Tag: Compact Disc

Reality bites

It’s Sunday. Jamming Sunday.

Singer-musician-owner of Van’s Unforgettable was kidding, after a round of live and unrehearsed performances that we should just play a commercially released CD  since we at times failed at recalling certain lyrics.

He had a point. The age of automation and atomization is here.

Each of us, with headset and  in private should just entertain ourselves.

IN THE COMING DECADES WE WILL EXPERIENCE A KIND OF NEUROSES THE WORLD HAS YET  HAD A CURE FOR.  Knowing everything yet not knowing anything.

Spying on everyone yet not knowing anyone.

Data rich, content poor.

Socially connected, but emotionally isolated.

Like the song by the Foreigner, “I want to know what love is…why don’t you show me”.

Mobile and cloud computing, with semi and soon full automation assembly, will lower the costs and increase personal computing power. Yet no eye- contact, no time for organic relationship.

The lost art of  the start : “Hi, my name is….”

In the 60’s, the anti-war group was cool “Hell No WE won’t go”.

In the 70’s, the me decade.

In the 80’s, the politicization of religious America (as a reaction to Iranian Islamic revolution). The We there was meant for many splintered groups, not just the Moral Majority.

In the 90’s, chip speed gets faster while at the same time, we  “got mail”.

So instead of getting inter-connected, we end up with the atomization or re-individuation this time mobile-enabled.

By 2020, we will have lived in a world utterly foreign to our parents.

The narcissistic propensity comes in full circle. First, in looking at his reflection in the water that Narcissus felt in love with himself.

Then, the witch looked at the mirror (who is the fairest of them all).

Now, it’s the crystal – Samsung or Apple – screen which is our digital mirror or still water.

People are using mobile phones to put on make-ups, to take pics of themselves etc…

To “friend” and “Like”.

Mostly, as a recent study by Solis, to project onto others that which happened to be theirs in the first place.

Sort of Paris-Hiltonian world. “Nobody f… with my family and gets away with it”.

She is our new “Godfather” personified:  famous and furious.

Lethal combo.

Sex symbol and icon of a new age. The age of virtuality. Of 4-hr work week. Of instant access and gratification.

The Orwellian world has arrived, except this time, it’s so democratized that you don’t recognize it.

So put on a CD. Click on play, replay and instant replay.

Puff, the magic Dragon. No wonder music has also evolved, from Peter Paul and Mary (communal 60’s) to Madonna’sMaterial Girl (greed is good) to Gaga, At the edge of Glory.

Who cares about attempts at creativity, or our feeble memory. The chips will do all our memorizing and processing. All we have to do is “amuse ourselves to death”. Sit back, relax, and take a pill. Protest not. And even if you do try, you won’t know how. The machine and the men behind it have it all figured out in their races to world’s domination. Wake up checkers in this new attrition war. This time  it’s neither cold nor hot. Just virtuality vs reality. A fight to the death – the mother of all realities.

Man who whistles

While waiting for my next appointment, I heard a man whistle.

He carried a tune while being oblivious to outsiders. Maybe he just try to pass the time in between classes.

Maybe we should whistle too. We are all passing the time.

Some of us are doing time.

Stephen Hawking wishes he could hear his own voice.

The world-renown scientist himself needs help from technology.

We invented musical instruments: flute, drum, vuvuzela etc… to carry the sound, and use microphones to amplify it.

An I-Pad screen can now be used as a karaoke screen.

Music stand should now be reshaped to mount I-pads. It would then be called the I-stand.

I stand and sing from an I-stand.

Neil Young got inspired by looking at an old man on the farm “Old man looks at my life…”

The old farmer was just content going about his farming business (perspiration) while Young found inspiration.

Now, it’s Neil’s turn to grow old.

“I have been to Redwood, I have been to Hollywood…looking for a heart of gold and I am growing old” (at 66, he just released a new album).

So it is Christmas, what have you done?

We “use” artists when we need them: late at night, at year-end celebration and in-between classes.

Then we junk the 8-tracks, cassettes, CD‘s, or give them to Goodwill.

Then we move on to YouTube.

I will thank them on all of our behalf then.

Where would we be if not for the Abba who put “Happy New Year” on the musical map!

Music itself evolves with time. Just ask our faculty man who whistles the lonely tune.

By hearing his own tune, he perhaps feels less lonely, because the environment sends feedback with analog precision.

Man and music: both need each other to be complete. No wonder Tina Turner does it differently every time she sings her signature “Proud Mary“. Audience participation does make a difference: their feedback (while on their feet dancing) helps spin her interpretation of the song.

I know during that school break, with me there waiting for my appointment, the man who whistles was probably aware there were more than one person in that lounge. His energy certainly was boosted because his lonely sound impacted beyond the lonely walls of his own soul. Happy is he who wakes up to the sound of music.

Strange sounds, familiar shores

Instead of “I woke up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me…” like Paul McCartney,

I woke up to strange sounds these days: peddlers who use “low tech” au parleur (bull horn) mounted on bicycles or tri-cycles (selling boot-legged CD‘s). In fact, it was my first time got chased by pleasant sound from behind (most of the time, it was emergency vehicle with a sense of urgency). By music here, I mean, not Beatles‘, but Slow Rock (nhac Sen), lamenting heart ache and heart-break.

In the evening, you can hear metal belt sound for in-home massage ( I have never tried).

I miss those wood-on-wood sound of a noodle peddler.

Those were the best snacks a boy could wish for. Speaking of Vietnam childhood and music.

Steve Jobs and friends were listening to music with headsets so they could do it while laying down.

One of his signature photos was an empty room with just a lamp, with him sitting cross-legged.

Very Zen-like. Minimalist. Pure simplicity in design.

He went on to take classes in calligraphy (even Reed College curriculum was still too restrictive for his type).

The sum of all these experience gave us the I-pod with ear-plugs, and later on the I-phone and I-pad.

Studies mentioned that babies could hear before birth.

If this is true, I must have heard an early scooter, a vendor on wheels, someone trying to get the grill going, or a rooster announcing a new day.

Dawn in Vietnam and dusk in the US. (You can experience similar feel, let’s say by traveling down Mexico, but then they got the same time zone as in the US).

Sharing the same Moon.

Sharing the same hope, fear and dream:

Will my kids grow up “con nha lanh” (teachable), and not into drugs.

Will they stay or leave for strange shores?

Will they listen to our voice, those familiar sounds, or they will just “follow the money” and “hearing voices”.

In the end, especially in our flat world, the sound of jet engine and popping soda cans will bring us home from any strange shore.

For a moment there at my friend’s party, we danced and jumped to a familiar tune (sound), felt our hearts go on beating (The End of the World) and saddened “when you say, ‘goodbye'”. The day can’t go wrong when you “get up to the sound of music”, let’s say in “Beautiful Sunday” (when you said, you love me, hey, hey, it’s a beautiful day). Or at night, when soothing sound you first heard while inside Mummy’s womb was that of the noodle man’s peddling.

The-Man Band

He is the man. My man.

Summer night 40 some years ago, he practiced his guitar on the roof behind my house (like a line in Your Song).

Today he is still playing, whistling and singing.

On previous trips, I watched him perform along with two other members in an outdoor cafe.

Slowly, it winded down to two.

Last night, just him, the man.

What struck me was his coolness even when had to change cartridges in between numbers.

Stage hand, guitarist, singer, all in one. Machine and Me.

Maximum efficiency, reduced costs and rising unemployment.

The force of automation spares no one.

I could have called with my condolences (his mother had passed away a few months back).

But something cannot be done via a machine.

It has to be done with a hand grip, human connection and “hood” solidarity.

We went way back, more than 40 years.

He picked up a few guitar tricks from my older brother, I from him.

What goes around comes around.

In Vietnam, we keep reaffirming that the Earth is round, as if tomorrow, its shape might change.

Ironically,  while recycled to a third-tiered cafe on the outskirt of former Saigon, Cafe Vuong Tron (Square & Round) , he remained happy since “they still applauded” he told me.

Square and Round it was.

Young audience held their breaths between numbers.

He had that effect on this young generation (where else can you find a Johnny Cash like, all in black and pony tail in Saigon suburb).

They asked if he had a CD out.

He said he would think about it.

Maybe he should.

How long more can he go on like this (I am only 64, he said).

But when and if he had a recording out, I am not sure it would come across the same way.

Last night, it poured toward the end of his performance.

He switched unreservedly to Who’ll Stop the Rain.

I am sure a CD can play that song as well. But it wouldn’t have those silence in between songs.

It wouldn’t have his comments like “what are you hiding in there behind the tarp”.

It wouldn’t have me, his loyal fan, long time neighbour and unpaid apprentice, to start an applause.

As if to confirm my sidekick status, he asked me to help carry his guitar to the parking lot.

There, the amplifier was fitted in his scooter’s front basket.

His backpack wore backward toward the front, and guitar strapped across his shoulder.

After putting on poncho over his helmet, he waved goodbye, riding into the then still rainy night.

Like a shadow from the past, he had just logged in another trip back and forth to the 60’s.

Gen Y paid only for a coffee to enter his world, his space and his ambience.

They were taken up by a variety of musical expressions, which I am sure, are quite foreign to their world.

He helped unveil the past and even their future.

Music could transport you either way. I know this because during break, a young man asked if he could come up stage and play.

Our man was secure enough by then to play stage hand (the way Paul Simon letting a young female audience to share his stage)

and sit back to watch his reincarnation. The young singer was in student white , his song was raw and delivery green; but the budding emotion was there.

Old analog “Johnny Cash” will soon be replaced by digital new voice, new expression and new confidence.

That confidence says,” by these notes, I declare, you (the audience) and I (singer) are one, indivisible in our pursuit of happiness and heartbreak.” It will all be OK, however this is played out. Look at the man anchored  through time and turbulence, poverty and new-found wealth.

His steady hand still changes chords, changes CD’s and changes the audience’s skepticism. He plays at Vuong Tron, Go Vap District on Sunday Morning and Monday nights. But he had definitely played on the roof behind my house. I still remember My Sweet Lord guitar solo part.

He taught me that. “But it takes so long my Lord”. For me, 40 plus years was long but not long enough to change our man and our memory.

I really want to be with you, but it takes so long my Lord.

Digitally remastered

Pink Floyd is rushing their digitally remastered CD box set for back2school season. Its last.

End of an era. “The Wall” is coming down and we “don’t need no education”. Just download it.

News for free. Music for free. Phone calls for free. Even when you ask the butcher for a cheaper cut of meat, that saving ends up going to the gas stations, who in turn, pay a hefty fee to the credit card companies.

(or if you are still in college, the digitization of all things helps off-set some of your inflated tuition).

Our ecosystem seems a bit skewed: the bohemian life-style is forever subservient to global oil companies and their middle men (BTW, still with tax subsidies, which pay for their TV positive spin).

Pink Floyd moans a lost era when arts and artists (with photographs and snippets) could collaborate to offer the audience a fully integrated experience. A community of music lovers, who don’t mind sitting on the floor and grow their hair just like performers on stage. In short, they did what the Arab Spring folks are doing except that the Flower Generation engaged in much more than just social change: they revolutionized music-buying, concert-going experience, new economic/environment models, spiritual awareness (with a tilt toward Buddhism and Hinduism) and race/gender equality.

The look on the faces of Woodstock organizers said it all “look, this is beautiful” (as opposed to: “man, they crashed the gates and we couldn’t collect their money”).

The same is happening today with open source and digitization of all things, including music and books.

While still ” don’t need no education”, Pink Floyd is rushing against the clock to finish its project, served as a bookend to a bygone era. I know I won’t buy another box set after this any way. They know it. I know it.

After all, they were the ones who wanted to do away with their previous generation to begin with. Talking about a bygone era. See also Francois Hardy’s “Tous les garcons et les filles” (de mon age, ce promene, dans la rue”).  Now, no one wants to go out for a stroll (or a Sunday drive, given the gas price). Just log in, and tweet.

Transparent trail

I saved up my visual history in 3/4 inch, VHS, slides, prints, CDs, hard-drive, flashdrive and cloud.

Not so much for me, but for my daughters .

That collage documented my fits and starts.

Each person is a narrative whose ending remains a mystery ( ‘in my end, is my beginning”).

In the Year of Magical Thinking, the widow-writer kept wishing that her husband would return (hence, magical ),

and refused to give his stuffs away.

The hard part about closure is to get through denial.

We have come a long way, since Watergate (White House secret taping) to Wikileaks.

The best way to avoid having some thing bad traced back to you is not to leave one in the first place.

What is whispered shall be announced from the roof top.

I blogged about de-clutterization. But this time, it’s not about our hoarding habit (fax machine?).

It’s about using whatever format or latest update (Adobe) as tool and transparency as policy.

Companies spent enormous amount of time, energy and money to whip up great-looking “About us”.

Until prospective customers detected incongruity and inconsistency  (reputational lag).

We live our digital lives one day at a time in open-source mode, with myriads of combinations to collaborate and co-create (the sharing economy).  We will have to relearn TRUST as online currency before Web 3.0 can happen (co-create).

The twin brother-in-law of Congress woman Giffords said on CBS: “from space, I saw this beautiful planet and I wouldn’t guess there were so much – bad things such as random shooting – going on . We can do better “.

Out in open space, with no one watching, one presumes, like Nixon, that misspoken words are not coming back to haunt.

But in cyberspace, the opposite is true. We do live our virtual lives with more-real-than-real-life ramifications. We leave behind our digital fingerprints and carbon footprints, together form a narrative, to be mined years from now by “bots”. Faint-of-hearts need not apply! (as of this edit, Apple just purchased a company whose software can pinpoint where we have been i.e. GPS plus past footprints to predict our next likely frequent stops).

Recession consolidation

As soon as I got a copy of Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report from Amazon, I put it away, for closure. We got similar “reports” such as the Pentagon Papers, the 9/11 Commission Report etc…just for record keeping

There have been many levels of coping with this financial tsunami: million-dollar homes selling for half-price, giant tech companies acquired each other and personal debt consolidation (the sub-prime mortgage market and the securitized market tailspin  the middle class into the abyss).

When US non-essential personnel were pulled out of Egypt a few months back, we realized there were so many.

Has anyone ever heard of the 80/20 rule? or “tip of the iceberg” theory (90% perspiration, 10% inspiration).

Recession forces a lot families to “double up”.

Houses in St Louis, Columbus and Houston suddenly got a second look.

Rural broadband arrives just in time to accommodate “the rise of the creative class”, who can afford to choose where they would like to live (where there is a wi-fi connection and a latte).

Social researchers can easily take the nation’s pulse by seeing data from U-Haul and Penske. I venture to guess, the numbers will spotlight emerging clusters  where living is more affordable and jobs can be found (cloud computing and most energy-efficient data centers .)

Even companies are now relocated (incidentally, China rolled out this policy a few years back, allowing provinces to incentivize and attract capital and companies to settle inland), not just offshoring, but to secondary cities.

Newly relocated companies are perfect candidates to try private and public cloud. Another infrastructure accommodation due to the Recession (and while at it, get rid all the encyclopedia set and book shelves.) A school district in N Carolina bought lap tops for all school children from grade 4 and up. Less heavy text books.

Humanities shed some pounds. Thanks to the like of Countrywide CEO’s, Fannie this, Fannie that, who brought on unintended consequences : in trying to meet housing quota and feeding insatiable Wall Street sharks, they inadvertently reduced the size of America’s emerging middle class, the chunk of tax base which funded Fannie this, Fannie that in the first place.

The Commission Report purportedly sheds some lights on what happened, not to make arrests. So, like me, everyone can order a copy of hundreds of incriminating documents for pleasure reading.

But on many levels, things are still unraveled. Lives shattered and scattered. Unlike previous commission reports, such as the Pentagon Papers or 9/11, this Financial Crisis lingers on, taking its toll on everyone, everywhere. Just ask your day laborer . He hasn’t sent much cash to his family back home (I made a note that the financial services section at Wal-Mart hardly got any customer).

I am an optimist. My parents migrated to South Vietnam and I, Southern California. I got survival instincts. I know I will rise again, stronger and leaner. I wish for my coworkers, resellers and customers a better tomorrow.

If it’s too good to be true, maybe it is. How can people buy houses and swap spouses as if they were music albums and CD‘s. Those times still baffled me,

even after I got the Inquiry Report. It must not be the push, but pull factors that narcotized the late 2000’s era. Maybe there weren’t any specific culprit to nail.

Maybe we have taken a look at the enemy, and the enemy is us.