Saw this the other day, if anyone has any doubt with the Free Press in Indonesia. I am lost for word, this is just some serious smut peddling, even for me.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
on Appetite for Destruction
Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home
~Paradise City, Guns N' Roses
One of the best things about being home is the dog. He was mad crazy happy when he saw me coming in, jumping around not unlike W. Axl Rose in a stage trance.
I dumped the bags and took him for a run to the court to shoot a few balls. Verbal doesn’t quite get the point of basketball yet, but he was captivated by the big bouncing orange ball and was very pleased with this particular activity of chasing it around the court. He’d probably like football better, but I don’t do football.
Come the evening and we sat in the living room while I tinkered with my media center box, he looked at me waiting for stories – or more likely, food. But I’m not giving him food and instead gave him a new lesson in his cultural education of one of the best music album in the history of music: Appetite for Destruction, by Guns N’ Roses, circa 1987.
Best Album of All Time, Ever.
I have just finished reading Watch You Bleed, a Guns N’ Roses bio of sort. It’s time to educate the dog on what rock music sounds like, properly. None of this emo crap.
Before GN’R, my music was relatively civilized: Sex Pistols and Social Distortion, Dead Kennedy, Ramones, Anthrax and Suicidal Tendencies, and oh, a LOT of The Police. I just started listening to Pink Floyd around those times – circa 1985 – and inevitably, quite a bit of Rolling Stones, too. Music was very boring.
Then GN’R came along and LA caught the rock n roll fever. The All American answer to the Sex Pistols, GN’R landed the first big blow to the music establishment (Kurt Cobain and Nirvana later obliterated it completely, but that’s a different story). Axl once threw a fit and got in a fight with David Bowie cause the latter was hitting on his girlfriend. Izzy used to be sell heroin to Joe Perry. They stole the show while they were still the opening act for the Rolling Stones and drew more crowd in their tours than any other bands in history.
I recently met a guy who used to work with Geffen Records back then, he got teary eyed with the old glory stories. He didn’t work with Guns N’ Roses but he remembered the sick mess of the paperwork and the glorious payback days of selling 20 million copies of an album.
Those were the good old days.
Guns N’ Roses was proper bad and punk only in Appetite for Destruction. The mini Suicide EP was a little too raw and we get only to hear it after getting the hefty dose of the brilliantly composed musical monstrosity in the full length album. Also the faux live recording was a bit cheap. If you think You Could Be Mine from the later generation GN’R was powerful, put on Mr. Brownstone for a comparison and you’ll notice the difference.
None of the later albums – with the different personnels – managed to be quite like those two first albums. I always like GN’R more as a punk band, though at the time, the whole look thing probably had too much of the LA glam thing to it.
I met Dave Navarro a few years back in LA who said he would arrange a meeting Izzy Stradlin of Guns N’ Roses if I could stay for another week. I postponed the trip but unfortunately never got to see Izzy and I was rather disappointed.
During the week however, we ended up going all over the place in greater LA area. The drive trips were super amazing in a rented Evo, probably the most fun I had driving on the wrong side of the road, ever. Me and a best buddy went all the way out to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park in the obscenely fast Mitsubishi and stopped in a place where Frank Sinatra had snacks. The partying took us to girls in Santa Barbara and hitting on porn stars in San Bernardino. I was fascinated by the American, went to see Lenny Kravitz and generally tried to soak whatever it was in LA that makes it what it is. Mostly though, I crawled up and down the block around Sunset trying to get the whole early 90s glam rock scene.
We went to the Troubadour and I saw Tom Petty (or someone who looked a lot like him). GN’R, Metallica, Pearl Jam all debuted there and just about everyone from Bob Dylan to Lily Allen played there. John Lennon was once kicked out.
Most people these days attribute the spectacular self-destruction of Guns N’ Roses to Axl Rose. I think the genius was all five of them, in their original formation – as opposed to any particular individual in the band. By most standards, all five of them lived pretty miserable lives before they were signed.
Axl was a homeless with a hooker girlfriend and a rap sheet. Receiving the advance from label, he took it in cash, checked in a hotel and showered. His was an amazing talent for song writing and the ugliest voice in music. Slash was the most exciting thing since Hendrix (Van Halen just doesn’t look the part). Izzy put the cool in their madness and was also a professional drug dealer.
In the lethal tradition of the rock gods - Jim Morrison, Hendrix, Bonham, etc. – any of these five guys from LA was just as likely to die tomorrow. They play music like there’s no tomorrow.
Sweet Child O’Mine is now a saturated café anthem but no cover band ever quite get that album right. I think nobody could really quite capture the madness of it. I saw a college band doing Anything Goes some time ago and there’s just no way some emo inspired dudes could quite get GN’R.
Post-Appetite GN’R was a good band but too mainstream and boring.
I just finished reading Watch You Bleed, a book on Guns N’ Roses. It’s a very light read and I finished it overnight. The book dabbles a little much on Axl Rose’s antics but the part up to the debut album was interesting enough.
This is part of the Verbal Education Program.
Read More..
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home
~Paradise City, Guns N' Roses
One of the best things about being home is the dog. He was mad crazy happy when he saw me coming in, jumping around not unlike W. Axl Rose in a stage trance.
I dumped the bags and took him for a run to the court to shoot a few balls. Verbal doesn’t quite get the point of basketball yet, but he was captivated by the big bouncing orange ball and was very pleased with this particular activity of chasing it around the court. He’d probably like football better, but I don’t do football.
Come the evening and we sat in the living room while I tinkered with my media center box, he looked at me waiting for stories – or more likely, food. But I’m not giving him food and instead gave him a new lesson in his cultural education of one of the best music album in the history of music: Appetite for Destruction, by Guns N’ Roses, circa 1987.
Best Album of All Time, Ever.
I have just finished reading Watch You Bleed, a Guns N’ Roses bio of sort. It’s time to educate the dog on what rock music sounds like, properly. None of this emo crap.
Before GN’R, my music was relatively civilized: Sex Pistols and Social Distortion, Dead Kennedy, Ramones, Anthrax and Suicidal Tendencies, and oh, a LOT of The Police. I just started listening to Pink Floyd around those times – circa 1985 – and inevitably, quite a bit of Rolling Stones, too. Music was very boring.
Then GN’R came along and LA caught the rock n roll fever. The All American answer to the Sex Pistols, GN’R landed the first big blow to the music establishment (Kurt Cobain and Nirvana later obliterated it completely, but that’s a different story). Axl once threw a fit and got in a fight with David Bowie cause the latter was hitting on his girlfriend. Izzy used to be sell heroin to Joe Perry. They stole the show while they were still the opening act for the Rolling Stones and drew more crowd in their tours than any other bands in history.
I recently met a guy who used to work with Geffen Records back then, he got teary eyed with the old glory stories. He didn’t work with Guns N’ Roses but he remembered the sick mess of the paperwork and the glorious payback days of selling 20 million copies of an album.
Those were the good old days.
Guns N’ Roses was proper bad and punk only in Appetite for Destruction. The mini Suicide EP was a little too raw and we get only to hear it after getting the hefty dose of the brilliantly composed musical monstrosity in the full length album. Also the faux live recording was a bit cheap. If you think You Could Be Mine from the later generation GN’R was powerful, put on Mr. Brownstone for a comparison and you’ll notice the difference.
None of the later albums – with the different personnels – managed to be quite like those two first albums. I always like GN’R more as a punk band, though at the time, the whole look thing probably had too much of the LA glam thing to it.
I met Dave Navarro a few years back in LA who said he would arrange a meeting Izzy Stradlin of Guns N’ Roses if I could stay for another week. I postponed the trip but unfortunately never got to see Izzy and I was rather disappointed.
During the week however, we ended up going all over the place in greater LA area. The drive trips were super amazing in a rented Evo, probably the most fun I had driving on the wrong side of the road, ever. Me and a best buddy went all the way out to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park in the obscenely fast Mitsubishi and stopped in a place where Frank Sinatra had snacks. The partying took us to girls in Santa Barbara and hitting on porn stars in San Bernardino. I was fascinated by the American, went to see Lenny Kravitz and generally tried to soak whatever it was in LA that makes it what it is. Mostly though, I crawled up and down the block around Sunset trying to get the whole early 90s glam rock scene.
We went to the Troubadour and I saw Tom Petty (or someone who looked a lot like him). GN’R, Metallica, Pearl Jam all debuted there and just about everyone from Bob Dylan to Lily Allen played there. John Lennon was once kicked out.
Most people these days attribute the spectacular self-destruction of Guns N’ Roses to Axl Rose. I think the genius was all five of them, in their original formation – as opposed to any particular individual in the band. By most standards, all five of them lived pretty miserable lives before they were signed.
Axl was a homeless with a hooker girlfriend and a rap sheet. Receiving the advance from label, he took it in cash, checked in a hotel and showered. His was an amazing talent for song writing and the ugliest voice in music. Slash was the most exciting thing since Hendrix (Van Halen just doesn’t look the part). Izzy put the cool in their madness and was also a professional drug dealer.
In the lethal tradition of the rock gods - Jim Morrison, Hendrix, Bonham, etc. – any of these five guys from LA was just as likely to die tomorrow. They play music like there’s no tomorrow.
Sweet Child O’Mine is now a saturated café anthem but no cover band ever quite get that album right. I think nobody could really quite capture the madness of it. I saw a college band doing Anything Goes some time ago and there’s just no way some emo inspired dudes could quite get GN’R.
Post-Appetite GN’R was a good band but too mainstream and boring.
I just finished reading Watch You Bleed, a book on Guns N’ Roses. It’s a very light read and I finished it overnight. The book dabbles a little much on Axl Rose’s antics but the part up to the debut album was interesting enough.
This is part of the Verbal Education Program.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Singapore Swings (Pt. III)
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh.
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh.
You wore our expectations like an armored suit, uh-huh.
I couldn't understand.
You said that irony was the shackles of youth, uh-huh.
I couldn't understand.
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh.
I couldn't understand.
I never understood don't fuck with me, uh-huh.
~What’s the Frequency Kenneth, REM
In abandon of all common sense, I went to the airport. Staying at the hospital was depressing, the hotel was boring and Singapore in general was not entertaining, so going to the airport was the better option. If you really needed an explanation, I’d say that I was probably not just a little mad.
I took a cab, a Cadillac cause I never rode in one before. Regular Singapore cabs smell funny so I usually choose to take the white Merc ones. Chatty cabby with real funny Singaporean accent asked if I was flying somewhere with no luggage. I explained that I was going to the airport to probably stare at the arrival lounge for a few hours. I don’t think he got it but offered a commentary anyway. Something about cheaper travel these days. I purposely agreed to shut him up.
The phone’s been buzzing continuously. Friends in Jakarta, relatives from all over the place, work colleagues wondering my whereabouts. I called home to check on the dog and have my PA to FedEx me my insurance papers. She also got me a new set of tickets, this one just a one way trip to Jakarta in the usual cattle class. I don’t really care, SQ serves drink even for the lower income populates. I am expected back by Monday for something though I may have to return on Thursday. Even just the idea annoyed me.
Past the distractions and back to the task at hand, I paid the cab and limped the short distance to the arrival gate. Her flight was late and I was half hoping that she wouldn’t make it. Maybe she could just crash in the South China Sea and save me a trippy sentimental weekend.
She was dressed in a violent green shirt, little white pants, sneakers and no luggage. She didn’t seem too surprise either to find me at the airport. I feel old and predictable.
The Muse had with her Anthony Kiedis Scar Tissue, handing it over to me as she struggled to find her phone in an oversized fancy bag. She had a new music video she was doing and showed me the uncut shots. She looked different in it, taller. Nosily checking the rest of her iPod I saw that she’d been listening to Counting Crows’ Recovering the Satellite.
Her first question, was “How’s Candi?” and that went completely ignored. I also discovered that she was staying at my sis’ suite. One would’ve thought she could prolly squeeze a free room from some other moron but she chose to stay with us. I suggested my similarly sized suite, exactly above my sis, but allowing for the nicotine habit. She iterated that she didn’t have any luggage and highlighted that she considered me too unstable to share a suite.
We chatted a little bit more in the car. My work stuff, the missing Jedi, the Hong Kong trip, her recent work and fuckups. I tried not to think of things much, largely succeeding though I might’ve appeared like a complete idiot.
When we got back to the hotel, she never even stopped on her floor. We kissed and kissed til our mouth bleed. We kissed some more and embarrassed the room service guy.
Fuck it. Singapore ain’t too bad sometimes.
Read More..
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh.
You wore our expectations like an armored suit, uh-huh.
I couldn't understand.
You said that irony was the shackles of youth, uh-huh.
I couldn't understand.
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh.
I couldn't understand.
I never understood don't fuck with me, uh-huh.
~What’s the Frequency Kenneth, REM
In abandon of all common sense, I went to the airport. Staying at the hospital was depressing, the hotel was boring and Singapore in general was not entertaining, so going to the airport was the better option. If you really needed an explanation, I’d say that I was probably not just a little mad.
I took a cab, a Cadillac cause I never rode in one before. Regular Singapore cabs smell funny so I usually choose to take the white Merc ones. Chatty cabby with real funny Singaporean accent asked if I was flying somewhere with no luggage. I explained that I was going to the airport to probably stare at the arrival lounge for a few hours. I don’t think he got it but offered a commentary anyway. Something about cheaper travel these days. I purposely agreed to shut him up.
The phone’s been buzzing continuously. Friends in Jakarta, relatives from all over the place, work colleagues wondering my whereabouts. I called home to check on the dog and have my PA to FedEx me my insurance papers. She also got me a new set of tickets, this one just a one way trip to Jakarta in the usual cattle class. I don’t really care, SQ serves drink even for the lower income populates. I am expected back by Monday for something though I may have to return on Thursday. Even just the idea annoyed me.
Past the distractions and back to the task at hand, I paid the cab and limped the short distance to the arrival gate. Her flight was late and I was half hoping that she wouldn’t make it. Maybe she could just crash in the South China Sea and save me a trippy sentimental weekend.
She was dressed in a violent green shirt, little white pants, sneakers and no luggage. She didn’t seem too surprise either to find me at the airport. I feel old and predictable.
The Muse had with her Anthony Kiedis Scar Tissue, handing it over to me as she struggled to find her phone in an oversized fancy bag. She had a new music video she was doing and showed me the uncut shots. She looked different in it, taller. Nosily checking the rest of her iPod I saw that she’d been listening to Counting Crows’ Recovering the Satellite.
Her first question, was “How’s Candi?” and that went completely ignored. I also discovered that she was staying at my sis’ suite. One would’ve thought she could prolly squeeze a free room from some other moron but she chose to stay with us. I suggested my similarly sized suite, exactly above my sis, but allowing for the nicotine habit. She iterated that she didn’t have any luggage and highlighted that she considered me too unstable to share a suite.
We chatted a little bit more in the car. My work stuff, the missing Jedi, the Hong Kong trip, her recent work and fuckups. I tried not to think of things much, largely succeeding though I might’ve appeared like a complete idiot.
When we got back to the hotel, she never even stopped on her floor. We kissed and kissed til our mouth bleed. We kissed some more and embarrassed the room service guy.
Fuck it. Singapore ain’t too bad sometimes.
on Lost Trust
I guess the reason why it bothers me so much is because we’ve known each other for far too long. Trust is in real short supply these days and I do have serious trust issues – he was one of the obvious exceptions. Was.
It bothers me cause I wasn’t even thinking about it. For me, it was an obvious thing to do. A few thousand won’t kill me and he was genuinely in need.
Then the bugger just disappeared. Gone. Calls went unanswered and text messages ignored. Everyone was annoyed and a little pissed but they would all look at me as if I would have the answers. I haven’t spoken to the guy for more than three weeks and was more or less out of touch with him anyway. The others would expect me to make the call, the Jedis couldn’t be bothered with a badly scripted bullshit, this one’s supposed to be my very own homegrown problem. Chris didn’t even say a word about it.
I am pissed. Pissed, sad, disappointed, hurt and well, at some point, I got rather mad. I honestly didn’t think we deserve this. You go out of your way to make things right, then people just fuck you right up the ass.
He would have a good reason for it. Everyone does.
I’m just not really in the mood to fucking listen. Trust is in very short supply these days and I don’t need this kinda bullshit. Not now, of all times.
Nobody said anything yet. They’re waiting for me to say something I guess.
I don’t have much to say, except that I feel crap. It hurts in a strange way.
When people fuck you up, you retaliate in candor. That’s how life works.
When people you love fuck you up, you pack in tight balls of memories and hopeful thoughts, and wish that life will be better tomorrow.
I’ve no time for this nonsense.
Read More..
It bothers me cause I wasn’t even thinking about it. For me, it was an obvious thing to do. A few thousand won’t kill me and he was genuinely in need.
Then the bugger just disappeared. Gone. Calls went unanswered and text messages ignored. Everyone was annoyed and a little pissed but they would all look at me as if I would have the answers. I haven’t spoken to the guy for more than three weeks and was more or less out of touch with him anyway. The others would expect me to make the call, the Jedis couldn’t be bothered with a badly scripted bullshit, this one’s supposed to be my very own homegrown problem. Chris didn’t even say a word about it.
I am pissed. Pissed, sad, disappointed, hurt and well, at some point, I got rather mad. I honestly didn’t think we deserve this. You go out of your way to make things right, then people just fuck you right up the ass.
He would have a good reason for it. Everyone does.
I’m just not really in the mood to fucking listen. Trust is in very short supply these days and I don’t need this kinda bullshit. Not now, of all times.
Nobody said anything yet. They’re waiting for me to say something I guess.
I don’t have much to say, except that I feel crap. It hurts in a strange way.
When people fuck you up, you retaliate in candor. That’s how life works.
When people you love fuck you up, you pack in tight balls of memories and hopeful thoughts, and wish that life will be better tomorrow.
I’ve no time for this nonsense.
on Attempted Murder
I been looking for him for some two weeks or so, we haven’t met for almost three weeks, exactly four text messages during the time.
The thing with this particular Jedi is that he keeps a steady supply of good stories. There’s always some good story to tell though they do get boring after a while.
I suppose, there’s always people out there willing to listen to good stories.
The real stories, I suspect, he never tells. That’s more like it. More like everyone else’s.
My dog ate my homework, my wife cut my balls. It ain’t my fault.
Truth is, life takes you to unfortunate dark corners. Places you wish you never need to tell anyone about. Perhaps you actually want to, but you wish that you’d never need to. You wouldn’t want to tell anyone that your balls shrink to the size of rotten peas for example, but you see it in the mirror and shiver in horror, all by yourself.
You wished you had someone to share it with.
In 140 characters – the vagary of modern mobile communication – he suggested that I have tried to kill him, twice. Considering that we communicated only via text messages and were actually physically located in different countries for more than three weeks, I pointed out that this inflammatory accusation was rather hard to swallow. If I’d tried to kill him, he’d be dead.
Very dead.
Though probably not thoroughly decomposed.
I make people do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Yeah, right. That always make for a good story. For the most part, I’m a good excuse quite simply because I am thoroughly good at it. The world’s first murder attempt via sms. Someone ought to print that on Daily Mail, except that everyone now do it on Twitter instead.
It’s just too depressing. The whole fucking thing was just too depressing. I stopped thinking a while ago and I couldn’t pick it back up. Nowadays, I just don’t think.
I thought of calling Olive but she doesn’t take calls at this time, the hubby doesn’t appreciate it much. Time to hit MoS. Lame but doable. I’m off now.
I hope you’ve a better weekend, you sleazy little fuck.
Read More..
The thing with this particular Jedi is that he keeps a steady supply of good stories. There’s always some good story to tell though they do get boring after a while.
I suppose, there’s always people out there willing to listen to good stories.
The real stories, I suspect, he never tells. That’s more like it. More like everyone else’s.
My dog ate my homework, my wife cut my balls. It ain’t my fault.
Truth is, life takes you to unfortunate dark corners. Places you wish you never need to tell anyone about. Perhaps you actually want to, but you wish that you’d never need to. You wouldn’t want to tell anyone that your balls shrink to the size of rotten peas for example, but you see it in the mirror and shiver in horror, all by yourself.
You wished you had someone to share it with.
In 140 characters – the vagary of modern mobile communication – he suggested that I have tried to kill him, twice. Considering that we communicated only via text messages and were actually physically located in different countries for more than three weeks, I pointed out that this inflammatory accusation was rather hard to swallow. If I’d tried to kill him, he’d be dead.
Very dead.
Though probably not thoroughly decomposed.
I make people do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Yeah, right. That always make for a good story. For the most part, I’m a good excuse quite simply because I am thoroughly good at it. The world’s first murder attempt via sms. Someone ought to print that on Daily Mail, except that everyone now do it on Twitter instead.
It’s just too depressing. The whole fucking thing was just too depressing. I stopped thinking a while ago and I couldn’t pick it back up. Nowadays, I just don’t think.
I thought of calling Olive but she doesn’t take calls at this time, the hubby doesn’t appreciate it much. Time to hit MoS. Lame but doable. I’m off now.
I hope you’ve a better weekend, you sleazy little fuck.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Singapore Swings (Pt. II)
Sis said I’m good at making people do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Good and bad and the occasionally evil. It’s something I have a knack for.
Some of them needed the kick in the ass, she said. Others drowned and it’s probably my fault, too. She looked at me like she loved me very much with a warm fuzzy feeling.
She’s probably right, too.
She wasn’t suggesting that I was responsible for them. Poor fuckers can’t swim, though she was careful with her words. My sister was never too comfortable with profanity. Some people will die young regardless. Some Darwinian Dharma that she probably heard in her overpriced pilates classes. She didn’t think I should be jumping in the water every time. I should care about me and no more for others.
I later went for a walk down to Café Del Mar and stared at scantily clad girls in the pool, drinking tomato juice, hating it and constantly thinking about every other things.
Somewhere in this vitamin induced high I probably asked the stupidest question mankind had ever asked. “Why?”
You never ask why. It brings about bad luck and things you’d never want to hear.
Aia, playing the surrogate sexier, older sister said that I lived better than most. I need to learn to be happy and live with it. I heard all that before. Heck, I gave that lecture before, I knew it by heart.
But she was pretty and she was kind so I listened to her while throwing obnoxious stolen smile to a girl in blue bikini. She said her daughter needed to go to bed and she wanted to go back to her room so I was there all by myself and a mug of tomato juice, a little jaded and drugged and hardly admitting like a Tom Wolfe character.
The music got louder and the girls got dressed and the night grew darker.
The answer to “Why” came in rapid succession of text messages, progressively longer. One shouldn’t bother. I switched the phone off and tried not think about it which was quite easy really. I know “why”.
We always know why.
We only dread someone would say it out loud.
Read More..
Some of them needed the kick in the ass, she said. Others drowned and it’s probably my fault, too. She looked at me like she loved me very much with a warm fuzzy feeling.
She’s probably right, too.
She wasn’t suggesting that I was responsible for them. Poor fuckers can’t swim, though she was careful with her words. My sister was never too comfortable with profanity. Some people will die young regardless. Some Darwinian Dharma that she probably heard in her overpriced pilates classes. She didn’t think I should be jumping in the water every time. I should care about me and no more for others.
I later went for a walk down to Café Del Mar and stared at scantily clad girls in the pool, drinking tomato juice, hating it and constantly thinking about every other things.
Somewhere in this vitamin induced high I probably asked the stupidest question mankind had ever asked. “Why?”
You never ask why. It brings about bad luck and things you’d never want to hear.
Aia, playing the surrogate sexier, older sister said that I lived better than most. I need to learn to be happy and live with it. I heard all that before. Heck, I gave that lecture before, I knew it by heart.
But she was pretty and she was kind so I listened to her while throwing obnoxious stolen smile to a girl in blue bikini. She said her daughter needed to go to bed and she wanted to go back to her room so I was there all by myself and a mug of tomato juice, a little jaded and drugged and hardly admitting like a Tom Wolfe character.
The music got louder and the girls got dressed and the night grew darker.
The answer to “Why” came in rapid succession of text messages, progressively longer. One shouldn’t bother. I switched the phone off and tried not think about it which was quite easy really. I know “why”.
We always know why.
We only dread someone would say it out loud.
on a Fuzzy Mind
Yeah, back at the roadhouse they got some bungalows
Yeah, back at the roadhouse they got some bungalows
And that's for the people
Who like to go down slow
~Roadhouse Blues, The Doors
Something came up and I had to fly back to Singapore. A few frantic calls to my PA in Jakarta to get me new tickets but I later decided to just go the airport and grab the first available flight. SQ001, on its way back from San Francisco to Singapore had a few vacant seats in the business class and I boarded just before eight in the morning. The rate was astronomical but I am not good with math and worse with currency so I just got on it and worry about it later.
It was a return ticket so I now have a second set of SG-HK tickets.
I will worry about it later.
Aia found me at the arrival gate with a big hug and a smile. She’s a friend of my sister from her days with the airlines, 42, mother of two and legs that go up to here. She’d known me since I was little tho I don’t see her too often. She lives in Bangkok these days and our paths rarely crossed. Aia was still in her uniform so we stopped at her apartment on the way back to the hotel. Sis is staying at the Amara in Sentosa, and she already booked me a smoking room just above hers with a view of the ships at sea.
I was exhausted and mentally ill and said very little in the car. I had Queen’s Killer Queen playing in my head, in a constant loop like bad 80s print.
I felt like breakfast and ordered cheese omelet on the room service. That and coffee and orange juice and fruits and a bottle of wine and a bowl of various veggies for Aia. She said I looked tired and messy and skinny. Just the way I always look, I guess, only worse. I been moving around for a full two weeks and terribly sleep deprived at the moment. Looking good is too demanding.
I noted her purple lips, strong artificial colors from Terry Richardson photographs. She accused me of flirtatious gestures. Her daughter was in the next room playing with my little niece, this was the quoted explanation for the inappropriateness of it so we got up and saw them to the pool. I was hoping she would go into the pool but we stayed on the lounger instead. We conversed and I thought of more inapprorieties as if it was a word.
Sis was at the hospital and returned just before dinner, scolded me for the state I was. ‘Disconnected’ was the word of choice and I just stared.
I just stared and tried to think of one thing or another and I didn’t do it very well.
I am very, very good with certain things.
With things I am good at, I do better than most.
My problems are with things that I am not good at.
For lack of a better word, it was disabling. When I am bad, I completely, utterly, miserably and absolutely stink. It’s not like I don’t know when or just how bad I really am.
It’s actually worse because I know very well just how bad I really am.
It kinda hurts.
I spoke to Sam a little bit, my sister had already spoken to her and Samatha’s already getting on her way here. They will all head for Sydney later in the week and I most likely will just head back to Jakarta, or back to Hong Kong, or wherever later when this blew over. I cannot think clearly right now.
Samantha suggested that I take the Ritalin on proper doses with some regularity for a short period, to see if it helps. I hate the idea of being dependent on chemicals to function but might give it a shot.
I don’t really want to think about it so I might as well just do it.
I told Aia what happened since we last met, some four or five years ago in Bangkok. Stories rush back, fragments and pieces in short visual bits but not really in any coherent order. Too random for anyone to really make sense of it but Aia seemed to be sufficiently amused and shared the bottle enthusiastically. We enjoyed the city lit up in the distance. She said something about me never really changed in 20 years. I theorized that my memory span don’t really go that far back. I can’t remember how things were.
I’m pretty sure I could see Vivo City though there’s no way to ascertain it. Better that I don’t.
My new phone doesn’t have her number though it’s still available somewhere in my inbox.
Google knows how to keep secrets.
I tried to get hold of the Jedis in Jakarta but they weren’t available. That bothered me somehow though I, of all people, know exactly how it is when you don’t feel like taking calls.
Smurfette called, sounding reasonably worried and I convinced her all is good. She was on her way back from Malaysia and would be here tomorrow morning for breakfast. I dread that and told Sis it wasn’t a good idea for Smurgette to be around myself and large empty hotel suites. This time the operative word was ‘immoral’.
I see trouble miles away. That’s always something I am very good at. Maybe it’s to do with my propensity to cause trouble. I know how they’re coming.
Only I’m never good at doing anything about it. It’s not a rewarding talent, really.
We ordered dinner in Sis’ room, larger than mine with a small dining room and designer boxes in one corner. Shoes. Money probably doesn’t make you happy but it certainly can make you happier. My sister religiously believes in shoes and it works wonder to her morale.
She was in good mood and made me feel so much better though my head still feels funny. So much better to see her though. I used to go and lay on her couch and told her stories. I told her most things, more than most people. These days less so but being around her still helps.
Later when I retreated back to my room, I called Laras for no good reason at all. I never called her before and she sounded cheerful on the phone. I blabbed here and there and hung up after a few minutes.
I’m not good with phones but I feel like talking to someone. I couldn’t even ask her out since we’re in different country at the moment but we made a date for next week. Maybe I’ll go.
I tried really hard not to call the people I wanted to call it was painful.
I heard them talking one thing or another. Something I was supposed to be paying attention but I so was obviously was not. I spoke to my uncle a little bit, he told me he just bought a Mercedez CLS. Ugly car but I’d like to try it. He thought I should go do what wanted to do. I wasn’t sure what that meant but nodded agreeably to keep the old man happy. He looked like shit.
We texted intensely for a while. Something she said, something I said. Something we said a long time ago we now remember. I wanted to jump in the well lit pool and dive underwater for as long as I could hold my breath. I would like to hold my breath as long as possible. Water rushed into my nose and kicked me sober.
I tried to see Maryln Monroe in the Einstein picture, the one in the latest Wired magazine. I could never pick out those things. They don’t work on me. I frequently miss the obvious.
The thoughts killed me and I wanted to put my head underwater again. I don’t feel good. I don’t feel bad. I just don’t feel at the moment.
Read More..
Yeah, back at the roadhouse they got some bungalows
And that's for the people
Who like to go down slow
~Roadhouse Blues, The Doors
Something came up and I had to fly back to Singapore. A few frantic calls to my PA in Jakarta to get me new tickets but I later decided to just go the airport and grab the first available flight. SQ001, on its way back from San Francisco to Singapore had a few vacant seats in the business class and I boarded just before eight in the morning. The rate was astronomical but I am not good with math and worse with currency so I just got on it and worry about it later.
It was a return ticket so I now have a second set of SG-HK tickets.
I will worry about it later.
Aia found me at the arrival gate with a big hug and a smile. She’s a friend of my sister from her days with the airlines, 42, mother of two and legs that go up to here. She’d known me since I was little tho I don’t see her too often. She lives in Bangkok these days and our paths rarely crossed. Aia was still in her uniform so we stopped at her apartment on the way back to the hotel. Sis is staying at the Amara in Sentosa, and she already booked me a smoking room just above hers with a view of the ships at sea.
I was exhausted and mentally ill and said very little in the car. I had Queen’s Killer Queen playing in my head, in a constant loop like bad 80s print.
I felt like breakfast and ordered cheese omelet on the room service. That and coffee and orange juice and fruits and a bottle of wine and a bowl of various veggies for Aia. She said I looked tired and messy and skinny. Just the way I always look, I guess, only worse. I been moving around for a full two weeks and terribly sleep deprived at the moment. Looking good is too demanding.
I noted her purple lips, strong artificial colors from Terry Richardson photographs. She accused me of flirtatious gestures. Her daughter was in the next room playing with my little niece, this was the quoted explanation for the inappropriateness of it so we got up and saw them to the pool. I was hoping she would go into the pool but we stayed on the lounger instead. We conversed and I thought of more inapprorieties as if it was a word.
Sis was at the hospital and returned just before dinner, scolded me for the state I was. ‘Disconnected’ was the word of choice and I just stared.
I just stared and tried to think of one thing or another and I didn’t do it very well.
I am very, very good with certain things.
With things I am good at, I do better than most.
My problems are with things that I am not good at.
For lack of a better word, it was disabling. When I am bad, I completely, utterly, miserably and absolutely stink. It’s not like I don’t know when or just how bad I really am.
It’s actually worse because I know very well just how bad I really am.
It kinda hurts.
I spoke to Sam a little bit, my sister had already spoken to her and Samatha’s already getting on her way here. They will all head for Sydney later in the week and I most likely will just head back to Jakarta, or back to Hong Kong, or wherever later when this blew over. I cannot think clearly right now.
Samantha suggested that I take the Ritalin on proper doses with some regularity for a short period, to see if it helps. I hate the idea of being dependent on chemicals to function but might give it a shot.
I don’t really want to think about it so I might as well just do it.
I told Aia what happened since we last met, some four or five years ago in Bangkok. Stories rush back, fragments and pieces in short visual bits but not really in any coherent order. Too random for anyone to really make sense of it but Aia seemed to be sufficiently amused and shared the bottle enthusiastically. We enjoyed the city lit up in the distance. She said something about me never really changed in 20 years. I theorized that my memory span don’t really go that far back. I can’t remember how things were.
I’m pretty sure I could see Vivo City though there’s no way to ascertain it. Better that I don’t.
My new phone doesn’t have her number though it’s still available somewhere in my inbox.
Google knows how to keep secrets.
I tried to get hold of the Jedis in Jakarta but they weren’t available. That bothered me somehow though I, of all people, know exactly how it is when you don’t feel like taking calls.
Smurfette called, sounding reasonably worried and I convinced her all is good. She was on her way back from Malaysia and would be here tomorrow morning for breakfast. I dread that and told Sis it wasn’t a good idea for Smurgette to be around myself and large empty hotel suites. This time the operative word was ‘immoral’.
I see trouble miles away. That’s always something I am very good at. Maybe it’s to do with my propensity to cause trouble. I know how they’re coming.
Only I’m never good at doing anything about it. It’s not a rewarding talent, really.
We ordered dinner in Sis’ room, larger than mine with a small dining room and designer boxes in one corner. Shoes. Money probably doesn’t make you happy but it certainly can make you happier. My sister religiously believes in shoes and it works wonder to her morale.
She was in good mood and made me feel so much better though my head still feels funny. So much better to see her though. I used to go and lay on her couch and told her stories. I told her most things, more than most people. These days less so but being around her still helps.
Later when I retreated back to my room, I called Laras for no good reason at all. I never called her before and she sounded cheerful on the phone. I blabbed here and there and hung up after a few minutes.
I’m not good with phones but I feel like talking to someone. I couldn’t even ask her out since we’re in different country at the moment but we made a date for next week. Maybe I’ll go.
I tried really hard not to call the people I wanted to call it was painful.
I heard them talking one thing or another. Something I was supposed to be paying attention but I so was obviously was not. I spoke to my uncle a little bit, he told me he just bought a Mercedez CLS. Ugly car but I’d like to try it. He thought I should go do what wanted to do. I wasn’t sure what that meant but nodded agreeably to keep the old man happy. He looked like shit.
We texted intensely for a while. Something she said, something I said. Something we said a long time ago we now remember. I wanted to jump in the well lit pool and dive underwater for as long as I could hold my breath. I would like to hold my breath as long as possible. Water rushed into my nose and kicked me sober.
I tried to see Maryln Monroe in the Einstein picture, the one in the latest Wired magazine. I could never pick out those things. They don’t work on me. I frequently miss the obvious.
The thoughts killed me and I wanted to put my head underwater again. I don’t feel good. I don’t feel bad. I just don’t feel at the moment.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
One for Today, One for Tomorrow
Love me two time, girl
One for tomorrow
One just for today
Love me two times
Cause I'm goin away
~Love Me Two Times, The Doors
I like the early drive to the airport. I would like it much less during the day or in the evening with the clogged up highways but at four am, the road was empty and it took only 35 minutes for the trip. Piece of cake.
It was unusually early for me and a full hour before boarding so there was some pastry for breakfast in the lounge and a few magazines from the bookshop. All the other shops were still closed.
Vanity Fair has the story on Madoff and pirates, the Economist runs with an India election cover and Fortune with something less interesting than those two. I paid for the magazines but spent the flight reading various regional papers on the plane. WSJ and FT was both full of mergers and first quarter news from a seemingly better behaved economy, Strait Times had something about insurance claims and other tidbits of uninteresting stuff from Singapore. I tried to digest what I could of the economy and the improving market condition and all that but bored myself with the details and resorted to flirting with the stewardess for much of the flight.
I usually sleep on the plane, or drink myself to sleep but it occurred that it may not be the best idea to be drunk for a breakfast meeting so I caffeinated myself in full instead. One at home and another in the lounge, plus two more in small plastic cups on the plane, I finally fell asleep in the last thirty minutes of an uneventful flight. The weather wasn’t nice and the pilot repeatedly reminded us of death and destruction but he finally pulled it off and put us on the gate intact on a wet Monday morning. I thanked him on the way out and proceeded on to greet the immigration officials.
Befitting my passionate chauvinist maritime ancestral traditions, I called Suri and expected to get laid but she was at work and the high hope was immediately dashed but we agreed on lunch after my first meeting.
There’s nothing to tell really about the meetings in Singapore. I’m in town for an overnight transit and just looking to catch up with a few people, nothing overly exciting or annoying, just the way they always are in here, the same Singaporean types with their government sanctioned boredom and stupid accent. It was all very flat and verifiable.
We went to see my sis for lunch at Boat Quay. She’s here to do random shopping, that somewhat helped with the divorce and all. I have not seen her for a while so we had a three way disjointed conversation where the three of us crowded over a salmon dish and peppered others with pointless conversational inquiries. Like everything and everyone else, nothing too meaningful or useful was discussed. She told me of the happy couple who was apparently here in Singapore on the way to their honeymoon destination. I told her she’s fat.
It might’ve been just me - low on medication and high on hormones – I just don’t find anything interesting anymore. Singapore doesn’t so much piss me off anymore as it bores. I still don’t like this place a lot but no longer do I loathe it with all my heart. I could just tolerate Singapore for the day.
I’ve two more meetings and dinner with some friends. I have an early flight out to Hong Kong and I quite look forward to meeting Jennifer there so I best spend the night in bed.
I don’t like Singapore. I guess you would’ve gathered that much by now. The city annoys me and the memories haunt me like a very real bad dream. Most of the time, I do what I need to do and get the hell out. In better times, I do what needed to be done and pretended like none had ever happened but I don’t do that very well. Singapore gives me the creep. It’s a shit place.
Plus I still have the tummy bug.
I called J Ho to warn her of my impending hormonal fluctuation. I told her of the girl who took the long way home and lost. I told her stories of Singapore in past tense, doomed glory and failed aspirations. It’s a shit place and I wanted to get the hell out. It made for a good speech. I, looking forward to seeing her and all that. It made for a good pitch.
Suri thought I lost weight and looked like crap but it might well’ve been just Singapore. I was okay in the best of mood in this town. She had strong fingers and reached for my neck, carefully massaging, fixing and relaxing and not arousing. Nobody stared cause nobody stared in Singapore. I guess people don’t really give a shit much around here. She thought I should stay with her, or with my sis, somewhere I can chill for the night. I didn’t feel like chilling. I don’t feel like anything. I just feel like getting out. I called home and checked on the dog. He seems fine, reported the maid. I need to teach the dog basic conversational skills. I stared at Suri’s beautifully pointing nose and said not much else at all.
I bought her a can opener. That’s how bad I am.
Sis kept looking at me funny. Maybe I look funny, I haven’t cut my hair since the earth was green, I look like an abandoned mongrel. She said the guest left me a package, they – she – knew I was coming and left a small box for her to pass along. There was a special edition The Doors double disc, its price tag still in place ($32.99), a Foo Fighter show in Wembley and a special edition of No Line in the Horizon with an Anthony Corbyn documentary. Sis didn’t get it, she wouldn’t. I don’t.
I don’t think anyone does.
I’ll be out tomorrow and back on Friday. She’ll get the full story then.
Maybe you guys, too.
Read More..
One for tomorrow
One just for today
Love me two times
Cause I'm goin away
~Love Me Two Times, The Doors
I like the early drive to the airport. I would like it much less during the day or in the evening with the clogged up highways but at four am, the road was empty and it took only 35 minutes for the trip. Piece of cake.
It was unusually early for me and a full hour before boarding so there was some pastry for breakfast in the lounge and a few magazines from the bookshop. All the other shops were still closed.
Vanity Fair has the story on Madoff and pirates, the Economist runs with an India election cover and Fortune with something less interesting than those two. I paid for the magazines but spent the flight reading various regional papers on the plane. WSJ and FT was both full of mergers and first quarter news from a seemingly better behaved economy, Strait Times had something about insurance claims and other tidbits of uninteresting stuff from Singapore. I tried to digest what I could of the economy and the improving market condition and all that but bored myself with the details and resorted to flirting with the stewardess for much of the flight.
I usually sleep on the plane, or drink myself to sleep but it occurred that it may not be the best idea to be drunk for a breakfast meeting so I caffeinated myself in full instead. One at home and another in the lounge, plus two more in small plastic cups on the plane, I finally fell asleep in the last thirty minutes of an uneventful flight. The weather wasn’t nice and the pilot repeatedly reminded us of death and destruction but he finally pulled it off and put us on the gate intact on a wet Monday morning. I thanked him on the way out and proceeded on to greet the immigration officials.
Befitting my passionate chauvinist maritime ancestral traditions, I called Suri and expected to get laid but she was at work and the high hope was immediately dashed but we agreed on lunch after my first meeting.
There’s nothing to tell really about the meetings in Singapore. I’m in town for an overnight transit and just looking to catch up with a few people, nothing overly exciting or annoying, just the way they always are in here, the same Singaporean types with their government sanctioned boredom and stupid accent. It was all very flat and verifiable.
We went to see my sis for lunch at Boat Quay. She’s here to do random shopping, that somewhat helped with the divorce and all. I have not seen her for a while so we had a three way disjointed conversation where the three of us crowded over a salmon dish and peppered others with pointless conversational inquiries. Like everything and everyone else, nothing too meaningful or useful was discussed. She told me of the happy couple who was apparently here in Singapore on the way to their honeymoon destination. I told her she’s fat.
It might’ve been just me - low on medication and high on hormones – I just don’t find anything interesting anymore. Singapore doesn’t so much piss me off anymore as it bores. I still don’t like this place a lot but no longer do I loathe it with all my heart. I could just tolerate Singapore for the day.
I’ve two more meetings and dinner with some friends. I have an early flight out to Hong Kong and I quite look forward to meeting Jennifer there so I best spend the night in bed.
I don’t like Singapore. I guess you would’ve gathered that much by now. The city annoys me and the memories haunt me like a very real bad dream. Most of the time, I do what I need to do and get the hell out. In better times, I do what needed to be done and pretended like none had ever happened but I don’t do that very well. Singapore gives me the creep. It’s a shit place.
Plus I still have the tummy bug.
I called J Ho to warn her of my impending hormonal fluctuation. I told her of the girl who took the long way home and lost. I told her stories of Singapore in past tense, doomed glory and failed aspirations. It’s a shit place and I wanted to get the hell out. It made for a good speech. I, looking forward to seeing her and all that. It made for a good pitch.
Suri thought I lost weight and looked like crap but it might well’ve been just Singapore. I was okay in the best of mood in this town. She had strong fingers and reached for my neck, carefully massaging, fixing and relaxing and not arousing. Nobody stared cause nobody stared in Singapore. I guess people don’t really give a shit much around here. She thought I should stay with her, or with my sis, somewhere I can chill for the night. I didn’t feel like chilling. I don’t feel like anything. I just feel like getting out. I called home and checked on the dog. He seems fine, reported the maid. I need to teach the dog basic conversational skills. I stared at Suri’s beautifully pointing nose and said not much else at all.
I bought her a can opener. That’s how bad I am.
Sis kept looking at me funny. Maybe I look funny, I haven’t cut my hair since the earth was green, I look like an abandoned mongrel. She said the guest left me a package, they – she – knew I was coming and left a small box for her to pass along. There was a special edition The Doors double disc, its price tag still in place ($32.99), a Foo Fighter show in Wembley and a special edition of No Line in the Horizon with an Anthony Corbyn documentary. Sis didn’t get it, she wouldn’t. I don’t.
I don’t think anyone does.
I’ll be out tomorrow and back on Friday. She’ll get the full story then.
Maybe you guys, too.
Monday, April 20, 2009
on Going Places
I'm feeling like crap with my tummy bug. I don't get sick all that often, but when I do, I'm all fucked up. My skin - my face - get all funny and I can't focus on anything at all. That's when I need Ritalin just to keep me thinking and functioning and absolutely nothing interests me.
I don't like taking drugs - they gave me bunch of things for my head thing and for the ADD and my sleeping disorder and a whole host of other disorders that I inevitably possessed in this day and age. I am not convinced they help and I don't like the idea that I need drugs to keep me functioning.
That actually leaves me disfunctional for most of the time.
Anyhow, this comes at particularly bad time since i am travelling again this week. I miss my dog already, barely saw him this week and he's grown attached to the maids. I know the maids love him, too but I am a little jealous.
That's okay tho, he still jumps like crazy whenever i come home.
Anyway... not sure how much I'll be posting in the next week. Maybe I'll post from the road. There will be stories from Hong Kong to follow up, there could be some bits and pieces from Singapore (i am to see Suri and her bunch of friends, as well as another separate group of Russians, that should be interesting).
Take care Jakarta.
Read More..
I don't like taking drugs - they gave me bunch of things for my head thing and for the ADD and my sleeping disorder and a whole host of other disorders that I inevitably possessed in this day and age. I am not convinced they help and I don't like the idea that I need drugs to keep me functioning.
That actually leaves me disfunctional for most of the time.
Anyhow, this comes at particularly bad time since i am travelling again this week. I miss my dog already, barely saw him this week and he's grown attached to the maids. I know the maids love him, too but I am a little jealous.
That's okay tho, he still jumps like crazy whenever i come home.
Anyway... not sure how much I'll be posting in the next week. Maybe I'll post from the road. There will be stories from Hong Kong to follow up, there could be some bits and pieces from Singapore (i am to see Suri and her bunch of friends, as well as another separate group of Russians, that should be interesting).
Take care Jakarta.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
on Murder and Mayhem
Jack Kerouac, on editing Naked Lunch (in disgust): "Bill, what is all this stuff about young naked boys being hanged in limestone caves?"
Burroughs: "No idea. I know I'm some kind of interplanetary agent but I don't think my signals are decoding properly."
I’ve a nasty tummy bug and barely got out of the bed in the last two days. Being sick is shitty, being sick and not being home is utter crap.
Sammy sent me a copy of And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, the mythical joint work by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. The book told a gay murder story – Lucien Carr murdered a gay friend who had a crush on him, leading to both Carr and Kerouac arrests for it. Kerouac got married in prison to make bail – the charges against him was later dropped. Lou Carr introduced Allen Ginsberg to Burroughs and eventually to Kerouac, too and befriended all of them for many years afterwards. These are the Beat prophets.
The murder – and the book – happened about a decade before On The Road or Naked Lunch, WSB and Kerouac took turns to write their chapter, though they agreed later not to publish it so long as Carr was still alive. He died in 2005 and now you can read it.
I have always a soft spot for this Libertine Circle, first finding Burroughs through Naked Lunch, which was a thoroughly bizarre film. I read the book to make more sense of it and that lead me to reading other books by this very strange man.
William S. Burroughs is probably the most important American literary figure in the most important generation in the history after the war. This is the generation that gives us human rights, affirmative action, consumer credit, summer blockbusters, lesbians, condoms, porn and rock n roll.
This was also the generation when recreational drugs went mainstream: Tim Leary, Aldous Huxley, Marshall McLuhan, Hunter Thompson, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Playboy, Larry Flint, John Lennon, The Sex Pistols, Jim Morrison, Pink Floyd, Woodstock.
In a party, Burrough played William Tell with his wife Joan – an apple on her head, him with a .44. They were both on drugs, she died and he went to prison. Naked Lunch was the story, depicting the world infested with aliens and bizarre persistence of conscience in mundane objects. These people were attached to their typewriters – Kerouac notoriously wrote On the Road continuously on a single roll paper, the typewriter in Naked Lunch had a name and helped Burroughs tell the story. “I shot the bitch and wrote the book,” he said.
This generation twisted propaganda art into pop culture and painted the world as we live it.
I find them fascinating (the book i just started).
Read More..
Burroughs: "No idea. I know I'm some kind of interplanetary agent but I don't think my signals are decoding properly."
I’ve a nasty tummy bug and barely got out of the bed in the last two days. Being sick is shitty, being sick and not being home is utter crap.
Sammy sent me a copy of And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, the mythical joint work by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. The book told a gay murder story – Lucien Carr murdered a gay friend who had a crush on him, leading to both Carr and Kerouac arrests for it. Kerouac got married in prison to make bail – the charges against him was later dropped. Lou Carr introduced Allen Ginsberg to Burroughs and eventually to Kerouac, too and befriended all of them for many years afterwards. These are the Beat prophets.
The murder – and the book – happened about a decade before On The Road or Naked Lunch, WSB and Kerouac took turns to write their chapter, though they agreed later not to publish it so long as Carr was still alive. He died in 2005 and now you can read it.
I have always a soft spot for this Libertine Circle, first finding Burroughs through Naked Lunch, which was a thoroughly bizarre film. I read the book to make more sense of it and that lead me to reading other books by this very strange man.
William S. Burroughs is probably the most important American literary figure in the most important generation in the history after the war. This is the generation that gives us human rights, affirmative action, consumer credit, summer blockbusters, lesbians, condoms, porn and rock n roll.
This was also the generation when recreational drugs went mainstream: Tim Leary, Aldous Huxley, Marshall McLuhan, Hunter Thompson, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Playboy, Larry Flint, John Lennon, The Sex Pistols, Jim Morrison, Pink Floyd, Woodstock.
In a party, Burrough played William Tell with his wife Joan – an apple on her head, him with a .44. They were both on drugs, she died and he went to prison. Naked Lunch was the story, depicting the world infested with aliens and bizarre persistence of conscience in mundane objects. These people were attached to their typewriters – Kerouac notoriously wrote On the Road continuously on a single roll paper, the typewriter in Naked Lunch had a name and helped Burroughs tell the story. “I shot the bitch and wrote the book,” he said.
This generation twisted propaganda art into pop culture and painted the world as we live it.
I find them fascinating (the book i just started).
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
on the One that Matter
However, I could not reflect without some Amazement, and much Sorrow, that the Rudiments of Lewdness, Coquetry, Censure, and Scandal, should have place by Instinct in Womankind.
~Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Boys and Girls All,
Since I have been really really popular recently, I might as well impart you some useful advice.
I have learned one or two things in my short thirty years live, and the most useful advice I could probably give all men out there is to not ever walk out from a wedding.
Especially, and specifically not when it’s yours. There’s a very unique kind of burden that stays with you for a period of time much longer than others. In short, you feel like shit for a very long time.
One might conceivably convince oneself that one had a damn good reason for doing it and indeed, most likely, one would’ve had a very good reason. It’s not the sort of thing you do with the best of reasons.
I thought it was the only thing to do. We spent the day on the tallest building in the world. One where you could see above the clouds. We spent the days and the days before that finding her the right shoes. While she was looking at the menu, I was on the phone for an international dial with people in different parts of the world. I carried her bag when it was her turn on the phone. The whole trip was merciless and we had even the full cast of only the most annoying members of families. There was the whole big family thing and the press and all the whole fuckedup insanities associated with a Cerebral Marriage. I began to hate it before I had the chance to ever like it.
We put a loophole in the scheme and rented the room on the top and we spent most of our time looking down at the future beyond us. We looked at shadows on layered carpeting. She wanted it, of course, more than anything she could ever wanted. It was demanded. This was the girl’s dream. It’s where she would have all her hopes placed and prayers answered. Very demanding indeed. In a way it was like she was making a pact with the devil.
I didn’t have it in me to lie and entertained her curious soul to a fault when asked the most important question. She asked if I still want it, I responded with an affirmative no.
I lacked the language skill necessary to accurately describe such sensation but yeah, feel like shit comes pretty close. We waited for the sun to set below the clouds and the heavens turned the bright shadow of blues and opened a bottle of a Tuscany Shiraz and leaned back to recite the words to a Jim Morrison line. It was all very weird and confusing and I’m guessing she just wished I would change my mind. She could probably got me drunk enough at least, but in this she was disappointed.
The details aren’t necessary but the hotel called me a cab and I took the first flight out of town and punished myself with a sizable amount of self destructive monstrosities that brought me back to the very old same spot where I was a many long years ago.
I saw the happy couple the other week at the HK En’t Expo party with Jackie Chan. I like her new haircut and her current hairdo is, to say the least, well, I find it arousing. She looked every bit as I have known her at the best of times. She looked insanely pretty and I was slightly tipsy. We need to have a rule for future encounter that one of us really ought to be sober.
I asked her if he missed the last flight and she couldn’t find the joke and I had probably the best laugh of my despicable live. Don’t ask what I had found amusing, cause there was utterly none. I just needed to let it all out. J Ho thought she was a tad weird. I think she didn’t know the half of it.
Regardless. We partied like idiots at Azure, looking at the building with no windows and stumbled on the small roads of LKF. We went to the market at Kowloon where she proved useful with the language skills and presided at the Intercontinental lounge to marvel at the Hong Kong skyline. We’re idiots.
We couldn’t really afford the big clubs anymore these days with the recession and all so we picked the corner spot at a hole in Pondok Indah where I could let nights run amok every once in a while. There was Andre’s birthday where we were totally impervious to society as a whole and took a cab home so we could make out in the back seat. It was all obscenely temptous.
And temptous is not even a word but I think you should know what I mean.
The nights couldn’t have been longer.
Half of you would’ve asked why and the other wouldn’t have a fucking clue what I was talking about. Doesn’t matter, I don’t always make sense.
Sometimes, it only makes sense to you and the ones that matter.
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~Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Boys and Girls All,
Since I have been really really popular recently, I might as well impart you some useful advice.
I have learned one or two things in my short thirty years live, and the most useful advice I could probably give all men out there is to not ever walk out from a wedding.
Especially, and specifically not when it’s yours. There’s a very unique kind of burden that stays with you for a period of time much longer than others. In short, you feel like shit for a very long time.
One might conceivably convince oneself that one had a damn good reason for doing it and indeed, most likely, one would’ve had a very good reason. It’s not the sort of thing you do with the best of reasons.
I thought it was the only thing to do. We spent the day on the tallest building in the world. One where you could see above the clouds. We spent the days and the days before that finding her the right shoes. While she was looking at the menu, I was on the phone for an international dial with people in different parts of the world. I carried her bag when it was her turn on the phone. The whole trip was merciless and we had even the full cast of only the most annoying members of families. There was the whole big family thing and the press and all the whole fuckedup insanities associated with a Cerebral Marriage. I began to hate it before I had the chance to ever like it.
We put a loophole in the scheme and rented the room on the top and we spent most of our time looking down at the future beyond us. We looked at shadows on layered carpeting. She wanted it, of course, more than anything she could ever wanted. It was demanded. This was the girl’s dream. It’s where she would have all her hopes placed and prayers answered. Very demanding indeed. In a way it was like she was making a pact with the devil.
I didn’t have it in me to lie and entertained her curious soul to a fault when asked the most important question. She asked if I still want it, I responded with an affirmative no.
I lacked the language skill necessary to accurately describe such sensation but yeah, feel like shit comes pretty close. We waited for the sun to set below the clouds and the heavens turned the bright shadow of blues and opened a bottle of a Tuscany Shiraz and leaned back to recite the words to a Jim Morrison line. It was all very weird and confusing and I’m guessing she just wished I would change my mind. She could probably got me drunk enough at least, but in this she was disappointed.
The details aren’t necessary but the hotel called me a cab and I took the first flight out of town and punished myself with a sizable amount of self destructive monstrosities that brought me back to the very old same spot where I was a many long years ago.
I saw the happy couple the other week at the HK En’t Expo party with Jackie Chan. I like her new haircut and her current hairdo is, to say the least, well, I find it arousing. She looked every bit as I have known her at the best of times. She looked insanely pretty and I was slightly tipsy. We need to have a rule for future encounter that one of us really ought to be sober.
I asked her if he missed the last flight and she couldn’t find the joke and I had probably the best laugh of my despicable live. Don’t ask what I had found amusing, cause there was utterly none. I just needed to let it all out. J Ho thought she was a tad weird. I think she didn’t know the half of it.
Regardless. We partied like idiots at Azure, looking at the building with no windows and stumbled on the small roads of LKF. We went to the market at Kowloon where she proved useful with the language skills and presided at the Intercontinental lounge to marvel at the Hong Kong skyline. We’re idiots.
We couldn’t really afford the big clubs anymore these days with the recession and all so we picked the corner spot at a hole in Pondok Indah where I could let nights run amok every once in a while. There was Andre’s birthday where we were totally impervious to society as a whole and took a cab home so we could make out in the back seat. It was all obscenely temptous.
And temptous is not even a word but I think you should know what I mean.
The nights couldn’t have been longer.
Half of you would’ve asked why and the other wouldn’t have a fucking clue what I was talking about. Doesn’t matter, I don’t always make sense.
Sometimes, it only makes sense to you and the ones that matter.
on the Road (HK)
I’m going back on the road next week, Hong Kong and Singapore, so I might as well tell you what happened in Hong Kong the time I was there before the last time.
Or not.
It’s really none of your business. As always it involved a girl and a whole lot of other things that shouldn’t have happened.
The Oasis show was fun, of course. I’ve been going to quite a number of live concerts recently and it was better than even The Police in Singapore last year. She was better than my companion to the Singapore show and this is somehow not a good thing.
I’m getting sick of this whole dating girls in different time zone thing. I have made a solemn promise to myself that the next time I’m getting involved with anyone for any degree of commitment, then she would have to be at least in the same time zone.
I therefore started flirting with another character, a Jakarta resident living just within reach to the office. I do some work for the company but I don’t really work with her in any ways, so that’s not really a professional thing. She’s sweet, smart and interesting. Maybe the fact that she is both sweet and smart is interesting.
Except that now work keeps taking me to Hong Kong. Granted, I have taken every measures so that I won’t have to visit Singapore. It’s probably natural in this region that it’s either Singapore or Hong Kong, I just find the latter that much more fun.
Anyhow, so I’m going back to Hong Kong next week, for the third time in the last six weeks and I felt like I should probably ask this girl out before I leave. If she is really interesting, then I would be looking forward to seeing her again when I get back. Maybe I’ll even get her an airport ashtray.
Oh yes, before you ask, no I have not yet asked her out. I haven’t quite really mustered up yet. I’m not very confident I know how to ask a girl out anymore. Weird innit?
Anyway, so I texted her this evening. Some elaborate bullshit about what if I take her for a drink if she is not really busy this week because I will be away again next week.
Yes, I text, I don’t know how to talk on phones and stuff. People that knows me and have my telephone number will testify that I am a very difficult person on the phone. I’m not a big fan and I am not very sociable and I get very nervous when I have to call anyone. So I don’t generally call girls, unless I really, really want to hear the voice.
So I texted and I didn’t call.
Then I prayed to Almighty God that she would reply.
She did and we’re set for a dinner next weekend. I think that’s a good thing.
Read More..
Or not.
It’s really none of your business. As always it involved a girl and a whole lot of other things that shouldn’t have happened.
The Oasis show was fun, of course. I’ve been going to quite a number of live concerts recently and it was better than even The Police in Singapore last year. She was better than my companion to the Singapore show and this is somehow not a good thing.
I’m getting sick of this whole dating girls in different time zone thing. I have made a solemn promise to myself that the next time I’m getting involved with anyone for any degree of commitment, then she would have to be at least in the same time zone.
I therefore started flirting with another character, a Jakarta resident living just within reach to the office. I do some work for the company but I don’t really work with her in any ways, so that’s not really a professional thing. She’s sweet, smart and interesting. Maybe the fact that she is both sweet and smart is interesting.
Except that now work keeps taking me to Hong Kong. Granted, I have taken every measures so that I won’t have to visit Singapore. It’s probably natural in this region that it’s either Singapore or Hong Kong, I just find the latter that much more fun.
Anyhow, so I’m going back to Hong Kong next week, for the third time in the last six weeks and I felt like I should probably ask this girl out before I leave. If she is really interesting, then I would be looking forward to seeing her again when I get back. Maybe I’ll even get her an airport ashtray.
Oh yes, before you ask, no I have not yet asked her out. I haven’t quite really mustered up yet. I’m not very confident I know how to ask a girl out anymore. Weird innit?
Anyway, so I texted her this evening. Some elaborate bullshit about what if I take her for a drink if she is not really busy this week because I will be away again next week.
Yes, I text, I don’t know how to talk on phones and stuff. People that knows me and have my telephone number will testify that I am a very difficult person on the phone. I’m not a big fan and I am not very sociable and I get very nervous when I have to call anyone. So I don’t generally call girls, unless I really, really want to hear the voice.
So I texted and I didn’t call.
Then I prayed to Almighty God that she would reply.
She did and we’re set for a dinner next weekend. I think that’s a good thing.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
List of Games I Play
I don’t do consoles and please don’t ask me about games on Apple – I don’t do Apple (more on this later).
There is no particular point to this list.
I just like making lists.
* My Game Rig is a blitzy Twin Pentium Gigathingy running on a very lean XP - only download the most important updates, blocked ports only for specific internet access, therefore no residents or background processses. 4GB of RAM and three 250GB drives with two ATI Glitzheon video cards - one on a 19" wide screen LCD and the other to an old tube. When i really like it or when i play Need For Speed, a 15m cable extension puts it on the big screen to play on a wireless keyboard from the couch.
The rest of the house has an old ASUS laptop that runs as the internet box and other nerdy functions and they both map to my old game rig which now holds 1TB of storage. It keeps all my MP3, torrent movies, photos and regular backups. That box runs Linux of some flavor and had not require any tinkering for almost over a year now. Another laptop has a broken screen and now connected to the home theatre permanently, it runs Media Portal and Shoutcast terminal - streams the media files to the TV so i can watch porn on big screen and works as the output while i choose the music from my Workbook. The workbook is a Fujitsy PSomething or Other with a built in everything, including a 3.G HSDPA modem. It runs everything i want to run nicely enough and it's the only Vista box in the house.
All the Windows copies are legit software (most come with the box). Internet connections are via Speedy for the torrent terminal , Telkomsel 3.5G on my workbook and Indosat IM2 on Internet Box.
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- Freecell
- Pong. I play pong on a Commodore 64. I still maintain a perfectly functioning one at home except that the tape reader seemed a bit funny.
- Digger. 386DX box – likewise, a functioning one with a 20MB harddisk (the size of about 6 iPods). I memorized hex to hack into the levels.
- Lode Runner and Castle Wolfenstein. Both on an Apple IIc (currently missing a drive).
- Prince of Persia, both the AT version as well as the new one but never got to the end.
- Civilization Series. I been playing this one since the very first one and I have a couple of games going on Civ IV. It’s the only game I have on my workbook (Alexander, Greek)
- Sim City. I use to play a lot of it until I got to Jakarta (this town is impossible).
- RailRoad Tycoon 3. I really like the series – it’s an excellent educational tool in supply and demand marketplace.
- King’s Quest, Larry Leisure Suit, the Ultima series and Jagged Alliance. This are the first RPGs I really got into in the post text world but generally, it goes with the D&D rules.
- Baldur’s Gate, BG2, Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights 2. – the first games with the proper rules, these games all kept me awake for 40 hours plus. They’re addictive. I usually play a Fighter/Wizard combo but by Neverwinter Nights 2, the whole multi classing thing got to a ridiculously complicated model. No need to get into it.
- Neverwinter Nights 2. I finished only after activating the cheat console. The game was too fucking complicated, it wasn’t worth going through the hassle –except that I still want to see the end. It was rather spectacular though really, a disappointment.
- Assasin’s Creed. I only picked up the game a few years ago while I was researching Jerusalem (significant part of the game involves you jumping around in a rough Jerusalem look alike 3D model). The graphics are spectacular and it was a mighty impressive sight to sight into the old city as it probably was.
- Total War Series. Simply, the best game - ever. The whole series is just awesomely entertaining and awfully educational in all things World Domination. Only to experience its full awesomeness, you need to have some serious computing power.
- Fallout 3. I was a big fan of the original but I didn’t play FF2 for no good reason. It’s more of an adult game set in a post nuclear Washington DC. The game’s actually rated 18 in some countries – foul language and extreme gore, no sex (though you could technically strip all your dead victims naked).
- Need for Speed. I like driving fast.
There is no particular point to this list.
I just like making lists.
* My Game Rig is a blitzy Twin Pentium Gigathingy running on a very lean XP - only download the most important updates, blocked ports only for specific internet access, therefore no residents or background processses. 4GB of RAM and three 250GB drives with two ATI Glitzheon video cards - one on a 19" wide screen LCD and the other to an old tube. When i really like it or when i play Need For Speed, a 15m cable extension puts it on the big screen to play on a wireless keyboard from the couch.
The rest of the house has an old ASUS laptop that runs as the internet box and other nerdy functions and they both map to my old game rig which now holds 1TB of storage. It keeps all my MP3, torrent movies, photos and regular backups. That box runs Linux of some flavor and had not require any tinkering for almost over a year now. Another laptop has a broken screen and now connected to the home theatre permanently, it runs Media Portal and Shoutcast terminal - streams the media files to the TV so i can watch porn on big screen and works as the output while i choose the music from my Workbook. The workbook is a Fujitsy PSomething or Other with a built in everything, including a 3.G HSDPA modem. It runs everything i want to run nicely enough and it's the only Vista box in the house.
All the Windows copies are legit software (most come with the box). Internet connections are via Speedy for the torrent terminal , Telkomsel 3.5G on my workbook and Indosat IM2 on Internet Box.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Mr Brightside on 7am, Election Day, April 2009
She keeps Moet et Chandon
In a pretty cabinet
'Let them eat cake' she says
Just like Marie Antoinette
A built-in remedy
For Khrushchev and Kennedy
At anytime an invitation
You can't decline
~Killer Queen
Treespotter was at a barbecue party with a Killer Queen and lots of thoughts in his mind. An invitation you can't decline and offers you can't refuse.
The math of his politics fuzzy and his economic plans unsound. Sri Mulyani charms and Old Romances linger but ultimately Mr. Brightside prefers the younger ones.
There was Oasis and Jamiroquai and girls without their rockstars.
A dog and a starlet.
Queen and U2 and Chemical Brothers and the old Menteng crowd.
And oh, the Oriental just reopened.
Happy voting all.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
on Prabowo
I have neglected the other blog for too long. That one is supposed to be for the more serious stuff. Not that many serious things are happening in my life, I guess.
Well, to those of you who'd been urging me to write a little more on the Indonesian election, there's my note on meeting Prabowo Soebianto the other week. The others can stay here and read ramblings about my not-so-safe other life.
Read More..
Well, to those of you who'd been urging me to write a little more on the Indonesian election, there's my note on meeting Prabowo Soebianto the other week. The others can stay here and read ramblings about my not-so-safe other life.
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