Wednesday 23 May 2012

R&R

My efforts at an imaginary Vietnam war movie soundtrack, complete with sound effects....made especially for my buddy in Blighty.

Twisted, strung out and lost in a teenage summer of love, music and grass, buddies Cling and Sash slide deep into an undaunted, dew-fuelled-dream and find themselves volunteering for and getting promptly sent to Vietnam. Their misguided boldness leaves them surrounded by a murderous, blood-soaked jungle, pouring out a steady charge of wasted horror. Grunts give out weed – helping hours drift past. Medics give out pills – Dexedrine to keep them wired in. R&R becomes the light and then LSD the torch to guide them through the darkness. So it begins. The lights of Saigon, blood-puddled, mud-wetted hootches, the Saigon underground, jungle fever, go-go parties and hunting parties – knives, lizards, tunnels, fire and light - a terror they had never imagined. Shrouded in the relief of hallucination, the tour melts into the mud, becomes a trip and the trips become their journey.