Please…Johore is not Johore Bahru.

During my recent sojourn to my second hometown, Kluang, I was assaulted by the thought that I am really going to miss it even it was there. I was driving frantically trying to track down the old favourite Chicken Rice stall which has since shifted, when it occurred to me that Kluang might just become… (Cue horror music here) Johore Bahru!

You see, for years I have been tormented by this particular response I get immediately when I say I come from the Johore state: “Oh, JB.” Gritting my teeth, and holding back my urge to poke their eyes ala Three Stooges, I’d tell them that my hometown is Cha’ah, where I grew up, and Kluang, where I was born and spent my early formative years. But the myopic perception is not without reasons. I tell you why (especially to non-Malaysian readers).

Johore Bahru is the capital for the Johore state, a princely, second largest state in Peninsular Malaysia, and a haven for green plantations, namely oil palm, cocoa and pineapple. The state also homes manufacturing sites boasting many multi-national corporations. Yes, some even bigger than those in Penang except that we Johoreans don’t toot our horns like our cousins from north (hey, Nasi Kandar is just normal Nasi Campur with mixed curry okay!). I know I sound like envoy from Johore State tourism, but that is the fact.

But the trouble is, everyone seems to think of only the Johore Bahru city when the name Johore is mentioned. It’s sickening. I hate that city. It’s the wrong end of the stick with shit. It’s the word I would use as acronym to crème de la crème. It’s the barbecued piece of charred meat that you usually put aside as it is only fit to be eaten by your domestic pet. It, and I’ve said this to many before, is a bastard child of Malaysia and Singapore, before they parted ways and the L'enfant terrible was shoved to Malaysians.

Okay, I made that up. It’s just that Singapore was conveniently an Island, making it easier for them to have nothing to do with Johore Bahru. Now, the city has been known for the wrong reason mostly – crime. Snatch thieves, car robbery, rape, murder and worst, terrible food, has often been attached as the label for that city and it is mostly for one reason alone – cash rich Singaporeans throwing their money around making cheap purchases because to buy most of the things in their country we at least have to make deposit using our kidneys.

Kidding again. But Singaporeans throwing money there is a normal occurrences, like yearly haze. And the fact that Singaporeans are one of the largest property owners in Johore Bahru is not a new trivia, like moronic politicians or reptilian lawyers. But by doing so, they are making themselves available to the lowest, darkest facets found in any human being, also as a result of having seeing inflation rate in the city which is not as great as Kuala Lumpur, higher than KL, just because Singaporeans like to buy groceries enough to feed the entire population of Indonesia (neighbour).

So, no. I am not from Johore Bahru. I have family members near there. My younger brother is away from the stench, about half an hour or forty five minutes drive in a quaint little town called Kulai. Another brother (actually best friend who got assimilated to the family) is staying in Kota Masai, also out of the perimeter of the city of putridity. In fact, I’d seriously consider severing my ties with them if they were to settle down right within that geographic concentration of evil

In all fairness, I would not have mind if the government, in efforts to boost the national income, overcome deficit, and really be recession proof, should sell Johore Bahru off to Singapore for, roughly around US$700 trillion. This time around, it will be part of Singapore and all the snatching, thieving, robbing, murdering, raping and bad cooking can by done by Singaporeans for Singapore themselves. The squeaky clean island sure needs some extra shades of grey. Plus it will improve ties with Malaysia, where we, especially the politicians and lawyers, screw each other within the border as well. It’s a homely thing to do nation-wise.

As for the rest of the Johore, we’d be fine. We have industrial estates outside of Johore Bahru, and huge oil palm plantation (one of the biggest in Asia…probably the world) and some of the fantastic cooking in this part of country. And when I tell people that I come from Johore, they’d say, “Oh yeah, Singapore”, and I’ll poke both of their eyes.

Goodbye To Bacherlorhood.

She kept saying this, as we walked out of the Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara’s (National Registration Board) Marriage Registration Office, “This is the second phase of your life.” That’s my future wife, Linda Marina Fernandez, who’s going to be part of my “second phase”.

I brushed it aside, saying that we have just applied and the actual registration is a month away. Chances are someone can object to the marriage, like the stuffed chicken, Chickie, that my fiancé, Linda, is attached to. That damn puff pillow wants to move in with us, it seems. I need to check with my lawyer on that.

Anyway, the thing is I am finally surrendering myself to married life after 16 years of subjecting myself to bachelorhood which includes cruelty such as inability to fry egg sunny side up. It’s true. Only last Sunday I managed to fry one successfully. I text messaged to a pal of mine, “After a gruelling 35 years, I finally manage to fry an egg sunny side up”. To which she replied something like, “As the saying goes, one is never too old to learn something new. Congrats!”

A sunny side up egg finally after all these years. And yes, I also need to remind myself that if it’s too long on skillet you also get dark side of the moon. Okay, back to my impending…I mean, upcoming married life and I must say the route towards it has been interesting.

You see, we are both of different faith, Linda and I. While she goes to church, I sit at home and watch DVD of my choice. While she prays, I bitch about the lack of quality of onscreen performances and that they have way too much CGI. While goes on her knees worshipping, I am on my knees cursing the disc that got stuck in the DVD player. We certainly belong to two different sets of faith.

So, in order to get to know her belief system better, my future father-in-law got me into these weekend class that introduces the religion to those intending to convert. Though I know very well I am not going to convert, I did sit through them with interest, particularly as I made my own interpretation as it moved on.

The class is interesting because it opens up the window as to how my future in-laws line of thoughts and predispositions are. My future father in-law is fiercely religious. When in meeting with my parents, rather than a casual chat, he looked and sounded like he was giving sermon. But to have accepted me shows that he has an open mind. Plus, girls these days would do stupid thing for love and he, having lived a good 70 years of healthy life and can text message his daughter on what time she is coming back home and that its getting late, he knows that the old school inter-faith antagonism is a thing of the past. Plus it’s not cool.

After the faith class, the last two months, we were sent to a marriage course. It’s compulsory as the certificate would allow us to get married in the house of the lord. And though it was a regular preachy routine that you can get in many help books, there were some interesting moments. One of the revealing one was when I learned that the recent economic turmoil was caused by masturbating.

No, I am not kidding. The one half of the counselling couple, an elderly crochety geezer who had counselled many couples in trouble (only success stories are shared as usual), said men used to be strong, powerful those days. “During the caveman era, they used to hunt, protect their family, had sex only with his wife.” But then, he said, men started practising masturbation instead of actual sex and the act of self-man handling has made these macho posturers into wieners. “In fact, the economic crisis began because of these weak men who masturbate,” he said. Again, I am not kidding. They shouldn’t have rushed in the Madoff case.

Anyway, the next step is the official registration, and followed by weddings at the holy place of our individual faith (okay, technically mine should be a movie theatre, but my parents insist on Hindu temple). And two months down the road, I am a married man.

And that reminded me of something else. When his bachelorhood ended at the age of 40, Ian Fleming, to overcome his “shock” of getting into married life, wrote the first James Bond novel, “Casino Royale”. It is indeed worth pondering that in the very novel that kicked off a billion dollar franchise, Fleming killed off Bond’s lover. Yeah. After getting married. Riiiight.

In my case, yeah it would lovely if I can get that novel that I’ve been working for one full decade out. Otherwise, nothing out of extraordinary. Life goes on. I will be a good husband, and in future, a great father. Most importantly, continue to be the person that I am now, mildly annoying but not a threat to mankind. Saying this, I am now looking forward to a blissful married life…and it also means you have to send that dang stuffed chicken to some orphanage, sweetheart!

Weighty Solution.

I met an ex-colleague the other. A freelancing yoga instructor, football coach, practitioner of Aikido and fitness guru, Subendran Dali is also one of the funniest guys I’d ever met and we shared so much laughter bitching about a former boss.

And then, he dropped the bomb. He said that recent surveys revealed that Malaysians are the most obese people in Asia. Shocked, I managed to respond, “That means you are not doing your job well, don’t you?” He just laughed it off instead of punching my nose with his Aikido fist.

Anyway, he is right. Check this post out.

“Look around the world,” he said, much to my growing fear that he might spout some Eastern philosophy. “Every where they close shop early. But here, we have teh tarik and supper at 2am, 3am or 4am,” he said. Alas, he touched on what should naturally be Malaysian’s favourite pastime, apart from bitching about local politics, which, again, is done during the Teh Tarik sessions.

To the non-Malaysian readers, you might wonder what a Teh Tarik is. “Teh” is tea in Malay, and typing it in Office’s Words application is a big bother because the ever helpful in-built spelling mechanism rearranges the letters, so the “Teh” becomes “The”. Go ahead, try it. Type “Teh” ten times and try to correct it. I won’t be surprised if few minutes later your colleagues are trying to help you retrieve your fist that got tangled up in a mess that was once your beloved keyboard.

Anyway, the Malaysian version is one where instead of normal milk; you mix it with condensed milk which is 10% milk and 290% sugar. You get this sticky, super-sweet beverage that has hints of tea if you are lucky that day. The next word, “Tarik” means pull. So, it means pulled tea, as in you pour from one container where the drink is mixed to the mug and pull the container way up till you got the beverage all over yourself.

So, Malaysian’s favourite supper usually consists of the said drink (I don’t want to type it, I value my fist) and accompanied by Roti Canai, which consist of 5% flour and the rest margarine or whatever fatty substance they use. Or Nasi Lemak which has rice cooked in coconut milk (which if you don’t know, where cooking oil is made from).

And those are only Malaysian food & beverage. We are also aware of fast food franchise that’s available from Perlis to Sarawak. From small town to cities. You have greasy burgers sold from street side to mid-class restaurants like McDonald or Burger King (this with Wendy and Carl’s Jr making foray in recent times). No wonder we are in that list. And I am not far off from becoming one.

Generally I think I am mid-sized, but my mom doesn’t think so. It has been more than a decade since my mom commented that I have lost weight. Quite the opposite in fact. Recently she asked me where my neck was. I know I’ve got a bit heavy below the chin, but come on! She’s a wonderful, loving mom and I worship her. But when it comes to weight issue, she can be a real pain in the, err…missing neck.

Each time I go my parents place, my mom will cook all my favourite meal, feed me breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and then supper. And then, when I am back home and on the phone with her, she’d give me stern warning about my weight problem. Even ordinary conversation is peppered with hints of the weight issue. The phone conversation would go something like this:

Me: So, how’s dad’s work.

Mom: Fine, coz he didn’t have extra weight to worry about.

Me: How’re the dogs?

Mom: On diet. What you had for lunch?

Me: Dry twig.

Mom: Good boy.

So, here’s an idea I have for the government. Appoint my mom as the Weight Issue Consultant. With her incessant nagging and pressuring, they can get the relevant ministry to transfer the pressure back the people to lay off that sticky drink and turn their face away from Nasi Lemak Bungkus. She’d be the right person to consult when writing speech for anything. For instance let’s say the prime minister wants to address the environmental issue.

Let’s say excerpt of the speech goes “….that it is imperative that we take care of our environment and this attitude should start from home…”

My mom would reword it this way, “…that it is imperative, while you make sure you are no thicker than a lamp post, that we take care of our environment, and this also mean you eat once a day and run twenty kilometres, and this attitude should start from home where you make your own salad…”

Having her on board will do Malaysians a lot’s of good. But of course, there will be backlash from the food and beverage or hospitality industry. This in turn will not bode with Malaysians who are addicted to fatty food. Chaos will reign, with hungry Malaysians creeping around looking for fatty meals. When that happens, don’t look for me. I’d be in Singapore living on Burger King and Teh Tarik.

Manly Gifts

A query from a pal of mine asking what gift is suitable for men triggered me to write this piece. Also, there is nothing much to do so I decided to torture you with, yet, another informative; fact filled posting about…gifts for men!

It is not true that men dislike gifts, because it makes them feel obligated to, for example, wash the gift giver’s toilet. It’s totally untrue unless you are married. No, we guys welcome any gift even it’s a tiny cactus in a tiny pot and can still prick you, that little bastard. But we sure know how to show our appreciation.

Take me for instance. Few months ago, my fiancé bought for me the latest U2 album that came with a limited edition T-Shirt! I was overjoyed and, to borrow the expression from Allison Doody, was “giddy as a school boy”. To show my appreciation I played the CD over and over and over and over and over again, until at one point my future wife wanted to stab me with the dashboard cigarette lighter.

For the knotty men

So, here’s me an amateur expert in buying men’s gift. Let me begin with the most common but useless gift – a necktie. That neckties have no practical value still intrigues me till today. You cannot eat it, and you cannot dip it in boiled water like tea. You cannot use it to lift heavy objects, nor can you ever click on it instead of the remote control. A necktie or a tie as it is known to most of us except the Thais, is coiled around the neck like a slim python and hangs down with its sharp end pointed at the groin. Some sort unsubtle hint about men’s penile & phallic fascination? I bet the inventor of the tie is a woman.

Anyway, you ladies can get your men a new tie. My misgiving nevertheless, I know very much that like shoes for women, ties are great conversation makers. “Nice tie, where’d you get it?”, a co-worker would ask. “I had tie like that once, but it was eaten by my dog?”, the supervisor might remark. Or a pal might say, “Is that pasta sauce on your tie?”

But it’s a bad idea if your male friend already has loads of tie. You know, they have a drawer full of them that one extra tie could trigger all of it to jump out and strangle your friend. “Men Strangled by His Own Ties: Suspects Found in Raoul, Starhill,” is not a headline you’d like to read.

Other apparels include socks, which will remind him to not to forget to wash his current ones, and cuff-links, a totally useless invention now that we have buttons but especially favoured by salesmen who still have not met their sales quota.

BO need not mean Box Office.

If you had nixed necktie as the perfect gift for the dude, here’s something else that can come in handy – perfume. A guy can be the most careful, immaculate, hygienic and sharp in his dressing and all; but once he starts to sweat like a pig (do pigs sweat?) he would emit enough odours to send water buffaloes to demonstrate in the city centre.

I, in particular, have this warm body that can’t take higher temperature and sweat freely. This fact is further evidenced by the…err fact that several times, after work, while driving my fiancé home, I’ve received the “Eww…” sound from her, and after rummaging her handbag, she’d spray her perfume at me. That’s a horrible thing to do. “Hey!” I’d yell, “That’s a girlie perfume. Now I smell like a Strawberry Shortcake doll”. That really annoys her because now she would want to know what relationship I had in the past with Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

My point is this: get the man man’s perfume. You know the ones that come with advertisement showing well built topless men with constipated look? Yeah, those ones. These perfumes still smell like sweat, but of better quality. Sometimes I suspect it is made from sweat derived from those very models in the ad. Now you know why they have that look.

Toys for Boys

It’s even easier if you have enough dough and your male friend or partner is a, basically as it is known scientifically, a techno geek. Or a nerd. Or basically the kind of jerk that keep spouting about the latest app for their iPhone or that he passed the Vapour of Evil level with their Death Skullhead game, or thinks Star Wars Episode One was god’s gift to mankind. Usually, I’d ask you to avoid him like H1N1, but you asked for it.

So, you know what to get for them. Surfing the net you can find the latest, coolest gadget that you can get for your guy friend if it’s worth it. Trust me, it’s not, cause they would have upgraded the gadget to the next version (version 3.1XKWRPIVVXX Cro-Magnon) between the time you purchase it and give it to that jerk. It’s not worth it. I don’t even know why I suggested this in the first place.

Anyway, these are just ideas of what to get for your male friend/partner/spouse/jerk. Also, remember that you can’t expect guys to reciprocate except that they will say “thanks” and go back wearing old tie, smelly socks, and sweat freely and lookout for the next killer apps for his phone that he keeps looking at when you are talking to him. As I said, you asked for it!

Durian: A Fruitless Pursuit.

Name the King of Fruit there is only one that comes to our mind – fruitcakes. Okay, I am kidding, the King of Fruit in Malaysia is definitely Durian.

Mention Durian, the mental picture that comes to my mind is a roadside makeshift stall, with Durian piled up from ground, often segregated into grades and with serious looking people smelling the spiky fruit and shaking it with intense look on the face no different than from nuclear scientist during a demo session.

These are connoisseurs who sneer at fans of apple, jeer fans of orange, and offer a very audible chuckle when you say you like Rambutan the best. These Durianites know which the better quality durian is by just staring at the damned thing as if they got X-ray vision. In short, they will kill me for that one thing that sets me apart from many Malaysians – I can’t eat durian.

In fact, I remember an ex-colleague of mine, Saravanan, giving me that strange look and proclaiming, “you don’t know what you are missing!” in the same tone one use when he tells his friends that the last boat from that marooned island has left. Well, apart from few tooth, I do know what I am missing.

The trouble is this: I can’t take the smell. Not that I keep using the work “can’t”, as opposed to “don’t”, or “won’t” or doodley-doo. It means, this is not a voluntary decision. I was forced to. In the words of Sivaji the Boss, “I was helpless, I was cornered”.

Why, well it all happened long time ago, when I was a kid when we had to walk to school for thirteen miles when there was no electricity when dad hunted woolly mammoth for lunch and when iPods were made of stone

That would roughly be about 18 years ago I would say. We were in the plantation, and it will irk some of you city folks out there (especially the rat maze township called USJ) that we used to get Durians for free! That’s right, and sacks of them.

In fact, there used to be a thing called Durian season. It was basically a season when the Durian tree decides, “alrighty, this f****** (they are rude apparently) fruit is getting heavy and I can’t take it any longer” and drops the spiky fruit right on top of a poor farmer’s head. Once the body is taken away, the fruit would be picked up for eating. Yeah, it’s the tree, not the materialistic, selfish, brutal, sadomasochistic mankind who invented nasal hair remover, who decides when the let the fruit go away.

That was then. These days, you can have durian anytime you want. It’s durian season all year long. Especially true in Singapore, as I found out during my five years stay in Singapore. I found out many other things I can share about that island, but I will have to kill you after that.

It’s also fascinating to know that the durian has been known and consumed in south-eastern Asia since prehistoric times or so says the wikipedia. It has known to the western world for about 600 years, about the time when the Dark ages started, I think. It further added that, “the earliest known European reference to the durian is the record of Niccolò Da Conti, who travelled to south-eastern Asia in the 15th century.” Along the report, he must have made this comment, “Holi Al Cappuccino! This shit stinks!”

Anyway, during one of those freebie durian periods, our house was teeming with relatives. Not sure why they were there, but I suspect the durian season must have something to do with it.

Well, I wanted an afternoon nap and found out that the rooms were all overtaken by some visiting uncles and aunties. It would have been lovely to drop the durian on them at that time, but except for torturing domestic lizards, I was anti-violence even then. And so, I ended up sleeping in the spare/store room where a sack of durian was kept. I slept for an hour.

When I woke up, I had fever and a terrible headache. Worst, the sticky smell of durian was in me, formed an aura outside of me, and made me a lot sicker. Till then, I was a regular Malaysian who loved durian, but the one hour spent breathing in and out the smell that is seen as foul by Westerners, had broken me. From then on, its smell troubled me. I would walk away, run away, like it is some sort of Kryptonite.

And so, it still haunts me to this day. Whenever there is Durian in my hometown or at my brother’s place when I am there visiting, I feel like a fruit pariah, not included in these special Durian eating session. Sometimes one of them would forget and offer me, and when I tell them the truth, they’d feel embarrassed, as if they’ve offered barbecued pork ribs to Buddhist monks.

And so I shall continue to move on in my life. What is life without Durian you say? Well, give me those damn barbecued pork ribs then.

Sivaji Ganesan: A Force to be Reckoned With

Today marks the eight year since the passing of a brilliant stage and film actor named Sivaji Ganesan. A showman par excellence and screen performer whose fierce energy sometimes tears right out of the screen, big or small, and catches you by the throat, Sivaji Ganesan is not your average by the number hack actor looking to cash their paycheque or ply the trade for pride and glory.

No. Sivaji as he is known (real name V.P Chinnaiyahpillai Ganesan) was a born actor. Born to be the king of onscreen performances, at least in India. His towering talent was so great that it overshadowed many good, decent performers of his time and our time. He left such a mark that his works are still talked about in the mainstream media and forums; online websites, including blogs and forums. In a forum I regularly participate in, Forumhub.mayyam.com, the thread on him is one of the most popular, currently on fifth part (one part equals to hundred pages) and the fifth part alone is at 42^nd page and has so far garnered 47,963 visitors! Bear in mind that most of the visitors of this forum are generation Xers and Yers, mostly who were born when Sivaji went into semi-retirement.

His films are eagerly snapped up in video stores and are still played on almost regular basis in the Malaysian satellite TV stations. His fandom has grown judging from the participation in that particular forum, where real film pundits who would sneer at Stallone and revere the likes of Goddard and Kurosawa would put aside their notion of what screen acting should be (underplaying mostly) and bow to the power that was and will forever be Sivaji Ganesan.

As a matter of fact, I would say that he had not been this popular, say, in the nineties, where they know him just as Kamal’s dad in Devar Magan, and the popular films that used by apologists to counter the often-criticised “over-acting” namely Muthal Mariyathai, and earlier classics like Veerapandiya Kattabomman, Karnan or Gauvravam.

I believe after his passing, there were an avalanche of “who is Sivaji Ganesan actually” curiosity, especially when one finds luminaries like actors Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan keep mentioning his name as a major influence. In fact, Rajinikanth has never failed to credit Sivaji as his inspiration. Once he said, “If I am king of style, Sivaji is the emperor of style”. Not only Rajini agreed to star in Sivaji Productions' Chandramukhi, there is an extended tribute scene in the film and he named the next mega project as Sivaji.

It may be coincidence, but it is certainly not something one should deny, of the emergence of two major powerhouse performers in Hollywood and the Tamizh film industries, namely Marlon Brando and Sivaji Ganesan. Both titans broke the conventional cinematic acting style and brought in raw energy, ruthless determination to inhabit the character they are playing and basically drawing awe from the co-actors, film crew and the audiences alike.

While Brando later squandered away his career life doing roles that ill-fitted his tremendous talents, and succumbed to discipline problem and ultimately losing interest in the craft, Sivaji went on to make one spectacular films after another, stumbling only occasionally when the script and the direction begs for quality. In that case, his body of work resemble the more prolific and professional actor who stands shoulder to shoulder to Brando, Paul Newman.

Like Newman, and more than Newman ever did, Sivaji attempted and succeeded at varying degree to play a grand array of characters actors these days can only dream of achieving…day dream, I mean. I need not repeat here the films and the characters he has done, it has to be seen to be believed. And trust me, being a huge fan, I must have only seen 70% of these “miracles”.

July 21, 2001 was one of the saddest days in my life. But every July 21^st after that has been a day of pondering, rather than mourning; a day to revisit the miracles, rather than a day to lay wreath; a day to remember and acknowledge that the force that is Sivaji Ganesan was proven to be unstoppable, and even his death has never put a brake on it.

Malaysian Tourism: Extreme Version

Looks like reading paper is the best way to annoy you. I was especially miffed when I read that tourism minister Dr Ng Yen Yen saying that more money is needed to promote Malaysia. Haven’t they spent enough already? Also, it’s ironic because her name has Japanese currency in it, and that too twice.

I say this: change your strategy. The tagline “Malaysia Truly Asia” is corny, cheesy and Nasi Lemaki if you ask me. I mean, you don’t see the Great Britain going "Britain Truly Europe". No, it is more likely to be “Britain: Our National Dish is Chicken Tikka Masala”.

Now, I’d say, let’s look at the other side. Let’s look at the extreme side, now that extreme sports, extreme TV reality show and extreme politicking are “in”. I’d promote Malaysia this way: Malaysia, For Your Extreme Experience.

Hee are some of the activities and events the tourist can participate:

Extreme Snatch Thief

Here, we encourage the tourists, especially the female ones, to walk around in the city with handbags and expensive Jewellery. Enough to attract snatch thieves, the tourists can play tug o’ war with the criminal, and win if he or she managed to bring the snatch thief down. The prize will be in form of watching the crowd pummel the thief senselessly. On a good day, we can have a casualty or two, from either team. There won’t be police intervention, because they are busy with…

Extreme Snap Polls

I lost the number of snap polls we have been having since the last general election. People’s representatives are keep dying or quitting or both. Looking at the tension both ruling party and the opposition are having, no thanks to their hatred for each other no matter what one does, it is liable that one after another representatives would die of stress or quit altogether, causing many more snap polls to come. Snap poll election campaigning would be perfect tourism event for foreign tourists. They can witness the spectacle of hate speeches, the merry satiric singing and dancing, and on lucky days, breakout of riots or if the timing is right, experience the tear gas and water cannon, courtesy of ever obliging Federal Reserve Unit. Don’t worry about the police; they are too busy taking down police reports from both parties and independent candidates, all of whom are not unfamiliar with…

Extreme Cholesterol Ingesting

This is a Malaysian past time, we need to tell them. Drinking the tarik with extremely sweet milk, and fatty Roti Chanai, or Santan drenched Nasi Lemak is no longer a threat to Malaysians, considering that we have other threats like road accidents, dengue, and snakes or politicians or lawyers or these entire tree combined. Okay, the latter was cruel on my part, and I assure you some of my best friends are snakes. Get the tourists to go on The Tarik/Roti Chanai rampage; or Kopi-O manis/Nasi Lemak Bungkus odyssey and see who gets to knock the heaven’s door first. Don’t worry about the police; they are busy taking down politicians’ police reports. The survivors are the winners and therefore are invited to

Extreme Mat Rempit

Actually, “Extreme” & “Mat Rempit” are redundant. This will have to be planned carefully, and if possible should be combined with Extreme Snatch Thief event. If lack of budget for this, talk to UMNO Youth and rekindle their once upon a time romance with the Mat Rempits, and this time it’s not for the youth, but the whole country’s tourism, even if involves crashing some Malaysian made motorbikes. I need not say what activities likely to take place, but the likeliest thing is, there might be no surviving tourists after this. As for the cops, yeah, the same damn politician police reports again, so they’ll be late for dinner.

Now, ain’t that fun and shouldn’t that be how we promote our tourism. If you say it’s too violent, than I suppose you have not been to a “conventional” tourism event like the Thaipusam in Batu Caves.

Cyclist in Dave's Blog.

Remember the article I wrote about the cyclist in diapers? Well, I sent the news to Dave Barry, the funniest writer I have read as he highlights stupid thing in his blog. He featured it here And he finds my name funny too. Good man.

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen

It was when driving back after watching the latest Transformers, when it struck me that they cribbed the plot from the Bible. Yeah, I am that slow. But then, tell me which part of the Bible did not become source for story telling in Hollywood. If not God, Satan has helped to make Tinseltown’s cash registers to ring.

It’s all there. The bad guy is The Fallen, who was a Prime (yes, they have races/caste amongst them too) who became bad and went to the dark side. Yes, there’s Star Wars for you. He becomes The Fallen (angel, Lucifer, get it? That’s Michael Bay, the director & his writers attempting something more intelligent than makeshift toys). And then, you get the main character, Optimus Prime dead and then resurrected to beat the ultimate bad guy. In fact, three characters get to come out of from being dead.

If you have seen the first one, then I shall not bother to go on the details. You have the same Autobots (led by the sagely Optimus Prime) and the Decepticon (led by Megatron who look like he was sculpted with razor blades). Then you have shitloads of bots. All kind. There is definitely going to be Transformers 3 and if Bay is going to one-up the number of robots here, he might as well do a film in a planet filled with bots and do away with human.

Shia LeBeouf returns as Sam whatsisname and he tags a long with Autobot again to fight the Decepticon, and he did well. Seems to be good actor, this chap. I was impressed with him here, amidst the bang bang boom boom, Shia delivered good performance.

Then you have Megan Fox who is there for obvious reasons and John Torturro who is there for same obvious reasons (comedy, former unintentional, and sex, as we get to see the latter’s butt).

Okay, first thing I notice was the violence. Granted there were no blood, thousands die in this film, no thanks to the gigantic robots rampaging like Ultraman’s enemies. You see bodies flying, floating, and one being stomped, stuck on a bot’s feet and is dislodged as the Bot lifts its feet. And about 30% of the audience are kids! They were supposed to be part of the target audiences.

As for the bots themselves, if you have seen the original, then there is nothing new. There was one about a bot, begetting a bot, begetting thousands. It gave me a headache. Also, I am still wondering why it takes them, especially Optimus, long to transform. In the cartoon, I recall, it was a matter of seconds. Here it takes longer than a girl dolling up for candlelight dinner. I know, it’s basically to show off the CGI splendour, but frankly I didn’t give a damn.

Frankly, too, I didn’t give a damn during the action sequences. It was a blur. I can’t tell who is pummelling whom, all the bots look alike. Hell, they may even be violently making out, for all I know. I yawned and yawned during those scenes. Particularly the climactic battle, that went on and on and on like that freaking Duracell rabbit. Reminded me of Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, where the entire film is about one ground combat; also a “based on true story” film so detailed that they missed out a crucial rescue effort by Malaysian soldiers. Hollywood.

So, there you. A CGI fest based on some toys they made back in the 80s, given some biblical back story, and with script tied around the so called major battle scenes. The last time I was really impressed with CGI was back in 1993 when Spielberg unleashed some dinosaurs onto poor unsuspecting us. So, the bots didn’t do much to me. The action scenes bored me. The comedy did tickle me. But come on, I was not even interested in those extensive long slow-mo shots of Megan Fox’s bouncing boobs in a lowcut blouse with explosions in the background. Did I say 30% of the audience were kids?

(Another) Day The Music Died.

The career of being a pop or rockstar can be rewarding, but it is also one that is susceptible to short life expectancy. As you know, Michael Jackson died today (our time, Thursday their time) at the age of 50, a young age for these times.

This man, the icon of those who grew up in the 70s and 80s, is perhaps the most influential person in the pop/lifestyle/entertainment scenario. His popularity back in the 80s here in Malaysia was immense. People who usually do not listen to Western/English pop song were suddenly listening to him.

I remember well, that it was the day my grandmother passed away. While the adults were in mourning, we kids were outside discussing the new Thriller album. That’s how big he was at that time.

True, fascination for his music slowly turned into fascination of his personal life, but no matter what crazy thing he does, no matter which court he had to appear, no matter which woman he decided to marry that week, we know that this man gave us, if not more than, three of the most important albums ever, and inspired the entire generation of kids worldwide to, if not picking up, but to gawk at those cool dance moves that were his trademark.

His music videos became the prototype for future artistes to tell story while hawking their music-wares. They were big budgeted affair with elaborate script and extended moments and were mostly very, very entertaining. In fact, it was so important that Jackson roped in one of the greatest film directors in US, Martin Scorsese to direct the single, Bad, from the album of same name.

More than anything his stage shows were stuff that legends are made of, except that they were real. True, rockers, in particular the likes of Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd and Kiss (among others) took stadium performance into one step higher in terms of sheer spectacle, but Michael, just one man, one star, rather than a band, took it further. To have been to his concert is to have witnessed miracle too difficult to be detailed. I was unfortunate to have not been any single one. But watching them on TV, I can feel, perhaps, 10% of what it’s like over there.

As for the albums, Dangerous, released in 1991, took a tumble in quality and sales as well. There were few good tracks. Then 2001’s invincible triggered the question: Is the King of Pop now a burnout case? Not the right moment to answer that.

As saddened I was to hear of his death, I was not that shocked. He has been in and out of the hospital several times and he already looked like he was staring at the grim reapers face. The clock was ticking. As I said, the higher you are in the stardom pedestal, the possibilities of shorter lifespan abounds. You know what happened to all those great stars in the past.

He was going to do a series of concert, mainly to pay back the mounting debt he had amassed over the years. Ironically, now, it is his death, with ongoing surge of album sales, future compilations that the recording company would milk dry, and royalties from other merchandises that will help to settle the debt and take care of his kids.

As a forum member (mi6.co.uk) said, Michael the human being is gone, Michael Jackson the artist will rock on. Goodbye Michael. We will miss you.

Attention Please

When I saw this headline in The News Straits Times Newspaper today, I didn’t know whether I should giggle, cry, shout in rage or stab myself for living in the same world like the moron in the subject. Here’s the headline:

Cycling in diaper to set a record

And the lead (opening para):

By tomorrow, a personal instructor wearing a diaper could become the first person in Malaysia to cycle nonstop on a gym bike for 48 hours.

I am thinking about the process the reporter would have to go through writing that. Did he (say he is a dude) struggle to find an angle? Did he had problem writing the lead trying to put too many information into one sentence as I used to ponder on during my newspaper days? Or did he just slit his wrists for getting shit assignment like this.

Moving on, here’s more delightful stuff:

Wong Wai Hoong, 31, is only allowed a 15-minute break every three hours. Therefore, he requires the added support of a diaper in case he needs to relieve himself during his attempt to cycle into the Malaysia Book of Records.

So why not the record read first person in Malaysia to cycle nonstop and pee on a gym bike for 48 hours. Why can’t he relieve himself during the 15 minute break? What is he drinking, beer? Plus if you calculate, he gets about 240 minutes of free time, that’s like four hours, meaning he is only riding the bike 44 hours. Shouldn’t that be the right record, you ding dong!

Here comes the part where I bet the journalist wiped his tear before typing:

The freelancer is eager to prove his mettle to inspire Malaysian youth.

"They must pursue their dreams," he said before starting on his feat at the SynarGym at Kuala Lumpur Sentral at 10am yesterday.

I take it that Wong’s dream, I mean, all he wanted to do in his life, even it takes tremendous amount of humiliation, extreme effort and hard work, was to cycle for 48 hours in diaper.

Interesting dream. What a way to inspire Malaysian youth, which is currently exchanging ringtones, comparing iPhone features or sharing tips on the latest thing on their Xbox. Come to think of it, they can do all that in a diaper.

Moving on, if you read the report, you will understand why. Here’s the catch:

The event is organised by SynarGym Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad.

The entire thing is a promotional exercise by the company to promote its product, which I suppose is the use of the gym, its equipments and possibly SynarGym Diapers (Slogan: It Leaves You High and Dry).

If you think the social networking culture online is basically folks crying attention to themselves, then this is a big budgeted cry to seek attention and this is not new. That is if you are not aware of the imbecilic publication called The Malaysian Book of Record.

I know it well, because I worked for them briefly as a scriptwriter. In the entire six months time I was covering events like the longest sausage, the biggest dodol and the Biggest Pineapple Rice was the final straw. It was built in UE3 shopping complex, right in the middle. They stuck lots of pineapple onto a wire mesh built to shape like a pineapple. By evening the whole place stunk of rotten pineapple. I think I got sick

For the next job, in my resume, I added this as reason for leaving that place: “If those are records, then my dying grandfather is Ricky Martin”. It actually got me the next job.

Oh, let me add final para of that report:

Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Razali Ibrahim, who flagged off the cyclist, urged the media to cover positive aspects of Malaysian sports like Wong's trail-blazing attempt.

I leave it to you to make up your cynical remark for that.