Thang Nguyen 555

Not just doctors who took that Hippocratic oath (to heal the sick and dying).

We’re supposed to be good neighbor, to at least, close their eyes if the dead, on their own, couldn’t.

It’s human. It’s bare minimum.

But then, we keep re-inventing ourselves, then re-inventing some more until one day, even we are strangers to our very selves.

Say “cheese!” (when there are no cheese)

“I am sorry” when we did not mean it and had no intentions to change course.

“I’ll be right back” but somehow never did (just an expression).

Press “Like” when we meant to “conform”, since a lot of people had already done so ahead of us (a study proves this point: in NYC, people stopped to look up a building. Pretty soon a crowd gathered, for nothing. Just a study in human “take the kool-aid “).

Many folks – now in jail for January 6h – confirm the point: “Your honour, I was just following the President’s urging (“Fight like Hell”), the crowd’s chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and the mob pushing me (Astrodome?).

We said we’re light to the world (tear down that wall), a city on the hill.

Then we turned our backs.

Honorable Exit. Decent Interval. Peace with honour. Stalemate.

At least, animal instincts are easy to detect: they ate their preys for foods.

Our half-evolved selves leaves more for wanting. We’re not there (sainthood) just yet.

Everyone wants to have the stimulus checks. Then turn Republican (no tax, read my lips).

We’re all politicians, without running for office. Even those who pretend they might run, start campaigning and collecting money.

The hypocrisy of us, yours and mine. Let’s say during Tet, in war times, we prayed for peace (so sons and daughters could come home from the front, an equivalent of Thanksgiving) – then in peace time, that same “we” urging for war – against China over Taiwan, against Russia over Ukraine, against N Korea, over S Korea etc…).

Many musicians of protest (conscience) cannot believe they are back in the arena, to face off names like Kennedy, once on the same (progressive) side, now on the wrong side of the vaccine misinformation war.

Say “cheese”.

It’s easier to give to the guy standing at the intersection.

It’s much more difficult to give to someone the time of the day (our time is short, and that person is supposed to also be in a hurry, hence, his/her time is worth something, hence, our nearest or soon-to-be competitor).

We hold two opposing paradigms in our heads at any given point: we’re impermanent AND we’re going to live as if death only visits the other guy, never us.

We exist biologically hence simultaneously possess both animal instincts and human reflections (e.g. with others, different than us, comes strength in diversity and via collaboration and relationships we finally optimize given unity).

Yet, we say one thing, and act another. The others. Unity synonymous with uniformity.

Many cultures found men running the show, but at home, it’s their women (who actually running them.)

Hence, out of the (female) womb, indirectly, the world runs with efficiency and empathy (more male tombs, again, due to differences in praying outcomes).

We wanted to outsource our manufacturing (and associated pollution, let’s say in Baltimore and Pittsburgh).

Then our city revenues run dry (obviously, since bridges are collapsing), while in China, our final destination for all things outsourcing, bridges and railways were built by the thousands if not millions.

Then pollution drifted our way anyway (Tonga).

And in Myanmar, we pushed democracy, just to see military junta came right back, the Taliban way.

To unfreeze the funds is to help prop up a terrorist harbour. To freeze the funds, is to turn a blind eye for fathers to sell away daughters in remote Afghanistan.

The mature way is to recognize hard choices, to recognize our tolerance for ambiguity and risks. To face and “handle the truth” via compromise. No idealists, at least, not a live one.

Our hypocrisy and our hybrid selves. Since we’re on our way, but not yet arrived, just don’t just say it e.g. “till death do us part etc.. I pledge to defend the flag against …domestic enemies”. Action needs time to catch up. No wonder musicians and protestors, now have to step up, not to the stage but onto social media platform, 50+ years on, for the same fight: Scopes trial, Roe vs Wade fight etc.

It’s like “priesthood of all believers” but outsourced back to the Priestly class. Just to see a new breed of Martin Luther’s nailing their “blogs” (instead of thesis) on the church door. Except this time, many church buildings were sold to Buddhist sects, to Muslim mosques and others.

Because it’s the same ole human nature (still with instincts to eat their prey) fighting to win, for the cake :to have it and to eat it too (or else you won’t have a cake/country any more). Say “Cheese..cake”.

Saw Mr. Bernstein towards the end on ABC, when I learned about his latest come-of-age memoir: Chasing History. In it he weaved through events, both personal and national, at the Star newsroom at age of 16, typing at 90 WPM ( WPM is now a bygone acronym) while his Dad himself used to work at the Washington Star.

His debut in the newsroom brought back memories: of my own interning i.e. working for free, at an ABC-affiliate, with UPI and AP coverage through the wire – that printer ran left to right and back- teletype and typewriters plus 3 monitors up in the corner (President Johnson used to watch those 3 networks side-by-side in the Oval Office) served as guardrails of Democracy. Mr Bernstein recalled the moment of silence (except for that very noise in the newsroom) when Kennedy’s casket was moved for the last time to become Camelot, eternal memory.

Mr Bernstein alludes to American changing culture, which he coins “Cold Civil War” slowly brewed during the past 30 years, and that DJT happened to come along as an ignitor. In other words, DJT took too much credits for all the work of Ralph Reed and the likes before him (he was in Moscow paying call girls to pee on Obama’s bed, in Ireland golf course etc.. not Lynchburg, or North Carolina to tout Culture War (L’Abri) like the Schaeffers’ “How Should We Then Live series”.)

At work, in the School of Journalism library on weekends, I noticed Ad Age as the most checked out ( it’s where the bucks stop) and writers/anchors kept editing until it’s time to be on-air (one can always find a better copy on the teleprompter at the last minute). It’s the same place where Mr Bernstein’s first love (almost married to) finally ended back up: State College.

Mr Bernstein urged our ABC audience to consider the context whereby “news” were determined. If we viewed news as a concentric circle, then the outer circles would be our tribes and our cultures at large. In short, viewers are people of the system (technological and industrial complex). He mentioned Nixon. And how at the time (of him and Woodward) a nucleus of GOP folks (Goldwater?) drew a line the sand (today’s Liz) and media coverage which forced Nixon to finally realize it would be pointless to erase those tapes without consequences (prison terms, like Colson and other cohorts).

Today, we saw Cohen, our new Colson, and soon Trump’s co-conspirators e.g. from Meadows to Giuliani in handcuffs (Could you please wipe the sweats for me?).

Can’t wait for a long hot hearing, with key witnesses and key (and- soft- and- back ) lights, exactly where earlier last year, insurrectionists stormed and ransacked while hunting down number 2 and 3 in line for succession. If succeeded, America would have taken after the USSR and North Korea.

No more discussions. No more debates. And no more deals.

Just a hand-me down verdict, fake and forged, from the one who would be King “because I said so”.

America has always envied of Britain. Deep down, it still wants to “worship” royalty and autocracy, even after its ancestors had fled and sworn never to return. Then the Red Coats invaded. Then J6 insurrectionists. A manifestation of self-enslavement in the absence of Monarchy and ignorance of Modern History (and its trajectory).

We keep fumble, keep “Hail Mary”. We rush and are always in a hurry …to nowhere (ask our Sec of Transportation). 5G for quick download and upload. Grounding those regional planes. The “Hurried Child” has “Amused herself to death” (with Television and now Twitter) to the tune of 4-9 hours in front of some screens. How many can type 90 WPM, or need to, when we can scroll 90 pages per minute?

We live without context and consistency. On campus, we used to jeer at ROTC, and now we want to shop Army and Navy surplus (to keep our Oaths, but not our promises).

We used to grow hair (like Neil Young) and look at life from Both Sides Now. And now, we couldn’t even button up our pants (like Falwell Jr – once nominated for Sec of Ed , always apprehensive for fear of be walked on in the middle of an orgy).

Culture war? Cold War? Civil war? Let’s mix them all up while we chase history, on the beat or in the news room, with AP wires that churn out raw products 24/7. “Copy” and copyboys were “dispensable” (per Vicky, my 6 0′ clock news producer). But in her rare and softer moment, her Sears’ side, she let it slide and my two-minute news piece (on Scranton trash strike) got aired. For my gag reel, for school. For the team. For God and Country.

We keep pledging our Allegiance to the Flag…one Nation, Omicron, under God…then of to couch surf. Even couch surfing is now a bygone phrase, just like Mr. Bernstein’s WPM and my 3/4-inch demo tapes. All those are now history we used to chase, at a personal or national level. His last pages show us just that, where everyone ended up, most are now buried underground, having left behind great pieces of journalistic endeavours.

Bridges couldn’t wait until Biden visits for visual backdrops.

It just gives.

Like anything and everything else. It’s time.

To have that pig-heart transplant, that blood infusion or the ventilator unplugged.

Fullness of time. Expiration date.

Friday, end of work week, end of that bridge; from point A to point B, a straight line is the shortest. Not when the line is broken. Story of a once-bridge, story of our lives.

Unlike a hockey-stick graph, more than often, with more downs than ups, our lives zig-zag. Allegorically, that Pittsburgh bridge paints a picture of us, once…presided over trouble water and helped many cross-over in trouble times.

Let’s rebuild and see a re-union of Simon and Garfunkel at Grand re-opening (as Simon did a solo at One World Centre). This time there won’t be a Bin Laden for Fox’s Chris Wallace to blame. Or the 19 terrorists.

Take a look at me now…and at ourselves in the mirror. It’s us, who neglected, who did not take good care of our infra-structure (Pittsburg steelers, of all places) physical or talent infrastructure (brain drain, per TIME’s latest piece on College enrolment drifting North to CANADA…just like they once did during Vietnam War protest).

In the span of 50+ years, we have managed to move from Hubble Space Telescope to James Webb Telescope.

And we have managed to:

• ship most jobs overseas (auto assembly – Detroit – and chip/drug manufacturing – San Jose)
• automate our work (even our trucks…but still testing – our warehouse forklifting)
• before Omicron, already sent workers home to save on office cleaning and maintenance – WE (didn’t) WORK
• stop bearing children – talking about homogeneous unit principle in Church growth
• nominate De Vos and Jerry Falwell jr for our highest Education post (and DJT jr for his publisher post – touting his facebook family album, the best sellers)
• follow the one-eye Oath keepers guy : “Be sure to not break the human chain leading up the steps ” (with weapon depot stacked in Ballston, VA hotel) – to push fake electoral votes
• import new refugees, this time, from Kabul (once Saigon and once thought of as burden turned blessing)
• piss off friends and allies, accrue more debts, while forgive student binge drinking bills.

I have listed top mind stuff e.g. students once fled to Canada – conscience objectors, today, enrolled in Canadian colleges, by (financial and future) choice; whose borrowed books were asked by librarians to return. Today, it’s the borrowed gun that is argued in court.

Not just the bridge that collapsed. It’s our discipline, our habits of the heart. Our screen time that took away our social-activism time. Meanwhile, in the span of 50 years, “nerds” like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google have taken over, leaving “hill- billies” behind (not even with a smokestack)…Country Road, take me home…to nowhere on that bridge to Red countries. to covid and to leaders like Palin and Cruz, who couldn’t wait to flee to Cancun or NYC restaurant (unmasked).

I have ranted enough. Rest my case. P.S. Go Carter, go Carter. No fraying there, still with a farmer’s smile, eating peanuts, tool belt on the side, touting Habitat for Humanity. Please expand your construction services to Pittsburgh, where one of its bridges has just given in. Time served. Point A. Point B. Looking on, helplessly without a bridge. Who is coming – to stand in the middle, “blessed are the peacemakers”…

Throughout this pandemic, we rely on help: from the government, from non-profit entities and from each other. In short, we have been pastoral to one another. While President showed off the bible, and pastors urged “patriots” to take up arms, we take up alms.

Heroes for one day: a kind word here, a chocolate there.

In two years, we have done more than in two decades.

We have to. People died by the millions, while Mother Theresas only by the thousands. Quite a mismatch.

No cause for celebration there, except for the super rich and super yatch owners. What pandemic? (to them).

The CDC has to put out warnings (that islands like Bermuda and Bahamas are not omicron-immune). Super christians and super politicians saw opportunities in crisis. So are we, unsung heroes, to counter-trend : “door-dash” ing foods to covid patients.

Last year, in TX, we suffered a double dose: pandemic and near-zero temperatures. Quite a new bottom. Been a while since we experienced our peaks (where there sure be a lot of Alpha male, who up the game, per “competitive” nature). Then, if/when inside the whale, we hear not a comment on social media, nor a “scam likely” alert. Seeing a Jehovah Witness or a pair of Mormons (YMCA!) these days is quite a treat.

A video of January 6 on 11th Hour features Officer Goodman. He was turning Mitt around, leading him to safety and might have saved Mike Pence from being hung – noose ready outside. They knocked down the fortress…in tactical teams (don’t break the link…like schoolchildren on field trips), in a Medieval battle (between the Oath keepers and the gatekeepers) in formation and in gears with full assaults and aggressiveness, all out for blood. After all, everybody was on the “right” side of history (what version?), thirsty for revenge against the nerds – Big Tech and Big Government.

Meanwhile, gentle souls and quiet folks went about their daily lives: a Hallmark card here or a hot meal there on someone’s doorsteps before many of whom died. Meanwhile others were proud of their rising portfolios and pastors’ urging on: ” let’s take up arms and fight for what’s ours” “I am white, I am blonde, I hold a job….no way I am going to jail”.

When in crisis, we shared selfies (@J6), some pastoral, others prosecutorial. Hatred begets hatred. Love begets love. The ripple effect. I’d rather worships a God who is meek, who sits beside you – in the belly of the beast, or a secure location under the Dome- to the end, regardless of methods of execution.

Go ahead! cast your first stone, tighten your noose, send your forged electoral votes and spread your fake news.

Last shall be first and the humble shall inherit what’s theirs.

I am black hair, I am not white…no way I am going to Heaven (per some Nationalist versions.)

Even so, keep giving to the least … in pandemic or peace time. Be mutually pastoral till Kingdom comes when all this will be sorted out. Each other, is all we have…as orphans – on our own – to fend for one another, and to find the way home.

The Earth gave up her dead that tide,

Into our camp he came,

And said his say, and went his way,

And left our hearts aflame… Ballad by Kipling

When the fire burns, within and without just to consume one’s self, monk or me.

Rage. A contentious man, trying to bend the arc of history.

Just to see it bend itself right back. To where it used to be. To the crooked way it has always been since time eternal. Seeking Comfort in the Path of least resistance.

An Afghan selling away one of his kids, a monk died peacefully “no mud no lotus” (as opposed to his contemporaries who burned themselves for a cause).

So, what’s left of a life? a few cents of ash? a clever and catchy saying? Me Decade. Me Dead.

The “Me” generation is shrinking via attrition (most of war protesters are now in their 70’s).

Hell No we won’t go (away).

The cause, the contention and the consequences (of ill-fated decision and will imposed on world’s map).

Nuke’m.

Oh God, what have I done! (Oppenheimer marveled at destructive force of “science” unleashed – he had helped create).

Nuclear fission. Nuclear families. And now, just me and the dog named Boo.

We have lived, perhaps not as well-lived as once thought.

We quarrel over unnecessary things (emphasis on “things”). The bigger the (Costco) cart, the more argument happen outside, in the parking lot, and inside the house (bigger closet?).

We have, in a span of 5 decades, replaced ideas with materials, relationships with possession and communication with connectivity.

That’s the way it is.

No way around. Just keep it afloat, proooooooolong the status quo. Let’s set sail! Let’s cross the seven seas. Anchorless-ly to para-phase Augustine (since our soul is anchored in the heavenly anyway, in a safety deposit box).

Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. And when that tomorrow turns today, we keep gofund me for the next tomorrow (the mirage effect – leading right to Las Vegas : “what happened here, stays here”. A Floridian man, 5 years in jail, felt totally broken.

I am a contentious man. I see through adult’s hypocrisy. Now, in turn, I am that adult. Full of what I have been against. In moments of self-examination and honest self-assessment, I can barely look in the mirror to give myself a C-.

To see my unwanted self. How I have turned out. The company I keep.

Society is comprised of individuals. If all were like me, then…we’re without hope.

So keep selling away your kids. Keep not raising your kids. And keep fighting for others NOT to abort theirs (15% say “under no circumstances”),

Somehow, on this day, it’s a beautiful day to die. At least for a monk, whose feet walked across the grass, and wheel chair across the lawn. No mud, no lotus. Still, what’s the point of contention? how can we live on and not see all the injustices and incongruencies? how many more MLK holidays to commiserate, without feeling like a hypocrite. Hail to MLK, Hail to the King, to Mary, to Jesus, to the Queen and Prince…(whose title and privileges recently got stripped away) and all the syncretic gods past and present. All mud still no lotus.

So back to our self-inflaming. Our selfies and our self-contained lives. Fast-forward and skip the unpleasant parts (like those damn facebook posts – you go, you snap, you pay, you print- algorithm-chosen after Norman Rockwell’s and Reaganesque).

Seek peace without justice, harmony without hope. It’s possible given our cureless amnesia. As if, we could live in a world of one, one contentious man playing Solitaire.

Icarus! keep flying high-speed non-interference with 5G toward the Sun. As high and hyperbolic, to reach the melting point of no return, of tension and contention before succumbing to the immutable law of gravity and oh well…mud.

Born to burn… hearts aflame.

ASU announces its plan for massive enrollment in the tens of millions. Quite a shocking USA Today headline! It certainly caught my attention in the age of splintered and tribalized media.

Plus, at ASU, we’ll find the Cronkite School of Journalism. Good luck trying to export that to “Third-World” countries” (ole-school football, ole-school journalism and ole– school, well, WASP, MAGA? and MOOC – Massive Open Online Courses). Currently ASU has about 13,500 Chinese students – out of a quarter of a million in the US. Many are attending UT – in Texas, where an effort to drive them out to get votes by a former manicurist turned congressional candidate is underway.

President Biden devotes at least 5 minutes of his Press Briefing to how media coverage has morphed since the days he started out in politics. He perhaps alluded to those days when Cronkite and two competitive networks closed out their Evening News , his with “That’s the way it is” (“just the facts, mam”).

Ted Koppel , formerly of Nightline, went on the defense of Donald J Trump, stating that Opinion is not News.

We all know we watch and read anything just to confirm our bias. Heck, it’s all in the demographics and psychographics (WASP’s feel at home when hearing a Chaplain’s prayer: ” All–knowing, all–seeing God, look upon us this day. Nothing is hidden from Your sight. All that we are is laid bare before You,” in Congress or at the Cathedral – albeit our founders fled from similar State Church to begin with).

We are creatures of habits. Make the past great again. More machine, less human?. Card-board cut-outs of past great White Presidents. “Hang Mike Pence!” – A time to kill and a time to be born – as urged on by the Pope (who has the time to bear and raise children given the ticking down of the Atomic Clock? Both in China and America… the slogan should be “Make love, not war” – Cold War 2.0).

Instead, just fight it over in the Olympics. Watch the show of force, of discipline and of strength exhibited: “I am invincible” (against the Omicron). Best way to have the cake and eat it too, is to throw other-than-Chinese-overseas students into the mix, killing two birds with one stone. Voila, more STEM students, more revenues (overseas), and still keeps a Lilly-white football stadium (Chinese can watch via delay broadcast, from, where else? Cronkite School of Journalism).

More Chinese students, more Chinese restaurants in Tempe, AZ and Texas. But it’s not a guaranteed increase in enrollment at its Journalism School. We might have some Chinese journalists trained for the Epoch Times, the Washington Times…and other tribalized social media (preaching to the choir), since the money (ad revenue) no longer spread just between the 3 major networks as in the times of young Biden.

Climate and immigration, all swept under the rug (Did they ask about Afghanistan at Biden Press Briefing yesterday? Only Ukraine and an uptick in military funding – without the “squeezing” for opponent’s dirt, got mentioned). “Push them back, push them back, way back…outside of our physical borders, our firewalls, but let the tuition flow in”. Immigration problems? what problem? Worst case, we’ll ease up on inter-racial marriages, provided they are baptized, sprinkled or immersed. British Invasion? Welcome. Others’ invasion? No way.

Cronkite once put on combat fatigue, helmet unhooked, for a stand-up from Nam: “the best we can hope for is a stalemate”….that got President Johnson’s attention, and in turn, cost him a re-election. “Whoever lost Cronkite, lost Middle America”. That’s the way it is . Today, we’ve got Bannon replacing Limbaugh, and soon, Wallace for Cuomo. Like an IMAX theater sound fade-in and increase in volume “the audience is listening”…but nobody is watching or believing.

We’re just here to do time, to confirm our bias and to foot the bills. If White Christian America can’t grow its homogeneous Nationalist base, we’ll have to go off-shore – labors overseas, in-shoring techs (brain gain) and with Massive Overseas Online Courses (those card-board cut-outs – better be with masks – an equivalent of late-night laugh tracks, just to show of a hockey-stick growth in Chinese student enrollment…until and unless Cold War 2.0 forces our hand.

Then we might have to put them in internment camps just like the Japs before them… : follow the money and the ole script, Olympics or Omicron. “The best we can hope for is….a stalemate,” due to both countries’ demographics decline. a prolong phase prejudice-prone Japs have had to reckon with for decades – just ask the Filipinos short-term guest-workers of Tokyo.

I wonder if Cronkite himself can recognize today’s journalism on the internet and cable news…President Biden certainly could but still feels engulfed. A three-hour treat yesterday is quite rare – given today’s attention span – of a gold fish. That’s the way it is.

Saw the headlines about Michael Lang today.

It’s like the kid in Cinema Paradiso, back in town, to find the old movie theatre demolished, making way for a parking lot, while his old mentor/projectionist had died and left him with just a gag reel.

I was that cinema kid: glued to the silver screen (our version of large I-pad) at a theatre near me. It was own by my cousin who waved me through the turnstile. Then I settled in for a double-features matinee. First time I saw Michael Lang, was with a split screen (twice the pleasure) of Woodstock, the movie (I did not have to hit the rewind button. Just stay put and wait for the projectionist to start the show again.)

There I watched Michel Lang answer the documentary interviewer “It’s beautiful”, as he sourced , convinced and transformed backward Woodstock – cow country – to a city of one million, with only one high-rise: the stage.

Just chill.

Richie Havens opened it, stretching his jam after stretching those new guitar strings (he knew he would need their whole life cycle) for “Freedom”…

I heard that catch phrase a lot in my youth. People killed, died and fought for it.

Never a day of Peace, much less Love (oh well, Woodstock had its dark and down side too, with drug and unruly mud slide). But music, yes! I watched Ten Years After (i am going home), White Rabbit, CCR and of course, the Who ?

All the “colored” performers on stage, from Richie to Sly, from Jimmy to Carlos Santana. Even at a young age, I couldn’t help notice that Arts elevated people above the politics of divide. That is to say, today’s tribalism doesn’t come near, not when a 19-year-old arrested development from Pennsylvania, pleading for a more lenient J6 sentence, or 17-year-old Kyle of Illinois, who was hailed as a hero ( with a borrowed gun not guitar).

Back to Michael Lang and his iconic scooter (my best friend took me on a ride to School for years on similar vehicle). “Something is happenin here…what it is, ain’t exactly clear.. Marcuse? Timothy Leary? 68 spill-over?

The reality is this: youth think and speak out too (whether the mandatory draft lottery hit them or not) from walking Ashbury St in San Francisco, to sit-in at Berkeley, from NYU to KSU. They grew their hair in protest against the war machine (a Quaker burned himself at the steps of the Pentagon), against “Tricky Dick” or any other “Dicks” of the day. High-school kids got drafted, while college kids protested.

View and opposing view should be heard and taken into account e.g. “goddam shit hole! The fuckers in Washington D.C. need to let us bomb this shit hole back to the Stone Age,” “Kill every one of these mother fucking gooks and piss on their rotting carcasses” (said an Army Chaplain, as recounted by an MP in “Policing Saigon” page 207).

There had to be a viable alternative to killing (anything that moves). Perhaps not everyone thought so.

“You’re so beautiful, to….me” “I get by with help from my friends” esp from Joe Cocker.

Then, “please move away from the towers” (storms passing).

From Joan Didion to Joan Baez, Michael Hayden to Michael Lang. Lots of artists and a whole generation of “youth matters”. For three straight days. With no major incidents. A today’s impossible (this side of J6 White grievances).

Last night I had the strangest dream. …

That people co-opted youthful energy…nudging it and turning it into the Ralph Reeds of the day, Franklin Grahams of the day (who has no rights to co-opt the image of rebel rousers on a Michael Lang’s ride) and Steve Bannon’s local precincts and local school boards to push the agenda of Christian nationalism, a doctrinal betrayal (the Romans crucified him, then built an Empire out of it, whitening a darker image of a Jew, who during the culture war, grown into a all-hair JC Superstar, a 60’s musical. Whatever made them money in the short term). From The Silent Majority to the Moral Majority, then 2.0 version.

Woodstock chipped and bargained away – for a few pieces of silver (using Graham’s quotes).

The idea is spontaneity, but also planned (then un-planned – Free concerts!). Lots of risks but “Screw it, let’s do it”.

The town folks were beyond nice. A testimony to a long time past, when people were given that generation of young people the benefit of the doubt.

Today, we have St Louis husband and wife holding their automatic rifle and short gun ( pretty in pink polo ) pointing at peaceful protesters (it’s our lawn), then leverage those publicity and press – albeit shameful- to run for office. an anti-thesis of Woodstock, of back to the land, back to nature against climate abuse (Mother Earth they have no respects for, do you think they would for her children of a different race?).

Rest my case. So wave the South Vietnam flags , the Confederate Battle flags, on the lawn and near the top of the Capitol , on January 6th or any other day (outside of my cousin’s theatre). Before everything was disintegrated and dismantled pretty quick as I personally experienced.

Meanwhile, inside, I watched Woodstock, (Director’s cut), anticipating and reciting each scene and song. all the while, wishing to be somewhere else , be someone else, anyone, whose flag – wasn’t waved for lost cause only (on Subic Bay and Steps of the Capitol .)

Curse the day I was born – always unwanted –

in a controversial birth (parents didn’t quite seem to want me – since there was another side marriage and half-sister),

a controversial war ( debate and protest) a controversial religion – Buddhism by culture – (regime persecution that drove a monk into suicide by self-immolation)

a controversial re-settlement in America (“Are you from the North?” asked my PSU roommate Jay) while today’s Afghan counterparts got a quiet break – no protest – despite similar inflationary rates in today’s economy.

How I wished I could have taken my shirt off (young and tan) and enjoyed those Summer Breezes of Upstate hills.

Meanwhile, across the pond, back to the future, fast -forward to today, another Pennsylvania kid, at age 19, pleading via paid lawyer :” your Honour, please…be lenient in your sentencing.” “ he was just having fun – waving the flag, breaking into The office of No 2 in line for the Presidency, “ (just like John Lennon once waving Mao’s Red Book in protest, or Trump, with up-side-down Bible in front of St John.) Arrested development while exercising 1st Amendment.

We’re all arrested in our cerebral development.. Do you….feel like I do. “It’s beautiful”, R.I.P. my friend Lang ( who said: ”the people are showing up, so we have to feed them…we have to prioritize:” a gut call between finish the fence to charge them money, or Screw it, Free Woodstock “.

in motion or sitting still

by the window or by the seas.

Lost in time.

In space, anchor-less – ly

Free time, free from chores

of burden and of obligation.

Free to choose- or not to

Don’t let others sway, persuade or influence

via social media or mass media

push or pull, soft or hard sell.

You and I are free: in thoughts and action

We live. Leaving behind footprints and fingerprints

posts and profiles , smiles and sadness.

We are.

Born, survive and die.

On our own. All alone. Period.

Unencumbered and unaffiliated. Unfriended and unfamiliar.

Don’t let others sway, persuade or influence.

To tell you otherwise e.g. what J6? or Tianamen Square.

Or Tutu, a priest , who once fought for a freedom.

What’s with freedom that everyone is longing for, looking for and dying for?

Isn’t it a right, a guarantee once we belong to a certain political entity?

Like a Democracy whose citizens have the rights to vote, to free assembly.

I know your right to bear arms. Good for you. It’a not a pick and choose Democracy. Lots of guns and lots of fence around you.

Frost said fence made for good neighbours. NRA said guns made for good pa(y)triots.

So be proud Dad, gun owner and diploma holder (or to borrow it, as if one just shows a library card to borrow a book) to defend an out-of-state car lot, claiming self-defence and hailed as hero.

Education is out. Opioid is in. Cannabis in. Cabinet and Congress out.

Court in. Let’s lawyered up. Armed up. Going to war. To fight.

Always fight, for “freedom”. Die for freedom. Never live for anything. Like waiting for a sunrise.

For a hot meal (slow-cooked.) Or a kid to graduate.

Women in the field, planting and harvesting. Men in the field too, but battle field.

Machine-aided wars. Nuke ‘ m. Or make a deal, a pact, a peace with Putin.

Orphans without (parental) guidance. Orphans without directions home. Orphans bargained and bartered away in deep Afghanistan.

And so it went. You can’t go home again.

Aimlessness. Purposelessness. Weightlessness. Repurposing one’s life (refugees’), one’s ambition and aspiration. Starting point: the toilet. Ending point: the urn/ grave. What’s the point? of – extract and subtract – of pruning and trimming, living while dying? Helping others less fortunate? (those people? holding a sign, that begins with PLEASE… living a more tragic life than yours)…When we were orphans……

Go fund me. Go help me. Go see me. Go figure.

We’re sinners called to be saints. Saints schools we did not attend. Sainthood we did not attain. Cannot.

Not with current undercurrents, underneath the tide that shifts. Earth shifts. Its atmosphere and stratosphere.

Climate Change and Attitude Change. The former mitigatable. The latter? God help them. We, relics of the Hippies and the Yuppies, just want to win.

Always First to the Field and first in line (to the grave), finger in the hole. Lord, help my disbelief.

Moments of waste and of want. In motion or sitting still. By the window or by the seas. Feel like All are nil. All vanished – like the 2021 Star-studded Obituary list, and not the Olympics roster.

Lives lived in full or half-way. All disintegrated and turned into recycled nano particles (used to be called “bones and marrows”, MIA’s with previous impetus and impulses. Brain and gain. DNA and RNA. NRA and NRB (the former kill, the latter last rites).

Vanishing vanity. In their place? Wild flowers, more beautiful than all the treasures of Solomon. Dust come to dust. Ashes to the seas. Wind-swept and scattered in constant flux and flow, filled with Oxygen (albeit a bit late) in the ozone.

We’re fortunate: to have existed at all, full of foolishness and fearfulness. In awe and awestruck. Amazement and amusement. Trembling in fear and foreboding, at times, doubling down on some thesis and antithesis, then regrets and rewrites, without reluctance.

Meanwhile, out there, in weightless space, those Moments all-spent

(before you know it or even aware of the futility of it all).