T H E W I L D W I L D E A S T D A I L I E S

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Paris Wallpaper - Sometimes the best prayers have no words: The Wild Wild East Goes West VII

Bastille, Paris, Xavier, France, St. Sulpice, Servadoni, Fish, Beret, Grafitti, LÓrangerie,

Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Bastille Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris

Paris Paris Paris Marie DiMedici Fountain Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Boissons Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Pa

Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Grafitti Trucks Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Genre Art Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Pari

s Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Tour Eiffel Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Par

Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris St. Sulpice Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris

Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Pari

s Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Her first Beret Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris

s Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Little kids Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Pa

ris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris To see differently Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris P

is Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris The complications of simple design Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris P

aris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Does it talk to you? Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris P

aris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Xavier Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris Paris I pray Yen finds her way.

For more in the WWE Goes West Series check here:

I) The Wild Wild East Goes West: Onward Ho!
II) Frankfurt
III) C'est Si Bon
IV) Bon Jour Paris!
V) Les Picassos en Paris
VI) Nothing Much Happened en Paree Today
VII) Paris Wallpaper: Sometimes The Best Prayers Have No Words
VIII) Au Revoir Paris
IX) Is Publicis Groupe a Dead Brand?

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Nothing Much Happened (IX) en Paree Today: The Wild WildEast Goes West VI

Dang Hai Yen

18.08.09 - 8am: and the B&W girl is at the door. What could it be? She had packed her things and left the day before. Hungover as hell I open it to wash away a night of beer drinking and trying to figure out why women do what women do. Hopeless. I had found myself at 1 in the morning in a Scottish bar where you could not smoke trying to answer this question with a French Ph.D. in Psychology and Philosophy. He didn't have the answer - but maybe the beer did. We drank what we could to try to distill the said female information and ended up dry. Wet. But still dry. Idiots - we men.

"Uh huh", "Right", "I see", "Right again". Lesson #1 dudes: The woman is always right and you are always wrong. Once you get that down things will go a lot smoother.

11am: Three hours of this and it's agreed that we still disagree and believe me, that's a lot further along than we were the day before. Time to plan a day. A yogurt and a coffee remove the edge and it's time to get off to the Internet shop for a little email checking. Internet here costs a minimum of 2 Euro an hour (that's $2.80) and goes down the more time you spend but this kind of pricing tends to make you want to get the hell out the minute you got in, but things don't always go so quickly. Time to check mail.

12:00 noon: Erik has responded to my "Bon Jour Paris" post on LinkedIn and I'm happy to see that anybody has responded. Erik Vos is a Dutch designer living in Paris and his website shows you that he's quite the cool cat indeed, but I don't know that yet. He proposes a meeting at 4 and we make a plan. Oddly I do not have a phone here as my phone from Vietnam doesn't work in France and a phone purchased here would not work in Afrika so phuck the phone. We just need to go old skool and make what we can of things. Appointment set.

3pm: Hours go by easily when the entire plan you spent months contemplating has gone up in a blaze of feminine glory and you're busy trying to decide if it's back to Germany, Vietnam or wherever the fuck. Honestly who cares whatever or whomever got me on this trip and just as I said in the beginning, that I would have been and idiot not to have gone, I spend little time thinking of how much of an idiot I have become because of having gone. There's no point to that. At least I'm on the road and in homage to K

erouac whistle a little Willie Nelson tune. Home to shower and crunch a few crackers with brie, my hangover has subsided and I'm ready to go meet Erik at the entrance to Jardin du Luxembourg. For those not exactly in the know this park was Marie DiMedici's private little 28 hectare garden for awhile while the family was busy patronizing the arts of my university art history years and not much has been lost to the ages. It's positively fabulous. Beaux Arts facades and statues abound, the park is an odd yet totally harmonius collection of French formal gardens, English country lanes, and Italian inspired sculpture and decoration - and it's full of pagan-like Greek mythological figures and just flat out flights of middle ages old money fantasies. Do it on drugs if at all possible.

3:45pm: Off to meet Erik all I know is that he will be wearing an orange Polo shirt. That should be easy unless of course, the Orange Telecom Polo team shows up for a picnic. He arrives and rather than spend our time at a streetside cafe as most would in Paris he suggests that we take time in the park and at least look at the girls. And that seems exactly the right thing to do. It is Paris for chrissakes. Good idea. Erik is wonderful and we strike it off nicely. His designs are well throught and he has another million other good ideas in his back pocket. We talk of Afrika and more places to come and Italian real estate deals and god knows what else. Hours fly. This is the way a lazy Tuesday afternoon was meant to be.

5:30pm: And then I realize my bag is gone. Fuck. In the bag is my partner's camera as well as the notebook I carry always to write these posts and keep all sorts of other daily information and travel miscelleny. Fuck again. The bag has apparantly been lost in our moving of chairs after another convenience store trip to replentish our beverages and with my experience of publics and parcs does not seem to have much of a chance of coming abck at all. Fuck three times. Erik suggests that we check with the local gendarmarie and we dutifully trod off to the lost and found station which, in 28 hectares of garden fantasie, will not prove all so easy to find.

6pm: But found it is. And inside, a more than helpful and cheery park gendarme to help with our search. "Let's see", he ponders, "another stupid American tourist has lost a bag with a decent little Nikon inside and he expects we Parisians are so dumb as to waste our precious time traipsing of to the cop shop to drop it off so said American tourist will not have to put up with even more shit from a partner who already doesn't like him very much?" Fat chance. Or in this case, a Fat Tuesday's chance. I describe the bag, the Nikon and the notebook inside. I neglect to describe the dime bag of marijuana I might have had stashed in the inside front pocket had I visited this park when I was in my twenties and he checks the register. Check #1: Stupid American tourists? = Plenty. Check #2: Black bags with Nikons and notebooks inside? = One. Somebody's got to be shitting me? And rolling his chair towards a bin for storage he pulls out my bag exactly - with all contents in tact. Amazing. I thank him profusely in the most horrible and awkward French I can manage, and thank Erik for persevering with me to find the station.

6:30pm: It's time for Erik to get back home and we bid farewell, agreeing of course to keep in touch and keep up with the future. Two geeks in a park on a Tuesday afternoon and you don't find that everyday now, do you? Maybe everyday in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, but today in Jardin du Luxembourg? Nice.

7pm: I Finish my day with Rolando. He is drawing portraits and I ask him if I may see his sketchbook. It is thoughtful and full of all sorts of people from the park that day. He asks me if he may draw me, not to make money, but just for the time and experience and I agree - on one condition - the condition being that I get to draw him as well. He says ok on his condition that I draw him first and on we go. I have not made a drawing like this in over 30 years - sometime way back in school. It takes me awhile to get my sea legs but it all comes back. Just like riding a bike.

8pm: The tree is a chestnut tree. It's the same tree I had wondered about in Korea from my blog post last summer called "The Art Walk". In that post I had described how one of my past employees remarked that I always looked at the smallest things on my walk out of the office and down the hill each day. And today I found the answer to the the name of the trees that graced my Korean walk everyday. I guess sometimes we just have to wait for our answers.

9pm: And home. A regular reader here had wondered to me recently whether this blog was getting too personal - and whether I had gone astray from my professional expertise and field of snarky comment about all things marketing and all things snarky. In short, they had wondered if I had gone soft on y'all. And yes. Maybe so. And maybe so for all the right reasons. It would

Drinking, Euro, France, Vietnam, Phone, Paris, DiMedici, Keruoc, Willie Nelson, The Art Walk, Jardin du Luxembourg,

be hard for me to explain all the reasons for going on this tour as well as all the reasons for not going on this tour, and all I can say at this point, is that I am here. I am here. I am here. And that is a far better place than I was just one month ago. It's even a better place than I was in Dalat just two months ago. For whatever reason I am here, I know it is to expand my thought and my field of vision in a way that would not have been possible had I stayed home (wherever I may have regarded that to be) and stuck my thumb up my butt some more. Doors open and we have but one choice: Go through them. We are not always able to know exactly what might be on the other side - but rather we should be happy that in our lives, doors are opening instead of closing and let the outcome rely on itself. Being in the game is always far better than just watching it. I know that by now.

12 midnight: I made a call requested of me by my partner and she asked for a surprise meeting on the street near le Pantheon. Things had changed again from just a day ago and it was agreed that tomorrow would be yet another new day with all old stories relegated to the pile where all old stories go and a new one to begin on the following morning. Arguing with that idea is just another bad notion, if one should have it. Time to sleep. New days are what this trip is all about, and Infinite Wisdom is but a carrot on a stick - and so, again - nothing much happened in Paree 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

For more in the WWE Goes West Series check here:

I) The Wild Wild East Goes West: Onward Ho!

II) Frankfurt

III) C'est Si Bon

IV) Bon Jour Paris!

V) Les Picassos en Paris

VI) Nothing Much Happened en Paree Today

VII) Paris Wallpaper: Sometimes The Best Prayers Have No Words

VIII) Au Revoir ParisIX) Is Publicis Groupe a Dead Brand?

Monday, August 17, 2009

Les Picassos En Paris: The Wild Wild East Goes West V

Paris, Painters, Musee Picasso, Tabac, Louvre, Rainbow, Dang Hai Yen, au revoir

Ahh, the Louvre or Musee National Picasso Paris, no? No. The painters in Paris are real painters and the canvases, the buildings. The pictures? Our lives. To see Paris and only see the monuments, the places in the travel books should be a crime and would be in heaven, which is near to what this city has to offer. This morning on my trip to the Tabac (tobacco shop) I spied the man in front of me entering the shop, his pants spattered with the colours du jour for every day for a month. It made me think of the way our lives go by. Sometimes. Blue. Sometimes red. Sometimes another. But the number of colours pales in comparison to the number of people who can not see them - those who live their days in only black and white. Today for me will go down as a very blue day but for someone else it was just black or white - and that makes me sad. Because the rainbow was there and all she needed to do was reach out and touch it, but that would have erased the black and the white and those were the only colours she had convinced herself she was comfortable with. Au revoir dear Yen.

For more in the WWE Goes West Series check here:

I) The Wild Wild East Goes West: Onward Ho!
II) Frankfurt
III) C'est Si Bon
IV) Bon Jour Paris!
V) Les Picassos en Paris
VI) Nothing Much Happened en Paree Today
VII) Paris Wallpaper: Sometimes The Best Prayers Have No Words
VIII) Au Revoir Paris
IX) Is Publicis Groupe a Dead Brand?

Friday, August 14, 2009

Bon Jour Paris: The Wild Wild East Goes West IV

Hello Parisians. The rest of the trailer trash who usually reside here can just go get yourself a cold Budweiser and sit this one out. "Paris is just way too cool and sophisticated for you", he said whilst sipping his espresso and lighting yet another Gauloise from the crumpled pack in his Levis front pocket.

Man, get rid of the American's, the Brits, The Aussies and most of Canada and this is a really cool world. Why can't the rest of the world be as hip and urbane as old gay Paris? Yet, another secret the French won't tell. Time here has been reasonably luxurious. With nothing but good food and nice weather to tide us through the days, I've been cooking up a storm, gaining weight and working out. Yes, my blog post time has been cut a bit but I promise to pick back up when I stop enjoying being a real human and taking days in the park meeting real new friends as opposed to just sitting on Facebook and collecting virtual ones.

Parisians, France, Budweiser, Americans, Brits, Aussies,

The purpose of this post I hope, is to meet a few of the Parisian readers who frequent the Wild Wild East Dailies. For the better part of a year and a half I've been dutifully posting here and over that time acquired a significant number of French readers. The chart on the above right puts France in the number 3 position as of today. And we wonder, what is it you suave Parisians love about me? Is is my no nonsense, take-no-prisoners American savoi fare? Is it the fact that you've finally realized that a six pack of 99 cent Shiner beer and a Marlboro beats the hell out of a 1.25 euro bottle of French table wine and a baguette (at least on price anyway)? Or could it be that I'm just an obnoxious redneck from New York who's busy poluting your fair city and you'd like to see me run out of town on a rail as soon as possible - and would be willing to to buy me said cheap French table wine to get the job done?

Whatever. And whatever your reasons, please feel free to contact me at my email, David.E.Carlson@gmail.com - or through the following: http://twitter.com/WildWildEast - Follow me on Twitter http://www.facebook.com/WildWildEast Personal stuff on Facebook http://www.linkedin.com/in/davideverittcarlson - My professional Bio on LinkedIn http://www.youtube.com/user/DavidEverittCarlson And, of course, my YouTube commercial videos. I'll be in town for a couple of more weeks and would love to do a meetup. Bon jour!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

C'est Si Bon : The Wild Wild East Goes West III

#25. That's us. The Taxi from Paris Est Station to St. Germain and the 6th arandissement is a whirlwind of postcard images and a far cry from the order of Frankfurt or the disorder of Ho Chi Minh City. To see the city in the flesh again for a second time makes one come to realize that whatever the French did add to Vietnam was but a drop in the bucket from the original. The aire urbaine that is the city of the Parisii envelopes one instantly from the river Seine to Notre Dame to our home for the next three weeks across from Jardin du Luxenbourg off Boulevard St. Michel. We are transformed, if only during the short ride, into urban sophisticates jetting the globe in search of business and pleasures unknown - untouched for just a moment by the realities that are our own independent lives - but even the city of lights can not take those realities away, rather it washes them in a waterfall of sights and sounds that say, "Wouldn't you like to be as fucking cool and sophisticated as we every day of the year instead of just for your time in this fucking cab?" My partner nods yes, without moving her head or saying a word at all.

6 months worth of luggage hauled up four flights of ever winding and ever steepening stairs and we are at 444 - a tiny disheveled apartment, on the inner courtyard of an otherwise quietly impressive building, that seems to have been decorated by a French Helen Keller and furnished by Stevie Wonder. There is even an artist's garret across the courtyard with paintings and easels and the smell of fresh oil paint waifting through the divide. This is our bohemian rhapsody for the next three weeks. Our foxhole for planning and plotting our next move.

Paris, Infinite Wisdom, NotreDame, Seine, End of the Vietnam War, Jardin du Luxembourg, St. Michel,

A trip to the late night gourmet convenience store (I've not seen a 7-11 yet) and three hours of kitchen cleaning the next morning yeilds a spectacular salmon salad with homemade croutin for evening and a breakfast of French toast with salmon side salad the next morning. Dinner Saturday is a braised duck a l'orange with merguez and anchovie dressing on the side - so at least with a budget that is more than modest, we are eating like Sun Kings. The Beatles would have approved.

In 1990 I had visited Paris on a trip not unlike this, combining business and pleasure with a course in French country cooking along with tours of the museums and countryside, so to be able to exercise my culinary skills again in the city of their refinement along with a stretch of networking and plan building seems almost a dream too good to be true. We all need to be able to hold on to days like these and make the most of them - they don't come along but every 20 years or so - at least in my case.

And so today is the start of our research and contact building for the future. Is there a market in helping French based businesses with their management consulting and marketing affairs being activated in Vietnam? Well, we're certainly going to find out - and along the way discover just how much actual work it takes to make dreams come true and the proper amount of Infinite Wisdom to be used in holding the whole thing together. Vive la France!

Post Script: In the writing of this post the following reader registered in on my Live Traffic Feed: Paris, Ile-de-France landed on http://wildwildeastdailies.blogspot.com/ 14:36:14 -- 22 minutes ago - How did they know I was talking about them?

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Frankfurt: The Wild Wild East Goes West II

Frankfurt comes on the heals of Vietnam like a powerbleached metropolis built between the lines of commerce and commerz. The difference is striking. Surreal. The Mercedes taxi slides past Festival Park, the Frankfurt convention center and home of the world's largest auto show, at 180km an hour as the driver speeds towards the train station near to where our hotel is located. Architecture blurs in a pastiche of Bauhaus office meanderings mixed with function over form human filing cabinets, or apartments, as the Vietnamese might call them. It is explained while driving through the neighborhood of signs displaying "Sex Show" or "Table Dancing" that our hotel is located in this area for the factors of reasonable price and proximity to the train station for our escape to Paris later in the week. I have little trouble agreeing with that.

The flight, from Hanoi to Frankfurt is eleven hours and jet lag takes it's toll on my partner as we settle into our room. Breakfast has been served at the end of one of our longest days and after, the only reasonable thing to do is sleep - but we can't, so we don't, quite yet.

Frankfurt, Infinite Wisdom, Oskar Shindler, Shindler's List, Michael Conrad and Leo Burnett

Waking at 3 pm from a flight that arrived at 5:50 am I spy one still dead traveling companion and decide that it's a good time to survey my environs, the more than large train station that lies to the east. And it seems that bums were designed to live in train stations as I am approached by a young t-shirt wearing, German engineered bum who seems more like a college drop-out than an actual bum. "No thank you", I reply to the request. Here at the Frankfurt am Main station, classical European architecture meets steel and glass rennovation to present a shopping mall of Mac Le Grand proportions as Burger Kings and bagel shops grab out for one's ever so well healed attention - or at least that of the locals. The price of my Double Whopper meal nears ten dollars as I realize that in Vietnam, that would be equivent to 180,000 dong and buy you a gourmet entre and appetizer. I wolf that sucker down in classic western carnivorous fashion anyway, as if I am eating the very hollogrammed-silver-threaded-security-embeded Euro note from my pocket. Heaven, in the financial nirvana of Deutchland - delivered in all it's flamed broiled glory.

I buy a baguette for my partner back at the room, knowing she will be little interested in venturing out to this sea of commercialism that thrives on the almost mechanical meticulism of the populace of this less than vibrant metropolis. What you do see in Frankfurt are the spoils of bean counting of the highest German order. What you don't see is heart. And that's what I was about to find to be a byproduct of a strictly German education. Compassion, removed by education - replaced by ambivalence.

The next day brings Ericka. Ericka and I had met on YouTube nearly two years ago and now we were finally going to meet in person. How wild in the world of virtual friends and relationships the Internet has cobbled together for all of us these days.

Ericka Dickens-Gerhardt fronts a jazz and blues band in the city and goes by the moniker "That Broad Abroad" to her fans back in her hometown of L.A. She meets us at one of the more than ubiquitous foreign-owned Irish Pubs that seem to dot the globe and greets me with a warm and gracious hug. We settle down to a less than Irish Lunch and begin to chew the fat, American style, as my Vietnamese counterpart and Ericka carry sidebar conversations in German. Oh how International it's all become. Finishing lunch, Ericka takes us around the corner to the former apartment of Oskar Shindler, of Shindler's list fame. She then presents me with a book about him, signed and commemorating our meeting, along with a small bag of cookies baked by her daughter. So sweet. My partner, ever still victimized by jetlag and a few other traveling demons, decides, not surprisingly, to retire back to the room as Ericka and I continue our venture into the city formerly occupied by the Americans in WWII.

Our afternoon walk travels through Zeil, a posh area of shopping malls and higher class boutiques and ends, accross the Main river at the Deutsche Architekturmuseum for espresso and espresso induced conversation. A large bottle of Pellegrino hits the table and I feel I#m almost in L.A. - Oh and that "slash-mark"? Welcome to the wondrous world of the German keyboard - where Zs and Ys are transposed and all the little nuggets like @ signs, // marks and "quotations are buried in odd, possibly shift or possibly alt key locations making a tour of the typescape a real romp and a speedbump for virtually everz sentence I venture. Fun? No.

But Ericka answers my big question of the tour. "Could I, and the partners of Infinite Wisdom, find work in Frankfurt"?

And her answer is an uniquivocal "Yes"! With over 922 jobs per 1,000 inhabitants, Frankfu r t has the highest concentration of jobs in Germany. The areas of Management Consulting and Advertising are represented by all the big names and just a short train ride brings Munich, home to Germany's film production and creative community. So why are we not hanging out longer here and in Munich and instead going on to Paris? Ah, the answer to that question lies in a last minute cancellation of our apartment in Munich and a quick plug in of Paris to fill the hole. Once in Paris, I'm sure we'll sit around and ponder that logic for awhile. Or maybe not.

Ericka's last statement to me on the subject brings us to the beginning of my memoir, Wild Wild East. In further deliberation on the possibility of using my Asian knowledge back here in the West she said, "David, look. The man who got you to Korea can get you to Frankfurt"

From the memoir Wild Wild East:

"Chicago, April 1995: I’m sitting in my office on the 26th floor of the Leo Burnett building watching the sailboats go by when the telephone rings; it’s Michael Conrad, our Worldwide Creative Director, and he has a question: “What do you know about Korea?”, he asks. “Nothing”, I said – and that’s how I got the job."

Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett remains one of Frankfurt's premier agencies for Advertising, Branding and Corporate Image.

Amazing. What goes around, really does come around. More Infinite Wisdom from Paris...

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Virtual Parrots

What's a Virtual Parrot?

People who tweet the same shit over and over again, like @Techchat. Nah, @yechchat!

Detri-viral Marketing II: Top Ten Branded Social Media Nightmares

Detri-viral marketing, United Airlines, Guitars, Dr. Thanh, Dave Carroll, Dow Chemical, Dominoes, Comcast, Motrin,Inventorspot, youtube,

Back in March, I did a story called "Detri-viral Marketing: When Web 2.0 Works Against Your Brand". The impetus for that story was a Vietnamese commercial for a tea beverage called Dr. Thanh. Well before I got wind of it, a few crafty creatives had assembled a YouTube video that showed the Dr. Thanh TV commercial playing side by side the Chinese commercial they had copied, nearly frame by frame, actor for actor, wardrobe for wardrobe. It was uncanny. But even more uncanny was the YouTube reaction; A video that had 1000 views when I saw it, grew to 4000 by the time of my first story and now has nearly 10,000. Now that's "detri-viral" marketing. It cannot possibly have been good for the good Doctor Thanh. One YouTube comment on the product itself said, "see your Dr. after you've tried it". So you see it's not just about the advertising itself. Detri-viral marketing goes straight to the heart and soul of your brand - whatever it's core values, or lack of them.

Todays feature comes from Inventorspot.com and their story, "Top Ten Branded Social Media Nightmares", in which they detail, stumble by stumble, the effect that negative consumer feedback on social media sites has had on core brand values - and it's disheartening, or heartening if your a fan of David over Goliath battles.

My favorite example is a YouTube video produced by a professional musician, Dave Carroll, and his band after United Airlines broke his guitar. Failing to be properly compensated for the breakage or to receive any empathetic treatment from United employees, the musician told the last employee he dealt with, a Miss Irlweg, that if they didn't fix his guitar, that he would make three videos documenting the experience and put them on YouTube. His first video, called "United Breaks Guitars" now stands at over 4.5 million views - and it's a damn funny video as well. See it below. And make sure you turn off the music in the podcast here, in the sidebar, before you do.

A YouTube reviewer added this comment: "It has been a PR disaster for the airline, which has seen its share price plunge by 10%, wiping $180m off the company's value. WOO!! But United Airlines say they would like to the video use for training purposes to ensure all customers receive better service from the company in future. "

And well it should have been a disaster for the airline. They reacted horribly. And Dave Carroll? He wasn't so famous before the incident, but he certainly is now - and selling more records I'm sure. He's actually very good, and funny as well. So go ahead big brands. Step on a little guy and see what happens. You can't Tweet fast enough to stop it.

The InventorSpot.com story goes on to outline other social media fumbles by brands as notable as Dow Chemical, Comcast, Dominoes Pizza and pain relief medication, Motrin. The Dominoes Pizza video has only a somewhat modest 39,000 views, compared to the 4.5 million for Dave Carroll, but considering the relative sizes of Vietnam vs. the United States, that makes the Dr. Thanh viewing at 10,000, a real detri-viral sensation here. Give the whole story a look. It's detri-viral marketing in action and it's coming to a big dumb brand near you!