BOOKED

i think malaysian politics has never been so interesting (and ridiculous) as now. we have arguably the stupidest prime minister in malaysian history running the country. we have a deputy and PM in waiting (2010 ) who is alleged to be connected somehow with the murder of a mongolian woman , we have an alleged sodomiser who is hell bent to be our next PM (and probably quite possibly the person to be our future prime minister too!) and we have an ex PM (a deeply flawed but arguably our best yet) who like a mangy dog keeps on barking at the heel of our (arguably the stupidest) PM....and that is at the top.

it goes without saying that the bottom is also well, full of shit...take this latest thing about terengganu for example. i quite love terengganu ... their coasts and beaches and islands are simply devine, their keropok lekor is good,. granted that their nasi dagang is not as good as the one in my home state (kelantan) or terangganuspeak sounds a little bit ridiculous ...but these are things we understand and happily accept... but the question is why on earth do they keep on voting monkeys to govern their state?. That i couldn't understand.if you have billions of oil royalty dollars for yonks and still manage to get your state at just second from the bottom of the poorest states in malaysia, it says something doesn't it?

and boys and girls, consider the latest 'scandal' about terengganu state goverment choosing the mercs over proton perdana as official cars for the state exec councillors (excos)...the menteri besar reasoning seemed reasonable enough. We forked out 3.34million ringgit to buy 14 mercedes kompressor e200 series for our excos because just to maintain one standard official car for the last mb (dato' seri idris jusoh), the proton perdana v8 for four years (since 2004) cost a whopping RM 235,123.08. it is simply not cost effective. fair enough. but ; that much to maintain one car? who the fuck did idris jusoh hire to become his driver? must be a fucking monkey driving that car to wreck it so! but oh wait! seemed that some fucker made a wrong calculation (fucking typical this). it only cost rm131,449.83. but even so, it only takes rm2,300 for maiantanence cost of a perdana travelling 30,000km /year, said the proton holdings managing director dato' syed zainal abidin syed mohamed tahir. and in the same The Star 26/7/08 news he said:The average maintenance cost for each perdana sent by terengganu state govt was only RM542 per year. and so who did the state government paid the rest of the whopping amount to? and why? did the state govt outsourced the maintenance to another company?...spanco name has been mentioned . and ACA with the recently bestowed power to prosecute (?) gleefully plunged into this murky water and hopefully will grab a few wormy BN cronies out of this muck soon...unless the fucking worms are too big and slimey for even the newly endowed ACA to handle ... but that's not the end of it. today the terengganu mb proudly claimed; I am a controversial figure.i'll expose more! go and investigate the monsoon cup caper, and this islamic civilazation park, and these are just the tip of the iceberg.

...and that's not the end of it. idris jusoh is pissed off. he is considering taking legal action and sue the terengganu government (of which he is very much a part of) for tarnishing his name by quoting erroneous car maintenance figure. he can't defend himself when this thing blew up you see. he's now attending a six month management course in paris. oi what the fuck? you were the menteri besar for the last four years and only now you are trying to hone your skill at management?...probably made sense too why you screwed up so. but still, the greater wonder is, why terengganu people still vote the same clowns in?.

ah...but that's not the end of it. our einstein of a PM (and his cabinet) had a bright idea and says. no can do!. you people must use the proton perdana but keep the mercs to ferry foreign VIPs. not just any vips you mind but important ones. well, my question is how many times each exco will get visits from george fucking bush or gordon brown in a year? my guess is the important foreign vips will likely be some indonesian maids going to pasar losong to buy keropok lekor. and also, does that mean that on top of paying 3.34million of taxpayers money on the mercedes we now have to fork out some more to buy another 14 proton perdanas for the excos? or are they going to use the old ones and pay whopping amount of money again for maintenance?

but even then that's not the end of it... despite the PM's decision on the mercs, today The Terengganu Tourism, Culture, Arts and Heritage Committee chairman Datuk Za’abar Mohd Adib basically said fuck you PM and attended the Malaysian Flora Fest in johor in his brand new black Mercedes-Benz which you can read here. ...oh how i wish we have some really good movie directors here... oh if only the coen brothers know about malaysia ... i think we have an academy award movie material here...


which remids me of another ridiculous thing. i hate pop art, or art of people like robert rauschenberg or botero or all these new art. take this newly famous chinese painter Yue Minjun. he is all the rage in china and elsewhere now. his paintings fetch millions of US dollars each (but of course you can get their exact copies at panjayuan market in beijing for around 300 remimbi each) . i think all these art are ridiculous. but what is more ridiculous are those that buy these crap art. would you spend five million ringgit for a painting like this? apparently there are many who would as this news about the recent christies contemporary art auction is any indication.

admittedly i'm no art expert but i have seen enough of art and visit enough major museums and art galleries to have enough confidence to know what i like. i tried to understand these new arts but i guess i'm just stupid. i just don't get it. but still i try. i read art magazines like art in america but i don't get it. and i guess it's understandable as the international herald tribune's article above stated
....because everything here hinges on mood and instant perception in the absence of a clear definition of what might constitute quality criteria. Interest or admiration is prompted in most cases by abstract statements that are conventionally accepted and may easily be rejected on a whim.

but still, despite it all, i'm very much attracted to books or movies with modern art/artists theme. there is a fine kurt vonnegut novel bluebeard which in a way parodied abstract expressionism which ironically enough i quite like ( de kooning, pollock franz kline, gorky and the like...) and recently i've been reading about the black artist jean-michel basquiat (basquiat by phoebe hoban) and watched julian schnabel (another artist i 'don't get') directed movie 'basquiat' and the only thing i get out of it is that andy warhol ( a fucking homo- as one character in the movie described him) seemed like a very interesting guy...at least as played by david bowie in that movie.

and coming back to terengganu , i think the only thing missing in terengganu state government is a yue minjun on the wall of the state assembly and a jeff koon's balloon flower on the front yard.it will only cost around USD2.5 million for one yue minjun and around RM90 millions for a jeff koon's balloon flower. i'm sure trengganu state government is rich enough to afford these.

i think this added culture is quite appropriate and add even more color to terengganu state government....