a study of 2 men

happened to watch young adam again after a few years and so happens that i also watched keinohrhasen (rabbit without ears) the day after. couldn’t help but think of the leading male characters, joe and ludo, in both films. both men are good looking, get lots of sex, seem callous, but that’s about all they roughly have in common.

the difference in mood in both films is stark. keinohrhasen is bright, slick, funny, more common to daily life. ludo is a tabloid reporter (at least his writing is more successful than joe’s dabbling in porno fiction), a typical jock in all sense of the word and his sleeping around changes forever after meeting one particular girl. cliche no? the film is certainly more entertaining than thought-provoking. but that should by no means give it less credit for its own merit. granted both films are totally different in genre, but keinohrhasen is a good reminder of the current social, and sexual, condition between single men and women. but for me, it heightens the difference in joe’s character even more.

young adam is dark, brooding, unknown. as serious drama, it is not a pretty film but joe is absolutely fascinating as a character. what made him what he is? what drives him? it’s hard to say sex does. it just happens so much it seems. either he gets it from whoever is in front of him at the time, or women want it from him and he just obliges. based on that he appears to have no social mores and is certainly not an innocent or even likeable character, but yet he’s not a villain either. romance just doesn’t exist in real daily life here.

a drifter, a hustler, a guy with no future, low on the social rungs, on the fringe, whose life revolves around odd jobs half the time and fucking for most of the other. he seems to be seeking somewhere in his head but goes nowhere, and physically that translates into non-action outwardly as well. what does he seek? to feel alive, to be something more, to have power, to not be at the bottom of the barrel, to escape? ludo on the other hand is very much a do-er and his sexual exploits are as much a crowning achievement as his best gossip rag scoops.

for joe, it seems that despite his attempts to do something more they turn out to be ineffectual anyway, the clearest sign of this being the anonymous note he tries writing to clear an innocent man of murder. the other arguable thing is when he tried being a writer, arguable because it’s hard to believe how much he wanted it to work or was just using it as a means to buy time living with his girlfriend. regardless, the sense of futility surrounding his life increases towards the end of the film, which also makes the audience feel increasingly sorry for him even as he may still not be liked. by then he is once again a man with no past, background, links, relationships. all discarded, lost, thrown into the water. and there is something utterly bleak in his existential continuance. is this the reality of the human condition at its most low? desire for idealism but in reality most futile?

young adam makes me wonder what it would be like if all the sex was taken out. after all it is said that when alexander trocchi was trying to publish the story, a publishing house said they would take it if he weaved sex into every 6 pages. and he did. in doing that, i wonder how much of joe’s character was changed. or was it simply fleshed out even more clearly through it? sex used by the characters to fill the voids in their lives, just as sex used by trocchi to fill the void he had in order to publish.

if joe had a local equivalent, what would he be like? if trocchi’s story, originally set in the 50s, had a local equivalent, what would that be like?

chatty cabby

harry flagged a cab by the kerb, gave me a lil peck and off i went home.

(the following is loosely translated from mandarin)

cabby: going where?

me: j—– s—–.

cabby: where is that?

me: near k—–.

cabby: actually lucky there’s you, if not tonight i dunno if i can even get a passenger. and you’re travelling so far (laughs).

i almost wanted to ask him if it was because it was sunday night or because it was also hungry ghost period. but then…

cabby: how come your boyfriend never send you home?

me (bit caught off guard, pauses): he has to wake up early tomorrow as well so it’s ok, i’ll just head home myself.

cabby: you studying right?

me (now this tickles): what makes you think i’m studying, uncle?

cabby (laughs): you young people… not studying then doing what?

cabby: your place have to exit p—– right?

me: ya.

cabby: wahh all the people who live there are rich.

me: not necessarily…

cabby (laughs): you were about to tell me that it’s your dad’s money right?

me: well true, my dad’s money is not my money.

cabby: but someday will still be yours right? all the same (laughs).

me: … … … …

he whistles, then turns up the radio full of old chinese songs as he drives… …

a theory of horniness

while walking back from lunch around raffles place yesterday with teresa and aida, we noticed a couple of ang mohs having their sandwiches sitting by the river steps in their corporate outfits. it was midday, it was hot, it was sunny, we were complaining, and aida said, “these crazy ang mohs! it’s so hot and they’re sitting out in the sun eating.”

i guess they like the sun and the heat so much since it gets quite cold every year where they come from. unlike for us, i replied.

suddenly a radical theory popped in my sun-steamed brain. perhaps because they get cold every year that could also explain why they may seem more obviously horny lots of the time. i guess the heat might have been causing me to spout such temperate nonsense.

teresa laughed and laughed, almost in a squealy delight, while aida wanted an explanation.

maybe, i said, that since they have regular winters and for a long time in history there wasn’t ever much to do during that cold season, that i suppose they just like to… keep warm?

never mind the funny looks some passer-bys (corporates and non-corporates, ang mohs and non-ang mohs, hornies and non-hornies) might have given to the loud eruption of chuckling.

boredom

boredom is a contractor who sits on the office sofa reading the only thing available — an old copy of the SDU magazine.

white out

the photo on my staff pass has developed white scratches on it, the consequence of coming and going, taking it in and out of its holder. slowly, i am being erased.

globalisation

globalisation is a saffron-robed monk sitting in a corner of starbucks in a singapore airport terminal eating new york cheesecake.

sympathy for the sick

i did not ask to be born, said malaise. but having come to be, i do not die a natural death nor merely fade away.

the only way is murder.

on the way to ascension mass

on the road, a pigeon spread on a lane like peanut butter with its loose feathers forming a tail streak in the asphalt; the wind gently ruffling them with a lonely sigh.

on the pavement opposite, the pigeon’s rib cage lies coated in a spongy red, blown over upon impact with the car from three lanes away.

everywhere people and cars criss cross behaving obliviously to the obvious.

on the escalator, an old impatient man with a balding pate and a slight bent pounds the rubbery plasticky handrails with a loud slapping to signal he wants to cut through.

he says nothing but his hurried body tells all.

in church, a woman flashes the peace sign instead of giving the usual polite nods; so simple, i’m caught unawares that i can’t return a more cheery response in time in that split second our eyes meet.

her gesture is the only thing that made me smile today.

fouled fish friday

went to fish and co for dinner the other day and sadly had the experience ruined by two different groups of people. doubly unfortunate me and harry were sandwiched between both groups and the tables were all lined up very close together. and this certainly ain’t the first time i've seen such behaviour in public. so typical. so uncouth. so without etiquette.

to my right, an irate old man who decided to take the waitress to task for mistaken billing. well not exactly mistaken as it turned out. man ordered soup, soup never turned up, soup still entered in bill, man asks why the soup is being billed when he didn’t receive any, waitress says another waitress remembers clearing a soup bowl off his table and and and… man goes ballistic!

man (raising voice): what do you mean she cleared a soup bowl? i never even saw any soup appear! i never even drank any soup! ARE YOU ACCUSING ME OF LYING? i said i never drank any soup! you better check! this is ridiculous! I SUE YOU then you know!!

waitress apologises profusely, mumbles something about re-doing the bill.

man: ya that’s more like it! don;t think i can’t sue you over this ah! 

now this just takes the cake. the parts above in caps aren’t just to emphasise his raised voice, it’s also quoting his exact words. stupid man. ruin dinner for me and harry only. if in the first place you didn’t get your soup, you should have just alerted someone earlier to bring it round. even if you forgot about it, there’s hardly a need to yell about sueing anybody over fucking soup.

this is one major problem with singaporeans today. they really know how to abuse the ‘customer is always right’ principle and take advantage of it to the max. no one is perfect so if the serving staff make a mistake, be more gracious about it. it will say tons more volume for your level of etiquette and handling of people than to act like some pms-ing tycoon demanding immediate redress or risk court order over soup. and chances are when you're more polite maybe you’ll get even better service. 

this is just sad. i have seen too many singaporeans who think they have tons of friggin moolah when they don’t and still they wanna throw their weight around. trust me i’ve been in a service line before. worse still are the penny-pinchers on top of that. funnier are the ones who wanna sound important and educated in complaint letters but can’t even string a decent sentence together in proper english. or spell for that matter. but at least these are a real laugh so that helps to normalise my blood pressure back.

now to my left, two girls and a guy. guy sounds local, girls are from china. girls talk in chinese super loudly and annoyingly non-stop making big hand gestures. the one sitting immediately next to me starts talking on the phone too… oh why don’t you come down, just come down, come down come down, just come for awhile, come come come ok… (and later after paying the bill…) where’s the change, is it correct, i don’t see the change, oh there it is, are there any toothpicks, where are the toothpicks, i want toothpicks, can you (to the guy) go get some toothpicks…  

well yes how about i come over and stick you with a toothpick. my fish and chips just turned stale and acrid from all their useless motherload of exhalation vapour wafting over my table from both sides.