Firdauz takes 5

Remember when we were friends and you were stupid and i was obviously charming and gave you pink flowers and told you to return them back?

Those were the happiest days, weren’t they?

Now you went Japan and all around the world and got handsome boyfriend already very action ah. Message also dowan reply.

How you been, silly girl.

Sometimes, stupid friends of yours are less stupid than mine when mine constantly leave me to go to Klang to eat my favourite dish and then beyond extreme stupidity, i suspect, they laugh happily with white teeth and bunny teeth at least one of them at the matters because i don’t get to join them.

Stupid friends of mine. What did i do in my previous life to still have them as friends? Was i Adolf Hitler or am i the reincarnation of Britney Spears? Poor girl is still alive isn’t she. Too bad i don’t care.

And among the stupid friends of mine, i picked my favourite and text her a message. Her name could have been Vernice Mashi Moro if she were a fat Korean rabbit but then again, everything i write is just a crazy stream of insanity that sometimes, doesn’t really belong in a sentence.

I wrote, not to a fat Korean rabbit but close, i wrote, “you guys go BKT ah?”

“Yes, jam here.”

“Tapau for me can ah? One set can?”

Of course she said yes. After all, i’m the cleverest among them and i had decided after a big bowl of the very delicious Bak Kut Teh, that i don’t really mind if my friends are stupid.

After all, it’s too cliche to end a story with an after all.

(didn’t i tell you everything i write is just a stream of insanity)

Music by Amanda Palmer. Short story by Neil Gaiman.

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Like you, I know exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard Amanda Palmer had been killed.

Like you, I know no more than that. Killed, yes. But by whom and how none of us ever knew. There was nothing ever said about it on the television or the radio. But we knew, we knew.

Rumors multiplied. I met a Hell’s Angel in a bar in Encino who swore blind that he knew a man who claimed to have crushed in Amanda’s skull with lead piping, on behalf of a crazed ex-boyfriend.

It became a national obsession. “Who killed Amanda Palmer?” bubble gum cards were traded and traded again in school yards across America. I still own two of them: one shows Amanda’s bullet-riddled corpse dangling from a wall; the other shows her body washed up on the shore of an unidentified lake, her face blue and puffy from the water, the claws of some crustacean pushing out from between her purple lips.

I remember the candlelight vigils, and the shrines, dozens of them, in cities all over the world, spontaneous demonstrations from peole who no longer had an Amanda Palmer. They lit candles, and left behind telephones, scalpels, exotic items of underwear, plastic figurines, children’s picture books, antlers, love.

“She went as she would have wanted to go.” That was what an Amanda Palmer impersonator told me in a pub off Carnaby Street. Much later that night, voice slurred by alcohol, the man confided in me that he was certain that the real Amanda Palmer had been “abducted by beings from a higher vibrational plane”, and that the pictures of Amanda’s death were not fakes, pasted-up and air-brushed in some back-alley photogaphic studio, but actual photographs of the deaths of “sister-selves”, creatures grown from Amanda Palmer’s own protoplasm.

Very young children made up songs about the different ways Amanda died, killing her happily at the end of every verse, too young to understand the horror. Maybe it really was how she would have wanted to go.

If you see Amanda Palmer on the street, kill her, said the graffiti under the bridge in Boston. And beneath that somebody else wrote, That way she’ll live for ever.

- Neil Gaiman

you may stop praying now. Yes, i’ve found god (or a shawl to wear as headscarf)

An old joke i used to tell :

“Dulu, memang dia tu pondan. Tapi sekarang dah insaf. Dah tak nak jadi pondan lagi, dah pakai tudung, tutup aurat. Alhamdulillah.”

(It’s a joke about a transwoman who had finally become a good muslim and decided to wear something he shouldn’t be wearing at all, a hijab)

*picture stolen from tim’s tweet

A huge girl, — a really huge girl –, whose name could have been Michelle, or Mishuyumi, or quite possibly could have been Toro-Toro Gonoki-Gonoki Michelle, came from behind and rocked my chair with — quite possibly — her giant hands.

“What’s wrong with you?” i asked.

“Nothing, just .. headache.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure? Nothing else? Obesity… maybe?”

But people, even giant people, they love me for who i am.

(and i don’t mind loving them back for who they are. sumo wrestlers or whoever.)

“But,” i told to my pants, “i’ve worn you until you’re old and battered and you’re still so soft and comfy to walk with and to sit on and more than 7 years old, and i’m still nervous and shy — what do i wear with you today?”

I picked a pair of briefs, — the color of soil and clay — and put it down and i picked a pair of chequered boxers, and i, put it on.

I love you, with all my heart i do, but i’m scared, like a boy i am, i’m scared, of the frayed edges that tell me your age and you’ve never spoken a merry word to me.

We talked and we laughed together, though you’re always quiet i love you, with no less than an anxious heart, i do.

“So,” i told myself, “when are you going to quit your job and open up a restaurant, and write a song and a book and dance, dance, dance?”

I’ll be 30 and forever this year. I haven’t lived up to my dreams yet. I haven’t found the answer to what i am and what they all are. I haven’t written a letter to the government — tell them jokes so they can laugh loud and happily, like how i laugh very loud and happily at them, almost daily. I haven’t been to jail, or been locked up fighting for something that belongs only to me.

Personal liberty. Have i fought for you my dear?

Have i really fought for you, my dear?

Ahhh… just one of these days, i’d like to become who i really am.

Then i’ll write a song, and i’ll dance like how i had when i was a lot younger.

***

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(I composed this piece of instrumental 6 years ago, when i was 24. I have sworn to never write anything as sad and as gloomy as this, and i didn’t. )

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(About less than a year later, i recomposed the song — took out the elements of sadness and it had become a psychedelic experience, not that i wanted it to, but things came and arranged themselves the way i usually wouldn’t.)

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(This one, is actually one of my favourites. I composed this in the year when i was still able to dream, and courageously, i would eventually fight for everything i believed in. And then, i sold this instrumental to a local independent artist)

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(This is how it sounds with the vocals after i sold the 3rd track to a local independent artist. His name is Emcee David. The title of this song is Home)

***

Perhaps today or tomorrow, or the day after that, i’ll remember again how it’s like, to write, to dance, to write and to dance.

“Come shorty,” told Karen Mayer, the girl i probably hated the most, “come take picture.”

Karen Mayer, Christy, another loser whose name was forgettable and I were talking about a few other losers whose names were beyond forgettable when we came to discuss about the people and judging their characters.

“So,” i asked, “Christy, what kind of a person Karen is?”

“I don’t know. I probably need some time to think about.”

“Perhaps, i asked you wrongly. So Christy, what kind of an elephant Karen is?”

Not a mythical one. Recommended for those who don’t believe in God, this giant is genuine.

In the year when the silly Malaysians still had not tried to burn down churches for fun, I had learnt from a very prestigious school on how to hammer poetry onto a piece of metal.

It sings;

“Anis *** Bontot Gemuk.”

Oh, so poetic.

P/s : I couldn’t think of anything more poetic than that! At that moment, Anis Yulianna’s butt seemed like a delicious muse to me. At this moment, it still is. Nyum Nyum. Bontot gemuk. Mmmmmmmmm. =P

“Choose 3 flavours,” told a friend.

“Errmmm… this one beef pepperoni. Looks tasty. Errmmm.. another one yeah, ermm.. Aloha Chicken looks not bad.”

“Can choose 3, choose another one la,” he told.

“I don’t want Flaming Tuna, too spicy. But i don’t mind Tuna Temptation though. Do you eat tuna?”

“No, i don’t eat tuna.”

“Why, are you trying to save the dolphins?”

“Nah, i just don’t like tuna.”

I like dolphins, if it is not too spicy.

over what happened in Malaysia recently.

(and i’m still not that well. but my fever is on and off. and right now it is off. so i better say this one quick before my fever comes back again).

You guys know about the recent issue about using the word ‘Allah’ and burning the churches? You know what i told to my girlfriend. (my girlfriend was furious about it, but i was, a bit cynical).

I told her, “Well, what do you expect? We’re from the third world. We act like people from the third world.”

Of course she did not fully agree with me but that’s not a problem because my point is, don’t you guys agree the people in Malaysia, doesn’t matter from which ethic background, need some education in humanity at least?

And further, Malaysians need to be thought to understand the differences of beliefs, and the importance to respect each one, and if i have a kid, i’ll challenge his mind and make him think and question everything including my lack of belief in any religion. I want my kid to be able to think critically.

You see, I always criticize religions and God, and always, openly. And if i’m honest enough, then i must admit that i’ve poked fun at religions and God/Gods more than 300 times in my whole life. That much.

But, have i ever sent any message of hate?

Have i told anyone to hate a certain someone?

Have i told you to hate a certain religion?

I poked fun. Yes, but that’s that.

The fact is, my whole family are muslims and my girlfriend too. They will never turn into an agnostic like i am and i’ll never turn into a muslim like they are. We understand that. We respect everybody’s choices. And it works.

And it’s not easy for it to work. What i committed, in Islam, is called Kufur. It’s the biggest sin, and the most offensive, it’s punishable by death, according to some Islamic law based on the Sunnah (sayings and doings of Muhammad’s).

But in the end, it all comes back to live this life as a human being. Our beliefs might conflict, but i want to see my mother go to Mecca again. She believes in Allah, i don’t, so what? My girlfriend believes in Allah, i want to see her to perform hajj in Mecca too, i do not wish to be a muslim, i rejected Muhammad and Allah. So what?

So what if i don’t believe in what you do, we can’t love each other? Ridiculous!

And if you’re wondering, the word Allah existed long before Islam arrived in Mecca. Allah means god in Arabic.

In the years before Islam, Allah has been referred to as one of the many deities in pagan gods.

The very evidence?

Muhammad bin Abdullah. The Islamic prophet, Muhammad’s father was named Abdullah, a name constructed by two words, Abdul and Allah. If translated into English, Abdullah means, “The Servant of God.”

So yeah. The word Allah existed long before Muhammad was born. And Allah was once, a pagan god in Mecca.

Muhammad bin Abdul Allah. It’s funny to know that some Muslims never noticed that and claimed its exclusivity.

issit too late to wish a happy new year?

But i’ve been sick, seriously sick, since new year till now.

I had tonsillitis, and high fever due to the tonsillitis, and i had gastric due to the drugs, and migraine due to the high fever, tonsillitis and the gastric.

They’re like a crazy combo with an extra bonus: i get to vomit my food every time i eat, and every time that i don’t.

Imagine; tonsillitis, high fever, gastric, migraine, vomiting, no appetite to eat. I felt like a cancer patient who underwent chemotherapy.

Because i’m tad healthier today (hooray!), i’d like to wish :

Happy new year everyone!