Vietnam: Stalking Bill Clinton

In the summer of 2010, I urinated next to Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys at Lollapalooza. Since there were only two Port-O-Johns for ten patrons, I waited in that toilet line for six minutes next to the Keys guitarist. Auerbach is the most down-to-earth celebrity I’ve ever met. He is almost permanently stone-faced, but mini shit-eating grins present themselves if you look closely. He cracked tasteful jokes about Lolla representatives slacking on the personal hygiene component of the media tent.

Waiting in line is a mundane event no one looks forward to, except Dan Auerbach. For once in his day, Auerbach is able to dodge the frenzy of media tape recorders and tight-jeaned reporters that ask him the same question in 100 different ways, “tell me about your new breakthrough album ‘Brothers’.” At this moment, I am happy to talk about portable toilets with Auerbach, and so is he. If I didn’t slam that Blue Gatorade just 60 minutes prior, I would have never met Dan Auerbach. Blue Gatorade is essentially melted cotton candy, but on this day the aftertaste was that of the nectar from God’s balls. This was the highlight of last summer.

This summer is different. The highlights present themselves in different shades. I am sitting in a Saigon, Vietnam alleyway stealing Internet from a wireless hotspot labeled “Dang Dung”. It rains fat cats and un-neutered dogs against the sheet metal roof as I attempt to drown out the noise with my iPod (playing the “Brothers” album). The alleyway runs just 6 feet wide. I catch whiffs of “Black Menthol Marbolo” from the Vietnamese shopkeeper across the way. He smells like cabbage, but I don’t mind. There has never been a better moment in time to inhale cabbage and cigarettes in unison.

Lugging my guitar halfway across the globe, it became time to hack away at this 6-string. Setting up in the alley, I fake a Bob Dylan tune on harmonica. A small Saigon crowd gathers in mild amusement. A middle-aged deaf woman takes particular interest, placing her hand on the neck of my guitar. She stays here for nearly an hour, feeling the vibrations up her arm while I adlib one of the seven something verses to “Hurricane”. She can’t hear a thing, but feels every song. Her enthusiasm is exciting, motivating and heartening. After the jam, we communicate simple questions via notepad and she invites me to lunch at her restaurant next door, Pho 2000. I look at a framed photo on the wall. I’ll be damned, it’s Bill Clinton eating curry at this very eatery back in 07’. Nice. I hope he sat in this very chair. My Vietnamese date smiles at me from across the table. I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Billy C at Pho 2000.

Vietnam: Life is 1/4 over; "Back when I was in Nam."

It’s three days after the demise of my band, my life’s work of the past 4 years. I’m in between jobs with a small travel fund set aside from playing Beatles covers in Midwest suburban pubs. Time is on my mitts. Time to do something weird. At the moment of this documentation, it’s 3 a.m. I am sitting in the Bangkok airport, typing next to a peg-legged man from the slums of Narnia. The airport looks like a state-of-the-art NASA space station, but the clientele is less flashy. His teeth are scurvy ridden, his vision is cockeyed, and his raspy broken English cuts in a shivering dialect. “Yu gimme da goola money freela,” says the Goonie monster. I would be scared if I wasn’t sitting across from the tourist police office.

“Sorry man, I don’t have any goola”, I reply. He looks pissed. This man is one eye patch away from a Captain Blackbeard that would make Ferdinand Magellan pee in his jeans. I’d change spots if it weren’t for the only power outlet is under his seat.

There are 3 more hours to kill before my flight to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. On my budget, getting a taxi to a pricey airport hotel would be pointless, so I opt for the airport bench for some shuteye. Clutching my baggage I zonk out for no more than 30 minutes, too pumped up to sleep. Traveling the developing world with no itinerary, I’m elated.

The flight to B-cock was incredible. I ate eel next to a cute Chinese girl from Beijing. She was grouchy. Her sister had pawned off her 6-year-old boy for the second time to visit his relatives in Chicago. She spoke minimal English, but I could comprehend it was a chore of a trip for her. “I sick of lil kid,” Chinese girl says. I laugh. She laughs. We talk about American rock n’ roll. Trying to find common ground, I ask her if she has ever heard of Arcade Fire. “No. Who dat?”, she responds. I counter, “you know U2? The Bono Man?” Notta. I rattle off the 5 most popular bands I can think of. Nothing. China is definitely a shielded world, and the following quote says it all. “I like you but we can’t be friends because the Government no let us have Facebook,” she says. We exchange laughter over our language barrier. Somewhere along the line I must have said something right, and she offers a back massage. I realize the chronology of my dialogue doesn’t yield the charisma suave enough to deserve a back massage, but I got one. I wouldn’t believe me either. We land in Beijing and she departs with her sister’s kid. “Bye! Miss you later,” she says. I feel loved.

Back in the Bangkok airport, I hop a plane to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). The flight was rather uneventful except for one remarkable element; there were footprints on the bathroom mirror. Footprints on the bathroom mirror?! Who joins the MileHigh Club on a 90-minute flight? Glenn Goulia maybe? Outrageous.

Completely cracked out from lack of sleep and excess of 7/11 fish-flavored snacks, I arrive at the Bee Saigon hostel in Nam to stumble upon my best amigo for the next three days.

“I’m kind of going through a quarter life crises,” explains Griffin Randolf, a 24-year-old garage rocker from Brooklyn, NY. This seems to be a common theme among travelers. They are either in-between jobs, addicted to travel, dodging reality, or more commonly, a combination of the three.

I get this kid. He too is in between bands and work. He offers travel tips and gives me his albums for free. Randolf’s coolness goes beyond the blessing of a full-on stage-name on his birth certificate. He has a conservative hipster combover, but lacks all the arrogance of trendsetter majesty. “I got a massage yesterday. This tiny Vietnamese lady was walking all over me like a sexy ninja. I tried to fight off the boner, but dude it was impossible. Pretty embarrassing.”

His honesty is commendable considering that’s the third thing he ever told me. Randolf had recorded an entire album on GarageBand before having his laptop stolen just 2 days prior. Having a laptop (with Garageband), I felt for the dude. We grab food down the block and talk about our rock n’ roll hopes and dreams.

Here’s an idea of how far your dollar goes in Vietnam (in $USD)…
• Restaurant meal - $1.50
• Accommodation w/ air con - $3 to $9
• 1 bottle of beer from 7/11 - $0.60
• Haircut - $2
• 30 minute massage - $3
• Hand job - $4

I’m not condoning HJ’s, BJ’s, or TJ’s, but it gives you a better grasp on the sliding scale of Vietnamese goods and services.

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is a sprawl of controlled chaos. Motorbikes dominate every inch of road and sidewalk while cabbies mêlée for your business. Stop signs are generally disobeyed and crossing the street becomes a thrill in itself. Children sell fake Lonely Planet books for $2 (In past travels I met a young kid who worked for a business of selling these pseudo books on Ebay. The US Government caught him and destroyed his credit score, but spared him prison time since he was only a middleman). The buildings are tall and slender, stacked close together like Dominos. Copious signage hovers over the sidewalk. Mobile venders watch your every move. In one block’s walk, a tourist is bound to be hounded by 3-4 dudes selling sunglasses, lighters, and/or marijuana. The best part about Vietnam is that crime is extremely mild. Despite the hectic nature of the beast, it’s generally safe to walk anywhere at anytime of day. I love it here. The food sits atop the totem pole of culinary goodness (as Anthony Bourdain would attest). I recommend everything on the menu, even the cooked dog.

Proving my manhood, fueled by Ramen.

So I've been hanging out with Colin Farrell for the past few days. This kid is a dead-ringer for the Irish movie stud; long-flowing locks, Enrique Iglesias-quality scruff, and dashing charisma that would turn the straightest homophobe into an avid penis enthusiast. Colin is a travel all-star, managing to live off $10/day, all day everyday. Colin is from Santa Monica, California and is thoroughly homeless, using his boyish charm to live on the couches and beds of females when he is home in Cali. He is the Wilt Chamberlain of backpacking.

The last two nights Colin and I have rounded up successful jam sessions in the hostel. I hack the battered 6-string, while Colin forms a drumset with a tin water bottle, 3 Ramen cups, and a pen and fork for drumsticks. A few folks gather around the circle to share in some 90's sing-a-longs. Colin sings the chorus to "No Rain" by Blind Melon. The crowd builds in density and the songs swell in volume, as more and more people join the circle. Chris Ginger, a sunburned 35 year-old surfwaxer takes the guitar and unleashes the greatest one-hit wonder of all-time; "Save Tonight" by Eagle Eye Cherry. The place goes nuts and everyone is singing in harmony despite language barriers. Percussion roars. Germans are banging on trash cans with spoons, Aussies are clanking their rum n' cokes, and Hungarians are stomping to the beat in wooden shoes. The jamboree completes, and the masses head out to suck down some piss-poor rum.

"Ron Plata" is the choice rum of Nicas, and it tastes exactly how you'd expect a $2 bottle to taste. Picture "Ron Diaz" mixed with "Mr. Boston" with a shot of "Colt-45" double malt on top. It's the Gatorade of the homeless. I partake in a shot, as a "bitter beer face" is plastered across my mug. My German friend Peter Eader drinks the bar out of house and home, as the putrid swill runs through the gaps where teeth used to be.

We find a phenomenal bar with a local Nica band kicking ass. They play traditional Latin songs, sprinkling in Cranberries covers wherever possible. Seriously, every third song was a Cranberries cover. I'm not sure what it is about "Zombie", but this song is a smash anywhere you go in the world. All hail chick rock.

I head for home early, stopping at a local hamburger stand and shamelessly stuff my face with White-Castle caliber “meat”. Mistake. I make it back to the hostel. Not feeling so well, I clog the hostel can without even trying. Water and poop soup come flowing to the top of the toilet as “Noooooooo!” comes out from my lips. Everything is in slow-motion. My life flashes before my eyes, all the good times, the bad times, the triumphs & tribulations of my 24-years. I pinch myself. Nope, not dreaming. The water inches to the brim. It all comes down to this. “Zombie” rings in my head like a broken record. I don’t even wait to see what happens to the terd. I run from the John, literally scared shitless. Juan, the prison-inmate hostel manager sees my ghost-faced stare and looks more pissed than suspicious. He can smell my crime. I hide in my room like a bitch.

Morning comes quickly. It’s a big day. Today I will do what I came to Nicaragua for; climb a volcano and slide down it on a sled. “Volcano Boarding” is the top attraction in Leon, Nicaragua. Marco, the tour guide, takes us up “Cerro Negro”, a massive volcano of evil black-ash rock. Marco is a French-Canadian who spends 6-months each year running tours in Nicaragua. He lives in a house on the beach that he bought for $3,000. No joke. You can purchase an acre on the beach for three G’s. Foreign investment is booming in Nicaragua, so check it out before it’s flooded with turismo.

Anyways, the volcano. “Cerro Negro” is probably best known for daredevil Eric Barone’s legendary wipeout at 107 mph. He lived, but barely. See here: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=67d_1222971493

Good news for me is that I will be going down on a sled, so it’s totally safe. Well not really. I witnessed a few people at the hostel with Freddy Krueger-like scars from falling onto the ash-rock. According to Marco, no one has died in 5-years of volcano boarding. This reassures me, but barely. I’m not a badass. I’m actually a huge pussy when it comes to extreme sports, so this is a big deal for my manhood.

We get to the top. No one is within 10 miles of us. To protect me, Marco gives me an orange spacesuit that looks like Diddy’s getup from the “Mo Money Mo Problems” rap video. I peer down the 40-degree incline of the cano. I pee a little in the spacesuit.

Wooooosh!!! Away I go at 50 mph down Satan’s mountain as dusty rock sprays every inch of my body. 45-seconds later I’m at the bottom with dust on my face and rocks in my butt. I look like a Chilean Miner.

Surfs Down, Colin Farrell

Surfing is terrifying, as long boards have been known to knock teeth out. Anyway, Canadian Adam took me out to the waves and gave me a crash course in ‘Surfing without dying’. I got the hang of it after 30 minutes and became a terrible surfer in no time. The Nica surf shop dudes who drove us to the beach were lighting bowls of the dirtiest green stuff EVER on the ride home- grass, dirt and seeds. They were going about 15mph down the road, so it gave the illusion of safety. I grabbed some Mexican food with Canadian Adam and hit the hay after an afternoon of sunburn.

The next day I played some baseball with some Nica kids in the street, after which they pointed out a local gym for me to use. Feeling like a pile, I went to lift some weights at the gym. The place looked like a boxing gym from an old Van Damn movie. There was graffiti everywhere, with strange paintings of Arnold Schwartzenager on the wall and mostly broken equipment. Despite my gangly form, the jacked and tan Nica lifters gave me respect for some reason. Apparently , no gringos ever go to that gym due to its intimidating aesthetic. 2Pac blared ‘Gimme Da Loot’ over the speakers as Nicaraguan veins popped from their biceps.

The coolest part about Nicaragua is that there aren’t many tourists, so the locals really like us gringos more than many countries. Most Nicas are at the same economic level, so there is little begging and few homeless that I have seen in my 10 days here. We met the friendliest crazy man on the street and he sang us Frank Sinatra, followed by ‘I love USA and Jesus Christ!’ at the top of his lungs. Never asked for a dime. The locals say he just loves hanging with Americans and making new amigos. Amen.

I found a quiet hostel called ‘Mama Sara Hostel’ for the last night in San Juan Del Sur. It was run by Mama Sara herself, who gave me lemonade and a cookie upon entry. Sweetest lady ever. Her and her family hung out with us much of the night. More of a homestay than a hostel. I roomed up with Johnny C and Michelle, a 26 year old married couple from Minneapolis who ran their own photography business. Johnny looked like Johnny Depp from ‘Fear and Loathing’ while his wife looked like the girl from the Truman show who tells Truman the show is a lie and breaks the hearts of millions of fans. They had been around the world twice.

I also shacked up with this squat funny man named Zach Lumberjack who had been bitten by a monkey a few days earlier. His finger was oozing puss and purple stuff. The hostel he stayed at had a pet monkey, who apparently bit people all the time, but never turned any victims retarded. Zach had a red beard and added smarmy commentary to group convos. He played in a touring ska band when he was 16 that toured China for 2 months. We talked music and theories about why Japan has a strange obsession for America.

Heading out of San Juan, I said adios to my Dutch sisters and departed for Northern Nicaland on my own. I rode the public buses, jam packed with chickens, puppies and more humans than you would ever believe could fit in a school bus. It cost $4 to travel across the country. I arrived in the old colonial town of Leon where I ran into Allen Athens from Georgia. I had hung out with Allen earlier in the trip. It’s cool how you keep seeing the same amigos in different parts of the country.

Allen and his bearded pals flew down to Panama, where they bought a car and were slowly driving it back to America. They were continuously stopped by the border cops, whom they had to bribe. They would ask to see the required ‘flares and road cones’ you were apparently supposed to have in your trunk. All BS.

Allen Athens and I walked around the town, taking pictures and drinking soda like wee lads. We went thrifting and found some old Larry Bird jerseys and a torn t-shirt that said ‘Brett! At the Disco’. I wanted to buy it so bad, but it smelled of wet dog and butt. I then got a $4 massage from a blind-massage parlor. The blind guy was incredible and deserves to be commended. We talked about the street hot dog vendors and food safety, after which Allen and I ate some semi-sketch street food from this lady called ‘Mama Grande’. I have a picture with her.

We went back to the hostel. This is where I met Colin Farrell...

Wandering souls and non-sensual shoulder massages

After wandering solo for the first few days, I teamed up with 2 Dutch girls to go to Ometepe Island. I´ve been traveling with Lynn Von Dutch and Elle Hollandia for about a week now. They are both 26 and hilarious. Their philosophy is ´¨travel, party, and marry a rich guy at some point.´ I can´t tell if they are kidding or not, but I have started to lean toward the latter when they asked to adopt me as their little brother. In Holland, it is the little brother´s role to find their sisters rich men to marry. These girls crack me up. Recently, I have been playing wing man for them while they hit on Chilean hombres. They ask that I protect them from making terrible decisions and in return I will recieve non-sensual shoulder massages. It´s overall a pretty nice deal. No complaints.


Soon we arrived in San Juan Del Sur, the burnout capital of the world. It´s a sleepy beach town full of gringos and little surf shops with hay roofs.

I arrived at the hostel dorm where I walked in on 2 people having sex in the 14-bed dorm. To avoid any awkwardness, the three of us started talking about good restaurants in the area. I dropped my bags and went to lunch with the Dutch girls. Here we ran into Kevin Queef from California, who we had met before in Ometepe. This time, Queef had a black eye from a sketchy drug deal he had partaken in the night before. Queef publically announces ¨does anyone have any weed?¨ whenever there is a large group he wants to impress. He told us the story about his night in jail and proceeded to nap in his unmarked white van. Sketchfest.

Nighttime arrived. I went down to the beach to find Canadian Adam and Mikka Ishfin from Finland. These 2 guys are the most unlikely travel duo. Mikka is a 43 year old bachelor who speaks almost 0 english, while Canadian Adam is a 31 year old surf guru traveling the entire world in 14 months. The only thing they have in common is their love for Hockey, which is enough. These are my 2 favorite guys on the trip so far. We sat on an upside down row boat and sipped rum until 2am. Canadian Adam is going to show me how to surf, so I´m off to meet him and punch some sharks in the face.

Blood sucking sort of a dream

So I'm sleeping in my bunk at the 'Bearded Monkey', when I feel what seems to be a large paperback book land on my back. I wonder if I am sleeping or dreaming, I roll over a few moments later to find a black mass lying in bed with me. It is dark, I have crust in my eyes, but I punch the black mass to see if I am indeed awake. I am not dreaming, it is a giant vampire bat that flops off my bed and into my face, eventually making its way back to the ceiling to hang and eat some Count Chocula or something. I wake up my Dutch neighbors with a few startled 'holy shits!' and resume sleep. A french guy slays the bloodsucker with a tennis racket the next morning.

I take a day trip out to Masaya by myself. It's a run down town with a market that runs for miles. After drinking muchas Gatorade, I really have to piss, so I squeeze through the cluttered isles of meat, trinkits and humans. A kind old man points me to the 'bano' to the back of his food stall. I go into the back room where a stumble upon two Nicaraguan homies watching a raggaetone music video, featuring a jacked and tan Latino man in a Kobe Bryant jersey, undressing his secretary. I laughed hard and peed a little in my pants.

I wandered Masaya a bit more and had a questionable ham sandwich with ketchup and mustard. I added some pepto bismol to be safe. I began to get a little lonely, so I took the bus back to Granada to meet some gringos. The local transports are called 'chicken buses', which are old school buses coated with house paint.

The bus ride back was amazing. Remeber the elementary school buses when there was sometimes a little TV mounted in front, but the driver would never turn it on no matter how much the kids begged. This bus did have that TV...on...with a scrambled Latino version of Prison break playing on it. I love Nicaragua.

Road trip the Jalopy into the ground.

I arrived in Granada, a town of cobblestone streets and little pueblos painted every color of the rainbow. I rented a bike and cruised the town where I found rustic cathedrals and plenty of trinkets in the market, but not a single foreigner. I boned up on my Spanish from my days at the U by chatting up some locals.

I checked into a hostel called the 'Bearded Monkey' where I met some British chaps that could outdrink your typical alcohlic. They were really into joke humping each other. Dont get me wrong, it has its place in the world of college humor, but I moved on to BS with some more civilized dudes from Georgia, who were driving their car all the way down to Panama, sleeping in it some nights, then selling it, and flying back to the States to plan another trip.

Next I wanted to talk to you, so I went into 'Cyber Space', which is what they call the internet here. Internet is fairly limited in the hostels, and there are usually chunks of rice and beans in the keyboard, so you have to be a warrior blogger to 'home row' through paragraphs. Speaking of rice and beans, it is the standard breakfast, and it is tremendous.

Evening came rolling in, where I met up with this Chicago chap named Steve Remo. Remo was practically mute, but once he got some rum in him, he turned into a respectable pseudo version of Eminem. I brought out the guitar and he layed down some really impressive rhymes over some funk riffs. We went out for a few at the local watering hole and called it an early night. During which I had nightmares...here's why....