Tag: George Harrison

Positively positive

Same set of situation, variety of readings.

Rashomon effect.

In Vietnam, if you ran into a funeral, it’s luck.

Wow! Positively positive.

The deaths live on in the family, albeit high up on the altar.

Part of one another forever.

Unlike in the US, health care for all is health care for none (shut down).

Negatively negative.

Here in Vietnam, the recycle mentality is quite ingrained: even in the soaking rain, I saw a lady wearing rain gear, picking up a plastic bottle. Not sure how much she earns from the act, which Bill Gates once said he wouldn’t be bothered.

And those with legs cut off would ride their manual cart to sell lottery tickets.

Positively positive.

Those who won a lump sum often spent it all in one place.

Those who sell those tickets keep on with their daily grind.

Positive begets positive.

A butterfly flapping its wings. A dog “saying goodnight” (It’s a Wonderful World).

A stanza of Samba by the Santana.

Even Requiem by Mozart, written for his own funeral. All positive.

Or Steve Jobs and his I phone, I tunes and I pad.

Or Tom Clancy and his much-anticipated publication after his death.

George Harrison has a song called “What’s life” and “My sweet guitar gently weeps”.

Play it on your rainy day?

Positively positive.

Life will get you at your least suspected moment.

Up to you to spot that rainbow and the starfish.

Or succumb to the Rashomon Effect. When in doubt, stay positive. And not just positive, but positively positive.

 

 

 

 

2012 Bookmarking

I used to rely on researchers like the Tofflers (Future Shock) to “see” into the future.

For instance, the pro-sumer trend, the mismatching speeds among various sectors ( IT, Financial, Educational, Governmental…in that order).

Lately, all I came across in Futurism was 2012 prophecy .

Like it or not, this year will have come down as a special year, if not, end of an era.

Let me explain.

We had a bloody closure on a terrible event which Tom Wolfe ably put “New York got knocked out of its two front teeth”. Then, Sandy rinsed through the Big Apple as if to complete this dental procedure.

Up North, we buried school kids died not of their own choices.

In today’s NYT Op-Ed, Father Kevin was quoted as saying “we are God’s presence to extend Mercy incarnate to one another”.

2012 marked a year full of flood and blood.

Dark Night Rises, while  we hardly hear George Harrison‘s Heres Comes the Sun.

I wish I can still rely on the likes of Tofflers to point out where our technological society is heading.

But then, while focusing on I-phone, I-pad and I-pod, we forgot the I-ndividual.

Consumer or Prosumer, the individual loves, laughs and learns.

When the power is out, and the water level keeps rising, people suffer.

Don’t tell me it’s war time (which somehow makes suffering a matter of fate).

It’s peace time. And we can’t handle the truth, still.

The truth is: we are victims of our own progress. We live too long, consume too much and complain far too little (venting does not affect change)

I love technology when it humanizes our society. It carries us to far-away places. But technology makes it too easy for kids to take down kids (compare to No Easy Day – set in Pakistan – Newtown shooting was far too Easy a day).

I know we will soon rid of the keyboard, mouse and monitor. The technology has already been beta-tested. Those are good stuff.

Softwares continue to rule the day.

James Bond already paired up with a much younger whiz, while his boss is nearing retirement. Signs of the time.

What it is ain’t exactly clear.

But if we don’t hear Here Comes the Sun, at least I suggest we click on “It don’t come easy“. Always with a price. Insurance companies are quick to spread the liabilities and costs, but slow to recompense.

Same with everything else. Statement comes due. Rent is up. It don’t come easy. But somehow, being “mercy incarnate” to one another doesn’t come at all. We barely grasp the concept much less putting it into practice. Yet other “right” such as the right to bear arms, has been built-in as second nature. I propose another amendment: next to the right to bear arms is the responsibility to pay for the victims killed by arms.

No Farewell to Arms. Own them, but just realize, like other technologies, everything comes with a price. Why should someone’s kids be your target practice. And why should civilized society be forced to make an U-turn back to Pre-Khan Mongolian era to pamper the rights of a few (9 guns out of every ten Americans). 2012. Something about that number.

Hate it or like it, we still have a few more days before Count Down. Have a “closure” weekend. Remember to plug-in your electronic devices, and while at it, plug yourself in as well. We need to be recharged as much as those things we have created.

Music was saved

When Steve Jobs came up with his 99-cent song idea, he saved musicians from the curse of piracy.

It’s all in the ether. But musicians get paid, however long the tail. Better than nothing at all.

More people get to hear those beautifully written pieces. I walked by a coffee shop yesterday.

On its walls displayed the AKAI tape decks. A by-gone era. We used to gather around it to listen to Steely Dan‘s DO IT AGAIN,  again and again (ironically, we followed the imperative i.e. Do it again) .

Musicians like George Harrison was throwing a concert for Bangladesh, wearing white suit, with his  rendition of “My Sweet Lord“‘s I really want to see you Lo.

Something about being together, globally and ecologically.

That was before the internet. Or else, with today’s broadband, more would have joined in with near-zero latency.

We live in an exiting age, with technology at our disposal. But do we see huge crowdfunding that does humanity proud?

I know, I know. It’s all ad-hoc now.

Think global, act local.

OK. I am all for green weekend.

And Electric Vehicle conversion, one car at a time.

But in the grandeur scale, we need a hero. Be they from the entertainment or sports, politics or business.

Something is broken. Perhaps the spirit of togetherness, of committing to a cause larger than ourselves.

Like Jobs, I do hope some technologists can come up with apps or simple business proposition that saves the music and saves the day.

Simple solution. Less than a dollar. And let music sing. Not when we can still spare a dollar for the brother. DO IT AGAIN.

PLAY IT AGAIN. I really want to see you Lo.

First, learn respect!

After transitioning from a French elementary school to a Vietnamese middle-school, on my first day of school,  I saw “First learn respect, then learn literature”.

My brother’s generation at the same school had been from the same mold (his classmates are still staying in touch).

No wonder they showed up at my Mom’s funeral in a cold winter day in Virginia , out of respect.

To see the sight of my brother’s classmates, my upperclassmen (most of whom accomplished MD’s and Pharmacists)  bowing with incense in hand, stirred something up in me .

Inside those “tough” shells were hearts of gold.

It is repeating today with my classmates.

A “party” (memorial) fund for our dear musician friend who had just passed away.

Since he was cremated in a private ceremony, we rally to chip in for his kids, to turn grieving into giving.

Coordination takes place across the Pacific, with the free help of technology (yahoo group).

First, learn respect.

I don’t know how much we will eventually collect, but I know my friend’s kids will grow up knowing that daddy’s friends care.

I know Long’s kids will take on some of his musical legacy.

Someday, if I survive to hear one of them perform, I will once again be reminded that there is no such a thing as “the day the music dies”.

(John Lennon’s kid is now playing, George Harrison‘s kid, the same).

I remember listening to “Your Song” during siesta long ago.

But it’s just a radio.

Now, it’s Spotify.

You can take away the stereo, the juke box and the boombox, but you can’t take away music in man’s heart.

The going might get rough, but then, there is music to soothe the soul (ole time Rock and Roll).

I know my friend would be smiling, displaying his square jaws, when I blog this.

He would have joined in if he could.

Testing, and one, and two.

Every other form of learning is preceded by Respect.

It’s hard to find, as a line by Neil Young “I’ve been to Redwood, I’ve been to Hollywood…looking for a heart of gold, and I’m getting old”.

Hold on to it when you have it.

Have it when you see it.

I wouldn’t think of this blog had I not seen it in action, at my Mom’s funeral, and heard it today from my yahoo group.

I love them dearly, but first, respect.

My 70’s

Needless to say, my hair was long, my pants were bell-bottom and my shirt shiny.

I spent half of that decade in Vietnam, the other half in America.

But the youth culture helped bridge the cultural gap: we had already listened to James Talor, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Elton John before I jumped on to Year of the Cat and If by Bread (in the US).

In between the two worlds, I got stranded one whole summer in Wake Island,

listening to armed force radio station (Loving you, Theme from Mahogany, Band on the Run).  “Where are you going to, do you know?”

Towards the end of the decade, we watched a bunch of movies whose statures haven’t been surpassed since: Midnight Cowboys, Taxi, Deer Hunter.

The disco craze was well underway, with John Travolta and the Abba.

Dancing Queen.

American couldn’t stand the look of anything that reminded them of Vietnam (negative pair-association).

Cat Stevens was still OK then. George Harrison still had some staying power with “Here comes the sun”.

I was into media (post-Watergate hip major).

Journalism was cool, while computer science was a new field (my friend Al T. was quite nerdy and he belonged more to Bill Gates clan ).

America came across as weak after Watergate, Vietnam and the Iranian hostage crisis. Reagan landslide election was the reincarnation of John Wayne‘s shoot from the hip style (he himself got assasinated by Hinckley in 1981, but reemerged stronger for the line “tear down that wall”).

As of this edit, people are still protesting about sectioning it to build upscale high rises in E Berlin.

Meanwhile, Vietnam in the early 70’s lived life on the fast lane with the last PX supplies, napalm. Plenty of Agent Orange.

A large percentage of US enlisted men was into drugs (facts on file).

A repeated theme from “Last Men Out” was “how can this be”.

But this was how. We breathed our last breaths. Band on the Run.

Celebrating my last Tet (1975) here, I knew we were on oxygen mask. I shaved my head, trying to hit the books instead of  the night clubs. But still, the rumor and rumble or war had gotten near.

It’s like the Angel of Death was breathing down our necks.

You could feel your back hair stand up.

That’s how tense life was in my early 70’s.  Even today, many people are still living in denial, albeit with flashbacks. I forgot to mention  the Carpenters somehow managed to sneak into our consciousness even though by all measures, they look like a bunch of Mormons (unlike the Mamas and the Papas).

But we knew then that “We’ve only just begun”. Their cut of “SuperStar” still engages me today (but it’s just the radio….)

When you had a bunch of young people wearing tight jeans and tight shirts, on campus,

and all they wanted was to wait for Saturday Night to come (Fever), you know it’s peace time. The disco ball was our cross, and the DJ, our priest.

Today’s version of nightclub is version 3.0, with synthesized techno music, and a few easy refrains (suicidal…). In the 70’s you sat and watched the “Soul Train” with black folks doing the dancing, and the Huxtables doing the laughing.

Welcome to America. Now could you help push the car (Oil crisis).

Random meet

In Vietnam, don’t be surprised when you are placed  next to a complete stranger, who knows someone who knows your host.

It happened to me at Christmas party this year.

Next to me was a Vietnamese-American returning from multiple tours in Iraq.

He was here to fly his wife out. She had flown in as well, but from Australia.

Happy ending: he was back from the war zone while she from a former one.

The company she works for has agreed to transfer her to the US.

I was like NYT‘s Friedman, marvelled at how “flat” our world had become.

A teen-age girl at the table couldn’t help “omg”, “omg” “so you’re like in Hurt Locker?”

We were trying to break the ice waiting to be served when the spot light turned to our returning soldier. Rest of the night was “omg” etc…

I couldn’t help reflect on “the Deer Hunter” syndrome, and how drastic the change had been in our reception of veterans.

This story hasn’t taken into account how high-tech this war was as compared to Vietnam. Incidentally, I read a statistic that mentioned the average life expectancy for Vietnamese: 1960-40 years, 2010 – 73 years.

No wonder it’s jam-packed “scooter nation”.

When my fellow dinner guest left on his perhaps in-law scooter, I said “if you can make it in Iraq, you can ride in Vietnam”.

We were joking about his need to keep in shape after all the good foods.

One common ice-breaking tip is “who would you choose to be dinner guest.”

Some people mentioned Bill Gates, others, Kennedy.

My favorites would be Charlie Rose, since he can draw anyone out of his/her shelf.

Barbara Walters would be interesting if she stopped being a journalist, and just be a conversationalist.

I then would invite Elton John, George Harrison and John Lennon.

Let the party begin.

Random meeting but more enlightened towards the end of the dinner.

I realise one thing after last night: you might not agree with a policy (what Mass Destruction Weapon?) but you need to accept the person, soldier or civilian. We are all floating together (Christ Church in New Zealand got struck twice sitting on the ring of Fire) on the seabed and sitting around the table together.

Disagreement or agreement, we are fellow human beings, seekers of truth and beauty. And perhaps, for a moment there, he and I were both “viet-kieu” (you need a second helping there).

Random meet, but perhaps not quite random after all. Merry Christmas soldier boy!

Simon’s Sound of Silence

“In restless dream I walked alone” this time, w/ out Garfunkel.

Two moments of silence descended upon two reflecting pools.

It was so eerie that ten years ago, of all things, Matt Lauer was interviewing a Howard Hughes biographer when the TODAY show got interrupted.

I don’t think viewers ever follow up on the bio after that morning:

Sound of smoke.

Sound of stress.

Sound of silence.

Silence, ten years ago, was deafening.

More like being speechless. Same freeze-framing the day President Kennedy was shot.

Even for those who made a living by commentating and improvising.

“Ten thousand people maybe more”.

People talking without speaking.

People hearing without listening.

Simon remains one of a few voices from the 60’s, who traveled far to Africa,

to enrich his repertoire.

The globalization of music.

Continuing Music Education (George Harrison and the Sitar opening act at Concert for Bangladesh).

Over the span of 60 years, more Americans have turned warriors without borders, might they be in Europe, Pacific, SEA, M.E. or South Asia.

The names which are now etched into the 9/11 memorial represent a diverse pool of country origins.

First, we have to be able to trust strangers.

Then, we do business.

Finally, we party and share the grief.

Besides English as lingua franca, we got music. We got Rock and Roll, soft or hard.

Then we got Sound of Silence.

In the decade since, I have been more aware every time I fasten my seat belt, before take off.

Hundreds of air passengers, strapped in for known and unknown destiny.

Like the Hockey team from Russia.

Even the last survivor didn’t make it.

Flight 93 passengers took destiny back in their own hands.

The hijackers got hijacked in a 9/11 twisted plot. Then, rescue workers needed to be rescued.

No crescendo for an already stress-filled morning.

We wanted to get back to book reading and book reviewing.

We wanted our loved ones to come home.

Le Monde headlines the next day was “We are all Americans“.

If there were Twitter, our chosen top tweet would have been

“We’re all first-responders”.

In restless dream, I walked together.

Simon and Garfunkel: twin talents for Twin Towers.

Growing old in post 9/11 era

Younger generations are growing up digital. I grow old in post 9/11. We were bumping along, thinking the dot.com burst was the story of the Century. Then, the unthinkable happened. Brave were the men on United Flight 93. Our lives have never been the same since (collective survivor’s guilt).  An act of outright violence needed to be dealt with. It was one thing for the French to vent about McDonalisation or Disneylandisation in Paris. But it’s quite another to plot and plan an attack on American soil to bring about caliphate.

Now they know. Now we know. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

The journey is still a reward. But on that journey, we bumped into all sorts of people (brave and abhorrable) . Quite an inconvenient truth. Bin Laden wasn’t the only one who got grey hair (or beard). This son of a construction tycoon would rather live in concrete than cave, not unlike other 21st-century men who now frequent spa and salon. A journalist teacher said it aptly, if only we had someone to blame for Vietnam as we had for Afghanistan.

On Sunday night, we forgot the financial bubble, the rising gas price and the drought in credits and jobs.

We got some closure, at least for the families of victims and heroes on United 93 (although dead, but they took matters into their own hands, hence, the term “victims” were deemed inappropriate).

George Harrison sang about “What is life” while his more influential band mate, died of senseless violence, “Imagine there’s no religion”. He must have seen the devastation done in the name of this God and that God, so his vision (often times through a pair of sunglasses) was without heaven (and certainly no virgins in neverland).

For me, with no sunglasses, I see life through that gaping hole of NYC ‘s two missing front teeth (courtesy of Tom Wolfe).

I see life from both sides now, from dot.com boom to housing burst.

I am growing old digitally in post 9/11 era.

My list of Influencers

Despite their flaws (who doesn’t have one please cast the first stone), these are the people I look up to:

– President Carter with his commitment to build housing for the poor

– President Clinton out of that place called Hope

– Jim Elliot, the late great missionary who died for his cause

– Danny Devito who despite his “short-coming”, managed to secure a starring role in Taxi

– Nelson Mandela, there is no need to elaborate here

– Cheryl Crow for touring and making it as an artist in a predominantly male rockers club

– Norman Mailer for speaking out and writing up monumental pieces of literature

– Charlie Chaplin, who saw the inhumanity of the system, and in the process makes us laugh without a need for words

– Robert Redford who started Sundance Festival to encourage young film makers to step up to the plate

– Kevin Costner whose ambition has been unmatched, and he has lived out his role in Water World (not oily world)

– Hillary Clinton who personifies multitasking, self-reinventing and America itself

– Steve Jobs who got booted out of corporate America, but somehow, turned crisis into opportunity, the Yin into the Yan

– John Travolta, the comeback kid to become the star that he meant to be in Pulp Fiction and still counting

– George Harrison and Eric Clapton, to have their sweet guitar “gently weeps” for Bangladesh flood victims

– and most recently, senator Kennedy, who could have just kept quiet and sailed around the world for 40 years.

Each one of us take a play page from the many “sparks of divinity” without knowing it.

They inspire us, and show us new heights.

No, they are not naive. They know the costs and consequences of their action.

But they also know the opportunity cost of their inaction.

While  TIME and Forbes lists are updated annually,

Our pantheon of the gods need daily update.

Like our heroes, we are to use talent and technology for social change.

In the process, we better ourselves,.

Silicon Valley has come to you. It’s up to you to start meeting “gentle people” online.

No wonder TIME People of the Year a few years back was YOU. The burden is now on YOU.

Become my new influencers as I yours. We do need each other to make it through this world and leave behind a better one.