Loco in Yokohama
Knife-wielding school girls, scrotum-seeking school boys, and back-stabbing bimbos... Yokohama has it all and Loco has lived it and is telling the tale! In his second effort, Baye McNeil takes readers behind the silk curtains for a view seldom seen of the land of the rising sun. Loco in Yokohama is a front row ticket to peer through a secret window...into the hilarity and hell that is teaching in Japan.
"Loco Sensei, as Baye McNeil is known, is the real thing- a teacher who loves what he does. These stories are an enchanting warm-hearted romp through his experience of being a gaijin teacher at a Japanese school. If this book doesn't charm you, you may no longer be among the living!"
Barry Lancet, Author of "Japantown"
"After receiving good reviews from his self-published debut, McNeil looks to strike gold with a second volume of tales from his time in Japan."
The Japan Times
Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist
In this powerful and controversial debut book, author Baye McNeil (a.k.a. Loco of the influential blog "Loco in Yokohama") vividly illustrates with unflinching introspection and moving candor, the birth and evolution of a racist, and in doing so makes the persuasive argument that the only way to cure this social virus is by first acknowledging and engaging one’s own racism. A book that is both a memoir and an impassioned call to arms, "Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist" tells us, with a great deal of humor and wit but in no uncertain terms, that while racism continues to be demonized as a dark aberration people lacking intelligence, compassion or common decency are subject to, then it will remain at large – hiding in plain sight, in our schools, offices, carpools, living rooms...and sometimes even in the mirror.
"With humour, a refreshing breeziness and an impressively incisive and critical eye, Baye McNeil's Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist, manages to create the virtually impossible: an exploration of race and human intolerance for difference, that delivers honesty without the brutal, raw truth without the rancor, wrapped in engaging, page-turning, guffaw-inducing prose. In doing so, he skilfully defies the natural and somewhat knee-jerk claim that racism is never funny. Instead McNeil cleverly exposes it time and time again as clumsy, awkward and ultimately absurd."
Joan Morgan, Author of "When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost"
"A really remarkable and thought-provoking memoir about a sensitive soul's most unlikely route to a life-changing epiphany about the true meaning of racial tolerance."
Kam Williams, Syndicated Film and Book Critic
"As I took a look at his blog, entitled Loco in Yokohama, I kept clicking through the different entries, and reading about topics that were seldom discussed in the blogging world, such as chikan (groping) and racism. His writing was honest, shocking, slightly controversial – a far cry from what was found on other Japan blogs."
Vivian Morelli, Tokyo Weekender
The blog [loco in Yokohama] was where Baye first developed his literary alter ego and started chronicling what he was experiencing. Turns out, a lot of other people have been quietly noticing the complicated interactions, too, and are tuning in to see how Loco makes sense of — and makes peace with — the dance of interracial relations in Japan."
Thomas Reedy, The Japan Times