MPFree: A Basket of Goodies

Gideon Coe used to do it - before his show moved from the morning to the night on BBC Radio's 6Music.

MPFree used to profile (then) lesser known bands such as El Presidente, before they became famous and then (usually) took out the free songs.

Anyway, so I thought I would be useful and offer you something for FREE!

A goldmine in Barsuk Records. But since I mentioned Nada Surf in the last entry, I shall highlight their new album. You can download a free single "See These Bones" there.

Then please explore.

More when I explore some more.

18

"What?! She's already 18?! Can't believe that."

"Yeah, she is. She's older than us. Can't imagine being 18."

"No, I don't want to be 18! 18 is so old."

"I've just turned 17. Last summer. That's old..."

Overheard in a cafe.

So I must be ancient history. I am King Cyrus!

Sounds from the Past

Lately, I find myself not having the time to explore new music.

The latest venture was Jack Johnson's Sleep Through the Static. Even that is old stuff. Then there is the Mahler operas CD borrowed from a friend, which I haven't the time to listen. And I don't mean multitasking "listen".

My palate is now limited to the music I listened to in uni. I have my Nada Surf's Let Go CD eternally stuck in the car audio.

I used to think my father boring listening to the same Sam Hui songs and usually tragic Cantonese Opera.

Suggestions, welcome.

Are You Great Enough?

I don't need a Lotus roadster to feel great. Thank you very much. Not that connoisseurs of sports car shall be condemned. I am a fan of Jaguar MKII. I like the design and aesthetics of this mid-size saloon. But there's everything wrong to equate owning a sports car to social advancement/supremacy - status anxiety instilled in its finest.

This is faintly connected to a recent correspondence with a friend on the meaning in work/working (as in to pay the bills): "I am not even that ambitious yet - I am not trying to look for a 'larger' meaning - I am at Level-1. I am just looking for any meaning at-all. but I agree that it is elusive."

He is referring to this article in the Online Beebs on work. The journalist wrote: "We start to demand that our work has a larger meaning. This almost always ends badly, meaning is a bit like happiness - the more you go out looking for it the less you find."

"Are you angry?"

"Oh, **** yeah."

One thing that really baffles me about CNN-strand of journalism is its blatantly poor journalistic standard.

I watched with amazement at Kristie Lu Stout's question to the traumatised earthquake victims in Sichuan: "Are you angry?"

What does she mean exactly?

Would she ask the same question to victims of Hurricane Katrina? "Are you angry that your house has just been swept away?"

If that questions were asked at a shoot-out at - where else but - an American university, it would have been justified, since the casualty is human-inflicted, so to speak. It is out of freewill that a mad man decided to gun down his fellow humans.

The earthquake is a natural disaster. The Great Hanshin Earthquake or Kobe Earthquake was 7.2 on the adjusted Richter scale. And the buildings fell down like a deck of Dominoes. And the Japanese are known for their earthquake-ready buildings.

The picture above was taken in 1995 at Kobe. The recent earthquake in China was 7.8 on the Richter scale. Even the mightiest of tower would have collapsed under such a circumstances.

Stout's question is therefore not only out of context, but inhumane. At its most fundamental function, a journalist's role is to shed light on the matters.

Since day one and on ground level, the Communist elites have been mobilising troops and pulling all the available strings to help victims cope. Where were George W Bush when Katrina struck ?

I do not know how they train their journalists at CNN (or as a matter of fact, the BBC Empire Service, oh, sorry, I mean WORLD Service - I'm used to the old name). Is it "Just report whatever that would bring down China, Russia and anyone who are against us"? Maybe.

What they taught me at journalism school was that the first casualty, in not only a war, but in this case, a natural disaster of such a huge magnitude, is truth. When everything is politicised - truth suffers and human life are at stake.

When your friend's house was flooded out in a mud slide, would you ask her "Are you angry?" Would you ask: "Do you think the corrupted government who allowed logging companies to (legally) wipe out the whole forest on the mountain is to blame?"

I don't think so. Unless you are jealous of your neighbour's house and her new Porsche 911 GT2, of course.

(After)Thoughts on Paper

In retrospect, what Bertrand Russell wrote in The Conquest of Happiness, which I quoted in last entry, is true and honest.

I haven't been near the screenwriting process - ideas, drafts, screenplays, shot list, etc. - for two whole years at least. I have been away from films as a maker. I did habour the idea of making a film here and there. And proposals got killed here and there too.

But most of my time are spent watching, listening, jotting, remembering, laughing, crying, arguing, loving, hating and living - and they have morphed into this project sheepishly titled "Either/Or".

Making this short film come out of this womb has been liberating.

Mixed Feelings

My ex-boss called last night to ask if I would like to join the planning team again - now that a position is open. I was quite flattered, really, in a sense that he still thought of me, if not of the same calibre as the planner who's just left to travel the world. Or perhaps I'm just a cheap option?

Either way, that homes in my point. Amidst the mild elation, I'm saddened. Why should work constitute such a large part of my sense of self-worth?

Or perhaps this has to do with the lack a of courage to take that direction in life? Maybe I've yet to do something really outrageous, in a counter-conventional, counter-Asian values way, that would justify my "existence".

Reading Bertrand Russell's The Conquest of Happiness - "To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say: 'Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a labourer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy all your energies.'"

Amen.

Freudian Sign

We were at Singapore the other day, lounging at the Esplanade's coffee shop. And as I was heading to the loo, I spotted this sign on the door. I am not trying to be naughty here. But can it possibly be that the Singaporeans are suppressed so much that this is indeed the sign of such suppression? Can anyone enlighten me on what the sign means? 

Anyway, the coffee there was very good.