B:
The shitters in Japan are just as bad as Europe. A flat rectangle bowl tiled into the ground with a puddle of water at one end? The deal is you’re supposed to face the wall and squat freestyle, letting it land in the rectangle. Dkash and I were afraid of, Johnny is a vegetarian but Gordy was into it although he cheated. Gordy would take about 40 squares of toilet paper and line the rim of the porcelain platter and just sit on it, he probably did it to piss too, what a queen. I bet he thought it was funny to put his greasy butt cheeks on piss splattered rim and sit-n-shit! Craig had some troubles, he dropped his drawers thinkin he was pro and skidded the side of his leg, a nice brown swipe he said, that’s what he gets for claiming. These toilets were everywhere in the public but if we lucked out at the house or hotel we stayed at they would have the normal heavily desired bowl and seat. One thing I did notice is all the seats in the homes were heated with temp controls. All day the Japanese are squattin to read, squattin to piss and squattin to shit so it must be a pleasure to come home and rest that turd cutter on a warm ass toaster!

G:
10/13 took us to Chiba. All the way to the Club M7 and for a few hours after our arrival we got to experience a real Japanese storm. Very common place to them - Really unnatural to us to be so strong and crazy in only October. At this club we had the pleasure of meeting a Peking punk band by the name of Brain Failure. They had a great strong Rancidesque sound and we enjoyed the people in the band a lot. (no not like that, you faggots) Again, a great show with a great crowd. Actually that's a bit misleading - anytime there is a great show it means that there was a great crowd. We do the same shit every night, and the crowd makes or breaks the show.

J:
I adopted Gordy's T.P. on the rim/American-style of #2 on the toilet (i guess you could call them toilets) with much success after a few uncomfortable tries.  Chiba, JAPAN... By this time, Ryoko's band LAST TARGET had really grown on me!  Their live show blew me away! Ryoko and Joe OWNED the stage and TOLD you what was up (and i didn't understand a WORD of it until she later told me the English equivalent of her stage banter)  We were very stoked to be on the road with such a great band. "Don't shine your Boots" is a great song as well as a killer cover of "I got Your Number".

B:
The food was kind of crazy. If we didn’t have Ryoko, Japanese Joe or Yuki with us then we would be starving. English was seriously lacking there and if we didn’t have the luck of a picture menu then we were needing some serious help or else playing Russian Roulette with our meal choices. A lot of noodles and a lot of rice, after the show were always filling up with a midnight noodle bowl for the road home. Johnny was addicted and kept telling David which one to order, David was getting pissed and was gone stab him with a Ginsu. David is a little bitch. SkyLark or Gusto was restaurant of choice. It was like the ghetto version of Denny’s, cheap food, with white trash chillin on the food bar. We did eat a regular Denny’s but the only thing they had was French Toast and the rest was like cat guts, goat balls and sea weed, it sucked. We stayed at Ryoko’s moms house with her mom Sachan, sister Chiyo and dad Keizo who were very nice and had a sweet crib out in the urban part of Japan. They took care of us there with some marinated grasshoppers, fish hot dogs, rice and hard boiled eggs for breakfast, um, um good!

G:
10/14 was our first day off. Thanks be to whatever power is out there, we received our merch! After splitting up what we thought we would need for three shows we packed the car and headed out to Nagoya where we would play the following day. On the way I got to go to a HUGE temple that was mind blowing. We walked about a mile in through a rad forest on a pebble path. When we arrived I was awestruck. Again I offered prayer and poured holy water on my hands and throat. With construction on the highways we were stuck in stop and go traffic for 8 hours and were only half the way there. This shit was particularly hard on our girl Ryoko, because not only is it very taxing to drive in that type of traffic, but she also had to think in English and field a constant stream of questions provided by Johnny. I think that day was the first in a series of events that would eventually crack her. At the end of our 8h journey Ryoko made the decision to cancel the hotel for the night and pull over at her parents house. We pulled over at a Circle K and got a few Chu-Hi's (this is a beverage that tastes like grapefruit soda and vodka mixed. 7% alc. by vol. so it's stronger than beer.) We got to R's parent's house at 1am and her father who is a trucker was just leaving for work. He didn't really like us. I can't blame him. R said that he was only shy, but I could sense annoyance. I wish he did like us and talk to us, cuz R says he's crazy and does things like ask Greg from the Boils why he is fat. I hope Greg told him that is was because it took a big hammer to drive a big nail!

B:
We were pretty much assholes everywhere we went but I think the American jackasserie was taken lightly.
David was getting a little sick and thought he was coming down with SARS, he said he wasn’t gonna have anymore smokes and no more alcohol, claiming a Tylenol PM with a glass of Whiskey would be cool, what an asshole!

G:
10/15 We arrive at our hotel in Nagoya. Don't let the word "hotel" confuse you - this was a big room with lots of floor to sleep on. The bathroom (as with just about all the crappers in Japan) was a men's urinal laid on the floor. You have to squat over it and aim yer asshole to ensure that all the fecal matter about to spill forth makes it into the sled instead of on your leg or in or on yer pants. The club for the night was called the Apollo. Again we played with our friends in Brain Failure. This was the first night for Bobby to go to work since it was the first night with merch. That night showed us just how much we were missing out on not having merch before. These kids would buy 5 things at a time.

B:
Nagoya - drunk in the streets after partying in this upstairs Japanese watering hole. Johnny puked (un-announced) in the bathroom and left Gordy, David and I there to drink like men. Gordy later detected the puke in the bathroom by the remnants of Johnny’s food sprayed in the wash sink, Johnny was guilty. Later that night we were all partying in the streets and Johnny told us this story about when he lived in Fresno and he had a job as a paperboy, he would get up at 4 in the morning, put on his roller blades and deliver the newspaper. What a Fresno jackass. He would lie to us about puking in the bathroom but come clean to us about wearing roller blades as a paperboy! That night lead Johnny, Gordy and I into the red light district of Ikaeda Park, Rum-n-Cokes, beers and Whiskey fueled the evening as we tore up the red lights. We went into this one bar and ordered 3 beers and what do ya know 3 chicks walk up as well, we thought we were so cool. The only Americans in there and we were kickin it. We later come to find that these 3 beers and 10 minutes of talk time was costing us $120. I told the girls that we had a misunderstanding and we need out. They hooked us up with the bar tender and he dropped it down to $60 dollar lesson and put us on the streets. They got a Japanese Mafia called the ‘Yakooza’ which run all the these companion clubs and if the front door says the ‘System’ then you’re getting charged heavy and we learned the hard way. The kind of treatment led us to more beer and whiskey which lead us drunker to Japanese gymnasiums with naked men and women yelling at us to get out. We ran out the back doors into a staircase and down a flight of stairs to room full of fire extinguishers, my eyes grew. Gordy and Johnny leaped back for the run and pulled the pin and squeezed the Whiskey bent trigger, shit got nuts is all I can tell ya but we did make it back to our hotel only to wake up in a layer of fire retardant dust (see pic of Bobby's jacket above).

G:
10/16 showed our first day off with nothing to do. So after hitting a bank and a McDonalds, we hit the town. The beginning of the night was filled with boring shit, like computer driven band members and sick members and if you know me - I get annoyed when I don't have a party pal. I guess that's something I need to work on. So to salvage the night Bobby, Johnny and I took off in town. We were in a Red Light district and there were whore houses everywhere. Most had bouncers at the door that took no shit and would tell us, "JAPANESE ONLY!!!". Now we really didn't want to go to these places......we just wanted to find a bar and every time we tried to go to one it ended up being one of "those" places. After this became boring, Bobby and I decided we needed to find a good old fashion strip club. Now don't think this is a sign of infidelity. Both Bob and I have girls that we love and would never cheat, but our girls don't care if we go to strip clubs back in the states and they know that we just want to see boobies - or opi (op-eye) as they call em there. Poor Johnny was stuck with us doing whatever we were gonna do. Well someone on the street told us that if we went about 10mi up the road we would find "hostess bars" and that was the closest to an American strip club. Well we hit that side of town and finally found a hostess bar that would let us in. As soon as we stepped in three girls came over an led us to a table. We all freaked cuz obviously this was nothing like what we were looking for. We all ordered a drink and were informed that our tab was now at $120. We slammed our drinks and ran for the fucking hills! On the streets a lot of people wanted to talk to us cuz we look like assholes, so we met assorted odd people like the self proclaimed "biggest weed dealer in Japan" who of course we didn't really care about. We partied on that end of town visiting any bar we could till about 4:30am, then returned to our end of town. At this point we got more Chu-Hi's and busted into a building that contained a pool hall, steam rooms, assorted odd floors with odd storage in em....... obviously it was some sort of mafia pad and we were too drunk to care. We took the stairwell (cuz for some reason the elevator wouldn't go to all floors) down each floor till we almost hit the end. At this point Bobby finds a fire extinguisher and blasts the stairwell and me. Johnny and Bobby run down stairs and I run up. The alarm starts to sound in loud, ear piercing blasts. The three of us meet at the entrance where Bobby's shoes are and several men all come out to see what's up with us. It was so obvious. We stood there weaving, laughing and covered from head to toe in white powder. Luckily they took pity on us stupid Gi-ching and didn't serve us our asses on a plate. You would think we had learned our lesson, but to no avail...
J:
...After riding a few random people's parked bicycles (eventually knocking over a row of about 65 other ones) and trying to throw our beer cans into the small hole that led to our hotel room (unsuccessfully), we staggered back to the floor of our room and passed out for two hours till it was time to leave for the next show.

10/17 Saw a very hung over three men. We traveled to Osaka and a club named Fernando. Osaka rules and we had a great time. The band Burl we played with really blew my mind. Another band, United we Stand was another high point. The show was great, but we were kinda bored. You see when you go to Europe every day is another country. Here in Japan it was more like going from San Francisco, to San Francisco, to San etc. etc. This day we stayed close to the club and enjoyed the people there.

B:
Oh yea, the shows, well you can guess how the shows went, they rocked. Skins, Punks and Drunks were present, plenty of studded leather cruising the streets and pitting on the floor. The crowd seemed to be stoked at all the shows. The crowds favorite was S.K.U.N.X and wouldn’t let the Forgotten leave the stage without playing it. There seemed to be a lot of girls at the shows as well. These weren’t afraid to wear their leather-fishing boots and Scottish game skirts either. Last Target tore the stage up and got the crowd into the groove. Ryoko the lead singer and guitarist ruled the stage with her Japanamation moves and guitar struttin style all over the stage, everybody was stoked on ‘Last Target’ and ‘the Forgotten’

G:
10/18 - Second to last show. This was Shizouka and Club Sunish. This night was shitty. Only about 40 through the door. This English guy drank too much and pretty much ruined our show by trying to sing our songs (he didn't know a one) and trying to slam us around the stage and hang off our backs. Craig and I tried to send the point by tossing him on his melon a few times, but it didn't work. After the show as we were arguing with him, Ryoko was battling with a band called Griffin that played that night. Seems Griffin had to travel a whole 2h to the show and told Ryoko that they were the biggest band there and they were gonna take all the money and did. I wish she would have told us about it when it was happening cuz we could have tried another approach at getting the cash we deserved, but .... oh well, what can you do man?

10/19 Our last show. This show was at the Gig-Antic in Shibuya, Tokyo. Craig and I left to go to town with our guide (the cutest thing in Tokyo) Tomomi. She took us to a very crowded train into Tokyo and we visited every punk shop there! Every shop was killer and one shop took our pictures and made us sign a board that they placed in between Bad Religion and Rancid's boards. We were blown away! At one shop, 666, Craig was a very nice guy and took it upon himself to single handedly get the Japanese economy back on it's feet. My boy dropped about $1,000 on only two items. We walked over to the show and it was already packed. People everywhere. It really felt good. We spent an hour signing records and taking pictures before the show commenced. Once it was under way we were stoked to see another old friend from Thug Murder, Chisato, who now plays for a band called The Vickers. Wow did they smoke! After the show we had an after party where two gents approached us and offered us the deal of a life time. We don't know if it's all for real, so we are playing the waiting game and we'll see how this all pans out.

B:
Speaking for myself and the members of the Forgotten I know I can say we appreciated the Japanese’s hospitality, respect and appreciation and had a great time in their country. Arigato Ryoko, Japanese Joe and Yuki, Arigato Japan we enjoyed the tour!

Oh yea, these are some of the roads and towns we passed:
Fukuass, Fukuhor, Fukuroi, Fukuma, Ichimama, Ryougay nice areas too.

G:
10/20 Saw us to our plane and another flight where we were denied drink after they saw what we could do. One stew actually made me stand on one foot for 30sec before she'd give me a drink. So, I stood on one foot for a minute, the entire time explaining that this isn't my first jamboree. I may have come off as abusive - hope not.

Well that's my story. I could add more, but in order to protect the innocent and guilty, I wont.
I leave you with Truths and lies about Japan:

TRUTHS:

Cameras - yes they all have cameras and take a lot of pictures.

Crappers - the shitters suck. as I mentioned before, they look like urinals from a men’s room shrunk down, turned upside down and lain on the floor. some have a bar in front so you can hang off it to make it easier to squat. yuck.

Fish - it’s everywhere and in everything.

Politeness - these are some of the nicest people I have ever met.

Clean - the cleanest streets EVER and very clean people.

Yakuza - they are there and you best not fuck with em.

Porn - in all stores and the men are not afraid to kick it and read it.


LIES:

Girls Panties - used ones not available in vending machines as I had heard.

Saki w/ snake venom - doesn’t exist

Height ("everyone is short") - not true anymore. they got a lot of shorties, but they have MANY men and women that were as tall if not taller than my 6’1"
 

J:
Super thanks to Ryoko, Joe, Yuki, Trent, Atsuko, Tomomi, Mama & Papa Ryoko, Riko & Akiko for putting up with us, translating, helping me find the japanese eyedrops, and making this trip an unforgettable adventure!!

B & TF

Thank you to all the traveling and local supporting bands:
Last Target, the Vickers, Exprollers, SWEEF, Rasputin, Struggle For Living, The Disgusteens, Crossface, Fisherman’s, Max Over Heat, The Disciplines, Brain Failure (from Beijing), AWAS, Rotary Beginners, Resistance, United We Stand, BURL, Griffin, Nihilist, One For All, Drex, Amppez, Dick Spikie and Only One Innocent.

L-R Bobby, Joe, Dkash, Ryoko, Craig, Tomomi, Johnny, Yuki, & Gordy

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