"Taliban Telemarketer" by Kim Cancer

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"White Buddha: Portrait of an ESL Teacher in China" by Kim Cancer

CLICK HERE to download the fresh eBook from the lovely Kim Cancer!

"Green Tea Bitch: Jiangxi" by Newamba Flamingo

Green Tea Bitch: Jiangxi

1.
softcore porn
feet bunched up, icy fingers
last Lantern Festival…
last feast, fireball cupboards
granny’s building leap,
granny’s red pockets, grandpa’s tree bark

red face reunions,
way boned
tiger chair hot pot
hot water dunks
television torture tactics...

LITTLE LEI FENGS
PIG EARS FOR THE WILLING
MORNING READINGS
KITES, KNIFINGS, KAIFENGS
GAS CANISTER KITCHEN FETISHES

smokestacks to backbeats, word is on the street…

chemical plant cuckold
chemical plant cuckold
anthrax laced long underwear
chemical plant cuckold
dark market of caged animals…
coalitions of the willing…

coalitions of telemarketers,
coalitions of wedding strippers,
airing of grievances
tractor pull aneurysms.

2.

new guards, counter martyrs,
counter counterrevolutionaries
curbside counter qipao epilepsy
mahjong social justice warriors
hand-washing laundry in shapes,
coldest water, slurping fetus soup
back back back alley
cigarette sonogram…

bureaus, ministry of smiling turtle shit
networks of ayis: poker face
pale face
voluntary tarot card confessions,
sperm shot parabolas,
Sichuan, malatang
planes to Phuket
coin operated engines
smiling tiger
selfie stick death duels,

a hostage and a crisis

a house and a car

down payments
to lost generations
down payments
pension funds
down payments
public defecation

dancing spastic
dancing on graves at the public square

3.

en…
100 kilometers an hour
building blocks: laodong
labor camps,
promises, Angkor Wat
promises, forty year plan
outbursts, sajiaos,
deepest sympathies
vinegar comb-over
teeth in public toilets
teeth in buried trains
bricks for the kangaroo
algorithmic iterating intelligence
Uncle Ganbei
Uncle Guizhou
Uncle Gansu!
one belt
shaven head depression,
young girls held at knife-point
babies burning in Hangzhou…

4.

ai-yah!
she paints her face white
wielding umbrellas like a terrorist
she paints her face white
stashing mink coats
flashing household registrations
she bites her tongue
metallic taste of blood and duck meat…

and the Audi,
he meditates on Cambodia,
gunshots and gonorrhea,
bar girls and Buddhas,
beer and guanxi…

she bites her tongue
her father’s hemorrhoids
her mother’s bunions
skyscrapers scraping haze, pencils,
rubbers and whiteouts
the symbolism of slanted roofs
the middle school girls in communal showers

she clenches her teeth
her slow-moving reckoning
her menstruating at the Gala
her red gown cameo
her Paris trip postponed
her wet bowel movements
her gym class in unison

AI – OH, LAOGONG!

Robocalls, robocops, facial recognition
Backslap gambling debts
Loansharking,
promised wife in infrared
Her infrastructures of suffering
Waltzing, caustic, the burning tires
vomiting salutes, public tantrums
Her elevated boots with pomp, tassels
Hassles, expired passports,
kicks to the groin
period painted couplets, calligraphy
dunce caps, iron rice bowl mafia,
carpet jackets screaming in horror
scratching hammers, scratching sickles
carpet jackets
mimicking chalkboards, fortune tellers at bus stops,
triangle hats, counterfeits,
Baidu toxic vegetable butt grease

ai-oh!

“No, we won’t go to your parents’ house this New Year’s”
“No, we can’t see her this New Year’s”

…. And I birthed your suckling pig

44 kilometers an hour

On ramp, on light, engine check light,
no yielding, no tolls
trolls
multi-level marketing
mandates of heaven,
mannequin fistfights
clotheslining bitches at banquets
minstrel shows on demand…

His knuckles turn yellow

red light horizons and xiao sans
Shanghai housing prices and
fucked up mufflers and brake pads
maxi-pads, exposed wiring
Xanax and smoke signals,
carrier pigeons in V formations
55 prisoners
in blue jumpsuits, burning alive
in the blackest of lighter factories …

FINGER PINCHING NIGHT SWEATS…
DOG SHIT DRUNK
KTV ED SHEERAN IMPOSTERS
DOG SHIT DRUNK
DOG FARTS
DOG MEATS
DOG FESTIVAL DOG WHITE DOG LEFT
DOG SQUEAMISH COUNTERFEIT PAINTINGS
DOG OF NOTHING…

“I HARE A DREAMS”

His knuckles turn orange
Disappearing into overcast sunsets
Paint chips, coughing walls, cigarette symphonies,
rice riot buffet line skirmishes, kung fu chicken
kung fu led poisoning
one hundred years of hungry escalators
gutter oil diarrhea canals and
Firecrackers of cow ass,
hongbao for the whore
his ballerina, brass knuckles and a bloody nose
taking her beating,
like a pedophile in prison

JIANGXI: VIVIAN AND TONYA
SOMA, SOOOOMA, SOOOOOOMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAA

Oh, LAOGONG,
those long lines and awkward stares, the VIP hospital cards
Chopstick funeral pyres, deleted and we chant moments
those crowded subways, unwashed masses pushing forth
their Famine pangs and fang fang halitosis,
flat noses, snorting, the frog like creatures…

Oh, LAOGONG!

88 kilometers an hour
Head on collisions with ghosts
Honking at swine
Bodies in the river
Hurling bottles at strangers,
Bodies with their addictions
mobile apps
slashing sprees impromptu
static cling silver
imaginary shopping malls…
oh, their first class faggot renderings of Van Gogh
oh, their suffocated toddlers in filthy bathwater…
GOING GOING GOING THE FUCK BACK TO HENAN
AI- OH,
their maids washing tea cups with toilet brushes

Oh, Laopao,
You Green Tea Bitch,
that toothless trucker we overtake
His meth dreams of California
His mansion in Vancouver
His millionaire schemes
His black children’s torrents
of basketball, tattoos, English education
the death penalty and mumble rap
registered drug users
NEVER BROKE AGAIN
Oh, Laopao…

Come to…
bucktooth ballerina grabbing for the wheel

Oh, SHUI GE,
the windshield’s cracked
Kamikaze, somersaults in green canals
Algae the rear view, triple axles and sirens
sewer smells, lumps of coal, lumps of ketamine,
four old uteruses, tarantula Louis CK-like handjobs
Feeble attempts at curing cancer…

Pao pao pao pao pao pao pao PAO!!!!!!!!!

MEI NU
her mediations contemplated solace

TCManpire,
his vulture dick endless administrative detentions

A NEW RED DAWN, A FRIENDLY LION

A NEVERENDING DREAM

"What Happens to Rejected Demos Sent to Record Companies?" by Newamba Flamingo

2004

Hamlet was a rosy-cheeked, slender, tall and handsome young man, nearing college graduation.

As a youngster he’d been interested in the performing arts, trying his hand at acting, singing, and rapping, but never had much success beyond community theater and school talent shows, eventually losing interest and giving up on it in his early teens.

Told he resembled a young Ashton Kutcher, a frat brother scored him some low-level modelling work for a local restaurant and clothing store and a gig as a dancing extra in the background of a Spanish language variety show, clapping his hands red and smiling and laughing on command, take after take.

Through this show he became chummy with a producer, a chunky 30-ish lady, who wore lots of make-up, and always called him “sweetie.”

She had a cousin, a VP at a record label, also a chunky 30-ish lady with ample make-up (perhaps tattooed on) and this lady had as well taken a liking to Hamlet.

She recruited Hamlet to do an internship at her record label, which had recently scored a major distribution deal following its spawning of a series of pop and hip hop stars.

Hamlet accepted the position, eager to soak up its perks, such as free entry to nightclub VIP sections, concerts, meeting famous people and getting free CDs and merch (some of which he could maybe sell on eBay).

His duties at the record label included the usual gopher tasks, fetching coffee, making xerox copies, answering phones.

The most exciting work he initially had was being posted to the front desk, filling in for the secretary.

There he’d not only answer calls, but register visitors, many of which were uninvited artists who’d show up to the front door of the label’s office and immediately begin singing, dancing, rapping, strumming a guitar at Hamlet or whomever was manning the front desk or happened to be in the lobby.

Such encounters required dispatching security, sometimes with the assistance of label staff, Hamlet too a couple times, literally dragging or pushing the aspiring artists into the street, guitar in hand, rapping, singing as the door slammed in his or her face.

They’d sometimes be in tears, confessing to having taken a bus for 10 hours, with no money for a return ticket.

But they’d always be told the same thing. Hire a manager and send us an official demo, registered mail.

Not every aspiring superstar showed up at the door or had a manager send their demo. Many demos were in fact mailed to the label, directly from the artists themselves, often crude home recordings, but sometimes high quality, professional looking CDs, tapes, and occasionally vinyl, accompanied by press kits and merch.

The label’s official policy, such as that of many large, successful record companies, was not to listen to any “unsolicited” demo, that is, one sent directly by an artist and not a reputable manager, lawyer, or industry insider.

However, the label’s top A&R department was always hungry for the next superstar who could emerge from nowhere, and, would in fact have any demo received via mail screened and any promising material forwarded to the head honchos for further review.

But screening these demos was no simple task. Thousands were received weekly. Huge piles stacking up in the corner of the low-level A&R execs’ offices.

Screening the demos was tedious, extremely so, sorting through the piles, hearing endless hours of things resembling Tourette’s syndrome sufferers, banshees, bathroom recordings, out of key singing, animal sounds, horrid wannabe rappers and boy bands, and so on.

Only maybe one of fifty demos were at all decent, only one of a hundred actually good.

After careful, painful screening, the demos were filtered into two final heaps.

One heap being the “promising” pile that’d be forwarded on to higher level A&R or label personnel. The other heap being the “pass” pile that’d be destroyed, either by shredder or smashed up with a blunt object before thrown into the garbage.

The reason for destroying the demos was simple. It was to avoid lawsuits, so that no artist could claim they sent their song to the record label and then a similar song comes out later that sounds the same.

If somehow that did happen, coincidentally or otherwise (this being the music business!), the record label wanted no proof of the demo being in its possession.

So here’s where Hamlet came in. The label execs had been quite pleased with him. He was a hard-working, punctual, and polite young man. But most of all, he was calm, patient. They never once saw him get riled up about anything.

Not the weekly intrusions of wannabe Jay Z(s) and Beyoncés bursting into the office, singing, dancing and rapping, or even the daily explosive, screaming, every so often physical, intra-office arguments between rival departments, or high decibel phone calls from outraged parents’ groups, pushy managers; nobody and nothing got under the kid’s skin...

Perhaps it was Hamlet’s upbringing, always watching zombie movies with his older sister, but never having any nightmares like his classmates would.

Or maybe it was seeing his parents in violent confrontations, his father once holding a knife to his mother’s neck in the kitchen, before Hamlet’s sister chased their father away, wildly swinging at him with a frying pan, Hamlet standing nearby, calmly watching, head tilted, as the drama ensued…

After his parents’ divorce, Hamlet was diagnosed as “depressed” due to his apathy about the divorce and lack of motivation in school. He’d been on Zoloft since his early teens.

Though he’d been addicted to violent video games, gangsta rap, death metal and horror movies, pretty much since he remembered, he never got into fights or disciplinary issues at school, not even when people teased him about his name. It never fazed him.

He was always remaining aloof, quiet, and maintained a B to C average, was a reserve on the high school basketball team, had a group of casual friends, a couple girlfriends, and later got into a state college.

He never became too close with anyone, however, perhaps because of his demeanor, being so emotionless.

Like one time he and classmates drove by a fallen motorcyclist, head split open, on the side of the road. Everyone gagged, a girl threw up out the window as they passed by slowly, rubbernecking. But Hamlet glanced at it and wasn’t affected in the least…

His only real tick was his bizarre hatred of the band Alice in Chains. He claimed that anytime he heard their music he’d have bad luck, and he was always storming out of the room or shutting off MTV or the radio if they were on.

(Although he actually liked their music he’d once confided to the goth girl sitting next to him in study hall.)

Aside from that, the only other time anyone saw Hamlet affected was when a serial rapist was loose in the neighborhood and had raped an 11-year-old girl, in the daytime, in a thicket of bushes only a couple blocks from Hamlet’s house.

Hamlet spent the next few days and nights, clutching a baseball bat, roaming his mom’s house, looking eagerly out his windows, at times sitting on the front porch, scowling, hoping for a meeting with the perp…

Due to his steely resolve, A&R staff figured he’d be the perfect person to take on the task of filtering the demos – and destroying the unwanted ones. Most interns and lower level staff dreaded doing so, but Hamlet took it on with no complaints, and was to be hired as full-time, paid staff after graduation.

Soon enough, each week, he was taking the rejected “pass” pile onto the balcony outside the A&R office and smashing them up with a sledgehammer. The press kits and paper materials he’d feed to the office document shredder.

One afternoon, Raya, a spunky college girl, newly arrived intern, who was always trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to make conversation with Hamlet, stopped by the balcony, slid open the glass door, smiled and asked him, half-jokingly, nervously giggling: “Doesn’t it bother you, smashing up all those demos? Literally destroying and crushing all those people’s hopes and dreams?”

Hamlet, resting the hammer on his shoulder as he readied up another pile, just shrugged.

She continued, her tone sobering, and she pointed a particular demo out: “Oh, I like totally remember her. That girl called here the other day, crying and freaking out, saying she’d like sent us her baby photos, along with her demos. She was all begging us to mail them back to her.”

Hamlet peered down for a second at the demo in question, a cute teenage Puerto Rican girl in a pink halter top and black miniskirt, sticking her tongue out on its cover.

“I remember that,” he said. “Pictures already been shredded. Lawsuits, you know…”

Then he adjusted his goggles and resumed bashing the demos, mostly CDs, and the crunching sounds they made as they split apart were quieter than Raya expected.

Seeing his stern, unflinching face as he took aim at the Puerto Rican girl’s CD, Raya forgot her smile, slowly backed away, and didn’t talk much to him afterwards.

A few years later, as file-sharing bit further and further into profits, the label went bankrupt.

Hamlet got a job in administration at the local school district and later went on to become a high school principal.

"Getting Gunned Down and Liking It" by Newamba Flamingo

The house was for sale
Assorted couples, some with
smells of children
assorted couples
straggled in/out

Home Alone
Burglars on monkey bars
Home Alone
in/out, in/out

real estate agents
opioid white, comfortably numb
smelling of hamburger
kicked and kicked
at the cellar door
in/out, in/out

The day was humid, sunny,
95 degree heat index
the
sound of cicadas
vacuums
honeysuckle mildew
Tourette’s sufferers
self-mutilating multi-purpose
emos on dog leashes
slobbering, snickering
in/out, in/out

the cats
confinement,
fear of children
cats’
basement purgatory,
sucker shit starvation…
in/out

the fresh cut grass
out front of
The old Victorian,
site of senior citizen slap fights,
domestic disputes
abusive PTA swinger sessions,
HIV conspiracies
Stolen bike sleepover studies of Nero
Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtle Tupperware
Silverfish eating crack smoking British animals

The old Victorian,
its Grecian columns
Its Pot plants, cocaine, teenage sex
its girl blood graffiti

Out/in

Hovering balls of night
hair metal
good fences…

walls had been painted
roses had been planted
lawns had been manicured
leaky pipes had been fixed

past, present perfect…

Throwing stones
The faggot running home with one shoe
Throwing stones
The faggot with a black eye and cracked glasses
The faggot, weeping, snot-nosed
seeking Jamaican gardeners
seeking gravel driveway sanctuary

The faggot
hears an explosion,
boom boom boom
From that failed shopping center
Where stepsisters fucked in elevators
Where stepbrothers tripped acid in bushes
The Iranian deli and its cigarettes
gone in a fire red mushroom cloud…

1-Armed attackers
Unleashed from snack bars
Beating poets and bears with baseball bats

1-Armed attackers,
potbelly fanny packs,
New Balance shoes
pinkish trench coats

1-Armed attackers
walkie-talkies, gang signs
abortion crocodile farms
airboats from a shithole
Turbo charged colon cameras

coyotes dropping from the sky

1-Armed attackers
jogging down suburban streets
in wedding gowns
AR-15 blazing,
soccer moms getting gunned down and liking it

Police, swat teams, bullets whizzing by
Corpses, real or imagined, trash and treasure
Dream therapy, food truck hearses
Quack Quack
Candle lit stock market ceremonies
Macaroni and cheese making America
Orange slice metaphorical weather pattern
Bomb cyclone, shouting at the derecho and liking it

The news had been broadcast
Gunmen’s silhouettes
Gunmen’s faces and stories

The air was humid
The house was for sale

"Manila Massacre" by Newamba Flamingo

Calling Mr. Carlos
ROOM 510

Up the ante
and
squeeze your trigger

Camaraderie goes “bang”

Mr. Carlos,
pay the taxi

TAKEOFF

Mr. Carlos,
no chauffeur,
GROCERY LIST JIHAD
JIHAD
to the Roar of jet engines
Planes at the hangar
Jetpacks, nooses and shoelaces
Security goes silk…
Blood blister intercoms
Spit shine sidewalks,
fanny packs, finger bombs
breaking news
ABS-
CBN…

Mr. Carlos, our rendezvous,
Mr. Carlos…
you pink panther,
all fur and claws,
such MANEUVERS
such maneuvers…

That ain’t working,
This is how we do it…

with Jeepney routes
wild suicidal tendencies
with secretaries closing the séance
Séances in shackles, surgical masks…
Immolate, Mr. Carlos
your witch burnings on webcam
your
bitch bitch bitching
your IOU(s)
your
snitch snitch snitching
your last resorts,
your retorts, by the Belmont -
chlorine in the pool
Bushmaster action flicks
smallish dicks and Flocks at the barrio
Bashing baby skulls, secret snipers
Satellites! Satellites! Satellites!
Stomping children’s testicles
into neon sunsets
Art Deco orange
the
transitioning, undercover bukkake priests,
are 21 savages in a conga line,
misfits,
their CIA card games and
Cockfights and tax returns, indispensable,
indivisible!
GOTTDAMN their shrill voices!
GOTTDAMN their squeaky shoes!
Grimy, grimy, GRIMY!

The stairwell!
The stairwell, Mr. Carlos!
… and a punch to the neck
… and an itinerary of fuck,
Muck, license of maggots
Koreans drinking your piss
Auto-erotic asphyxiation in lavatories
Flipping roulette tables, to the
Gold Rush
Go Go gasoline
Diesel, diesel, diesel!

Colossal failure, Mr. Carlos!
Chips are in, Mr. Carlos!
100,000 pesos, Mr. Carlos!

THAT AIN’T WORKING!
THAT’S THE WAY YOU DO IT!

Pre-millennial garbage/bag
Pre-millennial lizard/man
… and those Crisis Actors – the ones to
make the everything a dilemma…

Mr. Carlos,
You getting pussy in Pasay?
Perpetrator, perpetrator, perpetrator!
Mr. Carlos,
You tuck yourself in nice and tight?
Perpetrator, perpetrator, perpetrator!
Mr. Carlos,
You see the flat earth?
You having disco ball dreams?
Perpetrator!!!
Hallowed
be
thy
name!!!
Mr. Carlos,
You think it’s a moon heist?
PERPETRATOR!

Mr. Carlos,
Who really got fucked?

"ESL Guangzhou: Dawn of the Nong" by Newamba Flamingo

It was dawn. A committed insomniac and early riser, Happy Sacks stretched out on his balcony overlooking VPN Road, Shamian Island.

“This was once the only place in Guangzhou laowai could live…”

Today the smog had lifted. A purplish sunrise yielded to baby blue skies.

Happy admired the island’s colonial style buildings, the European architecture, stone pillars.

A 50ish Cantonese man pushed his teenage son’s wheelchair past the Starbucks.

“Mainlanders only do two things with their handicapped. Hide them or exploit them.”

Happy drank a morning beer, smoked a bowl of opium, popped his Prozac and ate a hearty breakfast of fried chicken feet and cockroaches and watched car crash videos on the morning news.

He dressed up in standard China TEFL uniform, a clown costume, with requisite white face paint, big red nose, and spit-shined, pumped up kicks.

An obese shushu from Guizhou was his ride to school and waited on all fours outside.

Happy mounted the shushu like a horse, put a cigarette to the shushu’s lips, and they were off, galloping through the humanity, jumping every queue….

Happy convened class. No AC in the steamy, crumbling classroom and silver slivers of sweat streamed down his forehead, armpits, asscrack.

Happy tried a simple ESL game, but the students paid no mind. They talked over him, played on phones, watched movies on tablets, or lay face first on desks, sleeping.

A petite caramel girl sat atop a desk in the front row. Her parted legs revealed a bare vagina underneath her dress, and she stared lustily at Happy, performing fellatio on a Popsicle…

“Age of consent in China is 14…”

A commotion outside. Happy opened the door to the hallway and saw a deranged janitor running amok, with a meat clever, singing Michael Jackson songs in a horrible falsetto as he was hacking at students, staff at random…

Happy closed the door tightly and saw all his students lay bloodied, dead on the floor.

He dialed 112. No answer. Line was busy. He ended the call and realized he was in the WC.

It smelled strongly of piss, shit, vinegar, and secondhand smoke.

Wumao Laoshi with a flesh wound, stood calmly at the mirror, smoking, downloading a suicide app.

Panicked, Happy tried to talk with him.

“听不懂!”

Happy’s stomach began to rumble. He’d been in China long enough and knew the progression of laduzi.

All the stalls were occupied so he kicked in one’s door and found a dentist pulling teeth from a princeling in a Pol Pot hat.

He kicked in another and yanked out a squatting, cell phone playing Chinese Urkel, and flung the fucker to the floor.

Happy dropped trou and loosed his bowels.

He realized he didn’t have toilet paper and knew his only choices: hands, socks or underwear...

As he levitated his fat, hairy, honky white ass over the toilet, he heard a chugging train sound and felt a cold wind blowing below.

A hand clawed from the toilet’s mouth and a man in a panda suit crawled out of it.

Panda Suit Man yelled: “This for the feelings of the Chinese people!” and Happy’s Guns N’ Roses ringtone suddenly went off.

Panda Suit Man then shoved his hand up Happy’s ass, dug around, and pulled out Happy’s prostate.

“So many butthurt!” laughed and pointed Chinese Urkel.

Panda Suit Man dove back down into the toilet. Happy flicked off Chinese Urkel and followed Panda Suit Man down the hole.

“It’s always darkest before it becomes totally black...”

They emerged in Nongjing, at Tingbudong Square.

Panda Suit Man was dashing through a crowd of dancing ayis.

Happy chased after him, but more and more ayis surged forth, blocking his way.

Happy pushed and shoved away the ayis, but, increasingly frustrated, he punched and kicked through them, UFC style, dropping cunt punts and slugging their wrinkly faces and saggy tits with vicious hooks, jabs, and uppercuts.

He finally picked a portly one up and used her as a battering ram to bludgeon his path to the tail end of the masses.

Throwing the battering ram ayi to the ground, and giving her one last kick for good measure, he looked to the sky and saw Panda Suit Man scaling the Great Firewall, with suction cups.

Panda Suit Man zip-lined to Chairman Pumpkinhead’s portrait and used Happy’s bloody prostate to smear Cantonese characters on it.

A gong sounded. It was then the tanks moved in.

Soldiers shooting indiscriminately at pedestrians, ayis; motorcycles running motherfuckers over… Wild lions and baboons falling from low flying helicopters… Gutter oil, stinky tofu, propane canisters from catapults, loud explosions, harmony…

Happy was mowed down by machine gun fire…

Happy awoke on the floor of a hallway in a hospital. The floor was filthy with bloody Q-tips and used maxi pads everywhere. Bobby Shmurda’s “Hot N*gga” boomed from the public address system.

Happy rose to his feet. Mankini-clad middle age Chinese men all around, staring and surrounding him, smoking cigarettes, holding sonograms, making hacking spitting sounds.

At the end of the hallway was Panda Suit Man, behind him, a ball of light.

Panda Suit Man was waving Happy in like a third base coach, and Happy took off running in Panda Suit Man’s direction.

The spitting/smoking mob locked arms, cursed Happy and gave chase.

As Happy got closer to the light, there appeared a beautiful young Chinese girl in a skintight onesie miniskirt, standing in front of a sauna. The girl was smiling, shaking her fist…

Happy ran faster and faster and felt the hot stinky breath and slimy spit of the nong throngs behind him.

Wheezing, gasping for air, he dove towards the beautiful Chinese girl in the sauna, and everything went