It too bad that music can't be incorporated into a blog post, or that feelings can't just be transferred directly from one's heart to a blank piece of paper. It's too bad there's no easier way to give you the feeling that I feel.

Writing it down doesn't really capture it.

For this to work we need a lot more than just black lines on white. We need electricity, we need a black sky illuminated by neon; we need drunk college students, Yakuza, Sumo wrestlers on their way home, an ex-pro boxer and Freddy Mercury.

We need Kabukicho.

We need Roppongi.

We need the prostitutes--female and male--we need the sound of a hundred thousand feet pounding concrete. We need taxi cabs and motorcycle engines and the guys passing out Kleenex. We need music pumping from every storefront. We need high-heels clicking and clacking.

We need a Friday night in the bowels of the biggest city in the world.

Because that's what it was. Another Friday night, and again I found myself beneath the statue of Freddy Mercury, drunk, watching a boxing match between a ex-pro-boxer and a Japanese salary man, on the streets of Kabukicho.

For ten-dollars you too could have one minute to box him.

His manager, clearly Yakuza, looked me over and informed me that the boxer was 40-years-old.

"And how old are you anyway?"

Well, 22, pretty young.

"C'mon then, you're American. Only 1000 yen and you can try to hit him," the words sort of sprayed out of his mouth from somewhere deep behind his gold teeth.

No thanks, I'll watch.

Clearly dissatisfied with my response he made a beautifully offensive clicking sound with his tongue and walked away, keeping his left eye on me the entire time--his sweat suit swishing off toward the next customer.

I'm no boxer.

But my new French friends happened to have one in their company courageous enough to take on the pro; for a minute, at least.

He loosened his tie and took off his suit coat. He laced up his gloves and went to the center of the square. He took off his glasses. He stood encircled by a ring not of ropes, but of human beings.

Somewhere up in the sky there was a moon, looking down into this corner of the world, into this mass of cement and metal and flesh, into this crowded square and at these two gladiators.

For 60 seconds we cheered, in English, Japanese and French, and afterwards we celebrated a classic match with a round of beer, courtesy of our five French, computer programmer comrades.

The story of the night of course doesn't begin with boxing in Kabukicho, which is actually more of the middle of the story where we lost track of time, and realized that our final train had already departed, and thus had to head to Ebisu, from which we walked to Roppongi.

No, it begins, of course in a bar, where for $20 dollars Takayuki, Mina and myself enjoyed all the beer and French fries we could drink and eat, respectively, for two hours.

Then was the boxing beneath Koma Stadium and the statue of Freddy Mercury.

And then we met the French computer programmers.

And then we met two Air Force pilots from America who had 24 hours in Tokyo and only found their way to Kabukicho because they had "Rode the train until the buildings started lighting up the sky like daytime."

That's how they knew to get off.

They wanted a place to go for the evening, so I referred them to Roppongi and wished them a safe flight home.

Little did I know that I too would watch the sun rise from the streets of Roppongi--though you honestly don't even notice the sun has come up until you crane your neck 180 degrees to the sky and actually look. The neon, of course, keeps the street itself blazing at all hours.

But that's where I ended up.

We missed our train home, so what was there to do but go to the place that doesn't sleep. The place where you are supposed to forget what you do. The place that isn't... real.

We walked from Ebisu to Roppongi and at about 1:15 a.m. we arrived.

"So Brett, are you going to enjoy your last time in Roppongi?" Takayuki asked.

It hadn't crossed my mind that, yeah, actually, this was probably it.

I was under dressed.

I left my $2000 suit back at the apartment.

But I danced and I danced and I drank and I drank and I did what you do when you go to the place called "Roppongi" which is bounce up and down and sway left and right and only come back up to the street for air.

And though it doesn't really cross your mind unless you actually stop to think about it... about where you are and what you are doing and just what the hell this life is; this life that you are ACTUALLY living, it sort of shuts your mind off.

For the past year I've been living life like it doesn't matter.

I've been doing what I want and going where I want and spending money how I want and moving through this world like it's some kind of lucid dream; a place where limits don't exist and whatever I imagine can ... be.

Since last September I've lived this life, and it's not a real life.

It's a life of food that isn't real, people that aren't real, clothes that aren't real; buildings and clubs and trains and everything... not... real.

And I'm totally absorbed in it.

The lights from the club--a club literally BURIED in that concrete--flashed and flashed from sundown to sunup and beyond, and there I was in the middle of it, living...(?)

And then I found myself holding a Japanese fan, sitting on a rail beneath Roppongi Crossing, just cooling myself off and gazing at the guy passed out by a pile of trash.

Just sitting there for a moment, meditating before migrating to the train and joining the masses for the ride home to Saitama or Kanagawa or Chiba or Ibaraki...

And then the two pilots I had met earlier appeared out of nowhere.

"Man! This is the most amazing place on the planet! You don't understand! You don't understand! This is... indescribable! I've been everywhere man. I fly a military plane, man!"

"I've been to Germany and Iraq and Saudi Arabia and China and Korea. I've been to France and Thailand and Taiwan and everywhere in the U.S. and Canada. I've been everywhere, man!"

"I've never seen anything like this! I've never seen anything like this!!"

"Thank you!!"

He hugged me a drunk hug that people who don't know each other hug at 4:30 a.m. in Tokyo.

And though his speech was slurred, he was dead on.

...

He's really, really right.

It's indescribable. It's unreal.

It's Tokyo and I don't actually live here.

And though I'm used to it, and though it's mundane... it's still... not... real.

I need to deal with this.

Sorry about this horrible entry. Just had to write what happened, I guess, even though I left out half. I can't really think straight still. Blah.