DAY NINE - BILLY JACK WAS HERE

We started the day pretty early with a breakfast in the Kure Restaurant. Dave didn't want to bore us out of our skulls, so he took us on a cruising tour of the neighboring islands. To the north of the base stands the shipyard which produced many of the Japanese ships that attacked Pearl Harbor. Also, the Yamoto was built here. This was by far the most advanced battleship of its day, but was sunk during the battle of Okinawa in 1945. Go figure.


The Yamoto museum was closed today, so Dave vowed to take us back tomorrow. The views were spectacular in this rural area of Japan. Many of the houses are the old-fashioned wood structures you've seen in pictures and Big Bird goes to Japan. Things are slow going in the area, and the vibe is mostly industrial. Cherry blossoms abound here, and those of us with allergies were well aware.



We end our cruise in YOU ME town, much like a Walmart but by far classier. We refreshed ourselves with some more Chu Hi and sake, green tea and vitamin water. Spent some time on the benches outside with some elderly Japanese, who found it amusing that we were sampling the local flavors at 11am.

LSP sound loaded in at 1:30 and we sound checked around 4. Our best P.A. yet, as it is almost all homemade and the Father/Son/Mother sound team knows what's up. The video library at the base is pretty full and we rented BILLY JACK. Yes, it's a movie and no, we didn't know it at the time the song came about! So...Billy Jack was here. And we watched him. The sequel, the Trial of Billy Jack is equally as epic and we hit that too.


The show tonight was largely made up of the Japanese locals, most older folks but some younger. Again, what a great bunch! This one older cat caught all the solos and would whoop and clap after every one. Some took to the dance floor and showed the Americans what real rhythm was. SURREAL MOMENT - Elderly man rocking out to Redwings. SURREALER MOMENT - The blend-into-the-floor monitors claimed another victim and dropped him on my pedal board. I tried the old help-him-up-sing&play, but found it doesn't work as well in reality as it does in thought.

Got the F&H music out there, and notched another one up. Hung out with another Matt, who's fluency in Japanese is rivaled only by his ability to out last me two nights in a row. I had a go in the sauna close to mid-night, but realized it's not as fun by yourself. Like a lot of things: Egyptian Ratscrew, baseball, & chess to name a few. Many of the things I was forced to do as a kid because my siblings enjoyed torturing my mother's middle child.