Guilt Ridden Grown Up

The older you get, the more baggage you seem to collect to add to your collection of should have, must have, could have and would have.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about the Sophie Kinsella type situations (though I swear to you I don't read Kinsella. Bleuch)

I'm talking about how being an adult and moving on often puts you in precarious positions if you stop to think about it sometimes.

As Eid Mubarak approaches, I can't help but think of all the things I would have been doing if and when I was younger.

If I was younger and still living with my parents, I would be spring cleaning the house right about now. Helping my mom roll up the old carpets, spread out the new ones. Perch on a high stool to wipe off the dust of the fan fins. Bring out the superpowered Rainbow vacuum and suck out all of last year's mess in the living room. Back then I hated it, right now I miss it. And also feel guilty for not being there to do it.

If I was younger and still gallivant with my buddies day in and night outs, I would be out at some stall somewhere, chugging coffee flavoured sugar liquids at the mamak stall, talking shit and trying to come home just about 5:30 am before Imsak. Though it was tiring and often mundane, right now I miss it. And also feel guilty for not having the time to call and hang out.

If I was younger and still a bachelor, I would be thumbing away on my mobile wishing every prospect on my list festive greetings in hopes of getting someone somewhere a reply to acknowledge my existence so that I can feel good about myself and feel less lonely. Back then I yearned it, right now I dont miss it at all.

Instead, I'm lying in bed next to my beautiful pregnant (sleeping) wife and my unborn daughter, waiting to drift into sleepiness so I can hug them both to sleep.

And maybe tomorrow I'll vacuum our own house and wipe our fan fins.

And maybe tomorrow I'll hang out with both of them till 5:30 am before Imsak.

Life comes and pulls you forward. It's always good to look in the rearview mirror at times to remember what's important. But you have to always keep your eyes on the road to get to where you're going. And not get hit by an SUV, if you're lucky.

Happy driving!

How (Not) To Break Up With Someone

Feeling a bit nostalgic tonight after hearing a coupla stories about people I know who had recently broken up. It's never a clean getaway. Or if you're on the other side of the fence, It's never that easy to understand.
Being 7 months shy of the big 3-0 (April next year), I wouldl like to impart some knowledge on the art, or the lack of, of breaking up with someone.
Brace yourselves, for these are not mere theoretical or conceptual tips. They were tried and tested, with the defensive wounds to prove it.

Here's how NOT to break up with someone.


1. Tell her you're not the right guy for her after sticking your tongue down her throat in the middle of the dance floor, completely intoxicated by a birthday boy concoction called the "Graveyard Shift"

2. Telling her it's because you're uncomfortable being a Malay boyfriend sized up against her 3 chinese doctor elder brothers

3. Leave her by the side of the road, pulling hairs and clawing away with an unknown crazy woman who apparently is her ex boyfriend's current girlfriend at 3 am along Jalan Jelatek. At least break up the fight and drop her off somewhere safer.

4. Blame it on the FuBu concept that turned ugly. It was always designed to turn ugly.

5. Send her best friend to try and explain to her why you did what you did

6. Over the phone, 12 hours behind in a different timezone

7. At the VIP lounge, after being caught

8. While driving. In your sportscar. With her in the passenger seat.

9. Accuse her of a lying vixen when that you thought she was an aeronautical engineer when she said she worked at an airline.

10. Saying that it's not her...it's YOU.

Good luck, and don't make me say I told you so.

The Banana Club

There's this place we called The Banana Club. It was situated behind some poor family's house right opposite our high school's side entrance.

The Banana Club existed roughly about 13-14 years ago. Back then it wasn't called The Banana Club. I have no idea what they called it then, nor a clue what they call it now.

I passed by The Banana Club sometime earlier this week and it was stil abuzz with activity, just as it has always been 13 years ago.

You see, The Banana Club was where we met everyday, before and after school. Many things happened at The Banana Club. Things that shaped the way we are today. Things that changed our perceptions. Some forever, and some as we go along through adulthood.

Social activities usually start from 7am Mondays to Friday. For members that took the school bus, they were always at The Club pretty early. For the ones on bikes and on foot, we were always there just in time for the morning fag and manly gossip sessions.

You can always tell there was activity at The Club by the thick smoke snaking through the trees. Morning salutations were given, idle chit chats and doobies being passed through de left hand side.

It was a place for formal functions as well. The welcoming of new faces. Of brotherhoods. Of alliances. There were happy and dark times. Mostly after school, judgements passed at the club. fists and feet become judge and jurors. Maturity was the outcome.

Blood, tears, laughter, happiness, dissapointments, tall tales. That was what The Banana Club were to all whom I knew.

I hope it still serves its purpose well till today. The trees have many a tale to tell. Some to remain a secret forever, and some to peek silently at you after all those years as you drive by, with your family in tow.

I always wink back when I drive past The Banana Club. And for all those new secrets that it hears and witnesses for this generation and the generation to come, I hope that those who enter and eventually say goodbye to it, will live and learn to tell their tales. Of The Banana Club.

Perfectly Different

I remember someone telling me that once you're dead, once the end of the world is over, and once the world of heaven and hell begins, there is a sad, but true fact that we have to accept.

That even in Heaven, there may be certain clauses.

The concept of Heaven is that it's a place where every good soul will ultimately and eternally enjoy the rewards of their earthly labours and sacrifices.

A daughter that selflessly took care of her sick mother for 23 years may not want to see her mother anymore. Instead, she may want to surround herself with 23 naked New York Firemen.

A wife that has sacrificed her earthly lust for the neighbors husband to be faithful to her own, may want to spend her eternity doing the horizontal lambada with Mr. Swinton (just picked that up from nowhere) next to a river flowing with Dom Perignon.

The point is, every soul will be busy with their own rewards. Everyone will be relatively the same age (so I was told).

And therefore, when your one wish is to meet up with a certain someone that you miss, the person that appears before you is a 110% exact replica of that person, even down to his deviated septum. Not, the real person. Or the actual person's soul. That person is busy with their own vivid and/or devilish plans.

Will you get to meet up with your mom? Of course. Her exact replica. Your mom will be busy canoodling with Rober Redford (also his replica) or Lawrence of Arabia.

How will it feel? Will we be contented? Or will it be that person, who is perfectly different?

I'll tell you what though: I wouldn't mind a replica of Anna Ohura, Marquetta Jewel and Ava Devine any time of the day!

The difference between

I read a really good article in Top Gear today. It was about the monstrous new Caterham R500. Written by Tom Ford. One of his lines had me cracking up on the toilet seat:

"The difference in feel from this Caterham to something like a Ferrari F430 is the difference between placing your hand on the road and licking it"

Brilliant. What superb word play to illustrate the cavernous difference between two things.

Like the difference between the US and Malaysia is the difference between fucking people in the ass everyday and being fucked in the ass by people everyday.

Andai Ku Tahu

Dear Politicians,

Go to your local music shop. Download it on Limewire. Or you can even ask me for a copy.

Listen to the song "Andai Ku Tahu" from a bunch of young men from Indonesia who call themselves Ungu.

Listen to it carefully. Every word.

Then leave your desks. Get up from that $5000 chair and go to the bank that has your secret bank account, withdraw all that illegal money you've collected for the past 23 years, including the one you just received 2 days ago from that judge and that businessman.

Take the money to the East Coast, up North, down to the slums of JB City, Balakong and San Peng. Take the money to the deep interiors of Mukah, Rompin & even right down the road off the Putrajaya Highway to the small shacks that litter the landscape from Sepang to Morib.

Once you're there, look at them in the eye. Someone's grandmother, with her deep set eyes and fidgety wrists. Smell her abandonment. Inhale it. Let it settle in your nostrils for awhile.

Just for awhile.

And after that, you can get back in your chauffeur driven S class, and head back home. Away from the destitution. Safe in your corruption. Will the pictures come out on the front page or page 3? Doesn't matter. You had your good side facing the camera just now.

I've been sitting in my office for the past 6 hours waiting for Sept 16th to happen on Sept 16th.

Should it? Or will it?

It doesn't matter. I just hope everyone's listened to the song.

If you haven't, let me know. I'll email it to ya.

Ants Marching

Woke up today for sahur to find about 32-34 ants who drowned themselves in my glass of sea coconut drink I left on my nightstand.

This is such a familiar sight. Ants, attracted to sweetness out of pure instinct would brazenly (or foolishly) get into a (literally) sticky sweet situation regardless of the impending doom that awaits them.

Ants dead and drowned in my coke. Ants dead and drowned in my cough syrup. Ants, dead and frozen in my fridge, possibly whilst trying to carry away a cut apple.

They have the natural instincts to find grub, protect the queen, safeguard the colony, and even send ant signals to one another while organizing the best way to drag a dead dung beetle.

Yet they can't tell each other something simple like " Don't go there! You'll drown!"

Is this God's twisted way of monitoring the world's ant population so that they won't breed and grow in colonies that may eventually overpower us?

*Ponder*

Two-che

If there were 2 of me, where would my other half be right now while I'm in the office?

Where would I send him?
Would I let him sleep in?
Would I be the one sleeping in and send him to work?
Would I be on holiday while he stays in the office?
Should I send him instead to entertain the clients? Or face them when there's a problem?

But wait.

Which one would be me and which one would be the other me?

Would I be jealous with my other self?

And which me will enjoy what I will be doing and am not doing?

I guess the answer to this is simple.

I would have both of me working as pornstars.

Velvet Evolver

I used to be an ad man. Associate Account Director. Worked my way up 2 international ad agencies in KL.

Like a psychologist that comes to their clients offices, I would sit patiently, take notes. Poor souls. Marketing Managers or Executives. Some of them have no idea how they even got there. But I was a good listener. I was a good deconstructor.

I deconstructed everything. What they wrote on their Agency Brief. What they said. What they said behind their bosses back. What they said behind my bosses back. What they said behind my back. What they wore that day, what ties they were wearing, what bra color and type they were wearing. What they smelled like and even what they ate before the meeting.

I deconstruct their competitors ads : What their layouts were like, what colors, which talents, what slogans, what nonsense.

I deconstructed my own Creative Briefs : What strategy, which art director, why so, why not?

I now deconstruct my wife's actions : Why'd she do that? Why'd she NOT do that? Why'd she say that? Why DIDN'T she say that?

And as I sit here 8 years after my first advertising job, and 3 years after leaving it to commandeer a family business...I seem to feel that deconstructing is deconstructive.

I was trained to question. Now I am forced to answer.

My staff needs me to. My wife needs me to. My family needs me to.

And soon, my child will need me to as well.

But I don't think I should stop deconstructing. I just think it should be immediately followed up with my own answer now. And if I don't have it, it's OK. It'll pop up somewhere someday.

Right God?

Hello? U there?

Ming La Ba

Welcome in Burmese.

So Ming La Ba to you. You, that is reading this blog. You, that hopefully has very low expectations in life.

For the future ramblings in here will be sweet and sour, flacidly uplifting, intelligently moronic, and as democratically republican in thought.

'Cause for those who do not personally know me, that's who I am.

For example, last night I dreamt i was organising a small party at my house, grumbling that I was too "married" to have a wild frat-like one anymore. Then 1000 people showed up. Hot chicks, cool artsy fartsy types, and nude swingers. Then I stood on a table, introduced myself as the host, and asked them all to f*&k off and leave me the hell alone. Then I drove a fuel tanker.

See?

Buckle up. The ramblings have begun.