Japanese Tour Journal

Japanese tour journal
I forgot about this part and I hadn't written it down. A few days before we left Spencer called and asked if I knew how to play drums. I said nope and asked why. "Well," he says, "Ryan can't find his passport, so it's either me play drums or we don't go." Jesus… I don't know why I was surprised, though, Ryan loses everything from clothes to his train of thought. So we discussed it and I was either going to try my luck at drums or I was going to sing and Spencer was going to play drums. This is not good… Up until about the day before we flew out, I had no idea if Ryan was coming. Luckily he was there when I got to the airport. Apparently his ferrets' had hidden his passport under the rug. About to embark on a 14 hour flight and being a superstitious flier as it is I started to wonder, "maybe the ferrets know more than us! Maybe they are intuned to the future! Maybe we're going to die and they didn't want their master going down with the plane!!!" After a brief moment of contemplation I decided against worshipping the ferrets as gods and take the flight… here we go.

Tuesday Oct 11th, 2005
I went to Chicago on Friday, Oct 7th. I met up with Mark and went to Sears and Donny's. Apparently it's a whiskey party or something like that. Well needless to say we all got wasted and Donny got naked. Good times. Me, Mark, and Mike, Mark's roommate and all around metalhead lamb eating good guy, ducked out early and went to a kegger that Mark's gf, Jen, was at. We were seriously the oldest people there. It was weird. We walked in and someone passed out and all these kids were freaking out. Mike told them to put him on the couch and I think someone said, "Listen to him! He's old!" HA! Well we went out back and people were doing kegstands. Me and Mike just yelled as loud and as much as we could right in people's faces. It was ridiculous. After that Melissa called and picked us up and we went back to Mark's and ate lamb. Apparently I passed out on the toilet. Mike informed me of this the next morning after I woke up in bed. He said, "yeah, I thought you were dead so I had to piss in a bottle" thanks, mike.
The next night Mike and Mark had a low-key party in their loft. Mike and I started the night off by going to dinner at a restaurant that serves alligator, ostrich, buffalo, deer, etc… highlight: blackened alligator. We walked back to the loft and discussed opening a restaurant that only sells endangered species, panda steaks, bald eagle soup, etc. Next to the item on the menu is a number of how many are left and when you order it they lower the number and raise the price. yes, there is something wrong with us. The party started and Jeff Johns, Sara and Noelle came out. Good dudes, fun times. I didn't get any sleep since I was so anxious and nervous that I wouldn't wake up and miss my flight (which has happened, shut up) I got to the airport, breezed through security and met up with the dudes…

Wed Oct12th
Had to cut it short yesterday we were running late to meet our driver. So, backing up. We got on the plane for our 14 hour flight. The plane was huge, bigger than any I've ever been on. There were three rows total. Three seats on either side then a center row of 5 seats. Everyone was assigned the middle row, except me. I was on the end near the window and I must say I'm kinda glad. Those guys were jumping all over the place and putting shit on their heads, basically making a scene. They're good for that. I thought they were gonna get kicked off the plane. Our flight pattern went in an arc over Alaska and down. We were traveling through the international date line so we left on Sun Oct 9th @ 11:00am and arrived on Monday Oct 10th @ 2:00pm. The entire plane ride was daylight. We got in and I was a bit nervous because of customs and what not, but we breezed right through with our merch and all. As we were exchanging our money for Yen, we met some woman who knew Bill Gates. Apparently he flew her out in a private jet. She was nice at first then got really weirded out after the barrage of questions. We met up with our driver/translator, Shimoda. His English wasn't that great, but whatever. We hopped in the van and took off. It was weird having the driver sitting where the passenger does then turn into oncoming traffic (well, US wise) Japan is very industrialized, there are factories all over. Even a Disneyland!
We were staying in Kiba, which is on the Eastern side of Tokyo. We had to pay for our apt up front, so me, Dex, fill in guitarist from Haunted Life, and Spencer used all our own money. I literally had NO money until Spencer could pay me back… So I've been penniless for two days. The banks have been closed due to a Japanese and American Holiday. We also found out that the apt was only meant for 3 people….ha. Luckily the apt is in a different place than where the front desk area is so the other 3 dudes can come and go without worry. So we enter the apt and it's two small rooms, and one is half hallway. The bathroom is a closet. It's about 5ft by 5ft, if that. The rest of the apt is just as small. The room that 5 of us are sleeping in is about 7ft by 20ft. well the first night we were there we walked around our neighborhood or prefecture ('NESE, tight) We found a 711. Of course it was completely different than ones in the US. It's funny because everytime we come to an intersection everyone looks the wrong way. Someone is gonna get hit soon. We passed a ton of vending machines. You can get anything in there. I hit up the beer one. Oh, Asahi, you my only friend. Everything is lit up. Most signs are in English or Engrish. Some of it's funny. We went to a place called Freshness Burger. It was alright. Burgers are a bit different here. They are more like soy. We hopped on the subway after many failed attempts since the subway system maps look like they were based off the New York sewer system. (ed note check this http://www.bento.com/subtop5.html ) We asked Shimoda where all the action was, cool places to check out. So he sent us to Roppongi. We go there and saw a lot of white people. It was real touristy. There were a lot of random shit shops, head shops and strip clubs. We saw the Tokyo Tower, it looked like the Eiffel tower, go figure. Me and Spencer looked for an internet café. Everything is built up, so we found this building that said there was an internet place on the 10th floor. So we went up. It was really weird. Really dark. It had showers, free drinks and tons of porn. There was a maze of cubicles and massage chair cubicles. We walked around really not knowing what the hell we were doing. We heard some moaning and realized that this might be a "doing it" place. When in Rome…! Just kidding. We took off and everyone was getting real tired probably because it was 6am central time. On the way back on the subway there was this sweet advertisement of a skeleton eating a smog covered earth, it was probably for baby food or something. I ganked it then got immediately paranoid that I was going to get caned. We went to the grocery store and bought some rice and such then went to bed.
We woke up at like 8am and walked around the neighborhood. We went to this temple. It was odd. There were people at the entrance that would toss money into the this wooden box thing, clap their hands like a dealer at a casino, then bow and pray. We stood by this tank of water that had ladels. This old man walked up and demonstrated what we should do since we obviously had no idea. He washed both hands in the water, then put some in his mouth and spit it out. Interesting. We met up with Shimoda later and told him we hate white people and when we ask to go somewhere cool we don't wanna see other white people there. He told us about the water at the temple. He said it was to cleanse the hands and the heart or something like that. Shimoda is odd. He doesn't speak English very well and he's not really good at explaining anything. I think at one point he even said, "man, I hate being a translator." I'm starting to think that he was working and someone said, "hey we have American's coming in, and YOU get to be the translator." He drove us to the area of the show. It was insane, people everywhere. Shops everywhere. Everything is built into high rises. Certain floors are different businesses sometimes multiple floors. We also saw where the Emperor lives. Hi, Emperor! It is a massive compound surrounded by a moat. We walked around for awhile and went to a music store and a Tower music. We got to the show for sound check and it was a very small club in the basement under an AM/PM. Like 40 people were there for the show. It was weird being somewhere were pretty much no one spoke English and everyone speaks VERY quietly. Now I understand why everything thinks we're loud Americans. So now I'm in a loud ass club trying to communicate with a quiet person that barely speaks English…greeeeeaaaat. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not one of those people that are like, "Motherfuckers, you speak MY language!" I'm just observing. There was a painting of Kim Jong Il on the wall with Chinese or Korean next to it that said, "I like music" Needless to say I got my picture taken in front of it. I'm not too sure why it's there. It's kinda like having a Hitler painting in a restaurant that says "I like hotdogs!" or something. Before the show we went to this sushi place where everything was 137 yen, roughly $1.37 US. A chef stood in the middle and this conveyor belt went all around him and the room. You just picked up whatever plate you wanted. A counter stretched all around the chef, too, and every seat had a hot water dispenser for tea. The chef kept saying, "HYUH!" like a samurai it ruled. He did it to EVERYTHING like a nervous tick or something. Spencer had said he wasn't going to eat "weird" Japanese food but gave in and tried sushi. He liked it and definitely said "Oregano" instead of "Arigato." Amazing. The show went really well. Kids don't clap much. Afterwards there was this insane giveaway. We thought it was customary to give a gift when receiving one, so we gave away so many shirts. Shimoda later said, "nah, you don't have to give anything." DOH! Everyone was awesome and joked with us and took pictures. We didn't get paid though that sucked.

THURSDAY Oct 13th

Yesterday we got up at 9am. This sucks, our clocks are fucked. Everyday so afar we've woken up at 9 and have been in bed by 10:30. We got up and milled around, went to Freshness burger. I have a feeling Spencer will eat there everyday. We came back in time to meet Shimoda at 1pm. He was late and came walking up atbout 1:30. We got in the van and drove about an hour to Chiba. It was a big suburb. We got to the club it was called K's Dream. When we walked in we realized who "K" was. Kurt Cobain. He lined the walls. This was definitely a grunge revival type place. We soundchecked and saw that the drink menu had a drink called "Pantera," "Metallica," and "Whitesnake." If everything wasn't so expensive I'd be sipping a Black Sabbath right about now. We left to hit an internet café and food. Me, Phil, and Spencer went to the internet place it was kinda like the first place, but less seedy. They had these drink vending machines filled with like 40 different things AND they were free. Me and Phil drank everything from A to Z. Phil drank this hot CORN drink. It was disgusting. When we got out Shimoda had taught the rest of the dudes some choice Japanese phrases. "ooooh choe kawaii desunay" You are very beautiful! "Zu ki attay" Do you want to be friends/date/gf whatever "Konya Hima?" Are you free tonight? And you kinda have to raise your voice at the end otherwise you're saying, "you ARE free tonight!" look out, ladies! You WILL be free tonight! Apparently you only say this stuff to girls or there will be a fight. He also taught Ryan how to say "We are stupid Americans" Ware Ware Wa Baka American. Bakua Rob "I am Rob" Uma "horse" enu "dog" Cuso Shty "I have to shit" Cuso Kisshty "I want to kiss you" Chinko "dick" Manko "pussy" So basically we yelled this random stuff at people all night and got some laughs. I mean, cmon, if you were hanging out and a Japanese man ran up to you all excited saying, "I AM A STUPID HORSE WHO HAS TO SHIT!" You'd probably get a kick out of that, too. It was fun there were a decent amount of people there, it was like a high school show. All these bands were pop punkish. One member of another band spoke perfect English, I kinda wish he was our translator. Ha. His name was Josh. I think we got made fun of by one of the bands on stage. When the singer goes on some rant that ends with everyone laughing and looking at the Americans it's safe to say he's not welcoming us to his fair country. Oh well. We didn't get paid AGAIN! Afterwards me and Dex walked around and found this bar that had a confederate flag in the window, so we went in. It was REALLY small. There were records on the wall and in the window sill, Bob Dylan and such and the place kinda resembled a saloon. They looked really surprised to see Americans. We didn't stick around too long there. On the way home we saw a Denny's and a Shell. Nice. We got home and walked to Mos Burger, Freshness Burgers competitor. Where Ryan talked about opening up a Murder Café. We had so many different dishes I can only remember a few. It was hilarious. The Matthew Shepard Pie with some Lemonaids and for dessert, you could get the Jon Benet Raspberry, 9-elemon, Martin Luther cone or the Rodney King cone. There were guys with ear pieces walking around everywhere like the secret service. It was sketchy. We walked through some narrow alleyways on the way back and ran into some guy dressed like a valet. He was really flamboyant and animated. Everything we said was the funniest thing he had ever heard. He would collapse onto the ground laughing at anything. "Which way are you guys going?" "…uh, that way" AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH I think he was trying to get us to come into this bar. He probably got commission or something. Side note: I just heard Spencer refer to someone as Hockey Habora. Nice.
I woke up at 9 again today but went back to bed til 12. Dex made some pancakes in the microwave. Today we were supposed to play on some tv show and wreak havoc, but I don't think it's happening now, bummer. Ryan just told Eric he was on life probation and that we would beat him if he breathed. I love it. Shimoda loves to say "Not so much" and "maybe not" to EVERYTHING. "Hey Shimoda, do you think there will be girls there tonight?" "maybe not" "Hey shimoda do you think girls would be into us?" "not so much" Shimoda lived in Germany until he was 18 then moved to Japan and learned English from his friends in California. For some reason I immediately thought about Cassandra on Waynes World learning English from Police Academy movies.
2:45am
Today was AMAZING! We got up with nothing to do since there was no tv appearance stuff. We got on the train and went to Shinjuku, near where we played the first night. We walked the streets and found NAT Records. It was one of the best record stores ever. Tons of old and new hardcore records. Finally the stuff I wanted to see. We walked around some huge buildings, too. Also, I finally got paid back for the apartment, MONEY! We've taken to ducking into alleys. They are filled with little shops. Then there are alleyways to the alleyways. They are even more small and narrow than the alleys! There were small restaurants that could only seat like 2 people, and those 2 people would basically be taking up all the space. There was a sunglasses shop that looked like it was carved into the side of a wall and they only carved enough room for the guy to sit down, I'm dead serious. It's like they took the dimensions of his body and made it just a LITTLE bit bigger so he could move. It looks like Times Square only bigger around here. INSANE! There were hundreds of dudes in suits trying to get people to come into their clubs. Everyone except us that is since we were American. We saw a building with a statue of King Kong scaling the outside with American Flag boxer shorts on called "the American Club." American Club, we're American, SURELY we will be treated like kings here. "Japanese Only" FUCK! So we went to the same sushi place we ate at the second night, yep, still the same. We went into some random shops and saw a building that said, "Sexual Harrasment Company" Hey, just like the Old Spaghetti Factory. We thought it was just bad Engrish so we ran inside and up a few flights of stairs only to get to a room covered in photos of women getting sexually harrassed and a man yelling at us "JAPANESE ONRY!" It really was the Sexual Harrassment Company. Businessmen dress women up in business attire then sexually harrass them. hmm. Later Shimoda explained why everything was Japanese Only. He said a lot of owners don't wanna deal with foreigners in situations that are hard to explain. Look at it this way, you have a language barrier, you might have some alcohol, you might have a sexual situation. You have some drunk American that stumbles across the Sexual Harrassment Co. He thinks "holy shit, I'm totally doing this" He's never seen anything like this in his life so he doesn't understand the rules that go along with it. Maybe you aren't allowed to do certain things. You have the guy running the business who can't really communicate the rules to this drunk ass. So it turns into some chick screaming while the "manager" is yelling all the while the drunk turd has no idea what's going on and thinks this is all apart of the game. aaaaaaaaaanywho, we met these American girls who were loud and dumb. We chatted for a bit then took off, but we kept running into them all over. We turned a corner and these drunk American guys were doing the usual, "WOO HOO!" in the streets. All these Japanese kids were getting riled up and yelling, too. It seems they are easy to excite. So we ran up and started high fiving everyone, dancing and yelling. There are like 20 Japanese kids all dancing with us and high fiving us. Then the American girls turned the corner so we started yelling, "AMERICAN MOVIE STARS!!!" and pointing. The kids started freaking out and taking pictures and stuff. We had our fun and started walking off, but these kids followed us like a mob. They followed us for blocks until we finally told them we had to go. We high fived and then ran for the train since they would stop running around midnight. We talked about going back up there on Friday and pretending Ryan was a movie star. Then charging kids to get their picture taken with him. When we got back to our prefecture Ryan wanted to go to the temple. So me and Phil walked around all over. We were spitting on cars on this overpass and started to walk home when we spotted a playground. We squeezed onto some swings and hung out when we we saw these 2 girls walk by. So I said, "koooooniiiichiwaaaa" real creepy like because you gotta say it creepy. Saying things really animated means you really mean it. Telling a girl she looks good really creepily shows her that you mean it. seriously. So I say hello almost as a joke 'cause I figured, "eh, they're gonna ignore us." Sure enough they start to walk over to us. "SHIT! I don't know any other Japanese!!" Luckily one of them spoke English. We talked for a bit and they walked us to our apt so we could give them our number. Their names were Noriko and Atsuko. They were like 27 and 30, but seriously looked aobut 20. We took them up to the apt and all the dudes were like, "heeeeeeeeeeeeeeey." After that I went to 711 to get a calling card and called some kids then hit the hay. We all slept til noon. word.
SAT Oct 15th
I finally caved and took the cushion off the chair in the hallway. This entire time I had been sleeping on the dufflebag of merch tshirts. It just wasn't cutting it anymore. Last night I've realized I'm already becoming desensitized to stuff here. Beer in vending machines no big deal now. Last night we went to Chinatown. that's right, Chinatown. To the untrained eye, us, it looked just like Japan, but with more dragons. The club was pretty cool. It was called the Lizard. we went to another internet cafe. I bought a beer to walk around with. Shimoda bought me a beer at a grocery store. I got this apple juice that had alcohol in it. It's really hard to tell half the time what's booze and what's not. Sometimes you think you're getting juice and then you examine the carton and realize there is a little 6.5% thing there. nice. They trick you into drinking. At the club I gave some kid some stickers and he gave me a sip of his drink. Then 5 mins later he brings me a shot. He kept trying to tell me what it was, but it was loud and I couldn't really understand him. He kepts saying, "WOKKA!" ooooooooooh VODKA! he hands me the shot and a glass of water as a chaser. I'm thinking, "uh, it's just vodka" so I wave it off. I down the shot and this kid is just saucer eyed like he can't believe what I just did. I'm thinking, "that's right, I'm cool." Then it hits me. I'm not sure what type of vodka that was, but it's burning and I'm trying to remain "cool" so I squeak out a "thanks" then when the kid isn't looking I cough my brains out. HARSH, I swear it was lighter fluid. The glass of "water' was probably the vodka. I introduced myself. His name was Casu, like kazoo. Nice kid, he really liked the Used. I was messed up. There were some Americans there. One was a teacher and 2 were from the Navy. They Navy guys were rad dudes. Pablo and Dave or as Spencer says Lt. Dan and Gen. Patton. One was a skin who was into Slapshot and had a Ronnie Van Zant tattoo. After the show we went to Domino's. I got tater tots and chicken nuggets. WHAT?! But it was good or maybe I was just drunk. It was expensive! they had a pizza with fish eggs among other things. Tomorrow we aer gonna go to Shibuya to pass out flyers. There is this storefront restaurant, sort of deli type place right around the corner from where we are staying. There is this little old lady that runs it, she's always out front when we walk by and always says, "hi" to us. she is super cool.
Sun Oct 16th 2:00am
I just got done doing some laundry. today me, Spence and Eric went to Shibuya. We made some fliers and went to the subway. It was like the blind leading the blind at that point. Usually everyone just pushed their money at Phil and he would give everyone their subway tickets. I saw some dude wearing a Disclose patch so I told Spencer to give him a flier but he was too scared to do it, so I did. He was nice barely spoke any English though so it was hard to communicate especially after he tried to help us select a train fare. We figured it out and we were off. Me and Spencer joked that we were so lost that as we zoomed past subway platforms we would see dead people and people from the past. Guess you had to be there, but it was hilarious. the last train we transferred onto was PACKED. The most packed a train could get. We got out and there were what seemed like thousands of people everywhere. Crossing the street was like a rushing into battle. We walked around for a sec before Pablo (who looks about as much like a Pablo like I look Japanese) and Dave called. We met up and went to a record store. It was probably the most amazing record store I've ever seen. It was small but had records I had only seen pictures of. When we left it was drizzling. No Bigs. Pablo wanted to take us to this authentic German place. Authentic German in Japan, hmmm. After much confusion and walking we found it. Our waitress was nice and had a German accent. i think she was a cutter. Whatever. We got beers (mine was $10!!!! and it was the cheapest one!!) fuck! We shared a plate of 5 different sausages, sauerkraut, and potatoes for $25, geez... I gave the waitress a flier ans seemed stoked. After that we sought out an ATM. It sucks because international ones work differently. So that took FOREVER and in the rain nonetheless. So my shoes were soaked along with my socks and anyone who knows me that this does not make for a happy Rob. This annoys me like no other and can quickly make my smile go south. We got to this punk bar. I think it was just called Punk Bar, or maybe it was Garageland. Whatever it was the the sign for it was a Nevermind the Bollocks rip. It was super small and kinda expensive. $6.50 for an Asahi. fuck that. We got a pizza too. It wasn't too different from ours. Thin crunchy crust. good. The wall was signed by the different bands who had visited. so naturally we got to sign it too. Definitely put a Cardiac Arrest up. Then we got this VIP seating. Which wasn't really VIP since the place was the size of a shoebox. You either got to sit at the ONE table (VIP) or at the bar. The bartender also played whatever cd you gave him. RULE. So we enjoyed the Deathreat discog with our beers. Afterwards the Navy boys had to go. It was raining heavier now. In Japan umbrellas are really cheap, like a dollar. People leave them laying all over. They buy them when it rains then just drop them wherever when it stops. So you just pick one up whenever you see them. At least that's what we were told, so that's what we did, ha. That's how we learned the umbrella game from Pachinko and Dan. Oh, everytime Spencer talked about Pablo and Dave he would call them something different. Ok, the umbrella game. Since EVERYONE has an umbrella and it's always crowded on the streets you just walk near them and lightly tap the top of their umbrella with yours. This causes the rain on top to fall on them or the person near them. We abused this game to the fullest extent. Who would've thought the most simplest of concepts could be so fun. We were supposed to meet the rest of the dudes at the $1.37 sushi place in Shinjuku at 10:30. They had all gone to some show at a college. By the time we got there I had been walking all day and I was soaked. I wasn't very happy and the fact that Spencer is a human anti-compass didn't make me much happier. I think there were times when we were standing with our backs to the sushi place and Spencer would say, "no, it's that way, I know it." and we would walk 5 blocks in the wrong direction. We found it and the guys weren't there. So now we had to risk missing the last subway train and being stranded on the opposite side of Tokyo from where we were staying. So I convinced Spencer and Eric to just walk to the subway. Lucky for us they were there. We got back and hung out at 7-11 for a bit. I called Nori. She was going to bed. Shimoda told me yesterday that she was basically a hooker. wow. She said that businessmen pay her to hang out with them at the bar. He said, "you know Caberet club? she drinks with you then...." So she's an escort.
Oct 17th 11:30pm
On Sunday we went Akihabara. That's basically where all the electronic stores and such are. we played at a place called Dress Tokyo. we've gotten so used to saying whatever we want in front of people. We sing, shout, yell obscenities in public. We ask questions like, "do you think that girl is cute?" right in front of the person in question. Today me and Ryan were saying stuff like, "excuse me, bitch" and "you're ugly" as we were walking to guy or girl. We are gonna get in trouble I know it. In Akihabara we walked all over and saw a ton of cool stores with toys and electronics. We saw these 5 girls dressed in different color dresses doing some song and choreographed thing trying to hock some merch. Eric started dancing and making the girls laugh while they were singing. I don't think their "managers" were too happy. But everyone else in the crowd thought it ruled. People are always amazed by the dancing black guy where ever we go. Shimoda told us today that Shimoda was in fact his last name! his first name is Kasekay. WTF!? At the venue you walked down some stairs and there was a small glass encased room, like a tv studio or something. That's where the bands played. The merch set up outside the glass cube. This guy named Dave from Montreal sang for the 1st band Everyone's Enemy. They covered 7 Seconds. nice. He said in Japan you have to pay to play. They had to pay $200 to play the show. FUCK! That's why M.R. wasn't getting paid. All the money they made was paying their fee. I think they might be getting ripped off by the company they booked through though. During My Revenge's set these girls started talking to me. One's name was Nariko. I guess it's a pretty common name. She lived in seattle for 8 years and LA for 2. Her friend, who's name I forgot, could barely speak English. I guess every Nariko and friend are the same way. One speaks English, the other "not so much." We talked for a bit. The night was filled with South Park voices, it's funny. After the show we came back and went to this restaurant on the main street we walk. It was upstairs. Phil and Ryan recommended it. We climbed the stairs and had to take off our shoes. The walkway between the tables were even with the tabletops and then when you got into your booth you had to take a step down and sit lower than the floor. The menu was huge. We got this raw meat. They brough out these mini grills and you cooked it yourself. I ordered a beer only to find out it was NON ALCOHOLIC. BITCH! The place was good. On the way home we stopped by 7-11 and bought some $1 saki. It was in a mason jar and had minimal labels on it. It looked a little like ole grampa's hooch, MOONSHINE! Today we got up and it was raining. suck. Today was also the first day we didn't have the van. There was another American band over and we had to share the van with them. We grabbed the merch and instruments and hit the subway to go to Shibuya. We met up with Okawa who was filling in for Shimoda. Okawa's English was not as good as Shimoda's. We walked to the club and it started pouring. Time for the umbrella game!! We've come up with different point systems. You can walk in between two people and get two at once. 50 points. You can hit an umbrella causing it to hit someone else's 100 points. No one really keeps score though. Me and Ryan attacked each other and my umbrella broke. Now I had to "find" a new one. Most corner stores have umbrella racks out front. Sometimes they will be filled up and there will only be like 3 people inside the store. So sometimes we root through the racks trying to "upgrade" our existing umbrellas. I found an umbrella against a building and grabbed it. Unfortunately the owner doesn't agree with our "grab and go" policies so I had to put it back where I found it. I found a different one though and the game commenced. Ryans new game is instead of tapping people's umbrellas, he lowers his a little underneath theirs and pushes up real hard. So not only does the rain off your umbrella gets on them, you push their umbrella to the side so that it rains on them, too. The problem though is that you practically have to assault the person... or at least the way Ryan does it. The club was so small. It was ridiculous. I thought the 1st place was small. This place is tiny. I met a kid named Masaki who was super cool, knew a lot about hardcore. We talked for a bit. The show was weird It was like Korn bands and then this No Doubt wannabe band. We took off before the last band. Afterwards we just hung out.
Tues Oct 18th
Today we got up late. We had to meet Shimoda at 3:00pm. we met at the Kiba station and went to a place between Shinjuku and Shibuya. It was nice and quaint. we saw these chicks in a coffee house and invited them out but they didn't come. We hit an internet cafe and got drinks. We also went to this Army surplus store and it had tons of stuff from WWII. We think that it may have come off some dead US soldiers. creepy. After teh show we hung out with these 2 Japanese chicks and dude. One was kinda drunk so we messed with her. She was a good sport and sang with us and stuff. We got to the subway and Eric picked up this parking cone and used it as a megaphone yelling the typical "I'm a stupid American" and such. This drunk asshole American came up and started yelling at him and Phil. Dex kinda tried to calm things down but added a little more fuel to the fire so it got pretty tense. Finally everyone just said "fuck it" and left in bad moods.
Wed Oct 19th
Today we got up kinda late, do you detect a pattern? We went to Ikebukuro to meet Shimoda. Everyone has taken to calling me Lob. When I called Nori I said, "Hey, this is Rob." and she kept saying "what? who?" then I finally said, "this is Lob!" and she said, "ooooooooooh, Lob, hi Lob" Everyone died laughing and has since called me Lob. We got to the venue and there were tons of dead animal skulls on the walls. At the sound check there were a lot of nu metal bands playing. One had no drummer or bassist. Just a DJ guy, girl singer and guitarist. One was an Evanescence wannabe type band. Everyone was kinda bummed that it wasn't a hardcore show. Me, Phil and Ryan went to some arcades. They were pretty lackluster. They all seem to be packed with DDR style games, Mech battle games, or soccer games. That or they are Pachinko. The show ended and we got asked to hang out and drink as much as we could $10. So we did. We all sat at these long tables w/ snacks. The guitarist of the no drummer band was named Yoshi. During the show Yoshi's bands merch was right near ours and he would try to talk with us the best he could. It was harder to communicate moreso because it was so loud. Yoshi would put his hand on the table palm down and take a pencil and go through his fingers as fast as he could. When he was done he would say, "SAMURAI STYLE" like Wu Tang "TIGER STYLE" During the show I was watching these kids dance and jump up and down. I thought they were jumping so hard that the floor was moving. I looked at Yoshi and put my hand on the floor and made a face like, "holy shit, the floor is gonna cave in." He put his hand on the floor and said, "oh, that? just earthquake." like it was no big deal!! We are in the basement of huge building during an earthquake and this guy is like, "eh, no big deal." So back to the after party. Everyone was really cool. We started ordering drinks on an all japanese menu. I made everyone just cover their eyes and point to something. We got many interesting drinks. After we were done hanging out we realized we were gonna miss the last train back to our neighborhood. Luckily Shimoda showed back up to help. We had to run through the station as fast as we could. It was like one of those movies where the people are running through the airport to catch their flight and it just seems like they've been running for miles. People started to give up, but we made it! and lucky for us the train stopped running at the stop RIGHT before our normal exit. So we only had to walk a few extra blocks home. Ryan and Eric are now shooting fireworks off our balcony about 7 stories up. NIGHT!! ....About 15 mins after I wrote that Eric ran into the hallway naked and Ryan started shooting fireworks at him. As he was running around two cops popped through the door to the stairs Eric dove into our apt and closed the door. They caught a brief glimpse of Erics naked black ass and couldn't help but laugh. Phil talked with them forever, or tried to talk with them. Since we really couldn't communicate they drew some picture of us shooting off fireworks but it the fireworks looked like dicks. Then they drew lines coming out of the dicks. Those wacky cops. They left us with a "be quiet" and they were on their way. ANAL FUCK!
Thurs Oct 20th
Today we slept in rather than going to Asukasha or whatever. We got on the train and met Shimoda in Shinjuku. we walked to the curb and it was like a 15 min walk to the club. It was a rad punk club called the Wall. Apparently the show was gonna be the biggest one yet. Before the show me, Phil, Ryan and Shimoda went to an Italian restaurant. It was good. We asked Shimoda about the rumored used underwear vending machines. He said if it did exist which he was almost certain it didn't it would be in the area we were in. There was a porno store near the venue so we went in. Sure enough they were selling bags of used underwear. There was a picture of a girl wearing said underwear and then the stained underwear in the bag. It was like $50 and seriously disgusting. As we walked around we asked Shimoda about all the girls in dresses that stand outside of stripclubs. We just thought they were trying to drum up business, but he said, "oh no, that one handjob only, that one blowjob, that one anything!" We asked him if he had ever gone to one and he just laughed. When we got back to the show there were a bunch of kids there. I set up merch in this booth that I had to climb into. I got a beer and made myself comfortable since I probably wasn't going to get up the whole time. One good thing about doing merch here though is that we could set up merch during soundcheck and leave it out unattended for hours and NO ONE would mess with it. People are very respectful not like shitass USA where scumfuck traveler shits try to steal shit right in front of you. I took some pics during My Revenge's set and they looked pretty good. The show went great and Spencer called me up to sing Ready to Fight. Within the first notes I had kids climbing all over me singing along. It was sick. After the show I talked to some chick named Maki. she was nice. She was 21 but looked 12. I think she thought I was hitting on her, but i wasn't. Ryan was being really annoying and kept saying, "oh he's just drunk." After the show we got on the train and ran into the other US band that Just Rock (the company M.R. used) booked here. They were some emo looking band called Saving Daylight or something. great. Shimoda taught me how to say "I puked on my dick" Chinko ni gero shitah. Now everyone yells it. I want to learn this in as many languages as I can.
Fri Oct 21st
Today we slept in again. We met Shimoda outside. Some of us were down on the curb waiting for him, while the rest of us were still upstairs getting ready. I was standing on the balcony overlooking the street while Shimoda was helping load up the back of the van. Unbeknownst to him and everyone else Spencer got in the van. While Shimoda was picking something up the van just took off forward. Spencer drove it up the street halfway and stopped. Shimoda half assedly ran after it, I never laughed so hard in my life. The show was in Koenji. The place rules. It was the same size of the place we almost got into a fight. The venue was in some sort of indoor/outdoor mall. You were walking along in the street then suddenly there was a roof over you and you were inside a mall. We walked down these stairs like we were going into the basement and there was the entrance to the venue. It was like a maze that ended up in a decent size venue. As we walked in everyone who worked there greeted us. Instead of saying hi I just said, "sick tribe, bro" to all of them as we walked past. The last guy we greeted said, "sick-o uh tribe-o" I held it in. This all chick band opened called Violence after Vacation. We watched them soundcheck. They were amazing. Finally a band I could stand to watch. VAV sounded like a weird power violence type band. We joked that they should've called their band Violence After Graduation. VAG. One of them was wearing a Slight Slappers shirt so I went to talk to them. They spoke no english, so after several failed attempts I grabbed Shimoda and made him translate. I asked them if they had any favorite American bands judging by their style I thought I would hear "Spazz" or something of the like. Shimoda asked and I heard one reply in broken English "Mars Volta and System of a Down" ha. well I guess it makes sense. Their interpretation of that style was way better than the bands mentioned. We walked around before the show and checked out some cool random stores. Ryan and Phil looked at some tattoo place and contemplated getting tattoo's. We even saw some hamburger joint that looked pretty good. Out of all the places we visited I could see myself living here. We went to a curry place. It was actually really good judging from the leftovers I got. The show was good and fun. VAV came out in crazy costumes. The drummer looked really weird. She wore these cat ears and painted her face white. Then had this light shine directly on her face while she played. She made crazy faces while she played. The singer was like 4 foot tall and was all over the place. they were tight and awesome. It was M.R.'s turn. They were in the backstage area and came out to play Eric came out shirtless with his face painted white, REVERSE BLACKFACE!! AMAZING! Across his chest we wrote "SIQ TRIBE, BRAH!" Ryan wore the cat ears and painted whiskers on his face. it was hilarious. I took a lot of pics during this show and I must say they all turned out great. After the show we went out to karaoke with some new friends, Maki, Miwa, and Hiro somethingerother. In Japan there are no karaoke bars. There are buildings with rooms you can rent out. It's like your own little lounge. Karaoke is serious business here. people use the rooms to practice or have fun with friends. All the rooms are hourly and as the night goes on it gets more expensive. We had a lot of fun and the hour flew by! When it was done we went out front and tried to figure out what to do. While we stood around figuring it out the van roared to life again! This time Shimoda sprung into action and hopped in before Spencer could take off. HA! Everyone piled in the van to go back to Kiba and Hiroghsagl;ahsg drove behind us. It was a good time, we sang the entire way back. We went to the mall near the apt, it kinda resembled the mall in Back to the Future. We had a roman candle fight and then ran down the block where we were met by the cops who promptly told us to be quiet. They really let us get away with murder here. We walked around, piled into a phone booth, yelled random obscenities at people and sat around outside the Daily Yazukima or whatever it's called, some 7-11 type place. Ryan learned how to say every dirty thing ever! Onanishtay masturbate on me.
Sun Oct 23rd
The last show was out in a semi rural area in the basement of a mall. Like a real MALL mall. We laughed at the "walk" and "do not walk" signs at crosswalks. the "walk" guy looks like he's bolting the hell out of there. We walked around before the show but nothing seemed to be happening. Everyone was getting kinda bummed that the trip was close to over. The show kinda sucked, but we did convince Shimoda to play a couple of songs on guitar during the set. He rips! he could play a lot of Metallica and he solo'd through almost the entire song. Dex sang a song and plowed through people. The last band that played was this all girl band who were trying to be rock stars or something. They were actually really talented and put on a professional show. The creepy thing was that their ENTIRE audience was comprised of men in their late 30's, 40's and 50's all cheering and dancing like little schoolgirls. Some even had their wives and kids there while they danced and reached over the stage barrier at the girls. Eric stage dove onto them. It was hilarious. We all got our picture taken together after the show and left for home. We took the tunnel under the sea so Shimoda wouldn't miss his train. When we got back me, Ryan, Pihl and Spencer went to the restaurant where you take your shoes off. We were gonna have a nice meal and enjoy our last night in Tokyo. We got a bunch of food and talked. We figured it was gonna be a quiet evening then we would get up the next day and fly home. During dinner we could hear a rowdy group on the other side of the restaurant in one of the "party" rooms. One of the rooms with a sliding door where everyone was kneeling around a table. We got up to leave and call it a night, but we had to pass by their party room first so Ryan ran up to their door and just started yelling and they responded by just yelling back. They all asked us to come join them so we came in. They were WASTED! They asked us where we were from and we told them. Everyone in the room started chanting USA! USA! Then one of the guys yelled "WE GO KARAOKE!!!" So we agreed and left the place. Phil started hitting on the only girl there. That Phil. We got out front followed by like 6 wasted Japanese dudes. They kept yelling "We caaaaaaaaaaa-raaaazyyyy!" and we would inturn yell, "YOU CRAAAAAZY!" So we started walking up the block to karaoke and acted stupid as usual. Ryan was dancing, I headbutted some steel shutters over a store window. I guess to one-up me one of the Japanese guys just took a running leap into it making a huge noise. The entire street was lined with more bikes than I've ever seen in my life. One of the guys acted like he tripped over a bike and then the next one just picked it up and launched it into the street getting the attention of the police. So we ran. The cops caught up with some of us and asked some questions leaving us with a warning. BE QUIET! They sure do like their quiet. So we walk up to this seeeeedy looking 5 story building. Neon lights and people hanging off the balcony. It looked like a brothel straight out of a movie. We all crammed into this room and we immediately started climbing on the tables and chairs. Before we knew it like 4 waitresses came into the room one after the other with trays FILLED with beers. The really drunk guy demanded we chug, and it was done. Problem was the next beer you picked up he would start chanting "CHUG CHUG CHUG" with that one as well. I started sneaking beers and drinking them halfway down and then stashing them to the side. When he would catch me picking up a beer start his chug chant I would quickly grab one of the half drunk beers and drink it down. the perfect crime. After an hour or so I was getting tired, and I was gonna sneak out. I walked into the hallway and told people I had to piss. Ryan followed me out causing some suspicion. Before I could get to the elevator the drunkest guy comes out and starts yelling, "YOU PAY!" and grabbing me. I tell him to chill out and that I would be right back. I just had to piss. yeah right. He wasn't having it. He just kept saying, "NNNO, YOU PAY!" Next thing I know EVERYONE is now in the hall in some sort of showdown. It was way tense. Even tenser because besides being drunk, these guys couldn't speak English. So all we had was a stare down. Well they had this Mexican guy with them that everyone called Mexico, and we had Dex who spoke fluent Spanish. So in Japan, in a confrontation between 5 American guys and 5 Japanese guys, two guys talked things out in Spanish. The bill came out to 50000 yen or about $500. We talked them down to us paying $120. None of us had money on us so Ryan literally ran all the way back to the apt and got money and came back. After we got the money, those guys went right back into party mode, laughing and carrying on. I was now in a bad mood and just wanted to jet. We hung out for a bit longer then we all left. Things got a little better on the walk back. everyone was being stupid again. One of Japanese guys rolled over the hood of a cab. There was this old man driving and he actually got out and ran after us...slowly, but ran nonetheless. It was like a horror movie. We would run as fast as we could for two blocks then stop and laugh and talk a little. We figured he would give up, but we would look up the block and he would be slowly running for us. So then we would run two more blocks and stop and laugh and talk, but there he was still trotting towards us. Finally he gave up. We said our goodbyes and went back to the apt where this kid Osami showed up to hang out at like 6am. He was so psyched to hang out with all of us and we were all dead tired. He didn't speak any English, but he brought his gf who translated. He stayed til about 7:30. We passed out and woke up around 9:45 to get our stuff together. We met Shimoda out front and Ren's wife showed up. Ren owns Just Rock and lives in the US. Okawa and Shimoda do all the work and get kinda screwed. So his wife was a total MANKO! While she was sternly talking to Shimoda in Japanese Ryan put the van in neutral and just started pushing it down the street. It was pretty hilarious. she was not happy, fuck her. She left and we all went to Freshness Burger one last time. We stopped by Tokyo Dress to say goodbye to Okawa then it was off to the airport. I'm gonna miss ole Shimoda, hopefully he comes to the US to hang. It was weird being on a flight that left at 6pm on Sunday from Tokyo then arrived at 4pm that same sunday in Chicago. So basically at 1pm I was in Freshness Burger AND on a plane over the US. I'm glad to be home, I'm gonna go get some American food. SAMURAI STYLE!!!!!