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.

Book Review: Lords of Chaos – The Bloody Rise of The Satanic Metal Underground

Lords of Chaos – The Bloody Rise of The Satanic Metal Underground, Micheal Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind, Feral House, 1998

I bought this book a few months ago and managed to finish it a few days after buying it. It was an intense but a good read altogether although the approach, the style of writing is quite academic, necessary, from my point of view, for a book which chronicled the world’s most notorious music since the formation of the hexachord system by Guido of Arezzo, which spurred the unearthing of the satanic chords (diabolus in musica) way back in the 18th century, to be taken seriously. The music they call Black Metal. It requires a tune so that people will take the book seriously.

I have been listening to this kind of tune since primary school and the one accountable for introducing me to this music was not any of my friends or older relatives, but a local Malaysian tabloid. Untarnished still in my hazy remembrance, I was quite captivated by this diabolical music through an article in that particular tabloid that did a 2-page special report on the subject, complete with cool pictures and band logos. They even listed all these so called satanic rock bands for my trouble-free reference. And that was in 1995 if my memory serves me correctly. I was very inquisitive and very much the curious cat. It was like a giant whirlpool sucking me in and there were no ways for me to escape these enthralling madness of sorrow, supremacy and extreme aggressiveness. I got to try this, I said to myself. It took me no more than 5 second to convert myself from a nerd into a metal and hard rock listening nerd. Still a nerd but a different kind of nerd. It took me no more than the next week later for me to buy my first record. Talk about ultra influential. I have been a devoted fan and an avid listener ever since. I live happily ever after and my life has never been the same again.

Enough about my metal fairy tale and lets check this book out. Since the orientation of this book is quite academic, the read was quite deep, hectic and more often than not, quite tiring since the authors have widened their extent of investigation beyond the musician and its miniature circle. This includes outsiders who were directly involved with the satanic scene. Thus giving the reader more elaborative facts from different perspectives and distinguished angles. Although there are several general issues covered and discussed by the authors, I can see that the reason for the publication of this book was more towards exploiting the notoriety of the Norwegian Black Metal scene, the birthplace of what was known to be as the second wave of Black Metal (Mayhem, Burzum, Dark Throne, Immortal, Emperor, Enslaved are all Norwegian bands). A chunk of pages was dedicated to its early inception, the power struggle, suicide, the murders and the church burnings, which all in fact happened in Norway. In case you do not know, Black Metal was once Norway’s main export. Black metal bands being nominated in the Norwegian Grammy is quite normal there. I would like to see that kind of openness here.

Two of the most important individuals, highly influential to the early inception of Satanic Black Metal in Norway, Oysten Aarseth aka Euronymous and Varg Vikernes aka Count Grishnackh, were heavily dealt with in one of its chapters. Besides touching on the history or the early development of the Black Metal sound, the book also features interviews with who’s who from the scene (the infamous members of the Inner Circle. the Black Metal Mafia as the Norwegian press called it) and quite elaborative on the music’s influence through out the world.

It is a good read, highly recommended to those who really want to dig deep into the music judging the music by its cover, since Malaysia had (still having) her fair share of controversy (known worldwide, even Ian Christe mentioned the conservativeness of Malaysia in his book, Sound of the Beast. Maybe we do live on trees) with regard to this highly intolerable form of entertainment (yes, entertainment. Intolerable but still entertainment). At the peak of the second wave of the so-called Black Metal controversy, instigated, by the way, by the very same tabloid responsible for introducing me to this wonderful music 18 years earlier, I found a book about Black Metal written by one Ann Wan Seng, a local muslim author, published somewhere in 2007, simply titled Kesesatan Black Metal (the deviousness of Black Metal) which was totally crappy and nauseating. That guy just copy pasted some crap about Satanism from wikipedia, got some pictures from the net (anything with goats, five down-pointed stars and inverted crosses) and name the book Kesesatan Black Metal to get some extra money for coffee. Pathetic.

Anyway, I got this one from Kinokunia, KLCC, with 394 pages and it costs me RM75.80. My copy was the second edition and was published in 2003.