Overview of the Malaysian music scene since the 1970s (repost)

Below is a September 2013 email questionnaire sent by Marco Ferrarese, a PhD student, punk-rock guitarist & travel writer residing in Penang, who requested my input, to be included in his dissertation on the evolution of various musical genres in Malaysia...

Marco Ferrarese monkeying around as a freelancce cultural anthropologist

1) You have been exposed to Malaysian alternative culture and music since the '70s. Can you tell me something about that scene and its development in the early years? I know about kugiran bands, pop yeh-yeh and the likes... but how did Western music arrive in Malaysia? Do you remember some of the ways it did (i.e, radio, television etc.), and how it impacted you as a young man? Why people loved the budaya kuning so much as to try to reproduce it?

Actually, as far back as I can recall, Western music was already a major influence among urbanized Malayans. My dad told me he played saxophone & drums in a ragtime combo in the 1930s. As a kid growing up in the 1950s, I remember my parents – both Anglophonic & middle-class 2nd generation urban Chinese – had a collection of 78 rpm lacquer discs (later replaced by 45 & 33 rpm vinyl records) mostly consisting of 1940s & 1950s orchestral hits by the likes of Victor Silvester, Norrie Paramor, Percy Faith & Xavier Cugat. My dad wasn’t into black musicians or he might have also collected records by Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington.

In the early 1960s my classmates exposed me to radio hits by groups like Cliff Richard & The Shadows, Blue Diamonds, Pat Boone, Elvis Presley & Ricky Nelson. I recall buying only a few of these singles, as I didn’t really go for pop music. For some reason I preferred Broadway musicals (especially more adventurous ones like “West Side Story”) & movie soundtrack albums (specifically epics like “Ben Hur” or “Exodus” or “Cleopatra”)… till the Beatles showed up & convinced me there was intelligent life on the radio.

A Peace Corps Volunteer named Duncan Catling was assigned to my small-town high school when I was 14 and he introduced me to neo-classical symphonic works like Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” & George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” So you see, my musical upbringing was hardly typical but the fact that it was entirely Western rather than Eastern reflects the fact that my parents were English-speaking (for the most part) & had absolutely no interest in Chinese history or culture – or for that matter any other Asian culture, which they probably deemed “inferior” or “antiquated.”

2) How did Malaysian youth react to Western music in the 1970s? Were these behaviors about to change drastically a few years later, when Malaysia became increasingly Islamicized in the 1980s?

The Beatles & psychedelic rock made an enormous impact on me as a teenager. This was an era when marijuana became a popular recreational sensory stimulant throughout the world; followed by more powerful utopiates like LSD & psilocybin. With dramatically enhanced awareness & swiftly mutating neural circuitry came the appreciation & ingestion of this brave new music as an evolutionary agent. It was undoubtedly a trigger for accelerated synaptic growth leading to an entirely different perspective on life, reality, everything.

Compared to consciousness-altering, life-changing groups like The Doors, Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, the saccharine, predictable, entirely prosaic local radio hits favored by Malay, Chinese or Tamil speaking households seemed like a couple of centuries past their expiry date.

So in the mid-1970s it was common to see Malaysian bands doing cover versions of more accessible Western rock groups like Santana, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Bob Marley & Bob Dylan. The reason Western music grabbed the youths’ attention was simply because it carried more immediate excitement than traditional Asian music. The youth of Malaysia were looking for powerful evolutionary stimulants, too young as they were to wallow in cultural nostalgia & country music.

The insidious influence of Ayatollahism that crept into Malaysia in the mid-1980s didn’t really impact on those already hip to mutant or alternative culture – but it certainly squashed all possibility of exciting, innovative, liberating music ever getting played on the radio. Kids in the rural areas, trying to break free from stultifying tradition, were drawn to the angry, rebellious sound of punk, metal & trash – and soon found themselves finger-wagged & persecuted by officialdom.

The more docile ones became lulled by maudlin mainstream Malay pop music which poses no threat to the power structure. Islamization merely had the effect of depriving Malaysian music-lovers of ever getting to see sexy or radical acts on stage. Access to underground music, however, remained largely uncontrolled, though mostly confined to niche audiences.

3) You have described Heavy Metal kutus in your book Adoi!, but you didn't mention punks. How did these two subcultures interact in KL in the 70s and 80s? Is there any peculiarity in their behaviors that you consider more authentic, in the sense of reproducing/imitating or reinventing the music they borrowed from the West?

Adoi! was written in 1988, just as punk & new wave acts like Sid Vicious & Boomtown Rats were beginning to influence Joe Kidd’s generation. My loyalty still lay pretty much with the psychedelic, exploratory music of the late 1960s & mid-1970s. I found punk, metal & trash too angry, too aggressive for my taste. By 1971, in fact, I was already father to two girls and preoccupied with earning money & maintaining a family. I was more inclined to listen to Dave Brubeck, Charlie Mingus, Thelonius Monk, Sun Ra, John Coltrane & Keith Jarrett.

Malaysian heavy metal band Nuclear Strikes 

Amy,  lead singer with popular metal band Search

The rise of the underground punk/metal/trash scene in Malaysia can be interpreted as a covert rebellion against the mundane materialism of Mahathir’s shallow Vision 2020. True, the anger felt by Malaysian youth wasn’t quite as intense or extreme - or self-destructive - as examples from the industrialized West – nevertheless, it was an authentic gut reaction to the systematic dehumanization that accompanies industrial development. In that sense, I would say it was as “authentic” as the punk/metal/trash movement in the West.

The Heavy Metal crowd favored long hair, tight jeans & Scorpion-flavored sentimental rock ballads, while the Punks were into Mohicans, piercings & noise. I don’t recall seeing these subcultures interacting. It was as if they inhabited different dimensions, orbital paths rarely if ever intersecting. It may be oversimplifying things to say that the Heavy Metal crowd was more into just being sexy (Amy of Search used to transform into a satyr on stage, making his female fans cream their panties); while the Punks embraced anarchy & leftist ideals as a political statement.

KD Possum & The Flying Fox in 1979 (l-R): Antares, Ping, Shamala Devi, Nashville Slim,
Rob Stuebing, Lightnin' Fooch & John Davis

4) What about KD Possum & The Flying Fox, the first and only Malaysian bluegrass band? How did you get involved in this project, and how do you consider it in terms of its musical authenticity? After all, there was an American performer, among Malaysians... but bluegrass in Malaysia, well, it sounds quite peculiar.

In 1976 I found myself auditioning for a local production of “West Side Story.”  That experience gave me a taste for performing, so I immediately agreed when a former Peace Corps Volunteer named Rob Stuebing invited me to join the bluegrass group he was forming with a banjo-player colleague named John Davis. All I could play at first was the blues harp (at one time I owned 17 of them). Subsequently I contributed a bit of mandolin, backing vocals & eventually began writing my own songs. To me, it was simply a chance to make music with a bunch of good friends & have some fun. It didn’t cross my mind that a Malaysian bluegrass band was anything “peculiar.” Hilarious, perhaps, but as a group we didn’t take ourselves too seriously. I didn’t actually like country music, what more hillbilly songs – but it was a good foundation to learn how to create music, starting with the roots.

KD Possum & The Flying Fox was a truly Malaysian phenomenon in that at its height we had 2 Americans on guitar, dobro & banjo, 1 Indian vocalist, 1 Malay bassist/vocalist & 3-4 Chinese members on harp, mandolin, autoharp, kazoo & backing vocals – and we attracted equally diverse audiences. We may even qualify as the first Malaysian band to release a live album (Out of the Woods, 1982). As to whether our brand of bluegrass was authentic – well, Rob & John sounded like Appalachian hillbillies & our bassist Lat went by the name Nashville Slim. That’s authentic enough for me.

5) After this band and your personal decision to move into nature, you have recorded a lot of what can be categorized as "world music". Was this an evolution of your tastes, a conscious decision dictated by the circumstances, or did you just decide to perform more "authentic" Malaysian music?

Akar Umbi in August 1995 (clockwise from left): Antares, Stanley Nickam, Philip Boyle Jr,
Rafique Rashid, John Hagedorn, Nai Anak Lahai, Minah Angong, Xiong Lee 

Malaysia, truth be told, is a political artifice. There is no authentic “Malaysian” culture or identity – apart from the titillating blend of all the cultural influences to be found here, whether Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, Siamese, Burmese, Cambodian, Arab, Turkish, Portuguese, Dutch or British.

Minah Angong, Temuan ceremonial singer 

The work Rafique Rashid & I did with the Temuan ceremonial singer Minah Angong (whose niece I later married) arose spontaneously after hearing her sing at a drunken party. We were astonished by the soulful quality & shamanic power of her voice. Tried dropping her a capella voice on top of an instrumental piece we had recorded – and it worked marvelously, this “ethnic-trance fusion” experiment that became known as Akar Umbi - after our celebrated performance in September 1994 at the Shah Alam Stadium before an audience of 42,000 plus a nationwide live TV broadcast.

The universal appeal of Minah Angong’s medicine songs was a surprise to all of us, especially her. She couldn’t believe sophisticated audiences would be so receptive to her humble, unschooled voice. I had to laugh when it dawned on me that I was still stuck with a hillbilly band – this time from the Titiwangsa Range instead of the Appalachians.

My 2nd solo album reissued as a CD in September 2010

So, to remove the bland taste of folk music from my eclectic palate, I ventured into idiosyncratic expressionist solo experiments, mostly extemporized because I’m musically illiterate. I regard myself as a Malaysian citizen, so however my artistic output turns out, it’s always “Malaysian” – though the authenticity of “Malaysian” as an adjective can be questioned.

6) Talking about authenticity and Malaysia to me is a bit of an oxymoron. However, as you have spent so much time among orang asli - ideally, the authentic inhabitants of this country -, would you consider their lifestyle as authentic to Malaysia? If not, do you believe there is any kind of cultural/artistic authenticity in this country?

Allow me to quote playwright Huzir Sulaiman as the only appropriate response:

“It angers me when after hundreds of years of importing aspects of other people’s culture some politician in a 4,000-ringgit Italian suit complains about Western values and such-and-such a thing is not from our culture. Our culture is everybody else’s culture. We’ve never had our own. Deal with it and grow up." ~ Huzir Sulaiman, Notes on Life & Love & Painting (1999)

7) Sorry If I insist on the authenticity point, but you state that KD Possum & the Flying Fox was "authentic enough for you". How do you envision authenticity in music, then? Don't you think that music should be more localized and reflecting of a people's environment and traditions, social history and politics, rather than use the stereotypes of global genres such as rock/punk/psychedelia etc.? I am not arguing that there should be no globalization of sounds in this world, but don't you think that, let's say, a Malaysian punk band would be more authentic if they sang about actual political and social problems, rather than the higher stereotypical ideas of the genre crafted in the West?

Os Pombos, a popular Malaysian cowboy band,
has been around for decades

What are you driving at? Are you suggesting it’s “inauthentic” for blue men to sing the whites?

I don’t represent any kind of cultural tradition. Some people do, some don’t. Why on earth should I insist that music be more localized, reflecting “Malaysian” culture & traditions? Nobody knows what “Malaysian” means. It depends on your political orientations. If you’re an Umno member, for example, you’ll insist that national culture must smell & taste Melayu.

I don’t insist that anyone or anything must smell & taste Chinese or Eurasian or whatever. If something sounds good, I’ll listen to it over & over again & share it with friends. I’m not the national arbiter of musical fashion & taste. I value originality more than technical precision, it’s true - and the idea of a Bollywoodized version of “Thriller” or a bunch of Malay kids with baseball caps & oversized clothes rapping in a shopping mall strikes me as fairly comic. But why can’t they be left to do whatever pleases them?

M. Nasir in action

There will always be a few individual artists, like M. Nasir, who focus on musically exploring their own tribal roots & regional influences. Or the short-lived Thavil Blues Band formed by Allan Perera & Paul Ponnudurai in the mid-1990s which introduced curry-flavored blues to the world.  Bluegrass wasn’t & will never be my idea of music. My solo musical experiments were purely for fun & they express my personal idiosyncrasies rather than some national culture.

8) Returning to KD Possum & the Flying Fox: it was a multi-ethnic band. How did the members come together in friendship? Based on my current observations, I have noted that, especially in punk and metal, there is a majority of Malay players and fans, and the Chinese have instead focused more on other fringes of indie and post-rock, while the Indians have at times created a localized Tamil version of hard rock. I understand that your musical involvement today is lesser than before, but do you feel that back in the 1970s it was easier to mingle as Malaysians, without the silly racial divisions which are reified in the public as of today?

You’re making an intellectual mountain out of a circumstantial molehill here. KD Possum & The Flying Fox was really just a few good friends getting together to make some sweet noise. Our female vocalists Ping & Shamala happened to be married to Rob & Lightnin’ Fooch. Lat @ Nashville Slim was a regular visitor at the Fooch household where I first met him & none of us was aware that we were the embodiment or forerunners of some stupid slogan like “1Malaysia.” There was a great deal of camaraderie among us, that’s for sure. We had a lot of fun.

KD Possum & The Flying Fox in 1980 (clockwise L-R): Lightnin' Fooch, Shamala Devi,
Rob Stuebing, Antares, Ping

Other guest musicians were roped in for bigger concerts. I mean, how likely is it to find a Chinese banjo-player from Penang named Willy Chin? Nobody thought in terms of race or nationality. We weren’t embarrassed to be playing Appalachian folk music. If Rob were Greek & played the bouzouki, we would have been just as happy performing Mediterranean folk music. I enjoyed being part of a band. It so happened none of us owned amps & drumkits or we might have been churning out rock - or jazz, but the truth is, none of us was that much of a virtuoso on any instrument.  

Marco Ferrarese's latest book:
click here to order!

My checkered musical career includes a very brief stint as part of a madrigal choir performing medieval songs. I did it at the insistence of the choir conductor, my great buddy Hans Sallmann who was director of Goethe-Institut & an enthusiastic cellist. Guess I was grateful to Hans for appreciating my weird musical output. I gave him my second solo album & he called the next morning to say it was “the most interesting music” he had heard since arriving in Malaysia.

There are no serious racial divisions – apart from the ones fabricated & orchestrated by Barisan Nasional to keep itself in power indefinitely. Artists, especially musicians, don’t give a shit about race & religion & such crap. They’re usually in it for whatever buzz they get out of jamming together.

[First posted 5 November 2014, reposted 30 June 2017 & 

23 September 2019]

Mak Minah would have celebrated her 94th birthday...

Video footage featuring the Chiling, Luit and Selangor rivers in Ulu Selangor, Malaysia edited to the song 'Sungai Makao' by Akar Umbi. This video officially launches the Ecowarriorz blogspot and is my personal tribute to Mak Minah who was a true guardian of the environment and an inspiration to many. ~ Mary Maguire

A Tribute to Mak Minah

(14.9.1930 ~ 21.9.1999)

Ceremonial singer... noblewoman... cultural representative of the Temuan tribe... free spirit and a friend to all.

Mak Minah (Menah Kuntom) was born in Pertak, Ulu Selangor, between the First and Second World Wars. Those who remember her in her youth report that she was extremely feisty and perhaps even a little wayward. But her second husband, Batin Angong of Gerachi, was a mature tribal leader who groomed Minah for the important role of Batin’s wife, and taught her all the songs he knew. They had a daughter and five sons – the eldest of whom, Ramsit, is now Batin of Gerachi.

When Batin Angong died, Mak Minah moved back to Pertak to live with her sister Indah. It was around this time that Minah befriended Antares and Rafique, two musicians seeking sanctuary in Kuala Kubu Bharu from the clangor of the Klang Valley. Before long a musical collaboration began which led to the formation of Akar Umbi – a “trance-ethnic” fusion group – and widespread acclaim for Mak Minah as a cultural representative of her tribe. Her goodnatured willingness to be a friend to all made her an ideal ambassador for the marginalized Orang Asli community.

Audiences everywhere were uplifted by Mak Minah’s soulful voice. Her songs reflected the love and reverence indigenous peoples feel for the land. They were a powerful antidote to the cynicism and myopia of a “modern” worldview centered on money and power.

Offstage, Mak Minah was a fearless and outspoken advocate of cultural and spiritual autonomy for the Orang Asli. She fiercely opposed the State government’s plan to relocate two Temuan villages for a dam project on Sungai Selangor which would destroy the wild beauty and sanctity of the Pertak area.

“I will fight the dam as long as I live,” Mak Minah repeatedly said. But it is a heart-rending fight that has set brother against brother, mother against son, neighbor against neighbor. The psychological conflict and uncertainty exhausted her.

Mak Minah’s passionate love for the rainforest where her tribe has lived for countless generations is an inspiration to all of us who share an alternative vision – one where mutual respect for all tribes and the healing of the earth take precedence over economic and political
expediency.

POSTSCRIPT

The last time I saw Minah alive was around midday on the 21st of September, 1999. The day before I had taken her to the clinic because she was complaining of aches all over her chest and back, and she had no appetite. The doctor said Minah had a viral infection and prescribed some medicine, suggesting that she drink lots of Glucolin to get her energy back. I was on my way to Kuala Lumpur and told Minah I'd look in on her the next day.

At 3 a.m. I received a phone call informing me that she had died in her sleep at 7:03 p.m. at the Kuala Kubu Bharu hospital.

Her granddaughter Sembo and another friend were by her side. A week ago she turned 69 and three weeks earlier she had returned happy and fulfilled from Sarawak, after performing with Akar Umbi at the 2nd Rainforest World Music Festival.

Mak Minah had a very sweet smile on her face when they buried her on a hill we shall henceforth call Bukit (Mount) Minah. Ironically, she was the first to be interred in a virtually inaccessible new tribal gravesite allocated to Gerachi Villagers in view of the government's determination to inundate the old Temuan burial site with the proposed Selangor Dam. Minah swore to resist the dam to her last breath and she did.

[Reposted 14 September 2011. Source: Magick River website. Listen to Mak Minah's musical legacy here!]

A POSTHUMOUS LETTER TO SALLEH BEN JONED (reprise)

Magick River

Kuala Kubu Bharu

21 March 2021

My dear Salleh,

You left your body in the wee hours of October 29th, 2020, alone in a hospital bed, with no family or friends in attendance (because of Covid protocols), and you were buried without fuss or proper farewell, no lying-in-state, as befits a literary giant, celebrated and cherished by those who knew and love you, and a few thousand others who only know of your greatness by reputation.

Poetry session with SBJ, July 2018

Nevertheless it must have been a huge relief to finally be free of your mortal shell, to once again soar upon the winds of boundless inspiration, in the spirit realms of pure imagination. 

I know it couldn’t have been much fun to be you, especially in the last decade or so, when you often sat and wondered if there was any point, after all, in expressing thoughts in words, and you began to question the value of the literary life, and even contemplated burning all the books in your library. 

No worse torment than being a gourmet who suddenly loses his taste for food. No wonder you often shut yourself from the world, unable to force yourself to be sociable, or to even leave the house. But it was delightful to see your face light up and break out in a broad grin, whenever we connected via a WhatsApp videocall, arranged by Anna or Adam.

I guess it also didn’t help that the gorgeous, doe-eyed, down-to-earth princess you married (who gave you a fresh start in life as literally the father of Adam and Eve) succumbed to religious fundamentalism in her later years, then to cancer and untimely death, when you most needed companionship and domestic stability. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy ride for dear Halimaton either, being married to a larger-than-life literary swashbuckler, prone to swinging from the chandeliers of biochemical and/or neuropsychic flux.

L-R: Jing, SBJ, Ridzuan Idris, Adam Kabir, Antares, Anna Salleh @
The Fusion Longhouse on 26 February 2019

SBJ by Lat

I especially cherish the memory of your last visit to Magick River on 26 February 2019, accompanied by Anna, Adam, Jing and Ridzuan Idris (resident of KKB and publisher of Rehman Rashid’s Small Town). That’s when you suddenly grimaced, lifted your kain pelikat, squatted on the riverbank, and released a spectacular, spherical turd. The look of utter relief on your face will forever be imprinted in my mind. You had been keeping it in for at least a couple of days, no doubt.

You once told me, when I asked what prompted you to piss on Redza Piyadasa’s surrealist exhibition manifesto (“Towards a Mystical Reality”) that it was only because you were unable to do a Number Two.*

The scatologist in me truly appreciated the scatologist in you, Salleh – and I suspect that we share similar eschatological perspectives too, although we rarely discussed metaphysics. You acknowledged and affirmed the ultimate sacredness of everything - even the apparently profane, because you understood polarity and the value of diversity, and readily accepted divergent views in a pluralistic world (which irked more than a few of your less urbane contemporaries in the local literary milieu). 

Live and let live was your credo, so what if some folks are so pompously ridiculous they deserve to be lampooned and laughed at, get their ego balloons popped by your Swiftian verbal pinpricks. Those who completely lack charm and talent will resort to sedition laws when their attempts at starving you to death do not succeed in shutting you up. Damn good thing, Salleh, the analogue era was much jollier and less politically correct, or you might have found yourself in hot soup (“Just make sure it’s bak kut teh!” I can hear you quip).

SBJ in Dublin, mid-1970s

What year was it that we first met? Late 1974 or early 1975? You got out of the lime-green Renault driven by our sweet friend Brigitte Neubacher (then attached to the Austrian Embassy) and we took an instant liking to each other. Your reputation had preceded you. I had already heard about your outrageous performance at Redza Piyadasa’s exhibition (probably from our mutual buddy Lat) and was absolutely delighted to meet someone of such iconoclastic verve.

I don’t think I had met Piyadasa at that point in time but we subsequently became friends and he used to drop by at my hermit’s abode and shoot his mouth off for hours. To his credit, Redza never held a grudge against you – indeed, I had the feeling he was somewhat in awe of you (he certainly regarded you as a bona fide public intellectual) and was acutely aware, savvy soul that he was, that without your theatrical intervention, his surrealist exhibition might have swiftly faded from public memory.

SBJ & Antares @ No Black Tie, 2016

Our first close encounter was made even more memorable when Brigitte suggested we go to town for lunch and you directed her to a noisy, jam-packed coffeeshop in Chinatown where we had the most exquisite charsiew ever. I was truly impressed that it was you who introduced me to that particular stall. You were never one to be swayed by exaggerated displays of false piety. Notions of halal and haram were differently defined by you: anything dishonest, hypocritical, pretentious, corrupt, obsequious, dictated purely by social convention and rigid tradition, you viewed as haram. 

You understood better than most that the Source of Life, Prime Creator, Allah, Call It What You Will, cannot be defined or confined by doctrine or dogma – that the creative impulse cannot be constrained by social mores and pseudo-morality, tribal totems and taboos be damned. This was what made you a cultural hero for some and for others, a social misfit. No one dared to nominate you for literary awards or ceremonial honorifics, not knowing how you might behave when invited to the palace.

In a world governed by hype and public relations, only the Madman and the Poet can experience true freedom. Kahlil Gibran, for one, and William Blake, for another, would have cheerfully raised a toast to you, Salleh Ben Joned, as an esteemed colleague - and it wouldn’t be with rose syrup, no way. 

You explained to me one day that your name derives from the Arabic  , meaning sacred or holy. That’s why you titled your first poetry collection Sajak-Sajak Saleh: Poems Sacred and Profane. You had an innate knowing that holiness is akin to wholeness, and that wholeness is akin to integrity, wherein one acknowledges and embraces the totality of one’s unlimited being – even, or especially, the parts deemed salacious or sinful by the publicly pious but privately perverted. And that redemption comes from reconciliation and reintegration, never harsh judgment and condemnation, for the unrighteous tend to fear a punitive deity while the righteous invariably put their faith in a merciful God.

On another occasion you hinted at something which took me a while to fully comprehend. Your scholarly research had unearthed the obscure fact that the Koran alludes to the Sacred Feminine as Al Ghaib, meaning The Unseen, The Hidden, the Mystery of Mysteries and Holy of Holies. There is a mystic in every poet, and your excitement at this revelation was matched only by the enthusiasm with which you disclosed to me that Al Ghaib was, in truth, a veiled reference to what in Western esotericism is called the Vesica piscis - the Primordial Vulva, the Black Hole from which issues Life Itself. Then you added with a hearty guffaw that modern Malays appear to have a decidedly distorted perspective – indeed, an entirely profane one – because they call female genitalia kemaluan, which suggests something shameful and scandalous . 

It also explains why you deliberately misspelled the location of Universiti Malaya (where you lectured in English for quite a few years) as “Lembah Pantat” instead of “Lembah Pantai” on your infamous namecard which you gleefully handed out at parties – the one where you declared yourself a proud holder of a BS degree from Buffalo University and which included the tagline: “Why be a man when you can be a suckcess?”

SBJ in December 2017
(photo by Malachi Edwin Vethamani)

Well, Salleh, you were certainly no pusillanimous biophobe (someone living in constant fear of being assigned to eternal perdition for breaking any number of priestly rules). On the contrary, you perfectly qualify as the quintessential biophile: a wholehearted lover of life whose spiritual core was aligned with your passionate human ego and your brilliant artistic temperament. 

Walt Whitman would have bought you a jug of beer just to enjoy a no-holds-barred extended conversation with you (although he might have had trouble getting a word in edgewise). For that matter so would have Chairil Anwar, your Indonesian counterpart, whose writings profoundly inspired you.

I never did get around to asking you to show me your identity card and that bothers me slightly, because you are the only Malay I know who has opted to use the Hebraic form of Ben, rather than the Arabic Ibn or the Malay Bin (meaning “son of”) in conjuction with your father’s name. You admitted to calling yourself Salleh Ben Joned just to annoy Yahudiphobic local sasterawan in particular and jingoistic bigots in general – but how on earth did you manage to convince the bureaucrats it wasn’t an act of subversion?

In any case you did it and shall evermore be fondly remembered (and read) as Salleh Ben Joned. Congratulations! 

In eternal friendship and with all-encompassing love,

Antares Maitreya

Ceremonial Guardian

Magick River

________________

*Speaking of scatology, I am reminded of SBJ’s ebullient and hilarious review of Kisses in the Nederends (a Rabelaisian novel by a Tongan writer named Epeli Hau’ofa), written in November 1992 and provocatively titled, “Kiss My Arse – In the Name of Common Humanity.” It may well have inspired national laureate Shahnon Ahmad to produce his 1999 political satire, SHIT. 

[First published in the June 2021 issue of Men Matters Online Journal. Reposted 22 October 2021 & 1 December 2023]

A poem in Manglish written 23 September 1994 (repost)

Aiyah You Holaif Wankain One!


waffor you worry man aitelyu
no money, got money, still got ploblem
even your farder 'tan slee' yuting can asscape ah?

laif is laif man aitelyu
no wife, got ten wife, holaif still fraskes
even your chewren all pee-hedge-dee you still can be pokai

take my advais lah brudder
doan believe wat peeple tell you
dey all tokkok only
you arsk yourself istru ornot
only den you decide
i doan booshit you man, doan be skad
i learn how to suck eggs from my granmahder
yutingwat, i born yesterday ah?

nonid to consult fawchoon teller, brudder
fewcher all in your own hands
wat yuting, everyting oridi FATED one ah?
bladi nonsen lah, doan be a blinking foo
and believe all dose kok-and-bool story
trust me man i am old enough to be
your ahngcle oridi

wat you need is CONFEEDENS, man
dat is da way to suckcess
worth it to buy nice cloats, got label one
wear good shoes, real ledder lah, not smelly plastic
ting about your IMAGE -
and you nid lawa punya calling card lah
doan go on LRT and den visit your customer's awfis
stinking like stale sotong
better get loan and buy ploton
ting big man!
doan be takut only
you will end up nowhere, man

oso very importen
you must eemploof your ENGLISH
nowdays got so many kolesponden course
no ploblem lah!
at home oso ken learn
yuwan i lekomen you my flen's language school in taman tun -
mebbe get speshul diskaun -
yuwan ornot?

*Linguists, take note: Manglish is a mangled form of hybridized English widely spoken in Malaysia, just as in Singapore, many still communicate in Singlish. The term was coined in 1988 and first appeared in print in my 1989 bestseller, ADOI! First posted 3 March 2007, reposted 7 February 2018.

A PRAYER FOR THE LAND I LOVE (reprise)

Dear God or Whatever You Prefer To Be Called These Days:

I'm not in the habit of publicizing my private thoughts,

But times are such that habits must be broken.

And so I will utter my innermost feelings

In the form of words,

Even though I know

That words are what imprison us

In mindsets of No Escape.

For I remain steadfast in my belief

That words spoken from the heart

Have the power to free us from

The evil clutches of political expediency.

It saddens me to see such beautiful, graceful beings

Caught in the deceit of cosmetic piety,

Enslaved by the ugly dictum - "Money Talks!"

Enfeebled by the lame excuse - "What to do?"

Disempowered by the abject fear of False Authority,

And disenfranchised from their own glorious destinies.

Grant unto us the clarity and wisdom

To understand that we have no grander gift

To bestow on our children than the freedom

To speak their heart's truth

Without fear of punishment.

Grant unto us the courage and the fortitude

To truly embody the lofty ideals we hold so dear;

Let us not falter in our inner struggle

To throw off the mental shackles of Greed and Fear,

For those are the twin towers of Tyranny.

Grant unto us a Vision of the Real.

Let us not be misled by cunning projections

From the debased minds of "economic experts"

Who advise us not to "rock the boat" of Status Quo;

And whose dire warnings are couched in grave tones of

"Security and Stability."

Remember: INTEGRITY

Is the key to the Divine Sanctum of the Self!

And since each Nation is but a collectivity of Selves,

My greatest duty to the land I love

Is to always seek to be true to myself;

And my true self tells me:

Bear not the yoke of feudal despots

A moment longer than you need.

There's room and board enough for everyone,

Once you cast the Vampires of Vitality

From their vacuous palaces erected by the sweaty toil

Of half-wit slaves, who know not half their worth.

This beautiful, gracious land is YOURS -

Not THEIRS! (Well, it COULD be theirs too,

If they'd only see themselves as YOU).

The Reality of Heaven on Earth will soon be here,

And to that we are ALL heirs.

Antares

24 October 1998

[First published 26 August 2008. Cartoons courtesy of LAT. Reposted 3 July 2011, 29 October 2015 & 27 August 2020]

Wisdom of the Ridiculous: 3 timeless lectures by Alan Watts (repost)

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience.

Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopal priest but left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.

Living on the West Coast, Watts gained a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area while working as a volunteer programmer at KPFA, a Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley. Watts wrote more than 25 books and articles on subjects important to Eastern and Western religion, introducing the then-burgeoning youth culture to The Way of Zen (1957), one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism.

In Psychotherapy East and West (1961), Watts proposed that Buddhism could be thought of as a form of psychotherapy and not just a religion. Like Aldous Huxley before him, he explored human consciousness in the essay, "The New Alchemy" (1958), and in the book, The Joyous Cosmology (1962).

Towards the end of his life, he divided his time between a houseboat in Sausalito and a cabin on Mount Tamalpais. His legacy has been kept alive by his son, Mark Watts, and by many of his recorded talks and lectures that have found new life on the Internet. According to the critic Erik Davis, his "writings and recorded talks still shimmer with a profound and galvanizing lucidity."

NOTE: These brilliant lectures were digitally rescued from analog audio recordings and made available to the present generation by Mark Watts, keeper of his father's wisdom archives. I suggest you bookmark this post and return to it from time to time - whenever you feel prompted to lean back and be reassured by a warm, human voice of crystalline intelligence, mental clarity, infinite compassion, spiritual depth, and supreme eloquence.

Alan Watts & The Skin-Encapsulated Ego

Several decades ago I stumbled upon the writings of a wry English theologian and philosopher named Alan Watts (1915-1973).

I owe Alan Wilson Watts a huge debt of gratitude for having provided me effortless access to the essence of Eastern mysticism as expressed in the Tao Te Ching and the basic tenets of Zen. Ironic, isn't it, that someone like me whose physical body can be categorized as "Asian" has to engage the timeless teachings of Eastern mystics through the medium of an Englishman's mind?

The most endearing - and enduring - quality of Alan Watts's writing is its elegant, poetic lucidity, and the tangible warmth of his exquisitely noble personality. Watts had the uncanny knack of drawing his readers gently into his private thought-streams and lofty musings minus the intellectual haughtiness of so many run-of-the-mill academics.

[Read the rest here.]

[First posted 11 May 2012. Reposted 2 July 2017]

Thanks, Frank! (reprise)

With thanks to Solo Goodspeed who alerted me to the first video. First posted 13 August 2013.

WE WROTE'M ALL! (a poem for Antara)

Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), The Birth of Venus (detail), c. 1482-83. Tempera on canvas

 every love story ever told

(or untold); every sweet nothing

(& everything) ever murmured;

every lonely balcony sighed from

upon a moonless night;

every saga of love requited

(or otherwise); every conjugating,

consummating, copulating couple

coupling under the twinkling stars;

every game of footsies under the stools

in every dim & smoky bar;

every wounded howl at midnight

from every chained-up hound;

every secret whisper

in a beloved's fragrant ear;

every wanton curling tress

cascading down a brazen breast;

every sensuous wiggle of a big toe,

every contented twitch of a mustache;

every squealing shimmering moment

stolen from a dolphin's delight;

every wonderful feeling

that ever filled a heaving heart;

every trilling note of morning song

from a robin magpie to the clear blue sky;

every single heartbeat,

every thrum & throb,

every riff that's ever been played

on a guitar well inlaid

with mother-of-pearl;

every flamenco dancer's fantasy,

every boy who's ever met his girl;

every tale of love undying,

every dream of formation flying;

each silent wish upon a shooting star;

every first kiss in the back of a car;

each shy penciled note passed from hand to hand,

every grand gesture that's led to instant death;

every mantra of devotion,

every image of divinity,

every prayer to infinity recited under the breath...

 

0 Antara my Soul, my Inmost Self,

my reminder of perfection...

with you I feel at One within:

9D, 7D, 5D, 3D, 1D we ARE free!

My love, my love, I can only say:

Love is never hard work,

Love is play!

(I'm glad we're not married to each other...

And that we aren't "legally" sister & brother...)

I'm so happy that we can simply be

Left to explore the furthermost outposts

Of pure love's possibilities.

 

[I HEREBY GRANT YOU TOTAL ACCESS TO MY FILES!]

18 June 1998

For Feroz, my free-flowing feral friend who loved felines... (repost)

Feroz Faisal Merican @ Feroz Dawson (17 February 1966~12 August 2012)

On August 4th I found out that Feroz Dawson was in hospital. Apparently he had been admitted to University Hospital a couple of weeks earlier, after his mother (my old friend Faridah Merican) found him unconscious at home.

I hadn't seen Feroz for many months, but he took delight in trolling his friends on facebook. More than once, I had been amused by Feroz's habit of saying rude things to people he didn't even know. The young man had a big chip on his shoulder, that's for sure. Pretty much the same chip his old man, Leslie Dawson, had carried around for years.

Leslie Dawson and Faridah Merican were married in the mid-1960s and Feroz was their genetic legacy. When Feroz was 3 his parents split up. Imagine growing up as the offspring of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Both parents were exceptional actors, utterly passionate about theater; and both had been radio personalities. 

I got involved with local theater in 1976 and two years later found myself acting alongside Faridah Merican in an epic production titled The Battles of Coxinga (originally a puppet play by Chikamatsu, translated into English by Donald Keene). Early rehearsals were held at Faridah's spacious home in Petaling Jaya - and it was there that I was introduced to the 12-year-old Feroz.

In 1990 I had the great honor and privilege of sharing the stage with Feroz's legendary father, Leslie Dawson, when we did a 3-man one-acter by Israel Horovitz called The Indian Wants The Bronx, directed by Joe Hasham (who married Faridah Merican and inaugurated The Actors' Studio in 1989). Leslie turned in an absolutely unforgettable performance in a role that had hardly any speaking lines. Little did any of us know at the time, it would be Leslie Dawson's theatrical swan song.

Fast-forward to 1993 or thereabouts and meeting Feroz again as an aspiring writer, returned from studying in the U.S. (where he married a young lady from the Midwest whom he greatly adored, even though it turns out they had little in common). Feroz shows me a few of his short stories and I'm impressed by his acerbic, shoot-from-the-hip style. His head is full of ideas for screenplays. However, he finds himself recruited into the advertising world as an apprentice director, and subsequently gets assigned to a production house in Jakarta. 

"I don't like the fact that most Malaysian writers are journalists, lecturers and lawyers. For our literature to be vibrant we need criminals, maladjusted youngsters and psychotic housewives to write fiction. Then we'll raise some eyebrows." ~ Feroz Dawson

In his princely domain with a "French bulldog" (posted a week before his 46th birthday). 

Is there a difference between French and British bulldogs, a friend asked; 

and Feroz's response was: "Yes, the French complain more."

Truth be told, I didn't have much contact with Feroz, although we had lots of mutual friends. Like his father before him, Feroz sought his spiritual highs out of a bottle. There was always a feral, rebellious streak in him that inclined him towards a species of sardonic existentialism. He also relished the shock effect he had on the sensitivities of those easily offended, especially when it came to social taboos and religious dogma. He made an artform out of raising eyebrows and rocking the boat. In short, Feroz was well equipped to be a literary and cinematic enfant terrible.

"Finally the lovers get what they want, a dead husband, life insurance, all the property he owned, assets, bonds and cars, and the two girls escape to Mexico, one step ahead of the law. With no paw prints..." (caption for one of Feroz's famous feline portraits posted on facebook)

Call him maladjusted, a social misfit, a professional delinquent - a larger-than-life personality like Feroz Dawson is rarely appreciated or acknowledged for his talents and unique perspectives until he's no longer among us.

The last time I saw Feroz was on August 7th, in ward 12 of University Hospital, where I found him bound to the bed to stop him ripping out the feeding tube stuck down one nostril. His eyeballs were yellow - a sure sign of jaundice caused by liver malfunction - and he was startlingly bloated. But his life force was vigorous and I figured he stood a fighting chance of recovery. I think he recognized me, because he kept attempting to speak, though his words were barely coherent. I told him he was dearly loved by many, especially his mum, and he instantly calmed down. "It's really up to you," I said to him. "Sure, it will take some time to get back in shape, but it's worth the effort. Do stick around a while longer, please. At least get your collection of stories published first!"

"The husband, lonely and hungry for Whiskas Tuna and Sardine biscuits..." (from Feroz's facebook album)

Well, it looks like his stories will be posthumously published - and the rest of us will be reminded, once again, how easy it is to overlook thwarted genius while it's alive and kicking.

[First posted 12 August 2012, reposted 23 August 2020]

"How Sexually Confident Are You?" (flashback & repost!)

[Sometime ago, in the early years of the 21st century, a popular women's magazine sent me a questionnaire on sexual confidence. I kept my responses in my personal folder and just stumbled on this fascinating document, which I'm reposting purely for entertainment purposes.]

The Marie Claire Interview: "How Sexually Confident Are You?"

1. On a scale of one to 10, how sexually confident are you?

When I was 15, maybe about 7... between 30-45, possibly 10... after 51, maybe about 7.

2. How would you describe yourself? Your personality etc.

Approachable. Friendly. Honest. Romantic. Affectionate. Abductable?

3. How do you view your body and sex?

No hunk like the muscle-bound species some girls drool over (who often turn out to be gay) - but appealing enough that I'd go out with myself if I were a woman. How do I view sex? Very favorably indeed! Seriously, sex is a very powerful key to holistic consciousness. Which is why it has been deliberately made a taboo subject, so people will be more easily controlled through guilt, fear, and frustration. In a sexually unrepressed community, folks would laugh wannabe dictators out of town.

4. Do you flirt? What's your come-on move like?

All the time. Don't have any (and even if I did, you think I'd tell and spoil it all?)


5. If you're outgoing, would you say you're confident sexually too? If you're shy, would you say that is the same when it comes to bedroom manners too?

I'm generally outgoing. As for sexual confidence: what you really wanna know is how long and strong my schlong is, admit it! (Haven't a clue what else you might mean by "sexual confidence.")

6. What would you do to make yourself more confident?
Overconfidence isn't very sociable and it ruins the economy.

7. Do you dress the way you feel?

Of course. Okay, that's not entirely true. I really don't care too much for clothes, the climate here doesn't support anything beyond sarongs. But I've yet to show up at the theater clad only in a sarong (besides, most auditoriums are way too cold).

8. How do others view you?

With great affection and profound admiration... I hope!


9. Is it important for you to be sexually confident?

Unfortunately, yes. Despite all protestations to the contrary, men generally think with their dicks. I'm perhaps one of the more genteel ones who thinks with his Richard.

10. Your name, age and occupation please!

Antares... I stopped aging at 52 (but am officially retired)... I'm a phase modulator for planetary shifts and galactic alignments. I also maintain an eclectic website at www.magickriver.net and a blog at www.magickriver.org.

[First posted 2 December 2006, reposted 31 July 2018]

Selected Poems of Arlen Riley Wilson (wife of Robert Anton Wilson)

ARLEN RILEY WILSON (16 July 1925 - 22 May 1999)

HOLISTIC REMEDY

This is the world that man made.
These are the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
This is the doctor prescribing the pills
That treated the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
These are the plants and labs and mills
That manufactured all the pills the doctor
Gave to treat the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
This is the banker with tellers and tills
That backed the plants and labs and mills
That manufactured all the pills the doctor
Gave to treat the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
This is the general with trumpets and trills
Who made the war that saved the bank that
Backed the plants that manufactured all the pills
The doctor gave to treat the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
Here is the mother all forlorn
Whose one and only child was born
To die in the war the general made to save
The bank that backed the plants that made
The pills the doctor gave to treat the ills
That plagued the world that man made.
This is the angel that blew his horn
To comfort the mother all forlorn
And fired the general and closed the banks
And shut the mills and scattered the pills,
Retired the doctor and cured the ills
And ended the world that man made.

Our Lady of Outer Space

Reach down for the sun, reach down
for the stars, reach deeper for the secret
places of the body of her the stars adorn.
You are lost and found in her embrace.
There is nowhere else for you to fall and
no escaping from her love for she is
black and pulsating source, her
million twinkling nipples nurse
all life, her jeweled ardent
body twines around you
always and there is
no place to go
but home
to her

SAVE YOUR BREATH

Don't budget deficit me you old men with eyeglasses and no lips
who say we can't afford to house the houseless or to heal the sick.
Don't fiscal responsibility me you devourers of the fat of the land
may it clog your devious up-for-election arteries.
Don't balance of trade me you horny-handed peddlars of shoddy shares
in finger-crossed bonanzas based on non-existent enterprise.
Don't national security me you who make deals behind our backs
under cover of law-proof dark.
Don't family-values me you who force apart man woman and child
in the interest of an ever-grosser national product.
Don't state of the union me you unctuous apologists for quotidian horror
may you choke on your aw-shucks-just-plain-old-me charisma.
Don't pay your speech-writers one more cent on my account
or your column writers or The News Tonighters.
Epoxy in my ears before I hear another word.

HAIKU
1999


This is the end

of the tunnel

and guess what

there is

a little

light


[First posted 10 July 2009, reposted 25 August 2017]

15Malaysia: 'ONE FUTURE' by Tan Chui Mui

This stark film by Tan Chui Mui starring Tian Chua and Ida Nerina is my personal favorite of this week's crop of short features presented by the exciting 15Malaysia project. In exactly 4 minutes and 44 seconds, Tan Chui Mui successfully conjures a hyperrealist nightmare vision of a conformist dystopia.

Tian Chua is absolutely convincing as The Man, while Ida Nerina is provocatively enigmatic as The Agent. Pete Teo's narration is crisp and tight and crucial to the dramatic flow.

Principal Cast
Tian Chua, Ida Nerina, Pete Teo (Narrator)

Supporting Cast
Cynthia Gabriel, Azman Hassan, Low Wai Sun, Oon Lai Keat, Lam Pooi Leng, Charlotte Lim, Diana Fernando, Sumining, Melissa Fernando, Noreen Joseph, Lee Kai Yin, Syed Harun, Muhammad Nazmi, Nikki Tok, Nor Aliya, John Teti, Albert Law, Christine Teti, Scott Issaac, Lee Ming Jun, Lee Yee Ling

Executive Producer: Packet One Networks
Producer: Pete Teo
Director: Tan Chui Mui
DOP: Tan Chui Mui
Editor: Tan Chui Mui
Music: Ng Chor Guan
Post Audio: The Ark Studios
Translation: Copyleft Studio

[First posted 3 September 2009]