BORN LOSERS by LEIGHTON KOIZUMI: " YOU GO NOW " *** The Joys of touring China

YUMMY

The first thing that strikes you about China right out of the gate, is it's super ultra pollution. Seriously within one day you will start to develop black snot. This is do to the industrial building boom that is going on, they are building shit anywhere they can. And also they have "coal factories" everywhere. Which is crazy! I'm not a "hippie" or anything like that but it's pretty nasty to see like this giant coal factory draining water right into these rice patty crops that the local farmers are growing. That's cool if you want your baby to have like a "blowhole" or a "unicorn horn". The National soundtrack of China is like thousands of people hawking out "loogies" everywhere. I used to see those people wearing those surgical masks and I thought like it's was because of the "bird flu" or some other virus, or a Michael Jackson fixation. But it is simply because of the air quality.

DUDE !! DON'T COUGH ON ME !!!

Let me just back track a bit, I agreed to this madness without even knowing half the band. Joe the Morlocks bass player was having triplets, so he wasn't going nowhere. We got Gabe from the "Fuzztones" and Nic recruited "Slim Jim Phantoms" ( the Stray Cats ) kid, who was this 18 year old chubby kid from "Beverly Hills" to play drums. I had never played with these guys before so now I was going to go to China and meet them there for a two Week tour without even one practice. Gabe was cool , he had some strange habits and almost caused a riot in "McDonalds", will get to that later. But the drummer kid , I'm going to call him "the little drummer boy" was always complaining that he was tired of lugging around his symbols and he was always was hungry. He was basically a spoiled kid from "Beverly Hills". The guy that had invited us over and was a contact from Nic. He was the one that set up the tour and was going to be the on the tour as the tour manager and was the only one that spoke Chinese. "Gabe". He turned out to be the most American looking dude, curly red hair, super white, freckles, I mean the guy looked like "Ron Howard" from "Happy Days". I was thinking when we met him at the airport in Shanghai, Uh oh . . .

Gabe our "Chinese Tour Manager"

Our first two shows where going to be the biggest both outside festivals "The Nanjing International Music Festival" and the other I can't recall the name, doesn't matter though. Things weren't looking so bad at first we we're being shuttled to a 5 star hotel where all the performers where staying. We even had like two personal assistants and like two bodyguards. When we arrived to the hotel we where informed that none of the "Foreign" bands where going to be aloud to perform on orders from the Government. So we got to hang around for two days in a five star hotel and go to the festival with shitty Chinese bands, that wanted to be like "Green Day". I was able to find a vendor who would sell us 5th's of "Jim Beam" for about 8 bucks and some crappy weed, so it was all bad at first.

WOW!!! ROCK STARS

Gabe, our bass player was always wandering off and not telling us which is a pain in the ass when your walking around with all your shit trying to stay in a group. But in China it's a nightmare. And he was one of those who subscribe to the whole philosophy of "no one is going to tell me what to do". Well that doesn't work to good when your in a band, cause I'm going to tell you what to do and what not to do. I get told what to do and I pretty sure everybody a some junction in their lives get the same and have to do shit that you don't really want to. I never understood that kind of thinking, I guess it makes you, at the time feel like a rebel, but it's just not to realistic. " It's my way or the highway Mr.Pink " . . .

HAHA! LEIGHTON JUST FELL OFF THE TOP BUNK

Here's a good example , one night after a show we where looking for something to do , nothing really so we all decided to stop by "Kentucky Fried Chicken" and get something to take back to our shitty hotel. By now the hotels had progressed from five star to no star hotels. While we we're waiting me and Gabe sat down at a table and there's like a tray with some chicken , fries and like a "Mu Flurry" some shit like that. Out of the blue Gabe reaches over and like takes two pieces of chicken and some fries and starts to shove it in his mouth. I'm thinking, hmm maybe the owner of this meal that Gabe is raping is in the restroom. Sure enough like thirty seconds later this big ole Chinese guy comes out of the bathroom and I know it's his shit. I elbow Gabe so he will stop before this guys sees this. The guys walks back to his table and sits down. Cool , then I notice out of the corner of my eye that he is inspecting his unhappy meal. Shit ! Now he's looking around. Gabe is looking up and whistling! Come on dude!!! Little does Gabe know that all down the front of his black shirt are the crumbs of the chicken. The guy see this and starts freaking out , he goes to the front counter all screaming and shit and then he starts to get out his cell phone and starts making all these calls, screaming in Chinese like he's like some big Wu Tang Boss or something. Gabe and little drummer boy are freaking also cause the guy has got a big black tattoo of a Swastika on his forearm. Which was a Buddhist thing way before a Nazi thing. So I smooth everything out by telling Gabe, "well dude, if you don't want to get your ass beat by 20 of his friends with bamboo sticks I suggest that you offer to go and buy him whatever he wants off the menu."

It's locked!!! So that's why they call it "The Forbidden City" ???

      After Chinese Swastika guy calmed down Gabe went and got him a new meal. When Gabe came back to the table he was, "that fat fucker ordered an extra "McFlurry" !!!!
      So just all this kind of crazy shit would happen on a daily routine. I would have people come up to me and say "Wow" your band is really cool!! But your Grandfather killed my Grandfather". I'm half Japanese and most Chinese don't like us so much. I really didn't know who to respond to that. Sorry?
   Anyways if your planing a tour of China, my advice to you is "DON'T DO IT" !!!