Lunch With Obama: Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX

I was a ping pong ball today. My 11am was put off until three so I decided to jump up another appointment until just after lunch and then shoot back downtown for the 3 o'clock. On the way is one of Saigon's ubiquitous "wet markets" complete with fish sellers, plenty of hanging bags of noodles, garlic, dried peppers, panty-hose, sneakers, soap, handbags and dried squid amidst the aromatic drifts of coffee and chopped mint leaves. Does this sound disorganized? Only if you're anal retentive and have never visited Vietnam. This, my friends, is normal, and the sooner you get used to that, the sooner you'll understand my wonderful lunch.
I had never eaten at this particular market before, so when I say ubiquitous, I mean you wouldn't know one from the other once you are inside. I made my way down the far left and partially outdoor aisle of fresh veggies, hanging chickens and swishing catfish to find the food stalls in the rear of the place - and even as a three-year resident of the city, I still don't know exactly what goes into each bowl I see prepared. I spy new stuff everyday. But the last woman on the aisle knew what a foreigner wanted when she saw him. She hoisted her selection of fried spring rolls and pointed to the large bowls of noodles and fresh veggies waiting on her prep table - the idea being that they would all be mixed together in a savory concoction and dashed with spicy sauce. She nailed it.


I sat down and immediately made contact with the man to my left. He smiled a surprisingly youthful grin with a mole on his left-hand cheek sprouting as many as ten very long grey hairs. This is seen as early as men can grow facial hair and although I don't know the meaning of it exactly, I do know that it is seen as a sign of good luck, beauty and possibly wisdom for Vietnamese men. He had more hairs than I had ever seen out of this particular mole. Together we cobbled together a conversation that started with our respective ages. He held up five fingers and pointed at me. I held up five, then two, as I am fifty two. He then held up six and then seven and pointed to the woman preparing my meal. She smiled, and honestly, looked great - still in her mid fifties you would think. These numbers hit a pad of paper between us just to make sure that we both understood and then he held up seven, and lifted his chin. 70. Geez. You could easily have seen this man as a handsome young soldier with a big shock of John F. Kennedy hair atop his head - still there, yet now grey on top with dark brown under his horizontal wave from right to left. We all smiled.


The idea of youth had not evaded a one of us. The woman, I had now surmised was his wife, served me my bowl and it was all as promised - a big heaping pile of white noodles with chopped fried spring rolls, bacon and diced veggies on top. Look at the pictures of the old Vietnamese "enemy" from the war and see how skinny they appear. These people do not eat poorly, they eat handsomely - but always healthily. It's an art they have honed to perfection.
As I chowed down they were not surprised at my dexterous use of chopsticks - rather they were respectful that I had at least been around awhile and learned the local custom seamlessly. The man then blurted at me whilst pointing at my face and said "New Zealand?"
"No", I retorted, "American, American", I said.
"America?", they chortled together in unison, with eyes as round as saucers hosting a bit of wonder and respect.
"Yes", I said, "Yes". And then what happened, I could never have expected.
"Obama, #1", they blared together, "Obama #1", they chimed, with four thumbs jerked up in the air to form the universal #1 symbol.
I couldn't have smiled enough with them. For how many years have I waited for America's pride, and other country's pride in us to be restored in this, most curious of cases, by a President-elect.


As Americans, there is certainly one thing we must never forget. The world looks to us as the best example going of democracy in practice, fairness and opportunity for all. Our people have once again captivated the world by making a collective decision in the direction that will balance a previously tilted scale and hopefully shine a light of optimism on some of the less lit corners of the globe. The food stall I was dining at was buried deep in the heart of the cacophonous market but had a light that shined ever so brightly, just for the seconds that we all smiled together. Lunch with Obama. #1.
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


For more on Obama, click below:

Obama to Send 30,000 Troops to Tiger Woods House

Rick Wagoner Makes History - First CEO To Be Fired By A Sitting President
"I Vote For Black Man!" - Obamanation II
Lunch With Obama: Perspective XVI - The Little Things IX
A sex Redesign obama For scandal The oprah Wild oral Wild butt East iPhone Dailies
"Yes We Can": Obamanation
MENSA Endorces McCain/Palin
Obama Splits Ticket, Boots Biden!
Belgian Prime Minister Quits Over Budweiser Purchase!
Obama Brandishes a Bud For The Bubbas!

The Vietnam sNews - Nothing Much Happened Again Today in Vietnam: V

Yep, today was boring as usual. A slow news day - so I'm going to spend some time with the local paper, The Vietnam sNews and read it to you - cover to cover.

Let's go!

The Vietnam sNews - all the news the censors say is fit.

Front page:

Headline: British glam rocker Gary Glitter freed in Vietnam

By SUPIN WANNAGOHORNY – 4 days ago

BANGKOK, Thailand (PP) — British glam rocker Gary Glitter was refused entry into Thailand, officials said Wednesday, a day after the convicted child molester was freed by Vietnam following nearly three years in prison.

The 64-year-old Glitter arrived at Bangkok, Thailand's international airport after Vietnam deported him. But he refused to board a connecting flight to London and officials denied him entry into Thailand, a senior immigration official told The Associated Press.

Glitter was confined to an airport transit lounge, police Maj. Gen. Phongded Chaiprawat said. Phongded said he did not known Glitter's next destination but that it was the responsibility of Thai Airways International, the national carrier on which Glitter was flying, to fly him out of Thailand. "Those assholes ought to fly him to hell, that f#%&*^$! pervert", he stated.

Another Thai immigration official at the airport said his department received a note from Vietnam and Interpol requesting that Glitter not be allowed entry into Thailand. "Give him the old cavity search for about 18 hrs.", the note read, "He liked that sort of thing in prison". The official spoke on condition of anonymity since he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The immigration official said Glitter refused to board the London-bound plane, complaining of an ear ache. Immigration officials, he said, gave the airline permission to take Glitter to an airport clinic where the doctor checked his complaint. He was then returned to the airport's lounge with the ear having been removed and put into a jar of formaldahyde for reattachment after the flight. Poofter.

Page 2- Business:

Headline: Smelly seafood industry loves exports

By Khanh Thanh Manh– 4 days ago

HCM CITY — In the first seven months of the year, Viet Nam’s seafood export turnover increased by 200 per cent year on year to US$20.4 billion, according to the Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Pirates (VASEP). "Geeez, the smell of fish around here is excruciating! You'd think somebody died but we're laughing all the way to the bank", said a representative who wished to remain un-named. In July alone, processors exported over 136,000 tonnes of stinky seafood, worth nearly $476 million, according to VASEP. This is the highest growth rate for quantity and value in the past three hundred years. "This stuff was poor quality anyway. Better to get a bunch of dumb foreigners to eat it than serving it to our own people", the official stated.

Page 3- International:

Headline: Foreign men come by the bazzilions to Vietnam

By Tranh Phanh Schwanh– 4 days ago

(23-08-2008)

HCM CITY — Although this year’s rate of male attraction to Viet Nam is lower than last year’s, the country is still the fiftieth most attractive destination for men among emerging markets, according to the second annual PricewaterhosePoopers (PwP) Emerging Market 20 Index. "You could put your money in Mongolia and chase camels across the Gobi but Vietnam's warmer, has beautiful women and the ability to get over-the-counter drugs that you'd need a court order for in the western world" said an immigrant who wished not to be identified.

"I get a woody just thinkin' about it", he continued. The index shows that the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) continue to offer good opportunities for male investment. However, the results of PwP’s innovative country risk and reward model put Vietnam in a class of it's own. "I chase tail in Vietnam every day and all I ever loose is the cash in my pocket, a celphone or an iPod or two. I'm good to go!"

Page 4 - Finance:

Headline: Cashew cash goes south

By Lanh Quanh Danh– 4 days ago

(23-08-2008)

BINH DINH — Farmers are chopping down cashew plants in the south-central province of Binh Dinh, complaining the crop "ain't worth a hill of beans".

Figures from the province’s agricultural department show that the area under cashew cultivation has shrunk by 10,000 ha this year to 180,000ha. Up to another 20,000ha are forecast to be lost this year.

Farmers say that if the weather is fine a ha of cashew yields 400 kilograms of nuts. At VND10,000-15,000 per kilogram, they earn a profit of a mere VND2-3 million per ha. Ha, ha, ha. "Chicken feed, I'd say", said Tranh Long Dich, an ex-cashew farmer

If the crop is affected by disease, the profit turns into a loss, they points out.

With the plants usually grown on hilly land in Binh Dinh Province, they find it hard to apply intensive farming. If there is heavy rain during the time the plants blossom, they bear few fruit, leading to even lower productivity. "This is crap", said another local farmer, "I'm going to Saigon to open a massage parlour. I'm getting a line to Amex and will just bleed expat foreigners coming in here on fat corporate contracts. Now that's a living I tell ya. Screw cashews."

Page 5 - Leisure:

Headline: Belly dancing boyz bare their buttons

By Zanh Xuanh Nanh– 4 days ago

(23-08-2008)

I almost didn’t recognise Nguyen Manh, an office worker, when he changed from business attire to an Arabian dress, adorned with bells and baring his midriff. He is getting ready for his belly dance class with South Korean dance teacher Ara Hwang, who is considered to have first introduced Viet Nam to belly dancing. Many men like Manh are taking up belly dancing as a new fitness and beauty trend in Ha Noi and HCM City. "Being gay used to be a problem in Vietnam but no longer", he said. "Now chicks dig me!"

Lan finds office work repetitive and stressful, he was first attracted to belly dancing as a way to relax, but has since discovered other benefits. He has been belly dancing for over a year, and while other students go to one class a week, he attends at least four.

"Practising once a week is not enough to remember the dance movements, I have to practice regularly," he says.

"Belly dance is not so much for fitness or weight loss, if I just wanted to lose weight, I would go to aerobics class, but I'm gay so all I care about is meeting men who want have rabid uncontrolled wild sex with me!" says Lan. "I love belly dance because it makes me love my body and discover my true self."

Disclaimer: Of course none of this is real. Are you a bleeding idiot? No animals were hurt in the making of this blog. None of the people except Gary Glitter are real. This is satire. Deal with it.

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

My Walk In The Park Today: Nothing Much Happened in Vietnam Today III

Two Hours:

WALKING 5pm
1) Take a hard left semi-U-turn out of my house and you're headed down an alley just wide enough for you and a passing motorbike – well, okay, a lot of passing motorbikes – and then it's down home where the real people live. A friend of mine has said that Vietnam is the only country where you have to watch out for getting run over by a restaurant! And in this tight little alley that is indeed the case, because it is in these tiny alleys that the ladies prepare all the food that will end up on the street vendors carts that travel the main streets. It is also where people these people live and you can see them just three feet away from you, feet propped up on the sofa, shirtless men and shoeless women watching TV or operating their computers. I am always a little self conscious in these areas and try not to look as if I am peering into their privacy, but I have to admit, I am curious. Curious about all sorts of things. 2) Why do they decorate their houses the way they do? The Buddha shrines, with flashing Christmas lights way low on the floor next to the steep wooden staircases – the pictures mounted much higher on the walls than would be a conventional eye level – the multitude of what seem to be more Christmas decorations hung in all the oddest places – and of course pictures of babies or recent graduates in gowns or Jesus or Mary. 3) And out front of the shirtless man watching TV will be a small cart of electrical fittings – light bulbs, plugs, wires, fuses and whatnot along with maybe flour or instant noodles that you can buy from his wife – all that stuff on one cart mind you. 4) And I walk through the maze, twisting and turning my way past the Temple and the kids playing 20 year-old massive video games in a tiny room just big enough for four machines as I survey foods I would never see on the main streets. Oh, noodles (Pho) for sure, but other stuff – pickled, what look to be brainy innards of unknown mammals and other things coated in flour and deep fried to obscure whatever the original food was that is now inside. 5) Then boom. The alley spills out onto one of the busiest streets in my neighborhood, Tran Hung Dao Street, and my appetite is confused. Did I really want to try any of that stuff I saw, knowing full well that nobody will be able to speak enough English to explain to me what it was? Maybe not. But I like fried food. 6) Tran Hung Dao is now the center of one of the largest excavations Saigon has ever seen. A combination of installing the air vents for Line 1 of the new subway system and a citywide drainage project have caused the middle of what would normally be a fairly wide boulevard to be a tall green-sheeted-steel construction site forcing all the motorbikes onto the sidewalk during rush hour and most other hours of the day. Bad place to be a pedestrian. 7) I pull a yellow post-it note from my breast shirt pocket and look at the address – 219 Tran Hung Dao – but it's not my handwriting. And I have no idea what this post-it was doing in the pile of papers I cleaned up in my office today. The mysteries here never cease. Time to track down 219. 219 I surmise, is on the other side of the street in that, that seems to be where all the odd numbers are – but that might not always be the case. Sometimes odd and even numbers change at street corners, and never does a 214 on one side find a corresponding 215 on the other side. That could be blocks away. I have no idea why. In Korea, building numbers designate when the building was built, not it's placement on the street – so it would be perfectly normal to find a 217 next to a 712, because 712 was built many years later on the lot that possibly used to be 219, but not probably. But this is Vietnam and not Korea so I'm sure there's some ancient Confucian logic as to why it's fucked up differently than it would be fucked up in another Confucian society. Check the Anelects for the answer. 8) I know a woman here who will not cross the street. Seriously – she will have the cab driver go a full city block down and u-turn to get her directly in front of an address instead of braving traffic and saving a few dong to do so. Because she was hit once by a motorbike and quite seriously injured – broken leg and all – some hospital time she tells me. But I'm a trooper – and I've installed eyes on all four sides of my head. I used to be a lot better looking before the extra eye implants, but now I look better. 9) And it's not just bikes one needs to look out for – it's buses, two guys carrying sheet-glass or large mirror panels on a Honda, guys carrying beer on a Honda, or a refrigerator, three wheeled motorbike dump-trucks, cyclo drivers and the odd bicyclist, or a whole lot of bicyclists and cops. It's "Frogger" for grown-ups. Quite the trip. 10) 219 turns out to be an air-conditioning shop with some other electrical appliances, water heaters and such. I have no idea what that address was doing in my possession. Doesn't make any sense. 11) Most people have no idea what it's like to see a whole city just shedding it's skin daily and rebuilding itself – better, faster, shiny-er. Absolutely no city in the US has ever gone through this sort of a transition – at least not in modern times – and certainly not at this speed. I am just awash in the construction of new buildings at every glance. Addresses for many places are just positively worthless because it's a fairly good bet, if it was an old building, that it's not there anymore. 12) Inflation in Vietnam is being charted at 20% this year, but you won't find the local papers reporting that much. They say 10% – but that's as much BS as the government can shovel and everyone, certainly the Viets, knows it. That's one of the miracles of Communism. People know most of the info is BS and just go about their business anyway. They had 300% inflation in the late 80s so 20% doesn't look so bad today. 13) Back on the same side of the street I started on, I decide it's time for a little stroll, past some of the new car showrooms on Tran Hung Dao when I find the gem – no, not a Bentley this time, but a Jaguar XJ Vanden Plas. This car retails in the US for an MSRP of around $95,000 with tax differing between states but as the Vietnamese salesman happily explains to me – in perfect English, of course – that he can put me behind the wheel for a cool $230,000 I am just amazed. What a bargain. That's almost 1/2 what the Bentley would have set me back – with the 83% Luxury excise tax included! "Wrap it up", I tell him. "My wife will call you with the Amex number". 14) Geeziz. 15) Now I'm ready to eat some of whatever they were selling on alley #1. I double back and find myself strangely happy again to be back in the midst of normal people. Or at least as normal as they get around here. Any of these rice or Pho ladies could easily sell her three-storey flat for a million dollars as a teardown and buy that Jag with money to spare for the kid's education and a nice suburban home in the States. But she won't today. Today she will sell me a mysterious fried delight! To my surprise the elder of the two ladies, and I mean elder like 80, speaks perfect English. "Banana", she says, "Do you want banana?", she repeats. "No, I don't like banana", I tell her – "What's this one over here?" And that's where we hit the language barrier. Whatever it was, didn't have a name I might understand, and she knew that. But it looked good anyway and only cost 2000 dong, about 12 cents, so I took a bag. One of the things you learn around here is to always take a bite and smile, no matter what you are eating, even if it tastes like utter crap. But this was good. A little crispy spicy fried outside with a bit of a sweet soft chewey center, it was a bit like a Cajun Fry with a surprise inside. Charming actually. "Good?", she queried. "Yes, good!", I told her. An 80 year old grin spread from ear to ear and her daughter, the sixty-something one, nodded in approval. I'm sure they both had learned how to feed a GI or two in the old days. 16) Next up, a real dinner. Just a few steps down another lady had a wok in which she was deep frying something that appeared to be shrimp toast. A baguette split, layered with shrimp, shell on of course, and dipped in a very light rice flour batter and then fried over a little camp stove. I ordered two. They came with a sauce of dark soy paste (Hoysen in the US) mixed with a jelly-like chili squirt and a few ground fresh chilis for the lion-hearted to drive it all home. Stir, serve & dip. Man, these suckers were good. Had I ever been raised a suthun' boy these damn things woulda' made Mama proud. Delicious. – I thanked my hosts and moved along. 17) No day like this would be complete without a walk in the park so I ventured back out the alley from which I had started and made the two-block walk to the big city park nearby. Here I saw what looked like the largest stage I had ever seen erected and the set design, still in progress, resembling a cardboard mountain of sorts, with dancers and singers rehearsing for a director who sat atop a motorbike in the parking lot and barked instructions through a wireless microphone at the performers. And I can tell you, he was less than pleased with two of the girl singers. They were cute as hell but honestly couldn't have sung their way out of paper bags and he knew it. I suspect they knew it too but are probably models or sitcom celebrities and have a little too much princess disease to ever be completely cured – that's what backing tracks and lip-sync are for. But on this particular day, they were doing the vocals live against backing tracks and the director was going to get what he wanted, or at least closer to it. He made them do it again. And they sucked even more. NEXT! 18) The next three girls had excellent voices and could really sing but seemed a bit rusty on their blocking and minimal choreography. That what backup dancers are for. The director hurried them off and a large dance group appeared for a whole routine against music. Flag waving and Busby Berkeley kind of stuff. 19) But throughout this whole time, I had a great need to figure out what all this song and dance was going to be about. I didn't see any pictures of Uncle Ho around and it didn't seem to follow the stock government script of love, war, death, rebirth, nationalistic fury and Communist victory. No, this would be about something else entirely different, or at least, staged radically differently. In looking at the site I noticed banners with the moniker EVN 2008 hanging from all the trees. The four men in the poster stood cover-boy handsomely against a backdrop of what appeared to be, Mount Everest. It would be a trip back home and a few hours later before I would have the answer for sure. It looked like a mountain climbing show, but that doesn't make a great deal of sense in Vietnam now does it? Memories of the Jamaican Bobsled Team come to mind. 20) My walk home was punctuated only by the buying of cigarettes and an event that's become all too common and sad in Vietnam – a motorbike cowboy heist. The target is always the same, an unsuspecting tourist, and the bounty, a cel-phone, iPod or camera not attached to the tourist's neck. The routine works like this: Two guys on a bike circle a street corner, seemingly doing nothing and scout out their mark. Then when he or she is trying to cross the aforementioned chaotic street, they whiz buy and snatch the item. I saw this one almost peripherally and was more concerned about being run over by the heisters before I understood it was a robbery. There was nothing I could do. These are the infamous Vietnam motorbike cowboys and they rule the Wild Wild East on the iron horse than has come to be known as the Honda, Yamaha, or Suzuki. God pray when they start importing Harleys around here. With the Bentley, Hummer and Jaguar already running the rails, that can't be far behind. 21) Home would bring me to the end of this post and this walk. Two hours to do the walking and now a little over two hours to do the writing. 22) So

what does EVN 2008 mean? It means that Vietnamese National Television (VTV) has actually produced a reality show where the contestants have had to climb Mount Everest. I shit you not. The damn thing has taken four or five months and I can tell you that this has not been about eating bugs or dangling from perfectly safe stunt mechanisms over swimming pools. These guys have trained on Kinabalu and Kilmanjaro and have now finished Everest. Take that Mark Burnett! The TV show and stage I witnessed are for the homecoming finale in June. 23) Unfarkingbelievable. I took a walk in the park today and the Vietnamese scaled Everest. Did I mention that nothing much else happened in Vietnam today?

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

Ear Cleaning: Nothing Much Happened Again Today In Vietnam

CLEAN YOUR FRIGGIN' EARS OUT! Today, I engaged in my weekly pleasure of having my ears cleaned. Ears cleaned you say? With Q-tips? No. I have my ears cleaned by a professional technician, probably with a Ph.D. in ear cleaning, and have come to not only enjoy it but to consider the process necessary as well as therapudic.

It takes around 20 minutes, costs just over a dollar and happens in a barber shop. The technician straps a miner's style light to her forehead, drops my barber chair into the reclining position and proceeds to descend into the deep dark recesses of my ear canal – armed with a trusty toolkit of little picks, shovels and probably trussed by a cable tied to the back wall. The sensation of the procedure following is just positively liberating. Sinus passages clear, hearing becomes cleaner and a general weight feels lifted from ones head. It's finished off by little spinning brushes and a cleaning foam that just makes the inside of your ears feel shiny and polished. Click on the photo and see the tools involved. Now let's talk some shit. As the procedure is underway, the technician will take the deposits she has unearthed and wipe them on your forearm. And let me tell you – no matter what sort of shit you thought you heard the previous week, the stuff you see on your arm will just absolutely scare you. As my ear canals go I seem to get much more shit delivered to my right ear than to my left. Should I have sold you on this procedure, and you're not in Vietnam, I'd direct you to your local Vietnamese neighborhood barbershop in the country of your residence.

TODAY A WAR WAS OVER...

Today we're entering a two day holiday in Vietnam called Reunification Day. It's the day the North Vietnamese Army stormed through the gates of the Presidential palace in Saigon to accept the surrender of the South.

From Wikipedia: The Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 – which ended the Vietnam War – prompted the first large-scale wave of immigration from Vietnam. Many people who had close ties with the Americans or with the then Republic of Vietnam government feared promised communist reprisals. So, 125,000 of them left Vietnam during the spring of 1975. This group was generally highly-skilled and educated.

This resonates with me in remembering 75 because I had acted as a big brother to a Vietnamese guy in my university days at the end of that year. This was an association engineered by my church and unfortunately I cannot remember the man's name. I do remember he was an attorney in South Vietnam and was determined to become one again.

We visited an Andy Warhol exhibition at the school and I taught him how to say beer and cigarettes. That's about all anyone would have needed to have gotten along in America in 1975, right?

THE TORCH LIVES IN VIETNAM!

My walk home tonight included an encounter with the Olympic torch in Ho Chi Minh City – and if you haven't heard about it's Vietnamese Tour, that has been entirely intentional. As China has leaned on it's neighboring countries in Asia, especially the Communist ones, to keep the protests down to nothing, the situation has been tightly controlled. The torch's previous location was in North Korea and you can bet that CNN was supplied with nothing but smiling faces on that tape. Here, maps of the route were entirely secret and all the major dailies each reported different and slightly obscure stories regarding timings and exact locations. As I hit downtown and noticed the throngs of people it dawned on me, "Hey this is the start of the Reunification Holiday", until I ran into a friend and he told me about the torch run. Fearing the pickpockets and general mayhem of downtown during any public gathering I altered my route and made it quietly home. I didn't see the torch but wasn't about to venture into a crowd that stretched for any number of kilometers for a chance to see something that might have already passed. Once home I did find that I would have missed it by being where I was at the time I was. But that's ok. I was closer than I have ever been to an Olympic torch and there must be something to be said for that.

REM RIDES AGAIN...

Not that the rock world is falling out of it's chair when a 27 year old band releases a new record, but today I was able to get a torrent of the new REM album "Accelerate" today and I must say, that band is alive and well. Only two listens now but my impression is that's it's a powerful, tight, terse and almost punkly delivered disk that probably over-delivers on even the glowing reviews I have already heard. This will definitely get a few listens this holiday.

Probably good I started by having my ears cleaned out today.

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

My friend just died...

My friend Bob died, recently.

And you know what? He's not dead. (and his name's not Bob)

Bob lives in Chicago and he was my financial advisor through Leo Burnett, Leo Burnett Korea and my own company CarlsonCreative, in Korea and more recently, in Vietnam.

But Bob is now dead.

Not physically.

Bob has allowed his brain to die.

For me, I have lost a friend. A person I liked. All about music and finance and new ideas and seeing the world for fun through eyes that didn't have our wallets attached to them. Or the SEC.

I miss the Grant Park Music Society (Chicago Symphony Summer Series). I miss the big hats on our dates. I miss him whinging about all kinds of shit. I miss Nintendo. I miss him not knowing fuck all about Nintendo or IT and still letting me buy AOL in it's IPO stage. I miss buying into AOL at $27 and selling the last of my lot at $175. I miss teaching him about Silicon Valley and Siliconmunist Valley and the silly shit in Redmond, Washington. He didn't know fuck-all.

Here's a picture of Bob's home. Overlooking Lake Michigan, in Chicago.

Nice place, if you work at home all day.

But worthless if you work in a shitty office – like Bob does. (sorry, no photo of crap office)


I miss divorcing my wife.

I miss him being my friend and helping me through that.

I miss seeing him in Michigan at my lake house.

I miss his mom being an illustrator for the Smithsonian institute (and drawing birds) and him being a complete financial geek, but getting it totally. I miss the way he related this to me but totally rued me when I become low on cash.

Absolute dichotomy.

He walked from me because the Patriot Act. SEC bullshit, and my lack of "Million-dollar client " status. I suppose he walked because he was never really a friend. His new wife didn't like me either... Told me I couldn't afford his $275 an hour rate for advice anymore...

He was fun when I had money.

I miss him.

What are friends worth?

I sort of wonder what ever happened to friends. It's as if I may never come back.

Who knows.

I miss you BOB.