Mansion cowboy barrier

“Me Julie!”
-Ali G

For the moment:
Check The Rhime – A Tribe Called Quest

*Above are photos from Juana Jaafar (Freeze Point C), an appointed photographer from the team. So are below from colleague Prakash Daniel (Freeze Point A & B). Before Prakash’s, middle batch, are photos I took from Shazeea Banu (Freeze Point C).

Tonight I got a warm gesture from a random cowboy.

I was invited to go to Cat Got Your Tongue at Heritage Mansion by Biresh Vrajlal, a stranger who came across my profile prior to the Freeze. I’m not going to drop names about “who was there” because, this is not that kind of website and also because fck it. You don’t impress me. Not that way you don’t.

When I was walking out though, I saw this guy with a cowboy hat and t-shirt saying It’s Not Your Day Today. He was looking at me and I have always felt that, if you take notice of someone looking at you, don’t ignore it. Acknowledge it. Do whatever. But don’t pretend it didn’t happen because both of you know it did.

So I smile at him and he gave me a wide smile back, shook my hand and did the manly semi-hug and told me how much he loved the KL Freeze (in Unison) at Pavillion.

I think that made my night. Not because of what he said, but the simple idea of a smile followed by a handshake, a semi-hug and a brief conversation between two strangers. It’s about breaking down the barriers of unfamiliarity between strangers. A perspective Pravin was sharing with me just the previous night.

Official video kl freeze in unison

“…really wished that I could join the other day. The whole thing was beautiful. CONGRATULATIONS WELL DONE ;)”
-Erina Zahara Ellias

“Thought I should write you personally instead of ticking the RSVP box “Not Attending” that is so cold for such a warm and loving initiative in the spirit of humanity. Love and God bless you abundantly always and all ways.”
-Pat Lu

“For the sleepless nights and countless hours put into this! Was really great :)”
-Christopher Tock

For 2 weeks now, Chantek has been the number 1 song on the charts of the number radio station in the country.

The Official Video KLFU was meant to be released on Sunday 20th April, and when it was, I told the editor, to take it down and edit it again according to my notes because of a few unexpected glitches. Despite his present success and hectic schedule, the video was worked on again promptly. Neither him nor others involved were paid for any part of their commitment. These are the kind of people I look for to work with on projects I am part of.

• Sunday 6th April: Free Hugs at Tugu Negara with some fantastic friends.

• Sunday 13th April: KL Freeze in Unison with an amazing team of volunteers.

• Sunday 20th April: Freeze For World Earth Day (an event initiated and headed by hitz.fm), with a team of brilliant beings.

I once mentioned online and during a radio station interview that for KLFU I spent an immense amount of time in front of the computer, lost a lot of my appetite for food and went many hours without sleep.

I’m sure others from the team of volunteers went through something similar, and also organising committees of other projects around the world. But simple messages like the ones above from (strangers whom I may just never meet in my life,) Christopher Tock, Erina Zahara & Pat Lu, goes a really long way.

God willing, we all have made it great. From the organising committee, to the 1000 over people who made it, to the others who supported it.

Now that I am done going all Oprah on you, let’s watch the video.

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“Zain, it’s ok babe. No matter what, you got my support.”
-Jennie Yang, before me & Pravin left for our first meeting with hitz.fm

With pictures, thank you kl freeze in unison

*I have started a new group on Facebook for future events. RandomActs.

*The Official KL Freeze in Unison video from the organising committee, compiled from at least 12 video cameras and 3 undercover microphones, will be uploaded as soon as possible. I imagine, no later than 20th April 2008.

*I regretfully apologise that the thumbnails/images uploaded in April are not working. This is because the programmer had installed a plugin so that you could view all the pictures conveniently. As a result, it has inconveniently affected pictures previously uploaded. Be patient while Basement Jaxx Remedy this matter. Meanwhile, I shall pour hot water RA‘s programmer’s fingers. You are welcome to join me.

Thank you for participating KL Freeze in Unison (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Gathering Point at 2.30pm Lot 10. Freeze Point at 3.35pm Pavillion.

I am not certain if they welcomed the surprise, but I also thank the management & security of Lot 10 & Pavillion.

Had I known that today was the Tamil new year, I would have selected a more convenient date. Either way,

Happy Tamil New Year.

Photos on this post are from Shazeea Banu, Izzat Fadzil & Keith Tang. Thank you for emailing them to Freeze@RandomAlphabets.com I will post more here in the near future. Keep sending them in.

At 1 pm the organising committee had a meeting at Secret Recipe across BB Plaza. I passed each member a brief which began with a paragraph that read,

First of all, I thank you all for actively participating in KL Freeze in Unison. I highly appreciate it. I will remember this for a long time, unless there’s a fckup. I’ll remember THAT even longer.

There was none. It all went splendidly well. To the 20++ individuals who volunteered, took instructions from me, Saddam HusZain, I take my hat and curly hair off to you.

Jennie Yang
Yi Xing
Badrul Hisham
Xumb Nayan*
Haze*
Tengku Edzuan
Safriz Sidek*
Khairiah Makata
Kovini Devi Balan
Dzameer Dzulkifli*
Razlan Manjaji*
Pial Khadilla
Ili Fm
Abdul Rahman JND
Juana Jaafar
Diyana Shahrom
Rummel Sanusi
Maryam Shamsuddin
Jeremy Chin
Kecik*
Shazeea Banu

My right hand men:
Hassan SGF
Nasir SHB
Hashim RA
Munir SH

Special thanks to Intan Amalina** for helping out with the media coverage.

*Never met prior to the event
**Still have yet to meet

 

There were a number of public figures who participated in the Freeze. I stick to my policy of not mentioning your name, but I make an exception for Jazeman Jaafar who approached me to personally to shake my hand.

Now my right palm smells like Sepang. Horrible. It sucks.

And to the other strangers I shook hands with, I’ll know your name (3 girls and 2 guys at the staircase) when you become famous. I really appreciate that simple gesture and kind words.

Ultimately, I believe that God willing this happened. That’s my personal belief. So to the next tier…from the bottom of my left ventricle, which is the bottom of my heart, my love and gratitude flies out with wings (one from MAS & one from AirAsia), to all those who made it today.

Because WE made it. We ALL made it.

Brief

Before randomalphabets.com was set up in Nov 2007, it was on another URL which was established in Nov 2006.

The resettlement program is still underway. A few days ago I transferred three posts from the old portal to the one that you’re reading now.

Girls in barbados

My wonderment of Rihanna’s upbringing.

To the FC that loves coming in second place

Well maybe this season third place.

‘In good faith’ & ‘I am muslim’

My pretentious affair with books. This time involving Zaid Ibrahim’s and Dina Zaman’s books. I have actually read half of Zaid’s book now (since the purchase in September), and I must say that I am quite pleased today hearing about his appointment as the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.

While I am not a fan of either the Government or the Opposition Regime, Zaid is indeed an intelligent with strong views bound to upset his colleagues.

Condition a fake accent

“Helloy mate. How are youy?”
-N/A

For the moment:
Can’t Get You Out Of My Head-Kylie Minogue

*If you are a woman, or a man, or a woman, or a person or an animal that has or once had an accent, or dyed your hair to a colour that is natural to another race, and have been criticized for it, then this post would interest you more than it would to my 2.4 million readers.

There are people around me who smoke, drink, take drugs, train in the sport of pre-marital sex, gamble, blog, dye their hair (generally brown, slouch, have tatoos, make fascinatingly lame jokes or dress fairly bad. These are all the things, I have been taught directly or by implication, not to do either on the basis of my religion, tradition, peer, custom, surrounding and/or culture.

To make your reading convenient, lets call this, or the elements above as ‘conditioning.’

This also relates to the post I wrote about the 11 years of conditioning in the Malaysian education system.

I have spent an amount of time in other places as well or with a group of people that use a peculiar word not used by everyone. I pick up those words and use it frequently when I’m at a different place. But as it is not reiterated, I gradually reduce using it.

I am easily influenced in that area.

A significant number of people I know are annoyed with others who travel, studied or lived overseas and come back to their home country, speaking with an accent. There are times I find it annoying as well. However, there are times, they deserve the benefit of doubt. To be fair.

This benefit can be found on Page 2, Item 13(b) when you open a Savings Account with CIMB.

The annoyance that most people have is generally on the basis that, how could someone go through 20 or so years speaking in his native accent, study abroad for a short few years and have an accent conversion?

*As I am a Maslem, and know much more Maslems than non-Maslems, I will share my observation amongst them. Not to say that it only exists amongst Maslems, but because my lack of contact, I rarely get to gauge what the view of the non-Maslems on this matter. So my capacity to use them as a point of reference do not cease to exist, but never did exist in the first place. Much like global warming and Charles Darwin.

I have come to notice that a significant number of urban Maslems in Malaysia, commit one or more conspicuous sinful acts that they are aware of. Despite it, they still appear as or are Maslems. It is their prerogative. Neither foreign, nor pretentious. But still these are the same people, whom throughout their upbringing, their culture, religion, surroundings have taught them not to do so. Their conditioning have consistently and persistently told them otherwise. But they still do it.

In case my red light laser pointer failed its fanciness, what I am trying to point out here is that despite our conditioning, we succumb to some form of external influence. To some point and to a certain degree. This might not be absolutely true to each person of our time or prior, but generally it seems to be the case.

As an illustration. There are people whom throughout their upbringing, all their life, namely in the formative years, have been told by their parents, peers, teachers and members of their society that say for example….smoking marijuana is wrong and they should not do it. And then one day, maybe when they’re with friends, or travel, or just sitting on their own, decide to start and smoke it (despite still agreeing it’s wrong).

On this part, the issue here is not marijuana. It is committing an act contrary to something that they have been conditioned and told allll their life to not do.

Second part is, we live in a society where experimenting or consuming marijuana is either accepted, condoned or encouraged by some and the number grows as we get more ‘civilized.’ My stand on marijuana here is irrelevant, what is imperative to point out is, how can you want to be so hard on someone with a fake accent (or something pretentious) when there’s another person who is also going against his conditioning and that (latter) persons act is in fact a crime and a sin.

The external influence may cause us to commit or behave in a certain manner that might be rude or deem to be rude, might be sinful or deem to be sinful, might be unwise or deem to be unwise.

Each of us are uniquely influenced in various areas of our lives. If you’re going to be hard on someone for being something you feel that is utterly pretentious, at least be fair. I find your rationality and mental capacity rather disturbing if fake accents (or anything similar) bothers you more that what many others agree as a crime/sin either within their country or faith, if not both.

By saying that I am not condoning certain acts committed by others or validating mine. I myself have never been accused of having a fake accent or smoking marijuana although I have done things in my life against my set of conditioning. However, I do feel that this thought is something we might know deep inside the left hand corner of the Olympic size pool, but never did submerge.

And it would help Market Communism and people of the world to understand each other better if a slouching underweight 6 footer took the time to draft this post, sacrificing his nap.

The pain of admitting a stronger reality

“The main in the campaign to end violence against women is not to protect women but to respect women.”
-Ng Lai Oon

For the moment:
This Woman’s Work(Live Unplugged)-Maxwell

*After the previous post, I realize that I’ve not written about Men & Women, or my fascination towards to the relationship between the two or Women per se. Since I can’t think of anything at the moment, I dug up my ‘To Be Posted’ folder and found this post I wrote in September 2007. You must read it with the least possible amount of preconceive notion and the many years of social subconscious conditioning that you went through.

Of late, whether in this blog, or in the domestic or international arena be it of the east or the west, the impression towards women, and the whole gender issue respectively are either a little distorted or misintepreted. Down played or exaggerated.

With respect to this blog, I apologize, if (in the past or future) I have further fed the conundrum.

In any case, it is appropriate at this juncture to include this snippet.

In accordance with the teachings of Islam* (I resort to this form of phrasing it because I’m not sure if it is from the Qur’an or Hadith), three of the most painful things in this life are,

1. death
2. heart attack
3. giving birth

*I am not sure if it exists in other faiths. Thus I will refrain from pretending to speak about something I don’t know.

Of the three, one of which, a man will never go through. From one perspective, you could say that it is an experience no man will ever be privileged to. Something God allow only womenkind to experience and no one else. Not even the in betweens.

You could of course choose to not see it as a privilege. But having something no one else can purchase or develop, is a beautiful loss that goes a long way.

There are certain things, either by biological factors, instincts or nature that men are stronger at than women. vice versa. Both men, and women must remember this imperative equillibrium.

I trust that it should come to the surprise of at least a few, that it is in Islam that, among other things, women are stronger than men when it comes to pain.

Pain in what form specifically, I am not here to dispute and speculate. Prima facie, I assume that it goes to mean in all forms of pain. Albeit, that is indeed something one side is just better at than the other.

Live with it. Both of you. Women and men.

‘In good faith’ & ‘I am muslim’

“Whateverr.”
-Paris Hilton

For the moment:
Sorglega-Sigur rós

I bought two books today. I feel good. And smart.

I know that you mutants out there, it is no big deal. But for a bright immigrant Black boy from the suburban ghetto who only ‘discovered’ reading at 16, it is simply a revelesyen.

I bought the books despite moving remarkably slow on a remarkable book. Orientalism by Edward Said. I started in late July I only covered 50 pages. It is just too heavy to read before sleep. But its simply brilliant work.

In Good Faith by Zaid Ibrahim. I first saw this book about 2 weeks ago while in MPH Midvalley. Something told me I must have it.

Now a politician, he used to head the largest law firm in Malaysia, Zaid Ibrahim & Co. Like me, this chump also graduated from UiTM Law School. Although standard price, for a Malaysian, RM30 is costly for a book. However, all proceeds from the sale of this book will fund the activities of the Kelantan Foundation for the Disabled.

Only shortly before the purchase of this book did I discover that is a collection of writings and responses. In a way, it is not a book he set out to write. He wants to be Carrie Bradshaw.

I Am Muslim by Dina Zaman. I read a few of her articles in the past. I don’t agree with her views entirely but she is a fairly good writer. Different perspective. RM30. All proceeds of this book will go to a healthy bank account. I initially borrowed this book from Ayu for about at least 3 months and returned it to her, having not read a single page. Should I start reading this book by 2011, I should receive a trophy. Big big one. Silver colour from Queensway, 2nd Floor, the low yah shop.

Meanwhile, it will brag on the shelf of my room to boast to my visitors the impression that I am well read.

Oh yes, there is also a ‘foreword’ on the back cover of the book by Farish Noor. Farish writes well, but not entirely consistent (so I hear). Nevertheless, I have been looking for something good by this guy. Should any of you know of any, by all means enlighten me.

After I saw most of Barack Obama on Oprah, I thought that Audacity of Hope should be a good buy. Especially since Deity Oprah said that he is at he same time, a good writer and that she did finish the book. But RM 98 for a book. I’d rather buy something more intellectual and mind stimulating.

Like a life size mirror with an Oak frame.

Foreign imposition, representation & womens day

“There has been so massive and calculatedly aggressive an attack on the contemporary societies of the Arab and Muslim for their backwardness, lack of democracy, and abrogation of women’s rights that we simply forget that such notions as modernity, enlightenment, and democracy are by no means simple and agreed-upon concepts that one either does or does not find, like Easter eggs in the living room. The breathtaking insouciance of jejune publicists who speak in the name of foreign policy and who have no live notion (or any knowledge at all) of the language of what real people actually speak has fabricated an arid landscape ready for American power to construct there an ersatz model of free market “democracy,” without even a trace of doubt that such projects don’t exist outside of Swifts Academy of Lagado.”
-Orientalism, Edward Said
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For the moment:
Yo Quiero Bailar-Ivy Queen
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On 25th August, I went to the Putra Stadium for the 2007 Womens Day celebration.
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I wouldn’t have known about it had Riri not asked me to come. She hooked me up with some court side floor seats. We sat right across Ari, Vince and E. Brilliant. Many thanks for that. It was unfortunate that we didn’t take a photo together, dressing in the theme colour, but at least you readers have this (1, 2,) to view. Courtesy of Riri.

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The celebration was massive. Place was full. During one of the two speeches, I was made known of quite a number of interesting facts. Some essential ones I will share it here scantily. With detail later.
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Before we move on to that, if you have come to note that a lot of international instruments, conventions and conferences (with impact or have played a significant role on the whole) have taken place in northern hemisphere or the west.
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Now while there is international representation all over, the fact that most of these things occur on that side of the world, says something. And as a result, evidently, the eastern and southern hemisphere population of the world have been under represented and their interests and concerns not taken fully into account.
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*Keep in mind that there are more human beings on the east and south side of the world. I believe primarily for three reasons;

1. rubber is cheap, but not when it is boxed
2. perception of children and family differ
3. a stronger fucking culture

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Few examples are the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Geneva Conventions, the Hague conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Vienna Convention, to name a few.
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*A number of Muslim nations, Pacific Island nations and the Vatican has not signed CEDAW. Either due to political reasons or not congruent with their society/culture/religion/custom.The U.S. have signed but not implemented it into their domestic laws. The U.S. also did not sign the ICC Rome Statute.
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Peculiar isn’t it?
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How many people from the decolonized nations of the world (let alone people of the world or those from the colonizing nations), know of the Bandung Conference? Where all the former decolonized nations got together and discuss their concerns. Where even Observer Status to the conference to the colonizing nations or any other observing nations, were denied.
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Let alone its impact, we don’t even know about it. The lack of the awareness (on whoever’s part) and the degree of impact is a resemblance of how much the concerns and significance of the issue (of the people ‘here’) is being taken into consideration.
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*In reference to the quote by Said, above…
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That was a mere example of one part of the world that has been under represented.
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Going back to Womens day…
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What I find appalling is that the make up of their (women) direct contribution to the workforce (be it the (supposedly) “professional” or “non-professional”, a familiar demarcation that irks me). On the average, they make up at least 40% of the workforce of all professions put together (in Malaysia).
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Now I am not insisting that there should be more women leaders or politicians with significant ranks, but my concern is that the when they are significantly under represented in this man made system of democracy, logically and inevitably, this significant imbalance does not work well for anyone and everyone on the whole in the long run. Just as how the UDHR is not working very well for us on the South or East.
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It is not the concept of Women’s rights that I am propagating here, it is merely the balance of representation under this self-righteous failing system of democracy. It seems to be the best thing around among its pool of other failing doctrines such as its arch nemesis, communism. What I’m saying is, if we are going to go by it, then optimize it to the best possible way.
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My concern is, while Adam came first and then Eve and then the order of society in the past was more of men(significantly supported/supplemented by women) led as oppose to women, the apparent public presence of women in authority (today) is worrying. Not in the sense of fairness, equality or representation, but in the sense of how long more has this world have left.
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Perhaps you would follow better with this. At the nearing of the end of time, be it even before society goes out of order, one of the signs is that things will be the opposite. In almost every aspect of life.
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I am not challenging the reality nor the theory nor the word of the Messenger Prophet Muhammad, deriving that of from my faith. But while it is inevitable that human beings and humanity will deteriorate post Prophet Muhammhad era, the pace is indeed worrying.
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What a way to end a post on my take and experience from Womens Day.