Monolog - Vietnam
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"Vietnam" is a monologue written and performed by The Residents for their 2010 So Long Sam lives show. It was also performed during Randy Rose's residency at The Marsh in Berkeley, California from 2011 to 2012.
On the So Long Sam CD it was separated into two tracks, "Geenormous Whanger Monolog" and "Kissed and Captured Monolog."
Sam's Enchanted Evening version
During The Residents performance of Sam's Enchanted Evening at The Marsh in Berkeley Sam would give many monolog in-between almost every song. Here is a transcription of this monolog as found on the Klanggalerie release of this show. This monolog unsurprisingly is about Sam's experience in Vietnam with his friend Mack and the disasters that followed. Its also notable for being the longest by a large margin and also being the most lore heavy of them. A very similar monolog can be heard on "Kissed and Captured Monolog" featured on "So Long Sam".
Course, the real reason, everybody called him Mack the Knife was the fact that he had this ginormous WHANGER. Hell! That thing looked like a baby's arm holding a hamburger no shit! It was something. Well, one day, me and Mack, were goin’ out on patrol, you know we'd done this kinda stuff a lot before. But we would just kinda go out and find uh, kind of a quiet spot, smoke a little dope, went around for a couple of hours and then go back.
But, but this time it was different.
The sky was, the sky was full of these, heavy black clouds. All swelling and swelling like they were about to explode! And drown us, in gigantic drops of sticky, steaming, slimy rain. As soon as we got off, a couple hundred yards off from the base camp. We heard this gun fire, off toward Duc Pho so, so we started runnin’ the other direction. But then there was this explosion! Like fifty yards in front of us and another one and another one! We, we waded out into a rice paddy but, but the smoke was so thick you couldn't see, m-my eyes were burnin’, then it started to rain, sheets, gallons, buckets! One guy, one guy, Bobby Hernandez, was right next to me and, all of the sudden he just went KABOOM!
One minute he was there and, and the next, his fingers and hair, were landin’ on my arm. Another explosion went off and the whole sky lit up the same color as Bobbie Hernandez’ blood. I, a concussion from a mortar shell hit me and I SCREAMED, Mack, Mack grabbed my arm and pulled so hard I thought he was gonna yank it off and we ran and ran and ran! Through the rice paddies until, until. We finally got away.
We could still see it. We could still see happenin' all back behind us but we were ok. We were safe. Then, we found a kinda lean-to shelter and, sat down, we were, we were tired and freaked out bad!
After a few minutes I, I looked over at Mack, he was lookin’ at me in the weird way and. We just leaned over.
*Smooch*
KISSED! I, I don't know why, I don't know why, it just, it just, it just happened, then WHAM! Something hit me in the back of the head like a boulder pounding on a sleeping puppy and everything went black.
I don't, I don't know, I don't know how long it was, until I, woke up. But. It wasn't long enough!
Somebody was, somebody was kickin’ me in the side. My arms were tied behind my back so tight that, my elbows were almost touchin’. As soon, as soon as they realized we were awake they made us, they made us march.
I don't know how far 40-50 miles all day and all night until. Until we, finally got to the POW camp which was, a BUNCH OF FUCKING BAMBOO HUT WITH holes in the floor were you pissed and crapped. I could only think of one when I saw those holes in the floor. My Pontiac. My Pontiac my tiger gold GTO with soft ray tinted glass and gold plated Chevy hubcaps. I was never gonna see my Pontiac again.
I cried. I cried like a baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah I-I-Id been in trouble before but, but my daddy always got me out of it. I-I hadn't been anywhere my daddy couldn't get me out of! And, if that, if that wasn't enough. Then they started torturing us.
Notes
Duc Pho was a base camp infamous for its heavy activity during the Vietnam War.[1] Sam likely knew of the camp's infamy during the war and used it as a general sense of direction, as the camp was hundreds of miles away from Saigon where he is said to be stationed.
A rice paddy is best described as a muddy area of terrain used to yield rice crops. During the Vietnam War, they were very similar to No Man's Land during WWI.[2] To hide inside various dips of Rice paddies was quite common, making Sam and Mack's escape fairly accurate to the time.
Bobby Hernandez is almost certainly a placeholder name for the average person you would find in camps. Statically, minorities were much more likely to be drafted likely leading to this Mexican-sounding name. According to multiple Vietnam vet data bases, there was a man from Texas named Bobby Hernandez who was killed via a explosion during the war.[3][4]
Sam and Mack being attacked by members of the Vietcong could be because of the "Cu Chi Tunnels" used by them. These were elaborate cave systems used to protect themselves from airstrikes commonly marked by a "lean-to" entrance.[5] Its not impossible that Sam and Mack stumbled into a Cu Chi tunnel.
List of releases
List of versions
- ↑ Sam's Enchanted Evening live recording, Cabaret at The Marsh, Berkeley, November 10th 2011 (6:09)