Christmas and other ghosts

It's the same story every year. As Christmas swings slowly by, I begin to get into the mood by blaring out carols on every available music player. Throughout Advent, the excitement and anticipation builds up, thanks in no small part to the frenzy of shopping, music and parties.

But then, as the day itself dawns ever nearer, the delightful mania loosens its grip and is replaced by what can best be described as a hazy sense of melancholy.

Christmas can be the best of times and the worst of times. The best of times because that is often when all that's good about a person's character comes to the fore. When peace and goodwill become more than mere words. When giving is indeed better than getting. When we truly take pleasure in other people's joy.

Come Yuletide, my mind always trudges back to the Christmases of my childhood and my early youth. Half remembered images from when I was a toddler - like the trip to Sungai Wang in 1985, where i took a polaroid with Santa on his sleigh.

Crystal clear memories of the preparations we would undergo when grandpa was still alive. The records that would be playing. Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Ray Conniff, and always on the night of the eve, - Christmas Bells.

The fun we kids would have when opening up our presents on the day. The bread pudding Aunty Nicole would make, rich and dripping with brandy and with creamy caramel coating the sides and bottom of the pudding.

In my teens, it would be the excitement of midnight mass, when all the plain Janes from Sunday school would magically transform into lovely swans and how we boys would go around, huge foolish grins on our faces, wishing all and sundry a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I still wonder when exactly everything changed. When that sense of innocence was lost. When the real world started intruding on Christmas. And with the whens come the whys, the hows and the whats. Each question breaking the heart a little more that the one before.

The tragedy of every passing Christmas for me is the knowledge that as I grow up, grow older and grow wearier, the magic of Christmas dies a little bit more. As I see how everything around me - from the people, to the memories, to the world itself - changes and becomes a little more cynical and a little more bitter, I long for the past and wonder if the future will bode better or worse for me, for my loved ones and the world.

A Moment to Cherish

Somebody once said that life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
As I was driving to work today, I experienced one such moment. A moment of simple, yet breathtaking beauty that made me just glad to be alive.
I was in my car, making my way along the inner roads of Bangsar to the NST office. It was simply pouring down and visibility was simply terrible.
And then, as I rumbled up a little hillock, the rains began to abate and the skies started to clear. What happened next was surreal, beautiful and strangely hypnotic, all at once. The skies around me were all still a dull grey, but up ahead the evening sun was poking out through the angry clouds.
Shafts of radiant light began pouring out, each one clearly defined and illuminating the city below it an a soft, heavenly glow.
All around me, drops of rain were still pattering down. But, what was just moments ago furious drops of stinging water had wound down to steady drizzle. Water splashed off my windscreen, every drop splattering into smaller and smaller droplets.
It throbbed on my roof, a calming, hypnotic drumbeat, the rhythm much like that of a heart. All around me, the world seemed clean and fresh and magical. The rainwater seemed to have had an almost divine cleansing effect on creation.
The world too seemed to be in a slumber, the roads mostly empty, what cars there were crawling by at half pace and hardly a person to be seen anywhere.
It was in a word, beautiful. And coming as it did on the back of a pretty lousy week, where the ugliness of humanity once more made itself painfully apparent, it was a welcome and appreciated reminder that things are more than just about humans and human relationships.
Sometimes, man can be an isle. Sometimes, it is better to seek solace in the inanimate, or in nature, than it is in your fellow man.
Sometimes, it is better to be alone and cherish the solitude.

Welcome to the Jungle

When I joined the NST, a friend warned me that the politics here is akin to nothing I've ever seen before. Whatever I've experienced in the past, she said, would pale in comparison to the sheer nastiness of the bitching which goes on here.
It's a been a year and some since I stepped through these doors and to be frank, it's been the most fulfilling year of my life, career wise. I've improved myself, proved my worth to the team, made some great friends and generally learnt a good deal since I joined.
And yet, recently those words of my friend are starting to prove ominously prescient. And all because of damn promotions.
Always a bone of contention, promotions are bound to please some and piss others off. But, that's the way the dice rolls, isn't it? Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you get what you deserve, sometimes you get shafted.
But, here it seems that the frustrations felt by some at being passed over are translated into bile-filled online blog entries bemoaning the fact that some people are being promoted because they're the bosses' "machais" and favoured ones.
They don't seem to realise or take into account the fact that these people who are promoted come in to the office earlier, stay later and come in on their off days in order to do their stories. They don't take into account the fact that these people work their ass off to bring in their own stories. They see only what they want to see. They see these people's ability to get along with their bosses as ass licking. They see these people's hard work as currying favour.
What they seem to want is for everybody to drop to their level, to be as sad, as dead and as demotivated as they are.
Instead of doing their own work and looking to be assessed on their own merits, they'd rather spend their time worrying, moaning and bitching about how others are being given a better deal than they are. They'd rather spend their time tearing others down instead of getting on with their lives. It's just sad. Sad, pathetic and funny in a perverse sort of way.
But, whatever la. If those of us who actually want to work and enjoy their work waste our time reflecting on the meaningless venom of these bitter people, we'll just end up like them.
I'd rather just go on doing what I do, chin up and heart light, secure in the knowledge that whatever I get, I get on my own merits and through my own hard work. And for those who think otherwise, God bless you anyway.

The Art of the Mixtape

It ain't easy, let me tell you that.

It came upon a midnight clear, this wonderfully Christmassy idea. Or should I say, IDEA.

I was lounging in bed, once again unable to sleep, when it dawned on me - the perfect Christmas gift for my family and friends.

I thought that this Christmas, I'd (instead of leaving in their stockings presents, two front teeth or promises I don't intend to keep) make my near and dear ones a compilation of wonderfully unique, unusual and relatively unsung Christmas tunes - a merry mixtape, if you will.

So, as they say in the snooker parlour - set biji sepuluh! Game, set and match. After all, how hard can it be to burn an Xmas CD, right?

Pretty hard, as I'm finding out now.

You see, the art of the mixtape is all in the setting of the tempo. The tempo of the tape, or CD in this case, determines all. It determines how successful, or not, your offering is.


Do I start fast and gradually wind down? Or do I start slow and progress to a grand finale? Or, do I start slow, build up to a crescendo and then taper off towards the end?


If I start too fast, the risk is of an anti-climatic ending. If I go too slow, the danger is that they will lose interest too soon. Problems, problems! Everything has got to be just nice, the perfect blend of fast and slow, upbeat and mellow, religious and commercial, frivilous and profound. In a nutshell, it has to encapsulate Christmas and all the emotional, nostalgic bric-a-brac contained therein.


I've already cooked up in my head a list of songs I want to have. None of this stupid Jingle Bells or Silent Night shite for me (unless of course it's the Bing Crosby version of the former and The Temptations' take on the latter).


My mixtape is going to be full of unknown, but beautiful numbers.These are the contenders for the final list, in no particular order (since the order is my biggest problem!):



The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Andy Williams


Pretty Paper - Roy Orbison


Little Altar Boy - Glen Campbell


Senor Santa Claus - Jim Reeves


Sarajevo 12-24 - Trans Siberian Orchestra


Happy Christmas (War is Over) - John Lennon


O Holy Night - Tracy Chapman


Ave Maria - Connie Francis


Hallelujah It's Christmas - Roger Whittaker


Merry Christmas Baby - James Brown


Santa Baby - Madonna (or, preferrably, Eartha Kitt, if I can find her version)


Christmas Bride - The Ray Conniff Singers


White Christmas - The Drifters


Auld Land Syne - Kenny G (I'm still very iffy about this one. Not only does Kenny G just scream corny, but the interspersed dialogue is just to Americana-oriented for me)


Kids - Kenny Rogers


I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Jackson 5 (I'm iffy about this one too, coz I always thought the kid must have been a mean trouble causer to want to tell on his mom. And not to mention dumb for not knowing Santa was his dad..)


The Fairytale of New York - Ronan Keating and Marie Brennan (I don't have the original and superior Pogues' rendition, sadly)


Christmas in New Orleans - Louis Armstrong


Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth - Bing Crosby and David Bowie


Silent Night - The Temptations


Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley


Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland


I'll Be Home For Christmas - haven't decided whose cover I'll get for this one






Yes, I know I said it's going to be full of unknown songs. Yes, I know that most of these songs are known songs. So, let me rephrase what I said earlier. I want it to be full of my favourite Christmas songs and everybody has no choice but to like them. So there!


After all, what is Christmas without Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas or I'll Be Home For Christmas? And anybody who's listened to Chapman's soulful take on O Holy Night will definitely fall in love with it. Also, the songs by The Drifters and The Temptations both just beg inclusion, being such unique renditions of terribly overdone numbers.


And last but not least, how can we celebrate the arrival of the Kid without a song by the King?

Idle-fitri thoughts

I always used to think that its only the incredible losers who stand in line for hours to shake hands with cabinet members and eat free food at open houses. Similarly, I used to think that politicians only did it to appear beaming and magnanimous.
This year, I've begun to look at it a little differently. Perhaps it's because of the bad news that's been floating around all year. Perhaps it's because of all the racial and religious strife we have been embroiled in. Perhaps it's because we have never seemed more divided than we are here and now.
But, as I watched the people milling around me at the PM's open house in PWTC, I suddenly found it immensely refreshing to see smiles, laughs, goodwill and togetherness in place of spite, mistrust, anger and loathing.
The rakyat seemed happier and the politicians too seem less cagey. Most people, with the exception of the protesting crowd who had an axe to grind, seemed to genuinely want to give out and absord positive vibes on the day, which was as mild and as pleasant as the mood it seemed to engender.
On the street and in cyberspace, Malaysia, for the most part, took a break from its problems for a day or two at least. It was refreshing and in fact, wonderful, to see wishes of peace, goodwill and forgiveness on Facebook status messages instead of the usual curses and rants posted everyday. It was lovely to see the toll booth attendants smile and respond to my Selamat Hari Raya wishes instead of just ignoring me. It was awesome to hear old friends replying my festive greetings, even though the promises and pledges to meet up and connect again rang hollow most of the time.
This is the Malaysia I know. This is the Malaysia I remember. This is the Malaysia I love. But why does it only come out on one, two or three days a year?
Because most of the time, we, led willingly by "leaders" who are only too willing to exploit us, prefer to look at what divides us and at what makes each one of us different from the other. Our days and our lives are poisoned by greed, envy, malice, inconsideration and hate.
I refuse to believe that's who we truly are. Call it naivete, but I sincerely believe that the average Malaysian, the Malaysian on the Len Seng omnibus if you will, is a decent and tolerant person, not a racist, supremacist or bigot.
My Hari Raya wish is for all of us to look for and find that Malaysian within us. Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Maaf Zahir Batin.

Blogging

There seems to be a problem here. I find myself unable to write about deep, intelligent issues in the written equivalent of a sonorous baritone.
Don't get me wrong. I still think magnificent thoughts and come up with potentially world-changing ideas all the time. The problem is that all these wonderful pieces of inspiration usually come to me when i'm driving, taking a dump, in a state of extreme inebriation or in that hazy space between sleep and waking.
Once I am in front of the pc and looking down at the dust-lined (and God knows what else!)keyboard, all these marvellous schemes just drift away like gossamer spiderwebs torn apart by a stiff gale.
Oh well...I'll just write total rubbish then la. Like what I'm doing now. :P

A Racist Malaysia

It's been a few weeks since the horrid incident of the racist teacher in Banting.

From what has happened, it looks as if the drama is at an end; swept under the carpet and buried deep in the hopes that people will forget the problem if it is not acknowledged. There has been neither reprimand nor inquiry. Neither punishment nor blame.

Most amazingly, even the police - normally so quick to act when it serves their purposes - have come out to say that it is "difficult" to act in cases of racial abuse.

The Klang criminal investigation department chief said the only action that could be taken would be to forward the information to the Education Department for further action.

He, for good measure, added that they can only charge the offending teacher if there is "strong supporting evidence" and "eyewitnesses who are willing to testify in court".

Firstly, with five police reports lodged regarding the same issue, does he really think getting witnesses would be a problem?

Secondly, what does he mean when he says the only thing that can be done is to forward the information to the Education Department for further action?

She called all Indians the children of prostitutes, who have no testicles and who constantly menstruate.

Under Section 509 of the Penal Code, words or gestures intended to insult the modesty of a person constitutes a crime. It is punishable with imprisonment for a term for up to five years.

If that's not enough, the much feared Sedition Act the government trots out to handle their political enemies also provides for people who incite racial hatred.

Section 3 (1) (e) clearly states it is an offence to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia, which is a very mild description of what the 'teacher' did.

And has anybody forgotten the tiny allegation that she actually stamped on her students' backs while making them do push ups?

Section 319 of the Penal Code describes as causing hurt the act of causing bodily pain, disease or infirmity to any person and prescribes a jail term of up to one year.

So, what the police mean when they say no action can be taken in this case is really beyond me. It's one thing to not take action due to whatever orders you have from above. It's another thing altogether to insult our intelligence by feeding us crap like this.

Does the Barisan Nasional government wonder why people, Indian, Chinese and Malay, are rejecting them like never before. Nobody likes racism except racists. And Malaysians, at heart, are not a racist lot. We are tolerant, friendly and open. And the more our government plays to base instincts and the more it resorts to gutter politics of this sort, the more our nobler ideals come to the fore. That is why Malaysians are opting more and more for the high-minded rhetoric of the Pakatan Rakyat component parties.

This Barisan Nasional is not the Alliance of old. It is a huge, hulking tree that is rotting from the inside and bound to fall sooner rather than later. The mistakes our parents and grandparents did was to give their support to the Barisan Nasional. It is not a mistake we are going to make as well.

The younger generation is not going to stand for politicians who tell us that we are "pendatang" and who refuse to take action when our mothers are branded as prostitutes. We are not going to support a government who expects to be served rather than to serve. We are not going to bow to the climate of fear that gripped our forefathers. We would rather watch everything burn than to continue living like this anymore.

It is no use telling us how important racial integrity is and how crucial it is for us to live in harmony when you don't take concrete action to ensure that harmony. The first step to harmony is in ensuring racism has no place in our Parliament, in our classrooms, in our police stations and in our lives.

R.I.P Kuldeep S. Jessy

Kuldeep Jessy, my good friend, died early today. Born on May 4 1967, he was 41 years old and had been married for five weeks.

I was on vacation in Thailand about to boat across the Mekong River to Laos, when I received news of his fatal heart attack.

As I sat in the boat, no longer caring about the Mekong, the Golden Triangle or Thailand, my thoughts went again and again to his widow, Manjit. Only last month, she was a blushing bride and he a nervous groom. And now he's gone and she's a widow.

It doesn't make sense or seem fair. He was too young and too good to go. I never in my life met a person who didn't like Kuldeep. He was the kind of guy who could make anybody smile with his lawak bodoh, his nasal voice and his puppy dog eyes. He was kind and gentle, and a wonderful friend to have.

He loved Alleycats and teh tarik. He really enjoyed his beer and cigarettes. He used to call his mother Mr. Magoo behind her back and used to tease Manjit incessantly, calling her a praying mantis, among others.

I'm now frantically trying to book a flight back to make it for his funeral on Wednesday. I owe it to him to be there. But part of me does not want to. It's too painful to go back to the same house where we so recently celebrated the happiest day of his life.

It was supposed to have heralded the start of a new life, but instead, he and Manjit have been cheated out of their happily ever after.

He's gone now, forever. We will never have another beer together, we'll never bitch about work together, or cook up any more pranks together.

I love you my friend, and I'll never forget you or stop missing you.

Heaven was made for people like you. Rest in peace.

Simply unbelievable. Simply un-fucking-believable.

Keling pariah

Negro

Black monkeys

Indians come from dogs

Indians are children of prostitutes

Indians are stupid

Indian youths don't have testicles, always menstruate and indulge in thuggery and theft

No matter where it comes from, these insults are shocking, dismaying and downright painful to read. But knowing it was made by a teacher, the person we depend on to form the minds and characters of our nation's young, is like taking a sucker-punch right in the gut. The pain is dull and throbbing, the effects long lasting.

Yet, what do our authorities do about it? They transfer her to a better school, and one that is closer to her home. In essence, they are saying "good job, keep it up."

Where's our firm stand on racial and religious sensitivity at a time like this? Where's the dire "ISA detention" threat reserved for those who stir up racial hatred?

Or are do all these punishments only apply one way? Is only one race and one religion protected by our government and our leaders?

What if I were to take the word Indian out of those insults and replace it with the name of another, more privileged, race? How long would it take for them to track me down and throw me into a windowless cell? How long before they would denounce me for inciting the masses?

This woman called every Indian in this country a bastard and a dog. She called us a bunch of mindless gangsters and scoundrels. She called us eunuchs. She called us untouchable.

And she got away with it.

The Goat-inator

WHen you've been friends with a person for close to two decades, you really know each other's sense of humour inside out.

Tareq and I have been childhood friends, being in the same school and after that neighbours too. Needless to say, we've taken shooting the bull and talking cock to a higher art form.

Our latest noteworthy episode was The Goat-inator.

It started because we were both bitching about how bad our salaries were and how much we needed to get out and make some decent money so we can enjoy the finer things in life.

As usual, Tareq came up with one of his brilliant suggestions (and I mean that in all honesty. His ideas are usually brilliant. It's just that we're too bloody lazy to follow up on them..).

This time it was to go into goat farming. As he told me (and as I confirmed later), Malaysia's goat supply only accounts for 25% of our need, which means it is a gold mine waiting to be tapped.

And so, we began to fantasise.

We will open a goat farm somewhere in Nilai or Seremban or something like that. And slowly, through sheer hard work, we would turn our business into a raging success.

We'd then broaden our scope and start taking over other goat farms. We'd first conquer Negeri Sembilan. Then The whole south and from there the rest of the country. Once every goat farm in the country belongs to us, we'd go international. (Don't ask for specifics on how we'd do it. it's just a fantasy, okay!)

So, eventually, we'd own every single goat farm in the world. And we'd own every single goat in the world. We'll be sitting pretty on a pile of money and all that jazz lah.

Meanwhile, (ooohhh... I've always wanted to use "meanwhile" in a story. It's so comic book-ish!) in another planet (or it could be an alternate future, take your pick), in which goats are the dominant species, we have been branded as the anti-Goat and the great satan for ou role in holding all the goats of the world in bondage.

Thus, a lone goat warrior is chosen to be sent back to our time (or is that to our planet?) to exterminate us and free all the goats of the world from bondage. This chosen one has the ability to shape shift and thus infiltrate our lives without us noticing.

He can not only alternate between all breeds of goat and sheep, but also assume the form of the various pak haji, Fred Durst, Lenin and various other goateed folk around in his bid to finish us off once and for all.

So the story went something like that la. I wonder why it seemed much funnier when Tareq and I were giggling about it. Now it just seems lame and pointless.....

Oh, and the Goat-inator's catchphrase would be "I'll be baaa-ck"

Midnight Musings

It’s always the worst at night. During the daylight hours, I can go through the motions and pretend that everything is fine. I can laugh, smile and make merry.
But at night - when the sun is down and I’m all alone with my thoughts….that’s when the walls start closing in.
Everywhere I look, every place I go, I see ghosts of us. I remember a song we loved, a meal we cooked or a movie we watched. The present fades into the dark and the past runs into the spotlight of my mind’s eye.
I think about the years, days and minutes we spent together. I think of every laugh we shared, the little games we played and the dreams we dreamed together. I remember the days when the sun seemed brighter and the world was filled with colour. And every time these memories intrude, it takes everything I have to stop myself from breaking down.
I think of all the harsh words we threw at each other. I think of all the bad things we did to each other, all the lies and all the deceptions. I try to hate you for what you did to me, for what you did to us. But I only end up hating myself more for all that I did to you and all that I allowed to happen to you. And I wonder if I gave up too soon, if I didn’t fight enough to keep us alive, if I wasn’t strong enough to make us last.
I tell myself that I am only in love with the memory of you, with the memory of us. And most of the time, I can fool myself into believing it.
But all it takes is one phone call from you to send my careful constructs crashing down. Just one of those “hello-how-are-you” kind of calls that we make day after day to all and sundry is enough to bring me hurtling to the realization that I am still very much in love with You. Not any sepia memory, but the sound of your voice and the thought of your face.
I’ve tried to lose myself in so many ways. Chemical relief does only so much before reality creeps in. Celluloid escapism vanishes when I exit darkened cinema halls. Willing arms and warm embraces of fair ladies do little to thaw the cold I feel inside. Nothing works. I wonder if anything ever will.
I sometimes wonder why I can’t get over you. I remind myself that you’re no looker, that you aren’t the brightest bulb in the box and that you aren’t the most fascinating of conversationalists. I try to remember how my eyes glaze over when you begin to drone on about your pet peeves. But yet for all that, I can’t stop feeling that while you are not perfect, you were still perfect for me.
It’s been a year and a half and I still miss you. I still remember the exact timbre of your voice, every contour of your body and that special scent of your skin. I remember how you used to feel when you would sleep snuggled in my arms and how you used to hate waking up in the mornings.
Friends keep telling me it gets better as time goes by, that the pain will eventually recede and disappear. At first, they said it would take a few months. Then they said it would take about a year. Then, it became a year and some months.
It’s been more than that now and they tell me it will probably take another year or so.
I wonder if it will ever go away.

This is the sum of all the work I did today.

My top 10 songs (in no particular order) to listen to while I luxuriously wallow in my own depression are:

1) I Am...I Said - Neil Diamond

2) Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word - Elton John

3) I’ll Never Fall in Love Again – Tom Jones

4) Piano Man – Billy Joel

5) The Trouble With Love Is – Kelly Clarkson

6) Crying – Roy Orbison

7) Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley

8) Eleanor Rigby – The Beatles

9) She’s Out of My Life – Michael Jackson

10) I Started A Joke – The Bee Gees

Honourable mentions go to Nobody's Child (Karen White), Are You Lonesome Tonight (Elvis Presley), Little Altar Boy (The Carpenters) Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees (Elvis Presley), Tears of a Clown (Smokey Robinson), Tracks of My Tears (Smokey Robinson).


My top 10 stoner songs are:

1) Comfortably Numb – Pink Floyd

2) Puff The Magic Dragon – Peter, Paul and Mary

3) Pass the Dutchie – Musical Youth

4) Legalise It – Peter Tosh

5) Cos I Got High – Afroman

6) Summertime – Janis Joplin

7) Yellow Submarine – The Beatles

8) Don’t Worry, Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin

9) Dream On – Aerosmith

10) Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
Honourable mentions go to A Little Help From My Friends (The Beatles), Good Vibrations (The Beach Boys), Paint It Black (Rolling Stones) and Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Bob Dylan).

The battle of wills

I see you lying there before me, among the many others of your ilk.
Mysterious and magical, your face promises hidden and sultry delights I wouldn’t be able to find in any other.
And so, I decide that you it shall be. I pick you, choose you from all the rest and ask you to be mine.
I approach, my hands hungry to touch you, my eyes wanting to devour your every secret.
I pick you up. You weigh nothing, and I find it almost impossible to believe that under your feather-light weightlessness lies so wondrous a treasure.
I put you down on the cold, flat surface of the table in front of me.
As I run my hands all over your body, taking immense pleasure in the velvety smoothness of your skin, I wonder for a moment whether it is appropriate to do in public what I’m so blatantly doing to you now.
After all, I’ve been told that what we are now doing is the sort of thing that is only usually done in privacy, in solitude and in the closed confines of silent places.
And I tell myself, fuck it. And I continue.
But then, something happens. You turn off. You close yourself to me. I try to coax you to open, to reveal your innermost secrets to me but you don’t listen.
I try holding you in place. I try to keep you steady as I have my way with you. Yet, nothing works. You keep shutting me out. You keep brushing me away. You answer neither the gentle probings of my fingers nor the insistent strength of my sinews.
And I know I am losing you.
Then I realize there’s only one thing I can do. If I am to have you, I must first break you. Only when you lie helpless and unprotected will you obey my commands. Only when you are physically incapable of resisting me, will I be able to do with you as I will.
I know that you will never be the same if I do embark on this gruesome course. You will never be as beautiful again, inside and out. You will eventually come apart at the seams and fall to bits. You will be a shadow of the magnificent thing you are now.
But I don’t care. I must have you now and if having you means breaking you, break you I will.
And, break you I do. Without hesitancy, without doubt, without remorse, I break you.
I pick you and without batting an eyelid, snap your spine.
I hear the crunching and see the unnatural backward bend of your body and I know the deed is done.
I put you down again and note with satisfaction that you now lie open to me and indifferent to your fate.
And so I settle myself down to eat my roti canai and drink my Nescafe while I thumb through your pages.
Ahhh.....a meal and a good book. One of life's simple pleasures..

sLauGHteR iS ThE bESt MedICInE

Since everybody and his dog seems to be throwing in his two-cents worth about The Dark Knight, I figured I should too. (Heaven forbid society think me uncool for not bouncing onto the Batwagon!)

In all seriousness, I, unlike the rest of the watching world apparently, don't think the Joker is the best thing since bread came sliced, or that the sun shone out of Heath Ledger's now maggoty ass.

Don't get me wrong. He was brilliant. Oh well, since I'm going that far, I might as well go the full monty. He was (lets say it in a single breath now!) amazingmarvellousawesometremendousfantasticmesmerisingbrilliantastoundingbreathtakingterrific.

He is just Evil for the sake of being Evil, with no thought for profit or gain, no quarter given to mercy or kindness and revels in death, destruction and chaos.

He's the kind of personable chap even the Lucifer himself wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. He makes Emperor Palpatine, Count Dracula and Hannibal Lecter look like Larry, Curly and Moe. He'd give Charles Manson and Ted Bundy the willies.

In short, he is one of the greatest villains in cinematic history. All that talk about a posthumous Oscar really is warranted and not just the work of a PR machine on overdrive.

But for me, the movie can be summed up in two words: Harvey Dent.

While Ledger's portrayal of the clown prince of crime is mesmerising in its intensity, Eckhart's depiction of Gotham's white knight is a study in character development.

He brings out the best in the the idealistic District Attorney out to clean Gotham's crime riddled streets and imbues the character with moral strength, unquenchable fortitude, immense courage and the dogged determination to see good triumph over evil.

And then the Joker blows his world to bits.

When Dent becomes Two-Face, you don't hate him. You weep for him. You weep for all that he was and all that he has become.

You weep because you see that every evil, every vile cruelty is not so much an act of wickedness but a cry of pain, a cry of misery and a cry to be put out of his suffering.

Despite the trail of murderous destruction that he wreaks, despite the horrifying choices he makes and despite the terrible things he does, Two-Face is still one of the most sympathetic villains I have come across.

If Ledger were to not get the posthumous Oscar he is worthy of, I would choose Eckhart as the man to win it over him.

Gary Oldman more than does justice to the role of James Gordon, while Eric Roberts, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman all acquit themselves reasonably well too.

Sadly, Christian Bale himself was the most disappointing member of the cast (lets leave out Gyllenhall - the only reason she's even in the movie is to facilitate Dent's transformation). Batman is arguably the most complex and intriguing of all comicdom's caped crusaders, but in The Dark Knight, he is a strangely one-dimensional cardboard cutout.

Is it because he is so completely eclipsed by the baddies? I don't know.

What I do know is that while so much effort was put into making the action scenes spectacular and in giving Batman more cool gadgets, relatively little was put into highlighting his inner turmoil and the conflict raging underneath the cowl.

For example, while he could, without a qualm, let Ras Al Ghoul die a fiery death in Batman Begins, he does not kill the Joker - a more dangerous and devious villain. While we all know that Batsy's code is to not kill, more could have been done to explain the motivations behind this.

When Joker threatens to kill one person every night unless the Bat reveals his true identity, we see a very muted response to what must have surely been a mind-warping conundrum.

His reaction to (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!) Rachel Dawes' death is equally muted and unimposing. I mean, this is the same man who, having seen his parents gunned down, dresses up as a winged mammal and flits from roof to roof in response. You'd at least expect him to tear off a couple of Joker's limbs for blowing the love of his life to kingdom come, wouldn't you?

Yet, even with these inadequacies The Dark Knight is a spellbinding tale. It is not one painted in shades of black, white or even gray.

Rather it is splashed with the bright purple of the Joker's suit, the toxic green of his hair and the blood red of his grinning maw. It is a painted with the brittle brush strokes of Two-Face's burnt and deformed face.

And it is accompanied by a duet of manical laughter and anguished howls.

WHAT IF THEY LIVED?

Elvis
Elvis He would have probably have died sometime in mid-2006. In 2004, he'd have released, That's All Right: 50 Years On, his first album in 20 years. It would have been produced by Rick Rubin, and, like Rubin's work with Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, would have been bare, stripped down and minimal. It would have been hailed as one of the best albums of the year, Elvis best work since his Aloha from Hawaii concert and a shoo-in for a Grammy. It would have been the high point of a career that had gone seriously downhill since he narrowly cheated death in August 1977. Fans around the world watched with sadness as the King of Rock n' Roll's drug-fuelled lifestyle led to a downhill slope he never fully recovered from. His battle against the bulge was as well documented as his various aborted comeback attempts. The newer generations wondered what it was their parents saw in the foolish old man arthritically flailing about the stage, clearly doped up to his eyeballs and struggling to remember the words to his signature numbers. The only things that went worse than his music careers was his film work and his family life. Never the greatest of actors, his releases in the 80s were so bad they couldn't even be called B-grade movies. Bleary-eyed and paunchy, his romantic loverboy roles would have been hilarious if the lecherous pairings of Elvis with women young enough to be his granddaughters were not so paedophilic. Friends said he lost interest in his music, and in life itself, after Priscilla left him, taking Lisa Marie with her. A succession of incresingly vapid and hollow-eyed girlfriends did nothing to bring him out of his funk. At his funeral, his fans - the legion of once screaming teenyboppers now in their dotage - ruefully said said That's All Right was too little too late. They couldn't reconcile the bald and stooped old man, flabby gut hanging obscenely over his belt garter, to their memories of the sleek, gyrating Adonis of their sepia toned memories. They said it would have been better if the 1977 overdose had killed him.


James Dean
James Dean It was ironic that Dean cheated death while driving his Porsche Spyder only to die a few years later in the same car while playing the part of a stock-car driver.The first accident, in 1955, came as he had just burst on to the scene as a devilishly handsome movie star who seemed destined to be Hollywood's torch bearer for the next decade. For a while it seemed as if the car crash had smashed his future as gruesomely as it smashed his legs. But, with a determination that became the stuff of countless articles, anecdotes and stories, Dean fought his way back from the brink.In a coma for two months, and his legs mangled in the wreck, nobody expected him to pull through. But pull through he did. When asked in interviews later how he managed to steel himself for the 9 months of intense physiotherapy, Dean would always have a perplexed look in his eyes."What would you have expected me to do? Lie back and let the accident lick me? Stay an invalid for the rest of my life?" was his stock answer.He did admit that the crash made him reassess his life and throw himself more frenetically behind his work.In the decade that followed, he amassed a body of work that became legendary. Anything and everything he touched immediately turned to gold. The critics loved him, but the audiences loved him more. Drama, action, westerns, epics, comedies, horror - he did them all. Good guys, bad guys, fathers, sons, priests and playboys - he played them all. His romances became the stuff of legend, the most memorable being his courting of young Tina Turner. Their interracial relationship became the talk of the town and played as important a part in ending segregation as did Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat on the bus. Even though the relationship eventually ended, Turner always referred to him after that as "the great love of my life".His second accident - this one fatal - occurred in 1967. His directoral debut, the movie was about an aging race car driver who is killed in the race that would have won him his first championship. Poignant and touching, with gripping race squences, the movie won Dean an unprecendented posthumous double Oscar - for best director and best actor. He won a five minute standing ovation at the ceremony. The scene of his crash was used in the movie, as was the actual footage of the desperate attempts to save his life. The tears were real.




Kurt Cobain
Everybody always predicted that Cobain was just crazy enough to one day take a gun to his head. Nobody would have ever, in a million years, thought he would end up as the quintessential suburban dad, complete with the minivan and white picket fence.It was on Oprah, in 2004, a full decade after he had left the music scene once and for all that he revealed how close the predictions came to coming true. He broke down - as everybody but Tom Cruise does on Oprah - and admitted that he had gone so far as to write out his suicide note and point a shotgun at his chin."I hadn't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing for too many years," he said, sobbing like a new-born babe."I was so high on heroin and valium that I had no idea what was going on around me. I just needed to escape. "And then I pulled the trigger. And nothing happened. I pulled the trigger over and over and nothing happened. So, I just went to sleep hoping I would never wake up again."I woke up the next day and found that the only reason my brains were not all over my wall was because I had forgotten to load the gun. It was then that I decided that it was either my music or my life," he said.That same day, Cobain held a press conference to announce his immediate retirement from music. He sold everything he had, bought a mid-sized house in a leafy Atlanta suburb and all but disappeared from the public eye.Rolling Stone called it "music's greatest loss since Lennon was killed". Time magazine put him on the front cover. CNN had an hour-long special report on him and his work with Nirvana. Everbody mourned his exit as leaving the industry so much the poorer, but Cobain himself has no regrets.As he told Oprah - "I'd rather be a live, ordinary man anytime over being a dead legend."

The Death of Patriotism, part deux.

Ground rules have to be established. The rule is simple - NO NAMES. Not yours, not mine. Call it fear or call it caution. I like the freedom the anonymity (or the illusion of it) gives me and you. I know who you are, you know who I am. The world doesn't need to.

If I think up any more rules, I'll make sure to put them up. Gee, I like being king of my own little cyber world.... I could get used to this. :)

The Death of Patriotism

When I was a schoolboy, my friends and I would sometimes talk about what we would do if war were to ever break out. In our youthful naiveté, we all agreed that if the worst were to happen, we would fight, and be willing to die, for our country.A decade has passed and more has happened than just the addition of a receding hairline, a few wrinkles and some extra pounds. Somewhere during that decade, my love, loyalty and patriotism died. It wasn’t a natural death. Rather it was a slow, agonizing death that came from brutal, systemic torture inflicted by the very people who were supposed to guide and care for me – my leaders.With time and maturity, has come the realization that I live in a racist state. Worse, I live in an unashamedly racist state. A broad, sweeping and unfair statement perhaps? Well, consider the reasons behind my assertion.Recently, I read for the umpteenth time how the government is aiming to increase the Bumiputra influence in the political and economic sectors. This despite the fact that we already have a Bumiputra Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. This despite the fact that most of our Cabinet consists of Bumiputra representatives. This despite the fact that most government departments heads and staff are Bumiputras. This despite the fact that most government-linked companies have Bumiputras at their head. This despite the fact that every university vice-chancellor is Bumiputra. I could go on and on, but you get the picture I’m sure.The amazing fact is that nobody seems to be the least bit bashful about this in-your-face racism. Terms like Malay superiority and Ketuanan Melayu keep getting bandied about by all and sundry. What are these people trying to say? That the non-Malay’s sat on their arses and waited for handouts? That the non-Malays were handed the keys to the kingdom of heaven on a silver platter? That we didn’t earn our right to live here?Where would Malaysia be without the Chinese tin miners? Where would Malaysia be without the Indian rubber-tappers? Where would Malaysia be without old Ah Seng the merchant? Or Thangamma, who broke her back laying tar for roads? Or for that matter, where would Malaysia be without the educated Malayalee and Ceylonese civil servants who served the government in the early days of our nation’s youth?At the same time, where would Malaysia be without the Bumiputra who planted our rice and caught our fish? Or the many Bumiputra soldiers who fought and died for us?The fact is that we are all equal partners in this, share and share alike. Nobody deserves more and nobody deserves less. We have all contributed to our nation’s growth and we are all responsible for its future.Yet, we have come to a point where the matter is not up for discussion. The non-Bumi is a second-class citizen. Period. The Chinese businessman knows he will never have as strong a chance as a Malay does when it comes to getting a contract or a tender. The Indian academic knows that he will never attain the top post at his university simply because of his race.We pay more for our houses, we pay more for our cars. We get fewer rights, fewer perks and fewer loans. We don’t have trust funds. We don’t have anything, in a nutshell.Nobody is allowed to question this arrangement. Nobody is allowed to criticize it. Nobody is allowed to debate it. We get slapped in the face with the “fact” that our forefathers signed “the social contract” agreeing to the Bumiputras’ special rights and privileges.What if I disagree with the contract my forefathers went into? Don’t I get a fucking say in the matter? Am I supposed to be bound to this “social contract” ad infinitum? I’m supposed to pay for the sins of my fathers? My sons too? How about their sons and grandsons?This is the only place I have heard of where the vast majority enjoys extra privileges at the expense of the minority. Make no mistake, this is not a fair and a just fight for equality. This is a fight for EXTRA and ADDITIONAL benefits, something which is both unfair, unjust and inhumane. That’s right. INHUMANE. After all, what is humane about a good student being told that her scholarship award is going to a less deserving candidate simply because the quota has been filled? What’s humane about a hardworking civil servant being passed up for promotion time and again because he is not a Bumiputra?The worst part is that this system doesn’t not even have the effect its architects wanted it to have. They claimed they wanted to elevate the Bumiputra to the level of the other races. Yet, when the original 1991 deadline came and went, the Bumiputra had still not got their “fair” slice of the economic kuih lapis. Fast forward 17 years later and it seems that they are still no closer, which means there is still no end in sight to the NEP. I sometimes wonder whether the NEP has in fact weakened its beneficiaries instead of strengthening them.
In the meantime, the underprivileged non-Bumi is forced to become stronger, wilier and more adaptable to survive in this rotten system. The non-Bumi has to learn every dirty trick in the book in order to survive. Worst of all, the non-Bumi ends up filling his belly and nursing a deep grudge, a deep hatred against the leaders and the country that has forced him to slog for every crumb of bread he puts in his mouth.Whatever I have said in this posting could very well be seditious, going by the fluid definition of sedition this nation seems to have. I neither know nor care. I find it hard to pledge love or allegiance to a country that places so little a value on my life and my being.If there ever comes a time when I will no longer be regarded as a lesser man than the Princes of the Earth and if there comes a time when I will be judged by the content of my character and not the colour of my skin, I might change my mind.Hell, if that happens I might actually be willing to fight and die for this godforsaken country!

The Royal Bitch

My latest resolution is to not bitch anymore. Or rather, to no longer bitch about people who piss me off. How long this noble resolution is going to remain afloat, I really can't say, especially considering my lengthy history of failed resolutions and lengthier list of failed attempts at reviving failed resolutions.
Whether it is about the twat in the office whose been my nemesis since day one, the kid who made a careless comment that cut me really deep, the friend who irritated me deliberately and maliciously knowing that he was annoying me or the mother who forgot my birthday, I have resolved to not bitch about it.
I shall attempt to exude only good vibrations and earn good karma by being saintly and benign, turning the other cheek, doing unto others as I would want others to do unto me and all that jazz. You get the general idea la.
After all, when even my nearest and dearest start calling me The Royal Bitch, then I know that I've been ranting and raving way too often.
And so, I have resolved as of this moment to, whenever I feel the urge to bitch, merely satisfy myself with a martyred look, a face turned up to the heavens and the sorrowful voice saying, "God Bless Them."

And I'm doing this because?

This is not meant to be my platform. It is not meant to provoke thought, to invite debate, to enlighten, enrage or ensnare.
It isn't meant to solicit advertising, to gain notoriety, to achieve fame or to make an impression.
It is only meant to be a retreat, a solace and a sanctuary.
I am in love with the written word. The written word has given me everything I have. It puts the food on my table, the clothes on my back and the fuel in my tank.
It inspires me, moves me, motivates me and humbles me.
Yet, in the humdrum movements of daily life, I have fallen out of love with the simple beauty and power of words.
I want to find that lost love again. I want to remember again what it was like to be awed by the ability to build and shape something that lingers in the mind. To gain immortality with the knowledge that somewhere in the deep a part of me will survive.
Read, if you will, whatever I scribble here. It may be a rant, it may be a boast. It may be me gushing in happiness or wallowing in my misery. I may curse politicians and their bluster. I may laugh at footballers and their indignities. I may wax lyrical about the latest movie. I may philisophize about the meaning of life and the existence of God.
But be warned. There are no promises that it will enrich your life and improve your moment. There are no assurances of quality and good craft. This is only me continuing my love affair with the written word.