Bar Ticks
[Fatso Foggerty's in South Philly, 6/4/18]
Like I said about six weeks ago, I’ve been concentrating on publishing books in Vietnam. I have two manuscripts submitted, a collection of my prose from around 1996 to 2006, and a selection of travel writing from the last two years. I’m now busy with a photo book, Bar bèo mẽo [Yank dives]. It will have around 115 images.
Since Bar bèo mẽo won’t see the light in the USA, I’ll post sections in progress here. I’ll start, though, with a newspaper clipping of me in a bar from 1994. Going from poet to published author to blogger for semi-literate racists at a limited hangout website was one hell of a ride, but I’m glad to be sanely situated here, among those who know how to enjoy a few with sweet, beautiful people who’ve struggled heroically. We’re here to appreciate.
Now, we go to Steelton, PA of January 15th, 2013. To brace ourselves for the dodgy day ahead, let’s cough up $3.70 for a lunch of beef bologna, cheddar and pretzel at Blue Front Lounge. If still active, it’s a soul balming oasis for blues musicians and listeners in central PA, so go there.
If the food doesn’t look all that, just think of that fellow who had to suffer 4 1/2 years as a hostage in Beirut. You, too, will have a story to tell.
Now, let’s meet Charles and Jackson at Jones Corner Bar:
My note from 1/16/13:
A rather touchy fellow, Jackson said hello to man who had just walked in, and when this man didn't respond heartily enough, Jackson started to grumble to another patron as the man was in the bathroom, "I'm getting sick of some of these people. Uncouth! Don't speak English!" When his friend came out, Jackson promptly gave him shit, and finished with, "I'm going to go home, get my gun and shoot your ass!" Eating grapefruit, the female barkeep interrupted herself to say, "Hey, you can't threaten people around here."
"I'm going to get my gun and shoot everybody. You too!" He turned towards me.
"Shoot me?! I haven't done shit!"
"I'm going to shoot you for not doing shit!"
I laughed, shook my head, "Fuck you too, man! I'm going to shoot you!"
There was actually a shooting just outside Jones Corner Bar in October, and an armed robbery inside in December, not that I knew about these yesterday, not that I would have given a shit.
It turned out Jackson had served two tours in Vietnam, and also in Saudi Arabia. Jackson spent 29 years in the Navy altogether. When Vietnamese refugees stayed at Fort Indiantown Gap from 1975 to 77, Jackson was a guard. Locals were protesting, Jackson said, "People were saying shit like, ‘These people killed my brother, they killed my father, and now you’re bringing them here.’ I was right there, I saw it, but things have changed, you know. Now you have all these Vietnamese businesses around here, all these restaurants."
On Steelton's Front Street, with its many shuttered stores, I saw a Vietnamese nail salon, and the local state representative is Patty Kim, a Korean-American.
When it was time for me to go to the bus stop, Jackson gave me a ride in his truck.
[more soon]
So good to see your posts, Linh! I cherish your Work. As a fellow "dive patron", I am always glad to see SOME-damn-body expressing what the real world of fly over folks is like: the good, bad, and ugly; and the gritty beauty of it all. Which I miss sometimes. Now I'm semi-retired, married for a long time, so my thing is staying at home and having a few cold beers. But I work part-time at a big "po' folks" mart, local owned, so I get to work with *my* people, and see *my* people in droves shopping there, three days a week. And it's a great therapy to get out of the office and do some intensive physical labor (as I have always done), be around others to remind me of where I came from. I love it, I really do. I am truly happy for you to have finally made it back Home. Was worried about you for a while there, as it was hard for you to do. But the States really are a tinder box now: essentially, being stoked by the weirdos wanting to out-weird each other, egged along and led by the nose by the ubiquitous Jew, of course. Easy to tell when someone has been on Tik-Tok too much when they come in, blue- haired and pierced in strange places to show the world how weird they are! Yeah, even here. But the majority are plain people, blue-collar (think of that word for a minute: "collared", leashed!?), people that don't go usually to Assholemart up in the nearby city, which I grew up in; now carpet-bagged Foreign Occupied Territory/"Gentri-fucked", off-limits by sneering glares and rude treatment for us Natives by the swarming hordes of yankees that have fled their hell-holes, only to bring it here with them. I'm digressing, perhaps, to a ridiculous degree. But I am so anecdotal that a direct conversation with me with numb minds is like Grandpa reading you a bedtime story: before I'm done, they are snoozing! So, to conclude, I eagerly look forward to your new Work; and I am debating between Namibia, Russia, and maybe Vietnam. The Lady wants to go to a coast, anywhere, a real water-baby, so she keeps ruling out Russia! But the travels you've done is such an inspiration, I love reading every post you make. A beach nearby, a friendly little village with some good dives and real people-and no immediate potential for a fucking war until we naturally perish...Lot to wish for in the Age of the (always-coming!) Dark Winter. But, hey, a guy can try. I'm Spartan as hell, but I do have people I love and are my responsibility. I might have to at least trick them into getting on that last flight out and stay behind to "die with my boots on"- but there won't be anything left here in a year or two anyway, and I do worry that most of the world will not be "hospitable" to Murkin refugees. In the meantime, I hope you rest well now, after this bedtime story :-) ...Have a wonderful, CONTENT, and happy day, Dear Sir,
Sincerely, David
Linh,You and I are of the same generation .I'm 65 and attended a military academy on L.I. from 69-75. It was quite a surreal experience. The war was raging and the fall of my first year, we had a parade to honor 3 cadets who had graduated in June and were killed in Vietnam by the fall. It all seemed so confusing to me a 12 y/o boy whose only interest in life was baseball and sports in general During my 6 years that I attended, I experienced having eggs, tomato's and rotten fruit thrown at me and my fellow cadets as we marched down 5th avenue past the Metropolitan Museum of Art behind the West Point cadets on Veterans Day. The building housing one of our classrooms was burned down to the ground by angry people against the war. Our school was attacked by people from Huntington High School resulting in a huge riot between the cadets and the students. I was sick in bed with the flu and woke up at about two in the morning as everyone in my room was pulling their bunk beds apart and taking the pipes between the bottom and top bunks to use as weapons. The police came and arrested the trespassers. And I still remember the day in 1974? I think, when our English professor (who had one of the coolest names ever), Aloysius Chandler , came into our classroom with a big smile filled with excitement "Boy's I have great news-the war is over." He led us in prayer. The following year 1975 I graduated, I guess around the time you came to America. I had to get a draft card but never was called. The military went all volunteer. After 6 years in an all boys military academy I had my fill of the military life. After college, I finally found my calling as a NYC police officer. first in the South Bronx and later in my home town of Flushing. I did 11 tours at Ground Zero and that's when I had my awakening. I saw the towers come down as it happened from where I was posted. I wish I could leave this godforsaken cesspool of a country but thanks to 9/11, I can't. Thousands of my fellow first responders have died and who knows if one day it will get me too. So far I'm doing much better than most but I've learned to never take my health for granted. I know that a lot of people today have a strong dislike for cops in general but I was just an ordinary guy doing what I believed was my calling in life. Anyway, a long winded post I know but I've seen so much with so many experiences. I've had a front row seat of so many life changing events that have shaped both our lives' that led me finding your posts. Thanks for the great posts I love reading them.