Gentlemen,

I too have been preoccupied with filling my time by moving seemingly random pieces of paper from one location on my desk to another, in a vain effort to appear as though I am earning my paycheck. However, I feel that sufficient time has passed in order to justify recounting another Sushi Adventure(c).

Now I’m not a psychologist, I only play one on TV. However, I would have loved to have taken anyone with a Ph.D. in Psych, with an emphasis in bi-polar disorders to suss out the reasoning behind two individuals’ behavior one night last week, in my favorite sushi bar, Abe (pronounced “AH’-bay”) in Newport Beach. Just as a point of reference, if Sushi Wave is a “5″ on a scale of one to ten, then Abe is a “10″ (food and decor rating, not clientele as you will read…).

The Build-Up:

It was a Friday night on the Newport Peninsula, replete with all its usual and customary offerings (i.e., scantily-clad, bleached-blonde Social Ecology majors from UCI, meathead Sigma Chis, and me without a shotgun or a scalpel). The ides of October were upon me, and as such the weather had a crispness to it that was reminiscent of jack o’lanterns, apple festivals and Maker’s Mark (in a bucket, on the rocks, please). It’s Bourbon season, lads and I don’t mean hunting French aristocrats. After a long Friday at work, three glasses of a beautiful 1995 Cain Cuvee (wonderful nose, sassy but never precocious, complex concentrated cassis and black currant flavors framed by herbs and toasty oak, excellent paired with venison. A 91 from Wine Spectator.), and a pair of Dunhill Reds, I felt a craving for aquatic food. Perhaps it was my Irish-Catholic upbringing or just my proximity to the harbor, but nonetheless, the evening called for seafood. I was clothed comfortably in a cashmere-and-cotton blend roll-collar sweater in black, “dirty” blue jeans, both by DKNY. My shoes, polished calf-skin boots by Kenneth Cole. I started up the Spyder, put the top down and made my way down to PCH.

As I made it onto the Peninsula, I was welcomed by an unusually heavy blast of red brake-lights and it was apparent that there was a particularly base electricity in the air. Chalk it up to all of the raised Chevy Suburbans, Ford F150s, and GMC Tahoes, or attribute it to the females in various Korean-manufactured automobiles listening to such various and sundry aural offerings as ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’, by The Baha Men, and/or Korn’s perennial favorite, “Faggot”. Suffice it to say, I knew I would likely be in for a surprise as soon as I walked in the door at Abe. Upon my entrance to the restaurant, I was greeted with a bold, “Ira-shei”, and immediately whisked to a single spot awaiting me at the bar. I ordered my usual triumverate of liquid accoutrements: a tall Sapporo, hot green tea and an ice water. My steamed towel came shortly thereafter. My favorite chef and the proprietor, Abe was of course, working my section and I asked him to begin. My first course was seared yellowtail with sliced jalepenos and a delightful ponzu sauce. Abe apologized for making me wait and ordered a bottle of Hakkugin (complex variety of essences, bold and flavorful) for us to share. With a hearty “Kampai” and a toss of the head, we were each down one shot. For a Friday night spent solo, this was turning out just right. I was flanked by the buxom girlfriend/mistress/ex-wife of two apparent witness protection program participants, not quite of Henry Hill’s ilk. But I could deal, mainly because they were reasonably out of earshot of their respective male counterparts. Frankly, I was beginning to think that I was actually going to have an experience in a sushi bar that did not involve my expensive clothes getting ruined or especially any personal space violation. {Sigh} Yeah right.

The Elephant Walk:

As I mentioned, it was a particularly busy Newport night. In fact, I was fortunate to have happened along just as a singular seat was being vacated, presumably by an individual much like myself, flying solo by choice, not happenstance. As I finished the last delectable bite of my second course, a Matsutake Dobimishu with some exotic Japanese citrus, the pair of bon-vivantes to my right stood up to leave, clearing my peripheral path to reveal what I estimate to be a four-hundred-pound behemoth of a man and his Brobdingnagian mother. {Sigh}. Part of my constitution is to plan for the worst and hope for the best, at least that’s what Mom taught me to do. How the hell was I supposed to plan for this? In terms of dimensions, the man must have occupied at least three-and-a-half feet in horizontal space! His mother, proportionately embonpoint, took up approx. three feet in horizontal space. Real estate, as expensive as it is in Newport, allows for no more than four feet for two seats at the bar. These guys are smart though, they’ll wait for a third person in series to leave and then remove the extra chair so that everyone can eat in comfort. Nope.

Gog and Magog:

In comes Fat Bastard and Mommy Dearest. If there is a blessing to be counted regarding this situation, it is that the man did not sit in the seat right next to me, his mother did. However, prior to taking her seat, (which I later discovered, entailed placing her Wal-Mart-leggings-wrapped, triple-digit-body-fat-percentage thigh on my right leg) she inquired in a thick Kentucky accent, “They’re about to leave (gesturing to the couple of Structure-shoppers to my left), would you mah-nd scootin’ dahn just a skoash?” I sighed and thought, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”, while I moved into the last possible half-inch of personal space to my left, resulting in the subsequent touching leg-to-leg, elbow-to-elbow of the party on either side of me, the least of all comfortable dining situations. Mommy Fattest proceeded to make what appeared to be a thick wasabe-and-soy-sauce wassail out of her serving board condiments. The woman ran everything that was placed in front of her in the Soilent-Green, i.e. ginger, eda-mame, and what I found to be the most repulsive thing that I have borne witness to in the last four years, HER STEAMED TOWEL.

OK, I thought, while certainly strange and obviously outside the box of Ms. Manners-approved etiquette, I just won’t look. Right. Have you ever walked past an X-rated movie or seen a car crash? It’s not going to happen. The woman began to orally cull the soy-and-wasabe-succulence from her towel. I developed a look on my face that could only convey absolute disgust and further, telegraph impending regurgitation of fish, exotic Japanese mushroom soup and steamed soybeans. The sushi chefs in aggregate had the same look on their faces and were speaking hurriedly in Japanese, presumably only about our friend who forgot her L-Dopa supplement. At this point, the concocted serum du soy had spilt on the counter, in her lap and was slowly making its way to my side of the ever-decreasing world. I could not help but to empathize with the inhabitants of Pompeii eighteen-hundred years ago, as so many tons of hot lava from Mt. Vesuvius came encroaching on their sleepy, docile world. All the time, she was speaking in her West-Kentucky vernacular about family members and their respective fried-chicken recipes. I felt as though I had had my fill of sushi for one evening, and before I began to wretch, I asked for my tab and cleared it with my Platinum card. I was reminded of the Millenium Falcon making its way out of the exploding Death Star, with no time to spare. I drove home with crinkled brow and questioning mind as I planned to write my friends about my latest experience in that General Population known as Sushi.

Adieu, until next time…