Guber Got Tweaked

The photo above was taken moments after I'd tweaked my ankle skating outside my university (he incident didn't break the board, though. That was courtesy of Andreas). It's one of those things to be expected with skating. After all, the entire activity consists of attempting to defy gravity for a series of moments on a plank of wood with wheels on it.

Ankle tweaks happen a lot, and they used to piss me off something chronic. I remember back in the days when I first got back to Malaysia for good in 2001, I used to go skate at the indoor park in Mid Valley (now turned into a factory outlet store for sporting goods) almost every day. I'd pop in at around eleven or twelve, skate for an hour or so, go off for lunch, maybe grab a book or magazine at MPH, go back to the park and skate so more and go home before traffic started building up.

Of course, I was shit as shit can be. Whilst everyone else was skating the walls and kickfliping to their hearts content, I was still on the very basic of basics, hence the reason why I would go in the day time on weekdays - all the good skaters were either at school or at work.

As time progressed, though, I got a bit better. I used to have this line set out in the park, which would end with me going up slight bank and popping an ollie. Like any trick, first thing that needs to be done is to overcome the fear of falling on your ass and looking like a gimp. First I'd ollie a wee bit. Then a bit more. Then I'd pick up speed and see how high I could pop the thing. As the days went by I got better and better, to the point where I was ollie-ing over two cones.

Now, to most other skaters this was fucking childs play, but not for me. I was hella-chuffed that I could ollie this, and kept practicing it, getting better and better, and as I got better I obviously got a lot more confident. Every ollie I popped was an increase in confidence on that old Powell board of mine and I couldn't be happier. I was getting somewhere in this gravity defying game...

...and then I landed wrongly and tweaked my ankle something chronic.

Tweaked? Fuck that, the thing was sprained and swollen. After resting a bit I went back on my board anyway, just to make sure I wasn't too freaked out by the incident, but once I got home and rested the thing blew up to extreme proportions and left me hobbling for a few days.

Once the ankle got better, I figured I'd go back and skate again. It's like what they say with horse riding - if you fall, the first thing you do once you get better is get back on the horse again. So I got back on my board and pushed around for a bit around the park, and tried my old line again.

And I couldn't ollie.

I knew I could do the thing, I'd done a dozen times before the incident, and yet this time I couldn't, because as much as I knew how to do it and knew that I could do it, I also knew how painful that fall was, and I didn't want it to happen again. The whole reason why people manage to pull all the tricks they do on skateboards is not pure skill. Skill can be taught, but being fearless, knowing that there's that chance that you could break something but not giving a flying fuck whether you do or not, you're gonna try it anyway, that's how pro-skaters become pro's. That's how Tony Hawk managed to pull the 900, that's how Danny Way pulled those massive fucking airs and that's how Bam Margera pulls of the stupid shit he does on his TV shows and Jackass. That insane courage and confidence.

I find this whole story apt with how things are going with my life right now. I remember how I approached my work, my passions, everything that I did for the past couple of years: with an insane, don't-give-two-fucks-and-a-biscuit courage and confidence, knowing that I could in all likelihood fuck everything up, knowing that there would be people out there who didn't like my work, knowing that everything could blow up in my face, and yet still steam-roll through like an insane juggernaut, sticking a middle finger in the air at every negativity.

And then I got tweaked. When the shit hit the fan with EffWhyEye it was the biggest emotional tweak I had ever experienced, worse than when I went through the Bad Times after my first job, worse than any break-up or life-shattering piece of news I'd experienced before that moment when life decided to go, "hey, you've had a good run, someone should throw you a curveball, you lucky sonuvabitch!"

I got tweaked, and I've been trying to get back on the skateboard ever since, but it's hard as all hell. The past week has been the worst, and I thought things were just going to keep going downhill after that.

Then, last night, I went out to meet two friends and working partners I hadn't spoken to since the incident and, apart from the immense fun I had chatting with these friends I hadn't seen in four months, I realized something - when the shit hits the fan the way it hit during the tweak, you really find out who your friends are and what kind of reputation you have amongst your peers. I never cared much for rep before, but knowing it ain't too tainted put a smile on my face.

That, and watching Mallrats with the commentary on right after. I swear, that DVD is like taking happy pills.

Malcolm Makes No Choices

Janine held the blade on Malcolm’s neck, her shaking hand causing small slices just above his adams apple. One of her tears dropped on the blade, mixing with the slivers of blood.

“Do you love me?” she trembled. It was the same question she’d been asking since before she pulled the knife out from the kitchen drawer. She repeated again, louder and more determined, the same question again and again,

“Do you love me?”

Malcolm had told her he loved her in the past in numerous occasions. He had said it in so many ways and in an as many languages as he knew. Even now, he knew he could tell her he loved her. Even though he had said it so many times and in so many ways he knew he could think of more ways to tell her those three simple words.

But he had never been asked that question. He had never been asked whether or not he loved her. He had never been asked to make a choice as to whether he did or did not love Janine. That was the problem. A problem he didn’t realize until a few days ago when he discovered something disturbing about himself.

He couldn’t make a choice.

Malcolm first realized what was wrong when he entered his usual restaurant a few days ago. Ordinarily he would have his usual – a roast beef sandwich on white with a side order of fries and a diet coke. He chose this dish a long time ago, when he first entered the restaurant, and liked it so much that he never thought to try anything else.

After a while the waiters realized that he’d always order the same thing that they stopped asking and simply brought him his usual whenever he came in. It became routine. The waiters at the restaurant weren’t going anywhere, it was a family business, and Malcolm never felt the need to eat anywhere else on Wednesdays.

“Hi, there,” asked the waitress, as Malcolm sat down, “can I get your order?”

Malcolm turned, curious. He hadn’t heard those words in a long time. He faced the waitress, a young blonde girl he had never seen before.

“Excuse me?” asked Malcolm.

“What would you like, sir?” she replied.

Malcolm froze inside and simply stared. He had no idea how to answer. He knew he came in to the restaurant to eat, why else would he be there? But he couldn’t answer the question.

“How about if you look at the menu, sir?”

It sounded like a good idea. He flipped the binded laminated pages and everything looked delicious – a vast number of entrees, appetizers, meat dishes and pastas, oven baked goodness and sweet frozen desserts.

But he couldn’t decide.

A beat later another waiter came, someone he recognized.

“Is there a problem?” he asked the waitress. As Malcolm kept flipping through the menu, the waiter told her that Malcolm was a regular.

“I’m sorry about this,” said the waiter to Malcolm, “she’s new.”

“What happened to your sister, Tracy?” asked Malcolm.

“Oh, she went to college. First one in our family to do so.”

“Congratulations,” said Malcolm.

“Thank you. Lisa here just started two days ago.”

The waiter then turned to Lisa and said, “This man here’s been coming to our restaurant for years. He always has the same thing – a roast beef sandwich on white with fries and a diet coke.”

He then turned to Malcolm and asked,” Isn’t that right?”

And Malcolm couldn’t answer.

The waiter waited for a while before asking again, “Would… would you like your usual, sir?”

Malcolm still couldn’t answer.

“Sir? Your usual, sir?”

Malcolm’s lips parted, a faint sound could be heard, as if he was trying his hardest to say something but had forgotten how to speak. The waiter watched, confused, until finally Malcolm said the words.

“I don’t know.”

The waiter turned to the waitress, then back to Malcolm.

“I’ll… I’ll get you your usual, sir.”

The same thing happened throughout the rest of the day, and it bugged Malcolm to no end. When he got into a taxi the driver asked him where he would like to go, and Malcolm couldn’t answer. When a colleague offered to make him a cup of coffee and asked whether he would like it with or without milk he was lost. When the shopkeeper asked him whether he would like a plastic bag for the carton of milk he had bought he felt like he was going to get a migraine. Every single one of these questions he answered with the same thing,

“I don’t know.”

It wasn’t amnesia. That much was certain. When the receptionist at the clients’ office he was visiting asked him who he was and who he was meeting, he answered just fine. When someone asked if he had change for a fifty he gladly obliged. As the day progressed he realized the awful truth.

He couldn’t decide.

It was questions that required decisions and choices that were the problem. He simply couldn’t answer them, he didn’t know how. In short, he didn’t know what he wanted.

He explained all this to his girlfriend, who listened attentively, as she always had. She listened as he told her about how difficult his day was, how it disturbed him, how he couldn’t decide on anything.

“I don’t know what I want anymore, honey,” he said, lying in her arms, “I feel like I don’t know anything.”

Janine gently stroked his hair and said, “it’s ok, Mal… we’ll work it out…”

Her hand through his hair soothed him, and for a moment he thought things would be ok.

“After all,” she said, smiling, “you know you love me, right?”

And Malcolm froze.

Saving Private Sufiah

So I went downstairs today and saw a copy of yesterday's Malay Mail: SUFIAH BARES ALL. The article was about how the young hotshot maths genius Sufiah Yusof went from gaining admitance into Oxford University aged thirteen to now becoming a high-paid escort. To read the full story, you can click here, here and here.

And here's a before and after pic:

The Malay Mail article was based on an article that came out of the 'News of the World' which, as we  all know, is the leading newspaper for information in England (read: sarcasm).

However, this isn't the bad craziness I'm referring to. As far as I'm concerned, discovering that this baby genius turned into an escort is a mild aside at best. She wants to bone, she gets paid for it, and she's not a 20-bob-a-fuck 'busty model' on the second floor of some dingy apartment in Soho. She's an escort. She gets paid the big bucks and can choose not to sleep with her clients if she so desires. There's the moral question, obviously, but she's a big girl, and if this is how she wants to spend the rest of her life, fuck it.

Perhaps she's in denial, perhaps there's a whole psychological aspect to it. After all, her father was the one who pushed her to the limits of her childhood brain with newfangled techniques which involved sticking her in a freezing cold room whilst studying and is now in the docks for being a pederast:

"Her father Farooq Yusof was a pioneer in the scientifically unproven tutoring process called hothousing. He had promised "more Sufiahs" along a production-line process utilizing hothousing techniques. He pleaded guilty in April 2008 over charges of "indecently assaulting two 15-year-old girls while working as a personal tutor""

- Daily Telegraph

So there could be more to this, but that wasn't what got me in a huff. What's bugging me is that there's a 'Save Sufiah' programme, headed by Deputy Minister Datuk Dr Mashitah Ibrahim:

"The Malaysian government is now planning an ambitious "Save Sufiah Programme" to rehabilitate Sufiah and "return her to the right path." Malay Community Association of United Kingdom began funds to support 'Love Suffiah' Campaign. A delegation from Malaysia headed by Ustaz Trimizi Zainal will depart Malaysia on 19th April to treat Sufiah using Islamic Medical practice, as they believe she is under the influence of black magic."

- Credits to quotes here

So the government wants to start a programme, which I assume will cost something, in efforts to save this lost sheep of the flock, purely out of the good will of their hearts and has nothing to do with the severe beatdown the current government is still bruising from after the recent elections. And whilst that's going on, a bomoh's going to be sent off to England to cast out the evil demons that have made this young genius' pussy wet.

Right. That makes sense.

What about the hundreds of prostitutes in our own damn country who didn't have a choice? The ones who were forced into the profession, riddled with STD's and demeaned on an hourly fucking basis? The ones that didn't choose their trade, like Sufiah did? I'm not questioning the occupation, I'm questioning the way these people got into it, and as far as I'm concerned, Sufiah chose to get paid to fuck. Whether that's right or wrong, regardless of whatever disturbing domestic past she had that may have influenced her to take this path, she chose it. She had that power. There are hundreds upon thousands in this country who don't.

But no. We won't set up a task force to save them, we'll set one up to save this one girl who's been in the press in the past and touched so many hearts, who's got her tits out in the News of the World and did so because evil djinns made her punanny tingle with their demon powers. Forget all those other ho's, they're all lost causes, let's save this one!

And what do you think will happen if you force her to come back, because that's what this is: force. She'll be a scarlet woman. Her face is already in the press all over the country, people will know her name, and no amount of tudungs will hide that. Guys all over the area will try and hit on her in the hope that she's just as big a slut back home as she was in England. Hell, I hate to think it, but they'll probably tie her up in alleyways and rape the unholy shit out of her because they'll think she deserves it for being such a superslut, that she likes it like that. It's a disgusting fucking thought, I know, but are you telling me it's not possible? And even if they don't demean her on a daily basis, she'll always be looked down on. There'll be a big neon sign hovering over her tits that says "I used to fuck for large wads of cash" shining bright.

This task force won't help her, and it's not designed to, and that's the sad fucking fact of the matter. It's done for the same reasons as the Black Metal witch hunts and sending Malaysians to outerspace.

It's all good publicity.

Addendum:

I would just like to add that if there's anyone I do feel for in this whole debacle, it's her siblings and mother, and if by some chance they read this post and feel it insensitive, I'll take it down straight away, no questions asked. After all, I do shoot my mouth off quite a bit over here and some of the descriptions could be deemed as... well... way too descriptive and depraved. I can't imagine what they must be going through, seeing their daughter plastered all over the internet and newspapers, and I'm sure they want nothing more than to have her back which, more that ever, makes me feel that the publicity and goverment task forces are nothing but insensitive towards them for bringing this subject to the fore way too much.

Seacrest, out.