The following next entries are here to tidy up the trip. I didn't have enough time during the tour to keep this as up to date as I would have liked. I arrived home on October 8th @ 1:30pm. It's great to be back.

Abu Hammad

Abu Hammad is an Apache helicopter training area that the US uses to train the Egyptian army in how to operate them. I think there are about 40 people on this base, consisting mostly of McDonnell Douglas civilian contractors. Met a 17 year old kid named Matt who was really friendly. He is the only kid on base besides a 2 year old. He is constantly surrounded by adults. The audience was small but appreciative. Lissette was battling stomach problems but we had a pretty good show nevertheless.

On leaving the facilities guy tried to charge us $45 per room eventhough they told us it was free the day before. He held us there for an hour trying to get money from us. What a bastard. He finally relented and let us go. We each had these 2 bedroom houses and if he was going to charge us, we would have at least doubled up to save money, but they didn't even give us a chance to do that, they just hit us over the head when we were trying to leave. Very bad business if you ask me.

Beni Suef

Next up is Beni Suef. A place very similar to Abu Hammad, only this is for F-16 fighter jets. The people were great here. Rooms were free, 2 bedroom houses and no bullshit. The audience was very good and Joseph and I stayed up drinking; what was probably the worst Egyptian beer, called Meister, with the contrators and pilots. The commanders name was Hustler and I remember that he wanted his legacy on the base to be a golf course called "Hustlers Hole". These places are very relaxed and the guys joke that they get paid twie as much and work half as hard to be there. The only problem is that they are out in the middle of nowhere, Egypt.

Sinai Peninsula

We took of the next day for what was supposed to be a 7 hour drive; well, it turned out to be more like 10 hours. We headed out of Cairo and headed for the Suez Canal. At the canal, we crossed a major support bridge which was built in coordination of Egypt and Japan. We drove on for another 2 hours and met our contacts at a little roadside stop in the middle of the desert. We all had to use the restroom and boy did it stink! I don't think I ever pee'd so fast in my life. Here we travelled for 7 hours on our way to the Multinational Force & Observers, South Camp. This drive wasvery long straight through the desert. The terrain reminded me a lot of Arizona except for the fact that the desert here runs staright up to the Red Sea! That was very surreal. I don't think I got any good pictures of it because we were driving in the van and didn't have any time to stop.

South Camp-Sharma el-Sheikh, Sinai

Our contact, who we met when we changed vans at the rest stop was Aaron, an Army Journalist. We was a great guy to hangout with. When we first showed up to south camp, we ahd 2 hours to setup and play, our only consolation being that we had our third full-day off the next day. The stage reminded me of the USO/Playboy playmate scene in the movie 'Apocalypse Now' It was situated with the Red Sea being the backdrop behind us. Kind of cool really. We had a small enthusiastic crowd, including a man named Stanley Jones, who we met later at the bar. Stanley was really happy to see us and complimented us a lot, almost too much, but hey I will take it. Joseph, Nestor, and I went over to Stanley Jones' quarters where his group runs the Camel Castle, or Camel Toe depending on who you ask. This is kind of like the TV show 'MASH', where they sit around drinking and have there place decorated with camouflage netting. Stanlet introduced us to his platoon and they were all bitter reservists who were pissed off that they had to be away from their families because the government is too cheap to keep enough active duty soldiers on the rosters. They were all plumbers, teachers, carpenters, and such and were waiting to go home on January 15th, I believe. You feel for these guys when you hear their stories. They signed up for the reserves to help the US homeland, not to be sitting near the Gaza Strip in Sinai, observing.

The next day was our day off. You may ask yourself, "What are you going to do with a day off in the middle of the desert?" Well, it so happens that 2 miles away in either direction is either "Old" Sharma el-Sheikh, or "New" Sharma el-Sheikh. A small but very cool tpourist resort area that a lot of Israelis, Italians, and French know about. New Sharma is kind of like Vegas or Palm Springs. They have topless beaches, excellent snorkeling(The Red Sea is some of the best in the world), and anything else you could want in a getaway. We went to "Old" Sharma to do some shopping and to look around. It is just very old kind of cool in it's own way. You can get souveniers and such for really good prices. Every shopkeeper is your "friend", and haggling is a must.

Aaron, our coordinator, was jonesing for American food. He had been there for three weeks and only had Mess Hall food. We went to The Hard Rock Cafe (Can you believe they had one?), Sharma el-Sheik. Everyone said it was expensive but we decided to go anyways. We got there and the prices were damn cheap! $4 for a hamburger. Thats less than the US. Everything in Egypt is extremely cheap. We met some other soldiers and then after eating, we went to the Camel Bar, not to be confused with the Camel Castle back on base. Here we drank more Sakkara beer and smoked Shisha, which is this apple tobacco in big Hooka pipes, ypu know kind of like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. I guess if you ask for the "Premium Blend" they will put Hash in it, but we opted to not go that route.

At about 12am, we decided to catch a cab back to the camp. Now, everyone told us this was an easy proposition and to not pay more than 10 Egyptian Pounds(apprx. $1.50) for this service. hah, easier said than done. We went through at least twelve cabs, many wanting 50 pounds and most just simply driving off or not stopping at all. We finally found one that would take us for 20 pounds. Yeah, really easy.

We got up early the next day to drive 7 hours to North Camp.

North Camp-El Gorah, Sinai

We got to North Camp at around 3:30pm. We were supposed to play at 4:30, since we had to get back on the road immdiately to go back to Cairo to come home, but that didn't sit well with their preparations. We ended up eating dinner at the Mess Hall and then playing at 6pm until 7pm. The crowd was by far the largest we played for and maybe the most enthusiastic. They were celebrating a whole, Hispanic Heritage Month thing and a lot of the people on base were from Columbia, uruguay, and Puerto Rico. just the audience for Neon Venus.

Now, the bus was supposed to show up right before wer were done playing so we we could load up and take off for the Cairo Airport. Guess what? It didn't happen. The transportation dept. forgot to send our bus. We waited for over an hour. We were losing time fast, we had to be at the airport by 1:30am to prepare for our 3:30am departure and Cairo airport is no easy beast to maneuver also, it was a 5 hour drive across the desert to get there!


Going Home

The bus finally showed up at 8:30pm and we loaded and tried to take off but there was a lot of redtape to go through. We finally left and got through the camps gates by 9pm. That gave us 4 1/2 hours to get there. Somwhere around 2 hours into the drive, Egyptian police pull along side of us and slow the driver down to talk. We are all in disbelief and have no idea what they want. Well, we finally find out that since we left the base, they have been phoning ahead to the various check points to try and get us an escort to the airport and they had finally caught up with us. The two guys in the back of the police truck put on their flack jackets, armored helmets, and pull out their machine guns and they proceed to escort us over the back over the Suez Canal, past traffic, and about 60 minutes outside of Cairo Airport. We made it by 1am, about an hour earlier than we expected. Impressive.

Immediately on showing up to the airport, I get a call. I answere it and it's my mother making sure we are allright. She tells me there were just three explosions in the Sinai!! Thankfully we were nowhere near Taba, the region this occurred in. One of the Emabssy guys whio appeared when we arrived to Cairo was there to met us at the check-in counter and I saw he was helping other Americans, maybe the Embassy does this for all American traveelers to help them get through customs?

So after driving 4 hours we boarded the plane fwhich was to take us from Cairo to Rome which was another 4 hours. We had an hour layover in Rome and then we caught our flight to LAX, an 11 hour flight. By the time we went through customs and stuff it was close to 3pm. Jeff and his wife Karen drove me home which took an hour. I got home at 4pm. 22 1/2 hours of travel! Glad to be home. The trip was great. It had its ups and downs, but was definetly an adventure. Overall I liked Spain and Egypt the best. I have to go back. I think Luxor and the Valley of the Kings is calling my name. Thanks to whoever was paying attention to these posts. I see a lot of people have been reading them. I will post pictures up either today, or in the very near future.

P.S. While on tour, I found out that my father in law, Yo Kitazumi, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He had the operation and is doing okay so far, but it does not look good. If you all could please keep him in your thoughts, my wife Misuzu, her family, and myself are having tough time dealing with this. After three weeks on the road, I arrived to an empty apartment and Misuzu is in Japan, having to deal with a major family crisis.

When life rains, it pours.

Giza

Of note, this day, Oct. 2nd, was two of the band members birthdays. Jeff's and Nestors.

Fawzy took us to Giza to a guy named Naser, who promptly said "You take the camel, see the pyramids, then you come back and drink some fucking beer." Naser was a cross between Don Corleone and Jabba the Hutt. pushy, but funny. I think he ended up working the word 'fucking' into almost every sentence.

He got us a group of guys with camels and 1 horse. I think everybody except for Lissette rode the camels. Hey when the hell are you ever going to do this except at the fair and that is lame. We were riding camels up the sandy hill to the amzing Egyptian structures. Not something you do everyday in Los Angeles. Besides, we were going to go back and "drink some fucking beer".

Sam was our guide and was mostly honest. He led us with his workers up to the pyramids. Completely breathtaking. I took a lot of photos and will try to put up on the site when I get back. There are six pyramids there, but three big ones Khufu (the biggest), Khafre (the medium one with some of the outer covering still on top) and Menkaure (the smaller one). They took us up close to Menkaure and showed us to a "government official" who took us around back and lets us climb on it. In hindsight, I realized the man wasn't a government official and I think it is highly illegal to do this! Yikes! I will show you the pictures though.

The sphinx was there in all of it's glory. Evrything was magical and great and then it was time to go back to Nasers to "drink some fucking beer". This is where I got hurt.

We were cruising back at normal camel speed when the handlers decided to gallup. This was great until they stopped us suddenly. Now, my camel was tied to the back of Josephs and when they stopped the camels, they didn't stop mine. We were running down a sand-hill and the camel didn't want to stop. He wanted to get to the bottom. I said "Whoaaa, whoaaa!!!" and then I held on for one twist, two twists, and three twists about as good as any rodeo rider but, the fourth time, Josephs handler turned his camel to see what was going on and my camel went the other way. I went flying off of the camel and landed in the sand with a solid thud. That hurt, camels are like 6 feet off of the ground.

The main guide Sam came to help me and picked me up. I felt okay, not like anything was broken, just had the air knocked out of me. He tried to put me back on but I was through for the day. I walked back to Nasers trying to shake the hurt from myself. Sam told me he had fallen off many times and never recovered as quickly as I had. I think he was trying to avoid a lawsuit. Who the hell am I going to sue? At least I have this story. I fell of off a camel in at the Giza plateau in front of the great pyramids. Not many of my friends can say that.

At night we played at the Maadi house a sort of club for US service people including some embassy workers. They were very enthusiastic and it was a good gig.

Next up, the Abu Hammad and Beni Suef country clubs and going to Sinai, to the Multinational North and South camps (They keep Israel and Egypt from killing each other)...

Now, you can argue that airlines lose luggage all the time. Alitalia seems to do this literally. They are the worst airline I have ever flown.

Egypt

We arrive in Cairo airport and are finally greeted by sonmone with a sign that says Laurie Mcghee or something. Anyways, definetly not any of our names. He claims to be from the US Embassy, we think he is nuts. Just what you expect when arriving in Cairo. After much persuasion, we finally buy in and what he said was true. He showed us ID and had some info on us. He was a life saver because he got us through passport control which was just insane. He then took us to the luggage claim. This is where the lost luggage issue creeps up again.

We were in passport control for at least 30 minutes and our gear is falling of the racks. We are worried that some Egyptian entrepeneur is going to go walking with all of our stuff. We get there and guess what? 16 of our 31 bags are missing! That is half folks! All of us except for Jeff don't have our personal luggage. I guess it is the way it is meant to be when going to Egypt. We go through customs, fill out all of the paperwork for our lost luggage claim and Fawzy and Ricky are our two pick up contacts. Both are great guys. They takes us to our hotel, the Sofitel, in Maadi, an area just outside Cairo.

We are hungry after our long flights so they take us to an Egyptian restaurant called Fefalla, I believe. Now, the drive there was interesting. To drive in Egypt, you must be brave, strong, and sure of yourself. This made the driving in Turkey and Spain seem like the minature cars at the fair. The people here drive like you walk. You go forward where you want to go and you don't bump into people. We saw guys driving against traffic, guys on donkey carts, just completely surreal, and then out of driving through the city in a dream like haze the pyramids of Giza appeared to our left, looming large in the background the the somewhat modern city. This image was completely breathtaking and awesome in the true sense of the word, not the Californian slang use.

Fefalla was directly across the way of the pyramids and was great food to digest while taking in the view. Tahini, chicken skewers, lamb skewers, and pita bread were the food of the evening. Me and Joseph washed it down with a little egyptian red wine. Quite amazing.

We went back to the hotel, still no clothes or gear, but we had word that it would be on the first flight the next day. Ricky and Fawzy made plans for us to go to Giza and see the pyramids up close. They asked us one question, would we like camels or horses.

Soo...on to Venice. We finally had a day off in Venice and Joe, one of the MWR heads took us around the the city. It is very old and very beautiful. Charlie Di Palma from Naples said, in a thick Italian accent "I can't believe everyone comes all the way to Venizia to see the stinky water!", but it wasn't hot enough for that. It was a site to see. All of the music history that occurred in Venice is astounding. We didn't have a lot of time to go into detail but we got a good look of the canals and, forgive me for not knowing the name of it, the square you always see with the pigeons and such. Funny that everything around there was Vivaldi this and Vivaldi that. I'm certain there are other Italian composers to give at least a little recognition to.

Also, there were lots of references to Carnavale things. I had no idea that they celebrated this. I guess maybe I am just stupid. You learn new things everyday.

Sicily

The next day we took a flight to Catania, Sicily. We were to play at the Sigonella base. I was told later in Egypt that in fact Peter Gabriel has a house right near there! This was an unusual gig because we were on a double bill with the band Five Star Iris. A band from Atlanta. All I can say is wow! What great group of guys! Rob, Allan, Dan, Alex and Allan their road help, were great to hang with and meeting them provide some much needed relief from ourselves, the Neon Venus group.

Jon Gibson was our guide and what a class act. We were playing on a real stage with a real backline. I had an Ampeg with an 8x10 cab. was great to be playing through a real bass amp again! Jon took us up to Mt. Etna , an active volcano with flowing lava. We weren't able to see the lava becaause of visibility, but it was there.

The next night, he took us to, let's see if I can get this right, an Aggrotourisimo. Quite simply it is a farmhouse where they make everything themselves. Everything. They make the wine, the cheese, the sausage, they grow the vegetables, raise the animals and everything. Did I mention everything? The outcome is a great, fresh meal. I was a little sick and couldn't enjoy all of it, but the little I did have was exceptional.

The next day we were off to Egypt and the boys from Five Star Iris were on their way home. We had a shitty tim in the airport. We were flying to Rome. Got there early. Stood in line. and the second it was our turn to check in. The bitch flipped her sign to another flight. Here we are standing there with 31 bags to check and we just got screwed. Another check in lady started to try to help us but the previous bitch started trying to get her in trouble with there bosses. The outcome? First bitch had to help us anyways and they held the plane while we finished checking in.

Onwards to Egypt....

Fuck!! I haven't been able to update this in 10 days! We have been busy and have had almost zero time to sleep, let alone check e-mail and update websites. I am in Cairo right now but will try to fill in the blanks.

Lets see...there have been so many thing since the last update it is hard to put into order. Let me try...

So after Naples, we went to Aviano and had some of the best Navy base food I have ever had. We played to a small but enthusiatic crowd and had some homemade mexican food. Ole! My cousin Eric was going to come down from Germany, but the rain was pouring down that day and it would have been too hard of a travel.

Spain

After Aviano, we flew to Rota, Spain and played at the Champions sports bar. Our driver, Jose Luis, was one interesting fellow verytime we needed to make a turn, he would always miss it and then have to back up and make his turn. It was ridiculous, but funny. Jose, Robert, and the guys there were really helpful and we had a nice gig.After the show, they took us into town to have Tapas, which I can only describe as something similar to Japanese Izikaya. We had Sangria, olives, dried ham and everything was great.

The next day, we were off to Moron, Spain. This base is just a stop off for a lot of guys on their way back to the states. We played to a group of marines who were in Iraq for 7 months and were going home. Here, we also ran into another band who were just starting off their tour. I never thought we would see any other bands, but this was only the first instance as you will read later.

We then flew to Valencia spain and played at this UN/US/Spanish base. Not really sure what was going on there, but it ended upbeing a lot of people there and we were tired! I think we had 4 hours sleep before our flight and after the gig, we stayed in a hotel for 2 hrs. Yes thats right, 2 hrs! We were not happy. To top it off, the guy in charge picked us up to drive us to the airport and he was drunk!! He also brought his drunk english girlfriend who sounded like Ozzy Osbourne on his worst day. We were not amused. The only thing the made it worthwhile was that we had an unexpected day off in Venice, Italy the next day and that was great!

Next up, Day off in Venice and Gig Sicily. Two very great highlights of the trip...