The LARGEST Temple In The World and ANGELINA Jolie
BILL: My name is Bill Gentry and a world of difference and colors of Cambodia. I'm an artist and I lived in Asia for a lot of years and I'm with an intelligent and good friend of mine, sharp witted, young man with a styling hairdo. His name is Mark Gleason.
MARK: Hey, how's it going?
BILL: Wow.
MARK: Wake up. Wake up. Wake up for what I'm bringing you baby. Right?
BILL: Two in the afternoon and Mark just woke up.
MARK: Just got outta bed, man.
BILL: Got outta bed early for this kind of a session.
MARK: I appreciate it. I'm local here in Springfield, Missouri. Bill Gentry's old stomping grounds, but he is now the international man of mystery. I am simply like Topo gigo. I'm here just to provide, you know, anecdotes and no-
BILL: Topo gigo, popo, popo B. What's that?
MARK: Topo gigo. Look it up, check it out. Get the funk and wags. Look that
BILL: You travel in different circles than I do.
MARK: I would say most people travel differently. And you are an international man of mystery, by the way, one of the most celebrated artists of our time and I appreciate you just having me along for the ride on this. So, anyway.
BILL: Alright, Mr. Kansas City Chiefs
MARK: Let's sit. So Bill, you brought me up.
BILL: We wanted to have a second podcast today in Cambodia. This is episode two
in this long series. We want to do, if we can, up to 3000 podcasts.
MARK: Wow. Quite a bit.
BILL: This will take us into 2040. Anyhow we’ll chit chat about more of the most interesting cities and/or countries in the world, Siem Reap. We're gonna focus on where I have my art gallery and school.
So, I don't know, you have any questions you wanna pop?
MARK: I do. You've tasked me with the job of educating myself a little bit more about Cambodia and some of the things. I find it fascinating. The first thing you know, why do people like to go to Cambodia? What is it about Cambodia? I mean, I've done a little bit of research and there's temples, there's Angkor Wat, maybe you could tell me a little bit about why Saint Siem Reap, say, how do you say it? I'm sorry.
BILL: Siem Reap. I pronounce it Siem Reap
MARK: Tell me about it, Angkor Wat.
BILL: Thank you, Mark. Angkor Wat is the center temple in what's considered the largest temple complex in the world. And East Temples, it was quite an empire in Cambodia at that time. Maybe it was the Empire of Siem, I’m not so sure about all of those details going that far back, but Siem Reap is sort of the doorway, the entry city, into the temple complexes. You fly into the airport.
Angkor Wat is the largest temple in the world. And then there's somewhere between 80 and a hundred or more other temples that were built by emperors over the years.
I think the temples started to get built around the year 800 A.D. And this empire was thriving up until sometime in the 1400s. And some believe it was the largest city in the world with over a million people living in Siem Reap at that time around somewhere in the 1200s, 1300s.
So, what people don't know about is the grand past of Cambodia. And Angkor Wat is such a prominent and important symbol and temple for the Cambodian people that it's on their flag. On their flag is sort of a silhouette of the Angkor Wat temple. Now, the Angkor Wat temple was built by King Suryavarman II
There were several Suryavarmans and I think it was finished by-
MARK: Is it pronounced Varman or vermin?
BILL: No, no, no, no, it's not vermin. No varman and I'm not sure how it's pronounced. But these temples were all worshiping and dedicated to the gods; Mostly of the Hindu religion.
Hinduism was spreading around and I think possibly colonizing back then. But, they're mostly Hindu temples to the gods like Vishnu and Shiva and others. And they're also Buddhists. Some of the temples. Some of the emperors were more focused in following the Buddhist offshoot.
Buddhism is actually an offshoot of Hinduism. So Angkor Wat is quite an unbelievable place. Mark, I've been there so many times to various temples.
MARK: There seems to be a spirituality to it. I mean, can you feel the spirituality as you go into the place?
BILL: It's very awe-inspiring. These temples were somewhat swallowed up and forgotten for many, many years. They were swallowed up and covered with trees and jungle, and they're still uncovering to this day more temples, but it's awe-inspiring.
Much of the phenomena is the detailed carvings, the size of the temples and the way they have been encapsulated by nature and the roots.
They were made famous in a movie made by Angelina Jolie, Tomb Raider. Maybe we can talk about that later. But, it is considered one of the top two spiritual magnets, power spots, on the planet. And I believe that's why I've been attracted there.
I went there just by chance, you know, first in the late 1900s and have continued to go back. I'm on the verge of moving back there for what could be all of 2023. Did I answer your question?
MARK: With more than I could imagine that you've answered it. I was gonna ask you, do you think that the culture and the temples and Angkor Wat and all that, how does that influence the art in your students or the art? I was thinking more like when in the Roman times, you know how their art is influenced by their culture and their spirituality, maybe even similar to the Egyptians and their pyramids and stuff like that.
Do you think that Angkor Wat permeates into the soul of your artists there?
BILL: No question. I would say that probably half of the art get that gets done by the kids- and we don't try to tell them what to do. I mean, sometimes in class we say “okay, here’s what we're gonna do, we're gonna do a drawing of a Buddha or what I'll refer to what's known as an Apsara.
A heavenly dancer, heavenly goddess. All over the temples, there's carvings of these Apsaras, which were somewhat prevalent as dancers throughout Southeast Asia. We would go out to the temples, we still do, and we do drawings of the relief sculptures or of the temples themselves, but it's very much a part of the focus and the love of everybody in the country. All the Cambodians, they're very proud of them. And I myself have done many, many drawings and paintings of the temples and the carvings mostly that are on the temples.
They're Angkor Wat they say, Mark. There are so many stone carvings on the temples, which tell religious stories and history of the empire. There's so many carvings and with great detail that they say it took 30,000 artists 30 years to do just the relief carvings on Angkor Wat, which is just one of a hundred or more temples.
MARK: Wow, that's incredible. That really is.
BILL: It's considered one of the, I think, seven wonders of the world, so you better get yourself over there. Mark.
MARK: I might leave tonight for God's sake.
BILL: There are direct flights, I think from Springfield to Siem Reap.
MARK: Do they have a landing field there? Now, you know what's amazing to me though, is as beautiful as that place sounds, and it does, it sounds magical, mystical. A lot of these places become abandoned because of civil war and upheaval in these countries. And I know that Cambodia has been at the center of a lot of atrocities.
Especially even lately in the news when Princess Diana and the landmines, do you still encounter landmines? Because again, the beauty is also tempered with the beast and the beast is some of the past and the history that is violent. I know these people are trying to overcome that, but there's been a lot of hope with Princess Diana and the attention paid towards these landmines.You want to expand upon that?
BILL: Sure. You and I, you in particular, being much older than me. You, remember these days.
MARK: I do.
BILL: You remember hearing about the genocide that took place in Cambodia in the late seventies after the Vietnam War, the Western forces, the American forces left Vietnam Cambodia.
The communist regime came in. An organization, a political party, a group called the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia for a number of years, and it was a very primitive minded, simplistic viewpoint on communism. Basically everybody in this country is gonna be a rice farmer or have very simple, mundane, proletariat jobs.
And so anybody who was of the intelligentsia or anybody who didn't agree with this philosophy was killed. And I don't know how many, but there were millions, I think something like 3 million of the population of 12 million, like 20% of the population was killed in a self-imposed genocide.
MARK: Woah.
BILL: So there was a war, of course, going on as fighting the factions. And in the process of that a lot of landmines, many, many, many landmines were placed. Many of them around the temples, which is where a lot of the guerillas were hiding. I'm not talking about monkey type gorillas. I'm talking about forces hiding in the jungles.
As I first started coming into Siem Reap, a lot of landmine victims were, let's say on crutches, sometimes on little carts with wheels. They've got no legs left, they're pushing, propelling themselves along the streets, not necessarily begging for money from the tourists, but selling books, tourist books, t-shirts, whatever.
So, the landmine situation was quite horrible and very prominent. There were a lot of people coming in and out of Siem Reap back in the nineties and early two thousands trying to rid the country of landmines. I'm sure there's still some there now. A lot of efforts have been put into eradicating the landmines from Cambodia.
20 years ago, it was still very much on the minds and in the hearts of the people, the tragedy that had taken place. In my first podcast, I talked about how I was involved in buying our building from what I thought was, or what I was told, had to be an ex-Khmer Rouge person.
Because if you were male and you were alive or left to live back in those days you had to be part of the Khmer Rouge or you weren't alive anymore or you escaped. But yeah, horrible past. So the country has come out of a miserable period in its existence and you see that and we know of it from the news. But then we look back on what was happening there five, six, seven hundred years ago. It was one of the premier cultures on the entire planet.
MARK: Well, a lot of their, a lot of your major cultures go through that, right?
BILL: Yeah.
MARK: Well, they do, I mean the Romans, the Egyptians, the Greeks, they all have their deal.
Cambodia is not insulated from that. But, the past shapes its future in a lot of positive things. Famous people are now bringing attention. Like Angelina Jolie, you mentioned that she did a movie about that. It's very popular. I even heard that she has a couple children that might be from Cambodia also. Have you ever met her, by the way? Have you run into her?
BILL: I sometimes thought I might have run into her, if not in Cambodia, in Springfield, Missouri when she was visiting Springfield with her, well ex-husband now, but her husband. Because I was raised in Springfield, you're sitting in Springfield, and Brad Pitts from Springfield, and I would imagine they would've come and visited sometimes. Maybe not, but yeah, I had the connection. The lawyer who helped us by the building said he was also Angelina Jolie's lawyer in the process of adopting the children. And all this happened, I think just a few years before I arrived and started my project in Cambodia.
She's a big name there. There's a lot of posters of her. There's people who claim to have been good friends. I ate at a restaurant once that said she landed with her entourage in a helicopter, in the parking lot of this very exclusive French restaurant. First jumps out of the helicopter are
her guards, body guards with machine guns and the Frenchman who I met said, “I ran out there right away and I said ‘You're not welcome here. We don't like people with machine guns coming into our restaurant.”So she left, but she was around and famous and added to the whole allure and the mystique of Siem Reap Cambodia.
MARK: How far is your school physically, from the temple complex?
BILL: When I’m in Siem Reap in Cambodia I generally travel by what's called a tuk tuk. It's a little motorcycle that pulls a four seater wagon behind it. They're very common in Southeast Asia and India.
So it's a 20 minute tuk tuk ride to Angkor Wat itself. It's closer to some of the other, less revered temples. We used to go to a temple called Procan And when we would go there, Mark, I mean this was about 10 years ago, I had 20 kids. We're going out in a group of tuk-tuks. The kids all get in free to the temples because they're Cambodian, so they’re allowed for free. And then, I would've to pay, I don't know, at that time it was $20 a day or something.
So we'd go to the temples and I kid you not, we're in a temple that would be a humongous, very famous, monument in America, because it was built a thousand years ago. But there, it's commonplace and not unusual.
This was back before the government was really guarding the temples. So we'd go and we had a total free run of walking around the temples and picking whatever we wanted to draw. Now, especially since a lot that happened during Covid, the government has gone in and has roped off all the most important areas.
They built some boardwalks for people to walk on and there's guards all over. Those days of being able to go out and be intimate and have your own private temple, in a way are long gone. But we would go to a temple called Pecan, which was just slightly closer to us and completely free for us to run about.
It was closer than Angkor Wat, which has always gotten the most attention, but it has generally huge crowds now.
MARK: Well it sounds like things are going in the right direction there, as far as your school and a lot of other things, but I'm sure you've had some ups and downs.
Life's a rollercoaster and you’re in the back seat of the roller coaster going up and down.
BILL: I'm in the engine of the rollercoaster.
It's not all guava and mangoes there. I'm sure. I'm sure that there's been some ups and downs and maybe you could tell me
fruit dragon fruit and, uh, you ever had a damn Mark you ever had,
They have cashew chicken there because if they don't, I'm thinking you should maybe open up a Chinese chicken place.
Um, they're a popular idea. I don't think there is a cash chicken place. What, I don't think there's cashew chicken over there. They got there, they had their own type of cuisine. The food in Seri is reason enough to go to visit because, you know, Cambodia was part of the, uh, French colonies, I guess Indo-China colonies for I don't know how long, but.
Um, there's been some amazing fusion of the, of the curries and the local dishes with some of the, the French techniques and, and some French dishes. And so the food there is fantastic.
Is it, is it, uh, on a serious note, I love Thai food.
Is it similar? Oh, very. It is similar. Yeah. There's, and there's also Ty restaurants there, but, um, when you're talking about that area of the world, you know, Lao Laos.
In Springfield, they used to have a, uh, Thai restaurant there, I think it was the first in town, and I actually helped decorate their walls. Uh, when I would be going back and forth from Thailand to Springfield, I'd always bring back some kind of a wall hanging or souvenir before that restaurant.
But anyhow, the reason I bring it up is cuz the chef, the cook, the wife was actually from, Laos. She wasn't. Little known secret, but, um, there's been a lot of strange, uh, ups and downs, for the gallery. Um, I'll, mention, you know, before I ever started the gallery, I was visiting an orphanage that we were helping in, Nam Pen, and I met with a lady who has actually had her own. There was an article written about her in Time Magazine.
Her charity orphanage was called Ann Marie, uh, she was a very colorful, French lady. Very intense. I mean, she's running an orphanage. She single-handedly is running an um, boy you get her wound up cuz there were a lot of other orphanages in Nam Pent.
And so there was a kind of a war, there was a fight, there was a competition for who's gonna get the, and there were, I started hearing, what I started calling the N G O Wars. I started hearing the badmouthing and, and how these various, uh, founders of, let's say in particular the smaller, NGOs, the non-government organization, NGO, how they would just; they were in a fierce competition.
And fighting for dollars. You know, they'll sell, say anything about some other organization to try and make sure that theirs would maybe get the favors, financial favors, from whoever they were talking to. But, uh, in essence, Marie, was a saint, you know. The things that she did for, you know, 30 years, um, Wow.
You might not agree with her tactics, but, uh, she changed a lot of lives and raised a lot of young ladies. But I ran into that somewhat in Siem Reap, when we had, uh, I had my first manager, was actually, as far as I can tell, purchased away by another, more well funded, um, N G O project. Way, way, way, way more well funded. But, yeah, and the dealing with the different cultures and how I, I learned so much over the years deal dealing with the Kama culture and other cultures in Asia because they don't slice the bread the same way, uh, the Westerners do, the Americans, and if you wanna, uh, exist and stay in a, in a country, you have to greatly respect that (and) work within the boundaries and the guidelines of what their culture considers to be.
Correct. You can't come in and start dictating the American way. You'll be shown the door very quickly. But we have in there what you like John Wayne coming in there. You know, take, listen. No, you know. You mentioned some NGOs, and you explained to me what that was before, um, non-government organization.
Yeah.
And you mentioned that, you know, the ups and downs and, and I'm sure you'll get into that, you know, maybe, you know, again, you'd mentioned that some of the doors may have shut and a lot of this, you know, the world revolves around a couple things. Bill, love is one of 'em, but we
both know that the world revolves around money. Right? It does. I mean, that's what you know. Do you, and if you don't have enough money to fund the things that you want to do, they dry up, you know?
So I know you've got, you and your organization obviously need funds and stuff like that to keep going and, and they're not unlimited.
But you had mentioned, do you have any plans on maybe getting the Cambodian government to maybe? Your little art project there? You know, is that something that's on the list?
Well, the concept of NGOs and local charities is still quite new in Cambodia. And, the concept of a rich Cambodian is also a relatively new concept.
So of course we've talked about it many times. Um, We've been given help by local people, very much more in the way of, uh, labor and, and other types of assistance. You know, because time is money. But no, we're, um, I haven't focused so much on fundraising myself, uh, but it's there. And I, I would say as the country becomes more and more wealthy, Uh, and as our gallery becomes more and more well known, I think that we will. We'll get some subsidies and some support from the local government as well as the people.
Men don't really want support from the local government too, is it because sometimes they get their hooks in you and then they call the shots because they're giving you the money? Right. You know, something like that. Well, we had trouble, back when we weren't an NGO with local officials coming and, you know, asking for extra money.
We got fined once, uh, for something I don't even think was really a true breakage of the law. We didn't know our lawyers were sleeping down in Phnom Penh; the one lawyer who I had originally hired and signed up had passed away. Uh, but, we got signed, fined $10,000, which we had to pay for.
Um, I think it was a false requirement, but uh, you know, we had to do what we had to do. So $10,000,
$10,000 U.S. What does that, I mean, just what does that equate to? $10,000?
I would say that could probably support 15 families in Cambodia. Let's say, rural families that, well, I mean that a Cambodian can potentially live off of, at least to be something like a dollar 50 a day.
Could, could feed the family. Wow. What do they eat? For a dollar 50? Well, you can buy a bowl. Rice market; a bowl of rice for like 10-15 cents. Yeah, this is, uh, I don't know what it is now. It might be more than that now, but this is, you know, when I was hearing about such things 10, 15 years ago; that's what the word was.
Our biggest issue came with, and I won't get into this one too, too deep, but, uh, there was one time an accountant from my family business went to, uh, under orders from somebody and told them that the colors of the Cambodia project was going to be shut down. You should all go out and look for new jobs.
Don't listen to Bill Gentry anymore. Cause Well that was probably, that was probably the only smart thing you said was don't listen to Bill Gentry.
Thanks so much. Thank you.
Um. And so what happened? I was there on a trip and literally my entire staff, uh, quit. Within a two week period, I had, uh, you know, a sales lady, a manager, and a couple of teachers, and, um, it was like a holy, holy-you-know,-what moment. and uh, cause we had a lot of kids that we were affecting and teaching at the time.
And, we had a very good location in, uh, downtown Siem Reap. So, um, It was a huge changing moment for us, on whether this thing is gonna stay, uh, alive or not. And two of my older students, Sol and Peahu, actually stepped forward. They were both around 18, 19 at the time and said, “Bill, let's keep this thing alive. We'll run it for you.” Um, Sol was, like I said, about 19. She had received an evening degree, uh, in accounting. She was one, uh, they used to call her the serious one. Uh, she's still now, I think 10-11 years later, the manager of our project. And I think it was a godsend because she is so good with the kids.
She has become a phenomenal artist. Uh, you know, so out of almost like the Phoenix man out of a, yes, a period of discontent or chaos, you know. A flower bloomed and blossomed and the project is, uh, actually turned out to start doing much better because our previous manager, Saru, Was not really involved with the arts.
He was a manager, made sure that things got taken care of, bills were paid, doors are opened, closed, but he wasn't really, uh, deeply involved with the teaching and the art itself. Sol saved, Sol saved herself. Pun has moved on and set up his own gallery, uh, with his wife. And is very successful. Does a lot of shows in.
Phnom penh now, we came out of that adversity, uh, better than ever. Mark. Thank you so much. Well, that's good. You know, like you say, you know somebody, sometimes these people who try to ‘sabotage’ the situation. You know, only make it, uh, they made it better for you. Like you say, like a phoenix rising from the ashes coming out there. But the kids, you know what, we've said this before, it's all about the kids, right?
I mean, that's at the end of the day, and it sounds like the kids are, it's important to them and you know, it should warm your heart to know that it was important enough for them too.
In your time or hour of need, they stepped up and, and, uh, now become part of it because that's the way it's gonna be sustained.
Right. You know, it's like anything else. You could come in as an American or whatever and think that you're gonna be the savior or whatever, but self sustainability is gonna come from the kids and the people and their
culture. So “sustainability” is such a buzzword these days. Does it really make it better everywhere?
Everything's got to be built. So it's sustainable. And I, and I would say our gallery has a long way to go before we are self-sustainable. Um, and you know, during Covid it was just through a few private pockets that we stayed. We're starting to sell art again. And, we can have art shows, in the future where that's where we used to make about 50% of our income to sustain The Colors of Cambodia.
So, uh, sustainability, yeah. Very important. And, and I think we. You know, I think I might have mentioned that I intend to spend much of next year in Siem Reap to help the project. But I tell you what, one of the main things I need to be very aware of is that I don't need to insert myself too much, uh, because it's running well by itself right now.
You know, I just go and help here and there, and then I'll, uh, you know, sip on some lemonades and call that a good work ethic. So, Confucius says the best manager is the one who looks like he's doing nothing. Wow. Much Jesus. As he's got his staff running around happily doing the needful.
Not 30 years. I must, uh, be a pretty good manager. .
Yeah, I was. I particularly brought that one up for you, I'm telling you all about these things here. So you know this: this whole thing's amazing to me. You know, another thing
I'll mention about, you know, not so much particularly pun lure, but, uh, we've had what we call the rockstar students.
These kids come in and they're just so talented, you know, by the age of 14 or so, they're just doing, you know, high level refined art. And as I've said, there's just so much innate talent there. And then you take the most talented of this talented pool and they just start creating, uh, wonderful art at a very young age in most cities, they start to become rock stars and they get treated like you know, Rock stars amongst their peers.
So the next thing you know, they're, you know, they're alcohol. They can afford alcohol. They're buying these, these kids are selling $50 worth of art a day sometimes, and that might not sound like much, but that's a month's salary for dad. Yeah. And so the next thing you know, he has got a nice motorcycle. He has got girlfriends, he's got, you know, booze.
Here they are. They're like that, you know, Tender, age of 16. And they've got all kinds of things that are trying to lure them away. Um, and into, let's say more the dark side cuz also Seric became such a boom town. It became a wild west town. So there were a lot of dark sides in the alleys of Siem Reap.
Are all your, in some cases, I'm gonna let you talk here again before too long, right? My job in some cases is cops dead here. Christ. Yeah. Good old. Are all your kids meaning that, you know, as your gallery becomes known, maybe you're bringing in kids from Phnom Penh or Laos or, you know?
We have truckloads, busloads, boatloads.
We just bring them .
They come in. They're all within about an hour, uh, bike ride, let's just say from, uh, from the city itself. So let me, let me finish that last concept that I had going, which is some of the tough. Uh, let's say lessons. I tried to teach and I think I've been successful. What were the life lessons of how do you want to stop your progress as an artist at, uh, making $50 paintings or pictures or drawings? What, what about the chance of doing a $5,000 painting? You've got the talent, but you've got to stay focused and not be steered away, lured away by some of these things that, you know, exist in life that can take you off your course. So, I've had that conversation with a number of the rock stars as the coach.
You're like a coach, man. It's, you know, your life coach.
Believe it or not, I feel like I've been that or tried to be good.
Well, you know, I mean, the art, you know, you talked about, I mean, they, they, at the end of the day, what you're promoting here is, is art, right? And art is a means to, to allow these people to, to, you know, explore themselves and to create beautiful…
oh my god.
Attack. Springfield got an earthquake. Hey, why you,
Why, why ? You saw it attack me, didn't you? I'm, I'm afraid
My paintings in the background are gonna start falling. There was a huge storm. I've been, I've lived in LA about 15 years, off and on over my, over the years in, uh, it was the second biggest storm this morning I've ever seen.
You know, they spent that on the, you heard that on the news? What weird is this,
Californians have been complaining for years not to bash Californians, but. Now, God, the place has been burned up. And then the drought, I mean, if you look at, uh, Lake Mead right? Whatever the, I mean the lake is down, it's like 60 feet.
So, even though there's, these rains are terrible, they gotta be a Godsend California. Yeah,
for sure. I'm sure it's, uh, it's going inland and, and gonna, uh, cover the mountains for snow pack and, and, uh, help with those, uh, Oh, those reservoirs that are empty. Hey. Hey, why don't we take a break right now?
Uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a bio break and we'll, we'll continue on.
So should I just, have you met anybody or a lot of interesting people on your journey with this, uh, art program? Let me get my hair right here. Okay. There you go. Um, Well, one of the people who saved this project years back, um, is a lady named Honey Corre, who came and visited our, uh, the sim and on, on the sign at the top of the building, I had the, the same slogan that's right behind you, art Will Save the World.
And she saw that and she said, I need to meet the guy. Who, who or the person who started this? That's a great slogan. Well, uh, she, she tracked me down. She lived in, uh, Malaysia, kl. She came down to Singapore. We met, you know, in a way the rest is history. There was a period when I was so busy with, uh, the family business and I was traveling into Europe a lot in America, and I wasn't in Asia much.
Honey helped keep this, this project alive. And, and one thing that she's also brought, she's like the head of our, uh, art curriculum. Um, she's a professional teacher and, and she also has studied and has degrees in healing of how art can heal with, you know, people with disorders. So she is, she came and, and really was phenomenal with the kids.
She came a lot. She brought groups, she did fundraisers. Is she still? Yeah, she's still involved. Uh, she's got some of her own projects going on. She, she ki I think she closed or, or lessened much the size of her school in Kuala Lumpur. She's very busy, always studying. She gets, uh, degree, she's doing, getting another art degree out of Europe right now.
Um, Do you plan on seeing her when you go back? Phenomenal lady. Phenomenal lady. A godsend and a saint. Do you plan on seeing her when you go back? I know you're on your way out the door here in the next couple weeks.
I hope I'm trying to get her to come. Uh, she's busy with school, but, uh, she goes a lot on her own.
She's not just there when I'm there. Um, but she's busy with school and also Malaysia's still somewhat locked down with Covid and there's no direct flights from, uh, Malaysia to Cambodia right now. So, uh, she'll get there. We'll meet, we'll meet again soon. But she's involved. And, there was another lady, uh, Julia, she came and, and she worked, uh, at the gallery for years.
Uh, fantastic artist, uh, herself. And as she introduced me one night to. A world famous saxophone player, the real deal he used to play, uh, saxophone for Frank Sinatra. And this is, this is like two o'clock in the morning and the art show is finally over and we've closed the doors and we've cleaned up the broken champagne glasses and all this kind of stuff.
A successful show, well, it turns out. Uh, this phenomenal sax player, Scotty, uh, was a psychic and he wanted to do a psychic reading of me, and here it is, it's 2, 2 30 in the morning and he's just, it goes on for like two hours. And he's still in Siem Reap and he's a good friend of mine, and if I'm lucky, I'll start a band with him.
He's been ill, but he's, uh, but because of his illness, I think it was a type of cancer he was. He said he was given sort of like enlightened capabilities, heightened perceptions of the universe, and I've heard this from others before. You know, you go through some kind of a trauma, you're living in a trauma and your sense has become so much more acute.
So Scotty got me over, uh, into this, uh, club, some clubs in Siem Reap Stay op Open late. And um, he did this long psychic reading of me, but one, I think this is just, um, beyond interesting. We're about five minutes into this, this, you know, this sort of you know, touching my head and feeling. Is he a big man or a small man?
No, no, he's a small, small man about your size, Mark. No, he's an average dude. He is judging you or something. He's British. So whenever he speaks you stop and listen because it just sounds, you know, more important when a British person speaks. That's true. Rather than somebody from the south.
Where's that guy from? I'm not even listening to that accent. No, but Scotty's, he's one of the smartest men I've ever met. Now, not to say what I'm about to tell you is anywhere near true, but he, and maybe he does this for everybody he meets,
Yeah. It's a party trick, Bill for Christ sake.
There's a lot of people out there with a lot of party tricks, and I've fallen for a lot of 'em over the years. But anyhow, we're, we're about five minutes into this, uh, my psychic reading, and he drops to his knees and he just lowers his head and he starts.
And he, and he raises his hands and he says, “I am so honored to meet you.
You are the strongest man in the world. You are the strongest man.” I feel this. You are the strongest man I've ever met. Or maybe char battle for God's sakes, man.
Well, the point of it was the only way I partially, even minutely rationalized this as being, having any credibility, is I've learned to be a kind and gentle and sweet guy. To deal in so many different parts of the world.
And, and I, and I thought of the, um, the tarot card. I don't know if you've, uh, have you researched in-depthly tarot card(s)? ? My favorite is the fool for some reason. I
dunno why it’s strongest card in the deck. Anyhow, the strength card is not, you know, a Schwarzenegger type with gigantic muscles everywhere.
The strength card is a gentle woman in a long flowing ground gown holding open the mouth. Or, or holding the jaws of a lion. And the concept is sweetness and kindness and gentleness is always the strongest and most powerful technique for power. There's a great lesson to be learned there.
These cards were invented, they say, like in the 12th century. So I wonder if there's a lot of wisdom way back then.
Listen, man, if you were sitting next to Gandhi, I wonder who would be the strongest person? if you're still the strongest person in the world? That's unbelievable.
John. Yeah, no, like I said, maybe. Maybe he said you're the strongest person I've met in the last 10 minutes?
That might make more sense.
He just said, man, get up off your knees, man. For Christ's sake, .
But anyhow, we've gone on, he's gotten through his illness and into another one and out of it, but he's, he is, last time I saw him, we jammed. He's a great musician. Just a great musician.
Did he buy any artwork? No, but he always comes to all the shows and he tells everybody about, uh, the, the gallery and, and he's a big supporter. Um, he's always come and played when we've had events. Uh, he's not, you know, affluent; doesn't have a lot of extra money to buy, you know, a $5,000 Bill Gentry painting.
Yeah. But, uh, maybe some, it sounds like old Sinatra screwed the old boy there. That's what I'm
I, um, I'm not gonna comment on that. I mean, uh, it's, there's, we're starting to dance and touch the mafia. Now, I'm not, I don't wanna get involved with the mafia. You can edit, you
can edit this out too.
I probably didn't ever say anything.
Okay, so, um,
Well listen, you keep going back. You keep going back. You, you've obviously got some kind of magnetic draw to the police, but what's it like coming back to the states after you settle in there for a while? I mean, uh, you know, to me the more.
Let, let me, lemme shut up.
Why I shut up. You shut up for a second. . Why do I keep going back? Let me address that. Okay. And because I've thought that myself, you know, what, what am I getting out of this? 20 some years going there. I don't, uh, make any money doing it. But, um, it's giving back rather than giving money concept marks.
And the warm just magical feelings that I've gotten, still, when I go and I'm with the kids and I, and I'm seeing them loving what they're doing. I'm helping them expand the possibilities for their future. But when you explain a concept to a young person, and you see that light and that warmth, uh, fill their body and their soul.
It just, you know, it's what keeps me going back. It's wonderful. It's hard to explain. You don't put a dollar sign on it. It's the magic of humanity and, and youth, and the whole process of teaching and learning. So that's why I keep going back.
Mark, Now you can interrupt me, please.
No, it sounds like it's a place that's inviting you back too.
You know what I mean? And, uh, it's an inviting place, period. Yeah. It
sounds like it's welcomed you. And the more I speak and the more I feel like, uh, you know, you almost have a part of you that… you know, like they say you're like a brother from another mother.
It's almost like this Asian, I don't wanna say Cambodia, because Cambodia is just one of the areas that you've traveled, but, your culture. You've become more, what's the culture? I'm looking, it's, uh, I don't wanna say Asian. It's not Asian, right? Is it Asian
or what is, you know, I think I, I just, without even knowing it, have become.
Very, uh, Asian, yeah, Oriental Eastern in my philosophies and thinking and things that worked over there, let's just say, in communicating and relating with people, um, they don't seem to be working so well for me in the States.
I’ve had difficulty, you know, the last couple of years, uh, living in the States, relating with people and I'm pretty, Uh oh, What do you…? I love to be around people. I'm a people person. Oh, I haven't heard that before. Term people, person. That's a good term. I haven't heard that used
before. You're a people person. I'm a people person. And there's some very deep, inner subtle differences between the Asian way of seeing the world.
And I've equated my frustration back in the States to what? P T S D, post-Traumatic stress Disorder. Um. And that's not just from the Asian perspective it, uh, or, or how Asia influenced me. Um, I was on the road every other week for 33 years. Wow. I was always planning trips and most of the time, uh, every other week it was to a different country, a different culture.
I learned a lot, but it also made me, uh, um, kind of an alien in my own country. Well, America has changed since you've, you know, it's like you straddle the ocean; you know, one foot in Asia, one foot here in America, and the America that you left is not the America that you came back to.
Probably, yeah. It, it's. Yeah, the whole world's changed, but America has very much changed for me. But, uh, I, I don't want to think it's changed, uh, for the worse. I think there's a lot of positive things happening in the states and, uh, but there's also some disturbing things going on, and it's, you know, one of those kind of tumultuous periods almost like, uh, we talked about what happened in Cambodia.
I mean, it was, there's nothing that's severe happening here, but. Uh, you know, there crossroad, think the states is at a crossroads and, uh, you think, think I can help
you think your art school would work here.
I, you know, I've tried, uh, setting up some and, and I'm still in conversations with, uh, setting up a school in El Salvador, but, um, You know, America doesn't have that kind of open inviting ness to have, you know, some strange old dude coming in and teaching an art to your kids.
Yeah. There's a lot, a lot of red tape and I, I, I've done that. I taught at a Y M C A down in Tucson, and a lot of time and money was spent just to get access. And then eventually I couldn't even teach the kids. I did, I was, I didn't have a professional art teaching degree. There's, there's issues, you know, and they may all be set up for a good reason, but it's made me a bit frustrated.
It's not so easy to come to the states and do what I've done in Cambodia, and they, and they continue to welcome us in Cambodia. I was, you know, on this last trip, it was so wonderful going out to the schools and the teachers are like, you know, come and, and thank me and, and, uh, it's, it's a cool experience. So I'll, I'll keep going back.
I will. I’ll be there much of 2020. It's, it's calling you
back. I can feel it, I can sense it. Even in this podcast, you have a, it's like the song of a siren calling you back.
Except feeling my vibrations, man. Yeah, I got vibrations. Vibrations, man. A lot of vibrations. I got them . Alright, will you keep those vibrations going?
Keep 'em to yourself a little bit, but, uh, spread, spread some of them and I'll talk to you again soon. All right?
Hey, this is wonderful. I appreciate it. Um, just being involved in something like this on a serious note, I appreciate it because listen, I, at the end of the day, we've said this before, and maybe this is how we should end our podcast, is that it's all about the kids, and it's all about paying it forward and about putting positive vibes out there so that we leave the place this world a better place than we got it.
Amen. Amen. Amen. All. Love you, Mark. Thank you. Have a great day.