Publication Core presents "Deon's Odyssey" Part I
By Deuane Khamvongsa

Posted date July 14, 1999

Warning: Grease your face with pig's blubber and massage your brain before 
reading this material. Side effects are wrinkles of laughter and migraine 
headaches from trying to make sense of what the heck this is.

"Oh give me a home where the CHEESEHEADS roam and the SNICKERFRITZ plays 
all day..."

I'm glad to hear everyone got home safely.  The adventurous journey to 
Philadelphia for the All-American City and SJD4DC was an unbelievable eye 
opening experience.  This for me was a continuation of last year's 
disappointing aftermath in Mobile, Alabama, where we took 11th out of the 
thirty cities finalist. More knowledgeable and after months of preparation we 
took our props to Mo-town and exchanged them for the America's oldest and 
most prestigious community recognition award.

The voyage was launched after a tailgate party and rehearsals at the Green 
Bay Packers Hall of Fame Wednesday afternoon.  (Hmmm....I wonder if a 
tailgate party was held for Ulysses and his crew before they were sent to 
Troy)  No sooner then I realized we were slicing and dicing through cumulous 
clouds, designation-------> East Coast. The higher we elevated the harder I 
prayed for our safety.  Technical difficulty at that point, I would hardly 
find it amusing.  Free falling from thousands of feet above sea level without 
a parachute isn't in my book of fun.

Changing flight in Detroit at 10 AM on Thursday was no diaper job.  Well ok, 
maybe it did kind of stink.  We waited an hour for the flight to Philly but 
the evil gazed we received by the Lions fans (Our NFL team rival) seems to 
prolong our stay indefinitely. Arriving in Philly was a blast as enthusiasm 
of our crew ignited.  Checking in the Mariott hotel, however, was a pain in 
you know, due to the long lines. My super heavy luggage didn't help the 
process either but it did impress some on lookers. Ahaha NOT.  The first 
thing I did after checking in was hunt for food.  And I don't mean hamburgers 
or pizzas either.  With two Lao teenagers along side (Sai & Johnny) armed 
with amino acid congested stomachs, we sprang downtown Philly in search for 
rice dishes.  Sweating and smelling like real men, we spotted a Thai 
restaurant a few blocks away.  Calmly, we sprinted toward its entrance like 
there was no tomorrow dodging vehicles left and right.  We ordered three 
dishes with extra rice but I don't recall what they were.  How could I 
remember when we swallowed the food down faster than the waiter place them on 
our table?  Content with the food we headed back to the hotel for another 
rehearsal.

Too tired for sight seeing that evening I stayed in my room, mingled with 
friends, then dialed to D.C.  A hello I didn't register with Guy confirmed my 
theory that the plot of the Jerry Mcguire flick was an illusion. I then 
continued describing myself to him hoping something would click.  I told him 
everything about myself from my place of birth to my love making fantasy. 
Still no luck so I gave it one more try.  

I said, "My name is Deuane." 

Then without a doubt he responded, "Oh Deuane. Yeah! Yeah, I remember now."  

In delight, we talked for several minutes before I was introduced to the rest 
of SJD crowd who have gathered in Nah Bounheng's crib earlier that day.  On 
the phone, I was greeted by Euay Toon and Nah Bounheng, who demanded me to 
come to D.C.  J/K

Deon's Odyssey Part II
Posted date Aug. 6th, 1999
Warning: Grease your face with pig's blubber and massage your brain before 
reading this material.  Side effects are wrinkles of laughter and migraine 
headaches from trying to make sense of what the heck this is.

(9pm still in Mariott Hotel of downtown Philly)

After dialing to D.C. the tiring day of excitement caught up with the rest of 
my body.  But that didn't stop me from getting a hold of several friends whom 
I met through cyberspace.  Like an ambitious solicitor I pickup the phone and 
went wild. The encumbered task of clarifying my intent of calling the 
surprised friends paid off.   However, convincing them that I wasn't some 
loony individual prank-calling people up randomly was anything but taking a 
candy from a baby (trust me I know). They took my words that I was not a 
psychopathic cheesehead who was trying to lure them for an ambush of some 
sort.   As compensation for the lack of trust towards the virtue me, they
agreed to give Sai, Johnny, and I a tour of their beloved city later that 
evening.  Laid back and relaxed, I pictured Green Bay taking home the title 
the All-American City Award (Yup I said it again Guy), which slipped through 
our fingers the previous year.  Just as the contouring lines of the 
magnificent portrait came into focus I was slowly drowned asleep by my 
tiresome body.  Dream, dream, snore, snore....

The digital clock struck 10pm when I was abruptly awaken by the two Laotian 
teenagers (Johnny & Sai.)  They dropped by to check on our agenda for the 
rest of the evening and wanted to I know if I would like to join them for a 
swim.  I informed them of our tour and then kindly turned down their master 
plan of drowning me in the hotel pool of chlorine just for their amusement.  
Left alone again I pulled out a pair of optical lenses and placed them 
adjacent to my flat nose and watched television.  Feeling nauseated from the 
glasses, they were compressing on my nozzles like a zip drive. I took it off 
and cursed it for the destruction of my oxygen passageway.  Hmmm....that 
explains my insanity.

Bored of the TV show, I ran off to slumber land where the confrontation with 
my insolent foes the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, and Hades began.
 
With the assistant of my pokeballs, you know PoKeMoN, and knowledge of 
summoning legendary heroes to my aid, I wasn't afraid of any creature or 
ghosts.  Effortlessly, I annihilated the antagonist and reminded the wounded 
demon not to mess with me ever again or suffer my mom's bamboo stick the next 
time I return.

An hour before midnight, Johnny & Sai returned from their swim.  The aroma of 
the liquid chlorine invaded my room, which rudely derailed my beauty sleep. 
Having captured my full attention, the boys cheerfully told me of their 
adventure in the pool.  Johnny virtually reenacted the scenery of swallowing 
a gallon of water while Sai hilariously duplicated the event where they both 
ganged up on Officer Hugo, our Latino police liaison, and wrestled him six 
feet under water.   With a pinch of my nose I told them to hold their train 
of thoughts and go shower up before our friends arrived.

As the clock struck midnight the phone rang.  Without fear, I cowardly crept 
to the phone with pillows between myself and the ringing object. I reached 
towards the phone on the 5th and picked it up on 8th ring.  

In my broken English and F.O.B accent, I greeted the caller "A-Lo, am Deon."  

The caller replied with an authoritative tone, "Room service sir, I have the 
pizza you ordered.  I'll be up there in a few minutes.  Would you like a soft 
drink with that sir?" 

In surprised I thought, "man yung but nee?" or "What's going on here?" 

I gave Mr. On-the-other-end-of-the-line a piece of my mind telling him, "Am 
not order your pizza man, but am buy from you this time...A.OK man?"  Mr. 
On-the-other-end-of-the-line laughed hysterically and told me he was my cyber 
friend and told us to get our butts downstairs.

Deons Odyssey....To be continue....