Sunday Dec. 15: Drive to Osaka (night off)
Well, here we go again! We piled into the vans and hit that good ol' Topeii freeway one more time and booted it to Osaka, where we had another night off before the show the next night. We spent the drive telling filthy, sick jokes and laughing our asses off and trying to find the oldies station on the radio. No luck, but luckily Dave brought his "American Graffitti" soundtrack cassette which was just as good. We even convinced him to do the Wolfman Jack part between songs! That's pathetic, eh?

Once at the hotel, this time we were basically staying in an old lady's house. It was a tiny, cold, grey place with a staircase at, like, a ninety degree angle with which you had to use your hands to get up to our hallway of rooms, which were bloody freezing and only had thin strips of translucent paper for doors. Once again it was the futon-on-the-floor routine which was even grosser still since there was a host of cockroaches that scattered when we lit the lantern in the room. Was it cockroaches or earwigs that crawl into your orifices and lay eggs that burst out of the skin on your cheeks in a public place months later? We couldn't remember.

The next morning when I tried to get the hotel mama to show me where the shower was she practically knocked me down her vertical staircase showing me "where to go." She was a roughie! It was also at this location that I succumbed to the shit-squat, due to a volcanic-like rupture-in-my-pants emergency which wouldn't wait until I found a McDonald's. It was totally disgusting. Shit sprayed all over my ankles and socks, the floor, and yeah, some even got into the crap basin. Now I know why these folks use a different pair of slippers while stocking the lake, if you know what I mean.

Monday Dec. 16: Bayside Jenny's, Osaka
This show was at another huge place that reminded me somewhat of the old Bogart's in Long Beach, California. Bogart's was in the middle of a mall/marina on the ocean front; so is this place. This was your standard mall with all the fixings (food fair, arcade, shops), a marina, an aquarium (called "Ring Of Fire," which brought up nasty images from the previous morning's shit-fest) and our rock club, Bayside Jenny's. Another whole whack of people showed up to this one and we had a pretty great time. Besides the Queers, Supersnazz and us, another band of Ramones-style punkers called Bacon Fat also played. A bunch of nicer, more enthusiastic kids who like to scream your band's name in your face ad-nauseum you'd be hard-pressed to find!

That night Dave and Chris taught Supersnazz how to line-dance, and the rest of us took it easy and played poker in Joe Queer's sleeping box until the wee hours.

Tuesday Dec. 17: Chicken George's, Kobe
I don't know what the deal is with these club names either, but hey, they're memorable. Today, for some fucked up reason, our driver Andy had to work (he lives in Osaka) so Wes the tour guy had to drive the Queers down to Kobe and then come back to Osaka for Supersnazz and us. By this time in the trip, our tour manager Wes was starting to lose it on the stress-level, and this crazy schedule wasn't helping. Supersnazz and we deduced that he was going to take awhile so we went exploring Osaka and visited an amazing record store called Time Bomb (this store also acts as a record label and is putting out Supersnazz's new album - what happened to their deal with Sub Pop I don't know nor could find out). Soon after leaving this got-it-all store we got completely lost. Yep, even the Japanese get screwed up in these cities. We walked and walked, got stuck in an underground mall for about two hours, walked some more, and walked some more. When we finally reached the hotel, Osaka was in a downpour and we were soaked to the bone. But Wes was there so off we took for the shakin' site of Kobe.

One of our tour manager's greatest vices was his bloody cel phone. When that thing rang, or when he was on it, he suddenly lost all power to drive, navigate, process thought, or contemplate anything that was going on around him past his frantic conversation. As a fork approached in the highway, a signed loomed that basically said "Kobe this way, nowhere that way." As the turn-off neared, ring ring, and Wes says the Japanese phone hello "moosh-moosh?!?!" doubling as a signal for him to turn off like a light switch. Sure enough, oblivious to our screams, we roared down the wrong road going nowhere fast. We were lost again and it took us an entire hour just to get back to that fork. Ouch.

The show was in a cool small club, which was a good thing since there was a fairly small attendance compared to Osaka and Tokyo. The club gave us a nice spread in the backstage of chicken, rice and Budweiser, and each band played a rockin'-steady set. On the way back to the hotel that night we got so lost we ended up driving to Osaka on a dirt fucking road. Mamma mia mooshy mooshy!

Wednesday Dec. 18: Club Gigantic, Tokyo
Took another spin up the Topeii freeway back to Tokyo, pulling into that crazy Shibuya area again, and trying desperately to find the club. We had to pull over and stop for Beez who got a flash-flood of his curry-noodle soup reoccurring in his pants. He went running down the street moaning, holding the seat of his pants with both hands trying to keep the shit in. He later reflected that he was so overcome with diarrhea, he was afraid if he burped, shit would come out his mouth.

Anyways, after Beez had painted some bathroom brown, we finally found the club, which had its main entrance onto a back alley, and its name was completely ironic, as we were shocked to see the actual space of the club was smaller than some of the backstages we had been in so far. Nonetheless, it made for an easy sell-out, and this had to have been the best night of the tour. Lots of folks we knew from Japanese bands showed up, including the fabulous Fink and Fifi from the now-defunct Teengenerate. Supersnazz were brilliant, and when we took the stage there was more shocking singing along, and Supersnazz came up and joined us for our legendary dance contest. We had the guitarist Kanako stay up there, since it was her birthday and we had snagged a cake for the occasion. When the thing was presented with all the candles and shit, with everyone singing a bizarre version of "Happy Birthday," the tough rock'n'roll girl actually shed tears of joy! It was so sweet!

The Queers, too, rocked hard to their parade of hits and after the show Supersnazz took us all to a traditional Japanese restaurant where we all had to sit on the mats on the floor to eat off the foot-high tables. Basically, things got out of hand. The table was a large square accommodating all three bands, and the more sake and beer the wait staff brought out, the more wild the Westerners got. Soon I did the celebratory dance around the table top in my socks, Smuggler Dave got up on the table and did two rousin', foot-stompin' John Denver tunes "Grandma's Feather Bed" and "Thank God I'm A Country Boy," Hugh from the Queers took over with a very loud rendition of "Born In The USA" (that's always fun in foreign countries), while all while the rest of the shocked staff and patrons stared on. One of the final party blows came when Lookout Chris and I were arm in arm working out a "Jewish Folk Dance" when we managed to mistakenly kick a full plate of food, a frothing mug of beer, and a whole mess of chopsticks directly into the face of poor Tomoko, Supersnazz' bassist. She got covered in sticky noodles and booze, and as Hugh from the Queers jumped up to help her, he managed to fall backwards into the paper wall divider, ripping it open and falling backwards directly onto a table filled with more food and a quiet party of Japanese strangers. Now that we had created a huge mess, damage to the restaurant and a truly pathetic scene, we took off, stomping through the restaurant, arm in arm, all joining Hugh in another chorus of "BORN IN THE USA"!!! Chalk up another black eye for the Yanks!

Thursday Dec. 19: Club Gigantic, Tokyo
Yeah, we did the double-shot at this place, and night-two was just as good, sold out again, and everyone was at prime form. Smuggler Nick and Kanako Supersnazz did a sexy slow dance on stage with the Queers in their pop ballad "Debra Jean" which cooly captured the lovin' feeling that had developed within the three bands. I managed to sing a couple of encore songs with Joe and the Queers which was a thrill, and toughie B-Face, the Queers bassist, was our dance contest judge for the last night.

After the show, we went out to another similar restaurant, tried to keep it under control, but things steadily got wilder. We got out of there without managing to damage anything, and out on the street, said a heartfelt and teary farewell to Supersnazz.

Back in the kinky neighbourhood of our hotel, half the guys retired, while the rest of us prowled for another nightspot. We managed to squeeze our way into a miniscule bar that seated about four and already had about twelve customers, so we stood while the bartender yapped happily at us, seemingly excited to see us at 4:00AM.

As do a lot of the hosts/bartenders when foreigners come in, the owner of bar dude often brings out their finest bottle of liquor for a complimentary round and this tiny joint was no exception. Out came this weird bottle of Cognac which the owner handled like the holy grail. His regulars let out an awe-inspiring "Oooo" at the sight of this hootch. Then, out of nowhere came Nick. He saw the bottle, stumbled forward, made a violent, drunken grab for it from the owner and started chugging it like rot-gut wine! Now, here in Japan it is considered rude if you POUR your own drink (someone else is supposed to pour and one never drinks from the bottle). To snatch the owner's bottle of pride and joy and guzzle it like it was a 40 of malt beer was over the top. The bar went completely silent, all staring in disbelief, the only sound audible was Nick slurping down the expensive booze. Finally the ice broke when Bryce yelled out "Gimme some of that shit!" But by that time the owner had snatched the bottle back and the only thing we were privy to from then on was beer. This place turned out to be quite a trip. After being offended, the bartender put on a clown's mask and was waving his arms at us at what seemed like a comical yet scary attempt to shoo us away. A big hairy dude was coming on strong in a grabbing'n'feeling type of way to a freaked and disgusted B-Face in the corner, Nick managed to find another middle-aged woman who was all over him, and Hugh was trying to teach some of the elder customers the chorus to "Born In The USA." When they finally kicked us out at 6 AM, we barely made it back to the hotel. Nick passed out on the toilet in the lobby bathroom (and believe me, in Japan, the toilet is the LAST place you'll want to pass out), I konked out on the stairs, and Bryce made it as far as the lobby's couch.

Friday Dec. 20: Fly home!
When we finally got up and at 'em to get the hell out of glorious Japan, the tour already over, we awoke to the surprise of finding out the throbbing news that, sometime in the night, BOTH our vans had been smashed by a runaway taxi! See, we couldn't park by the hotel because of the tiny streets so Wes was forced to park them both illegally on the busy thoroughfare. A cab driver was zipping around half-cocked and pile-drived into the back of one van, sending it straight into the other. All four got pretty badly crunched (the vans, the cab and the driver), but luckily none of our stuff did. It turned out Wes had spent the night working shit out at the police station and had, at that point, basically lost it. Thank god we were outta there.

Wes managed to get us lost one more time on our way out to the airport for ol' times sake; we said a brief goodbye and with a final "moosh-moosh," he was gone. We sat around the airport with the Queers goofing around, shopping and eating, waiting for the flight, because we had made it there in plently of time. Until Bryce looked up at the board, looked at his ticket, looked at the board and screamed "final boarding to Vancouver??!! FUCK! THAT'S US!!! We waved to the Queers and took off... and hit passport control... then took off again... and hit airport tax of $20 each and a long line, and our plane was supposed to be leaving right then... then we started running through the airport until we got to a shuttle... we could see that our plane hadn't left yet, so Nick, the fast one, ran like a hung-over cheetah and managed to hold-up the plane, and they had already shut things down and were ready to roll. Yep, one more time, the Westerners cause the scene, delay the flight, and come aboard running, huffing, puffing, burping and farting, fully aware of the disgusted and final stares from our Japanese friends waiting patiently and politely in their seats.

We can't wait til we go back!!! Konichiwa Japan!!!

Diarya

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