Sun-stroked thoughts

My forehead, my everything is burning. Jerry Maguire talks about business ethics and I think about travel ethics. THere were no monkeys today, just a floating bar between four islands. Dark brown Vietnamese with pot-bellies and scars dance around in speedos singing the Beatles and butchering the words. These people don't have the musical gift the Filipinos do. Larry King's on in my office nad he's trying to ignore Britney's paranoia like I'm trying to ignore my cheap, Domino's Pizza stinginess. We give them our hearts and they just want "da money." On the boat, 4 former Vietcong guerrilla badasses lead the scared white folks to islands and booze. I think they'd like Sublime. 20 years ago, they pitched in together and bought a tourism guidebook. They memorized memorable sayings like:

"no beer, no funny
no funny, no money,
no money, no honey"

-that's poetry

Jerry knows she loves him for the man he wants to be and I know Vietnam loves me for the $ sign they want me to be. I watched a New Yorker, also named Dan, speak fluent Chinese and I think I'm not trying enough. Darryl says, and I believe him, you have to find solitude, sit and record your thoughts. Then, the path will become clear. It sounds cliche, but it couldn't be more true. What scares me is I'm shutting it all off and all I can see is food. Hey, buddy, when can I eat next?

Here in the south of Vietnam, drunken white-boys are walking down the street, smacking the back of their calves with bamboo rods. It's sad and beautiful at the same time. Sad because their imitating the kind of torture many really experienced on this soil less than 50 years ago. And it's beautiful because they can share a laugh on this same soil, less than 50 years ago. Sad and beautiful like everything, I suppose.

The lady-boy Vietnamese islander wears a European speedo. A flaming mafioso- that's the kind of character Darryl and I like. But I wish my head would just stop burning...