Tanggal... Seluar Dan Baju...

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - A Malaysian men's magazine may be censured for a cover featuring a semi-nude female model draped in the national flag that has sparked an uproar among Muslims, a senior official said on Monday.

The pictures in the August edition of Sensasi Lelaki, or Men's Sensation, is an insult to the national flag and disrespectful to the country as it prepares to mark National Day on Wednesday, said Deputy Internal Minister Noh Omar.

The magazine will be asked to give an explanation for its move before the government decides whether to take further action including revoking its publication permit, Noh said.

"The publisher is insensitive to the status and integrity of the national flag... the parties concerned should give valid reasons for publishing the picture," Noh was quoted as saying by the national Bernama news agency.

Noh and his aides were not immediately reachable for comments. The magazine was still on sale in newsstands.

The cover page and centrefold of the magazine show 23-year-old air stewardess Aida Khurniah wrapped in the national flag, posing sexily with her thighs and part of her chest exposed, but the shots are relatively tame by Western standards.

'Fly the national flag'

In an article accompanying the pictures titled "Lighting the Fire of Patriotism", she urged Malaysians to fly the national flag ahead of National Day.

"I think the fire of patriotism has long fizzled out in the souls of our people... don't let it stay that way," she was quoted as saying.

Skimpy attire is frowned upon in this predominantly Muslim nation that bans publications featuring nudity and what authorities deem pornographic.

The Malaysian Indian Muslim Congress over the weekend lodged a police complaint against the magazine, saying the "obscene" pictures had tarnished the country's image.

Malaysia will mark its National Day on August 31, the date it won independence from Britain 48 years ago. The government is pushing its citizens to fly the flag, known as "Jalur Gemilang" or Stripes of Glory, to show their love for the country.

"Perhaps the (magazine) just did not know the significance of the national flag or they are too enthusiastic about celebrating National Day," Noh said.

If any of you people have this magazine, you know who to give the heads up to. I don't knwo about you, but I feel highly patriotic. Aparently she's an air stewardess. Why is it always MAS air stewards and stewardesses that end up doing this? What a very Guber Merdeka this is turning out to be...

Ada Apa Dengan Merdeka?

It's 4:17pm on a Tuesday and I'm in Starbucks.

How does one perform this miracle feat, you may wonder. Isn't it a working day? Shouldn't he be bitching about work?

Well, yes, but more than that it's the eve of Malaysia's Independence Day. The roads of KL city will soon be closed off for street parties and festivities.

So why do I feel so indifferent about it all?

In 1945, when W.W.II ended, the British resumed control of "Malaya" once again after the Japanese left. "Malaya's" independence movement had matured and organized itself in an alliance under Tunku Abdul Rahman. When the British flag was finally lowered in Kuala Lumpur's Merdeka Square in 1957, Tunku became the first prime minister of "Malaya".

Somewhere along the way in 1961 "Malaya" became "Malaysia" after Tunku Abdul Rahman convinced Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore to join together to become one country. Singapore dropped out of the union. Perhaps they knew something we didn't.

Interestingly enough, Malaysia's flag is based on that of the United States, a country whose democratic ideals our young nation sought to emulate upon gaining independence from Great Britain in 1957. The 14 stripes represent Malaysia's states, while the square in the upper left contains the moon and sun of Islam.

Since then, under the leadership of the same government since our independence and democracy (makes one curious about the whole 'democracy' thing when we've always had the same government) we've advanced in ways other nations could only dream of.

But all this can only elicit a shrug and a mumbled "okay" on my side.

Am I unpatriotic for not feeling some sense of national pride that for 48 years we've had independence? Does it really mean that little to me? Doubtful. I'm glad we're not under the thumb of the British Empire. I'm glad my country's my own. I'm glad we're not communists queuing up for toilet paper and bread (in the Stalin/Mao sense of communism, of course. Marx's ideas weren't that bad).

But to me it's just another day off.

Here's another interesting fact: Sudirman, a local singer, sang theMalaysian Independence song. Without that song, I wouldn't even remember when our independence day was. When it was discovered Sudirman had AIDS, he was shunned by the community at large and sadly passed away without many of his old friends present. Many people used him as an example of how evil AIDS was and associated it with his pop star lifestyle or what have you. I dunno. My memory is sketchy, but I can remember all the shops wouldn't stock his soft drink anymore because kids were afraid they'd get AIDS from it. A lot of the love the nation had for him was destroyed in an instant.

But they still play his song.

...

I was hoping I'd find some point to all this rambling in the end, but it sure as shit doesn't look like it. Happy Merdeka day, people. Altogether now:

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!


And so on and so forth.

How Typical of Me...

...to miss my own television premiere of my short film.
A couple of hours before it aired, I was chilling with my girlfriend watching 'Honey' (someone give Alba a decent script, please, before she dissapears into B movie obscurity. She's too pretty for that) when Ray from Red Comm. called up.

"Hey, Khai."

"Hey, Ray," I replied, "whassup?"

"Just wanted to warn you about tonight's showing so that you don't get too shocked."

"Warn me? Why?"

"Well, after we sent your censored version of the film to the TV station, they said the content was still too controversial and asked us to make a few edits, which we did, then they said it was still too controversial so they took it and cut it up. We haven't seen their cut yet and I thought it would be best to warn you so there's no sudden surprises."

"Ok... can I get a copy?"

And with that, I finished 'Honey' and when my show was on I was introducing my girlfriend to the wonderful remake of 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' over a slice of pizza. She was suitably freaked. I'll check out the episode another time and upload it (if they permit me), together with the original cut.

Oh, and another thing I found interesting: on the Shortcuts website, they describe the movie as a "romantic comedy". People are gonna think I have a very skewed view of romance.

Or, like the feminist, they hate me and wish to liquify my balls.

Written Much Earlier...

It's 5:22am, and we're just finishing up. I may be able to catch about 2 hours sleep if I'm lucky.

What's annoying is, all the caffeine I ingested early hasn't bothered to kick in until now. Just my luck. when I wanted the full force of its stimuli, it decides to leave me trying in vain to fall asleep on my chair using a box of tissues as a pillow. When the chance to lie in my uncomfortable yet functional bed arises, I'm all jitters and mad thoughts.

Buggerty-buggerty-bugger.

I'm not even typing this on my blog right now. I'm using SimpleText since for the past three and a half hours my computer has refused to connect to the internet.

No one elses computer. Just mine. Fuck Apple. Fuck it up its stupid little ass.

Right now even the whores outside have probably called it a night. I doubt anyone's looking for a fuck at 5:26 on a Wednesday morning. And to be honest, amidst my absolute lethargy, I'm still worried like a wombat about tomorrow.

And the thing is, about a year ago I would have been complaining about the late hours and lethargy and stupid iMacs too.

But back then it felt like it was worth it.

What to do... what to do...

I'm not in a position at the moment to drop it all and concentrate on movies and music just yet, although I would love to. At the moment, my steady income pays for the passions I wish to pursue, which I work on after I'm done with work. These passions, in itself, are hard work.

Work all day, work all night.

I still need a job at the moment. A steady paycheck for ease of mind, parents off my back and oodles of DVD's and comics.

Hopefully by next year, all dreams will be accomplished. The Y2k album will be released, hopefully whatever film I decide to do will be done by then and hopefully both will bring enough success for me to get out.

Long shot. I know.

But it's attainable. It's the first time one of my cockamaimy (I think that's how it's spelt) day dreams might actually work. The thought that something that was once a pipedream might actually come into full fruition brings much glee to my loins.

Or my lions. If I had lions. They would be very gleeful if I had them.

Come on. I'm done. Let me the fuck out already. I have dreams to dream.

It's 12:47am

...and I'm back in the office again. I tried to upload this earlier at 12:15am but this stupid iMac deemed it too hard a task.

Triple 6's performance at the gig went surprisingly well considering we didn't rehearse. Currently feeling unable to write with flourish. Fucking tired. But there's still work to do.

When I was 15 I discovered a book on graphic design and art direction. From then on I wanted to be a graphic designer but had my hopes shattered when my mom turned to me and said,

"Why? You're cleverer than that!"

What she doesn't seem to understand is the amount of hard work it involves, and even though that day I felt like shit for having my mother tell me my chosen vocation was for idiots (which, I assure you, it's not), I'm now glad I didn't take it up too seriously.

Because whilst us writers do a lot of conceptualizing and writing, the designers and art directors bust their fucking balls to make those concepts come to life in ways that would make you cum with glee.

I'm bitching now about how tired I am, but I can't for the life of me imagine how tough it is for those guys right now.

Let's burn the midnight oil, fuck-holes.

Grrr. Arrghh.

Goddamn motherfucking dick licking shit eating piss drinking armpit licking rectum reaming buttcheek cleansing masturbating nipple tweaking hamster felching dog sniffing cat fingering elephant raiding cow tipping donkey dipping peanut flicking cock caressing banana beating bishop bashing toe nail tipping sons of a motherless goat raped granola chunk of chicken cutlets.

That's how I feel at this precise moment in time.

We have a pitch tomorrow. And if the work today to realize that reality wasn't enough suits from all directions attack me with brainless briefs and the MC2 Young Guns is on this weekend on the same day as a gig that will also be the shoot for our music video and I've just discovered the last pitch didn't work out, leaving the spotlight on our little team.

Oh, and I've got a gig tonight, to which I'll be rushing to, play, and return to continue working till the wee hours of the night. Add to that this idea burning in my head begging to be put down on pen and paper the second I have the time for it. Something that could be shot wonderfully if I could just get it done in time.

Aaargh!!! All you motherfuckers will get crabs! I'll see to it. Crabs, I say!

...

I don't know about you, but I could do with a soapy tit wank.

Don't Jinx Me, Fucktard!

The eternal saga of my may-or-may-not-ever-be-made first feature length film continues. It's been on my mind for quite a bit, you see. My girlfriend and I are continuously trying to figure out storylines with a mixed bag of results.

We both came to the conclusion that a horror film would probably be the way to go. Many great directors that I admire started off in horror, like Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, to name two. Horror also shows a directors skill (or lack of) more obviously. If the camera and the music and the cuts aren't right, no one will pee in their pants.

But this in itself provides another dilemma. Many fine horror films have been made, and the ones that stand out from the crowd are the incredibly original ones, the ones that don't get boxed up in the 'B-grade splatterfest gore' category. Sure, there are many people making a decent living in this category, but it's not where I see myself going.

So if I don't want to end up pigeonholed, my horror movie would have to be something wholly original. Wes Craven gave you Freddy. Sam Raimi gave you Ash and the Deadites. Peter Jackson gave you zombie sex, zombie babies and zombie intestines.

And that's stumping me. I have no wholly original horror idea. Not one that I feel strongly enough about, anyway.

Also, take a look at the current climate of cinema worldwide. The last big horror wave was Asian horror, particularly of the Japanese/Korean variety, where everyday people in everyday situations stay very quiet for long periods of time before getting freaked out by some little girl with long black hair in a white robe.

And that particular wave, whilst original a couple years ago, is rapidly dying down.

Plus, there's something about me doing a horror film as a first film that just doesn't fit right. I love the horror genre, but it's not my predominant genre.

Then there's my little love story, 'Celup'. Apart from the problems I already experienced with it, I also have the fear that, apart from the characters, the story isn't quite original and may not stand out. We've had 'Sepet' and 'Gol & Gincu', two seperate love story based movies tackled in two different ways.

And whilst 'Gol & Gincu' isn't wholly original, it is original for Malaysian cinema. A romantic triangle chick-flick love story for the mainstream that doesn't feel like root canal surgery on a humvee. How often does that happen?

With 'Celup', I just feel like it should be saved for when a decent budget can give it the scope and feel the story deserves. With my horror story ideas, they feel like they should be saved for when Malaysia really needs a good scare.

Originality, freshness and an opportunity to put in everything that I consider my own personal touch into a movie have been of the utmost importance in my head for the past few days whilst thinking about this. It's been a headache and a half which I have inadvertedly roped my girlfriend into (couples should share, they say. Even at times of supreme head-fuckery).

There was also another thing to tackle: Malaysian-ness. I didn't think much of it before, but the more I thought about it, the more it became important. If I'm going to make a movie set in Malaysia, it's gonna have to be a Malaysian movie. Not a Western movie set in Malaysia.

I realized this when I brainstormed a possible storyline which I had scribbled on a notepad: "Get Carter in KL". I'd been watching 'Dead Man's Shoes' and 'Old Boy' and the revenge movie genre seemed interesting. I imagined Peter Brown, a British ex-soldier back in Malaysia afte thirty years, stalking the streets of KL killing off all the evil bastards responsible for the death of some loved one (My idea. Fuck off if you're thinking of nicking it).

But it didn't feel Malaysian. Malaysia was an alien in the story I was crafting. So back to the drawing board.

At 3.00am last night I got one of my inspiration hits again. It felt just like the one I got for the 'Some Like It White' script (which I shall upload shortly and for those of you in Malaysia, do tune in to Astro Prima at 10pm on Sunday 28th to check it out on 'Shortcuts', censored for the mass with lots of bleeps and pixelated boobies).

I like these inspiration hits. They thwack you upside the head and all your lethargy and tiredness seem to seep out of your pores. The ideas need to be written down.

But I'm not going to talk about it just yet. I have this weird superstition that if I tell someone the story of my script before I write it I can no longer write it. I've only broken that superstition once in Malaysia, and that took four failed attempts.

On the surface it seems as daunting as 'Celup' was, but it should work. It should. And it should have all the pre-requisites I want in my first feature: rough, brash, loud and crass. A rude, lewd and pollitically incorrect 80 minutes of wackiness, a touch of farce and most importantly, something wholly original and uniquely Malaysian.

And if you hear me say nothing more of it, you'll know you've just jinxed it.

Man's Propensity to Make a Complete Tit of Himself

So I'm sat at Coffee Bean, right? Treating myself to a decent lunch now that at least one of my cheques has gone through, when this cute little girl pops on over and asks whether she can join me for a cigarette.

She seems to know me and her face is vaguely familiar but i can't put my finger on it. Regardless, we chit-chat and she seems to already know, at the very least, my job description. From what I can gather she's in the same company and we've been introduced before.

But for the life of me I can't remember who she is.

We carry on chit-chatting and I excuse myself and go back upstairs but the question's still bugging me and I'm feeling quite bad for not remembering this person. I can't believe I've forgotten this person because she's a really nice person and the fact that I can't remember must mean I was in some pissed off state when we were introduced or too dead to take proper notice.

See what advertising does to you? Fucks with your brain.

I didn't like this feeling. It's bad enough my close colleagues are dropping like flies. The fact that I can't remember a new colleague (who happens to be interesting and fun to talk to, a rarity in itself in this city) pissed me off to no end. I felt stupid and quite ashamed of myself that I had a nice conversation with this person as if I knew who she was when deep down at that moment in time you could describe me with the title of the only decent Alicia Silverstone movie.

...

...'Clueless', jackass.

So I go over to one of my colleagues and ask about her. I have a name, that's all, and even that I got wrong. Finally we figure out who she is, which section she's in and where she's sat. It just so happens that she's on my floor. It just so happens she's that her room is right next door to the people I've been talking to.

And it just so happens that her door was open.

...

...Ah. Fuck.

There are only two possibilities right now. She either heard the whole thing (or one of her colleagues heard it and passed it on) and I've made a complete tit of myself or I'm in the clear.

I hope I'm in the clear.

Another One Bites the Dust...

So another colleague moves on to greener pastures today and it makes me wonder once again about what I should do about my immediate future.

Let's be brutally honest, here. The fun is beginning to rapidly diminish from this job. At least for the last month or so. There's a general mood in the colleagues closest to me of the "fuck all this shit!" variety. Many feel the need to jump ship and I'd be lying if I didn't feel the same way.

For the past month for some reason unbeknownst to me a number of friends have come up to me about possible job openings in other companies if I was interested. I do not think this is coincidence. Perhaps the gods are trying to tell me something.

As for my own personal feelings about my current situation? Indifferent. It's not as much fun as before, but it's not a great big strap on up the jacksy. I can still survive, and perhaps things will get better.

Perhaps they won't. We'll see.

Healthy Poop

For those who are wondering how this godawful haze is going, apparently it rained in KL yesterday and nobody noticed. Can haze deflect rain?

I must say, though, whilst I thought it was getting worse, I can see slightly farther out of my office window today than I could yesterday. Yup, I can now see two buildings away as opposed to yesterday's one. Whoopee.

Man Method reckons nature's fighting back. I reckon God's lit up a big Cuban cigar for the grand finale and blowing it in our general direction.

As for other news, I woke up in a slightly bad mood this morning. My mom was 'teaching' my bro his homework, and by 'teach', I mean 'make the kid memorize the answers to 6+... from 1 to 12'. Modern teaching. I hate it.

Hence, in a foul mood and wearing a gas mask I walked into 7-11 before going to work and bought me some fresh milk and Koko Krunch. I have not had cereal since my mid-teens and goddamn did it bring back a lot of good memories. I almost forgot how good cereal was. And fresh milk, Jesus! I hadn't had fresh milk since I was in England!

(For those wondering, most drinks in Malaysia are made not with fresh milk, but condensed milk, which is a lot thicker, a helluva lot sweeter and a thousand times more fattening. Fresh milk is a luxury. It's imported from New Zealand. Our cows aren't fit for McDonald's meat let alone fresh milk.)

I also forgot how cereal makes you wanna poop, and I was glad. After lots of tummy trouble the doctor gave me medicine that left me constipated all of yesterday. Today we poop healthy poop. Amen for fresh milk, cereal and above all, healthy poop.

The Fourth Fever

Naren e-mailed recently and asked whether everything is ok and whether or not I got my mojo back considering I hadn't posted anything since Thursday. Well, there's a reason for that.

On Friday morning, with only two hours sleep, I made my way to Port Dickson with my colleagues for an intensive training course. Very intensive. The second I got there we were ushered into the room so from 9 to 5 I was sat 'studying', if you will. Then, from 8 to midnight, 'homework'.

Shit, even school wasn't this bad. By 12.14am, I received an SMS saying it's free flow at the bar, courtesy of the HR department.

"Screw you guys, I'm getting drunk," was my message to the team. They followed suit.

On Saturday, our 'homework' won us a RM$50 gift voucher at Isetan each. Whoopee. I also won a rubber ducky, which I treasured a lot more than the gift voucher, but ended up giving it to my bro, who had been ill the whole week.

Saturday was also the day we noticed the haze. The very bad haze that has lasted till now. For those unfamiliar with haze, imagine a dense fog made of dirt and soot. That's haze, and it sucks balls.

For starters, it gets a lot of people ill, myself included. I should've seen it coming. Already on Friday at least five people were ill. One person almost passed out at lunch, another had stomach pains, headaches and migraines all 'round.

It was just a matter of time.

By Sunday I had a gig and was feeling the effects of haze and exhaustion, passed out on the floor of Paul's Place, weak and ill, desperately in need of sleep. I played my set and rushed out as soon as I can to rest and eventually edit my short film for television (which sucked balls. I felt like I was butchering my baby. Every 'bleep' and pixelation of cleavage made me wince).

By Monday, even though I shouldn't have, I went to work, ill as hell, and by evening the fever was breaking through and my nose kept bleeding and throughout the day I shat out liquid poop.

By Tuesday morning, I couldn't go on.

At the clinic I asked the doctor why I kept getting fevers. She said I probably have low immunity or something, I couldn't really make her out in my fever induced daze. She stuck a needle up my butt and gave me a ton of pills.

What I do know is this, though: four fevers in eight months. That's an average of a fever every two months this year. I have never gotten this ill this often, it's freaking me out.

So are the nosebleeds. Eddy says I should check it out, that blood should stay in the body. I have a phobia about doctors when it comes to nosebleeds, though.

Just nosebleeds.

No-Thang

Ok. It's ranting season once again. Open up your eyes and unzip your flies, lads n' ladies!

This is fucked.

Whilst emotionally I've recovered quite a bit from the mild depression that was Thursday over my inability to be creative, the problem still persists. I can't write. At least, not well enough to make me feel it warrants paying for.

Did I spell 'warrants' right? 'War... rants'. Warrr.... ants'. Shit.

I'm not sure what it is, but it sure is bugging me.

Add to that my constant lethargy. I've been experimenting with my hours of sleepage and it still doesn't make a difference. No matter how early/late I go to bed/get up I still feel the same during the day: dead. My motor functions in sunlight are completely dependent on caffeine.

My 'ad writing' skills are getting stale. This may or may not have something to do with my servicing departments dodgy briefs. Or maybe I'm just getting bored here and need rejuvination. Colleagues have been e-mailing me word of jobs available elsewhere. They pay more, but don't look too enticing.

Then there's the 'music'. Saiful just came back last week with a list from the guy mastering it on what I need to do to make the mix better.

It's a fucking long list.

The mastering master in Indon also said that it's not a good idea for the musician to try and mix the music because the musician doesn't focus in on tiny details when it comes to his/her own music, but the big picture.

Either way, even though all the points were valid, it did make me think "great. I can't mix for nuts".

I'm also a bit wary of passing the material to someone else to mix because I fear that once they hear the raw files they may turn to me and say "holy Jesus! What the fuck do you expect me to do with this turd?!"

Harumph.

Then there's the 'movie' thing. The precious 'movie' thing. My 'Celup' movie, as you all know, is on the backburner for a bit after strange producer issues reminscent of my first bands untimely demise. Whilst my short film is gonna earn me a cool RM$1000, I'm stuck wondering, "what next?"

My parents asked me this same question. They are interested in my movie movements. By the end of this month they'll see their sons first publicly aired short film and will probably bludgen me for the movie's content.

Meanwhile, Kit Ong (who I met when he was CD at FCB) has a two page spread in KLue about his filmmaking activities and is quiting his job to do a feature. Yasmin Ahmad is doing her 'Gubra' movie (I thinkthat's what it's called) and Pete Teo's doing the music whilst also appearing in a movie financed by Andy Lau and directed by Ho Yuhang. Amir Muhammad will finally have one of his movies screened nationally (although I can't remember the name for that one).

Reading about these guys and seeing the whole 'local-industry filmmaking wave' reaching a higher and higher crest and gaining more attention and buzz does hit me with a pang of "when the fuck are you gonna get your act together and make your Magnificent Octopus!?"

...

"...sorry. I meant Magnum Opus."

I have apologetic pangs.

But yeah. All my filmmaking heroes did their thang in their twenties. All the guys (and gals) doing it here are in their thirties, presumably because by that age they have enough financial security and connections to go ahead and do their thang.

My mind's a bit on the different. I don't want to wait until my mid-thirties to do my thang (from here on in, filmmaking endeavours shall be named the 'thang'), I want to try and do everything I've always ever wanted to set out and achieve before I'm thirty so that if it works out I can spend the rest of my life doing my thang (or other 'thangs', wherein 'thang' can also be used to characterize any other creative endeavour besides film) and if my thang don't work out I can at least resign to the fact that I tried to do my thang(s) and won't die regretting I never did my thang.

Y'all un'nerstang?

You may ask, "Is the Guber jealous of all these other guys making movies?" and the Guber would reply, "Fuck yeah!" It's petty, yes, but why lie? They're making movies. I'm not. Of course I'm fucking jealous. I'm not in a position where I have to watch every word I say just yet. Yes, I'm jealous of the fact that all those people are making movies the same way pencil dicks are jealous of African tribesmen.

More importantly, I'm jealous because they have an idea, and turning the idea into a thang. An idea is required to make thang, it is theessence of thang.

But I'm forcing it. I'm forcing out ideas for the thang, and you know when you're forcing the thang 'cos it's never as good as a natural thang. You force the thang out, and the thang don't like no forcin'. I'm trying to figure out any ol' thang, anythang I can pull of, but there ain't no thang.

I need thang.

Something also appeals to me about being the young punk who went out and did his thang as opposed to the middle-aged guy who's comfortably well off to pursue thang-ing and such.

But what thang? Hence the question below about what scares you: to try and formulate a horror thang. Other thang's in mind are comedy thangs and talky-introspective thangs. Any thang doable within the limitations of my thang. But no strong enough idea to turn into a thang.

There's too much mention of 'thang' in this here thang. Dang.

On-Line Relaxation Exercise Experiment

Today, I'd like to try something different. I went to the doctors the other day and she recommended this for relaxation and stuff. Supposed to clear your mind, help you get through the day, whatever. It may seem a bit weird, but just bear with me for a minute as we try this out. Just read the words and follow the instructions carefully. I want to see whether this works by just reading it (P.S. Don't forget to tell me whether it works).

Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then we'll begin.

Now, first off, I want you to close your ears. That's right. Shut out all the distractions and noise. Stick your hands on your ears. Try and shut out as much sound as you can. If you need to scroll down, try and be quick about it, or use some other limb or maybe an elbow.

Close your ears and slowly, ever so slowly breath in a relaxed fashion.

...got it? Good. Keep those ears closed. Don't let the outside world fool you. This is a test. Please bear with me, you'll love it.

Now, keep your ears closed, keep breathing very slowly and relaxed. In through your nose, out through your mouth.

There you go. Forget about the outside world. Forget about work, parents, responsibilities, the phone. Forget about the people around you, make them dissapear in your mind. All you have are THESE WORDS. These are the only words that are important now. Keep breathing. Keep shutting out the world.

Now, slowly tilt your head up and down, very slowly. Up when you breath in, down when you breath out. Up when you breath in, down when you breath out.

That's it. That's it. Very good. Now, keep doing that.

Ok. Here's the tricky bit. Whilst your doing that, repeat the words below. Not loudly, just under your breath. Nobody needs to hear you, but you can't just say it in your head, your lips need to move, in time with your breathing. The first line when you breath in, the second line when you breath out. And repeat.

SHAMASTIKA

HADRASTIVA

SHAMASTIKA

HADRASTIVA

SHAMANTARA

CHARANKALA

SHAMANTARA

CHARANKALA

RASTANDIVA

SANTANIKA

RASTANDIVA

SANTANIKA

AYAMLYKA

EVENLEEFA

AYAMLYKA

EVENLEEFA

Congratulations. I've just made you do a bunch of stupid shit simply because I said it'd be good for you. You probably look a right fucking tit right now, don't you?