Memoir! Memoir!

Memoir is like a call for May Day. It's a call for attention and help in an otherwise insipid, uninspiring life, especially if written by an incompetent writer. I am well aware of all the pitfalls of writing a memoir, but I can't help myself. In a way, all my words bear a stamp of an ill-disguised memoir, a trek through memory lanes and a willful reconstruction of what could have been.

And who would be my readers? Who would care to read about my journey? In the end, as always, I write only for myself. I am my only and best reader and critic. Anyway, here I go, once again, the 20th time. This time, I hope, I will stick around.

A memoir usually starts chronologically and with all the details of David Copperfiled crap. In my previous attempts, I did just that. But I somehow felt unsatisfied and unfulfilled revisiting my life that way. This time, I opted for the Pulp Fiction route, via the alleyways and byways of flashbacks and associations. The account will be confusing as hell. I am a confused man, living in hell most of the time, the hell of my own creation through ignorance, pride, and odd preoccupation and flirtation with self-destruction. Often times, I wonder if I am afflicted with some kind of mental illness as I seem to go against the flow, too often and unnecessarily so. But then maybe I am not sick after all. The following paraphrased words of a successful risk-taker have been a source of comfort to me:

"I liked to take risks, but I liked to win much more. My whole being cried for victory. I hated defeats. I couldn't stand to lose, in whatever endeavors I found myself, I had to emerge as a winner, as a survivor. I enjoyed the moment of triumph. I had a lot of hunting and killing instinct inside me. That was why I never regarded my taking chances as a form of self-punishment. Not consciously anyway. I had to win, I told myself. That was my mantra. That was always in my favor.

We all have destructive urges. We eat too much, drink too much, even talk too much. Gambling is no different. It is a challenge to overcome. Others have failed at overcoming this challenge and end up destitute, but not us. We are better humans. It's part of man's nature to stand stubborn in the face of challenge. And many of us feel compelled to create challenges whenever none present themselves. This is not wholly unhealthy. All champions share this trait. They drive themselves forward. A person who skydives is tempting fate. He earns the exhilaration of feeling alive after a dive. But his activity is only healthy if the subconscious payoff is survival and not death.

We must learn to modify our flirtations with danger. Our psyches must be geared to dueling with fate while assuring ourselves that we have the best of it. We must recognize we have destructive urges but these can be a life motivating force to be controlled by us." (Bobby Baldwin, an executive of MGM Entertainment)

At any rate, I am now engaging in a very public debate with a less than honest dude about patriotism. The debate is unhealthy and does me no good, yet I went for the bait like a moth irresistibly heads for the light in the night. This is not the first time I debate about patriotism. Several months and moons ago, I got into an argument with another dude about the same topic. I walked away from that debate with a decidedly unflattering impression and opinion of the "debater", just like I am having similar sentiments about the current guy who foolishly decided to cross sword with me. So, you see, I am not a man who likes to run for a popularity contest. Rather, I am a gent who revels in controversies in a search for truth and myself. You probably speculate that perhaps I have not been loved. Au contraire! I would loudly protest.

Love is my middle name. Roberto Amor Wissai here is at your service. And he's spilling his guts out for the world to see. I have been in and out of one romantic adventure after another since the age of eight. At last count, I've been married seven times, and have had romantic liaisons with 23 women. Right now, there are three women who want to marry me, but only one is relatively well-off, unfortunately, and she does not seem to relish the prospect of sharing her wealth with me. Not that I am a gold-digger, but I am not going to marry a destitute woman either. Be real! That's why I am holding out for better prospects. Even at the relatively advanced age of 62, I can afford to wait as I am a handsome devil and have a way with women you never dream of. Women flock to me like bees to honey. Am I bragging? You can bet your sweet ass that I am. As I hinted earlier, I am no ordinary man. I am a cannon with words. Sadly, with all these women around and hovering over me day and night, I still feel sad and lonely and misunderstood, and I am not sure if I understand what Love really is. I am blaming it on Ton Thi Anh Dao, the first female that made my heart quiver and quaver when I was only a lad of eight. Digression: since I am writing this so-called memoir in a blog, one reader who happens to have a sweet spot for me just emailed me and formally lodged a protest that while she may love me, she would never consider marrying me. I fired back an answer to the effect that, as usual, she failed to read between the lines and obviously overlooked the cheeky tone of this memoir, with its obvious overtones and undertones of irony and hyperbole. Does such a reader exist or I just made her up to spice things up and make me look good and credible? I honestly don't know. In the excitement of writing this confession, I have got things and people mixed up. Reality and fantasy keep colliding and causing unstoppable Big Bangs in my puny, little mind.

Yes, Ton Thi Anh Dao was her full name. An aristocratic name it was, don't you think? The Cherry Blossoms of The Ton Family. That was how her name would be known if I translated it into English. For short, I just called her Anh Dao. In my playful moods, I called her Em Dao Cua Anh (My Little Cherry Blossom). In response, she called me "Mi Amor Roberto Wissai". I once disclosed the reason for my unusual name to a bunch of nitwits who didn't take me at my word, and demanded to see my birth certificate. I made an offer to these incredulous "birther" ignoramuses that they had to take me a fine Italian restaurant at my own choosing if they wanted to see evidence of my royal roots. They stupidly agreed and lost the wager. My father was an Italian aristocrat and adventurer who ran into my Vietnamese fiery mother on high seas during an Atlantic crossing cruise. I was conceived in one of those storm-tossed nights during the crossing. I grew up in a large family (14 children, but only 8 could make it into adulthood). My mother's roots were in the Mekong Delta. Our family lived in Saigon where I was sent to an International School where the medium of instruction was English. That was where I met Anh Dao and she immediately captivated me with her exquisite Vietnamese spoken with the Imperial accent. We spoke to each other in Vietnamese during recess and after school while we were waiting to be picked up by our chauffeurs. She was breath-takingly beautiful, with blemish-free, smooth oval-shaped face, sparkling with bright, large eyes and two dimples while sporting long hair cascading to the length of half her back. She was vivacious, friendly, and always at the top of the class whereas I managed to crawl along at the bottom. She didn't mind the discrepancy in grades between us. She even tried to tutor me, not to much success. I supposed she was drawn to me because of my exotic looks, height, friendly disposition, and irrepressible humor. I was the class clown. She laughed and giggled at my jokes. I always have a weakness for any girl and lady from the Imperial City Hue because of this early exposure to Anh Dao.

My idyllic time at the International School came to an end when I turned eleven because my family's fortunes took a dive. One day, my mother told me I had to attend a Viet school where the tuition was much lower. She would rather see me go to one of those Viet public schools where there was no tuition, but I goofed off too much during my "salad days" that I couldn't pass the entrance exam. Anyway, I would never forget the day I told Anh Dao after class that that day would be the last time I saw her. She cried when l said the following last words to her: "Je t'aime. Je t'aimerai toujours, ma petite." I did and still do to this day. She has set a standard for all others to follow.

I was a mediocre student until 9th grade when I discovered philosophy and history. Overnight, I decided to be a great man like one of the heroes and philosophers I read about. I hit the books in earnest and tried to pursue a catch-up game in acquiring knowledge. I am still far behind and I have not given up on my dream. When I was seventeen I was selected as one of fourteen students in the whole country to attend Grade 12 in America. That year was a momentous year of my life, a watershed year. But before I tell you about that year, I have to interrupt all regular programming in order to address the big news on hand, the cold, brutal harsh reality that intruded into our ordered, even slightly disordered, but nonetheless truly insignificant lives: the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy Seals on Pakistani soil in a military town, barely 100 kilometers from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

His violent death didn't bother me. It had been a foregone conclusion. It was the the aftermath frenzied, spontaneous jubilance of American mobs engaging in anthem singing, flag waving, and primal chanting of "USA, USA" that bothered me for its lack of dignity. A more subdued, solemn acknowledgment that justice had been rendered would have come across much better to the eyes of the Islamists and Muslims throughout the world and hopefully would have started a process of resolution and closure. Instead, the juvenile display of unrestrained over the death of a human being, no matter how evil he was, was unchristian and offensive to Muslim sensibilities and sensitive folks. It was not so much the holier-than-thou attitude, but the awareness that grace and dignity would go further in relations, even with enemies, than self-righteous revelry. We should respect our enemies even if they don't respect us. Eventually the enemies will see us for who we are, and hopefully change their attitude.
(cont.)