O Dashboard comes with a pre-set agenda. Do the work, Dave, do the work. 87 itty-bitty icons begging for my attention. We're going to try something different today. This is all going to be written SOS – stream of subconcsiousness – with nary a break. Come back tomorrow and it will have changed. O Hugh IM'd me last night. All about writing books, and the pressures of such. Gotta tell cool guys to stay cool. So farkin' happy. O I was drunk. Way drunk. But had put in a hard weekend so felt the need for speed and a bit of a break. Doc ordered that ticket. Albee dee gee such more and all the mardee farts go blore. O And what. Yes, I'm back. Minimalist drivel. O Vietnam. Hungry as they go. Starting to figure out they want to be somebody. Hungry like the Koreans but stronger – more confidant. Koreans – weak. Still pissed at us they couldn't win their own war. Vietnam already kicked our ass and doesn't need to gloat. Koreans: Surface. Vietnamese: Deep as a Cuchi tunnel. Americans? O I live in a computer. No girlfriend. Can't fuck the computer but couldn't much the wife either. Same. Stoned. Etherwingethewayoutofaday O
Grace:
I love the grace of a silk line on a sharp hip
or a wide-brimmed hat on a fair skinned lass.
I love the grace that comes with age making pale the brashness of youth
or the grace of gentle breeding that allows a person to know more than others
yet not behave that way.
I love the grace that rewards substance over style
because making that decision can sometimes be very unpopular.
And I love the grace that grows between couples
when attraction has grown into adoration
has grown into comfort has grown into fulfillment
has grown into unspoken and complete confidence.
Grace can be acquired but not taught.
It can be given but not taken.
Grace can dry tears and calm fears.
Grace is the only virtue that spreads itself evenly
throughout the generations
choosing only to reside in those pure of mind and spirit
oblivious to past sins.
People c
ould use a whole lot more of this. Sum jerks today. I was kool. O Authority: 3. Technorati rank now 2,461,872. Feeling better. That's nearer to top 2%. Gotta get under a million. O And something else that's driving me a little batty today: When you need to put your age into a web-form they have this little drop-down menu that gives you a list of dates. Usually up to 100 years or so. Well, getting to 1956 is getting to be a real bitch. The numbers whizz by so fast I either overshoot it or undershoot it. Damn. Geezer syndrome. O Army Intelligence. Plastic Glass. Vietnam Advertising. The list of oxymorons goes on. O I have saved the Google search term "Vietnam Advertising" in my news finder and sparingly get news alerts for stories. None of them are any good. The local press writes shite and nobody else writes anything else. Most of what I get are Asia Pacific business listing sites with NO references to agencies at all. You know those Nasa photos of the earth at night with the lights on? And Mongolia and North Korea are black holes? Well, if you took a photo of the Vietnam advertising business on the web, Vietnam would be a black hole. Embarrassing. Try searching the terms "Advertising Agency Vietnam" in Google and see what you get. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch and double-zilch for Vietnamese agencies. They're invisible on the web and I almost wonder if it's intentional. 20 of the world's largest agencies are in town and the Vietnam Advertising Association lists 5000 companies in the business. They're all busy fighting for scraps of a $1 billion dollar market. At 15% commission that's only $150 million to go around for all. The multi-nationals control 80% of the market so that leaves $30 million for the locals. Let's see: $30 million divided by 5000? That's $6000 per company. Per year. Nasty shit goin' down here. Even I couldn't live on that. They're all busy fighting for scraps and I'm somewhere in the middle of the fracas...writing a blog...WATCHOUT! Left hook coming... And just when I got on a rant about the situation in this market, I get the following mail from a reader: O "Brother Dave, I read your April 15th blog entry. I thought as much about Monday night, I can relate. Life here in the good ol’ USA is driving me crazy. I call it “living in the age of entitlement where everybody gets a trophy” sux. Attitudes are piss poor as well and good ol’ regular folks are getting fucked by the government incompetence. I want to get me and my wife outta here but more importantly I want to get my daughter outta here. Things here are bad and gonna get a “lot” worse! Math and economics don’t lie. Money is hard to come by and for the most part income is static (fewer opportunities) and the cost of living is going up at exponential rates. Governmental mismanagement has created a vortex that is sucking the life out of its Tax Payers(cash cows)/Citizens. It’s all upside down. As challenging as your situation is in VN at least your living. I know the feeling of “being alive again” when I’m in VN. My creative juices begin to flow again. Take heart, you are somewhere where what you do really matters. Here we’re all just another number with very little impact on the lives of anyone or anything. I like the part in your blog about 1956. I’m a 1955 model. I can relate. Your comments about the “black hole” is in part what I have up my sleeve to work on in Vietnam. You know, they have a “real” shot at this global thing if they do it right. I would like to be in a position to work on that. It “WILL” come, just a matter of how and when." O Time to bookend this one. It's pretty cool. I started, not knowing where it was going and getting into a bit of a funk on things and then got the mail from the US reader. It's easy to see all the political news from the States as some sort of cartoon, but sometimes, being here, we forget that there's real shit going down. O I'm going to end this all on a high note with the following wisdom from the Stooges of Three. Just when you need a little Larry, Curly and Mo...there they are! Thanks to Carol and her Boomer Generation Stuff site for this one. Inspired. O