Let’s keep it real. Ye has issues. No, scratch that. Ye has some serious fucking problems. Over the years, his abnormal behavior has become more erratic as his music has become more expressive. It gets to the point where his life and his art are inseparable.

As a fan of his music, I tried to focus only on his work. I didn’t care that he said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” It didn’t bother me that he hijacked Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. His support for the Trump presidency, however, was the last straw for me. I was disappointed. I didn’t want to hear his music ever again like I wouldn’t listen to R Kelly (sex predator) or Nguyên Khang (another dumbass Trump supporter). For a while, I stopped listening to Ye’s albums altogether.

These days, I gave in and went back to his catalog. I completely tuned out of his relationship dramas with Kim and Pete. With his breakout debut, The College Dropout, Ye proved to be a conscious rapper with bangers such as “All Falls Down,” “Spaceship,” “Jesus Walks,” and “Never Let Me Down.” I always get a kick out of “The New Workout Plan.” The testimonials are hilarious as hell, especially Ella-May from Mobile, Alabama who had been able to date outside of the family after listening to Kanye’s workout tape.

His sophomore Late Registration follows up with so many gems. The soprano sax in “Drive Slow” is so damn intoxicating. Etta James’s voice is so addictive in “Addiction.” JAY-Z steals the show in “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” with the line, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.”

With Graduation, Ye tightened up the album experience by leaving out skits. Right from “Good Morning (Intro),” “Champion,” “Stronger,” “I Wonder,” to “Good Life” are all solid tracks. In “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” Ye reveals, “I feel the pressure, under more scrutiny / And what I do? Act more stupidly.” “Big Brother” is such a beautiful tribute to JAY-Z.

808s & Heartbreak is such a unique album. He can hide his voice behind AutoTunes, but he cannot hide his soul. “Coldest Winter,” a tribute to his mother, is just soul-crushing. I love the entire album, except for the live recording, “Pinocchio Story,” which felt out of place.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy starts strong right out of the gate. From “Dark Fantasy,” “Gorgeous,” “All of the Lights” (I love the interlude), to “Monster,” there’s so much beauty in darkness.

Yeezus is ten solid tracks from beginning to end and they are hard as fuck. “I’m In It,” in particular, is not even quotable. If there’s any doubt that Ye is not a lyricist, this alum is a testament that Ye is a lyrical genius.

Watch the Throne, Ye matches JAY pound for pound on the lyrical front. I hope that they will follow up the second album in the future.

Let’s face it. Ya is a flawed human and a music genius. Once I separate the artist from the asshole, I can enjoy his work.

Ski season is officially over. Liberty, Roundtop, and Whitetail had closed this weekend. I am feeling nostalgic already. Skiing has been so much fun, especially spending time with my boys, but it is time to put our gears away. What will keep me active in the spring and summer?

I want to get back to figure skating. My skills are getting rusty. I am still stuck on salchow and toe loop jumps. I need to nail these jumps to move forward. I don’t have too much confidence and passion like I used to; therefore, I don’t know how further I can go. Then again, I am not competing with anyone but myself.

I am still rollerblading at skateparks. I am not advancing much. I am still working on my pumps and riding the half pipe. I have gained confidence in my drops. I fell once yesterday from dropping down a high curved ramp. I felt fine until I went to sleep. My right shoulder was in pain. My body shows its age. I am starting to feel as if aggressive skating isn’t for old men like me. My kids no longer have any passion or interest in rollerblading; therefore, I feel lonely skating on my own. I still do it. I don’t want to give up yet.

Besides these sports, I should be focusing more on housework. Over the years, we have accumulated much more stuff than we need. The more I push off, the more overwhelming I get. I need to spend more time getting rid of things we don’t need. Tidying up the house has been a challenge with four kids. They leave toys everywhere.

As much as I despise home maintenance, I have to do as much as I can on my own. Not that I can’t afford to hire handymen, but I just can’t justify paying for everything around the house that needed fixing. Truth be told, maintaining our house is one of my sources of stress. Then again, what can I do? I am just going to face whatever hits us.

Đã lâu rồi tôi không viết về mẹ. Không có nghĩa là tôi đã quên hẳn mẹ. Trái lại tôi vẫn nhớ đến mẹ rất nhiều. Thời gian trôi qua giúp tôi nhận thức được tình mẹ con không chỉ tồn tại trên trần gian. Dù cho âm dương cách biệt, mẹ vẫn mãi mãi bên tôi.

Lúc mẹ được thoát khỏi những đau đớn và đau khổ của cõi tạm này, lòng tôi luôn xót xa mỗi khi nhớ đến mẹ. Ăn món ăn mẹ đã từng nấu hoặc nghe một nhạc phẩm mẹ từng hát ru tôi ngủ, tôi không thể nào không ngậm ngùi. Ước gì mẹ vẫn còn đây. Ước gì mẹ không bị Covid cướp đi tính mạng. Ước gì tôi đừng đưa mẹ vào bệnh viện. Ước gì tôi che chở được cho mẹ như mẹ đã từng chở che cho tôi. Có hối hận hay tiếc nuối cũng không làm mẹ sống lại. Con người có sống rồi cũng sẽ chết. Còn sống một ngày là hẹn chết mai sau.

Để vượt qua những tháng ngày khó khăn đầy phiền muộn và chán nản, tôi đã tập trung vào gia đình nhỏ của mình và những môn thể thao khiến cho tâm hồn của tôi không bị sao lãng. Tôi vẫn nghĩ đến mẹ thường xuyên, nhưng ngược lại những nỗi buồn đã trở thành những niềm vui. Những đứa cháu nội của mẹ đã giúp tôi không còn buồn bã nữa mỗi khi nhắc đến bà. Mỗi lần thằng Đán ăn sashimi, nó luôn xin phép bà nội đừng giận. Lúc còn sống bà không muốn cho thằng cháu cưng ăn cá sống. Và tôi cũng thế, mỗi khi làm những chuyện mạo hiểm, như trượt tuyết từ trên núi cao xuống, tôi cũng xin phép mẹ đừng giận con. Mẹ nghe được và thấy được nên vẫn luôn phù hộ cho tôi bình an.

Giờ đây cho dù ở chân trời nào, trên núi cao đầy tuyết hoặc xuống biển mặn, tôi vẫn luôn có mẹ bên cạnh. Nhớ tới mẹ khiến tôi luôn hãnh diện và hạnh phúc đã được làm con của mẹ hết kiếp này. Mẹ đã sinh tôi ra và đã hy sinh cả cuộc đời cho tôi đến ngày mẹ nhắm mắt. Giờ mẹ đã đi rồi nhưng chắc chắn mẹ con mình sẽ đoàn tụ khi con trả hết nợ đời. Không biết tuổi đời tôi còn được bao lâu, nhưng giờ đây vẫn có mẹ trong tim của con.

Tố My không chỉ được nhạc sĩ Phạm Hồng Biển trao cho những tác phẩm của mình mà còn được anh hoà âm cho album Cửu Long tình. Với những nhạc cụ truyền thống, người nhạc sĩ trẻ này đem đến cho người nghe những âm thanh của thôn quê. Từ đầu album đến cuối, giọng hát ngọt ngào của Tố My cùng những tiếng đàn dây tiếng sáo khiến người nhận xét này nhớ đến quê nhà những là vào những ngày tuyết lạnh trên xứ người. “Má thương con hoài” làm tôi không thể không nghẹn ngào:

Má ơi, nuôi con má khổ trăm bề
Từ ngày bầu bì nghén thai
Đến khi lắm bụng quặn đâu không xiết
Từ ngày tập bò biết đi
Đến khi nên người bước chân ra đời.

Thương mẹ Việt Nam quá.

In her latest Netflix Special, Tomlinson shares the loss of her mother when she was eight, the struggle with her mental health, and the challenge of her religious upbringing. Tomlinson definitely has a dark sense of humor because she believes “if you can laugh at the darkest stuff that’s ever happened to you while it’s still actively happening to you, sometimes that’s what help get you through it.” Tomlinson is a fantastic writer. Her materials are thoughtful and her delivery is on the beat. I highly recommend streaming it.

On Saturday, we had a surprise snowstorm with the temperature dropping to the teens. We were to cancel our trip, but I took Đạo and Xuân with me to Liberty in the afternoon. The conditions were a bit icy, but still decent for skiing. We skied mostly on mogul terrains. The blue moguls were fun and manageable. The double-black moguls were tough, but I loved the challenge. I hadn’t conquered them yet, but I was more comfortable with them. I understand why many skiers don’t like moguls, but I am starting to appreciate them.

On Sunday, I took my kids and my brother-in-law took their kids to Roundtop. The conditions were great and the lifts weren’t too crowded. The younger kids skied in blues with one of my brother-in-laws and I led the older kids on the double blacks. In the afternoon, Roundtop held a Pond Skim competition. Participants dressed in customs and skied or snowboarded over a pond of cold water. After watching the first few folks dropping into the pond and only one of them made it, I headed over to the double black slopes to do a few runs down Gunbarrel, the steepest slopes out of the three resorts: Roundtop, Liberty, and Whitetail.

I shared a lift with an older woman and we had a short exchange. She shared with me her personal story about her late husband who used to work at Roundtop as a mechanic. She lost her husband over pancreatic cancer. She also revealed that she was wearing his jacket. I was touched. She was such a sweet woman.

After three runs on my own, I met up with my three boys (Đạo, Đán, Xuân) and their cousins (Hân, Khôi) and they all wanted to do Gunbarrel. My three boys and Khôi made it all the way down. Hân plowed down just a quarter of the slope and freaked out. He didn’t want to go all the way down, but he couldn’t go back up. His only option was to slide down on his behind. The second time, Khôi plunged into a tree. Thank goodness he didn’t fall on rocks. After that we went home.

This weekend was probably our last ski trip for the season. The resorts will stay open until next Sunday. Looking at the forecast, the weather will be warm next week. I am not so sure if we can take our last trip next Sunday.

Here’s a clip of me taking my time down the Gunbarrel.

Sedaris’s diaries from 2004 to 2020 are filled with humorous stories he had seen, heard, or encountered. His observations are the money shots. The “balls” joke is just too hilarious. His entries on the 2020 election are moving. Against all odds, his father beat Covid at age 97. It made me wonder what if I never made that 911 call to get my mother hospitalized. Could she have beaten COVID as well? I can’t turn back time now.

What prompted me to read this book was that I wanted to write my blog posts like he writes his diaries. What I had discovered is that Sedaris hated writing about feelings. He thinks feelings are boring and no one gives a fuck how you feel. I finally understand why he is a successful writer and I am still an amateur. Then again, Sedaris does Sedaris and I do me. I will continue to write about my feelings and the things I want to write about. Even if no one cares, I do, and that’s all that matters.

Cũng đã lâu rồi không nghe anh Elvis Phương hát. Chất giọng anh vẫn tốt vẫn không thay đổi gì. Ngoài tiếng Việt, anh ca được tiếng Anh và Pháp. Trong album này, chỉ có bài “Amour” anh hát một chút tiếng Anh. Cách phát âm Anh ngữ của anh rõ ràng nên tôi nghĩ anh hát tiếng Pháp của anh cũng OK. Những tình khúc Pháp, như “Tous les garçons et les filles”, “Ell”, và “Hey (Il faut toujours un perdant)”, không xa lạ gì với anh vì lúc ở hải ngoại anh cũng đã từng hát. Riêng “Samba Mambo” và “La Bamba” gợi lại nhiều ký ức cho người nhận xét này lúc mới qua Mỹ. Thời còn trẻ thích nghe nhạc xôi động và tươi vui.

This winter, I skied from green to double-black-diamond slopes without taking any group or private lessons. I learned everything from watching YouTube.

Unlike figure skating, skiing has no standardized curriculum, or I could not find one; therefore, I had to do the research on my own. Now that I had done it, I wanted to share my experience. If you want to learn to ski on your own and want to take your journey to the next level, you may find the instructional videos helpful.

If you had taken skiing lessons and were taught how to plow (pizza), you need to unlearn it. You need to move from plow to parallel. Janus Hecht’s “Two Keys to Parallel Skiing” has unlocked my parallel skiing. It took me a few days to make the adjustments. Once it was clicked, I hardly went want to plowing.

Once you can parallel, the next step is to learn the hockey stop. Again, Janus Hecht is the man to watch. Hockey stop is not only an essential skill, but it is so much fun to do, especially the hop to stop technique, which Hecht also covered in the video.

Once you’ve mastered the hockey stop, you can make the transition to short turns. I find the step-by-step video from miromiro for short turns to be helpful. In addition to short turns, the instructor (I can’t find his name) shows the jump-turn technique. I love jump turns and use them all the time to ski down the double-black-diamond slopes. In this video, “How to Ski Steeps,” Warren Smith shows how step turns and jump turns can help you navigate the steep slopes. It is incredible to watch.

Skiing moguls appears to be intimidating at first, but it is so much fun maneuvering around those bumps. Like anything in skiing, you want to go with the flow rather than against it. In this video, Darren Turner shows how to ski moguls with ease. I find his instructions to be approachable. I learned “How to Jump on Skis” and basic carving technique from watching him. I am in the process of learning advanced carving from this video. I can’t find the name of the instructor, but her technique looks amazing.

I hope these tips will help open up your skiing journey like they had done for me. Happy skiing.

Lê Anh Dũng có chất giọng đẹp lãng mạn như thiếu nét lạ nên nghe cũng trung bình. Lê Anh Dũng hát nhạc của Đức Huy cũng không có gì mới mẻ từ cách hát đến những phần hoà âm. Hai bài song ca với Hà Trần, nhất là “Mùa hè đẹp nhất”, giọng nữ nuốt trọn giọng nam. Lãng phí một cơ hội cho một album.