Tag: Arts

Van’s Cafe pt II

Last Sunday morning was my first time at the jam session here.

Today, my second. It is getting better, sweeter and with more substance.

Thanksgiving weekend with friends and music lovers. It’s game weekend in the US. Or shop til you drop.

Here jazz music permeates the air we breathe.

Unrehearsed of course.

But it flows. The energy, the passion and just a good passage of time together.

I feel jazz. It’s warm, sweet and penetrating.

It makes us human. Playful and painful at the same time. The headache and heartache.

Share it brother!

Hi five.

We take a rest to be real audience.

Forget the bills, the business of life.

Just celebrate it while living it.

Being In love.

Being confused.

And being here.

Join me. I probably be here next Sunday. My friend won’t be. He is doing his numbers now, but will fly back to San Francisco, where he plays in the SF Jazz band.

I am glad he is here this weekend. So I don’t have to be all the way back across the pond to hear him.

Of course Hung brought his amplifier, and guitar. Dat (blind) on the piano and the KC band on drum and base guitar.

They play well together. Jam session.

The audience too. Very selective. Very very much in love with every note, every expression of seeing open soul on display.

“Sometime when we touch, the honesty too much”.

I don’t feel alone here, even at an empty table. They are after all up there jamming.

Beer half-opened and I sip mine slowly, for fear that their number will end too soon.

The Heineken you can reorder, but friendship and the mutual love for music will never die.

I wish you can be here. Not the kind of canned “I wish you a Merry Christmas” you hear all the time.

But I truly wish you an experience as valuable and unique as this one.

Pop, Jazz, French mix.

Like the city itself. Old Saigon, always adapting and thriving on chaos.

I love this city, it’s people and its multiple expressions however unrehearsed and unprepared.

It’s our best and it’s best in my eyes.

 

Brunch w/ a bunch (of jamers)

It’s my first time at  Van’s Cafe, 46 Pham Ngoc Thach, District 1 Saigon on Sunday morning. And I found myself walking into the door with 2 musicians I know: Mr Hai, on base guitar, and Quoc Dat (blind but extremely gifted jazz pianist, and a student of my now deceased friend.).

Before I knew it, people with guitars, chains in their jeans, rings in their ears, started to fill the room.

It’s a very rare place, if not, the only place where everybody knows your name (Saigon version of Cheers) . But you have to shout over their perfectly set acoustic.

Two sweetest Singaporeans, twice my size, recommended “banh mi bo kho”on the menu (that was before the owner, Khac Trieu, also multi-talented: drummer, vocalist, guitarist, clarinetist and keyboardist, ordered beef wasabi, Van’s Cafe new item).

The lead vocalist is named Rex, from the Philippines. He sings in English, Korean and Vietnamese (or trying).

My fear of  being new at Sunday jamming was dissipated, when Quoc Dat, with my help to get to the piano, started his jazz numbers.

World-renown photographer showed up, with Vietnamese wife and his daughter (who I had eye contact with to help me jump-start my Beatles‘ Imagine number). Other expats followed suit.

You can never guess what would happen at Sunday Jamming, or at night on the 2nd floor with scheduled Rockers, French singers (BTW, Christophe is in town here in Saigon this weekend), DJ at half time and open-mike jammers at midnight.

That’s when I met our regular clubbers-turned-friends like Willie and Warren, Danny and Bill.

And of all people, my friend from childhood also showed up. Apparently all roads lead to Rome for music lovers.

So come, for the food and the fun, the music and musicians. You won’t be disappointed as I have found out.

But don’t come too early. Live music starts at 9:30PM 7 nights a week. With Sunday morning, we can call it 8 days a week at Van’s Cafe here in HCMC. See you one of these beautiful sundays or, if you want to dance too, then after 9:30PM 7 days a week.

“You may say that I am a dreamer. But I am not the only one. We hope someday you’ll join us…..”

Old music New machine

Lighter weight, more affordable, but not necessarily more moving.

Those new I-pods.

Or I phones.

Even on those new devices, you still download your favorite oldies any way.

Just make sure your kids don’t see the play list.

Or view your 80’s music video, with singers whose jean jacket sleeves were cut-off , while hair spray and smoke spray were in the air.

We have new vehicles and venues to express our emotions these days.

Grief and gripe, fear and pain.

Some people just simply lose sleep, or booze up to sleep all day.

More Snapchat, but we are more inclined to tune out from our immediate surrounding.

Perhaps this shopping season, we will get out and buy a new music machine.

Perhaps not.

Happy are those whose machines are taken away, but the music remains in their head.

What a Wonderful World!

Yesterday Once More (but it’s just the radio).

They are rewriting the Financial Rules (Glass-Steagall was written then taken away, to cause another round of renaming and rewriting).

What’s going on has been around, under a new name.

Old wine in new skin. Or old music in new machine.

Just a time to be born, a time to live.

When your music has become Muzak, it’s time to go. But make some noise on the way out, w/speakers in full-blown.

Deep down you must admit, there were some gut-calls expressed in writing and via music in the 60’s.  Now, it’s all “wake me up when September ends”. It’s November, and many are still asleep. God knows until when.

Switching the script

On film set, writer is often called out on short notice to fix the dialogue.

Something is better left unsaid or sounded odd when in “live” context.

In life, we can’t retrace our steps to switch the script.

It’s live, and happened once only.

There lies the importance of getting the right words first time around.

Another way to lessen the impact of misspoken words, is to come out immediately and retract.

Even the NYT does that.

When the facts are not straight, when a character is mis-portrayed, the best way for editors to damage control is to come out clean.

We happen to live on this side of the communication (data) explosion.

Facts and fiction are both out there.

As mentioned in Brand America a few blogs ago, people do come here and reinvent themselves e.g. name change (anglicized), hair-coloring and new wardrobe. Voila! Boy George and Bieber. Entertainers and sports idols are hot. They are more than hot. They sell merchandise.

Just Do  It.

After all, we move about our days, filtering ads and spam mail.

No wonder we long for those “in” mail.

Someone cares enough to probe and not to pitch.

And we in turn empathize with their plights, the pressures they are under.

If only we could switch the script. Living a new life and assuming a new persona.

Like when we were kids, imagining we had just been adopted by our real parents.

We wished for another life, another script (if only the writer were standing by as fixer).

Then we would be reclaimed, taken back to the castle and live a happy life ever after.

When I grew up, there was such a story. Of a half-breed (African-Vietnamese). Co Ba Xi. The man who had fathered her left only to come back years later as King of his tribe. Vietnamese Cinderella. But that’s just one jewel among a variety of Immigrant stories, ranging from model minority stories to loser’s stories.

One last thing about scripting. As long as we live out our story, and not someone else’s.

At the end of all travel is to return to the same place and to know ourselves for the first time.

It is often said, life is 10 per cent action and 90 per cent reaction. When a large part of life is lived out of reaction instead of proactive, we are not living our life script. Paul Anka would be proud to hear his “My Way” sung by 7 Billion.

Why wait for the writer to come to our rescue?

We are the writers, we are the world.

While still alive, we can switch the script, reinvent the characters, and overcome the challenges.

As long as we know what we want.

Or seek help. There are people who are gentle and kind (not just in San Francisco or down in the Bayou), and whose advice are plenty and fitting (learned this in Vietnam. People still give out free advice as if they were still living in a village).

I am indebted to professionals on LinkedIn, who endorsed my skill set and characters.

I am grateful for “followers” . People who trek the trail of current Recession and the trajectory of Social Media.

What a time we are living in, and what a company we are keeping. Just as we thought we should throw in the towel, then comes help.

I am the sum of my relationships. Two old people in their early 40’s were still at it, hence, creating me.

Now I live out that script, all the while hoping to switch those last pages.

Hope to read about your multi-chapter, multi-tasking life whose script is not written in stone, but evolving with unpredictable twist and turn and whose ending is happy albeit not perfect.

the Bi-Lingual Mind

Those of us who move back and forth in between two worlds can relate to this.

Every time we pick a language to speak or write (E or V in my case), we subscribe to a whole new context e.g. away from tutoyer to address someone as big bro, younger sis  as practiced in the Vietnamese culture. Edward Hall distinguishes between E2 and E3 (E2  for crossing between two similar cultures e.g. French and English). East and West crossing would be an E3. Recent Post article by Richard Cohen addressed the informality in our language ( I love you man). Early in the 19th century, people hardly traveled outside their continent.  WWII unintended consequences were the closing of that distance.

Graham Greene and Murukami are on the opposite end of the East-West spectrum.

They brought us keen observation because they were looking at it from the outside.

Hemingway wrote well when in Paris during the 50’s.

A bunch of Hollywood actors also flocked to Paris.

The bi-lingual mind never feels bored. It has access to two strands of thoughts, two treasure chests to draw from.

More choices and challenges.

All the richer.

One cannot approach bilingualism from a pure political stand point.

Instead, it should be recognized and rewarded (some Multi-National Corporations churn out bonuses for multi-lingual staff for riding both horses at the same time).

America has been blessed with global citizenry. They came, conquered and created a country.

They invent Brand America, as they reinvent themselves. Endless possibilities, boundless opportunities.

Bi-lingual talent is a terrible thing to waste .

They are our national assets. Twice the contribution, twice the richer. Europe has enjoyed the gifts of multi-lingualism for years. It’s America’s turn to embrace it.

Murakami’s worlds

Once in a while, we stumble upon an author, just to follow his trail of thoughts.

Haruki Murakami is one of those He too likes writing and running. Not to mention his out-of-this-worldliness (Moon vs Sun).

Murakami’s world often consists of characters who feel detached, more like an observer than participant.

They struggle and strive, often times never arrived. But the journey they took, the travail they faced make it worthwhile. From Kafka to Carver, Murakami exhibits his synthesis skills. His ethos is neither East nor West. In 1Q84, it’s other-worldly ( I read part I and II in Vietnamese, and part III in English, which made the experience even more international).

He dwells a lot not just on the protagonist but also on the antagonist.

And he spared not his protagonists who got flaws as much as the antagonists who got redeemable qualities (aren’t we all!).

His sidekicks sometimes are older men, senile, but with a midas touch (Kafka on the shore) or strong women with a hang-up from the past (tycoon lady in 1Q84).

When it comes to the meaty part (sex), he just touch-bases on the surface to keep the character real (dark realism).

Exhaustive but worthwhile, that’s how a journey with Murakami was.

Just like his 100 km-run. So what do I talk about when I talk about Murakami?

That his novels don’t rock? His flow of thoughts weird? And his characters while other-worldly, yet seem more real if we chose to conspire?

All of the above. And more over, Murakami grows richer in detail and description over time.

I look forward to more developed characters in his upcoming novels. Pick one from his collection, and dive right into his world. Neither East nor West, but then, who needs all those neatly categories, given our blended taste for culture and couture nowadays.

Say “cheese”!

I touched on this slightly in another blog. It’s about growing up never knew if my grandparents even smiled at all (I gathered this from the black and white photos in the family album).

We are still shackled by the analog world which tells us to stand straight and stare straight into the lenses (36 poses max).

Yet cameras are now built in the smart phones. It’s digital. It’s universal almost.

So why not say “cheese”! Every moment is now an event… the outing, the posting caught on camera.

Picture-taking used to be a Christmas event to document how babies have grown. To make post cards and greeting cards.

With online convenience, we now send greetings digitally. It’s fitting that I pen these lines an hour before the coming year of the Snake.

My parents used to whip up some poems to welcome the New Year and refresh our spirits.

It’s a necessary reboot.

Everyone works hard there in the East (more manual labor than Industrialized West). The hot weather makes you sweat all day.

A/C is for the white-collar folks.

If you were to document in photos a day in the life of an average worker in Vietnam, you would find that he/she gets up very early and tries to beat traffic and everyone else.  He/she either goes for a run before sunrise or not at all.

Then strong coffee. Then chopping woods, so to speak . People either divide up a huge chunk of meat, or newspaper delivery folks a huge pile of papers, or lottery sellers got their tickets at predetermined gathering points.

When the sun glistens, open air markets are already in full swing: fish and fruits, eggs and noodle.

People have breakfast and people have fights.

All in a life of an average worker. Traffic smog and traffic accidents. Back to and from work. Then the night life. In full swing. Snacks on wheels at night market. Bangkok or Saigon. On the waterfront, or back in the alleys. Life at its rawest. Capture it on camera.

Let it go not. Why wait. Things won’t stay the same. In our life time, we saw this digital revolution. At least, future generations can deduce that their grandparents indeed say “Cheese” for the digital cameras. Back when I had my TV internship, that regional station was still hanging on to half film (with dark-room processing of news reels) and half tape. I am sure it has gone completely digital by now.

Loosen those tight grips of the analog shackle. We have yet seen the full implication of complete digitization. Who would still laminate a classic book, knowing that it’s available on Kindle. Yes, we have seen rising unemployment, which was a result of automation and digitization, which in turn, is causing underemployment for others. The 55-hour work week will soon be reduced to 35, to accommodate incoming workers.

Work less, enjoy life more. What else can we ask for standing on giants’ shoulders and inventions of the 21st century. Cheers!

Love as motivator

Fear, fun, money, dream, passion, human spirits are all strong motivators.

This series cannot end without the mentioning of love.

I came across a newspaper clip which showed two skeletons (male and female),

still clinging to each other. Apparently they died in an earthquake.

At least the saying “live together, die alone” doesn’t apply here.

Talking about dying. We just got news that Pham Duy, one of our great song composers, has just died. He was 92. His son, also a singer, had died a month before.

Live together, die alone.

Among Pham Duy’s thousand songs is Dua Em Tim Dong Hoa Vang.

I will be your guide to a yellow-flower cave.

Love. Where do I begin, to tell the story….

We talk a lot about rights not romance.

It’s not a passable legislative piece.

You come across as “soft”, not clear-headed.

Yet when in love, if in love, we get up earlier, stay up later.

We feel this surge of energy and possibilities.

In fact, when in love, eternity and the temporal intersect.

Motivating? Yes, indeed.

Embedded in love is self-sacrifice, the need to give up one’s self.

Love of the commons, love of neighbors among whom we find that particular person we can click and connect with.

We all know by now which activity we tend to lose our sense of time.

That’s what we love to do.

And a certain person we can’t wait to see.

(not like Meeting-with-Jesus , your sales manager).

Bonnie and Clyde got struck down by a hail of bullets (I saw the car but did not count the holes). They might be outlaws, but perhaps there was love between them.

I grew up hearing about the tale of Hon Buom Mo Tien (they could not marry each other in life, so they turned butterflies forever flirting and flying).

And Ngu Lang Chuc Nu (somehow, the offending God separated them except for an annual reunion).

Then right after the Fall of Vietnam, I have a cousin (female) whose husband MIA. 35 years later, she still was unsure whether to put his picture on the altar. Rumor had it that he had been sighted leading a convoy of refugees fleeing the war zone, and perhaps had been struck down (a documentary showing someone like him standing up next to his jeep driver).

Love. It’s elusive. It’s not supposed to last forever. But motivating indeed.

And in its absence, we feel even stronger. Lobo was singing “I love you too much to ever be your friend..so let the story kind an end”.

Love is more motivating than Like.

That’s why we got the second interview. We want to confirm those first impressions.

We want to “fall in love” with the candidate.

In “Blink”, Gladwell talks about the “first time, I ever saw your face”.

We are wired to decode and detect likability and loveliness.

And there is no better team than a team who love to work on projects with one another. High fives, the long hours and “let’s see where you got it wrong” tete-a-tete.

I hope for Washington the return of love for public services. For the pride and purpose of the Republic, indivisible (let the two become one).

I saw a quote on Facebook, when in love, even in the face of 99 bad things, we still look for that one thing to love. If God had been like men, we would have all been dead in hell. Alone. With no one to cling to. And archeologists of the future would stumble upon grave after grave, lone graves. Not worth noticing. They might label that society as lone-wolf, dod-eat-dog civilization.

Pham Duy, RIP. May you find that cave full of yellow flowers, with lovers (and butterflies) still clinging to each other in life and death beyond.

Passion as motivator

With passion, one can even work without pay. At least for a while. Blessed are those who can

translate passion into profit.

Novelists, musicians and movie-makers.

But those of us who do not belong in that club can still tap into the well of creativity.

Create products that your kids want to use (to take their own pictures for instance).

Come up with a recipe that on rainy days, you yourself would want to eat it.

I just finished the 3-part 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami where he created a fictional year of two moons. His passion is in creating a surreal universe, once entered, you can’t get out (unless you can trace back the emergency exit where you originally let yourself  in).

Someone else’s passion tends to evoke our own. There are 7 Billion readers and music lovers out there.

Will you be the one who decodes them!

It might sound far-fetched. But your passion will help you start your own “religion”.

You know what you love.

What keeps you work for free. To stay awake with or without coffee.

If you can’t find it, at least, find those directions which your family has tried to talk you out of. They might not know the right direction to steer you into, but they tend to know what to talk you out of. That’s where you need to pursue. Leverage the rebellious instinct.  Surprise the nay sayers. The best “revenge” is success. To get success, you need to uncover your passion and use it.

Secret sauce

I met a pianist last Sunday. When he told me he was 65, I almost flipped. He happened to be a Judo trainer as well. Wow! He looked 45.

Another friend of mine, Jazz musician and software expert, also looks young for his age. What’s the secret sauce? Shirley MacLaine doesn’t look 78.

You might say, oh well, actors and actresses take care of themselves.

How about us? Don’t we want to take care of ourselves?

We are actors of our life scripts. That’s the secret sauce.

Stand in front of the mirror, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

Breathe in , breathe out. Sing out loud, in and out of the showers.

Most New Year resolutions are health-related e.g. losing 10 lbs….

But the goal must be rooted in the subconscious and lived out habitually.

I am sure the pianist had logged in 10,000 hours of Judo practice (he broke many of his bones, just like Jackie Chan).

Still, he wore cross-training shoes, jeans and stretched short sleeves. I am sure he could hang out with his son (who was trying out for the US Olympic Judo team) and be mistaken as “one of the boys”.

Our life expectancy has increased to around 77 years. Like companies , we are “Built to Last”.

Take aways from most admired companies: agility, flexibility and discipline to follow through. Front-line employees are empowered and educated to make judgment calls.  But most importantly, leaders must be able to take a step back and do a pre-morterm analysis (the O ring in Challenger, the release valves in TMI nuclear reactor).

Problems are systemic, built up over time like dental plaque .  Meanwhile, people are creatures of habits i.e. taking the path of least resistance. Voila! Recipe for disaster. Everyone is just doing his or her job logging in 10,000 hours of minimum wages.

I noticed the pianist fingers on the key boards after he had told me who he was (Judo trainer).  I tried to see if he could still manage those graceful spreads. He did play a bit harder than most. Strength and swiftness, controlled yet flexible.

Our time is now. Use the opposite force to our advantage. We have tried to use our own one too many. Try it the other way. Be agile. Be flexible. Be open-minded. It might work. It’s the secret sauce I have seen in musicians and martial-arts experts. When you are multi-talented, it triggered something else, some place else in the brain. Use it.