The Landing was one building three years ago now it is a small town of thirty buildings. There are no roads or cars here and riding into The Landing on our ATV’s is similar to a stranger riding into town on a horse in the good old days. It’s like any western movie town; bars, brothels, markets, discos and a pharmacy. The Working Ladies bathe in the river and run through the streets naked on their way back to their red light rooms. In my opinion they could run around the town a few more times to help their physique. They occasionally come up to us and push their breast together, wink and make pouty faces. We call it out to each other as they start to walk up…”watch out here comes a Booby Trap.” It’s crazy to see guys come straight out of the jungle for god knows how long, take a couple shots, and then go buy a girl. There are no showers here and I can only imagine what new diseases are being created in the rooms with numbers on them. Lyndon a local entrepreneur tells us that it is the businessman’s duty to spend half his money to support the women and town, “Without them we couldn’t be here.” He believes by spending money God will give him more than double the next time he ventures into the jungle for work. All the locals throw their beer cans and bottles in the street. They look at us crazy when we use trashcans. I am having a blast throwing cans off the balcony of the Big Buy Out, our chosen bar.
I am on first name bases with many of the town’s residents and walk with them every day on the walking trail we call interstate 405. I have one friend Jack who I saw on the trail coming back from work the other day when I was wore out. He told me, “For us we have one bottle of Old Label (a fire water whiskey we drink) in the hand and one in the backpack. When you feel you can no longer go you take a drink and keep doing that until you fall down and sleep. If you dream of a white woman, when you wake you make your work there. If you dream of a Negro woman you wake and start walking in the first direction you look because black woman are too much work.” I was exhausted but laughed for a good couple minutes, “Jack I can tell you have never dated an American white woman.” The locals have taken us in and find us funny.
The other night at the Big Buy Out, our bar with the biggest patio in town with a screen and projector that plays 80’s MTV on a loop, our director Shamrock and Military Boots were UFC fighting as I stood at the bar mixing drinks with Pretty Girl. We were telling the owner Cooley that it wasn’t real and they were only messing around. Pretty Girl, our story producer, tried to stop it after round six and caught one to the jaw as we were trying to leave. The next day I was dropped off at the landing by a water taxi and everybody was talking about the crazy white people fighting. I could hear it, “Ya mon, the whiteies were fighting but for fun not for real.” “The WHITE PEOPLE???” “Yes mon. I’m serious the white people.” Cooley walks up to me and now it seems I am promoting fight night and sizing up the members of the crew who volunteer. I have the town wired and have learned where to find whatever I want. The Landing is lawless but our Fixer is basically the sheriff and his brother Green Soxs is the deputy. I think it’s unsaid that if anything happens to us, there might be some trouble for the town. However coming home from the bar the other night we pulled into camp and there was a search party being rounded up to go into town and find us. Our Chef, a local woman, was worried that “Pretty White Girl was in a black man’s town at night.” We laughed and settled everybody’s nerves that we had her back safe and sound. Frankly after the wrestling display at Big Buy Out I am sure nobody really wants to mess with her, or us. Our main local guide, Short Man, is 5’0 90 pounds. We could take on a mob of them and probably make it. Plus we’re armed. The bars don’t sell drinks, so you have the option of a beer or bottle of liquor. We buy bottles, get mixers at the market across the street and watch the action in the street. It’s great sitting there and having locals walk by, “What’s up DJ Cash Bar, how was ya day?”
There is adventure in other ways also. I was taking with Yoga Editor about his bush plane landing at the muddy dirt strip that is a one building airport, military outpost, market, disco and funeral home. They were the last plane in on a rainy day and as soon as they hit the ground mud covered the windshield, they slid 180 then fish tailed to a stop. Harrowing and that’s what I mean. The airport has been closed ever since and we hope the rainy season doesn’t last much longer or we will be here longer than we planned. We are living in a great compound that has been build for us, but danger is always lurking. I was so spent walking into my bunk tonight I had a vicodin washed down with a swig of vodka. Two falls, sweated through my clothes, grabbed onto bastard tree spikes, and got stuck thigh deep in red clay and had to be pulled out by Short Man. That’s an example of one day. I feel bad for one cast members; Short Man calls him Fat Man. Our river front compound is very nice for what it is and the food has been amazing. We have a group of ladies that have been taking very good care of us and keeping our energy levels high with awesome meals with food smuggled from a country that is an enemy in our geopolitical world view right now. The Kitchen help keeps hitting on Lead Tech and he’s about to break. He told me last night “I’ve never dated a woman with a pet monkey.”
I am living a dream running through the jungle and amok in town, but tonight I sit in camp playing our camp guitar looking up chords on the internet thinking about the crews in the interior. I'm trying to remember something but I’m trying too hard. I have to forget about something to remember it. When I try to remember I always forget. It’s ass backwards but it works for me.
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