Whoa whoa yeah yeah-hee

If anybody is familiar with Tommy Lee, drummer of Motley Crue and
Chairman of the Rotary Club Santa Monica Chapter, you might know that he once awed the heavy metal world by doing a series of drum solos upside-down at the Crue's live shows (yes, I can call them the Crue because I actually know a couple of their albums [thanks, Kimling]).

Here is Lee, in the process of being turned upside down.

I don't know the relationship between playing an instrument upside down and looking cool, but if Ozzy Osbourne set the world on fire by eating a live bat at one of his shows, I guess Lee figured looking like a bat at his would do the job. Of course, people went batshit all over it, resulting in the charmed life, undying love of the adoring masses, and the unanimous respect and admiration from Nobel laureates that we all associate with Tommy Lee. 

There is a twelve hour differential in Vietnam from Central Standard Time USA, so I'm exactly half a world away from Texas. No matter what all these foreigners I've met in the last month, from all over the world, tell me, USA really is the center of the world. That's why we're in the center of all the world maps (the ones printed in the U.S, at least), duh. Since the USA really is #1 ("USA Number one!", right Peter?), we are always upright, and everyone else is either about to tip over, or hanging completely upside-down.  I'm dangling for my life here in Southeast Asia. To top it off, I'm living in the shadows of the highest point in Vietnam, ever so closer to falling off into space.

I've been upside-down from my loved ones for about a month now, and what do I get? Where's my luxury bus with a built-in Atari and top of the line high-bias cassette deck by Emerson? Where's my lucrative clothing endorsements from Gloria Vanderbilt and Etonic? Where are my groupies in jeans with pink tassles and flammable hair? I'm looking around. Nowhere to be found.

Vietnam is where I'm at and happy to be. That said, I miss everyone back at home enough to disguise it with writing multiple paragraphs about a hair metal has-been, so let's go the soft-rock route; to everybody close enough to read this stuff, Leo Sayer said it best: I love you more than I can say.