Country Music (乡村音乐, 컨트리 음악)

Of the 3 Asian languages I translate to, 2 of them didn't even have a reciprocal word for country music, as American country music is kind of a genre of its own, unreplicated by other country's music. In Chinese it's translated into "village music" evoking images of the countryside, small villages, and farmers, country bumpkins, not city folks. Which country music kind of is, but recently it's gone more mainstream, as evidenced by the ultimate validation, becoming its own category on Jeopardy. And me not getting it, kind of like the "drinking songs" category today....I got the hardest clue about "whiskey shot and a vodka shot" as Tubthumping by Chumbawumba, but 3 of the other ones were just "stare at the screen clues" about day drinking, Brad Paisley, and Little Big Town. As a kid on road trips I remember thumbing through the FM channels and hearing a bunch of country music, but instantly changing the dial as I knew my parents didn't like it and it didn't ring out to me. Nowadays I appreciate a mainstream country hit like "Fast Car" remixed by Luke Combs, or Texas Hold'em by Beyonce (apparently she's a country artist now, with her Emmy-winning album Cowboy Carter) but back then every country song sounded the same to me, with the singer always with a southern accent and signing about alcohol, women, or lost love. Or gambling, like in Kenny Rogers's the Gambler, which gave me the impression every country song was set in a bar, a saloon, a gambling hall, or a combination of all 3. Also a big fan of the hit "Austin" by Dasha, a song whose first comment on Youtube goes, "Where there's a will, there's a way and I'm damn sure you lost it." Yea we've all been disappointed by people, but maybe not prophesizing that "in 40 years they'll still be here drunk." The banjo (apparently required instrument in Texas country songs) and guitar features prominently in country songs, and I might learn to appreciate it more if and when I learn how to play at a later age. Watching re-runs of the Weakest Link, I have to lament that one of the most fun trivia formats is not pitting contestants at each other like Jeopardy does on a nightly basis (and sometimes more often when Masters or Celebrity are on - Season 3 of Masters coming up this week, right after Celebrity Jeopardy just ended), but as a cooperative exercise to build as much cash up as possible. The Chase utilizes that kind of team play pretty well as well as the contestants have to work together to beat a "chaser," but Weakest Link has the best buildup of building a long chain because if someone on your team gets it wrong and is literally "The Weakest link," the whole chain breaks apart. Oh and the questions are easier......it's a great show with funny hosts, Jane Lynch being the latest American one, but as with all good trivia shows in the US, it doesn't get good enough ratings, and often faces cancellation, episodes air sporadically, it's on at 9PM ET on Friday nights, etc.... and oh yea network television is going the way of the newspaper and fading as a media platform. Maybe Amazon Prime will pick it up after seeing the success (I hope?) of Pop Culture Jeopardy? Weakest Link is already pretty pop cultur-ey to get as many views as possible so it'd be a smooth transition and it's kind of the watered down version of Jeopardy but still challenging enough sometimes to give a real trivia player his jollies. Oh and it's like the closest thing a Survivor fan like me could get to actually being on a reality show- the contestants vote each other off after every round of play based on how good each player is but sometimes on the opposite criteria like "how likely is it that I beat this other player." Simple concept, good questions, buildup of drama. Renew! Put some country music questions in there to get the country music demographic, make the show popular and Make America watch Quiz Shows again!

Philly Cheese Steak

When I lived in Philadelphia for a few months on a work assignment seemingly a lifetime ago (12 years), I had a few Philly cheesesteaks, as unhealthy as I was, because I could absorb it as a guy in his mid-20s: I remember it being greasy, cheesy, and meaty: 3 of the best qualities in food I looked for back then, 3 qualities I've definitely shifted down towards the lower end of my priorities at this stage, showing how much my priorities have shifted since then. I didn't get the cheesesteak from Pat's King of Steaks, or Geno's....I think I just got it from a local shop next to work, which was probably a mistake: I didn't got the best in breed, like Al's Italian Beef in Chicago or Lou Malnati's Deep Dish Pizza, or Langer's Pastrami in L.A., or Ben's Chili Dogs in D.C. Now I'll probably never get one of those cheesteaks anymore, and ever since leaving Philly the only cheesteaks I've gotten are the thawed-out mass-produced Subway cheesteaks. Not great. But what MJ and I have found is the next best thing: vegan Philly cheesesteaks sandwhiches, with tofu substituted for the beef and vegan cheese for the cheese. Delicious. I keep preaching this to my vegan "normie" friends who eat everything: you can eat vegan too, it's not just for vegans. Vegan food has its own art of replacing that flavor of its predecessor without losing the quality and with less of those negative qualities of greasy, cheesy, and meaty. I've constantly suprised at how good vegan restaurants can make their food and how innovative they replace differnet meats, with carrots replacing salmon, mushrooms for chicken replacements, seitan for almost anything. Ah, the power of seitan, a Japanese word that they didn't teach me in Japanese class, from "manufactured from egg" directly translated but actually meaning just made from protein of wheat. Tempeh's the one derived from Indonesian word meaning "fermented bean cake" that is so close to bacon.....all the crispiness, the smokey sensation...I am thoroughly impressed by cooks in the vegan discipline. So much more inventive than when Pat Olivieri originated the Philly cheesesteak in the 1930s by putting steak and cheese together into a bun and serving it to people....who knew cheese and meat went well together? I always give negative impressed points for food that is obviously going to be good, no creativity, you're just relying on the original taste of the food....like who knew chocolate and peanut butter combined into one cookie would be good? Of course! Salty potatoes and sweet ketchup, hey what do you know, people like salty and sugary foods, you don't say. It's making healthy traditionally non-tasty foods taste like traditionally grossly unhealthy dishes like Philly cheesesteaks that's the real skill. The study of postage stamps is called philately, and I get it: it's like collecting art. Like a little kid, I took a roll of forever stamps from my parents' cabinet a few weeks ago to mail tax returns, etc..... and I still get a thrill selecting a stamp and posting it on an envelope. Whoever created the postage stamp system is a genius (Google tells me it was Sir Rowland Hill in 1837 with the first stamp being the penny black) because it allows the user to show proof of payment to get the mail to a whole different part of the world (getting mail from Maine to Los Angeles in just a few days is still a miracle in this day and age in my book) but also in the process creating a little individualized picture for each piece of mail, whether it's an American flag, a winter edition with animals in the snow, Alex Trebek commmemortaive Jeopardy stamp, Betty White stamps, stamps of blueberries, pretty much any kinds of stamps you can think of, are available. It's just another thing I'm sad see go, as much as I love email, it's just a part of the fabric of living life, like talking and recipes, that we sacrifice for convenience and conformity to what everyone else is doing. I still like physically cracking a book and looking at the cover, feeling the pages, just like I like peeling off a stamp like peeling off a sticker and pressing it against an envelope, like I was sending a letter for the very first time in suburban Chicago probably when I was 6 or 7 or something, probably to like a pen pal or something as part of a school assignment. Stamps are cool: if tattoos are art and an expression of oneself, and graffiti is art, and vanity plates are art, then stamps are definitely art. I get why there are stamp collectors all over the world and 5 million philatelists just in the US (that's like 1.5% of the population!) That's not insignificant. Probably almost all old people, but still! One day I'll be old and laughed at for collecting these things called "books" in my home. May stamps live forever!

Life after 35

10 years ago, I was in the midst of an active singles life, flying to Vancouver one weekend, planning trips to Japan, playing dodgeball 2 times a week and sometimes even more on weekends, I lived my best life....or so I thought. I ran a marathon in 2015! I can barely lift my legs now when running, often tripping on the sidewalk if there's just a little bit of a pothole or crack because I'm not lifting my legs enough. Every hill seems like the last peak on Mount Everest, needing a break to catch myself when I get on top. I would never be able to survive the L.A. marathon now with all its hills and intermittent slopes. And that's just one of the things I can't do 10 years later. I met with a close friend from 10 years ago and we did some of the things we'd do back in the day: go to In N' Out, eat yogurt at Yogurtland, and we both came to a conclusion: It's hard to make friends after 35. It feels like I met at least 20 new friends every year in my twenties, Facebook requests would come from people I had barely known once or whom I played a game of dodgeball against and they knew me by reputation......nowadays I don't get any birthday wishes on my Facebook wall anymore, nor do I wish anyone else a happy birthday. (This might be more a reflection on Facebook than anything else). But this, in a sense, is still me living my best life. I cherish being alone now. The alone time is so important for me to do my own thing, not have any obligations to worry about, rushing through L.A. traffic to get to my next appointment trying to cram everything into a tight window like a checklist. I remember all the time in my twenties being late to things and wishing I could teleport there faster, but also thinking, "things have to just slow down at some point and I need to reset." Well, slow down they have: my social calendar consists of maybe 1 item per week, and it's not even 100% guaranteed I make it. I do the things that I want to do, not what other people want to do and I'm tagging along just to stay social. I don't ever go out to a bar just to experience the bar culture, no clubs, barely any restaurants unless it's a vegan restaurant. I shop at Costco. It's not so bad, staying home. I used to get antsy if I didn't have anything to do on Friday nights or Saturdays nights, someone out there must be doing something fun! And I ended up wasting it or trying too hard to make a night of it. Once you've stayed home on Saturday night once, traditionally the time everyone's out there doing something, whether it's weddings, music concert, sports event, night out on the town, singing karaoke, whatever's your jam, I like to take time to read a book, call my mom, catch up on TV- the important things in life, it's much easier to do it again the next Saturday night, and then the next, and the next, and it just becomes a pattern. Age also plays a role: instead of weddings you get invited just to baby showers (attended one this weekend) which are usually during the day, when responsible adults roam and hang out with their kids. All the friends have kids so they only invite you sporadically when they can free up schedule like for Passover weekend or whenever their kids aren't sick or came down with something last second. And there's no impetus to belong to a crowd and hang out every week anymore, to need that feeling of belonging or to escape loneliness......thanks to MJ! The loneliness is mitigated as long as there's someone there who can assure you that there are other human beings in the world. I've been 35 for a few years now, and going to turning 35 again in a few weeks! It's not so bad! But my body really can't handle back-to-back red-eye flights with connections anymore. Booking Bobby and Frugal Bobby needs to get sat down by Adult and Responsible Bobby to say, "we just can't put ourselves through that, you're being penny wise but pound foolish," I don't care how much money you're saving, just make yourself comfortable. TREAT YOURSELF! It's ok to do that once in a while, like Tom Haverford said on Parks and Rec, and when you're past 35, gotta do that once in a while.

Overcompensating 过度补偿, 過剰補償, 과잉보상

I’m writing this entry sitting on a United Airlines flight, unable to sleep because the cabin is so cold. It wasn’t already so cold on this plane, in fact it was warm, hot and humid when we left George Busch International Airport in Houston on a hot and muggy morning, so the pilot took it upon himself to compensate for that heat by turning up the air conditioning and blowing cool air from every single vent above everyone’s seat…. Sure enough now it’s freezing cold, at least 10 degrees cooler than what it was a few hours ago. Unfortunately my spectrum of comfort is only about 5 to 7 degrees each way from 72 degrees, the average room temperature, so now I feel very very underdressed when I go out for a run on a cold winter day. I find the pilot’s overcompensation to be an allegory of human mind’s attitudes and behavior: we often ignore things that are pressing issues, letting them sit there until they become an emergency, and then we overreact, overcorrect, and overcompensate the other way to make it just as bad the other way, sometimes even worse, like reacting to a deer on the highway by veering violently to the side and crashing your own car. We eat way too much because we’re hungry and our body tells us we need sustenance, but then we overcompensate by gorging ourselves with food (most of us, anyway) that most of it turns into fat and extra pounds. We overcorrect for alcohol by installing Prohibition with the 18th amendment but then have to repeal it with the 21st Amendment. In sports, teams often overcorrect for the market inefficiency of trading three pointers for two-pointers to the point of the whole league now shooting way too many three pointers, passing up open layups for the chance at a three. The three-point shot itself, of course, was an over correction to having all shots count the same, they wanted to spice it up for more offense and excitement. Most of entertainment often shifts based on the zeitgeist of zombie culture shifting to a vampire culture to apocalyptic shows to reality TV- we have a glut of all of these. The most important overreaction, though, is the political one and how we wound up with Donald Trump as our president, almost an unbelievable twist of fate for most but explainable by how the masses of our country believe and behave. The 2016 election was shaped by people being tired of the political elite and 8 years of Democratic rule, so people craved a renegade populist candidate like Trump to fight back against those elites (supposedly Trump was fighting for the Everyman), 2020 was reacting to 4 years of Trump fatigue of tweets, crimes, impeachment, craziness, but most perceived the Biden reign as even crazier with the woke movement and various social issues like trans people in sports, and suddenly in 2024 we went back to Trump, like a yo-yo going back and forth. And the overreaction is costing us by allowing Trump to believe he has a mandate to do whatever he wants with his political capital, implement tariffs Willy-nilly, deport immigrants haphazardly, and fire government workers through DOGE. It really feels like living in 2 different timelines, the way political attitudes shift and change, with radicals on both sides driving the hatred for the other side and making it about beating the other team, not really about doing what’s best for the country. It sucks. What can we do about overreaction? Stop reacting to everything that’s “crazy” in the newspapers. Focus on what we can do and have ability to change, not get caught up by hate or mania or radicalism. Very hard to do now with the internet the way it is and having information pumped in to our minds every second, every hour of the day, but I feel a lot of my friends and very educated people, smarter than me, miss the point of life and implications of what they’re doing: they’re so incensed by everything in the world and so intent on reacting to the bad that they miss something key: that overreacting could be just as bad as ignoring it.

Coachella

Every year there's an annual tradition in April that MJ and I adhere to: watching Coachella from the comfort of our own homes on Youtube. I like to think I would give anything a fair shot to try it, but Coachella is one thing I just KNOW I would not enjoy, at least as much as it's hyped up to be. Yes, I get it's in Palm Springs near Joshua Tree and goes on for 2 straight weekends (Week one and Week Two!) and it's outside in the desert and there's various stages where so many artists show up to perform that you can get all the music and live entertainment you want...and there's drugs, so many so many drugs, which is apparently a feature, not a bug of the experience. That and paying through the nose for lodgings or sleeping in tents, mass traffic getting into the event, being treated like second class citizens by being seated way at the back if you're not VIP, and for more checkout Reddit "Coachella is awful." I'm sure some people have a good time who like the music and like the vibe of being out in the desert for 3 straight days, it's just not worth it for me. This year, Lady Gaga(!) was the headliner which is really splashy along with a bunch of name-brand artists Post Malone, Ty Dolla Sign, etc., etc., a good place to study up on pop culture trivia for sure. Oh and Bernie Sanders made an appearance, with a speech to vote against President Trump's policies. Kylie Jenner and Timothy Chalamee were there! Paris Hilton and Leonardo DiCaprio were there! All VIP guests in the front row, I presume, and soaking up the fact that they get noticed and everyone else wants be them but can't (no jealousy!) Is it wrong of me to think Timothy Chalamee being one of the hottest stars in Hollywood, can get almost any role he wants, this generation's Leonardo DiCaprio, already Oscar nominated for A Complete Unknown (The Bob Dylan Story) and still not yet 30......can pick a better partner than Kylie Jenner, previously with child and part of the talentless but famous anyway Kardashian/Jenner clan? Maybe their siren song is just strong to attract even the most unattaianble of bachelors. I appreciate Bernie Sanders being out there with the masses instead of giving the vibe like the rest of Congress or the political elite that they're better than normal people. There's a world in which Bernie Sanders wins the 2016 Democratic primary against Hilary Clinton (Feel the Bern!) and gather momentum with the popular vote, taking those away from Trump and the huge populist base he has, wins the election, and the next 8 years are common sense, for-the-people policies that only American's favorite grandpa (and not Joe Biden!) can deliver. He's still clear-headed in 2025! Oh I didn't mention about Coachella that you have to get into a lottery to purchase tickets, it's a whole thing, kind of like trying to chase fame: I hate getting in line to chase after something that everyone wants, and when you finally finally get to the front of the line and ready to see what the commotion is all about, it turns out it isn't even something you like. This has happened to me on numerous occasions of waiting in long lines for food, long lines for nightclubs, long lines in traffic... Life experience has taught me that going against the line for something that not everyone loves but still has great value is the way to go. That and I hate lines. One tradition that I DO miss is reading newspapers with my grandpa in a quiet room, just ourselves, and learning Chinese. I love learning and have loved it from a young age mostly because my grandpa instilled in me a love of learning, so it always felt like a nostalgic practice mixed with intellectual activity mixed with quality bonding time with grandpa to sit in a room and just read. There are no lines to wait in to read, my grandpa was always ready to give me information on Chinese words, to tell me a story about some phrase in the newspaper and why they used that word, some historical context, or a new Internet slang term (my grandpa was born in 1925 and was still learning new slang terms from the Internet!) He would have been 100 years old this year, and if not for his physical body giving out, he would have kept reading and keeping his mind sharp. It's easy to say looking back on it, but you never know when the last time you will do an activity is, and how much you will miss it, no matter how mundane it is. Most of us appreciate reading, but maybe we all need a reading partner, one who keeps us honest by also reading and keeping each other from always checking our phones in this digital age. My grandpa was always game to read and he never owned a smart phone, nor even a cell phone; his life was patterned off of 1940's living of reading and spending time together. Nowadays I can't get anyone to even sit with me for an hour much less days to hang out (kind of a me problem) but still....I guess I didn't appreciate grandpa's willingness to just be there and be willing to drop everything at a moment's notice to teach me something. He didnt' really offer much verbal advice or direct pearl of wisdom on how to live life, but maybe that was his way of giving advice, by showing me his way of life and seeing how appealing the simple life can be: no music, no phones, no distractions, no lining up for 3 hours to get into the other line for 3 hours to buy overpriced alcohol at a music festival.....spend your life doing the things you like to do, not what everyone else wants to do.

Fame (名声, 명성, 名声)

Fame is actually the name of a movie that's "Jeopardy-worthy," a fact that I deem to be well-known enough to possibly show up on Jeopardy. It's a movie inspired by A Chorus Line about high schoolers ironically trying to become famous, through singing, dancing, and acting. Stars Irene Cara, of "What a Feeling" 1980s fame, herself a beneificary of fame but also of immense talent. Talent and opportunity, 2 very important but not completely necessary elements of fame. You can have no talent but just have fame thrust upon you, like Kim Kardashian, Hawk Tuah Girl, and a variety of people everyone knows but for the wrong reasons. That's kind of the wrong type of fame. Then we have Mr. Beast, the famous Youtuber Jimmy Donaldson who became famous due to playing games similar to Squid Game and cash giveaways. Like not just $1000 giveaways, life-changing amount of money kind of giveaways, like giving away $10 million to just the winner of Amazon Prime's Beast Games this past seaon (He gave away more through bribes and various elements of gameplay probably to the tune of about $20-$25 million just in the form of prize money). A lot of people criticize him for feeding the Squid Game spirit of greed and caring only about money and doing it all for show (yes he does nice things for others, but why does it always have to be on camera?) but there's no denying that he has talent, a new type of talent for displaying videos that people care about, that people want to watch (he's the No. 1 most subscribed channel on Youtube, beating out India's T-series and the channel for kids, CocoMelon. He's pretty much revolutionized the way people watch TV; Generation Z and Generation Alpha don't even watch traditional TV anymore, and the once-proud mainstream channels CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc. are all pretty much guaranteed to be phased out of relevancy after their last demographic base passes away, Baby Boomers and Generation X. Those networks would kill for anything resembling Mr. Beast's numbers. Mr. Beast has undeniable talent, but also gets my thumbs up at least for using that fame for good, kind of like when I buy a lotto ticket, I know I'm not going to win, but I hope that at least someone who wins it will use it for good. Mr. Beast has won the lotto of life but is also using it (generally) for good, philanthropy. He also does some crazy stuff like trying out $500,000 private jet rides an weird stunts that really have no utility, but he's making videos in Africa helping the hungry, the farmers, getting clean running water going......it's basically what most well-meaning people would do if they could do anything and didn't have to devote half their lives to work, paying the bills, attending to their children......Did I say half their lives? I meant pretty much their whole lives. Mr. Beast can do all of that because he's wealthy, but also because he wants to....I'm not sure if I ever became famous and achieved his level of celebrity, I would trust myself to devote all that energy to what I say I would do with it.....I could definitely get complacent and just spend it on selfish things and put off the philanthropy and giving back until later, which I'm sure there are plenty of billionaires doing now. I also admire some of the Jeopardy winners who do good work with their fame. People who go on Jeopardy normally get about 1 day of fame, the day your episode shoots, but some of the elite few get a week of fame by winning and being on more episodes, and if you're really good you get to keep coming back time and time again, and become "Jeopardy famous" but not really famous worldwide, still not Mr. Beast-level famous or even "Jeopardy-worthy." (Ironically, Jeopardy winners will never get their name on Jeopardy because the show doesn't test any knowledge about the show itself, with one notable exception.......of Ken Jennings). Ken Jennings is the one Jeopardy contestant ever who didn't start off as a celebrity (there is a celebrity Jeopardy show allowing celebrities the easy path to get on Jeopardy, which if I ever got famous or anything might be a better chance of getting on the show than just being a regular joe) who became famous into mainstream status. I recently attended a Jeopardy in-person event where some prominent winners showed up like Drew Goins and Sam Buttrey- they are very much "Jeopardy-famous" and were big stars at the event, getting VIPs to line up to take photos with them and just get a chance to talk to them, got makeup done, etc. Ken Jennings was too famous to make an appearance (actually he can't mingle with the contestants for game show propriety's sake). I was a little too gunshy to talk to them even though I watched both Sam and Drew on my TV so many times ( I really don't know what to see to a celebrity as a no-name peasant, there's no way to sound original or funny or anything without saying something they've heard thousands of times, it's just a weird dynamic of acknowledging their fame and "fanboying out") but while MJ was getting food nearby (vegan chili!) I stood outside of the theater and waited, and Sam and Drew walked out.......as normal people, no entourage, no more waiting fans. It's like when they're in the Jeopardy studio or at a Jeopardy event, they magically become stars, but that magic fades once they go outside....the general person on the street won't recognize them. That's being Jeopardy-famous. It struck me that this is what fame is- it's allusive, it's fickle, anyone can get fame for almost any reason......and they could lose it too if they want to, by not exposing themselves to the fame. It's like a magic trick, you can't just will yourself to become famous, there needs to be some luck, some abracadabra, some magic powder....and it's okay not to get it, it's one of those things everybody who doesn't have it (me) thinks they want, but probably isn't all that it's cracked up to be once you get it (and it's hard to keep). Sour grapes!