christmas is over

Yes Christmas is over, feels like another stolen one.
Spent the eve and the day stuck with the nuclear and extended family. was nice meeting morgan and trying our best to stifle the inappropriate laughter at the most inappropriate moments.

On the morning of boxing day i had to go back to camp to do 24 duty . as i was contemplating what a crappy boxing day it was turning to be , i decided to switch on the telly in the ops room and found out just how crappy the day actually was. earthquakes and tsunamis , two thirds of the maldives going under the sea.

last transmission agreed to gig on the coming thursday. problem is our new drummer jason isnt free and zarina isnt around til thursday itself. felt really bummed considering how tight we sounded the last prac we had. decided to get a replacement drummer, terry. still pretty much bloody bummed cos we are gonna have to play covers for the first half then do our songs unplugged without percussion which is really gonna castrate some the tunes. we are playing straight after ronin in a gig called mosh2004 so i doubt the acoustic half will go down very well with the crowd as well, we hardly have time to prac either.

orchard road was a mad circus carnival sideshow during december. the suffocating crowds, trashy live music at every corner, choirs, overwhelming decorations, bewildering lights. she really became a golden whore. im really glad thats over , but still theres something sad bout walking through emptied streets at the end of it all in the grey and drizzle, looking at the trash of yesterdays streamers and dead balloons fused into the sidewide. watching gnome banglahs ( the illusive sub-type thats comes out at the wee hours and does amazing feats like build over- head bridges in a night) take down the street decorations incredibly fast, like peeling off a thin facade of blistered paint. still the old girl has a lot more soul without the stardust.

december limbo , that period between christmas and new year feels a funeral for 365 sunsets.
in many ways im glad to bury this year soon. From January il be able to say im gonna ORD next year and thats a big psychological boost.

Looking back on all thats happened its been one hell of a year.

christmas is over

Yes Christmas is over, feels like another stolen one.
Spent the eve and the day stuck with the nuclear and extended family. was nice meeting morgan and trying our best to stifle the inappropriate laughter at the most inappropriate moments.

On the morning of boxing day i had to go back to camp to do 24 duty . as i was contemplating what a crappy boxing day it was turning to be , i decided to switch on the telly in the ops room and found out just how crappy the day actually was. earthquakes and tsunamis , two thirds of the maldives going under the sea.

last transmission agreed to gig on the coming thursday. problem is our new drummer jason isnt free and zarina isnt around til thursday itself. felt really bummed considering how tight we sounded the last prac we had. decided to get a replacement drummer, terry. still pretty much bloody bummed cos we are gonna have to play covers for the first half then do our songs unplugged without percussion which is really gonna castrate some the tunes. we are playing straight after ronin in a gig called mosh2004 so i doubt the acoustic half will go down very well with the crowd as well, we hardly have time to prac either.

orchard road was a mad circus carnival sideshow during december. the suffocating crowds, trashy live music at every corner, choirs, overwhelming decorations, bewildering lights. she really became a golden whore. im really glad thats over , but still theres something sad bout walking through emptied streets at the end of it all in the grey and drizzle, looking at the trash of yesterdays streamers and dead balloons fused into the sidewide. watching gnome banglahs ( the illusive sub-type thats comes out at the wee hours and does amazing feats like build over- head bridges in a night) take down the street decorations incredibly fast, like peeling off a thin facade of blistered paint. still the old girl has a lot more soul without the stardust.

december limbo , that period between christmas and new year feels a funeral for 365 sunsets.
in many ways im glad to bury this year soon. From January il be able to say im gonna ORD next year and thats a big psychological boost.

Looking back on all thats happened its been one hell of a year.

kurtz

Its two pm on a saturday, Im usually up by eight plus on weekends, out by eleven so i wont waste the day. Today i just feel like hibernating in my room.

Yesterday i had to go Dr Polunin's house to collect some material for the videos i have to make fer the army. we arrived at his neighbourhood, near where hillview mansion used to be. couldnt see his house number. me and danny joked that it was probably further in the vegetation bordering the end of the street. In a bush in the vegetation we actually did see number 72. we rang the bell and went in, greeted by two angry dogs and an army of cats and less angsty canines. a racially ambiguous woman who introduced herself as Olga opened the house door for us and told us the good doctor was waiting fer us downstairs. The actual house was cut into the side of the Bukit Timah hills and had an actual stone bridge, leading out to the front door, on which fluffy and puffy gave me the impression that they were fancying a nice fat slice of john's thigh fer an afternoon snack. Or perhaps a testicle each, they afterall were an old-world gentleman's dogs and they'd probably share.


The whole thing had a very bad and ridiculous feel about it ala texas chainsaw massacre, or any other movie which involved idiots going to a place god had forgotten about. i went down the steps against my better judgement.

The Dr was lying back on his chair like a colonial lord in khaki shorts with his shirt open, exposing his ancient and whispy haired chest and stomach, gone ridiculously large from almost a century of beer and good food. His asian wife sat beside him, dignified like an english burra memasahib from the twenties. faded king and queen.

That was the start, of a very painful three hours as we tried to get the material we needed from him, and leave to start editing the videos togther to meet our deadlines. His conversations steered gently away from the main pressing questions, taking a tributary instead of the river and going along to sub- tributaries and estuaries. Before we knew it were lost at sea.

Years of deference had eroded his mind and he thought in an unquestioned monologue. As sleep started taking over, Danny started to headbang to some secret silent rock song with a slow and irregular beat.

i thought we would never leave. finally we made up an excuse to leave and left more or less empty-handed having accomplished nothing. ( wanted to nick some old paintings though). As i left i noticed the man actually had 2 natural streams flowing down the hill on his property but then again you couldnt tell when his property ended and the Mindef owned jungle began, cos they were no fences or boundaries at all.

One of the 2 earlier dogs became really docile and sad, with the tired hungry soulful dog eyes u can find on people.

Said goodbye to Polunin and his world, slammed the cab door shut, and sped off to my weekend.

kurtz

Its two pm on a saturday, Im usually up by eight plus on weekends, out by eleven so i wont waste the day. Today i just feel like hibernating in my room.

Yesterday i had to go Dr Polunin's house to collect some material for the videos i have to make fer the army. we arrived at his neighbourhood, near where hillview mansion used to be. couldnt see his house number. me and danny joked that it was probably further in the vegetation bordering the end of the street. In a bush in the vegetation we actually did see number 72. we rang the bell and went in, greeted by two angry dogs and an army of cats and less angsty canines. a racially ambiguous woman who introduced herself as Olga opened the house door for us and told us the good doctor was waiting fer us downstairs. The actual house was cut into the side of the Bukit Timah hills and had an actual stone bridge, leading out to the front door, on which fluffy and puffy gave me the impression that they were fancying a nice fat slice of john's thigh fer an afternoon snack. Or perhaps a testicle each, they afterall were an old-world gentleman's dogs and they'd probably share.


The whole thing had a very bad and ridiculous feel about it ala texas chainsaw massacre, or any other movie which involved idiots going to a place god had forgotten about. i went down the steps against my better judgement.

The Dr was lying back on his chair like a colonial lord in khaki shorts with his shirt open, exposing his ancient and whispy haired chest and stomach, gone ridiculously large from almost a century of beer and good food. His asian wife sat beside him, dignified like an english burra memasahib from the twenties. faded king and queen.

That was the start, of a very painful three hours as we tried to get the material we needed from him, and leave to start editing the videos togther to meet our deadlines. His conversations steered gently away from the main pressing questions, taking a tributary instead of the river and going along to sub- tributaries and estuaries. Before we knew it were lost at sea.

Years of deference had eroded his mind and he thought in an unquestioned monologue. As sleep started taking over, Danny started to headbang to some secret silent rock song with a slow and irregular beat.

i thought we would never leave. finally we made up an excuse to leave and left more or less empty-handed having accomplished nothing. ( wanted to nick some old paintings though). As i left i noticed the man actually had 2 natural streams flowing down the hill on his property but then again you couldnt tell when his property ended and the Mindef owned jungle began, cos they were no fences or boundaries at all.

One of the 2 earlier dogs became really docile and sad, with the tired hungry soulful dog eyes u can find on people.

Said goodbye to Polunin and his world, slammed the cab door shut, and sped off to my weekend.

ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars

Today i went to jam with zarina and sidney, was nice to see them again. last transmission needs more people ever since guru left, we've begun sounding hollow with only one guitar and need another guitarist or keyboardist to add the depth. it doesnt help that kenneth is rarely free and we've only had one jam together with the four of us since we re-formed. today a potential keyboardist came to watch us and see if she wanted to jam with us. we playd a little , and my string broke as usual, putting an aprupt end to that.

she started talking about her previous band and how she was into avant garde and i was slightly wary seeing as how that term has been high-jacked by mediocrity and senselessness. she let us listen to some of her samples and it was interesting formless soundscapes. she was really cute when she tried to explain her music and started making high pitched morse code noises with her mouth to describe her bands inter-linked musical layering. she said the music was formed in squares? musicians have very weird private imagery when it comes to music. i always form it around pictures. i used to skulk around bridges and railways tracks at night and turn cars and trains into light streaks with my camera cos that was how my music was in my mind at the time and i wanted to see some of it as a visual.

shes gonna jam with us next week , hopefully itl go well. she seems interesting and i really like godspeed you black emperor and sigur ros as well. hopefully il get kenneth to come and drum.

ive been in and out of bands since i was 15. music is so beautiful sometimes it feels almost like a religious emperience. i love it when i become nothing more than the sound coming out of my guitar. music is supposed to be a reflection of life but theres so much of your life you can shut out while your playing music it becomes a paradox. the beauty is everything because it represents nothing other than itself. since we've gotten a place of our own i havnt been to jam studios in almost a year and half but sometimes i miss it . some jam studios especially the older ones have so many collective memories and feelings seeping out of the padded walls and creeping out of silent amplififiers. the ghosts of bands long gone , dreams born and broken, young idealism long since replaced by pragmatism , rock and roll fantasies played out, friendships forged and lasting long after the music ended. the pathos of it all.

we've left our mark.

humour me before i have to go

Its a friday morning, im in camp. about 3 weeks ago i got revocated to another camp to help out wth next years ndp, because i got a temp downgrade and couldnt go for armour signal training. right now i get to go home almost every day. im dreading the possibility of going back to combat early next year and being confined again.

your standing on our streets

Alot happened during BMT, but i made it in the end. I remember the feeling of absolute elation as i marched down the jetty for my first book out on a saturday after a month of confinement on the island.

The outside world seemed so strange, so beguilingly safe. I rushed home to change and get out of the house as soon as possible. The lights of orchard road were so bewildering that night, the intoxication of the streets. Traffic and surging crowds. I wanted to drown in every shade of colour and sound. Every now and then amongst the masses i would spot a shaved head and be reminded.

Everyweekend after that on that island was the rollercoaster of elation on saturdays and the incredible low on sunday evenings. The sickening sound of the grinding metal of the floating jetty as your combat boots made heavy steps towards the boat that would take you back.

At night in camp i was always the last in my bunk to go to sleep, well past the 2230hrs lights out timing. the whole day's automatic reaction activities and abuse was a straightjacket on your mind. i desperately needed to be alone for awhile, i needed to be able to think beyond a base level response to reward and punishment. my friend told me it was better not to think. i would walk the corridors chasing ghosts that never came, smoke illegal cigarettes( the sea breeze would smoke half) and look out across the sea at the shimmery yellow lights of the mainland. The sea was black as the sky was black and you couldnt really tell where one ended and the other began. The ships were like stars floating in void, all i needed to do was to take of my glasses to let myopia and astigmatism enhance the illusion.
No matter how sad or dislillusioned and broken you felt, there was still so much beauty on that island.

One night i almost gave up though, i wont go into details.

I had to spend time in the jungle during certain periods. During our field camp somebody took a crap on a hillside cos we set up out tents late at night and hadnt properly designated a toilet yet. The next day our commanders made the whole company leapard crawl up the side of the mountain, til one of us found his shit, they threw thunder flashes behind us to hurry us.

I hated digging trenches the most. After five hours of digging through hard rocky ground, ( with the sparks flying i felt like i was working in a smithy) i finally managed to dig my trench, it was just enough for my body to buried in the ground. It rained violently and the inside of my trench was milo. By that stage of field camp, personal hygiene became a weird custom from a faraway place.
i spent the whole night lying in my lovely hole and on the wet grass when i was afraid my rifle would turn to rust. covered in filth and dirt, my face was greened and blackened with camo for many days now, it seemed more natural than the colour of my skin.

i felt so at home lying on the forest floor in the peace and darkness of the night like i was part of the forest, it was strange, on one hand i couldnt stand it and i was longing to get the hell out of there, on the other hand i enjoyed feeling detached from my ordinary concerns and feelings and the complications of modern life. (Mirrors are implements used to calculate the difference between reality and the idealized self, The only mirrors in the jungle are mirrors soldiers keep to camoflauge their faces and become their surroundings.)

A plane flew overhead, i thought of kris 6997 km away, the dichotomy ended. i just wanted to go home.

that night i also saw ghosts on the island for the first time. among the trees when i waited alone on the hillside. very tall black figures gliding among the trees.

your glassy eyes betray you

h

my first entry

Finally decided to get over my techno-phobia and get a blog. Ive tried and failed many times to keep a diary. Usually self-censorship takes over because the forest of your own thoughts is a much darker place to take a walk than you previously realised, and there are things living there that you will never write about. ;]

My first few entries are going to be a back catalogue about the things that have happened recently, so i can write about them as they really were before the ineveitable mental photoshop takes over.

greener on the other side

Poly came to an end around may this year. Closed a three year chapter in my life and began a new one. I enlisted on the 8th of June to basic military school on pulau tekong and began my two years two months of national serfdom.

You'll never forget your first boat ride to tekong, sitting on the ferry with your parents and girlfriend, staring out at the island that will be your prison and your home. When you get there you learn how to say an oath, promising your life for your country while the people you came with take a pleasant tour elsewhere and watch a video about BMT life ( a very well-shot fiction docu).

When they enter the hall where you have been waiting, you are not supposed to smile or acknowledge them with eye contact, i tried my best to suppress my laughter cos it felt so ridiculous at the time, like i was play acting, but you learn soon enough that its all about play acting and you better learn to play act well.

Afterward you have a meal with your folks and girl, and its one of the best meals you are going to have on that island but of course you don't know that yet. The time comes for your your parents and girlfriend to head back home. Up til this point i had been feeling rather optimistic, trying not to think so hard. il make the best of it, get some writing done, practice hard on my guitar write music, physically improve myself, learn discipline etc. ( throughout the rest of my bmt i never wrote a line of lyric, fiction or music). I said bye to my parents and it dawned on me that i wouldnt see them or be home for a month, and in all probabilty for the next 2 years i would only see them for brief periods on weekends. I hugged kristine for a long time before i let her go down the jetty to the boat. i loved her but i was afraid that i was putting a gun to my head. She was heading off to university soon and id be doing this for quite awhile. How would we both change? Would she wait for me ?

The doubts turned to sharp stones and rented out a dark spot at the bottom of my heart for a long time.