BLOGGER



Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Monday, June 18, 2007
IRREVERANCE AND POP CHRISTIANITY

I tell you a joke. maybe you haven't heard it before.

one day, jesus is walking around when he sees this bunch of people drag a woman onto the streets. so all these crowds are screaming for her blood, wanting to stone her. so jesus asks them what they're doing. they say she was caught in adultery, which is punishable by stoning. then jesus gets all protective and non-judgmental, of course, and starts his famous speech. "he among you who has not sinned cast the first stone!"

so the crowd goes quiet. they let her go. she stumbles into the street and the accusers are just about to turn around and walk, when... a giant rock falls from the sky and crushes the woman to her death. at which point jesus looks up at the sky and screams "Dad! I'm trying to make a point here!"

*

did you find that joke offensive? i don't. i also don't find this beat-em up game, bible fight, offensive. i think it's really funny. my point i guess is that i seem to have a very high threshold for irreverance. i know lots of people who are very careful with the branding of god and jesus and all things christian. and sometimes i really respect their intolerance, because it's something i don't have for myself. i don't know how to feel protective whenever i see a tongue-in-cheek piece of jesus pop memorabilia. heck, i'm usually inclined to buy it as a simultaneous triple-public declaration of my christianity, supposed cool factor and the seeming marriage between the holy and the happening. all in the name of relevance. you know, how jesus is your homeboy?

well, it don't bode too well with the christian community sometimes and i'm thinking properly about this thing now. if i have a high tolerance for seeming irreverance, what does it say about me? is it something innocuous, like, maybe i didn't grow up in a church and i was saved into a super hip student congregation? or is it more serious, like, maybe i really don't think so long and hard about all that glory and honour that's supposed to be attached to the name of god.

maybe it's the curse of protestantism, that we always have two eyes firmly fixed not only on the victory of being saved but also the immanence of god - you know, that whole jesus is my best friend ethos. this is the only brand of christianity i've ever known and from my myopic eyes, it looks every bit more attractive than the solemn fixation on the death of christ that the more conservative schools of our faith appeal to - the transcendance of god, how huge and incorruptible and perfect he is. i know in my head that he is both at once. i also know in my private time with god that he is not to be taken lightly. still, i'm finding it hard to wean off this buddy christ approach to my public journey of supposed faith.

should i feel bad about this? i feel bad about it sometimes, when i accidentally push some of my high-tolerance christian junk that one notch too far, and nobody's amused anymore. to begin with, it's a bit embarrasing. but what's more shameful is that while i'm quite pleased to market this pop christ, i don't seem to have either the confidence to defend it, nor the fiery moral christian walk to back it up.

all of which means only one thing. after five years of being a christian, i have finally reduced it to a cheap lifestyle.

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Genusfrog [ 4:08 pm ] | 1 comments

Tuesday, June 12, 2007
NOT ALL KILLER

The quest for perfection is sometimes so frustrating. the perfectionists among us will know how long it takes to get something - even as benign as a blogpost - looking just right. the critic among us will testify that it's rare that something so intact rolls into town for us to bask in its spotlessness. for me, this obscure object of desire lies in my favourite albums.

most of them have blemishes in them - songs I don't like, songs that don't fit, songs that are absolutely gross. which makes it really annoying, and a crying shame because these are my favourite albums. they're the ones i'd bring to a desert island if i really had to go there. how can the bulk of my favourite albums not be all killer no filler? to establish this point, i shall run through some of my most personal and dear records.

the stone roses' self-titled debut album is the ultimate debut album, backed by mega singles on like I wanna be adored and Made of stone and finished with timeless album songs like Shoot you down and This is the one. killer, killer, killer all over the record. all except that one very annoying track 4, Don't stop, which is essentially a backmasking of the hit single Waterfall. ok, credit to the roses, i think they backmasked the song, learned the backward words and did the vocals forward while everything else went backwards. very smart. but also very, very dissonant and absolutely impossible to listen to. bad roses.

the raveonettes' Chain gang of love is a glorious noise-drenched homage to 1950s rebel boys and the good girls they turn naughty. beautiful melodies are hidden beneath a wall of feedback so that only the brave will ever hear the deep-lying beauty of songs like Noisy summer and Untamed girls. but of course, the album is marred - at least to me - by the second last song, The truth about Johnny, where Sune Rose Wagner repeatedly drones "Joooohhhhny.... wheerre you been?" between some much more bearable guitar solo twanging. it's not as unlistenable as Don't stop's backmasking. but it still calls for that 'next track' button.

my third example is stereophonics' Just enough education to perform. but this time, the marr comes right at the front, in the form of album opener, Vegas two times. don't get me wrong, the song's not really bad. it just doesn't fit the album. JEEP is a lazy sunday album, languidly meandering from Lying in the sun to the slow stomp of Mr Writer and then rambling about old shoes, going out, having a nice day, watching people "fly sundays" and taking caravan holidays. all of this makes a heavy rock brawl about las vegas wrong wrong wrong. the only saving grace is that it's the first song on the album, so i can skip it and start the album with track two. but it's still wrong.

you see - it's hard. there are many other albums that carried me through some of my most meaningful times in life. and those records mean a lot to me. some of them are legendary by any standards. but almost all of them have songs that shouldn't be there. why?

is perfection so elusive? do we go out there to break it? to dismantle that which is glorious for some abstract, deep reason? when i was a child, i remember reading that persian carpet makers would intentionally marr their rugs, if only by a stitch, to remind themselves that God is the only perfect creator. havelock ellis said that "the absence of flaw in beauty is in itself a flaw".

it's a lot more than just a killer album, isn't it?

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Genusfrog [ 4:26 pm ] | 0 comments

Friday, May 18, 2007
MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS

I was asking chris yesterday if he gauges his favourite music based on his favourite artistes or albums. he said albums. that makes him objective. me - i've always been a fanboy. i love my artistes in spite of all their misadventures, and i'm almost inclined to cast aside all intelligence when someone whom i love does something that i want to love.

like my blueberry nights. lennie emailed me a story on this today and i've spent my entire morning googling production stills of kar wai's new movie - the very american film about a girl who travels across the country to understand love. or something like that.

i'm swooning. i just told eevon that i'm so in love already, i think i'm going to cry. i know... i know... i'm very over like that. adrian once said "eh why your family all so over wan ah?" he said that because audrey said she wanted to cry when he told her tori amos released her new album. it can't be the stock - i've never seen my parents fall in love with beauty like this before.

i'm glad there are people like chris in this world - people who can keep the artists honest and call a duck a duck. it's people like him who free up the rest of folks like me to be giddy lovers, diving headlong into passionate sensorial affairs. "i don't care what they say", i declare like a headstrong flame.

i'm in love.

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Genusfrog [ 10:23 am ] | 0 comments

Thursday, May 17, 2007
HITCHCOCK'S TICKING BOMB

To illustrate the simplicity of the art of suspense, the great Hitchcock set the scene of two people sitting at a table talking. they talk and talk and talk and then without forewarning, the table explodes and both men are blown to bits. this, Hitchcock taught us, was the first error in creating suspense - the audience only knows as much as the protagonists.

but assuming the two men were talking at a table. and the audience has a glimpse of a bomb beneath the table. they talk. the bomb ticks. they talk. the bomb ticks. and the more they talk, the more the bomb ticks down till that very last transition, the audience is left gasping. the bomb goes off. the two men are blown to bits. and everyone is taken for the ride.

Hitchcock was right. a bit of omniscience can go a long way in making one's climactic moment a lot more savoury. and it's fair to say that pretty much every one will appreciate the fact that the master of suspense knows better to show his audience cutaways of a ticking bomb.

of course, there are exceptions. the jerk at the table, for instance... what does he care if you see the bomb or not? granted your cinematic viewing is enhanced, the guy still gets incinerated without the slightest inkling of his impending comeuppance. that sucks man.

some days, i feel like that jerk.

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Genusfrog [ 10:32 am ] | 3 comments

Monday, May 07, 2007
MY BLOOD

I bled from my ears today. i dabbed a whole piece of tissue with the blood and it looks so beautiful, i could cry. i mean, heck with movies and writing man, i always knew i was an artist. and so, without any ol ado, i present to you...

MY BLOOD by FERGUS ONG


detail


there are many bloggers out there who will pour their hearts out and show you how broken they are. big deal. you wanna be an emo blogger? bleed, man. bleed.

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Genusfrog [ 4:47 pm ] | 6 comments

Monday, April 09, 2007
HAIKU

Today, we were writing haiku. it was fun. here is my lion haiku. i like it very much.

lion eat duck rice
say i will not pay the price
lion walk away

and then i wrote an adrian haiku.

adrian yap is cool
when i grow up i want to
be like adrian yap

and then i wrote a beyonce haiku.

beyonce is hot
but she is very one kind
so i don't like her

and before that i wrote a church elders haiku.

church elders are fun
they make daggy jokes until
all the aunties puke

in the end, i only like the lion haiku. :(

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Genusfrog [ 4:44 pm ] | 0 comments

Friday, April 06, 2007
FISH AND THE BOOK

One day, while Fish was busy working, Aardvark lent him a book.

"What a nice book!", exclaimed Fish. Actually he didn't exclaim. He just said "Hey, this is pretty cool". So Fish thanked Aardvark and brought it home. While waiting for his dinner to arrive, Fish thought, "I'll pull out the book and read". And so he did. And he read half of it. Then he thought, "I better keep it back in my bag, so tomorrow I can return it to Aardvark." And so he kept it in his bag.

Later, while waiting for his work to render, Fish thought, "I'll pull out the book to read". And so he did. And he read the other half of it. Then he thought, "I better keep it back in my bag, so tomorrow I can return it to Aardvark". But his work finished rendering. And his bag was at least five swims away.

"I'll put it in my bag tomorrow!", thought Fish.

Fish forgot.

Moral of the story: Fish forget.

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Genusfrog [ 9:02 am ] | 0 comments

Monday, March 12, 2007
300: FATHER OF ALL TITANS

300 has to be the most raw, limb-chomping depiction of historical/mythical epic battles to ever grace the cinema, and get this - it doesn't even try to be epic. gone are the sweeping shots of tens of thousands clashing in some poetic war, 300 has no intentions of serving up that drivel. Instead, what you get is the harsh collission of bodies and steel in a battle for honour so brutal, it makes 2000's Gladiator look like puppies falling over each other on a flower patch.

Gone also are bronze men with sunsilk hair in skirts, engaging in intricately choreographed swordplay while exchanging smartalec jibes. the horribly gay attempts at Greek history - Troy and Alexander - while possibly accurate (300's King Leonidas calls the Athenians boy lovers) just didn't cut it when juxtaposed with brute machoism. 300 solves that by giving you a bunch of blokes so bent on decapitation, there is barely any room nor time to breathe, or speak, much less exude wit and sexuality.

Brute carnage. Carcasses stacked up in walls. Intelligence. Passion. Raw violence and fiery patriotism. And this is just the 300 Spartans. A hero is only as heroic as his villain is villaneous. And what better villain than the self-professed King-God Xerxes himself. Xerxes is the Persian king found in your thrusty bible in narratives circa ezra, and in 300, he is seen in his full opulence, boasting a brilliant throne enamoured with lions and phoenixes, carried by a sea of slaves. Xerxes himself is adorned in the full campness of apparent immorality - there are traces of all sorts of moral vices surrounding this guy, from lurid dancers to witchcraft and animalism - here's a villain so corrupt, so gross, so dirty, it will make anyone, much less a Spartan king, look like a right-wing conservative with a mission to clean up the filth. xerxes' personal bodyguards is a troop of masked leporous monsters and there are a few heroes in their ranks too - most of them semi-human mistakes of nature, these freaks are gathered from the "darkest corners of his Persian empire" to show the Spartans that Xerxes can.

But the Spartans are the Spartans - bred for war, they take anything in their stride - from massive elephants to magicians to a whole sky filled with arrows. These Spartans are almost non-human themselves in their unquenchable zeal to defend their nation's freedom. meanwhile, the movie flits from the battleground to the dirty politicking going on in the background as Leonidas' queen attempts to get the whole might of the Spartan army unleashed by a superstitious and corrupt senate.

300 is the war movie to end all war movies. when i said earlier that it is epic without trying too hard to be it, i meant that it manages to show such a big heart, such a large courage, and so much passion for their cause without resorting to the giant widescreen shots of big battles that have become so common in movies of the genre, it's also become so tame. director zack snyder has opted to keep our eyes in the thick of the carnage, preferring to dish us torn-up limbs rather than seas of soldiers melding. for this, snyder deserves credit - not only for sticking true to the ethos of the frank miller graphic novel that preceded the movie, but also for resisting the urge to play the game on the same terms as larger flicks like LOTR. and by so doing, snyder succeeds in dipping the viewer's eyes into the bloodsoaked grounds and bring the brutality much closer to home.

so if you're tired of epic movies that unneccessarily exaggerate heroism for only a moment's sake, if you're tired of super goodlooking godlike actors with their hair all in place when they fight, if you're tired of wimpy losers pretending to be toughmen, and if you're tired of sensitive caring soldiers who spend equal amounts of time concerned about puppydog emotions as they spend executing enemies, then 300 is that angry, out-and-out feet-stoping, throat-roaring cut-their-heads-off father of all titans movie that will remind you that killers kill, soldiers soldier and bloodthirsty badass heroes give the enemy nothing but take from them everything.

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Genusfrog [ 2:13 pm ] | 0 comments

Friday, December 08, 2006
People sell their soul to the devil for fame, wealth, success, talent, power and sex.
People sell their soul to Jesus for persecution, unpopularity, self-control, servanthood and chastity.

Dunno how to choose? When in doubt, choose Jesus.

*

They say that robert johnson went to a crossroad one night and sold his soul to the devil for his guitar ability. this story was probably exacerbated by the fact that a young johnson followed howlin wolf on his tours and wolf couldn't stand johnson's guitar playing, requesting for someone to "take that guitar off that kid". johnson would disappear and return a couple of years later with what would be known as his legendary guitar ability --- if you listen close to his records, it's like there are two guitars playing. of course, he would write about staple blues subjects, and a fair few songs about the devil. it also didn't help that johnson would turn away from audiences to play complicated guitar parts, never revealing to them what he was doing.

Of course, with legendary musicians, myth-makers will go on the tilt, and if there's a devillish angle, it will always be sniffed out.

Now whether or not robert johnson lived down to his legend, i don't know. and i'm only this close to saying that i don't care, except that i somewhat do. if i'm gonna listen to his songs, i almost do want to care. it's an age-old christian conundrum.

"That's the devil's music!"
"Burn it!"

Buuuurrrrnnn.....

I think it was cs lewis (or was it francis schaeffer... it was one of the apologetists) who said that every territory is claimed by the devil and counterclaimed by God. to this end, there are supposed to be no neutral territories. it's a bit like the old analogy that a christian walk is like riding a bike up a hill. what then of robert johnson? do you agree with that? that there is no such thing as neutral ground in our vast experience of this world? is it true that anything which doesn't extend the kingdom shrinks it?

Cartesian philosophy insists on us knowing for an absolute certainty that what we know, we really know. in it's attempt to ward off skeptics, it leaves out all room for speculation. is it possible that Christians have ended up using Cartesian philosophy to handle our fear of what may or may not be "the devils' music"? i definitely know of respectable christians who walk down that road. is it because when our walk with Jesus isn't exactly vibrant, that our leaders can't trust us to be fully sensitive discerners of good and evil?

I never planted my flag in any camp. i never backed either position without considering the validity of the other. and while i do this partly out of my appreciation of a balanced theology, i also do this partly out of my laziness and lack of knowledge and conviction to make a firm stand. and while that gives me the leeway to listen and question, it also means that as i'm listening to johnson's records this very minute, there is a tiny feeling in me that i should just stop it.

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Genusfrog [ 10:45 am ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, December 06, 2006
At fifteen i was stylistically and fashionably confused - halfway baggy, big black t shirts, and i was climbing out of the rubble of radio pop music, mltr, bon jovi, r&b, what i now know to be ah beng music and my hatred for angry but hugely loved bands like nirvana and metalica. i was belatedly standing on the cusp of alternative music - cranberries had already blown my mind.

Ernest and i used to watch music videos on singapore tv on sat nights. we had no astro, not even mega tv then. one night, ern and i stayed up in my parents' room watching videos, and i taped two videos. the first was a live radiohead performance of creep. which i'd already heard boys in school sing and hated it coming from them but liked it coming from thom yorke.

The second video i taped was oasis' live forever.

That video changed my life. the british arrogance, jangly guitars, non-confrontational, well-mannered melodicism laced with working class swagger and swirling unjagged sound - the whole package was so different.

Of course, liam was magnetic. the next morning, i played the video to my mum and said "mummy, i want his hair", and she said no, because it's too long. but we can get something quite close, but shorter.

I was already writing songs by then. my whole concept of music writing, fashion and attitude changed in the next few months, as the morning glory album got popular here, and i shaped my sense of self-pride according to my distinguishment from my friends, for doing brit when everyone else was doing american.

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Genusfrog [ 4:00 pm ] | 2 comments

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
I am seriously stressed out right now. I'm shit scared and seriously stressed out, because i just walked out of the cinema watching Martin Scorsese's The Departed and throughout the film, i kept catching myself jaw-dropping at the master at his craft.

i mean, mr scorsese comes about as close to being technically a perfect director as you can find anywhere in the annals of filmmaking history. his films are so precise, and his shots are so tight and effective. not just that, his shots still have room to be sweeping and extravagant. everything in a martin scorsese film looks correct, moves correct and sounds so absolutely mindblowingly bang out of my ears awesome.

all of which makes me feel damn downright stressed out, because i just wrapped my shoot this past saturday, been worrying about how good the whole thing actually was, and then what do i go and do on monday? i go and see a cinematic master walking through the park. how can i even dream of dreaming of dreaming of emulating a guy like martin scorsese? i know he's got millions of dollars and as much time as he wants, and compared, all i have is a one bullet gun and a fiesty-ass gang of debutant gunslingers, but that is where i wanna pitch myself.

i told jan in an email that many of my shots, to me (then), felt world class. i sincerely believed they looked and felt world class. i dunno now man. i mean, marty - that's world class, you knowwhatimean? me, i'm just trying to hustle my way out of a two-bit provincial independent scene into whatever film festival that's willing to give a precocious young punk his day in the theatre.

and i know it sounds really silly for me to get stressed out because martin scorsese is only the greatest living american director and i'm just a muar boy with 24 dv tapes. but i refuse to calm down. how the hell am i gonna edit The Red Street Diner so that it looks like it can sit on the same shelf as The Departed? how do i make it sound as arresting as marty does his film? come on man, somebody give me a shout, cos there'll come a day when all your dvd peddlers are gonna be pushing you stashes of dvds and right next to The Departed will be The Red Street Diner. and then you'll go, ah, just another local film that tried hard. eh, look - leonardo di caprio man. buy.

why am i comparing myself to great martin scorsese? because i will not lower the bar with which i pitch myself. sure, there's a pretty damn good chance i'll miss the bar so bad, you won't even think i was trying, but i will know i was trying. when i started writing this blog post, i was thinking of ending it with a moral of the story: that was, do not watch a martin scorsese film immediately after shooting your own film. it's not good for both your mental and physical health, and if taken wrongly, it can make you feel about the size of a nanoparticle.

so, mr scorsese, if you're out there, please spare a thought for me. i'm just a hero-worshiping kid who sometimes thinks that as long as you still make movies, the rest of us can just stay at home.

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Genusfrog [ 1:07 am ] | 0 comments

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Logger logger burning bright
Indon forest of the night
What immoral hand or eye
Go find yourself a real &$#%*@^ job.

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Genusfrog [ 11:06 pm ] | 0 comments