A Birthday - Perspective XXI: The Little Things XIII

Make sure to turn off the podcast in the sidebar before playing the video.



And another birthday comes. Those who know me well will understand that my favourite recording artist, Todd Rundgren, who is 61, and I share a birthday on June 22nd so the video makes perfect sense - but what makes even more sense is the choice of song selection - and those who know the concept of Peter Pan will appreciate it for sure. "I know a place where dreams are born and time is never planned. It's not on any chart, you must find it in your heart - Never-never-land." It's the way I want to feel about this birthday. a) Earlier in the week I found myself sitting with a man who is 54, just a year older than I, and he was rather insistant in telling me that I needed to understand that age was working against me in the employment market and that I needed to lower my standards and expectations - to basically learn to shovel shit and be happy about it. Not the kind of man who takes to discourse and debate well, I decided not to argue with him and just let the comment pass. b) Days later Mads Monsen and I would finish the layouts for our public service campaign and realize we had a real winner - an original idea that is impeccably executed and will not only bring smiles to a lot of faces, but hopefully save a few lives on the roads here in Vietnam. This made me smile and realize that the man I had spoken with earlier was incorrect. Good. c) The term Brand Provocateur showed up again this week in the blog of Mary van de Wiel, a New York marketing consultant and we had a nice meeting over the sharing of an idea. Once our public service campaign gets out I'll have some more illumination on brand provocateuring or is that provocateering? d) Along with a birthday, a few new blog stats: (one) Our Technorati ranking is up to #342,000 and while that may not immediately sound like a best-seller, it is in the top .3% of blogs worldwide so some growth comes along with age. (two) Likewise our subscriber base on Feedburner passed 100 and that's another milestone. Thanks readers. Those are the birthday presents you really don't expect. e) On a totally different front, my old friend Hugh MacLeod released his book "Ignore Everybody", which debuted at #11 on the Wall Street Journal's business book list and has been consistently in the top 100 on Amazon. Congrats Hugh. f) This week also marks my first trip out of town in quite some time and I am way looking forward to it. The plan is to hit the central highlands town of Dalat and stay in an old refurbished French Villa, eat well and maybe do a wine tour or two. Download time. Saigon's "oldest digital man", needs a bit of that. g) A Vietnamese party at the street restaurant near my home hits like a flash flood. 10 motorbikes show up with two people on each bike. The revelers are all in their early 20s and seem to have come from an office of some sort. Arranging the folding tables around to make a long line, the staff braces for the onslaught and starts dragging out cases of beer. As the party goers arrange themselves it reminds me of a high school dance - girls all on one end of the table, boys on the other - so that there is virtually no interaction between the sexes, save for the waves of Mokt, Hai, Ba, Yo! chants (Which means - one, two, three, Go!) as they hoist their glasses in a birthday toast to the birthday boy, another guy. After 90 minutes and the complete destruction of any number of hotpots and beers, the whole things dissipates almost more quickly than it had assembled and they are gone. h) On Friday my Dad turned 80 and I'm very happy that he's in good health and living well. For his birthday he was planning to attend the reunion of all his old Navy pals from the destroyer the USS Dashiel in the Korean war. They call it the Tin Can Reunion. Pretty cool. i) So another year passes with small fanfare. I'm doing a much better job in being selective in my work and personal associations, and basically surrounding myself with healthy, positive influences. The blog has become not only a refuge but an outlet for which I feel an appropriate amount of responsibility to my growing list of readers and friends. Thank you all. You're the best birthday gift I could possibly have.

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

A Birthday: Perspective XXI - The Little Things XIII
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

My Morning Wake Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII

Oh sweet wakening mist of the morning calm falling for the day - the sunshine piercing away the dark - my dreams to stay in nether world. Birds play my senses to twitter alive resolve in yet another new morn. Vietnamese translation: This morning I woke up to the sound of jackhammers, a buzz saw and an electric drill from the construction of a new house nearby. What a pain in the ass - but it made me smile.

The sound of Midtown Manhattan at night is like no other. It's like a great giant monster asleep as machines purr a low-res hum shuttling up the buildings. In Chicago I lived in Lincoln Park, across the street from the Zoo and could fall asleep to the sound of the elephants and sea lions singing like coyotes on the prairie - in the middle of a city. Wild. In Dallas, my wife and I were unaware that our first home, a charming postwar minimalist deco affair was just a block from a train track before we bought it. We laughed later that the estate agent had probably directed us for our initial inspections by a railroad timetable. But in Seoul, the sounds were much like here. I can't believe that anywhere in Asia is much quieter - not in a growing city, for sure.

But the beauty in all of this is that I can remember the sound of each city distinctly. That's where the Little Things come in.

Sometime last year a writer friend of mine commented on my first Little Things post. He thanked me for explaining the art in the bark on a particular tree.

Excerpt from: The Art Walk - One day, on the walk out of our office in Korea, I stopped to examine the bark on a tree. The molting of this particular tree bark created a three dimensional pattern that I had never seen on a tree before. It was a big flowering Korean tree but I'll be damned if I can tell you what it was. Seeing me fascinated with the tree, my staff, Nam Mee-Hyun, remarked, "David, you're the only person I have ever seen pay any attention to that tree at all". And honestly, I didn't think twice about the attention I paid to trees, or old cars, or anything. It's simply the beauty of walking more than most. You see more than most. That tree, that day was at least worth this story.

And so it was today with my morning sounds - not annoying but more a marker to tell me that someday I won't hear them at all and that will be a different day indeed.


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

A Birthday: Perspective XXI - The Little Things XIII
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

"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI

If I didn't walk in this city I would never have seen the sign that proclaimed the title of this post - "Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" nor would I have had the ability to understand that it is a menu item, the first on a list of other more understandable ones, and the sign, designed to entice customers into the joint, just one more in the melange of maligned English descriptions that make up a large part of this city's attempts at foreign relations. The dish described is simply fresh Vietnamese spring rolls, not the deep-fried variety, filled with a standard pork/shrimp/veggie mixture but the word that threw me off was disposed? I understood foggy in that the ricepaper is not clearly transparent but why disposed? Was it not good enough for some other purpose? Would ricepaper officionados avoid this particular variety? Does that mean it's recycled? In an effort to increase the green promotion of Saigon I will certainly make a point of revisiting this establishment when they are open and suggesting to management that the word disposed be supplanted by the word recycled to increase the freshness appeal and overall appetisement of the advertisement. Do you think they'll understand? The vagaries of walking always serve in some way or another to enhance what might otherwise be a boring day. Why just take a taxi home from work when you can avail yourself of all the pleasures of all the little things awaiting, that you are, at instant, unaware of? Let the rabbits out of the hats, the cats from their bags and genies from bottles. Pandora's box holds a day's worth of secret surprises all if you just take another step. The half-hatched egg seller from my last Little Things post was was closed so it was time to visit the back of the Phu Nuan Market and see the lady from my Lunch With Obama entry. Mmm, mmm, mmm. She served up a similar bowl of noodles to my visit before with fried springrolls and sliced sausages on top, but my surprise came when I asked for a drink. She then produced another woman from the stall behind who then produced a perfect English speaking husband who then asked me what kind of shake I was looking for - how he knew I prefered a shake will remain beyond me. I ordered an orange with ice and sweetened condensed milk that would turn out to as close as I can remember to an Orange Julius from one of my childhood trips to California. I recalled trying to convince my father to open an Orange Julius franchise back home in Illinois and his perplexed reaction to this 10 year old entrepreneur. He remains perplexed today. The number three bus would be my bus of choice today as I had walked quite enough and felt a bit stuffed after my feed and drink. Lunch cost two dollars - the bus, 20 cents. Arriving at the Ben Thanh Saigon bus station is a little like arriving in the Bolivian train station that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid find in the film of the same name - minus the attractive Burt Bacharach soundtrack. It's got chickens outside, conical hatted ladies vending noodles and cigarrette smoking officials to help you find your bus - that is, if you speak Vietnamese. And it's got busses - hundreds of them all coming and going, barely stopping to let the old passengers off and the new ones on, in a symphony of musical big tin can chairs that can only be described as comical - if not oddly efficient. I depart. The Nguyen Kim electronics store is Vietnam's version of a Sam's wholesale but a whole lot more Vietnamese. Crowded onto a street corner that could barely hold a drivethrough McDonalds in the States it boasts four floors of more varieties of stuff than you've ever seen. I counted over 80 different kinds of microwaves, 100 types of refrigerators - all different- and the most dizzying array of vacuum cleaners I had seen since Korea. Orientals are fastidiously clean and have the electronics to prove it. Two monks were busy bargaining with a salesperson over a huge deep freeze with an icemaker and computer readout screen on the polished stainless steel door. I come here when the rest of the world is going to shit just so I can put into perspective that the $80 billion IMF bailout of Korea during the Asian financial crisis of 1997 was but a drop in the bucket of what the US is going through right now - $150 billion for AIG, another $45b to Citibank and Merrill, Bear Stearns, Lehman, Goldman... et al, oh fuck, I loose track - and see that another truckload of Samsung whatevers just won't be enough for these people. My January 5th, 2009 copy of Newsweek reminds me that "There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things." It also cautions that "It is not expected that kings philosophize or that pholosophers become kings, nor is it to be desired, because possession of power corrupts the free judgement of reason inevitably." As we American's, and the world as a whole, welcome the change of a new administration in the free world, is is worthy to note the authors of the previous quotes - Machiaveli on the former and Plato for the latter - as we hopefully set our expectations for our new leaders appropriately and realize that there's a whole world of rolled, foggy, disposed, ricepaper salesmen out there and we'll need to decide very carefully what to order when the new world menus appear. The Vietnamese will then cook it for us in a Samsung, Toshiba or Electrolux depending on which model was on sale on which particular day.

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

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
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"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!

One Motley Crue on the Saigon Bus #4 Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII

Just a couple of things today. O My last trip on the #4 bus was a charming story about and old soldier I met. That story will go down as one of my most pleasant experiences here. Today's story will have some merit as well, but of a different sort. The #4 today was a hard one to catch back from the airport. I had been in the area for a series of meetings all afternoon and it was certainly not my plan that I try to catch the bus from a location different from my usual and right in the middle of rush hour. But since I think I'm so fucking bright some days, I thought I knew the return route and could find a stop easily. Wrong, dumbo. When I arrived at what was certainly a proper stop with a shelter, benches and a big advertising poster, it had been inhabited by street shoe salesmen - guys who spread out big tarps all over the sidewalk, preventing walking, and fill them with all manner of shoes. Gym shoes, work boots, sandals, whatever. Vietnam is a big shoe producer and some of them are really quite nice, and cheap to boot (bad pun intended). But the last thing one needs is these guys taking over your bus stop when a light rain is falling. A #4 came and just cruised right on by. I had seen him swing towards the curb up the street a bit but when he got to me it was adios mutthaf*cka. It took me awhile to sort out what was happening. It took me until yet another #4 came and blew by. The stop had been closed because of the street construction in the center lane where I have mentioned before they are digging a big long hole and installing drainage pipe. Saigon is at sea level or below and it floods like a swamp when the rains come, which is almost all the time. So the anser was clear. Walk to the next stop. And that was easily a kilometer. When I finally arrived a #4 dutifully swung by and snatched me up. It was about 1/2 full so I got my favorite seat riding shotgun to the right of the driver. But rush hour is a predictable yet unpredictable daily event in Saigon. Everybody knows it's going to happen, and the resulting gridlock where motorbikes can cut off busses and big trucks crossing from other streets, but they act like it's a big surprise. After spending nearly 20 minutes in a gridlock where a traffic signal had gone down, somebody finally called the traffic police and got a yellow helmeted cop to the scene to sort the rowdy bikers out and let us finally pass. But in the interim the driver thought we needed some entertainment so he switched on 99.9fm, Vietnam's classic rock station and treated us to a good loud sample of Motley Crue, followed by some screaming Gothic shrew with three wailing guitars as accompaniment. I nodded in approval and did a little air guitar for the driver as he broke into a big smile. At least the crazy whiteys on the bus dug the scene. Once through the gridlock his assistant, the girl who takes your money, whispered in his ear and the station was changed to something more traditionally Vietnamese. There were a couple of old ladies in the back mind you. I'm sure they had had enough Crue for one day. Maybe a lifetime. O Once at my internet cafe I had two Cokes a "Ban Xeo Man" (Vietnamese rice flour and egg pancake, folded, full of shrimp and pork and veggies - mmmm - tasty) and a hot coffee with sweetened condensed milk before I sat down to write this. Upon beggining to write a little girl of maybe seven came in with a puppy. It was a big hit with the customers and she, of course, was in the selling business. Little girls here sell gum to foreigners and we all buy it now and again, but I'll explain more about that and why later. With me she didn't try to sell me at all. She was interested in my headphones and the music I was listening to in the computer. She came into my booth, played with the trackpad for a bit and then said "music." I gave her the earbuds and she promptly popped them in and laid her head on my lap. She was tired. She needed a break. The music I was listening to was the new album from Brian Wilson called "Lucky Old Sun" and it's a bit of a tour de force from an old beach boy who just refuses to die. If you've got the sound cranked up on your PC or Mac, you're listening to it in the podcast. The little girl rested for about 10 minutes in my lap and the staff smiled and commented that I had made a new friend. When she finished I asked her, "Good?". And she promtly said "No, no good". And scurried away. I found it to be just as sweet an ending to a day with a fairly harrowing bus chasing trial as one could have. Here now for your perusal. O 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

Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Write the Best Damn Blog in the World - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII

At first, the number of disabled people - no, let me change that - the number of crippled, maimed and deformed people, on the street in Vietnam can be startling. But once one has lived here for awhile another observation becomes much more astute - how well they fit in - how they are part of not just the environment but the consistent social fabric and neighborhood in terms of relationships, businesses and the daily goings on of things. The shop owners take care of the beggars. There is an obvious harmony that I can not ever remember from America. There we called them street people and since Ronald Reagan cut federal funding for care facilities we banished our disabled to the streets to die. We later re-classified them as homeless to seem more caring. I recall Pioneer Square in Seattle, an historic area of charming cast iron front buildings, putting chain-link fence around all the park benches so the street people didn't sleep on them, which would have destroyed the quaint Americana experience for tourists. At that time, in the late 80s, they said the average lifespan of a street person in Seattle was 18 months, before they died from disease and exposure. Ethnic cleansing? We only like people who are perfect like us. Wash the others out. I thought the chain-link really added to the charm of the area - in an Alcatraz sort of way. The only people I've seen who have made a worse mess of their needy, other than the Americans, for a wealthy country, have been the Koreans. They're just absolute assholes to those who don't fit their Oriental/Arian idea of the perfect Hankook. Koreans hide their disabled and shame them. But that doesn't happen here, and whilst this Communist utopia has about the same health care program as the US, people do get along, and fit in. Maybe that's something to do with having fought and won a war against a fate that would have been much worse than what they have now. Visiting Iraq in 30 years will be interesting to see what America leaves behind. ? The two boys are having a full throttle row on the sidewalk, straight out of Smack-down's greatest hits. He spins and does an awkward lunge in the air which appears to provide a kick to his opponent whilst protecting him from the tiled pavement below. Stunt-man school in Vietnam. And three girls and a very little boy sit in portable plastic chairs as if at ringside cheering the bigger boys on. One of the girls pops up with a piece of plastic leg from a broken chair to mimic a microphone and proceeds to narrarate the match for the remaining crowd of two girls and the little kid. I just eat my noodles and smile. ? Forlorn poor bar girls populate my Internet cafe surrounded by forlorn looking foreign men, Japanese, Korean and Western in an odd dating match that seemingly pits companionship and money against each other with the possibility of sex being a sideline but I can't imagine that much of the western baggage around here can get it up anymore. One guy claims to be celibate but has this rotating cadre of odd girlfriends. Loneliness is fought with a serious arsenal in post war-torn countries. Your wallet. Choosing a paycheck or a meal over a shag is really quit sensible. Chalk up a score for the girls around here. ? And my coffee man smiles, again. I'm at the wet market this morning for a week worth of veggies and am particularly enamored with the fish. But not today. Stories can be told by the palms of the hands of the woman who sells me my vegetables. A gaunt conical hatted vestige, she bears the marks of at least some trying farm work in her earlier years, maybe harvesting sugar and tearing long vertical lines from her palms down to the tips of her fingers. Her fingers are all misshapen in some way from breakage and who knows what and the idea of fingernails has been whittled down to just sort of dirty stumps at the ends. This market work must be a blessing considering the past. She is as sweet as can be and is there, 7 days a week, doesn't speak a lick of English, but always calls loudly to me when I turn onto her outdoor aisle of the market. Big pile of tomatoes, onions, peppers and what-knot. 10 thousand dong. 75 cents. ? Move along cowboy. ? Halloween hit Vietnam last week with a vengeance and had pretty much wasted itself before the actual date. A friend told me the bars were packed on the 30th but I wasn't out that night. He said the Vietnamese couldn't wait. They love ghosts and horror films. I made the colossal mistake of attending a Halloween event hosted by the "Creative Circle", an advertising creative club in Vietnam founded by Aussies, who apparently don't celebrate Halloween, and I did something unheard of to the crusty old dogs who populate the thing - I wore a costume. Now admittedly, it wasn't a very outrageous costume - I went as Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, arguably the top communication holding company in the world, and it only took a nice suit, one of those "Hello, my name is Martin Sorrell" tags, and a pair of glasses that look exactly like his (cheaply procured here for 2 bucks) - but it was a funny fucking idea, at least for that crowd. Yawn. Imagine the guys at the Creative Circle not doing anything creative at all for Halloween? Seemed normal to them. Only two other people, of roughly 30, wore a costume and they were treated as oddities. I did meet a few other people from Shanghai who were interesting and had a nice conversation with the guy who designed the packaging for my favorite beer in Vietnam, Bierre Larue. Other than that, is was thoroughly disappointing with one young Viet art director leaving, after being informed that there was basically no program for the evening, just beer drinking and a bunch of old foreigners. Yawn. My costume went over much better in my local pub where nobody knows fuck all who Martin Sorrell is, but the girls were all jazzed to see me in a very nice suit. ? The man in the booth next to me at the Internet cafe is talking to himself. He does this often - almost every night after the requisite amount of sud-swilling. Elvis plays. It's surreal as shit. Figuring out if it's PTSD he's affected with or more basic alcoholism is not really possible for me, - sure, I drink beer as well, but I sit at my computer and write. The greater majority of the place has no idea WTF I'm doing. That can be turned into a cocoon of sorts that keeps them all out - and lets this happen. ? So you're just itchin' aren'tcha? What the hell does the title to this post mean? What is he talking about? - The concept of Attraction vs. Conversion has become a bit of a Web 2.0 topic these days. Some like Mark Earls, describe it as "push" vs. "pull" marketing tactic. My friend Ken Johnson, who reviews business books for Amazon, reminded me recently, in his review of "The Peter Principle", that the core concept is over 40 years old. It's the idea that the more I actively market this thing, the less real readers I get. And I mean real readers as opposed to people who come in for the 99 cent special. I get all sorts of hits but only 25% come back over and over - and that's a good thing - considering that of that 25% there are 10% who stay for more than an hour each time. And I can deal with that. - Here's one of the latest of my more interesting readers. He congratulates me for being rejected by a major aggregating service for being "unclassifiable": - "First congratulations. I used to work as a journalist and I am inured to writing to a certain degree (an occupational hazard) - your blog has become riveting precisely because it is uncategorisable. It is not about anything, which in a modern Koan-like manner, makes it almost about everything. I really enjoy the writing and because I understand the drive, I will not deign to be condescending with the trite keep-it-up." - This is the kind of thing that keeps this blog going. This is the pull strategy in action. I didn't ask for this to be written. But I certainly don't mind an "atta-boy" or two. ? The guy in the booth next to me cuts right through the more than omnipresent Elvis that's playing - muttering, "fuck this shit", "fuck you", "fuck Bush" ? All I did today was go shopping and get this post up. Little things, but enough for today.

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 blogs, blogging and bloggers, check here:

Advertising People & Blogs - The Travis Diaries VI
How to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World
Throw That Blog a Bone!
If Blogs Are Free Are They Worthless?
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If You Like the Blog, Read the Book
2008 Annual Report - The Wild Wild East Dailies
Blog Redesign WWED
BarCamp Saigon 2008
Attraction vs. Conversion - How to Power Your Blog
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market?

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

O A glass box of deep fried chicken heads starts my day, courtesy of one of the street-sellers in my small alley as the street-side barbers get their clippers going early. I don't get my hair cut on the street but many people do as referenced by the huge clumps of black hair on the sidewalk next to the barber chairs. These days I'm working primarily at night and so my day begins with a cafe su nam (thick drip coffe with sweetened condensed milked, served hot) and work on the edit for Wild Wild East. Aside from that I've been doing a lot of geek work to this site and trying to optimize it for search engines (SEO). This consists of going through every single post, from the beginning, opening the html code and adding "alt" tags for all the imagery - this is essentially adding keywords that relate to the postso that search engines can find the subject matter of the post through image search. Have I bored you shitless yet? Let's move along. O Kenny is a Vietnam vet who runs diving tours throughout southeast Asia and he has just returned from America with a sobering review of the country's ills. "I came to the conclusion that the problem in the US is not one of the government but of the eroded moral fibre of the people as a whole", he told me. Nobody gives a shit about anybody anymore - they only care about themselves - it's all about some form of self-actualization and entitlement" he continues. "I'm convinced that if the society as a whole isn't redirected that we'll be steering into a second holocaust with the Arabs replacing the Jews as the persecuted and America replacing Germany as the perpetrators". "No shit", I respond. O And then I found the following post while searching for imagery for this story. "Sadly, I look at the old America and new America and though technological improvements have developed, I don't see how morally it has. America has become that which they ran away from. It has been fed the same propaganda the Nazis were fooled with and it has ignored that which the founding fathers wrote in the Amendments." Back on my own front I hear these similar sentiments echoed by very different people from very different backgrounds. Marines, real estate guys, software developers, writers and others from California, Georgia, Michigan and Oregon. Interesting. Probably I need to get back to the US next summer and do some visiting. Is it only by being far away that we can see things so differently? O "But I also believe we're witnessing the birth of a great leader", Kenny, the Marine, continues, in reference to Barack Obama. Here's a product of American hegemony in Vietnam who fought for his country but still didn't drink the kool-ade. Interesting, indeed. O I often caution people to not put the weight of the world on the shoulders of the next President. I weigh in as one who encourages all of us to look pretty deeply inside of ourselves and make sure our own moral fibres are correctly spun before expecting anyone to play saviour or blaming anyone for our national fall from grace. If anything, we did it to ourselves by just looking the other way. O I end this entry today with a link to the best post of the week by Simić in quoting Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues - "If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing." O Time for that crispy chicken head.

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

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

O A bus is a bus is a bus - or Gertrude Stein would have said about Vietnam today. And there are a lot of buses, but the #4 is a little one, what you might call a shuttle bus, and although it goes past the airport, this is not the one, one would take to actually get to the airport. It goes much farther than that and generally carries the Vietnamese to their homes after a day of toiling in a low pay job or selling something on the street downtown in District 1. Businessmen do not ride this bus. O And I've yet to see a foreigner, aside from myself on this route. The entire trip from the big station at Ben Thanh Market takes roughly 45 minutes to one hour, depending on the traffic. And it's as efficient a trip through a construction war zone as a skilled driver can make it. The road to the airport is a collection of obstacles from a bazillion motorbikes to large green metal-sheeted barricades in the center, in the midst of a citywide hole digging project for a drainage system, and the odd pedestrian, lady with a cart of chickens or motobike deliveryman transporting large sheets of glass or mirrors with the help of an assistant riding on the back to hold the glass. O The Vietnamese bus of today is the urban equivalent of what an American tank might have been here 40 years ago. They just don't give a shit and dutifully plow through whatever happens to be lying before them. It is an absolute damn sight to behold. These drivers should be given a medal just for surviving a day in this transportation firestorm. And so I board. O Once on the bus the biggest choice is one of seats and considering that I start at the start of the route, I'm happy to have a choice. I choose the copilot's chair right to the right of the driver with a big clear-screen view of the road in front of me and all the chatter that he and his ticket-taker care to banter throughout the trip - and that can be considerable, considering - I'm just a man on a bus going from point A to point B- and not in the market for any more Vietnamese entertainment than the 20 cent ticket entitles me to. Sit your ass down white boy. You must be this tall to get on this ride. O And so I plop down next to the older man who rides shotgun in the furthest right seat. And he immediately says, "hello" with an accent and confidence that makes me immediately understand that he learned his English during the war here, so many, many years ago - an occurrence that is not unusual at all. So as the #4 gets underway we begin to converse, in the kind of small talk that pervades all participants of diverse cultures on the way to finding out what might be common to them both. The old "Where are you from - how long have you been here" questions ensue, peppered by the old pleasantry or linguistic peace offering. "Thank you", I say to him in response to a compliment about New York. "Interesting", I say to him in my response to his telling of a French proverb that roughly translates into "You can't take it with you". His name is Hanh and he has told me that he is 73 years old. And he is quite obviously not wealthy. He clutches a plastic shopping bag that I see is full of VCDs, the old cheap Chinese equivalent of a DVD, no longer a medium of use today to even the most basic Vietnamese. And he opens his bag. He presents to me some VCDs of traditional Vietnamese music and historical dramas and implores me to look at them. I do. An opening of the cover and brief scan of the language and visuals is all I am able to accomplish but it is of obvious proportion that he feels their cultural worthiness so much more than I. It's pretty old stuff. I can't imagine that he has much luck selling these to even people of his own age and even at that, not for a cent or two over whatever he paid for them. O And the bus trundles on. He explains to me how happy he is that the war is long over and that the country is now "open". The Americans and the French and god knows all sorts of countries that the Vietnamese could never have imagined are pouring money into building projects and infrastructure and education and whatnot making this man's post-war world of 73 a virtual fantasy land that Speilberg and Lucas together could not have created. The road we travel is a living breathing organism of every single day of his life rolled into one 45 minute trip and encapsulated into one blink of this man's eye as only he can see it. And I am a blind man - on the ride with my Vietnamese seeing eye dog with an eye towards the peace that all people long for far beyond the shortsighted actions of their respective governments at any one point in time. "I would have shot you forty years ago", he says, "but today we ride on a bus together. I am very happy for that", he bookends. He goes on to explain that during the war he worked in medical supply and carried medications to needy soldiers in the field. "I no ever carry gun. I no ever shoot anyone. And no anyone ever shoot me", he says, with just a hint of a wry smile - as if he could have seen this bus ride so far into what would have been his future. O He explains further that he has had ten children and that two of his daughters live in the US and two in Europe - so much pride and peace in his ideas. He goes back to the French proverb meaning "you can't take it with you" and recants it for me in impeccable French. I apologize for my miserable Francais. "But you and I, here today", he finishes, "and much money no make us better men", as he clutches the plastic bag. He looks quite softly into my eyes after I have informed him that my stop will be coming up and I must depart. "You good man", he says, "You good heart in eyes", as we shake hands in farewell. O The #4 always overshoots my actual stop, but today not at all. I know I arrived historically at just the right place and time. It's fucking perfect. O

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