Not sure when I started to read Capri’s Doodle, wandering thoughts of a Vietnamese-American blogger, but her witty Vietnamese and hilarious posts always crack me the hell up. Her latest post on unsocial strikes my chord. Like her, I am not the social type. I actually put more of my thoughts on this site than when I talk to people. With the web site people have the choice. They can read it or they don’t. In a face-to-face conversation I feel like I am forcing them to listen to the stories that have no absolute interest to them. My wife is the only the exception. She has no choice. Except for her, no one gives a rat-ass interest about my interests. So I just stick to the general questions, which sometimes sounded like I was desperate trying to be social.

I could still remember the embarrassing moment of me trying to get my social skills on. It was Vassar’s Christmas party for all the faculties, administrators and staffs. The place was huge and filled with people chitchatting and some relaxing swing jazz music. I met a French professor who I worked with on the French web site when I started working for Vassar. From what I remembered about her from our previous work-related conversations was that she goes to France every summer. So after our initial greetings, I asked her “How was France?” With a glass of wine in her hand she replied, “Oh, no thanks.” I just smiled and didn’t know what else to say. In an awkward moment, I followed up with an awkward question, “I thought you go to France every year.” Her response was, “Oh, I thought you asked me to dance.” The music was nice and everything but I was not about to make a fool out of myself in a work environment. Besides no one was dancing out there and the place wasn’t set up for that either. The good thing was that we both laughed about it. I was going to say, “You must have had a bit too much wine,” but didn’t want to offend her.

Come to think about, what if she was the bold and carefree type of person who wasn’t embarrassed by such an out-of-place offer? What if she said yes and then I was like, “oh no, that was not what I meant.” I guess it was better for me to feel embarrassed than for her. I was still puzzling though. How did she hear “How was France?” into “Would you like to dance?” I guess dance and France sound pretty close and my wonderful accent makes them indistinguishable.

A sixty-three-year-old man smacked his eighty-seven-year-old mother was caught on tape. Damn, that’s pretty fucked up.

Even Miles Davis was envied of Herbie Hancock for the phenomenal success of Head Hunters. Davis started the fusion movement, but only a few understood his musical direction at the time. With the mega hits of “Chameleon” and “Watermelon Man,” Hancock proved not what an instrument could do for him, but what he could do with it. Over the funk-out groove, Hancock cooks up some of the most luscious solos on his electronic devices. From the funkified bassline to the jazz solos in double time, “Sly” is a damn fine tribute to Sly Stone. No wonder this breakthrough album had put Hancock on the map of avant-garde fusion.

A heartfelt clip of Australian-Vietnamese “boat people“ retracing to their painful past.

“Tinh Khuc Buon” and “Tinh Cuoi Chan May” were two of my favorite videos from Don Ho. They sure bring back the good old days.

Translation of Trinh Cong Son’s “Xin Cho Toi.” The translator is unknown:

Please let clouds protect man’s fate
Please give me a morning’s shine
Please give me a one bright full smile
To forget the recent grave
I’ve begged for myself a thousand times
I, who only knows to fool around
I just ask to have peace

Please let me sleep soundly for once
Please let the night be without bombs
Please let the birds sing in the sky
I wish to be like flying clouds
Please release me from our life
Until peace has returned to the world
I wish to have my life back

Please let me rebuild my love
Please let me revive peace
Please let me forego obstacles
To see the blood stream in his heart

Please give me mother’s embracing arms
Please let me hear the joyful sound of children’s footsteps
Please let my country have a peaceful sleep
I’ll love you from that moment on.

Please let me come back in one body
To let me hear nature’s songs
Please let me forget imprisonment
To let me be the bitter wine
Please give me the whole life
So one day when a child sings in his cradle
Please, just give me one day.

By the time Round About Midnight released, Miles Davis had disbanded his group and moved on to a new musical direction. Nevertheless, this album is one of his finest works. His Harmon-muted solos on Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight” are just achingly beautiful. Every note he played is streamlined and refined to create a deep emotional impact. Unlike Charlie Parker, Davis stripped down everything on “Au Leu-Cha” and only played the most essential notes. It’s the thoughtfulness in his phrasings that made him stood out.

Miles Davis couldn’t cut a bad record if he wanted to. Even his experimentations were good. Circle in the Round is a compilation of his conceptual ideas from 1955 to 1970. Starting out with up-tempo “Two Bass Hit” from the Kind of Blue session and ending with David Crosby’s space-out “Guinnevere” from the Bitches Brew session, this album showcases Davis’ expansive musical sketches.

In five months I am going to be a father. Just the thought of being a parent is daunting me. Like most parents, I want my kids to turn out good, but I don’t want to be a helicopter parent either. I have witnessed so many Vietnamese-American parents who spoil the shit out of the kids. They give the kids everything they wanted. They beg them to eat. Yet the most intolerable is the lack of respect from the children.

The overparenting continues even when the children go to college. I knew a couple who would think twice about buying something for themselves, but would provide their only boy whatever he desires. They worked hard and paid full college tuition for the boy. They bragged about him every chance they get. The parents even apologized when the kid was angry. From an outsider perspective, I felt bad for the parents.

I was also a spoiled child and I still am feeling guilty about it. My mother would give me everything that I needed even though she didn’t have much. She was always there to protect me in any situation. When I grew up enough to face the real world, I had a hard time dealing with reality when I realized that no one out there gives a fuck about me. No one pampered me the way my mother did.

It hit me hard. I was devastated and it took me quite some time to make the readjustment. I do not want this to happen to my kids. I want them to be ready when they face the real world. I want them to have the space to grow. If they fail, I want them to get up and learn from their failures. I hope that I won’t be so blind when dealing with my kids like the way the parents I have observed dealing with their kids. It would be a definitely failure on my part to spoil them.

On the day Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, Seal’s rendition of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” hit YouTube. The timing was perfect and the cover was promising. Unfortunately the album, Soul, doesn’t live up to the lead-off track. Seal is a fine singer with a fantastic tenor of a voice, but he hardly brings anything fresh to the classic souls. When it comes to soul, the production has to be slow, simple and sensual. Too many embellishments would get in the way of the vocalist. Seal’s soulful voice is drowned in the polished orchestrations and mid-tempo beats. His version of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” is instantly forgettable.