Tag: Bob Seger

je pense

Have you ever looked back at those goals you had set right out of college?

Marriage? Career? Health?

Then and Now. Perhaps they still remain the same or in reverse order.

No one set out with a goal of multiple marriages.

Or multiple careers.

Yet it has happened, taken most of us by surprise. On a macro scale, the same speed of change has occurred,  right after a State Visit of Chinese Leaders to a Texas range ( Deng wearing a cowboy hat), then the Soviet Leader advertised for Pizza Hut, sitting in the back of a limousine.

Bang! No more Cold War. Only hot food.

Berlin Walls down. Firewalls up.  Mainframe on Main Street, albeit smaller and smarter.

Our expectations have gone through multiple adjustments: fast food and fast divorce, financing and financial rescue (individual and institutional level; fiscal cliff?)

Nuclear families melt down, just as nuclear reactors did (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima).

Neil Young now grows old (Old Man Looks at my Life…) but Bob Seger is Still The Same.

Yoko Ono exhibits  John Lennon’s Art Works, instead of hers.

So we adapted. Bob Dylan said we always reinvented the past, because the Present and Future are both unknown.

Shirley Maclaine would vehemently disagree. She went all the way, claiming to have married with the Roman Emperor himself, albeit in his  reincarnated version as a Swedish prime minister.

What do I make of all these forward/backward worldviews? I have been told to keep my head down (slurping my cup-a-noodle?). Don’t think much. Then I heard the music “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”.

Then I start being futuristic: electric vehicles, solar energy and stem cells.

Those unknowns are fascinating. They bring new designs to auto and home building industries. They bring new jobs.

New hope.

America in the late 50’s had its mojo.

For those who are not afraid to set high goals, beyond just marriage, career and health, the future belongs to them.

Stay hungry, stay foolish. Think different. Je pense. Rodin’s statue of the Thinker could use some imagination ( sitting on a newly designed toilet seat, for instance)

Bill Gates is trying to do just that. Now, he starts to pick up from his friend Steve Jobs, some diversion thinking. The future belongs to those who are not completely satisfied with what now exists. Contentment or progress? Keep your head down or look up to the stars? Busy with Moon walk (Michael Jackson) or Mars Rover?

Your choice. I was just thinking out loud. It would be nice to have you join us. Imagine. And the world will be one.

Still the one (who sings)

Bob Seger‘s still the same.

Shania Twain‘s still the one.

And at C’est Moi tonight, the owner/singer (Vietnamese back from France) still carried the show with her energy and charisma, as if she owned the place.

When you sing, you have to lift the audience out of the here and now.

If they are on their feet, all the better.

Time suspended.

Bodies transported to a windmill (Dans le soleil and dans le vent) or a party and back (Wonderful Tonight).

Male baritone and female alto, vocal or duet, and the silence of the prelude.

Then the loop from vocalist to audience and (feed)back which in turn validates the performer.

Forget reality and all its pain.

Just Do Re Mi in infinite variables, one breath at a time.

The Vietnamese taste for music ranges anywhere from classic Western,  Pop  to traditional songs welcoming Spring time.

Rooted in agriculture,  people here cultivate then celebrate.

The upcoming week is time to board “The Last Train” : time for migrant workers to get out of the smokestack and back to their village.

Spanking new $2 dollar bills in red envelopes; kids in new clothes and old folks rejuvenated by family reunion.

Spring not only brings hope but also brings back the familiar . Let’s say someone has died, on the first day of Tet, everyone goes out to the graveyard, as if trying to cross the chasm , to bring him/her back to the fold and festivities.

Call it “collective denial” but it’s entrenched here, unlike Greek‘s Alpha-Omega mindset of “one cannot swim in the same river twice”.

I got that feeling tonight when Thanh Hoa (the singer/owner) took my request for You’re Still the One.

I sat there a few years back listening to that same song, same setting.

She still carried the show as she had done before.

Which gave me that feeling of homecoming, of having a seat at the table.

On YouTube, you can choose to hear “Still the same” by today’s Bob Seger (older) or “Still the same” by Bob Seger of the 70’s. Still the same.

Still the one.

Still wonderful tonight.

Music transcends time and age.

Music for Spring time , bridging cultures and distance.

It connects people, links the generations and calls out for renewal and redemption.

Come home child! There is always a seat at the table. You are still the one.