HOLY SHIT! JAPAN TOUR DIARY – Day 6

Wah. WAH. WAH, I say! Can’t you hear me? I stepped up the bitching and moaning throughout the night as we traversed into the mountainous southern area of Japan, the van constantly going over bumps that would literally move me each time. Man, what the fuck? I guess I’ve never rode on the floor of a van going over bumps in the Japan mountains while trying to sleep before. THIS SUCKS! Every time I would drift off to sleep: BOOM! Haha motherfucker, WAKE UP! You ain’t fucking sleeping tonight! I groaned and tossed and turned and mumbled and there was no way a positive mental attitude was going to save me now. Referencing my friend Juiceboxxx, I had entered the darkness. In Holy Shit!, we also refer to it as your ‘heart turning black.’ After what seemed like forever to me, the road quit its reign of terror on my tender ass and I think I was able to snatch a couple Z’s here and there. Buck up, crybaby.

The first throes of morning came and we stopped unexpectedly about 10 minutes after our last stop. Okay, a little weird, but I was welcoming any chance to get the fuck out of the van. We stopped at a beautiful sight right at the foggy sunrise, a giant suspension bridge and an overlook of a huge river. After everyone got out, we found out the problem: The Shyboy van had blown the second tire of tour. The second? Yeah, I then found out they blew one just yesterday when we waited for them at the 7 and I Holdings. What shit luck. We spent a half hour there and when I returned to the van I saw some cardboard tucked to the side of the loaded equipment. DING! Quickly I put two and two together and placed the stuff down where I was sitting. The difference was really what I needed. I can now see why bums herald cardboard.

We traveled on through the morning and around 9 AM we reached Fukoka and stopped at a place for breakfast. This was another a la carte place, and they specialized in food that looked revolting. I turned my nose up at everything but an orange drink and some plain white rice. The Japanese boys laughed when they saw me with only rice, they had full platters. Not my fault I don’t like disgusting food.  I was told that Yukata’s (Guitar and Vocals – Shyboy) place was near and we were going to get sleep there. Yes! This is what I’ve been waiting for. This will change my shitty mood.

We arrive and when I got out I found they parked me into a corner that I had to climb over a wall just to get out of. That reignited my sleep deprived anger and I spat a ‘Jesus Fucking Christ!’ out as I climbed the wall. When we entered Yukata’s house on the fourth floor, everyone spread out and did their own thing. Well damnit, I guess if no one is going to show me where to sleep, I was going to pick a spot. I picked the stupidest, shittiest spot. A small, partially enclosed cement patio outside. I put down my backpack for a pillow, and prepared my CPAP. I laid down and discovered I was at least a foot too large for this terribly uncomfortable place. But I was being angry and stubborn–I am staying here and sleeping until someone offers me a reasonable place. Well, that didn’t happen. In fact, it’s funny to me now, but I was laying in their outside smoking area. They left the door open being loud and smoking right next to me. The smoke hit my CPAP and I breathed it in. THAT’S IT! Without a word, though clearly at my last wit, I picked up my backpack and my CPAP and found that the living room was the place for rest. I clunked over and slept immediately. Those guys must have thought I was an idiot. Funny shit.

Four hours of blissful sleep later we were woken up to prepare for – come on, wait for it: ANOTHER BREWERY TOUR! The Asahi brewery in Fukoka. Other than my eye still bothering me, I felt refreshed and partially rid of my nasty mood. We piled in the vans and bumbled down to the brewery, parking in the parking garage. We assembled down in the commons where they had an ice cream parlor with gelato. Tabman’s face lit up as he had been the commander and purveyor of all things ice cream thus far.

Ordering things in Japan can be unorthodox compared to in the states, and here’s an example: In many places there is food all about you, but the only way to get what you want is to visit yet another kind of vending machine, only these machines do not dispense food per se; they dispense tickets that you give to the attendant behind the counter. I wanted two scoops, and with Yoichi’s help we all purchased tickets and went to the counter, mouths drooling. I picked coffee and lemonade scoops, Tabman picked mango and strawberry, Eric selected blueberry and gyunyu (Are we paying attention?), and Andy chose cookies and cream with an unfortunate choice, green tea. It tasted like a school of fish swam into the gelato plant with the tea leaves and died. Utterly horrendous. The tour started and I laid eyes on the best looking tour guide yet. She was beautiful, smiling and saying words I didn’t understand. I kept sighing as we walked just taking her in. What a babe! We walked and talked, laughing and whispering until the end. This time I downed five beers at the end along with the sweet snacks they provided us with. Andy pointed out a cheap postcard package which I bought to give as gifts: 12 sweet postcards with neat looking art. Elated and completely free of the terrible mood I had adopted, we set out for the show space.

We arrived and dumped out all of our equipment, the place for the show down an alley with many girls waiting in line. Were they here for our show? We all hung around for a bit and the decision was made to go to an all you can eat ramen place a little ways away. We walked up and found that we needed to wait outside for people to leave, a common occurrence in Japan for popular eating establishments. When we got our green light I was met with a steaming hot bowl of ramen noodles and a spoonful of pork on top. Andy and I ate heartily while Fumito and Tboy absolutely scarfed theirs down at twice the speed. We finished and were immediately treated to another scoop full of noodles and meat. Fucken stopped by our table and told us that he would be paying for our meals to which Andy and I said, domo arigato, gozimasu! (Do I need to translate this?) What a nice guy.

We rode back to the club and walked down the alley. Halfway down and to the right, there was a huge door with a giant cat painted on it. Maru said that it meant that all neko were welcome to stay, and we spotted one immediately. Here kitty kitty! The cat bounded away annoyed. I would find that all neko are assholes here, and clearly more of a pest than in the states. Along our trip we would spot big bottles full of water placed in front of houses and living places to “ward off” the nuisances. How that actually works, we all were quite unsure. I walked down the rest of the alley and found all of the girls waiting in line had gone. Apparently there was a quite popular club just next door housing some teenage heart throb. Shucks. That same club hosted none other than fucking Ice Cube the night before. Day late and a yen short it turns out. I sat in a chair and posted to my recorder the events of the night before and got a bead on where the nearest place I could buy whiskey was. Because tonight my friends, I was getting FUCKED UP!

I walked two blocks over and got said whiskey. I then parked my ass on a tree trunk in a nice nano park in between the show and the store right in front of the cop ‘hut’ on the corner. I opened my whiskey and my Coke and started drinking. Ahh, yes. Day six might be a little late to mention this to everyone, but one of the most amazing perks of being in Japan? YOU CAN DRINK ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. Not kidding. For us hardened Milwaukee folk, trained to rush to the store at 8:59, the lack of beer time that Japan also employs is refreshing as fuck. Yes, you can go to your nearest Lawson at 4 am, grab a bottle of whiskey, and walk around getting teh drunk. Holy Shit! had been making great use of this, as you can imagine. There’s even beer and liquor available in fucking vending machines out on the street. Unsupervised. God, I love this place. I stayed there and watched the people for a good half hour, taking small sips of Nikka and enjoying the setting sun and the warm breeze.

Coming back to the club, I sat down with Shyboy and YPB on the ground and started drinking. An old woman walked over to us and started talking to me. Satoru was trying his best to translate. She asked how old I was, where I was from, and I guess she was telling me to take care of my hair because I had a nice full head of it. I offered her some of my whiskey and she laughed it off. The boys noticed me chase that whiskey with Coke and Tboy said, “One … Two!”. I nodded my head and rose the whiskey saying, “Ichiban…”, then the Coke, “…Nibon!”. They all laughed and we did it several more times, passing the bottle around. It became some sort of ritual from here on through the rest of the tour. Andy appeared from around the corner and told Teeb-nutz and me about this really dirty place right around the corner, and what with Japan being so clean up to this point we hopped up and took a look for ourselves. Yup, tons of old bikes, wood, trash, and … an office chair?! I was instantly gravitated to it. We inspected it and found no real reason that it should have been thrown out so I sat in it and Tabman pushed me from behind all the way to the front of the club where the guys cheered us and I became some sort of Santa Claus to them, having many Japanese friends sit on my lap. I told them all they were getting a big stinky pile of shit

in their toilet. BAM!

The show had been going on for a little while so far and I missed The Cleem (Thank God), an OI/’77 style puuuuunk band, and Lullabye, a hardcore band that Andy said killed it. Damnit. I booked it inside to see that this club was huge compared to every other place we played. The downstairs had a club like setting and a green room for bands along with a nice bathroom as well. Heading upstairs, there was a bar and the large stage area with sweet mushroom blue non invasive lighting all over. The Crump played third and they were especially good tonight being really the first night I fully took them in. Real odd pop sensibilities and slightly angular riffs. The next band was Capt. Idol, but I didn’t want to stick around. I instead went downstairs to the empty green room and broke out the Nikka black with some fresh Po’sweat I had bought. Gotta pace myself, I thought as I was feeling pretty sweet already. Tabman and some others came in and we talked it up for a bit and it hit me hard that I had to shit. In that toilet. Over there. So I went inside and held onto the porcelain fixture hard as my ass painted the bowl. Wow. As I finished up I noticed my little friend was not going to calm down and relax so I beat him into submission taking all of about 20 seconds to cry. And cry I did. It had been a while since I had masturbated, so the clean up effort was massive. That felt great! I returned to an empty green room where I slammed more shit. Tabman came in and we went outside again to take in the Fukoka night. YPB was there with their own bottle of whiskey and we started another round of “ichiban, nibon”. This attracted a young punk and he was included in our circle, only

he thought it was a competition. Trying to impress me and the others, when the bottles got to him he would take two or even three in a row and then shove them at me, trying to one up me. I slammed that shit right back like a game of drunken Simon. Soon it was just me and him and we were going back and fourth as a crowd gathered around us. All surrounding saying in unison as we drank, “ICHIBAN……NIBON!” The young lad would not give up and I finally decided that I had had enough seeing as I was wobbly and well, probably going to be slapped in the face hard for what I’ve just done. I bowed out with the urging from the HS! boys to write the set list, a great excuse to get away from this young liquor quaffing jeezy. I could feel it hitting me as we completed the list and I recruited Tboy and Maru to draw the 4 pieces of chicken on me. Shirtless and reeling, I went upstairs and watched YPB absolutely kill it. These guys were getting better and better. I love them. We went on next, using their equipment as always and I was at the point of no return. I was heading straight into the drunk sun of no rhythm ville. As the rest of Holy Shit blazed on, I fumbled my way through bass lines a half step behind, even botching a couple outright. Guh! That fucking liquor challenge had sunk me! I felt bad Yoichi saw some of the performance. Shame to me and shame to my family.

I went back downstairs and outside where I made several entries into my digital recorder and drank more. All of us talked and laughed and hung around the front of the club. Tabman was blitzed as shit and wanted me to go dancing as there were apparently DJs in between each set and a couple after the show, but I was too drunk to dance. We argued back and fourth, but I was just not moving. I welcomed the movement to leave and we headed back to Yukata’s flat to eat and fall asleep. I prepped my CPAP, drank 7 glasses of water, and dove into sweet sleep with my earplugs in. This day ended fairly well compared to how it came in. Tomorrow we go North and east to Kokura. WORD.

TOUR STATS:

Hours on The Fucking Plane: 15

Approximate Hours of Sleep: 36

Shows Played: 4

Total # Of Different Bands: 20

Number of Crybed Sessions: 1

Number of Shits Taken: 3

Robo-Toilets Used: 0

Alcoholic Tours: 3

Chewing Tobacco Chewed: 0

Angry and Pissed-Off Count: 5

Pieces of Chicken Displayed: 7

Number of Times Bathed: 1

And look! This time there’s video!

“I am Tabman!”

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