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Friday, December 25, 2009, 11:55 PM
All i want this Christmas,
As the years went by, Christmas stopped being Christmas, the whole magic of sitting in front of a tree with a hot cup of chocolate with the people you love the most, singing till your throat tingles. All of that kinda just, dissolved. a 6-year-old me used to say that Christmas was the best time of the year cos it's when everyone's in love. No kidding, i wrote that down in a little notebook i carried around with me. And i guess, i'll never stop believing that. Call me a fool, a fool who's played santa 3 times in a row now, the fool, who, for one fleeting moment in time embodied the hopes and dreams of thousands of little kids around the world just by putting on a big red suit and going "hohoho." Such a stupid little get up. But hey, it got those kids believing. I put on a pyramid hat, a red jumper suit that looks like it could've been a careless cardio-thoracic surgeon's OR carpet, and a whispy white beard that looks like a badly glued collection of fur from the pubes of a polar bear. But dozens of kids in a dinky little function room believed i was santa. Anyone with any sort of basic cow logic would know it's me and would so quickly discard the idea of "Santa." I dunno bout you but, who's the stupid one here? The idiots who let their adolescence go like a thriving bucket of fish into the ocean and let logic destroy the magic of Christmas? But i mean hey, we're not kids anymore. Everyone grows up. Everyone knows there's no Santa, or reindeer. (or snow in Singapore for that matter) (and there never will be so we can all just stop hoping for it cos the day Singapore snows is the day we all DIE.) But really though, i miss being stupid. I miss thinking some old fat guy was gonna jump into my house and throw gifts under my christmas tree. Everyone says it doesn't feel like Christmas anymore, and i guess that is true. With Noh series rehearsals flanking the pre and post Christmas weeks, it doesn't feel any different from any ordinary day. Hell, it could be the month of September right now and i wouldn't feel any different. Despite all that, Christmas is Christmas, no matter how old you are. No amount of turkey, ham, beef, chicken, mince pie or eggnog can change that. Today was a pretty good day, this was a good Christmas. I just wish i could've spent every second of it with you. I dunno bout you, but i'm gonna sit by my Christmas tree with a cup of hot chocolate and sing, at least for the next 5 minutes that's left of Christmas day. There's 5 minutes left to Christmas, and i think i've said all that i can say. Saturday, December 12, 2009, 11:52 PM
Just one of those things
I had a good birthday. Definitely one of those i'd remember for the rest of my life. Thank you everyone who wished me, who took me out, who gave me things. Thank you Joan, Ken, Jiyin, Thara, Cassi, Doug, Igs, Ling, Gerald, Liz, Mom n' Dad, Granpaw and Granmaws, I can't even list all of you cos it'd take me all night. Spent the 9th and 10th with Ken and Joan hopping around the entire flippin world, buying stuff. Used birthday money to get myself a new wallet from Topman, got some supplies from Body Shop (men's section) and in the night, Mom took me to buy my new Ipod Touch, 32gb. At first, none of the stores had stock, but then on my third check with every single shop looking pathetic and annoying, a staff from Challenger dug real deep and found a reserved Ipod touch 32gb for some bloke named Randy. Well sorry, Randy, but he sold it to me on the spot cos he was gonna go collect the only 32gb left in the entire chain of Challengers from funan the day after and give that to Randy instead. God bless that man's soul. The ipod touch is probably the single coolest thing i've ever owned next to my macbook. If there was an apple fanboy club, i'd be it's creator and president. On the night before the 11th was ACFF. Kudos to Alyssa and the whole ACFF team for putting together the entire thing, really impressed at how the pulled it all together and made it so kickass. Fire away! Samson was solid gold as usual and Stella Story was pretty awesome too. Spent the rest of the night at the Supperclub for the after party. Danced and went high on the floor and left slightly after 1. Thankfully, there were empty cabs lining the road so me, Ken, Joan and Audrey grabbed them and sped off home cos we were tired and i was itching to play the games on my itouch. Spent the afternoon of my birthday with jiyin, ate at some fancy French restaurant and hopped round orchard, grabbed John Mayer's Battle Studies from borders cos i couldn't resist and i still had some birthday money that granmaw gave me left. Jiyin gave me the best of Sound Stage DVD, a book and a reindeer pen. Jiyin if you're reading this, let me re-iterate and say how awesome you are. In the night, Mom N' Dad took me out for dinner at the NUS guildhouse. It is the most amazing BBQ place i've ever had dinner at. I need to take people there some day for a good kickass dinner. Today was Lizday. Spent the day with Liz around Singapore, from Tampinies(god knows how you spell this flippin word) to PS to city hall. She bought me Jamie Cullum's The pursuit. (holy god) Been putting the entire album on replay the entire night along with Battle Studies. It is too good. Thieving, talented bastards. Listen carefully to the double bassist on this one. He is crazy swingy. Extremely tasty riff. Hooked onto this one so badly. Grittier and grundgier version of Cream's blues classic. And i'm loving his SRV type solo he licks in towards the end. Awesome piano-ing as usual from Cullum. Classic cullum heart-melter. I've been hooked on this one for weeks now ever since i heard it off the itunes preview. Alright, i'm off to go get lost in musicland. Seeyuh. Tuesday, December 8, 2009, 11:51 PM
Memories i'll never find
Crazily Jetlagged, my body clock's having trouble adjusting back this time for some reason. It wasn't so bad for Vienna, but this time seems to be worse for some reason, although the time difference for both Vienna and Egypt are 6 hours. :/ Egypt. Well, you'd think it's some luxurious country with gold paving the streets or something, but it turned out to be a third world country type of slum. The streets and roads are 50% cars, 30% donkey and horse, and 20% dead things. There were dead things lining the road, blood guts and all. The river looks like a sewage pipe cut open, there were 3 dead cows i spotted overturned in the river as i drove along it, and the water shined in several different shades of green and grey. And i swear, every single person in that place is a money-faced scheming asswipe. Every chance they get, they'll try to get money off you. The whole place is a rude scam place. Everyone tries to sell you something and they literally pester you to buy something from them even if you say no, and they're aggressive when they sell too. They'll come up to you when taking a photo, pose next to you, and when you take the picture, they charge you money for it. It's a real scary place to be. And all the toilets have the cleaners standing outside charging people money to enter the toilets, and charge more for using the toilet paper. And s'not like the toilets were clean or anything, you could take a big dump in the middle of the place and no one would notice. Seriously, if i could, i'd go back to the place with a lightsaber and saber every single person who tries to sell me something. And the service they give is complete and total bullshit. You might as well be served by monkeys injected with several different kinds of brain de-generative drugs. But all in all, it was pretty awesome to see all the pyramids, temples and what not. And the weather was lovely. Although honestly, after the first few days, everything started to look like nothing more than triangular rocks and sand. But, i did have fun, so that's what matters at the end of the day, right? The Egyptian sun left me with this badass tan, and since i was wearing a pair of aviators the whole time, i have a sunglass tanline around my eyes. I feel like a raccoon. I've been bored shitless the entire day, and i forsee this shitlessness lasting for awhile. My stupid birthday's coming up on friday, and i dread it like i do every year. Don't ask me why, i can't explain it either. Don't get me wrong, i love birthdays, they mean something to me, but it's just that every year, i have expectations for some sort of surprise or at least a well spent day or something, and it never quite happens. Pfft. And this year, everyone's gone away, no one's around in Singapore. Cassi's prolly got her own plans already, so i guess i'll just go some place and vegetate. Hah. Been listening to Muse a lot. Love this one, it's got a nice Jeff Buckley feel to it. At the beginning, his distortion pedal and overdrive hints of Steve Vai's Bad horsie. Love their versatility and style. I'm gonna go find something better to do now. Sunday, November 29, 2009, 10:46 AM
Le compte de monte cristo
After the show last night, we had to dissemble the set, remove the lights/flybar decor, clean up the dressing rooms and the stage. It was strange to take apart the illusion we built just 7 days ago, after living in that world we created, i felt slightly sentimental towards the platform, the hanging curtains and the 16 large cow sacks i had to lug by myself all the way from some godforsaken place in bedok. It was like pressing a big reset button, within 2 hours, the entire theatre had returned to neutral, nothing left of the world of the count of monte cristo, only the memories that we carry with us forever. Finally got out of the theatre at 2-ish in the morning. After three days of the show running, i got feedback from the various people who had come to watch and got the usual break down of who was a better actor than the other, or who was not. But i dunno, personally, i don't believe there's such a thing as a better or a worser actor, to me, we're all the same. No matter what great or small part we play in the show, nothing could survive without the other. I'm not saying it's evil, but i just don't think it's right to categorize actors/musicians/artists as better/worse. I mean how d'you even measure the grounds? There are a thousand different ways one can measure the calibre of an actor, so who's to say which one's the most accurate? People tell me that i have so much talent in acting/music/art, but i personally don't think i am. To me, they're just things i love doing. I don't see how my life can go on without music, art or the stage. It's not always about how well you do something, it's about how much you love doing it. Art is an expression of life, what right has anyone have to define who's better than the other at expression? Pfft. So, last night, we threw away perfection, we threw away perfect timing, perfect pitch, got up on that stage, and let every single head in that audience feel the world of the count of monte cristo. A play isn't a show people go to watch, that's called cinema, not theatre. A play is a roller coaster ride that both actor and audience take, where the audience feels how the actor feels, and for even that one fleeting moment in time, feel like they're walking in the world that we create that is totally, perfectly and completely real. Or at least, that's what i try to do every time. I must start packing for tonight, otherwise, i'd get on the plane to Cairo with nothing but a sweater, my script, and a half eaten granola bar in my back-pack. Friday, November 13, 2009, 11:34 PM
From the hotel where you call
Yesterday, the much needed god-given day of rest, met Jiyin for lunch and other nonsense we get up to, ended up at the karaoke screaming songs into a dinky little microphone which had the sound quality of a donkey's fart. Joined Joan and Ken for an awesome fish and co dinner at ion. I can never get sick of that place. Awoke at stupid o'clock this morning, had a little beef pie and a glass of OJ, and i was ready to face the day. I just realized today was friday the 13th, and it all went by without a thought. I sit by my mahogany desk, munching on a cheeseburger and a hot cup of earl grey for dinner at 1130 pm on a friday night. Ryan Adams is on my playlist. Again. Soft reminders of Vienna float into my mind as Political Scientist reaches its second chorus, the quaint rain patters on my air con, almost keeping time with the song. The ghastly smell of muscle rub fills the air as i slop it onto my neck and shoulders, hoping by tomorrow morning, i awake with no pain. Pfft. I'm calling you but you're not picking up. I guess i'll just have to wait for your thrilling last minute requests that i always seem to comply with. Someone throw a brick at my head, please. I've a thousand things to remember for tomorrow and all i feel doing now is heading out into the rain and running till i see Africa or somewhere. Friday, November 6, 2009, 9:13 PM
I know this may sound weird and strange to even the most normal person, but i need to shout it out somewhere. It's impossible even for myself to keep up with this bullet train of emotions that seems to favour my head as a docking ground. Maybe all i really need is to shut down and stop thinking for a bit. The November rain seems to be sweeping in comfortably. I close my eyes and grip my mug full of hot chocolate and try to think of anything that doesn't have to do with all this bullshit, i stop and realize that everything i do has become part of it, not thinking about it would leave me with, well, nothing. So i dwell instead in, well, the bullshit. Therein lies my enigma. Nothing, or Bullshit? Saturday, October 31, 2009, 11:16 AM
Under the influence of you
Yesterday, i got caught in school for having long hair at the back and was forced to get a haircut from one of the evil immigrant people who were once tea leaf pickers in some province in China who decided to ride a goat to Singapore to cut innocent boys' hair to make a living. So i sat in line with the other dozen or so guys who got caught for long hair waiting to have our pride and joy chopped off by the wonderful tea planters. When it reached my turn, i told the nice farmer, "Hi, i've been keeping this hair shape for about 6 months now and it's taken a lot of careful cutting by a very expensive barber, so is it possible for you to just trim the back slightly and leave the rest as it is?" She probably only understood the language of the elves or the plants for she stared at me as if i just spoke French to a Sumatran head hunter. But i told myself to trust her, after all, the teachers in the school would hire proper hairdressers to trim our hair so we won't look incredibly stupid, right? With that great expectation in mind, i watched in horror as the tea planter put down her scissors, picked up a comb and a razor and started slicing off my hair as if they were crops. With each slice, my heart sank more as the back of my head got butchered into this odd carpet grass square box, and as my fringe got cut into a straight line. I felt like grabbing the razor from her hands and lunging it straight into her chest. But i couldn't. She seemed to be holding it too tightly to snatch. And so, now, my hair looks worse than a mule's arse, but what can i do about it? All i can do to help myself now is wait for it to grow back and then get my usual barber to trim it to its original shape before hacked by tea planters. Pfft. I'm gonna go hibernate in some corner of my house and think about storyboards for my IS and maybe get out my guitar and pen down a tune or two. The year end rain's been rolling in and i've never felt happier to have storm clouds above my head. It feels like the end of some drought, but it's prolly just the entire year catching up with me. It's been an exhausting couple of months and it's only gonna get worse from here on. The desi girl dance is tonight, i pray we'll all have enough energy to pump out the whole dance on that stage. Exhausting yet so fulfilling. JM's new song from Battle Studies. Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 10:54 PM
Images of broken light
So as i'm writing this, my eyes shift from the wooden parquet of my floor to the off white of my ceiling trying to burrow into the deepest pits of my mind to tell you my life story that has taken place over the past week or so. Then i realize that the only thing i can tell you is that I've been having rehearsals. Nothing else but that. Although tiring, the insane combination of both text and dance routines are strangely relaxing. I feel like i'm working a job rather than following a set list of CCA rehearsal timings. Results were revealed last week. I didn't do too badly this time, it's prolly too early to say but, I've been promoted and have managed to boost my intellectual status from "inadequate" to "decent." But i doubt much can change to divert the direction of my grades. In the end, i think i can say i'm satisfied. Pfft. My birthday's coming round the bend in about a month or so, and this time, i'm really not looking forward to it. Every year i have such great expectations for a surprise or some sort of celebration that someone might throw in my face, but almost every year, nothing much has happened except the wonderful love from my family. Besides, this time, most of my closest friends will be in another country while i sit here on this Island, laughing at myself and my decision to shift my Egypt trip to an earlier date just so i could be in Singapore on my birthday to celebrate it. Pfft. Funny how the things you plan for never actually go according to the blue prints. And like you said, it's also during ACFF, so no one's gonna chose any party i'm holding over that. True. Fine. You win. Ruin my hopes of a party when i went to your ruined one. Get bent you sickening dickweed. Sometimes, i wonder why the dark hands of fate ever put you and i face to face. It feels like i'm walking through a hall of multi-coloured mirrors, smashing every reflection with hobnail boots strapped to my feet. Every monster that stares back at me, every single monster that you told me i am. Ok, i shan't digress into that path. I've got dance rehearsals for HSM, CMC and Desi Girl back to back on Friday. Survive it? Oh sure, why not? Death seems funny to me now after being so used to all this. Dad managed to grab front rows for the Tommy Emmanuel concert at the esplanade tomorrow. God bless your soul dear father. Best part, tomorrow is rehearsal free. I'm going to the concert to see one of the most skilled acoustic guitarists of our time and nothing even close to a flying truck is going to stop me. p.s. Does anyone else feel like sleeping in tomorrow and banishing all thoughts of school and work? Friday, October 16, 2009, 10:36 PM
Getting ready to leave the ground
The past two days have been nothing but bliss ever since the papers ended, finally jumped into the school pool after the DEP paper on Tuesday at night with Pris, Mich, Afi and Archanaa and swam. Went to Mich's house after that for nothing but movies and stayed there for the night. Woke up the next morning and did it all over again, went home in the afternoon to catch a snooze before Archanaa came over. All of us met again for dinner at parkway after that. It felt like this big holiday trip where we kept seeing each other. It felt like we were on our own little Island where the only people we knew existed were each other. Yesterday and today was AC games, basically, this huge conglomeration of sports. Like the olympics, with less grandeur. Came out of the games with a tan that left me redder than a poached lobster. I thought it'd be boring and sad like the previous 10 games days that i've attended/skipped. But i actually enjoyed this one. It kinda felt like one huge picnic. Rehearsals for Monte Cristo started yesterday after the games and lasted till 8, even today. I was apprehensive about kicking rehearsals back into motion, but i'm getting the same thrill pulsing under my skin whenever i read from that bullet proof script or dance to that ancient music. It's our love for this art that pulls us back every time, like our own little drug to the pain. As new president of the Arts Council, Yanka chose the ONE campaign for their CIP project and have set up a booth selling ONE campaign support stuff during AC games, and i'm a sucker for these things. So i bought a badge and the iconic ONE wristband. Started by the great Bono of U2. They also held a pledge taking thing today, 300 over people showed up to take the pledge and the straits times showed up with a camera and a reporter so that our voices would be imprinted onto a little section of the papers sometime this week. I don't know if its the wristband or my natural urge to stand up for causes like this, but i feel compelled to give you this website www.onesingapore.org and tell you to join the cause to stop poverty worldwide. Michael Buble's new album "Crazy Love" came out in America yesterday. Gonna hunt for it this weekend. John Mayer's just finished recording his new album "Battle Studies", not sure when it'll be out though. The holidays start soon and before i know it, Monte Cristo will be done with and then my birthday will zoom past like nobody's business, then Christmas will fizzle in 12 days, and then 2009 would've gone by. It's amazing how fast time can go without us even realizing it. I can't wait for the following weeks to come, it's not going to be that free, but at least i won't have the impending pressure of exams or anything. Life in technicolour again. |
the machiavellian ist
Vanity isn't a sin, a little narcissm wouldn't hurt.Andrew. Music. Food. People. What more could you possibly want? |
partnersincrime
One day when i wake up and find the motive and time to link anybody, i'll let you know. backtoyesterday
+ All i want this Christmas, + Just one of those things + Memories i'll never find + Le compte de monte cristo + From the hotel where you call + I hate to wallow in self-pity and the broken glass... + Under the influence of you + Images of broken light + Getting ready to leave the ground + In the city of blinding lights wheni'mgone
+ April 2007 + May 2007 + June 2007 + July 2007 + August 2007 + September 2007 + October 2007 + November 2007 + December 2007 + January 2008 + February 2008 + March 2008 + April 2008 + May 2008 + June 2008 + July 2008 + August 2008 + September 2008 + October 2008 + November 2008 + December 2008 + January 2009 + February 2009 + March 2009 + April 2009 + May 2009 + June 2009 + July 2009 + August 2009 + September 2009 + October 2009 + November 2009 + December 2009 takeabow
An accidentality production Inspiration from DancingSheep & BONBON:D |
theventingmachine
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