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]
7 comments:
Hi Linh,
Khyber pass is a cool name for a bar. Where was this venerable institution located?
Best,
S
Hi S,
It's still operating on 2nd Street near Market in Philly. I saw an excellent show by The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black there.
Linh
Based on what I'm reading here, your "100 American Bars" is going to be one hell of a picture/story book.
Hi Martin,
Thanks, man. As you well know, in a country like Vietnam, a bar is a glamorous place where rich white people spend a lot of cash. Vietnamese have no idea there are millions of bars where poor white, black, brown and yellow people with missing teeth sit for hours to nurse the cheapest beers. Those low end residents of the West don't travel to Vietnam. Well, except as soldiers a while back, and even those guys had lots of money in this economy.
My sober look at American dives, which I love, will be eye opening for Vietnamese.
Linh
Hi Linh,
My own family's history ties in with your comment above. In the 1940s or 1950s my great-uncle Al built "The Big Stone Inn," by hand (with help from his brothers), and owned/ran the bar his entire working life. The Big Stone Inn is in a small coal-mining town not far from Johnstown PA., the beer was 10¢ a glass, and the regulars were the sons of Hungarian, Czech, Polish, and other Eastern European immigrants. All the regulars were either working or retired pick-and-shovel coal miners, many had sons who were drafted into the US Military and fought in Vietnam. Three of these drafted sons were my uncles who went to boot camp, then Vietnam, pretty much straight out of high school. For one of my uncles, Andy, who is now in his 70s, Vietnam was to only foreign country he ever visited (as a teenage soldier); the story I heard about uncle Andy (who's a bit "slow") was that he slept through a NVA attack on his military base.
I'd like that your picture/story book becomes such a success in Vietnam that it's translated into English and Hebrew and also becomes a hit in the USA and Israel. Though, business-wise, you're probably much better off to have your book translated into Chinese and have it become a huge hit in their gigantic market.
Now that I'm thinking about it, your American Bar book could be a big hit in nationalist China: the Chinese Communist Party would love to spread, far and wide, the truthful imagery/commentary of broken, bottom-of-the-barrel, Americans spending their dead-end lives drowning their sorrows in cheap, dive-bar, beer. I know that you, personally, don't think this way towards these down-and-out Americans but the CCP wouldn't see it that way, they'd see these dive-bar dwellers as living proof of the American failure - the opposite of the American dream. The CCP would hold up your book and say, "Are these the citizens of the greatest country on earth?!, "Is this American Exceptionalism?!?,"Are these humans superior?!," "Do they get to tell us what to do?!" "Ha!"
As Nikita Khrushchev once said to the Americans: "We will bury you!"
Hi Martin,
Sitting on Amtrak trains, I passed by Johnstown many times and always wished I could visit, but never did.
I have two books translated into Japanese, and even a few poems translated into Korean, but Chinese are very condescending towards Vietnamese, so I'm not counting on them taking any interest in my work. Plus, this book about American dives oozes with affection for their denizens, for they are my people. It wouldn't make for good propaganda!
Linh
Hi Linh,
Missin' Johnstown ain't missin' much.
Take care,
Martin
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