Channel: Astro Ria (04) Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Time: 10:30:00 PM Episode 03 - DEATH ROW (Synopsis):
A stark, violent prison drama/thriller set in an imaginary Southeast Asian country ... and beyond the grave. A brutal guard inflicts hell on the inmates, but hellbound is the one who remains unrepentant for his sadism. Directed by Cyberjaya-award winning filmmaker Tony Pietra. Written by FINAS award-winning scribe Allan Koay. Music score by AIM-award winning electro-rock artist Rabbit. Starring Ahmad Bahiki, Rosdeen Suboh, Bront Palare, Johann Lim, Salman Roehner, Johan John, Amir Shahlan.
Re-runs of DARK CITY: DEATH ROW for this week (in case you miss it):
DATE . . . . . . TIME 28-Jun-2007 . . 4:30:00 AM 28-Jun-2007 . . 5:30:00 PM 29-Jun-2007 . . 5:00:00 PM 30-Jun-2007 . . 10:00:00 AM 1-Jul-2007 . . . 3:00:00 AM
Received an SMS this morning about my last post. Reviewed it and decided that it sounded waaaay too harsh on someone, which was not my intention. I'm keeping the last post as it is, because that's the reason I'm keeping this blog - as a pseudo-journal, verbal snapshots of my life and thoughts - so there must have been some reason it came out the way it did. Struggling to sound coherent and intelligent at 5am might be one of them.
So to clarify: it was not meant to be a criticism on our choreographer, whom I hold in good esteem and genuinely like as a person. I do believe that he is trying his best in a restricted and restrictive environment. I am railing against that environment, which I foresee will result in an experience not too unlike BB last year. Actually I think the ensemble will play an even smaller part than last year, which is more saddening. The addition of many dancers is to increase the amount of movement in the show, but it appears that the movement will be limited to the dancers - THAT is the biggest source of frustration to me that I want to get out of my system.
There is another source of frustration that I cannot seem to put my finger on. Too much like BB? Too little progress? Rehearsals too repetitive? I really don't know right now. Maybe I'm just tired.
The segregation thing still stands though: I do think that he shouldn't create/widen the gap between the dancers and non-dancers.
I will take the advice on the latter part of the SMS and have a word with him.
Yes yes shock horror multiple updates so fast wtf is going on. Just dumping thoughts, emptying the warehouse to use a Mastery metaphor or draining the teacup to use a Zen metaphor.
A lot of observations came today, though not too many of them are useful. Anyway we're almost through our 2nd month of rehearsals now, and we're still working on some of the same ol' shit. Still hearing some same ol' shit in terms of feedback for improvement, which I'm sure is a source of frustration of the production team.
Dance
Frankly, I'm quite disappointed with the choreography so far. There hasn't been much and though there's a massive obstacle in the guise of Joe Hasham's preference for stillness and minimal unnecessary movement (not saying that dance is unnecessary movement; fact is, dance as a singular form is a complete communication through movement - in a musical however, movement is just one of the means of communication which can distract from the others if not clearly performed), I would think that there would be more effort and thought put in than what's been so far.
Fine, chances are high that the director will put his foot down and remove non-kickass movement. Fine, quite a number of us are malcoordinated and can't dance to save our own lives and anything else at stake. Keep trying, dammit! After the first couple of weeks where we regularly learned new stuff to try to fit in, there was practically minimal new stuff done. Hell, we just (fucking finally) added new movement to the 3rd song we learned after about a month! This song especially annoys me because we spent that month wondering what the hell to do during the song. I AM thankful that I do have a dancing role during that song, which makes it really cool (yes I am one of the more coordinated ones).
What disappoints the most is that segregation is promoted by the teacher of the ASWARA students. Not explicitly, but 1) he tends to focus all choreography on them only and 2) he tends to talk to them WHILE the Director and Musical Director talk to us. #2 bothers me a LOT because it sends many wrong messages out: a) what they have to say isn't so important, b) it's ok to talk while they're talking, c) what they're saying doesn't affect us dancers, and d) we dancers are different to them singers/actors.
Anyway. End of the day, Joe's sharp eye will ensure only the best shit remains, so it'll be highly entertaining and should look awesome. And end of the day personally, I just wish I could be the one doing all that prancing about and posing.
Acting
Someone said something absolutely horrifying today. Horrifying because it said all the wrong things about this person, or maybe horrifying because they're not untrue. When asked why he acted a particular part in that way, he responded with a "I don't know, Joe didn't say anything." In this context, that translates to "I'm too lazy to think for myself or to observe the scene to make sense of my part in it, I'll just wait for the director to tell me what to do." 1) This is a nightmare scenario for a director as the director doesn't want to do all the thinking himself (leveraging on the many brains of the cast and crew is a real asset that directors count on). 2) These are possibly the only non-sung lines for the ensemble in the whole Act 1, so squander them at thy own peril. 3) This person is a graduate of Joe's Acting for Beginners class, which means that he should know how Joe works and what his expectations are.
Singing
I've come a loooong way from a year ago. I've grown confident and comfortable with my singing voice and my ear, which is truly quite a wonderful feeling. I come from a past where doing things wrong or bad was an embarrassment worse than being taken down by a chihuahua, so coming to a point in my development where I can risk making mistakes and not let that faze me is pretty cool. Pretty damn cool, really - for some reason I had always told myself that I couldn't sing, so that's a great belief to beat the shit out of. I almost cracked up when someone referred to me as "one of the singers from the cast".
I know that my vocal journey is barely beginning - I'm just starting to pick up the nuances that can be affected by all the various little things you can do with your voice. Yes yes I keep telling myself that too - I need to find a vocal coach.
Very interestingly someone recently mentioned that the ASWARA dancers sing well (for the most part) and most importantly, one cannot fault their sense of timing. I experienced this firsthand when I went for a dance rehearsal at ASWARA (Padang Merbok, which is super-old-school-KL and practically next to Bank Negara) when they had no music accompaniment. Flawless timing, nice lesson in humility for me actually as I thought I had near-perfect timing. They do sing reasonably well (with one or two exceptions), the biggest shame is that quite often they don't hear the feedback from the Musical Director (see above).
Production
First, the questions I ask that shall remain unanswered (I don't care for the answers, whatever they may be): why do we have such a large cast? Why are there so few great singers? Why are there so many malcoordinated tone-deaf members? Why have we done so little work on Act 2 so far? Why the obsession with neatly-arranged shoes? Who keeps bloody wearing my sandals?
Now this is the first production that I've been in (or heard of) that has the stage manager 'discipline' the cast. Perhaps it's handy, perhaps it's necessary. It's bloody annoying. It's distracting for the people who do pay attention to have someone constantly going "shut up", "keep quiet" and "sshhh!" Well, live and let live. I'll live with it and I'll let him live.
Opportunities
In the end, what counts as much as giving your all for the production is what you did over the time of the production (including rehearsals) - how you'd grown, what you learned, how you developed, who you met. I'm very glad to work with dancers this time round as they really opened up my mind on dance in Malaysia, our National Arts Academy and the human body. How important habit, practice and discipline are! Stretching, conditioning, moving moving moving.
It's also a pleasure working with this production team, so much to learn and so much experience - Joe, Faridah, Mervyn. Gen, I really think we so take you for granted. You might be the best accompanist in the country and we don't even know it. You kick ass lah! And of course, it's a great pleasure working with the gundus from BB before, with the wide assortment of characters - jokers, dumbasses, pseudo-divas, mean girls, makciks, bitches. Not to say that there aren't characters in the cast who weren't in BB - we're steadily growing the nickname list.
With such a wide pool of talents, I think one would be a fool to waste such a golden opportunity to further develop one's skills over the course of Tunku. Writers, actors, comedians, musicians, dancers, singers, talk show hosts, MCs, playwrights, yoga masters, directors, producers. Okay okay fine drug-pushers, but that's barely a skill. That's only counting those in the arts.
Damned fool of fools
For me, arrogance is the most repulsive trait one could have. Especially snobbish arrogance. Now I don't often judge people too quickly, especially if my first impression is negative. When someone annoys me at first impression, I give them multiple chances at redeeming that bad impression and they usually give me some reason to like them. But when someone proceeds to ignore my greetings twice in a day LIKE A LAN SI FUCKWIT, I bequeath upon thy baleful dickhead (that's penis for a head, not bell-end of the cock) the honorary title of Certified Wanker Unworthy of An Iota of My Time, Attention or Piss. That abbreviates roughly into CWUAINT, which approximates quaint, an ancient way of saying Cunt. An Ancient Cunt in my ancestral tongue is a Lau Chi Bai, which for artistic purposes (the aesthetic beauty of rhyme, obviously) we shall expand into Chow Lau Chi Bai, a Smelly Ancient Cunt. Which converts beautifully into the 3-letter acronym SAC, as in the thing men keep their balls in.
It's not often I dislike someone so much as to spend so much time conferring such a great honour, but the look on his face the two times I greeted him just... grated. Nails on blackboard. Polystyrene on polystyrene, for me. Dentist's drill on tooth. Yappy chihuahua. It evokes nature's basest responses - MurderDeathKillEradicateAnnihilateEliminateDestroy.
Anyway. I shall spend no more energy (or piss, as mentioned in the certification) on him. Remove all negative influences in your life for better living, it is said.
NICHE FILMS present DARK CITY, a local 13-episode series playing on Astro RIA every Wednesday at 10:30pm (followed by repeats throughout the week).
In the tradition of omnibus shows like ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and THE TWILIGHT ZONE, DARK CITY brings you various tales of the macabre with a distinctly Malaysian flavor ... ranging from supernatural horror to psychological thrillers, and black comedies to noir-ish suspense.With a roster of local cutting-edge directors such as Khai Bahar, Keith Chong, Johan John, Virginia Kennedy, N'aa Murad, Tony Pietra, and Rob Nevis, DARK CITY aims to break new ground in Malaysian TV dramas.
So if you're looking for a full 30 minutes of homegrownthrills and chills , give DARK CITY a chance ... you might be in for a surprise!
In the next episode of DARK CITY (Wednesday/June 27, 10:30pm, Astro RIA):
DEATH ROW: A taut prison thriller set in an alternate Southeast Asian country ... and beyond the grave. Directed by Cyberjaya-award winning filmmaker Tony Pietra (and live-action director on the AIM-award winning Pete Teo music video LOST IN AMERICA) and written by Allan Koay, with a score by AIM-award winning electro-rock artist Rabbit. Starring Ahmad Bahiki, Rosdeen Suboh, Bront Palare, and Johann Lim.
The week after:
CELLPHONE: A tale of showbiz murder with our favorite daily gadget as the centerpiece. Written and directed by the Anugerah Skrin Award-winning Khairil M. Bahar (CIPLAK).
Yes, a break in the chain of QotDs! 'Bout bloody time eh?
Tons of shit to put in, so this'll be long.
Tunku & Acting
Tunku's in the 2nd month of rehearsals now, with us meeting 5 times a week (6/week next month!) for 30mins breathing, 1hr dancing and 2hrs singing (with minor variations). It's quite a change from Broken Bridges - a more sombre, more mature play. In fact it makes BB look like a silly hee-hee-ha-ha affair (it wasn't, but the many laughing memories of it stay) - it tackled father-son relations, the whole subject of old-vs-new, morality of who decides what's better or worse, filial piety, responsibility, etc. This one, so far, handles racism, the responsibility of power, politics and playing the "good public image" game. Very VERY much focused around race and politics, which sadly are underdiscussed issues in this wonderful country that's so dominated by these 2 affairs.
I got myself a chance to work with Tony Pietra again on a series called Dark City. See the next blog entry about it, I'm in the episode called Death Row showing this Wed 10.30pm on Astro Ria (yes it's in Malay). I don't say a word but a previous entry depicted how I end up. Halfway through the show.
Also got to work with some graduates of Joe Hasham's recent Acting for Beginners on a film called Unsecured Loan. Don't know too much details as yet but currently no commercial release planned, with the intention of entering it for some film festival. The fact that this damn film happened at all is quite miraculous (if you're of that bent) - or at the very least, demonstrates the sheer power of intention. Julie (hat's off to you!) finishes class, wants to do a project with her coursemates; posts entry in Kakiseni's audition page requesting for: actors (preferably Joe's graduates), scriptwriters, production team. Yes, it also reads as: I don't got nuthin', let's everybody get together and see what happens. Sheer poetry. Coincidentally, I end up working with an ex-primary schoolmate. Again (Horizons last year).
Lastly, in another play called Tari Canggung Hamidah. Yes, it's in Malay (eh my name IS Malay after all, innit mate?) and yes I do have lines in Malay, though thankfully few and straightforward. Thankfully because, even though I'd relish the challenge of upping my standard of Bahasa, the play runs in under 2 weeks. Yes, crikey bikey - 4th July at Shah Alam. Yes, wtf. It's for the Selangor Theatre Fest lah, so should be a good experience whatever happens.
Agel
A new product has come in for Agel from another network marketing company (starts with an S) and it absolutely kicks ass. Here's a quick video (2.5 mins) with the doctor who invented it talking about it. In short, it's anti-aging, a natural viagra, lowers cholesterol and is meant to build muscle. Watch it:
Or if you prefer it direct, here's the YouTube link.
Books
Jack Canfield's The Success Principles. Kickass compilation of most of the best books out there. Packed into an easy-to-read volume divided into 10-minute chapters with memorable quotes and immediate action steps. Highly recommended.
Paul Zane Pilzer's The Wellness Revolution (revised edition)is a great insight into an massively growing industry - what makes it especially great is that the 1st edition was written in 2002 and this edition was written in 2007, and updates the relevant issues that cropped up in between. Quite a number of chapters is US-focused, so doesn't quite make sense here. But his economist background and his experience and his brains (he's a damn smart fella) provides great ideas and perspective into upcoming opportunities in wellness. Exciting stuff.
David Deida's The Way of the Superior Man was a book I bought and read quite some ago, and for some reason (yes yes there's no such thing as coincidence) I recently picked it up again. Wonderful stuff lah, such
May 13th (read more) is a brave publication that really should be read by every Malaysian - it provides an almost factual account of what really happened, with its main crux the drive for honesty, accountability and mature discussion about possibly the darkest event in our history. Can be quite dry at times, as its biggest feature is the documents recently declassified (under the Official Secrets Act in Her Majesty's government), which contains communiques from diplomats and journalists at the time of the event.
The Malaysian Journey (buy from Silverfish; comments from Amazon) has been republished and is an excellent read. Rehman Rashid is wonderfully witty, erudite and perceptive, and his observations are truly enjoyable. He basically takes us through a journey of his life and of his country after quite some time away and talks about his experiences. Highly recommended.
I really should start writing proper reviews of these books. An idea I've been having is to write up reviews and post up snippets of the reviews with a tag, "if you want to read the full review, please contact me for details on purchasing it" or something like that. Has anyone tried/seen it before?
Writing
Writing for Malaysian Today has been interesting so far - my first article should come up next week (it's about social networking sites). Interesting because it's all so bloody new to me - how it works is that I'm meant to pitch a headline (The Power of Racism!) with a standfirst (The Ku Klax Klan did it. Hitler did it. Here's an ultimate guide for the supremacist who wants to wave a keris in Parliament!) to the editor, who then provides feedback and a deadline. Irony is that I usually shake my head at some of our headlines and now I'm the one who'll be providing them. Also, I've never 'sold' my writing before so yes, quite out of my comfort zone.
Asset Trader, on the other hand, has been wonderfully smooth sailing. Editor really likes my writing and it tends to be he asks, I provide and there's little extra work to be done. First print's in August, looking forward to seeing how everything comes out.
An idea I've recently been toying with is doing boardgame reviews. Seeing as I've become a regular at The Mage Cafe (next to Atria in Damansara Jaya, again mentioned here [damn I'm still doing the same damn things!]) and they've a massive supply of these games, why not? I'm thinking of designing some kind of system to review such that regular readers can follow and get to know a lot of the game (and decide whether or not to buy it) from the review. Any feedback?
China - battle for territories and connections between them. Strategic fun.
Puerto Rico - balancing the right strategies toward victory. Second-guessing what other people will do and playing that to your tactical advantage. Great fun.
Caylus - balancing the right strategies toward victory. Many many factors to take into account make this quite a brain drain to play.
Dis-X - simple rules but quite a lot of fun. A numbers game that requires you to calculate the ramifications of your actions far ahead to play well. I think... haven't discovered the nuances of the game yet.
Manila - very much a gambling game where every round hinges a lot on the dice. Good simple fun though.
HeckMeck (yes, also known as Pickomino) - no-brainer fun, very dice dependent.
The Great Dalmuti - a variant of Chor Tai Tee. Additional rules make it fun (in a silly way - loser has to wear a chicken hat and sit on the floor, that kinda thing). Ingenious - another Mensa game (Blockus being the other) which has simple rules but complex strategies. Good fun without being too mentally taxing.
Settlers of Catan - brilliant game, there's a great reason why it's called a 'gateway' game. It's simple enough to entice non-gamers, yet complex enough to keep people playing past their 100th game. Quite dice-dependent though.
Hooked on boardgames man. They're so superior to video games in that 1) they usually require some brain power and 2) they require social interaction. I'm sure that the reason my mind has such an able grasp on strategic games was because I played boardgames when I was a kid (thanks Jee Koh). Parents, get some boardgames and start playing them with your kids! TV and videogames provide poor fodder for growing up! They might end up like me though.
Onto the PC (yes yes poor fodder but I'm grown up now, fuck off). There've been some interesting new stuff out - Supreme Commander, C&C3, can't remember what else. Been so out of the loop, haven't been playing much PC games besides the cybercafe usuals like Company of Heroes (which still rocks), Call of Duty 2 and Battlefield 2. In fact, what I'm currently hooked on are arcade games! Damn ridiculous, stuff from gamehouse.com like Fibre Twig (1&2), Alien Shooter and Age of Castles. Mindless nonsense but they're the most fun, aren't they? Not completely mindless lah... Fibre Twig requires & develops excellent pattern-matching and spatial visualisation skills, Alien Shooter... well, reflexes and hand-eye coordination, and Age of Castles... erm, stats, basic strategy and cause-effect measurement. And yes I'm still a fan of Spider Solitaire and Minesweeper.
Miscellany
On a whim, I decided to find out what the Sentul Link's all about. I've been passing it almost every day for the past year or so (it's just outside KLPac) and so, after a little exploration into Sentul, I took it. It goes straight onto Mahameru Highway, kickass! It comes out not far before the Jln Duta turnoff, the next turnoff after which is Sentral and Jln Bangsar.
The Sentul exploration, on the other hand, was quite an adventure. You'd think a left, left, left and left again would take you back to where you were, just some ways behind. That thought would be wrong again, again, again and again. I ended up in some serious depths of Sentul and at one point, got seriously scared. You know the point when street lights no longer function, it starts getting a bit jungle-y, houses start disappearing, it looks chilly... there's a bend ahead and you use the headlights and there's mist (and you're not on a hill)? Yeah that's when I went fuck this shit I'm retracing every fucking road I took at minimum 80km/h too. I tell you, there's loads of opportunities for adventure in KL.
And to conclude, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Bollywood style!
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it. - Arnold Toynbee
... I had tears in my eyes when I finished reading the Tunku the Musical libretto (yes we just got it last night). Last song IS cheesy. But I'm a sucker for the whole "we are the world, we are the people" crap. Throw in a little poetic justice, a little love lost, a little friendship rekindled and I'm sold.
Intense stuff though. World of difference compared to last year. So looking forward to August.
Niche Films Present
Niche Films Present
hell on the inmates, but hellbound is the one who remains unrepentant for his sadism. Directed by Cyberjaya-award winning filmmaker Tony Pietra. Written by FINAS award-winning scribe Allan Koay. Music score by 
AIM-award winning electro-rock artist Rabbit. Starring Ahmad Bahiki, Rosdeen Suboh, Bront Palare, Johann Lim, Salman Roehner, Johan John, Amir Shahlan.
Re-runs of DARK CITY: DEATH ROW for this week (in case you miss it):
28-Jun-2007 . . 5:30:00 PM
NICHE FILMS present DARK CITY, a local 13-episode series playing on Astro RIA every Wednesday at 10:30pm (followed by repeats throughout the week).
Jack Canfield's The Success Principles. Kickass compilation of most of the best books out there. Packed into an easy-to-read volume divided into 10-minute chapters with memorable quotes and immediate action steps. Highly recommended.
is a great insight into an massively growing industry - what makes it especially great is that the 1st edition was written in 2002 and this edition was written in 2007, and updates the relevant issues that cropped up in between. Quite a number of chapters is US-focused, so doesn't quite make sense here. But his economist background and his experience and his brains (he's a damn smart fella) provides great ideas and perspective into upcoming opportunities in wellness. Exciting stuff.
David Deida's The Way of the Superior Man was a book I bought and read quite some ago, and for some reason (yes yes there's no such thing as coincidence) I recently picked it up again. Wonderful stuff lah, such
it provides an almost factual account of what really happened, with its main crux the drive for honesty, accountability and mature discussion about possibly the darkest event in our history. Can be quite dry at times, as its biggest feature is the documents recently declassified (under the Official Secrets Act in Her Majesty's government), which contains communiques from diplomats and journalists at the time of the event.
The Malaysian Journey (buy from Silverfish; comments from Amazon) has been republished and is an excellent read. Rehman Rashid is wonderfully witty, erudite and perceptive, and his observations are truly enjoyable. He basically takes us through a journey of his life and of his country after quite some time away and talks about his experiences. Highly recommended.
Segueing into the next topic, I've had the chance to play hell of a lot of new boardgames - China, Puerto Rico, Caylus, Dis-X, Manila, HeckMeck (no board but dice & tiles [think domino tiles]), The Great Dalmuti (card), 
Ingenious and the madly addictive Settlers of Catan. Quick and dirty summaries:
Puerto Rico - balancing the right strategies toward victory. Second-guessing what other people will do and playing that to your tactical advantage. Great fun.
Many many factors to take into account make this quite a brain drain to play.
well. I think... haven't discovered the nuances of the game yet.
HeckMeck (yes, also known as Pickomino) - no-brainer fun, very dice dependent.
keep people playing past their 100th game. Quite dice-dependent though.
some brain power and 2) they require social interaction. I'm sure that the reason my mind has such an able grasp on strategic games was because I played boardgames when I was a kid (thanks Jee Koh). Parents, get some boardgames and start playing them with your kids! TV and videogames provide poor fodder for growing up! They might end up like me though.
