It took faith, alright. To believe this man without an opening band, the one that just strolled up on stage without any fuss and just jammed, was Eric. He was so un-selfconscious, so nonplussed about the female attention, you'd think he had an inferiority complex. To the naked MTV-trained eye, this old man seemed to be nothing but strings and a wobbly turkey neck with grey whiskers.
Wobblier, though, were the arms of the backup singers — YES, you can be fat and be picked to play with LEGENDS!
I must admit, with a blush, that even with my cold cold heart that night, this turkey managed to squeeze a warm tear or two out of me. With 'Little Wing' — a song not about a sweet young girl, but a rawking music festival. "It's alright, she said, you can take anything you want from me, anything!
I got them smiles, although didn't or wouldn't get any from Eric, but he more than made up for that, mass producing them in his entralled fans —clouds of crowds spilling over into the aisles. Musin' at the blues-esque smiles, drip-n-dry teary smiles (like mine) and Layla's smug smile of pride at her slowhand begging darling please.
It was crazy how happy the blues was making me.
16 January 2007
01 July 2006
Pieces of me
Ever marvelled at the wonders of the human body? Every inch is instrumental to our glorious existence, scientists say. Which to me, makes the mysterious growth of the common fibroid, even more of an oddity.
So yesterday I gladly let them take this pingpong-sized lump (so close to my heart) away.
"Would you like to see it now or later?" The sweet nurse said while anaesthetic still flowed merrily in my veins.
And there it was, chewed meat in brine, the ugliest part of me I've ever seen. (My mother said it doesn't matter how I look on the ouside if I'm beautiful on the inside. Hah. Wait till she sees this.)
Goodbye, chunk of flesh. Leaving pieces of myself here and there doesnt' hurt me because I do it all the time!
Maybe you have something of mine? Sitting on your sofa perhaps? Or on your CD rack? Bookshelf? Then again even if all I did was shake your hand, there I am in it.
And right now, I'm probably in a sewage pipe in Shanghai, running on TV or a billboard someplace, or sitting in a laundromat, but most definitely floating in brine in a biopsy lab.
So yesterday I gladly let them take this pingpong-sized lump (so close to my heart) away.
"Would you like to see it now or later?" The sweet nurse said while anaesthetic still flowed merrily in my veins.
And there it was, chewed meat in brine, the ugliest part of me I've ever seen. (My mother said it doesn't matter how I look on the ouside if I'm beautiful on the inside. Hah. Wait till she sees this.)
Goodbye, chunk of flesh. Leaving pieces of myself here and there doesnt' hurt me because I do it all the time!
Maybe you have something of mine? Sitting on your sofa perhaps? Or on your CD rack? Bookshelf? Then again even if all I did was shake your hand, there I am in it.
And right now, I'm probably in a sewage pipe in Shanghai, running on TV or a billboard someplace, or sitting in a laundromat, but most definitely floating in brine in a biopsy lab.
09 April 2006
Many Waters
Oh, the tides. The olive branch I clung to found itself a place to nest. And now the rivers cry over me, inconsolate, every drop burning my starving lungs.
A kind stanger sings to me. She can't save me, she knows. But her voice steadies the rhythm of the waves. She sings like a mynah: of the weedy thorn tearing against my ankle, describing every prick as if it were that fateful day when she, a ten-year-old innocent, fingered her first needle.
The hostile waters holler an encore. The enemy, my loudest cheerleader.
Feet communing with sky, my thorny scar now a Mona Lisa smile. No-one has seen water ballet as strange or artful as mine.
They seem to say, with relish: Many waters cannot quench the fire of love; nor can rivers drown it.
A kind stanger sings to me. She can't save me, she knows. But her voice steadies the rhythm of the waves. She sings like a mynah: of the weedy thorn tearing against my ankle, describing every prick as if it were that fateful day when she, a ten-year-old innocent, fingered her first needle.
The hostile waters holler an encore. The enemy, my loudest cheerleader.
Feet communing with sky, my thorny scar now a Mona Lisa smile. No-one has seen water ballet as strange or artful as mine.
They seem to say, with relish: Many waters cannot quench the fire of love; nor can rivers drown it.
23 November 2005
Therapy Talk
Do you have a pill for my neurosis? Please say you do.
Would you psychoanalyse me and tell me what’s wrong? It should be easy enough. Bark a command, and it might ring a bell.
As you sit there filing your nails, tell me, do you think I’m normal? Please don’t say I am.
Normal people adopt cats off the street, even though they already have ten. Normal people use words they never learnt how to pronounce in casual conversations. Normal people switch the lights off and prance around in their hostel rooms as if it were a nightclub, to Jackson Five.
And as I sink deeper into your reclining couch, pray throw me a life vest.
Save me from the crybaby, the infantile solicitor, the incensed preacher, the dominant psychopath, the philistine critic, the anorexic glutton. Save me from myself.
Would you psychoanalyse me and tell me what’s wrong? It should be easy enough. Bark a command, and it might ring a bell.
As you sit there filing your nails, tell me, do you think I’m normal? Please don’t say I am.
Normal people adopt cats off the street, even though they already have ten. Normal people use words they never learnt how to pronounce in casual conversations. Normal people switch the lights off and prance around in their hostel rooms as if it were a nightclub, to Jackson Five.
And as I sink deeper into your reclining couch, pray throw me a life vest.
Save me from the crybaby, the infantile solicitor, the incensed preacher, the dominant psychopath, the philistine critic, the anorexic glutton. Save me from myself.
10 October 2005
All Aboard
I told the pessimist in me to take a break. She keeps things real but wonderland is really where I always wanted to be. So I stepped, with a hop and a skip, aboard a train with unpredictable timetables and stops so long and dreary, even the most patient passenger gets fidgety.
Through the window, I waved goodbye, not knowing to what or who. Then I saw my heavy suitcases laying abandoned on the platform, and I shed no tears.
I caught a glimpse of Lost-&-Lonely Saturday afternoon. I waved goodbye.
I spotted Miss Vain Hope On A Date. And I blew her a flying kiss.
The train moved and my heart beat like a butterfly dying in the heat yet thrilled by the iridescent petal it rested on. Flap, flap, flutter it went.
Painful palpitation. I never want it to stop.
Through the window, I waved goodbye, not knowing to what or who. Then I saw my heavy suitcases laying abandoned on the platform, and I shed no tears.
I caught a glimpse of Lost-&-Lonely Saturday afternoon. I waved goodbye.
I spotted Miss Vain Hope On A Date. And I blew her a flying kiss.
The train moved and my heart beat like a butterfly dying in the heat yet thrilled by the iridescent petal it rested on. Flap, flap, flutter it went.
Painful palpitation. I never want it to stop.
18 August 2005
Club Grub
Ah, Velvet Underground. Thank you for 11 years of sending crepulous men to bed with equally crepulous women (not neccesarily the same one). Today, I am one blissful post-clubber because i am going to lala land with some happy vibes. Thank you, thank you for tonight's cocktails mixed with love, the wine, and that last shot of tequila that trailed up to me, searching me out in my little corner where i was standing with my equally appreciative friend.
Thank you for being fertile ground for the free displays of utter unabashedness, of SPGs in tops that would surely send their poor mothers doing flips in their graves. The same tops that would give plastic surgeons a field day with must-do enhancement recommendations.
Not forgetting those balding men, champagne in hand, pretending to make tete-a-tete with similarly noncommital conversation partners, while their roving eyes roam around the room, defying the darkness with night vision goggle alertness.
Thank you for making me look so good, your dim lighting being the best concealer of eyebags and disguiser of flaws. For your exquisite choice of adorable DJs. For ruining my jealously-guarded diet with your zesty $3 hotdogs (mmMMMMmmm mMMMMmmmm!).
Though tonight, I did trip over a velvet chair in front of a group of too-cool clubber types. But the best part is that after seeing everybody's bad behaviour, nothing I ever did tonight, no matter how embarassing, could make me blush.
Thank you for being fertile ground for the free displays of utter unabashedness, of SPGs in tops that would surely send their poor mothers doing flips in their graves. The same tops that would give plastic surgeons a field day with must-do enhancement recommendations.
Not forgetting those balding men, champagne in hand, pretending to make tete-a-tete with similarly noncommital conversation partners, while their roving eyes roam around the room, defying the darkness with night vision goggle alertness.
Thank you for making me look so good, your dim lighting being the best concealer of eyebags and disguiser of flaws. For your exquisite choice of adorable DJs. For ruining my jealously-guarded diet with your zesty $3 hotdogs (mmMMMMmmm mMMMMmmmm!).
Though tonight, I did trip over a velvet chair in front of a group of too-cool clubber types. But the best part is that after seeing everybody's bad behaviour, nothing I ever did tonight, no matter how embarassing, could make me blush.
09 August 2005
02 August 2005
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Hmmm ... I wonder if I reproduced that from memory or is it another one of those processed paradoxes I write at work when I don't have something genius to say and I'm running out of time? I've been working so much that I don't know if these things in my head are my opinions or something i think up to save my job.
Anyways, back to today's topic. Does age spell good change or bad change?
I shall answer it with a parable.
My parents used to covet my company. But work got in the way of our together time. And now they have learnt to live without me, getting over over Joy withdrawal symptoms cold turkey. Now I come home, and they're in bed, without so much as a "home so early?"
Cats in the Cradle is the song for me. I'm Dad whose son got used to his workaholic ways and decided to be workaholic too when the time came for them to spend time together.
Does any of this make any sense?
Anyways, back to today's topic. Does age spell good change or bad change?
I shall answer it with a parable.
My parents used to covet my company. But work got in the way of our together time. And now they have learnt to live without me, getting over over Joy withdrawal symptoms cold turkey. Now I come home, and they're in bed, without so much as a "home so early?"
Cats in the Cradle is the song for me. I'm Dad whose son got used to his workaholic ways and decided to be workaholic too when the time came for them to spend time together.
Does any of this make any sense?
17 July 2005
07 July 2005
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
