I now have a Kung Fu master, Ding Yi, a former body guard for the Chinese Triads, who I met in the mountains of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. More on that, forthcoming.

El Tropicano Wades Into the Heart of Darkness

Picture this, Reader: Senor T wading mid-thigh high in a mangrove swamp in the middle of a tropical Caribbean island. The smell of sulfur is thick. The mosquitoes are horrific, biting me on the legs with impunity. Tropicano is wearing a bathing suit and the T-Shirt pictured above. Shoes were more trouble than they were worth in the swamp, so I carried them mostly.

After emerging from what can only be described as a heart of darkness and a gateway to Hades, a deserted beach with clear water and sand; soft enough to sell to rich old ladies looking to stay young. There, I ate coconut flesh and sipped coconut milk, while washing swamp mud off my body.

After an hour of lounging, we began our return voyage, avoiding the stench of Hades and instead trekking over volcanic rock through the bush. At one point, we had to cross a formerly alligator infested bay. Our ruffian guide informed us that alligators still roamed, inducing bowel loosening fear among the group.

This trek through the swamps of Utila is not recommended.

Leaving Dali now by way of mountain bus to Lijang. More from Lijang.

Until then, Yuuuuuuunan that soldya boy.

Dear Kobe, OJ, and fellow afflicted celebrities,

I feel your pain, for today I have arrived in your company via fraudulant legal claims against my name. Facing potentially image-shattering charges, iPod destruction, I too, will purify my muddied name.

The words of my step-cousin, Andre 3000, best summarize this quandry, which is as old as celebrity itself:

Where there is cheese there are rats, Where ever there are rats there
are cats, Where ever there are cats there are dogs, If you got the dogs you got
bitches, bitches always out to put their paws on your riches, If you got riches,
you got glitches, If you got glitches in your life computer turn it off and then
reboot it, now you back on,

Since cameras were were forbidden, I've provided a courtroom sketch of the plaintiff below:

BEHOLD! Senor Tropicano.

Ungrateful readers: Warning. If you are reading this without a mustache you do not have proper protection.

Now you may be scratching your goatee sans mustache asking yourself how Senor Tropicano managed to jet off to foreign lands and achieve pretirement status while you took recession-era job offers at banks that bought your neighbors mortgage, bought a credit swap and then went meltdown status. The answer is simple: Options.

As I flick a mosquito filled with my alcohol and nicotine tinged sangre, I also flick 10 Lempira bills at a pool boy/servant carrying a chocolate milkshake and a box of Raisinettes. The raisins are for my pet parrot, Eddiverto, and the milkshake is to look at. For you see, when not scuba diving with whale sharks and sea turtles, I run my body on a refined mix of alcoholic beverages.

Reader, I am in the Bay Islands of Honduras, sipping cocktails like a hummingbird sips nectar - vigorously. Much to your chagrin, I am within ten steps of a pool and twenty from a bar. On Thursday, I will fly from this rock, proceeding to the Laguna de Apoyo (Google it). There I will throw my pretirement Delorian into full throttle, racking up credits for international expeditions yet unplanned.

And do I need insurance for such risky endeavors. Sorry, Johnny B, but no. I am scorching the sun burning the rocket fuel that comes out of my ass. Its entirely sanctioned by the FAA.

Dear Reader, I invite you to come visit as soon as you get your vacation time.

Until then farewell,
Senor Tropicano

In Barry's absence, I will be posting from my current home, and home of the future Fear Monger World Headquarters, Los Angeles.

In keeping with FM's sports theme of late, and since I'm still recovering from Olympic fever, I played racquetball today. Before you make fun of my appearance, I'll have you know that the goggles are a YMCA requirement, the headband is necessary to keep my long hair out of my eyes, and the mustache has proven to be such an effective weapon distracting my opponent, I'm not sure I could win without it. Not pictured: Air Flight '89s, hiked-socks, short-shorts, and just a hint of rim.

Dear loyal FM readers,

I'm sure all three of you will be devastated to learn that FM will be vacationing in the Yunnan Province from August 26th to September 3rd as part of my post-Olympic cool down / PCP rehabilitation. The circus has left town and so must I.

During my hiatus, however, some very prominent authors have promised to contribute; Mickle Jickens, Lawrence Knightengale, and Senior Tropicano, to name a few.

In one week, I will return to Beijing with a smörgåsbord of Paralympics jokes and a buffet of venereal diseases.

Fart,
Bawrence Lird

Chuan Ban for some stomach disintegrating hell-fire.

One world, one dream, one million volunteers

Fear Monger published in China Daily under pseudonym "Daniel Libman"

Went to the gold medal ceremony party at Club Bud, a club that Budweiser opened for the Olympics. Free beer all night. I walked around offering to buy girls beer because I was doing very well as a volunteer in Beijing. Theres a crazy room with a dancefloor, a lounge situation, and an outdoor area with a pool and several cabanas. Rhonaldino occupied one of them. After almost falling in the pool, I resorted to the clubby room where, swallow, laser lights and thumping beats seemed appropriate for my mood. The US women's basketball team showed up. No Candace Parker though, so who cares. I offered to buy a Swedish handball player, Johanna, a beer. She laughed and we started dancing; first in a group with her giant handball teammates, but then alone. The first time we bumped I was thrust several feet backwards. Maybe because she's a 6'1 Olympian, or maybe because I'd bought too many drinks. Either way, I had to support myself in a lunge position as we cut it up the rest of the night. She invited me back to the Olympic Village to eat free McDonald's. As we parted ways I asked for her phone number. She simply said, "No," but gave me her email as a consolation. Woke up three hours later. Hopped to the IBC to catch the media bus to the Basketball stadium. Saw the second half of the bronze medal game and cheered the shit out of Nocioni. Cheered my balls off during the USA game. Somebody buy me a beer. A Spanish journalist got mad at me for clapping, not cheering. He pulled out a newspaper and pointed to the medal count with china atop it. His point was lost on me. His colleagues gestured towards him, rolling their eyes and pointing their pointer fingers at the sides of their heads, rotating them circularly. Got misty-eyed during the medal ceremony. Met Doug Collins. Took pictures on the court. Went to the press conference where the whole team sat wrapped in American flags. They took turns bagging on a Swedish reporter for asking a dumb question. Turns out in FIBA play, there is such a thing as a stupid question. Shook Chris Paul's, Michael Redd's, D-Wade's, and Bosh's hands after the conference. Gave a formal handshake and sincere congratulations to Coach K (because his life is about never settling), and Obama-bumped Kobe. I was visibly erect throughout. Afterwards, I ate an entire large pizza by myself and passed out at 7 P.M. Makeshift closing ceremony, but who gives a fuck?

Counter-consensual sexy attack. Later Argentina.

From Scalize's blog:

What you have to understand about poverty in the developing world is that it is not a function of lack of desire, willpower, motivation, or organization. It is a lack of opportunity and resources. Fundamentally. In six weeks, we rallied twenty-four independent communities around partnerships of teenagers to solicit small projects, share the financing burden, and finish them. Our success rate was 90%.

I am proud of what our volunteers accomplished and proud to have been able to support them from a far, as well as directly in supervisory role. If you are inclined to donate charitably to international aid organizations, make sure they are building bridges to opportunities. Empowerment is key to development.

Feldman!

http://www.pioneerlocal.com/highlandpark/news/1118392,hp-Libman

Any pub is good pub.

Courtesy of Senior YouTube Analyst, Tad Stacey:

When I interview basketballers after practices and games, my quotes are posted immediately on the Olympic news wire, INFO2008, an intranet information system for the Beijing Olympic Games and the primary outlet for all ONS information and reports. From there, all accredited Journalists from around the world can legally shoplift my quotes to enhance their stories.

After Australia prevailed against Russia, for example, I interviewed Andrew Bogut in the mixed zone (the tunnel) as he came off the floor. The information I skillfully provoked and its context were plugged in here.

Criticized after opening qualifying play with a pair of lackluster losses, Bogut and the Aussies came back in a big way, with Bogut scoring 22 points to lead Australia over the 2007 EuroBasket champs.

"A lot of people have doubted us along the way," Bogut said. "No one believes in us but us."

****

"Individual performance means nothing in the Olympic Games," said Bogut, whose 8-of-13 shooting included a pair of 3-pointers and who added a team-high eight rebounds as well as two assists and a steal. "We simply learned from two bad games," he added. "It was a great game for me, but the most important thing is that we're going to the next round of the Olympics."

The immediacy with which news diffuses from the Olympics is astonishing. Flash-quote reporters literally run from the mixed zone to computers to submit the content they've gathered. Therefore, within minutes of a match's conclusion, thoughts and reactions from participants become available. There is no news cycle during the Olympics, rather a constant, unclotted gush of information spewing from every Olympic orifice. Essentially, the Olympic News Service functions like the AP or Reuters of the Olympics, an international news agency through a central editorial team.

Instantaneous access to Olympic news is a great service to journalists and broadcasters in Beijing, but also allows the Olympic machine to spin its own wheels and dominate international news for nearly a month. It's accessibility purveys its popularity and vice versa. News consumers in every time zone crave Olympic news, and the ONS are the primary enablers. Who sets the news agenda though? Is it the consumers who can't get enough of everything Olympic, or the news agencies who make Olympic news front page news? The chicken, or the egg?

Either way, it's been invigorating on the ground floor.

Wonderful, thanks. I'll just come back then.

Perspective:

Whole Foods

Bed Bath and Beyond

REI

From FM's Senior Gymnastics Correspondent, Shira Weiss:

"It's amazing that Winkler only appears to be about 3/4 of a Shawn Johnson taller than Shawn Johnson."

The Redeem Team is terrifying in real life.

My new best friend, Mario.

(BEIJING, August 17) -- The IOC announced its new official Olympic unit of measurement today, the Shawn Johnson. Therefore, Jamaica's Usain Bolt is no longer the men's 100 meter champion, rather the men's 874,000 Shawn Johnson champion.

The IOC claimed it felt the need to immortalize the American gymnast's name and silver medal victory in Olympic lore as a sympathy to the harsh criticism she's endured from circumscribed bloggers worldwide.

Prior to last night I was a lost soul, wandering aimlessly about hutongs of life in search of anything, but usually hookers, to inject meaning to my life. So what, I'm at the Olympics? That means nothing divided by zero to me. My life was as empty as my whiskey glass and my colon.

That all changed in an adderall heartbeat when I met Craig Saiger. I was alone in an elevator following the USA / Spain post game press conference. The doors began closing when an arm thrust between them. They reopened, slowly revealing him. The man who once supposedly scored 106 points in a single high school basketball game. The man who openly admits to having a blonde fetish. The man with more tricked out blazers than the corner or York and Roosevelt Roads. The man who would in a few short minutes would buy me one beer and seven for himself, Craig Sager.

We talked basketball and about Beijing as we walked towards the media concession stand.

"Beeeeeeer," he hollered at the employee like an alcoholic zombie. He even left a tip.

"NBC's really toned down your image," I said. "What's with that?"

"Yeah I know," he said. "They got me in this polo."

Shoving cans into a bag already overflowing with roster sheets and player bios, he shook my hand and said "Good luck," disappearing into the bathroom, likely to shotgun the seven beers he'd just purchased.

Just then, Sager's wisdom was tangible. I realized, that in the wardrobe of life, sometimes you have to wear the polo to arrive at the tangerine suit with lilac piping. And when life's got you in that polo, stifling your outter flamboyance, your inner flamboyance can still shine as brightly as a cannery yellow, mandarin-style blazer with matching wing-tip shoes, as Sager exemplified with his excessive beer order.

I know that pale yellow polo and khaki pant wasn't the real Craig. But there was no mistaking his true, polychromatic essence, radiating its brilliance onto my newly uncovered soul.

Sager, you saved my life.

(BEIJING, August 16) -- Angola shocked Greece 102-61 in a group B match in the preliminary round of the Olympic Men's Basketball tournament on Saturday, August 16.

Angola's Eduardo Mingas was the high scorer of the game, netting 23 points and snagging three rebounds. His teammate Luis Costa contributed 16 points.

Ioannis Bourousis of Greece gave a stunning performance, scoring 22 points in just 13 minutes of playing time. He made all ten of his field goal attempts while grabbing five rebounds.

The first quarter saw the two team's scores neck-and-neck, 12-11 in Greece's favor. The next two quarters determined Angola's fate though. Greece scored 31 points in the second quarter and 38 in the third, while Angola only managed 17 and 14 respectively.

Facing what they perceived to be an insurmountable deficit, Angola surprised the world by substituting in its secret weapons, the Fuwas, to help them topple the Greeks. Not since 1996, when the Looney Tunes recruited Michael Jordan to aid their defeat of the Monstars, has such a drastic turn of events occurred in international or intergalactic play.

While many thought the Fuwas were indigenous to China, their Angolan step-cousins grant them eligibility to compete for Angola during the Olympics.

Angola played into significantly better form in the fourth quarter scoring 60 points, while officials took 20 points away from Greece for no apparent reason.

Greece center Andreas Glyniadakis commented on the upset afterward: "What the shit is a Fuwa?” he said.

After the shocking defeat, Greek guard Theo Papaloukas uses his jersey to hide the tears.

Greece tries to match the physical play of the Fuwas.

The flustered Greeks search for answers as team chemistry begins to unravel.

All Greece can do is stand and watch as the Fuwas dance through the lane with ease.

Shawn Johnson may be an Olympic medalist, but she isn't tall enough to ride roller coasters. She is startlingly small. Good news for her though, that despite being washed up at 17, she'll be employed on St. Patrick's day every year for the rest of her life.

That seat is as overcrowded by Meredith's ass as Beijing is with tourists.

Tonight, I convinced a Chinese volunteer to let me into the Bird's Nest to watch Athletics without a ticket. When a physical threat precedes, it really doesn't take that much convincing.

Gold Medal winners Daniel Libman (middle) and Ryan Lochte (right) pose for a picture with an adoring fan.