How to Get From NY to London?

Check out Google Maps‘ direction. Make sure you don’t miss step 24.

Who Let The Dog Out?

Michael Jordan is smoking a joint and getting his groove on to get his mind off the divorce, which will cost him $150 million once settled. Definitely don’t be like Mike.

Groovie Woogie

Forget Dancing With The Stars. Let’s “Dancin’ the Boogie.” The band is off the hook.

Broken Body & Twisted Soul

In his solo interpretation of “Body & Soul,” Thelonious Monk deviated from the original to the point where it became a complete new composition. In the opening, he only played half of a bar of the recognizable melody and drifted off into his own “sphere” and occasionally came back to it. It drove me nuts while I was driving because I couldn’t figure out what the tune was but it has that familiar sound in it. The beauty in Monk’s style is the fractured chords and bent notes (yes he could bend notes on a piano). The way he handled the beat in his left and chords in the right is simply amazing. He’s doing two separate things at once like rubbing your belly while tapping your head.

A Monk Apart

Straight, No Chaser, an exceptional documentary on a phenomenal jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, is available on You(guess-it-right)Tube. I don’t know how many times I have come back to this film just to watch Monk played. I have many favorite jazz pianists, but Monk’s idiosyncrasies both in his music and personality have always intrigued me.

Then and Now: Vietnam Versus Iraq

Tom Tomorrow’s This Modern World.

Also: Vietnamese are the new Irish among Catholic priests.

Those Crystal Notes

In his Autobiography, Prince of Darkness complimented on his pianist: “Bill [Evans] had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall.” After listening to “All Blues,” I was like, “Miles was not bullshitting.” No wonder he always had the best players gave in to him. By the way, I can’t get enough of that crisp drums from Jimmy Cobb. Too damn sensual.

Mommy Ngoc Khue

Congratulation on the newborn. He sure is adorable. Wonder if she will sing Giot Suong Bay Len as his lullabies.

X-Swing

My favorite scene from Malcolm X portraited by Denzel Washington. YouTube isn’t doing the dance the justice here. Much better on DVD. But then again, YouTube got it.

Trish’s Power

It amazes me that I made a post on our darling Trish almost three years ago and the comments are still rolling in. The latest one was yesterday. One time, an eight-year-old girl posted her address as well as her phone numbers on the comment. How did I know? Her daddy requested me to take down the info. Also a comment from no body reads, “yall shut the BEEP up…ok? yall are lucky i dont cuse…ok? im watching this web site…ok? i have my way of geting to people…….OK? untill tall shut up ill be watching…” Man, I ain’t messing around with Trish no more.

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