A Trip for Three (Boston – DC)

Itinerary:

5.35am : Bus 70 Cedarwood to Central Square

6.14am : Red Line Braintree to South Station

8am (at most) : Fung Wah Boston to NYC

12 pm (at most) : arrived at Canal St., NY (Checkpoint 1)

12.11pm : R Line Canal St. Station to Whitehall St. Station

12.20pm : Ferry to Staten Island (Checkpoint 2)

2pm (at most) : Back from Staten Island

2.19pm : R Line Whitewall St. Station to Canal St. Station

2.30pm : Canal St. Station

5pm : Chinatown bus NYC to DC

10pm : H St. NW, DC to Red Roof Hotel (Checkpoint 3)

 to be continued..

In A Tornado, Even A Turkey Can Fly!

It was Eugene Kleiner, a venture capitalist, who came up with this quote which was then quoted by Guy Kawasaki, the man behind Macintosh success. As we are all know, turkey is not a flying type bird. Similar with chickens, this animal has bird features but one thing. It can’t fly. Probably it is because of turkey’s unbalanced weight ratio to its wings. I am not a biologist, so don’t take my wild guess on it. One thing for sure, turkey can’t get away from being the main dishes on thanksgiving.

In a tornado, everything will fly. See it on youtube and type “twister trailer”, my favorite movie about tornado. It flew everything even a cow. This is where the quote came from. In a tornado, everything will fly, a cow, car, even house and unexceptionably a turkey. It means, regardless a turkey is flying creature or not, it will fly anyway because of the force of the tornado.

It was a colleague who brought up this quote on our last meeting, in a situation with a strong force, everything will be affected. If it was the tornado, then everything including the turkey will fly. In an economic downturn, all companies are forced to slow down. Some of them are even forced to dig their burial hole. In this kind of situation, it is hard to see clearly which company worthwhile. As it is in a tornado, it is hard recognizing either a bird is an eagle or a turkey.

Two Bands, Two Stages, One Nation

I was lucky enough to have chances enjoying two Indonesian super group bands here in the US. If it were in Indonesia, I might not pay close attention to either Slank or Padi’s live performance. But, it became a rare opportunity enjoying the show here. Both bands have slightly different music genre. I would put Slank in rock-music category while Padi in pop category. It might not the perfect way to categorize the two. It is only how I feel about them.

Both -obviously- sings Indonesian songs, but when it comes to their performance in the US, they pick different approach and strategy to get closer with their fans here. Slank’s effort to come across the language border is plausible. Slank released an album of their hits in English version. Something that is entitled for acclaimation. It is reasonable for Slank expecting favorable response from the audience here. Sadly, it was resulting the opposite way. The audience got lost in translation. They missed the original version of every single song. It was obviously seen from the crowd. Not the type of crowd who enjoy live performance.

In opposite, Padi threw its hit “Mahadewi” as an opening, then followed with other well known hits from the group. As it was expected, the audience responded well. People sang along with their favorite group until the last title performed. There was no interuption because of unknown title at all, since Padi -just like Slank- is one of the famous group band. Even better, the great performance was supported with adequate sound system and room acoustics. It made Padi’s performance at New York was not comparable to Slank’s.

It seems to me that in the case of live performance, it is about communicating with the audience. It is not wise mixing new titles introduction with entertaining audiences. Live performance supposed to entertain the crowd rather than to sell new album. It might be acceptable introducing few titles, however pushing the entire album is somewhat similar with an effort of launching a new group band. Not a wise move.

[all pictures are courtesy of Wulan]