Friday, March 28, 2008

Bureaucratic Red Tape


Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!Vomit blood!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Another Conspiracy Of The Universe

"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it"
excerpt from The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho.

It is true... over the past couple of years I've began to believe in this as I've experienced this many times. From conspiracies as complex as the Listening Library incident in Luang Phabang to the Lou Reed incident... this mantra has been holding true to me faithfully.

Today I've experience this once again. However, this time it is I who becomes part of the conspiracy.

Today I am shooting my pinhole photos but I am also burdened with the problem that I cannot leave the house til' after lunch, waiting for emails and deliveries (boring ass shit). So I decided that perhaps I can shoot one photo that is near my house. Being quite near, this place is really just a 10 minute walk... on any other day I'll just walk. Somehow today, I feel like I need to drive, which is absurd because it is absolutely unnecessary. After a 10 minute long debate with myself, my unreasonable self won resulting in me driving out for a distance that is less than 1 kilometer.

I parked my car and as I walked to the site where my pinhole photo would be shot, I stumbled into my highschool guitar hero; This old blind pakcik that plays at the corridor leading up to the Plaza Rakyat LRT station.

As a highschool student, I pass by this pakcik almost every day, never failing to stop for a couple of minutes to appreciate his amazingly dexterous guitar work. Being blind, I aways thought that seeing how his eyes are always closed, he must be really enjoying what he's doing. Guitar hero ripping the fret board as a lone pickup amplifies his riffs for the world within his proximity to hear. On days when I have extra time, I'll stay a little longer; on days when I have a little extra money, I'll put one ringgit into his cup.

So here I am face to face with my guitar hero and his son... He asks for directions to the DBKL office, there used to be one near where he lives, but apparently it no longer exists. I said 'turn left, turn right, go straight, turn around'.

They looked back at me with blank expressions.

I thought, perhaps this is why I drove. This must be the reason.

I told them to give me 5 minutes, I need to shoot this photo first.

I shot my photo.

Whilst driving them to the DBKL office, the pakcik commented about the Bob Marley CD that's playing on my stereo. He said he really likes Bob Marley but he can't find the cassettes. CDs are great, but he tells me that operating a CD player is a bitch if you're blind.

'One love... let's get together and feel alright' my stereo sings. We don't talk much, I think he'd rather appreciate the music while it lasts.

How many of us can imagine that we'd one day be granted the pleasure of offering our guitar hero a ride?

Monday, March 24, 2008

I Love...



...my new Wacom tablet

If I Can't Have You. I'll Have A Can Of Iced Coffee



acrylic on canvas (2007)
2 x 20"x24"

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Good Book. Bad Film!

Love In The Time Cholera is a major disappointment. After months and months of pestering the local DVD boys for the film, a copy finally landed in my hands to my utter dismay.

Caveat emptor... I had high expectations of this film for I believe any filmmaker who attempts at this book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez must be cock sure that he or she must be able to do a real kick ass job. In this case, Mike Nevell failed miserably.

Watching this film feels like a very badly written Cliff Notes... I assume that the filmmaker merely read the book and ticked off all the key scenes that he wants to include in the film...

Doctor Juvenal Urbino pulling down Fermina's Daza top to check for cholera... check
Florentino Ariza renewing his vows to Fermina Daza after Juvenal Urbino's death... check
Juvenal Urbino explaining the function of the penis to Fermina Daza... check
Florentino getting it on with the stranger in the boat... check
Florentino getting it on with the widow Nazaret... check
Florentino getting it on with Olympia and painting 'this is mine' with an arrow pointing to vagina on belly, only to have her husband see it later in the night and killing her... check
Et-cetera... check

The art direction is also unforgivable... somehow it looks like a closed set... like the kind you see in hongkong tv period dramas and is far from the Cortegena that I imagined while reading the book.

And the music... God, have mercy on me... tacky classical latin guitar music peppered throughout the film with Shakira shrieking now and then. Truly unforgivable. The music makes the film look like some afternoon telenovella.

Fuck... I am so pissed off... months of anticipation that led only to this.

Please... please don't ever try to adapt 'One Hundred Years Of Solitude' into a film...

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Life After 8

Today is March 8 2008.
Today is Polling Day, International Women's Day, and Samy Vellu's birthday.

Will life after today be any different from today?

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Post No. 300 - I'm Fucking Pissed Off

I'm fucking pissed off. I'm fucking pissed off because my 300th blogpost is dedicated to an idiot.

I hate idiots! I can stand bastards, bitches, people who are malicious, meanies, assholes, and everything else... but I can't stand idiots. I hate idiots. I fucking hate them. I hate them more than Samy Vellu himself.

The other reason why I am so fucking pissed off is because Carol Chew (BN candidate for Seputeh parlimentary seat) is such an idiot.

For those of you who have not followed the story... here's what happened (a summary):

Teresa Kok (DAP incumbent in Seputeh) decides to run both in Seputeh (parliament) and in Kinrara (state). So our dear friend Carol decides to put up a whole bunch of extremely sexist cartoon billboards criticizing Teresa for her constituency 'promiscuity'.

Here's what Teresa has to say about it...

http://teresakok.com/2008/03/02/carol-chew-made-sexist-cartoon-billboard-against-me/

As a result, the Elections Commission has instructed Carol to bring these billboards down...

Instead...this is what Carol has to say...


(click for full story)

ZOMFG...what the hell is wrong with these people. Here you have a 27 year old young woman who have been under the tutelage of Wanita MCA chief Datuk Ng Yen Yen for 5 years... One would expect that she would have attained a certain degree of gender sensitivity.

But sigh... I'm all for 50% women's participation in parliament... but I'll have a male feminist anytime rather than a female chauvinist in parliament.

Why! Why!

ps: I seriously think Carol Chew needs a stylist. She looks like some Datin in her 40s... for god's sake, she's only 27... look at that hair. The horror! The horror!