About Me

I am a man, living in Vietnam, Saigon, land of the beeping horn, in an apartment overlooking a lot of other apartments. It’s a nice apartment, you’d like it.

In fact here is a picture of it:

And, if you click on the picture, you can see a whole lot more pictures of it. Of course, you may not be quite that interested, and I realise you all have lives of your own. It’s a three bedroom apartment and I live here alone, so, you know, I’m thinking of turning it into a casino.

As I write this (October), in Saigon, it rains everyday. I keep pointing out the obvious and trying to make conversation involving the observation that it has been raining a lot, to which, I always get the reply that it’s the rainy season. It is these kinds of self-explanatory responses that get us all nowhere.

I have a lot of friends, mostly artists, poets, famous rock musicians. We hang out together all the time. My life is like this, like living in a movie, like I’m living an episode of Friends everyday.

I know you’re all dying to know what my interests are.

I like to read. Right now I’m reading Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowski, Breath by Tim Winton, The Secret Garden, To the Lighthouse and Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. I like Bukowski but he always makes me feel like a drink. I generally have at least three books on the go at one time; not because I’m a fast reader, more because I get bored easily and have no staying power. Other recent authors include Ian McEwan, Jack London, Murakami, Iris Murdoch, David Malouf, Damon Runyon, Italo Calvino and John Berger, to name a few. John Berger, when he’s writing fiction, writes like a god. He writes poetic, succinct, beautiful sentences that just leave you pondering each one. I’ve read pretty much everything that Ian McEwin has published and, though he sometimes writes the kind of stories that could get made into British television mini series drama and would be, eventually, shown on Saturday nights on Australian tv, he is a fantastic writer.

I started this blog two months ago after a colleague suggested that I can actually write, and that, maybe I should. Not long after moving to Vietnam, I began sending a weekly email to my colleagues, mostly funny anecdotal stuff and descriptions of my weekend activities (beer, hookers,spring rolls,etc). It didn’t take long before people began avoiding me in the staff room, and talking in hushed tones whenever I walked past and my boss threatened to fire me if I didn’t stop, what she termed, institutionalized email harassment. So, anyways, I’ve moved it to a more independent format. I plan on it being a blog of clever political commentary, but, no doubt it will become nothing more than just another porn hosting site. So be it.

Three days ago, I bought a MacBook Pro, upon which, my little hands now sit. The screen on my last Mac laptop began running amok, and, for about a year, I peered into less than half a screen, and the half that I did have was fuzzy. Needless to say, I’m loving my new laptop, but, I just have one question for Mr AppleMac, why…why, why, why did they make the front edge of it – the place where I seem to rest the undersides my sensitive little forearms – sharp enough to cut a butternut pumpkin with? Particularly, when they manage to get absolutely everything else about it right.

In another life and another age, I studied design and music. Through studying graphic design, I discovered the camera, and, through the camera, I’ve discovered quite a lot of the world and quite a lot about myself.

Like the fact that I often feel like this

When I should be feeling like this

Or, at least, this.

I listen to music, without fail, everyday. Music is, and always will be, my loyal and faithful lover.

This probably won’t be a blog about Life in Saigon, though, since I live here, some little cross-cultural tit bits are unavoidable, you know, those funny stories like when you’re in a restaurant and, you think you’re ordering a banana, cleverly trying out the local language, but you’re actually ordering a penis. Things like that. Like that the Vietnamese word for wine is vang and the Vietnamese word meaning aha, okay or alright is vang (only in a different tone), so every time the waiter says to me, “Sir, would you like to order?” and I think I’m asking for wine, I’m just saying okay or aha, which explains why the waiter keeps standing there looking puzzled. You know, things like that.

Saigon can be a good city to live if you have money. Otherwise, I suspect it can be like some kind of hell. There are women who look 80 years old walking the streets everyday, hawking, doing work that would kill me within two days…within one day.

I try to maintain some kind of balance in my life, and then, most days, don’t. Perhaps I should take up yoga (it’s been suggested to me by yoga practitioners more times that I care to recall) or religion. Still, now I have my blog. And now, you too have my blog, you lucky devils. Not that I’m suggesting it as a replacement for religion. Hell no! Sweet Jesus no! Or even as a replacement for yoga. I suggest you keep up your regular yoga schedule in between reading my blog.

So, let us, together, embark on a journey of flippant, meaningless, pointless writing about nothing in particular and see where it leads. After all, there is a certain freedom about exposing your soul in the digital realm. We may never meet and, even if we do, I will deny everything.