Hal Politikus

Kickdefella

“Shit, Dang . . .” I just can’t believe it.

How the hell did he get here?

The ‘he’ I’m talking about is none other than kickdefella– blogger extraordinaire, film director, political commentator, social satirist - and if I may, grand-nephew of the current CM of Kelantan. What a resume, huh.

What I couldn’t believe was - ‘sheih’ as he calls himself, had a paid a visit to my blog and left a comment. Man, in the realm of Bolehsian blogosphere, I’m just one of the many, many, many anonymous bloggers out there. In the normal course of things, my site is visited by some former classmates and close associates and only when I implore them to. Don’t even ask why I bother to do it, because frankly, I don’t even know. Maybe because it’s free, and if there’s an internet connection than there’s a will.

But for ‘sheih’ to come waltzing in, well indeed it was a surprise, albeit a very pleasant one. This guy probably gets tens of thousands of ‘hits’ per day mind you, but still has the time to scour the net for some obscure blogger (humble me?) thoughts. I’m still scratching my head, because I have never posted a comment on his blog, but have mentioned him somewhere in one of my articles. But even if one were to Google for one’s own name, especially someone as famous as he – he’d surely have to sift through thousands of potential sites to come to mine. Hmmm.

In the event, I was flattered that my story moved him. Not only that, he even linked mine to his. Now I’m really going to get creamed – because I noticed on my ‘sitemeter’ that the ‘hits’ have come in, mainly directed from his site. Hmmm.

Thanks for dropping by sheih. And I hope you find what you’re looking for in Kelantan, for I know a mother there might be very pleased indeed.

Hey, mung nok masuk tanding gok ke? (Chuckles . . . internet rumors saper ni weh?)


* * *

RR - the Pot calling the Kettle black.

RR made the news (well actually, as an editor of the pseudo-Government of Bolehsia broadsheet, the Enesty – he is the one making the news these days) recently by suggesting that internet bloggers are a bunch of semi-literate, rumor-mongering shitheads. At least that’s what the editorial reprimand felt like, if you’re an internet blogger like me. Be that as it may, once upon a time as a Budak Kolek, I had only utmost and profound respect for this ‘super-senior’ of mine, a wordsmith of the highest order.

Well, not any more. I had even bought a book of his once, detailing his ‘self-imposed’ exile from Bolehsia. To refresh you a bit, this MM contemporary (some say they were once more than just friends?) was a high-flying scribe until ‘Ops Lallang’ came along. Then he went on to Hong Kong and London as a luminary foreign correspondent with London broadsheets and premier magazines. After Doc M won by the skin of his teeth in '87, and the Star came to life again, all was forgiven. Journalists and opposition politicians were released from ISA detention to the bosom of their families. Some years later, the prodigal son came home, published a book about his ‘exile’, and started a new life.

Then Brendan Pereira (some had allusions of him being a Kiasulander ‘operative’, along with K Mullah MH) had created a booboo in his Enesty column by allegedly committing the crime of plagiarism. So he was given the boot, and in stepped our hero RR.

One Bolehsian Member of Parliament (of Whores – to borrow a phrase from PJ O ‘Rourke’s excellent satirical insight into the workings of the US government – buy it!) and Minister, a born-again Tengku, fired the first salvo. Essentially what he said was, 80 percent of the bloggers are women, housewives who like nothing better than to create rumors. A furor of the highest order was thus established. And who better to drive the proverbial nail in the coffin but RR?

It didn't help that a Deputy Minister called Fu Manchu said he was not averse to calling Bolehsia's major newspaper editors to 'scold' them when the news didn't favor the government's version.

So now you have it. We have a Deputy Minister running the newspapers in Bolehsia.

And to RR, what exactly happened to you, sir? Does the term ‘turncoat’ mean anything to you? Even your once erstwhile colleague MM is against you. Can money, wealth (I heard you drive a Porsche) and political favors change a person?

The Matriarch, The Nude and The Chicken Coop

The year was ‘69 and I was in my first year of school.

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 electricity found its way into our kampong, 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 kampong. 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.

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.

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.

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 conductor or mandor worth his salt would be caught dead having their children in a vernacular school, especially a Tamil one. But given a choice, I wouldn’t have minded being in an impoverished Tamil school. At least I would be in the bosom of my beloved parents.

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 rambutan tree—an additional beating was in store for him when Atuk came home from work. To drive the lesson home, I suppose.

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).

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 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?

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.

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 Bolehsia. In ’98 one of his Pago Pago Series oils went under the hammer for a record 40,250 Singapore dollars at a Christie’s Singapore auction. Ohmigosh!

Just before leaving for Europe in the 60’s to live the bohemian life as an artist, Latif Mohideen 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 kampong 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 with a huge single breast and an outsized areola. Latif must've painted this during the phase when and Picasso and Dali were considered de rigueur.

Of course, this didn’t fit well with nenek’s image as an Ustaza who taught the Koran at the village Madrasah, 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.



The Matriach, 2003. © matsalo.com

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, that uncle has since passed on - Al Fatihah) in Seremban. On occasions she would stay with Mother too. With no one to care for the creaking boards and peeling paint, the house became more and more decrepit, as unloved homes are wont to do.

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") to patch the roof of the chicken coop.

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 faux gold bracelets were a novelty, if not expensive. That's the sort of person Atuk was - bless his soul - always ready to oblige.

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.

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?

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.

Years ago I 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 Hari Raya 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 Berok (Malay for Monkey) for his climbing prowess and proclivity in collecting coconuts from trees. Perhaps, and most very likely, that the idiot here is me.

Whoa - there could be a gross total of somewhere between 100 and 200 thousand Bolehsia dollars out there sitting among the rafters and junk of my childhood home.

But who am I kidding?

The Thirteenth Hour

What is Lost May Be Lost Forever (I)

A little update on the 'situation' last week. All that planning came to zilch. Talk about lost opportunities. Building castles in the air, that kind of thing. Man proposes, no need to tell you Who disposes.

I missed by my planned rendezvous with Father by thirteen hours. And whose fault is this? If you prescribe to the maxim, when there's a will...then you already know my answer.

Father's return flight was scheduled on the 27th. So I had a few days, and a few tricks up my sleeve to 'cilok' on that particular day to make a quick exit to town. I didn't tell him then because I wasn't sure at the time if could finish the well quickly ( I had some tool failures remember?).

A day before he was scheduled to leave and with my heart ramped up in maximum anticipation, in comes his frantic SMS saying he has already finished doing what he needed to do and was now already in Balikpapan!

So I immediately walked down from the rig floor to call him from the rear deck. What's the rush? He was already at the airport and was being waitlisted on the next available flight to Jakarta. Couldn't you wait one more day Pa? After all isn't the client picking-up the tab? Yes, but No, he needed to go.

I had already booked for a room for Father at the hotel where I'll be staying so we could have a serious chat - but he quickly cut me off with that 'ol standby -never mind . . . we can always meet in KL.

That's the thing, we can't always meet in KL.

Anyway, the opportunity is gone (for the moment).

The hotel where my dad stayed barely 13 hours prior to the picture being taken from my hotel window.

What is Lost Might Be Forever Lost (II)

I take this opportunity to convey my Takziah (condolences) to my two very two close friends who each lost a parent over the past few days.

Stone's father drew his last breath yesterday morning in Chicago (Kg.Congo, near HUKM) while Kue's mother passed away last Tuesday, just after returning home from Isya' prayers at the mosque in Balik Pulau.

Innalillahi wainna ilahiirrajiun...

Al-Fatihah.

Dawn breaking outside my container office, Rig Yani. Hand-Held, Canon Digital Ixus 850 IS, 1/8 sec., 4.6 mm, F/2.8, -0.33 EV

Now, you can imagine how important it is to put things right . . .

And I still

Haven't Found

What I Was Lookin' For. . .

© Words: Bono, Music: U2 - The Joshua Tree (1987)

Bapa Borek Anak Tak Rintek Ke?

(Father)

It's not time
To make a change
Just relax, take it easy
Youre still young, thats your fault
There's so much
you have to know
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want
you can marry
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

I was once like you are now,
and I know that it's not easy
To be calm when youve found
Something going on
But take your time,
Think a lot
Why,
Think of everything you've got
For you will still be here tomorrow,
But your dreams may not

(Son)

How can I try to explain
When I do he turns away again.
Its always been the same, same old story
From the moment I could talk
I was ordered to listen
Now theres a way
and I know that I have to go away
I know I have to go...

©Cat Stevens, 1970 Tea for The Tillerman


I had to quickly rush this weeks edition into the blogsphere. A serious piece for a change, a little to let you delve into the irreverent psyche of Mat Salo.

The reason for the rush is that in a day or two I would meet my father out in the boondocks of Eastern Borneo. Yes, you heard that right, Father is in town.

It’s a story of fate, of coincidence, of Father and Son.

Read on, contemplate, but I think it might leave you a bad taste in the mouth, or at the very least, scratching your head.

I was inspired in part by Captain Pandi in his recent blog, and more recently by Kickdefella’s The Long Walk with Bah Part I, and Part Finale (apparently there isn't a Part II) which appeared in RPK’s Malaysia Today. Blogger extraordinaire Kickdefella, the famous screenwriter and filmmaker, is interestingly also Nik Aziz’s grand-nephew something-or-other.

The Rig Life saga ends at the bottom with some pictures meant to be included in last week’s edition. I hope to dispel the myth of some say the ‘glamorous’ off-shore environment, because after all, Rig Life to me is nothing more like your affairs (no pun here) at the office, but minus the office girls with the low-cut blouse and subtle display of flesh.

Now for the story.
==========================================================


Father & Son


The shrill of the hand phone woke me from my slumber.

It wasn’t a call, but the familiar tone of the Nokia SMS beep.

I had just gone to bed, forgetting to brush my teeth even, exhausted from the day’s activities. The spate of tool failures didn’t help either. I pulled the Nokia from its perch above my cabin reading light (the Nokia also doubled as an alarm clock), and felt that faint stab in my heart, expecting some less-than-favorable news.

Hesitant, I stabbed the buttons and the backlit came on. It was an unfamiliar number.

It was Father, saying he was in Jakarta and on his way to Balikpapan. Surprise, surprise - I was mmediately I jerked out of my reverie. I went out to rear deck, smoked a Dunhill, and flicked the half-finished cigarrette into the Mahakam Delta. I couldn't think of a suitable response to sms back, and with that I plopped back into bed.

Although Balikpapan is a mere four hours away by boat and car from the rig, obviously I just couldn’t forsake my workplace and just leave could I? I had a hole to drill.

Father was to arrive on the noon Garuda flight. I called him the following morning to apologize for not being able to meet him at the airport, but if he’d be around for a few days, I might able to squeeze-in a day in town. He said a car’s meeting him and will take him up north to Samarinda and beyond to a place called Sangeta in Kutai Timur. He explained that Uncle Bok, a crony of his from his planters' days with Harrisons & Crossfields and operating a thriving Oil Palm Agro-Consultancy in Jakarta, had his house in Pulo Mas submerged from the recent Jakarta floods.

Presumably Uncle Bok was busy salvaging personal belongings thus contracting the work out to Father, a valuation for an interested buyer on his behalf. It would take at least a couple of days he added, and I mentally tried to factor-in how long before I can leave the rig, which is just days away too. If I'm lucky and pending no more tool failures, Father and Son might just be able to have a reunion.

Samarinda is the seat of the East Kalimantan province and is at least two hours by car from Balikpapan. I have not been there myself, although my passport has - because Samarinda is where my Residency Permit gets endorsed. But now is a good time as any but the opportunity to do so is pretty damn thin. Father also said something about a possible six-hour boat ride from Kutai Timur, so he needs to travel at least a day prior to make his flight back in time from Balikpapan. Ironically, Samarinda being the seat of government has only a small municipal airstrip while Balikpapan has a nice international airport that can land any wide bodied jets short of Jumbos. Thanks to the Black Gold of course.

Hmmm… to find father and son in the same locale, out in the boondocks of Borneo. So why the fuss about a first-born son wanting to rendezvous with his father? I can always see him whenever I go home to Malaysia can’t I? Back in Malaysia, Father’s house is but a fifteen minute drive away.

The answer isn’t quite so simple.

The truth is I never get to see him at all, both by force of circumstance and by design. I might see him two or three times a year – tops – and if I do, it’s mostly behind my mother’s back (you can already guess that they are ‘separated’, but by a quirk in Moslem Family Law, they’re not divorced – the Malays have a term for it – gantung tak bertali).

It pains me to tell you this -because- Father and Son, are estranged.

And that’s also why, if you give me a guitar – anytime anyplace - I can immediately play Yusuf Islam’s classic seventies hit of that name, and never forget a single verse. And that’s why my heartstrings get tugged each time I hear that Mike & The Mechanics’ tune, The Living Years.

It is not my intention to disparage Father at all, because it has been close to thirty years since he took on a second wife. Which is quite alright, many people do I suppose, but in his case he hasn’t been to see Mother for quite some years already. And this is where our views start to diverge.

In the early days there was some ‘rotation’ between Mother's and the Other House, but almost imperceptibly it got less and less, when finally, after my youngest brother (thus all four siblings dah lepas) got hitched, the ‘rotation’ ceased altogether. Oh, the children are welcome to visit him ‘over there’, but who dares break a mother’s heart?

Now this situation makes it doubly bad for me, because I am the first-born, the Keeper of The Flame so to speak. I have an obligation, not from religious point of view - but to my mind, a moral one - to keep both my parents happy. The bridge has long ago burned, and they are going on in years. Father is in his early seventies but still has a strong ticker, working to raise his other children. Of which he has two, a girl (my sister for cryin’ out loud) who is in the final year of medical school in IMU, and the boy in faraway Portland, Oregon.

What else had contributed to the divide?

Father’s sore point with me was my refusal to underwrite my half-sibling’s college bills, simply because he had ceased to support Mother for many years already. My own youngest sibling was still in college then, and I have a family to support. Even if I had wanted to help, and if Mother ever found out, then without a doubt, Hell is a place I shall burn forever.

My sore point with him was he had mortgaged the roof over Mother’s head – reneging an earlier deal to turn the family house over to my siblings and I so Mother has at least something to show for in fifty years of marriage. To Mother’s consternation he had mortgaged the house to finance the other half’s children to college. Now if you were my mother, how would you feel? Why not mortgage the other house for God’s sake? It’s HER children after all – is Mother’s way of thinking.

Really, can you blame her?

Even with his probable good intention of paying back the loan, time is not on Father’s side. He has no proper income except doing piecemeal contract work. I suspect the Bank will foreclose on the house anytime soon, thus Mother will be forced to shuttle between my sister and I. Of course we’d take her in, but to see her broken by circumstances like this? Well, that would be too much to bear.

The sad part is I had seen all this coming. I had even tried to do something about it. Some years ago I made motions by contacting a high-powered divorce lawyer and tried to convince Mother that divorce is the best option for asset protection. Try as I may, Mother would have none of it!

What? To be called a janda? Meruntuhkan Masjid? How I dare propose such a thing?

Ironically, now she would probably be left with nothing. And - under Syaria’ law, if Mother ‘goes’ first, her assets, like her kampong house in the village for instance, will go to Father to do as he pleases. Not only has Father not left her anything, but potentially all her own legacy can go to her ‘rival’.

You can imagine how all this hangs over her head.

He had just arrived and messaged me from a small hotel in town and was waiting for the agent to arrange a car to go north. I immediately called to apologize for not being able to meet him, to which he said was alright, we can meet in Malaysia. No, it's not alright, if he only knew how important it was for us to meet.

Because I see this as the perfect chance for a heart-to-heart.

Back in Malaysia it’s impossible to have an opportunity like this, since the only way to see him is at The Other House, and any heart-to-heart there is a near-impossibility, especially with stepmother hovering in the background.

It’s quite strange that fate had brought us both here, within striking distance, but in all probability there’s nothing I can do. So the conversation that I’ve been rehearsing for the last few years will probably have to wait.

Pray, tell, but who knows for how long?

========================================================

N.B. Although estranged, both Father and Son are actually on very good terms. If not for the -uh - slightly less than desirable situation as pertains to Mother, we could've been best of friends.

Many who have met him found him to be easy-going and friendly. Make no mistake, I do love Father, as with love, sometimes one has trouble seeing the other person's views. My maternal grandmother once quipped that she regretted not giving me a tindeh telinga soon after I was born because Father and I are so physically alike. It's an old wives tale about likes repel and opposites attract that kind of thing, and in my case it's quite true because we never saw eye-to-eye on anything.

* * *


Right. Now to back Rig Life.






The galley where our meals are served.

In the last edition, some were wondering what my failed tool looked like. Well, wonder no more.

© 2007 matsalo images. No Unauthorized Reproduction. The Canon Powershot Digital Ixus 850 (SD 800) was used exclusively for the images above.

Something Mundane (As The Workplace)

Back To The Grind

First off, today is CNY ushering in the year of the Pig/Hog/Babi, so I'd like to wish my dear Chinese friends an enjoyable Yee Sang with your loved ones. I'm old school, so Kong Hee Fatt Choy -lah!

What's interesting is the near-unanimous predictions from all the feng shui masters that the coming pig year will be - how can I say it gently? - full of DISASTERS. No need to expound further because we all know the calamities that have befallen the region recently.














0600hr. Start of the 2 hr plus trip from Base to the client's jetty in Handil. Cars undergoing pre-checks. Remember, employees are the greatest ass-ets!


Personally I had a disastrous week too. I had a tool fail on me while drilling yesterday, and my boss is going nuts because there's already been THREE downhole tool failures since the start of the month (that's just three weeks ago mind you). Each failure cost my company a hefty 'penalty' so you can bet there's no black ink in the books this February. Coincidence?














Ready to roll...leaving the Base

I also had to leave my new toy at home, the Nikon D40, because the missus is having so much fun taking cute photos of our only daughter,so I brought along my trusty Canon Ixus 850 Compact. So many people out there has strange misconceptions about the oil field, especially in a place like Balikpapan, where drilling happens on the swamps between land and sea. It's really quite mundane, far from glamorous.
















Street Scenes en route

At the client's jetty in Handil - waiting to board our boat for another two hour journey thru' the great Mahakam Delta. Notice the sign that says "Beware of Crocodile"!




Notice my boat driver with something lit in his fingers. In direct violation of company rules! Don't worry, I lighted up too...

On arrival at the Rig Raisis, which isn't my regular place - that would be the Yani - but glad to be here anyway since the Senior Toolpusher is an old friend whom I've not seen in years. BTW he hails from Mukah, Sarawak. So we're the only sole two subjects of Bolehland on the rig. I arrived in that little green boat.





Dawn breaking over the Heli-Deck. Rig Floor as seen from Heli-Deck (where I chiefly do my business, which is to dig holes - what else!)




That little cabin you see on the left of the Main Deck is where I post my blog from.





In my work cabin with a colleague

Rig Floor - making a pipe connection, BTW this was right around the time when the tool failed!



My day having ended, so it's time to hit that bottom right bunk...