Cambodian Football Fans Riot, Burn Thai Embassy

ost-Super Bowl rioting continued in Cambodia, reaching its pinnacle with the torching of the Thai Embassy Wednesday. Several stores and businesses, predominately Thai-owned, were also vandalized and set afire by distraught Raiders fans.

Political pundits, whatever those are, speculate that the Cambodian people live in stressful times and frequently find their only release in American football, particularly the Oakland Raiders. For a people already hit on hard times, especially with escalating ill will between themselves and neighbors Thailand, the loss of the favored Raiders was the last straw.

Sports pundits, if any such people exist, could not be found because once we said it no one in the office could stop laughing long enough to find some.

Expert sports follower Ray "Sport" William, a sports follower for 34 years and frequenter of the bar across the street from the commune offices, could sympathize with the disgusted Cambodian citizens.

"It's a damn shame, a'course," said Sport. "What you have is a real awkward situation 'cause shoddy reporting and populist politics are preying upon a people who are struggling to join a world market.

"With elections coming up in July, the Hu Sen government is whipping up nationalist frenzy to keep attention off domestic problems, including a border treaty with Vietnam that's still not signed yet. What's the best way to get a population furiously patriotic? Give them an enemy, and in this case, Thailand makes a convenient target. Now anything and everything that comes out of Thailand can be misconstrued by journalists who jump on the bandwagon, like alleged comments by some Thai actress that the Angkor Wat national monument really belonged to Thailand."

Sport could not see any immediate relief for the frenzied football fans.

"There's no hope on the horizon, I'd say. At least not until the elections have come and gone and the government is either comfortably in place and can turn the focus away from Thailand, or Sam Rainsy campaigners succeed in turning the eye back on domestic issues and unseat the Hu Sen government."

Or, as Professor of Asiatic Politics at Columbia University Dom Jutney said, "There's always next year. You can't keep Oakland down. This year Tampa Bay wanted it more. Next year it's all Raiders, baby."

The Thai Embassy in America, while not currently in flames, could not be reached for comment. Which is a polite way of saying they hung up on us repeatedly, which was really pretty thoughtless considering we were calling long distance and they charge us for the first minute whether we speak for a minute or ten seconds. A second call to determine if they would pay the charges for the first call was not received any better, which leaves us with two unpaid long distance calls.

The Cambodian Embassy was more receptive, leading us to believe they can't be all bad.

"The riots are terrible. It is sad that a collection of outraged individuals are representing Cambodia to the world in their violence, especially in this time of potential war and political difficulties in other areas of the world. It weighs heavy on this country's heart. If only Jerry Rice had succeeded on those two-point conversions."

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You homos sure are convincing. Well, you can lay off with the grand descriptions of homo lifestyle, because I'm once again one of you!

Well, not a homeowner, if that's the specific meaning of "homo." But a home-liver, on the insider, a deep-inside homo. And it's all thanks to my new friends, the Russians.

Not all the Russians, mind you, but one Russian. You know me, good people, knowing one is like knowing all of them. Sure, I was instantly distrustful of her when I heard that thick Russkie accent, but when I saw her face, I was a daydream believer, just like the Brass Monkeys say. It was a little odd how I heard her voice before I saw her face, but that's one of the things you have to acclimate to when you live on the street and sleep under last week's Wall Street Journal, which I might note was covered in what smelled like human urine. There was a dry copy of the Village Voice nearby, but I hadn't lost that much dignity yet, good people.

Yes, Felchyana's face has the beauty and charm of a bookie. And if you don't think that's a compliment, you've never dealt with the gorgeous female bookies I have, friends. She is a beauty like that in a Renoir painting. Or Michelangelo. Which one had the chubby women completely buck naked? I suppose they all did. She's beautiful like those women, but all bones, no meat. I'm sure a few good meals will take care of that.

I discovered I had been sleeping outside her building in the alleyway for quite a few days. I was not my normal self after days of merciless living, which is to say my unsettling and disturbing visage wasn't even washed and shaven when she found me huddling up to a cold dumpster for warmth, which it refused to provide. Did she scream? Did she recoil in horror? Yes, understandably so. But she did come back, trying to hide her fear and disgust, and offered me a cup of warm soup.

Boy, that soup was the balm, as the hipsters say. Chicken noodle soup. I normally don't like noodles of chickens, preferring the established parts like wings and chestal regions. Living on the street will lower your standards significantly, as they say. This does not mean I'm taking their advice to have sex for money, especially not from three guys who can't even find one girl for an orgy, but "they" are a whole other story. You meet a new class of people when you have no house.

To make this story less ingratiatingly long, Felchyana shared her soup and opened her home to me. When she found out I had a job, she asked what the commune was. When I told her, she said it should be burnt and sent to hell. But she likes me so much and recognizes the hard-working industrial nature of Rok Finger and said she would allow me to stay in her home while I get back on my feet. I'm not sure how I like the sound of that last part, I'm really start to like traveling by skateboard. But I suppose we all make concessions when we're down and out.

Don't tell anybody, but I'm quite smitten with Felchyana as a woman, too, as well as a homo. She is pretty as the sun, but doesn't hurt my eyes in the same way. Her smile is like a flower blooming, her spit like pollen, or some kind of spitting lizard. She is sweet like the nectar of a gay metaphor. I wouldn't kick her out from under a newspaper for eating crackers, I'll say that much. Perhaps it is best to leave it at that, since she has said something about being married. Alas, it is not to be, but what isn't to be that actually is? Not much, I can tell you.

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In the Valley of Sali, beneath a beautiful bridge, lived an Imp named Jojo who dreamed of one day being a construction worker. His daydreams were filled with visions of hardhats and bolt-throwers and rivets shining in the noontime sun. It was a stupid dream, but nobody had the heart to tell Jojo this, since he was the fragile sort and cried at the slightest provocation. Seriously, like when it rained and the ground got all muddy or when the sun came out and the water evaporated. Anything, really. One time he cried for two days because there were an odd number of blades of grass growing under the bridge. Thank God a caterpillar came along and ate one of them, or else Jojo might never have recovered.

One day Jojo woke up and the valley was buzzing with excitement. Really, it was making this sound like a refrigerator with a bad freon coil. There was some kind of problem with the trees being out of compliance, technical stuff. But besides that, everyone was excited. An exciting stranger had come to town, and even better: he was wearing a gigantic Mexican-style hat. Few things excited the people of Sali more than a genuine Mexican-style hat.

The stranger's name was Senior Sombrero ("Touché!" Jojo thought to himself wittily) and he promised the people of Sali (and by "people" I really mean all sorts of magical creatures and different-sized folks, not the boring kinds of people you see every day) many magical wonders if they would only allow him to take off his hat. And the people of Sali were practically starved for excitement, since though they lived in a magical enchanted land, people are people and they were bored with it. So of course they said yes, by all means beautiful stranger, take off your gigantic authentic Mexican-style hat!

In retrospect that was a stupid call, but few of the people had read ahead in the story so they didn't know that as soon as Senior Sombrero took off his hat and set it on the ground, all manner of different-sized and colored snakes would come pouring out of it, flooding the land with snakes extraordinaire. Senior Sombrero laughed a relieved laugh, as he'd been trying for weeks to get rid of all of those snakes in his hat and this was really starting to look like his day. He ducked into a doorway carved into an otherwise-ordinary tree and left his snake-erupting hat and the people of Sali behind. They would never see Senior Sombrero again, except for one time at the mall but that could have just been some guy who looked like Senior Sombrero, nobody was completely sure.

For ten days and ten nights snakes poured forth from the gigantic authentic Mexican-style hat, and the valley of Sali was filled to the brim with snakes. Everywhere you turned, there were snakes. Coming up out of the sinks, raining down out of airplanes, curled up inside the basketballs, they were absolutely everywhere. It was nearly impossible to find a place to sit down and there were major problems because all of the toilets were clogged up with snakes and when it was hot you couldn't turn on a fan unless you wanted to turn your house into a snake-themed Jackson Pollack painting.

All the people of Sali lamented and wondered aloud what they could do to get rid of all of the snakes. Wasn't there some meek little creature who could rise above his fears and save them all, proving everyone wrong who had always said he was good for nothing, and lending a touching conclusion to this dark tale? They often wondered this very aloud while walking past Jojo's bridge, and they sent him faxes musing the same. And they were right. Only Jojo could save them from this dastardly predicament.

Too bad he'd ditched out of town the second all of those snakes started pouring out of the giant Mexican-style hat. Good Lord was Jojo afraid of snakes! And that's the story of the town you know as Snakehampton.

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