-->








about


a myriad of fatelessness of an idiotic existential self who strives (but not THAT hard) to be a writer.
vaguely kafkaesque in contents, seize the day nevertheless.
do not let me revive posthumously.

i dig...


Online Library of Liberty
The New Yorker
The Independent
JalanTelawi.com

writings


Mel
Buddhi Hekayat
Fathi Aris Omar
Mike
Lokman
Eekmal
Myoda

leave a msg


archive


  • 10/30/05
  • 02/09/06
  • 02/10/06
  • 02/16/06
  • 05/06/06
  • 06/13/06
  • 06/22/06
  • 06/27/06
  • 04/01/07
  • 04/12/07
  • 04/16/07
  • copyrights


    2006 © si tolol
    site design/layout 2006© mel
    original art(s) from DaDa Online








    Genealogy of my 1/4 musical life 
    On the night of me turning twenty-five, I had given myself the irresistible chance to recite Gregory Corso's "I Am 25" and "Aku" by the bohemian poet, Chairil Anwar with a good friend of mine. Of a dull night, devoid of a piece of cheese cake and a glass of wine, these two poems nevertheless inevitably made me harken back through all the things I have had been encountered so far in life and to ponder discreetly what has made me of what I am now. Slightly in imitation of Orwell's "Why I Write", this is my story...


    I guess well nigh not everyone can live without music; my late father used to love keroncong and Led Zeppelin before he turned to pop yeh-yeh whereas my mother cannot forget the phenomenal assault The Beatles brought before her recent conversion into Mawi and the like. Even worse, my grandfather's absence on the night before my father's funeral was explainable by his presence in a ghazal orgy!


    My serious involvement in music started when I was furiously frustrated I did not get the admission into a boarding school (being an "ambitious" child I was). The first record I listened to, as far as I can remember was a trash band, Sodom. A usual beginner (read: poseur), I then got attracted to alternative rock music, where Nirvana and those Seattle grunge dominated almost every kids I had gotten myself acquainted with. Those were the days where my friends and I loitered until past midnight playing guitar and singing our heart aloud ecstatically. I got conscious more about fashion and individualism - I could not care less if my attire was too striking and not conform to mass perception of what I should be. To be appropriate, I guess we were what Nietzsche called "free spirits".
    Wanted more, I skate.
    Hence, punk rock was my idealism in life at that time.


    Punk/hardcore bands such as Minor Threat, Bad Religion and others were so influential to adolescents like me back then encouraged me to learn English so as to understand what were they singing all about. Easily attracted to new things, I was so overwhelmed by their messages: social issues i.e. injustices, straight edge, libertarianism etc. My brother and I worked odd jobs so as to afford us a collection of records; there was this one time where my late father burned all the records due to my habitual non-conforming curfew. I turned to a new hobby thus - reading - lest he would suspect me joined into a social delinquent and stuff. Again, mesmerized by a new interest, I dug more on writers who spake "the truth": Dostoevsky, Marx, Proudhon, Chomsky, Kafka etc. Why, I even swapped class for an art stream class just to show my interest in literature.


    It was such a bore to be merely a musical teenager who had distaste for the regular Ahadiat Akashah-ish's love novel or of similar value (not that they are mediocre, it's just not my cup of tea) so I had to indulge myself in another socio-cultural enthusiasm.


    All those years until I have now graduated from University I have gotten to know people of sui generis outlook from so-called "the scene", plenty of them. And, directly or indirectly, there were so much I had learned from their friendships; I somehow "liberated" myself from Kant's immaturity (really?) hence what I am now. Not easily content, you would ask, what am I now?

    - A jobless slacker.

    So much the same like some of you. However, as you do, music has somewhat shaped me of what I am now - my worldview - the impossibility Okra P. Dingle poses, "Life is a lot like malt liquor and fried bologna sandwiches: not enough leaves you wanting more, while there's no such thing as too much."

    Throughout all those years, putting aside my first love depression, I realized that knowledge is not only what is offered by the education system of our country, there are abundance sprawls of it beyond the physic of institution; that being alive ultimately is not just to pursue your dream job and wed your dream lady - is to be healthily conscious of one's liberty in the widest sense of the word; and that to be immortally young is about idealistically individualist - to foster creativity, excitement for life, and self-reflection. By the same token, I have to admit, that you and I lack the shameless desire to think for ourselves.

    To have a limitless passion for music makes me tirelessly young.