Thang Nguyen 555

How to handle the ups and downs.

One respects clean-as-a-whistle winners. The race involves rules of engagement, challenges (Boston Heart-break-hill) and time limits. In short, the measures at the moment. One’s life (around 77 years) vs the machine (near permanent efficiency given full maintenance and upgrade).

Farmers and miners, machine and man. All strive to put food on the table, to stir the young away from costly choices, to nudge for course-correcting and to cheer on.

In short, homo ethicus and homo economicus both.

In Vietnamese “co Thuc moi vuc duoc Dao” (supper before sermon). Practical and realistic.

Mothers feeding children, mama bear waiting for baby bear still struggling at the bottom of snowy mountain.

First be a full-fledge human (include someday to be buried) then to be businessman. Companies used to last and outlast their founders. Now it’s a reversal.

Back during the 2008 financial crisis, we talked about ethics in Medical and Business school.

Now no one talks infrastructure, environment and ethics. Too long given one’s short life span.

In other words, grab it.

Now. Yesterday. The asymmetricity of productivity cycle vs prosumer’s expectations (no wonder stores stock only high-margin, high-glucose items), stockholders demand vs market reality.

Those in the middle (portfolio managers, marketers and broadcasters) all fold. QVC in bankruptcy? Unheard of 40 years ago. GE? No longer there to “Bring good things to life”.

It’s time to switch gear, slow down as I see more hills in the horizon. Just ask King Midas about illusion. He’ll tell you all about accomplishment he left behind with Midas touch.

In the race, there is always time-limit. Or else, no one knows who is going to bring home that first prize.

Never forget the day I did my Dad proud (first beer earned and first time drank with friends in front of him). Back then, I knew the race, our race, continue endlessly party-pooping, yet even so and despite of it, we learn and earn the ultimate tittle of being a full human.

First hu-man, then business-man. Do no evil. Bring good things to life. Transactional and transformational via uphill climb and downhill curve. As long as we have the humility and the confidence to re-enter that unfinished race and never ever give up.

How to handle up’s and down’s.

One respects clean-as-a-whistle winners. The race involves rules of engagement, challenges (Boston Heart-break-hill) and time limits. In short, the measures at the moment. One’s life (around 77 years) vs the machine (near permanent efficiency given full maintenance and upgrade).

Farmers and miners, machine and man. All strive to put food on the table, to stir the young away from costly choices, to nudge for course-correcting and to cheer on.

In short, human ethicus and human economicus both.

In Vietnamese “co Thuc moi vuc duoc Dao” (supper before sermon). Practical and realistic.

Mothers feeding children, mama bear waiting for baby bear still struggling at the bottom of snowy mountain.

First be a full-fledge human (include someday to be buried) then to be businessman. Companies used to last and outlast their founders. Now it’s a reversal.

Back during the 2008 financial crisis, we talked about ethics in Medical and Business school.

Now no one talks infrastructure, environment and ethics. Too long given one’s short life span.

In other words, grab it.

Now. Yesterday. The asymmetricity of productivity cycle vs prosumer’s expectations (no wonder stores stock only high-margin, high-glucose items), stockholders demand vs market reality.

Those in the middle (portfolio managers, marketers and broadcasters) all fold. QVC in bankruptcy? Unheard of 40 years ago. GE? No longer there to “Bring good things to life”.

It’s time to switch gear, slow down as I see more hills in the horizon. Just ask King Midas about illusion. He’ll tell you all about accomplishment he left behind with Midas touch.

In the race, there is always time-limit. Or else, no one knows who is going to bring home that first prize.

Never forget the day I did my Dad proud (first beer earned and first time drank with friends in front of him). Back then, I knew the race, our race, continue endlessly party-pooping, yet even so and despite of it, we learn and earn the ultimate tittle of being a full human.

First hu-man, then business-man. Do no evil. Bring good things to life. Transactional and transformational via uphill and downhill curves. As long as we have the humility and the confidence to see another day, to re-enter that unfinished race and never ever give up.

Half a decade is long enough for facts to turn history. Post-Vietnam generation has grown up and grown old. Victimized or victorious, memories of war would soon recede and retreat further, through a thin veil or dense fog (in the Deer Hunter’s fictional tale, a steel-town window screen).

The other day, while listening to music in an MRI wait room, I could place that voice and face on the album cover (w/ the cat, sitting next to the window). But only later after googling that I recalled Carol King.

How quickly we forget names (the visual and audio stay longer). More so for names associated with past trauma.

Like Vietnam. A country, a landscape, a travesty or a war. Our brain space needs de-cluster job, to make room for post 9/11 Iraq or Iran. 58,220 names faded and forgotten, finally get revisited today March 29 on the national mall.

Welcome home. Bell Bottom Blues…”in your heart I want to stay, just one more day, please”.

To NOK (next of kin) or to girls who hadn’t yet married to GI’s, played by Meryl Streep – the bouquet girl – in the Deer Hunter.

He (played by Christopher Walken) isn’t coming home. He sent money but could not bring himself. In the trench, he fought because of his buddies (x-groom in Vet rehab wheelchair).

We came to contain resulting in 58,220 who did not come back. The living wishes to forget while the dead wish to be remembered.

“How I wished there had been someone to whom I could say ‘Thank You’ .” quoted Graham Green.

I know you were with good hearts, well-intended with unintended consequences.

Ask not.

At least, future generations would think twice about “boots on the ground”. That alone saves lives, not to mention neighboring countries and evolving flying technology as witnessed now.

I remember a Baby Bell executive talk about his manicurist (Vietnamese) while interviewing me (a sales position). I felt a surge of shame, as if being cleverly put down, being on the outside of wall-off “Bell after break-up” by Judge Carter.

How much more when vets felt, NOT welcome, even spit on and called names out of disgust.

In an uncomfortable situation, people opt out or quietly disappear e.g. packing away the uniform, the beret and while at it, those ideals and ideas about peace and justice in American (John Wayne) way. ”

Only frogs boiled in warm water would stay put. Most in the heat of battle – even during the long Cold War – jumped out. I never forget in Storm of Steel, which tells a story of an army officer visiting next bunker, then return only to find his bunker was no longer there (blown off). Even the dead (buried in cemetery) got killed twice. WWI and WWII = burial I and burial II.

Humanity, in Latin, would mean “bury”, hopefully to be remembered every once in a while.

On reflections, who profited, who were harmed, who actually enjoyed i.e. “destroy to save”? George Kennan even denied he push his diplomacy theory to the bitter end of Earth.

It’s an irony that young soldiers listen to California Dreaming while laying around in the jungle of Southeast Asia, among mosquitoes and leeches, “and I pretend to pray”. In the fox hole, many prayed with all sincerity non-denominationally. I came across a May 2, 1975, obituary on the WSJ by Peter A Kann. Nations don’t die people do, except for this opinion piece.

The long overdue hug and embrace was in stark contrast to the iconic V-J Day Times Square kissing sailor and unknown nurse photo. It doesn’t matter where you stood on the spectrum of political persuasion.

When history called, they came. Containment or holding the line, long and hard, like Sisyphus. Mysteriously, the Iron Curtain came down, albeit lagging. by a few decades (Berlin Wall).

The “tearing it down” as Reagan’s insertion into his final script. Vietnam Memorial Wall up, Berlin Wall down. ” Just one more ride” into the sunset.

“I don’t want to fade away…give me one more day. Please. In your heart I want to stay…”

Another one bites the dust. My neighbor. A successful and goodlooking medical doctor. Second generation Franco-Vietnamese. His other two surviving younger brothers also inherited good genes, also are successful by all measures. Good genes precipitate good outcome. Most times.

At least, they help us out against the test of time before our uninvited guest, the Angel of Death (nothing angelic about him) knocks, three times in succession like Woody in the Messenger ” the Secretary of War wants me to pass on…”.

Woody Harrelson slips comfortably into the role of a trainer ” under no circumstances you touch NOK – next of kin ” before finishing up his watermelon slice (might as well chew his tobacco after dessert).

There is no glory about the end. Our end our beginning. Authors through the ages have speculated about what comes next. From personal experience, I have found the dead never come back: a couple of neighbors during the war (this medical doctor was the highest achiever), my grandma and parent, sister and cousins. People got their degrees, passed small and big tests, but no one passes the test of time.

Finale. C’est fini, Capri. Only their loved ones with prolong stages of grief.

Eternity? The sun? yes. Moon, yes. Earth rotating still? yes. Eclipse, yes e.g. our good genes passed down from ancestors, folklores and wisdom (earned from mistakes and experience), course-correction and regrets e.g. pay it forward and invest in karma, daily act of kindness vs day trade.

Humanity and continuity with self-correcting and condemning, ups and downs, war and peace. In “Not fade away”, we watched a young narrator dancing in the street, delivering that-remains-to-be-seen line:” the US invented the atomic bomb and Rock and Roll. Yet we are not sure which one wins out in the end”. For me, war ends, but woodstock lives on (see Vietnamizing Woodstock).

Man-singing and sleeping, while machine-learning. The latter non-stop, with logic, long form and a deep dig into contextualizing now that it can afford data-richness.

Machine, data rich. Man, data poor.

Its tasks are simple: cull and curate man’s thoughts, writing and leave-behind. Then to arrive and paint a more comprehensive conclusion unlike us: “discard that which are outside of our purview” since each man is given only an average lifespan of 24-hour units that lasts until it runs out (77 years for US male). BTW, as far as longevity, the US is ranked 61, while Hong Kong No 3, both see female outlast male.

Yet it’s what is unseen that affects us. Slowly then suddenly from sunrise to sunset sees the erosion of the commons (buses to school, parks for kids and dog park for pets, ramp for old folk and rehab for veteran).

Perhaps we, I, have given up too soon. Fire him. File for a divorce. Obtain food stamps and fruit loops before they are no more. Fade not away.

Our expiration date has yet to come. No one knows. Those with advice like “keep saying this is the most wonderful day”, “It’s a wonderful world” etc…are all dead e.g. 7 Habits of effective people’s author himself died while biking. “Supersizing me” died of a heart attack. My doctor neighbor, pinnacle of success, gone for good.

Those who wrote self-help books i.e. dieting, running and positive thinking – got rich, living off their royalty on our dimes.

Life has its final say. We might be just “extras” on its movie set. Some, a giver – others taker. Most: undecided. Man might be undecided; machine is certainly an extractor.

In the Orient, Orientals might look alike. As it is in Africa, Europe and South America. Proximity breeds linkage, time heritage. Mass movement, mass destruction (WW’s, covid). The Industrial Revolution did us a disfavor by scaling. Machine keeps on churning out warheads, warlords and war death.

Decades later, we recover, with new “normal”, dutifully pay our taxes and pay it forward to the common, without protesting those unjust and ill-thought-out policies, as if yesterday, today and tomorrow will always be the same old. Got news for you. “The same” is only for the living.

For people like my Franco-Vietnamese successful neighbor (or my uncle who got shot at age 20), all is long gone.

No one passes the test to time. As long as the Sun still rises tomorrow, we are going to be OK. Or so we thought. Brush our teeth and turn off the light.

Good genes precipitate good outcome. Other factors e.g. environment, social influence and sophistication play into success and happiness. But don’t, for a minute, be self-deceiving. We’re, chemically speaking, full of water, blood, bone, oxygen, nutrient and waste. Oh, I forget illusion 100 %. Where does that leave perspiration and inspiration? Sorry, got to go. I heard someone knocking at the door. 3 in succession. Woody? Is that you? Let me finish my watermelon slice.

Mr. Malone.

Coming to peace with his past.

Wild ride and wild West. Friend of Ted Turner and Ruppert Murdoch, sponsor of the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, most of all, escaped a “grisly” death together with Craig McCaw.

Late 90’s saw a media tectonic shift from analog to digital. Howard Jonas saw VoIP and reaped a reward. I was crushed then crawled out from underneath the rubble of Dial-Around and VoIP.

Big difference between 30,000 feet and near 6 feet under. While he was doing deals – luckily not with AOL – I struggled with job hopping: MCI and ATT, Teligent and Teleglobe. Via Gary Kim, I heard of John Malone. “I wouldn’t bet against John Malone” said Gary at the time.

John loves the outdoors (Colorado) and land conservation, partly through friendship with the “mouth of the South” (and indirectly Jane Fonda).

With Liberty Media track record surpassed by none, or a very few (Warren Buffett?), he can rightfully and leisurely ride into the sunset, doing what he and his wife love to do in the dry air out West.

Information and individuals, like John, want to be free. His love for horses (even one-eye horse could father a lot of good horses) and heritage (Ireland – remember Frank Mc Court’s Angela Ashes) while juggling regulatory, competitors, consumers and stakeholders.

Another American success story. Always peppered with sweat and tears, penny pinching and tied knots in the stomach.

High rollers. High reward.

Today’s Big Tech stand on Cable’s shoulders (itself on railroad’s right of way) streaming and sucking up bandwidth – cushioned by Net Neutrality without paying an extra dime (until sued by mass tort) or a/o this edit, eventual price increase by Netflix.

Learn to deFAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and google). Learn from ATT who tried hard to cut the cord, as Apple pushes mobile. It’s much easier to upgrade an app then to yank out all the wires (copper, coaxial cellular) or package them into a “sticky” Triple Play.

Again, at 30,000 feet and global view, what they struggle against is quite different given legacy technology.

Decent folks come across decent despite success and wealth. Born to be wired ends with a note of gratitude to end all notes, a song headstart at Bell Labs and finish out at Cable Labs.

This writing, if ever reached your eyes, is transmitted via Spectrum cable broadband upload, once Verizon, once MCI, where Vint Cerf used to mill about before Google, with its “Fiber” now competes with TCI (ATT). Adage: adapt or die. Like balls hitting and spinning from one another. Some jumped off the “Wall Street pool table”. Greed is good, portrayed by Michael Douglas, at the time (80’s) in suspenders on Stairmaster.

Knowing Tesla himself died an impoverished death, as Vincent Van Goh also did, doesn’t make one feel any better. Back at Chicago World Fair, our ancestors were dazzled by AC/DC: “like heaven”. The zeros, the ones, the wavelength and the transmission of wave forms, compressed and multiplexed, booted and rebooted, underground or ballooned up (LEO) down through the towers high in the air. Where are all the satellite dishes today?

Long time passing. Or that iconic Indian chief head B/W TV stations used to white balance before show.

More to come for our children’s children with AI’s predictive and suggestive ads (200-year-old advertising industry on 21st-century technology) match.com match-made in the Cloud and Heaven. Always in-time mass manufacturing and programmatic mass consumption. You might also like this! Brought to you by …..(sponsors). No one knows what it’s like, to be a sad man….

With success comes enormous sacrifice and cost (time away from home and loved ones).

I finished the epilogue and bibliography of Born to be Wired on St Patrick Day, appropriately, coming away curating and feeling richer (data wise), with a respect for a straight-spoken Irish-root investor who respects OPM.

We all are stewards, if not money, then of our allotted time on Earth. Keep it simple. See through the complexity: Noise vs signal, truth vs lies, stove pipe vs nuance, opportunity cost vs marginal cost.

It’s expensive to put down your high-roller chips. It’s also very expensive not to. Time is not on your side, nor mine. Chips, like information, want to be free. Fast. It’s born to be wired.

It’s Spring forward. Losing only to gain one hour back. Losing life? No way to gain it back. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life so others may live. We are told to be honorable, good, true, equanimous, magnanimous and upright regardless until…. e.g. KKK assassination trial (justice delay for three decades) or sacrificed Vietnamese fishermen, war allies, for their own ideological and self-interest. The “other’s” lives worth less, lime-like when juiceless, demonized and gone through various wash/dry cycles.

I woke up to the news of another serviceman (7th) who lost his life. BTW, he is from KY. Does a heartland life count less than coastal counterparts? I empathize with decent folks (divided) back during the Vietnam War, who watched in numbness and helplessness the 6 o’clock news from the Five O’clock follies in Saigon. At least Paul Tillich did not stay silent. Or Pete Hamill’s “There are no young guys here” in Cam Ne.

Casualty of war. This side vs that side, AK 47 vs M 16, civilian vs commies’ death. When we lose just one hour of sleep, we feel it. How much more a whole life worth of residual effects on families, friends (among whom girlfriend), neighborhood and nation.

That said, I remember sleepless nights, watching Nightline. 444 days of hostage taking. Unresolved and dragged on. Of course, Carter looked weak. No doubt: Sunday school teacher with tool-belt in retirement to barn raise and build houses for Habitat for Humanity (but could not bring home hostages). Yellow ribbon on the oak tree outside, but no husband (in the Deer Hunter’s case, he drove past his welcome home party). The sorrow of war, in multi-languages, but sorrow, nonetheless.

Hey now hey now. Don’t dream it’s over. One life to live, one hour to lose. Make it count.

Help others see the front page and backend of war e.g. spillover, unintended consequences of displacement and defoliating, genocide and ecocide, before they “flip right over to the TV page.”

Long ago, the five o’clock news briefing was held at the Rex hotel before newscasters did their closing: “only time can tell…. that remains to be seen etc.…” on the Caravelle Hotel rooftop. Back when Hit Parade featured: “I will follow you” by Rickie Nelson before “Reflections of my life.” One song theming: “Ask not what your country can do for you,” and “follow me” to the far shores where “no men were left behind”; the other: “I don’t want to die” when cost and casualties of war racked up.

The world needs influencers and leaders. Iraq, Ecuador, Venezuela, Iran, Lebanon and Ukraine. Even hot spots have to compete for attention and aids. How many Tomahawks will it take? “The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind”. “It’s expensive to kill bad guys”.

I wake up to the sound, not of “Mother Mary…” in Let It Be, but of bombardment. War again. Give it a chance! the times they are a changing, Mr. Tambourine Man.

The heroes this time are those who posted – not printed – digital Pentagon Papers. No xeroxing. You swipe right on TikTok screen, any hour of the day, not having to wait for the 5 o’clock briefing. Round the clock in-language youtubers and podcasters, everyone is a SME (subject matter expert), from medical to legal advice, health to nutrition/beauty, news commentators and afterlife consultant.

Everyone is losing sleep, others life and limb. AI accelerating itself. AI is the new “system”, with its own systemic existential problem (now that we’ve raised Trillions of OPM, what are we gonna do?) 24 hours a day are not enough. Not when you have to Spring forward the clock. Isn’t there no time to brew, simmer nor reflect.” Oh, but I don’t want to die….” an NPR commentator said, “war is expensive”.

Humanity without war and waste? You must be kidding! At the tune of 2B a day, only Dr Evil in deep-freeze for decades would stay unaffected! Oil above 125 USD per barrel. Hero bread 12 bucks.

Don’t wake up till September…” I tried so hard…and in the end, it doesn’t even matter……” I am glad Henry James said, “Live all you can – it’s a mistake not to”. I guarantee you will not have lost that one precious hour comes the Fall (when we turn it back to regain).

Six months long or lifelong sleep. Sgt. Pennington is his name. Fact-check me. He is in the news today. But then most of us flipped “right on to the TV page”.

Hey now, hey now.

There is nothing for you here, says the incarcerated lady in House of D.

It’s a dream in purgatory, neither here nor there, hellish fire and hurting people (to hit back is to hurt yourself). Instead, in giving respect, you gain it back.

Run Be Run.

One pharmacist student – a Duc – took notice. He said, “hop in”. We then rode to the ping pong hall. Just a quick set. My Cinema Paradiso and House of D. Coming of age, growing old and growing pain.

Robin Williams and the blind projectionist cojoined in my neighbor Duc: stocky, handsome and empathic.

Without that apprenticeship with more mature male outside the family, Duc the pharmacist or Duc the priest, I wouldn’t know how to reciprocate and return the favor, kindness for kindness to be a link in an universally unbroken chain e.g. stepdaughter or that unaccompanied shirtless refugee boy at Jubilee camp.

In my neighborhood, childhood was pre-ordained. After all, there were only 7 playgrounds for a city of 3 million in 67. Sweaty and shirtless crowd played audience to the burning monk and burning torches through and through Autumn festival. One drama after the next. Animal factory entertainment menu without the remote control or parental control in pre-TV and pre- TikTok times.

Then at my first dance when it’s my turn to be up on stage for “Love me with all your heart”, a slow song I was about to dedicate to my date, only to see her dance with her x-boyfriend. Only headache and headache. To self-assure and to finish out the song, I assumed she’d done it out of politeness.

Run Be run. There is nothing for you here, not even a date at a dance of which you yourselves were organizing committee chair (even a slow-song soloist singer after band’s Black Sabbath’s Paranoid number).

There wasn’t a supper on time, a school picnic without sand in dessert, like a character in Hanoi Hilton. Fun? yes. But plenty of grief. Broken bike broken arm. Broken home and disappearing country, the like of East Germany. Tail-end of large family got chopped off, wiggling strong up North, our roots.

Run Be run.

Then come back a man. Let Theme from Cinema Paradiso fade in to evoke a sense of nostalgia. No now-blind mentor (Cinema Paradiso), nor your mentally challenged neighbor (House of D) nor your alley bully (dead from OD).

The old tomb at my outdoor Cinema Purgatory once pack-tied with unsupervised kids, unlike drive–in theatres in California, which filled with parked cars and kids making out – all bulldozed.

The past, once seemed insurmountable, now shrinks and contracts. Its fear obviously overinflated. A sense of an ending (childhood). Of course you survive, by trial and error. Wrecking balls and wrecked cars.

Your story is contained in and a subset of humanity own: born, run, buried. So personal, yet so universal. You live in a world that is not set up for perfection. That’s why they are constantly busy quantifying and measuring at scale e.g. marginal cost and median income. You of course knew that all along the lightness of being and buying (wet market used to put grams of raw meat on scale).

Don’t look back, or else, like Lot’s wife (of Sodom), you may turn salt pillar.

Regret not what you cannot keep even when they kept the monk’s char for further protest impact via display case at Xa Loi pagoda the day after Malcom Browne took that photo that was seen around the world. You yourself did not miss the live matinee show along with that same Saigon throng who moved on to another exhibition some years later at the VUS when the US got more deeply involved in the quagmire. Moon rock was for diplomatic soft power on top of tons of bomb and defoliate agent.

No wonder, in a menu of drama, the Logos book exhibition was a rare thing. So impressed with the global brotherhood (the international makeup of the crew), you went on a summer of volunteer in W Africa on the Doulos, its successor, which subsequently saw terrorist grenade tossed on board in the Philippines.

So, run Be run. Come back after seeing from all sides with Waymo-360-degrees turn. There isn’t perfection here, nor anywhere. Just time and geography, blood and illusion without a mentor nor a ping pong game. No one is there to save those balled-up pages torn from the Bible you once tossed out – as in House of D. or a gag reel as gift (Cinema Paradiso).

Those older mentors/neighbors shouldered all the pedaling on three or two wheelers, with younger kids like yourself in tow. Lonely unsupervised kids in a neighborhood, where millions of ways could have gone wrong: suicide, mass shooting and overdose.

On a dare, I would have done anything e.g. jump, kick and miss the punching board. The summer of my quarantine from a broken Hapkido arm saw no one learn English or ponder about war-preset path much less recollection and reflection.

Childhood and youth pass mercilessly at scooter speed. You can’t go home again.

Run Be run. There is nothing for you here. Then if you do come back, come back as Bo – a more mature Be – the laughing cow – “la vache qui rit” – Pho mai dau bo.- Frenchy spread on crunchy toast.

P.S. in Vietnamese, “be” is a baby cow and “bo”, a grown up one. Like “bonheur” and “boner”, a double entendre, since “bebe” means “baby”, not young cow which runs away at birth only to return all beefed-up in ready-served hamburger.

There is nothing for you here but headache and heartache.

After defeat, try again.

At my first wedding, out in the open, at a park, my dad took over the mike (sound system all set up, why let it go to waste) to sing. Too far to hear across the lake, I remember him raising his fist in the air when the song was over.

Perhaps something in his time and in the water. Certainly, he was not to hail the reign of some monarch or revolutionary in particular. Foreign legionnaire marching spirit? Since he never spoke of his time way back in the Army. I only heard second-hand through my older brother, that had he stayed on, he could have risen in rank.

Decades later, surely enough, I grew into his image give and take, with rebelliousness add-ons e.g. one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, or like Alan Parker’s Midnight Express protagonist who walks in circle – around an abandoned fountain – yet in opposite direction. The Turk’s “to the right”, ” To know yourself means to know God,” the other “conformist” whispered repeatedly. The road less traveled stirs me away from dad’s set path, swiping and bumping against the grain, while journeying into my own night. We all came from a dad who raised his fist and embarrassed us in public. Then I was trying to get on a rented limo with “Just Married” goodbyes to get on with the times.

His absence this week, joined by Jesse Jackson’s and Robert Duvall’s, cast a long shadow. My dad always seemingly took his time e.g. nursing his beer, combing his hair or singing slow-rock songs whose endings always milked out or in my first wedding, fist raised. Similarly, Robert Duvall in A Civil Action, plays “Theme from a Summer place” on transistor pocket radio – would have been for baseball scores – in wait of a jury verdict (he, however, uses a bullhorn in Apocalypse Now with choppers and mortars overhead, to show off his “brief-shining-lie” bravery).

Men of my dad’s times with cinematic good looks (using hair puck and combing backward).

Here we go again. Belittle your opponent to gain an edge (but then why should the world pair you up with him to begin with). Well, it’s the cosmetician that failed to powder up my nose for show debate with telegenic Kennedy.

I feel, however, a touch of pride coming across archive photos of students in suits and not shorts, back in the early days at my schools. My mom’s teacher’s college certainly observed that same conservative code (tien hoc le, hau hoc van) of French Colonial era.

Respect before rhetoric. Formal they were and conducted themselves above board. S’il vous plait. Merci beaucoup, reflexively at the tip of their tongues. Civility, courtesy and compassion.

Stop. There is someone in need (of our pocket change). Mieng khi doi = goi khi no. Beggar cannot be choosy. Someone’s trash = your treasure. I will remember as long as I live Bac Be, mom’s colleague/friend, who graced us with her New Year visit, then her “li xi” (new year’s lucky money). Hers was quite unconventional: not folded new paper money in red envelope as 99 per cent of other people “to the Turkish right”. She had me open both palms before placing one shiny penny alternate with the other until I could no longer hold. Adult impactful grace.

Groomed and coached in creativity, I grew up into an adult life of code of conduct, of courtesy and high expectations: table d’honneur, straight A’s, proper speech and etiquette at home (in the presence of the adults, two decades and more my senior). Honor first and foremost.

I try, God knows. Even in face of bullies, of unjust, unluck and damn happenstance. As long as I could still hold residual core values at trial moment, when 99 per cent others disregard and dilute common good, common cause (of rainbow, of hope). Let go off those pennies that you cannot hold on to.

My hope for the year of the Horse is to pause and thank the generation before, then to distinguish ourselves from animals and AI. The later needs a lot of handholding and handling.

Since we’re people of proud heritage, let’s face headwind without face down. Rinse, rise and repeat. Defeat? Rise again. And again, and again as long as our blood still flows, our fists still raise.

After defeat, try again.

For that brief moment watching him across the lake, I know I got it in me too.

The 70’s saw me on Sunday, off campus, eating alone. Campus cafeteria closed. Other options: Roy Rogers, Carl’s Jr., Arby’s, Burger King, McDonald, Jack and Wendy’s, all cheap fast foods without a spotlight on me as in Lonely Guy, played by Steve Martin, who pretended to be a Yelper critic (or else, what reason there be dining alone) to overcome social stigma.

“This is for all the lonely people, thinking life has passed them by, don’t give up until….” For me, it’s a paradigm shift. A lonely Vietnamese is a misnomer, like a quiet American.

No more “moi ba me xoi com, moi anh chi xoi com” (passing the plate first to the elder).

Snow on the ground, in the air. AT&T ad showed an old lady (very much like my mom), walking the Walker, trying to pick up the 2500 handset that is ringing really loudly: “Love waits”, the tag line says. We, TV audience, breathed out: Mom and kid connected, at the comfortable rate of a few bucks per minute.

“I am Mr. Lonely” … I took a Greyhound back to N Virginia to join my larger family. Sister’s family. With (lap xuong and xoi) sausage and sticky rice. But first, “cung’ offering of food and flower to the deceased, so they too could join us (acknowledging the respect they deserve).

All I learned about life I did in my first 18 years (10 of which was plagued with war).

Despite it all, we managed to rebuild our meager lives: Tet, ancestor’s memorial (more of them nowadays) and weddings. No birthdays except one for my nephew.

We shared grief, joy, happiness and yes, violent mishaps and misfortune. I wrote about my neighborhood bully, about Cinema Purgatory and about Tet 75 (my last decent one).

As we approach another year away (from homeland), I again sense nostalgia creeping. I wish I could just jump on the Greyhound connecting through Atlanta from Austin, and arriving at Springfield, VA where it’s now mostly ghosts in the ground except for my guitar brother (17 years my senior) who texted that it’s snowing in Bailey Crossroads, Tyson Corners, Seven Corners and Arlington Blvd.

Names that evoke places and face near and dear to me. My uncle Chuc (the one who scaled over people in his “longest yard” to get over the embassy wall) kept on smoking, exhaled out of a surgical hole on his neck like a horizontal chimney. My aristocrat cousin finally made it to Dulles Airport from concentration camp, only to get hired right there as a porter. And how could I leave out cousin V. who was married to a Ph D in History. She is one of the very first few Vietnamese in America.

Stephen Bishop sang about “wondering how they met, and what made it last…someone waiting home for me”.

I long for home and values lost. But never for the f**k ups (bombing im-precision, or that infamous third-rate burglars the decade previous led to my humming demise: “I am Mr. Lonely, I’ve got nobody”. Snow was on the ground and order number 1 (Whopper) on the table. No wonder I welcome Campus Crusade First, Mormons Second, Krishna Third.

Dean and Scott as I remember tag-team holding their tiny propaganda brochures, page by page leading me down the evangelistic equivalent of an AI funnel (Y/N): how would you like to go to Heaven, instead of Hell (the wage of sin is death) and down on down. May I finish my milk shake while you troll.

What I learned I learned in my first 18 years:

• kids are shared responsibility of the whole neighborhood (my early 4 years spent alone all day with a housekeeper) That would sure shape my outlook on life
• during Tet, we stopped everything, including “cutting the corners”, even cons at rest. We are after all, looking up and back to our ancestors, to karma and our roots. Be worthy.
• Once marginalized folks, like the ATT old lady in the ad, get “waited on”. Love waits.
• Our long and winding history manifests itself in Dragon myth (now I know why I am glued to the Beatles’ Long and winding road “that leads me, to your door”… Go long.
• Modernity e.g. the French the cheese and butter, can wait. It’s time for the past to catch up: sticky been bun, Chinese characters in banners and firecrackers red to decorate. No wonder my uncle’s funeral displayed wealth via combined East and West cultures, horse carriage and New Orleans brass band. Once into cinema, always into drama and cinemascope
• Caste loyalty trumps all other dispensation. Our branding tissues honed way back when.
• What’s a big deal about individualism, materialism, even capitalism/communism. We are who we’re related to in the order one was born. He who is rich only counts not when alive, but when and by how many who wave goodbyes at the airport and his last six feet. Not “you are what you have” as in materialistic and consumeristic West (how many TV sets do you own? potatoes you consumed in a lifetime?) Oh, you bought eggs by the dozen? We bought by two dozens at Costco.
• Allowance? what’s that? We don’t do snacks. Wait til our dad get home, then dinner
• Ao Dai at Tet festivals as Afghan got theirs. Vietnam is more than a war, or a will to win. There will always be more than current-counted population, since we don’t often count the dead (lots of them, still lurking whether at the mention or not). Certainly not a dot on the map to be “bombed back to Stone Age”. Proud folks, of courage and compassion, given time will show success, with trials and trajectory to hop over that dreadful middle-income trap. Looking back far to the first King of Hung Vuong, one can then shoot through time into a future. “The road to the future runs right through the past”.
• I am a rare Mr. Lonely, unlike Steve Martin who got Grodin to share a NYC bench (their existential bench). I’ve only got Camus and Campus Crusade, who pointed the way to Heaven, step by step, like used-car salesmen rehearsed script (Grodin says “why don’t you get a dog”). Common Grace, we’ve all got: snow – rain, that falls on the field of wicked and the righteous. Like during Tet, even enemy or frenemy got a pass (wait until Tet is over. For now, leave him alone ‘ke xac no’. “Bui Doi Cho Lon” dust of life takes a break to celebrate)! btw, why all the violent movies of Hong Kong, Korea and Vietnam portray cheap life, killed in a fraction of a second en masse. Labor is cheap, but life valuable. Just because work life paid with minimum wage, ain’t mean rest of life also treated with indignity.

What I learned, ideas worth sharing, I learned in my first 18 years. However, it’s been a constant self-negotiation, compromise, and continuous un-settlement: here, you can take this (meltable part for the Melting Pot) in exchange for my contribution into the sharing economy (that extracts my time, energy and knowledge). Peace Corp? too late for that. Sexual Revolution? I missed that too. Marketers all know that Instagram (targeting kids) is in the long term, generate more revenues than Facebook (dying adults). CLV customer life-time values.

Taking stock, I found I had miraculously escaped from loneliness.

Hahaha, “you are what you have”, the voice said. I told you so. By all counts, stuff is “demode” (no longer fashionable). Madison Ave makes sure of it. The adman the bad man the sad man, Behind Blue Eyes. “GE brings good things to life”. Right. Where is GE today, its spokesman (Reagan) and close-ups of merchandise like coffee grinder, coffee maker, toaster, grill, fridge, TV’s, stereo, DVD player, I-phone, laptop, desktop, Nike pairs, then another one (even the CEO said he got tired) game apps, this apps that apps, social media, sharing media, multi-media, single podcast, re-podcast for eyeball counts…still cannot do away with existential loneliness. No one knows…behind blue eyes. Meanwhile, they keep monetizing the eyes balls (trash talking their own country where rice fed them in early years, for the sake of Likes).

When Grodin, the other lonely guy, friend of Steve Martin, got talked out of his suicide attempt, a bystander immediately took his spot – as if a rare parking space has just become available in NYC.

I am Mr. Lonely…. I’ve got nobody, of my own….uhhhhhhhhhhh Mr. Lonely….

P.S. To Shawn, who majored in Horticulture at Penn State class 79. Member of a fraternity off campus, he signed up to be a volunteer for campus Conversant program. I will never forget time spent laughing out loud with you over coffee. You’re my “Grodin” over Sunday fast-food meals.

AI will displace mundane tasks so far required muscles.

With Federick Taylor, we’ve got job tasks de-constructed, conveyor belt resulting in the model T’s, “any color you want as long as it’s black”.

Then “the rain in Spain, stays mainly in the plain” generic AI will “Repeat after me”. “Repeat after me”.

Learning should be a process of life-long bringing out what’s already inside. More you.

Yet we keep cramming in. To containerize our brain. Rote learning. Passing the exam. IBM clones. Repeat after me. As long as it’s black. GIGO (garbage in garbage out.). The age of uniformity, of conformity, easier to scale and maximize efficiency. Not to mention profit.

More horsepower? With Western Union delivering daily newspaper. Data rich, yes. No emotions involved nor necessary. Just the facts mam. Never sleep, never complain while consume a lot of energy (the pitch? it learns to optimize energy used) to crunch 1s and 0s. Catch-22. Using energy to come up with energy saving scheme.

No wonder Elon merged his companies, to explore space and solar energy.

Right now, data center reigns. Coders reigns. AI “advisors” recruited.

Once my business was in “outsourcing” (sales) business to partners and agents. “Sales coach”.

Now, the table turns. (do consult: “Born to be wired”). The machine is drawing out – extracting – what’s left of us, our humanity and humor. Our sense of irony i.e. last to leave. Please turn off the light.

Instead of “edu-care” (drawing out) we cram data into people, while machine is drawing out of us for its life-long edification. Machine tries to humanize. Man pushed to be more machine-like, if not dehumanize. Long ago, we learned to harness the power of the piston, of torque, more muscles, at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Now at the advent of the Information Age, our memories, preferences and prejudice are up for grab, to curate and to monetize. New humanities residing in machine (“You wouldn’t believe this” reminds the photo cloud).

When we are no more. File folders, once in the mind, now up-loaded, no longer stored in steel cabinet.

Kudo to Michael Connelly in his latest installment of our Lincoln Lawyer (Mickey).

Up and down the California coast, during the fire, and the court case. AI is here. No if, or, and, but. It just is. And “is here to stay”.

Deal with it. Like a flat tire. Or an Altadena fire. Or an out of court settlement. There will be a lot of “testimony”, digitally stored, from the archive i.e. social media posts, curated by a court near you.

After all, we have skipped the assembly line to go online. Amuse ourselves to death, now that TV sets and screens are cheap, as long as it’s black. When muscles and mind are no more, we – the physical we – are no more.

While we sleep (to rest our muscles and mind), machine learning keeps on learning. Moore and Moore, Moore, Moore……till infinity does us part (make sense? by definition, infinity is unreachable, hence, we’re together forever). Machine and me. No Marley. Un, deux, trois…. Now that we are data-rich, are we happier? Today’s news lists Google invest a lot more in developing AI. Then Anthropic, then Open AI etc.…

In” The Proving Ground” after announcing case settlement (between AI alleged mishap and Brenda, the mother whose daughter was killed as plaintiff) Michael Connelly wrote:

” she – Brenda – left…rich (fifty mil) beyond her dreams, but inside hollow like a drum”.

What good for a man to own (or know) the whole world yet losing his own soul. All muscles (including brain’s), hollow out like a drum. Dungeon and Dragon, Puff the magic dragon….

There is still something we human called Soul. At the very least I hope to have it with me far out into our solar system.

For a moment, I thought I had been back to the war zone. But it’s simply opening day of Journalism 101 at Penn State, University Park. Manual typewriters, manual typing. You know the sound of cheap unmaintained buy-by-the-bulk typewriters.

From there, “writers” went on to the Daily Collegian, and the lucky few, the Globe, the Post, the Times. The last half of the 70’s “What’s that sound, everybody going down”. Everyone’s freaked out! ohhhhhh freak out as “le Freak” that we were. My student film soundtrack was “Ape Man”, showing Trapper, recruited from down the hall, cruising top-down past the Wall, where “hair down to his knees”…Come together, right now.

Years before, I used to buy beers for my Dad, tall bottles – one per day. Half a Tiger (the brand) for lunch, put the cap back, and save the other half for dinner. From 2-wheel country to four-wheel, actually, I walked on campus – unlike LA people – jumping – not over bodies – unlike at Beaver Stadium’s Longest Yard – go Lions Hail Mary last second attempt), from tall to very short bottles of Rolling Rock off campus.

What I knew about America, I learned and experienced at that four-years college. Spring 79, I was in the thick of our crisis of the decade: Three Miles Island. And who else but my journalism roommate Tim, one of the three interns, packed up my days-worth of clothes and sent it on the station chopper (which would turn around with hard-earned hustled 3/4-inch tapes i.e. Governor Thornburg one-on- one for airing at night). Unlike my medic Captain brother, who hitched ride on leave from Nam via choppers in years previous.

Typewriters and walking, jogging, and running in-between classes. What, why, where, how and when. As I walked out of the Main library, winter 76, I froze before looking up to feel the tip of my tongue tinkle (I had never seen snow in previous 19 years of my earthly dirty life). Preachers were having a field day using snow-covered grass as visual aid for God’s blanket forgiveness.

Not just snow that was foreign. First dance – Big Band – was wild and first flick saw rain of rice from the audience (Rocky Horror Picture Show) while first black-tie was with our Raymond Brown’s Penn State Choir (at the Heinz Hall, Mahler number 5 conducted by the late Leonard Berstein).

The later swing of the baton brought tears and goose bumps to both choir and the audience alike. After all, who wouldn’t, knowing ultimately and intuitively, the highest hope is not “four more years”, or “another ride” along the trail of the city on the hill. It’s the Resurrection, of mortal and failing human. All things – you and I – must pass.

Go home, do your duty (our coach urged us on).

And I know journalism students of Penn State are still marching, typing and rushing as all interns do to meet deadlines and final grades. Heck, it’s gonna blow up. What blows up? The nuclear reactors, dammit. You have to use “might”, not “gonna”. We don’t know that yet for a fact. How about we have you, expandable intern, cover it live for final?

Who? Joe Pa was going to give a statement from his window.

Where? not the men locker, stupid.

What’s that sound? “Everybody going down”. The past is not even past.

When? when the kids were on campus for a tour. It’s a big place.

Diagonally, from one end to the other, you got to run your heart out those 20 minutes to make the next Speech class (back then even without laptops, textbooks – used or new – were sufficiently heavy). Only to sweat out and glance sideway to find the team (football) doze off.

Campus Crusade, campus gay, campus ROTC. Everyone recruited everyone else. We holstered our calculators on the side, pulling it out at cash register the way one would the phone today to divide equally frat house grocery bills.

Summer rental was cheap. Way cheap. So chip in. Four guys to an address, sleeping upstairs and eating downstairs. The Corner store. and alley bars that announced their last calls, empty bottles and egg rolls. They made those salty so bars can sell more beer (I am lying, learning this from Colonel Sanders cold calling experience).

Then the dressing up on campus for job interviews. Senior panic. La Vie, the yearbook. Featuring the journalism lab to fill up the pages and justify the prices. P.S. don’t forget to look up yours truly. 1979 grad. With an Electronic News photographer job offer that did my teacher’s mom proud (btw, Jimmy Cefalo did go on down to Miami from WNEP-TV). Penn State proud.

I love my America, at least, my early experience of America. It offers my mom a sanctuary, and a decade later, Pop too. Both survived in their Virginia cold and calm last days on Apple sauce. I no longer had to buy tall beer bottles for my Dad. From time to time, when spotting a wind breaker, I thought back of Joe Pa, first god, and Raymond Brown, our second god (breathe, think).

From the moment I had no more insulation from Happy Valley (logistically, it’s hard to get there, but once you are there, just stay put until you got kicked out). Cheap living in the summer tines. Subsidized flicks by Student Union, and THON Night at the HUB that raised millions. Talent all homegrown, performed at coffee houses.

And for drinks? you’ve got to go off campus, on Game Day. Push them back, push them back, way back. Students just jogged their restless nights away on Main st.

My Happy Valley was indeed safe and truly happy. I can attest to it. Now, may I take the Fifth, since I have been complicit – guilty by association – or just standing by as an observer of the times. From 1976 – 1979, we tried hard to forget (but hard to forgive) the “plumbers”, the choppers, and the bagman. We actually romanticized crime in the fictitious family of the Corleone. No wonder folks like Roy Cohn or Chuck Colson went on to notoriety and fame.

We wanted to be “Born to run” (remember the sax solo) B. Springsteen, absorbing Future Shock – Alvin Toffler while being equipped with two computers, the only two, on campus.

My memory of course was selective, cut/paste. The yearbook I never bought, the certificate which was sent over the mail and my class photo, in pimp suit still with PROOF on it, proudly displayed in my current living room (I went straight from Scranton internship to home in N VA, without attending Graduation.)

But might as well. Happy Valley was happy, fun, and full of memories: good times, nap times – even sleep catch up times on truck flatbed all exposed. Work study, work assignment and internship.

In between, a date here and there, le Freak, Ballroom Dance and top-up coffee at the Corner Room (Why don’t you ask Elein out, she is a nice girl!).

Thank you thank you thank you. If the clock could ever be turned back, now is a good time to change those typewriter’s ribbons, to white-out and delete, in today’s parlance, ready for posting those Least Objectionable Print.

Students used to the carry the Collegian and keep it in their dorm room. Corporate still recruit on campus. And snow still is falling outside of the library, I am sure.

Here we go Lion, here we go. We are. Have been. And will aways be. As long as Nittany Mountain still echoes its tribal rivalry sound in Happy Valley to announce tail gate time. It’s that loud and still around, lifetime long, once you’re there in person.

Can WXLR, soft rock station, put on something nice for parting, please.

Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets” would do for an appropriate sendoff.

Right on. get set, go! Elton’s piano keys. bang bang: one-arm pushups: one, two, three,