24) Cambodia in Three Acts. Act 3) Marion Don’t Look at the Ark

The Temples of Angkor in Siem Reap are amazing. They’re straight-up Indian Jones shit, but with less theme music and more over-priced entrance fees. The big kahuna is Angkor Wat, a fortress that 3 million people built by hand over 50 years. Spending a few days there was something else. As you’ll see, it rocked- literally.

4/17- 4/19

I hate boring shots of tourist sites, so here’s me air-guitaring my way through the 8^th wonder of the world.




































This may or may not be a picture of me hot boxing a 1000 year-old religious monument.

Well, the air-guitar idea had to come from somewhere.

Pete Townsend windmills. Classic.

I also play air bass.

I should have been a cowboy.

Another missed calling. Sigh.

This is how I’m gonna open my concert at Madison Square Garden when I finally headline there.

I also took some Where’s Waldo shots with me hidden in the temples. Can you find me hiding in 5 of the following images? The prize is you wasting 10 minutes of your life.

You just put the staff in the ground like so, wait until sunset, and voila you know the location of the ark. They’re digging in the wrong place!

















































Some random 13 year old French chick took this opportunity to practice some Price Is Right poses. And behind tree #2, a new car!

Angkor what?

How is it that an infant can have more personality than me after 31 years of honing my craft?

Hell, this kid has more chutzpah than anyone I know. He is either going to be the next American Idol or the leader of some crazy Khmer cult. He can’t even talk yet and I’ll bet he could still get at least a few hundred people to call him god. Where’s the Kool-Aid son? Just say the word and I’m drinking.

Angkor what?

One day I ate a whole BBQ chicken for lunch with mango salad on the side. Just sayin.










Does anyone from Philly think this looks like a much more awesome version of Valley Forge?

Sorry General Washington, but your little wooden huts sort of suck in comparison. Why didn’t you just spend the winter at the Four Seasons downtown anyway? What an idiot.

One of the temples was in pieces after Pol Pot’s crew fucked it up and then destroyed the manuscripts that said how to fit all the pieces together. Well done jerks.

Now it’s like archeological Tetris.

Which seems sort of fun until you realize that there are Hundreds of Thousands of pieces. Good luck y’all. I’ll brew a pot of coffee for you but after that you’re on your own.

Forest Moon of Endor? Anyone?

Well that sucks.
Sounds like my first marriage. Hiyoo.

And there you have it. You may have noticed some changes to my appearance throughout these photos. In the middle I pulled the old shave-and-a-haircut routine. The good news was that it only cost me two bits.

And now, girls on trampolines!

Oh wait, that was the Man Show. I mean, and now, people getting drunk.
Enjoy.

23) Cambodia in Three Acts. Act 2) New Years with a Genocide Chaser

The Cambodian New Year is significantly more badass than ours. First of all it lasts for 3 days, Secondly, instead of watching a ball drop- can you think of a more boring way to act festively?- the tradition is to engage in city-wide water fights followed by random acts of slapping each other in the face with baby powder. It’s a bit like the old tar-and-feather routine but without the 3^rd degree burns. I spent it in the capital, Phnom Penh.

4/14

This traditional dance placed boys in one line…

Ladies in the other…

And of course a dude hitting the ground with a birch branch in the middle.

It reminded me of middle school but with more wood and less Stairway to Heaven.










And this was a human tug of war (also boys vs. girls) where people grabbed each other’s waists and pulled like mad. The ladies won three straight.

You go girls

Pardon me, I mean Freshie Girls. This is what it would look like if hippies opened a brothel.

4/15

New Years festivities in full swing

I said full swing. Full. That’s right.

PS- I moonlight as a Khmer crossing guard for extra cash on this trip. I forgot to take off my garb for this shot but now that I see it I might just wear it always. Women love a man in uniform.











And just when you thought you’d seen all the balloon animals out there… a caterpillar! Wonders will never cease.

They also stock the streets with monkeys for New Years like we stock trout at the beginning of fishing season. Could you imagine this going down in the States? I would spend NYE in any city that just let monkeys run loose for the delight of the masses. I’m looking at you, Cleveland. Make it happen.

Yes!

Yes! Yes!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Aren’t these guys supposed to be covering their ears, eyes and mouths? Whatever, I love them anyway.

4/16

Oh captain, my captain

You would think there was ecstasy in this chicken by the looks of me.












Not so much on our friend here, though. In the words of the late, great Colonel Sanders, “I’m too drunk to taste this chicken.”

What do you wash down some original recipe with?

How about a trip to a mass grave? Makes sense to me.

The Khmer Rouge killing fields.
Pol Pot killed 3 million people (nearly ¼ of the entire population of Cambodia) in the 1970’s!
It’s truly mind blowing to think about.

Is nothing sacred?

The Killing Fields, brought to you by Angkor Beer, the official beer of genocide.