Tag: Youtube

Turn, turn

Just as soon as it is unbearably hot, it rains.

The season turns. All we are is Dust in the Wind, sings the Kansas.

But before that, one more stanza.

Take it to the limits.

What are the chances for some friends to turn to the guy sitting next to him at a random cafe, to finally recognize a classmate with 40 years in between.

It happened last weekend.

It comes in full circle.

Loyalty. Same class for four years. 68-72, the height of everything: war, peace, love and music.

Seeing myself in them and vice versa.

Where do you start after such a long gap.

OK, just hop in. I will give you a ride.

Let’s toast to the next 40 years. Oh, no. OK, 20 years.

There you go. A bunch of middle-aged guys.

Without facial recognition technology, I can still see it in their faces.

There was V, now slightly bald.

G still had his hair all combed forward .

And H still with his mischievous smile, except he is now taller.

(we weren’t all fully grown then).

I am reading “Idea Man”, Bill Gates‘ partner, Paul Allen.

They “followed the chips” and coded BASIC.

Now software rules.

40 years. A lot has happened since, and a lot more could happen in the next twenty years (Moore’s Law applied to social sciences).

Yet friendship stood the test of time.

So are some music of that time.

Just as the vinyl albums were about to extinct, we got YouTube to revive them.

Turn, turn, turn.

Summer breeze.

I’d really love to see you tonight.

My friends, my music and memories.

Let the world turn. Just leave me with those essentials.

What is life?

Every generation thinks they had pushed the envelope. Until each of us faces that same dreaded end.

That’s when we really know who we truly are, what we cherish most and who stood by us.

I hope you don’t go through what I have found: time is our greatest test. Turn, turn, turn.

All we are is Dust in the Wind.

Less is more

In reading Steve Jobs, a theme keeps emerge: less is more.

He cut out the fat and all its distraction.

(being a veggie, he stayed true to form).

His closet was full of the same long-sleeve stretch shirt that defined his personal brand.

His take on wealth and money was also consistent with his 60’s philosophy.

Steve could be nice when he chose to, but working for him must have been a nightmare.

His current replacement was quoted as saying “someone must take charge and fix the problem in China i.e. suppliers”. Half an hour later, he turned to see the man in charge still sitting there “why are you still here?”. That man drove to SF airport and bought a ticket flying East.

It’s true that our world is better and certainly more beautiful with technologists like Steve who also doubled as art lovers (I-pod).

If life consists of only 0’s and 1’s, we would all be automatons.

Lucky for us, we got both Bohr and Beethoven, Newton and Nicholas Cage.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Yet people keep acquiring, acquiring, acquiring.

And the longer I live, the more I see this isn’t going to end.

The pursuit of happiness has meant the pursuit of things (think of exercising equipment for home you saw on night TV).

All I can recall from a Hermeneutic class was “a priori “(we read into a text what we had already thought it would say).  We have consitently misinterpreted the meaning of happiness. In fact, advertisers have done this for us (driving a Cadillac is cool. Hence, to be cool, you must own a Cadillac).

Those text-book writers managed to make complex something very simple.

Urban gangs could say “yo man, m..f…is a racist”. That would say it all.

In the age of Wikipedia, if we want to go in-depth about a topic, just click it and scroll down. The spread of information will multiply even more quickly than Gordon Moore had anticipated (IBM has found a way to save space in transistors, call it magnetization, as opposed to polarization as traditionally used). Devices will get smaller with longer battery life (Acer’s thinnest laptop).

But convenience and comfort don’t equate to happiness. Life has gone on for centuries unassisted by today’s accessories. A tribe in India (island) is still functioning without modern amenities. (Tourists tried to bribe them to “pole dance” for YouTube , raising the issue of “human zoo”.)

The happy countries index often lists Costa Rica and other S American countries.

Yes, quality of life index listed Scandanavian countries such as Norway and Finland. They got the oil, but equally distributed unlike Lybia. But happiness doesn’t confine to just Costa Rica as opposed to Costa Mesa (where South Coast Plaza Mall is located). Perhaps Steve saw something while living in India (My Sweet Lord).

Perhaps we too should reexamine what are the core things that make us happy.

Beauty is found in wild lilies and the grandest scene recurs at every sunset.

Sometimes we missed those moments of happiness, only to recognize them after the fact. Would it be simpler to give happiness the initiative to seek us out. I bet you it work out better that way.

My Turn

For years, Newsweek had devoted one-page My Turn for reader’s Op-ed. This move paved the way for crowdsourcing and blogging, which are both technology-enabled (same way the Karaoke machine let the audience to have their turn at the mike).

We will come to a point in the future where past practices (museum, musical hall and magazines) criss-cross with emerging ones (file sharing).

Top-down meets bottom-up.

Online games and gaming are taking away revenues from traditional casinos and sport venues.

The desire and drive to share have found a platform ( faster speed of upload.)

Brainstorming technique has been around in Group Communication, but it is stiffling and sterile.

Individual creativity has been around but it works best when not imposed.

In fact, the best contribution from team members comes intrinsically and accidentally.

(see latest Opinion Page in NYT on “the New Group Think”).

Tell all this to century-old bureaucracy (yet Wall Street is known to build colo centers right next to financial center, to gain those mili-second trading advantage. This was to show that speed  works both ways: it takes us up quickly, or down equally quickly e.g. flash crash).

Barnes and Nobles is now betting on its Nook e-readers.

Amazon on digital publishing.

Newsweek and US News and World Reports are focusing on in-depth reportage or University rankings.

I miss Newsweek’s My Turn, but I know it has outlived its time.

Now, we can view instant comments after a post.

Why wait for the editors to select (curate) and show to us?

It’s the age of personal computing, broadband on steroid and fast results at the poll.

Those who are quick to comment will get last-in first-out ranking.

There are ways now to accommodate everyone’s Turn.

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.

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.

Pre-Karaoke childhood

We always rushed through dinner to claim our living room space, or call it a stage.

Daddy’s mandolin, brother’s violin, and my guitar.

But we never played with one another, being from three different generations.

So “Du Am”, “Em Toi” and “Le Da” in mandolin.

Then “Serenade”, “Guitare D’Amour” either by violin or guitar.

Finally my turn, with the Beatles, Bee Gee or Bad Fingers.

I had never given any thought to the music of earlier generations.

But having lived in the US for most of my adult life, and now returned to the same place, I finally saw the connection:

music has been the invisible (but audible) links between us. Had there been a karaoke machine in the house, we would have fought over the mike.

But given that pre-karaoke era, the best we could do was to race through dinner to get first crack at the music room.

My Dad’s choice painted a vague but very sentimental pictures of North Vietnam where he used to live before the country got partitioned. Then through my brother’s choice, I had a peek at Johnny Holiday, Sylvie Vartan and Elvis Presley.

To me, those were “uncool” music, but I tolerated them.

My “youthful” music, by today’s standard, would be considered “uncool”.

Performers got wireless mikes, and could move about freely.

On YouTube, one can see how “stuck” the 60’s bands were to the confinement of the studio (lighting, cameras and boom mikes).

You can only do so much with dissolve and editing.

The best we could do in our time was those sound distortion accessories, once plugged into an electric guitar, produces solo material as you would hear from Santana.

I thought the world was already “flat” when Santana rules Woodstock (he recently married his drummer – a she).

A Facebook posting of “Le Da” brought all this back. Memories of yesterday, of rush dinners and spontaneous rehearsals, our secret sauce for survival. Now those survival instincts are returning like a long lost friend, whispering ” you don’t need all the gadget to be happy.”

In fact, overly accessorized society has produced more neuroses. Birds and lilies in the field don’t need to be adorned. They are beauties in their own rights. The funny thing about today’s headline in Yahoo, was that of Facebook founder riding a buffalo in Northern Vietnam.

“Ai bao chan trau la kho” (who said riding a buffalo was a chore). High tech needs high touch, the virtual needs the real. The Japanese knew a thing or two about these instinctual needs when inventing virtual pets, or a karaoke machine (without the band). The question is, with all the gadget for education and entertainment, are we learning more and singing better? I wish we (Dad, brother and me) had at least found one song we all loved to jam together. Ask your teenagers, if they would like to hang out with you or their friends?

Oil-and-water economies

David Brooks of the NYTimes had a piece about the US economy which he coined as “mid-life-crisis economy that needs  to be rejuvenated”.

That’s oil.

Here in Vietnam, I found quite a contrast.

Young demographic, young economy that goes no where but up.

Community Colleges, Trade and Vocational schools, English classes.

One by one, they will progress to the next tier: married, having children, house-hunting and interior furnishing.

The accumulation game: he who dies with the most stuff wins.

People used to be content with three meals a day and a scooter parked in the house.

Then came the phone, the Ipad and the I-pod.

All of a sudden, expectations rise.

A new holiday ring tone, a remote for the scooter alarm, a new app for the I-pad.

Big-box supermarkets are gearing to push consumption pass their “valley of death” (early adopters seem to have done all the shopping they could besides taking trips to Singapore and Australia).

The early and late majority still bond with traditional outdoor venues: bartering is still common, but slowly it is being phased out.

One lighter note during Christmas: the meat-stall ladies up North uploaded their spontaneous dance number onto YouTube.

I can picture them with cell phones urging a quick delivery, but  they are now going “social” and “visual”.

Vietnam got started 40 years ago with Kennedy’s reluctant but pushed-ahead with that fateful decision to engage.

This has set the country back (while Steve  Jobs and Steve Wozniak grew up and toyed with personal computers in their garage).

Now it needs to play catch-up (while taming inflation). A dance that needs skills.

In war, the two sides already seemed to act like oil and water.

Now in peace , the two economies couldn’t be more different: one needs rejuvenation (per Brooks), the other revision.

Mountains and mole hills

It’s not that safe at Safeway, if you decided to munch on one of their merchandise (eat-now, pay-later vs pay-now, eat-later), as one pregnant Honolulu tourist found out.

http://news.yahoo.com/pregnant-mom-says-sandwich-arrest-horrifying-214407004.html

We learned in this AP article that no one stopped to say,” this has been taken far enough” i.e. we have made mountains out of mole hills.

If only the SEC regulators got the same zeal!

Still, property loss (especially eatable ) stirred more passion than job loss, until the author of “Pour your heart into it” decided to address it, $5 at a time.

Starbucks‘ Chairman decided to aggregate all the “Brother can you spare a dime” signs on a full-page NYT ad. “It costs a lot to look cheap”, says Dolly Parton. One unintended consequence of Occupy is regular homeless can blend in with Ivy League grads in tent cities (I was involved with mobile soup kitchen in wintry Boston, so I had some exposures to the brutal NorthEast weather).

Speaking of weather, it rained yesterday on the trick-or-treat parade.

It rained on policies which had tried to revamp the economy. One bright spot: Target which had some success with Cheap-Chic campaign, already set its Black Friday opening at zero hours.

Synchronize your watch!

I am sure our First Lady would want to pencil that in.

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, they found “Abels” in Cain‘s closet.

The nail that sticks up must be hammered down.

There will be many more debates to contest and contrast, but not conceal.

The Huntsman’s daughters are also out on their own campaign (Remember Scott Brown‘s daughters? Or McCain‘s and Cheney’s?) I am seriously thinking of  stapling my daughters’ pics to my CV.

Use all your resources.

Follow the money.

And forget not your fellow-men.

If they stole, it was their fault.

But if many had nothing but to steal, then it’s our fault.

Once in a while, I went on YouTube and clicked on “He ain’t heavy, He is my brother”. It brought back memories of my time in Junior High, watching upper class men perform in Talent Show. Those guys went on to excel in school and in society.

They showed us what loyalty meant (defending your school honor and one another), what patriotism meant (losing lives and limps), and what winning meant (together and not being a lone wolf).

That song got a long tail and a lot of mileage (reaching 2 million hits). It was popular at the time when the nation refused to acknowledge its enlisted men. Yet, less than a decade later, in pardoning bigger crooks, they made mole hills out of mountains.

Somewhere, someone ought to stop and say “this has gone far enough” instead of waiting for justice from the Nine, while the 99 felt left out.  That “someone” was somewhere else, certainly not in Honolulu and not at Safeway at the time of the incident.

P.S. As of this edit, Safeway dropped the charge, but the offenders were still banned from shopping at Safeway for one year (start counting the day!!!).

http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-safeway-drops-sandwich-theft-charges-022842086.html  Wonder if there were a Vietnamese sandwich shop (Banh Mi Ba Le) where they get a bite?

Voice & Video

Via camera phone, satellite uplink and YouTube upload, we got pictures and sound of the upheaval in Libya up to the minute.

The golden gun (its now-deceased owner must have watched James Bond’s Gold Finger), the Club Car and female bodyguards.

When I was growing up, we were cooped up inside the house (curfew) while news of a regime toppling beamed through state-controlled radio.

One military leader after another read prepared statements after both Diem’s brothers got assassinated in Cho Lon, Vietnam’s largest Chinese enclave.  Then, there was counter-coup and counter-counter coup (I lost count).

Back in 1963, to listen to the radio, we had to put our imagination to work.  School was out (our version of “snow day”) while Marshall law took control of the streets. Fear and trepidation were in the air. Everyone felt helpless. In short, breaking events weren’t unfolded as neatly and with instant access as they now are.

Before digital, networks had to spend time laying  the control track (on the 3/4 inch video), then the sound track and finally the B roll (video track).

Now, we got Instant access via Web apps, today’s B-roll , from the desert.

Every revolution seemed to culminate in Occupy the Broadcast Station.

Hugo Chavez and his band of brothers once tried just that, only to find out it had been moved. They were captured and jailed afterwards (partly for not having a Google map update).

Speaking of Google which purchased YouTube.

Although the later barely is profitable, it adds value to Google’s central strategy (organize the world’s information).

Where else can cable news get their video source to show, for instance, a Chinese toddler get ran over twice ( Where was the Good Samaritan in number 2 economy?).

Or an inappropriate tweet (and later denial) which derailed a Congressman career.

Voice and video in our time.

ABC News digs up its archive to show Barbara Walter’s decade-old interview with the Colonel, who was,  in her words, “vain”.

She got a career boost after joining  Walter Cronkite on his MidEast trip to interview President Sadat (now, we have woman as Editor-in-Chief at the NYT).

Back then as it is now, foreign experience makes or breaks a reporter’s career ( Dan Rather, Peter Jennings both had their early start in Vietnam).

Today, we’ve got  Independent Television News and Al Jazeera that supply voice and video feed for our 24/7 cable news cycle. This empowers a generation of digital camera-phone owners to become amateur stringers. If Chavez had to do it again, he wouldn’t need to occupy the broadcast station: just press Record and Send. Voila! Voice and Video. However shaky the shots, speed trumps (broadcast) standard. Wonder what they have to do at the FCC to cope with information explosion. And it doesn’t end there with Google satellite and  street maps. The EU has just sent up a new horde of advanced satellites into orbit. It’s a classic case of dictator’s dilemma: when one can have (information) access, all, the opposition included, can too. To deny one is to deny all. Yet, in abundance of choices,  I just miss those radio days “when I was young, I listen to the radio, waiting for my favorite song…”; this “hot” medium forced me to exercise my imagination (e.g. visualizing a live soccer match) based solely on voice and no video .  Now, everything is put on display, even what’s inside a Libyan food freezer. Gory and Gold Finger.

Neon God

” People bowed and prayed, to the neon god they made” (Sound of Silence now inducted to

the American Museum as Classic American Sound to be preserved).

Meanwhile, we spend an average 8 hours per month on Facebook, “the cathedral they made” (same amount of time people attend church services).

Twitter is not addictive. Facebook is.

Via the latter, we learn about people and companies, and the company they keep.

Those “likes” and snippets keep trickling in, like rain drops that Pavlovian-condition us to salivate.

Facebook works well with Youtube. One-two punch.

The video link is right there, ready to be viewed.

While Twitter is like a news feed, Facebook has become our trusted source of recommended entertainment and enlightenment.

Family photos and commercial photos both pop up indiscriminately.

It’s all in the pipe, and we open the floodgate, willingly without reservation (after all, we “friended” them in the first place).

What in the beginning resembled child’s play now commends global attention and respect (our next Steve Jobs).

It’s like a Casino, Cathedral and Community theater all in one.

While Ebay might be the largest bazaar, Facebook has become the Neon God (the Bubble of our own making) to which people bow and pray.

The platform has become the prophet.

The medium, the message.

8 hours a month, forever and ever, world without end.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2095516,00.html

In restless dreams I walk alone…. and the voices of the prophets are written on subway walls, Facebook walls, and whisper’d in the Sound of Silence.