My Negara

We have been inundated by statutory declarations after declarations, I'm convinced that if I actually did one declaring that there is indeed a screaming-man-eating-tortoise, someone out there will probably believe me.

And what about all this swearing that's been going on lately? Starting with that dude who swore to have been butt fucked by the guy who just won the by-election recently. And that sort of started the trend. Seems it was cool to take the oath while invoking the name of God or gods or whatever. Then it was scary and dubious looking Second Man who swore he didn't know the Mongolian lady who blew...I mean who got blown to pieces. Twice, it is reported, he did so. And then there's the former chief of ministers who also swore...errr, I don't know why for.

I remember as a young boy, my parents would go ballistic if I said "I swear..." during arguments. My mom would then start quoting from the good book on why it was a grave sin to swear but not before I got a good one across my face. I called mom the night when they aired butt fucked guy swearing on the holy book and asked her what she thought. She just told me to be a good Christian. And I was like...errrr..

What about talks of a new government to be formed by the head honcho of the opposition gang not two weeks from today? And the sudden move by Pak and his own gang lowering petrol price by fucking 15 cents per litre on the eve of the by-election? And along comes scary and dubious looking Second Man threatening to pull the issuing of rebates if the people didn't appreciate their initiative to reduce the peoples burden. And I'm like, my fucking burden is reduced just because 15 cents got slashed from the fucking fuel price? No wonder them morons lost that one.

But I woke up to a beautiful Sunday morning today, switched on the TV and the celebration of independence of Malaya was just getting started in the federal capital. Last night, I was told, here in my home state, we had our own thing...going on...festival...celebration thing. Whatever. Lots of fireworks, I was told.

And at church this morning, we did something different. We sang the 'Negaraku'. I don't know about you but when was the last time you actually sang this one? I felt strangely nice inside afterwards.

I think I love my country. For whatever reasons but its really a shame to have morons running the show.

Picture Story VIII

Chained seat

Incense

Dragons on the roof

Open door

Odd one out

Home

Private Beach

Two Saturdays ago I was at this camping do at a beach in Lundu. At a privately owned beach, that is. Yes, a young friend of mine actually has one to call his own.

And so that Friday night at Ruai, and while I was at my eighth big cats or about 10:00pm approximately, he asked if I wanted to join the rest of the gang for a weekend getaway at his private beach. Wasn't really enthusiastic about going as I had already planned to get super pissed that night and sleep it off the next day. I told him, maybe.

But late that Saturday afternoon Peter, the bigboss man of Ruai called and insisted I had to go. Said I was crazy to miss the women, booze and much herbal constituents which were readily available and abundant at most of our young friend's getaway. I know Pete well and when he talks like this he actually means he doesn't have a ride and he needs me. I gazed towards the heavens and as the weather looked promising then, I agreed.

Peter's a strange person. And definitely not one you can call a regular Joe. I'm a regular Joe. Or Dave...or whatever. He's not. To understand him is as much science as understanding the entrails of, say, a goat. Or that of a screaming-man-eating-tortoise. Consider his unorthodox business approach for instance. Ruai, for some reason, is sometimes closed on a fucking Friday. And on certain days, the place opens at 6:00pm. Which is way too late to fucking start happy houring for me. Come to think of it, Ruai probably is the only pub in the country where customers are made to wait outside for the owner to open it. That is if someone calls him on the phone to remind him that he actually owns a fucking pub. But he redeems himself by allowing some people within the circle, me included, to continue drinking at Ruai until very, very, very, very fucking late like 7:00am. Ok, if thats not strange yet, try googling "Joget To The Moon".

But enough of Pete.

And so, we arrived fashionably late at the beach but by then it had started to rain. And fucking heavily. And the tents weren't even up. That took us about an hour or so to set up but it was good fun. Took us a while to do so because some of us were already...errrrr drunk. Ever tried drinking beer in the rain?

It continued to pour heavily until about ten and while waiting for the rain to stop, we huddled under one of the tents, all 16 of us, for heat and continued with the liver damaging activity. And then someone passed around that pungent smelling mixture of herbs and tobacco which made everyone smile and laugh a lot.

One of the boys, obviously happy and pretty much drunk tried to get a fire going. After a few pathetic attempts the burning of meat eventually started. It was almost midnight and everyone was already hungry. But by then, bodily coordination and common sense among the lot was already diminishing fast and no one fucking cared if whatever was cooking was actually cooked. Which was all good.

I can't remember much now except I woke up at first light. I must have passed out between the hours of 4 and 5. Found myself slumped kamasutra style on a folding chair still wet and staggered round the tents making sure everyone else was alright. I stumbled on a bottle of wine lying on the sand. And that was breakfast.

I found one of the boys, eyes bloodshot from too much of errrr...good stuff, sitting outside his tent and complaining he couldn't sleep. I showed him what I found.

"Breakfast?", I offered.

We walked to a rocky patch near the water where he ranted on how much his God loved him more than anyone else while I listened to the waves coming in and finished the bottle.

It didn't taste good that early in the day.