The Umpteenth Journal Attempt (Version III)

Exhibit 1: My brother and his family have been in town for the past week. "His family" includes Rizqi, my two-year old nephew. Usually I’m not one to get overenthusiastic when it comes to entertaining small children, but there’s just something different when it’s your own kin. The way his tiny fingers grab my hand and pull me outside the house to check out the passing cars in the street just gets me. And when I hold him over my right shoulder and he just rests there quietly without crying - it just stirs up some powerful (dare I say paternal?)feelings.

Exhibit 2: Recently and in the upcoming months, there have been and will be quite a lot of high school and university friends my age who got and will get married. And it’s not just the girls, who traditionally get married earlier than the guys. Yup, more and more guys are tying the knot, with women, naturally. (I’m still to hear of any of my guy friends who’ve done the gay marriage thing. The girls too, for that matter.)  And I’m talking about close friends, not the sort of people I’d only exhanged five words with during the entire duration of high school or university. Being the type of guy that I am (no, I have no clue why I said that), I try to attend as many of these weddings as possible. Just to meet all the old gang, reminisce about old times. The downside to all this is that the inevitable question pops up ("When are you getting married?"), followed by the inevitable uncomfortable answer ("As soon as I find someone who wants to get married. With me."). This happens all the time. And yet I still go to weddings. I’m not masochistic, as so it happens reunions at present are too enjoyable for any pre-marital angst I’m experiencing to overwhelm me. But I’m certain that won’t last for long.

Conclusion: Everyday I get reminded of how I’m not getting any younger, and that my life’s in a phase where I’m supposed to be settling down. And I seem to be whining about this a lot lately. I really wish I’d stop whining. Or even better, have no reason to whine.

Did a bit of thinking about what I wrote two posts ago, and I feel like clarifying the reasons behind it. Yes, there’s some self-inflicted pressure on having to put out the best work possible for the magazine, but now that I think about it, there’s a level of insecurity drawn from whenever I read other blogs, especially blogs by my friends. These are people who I spent six years together in university, though whenever I read their blogs, I feel like I’m the only one who sounds like I spent six years in high school. They all write eloquently, waxing philosophical, casually tossing in names of big thinkers who write books that I’ve probably fallen asleep to within five pages of reading. Whenever I check out their blogs, my mind just seems to shut down as everything flies way over my head. I just don’t understand, or maybe just can’t relate to whatever they’re saying.

Why do I feel so dumb? Why do I feel as shallow as a can of Coke? Maybe I just haven’t trained myself to handle the deep stuff, and if I’m being honest, the deep stuff hasn’t really appealed to me. Hence those six years in university, I suppose. I’m more likely to write about frivolous stuff like how crappy the cinema at Cinere Mall is rather than the state of this nation, or whatever current affair is the latest hot topic. I find it hard to come up with something profound to provide food for thought. On the other hand, perhaps profundity is something that occurs naturally, and forcing myself to sound smart will just ring false. Maybe I should just lose the guilt over not being able to be fantastic most of the time, if at all. What’s more important: being honest about one’s own shallowness or faking one’s brilliance?

In this age of high class cinema theatres, where you have to pay an arm and leg just to watch a friggin’ movie, the cineplex at Cinere Mall is about as far away as you can get from overblown luxury. The tickets are still those flimsy paper ones that went out of style in other theatres sometime in the mid-’90s. The seats smell like someone recently died, and I’d prefer not to know what those stains are to keep my sanity intact. And despite being part of the monopolistic Studio 21 chain, the films aren’t entirely up-to-date, usually coming out a week or two after they’ve been shown everywhere else.

However, not being one of those obsessive flick fanatics who insist on having perfect surround sound and plush arse cushions to enhance their viewing experience, I don’t mind occasionally dropping by Cinere to catch a movie. Ever since working full-time it’s been harder gathering people together to watch something on short notice, unlike back in my college days where Monday was almost always Movie Day (especially due to the lower prices). Nowadays I just don’t get around to seeing anything, not even on weekends. Too much hassle involved.

So Cinere’s ideal because it’s near home, and I can just drop by at leisure whenever there’s something interesting on that I haven’t managed to see yet, and I don’t have to make a big fuss about not having anyone to watch with. The problem being, what I usually want to see is stuff that didn’t last too long on the more mainstreams theatres, and so it’s highly likely that the tenure on Cinere’s screens will be even shorter. As a result, when I’m passing by the mall to or from work, if an interesting movie’s poster is up (like, say, Wedding Crashers), then I only have a few days in which to see it. Judging by the lack of studio attendence whenever I watch (about three people, including me - which makes watching by myself slightly less embarrassing), it’s no surprise that each movie only stays up for a few days.

With one surprising exception. You see, I always check out what’s on whenever I pass the mall, which is just about every day. And I’ve just noticed that there’s one film that’s been continuously on for the past two weeks, approximately. That flick must be pulling in big numbers, it seems. So what is this blockbuster? I bet you’re thinking King Kong, right?

It’s not King Kong. It’s Karate Dog. Friggin’ Karate Dog. A cinematic tour de force, starring Jon Voight, the late, great Pat Morita and Chevy Chase as the voice of Cho Cho, the titular canine. A film originally released in 2004. The taste of Studio 21 Cinere’s moviegoers sucks.

Been listening to The Strokes’ new album, First Impressions Of Earth, quite a lot since buying it last week. Been listening to it more than I’ve listened to their first two records combined, though just about every review I’ve read for it range from poor to above average, maintaining that it’s inferior, especially compared to Is This It. Personally, I’ve never got the hype regarding that album, which had them hailed as the saviours of rock & roll or whatever. I just wasn’t sucked into all the hyperbole, or maybe all the raving got my expectations too high, as if listening to that album was going to somehow change my life.

Like hell it did. It was a decent enough album, and perhaps if I listen to it now I might find more things to like about it. But if Is This It affected my life in any way, it’s more down to it making me put on my bullshit detector whenever NME or whoever touts their next big thing (I’m looking at you, Arctic Monkeys). It is kind of nice when you eventually find yourself agreeing with what the hype-mongers say, because it turns out to not be a huge waste of time and money, though it’s definitely a hit-or-miss thing.

Back to First Impressions Of Earth: there’s a song on it called ‘Ask Me Anything’, in which Julian Casablancas keeps singing "I’ve got nothing to say" in the chorus. I haven’t figured out what that song is really all about, but those five words pretty much sum up how I feel much of the time when it comes to expressing myself. This is not a good thing, as expressing myself (through writing) is how I make a living. In short, if I’ve got nothing to say, then what good am I? Deadlines, especially, become the bane of my existence as articles must be submitted while I’m still trying to figure out what to write, and yet I don’t want to just hash stuff out just to make sure it gets in there. It’s the old Catch-22: I want to write something decent, but inspiration doesn’t arrive when you want it, or even need it, and I’ve still got to make those deadlines because this whole magazine is a team effort, and I don’t want to be the malfunctioning cog that screws up the entire machine.

It’s something to work on, obviously. This blog is intended to help, but I’m still trying to figure out how. It’s supposed to be an outlet for me to be productively creative, but I fear that I have a limited well of creativity, and given my priorities, that limited creativity is best allocated elsewhere. Hence the lack of posts. If I wanted to push myself and blog at every opportunity, I could. But like I (and Julian Casablancas) said, I’ve got nothing to say. Quality over quantity. Not that I’m saying this is quality. Sigh.

Was in Kuala Lumpur over the weekend. The last time I was there was in early ‘95, and I gotta say, I was hugely impressed by what it’s become. All that modern architecture and infrastructure. I felt like cringing once I landed at Soekarno-Hatta, after taking from KLIA just a few hours earlier. KL reminded me of Singapore, though the crappy traffic and constant rain brought back thought of home. Then again, maybe Singapore has crappy traffic and constant rain too. And I’m sure KL has its fair share of problems, though I guess my being in one problem-ridden city too long just makes any shortcomings other places have seem insignificant.

Though if there’s one thing that’s better in Jakarta than in KL, it’s that small, underground gigs go relatively unmolested. I wasn’t there, but on New Year’s Eve in KL, at a  gig at this cafe called Paul’s Place, police raided the place under the pretense that it was a "black metal" concert, which they’ve been cracking down on in recent times. Which would be all well and good, but the catch was, this wasn’t even a black metal gig! It was hardcore, not that they really cared - and so 380 kids ended up being arrested and tested for drugs. Very lousy. As far as I know that hasn’t happened here, so here’s hoping it never does. And if it does, I hope the police at least get the genre right.

Regardless, I had a blast in KL, and met some cool people too, who said I should’ve stayed longer. Hopefully I’ll be able to do just that, and on my own dime and time if necessary.