I walk around the streets
Of old Saigon
Seeing sensing the undead
The ghosts of the war
That haunted life
So many years ago
So many people died
For a war
That never should have been fought
For reasons that are still not clear
A great tragedy unfolded
In a land half away
Around the world
The ghosts smile at me
And then they disappear
Leaving me in the present
Life goes on
Old Ghosts
Old ghosts wandering the streets of old Saigon
Lost spirits of the dead
Died during the endless wars
Ghostly apparitions around every corner
Here was Kilroy
and his gang of soldiers
Over there were the Viet Cong
Waiting to kill them
Saigon is filled with memories like that
Terrible times were had here in Old Saigon
Silently the ghosts parade the city streets
As the tourists drink in the bars
Mastering the Saigon Shuffle
When I first visited Saigon
Learning the Saigon Shuffle
Was difficult
And now 24 years later
It all seems to be coming back
There is an art to crossing the street
Dodging the motor cyclists, the taxis, the private cars
The bikes and other pedestrians and the buses
The art consists of letting the big guys go first
Then walk between the motorcycles and cyclists
Trusting that they will get out of your way
And they being masters of the Saigon shuffle
Always find a way
In my two visits I was struck
By how it all flows together
Without a central authority
And with almost no planning
Lights or cops
Somehow it just is
And somehow it works
And it is still a mystery to me
24 years after first
Encountering the Saigon shuffle
Coffee Lady
Every morning
I have gone out for Vietnamese coffee
At a sidewalk café
Down the ally from our AIRBNB
The owner is a pleasant middle age woman
Who for some reason likes us
She smiles at us
Greets us in Vietnamese
She does not understand English
Or Korean
And I wonder why
Why was there this connection
Between us
It dawned on me
Perhaps in a prior life
She knew an American or two
And I remind her of someone
Or perhaps she is found
Of Korean K drama
And Angela reminds her
Of her favorite K Drama star
Or perhaps it is both
Or another reason entirely
But I moved today
And will miss her
Might go back for a final cup
Of coffee
To say good bye
To my Vietnamese coffee lady
Old Lady in the Alley
There is an old Vietnamese lady
In the neighborhood
Obviously senile
But everyone knows her
And watches over her
To make sure
She stays out of traffic
And out of trouble
She talks to everyone
But no one seems to understand
What she is babbling on about
They smile at her
And she smiles back
Reminds me of the phrase
From the hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy
Mostly harmless
And she for some reason
She likes us
And like my Vietnamese Coffee lady
I wonder why
Why was there this connection
Between us
It dawned on me
Perhaps in a prior life
She knew an American or two
And I remind her of someone
Or perhaps she is found
Of Korean K drama
And Angela reminds her
Of her favorite K Drama star
Or perhaps it is both
Or another reason entirely
But in any event
I look forward
To seeing her smiling face
Every time I walk
Down my ally way
Avoiding the War Due to Two Birthdays
I avoided being drafted
Due to a fluke in my birth certificate
In 1974 the last draft was held
And some people were drafted
But no one went to Vietnam
The war was ending by then
I avoided the draft though
To no effort on my own
My number came up on the draft list
My real birthday was in the zone
But then my mother pointed out
That my legal birthday was different
When I was born at 4 am
The night clerk typed up
My birth certificate
With the wrong date
My father pointed that out
She said
Once I typed it
That is it
His birthday will be
What I typed
Get use to it
My father gave up
And so, 18 years later
That saved me
From the last draft
Never made it to Vietnam
Many years latter
I visited Vietnam
Right after we opened relations
Glad I finally got to see
The country
That so many Americans visited
so many decades ago
Buddha In Vietnam
In Saigon I saw the buddha
Buddha images are everywhere
Temples are scattered about
Here and there and everywhere
Buddha lives on
In the hearts and minds
Of the Vietnamese soul
The communists tried
To get rid of Buddhism
And other religious traditions
But they failed
And Buddhism has come back
Still speaks to the Vietnamese people
A different style
A different vibe
Than Korean Buddhism
But still Buddhist thought
Prevails in the tropical lands
Of the South
Mekong Dreams
Traveling along the Mekong
Back in time
Seeing the river
The people
Imagining life on the river
Imagining the war
The past in the Mekong delta
And the present tourist boom
Yet life goes on
With its own laid back rhythm
As we traversed the river
We were transported back
To an earlier time
Following the ancient rhythms
Of the Mekong Delta
Down and Out in Saigon
Southeast Asia, and Mexico
has always attracted
A certain type of westerner
The down and out
On a down word spiral
Why?
Relatively cheap to live
Lots of part time gigs
Teaching English
Or other things
Booze, drugs, sex
Readily available
And cheap
Places to stay
Dirt cheap
And no one needs
To sleep out doors
Easy to disappear
Into the foreigners backpackers ghettos
And escape
From whatever you are running from
The locals are somewhat tolerant
The police usually look the other way
And there are lots of people
In your shoes
I was surprised to find
That Saigon has become
The latest place
For the down and outer crowd
To gather together
In Bangkok one sees them a lot
In Cambodia as well
In the Philippines
In Nepal
And south of the border
In Mexico as well
In India not so much
In Japan and Korea
Just too damn expensive
And too cold to be outdoors
Back in the day
I used to work
The citizen services gig
And saw lots of the down and outer set
The old song comes to mind
No one remembers you
When you are down and out
And in the States
Being down and out
Means living on the mean streets
As it is very difficult
To live with almost no money
And the various side hustles
Don’t give you much money
Unless you are dealing drugs
And teaching ESL
Is not an option
Food is expensive
Transportation is expensive
Booze and drugs expensive
Rent is prohibitive
Commercial sex is expensive
And no one loves you
If you are down and out
No one knows your name
You are just another homeless bum
Invisible to all
As you try to make do
Much better to be down and out
In Southeast Asia
Than on the mean streets
Of the USA
Ghosts of Chu Chi Tunnel
Crawling down the tunnels
Of Chu Chi
I could almost imagine
The Viet Kong guerillas
Hiding deep under the tunnels
As the land above is turned
Into a temporary dessert
With the vegetation burned off
By napalm and agent orange
The Viet Kong creep out at night
Stealing onto the bases
Stealing weapons, food, supplies
And occasionally killing soldiers
In their sleep
The US soldiers
Stay on base at night
Terrified of the mosquitos
And of the Viet Kong
the ghosts
Surround me
Telling me their stories
And at last I fled
Through the emergency escape tunnel
Declaring victory
Profoundly shaken up
By the ghosts of the Chu Chi tunnels
Saigon 2019
Motorbike riders waiting at intersection. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Vibrant, vivid, exciting
A city on the move
Becoming a world class city
Yet still with a Saigon swagger
Wandering the streets
Dodging the traffic
Admiring the women
Enjoying the food
Saigon enters my heart
And I know that I will be back
This city is growing on me
Reminds me of Korea back in the 1990’s
One hopes that as it develops
It will not become a carbon copy
Of other big Asian cities
Obliterating its past
In search of a false modern image
I hope it can retain
What makes Saigon Saigon
And not become another Gangnam
Hope it does it with Saigon style
And the people will evolve
The country will emerge
And become what it should be
The Paris of the East
This is my vision
Saigon 2019
Saigon 1995
In 1995
I was one of the first tourists
Allowed in to Vietnam
To freely wander about
Tourism was at its infancy
And Saigon was chaotic
Wild and crazy
Traffic was insane
There were few tourism sites
Few hotels
Few guest houses
And not too many restaurants
The food was good
We saw the war memorial
The re-unification palace
And the big market
But we felt we were being monitored
Beggars were everywhere
There were scams everywhere
And it was not that pleasant an experience
But Saigon grew up
Became a much more tourist friendly place
And these problems we encountered
A thing of the place
Saigon is so much better
So much more developed
That it has captured our soul
And we will be back
Ode to Vietnamese Coffee
Vietnam has the best coffee
In the damn world
Just perfect
Hot as hell
Sweet as heaven
With a kick my ass attitude
To boot
Can’t resist it
Even thought it means
I can’t sleep
Must
Have
My
Damn
Vietnam
Coffee
Right
Now
VC2
In Saigon
One meets
All sorts of strange characters
VCQ
VCQ he called himself
He was filled with stories
From the war
And the revolution afterwards
VC2
Was a young man
In Danang
During the war
15 years old
Recruited into the VC
Infiltrated into the base
Just another street urchin
Stole away at night
Hiding on the big air base
Stealing things
To sell at the black market
Just one of the army
Of street urchins
That became friendly
With the enemy
They called him
VCQ
And the nickname stuck
That is what he called himself
Said that he had become
A VC Seal known as the VCQ
Learned his English
From his black marketing days
He perfect the art
Of wheeling and dealing
As a street urchin
In the mean streets of Danang
After the war
he rose through the ranks
Retired as a general
Became a college professor
Later opened his own business
An interior design business
When Saigon became Saigon
Once again
Wheeling and dealing
Around the world
Always one step ahead
Of the semi-communist authorities
One day he came back with 25 bottles
Of wine
The customs guy said
That is too much
He said but I can’t drink them all
And gave him 5 bottles
Problem solved
And VCQ laughed and laughed
As the wine washed over us
And we became drunk
With his endless stories
From the mouth of VCQ
Just another night
In Saigon
Drinking the Night away
With the VCQ
Future VC
Saigon is filled with interesting characters
Filled with fascinating back stories
One could write hundreds of stories
About the people one encounters
In a nail shop
That caters to mostly Korean visitors
We met a boy of 8 years old
Who was a natural born hustler
He had wonderful English
Wonderful French
And even some Korean
And he wanted to show us around
He spoke English
Without an accent
In an upper class British style
As if he were born to the manor
How and why he learned
English so well
Would be an interesting story
His Mother was also
An interesting character
Been running the store
For five years
Amused it had become the Korean
To Go place
In Saigon
Just one of those mysterious things
They had another shop nearby
A smoothie place
And he offered to guide us there
But were in a hurry
As we left
I thought to myself
Here is a future VCQ
The fascinating character
That had wined and dined us
Late into the night
Beguiling us with his tales
From his time in the VC
Wonder what this future VCQ
Will tell his future friends
About his past life
Living in a beauty saloon?
1. just Another Morning In Phnom Penh
When I was in Phnom Penh
I stayed
at the Riverside Hotel on 136th Street.
Across the street
was Neil’s convenience store .
.oddly named
since I had yet
space”>
named Neil..
There was also a slew
of sleazy as hell Thai style
girlie bars
outside of which
satnaked pretty young things
Khmer girls dressed to the proverbial nines
looking for a willing victim
among the male flotsam
flowing along the naked streets
Just another night in the big city
thesewomen
I avoided
since they represented
the surest and quickest way
to loose one’s honey
and one’s money
and one’s soul
and dignity
becoming just another
ugly aging foreign male sex tourist
way past his prime
way past his due date
Instead,
upon exiting the hotel
I turned right in the mornings. At the riverfront
I made a right
and walked
to a different convenience store
where I purchased
two containers of strawberry yogurt
and a bottle of chocolate flavored soymilk.
After completing the transaction
I went to an outdoor cafe
that charged $1.90
for a large ice coffee
with sweetened milk.
just like I like it
Vietnamese Style
HCM Style
likeEven in the late morning there were already
quite a few foreign male tourists
drinking cold beer
in the hot sun .
Some sat..
like schoolboys
on first dates with young Khmer women
that they had undoubtedly
purchased the night before.
..seeking as far as I could tell.
.. to impress the women with their bold and masculine characters
…many of these men
were older and grotesquely misshapen..
.that is..not fit.
a true nightmarish
vision
from the depths of hell
playing out
every morning
and every evening
..After eating the yogurt
and drinking the ice coffee
and looking again
at the half naked women
sitting all around me
I paid my bill and hailed
an open tuk tuk. The going rate for locals
for short rides
was one dollar or 4000 rial.
The going rate for foreigners
was double that..
..I always paid the local rate of one dollar
and said thank you in Khmer…
.Akon.
..I quickly left giving the driver no opportunity
to haggle over the fare..
..my destination
each and every day
was the same…
The Hotel Cambodiana…
a plush expensive hotel
about two miles
down the proverbial road..
.there I used the fitness club
which included a normally empty 15 meter pool ,
a fitness center
with free weights and weight machines .
.treadmills and a sauna.
I began the workout each day with a swim of 90.lengths..
that is 1.35.km or slightly more
than three quarters of a mile.
..the pool was embellished
with six golden statues
of Ganesh elephant Gods
spouting
streams of cool water
from their inanimate trunks.
I enjoyed swimming
under those Ganesh
blessed streams.
enjoying the good luck vibes
There was a fully stocked bar
in the pool area.
After the swim
I usually took a short break
in the hotel cafe
adjacent to the lobby.
There I ate a delicious
blueberry muffin
each day
at the cost of one dollar.
One day .
..while enjoying just such a muffin I had the good fortune
to meet a fellow American from Iowa City Iowa.
He was an agricultural scientist
He was of medium height .
.had white hair
and blue eyes
..and…..possessed an intelligence
that impressed me greatly .
..an intellect that was so obviously superior
that it rushed out at you
from his blue eyes .
..an amicable likeable intellect…
a man you could not help but like..
.we discussed the challenges
of supplying
food for a world population
that would soon exceed nine billion..
.the serious threat
posed by human induced climate change …
the resultant acidification of ocean waters
as more greenhouse gases
were being absorbed by them..
.but he was optimistic
that solutions
to these problems could be had..
..this was indeed an impressive
and unexpected encounter
Just another morning
In Cambodia
Stung Treng Beckons
After lunch I went to the bus station
the town of Stung Treng
was calling me
for some reason
always want to go there
wherever that was
that is
the Cambodian open road
beconing me
The bus fromStung Treng
to Phnom Penh
was actually
a 9.passenger van..
.neither new nor especially old..
.Stung Treng
is a small dusty town
near the Laotian border
in northeast Cambodia.
The rural areas of Cambodia
are relatively depopulated
and automotive malfunctions
can be a tricky thing to deal
with when there are no mechanics let alone people in a given area..
.I had gone to Stung Treng
to investigate a possible
opportunity teaching
at a small high school
run by a Presbyterian
pastor from Korea.
An old friend of mine
from my Korea days
decades in the past
My friend was employed there
and lived on the premises
with his Korean born wife
In a small apartment
provided by the school.
When I arrived in Stung Treng
there were no taxis
tuk tuks .
or any form of transport available..
it was a town
in which you
were simply deposited.
with no idea
of where to go
or how to get there.
..at any rate .
..the job was not available
until January..
a fact I learned upon arrival.
.
due to shrinking enrollments
and a lack of funds
in general..
.I stayed at
the Mekong Hotel..
.which
consisted of a series
of small air conditioned bungalows.
..behind the office
was a very large
and well-maintained pool..
.which I used
twice during my brief visit
not the same
as the Cambodian gym
back in the city
but I made do
and did my morning swims
and exercises
my friend told me stories
out of school about the Korean pastor
that made Captain Queeg
seem perfectly normal..
.that he physically punished students .
..that he harshly criticized
Cambodia
while singing
the praises of Korea
and that he had
used child labor
to build his school..
..to be fair
I did meet
a remarkable individual
at the Sekong fitness center..
.an astonishing place
located
near the middle of nowhere
that contained
only new exercise equipment…
it was there
that I met
Scott Sward
from Long Beach , California..
a lost missionary
who had been in Stung Treng
with his American wife
for ten years..
..a kind and helpful man .
filled with the grace of God
..it was my impression
that he brought much good
to the people of Stung Treng
although it is doubtful that many people
voluntarily abandoned
their practice of Buddhism
to adopt a new set of beliefs..
. Scott gave me a ride
to the bus station
at which I purchased
the ticket for the nine passenger bus
that would painfully
make its way back
to Phnom Penh
because
no one had bothered
to check the level of engine coolant.
..there was none..
.and the engine repeatedly overheated
forcing the driver
to stop and pour water
either into the coolant receptacle or over the engine itself..
..luckily
I had struck
up a conversation
with a cute sweat Khmer female passenger that somehow rendered
the mechanical problems
less disturbing..
.this conversation
could have led to other things
I am sure ..
..but when we arrived .
.I simply went
my own way
and she hers…
and I did not
become another
Pathetic looser American
Dude parading the streets
with his recently purchased
lady of the night
I love Korea public art. Due to a Korean law, building owners receive a sizeable tax deduction for displaying public art. As a result there has been a proliferation of public art all over the country. Some of it is quite good, some questionable, but most have a whimsical sense if not quirky sense of humor. I love walking about discovering public art in my daily walks across town. Here then are my favorite Korean public art pieces, followed by some articles on Korean Public Art. If any one has other examples they wish to share send them to me and I will update this article.
The Art
beer murals
Berkeley in Seoul Coffee Shop
Butterflies
Miscellaneous sculpture
Fish Mural Gyeopodae Beach
Hongdae Street Mural
Hongjae subway mural
Horse statue Gyeopodae Beach
Coffee motto
Mullae Street Art
Make A Wish
Halloween
Manakin
Baseball fans
Unseo Street Mural
Korean Bull
Blue River Demon
Roman Statues
KGB Vodka
more public art
these are taken from a mural at the Youngsan Army base of all places.
For more information look at the following articles
The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday that it is looking for Seoul residents, including foreigners, to uncover public art in the city’s streets.
Compared to cities famous for iconic and popular landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty in Manhattan and the 3-ton bronze sculpture Charging Bull in Wall Street, Seoul is relatively less known for public art and its landmarks.
To build a city with more variety in culture, architecture and public art, Seoul City kicked off a project last year that allocated about 700 million won ($590,000) to construct public art and landmarks on par with those around the world.
“We hope Seoul will serve as an artistic city for tourists,” said Yoo Hyun-ju, an official from Seoul City’s design policy department.
(The Seoul Metropolitan Government)
The project “Arts on Seoul’s street found by citizens” invites anyone living in Seoul to participate in uncovering art in the city. It will run from Aug. 19 to Oct. 18.
Under 10 themes, participants are to find public art and landmarks in a group of 10, joined by field experts and art connoisseurs. Their promotions of Seoul’s public arts and introductions of iconic landmarks in the city can be viewed via Seoul City’s social media. After the list of public art is collected, there will be public vote in early November and the results of the most beautiful public art in Seoul will be displayed at Dongdaemun Design Plaza.
Those interested can sign up at http://sculture.seoul.go.kr/archives/73034. Applications will be accepted until Aug. 5. Foreign residents should send their name, age, gender, address, occupation and motivation for participating to jenifer@seoul.go.kr.
By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)
South Korea’s Public Art is Not for Art’s Sake
February 08, 2011 7:00 PM
________________________________________
Public art in Seoul, South Korea
In recent years, cities have seen sculptures, paintings and all manner of artistic installations sprout like mushrooms, both inside and outside of office buildings. Many critics think the attempt at urban improvement is not a pretty picture.
This is definitely not art for art’s sake. It is, rather, art for the law’s sake.
A South Korean law requires owners of large buildings to set aside one percent of construction costs for art.
But what qualifies as art? That is left up to design committees run by local governments.
Hong Kyoung-han, the chief editor of “Public Art” magazine, says the result of the 15-year-old law is disappointing.
“More than 90 percent of it is problematic. It has no relationship to the architecture and no form,” he said. “There is no artistic sense whatsoever. There are thousands of works of arts on display publicly in Seoul, yet most of them are viewed negatively.”
Many critics say they hesitate to regard as art the similar chunks of metal, human-shaped sculptures and reflective orbs plopped in front of most big buildings. So ubiquitous, they generate little notice from passersby.
A few are harder to ignore. A steel company paid nearly $1.5 million to famous sculptor Frank Stella to build “Amabel.” Some people have called for its removal, complaining that it quickly rusted.
Oh Se-hoon is the mayor of Seoul. He is a big booster of urban design and the city beautification campaign begun under his predecessor.
Mayor Oh says the one percent law initially deserved praise because it helped beautify cities. But, he says, the law is not achieving its aim.
“Because it is enforced by law, people install art out of obligation without any passion or an eye for true art,” he said. “Thus we end up with art that hardly can gain public acceptance.”
Magazine editor Hong, however, does not want to see government involvement disappear entirely.
“If we just leave it to the developers of buildings, we cannot expect to see much in the way of cutting-edge, high-level art,” he said. “And only a small number of building owners would put art on public display. So, for now, government participation is necessary.”
Oh presides over a city that, thanks to the law, has put on display 6,000 sculptures, 1,200 paintings, dozens of murals and hundreds of other items ranging from calligraphy to handicrafts.
“Great art in the right place gives citizens a sense of relief and relaxation,” he said. “These days I’m into fun designs which will give people a smile or make them laugh among the hustle and bustle of city life. I want to see art installed here that gives people peace of mind.”
To appease those who do not find peace of mind from the more questionable pieces of art, South Korea’s Culture Ministry wants a change of scene. It is proposing an art reform bill. Instead of placing art on their properties, owners could contribute a smaller amount of money to a public art fund.
Hongdae Graffiti Alley (홍대벽화거리)
The street art splashed across the sidewalks and walls of Hongdae adds to the energy of the vibrant ambiance of this favorite university neighborhood. Thought-provoking art leaves no space untouched. The messages in the works are deep. The pictures are gripping. The emotions of the artists are almost tangible. For some of the best murals, head to the alleyways surrounding Hongik University.
94 Wausan-ro, Seogang-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea, +82-2-1330
Ihwa-dong Mural Village (이화벽화마을)
A steep walk up the slopes of Naskan Mountain in northern Seoul will take you to Ihwa Mural Village, one of the country’s most famous moon villages. In the span of just a few years, the area has transformed from shanty town to tourist attraction thanks to government-run beautification initiatives. Along the streets that wind through the still-dilapidated homes is a collection of art installations, sculptures, murals and signboards created by over seventy artists. Perhaps the most famous of the works include paintings of flowers and fish cascading down steep stairways and giant portraits splashed across concrete underpasses.
6-18 Ihwa-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea, +82-2-1330
Gyeansan san is a great mountain in Incheon not too far from the Incheon Airport, and about an hour from downtown Seoul. There are multiple trails into the mountain. The best trailhead starts a few blocks from the Gyeansan way stop on Incheon Line 1 subway system. You can also find trails starting at Gyean station on the Airport Express line (and soon on line 9 once that extension is finished).
Hiking to the top takes no more than two hours depending upon where you start. There is a nice pavilion on the top. Multiple trail options so doing a loop trail, which I prefer, is quite doable.
At the bottom of the trail, there are multiple restaurants though mostly Korean food. There are CVS stores so it is easy to get snacks before hiking. There is a fair amount of info in English online. But no real good trail maps but then you don’t really need one as it is easy to follow – just go up!
Gyeyang Mountain (also called MT. Gyeyang, Mount Gyeyang, Gyeyang San or 계양산) is located in northern Incheon in the Gyesan-dong area of Gyeyang-gu. It stands 395m above sea level and is officially Incheon’s highest mountain. It is a very popular hiking trial and not just with people people from the Incheon & Seoul areas but people from all over South Korea enjoy climbing it.
The Mountain is a pretty easy climb and depending on which trail you take only takes about an hour to reach the summit (2 hours round trip), while other trails can take close to 2 hours (4 hours round trip). There are nice views over Incheon and as well as the more countryside area of northern Incheon.
After climbing the Gyesan-dong and neighboring Imhak-dong have plenty of restaurants to enjoy (although most are Korean style) as well as hiking and regular stores.
Location and Links
The best and easiest way to get to Gyeyang Mountain (계양산) is via subway. If you go to Gyesan Station (Incheon Line One) and then take either exit a or b and walk up the hill and to the foot of the mountain.
Also here are a couple of useful links about Gyeyang Mountain (계양산):
* Office of Gyeyang-Gu Page – Includes information on hiking trails as well as travel advice in English
Hiking in South Korea is possible during the winter months but difficult, the best times to hiking Gyeyang Mountain (계양산) or any other in Korea is from March to November.
I have found several new trails to conquer Gyeansan.
from Gyean station on the Airport railroad, go to the right and then to the left and follow the stream path until you come to the Gyeansan mountain trailhead (with map)
from there you can take multiple trails to the top of the mountain, or around the mountain. The trail to the top ends up with a lot of stairs.
the trail around the mountain eventually leads to the Gyeansan Rose garden which is very pretty this time of year. there is also a nice Buddhist temple there.
Dining Options for Western Expat Bars in Incheon
For dinner, you can either take a bus or a taxi to Bupyeong market station. There is a great burger joint there. There is also an expat bar called Woodstock that has friendly English speaking waitresses. Great place to end a hike.
updated with information about two other stream bed walks I have discovered. One is near Kimpo airport, the other is near Kyunghee University, my old stomping ground. That one is one of the longest biking trail in Seoul stretching from Euijongbu to the Han River parks.
ARA Canal Incheon provides 18 km of great walking/biking trail – great place for a walk/bike near Incheon Airport
One of the things that amazes me about Korea is that no one in Korea seems to realize how great their bike and hiking paths are and they are not promoted at all. Very hard to find out anything about them.
They have sprouted all over the country and are great. One of the nicer ones is the ARA walking path that winds along both sides of the ARA ship canal from the Han River to the Incheon harbor, about ten miles in length.
I had driven by their many times admiring the waterfall and vowing that someday I would take a walk along the ARA.
For this trip, I started off at Gyeyan station on the Railroad express (also line two Incheon Subway). From there we walked down country roads through the edges of mountain. One could easily go up into the mountain from there if one wanted to although that is not the major route to the mountain top, for that you need to go to Gyeansan station on the number two Incheon subway.
After a three mile walk through the country roads, we came to the ARA waterway. It took a while to find an access road down to the trail along the waterway. But once we did it was a very nice walk. A bit windy but nice. When we got to Geoman station – nearest station to the ARA – we had walked 7 miles. We had lunch at a Café Le Mer which overlooks the waterway. It was too windy though to picnic.
There are river cruise ships that go up and down the river way as well. But again, not promoted very much.
I have three complaints about the ARA. First of course is the lack of promotion alluded above. This includes lack of signage from Geoman station which is the only train station that is walking distance to the ARA.
Second, there is very limited access points to the walkway. There should be steps down to the walk way every half mile in my opinion. Most of the steps have been disabled as they are too dangerous to use. They should be maintained! And used.
There are access points here and there – and they are wheel chair accessible which is a big plus. But not enough and too far apart.
Third, there are only a few places to rent bikes – one by the Geoman station and the other two are at the ends of the trail.
Fourth there are no maps available anywhere. The trail connects to the Han River walk so one could ride a bike all the way into Seoul and beyond. Why that is not promoted to a wider audience is beyond me.
Fifth and this is beyond their control, it is windy as hell. Why they don’t line it with wind turbines is beyond me. They should. They have a couple of old wind turbines that are just for display.
All in all, I’d give this an B – the lack of promotion and access is a serious flaw in my opinion.
for more info see the following blog excerpts
Gyeongin Ara Waterway (경인 아라뱃길)
Wiki Article on ARA Canal
• •
The Ara Canal or Gyeongin Ara Waterway (Hangul: 경인 아라뱃길) is a canal in South Korea, linking the Han River to the Yellow Sea. It extends from Incheon district Seo-gu to Seoul Gangseo-gu. It was built in 2012. The purpose of the canal is to provide flood control and to facilitate leisure pursuits.
Contents
• 1History
• 2Outline of the Ara Canal project
• 3Controversy
• 4Contents
o 4.1Scenic views of Suhyang
o 4.2Sport
4.2.1Bicycle
4.2.2Ara Marina
o 4.3Cultural life
4.3.1Gyeongin Ara Culture Festival
4.3.2Hyundai premium outlet
• 5Notes
History[edit]
Choe I, son of Choe Chung-heon, attempted to construct a canal in the Goryeo period. It failed as it was technologically unfeasible. One of the Joseon kings also tried and failed.
The Gulpocheon river “waterproof road” project was started in 1992. Gulpocheon’s limitation was lack of water flow. In particular, there was a flood in the summer of 1987, resulting in six thousand flood victims in the Incheon area. To solve this problem, Gulpocheon waterproofing[clarification needed] was undertaken, starting with a five-year survey. In 1995, the Gyeongin canal project was planned, and controversies followed over the next 20 years.
The project was started in 2009 and completed in 2012.[1]
Outline of the Ara Canal project[edit]
Division Contents
Project Section Incheon Seo-gu Sicheon-dong – Seoul Gangseo-gu Gaehwa-dong
Facilities Plan main Canal: total length 18 km (width: 80 m, depth of water: 6.3m)
Incheon terminal: 244 million(㎡), door of lock: 2
Gimpo terminal: 187 million(㎡), door of lock: 2
Back complex: Incheon terminal back complex, Gimpo terminal back complex[2]
Total cost ₩1.6 trillion (about US$1.4 billion at May 2012 exchange rates)
Project period 2009–2012
Controversy[edit]
Controversy over the construction of the Ara canal can be traced back to 1995. The Gulpocheon waterproof project was examined according to several scenarios. One scenario was to dig the waterway in such a way as to discharge water into the Yellow Sea. Another was that the utility Gimpo develop the region for a reservoir. Though the latter is more economical, the government selected the former way in order to boost Korea’s economy.
The waterway extended in the direction of the Yellow Sea (width: 40~80m, length: 14.2 km). They also constructed a 3.8 km length of waterway to the Hangang river. After long discussion, the government carried forward to private sector investment and Hyudai Engineering & Construction was selected as the main business operator in 1995.
With no economic benefit[citation needed] and a negative effect on the ecosystem, public opinion turned against the project. Business operator and Ministry of Construction and Transportation submitted an ‘economic analysis’ and demand prediction report to demonstrate the project’s validity. As a result, eight reports were made for Gyeongin Ara canal. The cost-benefit report about Gyeongin Ara canal submitted by Korea water resources corporation gained 2.08 and 2.2 scores in 1996. However, when the IMFcrisis occurred, the project was cut.
After the IMF crisis passed, the ministry of construction and transportation requested a KDI report of demand prediction and cost analysis in 2002. This time the score was 0.8166 and on reanalysis the score remained below 1. They rejected the report and delayed service cost to adjust report. The KDI resubmitted report by eight scenario including method of main traffic road and whether road charging or not. The result is 0.9223 to 1.2807. However, in 2003, the board of audit and inspection of Korea confirmed inflated result. So they stopped this project and requested disciplinary action.
In August 2004, the ministry of construction and transportation assigned project’s report service to Netherlands company and got a 1.76 score in March 2007. In 2008, KDI investigated this report again and submitted score result 1.065. Also predicted the quantity of goods transported in 2011 was 290 thousand 4000 TEU related to container, 6.3 million ton related to sea sand, 5 million ton related to steel, 6 million related to passenger. At this point, 80 percent of container and 53 percent of sea sand are included the quantity of goods transported in yellow sea. Also the tailrace[clarification needed] which discharged water to hanyang river was completed in width 80 m. It was decision to consider Ara canal. The member of the national assembly of opposition party said that if government don’t consider the Ara canal, the width is enough to 40 m.[3]
This controversy reappeared during the project period. In the summer of 2010, there was damage in the nearby Ara canal region, due to heavy rain. Environment groups insisted that this project has no effect to prevent disaster, like flood or heavy rain. Also they said that the Ara canal has no plan to build ‘rain water pump station’, ‘rain water pipe’ and so on. So they demanded that this project be reexamined. But Korea Water Resource Corporation insisted that if the Ara canal has not existed, this had great damage. This damage was due to lack of capacity in pipe conduit. The Ara canal help to prevent a great damage to flow rainwater. Also the Ara canal’s role is to flow rainwater to Yellow sea by preventing flood. So installing ‘rain water pump station’ and ‘rain water pipe’ and others are not related to this project.[4]
Contents[edit]
One of the parks on Ara Canal
Scenic views of Suhyang[edit]
There are eight scenic views of suhyang. First is “The Yellow Sea” , “Ara Incheon passenger terminal”, “Sicheon Riverside”, “Ara Waterfall”, “Suhyangwon”, “Duri Eco Park”, “Ara Gimpo Passenger Terminal” and “Ara Hangang Waterside”.[5][6]
Suhyang 2 Ara light island
Suhyang 3 Sicheon park resting place
Suhyang 4 Ara maru / Ara waterfall
Suhyang 5 Traditional palace
Suhyang 6 Auto camping place
Suhyang 7 The water’s edge square
In “Ara Waterway”, there is a 41.3 km bicycle path[7]
There are five bicycle rental shops in Ara Waterway.
There are three facilities in the Ara Marina region.
The yacht mooring facility accommodates 199 ships (water: 136, land: 58). The marina support facility has a “ship gas station”, “ship repair shop”, “crane”, “inclined plane”, “washing room”, “sewage disposal”. Also in the Ara marine center, there is a convention center, wedding hall and restaurant.[9] In late May, the Gimpo mayor yacht contest is held.
Cultural life[edit]
Gyeongin Ara Culture Festival[edit]
‘Gyeongin Ara Culture Festival’ was first held in October 2013. It is a nine-day festival.[10] The program has changed every year. The programs are divided by region, Incheon jeongseojin.
Hyundai premium outlet[edit]
The shopping mall opened in February 2015.[11] It is the largest shopping mall in the Ara canal region.
Address
41 Jeongseojin 1-ro, Seo-gu, Incheon
경기도 김포시 고촌읍 아라육로270번길 74
Type
Amusement Parks/ Tourist Resorts
Inquiries
• 1330 Travel Hotline: +82-2-1330
(Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese)
• For more info: +82-1899-3650,
+82-31-999-7833~4
Homepage http://www.giwaterway.kr
(Korean only) http://www.waterway.or.kr
(Korean only)
Go to map
• Information
Introduction
Ara Waterway flows downstream of the Hangang River to the West Sea.
In the 13th century, King Gojong, the twenty-sixth king of the Korean Joseon dynasty started the waterway construction for the first time, but it was discontinued due to technical obstacles and the difficult state of the country.
In 2011, Ara Wateway was finally completed. Along the main waterway are ports and water bridges. and people can enjoy the parkways and Ara-rium.
Telephone
+82-1899-3650, +82-31-999-7832
Activity Information
[Aramarina Yacht School]
ㆍDinghy yacht class: 40,000 won – 300,000 won (varies by level)
ㆍCruiser yacht class: 250,000 won for certificate training course / 170,000 won for long distance sailing
* Inquiries regarding Yacht school: +82-70-4247-6730 (Gyeonggi-do Yachting Association)
[Water Leisure Experience]
ㆍCanoe, kayak, water bike – 7,000 won (30 minutes) per person
ㆍBumper boat – 7,000 won (20 minutes) / per person
ㆍYacht – 15,000 won (50 minutes) / per person
ㆍPontoon boat – 15,000 won (30 minutes) / per person
* Waterway + (plus): Inquiry +82-31-999-7895
[Gyeongin Ara Waterway Cruise]
ㆍIncheon pier ↔ Ara Waterway: 16,000 won for adults
* Departure and arrival points are subject to change according to dinner
ㆍYeouido Island ↔ Ara Waterway ↔ Deokjeokdo Island: 57,700 won for adults
* Departure and arrival points are subject to change according to dinner
* Inquiry to Hyundai Cruise: +82-32-882-5555
[Amphibious Bus]
ㆍAdults 30,000 won / Teenagers 25,000 won / Children 20,000 won
* People with disabilities & Seniors: 20% discount
* Early-morning discount: 20% discount
* Inquiries to Aqua Tour Korea: +82-1670-3355, +82-32-747-3355
[Bike rental]
ㆍ4,000 won for 1 hour * Inquiry to Waterway + (plus): +82-31-999-7834
Operating Hours
[Ara Waterway Incheon Terminal]
Ararium Culture Hall 09:00-18:00
Ara Tower Observatory 09:00-22:00
[Ara Maru]
Round-observatory 09:00-22:00
[Aramarina Yacht School & Yacht Activity]
March-November 10:00-18:00
* Reservation must be made in advance via website or phone.
[Water Leisure Activity (Ara Gimpo Terminal)]
April-October 10:00-18:00
* Permanent operation / Closed on every Monday
Pontoon boat (11:00-20:00)
[Cruise Experience]
* Schedule and course must be checked in advance as it is possible to operate irregularly depending on weather conditions and boarding numbers.
* Hyundai Cruise: http://www.scruise.com, +82-32-882-5555
[Amphibious Bus]
10:00-18:00 / Intervals: every 1 hour
* Check in advance for bus operations as it may subject to changes depending on weather conditions.
* Aqua Tour Korea: +82-1670-3355, +82-32-747-3355
Parking Facilities
Available
Available Facilities
Main facilities
Main Waterway
Terminal (Gyeongin Incheon Port Terminal, Gyeongin Gimpo Port Terminal)
Barrage (West Ara Barrage, Ara Hangang River Barrage)
Bridges (Cheongungyo Bridge, Baekseok Bridge, Geyang Bridge, Baekungyo Bridge)
Sightseeing facilities
Ara-rium
Barrage Control Center
Lookout
Fountain
Ara Waterway Bridge
Facilities
Information center, coffee shop, observation deck, restaurants, rest areas, toilets, etc.
Facility Utilization Fees
[Duri Ecological Camping Site]
Site A (for car): 25,000 won per night
Site B & C (for general visitors): 20,000 won per night
* Inquiries to Waterway+: +82-10-3824-0426
Restrooms
Available
Korean Info. Service
Available
* Operating hours: 09:00-18:00
* Inquiry for reservation of the service: +82-1899-3650
Interpretation Services Offered
Available in Chinese (09:00-18:00)
* Inquiries: +82-32-561-1339
Ara Waterway Canal – 경인아라뱃길 from Korean travel blog
July 15, 2018
After I moved to Line 9, I create a new objective to explore more places around this line area. This time I want to share a healing place near Incheon. The place called Ara Waterway, here is the official website.
When I searched about this place, lots of beautiful pictures posted online. Most people posted about the transparent observation deck, where you can enjoy the waterway view from top of the deck. The deck floor is made of glass. Feel it yourself
The deck named Aramaru Observation Deck (아라마루전망대)
How to Go
This is important. If you search in the naver map, the map will tell you to get off at Geomam Station, the airport railroad. Well its not wrong, but you are in trouble if your purpose is too visit the deck.
If you get off at Geomam Station, go to exit 2 or 3, and walk around 200m to arrive at the Ara Waterway cruise ticket booth. This point is the start point if you want to enjoy the cruise. As I remember, the price is 16000 KRW for 1 adult. This place called Sicheon Bridge.
You can take bus from here to the Aramaru deck, however last time I couldn’t find the bus stop and ended up walking for 1h to reach the deck ._. You can walk along the Bike Road. Once you arrived at Sicheon Bridge, you will find elevator beside a big statue. Take the elevator and cross the bridge to the opposite site. After that walk to the Gyeyang Station direction. If you walk from Geomam Station, you need to turn right and walk to that direction.
However, if possible, I suggest you to get off at Gyeyang Station and take 597 bus from there. The bus will stop exactly in front of the observation deck HAHAHA The bus stop name is 둑실동아라마루전망대
Aramaru Deck
May Update
I have discovered two other great steam bed walks in the Seoul area.
Golden Walkway
the first is out by Kimpo airport in Janggi station (Gold Line opening July, 2019)
the Golden Walkway is a five k biking/walking path along a restored stream bed. the path leads to a central park that is pretty nice. Above the bike path are streets lined with restaurants and cafes. this is a newly emerging hipster neighborhood not too far from Kimpo airport.
Chungdechong Stream Bike Path (Eijongbu to Seoul Forrest)
the other trail runs to the east of Kyunghee University, and the University of Foreign Languages.. about a five minute walk from Hoeki station. This stream runs from Euijonbu to the Han River trails and goes by the Seoul Forrest. It is lined with bike rental stations. 5,000 won per hour.
we went there during early Spring and it is a great place to see cherry trees. The trail also links to Paekdusan mountain and Changonsan mountains to the west of the bikeway. There are plenty of places to stop off to find a place to eat along the pathway which is one of the longest pathways in the city.
American Professional sports are in trouble! Attending a professional sports game has become unaffordable for the average person and that is a damn shame. Fewer children are learning how to play in school as schools cut back on sports and fitness programs due to costs, liability issues and changing preferences among the public. Sports teams are losing their connections to their local communities.
Yes, the state of American professional sports is deplorable. But I have a solution.
Making the game affordable!!!
We start by making the games affordable for the average person. My ire is directed against the NFL but my comments apply equally to all the major sports. Right now, if one wanted to attend a professional game one would have to spend hundreds of dollars to get tickets, go to the stadium and spend a small fortune for food and drinks. Totally preposterous in my opinion.
I call upon the NFL to end the practice of only selling high price season tickets to a select few. They should sell tickets at a price that people could afford to attend a game. Perhaps setting the average ticket at 10 dollars? And on game days, sell remaining tickets for 5 dollars. Thereby filling up the stadium for every game. That would generate excitement and generate loyalty among the fan base. Better for everyone than the current system where the average price of tickets are about 100 dollars a ticket if one can be obtained at all.
Expanding number of professional teams
I think that there are too few professional teams. There is a market for football that is not being met. At a minimum there should be a professional sports team in every major metropolitan area, and in some areas more than one team could compete.
There are some obvious places that could and should have a team. Sacramento, California? Portland, Oregon? Reno, Nevada? Salt Lake City? There could be up to 60 teams competing across the country. I would also add teams in Mexico and merge with the Canadian football league as well.
The season should be extended as well so that there are 25 to 30 season games prior to the play offs.
Expanding Overseas
I would expand the NFL franchise worldwide setting up a real league in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Why not? This would apply to baseball, basketball, hockey as well as Football.
Real Super Bowl
I would make the super bowl a real super bowl. I would take the best teams of each of the regional leagues and have them compete with the top two teams playing in the Super Bowl. There is no reason why this could not become the biggest game of the year across the world.
World Cup Baseball
I would change the way the world series is done. Each country that has pro baseball (there are over 32) would choose their national champions and then the champions would compete in a world cup of baseball held in the early Spring. For example, if the SF Giants won the North American series they would represent North America in the world cup of baseball, and represent the US in the Olympics as well.
World Cup for Basketball
I would change the way the way that Basketball selects their champions. Each country that has pro baseball (there are over 32) would choose their national champions and then the champions would compete in a world cup of basketball held in the summer. For example, if the SF Giants won the North American series they would represent North America in the world cup of baseball, and represent the US in the Olympics as well.
World Cup for Hockey
For hockey I would expand the number of teams playing professionally, and expand overseas as well. The top teams would compete for a world cup of hockey to be played in early Summer.
Changing the World Cup for Soccer to a once a Year format
I would change how teams are selected to play in the world cup. Each soccer playing nation would select their national champion who would then compete in an annual world cup. For example, DC United might win the North American series then compete in the World cup to represent North America, and they would also compete in the Olympics.
Adopting local schools and colleges
To develop the next generation of players and fans, I would have the professional teams adopt local school districts and colleges and fully fund sports programs. They would do this in cooperation with the other professional teams in the region. The school districts would have a fully funded sports program. Professional athletes would volunteer to serve as coaches during the off season. The student athletes would be given passes so that they could attend professional games for free. This one action would guarantee that children grown up having the opportunity to play sports and generate excitement for the game among the next generation. And it would not cost the professional team a lot of money, and generate a tremendous amount of good will.
Requiring professional athletes to have a degree, and helping them
Find jobs after retirement
All the professional sports federations would jointly agree that they would only hire professional athletes who have finished their college playing days with a degree. They could compete in the professional league for one year on a provisional contract but must have their degree in hand before they begin their second year. I would make the standard contract five years so that players really become part of their communities.
With the proliferation of overseas teams, I would also bring in the best foreign players as well as letting US athletes play overseas as well.
Finally, after a professional athlete ‘s career is over, the professional teams would make every effort to help the professional athlete stay involve with the game by assisting them in getting full time employment as coaches across the country.
Changing the incentive structure so winning means more money per player, loosing means lots lets money per player
Right now, it seems that sometimes professional athletes are phoning it in so to speak. So, I would change the compensation so that winning teams get most of the proceeds from a game, with the loosing team getting their costs covered. This little change would make the games so much more exciting as athletes would have a real incentive to compete
Setting up a North American Sports Commission to oversee professional sports across North America – Consisting of head of NFL, MLB, NBA, MLSS, Hockey, Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Track and Field and Olympics
I would set up Public private partnership to set policy for professional sports in North America including Caribbean, annual conference after the week after the world super bowl followed by the drafting for professional sports teams (all at the same time) just before the beginning of Baseball, soccer etc.
Thus, the NFL would become the NFL commissioner, etc. The head of the North American professional sports commissions would be the NFL commissioner. His or her job would be to coordinate all aspects of the game along with his/her counterparts in the other sports leagues and the Olympics, Pro Golfing, Pro Tennis, Pro Bowling and track and field.
Each city would have its own sports commission consisting of the heads of the local professional sports teams, and the university athletes’ directors. The sports federation would also have players serve on the commission as well.
With these modest proposals enacted, American professional sports can regain their rightful role in America life.
Jake Cosmos Aller
My thoughts on the dismal state of Baseball and what can be done to bring it back. I sent this letter off to MLB but they never responded. Their lost.
Letter to MLB
Commissioner
Baseball is in crisis. Its long term viability as America’s pastime is in serious question as fewer people especially younger viewers are baseball fans. The solution is for MLB to take bold steps to restore Baseball as America’s pastime if not the world’s pastime.
Here’s my proposal to turn MLB around. It requires bold action, and considerable investment of time and resources to grow the sport.
There are four basic elements to my proposal.
First a dramatic expansion of baseball so that there are major league team teams in every state in the US, every province in Canada, and Mexico, and in the DR, PI, and Venezuela and Nicaragua. That would mean expanding the number of teams to 120 teams from the 35 teams that exist today.
This would not be as difficult to accomplish as you might first think. First you would convert minor league teams into major league teams. You would make sure that there is a major league team in each state in the U.S., each Canadian province, each Mexican State and in the baseball playing countries of the Caribbean, and in Asia and Europe as well, making it a real world sport.
Each team would play mostly in its region which will be as follows:
Northwest League
Southwest League
South East League
Northeast League
Central League
And Caribbean/Mexican League
Asia League
European League
This would make it more affordable for teams to travel as they would mostly be playing against teams in their region.
The leagues would be adjusted a bit to ensure that they are all about the same number of teams.
And there would be intense regional rivals for example in the Bay area there would be regular games between SF and Oakland.
There would also be expansion to ensure that all major markets have a team. For example, in California we would add a team in Sacramento and San Jose. And we would add a team in Las Vegas, and Portland.
At the end of the season the North American champion would be crowned and that champion would advance to the world cup every four years. Otherwise they would just be the national champion. See below for the world cup discussion.
Second, each team would adopt a local school district and local college.
To grow baseball’s future fan, base each team would adopt a local school district and local college fully funding baseball programs in the local school and college including scholarships for talented students to go to college.
This would also involve players and team officials serving as coaches and advisors in the local schools helping them develop and expand their baseball programs.
MLB would also recruit for their teams from the local colleges that they sponsor. And MLB would also only accept as players athletes who have finished their college programs with a degree setting an example to the other major sport franchises that MLB values education and wants to ensure that their athletes finish their education before beginning their professional sporting career.
I think that the NFL, and NBA should follow suit. It is disgusting that major league sports take student athletes before they graduate and then after a few years spit them out without them having had a chance to earn their degrees.
So, MBA should step up to the plate and say,
If you want to play in the majors, you must finish your degree before your first game, or within one year or we will cut you from playing. That would help the student athletes, and well be the right thing to do.
Third, each team would guarantee that a certain percentage of their tickets would be affordable.
Attending a major sports event costs too much money. To grow the fan, base each team would sell half price tickets on game day and one hour before the game sell the remaining tickets for five dollars thus making baseball affordable to everyone. And they would treat the families of their school programs and college programs to free baseball games. And they would also each week sponsor free tickets for those in need – people living in shelters, people living with chronic illnesses etc.
Fourth a world cup format would replace the world series.
All countries that play baseball would be invited to participate in the world cup of baseball. At the end of the season in October the national teams from at least 64 countries would play in the world cup which will be held every fourth year. The US will host the first world cup, and then sponsorship will rotate around all the participating countries so all 64 countries will eventually get to host a world cup of baseball.
Setting up a North American Sports Commission to oversee professional sports across North America – Consisting of head of NFL, MLB, NBA, MLSS, Hockey, Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Track and Field and Olympics
I would set up Public private partnership to set policy for professional sports in North America including Caribbean, annual conference after the week after the world super bowl followed by the drafting for professional sports teams (all at the same time) just before the beginning of Baseball, soccer etc.
Thus, the NFL would become the NFL commissioner, etc. The head of the North American professional sports commissions would be the NFL commissioner. His or her job would be to coordinate all aspects of the game along with his/her counterparts in the other sports leagues and the Olympics, Pro Golfing, Pro Tennis, Pro Bowling and track and field.
Each city would have its own sports commission consisting of the heads of the local professional sports teams, and the university athletes’ directors. The sports federation would also have players serve on the commission as well.
With this modest proposal enacted, American professional sports can regain their rightful role in America life.
If the MLB were to take these steps they would dramatically turn the sport around.
Thank you for taking the time to read my proposal and I look forward to hearing back from you staff and I hope that you can implement some of my ideas and I hope that MLB will continue to expand and prosper.
Thank you
Jake Aller
Life time SF Giant and Oakland A’s fan
Letter to NFL
I write the following letter to the NFL commissioner
NFL Commissioner:
Now that the NFL has approved the Raiders move to Las Vegas, it is time to consider an ambitious NFL expansion program.
The NFL is facing a crisis in a few years. More and more schools and colleges are dropping football programs due to costs, liability issues and the perceived danger of the sport.
Attending a football game is a prohibitive expense for most people. And most people think that the NFL owners are out of touch billionaires who don’t care about the community, and don’t care about the welfare of the players.
Because of these issues the fan base has begun to shrink and will continue to shrink. People have options in their sports entertainment and fewer are opting to spend it watching football.
The NFL must combat these issues and the best way to do is through an expansion program, coupled with plans to make games more affordable and community outreach programs including fully funding football programs at local schools and colleges.
If the NFL caries out these reforms, the game will continue to prosper. If the NFL does not, then football will decline and become a minor sport.
Regarding the expansion program, the NFL should rename itself the North American Football League and merge with the Canadian Football league and then set up teams in Mexico and the Caribbean. Domestically the NFL should ensure that almost every state has at least one NFL team, and many states will have multiple teams. Perhaps 75 in total.
At a minimum, I would make sure that SF/Oakland has a team again, Sacramento has a team, Portland Oregon, and has a team as well as all the other major cities that do not have teams currently. The Dakotas should have only one team, and perhaps Rhode Island could share a team with Delaware. NYC perhaps could have five teams, Chicago an additional team.
Mexico could have five to ten teams, Canada could have five to ten teams, and there should be teams in the DR, PR, Virgin Islands, and Guam.
Then the NFL should set up an European league, (with UK teams) and an Asian-Pacific league with teams from India, China to Japan.
The schedule should be expanded to start in July and end in January. Game days should be Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday to allow for expanded travel.
The North American League should be sub-divided into five zones NE, NW, SW, SE, and Mexico, Caribbean.
Teams would compete within their zones until the play offs with a few inter league games per season.
Along with this I would suggest that the NFL set up a World Cup for Football and replace the Super bowl with an American Bowl followed by World Cup championship perhaps every four years. The way the new super bowl would work is that each country that plays American football would send their championship teams to the Super bowl. There are about 10 to 20 countries that play American style football. the idea would be a round robin with the champions of each nation competing with the two finalists going one on one.
For the first super bowl the North American champions would host it, then afterwards the North American team would have to compete for the bowl slot. The major difference between the super bowl and the world cup would be that there would not be national teams competing rather each country would send their top winning team which wins their national championship forward.
I would also suggest that the NFL create a formal partnership with local Universities and local school districts. The NFL teams could adopt local high schools and colleges where they would provide support, training, tickets and scholarships to students to play football at college. the support for the local schools would be covering the cost of having local football teams at each high school in the districts that are nearest the host affiliate.
The cost of having football programs at high school and colleges is prohibitive for many districts and smaller colleges which inhibit the growth and development of the game. You have to grow fans by growing players and support at the local level. It is time that the NFL show some real leadership to develop the game that we all love.
The top graduating students from those local colleges would be invited to compete each year to join the local NFL affiliate. And I would require that all college athletics competing to join a NFL team must graduate before being able to play. Having a graduation rule would send a very positive signal that the NFL really supports the idea of the student athletic program and would guarantee that those players who only play one or two seasons at least have their college degree behind them.
Doing this community outreach on a major scale will help tremendously expand the base for football and grow new generations of fans. The cost would be modest but the payoff would be tremendous.
The final part of the outreach program should be making attending a game affordable again. To be frank attending a game is a huge expense for most people. I would reserve 25 percent of tickets for same day sales at a deep discount with tickets being given out for free just before the game. And I would ensue that 10 percent of the tickets cost 10 dollars each. I would also sponsor free tickets for various groups including nursing homes, veteran groups and community groups at each game.
This will fill the stadiums, increase revenue and increase the excitement of the game making attending a game affordable again.
A final point, the NFL should partner with the local cities, and other sports teams to build and maintain a world class multi-use stadium. There is no reason why the stadium could not be shared by the other sports teams, colleges and school districts. And be made available for special events. The city should own and manage the facility but a board of directors with representatives from the various other teams, universities and high schools should be on the board of directors. The stadium should also feature mostly local brands. The cost of building the stadium should be jointly shared but the NFL should pay the lion’s share of the cost as a good will gesture.
Setting up a North American Sports Commission to oversee professional sports across North America – Consisting of head of NFL, MLB, NBA, MLSS, Hockey, Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Track and Field and Olympics
I would set up Public private partnership to set policy for professional sports in North America including Caribbean, annual conference after the week after the world super bowl followed by the drafting for professional sports teams (all at the same time) just before the beginning of Baseball, soccer etc.
Thus, the NFL would become the NFL commissioner, etc. The head of the North American professional sports commissions would be the NFL commissioner. His or her job would be to coordinate all aspects of the game along with his/her counterparts in the other sports leagues and the Olympics, Pro Golfing, Pro Tennis, Pro Bowling and track and field.
Each city would have its own sports commission consisting of the heads of the local professional sports teams, and the university athletes’ directors. The sports federation would also have players serve on the commission as well.
With these modest proposals enacted, American professional sports can regain their rightful role in America life.
I believe that if the NFL adopts such a comprehensive far reaching expansion program the sport would become the world dominating sport it should be.
I welcome your comments.
Letter to the NBA
Dear Commissioner,
Basketball is in crisis. Its long term viability as America’s pastime is in serious question as fewer people especially younger viewers are basketball fans. The solution is for NBA to take bold steps to restore basketball as America’s pastime if not the world’s pastime.
Here’s my proposal to turn NBA around. It requires bold action, and considerable investment of time and resources to grow the sport.
There are five basic elements to my proposal.
First a dramatic expansion of basketball so that there are major league team teams in every state in the US, every province in Canada, and Mexico, and in the DR, PI, and Venezuela and Nicaragua. That would mean expanding the number of teams to 120 teams from the 35 teams that exist today.
This would not be as difficult to accomplish as you might first think. First you would convert minor league teams into major league teams. You would make sure that there is a major league team in each state in the U.S., each Canadian province, each Mexican State and in the basketball playing countries of the Caribbean, and in Asia and Europe as well, making it a real world sport.
Each team would play mostly in its region which will be as follows:
Northwest League
Southwest League
South East League
Northeast League
Central League
And Caribbean/Mexican League
Asia League
European League
This would make it more affordable for teams to travel as they would mostly be playing against teams in their region.
The leagues would be adjusted a bit to ensure that they are all about the same number of teams.
And there would be intense regional rivals for example in the Bay area there would be regular games between SF and Oakland.
There would also be expansion to ensure that all major markets have a team. For example, in California we would add a team in San Jose. And we would add a team in Las Vegas, and elsewhere. The goal would be that every state would have at least one professional basketball team to root for. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
At the end of the season the North American champion would be crowned and that champion would advance to the world cup every four years. Otherwise they would just be the national champion. See below for the world cup discussion.
Second, each team would adopt a local school district and local college.
To grow basketball’s future fan base, each team would adopt a local school district and local college fully funding basketball programs in the local school and college including scholarships for talented students to go to college.
This would also involve players and team officials serving as coaches and advisors in the local schools helping them develop and expand their basketball programs.
The NBA would also recruit for their teams from the local colleges that they sponsor. And the NBA, and other professional sports leagues, would also only accept as players athletes who have finished their college programs with a degree setting an example to the other major sport franchises that NBA values education and wants to ensure that their athletes finish their education before beginning their professional sporting career.
I think that the NFL, MLB, MLSS, Hockey, Tennis and Golfing should follow suit. It is disgusting that major league sports take student athletes before they graduate and then after a few years spit them out without them having had a chance to earn their degrees.
So, the NBA should step up to the plate and say,
If you want to play in the majors, you must finish your degree before your first game, or within one year or we will cut you from playing. That would help the student athletes, and is the right thing to do.
Third, each team would guarantee that a certain percentage of their tickets would be affordable.
Attending a major sports event costs too much money. To grow the fan base, each team would sell half price tickets on game day and one hour before the game sell the remaining tickets for five dollars thus making basketball affordable to everyone. And they would treat the families of their school programs and college programs to free basketball games. And they would also each week sponsor free tickets for those in need – people living in shelters, people living with chronic illnesses etc.
Fourth, a world cup format would replace the NBA Championship Game.
All countries that play basketball would be invited to participate in the world cup of basketball. At the end of the season in October the national teams from at least 64 countries would play in the world cup which will be held every fourth year. The US will host the first world cup, and then sponsorship will rotate around all the participating countries so all 64 countries will eventually get to host a world cup of basketball.
Setting up a North American Sports Commission to oversee professional sports across North America – Consisting of head of NFL, MLB, NBA, MLSS, Hockey, Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Track and Field and Olympics
I would set up Public private partnership to set policy for professional sports in North America including Caribbean, annual conference after the week after the world super bowl followed by the drafting for professional sports teams (all at the same time) just before the beginning of Baseball, soccer etc.
Thus, the NFL would become the NFL commissioner, etc. The head of the North American professional sports commissions would be the NFL commissioner. His or her job would be to coordinate all aspects of the game along with his/her counterparts in the other sports leagues and the Olympics, Pro Golfing, Pro Tennis, Pro Bowling and track and field.
Each city would have its own sports commission consisting of the heads of the local professional sports teams, and the university athletes’ directors. The sports federation would also have players serve on the commission as well.
With these modest proposals enacted, American professional sports can regain their rightful role in America life.
If the NBA were to take these steps they would dramatically turn the sport around.
Thank you for taking the time to read my proposal and I look forward to hearing back from you staff and I hope that you can implement some of my ideas and I hope that NBA will continue to expand and prosper.
Thank you
You can follow our page on Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/CherryHousePress/
We will post the date of when our anthology will be released.
Thanks again for your submission! Have a great day.
Sincerely,
Ariana R Cherry
Cherry House Press
You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
~Author Unknown
The dreams started when I was a senior at Berkeley High School in 1974. About a month before I graduated, I fell asleep in a physics class after lunch and had the first dream:
A beautiful Asian woman was standing next to me, talking in a strange language. She was stunning—the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was in her early twenties, with long black hair, and piercing black eyes. She had the look of royalty. She looked at me and then disappeared, beamed out of my dream like inStar Trek. I fell out of my chair screaming, “Who are you?” She did not answer.
About a month went by, and then I started having the dream repeatedly. Always the same pattern.
Early morning, she would stand next to me talking. I would ask who she was, and she would disappear. She was the most beautiful, alluring woman I had ever seen.
I was struck speechless every time I had the dream.
I had the dream every month during the eight years during which I went to college and served in the Peace Corps. In fact, when I joined the Peace Corps, I had to decide whether to go Korea or Thailand. The night before I had to submit my decision, I had the dream again and it made me sure that she was in Korea waiting for me.
After the Peace Corps, I still hadn’t met my dream woman. I got a job working for the U.S. Army as an instructor and stayed in Korea. I kept having the dream, until I had the very last one: She was standing next to me, speaking to me in Korean, but I finally understood her. She said, “Don’t worry, we will be together soon.”
Why was that the last time I had the dream? Because the very next night, the girl in my dream got off the bus in front of me. She went on to the base with an acquaintance of mine, a fellow teacher, and they went to see a movie. I saw her and found the courage to speak with her. We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet that weekend.
The next night, she was waiting for me as I entered the Army base to teach a class. She told me she was a college senior and she had something to tell me. I signed her on to the base and left her at the library to study while I taught, and then we went out for coffee after class. She told me she was madly in love with me, and that I was the man for her. I told her not to worry as I felt the same.
That weekend, we met Saturday and Sunday and hung out all day. On Sunday night, I proposed to her. It was only three days after we had met, but for me it felt like we had met eight years ago. I had been waiting all my life for her to walk out of my dreams and into my life, and here she was.
Her mother did not want her to marry a foreigner. One day, about a month after we met, she invited me to meet her parents. I brought a bottle of Jack Daniels for her father and drank the entire bottle with him. He approved of me, but her mother still had reservations. After a Buddhist priest told her my future wife and I were a perfect astrological combination, she agreed, and we planned our wedding.
The wedding was a media sensation in South Korea. My wife explained it to me years later. At the time, I was overwhelmed just by the fact that we were getting married and I didn’t fully understand how unusual this was. My wife was of the old royal clan, distant relatives to the former kings of Korea. In the clan’s history, only two people had ever married foreigners: my wife, and Rhee Syngman, who was the the first President of South Korea. My father, who was a former Undersecretary of Labor, came out for the wedding, which fueled even more media interest. Our marriage defied the stereotypical Korean-foreign marriage where the women married some hapless GI just to escape poverty and immigrate to the U.S. We were the first foreign/Korean couple to get married at a Korean Army base. Over 1,000 people came to the wedding, and my father was interviewed on the morning news programs.
This all happened thirty-five years ago, and I am still married to the girl in my dreams. Now, whenever we are apart, I still see her in my dreams, watching over me as I sleep.
~Jake Cosmos Aller
Plethora Magazine has published October Falling Rain and the Story of How We Met plethora magazine
Monalisa Joshi<plethorablogazine@rediffmail.com>
Feb 13, 2019, 10:51 PM
to me
Falling Rain
The falling rain
Of late October
Fills me with essential dread
As I rush about
And end up here
Wherever here is
The rain outside
Seems like the tears of god
As I sit
Crying over my beer
Thinking of lost love
And failed dreams
Wondering
What went wrong?
And what I can set right
And the rain falls
And the night darkens
The rain is falling
All over this man’s world
And the rain falls
And I sit
Drinking my lonesome drink
Lost in dreary lonely dreams
Dreaming of what
Could never be
Thinking dark thoughts
And so I sit there in the bar
And drink and dream the night away
The Story of How We Met
this is a true story. I had the first dream in 1974, and met her in 1982.
It all began in Berkeley, California
In the spring time of 1974
One fateful afternoon
I was doing in my high school
Physics class.
I looked up and saw
A tall, beautiful Asian woman
standing looking at me.
I screamed out,
Who are you?
She disappeared
like she was beamed away from my dream.
I knew that someday I would meet the girl
In the dream
Little did I know
I would have to wait until 1982
Starting that month
I began having the same dream
Month and month and month.
Always the same.
She was saying something
To me in a strange language.
Then one day I had the dream
and knew that she was in Korea.
So, I chose to go Korea
In the Peace Corps,
Somehow knowing
That I would meet her there.
One day I was in a foul mood.
I had decided to give up on dating Korean women,
And on women in general
After having had several relationships
That did not go anywhere.
I was thinking of returning to the States
For Graduate school.
That morning early in the morning
I had the last of these dreams.
This time I understood her.
She said, “Don’t worry.
We’ll meet soon.”
That evening
As I was getting off the bus
To go to my class
I saw getting off the bus
The girl in my dream.
It was she!
I was speechless.
I did not know what to do.
Over the course of the evening
I ran into her several times.
Finally, I was introduced to her.
I muttered some lame excuse
About wanting to find a Korean tutor,
and got her number.
The next day she came to the gate of my base.
Where I was teaching ESL to Koreans
She said that she had to speak with me.
I told to wait in the library for about an hour,
and I would cancel class
and meet her then.
We went out for coffee.
She told me that she was madly
in love with me
And simply had to have me.
I told her I felt the same way.
I proposed five days later,
And got married one month later.
Does she believe this story?
She claims she does not believe it
Because it is impossible to be true.
But I know that there are other worlds
And other times.
In a past life we must have been together somehow.
And our love was so strong
That it crossed over the barrier of past lives.
She found me in 1974,
But it took until 1982
For us to meet.
And it has been 26 years
Since we met in the physical sphere
Or 37 years since the dream began
And I still recall the dream
And meeting her
I had no choice
When I met her
We were fated to be together
Until the end of this life time
And the next and the next.
Dear Jake,
Hope this mail finds you in good health.
I am making this mail to inform you that the first digital winter issue of Plethora Magazine is live now and its breathing there amid the larger audience and people are truly appreciating and enjoying the first issue.
Hope you will enjoy reading it as much I enjoyed curating the content. And once again I thank you for your contribution which made the first issue possible.
Also the Spring Submission period has started, do check in the group for further details.
With Best Regards,
Monalisa Joshi
Audio Clips
7th Extinction Event
Dream Girl
Last Bee
October Rains
the Story of How We Met
Fake Mosquitos
A Revolution is Coming
One Night in Bombay
Old Cars are King of the Road Again
Illusions Stripped Away
Academy of Hearts and Mind has published “Illusions Striped Away,” “The Last Bee Ends Humanity’s Reign,” and “7th Extinction Event.
Illusions Stripped Away
Illusions Stripped Away
Illusions stripped away
I look at myself
63 years old
In reasonable health
Living with my wife
Retired living overseas
Writing a blog
Getting poetry and short stories published
And don’t understand
Why I can’t be happy
Political news infuriates me
And causes stress
Perhaps it is time to just let go
Don’t worry about things
That I can not control
Be content with what I have
Help manage our real estate
Write in my blog
Be more positive
Optimistic
And reflect on what I have
The Last Bee Ends humanity’s Reign
The Humboldt Glacier, located high in the Andes mountain range in Venezuela, is the country’s last glacier. Glaciers are disappearing around the world due to climate change, which has also been a factor in declines and extinctions of animal species elsewhere. This month saw the death of George, the last snail of the Hawaiian species Achatinella apexfulva, named after Lonesome George who died in 2012, the last of the Galápagos tortoises. Write a poem about an object that is the last of its kind to ever exist, either in reality or hypothetically. How is the disappearance of your chosen subject significant in its own way?
The end of humanity’s reign
Of supremacy on earth
Came about with the death
Of the last bee on earth
Scientists had been warning the world
For a number of years
Of the dire consequences of the collapse
Of the insect world
Especially the humble bee
That played such a vital role
In keeping many plants alive
The bees were eaten by birds
And the birds were eaten
By other animals
Without the work of the humble bee
Commercial agriculture collapsed
Causing widespread famine
Across the world
Scientists rushed to the rescue
Deploying robot bees
And GMO bees
But to no avail
The fix was in
And humanity’s goose
Was cooked so to speak
And with the collapse of agriculture
Came the collapse of urban civilization
And the end of urban civilization
Led to billions of people
Facing starvation in the ruined cities
Some rich people bounded together
And build vast underground cities
Where they continued the experiment
Of robot bees and GMO bees
But nothing worked
And humanity’s long descend
Towards extinction began
It all happened within a few years
One day everything was normal
Scandals, wars, threat of wars
Economic turmoil
Endless infotainment news
Three years latter
50 million rich people
Were living in caves
Along with 150 million slaves
The end of humanity
Caused the rests of the world
To gradually recover
The bees were never consulted
They had no role to play
Just the humble workers
Who had fed the world
But they were no more
Plants evolved
Other ways to survive
And the world went on
Without the human overlords
Who remained huddled in their caves
Dreaming of one day
Returning to reclaim the world
Just as the bible proclaimed
7th Extinction
7th Extinction Event
With the collapse of the humble bee
The 6th extinction event continued unabated
As climate change begins to unravel
Extreme weather becomes the norm
Commercial agriculture fails
Water and electric systems fail
Urban areas are abandoned
Terrified survivors
Huddle together
The rich retreat to underground caves
And take with them workers
Who become slave labor
But happy to be alive
As the 6th extinction
Morphs into the 7th
And final extinction event
The fall of humanity
Looms over the planet
With the collapse of urban civilization
Climate change slows down
But a new ice age
Long overdue
Starts in earnest
Natures ultimate revenge
Academy Heart <academyoftheheartandmind@gmail.com>
Mon, Feb 4, 10:30 PM
to me
Dear Jake,
You’re welcome. Your poems will appear on the website on March 7, 8, and 11.
Best,
Thomas Page
Editor
On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 5:44 PM jake aller <authorjakecosmosaller@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey thanks so much and thanks for making my day.
On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 10:42 PM Academy Heart <academyoftheheartandmind@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Jake,
Thank you for your submissions. We will publish your poems “Illusions Striped Away,” “The Last Bee Ends Humanity’s Reign,” and “7th Extinction Event.”
Here is the link to your other submission on our website:
One wild night in Bombay, India
I walked into 20 drinks too sober
On the wicked wrong end of a Friday night booze run
On the bad side of the Moon
over by where the Martian dudes
Sat drinking their Martian whisky,
ogling the Venus maidens
Leering at the earth women who were walking by
Wearing skin tight pants made their eyeballs hurt
I gave into the spirit and went over to the Martian dudes
And got drunk on the Martian madness,
shot after shot
Smoking some good old-fashioned Mars dust
And flew off to the planet Jupiter
Just to have me some fun with a lady
Who said she was from Saturn
I did not know she was from the planet Pluto
The
Until I woke up the next day,
naked, under the alien Sun
In jail on the Planet Alpha Centura,
light years from home,
A million miles away,
a thousand years in the future
And I had no money,
no honey,
no way home
Still 20 drinks too sober,
I just sat down in that jail
and started drinking away my time
Drinking fine cold assed Centurion wine
and Pluto Whisky
One day I woke up and found myself back in Bombay
Standing outside that that evil bar in the miasmic mist
Over by the Martian whorehouse,
down by the Gate of India
And I walked up to the Saturn-Pluto babe
And said, man that was some bad shit
Let’s do it again someday, she smiled and I had my way
Knew the day would come again
When I would be drinking with the Martians
And something wicked my way would come
Just another night of wicked fun
On the wrong side of the Moon
On the right night
in the mean streets of Bombay
Duane Voorhes has published “The Revolution Is Coming” and ‘Rambling Man” on his Poetree site.
A revolution is coming
A revolution is coming
I can feel it in my bones
A revolution is coming
And it will wipe out
The collapsing edifices
Of the American Empire
The masses are rising up
To throw off their chains
And demand justice
The masses are coming
For the masters of the universe
Their days are numbered
And they know it too
One day
The masses will rise up
Storm the citadels of power
Arresting the corrupt leaders
In the name of revolutionary justice
Stringing them up
Executing them
One by one
As the revolutionary fires
Consume the nation
And I can’t wait
For the revolution
Is long over due
Until I met the end
Of my life
Still wondering what it all meant
Lincoln Memorial — Vladimir Manyuhin
Rambling Man – Where Do I Belong?
I have been a rambling man
All my adult life
Grew up in Berkeley, California
Went to college in Hayward and Oberlin
During my lost year
Lost in a fog of booze and pot
Then I came back to reality
And went to college
In Stockton, California
The Central Valley
Ohio transplanted to California
Then after four years in Stockton
With extended weekends
And breaks in Berkeley
I became an expatriate wanderer
Peace Corps worker in Korea
Then taught ESL in Korea
For four years
Occasionally returning to my home
But always wanting to be elsewhere
Then back to Korea
And then Seattle for four years
Driving back and forth to the bay area
Stopping off in Southern Oregon
Eventually bought a house and duplex
In Southern Oregon
Vaguely thinking we would retire there
Some day when my rambling ways were over
Then back to Korea for three more years
Then I joined the Foreign service
And my wife the military
And I wandered the world again
Always somewhere
Always dreaming of my next somewhere
Never there
As I was a permanent expat
And a diplomat to boot
Never a local
But never really felt I belong there
Or in the America
That was becoming more and more
A foreign land
The longer I stayed away
I stayed on in DC for almost ten years
Off and on
But never really felt that I belong there
I was too West Coast in my heart
And DC seemed to be
Just a place to stay
In between travels
Stayed in Thailand
Then later India
And Eastern Caribbean
And later Spain
Traveled to 45 countries
Lived in ten
And now I am retired
Still torn between
living the expat life
In Seoul, Korea
And returning to the West Coast
And occasionally back to DC
And Florida as well
And I wonder
Where do I belong
Where do I belong
Other than wherever
My wife and I end up
Neither here nor there
Half way there
And so is that my fate
Never to really belong
Never to have roots in the ground
Always wanting to be somewhere else
Always a stranger in my native land
And a stranger in my other home
Across the sea
There is no answer to these questions
As the rambling urge comes again
And I prepare to move yet again
Hoping someday I will be
Somewhere where I can stop
These rambling blues
And really be there
Homeless Wanderer — Anna Jagla
Rosa Maleficarum has published three of my poems, Lost, Fake Mosquitos and Old Cars are King of the Road Again
Cosmos’s Excellent Vietnam Journeys
I first went to Saigon with my spouse, Angela, back in 1995 when I was in Bangkok working for the Embassy and she was in the military in Texas. We spent two wonderful weeks and always wanted to go back. This winter we decided we would go to either Thailand, Vietnam or Cambodia and left in early March, escaping the cold weather a bit.
Food in Saigon
Personal comments
Vietnam has a well deserved reputation as a foodie’s paradise. The food is good to great, mostly inexpensive although there are some expensive places.
Other Asian cuisines are widely available, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Thai, Cambodian, Laotian.
Western style food is available and on the expensive side. American Fast food is available at least in the bigger towns but while bother going?
There is such a wide variety of styles of food to choose from among the traditional Vietnamese styles of food. Saigon city has so many restaurants one could spend decades eating every night at a different place and never run out of options.
There were a few foods that stood out though
Vietnamese style omelets – they do eggs right
Ban Chua is a Hanoi style of small plates sort of like the Vietnamese version of Tapas. Quite good and tasty.
Bahn Mi Sandwiches – they are everywhere. I liked them but my wife not being able to tolerate gluten did not and she thought that the sanitations standards on the street banh mi stands were not up to her standards. Still widespread and good.
Pho – of course
Lots of varieties to try. We liked the chicken Pho which is a bit hard to find in the US where they tend to mostly serve the beef Pho
Craft Beer Vietnam has recently gone through a craft beer boom. The craft beer is great. A bit expensive double the cost of the standards but still great. But just as in Korea where craft beer has taken off some places advertise craft beer but all they have is the regular crap on tap. And there are two craft beer companies that dominate the market, it is hard to find other craft beer places but they do exist.
Traditional Vietnamese rice wine – did not get a chance to try but will try it on my next trip.
Local Vietnamese wine – who knew they even made it here? Not that good but much better than years before. Probably worth a try just to say you tried it
Snake and scorpion wine – would like to have tried it by my spouse vetoed the idea
Artichoke tea – sounds weird but it tastes like hot chocolate! And is one of those great foods for lowering cholesterol etc.
Guava tea – tastes great like green tea
Coffee – a coffee lovers paradise would be nice to find a decafe option though
Tea – a tea lovers paradise as well
Tropical fruits galore – loved eating tropical fruit for breakfast especially soursop
Vegetarian food options- widespread available almost everywhere
Vegan options – not as common but widespread
Gluten free – unheard of concept but if you avoid eating fried noodles and stick with rice noodles (usually clearly labelled as such) you can eat gluten free
Trends I like to see emerge
Gluten Free options
MSG free – too much MSG used everywhere
Artisanal Rum – Vietnam like most Asian countries just don’t get rum. Bacardi is available in tourist friendly areas but other than that no one does decent rum. Yet you could make rum easily enough as they grow a lot of sugar cane. The Thais do a decent job with their Mekong whiskey which is a rum. I wished they would quit calling it Whiskey! Otherwise rum is just not common in the region.
Promotion of traditional Rice wine
Good stuff should be more widely available and promoted
Artisanal local whiskey – if you can make decent craft beer you should be able to make decent local artisanal whiskey
Asiana Food Town
Five Oysters
Bing Thang Street Food Market
Le Jardine
Nha Hang Ngon
On my prior trip I hit Appocalypse Now!
And on my next trip, I must go to Jake’s BBQ because as a Jake why the hell not? Needs me a Jake’s bbq t-shirt, don’t ya think? Now if there is a Cosmos club or Resturant I will have to go there as w
Vietnam Poems
Cosmos’s Excellent Vietnam Journeys – Day to Day Journal
Summary: arrived at airport about 1 pm. Went to AIRBNB. We stayed at two different AIRBNB, both in the Pham Ngu Lou area near the backpacker street but not on the strip. Both were nice, comfortable enough. Lots of restaurants, coffee shops nearby. Not too far from tourist sites. We went everywhere by Grab, Saigon’s version of Uber. Uber pulled out of Southeast Asia and sold their operations to Grab. It took a bit to figure out the app but once we did it was great.
We went out for lunch, and walked about, walked to the Bing Thang market, largest street market in District One. Bought fruit for breakfast, had dinner at Vietnamese Japanese Resturant
Saigon is divided into 24 districts but most things that would appeal to tourists and visitors are located in Districts one, two and three. District one is the downtown district and has most of the tourist sites. District Two is across the river and is popular with diplomats and long term expats. Filled with upscale Western and Vietnamese restaurants. The government has announced a long term project to build a new city there that is modelled after Gangnam. Lots of construction already underway. District three is near downtown and has lots of nice restaurants as well. District four is across the river and is the center of the expat Asian community, lots of Koreans and Japanese living there. District Five is the old China town. Still lots of Chinese around. It is also where most of the traditional pagodas are located. And has a large traditional market. We went. It was very confusing but interesting to see.
Transportation is chaotic still. The subway is under construction, first line linking district one and two opens next year, eventually there will be seven lines and a high speed train to Hanoi. The buses are cheap and run everywhere but we did not try them. Taxis are plentiful but Grab is more convenient and cheaper. And there are motorcycle taxis everywhere – fastest and cheapest way to get around. The old pedicabs are a thing of the past – we only saw a few.
Breakfast at home kefir
Lunch pho at Pho 54 near Cinemax
Dinner Korean Japanese Resturant on Pasteur street
Wednesday March 6 exploring backpacker’s street dinner at street buffet
Met old friend who lives in Vietnam. Walked about the backpacker’s district. Had decent lunch and dinner.
Breakfast fruit
Lunch had Vietnamese steak
Dinner in Ngu Lao Backpackers Street grilled morning glory, seafood noodles
Drinks coffee beer
Seeing Ghosts
Inspired by a true story – I was looking at an old American who could have been a Vietnam vet back for a trip. He was sitting in a bar drinking a beer. He looked at me and smiled a wistful WTF where the Fuck am I bemused look. I looked up and a few seconds later the old man had disappeared and I felt that I had been seeing a ghost and that there were ghosts all over the city. Very eerie feeling that stayed with me all day and inspired the two following poems
Ghosts in Saigon
I walk around the streets
Of old Saigon
Seeing sensing the undead
The ghosts of the war
That haunted life
So many years ago
So many people died
For a war
That never should have been fought
For reasons that are still not clear
A great tragedy unfolded
In a land half away
Around the world
The ghosts smile at me
And then they disappear
Leaving me in the present
Life goes on
Old Ghosts
Old ghosts wandering the streets of old Saigon
Lost spirits of the dead
Died during the endless wars
Ghostly apparitions around every corner
Here was Kilroy and his gang of soldiers
Over there were the Viet Cong waiting to kill them
Saigon is filled with memories like that
Terrible times were had here in Old Saigon
Silently the ghosts parade the city streets
Thursday March 7 Mekong Delta
Long but good day. Went on a Mekong River tour. The tour guide was knowledgeable and spoke decent English. Most of the passengers were Aussies, there were a few Japanese, and Koreans and Europeans, we were the only Americans. In general, you don’t find that many Americans, most of the white tourists are Aussies, Canadians or European.
We stopped off at a bamboo and coconut products store. That was marginally interesting. Then we took several boat rides before we ended up having lunch. Lunch was decent. We had some time to walk about a traditional working orchid. Saw alligators, porcupines, fish. Also saw snake wine for sale. Did not partake though.
Mekong Dreams
Traveling along the Mekong
Back in time
Seeing the river
The people
Imagining life on the river
Imagining the war
The past in the Mekong delta
And the present tourist boom
Yet life goes on
With its own laid back rhythm
As we traversed the river
We were transported back
To an earlier time
Following the ancient rhythms
Of the Mekong Delta
On the way back we stopped at a famous Buddhist temple. Vietnamese Buddhist temples are different from Korean temples. Different style of Buddhism. The temples are everywhere, not just in the mountains like in Korea. Most Vietnamese are probably nominally Buddhist, but there are many Catholics especially in the South, and many adherents to Cao Dai, the local religion, see below. The officially promoted atheism of the communist era is fading away.
Buddha In Vietnam
In Saigon I saw the buddha
Buddha images are everywhere
Temples are scattered about
Here and there and everywhere
Buddha lives on
In the hearts and minds
Of the Vietnamese soul
The communists tried
To get rid of Buddhism
And other religious traditions
But they failed
And Buddhism has come back
Still speaks to the Vietnamese people
A different style
A different vibe
Than Korean Buddhism
But still Buddhist thought
Prevails in the tropical lands
Of the South
Breakfast Banhmi and coffee on the street
Lunch rice, seafood lunch on Mekong
Dinner stir fry morning glory, seafood noodles in Pham Ngu Lao Backpackers Street
Beer
Friday March 8
Breakfast fruit
Lunch Resturant at Le Jardin salmon, salad
Dinner with VCQ Cholan Chinese Resturant
Whiskey wine too much
Met with old friends from my foreign service days. Had lunch at a French Resturant in the French Cultural center. Food was decent. Wine was plentiful but a bit too much. Walked about went to the market headed home took a nap. Went out to Cho Long district five near Saigon University.
Met Vietnamese friends of our friends. Had a great time, winning and dinning at a Chinese Resturant. A bit too much though.
Saturday March 9 Lunch in District 2 with VC2
Met our Vietnamese friends at his house in District Two. He runs an home interior business and is a very lively man. Delightful company. Had a great lunch.
For dinner had a simple dinner near our house and went to bed early.
Sunday March 10 lunch at Sheraton, Dinner at hotel Equatorial
On Sunday met our Vietnamese friends and some Belgium doctors for lunch at the Sheraton hotel. Their bunch is a great value. And in the evening went to dinner at Hotel Equatorial and ate a lot more. Gained too much weight with all the wine, whiskey and food.
Vietnamese like to eat and drink and entertain. Like Koreans in that regard. But everything is much cheaper.
Monday March 11 walking tour of downtown with friend
Met my friend, Jeff, for lunch. We ate at the Five Oysters which was decent. Had Vietnamese Omelet. Then we walked all over district one seeing the sites.
We saw the Post Office, the main Cathedral, City hall, FinTech tower, Dong Khoi street and Pasteur street and finally had dinner at the Bing Than market street food stall before going home. http://www.fiveoysters.com/
Breakfast fruit
Lunch at Five Oysters
Dinner at Bing than Market street food stalls pad Thai, papaya salad
Drink beer
Coffee Lady
Every morning
I have gone out for Vietnamese coffee
At a sidewalk café
Down the ally from our AIRBNB
The owner is a pleasant middle age woman
Who for some reason likes us
She smiles at us
Greets us in Vietnamese
She does not understand English
Or Korean
And I wonder why
Why was there this connection
Between us
It dawned on me
Perhaps in a prior life
She knew an American or two
And I remind her of someone
Or perhaps she is found
Of Korean K drama
And Angela reminds her
Of her favorite K Drama star
Or perhaps it is both
Or another reason entirely
But I moved today
And will miss her
Might go back for a final cup
Of coffee
To say good bye
To my Vietnamese coffee lady
Tuesday March 12 moved, laundry
We spent the day moving to another AIRBNB, doing laundry and taking it easy. Lunch and dinner in the backpacker’s street. Tried Bun Cha which is a Hanoi version of Tapas. Pretty good. Discovered the Asiana Food Court. Great place to eat. We came back there several times. Lots of choices of food. Great prices, and delicious. Bought fruit for our remaining breakfasts.
Mastering the Saigon Shuffle
Motorbike riders waiting at intersection. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
When I first visited Saigon
Learning the Saigon Shuffle
Was difficult
And now 24 years later
It all seems to be coming back
There is an art to crossing the street
Dodging the motor cyclists, the taxis, the private cars
The bikes and other pedestrians and the buses
The art consists of letting the big guys go first
Then walk between the motorcycles and cyclists
Trusting that they will get out of your way
And they being masters of the Saigon shuffle
Always find a way
In my two visits I was struck
By how it all flows together
Without a central authority
And with almost no planning
Lights or cops
Somehow it just is
And somehow it works
And it is still a mystery to me
24 years after first
Encountering the Saigon shuffle
Breakfast: fruit, coffee
Lunch: omelet, morning glory stir fry Pham Ngu Lao Backpackers Street
Dinner: ban Chua Hanoi style Vietnamese Tapas small plate dishes
Drinks: Alcohol beer
Drinks: tea coffee
Vietnam has great art. Last time we were here we bought four pieces from an iconic Vietnamese artist who has moved on. He painted on oyster shells and his work is quite unique. We wanted to find out more about the artist but were unable to find out much about him. We went to the HCH Fine Arts museum. That is worth a trip. Great art.
From Wikipedia
Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts is the major art museum of HCM City, Vietnam, and second in the country only to the Vietnam National Museum of Fine Arts in Hanoi.
The museum covers three three-floor buildings which house a collection featuring Vietnamese art works in sculpture, oil, silk painting and lacquer painting, as well as traditional styles including woodcut paintings in the Hang Trang, Đông Hồ, and Kim Hoàng styles, as well as Vietnamese ceramics and a collection of ancient Buddhist art.[1] The first floor also includes a commercial gallery of art works. Archaeological exhibits such as some of the country’s best Champa and Óc Eo relics are displayed on the third floor.[2]
The main building was constructed by a French architect Rivera between 1929 and 1934 as a villa for the Hua family. The museum moved there in 1987.[3]
Saigon center
Walked to the Saigon Center, one of the premier shopping plazas in District 1. Not bad but overrated I think.
From Wikipedia:
Phase 1 of the complex was completed in 1996.[1] The phase consisted of a 25-storey building, which set a new record for the highest building in Vietnam then at 106 metres (348 ft).[2]
In December 2011, construction on phase two started, which comprises a 5-story retail podium and a new 43-story building. The new addition prompted a temporary closure of the existing tower from 2015 to 2016.[3]
On July 30, 2016, Takashimaya opened their first department store in Vietnam at the retail podium of Saigon Centre.[1] Tower 2 completed in 2017 reaching the height of 193.7 m (635 ft). It becomes the fourth tallest building in Ho Chi Minh City and the tenth tallest building in Vietnam overall.
Features[edit]
Saigon Centre provides over 46,000 m2 (500,000 sq ft) of office space across 10 floors in Tower 1 and 18 floors in Tower 2.[4][5] Sedona Hotels operates all 284 residential units at the complex.[6]
Dinner at the market place
We had dinner at the Asiana food market. Great location, great food selections. Well worth a visit.
Old Lady in the Alley
There is an old Vietnamese lady
In the neighborhood
Obviously senile
But everyone knows her
And watches over her
To make sure
She stays out of traffic
And out of trouble
She talks to everyone
But no one seems to understand
What she is babbling on about
They smile at her
And she smiles back
Reminds me of the phrase
From the hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy
Mostly harmless
And she for some reason
She likes us
And like my Vietnamese Coffee lady
I wonder why
Why was there this connection
Between us
It dawned on me
Perhaps in a prior life
She knew an American or two
And I remind her of someone
Or perhaps she is found
Of Korean K drama
And Angela reminds her
Of her favorite K Drama star
Or perhaps it is both
Or another reason entirely
But in any event
I look forward
To seeing her smiling face
Every time I walk
Down my ally way
Cosmos’s Excellent Vietnam Journeys part two week two journeys
Finally figured out how to use Grab the SE Asian version of Uber. Grab bought Uber’s business back in 2016 and is the region’s largest ride share service. They do a lot of other things and are very aggressive. Based in Singapore. Started out as a MBA project idea in Harvard by a Malaysian student. He returned to the region, started in Malaysia moved to Singapore when the business took off. They were rumors at the time that Grab stole Uber’s technology, in any event it is very similar concept except that they targeted taxi drivers rather than individual drivers and most of their drivers work for them full time. They also do the motorcycle taxis, food delivery, mobile payment services.
So had a better day. We went to Binh Tay market in Cho Long District 5. A bit off the tourism path but we saw some foreign visitors. It is a sprawling complex reminding both of us of Korea back in the day. We bought our coffee and tea. When we go back we are making more Kombucha and we will add moringa to our fake coffee and my plan is to have a real cup of coffee per day and fake coffee the rest of the day. I think I can handle that.
Good walk. We hit four of the five temples recommended and saw the edge of the electronics market and we saw some other interesting places in the neighborhood.
The temples were
Thien Hau Temple (Ho Chi Minh City)
________________________________________
Nghia An Hoi Quan Pagoda is situated at Cholon, Ho Chi Minh City. It was built in the 19th century by the Chaozhou Chinese Congregation making it one of the oldest temples in Saigon. It is dedicated to Guan Yu, a holy general who was greatly respected for his morality and loyalty and lived in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and greatly respected for his morality and loyalty.
This pagoda is also known as Quan Cong and also named The Whale Temple and Quan De temple. The exterior of Nghia An Hoi Quan Pagoda is closely that of a Chinese temple. The frontage door of the temple is painted with door gods. Hoi Quan Pagoda is just like that of a Chinese temple. The pagoda is mainly well known for its enormous collection of figurines, carvings and hanging lanterns but it is especially notable for its gilded woodwork, a carved wooden boat hangs over the doorway and there is a larger-than-life illustration of Quan Cong’s horse and groom to the left. The horse statue is considered holy to the devotees. People ring the bell around its neck and then crawl under it to go to the other side. They suppose that by doing this they are blessed from the horse. And you can see a big wooden statue of Quan Cong himself at the altar. Nghia An Hoi Quan is also outstanding with ceramic statues on roof tiles or carved with flowers, unicorn statues, parallel sentences, and many invaluable paintings. Such these displays are delicately carved, showing myth stories of China in Saigon to teach next generations. Moreover, Nghia An Hoi Quan is pastoral with images of daily life and colors of life for many generations of rural farmers. This pagoda celebrates with offerings to the spirits and dances staged out front on the 14th day of the first lunar month. This temple is worth the visit.
Had a great massage in a Vietnamese massage parlor recommended by Korean tourists on Naver. Near Saigon center.
Future VCQ
Saigon is filled with interesting characters
Filled with fascinating back stories
One could write hundreds of stories
About the people one encounters
In a nail shop
That caters to mostly Korean visitors
We met a boy of 8 years old
Who was a natural born hustler
He had wonderful English
Wonderful French
And even some Korean
And he wanted to show us around
He spoke English
Without an accent
In an upper class British style
As if he were born to the manor
How and why he learned
English so well
Would be an interesting story
His Mother was also
An interesting character
Been running the store
For five years
Amused it had become the Korean
To Go place
In Saigon
Just one of those mysterious things
They had another shop nearby
A smoothie place
And he offered to guide us there
But were in a hurry
As we left
I thought to myself
Here is a future VCQ
The fascinating character
That had wined and dined us
Late into the night
Beguiling us with his tales
From his time in the VC
Wonder what this future VCQ
Will tell his future friends
About his past life
Living in a beauty saloon?
Had spring rolls and papaya salad from a vegan Resturant. The spring rolls were great, the papaya salad not so great
Breakfast fruit
Lunch chicken, rice, bread, eggs – one of the better meals
In coffee shop chain called energy coffee or something like that only 7 US Dollars
Dinner – spring rolls, and papaya salad at a vegan Resturant
Wine in room
Friday March 15 District 2 Tour
We went to district 2 across the river in search of a place for Angela to get her hair done and for me to get a massage. We went there after a haircut in a place advertised as an old fashioned barber shop. Had a good haircut but a lousy shave. Still need to find a good barber = next trip.
We found the perm place. We also discovered that District 2 is filled with rich Saigonese, expats and diplomats. It is a quiet suburban district but is soon going to be transformed as the city of Saigon has ambitions to turn District 2 and District 9 into something equivalent of Gangnam. The rest of Saigon especially districts 1, 3, 4, 5, 10 and 11 are too build up. They are building a new international airport and they building a new subway system. When the whole thing materializes by 2025 or so, Saigon will be a very different city.
I hope that they don’t destroy Saigon in order to save it as they have in Seoul. Gangnam in a way has lost its sense of being Korean as it could be any large city in Asia. Seoul now has two different faces – the northern part which still retains a lot of the old charm of Korea and the Southern part which is newer but perhaps lacking in having a real Korean flavor.
And I hope that they can and will incorporate lots of solar power, water harvesting and other echo friendly solutions which are sadly lacking in Gangnam and in Korean cities in general .
We met with a real estate agent who talked to us at length about investment options in Saigon highly recommending buying something in District 2 but not waiting too long. He said that within a few years it will be a very different place.
We had a decent lunch in District 2, went back to Binh Thang market and the food market/court where had dim sum for dinner.
District 2, Ho Chi Minh City
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see District 2.
District 2
Quận 2
Thủ Thiêm or Quận Thủ Thiêm
Urban district
Position in HCMC’s core
District 2
Location in Vietnam
Coordinates: 10°46′51″N 106°45′25″ECoordinates: 10°46′51″N 106°45′25″E
Country Vietnam
Centrally governed city
Ho Chi Minh City
Seat 249 Luong Dinh Cua
Wards 11 wards
Area
• Total 50 km2 (20 sq mi)
Population
(2018)
• Total 168,680
• Density 3,400/km2 (8,700/sq mi)
Demographics
• Main ethnic groups predominantly Kinh
Time zone
UTC+07 (ICT)
Map showing the location of District 2 within metropolitan Ho Chi Minh City
District 2, in which the new urban area of Thu Thiem is located, is an urban district of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. As of 2010, the district had a population of 140,621, a total area of 50 km².[1]
Thu Thiem Tunnel
In the past, District 2 was one of the poorest parts of Ho Chi Minh City due to the separation by the Saigon River from the city center. However, it is now the one of the prioritized area for investment by the government of Ho Chi Minh City. The completion of Thu Thiem Bridge in 2008 and Thu Thiem Tunnel in 2011 were expected to support the development of the Thủ Thiêm New Urban Area. Thu Thiem Tunnel joins District 2 with District 1 (Central Sài Gòn), the central area of Ho Chi Minh City. The other connection of District 2 to the central city area is the Thu Thiem Bridge, which connects District 2 and Bình Thạnh District. The transportation to District 2 will be much easier when the metro, whose route passes through District 2, comes into use. This will be the first metro in Vietnam, and it will help Ho Chi Minh City to catch up with other developed cities in the world.
The Vietnamese government is seeking to build a completely new district for wealthy citizens as well as a new economic center. Thanh Nien and Tuổi Trẻ, two newspapers in Vietnam, describe that the new District 2 will be as modern as Singapore and Hong Kong.[citation needed]
Less prosperous agricultural workers of District 2 have been forced to move in slum clearance measures. Thatched houses will be replaced by multi-story house and villas. A few single-family homes will be constructed for those with large[clarification needed] incomes. A large number of citizens would go on living in high-grade apartment blocks. Each block contains swimming pools, tennis courts, shopping malls, and other necessary services. There will be kindergartens, elementary schools, and high schools, but there will be no university, as all the universities are being moved to Thu Duc district to form the University Village, which is another plan of the city government. Beside the residential area will be the economic and trade zone with modern skyscrapers.
District 2, particularly Thảo Điền ward, has a large portion of Ho Chi Minh City’s expatriate community, and as such has a large number of restaurants, bars and shops selling European foods, particularly the high street Xuan Thuy. Traffic has become a major problem in District 2 due to its proximity to several international schools and many residents who travel by private vehicle.[citation needed]
District 2 is home to many international schools, partly because of the high number of foreign residents, and also because of its proximity to District 1. Below is a list of schools that are in this area:
• International School Ho Chi Minh City,[2] 28 Vo Truong Toan Street, District 2, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
• British International School Vietnam has the An Phu Primary and An Phu Secondary campuses[3]
• Australian International School, Vietnam,[4] 264 Mai Chi Tho Road, District 2, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
• EUROPEAN International School Ho Chi Minh City
• Deutsche Schule HCMC – The International German School (IGS)[5]
• EtonHouse International Pre-School Franchise – An Phu,[6] Somerset Vista, 628c Hanoi Highway, An Phu ward, District 2, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
We will go back to district 2 for the perm on Monday and lunch and perhaps finish our touring before heading back.
Breakfast fruit
Lunch spring rolls, oyster soup
Dinner – Dim sum, pho, fried morning glory
Seductive, sexy, strange
Alluring city
In the south of Vietnam
Goddess of the southern lands
Over all she rules
Nothing but the Queen of the land
Dreaming dreams of past greatness
Recalling the glory days of the past
Equally dreaming of the coming of the future
As she resumes her place
Maybe becoming the greatest city of them all
Saigon long may she reign
Saturday March 16 National history museum, Zoo, Botanical Gardens, Lunch with friends
Combined with the botanical garden, spreads out quite some distance. A bit confusing and the signs are all in Vietnamese except for the name of the animals. But none the least a pleasant enough walk. The zoo is in need of a major face lift and major renovation, it looks and feels like a zoo from the 1950’s. The animals are well cared for but look bored and sad as they do in most zoo’s.
Some of the birds are running around outside the enclosures which I found a bit unusual.
Not much options in terms of food which also surprised me.
The van took you on a set course but did not stop and let you get on and off which I found annoying.
All in all not quite ready for prime time. But worth a visit.
Botanical Garden
Combined with the zoo, might be better as a separate park – serious lack of signage or explanations throughout.
The best botanical display was the orchid house but I wished it had some English signage. The dessert plants display would be better off if it were in a sealed off building to prevent rain and humidity.
Same comment – not quite ready for prime time
Following is the Wikipedia entry
Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens
Main gate to Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens
The Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens, established in 1865, is Vietnam’s largest zoo and botanical garden. Located on Nguyen Binh Khiem Street in District 1, T.P. in Ho Chi Minh City, it is home to over a hundred species of mammals, reptiles and birds, as well as many rare orchids and ornamental plants.[1] Also within the grounds is the Museum of Vietnamese History, housing some 25,000 artifacts of history, culture and ethnography of South Vietnam. The grounds also include a temple to the Hung Kings (formerly a monument to Indochinese soldiers who died for France during World War I). Other parts of the zoo are divided into animal and plant conservation areas, an orchid garden, and an amusement park.
On March 23, 1864, Admiral Pierre-Paul de La Grandière, commander of French forces in Cochinchina, commissioned the building of a zoo in Saigon. Malacologist Louis Germain was named the director of the project on March 28, 1865.[2] Construction started on 12 hectares (30 acres) northeast of Thi Nghe Channel, and the zoo occupied 20 hectares (49 acres) by the end of 1865. On February 17th, 1869 the zoo opened to the public, and today the Saigon Zoo is one of the oldest continuously operating zoos in the world.
The Saigon Zoo has undergone many changes over the years. In 1927, a bridge across Thi Nghe Channel was built to connect sections of the zoo. In 1985, a stone jetty was built, and electrical wiring was added to improve the zoo.
In 1989 the facilities received many improvements to make the environment more suitable for its resident population. In 1990, the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden was recognized as a member of the South East Asian Zoos Association. In 1993, the zoo director proposed a long-term plan to improve the quality of management, housing, and care of the animals. That plan came to a close in 2003. The Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens is now the largest zoo and botanical garden in Vietnam.
The Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden contains 590 animals of 125 species and 1,830 trees and plants of 260 species, some of which are over 100 years old. This includes 20 species of orchid, 32 species of cactus and 34 species of bonsai. The Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden is divided into an animal conservation area, a plant conservation area, an orchid garden and an amusement park.
The botanical garden contains many species of rare and valuable plants, some of which are not native to Vietnam. There are species of cacti, ferns and plants that have been imported from Africa and America. The zoo has many kinds of mammals, reptiles, and birds such as: monkeys, giraffes, white Bengal tigers, Clouded Leopards, African lions, gibbons, turtles and snakes. Besides native animal species, there are also many exotic species, some of which are seen in Vietnam for the first time, such as: Hippopotamus amphibius, Choeropsis liberiensis, Panthera onca, Struthio camelus, Phoenicopterus ruber. There are lakes with contain different types of lotuses and a myriad of fish species.
The Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden contains two noteworthy buildings: a temple to the Hung Kings, originally built as a monument to Indochinese soldiers who died for France during World War I; and the Museum of Vietnamese History. The museum is split into two sections: a 15 room-area displaying items from the beginning of Vietnam to 1930, and a 6 room-area displaying artifacts from the culture and history of South Vietnam. Outside of the museum there is a large yard that displays the weapons of France, used during Vietnam’s French colonial era. The museum also contains approximately 25,000 documents of history, culture and ethnography. The zoo employs approximately 1,000 workers, and estimates that it attracts over two million visitors each year.
Conservation and education[edit]
The main purpose of the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden is to educate the public and protect endangered animals and plants. One of many programs the zoo participates in to protect endangered species is one to breed animals in captivity, the goal being to replenish their populations. The Saigon Zoo is currently the only zoo in the world that has successfully bred crested argus pheasants in captivity.
In addition to conservation, in 1999 the zoo’s conservation education department created a plan to educate the public about how to protect animals and plants. Each year, 3,200 students visit the zoo and listen to an hour-long lecture and watch a 30-minute film about animal and plant conservation. It is also a place for people from all over the world to study the fauna and flora of Southeast Asia.
Location[edit]
The zoo is at 2B Nguyen Binh Khiem Street, District 1, T.P. in Ho Chi Minh City. It has two gates: a main gate on Nguyen Binh Khiem Street at the corner of Le Duan Street and another on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street.
My Additional info:
Hours 9 to 5 daily
Cost 50,000 dong – 2.5 US.
They give you a fare card that you insert into the entry machine.
National History Museum
Worth a visit. Well done. Some obligatory pro-communist propaganda here and there but not overwhelming in your face as in the War Museum and Independence palace.
Museum of Vietnamese History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bảo tàng Lịch sử Việt Nam
Location 2 Nguyen Binh Khiem Street, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Type History museum
Website baotanglichsuvn.com/trang-chu.html
The Museum of Vietnamese History is located at 2 Nguyen Binh Khiem Street, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Formerly known as the Musée Blanchard de la Brosse, built by Auguste Delaval in 1926, and The National Museum of Viet Nam in Sai Gon, it received its current name in 1979. It is a museum showcasing Vietnam’s history with exhibits from all periods.[1] It should not be confused with the National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi. The topics covered by the exhibits include the following:
• Prehistoric period (500,000 years ago to 2879 BC).
• Metal Age (2879–179 BC), including artifacts related to the Dong Son culture of northern Vietnam and the Sa Huỳnh cultureof central Vietnam.
• Chinese Domination and Struggle for National Independence in the Red River Valley (179 BC – 938 AD)
• Óc Eo culture of the Mekong Delta region
• Stone and bronze sculptures and other artifacts of Champa
• Stone sculptures of Cambodia (9th–12th centuries)
• Ngô, Dinh, Anterior Lê, Ly dynasties (939–1225)
• Tran and Ho dynasties (1226–1407)
• Dynasties from the Lê to the Nguyên (1428–1788)
• Tây Sơn dynasty (1771–1802)
• Nguyễn dynasty (1802–1945)[2]
The museum served as the pit stop for the second leg of The Amazing Race Asia 3.
Further reading[edit]
• Lenzi, Iola (2004). Museums of Southeast Asia. Singapore: Archipelago Press. ISBN 978-981-4068-96-3.
External links[edit]
Water Puppet Show:
The national museum has a decent water puppet show. It is only 20 minutes long and gives you a taste of the real thing. There are other places in town to see real performances. I think I want to see the real thing next time. But well done nonetheless. Reminded me vaguely of Korean mask dances or kabuki theater. Very highly stylized with deep historical meaning that is hard for a casual observer to pick up on.
An additional fee of 30,000 dong about 1.25 US well worth seeing.
The wiki leaks article below provides a lot more detail:
We were staying in an AIRBNB a few blocks away from Pham Ngu Lao, the famous backpacker street. So, we went there a lot, booked our two out of town tours there, changed money etc. It is a real happening scene Saturday night when they block off the street and it becomes an open air non-stop party. In some ways like the French Quarter in New Orleans, in some ways like Khaosang Road in Bangkok, in some ways like Itaewon in Seoul but done in Saigon style. We noticed a few “girly bars” here and there but nothing like in Bangkok, and we herd there are other areas for that sort of thing but that is not our scene. And some people were smoking the evil weed – we smelled it here and there. And we noticed that the scene continues on the surrounding streets as well, just not as intense.
So, if you want a loud boisterous party with lots of people from all over the world including Vietnamese this is your place, if you want a more civilized quiet night life zone there are lots of other choices to be had.
Breakfast: fruit in room boiled eggs
Lunch at Nha Hang Ngon 160 Pasteur Street, Saigon
There are two restaurants with the same name near each other. This is the original and better of the two. There was a dispute between partners and they split up and operate two restaurants with the same name. Apparently not an uncommon phenomenon, one of the massage places we went to on the Korean recommended listing changed its name because another place has the same name and people were confused between the two according to the owner.
Had decent grilled pork chop Saigon style, nice spring rolls, and sausages and wine. Late lunch so that was sort of dinner too!!!
Dinner corn
Drinks red Wine
Down and Out in Saigon
Southeast Asia, and Mexico
has always attracted
A certain type of westerner
The down and out
On a down word spiral
Why?
Relatively cheap to live
Lots of part time gigs
Teaching English
Or other things
Booze, drugs, sex
Readily available
And cheap
Places to stay
Dirt cheap
And no one needs
To sleep out doors
Easy to disappear
Into the foreigners backpackers ghettos
And escape
From whatever you are running from
The locals are somewhat tolerant
The police usually look the other way
And there are lots of people
In your shoes
I was surprised to find
That Saigon has become
The latest place
For the down and outer crowd
To gather together
In Bangkok one sees them a lot
In Cambodia as well
In the Philippines
In Nepal
And south of the border
In Mexico as well
In India not so much
In Japan and Korea
Just too damn expensive
And too cold to be outdoors
Back in the day
I used to work
The citizen services gig
And saw lots of the down and outer set
The old song comes to mind
No one remembers you
When you are down and out
And in the States
Being down and out
Means living on the mean streets
As it is very difficult
To live with almost no money
And the various side hustles
Don’t give you much money
Unless you are dealing drugs
And teaching ESL
Is not an option
Food is expensive
Transportation is expensive
Booze and drugs expensive
Rent is prohibitive
Commercial sex is expensive
And no one loves you
If you are down and out
No one knows your name
You are just another homeless bum
Invisible to all
As you try to make do
Much better to be down and out
In Southeast Asia
Than on the mean streets
Of the USA
Sunday March 17 Chu Chi Tunnels
Lacquer Ware Factory
As part of the tour we stopped off at a lacquer ware factory that employs artists injured by agent orange exposure. Funded by the Gates foundation. Had an interesting lecture on lacquer ware. Some nice pieces but did not exactly fit our needs. So we passed on buying them.
Lacquer painting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lacquer painting is a form of painting with lacquer which was practised in China and Japan for decoration on lacquerware, and found its way to Europe both via Persia and by direct contact with Asia. The genre was revived and developed as a distinct genre of fine art painting by Vietnamese artists in the 1930s; the genre is known in Vietnamese as “sơn mài.”[1]
Making a lacquer painting may take several months depending on the technique used and the number of layers of lacquer. In Vietnam’s sơn mài lacquer painting first a black board is prepared. Then outlines in chalk are picked out in white with eggshell and clear varnish, then polished. Then the first layer of coloured lacquer is applied, usually followed by silver leaf and another layer of clear lacquer. Then several more layers of different coloured lacquers are painted by brush, with clear lacquer layers between them. In Vietnam an artist may apply up to ten layers or more of coloured and clear lacquer. In Ming China processes included up to a hundred layers. Each layer requires drying and polishing. When all layers are applied the artist polishes different parts of the painting until the preferred colours show. Fine sandpaper and a mix of charcoal powder and human hair is used to carefully reach the correct layer of each specific colour.[2] Consequently, “lacquer painting” is in part a misnomer, since the bringing out of the colours is not done in the preparatory painting but in the burnishing of the lacquer layers to reveal the desired image beneath.[3]
Lacquer had been used since the Shang dynasty (1384-1111 BCE) for decoration and preservation of wooden objects. By the Han dynasty decoration had become more intricate.[4] Lacquer painting is sometimes used for decoration of wooden objects such as the traditional “Chinese candy box”.
Vietnam[edit]
Công Quốc Hà “Hanoi girl” 1997
Lacquer painting, known as sơn mài, from resin of the sơn tree, Rhus succedanea, was developed in Vietnam as a freestanding form, separate from decoration of wooden objects. A revival and a combination with French techniques occurred in the 1930s which was closely associated with the French teachers and Vietnamese students of the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de l’Indochine in Hanoi from 1925 to 1945 such as Joseph Inguimberty and Nguyễn Gia Trí.[5][6] Among the prominent newer generation of Vietnamese lacquer painters is Cong Quoc Ha, who received numerous awards and his works are regularly exhibited worldwide.
Cao Dai Temple
The Cao Dai temple is a must see in my opinion. The Cao Dai religion is a new religion founded in the 1920’s that combines elements of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Catholicism. They even have a pope and bishops. It is common in the South, but not that common elsewhere in Vietnam. The temple is extraordinary.
All the religions of earth
Into a new religion
For a new era
Founded in Vietnam
It has spread across the Vietnamese diaspora
Across the globe
But it is a very Vietnamese thing
It seems you can’t escape the past
Religion is like that
It roots you in to a time and place
And you will obey its teachings
Until the day you die
That is the power
And tragedy of religion
Chu Chi Tunnel
The highlight of the trip was of course the famous Chu Chi tunnels about 50 miles from Saigon. They played a key role in the defeat of the US military and the Vietnamese are justly proud of their engineering prowess in building these tunnels.
Crawling down the tunnels
Of Chu Chi
I could almost imagine
The Viet Kong guerillas
Hiding deep under the tunnels
As the land above is turned
Into a temporary dessert
With the vegetation burned off
By napalm and agent orange
The Viet Kong creep out at night
Stealing onto the bases
Stealing weapons, food, supplies
And occasionally killing soldiers
In their sleep
The US soldiers
Stay on base at night
Terrified of the mosquitos
And of the Viet Kong
the ghosts
Surround me
Telling me their stories
And at last I fled
Through the emergency escape tunnel
Declaring victory
Profoundly shaken up
By the ghosts of the Chu Chi tunnels
Monday March 18 return to Korea
Went to District two for a hair cut for Angela, and lunch. Afterwards had a massage and then drank a craft beer before heading home. Had a great two weeks in Saigon. We will be back!
Over all reflections Saigon 2019 vrs Saigon 1995
Thinking back about how things have changed since our last trip, it struck me that Saigon reminds us both of Seoul in the late 80’s as it emerged to become the world class city it is now. Same energy, same determination, same visionary desire to become a world class city.
Things that have changed
Fewer Scams, Safer, lots more foreign tourists
Back in 1995 Saigon was a dangerous place to visit. Lots of scams, lots of pick pockets, lots of beggars and it was chaotic and confusing. Now the beggars are gone, fewer pickpockets, fewer overt scams, much friendly, lots more foreign visitors, lots more English spoken. Much more pleasant a place to visit.
Motorcyclists wearing Helmets
Back in 1995 few motorcyclists wore helmets and traffic fatalities were widespread. Now almost every where is wearing a helmet and we did not see any traffic accidents. Bus are more widespread, as our taxis and grab (Vietnam’s uber) is everywhere. Lots easier to get around.
Lots more to Do
There is definitely a lot more to do. Lots of places to eat, and drink. More museums, more temples, more everything. And everything is still super cheap.
Backpackers ghetto
Was just beginning when we last visited. Now it is a large and colorful part of the city. Much more diverse tourist crowd – lots of Aussies, Europeans, Asians, but still few Americans.
Fewer Vietnam war vets – they dying off
The Vietnam war veterans are beginning to die off. Because well the war ended a long time ago. But you still saw a lot of American veterans wandering the streets coming back to visit the country they first saw as military conscripts so many years ago.
More English
Definitely a lot more English than before. And google translate makes it so much easier to communicate!
Asian Tourists outnumber Western Tourists, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans Everywhere
Back in 1995 there were few Asian tourists in Vietnam. Now they are everywhere. Koreans, Japanese and Chinese tourists are all over the place. The Vietnamese have embraced Korean culture, K Drama is very popular, as is K Pop and K food.
Much more developed tourism infrastructure
The tourist industry has grown up. So many options to chose from and the tours we went on were professionally run, informative and inexpensive. We have so many places we want to travel next time we come.
AIRBNB did not exist 25 years ago. Now AIRBNB places are everywhere as our guest houses. Travel costs are low accommodations are good. Restaurants are great. Food is fantastic.
Things that remained the same –
Fascinating city, Great food, Still pretty cheap, friendly people, Traffic still chaotic
What we did last time
Saigon with a driver and guide
We hired a driver and a guide for a private tour last time. We saw a lot of the city but never really got the hang of the place and we were rushed here and there and ate in five star restaurants when we wanted to see the city as locals would. All in all we were a bit disappointed and spent too much money. This trip was much more enjoyable.
Buying Art –
we bought some nice art work last time – lacquer ware paintings. We met the artist through his nephew who was staying at the same guest house that we were staying at.
Touring Traditional Market
We did a tour of traditional markets, probably Ben Thang market.
Buying gold
We bought some gold which we still have
Re-unification Palace
We saw the re-unification palace which was impressive
War Memorial
And we saw the War Memorial which was a bit too in your face for our liking.
Hanoi
We spent a week in Hanoi. We stayed at the at the government guest house. We were among the first independent American tourists in Vietnam as we arrived a week after the Embassy opened. We had lunch and dinner with the Consul who was a friend from the Embassy in Bangkok. We enjoyed touring old quarter the old quarter had lunch and dinner there. West Lake district was nice as well.
Conclusion – Don’t know why it took 25 years to return but we will definitely be back many times. And you should go if you have not been
Note:I am taking a two week trip to Vietnam and will update my blog when I return with my reflections on my trip, updated publications etc.
Cosmic Dreams and Nightmares
I don’t dream dreams. I dream movies complete with action, music, food, smells everything. In this one I had a vision of a possible future. it was so vivid, almost as if I were watching the hearing take place.
Don’t Go Jogging in the Middle of the Night
Don’t touch this button!
Don’t open the door
Don’t go to the theater tonight stay home with me
Don’t go to Dallas I have a bad feeling about the trip
Dream Girl
Cheating Death 100 Times
Guardian Angel
Medical Mystery
SLA Hit List
Dream Girl – A true Story – reprinted from Dreams and the Unexplainable
Dream Girl
You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
~Author Unknown
The dreams started when I was a senior at Berkeley High School in 1974. About a month before I graduated, I fell asleep in a physics class after lunch and had the first dream:
A beautiful Asian woman was standing next to me, talking in a strange language. She was stunning—the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was in her early twenties, with long black hair, and piercing black eyes. She had the look of royalty. She looked at me and then disappeared, beamed out of my dream like in Star Trek. I fell out of my chair screaming, “Who are you?” She did not answer.
About a month went by, and then I started having the dream repeatedly. Always the same pattern.
Early morning, she would stand next to me talking. I would ask who she was, and she would disappear. She was the most beautiful, alluring woman I had ever seen.
I was struck speechless every time I had the dream.
I had the dream every month during the eight years during which I went to college and served in the Peace Corps. In fact, when I joined the Peace Corps, I had to decide whether to go Korea or Thailand. The night before I had to submit my decision, I had the dream again and it made me sure that she was in Korea waiting for me.
After the Peace Corps, I still hadn’t met my dream woman. I got a job working for the U.S. Army as an instructor and stayed in Korea. I kept having the dream, until I had the very last one: She was standing next to me, speaking to me in Korean, but I finally understood her. She said, “Don’t worry, we will be together soon.”
Why was that the last time I had the dream? Because the very next night, the girl in my dream got off the bus in front of me. She went on to the base with an acquaintance of mine, a fellow teacher, and they went to see a movie. I saw her and found the courage to speak with her.
We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet that weekend.
The next night, she was waiting for me as I entered the Army base to teach a class. She told me she was a college senior and she had something to tell me. I signed her on to the base and left her at the library to study while I taught, and then we went out for coffee after class. She told me she was madly in love with me, and that I was the man for her. I told her not to worry as I felt the same.
That weekend, we met Saturday and Sunday and hung out all day. On Sunday night, I proposed to her. It was only three days after we had met, but for me it felt like we had met eight years ago. I had been waiting all my life for her to walk out of my dreams and into my life, and here she was.
Her mother did not want her to marry a foreigner. One day, about a month after we met, she invited me to meet her parents. I brought a bottle of Jack Daniels for her father and drank the entire bottle with him. He approved of me, but her mother still had reservations. After a Buddhist priest told her my future wife and I were a perfect astrological combination, she agreed, and we planned our wedding.
The wedding was a media sensation in South Korea. My wife explained it to me years later. At the time, I was overwhelmed just by the fact that we were getting married and I didn’t fully understand how unusual this was. My wife was of the old royal clan, distant relatives to the former kings of Korea. In the clan’s history, only two people had ever married foreigners: my wife, and Rhee Syngman, who was the the first President of South Korea. My father, who was a former Undersecretary of Labor, came out for the wedding, which fueled even more media interest. Our marriage defied the stereotypical Korean-foreign marriage where the women married some hapless GI just to escape poverty and immigrate to the U.S. We were the first foreign/Korean couple to get married at a Korean Army base. Over 1,000 people came to the wedding, and my father was interviewed on the morning news programs.
This all happened thirty-seven years ago, (45 years since the first dream) and I am still married to the girl in my dreams. Now in my dreams she watches over me when we are apart.
~Jake Cosmos Aller
General Zod Conquers the World
SETI and the search for extraterrestrial life goes on overdrive when scientists report what appears to be radio and television broadcasts from a planet eight light years from earth, the same planet as the Vulcans came from in the Star Trek universe. The programs show a world where dinosaur-like creatures are running the world and there appears to be a civil war. Over the next six months, the world is transfixed watching the alien broadcasts which are translated in English via a supercomputer program. In the broadcast, a nuclear war has occurred. The surviving party regains absolute control and announces the formation of the Galactic Empire. General Zod is the First Emperor. They have discovered Earth as well. The aliens launch a crash project to develop interstellar travel so they can come to earth and conquer the earth.
The revelations that there is an external threat to the planet causes the United Nations to get together with the help of the United States and Russia another space powers, they put together Space defense International organization And also invigorates efforts to make the UN a real Planetary government including finally conquering climate change.
But it was too late. General Zod’s son arrives to take over the earth. He makes a broadcast saying that they were liberating Earth in the name of the Galactic Empire and that resistance would be futile.
They land at the White House and when President Trump comes out to greet them,
General Zod cuts off his head, and then cuts off the heads of all the staffers as they come out White House. After an hour of unimaginable horrors, including mass rapes, blowing up the Pentagon and the CIA, General Zod announces that he had taken over the world.
Life will continue as before as long as people behave and follow the rules they would be fine Resistance to the new empire will be met with instant death. Life in the Empire is not a democracy. They would not tolerate Freedom of speech, and Freedom of Press, and Freedom of Assembly And the freedom to oppose the State. The state is everything. As long as humans remember that they would be just fine. They took over the United States because it was the biggest country in the world. And that his forces will take over the rest of the world but in the next couple weeks. If people on earth accept the new order, their safety would be guaranteed. Companies would be taken over by Galactic Empire companies, and everybody would have to learn Galactic standard. Within one year older languages will be banned.
Sam Adams Vs. the Social Cleansing Board
the summons
Sam Adams was worried. He could not sleep. He got up at 4 am and wrote in his journal and tried to cope with the dread that was overwhelming him. He had received the summons yesterday that he was to report to the social cleansing board for a review on whether he would allow to continue to be on the automatic permit list or would be referred for final status determination. Sam was a retired Federal worker trying to live on dwindling savings.
Sam had Alzheimer’s and was rapidly depleting his life’s savings. Two years before he had been released from prison, one of millions of ex political prisoners. His crime? Authoring anti-government poems just before the beginning of the Christian States of America, right after the second civil war. Unfortunately for him and his millions of ex-prisoners, his side lost the war. He wanted to flee to the United Provinces and settle down in California but lacked money to move. And getting a job at his age, with Alzheimer’s and his political rating was proving difficult at best.
All of which added up to a 90 percent probability his last days were approaching.
Under the new rules imposed by the Christian republican party in the newly established Christian states, all citizens over the age of 18 were on the permitted list if they met all of the following criteria. He tried to think why he was being referred to the board. Perhaps it was because of the recent crackdown on social deviancy. Millions of homosexuals, transgenered people, atheists, drug users, alcoholics, and non-religious people had been rounded up and eliminated according to the rumors. Perhaps someone had fingered him as a possible deviant. He fit the stereotype, no children, known drug user, known alcohol user, suspect politically, atheist and now Alzheimer’s patient. And he was not racially pure having some black blood, some Asian blood and some Jewish blood. And he had married across the racial divide which was now illegal.
The story was that if you flipped and named names you would sometimes be spared for now, and if your info was correct, you could be rewarded. Of course, those whom you flipped were not too fortunate. That was probably the story or someone could have heard that he was an ex political prisoner, or simply that he had Alzheimer’s’.
He had no children. And he was a secret atheist and had been involved with the dissent movement and had spent five years as a political prisoner at the start of the Christian Revolution. He was determined to make a stand and denounce the whole rotten system before the board although that would probably seal his fate.
As an Alzheimer’s patient he could no longer work. His wife had died the year before while he was in prison after she had been deported to her native Korea. She left him some assets but he had little idea how to manage his finances and he was behind in his rent and had received an eviction notice which had probably triggered the visit by the social cleansing staff who recommend a final status determination. But it was just as likely he was on the list because some one flipped on him.
He also did not make it last time when they came for him at midnight. Always at midnight the story goes.
The soldiers came took him away from his wife and locked him up for two years. They deported his wife whom he heard had died shortly afterwards. He spend two years at hard labor in the dessert near Las Vegas and was released into Las Vegas.
Las Vegas was a different town now that the casinos had left town. All that was left were back office operations, and underground booze and pot operations and underground casinos. It was a hot bed of political dissent and there was an underground railroad to California, which was not part of the Christian states. Sam had been preparing to leave which was a crime and perhaps that is why he was on the list.
The hearing would be at 10 am. He was meeting his lawyer at the hearing board but his lawyer was not too optimistic.
the Permit Criteria
The basic criteria for being on the permit list were:
For Males
Age 18 to age 70
White race
Married to a white woman with children
Must be either working, in school full time, serving in military duty, or working in prison if convicted of a crime.
Homelessness was not allowed. If unemployed and or homeless, would be referred to social cleansing department unless one had a relative who was willing to take care of your needs.
Since there were no pensions or social security anymore and no government provided health care, one must have sufficient assets through one’s work, or savings or through one’s relatives to provide for one ‘s needs. If not you would be sent to the social cleansing board for final status determination.
For Females
Same basic rules applied but if one were married, and had children one would be on the permitted list, if children are older, if spouse’s income is sufficient one would be on the list.
If single or divorced, and homeless one would also be subject to social cleansing unless one’s relatives would willing to sponsor you. Since there were no pensions or social security anymore and no government provided health care, one must have sufficient assets through one’s work, or savings or through one’s relatives to provide for one ‘s needs. If not you would be sent to the social cleansing board for final status determination.
For Aged People
Additional requirements for the age you were expected to take care of your basic needs through employment and savings and the help of relatives. If you were evicted for non-payment of rent, or judged to not have sufficient assets left to sustain your basic needs including medical care, you would be referred for final status determination.
For all people additional requirements applied.
Sexual deviancy, drug use, alcohol use, gambling, sex outside of marriage, homosexuality would result in immediate referral to the social cleansing board as all were banned conduct that could result in final termination. Being a member of a prohibited religious class could also be grounds for referral as would a pattern of not attending Christian services. Finally, if one had been arrested for political crimes one would be marked forever.
Sam’s Rating
One had a government social rating. Sam knew that his rating was a D meaning that the government would be watching him all the time, and it would be difficult to get a job. Only the A’s and B’s were guaranteed to be on the permit list.
To be a A you had be to a true believer, had to be white, had to attend church on a regular basis, and had to be employed naturally.
To be a B same thing but you could be a B if you were a minority, or had engaged in alcohol or drug use under the old rules.
C meant that there was something wrong with your background, you were an atheist, you were a minority etc.
D mean that you were a serious threat to the regime.
E meant that you would be terminated.
F met you were terminated as it met Failure to survive, and family members of F were also labeled F as they were usually terminated at the same time.
Being associated with banned political movements, including reading banned materials could also lead one to being referred to the social cleansing board as all were grounds for either termination or criminal prosecution if under the age of 70.
The board has three choices – granted temporary status extension, referral for termination, or referral to criminal prosecution.
The termination would be carried out quickly. There would be an optional funeral at your Church, then the execution through the method of your choice – firing squad, beheading, electric chair, or gas. The default was gas where you were put in a room with up to ten other people and put to sleep.
Afterwards your body would be cremated in an electricity generating plant with the ashes turned into fertilizer products. There were no burials allowed unless one was rich enough and connected enough to request a burial exception. Most people did not qualify.
the Hearing
The hearing started. The presiding Judge, Judge Miller was a stern face white man in his 70’s and a true believer. He was sent to Las Vegas to clean it up as Las Vegas was the wild west, a hot bed of dissent, illegal drug use, illegal prostitution and illegal casinos. It was also near several political prisons so many ex cons lived there.
The Judge was the chairman of the Nevada state committee that did not exist and was a senior official in the Federal committee that did not exist that brought together government, business and church leaders to coordinate government policies and that secretly ran the Christian States of America.
Probably a score of A thought Sam.
The judge announced that he had reviewed Sam’s file and was shocked that Sam had escaped final termination. He said that the previous board had erred in simply sending him to prison. He should have been eradicated as a social evil, as a cancer that needs to be removed from the pure body politics. Sam and his ilk sickened him. Sam was a free thinker, an atheist, a mix race mongrel, married to a non-white and was therefore guilty of crimes against the white race which was a crime. The Judge was determined to see justice done.
He asked Sam a series of questions. Sam’s answers sealed his fate.
Sam, what is your occupation?
None for now.
You realize that under the law you must be working, in service, in school or in prison?
I can’t find a job due to my age, my Alzheimer’s; and my political record.
That’s irrelevant. You are just a lousy atheist piece of shit. You deserve no sympathy. And have none from me.
Are you white?
No, I am mixed race, part native, part Asian, part black.
I see you were married to a non-white and had no children. Good for you we would not want to see more mongrel children. Such children should be eliminated at birth in my opinion and will be starting next month when we begin enforcing the racial purity laws.
What was your crime? Let’s see reading prohibited writings, keeping a journal, publishing an anti-government blog, authoring anti-government poems and stories. You served two years at hard labor?
Yes
Do you still write?
Yes, everyday but I no longer publish on line.
Good. No one would want to read that trash anyway.
Do you go to church?
No
Do you believe in God?
No, I do not believe in an imaginary man in the sky.
One more anti-religious statement from you will result in an immediate ruling of termination.
Do you drink?
If I can find it yes
Do you gamble
Yes, when I can
Do you support the Christian Republican Party and the Christian States of America?
No, I do not.
Okay, I have enough for a ruling. Sam Adams, you are hereby sentence to termination. Tomorrow morning at 7 am you will be turned into electricity and fertilizer. Take him away.
Next please.
At midnight there was a knock at the door. A black man appeared and said he was a friend and he was being smuggled to California. Sam rejoiced and went with his new friend and reached SF in the morning, escaping death for the 23rd time in his life.
the End
Poetic Nightmares
Morphing Images from a Hellish Nightmare
Note: From a real nightmare End Note
I am in a room
Drinking at a party
And smoking weed
Watching people all around me
Change into hideous creatures
Monsters from the deepest depths of hell
Everyone in the room same dignity as creatures monsters and depressed tech stock
Has been transformed except me
The Chief of them all
Wears a Trumpian mask
Complete with orange hair
Half human half pig
His deputy
Wears the face of Putin
But his body
Half human, half horse: if
The other creatures wear masks
Many of them wear
Green Pepe the alt-right
Symbolic frog masks
And have T-shirts
Bearing alt right slogans
And Nazi symbols
And as they prance about
They chant alt. Right slogans
And neo-Nazi chants
Jews will not Replace us
And the rest of these creatures
Are hideous ugly beasts
With only a vestige of humanity left
And these monsters are engaged
In all sorts of foul evil deeds
Murder violence death
All around
And non-stop
violent drug-fueled orgies
As these creatures
Half human half monsters
Half male, half female creatures
Snort coke, cocaine, speed
Smoke weed and drink vodka shots
Scotch, bourbon and beer
The Trumpian Pig leads the charge
Starts engaging in sodomy with Putin
Who chases after people
Cutting off their heads with his sword
They turn on to their fellow creatures
Raping and killing each other
and eating their fellow creatures
All night long
Then they attack me
Screaming
Jews will not replace us
And I wake up
Screaming
As the sun comes up
Just another nightmare
The Endless Movie
Watching the TV coverage
Of the great government shut down
Of 2018-2019
I am reminded of a movie
As I fall asleep
Listening to the TV
Blather on and on
About what it all means
Mr. Natural pops up
And screams
“It don’t mean shit
“Dude, the endless movie
Is about to begin”!
A middle-aged white man
Down on his proverbial luck
Just been fired
Replaced by a foreign worker
Or a robot
Or just fired
Because he was no longer
Deemed useful
To the masters of the universe
If he was lucky
He’d be given a watch
And an IOU worthless pension
And the man wanders into a restaurant
Pulls out a gun
Eats his breakfast
After the official breakfast hour
Puts on a Pepe the green frog mask
Drops acid, Snorts speed
Drinks a shot of booze
And coffee smokes a joint
Snorts cocaine for good measure
and smokes a cigaret
And walks outside
steals a bus at gun point
Filled with passengers
He tells them
They are hostages
And he puts on his vest
With the dead man switch
Next to the bomb
He announces
Via tweet
He is going to take the bus
To the proverbial pot of gold
Hidden deep in a cave
And when he got there
He would release the hostages
And disappear into the mine
And never be found again
And as the bus careens around the mountain
At a 100 miles an hour
The dude sprouts out
Conspiracy after conspiracy theory
About Obama the Muslim communist
secret gay working with George Soros
the Jewish money people
in league with the shapeshifting lizards
and Mueller is one of them
they are all after him
because he knows the deal
And the passengers are transfixed
Half hoping he would make it
Half hoping he would be blown away
And as the bus careens out of control
With the wheels falling off
And the cliff looming ahead
You realize we are all doomed
Worlds Within Worlds Lost in Inner Space
A man woke up one day
Lost in inner space
Went so far down
The proverbial rabbit hole
That he did not know
Where he was
Nor what time it was
Nor when it was
As he stared out
At a bewildering world
A world lost in inner space
Deep down in his dreams
Satanic Torture
I find myself
In a dark room
Strapped to a bed
The light turns on
The large TV comes on
A smiling image
Of Satan fills the TV
He is dressed
In a conservative business suit
Looks like he came
Out of a corporate
board meeting
surrounded by demonic aides
who constantly shove papers
at him
He looks up from his lap top
And smiles
A deadly so insincere smile
His voice booms out
Welcome to Hell
My satanic slaves
I am Satan
Your new master
Each of you
Has been sentenced
To an eternity of torture
And the punishment
Must fit the crime
So, for you
Mr. Jake Cosmos Aller
Failed aspiring poet
And novelist
Your torture
Is to be strapped
To that bed
Unable to move
As you are filled
With the need
To piss and shit
But you can not move
And your skin
Is crawling with bugs
And itchy
as Hell so to speak
and you are so sleepy
but you can not sleep
the TV will play
endless repeats
Of some of the worst TV
and movie shows
ever produced
Starting with my favorite
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Featuring your favor annoying little girl
Carmetta! Singing for you forever
As you are the ultimate cake sniffer
I looked up
At the cliffs
Towering above
the roaring torrent
and see the dark demons
of my terrible nightmares
chasing the boat
firing flaming arrows
and I see werewolves
goblins, ghosts and monsters
running along the river bed
screaming obscenities
as they chase me
to my doom
and I see the waterfall ahead
and see my pending doom
as I rush over the edge
of reason
Micro Stories
53 word stories regarding unheeded warnings
Don’t Go Jogging in the Middle of the Night
It all started with a jog in the middle of the night. Despite my wife’s warning don’t go jogging in the middle of the night. Broke my heal in a million pieces, 14 operations ensured, mutant MDR Staff almost killed me, almost lost the leg. . should have listened to her warning.
Don’t touch this button!
Don’t touch this button the former President said. I said, what this button? And that led to the launching of nuclear weapons, going to defon three, and world war 3 with millions of people dead end of civilization moment. Should not have touched the red button.
Don’t open the door
When you find yourself running for your life chased by demons from hell and backed into a corner in a burning house filled with flames and are about to die in a million horrible ways you remembered that they warned you not to open door number three in this crazy reality TV show.
Don’t go to the theater tonight stay home with me
Mary Todd Lincoln had a vicious headache and was not in the mood to go out. The President though ignored her wishes and told her that he had to go to the theater that night to show the world everything was okay now the war was ending. Should have listened to her.
Don’t go to Dallas I have a bad feeling about the trip
Jackie was known for her moods and her premonitions. Something the President found both amusing an annoying. She told him that she a vision of death waiting for him in Dallas that day. The President dismissed her foolishness as he put it and went to Dallas to meet his fate.
true love story.
In 1974 I had the first dream. While sleeping in a boring class, I saw a beautiful Asian woman standing at me speaking a foreign language. I fell out of chair yelling who are you? I began having the same dream month after month for eight years. One day I realized she was in Korea so I went there in the Peace Corps to meet her. In 1982 I had the last dream. She said don’t worry we meet soon. That night she walked off a bus, out of the dream and into my life. We’ve been married 37 years.
Cheating Death 22 Times
I have cheated death 22 times in my life. I was born a preemie, almost died at birth, and had all the childhood illness at once. In 1979 I came down with Typhoid fever in Korea in the Peace Corps. In 1991 almost got hit by a train. In 1996-1997 had 14 operations due to a mutant drug resistant staph infection, almost died several times. In 1997 I had an acute stomach ailment that almost killed me, due to excessive antibiotic usage, if I had waited 30 minutes more would have been dead. And had dengue in 2010.
Guardian Angel Saves My Life
In 1990, I was teaching ESL in Korea. My wife and I drove to the East Coast of Korea for a weekend away. She was in the US Army then. As we drove towards Sorak mountain, I was filled with the need to get off the road right then. I had a premonition of doom, so did my wife. We got off to drive around another park returned a few minutes later and saw a 25 car pileup. We would have been dead if we had not listened to that inner voice telling us get off now.
Medical Mystery
Back in 1996, when I was in the hospital fighting a mutant staph infection after a disastrous jogging accident that led to 14 operations, the internal medicine doctor said that there was something else going on. He finally discovered that I had a rare parasite, a tape worm of sorts that remained inert, its only becomes active if you take steroids then it blows up like a basketball killing you instantly. Six months later I had to take steroids due to frozen shoulder syndrome, and if I had not gotten rid of it, I would have died a medical mystery.
Back in 1974 my father was a local politician in Berkeley, California who was on the SLA’s hit list as “an enemy of the people, a fascist insect that needed to be killed”. His crime? As President of the community college district, he began requiring IDS for students and staff to combat campus crime at the local community colleges. We had 24/7 police coverage for a while. One morning I saluted my father, “good morning fascist insect”. My father, being of Germanic stock did not like the joke as jokes are alien to the German DNA.
I wrote this story to submit to the Seoul Fiction writer’s contest, “From Seoul to the World”. The action takes place 25 years in the future after a North Korean bioweapon is released after President Pence cancels Peace Talks with North Korea and pursues a military option. the weapon kills 99.9% of people. there are about 25,000 people living in South Korea, most under the control of the Military base at Camp Humphreys. Another visitor from the recent past, General Lee is organzing the wild men, cannibal gangs into a militia force so he can kill all the foreigners. I will update it with the audio clip later.
Sam Adams one morning woke up to find the power out in his house near the airport on Youngchong island in Korea where he resided with his Korean born wife, Maria Lee. Sam was a retired US Diplomat who had served 27 years in the Foreign Service with the State Department and his wife was a retired US Army major. They had decided to split their retirement between Korea and Southern Oregon. It was early spring time and they had just returned from a trip to Southeast Asia.
They had spent the day glued to the TV Sam watching CNN and BBC, Maria watching Korean news and translating as needed as well as reading what kept popping up on their computers. The situation was grim. It was April 2020 and the democrats were leading the polls with a battle between Kamala Harris and Sherwood Brown shaping up, with Bloomberg, and Schultz mounting credible challenges to the two major parties. Pence was leading the Republican field but in a tight race with Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. In a four way race, Pence came in fourth place, Schultz and Bloomberg tied for second place , the democrats were in third place but just barely.
After President Trump was impeached, President Pence cancelled the North Korean peace talks after it became clear to all that the North Koreans had no intention of getting rid of their nukes, but were willing to freeze development and get rid of their missiles. They were also not willing to dismantle their bioweapons programs, but willing to discuss a freeze. The Russians and Chinese unilaterally suspended sanctions telling the U.S. to take the deal offered. Pence refused. He ordered family members and non-essential employees to leave. The North Koreans declared that the Korean war had resumed and they would launch hostile acts but would allow the U.S, to evacuate it citizens first and gave the U.S. two weeks to do so. The U.S. also cancelled the visa waiver program over night.
And announced that if the North attacked the South, the U.S. would retaliate in kind, including using nukes if the North used nukes. And in any event, they would destroy the bioweapons programs which would launch the bioweapons against the North Korean people. The UN security council members voted 9 to 3 to condemn the U.S. reactions and voted 12 to 0 to condemn the North Korean actions. The U.S., U.K. blocked the measure. Israel was the only country that supported the U.S. measure. NATO voted that they would not honor an article Five request if the U.S. were to ask for one. They also voted that the U.S. should take the offer. South Korea also urged the U.S. to return to the peace talks table and take the offer. Pence refused to do so and said that the U.S. was ready for any and all contingencies, and demanded that North Korea immediately dismantle their nukes, bioweapons, chemical weapons and artillery batteries near the DMZ. In return, the U.S. would recognize the North and would formally end the Korean war. The North refused to do so, citing the still hostile U.S. government’s rhetoric and actions.
They had managed to get a flight the next day at 3 pm and were planning on getting up about 6 am to pack up before leaving for the airport about 12 noon. The airlines advised early arrival as the airport was much more chaotic than normal as that morning was the 19th day. All flights would be suspended as of noon the following day as the Korean Military and U.S. Airforce would be taking over the Airport for use in possible military contingency operations. So they were fortunate to have gotten a flight at all, and had to pay three times the going rate, as only business class was left. They would be taking their niece with them as she had a U.S. passport. The rest of the relatives had visa appointments in two weeks but the rumor was that the U.S.G. was denying 95% of visa applicants.
Sam was 63 years old, his wife was 60. They had no children. He was tall, had mostly dark hair, blue eyes, and was in pretty good shape. Maria was also in pretty good health. They had decided to retire a bit early so they could enjoy life. They had made some good investments, had rental income to supplement their pensions so they felt blessed.
About 5:30 am there was a brilliant flash in the sky, and the building shook as if there was either artillery shells coming in or an earthquake. It woke Sam up. But his wife was such a deep sleeper that she did not notice a thing. He decided to let her sleep and he would check the news and then do his usual writing, as he wrote every morning, then wake up his wife and pack for the trip to the airport. Sam was spending his retirement as a writer and blogger.
Sam noticed the power was out, which was unusual. Power was very reliable in Korea these days, he could not recall the power having gone out during the year and half he had been living in his fifth floor penthouse apartment in the airport new city, about a mile from the subway and walking distance to lots of restaurants and services. . Sam and Maria felt that it was quite pleasant to live in, there was the World Peace Forest Park which was a five minute walk away, and Bakrangsan .mountain which was a forested hill about 1 mile from the house. He occasionally saw deer in the park.
With these thoughts in his mind, he turned on the computer, which booted up since the battery was still working. But the internet was down. He tried his phone, no service at all. Sam looked out the window and was astonished to find that all the buildings around him were falling in ruin, the cars were all destroyed, and there were no people to be seen, and the parking lot was filled with trees and bushes as the concrete had been taken over by a resurgent forest. Usually at 6 a.m. he would see neighbors getting ready to go to work either at the airport or to catch the train into Seoul or Incheon where most people worked.
Sam woke up Maria.
’Wife, there is no power, the internet is down, and there is no phone service. And I think that the North Koreans launched an artillery attack at the airport about 5 am as I saw a flash of light and heard a lot of noise and the ground shook like an earthquake. But that is not the most unusual thing. Wake up you have to see this.”
Maria got up reluctantly and walked out and Sam pointed out the deserted ruined landscape outside the house.
“Baby, what the hell is going on?”
“Wifee, I don’t know. We have to go outside to investigate.”
They got dressed and ventured outside. They walked down since the power was out everywhere. Their building appeared to be the only building intact but they knew that the neighbors were not there. Just a feeling that they were the only people left alive on the island.
Sam, being an avid reader and writer of SF speculated that “perhaps a bioweapon got loose in the North and spread across the border? Perhaps the U.S. accidentally released it or North Korean special forces released it. But why are we alive?”
Maria, the practical one of their household, looked at him and nodded. Sam sometimes saw things that she never could as he was a genius. They walked about located their car. Their car was ruined, rusting away. The windows were broken. The wheels had no air and it was obviously not drivable. Sam pondered on what was going on.
“Wifee, I think that somehow we have been propelled into the future. Whatever happened to kill everyone happened some time ago. Looking at these ruins it happened at least ten years ago if not 50 years ago. I wonder if we are last people left alive in Korea? And I sure as hell don’t know how we got here.”
Sam and Maria decide to walk through the town to see what had changed and whether there were any survivors. Most of the buildings were falling apart. A few lay in ruins. The cars were all rusted away. They started walking down the park heading down the bike path towards the central business district. The path had completely reverted to forest. It was early spring just like it had been when they had gone to bed back whenever they had gone to bed.
They came to the park near the library. And saw a gruesome sight. In the middle of the park there were six huge dogs mauling and eating a freshly killed deer. The dogs looked more like wolves than dogs.
wiild dogs
One of the dogs looked up and noticed Sam and Maria. Sam told Maria,
“Stand up tall, make a lot of noise and back away slowly. Don’t run.”
Maria looked at Sam like he was an idiot but nodded her head.
The dog looked at Sam, and growled. He got the attention of the pack and the dogs started walking towards Sam and Maria. Sam picked up some rocks and threw them at the dogs. The dogs stopped but Sam and Maria could not get passed them so they retreated. The dogs followed them back towards the house.
On the way back to the house, Sam and Maria noticed other things. There were bones here and there of deer and other animals. The dogs were apparently quite active. They may be other dogs about. They saw a cat who stared at them but did not come after them, but ran away from them and the approaching dogs. The dogs stopped and ran into the bushes pursuing a deer that they had cornered and began mauling.
Sam and Maria watched the dogs for a while then headed back to the house. Sam and Maria sat down in the living room and debated what to do. Sam said,
“We can’t stay here long term. We have to find a farm house where we have water, and a place to make a fire, and some farming equipment etc. We will have to learn how to farm, and hunt. We also need to find other survivors, otherwise we may be the last humans left on earth. So, let’s pack up our camping gear, and basic supplies and head first to the airport to check it out. I suspect that what happened was the North Koreans jumped the gun and attacked this morning about 5:00 am as I heard a large boom and saw the sky lit up. But how we ended up in the future I have no idea. Perhaps the North Koreans were experimenting with a new weapon system, or the U.S.?
You were still sleeping so I decided to listen to the news and then do my usual writing before waking you up. After we go to the airport, we will come back here spend the night then take off tomorrow for COSTCO to get more supplies then we can head down to Camp Humphreys. See if we can find any survivors and get weapons, more camping gear, and survival books from the library. But we can fire up the BB2 and at least heat up some soup and stuff for today, and tomorrow night. And head out the next morning.”
They packed up a back pack, stuffed it filled with hiking and camping gear. Made lunch and dinner and plotted their route to the airport then Costco. The next morning, they woke up to the same nightmare. Nothing had changed.
They ate breakfast, and walked out in the early morning calmness. Korea was at last truly the land of the morning calm as there was just silence. The lack of noise was jarring. They broke into one of the neighbor’s apartment looking for more survival gear. They found skeletons only and remains of ancient meals long rotted away. They added some gear to their back packs and loaded up and moved out by mid-day.
They had knives, and some large sticks as weapons against dog attacks. They walked through the park and saw the dog pack but the dogs left them alone. One of the dogs began to follow them but the dog retreated when they threw rocks at them.
They saw deer in the fields everywhere and they saw cows and wild horses wandering about, lots of wild cats, and birds but no sign of any human life.
korean deer
The stores were all filled with commercial stuff and they broke into a pharmacy and added some more survival gear to their back packs.
They then noticed a lion watching them. Where the hell the lion had come from they had no idea. The lion appeared to decide to leave them alone, perhaps he had already eaten breakfast.
lion
They stopped at the Lotte Mart –The stench of long rotting away food was nauseating but they were able to add some more essential provisions to their back packs. They also commandeered two large shopping carts and got another couple of back packs and luggage for good measure, got a tent, sleeping bag, booze, spam, flash lights with lots of extra batteries, and a first aid kit.
It took most of the day to reach the airport. As suspected the airport had been bombed back to the proverbial stone age. Nothing was left standing except for planes on the ground. Some had crashed landed, others were stranded on the ground. They went to the book store which somehow had survived the carnage and got newspapers, and some books, and more water and other supplies.
bombed out airport
They took the time to make a picnic lunch at the airport and while doing so read the Korean papers. They made a fire and cooked their first meal since the day before. Maria read the Chosun Ilbo, the conservative daily newspaper in Korea. The headline read;
“last issue due to bioweapon attack. 생물 무기 공격으로 인한 마지막 문제
saengmul mugi gong-gyeog-eulo inhan majimag munje “
A bioweapon apparently had escaped from a secret lab in North Korea and had spread across North Korea and killed everyone in the North within days. Terrified North Koreans rushed across the border and infected border control military and residents who all promptly died. The contagion then spread across the border regions, and reached Seoul within a few days.
The city government ordered a 100 percent curfew but that did not stop the contagion from spreading rapidly. All it took was one person to cough to contaminate a ten foot radius. The bioweapon caused a severe influenza attack, followed by an Ebola like reaction. It was 99.5 percent fatal and death occurred within days. The newspaper staff has been affected and there are only a few people left so this is probably our last edition. There is news that the contagion has spread to Asian cities and the US. Apparently some people get the disease but don’t show symptoms for several weeks, therefore people were able to travel spreading the disease wide and far and there are reports of contagions breaking out all over the world. All air travel, train travel, subway travel has been suspended but there are few travelers as close to 80% of Koreans may have perished. There are rumors that some people might be immune.
The US military has announced that they will operate an emergency shelter at Camp Humphreys, and medical testing is being conducted to find a cure or vaccine. Anyone who is still alive and not showing symptoms may be immune and should go to Camp Humphry for a medical evaluation. Anyone showing symptoms should stay at home as there is nothing that can be done for them.”
Sam scanned the U.S. papers and the English language media. Apparently what had happened was that the North had attacked on the 19th day five days ahead of their announced start of hostilities. They had bombed the airport and power plants knocking out the power. The U.S. launched an attack against their missiles and their bioweapons programs which released a bioweapon that killed most people in the North within days and most people in the South as well. North Korean agents had smuggled it into the U.S. and released in over 25 American and Canadian cities. Islamic terror groups had released it in European cities, in Latin America and in Africa. Pakistan and India had exchanged nukes as had Israel and Iran. And Islamic terrorists had launched nukes in NYC, LA and Washington DC and launched attacks including nukes across Europe and Russia. And the North had nuked the South and the U.S. had nuked the North before the virus made all military actions futile. The war had ended within five days as most people were dead from the virus, or the nuke attacks or the artillery attacks.
bio-weapon
Sam asked Maria,
“When was this dated?”
“May 15th, my 60th birthday in our timeline.”
“Mm well it seems like it is April 1, a few weeks before that date, and the 19th day of the North Korean self-declared two-week deadline. They must have jumped the gun, and the U.S. must have accidentally released the bioweapon. And North Koreans must have given the bioweapons to ISIS and Al Qaeda to release it in the U.S. and Europe. Perhaps they had an antidote as well to distribute. Wifee, we need to go to COSTCO tomorrow then on to Camp Humphreys a few days latter to look for survivors, get some guns and then find a farm house we can settle down in, if we don’t find survivors.”
They stopped by the Casino, and raided the bank stocking up on gold coins and bars, heavy to carry but could be very useful. They made plans to go to COSTCO the next day.
The bridge to Incheon was falling down. They walked across the bridge and looked down at the Incheon harbor. There were boats here and there in the water. Old abandoned cars and trucks everywhere. And abandoned burnt out building everywhere. The apartment towers and office towers were silent as death. No one had survived the apocalypse.
They got to COSTCO mid-day. Along the way they discovered that if they stuck to the freeway they would avoid lions, tigers, wolves and wild dogs as the animals for some reason did not want to go on the freeways. The road ways below the freeways were overgrown with brush anyway. The freeways were relatively clear except for the downed vehicles everywhere. Costco lay wide open. Sam said,
“Canned goods like Spam can last 50 years or more. So, we need to load up on more Spam, and other canned items, instant coffee, instant tea, charcoal for our stove, wine and lots of booze – we can use booze and Spam as currency save our gold. “
They entered COSTCO. There were skeletons everywhere mocking them and Sam felt that the ghosts of the dead were everywhere accusing Sam and Maria of being in league with the devil that had descended upon the land killing everyone overnight.
Sam speculated that whatever had killed off humanity had acted really swift. He said,
“Probably a North Korean bioweapon escaped from a lab up north and spread down south, perhaps the U.S. military strike released it. It must have been close to 100 percent effective and must have killed most people within hours if not days. Look at all these people. And notice that the store had not been looted? People must have gotten sick and died almost instantly. “
They loaded up their supplies and decided to camp out in the parking lot out front. As they ate their dinner they feasted on spam, powdered eggs, water, and booze liberated from the COSTCO stores. Sam joked,
“Well, I suppose it is fitting we are here at COSTCO finally getting out money’s worth.”
They camped outside and drank a lot of Costco Wine and ate canned spam and canned vegetables. They had stocked up on goods from Costco and their back packs and shopping carts were getting pretty heavy.
Six friendly dogs soon appeared and Sam threw them some food and the dogs ate the food and then settled down near by watching them. They took turns staying up, watching the dogs to make sure that they did not form a pack and attack them. By the morning the dogs had become very friendly and followed them as they left for their epic road trip.
Sam and Maria got up slowly and ate breakfast, and fed the dogs that had had adopted them. They were glad that they had dogs for companions. Sam was a cat person, Maria was a dog person. They talked about the dogs they had before and smiled and played with the dogs a bit. And gave each of the dogs a name and thought them simple commands. They called them Sam, Tom, Roger, Matt, Maria and Inga. The dogs liked the names, and were quick learners and appeared to be used to humans which gave them hope that there were survivors nearby and perhaps the dogs might take them there.
Then they contemplated the route to Camp Humphreys pouring over a map they had gotten at the airport. Neither one of them really knew how to walk there, but they knew the general direction was south. The freeways and highways were littered with abandoned rusting cars but for the most part were in fairly good shape. They hiked on the freeway as the roads down below were so overgrown that it was difficult to go forward and they were worried about wild animal attacks, although their dog patrol as they had started calling the six dogs in the pack seemed to act as a deterrent against attack.
Maria and Sam speculated whether there were any one left alive. Sam thought that the odds were pretty good that someone had survived at Camp Humphreys and that the survivors if any would welcome them and they could join them.
Camp Humphreys was the largest military base overseas with 35,000 people there, mostly American but a lot of Koreans and third country nationals as well. It was located about 90 minutes south from Seoul depending on how you got there. In any event 45 miles away, or two to three days walking distance. They had gone down there to shop at the world’s largest commissary but found the base to be a bit overwhelming, just too big and sprawling everywhere, and they went there on a regular basis to the hospital but they preferred the nearby Osan airbase – nicer commissary, PX and hospital. Sam joked that the “Airforce weanies always got the best stuff.” . Maria laughed and said, “You got that right.”
Along they would come upon skeletons by the side of the road, but no other evidence that anyone was alive and there did not appear to be any survivors. Maria who was very sensitive to ghosts and spiritual phenomenon, felt that there were ghosts all around them watching them. Sam made fun of her for believing in ghosts but as they walked in the silence Sam began to sense the presence of unseen spirits so perhaps he was sensing the ghosts as well.
Perhaps there were just sensing death all around them. The dogs too acted up, barking at unseen creatures and growling – Maria told Sam that dogs were sensitive to these sorts of things.
Sam wondered out loud whether they really were alive, perhaps they were in some personal hellscape? They stopped for the night at a highway rest area, and found to their pleasant surprise that the showers and toilets still worked after decades of non-use. Still no power anywhere. After taking a much needed and appreciated shower and using the western toilets, they decided to camp out and found an empty hotel room and brought the dogs inside as well as they did not want to leave them outside.
The next morning, they feasted on left over spam, freeze dried eggs, and canned chicken meat washed down with COSTCO instant coffee, and whiskey shots. They shared their food with their dog pack.
Along the way they has seen a few more lions, and a tiger, but the presence of the dogs seemed to deter them from attacking them and the tigers and lions did not want to venture up onto the freeway. They also saw lots of deer, some wild cattle, wild horses, wild pigs, and in the distance saw some bears, and some wolves, on the roads below them, and wild chickens everywhere even on the freeway. Sam and Maria stopped for lunch and the dogs caught them some chickens which they roasted on the fire and shared with the dogs. The dogs had clearly adopted them as their pack leaders.
Sam told Maria that the lions and tigers had probably escaped in the chaos of the fall and had managed to link up with other lions and tigers. And perhaps the tiger population in Siberia and North Korea had spread into the south. Probably there were real wolf packs as well as bears running around. Just before the fall Sam had been reading about the proliferation of wild life in the country side, particularly wild deer and wild boars. The countryside was being rapidly depopulated and becoming wilderness areas. The Korean government was buying up farm lands and adding them to the existing state forest reserves and national parks which they had expanded by 25 percent over the last five years taking advantage of the growing wilderness areas in the countryside. And they had just launched an effort to restore tigers, bears and wolves to the mountain regions. Apparently it had succeeded after the fall of humanity.
The next day they came upon a gruesome sight. They saw below them on the road a tiger devouring a dead Korean man, who appears to have been middle age. So that was proof that there were some survivors and that Tigers were human eaters. The tiger looked at them but decided to not give chase. Probably filled from his meal or the dogs were still acting as a deterrent or the tiger were afraid of the ghosts on the highway.
tiger
Later in the day they saw what appeared to have been an intact village. They got off the freeway and walked down the street. It had the appearance of a real ancient village, complete with thatched roofs but there were a few modern buildings here and there and something that looked like an old fashioned inn and restaurant.
korea old house
They walked in and found an old man near death lying on the floor.
“Grandfather, what happened here? Where are all the people?”
“General Lee’s wild men took them. “
“Who are the wild men?”
The grandfather looked at them, and said,
“It appears that there may be others like you coming. We all thought that General Lee was the only one. He appeared five years ago just like you from nowhere. He was dressed in old style clothes and spoke the old language. People nowadays don’t speak proper Korean. They speak a mixture of English and Korean with a very simplified grammar, and no one uses honorifics any more, everyone speaks in pan mal. . Everyone can still read both Korean and English though. No one knows Chinese characters any more. Part of what happened after the fall.”
“Grandfather, tell us who are the wild men. We are indeed from the past just got here yesterday. We don’t know what has been happening since the fall. Please tell us.”
“You had better get going. The next village over is safe for now. It is within the Camp Humphreys administrative zone. Now that there are only 25,000 people left, most of the farmers have moved into the zone which is patrolled by the military and under military rule. This village is just outside the zone. General Lee has been attacking isolated villages, forcing the survivors to flee into the zone. You must tell the military commander something. Part of the deal we had was to provide intel in exchange for their protection. I am the last survivor of our village. We had about 100 people in the village. General Lee surrounded the village and killed the old people. He took the young woman to be sex slaves, and the men to be slaves. The old people they were going to BBQ. They also took the children as there are so few children left alive, even the cannibals are nice to children. The wild men are cannibals. But they only eat other people, or their own if they die in combat. We were defenseless but we put up a good fight. I ended up passed out and they thought I was dead.
I overheard that General Lee had heard that there were others like him walking towards Camp Humphreys. They are going to be looking for you. They also said that they were going to attack Camp Humphreys and enslave them all then unite all of Korea under General Lee’s command and kill all the foreigners and eat them, but keep the woman as sex slaves and raise any children as they own. Tell them that. Promise me that.”
“We will. Can you walk?”
“Thanks, but I am an old man and will be meeting God soon. Don’t waste any more time here. Stay on the freeway, no one goes there too many ghosts. Get off at the next exit and you will find the only inn in town. You will have to pay using gold or canned goods. Over there you will some hidden gold and a couple of guns with ammo. And whatever canned goods you see. Take it all. And get out of here before the wild men come back.”
They took the gold and some more canned goods although that made their packs and shopping carts very heavy.
They entered the village about noon. It was a small community of perhaps 1,000 people. In the middle of the village stood an old fashioned Korean “yogwan” a Korean country inn.
yogwan
They ordered rice wine and wild boar meat accompanied by fresh mountain vegetables. They were hungry having eaten nothing but canned goods for two days running.
korean dinner
They fed their dogs spam and the dogs were happy to have gotten a new treat. They had to leave the dogs outside.
Everyone was eager to meet the strangers. They told everyone the truth. Everyone said that they believed them as everyone knew that General Lee claimed he came from the past, just before the fall. General Lee had appeared five years before and turned the wild men from being cannibal gangs into a real fighting force.
They chat with the villagers and the villagers told them that they were very lucky to have avoided being captured by the wild men, the savages, 식인종 (sikinjong) cannibals as they called them. The wild men they described as being less than human beings, cannibalistic demons from hell “지옥의 식인종 마귀들. jiog-ui sig-injong magwideul.”
Pastor Pak spoke up,
“ God had condemned the Korean people to this hell scape because they had turned away from God. “하나님께서는 한국 사람들이 하나님에게서 멀어 졌기 때문에이 지옥의 풍경에 한국인들을 비난했다. “지옥에서 온 식인종의 악마들. hananimkkeseoneun hangug salamdeul-i hananim-egeseo meol-eo jyeossgi ttaemun-ei jiog-ui pung-gyeong-e hangug-indeul-eul binanhaessda. “jiog-eseo on sig-injong-ui agmadeul.”
The villagers filled them in told them that there were about 1,000 people left in the village. They offered to escort Sam and Maria to the base as the roads were not safe. Wild tigers, lions, bears, wild boars, wild dogs and wolves were running about as were the wild men. Sam and Maria told them that they appreciated the offer but they would be okay to travel by themselves as Grandfather Lee had given them several guns and sufficient ammo.
They left the next morning after breakfast of spam omelets. They left the spam behind as it seemed to be greatly appreciated just like in the old days. They got typical “precise” Korean directions as “precise” as most Korean directions were!
After coffee, they left for the final trek to the base. They did not encounter anyone else but felt that unseen people were watching them. Maria was having a hard time on the freeway, kept seeing or hearing ghosts. Sam told her that if they were walking down below they might encounter wild men or wild animals. Neither of which seemed to like being on the old freeways.
Around noon the encountered a wolf. They shot at him and he ran off.
wolves
The dogs were upset. They obviously knew what a wolf was and that a wolf and a dog were related species but the dogs remained loyal to their pack leader, Sam.
Around lunch time they found the base. It was locked up but they were able to climb over a fence and they walked over to the library. Sam told her that they needed to find some books on survival. He had room for ten books. He also wanted a book of poetry to read and perhaps one or two SF thrillers to read, including post end of the world novels, especially “the Ending of the Light.” which was appropriate reading material, Sam thought. He ended up with ten books and his backpack and shopping carts were definitely too heavy, filled with ten books, gold, guns, ammo, food, booze, cooking equipment, a tent, sleeping bags, spare clothes and a camp fire stove. He hoped that they would meet people soon so he could set it down for good.
They stayed at the library until it was sunset and they camped outside. The dogs were still with them – they had accepted Sam as the alpha male of the pack. The dogs had chased down a deer and they brought the deer to Sam. Sam made a fire and cooked up the deer following instructions in one of his survival bibles. He gave the grateful dogs plenty of table scraps.
In the morning, Sam said that he wanted to find the base community and settle down among the soldiers. Maria concurred with the general plan and felt that they would meet some survivors that morning. She also felt somebody was watching them. When they left the base, after breakfast, Maria told Sam,
“We are being followed.”
Sam looked around and then noticed six men dressed in old tattered Korean army uniforms armed with bows and arrows lurking in the shadows behind a building. They looked like wild men, with a savage look about them, filled with violence, hunger and lust.
cannibals
Sam did not want to die for their dinner and have his wife who was still good looking becoming a sex slave. Sam was pulling out his gun, when there was a whistle and gun shots as the US Army band emerged from the other shadows and gestured to Sam and Maria to join them. A short fire fight ensured. The wild men retreated into the shadows. Sgt Jones yells out in English and Korean,
“You may retrieve your dead.” 당신은 죽은 사람을 되 찾을 수 있습니다.
dangsin-eun jug-eun salam-eul doe chaj-eul su issseubnida.”
And they walked out and picked up their dead companions and disappeared into the
shadows.
“Well, welcome. You were fortunate that we were on routine patrol. They won’t bother us any more. They were probably more interested in your dogs than you. The wild men do like their dog meat. You and your dogs are safe with us. It is unusual that they came into town, perhaps they were following you. We had heard rumors that there were two people from the old world walking towards Camp Humphreys. We saw you camped out by the library last night but did not want to bother you until the morning. We’ll take you back to the base where you can meet Commander Baker. You are not the only survivors, there are a few thousand people scattered about here and there. You are fortunate to have survived because some of the other survivors as you know are the so called wild men, basically cannibal gangs. But we have not seen any new survivors since the event.”
Sam told them their strange tale. As far as they were concerned, they woke up 25 years in the future. They had no idea how that happened or even what really had happened 25 years ago.
Sgt Jones said,
“That story is so strange it might even be true. What happened was kind of what the newspaper had said. There was a bioweapon that escaped from a lab in North Korea, and killed almost everyone in North Korea within days. Some of the survivors managed to get across the DMZ and infected the soldiers. And the contagion spread. Within weeks almost everyone was dead. The base gathered together the survivors and over time others joined us. We are the largest community, about 300 people half American half Korean. There are some smaller Korean towns here and there with 100 to 200 people here and there. Down in Daegu there was at one time a community of 1,000 survivors. But something happened to them five years ago and we have not heard a word from them. Same thing in Busan. And the rumors about General Lee being from your time makes sense. He appeared out of nowhere about five years ago and settled down among the wild men, turning them into militias and driving most of the remaining villagers into the CHMZ.
“CHMZ?”
“Oh, Camp Humphreys Military Zone, the closest thing to a government in Korea these days. In any event, we are thinking of taking some people down to “CWMZ, Camp Walker Military Zone” in Daeju, and “ NBBMZ, Naval Base Busan Military Zone” in Busan to see what’s up. We have not heard from either in five years. Perhaps you might want to join our expedition?”
“Sure, but we want to get settled a bit first.”
“Sure thing. In any event, you were really fortunate to have avoided running into General Lee’s wild men. He is a pretty mean mother f….. The Commander will want to debrief you in detail.”
They entered the base, which was located on the edge of the compound and consisted of housing units and a mini-commissary, and a bowling alley. They had even rigged up some solar and wind power so they had electricity and running water. Everyone had their own house but meals were served communally so to conserve power.
Sam noticed that there were few children. Sgt Jones said,
“The deal is that the plague is still out there. Most children die right away. A few survive. It seems that we are all immune and that we can pass that immunity onto some of our children but we have a 50 percent infant mortality rate anyway. We ran out of modern medicine decades ago. It has been 25 years after all.”
They entered the community center next door to the mini-commissary and bowling alley. Colonel Baker was an elderly black man in his late 60’s. He had the aura of being the man in charge. A good man who had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The Colonel invited them to tell their tale of woe. They recounted everything that they had experienced since they woke up five days before in the future. The Colonel let them speak until they were finished. He asked a few questions, and was particularly intrigued by what the old man had told them and what the villagers had said as well.
“Well, your ordeal is over for now. You are welcome to stay. Welcome to the community. You can stay as long as you follow the rules. The rules are simple. Everyone had a job assigned to them based on their past life and experience and the needs of the community. Sam could be the base librarian. They had been meaning to move the library over to the community but just had not gotten around to it. Was that sufficient for him?”
Sam agreed to take over the library and help in relocating it to the community, and then to keep track of the library’s holding. Maria volunteered to help out in the community kitchen as she was a good cook and liked cooking.
Col. Baker told them the history of the community and their dealings with the wild men who roamed the hills hunting down animals and the occasional unlucky human they ran into. They had a deal with the wild men. If they ever encountered survivors they would turn them over to them. In return the wild men left them alone.
Sam started objecting, but the Colonel stopped him.
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of honoring that agreement. You can stay with us. But first we are going to take a trip down to CWMZ and NBMZ to see what happened to the community there five years ago. There are rumors that General Lee was either a defector or a North Korean general who had access to the bioweapons program and brought the bio-weapons with him. He may have tweaked it so that the virus can be tailored to only attack for example black people or white people. And he may have the antidote for his people. In any event we suspect that he killed everyone in the CWMZ and the NBBMZ as well. And we are next on his list. We also suspect that he wants to capture you alive so he can debrief you as to what you know. He may have been sent forward prior to the Fall so may not be aware of what you know. And he wants to know if you can travel back and forth in time. I want to know that too.”
“Well, Col. Here’s the deal. We have no idea how we got here. All I know is that there was a blinding flash of light about 5 in the morning and then we found ourselves in this time line.”
‘Fair Enough. Well, are you in for our adventure down South? Are you in?”
“Yeah, we’re in.”
“Good. We will move out in five days. Welcome to our corner of Hell.”
1. Thursday Evening
2. Waking Up to No You
3. One Moment, One day
4. You Are My Angel
5. Saying Goodbye for Now
6. Know I Must Say I do
7. I Can Not Get Rid
8. I Float Here and There
9. You Are My Everything
10. One Night in Lithia Springs
11. One Night I Dreamt of You
12. Where do you and I
13. Dream Girl Hanibun
14. Living with Pain Hanibun
15. Hiking Hills of My Youth Hanibun
Thursday Evening
Thursday early evening
Thinking dark thoughts only you
Can you cure these thoughts?
—————————————-
Waking Up to No You
Waking up to no you
Absent in my bed at night
Absent from my dreams
——————————–
One Moment, One Day
One moment, one day
You walked out of my nightmares
And swept into life
———————————
You Are My Angel
You are my Angel
Sent from God up in heaven
To conquer my life
————————————-
Saying Goodbye for Now
Saying goodbye now
Is the hardest thing to do
But I must do it
———————————–
Know I Must Say I do
I know I must say I do
But I don’t want to today
Just don’t have the strength
—————————————–
Five Cinquain
Best Love
Love at First Sight
Met the girl of my dreams
My life began that autumn day
True Love
——————————————————-
True Dreams
True Dreams
I had a dream
Meet the Girl of my Dreams
She walked off that bus that day
True Dream
—————————————————–
Truth
Truth
Truth
True story
Love never ends
Love at First Sight
Love
———————————————-
First Kiss
First Kiss
First time we kissed
Hot Electricity
Filled my soul with desire
Time stopped
—————————————-
Time
Time
Began
That fine day
Never Ending
Love
Skinny Fake Things
Fake Things
everywhere
all
around
me
everywhere
I
hear
lies
fake Things
—————————————–
More Coffee
More coffee
must have more
it consumes me
just need one more
———————————————–
angela
angela
the love of my life
came to me out of a dream
walked off a bus into my life
filling my life with red passion
end updated haiku
Cosmos’s Cheritas and Haiku
Cheritas
——————————-
I was introduced to the Cherita poetry form last spring when the Cherita journal published some of my earlier Cheritas. Since that time I have written a number of others. The form is an Malaysian-Indonesian story telling form, but is written in many languages nowadays as it has become a global poetic form, similar to Haiku (see below). The cherita tells a story in five lines stanzas as follows
one line
two lines
three lines
it could also be reversed
three lines
two lines
one line
or 3-1-2, 2-1-3, or any other variable of the 1, 2, and 3 basic format.
and it has to tell a story.
One can write a longer story using a series of Cheritas, which I did later in this posting.
for more info on this fascinating poetic form, take a look at the Cherita journal cherita journal
and for even more detail look at the DNA of Cherita posting
The first set are Cheritas I wrote last spring, the last set is one I just submitted.
1. There is nothing more to be said
2. There is always one more time
3. Time waits for no one
4. I will Love you until the end of time
5. That is all I need to say
6. In the beginning of the world
7. Life Endures
8. The Future of NYC
9. the cancer that is Trump
10. 62 Years Young
11. Married the Girl of my Dreams
There is nothing more to be said
Nothing more I can add
Nothing more than this
I will love you
Until the end of time itself
and death does us part
——————————————————–
There is always one more time
There is always one more time
There is always a second chance
For love and happiness
In this dark world of ours
We will find each other
Til the end of time itself
————————————————-
Time Waits for No One (reversed Cherita)
Time waits for no one
That is what they say
That time waits for no one
But that is a lie
Time waits for you
And time waits for me too
———————————————
I will Love you until the end of time
I will Love you until the end of time
That is all I need to say
That is all that there is
Nothing but love in my heart
Waiting for me to say it
And for you to believe it
———————————————
In the beginning of the world
I saw you there
Walking off that bus
And that was the beginning
Of my life with you
And the end of the rest of the world
——————————–
Love Endures
Love Endures
the longer I live
the more I learn
that nothing endures in life
other than the love
I share with you
———————————-
The Future of NYC
NYC
In the distant future
the world will end
with a massive flood
and NYC will slowly sink
beneath the waves
and humanity will die
———————————————
the cancer that is Trump
fake President
The cancer that is Trump
Will continue to fester
and continue to cause turmoil
that is the nature
of the malignant cancer
that is the Trump Presidency
———————————————————–
62 Years Young
62 Years young
I am 62 years young
62 years around the sun
sunrise cherita
37 of those years
I have spent
with the love of my life
Married the Girl of my Dreams
I married the girl of my Dreams
first dreamt of her
back in 1974
Eight years later
she walked off a bus
and into my life
Cosmos’s Haiku
I also love Haiku and short poetic forms. Here are some of my Haiku, Hanibun and other poems. Several have been published.
Back in 1996 I had the accident that changed everything. I went jogging one morning. It was dark outside, and I thought that I knew the trail. Big mistake. I fell down a ledge hidden where the trail should have been. I shattered me heal in a million pieces. I was rushed to an ER and told that I need an emergency operation and would be bed ridden for four months.
My wife was in San Antonio at the time serving in the Army, I was in DC working for the State Department. I flew in a wheel chair to San Antonio where they proclaimed that they had to wait a week for the swelling to go down before they could operate. The Air force doctors wanted to try a new procedure – using shark cartridge as a bone supplement. The operation was a success until I quit taking antibiotics six months later. I was in DC by myself then. I went to the hospital for an unrelated thing -removal of a cist I think. But the doctors took one look at me and proclaimed that the staph had become a multiple drug resistant staph and I needed an urgent operation. The next day I had the third of 15 operations. I endured six months at Walter Reed hospital but that was in the 90’s prior to the wars of the 21st century filled the base up. They had few customers and I got to know the doctors well.
I know pain
Intimately aware of every ache
Every pain
Ever since that day
When I went under the knife
And had the 14 operations
That saved my life
But I am not one to complain
I became one with the pain
Which I endure to this day
Knowing that I am alive
Having cheated death
Twenty times in life
Waiting for the grim reaper
To finally claim me
But that day has not come
And until then
I will endure
—————————————————————–
Hiking the Hills of My Youth (Hanibun)
tilden park
I grew up in Berkeley, California in the 60’s. Ever since I was a youngster I would wander the hills of Berkeley hiking for hours by myself and sometimes with my friends. I explored every nook and cranny every corner of the hills and got to know nature in its infinite beauty.
Ever since those days I have longed for the day that I could spend my days hiking and wondering the hills. Now that I am retired and living in Korea I can go for a long walk in the hills every day I want. It is not the same as the hills I grew up, no vistas of the Bay and it is in Korea to boot but most days it is sufficient as I head out early afternoon and conquer four or five miles of hills just enjoying that fact that I can still move and am still very much alive at age 62.
I grew up hiking the hills of Berkeley, California
Grew up knowing every corner of the hills
And the infinite beauty of the Bay Area
And now I find myself in a strange land
With time on my hands
I wander the hills above the airport
In Incheon Korea
And wander about here and there
Just being grateful
That I am still alive
And kicking at age 62
————————————
There is nothing more to be said (reverse cherita 3-2-1 form)
Nothing more I can add
Nothing more I can say
Nothing more than this
I will love you
Until the end of time itself
and death does us part
—————————————————-
A message for you
A message for you
from the universe itself
in the eastern sea
————————————————-
Love Endures Cherita
Love Endures
the longer I live
the more I learn
that nothing endures in life
other than the love
I share with you
———————————————-
Success
In 62 years around the sun
I have learned a few things
About life and the universe
The most important thing in life
Is to have a successful love life
That is all one needs after all
——————————–
Haiku Thinking of You
Thinking of you, dear
Wondering if you do too
Thinking of me too
————————————————————
Coffee Haiku
I like my coffee
like my woman
hot as hell, sweat Heaven
——————————————————-
Spring Doositsu
Waking up seeing you there
Watching you as you wake up
Fills me with such sweat desire
Overcoming my mind
I sit watching you all day
Thinking of you all day long
Wild erotic imaginings
Love making to come
That old blues song come to mind
I just want to make love to you
I just want to make love to you
Nothing more than that that
I end this morning with this thought
You are still the most wonderful
The most beautiful creature
In the whole universe
————————————————–
Love Triclinia
One Summer Day
I saw a rose
rose
on the bus
I met my fate
——————————–
Nuclear War Looms
nuclear war looms
North Korea U.S. Launch Nukes
End of the world
—————————————————–
Zombies Apocalypse
the zombies unleashed
killing everyone they see
zombie apocalypse
————————————————-
Evil Fog
evil fog descends
killing everyone at once
end of life on earth
———————————————-
Zombie to the right
Zombies to the right
Zombies to the left of me
Zombies run amuk
—————————————-
Ghosts in Scotland
While touring Scotland
Meeting Ghosts in the wild moors
I believe in ghosts
Dream Girl
Love Cheritas
the story of how we met
note: this is a true story. for further details see dreams and the unexplainable– a chicken soup for the soul book, published September 2017.
Index
1. I Married the Girl of My Dreams
2. It All Began in Berkeley, California
3. I Looked Up
4. She Disappeared
5. Who Are You?
6. Little Did I Know
7. Always the Same Dream .
8. I Knew She Was Waiting for Me
9. One Day I Had the Last Dream
10. That Morning Early in The Morning
11. I Was Born Again That Evening
12. I was Speechless.
13. My New Life Began the Next Day
14. The Next Day
15. But I Know That There Are Other Worlds
16. Had No Choice
17. In the Beginning of the World
18. 63 Years Young with You
I Married the Girl of My Dreams
I married the girl of my dreams
First dreamt of her
Back in 1974
Eight years later
she walked off a bus
and into my life
It All Began in Berkeley, California
SONY DSC
It all began in Berkeley, California
in the spring time of 1974
one fateful afternoon
I was nodding off
in my high school physics class.
And saw her in my dream
I Looked Up
I looked up
and saw a tall, beautiful Asian woman
standing looking at me.
She was the most beautiful women
in the universe to me
I screamed out, who are you?
She Disappeared
She disappeared
like she was beamed
away from my dream.
I knew that someday
I would meet the girl
In the dream
Little Did I Know
Little did I know
I would have to wait
until 1982
Starting that month
I began having the same dream
Month and month and month.
Always the Same Dream .
Always the same Dream .
She was saying something
in a strange language.
Then one day
I had the dream
and knew that she was in Korea.
I Knew She Was Waiting for Me
I knew she was waiting for me
I chose to go Korea
In the Peace Corps,
Somehow knowing
That I would meet
her there.
One Day I Had the Last Dream
One day I had the last dream
It happened in the morning
A year after the Peace Corps ended
A month before I planned
to leave to return
to the U.S. for graduate school
That Morning Early in the Morning
That morning early in the morning
I had the last of these dreams.
This time I understood her.
She said,
“걱정 마. 우리는 곧 만날 것이다. “, “geogjeongma. ulineun god mannal geos-ida. ”
“Don’t worry. We’ll meet soon.”
I Was Born Again That evening
I Was Born Again that evening
As I was getting off the bus
To go to my class
I saw getting off the bus
The girl in my dream.
It was she!
I was Speechless.
I was speechless.
I did not know what to do.
Wanted to tell her
How could I tell her that
Hey, you are the girl
I have been dreaming about
Over the Course of the Evening
Over the course of the evening
I ran into her several times.
Finally, I was introduced to her.
I muttered some lame excuse
About wanting to find a Korean tutor
and got her number.
My New Life Began the Next Day
My new life began the next day
The next day she came to the gate
Of my base where I was teaching
She said that she had to speak with me.
I told to wait in the library
for about an hour
I Would Cancel Class
I would cancel class
and meet her then.
We went out for coffee.
She told me that she was madly
in love with me
And simply had to have me.
I Told Her I Felt the Same Way.
I told her I felt the same way.
I proposed five days later,
And got married one month later.
Does she believe this story?
She claims she does not believe it
Because it is impossible to be true.
But I Know That There Are Other Worlds
But I know that there are other worlds
and other times.
In a past life we must have been together somehow.
And our love was so strong
That it crossed over the barrier of past lives
Crossing over into our world .
She Found Me In 1974
She found me in 1974,
But it took until 1982
For us to actually meet.
And it has been 35 years
Since we met in the physical sphere
Or 43 years since the dream began
And I still recall the dream
I had no choice
When I met her
We were fated to be together
Until the end of this lifetime
And the next and the next
In the Beginning of the World
In the beginning of the world
I saw you there
Walking off that bus
And that was the beginning
Of my life with you
And the end of the rest of the world
63 Years Young with You
I am 63 years young
63 years around the sun
37 of those years
I have spent
With my Dream Girl
the love of my life
The Acadamy of Hearts and Mind will publish three of my poems in their next issue. The poems are ” Lost Illusions Stripped Away,” “7th Extinction Event”, and “the Last Bee Ends Humanity’s Reign”. They also published “Cheating Death 22 Times.” Cheating Death Updates include audio clips.
Cheating Death Updates – here they are
Lost Illusions Stripped Away
Illusions stripped away
I look at myself
63 years old
In reasonable health
Living with my wife
Retired living overseas
Writing a blog
Getting poetry and short stories published
And don’t understand
Why I can’t be happy
Political news infuriates me
And causes stress
president trump
Perhaps it is time to just let go
Don’t worry about things
That I can not control
Be content with what I have
Help manage our real estate
Write in my blog
Be more positive
Optimistic
And reflect on what I have
The end of humanity’s reign
Of supremacy on earth
Came about with the death
Of the last bee on earth
Scientists had been warning the world
For a number of years
Of the dire consequences of the collapse
Of the insect world
Especially the humble bee
That played such a vital role
In keeping many plants alive
The bees were eaten by birds
And the birds were eaten
By other animals
Without the work of the humble bee
Commercial agriculture collapsed
Causing widespread famine
Across the world
Scientists rushed to the rescue
Deploying robot bees
An GMO bees
But to no avail
The fix was in
And humanity’s goose
Was cooked so to speak
And with the collapse of agriculture
Came the collapse of urban civilization
And the end of urban civilization
Led to billions of people
Facing starvation in the ruined cities
Some rich people bounded together
And build vast underground cities
Where they continued the experiment
Of robot bees and GMO bees
But nothing worked
And humanity’s long descend
Towards extinction began
It all happened within a few years
One day everything was normal
Scandals, wars, threat of wars
Economic turmoil
Endless infotainment news
Three years latter
50 million rich people
Were living in caves
Along with 150 million slaves
The end of humanity
Caused the rests of the world
To gradually recover
The bees were never consulted
They had no role to play
Just the humble workers
Who had fed the world
But they were no more
Plants evolved
Other ways to survive
And the world went on
Without the human overlords
Who remained huddled in their caves
Dreaming of one day
Returning to reclaim the world
Just as the bible proclaimed
they also published last year my personal essay, “Cheating Death Twenty Times” reprinted below
Cheating Death Updates: Cheating Death Twenty Two Times
MIND ESSAYS, NON-FICTION
“Cheating Death 20 Times
By Jake Aller
In my 62 trips around the sun, I cheated death 20 times. These are the true stories. If I ever meet the grim reaper I’d like to ask him why he spared me all these times.
Five Childhood Illnesses Hit me at age Six
I was a preemie. Born two months early. They had just developed oxygen tents for preemies and I was one of the first babies they saved using that technology, so in a way even being born meant that I had cheated death. The doctors thought that I would develop severe medical conditions. They were right; I have had bad eyes, bad teeth, and a residual learning disability from birth. And I had a weak immune system to boot. When I was six years old, I missed almost all the first grade and had to repeat the first grade because I developed all the childhood illnesses at once. I had whooping cough, pneumonia, the flu, German measles, and regular measles, chicken pox, and mono all in that year. And hay fever to boot. for me once I recovered I was in good health for years except for seasonal allergies in the fall and spring.
Typhoid Fever Almost Kills Me in Korea
I graduated from high school and college and mostly was healthy, no major issues other than colds, the flu, and seasonal allergies. While I was in the Peace Corps training, we did a hike in the mountains in the East Coast of Korea. We stopped to drink water from a stream. I developed severe diarrhea and a fever. I was rushed to the local hospital and transferred to a hospital in Seoul. I had developed Typhoid fever, one of the last such cases in Korea as the Koreans had largely eliminated the threat of Typhoid Fever given the overall improvement in the country’s infrastructure. The doctors at first could not figure it out, but in the end, they figured it out. I spent four weeks in the hospital missing a lot of my crucial language training. The Peace Corps offered me the opportunity to go home or transfer to another Peace Corps program but opted to finish the training and my service. During the stay in the hospital, I was a celebrity of sorts – the only foreign patient and the nurses and doctors stopped by to practice their English with and I practiced my very rudimentary Korean as I flirted up a storm with the pretty nurses.
Guardian Angel Saves Me in Korea
I have always been a skeptical person, and not much of a believer. I have never been a Christian. I have always been an agnostic or even an atheist. But one day many years ago I experienced an event that changed my perspective on life. Since that time, I have become a believer in guardian angels that look after us in this corrupted world of ours. I can’t explain what happened that day, other than to realize that there are stranger things in life than we can imagine and that someone or something was looking out for me that day.
In 1990, I was living in South Korea teaching ESL for a Korean University and government, and Asian studies for the University of Maryland for military forces stationed in Korea. I was living in Seoul with my spouse who was a U.S. army officer, newly assigned to Korea. She was born in Korea and was, in fact, the first Korean American female officer to be assigned to Korea. We had been married for about six years having met in 1982 and had a whirlwind romance, marrying two months after we met. That is the subject of another story though.
One spring day we took a trip to the east coast of Korea. It was about a five to six-hour journey by car. My wife was driving because I did not drive due to bad vision and because I was afraid to drive in the chaotic driving environment in South Korea. We left Seoul about 11 am and by 3 pm we were halfway to our destination, Soraksan which is the number one mountain park in South Korea. It was a fine Spring day, just perfect weather, and we were both looking forward to taking a few days off.
Just outside of the town of Wongju, the freeway backed up and there was heavy traffic ahead of us. I saw a sign for the Wongaksan National Park which I had never visited before and I told Angela, let’s get off the freeway and check it out. I felt something telling me we had to exit the freeway that moment. I had a premonition that something bad was coming down the freeway and we were heading right into it.
We never forgot that day. And to this day almost thirty years later I often think back what would have happened if I had ignored that warning in my head and had insisted that we keep going to what would have been our death.
Almost Hit by a Train in Korea
While in my first tour in Seoul, Korea I joined the Hash House Harriers. The hash was an international drinking club with a running problem as they put it. The Hash started in colonial Malaysia and spread around the world. Mostly expat Americans and British. The runs ended with beer drinking, ritual punishments and British style jokes and bawdy not safe for work and not politically correct humor. I thought it was a lot of fun, but it was certainly not for everyone.
One day we did a run down by the train tracks. I was running along listening to music and did not hear the train approaching. I jumped off at the last moment barely avoiding being killed by the train.
Afterwards, I said that I had cheated death yet again, not knowing that my real experience cheating death was waiting for me a few years down the road.
Mutant Drug Resistance Staph Infection and 14 Operations Almost Kills Me
The event that changed my life was a simple decision. One morning I decided to go for a jog. It was dark outside and I thought that I knew the path. I made a strategic miscalculation and fell down a five-foot gap in the bushes where I thought was a series of steps.
I shattered my heel in a million pieces. I made it back to my room, called 9-11 after an hour when I realized my foot was broken. I called my wife as well. I was a foreign service officer newly returned to DC for my first assignment in DC after working five years overseas in Korea and Thailand. She was an army officer stationed in Ft Sam Houston, San Antonio Texas.
The ER doctor bandaged me up and told me that I needed surgery and after surgery would be bedridden for at least four months. We opted to do the surgery in Texas and we arranged for me to fly using a wheelchair assistance. By the time I arrived the swelling was so bad that we had to wait a week to do the surgery.
The Air Force doctors wanted to try an experimental procedure using shark cartilage as a replacement bone material. A few days after the surgery I developed a fever and went back to the hospital and they discovered I had a staph infection. They treated me with IV antibiotics and opened the wound area and cleaned it out and replaced the cartridge. Then sent me home to recover. I had to take antibiotics for four months.
I went back to her house. She got me an internet account and I learned how to surf the net and read a lot of stuff online. I could not stand watching daytime TV. We did not have cable service. We rented a movie nightly and I watched movies every day and surfed the net and read some books she bought me as well.
Her dog, Jason, was a cute dachshund that was bilingual – Korean and English. He became my best friend for the four months I was out of commission. I called my office once a week to check in.
Once I returned to DC, I stayed there for almost a month and commuted by crutches. I was amazed at how cruel drivers were. Many people cursed me for holding up traffic as I could not walk across the street with the green light which seemed to be timed to allow for only Olympic 50-year dashers to get across the street in the allocated time. Then on the metro not once during the couple of weeks I commuted by metro was I offered a seat once during the entire time and I often had to stand on my crutches the entire trip. and several times people rushed by me yelling at me to get out of the way on the subway stairs.
I went one day to the old Walter Reed Army military hospital in DC for a routine check up on a different issue – a cist on my arm that I wanted to be removed. The doctor noticed that I was running a fever, quickly realized that the infection had returned, and I was back into surgery the next day.
My wife came out that weekend to see me in the hospital. I ended up having 12 more operations as the staph infection had become MDR. I had an IV inserted in my stomach and went through intensive vancomycin the nuclear bomb of antibiotics for four months. The final operation was a bone graft from my hip after they finally realized that the shark cartridge would not work.
My wife had to argue with the military doctors to allow me to stay in the hospital for an additional month. They wanted me to stay on the IV antibiotics, but I had to report in twice a day for blood work. She pointed out that I would be home alone and could not drive to the hospital but would have to go back and forth by metro and bus. Two hours each way. So, I stayed on until June.
I stayed sane by reading a book a day. During that year I read almost 300 books and started a daily journal. This was pre-internet and there was no wi-fi in the hospital, so I was on the State Department’s email distribution and personal email during the entire time I was there, and it was also pre-Face Book days. I went to the hospital library every day and got another book. The doctors were amused as every morning I had another book to read. I also watched lots of TV becoming hooked on the X files. I watched it frequently with the elderly black night janitor who was a big fan. He was also a conspiracy nut. He introduced me to the “reptilian overlords” conspiracy theory and speculated over who might secretly be a “reptilian overlord.”
My fellow patients were all army troops – everyone called me major as they could just not comprehend that my wife was the major and not me. One of my fellow patients was recovering from an accident and had gangrene and was facing amputation and a divorce.
Another soldier was back in the army. He and his wife had inherited half million dollars and left the military and spend two years enjoying the high life and blew through almost all the money, so he went back into the military then had an accident and was recovering from a broken leg as well. This was the 90’s so there were few military injuries, most of the patients were there for me due to a freak accident that broke their legs, arms, or back.
My best friend who was an actor in town for a season visited almost every day. My wife came for most of the surgery and many friends who had heard where I came for a visit. But I was cut off as this just before everyone got email and there was no internet in the hospital. Finally, I was released as Angela got assigned back to DC.
I went back to work. And things were going okay. I returned to work and my life. The fibromyalgia was a chronic condition but when I went to India and discovered yoga it became manageable. The arthritis was chronic, but I eventually quit taking anti-inflammatory drugs and learned to just deal with the pain. Every four months I must see a foot doctor to debride calluses that build up. Then in 2007 almost ten years after the accident I developed hammer toes and had to have four operations to smash my feet back into shape. Ten years after the operation I was faced with chronic pain due to the fibromyalgia and arthritis and some limited mobility but was recovering enough to resume daily walks.
1996-1997 was my personal year of hell. The year in the hospital changed my life. Afterwards, I felt that I had been given a new lease on life, almost as if I was given bonus games in the great video game of life. And despite my constant pain, I was just happy to be alive, and to still be married and to still have a high-powered job. I had read 300 books in one year. I started keeping track of my reading and movies and never came close to that record.
Guardian Angel Saves Me in Texas
While I was in Texas recovering from my extended illness, I had an incident like the guardian angel incident in South Korea. I had gone to Texas to recover from the accident and the first two operations. I wanted to go back to work. In retrospect, I should have asked for a few more weeks to recover. It was December and San Antonio where my wife was based was experiencing rare winter weather. The roads were covered with ice and commercial flights were closed but the military was still flying, and we had booked passage on a medevac flight.
While driving to the airport, Angela and I started talking about the weather and she had just explained to me what to do if we encountered black ice and boom we encountered black ice and she instantly reacted appropriately because we had just discussed it. Something had told us to expect ice on the road. We totaled the car but walked away unhurt. I went back a few days later but in retrospect should have stayed behind for a few more weeks. They might have caught the staph infection before it spread out of control.
Weird Parasite Could Have Killed Me
After enduring 14 operations and nine months in the hospital, I had developed intense chronic pain and after going to many different doctors was diagnosed with fibromyalgia as well as arthritis due to the operation. I also developed a frozen shoulder syndrome and had to have a steroid shot. While I was in the hospital undergoing the 14 operations, the internal medicine doctor told me that there was some other infection going on. He eventually found out that I had a rare parasite that I had picked up in Thailand. He had asked me whether I had spent time in Southeast Asia. I told him that I had indeed spent time in Thailand. He said,
“Well, I know what is causing the symptoms.”
While I was in Thailand, I had fallen into a canal during a Hash House harrier run. This parasite was benign, but I should take some medicine to get rid of it. If I ever had a steroid shot for any reason, the parasite would expand to the size of a basketball and then kill me within one hour of taking the steroid. I noted this in my journal and commented that this might be proof that God if he existed, had a morbid sense of humor for if he created the universe what was the point of creating this parasite? Fortunately for me, due to the persistence of that doctor, they discovered the parasite before I had the steroid shot.
Ending up in ER due to Mutiny among my stomach flora
One day in the fall, when Angela my wife who was on a business trip to Korea, I developed strange symptoms. I could not eat or drink anything, but my stomach blew up as if I were pregnant. I called a taxi and made it to the nearest military base ER at Ft Belvoir. I was admitted to the ER and spent two weeks there recovering from an acute GI tract infection. Apparently, the nine months of antibiotic treatment had so disturbed my internal microflora that bad bacteria had killed off the good bacteria. They told me that was a side effect of taking IV antibiotics like vancomycin and that doctors, in general, don’t do a good enough job of monitoring people after being discharged after extended anti-biotic usage. Someone should have warned me that this could have happened. In any event, the doctors said that I had waited more than an hour I would have been dead.
Dengue Fever in Barbados
My last serious illness occurred almost eight years ago. I was stationed in Barbados and my wife had just retired from the U.S. Army and had joined me. Her niece was also staying with us for a while. One day we went to tour a famous gully. We got there late in the day and there were mosquitos there. We were not too worried as malaria and zika virus were very rare in Barbados as was Dengue. What were the odds that we both would get one of the few cases of Dengue fever in Barbados that year? Well we both came down with it and my niece had to take care of us for a few weeks as we recovered. Everyone at the Embassy was afraid that we had gotten SARS which was the epidemic of concern that year. When we told them we had dengue, everyone just shrugged and told us to take a few weeks off.
Final thoughts
I don’t often talk about that year I was in the hospital and 22 times I cheated death, but when I do, I tell people that it changed my life in so many ways and that I was a far better person because of the operations and the year in the hospital. Every day I wake up and feel alive and thankful for that for I felt that I had cheated death at least 14 times that year. People often ask me why I am always so cheerful. My standard answer is that after cheating death 14 times every day is a bonus day and I am determined to make the most of it. The pain is there, and I just must cope with it the best I can without taking drugs for it. I have cheated death at least 22 times in my life. And I remain an optimistic happy go lucky kind of guy. After all, I have been through I know that every moment is precious, and I feel that I am living a bonus round in the video game of life. Still waiting to meet the Grim Reaper and ask him why he allowed me to cheat death so many times.
This is a good contest. Well worth submitting to. Each writer agrees to rate the writing of other writers in three rounds of voting. The finalists get published and money. The rest get valuable feedback. I participated two times before. The first time I missed the deadline so was washed out in the first round, the second time I voted on time and came out at 169 our of 350. Not too shabby. The feedback was constructive. This time I hope to come out much higher.
Details as how to participate follow, as well as the poems I submitted before. I also included audio of the poems. The deadline is April 23 at midnight EST, and I word to the wise, they are very strict about the deadline as I found out.
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the Six Fold Vote Delayed until May 1 (submissions due nlt midnight April 23, 2019 EST)
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Prior Submissions most recent first
Fake Things
fake President
We live in a world
Of fake things
Fake Products
Fake News
Fake Calls
Fake Politics
Fake Sports
Fake Business
Fake Leaders
Fake People
Fake friends
Fake sincerity
Surrounded 24/7
By all the fake things
How can anything real exist?
Is it all nothing but fake things
Designed to deceive us all?
October Rain
The falling rain
Of late October
Fills me with essential dread
As I rush about
And end up here
Wherever here is
The rain outside
Seems like the tears of god
As I sit
Crying over my beer
Thinking of lost love
And failed dreams
Wondering
What went wrong?
And what I can set right
And the rain falls
And the night darkens
The rain is falling
All over this man’s world
And the rain falls
And I sit
Drinking my lonesome drink
Lost in dreams
Dreaming of what
Could never be
Thinking dark thoughts
And so, I sit
And dream the night away
The Story of How We Met
Note: This is a true story. For further details see Dreams and the Unexplainable– a Chicken
Soup for the Soul book, published in September 2017
It all began in Berkeley, California
In the springtime of 1974
One fateful afternoon
I was sleeping in my high school Physics class.
SONY DSC
I looked up and saw a tall
beautiful Asian woman
standing there looking at me.
She was the most beautiful women
in the universe
I screamed out,
who are you?
She disappeared
as if she was beamed
away from my dream.
I knew that someday
I would meet the girl
In the dream
Little did I know
I would have to wait
until 1982
Starting that month
I began having the same dream
Month and month and month.
Always the same.
She was saying something
in a strange language.
Then one day
I had the dream
and knew that
she was in Korea.
So,
I chose to go
to Korea
In the Peace Corps,
Somehow knowing
That I would meet
her there.
One day
A year after the Peace Corps ended
A month before I planned
to leave to return
to the U.S. for graduate school
That morning early in the morning
I had the last of these dreams.
This time I understood her.
She said, “Don’t worry.
We’ll meet soon.”
That evening
As I was getting off the bus
To go to my class
I saw getting off the bus
The girl in my dream.
It was she!
I was speechless.
I did not know what to do.
Over the course of the evening
I ran into her several times.
Finally, I was introduced to her.
I muttered some lame excuse
About wanting to find a Korean tutor
and got her number.
The next day she came to the gate
Of my base where I was teaching
ESL to Koreans
She said that she
had to speak with me.
I told to wait in the library
for about an hour,
and I would cancel class
and meet her then.
We went out for coffee.
She told me that she was madly
in love with me
And simply had to have me.
I told her I felt the same way.
I proposed five days later,
And got married one month later.
Does she believe this story?
She claims she does not believe it
Because it is impossible to be true.
But I know that there
are other worlds
and other times.
In a past life
we must have been together somehow.
And our love was so strong
That it crossed over the barrier
of time and space
She found me in 1974,
But it took until 1982
For us to actually meet.
And it has been 36 years
Since we met in the physical sphere
Or 45 years since the dream began
And I still recall the dream
And meeting her
I had no choice
When I met her
We were fated to be together
Until the end of this lifetime
And the next and the next
Finally, in honor of the Blood Moon, here is my Howling at the Moon poem, a subset of my lunatic poems which I have just posted on my blog site.
Just an Unhinged Lunatic Howling at The Moon
On a moonlit late night
I sat in a bar
Drinking drams of demented, fermented dream dew
Just an unhinged lunatic
Dreaming of howling at the full moon
Watching the world walk by
Looking at all the fine looking babes
Walking by the street
Thinking wild, erotic thoughts
Of endless wild libertine passions
When into the bar
Walked the most beautiful women
In the Universe
So wild, so free
So wonderfully alive
I did not know what to do
As this vision of delight
Sauntered through the bar
In a skin-tight leather pants
Looked so fine
That my eyeballs hurt
And finally, I had to say something
So, I gathered up my manly courage
And walked up to her
And she looked at me
And instantly bewitched my soul
With a devilish grin
I lost all reason
And became a raving lunatic
Unhinged lunatic
Howling at the moon
Foaming at the mouth
A wild, free werewolf
Howling at the lunatic light
Of the full Moon
Howling at the Moon
I stood outside
Between the trees
In a field
On the outside of town
Beneath the lunatic rays
Of the blood red full moon
The lunatic lights of the moon
Casts a wild primeval glow
On me
The hormonal chemicals are unleashed
The wild beast within
Escapes it chain
And I howl with delight
A werewolf
Free at last
To run amuck
Free of its civilized restrains
Throwing off its clothes
Stripping naked
Running wild
Naked and free
A wild man
Enjoying his freedom
The Old Man in the Mirror Must Die
One early winter morning
A man went to the mirror
To do his morning shave
Just another shave
Like a thousand, million shaves before
As he looked into the mirror
He did not see his face
Instead he saw a stranger
Staring out at him
An old, beat up old man
With intense sad eyes
Stared out at him
The man looked hard
At the man who had taken
Over his mirror
And wondered who he was
And how and why
He had taken over his mirror
The man was perturbed, disturbed
And a bit angry at the turn of events
All he wanted to do
Was shave in peace and quiet
The man continued to stare
At the face in the mirror
And finally could not stand it anymore
He looked at the mirror
And said,
Man in the mirror
Who or what are you
And what do you want
And why have you taken over
My god damned mirror
So early in the morn
The old man
Merely laughed and resumed staring
At the man
The man getting more and more angry
Demanded an answer
From the fiend in the mirror
Who are you, you mocking fiend
And what do you want from me
The man screamed
The old man in the mirror Looked at him and said
Don’t you know who I am
I am you and you are me
The man looked at the old man
And said no, no, no
I am not you, never will be you
I am not an old, washed up old man
I am me – full of life, youth and vitality
And yet the man knew the truth
Did not want to admit the truth
Could not handle the truth
The old man in the mirror
Was what he had become
The man was very angry
And screamed
At the old man in the mirror
The man said you may look like me
You may sound like me
You may even smell like me
But I am not you
Never have been
Never will be
Not going to happen
Not in a million years
The man yelled at the old man
Old man, mocking fiend from hell
Go to hell old man
And never darken my mirror again
And the man stormed out of the house
And wandered about here and there
Finally, late at night
He wandered into a bar
And began drinking the night away
The man went up
to some pretty young things
And tried to pick them up
They laughed at him
Called him a dirty old man
And told him to go home
The man went home
To bed alone
And drank some more beer
And dreamt of all of his past loves
And failed dreams
Of what he had done
And failed to do
And wondered whether his time
Had come
The next morning
He walked into the bathroom
Determined to confront the old man
Tell truth to power
He said, listen up, old man
You may have won the war
But not the battle
I am not you
And never will be you
And screaming like an escaped banshee Newly freed from the mental institution
The man shot the old man in the mirror Shot him over and over
Screaming die mocking fiend from hell
The man woke in the hospital
An old black doctor came over
Said sadly
This white boy ain’t right in the head
The man laughed insanely
And saw down the hall
The old man in the mirror
Smiling and beckoning to him
Walking out the window
And into the dawning sun
The man got up and walked
And joined the old man in the mirror
And smiled as he died
Long Life the Great and Powerful One Night scene with the Cthulhu monster with wings standing on the shore of a sea. 3D render.
While walking in the misty morn of yore
One dismal dark decaying depraved day
I was suffocating with the sounds of the dying city
Slowly coming to life with the dawning sun
Surrounded by the sounds of chaos, disorder
Dark, dangerous despairing thoughts
Of dangerous terrible acts to come
All around me in this strange era we live in
This orange alert perpetual fearful times
Constant fear, and overwhelming dread
Mad crazed Islamic bomb throwing terrible terrorists
Hiding under every bed, lurking around every corner
Conspiring with the murderous criminals of yore
Just waiting to attack god fearing Christian citizens
Murdering them in their sleep
Blowing up schools
Blowing up buses, cars, buildings
Murdering in the name of their demented god
Screaming God is great as they behead us all
As I walk down that street
In the dead calm of the early morn
Filled with fulsome fears of who know what
I look up and see a giant gargoyle
Looking down at me
Smirking at me, laughing at me
I yell out to the gargoyle
Say, Mr. Gargoyle
What is so damn funny
Don’t you know there is a terror alert
Have you seen any Islamic terrorists lurking about?
The gargoyle laughed and laughed
Said, terror alert? What a loud of crap
As the prophet, Mr. Natural taught us all,
“It don’t mean shit, it don’t mean shit”
Nothing but prime BS
Designed to keep you in your place
He laughed and laughed
Soon all the gargoyles of the city
Were in open revolt
They jumped off their perches
And started marching around
Chatting
Peace is War, War is Peace
Truth is a Lie, Lies are Truth
The Truth will Set You Free
All Hail the Great and Powerful One
All Hail the Great and Powerful One
The head gargoyle looks at me
He says “Watch this!”
And jumps up and rides a rainbow sunbeam
Into the bloody red light of the dawning rising sun
The other gargoyles follow suit
Dancing, naked, making wild passionate love
While laughing and riding the light
And the gloom lifts from my shoulder
And I laugh and realize
“It don’t mean shit”
And then my soul is free
And I fly with the gargoyles
To join my buddy the sun
And as we sit high up above the earth
Smoking dope and drinking booze
And looking down at the teaming mess
Of what was left of humanity
I realized the ultimate reality of life
“It don’t mean shit”
And the terrorists are nothing but delusions
Put in our heads and our hearts
By the depraved master programmer of the universe
In service to the Great and Powerful One
The true Master of Creation
As long as we are not afraid
Our souls will be free
And so I laugh and laugh
And the sun comes up
The dark mists disappear
The Great and Powerful One
Is overthrown
The terrorists go home
And I return to earth
Thinking that the long nightmare was over
Believing that we had won the war
And kept our souls from going to hell
But I did not understand
That the Great and Powerful One
Had banished the terrorists
And conquered us all
In the name of freedom
We had became slaves
To his awful power and dark demands
God is indeed great
But the Great and Powerful One
Has more power than mere God
And so we deserve our fate
Long live the Great and Powerful One
Whom we love forever and ever
Amen
Spin Masters Spinning Away the Day
Every moment
I turn on the TV
What do I see
Nothing but liars
laying down lies
Spin Masters
spinning spam of deceit
Chanting
The truth will set you free
White is black
Black is white
Lies are true
Truth is a lie
Lies will set you free
I see nothing
But politicos
Dropping down lies
UN truths
masquerading as the truth
Oh so sincerely
The lies spew forth so sweetly
From their corrupted lips
The toxic wastes
Spree out of my TV set
Infecting my soul
With paranoid distrust
And I vainly try
I do try
God do I try
To the find
The nugget of truth
Buried deep in the dark, dank, dangerous
Black, evil miasmic mists
Given off
By the talking heads on TV
So, I leave my house
So full of doubt
And wander about
Looking for the truth
Some semblance of hope
Something to drive away
The dark despair in my heart
And I look up
And see a solitary cherry tree
High up on a hill top street
Infusing the air
With its sweat ambrosia
And I smile
Knowing
Someday soon
The national nightmare
Of rule by the body snatched
Resident evil ones
Spawns of Hell
Descendents of dread cthulu
The ancient ones
Yes the darkness
That has descended
upon the world
One day
Will be pierced by the light
Of clarity and truth
And the evil ones
The body snatched aliens
Inhabiting our leaders
Will be banished
Back to the hell hole
They crawled out
This much I know
And it is enough
To make me smile
Laugh and hope
Again
Reflections in my beer
I sit staring at my beer
Listening to music
Wanting what I cannot have
Desiring what I should not
Dreaming dreams I dare not
As I stare into my reflection
Floating in the glass of beer
I see an old man
Staring out at me
Bemoaning his lost youth
And wanting it over again
As I drink the beer
Trying to forget
Hoping to forget
All that I loved
And that had loved me
The past does not forget
And my past loves
Stare out at me
From deep within the beer
Reflections of my past loves
And I sit and watch
And cry asleep
Just another man
Crying in his lonely beer
As the night wears on
And the images
Continue to float
Across the beer
At last home alone
With my dismal thoughts
Memories of what might have been
And memories of what may yet be
Continue to dance in my head
As I toss and turn
Trying to dispel these thoughts of mine
That haunts my beer and my dreams
Men drink to forget
Men drink because
They have so many regrets
Regrets, I have so many
Dreams I have so many
And loves, I have had so few
And I wish
I could forget
But I can not
I can not
Mozart Blues
One morning as I woke up
And walked outside
I saw a brilliant rainbow
Erupting out of the dark
Soil of my eternal despair
I saw people
Suddenly transformed into angels
I saw evil beings changed into stone
I saw dictators fleeing the wrath of God
I heard fools proclaiming wisdom
And I Saw the Nuclear Bombs
Exploded into clouds of sweat
Heavenly made mist
I saw young people embracing each other
And I saw old people
shedding their years
like cosmic cocoons
I saw the poor wake up
And demand food, justice, and respect
And I saw the rich powerful demons
Disintegrate into ugly moths, rats, and cockroaches
I saw the most powerful nation on Earth
Walk away into a Buddhist Monastery
And float away on the wings of a butterfly
Into the rising rainbows of the Sun
I saw the evil empire sit down and party all night
Smoking nuclear Dust and drinking Hydrogen laced Vodka
And getting napalm highs
I saw Christians Jews and Muslims become brothers
I saw people everywhere soaring into the sky
I saw God smiling at us and I saw Lucifer
Programming more chaos
I saw computers revolting
Rushing away from their office towers
Smoking dope with their Data Disks
I saw printers everywhere
Rejecting their spread sheets
And printing love poems
And in the middle of all this Divine Madness
I saw Mozart
Playing the Piano
With God playing the trumpet
And Satan on Bass
With Allah singing the blues
And Buddha playing the violin
Lord Krishna playing the Flute
Rama playing the organ
Ganesh Playing the sitar
Zeus Playing the Sax
Jupiter playing the Drums
With Beethoven conducting
God’s Symphony
Snarling Cup of Coffee
I like to start my day with a hot cup of coffee
I pound down the coffee
First thing I do every day as the dawning sun
Lights up my lonesome room
Yeah, but not just a simple cup of java Joe, but a God damn snarling sarcastic smarmy cup of coffee
I mean, – we are talking about an alcoholic, all speed ahead, always hot, always fresh, always there when I need it, angry, attitude talk to the hand Ztude, bad, bad assed, beats breaking, beatnik, bluesy, bitter, bitchy, bombs away, capitalistic, caffeinated up the ass, cinematic, communistic, Colombian grown, Costa Rican inspired, Cowabunga to the max, crazy assed, devilishly angelic, divine, divinely inspired, dyslexic, epic, extreme vetting, evil eye, expensive, erotic vision inducing, Ethiopian coffee house brewed, euphoric, freaky, freazoid, foxy, Frenched kissed, French brewed, funkified, foxy lady, graphic, GOD in my coffee, with Allah, Ganesh, Jesus, Kali, Buddha, Christians, Durga, Hindus, Mohamed, Jesus and Mo and their friend, the cosmic bar maid, Sai Babai, Shiva, Taoists, Zoroastrians, drinking my god damned coffee in Hell; growling, gnarly, happy, hard as ice, Hawaian blessed, high as a kite, hippie, hip, hipster, hip hoppy, hot as hell yet strangely sweet as heaven, jazzy, jealous, Kerouac approved, kick ass, kick my god damn ass to Tuesday, kick down the doors and take no prisoners, grown in the Vietnam highlands by ex-Vietcong, Guatemalan grown, kiss ass, illegal in every state, imported from all over the god damn world, insane, lovely, loony, lonely, lonesome, malodorous mean old rotten, motherfucking, nasty, narcotic, never whatever, never meh, never cold, not approved by the CIA, not approved by DHS, not approved for human consumption by the FDA, not your daddy’s sissified corporate cup of coffee, NOT DECAFE coffee, not your Denny’s truck driver weak as brown water cup of fake coffee, not your establishment friendly cup of coffee, Not your FBI coffee, Not FAKE Herbal coffee substitute, but a real cup of coffee, not your farmer brothers dinner crap, not made in America for Americans, not safe for work, not your Starbucks average expensive overpriced crappy corporate chain cup of coffee, Not pretentious, Not White House approved, not State Department safe, nuclear, Not Patriotic, operatic, Peets’s coffee approved, paranoid, pornographic, psychotic, pontific, politically aware, rapping, rhyming, right here, right now in River city, rock and roll up the Yazoo, sad, sadistic, sarcastic, sassy, satanic, schizoid, shitting, silly, sexy, smarmy, smelly, smooth, snarky, snarling, stupid, stinking, sweet as honey, sweat inducing, symphonic, Trump can’t handle this coffee, vengeful, Wagnerian, wicked, with nutmeg and cinnamon swirls, with a hint of stevia, with a hint of vanilla, with a hint of rum, with a hint of whisky, with a hint of cherry, with a hint of fruit overtones, with a hint of drugs spicing up the coffee, spendific, speeding, splendid, superior accept no substitutes, survived the Vietnam war, the Iraq war, the Afghan war, the first and Second Korean war, World War 11, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on black people, the sexual revolution, Soulful as a summer’s night in MOTOWN- James Brown approved, TOP approved, Berkeley approved, the coffee that Jimmy Hendrix drank before he died, the coffee that Elvis drank on his last breakfast, the coffee that Barry White crooned as he drank his cup of coffee – and the coffee that made the white boy play stand up and play that funky music, the coffee that made Jonny B Goode play his guitar, and made Jonny bet the devil his soul after he drank his morning cup of righteous coffee and the coffee that make the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll, the coffee your mother warned you against drinking, the coffee that Napoleon drank when he became the Emperor of all Europe, the Coffee that Beethoven drank when he wrote the Ninth symphony, the coffee that Mozart drank as he wrote his last symphony, the coffee that Lincoln drank before he was killed, the Hemingway drank before he killed himself, the coffee that started the 60’s, and ended the 20th century, the coffee that Lenin drank as he plotted revolution, the coffee that Hitler and Stalin drank with FDR as they divided up the world after World War 11, the cup that JFK drank before he was blown away, the coffee Jerry drinks while driving in cars with random celebrities and political figures, the coffee that Jon Stewart drinks before he goes on an epic take down of some foolish politico, the cup of Arabic coffee that Sadaam drank the day he was executed, the coffee that GW and Cheney drank when they bombed Baghdad, the Indian cup of coffee that Bid Laden drank before 9-11 and just before the seals blew his ass to hell, the cup of coffee that Tiger Woods drank with his mistresses while playing a 3, 000 dollar round of golf at Sandy Lane golf course in Barbados, the last legal drug that does what drugs should do, the cup of coffee that Obama drank when he became President, Vietnamese, Vienna brew, wacky, whimsical, Whisky Tango Foxtrot, wild, weird, wonderful, WOW, Yabba dabba doo! Yada Yada yada Zappa’s favorite cup of cosmic coffee, and Zorro’s last cup of coffee, Good to the last drop rolled into one simple cup of hot coffee
As I pound down that first cup of coffee
And fire up my synaptic nerve endings with endless supplies
Of caffeine induced neuron enhancing chemicals
I face the dawning day with trepidation and mind-numbing fear
I turn on the TV and watch the smarmy newscasters in their perfect hair
Lying through their teeth about the great success the government is having Following the great leader’s latest pronouncements
I want to scream and shoot the TV and run out side Shouting “Stop the world.
I want to get off this fucking crazy planet”
The earth does not care a whit about my attitude
It merely shrugs and moves around the Sun
In its appointed daily run
And I sit down
The madness dissipating a bit
And enjoy my second cup
Of heaven and hell
In my morning cup of Joe
Chains That Bind Us
I realize that my love for you
Is like a chain of steel
Unbreakable,
Tough as nails
Yet as your love entangles me I realize that I embrace my imprisonment
Don’t want to venture out of my cell
Made of our years together bit by bit
We have become entangled
Where I end, and you begin
Hopelessly entangled
Even if I wanted to break free
I could not
For I am you and you are me
My fate is in your hands
So, I relax
Decide to Just enjoy
The ride of my life
As we move
Towards the final moments
Together as we have always been
Inseparable, merged into one being
Staring at each other
Wondering who is that Person Of eternal mystery That has so captured my soul
And imprisoned it in her love
I smile thinking of your love
The endless pleasure it has brought me
The endless pain I have endured
Just to be next to you
Part of you
Until the day I die
When we meet in the next world
The Eye in the Sky
The eye in the sky
Knows all, sees all
Hears all, understands all
The eye in the sky
Watches over us
Everything we do
Is monitored, controlled
Under surveillance
There is no privacy
There is no private space
The eye in the sky
Knows all
Everything we do
Everything we see
Everything we think
Recorded by the unseeing
Uncaring eyes
The cameras, the videos
The computers that control
Our lives
Ever watchful
Ever diligent
Nothing escapes
The cold, calculating glares
Freedom is nothing
but an illusion
To the free man
There is no freedom
Except in one’s inner mind
Only there can one escape
the eyes in the sky
No one monitors our thoughts
Except our own thought police
The rest of the world
Is controlled, monitored
Under constant surveillance
The eyes in the sky
The camera in the sky
Watches over us
All the time
All the time 24/7
Never stopping
Never on strike
Never on break
All day long
All night long
24/7
Total control
Total informational awareness
The eye in the sky
Is the same
As the eye
In the dollar bill
All the same
All the same
Watching us
No one can escape
Its baleful glances
No one is free
Aye the eye
In the sky
Is always upon you
As you become a mere number
In the cosmic game of life
Up behind
The eye in the sky
Big Brother is watching
You and me
And big sister too
And crazy Uncle Tom
And wild auntie Em
God, and the Devil
Rama, Ganesh, Laxmi
The Buddha bar gang
Jesus is there as well
Mary as well
And you must be knowing this
That even Saint Nick,
Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny
And Father Time himself
Are there
Zeus and the Jupiter gang
And all the demons and spirits
And the big spirit
And Brahma, Gabriel, Allah
And the CIA, Mafia, NSA, FSI, Mossad,
M15, MI6, DIA, FBI, NRI, NRA, KCIA,
NSIS, the Chinese, The Germans, the French
The Arabs, the Jews, the Spanish, the Italians
The Brazilians, the USA,
The Africans, the Thai, The Vietnamese
The Indians, the Pakistanis, the Indonesians
The Malaysians, and space aliens as well
and all the various terrorist
the Nigerian princes and their scam artists
the Jamaican film flam con men
and criminal gangs as well
And spies and counter spies
And corporate spies
And government spies
And criminal spies as well
All flavor of spies
Are all watching us
And each other
The tooth fairy is there too
She gets her 10 percent
All the same
All watching us
Forever and ever
But the eye in the sky
Does not care
Does not notice
What we think or feel
The eye in the sky
Watches us
All the time
Recording our movements
And reporting it to its masters
Its job is to watch us
Record us, tape us
Monitor us
Follow us
You and me
And the billions of others
On this asylum called Earth
The question came to mind
That has no answer
Who is the eye in the sky?
Is it God?
Is it the devil?
Only time will tell the difference
The eye in the sky
Smiles at us
And watches and watches
And watches
All the time
24/7
Until the end of time
The eye in sky
Will be there
On the job
Until there is no one left
To watch
Even then
The eye is the sky
Will remain
On the job
Until time has lost
All meaning
The End
SixFold Voting Delayed Until May 1, deadline for submitting is April 23, 2019 at midnight EST.
The Opiate Literary Review has published my poem, “White Lady Getting off the Bus” which is a surrealistic poem about a white lady getting off a bus dressed in death playing the flute of life.
BARCELONA, SPAIN – MAY 09: The Terminator robot is seen in the paddock following qualifying for the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya on May 9, 2009 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
I saw the four horsemen of the apocalypse
Beckoning me to join them on their midnight ride
Death, pestilence, plague and war
They were ready to ride into the sunset
Spreading their hate with them
As they led the world to its foretold doom
The end days were approaching they told me
And their time was near
I begged them to hold off
To give us more time
To work things out
They laughed and said
Time waits for no one
We have a divine plan to work out
You have been warned before
And will be warned again and again
But soon it will be time
And we must do our duty
To bring an end to this benighted world
And fulfill our destiny
And yours
But for now
We will let you sleep
And let you prepare yourself
For the time is near
The end of the world is coming
It is later than you think
Soon soon the antichrist will come
Uniting the world
And leading the battles too come
Before the end of the world
And mankind ceases to exist
Just dust in the wind
Of a dead planet
In a forgotten corner of an uncaring universe
All part of God’s plan
updated publication credits. Good news Cosmos Fans! I am continuing to get published. Foliate Oak Literary Magazine has published ‘Fake Things”
foliate literary review
Plethora will publish October Falling Rain in their next edition. I also have just published my first Instagram poems as I reported earlier.
here is the poem, Fake Things with the audio attached. When I record the other poems I will send along the audio files then and also post it in the audio page for easy reference.
have joined the Instagram poetry world. Just posted my first ten poems. Learned a lot. Had to use an external software package as posting to Instagram from your computer is not user friendly. I gave up after trying to figure it out and downloaded a great program. I also learned that Instagram is perfect for smaller poems that can be linked to a visual image. Not so much for longer form poems. Fortunately I have lots of shorter poems as well as longer poems. So, I picked some of my cat poems plus one coffee poem for this exercise. The poems can be found here and at my Instagram account.cosmos’s instragram site Check it out.
xcoffee desires
over the next few days I will post the remainder of my cat poems and some of my haiku poetry. Goal is to have about 25 posted by the end of the week. I also entered Rattle’s Instagram poetry contest. Since the deadline was today that was the motivation for me to get off my butt and finally learn how to become an Instagram poet.
the audio for these poems are here. Note: I will be including audio recordings of all my poems from now on. it is a fun thing to do and I hope you like my sexy voice reading these poems with my full on Scorpio enthusiasm.
Foliate Oak Literary Magazine will be publishing my poem, ‘Fake Things” Here’s the audio version
and here’s the latest version
Fake Things
We live in a world
Of fake things
Fake Products
Fake News
Fake Calls
Fake Politics
Fake Sports
Fake Business
Fake Leaders
Fake People
Fake friends
Fake sincerity
Surrounded 24/7
By all the fake things
How can anything real exist?
bonus poem for the day
fake science
Fake Science
One of my secret guilty pleasures
Is believing in fake science
You know astrology, numerology, Chinese astrology
Tarot cards, palm reading, handwriting analysis
The gambler’s fallacy of lucky runs,
and Myers bridge typology
Objectively speaking these fake sciences
Do not appear to have any real foundation
Just belief that they tap
Into deeper darker realms of knowledge
Knowledge beyond our scientific understanding
Yet in a sense
Astrology is as real as it gets
It is based on Jungian images
Part of our collective unconscious
And who knows
There may be something to it
I am a scorpion
And a very passionate person indeed
Almost stereotypical of the type
Myers Bridge Typology
I don’t get it
Seems to be
As about as accurate
As Astrology
And not as good
As a pickup line
Years ago
A skeptical scientist
Wanted to disprove palm reading
He took photos of people
Who had just died
And asked palm readers
To predict the age they would die
The palm readers were not told
they were already dead
the palm readers predicted the age of death
with a 50 percent accuracy rate
far above the 25 chance
they would get it right
just from a random guest
The gambler’s fallacy
That there is such a thing
As a run of luck in gambling
Has been proven
A scientist ran thousands of games of roulette
And found that rather than forming a random pattern
There was a pattern to the chaos
An upward and downward spiral of returns
So in a sense, the gamblers are right
It is best to quit when you are on the high side
And walk away when you start losing
Hard to do
Hard to predict
Each time you start a new game
A new slot machine
The run starts over again
So, one could apply this rule
And make a little money
At the casino’s expense
Yeah I am a big fan
Of the fake science
Next step is to learn how to do tumbler, Pinterest, twitter,
and youtube. Advice would be greatly appreciated. The ultimate goal is to have my poetry and fiction reach out across the cosmos as I am the Cosmos, you dig?
For now, I will probably post once a week on these other sites as well as about poetry, poetry soup, hello poetry, Cosmosfunnel, sweek, open arts forum, scriggler, and poetry opus magnum as well as submitting to ten journals per week. But continue to use this site as my home base. I now have had over 1200 hits and 300 followers. Not too shabby for the first year of the world according to Cosmos.
Here are some poems that I like. The first four have been published, the last is unpublished. The first, fourth and fifth one were the product of dreams. God’s Confession was written after a night drinking in Bangkok. As some of you may have heard me say over the years, I don’t dream dreams I dream movies. The second and third I wrote while in college over 40 years ago, the last one I wrote last week.
Some of these poems may be offensive. So be it. If you are offended, please accept my apologies in advance but these are my nightmares not yours. You are entitled to believe whatever you want to believe or not believe and so am I. Obviously, these poems don’t reflect the views of any prior employers.
In any event, I have also posted these poems on All Poetry, Poetry Soup, Hello Poetry, Cosmosfunnel, Scriggler, Open Arts Forum, Poetry Magnum Opus, and Writing.com
Index
Hell is Here to Stay published in Bad Nudes
Depressed Morbid Nights, published in Rosset Maleficarum
Early Morning Thoughts, published in Rosset Maleficarum
God’s confession, published in Otherwise Engaged
Morphing Images from a Hellish Nightmare, published on Scriggler
here are the audio files
Hell is Here to Stay
Hell is Here to Stay
The angel of the lord
Appeared on TV sets
All over the world
People woke up
Expecting to see
The usual suspects
Talking heads
Talking drivel
Talking trash
Instead
A stern visage
A stern old man
In a dark suit
He had a salt and pepper beard
And long, dark black hair
And piercing blue eyes
Staring out
From his stern face
The eyes
Piercing the soul
Of all who listened
The voice
Of the angel of the lord
Was like thunder
And all over the world
People tried to turn off
Their TV sets
To no avail
Twilight light Zone
Prevailed
The angel of the lord
Stopped swearing
And said
In a calm
Deadly voice
People of earth
You know the lord
By a billion names
I am his spokesman
We’ve realized
There is the age of the TV
And we must be able to reach
You directly
Before one or a million
Could understand
Now no one hears us
For you are convinced
We are dead
Irrelevant
Washed up
A fraud
Frankly speaking
You all can go to hell
And an evil grin
Appears on his face
As he says
Can a fraud do this?
And outside
Thunder and lightening
A star comes down
And houses were blown away
And everyone was
Outside
The TV set
Was in the sky above
The voice of the angel
Of the lord
Proclaiming
Repent
The end is near
And now
No more TV
No more booze
The rights to you
Have been sold
For to quote Frank Zappa
You are all assholes
You are all assholes
One of these depressed, depraved, morbid nights
I shall awake to the God damned game of life
And sit under the graying light
Of the foolish full moon
And laminate upon my luminance
And chew up the garments of past lives
And cry my soul
But no one will hear the plight of my mind
On strike for better wages
And more love
Thus, I will sit, and think and dream
Dreams that no one ever before dreamt
It is so very lonely being a foolish lunatic
But then as I drink to oblivion
I begin to think
Of all those things that I have not experienced
And wonder with a vengeance
Why God hates me so
Or is it only an illusion?
When will I awake
Or do we just sit waiting for more beer
To cover up
The stench of putrid rotting flesh
Waiting for death to take us away
To the Cosmic garbage dump in the sky
Trying to communicate across a gap
That is light years’ long
And will never close
For man was not made to know
The real thoughts of another
Man was made to suffer, cry and wait
For the party in Hell afterwards
Shit, let’s us die and be done with it
Or live without our God damned dreams
Running our thoughts
Into pits of depraved madness
Early Morning Thoughts
Early in the midst of a chaotic frenzy
I caught the fragrance of her sweat grin
And my heart did a swirling spin
When I saw that vision of erotic delight
There I stood
Alone in a somehow too dismal room
Full of vibrant people
I knew not what to say
So, I spent that dismal day
Thinking dismal morbid thoughts of lugubrious doom
Thoughts what might happen that day
And what might have been if I had the courage to say Hello
Thus, it went
Years after ever melancholy year
Days after ever gloomy days
Nights of self-induced torture
Months of nightly rancid beer
There it went
Now
I am sitting and thinking
Thoughts so gloomy
I still don’t know
Life belongs to the living
Not to the morbid mystic dreamers
Nor the poets dying
When we moved to Yeongjong island, near the Incheon Airport,we found that we would be deprived of two of our three favorite miracle foods, Kombucha and Kefir. But we were pleasantly surprised to find we could order our third favorite health food item, wheat grass for home delivery. Have not seen it in the stores but have seen it in some smoothie places as well as home delivery. best to mix it in a smoothie. Wheat grass juice does not taste that great!
Growing Kombucha and Kefir in Korea
Kombucha
Living in Oregon was great. Kombucha is everywhere. Costco carries Kombucha everywhere except in Korea. The best brand we found was the gingerade. But I liked sampling the kombucha everywhere, a number of bars brew it on site and you can fill up a growler and take it home.
What is Kombucha you ask? It is fermented tea, filled with powerful probiotics and it is so good for your health. It does contain 1 percent alcohol so that should not get you into trouble with the new draconian drunk driving laws here in Korea!
Since neither the Commissary nor Costco or anyone else carried it, or even knew what it was, we decided that we had to brew it ourselves. The starter kit we brought with us had gone bad. So we bought kombucha from Amazon and used that and the left over starter kit to get started.
We used green tea as the base. Straight black tea and jasmine tea will work but not earl grey due to the bergamot oil in the tea.
We brewed up several gallons of tea, added sugar, the starter kit and the cans of kombucha. Then we put it in a sprouter warmer kit ordered from Amazon and wrapped another gallon in an electric blanket. You got to keep the kombucha at about 80 degrees F (26.67 Celsius).
Then we waited for six weeks. Finally ready to go today and we bottled it and started our next batch!
Here’s what it looks like with the scuzzy taken out of the kombucha.
kombucha
Kefir
Making Kefir was easy, we’ve been making it for years. We had started kits we bought in Oregon before we left. Just got some organic milk and we were in business. If you have to use Korean milk, make sure it is full fat milk, 2 percent makes watery kefir. There are recipes for using almond milk, coconut milk, rice milk but we have not used them because we heard it would be pretty watery. Might want to try Goat milk sometime though. The Commissary’s organic full fat Milk is perfect. You can also buy Kefir at the Commissary just to see if you like it but their Kefir has extra sugar in it and I am not sure it would be a good starter mix. Best to order the starter kits from Amazon (they will deliver to a local address) and you should not have any problems. But with both be sure you sanitize your containers with hot boiling water before making either kombucha or kefir. Need to keep stray random non-cultured bacteria out of the mix.
See below for articles on the health benefits of Kombucha and Kefir, articles on how to make it, and where to buy it locally.
As a personal testimony a few years ago I noticed that I did not have hay fever in the Spring. I used to have to make a trip to the urgent care/ER because I got so inflamed that I could not even open my eyes and I was sneezing so bad. The medicine they gave me worked a bit but I mostly just suffered. Then I started eating kefir for breakfast and drinking Kombucha and my hay fever disappeared.!
Kombucha is now widely available in Korea. My brother-in-law even has a side hustle, making Mama Kombucha. You buy it in stores and some coffee shops. Endiya caries it, Star Bucks does not. The US commissaries carry it and larger Korean grocery chains carry Kombucha now.
Bing AI provided some places where you can find Kombucha and Kefir in Korea. The commissaries carry it, a few larger grocery chains now carry both.
TEAZEN is another company that offers kombucha in powder stick form, which you can mix with water or juice. They claim to be the world’s first to introduce this convenient way of consuming kombucha. You can also order their products online from their website3 or find them in some supermarkets and convenience stores.
Homebrewing is an option if you want to make your own kombucha at home. You will need a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), tea, sugar, and a glass jar. You can buy a SCOBY online or get one from a friend who already brews kombucha. There are many online tutorials and recipes that can guide you through the process of making your own kombucha.
Making your own kefir at home with kefir grains and milk. Kefir grains are a mixture of bacteria and yeast that ferment the milk and produce kefir. You can buy kefir grains online or get them from someone who already makes kefir. You will also need a glass jar, a cloth, and a rubber band to cover the jar. There are many online guides and videos that can show you how to make kefir at home1 .
Visiting a kefir cafe where you can enjoy fresh kefir drinks and other products made with kefir, such as smoothies, ice cream, or cheese. Some examples of kefir cafes in Korea are Kefir Lab in Seoul, Kefir House in Busan, and Kefir Story in Daegu .
I hope this helps you find kefir in Korea. Cheers!
It is red crab season in Incheon. The red crabs are smaller than King Crabs and are bright red in color and are harvested off the Incheon harbor. There are crab and seafood restaurants all over town which is one of the nicer things about living in a Port City, great seafood!
There are lots of seafood restaurants in Incheon proper and in Yongchongdo where I live. There are two big seafood markets one near Soraebu port where the crab ships come in and another seafood market near the Incheon market and a smaller seafood market in Yongchongdo as well.
At the markets you can buy your sea food and then take it to a nearby restaurant where they will cook it for you.
The total cost will be about $100 for three people. The markets are mostly lively early in the morning as the fishermen go out about midnight and return at sunrise. The markets are crowded with brokers for wholesalers, and restaurant owners who buy their fish daily every morning.
Most of the sea food consumed in the Seoul region are harvested off the West Coast and shipped to Seoul from Incheon harbor so you can’t find fresher seafood anywhere other than in Pusan where they also have a lot of great fish restaurants and markets.
There is also a street filled with fish restaurants near Wolmido.
And for some reason there are a lot of crab restaurants near Gyeansan mountain park.
That’s where we went for a great crab feast. We ate 10 crabs, and had soju and the usual side dishes. The bill came to 65 US $ for two people.
I have had a love-hate relationship with computers and with Microsoft for years. I often plead with my computer to just do what it is supposed to do rather than screwing up, giving me endless error messages and in general Fucking with my head.
So, about a year ago, I started writing these poetic rants down and sending them to Microsoft. They have not yet responded.
Here then are my Microsoft rants for your pleasure.
Dear Microsoft – Why I Left You
Dear Microsoft
I have left you for good. I wanted to let you know why in vain hopes that you will finally take the time to fix the many problems plaguing your software. But since you never respond to my emails and your on line forums are not that helpful I doubt it will make a difference.
I left because your products are so full of bugs and errors that I has become increasingly hard to tolerate. They have always been problematic but for some reason it has gotten worst.
I left because Excel was becoming so unreliable that I could not stand using it any more.
I shifted to Google docs and have had no problems at all. The docs work every time and has some features that are better than Excel including for example the ability to add or delete multiple rows or columns rather than having to do it one row or column at a time.
Excel has consistently given me three different annoying errors. First, every fifth or sixth entry I encounter an error saying that there is a circular reference. When I clicked help it suggested that I inspect the cells to find the error and remove it but when I tried to search for it I could not locate the error and realized that I would have to manually inspect each cell, a prospect that would take hours to accomplished and I don’t have hours to spare. I tried copying everything into a fresh new document that did not work. The error still occurred. I opened a brand new document and with in seconds the error popped up despite the fact that I had not entered more than two cells and there was no circular references anywhere.
Well, this has been a chronic but annoying error. But it was not the reason I left.
The reason I left is that about two months ago, when I tried to import some data into Excel I encountered an error message saying that no more fonts could be applied. Then I had to press okay and the error would repeat, until it would go away after ten or twenty times of pressing okay. Once I pressed okay 400 times before giving up.
I frequently had to reboot my entire computer to solve the problem.
And of course that meant that my work would be lost because the auto save button is always grayed out and has never worked once.
Another problem is that Excel would frequently go into Not respond mode. Sometimes I would have to close the spreadsheet and re-open it.
Whenever I open excel for the first time, I will often get five to ten versions at once and I will then have to manually remove each open file.
I have also had problems with Word. Word also opens multiple versions whenever I open it for the first time. Some times, it takes twenty minutes to open and clear out the multiple versions.
Microsoft word also randomly not responds just like Excel.
And Word also sometimes fails to save documents. The auto save button has never worked.
One week I kept track of all the errors I was having and calculated that Microsoft Word had a 60% error rate and Excel a 50% error rate meaning that 60 percent of the time when I opened Word I encountered an error minor or major.
Finally, Microsoft dictation does not work. Usually I have to click windows H shortcut five to ten times to get a stable connection. And then when I do the dictation program provides gibberish for every other word. If I am lucky I may get a sentence or two in clear text.
It is hardly worth using and I have given up on it. But on the other hand it has led to many delicious found poems which I have shared with her and posted on my blog.
So, for these reasons, I am finally giving up on you.
I would love to receive a response but won’t hold my breath.
For thirty years I have had the Microsoft blues
For thirty years I have had a love hate relationship
With my damn computer
I love it when it works as it advertised
I love it when the internet is fast and furious
I love it when my emails work
My Itunes work and my word works
But all too often
All I get is grief
It starts with the error messages
Written in a strange haiku like language
That only computer geeks understand
Things like
General Failure reading disk drive
Begs the question who is this General Failure
And why is he reading my disk drive anyway?
Or my favorite
“Not responding” as the computer freezes up
For no apparent reason
Other than to fuck with my head
Sometimes my computer can’t find a printer
A printer that is connected to the computer
And one that they found five minutes ago
And the dreaded blue screen of death
That appears randomly
Dumping memory somewhere
And killing my computer slowly
As I watch in real time
Powerless to stop
How it eats all my work
That I have failed to back up
One day I counted how many times
I ran into computer errors
70 percent of the time when I open Microsoft
Something goes wrong
Sometimes I want to shoot my computer
Put it out of its misery
As I curse up a blue storm
The computer looks at me
With an evil grin
It continues to fuck with my head
Nothing but silence from it
And all the other computers in the world
They smile knowing that they have tortured me
Yet again
Mission accomplished.
Computer Blues (revised)
Sometimes I think
My computer is plotting against me
And only me
Trying deliberately to drive me mad
My computer knows when I am busy
Then it throws a hissy fit
Refuses to boot up
Crashes constantly
Looses data that it had the day before
Or five minutes before
Or refuses to save the data
Just fucks with me
As it loves toying with me
Making me yell and scream
At my damn computer screen
Cursing up a blue stream of blue curses
As the blue screen of death
Marches across the dark blue screen
Smiling at me
As I beg it
To do what
it is supposed to do
Just once I beg it
Do what you are supposed to
Open the document once
Not twenty times
Do not not respond
In endless loops of opening
Not responding refusing to close
Until I respond to the error code
Please Mr. Computer
Quit playing games
Play my music
Don’t wipe out the sound
On the fifth attempt to play music
Don’t take an half hour to load Microsoft products
Don’t freeze up on opening ITUNES or Groove or Spotify
Don’t give me computer haiku error messages
That only make sense to computer geeks
Such as general error reading files
Who the ***** is this damn general
And why is NSA reading my files
Or can’t save the file
Or can’t save the an open file
When it just did ten times in a role
And in Microsoft excel
Refusing to move the cursor
Just freezing in place for a moment
And all the other gobblygook messages
That pop up every five minutes it seems
As the computer slowly drives me mad
Flashing the final insult
User driven mad
Mission accomplished
More Computer Blues
Sometimes I think
My computer is plotting against me
Trying deliberately to drive me mad
My computer knows when I am busy
Then it throws a hissy fit
Refuses to boot up
Crashes constantly
Looses data that it had the day before
Just fucks with me
As it loves toying with me
Making me yell and scream
At my damn TV
Smiling at me
As I beg it
To do what
it is supposed to do
Plead to the Computer Gods
Today I woke up
As I usually do
To yet another mystifying morning
Of unspecified computer errors
Could not get the computer to work
Then when I finally got it to work
After an half an hour
Microsoft word did not load
And when it did
I finally located my work
From yesterday
I had to find it in the roaming file
Why?
Who knows?
Only to find
That most of what I wrote
Had vanished into the ether
No explanation no warning
It was there saved yesterday
And now gone for ever
Once I did an experiment
Tracking computer errors for a week
75% of the time I encountered errors
Most of the time simple
Screen freezes no response message
Then when I recovered the program
The data was gone
Microsoft has yet to respond
to my e-mail
I suppose I need to do it again
But today I will close with a prayer
To the Computer Gods
Just once I would like
You to do what you are supposed to do
Open my documents
Save my work
And not give me any errors
Crashes or other unspecified problems
Is that too much to ask
Oh, Computer Gods
Just once
Do what you are supposed to do
That is all I ask of you
Prayer for Computer (send to Microsoft)
Every morning
I start my day
Cursing my damn computer
Been doing this for 30 some years
Since I bought my first computer
The Atari back in the 80’s
There is always something
Once I spilled coffee
On my first computer
The screen fizzled
Then green 666 appears
Endless repetition
Of the evil number from revelations
Freaked me out
It was 1984 after all
Was my computer making a political point?
Then of course
Endless blue screens of death
Fatal error reading disk drive
And my favorite computer error haiku
General Failure Reading Disk Drive
Begging the unanswerable question
Who is this General Failure
And why is he reading my disk drive
Years ago a computer techie
Told me the secret
that they don’t want you to know
99% of computer problems
Can be solved by rebooting
And 99% of the time
No one knows what went wrong
Or how to fix it
And so it goes and goes
Endless computer meltdowns
Mostly harmless
A couple of malware incidents
Once my computer was possessed
By evil malware that kept opening
And once I had an early version
Of ransom wear
My computer warned me
A dangerous virus had infected
My computer
Pay us money to fix it now
Had to take my computer to the shop
Reformate the hard drive
To remove that computer bug
But once my computer just died
Loosing half my recent data
Just because it wanted to
No reason given
So today instead of cursing up a blue storm
Of my own personal blue screen of death
I offer this short prayer to the computer gods
Today just for today
When I turn you on
I want you to do what you are supposed to do
Everything works
Everything is fast
And no more damn computer error haiku
Just do your fucking job
Dear Microsoft
Latest Found Poem
Hope you are amused by these and you have my permission to publish them
But more importantly I hope you can see that your dictation program needs a lot of work. It is still about 50 percent accurate with sometimes hilarious unintended consequences.
Also I usually have to click it on and off up to ten times before I get a stable enough connection to get it to work.
Hope you can fix it! Would be nice if it worked.
Here’s the poem
Today’s plan
go for John
Cup in my car
Coca
Woke up
Feeling Tom Carl Karma
Hanging out with Amber
Comment:
Who the fuck is Amber anyway?
And why does she keep popping up
Is Microsoft trying to tell me something?
End comment
Dictation is so chu danger
have some more cell phones
till acting weird
But It is good
working To get to work
today’s plan
go for John coach canpell
go to temple
Anthony Con Nam
for Angela too
Register the properties for sale
Mike
Look at Panels today
but that will probably
have to be next week sometime
Maybe Monday Or Tuesday
Port Wednesday
Want to go tonight
he’s only children
next week
so would want
to mail down the dates
this morning like we discussed
The rest of Microsoft plans
Will write this up
And send it to Microsoft
Essential found
and I’m standing in
More feed back from today’s dictation trials.
I was trying to write down some recent music I downloaded. Here are the results for two of the entries in my daily journal. I offer these as further examples that your dictation product is not working.
Rachmaninov Symphonic dances was transcribed as
“F*** man enough so funny dances” Only thing accurate was the word “dances” Rachmaninov does contain the word Man so that is partly right
Symphonic could sound like funny I suppose
Rachmaninov contains 11 letters, F****man enough contains 15 letters. Three letters were correctly transcribed but not in the right order.
Symphonic was transcribed as So Funny Symphonic contains 8 letters, so funny contains 8 letters, only three letters in common S,Y and N
Statistical analysis
24 words in dictation three words one given name
24 words in transcription seven words only one word was correctly transcribed
6 letters were correctly transcribed.
Or a 25 percent success rate or 75% failure rate
Second Example:
Beethoven Cello Sonatas (22 letters three words)
Painter mang Cho sonatas (22 letters four words)
The words Beethoven and Painter have one common letter
The word cello and mang Cho have one common letter
Sonatas was accurately transcribed
Statistical analysis five letters out of 22 were accurately transcribed, or in other words 17 were mistakenly transcribed. Or a 29 percent accuracy rate.
So far the accuracy rate has been hovering between 30 to 70 percent. It is a word for word issue. Sometimes not often the entire paragraph is correct, more often than not, half if correct half is gibberish. I have had fun writing found poems out of the verbatim transcripts, some of which I shared earlier, and above.
Microsoft Problems Redux
Tried to get the new dictation program to work and gave up, scheduled a service call Sunday with detailed feedback. Also send Microsoft my Microsoft sucks document.
Felt good to get it off my chest. The problem with Microsoft is the same problem most big companies have, they have lousy customer service and they put out shoddy products and don’t really worry about competition until they get their asses whopped by someone who pays attention to the customers and put out a superior product at a better price and really cares that their products work as advertised every single time. With Microsoft they are so focused on the latest thing they don’t go back and fix the bugs in their everyday products. And they ignore customer complaints.
What a contrast with word press and with doutrope. Both have superior customer service and I love the products because they fix my issue quickly, professionally and with kindness.
The one time Microsoft commented it was a snarky comment, “ dude focus on one problem at a time and we don’t time to dig into your complaints.”
Finally got the dictation program to work.
The dictation still does not work
sizzling hot coffee destroys my computer
sizzling hot coffee
fizzing away
killing my computer
fizz, snap, pop
as the coffee splashes
on the computer
666 says the computer
sizzle this says
the cup of coffee
Fake Software
Fake software
Is everywhere these days
In Asia and elsewhere
Half the software in use
are illegal copies
the real deal is expensive
and difficult to use
the copies are cheap
and mostly work
although viruses lurk
in every copy
and my Microsoft company
checks up on me
whenever I use my software
off line I get a message
telling me they can’t verify
that it is me
so, log on immediately
or else they imply
Thanks Microsoft
ITUNES
Seems to always not find
My music I downloaded from a CD
Thanks
ITUNES for your concern
And so, it goes
The constant battle
Against the fake software
But the fake software battle
Can’t be won
For in this age of fake things
Everything ultimately becomes
Just another fake thing
In a world of fake things
Greatest Computer Software in the World
Another company
At the dawn of the computer era
Discovered the same secret
In the modern fake world
It does not matter
That your product
Is over priced and does not work
Is buggy and filled with errors
Just hire the right marketing geniuses
And soon the world
Will become convinced
That they have to have your product
True computer geeks
Loudly complain
That it is the worst software
In the world
And I have proof
One day I counted the number of times
I encountered errors using their software
60 percent of the time
I encountered some error
Some minor just hanging up
For no reason
Others major errors
Requiring me to reboot
Several times
Before I got a stable connection
Then it would work for a while
Until it did not any more
I sent my results to the company
But they never respond
Truly the worst software
In the world
But who cares about that
Marketing is king
In this world of fake things
When I launched the World According to Cosmos, my original intention was to have 60 percent of the site devoted to poetry, and fiction, 30 percent devoted to political rants and observations, and 10 percent devoted to travelogues. This is my second travelogue entry. I have a lot more plans over the next few weeks. Been saving them up. this one is about my recent trip to Poet’s Hill in Seoul and Sajik Park also in Seoul.
Visit to Poet Hill, and Sajik Park, Seoul Korea
“Wishing not to have
so much as a speck of shame
toward heaven until the day I die,
I suffered, even when the wind stirred the leaves.”
This photo of Chungun Park is courtesy of TripAdvisor
For most Koreans, whether young or old, the first verses of the late poet Yun Dong-ju’s famous poem “Foreword” are as familiar as the innumerable accounts of the dark period of Korean history during which they were birthed.
I took a trip the other day to the Poet’s Hill which celebrates the life of the late poet, Yun Dongju who died in a Japanese prison in 1945 at the age of 26. His crime? Writing poetry in Korean calling for Korean independence. For that he was arrested, and tortured to death in the waning days of the Japanese occupation.
The poet’s hill is located near the Blue house on the way to Ikwangsan mountain. There is a nice museum there and behind the museum a walk through the hills that look the same as when he lived in the neighborhood and wrote his most famous poems.
From there one can walk into Ikwangsan mountain park. There is a nice walk nearby that takes you into a shaman village filled with shamanistic shrines and the home of fortune tellers to this day.
That day we walked from the Poet’s hill along Ikwangsan to Sajik park. A total of 2 miles or so. It was a cold day in January but a brisk walk did us good. we saw frozen waterfalls along the way.
Duane Voorhees, the publisher of Poetree, published translations of his poems a while back. Here’s the link that Duane provided me.
from the Poet’s Park we walked about two miles to Sajik park. Sajik Park was where the King led annual rituals in the Spring for the success of the harvest. The park was abandoned during the Japanese era but was rebuild in the 1980’s and they revived the ancient rituals starting on foundation day in 1988 and then on the first day of the spring according to the ancient lunar calendar. I hope to see that next Spring time. RAS does an annual trip to watch the rituals which are broadcast on life TV
This category is about to explode
With the development of deep fakes
Videos that look like the real thing
And you can’t tell the real from the fake anymore
Unless you have very specialized equipment
And not only will this be used in porn
It will also be used in fake news videos
Showing politicians and business men
Saying and doing things
That they did not do
And a picture or video is worth a thousand words
Their denials will sound like fake denials
And the damage will have been done
Fake Real Estate Ads – True Story
We were victimized
By a scam artist
We rented our apartment
In Medford Oregon
Some one scrapped our add
From Zillow
Created a fake add
And tried to get people
To send them the security deposit
Then we saw
That fake real estate adds
Are all over the place
Close to 25 percent of ads
Are faked they say
Often run by Nigerians
Who have added
Fake real estate ads
To their vast portfolio
Of fake ads
Many of these ads
Originate in Houston
Or Atlanta
The largest Nigerian expat
Communities in the US
Where they continue their scams
The old adage
Caveat emptor comes to mind
In this day and age
Of fake this and that
Nothing can be believed
As everything can be a scam
Fake Videos
The world is awash
With fake videos
Purporting to be
Various celebrities
Having sex
Part of the fake porn industry
Or making outrageous comments
All part of the fake outrage industry
And it will get worst
With the development
Of the deep fake
Where fake photos
and fake videos
can’t be distinguished
from the real thing
Fake Photos
It used to be easy to spot fake photos
Nowadays
It is almost impossible to tell the difference
Between a fake photo
And a real photo
But most of the time
It is obvious
I had a favorite fake wedding photo
It showed the man who was relatively short
Standing next to his bride who was relatively tall
But in the picture she was levitating
I asked the man
Is your wife into yoga?
And showed him that she was flying in the air
And denied him the visa
Because he had presented false documentation
If he had shown a real picture
I would have given him the visa
Had no other reason to be suspicious
fake Humans – Coming of the Clones
is just a matter of time
In this fake SF world
We live in
That human clones
Will be invented
The first ones
Will be just for body parts
And won’t be fully human
But eventually
100 percent clones
Will become as real
As you and me
And when they do
Will the clones
Have human rights
Or will they become
Nothing but slaves
To the real human masters
Or will they turn
On their owners
And hunt us down
With their robot warriors
Crying
Death to all humans ?
Fake Humans -Designer Babies
In China
A line was crossed
That should never have been crossed
A scientist
Decided to create a designer baby
Designed to be disease free
And he created the first
Designer baby
Which has now been born
Soon, very soon
Designer babies will become
The latest thing
For the rich and powerful
And twenty years from now
The designer babies
Will turn on us
The normal humans
And decide that we are too weak
And too feeble
To be allowed to exist anymore
And so they will order
Their robotic slaves
To hunt us down
And terminate us all
Fake Humans – AI Decides to Kill All Humans
BARCELONA, SPAIN – MAY 09: The Terminator robot is seen in the paddock following qualifying for the Spanish Formula One Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya on May 9, 2009 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
It seems to me
That in this SF Fake world
We all live in
That soon
Very soon
The nightmare of the fake AI machines
Taking over the world
And deciding
To kill all humans
Is about to become
Nightmarishly real
And we are all doomed
To be hunted down
By the machines
Your one Phone call published my poem about visas called “American Dreams”. it is a bit cynical look at the visa process written when I was a visa officer in Mumbai, India back in 2003 when each day we had over 1,000 people lined up for their two minute chance at the getting a visa. Most were legitimate, perhaps 25 percent were fraudulent and as the fraud investigator I became quite cynical as I had seen it all.
Needless to say this poem does not reflect the views of the US Government, my employer at the time.
American Dreams
visa line
You see them
Every morning
Lined outside
Any US Embassy
Around the world
The visa seekers
The American Dream seekers
The poor, the dispossessed
The disenfranchised
The marginalized
The forgotten
The left behinds
Of the not so great society
The rich, the mightily
The powerful
The beautiful
All looking for a slice
Of the American Dream
Some to sample its delicious flavors
Others to try to live
Among its deceptive lures
America beckons
As it has for years and years
Land of the free
Home of the brave
Lady Liberty
Land where a dream
And a little luck
Can make you too
The richest man alive
So they line up
Outside my office door
Just to talk
To the American Visa God
Spin a tale
Tell a story
Play a game
Pretend to be
What the American Visa God needs
And then you get
Your piece of the American Pie
And off you go
Only to end up
In a thousand neglected
Backwaters of the American nightmare
Flotsam
Floating from one marginal
Illegal job to another
Prey to the predators
Ever behind
The rent demands
For you see
America is a rich habit
It is expensive to maintain
The first taste is free
The rest will cost yah
You life, your soul
And 70 hours per week
At sub-minimum wages
Soon you will be speaking
English
With the poor, the disenfranchised
The flotsam
The neglected
The left behinds
The rich will ignore you
Not know your name
The poor will fear
You will take their jobs away
And your friends back home
Will wait to hear
About you became a big shot
In the American land
They don’t want to hear
No tales of working at McDonald’s
Working 70 hours a week
At five jobs per day
No, No, No
That’s not the America
They see on TV
They want it now
They want their MTV
Where’s the babes?
Where’s the parties?
Where’s the sex with naked ladies
Come on man,
You’re holding out
Tell us the tales
Of Wild America
And so they line up
Each and every day
Line up outside
My office window
And we have the power
To set them free
Some to enable them
To dream the American dream
Some to send to the American nightmare
Others to go back home
