Mother: What’s wrong with our driver? Where did he go?!

Daughter: You complain too much, Ma. This happened with Pa, too, remember? And I don’t think either one of them is coming back…

(Photograph courtesy of Muhsein Sofian)

1. The pro envies the amateur’s artistic freedom; the amateur envies the pro’s lifestyle
2. The pro buys the cheapest equipment that can get the job done; the amateur buys the most expensive equipment for projects he will never do.
3. The amateur has to earn money to finance his photography; the pro has to resort to photography to finance his life.
4. Models fall in love with the pro – and then regret it; amateurs fall in love with the model – and then regret it
5. Amateurs drive BMWs; pros drive Protons
6. Amateurs READ articles in photo magazine and think, “I can write that, too!”; Pros WRITE those articles and think, “Anyone can write this. But why don’t they?”
7. Camera-shop owners love amateurs; camera-shop owners hate pros
8. Amateurs think pros are at the top of their game; pros know that he is just an order-taker (most of the time)
9. Amateurs THINK pros make tons of money; pros KNOW that amateurs make tons of money (not necessarily through photography, tho)
10. Amateurs like to be seen with 30 kilos of equipment; pros think nothing of being seen with a crappy point-and-shoot camera
11. Amateurs try to dress like pros; pros try to dress like amateurs
12. Amateurs dream of going pro some day; pros dream of becoming amateurs some day.

Finding a nice vantage point from where I could maybe shoot a few decent photos, I see in my mind’s eye how it all started. Somewhere, earlier during the day, a bored (but well-meaning) father is hit by a brainwave. “Let’s do a day trip to Melaka and whack the ikan bakar in Umbai!” he thinks to himself. What a brilliant idea! After all, Melaka is just 2-hours away and the seafood is way cheaper than almost anywhere else except maybe Thailand. Great! This is going to be fun.

It’s time to act. So he whisks wifey and the kids into the MPV. But before that, he comes up with another brainwave. Let’s round up a few friends and relatives: that way we can form a convoy and mosey on down to Melaka. Great! This is going to be double the fun.

The trouble is 364,529 other bored fathers across Malaysia are hit by the very same brainwave. Somewhere after Sungai Besi toll plaza, all 364,529 bored fathers begin to realise why this wasn’t such a good idea after all. By that time it is, of course, too late. The PLUS highway is backed-up from Ayer Keroh all the way to Nilai.

As I watch the 3-kilometer crawl into the Umbai Ikan Bakar complex grow steadily into one that promises to be at least 6-kilometers long, I start feeling sorry for the occupants of the long line of vehicles that by now must already have stretched all the way to Teluk Mas. I begin seeing their short term future unfold.

What awaits them isn’t going to be very funny. First, there will be the free-for-all brawl for parking space. Being Malaysian, all will insist on parking no more than three steps away from an ikan bakar stall. I just have this to say, “Good luck!”

Then, because of the sheer number of patrons at the ikan bakar stalls, they’d have to wait maybe close to 2 hours before they get their food. And when they do, the chances are, the fish will be shoddily prepared. And if they are lucky, it’s going to be half-cooked. Hint: raw fish tastes better at a sushi joint.

This may sound like a xenophobic diatribe against visitors to Umbai. But it is not. Not by a longshot. I am all for people coming to Umbai and enjoying all that it has to offer. At the same time, I am also all for people who come here having a good time. Coming here during the public holidays is a bad idea. Instead, take a day or two from your annual leave and come enjoy Umbai at your leisure – and away from the maddening crowd. This way you’ll get to experience Umbai at its best. This way nobody will remember Umbai as a parking battle zone that serves bad seafood. Umbai is a really cool place. It’s important to me that visitors get a chance to experience it for what it truly is.

Now, don’t even think of getting me started on convoys.

When it comes to things literary, I can be a snob at times. It is seldom (very seldom indeed) that I get excited about the work of writers who are not yet dead. And if the writer happens to be younger than I am, hails from Malaysia and hasn’t got a book to his name, it’s likely I’ll never notice him till he kicks the bucket – twice.

But my days of literary snobbery are over! In a Facebook status update recently, a dear old friend asked me to have a look-see at his son’s blog, ‘Hold That Pose’. Frankly, I went in not expecting to see anything new. However, I ended-up reading the blog from beginning to end, immersed in each word as if they were the sweet, calming breath of a long lost beloved.

His prose took me on coastal road tours of familiar places long forgotten as well as on scary aerobatic flights at at altitudes I never knew I would ever scale. In the end, to say that the view that he showed me was breath-taking would be an understatement.

Arief Hamizan, the owner of Hold that Pose, is easily the most formidable talent I seen in a very, very long time. That he is young is neither here nor there. He writes with a maturity that belies his age; he writes as if he is an old soul that has been cruelly reincarnated in a young body. In another time and place I have no doubt that Arief Hamizan would be our equivalent of Hemingway, Twain, Kerouac, Bourdain and Fitzgerald – all rolled into one.

What do I like most about Arief Hamizan? He writes with such uncanny honesty that it makes the reader question his own. Arief Hamizan doesn’t write to impress anyone; Arief Hamizan doesn’t understand why he would need to. To be candid, I think he’d rather drill a hole in his head before writing in this way. Instead, he writes about the things that he sees, in the way that he sees them.

And I most definitely like what I am seeing. Naturally, I urge everyone to give Arief Hamizan a twirl.

Well, almost everyone. Those that write primarily to impress others will be well advised to give Arief Hamizan a pass. If you do read him, you’ll probably regret it for the rest of your lives.

I recall buying my first pair of Stan Smiths. It cost a RM45 a pair back in 1977. This was an insane amount for a pair of shoes when, for example, a clerk at MAS at the time earned only RM175 a month. It was even more insane when you happen to be a 15-year old student with no income to speak of.

But buy them I did. I even tried bargaining with the lady. Since I had rather dainty feet (size 6, actually), I argued they should be cheaper because less material was used. I thought this was rather clever. Then the lady replied, “OK, I understand. But if you want your money’s worth, young man, may I suggest you get a size 11?”

She got no further argument from me. I forked out my RM45 and walked away as the proud owner of a pair of Stan Smiths – size 6, naturally.

I practically lived in my Stan Smith – until they got stolen about a year later. Since I had no other shoes, I went out, hustled the billiard tables at Pertama Complex, won my RM45 and got me another pair. Back then, I used to believe that everyone needed only a pair of shoes. You bought them, you wore them out and then you bought the next pair.

Little did I know that my innocence was going to be shattered. How? I got to myself a real full-time girlfriend (well, a few, actually). It was then that I realised that women have a sort of genetic imperative to own at least 5 more pairs of shoes than there are days in the month. It was too much for my very young mind to understand. So I went through life accepting this phenomenon as a fact of life – pretty much like the likelihood of you passing gas loudly increases the moment you step into a lift full of strangers.

As I aged, my powers of observation got even sharper. I began to realise something else about women and their shoes. Not only did they need to have 5 more pairs of shoes than there are days in a month, but they also needed an equivalent number of days to inspect, select and eventually purchase a pair. Though it took all my creativity to come up with excuses not to follow any female when the likelihood of shopping for shoes arose – I assure you – it was worth it!

Of course, sometimes you lose. On those rare occasions when escape was not possible, all I could do was sit there, grit my teeth and think of England. Sometimes (not often enough, I tell you) the ordeal would end rather mercifully – we were out of the shop before it was dark. Most times, however, the prospect of leaving only presented itself maybe 3 minutes before closing time.

It was during one of those excursions – while twiddling my thumbs and contemplating death – that I did the math: a woman will eventually pay RM100 for a RM25 pair of slippers. How? If she earn RM2,000 a month working a 5 day week, the time-cost of her six hours choosing the ruddy footwear works out to be RM75! Add that to the actual cost of the pair of slippers (RM25), you get a whopping total cost of RM100. And that doesn’t include MY time-cost!

But despite my keen powers of observation and my finance-savvy brain, I am above all smart: I am smart enough NOT to mention to the women in my life how ridiculous it is to own so many shoes and how insane it is to spend such an inordinate amount of time choosing them. I guess survival is still the strongest human instinct, after all.

Though Stan Smiths now cost RM200 a pair, I’m thankful that all I need is a single solitary pair and that the time I need to buy the blessed pair is still under 10 minutes. But most of all, when the possibility of shopping for female footwear arises, I am thankful that I can still keep a straight face and say, “Not today, dear. I have a headache.”

Dear Helene,

Sometimes coming home isn’t easy.

When you’ve been away for a bit too long, you no longer know what to expect. Fear creeps in. Doubt begins to gnaw. What was once a sanctuary – a place of safety – now seems like a treacherous network of dark, foreboding tunnels. One wrong turn, a careless miscalculation, a hesitant pause could all spell disaster.

This is how I feel coming back to ‘Tea and Scones’.

I hardly recognise the neighbourhood anymore. Sure, the names are familiar and the sights are still vaguely the same. But something tells me that things have somehow changed. Exactly how I don’t know.

What did I expect? A welcoming committee? Hardly. But I never dreamed it would be this hard. I think I’d still know my way around the old neighbourhood. I think I’d still recognise the faces in the windows.

But would you still recognise mine?

As I write the words of this paragraph, I begin to realise that it is not the neighbourhood that has changed. The neighbourhood’s still the same one. The ugly, deny-it-if-I-could fact is that it is I who have changed. I hope that I haven’t changed too much that I seem too much like a stranger.

But most of all, dear Helene, should we meet again – and if I asked you really, really nicely – would you come sit with me on that bench in the park?

And we’d write again. Like we used to.

Yours,

Frank Doel

Just expanding on a few things I overheard recently – and not so recently

• “What a stupid thing to do!” – I just can’t help but admire people who try but then fail. Personally, I admire less people who sit back comfortably, do nothing but criticise, and then start criticising even more when things go wrong.

• “Nice. But this photo has been edited, hasn’t it? Me? I’m interested in photography, not editing” – It never fails to amuse me how willing people can be when it comes to putting down others who do not subscribe to their way of thinking. I guess it’s difficult to recognize arrogance in its many guises.

• “After all that I’ve done for him/her!” – This has to be the most cancerous and self-destructive thought known to man. The need for reciprocity is OK in business. However, in human relationships, it poisons the spirit and taints sincerity. Human relationships aren’t supposed to be transactional.

The Sea Leveller walkaround boat

Being without a training gig for the past two months has given me plenty of time to twiddle my thumbs. And between twiddling my thumbs I have also managed to dream a little: a sweet indulgence that I have almost forgotten how to do. But after being here in Umbai for almost a year now, it’s all coming back.

For a couple of weeks now I have had a strange (but amusing) recurring vision. There is this gleaming white 30-footer walkaround boat (an Island Hopper Sea Leveller, actually) berthed at the far end of the Umbai jetty. Its 420 hp onboard diesel engine is purring on idle as it bobs gently to the rhythm of the waves. An old-timer, dressed in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, khaki cargo pants and blue deck shoes climbs out of the cabin. Straightening his worn out captain’s hat, he lights up a Winston and beams me a smile to end all smiles.

The captain is me!

Whoa! This is when the vision usually gets shattered. A thousand insistent voices clamour all at once to tell me how ridiculous the notion is. “C’mon, man! What? You own a boat?” taunts a faceless voice. This is usually followed by another one screaming, “Get a grip on reality, will you!” All the while there is also another voice that does nothing but laugh in the background. So I shut off the dream and go clean a few fountain pens.

But lately it’s getting easier and easier to ignore the voices – and also the background laughter. And as the doubts begin to recede into the recesses from where they came, my vision of the walkaround boat is getting more and more vivid. Today I can even smell the diesel fumes from the Sea Leveller’s engines and feel the spray of coastal seawater in my face as my captain’s hat get wetter and wetter.

Wouldn’t it be great if I could run island hopping tours to the little islands off the coast of Melaka for when training gigs are few and far between? Even if the travel agencies do not send tourists my way, wouldn’t there still be plenty angling-mad friends I could take on fishing charters? I could also do sunset cruises for my camera crazy cronies, couldn’t I? And surely there’d be more than a few of love-struck couples out there who would enjoy an honest to goodness sunset cruise. Hey, with my newly acquired skills in photography they’d even get a professionally produced portrait (with the sunset in the background) thrown in for free.

As the doubts fade away, my intent gets clearer and clearer. I’m not looking at an ego-boosting cabin cruiser with which to declare to the world that I have a 12-inch dick. I’ll leave that to the yuppies and people who believe that they have things to prove. I stark contrast, all I’m looking at is a humble, sea-worthy 30-footer that can provide me with a decent income. In other words, I am looking at a working boat – not a status symbol.

And imagine this! For when business is slow I can – on a whim – whip the family (or friends) out on a coastal trip to who-knows-where to do who-knows-what. Now, wouldn’t that be great!

No, I’ve not yet fired up a spreadsheet to figure out the cashflow projections and assemble a proforma profit and loss statement. That can come later. But whatever little research I’ve done tells me that owning a boat (especially for a semi-commercial purpose) works out to be far less than owning a golf club membership or maintaining a high performance car. Things are looking good so far. Perhaps when I get to draw on my EPF…

But for now, I’m off to talk to the maritime authorities (whoever they may be) to learn the regulatory framework and maybe suss-out the types of licences I will need. On my way back, I’ll probably get me a decent captain’s hat.

My uncle told me once that a goal without a plan is just a wish. I think this has gone beyond being just a wish.

Kadir, who is a regular teh tarik buddy, lives down the road. I see him maybe once or twice a month. The rest of the time he is probably in some far flung corner or the country. The reason? He’s a bus driver. Though he has not caused some major accident that has claimed a dozen lives, he maintains this is not his fault – there is still time yet for him to fulfil this time-honoured tradition of express bus drivers.

Kadir is candid – sometimes brutally so. He has no qualms expressing his non-performance issues. His job leaves him perpetually fatigued, his libido is as tame as a TV3 coverage of an UMNO convention and his appendage falls far short of the minimum female orgasm-inducing length of 8.5 cm (that’s centimeters, NOT inches). Though he has ages ago given up on finding a solution to the problem, friends still suggest all sorts of traditional (and less traditional) remedies every time we meet. In every instance, the story’s always the same: he’ll politely pretend to listen, shrug his shoulders and then quip, “That’s OK. But it sounds like too much hard work. I’ll give it a pass.”

It is unlikely that Kadir will be featured on TV’s ‘Bersama Mu’ anytime soon. Being an ordinary bus driver, however, he isn’t exactly a member of the Malay nouveau riche class either. We reckon he makes decent money. But none of us think it is enough to support his nine children. With four of them already in institutions of higher learning, we can only imagine the stress this puts on his finances. Whenever we ask how manages this feat, his stock answer is always a good natured, “What is enough for two will also be enough for three; what is enough for three will always be enough for four.” Some of us are still struggling to decipher the logic behind this statement. The rest of us just nod knowingly and pretend as if we have.

Everyone in our teh tarik session agree that Kadir is a breath of fresh air. The man never bitches about anything; never a bad word about anyone or anything. We have never heard him put down the Government nor the Opposition; complain about the economy and how the country is going to the dogs; or even lament the ever-increasing price of cigarettes. If anything ever comes out of his mouth, you can rest assured that it will be something nice. Yes, Kadir is annoying that way. And if he doesn’t have anything nice to say, he’ll just remain silent. But just let me say that Kadir is seldom (if ever) silent!

Over the past few months, we have come to accept and even enjoy Kadir’s almost naïve (but always sincere) view of things. We suspect that if we hang around him long enough, bitching about our lot in life will soon become as unfashionable as being a Donny Osmond fan. This is why we are ever so slightly sad when he has to go home early to his nine children and three wives – all of whom live under the same roof.

Yesterday, Ali couldn’t take it anymore. He came right out and asked Kadir, “How do you do it? How do you take on three wives and yet live peacefully under the same roof?”

“This is hardly fair! We have a hell of a time just trying to remain sane. And we have only one wife!” Hassan chipped in.

To this Haji Kassim added quite forcefully, “Yeah! And it’s not like you’re a stud or anything like that. We all know your pecker doesn’t quite measure up. And on the money front, you’re not exactly swimming in it either. What’s more, you’re almost as ugly as Bangkai there!”

Before I could smack the good Haji in the face for the last part of his statement, I felt Kadir’s hand on my shoulder, gently restraining me from doing what the gang was hoping that I was about to do. When he was certain that I was no longer a threat to anyone, Kadir took a sip of his teh tarik, smiled at Ali and Hassan, and calmly declared, “It’s easy, really – if you thought about it… ”

Everyone was all ears – even Haji Kassim.

“It’s not about the number of wives you have, my friends. Let’s face it. Is it certain that your marriage will be free from strife even if you have just one wife?” Kadir began.

“Then, what is it about, Kadir?”

Kadir lit his John Players. The rest of us were ready to fall off the edge of our seats. He took a drag from his cigarette, slowly exhaled and continued, “If you must take another wife, make sure it is someone who doesn’t think she is your equal.”

“Huh?”

“Yes, your problem is not the in the numbers. Your problem, my dear friends, is a wife who thinks she is your equal. And, God forbid, even worse is a wife who thinks she is better than you. She need not necessarily be better than you. But if she thinks she is, you’re a dead man.” Kadir explained.

Scanning faces around the table, I saw a few walking dead men.

The new 2010 re-issue of the CB1100

If you were in your mid-teens in the mid-70s – and if you had even a nano-gramme of testosterone coursing through your veins – chances are you would have lusted over a motorcycle more than you did over pretty little Kiah next door who was busily out-growing every new bra she bought.

Further, if like me you, too, were a teenager who lived with your grandparents, any access to a motorcycle would have been severely curtailed. They were dangerous, death-dealing machines. No amount of coaxing or cajoling (or emotional blackmail) on your part would have gotten you the permission to go anywhere near one.

Thus, without a bike to call my own, I quickly found out that access to Kiah was much more doable. But that – as I am fond of saying – is another story altogether.

Unlike my contemporaries, however, I didn’t go ga-ga over trail bikes (more popularly known as scramblers in Malaysia) like the Suzuki TS125 or the Yamaha DT125 Enduro. I would have looked ridiculous astride a trail bike with my bell-bottoms and platform shoes. Instead, I leaned towards roadsters like the CB 550 Four and the Kawasaki KH250 (three exhaust pipes!). But these machines needed serious money. So, unlike Kiah, they remained a fantasy.

My breakthrough came through only when I was twenty-seven (or so). With RM1,500 I had borrowed from Mayban Finance, I bought myself a police surplus Honda CB 550 Four. I then did the engine up again and painted the whole thing matt black.

I was good to go.

And go I did – anywhere and everywhere! Those were wonderful, carefree days. How far I went was only limited to by how much petrol I had in my tank. Breakfast in Seremban – when I actually lived in Shah Alam at the time – was not uncommon. Being a lazy insurance salesman (emphasis on lazy) helped a lot with this lifestyle, too. However, piling on the miles on the odometer had exactly the reverse effect on my commission cheques. All too soon I was redlining my finances more often than my engine.

The old CB 550 Four

Then my first baby came along. It was time to get serious (for a while, at any rate). My biking days had to be put on hold: I had to plunge headlong into the world of heavy-duty insurance selling. The CB550 quickly fell into disuse. It was heartbreaking to see her lying idle under the tarpaulin sheet. So, when a friend said he wanted to borrow her, I gladly agreed. At least, she would be cared for. Unfortunately, my friend crashed somewhere in Pahang and that, as they say, was that.

Recently, I went along with a friend who wanted to check out a few bikes. It didn’t feel like a mistake at the time. But it was. At the very first bike shop we went to I came face-to-face with the new 2010 Honda re-issue of the CB 1100. It was like falling into the soft, warm embrace of a long lost lover. Suddenly, I was young again; suddenly, I was in love again.

In my twenty years’ absence from the biking scene, I had seen other bikes. Heck! I had even occasionally ridden a few – here and there. But they meant nothing to me. They were, as the saying goes, merely one-night stands. But seeing the CB again rekindled a fire within me that I thought had died long ago.

There is something ethereally special about the CB. Her classic, timeless lines and her reassuring comfort hark back to a time when motorcycling was still about enjoying the ride: a time when motorcycling was nothing more than the relationship that a man shared with his machine when they hit the open road.

In those days, we had no need to growl menacingly and declare to all and sundry, “I’m a REAL biker!” In other words, we didn’t need to prove that we were tough guys. And nobody cared about who had the shiniest chrome fittings or whose panniers had more rivets or streamers. These things were (and still are) mere accessories. The other thing I seem to recall was that there was no need to blaze along at 180 km/h all the time. Speed is exhilarating, of course. But it was equally important to take time to smell the roses, too – to just cruise and take in the beauty of the land.

But most of all, in those days, we didn’t need to form a convoy in order to have fun. We rode proud; we rode alone. And we rode because we loved to ride. We weren’t the least interested in attention-seeking; we were simply interested in motorcycling. Choosing to ride a motorcycle was not about personal branding or creating an image. It was simply about the freedom of the open road. Showing-off or showboating was (and still is) better left to the wannabes.

Seeing the CB again brought back all these memories –and more. She is no looker: just don’t expect her to look like a rocketship right out of Star Trek. But ordinary as she is, she is MY girl. Despite her understated plainness and her conservative lines, she is still the one who is entwined within the beats of my heart. She’s got my name written all over her. Someday, I’ll have her purring between my legs again as she takes us (just the two of us – no convoys) to wherever it is we need to go.

But with a price tag of RM89K, that day is not likely be tomorrow. That’s OK – I know she’ll wait for me.