“We need to talk” Never Precedes Something You Want to Talk About.

Manila, Philippines - Sept 20, 2011

Middle-aged Filipino men have a solid sense of humor. Within a 10-minute walk, I just witnessed three male potbellies covered in shirts reading “I Like Girls That Like Girls”, “My Pen Is Huge”, and “Female Body Inspector”. These guys aren’t necessarily perverts, it’s just the only apparel you can find in Manila’s Red Light District.

My hostel sits kiddie corner to the red light district in Manila City, Philippines. I am walking home around noon, protected by the sanctity of daylight. All is well for now. The usual crowd of hookers, vampires and breast promoters have retreated to the dark backrooms of their clubs.  The street is seedy, poor, and tattered, but I haven’t felt unsafe yet.

The walk home is smooth up until I am approached by a large he-man of a lady who introduces herself as Josephina. Josephina is about 5’10’’, thick, Filipino, poor complexion. “Excuse me may I ask you a question?”, she says unassumingly. “Do you have a big di**?”.

 I trip over my tongue. “Umm. Sorry what?” I reply. “Do you have a big di**?” she asks again, more assertively this time.

“Umm. I haven’t measured it against my friends yet,” I reply. “Well, do you think you have a big di**?”, the lady fires back at me like I’m a moron. “I’m not sure…I mean…I like to think I haven’t seen enough di** to know.”

She has no responses to my answers, only grimacing looks and unrelated follow up questions. “Can I ask you a question?” she says sternly. Her tone is the same as if your boss tells you “we need to talk”. “We need to talk” never precedes something you want to talk about. My hair stands on end. “Let me ask you a question white boy….Where you from?”

“Canada,” I say, figuring this conversation can only end with her not liking me or my nationality.

“When you last have boom boom with girl?”, she says. Josephina claims to be assistant manager at The Golden Mango, a brothel where “extra services” are on special for 500 pesos (roughly $10 USD). She explains her club is “just around the corner and has many beautiful girls”. She continues her sex interrogation questions, including “how many girls you want to boom boom?, “you like butts big?”, and “is your co** hard?”

These all felt like quotes out of a Sir-Mix-a-lot song, but this wasn’t tongue-in-cheek. Josephina was stone-cold serious. Business was hurting, and she was desperate to get me in her club. She had hit me with so many ass-backwards sex questions, I had become desensitized to the conversation’s awkwardness. Like after you shower at the YMCA a few times, old balls no longer freak you out. Total immunity. I held my giggles back. Josephina was pissed off at the hand she had been dealt in life. She was sad, and I felt bad for her.  And then she asked me this. “Is your co** hard?”

“Bah. Umm? Like, right now? Hard? I’m sorry, I have to go”. I duck into a 7/11 to end the solicitation. A man would have needed 20 Viagra to pitch a tent in front of a 7/11 for a woman that looked like Kevin Nealon. I browse around the seaweed crackers and larb flavored pretzel snacks for five minutes and proceed to leave. I think that I have shaken this demon, but Josephina is standing outside waiting for me.

“So you like Filipino girl? They very beautiful”. There is a tremble in her voice. Desperation mixed with anger. Her eyes are glossy, maybe even teary. Trying to change the subject away from prostitutes, I reply “I like all Filipino people. They are very nice.”

“But it’s only 500 pesos for massage, blow***, and f*** she says.

“No thank you,” I reply. She ignores my answer and repeats the same “special offer”.  “No thanks. Please leave me alone”. She will not let up.

At this point, I am simply being a pussy. Too passive, afraid I will shatter her feelings if I run away. I need to find my inner prick and tell this lady to shove off. “What’s your name?”, she asks. “Ummm, Brian…Brian Noonan”, was the first fake name that popped into my head.

“So Brian, do you even like girls?” she mocks, questioning my sexuality. “Sure, I like girls fine, but I’m not going to buy them. Sorry.”

Josephine then claims I can get a regular massage with no “extra services”. I ask her how many clients out of 20 get “only a massage”, free of sex.

“Mostly zero, but sometimes one”, she says. I proceed to walk back to my hostel, pulling out the business card to “Friendly’s Guest House” so I can see the address. Big mistake. Josephina sees where I’m staying.

The “special offers” keep coming. I try all sorts of tactics to shake this lady. I start making stuff up. I tell her I have a girlfriend. I tell her I have erectile dysfunction. None of this works. At one point I even tell her that I’m gay, figuring that will end it. Nay.

“No problem. We have men for boom boom. Just come see my club”, she begs. “Five minutes. Just look. No buy.” I try to walk around her but she steps in front of me. “Just look please”. I have little choice at this point.

Figuring it will make for a good story, I agree to follow her to the “Golden Mango”. She says it’s nearby. Three minutes walk. It’s even on the same street we are on. So I follow her.

Three minutes turns into six minutes. We take a few turns. The streets get shadier. My conscience starts to tell me this is a bad idea. No shit Brett. It dawns on me Josephina probably doesn’t even have a club. It comes time to run or die.

Shazam! I sprint in the opposite direction as fast as I can. Adrenaline rushes through my brain. Turning the corner I run out of breathe. It feels as if I just escaped Alcatraz. I nearly pitch a tent. Looping back toward Friendly’s Hostel, someone is waiting for me. Brian Noonan is fu****.

Two blocks away from Friendly’s, Josephina confronts me in the street. Enraged. Her eyes buldge from her skull. Her Latin fire ignites. “Who the f*** you think you are? You trying to play me? I turn around and see you runnin’. You think I’m a damn fool? You want to play games muthafu****?”

“Un no. Sorry,” I reply, dumbstruck.

She takes a step closer. “I’ll make you see something you’ll never forget. You want to play games with me? This is my country. This is my hood. I know 100 people who could cut you right now? You’re in the Philippines, bitch. I’m going to cut your face.”

This I believed. Josephina has killed men for less. Her arms are twice the size of my torso. She could have easily been a man in her previous life, or in this life. Maybe she was still packing. Her rumbling voice of rage lowered with every threat. This was the exorcist in real life.

“You scared now, aren’t you?” Josephina could smell my fear.

“Yes. I am scared. Please don’t shiv me,” were the exact words that came out of my mouth. I watched her hands move toward her back pockets, fumbling for a potential weapon. She inched closer. She was trying to break me down. And she was succeeding. Glancing around for potential help, I spotted a security guard outside a Japanese restaurant. I began inching toward the security guard with Josephina trying to block my path.

“You want me to do something you’ll never forget?! You don’t know what I been through. Play me for a fool! How about I cut your face right now!” I find myself apologizing for nothing. I try to strike a monetary deal, but you can’t reason with the irrational.

We are on a busy main street just two blocks from the hostel. I decide to take my chances and swiftly walk around her to the security guard. I feel if she was going to stab me in the middle of Main Street she would have done it already. I approach the security guard.

“Excuse me sir, this lady is going to stab me,” I say as Josephina stands next to me. The security guard doesn’t speak English, but he can smell the sketchiness. He motions for me to go inside the Japanese restaurant he is posted at. Josephina doesn’t follow me inside, but instead motions for two thugs who join her. The three wait for me outside.

Josephina and the barbarians talk and exchange glances back at me through the restaurant window.  One of them is taking pictures of me with his cell phone. Their posse is straight out of Wringling Brothers 3 Ring Circus. A bearded lady, neck-tattooed strong man, and some sort of she-male trapeze clown in a purple tank top. Of the three thugs waiting outside, I can only be certain that one of them is a dude. The other two are bohemian looking he-she’s; scraggly, tattooed, missing teeth. They mean business. I am not here on business.

Weighing options, I pull out my cell phone. Do I call the police? They might just be corrupt and help the thugs. Maybe throw me in a prison cell where I’ll never grow up feeling like a real man. Feeling my pockets for my cell phone, I glance my directory.

I have two contacts in my phone. Pavlo Llueva was the first, a cool Filipino I had met at breakfast the previous morning but didn’t yet fully trust. The second was JC Slater, a friend of one of my USA friend’s. It becomes time to choose between a guy I didn’t trust and a guy I’ve never met. I opted to call JC, who came highly recommended from my friend who had hosted him as a couchsurfer. The phone rings…

JC: Hello.

Me: Hi JC. It’s Brett. I emailed you once. Remember?

JC: Oh yeah! Hey Brett.

Me: Hey man, I was just chased by thugs in downtown Manilla. They are waiting for me outside a Japanese Restaurant on Adriatico St. What should I do?

JC comes through in the clutch. He tells me to give my phone to the security guard so he can translate directions to him. The guard walks me back the hostel. The thugs’ eyes follow me as I pass.  The guard hands me the cell phone back as I duck into the hostel.

“Hey man. It’s not a good idea to stay there tonight. Stay inside the hostel. Don’t leave. I will come get you in about ninety minutes,” instructs JC. The hostel security guard calls us a cab and we dive in. Whisked away to another province of metropolitan Manila, far away from the brothels of downtown’s concrete jungle.

JC relocates me to the neighboring district of Makati, a wealthier business district of metropolitan Manila. We eat some fried chicken and compare our dishes to the triple portion-sizes of American fast food. JC tells me about “kid flash mob gangs”; homeless packs of children that swarm pedestrians, stripping them clean of all valuables like piranhas. All I want to do is eat chicken.

It was a relatively boring day that quickly became a rush of high-risk thrills. I played out all the potential outcomes of that scenario in my head. Had I gone into the “club”, I would have almost definitely been robbed blind. 5:1 shivved. 9:1 molested, 50:1 chained up and peed on. The doors would have closed behind me and two hoodlums would be there take my wallet, pride and blood.

My second grade elementary school teacher told us to “never talk to strangers with candy.” I think the same can be applied to strangers with prostitutes. 

One of Those Nights You Don’t Want Facebook to Know About.

Despite near social media perfection, there are moments when Facebook bites you in the ass. When you catch her posting pictures you don’t need on your profile.  When your significant other gets pissed because you fail to list him or her under your “relationship status.” There’s no escaping it. Even if you’re not signed up to Facebook, you’re on Facebook. You’re in a picture somewhere, untagged. People have commented on you, attempted to tag you, and perhaps clicked through your photos at bar time with no pants on. You just don’t know.

A year or so back, Facebook released an application that allowed users to see who was viewing their profile and how often; a “stalker tracker” so to speak. Many of my friends, myself included, opted to refrain from downloading this tracker. When I asked my girlfriend at the time why she chose to deny the tracker, she said “It’s the feeling that someone is watching you sleep, and you cant ever escape that feeling, even when you’re awake.” The world is watching; parents, friends, acquaintances, hackers, masturbators. There will always be filters, but their effectiveness is trivial. Partying in the presence of cameras can now cost a man his job. We hope the Facebook hack in HR Recruitment will forgive the occasional whisky coke.

In a small, wood-lacquered dive bar in Bangkok, Thailand, people are picking their faces up from the floor. The celebration has hit them with force. British promoters “Popscene” are putting on a folk/rock show featuring artists from the UK, South Africa, and the USA. I am supposed to represent America, and I would do this without a single person yelling “Freebird!” Thank Buddha. The beer buzz of the room builds toward the end of the set as I try to incorporate some louder, shoe stompin’ tunes, working to combat the cluttered noise in the crowded venue.  The show goes swimmingly. Hugs are shared. Beers are cheered. Patrons toast in three different languages, “Cheers! Chiyo! Salud!” I wind up my guitar cords. The DJ starts spinning.  

My old friends Lawrence & the Machine happened to be in town. A four pack of road-worn Brits that could drain a pitcher in a New York minute.  They would be the tone setters for the evening, bringing the shameless sweat and grime necessary to take us to a parallel universe of outrageous nightlife. The best part was, The Machine brought their cameras to document potentially hazardous Facebook material.

For some reason there were cameras everywhere. A flash would go off every minute capturing some sloppy moment in smoke and swill. People spilling drinks, kissing, posing droopy eyed with big grins. It’s pictures like these that always get to Facebook before you can, pictures tagged too fast for comfort. Pictures that HR people see and form unjust opinions on. But now is not the time to worry about that. “Let’s get incredible!”, someone yelled through the foggy room.

The debauchery ensues with Iggy Pop shaking the half blown speakers. Smoke rings chain up the air. A pint glass shatters on the floor near my shoe. Gin and Tonic’s look like Kryptonite lanterns illuminated under blacklights like some twisted disco.  If there was a song to describe the moment it was “Don’t Fear the Reaper”, and we all needed more cowbell.

It was as if these people hadn’t been out of their homes in weeks, saving their energy for some legendary party prophesized from the sky. A well-respected local art teacher named Kate Kassidy rolls cherry cigarettes the size of Snoop Dogg’s ring finger. Punk-rocker dude Wilson Matthews is chugging mercilessly on a liter of local beer, eyes void of all sanity. A gangly South African expat known only as “The Steve” lies passed out on the sidewalk outside the bar. We wake him up and put him in the cab to go to Wong’s Place Pub, a skeezy late night joint in Bangkok.

Wong’s place had recently been featured on the city news, making it the most happening bar in the latter hours. It is also a hot spot for drag-queens and various alternative lifestyles, a selling point for tourists looking to see some crazy shit.

“Wow this place looks really Chinese”, I said as we opened the oriental brown doors. “Have you ever been to China?”, asks a smug, eavesdropping hipster to my left.  I have never been to China. But I have seen Rush Hour 2. One thing was certain; I was not cool enough to be here.

Mr. Wong himself is notorious for being difficult. Jumbo-thick glasses. Mean stone-face. Motley Crue mullet. He stands on the bar with a microphone, making sure everyone is purchasing drinks at a steady pace and yelling at those who don’t. “Pay now. Pay for that beer!” Wong struggles to keep control of the huddled mass, shouting through the karaoke speakers thumb-tacked to the wall. Despite running the biggest party joint in Bangkok, Wong hates to party.

I walk in the bar with a bottle of water 1/3 full. Mr. Wong snatches it out of my hand. “No carry-ins! I owner. You buy new water,” pointing to a fridge full of beer. Too full on beer to drink more beer, I purchase a $2 water from Wong. “No, you buy more. Must buy drink,” says old man Wong, looking more like Kim Jung Ill than I had originally noticed.

“Can I have a moment to decide Mr. Wong?”, I reason. “No. Buy now”, Wong says. I proceed to ask Wong for obscure drinks like aloe vera juice and organic apple cider, stuff I thought he wouldn’t have. Waste his time a bit. But by some act of the orchard-farming Gods, Wong had organic apple cider. “Damnit,” I thought out loud. “You pay now!”, he repeats twice more, as if I just killed his dog or something.

Wong took advantage of Bangkok’s lack of fire code, jamming the room beyond a visible inch of floor space. Cramped and soggy with sweat, I walk outside, slamming  water in the alleyway to shake the fog from my thoughts. Refreshed. Time to rally. I attempt to go back inside to meet up with friends Kassidy, Wilson, and The Steve, but Wong won’t let me back in. To Wong, I had failed to purchase enough alcohol to make my presence of any value. Wongzo the Grouch points me in the other direction. Defeated, I follow his finger. Mankind has seen hundreds and thousands of people get kicked out of bars for being too drunk, but never have I seen a man removed for not being drunk enough. Perhaps Wong is right just this once. Perhaps I need to learn how to party. I’m going to bed.

The next day Facebook would release the documentary of the evening from four cameras present on the scene September 17, 2011. The catalogues of photos are remarkably crusty and unrefined. Here are a few accounts of the camera…

• 1)   Conservative looking expat passed out face down on the sidewalk.
• 2)  Innocent schoolgirl smoking what appears to be a George W. Koosh cone joint.
• 3)   Goateed Thai man doing karate.
• 4)   White girl rubbing the Buddha belly of an overweight customer.
• 5)   British guy folding his arms over his crotch, giving a WWF “suck it” gesture with determination. 

I spent hours grazing these albums on Facebook; couldn’t look away. While Facebook may not be the greatest use of time, it is easily the greatest way to waste time. We hope HR Recruitment will forgive the whisky coke, plummeting of pride, and prominent rise to shame. And if they don’t, well, sorry for partying. 

Dreaming Big May Have Adverse Side Effects, Light Sleeper Says.

A few months back I received an email. “You’ve shattered my dreams,” the first sentence read. Puzzled and concerned, I read on.

“The reason your blog shattered my dreams is because it’s SO GOOD, and I realized I have no hope of getting this writing opportunity I applied for, sad,” read the email.

As tone is lost in text, I didn’t know whether to feel victory or defeat. It was stirring. My dad sometimes tells me my blog is good, but this was an outside party confirming goodness. In my lifetime I have disappointed persons, I have made persons cry, but I’d never shattered anyone’s dreams before. This was somewhat of a landmark. It was inspiring, and was the first time I’ve ever created hope by simultaneously destroying it. That email still inspires me to keep this blog going.

This reminded me of the second time my dreams were shattered (the first was the full disclosure of Santa Claus). I was 12. We were on a family trip to Los Angeles to visit my Uncle Marcus. At the time, L.A. was home to 3-time NBA champion Shaquille O’neal.  Like many kids, I thought Shaq was the coolest human on the planet. He was funny. He was tall. And obviously, he could ball. Shaq was 7’1’’. I wanted to be 7’1’’ someday. 

We were staying with Uncle Marcus, whose girlfriend had recently been released from an administrative role with the L.A. Lakers.  She still knew the security guard and was able to get us into the Laker’s practice facility parking lot before the team rolled in one morning.

We waited outside the doors with our sharpies and sports memorabilia like hungry puppies waiting to suck the sweet nectar from the teat of championship glory. It was just me and my little brother waiting for Shaq with our parents looking on from a distance. I had recently watched all the subpar films starring Shaquille O’neal (Kazamm, Steel, Blue Chips). I had even wasted $4 of my parents’ money by renting his video game “Shaq Fu” when I already had a far better version of the same game (i.e. Mortal Combat).  I had his rap albums too, and I didn’t care if he sucked at rapping, or free throw shooting.

Regardless of the poor quality of Shaq’s alternative career pursuits, he could do no wrong in the eyes of my 12-year-old head. This was the day I would meet Shaq. Here I stood, on the stoop of my destiny in Los Angeles, California.

Sure enough, all the players came rolling in with souped up Cadillacs and oversized SUV’s. They were all there; Rick Fox, known for his dashing good looks and marriage to actress Vanessa Williams. Horace Grant, known as a legendary role-player to Michael Jordan, and of course Kobe Bryant, known by some as being better than Michael Jordan. Every one of them was friendly, signing our Laker caps and posing for a picture. We met the entire team, minus Shaq. We couldn’t have missed him?

It was 7:59 a.m., just one minute before the start of practice. Still no Shaq. Laker team policy stated that players would be cracked with a fine if they showed up late. It was something like $3,000. It was now 8:01 a.m. Shaq was definitely getting fined if he didn’t show up with a medical excuse from a doctor.

As time passed, my little brother and I began to lose hope. The Big Aristotle was a no show. As we walked to the gates to exit, a humungous Cadillac Escalade came trucking though the security entrance. We dashed back to the player entrance. This was it.

The Cadillac door opened. It was not Shaq, but a short black man in a shiny leather jacket. He looked hard as nails.

“What is this?!” he shouted at the security guard, pissed that two kid superfans would be delaying players’ entry. “They’re friends of the program”, replied the security guard, attempting to cover his own ass for letting us in. Little kid NBA fans were not permitted on the premises.

Turns out this short man was Shaq’s body guard. Another dark silhouette lurked behind the passenger side tinted windows. The door clicked open. Shaq emerged from the passenger side door in a grey jumpsuit similar to those sported by Vanilla Ice in 1990. I was starstruck and scared speechless. I feared Shaq would be pissed for showing up late and getting fined. And he was.

I remember trying not to pee a dribble in my pants as Shaq approached my brother and I. He towered over us, casting a Frankenstein-sized shadow over the parking lot. We were the only thing between him and the door. Just us and our sharpie markers. Shaq’s face was negate of smiles as his body guard bitched out security for letting us in. We shouldn’t be here.

I wanted to ask him questions, like why he let popstar Aaron Carter beat him in a game of one-on-one. How many backboards has he shattered? Did he take kung fu in preparation for Shaq-Fu? I wanted to ask these things, but fear manhandled the muscles around my jaw. This was not the smiley, huggable Shaq of mainstream media. This was behind-the-glory E Hollywood Story Shaq. The Shaq that rapped about thuggin’ and would later freestyle “Kobe How My Ass Taste?” on Youtube. This was the dark side of Shaq that allegedly cheated on his lady, (according to Kobe Bryant.) His giant yellow eyes peered into the bottom of my soul as my inner self said over and over, “Shaq hates me.”

I died a little inside that day, leaving the Laker practice facility feeling a little bad. It was all unnecessary anxiety. I had convinced myself of ruining Shaq’s day and costing him further fines from the Laker franchise. But my 12-year-old heart would later learn to understand that my hero hadn’t let me down, he just hadn’t lived up to my expectations. There was truly a valuable lesson to be taken from this.

Set the bar low. An encounter with Shaquille O’neal had been hyped up in my mind for years. Not to mention a young mind tends to magnify the fantastical element in a small-boy’s thoughts. The bar was simply set way too high, and that garners expectations. Expectations are usually synonymous with crappy things like stress, pressure, and let downs. People don’t go to a Bob Dylan concert expecting him to sound like he does on the old records. The show will have a greater probability of sucking. It sounds pessimistic, but it’s truly just realistic. People shouldn’t order the “Perfect Pushup” from an infomercial and expect to get a Fabio six-pack of abs. But they do.

When you’re little you dream big, and dreaming is dangerous no matter how old you are. From youth, we’re often told “Dream big, dream big. Follow your dreams.” While that’s said with good intentions, it’s the same stuff sold by motivational speakers exploiting mental weakness at three easy payments of $39.95.

“Dream small” may be the way to go. It sounds lazy, but it’s strongly vigilant after all. Shaq didn’t shatter my dreams, I shattered my own humongous, fragile dreams. The night before our encounter, Shaq probably dreamed about walking into practice unbothered, swishing a few free throws and dunking in some fool’s face. That is a small dream, an unshatterable dream that has led to great success.

I don’t want anyone’s dreams to be shattered for anything.  "Dreaming small" might be the answer. You can’t control the dreams in your sleep, but you can control the dreams when you’re awake. They’re powerful and shouldn’t be tampered with. A dream can get Beyonce into your bed, but it can also put Freddy Krueger underneath it. In actuality, almost everybody gets to dream, but almost nobody gets to sleep with Beyonce. Jay Z probably dreams small...and dreams often.

What happened in Vegas stayed there…until now.

August 2009 - Las Vegas, Nevada

According to Hollywood, Las Vegas is a passageway into manhood for the young American male. It’s a key component to college films, roadtrip films, “exiting adolescence” films or some combination of the three. So after watching too many movies, my fellow males and I assembled our most destructive party roster to make the pilgrimage to the sunset strip of swindling, sex, and shame.

Our crew is as follows:

Gerome Peterson: prankster, law student, wise ass

Derrick Yogurt: Undisputed class clown, huggable, hyper caffeinated, no filter

The Gremlin Twins: Short, loud, Napoleon complex(s), Can’t decipher the two

Tommy Clownboy: Red afro, valedictorian, Norm MacDonald attributes, smug bastard

Myself: Tall, gangly, overly-cautious, mediocre beer drinker

The trip had been going pretty standard; killing time at pools by day, killing white Russians by night as the slots gobbled down our nickels. It felt as if the slot machines were laughing in our face. Their hokey flashing lights and disco sounds blurred together in a circus of robot noise. We’d get toasty at the bar, lose $20-100 at the roulette table, and go to Denny’s for grand slams in the foggy a.m. The first three days went this way, replicating each other down to the last PBR tallboy. We were content, but unsatisfied. Nick Papageorgio won four cars in Vegas, why couldn’t we?

The last day came and one thing became clear; it was time to break the lackluster cycle of no hookers and no blow with hookers and blow, or at least something untamed. This is what happens in Vegas movies, and by God one of us would be fear and loathing by the end of the night. Suggestions came in from the crew. Peterson was voting for a strip club. The Gremlin Twins were backing this idea as well. Yogurt is always down for whatever, and Clownboy and I had never been to a strip club, so we were game.

We finish our final white Russian at “Wild Bill’s Casino”, making our way to the strip to be hassled by promoters of various entities involving bare breasts and cover charges. Peterson bargains with a few. The group is apprehensive of getting scammed, and we waste nearly two hours bargaining with the strip club promoters. Before we know it, it’s already 2 a.m., and we must choose the least seedy driver fast.

Peterson makes the call to ride with boob-promoter Jimmy Bone, a 5’3’’ stocky man dressed in sunglasses and a spotless black suit with Bruce Wayne shoulder pads.  He looks like a blend between P. Diddy and Muggsy Bogues. Bone has a wide, strong body with a tiny head. Aviators cover 1/3 of his face while two giant cold sores protrude from his upper lip. He has a Kanye West swagger, but as we would soon find out, lacked the walk to back up the talk.

“Ya’ll muthaf***ers ready to party!? This gonna be the sh**,” yells Jimmy Bone. A snot ball dripped from his nose as he exhaled. He didn’t notice.  

“You kidding me? You went with this crackhead?”, Clownboy questioning Peterson’s decision. “Dude, he said he’d give us a free ride and give us cash toward the cover charge,” replies Peterson.

Peterson was the craftiest man on our team. He once manipulated two of our friends into smoking each other’s pubes, spiking their hand-rolled cigarette on April Fools Day of 09’. The victims still don’t know he was the mastermind, allowing Peterson to escape revenge-free. He was smart and shameless and had gotten us out of jams before. Peterson would catch Bone before he put anything up his sleeve. Putting our trust in Peterson would prove to be the best (or worst) decision of the trip, depending on how you looked at it.

It was all part of a night’s work for Jimmy Bone, skeezing the Vegas strip for drunk twenty something’s looking to take their night to the next level. He has succeeded, for now.

Bone thought of himself as a hustler, and he was indeed a lousy one. He was sketchy, but exciting. He rambled his pimp stories at loud volumes with little disregard for eavesdropping patrons in the Vegas strip.

“Man. Ya’ll don’t even want to know how many chicks I been with. You rollin’ with the right dude.”

His stories were entertaining but exaggerated. At the time I believed they were at least partially true, as he had the cold sores to prove it. Bone was a guy good in small doses. He was stoked at the commission he’d receive from the strip club by bringing in six dudes. We were piled in a black SUV, barely fitting inside. Bone piled in after us, landing on my right leg and cracking open a pocket-sized whiskey bottle in celebratory fashion. 

“Pay day today! I’m making bank”, boasted Bone. “For every one a ya’ll muthaf***ers I get in that door, the club gives me $25. I be killing this. Ladies be wantin’ my sh** tonight!”

Bone is drunk on the job and out of his element, leaking all the details of his operation. He explains his career hustling the streets for strip clubs who pay him on each person he gets through the door. Spit fires off his lips as he rants a bunch of slurred syllables. All I could make out was “know what I’m saying?”

The SUV’s driver, referred to simply as “Menard”, was an older, pudgy man who had been driving in silence until confidential info started spewing from Jimmy Bone’s mouth.

“Man, shut the fu** up!”, says Menard, trying to protect the formula of their operation as if they were unveiling the Da Vinca code.

We finally arrive at the club two miles off the Vegas strip in the red light district. Bone unfolds a handful of money, putting $180 cash into our grubby little mits. This would cover the $30 cover charge Bone had been talking about.  “Get some!”, yells Bone as he watches the six of us enter the club. Stoked on the thought of commission, he takes another pull of whiskey as the doors close behind us.

Peterson hangs onto our $180 in cash as we wait in a long line just inside the doors of the club. An oversized bouncer, roughly resembling ex-NBA center Alonzo Mourning, takes cash at the entrance. Rainbow strobe lights stroke the dark ceilings. Old school Chili Peppers bump from the surround sound. The place is classy, but doesn’t make the clientele look any less creepy. We probably look creepy too.

It’s now after 4 a.m. The line is not budging due to a capacity club. The club closes at 5 a.m. Our group has grown tired, no longer enthralled by the thoughts of G-strings and sticky chairs. The buzz is wearing off, and going home to pass out begins to sound more appealing to Peterson, Clownboy, Yogurt, the twins and myself. Suddenly, Clownboy says smugly, “why don’t we just take this money and go home?” It’s hard to tell when Clownboy is kidding. But this time his tone is obvious, as if we should have done this all along. “That’s brilliant. There’s better things to spend this money on,” adds Yogurt. “What about Bone and Menard?” I caution.

I peek outside the front door of the club, Jimmy Bone and Menard are gone. They are figuring we are safe inside the club, face deep in boobage. Clownboy’s plan starts to come together. The club would be closed within an hour regardless. It didn’t make sense to stay.

“The coast is clear. Let’s get the hell out of here.” We scurry out of the club off the radar of the bouncers. The lethargic attitude of our crew was no more, high on the thrill that we were about to hustle a hustler.

It’s 4:30 a.m. We walk down the barren Vegas street among the creatures of the night. A she-male hooker waves from across the street, blowing me a kiss. A Jeff Bridges-looking dude sits propped up against a convenience store, passed out in his own puke. More shady characters approach us, attempting to lure us into their clubs of sin. Our group of six tall white boys stands out like a smelly thumb. “Guys, we need to get off this street. Bone is going to come looking for us,” I say.

The Gremlin twins propose we duck into a 24-hour adult bookstore. Killing time, we browse the shelves of the skunky shop. “Santa’s Ho Ho Ho’s” and “Good Assternoon” top the best sellers shelf.  Hiding inside the dildo-coated walls for about 20 minutes, our team proceeds its journey home. Hiking a Vegas side-street at 5 a.m., I begin to feel uneasy. We are being followed.

“Dat’s dem!” We hear a shrilling scream from across the street. Jimmy Bone’s SUV comes to a screeching halt from the other side of the road. Bone jumps out of the SUV pointing and running at us, nearly being smashed by an oncoming car. The strip club had called Bone and informed him that we never entered.

“Ya’ll muthafuckas best gimme my money,” screams Bone. “That’s hundred eighty muhf***in’ dollars”. Bone is off his hinges, shrieking in fits of rage. “Gimme da money!”.

“No,” says Clownboy sternly. Fearing a stabbing, a few of us urge Peterson to hand over the cash. Peterson and Clownboy stand firm, convinced that Bone had ripped us off by charging us for a cab ride only to drop us at a strip-club 30 minutes before closing time. The Gremlin Twins walk off in apprehension, leaving Peterson, Clownboy, Yogurt and myself to tend to the situation.

“This is bullshit! Ya’ll can’t play me like dis.”

Bone is screaming at the top of his lungs, causing a huge scene. A crowd begins to take notice. The minutes pass like hours as the four of us watch the circus unfolding before our eyes.

“Ya’ll stop actin’ a fool and hand it over.” Bone is nearly in tears. Driver Menard says nothing, clearly embarrassed. The standoff continues.

“I’m gonna call the Police!”, Bone says as whips out his cell phone.

“Go ahead, call the Police,” dares Clownboy. “Who are the cops going to side with? A cracked out pimp hustler…or us?” The apprehension is killing me. Every threat proposed by Bone is shot down by Clownboy’s shear strength of will. I’m shaking in my shoes, while Clownboy emits a shit-eating grin right in Bone’s sweaty face.

Bone knows he’s been had. His side of the story would look like a scam to the cops, and Peterson would make sure of it. Still, Bone continues the threats with cell phone in hand, but fails to call the Police. We get the feeling he had been down to the station before. And then the most astonishing thing happened.

“Ahhhhhhh!” shrieks Jimmy Bone as he smashes his cell phone onto the sidewalk with kryptonite force. The phone shatters in three pieces. The battery flies out to the middle of the road. Menard urges Bone to “calm the fu** down.” Now feeling physically threatened, Yogurt and I are demanding Peterson hands over the cash. Clownboy and Peterson look at each other. They nod. It’s time to fold our hand.

Peterson hands over the money. Bone grabs the cash in desperation and relief. Menard grabs Bone by the arm and walks him to the SUV where they drive off.  Disappointed in the outcome, the four of us continue our walk back to the strip. A car pulls up behind us. It’s the cops.

“Excuse me gentlemen. Could you step over here please,” says one of the officers. We let Peterson do the talking. While he has no criminal record whatsoever, he has the most experience talking to the police after a few bar scuffles back home. “Yes. Not a problem officer,” replies Peterson. The four of us approach the cop car.

“We received some phone calls regarding loud shouting back by the convenience store. Seems there might be a problem,” says the officer. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Certainly. This drunk guy tried to get us to come with him to a club. I think he was trying to scam us”, says Peterson assertively. The officer looks confused.

“I see. Is that all that happened?”

“No. When we got to the club, it was about to close. He demanded we go in and pay the cover. When we wouldn’t go into the club the guy freaked out and started screaming at us. I think he was on drugs,” says Peterson.  

Tension ensues. The officer pauses, thinks to himself, then responds.

“I see. You need to be careful with some of these characters. They try to scam tourists all the time. There’s no doubt this guy was trying to rip you off,” says the officer. “Be sure to watch out for this kind of thing..”

“Yes sir,” says Peterson and Clownboy simultaneously.

“What did this guy look like and which way did this guy go?” asks the officer. Peterson gives a description while pointing in the direction of the club. The officer nodded. “Thank you gentlemen. You’ve been great help. We’ll track him down. Have a good night.”

The four of us head for home. Yogurt hugs Peterson out of adrenaline and relief. Then something tremendous happened. Peterson stopped, grinned, and reached into his pocket, pulling out $40 in cash which he had kept separate from the rest of Bone’s stash. Jimmy Bone was in such a fit of rage he didn’t bother to count the money. We took that $40 straight to the roulette wheel and put it on red. And red it was. And we went straight to Denny’s. 

May We Never Speak of This Again

April, 2008 - Buenos Aires, Argentina 

When the Argentina guidebook tells you to avoid “Boca: the most dangerous neighborhood in Argentina”, it kind of makes you want to go to Boca.

Lonely Planet is right. This hood is no joke. It’s home to the second most famous soccer team in the world, the Boca Juniors (behind Manchester United). Unsurprisingly, Boca yields some of the most violent fans on the planet. We would later find out that a soccer fan died in a fight before this game. 

On this particular evening, the Boca Juniors are facing off against a club called River, another dominate team and #1 rivalry. These are cheap thrills people. For just $9 USD, you can watch a futbol game behind barbed-wire fencing while opposing fans throw garbage on you. 

Back at the hostel, we contemplate the pros vs the cons of making this trip. The innkeeper recommends we wait until there is a daytime game to avoid added danger. (Soccer gangs tend to get away with more beat downs by the cover of night). Our crew of four young men (myself, Mick Fallon, O.D., and "The Other Brett") comes to the following conclusions…

Cons: Getting heckled, robbed, stabbed, nunchucked, injured, dead.

Pros:  Probable fun

Even though none of us really like soccer, the group opts for adventure over repercussions. So, O.D., The Other Brett, Mick Fallon and I take the train down to Boca at night. We pick up Jerseys of the hometeam, deciding that wearing blue shirts will decrease the chances of getting shived.  We arrive in Boca Stadium. The sun is falling behind the skyline, leaving the neighborhood in cold darkness. A River fan begins to heckle O.D. as we are pushed like cattle through a maze of barbed-concrete walls. O.D. talks some shit in Spanish as the natural density of the crowd separates the two men before an altercation presents itself. Shoulder to shoulder with hostile strangers, we do our best to cover our pockets and keep each other’s backs. After 15 minutes, we are still being herded through the Berlin Wall concrete barriers toward the stadium. It feels like a zombie apocalypse film as the infected city is being evacuated. I am sweating like Kobe Bryant in a Colorado courtroom. 

20 minutes later, we arrive at the holy gates of Boca Junior Stadium. The stadium resembles that of a prison playground where Ving Rhames would make Hell’s Angels his twinks. Tall, baren walls keep the compound surrounded as the Boca fans in blue are kept on separate decks from the River fans in red.  Construction fencing topped with barbed wire separates the insane fans from the field. In South America, soccer is as much of a religion as it is a game. Due to violent Boca Junior support groups, Boca Stadium is one of the more dangerous places to see a match. Fireworks and glass bottles are commonly smuggled into the stadiums. Subsequently, “Football Hooliganism” has been added to Wikipedia. Noting the following about Argentine soccer…

In 2002, the Argentine government announced emergency security measures because football violence continued, with three people dead and hundreds injured in two weeks. Argentina also deals with three of the most dangerous organized supporter groups in the world, which are Los Diablos Rojos (from Independiente), Los Borrachos del Tablón (from River Plate) and La 12 (from Boca Juniors).

Imagine if America had a sports gang called “Los Diablos Rojos” that supported the L.A. Lakers. Rooting for Steve Nash would become the scariest thing since throwing Pepsi at Ron Artest. Argentine sports fans put American sports fans to shame, but that’s only because there’s no shame in knifing your rivals. Maybe that’s why Americans don’t like soccer.

In March of 2011, Colombian soccer fans dug up the coffin of a deceased friend who was also a huge fan of the local team. The group of hooligans carried the 300 lb casket past “security” and into the stadium, passing the dead teen like a crowd surfer as the game played on. Authorities commented that they “didn’t know how the men got the (8 foot) coffin past security.”

Entering Boca stadium, the four of us scrunch into the Boca fan section. We have the worst seats in the house, well deserved for showing up late. The locals get to the game supremely early to start their gameday rituals and rally their Boca allies. There are no seats, only large concrete steps covered in old gum and sandwich wrappers. The yelling is ceaseless from start to finish. 180 straight minutes of excitement dabbled in fear. 

As the game goes on, our friend Mick Fallon complains about having to “push a Harris”, which is college-code for the need to poop. As it is not a good idea to go the toilet solo, we urge Fallon to wait until the game is over. Fallon goes dead quiet for 10 minutes, then begins to ask again, more desperate this time. A fart cloud surrounds our vicinity. Smelling quite poorly, “The Other Brett” and I urge Fallon to use the toilet, regardless of the risks. He agrees and leaves for the restroom. I agree to go with. Like two schoolgirls, we squirm through the crowd towards the toilet area. Fart clouds are trailed every step of the way as I take them straight to the face.

The Boca Stadium restrooms are a marvel. Fire code doesn’t exist, and that’s fine. But the travesty here is that there is no plumbing. No plumbing in the country’s most popular sports arena. A line of soccer fans forms behind a small drain in the restroom, which fits only a third of the patrons in need of relief. The remaining people move out to the hallway to pee in the stairwell like ducks in a row. There are now more people urinating in the stadium hallway than the restroom itself. Void of options, I join in the public urination and proceed back to the game, leaving Fallon in line to wait for the only toilet stall.  Walking back to the seats, I climb stairs as rivers of piss run onto my shoes.

The score is 3-0, Boca, which pleases us in a sense that we won’t have to deal with excess fan rage that could result from a nail-biter. With only six minutes left in the game, we begin to worry about Mick Fallon, who has been gone for almost an hour at the toilet. With sixty seconds left in the match, Fallon returns, shirtless. There was no toilet paper. There is no shirt on Fallon’s back. He grins a little. You might say it was a shit-eating grin.

The final horn rings. Boca wins 3-0. Fans of the away team begin to rampage on the upper deck directly behind us. I look behind me to see River fans unzipping their pants, peeing on us and the Boca crowd below. Alcohol is not even served on the premises. These people are quite possibly stone cold sober. Argentine peckers hang over the guardrail as golden showers pour from the sky. Garbage and dirty water complement the streams. We pull our shirts over our heads into “Cornholio” mode. Half-naked Mick Fallon provides comic relief to the demoralization consuming us. May we never speak of this again.

Lawrence & the Machine

“You have broken the law, and now I will punish you in money”, states the officer at the Vietnam-Laos border crossing. “What? You’re going to punish me in money?” replies Lawrence Cambridge, a tall and gangly British Chap sharing the bus ride with me.

Lawrence and his UK counterpart Bill Gee have expired Vietnam Visas, making the border crossing into Laos a challenge. The two bash brothers have been traveling 6 months together, sharing expenses even if it means sharing a bed; budget travel professionals. Our crew has coined them “Lawrence and the Machine” due to their ability to rip through cigarettes without fatigue. They are rodeo clowns of the road, but their fun circus is about to be tarnished by a Vietnamese rent-a-cop looking for a bribe to feed a nicotine habit of his own. Their Visa had expired just one day prior. Sadly, Lawrence & the Machine are shit out of luck, cash and cigarettes.

We are in the middle of the Laos jungle, straddling Vietnam with nothing but mud, sticks, and straw huts for miles. It has been 14 hours of dirt roads on a rusty bus void of any fans, leg-room, or breathable air. The 16 of us are packed onto a 10-man bus along with live chickens and metal roofing needed to supply a primitive Laos border village, which only gets about two to three deliveries per week.  

It’s also the rainy season, so some roads have become rivers. Our jalopy mini bus had forded two rivers since the inception of the journey. The Vietnamese bus driver takes off his shoes and walks ahead into the river, squatting to study the curve of the earth like Greg Norman before missing a game-changing putt. Our driver feels out the flooring of the rocks for a proper place to drive across. He returns to the bus, guns the engine and plows us through 4 feet of water that nearly rushes through the dirt-glazed windows. “This chav is totally mental,” notes Lawrence as we trot up to the border. 

Now, it is time to face the music. The border patrol does not even have a computer, much less the Internet, which leads to a three hour VISA processing afternoon of ink and paper. This is an operation that normally takes 20 minutes, but we’re in the jungle baby, and we’re gonna die. 

“I speak to my boss upstairs. Then punish you in money,” states the officer as he trots up the stairs with Lawrence’s passport. Lawrence and the Machine appear to remain calm. “I’ve never been so unprepared for a border crossing. These are still just empty threats,” states Lawrence as he burns through his last Marlboro. “This guy is a wanker”. 

My time has come. I hand the other Laotian officer my passport. He appears stern when he sees I am American. In the Vietnam War, the US actually bombed Laos harder than Vietnam, and unexploded US bombs still go off on Laotian farmers to this day. I swallow nervously. My Adam’s apple pops through my skin like Sigourney Weaver’s veiny Alien belly. My Visa passes, and I am not punished in money.

Meanwhile, an old Spanish couple chips in some dollars to the Lawrence fund to help pay the troll toll. “Proceed”, says the officer. Lawrence and Bill Gee wipe the sweat out of the eyeballs and we pile back on the bus.

So in the end the Machine was “punished in money”, an extended synonym for a fine (or bribe). It sounds more like a consequence for a grand theft auto felon or repeat offender of drug smuggling.  I haven’t been “punished in money” since my 2005 traffic ticket for speeding down Coffee lane on caffeine, 13 over. Bush-league. The crew piles back on the bus to be punished with another 10 hours of potholes and river fording. To my left, Lawrence peers deep into his wallet. It peers back emptily in shame, punished and lonely, void of all currency.

Dead in America. (Live from Vietnam)

“Is that…? No. Can’t be. Can it?”.

Oh but it was. As I wait for my flight to Asia, Britney Spears is sitting in the terminal across from me sporting bug-eyed shades and a posse of giant chisels. Spears is flying out after a Milwaukee Summerfest performance the night before. From this point on, Britney Spears would follow me for the rest of the journey across Vietnam. 

Spears is enormous in Nam. Her videos are in regular rotation on any music channel and her face is in the minds, hearts, and magazines of Vietnamese kids and adults. Her promiscuous image is the same that it was ten years ago, and it sells hard. Spears’ lyrics are jammed with as many sexual innuendos as the FCC will allow. Avril Lavigne is even bigger than Spears. There is a strange pop culture delay that hits Vietnam 4-10 years after its peak in the USA. What we thought was dead in America people will die for in Vietnam.

But the undisputed champion in concert popularity is The Backstreet Boys. The boy band phenomenon that dominated the American 90’s is alive and touring in the arenas of Nam. While boy bands were an addiction many Americans would prefer not to talk about, Vietnamese of both genders will wear Backstreet Boys shirts loud and proud. Notably, there is a popular clothing line called “Backstreet Boys”. Whether this brand is officially licensed by the band remains unknown. Either way, someone is cashing in on Howie, Brian, AJ, and Kevin.

Overall, the live music landscape of Vietnam is an odyssey of cover bands that study American Rock n’ Roll from top to bottom and back to top.  The guitar players will memorize the solos of Stairway and Hotel California note for note. The lead singers will imitate Steven Tyler to the last crow’s foot. And for some odd reason, half of the band always wears T-shirts of old school American rock bands. This would be like Dave Grohl wearing a Foo Fighters shirt during his own show. It is an unwritten cardinal sin in concert etiquette and only accepted in Western culture if…

A)   You are a dad wearing the shirt of your kid’s band

B)   You are at a Journey reunion performance

C)   You are Vietnamese, and you are at a Backstreet Boys concert

But the rules don’t apply here. Vietnam is a country where the drunk driving penalties are a $15-20 fine. Jaywalkers hate it, but Mel Gibson would love it.

As the night continues, the locals take me to “Seventeen Bar”, a live music venue that looks the old-west theme at Six Flags Great America. Plastic wood lines the rails and over-sized cowboy hats arm the wait staff. It’s a John Wayne movie set gone wrong, but the band is tremendous. They cover everything from Ozzy to No Doubt in perfect Western dialect (yet they don’t speak English). The guitar player wears a tattered Guns n’ Roses T-shirt as he rips the guitar solo to “November Rain”. The drummer rocks a black Motorhead tee and the bass player lingers in the cig smoke with a Kiss tour shirt from the 80’s.  They play through “Crazy Train” and make sure to cover at least two songs from each respective band T-shirt. Ozzy would be proud, Gwen Stefani would be flattered, and Axl Rose would definitely take them to court for infringement on his material.

Vietnamese man sings "Livin' on a Prayer" at Karaoke

CRASH COURSE IN DEATH DODGING

Getting hit by cars has generally been a good experience for me. As it stands, I am not dead. I have all four limbs, and I maintain the same generic face I was born with 24 years ago. Walking away unscathed feels pretty decent the first time, but when it happens twice, there’s never a better moment to waste a dollar on a lottery ticket.

The first time I was drilled by a Sierra Cutless Supreme while on my bicycle. Riding down the sidewalk, I was quickly T-boned at a neighborhood cross street. The shredding of metal polluted the air as I flew 8 feet off the bike landing softly on my ass, unscratched. Kevin Harrison, the lad who crashed into me, was a 23-year-old college grad from Madison, WI. He was totally sober but completely drained from another 14-hour day selling wheelchairs to the elderly over the phone. This was Harrison’s first full-time job, and telecommunicating to Old Man Clemens was sucking his mind dry from any ability to operate a motor vehicle. Upon impact, Harrison flipped out, panicking “dude, I’m so sorry! You okay, you okay? I hopped up from the road high on adrenaline, missing a shoe. I was holding my head in disbelief, not from pain. At that moment, Harrison thought he was going to prison for sure. “I’m fine. I’m fine.” I said. It was hard to tell if Harrison was crying out of fright, or out of elation that I was not hurt.

Harrison gave me $60 to repair the barely-damaged wheel on my bike, which was a ghetto cruiser to begin with and would ride for another year unrepaired. Its tattered frame was worn down from all the late night trips to Taco Bell in college. Harrison’s financial donation would later be transacted for 50 Chicken Burritos from T-Bell. A man had just been paid for getting hit by a car, and that man was me. I celebrated Christmas in July while Harrison was dancing with Miss Misery. His car was barely worth more than my bike, his job was poo, and he dodged killing a man by a few miles per hour. 

Rapper 50 Cent always bragged about getting shot (or at least his PR team did). Who could blame him? It’s cool in a fuc*** up way (like competitive drinking or Mohawks). While getting hit by a car is notably less cool, it remains in the upper echelon of ways to dance with death and tell about it. People like to say, “It’ll be a good story to tell my grandkids,” but I’m not going to say that, as it may jinx me into getting hit by another car.

Where do child stars go post-glory? Facebook.

On October 3, 2010 I became Facebook friends with Buzz from the film Home Alone. I’m not talking about the “Buzz Fan Page”, I mean the actual dude. His real name is Devin Ratray, a 34-year-old humungous man who has since retired from acting to pursue film production. (Peaking at the age of 14, I would probably retire too.) Buzz is best known for eating the last slice of cheese pizza coveted by Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), leaving McCallister to sleep on an empty stomach with bed-wetter cousin Fuller. Below is the only exchange I ever had with Ratray, which was clearly a ploy for him to accept my “friendship”.

Brett Newski: “Devin, thanks for the autograph last weekend. You’re the man!”
Devin Ratray: “No problem. Anytime!”

Ratray has since “unfriended” me from Facebook for reasons unknown. I did not find this out until today, after spotting a bootlegged copy of Home Alone at a Vietnamese DVD stand. It was a reminder to my only cyber friendship with a celebrity fallen from glory. On this day, I too feel like I have fallen from glory.

AGENT ORANGE is probably the greatest travesty in US war history. The War Museum in Saigon is horrifying, but you don’t have to go there to see its effects on the Vietnamese people. Children and grandchildren of Vietnamese exposed to Agent Orange in the Nam War are born with deformities to this day. Short, crippled arms and legs are a common sight around the city. Those without the care of families will use a skateboard as a wheelchair. The “Agent Orange” section of the war museum is the kingpin of depression in an already sad collection of US War Crimes. This chemical turned fully-grown men into mutated trolls void of eye balls, limbs and reasons to smile…ever. Damnit America. And also, everyone should now hate the already shitty punk band “Agent Orange” just by association.

After two hours of intensity at the Vietnam War Museum, I joined a tour group out to the war fields of suburban Saigon. On the bus, we were briefed on the history of the Vietnam War in broken English over an extra broken Karaoke speaker system.

Having a tour guide you cannot understand is like having an overweight personal trainer. Distraction from the task at hand is inevitable. I slumped back in my seat, hiding my headphones under my hoodie as not to offend Joe, our 4 foot nothin’ Vietnamese tour guide leading the bus to the famous Cu Chi Tunnels. These tiny, underground holes were the Viet Congs base of operation for the Tet Offensive in 1968. They are about the size of an ass crack, or maybe a piece of computer printer paper, but no more. Not even one half of an American person could fit in some of these tunnels. Since the war, the tunnels have been widened to fit Cheeseburger shaped American bodies for tourism purposes.

As you know, tourism gift shops are generally tacky, overpriced, and encompass Webster’s definition of “terrible.” But not this one. In the Cu Chi gift shop you can forget about novelty T-shirts. Here, one can actually buy tickets to the gun show. For just $1.50, you can shoot an AK-47 or an assortment of other Rambo artillery from the war. (In Nicaragua, you can blow up a cow with a Bazooka for $200, but the Vietnamese are just more tasteful). One can also buy sandals made from a Goodyear tire for $2.50 USD.

We complete the tour. Our guide Joe is pumped up about his job, rattling off his war knowledge at 300 mph in Vietnamese English. I try to concentrate, but can’t look away from the four-inch long solo grey hair dangling from his chin. Despite communication barriers, I love this old guy. Joe informs me that his two favorite bands are CCR and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, both of which he discovered during his time as a hippy intellectual during Nam. No fightin’ for Joe. What a fortunate son.