TheOXBOW.com: OXBOW - Trouble That Will Trouble The World

Tour Diary: 1999 (Eugene) > Page 3

Ass-Kicking, Elvis and Eternal Love

Well the shows all were cool. 54-71 were cool. And love abounded. Until we hit the south of Japan, which like the American south is full of, um, spirit. We were playing at this club called Mushroom (I kid you not) in Himeji. The drunks showed up early and the evening was on. I'll give you the Reader's digest version here though.

A klatch of drunks, standing on stage when the opening bands were playing, flipping shit, thought they'd really TRY to participate in an Oxbow show. And they did. And for their troubles I let them:

The wrestling move I laid on one of the main offender was called a Flying Mare and as he hit the ground 3 or 4 times, his broken body eventually dragged off through the now stunned crowd I thought, "Gee, I wonder if I can get some of those green pickles after the show."

Dan, however, remembering his travel advisory, sought the guy out to see if perhaps we should hit the road sooner rather than later in order to avoid that all too inevitable incarceration phase of our trip. It would have to be later as all of the beaten kids friends surrounded me and said:

"You're [made the muscle flexing motion]"

to which I replied "you're [made the drinking bad rice wine motion]"

They laughed and challenged me to arm wrestle. I took on all challengers, charged 10 yen a piece and made a tidy bit of change in the process. Our hosts, Chika and Shingo and the members of 54-71 said, strangely, very little as they digested the idea that perhaps was a first for them: Oxbow isn't "playing" a "show". I mean shit, yeah, we used to. Until we met up with Lewis McLine, or some such name that is an actual fact an anagram for asshole. He showed up once to one of our shows drunk and heckled us through an entire show back in the old days. After the show I was overheard to say by old drummer Tom Dobrov, "I should have kicked that guy's ass." Tom replied "Why didn't you?" And in that moment the way had become clear. "Why not?" I ask myself this question with such great frequency that I can't come up with answers fast enough to keep me from doing shit that while it probably doesn't benefit society as a whole, makes me feel really good. And so Oxbow the Hedonist is born. Oh and before I forget-next time I see that prick Duane Denison from Jesus Lizard I'm gonna kick his ass too. I'll show you whose contrived you motherfucking cock sucker. I mean, why not?

So the kid is okay, we take off to the gustatory delights of Gusto, one of God's favorite restaurants. I then hit the road to Shizuoka to meet Elvis aka Bucky aka Mordecai Sheftall, a friend of mine who is married, lives in Japan and teaches at an all girl's school, which just about fits my definition of heaven on earth. Or perhaps hell on earth, depending on your moral compass.

I stayed there for a day. Mordecai's got a cool deal but I discover he's gone a little too eastern and he sits, legs crossed at the breakfast table the next morning after a night of good ole bullshit waiting for the wife to cook something. I'm starving, there are eggs in the refrigerator, so I start cooking while he looks at me over his paper as if to say, I got a good deal here you fucking party pooper. But what's most interesting is that his wife is acting like I'm Jesus Christ. I cooked breakfast, cleaned up the plates, straightened the table. Her amazement told me something really significant: american women have got it really fucking good.

Anyways, wined, dined, sipped and supped I head back into the OxTour time, boat rides in Tokyo Bay (courtesy of Kentaro's yakuza-economics professor father), sake sucking and shows. Always the shows. That and the "hot fucking bitches" (TM, Tom Dobrov) that seem to populate every available square inch of every available square inch of Tokyo.

Hence our inordinate mid tour fixation on "gentleman's clubs." Nary a gentlemen in these clubs we found. Just good ol' Japanese men applying for and receiving some good ol' SES. A relatively simple thing this Semen Extraction Service (SES). The technicians therein get it out, take it away and don't even charge very much for it. Fozzie spends his time flirting with the prospect of "decadence" but never gets near Rappongi, The Land of the Red Rising Son's red light district. I, for my part, satisfy myself with a visit to a bookstore where I continue my seemingly endless cross-cultural study of fuck magazines. My findings thus far: fuck magazines are completely bereft of irony, intelligence or any sort of significance outside of their scattershot ability to induce SES. But the search continues.