Drawing Lines

"Remember, your infulence is more bigger!" said the Suit, in reference to the pervasiveness of the print medium, in comparison to television.

Yeah, man. I agree.

Fuckin-A!

King of the Jungle

I'm now officially one of those people who've posted a cutesy picture of their pet online.

Fuck it.

But ain't he king?



Mr Tiddles is going to be three soon. Happy Birthday, mate! And please don't crap in my room, yeah?

Unconventional Wisdom #387

When you're flying blind into an interview, there are usually two outcomes: Very Funny, or Very Stupid.

I've done a lot of interviews where I've been completely fucking ignorant of my subject; in most of those situations, I'd either done next to nothing in terms of research, or was just too plain lazy to do so.

So, what do you do when you don't know what to ask?

You improvise.

You read the body language.

You look for common ground.

And you do it all with a smile. And crack a few dumb jokes, in between.

In short, you wing it. Like your life depends on it. You've blown your two port engines. So you coast along, easy does it, at your own pace. On your own time. And you try to glide that motherfucker in, as gently as you can.

There.

That's how you do it.

That's how you survive.

Ain't Necessary For No Goddamn Caption

It rained for the first two days, I went bungee jumping on the third day, missed the Full Moon party at Ko Phangan on a technicality (freak weather) and was regrettably AWOL for Valentine's Day (sorry, baby).

And then, on my last day in Thailand, I saw this:



Beautiful, huh?

Launch Alert Fighters!

I am officially a fanboy. And I have Mac to thank for that. Because he's a fanboy, too.

We both discovered that we were unashamedly obsessed with the Battlestar Galactica series on the Sci Fi channel, during a recent MSN conversation. I think it has something to do with listening to a lot of futuristic sounds. After all, most dnb fans are Sci-Fi geeks, anyway. So, what the hell.

I don't care.

I want to be a Viper pilot.

Livin' Large

It's funny how acutely a person loses their sense of purpose after retirement. Quite literally funny, in fact.

Think about it; you've been absolved of everything that accompanies Working Life - tight deadlines, Monday morning depression and although you can't periodically Xerox your butt crack any more, well, you don't have to.

I've never seen my Dad like this before. He watches more television than my 13 year-old sister (" Abang, MTV sucks but you know what Damien from TRL is so cute"), hangs out more than I do and has the ability to mysteriously vanish and re-appear two hours later with tasty cakes and pies.

Anyway, when I retire, I'm still going to be producing. Hell, I'll probably even be able to beat-match properly by then.

I Heart Dee and Bee

To my dear friends down south, especially Kuza, Andy, Ajay, Aresha, Suffian and Zaihan (and even homeboys like Mac and A&B), I am known as the Pangsai King.* This is because I've stood them up many times when I promised them I'd make it, especially right here on my own turf.

Hell, Andy even told me he'd ban me from Exitmusik, possibly for life, if I'm ever guilty of a no-show again.

Bad Kamo.

So, I promised the guys I'd turn up for this gig. And I will. In fact, maybe you should, too.

I'll need some witnesses.

Boh!

*What does Pangsai mean? Google, motherfucker.

Look Here!

Outdoor advertising. Can't switch it off, can't turn it down.



Doesn't she look like she's about to grab your balls, though?

Remember Where You Lost It

Like a lot of kids his age, my brother can't tell the difference between atmospheric and liquid funk. Or even deep house and tech, for that matter.

Because, like a lot of kids his age, he missed out the rave scene of the Nineties. They don't know about Apollo 440, Danny Rampling and never experienced the primal, ear-splitting thrill of listening to Prodigy's Firestarter and not being able to associate it with anything else they were listening to during the death-knell of Grunge.

See, they totally missed the bus!

They never felt the rush of listening to the Chemical Brothers Block Rockin' Beats, for the first time, and wondering just what the fuck they were listening to, or why it sounded so strange and beautiful.

They didn't do the Backroom-Clubhouse-Movement circuit (in that order), didn't go to Zero, didn't get rat-arsed drunk or trip at Digweed. And don't get me started on Bukem.

The thing is, you can't really blame them; their earlist memory of Oakie was probably the Swordfish soundtrack, whereas ours was Dragonfly.

You can't call them posers just because they think Tiesto is God (before the Southern Sun remix, there was Destination Sunshine, all right?) or think that Zouk is the ultimate club, just because it's the biggest club in KL right now.

Kids, you don't know shit. But you know what, it's all good.

Because you weren't there from the start.

A Shot in the Dark?

They're like tracers.

Each month, I send out emails to celebrities in which I, very politely, ask for exclusive interviews. Some of them are super-famous like HR Giger, Stan Lee and Stephen King, and some of them are just plain weird.

Like real tracers, they light up the dark and arc through the air with a sense purpose. But like real tracers, they do not guarantee a kill.

I just like to try my luck.

I just sent tracers out to Amir Muhammad, a man who I consider to be my generation's Great Malaysian Writer.

For once, I'm nervous.

If he does say Yes, it will at least console the fanboy in me that I did something right along the way to land an interview with one of my own literary heroes.

Rock 'n' roll, motherfuckers.

Stolen

I'm cruisin, the wind in my hair.

For a moment, I remember what it was like to throttle up highways in my 69 Beetle; the steady hum of the engine, the silence of the night and the way it was just me and the machine. It got me a little choked up.

Last night, however, I found that I was driving like that because some fucking crackwhore jacked my stereo. Yes, he smashed my window with a crow bar (probably) and gutted my centre console like a fish to get to the player.

Goddamned amature.

(If he had been a bit more patient, he might have chanced upon my CD case and found my entire Knowledge Mix CD collection that dates from mid-2003. If he'd had nicked that, I might've been compelled to do a Jihad on his ass. But then again, maybe he wasn't into drum n bass).

It's gonna to cost me some, so if I ever catch junkies anywhere near my car, someone's gonna get a hurt real bad.

Cool Runnings

"Richard, a Black Russian is vodka and coffee-flavoured brandy, yeah?"

"Yeah"

"Hey, so what do you call a Hennessy and some coffee?"

"Right now? A very good idea"

My editor is quite possibly the Coolest Dude in the Known Universe. And yeah, you can quote me on that.

For Everything Else, There's Mastercard...

Twins

Hey, am I the only person who thinks that Eva Longoria looks like a spunkier version of Joan Collins?

Should I be thinking about things like this?

I think work is getting to me.

The Importance of Making Yourself Clear

When you say something like, "I want to fuck Jessica Alba in a silver lamé jumpsuit!" do you mean to say that:

a) You want to fuck Jessica Alba whilst wearing a silver lamé jumpsuit (now that's is kinda gay, frankly)
b) You want to undress Jessica Alba after seeing her in a silver lamé jumpsuit, and then fuck her
c) You want to fuck Jessica Alba while she's wearing a silver lamé jumpsuit (not impossible, but a bit tricky, I'd imagine)

It's all about grammatical precision. That's what separates the articulate from the eloquent.

In any event, 'remember Scarlett Johansson in that white tracksuit in The Island?

Way hotter.

Closing Time

We just closed December.

It was hell. In a way, I've just closed December, too. And two thousand five.

It's done.

It's over.

What a fucking crazy year.

What an endless parade.

What a ride.

I'm done. I've had enough. I want to start the New Year tomorrow.

It's mad.

I've been blogging for a year.

I've been living, seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, breathing it all in.

I've gone from college senior to junior writer.

I've gone from lost to found.

It's been wonderful. It's gone from bad to worse to up and down, and fucking sideways.

Cheers, everyone.

Keep it massive.

Future Perfect

If I had studied a little harder before my O Levels, I could've aced a few more subjects.

If that had happened, I might've realized my then aspirations of attending the London School of Economics, and might've even graduated with a degree in Political Science, or perhaps even, International Relations.

And if that might have happened, I might've graduated much earlier, and would've started my first job when I was twenty-three (or twenty-four, give or take some sex, drugs and rock 'n'roll).

If so, I would be living a different life, different in its entirety from the one that I am living now.

Different friends, different tastes, different music, different clothes, different everything.

And then she says: "But I like how you've turned out."

That's an encouraging thought.

It makes some things that I've gone through feel a whole lot more worth the while.

The Big Easy

It's a little early in the day for this, but I have a New Year's Resolution that I'm going to start practising from today onwards.

It's called "Chill The Fuck Out, Suffian."

Yup, I think I do need to chill out abit. I overreacted at something yesterday, and it caused me and someone else a bit of grief. Needless to say, misunderstandings can always be avoided, if you just take a second to try and see things as they really are.

So, I'm gonna chill.

About everything.

Heck, I've slowed down a hell of lot since I brushed past the Mid-Twenties mark, but hey, maybe it's not enough.

I want it over-easy, sunny side up.

Highway Hell

To aspiring Works Ministers and national infrastructure planners alike, if you ever intend to build a highway that runs the length of Malaysia, say, from the northern state of Perlis to the southern tip of Johor, could you please consider making it at least, yes, in the very least FOUR FUCKING LANES ON EACH SIDE.

Yes?

FOUR FUCKING LANES ON EACH SIDE.

It took me 7 hours yesterday to travel from my dear grannie's in Taiping back to KL.

SEVEN FUCKING HOURS.

That's more than enough time to fly to Perth.

The story goes that when the authorities were running feasibility studies and projection models for the North-South highway, back in the Eighties, they based it on the Federal Highway.

THE FEDERAL FUCKING HIGHWAY.

Back in the Eighties, they must have thought that people would have probably had hover cars or could teleport back to their kampung by 2005.

THAT MUST BE WHY THEY BASED THEIR RESEARCH ON THE FEDERAL HIGHWAY.

What's more, the '80s recession and a lengthy court battle between the Opposition and United Engineers, the builders, held the project back for about two years after it was initially set to be built, therefore contributing to a rise in the cost of the project and forcing the authorities to skimp on the original plan.

Whatever that was.

Brilliant.

But I'm going to stop bitching now, because it was worth enduring the jam just to see the smile on my grannie's face when we arrived, and being there with her throughout the festivities. Oh and the food was brilliant, too.

Selamat Hari Raya.

Fallout

Being a fan of literature (read: bookworm/geek), I get flashes, from time to time, of all the things that I've read. Sometimes whole passages, sentences, phrases and if I'm lucky, some dialogue from a Stephen King novel.

It's an amazing feeling, almost like having epiphanies. Fond ones.

Lately, I've been seeing pages from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, in particular, the illustrations on the title pages of each chapter. The fractals, coalescing, a freaky wire-mesh of conflict and disorientation.

And yet, some how, whole.

Why the fractals? Why now?

I'm not sure if I'm analyzing too much, but this is bothering me.

It's not unlike sighting an iceberg off the starboard bow, knowing fully that there is Something Big resting gently beneath the surface.

Oh, I don't know.

---------------------

There I was, a few hours later, sat on a wooden bench at the Ampang Speedy Car Wash, waiting for my Satria to get all nice and shiny when I suddenly realized that it was Roni Size booming from the speakers.

"Holy Two-Step, Batman, it's Roni Size!"

You'd expect them to listen to something more like Mawi, but bless them, the lads have discovered Jungle.

At nine in the morning. On Deepaavali.

Happy Holidays.