Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [150]
Seijiro Udo has been promoting concerts in Japan and the Far East for fifty or sixty years, and has promoted every tour I’ve done in Japan since 1973. The first thing I do when I arrive in Tokyo, without fail, is to meet Mr. Udo at the Hama Steakhouse for Kobe beef. I will go to my hotel, drop my bags, and go straight to the restaurant, and I have been doing that every time for the last thirty-four years. I love Japanese food, and while I am there I will probably eat with Mr. Udo about three times a week, the finest food you can imagine. He is samurai, and that says it all. His sense of honor and integrity are peerless, and along with that he has an outrageous sense of humor. We laugh and tease a lot. I love him and think the world of him; he is one of a kind.
After traveling to Osaka and a couple of other cities, I was ready to go home. I’d had enough of hotels with pillows that collapsed into nothing when I put my head on them, and people endlessly asking to have their picture taken with me. I was worn out, and Christmas was around the corner. I was already making CD compilations of Christmas carols and hymns, and had bought toys and clothes for Melia and the kids. Our plan was to meet up at Hurtwood, spend a week getting over the jet lag, and then get the house ready for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. After that we would split up again, with Melia and the kids returning to Columbus while I toured Asia and Australia. But for now I was going home, and I just couldn’t wait.
Thank God for the Internet. When I am away from the family for long periods of time like this, we use it a lot, sometimes just to say goodnight when it’s the kids’ bedtime, but also generally to try and stay current. I honestly can’t imagine life now without it, especially traveling and trying to raise a young family at the same time. Computer culture is another interest I caught from Hiroshi. I remember seeing him fooling around with a beautiful little Sony laptop shortly after we met and thinking, “I have to have one of those,” even though I had been curmudgeonly contemptuous of the whole technology craze from day one. Since then I have managed to teach myself basic skills, and although I still type with only one finger, I surf constantly and have acquired a massive library of music, which I constantly convert into playlists and CDs for the car. I have become very dependent on it over the last couple of years, but it has been invaluable on this tour with all the traveling I have had to do.
Getting off the plane at Heathrow was like stepping into a warm bath. I was so glad to be home. Melia and the girls were already at Hurtwood and I couldn’t wait to see them. I complain so much about England once I’m safely ensconced there, but there really is no place like home, and there is nothing to compare with arriving home and seeing those little faces creased with happiness and hear their shrieks of joy when I get out of the car. They all want to show me their new toys, and they’re talking all at the same time. It’s absolute mayhem and I love it. It was great to see the Christmas decorations, too, and know, for a few days, that I could bathe in the happiness of being really at home, with nothing else to do but indulge myself.
Nothing much had changed at the house, except for some repainting, and the overall style of the house was going through another transition. I had asked my friend Jane Ormsby-Gore to help put the house into a Georgian mode, from having been modern Italian for the last ten years. She has a great eye, and I totally trust her judgment. The only family plans we had was some shooting between Christmas and New Year’s, this time with Melia in attendance. She had been taking lessons and was ready to enter the field. Needless to say, she was a fast learner and is rapidly becoming a good shot. I’m so happy I have a wife I can share these pastimes with, not only because it helps our friendship, but because she can then understand my passion for them, too.
Ruth