Duck For Comfort

Dealing in wheeling

2011-11-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned the site a few times already, but longform.org is an awesome source of written entertainment and links toenlightenment. I am halfway through an article from edmunds.com, a comprehensive site forprospective car buyers, in which a hired investigative reporter spends asignificant chunk of life time working as a car salesman. It made me wantto tell the following story: my most interesting car-sales-related anecdote.

In the ninth grade at Mt. Ararat high school, where I took and my father taught English, the most loftyassignment of the year was to write a fictional historical narrative based onextensive research on the time and topic. I chose Holocaust Germany andremember a scene in my story where a son is in a gallery at the Aushwitzgallows and realizes that his father is among those being exterminated.

In order to encourage honesty or to lighten fear of failure,teachers of writing regularly issue a disclaimer that the assigned efforts oftheir students will be shared with no one. My father generally abides by this pledge of confidentiality, but I remember one instance where he didn't.

Since Mr. Meyn, my pops, taught mainly ninth-grade classes, we would often discussthe parallel path we were walking, he as a guide and me amongthe trailing legion. An acquaintance of mine, known among my friends for hispenchant for partying, was privy to my father’s tutelage that year and it washis historical narrative that was the subject of the only memorable criticism myfather aired about his students' assignments (the only other time Iremember being exposed to confidential criticism was when I read reports on students at the summer program he teaches at in an unclosedClarisWorks document on our family Apple Power Mac in which one student was described as an "ultimate space cadet.”)

This particular student, the one who handed in the aforementioned assignment, was male and though I can’t rememberthe exact setting of his story I am fairly certain it was meant to take placein 16^th or 18^th century Europe, or America maybe. The students lack of understanding or, at least, application of my father’s demonstrations was immediately apparent.

Told from the perspective of a journalist, if my memory serves, went somethinglike this. “I stepped out of the van with my video-camera in hand and began tocapture…” The story followed from there, but I can only assume that thestudents lack of attention to detail in writing was matched by my fathers inreading The student got a D of some degree, not unusual for this young man, butsince the assignment was of such import, his mother arranged a meeting tocontest the mark. My father was unwavering, and his defense was solid as castconcrete.

About six years later, my parents decided, for the firsttime in their lives, to purchase a new car, ending the cycle of frustrationover automobile failures that defined familial transport during my rearing.

My father took the lead in looking for the right car, andfound it at a Hyundai dealership about fifteen minutes from our house, on thecorner of River Road and Pleasant Street in Brunswick, Maine. The latest Elantra model wasamong the many excellent cars the company has put out in recent years, and my father wassold on it as soon as he got behind the wheel. His choice of an Asian compact car was a bit surprising given his previous purchase, a 1994 Ford F150, and his dream vehicle, a 1969 Pontiac GTO.

The man who encouraged him to take a test-drive, andeventually facilitated the unprecedented purchase for my parents, was the shittystudent didn't consider the impossibility of his protagonist recording a centuries-old scene on a camcorder.

It goes to show you something; either selling cars requires scant intellectual horsepower or my father is particularly forgiving in the name of Korean-made comforts.

A jungle joke

2011-10-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

A Khmer joke my girlfriend told that was told to her as a child:

When monkeys and tigers connect, the outcome is rarely this cute.

A tiger and a monkey are together in the jungle when theylearn of an emergency requiring their immediate attention. Because tigers naturally runfaster than monkeys, they decide to tie their tails together so they may run atthe same swift, feline speed.

They set off and immediately the monkey is all flailinglimbs as he is helplessly dragged behind the tiger over the rugged tropicalterrain. 10 to 15 minutes later, the duo reaches their destination, but themonkey is lifeless; his eyes and mouth in a permanent gape.

Missionaccomplished, the panting tiger thinks, as he looks back at the monkey, but he is furious at whathe sees. “What is wrong with you?” says the tiger. “That was far, andwe were running so fast. I am exhausted.”

The monkey remains motionless, mouthand eyes still pried open.

“And look at you!” - the tiger is fed up at this point - “justlying there in laughing like this is all so funny."

Soon to be followed by humor in a similar form, by me…

Steve Jobs coverage

2011-10-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

A cool commemoration of Steve Jobs. The 10 greatest magazine covers he graced.

Below are a couple of the more bizarre entries in the Society of Publication Designers commemorative collection.

February 15, 1982 issue of TIME

October, 2007 Japanese Mac magazine depicting Bill Gates massaging Jobs

I thought this image that ran with the New York Times article "The Power of Taking the Big Chance" was understated and excellent.

Created by Jonathan Mak for Reuters

Post-nuptial Portraiture

2011-10-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

Here are a few B&W photos I took of people at the wedding of Jennifer & Andy Cashin in September. If you wanna see the whole album track me down on Facebook. The name's Colin Meyn.

Nick Schreiber

Kory Philip Northrup

One of the Minnesota-bred brothers who wore different-colored, but otherwise identical, tailored suits over t-shirts emblazoned with a torso-sized thumbs-up to the ceremony.

Alexis. Great musician. Fellow Wildcat. Last name unknown.

Nicholas Lazos

Jimbo Merrell

The best last: The groom, Andy Cashin (left) embraced by Jeff Kane (right).

Many thanks to Jess (pictured below with this dude) for letting me use her sweet camera when the magic hour fell.

Cathartic notes on Cambodia and I

2011-10-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

Among people of letters, journalists have a particulartendency to spit on self-involved writing. I have directed my fair share ofsaliva at it too, mostly because it’s not interesting. But I wrote about myselfexclusively in 2009, and as Amy Sedaris' character, Jerry Blank, learns in Strangerswith Candy, you can’t unfry what’s been fried. My first-person cherry ispopped. My objective eyes - having been turned backwards in their sockets - willnever work quite the same.

Jerry may have been back in high school, but she would never be a high-schooler again.

My nose still turns up at the overuse of “I,” but my circleof friends and colleagues who really, truly cared about words has, for variouspredictable and personal reasons, vanished from the Kingdom. The inundation ofunshakable ethics and unwavering opinions in my psyche has, at least temporarily,subsided and I had an epiphany that very few people prefer conversing aboutChea Sim faction’s cooky and corrosive corruption or Mong Retthy’s frighteningefforts to privatize Cambodia's prisons, despite the fact that they are two ofthe most twisted and intriguing narratives presently playing out.

When this photo was taken in 1999, Chea Sim's stories weren't half the laugh they are these days (right: Hun Sen). (Darren Whiteside / Reuters)

On top of that, I was alone this evening. I prefer to spendtime with people, and I am obliged by modernity to commit countless hours tothe computer during working hours, but as dusk fell on this day, I was sitting atmy dining room table and I up and decided to commit to going solo for a fewhours. No phone calls coming or going; no electronic engagement; no unnecessaryinteractions with living creatures: just a tall white man mucking about.

The highlight of the night was eavesdropping, which I rarelyhave the chance to do since I am usually among the people sitting on the porchconversing (If you got confused there, in this metaphor I am seated and socializing under the proverbial eaves).

My ultimate decision with what to do with my one-nightoyster, which exposes certain flaws in my character, was to bring a few printedmagazine articles I found and printed, to a bar called Red Fox that serves jointswith or without tobacco and, along with bar seating and tables inside, has two glass-surfacedwicker coffee tables surrounded by eight poorly padded chairs outside.

Though it’s not the first time I have been disappointed uponarriving at The Fox for a lack of open-air seating, the fact that I had takenthe time to set a strategy and was sailing stag made it particularly crushingwhen I saw that both tables were taken. But I am an adaptable guy, and one ofthe tables had a lone occupant, so I forged ahead. Also, upon very briefinspection, the dude sitting solo struck me as being void of confidence, aself-identifying bore and likely suffered from a crippling case of ice-breakingphobia, making it highly unlikely that he would interfere with my reading.

Itook a seat, had a smoke and began nursing a gin and tonic (note: being jobless encouragesslower sipping of bar-bought cocktails).

I was able to finish reading a fairly entertaining piece on Noam Gallagher by Chuck Klosterman, but as I began trying to digest on a profile of Rick Perry that recently ran in The New Republic, I realized that I was following nothing.

Whenpeople talk, I have a habit of listening, and my transition to silently crashingthe conversations of the middle-aged in my immediate surroundings was stealthy and seamless.

The man at my table may have been acquainted with the threemen sitting around the table to his left (my right), but I’m pretty sure they didn’t plan to hang out. They separately made the same plans and were thus compelled to converse. Their communication and commentarywas so sparse and unsurprising that recording it as conversation would be inaccurate.

I will instead describe it this way: four men arecontestants on a game-show where the objective is to remember as many commentsmade on sports analysis shows as they can. And they are no grand-mastersof the game.

Moments would pass when nothing was said when a guy would mentionthat a retarded ref had been penalizing players with particular frequency.

More dead air and one of the men would confirm with another that he was, infact, a supporter of the club he previously told him he supported.

“Yes,” followed by 30-or-so seconds of silence.

After abarrage of two or three borrowed opinions on Wayne Rooney’s recent injury, Idecided that my life was important and I tried to clear my head of all distractions around me, like Dennis Quaid on the mound in The Rookie.

The second-best Quaid brother at the climax of a classic comeback story. Spoiler! Success ensues!

Complete focus on getting to know the long-time governor of Texas and god-willing, failed presidential contender. Once again, I read but did not follow two paragraphs of the story when anew conversation began between the guy across the table, who I had eventuallylooked at and decided was not disgusting, but perhaps the most typical looking overweightmiddle-aged and graying (skin and hair) expat I have seen, and someyounger dude who had facial hair resembling a goatee and a relatively attractive female companion who disappeared upon their arrival.

Goatee guy fashioned himself an internet poker pro, or hustler, and clearly consideredthe other guy, also an frequent web-poker player, an amateur. On at least three occasions he toldthe elder novice about this must-use web resource that allowed you to track pastperformances of the players at a the same pixelated poker table as you and your avatar.

The anecdote I overheard, though possibly not representativeof his general experience with the site, seemed like a poor pitch as an adamant proponent.

It went something like this: I looked at his stats [on thisawesome site] and he was a solid player, so I knew he wouldn’t be playing unlesshe had something better than my King/5, so I folded because there was no way Iwould win. It turned out he had nothing, so I lost a chance to win [asignificant amount of money].

I know nothing about poker, but this guy was a bearded guppy, and the guy at my table, I hoped, was humored by his bullshit and tooksolace in his misfortunes in the teeth of sharks.

I jotted down some actual quotes to capture the vapidconversation more accurately. The supposed master was regaling his captiveaudience of one with a story about another Phnom Penh-based online pokerplayer.

“He was pounding it out for a while but now he is justfrustrated,” he said, explaining a run of luck and an ensuing slump. Apparently,the protagonist of this snoozy story had won some serious cash in somebig-money games, “but he has only one 4 out of 115 tournaments.” The story-tellerfailed to mention his own ratio of wins, or volume of winnings, and I paid my $4.50bill and bounced. On the way out I heard him project onto his protagonist, "all he really wants is to be sitting on a huge pile of chips."

Having mounted the seat behind a moto-driver - with a pen in my pocket and the blank backsides of the printed pages of stories I intended to read - I was able to take noteson the ride home.

Only a few doors down from the boulevard that stretchesalong the Mekong, we became part of the riverside traffic seconds after my driver pulled us away. His driving remindedme of an article on Allen Iverson where he explained to the author that hedidn’t think about the player in front of him, knowing that he could blow byhim at will, but instead studied the defender second-in-line, conquering hisopponents before they knew combat had commenced.

If you're not already beyond the guy in front of you, your doomed to be blocked by the next guy.

While cars rule the road as a rule in Phnom Penh, there arefew streets in the city where their dominance is so prominently displayed asthe one called Muat Tonle, runningbetween the extraordinary new park along the riverbanks and a row ofrestaurants, shops and most of the city’s trendiest evening spots.

While I may be guilty of assuming understandingand faking authority throughout this post, my wisdom on wheels is unassailable.On matters of the road I don’t debate, I enlighten. So, let me tell you aboutthe ride home; not only as an observer of the young Khmer man behind thehandlebars, but as his mind-mate, or however you describe true mental connectedness.

Mirroring the Iversonian doctrine, cars are the obviousobstacle and are the work of reflexes. People driving cars, it is widelyunderstood, often do not see motos because they aren’t looking because theydon’t care about the two-wheeled vehicles or their drivers. But cars are highlyvisible objects and like a heavy animal in their movement.

Whales don’t dartbecause that’s not how they were designed, instead they swim with a mouthfulof brush-like teeth that filter water and facilitate their consumption ofcreatures called krill when they burst above the surface and trap them in their bristly bucket. A proper fish needn’t worry about the whale because itsfirst-step, or crossover, or spin move, or stutter step, or speed in onedirection makes it truly unstoppable.

An underwater thrill-ride followed by a slow death down the hatch for whale food.

It is important to remind our readers that people drivingmotorbikes are often harmed or killed by car drivers and their weapons. To beclear, the point of view is that of a objectively savvy driver, a sage. KurtVonnegut’s Galopagos depicts humanity becoming to big-brained and devolving backinto animalia (super-smart sharks if my memory serves). Reflexes are a crucialfactor in survival and aren’t sharpened by relying on shepherds.

Since the riverside is populated by tourists and tycoons, italso attracts a great number of hawkers, beggars and, characters more relevantto these teachings: tuk-tuk drivers andthe machines they become when he and his vehicle move as one. The tuk-turk canswerve and swivel in a way that cars cannot, and it is significantly largerthan motos, but its structure is a essentially a skeleton on two wheels, and themoto-power moving it is unequipped and unable to move the machine at a menacingspeed. Tuk-tuks fall over and get in accidents but traffic in Cambodia movesat the speed of traffic worldwide, and a tuk-tuk turning over at 10 kilometresan hour does little more damage than a carpenter dropping his toolbox while walkingto build his next buttress.

Moto-drivers, like you and I and your mom, are their ownworst enemies. It is the movement of motos that is by far the most unpredictable,and due to sheer volume, the threat posed by stupid and suicidal moto-driversis unmatched among steersmen of motored moving machines.

Although I find the song celebrates some shitty stuff, andthe Notorious B.I.G. is a self-centered hypocrite for excusing his sellingdrugs to feed his kids while refusing that he was part of ruining the lives ofthe kids whose parents are buying them, hesold to, 10 Crack Commandments is a coolway to structure a song (or a scripture, I suppose) so I’m gonna borrow it as aguide to moto-driving.

Like Big Poppa, I speak from experience

1) Don’t assume.

2) Don’t linger in spots, such as intersections,roundabouts or forks, where a lot of people are driving in a lot of directionsand making a lot of different decisions. Move forward with confidence and peoplewith respond in respect.

3) Cars can be your friend. When navigating throughintimidating situations, sidle up to a big, solid automobile moving in the samedirection and let it be your temporary shield.

4) Right-of-way is based on strength and nothingelse. There are recognized major roads and such, but a person waiting to turnout of an alley may decide that it is on you to mitigate risk. Be prepared for people coming from any way to assume right-of-way.

5) When approaching a left-hand turn, get to theleft side of the oncoming lane as soon as possible to skirt the clutter at theactual intersection.

6) More generally, treat road medians as additionallanes if efficiency is essential and impenetrable rows of oncomingtraffic, or other obstacles are preventing access to the primary lane meant tomove in your intended direction, are slowing you down.

7) Staying to the right if you are a slow driver isnot transcontinental wisdom. No matter how much you hedge to the right, speed-racers will sneak by you ifyou leave even a hairline of an opening. You may see the yahoos coming at youin the wrong direction, but a scared swerve to the right could leave youtangled with the curb and the moto-driver prepared to pass your sluggish ass.

8) And this one can’t be underrated: make yourselfvisible and predictable, you can be driving in the middle of the wrong lane withan SUV barreling at you, but as long as he sees you and knows your next move, youmust only execute to avoid disaster.

9) Jump the gun or spend your life sweating atstoplights. Being visible is key here, but unless you make a move before thecars and motos moving in competing directions, you will never make a left turn,or go straight for that matter, unless you beat them to the spot and demandthey let you pass.

10) Use the bar-bones of tuk-tuks as a frame to the future traffic by rolling behind it and scoping out the scene to make heady moves in heavy traffic.

I hope to write again soon, and I feel much better having recordedsome bits and pieces of life in the Penh.

Be happy and healthy on the road,

-C

A trip over a floating island òn the Mekong to the pagoda for Pchum Benh

2011-09-27T08:35:00.000-07:00

Our neighbors on the boat ride across the river. (CM)

(Note: the photos are taken by all of us, who included Khinzaw, Nila, Dalis Kopxyo (X) and myself (CM)

Twins in yellow jersey tops (CM)


Tuk-tuk sinking in sand (X)

Motoring over the roads (CM)

Traffic (CM)

Burmese locks framing khinzaw. (CM)

A raised house in the floating forest. (CM)

Wading away from the pagoda. (CM)

Monks preparing for service (CM0

An empty vessel. (Nila)

Resting near their shit. (Nila)

The dock (Nila)

A ship docks before floating away yet-to-be-deceased ancestors. (CM)

An incense mound created by countless prayers. (Nila)

Monks have to eat. (Nila)

Kids hanging out in the back of the pagoda. (Nila)

An apparently delicious frog lives on. (X)

Decorations (CM)

Exiting Buddha's quarters. (CM)

Poorly lit mural and contemplating Khinzaw. (CM)

Capturing techi-Buddha. (CM)

A genius in-focus. (CM)

Flag and wading girl. (Nila)

A sloshing Burmese item. (CM)

A quick visit to Tokyo

2011-09-16T01:31:00.000-07:00

Due to Delta's tardiness getting here, I had the fortune of spending the day in Tokyo before heading off to Bangkok tonight. I just spent my last 100 Y on 10 minutes of internet so I'm gonna pound out a few notes before heading to SEA.

Magazines here have a totally different look than the magazines I am used to so I bought some and paired them with cold sobe noodles and cold fried shrimp for my breakfast sitdown. I arranged my meal/magazine combo on the table but the magazine, I realized, opens on the left, so I switched the sides of each item to prevent flipping pages into my bowl of noodles. I am so used to western magazine and food arrangement, however, that I ended up using the the same hands I would normally use for each task, meaning that my right arm was reaching over with chopsticks to transport noodles to my mouth while my left arm was reaching under it to turn pages, which was often since I can't read Japanese - and the whole thing was a mess.

I also went to a sex shop and was rather amazed at the selection of videos, toys, etc. The most plentiful item was fake vaginas and buttholes, often with the full figure of a woman's midseciton in various positions. There were more plastic pussies than you can shake a stick at, so I didn't.

bye,

c

a little Hun Sen photo timeline for our fans

2011-09-02T15:50:00.001-07:00

Restarting from 500

2011-09-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

The list of worthwhile things tumbles on... a quick ten: 499 to 490

499-496: the three videos i recently posted (see below).

495: "The best way to start over was starting over" - John Lennon

494: Sebastian Strangio's blog.

493: James Otoole's blog.

492: My cousin Emma turned me on to this video and I am thankful for it. Gene Kelley roller tapping.

491: Andrew Wyeth's paintings

490: The Blue Cube: by Ahti Westphal.

Touch'a'bummer

2011-09-01T22:48:00.000-07:00

Why did Billy Preston get such little love for such a sweet performance in the aforementioned sessions? Shame.

Oh, the greatest youtube video currently available...

2011-09-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

... The Beatles rooftop series I reckon.

I would relish and mustard anything better and enjoy consuming it. Enjoy watching it though, seriously.

-C

To Tracey

2011-08-31T00:31:00.000-07:00

Tracey Shelton, a former colleague of mine at The Phnom Penh Post was recently attacked in Libya. Below is a slideshow to thank her for the work she is doing.

Bowdoinham Blues

2011-08-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

A photo slideshow from the sunny countryside.

Love rekindled in the Windy City

2011-08-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

Despite a stiff breeze outside 6 degrees, the flame that Matt and I lit freshman year of college burns on.

Lovely color I might add

2011-08-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

Check out the newest design project from this guy on this blog, right here.

Hope you know someone looking to give me money to perform a similar feat for their company:)

Good luck;)

(C

My girl in The Post!

2011-08-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

This is one of the photos that ran with the story about my girlfriend's new vintage clothing boutique in Phnom Penh. WILL BAXTER / PHNOM PENH POST

The link to the PP Post story on their site doesn't work, because the PP Post crew still can't get their online shit straightened out, but you can check it out on the shop's site here, because out friend Ahti Westphal is awesome at straightening out shit.

-C

Honolulu Haikus

2011-08-04T17:37:00.000-07:00

My father, whose moniker was Metaphor Man during his summer stretches as a radio DJ for WBOR broadcasting out of Brunswick, ME, recently posted a quite masterful Haiku on Facebook.

tomato hornworms
defecating on my plants
eradicated

ilovebutter / Flickr Creative Commons

I shall carry on the form with Hawaiian Islanders as my muse.

LifeSupercharger / Flickr Creative Commons

diminutive birds

flutter on and off islands

local chicks are big

Badass skindivers

four minutes - sixty feet deep

hunt, spear, clean,eat fish

The late, great Gene Higa

Those Haikus were rubbish, but as Jack Kerouac said about Haiku, you take two weeks just to whittle down your ideas into 17 syllables, which leaves me about 13 days, 23 hours and 55 minutes away from refined poetry.

The point is that Hawaiian woman are indeed beautiful, but their breadth is broadly misrepresented in calendars and such.

The other point is that dudes who go skin-diving are crazy tough. I met a brother of this dude's wife, who is Filipino-Hawaiian, and when he was in his prime he could stay under for more than four minutes just waiting for a big fish to come by. It's like deer hunting without breathing. Crazy shit.

That dude also told me about this guy named Gene Higa (pictured above), who is now dead, but was apparently the best of the best when it came to spearfishing. He assured me there were tons of videos of him online, but all I could find was this obituary, which is pretty depressing. Will post a video if I find one.

I will try to do better next time, heading to Maine via Seattle and Detroit beginning tonight at 9 (Hawaii time).

-C

Halfway from Asia

2011-08-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

I am stuck in Honolulu at the moment due to my standby status with Delta airlines, but it could hardly be a better place to be stranded.

I am also typing from an Apple store in the big mall here, so I'll keep this short.

There was a mom and her son walking through the airport in front of me on the way to gate 25 to catch a 4 o'clock flight to Atlanta and I began eavesdropping on their conversation.

As they were walking by a LeSportsac luggage advertisement that featured a beautiful woman colorfully clothed with a matching bag that had colorful butterflies of all varieties flying out of it, the young boy remarked:

"How did she get through security? She's a butterfly smuggler."

That's all for now, keep comfortable.

-C

Prime proposition

2011-07-24T23:41:00.000-07:00

I have had the pleasure of working with a number of fantastic Khmer journalists over the past two years, and through them I have learned just about everything I know about Khmer-language news broadcasts. A common criticism is that all of them, apart from Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA), who both have Khmer broadcasts, is that they are worthless.

For this reason and many others that I will expound upon shortly, I was rather amused by Hun Sen's condemnation of the aforementioned outlets and their coverage of the Khmer Rouge tribunal. Below is a quote, as reported by Vong Sokheng for The Post, from Hun Sen, addressing his alleged interference with the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT).

"If [Voice of America and RFA] did not insult the CPP, they wouldn't have a salary. If [you have] no salary, come to work for the local radio and I will pay the salary. You are Khmer, you speak Khmer, you should do something according to Khmer values."

A choice selection of Khmer-language broadcast news outlets.

Now five thinly-sliced reasons why this quote is complete boloney.

1) The Prime Minister openly admits to being the de facto financier of every Cambodia-based radio news program, officially completing his collection of the four pillars of democracy.

2) Assuming that Hun Sen assumes himself to be the arbiter of such things, it is an impossibility that one could simultaneously "do something according to Khmer values" and do journalism.

3) If one were to oblige and move from VOA or RFA to a state-run radio station, they would also volunteer to cut their salary by some 75% (From $500-$1,000 range at a foreign service to $100-$400 at Cambodia-based competitors).

4) It is true that reporters for the VOA and RFA would forfeit their salary if they did not insult [read: criticize] the CPP, for they would be failing to fulfill their mandate of accurately reporting current events in Cambodia.

5) What Hun Sen is now calling an insult, that he is responsible for the closure of investigations related to cases 003 and 004 at the KRT, was a point of chest-thumping during his meeting with BanKi Moon in October, 2010, when he “clearly affirmed that Case 003 will not be allowed”, according to an ensuing statement from Foreign Minister Hor Namhong.

CPP Street

2011-07-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

The Cambodian Wikileaks were released a few days back if you didn't get the memo. The Phnom Penh Post's reporting on the stash has been fascinating. The issue breaking the leaks on July 13 included a graphic box with the top 10 tycoons in Cambodia, as named and nicknamed by the US Embassy in cables back to the motherland, with a two-sentence summary of their fortune and relations with the Big Boss Hun Sen. Here's a taste:

Kith Meng - “Mr Rough Stuff” Chairmanand CEO of the Royal Group Kith Meng was described in the cable as a“relatively young and ruthless gangster”.

He could not be reached for comment.

See the whole delightfully frank list here.

Although I concede that I hold a less pivotal role in bilateral relations than the ambassadors who penned the cables from Phnom Penh, I fashion myself to be a far superior nicknamer. Here is the first item on my unclassified but secret list of comparisons between Cambodia's power brokers and characters from classic kid's TV shows. I'm kicking it off with an extended analogy, but future comparisons will be punchier and less political I promise.

The Cambodia People's Party: "Barney & Friends"

This criticism of Barney & Friends from a Chala Willig Levy in an article for Parents magazine is an ideal bit of insight to frame this pairing.

"[Barney's] shows do not assist children in learning to deal with negative feelings and emotions. As one commentator puts it, the real danger from Barney is denial: the refusal to recognize the existence of unpleasant realities. For along with his steady diet of giggles and unconditional love, Barney offers our children a one-dimensional world where everyone must be happy and everything must be resolved right away"

woodleywonderworks / Flickr Creative Commons

The presentation of a one-dimensional world where everything must be resolved right away happens to also be a forte of Cambodia's premiere party. Complaints and criticisms are dismissed and discredited immediately and countered with Bible-thumping logic that the ruling-party's espoused reality is true because its true.

Hun Sen serving a steady diet of giggles and laughs. IRRI image / Flickr Creative Commons

While their psychological impact may be comparable, the creators of Barney & Friends, unlike CPP storytellers, were transparent about the fiction of their show, casting a giddy, bulbous and bright purple Tyrannosaurus Rex as the dear leader. 1-8-year-olds might believe anything they see on TV, as Levy suggests in her critique, but its not as easy to convince a country of 14-million people of a false reality.

In their latest country report on Cambodia, Human Right's Watch explains how Hun Sen's government constructs a Cambodia in which all appears just.

Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) used the judiciary, new laws, and threats of arrest or legal action to restrict free speech, jail government critics, disperse workers and farmers peacefully protesting, and silence opposition party members.

But just like Barney, Hun Sen can make bad feelings go away in an instant. The above HRW report was consistent with warnings and analysis from various Cambodia watchdogs, including Cristophe Peschoux, the long-time head of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. His competing narrative of modern-day Cambodia risked upsetting the audience, and voilà...

“If Mr Peschoux is not removed, then the UN human rights office in Phnom Penh will be closed."

Khieu Kanharith, speaking for Hun Sen during UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's visit to the Kingdom in October, 2010, made the problem disappear.

Barney comes to play with us
Whenever we may need him
Barney can be your friend too
If you just make-believe him!

Raising COLOR

2011-07-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

The Unsolvable Simile

2011-07-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

bad news synthesized

2011-07-21T23:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the late-great Steve Finch, who recently left Phnom Penh, and my apartment more pertinently, there is a crisp Phnom Penh Post newspaper delivered to my doorstep every morning. Though I am not sure how long this convenience will last, I am positive that I read the newspaper this morning (early midday to be precise) and noted a particular saturation of horrifying news.

Later in the day I read this article in Slate about the Yellow Journalism pioneered by Pullitzer and Hearst and while I do not intend to draw a parrelel between the editorial style of The Post today and New York-based tabloids in the late 19th century, I was inspired by this list of headlines to Yellowize yesterday's happenings in the Kingdom.

Here is the list Slate ran from the New York Herald circa 1900:

ABSINTHE HIS BANE
ITALIAN FATALLY STABBED
INQUIRY ABOUT POISON GAS
FEROCIOUS DOG MANGLES A BOY
SINGER ENDS LIFE
THEY TRIED TO DIE TOGETHER

Here is the list I ran inspired by The Phnom Penh Post circa 2011.

      HUNDREDS FAINT IN FACTORY
      SEX FORCED ON BEERGIRLS
      WIFE DOUSES & IGNITES HUSBAND
      KOH KONG KING OVERRULED
      2 VIETNAMESE RAPE FISHERMAN"S GIRL
      SOLDIERS MOONLIGHT IN ILLEGAL LOGGING
      HUSBAND STABS WIFE SIX TIMES
      RAPIST, 26, SAYS VICTIM, 13, WAS PLATONIC GIRLFRIEND
      BROTHER MURDERED OVER DEAD CHICKEN*

Check out phnompenhpost.com to see the full stories. The oversimplification was purposeful, of course, just an exercise in boistrous headline writing.

*Headline as it appeared in The Post

A potent nightcap

2011-07-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

I tried to go to sleep, but after a few minutes of pillow flipping I decided that leaving my discovery list at such an odd number was unacceptable. Here are 3 diamonds from the quarries for you to sleep on, or wake up to, or ignore if you are one of the 6,929,999,991 people who didn't read this blog yesterday.

502: Honker Duckie Dinger Jamboree: a feel-good track if ever there was one. One of Ernie's break-out performances on his way to becoming the Dick Clark of puppet singalongs; as smooth today as he was when this short and swingin' music video aired in 1978. (I came across this track in this opinionated and entertaining piece on The Muppets from The Awl).

501: The continued use by Slate of the title "Genocidal Tyrant" when referring to Rupert Murdoch, the term "reverse ferret" used by one of his countless weaselly editors and the continued extraordinary work by Nick Davies of the Guardian, who in his relentless investigation into News International has provided a counterbalance to the journalistic scum he has helped uncover in the Queen's country.

Rupert Murdoch about to be hung. ssoosay / Flickr Creative Commons

500: Prezi.com: a zooming alternative to PowerPoint that may yet be accepted in stodgy business circles, but is infinitely cooler than a slogging series of slides. Check out this one that I made for a presentation to the Department of Media and Communications at the State university in Phnom Penh or have a gander at hundreds of other virtual knowledge trips. Below is a brief tutorial if you aren't ready to jump in without your floaties.

That feels better. Check you later.

-C

Taking lemons and making them fly

2011-07-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

My buddy Khinzaw has been laid up in a Chinese hospital 20 minutes from my house for the past week waiting for the pain related to his condition to subside so the Chinese doctors can do surgery and he can begin a week of bed-ridden recovery at his house. I will only say that his major malfuntion loosely rhymes with asteroid and was caused by a poor diet and endless hours sitting on air-conditioner-cooled fake leather chairs in the newsroom.

The Zaw basking in the glow of not having an unbearable pain-in-the-ass.

Uncle Khinzaw has a baby boy back in Burma but makes his home in Phnom Penh due to preferable pay rates for newspaper designers in the Kingdom and decisions made by his boss, Publisher Ross Dunkley, who in the past few months spent 47 days in Myanmar's Insein Prison, was convicted of causing minor injuries to a Myanmar woman and sentenced to 30 days in prison, which he had already served and ultimately "walked from court a free man," as his newspaper in Cambodia reported on July 1.

“The doctor called to to give evidence said this could have been caused by anything,” Dunkley said after the verdict was handed down. "The girl wanted to withdraw the case twice. I absolutely deny that I touched this girl inappropriately. I was merely looking after this girl to get her to a taxi. I was worried about her, that’s all. I don’t hurt people. I don’t grab them by the neck or do anything stupid like that. Ever-yone knows I don’t do that. Many people have known me for a long, long time, all of my staff, they know that I’m not capable of doing such an act, so therefore I will appeal it.I will appeal this and hope to win it as time goes by.” Photo: Kaung Htet

That was a tangent. The point is that my dear friend Khinzaw is in rough shape at the moment and everyone is pretty concerned. I have been visiting him, on average, once every 1.75 days, and during our most recent rendezvous, he proved without question that his frail state is not stifling his creative mind. Khinzaw was my Adobe Design Master when I was learning the ropes of 2-dimensional design, but he never exposed his skills working in the 3rd dimension. This little gem was resting next to his bed yesterday, and discovering it was the highlight of my week.

"Air Coca Cola." Sorry for the poor photo quality and editing. Just take in the ingenuity and realize that the front propeller spins like a perfect pinwheel. All made from a Coke can and borrowed tools from his abnormally attentive nurse.

Call that #503 on the list. Come back often for updates on Uncle Khinzaw's condition. Surgery on Saturday.

five awesome albums

2011-07-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

Another quick-hitter to knock a few more items off my list of 545 discoveries I made in my 545 days of blogo-silence. This time its five albums that you should give a spin if you haven't already.

509: Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook: The 20th centuries greatest voice does justice to the music of one of its greatest composers.

508: w h o k i l l by tUnE-yArDs: Merrill Garbus, the New England-native behind this music project, mixes together a bunch of cool sounds and distortions to make a really weird and entertaining album.

507: Cardinology by Ryan Adams and the Cardinals: I couldn't name a favorite album by Ryan Adams, my favorite musician, but this may be the catchiest despite its darkness.

506: The Notorious XX by wait what: I know this is not a unique pick, but I have listened to this mix more than any other album in the past few months.

505: Silent Shout by The Knife: This album got mention on this list already and I have no regrets about it.

504: Bonus track brought to you by Levi's.

Figure 8 by Elliot Smith: A splendid series of songs from the late, great singer/songwriter Elliot Smith.

A quick, prose-filled five

2011-07-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

I have some flyer designing I need to do for my client/girlfriend, but I wanted to remind my blossoming audience that I care about you too. Here are five readables that you can turn to when Duck for Comfort isn't enough*.

514: The Quaid Conspiracy: I don't want to give anything away, but if you have been wondering what Randy Quaid has been up to, you will be appalled to find out in this piece from Vanity Fair.

513: Mr. Hannah Montana's Achy Broken Heart: Billy Ray Cyrus tells GQ that "the Missouri compromise" is his favorite nickname for the mullet, and complains about everything else in his life in this rather revealing profile of the man.

512: The last ride of Cowboy Bob: If you don't know already, Texas Monthly tells some of the best stories of any magazine around, and this story about a middle-aged woman who robbed a bunch of banks is a fine example.

511: Moby Duck: Or the Synthetic Wilderness of Childhood: This Harper's article is unlike any magazine piece I have read. It revolves around a lost shipment of plastic toys and spins off in every direction one might conceivably go from there.

510: A Silvio Berlusconi-two-for-one to finish things off. Basta Bunga Bunga: a color-filled romp through the political circus and social circles of Italy's premiere, published in the New Yorker. The Mussolini of Ass: a brillianty titled and seriously cynical profile of the "self-appointed dictator of macho hedonistic unprosecutable pleasure," published in GQ.

* Thanks to longform.org for aiding in my discovery of all of these articles.

From Paradise to Des Moines

2011-07-16T11:05:00.001-07:00

Counting down on the repentance list from 530 to 515, the respective area codes for north-central California and central Idaho.

530: SEE PREVIOUS POST (545-530)

529: Frank Sinatra's use of the word "bird." (described in this Esquire piece, by Gay Talese)

They nodded...[the] two of them laughed about Sinatra's apparently having gotten the word "bird" on the show -- this being a favorite Sinatra word. He often inquires of his cronies, "How's your bird?"; and when he nearly drowned in Hawaii, he later explained, "Just got a little water on my bird"; and under a large photograph of him holding a whisky bottle, a photo that hangs in the home of an actor friend named Dick Bakalyan, the inscription reads: "Drink, Dickie! It's good for your bird." In the song, "Come Fly with Me," Sinatra sometimes alters the lyrics -- "...just say the words and we'll take our birds down to Acapulco Bay...."

528: longform.org: an unemployed journalist's haven.

Aaron Lammer, one of the editors

527: This logo that I designed for my girlfriend's soon-to-be opening vintage clothing shop.

526: WFMU's Beware of the Blog:

A chart from their most recent post. Other sweetness includes a profile of the young Woody Allen and a profile of the swingin' Errol Flynn.

525: Monocle magazine: here is a video about Helsinki, the 2011 winner of their quality of life survey, one of many innovative bits of content on offer.

524: Andy Lau: the favorite Hong Kong-born entertainer of my girlfriend. He is a remarkably prolific actor and singer and inspired this bizarre suicide, as described on his Wikipedia page.

Lau experienced unexpected notoriety with his encountering of a 29 year old fan from mainland China, Yang Li-juan (楊麗娟), who had idolized the star for 13 years. After her parents sold the family house to pay for a trip to Hong Kong, Yang finally met Lau on March 26, 2007.One day later, Yang's father committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea in Hong Kong, leaving a suicide note chiding Lau for not having taken his daughter more seriously.

Here are two photos of him doing his thing in two very different ways.

523: Frank Calliendo's impersonation of Charles Barkley and, even more spectacular, Bill Walton (minute 6:26) in this video.

522: The Knife: a band I have only recently started listening to. My favorite lyric: "For a reasonable salary I will wash the world" from the song "One Hit" on their album Silent Shout. Below is the title track from the same album.

521: 100 Plus: a carbonated electrolyte drink slightly less sweet than Gatorade and imported from Malaysia. (from their site: An isotonic drink is a drink formulated to help you restorewhat the body loses during physical exertion due to perspiration, and to helpachieve a normal state of hydration and electrolyte balance)

I am drinking one while I write this caption. No joke.

520: Air Conditioning: For the first time in my life I have an air conditioner in my bedroom. For more than 2 of those life years, I was living in Cambodia. It is good.

The Panasonic Super Ionizer, my room cooler.

519: "What does BanKi Moon have a degree in?" a question posed by my apartment-mate Ahti. Answer: Master of Public Administration from Harvard and Doctor of Laws form the University of Malta.

518: Freight crate housing: an affordable and environmentally friendly innovation in housing construction.

imagined

executed

517: Phil Bader: The former managing editor of The Phnom Penh Post who is now the editor-in-chief of the Catholic News Agency. Below is a video I made with the help of my friend Kopxyo as a farewell gift upon his departure.

516: This photo of King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia and Mao Tse-Tung of communism.

515: Slow and steady: the pace at which I will complete this list.

Through a youngin's lens

2011-07-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

Leang is the 5-and-a-half-year-old son of my 27-year-old girlfriend Dalis. He lives at the apartment shared by his mom, grandmom and two aunts, but comes to hang at my pad a couple times a week. I dominate him in wrestling and Winning 11 for Playstation II, but he is already challenging my photography skills.

The other day he was in an exploratory state-of-mind and stumbled upon my point-and-shoot Canon camera. After a brief tutorial on proper wrist-strap security, I let him loose and he spent the better part of an hour capturing the people and props in the apartment. I took the first photo employing the classic extended-arm self-shoot technique and include it only so you can see what the prodigal photog looks like. The rest of the photos are uncropped, unedited and independant.in their conception and creation.

Cute kid and dashing dude

Camera & mirror spawn self portrait

Skeeter-free clutter

Study of bearded man's mouth

Smile!

You can get high quality prints of these photos by sending $200 or $400 to my P.O. box in Cambodia and I can hand it off to the little man and send you a high-resolution digital file so you can sort out the printing at your neighborhood Kinkos.

Catch you on the flip,

-C

Atoning for my silence

2011-07-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

I kept a pretty decent blog in 2009, or at least I wrote fairly regularly. On January, 2010 I published my last post on my old blog. I am not under any delusion that great psychological damage was done to my small group of regular readers, but I feel bad about it nonetheless.

To atone for my inactivity, I will share 545 discoveries I have made in the 545 days I stayed blogosphere silent. It might take a few days, but I worry that throwing the whole lot at you in one post would be overwhelming. All items have a L.L. Bean-style quality guarantee. You may return them for any reason, but since you are paying nothing to get them you will get nothing for giving them back.

Counting down in no particular order...

545. Symphony of Science videos featuring Carl Sagan: here is my favorite, and you can explore from there.

544. Ai Wei Wei's sunflower seeds: if you are unfamiliar with the man or installation, read this great profile of him in the New Yorker by Evan Osnos.


Can't explain it's coolness in a caption, read up on it here. Simon Dogget* / Flickr Creative Commons*

543： Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was adapted from a Japanese show of the same premise and made media mogul Haim Saban look like a genius when it became mega popular. (Profile of Haim Saban, "The Influencer," in the New Yorker)

542: “Last year, Cambodians consumed 21,000 tonnes [of MSG], the equivalent of nearly 4 grams per person per day，” Info gleaned from this story by Steve Finch.

541: The King of Thailand was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and lived in Switzerland for most of his teens. A million other interesting things about the Thai monarchy in Andrew MacgGregor Marshall's 4 part expose, posted on his blog.

540: Talking tape: "Adds voice to products without electronics," and a bunch of other awesome inventions at inventibles.com.

539: Kopxyo and Khinzaw: two designers from Myanmar who worked with me at Ｔhe Phnom Penh Post and could not be more chilled out thoughtful dudes.

My Burmese brothｅｒｓｂｕｓｙ　ａｔ　ｂｅｉｎｇ　ｃｏｏｌ

538: Cambodian Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith's Facebook page, particularly the photos of his dogs and related conversations with random fellow dog owners.

"Lucky. He's 5 years old. Weight: 85 kilos." Khieu Kanharith

537: Journalist David Grann

536: Sidewind landings performed by pilots touching down in Hong Kong.

535: This sign. Or, more specifically, the fact that the owners decided on E from Entourage as the face of their outfit.

534： White Diamond, a documentary by Werner Hertzog. I hesitate to share this unrefined poem for fear that a poetry snob might be prevented from watching the movie, but here are the lines I wrote while watching the masterpiece.

Dear Mrs. Enis Abbot,

Werner Hertzog is on his way

I and I

fair skies promise

westward on treetops

your sprawling canopy

respite on and on

rest assured

sunbeams rooster red

days strobe I imagine

Your boy looks and sees

and reflects on reflections.

Sand grain washed

on such a beautiful beach.

Mother moon down the delta.

Look at what’s flying here

Redbeard on White Diamond

Hertzog at the helm.

You’re sailing now, Mrs. Enis Abbot.

It’s good.

533: The trailer for Crocodile Movie, widely recognized as the best piece of film-making to come out of Cambodia in the last decade. I haven't seen it, as it is unreleased on DVD, but will jump at the chance if it is presented.

532: Magazine designer Darhil Crooks, who was hired to head the art department at Esquire and has been on fire. He also did the redesign of Ebony, which was predictably sweet. (On the subject of magazines, check out some of the covers I designed ｆｏｒ LIFT Magazine)

Two of many covers and spreads directed and designed by Mr. Crooks.

531: Jinro, a South Korean spirit comparable in potency to wine, but with a bit more kick, and without the whole vintage/aroma/snobbishness that goes along with a bottle of red, white or rose. Truth be told, I adore a glass of rose, and my preference for Jinro is 96% financially motivated.

530: Column 5 Media: A really cool media company that specializes in designing innovative info-graphics that tell a stories in totally original ways. Below is one example, go here to see dozens more.

I'm gonna call it a day at a round number and pick up where I left off soon.

Tell your friends and dare your enemies to start reading my ramblings. I will try to be more interesting.

-C

Aesop concentrate

2011-07-12T03:46:00.000-07:00

It's high time that I fill the trough and plump the pigs.

No offense intended. See, that's the problem with a provincialism: it flows like water through discourse at the commune cafe, but blurs into abstraction when you begin to traverse borders and barriers. There were intellectual implications in my mentioning ravenous swine, but I'm afraid our frames didn't cross-reference. Perhaps something was lost in translation, but its unlikely as I made it up while thinking in English.

Throw a bulbous bovine into a herd of bone-thin cattle and that jelly-belly becomes a blessing.

Bone protrusion that would make Kate Moss proud. Neil Rickers / Flickr Creative Commons

That allegory was meant to explain how people with peccary proportions can inspire both ridicule and envy depending on food security among the natives, but a parable has no purpose when coupled with a literal explanation. I was hoping to use my knack for alliteration and assonance to convey the convenience of an animal aphorism, but I stumbled at the start, suffered some set backs and presently find myself snarled in a string of similar sounds.

An ostrich in a chicken coop doesn't splay with time.

True, yet an ostrich can learn to empathize with its flat-mates if it cares to contort its neck and level with them. Indeed, my folly thus far is failing to call on the ruling roosters in the Cambodian People's Party to clear up the confusion I have caused. Damn, they didn't answer.

Cocks like to talk but rarely answer their phone when reporters are on the line.

Fortunately, there are scores of examples of animal allegories from Hun Sen speeches and statements past. I'll warm you up with a quote in today's paper from Uk Keo Rattanak, who spoke for the Banteay Meanchey provincial hall when not answering questions related to an ongoing investigation into drug use at the provincial prison.

"It is the [Anti-Corruption Unit's] secret work - they don't let us know if they find [drug trafficking]. It seems like they are trying not to hit the grass and frighten the snake because they have to do research to find those who are bringing drugs into the prison."

Apart from being useless, these comments raise an interesting question. Are cracked out reptiles startled by comments in the newspaper that completely undermine ongoing criminal investigations? We won't find out.

You wouldn't know it from that anecdote, but Uk Keo Rattanak is quite the detective himself. When leaflets were scattered about his province blaming Hun Sen for the deaths and carnage in the wake of the Koh Pich bridge stampede, he didn't wait to expose any secret units before beginning his investigation.

"According to the information we received from the motor taxi driver, the person who distributed the leaflets dressed as a Buddhist monk, but we don’t know if he is a real monk or not."

A man as clever as he is comprehensive. Within 24 hours of the subversive scattering, Cambodia's Columbo tracked down an utterly unreliable source and narrowed the potential pool of suspects down to some 60,000 monks and countless robed impostors.

The Blue-footed Booby may not know his feet are blue, but he knows they aren't his vas deferins.

Don't touch that dial folks, because while you scroll down to the next paragraph - past Jackie Chan with a giant condom - I'm gonna queue up back-to-back hits from the Prime Minister of Metaphors, and the democratically-elected leader of Cambodia, His Excellency Hun Sen.

Welcome back slags. This first track was recorded by the Premiere on January 20 in the wake of uprisings in Tunisia and produced in surround pigeon sound by the Xinhua News Agency.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday he will not allow his country to follow any situation as happened in Tunisia.
Delivering speech at inauguration of a hospital in Kompong Cham province, Hun Sen said his country will not follow the same trace of Tunisia.
"I will close the door and hit the dog inside," Hun Sen said.

If you are one of our many listeners who go nutty for evasion and misdirection, this next one will bring you back to that special stretch in May, 2010 when Hun Sen tangled with Global Witness and released this colloquial gem in response to allegations of natural resource mismanagement and exploitation.

I'm gonna kick it to former Phnom Penh Post reporter Sebastian Strangio to wrap things up. I'll be back in the coop soon so stay fertile my friends.

PRIME Minister Hun Sen lashed out at critics of the government’s handling of extractive-resource revenues on Wednesday, branding them “thieves” and saying that tensions between Cambodia and international watchdog Global Witness stem from a “sexual scandal” involving the group’s staff.
Speaking at the opening of a two-day mining conference in the capital Wednesday, Hun Sen said criticisms from international organizations and foreign countries were misplaced because the government has not yet pocketed any funds from extractive industries.

[Here it comes]

“I don’t understand when they order the fish to be fried or grilled while the fish is still in the water,” he told an audience of business executives, diplomats and civil society representatives. “They have accused us of corruption in spending while we have not yet made any money.”