At Last...

For once, I'll be succinct.

I am over the moon.

The Best News In A Long, Long Time

I can't quite concentrate on anything today, despite doing an awful amount of work. Beats me sometimes how I can somehow compartmentalise bits of my brain into those which should function as per normal just to get me through the day, and the bits which are firing great arcs of imagination and rockets of mental fireworks. Cos, really, I'm chuffed. Completely chuffed.

The Cure, ladies and gentlemen, are going to perform live in Singapore.

After undergoing a gazillion transformations, here is the crew. I hate this photo though. Whoever lobbed off Robert's head and repasted it in a crude effort to cover up the criminal act should be dragged to the gallows.



Here's a much better photo back in 2004.



30 years of make-up - there's only one Robert Smith.



I'm completely gobsmacked that I have never heard the local radio stations, which have advertised and drooled over the forthcoming Gwen Stefani concert, utter a single word about The Cure's show. This is outrageous. What's wrong with folks nowadays? Had I not caught the advert on telly almost by chance, I may have completely missed the news. Ok, I only read certain non-entertainment sections of the papers and I don't watch local channels very often at all, but still, the whole episode left me feeling as though I had just spent the last three months on Venus or something. And the sad thing is, I have never met a The Cure fan in Singapore.

But that's beside the point now. The point is, The Cure are coming to Singapore. Which makes me feel as though I'm about to combust in happiness or something. I mean, seriously, I never expected to see them live!! Of the bands which I care a great deal about, only the Red Hot Chili Peppers are still functional (that's a horrid word but I can't think of an alternative) nowadays and after having watched the Peppers live in 2002, I consider myself able to give a good pat on my shoulder, dust it a tad wearily and say, "Now I have watched probably the last of the greats, and I'm content." But now - The Cure?!??

Back in 1979. It's quite hard to believe that the cute, innocuous boy is actually Robert Smith.



From the Three Imaginary Boys album sleeve. Aww, they look so sweet on this one, though I prefer Robert Smith looking like he's one whiff of hairspray away from a complete insanity binge.



Like this.



Or this.



Love the hair. Every band needs big, barmy hair like this.



This is a dream come true, of sorts. If you're also a fan and are interested to watch the concert, email me or drop a note. It's time to start digging out the albums and revel in their glorious, trademark melancholia again.

Weekend Bites

The 2007 Wimbledon Women’s Singles Final, In Short

Venus Williams: Roooaaarr!!!!!
Marion Bartoli: Squeak!
Venus: Grrrooowwwll!!!
Bartoli: Squeak!
Venus: Grruuunt!!!!
Bartoli: Squeak!
Venus: Phhhwoooaarr!!!
Bartoli: Squeak!
Venus: Aaarrgghhh!!!!
Bartoli: Squeak!
Venus: Aiiiyyyeeee!!!!!
Bartoli: I’m tired of this screaming crap. Let me lose the game quickly so that I can go practise my mock swerves and bunny hops in the garden without this awful jet engine pulverising my eardrums.

Wolfmother

I was channel surfing between Live Earth and Wimbledon when I caught this fantabulous band which totally rocked the set. I was almost leaping from my seat cos for the longest time, I have not heard a contemporary band which does unadulterated screaming and guitar riffs with such electrifying abandon. I didn’t know what they are called, but the frontman looks like:
(i) a frightful hybrid between a human being and a broccoli
(ii) someone exploded an atomic bomb on his head
(iii) an ant-nihilator: once an ant crawls into that shocking mess atop his head, it’ll never come out alive again
(iv) he hasn’t washed for months (just when I thought nobody could ever possibly beat Gaz Coombs of Supergrass in the province of looking so dishevelled, grubby and hairy that even werewolfs would shun him, up comes another fuzzy dirtball)
(v) all of the above

Whadya reckon?



Here's the cleanest photo I can find of the frontman.



Upon googling, I found out that they are an Australian band called Wolfmother, and have apparently won a Grammy (I am so behind the times). But the Grammy is beside the point. The keynote is, they’re hardcore! They’re unwashed! They’re sweaty! They’ve got fried-up hair! They throw musical instruments around like hula hoops! They play storming riffs that make my hair stand! They are incoherent! They can rock! They scream like someone just split their abdomens with a cleaver!

Thusly, I need to rush out into the stores and get their CD. Like, immediately.

Wolfmother.



Geriatric Ramblings (Again)

On a more nostalgic note, it is so wonderful to see the likes of the Police, Foo Fighters, Beastie Boys, and the Smashing Pumpkins again. Watching these old timers totally made my weekend. This is the way it’s supposed to be done, geddit? No high-pitched, estrogen-producing and nasal warbling (James Blunt and Maroon 5). No being covered from head to toe in retina-burning bling and clown clothes with skimpily-clad women draped on your shoulders as though these women have somehow collectively contracted a disease which ate their vertebrae (all the legions of hip hop comic cut-outs who absolutely bore me to death with their overfunting homogeneity). No prancing about like a buffoon whilst you pretend to play a musical instrument (Justin Timberlake, Lenny Kravtiz, Avril Lavigne).

Sigh.

Tags: Live Earth, Al Gore, Wolfmother, Andrew Stockdale, Chris Ross, Myles Heskett, The Police, Sting, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, Venus Williams, Marion Bartoli, Wimbledon, Tennis

Whither My Home?

These days, from my office in Shenton Way I could hear the distinct whirr of fighter jets rehearsing for the forthcoming National Day celebrations. It struck me that come this August, I would have been home for three years. I had always reckoned that after the heady flight of fancy overseas, the landing back home would be a hard one. But three years after touching down, the ride on the ground has been better than I had expected. What I did not expect, however, was the inexorable slew of changes surging through what I used to know as that safe, preserved little haven called home.

I tasted the first hints of the metamorphosis when I ambled along Orchard Road the week I was home. Paragon had added a new wing chockful of designer labels, Far East Plaza has revamped its interior, and the Heeren has erected an entire area of pint-sized boutiques selling curious knickknacks. “Harajuku style,” I was told.

My next visit was to Sentosa, and I was flabbergasted to find the beaches – gasp! – all cleaned up, dotted with balmy trees and framed by rocks. It all looked pretty artificial, but the last time I was in Sentosa, which was eons ago, the beaches looked like they were on life support – desolate, grey and glutted by some sort of algae or weed-like substance.

Downtown Singapore was also getting a spiffy makeover. New buildings have sprouted up – One Raffles Quay and of course, the Esplanade, whose roof is something of an optical illusion if I stare too long at the myriad protrusions on top. Other projects are in the offing, including the Marina Bay Financial Centre, touted as the hotbed for iconic waterfront living, private banking activities and state-of-the-art leisure amenities.

Elsewhere, the whirlwind of change is just as evident. New cab companies have emerged, and the MRT system has spawned a complexity of new lines, and with them, more underground shopping belts. Buildings are being repainted and refurbished, or are torn down to make way for newer ones. The ubiquitous shopping mall is everywhere, and hyper-marts are making inroads into HDB heartlands and displacing old-school mama shops and provision shops.

The changes are not merely skin-deep. There seems to be a shift in societal decorum and mores as well. A law prohibiting bar-top dancing was repealed, and Crazy Horse, a Parisian topless cabaret, opened with much aplomb and fanfare. Then came the brouhaha over whether to legalise gambling in Singapore. After much ballyhoo and debate ad infinitum, the decision was declared to build not just one but two casinos. Now some may not be able to resist weighing in with a wisecrackin' correction that those are Integrated Resorts and not just casinos per se, but let's just get real.

Singapore's night view.



Before I had time to take a breather, the next crest of developments has already hit me fast and furious. We declared that we would transform Singapore into the Monte Carlo of Asia, a playground for the rich and famous. Besides the two Integrated Resorts (ahem), other novelties are in the pipeline, including a Universal Studios theme park, a giant observation wheel the Singapore Flyer, and Singapore’s first FI Grand Prix.

Condominiums and multi-million luxury residences sprung up like wild mushrooms, and the newspapers heralded their coming with full page advertisements beseeching folks to enjoy waterfront living, landscaped gardens, private yacht berths and all that jazz. Property prices started going through the roof, particularly in the luxury homes and office rent sectors. Every other morning, I flip open the newpapers and find myself greeted with a barrage of news proclaiming that yet another property price record has been smashed to smithereens.

On the financial front, Singapore is rapidly garnering clout as a choice investment hub. Funds managed here swelled by 24% to reach $891 billion, mostly from flourishing South Asian economies and Middle East petrodollars. A passel of banks, including Standard Chartered, ABN Amro, and Deutsche Bank have announced plans to augment their operations in Singapore.

Wow. This heady cocktail of change is all, erm… very exciting. I’m realise I’m standing on the threshold of a watershed in our nation’s history. One which marks a radical departure from previously derogatory notions of a nanny state or a straitlaced dressed-up dictatorship – to a vibrant, eclectic city state with a throbbing nightlife, world class arts for the genteel, and toys and playgrounds aplenty if you have got the cash to splash. For a twenty-something year old with a decent education, the notion of making money and playing hard would be intriguing. Like what the banners for the IMF / World Bank meetings proudly trumpet, “Singapore 2006: Global City, World of Opportunities.”

Yet, amidst this compelling tide of developments, I feel a lingering sadness. Take Tiong Bahru, for instance.

Tiong Bahru is in many ways an anachronism amidst a city where so much is ephemeral. Its colonial style housing is a far cry from the matchbox incarnations that are modern HDB flats. Dingy and rickety shops still pepper the town – shops selling a miscellany of things that hearken to a fast disappearing way of life – Chinese herbs, colourful paper windmills for children, musty bamboo stools, even those cool wooden back-scratchers. In the mornings, folks still bring their bird cages to the Gourd Temple where they’d enjoy a game of chess with old chums whilst soaking in the sprightly chorus of their feathered friends.

View of Tiong Poh Road from the balcony.



The trademark winding stairs of Tiong Bahru housing.



I spent much of my childhood in Tiong Bahru as my grandparents live there, and I am very fond of this place. I have always seen it as a town obdurately clad in its old school charm, impervious to the tide of change surging through other parts of Singapore. Nonetheless, this quaint town inhabited by elderly folks, once so unassuming and unruffled, is now undergoing a quiet revolution. Its famous market has been torn down to make way for a replacement, and its motley old shops have made way for new bistros and air-conditioned eateries. After so many years of having low-rise buildings occupy its core, the once pristine skyline of Tiong Bahru is now perforated by towering condominiums and HDB flats.

And Singapore's future is not all coming up roses. Flagging birth rates have prompted us to court immigrants, in particular well-heeled expatriates whose wealth could have a tremendous multiplier effect on the economy. But the ballsy plan to boost its population to 6.5 million has inevitably stressed the infrastructure and social fabric threading through the nation. There are more cars on the roads, which create more bottlenecks and congestions during peak hours. Public transport is gorged with frazzled commuters nowadays, especially in the central business and shopping precincts. Tempers flare more easily, and people often chafe at each other as they push, shove and needle their way past multitudinous crowds on trains. Folks are also baulking at a GST hike, and at the prospect of job redundancy as old skills are rendered obsolete in this brave new world. In addition, incensed parents are complaining that there are not enough spaces in choice schools and universities. Recently, even white collar expatriates are forced out of their luxury properties as the property market boomed and rents become exorbitant and hence, untenable.

All this disconcerts me. I guess everybody needs a place where, no matter how long you’ve been away, you can always return to find the same old comforts, that anchor of familiarity and security which is cloistered from the maddening world outside. It’s the same feeling you get when you retreat to your own bed at home after spending a month backpacking and living out of sleeping bags in train stations. The feeling that no matter how much the sands shift beneath your feet, there are just some things which would never change. And when that disappears, you feel as though you’ve been hurled helter-skelter off your seat. It unsettles, and saddens you.

As I watch the National Day preparations on telly nowadays, I feel a mixed bag of emotions. There is a sense of nostalgia and patriotism, but also one of ambivalence and pensiveness. I feel as though there is something which I would like to protect and preserve, but that the ineluctability of change has already ordained a foregone conclusion – the demise of things which we hold dear. Most of all, there is a sense that my home is going through such an epic facelift that I’m beginning to find it a tad unrecognisable.


Afternote: Months later, I was reading Alan Greenspan's memoirs The Age Of Turbulence, which I find engaging and thoughtful, when I came across a section particularly apropos to this post. In it, Greenspan described his thoughts on Venice, his honeymoon destination, and the inexorable force of creative destruction, a theory espoused by twentieth-century economist Joseph Schumpeter:

"And then we arrived in Venice. As necessary as creative destruction is for material standards of living to improve, it's no coincidence that some of the world's most cherished places are those that have changed the least over the centurries...

Venice, I realised, is the antithesis of creative destruction. It exists to conserve and appreciate a past, not create a future. But that, I realised, is exactly the point. The city caters to a deep human need for stability and permanence as well as beauty and romance. Venice's popularity represents one pole of a conflict in human nature: the struggle between the desire to increase material well-being and the desire to ward off change and its attendant stress.

America's material standard of living continues to improve, yet the dynamism of that same economy puts hundreds of thousands of people per week imvoluntarily out of work. It's no surprise that demands for protection against the forces of market competition are on the rise - as well as nostalgia for a slower and simpler time. Nothing is more stressful for people than the perennial gale of creative destruction. Silicon Valley is without question an exciting place to work, but its allure as a honeymoon destination has, I would guess, thus far gone largely unrecognised."