a gravestone, a street, the chapey

Jim Morrisson's gravestone at Pere Lachaise, Paris, 2000

So then, I was around 2 or 3 years of age when I went to a funeral procession, by foot, for the very first time in my life! Moving on now to the year 2000, in September or October, I found myself in Paris, France – and, in particular, in front of the grave of Jim Morrison at Pere Lachaise.

Even though his actual ashes or, in fact, his actual coffin might not be inside the gravestone at all, I was still blissed out to have been there at the time. It was one of the highlights of that specific Paris train trip... Nick Drake's gravestone at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene graveyard at Tanworth in Arden, England would have been next on my list?

Six years afterwards, in 2006, I had become a creative manager for an online advertising enterprise in Makati, Philippines – one that paid for my working vacation journey to Las Vegas, Nevada.

the Fremont Street Experience at Las Vegas, Nevada, 2006

There, as far as music goes, I saw “Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular” at The Venetian, and went to the House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay along with the Cirque du Soleil shop at the Bellagio. As well, I went down to the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Vegas for some five or six days straight.

In 2007, I was a creative director for an advertising agency in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and our team made the 'Say It Clear' ('Kgnom Niyeay Chbah') campaign for Cellcard. The campaign included a TVC in which we used Kong Nay and other Cambodian musicians.

Kong Nay, known as the "Ray Charles of Cambodia", is a master of the chapei dong veng, and our Cellcard campaign was how I got to know of him and then meet him. That was one of the highlights of my couple of years and few months in Cambodia. And I was going to watch Placebo at Siem Reap in 2008, but something came up on the day...

Well yeah, a few musical zeniths of a few voyages to other nations!

Kong Nay and his chapei dong veng at Phnom Penh
and Siem Reap, Cambodia, 2007