Original Sin

Rambling Raoul remains a man of few words.

Coming up to the age of 2 in a few months time, my nephew Raoul still remains stoically silent preferring to let his actions speak for himself rather than using verbal expression. While his prodigy of a sister - Chatty Carmen - had already started doing dramatic monologues not seen since Emily of Emerald Hill by that time.

Not that he's incapable of speech! But although he babbles detailed, convoluted tales full of secret pathos to his imaginary friends when no one's within hearing range, he stubbornly keeps mum when questioned by everyone else eager to hear him speak.


On a secret rendezvous!
No doubt a secret agent from the cold war in his past life.

Especially since Raoul seems to be forever having something to hide. Every once in a while, there'll be a quick look of mischievious devilry followed by a childish giggle. Yet no one has a clue to exactly why.

Perhaps I've got an idea though. Since I frequently laugh to myself - for what seems ( to everyone else at least! ) to be no apparent reason. Psychotic breaks aside, I actually have lots of wicked ideas in my head that I rarely carry out to fruition. If I did, I'd have been branded a homocidal psychotic by my enemies ( numbering hundreds ) and locked up in bedlam long since.

So I restrain my malicious impulses when I can.

And cackle hysterically to myself as I imagine the wildly contrived demise of my enemies. So each time I snicker gleefully to myself, you'll know why. Raoul would empathize, I'm sure.

Raoul : How dare that lil brat in tacky hand-me-downs steal my Legos? Hope he chokes on the red piece. HAHAHAHA. Maybe I'll hand a bigger piece to him.

Fierce.

Sticky Rice

Despite the fact that my friends and I are sticky rice by convention ( as the term is called ), we actually rarely have Chinese dinners!

You know the kind - loud, boisterous meals with main dishes set out in the front for all to partake and share ( or to partake before it's inevitably hoovered by Strapping Shane! ) while everyone's busy chattering away with chopsticks clamped on their lips. Last sit-down dinner we had was months back when Charming Calvin - a stickler for convention - returned from Beijing.

So we decided to have a small reunion last night. Fitting since we were celebrating Dashing Dan's birthday. Of course the boy was unabashedly despondent the entire day since we'd kept knowledge of the surprise celebration from him ( orchestrated by Shane ) till the last moment letting him think that we'd all forgotten his special day.


Why am I all alone on my birthday!
How could we when we had Facebook to remind us!

Even dragged him out for a speedy lunch while the preparations were made at the party area. Then we all literally ditched him en masse. Possibly feeling lost and abandoned like he'd been kicked down the proverbial rabbit hole, our woebegone Dan couldn't have been more astonished when he finally returned to find the birthday cake waiting at home.

Certainly a surprise. Think he almost saw God again when the cake was lit.

Though I had some reservations about the semi-botched lunch plans to mislead him.

Thinking Dan deserved a worthy dinner as well, we all adjourned to an elegant Chinese dining establishment in Bangsar - fittingly named Reunion as well. Not my first time there since my ISO and I had trashed the place once in a semi-drunken fest of pork and wine. *ahem* Fortunately no one remembered us!

This time I was sober. Certainly dressed for the occasion since we'd been prepped by Shane to be in our Sunday best. As usual with a bunch of raging gay fellas, that called for a cam-whoring vogue session.

But we certainly settled down when the pork arrived. Did I say pork? I meant food.

Nah, I meant pork. And the thicker the layer of fat, the better! Never understood folks who whine and moan over the fatty layers. If you want lean, stick to dried turkey dammit! Had a few kosher dudes around but the rest of us cleared the plate fast enough so that they barely noticed the oinking offender.

Could compose an ode to the meat but I think Calvin said it best when he said, Share pork with someone you love.

And he wasn't drunk at the time.

Beijing Beckons

Well it certainly turned out to be an auspicious beginning for the Beijing Olympics yesterday with an awesome opening ceremony combining the rich cultural tapestry of a millenia with their technological achievements today. No doubt most of their naysayers ( plenty of psychologically-embattled western critics around ) have thankfully been silenced by the dazzling spectacle.

Then again I might be biased :)

Showcasing the four great inventions of the Chinese, the opening sequence was represented by different sections dedicated to the gunpowder, the paper, the moveable-type print and the compass. Of course my favourite scene from the opening had to be the relentless army of Confucian scholars in watery shades of gray sweeping across the hushed terraces to the rhythmic snaps of their ancient bamboo scrolls.

有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？
四海之内皆兄弟也.


Rampaging Confucian academia!
Wonder whether I quoted it right or Confucius is gonna come hunting for me. Ah, the plight of the speechless Chinaman. Supposedly quoting from the analects of the philosopher Confucius and telling all about the delight in greeting travellers from afar while musing that all men are brothers.

And here you thought those gray men were chanting hoodoo.

Of course Charming Calvin will have it that the unofficial coming out party for China ( as most are calling it! ) was held purely for his sake. No doubt aided and abetted by his colluding colleagues who brought a cake to celebrate his birthday this week! Don't have to tell you that they had a magnificent fireworks display to commemorate the birthday as well! :P

Me and My Gals

Fortunately when the stress at work - and the scarily enthused Gungho Ginnies with their endless tutorials - get to me, I do have an escape route ready at hand. Otherwise I'd probably be running amuck in the hospital with machetes flying.

Have I said that I'm blessed to finally find these buncha gals in the hospital? Well, I am! Searching through the endless haystack of Gungho Ginny clones wasn't easy but I certainly managed to find them. No better group to hang with to talk medical trash with while sipping cocktails.

Not to forget checking out the men eyecandy strolling by.

Yes - in that group of lovely ladies I call Lushes, I have a sinking feeling that I'm the Stanford Blatch unfortunately ( without the glaring purple / pink accessories ). Though I desire to be Charlotte York. Come on... lovely apartment, wealthy husband, adopted baby - it's all good.

Still as I looked at the group of Statuesque Sarah, Shameless Shalom and Fabulous Fiona ( with Lissome Lorelei gone MIA ), I knew it wouldn't be long before this brief summer idyll is over and we'd all be separated by our career paths - bringing a couple of them to vastly disparate corners of the globe - to our mates.

Fortuitously though they are all in between boyfriends at the moment.

And mine's more than a thousand li away :)

Fabulous Fiona might be getting over her latest McNugget soon enough though - especially with the latest juicy titbit that he might just be a little too oedipal for her tastes. Never knew the ladies would object that much to a bit of maternal interference! Unless it's really all about the footwear :P


Beijing Olympics!
Brought our planned outing forward when we realized tonight was the official opening ceremony of the Olympics - and let's face it, almost everyone of Chinese descent ( no matter how nominal! ) around the globe is gonna be tuned in to Beijing tonight to wish them well :)

北京欢迎你

Losing My Religion

Seriously. With the amount of space dedicated to homosexuality and sodomy in our press these days, ignorant folks are probably wondering if the country's being overrun by militant gays.

For the past month or so, our very own local news agency has been publishing radically homophobic articles full of such awfully vitriolic right-wing propaganda that it makes me sick to the stomach. First you have Melati Mohd Ariff's Homosexuals' life of moral decadence and then Soraya Jamal's When lust has no boundaries. Reason enough that I now avoid Bernama articles whenever I can.

So much for our press remaining purely neutral and unbiased.

The gist of their articles? As usual, we have our righteous pitch-fork waving heartlanders who insist that homosexuality is a growing disease that should be eradicated since it goes against the doctrines of their religion. Supposedly their proposed panacea for all these diseased deviants is to shove religious text down their collective throats.


God help these heathens!
Look, I hate folks who talk about religion. Or even worse use religion as a relentless hammer in all subjects! Do these rabidly orthodox zealots automatically assume that everyone else shares the very same opinion? Come on, there are dozens of religious faiths in the world - so please stop imposing your all-encompassing rules on the rest of us. Your high-minded morals are not mine. We don't want them. I don't go around waving blessed crosses and tossing holy bibles at disbelieving heathens, do I?

All this rampant homophobia only tempts me to start a new gay fucking religion. Maybe I could have a shiny, sequinned temple of orgiastic defiance ( with the magical glittering disco ball ) with weekly foam parties, thursday tea-bagging parties and leather dungeon wednesdays. Hunky inductees to the new religion would have to undergo a rigorous initiation ceremony involving frequent recitation of the holy pink word, daily buggery and light sado-masochism.

Not to mention a baptismal dip in the sacred sauna.

Zealot : Buggery! Sexual deviancy! That's against my religion!
Paul : Well, you're not getting your cock sucked in the public changing rooms! That's blasphemous in my book! My Gay God advocates such teachings!
Zealot : What holy book is that!
Paul : More like sacraments handwritten onto dingy toilet walls.

Now what do you say to that? Would you like me to impose my own wicked rules on the rest of the world as well?

And all this fuss from a culture well known for its easygoing tolerance. We Malaysians already have a saying for this... Jangan jaga tepi kain orang. A subtle way of saying mind your own fucking business. And stay out of my bed.

Unless you're a gorgeous hot intern.

Now go take a look at Farish Noor's hilarious take on this issue.
Buggered by the Victorians