Sil Khannaz Pendita Gila:

I still remember being extremely excited and thrilled about this one cassette tape I bought from a local record store when I was still in Kota Bharu many years ago. It was of a local death metal band called Sil Khannaz. What kind of band would call itself Sil freaking Khannaz? Even the moniker itself was an Arabic word referring to the devil's other name. Its like "Hello, my name is Satan but you can call me Sil Khannaz". This must be provocative and provocation was my middle name back then. It was an Extended Play; you know those kinds of tapes where you can actually buy them at RM8.90 a piece. It usually contains four to five songs and it would be the same four or five songs on each side of the cassette tape. Back then you can actually purchase a full album cassette tape for only RM13.50. Fucking glorious.

If my memory serves me correctly, I bought that EP cassette (and many other cassettes) at Pantai Timur Shopping Centre. The music department was actually heaven on earth for the younger version of me back then. They got like one whole fucking wall displaying rare heavy metal records and cassette tapes. I am talking about hundreds of heavy metal tapes dude. I sometimes would spend hours browsing each and every one of them and not once would I end up annoying the staff who usually would follow me around making sure I was not putting heavy metal cassette tapes into my pocket. “Akak, can you just stop following me and recommend me instead, the grimmest and heaviest satanic war Black Death Metal record ever recorded and distributed on this planet?” “Akak, Black Death Metal. Bukan Black Dog Bone. Itu disco!”

Pendita Gila, the album sleeve was red and white with Mr. Alistair Crowley bejeweled as the front cover. The front cover was kind of creepy with the cropped photo of Mr.Crowley staring straight into my eyes whispering his deadly admonition “Join the Temple of the Golden Dawn or I will have to eat you, boy!” although I did thought that his face-crouching position was kind of silly and funny at that time. “Sorry Mr.Crowley, you are a silly man indeed making scary faces like that”.

It contained 4 mesmerizing and heart ripping songs and those four songs altered my life forever. The throat crushing vocals seemed to gust out hypnotizing spells, sinful hymns and evil curses. It was funny to remember that I was literally frightened shitless when I first listened to Kiss of The Whisper, which later became their regular encore. What kind of vocal is this? I was awestruck. Two growling vocals, of different velocity respectively, on top of each other creating this weird spellbinding effect. The riffs were all evil and wicked as hell. Come to think of it, I have to admit, Pendita Gila was one of those rock albums that can really scare the shit out of you.

Unfortunately, I sold the damn tape to a friend of mine.

Safety And Alertness:

A few days ago, Nina’s purse was stolen from her handsome handbag that she was hauling. She informed me about it via text message. It was already late in the evening when I got the message. To make it even worse, there was a huge chunk of cash in the purse, which was meant for some weekly expenditure and monthly bills. To be honest, I was quite infuriated at first. Why do you need to haul out so much cash? Why didn’t she just use the electronic banking system and pay all the bills online, which were far more easier and far safer, rather than having to go out to the teller machine, withdraw a huge amount of cash, which of course would definitely attract the ever curious and nosy Rusty Ryans and Danny Oceans, and doing it manually? And why in hell did I not accentuate her about this earlier? So much for being a dependable guy huh.

Well, at least Nina was OK. A bit shaken, but OK. Alhamdulillah. With all these snatch thieves son of bitches running around freely, sniffing around like reservoir dogs that they truly are, snatching hand bags from some poor old women across the streets, sometimes causing serious injuries and deaths, I am thankful that Nina was left unharmed, safe and sound. I was informed by Nina later on that night that they, the security guards have found the purse in the shopping Mall’s men’s room, everything still intact except the cash. 

Two simple and very important lessons that can we can learn in the above predicament which are first; use the electronic banking system. It is easier, faster and safer. Second; when your girlfriend’s purse end up stolen, try and contain yourself from gnashing your teeth, because by being angry at something like that, purse stolen, car keys missing, favorite lingerie misplaced etc, which was beyond your control anyway, you will end up putting her in a tougher spot than she’s already in, an unnecessary stress. It aint gonna solve the problem. The best thing to do is to try and calm her down. Give her your moral support. If you were with her at that time, give her a warm hug. Let her know that everything is going to be alright and what ever happens, you will always be there for her. Let her know that. This will give her comfort. It will definitely lift her up from her current desolation and misery. Go back home, make her a cup of warm Milo and continue hugging her until the sobbing stops. Wait for the next day, then barulah give her your world famous personal holy sermon on safety and alertness. It will register quicker. 

I got the above tip from my short read of the foreword to the infamous Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, written by John Gray, while I was waiting for the cute Kinokuniya girl to finish wrapping my evil books, earlier in the afternoon. 

Island Red Cafe:

To be honest, I never had any curiosity and interest in any freaking Multi Level Marketing program, what more to join any of the shits. Yes, I do refer to them as shits sometime. As far as I could commit to memory, I was spooned with various types of multi level programs since my university days. Back in those days, Omega Trend was one of the first few program to storm the university and unluckily for me, one of my roommates joined and sank deep into this Omega Trend obsession. Why? Because one of his friends which was also another mutual friend of mine made big bucks out of it. I did not know how big but I was made to understand that it covered five freaking figures. For a university undergraduate who depends solely on government loan that was quite a lot of money. Everybody was like, went nuts about the whole awesomeness, including this room mate of mine. And I was like, OK, I am pretty much dead. Luckily through out that colossal rage, I was able to turn on my super sonic velocity superhero mode in full force, thus with out much problem, I was able to shield myself from that nasty little bugger.

A few days ago, I lost my Multi Level Marketing virginity to Island Red Café. Island Red fucking Café. Nina was against the idea and I almost got myself a tongue lashing when I first told her I joined an MLM program. It’s a waste of money abang, I remember she told me. A few days later, when I checked my Island Red Café members account, I found out to my own amazement that I have already earned RM452. I remember texting Nina and told her that I was already earning. In a classic female reaction she wrote me back; EARN MORE! Hahaha. Maybe that RM400k Rawang three storey, six bedrooms, six toilets, a wardrobe and swimming pool semi detached landed property idea aint such a bad idea after all. Kan sayang? 

Evil Books Are Influential:

Yesterday, I went to my favorite bookstore, the mighty Kinokuniya KLCC. Nina always thought that MPH is much more superior and better than my mighty Kinokuniya. Oh, how wrong could that girl be? I pray that someday she will be able to see the light, to embrace the supremacy and the incomparability of the mighty Kinokuniya. Anyway, I went there to get me some pocket notebooks on investments and business laws but end up having a go, spending RM200 buying me four of the most compelling, most appealing and attention-grabbing (how can you not buy with such persuasiveness at hand?) books that have ever existed on the face of this earth since time immemorial. Only later on I realized that it had no, not even a slight, significance to any bloody investments tips or business laws whatsoever. My bad.

2 of them were about Rock n Roll. One was about gangsters in Brazil. And another one was Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook.

Typical me BUT how do you expect me to respond and react against such spellbinding, tempting and hypnotic control these damn books had on me? There was no doubt that I was in my accustomed super sonic velocity super hero mode, capable of sensing any influential and powerful force from miles away, to be able to beam them off from our solar system before they could attack my good judgment and violently molest my decision making prowess. I guess its powers were too strong even for Mr. Super Sonic Velocity Man here. I am totally admitting my defeat Na, against these evil mind-hypnotizing books I am no match of. If you were at the same spot as I, Nina, you will come across an inevitable unavoidable urge and need to buy these evil books. You have to buy them. Yes, they are all evil and there is no way for you to escape. It’s just a matter of necessity. I know. It is THAT strong.

So, don’t be angry with me for buying books that usually end up being ornaments to my room. I never wanted them in the first place. The evil books made me do it.

An Ode For Forgiveness Part 2:

We have been anticipating and expecting for it to happen but when it did happen, it went out of control. I failed to foresee the consequences and took you down to drown with me. It should not have happened that way but the hunger kept us from being rational, it kept our once constantly reasoned intelligence from being coherent about the things that we were about to do. If there is a need to blame somebody, that somebody should be me.

You trusted me to navigate the ark, to plot the route for both of us every time we set sail on our little conquests to achieve our highest earthly heavens, to impede us from going off the course and to marshal through even if the surge was too strong. I have failed you sayang, I have failed us. The tide was too vigorous and it made me fall down. I should have been more responsible and should not have let hunger blind my sight and reason.

I hate myself for letting it happen. I barely slept since that night. Left, right or center, all seem to be paths with clogged end for me. To make things worse, I know for a fact that all these things that I have to put up with, were only bits and chunks compared to the ordeals and traumas that you have to deal with every day.

Forgive me, sayang, forgive me.