Thang Nguyen 555

Billy Crystal once found his one thing ( all I remember was his sore butts back from an urban cowboy ride) in City Slickers.

You and I perhaps are not too different: sored and stressed from trying and failing to acquire and achieve The thing. If stuff makes one happy, we should all be hoarding and carrying around on our backs all the “toys” Made-in-Anywhere.

Kids learned fast: new toy, then next one, then next.

They got the juice and discarded the rest. Time is valuable, if only in their sub-conscious. I learned that at an early age, seeing my next-door neighbor brought home in a flag-covered casket, or my first love jumped on a slick scooter for a band audition: life is not permanent.

War time brought out the best and worst. People killed and be killed, shot and got shot at.

Conventional etiquette and rules were out of the window: bar girls in, school girls out.

Students at rival schools, instead of competing in a game of La Crosse, would use wrenches and knives to settle inter-collegial fights. The war wins, everyone else looses. People rushed, from Central Highlands down to the coast where helicopters ferried them to the international waters, round and round until funding stopped. Babies got thrown out and down from the air to the 7th-fleet aircraft carriers, or over the fence at the US embassy’s gate.

No one found that one thing or lost loved ones after all these years ( statistics showed that half of the Boat People died at seas many at the hands of Thai pirates). Johnny Depp shouldn’t be proud of his role in the Pirates of the Caribbean which makes Robin Hood out of South China Seas murderers whose victims got robbed and raped multiple times over.

I haven’t found the one thing either. But I have experienced the rush, the multiple-choice tests and life’s forced options. I have reflected on my choices: nature or nurture? happenstance or deliberate conscious decision?

And all the while, life continues to flow on irrespective of who is doing the contemplation.

I, however, recognize the signs (of something on its last leg) and (of something on the verge of breaking out). I recognize the circumstances that break the best of men ( time and idleness). And I recognize kindness and humility. I admire people who are down and out, but hold on still to their dignity – the last ounce of humanity.

The stink and stench of the naked selves after the last layer of masks exposes unreservedly the shamefulness of a revealed self. Luckily we still have that last and little reserve (pride). At worst, we are still better than what we thought of ourselves. We did not know it just yet, until the final curtain.

Billy Crystal and his yuppie friends thought they found the one thing. That was then (weekend outing) and this is now (weekend shooting). Manifesto this, manifesto that, 8chan this, 8 chan that. No one has ever found that one thing. Life evades us all. It is an eternal mystery not to be found in life or beyond. It keeps us on our toes, makes us guess: maybe karma, perhaps some atonement or penance?

The search for that one thing sharpens our dull souls and shines the light around us ( and we all of a sudden notice others on the same path, seeking the same thing ). That path, that boulevard has a song attached to it, a straight shot out of LAX ” all I wanna do is to have some fun, till the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard”.

It’s been quite a journey from Saigon to Santa Monica looking for a heart of gold…and I am getting old.

I have taken trips throughout my life, many of which I wished I had stayed and never come back (damn those two-way tickets with expiration dates).

Some of those trips were just few-week stops along the way of some restless summers. You may frame me as a sort of backpackers.

Except the term has been loosely coined mostly for Yale-like types to explore the Orient, in the hope that someday, one might be qualified for Ambassadorship.

I, on the other hand, just went wherever my heart led me: to Liberia (so I could experience first-hand what’s like to re-patriate as a freed American slave), to Cote D’Ivoire (so I could see the vestige of French Colonialism – very similar traffic control booths like the ones in Vietnam), to HongKong (where I, refugee-turned-relief worker, could offer minor comfort to fellow men less fortunate than I, or, to put it bluntly, in the same boat as I six years earlier), to the Philippines – where I could discern patterns of cultures, a place where people were neither/nor yet both/and (English in language, yet Asian in culture).

Trips I have taken back to Vietnam, but not in the same mindset as the native nor wavelength as Yale-like backpackers: I ain’t white.

I was neither accepted as one of the natives since many were born and grew up after the Fall of Saigon nor was I approached by District-1 vendors hoping to sell souvenirs e.g. zippos, dog tags and “Fire in the Lake” copies of copies.

But each trip offers its own uniqueness. People, places, and life-altered experience. Each trip carved away some of me, and in their places, gave me back a lot more.

I no longer am Sam. I don’t look at people through the color lenses, nor do I “hear” people solely via the language spoken.

I ate, slept in my grad school friend’s home (Ghana) and went to their open-air churches ( 5000+ in attendance) where I was asked to give a few words from, oh well, America (ironically, a land whose current President tried to “homestead” for White-only). Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, after his 78 Harvard speech – which raised alarm about overt materialism – suffered and endured criticism, among which ” don’t like it? go home”.

I am here because America had a conscience attack back on that last day of Vietnam. Good conscience!. The last of loyalty and lessons learned.

Trips I have taken were outpourings of and were aligned with white-men burden, conscience attack, noblesse oblige, guilt, Manifest Destiny?, the Great Commission (subdue the Earth – then the Moon). After absorbed those “American” scripts, I went out of my way to bring them to life. My D-Day. So don’t tell me to go back to where I came from, after having been totally “bleached” inside out (not to mention paid all my dues).

If I were to subscribe to stimuli-response reflex, to every taunt or tweet of this man-child, I would be flying back East many times over (or “Turning East” as the title of a Harvey Cox book). Just have to locate my return ticket.

But not this way, not by ill-timed tweets “Go back..” Heck, ain’t no Exodus away from America ever. People came here with one-way tickets, mind it be a passage across the Atlantic, or a boat ride out on the Pacific. Before embarking on those volunteer summers overseas, I made sure I raise enough money for those two-way tickets to make America all the more beautiful in the world’s eyes. All the while, I wasn’t even one of those Ivy-league backpackers with Ambassadorial aspiration to begin with. Just a reflex stimuli-response to world’s need as we all should.

Keep moving.

Let the future grab and pull you forward and upward (spiral).

Don’t allow a certain (negative or positive) event or people to define you.

Hang on to your guitar, your camera, your pen, tools which help you in good and bad times.

Money is still the root of all evil as it has always.

Don’t feel bad if you are not born into money, or won’t end up with a lot.

Just enjoy the moment – your childhood was a bit unusual, in that you were born into a family of 4 adults (much older siblings). Turn your loneliness into joy, abandonment into empathy.

Use everything.

Harness them, let nothing go to waste i.e. agony, anger, poison, toxicity… in family or at work.

Strengthen yourself one atom and one second at a time. Waste not time.

What comes around will always come around. Guard yourself and believe in yourself always. Hang on to your immediate families, through thick and thin. Rush not to judgment or to please others e.g. strangers always know best. Resist the blame game.

Extend and enlarge the Pause (between Stimuli & Response).

Live with the right mix of knowledge, wisdom, emotion and social smart.

Above all, survive at all costs. Time is all there is, hence, rush not to your final end: make time to listen to the kids, to music, to the voices of wisdom.

Humanity has progressed quite nicely, hence, re-invent not the wheel. Every thought and idea perhaps has been in existence and is at your disposal, thanks to the invention called Networked World.

You’ll see. A lille heartbreak here, a huge setback there, will all come to pass.

Embrace and forget not those moments that stood out above all others e.g. in a cross-hair when parents were in a heated argument; hence, the natural tendency is to blame yourself or think you are the one at fault (or wanting to self-incriminate, to be a martyr for the sake of group harmony).

That’s your life, your narrative and your make-up. Love yourself then give it away at each passing moment. Can’t keep it, might as well share it. He who is not afraid to lose that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. You’ll find out, the more you lose, the more you live.

Anger, protest and revolt. Things are still as they have always been.

Peace signs, peace songs….and peace icons. Then, revolt turns to retreat.

Yoko Ono now crowd-sources “My Mom is Beautiful” on Facebook Page.

Back to the basics. Back to the wombs that carried us: safe and secure.

Your Mom is beautiful. Iranian and American moms are both beautiful.

So were Vietnamese moms who carried their child wounded by napalm, or tossed them down from the chopper in the hope that the 7th fleet crew could catch and carry him/her to a better life in America.

Anger, protest and revolt..until it’s blue in the face. Things are still the same i.e. war triggers the economy, (military) spending and needed distraction.

Our neuro responses often fall into 3 camps: make it happen, wait for it to happen, or ask “what happened”.

Same old play book: “fait accompli” or “hail marry”.

It’s not the drone. It’s not the tanker. It’s the ready playbook.

Pull it off the shelves, put your finger on the page: there it is.

Call the shot. Joe Pa. Ignore the rumors. Handle the uprising, protest, anger.

Then kick the can down the road.

We only live once, perhaps presiding over one single term.

So let’s do it. Short-term approach, long-term consequences.

Let the mothers of the world worry about putting their children on the ground.

My Mom is beautiful. Theirs are ugly.

Oil is desirable but pushing them V8s to the gas line is not ( 73, 79).

Memories of war are now faded but sweating and waiting (and smoking) at busy gas stations ain’t cool. Like a child writes on the tablet, then erases it. And starts again. We’ll do it swiftly so as to avoid another “Vietnam”.

Do it so quickly, preferably over-night with press black-out (this time, not CNN, but FOX). No anger, protest or revolt. They can tweet all they want later, 140 characters at a time …until it’s blue in the face. (He called off “to save 150 lives). Give him 150- characters tweeting privilege as a reward.

We’ve all got moments worth-retelling. But all will be gone to waste if it’s not from and by us since we’re both the narrators and the primary source vs through someone else’s recollection of us, or worst of , they stole our thunder by re-telling about us as if we were absent in the room.

We are transitioning from man-to-machine e.g. withdraw $20 like the last time, your browsing history, the AI that cracks the Beatles “who wrote this” code etc… From online retail to online learning, online sex to online religion.

I wrote about going through the whole 24- hours without interacting with a human being. At this rate, I might as well go see a counselor trained by online counseling schools, and who can recognize the agony of those have already had their 15-minutes of fame ( of course, the line was quoted from Andy Warhol who frequented Studio 54) or face time.

We used to be jealous of real people, now it’s against social media, against Youtube and Facebook that monopolize our loved ones’ time (at least 6 hours a day one post at a time). It’s the revenge of the nerds whose upload speed is now decent enough to make up for decades of lost times (yet household data spending remains at level). Just poke and get a thumbs up, down to the lowest common denominators.

A friend I haven’t seen in 47 years said ” life is like chewing gum, after a while, it gets less sweet”. I wonder where facebook is going to take us, but I am worried that its content will get watered down to 1% common denominator while 99% creeped and crammed in by AI and online ads catered to and curated in our own image.

Alone together.

Attention starved. Nobody is there for us to retell those hard-earned memories:

memories of the flood ( district 3 Saigon) and of the family fight ( 4 adults running Chinese fire drill around dinner table)

memories of the fright ( thief in the night) and flight (7th fleet on the Pacific horizon and a duffle bag full of defunct currencies, tossed into the sea like cremated ashes).

Memories of face “the first time, I ever saw your face” (Aily of the Apple 3).

Memories of fear “Daaaaaaaad” (seeing him fall down the stairs)

memories of fun “don’t jerk off in the showers” yelled someone in a Penn State dorm showers – walking distance from Sandusky’s infamous & echoing gym showers

memories of peace, waking up from a nap in mom’s assisted living one-bedroom.

Memories of my child’s cries and of the opposite-sex orgasm.

Memories of rejection ( 1st sale job) and reception (1st fax machine sold).

Of singing in the choir (and touring the nursing homes) and the band ( while watching my girl friend slow-dance with her x-boyfriend).

Memories of seeing people running away after withdrawing from Three-Mile Island ATM’s or Saigon last day of bank opening.

Memories of Tet, of burning incense and burning monk.

Memories: all of which trans-continental and bi-sexual. Memories of victories (winning cars) and defeats (getting fire).

Memories on the road to individuation and becoming.

Yet we will soon let all of them be flushed down the toilet, either because of Alzheimer or AI. We will leave behind only digital footprints – those machine-aided and re-constructed memories i.e. facebook memories – reposted over and over, hence allowing ourselves be re-composed and re-cycled into unrecognizable digital forms, distorted and disjointed.

Remember me in organic forms or not at all!!!!

Loved ones will be limited with our re-constructed and recommended memories, only selected peaks and parts, two-dimensional (sound and sight). I am “half the man I used to be”, no matter I did “my way” or not. When Milli Vanillin started to lip-sync their songs, I saw the hand-writings on the wall.

All the struggles to stay human i.e. angry, loving, hateful and compassionate; out the window. What’s left are second-hand sources, hearsay, snippets of re-constructed (photoshop?) fragments:. the eulogy self.

Damn. The age of analog and anger is nearly over. I’d rather watch the raw smelly-vision than having virtual sex with an EX Machina. I am born this way: with 5 senses yet deprived with only 3 frequently used, hence not even half the man I used to be: a form of slow death. Unplug me, or let me re-tell those memories and milestones paid dearly with my own price. Let me be the primary source cause I am a man who can speak for himself.

It’s somber, it’s sacred and sometimes hidden away in secret.

Like an Ishiguro’s novel, “the Buried Giant”.

Like a shrine discovered in Tinker Creek.

We tend to forget and we will. No cure for that, yet.

But incense, chant, and statues will evoke deep-seated memories.

Of times Mom tried to nudge me to bow, to show respect for a parallel universe away from and outside of myself.

It’s today’s equivalent of trying to get your kids off the screen.

We self-project and refuse to entertain any other mode of thinking, of doing and talking.

We shed skin, but then it grows back out the same. Hair color dido. Perhaps we should try “taboo removal” on our hearts and mind.

My space of reverence is “Serenity”, family burial ground, hopefully, sees some flowers this weekend: final resting place for my sojourned predecessors.

They were once fallen prey to propaganda: “French films are best”, “Chinese philosophers are wise” and “Japanese wives submissive”.

They believed and followed it, then were laid rest in the soil.

Hence, those propaganda persist, perpetuate and of course propagate like a Ponzi scheme with each new generation (or new layer of recruits).

We do need guidance and guideposts, and plenty of those during this graduation season. Yet we are confused, forgetful and leaderless, in an era of fake news and facebook news. We self-project and hear only the echo of our own chamber. Of course that cousin will like our posts, and this friend will tolerate our eccentricities. But out there, amidst all the white noise, there must be a cry in the wilderness, a prophetic one, reminding and nudging us toward the sacred space, and un-clogging our hearts. The way people woke up and said “I am mad like Hell and I won’t take it anymore”.

We should show a re-run of “the Network” the movie instead of staying away from downtown St Louis or wherever the neo-KKK are staging a demonstration this weekend, trying to stir up and stage a comeback. A la reserche du temps perdu! Of the times that never were. An anti-thesis to sacredness! Robes, chants, incense, music and yes, donation boxes are all good and necessary since our spiritual selves need purification, not indulgence. We need to be away from ourselves to save ourselves and remember those “buried giants”.

We need to rediscover shrines and secret hidings of the gods, who, unless we humble ourselves as pilgrims, ain’t gonna reveal to us, and not in white hoods and burning crosses. When you belong to sacred space, you don’t need to exert too much of an influence. It will radiate naturally, and propagate without help from Ponzi or Nazi.

I want to seek and remember Sacred Space this Memorial Weekend. It’s good for my soul and my tainted heart.

US Today often publishes 10 Best Places to Live, to Retire, to See etc… but I have yet seen its 10 Best Places to Die.

But I have seen with my own eyes, however, how my grandma got buried (in Vietnam) and how my Dad got buried (in Virginia).

From experience, I’d rather die in Vietnam, surrounded by friends and families, the band and the bystanders.

But first, let me recount the most impressive funeral procession I have ever attended. It was for my Uncle-in-Law, who owned a chain of cinemas in Saigon. In fact, his residence at the time was in the back of one of the cinemas, right across from my future High-School. Prime real-estate.

When he passed away, his funeral was so lavish that it etched in my mind as if it were yesterday: led by two sets of horses and carriages (black and white), the procession stretched for miles packed with attendees in tailored-white. Families occasionally fell down onto the pavement in grief and mourning. Although chaotic to be expected, the scene ironically seemed well-choreographed, with marching bands back-to-back in a flow of foot traffic. Of course the street was completely cordoned off, while strangers looked on, many with hats off and heads bowed. People were courteous and considerate when witnessing someone’s death ( in this case, leaving behind a considerable amount of wealth: a chain of cinema, one in each district and one in our nearest beach compared to our humbler paternal grandma’

Though not as lavish yet equally impressionable was when my grandma passed away. My cousin told me to run and get a half-liter of rice alcohol (I had a lot of practice buying for my grandma the same thing, at the same place and the same amount).

The alcohol was for rubbing her still-warm body. She wore socks that lasted until decades later when her body got exhumed for cremation and re-burial in the North. I had my moment of “the Remains of the Day” at her funeral: adopted aunt, biological aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, my half-sister etc.. We laughed, we cried and we teared up recounting snippets of good times. Somehow our little abode could contain so many people and visitors who each brought a wreath and attached condolences. Everyone came with a good heart and shared humanity.

Then decades went by. It’s my Dad’s turn. He ended up being buried in Fairfax, Virginia on a cold morning with snow on the ground. Tarp and tent were set for us, a handful of mourners in black ( and six pairs of white gloves). The section was called “Serenity”. My oldest sister said “everything is now over” and she cried. As if all the years of heavy burden were finally laid to rest too: his years of struggling in the boot camp, in the Army fighting for just cause, fighting at work (he punched a guy who said something offensive to him and ended up losing his job), fighting to protect his refugee family ( read Early Memories), fighting against my bully, fighting with my mom for being rightfully jealous, and fighting to push my brother to become a pharmacist who would rather be a musician.

Where would I like to be buried? Of course, where there is music.

Where people pause and reflect on their own lives. At least, the occasion of my stop-breathing helps serve as a reminder for by-standers that every minute and moment is precious. And that somehow, magically, we are put here as stardusts to bear testimony to a life well-lived, good deeds done and relationships worth-getting involved in.

My grandma’s funeral was the best I have ever engaged in. She was my first roommate after all, a humble soul who taught me life and laughter. Someday I might as well toast a rice alcohol drink to her when I visit her re-located grave up North. She forever plays second-fiddle (re-buried to the left of my grandpa, whose first wife had been laid next to him at her rightful place on the right) yet second-to-none, since she forever occupies an important place in my throbbing heart.

I guess US Today wouldn’t venture to publish “Best Place to Die” since the subject doesn’t sell.

Valley girls used to show-off their belly buttons, wear high-heel shoes and go shopping at the Galleria together. They still do. But less. Much less.

Recent studies show a sharp decline in Mall patronage while conversely, there aren’t enough ware-house real estate for the like of Amazons.

What’s going on? Can’t wait to watch Diane Swayer’s special. She took six months to travel the US, to find out what’s going on (in the tradition of senior news-person before her): who’s “bowling alone”, dining alone, and playing MS’ Solitaire.

It’s sad just now as I was watching a clip about neo-KKK’s crashing a Jewish book reading. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and everyone is equal under the Law. Right!!! Tell that to the millions who had died before Hitler killed himself. People slant and spin, manufacture and twist their narratives all the time. What’s your tolerance for half-baked truth? What’s your shade of grey?

We live in a political, cultural and technological bubble. Yet we were told “not to rock the boat”. So no one wants to disturb the comforted and comfort the afflicted. During the Vietnam War, reports kept coming back to Washington, showing an up-tick in enemy casualty. Statistics lie. People (you and I lie). Ponzi and his disciples lie.

I am glad nature doesn’t. Comes Spring time, I get the allergy. Prompto. On schedule. More reliable than a Swiss watch. If MBA curriculums have slightly changed after 2008 (more courses on ethics), their fruits have yet to show. We still have CEO charged with pushing drugs, x-student still killed on-campus and IS still claims credits for tourist massacre.

One recommendation for recruiting managers: two candidates of equal HR values, pick the one who is more honest, predictable. You ask him or her what time he/she is at the gym everyday. You will know who lies better. That person should be sent home to “bowl alone”. Wish I had lied enough to stay with ABC-affiliate back then ( I did not take the job offer to be its ENG photographer since I had to take care of my mom in Washington D.C.).

Liars get so used to twisting the truth that someday, they lie alone i.e. lying to themselves (cosmetic surgery, rationalizing, selective amnesia etc…..). Then people of less tolerance for lying will dissolve and disappear from their circle of “truth”. Liars will eventually turn loners and will have to live with themselves, entertaining their versions of truth and re-write their new narratives.

None of us know ourselves deeply enough, so we learn to lie even to ourselves. Until one day, like the last sentence in “Night”, we look in the mirror, and a monster looks back at us. Like the store clerk at the Mall, cleaning his/her window and sees only his/her reflection. Where are the Valley Girls? Of course, they are shopping alone. When the co-locating rack-space need more real estate, Telecom companies converted hotels into telco hotels. Now the new trend soon will be converting Mall=wareshouse. And Diane Sawyer’s wrap-up would be: since the advent of the I-phones, shoppers no longer frequented malls such as this one. Instead, the screens have replaced social scenes and increasingly, our teenagers grow up in a manufactured and virtual environment. Shopping alone is not too different from buying milk from a vending machine. At least, in the latter case, they interact with the outside world. Now, people can be literally next to each other and live in a totally different world.

“Ocean apart, day after day…”. That lyrics will need to be changed to suit our new attention-starved culture.

The 70’s brought us songs that reflect that decade’s youthful longing and loss. We inherited ” I’ll never fall in love again”, “Feelings”, “I will give everything I own”.

From the Youngbloods ( Get together) to America (Daisy Jane), we got a feeling that there are more behind those long hair and bushy beard: “we have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us” or ” we have traveled the world, and come home, knowing it for the first time”.

Blame it on Vietnam with its Five-O-Clock Follies (daily press briefing at Hotel Continental). On the 57,000 deaths and many missing.

Horror, horror.

On the one side, body count (accounting), on the other, peace and love (intangible).

The 70’s generation grew up confused and dazed. Which way to turn??? It’s truly a crisis of confidence. So we elected a President who forever regrets he did not order more helicopters to rescue American hostages in Iran.

BTW. It’s Iran, not Vietnam that has been America’s quagmire.

Vietnam ended 44 years ago. Iran oil embargo and economic sanction is still in place. Back to “in-touch”. The 70’s generation turned inward: Me, Me, Me.

If the world doesn’t respond or isn’t responsive to my need, I will have to do it myself: I elect a government of one: of me, by me and for me.

The 70’s is a hybrid between the Peace movement and the Pentagon insurgency. It grew up watching the confrontation between McNamara and the “Hell-No” folks. “How many roads must a man travel”.

The answer is still blowing in the wind, even today. Jack Ma of Alibaba deflects the blame (that China is a culprit of America’s economic woe) by saying that it’s the USA’s fault for spending trillions of dollars on warfare in the past three decades, and not China that takes away American jobs. In every situation, the tendency is to scapegoat, assign blame and deflect guilt.

The 70’s folks absorb Vietnam. The acidity of post-war guilt ate up that generation (long passing). The Vietnam Memorial Wall in D.C. reflects that. You see yourself on that shinny black marble wall, even when your name isn’t there. At times, you wish it were: to do away with the guilt, shame and self-recrimination. Have I done enough to stop the senselessness of the event? Horror, horror! It’s been 44 years that I carried this uncalled-for blame. I was just a freshman in college, trying to do good (raising money for displaced war refugees from the Central regions of Vietnam). All of a sudden, the dominoes fell, upending my world, my life and everything I held dear.

Without a home nor homeland, I overheard Wake Island Armed-Forces radio playing Diana Ross’ “Do you know, where going to, do you like the things that life’s been showing you”. I felt like Paul Mc Cartney’ s “Band on the run”. In that context, was I the one to take the blame for what happened (The Fall of Saigon), or it’s someone else? The situation? The quagmire? Or the human condition from the dawn of time i.e. self-inflicting and self-sabotage?

I will leave this to historian, psychologist and warfare strategist. All I know was, in the second-half of the 70’s, kids in college were just “doing time”, knowing that the system was rigged i.e. poor kids get killed in war while rich kids protest it. And from there, we got Lionel Richie “chills” it for us in ” Easy like a Sunday morning”.

Gosh! I miss that era despite its vulnerability and helplessness. Just carry on and hope tomorrow be better. And true enough, we are still here, now.