Apr
An Oil Cyst, An Inflammation & A Scalpel
Those that know me very well know that I have a few little bumps here and there on my body. Though they seem a bit odd I have been assured by many doctors that it is a harmless skin condition called an oil cyst, whereupon the natural oil that the body secretes cannot escape due to a blocked pore and builds up under the skin. These are harmless bumps, and have been with my for some time.
However, every once in a while one of them goes… wrong.
A few weeks ago I realized that the oil cyst on my chest was beginning to hurt and as the days progressed it began to hurt even more. This was the same oil cyst that had led me to a doctor many years ago to discover what it was called, whether or not it was harmless and what to do with it. Those many years ago it was inflamed, making it bigger than before and discolored.
But it never hurt before. Not like this.
Finally, I decided to see a skin specialist gave me some cream and antibiotics. The cyst was indeed inflamed and hopefully the antibiotics would help it go down. However I had a gig in a few days and I could barely play my guitar sitting down let alone standing up because the movements of my right hand would trigger the pain from the cyst.
Enter the wonderdrug - arcoxia. The Reverend had recommended them to me when I had my wisdom teeth pulled out as they were the same painkillers he was using when he was getting his tattoo removed. Though they were pricey, they were worth it - non drowsy, lasts over 8 hours and no pain.
But after two weeks, the damn cyst hadn’t gone down. In fact, at one point, it had ballooned to twice its size and I couldn’t get through the day without the wonderdrug.
Yesterday, I went to the skin specialist again.
Mar
Eighty-Eight Miles Per Hour is Approximately 140 Kilometers Per Hour…
…which was roughly the speed of the car in front of me but, instead of kicking in the flux capacitor sending the car back to the future, it flew directly into a billboard.
I was on my way back to the Hub from my parents house. They were away for the weekend so I figured I’d sleep in the Hub since I had a meeting nearby the next day. As I was driving past Plaza Damansara and getting on the road leading to Taman Tun a dark red hatchback was speeding behind me (can’t remember whether it was a Renault or a Peugeot, but one of those) and heading my way.
Now when I say it was heading my way, I don’t mean it was heading in the same direction. It was literally heading towards me, my car, at 140 km/h and was not changing course, so much so that I swerved out of the way in order to avoid an accident and, from the looks of the line the guy made after passing me, would probably have turned out to be an accident and a fatal one at that.
The dark red hatchback turned down the toll free path which has a few traffic lights which probably explained why, as I was nearing Taman Tun, I saw the same car whiz past me again, this time with a light grey car behind it, tailgating it. I may be wrong, maybe it wasn’t the same car, but the color, shape and erratic driving at high speeds made it seem exactly like the car that I narrowly avoided a collision with.
I watched this dark red hatchback zoom off in front of me, passing the Caltex, and I remember thinking to myself something along the lines of,
“You keep driving like that and you’re just asking for an accident to happen.”
A few seconds later, I heard a bang. As the red hatchback passed by the exit to the Damansara Specialist Hospital the driver hadn’t noticed that the road was not straight but curved to the right and drove straight into the curb which, at that speed, propelled it upwards into the billboard, crumbling both the large advertisement and the dark red hatchback as it slammed into the wall behind it.
It took a few moments to register and by the time it did I was already passed it and couldn’t feasibly turn back. I watched from the rear view mirror as the driver of the light grey car rushed out towards the dark red hatchback… with a walkie-talkie. Why was he on a walkie-talkie? Who was he walkie-talkie-ing too?
At the same time another car that was also pulled over to the side had also stopped, but not slowly like a curious bystander interested in gawking and getting down the license plate but braked quickly in an emergency stop at the side of the road and four people rushed out to the car as if they knew the guy.
What was going on?
I had already turned the road and no longer had any sight of the crash but my mind was still trying to process everything that had just happened - who were these people? Why did the guy have a walkie-talkie? How spooky is it that it happened just a few seconds after I thought to myself that the car would have an accident? What if I hadn’t swerved out of the way when I first saw the car?
I have seen a lot of people drive way too fast down that stretch and I have also seen the aftermath of many accidents there, around the same corner. I know a few people who enjoy driving fast or aspire to race but I also know these people to drive safely.
I hope all of you who read this do the same. ‘Cos there’s a lot of people out there that don’t.
Feb
The Creatures of The Hub
There are many creatures at The Hub. After all, it is an old house, I have not always been there and there have been times when no humans have been here for years, so it is unsurprising that a variety of creatures have also called The Hub their home.
In previous posts you would have heard of the rat basterds who have now passed on to rat heaven (I would assume they’d only go to rat hell if they did things against their nature). But these aren’t the only creatures that have been found in The Hub.
Most Malaysian houses have geckos. This is not uncommon. However, often times residents try to kill the geckos. I don’t mind the geckos, as I’m sure they keep the insect population low. In fact, there’s one gecko in particular who stands out from the others hear in The Hub.
His name is Gordon, and he’s about nine inches long from head to tail.
Dec
Kids Say The Darndest Things
So I was at the Guitar Store getting Sheila (my Telecaster bought in Sydney) and Danni (my Danelectro) serviced for the Rollin’ Sixers recording sessions, when I overheard some people discussing music.
They were within the 18 to 21 range, either in college or just out, with rock star dreams in their eyes. The one leading the conversation spoke with the cockiness and self assurance of any kid in their late teens/early twenties out to impress his peers. In this case, the subject matter was of music.
I sat at the sofa, waiting for my guitar, unable to help myself from overhearing. For the most part, the kid was talking out of his ass, explaining the ‘truth’ about record labels and music trends based on sociological and political influences, citing the history of music, describing the ins and outs of how bands were signed back in the seventies compared to now, etcetera et-frickin’-cetera.
In short, I felt like Woody Allen at the movie queue in ‘Annie Hall’.
Dec
Once More Into the Breach, Dear Friends…
In my early days I used to love to draw and it was my passion in drawing that allowed me to be accepted into the art class but now that I was doing it as a GCSE the rules changed - I was very much of the comic book background but now that I was studying it I had to learn art as whole and was constantly criticized by my teacher for my two dimensional Stan Lee inspired drawings. Even when I was sketching Salvador Dali at an art exhibition it still came across as two dimensional in my lecturers eyes. And painting? Bugger that. I was never good at painting. I liked pencils and pens and these new crafts just didn’t compute.
Creative design technology was another subject where I wasn’t wholly competent in. Whilst I had the creativity, knowledge of physics and the illustrative skills to design something, making it was another matter entirely. I had great designs, beautiful blueprints, intelligent and original machinations… and yet I couldn’t even saw a piece of wood in half properly. In the end, my lowest grade of all during GCSE’s was this subject.
Drama was something else, though. From an early age I was fascinated with film and acting - studying drama was the closest I could get to that field when it came to my GCSE’s. A lot of the class was made up of kids who took the subject just to get an easy pass but I enjoyed every minute of it. I remember how often we’d all end up doing mostly comedy based sketches when given our own free reign to create something and I’ll never forget our first full on performance of ‘Sweeney Todd’ (minus the singing since none of us could hold a note to save our lives).
Dec
Chicks Who Suck and the Literature They Come From
‘Twilight’ has well and truly fucked us all.
I was walking around Borders with the Tamagotchi, randomly looking around the numerous sections of the bookstore, when we found ourselves walking past the ‘romance’ section, curious to see what was currently thought of as romantic literature. We had hoped to find some humorous Mills & Boon illustrations of muscular highwaymen and countesses with heaving bossoms, but instead we discovered something quite disturbing.
Today’s romantic fantasy is all about vampires. And I’m quite sure that it’s got something to do with the popularity of the Twilight series in pop culture. But not only that, it’s crossed over to all forms of romantic literature. These aren’t just gothic romance novels, this is something a lot more mind-numbing.
Let us examine, shall we?
Dec
Inglorious Rat Basterds
Sincerely, I thought I was. After the crazy rat hunt that ended with me showing the rat the way out to the back garden, I thought I was done with the rat for good. Finally, there was peace and quiet, no scurrying of tiny feet, no random rat droppings found all around.
A few days later, I heard him whilst I was sleeping. He was trying to get into my dustbin by my desk. I turned and switched on the light to see him on the ground, staring at me. I stared back. We had a moment, a single silent moment.
In a tiny squeak, the rat said “fuck me dead!” and ran off under the piano.
I spoke to the rat once again. I reasoned with him. I asked him nicely.
“Please, stop bugging me. I just want to go to sleep. If you quit bugging me I won’t bug you. You do your thing, I’ll do mine and everything will be alright.”
The rat was silent. I think it got the message and I finally got to sleep.
Thinking all was fine once again I carried on with my business as the days progressed. Then one evening the Voxel peeps popped over. I was to help them do some voice overs for an animatic. I was in the midst of setting up my mic when I turned and saw him. There he fucking was again!
“Shhh,” I told everyone, “be vewy, vewy quiet…”
The rat saw me and ran into my shoe cabinet. I gave chase, looked inside and saw to my dismay that there was a hole in the wall and it scurried in.
Bastard. That’s how you got in, eh?
I closed up the shoe cabinet and carried on with the evening’s plans. Finally, everything seemed to be alright.
Until last Saturday.
Nov
Baby Rats and Squirrel Taming
I paused the movie, confused. “Where?” I asked.
“Look right there,” she said as she got up and quietly went to the right side of my work desk, ready to shake my laptop bag in an effort to spook the rat out of hiding, “wait for it.”
She shook the bag, and I saw a tiny furry creature that looked more like an innocent door mouse scurry left-side with it’s tiny little feet.
Sonuvabitch. We tried for a while to get it out but to no avail, so we decided to let it be for now, even though deep down I wanted that baby rat to leave, cute or not. I had no issues with it as a creature, but I had definite issues with it with regards to it’s teeth and the many computer and audio cables that snake about my work area.
It explained the weird sounds I’d been hearing over the past few days coming from the kitchen and my surrounding areas. It must’ve snuck in when I had the windows and doors open to air the place out in the day before switching on the air conditioning at night. And now it was somewhere in the house, scurrying about.
The next day, I was awoken by the sound of its tiny feet scurrying about.
Nov
Get Up, Stand Up
The man pictured above is Jasper Carrott, and was my first memory of stand-up comedy.
I remember he had a weekly show which would involve stand-up comedy, a skit he did about two inept detectives which latter on became a full blown sitcom called ‘The Detectives” and spoofs of ads during the supposed commercial breaks (even though the BBC didn’t do commercial breaks between shows, for some reason I fell for it every single time). He also had another show called “Carrott’s Commerical Breakdown” where he would show a compilation of the most hilarious and insane ads from around the world.
Sure, I watched a lot of other British comedy and stand-up comedians, but when I try and think back of my very first memory of stand-up comedy, it all comes back to Jasper.
However, he wasn’t the most inspiring of the stand-up comedians that I looked up to. No, that mantle belongs to the Fuck You Man:-
That’s right, Eddie Murphy.
Whilst Jasper Carrott was someone I loved watching, Eddie Murphy was someone I looked up to and wanted to be. I remember catching ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ on TV when I was a kid and even though it was censored I loved it and from then on would always search out for his movies. The only Murphy movies I haven’t seen are ‘Harlem Nights’, ‘Norbitt’ and ‘Meet Dave’. I once rented his ‘Best of Saturday Night Live’ video from the rental store and just let the late charges build up. Before sending it back and paying the late fees I recorded all the audio onto tape so I could always play it back. I loved his ability to mimic celebrities so well, I loved his delivery, I loved his laugh, I loved it all.
And discovering his stand-up comedy was like discovering a tiny explosive charge in your brain - mind blowing.
Sure, everyone watched ‘Raw’ because it was the most widely available one and for me, that was the first one I watched too, but when I discovered ‘Delirious’ it just blew ‘Raw’ out of the water. To this day, it still has me in stitches.
Other stand-up comedians I’ve admired and aspired to over the years have included Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, Chris Rock, Mitch Hedberg and much more. I’d always loved comedy and loved writing and performing comedy, but performing stand-up was something I’d always wanted to try, at least once in my life…
…and on the first Thursday of November, I did.
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