Michael Jackson sings “Noi Long.”

Yellow Fever gets 1800+ comments on YouTube. That’s some serious fever.

“Ne Me Quitte Pas (If You Go Away)” ain’t going nowhere. Heard Karrin Allyson’s French version yesterday, a recommendation from TTBlue and heard Patricia Kaas’s English version Nguyen Khang pointed out a couple months ago. Allyson is not so bad, but Kaas seems to sing that song in her sleep. In fact, her whole album, Piano Bar, is perfect for lounging. Her breathy voice combined with her cottony delivery (“Ba… ba… ra… ba… ra…” is what she begins on Pierre Barouh and Francis Lai’s “Un Homme et Une Femme”) makes you want to do nothing but dozing off, like any bad romantic French music would do to you. She sounds as if you go away, she would get some sleep. I am hoping this is not the direction Nguyen Khang is going for.

Mucho respecto to Dave Brubeck and Art Pepper for their exquisite reinvention of “Bésame Mucho.” Thanks TTBlue for the morning drugs. I have to see Brubeck soon before I miss my chance.

Charlie Hunter began to play rock guitar at age 12 until he discovered jazz at 18 (good for him), and the rest is history. He doesn’t just play a regular guitar, but an eight-string that allows him to pick both bass (3 strings with his thumb) and acoustic (5 strings with the rest of his fingers) at the same time. His solo rendition of Charles Mingus’s “Fables of Faubus” showcases his exemplary jazz chops. Hunter’s live performances could be downloaded at his site for free. Good stuff, folks!

When you have a voice as raw as Nguyen Khang’s, you don’t really need to do much to rework a mega hit like Thai Hung’s “Hay Ve Voi Anh.” You just have to burn the sugarcoating and go straight to the bitterness of it. In the wrong voice these lines,” Tron doi anh luon yeu rieng em / Chi em ma thoi hoi nguoi yeu dau / Xin quay ve day hay ve voi anh,” could turn into cheddar, but that damn rawness makes it convincible. One of Chris Rock’s jokes is that if you come correct, you could get what you want. Can’t be like, “Excuse me…. Excuse me… The man has a request… A man requested… I wonder… Can you lick my balls?” She’ll be like, “Hell no, lick your own balls.” Now you end up with dried balls, but if you come with some bass like Nguyen Khang, you could take your girl back without 99 roses or a rock. Whatever it takes to bring her back without putting a hole in my pocket works for me.

The only time I pull out my digital camera is for family photos and foods. I haven’t used it much for anything else so I figure it is time to do something useful with it. I am not interested in photography even though I use many photos in my designs. I have a tendency of looking at designs wherever I go—even to the mall where I find a color of a sweeter I like or the way DKNY uses typography for signage and advertise. I stare at them for a while and try to study them so that I could later incorporate into my work. I must say it takes up too much of my memories even though I am the visual guy. So I figure why not let my camera captured the visual for me. I am not trying to take pretty pictures or anything artistic. I just point and click at something that I could look at later on when I need some inspirations. I started off with typography around various small towns where I live. We took a trip down to NYC yesterday, ate so much food and captured a few photos, particularly the incredible M&M store in Times Square. Man, I love the city. Design is everywhere you look even if you don’t want to look.

Chris Rock fucked up my favorite classic Chloe in the Afternoon from Eric Rohmer with his newest film, I Think I Love My Wife, a remake in which he wrote (with Louis C. K.), directed, and starred. Unlike the original character played by Bernard Verley, whose performance came natural, Chris has done his best to look bored, but coming from a standup comedian is hard to believe. In addition, Chris can’t act.

Kerry Washington (who is supposed to be Chloe) is very sexy, but she was not convincing either. I watched the original about five or six years ago and the European-voluptuous Chloe still hovers in my mind when the film was mentioned. There was something about the European lifestyle, the romantic language of France, and unfamiliarity of European women (elegant but have a wild side to them) makes the film seem to be exotic. And that is something Chris has failed to transcend.

I love Manhattan, but it is not a romantic place like Paris. Even though I have never been to Paris, the original movie has captured its mellow vibe. Manhattan is more like a hustling place; therefore, a lunch break in NYC is not an ideal place to fantasize about every woman who happened to walk by like Paris.

The huge flaw in the film is that Chris couldn’t tap into the mind of the married man like what Eric Rohmer had done. In the original, men can relate to what the guy goes through. Every woman on the street is much more interesting than his wife. What if I were married to her (the one with big boobs or the one with luscious lips)? Would my life be any different? Would I still be bored out of my fucking mind?

When your weekend is filled with snow, what is there better to do than watch movies?

Curse of the Golden Flower; bless of the bombshells. Goddamn, I have never seen so many Chinese cleavages in movies before.

Who Slept With Her? is a Korean version of American Pie. The film is laced with sexual silliness, but at least she’s cute.

After listening to a Vietnamese-rap “Kem Chuoi,” you probably won’t look at banana ice cream the same way, especially with the suggestive lyrics that goes something like: “Chuoi cua anh vua ngon lai vua cung / liem hoai hoai thi no van con cung / nhung ma em liem mai thi no cung bi mem” But hey, that’s her “shit” and she loves it. I hope she likes some nuts with it too.

Thanks Andy for ruined my appetite (LOL)!

A new Thien Kim album, Tinh Doi, touches on different angles of love: moral love, unconditional love, desolated love, melancholy love, distant love and ingrained love. She’s also bridging the gap of love by including both pre-war and over-sentimental music in her repertoire.

With her gruff, smoky voice, she handles the pre-war tunes (Ngo Thuy Mien’s “Dau Tinh Sau,” Trinh Cong Son’s “Tinh Xa” and “Tinh Nho”) just about right, even though her approach is as accurate as a singing parrot. The duet with Nguyen Khang on Anh Bang’s “Khuc Thuy Du” doesn’t make me jump off my chair, but their bad-boy/bad-girl voices do sound bad (meaning good) together. What sounding bad (meaning bad) are the princes of “sen” she has invited to crash the album. I wouldn’t mind listening to her version of “Phan To Tam” if Tuong Nguyen and Tuong Khue weren’t on it. Goosebumps spread over my body when the Tuong’s brothers duet. Dang The Luan sounds like a “wet jackfruit” on Lam Phuong’s “Tinh Bo Vo.” His superficial weeping makes the song sounds more pathetic than it already is. Dang Minh Thong on Anh Bang’s “Dem Vu Truong” is no exception. These two guys must have been mistaken shaky for vibrato.

The album would have been alright if she didn’t include those emotional-saturated tunes and singers. Even though she offers nothing original, her singing has become more matured over the years.