Keith Richards cursed he was not black like Charley Patton,
Satan tune their guitars for their black souls in return,
Robert Johnson was rock n roll’s first celebrity,
He fucked someone’s wife who gave him a poisoned whisky.

Elvis Presley was white but he was alright,
And Jerry Lee’s balls of fire were insight,
Buddy died because of a toss of a coin,
Little Dick turned his back and the church he joined.

From across the universe The Beatles came to fore,
Then onwards all mortals world would worship them on all fours,
They’re bigger than Jesus and shook the world to its core,
When they left nothing was ever the same like before.

America was attacked by British Invasion,
The Stones rocked all establishments and institutions,
The Mods came too with Vespas and Italian fashions,
They were bigger than Kennedy assassination.

(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 17 APR 2006)

Shit, my mind is blank again. The last paragraph was like an intense passionate sex and now, everything is cool. This is just like all my past relationships, hot at first, cold as ice later. Shit, it stops again.

…
…
…

So many things had happened since the birth of this blog till today. Fuck this sound so cliché, everybody can guess where this line is going to lead to. So I guess its better I stop my train of thoughts here before I make my self look ordinary.

…
…
…

Oh man, last time I used to be able to write at one go, 1000 words without any problems. I just realised I stopped writing ever since I watched ‘Finding Forester’ on satellite TV, how bloody irony! I guess this has to be last of me.

…
…
…

I am still, no, no, no, I am not the same person as I used to be anymore. I used to champion independent music and film, but now I don’t give a shit anymore. I always say to myself I have grown up. Is that true? Am I just thinking of this to comfort myself? What is what anymore? Everything is like so fucking confusing anymore. (I just deleted what I wrote after this line)

*sigh*

*sigh*

I miss so many things that I used to have. I have lost the passion, no, I never had that; I am so fucking suicidal at times. Come on, how many had already decide their funeral song at a young age? And mind you I am not writing this line to sound cool. Fuck cool! Lester Bangs was never cool and he is my hero! Life has become so rigid. Or is it me? Have I finally manage to blend in with society which I so despised in the first place? Does that make me a hypocrite? Now I look at a friend of mine and I think it is so immature of him to strive to be different, writing the same stuff like I used to write on the blog few years ago. Ahh, I remember now, it’s not the passion for life, its actually angry with life. Not bitter, but angry.

The best quote of the year so far I have heard is from my dear friend Tiger. He said ‘Fidelity has taught you nothing but stupidity.’ Really make me look at relationships at a different point of view now although I still don’t know what it is that is different.

*sigh*

I stop thinking already. Sometimes when you think of so many things all at once, you are actually think of nothing. Or the nicotine and alcohol have killed my brain cells? Good bye.

(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 10 MAR 2006)

I started the year with a small buzz of bizarre. I paid a visit to the dentist which I haven’t done for donkey years (this clearly underline the fact that dental care is a luxurious privilege, which ironically the malnutrition working class who can’t afford good food that can’t decay your teeth need it more than the upper class). So how did mange to I afford it? I dug deep into my bank account to retrieve the money from my bonus to pamper myself with a visit to the dentist to extract my decaying tooth caused by cheap food. She was good and economical. She handled her toys very delicately. She didn’t make a mess all over me. She was gentle; and hard when the situation required. Getting any ideas? That’s why I paid her another visit a few months later!

Then it was all work and work until Horny Helen (this one can’t even launch a fleet of, no, no, no, I meant this one can’t even launch a ship) took a flight via Amsterdam, as you might had read, to Penang, ironically for a summer holiday from a country so near a country people call ‘The Land Of The Midnight Sun.’ Then it was all booze and booze which continued even after she left. I think this what they call withdrawal syndrome; you need to drink more when you are trying to quite drinking. As you might had read it again, her coming turned out rather ugly and I, of all people, the intellect, should had known it as history has taught us Helen is a cursed name of sinister omen which bring fatal fortune to whoever who falls in love with them, or in man’s supposedly shallow grasp of language, try to get under whatever she is wearing at that time. As you might had read it yet again, the unfortunate events turned out fortunate for a group of friends, bringing them closer of what was a clique of friends with many cracks of frailness before she came. I certainly was not around for the first six months of the year with them because of creative differences in opinion about the blog with Komtar Kovern, which I made a big meal out of it that time, but after Horny Helen left, the blog was re-launched but sadly we don’t have as much visitors as we used to.

Another sad note for 2005 would be my disposition from another group of friends which we call ourselves ‘fuck-up friends.’ I think it was because they did not believe my punctured tyre which I don’t want to dwell on the lowest point of my life in 2005 any further.

I think it is getting boring, or is it because this kind of autobiographical posting is meant to be this way?

Anyway, I did try to quit smoking early this year. No it was not one of those clichéd New Year resolutions that non intellect, undisciplined people always do year after year with definite infinite probability of failure as many years ago I did resolute not make any more New Year resolutions and I am able to stay true to my resolution till this day with extreme success. How many people do you know who made a resolution and able to follow it year after year? However my pact to quit smoking with a friend did not turn out so successful. Every time I gulp down my alcohol, I need cigarettes. I have to say they compliment each other, they go hand in hand. Not smoking while drinking is like going to New York and not go to CBGB & OMFUG which is of course a greater sin than calling Jesus a nigger because he is already black, you dumb fuck! Anyhow I could never comprehend why people go to New York to see Empire State Building, Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Wall Street, United Nations Headquarters, American Museum of Natural History, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn Bridge or even worse, Ground Zero. Why visit a place which is already not there? I understand it is the safest place in New York as terrorsits don’t attack the same place twice, unlike the Americans who had bombed Saddam Hussein’s residence countless times which make me wonder at times which side is more terrorising.

I think now is the part I have to do the ‘Best Of’ list. Please forgive me, I have never done something so autobiographical. The best book I had read this year has to be Shame by Salman Rushdie, the best film I had seen is Million Dollar Baby (a good film, but not great enough even for the commercial award of Best Movie from The Academy) and the best album is takk… by Sigur Ros.

And oh, the revelation of 2005 will definitely have to be House, the best thing on TV since X-files and my greatest achievement for the year would be the purchase of Desert Trek by Clarks.

There you have it, the worst thing I have ever written and to all the autobiographical Malaysian blogs out there, you suck big time!

Happy New Year!
(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 30 DEC 2005)

Most notably, I beg to differ about Michael Moore. There is nothing absolutely great about him. Is he great just because he is against the Bush administration? He accused Bush Jr. of being a propagandist but what Mr. Moore is doing is not propagandic? He is nothing but a hyprocrite prick, trying to cash in big time by manipulating the minds and weaknesses of Americans and those ‘intelligent’ people around the world who blindly bought his shit and make him super rich now. Is he any different from Bush Jr. now? And are those ‘intelligent’ people any intelligent now?

Bowling For Columbine was hailed as one of the cinematic triumphs of 2002. But what he tried to do in two hours was not as strong as a mere essay written by Marilyn Manson. In tribute to my forgotten hero, whose reocrd, Anitchrist Superstar which totally changed my life, here is the essay by Mr Differently Intelligent himself:

It is sad to think that the first few people on earth needed no books, movies, games or music to inspire cold-blooded murder. The day that Cain bashed his brother Abel’s brains in, the only motivation he needed was his own human disposition to violence. Whether you interpret the Bible as literature or as the final word of whatever God may be, Christianity has given us an image of death and sexuality that we have based our culture around. A half-naked dead man hangs in most homes and around our necks, and we have just taken that for granted all our lives. Is it a symbol of hope or hopelessness? The world’s most famous murder-suicide was also the birth of the death icon — the blueprint for celebrity. Unfortunately, for all of their inspiring morality, nowhere in the Gospels is intelligence praised as a virtue.

A lot of people forget or never realize that I started my band as a criticism of these very issues of despair and hypocrisy. The name Marilyn Manson has never celebrated the sad fact that America puts killers on the cover of Time magazine, giving them as much notoriety as our favorite movie stars. From Jesse James to Charles Manson, the media, since their inception, have turned criminals into folk heroes. They just created two new ones when they plastered those dipshits Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris’ pictures on the front of every newspaper. Don’t be surprised if every kid who gets pushed around has two new idols.

We applaud the creation of a bomb whose sole purpose is to destroy all of mankind, and we grow up watching our president’s brains splattered all over Texas. Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised. Does anyone think the Civil War was the least bit civil? If television had existed, you could be sure they would have been there to cover it, or maybe even participate in it, like their violent car chase of Princess Di. Disgusting vultures looking for corpses, exploiting, fucking, filming and serving it up for our hungry appetites in a gluttonous display of endless human stupidity.

When it comes down to who’s to blame for the high school murders in Littleton, Colorado, throw a rock and you’ll hit someone who’s guilty. We’re the people who sit back and tolerate children owning guns, and we’re the ones who tune in and watch the up-to-the-minute details of what they do with them. I think it’s terrible when anyone dies, especially if it is someone you know and love. But what is more offensive is that when these tragedies happen, most people don’t really care any more than they would about the season finale of Friends or The Real World. I was dumbfounded as I watched the media snake right in, not missing a teardrop, interviewing the parents of dead children, televising the funerals. Then came the witch hunt.

Man’s greatest fear is chaos. It was unthinkable that these kids did not have a simple black-and-white reason for their actions. And so a scapegoat was needed. I remember hearing the initial reports from Littleton, that Harris and Klebold were wearing makeup and were dressed like Marilyn Manson, whom they obviously must worship, since they were dressed in black. Of course, speculation snowballed into making me the poster boy for everything that is bad in the world. These two idiots weren’t wearing makeup, and they weren’t dressed like me or like goths. Since Middle America has not heard of the music they did listen to (KMFDM and Rammstein, among others), the media picked something they thought was similar.

Responsible journalists have reported with less publicity that Harris and Klebold were not Marilyn Manson fans — that they even disliked my music. Even if they were fans, that gives them no excuse, nor does it mean that music is to blame. Did we look for James Huberty’s inspiration when he gunned down people at McDonald’s? What did Timothy McVeigh like to watch? What about David Koresh, Jim Jones? Do you think entertainment inspired Kip Kinkel, or should we blame the fact that his father bought him the guns he used in the Springfield, Oregon, murders? What inspires Bill Clinton to blow people up in Kosovo? Was it something that Monica Lewinsky said to him? Isn’t killing just killing, regardless if it’s in Vietnam or Jonesboro, Arkansas? Why do we justify one, just because it seems to be for the right reasons? Should there ever be a right reason? If a kid is old enough to drive a car or buy a gun, isn’t he old enough to be held personally responsible for what he does with his car or gun? Or if he’s a teenager, should someone else be blamed because he isn’t as enlightened as an eighteen-year-old?

America loves to find an icon to hang its guilt on. But, admittedly, I have assumed the role of Antichrist; I am the Nineties voice of individuality, and people tend to associate anyone who looks and behaves differently with illegal or immoral activity. Deep down, most adults hate people who go against the grain. It’s comical that people are naive enough to have forgotten Elvis, Jim Morrison and Ozzy so quickly. All of them were subjected to the same age-old arguments, scrutiny and prejudice. I wrote a song called “Lunchbox,” and some journalists have interpreted it as a song about guns. Ironically, the song is about being picked on and fighting back with my Kiss lunch box, which I used as a weapon on the playground. In 1979, metal lunch boxes were banned because they were considered dangerous weapons in the hands of delinquents. I also wrote a song called “Get Your Gunn.” The title is spelled with two n’s because the song was a reaction to the murder of Dr. David Gunn, who was killed in Florida by pro-life activists while I was living there. That was the ultimate hypocrisy I witnessed growing up: that these people killed someone in the name of being “pro-life.”

The somewhat positive messages of these songs are usually the ones that sensationalists misinterpret as promoting the very things I am decrying. Right now, everyone is thinking of how they can prevent things like Littleton. How do you prevent AIDS, world war, depression, car crashes? We live in a free country, but with that freedom there is a burden of personal responsibility. Rather than teaching a child what is moral and immoral, right and wrong, we first and foremost can establish what the laws that govern us are. You can always escape hell by not believing in it, but you cannot escape death and you cannot escape prison.

It is no wonder that kids are growing up more cynical; they have a lot of information in front of them. They can see that they are living in a world that’s made of bullshit. In the past, there was always the idea that you could turn and run and start something better. But now America has become one big mall, and because of the Internet and all of the technology we have, there’s nowhere to run. People are the same everywhere. Sometimes music, movies and books are the only things that let us feel like someone else feels like we do. I’ve always tried to let people know it’s OK, or better, if you don’t fit into the program. Use your imagination — if some geek from Ohio can become something, why can’t anyone else with the willpower and creativity?

I chose not to jump into the media frenzy and defend myself, though I was begged to be on every single TV show in existence. I didn’t want to contribute to these fame-seeking journalists and opportunists looking to fill their churches or to get elected because of their self-righteous finger-pointing. They want to blame entertainment? Isn’t religion the first real entertainment? People dress up in costumes, sing songs and dedicate themselves in eternal fandom. Everyone will agree that nothing was more entertaining than Clinton shooting off his prick and then his bombs in true political form. And the news — that’s obvious. So is entertainment to blame? I’d like media commentators to ask themselves, because their coverage of the event was some of the most gruesome entertainment any of us have seen.

I think that the National Rifle Association is far too powerful to take on, so most people choose Doom, The Basketball Diaries or yours truly. This kind of controversy does not help me sell records or tickets, and I wouldn’t want it to. I’m a controversial artist, one who dares to have an opinion and bothers to create music and videos that challenge people’s ideas in a world that is watered-down and hollow. In my work I examine the America we live in, and I’ve always tried to show people that the devil we blame our atrocities on is really just each one of us. So don’t expect the end of the world to come one day out of the blue — it’s been happening every day for a long time.

MARILYN MANSON (May 28, 1999)
(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 19 DEC 2005)

Your beauty could literally end a war,
Your cherry smile healed my lonely heart of sore,
Your deep deep eyes captured my soul like none before,
Your elegance makes every woman a whore.

Every beat of my heart I think fondly of you,
Oh love, I worship you like a devoted fool,
Gods are mere mortal, that’s how I look upon you,
You ‘lone could defeat Napoleon at Waterloo.

You left a mark on me, permanent like tattoo,
It pierces the skin and all over me blood runs through,
Cold is the sun for the passion I lust for you,
Explosions of rapid fire I burn wildly for you.

I love you endlessly with appetite of glutton,
To compare, the universe is small as a button,
Temptations will tease but to them I vow not to turn,
I’ll always love you, comfort you like world of cotton.

(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 28 NOV 2005)

It all started when Valence Vallen jumped up the social class to attempt to bed a brunette white female which created an imbalance to the whole highly complex integrated sexual network of Penang. He should have known better that we are living in a capitalist world and the mobility of social class is rarer than finding a bishop who does not only ask the choir or altar boys to kneel down before God, but him too, and blow as hard as they pray, or maybe even harder.

Not knowing to Vallen, Brandy Brady had already set eyes on Horny Helen because the whore house beside Soho had never housed a Scandinavian employee before. So this was one golden opportunity he wouldn’t want to miss, and not to Vallen for sure because deep down they hate each other and love to let a girl come in between them and in this context I have to say only figuratively and I know they are fools for not letting it happen literally. But why can’t they just bloody share and since it is widely known white men have bigger dicks, then consequently all white women should have bigger holes too. So I am sure they can find a way to insert their two Eastern dicks into her or do the ‘sandwich’ manoeuvre with the girl in between as the ‘meat.’ I also believed besides than their lust, they were also driven by what I call, yellow men’s burden and that is to prove to the western world that Asians can be good drillers after the Japanese pornography industry proved otherwise. I have to give it to them for being so noble to carry this big burden on their small shoulders, or am I just mocking them here?

In the race to bed Horny Helen with spot on, or more accurately, hard on wits and foxy dirty thoughts, Komtar Kovern did not want to be left out too. He felt he is her cousin, so he should have more rights to her than anyone else since its family, or so famously claimed by Helen. Sorry I did not even bother to find out the truth. In the world of sensationalism journalism, between facts and legend, you always print the legend. If not, how the hell do you think The Bible could the No.1 bestseller of all time?! There were also some other accusations which I am just too lazy to write.

Pity for Glutton Geena, she was abandoned in all the hype for Horny Helen. Her social life took a stark nose dive and she was rather depressed due to the lack of alcohol in her bloodstream. Subsequently the depression caused her to eat more and her not so slender side of proportion ballooned to out of proportion with slender.
I guess I should stop writing now, my integrity could not just allow it anymore.

Oh wait; I forgot to tell you how rather unfortunate I was, so un-egoistical of me to always talk about my friends first. Remember I mentioned an almost ugly dirty sex? The other day Glutton Geena, high after a mug of beer due to her lack of consumption lately, said she would offer her body to me on my birthday and it took me weeks to shake off the effects of post traumatic experience which caused my performance at work to be at an all time low. Of course I declined it as delicate and polite as possible. I said I find her mother more attractive!

(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 21 NOV 2005)

Dubbed ‘The Alternatives,’ the ninth gig of indie music organiser, Soundmaker, was held in Penang last Saturday. According to their website www.echolab-records.com, the theme for the recent gig was to expose fans to some of the more challenging genres in recent music history, as well as to create a different environment to enhance the indie music scene here. The line-up consisted of Damn Dirty Apes – the so-called Mogwai of Penang and wrongfully tagged as the first post-rock band in Malaysia, Whitelight – another post-rock band, Color My Iris – emo-rockers from down south, Dian Bang – experimental geek duo and Hui Se Di Dai – some angry band from Penang.

If my memory served me right, the gig opened with a performance from the KL duo of Dian Bang. I heard the introduction from the emcee but I couldn’t remember them playing anything although I did see two people at the stage with their laptops on their laps. I didn’t know the venue had wi-fi. I would have brought mine to update my newly registered Friendster profile. Okay I must admit, actually I was there for the groupies, if there were any, and a couple of my friends for Damn Dirty Apes (DDA). Disappointingly, I didn’t see any groupies and the countless times I went to the loo, I didn’t see or hear any girls giving blow-jobs to any band members. There was an almost beautiful photographer walking around taking pictures though, and I did ask her whether she was interested in snapping me naked. She said no.

Next it was Hui Se Di Dai. I couldn’t remember much too from their performance because by then my attention was distracted by the beer at hand. Most of the people there weren’t drinking so I was very afraid someone would sneak up to me and snatch by beer away. In the midst of looking out for the scavengers, I did notice there was a chick playing keyboard for the band. I wouldn’t mind sharing my beer with her. I might even get some later.

After half an hour or so of hearing some teenage angst whining, it was finally DDA to bring the house down. Don’t be fooled by the hype that I am trying to create; I am only interested in them because I want to hear how bad they are. Much to my dismay, the band didn’t play their usual Mogwai influenced post-rock set but some Rastafarian meets post-rock kind of jamming session. Interesting, but boring. There wasn’t enough inter-change of chords and layers to create a whole intriguing scoundscape atmosphere and they are supposed to be this critically acclaimed space-rock outfit. Maybe too much expectation was put on them or it could be the new line-up… NOT!!!

When it was Color My Iris’ (CMI) turn to play, some of the people had left the venue. I would love to think that it was the awful music by DDA but the truth was, the fat lead singer from CMI took up most of the space by not standing on the mini stage as he was supposed to. Nothing to shout about so let’s get on to the final band of the night, Whitelight. From what I heard, this local post-rock band is as good as or as bad as DDA, depends on how you judge DDA of course. They played a few songs and it was annoying after the second song as they all sounded alike. My friends and I got disengaged, so we started talking about the ‘nasi kandar’ beside Kapitan Keling Mosque (http://www.asiaexplorers.com/penang/kapitankeling.shtml). There were no build-ups to their songs and every song they played, they went straight for the killer blow. But I didn’t blame them. Judging from their age, I thought they had to rush through their set to get home in time before their curfews.

To see the glass half full instead of half empty, the crowd was worse than the music. First there was this guy with his Steven Seagal ponytail and jeans or pants hanging almost from his crotch. Since the death of grunge and emergence of The Moffats, real rockers don’t keep their hair long anymore and I couldn’t understand why he think he was so cool with his pants hanging low. Grow up bastard! Only kids wear their pants like that unless you are into this whole new hip-hop culture and you are tying to be the first great yellow rapper. Then there was this weird couple. The guy was wearing a long white shirt with his cuff left unbuttoned, boot-cut jeans and pointed boots. Were you fucking lost you Chinese educated freak?! That was not a gig by F4 or some Hong Kee/Taiwan canto-pop act. And yeah, his girlfriend was wearing a skimpy black dress and she looked dreadful in it with her ‘substanceless’ body; and I think that applied to her brains too. Last but not least, there were some guys trying to be outstanding by wearing rock T-shirts but of ordinary bands. I remembered one guy with ‘Soulfly,’ lame! But the most akward thing was most of the people there couldn’t even afford a beer although it was only RM 5.50 after paying for the entrance fees. At least, they did stay true to their working class status!

The music was not of a revelation at all. There wasn’t anything different, as I would put it. I think the way the people dress there were more of a revelation to me. I didn’t expect crappy people to attend a gig of this nature since the genres was supposed to be challenging. I think many people who attended the gig would this disagree with me or even got their mind blown away that night but let me give you a good piece of advice son. Everything sounds really good when you crank up the volume. Don’t believe me, try your parents’ Boney M!

True to a review I must give my conclusion here. The best band of the night was Hui Se Di Dai. But the most important thing was Wigan 2 Arsenal 3. Long live King Henry!

(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 21 NOV 2005)

]]> http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/2005/11/21/soundmaker-9-is-no-revelation/feed/ 0 ntsocial http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/2005/08/30/the-5-people-you-can-meet-in-penang/ http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/2005/08/30/the-5-people-you-can-meet-in-penang/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:10:37 +0000 ntsocial http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/?p=6 ]]> Penang is the focal destination of tourism in Malaysia. It has beautiful beaches, flithy delicous food… blah, blah, blah. Anyway, for those who are planning or already here in Penang, here is a rough guide of what to expect:

PAID SEX
Brandy Brady is a very ordinary decent guy. He is decent in the sense that he could be drinking from 5 till 3 in the morning, but he has never done anything a drunkard would do and he is as sober as he was before he started drinking (maybe it’s because he is always drunk!). I hope this as much explains his nickname ‘Brandy.’ But if there is one bad thing about Brady after he drinks is that he gets real horny which I think the owners of the whorehouses he visits after a blitzkrieg drinking spree would certainly disagree with me. There is this particular one which is named after a defected state of The People’s Republic of China which he would often swagger from Soho (so called British pub of Penang) to shower some poor whores with real daddy love to comfort them of their sorrows from missing their fathers in countries even Kofi Annan have trouble naming them. Anyway, this whorehouse is very unique in its on way which I think it is something you can only find in Penang. It neighbours a Catholic church! I guess the owner must have thought of it as a good marketing tool; after sinning you don’t have to go through a life-long of repents and doing good to reimburse your sin, redemption is just a mere few steps away and who say heaven is such a hard place to go?

FREE SEX
Then there is Valentino Vallen, which is of course what he likes to be known as but I prefer to call him Valence Vallen. It is because he is the outcast in his circle of friends just like the valence electrons occupying the furthest orbit from the nucleus. Vallen’s preference of the darker skin is legendary here in Penang together with his stinginess. Do you realize both of them go hand in hand? Please allow me to explain… in the dialect Hokkien, ‘kiam’ means salty which can also mean stingy. Since no girls of fair skin would do him, he has to resort to those of the darker skin and they wouldn’t mind doing him because back home in their third world countries, salt is still an expensive commodity for export!
(Pick-up points: bus stops in housing area nearby industrial parks)

FOOD
Penang’s most popular hawkers’ centre, Glutton Corner, located around the corner of Gurney Drive, is named after Glutton Geena. Geena, stereotypically a Penangite due to her thriftiness, is of average height for Asian women but because of her low metabolic rate, that is what she famously claims, is not of the slender side of proportion. Mind you she doesn’t have a chin like a chicken neck or butterfly arms, as she is a sex bomb, blistering with very high emission of sexual vibes. Anybody in a 10 mile radius from her can’t help it but feel the sexual tension in the air. Anyway, Glutton Corner is where you can literally find all the local delicacies of Penang, and if not only your appetite is wet when you are there, you know who is around too!

PLACES OF INTEREST
It doesn’t matter which part of the world you come from, I think the best tour guide you can find in Penang is Komtar Kovern, notably because he is a multi-linguist (I think after you had licked a certain amount of different nationals of pussies, you are considered a multi-linguist). Furthermore he can practically draw the map of Penang before you can finish measuring his penis and he knows all the places of interest. Of course there are two versions to his tour. The first one will be like any other tour you receive from a typical tour guide and second one allows you to experience all these places of interest first hand like you never experience them before although you have been to Penang many times. For example, you can be the Goddess of Mercy sitting in the lotus flower position or assume the various positions of the Sleeping Buddha. If you do choose the latter one, don’t forget to request for his famous Komtar tour. In case you don’t know, Komtar was the tallest building in Malaysia until the Twin Tower was erected and wherever you are in Penang you can’t miss it, standing majestically, piercing the sky above us. So like the Chinese believe there are 18 gruesome stages in hell, Komtar Kovern will show you there are also 18 euphoric stages in heaven, if you take half an inch at a time!

In conclusion…
A) If the name of your country only appears in the index section of the world map, then contact Brandy Brady
B) If you are from Indonesia, Thailand or Vietnam working in Penang, be it legal or illegal, feel free to contact Valence Vallen
C) For the rest of you, Komtar Kovern is your man.
(Contact numbers are only given upon request to protect the privacy of the mentioned people)

Oh, what about Glutton Geena? You can forget about her, she is a virgin, saving it for her future husband. But how can she be beaming with sexual vibes if she has no experience, you maybe wondering. There is a saying in Penang in Hokkien that goes something like this:
Cheng kiau, au kiau
Mang kua ee boh liao
Kan tiuk lu, ci kiau kiau!

Direct translation into English will be:
Front perky, back perky
Don’t look down on her
If she fucks you, you’re dead!

LOCAL SHOPPING
Last but not least, there is yours truly. When I am not busy taking a piss at everyone who knows less than me, which is practically everyone, I sell Chinese medicated oil right opposite Glutton Corner with my best pal, Sausage Saw, selling pirated CDs and DVDs beside me. You can’t miss it, my chants to attract customer is ear-catching. Here it is in Hokkien:
Koh leh hiah ti, tiah tiah tiah
Kan leh lau iah!
Tia ku ku
Kan leh lau boh!
Chiu tia, buak kah
Kah tia, buak lampah,
Lampah tia, giu toh kah.
Beh chi kuan, sang khang kuan
Ai beh, mai beh
Kiong kan!
Uh beh, uh sang
Boh beh, chiau sang
Mai beh, ngeh ngeh sang!

In English:
Come my brothers and listen
Fuck your father!
Listen longer
Fuck your mother!
Hand pain, rub your legs
Leg pain, rub your balls
Balls pain, mop the floor
Buy one bottle, free one empty bottle
Wanna buy, don’t wanna buy
Fuck you!
Got buy, got give free,
No buy, still give free
Don’t want to buy, insistly give free!

(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 30 AUG 2005)

]]> http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/2005/08/30/the-5-people-you-can-meet-in-penang/feed/ 0 ntsocial http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/2005/08/19/hoochie-coochie-an-introduction-to-the-real-rhythm-blues/ http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/2005/08/19/hoochie-coochie-an-introduction-to-the-real-rhythm-blues/#comments Fri, 19 Aug 2005 11:30:13 +0000 ntsocial http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/?p=5 ]]> Rhythm & Blues (or R&B) is a musical marketing term introduced in the United States in the late 1940s by Billboard magazine. It replaced the term race music, which was deemed offensive.

In its first manifestation, rhythm and blues was a black version of a predecessor to rock and roll. It was strongly influenced by jazz and jump music as well as black gospel music, and influenced jazz in return (hard bop was the product of the influence of rhythm and blues, blues, and gospel music on bebop).

The first rock & roll consisted of rhythm & blues songs like “Rocket 88″ and “Shake, Rattle and Roll” making an appearance on the popular music charts as well as the R&B charts. “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”, the first hit by Jerry Lee Lewis was an R&B cover song that made number one on pop, R&B and country and western charts.

Musicians paid little attention to the distinction between jazz and rhythm and blues, and frequently recorded in both genres. Numerous swing bands (for example, Jay McShann’s, Tiny Bradshaw’s, and Johnny Otis’s) also recorded rhythm and blues. Count Basie had a weekly live rhythm and blues broadcast from Harlem. Even a bebop icon like arranger Tadd Dameron also arranged for Bull Moose Jackson and spent two years as Jackson’s pianist after establishing himself in bebop. Most of the studio musicians in R&B were jazz musicians. And it worked in the other direction as well. Many of the musicians on Charlie Mingus’s breakthrough jazz recordings were R&B veterans. Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson was a one-man fusion, a bebop saxman and a blues shouter.

It was not in the US but through the thriving UK pop scene of the early 1960s that R&B reached the height of its popularity. Without the same kind of racial distinctions that refused it acceptance in the USA, white British performers and listeners adopted this novel style of music without question, and groups such as The Rolling Stones and Manfred Mann brought it to a wider audience.

The term fell into disfavour in the 1960s being replaced by soul music and Motown, but has re-emerged in recent years indicating black popular music encompassing pop heavily influenced by hip-hop, funk, and soul music. In this context only the abbreviation R&B is used, not the full expression. It is gaining popularity nowadays, true but sadly.

Anyway here are the Top 21 albums from the British Rhythm & Blues Explosion (1962 – 1966) that shook the world, and when snobbish music academicians were not shameful to claim they listen to R&B:

1. Alexis Korner Blues Incorporated – R&B From The Marquee
2. Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames – Rhythm & Blues At The Flamingo
3. The Animals – In The Beginning (Live)
4. Cyril Davies – The Sound of Cyril Davies (EP)
5. The Rolling Stones – The Rolling Stones
6. The Kinks – The Kinks
7. Manfred Mann – The Five Faces Of Manfred Mann
8. Long John Baldry & The Hoochie Coochie Men – Long John’s Blues
9. The Yardbirds – Five Live Yardbirds
10. Downliners Sect – The Sect
11. Pretty Things – Pretty Things
12. The Graham Bond Organisation – The Sound Of ’65
13. The Zombies – Begin Here
14. Them – Them
15. The Spencer Davis Group – Beat With Soul
16. The Who – My Generation
17. Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds – Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds
18. The Small Faces – The Small Faces
19. Zoot Money Big Roll Band – Zoot! (Live)
20. The Artwoods – Art Gallery
21. John Mayall – Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton

(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 19 AUG 2005)

]]> http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/2005/08/19/hoochie-coochie-an-introduction-to-the-real-rhythm-blues/feed/ 0 ntsocial http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/2005/08/18/the-who-sings-my-generation-pt-1/ http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/2005/08/18/the-who-sings-my-generation-pt-1/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2005 01:29:19 +0000 ntsocial http://criticmethis.wordpress.com/?p=4 ]]> We were born in 1979. We are the lost children of rock n roll. We are the cool kids who never had the chance to have a rock n roll era to truly call our own. The Generation-Xers before us had grunge together with their flannel shirts and worn out jeans to show. And if we were born a mere 2-3 years later, we could have Fred Durst and the rest of his rap-rocking Adidas clad posse, but we wouldn’t want that right? In short, we are sandwiched between what’s cool and what’s not, what’s great and what’s just utterly pure bullshit rock music!

The 70’s was quite a ‘black’ decade. Soul, funk and reggae were as prominent glam, heavy metal and progressive rock. And this was probably a curse to us that no rock n roll icon was ever going to lead our generation. I mean, if a white bony arse dude can’t rap, except a freak like Eminem, then a nigger with thick lower lips can’t rock! I know you must be thinking of Jimi Hendrix now. But hey Joe, let me tell you this… The Jimi Hendrix Experience was made up of one black man and two white men. Do the math and you will end up with a ‘white’ group. Furthermore you have to bear in mind that it was the refusal of these two white men to be outdone by a black man that created a intense competition within the group which made The Jimi Hendrix Experience such a great band, and not Jimi alone.

Besides than the ‘Black’ curse cast upon us, we also have what I would call the ‘Sabbath’ effect. We were born on the last year of the 70’s and which was also the year punk was at it’s deathbed, suffocating from the air filled with aftershaves and colognes of disco-goers. We were like cursed children causing the death of our mothers; punk was to be sacrificed so that we could be brought into the mortal world. Hence, we were bastards damned with no identity to call our own, no rock n roll icon to look upon to and to lead us marching down the highway to hell. I may sound paranoid here but the ‘Black Sabbath’ effect is too obvious to be overlooked.

So what were we left with? Certainly not grunge! The second Kurt Cobain shot himself in 1994; the same shotgun bullet that disfigured him, was also the last nail of grunge’s coffin. Kurt was not only the soul bearer of grunge but he was also its undertaker. And when we were old enough to really appreciate music, Seattle was no more the focal point of rock n roll but merely a stop-over city on the way to the 51st federal state of The United States… Canada!

Next there was Britpop. Some might say it is our ‘champagne supernova’ but I don’t agree at all as we were not there from the beginning till Britpop’s own self destruction, or was it because of Oasis’s Be Here Now? Some of us were still listening to New Kids On The Block (remember them?) when Blur’s Popscence, the record that invented Britpop, was released in 1992. When we had outgrown our own shameful pop sense and sensibility, Britpop was over its pinnacle, the marital machinations of the British Royal Family was again on the front pages of tabloids, unlike the summer of 1995 when the battle between Blur and Oasis was the top story. So being grateful to have discovered ‘real music’, we just rolled with it and take in whatever that came along, Mansun’s Attack Of The Grey Lantern, Supergrass’ In It For The Money. Britpop cast no shadow on us, unlike how grunge revolutionise the generation before us, and although it was our closest shot ever at having an identity, I don’t look back in anger or maybe I am just being content to our fate.

Then there was alternative too… what alternative? When we were starting to get the hang of the phrase “if it can’t be defined in any major rock genre, then it is alternative”, alternative was already a sell-out, hence the change of name to modern rock. We did manage to embrace alternative for a while when it was still alternative. But when every A&R of major record labels were out hunting and signing bands which they thought could be the next Nirvana, alternative was marketed heavily and fed to the mainstream. That was how modern rock came about and it was the beginning of a dark period for rock n roll. When rock n roll was accepted by the masses, it had lost it’s rebellious edge which was the very essence made Elvis the rebel with(out) a cause and made the genre embraced by youths for decades to come like a religion. However when Rob Thomas and Fred Durst came to town, the Elvis spirit had certainly left the building.

It was during this dark period that we found solace in electronic music. Electronic was supposed to be the next big thing and at last we could have had a revolution of our own. But sad to say it could not sustain itself, just like how my grandfather could not sustain his erection while he was fucking the Indonesian maid. Trip-hop, drum n bass and big beats were heavily raved by rock critics but everybody was still feeling the post-alternative effect, embracing Pearl Jam’s tribute bands like Matchbox 20 and later nu-metal. I guess it happened too soon and electronic music was the last place one thought that it could save rock n roll. The inertia of electronic music is still rolling today, creeping in unexpectedly but it don’t quite have the same big impact it had in the late 90’s.

(as posted by Green Eyed Bob, 18 AUG 2005)

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