Heaven in New York? Chinatown:)

My last year+ in New York has been eventful, to say the least. Some might say challenging. Others have said it was a bitch. Being arrested and seeing my friends arrested for exercising our first amendment rights with Occupy Wall Street - not being able to smoke almost anywhere - the rigors of looking for a new position in a crippled job market. The general politics and pessimistic outlook of the country at large. Hurricanes. The American hallmark of mass public shootings. The general malaise and hubris I saw coming on when I first shipped out for Korea in 1995, made me long for Asia:)

So recently, when a friend told me about a Chinese video game room (비디오 방 in Korean) where I could use a nice computer for 15 hours for $10 total, buy cigarettes for $6.50 a pack vs.the standard $14, bring in my own beer, and nap during the session if needed, I felt like I was going home - to a place like many in Asia and even a few in Europe I frequented.  The only catch is that you must use the computer time in one stretch.

And so I was off to Chinatown away from the watchful eye of a government that shows more concern over what size soda I drink than whether I own an automatic weapon or not, to exercise all the rights I used to have in this country - once upon a time.

The main lure of course, is the cheap computer time, having had my laptop crash last winter and not having replaced it. The other things, are just a convenience, and a comfort if you will, for someone who has spent the last 16 years out of country in lands of the more free.

Using my 15 hrs, in two stretches, I was able to do a massive amount of uploading and processing on the over 1300 paintings rendered at iTOMB, clear a years worth of email, write a proposal for a Pringles/Star Wars promo , smoke all the while, and only have to hear Gangnam Style a few hundred times. All the computers have speakers and gamers tend to favour them over headphones. I use headphones. And that's where the film clip above comes in.

As I edit, organize and retouch art, it's always nice to have a soundtrack in the background. For over 30 years, My Dinner With Andre, a film By Louis Malle with Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory as both writers and actors, has been one of my favourites - not for it's visuals, but for the narative that begs one to imagine broader, more free and open thoughts - much of what I try to impart at iTOMB.

And the last two minutes of the film might quite be my favourite ever, with the spare piano of Erik Satie. He treats himself to a cab, riding home through a city of complexity, considering his simple life, and how it really is not so simple at all, but resigned and calmed - much the way I feel now. Much the way I feel in this oriental island on the larger island of Manhattan. Much the way I wonder, just how all of this will play out. Like Wallace, looking out the window as he rides.

"If You Can Make It There, You'll Make It Anywhere" - It's Feels Good to be Home

Michael Moore

There's something in the bones about New York. For me, something in a hint of a memory of 335 E. 86th Street, where I was hatched. Something borne in one. I think of it mostly as I walk and ride the city every day. I think mostly about those for whom this city would definitely not work. My family. The girl I went to Europe and Africa with. Nearly everyone I knew in Vietnam, and most in Korea as well. The rest of the world. It's not for everyone, yet everyone is here. People from 100 countries, and more. It's the only city in the US I knew would be international enough for me to feel at home. In a recent post, Seth Godin reasons because "It's Different Here" and he recounts:

• It’s different here (as in not the same)
• You can find someone to have an argument with, about just about anything
• There are fringes--cultural, educational, architectural, societal
• More than 42 languages are spoken at the Queens public library
• You can get something that’s not the regular kind
• There are profit-seekers who will happily sell you something, anything
• There are many who do things for no profit at all and will eagerly entertain, entrance and change you for the better
• You will find a diversity of religious belief like no other
• It’s changing
• The food hasn't been entirely homogenized
• People are active
• A stranger will go out of his way for you, perhaps, and more often than you expect
• There is more information per minute, per meter and per interaction
• Neighborhoods are more important than homogeneity, and co-existing is most important
  

But there's more. Compared to Asia (and even to Paris) the subway is a dirty smelly hellhole that would be an embarrassment to any developed country - but New Yorkers like it that way (most of them haven't seen Asia or Europe).. It wouldn't be NYC without it. Conversations pass daily on how organized crime controls government and government controls the people - but that's how it is. Sadly. One guy tried to impress me recently with the idea of how much better the US is than Somalia right now. Interesting. We now have to compare ourselves to underdeveloped third-world nations in political turmoil to be better than someone. But that's how it is.

Yesterday Michael Moore showed up at the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park. This morning it was Susan Sarandon. Tonight I listened to Professor Cornel West from Princeton University. Inspiring. Yes, it's different (and fucked-up) here, and I love that. The Wild Wild East has now inhabited Asia, Europe, Africa, the Wild Wild Upper East Side of NYC and even Wild Wild East Broadway and things are just fine. Recently a girl commented on my "A Suspension of Disbeliefs" blog that my writing has become more "America-centric" since returning, and she surmises, that, "that makes' sense. Before I wrote about America from afar. Now I write to afar from America. It's a small world in any case and I am now your correspondent in NYC.

The Wild Wild East Dailies Heads for the Wild Wild Upper East Side

It's time to go home. Home for me was 531 E 86th St. in New York. That's where I was born. It's doubtful that I could afford to be born there today as the building has become an upscale condominium, but in 1956, it was the Misericordia hospital and the home of the Guild of the Infant Saviour, a Catholic orphanage. This will be interesting. Stay tuned.

Lost in Translation: My Love of Social Media and Advertising and Why They Don't Go Home and Shag Like Rabbits.

They don't go home and screw uncontrollably like rabbits is because they want different things. Advertising wants control - social media want openness. Advertising wants logic - social media wants serendipity. Advertising wants planning - social media wants immediacy. Advertising is a top down hierarchy - and social media, aside from Zuckerberg's Facebook, is an inverted pyramid. Advertising is Mars - social media is Venus. And never the twain shall meet. Period, - or maybe we're getting to at least a comma 10 or 15 years on.

Oh the dinosaurs. Hope we can save them before they die.

And god knows, I love advertising - because I've worked in it for my entire adult life. I've done my shit detail - layouts for truly wretched writing, photocopies all night, whatever. I saw my first ad in the New York Art Directors Show Book, on page 3, right next to a Volkswagen ad - probably our greatest textbook study in the art. I've had work on the Super Bowl and then later, founded the first 100% foreign invested advertising agency in Korea. I've been awarded by plenty of shows. I get it.

And now I get social media. This blog (WWED) is the highest rated personal blog in Vietnam by Technorati. Peter Hirshberg, founder of Technorati, and I even tossed a few Red Bulls and Vodkas last year at DLD in Munich. The Wall Street Journal links WWED and so does the New York Times, The Huffington Post and New York Magazine. I guess that's good. Stop wait, reverse that. It is good.

And that brings us to my latest job - a consulting arrangement with one of the top advertising agencies in the world. Yes. And in what could only be described as a 'lost in translation' exchange from the start, with the agency, earnestly wanting to learn social media, but having a background in traditional media and me, trying to teach pigs to fly. Lesson #1: You're not a pig (remove all mirrors from room). Lesson #2: Give up. This ain't gonna happen. They say you can't teach old dogs new tricks and being a bit of an older dog myself, I'm not sure I believe in that so much, but sometimes to learn new tricks you have to unlearn some old ones.

Jason Falls illuminates another part of the challenge here:

"Part of the challenge for Agencies is the ability to "execute" in real time digital space. The social landscape requires a "person" to act and respond quickly to conversations. This requires that the person executing on digital communication be closely tied to the "persona" of the brand. There isn't time to make decisions by committee, or banter back and forth between client and agency personnel. The person/persona must understand the audience, the brand, and be trusted to act instantly.

I wish I had a fix-all answer to this - but all I have is a journey, and I suspect, that's a lesson all in itself.

Plutocracy, Philanthrocapitalism and you in the Year of the Cat.

Many are running to dictionaries right now to figure out what the first two words of the sentence above mean. In short, but not literally, they mean the world we live in today. They are a description of the times. As Glen Hutchins, co-founder of the private-equity firm Silver Lake, explains in this month's Atlantic magazine, "The circles we move in are defined by interests and activities rather than geography: Beijing has a lot in common with New York, London, or Mumbai - We are engaged as global citizens in crosscutting commercial, political, and social matters of common concern." That is, those of us who work in or with more than one country.

I have no predictions for the Year of the Cat but I've read the entire article above and that helps give me an idea of at least the atmosphere in which things might happen. As a New Year's treat I've included a download of Al Stewart's classic 1976 album, 'Year of the Cat'. You can download the title song, or the entire record. I recommend the latter, a firmly rolled spliff, and a little trip 25 years back to ponder just exactly what might happen in the future. Chúc Mừng Năm Mới. everyone. What may be, may be.

Relief in Saigon is just around every corner...

Those who have been in Saigon for more than a week are familiar with the site of men relieving themselves all over trees, buildings, fences and all manner of public places with nary a care nor glance from passers by. I've even seen moms dangling two year old juniors over the curb, pants dropped, so they could get a shot in on the street. In most cities in the world this would be fairly frowned upon and even punishable by jail time in some. Animal waste laws in London, NY and Paris even require that pet owners take care of their puppy's poopies so that other pedestrians don't pick up a load on the way to the cafe. But not Saigon. It's almost like some law of nature that men can pee wherever they like - and god knows, they do it with glee. So imagine my surprise when I came across a man, perched atop a cement pylon like a pelican, along one of the being-refurbished canals, doing the old #2. Hilarious. And he was having no easy time of it either. He must have eaten turds for lunch. Bouncing up and down trying to get that last squeeze out, he worried me for his balance until I realized that he was probably an old pro at this technique. Watching the canal full of refuse moving slowly towards the sea, I was reminded of the origins of the delicate aroma of the waterway by multiplying this man's actions by a few million and figuring it's just part of the charm of the place. The hidden charm. For the record, I have never seen a woman taking advantage of the city's plethora of public facilities, but when I do, I'll be sure to post about it. Your Man in Saigon is on the case.

A Phrenological Question?

What type are you?
What type are you?
What type are you?
What type are you?
What type are you?
What type are you?

Answer just four simple questions and find out exactly what type you are.
Click on any style above to take the quiz. Make sure to use the password "character" and your name.
No email required. Are you my type? I hope so.


;-)

For more self assessment see:

Are you a genius?

"I'm gonna get medieval on ya!" - That means I'm gonna talk advertising for a bit here...

Remember the scene in the movie Pulp Fiction, where that line came up? Yes, there was a man in a more than compromising position with a black rubber ball in his mouth. That's how most people feel when you say you're going to talk advertising. Because as Hugh says in the cartoon here, when you talk advertising, people think you're going to talk like advertising, and they truly don't like that. With good reason. Advertising in the past has talked down to people, but now, slowly, with the advent of social networking and consumer conversations happening in a larger space than much advertising occupies, advertising companies are coming to realize that they need to be talking with people instead of talking at them. Thank god.

That said, and before people start to think that I don't like advertising, I'd like to say stop. I love advertising. In fact tomorrow morning I'm having a meeting with the head of possibly the largest agency in Munich. "I'm Lovin' It!" Advertising, that is. And every once in awhile I find something truly enlightening in that universe that just makes me sit up and smile. This week, I found three of those things.

I AM THE CLIENT! - The first thing I found is a blog called "I AM THE CLIENT". This was forwarded to me by a pal at DDB and is positively the funniest agency blog I have yet to read. Yup, there go my readers. But I don't want to be just an advertising blog anyway so who cares. On to the story. I AM THE CLIENT is written, ostensibly, by a guy named Dave Knockles, who claims to be quite possibly the word's greatest marketing director - and it is a positive hoot. Here's an entry from a recent post:

"I got out of bed feeling so perky, I could have hung a week's laundry off my stalk-on. GOOD DAY TO YOU, WORLD! - Why such expansive morning wood? - Because today was my first day with my new agency. And I was so excited about telling them what the first campaign is going to be, I almost dry-humped the postman! - So, I breezed into the agency at 11am, virtually bang on time for my 10am meeting."

Don't think that's funny? You must be a girl. Whatever the case I do recommend you check it out. It's racy for sure, but refreshing in a business that could use a whole lot more good humour these days.

MEDIABLIPS - My next find was MediaBlips, a site dedicated to highlighting advertising and marketing blogs. I found this curiously from my Statcounter stats, as someone had found me through this site. Upon further investigation I looked into MediaBlips and found out that they had already found me and had given WWED a score of 108 - without me having done a single thing. So that's not so bad. You can check the box below and see if I've gone up or down from this post. They track Seth Godin as well and he gets a score of 158, so I'm just 50 points away from a guy who's written 10 best-selling marketing books. Hmm, there's an idea. I should write a book!

CarlsonCreative - My final discovery of the week was one of an old friend who was the first and best designer at CarlsonCreative, Inc. in Seoul, the first 100% Foreign Invested agency in Korea. Nam Mee-Hyun came to work for us with just about a year's worth of not very impressive experience and went on to not only get our agency into the New York Art Directors Show, but to help us win significant business from British American Tobacco, Samsung, LG, The Korean Ministry of Finance and many other clients. She had written me last week looking for a letter of recommendation upon her graduation from the Pratt Institute in New York with a Masters degree in Communications Design. Imagine that, an employee who wins an award from one of the most prestigeous creative shows in the world before she gets her degree from one of the most prestigeous design schools in the world. I was more than happy to write the letter - in fact, I was delighted. The poster on the left, with the New York and Seoul subways combined, was designed by MeeHyun to promote our agency's sponsorship of the New York Art Directors Show in Seoul upon the inclusion of our work. We were the only agency in Korea to have enjoyed that particular distinction that year, 1999. Exactly ten years ago. Happy anniversary, MeeHyun!

And cheers Adfolks! That wasn't so bad, was it? I've had a very nice week so far.

The search for Brian McNally ends: Your MEN in Saigon IV

With the headline "Where in the world is Brian McNally" Abbe Diaz begins a forum post on her website www.PXThis.com that reveals the enigmatic Mr. McNally had moved to Saigon. McNally a former New York restauranteur became the subject of a worldwide search that ended in none other than Saigon when a piece he had written about his travails popped up in Vanity fair in the spring of last year. And the wheels were set in motion that would bring me and a man I had never met before on a collision course amidst the motorbikes, rain, cigarettes, cocktails and ladies of Saigon -- Almost immediately after the piece appeared in Vanity Fair under the post script "Our man in Saigon", I received a letter from Rhona, a reader in New York whom I had previously not known as well stating roughly, "Wait a minute, you're our man in Saigon!". Rhona sent me a copy of the story and a friendship was born out of the unlikely crossing of my blog and the mystery writer/restauranteur.

McNally's first story shows a writing flair unusual to those not working in the business of writing and illustrates quite literally that you can get anything published if you happen to be friends with the editor of a well respected magazine. It gets a good review from me. His second story, published in November of 08, unfolds to show that just as anything can get published that anything can also get edited and the VF staff seems to have had a heyday with this one. Add to that, that now with the masthead of a legendary periodical under his belt, McNally launches into forays on politics corruption and prostitution, or seemingly lack thereof and stumbles pretty badly. I take the time to dissect it rather seriously and wait for the next story, hoping that he comes to his senses. It seems, at least according to my recent conversation with him, that he has - but more on that later.

My day, last Saturday, was pretty damn long. I had awaken early to get it started with the Saigon Digital Marketing Conference (SDM: more on that later as well) but through possibly seven or eight presentations, lunch, too many coffees, a few more presentations and then cocktails, and of course passing out plenty of my now ubiquitous Post-It Note business cards, I was just getting warmed up. Encouraged by the certified Bar Mitzvah band that had been assigned to work the conference (nobody ever accused digital people of having squat for musical taste) I exited the New World Hotel back into the world of Saigon that would barely get one star rating in the world of five star experiences.

Off to a bar known only by a number that I could not remember and the cross- street intersection behind the Sunwah building that I could remember, to a location that has proven to be discoverable by even the most inebriated of conventioneers and local expats alike, I am directed there by a new acquaintance who works for one of the more well known consumer research firms in town.

Arriving at questionmark numbered bar, I enter to find what is a more than common and successful formula for bars catering to the expat working populace in Saigon - an easily predictable combination of attractive young English speaking female staff and graying old men with credit cards. I fit in perfectly, save for the credit card, and find my new found buddy happily ensconced in the attractions of a dedicated employee. We chat for a bit, hash over some shop talk about the conference and he offers me a whiskey and ginger ale. It tastes yummy. But cigarette supplies have diminished and the barmaid tells me that menthols are not on the in-bar menu so I must go out to one of the small street stands and pay an overly inflated price for the same old smokes - so be it.

Walking out onto the street I am confronted by the remnants of a late day shower that has left the street wet but thankfully not flooded as so often is the case in Saigon. A man stands back to me staring into the drizzle but I busy myself across the little road to the ironing board style cigarette stand (you can fold them up and take them anywhere) next to the coffee cafe where Vietnamese yuppies congregate at little love seats to drink Starbuck's priced beverages and decide if they want to get married or not. I procure a normally priced at 15,000 dong pack of Marlboro menthols for twenty thousand after negotiating down from twenty five and dash back across the way to the awning over the front of my numbered bar of choice. As I look up I see a man looking excactly like the man in the photo above and say, "Hi, are you Brian?", recognizing him immediately. I'm quite sure his expression and maybe even his shirt were just like what you see above.

He responds that yes, he is Brian and I tell him that I recognize him from the Vanity Fair stories of the past year. I introduce myself as David, tell him about my blog and give him one of my rubber stamp Post-It Note business cards. From then on, it's just another two old blokes outside of what could be one of a hundred other bars in the city. We talk of past lives and present pursuits. I ask him if he knows Abbe Diaz, mentioned at the beginning of this story, and he chimes back "I fired Abbe!" from one of his more than many noted restaurants in NYC. I didn't ask why - that being a business that doesn't exactly reward employee loyalty. He tells me that he's found an export business in the way of neon and Bakelite signs that it's entirely possible for one to make $150,000 a year just by doing that - and as anyone who might understand the financial differences between Saigon and New York can tell you, would be like making a half a million or better in the Big Apple. I talk of my advertising past and he encourages me to think beyond that and into more export oriented businesses. Indeed there are things you can get done cheaply in Vietnam that are just plainly cost-prohibitive in more advanced economys and I think about that for a few seconds - and then move along. Those businesses just don't interest me much.

I prod the conversation along into the two articles that he had done so far for Vanity Fair, fully aware that although I was a fan of the first had pretty much taken the second apart for being factually and culturally inaccurate - but also knowing that I had chosen to take the VF editorial staff to task for that and not McNally himself. "Nah, I'm not a writer", he plainly states, in response to my question about whether he would be doing any more stories. I tell him I like his writing, which is true, and encourage him to keep on (not exactly anyone can get a first story in Vanity Fair). He then tells me that VF had sent him a contract and was interested in pursuing the series but that he's busy doing other things. A golf course was mentioned. Illuminating the pay structure for VF stories though, what I can say, without giving up too much information that was given to me in confidence, is that any writer in Vietnam certainly wouldn't turn it down. Without other income it would be insufficient in New York, but here a person could live on it, and not too shabbily at that.

We talk further about living accomodations and he riles a bit about rents going up - a landlord wanting $5000 a month and how that's getting on New York prices. Shit, for that around here the landlord is either a friend of Graydon Carter's or has at least seen a copy of Vanity Fair magazine with Brian's story in it. "Fuck", I exclaim. We talk about Ahn Phu and Phu My Hyun, two of the newer, pricier neighborhoods in town, and those are summarily rejected by him as not having the charm and grit that makes this place endearing - but the Stepford wives could live there. I direct him towards District 3 with the idea that a thousand bucks or two will have you living like a Buddha.

By this point I'm reasonably drunk but still have at least two more stops to go on the evening's tour. I say nice to meet him and we shake hands as I head back inside the bar. He seems more than content just out of the drizzle and gazing at the street - and I forget to put in a plug that I might be more than happy to take up the writing job that he has plainly claimed he doesn't want anymore.

All in all, nothing more and nothing less than I might have expected from all I've learned about the man in the last year (I didn't ask about Madonna or all the other famous people who used to hang out in his places. I've met my share as well). Nice, unassuming, chilled and more than comfortable in this element. As "Dick Johnson" says to Mr. McNally on Abbe's blog: "I wish you all the best and admire that despite your 'crazy' reputation within the industry, you are apparently, a pretty good sport. aww. you really are just a big fucking softie inside". And about a man who's obviously kicked up his share of shit through Schrager hotels and the like in NYC, that's quite the fucking compliment. I agree. I hope to see him around and talk more.

For the entire "You man in Saigon Experience" check below:

IV: The search for Brian McNally ends
III: The second Vanity Fair Story
II: The first Vanity Fair story
I: Your Man In Saigon"

The Hair Job II: Nothing Much Happened Again Today In Vietnam: VII

I was originally attracted by the price. As things get tougher the world over, saving over 50% on a hair job can be a big deal, especially for a guy. Previously I had gone to the same hair shop for over two years - the criteria being that they had trained salon stylists, as opposed to the bowl-over-the-head oriental barbers, and that they had a competitive price. My price for a haircut and highlight (streaks of lighter colour as opposed to a complete dye job) had been 250,000 Vietnamese Dong (vnd), or around US $17. To get the whole thing done for just vnd 100,000 (more like $7 US) seemed a bargain too good to be true - and probably any woman, with a sixth sense regarding beauty purchases, would have known that it was. But I, in an effort to maintain a tight budget, trundled on and into the shop at the appropriate time. I had visited a few hours earlier to meet the staff and inquire about price. With minimal English (they understand perfectly, the words "haircut" and "highlight") I was assured by an attractive seemed-to-be-owner that the job could be undertaken upon my return.

Once back in the shop, I found two females sleeping in the barber chairs for lack of customers and was ready to get to work. A male stylist was summoned from the back of the place and once surveying that he had the proper gear (holdster with professional shears, combs, clips, whatever) I proceeded to be draped in silk and appropriately sprayed down for the shear. And a fine job he did. With a little instruction, just here and there, he proved to understand not only the mechanics of the work but the values of design, pyramidal composition, layering, lift and drape. He was good. Maybe too good for this place. Cutting finished we were now ready for the "highlight" part of the job - and that's when the trouble began. Failing to find the previous owner-to-be- there was absolutely no understanding whatsoever amongst the now remaining staff that I had requested the second procedure, but with yet more encouragement I managed to find a hair sample book on my lap and proceeded to riffle through the pages in search of blonde. As you might imagine, the colour palate for this hemisphere is radically different from that in the west and an almost dizzying array of Auburn to Chestnut to Mahogany takes up over 95% of the book with "Madonna 101", the standard bottle blonde colour, occupying just one sample - so I picked that one. Pandemonium ensued.

The universal Vietnamese symbol for "We don't have that", "We're out of that", "We have no fucking idea what you're talking about" is an inversion of the palms skyward, elbows bent, and a rotating of wrists that produces a blender-like motion in the air in front of the communicator's mute piehole. Translation: "You're fucked". It was then, just as nicely explained as they were capable of, that they didn't have the blonde colour and I would have to choose from the remainder of browns in the book. "But that's not a highlight", I protested to deaf ears, "Highlight means lighter and yadda, yadda, yadda" - as I went just so abso-fucking-lutely nowhere. This job was over. And I would have to find my highlights in another shop. I paid for the haircut, a more than fair 20,000 dong, and was dejected onto the street like a pinball through the black hole of hell in a game of flipper-the-foreigner. "Go fish dude". That's how it works sometimes.

Now on the street I was essentially like a car which had had bodywork, bondall and primer but no primary paint job. A half-baked job now looking for completion on a budget of 80,000 dong. Good luck. A survey of shops in my not-so-large four block radius neighborhood will reveal no less than 30 hair shops. They're everywhere, as are the customers, and apparently have not seen yet fit to establish a local business organization that will help them get some handle on proper pricing and services - prices vary wildly. From an arguable 80,000 dong tint job at a shop who didn't have my colour I was now wading through a plethora of the joints with estimates going all the way from 150,000 dong to 280,000!

One thing's for sure, they know how to spot a foreigner who's got a big fucking problem. I didn't see anyone else walking the streets with a 1/2-done hair job, that's for sure.

After a flurry of unsuccessful negotiations with more than five shops, in an effort to get something close to 80,000 dong, I settled on a place for 100,000, after getting them off their original quote of 120,000. I'm convinced I met every gay man in the neighborhood after this ritual and was more than happy to check my head in with what seemed to be a family of stylists - a woman, her husband and two cute sisters - either one of which the male owner was proffering for me to be interested in romantically. I chuckled that off and sat down for the cap. The device with which one administers a highlight job is a rather unattractive shower cap, tied beneath the chin with a little lip of a visor at the forehead and about a hundred holes covering the hairline of the cranium through which very small chunks of hair will be pulled by a crotchet-like hook, producing sort of a mad scientist look before the colouring solution is applied. That done, the solution, a pasty blue goo in a bowl, is painted, with a paintbrush, onto the hair sticking out of the cap. It smells caustic and you look like a complete idiot during the process. Only a person of true unadulterated vanity would submit to the procedure holding a vascilating uncertain hope that, somehow in the end, they would actually look better for it. It takes a real suspension of disbelief to do this.

20 minutes with the goo and you are almost ready to have the stuff removed - thirty minutes in my case as she sits me down in the chair for a final moving about of all the hair with the paintbrush and a hand-sign that says "five minutes". After that one is ushered to the shampoo section and given a thorough washing, scrubbing and massage from which you do emerge, I would certainly say, refreshed and then ushered back out to the front room for a blow-dry, gel and style - but this job was 1/2 done at one shop and 1/2 done here so the stylist is at a bit of a loss as to what she thinks I was going for in the first place. For my assessment, I'd say I was going for Bowie, but ended up with Rod Stewart instead - and that, as even all my veteran friends of the 70s will attest, is not a particularly good thing.

The big shock of hair that sprouts from my widows peak in front had become a neon sort of balloon yellow and the spikey roostery things in back were more of a platinum. I have no idea how this happens but with me as the stylist, uh, creative director of the job at hand, had no one to blame but my budget conscious self and proceeded to thank the staff, pay them and go on my merry way. Bad hair jobs are almost a hallmark of foreigners here. As the prices are so much radically cheaper than those of most western countries, the entire foreign population seems to go around getting themselves transformed into the likes of exotic endangered bird species on a daily basis. For the likes of the hair and nails on the women of the majority of the foreign influx, they are, for the most part ... horendous - and none of the Vietnamese ever seem to notice. They think all foreigners look like this - they've seen them on TV.

The rest of my evening was spent trying to figure out quite what to do next. I had dinner and having not been noticed by anybody yet, went home to hide. The Swiss Army Knife, given to me by my ex-mother-in-law, has yet to see a problem it can not handle. It's little saw has tackled rose bushes at my overgrown lakehouse - the corkscrew, tamed any number of wine bottles and the auger, bored through a number of leather objects, including belts, to produce holes where no holes had been before. The little scizzors have come in handy as well, and tonight would be a test of their true fortitude. Could they swim their way through a virtual forest of oddly colored hair and cut out only the portions I didn't like? Could they master the intricacies of 21st century hairstyling to birth a Bowie from a Stewart? Could they? Could they?

Over the next few days, a number of you will see me. Do not be kind. Be honest. Brutally honest. One friend saw me recently and didn't even understand I had had my hair done, but truthfully, he doesn't know fuck all about these things. A few days ago another friend asked me if I was going for the LA Bowie or the Berlin Bowie. I said, "LA when I'm sober, Berlin when not". He thought that was backwards, but appropriately Bowie-esque. All you will need to do is figure out whether I have been drinking or not to tell me if I have succeeded.

Maybe NY Bowie is somewhere in the middle - or maybe just me. Again, nothing much 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

Kimmy Robertson & Twin Peaks: What Have I Done For You Lately III

Every once in awhile I get the chance to trot out some of my older work in advertising and today is one of those days. In my email, the ubiquitous message from YouTube, "Someone has left a comment on (insert video title here)". Oddly, joy does not immediately wash over one for the possibility that it's a complete slam is extremely high. I have one channel that features all of my professional work but the idea that anybody actually made any of the mazzilions of commercials on the Tube seems lost on many viewers. I had one punk call me a thief and said he knew I was claiming a work that was not rightfully mine. I sent him the director's name and listed the creation crew and never heard a thing back from him. Certainly not an apology. Advertising is a thankless job. Sometimes.

But not today. Today, I received a note from KimmyGloria who later revealed herself to be Kimmy Robertson from the American TV show "Twin Peaks" directed by David Lynch in the late 80s and early 90s.




We had cast Kimmy as the ditzy but oh-so-much-smarter-than-her-meathead-husband because she had gotten a free book of football stats with the purchase of a twelve-pack of Miller beer. The work was done at the Leo Burnett agency in Chicago. I had based the character on my partner, Alex Kroll Jr.'s, girlfriend at the time who could rip up a room full of footballers with her knowledge of everything from history to stats, strategy and players of the game. American football of course. Alex was the son of Alex Kroll Sr., then CEO of Young & Rubicam advertising in New York. He had been a star player on the Yale and Rutger's teams and did a year for a pro team which later became the New York Jets - so I had powerful real people from which to draw the concept. Kimmy was cast because of her innate sweetness and smartness and this is probably the only beer commercial ever made, save for the entire "Swedish Bikini Team" series, where the male characters are played exactly as most beer drinkers of this variety are. Dim. Kimmy is physically small but she carries this off huge as the only person in the room who knows WTF is really going on. The commercial won a number of awards and was well received by the client and viewers, Her note to me reads: "DEC you are now and always were so kind to me. Thank you!" Thank you Kimmy.

P.S. Kimmy's followed up her earlier note here: " Hi David, This is so interesting to me. I have watched stuff on YouTube but never posted a comment before. I only hoped you would see it. You were one of my really good memories, magic. You worked with magic. Only a few ever do."

Love,
Kimmy

Your Man In Saigon

A big thanks to Rhona in NYC for pointing out that The Wild Wild East Dailies is now being shadowed by Vanity Fair.

From Rhona's note to me:

"I fell on your WWE page by accident very recently and of course I got hooked. Even the music was pretty addictive... Then, in the same week, up pops the Brian McNally piece in Vanity Fair (April issue). Much more predictable than yours, but still fun. And Graydon Carter says 'I am hoping this is the first of many such reports from Our Man in Saigon.' Ha! But to your readers, you are Our Man in Saigon. So of course I wondered if you had read it and what you thought of it."

Vanity Fair has now been apprised of this duality and I'm sure Mr. Carter is busy scanning this blog to see if I really live in Saigon or am just trying to ride VF's Calvin Klein coattails. The Vanity Fair piece deals with a restauranteur who came here a year ago and sends emails back to Mr. Carter. I haven't met the man but on advice from his article, I'll be hunting down his barbershop ASAP. Vanity Fair also saw fit to send a photographer to get shots of the writer, very similar to ones that those of us who have been here for awhile, already have on our cel-phones. Call the Enquirer! We could already be sitting on shots of Spitzer's next girlfriend. Rhona has been nice enough to send me a copy of the story, so in a week or so I'll have a full report for you all.

Until then, I will remain Your Man In Saigon and urge you not to accept any cheap imitations from Vanity Fair or any other high minded celebrity gossip rags!

And oh, by the way... I saw Bentley #4 this week. Things are just going chirping mad around here.

For the entire "You man in Saigon Experience" check below:

IV: The search for Brian McNally ends
III: The second Vanity Fair Story
II: The first Vanity Fair story
I: Your Man In Saigon"