tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-234066112024-03-07T21:01:48.226-06:00The SwampmanFrom the swamps of East Borneo to the bayous of Louisiana, I steadfastly remain, THE Swampman. I sincerely hope you will enjoy these stories as much as i enjoy writing them. Which is a lie, as writing is a pain for swamp dwellers like me!Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-25565399351211335872014-07-12T02:48:00.000-05:002014-07-12T02:48:36.359-05:00OMG - Book Review by Connie Goh<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Pacha's my sister. Here's Connie's review of her latest book. Thanks Connie!</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h1 class="entry-title" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-width: 0px; clear: both; color: #003754; font-family: bignoodletitlingregular; font-size: 45px; line-height: 45px; margin: 0px 0px 25px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://theschool.my/parenting/getting-to-know-allah-through-the-canvases-of-a-mother-and-her-5-year-old/" target="_blank">Getting to Know Allah Through the Canvases of a Mother and her 5 year-old</a></h1>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
This week, I will be reviewing an amazing book called OMG (Oh-My-God) by Pacha & Bali, a gem I discovered during a recent book hunt for local book authors. I have been collecting books especially children ones to build a mini library at home. You may also hunt for more bargains for Raya or even donate food and other necessities to be given away to the homeless at the Strada Bazaar located on Level G of The School by Jaya from now until 25 July 2014. The bazaar operates daily from 3 to 10 pm.</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a class="fancybox" href="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1504074_770137763026421_5759514524979987532_n.jpg" rel="gallery" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #57c6d0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-672 aligncenter" src="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/1504074_770137763026421_5759514524979987532_n.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: none; clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px auto 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="1504074_770137763026421_5759514524979987532_n" width="600" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
Unlike the conventional children books about fairy tales, adventures, characters, phonics, and so on, this truly is a unique find; it is a rare book about Allah explained through fun and colourful canvases painted by a mother, fondly known as Pacha and her talented 5 year-old daughter named after the island of Bali.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
When I first picked up this book, I had zero expectation of what I will find in the book, other than reviews by others telling me that this is a colourful book about Allah, as it explains Allah in easy to understand terms. So I decided to contact the author through her Facebook account.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
Can you imagine my excitement when Pacha replied me? I mean, as a book lover, I was excited to be able to speak to the author. The feeling is akin to fans meeting a celebrity. And so I asked Pacha, why this book?</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
According to Pacha,<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> “The book is done because I have ‘googled’ the Internet and also tried to find in local bookstores, any children’s version of a good night book of Allah’s attributes in English. Unfortunately, there were none. Some came close but they are just not engaging or good enough for kids to understand it. At first, I did my own adaptation by using slip of notes and read it to Bali even before she turned 1 year old. When Bali started taking art classes in 2012, we began to paint. Our paintings, with God’s will, were later turned into the beautiful Art Coffee Table Book with light explanation of Allah’s names, after inspirations and helps from friends and family.”</em></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a class="fancybox" href="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/profile-pic-with-bali.jpg" rel="gallery" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #57c6d0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-673" src="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/profile-pic-with-bali.jpg" height="580" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: none; clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px auto 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="profile pic with bali" width="580" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
Later on, I picked up the actual book from Pacha and started reading it myself and occasionally, to my 2 year-old daughter who kept asking me about the paintings. True enough, for a non-Muslim, this is indeed an easy read. There are a total of 30 paintings and 99 Allah’s names or attributes explained in beautiful, sometimes catchy poems, all compacted into this 3ft x 3ft hardcover. Pacha and Bali shared their favourite things and places through their paintings.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a class="fancybox" href="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/10500460_783639835009547_2012738482355899259_n.jpg" rel="gallery" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #57c6d0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-674" src="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/10500460_783639835009547_2012738482355899259_n.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: none; clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px auto 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="10500460_783639835009547_2012738482355899259_n" width="550" /></a><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Floating Lanterns in Jimbaran </em></strong>by Pacha & Bali<br />
<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Attributes of God in this painting are: The Appreciative, The Most High, The Most Great, The Preserver and The Giver</em></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
I would definitely recommend this book to my friends, Muslims or non-Muslims who are interested on the subject or want to understand who Allah IS. According to one peer in my reading club, this book is too beautiful and helps the non-Muslim to understand the Muslim better and Who they are worshipping for.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="fancybox" href="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/10505618_791971384176392_3840006158079926133_n.jpg" rel="gallery" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #57c6d0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-675" src="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/10505618_791971384176392_3840006158079926133_n.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: none; clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px auto 12px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="10505618_791971384176392_3840006158079926133_n" width="550" /></a>Mexicola</strong> by Pacha & Bali</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
As for my takeaways from this book? The simple descriptions of the 99 names found in Quran “painted” an overall picture of Who Allah IS and depicts His awesomeness to the believers. What’s more interesting is that the paintings are very down-to-earth yet suggest deeper meanings if one would observe closely. My favourite piece is none other than <em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Pisang Goreng and Godok time with Nenek</em>. It talks about the borrowed life Allah gave to His believers and the guidance to the Right Path He bestowed. However, it gives me a sense of homeliness and the strong family ties that keep one’s sanity in-check in this ever changing world full of challenges.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
The book also teaches one on faith, forgiveness, humility and compassion. It advises readers to learn to give, to listen, and to see all things that is good and appreciate life even in tough times.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
This is a catch my dear readers, and an ideal book to give to your loved one during this holy month of Ramadan. You may order your very own copy through <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/OMG-by-Pacha-Bali/732644400109091?fref=ts" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #57c6d0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">OMG by Pacha & Bali Facebook Page.</a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
—————</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #003754; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a class="fancybox" href="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Connie-Goh-Profile-1.jpg" rel="gallery" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #57c6d0; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-618" src="http://theschool.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Connie-Goh-Profile-1-131x131.jpg" height="131" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: none; display: inline; float: left; margin: 4px 24px 12px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Connie Goh Profile 1" width="131" /></a><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Connie Goh traded her corporate career as a communications specialist to become a full-time mother to her now two year-old while waiting eagerly to the birth of her second bub through gentle birthing. Since becoming a mother, she has been an avid advocate for breastfeeding, attachment parenting and gentle birthing. She writes for The School and believes in learning through play and holistic education for children.</strong></div>
<br />Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-32451724209483856322014-07-09T22:03:00.001-05:002014-07-09T22:10:48.071-05:00It's for the kids, dude.<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Some folks are probably wondering why I even bother to "expatriate myself". I wonder about it too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Truth be told I initially rejected the offer simply because of five decades worth of "</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">baggage".</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> I think the best years to become an expatriate is in your 30s or 40s when you have all that youthful energy to start a life somewhere. What more with a family in tow. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway the offer is for a limited time only. A lot can happen in five years but five years can also whiz by and before you know it, it's time to go home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In my case it has nothing to do with career progression or money. Well, may be a little on the career part (by towing the line it may be my insurance in exchange for job security). In fact I'll be making less due to some sharing with my new uncle called Sam. But the kids man? Damn, think how exciting this must be for them?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-51076109111844861342014-07-06T21:21:00.003-05:002014-07-07T02:33:18.699-05:00Down the slippery slope<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">FOUR YEARS AGO when I had last put my thoughts on this blog I had an inkling that for me at least, there is no where to go but down. I was approaching fifty at the time so mid-life "issues" might have something to do with it. Maybe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I had lost some friends and family over the intervening period. 2013 was the worst though. Apart from my Dad's passing, barely </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">a week after his </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">one of my best friends from high school succumbed to Stage IV colo-rectal cancer. In the weeks leading to the inevitable I was visiting my old man at a hospital 30 miles away, sometimes two three times a day, and also dropping by to see Mole at his sister's house on the way back. By then he was reduced to a shell, naked on his bed </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">lotus position,</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">holding his head with his hands fighting a pain that narcotics can barely alleviate. So you can imagine tha</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">t I may have needed some emotional rescuing at that point.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway fast forward to 2014. Life went on as usual in the swamps of eastern Borneo. Then the work died down so I was put on loan to the other side of Borneo (the north side). In early April, a day or two before</span><a href="http://zorro-zorro-unmasked.blogspot.com/" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank"> Unker Bernard</a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> passed away an email came in. It was sudden and unannounced and was to change my life forever. I was to be transferred lock, stock but with no smoking barrel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was the start of my heading down the slippery slope.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To cut the story short just over three weeks later I found myself in George Bush Intercontinental smiling to the CBP officer and showing him my 5-year work visa. That same night I took a connecting flight to the former French town of Lafayette, Louisiana. April wasn't even out yet -the work visa process took only two days in Kuala Lumpur - a record I'm told because that usually takes 60-90 days. Hmm, why is the refrain "we just want your money" keep going round the back of mind?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I spent two weeks in the bayous just to jump start some 'govment paperwork: Tax ID, SocSec, Coast Guard letters etc and headed back home again to wait for the movers to come collect my worldly possessions from the other side of the world to Port Galveston.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Forgive me if I sound flippant. The process of uprooting one's family to the other side of the world in a space of a couple of weeks is anything but. My long-suffering better half was tasked with solving relocation headaches so it was a stressful time. At least for men my age. We have two school going children you see, a girl in primary and the elder boy in middle school. The school systems and calenders on opposite sides of the world are like night and day, so here they are in the middle of the school year when it's almost coming to an end over there. Then there's the assets and junk one accumulates through more than two decades of marriage; the house, the car, bicycles and what-not (<i>so what should we do with the house, rent it?</i>).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since these events happened less than two months ago you betcha the house hasn't been rented out yet. And the car hasn't been sold. But the bicycles and kid's toys are on its way though.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And oh, while my family lies languishing in a rented home on the outskirts of north Houston with no furniture (the steamship hasn't arrived yet) and no TV and internet, my employer saw fit to drag me away to the bayous for my first assignment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You can take the Swampman out of the swamps but the swamps always wins. Period.</span>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-81332271295720963042014-07-05T21:38:00.001-05:002014-07-09T22:00:40.163-05:00Return of the Swampman<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It has been four long years since I added anything to my near-defunct blog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have since moved from the swamps of East Borneo to the swamps of the bayous of Louisiana. More on this later but I think I may already be in purgatory as a prelude to my special place in Hell. I hear they reserve a special spot there for someone like me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A lot has happened since then; not least my three favorite bloggers have upped and gone away (see In Memoriam side-bar), the latest being <a href="http://zorro-zorro-unmasked.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Unker Bernard</a> aka Zorro this past April. Fortunately I was home for his wake where spirits were downed in an atmosphere of good cheer all around. BTW, it was the late Zorro who had nicknamed me Swampman, so it saddens me that he would never come visit my blog again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/DAP%20n%20PAS/IMG_7602_zpsdee3fe26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/DAP%20n%20PAS/IMG_7602_zpsdee3fe26.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/DAP%20n%20PAS/IMG_7618_zps692e7603.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/DAP%20n%20PAS/IMG_7618_zps692e7603.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
Three PAS reps @Zorro's funeral<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/DAP%20n%20PAS/IMG_7616_zps511c8adb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/DAP%20n%20PAS/IMG_7616_zps511c8adb.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
Me and buddy Ronnie<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Four long years is long enough to be in mourning --my Dad had also passed on in August last year...on the very same morning that <a href="http://letswheel.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Kerp </a>had lost his wife to cancer?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Enough. Time to move on.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-16975574670422813602010-07-19T08:34:00.013-05:002010-07-19T10:05:23.730-05:00Smiling For Dalilah (Scenes from Kg. Labuhan Dagang)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFbbTi4m_YH721o9kYzfAEHw7lzDXjud_2gBNUq4ov4rFTfi0yMMncLoboHcqtVf8iPxTwB-Pztr7rDJn6XHNVdKxtJSfsSW2vT7ojRrHZQqead_5Rg9EMZB-aE8ee2ojkNUU8g/s1600/IMG_6581.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 225px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFbbTi4m_YH721o9kYzfAEHw7lzDXjud_2gBNUq4ov4rFTfi0yMMncLoboHcqtVf8iPxTwB-Pztr7rDJn6XHNVdKxtJSfsSW2vT7ojRrHZQqead_5Rg9EMZB-aE8ee2ojkNUU8g/s400/IMG_6581.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495615668862309266" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:180%;">I DON'T HAVE <span style="font-size:130%;">much to say here 'cept good-bye, Dalilah</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;">...<br /><br />For a kick-off, d</span><span style="font-size:130%;">on't you think it's a strange coincidence that my last posting was EXACTLY a year ago? July 19, 2009? Yes, that's when we lost Bang Captain...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A-ny-ways...<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;">Hey, my missus was a bit upset when you became the second woman (besides her that is) to sit in my low-slung, mid-life-crisis coupe... heh heh. No other woman (yet) besides you and her has had that honor, </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >che-wah... </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br />Anyway, she was cool bout it later. Really. Hey, it's THE Raden Galoh after all!<br /><br />Today, she saw you an hour after you drew your last breath this morning, dear, And when the nurses and the ladies went out of that curtained partition around your bed, I too went in and drew the curtains around so <span style="font-style: italic;">we</span> could have our privacy and say my piece to you.<br /><br />You look so lovely with your full head of hair, D. So serene. No, I did not shed a tear for you D because I was actually happy for you. It's time you were released, dear...<br /><br />Me? No regrets for you </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >laa</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, D. You've led a heck of a life, didn't you?<br /><br />You will be sorely missed by all whose lives were once touched by you. That's a given, D.<br /><br />You've gone and left us bereft, and in mourning.<br /><br />Gone, yes gone. But I do not doubt that you will ever be forgotten, my dear Dalilah.<br /><br />Love and Peace.<br /><br />-Mat Salo<br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFc3Nipiy0nG9SU9O61sjyDZMQpRQRByQaZA7STQzgUjN0Tn7MO49zN84IF34bOLvnRg0zPmWtNIsyd2p6hlvMtsyDgX500c5q-zjOSK0v9Itqd5akmufhBbwjyAL1fgoXoCe6UQ/s1600/IMG_6582.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFc3Nipiy0nG9SU9O61sjyDZMQpRQRByQaZA7STQzgUjN0Tn7MO49zN84IF34bOLvnRg0zPmWtNIsyd2p6hlvMtsyDgX500c5q-zjOSK0v9Itqd5akmufhBbwjyAL1fgoXoCe6UQ/s400/IMG_6582.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495628286296492770" border="0" /></a></span></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinFebx7rvw83MYshvButpWYanewWVpHHJ1j5judjN-1rG70qwisHkKWf3kFAdeG1DbRWbicF3HaRD2wMp-GH6lNlNSvTl9lIfuUOTteDQkaxpue6IiTGnjdyiPUf_F3ogR2uREXQ/s1600/IMG_6587.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinFebx7rvw83MYshvButpWYanewWVpHHJ1j5judjN-1rG70qwisHkKWf3kFAdeG1DbRWbicF3HaRD2wMp-GH6lNlNSvTl9lIfuUOTteDQkaxpue6IiTGnjdyiPUf_F3ogR2uREXQ/s400/IMG_6587.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495613693435520114" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9wxAVLfZmVQlbzKQwNxeiUdxqffqbYWes__GXu5s_k4tUySvh7M2lI1JakF4Nv9kGPRq4lrIkVWbRMYhVWRL1yu99D_CV-YRUL2zZYiOI-zOoIw6PIOPna6sqksRCbt6Ndl2BuA/s1600/IMG_6589.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9wxAVLfZmVQlbzKQwNxeiUdxqffqbYWes__GXu5s_k4tUySvh7M2lI1JakF4Nv9kGPRq4lrIkVWbRMYhVWRL1yu99D_CV-YRUL2zZYiOI-zOoIw6PIOPna6sqksRCbt6Ndl2BuA/s400/IMG_6589.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495613696904655474" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZhibDezhAzeQLJK0JJIpSEovpgEwd53Y6RSOrM3kcakyTM2j5QoQ8byXf3taT2U08x1fzeCY535oZPewZeeopSzmLzl0ytuUTzOUn9AZz-COe0DeYnGGco1lfI3BbZ5tJfoK4mg/s1600/IMG_6592.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZhibDezhAzeQLJK0JJIpSEovpgEwd53Y6RSOrM3kcakyTM2j5QoQ8byXf3taT2U08x1fzeCY535oZPewZeeopSzmLzl0ytuUTzOUn9AZz-COe0DeYnGGco1lfI3BbZ5tJfoK4mg/s400/IMG_6592.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495613699820813298" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXs1SLjaHVm-A6Rm_wvGpmM2IVxfLLB57302cWVdzF6IgWaX6eIDEq4PIXZlbl2cz4Xbd1uSmvdNd5qb5LoIVeStQNkX5kRzK_hy1kuHEOOTzfq4sgUr3tmtt0va4Sjt28XtkICw/s1600/IMG_6593.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 309px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXs1SLjaHVm-A6Rm_wvGpmM2IVxfLLB57302cWVdzF6IgWaX6eIDEq4PIXZlbl2cz4Xbd1uSmvdNd5qb5LoIVeStQNkX5kRzK_hy1kuHEOOTzfq4sgUr3tmtt0va4Sjt28XtkICw/s400/IMG_6593.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495613707900766834" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijcKWVtZ9MT-9WJ7E4qn7JTYHtsxWcakhwcfxVbXZjjcoImz0v8Q_CrEZFImNOWEGGCmeJv4MsAHIECi32wKZjR3_Da5TE1QT90HiRVCZBExWZggozdVfTUKoalilBERQaEHfM4A/s1600/IMG_6585.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijcKWVtZ9MT-9WJ7E4qn7JTYHtsxWcakhwcfxVbXZjjcoImz0v8Q_CrEZFImNOWEGGCmeJv4MsAHIECi32wKZjR3_Da5TE1QT90HiRVCZBExWZggozdVfTUKoalilBERQaEHfM4A/s400/IMG_6585.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495613181863306002" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Wi3uuLl_oE18RJwp2wtAc1IPURJgk9vacs8Dg9o-zUsADVjkEngcobP1eBnoBkO6OyA17dCXSH3sW8ZoAVAw1rTLKarhP1tq3CYp1KZY0aAbg6ufySwhcd0WxXVGS-wxwO5S3w/s1600/IMG_6578.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Wi3uuLl_oE18RJwp2wtAc1IPURJgk9vacs8Dg9o-zUsADVjkEngcobP1eBnoBkO6OyA17dCXSH3sW8ZoAVAw1rTLKarhP1tq3CYp1KZY0aAbg6ufySwhcd0WxXVGS-wxwO5S3w/s400/IMG_6578.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495612752851896274" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAqMhDv69Dsvwt_bGe2HH07BVu3PWaOws9BZ-WIGhyphenhyphenHjx1YItQ1_LnOLjq3ASfS6qniBYRk5eojl86f2bf7wUExAPKioJzKLucSWa9VK7-D_imeglchY_6B2rmANt7Sz_ekMnEiA/s1600/IMG_6583.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 310px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAqMhDv69Dsvwt_bGe2HH07BVu3PWaOws9BZ-WIGhyphenhyphenHjx1YItQ1_LnOLjq3ASfS6qniBYRk5eojl86f2bf7wUExAPKioJzKLucSWa9VK7-D_imeglchY_6B2rmANt7Sz_ekMnEiA/s400/IMG_6583.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495612979398430114" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyV4JGaYoFIojDQlxc7TPqw6_cEyYcDATJXmr53AafXuxaVyioky25H-BhA8s3k7sn3-RAEEGBylDaAvyAF_fMrVY7ij27KsABeNR9iCjepZ54BUugiIhbVhn_oOAM74s9pak8ug/s1600/IMG_6597.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyV4JGaYoFIojDQlxc7TPqw6_cEyYcDATJXmr53AafXuxaVyioky25H-BhA8s3k7sn3-RAEEGBylDaAvyAF_fMrVY7ij27KsABeNR9iCjepZ54BUugiIhbVhn_oOAM74s9pak8ug/s400/IMG_6597.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495625098193889474" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-family:lucida grande;" >Bereaved father (right)</span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgmd6c_gxLTXrqOJt8E5d3wd076yV2oA-6HuuRLt06ECgfPUJpadfBOjMy2s-vLQwN7MPdaskvaDaCq3RznVvEWH6_WL1reukGqJp3qtR4b61eYJlmC8kOFGN-mV4Fg4slqtDRVw/s1600/IMG_6600.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgmd6c_gxLTXrqOJt8E5d3wd076yV2oA-6HuuRLt06ECgfPUJpadfBOjMy2s-vLQwN7MPdaskvaDaCq3RznVvEWH6_WL1reukGqJp3qtR4b61eYJlmC8kOFGN-mV4Fg4slqtDRVw/s400/IMG_6600.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495614055831858706" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >Bereaved mother</span><br /></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-66952292253568638122009-07-19T08:29:00.007-05:002009-07-19T12:47:18.814-05:00Good Bye, 'Bang Captain<span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong></strong></span></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><br /></strong></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/CY_006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/CY_006.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><dl id="comments-block"><dt style="font-style: italic;" class="comment-author blogger-comment-icon" id="c1292074951742551326"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065" rel="nofollow">Mat Salo</a> said... </span></dt><dd style="font-style: italic;" class="comment-body"> <p><span style="font-size:130%;">Bang Cap... Salam Takziah.. Alfatehah..<br /><br />Your beloved mum passed on at the same age as my nenek last year.<br /><br />Salam.</span></p> </dd><dd class="comment-footer"> <span class="comment-timestamp"> <a href="http://cyusof.blogspot.com/2009/07/al-fatihah.html?showComment=1247752911169#c1292074951742551326" title="comment permalink"> 16 July 2009 22:01:00 MYT </a> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1360919019"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/delete-comment.g?blogID=1986492775396304922&postID=1292074951742551326" title="Delete Comment"> <img src="http://www.blogger.com/img/icon_delete13.gif" /> </a> </span> </span> </dd></dl><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><br /><br /><br /></strong></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;">Bang Captain, a main who does not mince his words nor suffer fools gladly enables "comment moderation" on his blog. This was to deter anonymous hacks and fools.<br /><br />His beloved mother passed on barely four days ago and I posted my condolences about three days later - or more precisely, only three days ago.<br /><br />Two days later (the 17th - or maybe even as late as yesterday, the 18th?) he had approved our comments to appear in the cybersphere. My only solace, therefore, was he had read my very last comment to him, along with Pak Zawi's and others.<br /><br />Who's to know The Maker was to take him away too? Barely five days after his beloved mother who had brought him into this world?<br /><br />Many may not know this but it was I who "introduced" him to the blogging fraternity. He had approached me first, not because I was a blogger of any repute, but because I was "family". Furthermore, we also shared the same alma mater.<br /><br />In the 50s he lived right behind my late grandmothers house in Seremban, which meant that my uncles were his playmates. My mum, the eldest, was a good ten years older so he called her Kak Zah. I had just broken the news to my mum, long distance from a rig in the mangrove swamps of Samarinda, Indonesia, where she will convey the sad news to his childhood playmates - my two surviving uncles.<br /><br />These photos were taken sometime in early 2007 when I brought Bang Captain to meet the heavyweights for the first time . He has since become great friends with these bloggers,and a regular fixture at their gatherings, where I, unfortunately continue to languish in crocodile-infested river estuaries.<br /><br />I have no doubt he will be sorely missed by these bloggers, as will his family and friends.<br /><br />And so will I.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Many thanks to Elviza, Pak Zawi and others who had alerted me of Arwah's passing. Al-Fatehah.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/CY_007.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 427px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/CY_007.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/BoB2_001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 426px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/BoB2_001.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/CY_008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 458px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/CY_008.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">N.B.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I am rehashing one of my earlier posts because of the comment he posted. Skip the story if you like and head directly to his comment. My grandmother too had passed on about a year ago</span></span>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><a href="http://matsalo.blogspot.com/2007/03/matriarch-and-nude.html"><span style="font-size:180%;">The Matriarch, The Nude and The Chicken Coop</span></a><br /></strong></span></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>The year was ‘69</strong></span> and I was in my first year of school.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6lQ5TtMNnfjWl0r5UUU6T0GDgCbs3N3hbBGhFSi-X2hyPwsZ6mS2HNbLVdT78cTvTaUwnAjKSPJsLTTWATDwqiFQeP1tj8A1rotGnB42iuIfOah7qm-786Ht8OSfBuuc2nGC6GA/s1600-h/Guitar.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040829939771999026" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6lQ5TtMNnfjWl0r5UUU6T0GDgCbs3N3hbBGhFSi-X2hyPwsZ6mS2HNbLVdT78cTvTaUwnAjKSPJsLTTWATDwqiFQeP1tj8A1rotGnB42iuIfOah7qm-786Ht8OSfBuuc2nGC6GA/s320/Guitar.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /><br />With the day drawing to a close, Nenek’s high-pitched shrieks can be heard permeating the soggy evening air - summoning me for my evening bath at the well. In the days before </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">electricity found its way into our <em>kampong</em>, the path to the well could very well be perilous you can imagine. It got dark very quickly too, because the sun seemed to set a lot earlier in the <em>kampong. </em>But a likelier explanation would be the abundance of tall trees quickly blocking the sun’s rays, and thus with an irrational jealous pang I wondered (no, I'm sure) whether kids in the city would still be out playing.<br /><br />I sat on the stoop of out in front, defiant and ignoring Nenek's calls, the cement feeling like a block of ice under my buttocks; the stone made cold from sun's fading warmth.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">In that melancholic evening, I believed I felt the first stirrings of emotions that I can ever remember. It was feelings of hate and of rejection all rolled into one – the exaggerated version for seven year olds.<br /></span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeaD6pQiT1MlPRbzk0W9aAohJ7gPK8r08HskBUFsIAdGZUilOPafn0MadJXFMwKF1IxJ22gyZvMe12vUvAuiXf-xfFsVHekP6hltblgY0xgp-u0eyOc6e9432z-24uqGHfDpsCjA/s1600-h/Lenggeng_01.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040830356383826754" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeaD6pQiT1MlPRbzk0W9aAohJ7gPK8r08HskBUFsIAdGZUilOPafn0MadJXFMwKF1IxJ22gyZvMe12vUvAuiXf-xfFsVHekP6hltblgY0xgp-u0eyOc6e9432z-24uqGHfDpsCjA/s320/Lenggeng_01.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">The reason for my slow-burning resentment was my being exiled from my parents. Father worked in an estate faraway where the only primary schooling available was for the children of estate laborers (read: Tamil). In the highly gentrified environment of post-colonial plantations, no <em>conductor</em> or <em>mandor</em> worth his salt would be caught dead having their children in a vernacular school, especially a Tamil one. But given a choice, </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">I wouldn’t have minded being in an impoverished Tamil school. At least I would be in the bosom of my beloved parents.<br /><br />My grandparents were the kindest of people, just like most grandparents the world over. Their efforts to cheer me by spoiling me didn’t often lift the veil of sadness that hung over like a monsoon cloud. And spoiled me they did, because Atuk catered to (almost) every whim of their first grandchild. He even got me a dog once, but that story will have to wait. Strangely I hear they weren’t always kind to their own offspring – I remember Mother telling me a story once when uncle broke his arm after falling from a <em>rambutan</em> tree—an additional beating was in store for him when Atuk came home from work. To drive the lesson home, I suppose.</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />That very same uncle, who was an overdue bachelor at the time of my incarceration was entrusted to keep me in line, and he took on the sacred covenant from my parents with utmost religious zeal. And trust me, he had quite a few sticks rather than carrots in his bag of tricks to enable him to carry the job. Sorta like George (Bush).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">For failing to memorize to multiplication tables, an apt punishment for one was where I would have to spend moments of sheer terror in the chicken coop. The sheer terror factor was </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">ratcheted manifold if the sentencing was conducted after sunset. Not one to go down without a fight, I was often dragged kicking and screaming into the hen house. And only to be released when either Atuk or Nenek happened to chance upon the scene. Uncle’s intentions were good no doubt, but what if there was a thirty-foot long python lying there in wait?</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />The chicken coop had its place in history somewhere further down the line and became (to me at least), one of the most celebrated but unknown chicken coops in existence. How so? Let me explain. Late into adulthood I discovered that my grandparents at various times before I came into being had hosted ‘foster’ children in their government quarters in Seremban. Atuk’s job as a chief clerk in the old colonial administration allowed them a modest wooden house across the famed King George the Fifth School, popularly known by its acronym KGV.</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />These weren’t real foster children you see, but kids of distant relatives and acquaintances from remote villages who were sent (boys usually) to my grandparents house because of its proximity to the premier British institution. One of the ‘foster’ children – this shocked me really – went on to become one the most celebrated and highest paid painters in <em><strong>Bolehsia</strong></em>. In ’98 one of his <strong>Pago Pago Series</strong> oils went under the hammer for a record 40,250 Singapore dollars at a Christie’s Singapore auction.</span> Ohmigosh!<br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />Just before leaving for Europe in the 60’s to live the bohemian life as an artist, <strong>Latif Mohideen</strong> gave three of his paintings to Atuk and Nenek as a token of gratitude. One was an 'impressionist', the one I recalled hanging high above the grandfather clock and was the first thing you see upon entering the threshold of our <em>kampong</em> house. Alas it graced our living room but for the briefest of time. Later, Nenek came to realize that it was a rather convoluted surrealist version of a nude </span><span style="font-family:georgia;">with a huge single breast and an outsized areola. Latif must've painted this during the phase when and Picasso and Dali were considered <em>de rigueur</em>.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Of course, this didn’t fit well with nenek’s image as an <em>Ustaza</em> who taught the Koran at the village <em>Madrasah</em>, so one fine afternoon she got Atuk to take it down. And there it stayed in the shed at the back of the house, forever to remain anonymous to people with fat wallets who attend Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions, and also to scholars in fine arts departments at universities the world over.<br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ZwmySIw_amiova9mqRguFRKQ-dnw40z9ytvLVl4Rj2mV1zngl5PtZmpnobQL5_5gCTIAiI6rXYVArIuOIJRydHMjAlLVcIlzTjPe5H9cVPgbwqnyeG73TefuXNVIVgypTUS1Cg/s1600-h/Lenggeng_02.jpg"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5040830803060425554" style="" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ZwmySIw_amiova9mqRguFRKQ-dnw40z9ytvLVl4Rj2mV1zngl5PtZmpnobQL5_5gCTIAiI6rXYVArIuOIJRydHMjAlLVcIlzTjPe5H9cVPgbwqnyeG73TefuXNVIVgypTUS1Cg/s400/Lenggeng_02.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" ><strong><em>The Matriach, 2003. © matsalo</em></strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Years passed and with Atuk’s demise in the very early 90s, nenek had no choice but to shuttle between my one surviving uncle and a Chinese daughter-in-law (Yes, <em>that</em> uncle has since passed on - <em>Al Fatihah</em>) in Seremban. On occasions she would stay with Mother too. With no</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> one to care for the creaking boards and peeling paint, the house became more and more decrepit, as unloved homes are wont to do.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">It was only a decade or so ago that I decided to enquire about the painting. You don’t how much I’ve regretted my tardiness since. Nenek is still alive but is somewhat senile, and once, in between bouts of lucidity, she let it slip to her favorite grandson (that’s me) - that Atuk had used the painting (yes, "breast/areola") <em>to</em> <em>patch the roof of the chicken coop</em>. </span><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">I don't blame Atuk at all for his lack of aesthetic acumen - because who was to know what the future holds? Atuk had also once also traded his Rolex (it had cost him seven-hundred in 60s Bolehsian ringgits) for a dinghy digital watch to a backpacker who passed through the village. Please remember that this happened in the 70s and digital watches with blinking LEDs with <em>faux</em> gold bracelets were a novelty, if not expensive. That's the sort of person Atuk was - bless his soul - always ready to oblige.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">I’m still in the hunt for the other two paintings though, one of which was a typical scene of village women toiling in paddy fields at harvest time. For the life of me, I can’t quite remember what the other one was.</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />Further inquiries revealed that none of my uncles knew where the paintings went. Nor Mother. Nor anybody else. Even Latif Mohideen has fled the scene. Hmmm . . . I shall need to pay a visit to the village house soon - but the dilapidated doors and windows have remained shuttered since - what ? - two, three years ago?</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br />Somehow I have this burning need to fulfill my quest, just to give it some closure, if nothing else. Maybe I should give it a rest. But maybe I should start looking at the cow shed, because the chicken coop has long been gone and the chickens have since been converted to human protein or quite possibly devoured by that thirty-foot python or its progeny. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Years ago I</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> paid the village idiot some money to dismantle the chicken coop and burn that sorry piece of eyesore (and of bad memories) to make the grounds presentable for a <em>Hari Raya</em> Eid celebration - the photos you see in the story. Deep, deep down, my brain strongly rejects any possibility that the Nude could have already turned to carbon. I'm sure some good sense must have prevailed, but we're talking about the village idiot here, who is known only by his nickname <em>Berok</em> (Malay for Monkey) for his climbing prowess and proclivity in collecting</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> coconuts from trees. Perhaps, and most very likely, that the idiot here is me.<br /><br />Whoa - there could be a gross total of somewhere between 100 and 200 thousand <em>Bolehsia</em> dollars out there sitting among the rafters and junk of my childhood home. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">But who am I kidding?</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-style: italic;">Note comments by Arwah and the first of Kickdefella's comments.</span></p><p><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></p><p>=======================================================================<br /></p><h4> Comments: </h4><dl id="comments-block"><dt class="comment-author" id="comment-3035292507401535244"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/06577426604578337113" rel="nofollow"> The Ancient Mariner</a> said... </dt><dd class="comment-body"> <p>I remember Latif Mohideen. As a schoolboy he had painted the murals in the KGV school hall. I wonder if it is still there, could be worth a lot of money now.<br /><br />I also remember your grandparents and they were very kind to me when I was the neighborhood kid a couple of doors away.</p> </dd><dd class="comment-footer"> <span class="comment-timestamp"> <a href="http://matsalo.blogspot.com/2007/03/matriarch-and-nude.html#comment-3035292507401535244" title="comment permalink"> Wednesday, March 14, 2007 4:34:00 PM </a> <span class="item-control blog-admin pid-1497870806"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/delete-comment.g?blogID=23406611&postID=3035292507401535244" title="Delete Comment"> <img src="http://www.blogger.com/img/icon_delete13.gif" /></a></span></span></dd></dl><dl id="comments-block"><dt class="comment-author" id="comment-3847796199353243001"> <a name="comment-3847796199353243001"></a><a href="http://matsalo.blogspot.com/2007/03/matriarch-and-nude.html#comment-1523965901066987065" title="comment permalink"></a></dt></dl> <dl id="comments-block"><dd class="comment-footer"><span class="comment-timestamp"><span class="item-control blog-admin pid-332914786"> </span> </span><br /></dd><dt class="comment-author" id="comment-6839124080288797360"> <a name="comment-6839124080288797360"></a> </dt><dt class="comment-author" id="comment-6839124080288797360"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/08615233023847931605" rel="nofollow"> Sheih</a> said... </dt><dd class="comment-body"> <p>I love reading this. I know this is my first comment here, but when I read about your missed rendezvous with you Pa, I felt really sad.<br /><br />This piece which I read today remind me to a lot of think. Perhaps its time for me to leave KL.</p><h4><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/MS_Today.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 799px; height: 600px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/MS_Today.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></h4> </dd></dl>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-51863136024864734232009-07-09T11:04:00.025-05:002009-07-13T10:37:05.546-05:00London in June ... and a treat by AG<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbtUF4NpwdQCIOmG_WrEmrym2CyDZzPGxZJ3xrnT7zcmI_Yfep9aDrq19lFllfYcKRqCKVRN0OAFGM4OQC6Sn4_qfPs9majY-D8FrxpSytpKpjIdKYjaqnRGCPv3Yl1SLK70KRxg/s1600-h/IMG_5208.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 229px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbtUF4NpwdQCIOmG_WrEmrym2CyDZzPGxZJ3xrnT7zcmI_Yfep9aDrq19lFllfYcKRqCKVRN0OAFGM4OQC6Sn4_qfPs9majY-D8FrxpSytpKpjIdKYjaqnRGCPv3Yl1SLK70KRxg/s320/IMG_5208.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356819525541247426" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;">It turned out I wasn't the only one feted by </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://kecek-kecek.blogspot.com/">Awang Goneng</a>. <a href="http://mohdzawi.blogspot.com/2009/07/europe-here-i-come-part-9.html">Pak Zawi</a> was already there days earlier terrorizing AG's wallet and </span><span style="font-size:130%;">relieving our confounded host of his Great British Pounds.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Yes, </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >that</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> AG, the famous </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >anok </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Tengganung</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, master wordsmith of both English and Malay (albeit of the </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Tengganung Kite</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> kind), an all around great guy and a thirty-five year veteran of living on English cod and salmon. </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Apa? Ikang tongkol tok cukup sedap ke?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Awang Goneng, for some reason or other, had decided that Mat Salo was worth his time. My own boss at work once said behind my back, 'That Mat Salo . . .he ain't worth killin'. For AG's selfless random act of kindness . . . I thank him from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, Sir!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Surreptitious e-mails were sent, (again, Pak Zawi had a hand in this), and a note by <a href="http://kakteh.blogspot.com/">Kak Teh</a> in this blog soon found me walking to Whiteleys in Queensway where AG would lie in wait at a bookstore (where else?) on the first floor.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2BOn8B5Di49pEGwSOnzD1-VedGc_LeEsXTZ5HjjHv7Vkq48ZFB9KXKIIGkeZrtHHByLz5WRlgPw51eiUWDIA932eCnss9qW6p6GNR2fp8rAQLerEryOb5cUBazsYaeVMypjqDEw/s1600-h/IMG_5209.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 154px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2BOn8B5Di49pEGwSOnzD1-VedGc_LeEsXTZ5HjjHv7Vkq48ZFB9KXKIIGkeZrtHHByLz5WRlgPw51eiUWDIA932eCnss9qW6p6GNR2fp8rAQLerEryOb5cUBazsYaeVMypjqDEw/s200/IMG_5209.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356820642497402898" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;">Interestingly, according to AG, Whiteleys is one of the oldest department stores in London, which makes it one of the oldest</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> department stores in the world in m</span><span style="font-size:130%;">y book. As I trudged my tired limbs upstairs - I had been cycling for some days - I </span><span style="font-size:130%;">happened to pass Lillian Too's Feng Shui shop. It was shut and looked to be </span><span style="font-size:130%;">out of business. Now, don't you think the Queen of Feng Shui </span><span style="font-size:130%;">would have known better and sited her store at a more, shall we say, auspicious place? What hope the</span><span style="font-size:130%;">n, for mere Feng Shui </span><span style="font-size:130%;">deficient mortals like us?</span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9FygB0CZ7EL1rO9K0TKB6sBCdSfWbIfZu06SbWnrKiIFZcL3XnEVNyUVxQ9_dOuZo-ihGmeOYLc6v1PyDk-a7jPTmDtHHV9nUcLT3Baf3ZIFmtEF5Ilfpn3bO14-FEPDJOi3M3A/s1600-h/IMG_5206.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9FygB0CZ7EL1rO9K0TKB6sBCdSfWbIfZu06SbWnrKiIFZcL3XnEVNyUVxQ9_dOuZo-ihGmeOYLc6v1PyDk-a7jPTmDtHHV9nUcLT3Baf3ZIFmtEF5Ilfpn3bO14-FEPDJOi3M3A/s400/IMG_5206.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356825127529217906" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Anyway, the reason he asked to meet there was so we could have lunch at Malaysia Hall, which happened to be around the corner. Now that was a revelation </span><span style="font-size:130%;">to me because the last time I looked Malaysia Hall was someplace else. But that was twenty years ago. I didn't know it had moved since.</span><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1mHG1w0PrCudCbFGdoq5TmgZily3iDjcGv8AqKEd2Z5WHDBSQGq6LctNrtax7KHe7HjWaXxoPkYxse1qOLwaLlonE7D2G0CoUzF_r3uwPIP3m1X7vgWfIhNBanIT2GKi8pBvK2g/s1600-h/IMG_5200.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1mHG1w0PrCudCbFGdoq5TmgZily3iDjcGv8AqKEd2Z5WHDBSQGq6LctNrtax7KHe7HjWaXxoPkYxse1qOLwaLlonE7D2G0CoUzF_r3uwPIP3m1X7vgWfIhNBanIT2GKi8pBvK2g/s400/IMG_5200.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356823040408900786" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />I was a bachelor then, traveling from Malaysia to Aberdeen to attend a week long seminar. The circumstances surrounding my presence at the old Malaysia Hall two decades back was harrowing to say the least. I was there to meet an ex and her newfangled main squeeze, to get - what </span><span style="font-size:130%;">today </span><span style="font-size:130%;">people would refer to - as "closure"</span><span style="font-size:130%;">.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">I'm not making this up. At the time I hadn't really planned to see her at all. Why </span><span style="font-size:130%;">should I? After all she had dumped me in a terrifying "Dear Mat" letter some time soon after hitting UK shores. And over a year had elapsed since her posting that "Dear Mat" letter and my sudden, unexpected visit . Anyway she was not in London but in some city up north, hundreds of miles away. But Brother Fate, and its sister Miss Coincidence are about to rear their ugly heads.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Clawing my way </span><span style="font-size:130%;">from the Banks of the Clyde to Malaysia </span><span style="font-size:130%;">I</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> decided to stop in cold windy London for the night. Having nothing to do I decided to call a mutual friend, a girl who went to boarding school with the ex, she giggling excitedly over the phone, 'Eh Mat, know what? Your ex is in town with her boyfriend <span style="font-style: italic;">lah</span>. She's on her way over, </span><span style="font-size:130%;">let's all go to Malaysia hall for dinner tonight - you know where, right? See you there!'<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Hah. She's in town! How about that? In a fair, just and perfect world it would have been cause for celebration. But the world isn't round or fair or just. It's horribly flat, square, with sharp serrated edges. No. This can't be happening. But there you go. Brother Fate, Miss Coincidence . . . how do you do?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Now that friend probably doesn't understand the intricacies or nuances of messy break-ups, especially long-distance ones. Perhaps she hadn't experienced any. Or was privy to my fantasies involving throttling and wringing necks. Anyway</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, those thoughts had long passed and converted to . . . what, I don't know.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">To say that the reunion was "awkward" was an understatement. A meeting of ex-es can never or will ever be described as "joyous". Reigning in flat out murderous impulses would be closer to the mark. As I stood there outside the former Malaysia Hall, </span><span style="font-size:130%;">one hand in my jacket to keep that London chill out</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, lighting cigarette after cigarette, passed an old VW Golf. Or was it the Rabbit? I wondered (belatedly) if I shouldn't just abandon this meet altogether, for it really served no purpose at all. Except perhaps, to tear old wounds.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">In the rusting blue VW was our mutual friend driving, carrying inside what once held my dreams, hopes and object of er, lust. And not forgetting too beside her, hands on thigh probably, was The Guy who helped take those whimsical notions away.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">It took a while for them to show up at the entrance, and it wasn't for lack of a parking space. Perhaps they needed to huddle down, figure things out at this rather </span><span style="font-size:130%;">unexpected entrance by Mat Salo, stage left, blindsiding them. To them perhaps, I was some kind of monster, a jilted raving maniac of some kind, bent on retribution. And they may be right. Anyway it was the girls who appeared first and true to Mat Salo<span style="font-style: italic;">'</span>s<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>form, pretended like there was nothing ever between 'em, just a meeting of some old flames, er, friends. The Guy, they said, would join us "in a bit".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">"In a bit", huh? Now how about that kiddo? Got cold feet?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Eventually Adonis, God's version of the perfect male form, came hurriedly</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> in</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> from the cold like a surreal scene from a Peter Lorre movie; scarf flailing, eyes shifting, looking nervous. Being the older and more mature guy, a cool and calculated Mat Salo turned up the charm (until the knob could go no further or else the potentiometer valves would blow) and set about putting The Guy at ease, joining him for cigarettes </span><span style="font-size:130%;">while the girls go inside to order food . . . and to gossip perhaps at the scene about to </span><span style="font-size:130%;">unravel outside?</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3xnJkjac9b5MFuY1DNb4kbkzHAsVLHyqR-G5YetS0xLIobqY3FySo3rxybvfsD4DpHULNpjw1AsY297wN-OXO1YLDuq-Vlx4gFvCLqDTUtSS6KnxHtQbHv8CkDf6dPTkW75k8Bw/s1600-h/IMG_4972.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 286px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3xnJkjac9b5MFuY1DNb4kbkzHAsVLHyqR-G5YetS0xLIobqY3FySo3rxybvfsD4DpHULNpjw1AsY297wN-OXO1YLDuq-Vlx4gFvCLqDTUtSS6KnxHtQbHv8CkDf6dPTkW75k8Bw/s400/IMG_4972.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356823030904334562" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;" >'Fraid not, he's <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> the Adonis.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Sorry to disappoint but there was no scene "about to unravel" outside. We'll me and The Guy won't ever be buddies, that's for sure, but at least there was a semblance of civility. The art of conceding defeat, being a gentleman, that sort of thing, part of being a man in a </span><span style="font-size:130%;">woman's world.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">For the life of me I don't remember his name or what happened to </span><span style="font-size:130%;">him eventually but I do know that the ex, after getting her Bar and a stint at LSE, went home, met a <span style="font-style: italic;">Mat</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> Saleh</span> bloke and eventually became an American. Perhaps it's fitting that I eventually met the woman of my (real, rational and practical) dreams, married her and became an Indonesian. That's a joke, by the way.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Bloody hell, and I thought we were supposed to be talking about AG here . . . and how did my post get mixed up with trips down memory lane?<br /><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8M-W9cMsa3h8URe2_ze-16LjNM6QQ20oIVJG2xzC_ZVUNaF2ysDKhYWomCNjvqltspHZ1eM7ZCZCbvTYeIC4srtKhUgQov8sQi8pROg8holYIZdLfYDSXCnvlf9S5bJjJAoUXLw/s1600-h/IMG_5213.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 286px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8M-W9cMsa3h8URe2_ze-16LjNM6QQ20oIVJG2xzC_ZVUNaF2ysDKhYWomCNjvqltspHZ1eM7ZCZCbvTYeIC4srtKhUgQov8sQi8pROg8holYIZdLfYDSXCnvlf9S5bJjJAoUXLw/s400/IMG_5213.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356823035544404514" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:courier new;" >AG and MSD's deputy director, on his left.</span><br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaemn2pUZbY3EymleIxMZFjzQk5lRGzXFLXSjzkLiVacjEonypharA7O0GjLHYNCSJOD7a8i43cIzvmsI5EZ7tqyokIFeFkl10ma801X5RWIQABBYMQSMfDwG2SzAijpJFtkVcfA/s1600-h/IMG_5301.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 154px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaemn2pUZbY3EymleIxMZFjzQk5lRGzXFLXSjzkLiVacjEonypharA7O0GjLHYNCSJOD7a8i43cIzvmsI5EZ7tqyokIFeFkl10ma801X5RWIQABBYMQSMfDwG2SzAijpJFtkVcfA/s200/IMG_5301.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356825938904973762" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Some photos of me and my boy below, occasionally finding ourselves lost. Real men, they say, don't ever ask for directions. Not ever. They just blow 200 quid </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">on some</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"> gadget called Garmin, and still can't find their bloody way home.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Seriously, part of the fun of travel is getting lost. But don't tell that to the spouse who pre-approved the Garmin purchase at John Bloody Lewis, eh?<br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6O78jg3rcjOTRWGDVvjhCfq9InGFSdeB-36g3Kdj_k8BwNTAX5d-MRH_4yoSbQGi5LjTj5_hd3RXDwTkHXKheslLn_kxaWZ55e8SZTQuObOyh33FaAADdn7QYBfqvsbspFSRww/s1600-h/IMG_5218.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6O78jg3rcjOTRWGDVvjhCfq9InGFSdeB-36g3Kdj_k8BwNTAX5d-MRH_4yoSbQGi5LjTj5_hd3RXDwTkHXKheslLn_kxaWZ55e8SZTQuObOyh33FaAADdn7QYBfqvsbspFSRww/s400/IMG_5218.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356821298972551682" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ZEY3bOhSXBgM6JVk4yDjn2OVg42P8tbD2m_mIxn5jnZUaDTKGfvLKvrgJyT4VewyjZ5bd1SlZb_mNY5Hsfz0CrYAEuVnpN0IW7dFkgl4fcf8zq3ap1k9gft0X0FOm8GhGdjqbA/s1600-h/IMG_5004.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ZEY3bOhSXBgM6JVk4yDjn2OVg42P8tbD2m_mIxn5jnZUaDTKGfvLKvrgJyT4VewyjZ5bd1SlZb_mNY5Hsfz0CrYAEuVnpN0IW7dFkgl4fcf8zq3ap1k9gft0X0FOm8GhGdjqbA/s400/IMG_5004.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356821291192515218" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcU8K6vMCNHn24pZ5AEUMeW2bEKelCDJyUxvKkODqf8MLmaUQR4Jg2gWkh0TKYrdLFw7yp31yTboFG3LPXktkrT4_lREOmenQp5RMHXOglL6k0hNM74hFRHUmEjQYCButeQqJMQw/s1600-h/IMG_4983.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcU8K6vMCNHn24pZ5AEUMeW2bEKelCDJyUxvKkODqf8MLmaUQR4Jg2gWkh0TKYrdLFw7yp31yTboFG3LPXktkrT4_lREOmenQp5RMHXOglL6k0hNM74hFRHUmEjQYCButeQqJMQw/s400/IMG_4983.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5357963545243265026" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></span></div> </div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-32296687175037915232009-05-28T13:03:00.017-05:002009-06-01T16:44:21.086-05:00Lives In The Balance: Party Time!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4804-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 360px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4804-1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > In my previous post, </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Pak Aa Gym's story</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > took place <span style="font-style: italic;">the day after</span>. This is about what transpired <span style="font-style: italic;">the night before</span>. In my book it's called redemption, to find a balance between light and dark, the bad and the good.<br /></span><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Saturday night was spent at a very happening Jakarta nightspot called SHY Rooftop on Jl. Kemang Raya. Kemang is a bit like Bangsar at night; where the city's young and beautiful upper-class crowd get to look and be looked at.<br /><br />Housed on the fifth floor of a very futuristic glass building, SHY has an open area balcony where one can gaze at Jakarta's sprawling skyline while nursing a none-shariah-compliant concoction.</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4803-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 640px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4803-1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >I went there with a friend (whose sex I shall not divulge for fear of repercussions </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >and incrimination) who insisted, "<span style="font-style: italic;">Bang</span>, this is where the artistes </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >bareng</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" > (hang out)". And I was not disappointed.</span>..<br /><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >The ambiance was first class, the decor smart and cozy. In Malaysia it would be the size of an average pub housed in a shop lot. There were perhaps thirty to fifty patrons in all, coming and going.<br /><br />The music? M</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >ostly </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >acoustic guitars with only the bass being amplified, no drums, just bongos and tambourines to the accompaniment of vocals so sweet it will bring tears to your eyes.<br /><br />SHY being a musician</span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >'s joint, the band played everything from Jason Mraz to Sting to Bob Marley. Aaah...</span><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" ><br />The crowd? If I told you I got to dance with Maia would you believe me? I'll let the pictures tell the story.<br /><br />I even get to jam my Canon Ixus 850iS right in her face.</span><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" ><br />Ah, drool over, because everything is about balance, right?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4806.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 639px; height: 457px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4806.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" ><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4805.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 639px; height: 457px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4805.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">Roy Marten's son, Gading, inadvertently shared a table with me. Apparently he's following in his Dad's footsteps, making a name as actor. I couldn't tell him from Adam until my friend whispered in my ear who that guy across the table was.<br /><br />Maia Estianty? Everyone knows Maia,the hottest woman in showbiz. She's currently undergoing a very public divorce with mogul Ahmad Dhani, fighting a bitter battle over their three children Al, El and Dul. The kids are also musicians in a band called Lucky Laki, managed by the male parent, who at present has custody. Not a day goes by here in Indonesia where one isn't bombarded by news of Maia and Ahmad Dhani's woes spelt out in gritty detail... I really wanted to ask her how she handled the pressure of it all, but it wasn't a good time. I felt that she wanted to be left alone and I could respect that. Hey, being the subject of gossip and slander by tens of millions, day in day out, must be terrible. Ever since that Ahmad Dhani took up with Mulan, Maia's duet partner in Ratu...</span></span>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-84674856941246324972009-05-28T08:53:00.004-05:002009-05-28T13:00:34.914-05:00Lives In The Balance: Good Works Vs Bad<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4839.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 360px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4839.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I have always held firm to the belief that we must have some balance in our lives; some sort of </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >yin</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> and </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >yang</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> in equal measure. To do some bad and to do some good, because to see the worst in human nature will make us appreciate the nicer parts of humanity. And I don't mean women's bodies...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I'm sure many of you will disagree but that's just me; seeing bad in good and good in bad. And I'm always grateful to be able to tell one from the other.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Because... how else would I find myself in what once was the largest prostitution area in the whole of South East Asia last Sunday afternoon?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I said, </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >was</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. Remember the tense, please, </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >was</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">It's in north Jakarta, past Tanjung Priok, at a place called Kramat Tunggak.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">What once housed close to 4000 rooms in 277 buildings employing hundreds of </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >germos</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> (pimps) is now the Jakarta Islamic Center. I dare not even speculate how many PSK's (</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Pekerja Seks Komersial</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">) this bustling area once had. Ten, twenty thousand? More?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Anyway, all that was demolished in 1999 and early in the millennium the Jakarta Islamic Center had replaced all that had once brought misery and ecstasy in equal doses.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">But don't take my word for it. Go here to </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://mualaf.com/ragam-dan-muhibah/Muhibah/333-jakarta-islamic-center--dulunya-lokalisasi-berskala-asia-tenggara">Mualaf Center Online</a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> for a background on Kramat Tunggak.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So you ask, what the hell was I doing there?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I went there on a self-induced mission to visit a friend who once worked as a radio operator on my rig in Kalimantan.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Pak Aa Gym, fiftyish and obese, suffered a stroke about a year ago in his </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >kost</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> (rented room) in Balikpapan. Workers like Pak Aa Gym don't get to go home during time off like I do because their point-of-hire is in Balikpapan. They see their families perhaps once or </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4826.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 640px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4826.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">twice a year, usually over Lebaran Idul Fitri, and of course, paying out of their own </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >kantong celana</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. They just don't make enough. Their schedules are usually "two-one" - two weeks on and one off, and it was on one of those "offs" that his neighbor noticed that he had not emerged from his </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >kost</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> for two days running.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So he had suffered a stroke, alone in his </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >kost</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, with no one giving a damn.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">He was hospitalized for a while and when he was able to walk, his kin came to take him home to Jakarta. He had, by then, lost his faculties to speak.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So I promised myself that if I ever spend a day or two in Jakarta, I would hunt him down and pay my dues to a fellow comrade.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">But finding him was no easy feat. I had to ask around until I found another offshore worker called Sugeng who could get me his address. So I kept that battered piece of paper with some crude references to </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Bekas Tempat Prostituisi Terbesar</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> and finally, there I was.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I kept the meter running on the taxi (no need to expound on my getting lost in the maze of Tanjung Priok - the taxi driver had never been there either) which eventually made me poorer by almost RM 150.00 (yes, it's that far). After asking around I found the "Ibu RT" (some sort of neighborhood leader) who finally led me to Pak Aa Gym.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">There was no one home except Pak Aa Gym, dressed in a white T-shirt and sarong with a metal cane by his side. He had lost perhaps fifty pounds. He registered surprised, and a pitying '<span style="font-style: italic;">huummm, huummm</span>' escaped his throat. He grabbed my waist and cried. And so did I.</span></span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4832.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 360px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Jak%20May%202009/IMG_4832.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">And so I had come to fulfill my vow.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">What struck me was what "Ibu RT" said to me as she left me outside his gate, "Pak, you're the only friend from his workplace that visited".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">In reply, I said, "Alah...but my house is just on the way, <span style="font-style: italic;">Bu</span>...", shrugging it off.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">She had no idea that my house is in another country.</span></span>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-84499625328294018802009-05-19T12:37:00.010-05:002009-05-21T06:06:39.501-05:00"Rainbow Warrior" aka Laskar Pelangi<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikkFk2jJawc1-Zw9ynoowLEtyL88Dtdoo1jX1LSVw9NZKpak-lsg-W-uNjuaf47fuxBA-ko4YcphaOekTQmTEHvPjHnMU-uy27EMBVk5-nvuXvbovUBbVIm2Zc9PdMokvRBOSG6w/s1600-h/laskar-pelangi-the-movie1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 211px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikkFk2jJawc1-Zw9ynoowLEtyL88Dtdoo1jX1LSVw9NZKpak-lsg-W-uNjuaf47fuxBA-ko4YcphaOekTQmTEHvPjHnMU-uy27EMBVk5-nvuXvbovUBbVIm2Zc9PdMokvRBOSG6w/s400/laskar-pelangi-the-movie1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337594287865832338" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Best movie I've seen in a long while, folks. And that includes all the Hollywood ones.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">An adaptation from Andrea Hirata's novel, the first of the tetralogy, this movie broke all box office records in super-populous Indonesia.</span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-VHncfDiWDO3gbaFswChBxIuRHZ0i2RtNdwIlKRXRuiMk8CO02l63-8b-HhP0zJQo6SbirN3H-aVpt3BlDHSz1dgM8ESYfg7rVkE2zqrqSXYBsPpu3NCdzEsiMaE78GIg3PTxSw/s1600-h/laskar.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 122px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-VHncfDiWDO3gbaFswChBxIuRHZ0i2RtNdwIlKRXRuiMk8CO02l63-8b-HhP0zJQo6SbirN3H-aVpt3BlDHSz1dgM8ESYfg7rVkE2zqrqSXYBsPpu3NCdzEsiMaE78GIg3PTxSw/s200/laskar.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337601812999506482" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">You'd think with rampant </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >ciplaking</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> and DVD </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >bajakan</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> going on, people won't flock to the big screen any more. But they still do. Especially when a real good movie comes along, they still line the velvety ropes, don't they? Great movies are best savored on the big screen, as God had intended them to be. <span style="font-style: italic;">Not</span> on your plasticky grey China-made 21 incher in the old 4:3 format.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Even President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was not spared by the movie's impact. He forced his whole cabinet to watch at a legislative sitting - just so his reps can truly appreciate the failings of Indonesia's public school system.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">All this was almost a year ago.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Hmmm.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">And it still hasn't hit the big screens at our glitzy cineplexes in 1-Utama or Mid-Valley either.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Poor culture-starved folks in Malaysia can only settle for generic (and forgettable) horror fare like </span></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Setan Budeg</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">A gross injustice has been perpetrated here, man. I almost feel compelled to write to Cathay and TGV, the main movie distributors in Bolehland, and ask - </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Why</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I live and work in Indonesia - each time I come home to Malaysia I open the movie listings page with trepidation - and disappointment.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Notchetyet, lah.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">It's been so long that even the official DVD has hit the shelves here in Indonesia. I've been raving about it to my family so much that I already bought some to bring home. Just to feed their curious anticipation too.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The DVDs are in my laptop bag right this moment and coming home to a private screening at my cluttered living room on my 32" CRT TV soon. </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Belum ada Plasma laa bang...</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Cinematography? - Top Rate.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Acting Cast / Ensemble? - Brilliant. Cut Mini Theo is beautifully cut out for her role as the early seventies <span style="font-style: italic;">Ibu Muslimah</span>. Supporting casts include stellar Indo thespians like Ikranagara, Tora Sudiro, Jajang C. Noer, and Alex Komang. But the kiddie actors, as in <span style="font-style: italic;">Slumdog</span>, is what this movie is all about. </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Folks, you're going to shed plenty of tears. Don't say I didn't warn you!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The actors had to undergo intensive training in Bahasa Melayu to perform their roles convincingly. And after watching it you can almost believe that you are watching a Melayu movie. A "Melayu" movie that became the best-selling ever movie in Indonesia, that is. Imagine that, watching a an "Indonesian" movie - arguably the best ever - in Malay?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">According to Cut in an interview, she had "begged" director Riri Reza and producer Mira Lesmana for the role of <span style="font-style: italic;">Ibu Muslimah</span>. Riri was impressed that Cut was able to impart a certain sadness even while smiling, a required trait that l</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">anded her the poignant role.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The set direction was flawless. As a child growing up in the 60s and early 70s, Belitung was similar to rural Malaysia as I had remembered it. The producers certainly took great pains to create scenes for this period piece. Great for nostalgia buffs.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Is this the best Indonesian movie I've ever seen?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Yes. Me thinks it deserves and Oscar for Best Foreign Film.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I'm hoping the Malaysian Cathay or TGV distributors will come to their senses and bring it in for release.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Just don't borrow the DVD from me, though. It has already been booked months in advance!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">And please don't buy the pirated copy. Besides, it's <span style="font-style: italic;">haram</span> to do so.The original DVD will probably find its way to Malaysia eventually. Better yet, and I'm sure good sense will prevail, <span style="font-style: italic;">Laskar</span> will hit our cineplexes soon.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Better see it on the big screen </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >lah</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">N.B.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I was prompted to write this after being inspired by Alina Abdullah's take in her "ranting chanting"</span> <a style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" href="http://alinaabdullah.wordpress.com/">blog</a>.Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-6458545059186580832009-04-11T09:13:00.015-05:002009-04-12T08:50:03.531-05:00Reshmonu's HARAPAN CD - Buy it!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq7kUb7dBZrqaP-in0pZYl4F0Fje5ZiiETDSJSuR72J52v3IFO_EJtYWlETa0WPiPzaviMigfUF8yus_0w6o-FC_HGIHp2q0blBBGB5xr6O9IZ6aV8Fpk_tj_H2r8n5Y940wuv6Q/s1600-h/Reshmonu+Harapan.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 285px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq7kUb7dBZrqaP-in0pZYl4F0Fje5ZiiETDSJSuR72J52v3IFO_EJtYWlETa0WPiPzaviMigfUF8yus_0w6o-FC_HGIHp2q0blBBGB5xr6O9IZ6aV8Fpk_tj_H2r8n5Y940wuv6Q/s320/Reshmonu+Harapan.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323437226113831378" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">If you have tuned in to our local stations when you make that daily grind to the office you most probably have heard <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNSDGw3EJS4"><span style="font-style: italic;">Oh Anok Anok</span></a> right? Yeah, </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">that's the one, </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">the catchy <span style="font-style: italic;">Kelantanese</span>-inspired anthem. (Click for the MTV </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">youtube </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">video)</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">That's by <a href="http://www.reshmonu.com/">Reshmonu</a> and the lyrics are by my beloved, multi-talented sister, Pacha.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">His </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">first full-length Malay album has just made it</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> to market, folks, with Pacha penning most of the lyrics. Pacha had also written his award winning 2004 hit <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXC_8g_cSZc">Cintaku Pergi.</a></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Y2qDXsfYfPS_1nC0DS2-bmqJXoEK7AdjlP0fkxHRKL_k7rvMw9OdtGH_DZtQPkKHSaaB3VzXhM20kIbiZKLkkHDSdlb2LgCDG37p76YPhXXmFwjuU0M9uSgPe9dqQHlU_mKYwg/s1600-h/AFO_4178.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Y2qDXsfYfPS_1nC0DS2-bmqJXoEK7AdjlP0fkxHRKL_k7rvMw9OdtGH_DZtQPkKHSaaB3VzXhM20kIbiZKLkkHDSdlb2LgCDG37p76YPhXXmFwjuU0M9uSgPe9dqQHlU_mKYwg/s200/AFO_4178.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323450730537903234" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">HARAPAN is up for 5 nominations for the upcoming A.I.M. (Anugerah Industri Muzik) Awards 2009 in May for Best Pop Album, Best Engineered Album, Best Music Video, Best Male Vocal Performance for 'Sayu' and 'Doa Untuk Dia'.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />To order the CD, please go <a href="http://www.rrecords.net/">here</a>. It comes with a nice denim CD "sock" by Key Ng.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">If nothing else, proceeds from my sister's royalties will go towards me taking you guys out for <span style="font-style: italic;">teh tarik</span>, eh?<br /></span></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXUBeWvQwv9BQjdJrDsVlf2ciAmxCNVqbxAd6yVIo8Myd1L7ebKX6AvBhmVCl-xbyzBMKu1IiOUY78IBWLBLd1mnfke3d9gOOdGOTypR-8pr-77Ia9969L9yRkPwODw-DhKqqQPA/s1600-h/AFO_4140.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXUBeWvQwv9BQjdJrDsVlf2ciAmxCNVqbxAd6yVIo8Myd1L7ebKX6AvBhmVCl-xbyzBMKu1IiOUY78IBWLBLd1mnfke3d9gOOdGOTypR-8pr-77Ia9969L9yRkPwODw-DhKqqQPA/s400/AFO_4140.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323450972389603986" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Hiresh's lovely wife and son with Pacha.</span></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /></span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYhnBCs2HAYnYkZUfgVenBDbkkpRKIVrQV6c4t1hZXlJqSjrFcn14cvRSBWi0XzRwqOQqudS-4ypTi1wPHK4JJMrnwqzPoVQvMAHbjGXRbmhtImI1MWEdkyHyQExZdChiEvv3uqw/s1600-h/AFO_4177.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYhnBCs2HAYnYkZUfgVenBDbkkpRKIVrQV6c4t1hZXlJqSjrFcn14cvRSBWi0XzRwqOQqudS-4ypTi1wPHK4JJMrnwqzPoVQvMAHbjGXRbmhtImI1MWEdkyHyQExZdChiEvv3uqw/s400/AFO_4177.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323450058104285810" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:arial;" ><span style="font-size:85%;">Hiresh with my sister at the opening night of <a href="http://madsalos.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/pachas-first-art-solo-2/">her first solo</a>. In the background is my niece N and partly hidden by Resh's mic is A, niece of both <a href="http://mariasamad.blogspot.com/">Kak Ton's</a> and <a href="http://nursamad.blogspot.com/">Nuraina's</a>.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_txA7rTwqRqpIuYEfHcfLg9JELfAnLZpSG9GF7izyMObTgzFqh5AI9MpYmQtX0c8hsi8b5lbNM_so8swCujTBfArUn4ZBbi_b-_Tauw_iH8eQ1PofY1YF00prMGfhpVPVsimhQw/s1600-h/Inside+Sleeve.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 376px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_txA7rTwqRqpIuYEfHcfLg9JELfAnLZpSG9GF7izyMObTgzFqh5AI9MpYmQtX0c8hsi8b5lbNM_so8swCujTBfArUn4ZBbi_b-_Tauw_iH8eQ1PofY1YF00prMGfhpVPVsimhQw/s400/Inside+Sleeve.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323452091742208914" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Excerpt from Resh's <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70192074960&ref=ts">Facebook</a>:<br /><br /></span></span>Subject: My Album ‘HARAPAN’ earns 5 nominations for the A.I.M (Anugerah Industri Muzik) 2009<br /><br />Hey there thought I’d share the good news.My latest full length malay album titled ‘Harapan’ just earned me 5 nominations for the upcoming A.I.M awards happening May 2nd. The nominations are for the following categories :<br /><br />1. Best Engineered Album<br />2. Best Music Video - ‘Oh Anok – Anok’ the MTV<br />3. Best Male Vocal performance in a song ‘Doa Untuk Dia’<br />4. Best Male Vocal performance in a song ‘Sayu’<br />5. Best Pop Album<br /><br />I ‘m overwhelmed at the fact that this first malay album of mine has earned a place among a majority malay music industry. I am humbled that it has earned its recognition among my fellow musical comrades…my only hope now is that ‘Harapan’ reaches you… my supporters! (available exclusively @ <a href="http://www.records.net/" target="_blank">www.rrecords.net</a><div style="display: inline; padding-right: 16px; width: 16px; height: 16px;"> ) Would love to extend my sincere gratitude to everyone involved directly or indirectly in the production of ‘HARAPAN’.<br /></div> BTW: With regards to the release of my next English album…mmmm???? All I can say is somethin’s cookin in my music kitchen!!!! (hint:- Soulfull Funky House music in session!).<br /><br />--------------------<br /><br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nNSDGw3EJS4&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nNSDGw3EJS4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IXC_8g_cSZc&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IXC_8g_cSZc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-8523943331840232372009-04-08T21:09:00.003-05:002009-04-08T21:53:44.396-05:00More (Yawn) Bike Stories<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvgmrG0KpRx8_SkmebpEy5qJ8HdPdxx8EBx_rV4BVxJBdBhsKQigBzGD3GqZFcE0YcoBCKJfGpXK7Tp1eb9rDe08DYz0vOy0To0r25DRjy99pEQghqo-C16DS4DeT2otcVPLKdOQ/s1600-h/AFO_7246.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvgmrG0KpRx8_SkmebpEy5qJ8HdPdxx8EBx_rV4BVxJBdBhsKQigBzGD3GqZFcE0YcoBCKJfGpXK7Tp1eb9rDe08DYz0vOy0To0r25DRjy99pEQghqo-C16DS4DeT2otcVPLKdOQ/s320/AFO_7246.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322508339322212338" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My boy turned 8 yesterday, and he also came out 3rd in his term exams, so what did I do to reward him amidst this raging recession and BN's recent humiliating loss? (Is this Perak's and Kedah's "gift" to the newly-crowned First Lady?)</span></span><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I bought him a scaled-down replica of former world champion <a href="http://www.frischknecht.ch/">Thomas Frischknecht's</a> race machine: A <a href="http://www.scottusa.com/us_en/product/78/627/scale_jr_20">Scott</a> Scale JR 20. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:18px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The "20" means twenty inch wheels when adult-sized bikes are 24 inch. So it's a kid's bike. But a serious kid's bike armed with Revo Shifters, front and rear derailleurs,front fork with 55mm travel, the whole works.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:18px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Come visit </span><a href="http://madsalos.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">my other blog</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> for more of this insanely inane, stupendously mundane and lame ho-hum stuff.</span></span></div></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-65826816563159752392009-04-04T11:25:00.002-05:002009-04-04T12:24:17.640-05:00On Cloud Nine Pt. 2 - "V009" actually made 9th!!!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/ResultsVeteran-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 485px; height: 316px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/ResultsVeteran-1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />That's right, folks. I was "upgraded" to 9th!<br /><br />Damn the <a href="http://selangormtbchallenge.blogspot.com/">organizers</a>, or praise 'em, rather? - because the official race classification came in almost a week later!<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Slackers</span>.<br /><br />This is something akin to what happened to Jarno Trulli in the opening F1 season on the same day as my race. Lewis Hamilton was eventually disqualified from his third placing and Trulli bumped up to third from fourth.<br /><br />Apparently legendary Pat "Pig Pen" Brunsdon (V012) and "Ironman" supremo Wan Shahidan (V019) had jumped the gun. In Pat's and Wan Shahidan's case, there were so gung ho on starting (a bit like being <span style="font-style: italic;">kiasu laa</span>) that they started off at the first flag-off in the Open Class.<br /><br />They were supposed to start off with us, about 10 minutes after the Open flag-off. It was a bit chaotic I suppose since there are hundreds of us jammed on that small lane waiting for the Pajero to lead us on a rolling start. The Pajero had some dudes in the rear holding a huge Selangor flag ready to "drop it". So these two decided to trail the Open pack I guess, thinking the Vet class race was going to be on a slightly different and shorter route. In Pat's case the marshalls made him go on the longer Open Class route (see note above), Buy why Wan Shahidan was positioned 18th I wouldn't know. He must have committed a bigger sin like failing to pass a checkpoint (shortcut?) or something when he actually had the fastest time.<br /><br />In any event I'm a happy puppy.<br /><br />Like everything else in life, we should play by the rules and hope to "get lucky" sometimes.Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-18139113530532562282009-03-29T07:36:00.014-05:002009-04-04T12:30:35.149-05:00On Cloud Nine<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4623.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 360px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4623.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4650.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 457px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4650.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">My smile says it all..</span>.</span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Folks, today I surprised even myself. The presence of expat Pat "Pig Pen" Brundson, Gary Choong of CycleWorx Singapore, Farizul, and some hard core athletes like Wan Shahidan did not deter me one bit. B</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">ack in '06 </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Gary made top 50 in the International Tour of Thailand (ITT) and will make some piss in their pants. And he made Top 50 IN THE OPEN CATEGORY, not some piss-ant "Veteran Class" shit. I was only nine places behind number one (Wan N). And seven places behind Gary. Yeee-haaa!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">You heard that right, folks! Mat Salo with race number "V009" made tenth place. I was shocked. Which means I smoked some of 'em rider-athletes-cum-super-heroes that were once featured in newspapers...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">After crossing the finishing line in almost two hours (there's one portion where you had to push up the bike up a 45-60 degree slope for 1 km, with no way to ride it, what with 200+ cyclists bottle necking the single-track - that's <span style="font-style: italic;">why</span> it took so long) the marshalls at the finishing line said I came in tenth. I couldn't believe it so I grabbed the list to be sure.<br /><br />Too bad there's no prizes for coming in tenth but knowing that I smoked some of 'em super-established guys?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">It is indeed sweet, folks.</span></span><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4634.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 457px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4634.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">After crossing a small stream halfway through the race the whole bottom lip of my clipless shoes' got snagged. I had to look for some '</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">tali rafia</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">' to hold it in place. If it had stayed intact - could I have been on the podium? Excuses, excuses...</span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4573.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 457px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4573.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Pre-Race: Leaving the house at 7.00 a.m.</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4581.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 457px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4581.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Pre-Race in Sg. Buluh... all suited up.</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4600.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 360px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4600.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">My </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">15-year old </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">first-born</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> in the Open Class. He "DNF'd" at the last checkpoint due to a broken chain...</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4607.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 360px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4607.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Pre-Race: Marshalls zooming past on their motocross bikes while I don my gloves and say a little prayer...</span><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4625.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 458px; height: 640px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4625.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Me and Le Tua's pro Lim Yew Meng who came in second in the Open Class. Of course Yew Meng's in the same team with Indonesia's Number 1 and 2 rider Samai Amari and Tonton Susanto - participants in the recent LeTour DeLangkawi.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4617.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 457px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4617.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Strollin', Strollin' ...past the finish line...</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4644.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 360px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/IMG_4644.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Main sponsor's tent: Ng Joo Ngan's son- imcyclist.com</span><br /></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-56945185459796715652009-03-26T00:57:00.007-05:002009-03-27T22:25:40.110-05:00A Man In Mid-Life<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/AFO_6612.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 458px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/AFO_6612.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Mat Salo in (poor) post training form, March 26, 2009. T minus 3 days to <a href="http://selangormtbchallenge.blogspot.com/">Race Day</a> this weekend.</span></i></b><br /></div><br /><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I guess like all men hitting the "magic 50" they start to do something "crazy" - and I'm certainly no exception to the rule.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Some take on mistresses or an extra wife, some will purchase a low-slung two-seater sports coupe, or a Mark Levinson (<span style="font-style: italic;">yes</span>, Kim Catrall's hubby) hi-fi, or a big plasma TV. I wonder if going to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">umroh</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> or </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">haj</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> is a consequence of mid-life too?</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/09ScanRaceFinalKM.jpg" /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:'times new roman';" >Back in '04 - GP Speda Race Series - note the "boghoi" factor</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Me? As soon as I came back from Indonesia I decided to do something that I had not done since 2004: enter a goddamned MTB race. Back in '04 when I was not quite 45 I managed to complete 100 k on a road-bike. But that was five years and tens of thousands of sticks of cigarettes ago. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">And I've also piled on the pounds, in case you haven't noticed.</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/Aug02275.jpg" /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:'times new roman';" >Mean, but not-so-lean-nor-trim in '04<br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">So this weekend I'll be competing in the men's "veteran" class (45 and above, of course) but for old-timers like us who couldn't get it up more than once a single night, the course is only over 15 km when normal UCI sanctioned cross-country MTB races would be at least 24 km or 4 laps on an average 6 km loop.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">So why am I doing it? I don't really know <i>dudes</i> and <i>dudettes</i>.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Perhaps like all men in mid-life, we all start "losing it"?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Wish me luck this Sunday the 29th, eh?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:18;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><i>If you're keen, it's near the old leprosy hospital in Sg. Buloh. Go <a href="http://selangormtbchallenge.blogspot.com/">here</a> for directions.)</i></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/AFO_6615.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/AFO_6615.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Brand New Shimano XT "clipless" installed at <a href="http://imcyclist.com/">Joo Ngan</a> yesterday.</span></i></b></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/AFO_6606.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Bike%20Race%202009/AFO_6606.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Transferring "clipless" cleats from new to old shoes...</span></i></b></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-56299181785360812802009-02-13T07:29:00.007-06:002009-02-13T09:26:43.890-06:00LDTL Stage 5 - The Curve to Genting (Mat Salo's favorite sport!)<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This is my third live LDTL event, the previous two a couple of years back. I'm not often home in Malaysia so I was lucky as hell that Stage 5 today started at my front door - literally!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The Petaling Jaya to Genting Stage kicked-off right between Ikano Power Center and The Curve, in front of co-sponsor's VW Malaysia's spiffy showroom to be exact. So all I did was to get on my hand-made Santa Cruz Superlight, a full-suspension mountain bike with my trusty D300 and 18-200 VR II lens slung across my shoulder, my pack of Dunhill's and headed off to The Curve to witness the start.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Did I tell you back in '04, at almost 45 years of age, I borrowed a RM 10,000 road bike and entered a UCI-sanctioned 100 km race in Perak? I finished fourth in my age category, barely missing the podium. But I was at least an hour behind the leader's though! I think there's hardly a sport greater than cycling, imagine day-in day-out going flat out for hundreds of kilometers a day until the end of the tour. The Tour De France, of course is the greatest of all - covering 3000 km in three weeks. How can anyone possibly do it? Doping? Naaah...</span></span><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6255.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6255.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Yesterday's Malacca to Bangi Stage Winner - young upstart Samai of Indonesia who clocked an average of 42.08 km/hr for the 221 km run - that's faster than most non-</span>rempits's kapcai <span style="font-style: italic;">I gather.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6247.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6247.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Wishing Anuar Manan of Team Malaysia well...</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6254.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 344px; height: 480px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6254.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Lim Yew Meng and Indonesia's Samai, pros for Le Tua Cycling Team</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6251.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6251.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Stretch 'em, dudes...</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6274.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6274.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Samai acknowledging the crowd when called to the podium to "encore" yesterday's performance with teammate Jeremy Yates of New Zealand.</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6259.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 318px; height: 480px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6259.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">One of my all-time favorite Iranian cyclists - Ghader Misbani. He's done this since the inception, always posting impressive results.</span><br /></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6265.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 458px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6265.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6268.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 318px; height: 480px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6268.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Le Tua's Razif Salleh, nursing some stitches and abrasions from recent crashes.<br /><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6270.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 318px; height: 480px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6270.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Don't look let the "toy boy" look fool you. This Jap is a serious contender!</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6283.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 457px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6283.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">And they're off!</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6298.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 458px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6298.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">South African's Nolan Hoffman, yesterday's Malacca to Bangi Green Jersey holder checkin' out his rear.</span>..<br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6289.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6289.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Yanks Euser and Duggan of Team Garmin Slipstream (in blue, flanked by Team China) discussing whether they can ever be the next Lance Armstrong.</span><br /></div><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6323.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 318px; height: 480px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6323.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Made a new friend today, canine lover, TheStar's columnist, wheelchair activist, and get this - </span>merangkap<span style="font-style: italic;"> MBPJ councillor Anthony T who came as a VIP guest.</span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6328.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 458px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6328.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Anthony T demonstrating to me the workings of MBPJ's "mobility van". Thanks, bro'.</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6271.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 425px; height: 640px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/AFO_6271.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Columbian Jose Rodolfo Serpa Perez, today's eventual Genting's conquistador!</span><br /></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-7108783403691093872009-01-17T06:26:00.010-06:002009-01-20T08:28:54.295-06:00Wells of Eyes<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >WELL HAVE YOU EVER, in that moment of intense intimacy, whether sexual or otherwise, peered into that black liquid inkiness and looked,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>really looked</i>—into a person’s soul? And there you are, spent, deep inside her that you swear as you stared in the unfathomable darkness, a glimpse, a connection so intense, a feeling you might have felt in a church, mosque or synagogue however incongruous that may be. Then you wonder why you had never experienced anything like it before, thinking you’ve already seen it all on the conjugal bed you shared with your long suffering but dutiful spouse.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >Well<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>I</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>have, and it’s something I am not proud to tell you either, but tell you I must.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >As a traveling salesman (shoes are my trade) I’ve had my fair share of women; I am merely stating a fact. Most of these encounters were forgettable, ably aided and abetted by knowledgeable taxi drivers, hotel doormen in a quest for commissions and barmen. Sometimes you might even bump into your quarry at the lobby bar, their eyes expectant looking, furtively making you out. Cheap as you are, you rejoice at being able to cut out the middleman.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >And you may very well ask, why do we do what we do? Beats me, but I think it’s a question of release and opportunity. And I would be hard pressed to remember her name a week later, if it was her name at all. And even if she gave me her number afterwards, I would never call her again. Like I said, it’s for release; I didn’t say I was looking for a wife was I?</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >That was, until I met<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>her</i>. Or rather, I had <i style="">looked into her soul</i>.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >For the purposes of my story, let’s call her Lita.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >The women I’ve had, chiefly, were what you might call ‘desperadoes’; divorcees and waitresses and office girls out to make something on the side, or simply looking for a thrill. The sleeve on one of my favorite albums by Steely Dan says, “Can’t Buy a Thrill”, and I dispute that strongly because one certainly can. These women are usually of the older and mature variety, and are<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>not</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>full-time hookers, oh no, not my cup of tea. Besides, the potential for disease is incalculable. There are high-rent ones of course and can usually be found in the Yellow Pages under “Escorts”, spick and span and probably comes with a certificate but on my shoestring budget? Sorry, I hadn’t intended that as a pun.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >That was, until Lita came along.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >She was something else; a rough, unpolished diamond, heaven-sent in the archetypal Adam and Eve fashion save for one thing: I’m no Adam, not by any stretch of the imagination. For starters she was young; barely out of her teens when she was ‘introduced’ to me by the hotel bartender one fine balmy evening. I was in town to visit our dealers with an express mission to find out why our new range of rubber thongs or ‘jap slaps’ weren’t quite flying off the shelves.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >And there I was, balding, with a heavy paunch, embarrassing man-boobs and should I add,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>thirty</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>years her senior, nursing a beer. The lithe creature appeared in a lady dress that accentuated her cleavage; long flowing locks carelessly caressing her shoulders . . . and legs. Oh legs. And the exquisite calves dragging the eyes to meander down to her gloriously petit ankles . . . dainty feet clad in fashionable black Italian pumps (or<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>faux</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Italian anyway) –my personal Lolita for the night. I felt like I had scored the lottery, she was<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>that </i>gorgeous. But her eyes I noticed, –were sad and forlorn.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >Never in a thousand million years, as I counted my lucky stars and took a long sensual swig of my beer, would ever such a beautiful creature look at me. Let alone once, let alone twice, and God forbid, let alone<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>fall</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>for me.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >She moved towards me, hesitant, which is understandable, in light of my age and my bearing. I was dressed in casuals, dark pants with my Arnold Palmer golf shirt hanging over my gut. I gestured her to the stool next to me, and more than once I could net help thinking that she just wanted to get this over and done with. Believe me; sometimes they are no different than any other service personnel.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >But I was in the mood for more alcohol, to deaden the pain and make it easier to live with myself afterwards perhaps? I asked her what she wanted and said she wasn’t particular. On cue, the bartender recommended her a lady drink, Baileys I think it was, something that looked like milk-white coffee.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >Now I may be crude and crass, but I’ve always believed you should treat people the way you want to be treated. If I feel her aversion to me is too strong I would not force her, no matter what her vocation. As a salesman I can respect a seller’s right of refusal. Then perhaps at closing time after paying the tab, instead of walking to the elevators to the heavens above I would take her to the doorman and order a taxi. Then I would quietly slip her some notes and thank her for her time. Inadvertently their eyes would light up at this point; glad she wasn’t forced to the evening’s supposedly eventual conclusion. If I’m lucky I might even get a peck on the cheek, amidst her mumblings of apologies.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" > So I sat there with these thoughts in my head; that the night might come up empty, when the sweet young thing old enough to be my daughter slipped her soft hands in mine. I thought I even detected a faint hint of a lovers’ squeeze. <i>What’s this?</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>I glanced over –and was that a faint smile painting her luscious lips too?</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >So we ordered some more rounds, she too perhaps to deaden the pain and make it easier to live with herself afterwards. I can’t even remember what we talked about but I sensed some heat in our intertwined fingers beginning to simmer, frozen hearts ready to thaw. I should be so lucky, I guess.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >More than once as we whispered our version of small talk, our lips would brush, accompanied by a gentle squeezing of fingers. It was like being struck with 1000 volts of current. I mean, is this for real? Can one find love with a teenage hooker? I was still sober enough to tell myself that I’ve only just met the girl, and she was only doing it for the money.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >I shall not indulge you with details, but suffice to say, that night was a revelation. I felt truly liberated, the shackles that used to bore love down blessedly removed. I finally felt I had a communion with someone on a plane I never knew existed. The feeling was, and I do not say this lightly or sacrilegiously, bordered on the religious. She was hungry for me as I her. Every fantasy, every fetish I had in my perverted mid-life brain she indulged. When after all is said and done, she did not roll over (and this was a first) and gently laid her head on my chest, basking in the afterglow. And then we would sleep spoon fashion. And right before the breaking of dawn, when male pheromones (even 50-year old ones) are wont to rage, her lips would seek and tease my member. Then we would start all over again.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >And when we would erupt, face to face, her lips locked on mine, her eyes would engagingly remain open: begging me to stare in the wells of her eyes, for our souls to cross the divide.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >So I broke my cardinal rule about not meeting a trick more than once. In fact, we met plenty of times after that. In a rare moment she confessed that I was her first John (<i>yeah, right,</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>say what you may – it’s true), and she did it because her mother was in the hospital and her only other sibling was about to start school. But what she hadn’t counted on (nor I, not in a thousand million years) was our powerful communion, however ridiculous that may sound.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >Fortunately I was been blessed with rather sound plumbing thank God, although looks can be deceiving (don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover and all that) and I will bring to my grave that when we were together, Lita had<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>never faked it</i>. Which also puts into question the so called wonder drug that purportedly treats ED: you don’t need Viagra; you just need a yielding Lolita-type, that’s all.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >On the professional side I was reprimanded by HQ on why I kept visiting that same town again and again when the sales figures there didn’t warrant my undue attention. But how could I explain to the Area Manager that I had looked –<i>looked</i>–into a person’s soul?</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >But like all half-baked stories the affair ended badly (at least for me it was) about a year and a half later. I remember it clearly because it was not long after we celebrated her twentieth and I had bought her a rather daring slip, something with lace and frills. We didn’t really meet that often, once in a blue month, sometimes twice, and of late surprisingly these liaisons were initiated by her.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >One rainy evening I checked into the hotel, on my own account, hugely anticipating our meeting of souls when I called and found that her mobile number no longer worked. The computer generated female voice gently admonishing: <i>we’re sorry, the number you had called is no longer in service</i>. This I take to mean that either something bad had happened to her, or, the end of the world as I know it. Because she had come to her senses and decided to move on. In all likelihood, and I’m not averse to kidding myself, it was probably the latter. All fantastic things must come to a crashing end; it was, as they say, par for the course for me.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >But it didn’t really quite end that night when it should and then I had literally drowned myself in a sorrow of liquid amber. The bartender was apologetic, because even he, after a few calls, had failed to trace her.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >Thinking it was over; I vainly tried keeping her out of my mind. But one does not fall out of love so easily I don’t think.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >But some months later, out of the blue, she called, on a different number. She apologized citing reasons that might have even been absurd, but with my heart aching and racing and the embers starting to kindle, reason fell out the window. So we agreed to meet and consume our hunger. Or so, I had thought.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >For the second time she stood me up, without a word, or nary an apology. After waiting for a reasonable and appropriate length of time, I tried her new number but that number had also ceased to exist, when hours earlier the breathless SMS she sent still burned in my phone’s inbox:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>RHW darling I wil brg the bday lingerie u gave im yrs tonite 2 do as u pls. Much muaaach!</i> (RH was the pet name she gave me, and please don’t laugh:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Red Hot Wanger</i>). I shall not bore you with tales of my sorrow and how the bartender had helped me drown in it that night. This time it was with something much stronger: Scotch, <i style="">and make it a double, please</i>. That was how Mr. JW became my choice of poison ever since. I also liked its motto: <i style="">Keep on Walking</i>.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >So I let the episode pass, which was the wise thing to do but I “kept on walking”, which probably wasn’t.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >It was a year or so later I found myself in the same hotel where I was to introduce a brand new range of sneakers to our dealers the following day. I walked in with an exaggerated bounce, tipping the doormen who held on to my suitcase, hoping to give the right impression of delight and confidence; tools of the sales trade I say.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >It was already late in the evening as I stood at the reception, the hour when dusk had finally settled and vestiges of scarlet had finally disappeared into the cool black sky.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >I can safely say I had forgotten her by then, or tried not to think about her at all. At my age, I should have already learned to let bygones be bygones. Instead of going up to my room I decided to walk to the side where the lounge was, perhaps to get an early start in dulling my senses. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >As I was about to cross the threshold, the arch that leads into the lounge, something made me stop, a presence, a scent. I could <i style="">feel</i> her, even if I was deaf and blind I would have known it was her. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >She was at the bar, a bald and stout older gentlemen sat by her side, her exposed knee and his bulbous jeans almost touching. I stood there like a deer in headlights. Unless they turned, they could not see me because I was looking at the back of their heads. They bartender stood looking at me, no, <i style="">imploring me</i> and I knew I must turn and walk away. But I stood there immobile and helpless. Animated in their conversation, she leaned close to him as her hands silkily disappeared into his lap. That was when I felt a breathless stab of jealously hit me, and more fool me, this feeling I had not felt perhaps a quarter of a century ago when I was courting my wife when a dear friend took her to the floor, at my insistence (I don’t dance) and she put her arms around his broad shoulders. A friendly gesture required by dance protocol that’s all.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >Dazed, I left quickly, got to the room and took a quick and cold shower. As the water sprayed over my head, I hung my head and wept. But I could not stand myself for acting like that and after watching the 8 o’ clock news, I set the onset of self-pity aside, dressed and headed downstairs to the bar bracing myself come what may.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >The lovey-dovey couple had already left, and I refused to speculate where.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >The bartender pursed his lips looking up at me with something akin to pity. I smiled my bravado smile, with a shrug and a playful gesture of my palms held open, to show that what is past is past and gone forever.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >For a moment we were both lost for words. It has been a year after all. Ever the professional, he turned and grabbed the The Black Label behind him, readying my poison. Presently he said, ‘double, sir?’<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >‘As always… always,’ I said.</span><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >I’ll be damned but didn’t my voice start to falter?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >He put the glass on the counter and I averted my eyes, feigning indifference, in case they should show defeat, or worse, tears.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >‘Err, company tonight, sir?’<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >‘Not tonight’</span><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" >, I said (<i>and my heart almost screamed: perhaps never you fool!</i>), a half-smile on my lips, parched from the countless years of cigarette abuse, certain in my belief that I will never peer into anyone’s soul, or into the wells of anyone’s eyes, ever again.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" > ============</span></i><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Note: This is my attempt at a short story written in the first person and a passive voice. It was inspired by my daughter’s eyes, a two-year old with wells of eyes so black, looking up at me, sometimes accusingly: </span></span></i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Papa I know you’ve been bad, but I love you anyway. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Ah, to know such sweet unconditional love.</span></i></span><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I wrote this in just a few short hours in the driller’s doghouse, on a rig in the Straits</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">of</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span></span></i><st1:place><st1:city><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Makassar</span></span></i></st1:city><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, </span></span></i><st1:country-region><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Indonesia</span></span></i></st1:country-region></st1:place><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, where 250 or so poor souls had perished in a ferry accident in these waters, barely days earlier.</span></span></i><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The character in the story is someone I typically meet in lobby bars during my travels.</span></span></i><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Regretfully the character in the story is not me, but should you insist, then as a writer, I would have done my job.</span></span></i><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><i><span style=";font-family:Verdana;color:black;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Thank you for reading.</span></span></i><span style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-41151022580472005942008-12-08T12:14:00.022-06:002008-12-19T10:21:37.693-06:00The Best Seat in the House<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/PB190014_2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 638px; height: 399px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/PB190014_2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >I'VE GOT A CONFESSION TO MAKE: I MUST BE MAD. Music mad. While disaster spirals all around us, all I could think of was <span style="font-style: italic;">the</span> concert. Thanks to my brother in law</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Sting_tag.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 222px; height: 320px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Sting_tag.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > Adrian who was assisting the FoH (Front of House) sound engineer I had the best seat in the house, sitting behind Donal Hodgson (the brilliant Grammy-winning recording engineer who engineered and mixed Sting's latest effort),</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > Sunil (in charge of the mixing board) and Kumar who ran the</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > lighting.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" ><o:p></o:p>I am proud to say that both Sunil and Kumar are Malaysians; Sting and Hodgson were impressed by their reputation and decided to use their services. Sunil’s day job is technical director for Media Prima’s 8TV but he confesses to make more ‘on the side’. The other</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > Malaysian in the team, Andrew Warren, co-owner of the sound and lighting outfit, along with Jay Neil, both of whom I had the pleasure of meeting.</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/SRNote_01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 437px; height: 640px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/SRNote_01.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >Actually I had known Andrew far longer. A few years ago when I lived in Bandar Sri Damansara (where his offices are located) I sort of barged in his office to chat. I've been known to do this sort of thing for no reason. Actually I saw crates of Meyer sound equipment (hi-end sound reinforcement gear for concerts, and I profess to know a bit </span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >about studio gear) being carted off a small truck into his office. I was intrigued so I walked in and accosted the guy. Yeah, just like that. In the course of our conversation it turned out I had also known his father Tony Warren (during my 'pub-crawling' days) who was -and still is -</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > a popular entertainer in the </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;">Klang</span></st1:placename><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;">Valley</span></st1:placetype></st1:place></span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > pub circuit. He says dad still performs occasionally</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > at the Selangor Club.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >Being of the curious sort I satrted pelting him with questions: how did you get into this line of work? Both he and Jay are graduates of SAE (</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><st1:place><st1:placetype><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;">School</span></st1:placetype><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;"> of </span><st1:placename><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;">Audio Engineering</span></st1:placename></st1:place></span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >) and were among the first employees of Petronas Philharmonic. Being pioneer Stage & Production Managers with the spare-no-expense oil giant has its benefits: they were sent to </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><st1:street><st1:address><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;">London's famous Abbey Road</span></st1:address></st1:street></span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > studios </span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >for additional training. Abbey Road is where the The Beatles recorded their classics, in case you didn't know. After six years in Petronas they decided to hang their boots and form a company. And the rest, don't you just hate this cliche? - is</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > history.</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/SRNote_02.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 435px; height: 640px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/SRNote_02.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >Their roster of satisfied customers reads like a Who’s Who of contemporary music: Diana Krall, Yellow Jackets, The Chieftains, Freddy Cole, Lady Smith Black Mambazo, Michael Jackson, Ricky Martin, Scorpions, Michael Learns to Rock, Deep Purple and now the</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > former schoolteacher Gordon Sumner aka Sting. Not to mention local Media Prima sponsored events and even taxpayer-sponsored excesses like <span style="font-style: italic;">Citrawana</span> of which I’m not certain if the <i style="">rakyat</i> ever</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > got their moneys’ worth. But I’m not going into that <i style="">that</i> .</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >But that night, the day before Muslims celebrated Eid actually, was indeed special. To my untrained and damaged ears (from spending too much time on a drilling rigs) Sting's tenor soared beautifully, and the backing 8-member Stile Anticos choir was simply exquisite. Th</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >e human voice couldn't impossibly be better. Why I say this is because Sting and The Stile Anticos are superb musicians</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >. In this day and age of desktop recordings and digital studios most of what you hear on CDs (Britney Spears, Kanye West etc), especially the vocals, would have gone through a sound plug-in in the recording phase called Auto Tune. It</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > automatically correct pitches in instrument or voice. Not with these incredibly trained musicians, no sir. There were no other instruments to clutter the mix so it was mostly human voices to the accompaniment of the lutes and</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > arch lutes of Edin Karamazov and Sting.</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >Ah, the 'lutes. Indescribably resonant; every harmonic scrape of Sting's and Edin's fingers against the fretboard was clearly heard in the mix. The lute, by the way is closely related to the Arabic <i>oud</i>, and is also related our humble <i>gambus</i>. </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;">Adrian</span></st1:place></st1:city></span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > pointed me the mix console showing an -11 dB range ... Whoa, what superb dynamics! Every breath, every rasp from Sting's soulful tenor rang clear. But KL Convention Center's Plenary Hall probably played a part too with its excellent hall acoustics, that's probably why this venue was chosen over, say, Putra World Trade Center.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" ><br />Maximum seating is around 2,000 for the hall but I think the crowd was less than half of that. Most of your secondary school concerts probably had more people attending. Sting isn't doing this for money; he had just finished a year-long Police reunion world tour that grossed almost half a billion dollars in revenue. I was at the Police concert last February</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > where I saw Sting, Stewart Copeland and a fit 65-year old Andy Summers jumping around like teenage hooligans, playing to packed and enthusiastic audience of 10,000 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. So that's twice I saw Sting play live this year. I'm embarrassed to say that the ticket costs there ran into four figures when converted into our money. But for music mad people like me it was worth it. Or so, I deluded myself into believing.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >For the most part I’m reviewing the sound, not the music itself because my vocabulary is</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > sorely lacking when it comes to accurately describe subtleties and nuances of classical 16<sup>th</sup> century music. The album, <i style="">Songs from the Labyrinth</i> was written by John Dowland, an English court musician in the late 1500’s. It was pointed out to Sting twenty years ago by guitarist Dominic Miller (his regular guitarist on his solo albums) who even commissioned a lute to be made for Sting as gift. </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;">Sarajevo</span></st1:place></st1:city></span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >-born Edin Karamazov</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >, considered one of the world’s greatest exponents of the instrument prodded him further into re-discovering Dowland, whom Karamazov described as “the best songwriter and lyricist in the English language”. And that got Sting hooked.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >The lyrics are indeed beautiful, and all songs we hear today can be traced to Dowland. It’s very contemplative and melancholy and deals with pain, loss and alienation. Sounds familiar? What’s true 500 years ago still rings true today.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >I suspect many in the crowd were disappointed, especially if they came to liste</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >n to Sting play ‘Roxanne’. For the encore he did make a small concession and played a very stirring acapella version of ‘Fields of Gold’ and ‘Message in a Bottle’, accompanied only by the choir and lute. When he strummed the first few bars of <i style="">Fields,</i> </span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >all of a sudden the clapping became more enthusiastic</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >. I shook my head in disgust; not because I don’t like these songs but this isn't the forum for it. It appeared that he wanted to appease the</span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" > ‘Oh-Sting-playing-tonight-just-let’s-go’ crowd coming to hear him play ‘Englishman in </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><st1:state><st1:place><span style="font-family:Sylfaen;">New York</span></st1:place></st1:state></span><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >’. But I don’t blame him; he’s an entertainer after all.</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/LightsNote.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 419px; height: 640px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/LightsNote.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >For many who came to enjoy classical music (me included) was duly rewarded. And no million-dollar hi-fi system can ever replicate the superb dynamics of a live acoustic set. Best of all the sound and lighting engineered by Malaysians for one of the best artiste in the world.</span></p> <span style=";font-family:Sylfaen;font-size:130%;" >And to Andrew, Sunil, Kumar and Jay, you guys make me swell with pride. And thanks for the best seat in the house, guys.</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/PB190026.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 400px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/PB190026.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">From Left: My brother-in-law Adrian, Sunil and Kumar<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:courier new;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:100%;">(photos taken with my son's cheap compact Minolta)</span><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Note: During the sound check earlier in the afternoon </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >Sting came down to their mixing console</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><span style="font-size:130%;"> to listen in. All three confessed to being tongue-tied and star-struck. Who wouldn't?</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: verdana;font-size:130%;" >I conveniently stole Sunil & Kumar's Sound Engineering, Lighting Design & Stage Notes from their console which was given by Sting earlier. Interesting to note what Sting likes to have in the dressing room.</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Dressroom.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 415px; height: 640px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Dressroom.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></p>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-30832705720433302112008-11-29T10:10:00.014-06:002008-11-30T06:50:05.938-06:00Blog Bash - A Bit Player's Perspective<img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5142.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5230.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5230.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5208.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5208.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5270.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5270.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5269.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5269.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5216.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5216.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5198.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5198.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5160.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5160.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5320.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5320.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5299.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5299.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5256.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5256.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5344.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5344.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5349.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5349.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5247.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5247.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5250.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Blog%20Bash%20End%202008/AFO_5250.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">MAT SALO, </span><a href="http://tokasid.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Tokasid</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://talkonly.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Shah Cakapjer</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://letswheel.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Kerp</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><a href="http://jaffpoint.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Dato' Jaffar</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> had some months earlier decided on an end of year blog bash, a bash to end all bashes - a tit for tat response to last week's wildly successful Indonesian Pesta Blogger, an event spearheaded by their information minister and sanctioned by its government. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Fuuyooo</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. Since bloggers in Bolehland are vilified scum (as decreed by Syed Albar, Razak Baginda & Co) so a private initiative was deemed necessary. We do not believe, in the near-term at least, the Malaysian government care to sanction such an inane gathering of unlike-minded individuals...</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">But what do we care? The point is to gather a diverse group of losers, has beens, washouts and sprinkle it with a dash of winners and wannabes and see what comes out of the mix.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Also, it was to coincide with </span><a href="http://katataknak.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Chegu Kata Tak Nak's</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> visit to KL to grade exam papers, or so we were erroneously told. It turned out he was here to audition for the inaugural Bloggers Idol...</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">The upshot was some bloggers finally came out of the woodwork, and truth be told, some were sorely disappointed that their heroes and heroines turned out to be, well, - your boringly average </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Mat</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Minahs.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">The men are mostly thick in the middle and sometimes thick in the head, with receding hairlines, graying and are notoriously poor dressers to boot. Take Mat Salo. He came in a tee shirt which </span><a href="http://elviza.wordpress.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Lady Elviza</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> promptly commented, 'as one size too small'. This was deliberate on Mat Salo's part you see, a rather sly attempt to accentuate his biceps but unfortunately had the unintended effect of emphasizing his belly. That man needs a stylist, yessir.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> Yeah like a fish needs a bicycle</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. If you really must know, MS has never owned a comb nor uses deodorant. The bar soap (always industrial strength </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Dettol</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">) when he showers also doubles as shampoo. Furthermore he has a distaste for underwear (the local variant known as </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">spender</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">), and considers Lynnard Skynnard's </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Free Bird</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> as the greatest rock ballad of all time, surpassing Led Zep's </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Stairway</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> even.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">But the women? Oh the women! They were all beautiful, just as God had intended them to be. Especially </span><a href="http://onebreastbouncing.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Raden Galoh</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, who 'escaped' from the cancer ward this morning just to be with us. She looked so radiant and happy, showing us it's certainly possible to stare death in the face, and with her strong unwavering faith, still come out smiling. She still has a long way to go but for </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">our</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> sakes dear God, we need her around just to show us mere mortals what life and love is all about.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">And </span><a href="http://acciaccatura.wordpress.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Acciaccatura</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> too. Her strength lies beyond our human scope to comprehend. So is </span><a href="http://pistwist.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Pi Bani</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, whose selfless devotion to helping people with HIV/AIDS is legendary.<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><a href="http://mariasamad.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Tok Mummy</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://nursamad.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Nuraina Samad</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://wanshana-wherever-you-are.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Wanshana</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://mantra-indeeptots.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Jeejah Mantra</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://xmatters.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Fauziah Ismail</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://dansemacabre.wordpress.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Galadriel</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">,<a href="http://queenn.blogspot.com/">Nurbaiti</a> and celebrity lawyer-blogger Elviza were all present to give us the much need glamor, glitz and sex appeal.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">But I haven't made an exception to the men have I? There are, of course, always exceptions.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Former High Court jude Dato' Syed Ahmad Idid was among the first to arrive. He is not a blogger but a guest of our fellow conspirator Dato' Jaffar Lamri. Unfortunately DJ himself could not attend due to an urgent family matter so unfortunately too for the learned judge, he was forced to have ME instead as his Host from Hell: listening to my stupid jokes while I blew smoke in his face. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">For those of you with short memories (and for some, shorter </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">ahem</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">) Dato' Syed is the Last Malaysian Hero. He was a High Court judge from 1990-1996 when he made the startling allegation of corruption involving twelve of his fellows in the judiciary. This was about ten years ago during the reign of CJ Tun Mohd Eusoff Chin and Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah. Not forgetting too the CEO of the Land at the time was Tun Che Det. The 'flying letter' episode had caused </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">him to be investigated instead,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> forcing his resignation and losing his pension in the process. That's why it is so important that we get our lawmakers to pass our own Whistleblower Act. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Ten years down the road the good judge was still subjected to another degrading ordeal: listening to Mat Salo's 'oilfield thrash' stories and inhaling second-hand smoke from his endless Dunhills. My apologies Dato', for being a such lousy host. I understand Your Honor frowns upon judges to mingle with </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">riff raff</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> like me. But for you to bear such indignities in silence speaks volumes of the man you are, Sir. Thank you.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Of course the other exception was our guest of honor Chegu Kata Tak Nak. To me he looks even better in real life that tweaks in my Nikon settings could never do justice. Well, some people just have it. And this good chegu has it in spades.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Even </span><a href="http://kadirjasin.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Dato' A. Kadir Jasin</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> showed up and slapped some fifties in my grubby hands. It's for the pot, you see. Thanks for coming, Dato' AKJ. And I do envy your waistline, Sir!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Other notable attendees (ALL were notable, mind you): </span><a href="http://muteaudio.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Mute Audio</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://alhusseyn51.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Al-Husseyn</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://idrus.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Pak Idrus</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://bustamann.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Pokku</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://bungatelur-ballyshoes.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Bunga Telur Ballyshoes</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> and not forgetting (arguably) the best (living) Malay writer (on Malaysian shores) in the English language: </span><a href="http://bangkai.wordpress.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Mat Bangkai</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Finally, PAS Central Committee and Shah Alam Member of Parliament YB </span><a href="http://khalidsamad.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Khalid Samad</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> (Yes, Minister </span><a href="http://shahrirsamad.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Sharir Samad</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> is his brother, believe it or not) came by. In the picture you can see Chegu KTN and him having a go.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">As soon as the crowd faded off, </span><a href="http://anotherbrickinwall.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">A Voice </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">showed up to dish some dirt up on our next generation of Ultra Malay National Organization leaders. Thanks for coming bro'.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Hope you like the photos. They were in-camera shots, hand-held in available light without the benefit of flash. Apologies to the ladies if the wide angled lens err, just made you go 'wide'. Yeah right, blame the equipment, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">never</span> the photographer.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">N.B.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I have also deliberately not attached names to the faces in the hopes that you'd be able to tell anyway. (Truth is, I'm just a fat, lazy slob.)</span></div><div><br /></div></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-62232352859607676642008-11-16T09:11:00.009-06:002008-11-16T12:43:24.039-06:00Pacha's First Solo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Pacha%20Art%20Exhibition/AFO_4210.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Pacha%20Art%20Exhibition/AFO_4210.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">VIP Guest: P.104's London-born Kelana Kaya MP <a href="http://lohgwoburne.com/">Gwo-Burne</a> at Pacha's solo ...<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Pacha%20Art%20Exhibition/AFO_4190.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Pacha%20Art%20Exhibition/AFO_4190.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Some inspired guests : My niece (left) and her best friend. Hmm, isn't that <a href="http://nursamad.blogspot.com/">Nuraina's </a>niece?<br /><br /><div><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 425px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Pacha%20Art%20Exhibition/AFO_4191.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><div style="text-align: center;">Pacha, The Artist.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 425px; height: 640px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Pacha%20Art%20Exhibition/AFO_4196.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><div style="text-align: center;">Bali Meranti's real life lesson in Art Appreciation ...<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Pacha%20Art%20Exhibition/AFO_4137.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 640px; height: 512px;" src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a124/madsalos/Blogspot%20Blog/Pacha%20Art%20Exhibition/AFO_4137.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a></div><div><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">IT IS THE LIFELONG DREAM, THE RECOGNITION, THE CULMINATION of any artist to host their first solo. What more if the artist in question found her calling very late in life; she was in her late twenties before she picked up that first brush to canvas.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">That artist is my sister, Pacha. And the exhibition's titled "Pomegranate and 1000 Birds".</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Entirely self-taught, she bagged Bank Negara's second prize for her </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Imperfect But Beautiful</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> in 2004 that won her a silver trophy and an RM8000 cash prize.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She is married to Adrian Edris of Ahmad Izham Omar's </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.monkeybone.com.my/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Monkeybone</span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> label, who manages artistes like Faizal Tahir, Suki, Norayu Damit and Shila. Adrian's also currently involved in 8TV's </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">One In A Million</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> and </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Kami -The Gig</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">. They have a daughter, Bali Meranti.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Please do come and visit the </span></span><a href="http://lookissgallery.com/gallery/events/default.asp"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Gallery</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">. The Exhibition will run until December 12.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">For more stories and pictures, please come visit my </span></span><a href="http://madsalos.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">other blog</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'trebuchet ms';font-size:18px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'trebuchet ms';font-size:18px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-85356482572571871492008-10-29T08:23:00.012-05:002008-10-29T13:19:44.836-05:00The Roughneck, A Blue Collar Mid-Week Weekly<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">To make my blogging more regular, and not to piss off the throngs, hordes and masses (I </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">wish</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">) that come here only to be affirmed,</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> yeah</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">, he's too dumb too make views on politics, world affairs or high-finance. </span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">So I decided on sort of a weekly opinion pieces to break that myth and hold forth about things that matter to me, me and me. It's important that I satisfy my lust first, before I make you cu- err, happy.<br /><br />It's my free-wheelin' 'n easy take about the depraved, depressed and dangerous times we live in today.</span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;"><br /></span></span><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">Barack Hussein</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The Roughneck wants this dude to win. Conventional Wisdom (CW) says it will happen. But recently, political pundits and </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">pundeks</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> (to hedge their bets in case the unholy McCain - Palin emerge triumphant) thinks what we're seeing is The Bradley Effect: Barack leads the polls early, and at the very last moment, lose.<br /><br />And it doesn't make sense.<br /><br />Why? Because we're humans. Some whiteys are even convinced B.Hussein is Muslim. Whites and Melayus (especially) are at the very core, racist. They tell the pollsters or the public one thing (so their neighbors or whomever will think them as enlightened beings) but in the secrecy of the ballot booth (or closed door UMNO sessions) they'll eventually break down and go for The God-Divined Plan. It's manifest destiny: Only whites, of the superior Aryan race, are fit to lead. Just like the Melayus - </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">but</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> only Melayus from UMNO. And better yet, UMNO Melayus of Indian, Arab or Javanese extraction. Melayus from PKR, PRS, DAP and GERAKAN are now the new Uncle Toms; oftentimes branded Chinese arse-lickers, sell-outs and traitors. I should know, I'm one of 'em.<br /><br />So if you think Obama is going to win, think again. Think of the majority race there in the </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Unidos Estadas</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">. Think of the times you say one thing but deep in your heart, you mean just the opposite.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">But I hope to dear God I'm wrong.</span><br /><br /><br /></span><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">McCain-Palin (The Unholy)</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I just a read a damning expose on McCain in The Rolling Stone. Apparently this Vietnam POW was no hero. When shot down over Hanoi lake, instead of just stating his name and rank, he blabbered to his captors that he was the son of a Navy Admiral to get preferential treatment, an offence which should've got him court martialled. But he's J. McCain III, progeny of 4-star Generals. The story littered with McCain having to drop his father's and grandfather's name on many occasions just to scrape through the Navy. He admitted as much, and was quoted as saying, 'My POW experiences make me a good sell'.<br /><br />To me, he's just an opportunist of the highest order.<br /><br />Palin? </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Palaat lah</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">. Forget the 150,000 dollar wardrobe. The scathing diatribe by Bridget Bardot is what did me. Palin is a disservice to both women and animals. I agree.</span><br /><br /><br /></span><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">The Economy</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Stocks? </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Fuhgeddaboudi</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">t. The Roughneck, being un-schooled in the white-collar ways, was persuaded (some say, conned) by his Finance Department this past June </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">to plonk down 10 percent of his hard-earned monthly salary - </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">each and every month in condemned perpetuity</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> - into purchasing company stock at a special employee price of 15 percent less prevailing market rate on June 31st. At the time it was over US 100.00 a share - about US 85.00. Five miserable months later it hovered around US 40.00 a share. That's half its value gone in a space of a quarter. </span></span></span></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Nowadays, I don't even bother to look. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Smart, eh?<br /><br />The real </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">smart</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> thing to do is to buy the shares NOW on the open market, sort of hedging or as a cut-loss measure. But I'm not real smart am I? - on top of being a coward when it comes to high-stakes finance.<br /><br />But I'm a blue collar roughneck, so I am truly deserving of this folly. But you - with your fancy finance, MBA and accounting degrees - what's your excuse?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Actually I was lucky for a while, right around after the '00 dot-com bust. There was an ex-employee of my company, a University Malaya Physics graduate of the late 70s who went on to do an MBA at Yale and worked on Wall Street before striking out on his own in Milwaukee. I believe he has now traded his red passport for a blue one. So I trusted his brokerage and analysts, gambling (</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">the right word, seen in today's light</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">) up to six-figures of my kids future college fund to play the US market. And play them he did. At one time I held shares in, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">um</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">, let me see . . . Microsoft, Apple, Tommy Hillfiger, Harley-Davidson, Viacom (MTV, Nickleodeon) - all good. Also, Harrahs and Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser, Sea World) - all </span></span><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">bad</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">. Owning shares in the world's largest casino operator and the world's largest brewer is definitely </span></span><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">confirming</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> my place where Satan reigns when all I had before had was merely a </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">reservation</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">. Hell, I never even liked Buds. Took me years to divest and </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">samak</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> (perform ablution) on the money. But I suspect I still got one leg in hell already. But hey, I've never been on my high horse, have I?</span></span><br /><br /><br /><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">I</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">ndonesia's </span></span><a href="http://pestablogger.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">Pesta Blogger</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;"> (Blogger's Festival) - November 22</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">October 27th was Indonesia's National Bloggers Day, an event sanctioned by its government and headed by Muhammad Nuh, Minister of Communication and Information, no less.<br /><br />The Jakarta Post, in article yesterday, mentioned </span></span><a href="http://theunspunblog.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Ong Hock Chuan</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> as 'Indonesia's top-three' - along with </span></span><a href="http://enda.goblogmedia.com/quicklinks/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Enda Nasution</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> (dubbed the "Father" of Indonesian Bloggers) and </span></span><a href="http://www.budiputra.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Budi Putra</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Whoa Ong</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">... congrats, bro.<br /><br />And bye the bye, in an SMS from </span></span><a href="http://rockybru.com.my/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Rocky</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> The Bru, </span></span><a href="http://jeffooi.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Jeff Ooi</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">, the blogger (not the MP from Jelutong, at least not in that spirit I don't think) will represent Malaysia for the Pesta Blogger event come November 22.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br />The Roughneck has mixed feelings about this. His country, Malaysia, will never hold bloggers in such esteem. In fact, bloggers there are held with such contempt and revulsion; looked down with distaste and disdain, fit only to be persecuted and incarcerated like that Raja Petra </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">fler</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">In Indonesia, they're feted and celebrated. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Self-styled arbiters of Malaysian morals like its Home Affairs Minister Syed Hamid, whose late father the Lion of UMNO Syed Jaffar, a Hadhrami Arab-Indonesian who migrated into then Tanah Melayu at the ripe age of 30 - </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">knows something we don't?</span></span></span></div><div><br /><br /><br /></div></div></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-42562799222532519562008-10-09T04:24:00.013-05:002008-10-09T23:46:40.897-05:00No Country for Old Men<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/IMG_3922.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/IMG_3922.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:courier new;"><a href="http://www.dinmerican.wordpress.com/">Geezer # 1</a><br /><br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/IMG_3920.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/IMG_3920.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:courier new;"><a href="http://zorro-zorro-unmasked.blogspot.com/">Geezer #2</a> and #3 (sorry, didn't catch your blog, G3)<br /><br /></span></div><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">REGRETTABLY THIS ISN'T A MOVIE REVIEW</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> starring Tommy Lee Jones or Josh Brolin or even directed by Ethal or Joel Coen.<br /><br />Instead, it stars two old geezers. A</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">nd directed by me, Mat Salo</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">.<br /><br />They're tough sons of bitches too, I might add.<br /><br />I bumped into them this morning, something I hadn't expected to happen in a minor fender-bender-kind-of-way. </span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Come on, would you rather bump into these old geezers . . . or some <span style="font-style: italic;">purty young thang</span> with endless legs that will put a bounce to your step and a twinkle in your eye? Not too mention a longing, a stirring, in the --uh,</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> never mind. Furthermore, the distinct</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> possibility</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> of these old timers </span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">having lost their marbles cannot be overlooked. But let's be fair: Chances are it's probably as strong the prosecution's case against Anwar or RPK. They haven't lost <span style="font-style: italic;">everything</span> </span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I don't think, oh no, not by a long shot. </span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Least of all is their balls. Because they still talk about sex the way my seven-year old boy talks about video games.<br /></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">One goes by the name of <a href="http://zorro-zorro-unmasked.blogspot.com/">Zorro</a>, and the other is </span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><a href="http://www.dinmerican.wordpress.com/">Din Merican</a></span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, who calls himself a 'once-reluctant blogger' who has re-<span style="font-style: italic;">muslimmed</span> himself 'the Malaysian DJ blogger', whatever that means. He ain't <span style="font-style: italic;">an</span> '<span style="font-style: italic;">Merican </span><span>in case you're wondering </span>because his MyKad says he's as Malaysian as you and me. And to prove it he pulled his wallet out for my scrutiny</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">.</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> That's how bonkers he might appear to some.<br /><br />Officially he is PKR's version of UMNO's Shabery Cheek, minus the drool trailing the sides of the cheek. His detractors might claim that if Anwar pulls it off, this is the man who might be Malaysia's next Information Minister. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. He needs to get elected or gets appointed senator first. All he and Zorro was guilty off this morning was to pounce on me, with no warrant or anything before</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> proceeding to 'torture' me with <span style="font-style: italic;">Nescafe tarik</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">chapati </span>in front of Club Shabas...<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);font-family:georgia;font-size:180%;" >Now sitting with these geriatric gentlemen got me thinking. What the hell are they doing? Shouldn't they be outside a kindergarten or primary school waiting to pick their grandchildren up or something?</span><br /></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Instead, these geezers took it upon themselves to declare 'war' against the establishment; righting wrongs and fighting injustices in the Malaysian political and civil arena. Plus being an icon and the object of womens fantasies helps. A female lawyer-blogger with a hot bod (you know who you are) once let a hot lovers breath brush my ear, 'We need these old timers to fight for us <span style="font-style: italic;">lah</span>. We can't do it because we have everything to <span style="font-style: italic;">lose</span>. ISA is <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> cool, okay? We got our kids to think about . . . for them their children already grown-up. They got nothing to lose.'<br /></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Coming from a 'hot bod' --lawyer I mean, her logic is hard to refute. But I disagree: there's always something to lose. Mind bending orgasms is one. But why has it got to be so? Why can't normal, clear and level-headed citizens be vocal too? Oh, OK, I <span style="font-style: italic;">get</span> it. I.S.A., cat food and all that. <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />Think of your little ones and your rice bowl first, right? And the all time number one favorite: What good can one do if one is behind bars or rotting in Kamunting?</span><br /><br />I think my friend <a href="http://www.kickdefella.wordpress.com/">Sheih Kickdefella</a> has probably heard the same arguments but chose to do what's right. And yes, some pro-UMNO bloggers have accused both him and RPK as 'blogger whores' hired for the sole purpose of bringing down Mr. Rosmah at all cost. Maybe so but you <span style="font-style: italic;">know</span> it ain't so? (Or Bob Dylan would sing: i<span style="font-style: italic;">t's all true . . . everything you heard?</span>)<br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">But damn, whether passionately having a discourse about KJ or Mukhriz, or explaining to me the various convoluted conspiracy-tinged 'Get Anwar' or 'Get RPK' schemes, these senior citizens are apt to break into song, usually simultaneously, something even a self-proclaimed amateur musicologist like me find alarming.</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> The tune? It's called 'When The Swallows Come Back to Capistrano'. Before I wrote this post up I was forced to google the song and discovered that:<br /><br />A) It was a hit by The Ink Spots back in 1940 and went up as high # 4 in that years'</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">hit parade charts,<br /><br />and,<br /><br />B)</span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> 27 years later the same song was </span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">covered by Pat Boone who took it to # 80. I suppose this must be the version they were singing; and <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> version was in '67, folks. Remember, these are <span style="font-style: italic;">old</span> geezers we're dealing with here.<br /><br />Let me reproduce the lyrics and tell me what you read into it. Because I don't have a freakin' clue.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">When The Swallows Come Back to Capistrano</span></span><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span style=""><i>Words & Music by Leon Rene<br />Recorded by The Ink Spots, 1940 (#4*)</i></span><br /><pre><span style="font-family:Courier;"><br />D9 A7 D D7 D6 D9 G9 G G/F# E7<br />When the swallows come back to Cap - is - tra - no,<br /><br />A Em7 D B7 E7 Edim A7<br />That's the day you promised to come back to me;</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier;"><br />D9 A7 D D7 D6 D9 G9 G Gm<br />When you whispered, "Farewell" in Cap - is - tra - no,<br /><br />A Em7 D B7 E7 D9 E7 A7 D Gm D<br />Twas the day the swallows flew out to the sea.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier;"><br /><br />Bridge:<br /><br />D7 G Em7 A7 D<br />All the mission bells will ring<br /><br />A7 Edim Gdim D C#7<br />The chapel choir will sing<br /><br />F#7 Bm Bm7/E<br />The happiness you'll bring<br /><br />E7 Cdim E7 A7</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier;">Will live in my mem - o - ry<br /><br /><br />D9 A7 D D7 D6 D9 G9 G Gm<br />When the swallows come back to Cap - is - tra - no,<br /><br />A Em7 D B7 E7 A7 Gdim D<br />That's the day I pray that you'll come back to me</span></pre><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-family:courier new;">(courtesy of the </span><a style="font-family: courier new;" href="http://www.theguitarguy.com/whenthes.htm/">The Guitar Guy)</a><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span><br />Tell me, have they lost their marbles? Or are we the ones that have lost ours, letting these geezers fight the good fight for us while we fear for our next paycheck?</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span><span>You</span> tell <span style="font-style: italic;">me</span>.<br /><br />No country for old men? Maybe it is.<br /><br />These old geezers may have lost their marbles, but at least they're working hard to reclaim them via their <span style="font-style: italic;">consequences-be-damned</span> blogs.<br /><br />And for that they deserve our utmost respect.<br /><br /><br /></span></span></span><pre><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/IMG_3928.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/IMG_3928.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></pre> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:courier new;" >Me and Geezer #1. Who forced me to don his PKR themed Timberland jacket for the photo opp. Does he strike you as someone who has lost his marbles?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:courier new;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size:130%;">*<span style="font-size:85%;">This post is also dedicated to the other tough sons of bitches like <a href="http://katataknak.blogspot.com/">Chegu Nazir</a>,<a href="http://hantulautan.blogspot.com/"> Hantu Laut</a>,<a href="http://cyusof.blogspot.com/"> Ancient Mariner</a>, <a href="http://penarikbeca.blogspot.com/"> Bang Bakaq</a> and <a href="http://mohdzawi.blogspot.com/">Pak Zawi</a></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> . I implore you to check them out in case you haven't. How old is 'old', you ask. Going by Soi Lek's performance, oldies are goodies. His bedroom skills can put men half his age to shame. But for our purposes, let's just say 50. Because that's when the usually start making E.P.F. withdrawals and look forward to playing with their grandkids. But instead, whacking errant politicians, stupid policy-makers and misguided civil servants have become their</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span> <span style="font-style: italic;">raison d'etre</span>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-29900499674750473792008-10-07T19:16:00.007-05:002008-10-07T20:18:01.163-05:00Them I Will Forget / But YOU I'll Remember Always<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:180%;" >Them I Will Forget / But YOU I'll Remember Always...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">(Some scenes on a Tuesday morning)</span></span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3837.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3837.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:courier new;">Haris, worrying incessantly about RPK's spirit, in Red.</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3841.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3841.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:courier new;">Some words of comfort </span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3849.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3849.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:courier new;">Check out the vest (Geriatric Model: B.Khoo)</span><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3854.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3854.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3850.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3850.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:courier new;">Single Malters and friends</span><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3844.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3844.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3843.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3843.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3852.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/AFO_3852.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:courier new;">The Stalwart</span><br /></div><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Title for the blog is something I stole from Bob Dylan's </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Workingman's Blues 2</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. I've been spinning it on my 8 -Gig Ipod or in my car </span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">24/7 - </span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">and my spouse isn't amused.<br /><br />She'd rather have </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Rain</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">.<br /><br />I can't help myself, it's </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >that</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> good. And it gets better as I understand the lyrics . Dylan's latest album, Modern Times, which <span style="font-style: italic;">Workingman</span> is Track # 6 -- is a gem. I urge you to get it because the lyrics and melodies reflect EXACTLY of our very own, very Malaysian, 'Modern Times'.</span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />Check out the opening verses of <span style="font-style: italic;">Workingman</span>: (excerpts)<br /><br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >There's an evenin' haze settling over town</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /><br />Starlight by edge of the creek</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >The buyin' power of the proletariat's gone down</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /><br />Money's getting shallow and weak<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br />Well, the place I love best is a sweet memory</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >It's a new path that we trod</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /><br />The say low wages are reality</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >If we want to compete abroad...<br /><br /><br /></span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">After the economic implications of the opening verses, Dylan alludes to politics, and for some reason I can imagine RPK echoing these ...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br />Well the burned my barn,<br /><br />and they stole my horse</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >I can't save a dime</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >I got to be careful, I don't want to be forced</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /><br />Into a life of continual crime</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >I can see for myself that the sun is sinking</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /><br />How I wish you were here to see</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /><br />Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /><br />That you have forgotten me?<br /></span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />No, Pete, because...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br />Them I Will Forget</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /><br />But You I'll Remember Always ...</span></span>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-55608022471193312672008-10-01T23:00:00.006-05:002008-10-07T19:16:29.984-05:00Cruel and Unusual Punishment<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5h9Z6GgkxihSRcR6by3SfNWwAVANc1H2R0dN4bx5wPs0Kc-TTqmmZ4rfSLQN49KDNF5P-J-A9IMqJzjopoZF8gYt9uDzCUF_zvonPgTze01x9fXRkT3wfgf2mYHxtuh8-UckBIw/s1600-h/raya2008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5h9Z6GgkxihSRcR6by3SfNWwAVANc1H2R0dN4bx5wPs0Kc-TTqmmZ4rfSLQN49KDNF5P-J-A9IMqJzjopoZF8gYt9uDzCUF_zvonPgTze01x9fXRkT3wfgf2mYHxtuh8-UckBIw/s400/raya2008.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252402369820215778" border="0" /></a>poster by <a href="http://mob1900.blogspot.com//">mob1900</a>.<br /><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">To all my loyal friends and readers out there: As you bask in the glory of this Eid with your loved ones, please spare a moment to think about what RPK and his family is going through.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Yesterday, his wife and daughter went to </span></span><a href="http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/13324/84/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">visit</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> him in Kamunting and was only allowed to see him in his cubical when other ISA detainees were allowed to spend those precious moments in the courtyard.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">That's what I call cruel and unusual punishment. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">For what, I do not know. Same reason I do not understand the reasons when Datuk Noraini was quoted as saying 'Theresa should </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">insaf' (</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">about her 7-day detention).</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Repent?</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Rehabilitate?</span> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">For what? </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Maybe, I'm just stupid for not seeing things the way Syed Hamid or Datuk Noraini sees them.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">If so, then there are plenty of other stupid Malaysians like me then.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Well... will someone please enlighten me </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">?</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">If not, just free the man or charge him in open court.</span></span></div><div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgILC5ReVBfcReoaLSKSpE0e6O6A9Fdb4f3M-0X97bKPOFebcUdoIVa_m_6IJemcBH0V2SS66GOmOzkNEsU8tEscYEch_jKcZ5-IAQutIFg38l2SWaC2IM2K27R_kyfUv417NxuVQ/s1600-h/rpkISA-i.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgILC5ReVBfcReoaLSKSpE0e6O6A9Fdb4f3M-0X97bKPOFebcUdoIVa_m_6IJemcBH0V2SS66GOmOzkNEsU8tEscYEch_jKcZ5-IAQutIFg38l2SWaC2IM2K27R_kyfUv417NxuVQ/s400/rpkISA-i.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252402377005535362" border="0" /></a><br /></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23406611.post-37025902234614046052008-09-17T17:04:00.006-05:002008-09-20T04:48:20.553-05:00Hang In There, Sheih!<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" >UPDATE: (Saturday, 20 September 2008)</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Common sense has prevailed. Both Theresa and Sheih has been released.<br />God Bless Them.<br /><br /></span>====================================================<br /></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Our</span> </span><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);font-size:180%;" >hearts</span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:130%;" >and</span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);font-size:180%;" >prayers</span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">are with you. <span style="font-style: italic;">Your</span> sorrow becomes <span style="font-style: italic;">our</span> sorrow too. Please be</span></span> <span style="color: rgb(204, 102, 0);font-size:180%;" >strong</span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:130%;" >and</span> <span style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);font-size:180%;" >patient</span>. <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:130%;" >Insya Allah he will come <span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-size:180%;" >home</span> soon...<br /></span></span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/free_sheih.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/free_sheih.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Poster by </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://mob1900.blogspot.com/">mob1900</a><br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2268-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2268-1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">You've Got A Friend</span><br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2512.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2512.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">In a pensive mood ...<br /><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_1983.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_1983.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"> Band O' Bloggers<br /><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2642.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2642.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">With DAP MP for Jelutong<br /><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2247.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2247.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Sandwiches ain't the only thing you're gonna get from Zorro!</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2196.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2196.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">With PKR MP from Wangsa Maju<br /><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_1807.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_1807.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">With Blogger Numero Uno<br /><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2199.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/MatSalo/For%20My%20Blog/DSC_2199.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">With PKR Selangor Exco member<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:lucida grande;" >©2007-2008 mA</span></span><span style=""><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:lucida grande;" >tsalo iMages</span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></div></div>Mat Salohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13660319094415586065noreply@blogger.com15