Saturday, February 24, 2007

Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa

Blogger’s General Warning: The following entry was written between 5 and 6 a.m. Just goes to show, don’t let the Gremlin type after midnight.

Selamat sejahtera kanak-kanak. Hari ini Kak Yam akan bercerita dalam Bahasa Melayu atau kalau hendak lebih muhibbah/ nasionalistik, Bahasa Malaysia. Memang, Kak Yam atau lebih gemar dikenali sebagai ‘aku’ sudah lama tidak menulis dalam BM, sejak zaman sekolah menengah lagi. Itupun cikgu BM Tingkatan 5 aku selalu memaki hamun dan menyindir aku kerana keputusan peperiksaan Bahasa Inggeris aku selalu cemerlang tetapi yang BM pula, selalu masuk dalam longkang. Cikgu BM kata, minda aku telah dijajah. Lantas aku menjawab, minda cikgu telah dijaja di tepi jalan tanpa lesen dan disaman oleh pegawai Majlis Perbandaran yang kau rasuahnya dengan sepuluh ringgit dan dua cawan Kopi ‘O’. Dia sindir aku macam aku tak faham BM pulak. Aku tahu lah aku tak makan buku rujukan Pelangi SPM BM bersama Kismis Ajaib untuk sarapan pagi dan memuntahkannya semula kat kertas ujian; dan aku tahulah aku kerap bertutur dalam Bahasa Inggeris tetapi itu tak bermakna aku tak faham atau malu dengan Bahasa Ibunda ku sendiri.

Wahai Cikgu BM lamaku, aku bilingual-lah siiiooot!!!!!! (Malangnya, aku tak tahu perkataan Melayu untuk ‘bilingual’. Dwibahasa? Dwilingua? Bilingua? Nak guna takut DBP marah dan tuduh aku mencemarkan Bahasa. Yang RTM tu guna ‘Bajet’ untuk menggantikan ‘Perbelanjawan’ apa halnya? Dan di Putrajaya, jalan dipanggil ‘Presint’ ala ‘Precinct’ kat New York. Tapi aku suka perkataan Melayu untuk ‘download’ – muat turun. Sungguh literal. Dan bunyi macam gerakan senam Aerobik. Ooh, lapan lagi!)

Dulu masa aku di sekolah rendah (darjah 4) aku johan sajak Bahasa Melayu dan juga syair. Bila aku bagi tahu kawan-kawan baru tentang kejayaan zaman silamku, diorang gelak, tak percaya. Sial betul. Benda yang aku memang buat lawak, tak nak gelak. Aku fahamlah suara aku sekarang, setelah dicemar dengan beribu-ribu batang Setan British American Tobacco, bunyi macam katak hisap ekzos Bas Mini dan kurang merdu untuk menyair. Yang aku tak faham, diorang tanya aku kalau aku betul-betul faham ke sajak yang aku deklarasikan. Bah! Aku kata masa Darjah 6, aku wakil sekolah untuk Pertandingan Perbahasan BM dan juga pertandingan Balas Pantun. Kawan-kawan baru yang tak guna ni, diorang gelak sampai meninggal dunia, terus jadi Angkasawan Malaysia pertama di bulan. Macamlah tak pernah tengok aku berbahas kat sekolah menengah dan kolej. “But that was in English!” jawab kawan-kawan yang tak guna ini, “Your Malay kinda sucks, man.”

Memang, sekarang secara skemanya, BM aku dah karat. Tetapi, bak kata pepatah Melayu yang aku reka sendiri, “Sekarang karat, dahulunya berkilat.” Sebab itulah aku wakil sekolah dalam pertandingan Balas Pantun. Walaubagaimanapun, aku kalah di pusingan pertama. Dengan teruk. Tambahan pula, aku pakai skirt pendek dan aku lupa duduk elok-elok. Sambil asyik memikirkan pantun, aku duduk kangkang luas-luas depan para panel hakim dan penonton sampai semua orang tahu seluar dalam aku berwarna pink yang dihiasi dengan corak rama-rama. Aku jumpa balik lawan aku 2-3 tahun kemudian, dia kata, “Oh, engkaulah budak yang pakai seluar dalam rama-rama tu!”

Malu tu, kucing pun tahu malu. Ini bukan malu, ini trauma. Mungkin sebab itulah aku dah lama tak berpuisi dalam BM. Tetapi sekarang aku dah tak kisah. Seluar aku selalu londeh (eh, betul ke eja ni?), tak payah kangkang pun boleh nampak seluar dalam. Dan kalau hari yang aku pakai seluar tapi tak pakai seluar dalam, anggaplah dirikau bertuah dapat melihat buntut ku yang cantik menawan seperti dua biji papaya tua kecut yang monyet kebuluran pun tak ada selera nak makan.

Aku kata kat kakak aku yang aku tiba-tiba teringin menulis karya dalam BM. Dia sangsi dengan kebolehan aku menulis dalam BM. “The end result will probably be rubbish, dia kata. Aku kata aku tulis dalam Bahasa Inggeris pun aku tak akan menang apa-apa anugerah sastera. Anugerah blog pun takde. (Yang tu dapat kat minah-minah gedik yang suka tampal banyak-banyak gambar muka diorang beraksi ayu. Ah, memang aku cemburu sebab muka aku lebih layu daripada ayu.) Apa bezanya kalau aku tulis dalam BM? Lebih-lebih lagi, ‘bahasa jiwa bangsa’. Malangnya bangsa ini banyak yang sakit jiwa. Kah Kah Kah (kah-kah-kah ni gelak antagonis Melayu klasik; antagonis Mat Saleh suka gelak Muah-ha-ha.)

Tadi aku main gitar burukku yang D-stringnya terputus dan sengaja aku biar tak ganti sebab macam ‘cool’ dan ‘indie’ kalau main gitar 5-string (sebenarnya, aku malas nak ganti). Sambil aku berkugiran dan melalak macam anjing kena makan buaya, terkeluar pula perkataan-perkataan BM dari mulutku secara spontan tetapi memberikan mesej yang kohesif secara keseluruhannya. Biasanya, aku tulis lirik lagu dalam Bahasa Inggeris tetapi agaknya tadi, subconscious aku yang nyanyi kot. Nampaknya Subconscious aku cakap BM walaupun aku tak tahu perkataan Melayu untuk subconscious. Subconscious aku ni memang kekurangan kebolehan artistik; lirik yang diciptanya buat aku hampa sampai nak gelak sebab kalau nangis pun buat rugi air mata sahaja. Ya, kamu nak baca lirik lagunya? Kalau tak nak, pejamlah mata kamu wahai manusia ataupun kamu boleh pergi dari sini untuk melayari berjuta-berjuta halaman web lucah tetapi kalau takut dosa, pejamlah mata kamu juga wahai manusia. Ah, ini dia lirik lagu Melayu aku yang belum siap dan tidak akan disiapkan sebab tak lulus otakku punya Quality Assurance Manager:

Oh, kau di bawah lembayung ketakutan,
Di mana lain berpijak, di situ kamu menjunjung.
Jelas kata-katamu hanyalah helah minda yang lena,
Baying-bayang tidak berpunya
Tidak akan bersuara
Sedekad berkurung dalam mimpi,
Terjaga dalam gua
Apakah bezanya?

Kan aku dah kata, kau akan hampa sampai gelak terbahak-bahak. Ah, takpe, minggu depan aku tampal gambar muka aku beraksi ayu/layu. Aku pun dah menyampah baca karya tulisan aku sendiri. Aku tulis ni pun sebab aku takde kerja lain nak buat dan tak boleh tidur sebab pagi tadi aku dah membuta sampai tengahari. Bila aku bangun, mak aku marah aku secara telepati. Apa? Secara telepati? Ya, sebab mak aku dan aku sekarang tengah ber-Perang Dingin (atas sebab yang aku tak boleh ingat) – dah dua minggu lebih dah dia tak cakap dengan aku . Dia gunakan kuasa telepatinya sahaja atau kalau reception tak bagus, dia gunakan kakak aku macam bomoh yang dijadikan medium pertengahan untuk berkomunikasi dengan orang halimunan/jin. Aku ni jin lah nampaknya. Dan ayah aku pula, eh, mana pulak dia pergi kali ini? New York? Brunei? Melaka? Ayah aku ni memang dari dulu lagi macam biskut Chipsmore – sekejap ada, sekejap takde! Dia patah tangan, tumbuh sepuluh pasang kaki dan 3 mulut baru. Balik lima minit, suruh buat kerja tu, kerja ni, bising-bising, marah-marah lepas tu dia tanya kalau aku nak makan kacang. Aku kata aku bukan monyet sarkas. Tidak boleh dipujuk dengan kacang. Tetapi belum habis aku nak mengamuk, dia lenyap. Mak aku berkata secara telepati, monyet sarkas pun berbau lebih wangi daripada kamu. Memang, kalau aku rasa depressed, aku tak mandi. Kalau angin tak baik, aku tak boleh kena air, nanti cair macam perempuan sihir dalam Wizard of Oz.

Aku sekarang, baru mula membaca buku Steppenwolf karya Herman Hesse. Dulu aku baca bukunya, Narcissus & Goldmund dan Siddharta dan aku jatuh suka dengan karya tulisannya sebab aku perasan Herman Hesse ni sama jenis sakit jiwa dengan aku. Dalam Steppenwolf, Hesse bercerita tentang Harry Haller, seorang lelaki yang “struggles to reconcile the wild primeval wolf and the rational man within himself without surrendering to the bourgeois values he despises.” Aku rasa dalam diriku pun ada manusia dan ada serigala liar. Yang serigala ni nak membaham si manusia, yang manusia pulak nak tembak serigala dan jadikan kulit dan bulunya sebagai topi dan kot berfesyen ranggi. Tapi aku rasa memang tak ada monyet sarkas dalam diri aku. Kalau ada pun, dah lama di makan Si Serigala dan otaknya pula dihisap oleh Si Manusia. Yummm.

Tengok, sekarang aku dah lari topik. Blah! Aku nak pergi tidur lah. Sekian, terima kasih.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Who's Afraid of Vagina Day?

It’s hard to convince people that you’re against the whole Valentine baloney based on principle when you’re not exactly known for having principles and that oh, you’re single. They automatically assume that you’re merely being a bitter, envious, sexually frustrated grouch that can’t get love if they sold it for a dime a dozen at Giant and would probably think better of the day if you had your own lovebunnycheesebucketvomitbagspermpuppet by your side. Funny how nobody says that when you also, verbally spit on them for wishing you a ‘Happy Birthday’ or can’t see the big deal or the point of celebrating New Year’s Eve. They take it as you just being you instead of you well, just being single.

Valentine’s Day would have gone past unnoticed for me this year had it not been for a friend text messaging me a “Happy V-Day!” complete with a dorky electronic rose that sort of looks like this: --------()--@. I had a hard time figuring out what V-Day stood for. My first thought was Vagina Day and my second thought was what the hell is Vagina Day and my third was, is there any particular reason why should one be happy on Vagina Day as compared to any other day? And then it hit me, right, Valentine’s Day. This friend should’ve known better than to waste 20 cents on a Valentine’s SMS for me. I replied the SMS with a “Shove it up ur ass and suck on my dick. Warm Wishes.” Harsh, yes, but where’s the fun in being friends with someone if you can’t tell them to suck on your imaginary sexual appendage every once in a while? Friend promptly responded with, “Bitter r we? Sum1 needs sum lovin. P.S. u r a JERK.”

No, I don’t need some loving unless it’s by Dean the Demon Hunter with pretty lashes, sexy pout and biceps as big as (but firmer than) my thighs. But oh, alright, I can be a jerk although I think if you take my imaginary penis out of the equation; a more fitting term would be “shrew”. I would however like to think that I’m a generally nice person.

My friend, on the phone with me some time later, scoffs, “Nope, you’re a jerk.”

“Handsome though,” I said. It’s a quote from aforementioned Demon Hunter but it’s also in relation to a running joke about how I’d make a fine catch if I was a man. As a woman, I’m more like a can of Coke that was thrown by some fool into the sea.

“Still a jerk. No flowers for you.”

Just as well. The last time someone gave me flowers or rather, tried to give me flowers, it didn’t end too well. I was 14 and the poor guy called me up the day before Vagina, I mean, Valentine’s Day to make a date for it. I don’t think I said yes because I remember going out guilt-free to watch a movie with my girlfriends instead. But when I switched my mobile phone back on at the end of the movie, I had several missed calls from the guy and a sad message saying that he waited all day for me at the appointed place, he even bought me roses and everything but “you can forget about it now because the roses are dead!” Judging from the tone of his voice, I think what he really wanted to say was, “You’re not the only chick in the world and you’re not that hot so you can fuck off and die like the roses did, you rotten bitch.”

No one has tried to give me flowers ever since. It might be Karma. Still, I don’t think it’s as bad as this girl I knew who once made a guy eat the roses he was trying to give her. And he did. Poor sod. Fools in the name of St. Valentine. I don’t know if anyone else has tried to give her flowers since that incident but all I can say is that giving flowers as a romantic gesture is a completely unoriginal, thoughtless idea (eating it on the other hand…) Giving chocolate isn’t very original either but it’s a safer bet in case your intended makes you eat it.

Besides, what is a flower but a plant’s sexual organ? A flower more often than not means “I’d love to get in your pants”. It can also mean, “I’m making myself think I love you because I’m afraid of dying alone. P.S. can I get into your pants?” or “Wife, I’m hoping that this flower will stop you from nagging me for five minutes so we can have sex P.S. Can I play golf this weekend?” or “I’m sorry I cheated on you. Forgive me so I can continue having sex with you.” But yes, a flower can convey non-sexual messages. When you’re sick, a flower can mean, “Get well soon so you can be of use to me once more” or “Aren’t you allergic to pollen? Suffer and die, bitch!” It can also mean, “You’re dead. Oh, damn.” Of course, on V-Day, a flower probably means nothing more than “Everyone else is giving flowers so I guess I should too and you’re probably expecting it because everyone else is getting flowers so here you go. P.S. Can I get into your pants tonight?”

“So, what’s original then?” asked a friend.

I don’t know, if both you and I had thought about it before a guy thought of it then it wouldn’t be very original, would it?

“Woman, you’re impossible. What do you want a guy to do? Write you a song?!”

Well, that brings me to another story. I was in Form Four and this boy I had met through mutual friends and had spoken to a mere handful of times rang me up on V-Day, saying that he wrote a song especially for me, declaring his love. Now, this guy has a habit of “falling in love” with every breathing thing without a dick that passes his way and unfortunately, I was one of these things. It’s hard to take a declaration of love from someone like him seriously. And he made it even harder with his song.

Yes, let me tell you about his song. I remember it because it was too awful to forget. I was a big EPL fan back then (now, I couldn’t really give two hoots) and was a Liverpool supporter and I think this was the only thing he knew about me. He was a Manchester United fan and the song went something like, “There’s not much difference between me and you, except you like Liverpool and I like Man U but baby, it makes no difference because it’s true, I’m just so truly in love with you…..”

I thought I was going to have an aneurysm and die and had to abruptly end the phone call so I could laugh in peace. Besides, I was afraid I’d catch whatever vile disease it was that made him write that song. The song was no Layla and he’s no Eric Clapton, that’s for sure but hey, I’m no Patti Boyd. Fair enough.

I told this guy in our very next phone conversation (an hour later) that I didn’t feel the same way about him (how could I? would you?). I thought I was nice about it. I did sprinkle some sugar on top of the rejection. I told him I appreciated the effort he put into the song (uh, kay, this might’ve been patronizing) and that he had a really sexy singing voice (which I meant). Of course, I made the mistake of telling a big mouthed friend in “confidence” that “too bad the rest of him isn’t as sexy as his voice” and the comment was ultimately relayed back to the guy.

Boy, did I get into trouble for that remark. Apparently, he exploded with a “What?! And here I thought Maryam was a nice girl but she’s a fucking bitch!!!!!!” His big sister threatened to hunt me down and beat the crap out of me.

Hey, wait a minute. Your baby brother said ‘fucking bitch’. Maybe you should smack his mouth around first before you smack mine. And what’s this, Richard Marx, getting your sister to fight it out for you? Nevermind chivalry, machismo is dead and it wasn’t even a violent death.

Anyway, a week after his big musical declaration of love and hate for this fucking bitch, he was off chasing the skirt of Big Mouthed Friend and shortly after, declared his deep, true love for some other girl in my school and the cycle continues…..

Yes, I think that was the last time anyone has tried to be romantic with me. Now the few interested guys just stare at my boobs or get all wandering hands on the dance floor. That’s as romantic as they get. Well hey, while I will still jab your sperm sack with a corkscrew if you grab my ass without permission, I do appreciate the honesty and straightforwardness. One needs to be able to tell love from lust and love from infatuation and love from sheer desperation and low standards. And try not to tell it in a song. Please. Even Eric Clapton writes shit songs these days.

In my humble opinion, flowers are bad but when it comes to love, you can’t do worst than trying to show it with words – be it in a song or a V-day card or a spoken “But I love you, really, I swear, by the moon and the stars in the sky.” And don’t go ripping off Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 either. God knows we’ve all heard it one too many times and Shakespeare is a cunt in tights and frills. Would you like to be a cunt in tights and frills? When he wrote, shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, I’m sure he meant, “You’re hot. Let’s take our clothes off and get wet like people usually do in summer.” (words = worst) because people use words to cover up the truth, deceive, manipulate, outright lie. Seriously, have you ever tried lying without the use of words? If yes, then I’m sure it wasn’t easy and you were probably unsuccessful. Also, how can you say you’re “truly in love” with a person you barely even know for about a week? Does actual love come and go that easy? Maybe it does, maybe I’m naïve. Or maybe just saying it (or singing it. Ugh) is. Easy. For some people. I’d rather remove my tonsils with a teaspoon.

Regardless, what I hate about V-day is that it encourages people to employ all these gimmicks – flowers, words, etc to “celebrate love” and the whole mob mentality of it all. It cheapens the very thing it’s supposed to celebrate. Oh, and the idea that romance is scheduled in once a year on a set date everyone knows about and restaurants, hotels, spas will offer couples special packages at a special discount – geez, I’m sorry, but the words “schedule”, “everyone”, “package dinner/getaway” and “discount” kind of sucks the romance out of it, don’t you think?

You see, I’m not against V-Day because I’m bitter that I’m single. Hey man, if I wanted to be part of a couple for the sake of being part of a couple, I could by tomorrow (alright, maybe I’d have to actually shower and leave the house. Maybe get some plastic surgery and a new personality, oh, fuck you). My point is, I’m happy to be single fully knowing that I haven’t settled for just any person offering a plant’s vagina. After all, I’m still young, eh? I still have time to hold out for the fairy tale, for my Demon Hunter Charming to come riding in his 67’ Chevy Impala and whisk me off into the full moon where we will kick demon butt together ever after (I’d drive myself but my car’s not working). Also, I’m delusional. That helps.

And for that, I think I should get points for being a true, hopeless romantic. So call me a jerk (I am, I am) but don’t call me a heartless bitch and don’t make jibes about me being as romantic as a root canal performed without anesthesia on a perfectly healthy tooth by a sadistic dentist high on laughing gas and wielding a chainsaw.

“Dude, let’s face it, you’re too cynical to be a romantic,” a friend insisted.

“I’m not cynical,” I argued.

“Fine, realist, whatever. Remember once, when I said to you that love is the greatest, single most important thing in the world, that people live and die from love? What did you say?”

Oh, right. I said, funny, I thought people live and die from unprotected sex. Well, it’s true. You think storks brought 6.5 billion people to this planet? And like Lisa Kudrow’s character in The Opposite of Sex said, “You think they would coin the term ‘died at childbirth’ if it was a one-off thing?” (or something like that). And AIDS is a killer epidemic. And sex raises one’s heart rate and if one has a weak heart and popped one too many Viagra pills well yeah, one can drop dead from doing it.

“Romantic, huh?”

Oh, Happy Vagina Day to you too.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Sherwood Condos

The Sunday edition of The Star has a section where kids/little demon spawns can submit their drawings/demon graffiti and have it published if it’s any cute (I’m reluctant to use the word ‘good’).

When I was in my early primary years, (I can’t remember whether I was 6 or 9 or somewhere in between), the section ran a little story on Robin Hood & his Merry Men. At the end of the story, they asked us young readers what we thought Sherwood Forest would look like in this modern day and age – draw it on a piece of paper, mail it to them and selected entries will be published the following Sunday. This was a time when I was still bothered to try and get anything of mine published in the mainstream Malaysian press. I thought long and hard about the topic and I came to the conclusion that surely by now, Sherwood Forest would have been ravaged by development. So I set about drawing a big, yellow bulldozer, men with chainsaws and a dozen dead and chopped up trees. I think I might’ve even sketched in a condominium or two and emaciated wildlife scampering away.

You see, my dad worked in Environment back then and it is his nature to insist that his kids take much interest in his work even if he takes little real interest in ours. By the time I started school, I was relatively well-learned or at least aware of the issue of deforestation, illegal logging, sustainable and non-sustainable development, the clearing of rainforests to make way for a hydro-electric dam, all while struggling to multiply 7 by 12. I also grew up near Bukit Gasing and it was around this time that they started wrecking the green lung to make way for high rise condos. What was a nice, old suburb surrounded by greens before became a so-so, old suburb surrounded by another suburb.

Well anyway, all that thinking and drawing was a damn waste of time and stamps. The drawings that were selected to be published were those that depicted sparkling blue lakes, rainbows and flowers and big trees, squirrels and bunnies happily trawling fra-la-la around the forest in one big, kumbaya ecological love-fest. And if I remembered correctly, one even featured a unicorn. Give me a break - a bloody unicorn?!!! If unicorns didn’t exist back then, they sure as hell weren’t going to exist in the 90s and if they did, don’t you think they would’ve fallen victim to poachers for their magical horns?

But I’m not bitter. I still occasionally read The Star. Of course, that’s only because I have a pathological need to be lied to. Remember people, unicorns are real and every mushroom cloud has a rainbow lining.

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* The blogger insists that her drawing was not horrible. Her old art teachers from school might beg to differ. But then, in the words of Jonathan Swift, “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” I’m a fucking genius!!!!!!!!!!! Uh. Ok, no. Maybe I just can’t draw.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Wookiee Gone Wild

You read the papers and on the second page, the Deputy Prime Minister is saying that Malays are not lazy and that the community would do well to instill strong Islamic values in their children and you’re thinking, oh, tell me something important instead of your usual racial politicking or shut the fuck up, save your energy for getting someone to clean up the bits of skeleton in your closet or here’s a thought, go run the damn country. You read the papers and you feel like you sympathize with the plight of the flood victims in Johor. Then you go out and a car with a Johor license plate is being an ass on KL streets and you find yourself nastily thinking, Go back and drown in your flood, asshole! You immediately regret having the thought at all; you’re a rotten person and you should do more to help those less fortunate than yourself. Instead, you go home and read the papers and they’re reporting that the US’ National Intelligence Estimate have concluded the situation in Iraq is only going to get worse and you’re thinking well, doh, one doesn’t need much intelligence to figure that one out. The papers are reporting that the US government have come up with a clever, brand new strategy for Iraq and that is to….wait for it……send in more troops and you’re thinking, wasn’t that your old strategy? And they’re reporting that Iraqis are fighting themselves but they’re not the only ones who have resorted to in-fighting. The Palestinians, taking a rest from fighting Israel perhaps, have resorted to a spot of in-fighting too - Fatah vs. Hamas and you’re thinking alright then, it sounds like a new development but it’s not really since someone, somewhere is always fighting in the land so dearly mentioned by the Torah, the Bible, the Quran. You read the papers about the very important issue of global warming and they’re telling you It’s Real! It’s Real! and it’s man-made and again, you’re thinking well, doh, what’s new?

And then you read the papers and learn about Chewbacca gone amok on the streets of Los Angeles and you’re ……wait, Wookie Gone Wild???! Here’s an excerpt from the Los Angeles Times report (Feb 3rd 2007):

The buzz on Hollywood Boulevard on Friday was over the Chewbacca who police say crossed over to the dark side in front of hundreds of tourists at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
LAPD officers arrested "Star Wars" street performer Frederick Evan Young, 44, of Los Angeles in his furry brown wookiee costume Thursday on a charge of misdemeanor battery for allegedly head-butting a tour guide who complained about Young's treatment of two visitors from Japan.
Authorities said it began when a Star Line Tours guide allegedly observed the Chewbacca character harassing two young girls from a rival Japanese tour company.
Guide Brian Sapir said that when he asked the performer not to touch the visitors, Young became angry.
"You could see in his eyes he was exploding beneath the mask," Sapir said Friday. "He yelled at me, 'Nobody tells this wookiee what to do!' "

See, I always knew these Star Wars freaks pose a danger to society. Bad Chewy, bad, bad, Chewy, what would LucasFilms say? “We are disappointed that someone dressed as Chewbacca would behave in this way.”


Previous Entry: Cooking With Three Generations

Cooking with Three Generations

My grandmother’s kitchen has always been the busiest place in her house and today, even with more than half of its original occupants gone, it still bustles with energy and activity that one might think would only be reserved for the festive season or a visit from 10 army battalions, demanding to be fed by sundown.

I had taken my grandmother out earlier in the day to buy a few groceries and supplies at the local hypermarket. Over seventy years old and riddled with joint pains, she had walked at a crawling, snail-like pace and looked at risk of collapsing somewhere between the canned goods and dry goods aisle.

But there was something about being in her own kitchen that gave her endless reserves of energy. She was barking orders, darting from one end to another, mashing bananas with the kind of force and strength that would rival that of Xena the Warrior Princess. At her command was a well-oiled army consisting of her new domestic helper, my mom, and my mom’s domestic helper. And I, I was the trumpet player they sometimes brought along to stand around and make a lot of noise.

I would normally avoid my grandmother’s kitchen while she was working partly for fear of disrupting her battle plans (my mother claims that everything I touch turns to mess and I’d do best to stay away. She calls me the “Kitchen-Molester”) but mostly because I’m just lazy and would rather be sprawled on the living room floor, bitching about the heat and boredom and how we should outfit my grandmother’s house with air-conditioning, ASTRO and broadband internet connection. That is usually when my mother will make some kind of snide reference to me being a princess (“Tuan Puteri Diraja Pulau Pinang” – the fact that Pulau Pinang has no royal family only adds to the sarcasm). If I still insist on making no effort to conceal my domestic uselessness and laziness by disappearing out of sight, then my mother will proceed by comparing me to a beached whale and complain to her mother that she doesn’t know what she did to deserve daughters like this. She claims she was always a good daughter. My grandmother never gives any kind of response to this comment. Perhaps, she begs to differ.

Today though, was different. Today, this princess’ banishment from the Exalted Kingdom of Kitchens had been lifted and I was actually invited as an observer which meant that I got in everyone’s way by just standing around like a structurally redundant pillar in a crowded shopping mall. Among other things, my grandmother was making two traditional Malay desserts, Pengat Pisang and Lepat Pisang both of which I enjoy eating, clueless about preparing and tend to confuse the names of the two dishes with eachother.

Ah tu lah, pasal nak makan pandai, nak masak tak tahu. This is your opportunity to learn,” said my mother.

“Wait, which one is the pengat and which one is the lepat again?” I asked.

Both my mother and my grandmother looked disappointed at my confusion which they had mistaken for ignorance. They pointed to the thingie wrapped in banana leaf in the steamer, “Lepat.” The creamy, stew-like thing boiling in the pot was “Pengat tapi orang Utara panggil ni Serawa”. I nodded, unwrapped a Lepat and swallowed almost the entire thing in one go.

My grandmother asked how is it that I managed to survive on my own in Australia without knowing how to cook. This is where I need to defend my culinary honor. I do know how to cook but I will admit that my cooking skills are limited to crazy Asian-Italian fusion pasta dishes, simple stir-fries, and an assortment of experimental nameless dishes not commonly known to any culture that by a combination of luck and relatively good instincts, turned out better than expected. I don’t know a single recipe to anything. Once in a while, I’d like to be able to tell people what it is exactly I’m cooking instead of, “Dunno, I’m just throwing a bunch of stuff into a pan.” I’d like to make some authentic, traditional Malay dishes.

(We had a pot-luck picnic for my college’s inter-cultural communications class once, where everyone was encouraged to bring a dish that reflected their own culture. I was the dolt that ended up bringing bottles of Coke. I came up with some sham excuse about being the child of Globalization, Capitalism and American Imperialism through soft-power and what better represents all this than Coke? Truth was, I was cheap, lazy and had forgotten all about the event until 10 minutes before and Coke was readily available at the 7-Eleven on the way. The Danish exchange students were smart enough to bring Carlsberg beer, at least the brand’s Danish, just like them. Wait, is Carlsberg Danish?)

My mother assigned me the task of mashing some bananas for the Lepat. Instead of shirking away from work like I usually do, I took it as a good sign that I was no longer Marie Antoinette, worthy of only eating cake and a trip to the guillotine and was now a proud member of the working plebs that will one day sick and tire of making cakes. I mashed the bananas as if they were the heads of all the people that had gotten on my nerves this past week – with much enthusiasm.

“You’re not doing it right!” yelled my mother. She grabbed the bowl of half-mashed bananas from me and nudged me to the side. “This is how you do it,” she said and mash, mash, mash, she went in what seemed to me, exactly the same way I mashed it. Is there really a proper way to mash things? Mashing is mashing, no?

Okay, okay, I nodded and tried to grab the bowl back from her. “Nevermind,” she said, moving away, “Faster if I do it myself.”

Fine, I’ll keep my incompetence to myself. I’ll go back to performing my beached whale act on the living room floor. As I walked out of the kitchen in a bit of a princess-y huff, hurt pride and all, grabbing a cooked lepat on the way, I hear my grandmother sharply reprimand my mother for not mashing the bananas in this mythical Right Way. She grabbed the bowl from my mother and my mother tried in vain to reclaim her place in the Kitchen Army. Too late.

My mother gave me the look she always gave me when she wanted to say, “Look how nice I am as compared to my mother.”

All I could say was, Ha-Ha….Ha-Ha….Hahahahahahaa.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Residue

There’s a song by Iggy Pop called I’m Bored and it goes, I’m bored, I’m the chairman of the ‘bored’, I’m a lengthy monologue, I’m living like a dog, I’m bored, I bore myself to sleep at night, I bore myself in broad daylight cause I’m bored. If anyone is ever dumb enough to make a TV show of my life, I want this to be the theme song. It’s either this or a low, droning sound. Whichever one is cheaper and easier to acquire the rights to.

A friend in the vaguest sense of the word is suffering from a catastrophe of apocalyptical proportions, “Oh my god, I can’t go to Maison this Thursday. I’ve been there every Thursday night for the past three weeks! People are going to think I’m such a loser if I show up there again!”

I feel my eyes rolling to the back of my head. My head is a magic 8 ball but instead of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ it says ‘uh-huh’ which means I’m not really listening and I don’t really care either way and ‘please..’ which is an abbreviation of pleaseshutup. I’ve known her since secondary school and she was always a stickler for rules. She did everything she was supposed to in school; everything that people told her would look good on a college application.

Well, the rules have changed since school but she hasn’t - still a stickler for rules that aren’t entirely based on logic. Now apparently, you must not be seen at the same club on 3 Thursday nights in a row or loser be thy name. Please, it’s dark in there and everyone is drunk. Do you think anyone is going to remember you were there last week, let alone be thinking that you’re a failure in life based on your repeated patronage of a nightspot? Do you really think anyone would be doing anything that can qualify as ‘thinking’?

We’re having dinner with a few mutual friends and they’re all talking about guys – “Blablabla is cute, blablabla was so into you. Is he really into me? No, I don’t like him. But oh, he’s so cute, if he’s going, I’ll go but I don’t like him, oh, maybe I do but only if he likes me, I don’t think he likes me, why doesn’t he like me? Not that I like him but he has to like me. So what if I have a boyfriend? I’m not going to play him, oh, I just want to play around with him, should I play him? Oh, I like him if he likes me blablablablabla..”

I’m starting to wonder why I’m here. I feel like the Mouth of Hell opened up and I’ve been plunged into its deepest depths which just so happens to be an episode of Laguna Beach. I don’t know whether I need to grow the fuck up or they do but I’m certain that I don’t belong at this table anymore. And yet here I am, creature of habit, you.

The restaurant is closing and we’re now heading to a 24 hour mamak, 250 metres down the road.

“We’re not going to walk there, are we? Why can’t we take the car?” says one friend.

I start off on a rant about how half the world’s problems are due to oil and petroleum and we would do well by trying to consume less. I’m partly serious; the other part is merely alluding to Mark Wahlberg’s character in I Heart Huckabees.

“Oh my god, what happened to you?!!” says Vague Friend in shock-horror, “You’ve turned into a hippie.”

Hippie. She’s not the first person to inaccurately slap me with the label. What if I tell her that inside; beats the mechanical blood-pumping device of a yuppie? And look, look at the people on the streets of this city, looking like yuppies but broke as a hippie.

Labels and image. Image and labels. What’s your style? What am I? No, What’s your style? This. That.

Midnight. A male acquaintance calls. I met him a few years ago through a mutual friend. He was trying to get into mutual friend’s pants at the time, right before he actually got into another mutual friend’s pants. What is he doing calling me at midnight? Attempting a booty call? Ugh. Find someone else. Or does he want to cure my insomnia, just like he used to, by whinging about the latest girl who ditched his poor, sleazy soul? Ugggh. I don’t pick up his call. He won’t stop calling. But I won’t stop to answer.

I’m hanging out with someone I used to know from college. She works six nights a week and hasn’t gotten any sleep since 2003. She announces she just got paid today. “Now, I can buy drugs!” she whimpers with joy. Yes, one can whimper joy. All she wants to talk about are the days when I used to get high with her and getting high in the present and getting high in the future. No matter what I say, I can’t steer her away from the topic. “Oh my god, my friend had like 15 pills on him yesterday. Man, today’s my first day without batu, it sucks, weiii but I’m getting some tonight…. I’ve got a whole set of K on me. Wanna powder your nose with me, just like old times? Why not? Why are you so uptight these days? You know what would loosen you up? Some horse tranquilizers.……”

I thought she had quit. It was not so long ago that she overdosed on Ecstasy pills and landed in the ICU .

“Hey, maaan. I don’t pop anymore. Just Ice and K,” she defends herself and vacuums thick lines of white powder up her nostrils.

I tell her it was nice to see her again but I’ve got to be home soon.

“Why, your mother?” she asks.

No. Me. This is the past. You can’t re-create it; you can’t repeat it or it’ll end up like that song you played one too many times. The thrill is gone and it makes you sick to hear it again. A song by Matisyahu comes to mind and the Hasidic reggae-man is singing, “If you’re trying to stay high, you’re bound to stay low……”

“I’ll rescue you from your mom,” the friend says and a few more dozing horses sleepwalk up her nostrils. She starts to feel sick and pukes all over her own car. “I don’t know why I’m feeling sick…….”

I can guess.

“It’s the damn smoothie I had earlier. There was milk in it. I’m lactose intolerant!” she says.

You’re probably horse tranquilizer-intolerant too. Seeing how you’re not quite a horse.

She pukes again. “Babe, help me, I’m feeling like shit……”

She was always a lightweight. I give her some water. She curls up into a ball in her car. “Right. That’s it. No more. I’m sending you home,” I say.

The next day, she calls me and asks, “Hey man, how are you?”

I should be asking her that question.

“Hey, I got some more K for today. Snort some with me? Why won’t you snort some with me? Babe, I’ve missed you when you were in Oz! Are you the Queen of K that I used to know or not?” she asks.

No. I’ve not only abdicated, I’m in exile. Long live the plebs.

She calls the next day and the conversation is repeated. She pleads and I say no thanks, not today. She calls the following day. And the next. And the next and her questions never vary and my answer stays the same. I stop picking up her calls and after awhile, she stops calling. I sincerely hope she’s not dead.

I sit at home and watch TV late at night and I realize that I know exactly what’s going to happen in the next 45 minutes within the first 15 minutes of a show. I must be psychic. I’m either that good or they’re really that bad.

Part of my routine since I’ve been home: Monday and Tuesday mornings, I drive my mom to her religious class near Asian Heritage Row, opposite the bars and clubs I used to frequent when my mom was out of the country somewhere and couldn’t keep a leash on me. Like all Promised Lands, those clubs and bars seem now like a waste of time, an absolute mess not worth fighting for. I can never sleep at night but I hate getting up early in the morning and driving through KL rush hour traffic. Still, I figured helping my mom get to her kelas agama is sort of a good deed, isn’t it? I drop my mom off at the front of the building, and her tote holds a copy of the Quran. On the car stereo, Nazareth’s Heir of the Dog is playing and I’m singing along – “Hell don’t mess with a SON OF A BITCH!!!” The irony doesn’t dawn on me until much later.

Johnny Cash comes along and he’s singing, “You can run onnnnn for along time, run onnnnnn for a long time, sooner or later, God’ll cut you down, sooner or later, God’ll cut you down……”

I pick my mom up two hours later and Sublime’s Santeria is playing on the stereo. I’m singing along happily. There’s something about Sublime that puts me in a cheerful mood. “If he knows what is good for him, he best go run and hide, Daddy’s got a new 45…and I won’t think twice to stick that foul stick down sancho’s throat, believe me when I say that I got something for his punk-ass……”

“Well, someone’s happy today,” says my mom. “I can never tell when you’re going to be in a good mood and when you’re going to be grumpy. You’re very unstable…”

Unstable? I think of the periodic table or whatever parts of it that I can remember. I think of a horse stable being torn down. Unstable? “I’m not unsta---”

Some car is pulling a lane-changing stunt and nearly runs me off the road. I lose it. I chase him down Jalan Maarof, screaming bloody murder. Okay, maybe a little unstable.

“Maryam, please. You’re not very pretty when you’re angry,” my mom says.

And I say, or was I yelling that the guy’s an idiot and why would I care if an idiot sees me at my prettiest or not? Would he be more considerate and have more concern for my life and safety if I was prettier? Judging by his driving, he’s blind anyhow so it wouldn’t make a bloody lot of difference would it?

My mom shrugs, “You have a lot of anger issues…..”

No, I don’t. I had a lot of anger issues. When I was 13. Now I’m just bored. Bored and sick and tired. Anything else, everything else, is all just residue from shots fired in the past.

This is all just residue.