2012 Part I

This year has been about escalating violence and stupidity. The world didn't end on Dec 21, but seeing what has happened in the world these past few months, I wonder whether it should have.

A young man took weapons to a school, shot and killed 26 people, 20 of them kids between 6-7 years old.

Meanwhile, a 23-year-old Indian woman was kidnapped, raped and beaten, then thrown off a bus.

Her 6 rapists inserted a metal rod into her, either through her vagina or anus, far enough to cause abdominal infection.

And yet she was lucid enough to give a testimony to the authorities that many believe don't really care about upholding the law and protecting the innocent. She died due to her severe injuries.

I read that her ordeal - the rape and the beating - lasted over an hour. And she was just coming out of a cinema. She just wanted to see a movie, as those kids in Sandy Brooks probably were just looking forward to recess.

All this, framed by the war in Gaza.

I see echos here in Malaysia. I'm not the cleanest guy around. In fact, I once grabbed a girl's ass in a pub, intoxicated I was with youth, stupidity and other things. But I do worry for a society - our society - that would say all a woman needs is a dick in her vagina, or that women who dress sexy are just asking for a metal rod shoved up her butt and into her intestines.

It saddens me that religion has been abused to commit these crimes. Gaza, India, the US, even here. Religion has been abused and misinterpreted so that people focus on things like dress codes and periods and semi-magic rituals and spell-casting rather than peace, tolerance, and all the other gay crap.

I mean, in Malaysia, a lot of Muslims are spending most of their 'religion time' to tell other people that they're doing religion the wrong way, like what I'm doing right now. They tell others how they pray, and how some inflections are correct, or they fight over the name of God. For what? Do you really believe God gives a flying fuck?


As a Malay man, I know I can get away with a lot of stuff. A LOT of stuff. I take my business elsewhere, though, in order to ensure I do not descend into becoming those six monkeys in that bus. Does that make me better than you, you might be wondering? I dunno. I never shoved a metal rod up people's asses. Not literally.

It's not about whether I am better or whether you are better. That's purely egotistical. I just wish that we, as a species, have had enough.

On a more personal front, my father's condition has deteriorated. I once witnessed how my grandparents got old and now I am seeing the same thing with my father.

We get old, we get ugly, we lose those things that we think make us who we are, and then we die. Nothing lasts forever.

Even more personal, I was going through perhaps the worst period of the year in the past few months. I felt the dark vibes and there was really nothing more I could do about it other than stand my ground and take care of what I can.

I'm glad 2012 is ending. I got plans for next year, for 2013. I know the what, but have yet to firm up the how and the who.

Best Video 2012

This is the best video of 2012.

Fuck Gangnam Style.

Flu Fighter: There Is Nothing Left To Lose

I woke up, boosted myself with as much vitamin C as I could, pumped up the multi-vitamins, and went to work.

My head felt like it was wrapped in a towel and I just don't give a fuck anymore.

I still managed to do all my tasks, on time and as well as I could. I still honour my work. However, I would be lying if I say that I didn't think of just lying down on a bed somewhere and just give myself an overdose of morphine.

Got an SMS about an assignment at 8pm. There was no one else, so I went to The Curve, packing a 7D and a 9mm semi-automatic.

Met Amir Muhammad who said, "It is better to do something you love than do something else that would get you to spend time doing something you love." And also, "Time is wealth" or some shit.

Went to the assignment, did my shit and went for dinner. I had some soupy stuff cause I could feel the fever getting stronger. Also bought some vitamin C and zinc, cause Neil Gaiman wrote about a character who said his aunt swore on vitamin C and zinc. And also that 'appointments are only by telephone' or some other such nonsense.

I went home around 11pm, feeling shitty as the fever got higher. The Guardian pharmacy at The Curve closes its prescription thing at 7pm, so fuck that shit. I know I need Clarinase or Actifed, but I think I'll get it tomorrow, if I am strong enough to get out of bed.

I know enough of pharmaceuticals to self-medicate. If I go to the clinic tomorrow, the doctors will only give me Actifed, Mucosolvan, maybe Difflam and also Benadryl. Rather, Bena-expectorant - the generic version of Benadryl. I'll also get Bactrim - an antibiotics which treats upper-respiratory tract bacteria. Some overzealous doctors might prescribe flagyl, an antibiotic which treats vaginal bacteria.

All of this are stupid, because flus are caused by rhinoviruses. Yep. Viruses. Antibiotics - something to kill bacteria - would only be for my swollen and possibly infected throat.

But that's just medication for my body. What about my soul? I burned out months ago.

Ah, small matter. I have already put into place certain ideas and things that will grow and the gears will turn, in an unstoppable revolution. Pretty soon, I'll be off on another HIGH ADVENTURE.

By Crom, I shall carve my own kingdom with my two hands and wear my crown upon a troubled brow. I have some time, and I don't give a flying fuck.

Flu Fighter: Learn to Fly

I haven't been feeling well since Christmas Eve, and I fear this sore throat I have will result in me being bed-ridden by the end of the week.

I still need to go to the office, because without me, nothing happens. It pisses and frustrates me that this is so, but it is as it is.

I had a long chat with a friend about equity share last night, and we soon got down to talking about dreams. My friend is almost obsessed with the idea of being great, of having great achievements.

"Do you have any dreams of being great?" he asked, with this hopeful glint in his eyes.

I shook my head.

"My dreams are very modest. I wish to be left alone as I write books. Everything I do - all of it - is simply to buy my freedom and purchase my time from the world so I could sit down and write, not worrying about food, rent or the Internet bill."

And that is the truth. Some people have dreams of whatever. I only want freedom. My friend and I have figured out that to get the necessary funds to retire, working for people is not the best way forward.

Imagine you have a job that pays you RM20,000 a month. Imagine that you spend RM10,000 a month and manage to save - in a Herculean effort, RM10,000 a month. At the end of the year, you would have RM120,000. Now, being humans, and this is especially true for Malays, you may take RM20,000 and buy shit you don't need, like a vacation, hookers, pay your mistress, get a big bouncing car, rims or splash it on bullshit.

That leaves you RM100,000. You need to work 10 years to hit RM1 million. And then, to reach my goal of RM2 million, that's 20 fucking years.

And what do you have to do, in order to earn RM20,000 a month? How many asses do you have to kiss? How many idiots do you have to tolerate? Who do you have to kill in order to get RM20,000 a month?

I'm not making RM20,000 a month right now. And I am the greatest mind of the 21st Century. Who the fuck are you? A politician? A liar?

Things that hold me back are my code of ethics which I follow simply because I do not wear a turban or pretend to be pious. If I pretended to be pious, I assure you I could fuck as many 12-year-olds as I could ever want - I just don't want to because I am not a pedophile.

I know more about religion than anyone I know. I know more about Islam than PAS people. I know more about Christianity than most people, and I know enough of Buddhism to tell you that 'Buddhists' in Malaysia have combined Buddhism with ancestral worship.

Buddha was not and is not a God. He never claimed to be one. The word Buddha simply means 'the enlightened one', which is very similar to Jose Mourinho calling himself 'the Special One'.

I retain 70% of what I heard and learned. People try to lie to me constantly, but my mind is like a tape recorder with detailed minutes of each conversation. This is why I hate liars. I can never work with liars. SO fuck liars.

I am embarking on the next stage of my journey in 2013. I don't know where it will take me. I just know enough that I will fall into depression again if I am not working towards my one true goal - freedom.

Kamen Rider Decade

Next year, in May, I will celebrate my 10 years in the industry. I have been in the media for 10 years.

I often compare notes with engineers, lawyers and the occasional sales people from outside my industry to better understand the world we live in.

A lot of my close friends have left the country, as I mentioned in previous posts. I sometimes wonder, why am I still here? Whenever I get depressed with Malaysia, I would seek out jobs with the UN. Their pay scale is rather attractive and I have always been interested in saving the world, having suffered from a superhero complex stemming from guilt since I was 17.

When I was 17, I finally realised that my high school was a hotbed for abuse and a small social experiment oh what the world would be like if it was run entirely by men, superstition and a compliance to an imagined authority. I felt guilty for not knowing that I was part of such a hellish system, so I developed a superhero complex.

It's not been an easy life, but I am not here to whine.

I focus on the present so I could safeguard the future. So I look to the past for lessons learned. In this past 10 years, I have learned that everywhere is the same. I constantly meet the same people over and over again. The same TYPES of people, doing practically the same thing.

The only way for me to effectively change my environment from unwanted elements is to establish control of that environment. Most humans in Malaysia shirk responsibility. They don't want to decide, or take ownership of anything. I don't know where the fear comes from, but it is distinctly Malaysian.

In terms of skills and knowledge, I have always busied myself observing how people work. My degree was in computer science, not mass comm or public relations, so in order to understand anything, I needed to shut up and observe.

One of my first editors convinced me that all the basic skills in journalism are simply common sense, and that common sense can be applied to any position, any task and any sort of work. I threw myself into lots of unfamiliar territories in the past decade, showing no fear - sometimes unwisely - and getting a whole bunch of mixed results. I've had some unbelievable successes and heart-wrenching failures, and sometimes I imagine that I have learned from those things.

In the first two years of my career, I accumulated debt. Credit cards fucked me up. Actually, I fucked myself up using credit cards to buy comic books. I used to spend anywhere between RM200-500 a month on comic books. It took me five years to pay off my credit cards. Three years to procrastinate, and two to do something about it.

I worked like a motherfucker for a year, during a period when I had  insomnia, and managed to pay off everything.

I used to take on any jobs, simply because I wanted to learn how to do things. I've never been afraid of hard work, in my youth, and saw those extra tasks as an opportunity to improve myself by acquiring more skills and knowledge by doing things.

Nowadays, growing older, I know I can't do anything and everything that's pushed my way. I need to choose and at this stage, I believe I can choose.

I come from the swamp, so I consider myself very lucky to have lasted this long in the big city. I also made and stuck with the decision to avoid drugs altogether. Drugs fucked up some people in my hometown. I knew then that if I were to do the same, knowing my addictive personality and my tendency to overdo things, I would be dead in three months.

Some people think I took drugs to write. Bitch, please. This is real talent right here. I'm not Lance Armstrong. Wank wank!

I did suffer from insomnia, though. It wasn't good at all.

Anyway, in my 10 years, which is not even half the experience with some people I work with, I have managed a tour of the media industry which included everything from newspapers, magazines, TV, film and now social as well as new media. The only medium I have never worked with is radio.

As for personal development, I have found my spiritual whatever in the non-magic texts of orthodox religions. I really have a problem when people treat religion as some sort of Harry Potter Magic Textbook or grimoire. I don't believe in magic. I just don't. I think that is abusing and misusing what religion was originally intended for - a manual to calm the fuck down.

Some humans need religion to keep them from being animals - stupid, evil and/or greedy. The Jewish beliefs have this thing called the Tree of Sefirot, which lists God, Angels and Humans as three levels of being. The tree has branches and each branch represents an attribute or feature for each of the three.

Some traditional religions have 'enlightenment stages' such as the arhant, the boddhisativa and the Buddha.

In Islam, I believe a lot of the things are philosophical and are in line with most other faiths. However, the closed nature of most Muslims have made these similarities less obvious, in an attempt to feel special or victimised, or special due to being victims.

Oh well. Fuck that.

I better get some sleep, or I might develop insomnia again.

Tales from the Drunk Side: COCKs, DICKs and PENISes.

As we all look towards the end of the year and the start of a new one, I begin to wonder as well as plan for next year's activities.

I am doing way too much, so I am thinking of stopping some activities to allow proper focus on others.

I believe that it is time for me to stop writing other people's scripts and focus entirely on my own stories, for film. I have so many stories to tell and not enough of a lifetime to write them all. I want to write novels next year.

I am also planning to go into business properly and set up another company. I believe that in my lifetime, I will probably set up three companies in my lifetime, and this would be the second after the first one in 2006.

I believe I also need a new acronym for my role. Something along the lines of Professional Expert on National Information Services (PENIS). I find it hilarious if such an acronym for that position is made commonplace. Corporate people love their jargon so .

PBT, EBITDA, ARPU, ROI, PATAMI, CEO, COO and the like. Why not PENIS?

"I need to send this report to the PENIS!"

"Hello, I would like to speak to your PENIS. It's regarding the budget."

"The PENIS is entirely responsible for the execution of this project, so all of you fuck off."

Or maybe DICK - Director of Internet Communications and Knowledge.

"Amir Hafizi is the best DICK in town."

"What do you do for a living, Amir?" "I'm a DICK, bitch!"

Or how about COCK? Consultant - Online Communications and Knowledge.

"What are your qualifications?" "I'm the best COCK in town, bitch!"

"Oh My God! Our company needs your help right now. I need to speak to your COCK!" "Here I am, bitch." "Oh My God! Oh My God! Oh My Godddd!"

I also plan to lose another 20kg, after I shake off this depression. Am not really that depressed anymore, after I figured out what I want and need to do.

The first is always the 'what'. Money. Novels. Films. Whatever. Next comes the 'how'. Execution, operations. I've always been a 'how' guy and I respect people who have huge respect for their work. I also take processes seriously, with the ultimate aim of improving them by eliminating steps in any and all processes. I am not impressed at all by conmen and liars because they always do and say stupid things and expect you to believe them, thinking you are as stupid or stupider than them.

I am also equally annoyed with people who believe just because they lie, I would as well. I have never told a lie. I have used smokescreens and omission of details or manipulated the timing of information, but have never told an outright lie.

For example, knowing the stalking nature of people who think social media is a great source for insight into verbose and expressive people like me, I have bombarded the Internet with non-vital information about myself. Yes, I have filled it with shit. If it really matters, why would I put it up?

I have never even uploaded a picture of myself on anything public. All of my pictures on Facebook, for example, were taken and tagged by other people, sometimes with smug superiority that they could take a picture of me. I have been very careful not to release any details out, but some people are just pathetic. I said some, so don't think it's you, it's the other ones.

I have also had my photo taken by a few homosexuals who believe I am one of them. One of them constantly calls me at 4pm every day last week. I don't know why, because 4pm is when some meetings occur and I had to to tell them to call me at another time. While I owe some training to gay people and am indebted to them for many things, I am afraid I am not gay.

Nothing wrong with gay people. In fact, I believe in supporting homosexuality, which means reduced competition for heteros like me, as well as more hot lesbian action.

Anyone and everyone who have ever tried to manipulate me are all dead. Figuratively. I no longer think about them. They simply do not exist.

I have met and am meeting some extremely smart people, and with it comes a different challenge.

Oh well.

I will cut my teeth with cold, hard business, with an aim of retiring, realistically, before I'm 40. The stretch target is before 35.

I have learned a lot about humans in my nine year career in the media. Most of the time, I prefer machines. There is only one breed of humans I do not understand - idiots. My process is to get into people's heads and find out how they work, how they see things and why they do what they do. With idiots, if I replicate the process, I am afraid of doing the same with their inferior, animalistic brains.

I lump racists, masochists, chauvinists, Femi-Nazis, freeloaders and the insecure in the same category as idiots, perhaps idiots as their genus and each a different species of the same shit.

The insecure fucks have made quite a splash in my world this year. I understand that the sheer capacity my brain holds, and my giganormous talents (with an 'S') would cause any person with a well-developed ego to shake in their knees, but some things are getting ridiculous.

I mean, talentS such as my own only exists once in a millennium  I am the greatest mind of the 21st Century. I just need to focus on what I want to do, and I am very confident that it will be done. Or not. An enlightened genius such as myself would not bother with past failures other than as 'things to avoid doing' later on, in future projects.

I am a gift to the world. You are not. Learn to live with that. And suck my dick.

The Last Dinosaur

 Caption: PICTURE IS UNRELATED

My family is in town.

I spent some time with them today, at a hotel somewhere in the middle of the city. I could barely manage the time, because there are loads of work that still needs to be done.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm the only concerned about work. But that's another story, for a tell-all book that would wrap up this trilogy I have inside my head.


I took leave for today and Monday, in the hopes of recalibrating my workload and regroup, mentally. These past six months have been wrought with constant change, just not in the way I want.

My family being here is also putting my stress levels through the roof. I find no enjoyment from family. I don't believe families are necessary and I find it hard to understand why humans want to imitate viruses.

I had an argument with a teacher, once, about the polural form of viruses. She said it was virii, and I said it was viruses because going by her logic, it would mean that the plural for buses would be bi, throwing the meaning of the word bisexual as someone who likes to fuck buses.

Coming from a family of teachers, I know about the Malaysian Education System more than the average Malaysia. I found out that we are adopting the failed American system, with none of the things that work.

Nowadays, students are assigned 'bands' which are skill sets. You progress by showing you can fulfill certain skills as defined by 'bands'.

The problem is, some schools might lie, saying "Oh yes, our students can read Shakespeare or Shaxbird or some shit." when in reality, those kids might not even be able to spell 'chicken' as anything other than 'KFC'.

At its heart, the band system should wean students off the convoluted and outdated exam system, the British curriculum, which is Latin for 'chariot horse' because students race to see who scores higher to get into pole position.

I've often believed that those who score in the bottom 2 percent should be shot or chemically castrated, so as not to spoil the gene pool with such inferior minds. I deal with idiocy everyday, especially at queues because some monkeys have yet to learn that society and the social contract breaks down when you become selfish and a burden to others.

I have refused to allow idiots get in my way, but I am sensing that even our top people enable idiocy so as to ensure political victory.

I have no faith in the future, with the economy, education and society developing as it is. I also find Malaysians turning into a spoiled, namby-pamby nation of howler monkeys. But that's just me, the old man, the last dinosaur.

I hope, in the next few months, to secure a change of environment because I feel the current one has become mean-spirited, cold and bleak.

Whatever

As a high-level functioning sociopath, I am not surprised at all that I fell into depression, AGAIN.

Being the greatest mind of the 21st Century means I am well aware of everything, including - especially - the bad stuff. I understand the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. Like The Shadow.

Once, years ago, I made a wish that I would understand people. That wish was granted, and like Martian Manhunter, I was overwhelmed by the erratic, dark thoughts of humans.

Depression impairs my ability to write and I find myself falling behind writing deadlines. However, while my work in creative projects suffer, depression also pushes my mind into other parts of problem-solving.

I see now what I must do to solve one of my outstanding issues - how to get RM2 million and retire quickly before I become one of them. One of the lifers. Before I lose all interest in creating things and just maintain stuff. Before I get swallowed by the machine.

Most people don't understand that the only thing I have ever wanted to do was and is to write. I tolerate other things so that I can afford to. Writing is not that profitable here in this country, and writers often have to take on day jobs so they could write what they like during their free time.

Trust-fund babies and rich people don't count. It's the swamp-rats like me who have pushed and pushed so that we could find some time to practice our craft. And not starve doing it.

I once tried to get some writers together so we could form a union like the Screenwriters Guild of America. However, only three people showed up. None of us wanted to sacrifice our time from writing to do the necessary evil of organising everyone into one strong and solid hammer.

Everyone works in solitude, and every writer stands alone. Forever and always.

Oh well.

I know of several endings to the path I walk, and I have enough balls to inch my way ever so closer to my goal - freedom from money and financial bondage so I could write whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want to, however I want to do it.

And for the first time in personal history, I'm doing this entirely for myself.

Drama! Komm, Susser Tod

Readings Somewhere in CM

Tonight, I went for the KL launch of Readings from Readings 2 - a short story compilation of some pieces read at the Readings series which is now being held at Seksan's.

Seksan's is a gallery of sorts somewhere near Lucky Garden, Bangsar. I would suggest Special Branch officers to go there and spy on rogue elements of society and what they do - read and write, mostly, with the occasional poet rhyming now and then.

My piece, Scenes of the Father - perhaps the only piece I ever read in the event series - is included in the collection. I wrote it because I - as always - foolishly said yes to anything ever offered to me, except drugs and anal sex.

The piece is about growing up with my weird family. All families and everyone is weird, but I guess my childhood can be a bit strange, at times.

Anyway, I went there with my sister and read a sample of the piece. I found myself  surprisingly nervous, even amidst a crowd who mostly have read my writing and haven't thrown any rotten eggs at me so far.

Three girls even came up to me at the end, and I told them to add me on Facebook.

Now I'm back home, too tired to do more. And tomorrow is another day, filled with twists and turns in the corporate world I'm living in right now.

One day, maybe next year, I will finish my novel, hopefully novels. One of them, I plan to write in the style I did with the piece in the collection.

For now, it's back to my day job and my commitments on some creative outside projects.

I think I'd need to take some days off, after I delegate a lot of the stuff I am taking care of personally.

Just Wanking

Next year, I will celebrate the 10th year anniversary of working. It has been 10 years? Really? That long?

Next May or June, it would be 10 years since my first story was published in the newspapers. The first one was the cover of Nuance.

The only thing I have spent more time on was my primary and secondary education, which lasted 11 years.

The 9-year journey has been filled with adapting and applying myself to new and unheard of things. One of my old editors told me that all the basic skills of journalism can be used to do anything. To learn and master anything.

When you take on a job, what is the first thing you need? Knowledge and skills. Skills, come from practice. It comes later. Knowledge, you would definitely need.

You acquire knowledge from information. If you don't have information, you need to get it. That's what journalists do - we get information. This is how I found myself moving from the swamp, to running a magazine, sections in a newspaper and then on to new media.

I am currently traversing the frontiers of the digital age, all the while honing my people skills - definitely my biggest weakness in my 20s. I was a robot, most of the time. I knew I had a huge capacity for emotion, which scared me.

I was too intense, and that intensity could burn through anything. Running away from it is not a solution, though. I needed to be okay with it. I needed to ride it and make sure I control it, and not the other way around.

Oh well. I just have one goal now - to retire. To be able to afford retirement, which would cost me RM2 million at the very least.

The only way I believe this would happen is if I get on the New York Times best-seller list. This is not an impossible notion, as I am confident of my writing. I just need the time to apply myself.

Right now, I am swamped with deadlines - mine and other people's - that I can't even take two days off to sleep properly. But the time will come. It's a marathon, not a sprint, and pacing myself now will pay dividends later on.

I see things from many different angles, and I try to keep myself a few steps ahead. I already know most of the outcome of this week. If I'm wrong, I'll be pleasantly surprised. Such is the advantage of being a pessimist - though I must say I also ensure it doesn't get to me.

Some things will be published or launched this week. SO wait, also, for the good news.

For honour! And vagina!