Red red wine (?)

The other day I wrote about coincidence. They often have far-reaching consequences. Wednesday and Thursday, I found myself working at LuonLuon for the first time. Strangely, all four of Miki's employees were simultaneously unavailable. Miki had just come back from the 'Nam, and had loads of new merchandise to prepare. I worked the front, greeting customers with varied renditions of "Irassyaimase!" I had planned a quick trip to Kyoto, but decided to push it back to the weekend. The consequences of that decision will soon play out...
While at the shop Thursday, I recieved a text message from Jenn, saying she was having a birthday get-together at Missile. Ironically, in a conversation I had had an hour before, I found out that Jenn had gone back to Canada for the summer due to health problems. If I hadn't met that other person, I would never have known that Jenn had left, and would've gone to the bar assuming she'd been here all along. The party was small, but I was surprised to see a few JETs from Tottori city who were in town to take advantage of the 'Nog's plethora of escape opportunities, all bound for far reaching places like Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Seoul. I too, made a quick escape, my attendance brief due to the fact that I showed up already pretty buzzed.
I'd earlier had dinner with Local Legends Tim and Zack. We'd gotten together to watch a DVD copy of "Alice's Restaurant" which I'd bought while in the States. I love 60's movies, with their hip dialog and herky-jerky camera work. The story and music were good, the acting less so. No doubt many of the "actors" seemed to be Arlo Guthrie's friends. (Cronyism exists at all levels.) As I watched the film, I thought how bizarre it must be for Arlo, or Ziggy Marley, or others whose parents were giants and had died while their children were relatively young. Arlo, never really having had the chance to get to know his father, no doubt defines him in legendary terms like the rest of us do.
My thoughts were everywhere that evening, due in part to the "Dago Red" wine we were drinking. It was an Australian Shiraz of unknown vintage. Left for years to age in the kitchen, the 'Nog's extremes of hot and cold had metamorphisized the stuff into something so powerful it caused in me strange hallucinatory thought patterns. This rotgut seemed to affect us all differently, Tim bursting into sudden and frequent Tony Clifton imitations; Zack laughing hysterically on the floor. Every sip (and a sip was about all you could stand) was accompanied by contorted facial expressions and foul language. Yet despite a taste that can only be descibed as white-blind terror, we kept going back for more.


On the turntable: Jimi Hendrix, "BBC Sessions"