Thang Nguyen 555

Neither Hippies nor Yuppies, I just wanted to skip some Maslow Hierarchy steps and get to the meat (self-actualizing) of things. Thanks to student-loan deferred years, I volunteered in Asia and Africa – front-ending my giving – energy, time and com-passion (as opposed to wait and accumulate spare change and spare time to donate “stale” leisure seeking years to charity work overseas). It’s my self-funded version of Peace Corps “ask not” – what the suffering world can do for you…

Upon re-entry, I had to start over i.e. $100-suit $50-car, hitting the pavement: Sales, then Alternate Sales Channel, Multi-Cultural Direct Sales, Revenue Assurance and Train the trainers in Long-Distance Telephony and Voice-mail system with front-desk folks gave me the look.

As the looming Y2K scare approached, heralding the imminent death of long distance, we were all pumped with adrenaline: even elevators and microwave ovens seemed way too slow. Wall Street was rumbled as robber barons prowled, scouted and land-grabed the Next Big Thing: WorldCom bought MCI number 2 with hyper stocks, ATT and British Telecom joined in a Concert, Time-Warner ” got email” from AOL; all the while MCI held on to Vint Cerf of Distributed Architecture – still is in and of full use today in Ashburn, VA (Money – still – Coming In). Information and data pipe.

Everyone tried to connect the world via whatever communication technology: Telephony, VoIP and Dial Around. The same mission and model of Meta and Big Tech today, albeit under the shadow of globalization and its discontent. The more technology (the way), the more reluctant we call on our fellow human being (the will). Instead, we become test subjects for the new “distributed” experiment, with robot-calls, bot-mail and rabbit holes. Permission and subscription marketing. I agree.

People are different yet universal in their love for families, respect for the elderly and an uncompromising commitment to educating younger generations. They may say change is the only constant but actually, it’s human nature that is: reciprocity for small acts of kindness, shared tips for mutual survival, say one thing and do another, hence hope of an eternity with more fairness and fulfillment.

At MCI, our group (International Market Direct) was rolled under Direct Sales (US). Quarterly meetings held all over the country. By design, I was cross-trained deep and wide: even with company shirt in a 4K run, covering all the bases with micro targeting: Little Tokyo, Little Saigon, Little Havana despite their undercurrent universality e.g. traditional diet, spiritual ties and clan loyalty, albeit scattered and extended family with ocean apart.

So ingrained and ingratiated that on my vacation to London, I drifted unconsciously towards its Chinatown out of curiosity (even Chinatown NYC is different from Chinatown SF per regional adaptation and accent).

Quite an occupational hazard!

It is lucky to belong to a sub-culture group let alone a multi ones.

Cultures mastery requires deep diving and broad strokes, context and nuances. Even today, Shadows in Paradise and Netherland are required reading for me. Kindness can be found in unlikely places, in different people and their view of sports and heroes. Homo sapiens to homo sapiens.

Despite its high wall of steel (and papers) – I owe this to Remarque, the United States, for one reason or another, has been graced and enriched with long-distance strivers, When Corporate comes knocking, small ethnic business owners took notice. A wide range of them, embedded in their community with native mastery.

On a typical “sales call”, I walked them through the “indemnity clause”, explained “Acts of God” and made sure their sales reps don’t wear MCI uniforms (since they were another layer away from a W-9 outsourcing contract). We provided the backhauling and backbone switching capabilities; they on-the-ground mouthpieces. Most were leaders in their respective community, operated out of makeshift “embassies” of rumors and gossips: Pakistanis, Eastern European, Chinese/Vietnamese and a garden-variety of Latinos under the Hispanic umbrella.

Often clustered along coastal cities, foreign folks turned sales agents were more at home in warmer weather and thrived better in urban face-to-face culture (port of entry), unlike European emigrant counterparts who at first had crowded in Northeast tenements.

By getting to know these beautiful strangers, I learned not just geography and demography, but also psychology – underneath their tough bearded facade – a soft longing for their homeland, roots and soul cuisine. Long-distance telephony serves as a bridge, reconnecting hearts across the pond (very much as depicted by Michael Corleone who went into hiding in Sicily, leveraging his father’s hide-away from the pursuit of rival gangs and the long arms of justice).

You may say the US is a melting pot or a salad bowl. You may say it’s a synthetic country or a syncretistic society. Yes, indeed, but you got to “serve somebody” like in a Dylan line.

People called themselves “American communication agency” to mask their foreignness or P.J (initial-only) to abbreviate extremely long un-Anglicized last names; all to avoid erecting unneeded barriers to buying. Once I visited an office in the now-no-more Twin Towers and guess what: outside the door: s/t s/t American, but inside it’s a Chinese outfit seeking outsourcing contracts.

Broadband excess breeds splintered off channels and nodes, and gave rise to narrow casting, just as once predicted by the likes of Alvin Toffler we all read in college (and now, infinite numbers of creators and publishers called yout-Ubers and Ubers).

It’s hard for newcomers to frictionlessly and fluidly fit into our socially opened slots – members only society – (even at the DMV, with updated software, one is lucky to obtain a driver license within a month). Now, with available bandwidth, the melting pot slowly dissolves to make place for a digital salad bowl – Hollywood and Bollywood, TikTok and Twitter.

Their journey to Paradise was paved not with gold, but with more paperwork. We, the agent recruiter, was of no exception. More filing e.g. FCC 214, like corporate lawyers hustling for pre-paid legal contracts. With a Telecommunication license, they could privately brand their bills (without knowing on this side of the Internet, everybody can be an Alex Jones).

The so-called “others”: unspoken, invisible and dismissed as irrelevant, have conveniently been cast in shady light. Villains used to be white bounty hunters – De Niro’s Midnight Train (or of mixed-race gangsters e.g. Jeff Goldblum in Death Wish before Big Chill).

Immigration (trailing theaters of war which moved around the globe) evolves to include and induct more folks from different countries of origin. Then Hollywood took notice. In the name of realism, casting agencies (follow the vein of clinical trial trail) add a tat of darker-skin tone for antagonist (just crank up the dolly to make them look small and devious), e.g. in Trading Places, John Landis upended this stereotype by placing Eddie Murphy way low, as Eddie pulled an “Eddie” on two beat cops – by pretending to be a blind and crippled VN vet.

Go ahead, make my day. Just “a few dollars more”.

Lately that pendulum swings back with “Everything Everywhere all at once”… whose nominated Oscar best support actor says” Don’t give up on your dream” (the American dream i.e. better FDA, school and traffic safety). Netflix certainly cast a wider net (as of this edit, they cross-package w/ Hulu and others).

While get-away cars get smaller, bad guys grow darker. Back in “Dog Day afternoon”, or The Chase, robbers used to ask for a bus (to transport banking hostages to the airport). Now a days, they upgrade to a chopper.

People in the field (back to sales agent) behave differently: less formal. No appointment necessary. Just drop in unannounced. One agent even doubled up as a pizza man, while another sold lavender perfumes for supplemental income. While crossing a street of San Francisco, I was flanked by two tall Croatians: one with no hair, the other lots of it. All three of us at different times, refugees of a distant conflict; yet none with “flowers in their hair “. Wall Street whiz met Main Street smart (just follow Mike Douglas filmography from Summer Tree to Wall Street to Falling Down).

Between corporate (Wall St) expectations and market (multicultural marketing) demand, we strived. Pull and push. Riding two horses everywhere all at once.

Our group grew stronger, smarter and swifter. During the Chinese/Vietnamese New Year season of events, I did not sleep for a month, knowing the revenue base acquired per rule 78, will balloon to a hefty fiscal year (while co-existed with a nagging fear that tech ride itself per Wall Street greed would not last long).

We also had a “charge the bunker “mentality, to take down the incumbent (only to see its grass grow back) like a David against the Goliath (ATT). BTW, MCI “Jack the Giant slayer” used to tape the sole of his shoes so they wouldn’t flap. Microwave Communications Inc had its start with installing “microwave equipment” to connect Chicago-St Louis-route truckers. In a published story, he was reportedly shivering in Windy-City cold – without a coat – hence easily blended in as “one of us” (when trying to make copies of ATT documents for court filing) I could relate to this, schooling and shivering near Joliet for two years.

Telephony (grandfathered by Telegraph) itself has been replaced by the Internet, which in turn, bows down to generative AI and Chat GPT, Nvidia and Intel (fintech, biotech and infotech), Amazon & Apple chips and TSMC chips.

Back then, Microsoft bought out everybody yet missed out the rise of TCP/IP (instead, it bought out Skype and Nokia). Everybody is into AI now. With Anglicized names, preferably feminine to mask the more “male” hardware behind it. At the cost of our taxpayers and past invention (OSI model which enabled physical and network layers, to make app one possible).

I learned then and now, that Karma run across cultures and times while people strive and sacrifice for next generations (law-abiding, tax-paying high achievers), in movies as in real life (Michael’s line:” just as I thought I am ready to…”mainstream”…they pull me right back in ” i.e. gunning down his little girl outside on the steps of the concert hall, Coppola’s own real life daughter.)

I also know first-generation businessmen cheated and evaded tax, all cash under-the-table. Supermarkets of exotic foods with no Superman’s watching eyes – often opened the back doors to long-distance callers and cash suppliers at night (time difference, cash and carry). Since we were in the possession of call details: date, duration and destination, we just factored them in as promotional cost of doing business – necessary to grease our day-time deals (to secure good locations). Data rich versus data poor, East West, North and South shores.

People cried, argued and screamed, broke up and made up over the phone as if higher octave and louder voice will better solve problems at home while full-timing abroad (imagine the same with the Pentagon and that Colonel with a bullhorn played by Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now) or the way protective mothers (Claudine) yelling at their kids over the ocean waves.

By running agents in the field, I crisscrossed the invisible line, with English as my sling shot; knowing full well across the table sat prospects who had been conditioned to self-editorialize per harsh upbringing. It takes one to know one. Those social tests can only be overcome with time and trust. Some scholars call this “weapons of the weak” e.g. time, patience, tolerance and endurance.

In looking forward, I hope you do visit an ethnic restaurant (Afghan or Somalian) or travel to a foreign port (like the Fonz currently in Dublin, straight out of the AARP cover page) or locally get to know a Syrian family (with a young girl volunteering at nearby community health center in hopes of getting on its medical payroll) – As long as the lemon trees still grow.

Watch Bill Murray’s Rock the Kasbah and put yourself in the shoes of that brave girl who secretly rehearses:” Oh baby baby it’s wide world”.

The road from Main Street to Wall Street, from back door to front door, from obtaining an alien number to getting a Social Security number, lay myriads of obstacles. Both corporate and small business want to thrive, both recognize the 2-thousand-pound gorilla: the new robotic reality and an army of W-9 sellers on eBay and Amazon.

AI works the alley, providing “ghost work” to extract human expertise on behalf of its Wall Street lords. We’re transitioning from face2face, one-on-one conversation to a many-to-many society, with AWS and the likes, exploiting and extracting every venue every minute of every day. Prime or non-prime, from OPM to Other People’s Time (sharing economy’s prosumers e.g. self-service in the name of taming inflation, yet helping behemoths build their towers of Babel – w/ Mechanical Turk – ever green, ever learning and improving).

It (technological society) prides on being efficient and infallible, in hopes of helping helpless human connect; by bits and bi-nary data, while analog human- in all colors, shapes and penchants for irrationality drift further apart as hidden costs and unintended consequense.. Miscommunication and its discontent (when will wealth ever trickle down – except only for the rung just below the top 1 per cent per some studies e.g. the original Chef at Apple HQ). Modernity always plays to win, cultures of the West, and cut-throat labor/raw resources of the Rest.

Not long ago, kids from East Europe drove Beamers after hours on their keyboards, pretending to be someone else to influence election in the US. An in-place, reverse assault without a need to get in line to fill out tons of forms and paperwork as early immigrants.

I could have enjoyed a longer telephony life (unlike my predecessors of Baby Bells). But then, the journey is the reward. Despite our differences and no matter what some may say to self-elevate at someone else’s expenses, America will always reach for the stars, seek new heights and retain decent standards, while not trying to solve crisis abroad in cookie approach and hopes that problems at home somehow self- dissipate.

America has nursed its wound, has been “torn between two lovers” since LBJ. Now, more aids, no boots to Ukraine. Time has un-cubed and uncuffed people this side of the Atomic Bomb. Have you noticed both Zelensky and Zuckerberg are always in their T-shirts? Quite an optic contrast to Yalta conference (where three leaders posed in coat for Peace messaging).

The long-tail nature of our Internet allows initial divisive social media. While data over the distance reaches near zero cost (given ample broadband connectivity) students of cross-cultures know the hardest gap to bridge is the last few inches between people. Judy Woodruff has been following this story across America, in the tradition of Charles Kuralt and Studs Terkel.

That’s how I felt working as an agent runner in pre-internet era: breathless and sleepless, juggling multiple balls in the air and stressed out in LA traffic. Multi-cultural markets don’t congregate conveniently downtown with paid parking. We could not “text” our agents to delay an appointment since no one at the time had an I-phone or an App.

I often wonder what kind of a penniless masochist it would take to volunteer in Asia and Africa only to come home working for Corporate America (paid off student loan debt by spreading in all four). Between two irreconcilable and irritating worlds lie shadows and stones on which strange names finally are spelled out in full and in original forms.

Names once abbreviated to not hinder the flow and fluidity of technology, commerce and progress. Hippies, Yuppies, Luddites or plain-old-telephone (POT) strivers from a different shore. Bye Alexa.

Whatever the problem was e.g. spiritual, emotional, physical or social, the answer has been to buy more stuff. From design and style change to new drug for newly uncovered “disease”. Scale, scale and scale. From supply side, the faster the machine, the more profit. On demand side, people do not want to be reminded that we are in a post-materialist phase, albeit life is still short even with longer longevity. It insults their intelligence if you keep mentioning the Happiness Curve, or the Law of Diminishing Return e.g. 1 steak, 2nd steak, 3rd steak…as quantity peaks, quality and satisfaction decreases every time.

Traveling gives us a break and a fresh perspective. With new horizon to expand our vision and new curve to jump (like a kid tossing a quarter over the surface of the water to see it glides); our conundrum gets new perspective from a different angle (space tour anyone?).

Growth and decline are facts of life. Yet out of immaturity or in denial (we’re an exception to the rules): Rome, the Empire. America, the Persian, India and China Empire beg to differ: “No it’s us who possess the ancient text and formula” Mummifying?).

The US and Western Allies: we knocked down the Atlantic Wall 80 years ago.

Justice in the American (West) way (6 bullets) and some – hid in boots only to be drawn out at last resort “shot fired!”. The spoil of war well-earned. Multiplication is better. Supersize and Superman, the best. “Supersize Me” author has died at age 56. Hit me.

Batman and Bond franchise live on forever, thanks to Hollywood branding.

I am invincible. Tomorrow never dies.

Look, who is the most beautiful/handsome of all. Cinderella without a curfew. Materialist = Exceptionalist. Spiritualist? Philosopher? Artist? Losers! (stolen arts = forbidden fruits, taste better). Let them get dirty with paint and brushes, grammar and conjugation, aperture and white balance. We steal from the art thieves, Thief in Chief.

Everybody wants to be me, worships me and adores me. Mirror mirror, screen screen (Apple or Android) who is the fairest of all?

A materialistic solution is to be applied to every problem, cosmetic surgery or pharmaceutical dosage (a medicine cabinet and a mackintosh in every home).

It seems to work every time, albeit short-term. Until the next trip. Next call of the mall.

Consumption cannot keep up with over-supply (want free Prime?). Not when overseas labor gets multi-layer-outsourcing (to the Cambodian then their kids), while multi-level marketing cannot keep pace. Not when machine multiplies itself – AI designing AI (see Our Modern Times) and Amazon Everything Store AWS keeps scaling and ballooning.

We used to report UFO sightings. Now the table turns. Martians perhaps have been stalking us. To them, we must seem very weird: lots of outfits yet nothing to wear. Lots of phones, yet no one to talk to.

We keep doing the same thing i.e. applying materialistic solutions to non-materialistic problems, instead of “to Be” we switch to “to Have”. A miracle without a prayer. Hitting the jackpot without a Quick Pick. At this rate, miracles might have already occurred, and we did not even know it. Why stop the conveyor belt to enjoy old dreams already realized (to be content) when the world keeps pushing on for more, more, more….

Kids are lonely. Buy him/her a second phone (I phone, I pad and Mac book, screen protectors, visors, headset, microphones, keyboard, audio panel, blue tooth, sweet tooth and Costco-size pizza. If you got good grades, then we’ll talk: thousand-dollars gaming CPUs – pre=paid per tariffs. HDMI, USB, USBC etc… first it’s wireless, then we need the connector to connect the laptop re-purposed as desktop etc….

Back to School? It’s barely summer recess. Yet school supplies are at the ready. Middle School to High School transition? Why not double up college pathways while at it. Easter? All the Easter eggs you can find (this time, unlike the model T’s, you can have any color you want). Again, the Law of Diminishing Return. There was a cartoonish character, bell out with benevolence:” Here, take some more. They are all stale”. TAKE It!

Long ago, it’s not a factory strike that rattled management. It’s boycott.

Then things resume, like an un-Pause, movies extras start getting busy: chatting and walking for ambient noise, the huddle mass. Buy more, consume faster, sniff quicker. No one tastes foods. Just consume. Just slurp. Just move about in space as in time (the hunger of the past is no more. It’s the age of abundance, but polarizing abundance). Even Facebook will have to slow down as it reaches its peak.

Our Nighthawk guy (no one ever saw his face, just his back – over the diner’s counter) meanwhile, just sits. Letting life go by. Nursing a stale cup of coffee. Then a top up. By the third refill, he would realize the Law of Diminishing Return does apply (unless the coffee shop owner himself is lonely on night shift).

Keep pushing for more engineering solution, bio-chemical solution and logistic solution (service fee and tax). It’s the credit card and interest rates. It’s other’s People Money, Time, Vehicle, housing, Energy and buying habits (permission and permissive marketing predicts perception/definition of happiness – behavior-modified as time goes on by Madison Avenue and Hollywood). The way we never were. Even if it’s selective past, dementia will do us in (like pre-diabetes, pre-clinical Alzheimer self-generated a need for pre-treat drug assuming your children and grandchildren cherish your “once upon a time” bed-time stories.

Occasionally someone reports an UFO sighting. It makes for interesting “out of space” conversation. Or else, life would be so boring, doing the same (consuming) without obtaining a different (tasty) result. 1st steak, 2nd steak, 3rd steak…How about a pie-eating contest? How about more ribs, more wings, more fries and more soda (up the ladder, same totem pole).

Super-size me. Scarcity is no more. What matters is the tangible. The materialistic solution to everyday non-materialistic problem (BMI is showing me pre-obese). Non-stop. Just going, going, going. Except when the grid is down for repair, due to Climate change, or energy over-Consumption. Most time, it’s the supply side that wins (with more tax incentives for re-shoring).

Long game, short attention-span. Money can buy a lot. As in the Cat on the hot tin roof:” keep buying things in the hope that one of these might bring you eternal life”. Scrap shoot. What happens on Earth stays on Earth. Unless you can afford space travel. Foreign trips won’t cut it.

A lot of problems can be solved by the Materialist. Especially so when it’s time and its spousal urge to respond to the call of the mall. We are what we have. Then have some more, since it’s quite often, what we have turns out obsolete, hence “we had”…. Happiness curves along the bell shape, a high then a low way low.

A closet full, nothing to wear.

It’s everywhere.

Yet we are behavior-modified to put weight on the scale, to measure and quantify in nano second urgency.

McKinsey and Morgan, Central Bank and the FED. The interest rates and rewards (FICO) of lower loan rates.

On this 80th D-Day commemoration, we salute the courage (manifested quality) of those who jumped out of airplanes or waded in knees-deep waters carrying 70 lbs. of gear (there’s your penchant to count) with near zero chance of survival.

That one was for keeps. Honoring. Saluting.

The intangible around us: ordinary heroes, love in action (soup kitchen), act of kindness, words of encouragement and enablement.

It’s summer. Kids are out of school. Time drags on, at the beach or by the pool. Many are wondering what the future may hold. Love, beauty, truth and eternality no longer occupy the day. The brain bandwidth is reserved for student loan, credit card debt, mortgage and car payments.

We’re plagued with social media feed which left us with little time for what’s behind and beyond us. Only the measurable at hand (agree to amount?) and the visible up front (traffic signs). How heavy, how much, how loud and how long?

Not long.

Soon enough.

You’ll see. Are we there yet? Mirage after mirage, then forgetfulness and dementia. Meanwhile, the bodies laid waste, many bled to death. Still “future-forwarding” disclaimer.

In Storm of Steel, readers come across situations like even the dead (buried in cemetery) got killed twice. Or on one occasion, Junger, the author, went for a chat at his neighboring trench only upon return to find his own bunker bombed to oblivion.

How long? Not long. The invisible and intangible are always with us.

We just can’t see and still don’t care. Just what others e.g. Meta’s engineers and Amazon algorithms “recommend “as urgent (only one left). Sensational SEO and highest Page-ranked brought to you by Alphabet e.g. the cover-up decades ago in England…

Until and unless the prison bars slammed shut (audibly) and handcuffs removed that the mob are satisfied…for now until its next bloodthirsty bout. “Go home everybody” “hug your inter-racial wives”. The problem with our modern society is news cycle, that which used to be at 6PM, now is anytime, 24/7, so urgent and sensational, so tribal and trivial, with production music and large fonts “Breaking News”.

We are what we pay attention to. Always. Those who measure, will never cease to count costs vs benefits. Those who by nature givers will always give – without any mental reservation or remorse, who will never treat each encounter as a transaction (this happened often through a bullet-proof window at pawnshops for a quick cash-and-carry.)

Can’t live on while discounting all the beauties in the world e.g. le soleil (the warmth of each morning’s Sun), le vent (free wind to soothe the heat wave) and la plage (wave after wave of salty sea to soothe a restless summer) which happen to be all free. As in “the wedding” (poem from Doctor Zhivago) the morning after:

“in the endlessness of sky, in a whirl of feathers, flocks of pigeons fly on high, from their night long shelter. As if someone had sent them, to the new young couple, to catch up and give them their wishes to be happy. Life is also such a flash, such an effervescence, of a soul in human mass, Offered as a present” pg. 28 Selected writings and letters by Boris Pasternak.

From parent of parent on down, we were told what’s important and urgent: hands that manipulate the lever, drop the bombs, carry out an execution without stay, spray and release chemicals into the stream. My life and yours are definitely affected and afflicted by strayed bullets that took down Heads of State (WWI, 1963 etc..) or near-missed (Ford’s twice in SF).

No longer do we “have a dream” (for fear “history might repeat itself”). It’s not safe anywhere, like a line uttered by Robert Redford in “3 Days of the Condor”: “I just read books” (yet he was about to make a run for his life, turning his 10-minutes office lunch run into a three-days fugitive- with Faye Dunaway reluctant compliance while assassin was played by Max von Sydow.

Oil price went up, interest rates go down, missiles launched, and flights took off (Seattle to Istanbul, with emergency stop in JFK due to sudden death of pilot). All computerized and measured in nano seconds. Precision guided Military Industrial Complex, delivered swiftly and stealthily, so brainless that even a monkey can pull the lever. Ironically, our peace time leisure is financed by current advertisers and past defense budget (tax dollars).

Born to duck, to run, this way and that way. No home or bunker to come back to. Even the dead got killed twice. Private Ryan might get saved, since his enlisted brothers were not. At this kill ratio rate, we might as well die twice, only to live on in the Cloud until those databases get scrubbed periodically. Even the dead might get solicited twice (ironically for life insurance). There was a word for it back in 1517-time frame. It’s called indulgence.

The intangible, though not visible and touchable, are all around us: love, the warm caress of the Sun and the gentle touch of the surf. Thank goodness for our multi-facet existence. If everything is visible and urgent, to be held tangibly in the palm of one’s hand (Jobs incarnated would roll over to see how his I phone has evolved for the worst i.e. no more time for calligraphy, for a walk in neighborhood apple or prune orchard) life would be short- changed albeit convenient: fast food nation, fast lane highway, and fast-pace existence. Quickly, “just ahead, a few more miles”. Auto-complete text…then press “send” before the light turns green.

Where is my bunker? My sanctuary? My last stop on this journey of mixed blessing and curse, both measurable and intangible. It’s quality that counts. As David Brooks said about D-Day dads” when history called, they came”.

Per Almanac readers’ feedback, it’s those lists that hit the spot (similar to US News and World Report college ranking or Forbes billionaires list).

Here is my list:

• It’s zero interest, use it or “lose it”. This is puppy-dog sales. How much are the balance-transfer fees? they hope no one read those winding fine-print disclaimers
• You owe it to yourself to have a prosperous life (Crystal Cathedral – Health and Wealth Gospel – ends up in Vietnamese Catholics’ hands). Who wouldn’t want to be prospered and multiplied! Curse the day Job was born. Jesus died for you, in return you owe Him an unpayable debt including your life i.e. time, money, energy and vote. Everything doesn’t belong to you (who was supposedly and already dead, hence, whatever time left from here on out, is ours. We got a direct line on that Red Phone: e.g. “we need babies”, “we need arranged marriages” e.g. the church of the Moonies’ mass wedding, keeping and replenishing “sheep”, Louisiana Jet-hopping pastor, Miami laying-of-hands on the Anointed…)
• Instead of testament, they touted testosterone, instead of humility victory (winning), Jesus John Wayne, Good Friday Palm Sunday, Theo-crats Techno-crats (seniors’ gullibility…weekly automatic withdrawal way past their deaths – classic multi-step close i.e. talk tough (big) but collect/hook tolls (small) from many (scale) with increasing voltage (look at the instigating groupies, they gave billions)
• The majority of the people think this or that, hence you should follow those with most “Like”; proof positive, quantity over quality, conformity push e.g. NYC conformity experiment – planted actor looks up to the top of skyline to form critical mass (free samples to early-adopters to create momentum), the lines experiment, the shock treatment by professor Stanley Milgram. After all, we’re social animals (a pillow for a vote). We sleep like sheep. Conformity leads to deformity.
• Cognitive dissonance: your hero, your teacher, your idol endorsed this, hence, you MUST follow in their footsteps (parent, teacher themselves had bad influencers to begin with – hand-me-down sub-standard wisdom e.g. survival of the strongest, richest, fastest). More on Factfulness by Hans Rosling)
• The machine (GPS) told you to drive straight … over and down to the cliff. Machine is always right. Way to go Waymo. Follow its instructions for directions. You must obey it (then why do we need to update the software version? What’s the release year and version?) More computing power, hence, more accurate, not absolute (singularity is here? or near?). Again, cognitive dissonance if we’re to “question” the machine. BTW, we do get punished (by accrued interest) or pulled over by the cops when ignoring traffic signs (traffic school or electric shock, Skinner behavior modification in Stanford prison.)
• People of color are lazy, underdeveloped countries don’t speak English, hence, are “underdeveloped”, if not less intelligent – let’s exploit and optimize the exchange rates via BPO, or in-shoring FOB cheap labor and borrowed OPM. This is a colonial variable, dressed up in new clothes, with new “non-white” supervisors (Crossing Over) people-machine hybrid to evade racist charges
• Take those online classes (short-term vocational degrees) with promises of low investment/ high return: ITT, Art Institute etc… while burying the complexity of human behavior, labor market and career flux that baffle even the FED who are in possession of more accurate data (social proof – our alumni were hired at … similar profile suggested automatically per recommending software) on this very Linkedin platform to enrich Hoffman.
• The US always wins. Well, look at yours truly, who barely got here; It’s the “house” – the system- that always wins per deep capitalization and technological industrial complex
• Garage start-ups want to change the world (do no evil, organize the world’s information, think different, connecting the mass), Silicon Unicorn …only to end up caving and catering to Wall Street instinct and interest e.g. “Greed is good”; meanwhile, dead to those pronounced world-changing passion i.e. the greater good and noble cause
• Half-truths, State-sponsored funneling techniques (Yes, Yes, yes until they are least resistant) “yes”. The ill-thought-out final “yes”, has been planned out with machine=precision and patience all along by grifters (principle of consistency).
• Con men and cultic figures rely on crowd-chanting, anticipate weak personalities and exhaustion (which leads to de-individuation) to drive herd instinct. BTW, on re-watching “To Kill a Mockingbird”, I found a heroine in “Scout” who averted a mob lynching at the county jail (“I go to school with your son” etc… the mob man as if awoke from a trance, decided to turn everyone around). It’s easier to cash in on mass hysteria (the Law of the Average). They manipulate and massage their audience (FUD) i.e. fear, uncertainty and doubt: ” they – the others – are coming for you”. A page ripped out of Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist. BTW, a high percentage of poor people seeking sanctuary have been children of destitute, our modern-day Ann Franks (Biden’s latest border policies). Haitian speak French. Do you? on this edit, government shutdown is forcing kids to eat trick-or-treat candies for lunch. What a society that touts its nobility and high=church.
• The list goes on and on. Check out “Influence” (view his TED talk on pre-suasion), often redressed with new spokesperson, varied combination of psychological manipulation techniques (authority figure clad in uniform…. In current Engineering Age, High Priest = the computer. A classic Bait and Switch: Sales sign indicates price reduction (I have just been had by Southwest one-way from $49 click bait) but at the cash register” the machine says here, it’s not on sale”
• Like a network rerun for a new demographic segment: “Insanity in individuals is somewhat rare. But in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule” Nietzsche. How should we then live? “Only the paranoid will survive” per Andy Grove (Intel finally gets its plants re-shored, in time to join the throng behind Nvidia. BTW, where is GE (that used to Bring Good Things to Life).
• This Memorial Day, we remember those who died for the ideal of a free people and free thoughts. May they rest, unencumbered and unaffected by those re-incarnated dust-off deceit, smoke and mirror, dazzling props and wardrobe, incense and snake-oil chameleon and con men who are always on the lookout for fresh converts with “voluntary servitude” (stimuli-responses) “respond to the call”, “ask not”…as they are lured in to the trap of the Law of Average. It’s the institution stupid.
• Remember to Pause (between stimulus and share) before Post (Response).

If the Sun were warrior male, then Moon, nurturing female: soft, strong and enduring.

On this side of World War II, we celebrate women who stepped up to the plate (” You Can Do It”) only to take bandannas off, put aprons back on once victory was secured. Voila, the baby boomer generation.

In our highly competitive society, we need a resting place. A Sabbath, a cave even a womb.

Often times, it’s our mom. Mine said: “Who wouldn’t root for a face like that” when seeing me down.

I once took a nap (jet lag) while visiting her in Assisted Living. She saw through me, what I needed. Certainly not food. The result? Best reboot.

Life will offer mobility, speed, victory (at a price), penalty and reward, but nap? What’s that! Only the lazy! Joe versus the volcano (that neon light was too bright!).

To shelter from the beating Sun, people in SE Asia and S America often have siestas. The night is long, cool and things/work can wait. Western world had an early-mover advantage with cooling tech (compressor and capacitor) hence an 8-hour workday, like clockwork, before feeling like a train wreck.

The culture contrast might not be just in degrees (of hard working) but in kind (technology adoption rate and diffusion of innovation this side of the Industrial Revolution).

In Asia you are the sum of all selves i.e. someone’s cousin, grandpa’s grandchild, your friend’s friend and neighbor. All in a web of relationships (Everything All at Once). Tribes which held periodic power got the most followers (the Nguyen, the Tran etc..). Individualism, what’s that! Narcissism, hum!

There is no place for self-compassion, self-indulgence (my brother once felt guilty lunching out when my mom walked by on her way to the market for raw ingredients) – or in arranged marriage via a matchmaker – individual cold-calling for a date? what’s that. The nail that sticks up gets hammered or humbled down – vast data set that reach back centuries. One is named in the order in which he/she was born: “anh Ba, chi Tu” (brother 3 sister 4) in rigid structure: King-Monk-Teacher-Parent, with long loyal line way beyond the grave (shaming and shunning, more immediate when one doesn’t adhere to the code). One of our classmates, deceased, but still known as son of the Geography/History teacher. His son showed up at our 50th Reunion.

While DO NOT ENTER hung outside kid’s room in Western society, poorer Asian counterparts sleep on the floor in groups. (My cousin finally rebuilt her meager house, with separate rooms for her grown up kids. She expressed “post-partum” syndrome, as if century-old womb was finally vacant psychologically per spacious availability.) Kids in the US, when intervention is needed, get sent to “see someone” (school social worker/analyst) or else, like lately, a MN church kid, consulting a “gun show” sales specialist; again, in my cousin’s narrative, she is always with people around to listen to and/or to spread the blame – listening at an emotional level tends to de-escalate and diffuse tension.

To this day, we still can’t put the finger on who is responsible for the demise of Vietnam (just to make a point). Since everyone were responsible, hence no one (via declassified materials, one finds at best some plausible what-if scenarios – alternate history e.g. what if Kennedy had been alive (Promises to Keep) he would have withdrawn, or if Westmoreland just stayed put as a schoolmaster or Kissinger definitely etc..).

The war eclipsed and replaced previous convention (Command and Control). Most telling was from the front e.g. “shoot first, ask later” at Son Thang or My lai; or tormented by conflicting loyalties e.g. Convoy of Tears (3/75) – disobeying order (to stay and hold) or to take care of fleeing families (again, what do you expect to find in extended-family culture).

So syrupy was the sentiment:” This Tet, I won’t be coming home to you, mom” …Vietnam-war version of Take me Home, Country Roads. One might be a General but back home, with cap off, just a G.I. Joe who craves corn dogs or soul foods – after sweating and fixing up mom’s thatched roof (nursing home, what’s that?). Circling back to my best nap.

What is your last name, nick name and rank? Except for rank, the other two were branded from the start. When rank became irrelevant, one had to cope with post-war identity crisis amidst culture collision and compromise. Veterans-prisoners-immigrants were baffled when arriving at plum Orange County in the 90’s.

Back home and back then, in the North (of VN), people lived off coal mines while the South, rice fields and fisheries. At present, both are urbanized e.g. pollution, traffic and inflation – both honor their mothers – alive or deceased – with thoughts, prayers and flowers.

Life in the East alternates between creation and creative destruction (Faulkner’s” the past is not dead, it’s not even past”). We repeat the same mistakes slowly then suddenly, only with new actors.

My recently deceased sister told tales of sleeping at the bottom of an US Navy ship next to someone with an open wound (her words). Up on the deck, a Navy man wrote home to his wife:” wow, they dropped babies like basketballs” (from hovering out of fuel chopper). Yet, my sister’s four children are getting on well, adapted and adjusted to capitalist United States of “wild” America. Those were the days when dollars got burned by the bushel and Vietnam currency (piasters) tossed by the handful to the four winds.

We are the sum of all selves.

No wonder the Old Testament often refers to so and so, son of so and so who came from so and so. Each was mentioned as part of a long genealogical chain.

Thanks to Big Data, social media afford us “customized” recommendation based on our profile (which was prerequisite verification for using the site). This is not to celebrate our uniqueness, but more for programmatic segmentation and targeted billing (before that, it’s often a tossup to spend ads dollar).

For years, we lived among groups (for survival in an agricultural society), seeing ourselves as seen. All of a sudden, with broadband and apps, we experience “freedom” to “tweet” (140 characters limit) and shout, anonymously, to take and post selected/then-deleted selfies across the pond.

Of course, we are aware of the nature/nurture debate (80/20). But how many of us were taken at an early age to be raised by a different set of parents (as in Trading Places) i.e. what’s the percentage of gene (75 or 85) that significantly affect and alter future outcome. How about interracial marriages (Obama via way of Kenya and Kansas).

I flipped through an Oakland Museum coffee-table book (What’s going on). On one page, it shows G.I.’s sleeping on cots in a hangar waiting to be shipped out (67 to Nam). Later, it’s a punch line in-country “so? they are going to ship me to Nam!”. Our own Kieu Chinh (actress in Hamburger Hill) scolded her brothel clientele: “You! GIs! Beaucoup dien cai dau” crazy!).

The next page shows supposedly interracial war-orphans in buckled-up bassinets (upper deck bunch survived the crash) during Operation Babylift, April 4, 1975.

We are not the Know-Nothing. We know Something, though not Everything. However incomplete, we know enough: honor Thy mothers – a rare treat of a nap and needed unconditional love.

This past Mother’s Day, that siesta resurfaced, at long-loss. It’s as if the umbilical cord were reattached for my sanity. Positive reinforcement.

Individualism of the West vs communal connections of the East. Son of Sam vs Sum of Selves. Individual vs communal self.

At odds and falling through the cracks are those test-tube babies – origin and destiny unknown – belonging to neither world, surviving orphans of one of the last flights out (or Telegram founder’s sperm babies) while awaiting a genetically-modified upgrade (e.g. White Christian nationalism – it’s not enough to live on the promise of going somewhere – in the hereafter- it has to appease immediate self-gratification – in the here and now via legislation – an ambitious Civil Religious plan hatched by Mitch and the Majority which, per “Sleepwalking through history” gives us our first in a series of divorced Presidents.)

Those who know where they are from (source) will more likely know who they are (identity) and where they are going (destiny). Besides, it’s still unknowable and debatable whether there was a definite endpoint (Omega).

Each Millenium historically bleeds to another in endless flow of history (albeit people in years past had longer attention span and shorter lifespan). If anything, it’s quality of life that counts e.g. comfort made possible by technology like jet plane, air-conditioning and computer (hard and software).

We are nearing an AI age with robots (Klara in the Sun) that/who keep us company, boasting a 24/7 productivity (never take naps, always well-alert and willing to serve), remember and recall better (search and autofill), and reply in Yes and No answer only. We will all be “the English patient” with Klara, our 24/7 nurse (always-learning with if-then readiness).

Even so, it will evolve superficially (artificial tears) however speedily and efficiently (Nvidia and chips manufacturers like Intel). “Ok, you’re not hungry, I see”. “How about a nap?”).

You can trade your phone in, but real- life mom will never let go of her children. In my sister’s case – at sea for days without foods (except for an orange), she somehow managed to take care of herself, while served as a human “buckle”, ensuring safety for her kids against “undesirable” neighbors in topsy turvy sea. Then decades later, sleeping alone, postpartum, as a widow in a western-standard empty house, near West Virginia (Take me home, Country Roads).

We’re the Sum of all Selves, admit it or not.

With every invention we hope it’s the Next Big Thing, often times, it turns out we arrive in full circle – back to Eden e.g. timeshare vs Cloud. Every generation sees newborn speculators and suckers, those who are in early, then in-time divesting. Cryptically crypto. Generative AI, even immortality online, if not on Earth.

From Silent Movies to Sound Movies from Telegraph to Telegram, we hope Utopia finally arrives. Our final destination. We can rest and not be weary (“you shall toil”).

Education today, Education tomorrow, Education forever.

We need to be realistic. Engineers can’t solve all ills. Nor should they. None of us can. The Atomic solution – only to see North Korea and Iran – the grass grows back). Tech needs to be in tandem with truth, within society and not at odd with it (adoptability and sustainability).

To rebuild the Bridge at Baltimore, we sing at a tune of 4+ Billion. Not an easy feat, but doable. Student loan? 6 billion for Art Institute alum? Talking about Night Owl and Night Hawk (BTW, I have a copy of a copy: so “absent”, incognito/ By being there in the moment with just a cup of coffee at the night counter (Philie cheese steaks). The back, in formal hat and suit (50’s) without facial recognition software or surveillance cameras.

The problem with Facebook is Facebook. With the Internet is the Internet (where nobody knows you’re a dog, unlike at Cheers). Berlin Wall tumbled down vs Broadband built out. Nvidia reigns, TikTok buyout.

Small-town feel, big city benefits. Right! We’re Night Hawks on the Net (Sandra Bullock and the Whiter Shade of Pale). Per “If the heat doesn’t kill you” from here on out, we need to live Vampire lives (early in the morning and at night). Generations without the Sun onshoring from Japan.

From photoshop pics and virtual protest badges to real-life vampires. we’re all “cross” or dressed in Black.

The Big Sort (you, over here, this side). Friendster, to the left. My Space, to the left, TIk Tok… (somehow, I hear the snow-grinding boots and distant voices telling me: “gas chamber, this way”). IBM quants and the ever-rise of our digital (one vs zero) empire.

I admire that gal who placed a rose in the nozzle of a pointed gun, half an inch away from LBJ National Guard troop 60 years ago. Future historians will look back to the 60’s (on 88 campuses) e.g. Chicago 7, Camden 28 against today’s 2300 arrests on campus.

Thy will be done, on campus as it is off. All quiet on the Western lawn. Tranquilized. No sit-in, just teach-in.

We have enough time, enough space to co-exist, to protest and counter-protest. Dialogue in a digital way. The American Way. All the while, the wheel of justice grinds on, slowly but surely. The only thing on Earth as it is online is that justice can’t be cheated, ever. Vote with your fingers.

We who are made of carbon, oxygen and water, exist and occupy our lane but in the same solar system. From the Sun’s vantage point, even Earth itself feels like a Night Hawk, with back against the Light.

H2O is our ultimate neutralizer, cleanser and preserver: for washing, cooking and cleaning. Proud to be a water boy consistently and constantly still, before and after enlightenment (the realization that life is short, that one is not THAT special however narcissistic; for at the final tally, it’s how much humanity, not divinity, one has accrued). To become and not be underlived.

That’s water-hose boy’s thinking. Data-hose boy might think different (bad grammar). As long as both are not arm-chair quarterbacking.

Per Kevin Kelly, technology, its flow and fluidity, wants to be free. To eventually be out of the box, cremated, ashes scattered, Phoenix-rising. The myth of Icarus flying toward the Sun (incidentally, rocket ships now utilize similar substance in wax to save fuel) might not be that far-fetched.

Because the other option (mandatory draft) meant charging like mad men (supported by female troops, medic and media women, almost as in M*A*S*H*) unto Da Nang’s to secure US beach-base (initial 3,500 then ballooned to more than half-a-million). Bombardment in the air and boots on the ground.

Today, battles are without bayonets i.e. drones in the air and codes in the Cloud. Half of Earth’s population charge up their phones to be online, to share on “social” and chat with AI, our new Ed Murrow.

You can’t handle the truth. Carpet-bombing and bombastic mouths. In our digital global village not hamlets during Vietnam: by day, RVNs, by night, NLFs. Vietnam today still uses bamboo in shifting wind for strategy in diplomacy.

Meanwhile, our binary world is all anonymity and atomization, from analog to algorithm, pulsating from Al Gore’s TV to Al-Jazeera TV. The more impersonal, the more efficient and easier to scale. What empathy! We do share rack space but not sorrow.

It’s never meant to be a two-way (much less multi-polar) dialogue, albeit with improved upload speed (kickstart vs fundraising newsletters).

Today’s worst-case scenario is yesterday’s best. Just ask Napoleon or Nero, Ford or G.H.W. Bush (who had to consult “Computers for Seniors”, per Woodward and Tom de Frank).

Yes, we betrayed you (Westmoreland). What are you going to do about it? Send me back to Nam?

And so it goes. On Earth as it is online. We will sort it all out (future forwarding) as long as you bought in early – what is life without a little risk – or returning to recent past, with new labels. A new generation with a new explanation. The (extreme) Court is now in session, AOC vs MTG. Let’s see; who shouted insults into whose mailbox? First witness on the stand, please. “I swear….to tell only conspiracy lies and nothing but the lie, so hang me God”.

Be sure to wear some flowers online. You will, thanks to recommending software, to meet some “gentle” people there of the same tribe. Given all that happened (something happened) you could have been long dead e.g. Janis Joplin or Donald Sutherland. On Earth during long covid or online per Kurzweil, before the IT guy automates his/her periodic data dump/trash-emptying to cut AWS rent cost (make sure your annual fee is on autopay).

In a data-driven society, nobody knows you’re a dog or dead dog. Except for our future A.I. “personal assistant”, who nods in approval:” I understand how you feel” as if they could learn from interview cut-aways, to elicit more data for an exclusive.

Though I once see through a glass darkly, I now see face to face, with wrinkles and without pretense: yep! still me. The illusionary me, saying one thing online and doing another off. Now that you remember and reflect back (via the screen and Google recommendation) I can see it for myself. There’s always something there (cookies) to remind me.

I am responsible for the mess, since day 1, way back before Creation (if you are into pre-destination). Sell me something. Get me out of this predicament, this self-inflicting entanglement and agonizing: between want (my irrational nature) and means (straight-nature technology).

Perhaps our engineers can solve it all, atomic or A.I.

With every invention, folks make a leap to Eden 2.0. Technology wants to be free. Yes. We want to be free. But…to make that hasty conclusion via a shortcut to Utopia is like to go from one end of the Baltimore Bridge to the other, with only 1 million to rebuild.

We’re so anesthetized and apathetic that we miss the elephant in the room. That elephant gains weight by leaps and bounds, 24/7 always on with inflation and interest piling on top.

Hello Zimbabwe. Please, Dr Evil. Wake up and Wish Different. It’s Billions, with a “B”. Inflation does exist on Earth as it is online. BTW, it’s been our Nighthawk prayer – back turned to the camera.

In today’s context, he could have just scrolled his phone to see who at that eastern standard time is still awake and posts something amusing.

Now that I could see it via Google Earth: flat, insignificant among millions of similar rooftops.

My home.

We left it in a very hurry. 2 minutes max. Without goodbyes. Without looking-back.

Just leave. NOW.

Bang! never to return, to have what they call closure.

The body might have been relocated, but the brain locked and frozen in place and in time.

As if the images stop transmitting. Forever pause, stood still.

In so far, how many square meters my old house was, it was enough shelter for millions of cherish moments. Guitar d’amour….Quel Sera Sera….Ngoc Lan (the streamy stream)….

Every afternoon after school. Music started flowing past supper.

Violin, guitar, hoarse voices, even mandolin. We were loud. We tried to break the confined walls. We wanted to be transported out of the box. Back to a selective past. Tin roof, brick walls and iron gate? Nothing could stop the mind and imagination. Then, it’s time. to water Mom’s flower vases, it’s time to set the table.

Neighbors tolerated us. Where else could we all go? At the end of the serpentine alley was a print shop where workers were bustling like busy bees, stapling and cutting rims and rims of paper. Two tombs were in the way of the alley, like two MGM lying lions, forcing traffic to wind left then immediate right. No wonder it was called serpentine alley, an alley in smooth concrete. which made for a good water slide on rainy days.

We slid and slide through childhood. Our version of snow day. Kids play jump rope, hide and seek.

Then boom. The end of everything. Hurry hurry. Evacuation.

The US is leaving, for good. This time, it’s real. It’s like Paris before Liberation. Only in reverse. Paris of the Orient, before Liberation (depends on whose POV). Families left behind. Momentos unbrought. Memories lingered.

Same rain on rooftop. Without the view of Google Earth.

We have the technological benefits that are the envy of past royalty (Louis XIV with all this art collection wouldn’t come near what I now see from my desktop). I see home. I see home from above. Bird-eye view, satellite imagery. Ant-like we move to find better pasture. Yet, the past is not even past.

It’s still here. Like the lay of the alley. With contour and detour. With connection and links. With dots and data.

I see it now. TIME. The flow and fluidity of history, of technology and disposable values. Love and loss. With each tangible gain, we experience ten intangible losses.

No wonder I feel hollowed out. Unpaid and accrued debt. The Old House. The music sheets, the guitar, the songs and the singing (pre-karaoke).

Echoes of the past. Like a ghost dream. We just exist, for a while. Sharing pain and frustration.

Occasionally, joy. Happiness eluded us quite often. Not during war time. We mourned more than we celebrated. We cried more than we laughed. In pain more than pleasure. In the end, after zomming in, the past condensed into a viewable photo from above, with the help of Google Earth.

It never was a castle, Just our home, where once, I experienced time past, surrounded with loved ones. My incubator, my alley with two huge tombs, there to constantly remind us that time is short.

Louis XIV himself would have been envied. His view from above would be from his castle, now laid hollow like an abandonned construction site of a glorious past. Even the past doesn’t seem to past. At least for me. With a press of a button, I can revisit it. Can post it. Can write about it and share.

You hold on to what is near and dear to you. I mine. Tin roof and all. But when it rains, like, really hard, there is no music in the world could sound more pleasant and endearing. It gave us amateurish musicians a break, from the briskly heat and inequity of war-time living. When it rains, it democratizes. Just like in Les Parapluis du Cherbourg. Just like in Louisana or Philadelphia.

Just like the view from above just now. Every roof looks all the same, and my pain of the past seems so universal. I wish for you what I always for myself: a roof over your head, and love in your heart. That’s why we, despite being nomadic, still linger and refuse to leave the site of our loved ones, albeit buried underground for days.

6 feet under, or 30,000 feet above ground. We traverse forward, experience TIME and hopefully love that lasts. Too bad Google Earth can only show the tin rooftop from above, and not the depth of sentiment my home once afforded me.

We left in a very hurry. But what we carried with us stay with us. I saw my old house for as long as the screen still flickers before “shut off”, but Home stays.

The Net is neutral. In theory and for now.

As long as the First Amendment is upheld via judgment of the Court or taste of our producers.

While connection (high-speed) is democratized, content (highbrow) is not.

Originally conceived to work around an ICBM strike, distributed architecture turns a deaf-ear to filler after filler to monetize and maximize its surplus capacity (equivalent of Trump casino penny slot). The result? Shameless extraverts flush the pipe with sewage, America Got Tastes? Grotesque, sensational and attention-getter. The hidden price of scale with long tail.

Section 230 and self-regulation will not guarantee guardrails e.g. cyber bullying and fake news until and unless it’s too late. Hence, Gong Show descendants are back, this time AI assisted. In full and shameless display. Machine can go down the binary decision tree, but human need nuances, context and yes, out-of-this world (it’s called art).

But the algorithm just told the AI software to plug along, long live ads revenue flow. Long live the King of Madison Avenue.

The business of America is business. Amazon Web Services are not for free. So is SEO.

If listened, one’d hear those Cancel clicks (another show contestant eliminated) every second on the Wild Wide Web (millions of views, but were they bait-clicks). Yet the herd keep coming and heading to the cliff – the altar of attention and attrition. Our modern-day equivalent of virgin sacrifice (Joe versus the volcano) or forced draft: “we the unwilling, led by the unqualified to kill the unfortunate, die for the ungrateful ” – Unknown soldier

As if, people – all masochist – have been sentenced and subdued from the beginning of time, only to leave behind primitive tools used to carve symbols in cave. Now, uploading is fast – not as download speed – and almost free (digital superhighway toll).

With more cultures represented, one would think the web become more of an open place and open mind. In fact, this social-techno experiment has proved the opposite: more wars, more walls and more crises/isolation.

What’s going on. Something is going on. But not the way it had previously been thought. Not at the speed and scale as occurred.

Everyone is posting” What’s for dinner?” (it used to be “Guess Who is coming to Dinner”) and everyone recounts “the White House years” (albeit ghost-writing even by an eye-witness janitor): ” I saw the President (LBJ) through an open-door toilet” or ‘G H W Bush tinkling with then new Mackintosh” – Woodward’s Shadow.

How long? Not long.

How loud? Too loud.

We shall overcome in that perpetual Ground-Hog-Day “someday”.

Meanwhile, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly are having the time with digital frontier’s land and virtual railroad grab. Everybody is playing at the margin, collecting huge amount of small change (that add up to a lot). Data mining, mineral mining, and rare earth mining.

As if we all feel too helpless and anaesthetized to protest against a system, that extract and occupy our attention with sensationalism that goes viral (1 cent and a day short) since it’s proof positive that numbers of viewers testify to its “worthiness” of relevant art.

It’s the Dictator’s Dilemma in reverse (if they cut off the Internet, they themselves can’t communicate internally on intranet with coworkers on Signal). If we protested with a social media Sabbath no one would notice our quiet resignation, given billions of replacements online (think of this as the new “offshoring” of eyeballs).

Meanwhile, IT folks try to teach the machine to recognize, to think, to act and to reason responsibly. In one talk, the speaker ventures to volunteer that A.I. can even empathize (oh! that’s offensive to your taste? I am truly sorry).

Try that (teach empathy) first on human.

From Aspirin to Astrology, from Artificial Insemination to Artificial Intelligence – God knows we have tried.

Yet crimes are still here, fentanyl still kills; oppression is still present, and corruption remains (the other day, a door-to-door vendor tried to sell me security cameras for the home).

Has it (the impetus for evil) been dormant and not destroyed?

Long time ago, in rural Kentucky (the Threat that Runs so True), the teacher/author had to repaint his tainted school walls (pupils spitted tobacco) from his own meager salary. Singapore is where it is today in part, due to its iron-grip enforcement: no spitting, no cigarette butts no\ loitering. Filthiness just migrates online then.

A single mile (of discipline) is all it takes. Since charging out of the gate (w/ Netscape), we have wasted a lot of energy and time i.e. trial-error over triviality (the sort that made the original Gong Show smell like flowers). Remember Myspace? Friendster? Even Twitter.

Instead of flying cars, we’ve got 140 characters – Thiel. Some penned up poison finally found its outlet. Let’s outdo them, lets podcast again: Sandy Hook, Pizza gate etc… Everything and anything all at once, and in progress etc.… like Pollock randomly (but in control) throws paint on the floor.

How long, not long. We shall overcome, on the Net as it is in real life, someday. We will fulfill our potential and destiny. Just another carving and one last paint on the wall, so someday, they will know we were here, albeit for only 15 minutes.

The Gong show contestants (signed release and paid actors) had theirs.

Now it’s our turn. Those who have stood by, helplessly watched the aggressive march and parade, torch and all, now in digital City Hall.

We shall replace the “Gong show” with our Show i.e. context, history, nuances, art, truth, taste and beauty. It’s like a collapsible Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessible to all. The way is now here. Where is the will? or one just wants to be listened to. The web is quite the wrong place for that therapeutic need.

That which elevates with empathy, elegance, expertise and eternality will flourish in gong-less shock and awe, like a museum at all hours, as if grass could grow on the Internet. As if life would go on forever, since no one wants it to press SKIP (or BONG).

When you see it, you’ll know it. It’s part of the discipline. Meanwhile, keep searching.

Shakespeare was right (life is like a stage or of late, an Internet platform). It’s up to us – to play our assigned role of a life well lived. Not the unfortunate one, who died for the ungrateful.

The connection might be democratized, but its content is not.

In the end, when all sorted out, there will be reward and recognition to validate those 16 mm out-takes which survived the cutting room, real-life grit “Do it again, one more take, just for my mother”, not those Gong-Show rejects. The Net is neutral, for now, until.