I Miss My Column.

I told myself I would not go down the path of certain people who left the New Straits Times only to devote their blog to bitching about the company and the people in it, even though their treachery seems to have been ultimately rewarded with triumphant returns to positions of power and prestige.

However, there is one thing on my mind which has been bothering me and I'm hoping this blog posting will prove cathartic. At the very least, it'll allow me to vent. So, here goes.

I never asked to be a columnist for the paper. I only ever volunteered to write one column, with disastrous results. In fact, the fallout of that column - and there's a huge back-story to the writing and editing of the piece itself - was so bad that I resolved to never write another column again.

However, I was encouraged and prodded to turn my hand to attempting columns and commentaries by an editor, who was very supportive and helpful in my early days. When my fellowship came up, it was this editor that told me to turn the column into a regular fortnightly thing.

It took a while to get used to it (column writing, to me, is a very personal thing, something which gives the reader a glimpse into my soul), but I did and began to really enjoy it. This despite the fact that most of the columns that really meant something were rejected because they were too sensitive. But hey, you don't work for the NST without knowing the constraints that come with it.

But anyway, before I left NST, I asked the Sunday Times editor whether I would be able to maintain my column. She said she saw no conflict of interest with my production duties in BRTV and writing columns in NST. I was happy, because it meant that I could still write and still, in a way, have some sort of a link to NST (which I was very fond of, despite certain odious trolls in charge of the paper today).

I mentioned the same thing to the CEO, GE and Deputy GE as I said my goodbyes. Everything passed with no negative comments from them.

And then from out of the blue, I was told by the Sunday Times editor that the GE had decided not to retain my column due to a supposed "conflict of interest". I was sad, but accepted it as a judgement call made by upper management in the best interests of the company.

But as time has passed, I realise that it is a shallow excuse. Why? Three reasons.

1) Jason Dasey. He writes a regular sports column. Yet, he is also the editor of 442 magazine and a host on Astro. Isn't there a conflict of interest here, considering that 442 is in the print media and Astro is a competitor  to Media Prima?

2) Teoh Teik Hoong. He's a friend and a nice enough dude. But he is also the owner and editor of the SJ Echo, which is a publication in direct competition with NST Streets. Yet, he too is writing columns for Sunday Times.

3) Malay Mail. When the paper decided to go free, NST blared the news. The decision didn't make sense to me as well as to a lot of other reporters. Why promote a rival newspaper. An editor who used to work at MM said it was because we were helping out a "friend". I'm all for helping my friends out, but it doesn't make any kind of sense to promote a competing business, especially when NST Streets itself is trying to get a foothold in the same market.

Ultimately, anybody who reads this posting would probably surmise that I am bitter and reeking of sour grapes over my expulsion as a columnist. And to a certain extent I am. But I'm not saying that I SHOULD have been retained. All I'm saying is I think I deserved to hear the real reason of why I was not retained.

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).