17/12/11: Grime MCs— Kas’ 4 easy steps to check if you’re a poet

Here we go again. Every so often someone new wants to join the queue. The latest: Stanzas on the Street: is grime poetry? ( Guardian Review 16/12/11: Omar Shahid and Robbie Wojciechowski http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/dec/15/grime-stanzas-on-the-street?newsfeed=true ); it’s an old chestnut and a long queue, with Bob Dylan camping somewhere near  the front, Eminem in the middle and now, Grime MCs somewhere at the rear.

I think it’s just weird. Most poets worth their salt would give their right arm for the album sales of a Tinie Tempah; if Grime MCs want to be poets, someone somewhere has been giving them very poor intell.  The world is full enough of bad or mediocre poets, and even the good ones are lucky if they get to pen one or two great poems in their lifetime. With odds like that I’d rather be a Grime MC any day. Myself, it took me almost 6 years to de- or un-poet myself— whatever the technical term is; just so I could get my head out of my own arse and have fun writing again.

But if you must you must, don’t let me hold you back. And if you’re not really sure if your stuff is or isn’t, here’s your lucky day, for if you’re a Grime MC / hip-hop artist / singer-songwriter I’m about to unveil my surefire test to help you check your rating on the poet-or-not-poet scale.

Here goes.

1. Strip all music or melody from your lyrics and put them on a page and then read them plain. Are they as good as they were with the music or melody? If so, you may be a poet ( most rap or grime etc would probably pass this one ).
2. Strip all performance from your lyrics ( except what can be put down in writing ). Get someone else, anyone else ( who has not heard you perform your lyric ) to read your lyric from a page. Does it still work when someone else performs it ( even if not reading aloud )? If so, congratulations, you’re probably a poet.
3. Wait twenty to fifty years. Are people still name-checking you and reading your lyrics? If so, wow! You may be a good poet.
4. Die, then come back as a ghost say in a hundred or two hundred years and check out on how things are going with your lyrics. Do people still remember what you wrote? Do they still read you? Has your work influenced anyone? If so, then hey! You could be a great poet. But just to make sure, wait another couple hundred years before checking again.

Told you it was easy.

Please ‘like’ me if you passed.

29/10/11: Pile up

the M25, 25 August

Blue skies over vapour trails; over power lines; over plough lines; over fields; over the M11; we come to a standstill; eventually we turn our engines off. A line of cars and trucks parked on the motorway stretch down the hill; 4 fire engines, 2 police cars, an ambulance, then another ambulance, then 2 traffic control cars, all pass urgently on the hard shoulder. Curiosity gets the better of me and I get out, stretch my legs, and walk towards the blue flashing lights in the distance. Radio reports a pile up: 5 cars and a truck, and oil spillage on the closed off motorway. But I stop just short 60 metres from the scene, shy of someone else’s tragedy. Here the central divider between northbound and southbound carriageways is unforgiving concrete. When I had my crash more than a year ago, the divider was a malleable metal crash barrier which bent when I hit and safely received and accepted me.

When we get moving again, an hour and a half later, we pass the wreckage— car doors sawn off— swept to the hard shoulder. White powder scattered over the spill.

Earlier this week shocked Milla when I sat in bed and punched my forehead over and over because of some contractor client trying to screw us out of sixteen hundred quid. The next day my brother Kim emails me with very bad news told him by my brother Gan, news we’ve dreaded hearing [Note 5/11/11: the news, thankfully, turned out to be premature ]. It’s half-term; on Friday ( yesterday ) I take the boys in my car to the caravan ( Milla’s away on a course ); passing the accident on the way.

Mum visited us early this summer; we took her to the caravan for the weekend. There’s this stretch of beach near Burnham Overy Staith— a sandy bay you see in the far distance in a gap between the high dunes over the salt marshes when driving along the coastal road past Holkham. For a while now I’ve wanted to walk to that bay, but each time I tried something has managed to stop me: torrential rain, fast encroaching dark… this time I was determined to take Mum to this ‘special’ beach. So I parked the car by the side of the road, and we walked the long walk towards the beach. The footpath on top of the dyke was closed because of flood defense repair work so we had to walk on the lower path. Mum’s been fragile since the operation last year, and diabetes, and other ailments, so the walk was slow, we stopped often along the way, talked; I picked some samphire grass from the marsh for her to nibble. Salty and crunchy. Finally we climbed the high grassy dunes that separate the marsh land from the beginning of the beach. A strong wind whipped the sand and grass as we took shelter in the dune’s hollows; the view from the top of the dunes spectacular— dark ultramarine skies and rain clouds on the horizon— Mum was too tired to carry on, so we turned back, and walked the long walk back to the car. I’d taken some pictures of Mum with my blackberry, with the dunes and the dark sky behind, her face squinting as the wind explored every crease of her face; her grey hair blown back. Someone stole my blackberry at the gym before I managed to download the pics, the only pics I have of Mum’s visit.

My mother has lived most of her life with my father. Although he’s passed away he is still very much part of her life. 47 years. I think of my 20 years with Milla ( next month ); how so very much can happen in the space of 20 years and how it can still feel as if those 20 years have just flown by. Every grey hair, every line of our faces is a map of our years together. If we have another 30 years or more I think I can die happy.

The sun’s just come out. Must stop now and go out for a walk on the beach.

16/9/11: Back to life, back to reality

Chris to Eddie and Kas:

The past weeks certainly qualify as one of the high points in my life – really had a blast, even if a little stressed by the wedding MC thingie.

We all miss you already. D cried last night to sleep ( Kas, don’t tell J ).

Looking forward to 2013 – when we will celebrate Patriach G’s 90th and Kasan’s and M’s Big5! And who knows – maybe first month of a new babe…

We’ve come a long way dudes!

Eddie to Chris and Kas:

Back to life.. back to reality..

We sang that a lot when it first came out didn’t we?

Well, indeed, after the magic of the past month’s love fest, reality kinda sucks. Here I sit in my office trying to motivate myself to read mind-numbing tombs for increased efficiency and effectiveness.. yawn.

Poor Kas is back to grind of public works in a context where the public is rioting and government is clueless. I mean – Cameron’s solution to rioting folks is to evict them from their homes? Talk about using oil to put out a fire! Arrest them by all means, but sending them into the streets? As
Damien would say – This is a disaster..  ; )

Wish we could have done Hujong this time around. Though the sand flies thingy is somewhat discouraging..   Perhaps we can get a good fire going to fend them off? ; )

Blue Skies in 2013!

Chris to Eddie and Kas:  

you said it.
but hey, you’re saving the world from itself remember?
and i’m exposing the truth.
and Kas is building new from the old.
Hujong 2013!!!!!

Kas to Chris and Eddie:

Yeah it sucks being 10,000 miles away from my closest friends.

Getting withdrawal symptoms ‘cos my Singtel phone’s stopped beeping with SMSs to meet up.

Leaving Sing is never great but coming back to the riots in England really sucked. There was a feeling in the air that something was going to happen this summer, but the ferocity of it and the sheer stupidity and hopelessness of the actions, and then the sheer bloody mindedness of the political response— man if I felt before that England was entering its dog days, the last week certainly confirmed it… we’re all worried about jobs, about work, about the future. Yeah, first week back was a real low.

M and I will sort out pics tonight to put on facebook. Good times.

Can’t think of a better place to celebrate my 50^th in 2013 than back in Sing.

PS hey we enjoy doing civic and community projects, no probs. It’s the cuts that really suck!

Chris to Kas and Eddie:

beep beep beep beep… “ Kas, Ed, chee cheong fun breakfast tom.”

4/8/11: Dad’s ashes 3

In the morning Colin picks us up in the rain and takes us to Changi Point.  The rain comes and goes, the sea in front of Pulau Ubin is just a shade darker than the sky. The edge of the sea is tight lipped, just the slightest curling lip of a wave. In the trees behind, parakeets chatter and screech like monkeys. When the rain gets heavier, workers in overalls lay out a mat under the shelter, have a picnic then lie down to nap.

Some of Dad’s closest friends and colleagues from the old days have turned up to meet us at Car Park 1: Tony Yeow, Colin, Margaret, Irene. Holding open umbrellas, we stand by the edge of the sea and scatter Dad’s ashes. So, fifty or so years after Kwang Meng ( from his novel If We Dream Too Long ) gets a sickie and skives off work to swim on Changi Beach, a bit of Goh Poh Seng gets mixed into the same sea water. Irene later remembers the line from Dream where Kwang Meng pees underwater. That would have appealed to Dad’s sense of humour. Shades of Beckett’s Murphy…

Afterwards, we go for makan.

3/8/11: Dad’s ashes 2 ( 29/7/11 to 30/7/11 )

We woke up and took the early morning taxi to JB, where, after our JB driver drove round for 15 minutes around some industrial estate like a headless chook looking for the hook up, we swapped to a pre-arranged taxi to Mersing. The Mersing driver, Mr Yep AKA Jacky with brylcream Roy Orbison hair played the Everley Brothers greatest hits on the car stereo the whole journey. Once I spoke to Mr Yep in my broken Mandarin, he couldn’t stop chatting to me; I had just enough Mandarin left in me to understand him over the next two hours, as we stopped at the vehicular registration offices in JB for a toilet break and roti cenai and teh tarek, before setting off for Mersing. Mr Yep— a Mersing boy, just a couple of years younger than me— his life story in short: left school at sixteen; careers include: mechanic, taxi driver, shop-keeper, now back driving taxi for the last 11 years; father of three; ‘when I first started driving taxi, I didn’t know any English at all. Boss said you’ll pick it up soon enough’. His run-down on the JB- Kota Tinggi- Mersing highway— scene of the last serious crash: ‘see that curve in the road there? No fatalities, drunk driver, just went straight through the curve and the drop… wah! Vehicle totaled…’ On lorry drivers: ‘poor pay, terrible hours, long, long hours just to scrape together enough pay, never enough sleep— they make a mistake it’s on their back not the company’s— keep clear of them!’ On roadside stalls in the middle of nowhere: ‘my kids love the bak kut teh there’.

‘You like durian? I can’t eat durian anymore. Since I started driving I had to stop eating durian six years ago. Too heaty!’

Past the Kota Tinggi by-pass the dual carriageway reverts to the old road, single-lane each way, all the way to Mersing— past WWII bunkers, oil-palm storage silos and Chinese cemeteries with the horse-shoe plan graves. At Mersing the Rawa office compound is infested with stony-eyed Dutch expats ( assume obscene six-figure salaries ) drinking beer while a put-upon Indonesian maid caters to their screaming toddlers and changes shit-filled nappies while trophy wife / Mum looks on dazed (‘why am I stuck in this dreary life?’). For some reason this lot make me think of the genocide perpetuated by the Dutch East India Co.; all for nutmeg. If we had not got on a separate speed-boat from the screamers M and I would probably have chucked one of the ugly little monsters overboard, or else throttled them.

After checking into our room on Rawa island, took my youngest out snorkeling to see the reef. Rawa was the island where, more than 30 years ago, Dad first took me snorkeling and I saw my first live coral. My youngest said to me after the swim, ‘it was life changing, Dad!’ Ten year-olds say the best things! A squall hit the island and blew deckchairs into the sea and dislodged tree branches onto the manicured walkway, flooded by the deluge. Then the sun broke through, as if the rain never happened.

Later we are eating dinner when a lean fifty-something Malay man comes to our table, ‘Excuse me, are you Goh Poh Seng’s son?’ It was Tom, one of the few remaining of the original Rawa boys Dad used to hang out and drink beer with. ‘We saw the name Goh and saw you’d booked a boat to Hujong so I wondered…’

‘How is your mother? She was here a few years ago.’ I join his table and shake hands with Joe, another old Rawa boy; we talk about old times. ‘You must only have been so high back then.’ We exchange gossip: who’s dead and who’s around and who’s still alive. ‘We were sorry to hear about your father.’

Next morning we get on a speed-boat for Pulau Hujong. Sun is out, sky is blue; as we round the back of Hujong and approach the front of the island I see it’s high tide and there are a couple of figures on the beach. Jump into clear water and swim ashore; boatman passes the bags to me to carry ashore while M and our youngest get off boat. The dark figure in shorts with the white hair and beard turns out to be Abdullah ( or Dollah— Joe in Rawa later tells me that Dollah’s nickname amongst the boys is ‘Rambo’ ) who was our caretaker on Hujong in the seventies and eighties. The guy sitting in the shade of the tree reading turns out to be my cousin Seng. His wife and daughter are swimming in the sea. I learn that two more cousins ( brothers Wong ) are arriving at lunch time. It’s a small world.

Take Dad’s ashes to coral beach where we find the rock in the middle of the beach shaped like a cross between a shark’s tooth and a guitar pick. Dad’s ashes are the same colour as Hujong sand; only coarser. With the high tide waves are breaking hard against the rock— whereas in Jerico Beach in VC Dad’s ashes hung like a cloud in the water— here he is immediately churned into the flux of the crashing waves. At this rate he’ll soon be ground as fine as Hujong sand.

26/7/11: Serangoon Gardens / Suan / Bangladeshis / Tamil cricket / SIM card

Impressions of S’pore after 5 days: drinking beer with the Goo and Christofart at Serangoon Gardens dissecting past relationship over stout, screw-drivers and whiskey. Was told earlier that an ex-girlfriend left S’pore because she was upset I broke up with her ( If so, I’m truly sorry and hope you’re now living the happy and fulfilled life you would not have got with me ). Bangladeshi labourers sheltering from the noon-day sun in the shadow and undercroft of the flyover at Bukit Timah Road lying on their backs on sheets of cardboard spread on the ground, looking like dusty cadavers. Chilling out on East Coast beach with my youngest throwing stones into the sea, a young Tamil dad demonstrating outfield-cricket techniques to his little boy who put us to shame by out-throwing us. Mutton soup and Hokkien prawn mee tng at Old Airport Road Hawker Centre.

My SIM card has expired so I brought my passport to the shop to register and buy a new one, only to be told because I’m S’porean I can’t use my passport and must use my IC ( identity card ). ‘ I’ve been away and have not used my IC for fourteen years, I have no idea if it’s still valid. The address is out of date.’ I explain. The Malay lady says kindly, ‘ You may have left but you’re still Singaporean lah.’ I can’t argue with that.

24/7/11: Roxy/ Red-House Bakery/ where the fuck are you Ian Conceicao?

First impressions back in Singapore— foot reflexology parlours, nail salons, beauty salons, eyebrow threading / plucking, hair extensions, the odd stale smell of badly ventilated indoor food courts mixed with the smell of hair-bleach and dye, massage parlours, internet cafes, child tuition centres, dodgy bars with mirrored film stuck to the windows blocking views in, art shops selling weird phallic plastic white or red ‘sculptures’ that could be straight out of Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange if they weren’t so fucking neutered, and that’s just Roxy Square, a thin slither of hermetically sealed, dim lit and mechanically cooled shopping centre spanning Marine Parade Road ( next to our hotel ) and East Coast Road.

Outside, by the side of the building, by the shade of some non-descript tree, a red altar with joss sticks, tea and pows. Braziers full of ash from burnt paper money. The Tao you can tao is the Tao etc.

Across the road by pedestrian bridge—the old Red House Bakery where Ian Conceicao ( which we pronounced ‘con-see-cow’ just to piss the Dago off ) and I used to hang out in our youth, eating kuay, layered cakes and drinking ice-cream floats— its sorry burnt-out shell now just about holding up behind the plywood hoarding. Wonder what’s happened to Ian, he’s never forgiven me for not contacting him since he left for New Zealand with Megan, but the bugger left me the wrong email address lah. All the jokes they tell about drummers in bands are true. If you’re referring to Ian, that is.

Since we arrived on Friday, my youngest son and I have been chilling out together, cooling off in the hotel room or in the pool ( teaching him to snorkel in readiness of our trip to the islands ), meeting and eating with my old friends, trying to shake off our jet-lag.

Am in town to see the Goo ( once our lead singer ) consign more than 50 years of bachelorhood to the dustbin. Actually, the deed has been done, a couple of weeks ago in Maine, with the lovely Amy. Strange to think that the Goo and Christofart and I met all those ( 30 + ) years ago at the old National Library in Stamford Road and now we’re all thinning haired, middle-aged lau-jiaos. Inside I feel the same ( well, almost… ) , then I look in the mirror and think, ‘who the fuck is that old bastard?’