America: The illusion continues

I've been a fan of Jonathan Harris' work since long before I met him at the DLD conference in Munich this year. This year he's been on a quest to post one photo a day, every day, from everywhere he has been from Munich to Davos to New Mexico, Iceland, Italy and more. Today's post is about America and I like his take on New York, after his having been in Iceland for the past long few months. "Because when an illusion gets too big, the damage it would cause by collapsing is far more terrible than the damage of keeping it going. It's a simple and sensible trade-off — kind of like trading a car crash for cancer." - Jonathan Harris. That's America alright.

Will the illusion survive for our children - or be passed to the Chinese? Rich over at RCNevada reports that the official unemployment rate in Las Vegas is 14.8%. Wonder what the Chairman of the Board would think of that?

MBAs Growing on Trees?

I had an interesting experience this last year in Germany with an MBA acquaintance who was looking for a job. After a month of searching and calling she was only offered executive assistant work or possibly reception or other general staff work - and with 45,000 students and over 1500 Ph.D. candidates matriculating from LMU in Munich each year, it's no wonder that MBAs seemed to be growing on trees there. One of the world's most affordable tuition structures (EUR 500 per year) doesn't hurt either to get kids hitting the books and passing all the right tests. Plus, it's Germany's #1 rated university and in the top 100 worldwide.

But what is it really all worth when it's over if the graduates are only qualified to work in a convenience store once they have the sheepskin? What is it worth if the graduates just got the degree everyone else wanted for them and didn't study the things they cared about most?

Each year the Princeton Review and USA Today compile a list of "Best Value Universities" in the United States, and that list may surprise you - with Swarthmore college in Pennsylvania and Harvard leading the list of privates and the University of Virginia and City College of New York heading up the public institutions. Universities in the US are generally the most expensive in the world due to lack of public tax funding as one finds more common in Europe and even Japan and George Washington University in D.C. takes the cake as most expensive at $38,000 per year tuition with public universities rounding out the bottom at an average $15,000.

So what does it take to go to one of the best universities and how might one decide what universities those are? The logical take might be to decide first what kind of education one wants and then see who offers that, but the more predominant and somewhat disturbing take amongst many seeking post graduate business education, seems to be to choose the college that impresses others most according to ones budget. If money is no object, just pick the school that others tell you is the best. Who gives a shit what they teach you if the place is well respected by everyone?

And I've met two MBA graduates recently who have reinforced that question to me.

I imagine asking myself, what kind of advice I would give to my son or daughter in situations of this kind. Yes, I'm old enough to have done that already, but haven't yet, so I'll just have to imagine for now. How do I tell them to look for compassion, energy, love and excitement? How do I tell them to always balance statistics and logic with art and literature and a liberal dose of spirituality? Where can they learn risk tolerance and risk taking as equal pursuits or trend bucking and trend spotting as two sides of the same coin? How does one know when it's time to fit in and time to stand out? And if no one ever does anything controversial or is never called foolish, will they just be looked over like too many beautiful flowers in the garden - too many MBAs hanging from that tree?

And I wonder what I would have chosen for myself had those choices been available to me in university - because essentially, I learned all those things, at the hands of a small city college and the university chosen for me by the Illinois State Legislator's Scholarship program. Yes, I was a guest of the state, but in an institution quite different from what many of my high school teachers might have forecast for me. I was fortunate enough to get one of the few free rides available to college students in the US. A free ride to pursue my dream. But I wonder how many people, at no matter what the cost, ever really consider pursuing their dream as opposed to the dreams their family and society have laid out for them.

Shortly after my graduation and firmly ensconced in my fairly shitty first job I attended a lecture sponsored by the DSVC, the Dallas Society of Visual Communications. At this lecture was the designer of the very first Gap store's logo and I remember this speaker's theme, although I remain powerless in finding his name today. In any case, this day, he walked out onto the stage, with no slide show, no samples, and no hoopla - just a mic, and he said, "Today, I'm not going to talk about design. Today, I want to talk about love. Today I want to look at the idea of taking what you love, which happens to be design, and learning how to make a living, and a damn good living at that, doing this thing that you so love". And what an inspiring talk it was - one I don't ever recall hearing at university amidst all the supposed knowledge that was being thrown about. How to make a living, and indeed a life, doing something that one loved. I wonder if that is being taught at all in MBA school today?

The speaker went on to describe that all the time we were at university slaving away at becoming the perfect projectionists of culture upon society, that the rest of the students, the geeks in polo shirts and dockers, were busy learning business - and that now, it was time to turn our attention to the business of learning business - and that in turn, would teach us how to make our living doing something that we loved - doing something that we were passionate about - profitably.

He said that every artist out there had a much better chance of learning business than a business person ever had of learning art - and I have indeed found that to be true. You will find far many more people educated in the creative arts succeeding at some sort of business than you will find business people succeeding professionally at art - and as much as even I too love Warren Buffett, we are much less interested in hearing him play the guitar, which he does.

But my old boss at Leo Burnett, Michael Conrad, has found a twist on the whole idea of the need to foster more creativity in business. At Steinbeis University in Berlin, the Berlin School of Creative Leadership has assembled an all-star squad of current and former advertising creatives to shepherd and lead an EMBA program for working professionals - people schooled in all the proper "T" crossing and "I" dotting of MBA programs who have realized the need for passion, serendipity and the value of doing just enough more than usual to create the kind of "happy accidents" that all great lives and businesses so need to stay vital. How important it is to know that we are not perfect, but to be imperfect often enough to let the law of averages take over and produce something that is just absolutely perfect, every once in awhile - even if only once in a lifetime.

Another recent MBA grad I met recently wondered openly whether her new corporate job would allow her to exercise passion in her life - a question probably far better asked before spending the 70 grand on that prestigious MBA program - a question probably far better asked before half of the people in the world attempt a marriage - a question probably far better asked every single day of our lives, before we don't answer it and end up regretting for forgetting to get that one quiz question absolutely correct - no matter what your GPA might have been.

What Do You Want From Them? WWED Radio Goes National in the US!

I had a message on Facebook the other day from a charming woman in the US named Anna Smith. Anna lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and runs a website called "What Do You Want From Them?" WDYWFT? is a site dedicated to helping young managers and employees cope with the demands of management and working in small and medium sized businesses.

But that wasn't why Anna was messaging me at all. She was writing to ask if she could use our podcast, which I call WWED Radio, on her website. She thought it was the perfect antidote to young management stress. She went on to sell me by calling the playlist "genius" (I agreed) and "a work of art" (and of course I agreed again) and then I not-so-reluctantly agreed once again to let her take the widget and place it on her site, but honestly, she didn't even have to ask. The widget is available to anyone who would like it - and all podcasts are downloadable in mp3 form as well. Anna's just a nice girl and did the right thing in web 2.0 etiquette by asking me. She also provided us a credit and a link, and by golly, a $$ donation to the efforts of WWED! Cheers Anna. WWED luvs U!

"Anna Smith was inspired to create "What Do You Want From Them?" by the struggles she faced managing a tanning salon when she was 20 and a Waffle House when she was 23. "I remember when I was first introduced as a manager and I was 23, every one of my employees was probably in their 40s,” Smith said. Smith created the site to help young managers share experiences and develop relationships with peers or mentors."

She said the the name WDYWFT? came from a question all managers should ask themselves before addressing employees, customers and upper management. As a marketing guy I might expand on that and start a site called, WDTWFY? dedicated to customer service. What Do They Want From You is always a good question to ask there.

Take a look at Anna's site. It's a nice idea and I think she's just in the beginning of building a large and loyal tribe. We're just happy to be the DJs! Coincidentally, Anna is from Germany and that's how she found us.

David Everitt-Carlson 3.0

Sometimes you are less who you think you are, and more what other people say you are. "A lawyer/poet", "The most business oriented creative I have ever worked with", a "strategic eccentric" - I like those.

DEC.BIO.AD.04.10

DLD Munich: New Media Meets the Winter of Love

Wow, four days without a post. Why? Well, the DLD conference was a monster, and I was only there for a day and a half. I posted my story to Technorati last night and here it is. - DLD Munich: New Media Meets the Winter of Love - I'll get my own personal post out today, complete with photos, so for now, I'll just leave you with a shot of me and Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia - but no big deal, he takes photos with everyone and is just a nice, simple and sociable guy. He even took some guy's iPhone and said hello to his Indian girlfriend, in India I believe. My only other overriding impression of the conference was that is was not an inexpensive affair in the least and many of the participants were off to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in the following days. While the world may just be coming out of an economic crisis it didn't seem that this other world of digital communications had seen much of that, or cared. More of the story here.

BIO BS! - Now I can eat what I like, guilt free!

BIO this, BIO that. Moving from a described 'developing' country like Vietnam to a supposed 'developed' country such is Germany brings on a torrent of BIO assault that I was ill-prepared for. I saw it first in a three-week stint in Paris where we had a charming tiny flat just off St. Michel and we literally attacked every grocery from the local fromagerie to Carrefour because we had not seen food so plentiful and beautifully displayed in quite some time. "They only allow beautiful vegetables in Europe", sung my partner as we trolled the aisles of yet another testament to the power and glory of strict government controls (Nanny State), and the overwhelmingly bourgeois tendency to need to look just fantastically smart and erudite whilst engaged in even the most basic of daily chores - like choosing an avocado.

"Let's see, do I need the regular one or the BIO one?" The BIO one cost a Euro more and it's a little smaller. But oh the nutritional value and my financial ability to keep those bad corporate farm chemicals out of my system make it worth it, doesn't it?

Bollocks. Or so says Michael Spector in his new book, 'Denialism, How irrational thinking hinders scientific progress, harms the planet and threatens our lives'. Spector is a respected New Yorker writer and takes on big pharma, big farm-a and a host of other big Washington lobbyists in stating his thesis that big corporate interest is screwing our planet and our people over somehow.

That said, reviewer Tom Philpot takes Spector to task for his premise and basically says that he points the pistol but doesn't even fire a shot at the interests he purports to be taking aim at.

"In the late 18th century, Edward Gibbon fretted about getting into trouble for his blunt take on the early Christians. Short summary: their intolerance and stupidity unwittingly helped bring down Rome. In the above-quoted passage of his 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', Gibbon tried to prepare the gentle reader for his coming exposé of early-church idiocy.

Like the great institutions of European Christianity, modern science has amassed tremendous power—and not always lived up to its founding creeds. Science needs a Gibbon— someone who appreciates its intellectual grandeur and potential, but who also can train a cold eye on the 'inevitable mixture of error and corruption' that has accompanied its tenure since the Enlightenment. That Gibbon is not Michael Specter."

Ahh, but that's all a little too high minded for us plebes here at the WWED isn't it? Yes, I thought so. So let me bring it down to two key points I got out of Spector in the middle of his rant that doesn't seem to have much of a target:

1) Spector points out quite rightly that organic food shows NO, I mean NO scientific benefits at all to the well healed who can afford it, although he does acquiesce that it tastes better and I would tend to agree, especially on the tomahtoes (oh, that British lilt I get in Europe. I love it!)

2) And number two: That multiple vitamins show NO, I mean NO, scientific efficacy in those who take them plus eat well and properly from the food pyramid in the first place.

Damn. Case closed! Gimme a cigarette. I can now rightfully piss off a partner and an ex´wife (whom was already pissed-off) again! Yee-Haa! I win. But not really. I can't count the times I've been statistically correct but still lost the war. Vietnam proved that against the Americans with the Chu Chi tunnels and the avoidance of more ordinance than had ever been dropped inside such a restricted perimeter and on so many people (who are basically still kicking ass today).

In Vietnam they would win no points whatsoever for appetizing display, unless of course you consider six live frogs strung together by palm strips and only available by the six-pack. appetizing, but never in a day in Vietnam did I feel that I was eating unhealthily or un-appetizingly. On the contrary. To eat at my street-side deer restaurant and have a deer sate and 6 plump deep fried prawns and a beer for four dollars now seems like heaven.

That other people deny themselves happiness when they feel I smoke too much, drink too much or eat the wrong things is really not my problem is it? I'm happy. I wish they could be happier with themselves - instead of living a life in pseudo-scientific denial.

Merry Christmas 2009: Nothing much happened (XVII) in Munich today

Ask anyone what is their ideal Christmas and you will get a hundred different ideas. That's certainly what I found when I moved to Korea in 1995. There, even with Christianity being the predominant religion, you were not to have found even the commercialism of the event to have been even remotely close to anything one would have understood from America. The photo to the left is of course not Korea, but Japan, but to me at the time they were both just as foreign. It's just not jolly olde St. Nick or even an image of a baby being born in a manger. It's another world entirely.

And strangely you might think, exactly how I have felt this year spending my first Christmas in Germany. Foreign. Isolated by language and culture, but most of all, without family or friends. I had felt this my first year in Asia as well, but hadn't felt that for the succeeding 14 years. Even in Vietnam there was always the expats get together at an Irish pub of some sort for a big Holiday feed. But here in Germany, the expat community is largely families and the town, at least Munich from what I've seen, just rolls itself up for the holiday. Rows and rows of darkened shop windows roll by as I take the tram home from my holiday food shopping, midday on Christmas Eve. There wasn't going to be even any 'go to the pub and hoist a few brews with your other single mates' on the night before. The Catholicism here is awfully serious. Too serious for me - and I'm Catholic - but maybe not a very good one. This was going to be a solitary Christmas with me and my friendly TV. CNN, BBC, Bloomberg and CNBC only in English. You can forget the traditional holiday films as well. If anything is on, it's in German.

The following story comes from my book Wild Wild East. What I know now is that it was the beginning of the end for my marriage at the time. You find out maybe something you never knew before about a person when they see a holiday differently than you.

Excerpt from Wild Wild East:

By December of 2005 I was not of the opinion that Korea nor my transferring company had been particularly kind to me. Real estate shown to my wife and I was substandard by any estimation and Korea was not exactly a developing country at that point (#18 on the global GDP list as I recall) but it was being sold as such. Wondering why the other two managing partners were driving brand new cars while I was being offered the company president's six year old black sedan never produced any meaningful answers until I queried them on Korean terms. "Who's the president of this company?", I inquired. "Well, Mr. Kwon is of course", replied the company accountant. "And what kind of car does he get?" I queried again. "Well, a Grandeur of course", was the response. Grandeur was the top of the line Hyundai at the time. "And who is the Vice President of this company", I then asked. "You are, sir", said he. "And what kind of car do I get?" "A Grandeur sir, but not as good a one as Mr. Kwon's." And that was it. Battle won. I got a new car. But rather than approach it on logical western terms I had to take it to Korean level. In Korea, your car says who you are and what level you are. I knew that. I just needed to let them know that I knew that. Their insistance that I take a pretty beat 6 year old car wasn't about the money at all. It was about them trying to put me in a lower position than they would have put a countryman. The silly games people play.

After nearly 5 months of bowing at meetings and wrangling over the smallest of details, like the extra $15 a month it cost to put another phone line in for my Internet connection I had about had it with the cultural niceties I was expected to extend to these people. They had been fucking me around entirely and it took a day on a street corner to get my head around that and decide I was mad as hell and just wasn't going to take it any more. I got tired of being the new guy. The new American guy. Now was time to get even. And a little cowboy spirit is just what I needed.

Standing at a large boulevard corner on my walk home from work one day, I found my 5'10.5" frame towering over a throng of black haired, oriental rice-bowl coiffed individuals waiting for the light to change when I had my epihany. "I'ma Merican goddammit! And I want my Budweiser Beer, a Chevy truck and my friggin' home on the friggin' range goddammit!", I bellowed to the inside of my own cranium. Kicking my shoulders back and deciding not to take any shit anymore from these yokels who had so obviously been running me around the cultural Maypole, I found my real self. Tomorrow would be a different day I vowed. Tomorrow I would start to drive the bus the way I wanted to drive it. Straight and with the pedal to the metal.

Christmas was just around the corner and I had done my best to make arrangements with my wife back in the States via email but in 1995 the concept of email was still relatively new even in America and she was not entirely comfortable with using it at all. In fact, she almost never used it. I had asked via mail that she work with our building staff to get a Christmas tree delivered to the house and told her I would be home on Christmas Eve exactly. On the evening of Christmas Eve exactly. We had been involved in getting a McDonald's commercial off the boards and into production at the agency in Seoul and my Christmas preparations, save for buying presents, had been next to nil and I was so looking forward to going back home and dealing with things familiar, even if just for a week, to chill the sounds of chopsticks clacking and the smell of kimchi in office elevators after lunch on a normal day in Korea. I needed Frank Sinatra, the smell of a pine tree and a pot of potpourri simmering on the stove - and to just sit on my own sofa and see the walls of my own house with my own art. I had been living in the Westin Chosun hotel in Seoul for the past five months and whilst a 5-star affair had about zero charm after too many months on the company tab.

Home was needed. Home was missed. Home was where I needed to be for the holidays, in preparation for what would certainly be the next Korean war when I returned to Seoul in the new year and attempted to get a relatively simple storyboard on film without most of the agency or the client screwing it up.

The flight to Chicago from Seoul was never a pleasant one. 11 hours to LA or San Francisco and then the jaunt to Chi Town, or if I was extremely lucky, a nonstop on United directly to the windy city. I don't remember exactly what I got on this trip but what I do remember was that I was very tired when I arrived. My life had become a twenty-four-hour marathon of communication from the home office when I was in Korea and the reverse from Korea when I was in Chicago. Basically, I never knew when to sleep.

Arriving at 2300 Lincoln Park West was never much of a homecoming affair - what with my global traveling schedule becoming a routine thing, my wife and I had given up airport meetings years ago. If she had to come to the airport everytime I had a flight arriving she'd never have had much time at home. We had adopted the roles of respectable D.I.N.K.S. with both of our professional schedules taking up all the time that we would allow. Little did I know that my wife was to have allowed more time for her professional endeavors that year than even I had and I was just about to find out exactly how much that was, and what impact it would have on my perception of Christmas in 1995.

A hello to our top-hatted doorman at The Belden Stratford, a waltz past the never-played Steinway grand and it was up to 801 for my now ubiquitous international Hi-honey-I'm-home! "Hi honey, I'm home!" I chimed as I opened the front door to a house that looked suspiciously just like the one I had visited just months before. No tree. Not a Christmas decoration to be seen. No music and certainly no potpourri simmering on our stove. Oh, simmering is just what I was beginning to experience.

A hug and a kiss on the cheek from my seemingly preoccupied wife, she explained to me that she was working on the computer crunching out some design for the public relations firm she was working for. Burson Marsteller it was. Weren't we the successful couple? Me a globetrotting Vice President at Leo Burnett and she a senior designer with the largest PR firm in town. Fucking perfect we were. Fucking perfect yuppies we were. Disgustingly perfect. And that would turn out to be precisely the problem this Eve of Christmas.

"Honey, where's the Christmas tree?" I inquired. A stream of I've-been-so-busy-at-work drivel hit the air and I was like, "huh?". Did I just get off a plane from the other side of the world and was I being told that she didn't have the time to get a Christmas tree up here by a few minutes at the front desk of our more than tenant friendly apartment building? Fuck that. Complete crap. I couldn't believe it. Didn't she have any idea just how cold and foreign my surroundings had been for the past few months and how much it meant for me to be welcomed home with at least what I thought was the familiar and traditional feeling of Christmas during the holiday? Apparently not.

"What was she thinking?", I was thinking. And the answer to that was simple. She was not thinking. At least not of the value of our holiday in relation to whatever corporate assignment had been keeping her busy. Bollocks.

I dropped my gear, donned a pair of jeans and stormed out the front door in a huff. Jezziz. I have to travel half way around the friggin' globe just to get a Christmas tree in this joint? Yes, I did. And so I did. I was down to the corner lot and after shelling out a pack of twenties , dragging my own Christmas tree back to my needing to be, happier home. This was not James Stewart going home to Donna Reed. This was no Wonderful Life. I was pretty pissed off, but dragging a Christmas tree home will help you burn off quite a bit of steam and I know I was fine by the time I returned. We decorated the tree that night but that was to be the beginning of the end of that marriage. Conflicting priorities. Dual working couple pressures and international timezone mismatches would take their toll in the months to follow, but what had become abundantly clear by this time is that I had been growing a different skin while in Korea and she had kept the same old one. I had been taking in massive amounts of new information and she had simply stayed in the same place and was doing more and more of the same thing. Instead of growing together, we were growing apart and in the end, that's what will inevitably write an end for itself. You don't even need to do the writing. It's on the wall after awhile. All you need to do is read it.

This year in Germany had a similar flavor to that past time but in this case the reason's and personal circumstances were completely different. What began as two of us working towards a common goal in our travels away from Vietnam, has become two people working on their individual pursuits with little or no accommodation for the other in daily life. I would very much like to see that be different again but my partner of past has a lot of understanding of her own about her own self to accomplish before she can allow much thinking for another in her life. At one point she complained that I complained about not being able to spend Christmas together. "You know, I hardly ever had a Christmas where I got to spend it with my mom and dad", she said, "and I never complained". How do you teach a person about a warm Christmas together with the people close to you, if they've never experienced one? The only thing one can wish for is a chance to do it someday. That one will have to be left in God's hands this year - as well it should. That's what Christmas is really all about. The hand of God.

Today's solo meal of Braised Lamb Chops with Balsamic Reduction was complimented by Grilled Eggplant topped with a Spicy Avocado Relish Coulis that was slightly chunky and crunchy as opposed to pureed. Yummy. The only thing that would have made it better would have been sharing it. Merry Christmas all. Bon appetite. Time for me to do the dishes.

Fries with that sir?

I wonder how I will look in that paper hat? I was recently advised that taking a job at McDonald's is a way that many foreigners get a work permit for Germany. And with just a couple of months here I can understand why. With a full-time job one is able to participate in the social system which includes health insurance and for all that's a primary importance. My current status is as a freelance worker and that requires I provide my own insurance at around a hundred dollars a month. Recently in an email from my father he advised that I not come back to the US. 'There are no jobs here', he says and as a 53 year old professional, I wonder if there will ever be any more conventional jobs for me. Recently, in Vietnam, where the advertising business actually enjoyed a 30% increase in adspend, I know of at least three senior level people who were released with companies looking to trim budget and reduce losses globally. And how will I enjoy that paper hat? Better than I might enjoy a paper blanket on the street, I expect.

Does Your Country Market Itself Well? These do...

According to the finance ministers of both France and Germany, the recession is over with two quarters of growth reported for both countries. The United Kingdom is another story but that's not my story today. My story today is about Kosovo, and Poland, and Turkey, and Georgia, and Macedonia, and Romania, and Equitorial Guinea - because those are the countries buying up all the media time on CNN and BBC here in Germany to tout their foreign investment programs to corporations all over Europe. Those are the people who want your money.



Make sure to pause the music in the podcast before playing the video.
Wait, who? Let's do that again: Kosovo, Poland, Turkey, Georgia, Macedonia, Romania and Equitorial Guinea. Yep those are the big media spenders around here. Not China, Japan or America because they don't care at all about foreign direct investment. But these people above do and are making a real play for investment dollars with high levels of university graduates, tax incentives and workforces that are more than willing to work for just a fraction of what most conventional Europeans would consider reasonable.

Kosovo is particularly interesting. Take a look at the spot above. Rather than trot out it's economic statistics as does Turkey in their campaign, Kosovo goes for the heartstrings of it's own citizens by showing it's youth building their idea of the future, and attractively so I might say. For the record, Kosovo is one of the youngest countries in the world and has an average age of just 25.9 years old. This spot was produced by Saatchi & Saatchi and is really quite nice. Good song too.

While in Paris earlier this year I had a conversation with someone who was telling me that the French were protesting one Dijon Mustard company for moving it's manufacturing out of France and over to Poland for cheaper labour, but apparently mustard companies aren't bound by the same rules as winemakers in France. You couldn't move Champagne production out of Champagne, France and still call it Champagne, but you can move Dijon mustard making out of Dijon, France and still call it Dijon.

And so the world is changing. Again. Or still. I'm curious to know if any of the above named countries are running the same commercials in America? If you're in the States and have seen any advertising for these countries, please leave a comment here. With the US still technically in a recession I suspect that this is a European focused effort only.

Wir verfehlen Sie Michael Jackson! Oh, Michael, we hardly knew ye... Nothing Much Happened (XV) In München Today

And who would have thunk, that MJ would have been a fixture here in Germany, and in Munich of all places. I posed earlier this year on his death while I was in Dalat on a rebirth of my own but I never would have considered that his passing would have made a blip on the radar here. Wrong. Here a photo at the base of a statue of Orlande de Lassus who was evidently a very famous composer who died in 1594 (thanks to RCNevada for the info here) , redecorated to be a shrine to Jackson, and a woman mourning on a quiet afternoon here in Deutschland. Even when MJ dies, MJ lives. I found it touching. Many of you will have noticed lately that a friend of mine has had a dimming of life as of late, and so I ask you to all please say a prayer for her. I do every night. She has taken up the guantlet of her issues and tackled them head on. She dissed MJ at his death for being weak and unable to control his life or finances. May we all gain strength from him and move forward. This is it. The first day of the rest of our lives. Click on the photo to see it larger. It really is touching.

You could lead the horse to water, but you could not make it drink...

Imagine a world of Dali-esque proportions. Where all the clocks dripped in the sluggish taking of time. Now imagine a world where love goes by that clock, continually making times and commitments but totally missing them, always. That's a world I know, and I know it well over the last eight months. A world where someone will throw any amounts of time and money into an endeavor, yet not themselves, truly. Almost as if failure is engineered in the planning by just not showing up. A world in which all is given but then taken back three-fold the next day in waves of guilt and misdiagnosis of past committments. Is that hell? Surrealistic hell? Yes, it is. But the other person plunders on in some manufactured reality that doesn't happen to include all the other people in their life, just their own fantasy. But you still love them, because you know they'll figure it out sooner or later - but just not sooner. Maybe years of psychobabble will sort this out. Do I have time? Hell I'm old. Guess time is one of the things I really do have. I like much better the ideas of Hieronymous Bosch, a happy German and his Garden of Earthly Delights, but explaining this work to a person who has maybe never visited a museum wouldn't be the best idea. So let's get simple. Can you lead a horse to water but not make them drink? Yup. But in my case, I didn't really lead the horse to water. The horse was looking for something to drink, and I just showed it the concept of water. And that horse said, "What's that?" And I said, "Well, it's water, It's what you want" and it said, "Well I don't know that and I won't have that becuase I've never seen that before in my life". Yeah okay, Hmm, Question: how do you convince a person that water is what they need. Answer: You don't. And so I don't. Don't I need to pay the rent this month? Back to work...

Icarus my love: Nothing Much Happened (XI) in München Today II

Those wings are yours. And powerful. And full of good meaning. The sun melted some, but you came down in time to not fall. To not fall completely. Injured? A bit. But not damaged beyond repair. Oh how I could have wished those wings were for me. But they were not. They were for you. Only you who didn't know. And now you do. Finally I heard it from your own mouth. Listen to yourself, you can hear it too.

Fly dear Icarus again. And find your proper altitude. And truth. Truth in you, first. Peace. YAL, always. Now, my job is done as well. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti...

A death and birth in Dalat. Long live Michael Jackson. Long live Infinite Wisdom.

My birthday week in Dalat was inspiring. I was taken as a birthday gift and if one can be given peace, comfort, hope, inspiration and confidence in a big box with a ribbon on it, that was my gift. A gift from God. No cakes cut, no candles lit and no songs sung. It was perfect.

The Ana Mandara resort is an old French colonial weekend colony that has been meticulously refurbished to maintain the architectural integrity of the original villas whilst bringing them up to date with WiFi, microwave cooking and the like. The staff are courteous and casual and make a science out of staying out of your way while still making sure that all service points are met. Birds sing daily and nights by the fire are standard. Our villa had three fireplaces, making me a full-time Boy Scout and just as happy as could be. Candles are lit in groups of three always. Flowers arranged immediately. A trip to the market one day brought tuna, vegetables, fruits and the finest of Dalat's vineyards - and with the help of the resort kitchen for pots and pans, I was able to cook a meal that rivaled what the chefs had been preparing for us the whole time. Magical. With a jazz soundtrack. Morning was delivered in waves of reflection and care. Introspection and extroversion. Exploration and discovery of truth, love, logic, loss, magic and pro-activity. Beautiful mystery, explained - explained again.

Then Michael Jackson died. Turning on the BBC while having my morning coffee, it was like a replay of Princess Diana's death in August of 1997 except the celebrities had been changed and the person to whom I would deliver the news would be different. In 97 I had driven from the lake house to the local convenience store for the morning's milk and eggs when I saw the newspaper headline as big as it could have been printed, "Di Dies!". This I knew somehow, would be reacted to profoundly by my wife who was still sleeping back at the cottage. When I asked her why this was such important news, during the day long coverage her response was simple. "David", she said, "Don't you know that every little girl wants to grow up to be a princess?" This response would prove to be a milestone in my understanding of women in general but not prepare me much for my traveling companion's reaction to Jackson's death. "Michael Jackson was a foolish man. He couldn't manage his life or his money", was the statement. No sorrow, no sympathy, no regret. Just a cold hard statement of what was essentially the truth. Michael Jackson was a victim of himself and no one else - now relegated the the historical oddity chamber of pop fame.

And did he contribute to my life? Yes. But did his death have the impact on me of that of John Lennon's? No. Because with Lennon a part of my childhood died but with Jackson only a part of his childhood died. He seemed to live in a perpetual Peter Pan state and that, in the end, may have been his demise. He refused to grow up. And my week in Dalat would teach me that, that was exactly what I needed to do.

Grow up a little bit more.

I have always been extremely guarded of the childish part in me that looks at a white sheet of paper and conceives castles to commerce and so showing that to others has been something I have avoided - even to my wife during our 15 years in marriage. Yet here in Dalat I was being confronted by a friend, confidant and full-time muse to look beyond my reality and into a future of intelligence, stability and growth - a future so unlike anything that Michael Jackson could have ever conceived.

And so a death, and a birth, were happening in Dalat - all at the same time. It was coincidence, and contradiction and contrition to the fact that I would need to leapfrog some things in business and jump-start the machine again - all inspired by the most unlikely person I had met through a failed job interview. Who knew. Well, it seems that God knew. From Dalat comes the invention of a new business. A combination of art, commerce, logic. illogic, inspiration, analysis, magic and maturity. I'm not going to go into a full description now, but I will explain the name. The name came from a desire to combine creativity and logic in a business sense. The name is Infinite Wisdom. More on that later.

For readers in Germany, France and Africa stay tuned for an upcoming tour schedule as the Wild Wild East goes west. A death in Dalat. A birth in Dalat. From the loss of Michael Jackson to the birth of Infinite Wisdom. The one to thank, already knows. It's time to take this show on the road. Long live Michael Jackson.