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They have all shoehorned themselves into the system, each immersed in an ecology with clear, unspoken rules, taboos, heroes and villains. To be evicted from all that has forced me, daily, to encounter a much larger world, and to be freer than ever.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Pairing me with Hung Cao, that Unzian wit was juxtaposing an abject loser who had clearly lost his way against an objectively handsome, steely eyed American hero, me, of course, who had risked everything to defend freedom, democracy and the American way. I do feel bad for the Under Secretary of the Navy. Even in a fringe website edited by some cranky Jewjab denier, he shouldn’t be subjected to this humiliation. Should I ever run into my fellow Virginian at the Eden Center, in this life or the next, I’ll buy him a few Bia 33’s to make up for this wound.
(L): Hung Cao and Donald Trump in 2024 ; (R): Brian Robertson
When mentioning my high school buddies from Thomas Jefferson High School in Northern Virginia, I left out the most illustrious, the formidable Brian Robertson. He was, by far, the smartest and most well-read kid I knew. Since I lived across the street from Brian, we spent a lot of time together. We also went to DC to hear Charlie Rouse, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Goodman, Art Pepper and the Modern Jazz Quartet, etc. We went to a Bob Dylan concert in Maryland. We spent days listening to Dylan and Thelonious Monk. We scrutinized paintings at the National Gallery, the Hirshhorn and the Corcoran.
In 1986, I even went to Florida with Brian’s family. By then, our lives had changed radically. As I got drunker and, frankly, crazier, Brian found Jesus. Even before that, he had shifted from left to right. In high school, Brian was already a great admirer of William Buckley, then he started to talk often about Malcolm Muggeridge and Hilaire Belloc. When I moved to Philadelphia, Brian gave me a National Review subscription. On a visit to Philly, Brian must have been appalled to find me sitting on top of my fridge with a girlfriend, both of us fucked up. I still don’t know why we did that. Picking me up at Union Station, Brian refused my offer of Southern Comfort in a paper bag. Since I had swigged that baby on the Amtrak, there couldn’t have been much left anyway.
When Brian told me he had joined Opus Dei, a lay order, I was sober enough to retort, “No, Brian, it’s a no-lay order.” Perhaps it was just the Southern Comfort speaking.
One of the last things Brian said to me was, “What is your relationship to God?” I probably just leered.
Linh Dinh today in Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/3/25
With our paths so divergent, we lost touch. For years, though, I did try to find out how Brian was doing, but searches for “Brian Robertson Thomas Jefferson High School” and “Brian Robertson Opus Dei” turned up nothing. Since Brian did publish a book about the harms of daycare, I tried again this morning, with phrases about that topic, so bingo! Brian C Robertson is the author of Day Care Deception: What the Child Care Establishment Isn’t Telling Us and There’s No Place Like Work: How Business, Government, and Our Obsession with Work Have Driven Parents from Home. Reading their synopses at Amazon, I find nothing to disagree with. The removal of babies and toddlers from their parents has caused tremendous societal harms. My own mother was a daycare worker. Since she could barely raise her own kids, to be blunt, she had no business taking care of anyone else’s.
At LinkedIn and elsewhere, I found out Brian has done quite a bit. He founded a literary agency, Crispin, and is Executive Director of Americans for Transparency and Accountability. Under Trump’s first term, Brian served as a Senior Policy Advisor and Speechwriter at the State Department and Department of Health and Human Services, and he was a Senior Policy Advisor in the Joint Economic Committee of the US Senate. He was also the Policy Director for Republican Sam Brownback and Republican Ed Gillespie during their Senate campaigns. Married with three children, Brian has also extricated himself from that no-lay order.
Having tracked down my high school best friend, shouldn’t I contact Brian immediately? Send him an invitation to visit me in Vietnam? Next time, I won’t be perched on any electrical appliance with anybody, I promise!
(L): Nguyễn Quí Đức an old friend who died suddenly at age 65 in 2023; (R): Phong Bui
Two weeks ago, I also rediscovered another old friend, Phong Bui. In a clownish outfit, Phong was attached to an email, with this message, “Maybe you should start dressing like your old bro to get uncanceled.” In Philly, Phong used to sleep on my floor because he didn’t have an apartment. Before Phong left for New York, his friends treated him to a dinner with belly dancers at Jimmy Tayoun’s Middle East Restaurant. (Locked up for 40 months for racketeering, Tayoun would write an excellent book on how to prepare for prison.) In New York, Phong somehow became friends with Meyer Shapiro, Willem de Kooning and so many other big shots. In a Brooklyn bar, Phong introduced me to Dan Simon, thus launching my career as an author. The longer Phong stayed in New York, the more unrecognizable he became, however, but he’d undoubtedly say the same about me, as I drifted further and further away from the American cultural scene, or just America, period. Though Phong’s Vietnamese was better than mine when we were in Philly, I seriously doubt he can manage a conversation now. In 2010, Phong did a limited edition lithograph of Obama. As with everybody else in Phong’s circle, that man is his hero.
In their own ways, Hung Cao, Brian Robertson and Phong Bui have all shoehorned themselves into the system, but who can doubt their sincerity? Each is immersed in an ecology with clear, unspoken rules, taboos, heroes and villains. Since freaks who transgress must be immediately canceled, there’s no point of me getting in touch with Brian, Phong, Hai-Dang Phan or dozens of others.
Speaking to Kevin Barrett last week, I recounted my few days in Bengaluru in 2022. Suddenly surrounded by literary friends again, I was positively giddy, I must say, but pathetically so. To be evicted from all that has forced me, daily, to encounter a much larger world, and to be freer than ever. It’s hard enough to say exactly what you think, know or mean. It’s impossible when you’re not even trying.
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
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… When an Asian says the American dream is dead, you know we are in deep trouble.
with gratitude to Linh Dinh at Postcards from the End.
Six months into the Golden Age of America, manufacturing jobs are down, inflation and unemployment are up, despite fudged numbers, foreign tourists have mostly stayed away, and there are no real trade deals, only hyperbolic nonsense posted by an increasingly deranged Trump on his Truth Social. More enterprising Americans have gotten out, or are trying to. Stuck and impotent, the rest must wait for the next presidential election, when they can pretend to vote for another corrupt, sold out front man for the Jewjerked American empire.
After firing thousands of government workers, many essential, and stealing data from all Americans, Musk exited without reducing the federal deficit. That was never their intention. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill increased the Grand Fecal Swamp’s debt ceiling by $5 trillion!!! Trump solves all problems by gaslighting even more aggressively.
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/1/25
During the Biden era, hundreds of thousands of Orientals flew to Colombia to pursue their American dream. Risking death, they passed through a dozen countries before reaching the Rio Grande. Such a complicated trip could only be afforded by richer Orientals. Thinking they would be gone forever, they sold their houses and businesses. Now, many are being booted right back to China and Vietnam, where they have nothing. Many readers must be thinking, That’s what you get for being illegal immigrants, dumbshits!
The US doing so well has spawned hundreds if not thousands of YouTube videos by Americans saying they can’t afford to buy grocery, have given up looking for a job, are too depressed to get up in the morning, or are worn out by living in a freezing or sweltering car that must be moved from spot to spot. Just taking a dump has become a major problem, often unsolvable. Thousands regret taking on life wrecking debts for a useless college degree, and we ain’t just talking about lesbian lovemaking, breeding and child rearing strategies PhD, but nursing, computer science, business administration and IT ones.
One video by a 26-year-old American born Oriental states that just about everyone he knows is struggling, that rent and nearly everything else are way too costly, so millions who are well into adulthood must live with their parents, thus postponing marriage, perhaps forever. Though concluding the American dream is dead, he’s still lucky to be exactly where he is, “I’m fortunate to be born in America. You know, I could be born in China. China! I could be born in China and my life could be not that great. I mean, I don’t know what life is like in China, but you get what I mean. To be born in America, that’s top 1% in the human, in the human race, you know, and I don’t have to go through what my parents went through.” His folks emigrated from Southeast Asia.
A telling comment, “When I hear people say ‘being born in American is the top 1%,’ I know they haven’t lived outside the US.” Another, “Highly recommend that you travel outside the country. That will teach you more about life than any job or education.” And, “When an Asian says the American dream is dead, you know we are in deep trouble. I am really scared for my grandchildren [weeping emoji].”
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/1/25
A few years ago, someone at Unz saw fit to juxtapose a photo of me, sitting alone in a Lao hotel room, with one of Hung Cao, a US Navy captain who had served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. After losing bids to become a congressman then senator, Cao is now Trump’s Under Secretary of the Navy. Cao in June of 2024, “With Trump back in the White House, we will Make America Great Again!”
Every so often, I post a self portrait to show how I’m doing. My few readers could see, for example, how bloated and unhealthy I looked in April of 2022. I had just returned to Vietnam after 2 1/2 years of Covid induced wandering. In Cape Town, I became too fond of Arnold’s mixed grill breakfast of two eggs, two hash browns, two thick slices of bacon, three pork chipolatas, two hunks of fried tomato, six chunks of eland steak and six chunks of ostrich steak.
Since my highschool days in Northern Virginia, I had used booze to ease the flow of thoughts, spoken words and, often enough, even writing, so I merrily went on like this through the Covid hysteria. All this changed when I got terribly sick in Ubon Ratchathani, so that photo in Vientiane was me at my lowest, when I was still in so much pain, it was impossible to sleep soundly for even an hour, when it took at least 15 minutes just to put on my pants. Despite all this, I would not have switched places with Captain Hung Cao, with his nice suburban house, social status, handsome family and proximity to power. His having fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia only proves he’s a willing mercenary who didn’t shy from committing war crimes to serve a nakedly Satanic empire. There’s a bunch of YouTube videos celebrating clueless or immoral pawns of all ethnicities. A Vietnamese American, 27-year-old Andy Huynh, even went to Ukraine to fight for Zelensky, Jews in general, NATO and Uncle Sam.
After his capture by Russia, Voice of America criticized Vietnam for not interceding on his behalf. Vietnamese media responded, “Andy Huỳnh is an American mercenary. After fighting many years in the American military, he only went to Ukraine as a mercenary because of his American “idealism,” so after his capture, the American government should have spoken up on his behalf, not Vietnam.”
Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 8/1/25
To be a mercenary, then, has become the American ideal. Aiming for the American dream, most Americans are more than willing to go along with any lie, war or genocide, even if it costs them a limb or two, their life or even the systematic destruction of their nation. Just give me those front and back yards, please, plus constant access to Fox News or CNN, and an occasional Happy Meal for my chillun. If told to head to Gaza to clear out some Injuns for Jews and Trump Gaza, I will most certainly holler, Yessa, massa!
Here in Vung Tau, Mrs. Seven has more urgent concerns. For three days, there’s been an unseen animal inside her house making unfathomable noises. “It’s too loud to be a rat, and it’s not a kitten.” This morning, one of her dogs also vomited.
When Cambodia was still fighting Thailand, I also teased her about war refugees flooding over. “You better learn how to curse in Khmer,” I advised.
“If they say anything to me, I’ll just say, ‘Fuck you!’” I had no idea this old widow living with two dogs was so fluent in English.
Sitting alone in the dark each dawn, BlueTooth is still immersed in Eminem. Fully recovered from his injury, Cà Phê Cà Pháo’s kitten is as insolent and cocky as ever. Glaring at me, he struts. Since returning from Jordan two weeks ago, I haven’t seen that hobbling black dog that daily roamed all over downtown. I hope he’s still alive. As for Andy Huynh, he appears to have been flushed away, just like Tyler Zeigel and so many others. This world has never lacked for tools, pawns and mercenaries. After each use, they flush, of course, without even one glance backward.
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.’
AHH: Please support this wonderful writer on his Substack! Thanks
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