langkau fiction

True to his character, Mr. Mourinho has been busy creating enemies for the past week. It seems that every time he opens his mouth, there’s bound to be some poor fellow getting stabbed at the other end of it. Maybe he should learn to polish his metaphors and/or leave out names when interviewed by journalists. He’s probably not used to people responding to his stupidity comments while he was in England…

Anyways, I don’t want to waste this space writing about Mourinho and…er, his mouth. I woke up this morning at 2.15am, opened a can of Stella and made myself comfortable on the floor. I turned on the TV and come 2.30am, Astro was showing the ‘live’ telecast of the Derby della Madonnina. Or for those untrained in the Serie A language, the Milan-Inter match! This is undoubtedly one of the major derbies in Europe, rivaling other fierce derbies such as Barcelona-Real Madrid in Spain, Benfica-FC Porto in Portugal, FC Shalke 04-Borussia Dortmund in Germany or Fenerbache-Galatasaray in Turkey. Or Mohun Bagan-East Bengal in India lah…okay, so India is not in Europe.

To keep the story short, Ronaldinho the jonggang scored with a header in the 37th minute, leaving what’sthenameoftheIntergoalie rooted to the ground, unable to do anything to stop the goal. Seedorf sacrificed his favorite position – and probably, his ego – and played brilliantly in Pirlo’s position, who is out injured. Gattuso, who’s nursing a broken wrist, poured out his soul as usual. It’s like his adrenaline is a natural painkiller, although I think he’s on drugs of some sort. Ambrosini, a loyal Milan servant, did well in covering the defense and sweeping the loose ball in the middle of the field. I don’t have to say anything about the likes of Kaka and Pato. The flow of the game that Milan played was, well, slightly mesmerizing. My only concern in the game was Milan’s back four. Fortunately, Inter don’t have the players to play that kind of game, which is exclusively owned by the aristocrats of Milan, even though Inter did pretend they know how to play flowing football. Tactical error, Mr. Mourinho. You got sucked into the game without knowing it. Yes, as you’ve said it yourself, Milan played “pragmatically”. But we won. Inter lost. muahahahaha….suck er suck er…so, that’s Ancellotti 3, Mourinho 0!

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, Milan beat Inter 1-0 that basically shut off Inter’s ego albeit temporarily. Of course, Mourinho would come with some kind of excuses about the loss, saying something like “with 10 men on the field bla bla bla…”. Well, who told Burdisso to get his second yellow card? Even Materazzi got a red card when he was sitting on the bench, bad-mouthing the referee. And as if losing was not enough, another Inter idiot decided to open his mouth, saying that Inter was stronger than Milan. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Being stronger don’t get you three points, Mr. Viera. Apparently, you need brains to win as well…Oh well, let me not rub salt into their wounded ego. They’re bruised black and blue now…

Milan – Abbiati; Zambrotta, Maldini, Kaladze, Jankulowski; Seedorf, Gattuso (Bonera), Ambrosini; Kaka, Ronaldinho (Shevchenko); Pato (Flamini).

Inter – Zanetti and…er, the others…

Just to get my mind off work for a minute, I decided to YouTube “large mysterious fish”. I didn’t get what I looking for but got this video instead. I’m not too sure if the fish’s a fake but y’know, I believe in Nessie of Loch Ness. So, this has got to be true…or bizarre.

(turn up the volume because it’s a little bit hard to hear…)

I’ve been busy lately. Okay, okay, so I won’t call it busy because it sounds like I’m bragging about how important my job is when it comes to solving the world’s problems. I can’t even solve my own financial woes, let alone solving the world’s problems! But really, really, I am not busy as in ‘busy with so much work to do’. I’m not even hypothetically busy. Yes, I do have so much a fair amount of work to do but…yes, there’s a ‘but’…those are uncompleted tasks, that is, the accumulated tasks resulting from my moments of misinspiration. Which basically means, I was too lazy to do it then and now, I’m stressed out because it’s all there staring at me asking “So, how…?”

Okay, in order to solve this problem dramatically minimize this problem, I would…(taking a deep breath)…stop visiting Ruai for one month. Alright, so some of you are laughing off your stupid chairs now. Okay, go ahead. Laugh all you can. So, I asked myself: “Why stop going to Ruai for one month?” Well, I don’t know, really. But it’s the easiest scapegoat when it comes to explaining the deterioration in my work productivity (if it was ever productive in the first place, that is). Besides, I discovered that I would save a lot of money by not going there. For example, I paid my monthly beer tabs at Ruai two nights ago and it amounted to exactly RM300. And, I must kindly add here, that does not necessarily reflect the amount that I spent in one month in that lovely godforsaken bar. The RM300 is a result of two consecutive days of drinking…so, I would have to curb my Ruai visits this month and the next, starting from yesterday (Sept 24th).

But, but, but, not going to Ruai in the next 30 days or so does not mean that I will also eliminate my love for consuming alcoholic beverages in that duration of Ruai-abstinence. It just means that I don’t have to spend so much money at that hallowed godforsaken bar. I can return to my natural habitat of drinking sepuluh tiga at the coffee shops and of course, do the langkau thing, since I know now that there’s a good manufacturer of that good drink near my house…

…er, I think I’ll just stop here. Need to go for food. Beers. ummm…nice.

While I was taking a shower before going to work this morning, the shampoo got into my eyes and I screamed in pain. Well, it’s not that painful lah but what is wrong with a little bit of exaggeration these days, right? I mean, the politics in Malaysia have recently gone haywire to the point that it looks a bit ridiculous. The ISA arrests, the racist remarks, etc. Political desperation calls for stupid measures.

Another day. Lately, there’s been much talk about this day, 16 September. A certain Anwar declared 16 September would be the day when our Prime Sleeper will be toppled (or in the Malay language, digulingkan) from his bed seat of power. This plan of guling mengulingkan also includes the proposed mass defection by Bee Anne members into Anwar’s People’s Justice Party, which should materialize anytime today. But even if it doesn’t happen today, it can happen any other day. It’s okay, no hurry.

Another day. Since I hopped into this bandwagon of blogging two years ago, twice I wrote the thing about 16 September that most of us have forgotten. This year, however, I won’t be bothered writing too much about it or the ‘history’ behind it. Why? I only have two reasons: First, why is it only now Malaysians suddenly take interest in this date, 16 September? (Oh, pardon me. It’s now affectionately dubbed as “916″) Despite the gomen’s subtle efforts of dismemorising us, many Sarawakians and Sabahans of my generation remember this date as Malaysia Day, the day this country was formed in 1963. Unfortunately, over the years this date slipped from the memories of many Malaysians into historical oblivion.

That is, of course, until a certain Anwar decided to revive this forgotten history and put it back into his its rightful place. But hey, the grand plan also “coincides” with the day he proposed to mengulingkan the Prime Sleeper and form a new government! Apparently, the Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Pact) had a Malaysia Day ‘celebration’ last night at the Kelana Jaya stadium, attended by more than 10,000 people. Here, Anwar gave his speech on the significance of 16 September “916″ and incidentally, announced that “Sabah and Sarawak are part of Malaysia”. Er…hello? Has it not always been that way since 1963? We’re only reminded of it today? Okay, so he acknowledged what has been – until last night – a marginalized historical detail. Clap, clap, clap…and then, what?

My second reason is very simple…and short: okay, so now some Malaysians realize the importance of 16 September, thanks to you-know-who lah. Some Malaysians also remember that Sarawak and Sabah (and Singapore) gained independence from Britain and formed Malaysia on this date 45 years ago. As we all know, Singapore had to pull out of this new Federation and become independent and affluent two years after the formation despite not having rich natural resources and economically preschooled. Sarawak and Sabah, on the other hand, are two of Malaysia’s largest states with abundant natural resources (at that time laa..). And yet, since 1963, the masses have been economically marginalized. Village communities lack the basic necessities despite being in close proximity to the major urban towns, let alone the ones in the rural areas. The people’s native customary rights lands are taken away under their noses, let alone it being respected. It’s the classical case of the “rich getting richer and the poor getting fucked poorer.” Among many other things, since 1963, we are still pathetically begging for oil royalty to be increased from the current 5%. The rest no need to cerita lah…

Another day. So, the revelation that struck me while I was rubbing off the shampoo from my eyes this morning is this: 16 September is another day. I probably can understand the anxiety that people – including my friends and relatives – feel in the peninsula about this day. The people aren’t as anxious on this side of Malaysia for obvious reasons. But I do not want to remember today as a day that a charismatic man ‘freed’ us from this political mindtrap. While for many of us who are screaming for change, reformasi, justice and so forth, 16 September “916″ is a day of reminding us of who we are and our direction as a nation. For some others like me, 16 September is also a day of reminding us of what we have lost when this country was formed 45 years ago and our direction in reclaiming those losses.

Oh, I just realized that the function of our notorious but obsolete Internal Security Act (ISA) isn’t restricted to protecting this country’s national security but also to “protect” the individual – in this case, a reporter – whose life was perceived to be “under threat!” This is really news to me. Next time, I know. If someone threatens to kill me for some unknown reasons, I will just tell the police to arrest me under the ISA.

Anyways, one of my friends called me on Saturday noon time to say that they were not allowed to walk to the Istana Negara. The purpose of the walk, organized by Jaringan Orang Asal SeMalaysia (JOAS), was to hand over a memorandum to the Agung but they were stopped by the police as soon as they stepped out of Central Market. My friend, who was clearly disappointed with this whole gomen phenomena, told me “As indigenous people yourself, you should be here with us!” I responded to my friend’s statement and said “In fact, I fit the prototype of contemporary orang asal because, first, I don’t have the financial means to fly over to Kulumpo to join you all in the march…” Before I could even finish my sentence, I was told “That’s because you spent your money on drinking! If you had saved your money instead of spending it on alcohol, you’d be here with us.” I quipped: “Exactly! But that makes me even more ‘indigenous’, right? Spending my money on beers and langkau?” My friend sighed and told me that after the press conference, they’re heading to the nearby bar.

I also told my friend that while the police was busy blocking their path to the Istana, some of them should’ve sneaked out by a cab or something and present the memo to the Agung. But of course, where’s the drama in that, right? Silence on the other side of the phone. I tried to quietly sip my Orangeboom while waiting for a reply. Another sigh was heard at the other end…

And if you’re not into reading about the event you can find the photos here, a video here, and the TV3 coverage on YouTube below.