Singing With Mama-san (The Black Crowes At The Fillmore Part 4))

Singing With Mama-San

We bobbed and weaved our way out of the "Irish Bar", gathering on the sidewalk outside the place that we were all taken to by a couple of drunken big city first-daters who probably only knew each other's forenames before writhing in clumsy, wrongfully affectionate, and most assuredly, stunted lovemaking. We decided that we were all really old and needed to find a place where we could party with grown-ups, so we headed back towards Japantown and the restaurants and (hopefully) bars back where we started the evening.


When we reached the street that Beni-hana is located, we looked back and laughed as we could still see the Irish Bar that we came from. It had seemed that we walked miles to get there. Only in San Francisco can you walk a few blocks and be in two such different places. We spoke to the doorman of our hotel and asked if there were any fun bars around and he said there we a few inside the mall. The mall is not what most Americans would call the place. It's more like a small enclosed shopping center. But it is a really cool place to walk around. In my narrow Westerner scope of things, I can only imagine that it must be what it's like to walk around a Japanese town because most of the people in the mall are Japanese or at least appear to be of Japanese decent. There are many tiny shops and restaurants (including Beni-hana) tucked into every corner of the building and the signs and menus are predominantly in Japanese with English subtitles. Being in there makes you feel like a stranger in your own land.


We all decided to go ahead and look around in the mall for a place to get a drink and see what's going on. The mall itself was desolate and our voices echoed a little under the low ceiling of the place. Keno noticed a man in a black suit standing at the entrance of a doorway off in a corner. He was Caucasian, which made him stick out like a sore thumb. We walked over and I mentioned to Jean and Keno that the wife and I had been in this mall numerous times and never had noticed that door. As we approached, Jean commented that it had no sign above or on the door.


"Hello folks", said the doorman with a big smile. "Can I help you?" There was music playing inside with someone doing a Jerry Lewis impression to the beat.


"What is this place?", I asked like some lost little boy.


"It's a karaoke bar. Would you like to come in and enjoy yourselves?"


We all laughed and looked at each other. How perfect. Karaoke in a real Japanese karaoke bar. This promised some hijinks for sure. He ushered us into a very dark bar area right inside the door and told us to have fun. We took four stools at the bar and looked over to see who was doing the Nutty Professor routine onstage. It turned out to be an Asian woman singing in Japanese with a very nasally effect. I looked behind her to see a monitor with Japanese characters highlighted as she read them off. I looked at Keno and smiled. I spun around in my bar stool and was surprised to see a large, older Japanese bartender right in front of me patiently waiting for my order. I put the kitty on the bar and ordered the wife a whiskey, Jean got something I don't remember, and then I asked the bartender what kind of beer he had.


"Beer", he said.

"Uh-huh, yeah. What kind?", I said, leaning closer.

"Beer".

"Okaaay, two Coors Lights?", I said holding up the peace sign. He waved his hand and shook his head no, but ducked into a back room. (Foreshadowing note: this wouldn't be the first time I was denied a Coors Light this weekend). He brought back two Bud Lights, most likely because we were American. If we were of the persuasion of most of his patrons, an Asahi or Sapporo might have appeared. I paid him and we all chatted quietly as we watched Japanese Idol live onstage. Glancing around the room, we remarked that we were seated at a bar that was away from the stage and really out of the way, but with a good view of the main room. That room was horseshoe-shaped with leather-seated booths on the perimeter of a nice wooden dance floor. The stage was raised about three feet of off the main floor and had good lighting. It was Keno who first noticed that we were being stared at.


Seated at almost every booth were one or two Japanese men dressed nattily in suits. Each man had one or more young, attractive Japanese women on his arm. As we looked from booth to booth, it seemed that all of the men were glaring at our little party at the bar. The stage was off to our right, so they weren't watching the performance with us in the background; they were staring right at us. We shrugged it off as being the minority in the place and didn't think much of it. But as Keno and I looked over there from time to time, he started to put something together in his head.


I ordered another round and Keno paid for this one. He had a smirk on his face and I could tell that he was on to something, but he hadn't pieced it together yet. I took a swig of my new beer and with enough liquid courage surging through my system, I told my wife that I was going to sing a song. She asked which one and I said that I'd need to see one of the binders that has a listing of songs available. I got up and walked over to the doorman who was still wearing that big smile. I asked him if anyone could sing a song.

"Yeah, but you'd better hurry and choose one because at one o'clock, Mama-san comes on and she closes it out for the evening", he replied.

I pulled back a little. "Mama-san?"

He grinned bigger than ever. "Yeah, she kind of, uh, runs things around here. The binders are right over there", he said pointing to a massive bookshelf filled with three ring binders. Most bars would have one or two; this place must have had forty or more. I chose one at random and took it over to the bar to use what little light there was over there. Just then, Mary and Jean got up and walked by Keno and I, hand in hand.

I leaned over to Keno, "What's going on?"

"They decided that if those Japanese guys were going to keep staring at us, they'd give them something to see", he answered. I just sighed and smiled, knowing how these women are. They made their way out to the dance floor where just a few couples were dancing awkwardly to the mid-tempo beat of yet another annihilation of what I assume was a pop standard in Japan. Mary and Jean proceeded to dirty dance with each other right smack in the middle of the horseshoe of booths. Every single man in the place had their gaze fixed on the two crazy American women. The ladies in the booths seemed to stiffen a bit and Keno and I laughed our asses off. The poor woman that was gargling through the song might have actually benefited from the distraction the girls provided at that moment, but she seemed a bit peeved.

The song ended and the wives returned to our little corner of the world at the bar. My wife asked if I was going to sing and I opened the book to find a song that I could muddle through. The dim lighting made it almost impossible to see the pages. I flipped through a few more and moved the book around trying to catch some light from the neon beer signs above us. I knew I'd had a few beers, but I couldn't make out a word on any page. My eyes just wouldn't adjust, so I carried the book back over to where the doorman stood because there was some light pouring in off of the mall. As I tipped the book and leaned closer to the page, I heard the doorman chortling when I noticed that the text was in Japanese! I looked up at him and laughed, closing the book and pretending to backhand him with it. He wiped a tear and said, "Sorry sir, I had to do it. You should have seen yourself trying to read that stuff".

"You got anything in English?", I asked.

"Yeah, hold on", he said. He bent over and pulled out a volume much thinner than the others. he held it up and actually blew dust off of it like in some Honeymooners episode. We both laughed as I took the binder back to the bar. I perused the pages to no avail. I still couldn't see the pages very well, but I could make out the vague forms of the English language enough to decipher what was what. Keno tapped the bar with his palm as he got up from the bar and went over to the doorman. We both had noticed that the women in the booths got up and moved from table to table now and again. I didn't think much of it until I turned to see what Keno was asking our friend at the door. I couldn't hear their conversation, but Keno was asking questions and the doorman was nodding reluctantly with his eyebrows raised. They chatted for a moment and when Keno came back to the bar, we all had to ask him what they were talking about.

Just then, there was a smattering of applause and we looked up to the stage to see an older Japanese woman dressed in what looked like traditional attire from the old country. She had on a flowery gown with a high neckline and long, form fitting sleeves. She had her hair up in a tight bun that shimmered in the stage lights. I glanced at the doorman and mouthed the words Mama-san, rolling my eyes towards the stage. He nodded and closed his eyes a little. She spoke something in Japanese, bowed and gestured to the booths. She then broke into a slow, high-pitched, chantlike tune that was actually quite beautiful. The four of us sat mesmerized for a moment until Mary asked Keno what he was asking the doorman.

"You won't believe what this place is", he said under his breath.

"What, what!", we all said simultaneously.

He arched his back to proclaim what he had himself figured out before confirming it. "A fucking brothel, dude!"

We all turned our heads slowly to the dance floor to watch as the women settled in to each booth. We determined that the men had made their choices. I assumed that Mama-san's serenade signaled sort of a "last chance for romance" for the evening and it was time to cut the deal. We watched as inconspicuously as we could at this point, but the stares became more and more uncomfortable. Even the bartender was standing near us with his arms folded. No wonder we were being stared at; the men in suits must have felt much more uncomfortable with us gringos watching them like zoo exhibits than we did wondering why everyone was looking at us. We drained the last of the drinks, threw a couple of bucks on the bar and headed out. I grabbed the kitty and tucked him under my arm.

The doorman chuckled as he bid us a good evening. We thanked him for the good time and wandered around the mall a bit as Keno explained further that the place itself was not a brothel, but a meeting place for these businessmen to arrange for "services". It was not clear if Mama-san was a madam or not, but it seemed so. What had we stumbled onto? Strangers in our own land, indeed.

We had our camera with us still and took some photos of each other in a few of those novelty scenes that's painted on wood and the characters have a hole where their head should be. You stick your face in the hole and instantly your a bodybuilder or a cowboy. Well, naturally, I chose the Godzilla scene where the giant lizard fights a huge robot monster. I grimaced and growled while trying not to laugh and I stuck Kitty in the robot position. We made for fierce foes; it was a battle for the ages. Tokyo was saved once again. I'll have to upload some of those shots at a later date.

We also put various body parts in those cutouts. Those pictures will not make it to this site, but you can do a Google search for GodzillaAssFace and try your luck.

Next: Horsehide Before Feathers