Thang Nguyen 555

Darkness will enfold. Yet they don’t feel cold.

The dead. In my memory. People I grew up with and looked up to. Towering figures (from my vantage point as a child e.g. glad to give Dad a siesta back rub or to shine his shoes as he kept knocking on doors).

Those boots on the ground, American and Vietnamese. Some Australian, Korean and New Zealanders shined and stepped off Army-issued Jeeps. Engines still running. Curb-side parking. At the ready.

Everything was fast. Like the flip of a Zippo. Inhale. Exhale. Last breath, last rite. Salary unspent. R&R not taken. Sometimes dead on arrival.

The injured and invalid dragged on seeing the world via a clean bandage. Sorrow of war. Smoke of war. No time for “social”. A thousand-yard stare.

Once upon a time. We gathered to remember our dead per custom. Then those present in turn joined the dead they had once commemorated. Bombs might have missed but Time never.

Like a flip of a Zippo. Tic tac. Lucky strike.

English was simpler then. Ok Salem. mostly non-verbal, lots of gesture, few words.

The eyes say it all: we need to eat. To finish this thing called life. This thing called war we did not start or have a say e.g. from Geneva Accord to Paris Accord : bombing (agent Orange), burning (napalm) and “barbecuing” (monk).

Now my loved ones live on in my memory. Once upon a time. We strolled the street on Sundays. Pretended and prayed that soon peace would be at hand. Thunder and bombing came at night and at a distance . The less fortunate got hit. Not us. We’re well protected except the Presidential palace got bombed, twice.

The nightclub got bombed during weekday matinee show. Pagodas raided. School shut down. refugee shelters opened up. Kid’s toilets catered to homeless adults. Nothing to write home about.

Then those same shiny boots left, leaving behind babies. For two years, they lived on charity in orphanages, in temporary shelters. Until compassion and mercy flights One of which crashed on the tarmac. A survivor – in the photo – held in the arms of then President Ford (compassionate conservatism).

Bomb the hell out of them. Then peace at hand. Peace with honor. Honorable exit.

Decent intervals. Slow descent into Hell. A nation without mooring. Ships docked instead of sailing. waiting for clearer instructions: are we down to the Southern- most island to pick the remnants up or not? Where the Hell do we find enough flags for the fleet (to be admitted to Subic Bay?)

Can we afford to be true to our principles and our ideal selves?

Once upon a time. I lived with four hard-working adults who had left everything to start anew in Democratic South. They got their bearings back, secure enough on a creaky floor one night to have me. My default assignment ? eye-witness and memory keeper. To a crime, war-time crime of abandoning and being abandoned in turn.

It’s all inter-related. One action invokes a reaction. A force, then an opposite force. All the bombs (both World Wars put together) created craters. Many unexploded. Just lay still Waiting their turn . Aren’t we all, with our undying memory and buried angst. Peace time could be just as dangerous as war time. Only on the surface. Until unexploded ordinances found their way out to do what they do best. Then darkness will enfold.

Once upon a time. There was peace in war times and now warring in peace times.

Text and drive. Walk and chew gum. Work out and scroll up.

Occupy leg-extension machines. Occupy traffic lights. Occupy public space (for private use.)

At least we no longer spread our newspapers on public transport (I found myself the only hard-back book reader on the plane).

Public space used to lord over private space (build the highway right through an ethnic neighborhood). Now it’s the other way around i.e. unintended use of the common for Uber, Amazon (public road, post office etc..).

No eye contacts. No “hellos”. The gym’s front-desk guy was into his phone. Self-serve check-in. Me + machine.

The less engaged we are with others, the more self-absorbed. The less compassion: Uvalde, Pelosi attack, Sandy Hook, Seoul crowd surge, Ian and Central Florida.

We can’t blame all on compassion fatigue (there were none to begin with). We skip hard news for trivial comments, or post impressions. As in Six pence none the richer ” Don’t dream it’s over”: “in the paper today, tales of war and of waste but you turn right over to the TV page…”

Science helps us live longer. Tech in turn diminishes its quality. Hence, more in quantity less in quality.

Long ago, people retired early ( shorter life span e.g. Montaigne at 32) to travel and to unleash inner creativity. In short, to make life’s last leg a quality one.

U2 Bono was big on this point as showed in his latest “Surrender” memoir.

With so much information out there, we still bury our heads in the sand, suffocated and submerged in data deluge. Bandwidth at full capacity. Unable to choose, we might as well rely on our pre-conception.

Safter, easier to follow the path of least resistance.

Decades ago I went through a traumatic event. Post-traumatic stress disorder, self-recriminating and survivor’s guilt. Recovery was slow, emotion numbed. Memory like a blur.

Under proverbial “witness protection program”, I assumed a new id, a new A number (Alien) in a new environment. Reborn. Lucky I was still young and college campus was relatively non-threatening i.e. homogeneity (academically conducive).

Work was flexible, wrapped around class schedule.

That institutional town was courteous: “Hi”, “Hello”, “Hi” “Hello” (on a few snow clearing paths). We unavoidably bumped into one another. That structured and predictable environment helps put my recovery on a fast track.

With internet, we’re facing a different ball game. Everything under the sun is out there, in your face (algorithms). Suit yourself. All smokes and mirror. More knowledge less wisdom.

Our uncharted minds are fed with more information than any previous generation. More data and more years to live. But not all data are equal. Multi-task could only help us consume more X’s but not Y’s. Our preferences, pre-sorting and prejudice were already set at an early age.

Eventually, we end up with skipping “right to the TV page”. We’re all at our worst inflated selves with more of the same day in and day out, serving as predictable “filters” of what’s floating and flowing in cyberspace. Data on steroid. Data on the move, with us followers of its every step of the way.

Walk and chew gum. Leg extension machines for I-phone scrolling. Skip to the Red-alert ping. Stimuli/Response. Occupy ourselves. Public space = private space. Cyberspace is neuro space . Where there is a phone, there’s home.

Per Bloom who taught at Yale, there were about 1200 religions in the US (United Faiths). More splintered groups, cults and conspiracies (Qanon Shaman got 41 months in jail for J6).

Who to believe? Too many moons (Son of Moon took over the franchise. Franklin Graham his Dad’s , so did the Lynchburg guy who recently resigned – rightly so- not to mention Don Jr in partner with the pillow guy).

Eternity and immortality. prolong pleasure while avoiding pain. Our universal longing. Yet, our time and timing always suck.

Delayed gratification…until when? Immediate gratification (started with sucking mom’s nipple) always trumps delaying. Wired that way. A sideways glance (at Woodstock) finds nude people back to nature.

Or when we unfold a newspapers on commute to the city, as in Revolutionary Road ( today’s equivalent of engrossing with the screen).

Conformity does provide security. Just another boxed-in commuter: hat, tie, watch, pen, handkerchief, New York Times (above the fold) and to their unknown regrets, no I-phone in the 50’s.

Commuting today means sweats and shirt on Zoom. A while ago, in Silicon Valley, a billboard featuring a man working from home…facing the screen, his back to drivers on a California freeway, completely naked. Quite prescient!

Still, the need to engage and interact with others lays dormant. David Brooks had a piece last Thursday about sadness that has grown globally. pandemic? Yes. But also, because the bottom 20 percent are squeezed to bare subsistence.

A recipe for disaster. Not direct link, nor causality, but in co-relationship with the rise of strongman states. The return of Three Kingdoms, or something like it: Putin-Xi and ROW. The return of Yalta and Potsdam, when the fate of the world is at stake.

Strangely, with more I-phones, we still end up with less friends. Not Facebook recommended friends. But true friends.

Two days ago, I was privy to attend a webinar, whose main speaker was a successful engineer/entrepreneur. He helped develop Satellite-to-satellite communication. Then went on to develop optical connections for Cloud and Data centers. With all the fibers underground, Musk’s and Google satellites and optical links at AWS still the news about sadness in the world. No wonder young searchers flock to Hari Krishna at the airport, to Moonies at Mass weddings, to Hubbard in Hollywood.

When people trade in their individuality/independence for group and goal larger than themselves, we see troubles (as of this edit, S Korea’s Halloween has gone hollow w/ death tolls rising even as the sun has yet come up).

The lonely crowd, per Reisman. Or ask the Shaman. currently a few months into his prison term. Are you lonesome tonight. Join the Moonies. Get married on its next Mass Wedding (if not, join mourners in Mass funerals in S Korea next week ).

We will never know how and when our story ends. Nor do we wish to know. Dust we must. It’s a blessing in disguise to live with unknowns, one of which, so obvious to others, but not to us: we can’t even see ourselves. Only its reflection (or self-projection).

The best we can is to invent one and believe in it, almost an exercise in self-hypnosis (repetition). Might as well go for a fabulous Alt-self, not a “s***hole” one.

Using Sharpie, we wand and wish unpleasantness away: the weather, the stocks and the tri-demic charts.

Most viable alt-self for alt-reality.

This person comments this, that person says that – on mostly inflated and edited accomplishment.

Before internet, we cared about what our neighbours say. Now, miles away, ocean apart yet a new neighbourhood exists (Marshall McLuhan’s Global Village, except it’s two-way: up and download, narrow cast, not broadcast). Mr. Rogers, a native of PA, will need his own alt-self as an Internationalist: part Chinese, part Muslim and part A.I. constructed. While it’s hard for us human to stay relevant, it’s easy with A.I.

We both benefit and drained out from online world (without fb’s thanks). World-wide adult-sitting site.

The plus side? We can sprinkle our loneliness in both worlds e.g., sitting in a parked car eyes glued to the phone, as in transcendental meditation.

I did that every morning. My daily mental gymnastics. My fear of missing out. Who is the new PM of Britain? Who is in charge of Haiti? and Why was that China’s number 2 was removed physically from the set?

Meanwhile, what happened to me? I inherited my parents’ genes. By default and design, I am their replacement. A hybrid of justice and mercy. Then I too will be gone. Leaving behind my biological imprints. My daughters then take up after me: hip hop and rock and their turn to wonder “Is this it?”. They just want to survive road rage, mass shootings and to finish a door-dash shift, unharmed. All I can provide are Sharpies, to sketch their Alt-life, like many before me who sent off a proverbial small-town girl on a bus to NYC. Big Apple big dream.

Life is beautiful. I was told, so I am telling them. What war, famine, pandemic and man-inhuman-to-man?.

It’s all rosy. Just wait! @Next mile-marker. Next milestone. See, it’s coming (the old master showed the diamond on his returning student’s crown – a Nobel-prize winner in contemporary society – who thanks him for all those years of instruction, and asked where the diamond was – for the umpteenth time, he was told he would find it at the bottom of the ink vase “keep burning the midnight oil”).

Not the destination but the journey that is the reward. Who to believe? Results or process? The middle class who get squeezed no longer believe in classic theories e.g. trickle down or revolution.

No more La Dolce Vita. Rome is burning. Rome is back. This time, a strongman ( strongwoman) State.

No more subsidising for “s***hole” countries. Best defence is offence. Of course, build the wall, install the cameras and unleash the dogs.

Meanwhile, with pre-conditions and pre-existing DNAs, we are nodes to transmit genetic codes. Do not forget our biological mission, while self-reinventing: modern man for modern age.

I know an Alt-self is an exercise in futility. I’d rather face my limitations, let’s say at a reunion with my younger self. A form of self-audit (as opposed to “meet w/ Jesus).

Seek not thy Alt-self, but in all your ways be of optimally calibrated. The world needs exactly it. As evolved species, we invented a caste system, a social construct, to condition mass-society for consumer products (pre-digital era) – to be status seekers. Now, with social media, it’s viral-ization.

Like a double agent whose presentation of the self in everyday life is twice demanding, we too face competition as self-advertisement faces diminishing attention span.

The Alt-self construct is for us to buy time. Like a sharpie that redraws life path on an imaginary easel. Before long narcissists can no longer recognize their true selves even when face to face with it: “the first time, I ever saw my face”; not a reflection nor self-projection. But see as been seen. When the unknown becomes known.

In high school, I worked hard and modeled myself after fame, fortune, and future-forward leaders. Aren’t we all?

Yet, this quest was more challenging given war throughout my youth. We learned about the Grandeur of France, Belle du Jour, and Breathless (smoking). We learned about WWII atrocities (famine which killed 2 million in the North of VN while 6 million dead in European theater). And we experienced betrayal by our Allies, whose leaders, most time, crouched behind the walls of the Embassy – and ours as well, during the Tet Offensive or the last days of Vietnam.

In fact, I found snippets about so and so, inside the Independence Palace, making some deals over tea and cigarettes (in the case of Mr. Nhu- our Robert Kennedy – it’s opium).

By the time VP Ky came to power, an alumnus of our high school, we read about his flamboyant courting of his then-girlfriend, Air Stewardess. Music from the Ministry of War Propaganda always underlined that now-or-never fear – soldiers away to the front, yet it’s their girls who died at home per sentimental “old sad song” Purple flower hill.

So much for the quest (meanwhile, Generals toppled one another, wives selling PX goods in black market, and Chinese Vietnamese in Cho Lon would price-gauge rice staples to manipulate and anticipate sudden turn of events, seemingly daily. Think Lebanon today. Think Ukraine today. Or Palestine or Iran.

Actually, not a day away, but a breath away we lived. We milked our pastime (not much): every ballroom dance, each slow dance, we made them last. Vietnam was America’s first Television war. US Correspondents attended Five o Clock Follies in Rex Hotel and filed their reports – filmed from Hotel Caravelle rooftop, to be over night-ed via third country e.g., Hong Kong or Bangkok (later, via expensive satellite uplink). It’s a race for ratings, of which NBC, number 2, was slipping (the first network to show Nat Cole – a person of color).

Guess who is coming to (TV) dinner? Kim Phuc, in her horror and “born this way” (without clothes).

Many reporters went on to prominence e.g., Dan Rather, Malcolm Browne and Peter Jennings from that era of Brave and Bravest. Meanwhile, female journalists e.g. Jessica Savitch (tragic death) Barbara Walters (just deceased), and Judy Woodruff (recently resigned) were rare species (No place for you here?

Those talking heads have journalistic integrity, as personified by the Most-trusted man in America (Cronkite). Then their ratings slipped. Then trust in institutions eroded. Top of mistrust list: used car sales, lawyers, politicians then the Press. From Television networks, we ended with Twitter, from medium shot we’ve got selfies.

Currently, Congress got a trust issue. Then the election process itself was brought into question.

Court was stacked. Judges are appointed in a hurry and out of political favor.

In full circle and 2 additional million deaths behind, I had my late-start. On an American campus, college kids were still believing in human goodness and simplicity e.g. 4-H (heart, hand, etc.) in rural Pennsylvania with its neighboring Amish community, the Italian Little Italy, and the Jewish congregation in Pittsburgh (Annie Dillard, an American childhood).

Our second migration found a bunch of “kim phuc’s” in S. California and Houston Vietnamese American clique and cluster. Still, with our VP Ky, and daughter who went on to MC an entertainment show, ironically, Paris By Night (we’ve got some issues with our own post-colonial identity e.g. beignet and beret. After all, on TV, the image of Vietnamese was a VC shot at gunpoint, a monk self-burned by kerosene, and most famously, a naked napalm girl (mirror image of that Wall Street brave girl).

Vietnam is equated with War. Hot war on cool medium (WWII, was the opposite: cool war on hot medium – radio, hence the notoriety of Edward Murrow.)

When I got to Penn State, I auditioned for the Penn State choir. I sang in black-tie at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh conducted by Andre Previn. But deep down, I long for role models. Neither Vincent Chin nor Jackie Chan (albeit very disarming and iconic).

In Tech and Business, we barely got an NYC hotel owner (who purportedly turned blind eyes to tenants’ drug use) and another millionaire Hoang Kieu (plasma business) who donated a substantial fund to Katrina relief. That’s about it. Oh, of late, Ocean Vuong of The Emperor of Gladness.

My brother and his classmates got by, being Pharmacist, MD, and Dentist. But in the field of humanity, we’ve fallen short (John Yang at PBS and Andrew Yang, the presidential candidate).

Most Asian American or Asian authors commanded a tiny slice: Ishiguro (Nobel Prize winner), Steven Chu – Energy Secretary, and Elaine Chao, married to Mitch McConnell – stood still and did not roll her eyes right next to racist rant rhetoric.

Be the Change you would like to see. Greta and Malala, for instance.

Be the outlier, exceptional and over-performed in every way. Waste not each moment. Just a breath away, remember. Pride, not shame. Head high, not stoop low. Eye in contact and hand extended (View my previous blog on High Context). No more Oui Oui Monsieur.

Savitch was once viewed as breaking the Broadcast gender ceiling – higher ranked in social trust as compared to peers at NBC and CBS. Then her descend was quick… to the two-minute Digest segment, her last gig (before last seen dead in the ditch, literally).

With opportunity, there are always danger e.g. the nail that sticks up etc…you can finish this.

Still, I am on the quest for leadership role models. Per David Gergen, in Hearts Touched by Fire (re: leadership vacuum in the next generation), my search is in the Present Continuous tense. Last Day of Saigon, First Day outside of it, still searching, searching….even with Google, up until now.

Somewhere along the line, our intended message is lost in translation.

We meant this, they perceived that. Even with ubiquitous communication technologies, with Edit button, Delete button and Comment option.

Quick to transmit. Too late to learn we are intrinsically different ( hence, the need for audience analysis, segmentation and not bunching different groups e.g. Asian American into a monolith).

People went to war (WWI) at times because of simple and rectifiable incidents. Other times, manufactured ones (currently).

Cultures do collide, just like cars. When they do, we have culture crash. With no junk yards, body shops or insurance deductible.

In Good Morning Vietnam, our D.J. protagonist eagerly went on a date with an ESL student. He was teaching her “Hello” and “Goodbye”, yet he did not know, he was the one who was supposed to learn the nuances of culture: her whole entourage showed up for the date. I know this well. I was once that little boy in the back seat of the car, playing chaperone on my sister’s frequent outings with her then, not-yet wedded husband.

In Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, Tina Fey and her Afghan interpreter saying goodbye without a hug: their hands touched discretely while he handed over her suitcase in front of those ever watching eyes of the Taliban-entourage at Kabul airport. With Vietnam and Afghan wars, Television and Twitter war respectively, behind us, we can improvise explosive device but we cannot change culture (the women of the village just did not want water into the home. Leave the village well alone . Why? they want to socialise, catch up on gossip and away from watching eyes of men).

Iran today, Saudi today and even Russia today. All come across as strange to American. What’s all the fuss about women driving, covering their heads and cutting their hairs in protest? Culture collide. We need to allow modernity to take its course. Its speed and spread most times, elicit our Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot (May I show you something? the Minister of Culture unveiled a hidden bed in his office. So much for Minister of Vices and Virtues, with American-back dollars).

The Culture Industrial Complex tells us everything is the same, yet everything changes. Pick and choose. Adapt and move on. Some entities might take centuries to come closer together (China vs Vietnam). Others, decades (EU). Most will never meet in the middle (Russia, China and US/EU). Why? Because we still operate on age-old patriarchal structure i.e. one ruler at the top. Command and Control structure doesn’t tolerate nuance and context. Binary is simpler, even machine can handle it. Either/Or. No wonder at the Paris Accord 73, the multiple factions could not agree on the shape of the negotiating table (round or rectangular).

Something always gets lost in translation, hence forced choice. Meanwhile, we’re born and brought up in sub-groups, within a larger group. At times, we wish we’re living in a melting pot. Other time, salad bowl. Currently, a Yin-Yang divide. Who is going to bridge the gap. Technology was designed to help, but it also speeds up mistakes (Reagan hot mike “we’re beginning to bomb Moscow in 5.” Likewise with Gary Hart or Alex Jones. After last year, Facebook and Twitter are no longer the only games in town.

John Keegan said of WWI : “All because most the July crisis were bound to the wheel of the written note, the encipherment routine, the telegraph schedule. The potentialities of the telephone, which might have cut across the barriers to communication, seem to have eluded their imaginative powers. The potentialities of radio, available but unused, evaded them altogether. In the event, the states of Europe proceeded, as if in a dead march and a dialogue of the deaf, to the destruction of their continent and its civilization.”

Bogged down with gears (materialism and efficiency) most of us don’t give enough attention to cultural differences. Just ask the volunteers during the Vietnam War, or Afghan War who came armed with idealism. Stove pipes. Shocked before surrendered.

A few months ago, I ran into an Afghan girl who volunteered as an interpreter for her people at a local Health Fair. I see myself in her (being one myself shortly after my arrival to Indiantown Gap, PA). I wish her the best. And that there wouldn’t be more of her (refugees of a future war). But then I know it’s just a fortune-cookies wish.

In life, people are lucky enough to get by. The poor shall always be with you. Who to help? Are they of an inferior race because they are poor? Instead of heart and hands, we offer guns, germs and steel. It’s always a complexity beyond any one person to solve. As at the end of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Tina Fey visited a wounded vet just to be told: something is always outside of our control. Move on.

My intended message is this (so we don’t misconstrue each other): you and I are different (background etc..). We told the “machine” what we Like after filling out an account with demographic details. It then tailors, limits and filters what we see, hear then repeat/rinse in a machine-generated hypnotic and hyper loop. No surprise we all grow narrow-minded over time, while tech connects and collects.

The 80% non-verbal cues are begging us to play culture detectives. They are more important than the verbalized 20% (tip of the iceberg). BTW, bring extra cash on your first date, if it’s across the cultures.

As a child, along on my sister’s date, I remember she had a fight, slammed the door and walked home. Leaving me stuck in the back seat with her date as my driver. I was in luck: he carried some cash since I wanted an ice-cream for my ordeal and for playing a reconciliatory role in the drama.

Paul Tournier said, “Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets”.

Those moments when we felt more like Fredo than Michael Corleone. Fredo, played by Cazale, half Irish, half Italian was at one time in a relationship with Meryl Streep (also in the Deer Hunter where she played a Vietnam draftee’s bridesmaid in a Slavic shotgun and send-off wedding who in a spur of the moment, accepted Christopher Walken’s proposal – best man and bridesmaid coupling).

In real life, Streep stood up for Cazale so he could finish his production contract. With cancer – unplanned but manageable – he came across feeble, hence a bit ill-suited for Nam (missing out on those Russian roulette wagers, a script originally pitched for Vegas).

Also appeared in Sydney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, Godfather 1 & 2, the Conversation, Cazale was made for second-fiddle roles. Our water boy. “Stop playing around with that (handgun) – here, Nam’s Russian Roulette wager “click” – sweat or blood).

Like a Jim Croce’s line “every time I tried to tell you, the words just came out wrong “; he couldn’t quite defend himself, physically or verbally – not a quick wit – more than often he froze, on a hunting trip or bank shoot-out, terrified with gun – Carbine – to the side).

Subdued and weak (swirling around on a tiny moped in Gene Hackman’s confine sound lab – in the Conversation), he was more a sound man than cameraman (often taller like Michael Douglas in Three-Mile-Island prescient role).

Chris Cuomo of CNN was furious when called “Fredo”. DJT was also mentioned in the same breath when he grandstanded (the Divider pg. 137).

I turned one when both siblings were in college: hence, chores for change. Why not! Someone had to off-load my busy mom.

I know what’s it like to have my Fredo moment. heck, Fredo life. I once was in tears at a friend’s father’s funeral – to a fellow Penn Stater’s surprise. Perhaps I used the occasion to offload my pent-up loss i.e. my father was left behind in Vietnam for a good decade while my friend’s dad “wasted good wine”, hitting tennis balls, in State College.

Other time, a TV producer talked shop jokingly to have me cover Three-Mile-Island melt-down live (an intern was supposed to be expandable = like that sound man in The China Syndrome, fiction incidentally, released a few weeks before real life). When my brother got married again: “Your turn to take care of Mom” (family first). But, but…. (no “but”).

It’s settled – by the new Godfather (that) Fredo does Vegas. Spined-off to outer “Siberia”, his first self-determination to stand on his own feet in the desert on behalf of family (mafia) interests, then fell prey and seduced by a sense of false belonging (indulgent and decadent sub-group – his new “family” sense of belonging, whose “Sinatra” figure face down on the massage table.

Fredo, our outer most electron, experienced “de-individuation” (that stripping process that molds a neglected household member into a cult member, reinforced by mob behavior and herd instinct). The Stockholm Syndrome.

Strong men are quite magnetic. After all, they are “anointed”. the Othering = the weakling. We “are pre/destined” for bigger dreams. F*** the fear (foul language was intended to shake loosed old ethics and stoke his rah rah Mad Max base).

“No one listens until and unless we take up arms.” “Shoot ‘m. (Thailand toddlers at a day-care). Rape them, rob them (Thai pirates on Boat People). Results? record-high guns death. Killing as a way to get attention and be immortalized (9/11 martyrdom?).

This is for all lonely people on our lonely planet and On-line: faster connection, fewer commitment and minimum accountability (spam and hacking). Attention-starved and all spread thin. Before the internet, it’s existential loneliness (TV screen).

After the internet, it’s exponentially existential (myriads of “others” – just popped up per software recommendation – always and mysteriously “suits” our propensity and temperament without algorithms like Fisher Temperament Index in match.com).

Petabytes of personal data on X and Meta, Twitter and Tik Tok. Don’t ever call me “Fredo”. It’s the “n-equivalent”, like “gooks” and “illegals”. He who dies with the most “like” wins.

When I am weak, I am strong. Go ahead and call me “rooky gooky”. Strong” Saul-turned-“weak” Paul – a 180-degrees U turn – from “righteous kill” to “love is kind”. No wonder those in a lower caste empathize more – for the meek will inherit the Earth. Beggar shows beggar where (stale) bread is. At this edit, R.I.P. Pope Francis, Jesuit and champion of the downtrodden.

Meanwhile “Genius”, forsaking their stewardship, tend to exploit and extract, from Mother Nature and others – even in the name of Manifest Destiny – for personal gain. “Screw it, let’s do it”. Of all the money poured into building bombs (while borrowing money to finance ammo factories), a tiny fraction finally is, unplanned, in the hands of common folks, taxpayers, in the form of ARPANET. Yeah! The equalizer 3.0.

Cazale was in four films that I am aware of. We don’t often think of him as an Oscar-winner (Best Supporting Actor) or Meryl Streep’s boyfriend. He ‘d just “done time”, sweated and bald, slumping on the floor at the bank corner or ride in the front seat (Dog Day Afternoon).

We want Robert De Niro (or Michael the Marine) to return and save his fallen friends. Rambo-like. John Waye as Jesus. Revisited and white-washed history in Honorable Exit (or a banker who “saved” 113 Vietnamese, getting a kick and taking his time during “fifteen minutes of fame” e.g. obtaining intelligence from a hooker’s relative).

Yet, our uniform-clad hero hunter had his sudden “Fredo” moment, just like all of us (as he leaned back and hid out of sight in an airport taxi, skipping his own Welcome- Home party – feeling awkward and undeserving: “Johnson, how many babies you killed today!”). It’s one thing to pull a prank by taking on a dare i.e. running naked in the snow; it’s another to see or cause Kim Phuc running from real hot napalm like a Berkeley jogger.

In the end of The Deer Hunter, our decorated veteran, tried re-entry i.e. got a deer in crosshair. Unlike his subsequent failed Russian Roulette rescue mission, he got a choice: enough killing already! (My Lai, Song Thang, Song Be with napalm/agent orange). Recreational sporting once enjoyable, now self-projecting. Heroes got secrets too! Can’t get his friend back but he could let the deer go! Imago Dei (God’s image in man’s mind).

So Catavina guitar solo fades in – Clairton hillside mid-70’s scene. The feel and the fear of being seen as dim-witted unlike 1945 Times Squares iconic kissing sailor and the nurse).” I feel a distance, far away”, he uttered, still in uniform. The last six-inches are the hardest, especially when she happened to pick your best friend over you (only to see her – Meryl Streep’- fiancée went AWOL).

Out-takes show congenial Fredo getting slapped around, tossing and throwing empty lunchbox in the air like Blue-Collar cap.

Every day is Graduation Day at the School of Steel. This is for all the lonely people, thinking life has passed them by… All the “Stevie” of Vietnam.

Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.

Featured here is the baby in Ghostbusters 2, then and now. Cast? an added member of the Ghostbuster team. Crew? Those who did the animation and special effects.

We are never an island. In fact it’s a series of Hello and Goodbye to an ensemble of folks. There were at minimum 4 when I was born: nurse, my mom, my sister and my cousin. My cousin has passed away. Her husband a M.I.A. Ranger at the end of the Vietnam War. She, an un-consoled widow, died without closures regarding husband’s whereabout.

Our lives as films, would not be whole without cast and crew. My film started in a shared maternity ward with other moms and babies.

Then the fun started. Traffic, dust, accident, in-fighting, power-grab, religious strife, ideological struggle, espionage, colonial interests and proxy hot war. I of course did not process all while “ inside the movie “ except for memories of flooding and fighting, thieves and bullies, demonstration and assassination.

My recollection was a bit hazy: the burning monk I eye-witnessed had his flame and flash (Malcolm Browne photo) at 10 AM. I had it down in long-term memory as happened around noon. We all came of age in fear of sudden turn of event: the Diem’s brothers, the Kennedy’s brothers, the Generals and those plain-clothed C.I.A. ‘S who yanked me and my friend out of the long visa applicant line at the embassy on the days leading to April 30, 1975.

Daddy, x-army turned salesman, punched a condescending co-worker who insulted him in French ( both were Vietnamese). Friends in school had higher-ranked fathers in our militarized society. A friend’s mom , wet-market food vendor- filled our plates for free. Kindness and cruelty co-existed. Smokes get in our eyes (tear gas and sudden departure)..

Arrived from the opposite end of Ellis Island, to augment and update the American immigrant experience, we were light in luggage and high in hope. Even when landed on our feet to face the unknown, I never forgot my friends, my father and my fellow men still back there.Among whom that cousin who I finally got around to visit a quarter of a century later. Sitting on the beach, same spot where I had my last – or thought as last – glimpse of home, I experienced quite an alt- reality.

The crew was the 7th fleet US Navy. Many fellow sojourners- have passed on. Their passing taught me about the business of life. So, I keep on Learning by living. Learning by leaving , learning by letting go and by losing that which I cannot keep. Biologically we were wired for survival: breastfeeding and baby food. Then adulthood takes hold, that’s when the table turns: we are responsible for all the ill and good in our world. Without charity I am nothing as in a Pauline line.

No more burning monks and burning drafts. Today, just us, immigrants from a different shore. Facing the music and mirror. Our turn at the “self-evident” Truth. That all men are created equal. As I was saying, the cast and crew – in my case a group of Science Professors at Penn State- gave me a karmic nudge. When something strange happened, who are you going to call? Like that baby in Ghostbusters 2, I was thrusted into a boiling pan right out of the ward with just a few trusted faces.

Yet, I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. It’s gear for next gig. One cannot appreciate enough those helping hands along the way: point A (childhood) to point B (adulthood). It takes cast and crew (even in Ghostbusters 2) to live a life in full.

Thank you all.

The bully pulpit. Megaphone. Crowd herding. Stove piping. Gaslighting.

You got the gist.

Every so often, we thought of change or be the change only to find the grass is not quite greener.

How about going back to when we were “freer” men? Only men? Our Colonial past, a nation of slaves in pursuit of happiness? The East Coast Elite? The Business Party-turns blue-collar and vice versa.

Where do we put God in all of this? which side? how to colour him (purple).

We will rule in the new era. will noose those who are “weak”. Blame it all on them, ship them somewhere else, up North. Back in the 80’s, America conveniently blamed the Japs. For the height of the yen and low costs of their cars.

(check out Trump’s Playboy interview 1990 ; at least Angela Merkel did before NATO meeting).

Our casino boss tosses the dice, at times with the Democratic Party, and other time the Republican. As long as we pay no tax. As long as it’s transactional: Mike Pence, my Mike. Until he no longer is.

Noose him. He is weak (just like the Lake Tahoe scene in the Godfather where the weak brother was choked and tossed).

Strong men survive, in the arena and on TV. Can’t afford compassion and empathy. Those belong to Stormy Daniels of the world. We are about winning (Lombardo’s the only thing). Greed is good.

China, Russia and N Korea leaders are strong. The likes of which you have never seen.

Beautiful letter (I had it somewhere).

The bible which I had to borrow from motel 6 was for prop, just like St John for backdrop. White American Jesus. Not Black Moses.

You see, I like myself. No, strike that. I love myself. I am the Alpha and Omega. There has never been one like me. I alone put things back to where they belong (the British’s ?) This swam needs God who is shaped and speaks like me. Today, you will be with me in Paradise (Palm Beach) with Putin and Xi Ping flanking on either side.

Don’t be doubting like Thomas, or disloyal like Judas. I know a lot of rich Nicodemus (who call me at night). Like Murdoch, Carlson and Hannity. They worship me. Don’t you?(tk for your servitude).

I was on TV. I created reality – alt reality as my Conway once said – and built the best brick-and-mortar which employed my family (which is the extension of my best whiteness- my daughter – also obsessed with looks, could have been my VP, and her husband, whose father finally pardoned by me, could be me someday). Omnipotence. We’re the chosen (if not, I alone can pardon). Doesn’t matter what law I crossed (I fire you, not the other way around. What public service? What oath? Ask not what your country can do for you? That’s the other East-Coast Elite). The past doesn’t count (today’s friends could be tomorrow’s enemies). S Korea for a moment there was scared stiff. Yesterday Cold War. Today Culture War.

So, blame blame blame. Delay, delay, delay. Deflect. Keep them on their toes (Guessing game), per Kissinger’s advice. You’ve got to be a statesman and a prophet. Mirage and mirror. See? right there. In front of you. See it?

Gosh I hate the glaring of artificial light (need to walk off that 60-minutes set). When asked by Leslie Stahl why I had discredited the press? So that bad news about me coming from you are also discredited. Just a little insurance when I dominate the news, good or bad , as long as I am out front of the 4000 lawsuits with my name on them (the Divider). Omnipresent!

What else would you like to know? That I watch anything besides Fox? I’ve got itching twitting fingers. Drove me crazy when I no longer make people jump just by posting those 140-characters. Out of the 40% of American currently believe anything I say ( inerrancy) I just ask for a service fee to build a Christian-nationalist country with project Jericho. You’ve got to pass the citizenship test, get baptized and vote for me. Me, me, me. At the precinct level per Bannon. And most importantly, “Like” my post. See, I am a self- promoted self- divinized narcissist Who will not be “defoxified”. No way Jose. Can I have that cheeseburger now? How does my hair look!

We’re done here. Got to reach for my remote control. Carlson is praising strong men, among them me. L’Etat c’est moi. ( I would have pulled a Tiananmen Square at Lafayette Square if I had my way).

68-69 time frame.

Average age: 21.

3/4 in support role i.e. in Long Binh, Cam Ranh Bay…where padlocks, lots of padlocks, we’re to secure troops supplies.

The rest: in combat platoons. No R&R in sight. Often times, wounded. Carried and Covered in ponchos.

We’re starting Middle School (to us, it’s Big League, since in Vietnam, Middle School in the afternoon, but High-School was taught in the morning, with same and shared facilities). Of course I chose music as extra curriculum. Of course I auditioned. Of course I got picked.

But that was ahead of the story.

Our first school live concert featured “He ain’t heavy”.

Our school was all-concrete, not green-jungle. Yet I felt the emotion, trembling with in each note from the harmonica solo. “It’s the long long road”…(the decade before, we’ve got “On the road”. Decades later, we’ve got “The Road”.) But that year, right after Tet 68, we’ve got “the long long road”, and victory was not in sight…perhaps “a stalemate”.

Peace (withdrawal) with honour. Carry him. He ain’t heavy. Get the Hell out of Nam. The joke of the day was “what? you’re gonna ship me to Nam” (I am already here).

Our class did not start until the city had cleared the gun smokes, and grenades (like going back to school post-pandemic). And the music “M, I love you….with a love that never ends” (Quoc Dung) somehow made everything feel “normal” again.

I thought I had found an outlet for my restless soul. While real Californian got shipped to Nam, we who were in Nam, dreamed of California (All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey)

Of that class 68-75, in my section – which was in the back of the class – all tall guys – struggled with growing pain. all were Black and Brown belts, except for myself, the singer and screamer, a White belt who broke an arm first month into Hapkido. The rest of our crew: one injured in the head due to a traffic accident (50 years on), one came back from the front with only one good eye, one in a wheelchair after trying to steady a fallen steel door from crushing a child. others escaped by boat to finally see California Dreaming realized.

He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother.

Those who stayed behind had the work cut out for them: from sunrise to sunset and beyond, hand-to-mouth existence. I know a classmate who turned deaf after a tour of the Cambodia war. It’s our Vietnam war (the previous one, they called American War) or aptly put “the Killing Field”.

Which American war? please specify. America got into a lot of wars. It’s a military industrial complex, churning out ammunition supplies by the hour. Billions and billions of ammos, luckily, this time around gets put to good use: stopping Putin.

He ain’t heavy. Never has been. From Zelensky to my classmate. My brother. My Dad. My brother-in-law. My neighbour (whose casket was draped in flag). My cousin-in-law who up to this day, was still M.I.A.

He ain’t heavy.

Average age: 21 (some died younger)

Most smoked Pall Mall, Marlboro, Lucky strike and Salem. Who gives a s… about lung cancer when one can die any time. No prospects of an R&R in Bangkok. Hey baby. Bang! Bullet-struck. On Human tissues. Through the Flesh and not flak jackets.

He ain’t heavy. Our classmates of 68-75. In wheel chair, with pirates’ patch or on constant dose of tranquilliser over half a century. Been a long long road….winding road…lead me to your door….don’t let me standing here.

We’re “half a man I used to be”. It’s Yesterday. Live and let die. Yet, per Marlantes, young men were pushed into playing God, to pull the trigger and decide the fate of others. No wonder PTSD. No wonder opioid.

Back then, the average life expectancy was 50-60. It’s in our “twist” song: “how long can you last: 60 years of life”. Then it proceeds to divvy up into three parts: first 20 for education etc… extremely fatalistic with no regrets amidst death and destruction. No wonder the soul of Vietnam lives on, while it’s body withers. Think again! America or Vietnam? Which country engages in more wars?

Perhaps it’s a stalemate. Both sides got wounded and unhealed for those lucky few who got carried to medivac, to a M.A.S.H.-like tent back at the base.

He ain’t heavy.

He’s my brother. I went on to take the mike. And we performed at inter-school show. Among the songs: California Dreaming.