This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V

3 Hours Today: (Click on the pics to make them bigger)

COFFEE 4:45
The coffee man closes at 5. If you don't get there by five, you don't get any coffee. My coffee man works in a place called the "wet market". The wet market is the opposite of a super market and is called wet because they hose the whole place down every night. All stalls outside and a bit of a big a steel barn inside, the wet market carries everything from live fish to dead cows and pigs, and of course, coffee. My coffee is a blend of Aribica and Robusta beans roasted to a somewhat oily perfection and positively delicious. 200 grams, 100 of each variety, costs around a dollar and are ground in a machine that must be 50 years old. It works just fine. The man puts the ground coffee in a plastic bag, then twists a rubber band around the top, leaving just a loop handy for me to unwind at home, then puts that bag into a small paper bag which is folded once and then secured by another rubber band. These two nicely wrapped bags are then put into a third pink plastic bag with small handles so I can carry it away easily. I have no idea why he uses three bags when one would do.

Starbucks has announced plans to open stores in Vietnam in the next few years. They won't have an impact on my coffee man at all. He gave me a complimentary bag at the Tet Holiday this year and always has a big smile when I arrive. They can't touch him.

A 12 CENT SOFT DRINK, 5pm
I honestly don't know what it is. A dark, somewhat syrupy sweet tea that is served over ice at a rolling stand outside the wet market and costs just 12 cents. I stand, drink and return the glass. It goes down quickly. Nice.

CIGARETTES, 5:15pm
The price of a pack of cigarettes in Vietnam must be one of the cheapest in the world. Marlboros cost a dollar. My cigarettes, called ERA, cost 20 cents and they taste just fine.

Cafe Sua Da, 5:20pm
Coffee on the street is a tradition here. Cafe Sua Da is an iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk added to make it a little sticky. I love it, even in it's varying consistencies around town, not so much for its aesthetics in the glass but for the time it provides for me in my little plastic chair on the street.

The African man stares out the third floor window of his hotel as the sun goes down on Saigon. He checks his cellphone as I finish my coffee, pay the woman 40 cents and walk away. Many Africans choose to live in Asia – working in trading businesses or teaching football to avoid the wars and economic insufficiencies of their own countries.

VEGETABLE SAMOSA, 5:45pm
The owner at Akbar Ali is a friend of mine. A northern Indian who can cook up a storm and makes a fine vegetable samosa. Originally, I had planned this order as a carryout but the setting sun and the bustle of the street convinced me that watching the world roll by would be a worthwhile spending of my next hour. And the world rolls.

The legless man in his three-wheeled chair, pushed by an odd but effective two-hand mechanism – I gave him 2000 dong – about 13 cents, the bicycle fruit sellers, the bicycle massage guys – they'll stop their bike, roll out a mat, and give you a massage on the sidewalk – no shit – there is no end to the businesses one can start with a bicycle in Vietnam. There are balloon sellers, squid sellers, dried fish sellers and even guys with plastic lamination machines powered by batteries who will slick up any piece of paper you choose to roll through their machine when they roll by. By making laminating portable they make it affordable and convenient for small business owners to laminate everything from menus to business signs and IDs. Guy Kawasaki forgot to mention this burgeoning trend in his book "Art of the Start". Truthfully, Americans should come here to learn how to start a business. I've seen more creativity on a bicycle here than I've seen out of Silicon Valley recently.

Two pasty female tourists walk by and one says, "fuck him". My soundtrack is always out of context around here.

This carnival of life, I live in...

The cyclo men just sit and watch. And the rats move quickly from street drain to street drain – part of the neighborhood – just doing their job like everyone else. The woman with a baby comes to my table and says, "Hello sir ––––––– Baby". She repeats the word Baby a number of times but I do not respond. I will not make eye contact with her. There are tens of these women on the street and the "baby scam", as we call it, is just an old parlour trick. The chance that the baby is actually theirs is minimal and what's more plausible is that they, or a member of their family, owes a local two-bit gangster some money so they are put to the street with babies to beg money, or sell gum. Or, they just flat out work for him. It is their job. After a while here, you realize that you cannot help every person on the street and come to understand that the BMWs, Lexus' and Bentleys and Rolls we are seeing more and more of are owned by the people who employ these other people. I saw a Ferrari this week. And the world rolls by. Some just roll a little phat-er than others. (Yes, that is a double entendre. Many men are named "Phat" here.)

In Vietnam, a tiny alley – one only just wide enough for walking or a motorbike – is called a "Hem". And they are everywhere off the main streets. Above one particular hem in my neighborhood is a Buddha shrine. This shrine, mounted on the top of an upside down u-shaped entry portal is maintained every day by one of the residents of the Hem. He carries a ladder, and with it, refreshes the incense, rice wine and other offerings to the Buddha. He does this next to a building that has a freeze of the Virgin Mary on it's facade and another adorned with a full Virgin Mary statue in it's crown. Neither building is a church. Yes, we all can just get along.

Samosa's arrive and I'm swigging from a litre and a half of Pepsi I just bought at one of the new modern convenience stores in the hood. Their efficiency will kill a few old-school sellers on the street.

We have a neighborhood Albino. He is full Vietnamese but an Albino. It's doubtful he's ever heard of Edgar and Johnny Winter.

And the kid in the barber shop reminds me of me so many years ago. He's gotten himself a classic buzz cut with just some whisps left over hanging down onto his forehead when the barber gives him that lightning quick speed finish of a head scratching with tonic. He grins like a Cheshire fucking cat and jumps out of the chair as mom pays the barber. The old men continue to gossip as mom n' boy board the motorbike – the kid scratching his head again and again over his big grin. Sped away.

Next to me at my table float "Good Morning Vietnam" t-shirts in a shop next door.

And boys bounce a ball in front of the barber shop until a man on a motorbike spills it in an attempt to avoid the ball and peripherally a boy. His avoidance is successful. He looses a shoe, and stumbles about putting his whole kit back together for some time. Some chiding, some words, but he is not unhappy... call Vanity Fair... I've got a scoop!

HOME AGAIN, 7:15pm
My list of NPR podcasts to get through just keeps growing. If I had the regular radio on in the states this stuff would all just play in the background but here it comes as podcasts and just backs up in my computer until I review, listen and either save or delete. 57, today. It's like Tivo for radio. I have all sorts of things pre-programmed from news to music to book reviews but never seem to get through it all.

Todays reviews are a mix of a guy who worked in Afghanistan trying to eliminate poppy cultivation, another Jewish writer having yet another cultural epiphany regarding his American self-actualization and Garrison Keillor, who has no problems about who he is at all. I don't have a fucking chance. When white-ex-big-advertisng-agency-guys living in Korea and Vietnam turn into a hot topic, I'll be everyone's Kim-Chi Home Companion. Phat phucking chance.

And then there's luck. I know, at this point in my life, that I certainly didn't make it all happen. There's always luck involved. And circumstance, and happenstance, serendipity and timing.

FLASH!

In other news today, ADWEEK Magazine features a story on a new Phizer Diet drug for pets. Somebody's gotta be fucking kidding me. Lite Beer for dogs? GeeZuzz! Doggie Prozac can't be far off...

The "Bitches of EastWick"!

I can just so, fucking see it...

...and the world rolls by...this carnival of life...

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

Technorati Rank: 1,614,138

And what is that you ask? That's this blog's ranking according to Technorati, the world's leading tracker of blogs and social media – and while that may not seem particularly impressive it's quite near the top 1% of all blogs in the world, with Technorati listing 113 million blogs in total. All in just three months – from Vietnam of all places. And we just keep on growing. Each time this blog gets linked from another website or blog, our ranking get's better. And that's thanks to all the readers. So, thanks to all folks – readers, subscribers, linkers and the lurking masses I see all over the world but have not yet met. If you're a blogger, do take the opportunity to register your own site with Technorati, and make sure to check the favorites link you'll find here in the sidebar. Cheers. The horn tooting is now finished.

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>/a>
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?

Nintendo: What Have I Done For You Lately, II

As I've explained in a previous post, the concept of "What have you done for me lately?", relates especially to creative people working in the advertising business. Basically, you're only as good as your last ad. Not unlike having a hit pop song or winning a particular sports contest, the fame one acquires from writing a popular spot is short-lived, although nice when it lasts.

A recent news report on NPR quoted that $1.7 billion dollars was spent on video games in April – a 50% increase year on year from 2007. The Nintendo Wii system led the pack with the entire industry growing even faster than analyst's predictions. In Asia, the online game business is booming with China's market set to triple in the next couple of years. Who could have known the business would grow to be the entertainment juggernaut it has become today.

Well, Minoru Arakawa could have. Mr. Arakawa was President of Nintendo of America in the 80s and 90s and our client whilst working on the Nintendo business at Leo Burnett in Chicago. We worked with a number of marketing executives on the day-to-day business, one – interestingly named George Harrison, but not the Beatle – but when it came to selling a large campaign, Mr. Arakawa was the final decision maker.

The following spot, called, "Cool", was created as a response to consumer research that indicated that adults, mom's and dad's, were borrowing or swiping their children's GameBoy machines and involving themselves in the growing passion of playing video games. What an interesting phenomena, the idea that adults enjoyed playing these games. This would become the challenge of the spot – to give permission to the target without showing them looking irresponsible or childish.



The spot was created by Jonathan Hoffman and myself and shot by director, Mark Story in L.A. The music was composed by Jon Pederson in New York.

I do recall the issue of silliness becoming an issue during the filming of the spot. One of our client's on production felt the entire thing was just too stylistically goofy. There was a big discussion over the spring-loaded airplanes that don the gate attendant's hat – a small touch we felt was absolutely hilarious. Imagine being on a shoot for a video game maker and being told the work was too goofy. We didn't know what to make of that. Here we had a storyboard and script that were nothing but goofy and were being told to tone it back in small detail – still the number of sly jokes we were able to inject into individual scenes was considerable. I'm particularly still happy with the fact that the airline depicted is named Air Dave.

My how the industry has grown. Our campaign ran for about two years and included other spots and a full print campaign. To my knowledge it has been the only campaign ever to have marketed video games to adults exclusively. Nintendo eventually returned to their core focus of teens and moved away from the adult market, the prevailing wisdom being to allow people to continue playing into their adult years without consciously acknowledging it.

As a post script let me relate this story of discussing my career with my father one day.

From Wild Wild East:

After viewing a commercial I had done on TV, my father commented, "Well, David, that was very nice, but I didn't see you in it." I explained to him that I wasn't an actor but understood his confusion in that I had worked as an actor for a community theatre in my teenage years. He went on to question, "You didn't act in it, you didn't direct it, and you're not the voiceover. I don't understand exactly what you did?"

"Well, I thought of it, Dad. I co-wrote it", I told him.

"Hmm", he retorted, "That seems like the easy part. Everyone else is doing all the work."

And the life of the misunderstood creative mind soldiers on.

For more in the 'What Have I Done For You Latley?' series check here:

(I)WHIDFYL I: American Airlines
(II)WHIDFYL II: Nintendo
(III) WHIDFYL III: Charles & Ray Eames
(IV) WHIDFYL IV: Heartbeat Vietnam

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

Sweet Dreams: Interpretation please?

As my last post illustrated, I had an issue with demons this week. No, not the satanic kind but the more garden variety kind – people doing things and behaving in ways that make you pinch yourself and say, "Did I just hear what I thought I heard? Did that person just do what I thought they did?" People doing things that were more Machiavellian, more calculated – just less than nice. And I became afraid of that. That's where the fear post came from. n Come mid-week I had the feeling that I wasn't sleeping particularly well because of some depression over this. I had the need to take a nap on Thursday and decided to do so, but with the express goal of only dreaming of enjoyable things. The following dream illustrates those things. Should any readers have any insights to dream analysis, please make a comment or send me a note. n White Huskies in a beautiful white landscape. Beautiful powdery snow and low drifting berms. I wanted to see them closer, but didn't want to scare them, so I crept in the snow for a better look. I felt no cold. And then there were two and more. They ran perpendicular to me but came closer on my horizon and then began to run away from me in the direction from which I had come. As they ran further behind me I turned and began to run after them, as white horses and white lions joined them. I ran at a jogging pace to admire their running beauty as they collectively kicked up a beautiful white mist and vanished from view, far in the distance as I lost pace – and slowed to a walk. Looking at my feet I now saw them imbedded in sand – and a Coney Island sort of amusement stood off to my left. It seemed my arctic fantasy had finished. Walking through the amusement park and looking for a way out I encountered one of those spinning rides, a space capsule sort of affair with multi-colored rotating pods on arms inside a spherical frame that continually blocked my passage. After a while I realized that I could stop them with my hand, and move them out of my way. They were quite light, really. Upon exiting the amusement park I boarded a kind of Dymaxion car, only this one without a roof and for just one person. It moved, effortlessly onto the highway, and seemed propelled by a magnetic force that kept it off the ground – and it made no sound. We sped on a beautifully landscaped highway towards a distinctly Stalinist construction of fairy tale proportions – my car moving at much faster speeds than others and avoiding collisions by means of a sensing device that automatically adjusted to the presence of other vehicles and made the appropriate adjustments of breaking and acceleration, eventually overtaking them. It was exhilarating. It was fast. n And then it was over. We never reached the building of Socialist Classicism. My exit had come. And I woke up. n Post Script: My dog as a child was a white Husky/Spitz mix named Mickey. Mickey was my favorite pet. I had also been to Coney Island as a child and am familiar with eastern seaboard parks. In 1990 I was fortunate enough to have attended an art exhibit in Paris that featured the art and never built architecture of the Stalinist era. And, even though the car in my dream was not even close to Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion car, it behaved most closely to the way I would believe a futurist car to behave, given the technologies I understand are available today. n


For more Sweet Dreams Click below:

VI: I Woke Up Drunk Today
V: Homecoming
IV: All In A Mouse's Night
III: Fragmented Fermentations
II: Strange Dreams
I: White Huskies: Interpretation please?

Fear Is My Friend...

n Couple of demons rose up this week  and I must admit, they sidelined me for a couple of days. Betwix, between and totally out of sorts. Until I sorted it out. And oddly, as it may have been, Hillary Clinton was my clincher. She played on the fear of voters by saber-rattling over Iran and that just massively irked me. But it worked for her, sorry to say.n Oh, those insecure Pennsylvanians. (Guns. church, whatever...) Wouldn't do well out-of-country. But in my case things were a bit more personal, and close to the heart. The evil-doers have yet to face the judges on what I believe were their misdeeds. But I now have a strategy. Fear is my friend. n And I'm gonna grab it like a god. I'm gonna love and kiss it and fucking choke it to death in front of it's own bleeding heart. n Because I can. Because I own it. n Took me awhile to realize, fear does not own me.n In other news, imagine a man on a bicycle, but this bicycle's got a cart mounted to it in front making it a three wheeled sort of affair. In the cart is enough gravel to fill 5 or 6 wheelbarrows - maybe 10. Since it is very heavy, there is another man on a motorbike, riding alongside. This man keeps one leg extended out and placed on the hub of the rear wheel of the bicycle man's cart. Together they will get this load of gravel down the road. They may repeat this trip 10 or 20 times in a day. This is the sort of thing one sees everyday in a country where skyscrapers are sprouting up faster than mangroves. n There is an amazing spirit of just doing things here. To catch up with a developed country there is virtually no end to the work. It goes on 24 hours a day. n

I'm a terrorist! Are you?

Courtesy of Mike Kirby...the following ad:


A government of the people, by the people and for the people? Not according to the Patriot Act. We're now living in Soviet America. Revolution is the only patriotic response.

This, just in from a reader:

Hello Brother Dave, Love ya babe! – Mismanagement and Greed (Lies for profit) have left our “Leave it to Beaver” life so far behind it is incomprehensible to vast majority of “Drones” left out there thinking that all they have to do is “live” to the age of Social Security and everything will be ok. Since the age of “Personal Awareness” we have become the idiots of “Blame”. It’s always “Because” someone did something when in reality, “None” of us have done anything except become complacent. Guess what? The existing process is “Not” about to change… so… either we shut the fuck up or do something about it! How hard is that?

Geezer.com

You've gotta be shitting me!
Is your pecker really that tiny?
That's totally sad...

American Foreign Policy since WWII

Go ahead. Take me out back and shoot me. I'm at a loss for words. And that ain't nomal, is it? Watch the video. It's a snippet of my current life as done by Sam Kinneson and Rodney Dangerfield.



Brilliant.

We loose wars because we don't give a shit. We're basically in it for the money. But military mite never beats a nation's natural patriotism. We need to get back to our roots. Paul Revere and Thomas Payne were insurgents. Thomas Jefferson was a participating enemy of big government.

I graduated High School in 1974, the first year of no draft – so my impression of Vietnam is very different from that of someone just a few years older than me. Today, a host of vets and journalists still live here and I have spoken with many. This month marks the 33rd anniversary of the end of the war. The last American helicopter departed from Saigon on April 15th, 1975 and by the end of the month, North Vietnamese tanks had stormed through the gates of the presidential palace. Having lived now both in South Korea and in Vietnam, America's two primary post WWII theatres, I've come to wonder if the Cold War was just the result of a business deal gone bad. The accompanying chart illustrates WWII deaths by country. Considering that our ally, the Soviet Union, lost nearly 26 million people, or 14% of their population, and America lost less than 1/2 a million, just .32% of it's population, one might wonder if the Soviets expected more spoils for their efforts after the war and if the actions in Korea and Vietnam were just past business partners fighting over assets in the divorce.

For more in Political Satire and Satire see:

White House Party Crashers Board Plane Loaded!

Pope Prays For Embattled Putter's Promiscuous Pecker: Tiger Woods Pardoned

Obama Sends 30,000 Troops to Tiger Woods' House!

Obama's Puppy in Rehab After Just a Week

Recession Profit Stategies II

Recession Profit Strategies I

Bush Surveys Presidential Disaster Area

MENSA Endorses McCain/Palin

Putin Hot As Hell Over Palin

SNL Palin/Hillary Open

Cheney Delivers 1 Billion in Aid to Georgia

Obama Splits Ticket - Boots Biden

Belgian Prime Minister Quits Over Budweiser Purchase

Obama Brandishes a Bud for the Bubbas

American Foreign Policy Since WWII

America Overseas - Citizen Mekong to the Rescue

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.