Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Train that is. I believe that the brand and model # of the train is a Shinkansen Series 700. I know this because of my keen sense of the obvious and it was labeled correctly upon the side region.

Technology in Japan advances at a truly incredible rate which is why I was not surprised to come across this breakthrough cutting edge technological advancement in music playback, introducing "The Micro-CD!" It is so small and big around as a pencil eraser and most likely can hold a entire album's worth of tunes.

Think of how many CD's you could carry in your pocket! The CD player is about the size of American nickel, most likely, one would have to assume, I am pretty sure, I can imagine. Though as hard as I tried, my eyesight proved ineffective at reading the band or album title that must be printed somewhere upon it. As exuberant as I was with my discovery, both roadie Leif and Lampi Scott were not convinced and proceed to down play this revolutionary find as being merely a sequin. Then the presented the silly argument that just because I found it on the dressing room floor last night, it was doubtful to be a the latest top secret Japanese innovation. Oh, wow! I think to myself, sidestepping further exposure to the clearly confused non believers, just imagine how many CD's Elvis could wear on his sequin suit! The perfect combination of flashy fashion and rocking tunes. The ability to merely thumb through 10's of thousands of sequins before finding the band you want to hear and just popping it in to the player with the special sleek i-Tweezers. CD-equin necklaces would be all the i-Rage.

Once in Osaka, I was out doing a little shopping for chili coated whole baby crabs, some bags of shiny little fish and hmmm, so many choices of dried squids, how do you possibly know which one to buy?

Hey look! There's Lampi Scott and it looks like he has been doing a bit of shopping as well, "Hey Roadie, what are you doing?" I shout.

With Sushi being so healthful and delicious, one can not help but cross-project a lofty culinary expectation on to the Japanese eating preferences as a whole. But alas, like all cultures, Japan is not immune from creating the edible equivalent of a White Castle burger. Who amongst us has not, in a late night bleary state, stumbled into a 24 hour market, weighing choices between the mystery meat disc burger, pink tube shaped items created by putting a pig in a blender rolling on metal rods next to the hot dog buns, micro waving the frozen brown gush with bits of rubbery stuff wrapped in a tortilla that has a picture of a mexican lady on it or the triangular grease pile sitting below the the sign that says Pizza? All the while, most likely, your mind drifts back to the mouth watering delicacies of a foreign land. "Mmmmm, if I could only wrap my lips around some gelatinous thing I fished out of that uncovered soupy brown pond water back in Japan."

So perhaps dinner should take a different direction? I meet up with Roadie Larry, our newest roadie addition. He is taking over for Roadie Liam, who headed off to hang with his long time comrades, the band Rush. I have known Larry near 20 years from gigs up and down the Cali coast and it rules that we finally are on the same tour. So, we did what roadies do quite well, we ate and drank and ate some more before drinking of course for an absolutely amazing meal. Oh, we decided to have Sushi, for a change, in case you were wondering.

Tomorrow, rock show in Osaka and I will work on grabbing a few band shots and maybe even, if I remember, I will snap JF's pedal board as well.

Dave Rat