While I was in Asia, my sister and brother-in-law, whose dog I am currently taking care of and whose house I am watching while they vacation, switched over to a different cable provider. While retaining some fav’s from from old system (IFC!, HBO), but losing a few of the cool free movie channels I was getting used to, they now get The Documentary Channel (DOC), and it f-ing rules! Plus the remote now has Tivo powers to record while you are busy in ‘reality’, or you know, blogging or doing something else. Check it out if you can! Though in my search for the site, I came across the Canadian Documentary Channel, which looks like it might be even better - currently showing the Sarah Silverman ‘Jesus is Magic’ etc. But if we can lose Canada to the metric system in ‘70, I guess we can get along just fine without their documentary channel…

Speaking of which, do you know what the good ol’ US of A has in common with Burma/Myanmar and Liberia? Wow, does France have a problem with us, or did it start out the other way around? One minute it’s all Louisianna purchase, and Statue of Liberty, and then we’re pouring their wine down the gutter (and believe me, they got a huge laugh from that one, as we’d already paid for it) and are trying to teach our tongues to ‘freedom kiss’. BTW, assholes, that sliced fried potato style comes from Belgium, don’t forget the mayo-

I searched through a lot of clips to find the one I wanted to memorialize Augusta, GA’s own native son, James Brown. This is what I went with: maybe it’s the ’stash, maybe the congas, perhaps the shirtless horn section, maybe just the obviosity of how much more SOUL meant in ‘74.



The funkiest tune to ever justify child abuse, I’m telling ya. Here’s what I assume will be the overplayed one where he’s so stoned on the TV show with that LA talking head; hilarious I assure you, if you haven’t seen it yet. If you hang around ’til the end of the ‘74 clip you’ll get a piece of that classic Soul Train animation of the engine, chugging along, superimposed over the buildings…..

Interview with Spanish traveler: tales of London squats, Sumatra, the guy who almost died in front of us, and few of my own stories. Again, recorded some weeks ago in Vang Vieng, Laos.

 

 21. Javi13 [40:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

So I got this from a myspace connection (thanx Amy O, whom I still have yet to meet), supposedly came from LA craigslist. Who knows if it’s real or not. I have yet to go to Vietnam, and this does seem to have been written from the perspective of a woman, but I consider it a testimony to ‘asian genital sensitivity’ I have enjoyed elsewhere in the region and simply want to pass on the knowledge to any who may not realize. Consider this fiction if you’d like, just consider it…

You Rule, Vietnamese Waxer Lady

Date: 2006-03-15, 3:44PM PST

My regular waxer was not available and I just could not bear the wild, untamed amazon bush jungle that my, well, bush had become for another day.

So I came to you on my lunch hour, Anonymous Vietnamese Waxer Lady who works at the cheapie nail place. We were mere strangers before this afternoon, but after knowing you only an hour, I feel like I must point out the reasons why you rule.

When it was necessary to get on all fours to do the “taint” part of the wax, you applied the wax so delicately to my bunghole, then asked, in what I assumed were two of the only five English words you know, “Too hot?” I responded yes, it was too hot. And without hesitation, you blew on it to cool the hot wax. YOU BLEW ON MY BUNGHOLE, Vietnamese Waxer Lady. Do you know how special that is? Nobody blows on the bung. Nobody.

Since you were a bit clumsy with the wax, there were many bits leftover that did not get taken up onto the “Strip of Doom” as I like to call it. So without any sort of trepidation whatsoever, you happily took a cotton ball and dug the wax out of my vaginal canal yourself. How did you manage to do that without making me feel the least bit uncomfortable, Vietnamese Waxer Lady? Were you a gynecologist back in Vietnam and they wouldn’t let you practice medicine in the United States when you immigrated here, and so now you wax pubes for a living? I know that kind of thing happens all the time, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to know this occupation has not been your first foray into coochdom. And I know this is totally inappropriate, but I even started to feel, dare I say, a tiny bit frisky from the action. You just seemed to know my vagina so very well. Almost like you were two old friends, and I was this new acquaintance showing up to lunch with you and my vagina, but then was all like “Oh. I see you two have already met.”

Since you don’t speak much English, you had to motion to me where to place my legs in the air to best reach the “corner” as you called it. Most people would have been uncomfortable with their legs in the air and then having their butt cheeks spread further apart, mere centimeters from the face of a stranger. But you smiled at me and with a subtle expression, indicated that you, too, felt my pain. You should give lessons to medical students, Vietnamese Waxer Lady, on how to have good bedside manner. Or I guess in your case, ass-side manner.

I thanked you with a good tip, but I want to thank you here, publicly, for your selfless action, and for doing your part on behalf of all humanity to keep my pubes under control.

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Hilarious! From Jesus Camp.

Feel free to list what you think might have happened to other fictional characters in settings taken completely out of context - historically and geographically. For example, in modern times, Nabakov’s ‘Lolita’ surely could’ve found herself signing a big ol’ check (and another carefully worded false legal document) written by The Bang Brothers; Dostoevsky’s ‘Raskolnikov’ might have also copped to the Jon Bennet Ramsey murder; ‘Holden Caufield’ certainly would have considered Caligula a phony; hell, Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote’ might have been a great replacement for Rumsfeld…; I don’t think ‘Merlin’ would have sweated Oct 28, 1929 all that much, nor Lao Tzu-

Baked interview from Vang Vieng, Laos with Dutch and French travelers

 

 20. Marnix and George Verat [42:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

OK, let’s get away from my own adventures here (but there will be some more from the latest Asia trip down the line, in podcast form, if no other), now that I’m back and burned out - all up and in the Red White and Blue Prison, and get back to some good ol blogging. I was recently turned on to this writer through a friend of my South African sugar-mama (long story…it’ll be in the novel). Anyway, Melinda Ferguson took a trip through hell and survived to write about it. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT in link. I haven’t read Smacked the novel yet, but it definitely falls into the sort of thing I seek to read, which you’d know if you ever browse the book review section here. Hardcore.

It’s like this: there’s this chain - on one end a monkey, and on the other end you: one always wants to be sure who’s calling the shots, who’s leading who, the actual length of the chain… Actually there are multiple chains and multiple monkeys, it gets complicated quickly.

This town has become such an nutty rollercoaster: up and down, both to extremes beyond belief. I’m here for a few more days. So much has gone down I’m not sure I can even access all the files. And fuck sharing it with ya’ll anyway for free in these bits and pieces- read the novel. Feel free to borrow or steal a copy*