[Đồng Đăng, 7/21/26]

After 13 days in China, I’m back in Vietnam. Sitting in Đồng Đăng, population 25,000, I’m still 1,107 miles from my Vũng Tàu room. Yesterday, I paid $3.04 for a taxi ride from the Chinese border. I had a brief discussion with the driver about Chinese expelled from this area in 1978-79. “It had to happen,” he explained, “they could have served as spies,” for an invasion that, to my understanding, hadn’t even been planned.

Having no idea what was here, I asked him to drop me near the main market. Just off it, I found Trường Hưng, so paid for two nights without even checking out my room. Nhà nghỉ, literally resthouse, implies a cheaper and more basic room than a hotel one, so I have no TV or electric kettle. There is an AC, plus a strong smell of durian, which I soon realized came from an unemptied trash can. The bathroom and my bedsheet are clean. I’m only paying $9.49 a night, knocked down from $11.39, the lady said. She didn’t laugh when I moaned, “I’m so tired, I’m ready to lie down and die.” This middle aged broad may have regretted giving me a discount upon seeing my US passport, but less than $10 in this goofy place that gets few overnight visitors sounds about right. Chinese do cross over to stare at a few temples that, back home, have been mostly wiped out by Jew pilled Mao.

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[Pingxiang, 7/19/26]

Egypt has a burger chain, Bazooka, that specializes in monstrous sized sandwiches, with one called Sniper. American style eating is an act of aggression or even revenge. In backward Pingxiang, there’s only the “BIG HURBER.” Since the Chinese on this large, colorful sign is simply 作的, meaning burger, hurber is just a gross misspelling. This restaurant’s logo is an American Indian, with feather headdress.

Gorging on hurbers is like galloping across a vast American prairie, as an Indian, of course, not no Cowboy, since these Pingxiang Zhuangs are China’s Indians. Obviously, these goofballs didn’t make that association. Like Michael Jackson or Donald Trump, Indians and burgers are just cool American icons. Since almost none of these Zhuangs will ever see NYC or California, or get mauled by a gang of fat ICE goons at a US airport, stuffing their faces with hurbers must do. Here, you can also get pizzas with french fries. In the 1960’s, they were starved by Mao into eating each other, so confused Western combos, badly prepared, don’t sound half bad.

The Jewjerked West has used Ukraine’s memory of the Holodomor, caused by Jewish hatred of Slavs, to turn Slavs against Slavs. Jews are expert at sowing inter group hatred, cultural dissolution, denial of heritage and economic implosion. Just look out your window.

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[Sín Chải, 2/21/20]

Before 2026, I had only seen China three times. In 1995, I stared at it from Lào Cai. (I was traveling through northwest Vietnam with Mitch Epstein and Susan Bell. Mitch’s first wife was Mira Nair, the mother of NYC’s current mayor.) Though China was right there, I didn’t have the visa to cross that bridge. In 2020, I got a better look at China, over several days, also from Lào Cai. Since this was the start of Covid, I could only spot, with boyish giddiness, any odd Chinese as he or she walked a dog, fished or stood inside a window. I saw Xi Jinping on a screen, addressing nobody. Perhaps I’m just not meant to ever set foot in China, I thought with irritation, touched with sadness. Also in 2020, I trekked 3 ½ hours towards China from Si Ma Cai. That winding mountain road had almost nobody. Its last stretch couldn’t even be traversed with a motorbike. In Sín Chải, though, I did pass a Black Hmong girl carrying her baby brother on her back. Only her plastic flipflops placed her in the 21^st century. Otherwise, she was timeless. (Susan Sontag pointed out all photos are mementos mori, since every subject in one is literally dying, if not long dead. Every stick of furniture, impressive building or pyramid, too. Just before Sontag dropped dead, I was on a panel with her in NYC, but she didn’t go boozing with us afterwards.)

By now, she, that girl, not Sontag, is probably wearing made-in-China jeans and a T-shirt with bad or incomprehensible English. Whatever she’s carrying to market would likely be in a plastic trash can, of the type common in American kitchens. Unlike woven bamboo baskets, they can last an eternity. Perhaps she will soon move to the city, to slave on a factory assembly line, until her mind becomes mushy and tasteless, like chewed tofu. What’s the point of thinking anyway? Essential, though, are cellphone, motorbike, cosmetics, electric rice cooker and more made-in-China jeans. Bus rides back to her village are expensive enough. Fried chicken and pizza, too. Each trip increases her embarrassment. I was never this savage!

Leaving behind the last sparse houses, I was called back by an alarmed Vietnamese soldier, “What are you doing, uncle?” Just taking a walk, I told that young man. “You can’t go there! That’s China!” Of course, I was an idiot. Who knows what startled Chinese villagers or soldiers would have done? This wasn’t like the Mexico, US border, where I had once crossed illegally, via a footbridge. It was the briefest excursion, in the middle of a desert.

Borders are usually tense. When China destroyed Lạng Sơn in 1979, Lê Duẩn supposedly said to surviving Vietnamese soldiers, “You guys fought like shit! You damn lost Lạng Sơn!” Các cậu đánh như cứt! Các cậu mất mẹ Lạng Sơn! The Viets were outnumbered four or five to one, but so what?! To retaliate, Duẩn ordered troops and artillery into position to flatten Pingxiang, where I’m sitting right now, in the lobby of Mu Lin Economy Hotel.

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[Pingxiang, 7/13/26]

Having secured my keycard two days ago, I went to room 8009, only to find it still being cleaned, at well past 3PM, mind you, so all those China bashers are right, after all. Chinese professionalism or mere competence is but a sham. Checking into this or any other Chinese hotel is equivelant to jumping off its roof immediately. At least I won’t be crushed by all those floors, pancaking upon themselves, just like at the World Trade Center 1, 2 and 7. China itself is a tofu constructed myth. Though seething with indignation seasoned and slathered with maddening contempt, I had to smile and indicate, with hand gestures only, that this was my room, already paid for, young lady, with my hard earned SubStack babbling. You think it’s easy to barf up nonsense nonstop?! You try it, bitch! Plus, I had endured a 3 ½ hour bus ride, plus half an hour wandering around getting lost, plus a subway ride in Nanning just to get to that bus station, a tofu structure, like all others here, and one I had zero familiarity with. It was with sheer luck it didn’t collapse on me. Just getting to Pingxiang, then, was a miracle of miracles. I can’t wait to get the hell out of your oh so precious China, young lady, and yet, with unfathomable indifference, incompetence and infinite cruelty, you’re taking your fuckin’ time cleaning my tofu room. Lest you forget, it’s entirely mine for the next four nights, so move your pretty ass as quickly as possible!

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[Pingxiang, 7/14/26]

For four nights in a very comfortable room on the 6^th floor, I’m paying $94.43. This morning’s breakfast of rice roll stuffed with Chinese long beans (doujiao) and just a hint of pork, plus a broth with scallion and Chinese cabbage, set me back 74 cents. For lunch, I went a bit crazy so coughed up $10.32 for stir fried beef with doujiao, hot peppers, ginger, garlic and mushrooms, plus a tall bottle of Tsingtao. Seeing me sweating, the waitress went over to turn on a fan right above my head. There’s no tipping in China. I have only used cash once in a week. Chinese prefer payments via WeChat or AliPay.

I’m in Pingxiang (pop. 180,000), the last major town before the Vietnamese border. (English Wikipedia confuses this sleepy place with a much bigger Pingxiang. At least it’s not an insidious misinformation.) Ten miles away is Friendship Gate [友誼關]. From 1428 to 1539, it was called Pacify (or Suppress) the South Gate [鎮南關]. From 1407 to 1428, it was Pacify (or Suppress) Savages Gate [鎮夷關]. Modern men tend to soften labels, so it’s no longer cool to call even real barbarians “savages.”

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[Nanning, 7/11/26]

Each morning, I come down to the lobby from my 8^th floor room before 5AM. Always, I would see the nighttime security guard watching some drama on a computer screen. It must be boring as shit because he nods off often. Since the volume must be kept very low, he can barely hear what these ditzes are saying. Sometimes he listens to fake, computerized music while half staring at these ghostlike figures getting weepy, stressed out or hysterical over nothing. In the same room are all those fake books with English titles. There are real ones by some Chinese business guru, but what are the odds of this guy, or you, for that matter, becoming almost rich in this lifetime?

Speaking of books on investments and business strategies, my brother, Vince, once said to me, when I suggested he read an article I had written about San Jose, more or less his hometown, “I’m not going to read it because it won’t help me to invest.” Vince is the real Jewish comedian in our family. He wasn’t joking.

Before settling on this couch at City Comfort, I had a 13 yuan [$1.92] bowl of beef noodles at a chain restaurant, open 24 hours, three blocks away. Though it’s excellent, those tiny blood curds ensure most Westerners would stay away. Yesterday at a Macao wonton joint, I noticed cloves of garlic, skin intact, left out for guests to chew on. Raw ginger, too, is healing. No one, though, knows the health benefits of raw leaves as Vietnamese. Not long ago, Americans were advised to discard their egg yolks, to reduce their cholesterol intake. If that isn’t madness! At least that didn’t kill you, unlike all those “vaccines,” you know, plus “boosters.”

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[Nanning, 7/10/26]

In 1076, so just yesterday, If cannibalism was more prevalent here during Mao’s famines, one reason, certainly, had to be its more widespread poverty. Fewer folks had rice, at least, squirreled away. Even today, the per capita income of Nanning is less than 1/3^rd of Shanghai. This was evident as soon as I got here. During three days in Nanning, I’ve encountered many, many more homeless than I saw during three weeks in Qingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing, just four months ago.

Still, this ain’t like the USA, though, for the Chinese homeless don’t harass you, and they don’t set up tents on sidewalks. Unlike San Franciscans, Los Angelenos, Philadelphians or Donald Trump, they don’t defecate wherever.

Rural folks swarm into this city to sell whatever. Their peasantness shows up not just in their clothing, but face, hands, complexion and posture, so they, generally, don’t dare to enter nicer shopping malls to escape the heat. In did catch one grandpa stretched out, quite comfortably if too stiffly, almost corpselike, at a café. A haggard woman under a conical hat was content to sit outside to munch on boiled ears of corn.

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[Nanning, 7/9/26]

In 1076, so just yesterday, really, Vietnam invaded China with at least 80,000 troops. After capturing Guwan, Taiping, Yongping, Qianlong, Qinzhou and Lianzhou, they laid siege to Nanning, where I’m sitting right now with my chest puffed out and my head swollen. Back then, Nanning was called Yangzhou, pronounced, roughly, Young Chow (as in Young Chow Fried Rice).

Though the Viets had lost many men during this campaign, they still greatly outnumbered those inside Yangzhou, defended by just 2,800 soldiers. Their commander was the extraordinary Su Jian (1016-1076). He used flaming arrows to repel Vietnamese scaling towers, but the Viets finally succeeded in swarming over Yangzhou’s wall, on the 42^nd day of this siege, by forcing nearby Chinese to pile up clay bags outside it. How many of those died? Once inside, the Viets and their Zhuang allies went berserk and massacred roughly 58,000 people. They piled up mounds of decapitated heads, each containing a hundred. Su Jian was nowhere to be found, however, for he had already killed 36 members of his extended family, before committing suicide by torching his compound. Among those perished was one daughter-in-law and her children, only in Yangzhou for a visit. Though they could have sneaked out just before the Vietnamese encirclement, Su Jian said no, for he had threatened with decapitation anyone who tried to escape. This upright man didn’t want his people to think he has bent the rules, to benefit his kin. His courage and integrity is acknowledged by Vietnamese even, for his Wikipedia bio is only in that language.

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[Guangzhou, 7/8/26]

Reading about catastrophic floods around Nanning, my buddy Jonathan emailed to make sure I hadn’t been washed away. Cobras flushed from some snake farm were biting villagers, he said. No, I replied, I’m still on this earth, I think.

Flying in from Guangzhou, my plane was delayed for about an hour, so we just had to suck it up, while strapped to our seats. A fat baby who had stared at me during check in, fascinated, didn’t even cry, though. His piercing curiosity clearly betrayed exceptional intelligence, though, soon, it’s almost certain, his brain cell count will be eroded by that tiny screen, with its sight gags, retarded jokes, fake laughs and, of course, porn. He’ll be an idiot before 6^th grade.

Upon landing, we were told to keep our sunshades down. Anyone caught photographing or videotaping could even be jailed, it was sternly announced in accented English. Nanning’s airport is also a military installation, you see. In Guangzhou, the departure board also had some glitches. During five months in South Korea, I had zero issues traveling by trains and buses, but that was before brainfogging, crippling or murdering Jewjabs had been unleashed on humanity. Plus, no population is more cellphone addicted as the Chinese. It’s essential to daily living.

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[Vung Tau, 7/5/26]

Three days straight, I allowed myself a large bottle of Tsingtao, a decent Chinese lager, in an alley. Twice, I noticed a fly floating in my brew, so fished him out with my fingers. This reminded me of a joke. First time you see a fly in your noodle soup in Vietnam, you call the waiter. Second time, you get rid of this garbage and dog shit loving insect yourself. Third time, you just eat the fly. Last night, I spotted a black dot in my amber drink, but there’s nothing upon closer inspection, so I kept guzzling, until, you guess it, I felt something squishy between my tongue and hard palate. Instead of availing myself of some free protein, I spat him out.

In that alley, I was twice greeted in Vietnamese by a white man, “Chào chú” [“Hello, uncle”]. He turned out to be 55-year-old Grant, from Louisiana. From age 18 to 35, he lived in Shreveport, mostly, but also New Orleans. Grant has visited many US cities, including Philadelphia. Laughing, we talked about how New Orleans and Philly has but a tiny picturesque section for the tourists, with much of the rest a near lethal shit hole. Grant has even seen Camden.

“It’s worse than Detroit,” I said. “Each time I went there, I asked myself, ‘What the fuck am I doing here? My death wish must be very strong.’”

Shreveport is bad enough, Grant informed me. Competing LA gangs have moved in. Interstate 20 connects them to Dallas. I-10 delivers them to LA. Bullets sometimes fly across I-20.

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Lamest pitch, “Buy this negligible almost-book to read about wars against the Unchosen, cosplaying frogs, Jeffrey Epstein Kiddie Bibles, your faggot in chief, peak porn, peak stupidity, self-love rash (which you undoubtedly have), a diatribe against barstools and Cheers, Dubai, an extraordinary grey nomad on Babbage Island, Australia and a teenaged girl stuffed in a suitcase.”

Note: If you just want a PDF of this book, and bypass Lulu, please PayPal me $14, or more if you’re inclined, and I’ll email it to you. Thanks! More cash in my PayPal account will help me to stay in China longer. I’m ready to leave in two days. The PayPal donate button is at the top of my photo blog.

Contents:

Wars Against the Unchosen……………………………………………….......…….6
Nearly Blind Yet Blessed, Pushing Luck………………………………………..10
Robbed of So Much Life…………………………………………….………………...13
Spiking Shamelessness!....................................................................17
Beijing Zinger and MegaMaxes in Bunker, Post Blast…………………...19
Might As Well Dig In………………………………………………………….….……….22
Cosplaying Frogs……………………………………………………………..…..……….…25
Be. Here……………………………………………………………………………………………28
Rose Seeds from China and Jeffrey Epstein Kiddie Bibles!....................30
Stinks Like Tween Spirit……………………………………………………………………..34
White Meat Purveyor, Hitmen, Luggage Thief and Faggot in Chief………37
Those Gilded Trailer Trash Days!............................................................40
Peak Porn Still Ahead………………………………………………………………..…..…..43
Bunker Entertainment………………………………………………………………………46
Worst Entry into the Future!...............................................................49
Mall Mirages, Putobumbong and Dead Camels………………………………53
Megalomaniac Finale……………………………………………………………..………56
Starkest De Chirico Sans Poetry…………………………………………….……..…59
Whose God?.......................................................................................63
USA, Trump and Dubai…………………………………………………………………..66
Office Drones Under Missiles………………………………………………………….69
Peak Stupidity, If Only…………………………………………………………………….72
To Let It Burn…………………………………………………………………………………75
What Rose Here………………………………………………………………………….…79
One Vast Departure Lounge…………………………………………………………..84
Goodman or Even Late Coltrane…………………………………………………….89
Boat People, Insatiable Commodus and Decent Spaghetti……………..93
Disappearing Friends, Relatives, Nations and World………………………97
Self-Love Rash……………………………………………………………………………….100
Diatribe Against Barstools and Cheers…………………………………………..103
Refugees All…………………………………………………………………………………106
Demons, Drugs and Food………………………………………………………………110
Dark Enough Now………………………………………………………………………….113
Checking in with Steve in Babbage Island, Australia………………………116
Die, Just Die………………………………………………………………………………….123
Same, Same Me After Murder………………………………………………………126

Four of nine black and white photos included in 129-page book:

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[Pattaya, 1/18/23]

Just over a month ago, I wrote about a Vietnamese who worked for Commonwealth Adoptions International, an Arizona based agency. Its CEO promised this woman a trip to the USA if she could bring in 15 orphans. When she got to 14, he reneged, citing some dubious complications. The guy was never serious. He only used Vietnamese orphans, and people like her, to make money.

She has also been cheated out of serious money by a Vietnamese female Buddhist nun. Days ago, I saw her again. She talked about chatting with Elon Musk online. “It was Musk. I saw his face.” Many people are lifelong suckers.

Knowing I often travel overseas, she half joked, “Find me a foreigner. I’m unwanted, but nice!” In Vietnamese, it’s just three words, with two rhyming, “Ế, tử tế.”

“You should put that on a T-shirt!”

She laughed. Then, “My friends say I should find an overseas Vietnamese.”

At age 63, she won’t find any taker. Long, a resident at DC HomeStay, is 75. His rented girlfriend, very attractive, is no older than 35. In Colombia, Ukraine, Philippines and Thailand, etc., aging, ugly or simply unwanted men from richer countries also show up to fuck away.

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[Vung Tau, 7/1/26]

Just now, a reader asked about my take on Hearts and Minds, a 1974 documentary on the Vietnam War. I’ve seen it only once, in 1983. It’s part of an elective class I took at the University of the Arts. I was just 19-years-old. This course gave me a survey of the liberal, anti-war American perspective on a conflict that hadn’t just landed me in the USA, but resulted in all those reeducation camps, the boat people phenomenon and the lost of South Vietnam. That collapse was mourned by no one except those who had actually lived there, especially its urban population. Too many innocents in rural areas were bombed, massacred and raped by US troops. That was the gist of Hearts and Minds.

Though most Americans still don’t know this, the Vietnam War was essentially a civil war. There were conflicts among Vietnamese even before Americans had arrived, of course. Northern and southern Vietnam were divided between two houses, Trịnh and Nguyễn, from the 17th to 19th century, with their longest war lasting 50 years. In the 20th century, Vietnamese Catholics, Cao Dai and Hòa Hảo Buddhists were all anti-Communist. There were also nationalist political parties, plus ex-Communists. South Vietnam was filled with such. One, Hoàng Văn Chí, wrote a classic in English, From Colonialism to Communism, while serving as a South Vietnamese diplomat in India. (I bought a pirated copy in California, which I gave Mr. Chí to sign in Bowie, Maryland. By then, he was reduced to selling tương cự đà, a sauce of fermented sticky rice and soybeans, to pay his bills.) There’s a long list of books, in so many languages, written by ex Communists, exposing its horrors. Koestler, Milosz and Kundera were all in the Party, and Orwell was a fellow traveler. This uncorruptible master’s turning against Communism still embitters leftists.

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When we first communicated, Steve, I thought you were in the USA, but you’re in Australia, on Babbage Island, next to tiny Carnavon, with less than 5,000 people. The nearest city is Perth, ten hours away by car. You must have deep roots in this region?

-I’m not even allowed in the USA. My police record would stop me getting a visa and I am loathed by the Zionists. They’ve put me on a list and declared me Amalek, according to my anti-fans at the Jewish Defense League. Carnarvon is a strange place, really. It’s got a lot of tropical fruit, and was the first place to grow bananas in this state. It was a whaling station. It’s a bit of a fishing destination, though not so popular since they closed the One Mile Jetty.

Not to sound weird, man, but does anyone migrate there? To put it differently, are there Lebanese, Samoan or Vietnamese restaurants or gangs in your region?

-There’s a couple of Thai or maybe Vietnamese owned cafes. There’s a kebab joint which may be Turkish or Lebanese. There’s a Chicken Treat, and the pub for a feed. On a small pension, I don’t get out to eat these days. There’s a restaurant beside the One Mile Jetty Museum. I’d expected to work there as a caretaker, but that didn’t work out, so I ended up stranded here, at the caravan park. My car also crapped itself. It took me six months to fix, as I had to be my own mechanic. I needed Chat GPT and Ebay for instruction and parts to fix my Mercedes. At least I started to get the hang of fixing my own car.

I don’t see anything you’d call a gang, but drunken mobs of blackfellas always seem gang-like to most whites. Drinking as such has a low profile because cops are ubiquitous anywhere people gather.

We get many Samoans through here, and Aborigines, including Noongars trickling North. They were the southern tribe who stuck around Perth after white colonisation. Northern tribes avoided the developed South. They were warned of our arrival by ET.

Hold on, what’s ET?

-Extra terrestrials. The blackfella has a long and well-remembered history of contact. I’ve heard it directly from the oldest tribes. Wandjina Man, a famous cave painting in the Northern Territory, is one record. It’s a depiction of the “Grey aliens,” one of the “star people.” The Aborigines were warned of our arrival by ship, and what would follow. It’s the core reason Noongars are scorned among northern tribes. Ignoring the stories, Noongars decided to live among us, which led to alcohol and drugs, and the stolen generation, etc.

I’ve spent many years in the Pilbara and Kimberley. These are my favourite places because of the people, black and white. They’re more genuine and honest, in my view, and closest to the Crocodile Dundee of the Outback.

I’m deeply committed to aboriginal wisdom and knowledge. It’s the main reason I am here. Though I may return south for a bit, this is where I plan to see out the bad times. I’ve got a permanent invite to join the Aborigines in the Kimberley. I’ve seen some of their spooky stuff and take it very seriously. I also have an affinity for some First Nations from the USA. Cree, for one.

What spooky stuff?

-One of my first spooky experiences with a blackfella was in Karratha. After my French wife left, I used to drive to Bunbury to visit my parents. I had a Ford GTHO, a beast. I’d do the trip averaging 100mph. You’d get 100 speeding tickets these days, of course. One time, I saw an Aborigine I knew, so pulled over to offer him a lift. He laughed and said, “No way, you drive too fast, brother.” I left him and continued down south. When I got to Bunbury about 11 hours later, I saw the same guy walking down the street! He waved and looked kind of sheepish. There’s no way he could have gotten there before me. When I mentioned this to him later, he just grinned and spoke about “spirit walking.” He was the tribe’s “spirit man.” My only conclusion is I saw his astral body in Bunbury.

Maybe you saw his astral body in Karratha? You mentioned a French wife. How many wives have you had?

-I’ve been married three times. A French girl when I was young. I was a Mormon then. We met when I was doing door knocking with missionaries from the USA. We got engaged during my last year in high school. She was 15, I was 17. Claire was a gorgeous, busty blonde, but our sex life was problematic. Only later did I know she’d been fucked by her father, but he and I got along great. A little guy, he’s an ex Foreign Legionnaire. We smoked pot together.

We ended up living in Karratha. I had a business servicing office machines. Bought a house even. I was making good money but lost it all, and fucked up drinking after Claire left.

I hit the road. After backpacking across the Nullarbor, I was headed north towards the hippy commune in Northern New South Wales. Never got there. Instead, I bumped into another busty blonde, a Danish girl, at Cable Beach in Broome. We hooked up, then left for Southeast Asia in 1987 when her visa ran out. Ended up in Denmark, where we married.

I worked factory jobs and as an office machine tech. They were a good six years. I learned Danish so I could argue with her parents. I came to love my Danish parents-in-law deeply. We returned to Australia, had three kids and were living near Pemberton. There, I started a fireworks company. Fireworks is a bad boys’ club. It’s run by the biggest heroin dealers in the state, I found out. I ran afoul of them. I also dabbled with manufacturing meth. Used it, too. That led to some bad decisions. Legal problems caused me to lose my company, our farm and even my marriage of 20 years to a fantastic Danish girl, but it was me who fucked up. I was a selfish and foolish father. I don’t blame them for having nothing to do with me, but it hurts.

It took me ten years to recover. I ended up meeting a Pakistani girl, 29 years younger, on Facebook. We fell in love. I went there, met her family, reverted to Islam and married her. I loved my father-in-law too. In Siem Reap, I got Missi a visa for a prospective spouse, since it’s easier than for a wife. We moved to Australia. When Missi’s father died, she went home for his funeral, but couldn’t drag herself away from her family again. You’ve got to experience Pakistani families to understand. It looks like she took advantage of me, but I don’t think it was intentional.

On my one visit to Australia, I was limited to Queensland. What struck me immediately were the high prices of beer and cigarettes, due to punitive taxes. It’s as if your government didn’t want folks to spend hours at a bar, drinking, smoking and chattering. Pubs were way too bougie, with, nearly always, fine dining options.

-There’s a strict control on alcohol sales. You’re even recorded when buying over a certain amount. I’m a Muslim revert, so it doesn’t affect me really. Here at the caravan park, cops come through at least once a day.

What, exactly, is a Muslim revert?

-To marry Missi, I had to convert, but I genuinely converted after a visit to Badshahi Mosque. Her family were showing me around. I was deeply affected by the exquisite building. The engineering and magnificent quality of the workmanship from Mughal times was staggering. I recognised, above all, the extreme love and devotion it bespoke. I knew the men who had created this incredible perfection had done so out of devotion to the creator, and nothing else. Nothing else I’ve seen comes close to that magnificence.

The perfectly straight lines, the beauty and the level of the paved courtyard, despite many years of use. Elephants, horses and all had traversed it, yet after hundreds of years, it remained perfectly level, to the minutest degree. It had never been relevelled in 600 years! It was as perfect as anything could be done today.

That building inspired me to see what Islam could produce. I spent much of my time there with tears streaming down my face in awe. I have a strong feel for engineering, ever since I grew up devoted to Legos. That and the book Muhammad by Martin Lings are what led me to convert. We say revert because we believe all are born as Muslims, that Islam is the natural state of all, as created by Allah. Having spent four years in a Mormon seminary, I was well versed in the Old Testament. That served me well with Islam, where I found very much the exact same things being taught. I reverted to Islam in 2011 and have never looked back. Once in, I had to examine the sectarian issue, so recognised it was the Shia examples which inspired me. Thus I’m a Shia Muslim, quite specifically. It’s the purest form of Islam.

You were born Presbyterian, then converted to Mormonism and, now, Islam. You were also a Buddhist, no?

-Yes, for about a decade after spending a year backpacking in Thailand. I was very impressed with the brown robed monks and thought this was the one for me.

Now, let’s get to your police record. What’s up with that?

-I’ve only spent 1 ½ year in prison, total. There’s also an Interpol warrant on me in Switzerland, just for absconding on a fine. I never did anything else to earn that attention. With repeated court cases following this unpaid fine, it’s grown pretty substantial. It’s a shitty bureaucratic shithole. Actually, the initial arrest ended with me holding a fat off-duty cop by the throat, hanging over a stairwell, but they kind of let that slide because he was an arsehole.

When I was about 22, I was locked up for a couple of months for drunk driving. Having no bigotry towards blackfellas, I felt good about seeing some among the inmates. Walking awkwardly towards my cell block, I saw one blackfella with gumboots, so made a clumsy remark intended as a joke. He just put his head down and kept walking.

Minutes later, a couple of enormous blackfellas came out from the kitchen and stopped me. The guy I spoke to was behind them. This mountain of a man said, “You called my brother a pig?” Actually, the lousy joke was about sheep. As I tried to explain, he cut me off with a THUD. I literally saw stars like in the cartoons. I was stunned but realised words would not help, so I just shut up, saying, “Yes, sir,” and sorry, as I walked on.

Once I got to the dormitory, the other white guys stared at me in silence. This was a segregated prison. Indeed ,most still are. One guy then said, “Fuck! You’re dead! You’ve already pissed off the boongs.”

Blackfellas were 4/5th of the prison population. From there on, all the talk was about how dead I was. How the boongs looked after their own and nobody crossed them inside. An uncomfortable first night was had by me, thinking about what the next day would bring.

In the morning, we headed to where tea and breakfast were served. Each group had its communal place. Feeling mostly upset that blackfellas thought I was a rude racist, I had decided to deal with it head on. With my tea, I walked to the black side of the yard. All eyes were on me, obviously. Muttering among the white guys was that I was going to my doom.

I could see the bloke I’d spoken to, and those big ones on either side. They were in a card game. I knew not to address them directly, so asked another if I could talk to his brother. It was kind of comical, I guess. He turned to a big guy, “This whitey wants to talk to ya.” I said I’d been stupid and shouldn’t have talked to someone I didn’t know. I explained I had no problem with blackfellas, that I’d been living near Roebourne for years, that I was new to prison life and feeling really off balance and lost, so when I saw a familiar black face, I tried to make contact in my nervousness. My attempt at a joke was a bust. I was sorry and shamed it happened. They heard me out, then said, “OK, fair enough. Now to go back to the white side.”

While there, my father had delivered about 200 cassettes. I had a Walkman, too, so used it to listen to Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cat Stevens and others. One day, a couple of blackfellas came into our dorm, to ask about the new John Fogerty song they’d heard me playing. They said one of their guys was trying to learn it on guitar.

Blackfellas have some incredible musicians. Each prison I was in had some who played guitar beautifully. Not to mention astounding chess skills. Eyeing my large collection of cassettes, they were obviously impressed.

I said they could borrow whatever from me if they wanted for their brother. He looked at me like I was mad, “You’d loan this to me?”

“Yes, sure. You’d return it, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would. Do you think I’m a thief?”

I confess it went through my mind. Many of them were in for theft, actually. He picked another cassette and asked, “What about this one?” He didn’t even look at it, I noticed. I answered sure, and the same to a third. He asked for a fourth, but I said return the others first and you can borrow more. I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever see any of them again.

They left with three of my tapes. For the rest of the day, John Fogerty was blaring full volume from their cell block.

Whiteys in my barracks assured me I’d never see my tapes again. Actually, they came back. A few others did, too. At one point, I must have had 40 cassettes loaned to Aborigines. By the end of my time in there, I never lost a single cassette to them.

On the other hand, I lost half a dozen and my Walkman to a white guy who was a long termer. In for murder, he was a pretty scary. One day, he said to me, “You’re pretty smart, eh?” I didn’t deny it. Frankly, there was quite a gulf in intellect between me and most of the white guys, at least. I was just out of university. Despite having studied chemistry and physics, I’d actually been an English and English Literature dux at school.

Since I was smarter than the other bums, the murderer chose me as his hairdresser. He didn’t trust anyone else near his throat with a pair of scissors. He was getting out soon, so didn’t want the sheep shearer. The prison barber was, literally, a sheep shearer. He just said, “If you cut me, I’ll kill you.” And, “If you make me look stupid, I’ll kill you.” That’s the sum total of my instruction as a newly minted barber. So we got a pair of scissors smuggled from the shoe shop. It was a half decent cut. When the killer looked at the results, he was thrilled. We then became mates, apparently.

A week or two later, the killer said I was going to pull a rotten tooth he’d been suffering with for ages. My instructions were simple. “If you don’t get it the first time, I’m going to kill you.” And, “If it hurts, I’m going to kill you.” Being told this from a guy who was in for multiple murders was sobering.

I got some pliers smuggled from the machine shop. On that day, we set up a chair and I got hold of the big man’s rotten, wobbly tooth with a pair of mechanic’s pliers. I braced myself for what I knew had to be a once off, do or die effort. I yanked with all my strength and, pop, out it came. Easier than expected. After a moment, he felt his mouth to realise it was gone.

I became a “champion” and praised as the greatest dentist ever. Over the years, I used that experience to pull wobbly teeth from my kids. I find it harder to do for myself, so usually leave them for months as they get worse. Though I’ve lost most of my top teeth, I still have enough left to get by without dentures, thanks to God.

I’ve forgotten the name of the murderer. He nicked my Walkman and some cassettes, as said. They were the only ones I lost inside. On the whole, a cheap enough experience and I got some stories out of it.

I had a much older girlfriend at the time. She used to visit me, together with my parents. My mom was pretty scandalised Lorrie was closer to her age. In the visiting yard, Lorrie gave me a blowjob. That was the high point, I guess.

Close to my release date, a young thug, in for gang rape, attacked my mate, Vince, who went down hard. Pushing my chair back, I stood up to confront this little arsehole, so he hit me too. We ended up on the ground. I was pretty smashed up, so ended up in the sick bay for a couple of days.

While in there, I heard about how the Aborigines had gone after Danny Green for attacking me. They’d adopted me as a good whitey, so saw it as an assault on one of their own. That fight took nearly two full hours. Danny and the toughest Aborigine in the prison just about beat each other senseless. The screws let it happen. The entire prison watched this gladiatorial combat. There was a second fight, too. I was the reason the blackfellas did this. I was and still am touched by their loyalty. Years later when I got locked up for about six months in Roebourne Prison, which was 95% Aborigines, my reputation among them followed, so I had a fantastic experience among them.

You’ve had so many jobs, and even factories making fireworks and kayaks. Now you’re unemployed. At your age, it’s extremely difficult to get any job. In Australia, some employers are still demanding Covid vaccination status. That is preposterous! At your caravan park, there isn’t much socializing, you told me. Cops come through daily to maintain order. Weed helps, but it’s outrageously expensive where you are. Living on a small pension, you don’t get out much, but you do have your rabbit. At my Substack, you even call yourself Rabbit Nexus

-I’m a grey nomad or gypsy living in a caravan with my companion rabbit, Bindy. She cheers me up daily. Even though she’s an arrogant little cunt and not particularly close to me yet, the love and adoration still in my heart for Ramzy, my first rabbit, are her inheritance. I’m as devoted to her as I would be to Ramzy, in whose memory I anointed her from the outset. Ramzy was better than any wife in most ways.

I’d largely turned my back on Western culture and still long for the warmth and culture I had when I had a Pakistani wife. We still communicate. I really feel lost on that score and never once thought of changing my religion again. I’m here for the duration, but am one lonely Muslim, given where I live. I’d embrace a Muslim community if there was one, but in some ways it would exacerbate the feeling of loss from Missi. I’m really hurt and confused by that. I’ve given up seeking female human companionship. I’m just hoping not to have to grieve the loss of more than one or two more rabbits. I grieve deeply and in a way all the losses flow into one for me.

—Steve, 63-years-old

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[unresponsive 7-11 clerk in Hong Kong on 4/21/26]

Socrates didn’t care for writing or painting, since neither can engage you in dialogs. Imposing their views in silence, they can’t elaborate themselves, correct their mistakes or refute your challenges. Worse, they’re narcissistic, for they demand to be admired, just like their creators, often worthless. (That last sentence is my interjection, in dialog with Socrates.)

Though face to face conversations are ideal for us humans to understand each other, obviously, we in 2026 avoid real faces as much as possible. Instead, we gorge on virtual or distant ones, preferably tiny. Fleshy ones with blinking eyes, tongue and teeth demand attentive interaction. They can even hint, promise or threaten you, yes, you, directly, without making a sound. Who can put up with such tyranny?

By the mid-19^th century, Paris had gas lights and straightened, widened streets, thus birthing the flaneur, a fancy word for a curious, attentive idler or nosey bum. (The camera was still too crude, heavy, slow and expensive for street photography.) Wandering around leisurely, he ogles. Even at night, he could do this, without fear of getting lost or assaulted. (Paris wasn’t like a 20^th or 21^st century American city.) Our insatiable voyeurism, that is, our appetite for looking at hundreds if not thousands of strangers daily without engaging them, can be traced to mid-19^th century Paris.

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If you Paypal me $14, or more if you’re inclined, I’ll send you a PDF of Postcards. This nonfiction account of America’s collapse is more relevant than ever. With little money, I traveled across the US over years to document its unraveling. Though Postcards should be taught at American universities, I’m shooed to the other end of the world and deprived of my royalties, but that’s just how they roll, yo!

PayPal donate button is at the top of my photo blog. Thanks!

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[Vung Tau, 6/27/26]

Like soldiers, writers often need stimulants to handle men and demons. Cranking out 90 novels, Balzac guzzled nearly 50 cups of coffee a day. Kerouac relied on bennies. Coleridge and DeQuincey had opium, or the fairy plant, to use a Vietnamese slang. Booze, though, seems the most common. There’s an amusing and endearing YouTube video of a shit faced Tennessee Williams on TV. Trashed Li Bai tried to embrace the moon, shimmering on the Yellow River. Nam Cao (1917-1951) would drag thuốc lào from his bamboo water pipe. His death on 11/30/51 from a French firing squad deprived Vietnam of a literary giant, but he had put himself in harm’s way by joining the anti-French Việt Minh. Writing stories wasn’t enough.

Nam Cao’s tale of love between two hideous outcasts will always resonate. (I’ll need a second life to translate that story.) Of his six novels, four are lost. One of his five children died during the famine of 1944-45. It caused up to two million deaths. To cripple Japan, the US bombed Vietnamese seaports, roads, bridges and railway, so must be held primarily responsible. “But wait, wait,” I can already a chorus, “Wikipedia disagrees!” Do speed read its entries on the Holocaust, moon landings, 9/11 and Bin Laden assassination, etc., to be properly slotted into society.

Uncle Sam also laid waste to European infrastructure. Those skeletal figures in “death camps,” then, were starved by the USA. Nazis didn’t kill them. In 2026, the Judeo Christian attack on Iran and, by extension, all the Gulf States, will cause famines across this globe. They are baked in, by design.

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[Vung Tau, 6/26/26]

Forty-nine-year old Mrs. Hạnh used to sell cheap coffee in the shadow of that never finished Double Tree Hilton. Twenty story tall, maybe, it’s appeared unchanged for a decade, though, daily, construction workers stream in and out. Maybe they’re crafting a nuclear bomb inside? Vietnam, too, needs an empire deterrent.

Many bought from Mrs. Hạnh on credit, with some delaying payments forever. So sick of it, she switched to flogging baluts. These boiled duck embryos are eaten in the shell with raw Vietnamese coriander, salt, pepper, lime and crushed garlic with hot peppers. This new venture didn’t last a week. Now, Mrs. Hạnh just sits at home, apparently, while her common law husband housepaints for 400K [$15.20] a day, six days a week. Since this scrawny, dark man is in his 50’s, how many more years can he last?

In Philly, I housepainted for seven years or so. It’s brutal work, though not as bad as being a roofer. Most US housepainters and roofers are heavy drinkers. Our crew would hit as many as three bars after work, starting with The Office, a skanky go-go joint. It’s just steps from Bookbinder’s, a Philly institution known for its lobsters, on 15^th Street. Too high class for me. I never ate there. In The Office, I saw an old, meek man lick a dancer’s high heel.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Just to try something new.”

Another time, I noticed a middle-aged Korean guy looking very angry.

One dancer, this light skinned black woman, said to me, “I hear you Chinese guys can do it a hundred times in a row?”

I was too exhausted or stunned to reply, “No, a thousand.” Life is mostly a series of lost opportunities. Anything worth saying or doing only comes late at night, forty years later, in your motherfuckin’ head.

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