Saturday June 20 1998
by Joe Kidd
It has been quite uneventful. I woke up at about 10 and promptly feel asleep again after a good wee wee, and woke up again at eleven. From then on I sat up on bed reading this garage/proto-punk magazine (Ugly Things) for an hour, all the while thinking that I should go to Sg. Wang and send my mom some money. Malas though. Had breakie - coffee and a pre-packaged roti (with a sausage on top and chilli sauce). Read May’s Select and listen to this Leftfield crony Pressure Drop (Elusive album) and found it rather dull, except for track no. 12 which is an acoustic affair with a fair sermon on something interesting.
Thought about playing a bit of computer game (Screamer 2) but the PC doesn’t read the disc. Bored, I decided to write this down. Anyway, I-Lann and Khamal went off to Dungun yesterday and they are going to be there for at least two weeks. So I’m facing a very lonely period. Fendi and Fizzi didn’t even come back last night. Yesterday evening has a quite peculiar colour though. I stepped outside at about 7 pm and headed toward Sg. Wang. Outside of the house, there’s this weird orange hue in the sky and on the horizon (beyond all the skyscrapers) there were some dark blue sky. Orange and blue merged beautifully in some part and it stayed like there till dark, which is where I found myself in that busy mamak restaurant near Malibu. Had dinner and greatly troubled by the overzealous workers there. There’s too many of them there and they are all over eager to help. The controller would hover around your table and checked what you ate even when you’ve paid for it. Once I had my food and drinks carted off when I went to wash my hands! The price was a bit steep too. One nasi with ayam kari, one telur rebus and half a salty egg and a the-o ais and it cost me RM 6.50.
Went up to that graphic bookstore at Sg. Wang to buy some old The Wire but nobody was there. The door said open till 9.00pm and I was there at 8pm and the door was locked. Decided to check out the Berita Book Store instead as I saw from the outside that there’s a sale going on. Seems like they are closing down the place but most of the books are already gone. Got a MAC/PC Handbook for 60% discount and milled around.
One kid came up to me and he turned out to be that zine editor, aei or something who did Positive Thing Zine. He was lambasted by the downstairs gang for his PAPEGA t-shirt ages a go (PAPEGA was somewhat a wishy-washy homophobic non-crew). He has been quite apologetic about it all with the other guys but this is the first time I met him. He handed me a new zine he did (LOVELIFE) which features loads of stuff on love. And he’s in love. The girlfriend was there and it seems like they have been out and about in town for the last few hours, doing nothing but browse.
After that I went up to the Surf Net but it was closing up so I walked outside and sat the taxi railing watching three uniformed policemen harassing a kid across the street. That guy had to empty his pockets, get out of his shoes and generally questioned and searched like a criminal. They had to let the kid go after ten minutes. I felt sick to my stomach. Took a cab back home and the driver turned up to be one of those crabby, gangsterly ones (he wore this floppy beret, sweaty and fat). Instead of going straight heading for the old cinema he turned right while complaining that Bukit Ceylon is too near. I lost my temper and barely managed to contain it and have him going through the back alley to the old cinema> He relented, all the way telling me that the route is longer that the one he wanted to go through. Well, I kept quite and kept my cool. Just told where to turn. Coming up near the house his meter was already RM 2.50. That’s 50 sen more than usual. That meter is rigged for sure. I gave him his money without looking at the bastard and slammed the fuckin door. Fucking swine. I mean, if he would take me through “his own” route I think it’ll be more than that. So I better be on a look-out for this shithead.
At home last I sat around watching a good game between Nigeria and Bulgaria. Nigeria won 1-0 and they deserved it. Later I watched this lengthy and really sad western called Dead Man’s Walk on channel 2 with Keith Carradine, Jonny Lee Miller etc. Not totally useless but a bunch of Americans trying to kill a Mexican president were hauled in by an upright Mexican officer through the desert. Apaches ruled there and it was brutal. Etc. Went to sleep quite late last night, reading something.
End.
There are a lot of people I call as “HEROES” but the top two for me are both dead. One is buried in a small plot in Jerangau, Terengganu. 
Ah yes, getting drunk at gigs is always fun. I’ve been there all these years and still do when the occasion calls for it, but there’s a difference between being “slightly drunk” and being “dead drunk”. 
