Happy Birthday Truong!

The first time I met Truong he offered me a job,
which goes to show what the standards are
for TA’s at San Francisco State. Thirty seconds,
no questions asked, good luck kid. But I am
very thankful for that opportunity to fight
with unbalanced undergraduates every week,
if only to find out what teaching is all about.
It turns out to be about slowly losing your mind
in six month intervals. Over & over. Forever.
I think we did pretty good that first semester. I only
showed up drunk once, and that was the last
day of class, which barely even counts at all.

I also have to thank Truong for introducing me
to my girlfriend, Sarah. And by “introducing,” I mean
he came over & said, “Watch out for this guy,
he’s trouble. Just look at his hair!” He was wearing
a coon-skin cap at the time, so I don’t know how
seriously she could take took him, but part
of me suspects she’s still not quite over that.

But mostly I think of Truong as ringleader of a circus.
The rest of us work as acrobats & clowns, riding on
elephants and on the rest of the creative writing dept.
faculty, driving them mad with the idea we think
their classes are kind of a joke, which, compared
to the serious fun he manages to have in his, they are.

You all know the players in this big crazy tent
because you are them. An incomplete list includes:

Rick chasing homeless guys down the road,
in a clown suit, on skates, because he thought
they hit Vinh. Vinh burning incredible piles
of weed from his secret garden in Golden Gate Park,
where he picks tomatoes to make Clamato,
which Britta drinks while balancing on a beach ball
& juggling knives in the kitchen, trying not
to drop them on Olive the Super Dog, wrapped
in a pink bandanna she stole from Macy’s lingerie dept.
Ali driving her 20th Volkswagen bus to New Hampshire,
only to turn around & return, unload buckets
of east coast apple seeds & do cartwheels down Haight St.
to the tunes of her very own songs. Dustin taming tigers
in a cage made from dictionary pages, talking
shit to the pile of talking shit he found in Paradise.
Carolyn conducting an orchestral chorus, singing
the Queef poem to hundreds of kindergartners,
their parents trampling over each other to the exit.
Anvhu…Well, Anvhu is on a boat somewhere
after breaking his hand training to box Francois
& couldn’t be reached for comment. Most importantly,

Truong sits at the center of all this, mostly calm,
watching to make sure no one gets (too badly) hurt
falling from the flying trapeze. This is what he teaches
each day by example. How to be an artist, poet,
teacher, friend, mentor, guide. How to live this life
& not just talk about living it someday. How to
do all this without selling out or getting boring.
How to get serious enough to do all he’s done,
but not so serious he forgot why he started performing
his art in the first place. How to make all this happen
for himself &, luckily, for all the rest of us.

Truong is one of the first people I met in San Francisco.
And I am more at home in San Francisco because of Truong
& this circus he was brilliant and brave enough to create.

In other words, I’m Truong Tran, bitches! Let’s celebrate.