BOOKED

sometimes last year my boss who is english gave me an everton jersey. i am not a fan of everton but he is. and a few weeks back in one of our routine long distance phone conf (he's based somewhere near london) he mentioned how excited he was now that everton finally started kicking ass. i mentioned to him that if everton ends up fifth or better in the league i'll treat him to a nice curry when he comes down here next time around. i did not realize at the time that everton was in sixth place. i thought that was quite amusing .i don't know what he made of it. i don't know where everton is at the moment as i've long stopped following british soccer. in fact i don't follow anything these days. and i don't know why i said fifth or better. number five doesn't signify anything for me. i don't believe in any special numbers though surprisingly for unknown reasons i hate number 13. i hate to admit it, but at the subconscious level i'm probably influenced by the westerners' superstition.

five sounds like a good well rounded number and so i thought i'd make a list of my five bests of five categories just for the hell of it.

here goes- in no particular order:-

1) Five best english songs

Yesterday - The Beatles
American Pie- Don McLean
Do it Again -Steely Dan
Maggie May -Rod Stewar
Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel


2) Five best Rock albums

Dark side of the moon- Pink Floyd
Machine head -Deep purple
Close to the Edge -Yes
Lamb Lies on the Broadway - Genesis
Harvest-Neil Young

3) Five best movies

The Big Liebowski (Dir. Joel /EthanCoen )
Once upon a time in America (Dir: Sergio Leone)
One flew over the cuckoo's nest (Dir: Milos Forman)
Nosferatu (Dir . Werner Herzog)
The Exorcist (Dir: William Friedkin)

4) Five best novels

Catcher in the Rye - J. D Sallinger
The Tin Drum- Gunther Grass
Kim-Rudyard Kipling
The Great Gatsby- F Scott Fitzgerald
Alice's adventures in wonderland -Lewis Carroll

5) five most interesting malaysian politicians

(tuan Guru) Nik Aziz
Nizar Jamaluddin
Khairy Jamaluddin (no kin of the above)
Karpal Singh
Anwar Ibrahim

read an interesting interview of mike tyson yesterday. not our local idiot mike tyson, our very own legendary m2Taib who -for unknown reason to me- is saddled with the mike tyson monicker. this damned guy has the cheek to contest for deputy umno president post and for all we know and i won't put it pass the stupid bastards in umno- now that the ex tnb clerk ali rustam who supposedly can't speak a decent sentence in english to save his grandmother is out of the way- to vote for him , who also supposedly can't speak a decent sentence in english to save his grandmother. and he may win it too next tuesday (god forbid! - for the sake of malaysia).

no, i'm referring to the true legend mike the heavyweight boxer. this guy has his equal share of tribulations -to say the least -and now that a movie on him is out soon i'm very much looking forward to it. he is one very fascinating character. he shows the best and worst side of what human being is all about.

and speaking of which, last night watched US president obama interview on jay leno. i only wish we have our own local leno, or conan or letterman or jonathan ross to interview our local politicians.well, may be in a hundred years time. for the moment we'll have to make do with ...nothing. obama is a fascinating politician. his intelligence is without question. anybody who can explain to non economist and layman like me how AIG can bring down the whole banking system of the US and ruin the us economy if it is not saved (bailed out) in 5 minutes on a funny talk show program must be something. i wish him all the best and wish he could think out of the box on foreign policy too (but here, i'm not hopeful).

and speaking of boxes, one of the most interesting comments by tyson in the fascinating the guardian interview which you can read it here in full is this. he is in a rough patch right now but according to this interview;

Now he worries the film might be too successful and he will end up with "too much money and pussy" again. "It's pretty dangerous. I become accustomed to it."

now THAT is something most people would LOVE to worry about. too much money and pussy! boy, i'd love to have this headache any time any day.

which reminds me of another very very interesting thing.

Wenger J Khairy made an interesting comment to my blog post 'don't be evil' (march 15) saying that he doesn't buy that coming from google because as he put it:

...recently they were even accused of playing a part in trying to cover up Nazri Aziz son's photo


well, what do you know! is this for real? you can read all the juicy stories and avail yourselves to the racy pictures here. pictures were supposedly of our menteri nazri aziz bonking a girl that is obviously not his missus and his drunken son with a bevy of beauties. so far i've not seen anything in the MSM or even the other internet papers but you can see all of them here. despite claim by the blogger who posted the story on his site that there were several attempts to block the site , so far "they" are still unsuccessful and the site is still up and running. but hurry ! just in case they may be successful as google itself is giving a helping hand as the blogger exclaimed in one of his posts;

I am an American being CENSORED by the Malaysian government with the help of Google!


well, there goes google's 'don't be evil' motto. and is there any connection between this story and nazri aziz declining to contest the supreme umno post? who knows ! and i for one don't care. in fact in this matter i'm all for free consensual sex. enough of all these hypocrisy! who cares what you do with your dicks. good luck to you! but...but...but if you are a public figure of course you're expected to behave yourself.

and so, ali rustam the malacca CM , a one time ex tnb clerk and an aspirant to the no 2 post in umno (and by default deputy PM) now bites the dust. he was caught with his pants down and is now barred from contesting the post that some think is his for the taking. some like sakmongkol47 claimed that he 'crashed the red light' even way back in 2004 but was lucky to escape punishment then- like the rest- except the poor isa samad who infamously uttered the unforgettable words to people who presumably got his money but didn't vote for him " kita jumpa di padang mahsyar" or something to that effect .

so that leaves two men standing for the no. 2 contest. a) the current favorite muhyiddin who according to sakmongkol 47 in one of his recent blog posts again:...

I remember Musa Hitam used to joke around saying; the only land (tanah) that Muhyiddin hasn't sold or alienated is the land on his mother's grave.

and the second candidate is the biggest clown of all.M2Taib. the man who dragged a couple of million ringgit worth of hard cash into australia and feigning stupidity and ignorance of basic custom rule and to prove that he couldn't understand a simple aussie custom form he took an english test and obtained a failing grade, and presumably because of this he was found not guilty by the aussie court. to pull one over the aussies is something i really admire him for but what guarrantee that the fucker won't pull one over us the rakyat if he is elected the no.2?

but that's not the worst of it. najib the unchallenged one and our PM to be is someone to really fear for. the situation is so desparate that zaid ibrahim even made a plea to the king not to make najib the next pm. and oh boy, with rosmah as the first lady....this is more fearful than hantu tetek.

but what choice do we have? the second liners aren't much better. Hishamuddin , reputedly the most popular VP candidate according to RPK is a brainless twat....or something to that effect and khairi ? he'll treat the country like his fiefdom if given the chance. afterall, in pre march 8 era, he used to run malaysia on behalf of his FIL if we were to believe what tun dr M says...

and so you think ok we should come see the other side. well my friends, bad news here too. this side is equally fucked. Parti keadilan is full of useless assholes. look at the bastards who ruined perak govt. and now ruining penang. they are all keadilan fuckers. the keadilan haters would gleefully point out that it must be so because their leader is reputedly fond of assholes.

and DAP?.with demented karpal singh around nobody in his right mind will pay serious attention to DAP...except chinese racists.

ahhh...PAS then. well, i can say this. PAS has some of the most beautiful and idealistic and morally upright supporters of any parties around. but their head! their head! by Allah...the head is fucking retarded! when everybody is pissing on BN and this shit of a coalition is half dead here comes the fucker offering some lifeline in the form of unity government! what fucking unity government. and the cheek of it all. does he realize that his party (PAS) is the most junior party in PR? i think hadi awang's head should be examined ...by top psychiatrist.

i'm fucking sick of malaysian politics...the country is going to the dogs... i'm going to switch off again. in a couple of weeks' time i'm off to vietnam again. my randy vietnamese friend says there's a very good beach right down south. it's an island at the southern tip of vietnam. for all i know the fucker is referring to perhentian island. you never know with these vietnamese. they are a bloody mad people too. for all we know they think some of our islands are theirs...and if we bring them to the international court we'll probably lose again...like that batu putih thing....anyway, i'll make sure that i do not put my handphone in my pocket when going snorkelling this time...

i learn a very surprising thing today.i found out in a book "the google story" that the corporate motto of google is "Don't be Evil" . and the company's philosophy is to solve problems and make a product first and then think about making money. this is in complete opposite to most businesses where the executives and managers think about making money first and then make a product. the euphemism for this is 'meeting customer needs' ( i only know this too well).

don't be evil! isn't that the most profound and also the simplest and most obvious thing in the world! i wish every corporation and political party and government in the world have the same motto. probably it's not a bad idea for the united nation (or the united nothing as one funny t-shirt logo calls it) to adopt this. i wish the present american government practise this. and on the local front, i wish umno and BN instead of following their unwritten motto of "let's steal more" to do a muhasabah diri . not doing evil is a good point to start from.

don't be evil. short and sweet and eloquent. but like most things the seemingly simplest of statement can be the most complex to comprehend and have the most far reaching significance. take einstein's e=mc square for example. it is the most beautiful and simplest equation in the scientific world ever. it can do infinite good but also capable of doing the ultimate evil . it'll unlock the energy of atoms but it also can destroy the world.

the pedants among us will say ' but what is 'evil'? and i sure as hell can't answer that with certainty. in fact i still don't understand what it really means when we say 'i love you'. such is mysteries of life....

one thing i always never fail to do when i go to beijing is to make sure i stay over the weekend and visit the famous panjayuan weekend market. there's nothing like it anywhere in the world. yes there are many famous weekend markets all over the world , like the chatuchak market in bangkok for example, where they sell everything except slaves. but panjayuan is more special. the place only sells handicrafts, curios , antiques -or at least copies of the real thing- paintings and books. you won't see clothing , pots and pans, vegetables or food here. it's heaven for antique hunters - or copies of the real thing. and the place is huge. you'll be spinning and drop to your knees before you can complete the round of the rows upon rows of stalls selling every imaginable chinese curios and fake antiques and jades and gem stones, or even simply plain pebbles and stones and tibetan handicrafts and copies of modern and classical chinese paintings, and ceramics and potteries. They even have a section at the back where they sell all kinds of sculptures and statues.

and the good thing is you can bargain like crazy. if they ask 1000 remimbi- or yuan as they commonly call it - for a dopey looking piece of pottery, go ahead, bargain for 100 yuan. some of them may feign anger or look insulted but it is usually just a show, if you are brazen enough and say oh, fuck it, i'm not going to pay a yuan more and walk away, they usually start pleading to raise a bit more and in the end you may end up paying say 200 yuan. i did this a few times myself but i make sure i have chinese friends around to back me up. if i go alone which i did many times, the bargaining part isn't so much fun because one look at you and seeing that you're a foreigner they immediately raise the price twice by default. if you're a fucking white man or japs they may raise it up to three or four times. and
whites and japs don't know how to bargain. these people always 'spoil the market' wherever they go.
















to me, the best part is the uncovered area where sometimes you find old wiry looking women - i imagine villagers from outside beijing- try to hawk their fake antiques. i can spend hours looking at these and occasionally buy one or two celadons. but what i really like best is to go to the side of the huge covered area by the wall where the book sellers are. there are four long rows of these which put together may be come to 300m or so. and here you'll see the book lovers. my soul mates. you'll see middle age men looking for rare books and books on chinese antiques and paintings, for you see, the really great thing about panjayuan book stalls is that for for the most part these stalls sell only this kind of books. antique books and books on paintings. but there are a sizable number of students and beautiful chinese girls come looking around for cheap second hand books on all sort of topics.

and probably this is one of the few places you can bargain for books just like buying fake antiques. last august i bought a huge and completely new coffee table book Lucien Freud by William Faever (Rizzoli publication ny) for less than 200rmb (rm 100) whereas the list price is US135. and that's the thing about this place too. although the books are almost all chinese, if you're patient enough to search carefully , you'll find that there are quite a few books in English. in fact a few sellers specialize in english art books and auction catalogues . and if you like chinese paintings this place is heaven.

i don't like chinese (classical) style paintings very much but since the early nineties the chinese have quietly revolutionize the painting genre and some of their young (and now not so young painters) have produced some of the most distinctive paintings in the world. Yue minjun with the ridiculous pink silly laugh self potraits now sells for millions of USD and you can see very good copies of many of his paintings sold in panjayuan for around 300 yuan. so is zhang xiogang with his stylised paintings of family groups to look like old photographs. but i hate these chinese avant garde artists. their paintings are ugly. but chinese modern still life which owes very much to chardin and even earlier 17th century dutch still life masters are absolute delight. i've bought a few copies over the years and to my pleasant surprise i just discovered that the very first chinese painting i bought from beijing about ten years ago is in fact a copy of He da-Qiao's painting. i found this out when i bought a book of still life paintings an album of Oil Painting of He-Da Qiou ( for only 20 rmb) in panjayuan a couple of weeks ago. and there it is. the original painting of the copy that i bought is in the book. panjayuan can give you pleasant surprises .