Acoustic This Sunday

“It’s already 1.40am!” quipped my friend, Sarah, Maroon 5 playing in the background. I am tired and almost exhausted from the marathon of meeting old friends, playing the small gig at OOOM3. Great experience and made some notable mentions in Andie Francoeur who opened the night with her elegance and poetry. I miss piano laden music.

Carol from Class 95FM hooked me up with an acoustic gig at Love The World Soul Rock Bar & Bistro. Try saying that 20 times fast. It’s a brand new bar situated at Singapore Flyer, 30 Raffles Avenue. I have to do a bit of trekking the next few days to make sure I find the place ok on Sunday. 8pm it is, with resident band opening. I’m looking forward to playing with the Taylor.

So much I’ve taken with me this trip so far. One thing i realise, Singapore is a very wordy country. Every signage, poster, public announcement comes in 4 different languages. With very directive instructions found mostly in idiot proof manuals. You get the sense that a lot of thought went into the designing and assembling. But more than that, it is a country full of brands and slogans. Some, a little over creative on the edges, overstating the obvious, as if the obvious was not enough. And i shudder to realise I tend to overstate my point in my writing, songs, poems alike. Shudder, indeed, even if on repeat. Countless repeat. Ok, better be ahead and stop now.

My left arm is aching with alarm bells of possible paralyzing going off. Perhaps the heavy laptop. The lack of blood flow. I shall see if tomorrow brings some recovery or I shall worry.

Or maybe I’m just really exhausted. Gotta rest for Sunday. But not for a few days holidaying in JB. Here I come.

Singapore, Friday, 30th Jan 2009

It’s been more than 48 hours since arriving here in Singapore and the sniffles are still a stubborn stew. I’ve fallen ill since leaving and i’ve held off bingeing on all the goodness of oil and gladness in the land flowing with deep fried manna. It’s been health decisions so far. With lots of walking, mostly hunting for free WIFI and getting in touch with friends.

Mum’s place has no internet connection, you see. Thank God the island has a vested interest in providing free access to it’s citizens.

I’m out and about, full from a marathon of catch ups and late night conversations. i found myself almost scripting the same things to 3 different people groups. The wilderness years, the present reality of living life without conventional wisdom and the to do lists. There’s so many songs to be written just because each encounter leaves me with that fuzzy warmth, reminding me why I live the life i now live. I’m even surprised there’s been no pressure from my folks to do ‘get a life’. Perhaps somehow they can see the fire, since, in my eyes.

So I’m rest stopping. At a franchise bad coffee joint. Planning what to do next. In the days past, three degrees of separation has worked so well for me. Friend knows a friend whose partner works at The Esplanade, Singapore’s Arts Hub by the bay, and currently looking for acoustic acts to fill the stage for later part of the year. A call back from said partner came within an hour. Then another friend knows a friend who knows the people who run Timbre, a live music venue and will be in touch to make connections.

I dropped by IndoChine, with recommendations from friends regarding playing at their supposed Open Mic nights. Funny thing, I hesitated like a 10 year old, procrastinating, whether i should ask the staff. But I decided I wasn’t 10 and what’s the worse that could happen? “No we don’t have open mics”

And so a browse through GAP and to my seat at this corner with free WIFI and power supply. Back to the drawing board.

For now, my only performance is still at OOOM3. Check out the listings & details of the gig. 4th Feb. Emily Hill. Told a few friends here about the gig and realise there could be an entourage and their friends for support.

Sweet.

Raise The Anthem

how do i begin to describe the trawling under current of what has disturbed me since the afternoon began? it seems nothing has changed. and I feel lied to. I feel stupid for having believed. And now, I feel like ripping up the ticket.

it’s all a fairy tale that never really existed. it is a sin punishable by seven deaths in the ancient chinese halls of hell. this piety has made me a black sheep of the flock. is it too much to ask to belong?

that niggling feeling that there is something amiss. that there is always something almost not there. thirty hits and miss. how can i be so naive to believe that someone else’s good favor has found their way into the hearts of my folks?

we are the sum of our relationships. what if i don’t like how things are adding up? i hate to negate the present so i choose to stay away, out of the picture frame. the missing child from the heirloom of still captures for years to come. why did it have to matter to me to feel like there is something i need to recover? perhaps it was never mine to begin with.

there is the unpopular belief that some of us are just born at the wrong place and the wrong time. much hush hush to the wrong people.

so, they are still the same paranoid people i grew up with. and so, should i keep looking and find myself short changed? it was never meant to be mine, the fine folk at raspberry town, the kind souls at salisbury street, those warm hands that held a good nourishing hug, a home to rest my head and a safe haven to guard my thoughts.

so tonight i should be content i have a machine that keeps me warm. for love is an empty hollow leading to an abyss of chance and desire. what will you have me do? why have you chosen to keep me on this side of the shorter stick? when will my time come?

maybe the little island is mine to give up. the place i hastily still call home is to be relinquished. my last piece of the past i have to leave behind to build a future to change the course of the trajectory.

Raise the anthem and fly the flags. Swiftly come, leave it behind, as we countdown to the knell of a new history and unbridled possibilities.

evolution of the rhetoric

Circles, like cyclical generational curses or blessings – that thin line between our choices, make good for meaning. so this education be an evil that catches up with us in our slumber? modern man the nemesis of our nature? for when we distill all the context and cognitives of our existence we come up with a convincing conclusion, persuasive purely on the basis of how eloquent we can argue it.

It always makes sense. when the pieces arrange in our bidding. so is it enough then?

I am listening to Bill Withers at the moment. A part of me wanting to regress in time. While, having an online conference – one part catch up, one part business and one part professional. It’s difficult to have the crossroad grey out the relationships but I found myself wanting a team to build this thing with me. Whatever the cause may be.

So if this year is the last of it as we know it, what difference does it make?

Thing is, i am still clinging on to those I love more than they love me. Thing really is, I don’t think there is love at all. The one thing I seem to keep missing. I am not convinced. All the signs and lack of effort on the other party’s part. Why do i still sit myself down as the door mat after three years? What good will come of this? There’s only so much a human heart can take.

So this new 2000 spanking 9, what is it that we believe in?

I believe all human beings, regardless of race, religion, preference and origin are inherently selfish. That the human race believes that the world, as they know it, revolves around their own hunger and fetish.

I believe humans only do good when there is something in return for them. I believe communities of gatherings are neo-typical answers to belonging and excuses for categories of fear that keep us on the side of comfort.

I believe there is little love for the downtrodden, heartbroken and the browbeaten. I believe there is mostly only deception, motives and greed in the drive you and I call passion or ambition. The need to feel sexy, wanted, glorified.

Yet, I believe we all have more capacity to do more, love more, give more. I believe we have what it takes to be more than just idiots who take and take and take. I believe we have it in us to do more than sacrifice, more than obligation. More than looking the part and ticking off the boxes.

I believe when we hurt, it is the beginning of possibilities. Possibilities of a better world. A better home. A better set of families. A better way to tend, trust and a better circle that cannot be broken.

I believe that hope, though down and out, is hard to kill.

clarity

that said, it’s always still a jungle to wade through.

the remaining 31 days, how will you change? for out of the heart come deceit and schemes that stick us up in wrong directions. will our desperation drive us out of line? will these tunes be enough to carry us to the other side? will our hearts be healed of these fresh wounds? will the soul live to tell stories to our grandchildren?

be strong and of good courage.

it’s my honor to watch this crumbling fall. that after all the wrongs and rights, you still allow me to walk along and now to chide and remind. i’m content to know now i have found my brother. back from the wilderness of the calloused. that now we have somewhere to go. a journey ahead for a few good years. belief that stood the test of time. a heart that’s now redeemed.

makes me dream and ignite new hope. to see new beginnings from this recent death. to understand how possibilities can look like. new partnerships and formations. i’m proud of you. how you’ve grown up. how you are looking more and more like dad.

i’m here. always. as it was. your guardian. your dependable.

i love you.

nemesis

all i ever wanted
was a friend
a brother more than a friend
a friend to watch my back
a family to guard with my hands

why has it now become so very evil.
that you despise the very sight of me
that you conjure up rationales in your head
of how it all ought to be
of how it ought to be your way
or is there a highway?

i made you a promise
to never stop short
go back to the dark port
dump my body beneath the deep docks
my faithful friend
i want to believe
for i’ve trained my fingers for so long
all the work and progress we now belong
i want to make it back
to be the best man
part of your blueprint plan.

may this pain never be the fuel to drive me
so i sing, write and archive, still, away
i won’t back away
i will continue to be your nemesis
the door of your swinging mat
to remind you of what you once believed
don’t throw away the good along with the bad

boulevard of broken dreams

i can’t believe it’s happened
the way we try to keep it from breaking
it’s all coming to pass now
how do you mend a broken heart?

i am helpless and speechless
it’s caught you off your guard
even though you thought you saw it coming
but is it too late to mend the seams?

so i swing around the wires
swallow your pride and rage
sit tight and hope for the best
the best of your broken dreams

i watch your devastation
the tears, sweat and desperation
i don’t know what to say
what kind of God do we worship today?

i sit, wait, wish for you
that this is just a bad dream
i’ve never seen you this way
perhaps there’s something more you are missing?

and now you’re silent
an invisible wall between us
the hand that watched your back
now seems to be shut out for your personal space

so i play the fiddler
all alone on the roof once again
let the music drown out the noise
what noise it seems you ask, are you even listening?

may meaninglessness find authentic hope
may wisdom guide our hands and feet
may trouble break us only to know
the difference between grace and manipulation

34th way

it started yesterday. a scurry of feet and bright sunshine greet. a familiar hand ushered me into the complex aisles where i once laboured. picking up the appliance and a swing by for soft serve in the brisk of summer. we walked home, with our sweet fix, like little kids, for a moment free and careless, like a scene picked out from those feel good children’s movies.

like chinese new year. the family dinner. the smell of finger lickin goodness. the bed where i once stood and sang in front of mum and dad. my music book. the scribbles of words to ‘rhythm of the falling rain’ – pitter patter, i felt like pied piper’s peter patter. it reminds me of stories i keep hearing. of routine. of the same thing love does, year in, year out. like the ritual of rites, like the same christmas tree each christmas year, the same red shoes each lunar year, the same pair of white shoes each new school term. I’d rather be poor and know such happiness, than be rich and all alone in a tucked away dressing room. i guess there’s a part of me that’s still the country kid, the village folk, the simple guy wanting to make it in the big big city.

i wouldn’t have it any other way. the birthday song in 4 different languages. there is a gentleness in the spirit of these times. so here’s to you, my brothers, my family, my community. here’s to another year.

end of the week

it’s friday and i don’t know what to do
if i can only get 5 minutes of your time
i’d like to discover the precious dime, our commodity

i’m tripping over my wires and cables
finding out the hard way plans don’t go as inspiring fables
i’m numb and unwired and feeling a faux sense of capable

we live in lands of opportunity
where freedom knows no immunity
but those whose feet find restless ground
find no part in this holy sound

fowls and fiends gather to feed
whipping our backs to prevent this fix
i’m struggling against the push and pull of these words
will i triumph over these insinuations of extravagance?

when will the day come
when will the mountains recede over the sun
when will it be over the clouds

maybe the hunger will never cease
maybe this, this toil and trouble, will always be

it’s friday and i don’t know what to do
i don’t have a reason or rhyme to celebrate
it’s friday and i don’t know what to do

i’ll do anything to get over this
but for now, i have you, here with me
enough to keep me believing…

typecast

is He irresponsible?
is He the silent type?
the kind that raises delinquents and broken glasses?
the kind that does it in tough love?

are we animals and beasts,
like the grit of nature?
are we here to fight for our survival?
that we have to tear and wear the burdens
to work the garden,
in someone else’s curse and eloquence?

why would He speak, grandiose and extravagance,
ideas, possibilities to inspire this penance,
only for the naive to crash and burn?
why would He show us things that could never be within reach,
things that steal our joy, passion and devotion?
why would He be God of all and watch as His children crumble?
why should He be God of us and let hunger be the excuse
to kill, steal and plunder the lives of our brothers?

what kind of a person is this God?

is He responsible enough as we expect Him to be?
is He not the embodiment of justice, mercy, grace?
Or are there insufficient obedient ones listening?
That our defiance has produced such oppression.
That our forgotten hunger has made us too comfortable.
That we find no joy in taking care of the lesser folk.

In love, in consistent grace, will You stubbornly spare the oppressors and let the cause and effect and this vicious fly wheel cycle eliminate those who are broken only with an ear turned toward heaven?

are you God or am i just crazy talking to myself?

http://youtube.com/thecommoncouch