East LA Painting by Chepe Escondido                                  Brothers cycling in Kampot, Cambodia

MY brother is NOT impressed with YOUR swaggy homegown, Chepe Escondido!!!!

Joke Only! 

Muchas gracias por su generosidad!  It's actually really tasty; it just burns up so quickly. 
I'm not complaining, merely commenting.  Critiquing the latest harvest, that is all.  Ah shit!

Give it up for being legal while others are criminalized for doing the same thing.
 
Did you enjoy the Dengue Fever show?  I sure did.  Dengue Fever, an East LA Band of Cambodian ancestry.  All further photos come from my travels to Cambodia.  All further words about the show.



Koh Kong Cambodia, bordertown to Hat Lek Thailand
You can read more about this town in my opus CULTUREBOOK MMX Book Two

Funny thing.  Minutes from your door, Chepe sitting at a red light, I had a thought, OH MY DOG!
"Free show, Park setting, East Los / Cambodian Band?"  I'd be a fool not to go there and set up shop. 

I had no idea where the show was.  I've been to Pasadena maybe 5 times in my life.  4 of them with YOU! 
I planned to hit Old Town, get an LA Weekly, but I didn't have to.  GOD was on my side.  I was listening to my Rai Ko Ris CD, my punk rock friends from Nepal, while driving up the Arroyo Hwy thinking -- I thought about Olivier, the 50 year old Mohawk wearing French drummer of Rai Ko Ris, if HE were ME, a writer with a book for sale, HE would totally (LET'S) GO DOWN TO THE PARK TODAY and try to sell books.  Why the fuck not?!?  Thanks Aubrey for the song with the same title, co-written with Flavor Flay and John Compus and Fleff.  It was very fitting.  I guess I should thank Erica cuz SHE REQUESTED IT!  Funny thing, the store clerk recommended it!  Shakolov Shoplifing Berkeley  Fleff knew 3 different Sokolovs in 3 semesters!  What are the chances of that?
 
Also, RAI KO RIS is basically Drums and Bass/Guitar both played by Oli's Nepalese wife.  When they sing together, they sound kind of like EXene and John Doe, but because RKR's sound quality is not TIP TOP, they sound a little like Tonio singing alongside Chrissy in Beef Church. Rai Ko Ris got me amped.
 
And, also because of the beauty of Dengue Fever's lead female vocalizations, it all kind of adds up to the proposition that:  Perhaps a female singer IS the way to go for, US and our Coffee Stains.  I think a woman singing my song Zsa Zsa Gabor would be a lot like NIKO and the VU, minus Andy Warhol.  Like Hole. hunky dory bowie 

Just a thought that we can roll with. 
 
And Coffee Stain was Chepe Escondido's Sports News Guy character in our old Vid.
 
I found the park, found parking across the street, was told by organizers that I couldn't NOT set up shop.  I did anyway.  I sold TWO whole books, talked to a lot of people.  Met the band, gave a signed copy to Nemol, Dengue Fever's hot, well endowed, Cambodian singer, whom I rapped with for a long time.  She said, "We play UCLA late September."  I said, "By then my book will be famous.  You have one of the first copies."  That's what I told Nemol as I gave her a signed copy with my electronic digits.  "This book is going to be very well known in short time."  I told her convincingly.  She asked him knowingly!  
 

This is NOT Nimol.  This is some other girl of Cambodian  ancestry whom I know, in Phnom Penh. 
She's older than she looks!

If NImo had made a plug of my book while on stage, I'll bet at least 30 people would've bought one.  AND I could've sold each for $12.  That'll be the price when me and the Gabors have our STORE on Venice Beach next week. 

Have his kids be hawkers -- they are 1/4 - 1/2 Mexican/Filipina.  They'll DRAW people in by sitting around drawing with us and being noticeable.  We'll probably bring a guitar and some percussive as well.  Sodas, food, and umbrella for the sun, swim suits.  Make a day of it.  Zsa and Isis don't go back to school till mid Sept. and their father has no job.  Now he does!
 
Let the product sell itself, but employ the Gabors draw in people.  And they get their cut, as promised.  With me ALONE I can easily get muscled out or harassed AND I can't even leave to go buy a lemonade!  But, more importantly, I can stay true to my word of employing St Tommy.  That PROMISE was bent on the whole warehouse premise.  Now a new  bender is needed.

It's like my mom and our cleaning woman.  I used to say to my mom, we don't really need her EVERY week and my mom's reply, "She NEEDS the money!" as if THAT were my mom's chief purpose in hiring her.  Funny, but true.
 
We ARE all in this together.  The sooner people realize that, the better for all.  I'm glad my mom has been my biggest teacher of all my teachers in this lifetime.  I would never want to discount Townsend's influence on me.  I'm listening to him right now.  Pictures of Lily.  Happy Jack.  A Quick One, while he's away

I arrived at the Pasadena free show BEFORE Dengue Fever took the stage and that entire show was supreme.  Thanks for the idea.  Did you see me there?  If I'd had a phone, I MAY have texted you.  Did you get my ...burrito? 
 
Got my plan all worked out now.  Tom will go to work for me. His first job is to make my sign and station.  He's an artist.  He's good at that stuff.  I'll design it.  BUY A BOOK    FILL YOUR HEART WITH LOVE TODAY bowie
FILL YOUR MIND      LAOS, CAMBODIA, PHILIPPINES, THAILAND, SOUTH KOREA, JAPAN
US ARMED FORCES and TEACHING ENGLISH IN ASIA                         WHAT IS SEX TOURISM ANYWAY?
 
Something to that effect
 
Homeless dudes in urine soaked pantaloons panhandling alms
Me selling my book
What's the difference

Spread the word.





The Streets of Phnom Penh circa 2008