Acclamating

…jet lag…
the drag of recently abandoned time zones on an unsettled body clock…

I stir awake after a restless 3 hours of pseudo-sleep and get ready to go to work…

Something about this scene feels so right,
sitting at a familiar Asian crossroads not far from where I was raised
where my paths and fortunes were first appraised
uncles around the corner
old friends a dock away
back where the sun never fails to show up
where the Buddhist Avatars hold sway
nexus of rivers
a playground for predators
certain places are populated with high percentages of playas
older civilizations have accumulated layers
a certain self- awareness of depth in time
-I live to partake of other culture’s perceptions
Compiling and weaving together pieces of a larger collective Mind…



Spent most of the day at LB/Bangkok, unpacking boxes, setting up the GPC meeting room, inventorying materials, and generally helping Rosalie get settled into the workspace we’ll be camped out in for the next week. We left the hotel with the intention of walking to the office, but got sidetracked along the way, and after 15 minutes of sweating profusely in 80 degree heat we gave up and hopped in a cab. A short drive later we pulled up to the new LB/Bangkok office, in the glittery Sindhorn Tower complex, right next door to the American Embassy. The new office is gorgeous. The old Bangkok office that hosted the GPC in 4Q01 was comfortable and accommodating, but the new space they’ve relocated to is in a much more impressive building, and from the moment you walk through the doors it’s evident that you’ve entered a stimulating creative environment. The building itself is a study in marble and glass, replete with running waterfalls, elaborate fountains, and a lobby that’s built on multiple terraces overlooking each other, which gives an open communal feel to all the cafes and businesses located in the towers. The actual Burnett office is located on the third floor, and is spread out onto a few stories, with wide planes of glass enabling you to see all the folks you’re working with at any given time. It’s a very welcoming layout, populated with busy creative people, and with a lot of natural sunlight streaming in from the outside. Looks like a great place to work, and I’m happy I’ll be spending the next week here…

We spent most of today dealing with the technology issues surrounding the GPC’s implementation of Planet Leo. For the first time in the history of the GPC we are no longer accepting submissions on reels or DVDs, and have begun utilizing a system whereby all of our offices upload their work to a central server. In other words, we’ve taken the first step towards moving beyond hard media, towards a fully digital mindset, which heralds the end of the analog era for the whole global Burnett network. In a few years reels and videotapes will seem quaint and outdated, remnants from an age when media moved at a much slower pace. It’s nice to be near the leading edge of the digital revolution, but unfortunately, we’ve encountered a slew of problems as we’ve tried to make this transition from analog to digital submissions. These problems were to be expected, though, given the sheer number of GPC submissions from 50 or more Burnett offices scattered around the planet, and so Market Forward, the company that powers our Planet Leo digital asset management system, sent us a tech support specialist from their Paris office to assist us with any problems we encounter here in Bangkok. Enter Duncan McIntosh, my new friend, a true cosmopolitan with globe-trotting stories to tell, a breadth of techie knowledge way beyond my comprehension, and an appetite for good beer. Duncan and Rosalie spent most of today patiently navigating the many pitfalls of trying to optimize Planet Leo in our Bangkok office, occasionally cursing, while talking live to tech support in Paris and Chicago. Aside from pervasive bandwidth issues and occasional random system crashes and innocuous error messages, it would seem that we’re ready for this meeting… There’ll be a few glitches, but I think the whole meeting will go smoothly…

After a long day at the office we headed back to the hotel, and switched gears over a few early evening cocktails at one of the hotel bars. A few Daiquiris, Capiroska’s and Singapore Slings later, Rosalie, Duncan, and I had relaxed enough to ease into the evening. The best part of these meetings is getting a chance to talk to and connect with creative travelers like Duncan, whose perspectives color and broaden your own understanding of your place in the grand scheme of international business. For instance, over our evening drinks, we talked a little bit about the Open Source model, which came up as we compared notes as to what kind of operating systems we each use. Open Source, for those who might not know it, is one of the most intriguing alternative business models currently en vogue in creative communities, because it represents the working alternative to the Microsoft business model. In as simple terms as possible, Open Source represents communities of like-minded individuals collaborating on a finished product, without seeking to possess or claim the intellectual property rights associated with the product. It flies in the face of business models which are constructed around very well-defined ownership rights, and to many vanguards of the IT world, it represents the future. The digital revolution has engendered an entirely new approach to the availability and distribution of information, and it is only a matter of time before better methodologies emerge that enable people to share knowledge without fearing the consequences. Read more about Open Source here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
To a certain extent, the Open Source model mirrors what we do at the GPC: we share information, critiques, and methodologies, all in the service of ultimately creating a superior product. It was nice to hear the reasons why Duncan endorses the Open Source LINUX operating system, because it mirrors my own appreciation of that model in the realm of music. As a music producer, the work I create is always more impressive and stimulating if I can incorporate elements of other people’s work, without fearing the consequences of copyright infringement lawsuits. Anyhow, after a somewhat drunken conversation, we went back to our rooms to work for a bit and then decided to meet up for a late dinner.
A few hours later the three of us were crammed into a Tuk Tuk, a three-wheeled Thai auto-rickshaw, headed to the notorious Khaosan Road for dinner and drinks.
(Read more about Tuk Tuk’s here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuk_tuk) Rosalie and I spent several evenings on Khaosan Road the last time we were in Bangkok – it’s one of the most famous backpacker destinations in Asia, filled with international hipsters and bars and restaurants catering to the most bohemian elements of the low-cost traveler set. (Read more about it here: http://www.bangkok.com/area-guide/khao-san.html). Considering the crazy lovable cast of characters we encountered the last time we were there, it was our first stop on our first evening in Bangkok. We had a couple drinks, ate some decent Thai food, did some people-watching, and then headed home after a few games of billiards and a little light shopping. What could have been a nutty night was instead relatively tame, as we all had work to do and had to put in a few more hours before going back to the office in the morning. As we were hurtling back to the hotel on a tuk tuk, breathing in diesel fumes and the pervasive pollution so characteristic of Asian cities, I had a moment of authentic pathos – I was raised in traffic like this, in Bangladesh, amidst the soot, dirt, and raw humanity of masses of people struggling to earn a decent wage. Although in recent years I may have acclimated to the lifestyle of middle America, in truth I feel at home here, even though I don’t speak the language and may as well have tourist tattooed across my forehead. Some places just resonate right, hit all the right notes, and cull forth long neglected parts of my psyche. Asia, y’all… There’s nothing like it, and given recent trends, it looks to be the emerging epicenter of 21st century culture… I’m blessed to bear witness to it…