RUGBYin KYOTO

We had a very jazzy show in a very arty teahouse in Osaka where people spoke very quietly and everything was very atmospheric as Japanese sipped herbal teas and delicate glasses of wine. We finally met our old drummer Jay`s performce pal in Osaka - quite an interesting girl but not performing until December! A very up front lady - she is so engaging that I felt like I was naked just talking to her - and then I pulled up my pants!!!
I hid in the cellar before the show started and the others started playing - they did not know where I was. I thought they did because someone put lots of chairs on top of the trap door so I thought it was Johney or Mary playing a joke. Mary played three songs on her own - which were great - she has a voice like a cannon and a great pace - rhythm - dramatic and very watch-able! Then Johney and Triin gave up waiting for me and started playing as well and I jumped out of the hole knocking all the chairs everywhere - it was so funny - no-one knew I was there. We had a wild show and I wore my huge green Dinasaur costume for the second half, which was boiling hot. The next night we had a show in a pub called the Pig and Whistle which was FULL with skinhead white foreignor rugby fans. We were a bit worried that they would not like our music but after 3 songs they were going crazy - one blond English lout was thrusting his pelvis all over the shop - he almost smashed the bar with a battering ram pelvic lurch! Very vulgar but impressive for the pure relentless determination of the man! I performed the New Zealand war dance called the HAKA with a skin headed fat New Zealander who was a gardener who grows Bonzai trees and had come to see his teacher`s teacher - a 98 year old Japanese farmer in the mountains who has little trees that are 400 years old which his great great great grandfather planted. Well, that is all cool but he was still quite a lout but he just could not stop laughing when I performed the Haka so I did a solo show and ended with a flying kick at an empty bar table which everyone loved - even the bar staff - who gave us all free drinks although they could not believe we did not want alcohol!! The others went home after the gig - it was about 2am between the two international games - but I stayed up in the pub trying to stay awake and reading the newspaper until 6am when the New Zealand v France game started. It was an amazing game - there were a few French one of whom was very noisy and funny but a few New Zealanders were not in a joking mood and at the end I was looking over my shoulder anxious that in the last minutes a fight would break out. I think they would be concentrating on the TV even as they fought each-other, the game was so tense and exciting!!! New Zealand went ahead and then France and then back again and finally France won. The French man bought everyone beers (it was then 6.30am) and the New Zealander mad thug who threatened to "punch his froggy face in" a few minutes before, cried on his sholdier as the Frenchman`s wife gave him consoling kisses on his beer and tear stained stubble skull. I was too tired to enjoy the scene to the full and walked back to Naho`s very crowded flat on the outskirts of town singing and playing my ukulele as the sun rose and the turtle doves coo-ed in the tree tops around the ancient temples and rock gardens of Kyoto.


I also saw the next rugby match of England verses France- poor France - but I think England were very close but played well and were not unjust to win. Someone had to win unfortunately, I was thinking of inventing rugby and football with perhaps no touch line or goal posts - you just play and play until you are tired - maybe even no sides - could be interesting. Football is a very natural old sport that is so obvious that it must have been invented by humans when there were more monkey than man, but I love rugby because it was invented when an excited school boy picked up the ball in a crazy moment at a football match and said - "come and get the ball off me!!!" and everyone in the game thought - ok we will jump on him. And they ran around like crazy, jumping on each-other hell-mell, willy-nilly and decided they would do it again the next day because it made them feel so gay!
Anyhow, that is just my idea of how things happened.
Good luck Argentina.
Enough gay banter
lots of love jimmy
xxx