The first thing Johnny Rotten did when he arrived in the United States was test out an airport men’s room. Apparently America’s plumbing passed with flying colors.

“They’re lots better than the bogs in London,” he snorted. “At least they keep the fucking places warm.”

Johnny was silent on the U.S.A.’s other virtues. “It’s just like watching a boring American TV program. I could care less about New York or Chicago. They’re just like any other city, you know. It’s not the fucking promised land.”

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Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I caught up with the Sex Pistols’ abbreviated American tour, is most certainly not the promised land. It’s a homely city, trapped along the arid southern rim of the Great Plains. The drive in from the airport is enough to fix your cultural bearings; to the east lies Muskogee, home of proud, flag-waving Okies, and at the center of town are Tulsa’s twin godheads of education, the American Christian College and Oral Roberts University.

In the States...they treat us like we're some kind of circus act. -Johnny Rotten