“It’s Saigon……Bitch”

Ok sure…understood…nobody calls it Ho Chi Mihn City…..sorry.
Here we are…Saigon the jewel of southeast Asia…first things first. They won. Didn’t kind of win..didn’t bring it to a draw. Unequivocally absafuckingloutly won. There are 8 million people in this city,..look in any of their eyes…no need for words…won it…and winning. The French. .”we beat em”The Chinese ” we beat em” ,the Americans. ” we beat em”.Khmer Rouge…” we beat em” ……globalization ….winning.
Won it ..at a very high cost…I just came from the War Remnants Museum…I have been to my share of atrocity memorials..and this one one floored me. A couple of us were out and out bawling..you look at the photos of agent orange and it’s effect on children and you shake your head in disbelief and realize.. We..us..Americans Did this. To children for..no good reason what so ever. And then you cry. 3 million Vietnamese died in our war… 52,000 plus Americans…if for no other reason,this is why I am a liberal…and as we watch another ramp up to war in Iran..one can only say…fuck you..seriously…fuck you. We don’t get it ,
400’000 dead Iraqis,3 million Vietnamese,it’s never enough..
Alright. ..the good times JJ travel music blog!
So..we pull in around 8:30 pm…Mr Frank,Mr Sherm,Mr Justin,Mr Sal(unclear about Mr Sal..he blows up cars for the NYC mob or something like that) and Mr Carl. ( sadly mr Carl hasn’t lasted long with us..something about why should he wait for the little bald singer guy to get coffee..when he’s better looking…seriously…when the 60 something sex tourist claims more game then you..it’s humiliating)…anyway..we get off the bus..we are all savvy world travelers..been everywhere..totally cool guys….and immediately ..we get ripped off..Mr Justin loses his IPAD..we all get money switch ed on us and a 50 dollar taxi to go two blocks…fuck you Mr Carl…I can humiliate myself just fine thanks. It took awhile to actually look up and..holy shit dude…we’re in Vietnam!!!!!!

As I said, 8 million people here…and they are all busy…men on motorcycles….eating amazing food…getting gangster tattoos ..watching their” most beautiful women in the world”,buy jimmy choos and Prada…while maintaining their all white clothing on all white scooters..and everybodys selling selling selling…and looking amazing in the process .Frankly Bromigo..they could give a shit about us. Alot of foreigners here…looking disheveled and hot…think Harlem in July…frantic and tired and comparatively unattractive…then there’s us…it’s sad, we are indeed,the long pigs.
We were met..too late to avoid the scamaroo …by my old friend. Mr Duane. A Dolores Colorado river runner from way back…Mr Duane has been our constant friendly face since landing.. And it’s been go go go . nap nap..go go go…and we haven’t gotten to the Chop Chop part of the trip yet…thankfully,everyones ok after an unfortunate incident where Mr Sherm ingested a quarter gram of Thai Yabaa amphetamine ,thinking it was alkaseltzer plus……we thought Mr Carl was joking about the snakes in his clothes until Mr Sherm..went running and screaming out of the hotel..naked as the day he was born..into the viet cabaret next door…they tried calming him down with a bowl of steamed pig brains in clam sauce…no dice…it’s been 2 days now…he’s still mumbling about snakes and taking back Da Nang…the only thing he’ll wear is a towel from from the Happy Frog Guest House in Kep…fortunately, this has been ” seen before” and the folks in the hood are taking it in stride…though,god help the junkie Dutch kids Mr Sherm is convinced have Mr Justin’s IPAD…if he finds them,I fear badness.. Still trying to figure out the viet translation for “meth lab monkey murder”. With luck Mr Sherm and myself will be attending a ” meeting” this evening. . starting to miss Mr Carl . Mr Justin has been the food trooper tho he keeps saying with tears in his eyes he is drawing the line at “dog and forest mushroom soup”. Mr Frank refuses to eat anything “Asian”. And is holed up in the Texas BBQ palace… As I said ,we haven’t even gotten to the gig..however if the Viet band..the Black Lions ..version of ” give it away now” is any indicator…we have our work cut out for us…blood sugar sex magic on accordion and acoustic guitar could be a hard sell.
So…plan A is to stick to Mr Duane’s side..or back ,as a lot of time is spent on his motorcycle..we are all enjoying taking our life’s in our hands every 5 minutes on the back of the ” motos”. My apologies to Mr Michael for the extra long blog and extra lengthy photo gallery. But…there this thing about the coffee…weasels( I couldn’t make this up) shit out the coffee beans .and it’s served piping hot with a ton of sugar and condensed milk…it’s a wonder this isn’t a fucking novella. The pho( which is to die for) is simply a breather between coffee fixes…ok…I need to go find some clothes for Mr Sherm..and try to get housekeeping to remove the vintage Kalashnikov display from his room. Tell my son Thai ,who I doubt reads this ,that the people of Saigon say happy 25th birthday and are partying like god damn madmen in his honor…on motorcycles. Also..FYI the Facebook thing is slow to not happening ..(actually its blocked)it’s been pointed out that this is still indeed a communist county..the whole social networking thing isnt exactly welcomed with open arms by ” the man”….. see you all tomorrow night at cafe thi. Until then. Goodnight noises everywhere. Love. Mr Jerry