Tag: Southern California

Memoir yet to be written

The 70’s was coined the ME decade (Tom Wolfe).

I am OK, you’re OK. By now, we should see the ME products on the shelves: from Shirley MacLaine to her brother Warren Beatty, from Rock Hudson to Ron Reagan.

Last of the hardback memoirs. Last of generation ME.

We now join the world, for WE ARE THE WORLD, to the tune of 1 billion faces on Facebook.

An oil refinery went wrong somewhere up North, all of Southern California suffered (last week, gas price hit $5.00 per gallon).

I am an ardent fan of the future. The presence of the future is shown in each child’s eyes. Potential and possibilities.

No politics.

Their experience are mediated through a parental “firewall”. But the rest of reality out there to a child , who is holding an I-pad, is full of promises.

Why, why, why?

Adults can come up with 10 “why nots”, before we can come up with one “why” we should pursue a course of action (change).

Life has dragged us down.

So much that it would be more appropriate for us to wear “handicapped” T-shirts (instead of Superman).

I admire people who show up at the gym. At least, there are a handful of people who know their priorities.

Then, we should be paying attention to legacy.

It’s likely that we will be remembered for one thing, the way Presidents could not live down that one war they presided over.

Will yours be the innovator? The enabler? The leader? The thinker? The Creator? The Peace Maker?

We got that spark of divinity. Just that it got buried deep or blurred along the way.

No one has encouraged us to strive for more, strike for gold, or reach out to the stars.

They want to catch us speeding (they mean the machine, the hidden cameras etc…).

In other words, we live in a society predisposed to punishment instead of rewards.

Yet we pay lip service to employee of the month parking spot (next to handicapped’s).

I have noticed a detrimental trend during the Recession: those who don’t have jobs have gotten used to their second-class citizenry.

And those who hold a job, have also been deflated and resigned to becoming machine-like, which ironically, makes them vulnerable and replaceable by automation.

So, the ME decade in the 70’s gradually dies out (as shown in Memoirs and Biography shelves). In its place, we got the rise of the machine, a mindset (resignation to fate) and even the “end of men” as recently emerged in gender discussions. In twenty years, we expect to see more memoirs by accomplished women executives (HP, IBM, xerox, Facebook, yahoo, Pepsi…) and those who broke the glass ceiling, whether occupational or social (Oprah, Melinda Gates, Merkel, Rice, Hillary). Memoirs yet to be written. Could be yours and mine. With extended life expectancy, you do have time to sort and sift through those raw materials for your memoir. Just make sure to use the word WE  often. So We can share it, re-tweet it, and Like it.

P.S. As of this edit, Lean-In by Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg, has just been released and moved to top spot on USA Today book list, just to prove my point.

Rain-bow start

It’s not an optical illusion. It’s real.  Has always been there and it’s called light. But somehow, this afternoon, at the start of my run around the park, I saw a rainbow. Nature conspires to create a rainbow for Southern California. Breath-taking is its beauty.

People paused and took pics from their I-phones. It’s a rare sight indeed, consider there wasn’t even a drop of rain.

It’s always been there.  Just another way to show itself, light that is.

We need sunlight and its photosynthesis effect.

The cycle of dawn to dusk.

We keep hearing “life is too short”. And then, we hear that in places like Alaska, the days are long.

Which is true? People must be talking about Kairos vs Chronos.

Timeliness vs the conventional 24-hour cycle.

(BTW, it’s news cycle now. So we all know what happened with Isaac upgrade to Hurricane category 1, or  GOP kicks off their meeting in Tampa,  etc…).

We are inundated with trivia. News that trigger curiosity but trivia still.

Then we learn to tune out the top and the side bars (advertising).

Then we grow desensitized and disengaged. If world citizens are “compassion-fatigue”, not so much because they wore themselves out from doing good, but because they threw the baby out with the bathwater i.e. news, as presented to us in current forms-  that they might miss out an opportunity to engage or be warned.

I got a good laugh today, when my roommate showing off his once-$600 film camera. Who would sell him films and develop them nowadays?

Change comes that quickly.

And might you, the guy is still young. Not your grandfather with his black-and-white momento.

So, we get on, with RIM down, Nokia down, Sony struggles and Amazon rules (the Cloud).

That quickly.

But nothing is new. All that happened before. Just like the rainbow I saw today.

Just another way for nature , which has always been there, to be in our face, with a new spin on an old story line. Inviting and daring discoverers to go where no one has ever set foot before.

RIP Neil Armstrong. You got to see that picture of them in an isolated trailer, with President Nixon looking in from the outside.

It could have been their coffins, given the 60’s P.O.V.  In fact, there had been a prepared speech,  just in case they didn’t make it.

Now, with giants’ shoulders as platform, let’s stand tall, be confident and grateful that we have less fear of the irrational. And best of all, a majority of us will have long to live, love and  learn more than those before us, who I am sure had seen an occasional rainbow as I did today, and perhaps had also wondered: is it an act of God? Is this lucky or what? To have such a symmetry painted on the sky, for free and for all.

Unseen hands

that manipulate interest rates, oil price, appropriate and earmark budgets for the commons.

Adam Smith must be talking about the abstract “invisible hand” of a free market, while in reality, we all feel there are levers behind the scene with successive hands, tinkling and adjusting. Some are automated, by self-improving algorithms.

One example of the devastating works of this unseen hand was seven or eight years ago, when people in Southern California driving to Arizona and Las Vegas to buy houses. People who were NINJ (No job, no income).

The unseen hand that was supposed to regulate, didn’t.

Now, they uncover a bunch of Ponzi schemes. Quickly, these poster boys are put away, or at least, taken out of their nice homes in Colorado.

I do buy things to sustain. Hence, I am a consumer, but refuse to be called consumerist. I don’t follow the cult of purchase for purchase’s sakes.

I don’t buy to stimulate anything. If the economy can’t get cranked by itself (with 7 Billion of us buying things day in and out), then all the unseen hands in the world can’t help it.

At least, there is some good news from the Michigan Consumer Confidence Index. And Wall Street chart starts looks like a slanted V-shaped recovery. Let’s hope so. Rally, rally, rally. Oil price goes up. Confidence is up. So is the temperature.

If you don’t hit the store by 10AM, forget it. The USA weather maps shows red-hot regions in the South. It’s global warming. And we need those unseen hands to regulate the thermostat as well. I am not against hands. Just encourage them to tinkle with the right buttons, while letting the market regulate itself, in the noble Adam Smith tradition.

The undercurrent

Got jolted last night. 4.1 shock. And this morning, some more aftershocks.

It reminds me we share a vulnerable surface: ozone layer all around and a sea of lava underneath.

While we receive pictures of Mars surface, we are reminded of Earth surface as well.

It takes some getting used to, living in California.

But it’s here where talents come, from Silicon Valley to San Fernando Valley, from Redwood to Hollywood.

This is as “West” as you could go. Even waiting tables out here is like “acting”, or pre-acting (waiting to be casted).

Everyone wears shades. Expensive-looking ones. You got games. Got to have that “player” look.

Billboards on Sunset are huge, in-your-face.

and you are forever in need of a better T-shirt.

If you happen to put on Tennis shoes, make sure you don’t look like that little-old-lady.

Gotta have that Air Jordan feel, whether you play basketball or not.

Girls wear pajama pants. But it’s a statement, not garment.

It says “I don’t give a damn”.

I don’t need to put on a suit, to look like a male to get by.

In fact, nobody, at least in the summer, puts on a suit in Southern California.

Let’s not forget about Summer Concerts in the park. Wonder where those bands were coming from.

But they are here, getting paid to play.

Music is in the air. The Earth gets shaken every now and then. And people continue to move out West.

Running away from God knows what. A wet winter? A bad relationship? A need to reinvent oneself?

Even waiting tables out here is not just a job. It’s a part, a role. You are on-stage, waiting for the next “gig”.

Got your head-shot? Underneath it all, you can take off the facade that is required back East, but then, you will have to put on another, just to play the part (an extra). It comes with the territory:  nice weather mix  in with earthquakes.

Living in horror shop

This Valentine Day, Vietnam dating scene will be scary!

That is, if they picked  “House in the Alley” for a date movie.

Dan rented a house in District 3, and during the course of trying to find the right film treatment, discovered something about the house in the alley which he had rented (French villa).

http://t.co/NOmCihEI

I shared a Chamber of Commerce dinner with Dan not too long ago. We discussed films such as Joyeux Noel (WWI cease-fire for soldiers to celebrate Christmas. Opposite sides crawled out of their fox holes to fraternize on this snowy holiday in peace and brotherhood. No animosity, just humanity).

Dan’s knowledge and passion for movies clearly showed even then.

Or else, why would a Venture Capitalist decided to “risk”” a chunk of change to produce something that is scarry to him, financially!

I wish him all the success.

Superstition is alive and well, everywhere, but more predominantly in Vietnam, still an agricultural society (the long-breasted ghost tale..)

Now, even ghosts move to the city, and occupy the alley.

I live in the Alley (see Moon Alley).  After three-months here, I can pass as native and not banana (yellow outside, white inside).

My survival instincts long dormant start to kick in when I feel danger or threat.

You gotta to be on your guard, but not to the point of “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.

Dan and his crew (even him got lonely and called me on New Year‘s day) just have to exercise their imagination and creativity.

But, the impact I suspect will be greater for Viet Kieu overseas, since it will carry an underlying theme of nostalgia (missing even the ghosts one had left behind).

I guess, the worst case scenario for Dan is to break even, with interests paid in Underworld dollars.

They burned a lot of those last week, I heard, even I-pads, for the dead to “live” (no punt intended) in digital and 3-D.

One can hardly be lonely, not when living in a Vietnam’s alley.

Selling rain gears on sunny day

I still remember watching “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg“, a French musical film.

Of course, more umbrellas are sold when it rains. But when it “never rains in Southern California“, how would marketers manage?

The answer: rain making. And yes they did!

I was sitting on the top bleacher of Sea World, San Diego. And there they were, selling rain gears on a bright sunny day.

Those merchandise sold like popcorn. Even had the Sea World logo on them.

The catch: so you don’t get wet when Shamu splashes water all over you (supposedly a VIP treatment).

American capitalism at its best:  selling ice-cream to Eskimo.

Value-creating.

Young people finally say something: they are “Occupying Wall Street.”

Never too late (if there were to be a double-dip Recession).

The floor has been primarily occupied by the likes of Mr Buffett, who deserves and got a tax-hero medal.

But UBS?

Today’s culture of Wall Street makes yesterday’s Gordon Gekko look like an altar boy.

Greed is good. More greed is better.

At least, Mark Zuckerberg is still seen in his signature T-shirt (the only time he was seen in suit and tie was on Facebook town hall with President Obama).

Now, it’s LinkedIn’s turn to hold a virtual town hall (The Age of Participatory).

Hint: you can send in a lengthier question, at least, longer than 140 characters.

And maybe, promote yourself into a job.

After all, it’s LinkedIn.

I sold school magazines, defunct currency and fax machines when I first started out.

I can always tell when customers are satisfied (after-sales gratitude, or landing my first date after pitching our school magazine).

The decoupling of bankers-borrowers, buyers and sellers have led to current debacle. We need rain makers, not rogue traders. But most of all, we need satisfied customers who will act as evangelists.

The culture of commerce had existed long before technology or currency came along (Silk Road).

Technology only facilitates and accelerates the exchange. By no means it should replace the handshake or  trust-building.

I saw the joy of those people who put on Sea-World ponchos that day. They still had them on when the show was over.

They inadvertently acted as Sea World’s walking bill boards. Now, that’s capitalism at its best: a win-win proposition that is sustainable.

When you are happy, it’s a musical, like “Singing in the Rain” or as I can still recall Les Parapluies de Cherbourg or Sea World. In the Last Lecture, Randy recalled his childhood trip to Disney World that had turned career-forming for him. Help people experience, and they in turn,  help you with yours.

FICO and self

For a small fee, we can take a look of our credit worthiness.

But it takes a long time to realize  self-worthiness.

None among us has the future vantage point to look backward.

We often hear about the magic power of MLM. In good times, yes.

In bad times, those multi “levels” quickly become weakest links.

Big banks and big boys have faced Inquisition of their own.

Even when interest rates nearing zero, the engine still refuses to crank up.

It seems as if the confidence game itself can use a reboot.

The Asian tigers found their FDI level decline.

Now the Fed got money printer’s jam, and China refuses to extend credits (so much for country’s FICO).

Meanwhile, people in places like Singapore can’t get enough “satisfaction”. They are on shopping steroid (and smoke).

I can feel the energy of commerce.

But not at the gym.

People just punch in and go through their motion.

Even Todai dropped its all-you-can-eat prices.

So my recommendation (to myself as well) is to reboot our self-confidence and rebuild our FICO scores.

One step at a time. Until we got wings on our back and feel the sun in our face, “fly robin fly”. Just make sure those wings are not made of wax. All along, remind ourselves that we are worth more than our FICO scores, the same way we love our kids not because they bring home an A+ from school.