The Penang Bridge Run

Was reading John Le Carre's The constant Gardener while waiting for the roads to be opened again after the Marathon beridge Run. After wondering what the hell to do having left the house at seven this morning and not being able to get to the Ferry terminal I decided to hang out at my auntie's in Brown Gardens eat my roti canai and drank my Nescafe which I bought at Restoran Farouk on the corner of Patani Road ad the river never really had a name given to it for as long as I had known. It is about the most obnoxious smelling and blackest looking thing that I have ever come across and the smell has stayed with it since my childhood days. The whole stretch of this river that leads to the Sungai Pinang River is so polluted that only the thye hardiest of God's creatures survives in it. Over the years it seems to get worse and worse and only when it rains heavily and the river get a good amount of wash does it gets a respite from the filth and the smell.
Le Carre's book is getting the activist in me all fired up again alas I might be a wee bit too late to be affective as my age and resources has more than diminished and my resposibility towards my children is paramount so long as their immigration situation and schooling is not complete. I would love to be on the road again perhaps for the last entry of my journal to a foreign country but I see it as an unfulfilled dream these days. I am not good at being a father or homr maker I must admit I just dont have what it takes to be like all those good husbands who are able to build their nests and raise their young to become good citizens. I have been a rolling astone too long in my life and have gathered almost nothin that my shildren can benifit from other than my worthless art pieces that are slowly physicvally falling to pieces. I know i could have been more well off now had I focussed on making money or saving for that rainy days as I am experiencing right now when I was living abroad but as the Prophet is sadi to have said dont dwell on what should or should not have been... so I am content to just sit it out and wait till the roads are open again and head on to the Jerejak Jetty and hopefully i will not be reprimended for being late for work.

Riki-Kundalini

This morning i met an old friend who upon greeting asked if I believed in the inner powers of healing and so on. We proceeded to sit at the coffee shop close to my auntie's house and discussed the subject. I told him of my interest and how I just had a discussion with Hasnul at the USM Muzium Gallery a week earlier on a simmilar matter. My friend told me of his experience and of a teacher who has transfered to him the knowledge of how to harness such inner energy that would make it possible to do healing via inner powers. It would cost off course as it had cost him to acquire this knowledge. As we continued on with all the possibilites that can be achieved through the development of these energies through the process of what he called Riki/Kundalini methods I was less and less skeptical as it has always been one of the subjects of my intrest.
He proceeded to demonstrate his ability by purchasing a light bulb from a nearby shop[ and after a few minutes of focusing and concentration dropped it to the concrete floor several times with it not breaking. Although I was not totally convinced of his ability by this one simple demonstration I was was not totally skeptical of it either as I personally believe in such abilities from my earlier research and readings. As a Muslim my one concern is that it does involve any external beings or entities that could be the casue of such ability other than one's own innner strength and leaving it ultimately to Allah's Will to succeed or fail. The employment of other forms or entities as an aid or spiritual guide is taboo in Islam unless fully comprehended and in line with the teachings of the Prophets and Awlias or Saints of Allah. In this cases I consider one to be merely a conduit or medium for the process to take place.
All of us whether we realize it or not are inherently endowed with the abilities that sometimes boggles our own minds and the sciences. We are capable of doing extraordinary feats at times that defies the norm and logic. But most of us are either ignorant or have made no effort whatsoever to understand such God given gifts thinking ourselves as incapable or these acts of supernatural powers are beyond our will. There are those who persues these knowledges throughout their lives but are also unable to achieve the hoped for results due to one blockage or another. These self created 'fire walls' stops us from reaching our goals and sometimes never to realize them but only through knowledge and understading and not the practical reality or manifestations. These type of individuals would usually require a string teacher to open their locked doors and unveil their perceptons to be able to see through and beyond words and ideas. Most religions and cultures insist upon the need for a teacher or a spiritual guide in order for one to venture into the unknown.
However jaded one might be towards the subject in these days and age it is not a total waste for some to keep persuing and developing these capabilities as it might just be what is need for man to save himself from his own self destruction or carry him through these dark period of his history. Wars and deseases, climate changes and natural disasters, rape and murders are becoming an everyday occurences and we stand the chance of becoming comfortably numb from too much bombardments of these negative energies globally. Man needs to stay in touch with his inner being discover who or what he really is and locate his sense of ownership of this planet as written in the Holy scriptures... for man has been created as the Caliph of his environment, warden or keeper of his planet and all the is within and without seen and unseen. To loose touch with this gift is to loose control over his own sanity and the means to save the very thing that he has been alloted to care forand as a mateer of fact man ends up becoming the slave. Faith is not just worshipping One God or many it is the ability to transcend all that is and become what is that is the Lord over all creation. As it is despite our so called progress in becoming civilized and technological geniuses of the century we are closer to becoming worse than the worse of the Lord's creatures for we kill for the fun of killing destroy simply for the sake of being able to do so.. The power to create positively and with compassion for the benifit of the whole is slowly deminishing leaving us merely vicitms of our greed hate and dellusions. We are becoming self serving creatures at the expense of those we are dependant on us, we are abusing our God given rights and the intelligence that goes with it.
Wake UP!!

The Complete Enlightment

My daughter needs to do her homework at the CC and so here we are with me not even having a chance for a shower since i arrived home from work. It was a long tedious day at work with hardly any day trippers going into the resort what with the rain and it being a school day.
I have been doing alot of sketching for the past few days mostly reproductions of blak and white pictures that attracts my fancy and my caricatures. At the same time i am also rereading the " Complete Enlightenment" a Zen book by the Chan' Master Sheng Yen. It is a comentary on the Buddha's sutra which was said to have been based on his answers to questions raised by some of the foremost boddhisatvas regarding the understanding of and practices for the achievement of Complete Enlightenment. This writing and commentaries by the Chan Master is one of the most profound and easily understood of writings on the subject of Buddhism and in particular with regard to the the explainantion of a Zen teaching.
What i have learned and came to understand of Zen while living and practicing at the San Francisco Zen Center at Green Gulch and Tassajara Zen Mountain Retreat has been brought to clearer light. I found Zen to be the closest way I could accept about my life and the way I chose to live life. It is clear cut with no holds barred and it allows for one to make mistakes and feel free from too much guilt. It allows a man to be more human and yet tells him that at the end of the day there nothing to be excited about because it is all an illusion, life is an Illusion. The Buddha preached and thought this truth in every sermen he had given admonishing those who are ignorant enough to believe in the so called "self" that we all assume to be who we are. He demanded that we investigate and discover the Truth that liberates us from the bonds that this belive has held us through out our lives. He pointed out how we have become slaves on account of this misconception.
In Islam the whole idea of arriving at being empty or void is called 'Fana'" and this to me is not unlike what the Buddha has been trying to preach or make me see. I think the Prophet was said to have said that one has to die before one dies the physical death in oder to be reborn in this life. The Buddha simply wants us to wake up from our dreamstate of our ignorant life. Life is suffering only because we have been living in ignorance to the fact that we are asleep not knowing that our life is but a dream, we create this dreams albeit individually or collectively and dremas more than often has the tendency to turn into nightmares sooner or later and nightmares are what we are looking at in this day and age of ours. All over the world we kill and send millions into exile, destroy our environment wantonly like there is no tomorrow, we are full of greed, hate and dellusions. Sometimes this is achieved all in the name of an ideology or a belief system, an ism or a religion all in the name of the greater good that we beleive is good for ourselves but not for others.
Many of us believe in the Universal Creative Mind that governs all that we see and do but there is very few that actualize this creative acts in changing the course of our human fate and the Buddha and the Prophet of Islam were among the few who saw through this Mayavic life that we lead and the course it is leading us towards our own self destruction. Ironically the destruction of the self is what is prpofessed by the two great Souls but not in the manner of blind ignorance which causes more suffering than deliverance of beings from suffering. Oh well let me not get carried away with my thoughts and understanding on this subject as I am falling asleep right now and i hate to wake up with a nightmare.

What is happening with my Art

Payed a visit to the USM Muzium and had a talk with theMUzium Director Encik Hasnul with regard to what he has planned for my next show. Hasnul has over the years become a very close friend and I find him to be a very insightful and intelligent man whose artistic talent compliments his intellectual understanding. We discussed about the attempts of western mind in trying tro proof or disproof of the eastern mysticism through the use of advanced technological instruments and research methods. Telepathy and extrasensory perceptions, faith healings and the supernatural. This it seems is his present project and so I gave him my two cents worth on the topic giving him a little addition to his research in to the matter.
I told of the Carlos Castaneda's experimental and research into the healing methods of the Yaqui Indians of the Sonora desert in Mexico. The use of the Mescal a type of cactus extract to induce an altered state of conciousness whereby one is able to perceive the other dimensions existing parallel to our according to the Yaqui Indians and also the exploits of Antonin Artaud the French playwright and anthropologist who studied the Tarahumara Indios of the Tarahumara mountains of Mexico. I tried to impress upon him the effects of our own genetical makeups in so far as to allow us excess tinto our psychic abilities to penetrate the unseen in healing or being able to utilize the forces of nature in order to heal through the mind alone. This is a very deep and precariously dangerous field of study like becoming a Shaman. Not many has the ability or well equipped to embark upon such a venture into the unknown where the need for an 'Ally' to assist in the process of healing is necessary.
We both came to agree that the finality of the fact that one has to arrive at a stage of 'Fana' as in Arabic for void or seizing to exist of the ego has to be achieved before one can really harness the forces of nature in order to become a Shamanistic healer. Thus the need to get to know who you are and transcending this knowledge upon arrivcing at the answer is a prime focus of most healers for the ego is an impediment towrds achieving a direct connection between ourselves and that which we seek to join forces with. Meditation is one form of exercise whereby the state of 'emptiness' of being can be achived over a priod of time. In this state the mind is more receptive towards the subtle prescence of othe energy forms that exist alongside our own and through this sense of acute awareness we are able better to communicate or allign our energy to that which affects our healing process. We then can become a medium or conduit for these existing enrgies to utilize our physical form and execute the healing activities that is required to be carried out physiccaly.
Ultimately there is only One Healer and The AlMighty Healer is the Lord and Creator of all healers without Hu's blessing a healing process is impossible. But Allah (God) demands that man initiate and act upon the process to the best of his ability with thorough understanding of the elements involved before Hu intervenes, (Ikhtiar).
Thus the process of understanding of who we are becomes paramount in the effort to become a true healer in the traditional way like that of the Shaman or the dukun or bomoh or better known in the west as the witch doctor. Modern day technological advancement has practically obliterated this process by introducing the machines and equipments,the drugs and therapies which takes the place of the human psychic abilities. The trust in our latent abilities as humans has been thrown into the closet to be hidden from our future generations, they have become the skeletons in the closset. That knowledge which our forefathers had survived with throughout our human history has become invalid, a superstitious enterprise born of ignorance. The west has replced it with modern technology where the use of drugs has replaced the use of the human mind itself where the will power that we are endowed with has been replaced with a surrender to the hands of surgeons and scapels. Today there is more neorotics and psychos running around the planet than there ever was because we have become dependant upon themental health institutions and the shrinks who often times has no time nor the financial capability to cope with the ever growing number of schizoids and displaced entities in the world. Every symptoms has to be rationalized in the scientific manner and meet the scientific equations or rationally and logically explained. Anything that is beyond the scope of modern day medicine is considered incurable or subject to more research.

So what is the plan for my art show I finally asked him and Hasnul offered me a show in August and three blank wall in the Muzium to be filled with my sketchings and drawing in the meantime.

Pirates Of the Caribean

Having gone to see Pirates of the Caribbean one and two with my two children at the theaters the third will have to follow sooth. We also have gone to the Spider onw tqo and three together and the X-Men series it is becoming the Bahari family tradition here in Penang. It is not the best of quality times one spends with the kids but it will have to do for now.
I enjoy goinbg to the movies for as long as I can remember starting with the Hindi movies that i used to go to with my father and mother while growing up in Penang. I loved to old black and white classical Hindi filems especially those that depicted ancient KIngs and Kingdoms, the epic stories like the Ramayana and the Mahabarata which sometimes lasted for more than three hours long. My imagination was enriched at a very early age by these classics and later when I was living in Terengganu my taste for movies switched from Hindi to Chinese and Japanese movies. My oldest brother would take my twin brother and I to the early Chinese Kungfu type movies where there was alot of swords ang guts spilling all over the place by the end of each movies. Later on along came the Japanese movies like Zatoichi, Yhe Blind Swordsman and Kurosawa's black and white classics like Yojimbo, THe Seven Samurais and The Forty Ronins. Along with these Asian movies was the early Clint Eastwood cowboy series like A fistfull of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and the The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and so on. These were the movies that I never missed when I was growqing up in Kuala Terengganu, what else was there to do otherwise for a teenager growing up where the only source of entertainment was the Theaters.
Today the movies has moved into a whole new dimension with the latest in computer animation technology movies has become almost a virtual reality where anything and everything is possible with the manipulation of the cinimatograhics. I tremendously enjoy the latest of the Marvel Productions series like Spiderman, Batman, Superman and the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and so on. My oldest used to buy Marvel Comics eversince these series were first introduced, if we had kept his collections of the DC Comics till this date it would be worth a fortune. Thanks to him we, my twin and I were exposed at a very early age to some of the first ever issues of these movie character like the Incredible HUlk when he firts joined the Marvel Comics.All these happened in the early sixties when my oldest brother was teaching at Sultan Sulaiman Secondary School in Kuala Terengganu. He had made a great impact in my growing up as a teenager not only in his taste for comics but also the Play Boy magazine and Jazz albums, the Erotica collections he had hidden in two suitcases under his bed and most of all the way he had carried himself as a teacher feared and respected by students and peers alike.
It was also through my brother that I developed the love to read and till this day I am hooked to reading and at present i am reading a novel by Irving Wallace, The Three Sirens. Just finished The Fourth Estate by Jeffery Archer. My twin and I are forever indebted to our eldest for his wisdom and farsightedness in the manner he had raised us for if not for him I would not be sitting here writing these words.
Reading good novels for me is a form of transportation that tkes me to places that i only could dream of and I have gone many of these places in my real life afte i have read about them and fermented their imges in my heart with the desire that one day I would be there where the authors have been describing. The Characters in the novels are people that I see in my life and wondered what they were like, what their dreams and aspirations were and where and what they had done that is different from me, there is so much to do to touch to taste to experience in life and only through the vivid imagination os great writers and one's personal commitment to read and enjoy reading that one can reach the sight of the impossible, the vastness of humanity.
Movies helps one to mayerialize the written words and it take the imaginative and creative minds of the artist to render words into images.

What's up with all my kids...

Today is my day off, its Thursday the 31st. still now money in the bank the pay cheque is not being okeyed yet. Tough shit! I am spending my time at Dah's house, my late friend Rahim's wife who gave my something for my gastric disorder causing a good amount of pain in my chest especiually on the right hand side. I have the ominous feeling that I might at last be finding out the beginning of the final cause of my own death. This pain is a little bit different from those in the past in the same area and more acute bnut I hve to just confirm my fears with the doctors one of these days I guese.
I got an email from my number one son at last telling me a whole lot more than he normally would if and when he writes. I am very proud to know that he has made it through his training to become a captain for a commercial Airline in the US although at the cost of an exzorbitant amount of US200,000 for his educational fees. I only hope that hius salary in the next few years can keep him alive while at the same time be able to keep the loan sharks off his doorsteps. My son I am proud to say has his head glued well to his shoulders and now that he is beyond my worries I feel blessed to the fact that Allah has been kind and generous to him and me, he could have turned out alot worse but he thanks to his Mom primarily he has become a success.
My second boy I have not heard from for quite sometime now, perhaps hiding under a stone somewhere smoking that whacky tobacky with his buddies out on the Swiss Alps somewhere clouds hidden whereabouts unknown. Well to eahc his own as the route to 'Reality' is as many as there sentient beings on this face of the earth. He is not a very happy camper nope, but he has his excuses all legitimate beginning with my error making him an illegitimate child. I hope to the Alight that one day I get to see him despite the fact that he take a slug at me in the process and ot to mention my having to justify this error of mine before the High and Mighty and hope for Hu's compassion. Well whatever he is up to I do hope that it is always positive creative and not wallowing in self pity and anger. If he ever reads this I hope that he knows I love him regardless.
My third sone was still in bed when I left this morning with his younger sister sleeping on the floor next to our be, they are on vacation and were out late last night. I took them to "Pirates of The Caribean 3" and came home late. We saw all three movies together the one, two and three just as we did 'Spider Man. and the 'X-Men', it is kind of family thing at the movies. My son has been sleeping over at his friend's house alot lately and comes home on my off days to be with me and had I got my salary in the bank today I would have taken both of them shopping for their daily needs, but as it is not tobe so I rather take it easy and do what it is that I can do that does not cost any and yet more productive in the long run which is continue on with my efforts in recording my life for their posterity.
My daughter is the most sensitive and a deep thinker and most probably carries my genetical make up in her behaviours. She now is hooked on reading and and we discuss life at a more adult level with me trying to make her understand what I have come to conclusion about life itslef, my beliefs and my philosophies, my likes and dislikes my actions and intuitions, my strength and weaknesses.She is more perceptive of every move and every feeling I have by watching me closely studying my moods and actions. She, like all her brothers seems to have intelligence where it matters.
May the Al Mighty forgive me for all my errors and weaknesses in the past and especailly those that has affected my children's lives in one form or another and may Hu protect them take them into Hu's care to become at the end of their days good Muslims by choice not by force. I can only shae my thoughts and feelings with them and it is impossible for me to undo what has been done in the past I can only give them food for their thoughts through my exposure of my own perceptios and conciousness, my experiences and failures.

Those who really cares in your life

My elder sister came for a visit and left a couple of days ago. I have two sisters and she is the older one. her husband passed away saveral years ago he was the guy who set up a bakery shop, one of the few original ones in Kuala Terengganu and was originally from Islamabad in Northern India. My sister is one of those peopl in my life that has been most supportive and compassionate towards my family eversince we came to this country from Japan.
Today although with the departure of her husband she has found a little peace and time on her hand she is however still carrying a few dead albatroses hanging on her back and one of them is my drug addicted nephew whose bad choise of lifestyle had caused untold miseries for my sister and most probably contributed greatly towards his father's demise. The state government is requisition part of the land where her house stands to make way for the highway and is squeezing every cent they could from the actual cost of reimbursement or compensation for the land. These are a few of the things that she has to deal with before she too join her husband and i can see that if she has the choice she would have quit this life herself for all that it is worth.
A friend of mine and artist in San Francisco is sending me some art materials simply because he is an artist who saw my works and loved them for what they were and for the past twenty odd years he has kept knocking on my door to make sure that i am still sketching and painting. Richard S. is a great artist in his own right in the San Francisco Bay Area and has a heart of gold to boot. We were neighbors sometime in the early Nineties living on 2nd Avenue and Balboa in the Richmond District of SF. Richard in my book is one of the best Illustrator and a very disciplined artist who knows what he wants and where his talents lies. As he very much picks and chooses his friends I am very fortunate to have met and made his acquaitences over the years.
There ar a few people in my life who are still of keeping in touch with me through the Net from SF and Sendai in japan and they are like my extended family, the brothers and sisters I never had. Tomy Nagai Roeth and family and Emi Yanagisawa and family, Masaharu Tsubaki and family, Mohammad Rafi and family in Kuala Terengganu and Raof Rakinan and family in Kuala Lumpur to name a few. Our lives has touched eachother's in more than one ways and we have shared both the happy and sad times the good and the bad times and we have watched our children grow while we join the ranks of the elderly. All in all I must say that I have had some great times in my life and dare say too that more so than most in the United States and Japn and here in Malaysia but without the love and care of the few who mattered it would not have been possible.
I write today for those whose lives has touched mine and mine theirs for better or for worse.

What's Up with Work?

The Jerejak Resort and SPA is a phenomenal place to be working at and at the moment the resort is trying very hard to stay afloat and sometimes it feels like the whole Jerejak island might just sink into the ocean just from the shere weight of debts that is owed. Today the TNB has come to cut off the electric supply as the Resort owes some 26K of electric bill for this month and back dated accounts. The old fart whole delivers this bad tidings seems to enjoy his work as I see hime just about every other month. He acts as though he owns the Electric company and he is God AlMioghty when it comes to shutting off the power supply to any who cannot afford to pay up their bills. I wqould have told him off a thing or two had it not been for the fact that I might make matters worse for the Resort and not to mention myself.
The new Resort Manager is slowly beginning to show his true character and it is not what i would call a great character to run a Resort. He may be talented in managing money but I have my doubts about his ability to bring the place to life. Needless to say I am about had it with working under such hopeless condition where there is no sense of direction or collective cohesiveness to make things work. It seems like everyone has their own mission to accomplish but no one mission is common to all. There is no management credo and things are done like one is running a liquor store instead of a 4Star Resort.
Oh well what can i say without jeopardizing myself if I say too much about my own employer so enough said. At my age there is not much out there that I can do except go on my own and going on my as an artist has not been too much of a success in the past. What is holding me back I cannot pinpoint but it seems like when it comes to selling my works i fail miserably. The one thing great about being an artist is that I am still able to draw or create regardless if i sell or not and ther is always the hope that one day ha! One day! If only that day is around the corner hell i could sure use it to get me out of this rut that i am in before it is too late.
The advantage of woreking at the ferry terminal where i am at is the fact that it allows me plenty of time to do my own thing in between ferry schedules. I have been able to do alot of reading and drawing without being interupted and in a perfect environment where the sea and the island is part of the landscape around me. The guys i work with at the jetty are pretty laid bakc sometimes too laid back but hey what else can they do when there is not much to do. My helper is aNepalese I call Lil Bahadur! although that is not exactly his name. He is addicted to the four digit lottery and a few days ago won two five hundred on a winning numbers. He is hard working and has a respect for me like a good right hand man that I can trust. Then there is the security man whop moves slow and is often fast asleep in the guard booth. He is okey once you know his game when it comes to work.
Well it is work and it keeps me and the kids still in the picture day to day what more can i ask for considering what I have lived through all these years and the places I have been things i have seen and experienced most that money cant buy. So for now I will abide what is there in front of me and keep on working at it and hope for the next big wave to ride out with.

Good bye my friend Cikgu Yusof Ali

On the third of may I lost my friend Cikgu Yusof who passed away in the aftenoon on my day off after three months or so of non stop coughing. His departure was a great loss to me as I have become very close to him as a friend and a mentor. He has seen me through many difficult times and through his compassion has delivered me from many a despairing moment since I setteld down in Penang. Cikgu was a character in his own right with a great sense of humor and a sharp tounge when it comes to defending his thoughts and ideas against those who are skeptics. He was a scholar and may be considered even a teu Sufi adept if not a teacher for most of his life he has been a spiritual seeker and travled to many places in search for answers to the myteries of the Lord of Creation. He introduced me to the path towards the Lord of Power through long discussions often taking us into the wee mornings hours. He introduced me to books that I would not have studied had I not met him books of great Sufi Masters such as Ibni Arabi and Sheikh Kadir Al Jilani and today's contemporary Islamic writer Ahmed Hulusi.
All his life Cikgu has been a school teacher among other odd jobs that he had mentioned, but it is as a school teacher that the community here will remember him and a s an incorigible social critic when the need arise. I had traveled with him all over the State of Kedah sometimes in the middle of the night just visiting friends or getting a massage. Meeting another spiritual seeker or simply enjoying the best Tom Yam soup in the Northern states of Malaysia. Wherever we went he was well respected by those who knows him and people seek his advice which he freely offers over matters they cannot find solutions to.
Well here's to you me good friend and brother I hope your find what you have been seeking after all your life and how i wish you could let me in on the secret sometime whatever it is that you have discovered on the other side of the veil. May you find the crossing of the Sirat'l Mustaqin an easy breeze and may the Lord of Truth receive you to be among his favourites for you in your own ways have surely deserved it. I will miss you.

Addiction is the 'Pain in us"

Why am I writing this to myself? Well perhaps it is another phase of my repentance and redemption, yet another piece of my justification for all the failures that has plagued my life thus far.
I am an addict and has always been eversince I can remamber. I have been an addict to one form of drug or another one form of sexual deviation or another one form of 'bad habit or another in my life and has not been able to shake off one or two of the deep rooted ones.My addiction to drugs in the past has caused me a relationship or two includung my first marriage and the loss of my first son in the process for custody. I can try to justify all the conditions that had led me into these situations but none of them would bring me back the love and respect of my former wife nor would it bring back the many lost years i could have spent raising my son. I was an alcoholic and also a heavy Marijuana user when I was living in Wisconsin and while working as a Meat cutter at the Packing houses in Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The fact that I was living in such an adverse condition having to face a new life in a new environment and trying to raise my son may play a part contributing towards my succumbing to the bad habits that I took on. Ten to twelve hours a day standing and boning on the packing line in a 45% temperature atmostphere was not exactly a healthy environment for even the tough hearted much less for a Malay kid who found himself in the thick of the the Wisconsin winter at the age of 25 trying to make sense of his life with an American wife and a four month old baby. But it is all still justifications and they will remain as such as they are no good excuses for my weaknesses.
I took to drinking like fish take to water once I acquired the taste for good wine and overcame the guilt trip of being a Muslim and so on. I had the money and the company and through hanging out at the taverns and bars made some real good friends as drinkers often are once they had drunk under the table with you. I learned that I can trust my drinking buddy more than I can trust my lawyer or doctor friends who never touch a bad habit. I found that I can expose my feelings without reservations when I was drunk and listen with genuine sympathetic heart to my buddies when they relate their inner mind to me.At the end of the evening when all the drinking is done and the bar tender calls for the last round, I will stagger out of the door into the Wisconsin cold feeling empty and relieved of all my trials and tribulations as I put on my auto pilot and and make a perfect beeline to my bed wherever it may be back then. I often woke up the next morning not remebering how I got home and got myself into bed with all the snow out there and and the winter cloaths I had on it was always a miracle to find myself waking up in my own bed.
I realized that i was walking the footsteps of my Grandfather and and my father into becoming a lifetime alcoholic and things become more obvious when your loved ones and close friends starts to call you one or remind you politely to give up while you still can. But Wisconsin was and perhaps still is a beer country and Milwaukee was and perhaps still is the beer capital of the world, while in Rome... well the rest is history. Waking up the next morning and looking into the mirror at yourself is the most hardest part of being a drinker and compound that with a nasty hangover for having mixed the wrong drinks the night before and you wish you had not been born. It was strange how just one more beer added would disslove all the bad and negative feelings you hae towards the guy in the mirror or you nagging headache. Breakfast of the champions! just one more for the road.
My drinking habit gathered momentum when I was divorced with my first wife and lost the custody of my child, a darn good excuse by all Wisconsin drinkers' standard. Women walked in and out of my life some I dont even remember their face much less their names. I often found myself waking up in their beds and feeling like now what am I going to do next? Say hi and bye? or lets go for breakfast or what the hell am I doing with my life, or theirs? Then hey it was fun right? We both balled ouselves till there wast no more balling to do and we both wake up with the same feeling or having had a good time the night through and why the regrets? Get the hell out of bed and take a good shower and if you are lucky you might get one last balling for the road!
Yes the life of an artist and an alcoholic, I have walked it crawled it and even got kicked around because of it but what have I learned? Many, many a thing that an average normal Malysian do gooder would never ever dream of learning or experiencing in the confines of their comfortable homes and careers and religious sanctimonies. I learned about relationships and trusts that transcends barriers of race and religions, that transcends the charade we call truth or beauty, sins or decadence. I found life at its raw unadulterated state where men and women bare themselves to the bones of their feelings and compassion towards one another as can rarely be witnessed when sober. I have seen masks torn to shreds off faces that once were the epitomy of sanctity and itegrity into that of a common hungry vermin just looking for another victim to prey upon. I am perhaps again at my justifying game again! But hell how would any one know or give a damn about unless they have been up the same alley as I have been or many like me who walkes the main streets of Green bay and Melwaukee bar hopping through the cold Wisconsin nights.
All my years in the United States (21 years) I had maintined a drinking habit although it slowed down as I settled down down in California and where I met my present wife and had two kids. Today sitting here in the Cafe I can safely say that I have kicked the habit but i am not a teetoteller by long shot as i enjoy a drink or two every once in a awhile at least the sense of being able to tear this mask that I am weraing for whatever it is worth and see what lies behind these fasade that I am assumig that is who I am or trying to become, just another brick in the wall, or a Jaded mandarin. I do not apologize for my grandfather or my father nor for myself for being an alcoholic I only apologize when it became an inconvenience to others. I apologize for my bad breath when it touches their sensitive olfactory lobes and my bad and often devil may care language when I express myself under the influence. This is one bad habit or aaddiction I am however glad to be able to put behind me and be able to reflect upon when sanity in these days and age seems to become a confuse state of mind for me so much so that I have a hard time distinguishing the difference anymore.

Where have I been hiding?

Today I am writing just because I feel like there is not much else that i can do with myself opr the situation that I am in. My son is at his cousin's home most probably watching TV while his sister is in Brown Gardens with her cousins selling burger at the burger stand in front of my late uncle's house. I have just got here at the cafe after work and decided to check the mail, found one from Ayu in New York a forwarded letter about making sure to wash all new garments upion purchasing them or else suffer the consequences and from the look of the picture that accompanied the mail it is definitely not something i would want eating away at my balls! It is a picture of a woman's breast being eaten away by a bunch of humongous parasites from the inside and it looked like some horror show.
What happening at the Jerejak Resort and SPA? Well the resort Manager is no more with us and there is a new one in his place, my Lord as much as I hate to see him leave I am relieved that he is no more with us. I have worked with all kinds in my life and to date I have yet to work under such an egotistical dickhead! I once told him to take the job and shove it but I had to return simply because I could not risk unemployment at the time and I am glad I did swallow my pride and anger today as i out lasted him at the place.
The Penang State Gallery had an exhibition opening on the third of this month launching the Directory for Artists in Penang and the northern region, I am one among some 140. The piece I entered is my favourite called "Flight of The Soul" a 5'x5' painting in oil and Acrylic. The show itself is called the "Artist's Favourite" exhibition.I am still reeling from the cost of framing the painting and having to pay for the book itself, to make it more intresting on my Artist Profile write out the publishers mistook San Francisco to be in Canada instead of the USA! A dinner was held on the fifth for which again I had to pay fifty bucks and which I did not make it to simply because I forgot about it. What a bummer!
Noe my present New Boss is keen on helping me through his wife to get me have an exhibityion at the national Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. Perhaps this is it, but I hate to keeping such high hopes about my art work these days, it seems like I am destined not to see the limelight or the financial returns as far as Art is concern. Tried as I amy I seem to end up hitting a wall or walking into a blind alley. Off course it does not mean that I am giving up on being creative as creativity is a part of my God given nature, it is a talent I inherited from my Grand father and my father and they too died practically paupers having abandoned their own families to start new lives as Artists in a foreign land. I wish I could step back in time to discover where my ancestors on my Grandfather's side or even my father's side were like. All I know is that they are from Sri Lanka which in the old days went by the name of Ceylon. They were Buddhists before they came and met their respective wives and were converted to Islam by marriage. My Grandfather met his wife in Medan, Indonesia where he was travelling with a theaterical group known as the 'Bangsawan', he was the artist or prop designer.
My Grandfather's name was Paul Mariano before he was converted to Islam in Medan upon marrying a cousin sister of the then Sultan of Medan who it was said was his drinking buddy. My grandfather was a drinker and he drank his health and wealth away like all great Artists. He and my grandmother escaped to Penang from the late Presdient Soekarno's pogrom of Indonesia's minor rulers or sultans and their entire families. I am of a royal blood at least half of it if I care to dwell on such claims for whatever good it would do me today and I have a disdain for royalties as they to me are not any better than parasites living off the nation. Then again, the nation deserves to be lived off as it has yet to evolve out of this subservient mentality not unlike the one one left behind by the colonizers, the colonial mentality.
I better get off from criticizing my sovereign rulers before I get myself into a situation that would make life more miserable than it already is. Let sleeping dogs lie, if everyone is happy paying other to rule them why not? As far as parasites goes they are found everywhere aLTHOUGH MOST ARE NOT VISIBLE JUST LIKE THOSE THAT WERE DISCOVERED INSIDE OF THE LADIES'S BREAST.

How to get through this downer?

Went to the University Sains Muzeum gallery and got to talk a little to the Director Encik Hasnul who informed me that I could have a show sometime in July together with another artist a two man show. Whatever happened to the the show in March or the show in KL with the Pelita Gallery? All seems to be like entizers to keep me in good form as far as creating artworks is concerned. Have I become overly dependant on others for my success as an artist, expecting and hoping for handouts in the form of promises that are as hollow as the feelings I am having inside of me.
I am running on an empty tank and my wallet is as dry as it has ever been so where do I look for an instant financial salvation so that my kids can have their pocket money to go to school. Beg, borrow or steal the 3 options left as working for it is not meeting my needs by a long shot. But whats the use of moaning and groaning over what is happening in my life right now it could all be traced back to my own fault one way or another. I have exhausted all my hopes and aspirations, my talents and zest for life, what else is there to fall back on except the Mercy of the Infinite. Allah have mercy on my soul for I am loosing my faith again and I feel like my life is all but a waste of time on this planet.

How Much Longer

I have stayed away from writing for the past few months simply because I had very little to talk about that is worth talking about in my life otherthan the feeling of slowly being defeated, brought to my knees by the pressures of life itself. I am now writing for lack of anything else to do but to ponder where it all have been and where it will all come to an end. Needless to say I am at to lower end of the downward swing of the pedulum of my life. Psychologically, spiritually and worse of all financially I have come to a dead end and it seems like there is no end in sight to this loosing streak. Hence my silence, rather than share more of my miserable failures with the world i would rathe sit tight and let nature takes its course while i am waiting for the next wave to come along and lift me up. However in the meantime i still continue on doing what i have to do like making sure that i get to work and the kids gets their education.
The year 06 came and went and it had been an eventful year relatively speaking for me as i have managed to established myself in the Art scene in Penang by having a Solo Exhibition at the USM-AMRO Gallery and manged to keep being employed at the Jerejak Resort and SPA. I have a car which I am now struggling to keep the payment of but helps to get my kids to and from school every once in a while. But all in all I feel like a broken man slowly and gradually lowered to my knees in submission to the pressures that are piling down upon my head. This I hope is not the 'summit of the Mystic Mountain', the end of my life long quest.

coming to terms with life, liberty and the quest for Inner Truth

The road is long,
With many a many a windy turns... that leads us to where,
Hu knows where...

Am I strong enough to ride the next rebound that Allah has given me , to ride the wave of change outter and inner, to climb the next step up to Haguro Temple? The journey towards Inner SANCTUM OF MY SOUL HAS BEGUN! Allah HU'Akhbar! The Lord of compassion and Mercy, the Lord LOve and Giving.There is none, only HU. The Lord of Power... The All knower... Ommnipresent Omni Science Lord of the Universes... Creator of the Day Of Judgemnet and of Heaven and Hell... and Blessings and All Praise be to Our Prohet the Rasul of Allah, the Leader of Man, the Sultan of sultans.
The journey deserves a better ending than to be frittered away with Nonsensicle daily trials and tribulation, the Journey has to die and be reborn into the Next realm of the conciousness of The Maker, the ourney towards The Lord of Creation is the journey of the humble fakir who has taken many disguises and personalities throughout his life, often treating it with irreverence especially when it comes to my commitment towards the women in my life, in the words of childhood love, Allah is taking care of your sins NOw not waiting for you to spend your time in it when you are dead; the journey has just begun. The journey of a thousand leagues begins with the first step from the center of the heart where the light of faith shines, the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first motion of thought.
Read! Gibrail said to the Prophet,
Read in the Name of Your Lord, that there is none other, only Allah! and that Muhammad is the Messenger.
I am a Jahilliah when it comes to understanding of Islam, I cannot read the Qur'an in its original langguage except for some few rudimentary verses enough to pray four Raka'ats that just about it. I read the Yasin through learning it in its Romanized translitteration and listenning to the tapes as read by Ustaz I used to buy at the Islamic Store. I enjoy Tahlils as it moves me deeper into the feeling of the verses like a hipnotic chant, Laa..Ila..Ha'IllaAllah! There is NoGod, Only Allah! While in deep chanting of this La Faz my body drops into the Universe and I often feel relief, unburdened, empty and Happy. I become One with my Love, My heart felt cleansed yet of another layer of dirt accumulated all through the years I have lived my life. Its is like peelig layer after layer of the onion skin or skinning a Buck in the Forest of Wisconsin. I am writing not to impress anyone of what I know or understand but I writing to ease the pain in my heart, to find the road back, to postion myself for the takeoff, to launch my soul in the right direction towards the Lord of Power, to come as close the Rasul of Allah to touch the Throne of the Al- Mighty failling which I have not trully understood Islam.
And if I should die before I come anywhere close to Hu's Throne, I will die knowing that I have committed to writing my thoughts and feelings about this Life that i have lived so far, I have taken the first step from my innermost sacred chamber of my heart out of the light towards darkness. I have entered religion through the back door for my light can only remain a light so long as there is darkness, I have a dual thinking mind, yes and No, right and wrong...Yin and Yang, cause and effect, I am a living breathing human being...in and out breathing every second in and out, inan out, I make this journey as best I can, that I do not wander off from the straight and narrow at least that I cannot find my way back untill I can becomt one with my Lord my journey towards Hu is forever happening inside of me deep with my Heart.

It's Monday, my off day!

My son called from school said he is sick, I told him there's not much I can do as I have no transportation to get him home so he cycled home. Replied my mother in law's mail sending her three fax numbers for her to send me the forms authorizing her to bury or cremate my wife if and when she leaves this life. I have a busy weekend as my niece got married and everyone in my family came from all over the country. It was great to see most of them and a pain to avoid the few.
Work is still the same with the boss still in the limelight being a Dick Head giving everyone else grief for no go reasons and resulting in a number of losses of good emloyees. I thought after being taken ill and spending a few days in the hospital he would change a bit in his personality but apparently not, the Almighty Ego still rules. It is sad that from my personal experiences for the past seven years since my return here to find that the Malays cannot make a good thing last without crapping on the last lag. As much as I would like to turn my attention away from it all and merely exist in the shadows or the fringe of what is going on I cannot help but feel obligated to voice my opinion whenever things fets to become too stupid for even the dummy in me to ignore.

message from Alma regarding Nancy

Nancy has been doing very well with the exception that her conversation cannot be understood. Shae dosn't know I am and cant follow instructions. However last week she had a seizureand another one early Thursday morning. She was taken to the hospital after every seizure. They are giving her medicationand hope to find something that will help eliminate the problem.
This gets me thinking that something else could happensuddenly with no warning and that she could'nt recover.
Do you have excess to a fax machine? I don't have but have excess to one.The reason for this is if she would suddenly leave us I would need a signature on a form "Authority to Cremate & Request for Disposition" for her Since there is such a great distance between us and my not knowing if I will be around when and if it would happen, I feel it necessary to take care of this now....

I met Mr.Prakash Chandwadkar the Indian Artist who resides in Kathmandu while he was about to leave Penang on the same day in the evening flight to Singapore. My friend a reknowned portrait painter in Penang Artist Rashid had introduced the gentleman to me while we visited him at his hotel in the morning. Wwe had a good long converstaion about his works which he showed us in his hotel room all fifty pieces of them the colored bust of the Gautama Buddha spread across his bed. These colorful pieces were done in acrylic and the bust is painted meticulously accurate depicting all the various moods of the meditative Budda. The execution of the medium was excellent as it captures the feeling of the Buddha's bust was surreaslistically alive yet is of stone of one kind or another, its fluidity is in its essence.
Mr. Prakash was just another victim of bureaucracy in the form of the unforgiving laws of the Immigration department which refused him entry visas, he has to leave and make the application from some third country if not his own.
My son had just recovered from some kind of flu and is now waliking to school every morning as he lost his bicycle at the Prangin Mall. He did not do well at all at school I found out after i was handed his report card, he failed the semester! I was not too happy with him and let him know that. He is not stupid but Lazy and unfocused I hope he wakes up soon enough from his sleep to handle the end of the year exam. As for my daughter, she seems doing okey as far handling her school and daily live. She has her act a little better together and perhaps is able to see her advantages better than her brother for being born an American and growing up in Maklaysia.

Asta LaVista...

Sunday, got up early and almost ready to leave for work but had to change plans as there was a death in the family or rather in the neighborhood. On opening my door I discovered my cousin sister down on the street infront of the house informing the neighbors of the passing awy of one of my cousins' mother- in-law. So I decided this was a good enough reason to call the work place and tell em not to expect me. I was one o those on site when the deceased body was brought home from the hospital where she passed on. I had to help carry the body into the house and felt a muscle pulled as I lifted the stretcher from the back of the Van.
As I was sitting around waiting forn things to pick up my handphone rang and my Resort Manager was on line wondering if the Ferry had left. I told him that I was not at the Jetty and that was it. The trip to the cemetary was a little after noon and as I sat there among the gravestones I could help but reflect upon the fact that one day soon i would end up as food for worms right here in this very crowded 'Wakaf Land". My whole life flashed before me and the fact that at present my life is not looking too promising as the stakes are mounting and the income is not meeting the demands. As the old imam was performing the last rites beside the grave surrounded by close friends and families, I reflected upon the fact if it matters when you are dead you are dead! Game over, end of story, end of blog delete blog from the face of the net! Via Con Dios and who gives...a dash?
I have been through life or atleast whats left of it taking chances and treading paths less travled, shoot my bullets wildly and hitting less target than a blind man would and eventually here i am sitting among the dead contemplating ending it all in some safe way that will not hurt too much or too many any if and when I am gone from this scene, what difference does it make to any one other than the two teenagers I am doing a lousy job at raising? I am simply tired of making up stories and excuses and hell pray as I will dya and night it seems more like a mockery to religion. I am in despair and at the nadir of my life, oh sure I keep tellin myself that it could be worse, like comfort myself with not being in Iraq or Jogjakarta and so on, it works at some point but after awhile living a life of sham and dehumanizing circumstances no matter what you do or try shit just keeps kicking in like there is no end to it..It sucks!

I always thought that I might end up my story with a they lived happlily ever after but it don't look like I am going to make it tally. I am going to end up just another looser on one long loosing trip to nowhere. Does it need to end this way? At present I'd rather be somewhere in Iraq dieing for a cause rather than facing the shit being disherd out at me by the government bureaucracy, the so called community or society that is dead to the call for help and support unless one grovels in self pity and cry at the doorsteps for mercy. No Sir for me there is no way I will lay down and take the crap that is being thrown at me without taking a punch before i exit. As the former Prime Minister once asked what makes a terrorist?...Well read my story and if one day you find my name among the sinners against humanity know that it is not all politics or the quest to be number one, it sometimes is simply because...Hasta LaVista!

Humility is a bitter lesson.

The tenth of June was my wife's birthday and my children felt awkward about mentioning it to me as they did not know what my reaction would be. My daughter wrote her a card telling her mother how much she misses her and how she misses her mother's hugs and kisses. I had to console her by giving her the God has plans for evrything in life routine and that she has to make it her goal to oneday be with her mother as it is my vision to do so. I told her that everything I do is cattered towards oneday getting all three of us to Illinois to be with their mother. It may take time and this too is for a reason as my children were both spoilt shitless by their mother when she was with us but now that she is not around and we are financially strapped they will have to learn what being tough and persevering is all about in life. At least they now will appreciate their mother a whole lotbetter than when they were with her.
I miss my wife too, but i cannot afford the luxury of thinking that I can accomplish much without first getting my act together and putting me and my kids back on the track before i am too old to ride the waves. I am living on a day to day basis as far as money is concern but i am confindent that i will be where I aim to be all in good time. In the meantime I will just have to bite the bullets and grit my teeth and keep on trudging along till opportunity knocks on my door again. I have no regrets over what has been and nor will i regret for what is to come, but I know my life is just as exciting even when I am down as it gives me a whole new perspective towards what life has to offer. Life is a humbling experience and for now i am being treated to a good dose of humility and I take it a piece at a time like the medicine that I have been prescribed by the Lord of Power.

Monday morning woke up yawning...

Monday- my off day! The shcool holidays brought many visitors to the Jerejak Resort and SPA some leaving at the end of the day all excited about returning soon while others swearing that they wasted their precious dollars. I am just glad to be away from having to put up a friendly smile despite all the gaggling and bickering from the Chinese, Malay and Indian guests.
My son is still dealing with his infected eyes while my daughter is feeling bored at home with no friends of her age to spend the time with. I am still trying to deal with their school fees issue with the Education Department while getting nowhere at it. Patience is a hard act to follow and has been with me a tall order to come to grip with. The Malaysian Government bureaucracy is an entity that one does not gripe about as it is mostly run by Malays and Malays are ver well known for their sensitivity, one simply do not criticize an agency unless one is out for blood. So it make take a very long time before I will beable resolve all the paperworks like geeting my children to become naturaliuzed Malasian citizens and I might not be able to get it done in this lifetime yet. In the meantime all I can do is to tell my children that they will have to bear with the inconveniences and not get into trouble whereby they may require to produce their indentification papers. Where will all these lead on to is just part of life that i have to accept while learning from all the errors that i have made that had left me with the predicament in the first place.

This is part and parcel while on the Journey to the Lord of Power, the nuts and bolts the grist for the mill of life as it is on this material plane. This is the load one has to carry while sleeping in ignorance, the nightmare one has to deal with having claimed to be human but lack the understanding of the functioning of the Humind, the Sin for having threaded the path that is deviated from the narrow path of 'Ehdinas siratol mustakin'. The Path towrds the Lord of Truth, the knowledge of who or what we really are, Beings created from the Essence of our Lord and Creator, the Light of TRruth. The Buddha has pointed us the Way and so has the Prophets, our forefathers had tried to leave us the warning signs and by examples shared their thoughts that we may not fall into the same man-hole that they had once fell into. We are too far asleep some of us and even drive while drunk at the wheels and often than not we end up into the ditch to be dragged out by others and set back on the path still oblivious to our weaknesses and unthankful for our saving graces.

Journey to the Lord of Power

The HUMIND Solo Exhibition at the ANB-UMRO USM Building has come to an end and it has been an enlightening experience and by Allah's Grace a profiatable one at that. I have been able to establish myself among the Art Patrons as well Artists in Penang while making a good friend or two in the process. It could have been more exciting had i have the time to do some demos while I had the exhibition but time would not permit it especially while working full time. The Gallery was oddly enough closed most of the weekends and kept to working hours which did not give much chance for those who made it to the show on weekends.
My daughter is now back living with me as the place where she was staying with her cousins has become impossible for her to stay at. This is because one of my cousins who is hard core drug addict has been released from the rehab center and will be staying at the house. Almost everyone of my cousins who lived at the house has moved out for fear of their well being. How sad that families have to go their separate ways due to one jackass who has burned his brains on drugs and there is nothing anyone can do about it not even the government social services department. One incident after another has proven my cousin the addict to be a threat to others and this has been reported to the health department, the police department and whoever else that would or could intervene but no one responds ro the plight of my uncle's family.
Now that I am broke again the Education Department has decided to send me the long awaited reply to my children's school fees issue. In short i am to 240RM each for my children's education which is fees for foreign students. If I could evaporate from this life i would just to avoid getting into this mess again but i am nailed to the floor and the system has got me by the balls. Well it is yet another Test for me to walk through without getting all riled up and walk through I must even if it takes me till my doomsday to solve this Residency status for my children. I scream loud enough perhaps someone may hear and heed my cal for help but in the mean time it is back to ask my cousin Ahmad kalam again for his assistance.
Hey I am lucky I am not living in Jogjakarta right now! The erthquake there a few days ago claimed five thousand odd lives and left untold numbers in the dark. I am sitting here typing this Blog for no one in particular and sipping my lemon tea and my daughter is doing the same at the next console at the syber cafe where indian kids are battling themselves with the latest computer games. I should count my blessings and if i am grateful enough for all that i have been given in this life i might even get to do my Master's Degree at the USM! Hey! I am after all the Sultan of Knowledge and the Lord of Wisdom! So what am I crying about?
So on we go...rambling away untill the break of dawn for there is none to compare for he who is on the road to the LOrd of Power.

The true mark of a spiritual man is to know himself, to understand his limits and to act in accordance to his limitless power. He is immune to the external influences and reacts to no instigations from without, his mind is free from the laws that governs the material plane. A truely spiritual man is a very rare individual who walks the earth but is not affected by it, who picks the lotus without getting his fingers wet. The Prophets of Allah MUhammad (SWS), Isa (As) and Musa (As) were among the spritual men of the Judeo Christian Tradition, The Buddha, Lao Tzu and Thoth (Trimejestic) were of the others including men like the Maharshi and Sri Yogananda, men whose life was absorbed in the quest for the ultimate Truth.The Truth that liberates man from his worldly dimension and set him in the realm of the Devine, the realm of Light or Enlightenment.
Throughout the history of man we have been striving for the achievement of an understanding of our true nature our what or who we are and what is our reason for our being here. The scientific as well as the humanistic schools of our academical institutions have left no rocks unturned and spared no expense at attempting to unravel the mysteries that has eluded us from the dawn of time overcoming our ignorance that has shrouded the truth and veiled the Light that we seek. Every Scientific discoveries, every mathematical equation, every spiritual awakening that man has accomplished has set our foot closer and closer to the Ultimate Truth. Throughout history schools of thoughts and sacred religious sects have kept an ongoing vigil over the texts and wisdom of the ancients handed down from generation to generation in the hope that one day the Truth would be revealed. Ancient texts and hidden scrolls, sacred symbols and monumental constructions has become road maps for man to piece together the jigsaw puzzle that would hopefully one day be pieced together to give us a clear picture of who we are.
Those of us who pray and those of us who worship daily our various Gods. those of us who are thinkers and free thinkers, those who contemplates and meditates, who chants and evokes the spirits of our ancestors; we all have one aim and that is to find our way to the Truth. To lead our minds and spirit on to the sacred path, to unleash our hidden potentials our Devine rights as prescribed by the ancient texts and codesand the covenants. In this day and age we have arrived at the junction whereby the Truth is about to be revealed either by the Miracle of science or that of Religion failing either of this we stand to be sucked into the vortex of the dark hole of ignorance forever. Man will soon be made to choose between the Light or of Drakness, the line between the two is slowly being drwan in the deserts of the Middle East and the Pacffic ocean. The next war will not be a war of territorial claims but of man's own struggle against himself that of spiritual or that of material, his soul is at stake and the battle between Heaven and Earth, Light and Darkness, Wisdom and ignorance. To coin it in the religious term for it will eventually be a religious war it will be the battle between good and evil, whether it be the communist against the rest of the world or for a starter Islam against the Non Muslim world. Farfetched? Hardly as we are heading in the general direction already whether we wish to recognize it or not.
Someone once wrote about man being a tribal animal, whose one desire is to better his tribe under one banner and raise that banner against anyone he see as a threat to its well being. Man and his ideologies, man and his banner of freedom, man and his quest for supremacy over others govern by greed, hate and ignorance has set in motion the wheels of his own self destruction. His soul is at stake and the suffering of untold millions and millions will be the fruit of his crowning glory. History teach us nothing, the words of the ancient will only be echos of distant past for gradually we will become deaf and dumb to our own inner voices of love and compassion of our Light of Being.

Beatrice Gorst in Loving Memory

When I first arrived in the United States I lived with mother in law and my wife's younger sister on Shawano Avenue, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The house we lived in had a huge bay window and one day as I sat watching GILIGAN's Island on the TV and enjoying the warmth in the living room thanks to my mother in law, I was struck with wonder as I watched huge snow flakes falling from above outside. It was sometime in september the approach of winter and the end of fall that time of the year when most of the trees have shed their leaves leaving naked branches against empty grey skies. For those who ar used to seeing this phenomenon year in year out of their lives like the people of Green bay, seeing large cotton balls drifting down from the sky is nothing to write about, but for me it was an awakening experience as I had never seen snow in my life except on the TV or in movies. I was mesmerized and the next thing I knew I was rushing out of the house in my sarong and T-shirt and barefooted I headed out the back door. The last thing I heard before I exited was my wife calling out after me from the kitchen sink. I must have looked very silly to the regulars at the Farr's Grove Tavern whirling in circles with my head turned upwards and my tounge sticking out trying to catch the snow flakes as they drift on to my face.
I was twenty six years of age and had a four month old son, married in Malaysia to my American wife from Stevens Point, Wisconsin and due to the difficulties I was facing in Malaysia being married to a foreigner I had decided to take my chances of making a better life in the US. The Malaysian Immigration department was a sore in my butt and my wife was being prejudiced against where she was teaching which was making her life miserable on top of being married and pregnant in a foreign country where she can only depend on the compassion of my own friends and relatives. She was a lecturer at the MARA Institute of Technology in Shah Alam where she taught Business Managemnet. Afte a few months there she started complaining to me that a few of the female teachers were unfriendly towards her including her roomate then. I felt helpless in the matter as I was working in Penang at the same time and was only able to visit her on holidays. My wife lost her cheerfulness after a while and often I would find her in tears, I then decided to pack it up and try my luck in her homeland where i thought at least she will be happier and I will be the one who has to put up with the hardship that we might encounter.
It was in 1973 and I was working at Hegermeyer Trading Company ablock away from whereI am having my present Solo Exhibition in Penang, my wife was most happy whenever she came to visit me. I was not making much but between our salaries we were able to buy an old beat up VW to move around. When we finally decided to make our move to the US we had to sell the VW and with the help from my Mother in law Mrs Beatrice Gorst who sent us some money we were able to buy two flight tickets back to the US.

Worked some extra hours today as my replacement decided to take a medical leave and so I decided to take it easy the rest of the night by visiting my friend and mentor Cikgu Yusof who gave me a few invalubla lessons on deep spiritual breathing and the moving of energies while focussing on the Names of the AlMighty. I have learned something very significant in my spiritual search, something that I have not understood before. It in some sense a practice of self affirmation like the one that I had been carrying with me since I read the book "The Master Key" by Frank Haarnell if I am not mistaken abook I had taken with me to the United States when I first left Malaysia sometime in 1973. I borrowed the book from my late friend Rahim whose picture at the moment is looking down at me while I am writing this for i am using his daughter's PC. The book was bvorrowed from Cikgu Yusof by Rahim who had received it from his friend the father of the former Deputy Prime Minister, Dato'Sri Anuar Ibrahim. Cikgu has never forgiven Rahim for loosing the book and now that he knows that i had the book he will never forgive me for loosing it to someone else in the United States.

"I AM WHOLE, PERFECT, STRONG AND POWERFUL.
LOVING, COMPASSIONATE, HARMONIOUS AND HAPPY...
AND I CAN DO WHAT I WILL TO DO...INSHA'ALLAH...ALLAH WILLING."

Or something to that effect and i kept it as my Mantra eversince I could remember, returning to it even after years of forgetting the Zikr. But I now realized that what I had been practicing has been in consistant with the teachings of what I am being instructed by Cikgu, only he has upgraded the right method and put it in a more sublime level. In the Zen tradition Cikgu would fit well in the Rinzai sect in appraoch where the strive for instant enlighten ment is practice through dropping bombs, thought shouts and slaps through shock therapy treatment of the HUMIND. I practiced Dogen's Soto Zen which is more gradual and not as spontaneous. I prefer the Soto school in approach as it allows me the time to be compassionate towards myself as well as others, I am in no hurry to become liberated from this life mental or phisical, not till I heve exhausted all my options and truly run out of steam to burn any more bridges behind me.
I have two children who requires my attention yet and they as well their elder brothers one in the US and the other in Switzerland deserves some form of conclusion on who or what their father was so that they can reflect upon my thoughts and actions an learn to avoid the pitfall I fell into while living this life of a true seeker or a charlattan. I learn quite a while ago to reach by example when it comes to my children and this I believe is the reason why I like to keep my journals and now writing this Blog. Not all my examples are impeccable and not all are without merit but if they ever read my writing or browse through my journals and perhaps noticed how I have been able to stay afloat despite the odds or fall flat on my silly
ass at times. they might have learned a litlle about their father and his ways in life.

NARNIA

Just finished reading Narnia by C.S.Lewis a book that i had always wanted to read after seeing it being made into a movie. I found the book at the most odd place when I have forgotten all about it. One evening when after having my dinner at the staff canteen at Jerejak Resort and SPA I decided to take my Nepalese helper to the Housekeeping Department and ask for new uniform shrts as his was weather beaten. When I got there I notice a few books sitting by the door and the top most book was Narnia, too good to be true i asked the Housekeeping department head whose it was and he asked me if I lkiked to read and I told him most definitely, you can have it he said, it was left behind by one of the guests. I was estatic but tried hard not to show it, but inside me I was telling myself what a find! The book in Malaysian currency must cost at about 120RM which I most assuredly would not pay for any book these days.
It is a great children's adventure story in fairytales of Aslan the Lion and Narnia the kingdom he created, it was the story of children slipping in and out of fantasy lands of imaginations troguh doorways and clossets. This is not the J.R.Tolkien trilogy of Lord Of the Rings where the adventure involves no time tripping but actually takes place to those who belong to the same environment. I was pleasantly surprised that Lewis and Tolkien knew eachother. Now that i ave read all their books I am happy to see that my son has began reading Narnia, he tried Lord of The Rings but found it harder to read. I hope he picks up the habit to read soon.

Talking brought me here...

There was a hunter out hunting deep in the African bushes and he stumble upon a human skull all bleached out with empty eye sockets with darkness staring out from some where deep within. "And what brought you here?!" yelped the hunter taking one long leap backwards. "Talking brought me here!". answered the all bleached out skull. "What brought you here?". the hunter, "Talking brought me here!". the skull.. and on and on.
"WOW!" the hunter ran all the way back to the Karaal where his folks came from and headed straight for the main Karaal where the number one Chief resided with his wives numbering it was said at about 52 strong and healthy beauties. The chief listened to the hunters' story about a talking skull in the forest. Being a busy man that he was what with running the community and not enjoying enoguht sleep at nights, finally gave in to the hunter's urgingings for the chief to leave all his comffort and walk all the way into the forest just to witness a talking skull.
They at long last arrived at the sighting site and approached the bleached sitting on the ground staring out with its lifeless black stares.
"And what brought you her?!. What brought you here!?, pleeese, What brought you here.."
No Answer! The hunter rolled and grovelled on the ground the skull, picked it up and tossed it into the air and even irreverently almost used it as a soccer ball if not for the deadly stare from the Great Cheif.
The moral behind the old bleached out skull story is that where there was once a skull now there is two-know when or when not to open your mouth or you might end up loosing your head.

I spent the day at the Amro-USM- Gallery where the HUMIND Solo Exhibition is still going on. I took a long walk to the Pinang Gallery at the Dewan Sri Pinang Kompleks,there are many greAT WORKS IN THE MAIN GALLERY AND THE SAD THING IS THAT NINETY PERCENT OF THE WORKS ARE BY cHINESE ARTISTS FROM IN A ND AROUND PENANG.
At the risk of feeling prejudiced it is my feeling that the Art Scene IN Penang is dominated totally by Chinese Artists and Art clubs, well sponsored and financed by their patrons who are more sensitive to the plights of the artists and the connection between art and the preservation of cultures. The artist in any culture as it was in the native American culture, was the preserver and keeper of the cultural spiritual records of a society.He is the watcher an obserever who stands on the fringe of village lost in his own world while making comments of his life in relation to his community.
The Artist takes the next step into the unknown for the benifit of his community or his tribe seeking and documenting what else is out the there in the wilderness and the unconcious HUMIND. He becomes the Quest Master, Vision Hunter and embarks upon a journey of self discovery. Int eh never, never land of Neverland, in thedistant mountains of Mount Doom, on top of the Messa in the City of Rock area of Danning, New Mexico, standing naked to the bone and dancing around the fire to the distant howlings of the coyote and the starlit skies. The Artist is the lamb when there is a sacrifice needed to be offered to appease the Gods, for he is the most expendale to a society in times of great tragedies. N'Artist is he who walks among his people no different than a prostitute peddling his wares and self esteem to stay alive in a real man's world. The Creator has given the true believer a gift of being able to see life,live it and document it and Hu out of Hu's infinite Compassion made him an artist.
I always wanted to be a pilot, fly a plane, but I am never to fly my own plane instead my son flies for and Ailine in the US! Oh well, at least my wish has been granted through my son. I was always fascinated by engineering and whenever I enter a machine shop or some big factory I thought to myself, man, what would it feel like to have all that knowledge and do all that work. I became the Yard Boss at H and H Ships and Environmental Services at 220, China Basin, in San Francisco. There was a point in time when I was asked to design what I needed for the whole Yard part of the facility to meet the California State Legislation Standards of Operations in Hazardous Waste Management facility located in downtown SF water front area. I got to understand what engineering was all about at least wthe what it takes part if not what you can do part.
I used to wonder what it was like working on a construction site day in and day out in the hot humid environment of Malaysia and had actually wished to experience this and I did. I became the Health and Safety Manager for three different major construction companies in Malaysia. Ibai Bina Sdn.Bhd. in Kerteh, Van Seumerren Romstar in Kerteh and Gebeng and Autoblast in Kerteh where the Patronas refinery complexes are located. I worked among the Vietnamese, the Bangladeshis and the Inians from India, the Iban from Sarawak and the Malays and the Chinese and the Indians from Malaysia, my bosses were Koreans, Americans and British and the Patronas management team. "Safety First" "We Make It Happen", was our slogan. For two and half years I was earning the highest salary I had ever made and fulfilling my wishes, to feel what it was like to work on a construction site and in this case not just any site.
As the saying goes, careful what you wish for in your life for the mind is far greater a planner than we know and take it from one who has tried his utmost to document everything and anything worth documenting about his existance. I realize that it was just a matter of time that every wish made or suggested to the HUMIND will manifest into reality whether we realize it or not. Now that you know perhaps wishing for the good things in life to happen to you or to someone you love or even the Universe is not such a far fetched undertaking. So hey!, lets join hands and embark upon a vision quest to find our one true wish for everlasting Peace.

The First Of May

And Guese Who'll Cry Comes First of Mayyy!!, the Bee Gees. One of those songs that had stuck in my mind because The First of May in 1988 I was in Malaysia on a visit from the States, I had to pick up my Uncle's body placed at the back of his Van and drove him home or his expired body and later the next day helped to place his body in the ground. I was eating my dinner while watching TV at Ma'Cik's house, my mother's younger sister living then on top of Brown Garden and along came a stranger and told me that I need to go and drive my uncle's body home to his house. I was stunned! But I did what needed to be done and felt for the loss of my adopted father on the First of May leaving behind eight children, the youngest at not yet one. Tis was one First of May I will have a hard time dropping from my mind it is only through relating my feelings now having written as often in the Ramblings of the Cheeseburger Buddha that i am beginning to find some relief from my deep rooted Karmic consequences, born through Body, Speach and Mind from beginningless time, Greed, Hate and Dellusions...
One the First of May in 1981 I left Green Bay, Wisconsin en route to Sand Point, Alaska with my new found friend Rbert Sergei, a photographer cum Commercial Fisherman who spends his summers in the Alleutian Ilses. We stopped over along the way out of the State of Wisconsin a a small town of Little Suamico and there together with a group of friends who got together to grow five hundred baby plants as a conservation effort. When I left Green bay that day I had burned all my bridges behind me. No more relationships, no place to return to the farewell has been said, I left for Alaska with just enough money to get me there and even then I had to borrow US87 dollars from Robert to make payment for flight ticket on the final law of our journey and that was from Anchorage, Alaska to the small Aleut fishing town of Sand Point out in the Baring Sea. That is a whole different story to be told in yet another chapter of the Ramblings of CBB.

My present left for the US together with my two children sometime on the 2nd of May in 2004 and my show opened one year almost exctly I was ponted out the fact by my daughter one evening in Brown Gardens. The few weeks as I watch my wife deteriorate physically as well as mentally was when i painted the piece I call the Big Bang! I know that watching me paint the big paintings was a comfort for her it was something she can relate with. I completed almost ten canvasses when I was living in Terengganu and I did them sometimes despite the pressures we as a family were enduring. My triumph on this First of may of 2006 is to share them with the world and together with most of my sketchbooks laid out for anyone to browse through allowing them for a peek into one human mind (HUMIND). How strong or how fragile we are, how close or how far that we are, why we are and who really are at the End of Days. For those who find the time and the opportunity to share this exhibition can find a small gift here and there that I know will help them in some small wat to deal with their unfulfilled dreams and ambitions, to not despair. There is always a silver lining behind every dark cloud and if only we have faith in ourselves to make it happen. My efforts has always been focussed in the issue of turning succesout of defeats, a grace rather than a curse and thus the Month of may will be a successful Month from henceforth and so it wqill be and Guese who'll laugh comes every First of May...Ain'Sha'Allah... with the Hu's Wiil.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

When is it? I know it is in the next few days if not tomorrow, anyways, where would we be without mothers! Oh some of us us hates her and some love her more than their own selves, I mean where would we be without mothers?? She is overweight and she nags too much, she serves our fathers like he is the Lord of the House and she lets her voice be heard for those who watches too much TV.. Crayon Shin Chan or Doraemon...but do we care? Nope she loves us that she worries sick when we are ill and she moeks sure we had our breakfast and lunch and she is will the wrath of our fathers to protect us when needs be.
HAPPY MOTHER"S DAY!!!
There was a time in my life when I thought my mother despised me for being born when I was not supposed to... I was the second child who even my Auntie the Midwife did not anticipate the coming of,I was an unwelcomed child for everything needed for a delivery was prepared only for one child and no one suspected that we were born twins, a half an hour between us and He came first. My parents could barely support five kids at the time and along I decided to join the clan. Bad timing and a price to pay in the later part of my life as I have learned. One consolation is that I was later adopted by my mother's younger brother who was then still single and had me take cre of by my mother's younger sister who was also then single. Alhamdullilllah for I was the blessed one for my life was alot more comfortable compared to my twin brother's. I lived apart from my immediate family till I was twelve years old...I was a bloody pain in the ass to everyone when I was growing up.
But I was writinbg about mothers not my self, and so I will continue on with my story about the one thime when I was really pissed at my Mom. It was when I was about sixteen or seventeen attending my Secondary school in Terengganu. It was late at night about two or three in the morning and I was sitting in the living room with my fingers all covered with glue and pieces of paper and coated with acrylic paint. I was working on my collage piece cutting away my eldest brother's collection of PlayBoy Magazine to make a picture. I was getting good at it and enjoyed the time especially when I sold one or two to my school teachers. Then my mother who was sleeping next room came out of her room turned off the light and went back to bed after slamming the door shut behind her. She shut the light out of my desire or passion to create, I did not have anything to do with Art for the next ten years of my life till I was in West Allis near Milwaukee, Wisconsin where iw as working as a Meat cutter at Peck Meat Packing Plant downtown Milwaukee on 17th.Avenue in 1974.
I told this story at the oppening of my HUMIND Solo Exhibition when invited to deliver a short speach. My point was to impress upon the mothers present and the fathers' too the importance of knowing their limits in punnishing their children and the wisdom in doing so. I was trying to share with all those who were present the importance or creativity and the lack of it among our children today was they are more and more getting sucked into the TV tube.
HAPPY MOTHER"S DAY!!!
It is almost two weeks now that my show has been on and so far I got many complements from all those I managed to persuade to visit it. I happeared in Three National Newspapers here and each wrote their own version of what or who I am and among them the STAR Newspaper did a good writeout which I am honored to be recognized so by their reporter and the fact that they alloted me almost one whole page except for a small advertizement column. It does feels good to be recognized by the Media no doubt and I feel great inside knowing that I have come thus far with my works. I am forever greatful to those who helped to make it such a dream comew true. The Director Muzium and Arts Gallery at the University Sains here in Penang who has been the prime mover of the success of the show, Encik Hasnul Jamal B.Saidon, a great artist and painter himself who wrote a elloquent piece for my show printed on the brochure.

THIS SHOW IS FOR ALL THE MOTHERS IN MY LIFE WHO AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER WAS ONCE A MOTHER TO ME IN MY PAST LIVES!!!

Which past life are you talking about?? my niece Azwin asked as she read the last lines, she just walked in with a bunch of Groceries.
And now it is time to retreat as the room has become too noisy even fro me to concentrate...Thanks MOM!
To My Mother and to my wives Nancy and Faye Bahari (The later was my first marriage that took me on this journey by her grace).

The HUMIND Solo Exhibition

The HUMIND Solo Exhibition at the University Sains Art gallery on Beach Street or leboh Pantai has been on for almost a week now. It has received good reviews from two or three press articles which is pleasantly surprising and makes you feel like at last you have reached the Summit of the Mystic Mountain or perhaps just a higher plateau in the scale of life.
They had hung a banner above one of the doorways which has the word HUMIND and my face on oneside and when I first saw this I felt like I have reached home at least with my artistic endeavors throughout this life. Now my journals as well as my art works are being laid bare for all to see, to share and to ponder upon. I have done as best I could given the circumstances of my life at the moment but it could have ebeen alot more better had I the means to have the works professionally framed for as it is they are only stretched most of them. Given the situation I must be thankful for the Grace of Allah in making it all happen and i am grateful to Encik Hasnul, director of the USM Muzium and Gallery whose kindness I can never repay for without his confidence in me this show would not have become a reality. The rest of the USM Muzium and Art staff members who were responsible in putting it all together including restretching many of the larger canvasses.
The reception at work over my solo show has been just as encouraging at least from those who are genuinely intrested in art.