Regaining my youth is killing me.

There’s a definite pattern to events when Oliver and I meet up.

  1. We eat till it hurts.
  2. We drink till we’re about to burst at the seams.
  3. I fall asleep outside of Koga station.

Oliver has a superpower I wish I had: the ability to strike up a conversation with anyone, and optionally get them to buy him free drinks if he’s thirsty. Perhaps you can guess by the fact that I haven’t put out a podcast since it was -10 degrees outside, but in real life I’m a very quiet person; the diametrical opposite of gregarious when there’s more than two other people around. It’s been almost 40 years and I still can’t decide whether to embrace my neuroses or take up some kind of heavy addiction to counterbalance them. (It would have to be something inexpensive. That’s what makes choosing one so difficult.)

We ended last night in a crowded basement bar that had a touch screen MP3 jukebox, on which we took turns trying to play the worst song ever. I actually broke the machine with my selection. It would play Barry Manilow’s Copacabana all the way through, crash, reboot and play it again. And again. And again. It was the sound of victory.

Rich Pav

Richard has been living in Japan since 1990 with his wife and two teenage sons, Tony and Andy.

2 thoughts to “Regaining my youth is killing me.”

  1. I tried, but cannot think of a song worse than “Copacabana.” At least not a widely known one.
    Sound of victory perhaps, but a seemingly pyrrhic one.

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