It felt mildly absurd to be in Singapore watching Australia playing cricket in India, but there I was. Boomarang, this hellish (and misspelled) Aussie-themed bar is called, full of muscled expats with their aimless eyes and trite tattoos, watching UFC fighting. Peter Dutton would rescind their passports if most of them weren't registered voters in his Brisbane electorate (and, in their absences, missed the One Nation siren). I find one TV on the second level showing the dissolution of our national batting spine.
That morning in bed at the Mandarin Oriental, I lay on my side watching the sun's rise over Marina Bay Sands, backlighting a mighty fleet of freighters scattered haphazardly in the strait. One of the most obscene hotel breakfasts in memory – the spread's size and hubbub incongruous to its quality – and I was steeled for innumerable VB pints amidst my barbarous countrymen.
Then, after a restorative afternoon coma, my mate Paul rolls into the Mando's driveway to collect me, hanging from the back window of his driver's Mercedes-Benz like a slobbering St Bernard.
Paul takes me to Bukit Merah, to a hidden-away yakitori joint in a poky old coffee house called Bincho at Hua Bee. It serves as a mee pok stall for local workers in the daytime, but at night a celebrated purveyor of chook gizzards and cartilage (not to mention obscure Japanese whiskys). On a chalkboard at the bar, the chef's recommendation is pig organ miso. We go all in.
After a long shower back at the Mando, it's back to Changi. For whatever reason, I am whisked past Singapore Airlines' First Class Lounge into The Private Room. To my unfettered delight, I've been mistaken for someone important. "Mr Aston, would you prefer Krug or Dom Perignon?" All my life I've been waiting for someone to ask me that question. These turn out to be the best 272,000 Velocity points I've ever spent. What's more, on yesterday's flight up here, the wifi was down, and the make good – a $150 voucher for inflight duty free – forced me to buy Marc Newson's new pen for Mont Blanc. I need another pen like I need a wax seal and a box of stamps. I suspect some hostie with a daunting sales target sabotaged my internet.
Some 16 hours and several bottles of 2010 Louis Latour Château Corton-Grancey Grand Cru later, I stumble onto the sidewalk at LAX (Customs was a breeze, bar when I nearly chundered on the sniffer dog) and jump in a cab.
My old friend John is waiting for me in the lobby bar at Chateau Marmont. Everyone thinks John is Barry Manilow, but it's the Chateau, so nobody cares. Tom Hiddleston sits down next to us. I want to ask him inappropriate questions about Tay Tay, but of course I don't. On the stereo: Private Dancer by Tina Turner.
You don't look at their faces
And you don't ask their names
You don't think of them as human...
I leave John in LA the next day and take the American Eagle shuttle to Aspen. It is a cracking, cloudless day in the Rockys, 8,000 feet above the sea. First stop: Woody Creek Tavern. I take Hunter S Thompson's stool at the end of the bar. Memorabilia from his 1970 "Freak Power" campaign for sheriff hangs on the wall. Hall & Oates' She's Gone is wafting over from the jukebox. Darryl, a semi local in these parts, bowls through the door, salutes the bartender and orders two margaritas. "Joey, gird your loins. This is going to be large, son." He proffers a sachet for altitude sickness but I wave it away indignantly. What does Darryl take me for? A dilettante dabbler?! Pffft.
We head into town and what transpires would not be entirely out of place in Fear and Loathing – if Hunter went bending with scandalously rich cougars. Champagne and Moscow mules at Little Nell, shots of Patron at Ajax Tavern, several bottles of Livio Felluga at the local outpost of Miami legend, Casa Tua, pitcher after pitcher of IPA at Sky Hotel. More Patron at Hotel Jerome. Fade to black.
The next morning, when I am loaded onto the gondola, I am clinically dead. Tears run from the ceaseless nausea. "For f---'s sake Joey, at your age you should be reverse-backflipping between the ponies!" Darryl, of course, is a postcard of vitality itself.
I don't make it up the mountain – I'm offloaded before we even set off. Back in the car, this time it's my head out the window like a St Bernard. If only I'd taken the sachet.
