Karaoke Knights and The Final Hours of the Round

My clothes, still smelling of cigar smoke, are scattered across the hotel room floor, pealed off and discarded, the fallen victims of last nights opulence that now, like me, are recovering in the aftermath of the our final day of training. Looking back in retrospect, these two weeks were not the hell I and many online grippers stated it was. It was more like a corner of purgatory filled half eaten fast food and exercise equipment and used train tickets and crumpled and crinkled maps and books and books of information created by the Library of International Speed Readers. The two weeks ticked by with the speed of Andretti’s Lotus 78, a blur of ink stains and unreadable notes, smiles and laughs, days with kids and nights with coffee. It’s strange how you can toss together so randomly a group of people from all corners of the globe and still, despite our differences, we human folk can still form bonds of friendship as though these puzzle pieces were always interlocked in the grand design. Within days, and in one instance it was only a few hours, it was as though I had known these strangers for decades and now that they are gone, even though I have only known them for two weeks of my entire 29 years, I’ve become a little depressed by their absence. Certainly this has something to do with now being the only man left on the lifeboat adrift in uncharted territory. The group was like a safety net to fall back on, familiar faces in the hotel lobby to great you in the morning and to send you off at night. Now I walk down to fill my coffee cup and the lobby is empty with only a few cigarettes in the ashtray left as a reminder of those group members who left earlier that morning. Cigarette butts and ashes become a symbol of loneliness and a reminder that soon I will be on my own. I have to smile though to shake away the fears and uncertainties because, man, it was a great ride with these folks and we capped it off in grand style.

The knights met for a final time that morning in our usual morning routine of coffee, cigarettes, yawns and stretches. Our greetings, always cheerful, seemed a little more somber. It could very well have been the weight of two intense weeks loaded onto our backs but I think it was the knowledge of the finality of it all. I poured my cup and sat on the couch a morose man mess poured out onto the leather. Again, though not hell on earth, our two weeks were indeed taxing tolls on the body. We were not running about through intense obstacle courses (well, unless you count the train commutes) but the amount of knowledge we had to gorge ourselves on was an endless buffet we’d have to regurgitate onto today’s final test. Some of the group looked worried while others were peaceful waters. I was a melding of the two and the coffee cup in my hand trembled only slightly, unnoticed by my band of trainees. Inside I was trying to disentomb facts and sentences and polices that appeared to have evacuated the brain. Ack and zounds, I had forgotten it all! Were there Coles Notes for this? Did I still have town to write the entire two weeks of training handouts on my body? Would failure mean dejection and deportation, forced to return to Canada in a pet carrier with rank smelling animals howling in the darkness of the planes underbelly? Another cup of coffee, James, this would be a long day.

Outside it was cloudy and dismal which did not bode well for the moods of my mates. We moped into the streets avoiding puddles, only one of us with the foresight to bring an umbrella. The Company had requested suits and ties and polished shoes again today as we would be venturing into the land of the bigwigs and bosses: the office. We were dressed like Mafia boys heading out to be made men but the weather made it seem as though we were off to a funeral. The air about the office, and the four packs of sugar I’d placed in my coffee, swelled my spirits. This place was abuzz of high-pitched Japanese women racing around with papers and pens. It was a bustle with men in clean suits and bright smiles, their voices boomed and echoed in the corridors. This, we would learn, was the company sales team pumping each other up for a day of door to door marketing and sales. They were practicing pitches in the fast paced exaggerated elation witnessed in the commercials. Like that girl with her can of corn, these people made me believe in the product they were selling just by the sheer happiness in their rapid repartee.

We were asked to stand in front of the entire office team to introduce myself. To the others in my group I am sure the nervousness was fleeting as they would probably never see these people again. I, on the other hand, would not get off so easily. This, you see, would be more home office, a place where I would come on a regular basis for everything from meetings to photocopies. That well dressed dude in the corner would be my boss and that slim Japanese women by his side my area manager. I felt their eyes burning through me even though they were not looking at me. The gazes of superiority reflect on carpet you know. Did I mention the ratio of beautiful women in this office to unattractive women was 15:0. Divert the eyes as, much like an eclipse, such wide eyed staring might burn out my retinas. The sales team applauded us after every introduction which was nice and they were given a question and answer session afterwards. The first question posed by one of those lovely Japanese ladies: “What type of women do you like?” Wow, talk about being put on the hot seat your first pitch out, huh? This is quite common for the Japanese as their questions are usually very direct and devoid of any personal privacy. I don’t blight them, however, on their overtly curious nature and, in fact, find it quite charming. I replied, of course, with “Japanese girls” to the titters of the crowd. Ah, you like that do you ladies. Remember this generous answer when I return to this office building one day because if I was not so eager to impress I would have very well truthfully replied with the word “redheads”. (Steph, you cursed me with a fetish for life)

The dreaded test was a breeze as we were allowed to confer with each other thus making it impossible to fail and we were out of the office and into the rain drenched streets in a matter of hours. We would be minus one as we made our walk back to the hotel as one of our Australians decided to bypass the end of training party and return home to his pregnant wife, a noble gesture. We wished him well and I told him I’d write as he was interested in my placement area and said we would meet up again there in the summer. Happy trails, sir, but there was a train to catch, a suit to slither out of and a good time to be had.

I had offered up the idea to head out for a night of Karaoke earlier on as our final day’s bash. The motive was two fold: 1) I don’t foresee being with such a large group of people again to be able to get the most from the music and the mics and 2) the chocolate sundae in the window. During one of my evening walkabouts I found the Karaoke place near our hotel but at first did not realize it was a Karaoke place. I was too fixated by the displays in the window of three ice cream sundaes, large and dripping with toppings. I immediately decided that this would be my treat, a gift to myself for the successful completion of such a rigorous regiment of training. One large sized hot fudge sundae with chocolate rice puffs toped with a fluffy cloud of whipped cream. Oh, it would be mine, group or no group. It was easy to convincing the group to make our last night one of drinking and song and we got our head trainer to come along for the ride.

I do not like the set up of Karaoke in the country that originated it and I will stand by this dislike with an iron fist. It is very different here then back home. In my part of the world Karaoke is an embarrassing experience to be shared with a bunch of drunken strangers in a large bar setting. Because such sessions of off key song are free entertainment for the bar you are generally not levied a cover charge. In Japan you have to pay an exorbitant amount of money for session blocks of time. You are also not in a public setting where you vocal chops can be observed by any old passerby. The Karaoke place (notice I have not called it a bar during this post because it is not a bar at all) is a brightly light joint, usually very colorful and vibrant. The front desk staff our loud and energetic (a running trend for pretty much everywhere you go in this country) and here you book your session block and room which, for use, included all the beverages we could chug down in our hour and a half time frame. I happily ordered my treat here, my ice cream lust insatiable. From there we were herded down a hallway with various styles of music blasting out from behind the colorful doors. We were then shuffled into a small room about the size of a large walk in closet. Really, this place was tiny. Inside the room you have booth style seating, a table and your Karaoke machine. In Japan Karaoke is a more personal experience you share in a cramped atmosphere with your closest of friends. There is no stage to stand up on and no strangers to impress (or depress, whatever the case may be). Although a different experience I much prefer the bar set up Karaoke but, hey, I’m Japan…you have to do this at least once.

So, the Karaoke Knights sat at our round table, the waitress having delivered the first batch of drinks and my sundae. The mic was fokred over to me and I was asked to open the show. I choose Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire and wowed the group by my memory of the lyrics of such a complicated opening number. Over the course of the hour and a half all would get pleasantly plastered (except for myself and another none drinker who stuck with endless glasses of Pepsi and lime) and songs of all genres were slaughtered as the singers became more and more drunk. Don’t know the lyrics? Make them up! We laughed more, I think, then we sung. One guy just wouldn’t let the mic go and every tune became a duet. I sang a little Dylan as my second selection, really hamming up Bob’s nasally voice on my rendition of Like A Rolling Stone and I later took on the epic American Pie (my favorite song). I don’t know what was more comical, our drunken ditties or the background images used on the lyrics screen. You usually don’t see these back home as we opt for just a blank screen with the lyrics but, man oh man, we really need to incorporate these videos if for the only reason being to popularized surrealist art. These videos had nothing to do with the music. I wonder if there is an entire acting movement in Japan for low-end talent to earn a living by “staring” in these unintentional comedic films randomly selected out of a giant pink hat to be placed behind song lyrics unrelated to their image content? Most of the time I’d be distract by hoped up Japanese girls prancing around in skimpy outfits on unpopulated beaches. Then there were the motorcycle gangs and strange hallucinogentic acid trips of imagery. The session was put to rest by the entire group singing Lean On Me in a joint embrace that swayed to the soulful ballad. It was the best song to end on as we all ensured each other that we’d be there to lean on after we went our separate ways.

One of my Canadian cohorts broke out some cigars in the hotel lobby and we filled the place with smoke as we dealt out a deck of cards to play a few hands before bed. It was midnight when I made it upstairs, carrying with me the smell of cheap cigars and a ragged horse voice. In bed the first wave hit. Everybody was leaving. I had said my goodbyes in that smoky lobby and we were off to all points of the country now. In two days I would have my own place and my own classrooms. This was such a great group of people to ease me into such a shift of life and I will miss these two weeks. Was training hell? Yeah, maybe a little bit but I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Happy trails, fellow travelers in the land of the rising sun. May all your paths be clear.