Slices of Life, #9

I never thought I’d hobble into that sunset so limp.

with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.

Nuisances and Genociders’ Last Gasp — Sep 02, 2025.

American Dale James West after his arrest in Da Nang on 8/27/25

In South Korea, American Ramsey Khalid Ismael, better known as Johnny Somali, has been stuck for a year, awaiting his conviction, after committing a series of crimes, including playing obscene audios near children at a theme park, fondling a Comfort Woman statue, disseminating an AI video of himself with a Korean woman whom he claimed was his girlfriend, terrorizing an old employee at a convenience store, on and on, for the guy’s a famous “nuisance streamer,” an American specialty.

In Manila, another American nuisance streamer, Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, has been jailed for five months. With the Filipino legal system moving quite leisurely, he won’t see a courtroom for a while. Like Somali, Vitaly can count on many years of free room and board in an exotic locale, not that he’ll see much. In dreams, they’ll return often to Florida and Arizona. Wearing their MAGA hats, it will be just like before, but suddenly, they’re fucked from behind by a new foreign friend. Before his arrest, Vitaly joked his asshole was ready. It will speak fluent Tagalog by the time he’s released. You’d think Somali is too ugly to demand much erotic attention behind bars, but he, too, will get his share of prison love. Lighter, humbler and grayer, each will stumble out to a much changed world.

For decades, Westerners have considered East Asia to be a place to find cheap, unusual fun, you know, like little brown fucking machines, even underaged. After fucking little girls in Cambodia, Glam rocker Gary Glitter showed up in Vung Tau, where he was finally arrested. His rented house is within a 20 minute walk of where I’m sitting.

An American sexpat living for decades in Chiangmai claimed he had never heard of “little brown fucking machines.” He also thought Trump was a great president. Perhaps “irritable farmer” or “western lands” is that innocent.

Not so innocent is Dale James West. Here’s Dân Trí on 8/31/25”

On the evening 8/26, Dale James West (29 years old, a foreign citizen), masked, wearing a Grab uniform and a helmet, attacked a security guard with an iron pipe then barged into PNJ store (455 Núi Thành, Đà Nẵng) to smash a glass case with a hammer to steal gold and diamond jewelry worth 833 đồng [$31,619].

After his crime, the suspect escaped on a motorbike. On the morning of 8/27, the police captured James, along with all the incriminating evidence.

It took less than 12 hours for Vietnamese cops to snag this American. If convicted, a near certainty, he’ll spend from 18 years to life in prison. Since that’s the standard penalty for such a violent crime, let’s hope the Vietnamese authorities won’t show any leniency just because he’s an American.

A video posted by the New York Post shows bystanders on a busy street trying to block his escape, but this tallish armed man proved too intimidating. Violent crimes are extremely rare in Vietnam. The Post also states he’s only 26 years old, and from California.

The West has long exported its degeneracy to the East. With economic collapse, this trend has only accelerated. Here’s news.com.au on 4/28/25:

A wannabe Aussie influencer has been slammed online after “desecrating” a grave in Aokigahara, also known as Japan’s suicide forest.

Sydney man Lochie Jones posted a clip earlier this month titled “Suicide Forest Japan Pt 2 Graveyard Flip”, showing himself entering a burial site on the outskirts of the notorious forest.

“So it looks like there’s a cemetery here with a whole bunch of dead people,” he told his camera.

After climbing into the cemetery he can be seen touching graves, saying: “I wonder how many of them died in the forest.”

He then approaches a headstone with a can of popular Japanese beer Kirin on top of it.

“Look at this guy,” he laughs.

“A whole can of Kirin. Should I drink it?”

“What do we reckon?,” he asks himself.

After setting his phone up against the headstone he decides to do a coin flip to “leave it up to chance.”

More insidious are “educators” like Mark Ashwill in Hanoi who spreads his globalist and woke ideology. Marxism itself is a Western poison still being detoxed by the East.

Nationalism has sustained Oriental nations for millennia. Just below it is Confucianism, then Buddhism, but mixed with assorted folk beliefs. Though Orientals have learned much from the West, they must stop looking towards it for standards.

At Coffee Seven where I’m sitting, there’s an octagonal Taoist mirror over the entrance, a money frog biting a coin, a small golden plate showing a Thai woman kneeling over two fish and a Japanese Maneki-neko cat waving in customers. Of course, Mrs. Seven can’t explain any of these, but her confusion is harmless. In her bedroom, there’s a crucifix and a photo of Father Trương Bửu Diệp. Her late husband was a Catholic. Though converted, she never attended church regularly, and hasn’t been in one in over a decade.

I used to be bothered by Vietnam’s cultural confusion, its mindless hodgepodge, but it’s exactly this ideological inconsistency that’s its saving grace. Vietnamese are too incoherent to be fanatical. I don’t suggest this would work anywhere else. I only think it’s fine for Vietnam.

Walking towards Coffee Seven in the dark, I paused to ask BlueTooth, “If you could live in another country forever, which would it be?”

Though I fully expected him to say USA or, much less likely, Australia or Canada, he answered, “Nowhere. I love it here!”

“Every interesting. You’re unusual! How about if you could spend two weeks in another country? Where would that be?”

“Nowhere. I love it here!”

Last time I heard that was in Lebanon. Ali, my regular driver, said he loved Lebanon too much to go anywhere. Even better was some guy Paul Theroux met in Sicily. When Theroux said he was a traveler, this guy declared that he, too, traveled, then he rattled off all the towns he’d visited. They were all in Sicily. Goofball had never even been to the Italian mainland.

After several delays, it appears my three thickish books in Vietnamese will be published, albeit privately. All I need are 50 copies of each, so some will survive, if only for a few years, my exit. It’s less vanity than the need to complete what I’ve started. After becoming a real homeboy, I’ll give a reading somewhere in Saigon, to a handful of people and, hopefully, two or three dogs, a dozen geckos and one attentive frog.

Ghosts all, we must strive to not be nuisances while barely alive.

Halo Evans

Cool Missiles Bursting in Air! — Sep 03, 2025.

Yesterday, Vietnam held a monstrous military parade in Hanoi. Watching bits of it on YouTube, I couldn’t help but think, What if just one of these impressive looking young men and women falls down? Worse, what if an AK toting soldier needs to use the bathroom? It wouldn’t do to perform a quick number two in front of the whole world, just as you’re passing a grandstand filled with big shots. Some old lady next to General Secretary Tô Lâm licked her lips rather obscenely. At least she didn’t fall asleep.

Off camera, even generals crap in their pants from a too-close explosion. War is all about being acutely aware of your animality, of how meatlike and shit filled you are. It’s anything but an inspiring display of unity made for television. In Beijing, there will be an even more asskicking parade today. Moscow just had one. Such military flexing is designed to steel pussified civilians for the escalation of war, no?

One glaring exception was Trump’s joke parade in DC. As the rest of the world hardens, Americans become self-mocking clowns, with the only tough guys those masked assholes in unmarked cars kidnapping busboys, gardeners, shoppers, grandmas and retarded schoolkids.

Just now, Mrs. Seven showed me a photo of her daughter in a national flag T-shirt, saluting. Behind her is a patriotic sign with soldiers. There’s also a video of about 12 young women, all employees of Shinhan Beauty, looking ready for a military parade, at least. They’d soil their panties at the first incoming.

Buying groceries at Lotte Supermarket, I was given a nylon flag with a plastic stem worth 19 cents. It’s sticking from my never watched TV.

It’s amazing this patriotic eruption across Vietnam, as shown on clothing, cars and at private businesses. To amuse Mrs. Seven, I shared with her a video of a cheeky and boobilicious American waving the Stars and Stripes, as the Star-Spangled Banner plays. Bitch means business.

With “the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,” war is, again, reduced to an inspiring spectacle. One can argue that this is absolutely necessary. Without such manipulation, nations are lost.

As Trump crows of how hot and rich the USA has become, we get entirely different accounts from ordinary Americans.

The Functional Melancholic’s “The United States of Collapse: The End of Empire” begins, “Have you noticed this feeling in the air? A lowgrade tension like the faint smell of smoke in a building where the fire alarm never quite goes off, or maybe the subtle smell of rot under the bed perfume. You walk down any major street in the US and you’ll see it in the eyes of the people pretending not to notice the growing tent cities pitched under the overpasses. And you’ll hear it in the way conversations have basically turned into shouting matches about whose version of the facts are true. You’ll taste it in the food that somehow costs twice as much while containing half as much food and even less nutrition. The roads crack your suspension. The bridges look like relics from civilization long gone. And it’s not just the cracks in the sidewalk, it’s the cracks in the soul.”

After 24 hours, it got over 2,250 comments, with nearly all offering their versions of how the US has collapsed. Also viral is a poem-like declaration from Halo Evans. I’ve inserted linebreaks:

I’m an American.
I pay $1,600 for a flat that has no bedroom.
That’s 2/3 of my income.

I’m an American.
I work 50 hours a week.
I don’t have health insurance.

I’m an American.
I couldn't afford to have a child
Even if I wanted to.
I’m $7,000 in debt.

I’m an American.
My health is declining because
I can’t afford Whole Foods, because
That’s too expensive for my life.
I am very overqualified for my job,
But no one else is hiring.

I’m an American.
I make my boss hundreds of thousands,
If not millions of dollars, while I can
Barely keep myself alive.

I’m an American.
I have never been out of the States.
I have never been on a vacation.

I’m an American.
I make 20 some dollars an hour.
A livable wage here is, like, 30 some. Yet,
I don’t qualify for government assistance
Whatsoever. On the days I don’t work,
I’m so tired I just sleep all day.

I’m an American.
My electric bill is so expensive,
I sit outside in the heat because
I can’t afford to turn the AC on
In the damned house.

I’m an American, and I fear
I’m just an average American.
I’m living the American dream.

Since her Instagram page is filled with self-adoring portraits of herself looking cute, one may wonder how depressed she really is, economically or psychologically? What’s really important is that millions of Americans are seeing themselves in Evan’s self portrait. They’re also overworked, broke and have never taken a vacation.

Unfortunately, it’s not just an image war. Trump just posted, “Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.”

This lawless psycho is attacking another nation on false pretexts. Battered by so much madness daily, it’s nearly impossible to grasp how fast your society is imploding, especially when you must deliberate forever before buying a loaf of bread or a dozen eggs.

Phoenix in Flames at Haunted Hotel — Sep 03, 2025.

Having been a semi-regular at Coffee Seven for nearly a year, I had assumed until this morning Mrs. Seven lived alone with her two dogs. Whoever else I had seen coming out of her house I thought was a visiting relative. Now, I know she has a sister and a nephew living upstairs, but they never talk. Her sister was a heroin addict, bad enough to be jailed. Now, she just drinks herself stupid, as much as her tiny budget allows.

Her 38-year-old nephew was a gang member who was never sober. So messed up, he had a stroke nearly a decade ago, so is now bedridden and in a diaper. From the government, he receives 1.5 million [$57] a month, and his mom gets 500K [$19] to take care of him. Even in cheap Vietnam, such stipends are jokes, but luckily, the nephew gets an additional 3 million [$114] a month from his gang leader, the notorious Vũ Cách Mạng. Just typing his name made me tremble, I’m such a pussy. Sure hope I won’t run into Revolutionary Vũ any time soon!

“If you come by in the afternoon, you’ll catch my sister. She’ll be sitting right there, drinking beer.”

Sure sounds like my kind of gal, except I only drink black coffee, cappuccini, soursop smoothies and avocado smoothies these days. I never thought I’d hobble into that sunset so limp. Just three years ago, I could still knock them down for 12 hours straight while blathering about Nguyễn Huy Thiệp, Hồ Biểu Chánh, Max Beckmann and Walt Whitman. Now, I just look forlorn while scratching my deflated balls.

“I had this cat,” Mrs. Seven continued. “My sister was always complaining about it, then one day, she just picked it up, right in front of me, and rode away! I couldn’t react quick enough. She just tossed that cat somewhere! It still hurts me to think of how it must have starved and suffered.”

A chick that hard up for drinking money must have sold the cat to one of these “mini tiger” restaurants, I thought immediately, but said nothing. Though pets are generally safe in southern Vietnamese cities, you still have these drug addicts riding around at night, hoping to catch anything.

Also today, I found out her house is worth at least 300K in US Dollars. Four years ago, it could have been sold for half a million. Though so run down, it’s still very close to the ocean, in a city not far from Saigon. With five siblings, all proceeds must be divided by six, so Mrs. Seven has to get by on selling 38 cent black coffee to the least fashionable crowd. With condensed milk, it’s up to 57 cents! Everyone gets free hot tea.

This old broad never complains, however. Yes, there are hints of regrets, such as when she talks about being lusted over by all these foreign men, Taiwanese and Westerners, when she was a star dancer at the Palace Hotel. Since she couldn’t talk to these white guys, she had no idea if they were Russian, Polish, German or whatever. She’s mourning, just a bit, her lost youth.

Sitting at Cóc Cóc, I look up to see too many fat thighs riding by. Most Viets are still thin, though, which is great. Not so great is the replacement of newspapers, books and conversations by smart phones. Covid lockdowns heightened this addiction. Passing through nine countries during that hysteria, I was never quarantined. For 2 ½ years, I lived as normally as possible.

Bringing me my avocado smoothie, Nga is masked. Thảo the receptionist at DC HomeStay is also always masked. Both young, they’re already half dead. If you fear oxygen, you ain’t open to anything.

Done with this article, I will leisurely browse through 300 Years of Poetry About Ba Ria-Vung Tau. I’ve had this for a while. Every city in the world must have a similar anthology, and one for fiction, too. Though this leaves out some key poets, it’s still an invaluable document. Many eyes and souls have experienced these very streets, alleys and buildings.

Done with my reading, I will trek through Vung Tau for miles. Just five minutes away is the Victory Hotel, where Mrs. Seven’s dad worked as a chef. One of his creations was Phoenix in Flames. It was just some wok tossed chicken. Still looking fine on the outside, Victory smells bad, apparently, and might even be haunted. I don’t doubt Mrs. Seven’s dad is still in the kitchen, cooking away late into the night.

Wherever you are, there must be an infinity of stories to be dug up, to dig, dig, dig away! You’ll feel saner, for sure.

So Rich, Smart, Powerful and Ripe — Sep 04, 2025.

Influenced by China, Vietnam had imperial examinations. Any educated boy’s goal in life was to pass this exam so he can become a mandarin, thus gaining social status, wealth and the ability to help his entire family. Like China, Vietnam also had four social classes. From top to bottom were intellectuals, farmers, craftsmen then, finally, merchants. Though a shopkeeper may be much richer than, say, a medicine man, the latter was considered an intellectual, so technically held in higher esteem. If you’re a mandarin, however, you had everything.

To pass the imperial examination, one had to master classic Chinese literature. Mandarins, then, were super literary. This had its drawback. A bookish nerd may not make the best administrator. This glitch in the system bred a bureaucracy that couldn’t stand up to the West. It was also corrupt, since each mandarin’s extended family had to be taken care of.

Even after imperial examinations were abolished, dumb peasants still expected top officials to be intellectuals, so both Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, for example, posed as poets. So crude, Mao would say to his female underlings, “How were your bowel movements this morning?” He also said, “If you must fart, fart! If you must shit, shit!” That is Confucius wise, I must say. The sage did advise, “When you enter a room, raise your voice and lower your eyes,” so whoever is in there can stop masturbating or farting, I suppose. Gandhi was also very concerned with clean assholes, especially among his female followers.

These thoughts I have this morning because even in Vietnam, there are Trump worshipers. How can they not admire this wealthy chief mandarin of the world’s most powerful nation?

At Viet bookstores, there are translations of Trump’s The Art of the Deal, Think Big and Kick Ass: in Business and in Life, Never Give Up, How to Get Rich, Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate and Life, Trump 101: The Way to Success and Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich—And Why Most Don’t, the last co-written with another famed hustler, Robert Kiyosaki. There’s also Michael D’Antonio’s Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump has become Vietnam’s leading thinker! His wisdom is more valued here than Confucius’, Laozi’s and maybe even Buddha’s! Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough: How my Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man is also available, but only in English, so its readership is minuscule.

Countering this mass psychosis, I tell people, “Trump loves to fuck little girls. He’s a degenerate. There’s this Jewish guy who had an island where Trump, and other top Americans, went to fuck kids. With everything recorded, these politicians must do whatever they’re told by Jews. Other foreign leaders are also trapped this way. Let’s say you’re invited to some party in New York or Washington. They’ll have these girls there. Just leaning into one and you’re fucked! You don’t even need to fuck them. I have an American friend, a white guy, who attended these parties in NYC. He told me, ‘You don’t know how degenerate these guys are!’ His boss used to go to that Jewish guy’s island. When his name appeared in that guy’s black book, a friend of my friend emailed him, ‘Hey, your boss went to that fuckin’ island!’ Though my friend didn’t say anything, he got fired, but his boss also gave him six million bucks! Now, he just travels. In Bangkok, I asked my friend, ‘Did your boss fire you directly?’ ‘No, he had somebody do it,’ he answered. ‘How close were you to your boss?’ I then asked. ‘We fucked girls in the same room!’ he answered.”

Even now, there are millions of Americans who think Trump’s Epstein connection is fake news or an Obama plot. That’s how degenerate the US has become. Even most of those who are outraged don’t dare to call it a Jewish blackmail operation. Very few have spoken up.

On 9/3/25, Kevin Barrett reminded us “the media has studiously avoided the most important aspect of the Epstein story: That the disgraced pimp and his accomplices, starting with Maxwell, were Israeli spies tasked with blackmailing the American political and financial elite.”

This sinister setup enables genocides. Barrett, “Given that Trump is the most abject slave of Israel ever to occupy the Oval Office, and that Epstein (Trump’s best friend for ten years) was a Mossad blackmailer, the world has been practically invited to connect the dots: We are witnessing what historians will describe as the Jeffrey Epstein Genocide, in which the only power that can stop Netanyahu from exterminating hundreds of thousands of innocents—the American executive branch—refuses to do so because its chief officer has viciously raped teenage virgins in front of Israeli spy cameras.”

Vung Tau, 9/3/25

Complicity with Jewish crimes hasn’t just destroyed most Western nations morally but economically. Endless genocides are expensive. Angry white pussies who are terrified of doxing themselves deserve no less. Same with white nationalists who worship Jew sucking Trump. Outside the sinking West, dumbshits who swoon over Trump or devour his books don’t really matter. Ignoring that farcical white jester and all others, their leaders are coalescing.

Done at 6:29AM, I will get some breakfast then stroll towards the ocean. It’s delightful to see people exercising or just daydreaming. Though Trump’s immense stench has wafted to all corners of the world, it’s much less intense here. Pity if you’re not so lucky.

About Linh Dinh (@linhdinh):

‘Before being canceled, I was an anthologized poet and fairly prolific author, with my last book Postcards from the End of America. Now, I write about our increasingly sick world for a tiny audience on SubStack. Drifting overly much, I’m in Cambodia.

Born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, I lived mostly in the US from 1975 until 2018, but have returned to Vietnam. I’ve also lived in Italy, England and Germany. I’m the author of a non-fiction book, Postcards from the End of America (2017), a novel, Love Like Hate (2010), two books of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), and six collections of poems, with a Collected Poems cancelled by Chax Press from external pressure. I’ve been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (vol. 2) and Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories From Around the World, etc. I’m also editor of Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and The Deluge: New Vietnamese Poetry (2013). My writing has been translated into Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic, Serbian and Finnish, and I’ve been invited to read in Tokyo, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Reykjavik, Toronto, Singapore and all over the US. I’ve also published widely in Vietnamese.’

AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks