit up in the darkness
And I watch my baby as she sleeps
Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight
I just lay there awake in the middle of the night
Thinking 'bout the wreck on the highway
Spent today jungle-hiking up a streambed through semi-virgin forest, thence to a spectacularly excellent fish restaurant at the bottom of the hill, not five minutes from our door - one of the best meals I have had here - thence to the bamboo beach bar, with its beautiful smiling bar staff, the Pacific lapping the shore 20 yards away, fireworks... a semi-naked chef.
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Painting by Gauguin
