Thang Nguyen 555

Medieval Europe saw the invention of technology ( agrarian) as means for man to finally be divorced from and rise above nature: tilting, harnessing, plowing, cultivating and having “dominion over the land and seas”.

God-man-nature.

Then man got all the wiser (having listened to the serpent): why not tilting, extracting and prospering without bound i.e. Columbus and the new Indian (Native American).

And so it went. With two nuclear bombs and a bunch of financial crises. Same script, same sword. Big 5 (AWS, Apple etc..) are now Columbuses. We the new Indian, to be extracted of our “posts”, “uploads” and “likes” to be aggregated, scaled and monetised. Other people’s connections and content.

Why not using someone else’s quota to import garment when/if there were a trade war or restrictions. Other’s People Money (OPM) & the sharing economy (other people’s credit history – to buy new cars). Why not “blue ocean” and exploit the natives (thanks to Samuel Colt and his 6 shots ; which by the way, good odds for “Russian roulette” in addition to be instrument for Native American genocide).

And so it went. Sub-Sahara Africa during the advent of the Internet (which Bill Gates himself had not seen coming) had zero usage.

Approaching 2020, we see kids, housewives, street vendors etc… using smart phones and spreads their own version of “fake news”, not just in NYC but any city.

Filter buble at atomic scale.

As transmission gets unrestricted, our content gets constricted: we only honor and accept our own P.O.V. (friending homogeneous people). Technology expands; our worldview tribalized.

Voila. A menace, just as Marconi had feared.

Ship-to-shore and not shore-to-ship. Script becomes the sword, only to turn against ourselves, and not the enemies e.g. ignorance and prejudice.

I tried out Twitter, but only skim through the top tweets; turns out, they were mostly from the same people who grump and gripe about same ole (AI thought I enjoy being validated and affirmed, hence, always top-lining similar content based on my own previous clicks).

All that wasted energy to create useful arts, to return to Eden, only to find ourselves back home, whose posted sign says “No Exit”.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And as we made technology – data accesss – widely available, so we end up with wider exploitation and extraction, by facebook or Google, both try to “help” us finish our un-articulate and uncertain thoughts.

I fear as Morse and Marconi once expressed “what has God brought”. He who has a hammer in hand, everything looks like a nail.

Keep posting until you are exhausted. Then wait for the other shoe to drop. 6G? robotic massage? perpetual living and permanent unemployment? Our wealth-distribution graphs have never been more skewed, especially over the last few decades. Wonder why! the collapse of the Soviet Union and the civilian release of Vincent Cerf’s co-invention?.

They have abandoned the sword for the script and exploited the opportunities to the nth time. The plus side is, once in a while, a script is read by someone far away, and maybe a kinship is sparked; and Sub-Sahara Africans feel no longer alone and nor forgotten.

Those chances are rare, but the opportunities for scale and exploitation have not changed since Columbus found America. Call them whatever you want, take whatever you want in the great name of God who made them all after his original liking. Yet the Benedictine monks once naively thought technology was to serve mankind in his quest for transcendence, for returning to prelapsarian state. Monk or money? Script or sword?

Every once in a while, we see a re-run of the Outsiders, the Misfits etc… good ole Wild West.

But in closer scrutiny, we find that each of us is unique, with various strands of genome, not as homogeneous as our school uniforms might like to suggest.

Hence, we all are Unfits. No need to fit in (to what…it’s a moving and morphing structure anyway).

I was born into a refugee family, after they had settled down along with close to a million for 2 years in the South. I guessed with my mom teaching school, my Dad with Vietnam Airlines, they had finally overcome their initial shock (of hearing the Southern accent and the Southern ways, of leaving behind that which they had well-cherished).

Hence, me, not by accident, I hope.

It’s hot when I first arrived on the scene, at a busy intersection and wide-open misty air. Between the “tau ha mom” of Operation Passage Freedom (boats that open out like shark’s jaw) and the nurses at Tu Du, I found my safe harbor; and begin to open my own mouth to cry.

During that time the French was trying to “outsource” its last vestige of colonial territory and power to the American.

The Quiet American. While all the power struggles were going on, I clocked in to observe, to remember and to re-tell, all the in-fighting within the family, the nation and the world (Cold and Hot war).

All that had happened before I pumped a lung-full of primal scream – my first cry: for Vietnam, for Indochina, for eruptions wherever the two giants chose to point their nukes at each other (Cuba).

In my mom’s womb, and later via oral tradition, I kept hearing about 2 million people died of starvation due to the Japanese occupation.

Cry, my beloved country!

All sin and separation. Then before I realized what’s transpired, it’s my turn.

Like the movie “300”, where they stop the Pharaoh’s invaders at a narrow pass, our salvation laid bare at the gate of the US Embassy, not St Peter’s (Operation Frequent Wind). It would have been over-powered had it not been for the barbed wires and the marines.

Still people pushed and shoved, tossed babies over or climbed on top of one another for daylight ( my uncle did that).

Then after the evacuation, with the osmosis between North and South, and 2nd or 3rd migration by the diaspora community, things got stabilized and normalized.

Once again, my people pushed and shoved at Asia Airports to come back, to visit, to feel “ta day” ( Viet Kieu) (Operation One-up-manship???)

Both the ones who give hand-outs and the ones who receive them, none build up to develop a nation torn and tattered by years of neglect.

Hence the flooding and sea-level rising.

And the youth party on, night after night, joined by Tay Ba lo (Backpackers).

Beers are cheap and girls available. Born after the war, they only know how to enjoy the peace, the piasters and the pleasure it bought.

I was born to remember all. Not a day the struggle loosened its grip on me. I went to French school, only to catch up with Vietnamese school, then US ” cow-college”.

The French not only outsourced the war. They outsourced my education as well.

I was born to be told my uncle got shot by French secret service. 18 shots in all. He died single and an idealist.

My Dad later ended up with two wives to combat ratio-imbalance since women were so available in war time.

I was born right at the times they are a changin.

They had turned the other way on bi-gamy, then they ruled it unconstitutional (Madame Nhu).

Who am I to argue with changing realities and changing mores.

I just observe the remembrance of the dead, and offer services to the living.

I was born to think, to sing, and to become someone else but myself.

Vietnamese society at the time was a monologue: you obey your parents (cha me dat dau, con ngoi do).

No private room or nor privacy.

First rule: respect. Last rule: respect.

So I respect. By the time I take my turn to be senior, I told my kids to be what they are born to be.

Born into a proud lineage, but at the same time, get with the times.

Principled, honor and decency. But always in the back of your mind, know that you don’t have to fit-in. Be unfit, be the square peg you were born into.

You are unique. Look at the stars and soar. Don’t mind the round holes.

Always lend a hand to those less fortunate than yourself. And humanity can always be found in the least likely place.

I was born to notice stories of bravery, of sacrifice and of love.

I wish to “walk” into those stories myself, instead of a mere listener.

In the end, I am glad I was born where I did, with all its complexities and compromises. Given the context, I refrain from judging others. Although there shouldn’t be any justification for killing, but only we can absolve ourselves from self-recrimination ( for surviving and living on).

Only then can we face the 2 million deaths of starvation, 57,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, and millions more whose graves have yet been accounted for (or died at seas). Their odds of survival at the time was 50:50.

I am glad I was born and live on at all, fit or unfit.

Some people are born to do certain things. You can say they are mere instruments for pro- creation. They might do it laying down ( Michelangelo) or in a car (Jewel).

I respect them, adore them, emulate them.

Be authentic, be true to your calling and vocation.

It’s better to be a mask-maker (or costumes for Halloween) then be a mask-wearer.

The airline stewardess who chat with me shared her concern e.g. that AI might some day replace many jobs, electrician? herself? . I said as long as we still own empathy ( earlier, I did ask her about her daughter of college age, since I have three of my own.)

We need AIQ (machine and man learning to work together).

Michelangelo will need to learn how to work a MacPro beside his brushes and chisels.

Jewel will need to compose digitally or record her songs along side with a synthesizer.

The band will comprise of both machine and man working together, rehearsing and reaping the rewards ( I will leave that to the virtual lawyers to split the royalty. They are still debating who has copyrights to “Stairways to Heaven” opening”).

With AI we are freed up to coordinate and crowd-source many frustrated talents, combining and composing symphonies of lasting artistry.

Our collected life will be much enriched thanks to the matrimony of the machine, both intelligent and enlightened, and man, both empathic and artistic.

If they could “influence” voters from Russia, we can reverse-engineer or reverse-osmosis with “good” influence. Next century will see a race and lust of life here on Earth e.g. frictionless living, frictionless travel, tele-transportation, telemedicine and tele-education.

China has laid pipelines and beltways around Africa, Russia around Artantica.

Everyone is out to dig the next Trillion-dollar well. Will it be mix-energy or Big Data? or as simply as the organic return-to-the-land?

I leave that to the high-tech, high-finance folks with their analytics and algorithms.

For now, I am made to do a few things, and do them well, whether standing-up or laying-down, in the studio or in the car ( I do respect Jewel who was once homeless in S Diego), make a living or dying doing it.

You see, we are served by millions who are worrying about their jobs. We are the millions who are worrying and should be worried about our jobs.

It will come so quick like a New-York minute. A colleague was mentioning 1-800-xxx=xxxx (vanity number). Well, to us, that was light years ago. No one talks of Telephony nowadays. They start tossing around 6-G for 2030 introduction.

If anything, the frontiers to be conquered is in the mind (Alzheimer) – good luck Dr Lloyd Tran – or out there in the environment and in space.

We are tired of the Industrial Revolution, just as we had been of the Agricultural one. Please, give me something enlightening, entertaining and empathic.

Well, a decade ago, you put down English-majors. Now you want storytellers. You mask-wearers and hypocrites. Go ahead and download your little AI games, and see how soon you’ll get bored of them; machine-generated combination.

I am born and made to first be human e.g. suffering and joy. Then I learn how others have told their tales. Then I will tell ya’ll about it. Hang in there. Just a minute. English and Empathy take time. Not your run-of-the-mill Fortune Cookies random feel-good twittering characters. English majors don’t do Fortunate cookies creative-writing for Chinese foods.

Born to entertain, to preserve what it is that made human human in an age of machinery.

“like a long lost friend”, “been a long and lonely winter”….

We suppress unwanted memories, until they resurface.

Then we dismiss them as unimportant or not-applicable, we “park” them as cold cases, to look at them with new lenses; without the original and emotional attachment.

Our culture urges us to re-invent ourselves, to get with the times.

No one seems to remember past their last look at account balance.

I wrote in earlier blog about a good friend, whereabout unknown. He was a drummer in my 6th-grade band. Complete loss of touch.

Yet in my memory, he is there, smiling and keeping his every beat.

He is real to me. A human being and a friend.

Not to be measured in any economic terms i.e. of utility to me. Just a part of my social circle whom I spent time with.

Friendship is the stuff that makes life life.

Yet we don’t yet know how to measure its worth, its values; or to work Happiness Index into GDP.

Business learns in full-circle: first they measure productivity, then they force-rank to rid off the “unwanted” at the bottom of the totem pole.

When they scale to Trillion-dollar level, they re-learn to value the individual contribution etc…

Sounds to me like scarcity vs abundance thinking.

When you are down in the gutter, you kick a man for your five-dollar fix.

When you relax on a cruise, you two have plenty of time to chat about mundane things.

We live in interesting times: stuff made in China, imported from Vietnam and Spencers for hire from former Soviet Union.

What ever else speedier, the robots and its ever-growing brain will do. Laptops are so cheap, even a 1st-grader has one.

Between machine and (extra) man power, we will certainly be well-cared for.

Just shut up and leave the ICU tubes alone.

Let the bureaucrats do their jobs, whether it’s efficient or not, whether it’s right or not, and whether it’s uncalled for or not.

Citizens of the world! Rise not, just take it all in.

From Santiago to San Diego, you are urged to stay indoor and if you need to go about , don’t protest a price-hike or question the rise in inequality or the rise in temperature.

Modernity is at its breaking point; so eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow, we are going to die.

So the narrative continues in our continually make-believe world. Sounds fictional, but it coincides with today’s reality. You can’t die alone, but surrounded by impersonal in-shorring nurses and machinery.

Drones by night and Donuts by day.

People, workers and consumers used to be under-valued.

Now when Scale and what made Scaling possible are in, people are re-“evaluated” to statistically comprise much needed mass-scale e.g. eye-balls for a start.

You and I are only mattered to our moms. Life is what it is: survival of the fittest on a massive scale. Forget individual liberty and justice for you (it says “for all” once, but now it’s hot and crowded, fast. Something has to give).

Hence, we might protest and politicians may compromise. But in the end, the vendor who burned himself on the street of Tunisia, the girls who got abducted by Boko Haram, and the Boat People who got raped, robbed and died in South China Seas remain forever forgotten. Flowery language is just that: eulogy! he who stretches his legs on a yacht, thinking his of his next trillion-dollar move in luxury and at the expense of many ( who couldn’t afford a metro fare) will not take the mass or the man into consideration.

Santiago is burning, not San Diego, not Space. Lock, stock and barrel is pointing at you. Which is which? Pay up or else.

Like a man waking up from a long slumber, I too see my sentence, which happens to be yours: we are at a juncture of opportunities and perils.

Like a deer facing oncoming headlights, we might freeze up, fight or flight. One foot forward first. Not the mind just our reflexes. The mind is loaded with memories, good and bad, painful and fearful. Most are suppressed. Most if not 90% remain at the bottom of the iceberg.

When you randomly access your memories, stuff tend to resurface, many of them unwanted or unsolvable, like opening up a Pandora box.

That’s what happened when I start wondering the whereabout of my friend. He was a good friend, displaced by war, but in my book, remembered as someone whom I would like see again someday. War and whereabout, unknown.

Still a part of me, just like people in organization: some are unwanted, others desirable. But when they come for you, we need all-hands, on deck.

“It says here….” ” perhaps you might like this too”….”the machine doesn’t recognize your name, face and voice.”

Machine is good when it narrows down choices. 

Machine is not good when it skews the results with inherently- bias recommendations. Which coders wouldn’t carry around his/her grandfather’s and father’s built-in bias or side comments at dinner table which in turn infect their work creation and culture.

When I was interning at ABC Affiliate as an ENG photographer, I learned two things: got to get footage on the air quick (see Broadcast News – how an intern slid under the desk), and two, out of all the possibilities for filming, we only film (at the time, we were transitioning from film to all tapes) a few seconds, then we do the stand-up, after that re-action shots if it’s an interview. Of course, the picture – a thousand words – was reflective of our own taste, training and tendency to zoom in on “pretty” girls than trash collector strike.

Now, reading that AI will soon replace police (Hong Kong) and photographer, cashier and concierge (Tokyo), truckers and traders etc…

I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it did. They have re-programmed Matchmaking softwares for HR applications, in other words, machines are replacing machines.

No time for speed-date. Just job fair.

Of course with LinkedIn’s tiny photos, whoever got a good pic i.e. enough lighting and latest version of iPhone will have a competitive advantage ( first 6-second impression). 

Machine collects pics, our key words, our Likes, our buys and our friending to compile our personal profile. Of course it’s incomplete. But it is learning at deep-neuron level i.e. combing through years of scattered scanned files (Google book project), updated from billions of input and upload worldwide, to make a Mind.

Machine is doing the learning while we are asleep (our Pearl Harbor moment). Even Thomas Friedman ( The world is flat) couldn’t have predicted the speed and smart of machine spanning space and time. He barely scratched the surface in the tradition of Future Shock; then we need The world is flat 2.0 and Future Shock 3.0

From initial creation per WWII logistical necessity, algorithm progresses to Amazon supply chain and AWS. Allies’ bombers might not come back, but Amazon trucks & authorized agent’s always will (w/ a few exceptions e.g. deaths of drivers, a cause for contract termination). 

Back to machine bias. 

A darker skin tone will more likely be “recognized” faster in crime-prevention, while a foreign-sounding name has a harder time being short-listed. Perhaps they will work this “bug” into the next update ( like Hollywood would be more inclusive).

Hardware introduction e.g. 5G will take a decade to main-stream, but software ramp-up takes less, placing us in a perpetual Beta state, and our autonomy less and less relevant, digitally speaking.

Unless you have level 3 and above access to the big Machine.

Just receive your direct deposit and shut up: let the quants, the techs and the national security folks handle this ( while you handle your social security). Don’t agitate or ask question(s), especially questions about the built-in bias of the machine. 

You’ve got frequent traveler’s miles, high FICO scores and recommendations for jobs, friends and mates. Want more? OK, books, movies and adult toys? Sure, we can do that and more ( delivering on Sunday.) Keep clicking, filling out more forms, preferably online, to save a tree.

Immediately after the datasets get aggregated, rolled up and thumb prints collected, our attention, interests are deliverables to Adsense. Every online store is now targeting you, not just Target.

Voila. Big Brother knows it all, from Russia to China to North Korea. Data is to today, what Plastic was to the 60’s. 

It takes place right here, right now. At the corner store where you buy a pack of gums. 

No need to be paranoid. Just live, buy and travel. Until the day they come for you. Protest not, voice not your opinion, write nothing, post nothing. 

It’s not the 60’s when you need to beg “see me, feel me”… Now it’s the machine (certainly not Tommy’s pinball) that sees you, and it really really wants to “feel you” (at least, it tries to get you to smell the perfume – Macy’s cosmetic shop girl jobs are out).

Heck, don’t touch me. Ever. I will tell you when, but it’s my call. when it’s time. I can always yank out the tubes and walk out of any situation. It’s called Fee Will. I-m-relevant still. Defiant still. And unfortunately, prejudiced also ( against both machine and man). I watched and learned for hours from my father at dinner table to someday, today, become he. I totally inherited a blind spot, his, and he, his father’s.

So does the Machine, with its magnifying mistakes e.g. matching a bunch of morons to work at critically high-profile jobs, with access level higher than 3. Then group-think (moronism and cronyism) kicks in (confirmation bias). If the machine is not bias, then these “men” will, 100% of the time.

Seen any black faces and foreign sounding names lately on the news??? on Fox perhaps where you may find some Syrian refugees, whose names, faces and voices aren’t recognized by both man and machine. Instead, well perhaps, you might like this, ….since it says here…it doesn’t recognize your name, voice and face.

How can one bridge a 4 1/2-decades gap? A lot went under and if anything survived, it would be unrecognizable or undesirable ( with the exception of Jane Fonda, once a sex-symbol, then Hanoi Jane, then 80’s aerobics actress marrying Ted Turner, and now every Friday- per her vow, a Climate Change activist).

Back in 1900, life expectancy for male was 47. Now it is inching at 79, a 3-decades+ gain. 32 years can bring a Cupertino company back from the brink (Apple); it can also scattered families or re-unite them or make millionaires out of miserables.

There were hardly any Vietnamese-American (1200) in the US up until the time US troops pulled out of VN (will there be a lot of Syrian from this point on). Yet, we managed to fill up a banquet room for our 44-year re-union in Tx. Some made strides, others were at a loss. But the faces and friendships were still recognizable.

To my best knowledge, those gap decades claimed a hearing, a spine, a memory and an eye – Minh, Thoa, Ve and Cuong – or worse off, a life: Anh, Long, Banh, Hong, Phuc, Bao. Now, it’s all “the remains of the day” with an eye toward the future.

In 20-30 years, rich people might space-travel, order or uber a self-driving car, and be cared for by a Japanese robot at home with body-parts delivered by drones.

We will only meet face-to-face when we have to or want to.

Memories of happy times will be our new currency not time. It is no longer money. Attention and recommendations are. More speed, more democratized Net, and more diverse interests (even chips are no longer on an universal silicon board).

Our foods will be individually “prescribed” by nutritionist-robots (Star-War like). Why eat s/t the body rejects and refuses.

Of course, we will know more than our old teacher(s) and parents.

But how can one filter information, distill knowledge to make wisdom?

Everything will be available at a price, except for the option of shutting down the machine (grid).

The gap decades have not adequately prepared us for these coming decades. Not when Moore’s Law still speeds up exponentially. As Sapiens, we barely got rid off the “Erectus” selves to use our minds and conquer our emotions (EQ). We still crave for inter-action and touch. Still a social animal.

Hence, we are ill-equipped to let go our past to embrace our future.

We progress to a plateau, slow and shun too much modernity.

Who among us asked to live past the mid point? is it for the health-care industry’s benefits (the same way Walmart scales its shopper’s base with AI in logistic to dominate walk-in, and Amazon, the same, if you prefer staying home.)

What can we talk about when we talk about old age and old times.

Can we still recognize the man/woman in the mirror? Can Jane Fonda?

Climate change. People change. Change itself is changing. Fast. Decades can go by again, and we will be looking back to the (upcoming) gap decades.

Can’t stand the thought of living down a technological life without being made aware of various and simultaneous software updates. What’s blockchain? What is a man? A social security number? Imago Dei? A few cents worth chemical properties, or a son-brother-husband-father-friend?

It ‘s time to circle back to the beginning, as a poet puts it ” in my end, my beginning”.

Our story continues – from that 47-yr-old ending (back in 1900) onward- an extended and ballooning middle, then the inevitable and swift end ( around age 79). Like a conclusion of a 24-episode with clues planted earlier in the scene, our lives carry its own suspense and surprises.

I am very interested in what’s going to happen to Jane Fonda next Friday, to Climate Change, and by extension, to me in upcoming decades. I will meet up with whoever peers. By that time, we would be much appreciative of human response as oppose to machine reply (Siri, Alexa….).

All of a sudden, we are of values, not because we outlive folks born in 1900, but because we are simmering and a sure alternative to hard and software, stuff that are too available and affordable ( more big screen TV’s anyone?).

You can’t buy friendship and empathy. We, Homo Deus, are wired to share and in turn receive those for free despite decades between us. That’s how one bridges the gap decades: by remembering the right stuff and ridding of the undesirable ones.

Ever since “Me Too” went viral, people who were squeezed, groped, raped etc…started to come out. At recent all-boys re-union (definitely not Penn State – Sandusky was already in jail), I was told it’s the other way: it had been our head-master – the Evil one – that was groped (our class-room’s wall got plenty of gaping holes) by small hands all at once stuck through and out – any of our 100+ hands would do. Immediate suspension was called for- up til now it’s still unsolved a prank.

The two who once fought each other or held grudges, now made up. I visited a friend we had “volunteered” at street fights. Trieu Kien Ve later got amnesia, not from that one quick punch in the cheek, but from a traffic accident years later. We owe you Ve the price of team loyalty.

Good to know we got absolution.

Spouses who accompanied them can now breathe ( it’s been on the back of their minds, …what if.) that’s all? boys bullying?..Not like in…”How can I tell her”?…

From life’s menu we’ve got choices of…grey hair or bald, stingy spouse or stunning spouse, great career or no career at all.

We were in school uniforms, pushed from behind during recess and fought our quickest way to the ping-pong tables (2) or the canteen next to the boys’ room.

Me, the one and only, had the key to the studio for band rehearsal. Haha!

Spouses must understand.

Their hubbies were picked with utmost care and consideration, watched with strictest discipline (Mr Onion himself) and taught by coolest teachers.

Now if they turned out undesirable, miserable and unconsolable, then it’s a waste- your charge! Today, bypassers just notice Joan d’Arc church without a passing glance across the street. But to my brother’s generation ( refugees from the North), when the school got re-located there from a Petrus Ky horse stable, it’s quite a step-up for CVA 60.

We walked in 68, eager like beaver then scattered to the four winds, music room or Independence Palace keys, dropped and left behind in 75 like chicken w/ heads off.

We learned the 4R’s (respect first). We learned not to get distracted by les filles (only those who stayed late across the street awaiting for the arrival of co-ed 3rd-shift students who air b-and-b’ed our classrooms). We learned esprit des corps when invaded by Cao Thang poly-technique-students (blue vs white) and we learned from our role-models: bearded-Toan – journalism; Quoc Dung – author of Mai, music; and Thao – den (diem) who went with our team to Mac-Dinh Chi HS to sell our CVA special publication.

Back to groping. At a re-union one might find a lot of un-expected: “he used to ‘un-zip’me” for a quick ” surgery”… ” It would have come out long ago at previous re-unions unless we were short on wine/booze. Me-Too! Or about fights across the street which often got interrupted by the Priest who made a habit of chasing us off his lawn ( the only lawn we grew up in).

Thank you Hoa (Duc Auto’s wife) for a wonderful home-cooked meal, Tri’s wife Thu for the skit w/ Cong “Ngu” and of course, her brother/singer who flew in from CA for the entertainment. “Anh con no em”….

For Trieu K Ve (punched red-cheek), Phong (36 Mac Dinh Chi). Wish you were there on 10/5/19 in Houston.

et les filles, de mon age…..

Before going to the Re-union of my all-boys school, I made sure everything was set for the long weekend: foods in fritz and floor vacuumed.

Whatever happened at Re-union stayed at Re-union, I thought.

I just gonna press Reset and back to my routine: kid off to school, bills paid and floor vacuumed. Again???? Then it hit me. This time it’s different.

This time, I vacuumed AFTER I had seen many long lost friends, and for a mysterious reason, I missed them (perhaps because I had said I loved them – which should carry with it a load of responsibilities.)

Not to take it lightly. The humanities teacher reminded us he was there when us young eagles needed a push, to be initiated and introduced to Vietnamese writers and poets e.g. Thanh Tinh, Vu Hoang Chuong etc…

I myself received ( today’s equivalent of stickers) books on cities in Vietnam e.g. Vinh Long, which opened my mind beyond my northern refugee slum of Saigon.

Now, it’s like going back for a software update.

A few observations: people with jobs attended it, people with great jobs organized it and people with no jobs played spectators along with wives. The later is yet another story (Tour les filles).

I was reluctant to show up to the day. Then I found out my friend Hung “con” showed up even later. That’s when it struck the chord, figuratively speaking. Hung went on to jazz and software testing, both not seemingly are in conflict at all, ” but not because …chang phai vi em”.

I am just a populist crowd-pleaser while Hung forges his own path and discovers his own style, musically and socially.

He reminds me of George Harrison with his double hit “Something” and “Here comes the Sun” in that he rises above himself and circumstances.

Hung seemed pre-occupied (lots of chips on his shoulders???). Back to the rest. We’ve got a taste of a variety of talent from photography to journalism, from theater to speech.

None impresses me more about our wholistic school experience than the teacher’s sharp and focused mind. He stressed “Ton Su Trong Dao”….i.e. we’re in for a make-over, having been contaminated with “wtf”, “fy” and other twittering acronyms in the age of Trump.

In all, I am glad I got nudged into it without which I wouldn’t otherwise have met a bunch of new friends : same age, same school, and many of same class. They were with spouses, some even went “footloose” that night.

When I turned left at the Hwy 290 fork to head back, it hit me that although I have felt in love with many books, “I read so I won’t be alone”, yet someone somewhere and somehow had introduced me to the love of literature, of belonging to an extended family stretching through time and geography (Northern and Southern VN), whose decency and magnanimity rose above difficult and depressing circumstances.

We were all-boys once, on our first day of school, all locked up (Bit Tat) after the drum beats…for hours, restless and rumble.

Today we are free and floating like balloons tied together at the bottom by the trembling hand of our teachers. But we chose to come back, to be a bunch of colors, converged, to make one single light, a (Fire) which illuminates and shines on one and only truth: those who are educated and enlightened should at least live a different life than others, even in darkest hours. I am mindful that not “tous les garçons”are alright. Many are battered but not broken, hard-hearing but not hard to please.

That hurried walk to first day of school was a journey of a thousand miles. It began with that single step across from the Jeanne d’Arc Church, with a reading of that 1st single line each of us had copied from the blackboard: “Tien Hoc Le, Hau Hoc Van”.

And I wasn’t alone in that self-effacing and stripping process. I wish I could learn to trust and love again as I did there at Chu Van An 1.0. That passion for life-long learning is still here, burning and unput-out-able.

The Beatles once gave an impromptu concert on a London roof-top: Don’t Let Me Down. If it were today, they would have drones deliver lunches.

Katrina could have used some too ( GeorgeW. Bush “observed” ‘Help Us’ signs from his Air Force One Heli, but Presidentially distant himself).

De Palma could now extend his 360-degree Blow-Out shot to be the longest on Guinness Records.

Our lives will never be the same. We will play games all-day except breaking for lunch and dinner.

GPS, Edge-Computing, un-manned air-craft & automobile converge. What an orgy made in Heaven.

Utopian sex with augmented babes feel more than real.

I am painting a not-too-far-from-reality picture here.

And I don’t like it either. Time with friends ( who is your friend, that’s another matter) with nature and with your kids/grand-kids; will be compromised by cramming posts and pics.

The wework laid-offs are joining the weplay folks, while the Uber and Lift sub-contractors have their cars repossed.

So much for the “sharing-economy”. We all bid for time till the next version of softwares and hardwares come out, incrementally, exponentially and hockey-stickedly.

I am no dummy mummy, which is what the Kurzweils of Google are thinking and working on (augmented immortality or De Palma would say, living in a perpetual split-screen existence).

Reflections of my virtual life.

First are the engineers (today’s high-priests), then venture capitalists, then the worker-bees, us. As long as the stock markets are humming and the Feds are at the lever to affectf the Dows, then business as usual.

Truckers are suckers!!!! esp. UPS ones as of two days ago.

Meanwhile the Buffetts and Waltons still live in insulate Omahas, not Oakland, with plenty of time to play Monopoly with their Emperor’s grandkids.

Tech, finance and Climate Change lip-service of the one of one hundredth percenters, in their new Halloween and Harvard ( Cap & Gown) costume.

Except for a huge donation to an University to fight Climate Chang, it’s all your fault: for not saving, for not salvaging and for not being born in the right zip code ( preferably in proper skin tone and fine English accent).

We, King of the Hill, will always be standing on top of the hill ( not New Orleans Dome). We are the resurrected ones, naked and bony. Don’t take our contra-soleil selfies. Not yet, not until the music starts and the trumpet sounds…. for we shall give a concert, on high, on the roof-top of London, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris, Sydney, Vancouver, San Francisco, Rome, Warsaw etc… Wherever there is money, there is music. Don’t Let Me Down.

Our night sky is no longer the same i.e. a constellation of stars and planets from afar and air traffic, LEO’s, UPS drones near below

I stopped by a Frys Electronics and was amazed at how hollow the sight was: it were as if invaded and looted by aliens on a Black Friday. There were only a few toys left near the perfume and DVDs aisles ( same merchandise on display in Los Angeles’ Alley – except for the large lease building).

Bricks-n-mortars are dying while Amazon Prime is gearing up for this Holiday Seasons.

Tech once again is fast-moving leaving behind the un-Tech.

Blacks used to protest at diner’s counter inside Department Stores in the South. At Frys (for instance), the Cafe is now closed. No one serves no one else, hence, no protest nor discrimination. Everything and everyone is moving online, and we will soon live in virtual world the majority of the time.

Here comes everybody, and nobody.

The machine and me, collaborating and cursing at each other.

South Korea, according to Fiber (the book), is to the US, what the US is to Sub-Sahara (in terms of Broadband).

Singapore GDP per capita is now 56,000 dollars. I wonder if Singaporean are happy with their new-found wealth???

Will they want drone-delivery at night as well, so their wives can try on those pre-ordered shoes. Santa used to drop ship through the chimney. Today’s Alibaba and Amazon can make last- minute magic on your solar roof on Christmas Eve.

While at it, please make one of my wishes come true: that this Holiday Season be a peaceful one on Earth, and that some among our 7 Billion get to try on new and donated shoes. Tech gets too ahead of us. While it can help deliver anything (55 pounds limits) at night in the US, it is not required nor is it asked the hard question: can you deliver happiness by drones.

Long ago, Jeeps and tanks were delivered to Normandy. Technology and humanity together against tyranny. We can do it yet again in smaller scales with smaller software-enabled steel. Only if we steady our nerves and strengthen our resolve in spite of this toxic environment. How about just a small act of kindness for a start, with or without drones.