Archive for March, 2011

This week I had the honour to ‘do’ the opening slate of his enormously popular podcast “The Stuph File” , episode #0084 (mp3), which airs weekly on the internet (but also available at Airchecker Canada, CyberStationUSA.com, KDXradio.com, streaming on PCJmedia.com and over the air at World FM 88.2fm in New Zealand, Media Corp in Singapore and WSTJ, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, USA, plus in the air on China Airlines in-flight entertainment system for long haul Dynasty flights).

The opening slate, I started this blog about, is the spoken introduction of the show, which is weekly done by another figure who gets a bit of attention from the show host Peter Anthony Holder. And of course it was to support my fund raising event to Save The Flicks in Phnom Penh. And so you know, this podcast has over 200,000 listeners per week!

In this latest edition he also talks with the following people:

• Tea Krulos is a blogger who writes about the phenomenon of people who dress up as superheroes, who have sprung up in many cities. His blog is entitled Heroes Of The Night, which is also the title of his upcoming book.
• Chez Pazienza is a veteran network news producer and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. He’s also a new media consultant.
• Darren Taylor is best known as Professor Splash. He’s broken his own world record by diving from a 36-foot platform into a kiddie pool with just 12 inches of water. He is the world’s greatest and most decorated shallow water diver.

You can listen to the show online, subscribe to it through his blog or even in iTunes. Or just click play below (after the Opening Peter Anthony talks about me at 2min40secs):

In case you don’t want to listen to an entire hour, because you are way too busy, here is what Peter Anthony Holder said about me:

“I had Ramon on the program a little while ago talking about his other entrepreneurial business which is cooking tours through Europe. He’s a very interesting guy indeed, so if he puts his mind to doing this and saving this theater, I know it will work out.”

Thanks for having me on the show, Peter Anthony!

Next to that, the Dutch regional newspaper De Stentor published a little story about my latest online adventure to Save The Flicks. It was journalist Sander Lindenburg who did this little write-up which also mentioned on the historic fact that I started Letmestayforaday.com exactly ten years ago.

And a side note to this: Sander and De Stentor were both the first to give attention to Letmestayforaday in March 2001, and eventually kicked off a global buzz on the internet.

Have you already made your small contribution to save the cinema theater in Phnom Penh? It can be a loan or a onetime donation, check out http://www.timetohelp.me for all the info.

So far this amount has been contributed:

One of the most beautiful experiences in Phnom Penh is actually also a quite simple experience. It is the cinema. Just don’t expect one of these concrete multiplex bunkers in a shopping mall, but imagine a small house.

The only cinema in town which targets the local expats with western-orientated blockbusters, art house, kids movies, animations and the classics, is The Flicks.

When you arrive there you take the stairs to the second floor, walk through a hallway and end at a bar where there is always somebody to greet you. That’s where you pay your admission to the movie ($3.50) and of course a drink and a bucket of hot buttered popcorn. The bar is in a small lobby and connects to the movie room. Well, here you can see it:

Also here: no cinema seats. No, everything is more relaxed than that. You can lie down on two rows of comfortable soft cushions or two rows of rattan couches with pillows, and watch that 5-meter (16 feet) wide screen with an amazing sound.

Since my first visit to The Flicks I was in love. The simplicity, the fact that it was all created and organized for the love of movies and for the movie lovers even made me get the crazy idea of starting a similar cinema myself.

And then suddenly, early this March, the message came out saying that The Flicks was going to close.

Sadly we are moving from The Flicks and will be closing our cinema. It was great fun and we got to meet an amazing bunch of people from all walks of life, and we will miss it very much.

The couple that are currently running the movie house, Martin and Jeanette, can’t keep up with the cinema as they got real requirements during the day (real jobs). And that’s when it all stops.

And something like that starts nibbing on me. Very simple. This can’t be true. It shouldn’t happen. Et cetera. And after a long conversation with Martin and Jeanette it wasn’t even such a weird idea to take over The Flicks in Phnom Penh.

But come up with that large bag filled up with money that is necessary. Especially when you imagine all the equipment. And the deposit for the rent. I could never just put that bag of money on the table! And that’s when I came up with the idea of starting a little online micro-credit fundraising event. If all my Facebook-friends and Twitter-followers could lend me $10 I’d be ready to go! And it’s a loan, so after 6 months everybody gets it back.

And now you can even choose to change that loan into a donation. After 6 months that will become a micro-credit on Kiva.org, a worldwide active micro-credit organization that helps small businesses with micro-credits. A perfect good cause, don’t you agree?

So (if I haven’t spammed you about it yet in any online-personal way) check that wallet of yours and see if you can miss ten bucks. Or a bit more. Then surf to http://www.timetohelp.me, the site I have created for this purpose. Thank you very much!

The counter is currently at:

Update: I am going to buy the cinema. That’s for sure. And I am going to love it!

If you still wonder why on earth I ever moved to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, have a look at this short promotional video (in two parts) titled “Phnom Penh, The Pearl of Asia”.

Afterwards you can only agree with my words: “Who wouldn’t move here?”