Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1

More from observation, cranial crevaces and the cracks in the sidewalk. Henry Miller continues in the coloured type. - The castaways continue with a man who has only been to Vietnam twice and been injured twice, both times in the same leg. His first visit, courtesy of Uncle Sam, landed him in the MASH unit with a shrapnel wound - his second, brought a busted heal after drinking to much on a tourist bus and misjudging his exit drop. But he dutifully plods down from his room everyday to shuffle to the string of low-rent bars on my street and ingratiate himself to the older ladies who long for the days when the Yankee boys were here in ernest. And he has a following. Learning that wounded trick in the war taught him something. - "What I had begun, in brief, was a book of the hours, of the tedium and monotony of my life in the midst of ferocious activity." - And the dog beneath my table pick away at the fishbones and such as I plow my way through a deep fried porkfat morsel of uncertain title. - "the skyscrapers gleaming like phosphorescent cadavers" - "David Bowie!", the Frenchman bellows and I know that that's my cue to turn around as a table of 30-sumthing Australian women smile and nod in approval at my passing resemblance. Nobody wants to talk to a look-a-like. They just want to look. And what am I supposed to do? Break into a rousing chorus of "China Girl" My China guh-hu-herl! - "The Bull frog eyes were trained on me like two collar buttons stuck in cold fat:" - And Rico the German nods in disapproval of me again. He wants to do all the talking this night. - "It was always a source of amazement to me how easily people could become riled at me just listening to me talk." Bullshit. - "Perhaps my speech was somewhat extravagant, though often it happened when I was holding myself in with main force. The turn of a phrase, the choice of an unfortunate adjective, the facility with which the words came to my lips, the allusions to subjects which were taboo" - And Paolo crawls behind the bar and unplugs the computer. And he is not a small man. Crawling is not easy. But he moves easily and unplugs it anyway. Minutes go. An then he plugs it in again. Blogger saves. - "And yet I was able to amuse, to instruct, to nourish. But never be accepted, in a genuine way." - Abledegoopdeedoop. Rubbish. Power out. Sometimes a person. Mostly the city. Land of legislated brownouts. But they will never tell me. I am a foreigner. - "Persona non grata! I had to know what what was to hand and learn to like it. I had to live with the scum, to swim like a sewer-rat or be drowned. If you elect to join the herd you are immune. To be accepted and appreciated you must nullify yourself, make yourself indistinguishable from the herd. " - Tomorrow. Day-off but never off. - "The moment you have a 'different' thought you cease to be an American. And the moment you become something different you find yourself in Alaska or Easter Island or Iceland." - Korea. Vietnam. I knew what I had bought. A billion dollar company had given me a six figure ticket to the future of something way off Broadway, only they didn't even know what was on the playbill. - "What is a fanatic? One who believes passionately and acts desperately upon what he believes." - Only reason I took that ticket. First - class. That ticket out of mediocrity. - "Instead of being punished you are undermined, hollowed out, the grounds taken out from under your feet. It isn't even treachery, what I have in mind. Treachery is understandable and combatable. No, it is something worse, something less than treachery. It's a negativism that causes you to overreach yourself. You are perpetually spending your energy in the act of balancing yourself. You are seized with a sort of spiritual vertigo, you totter on the brink, your hair stands on end, you can't believe that beneath your feet lies an immeasurable abyss. It comes about through excess of enthusiasm, through a passionate desire to embrace people, to show them your love. The more you reach out towards the world the more the world retreats." - Vietnamese chatter fills the joint. Paolo has gone home, inebriated enough to thoroughly piss off his wife. Smells of French cooking from the throroughly Vietnamese. Vietnamese men have an almost nasal quality to their speech. Like dogs talking. No bottom end. I've learned to make it all wallpaper. The Korean. The Viet. - "If one isn't crucified, like Christ, if one manages to survive, to go on living above and beyond the desperation and futility, then another curious thing happens. It's as though one had actually died and been resurrected again; one lives a super normal life, like the Chinese." - The cue of Americans snakes up at the email window every week, wanting me to tell them just a little more about how their old college buddy, or working parner or past adversary is getting on in the land of the Cu Chi tunnel. - "Lifes becomes a spectacle and, if you happen to be an artist, you record the passing show." For Freya.


For more on the "Perspective" or "Little Things" series, click below:

My Morning Wake-Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII
We'll Have A Gay Old Time - Perspective XIX: The Little Things XII
"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI

Joyeux Noel - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X

Lunch With Obama - Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX

One Motley Crue On The Bus Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII

Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Power Your Blog - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII

A glass box full of deep fried chicken heads - Perspective XIII: The Little Things VI

Seoul Searching - Perspective XII

He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V

Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2

Running With Scizzors - Perspective IX: The Little Things IV

Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1

Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III

Big Brother - Perspective VI: The Little Things II

This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V

The Art Walk - Perspective IV: The Little Things

Bentley #5 - Perspective III.2

Bentley vs. Vespa - Perspective III.1

Bentleys Invade Vietnam - Perspective III

Death Of A Colleague - Perspective II

Perspective

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III


I'm gonna rant a bit and the quotes in colour are from Henry Miller's "Tropic of Capricorn". - Dream: Hugh Kwon from Leo Burnett in Korea works at Nintendo and is my boss. (only in this dream) Is reviewing my expense reports and instructing me how to cheat more effectively - old contract story from the "Wild Wild East" (not in a dream) . - Kevin and Charlie and Robbie and crew are all at the Lan Anh club today. Fracas in the pool. Cool. I'm reading Henry Miller.
- "In America they're constantly running amok. What they need is an outlet for their energy, for their bloodlust. Europe is bled regularly by war. America is pacivisistic and canabalistic. Outwardly it seems to be a beautiful honeycomb, with all the drones crawling over each other in a frenzy of work; inwardly it's a slaughterhouse, each man killing off his neighbor and sucking the juice from his bones. Superficially it looks like a bold, masculine world; actually it's a whorehouse run by women, with native sons acting as pimps and the bloody foreigners selling their flesh. Nobody knows what it's like to sit on his ass and be content. That happens only in the films where everything is faked, even the fires of hell. The whole continent is sound asleep and in that sleep a grand nightmare is taking place." - I'm writing in Paolo's, the French cafe below my home. I can't have the details of the past in my writing - Forget the little things. Smells, and such. Bugs. A blur. Story about the roach on the wall of the bar and men behaving like roaches while it crawls. Li-Li bar. Finished. - There's a Saigon kiss on my leg in the sunshine. A fading burn on my calf from touching a motorbike tailpipe parked to shortly and no room for a man to walk in between. - And Paolo's bar breaks into a barwide chorus of "Stand By Me" when it shows up on the stereo and then a French song, even f%4#*ng louder. It's Sunday night. 8:45. - These are not the clouds of Chicago - The South Pacific only. They don't move. - "And I was just a Brooklyn boy, too, which is to say one of the last and the least of men." - A raindrop in the sunlight. - "Confusion is a word we have invented for an order that is not understood." - Long hairs growing from a mole. Beautiful for Vietnamese men. You see it all the time. No pictures for you today. Imagine. - "Most of us live the greater part of our lives submerged. Certainly in my own case I can say that not until I left America did I emerge above the surface. Perhaps America had nothing to do with it, but the fact remains that I did not open my eyes wide and full and clear until I struck Paris. And perhaps that was only because I had renounced America, renounced my past." - I have a large Philly cheese steak sandwich waiting. Over and out.

For more on the "Perspective" or "Little Things" series, click below:

My Morning Wake-Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII
We'll Have A Gay Old Time - Perspective XIX: The Little Things XII
"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI

Joyeux Noel - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X

Lunch With Obama - Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX

One Motley Crue On The Bus Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII

Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Power Your Blog - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII

A glass box full of deep fried chicken heads - Perspective XIII: The Little Things VI

Seoul Searching - Perspective XII

He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V

Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2

Running With Scizzors - Perspective IX: The Little Things IV

Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1

Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III

Big Brother - Perspective VI: The Little Things II

This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V

The Art Walk - Perspective IV: The Little Things

Bentley #5 - Perspective III.2

Bentley vs. Vespa - Perspective III.1

Bentleys Invade Vietnam - Perspective III

Death Of A Colleague - Perspective II

Perspective

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Belgian Prime Minister quits over Budweiser purchase - endorses Obama!

belgium, premier, eves-leterme, quits, budweiser-purchase, shitty-beer, obama, drunkBRUSSELS, Belgium — Belgium's government collapsed Tuesday, unable to resolve an enduring divide over the purchase of Budweiser. The gap was so wide the premier, Yves Leterme, suggested the end of Belgium as a country was looming. King Albert II immediately began political discussions with lawmakers to try to resolve the situation. In an unusual declaration, the premier quit and said Belgium's constitutional crisis stems from the fact that "Budweiser is one of the crappiest beers in the world!"

"This is absolute madness. Here we are, a country famous for great beer and we're buying this swill? Gimme a f%#*^ng break!" Leterme added. "The stuff's made with rice!"

Leterme failed to get his cabinet -- an unwieldy alliance of Christian Democrats, Libobama, bud, budweiser, beer, shitty-beer, rednecks, drunk-president, drunk-candidate, barack-obama, st.-Louis, beverageerals, Socialists and nationalist Stella Artois drinkers that took office March 20 -- to agree on a better beer to buy than Budweiser. Vice-premier Didier Reynders urged him to stay on, saying the government must go ahead with its domination of world beers program. Elio di Rupo, leader of the Francophone Socialists, said the lackluster lager reform negotiations were held in a "constructive, positive and extremely fluid climate." But mainstream Flemish parties -- including Leterme's own Christian Democrats -- accused French-speaking parties of not knowing crap about good beer. "Go ahead, name a decent French beer, you morons!", they collectively voiced.

In a separate announcement Leterme endorsed Barack Obama for US President and indicated he would now be free to accept a Vice Presidential nod from Obama.

"He's the only American who's got his head screwed obama, bud, budweiser, beer, shitty-beer, rednecks, drunk-president, drunk-candidate, barack-obama, st.-Louis, beverage, eves-leterme, belgium, quitson straight", he opined, "America needs to learn to keep it's crap to itself, even if a bunch of numb-nuts from a small European monarchy are dim enough to want to buy it." The Obama camp responded with stock PR release stating the candidate was feeling "retinal fatigue and slightly under the weather" after his strong support for retaining the American brewing powerhouse over the weekend. No comment on Leterme's resignation or VP opportunity was offered.

For more on Obama, click below:

Obama to Send 30,000 Troops to Tiger Woods House

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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Vietnam, at the center of Miss Universe?: Nothing Much Happened Again Today, IV

t Gone are the warping helicopter blade swirls of "Apocalyspe Now" replaced by the dulcet tones of Kylie Minogue (can I go expunge now?) for the finale of this year's Miss Universe Pageant in Nha Trang, Vietnam. Add to that, Donald Trump, Miss Venezuela, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson, in town for the winner of VietBentley, Donald Trump, Miss Universe, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, Rolls Royce, Simon Cowell, Vietnam Idolnam Idol 2008, and you've got either, what is the smoldering product of the latest in sharecropping technologies from Cambodia, or just another surreal day here in Vietnam. q I've been trolling the fivBentley, Donald Trump, Miss Universe, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, Rolls Royce, Simon Cowell, Vietnam Idole-star hotel's lobby bars trying to see if I could pick up Paula Abdul but to no avail. e Alas, Cougars are a bit out of my league. I'm too old. m A white Rolls Royce Phantom pulled up in front of my place of employment the other day and totally eclipsed all those Bentley's I've been spotting. As the Rolls swung up over the curb to rest on the sidewalk, the hood ornament flipped descretely upside down and disappeared into safe mode atop the grill, leaving nothing but a little flat chrome surface – hence, nothing to steal. y Here, in the coffee and coconut capital of Southeast Asia, on everything from a Corolla to a Ferrari, the nameplates must be riveted onto the vehicles so as not to be stolen by two-bit gangsters looking for a neckchain ornament. s No wonder I couldn't find Ms. Abdul. She must have enough cheesy costume jewelry to host a convention for these guys. But that would be funny – they'd have to que up at the registration table to get a name tag that says, "Hello, my name is Phat Phuc". g And so another day passes – aside from the parade of beauties, both mechanically refined and surgically enhanced, nothing much happened in Vietnam today. l

For more in the "Nothing much happened" series, check below:

VIII People Are Just Dieing To Get Out of Here
VII The Hair Job
VI Happy New Year! Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!
V The Vietnam sNews
IV At The Center of Miss Universe
III My Walk in the Park Today
II The Stevie Wonder Post
I Ear Cleaning

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Obama Brandishes a Bud for the Bubbas!

Budweiser, Ho, McCain, Obama, Alcoholic, News,  Politics,  Opinion,  brewski, Buddha,  Beer,  rednecks, bubbas"I was disappointed to learn that Anheuser-Busch has agreed to be sold to InBev. Anheuser-Busch is an American icon and this sale could threaten thousands of rednecks in Missouri," Obama said in a statement. "While we cannot and should not pass a law to prevent this kind of sale, we could have and should have done everything possible to have found an American buyer and kept both the bubba's and poor black men drinking our home brew," Obama said.

"That means laying the right conditions for a stronger American economy instead of letting a bunch of Belgians brew our beer and control our lowest IQ level citizens."

"Personally, I'm going to start drinking anything that's not a Bud or a Miller, cause they're owned by foreigners", he continued, "and I'm going to start smoking Marlboros, just because we make em'."

"Ya know we hommies gotta stick together," he stated further, feeling more and more himself as he downed yet another frosty St. Louis beverage. "This change crap was just a campaign gimmick. I don't wanna change no brewski brotha! Yo, gimme a break cracka! You think I meant throw the baby out with the bathwater? Nah. I just wanted dat ho, Billary, off mah back."

John McCain immediately called Obama a delusional alcoholic Nigerian, as McCain's wife, Cindy McCain, stands to reap a windfall benefit from the sale of Anheiser-Busch.
Cindy McCain, together with dependents, owns between 40,000 and 80,000 shares -- figures which were calculated by Reuters. At the offer price of $70 a share, those shares would be worth $2.8 million to $5.6 million.

Neither campaign could be immediately reached for comment.


For more on Obama, click below:


Obama to Send 30,000 Troops to Tiger Woods House

For more in Political Satire and Satire see:





Saturday, July 12, 2008

Boom, Boom, Boom, Baby: The Education Market in Asia


Spend just a tiny amount of time in Asia and you come to realize that the shape, size and growth of all sorts of markets is radically different than those of more mature western economies. Where the average American is whinging about the cost of a gallon of gas, the average Vietnamese, Indian or Chinese doesn't see that to be much of an issue. They don't drive many cars. And where Americans may go on about the sub-prime mortgage crisis, (five banks failed to date, and counting...) you don't have that problem here. Affluent Viets and Chinese have had their houses given to them by their governments and even democratized South Koreans tend to pass family property dAsia, Education, IELTS, Nicholas Marx, Techcrunch50, TOEFL, Universities, News, Vietnam, Wazzala ,Marketingown to eldest sons, negating the need for mortgages altogether. So what do the Asians spend all their money on? Where does their discretionary income go?

Well, two things – in varying degrees: Food & education.

In South Korea, the largest expense is food and drink in restaurants and cafes, as their homes tend to be smaller and ill-suited to entertainment of friends and colleagues, and the government heavily subsidizes education, thus reducing the financial burden on parents – but in Vietnam the largest expense outside the home seems to be education – although I can't find a government number to prove that. I just look at all the students being picked up on motorbikes after school and wearing the smart uniforms of their private institutes and have come to the same conclusion as Nicholas Marx of www.Wazzala.com.

Just last month Nick entered his business plan for Wazzala.com in the Techcrunch50 and I think he's got a real shot at securing venture capital for his idea. For all the foreigners who come in here with some "brilliant" idea for an e-com business, Nick's is the only one where the numbers make any sense. Why set up a website to appeal to 250,000 foreigners when there are 78 million Vietnamse chomping at the bit for not only a web identity, but an education as well. With the average age in country at 26 years old and the number of Viets on the web growing from 20 million this year to 36 million in two years, Vietnam is the perfect proving ground for Nick's model – providing free educational services over the net to prospective students and generating revenue by selling advertising to universities and testing services aiming at students. And if the numbers in Vietnam aren't impressive enough, just take a look at China. This year 15. 5 million will graduate high school, 5.5 million will have a college degree and all will seriously try for education in a western country. Currently 200,000 Chinese will study abroad, but that number will continue to dwarf itself every year that China increases in affluence and international travel opportunities. Vietnam, being smaller and more nimble than cumbersome China or India will post faster growth in the international educational market.

Here's Nick in his own words, "My idea is simple: attract an audience of international students with my free and custom study guides at http://www.wazzala.com/. These study guides help people prepare for English certifications such as TOEFL and IELTS. Then sell adverts to universities so that they can showcase their programs to these students who want to study abroad. "

Take a look at both Wazzala.com and the attached Newsweek article. Numbers don't lie. With the both the Internet and demand for educational services growing faster in Asia than anywhere else on earth, can a group of smart investors from Silicon Valley do the math? I hope so...

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Todd Rundgren: On the road again...



For those who may have missed Todd Rundgren since, maybe, the "Hello It's Me Days", I'm happy to inform that he's back and on the road again - as he has been for the last 40 years. His latest offering, "Arena", is a collection of songs designed to be played in large concert venues like stadiums and indoor sporting facilities. Todd's logic being that, if he built it, they might come.

As guilty a pleasure as it has been for us devoted Rundgren fans to have had him as a somewhat unknown cult hero all these years, we'd just as well like to see him playing arenas. For an artist who has contributed so much to the fabric of rock and avant pop over the years he's remained relatively obscure in the general rock consciousness. Maybe now, at 60, he's ready to break on to the arena circuit again and teach the likes of ColdPlay and U2 a thing or two.

Give a listen to "Courage" from his latest and see if you just can't stop liking this song. I can't.

Make sure to "pause" the podcast before playing the video.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Paris in the 30s – Saigon today?


For all those who romanticize about the Paris of the 30s, the time of Picasso, Hemingway, Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Man Ray sipping Pernod in Montparnasse, you should have been in my corner of the world last night – a snippet of heaven.

On an otherwise ubiquitous Saigon street named Do Quang Dau, I live above a French bistro named K Cafe, hosted by Paulo, a big booming voiced Frenchman and his Vietnamese wife Ka, and had the unexpected pleasure of not only enjoying a meal of exquisitely prepared C30s, Anais Nin, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Man Ray, Paris, Pernodoq Au Vin last evening, but the experience of seeing the French Navy dance to a jazz trio of accordion and two guitars opening with a Django Reinhardt tune. What were the odds?

The scene at this small cafe moved from the quaint to the surreal when a tall and strikingly beautiful, porceline Chinese woman pulled her brilliant blue accordion from a backpack and was joined on stools by two accompanying guitarists, an American and a Frenchman. A man nearing his 70s immediately took the hand of the on30s, Anais Nin, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Man Ray, Paris, Pernode female navy officer and began to dance and twirl as the room applauded and ordered more Pernod. My friend Soren, whom I had not seen in a year, smiled and said to me, "David, this is your life", knowing that the ceiling above the performers was also the floor of my apartment. I reflected and thought, "Yeah, it is." Nice.

As a sidebar, the performers had come from Beijing as refugees from the summer Olympics and the political controls of the Chinese government. According to them, visa renewals have been halted and basically China is keeping the world out of what they are calling the "One World, One Dream" Olympics. A visit to a number of Olympic ticket sales sites indicates that sales have been finished and are no longer available to foreigners. So much for the One World idea – or it's a Chinese world and that's the going propaganda. Since the international journalists have been such pussies about Iraq, maybe they'll have a field day with the Chinese for this staged sham – no way, the Chinese will get the same pass Hitler got on this affair.

30s, Anais Nin, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Man Ray, Paris, PernodThe two accordion shots you see here are courtesy of Bui Doi. You can visit his blog and see more of Saigon, and read it in French by clicking above.

For what it's worth, Vietnam now seems to have become a haven for disenfranchised expatriates in Asia. With visa laws reasonably negotiable and plenty of business to go around, it's not as if we are all getting rich but we are certainly getting by – and happy not to be putting up with the BS in our home, arguably, "first world" countries. Artists, musicians, writers and a plethora of wanna-be's populate the streets and pubs of old-becoming-new, Saigon and make this a petrie dish of the lost or rejected. Myself includ30s, Anais Nin, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Man Ray, Paris, Pernoded, this group of societal misfits carry their heads high, yet still below the radar of the PC bullshit they have, at least temporarily evaded, in their home countries. Talk pervades that we have a year, or maybe two. before the WTO kicks in and the Commies are forced to start playing by a world of rules for which this society has not been designed. I heard Kenya last night and often Cambodia as "the next" places for our group of white elephants to go. This blog is getting hits from Sri Lanka recently. In a way, we're the hippies of this era - well educated quasi-intellectuals who have eschewed the crap nationalistic propaganda of our own lands to find more freedom in an only "branded" Communist society that, at least currently, offers more personal freedoms than we all might find back home. Very interesting indeed, this Wild Wild East.

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