I'm in Singapore in transit. My ears hurt from the landing. And the annoying woman in front of me had her seat back all flight (even the seat next to her which was empty!). Plus she watched Sweet Home Alabama twice in the same flight, which I can't respect from anyone except Lillian. I need to go to the toilet now.

Idols (but if you don't want to read about Idol, there's more stuff under this...)

Idol is back in full swing. Here’s my quick rundown of it.

Get the two young pretty boys out. They suck. They have no power in their voices and they’re both way too goody-goody.

Ricky is a less gay version of Anthony. Get him out too.

There are three jailbait girls. Reigan is a passable singer but she’s cute so please keep her in. Likewise Lisa who also cute and has a more interesting voice but has absolutely no stage presence. Jessica is alright too but she likes Whitney Houston so I hope she doesn’t last too long either.

Lavina, Emily’s sister, is better looking than Emily but looks like she could bash me up with one arm and she’s just another rnb singer so I hope she goes soon too.

There are three pub singers. Chris is Courtney Murphy’s brother and looks like him except he’s not really fat and has a beard. Mutto should go because he’s nothing special. Damien is my pick of this bunch. He’s a great falsetto and a certain Irish charm about him.

Klancie is my pick of the women. I think she’s the best singer of the bunch but I doubt she’ll go too far on account of her being a country singer.

My pick of all the singers is Bobby. Kinda fugly, but amazing voice. I’d buy his CD.

__________

The Book of Revelation (nothing to do with the Bible)

I saw this movie today. It stars Tom Long, Deborah Mailman, Colin Friels, Greta Scacchi and some assorted naked women. It’s based on a book that I’ve read and loved so I was really keen on seeing this film. The story is about a man who is kidnapped by three women and is used as a sex slave for 12 days before being released. I think the film does the story justice despite having to compress the events of the novel. The script felt a little stilted and stiff at times but the acting overall was quite good.

Recommended but not for the squeamish or prudish.

__________

xtn’s interview with Sandi Thom (in which she doesn’t reply to any of his questions)

xtn: Hi Sandi, you got yourself a very catchy song.

ST: …

xtn: I was wondering, though… why is there a guitarist in your video clip when there are no guitars in your song?

ST:

xtn: Also, I don’t really get your song.

ST:

xtn: I didn’t think punk rockers had flowers in their hair.

ST:

xtn: Are you sure you weren’t talking about folk singers with flowers in their hair? They sang protest songs too.

ST:

xtn: Folk singers. Like Joan Baez. You know…

ST:

xtn: Well, I mean, if you were a punk rocker during '77 or '69 and you had flowers in your hair, wouldn't you be afraid the other punk rockers might want to bash you up?

ST:

xtn: I guess you could have had dead flowers in your hair...

ST:

xtn: Well did you think of other possible titles for your song?

ST:

xtn: Um… like maybe I wish I was a punk rocker (with a safety pin through my nose)?

[Interview aborted]

About living with me:
It's like masturbation except you can do it in front of your own mother

If my memory serves me correctly, we went through this a couple of years ago. It’s people getting itchy feet and changing jobs or going overseas or both. It’s the couples merry-go-round. Either they’re splitting or consolidating. It’s buying property, moving out. Moving elsewhere. It’s buying cars or expensive toys. Or whatever.

It’s happened before.

I think it also happened again two years before that even. So that would make this the third round of quarter-life crises. I think, personally, I felt it most the first time round. Four years ago. After that, I’m just watching.

The cliché goes… there are two types of people in this world – there are doers and there are watchers.

I’ve always been more the watcher.

I guess that’s probably why I’m attracted to writing.

But I also guess that’s why I’ll probably never become a particularly good one.

Five years ago, I took a month-long trip-of-a-lifetime and came back to a deep malaise. And I plodded through it until I turned 24 and snapped. Snapping was a good thing, it turned out. Living at home was also a good thing. It meant I had quite a bit of money stashed away and a big big itch to scratch. So I became a doer for a while. And over the next year or two, things began to fall into place.

The trip had cultivated a renewed level of spirituality in my life, I had willed myself to face my fears and jump out of a plane, I bought a car that I loved (OK, so it was a car I was already driving anyway, but now it was mine!), I bought myself a home and moved into it, I explored (and was given opportunities to explore) possible career advancements and I met someone who I thought, at the time, could have been special.

(In that order.)

But then when things crashed, they crashed quite spectacularly. In a matter of months, I started to get screwed around at work, then was robbed and then dumped.

(Also in that order.)

So I regrouped. I moved back home, found a job that paid no more (but I needed it) and here, now, I’m watching again.

Just sitting. Watching.

While my friends now fret about their future (again), I’m strumming 4 chords and dreaming of becoming the next Jack White.

For far too long now I’ve been craving my own company above all others.

And I’m strangely content while feeling acutely disturbed by it.

If you’re reading this and you’re expecting me to finish off this entry with some sort of call to action, then I’m sorry to disappoint you but that’s just not on the cards right now. I don’t think I’m changing any time soon.

I’m also going on another big trip soon. Real soon But I don’t think this will be anywhere near as catalytic as my last one.

For one thing, I won’t be on my own this time.

Because God knows more time to myself would be the last thing I need right now.

Truth, justice and how scratching one's nose can somestimes lead to full nasal penetration

Introduction

This is something I’ve been meaning to write for a while. But I haven’t gotten around to it and now that I’ve had a bad week at work and I don’t feel like sleeping and I’m stuck on chapter 7 of Magic for Beginners, I think I will.

It refers to one of Beckster’s blog entries. And if you’ve ever read any of my comments on her blog (I would love to start a blog which collects all the comments I write on her blog), you probably have some idea that her writing, to me, is a source of both constant entertainment and constant annoyance. (And you could argue that annoyance is its own form of entertainment.) This is no slight on her or on what she writes. I respect her for her convictions, whether they annoy me or not. And besides, I am simply stating my opinion.

And herein lies my gripe.

Context

To quote:

Censorship is such a distasteful concept, and defeats the purpose of a blog. I thought about whether I should scale back. I thought about whether I’m sorry I wrote what I wrote. I thought about apologising for being honest, on my forum, with my own thoughts. But I’m not. I am sorry I caused distress, but my writing is my own, and isn’t representative of any other moral, social or ethical standard bar mine. I’m not sorry that I have an opinion and chose to express it here. I’m not sorry that my opinion doesn’t agree with everyone else’s and that those who don’t agree with me chose to interpret my writing in the worst possible way. Despite the fact that ‘those’ eople are held near and dear to me and I hurt over the fact that I hurt them unintentionally, I can’t change anyone’s views except my own. I can’t – won’t - pretend I don’t have one.
Tocca’s Orion is not the place for lies.
(Lam, 2006)

Censorship and freedom of speech are two very well-tread roads within the Blogworld. Fitting really, considering the nature of the medium. So I don’t mean to single Beckster out. It’s simply that hers is the latest example and ‘I’m far too lazy to look at and quote from old blogs’ (Harimanow, 2004)

My gripe about this topic is that it invariably ends with some cliched and inane realisation that opinions are what you hold to be truth and you should stand up for truth, integrity, etc. And to me, this is just crap.

Truth is overrated.

Lots of things are overrated.

Actually, anything not underrated is probably overrated.

Anyway, I digress.

Discussion

Self-censorship is not necessarily bad. In fact, it’s often necessarily good.

To illustrate:

If you have thoughts like: "When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things: One part of me wants to take her home, be real nice and treat her right; the other part wonders what her head would look like on a stick." (Kemper, 1973) then you probably shouldn’t be saying that out loud.

You should probably also seek professional help.

It has been my belief for many years that morality is not about an objective right or wrong. Nor is it about a subjective right or wrong. I believe that morality is about feelings.

I would go as far as saying that the notion of natural rights (e.g. a natural human right to live) is nonsense, but that may be beyond the scope of this discussion (although I’m guessing that I’ve gone beyond the scope already).

To take it back into context, how you decide whether you want to air an opinion or not is not really about whether it’s right to do so, or about integrity. It’s simply about care factor. It’s about how much you care about the possible adverse consequences of airing those opinions.

Here’s a thought experiment:

If you strongly believed that Elvis is overrated (well, he’s certainly not underrated…) but you had good reason to believe that if you were to post that opinion on a blog, then a crazed Elvis fan would react to reading it by killing twelve little boys and their pet rabbits, would you still still go ahead and post that?

Ergo, Beckster (and other bloggers – myself included) posts controversial opinions only because she doesn’t think that her doing so will create any kind of consequences that could seriously have an adverse effect on her.

First principles

I would like to suggest that the story of humanity is the constant struggle between a natural compulsion to survive and keep oneself happy, and that niggling voice over your shoulder that you should be nice (i.e. make others happy).

And if you literally have a niggling voice over your shoulder telling you to be nice – again, maybe you should seek professional help.

Every other philosophical moral world view comes from how humans deal with this constant struggle.

Examples:

If there was a linear scale between 1 for self-preservation and 4 for ‘being nice’, hedonism would be a 1 and altruism would be a 4. Pure socialism would be about a 3 and capitalism about a 1.5 or 2 (depending on how extreme). The concept of justice would be smack bang on 2.5 and utilitarianism would be about 2.8. Surrealism would be a throbbing numeral 1, absurdism would be about ­374.9 and feminism would be about butch women with hairy armpits (but hey, that’s just my opinion).

Why this is important to point out is that these concepts (e.g. justice, socialism) are often taken as having intrinsic (and universal) moral value when they really don’t. They’re just compromises. They're ways with which our humanity can handle the eternal struggle between self preservation and being nice.

Being fed or feeding.

Fallacy

It is often the case that a ‘morally good’ principle is really just saying ‘be nice’ but disguised as something much grander.

Example:

‘You shouldn’t pass judgements on people you’ve just met.’

False meaning: human beings are complex creatures and so you shouldn’t presume to know them only from a few minutes of meeting them.

Real meaning: be nice.

Explanation: here’s a thought experiment.

How often do you hear this?

‘I just met Joe Blogs’ new girlfriend. She seems like a bitch.’

‘You shouldn’t pass judgements on people you’ve just met.’

Probably lots of times. But how often would you hear this?

‘I just met Joe Blogs’ new girlfriend. She seems like a really cool person.’

‘You shouldn’t pass judgements on people you’ve just met.’

Probably not often.

This is because the phrase ‘You shouldn’t pass judgements on people you’ve just met’ really means ‘You shouldn’t pass unkind judgements on people you’ve just met.’

Ergo, this is about being nice. Nothing to do with the general passing of judgements at all.

Conclusion

So here's what it all means to the context.

People who claim integrity or any other moral principle to justify their actions (e.g. blog writing) and believe them to be basic and universal, are mistaken, in denial or annoying.

Postscript

I realise that this discussion is incomplete and, in parts, incoherent. My apologies. This is a big subject so no zealous scrawling at 3:25 am on a Saturday morning is going to do it justice.

So please, be nice.

References

Harimanow C, 2004 Zen and the art of blogging Sleepwalker Books Pty Ltd

Kempers E, 1973 Heads on sticks and other fun summer ideas Psychopathic Bastards Publishers

Lam B, 2006 My own private Chinese Tragedy Tocca’s Orion Publications Pty Ltd

by request...

Celebrity men who should hang it up because their best days are far behind them (and are annoying me by sticking around)

Jack Nicholson
Sir Paul McCartney
Jim Carrey

Today's list:
Celebrity women who should hang it up because their best days are far behind them (and are annoying me by sticking around)

Madonna
Demi Moore
Ashley Olsen
Mary-Kate Olsen

My little ode to the Killer



On the weekend I bought a DVD copy of The Killer (I already own a VCD version) and went home to watch it straight away.

So now I want to write about this, because it is in some ways one of the most influential films that I’ve seen. It’s a shame that to most movie audiences outside of Hong Kong, Chow Yun Fat will be remembered for such turkeys as Bulletproof Monk and the Replacement Killers. Crouching Tiger was a fantastic movie but it wasn’t really a Chow Yun Fat movie. And Chow Yun Fat is NOT a martial artist.

It’s a shame because the man had a very impressive body of work during the 80s and 90s that most people aren’t even aware of.

The Killer, in my opinion, represents the apex of the careers of both Chow Yun Fat and director John Woo, and set the standard for countless action movies to come.

This may not be Woo’s most polished (Face/Off) or his most visceral (Bullet in the head) work. And it certainly isn’t Chow’s most accomplished acting role (try All about Ah Long or Prison on Fire or a slew of others). But it is their most iconic work. Watch it and you will see many other post 1990 action films in it. It is the ultimate show of choreographed gunplay and bloodbath reinterpreted as dance.

But like many classic films, it’s not perfect by any stretch. The fashion is horribly outdated (striped suits all around!). The script is overly simplistic by today’s standards. And Woo’s obsession with themes of brotherhood/friendship/male bonding becomes grating at times. (Get over it!)

Watch it, though, if you’re at all a fan of action films or if you want to see why Chow is a huge name in Asia despite his crappy Hollywood films or if you want to see John Woo at his peak. Watch this and you will no longer think of Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez as being original filmmakers.

This is an important film. And now I have a copy to lend out. I’m here to spread the word.

Other Chow Yun Fat recommendations
All about Ah Long (drama comedy)
Prison on fire 1 & 2 (action drama)
God of gamblers (action comedy)
A better tomorrow (action)
A better tomorrow 2 (an exercise in excess)
An Autumn’s tale (romantic comedy)
Hong Kong 1941 (drama)
Once a thief (action comedy)
City on fire (action)

I write more as I think of them.