Monday, January 30, 2006

TAGGED BY ambarvaila
The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover. Need to mention the sex of the target. Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their page saying they’ve been tagged. If tagged the 2nd time, there's no need to post again.

Target: Female

[1]almost as funny as me, you just need to keep up!
[2]bake soft and chewy cookies
[3]attend all our gigs
[4]a smile that reassures everything
[5]you say the things that make me quiver
[6]agree to "fumbling toward ecstacy" as our wedding march (all things lead to this.)
[7]if we could stay together
[8]love God more than you love me.

and the (un)lucky recipients are:
napkin man, jo_ee, contented_one, cherie_wherie, wonderwallrocks, hellskitchen, alywin, uniclycommon

what are you searching for?
i love my sister, we went for a walk and we had a talk, about many things. i tricked her into taking a walk with me so that i could talk to her about something that had been weighing on my heart, and yes indeed, God used her to tell me something which hit home, which like an epiphany set everything in place. i pray that i will be there for her when she next needs me, and there are always greater things to live for. there is a God to live for.

tom selleck smiles like a champ
last night, there was a silence in my soul that i just wanted to screm out to deafen that silence. funny, the things we clutter up in ourselves.

depth chargers
are you coming down to watch Leeson this coming monday on the sixth of february. mark down that date in your calenders kids, because it's a night of fun and games at the bar none where we have the self-given and distinct honour of kickstarting aging youth's monday night sessions at the bar none. we'll have beers, fun, rock n'roll that you won't feel guilty to, and i promise i will play sober this time!

Sunday, January 29, 2006

perspective sorely lacking
i apologise for the lack of pictures on this blog during this summer season because my internet connection is just sorely lacking and i just can't be bothered to upload any snaps up to my flickr account. another reason is that i don't particularly feel like i'm in a snappy mood. i'm in a snappy mood in that i feel like i'm snapping at people more often, but not in a trigger happy mood. i'm in a trigger happy mood in that i wan't to shoot people with bullets but not in a photo-taking sort of way.

there's something weighing heavily over me now, i don't particularly know what it is, and i quite prefer it this way. in the past, i'd pinpoint specifically what i think was bothering me and i could get over it, now.. please allow me an indulgence, a moment of weakness. it's a pleasant feeling to rest in this moment of respite. that i'm no longer strong, i just want to revel in this crappy feeling where the world owes me something, like huge giant favour, and that they should apologise for all the wrongs that are in my life. let me whine like a bratty kid and use friends as emotional punching bags. let me be shallow for once and remember of how human i really am.

and still, i wonder if certain things in my heart are being taken out, to make room for something new.. it seems uncertain.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

these are little days
little people lead little days. there are little exciting things peppered along the road, just enough to bring a smile to their faces. and we notice how big the world has become, but we can still continue living our little lives safe away from it all.

another harrowing experience
i've just come back from the dream theatre concert and supper. feel a slight buzz, and happy australia day to my australian friends!

Thursday, January 26, 2006

conversations
Reporter: So Dr Tan, why moved you to become a paediatrician?

Dr Tan: *shuffles rather uncomfortably* ermm.. er... I like to touch kids?

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

fretless
life
damn, i miss you so much.

we talk about flow and we talk about rhyme
i've been staring at this blank page for hours and i don't know how to make it mean something. i feel a season of change coming, as if a blank canvas were being put out before me, and i have no idea how i'm going to fill it. am i going to paint around the boarders, or am i going to start from the middle? perhaps i'll just pick up a brush and start in some harmless little corner. will that be all, or will it spread like a cancerous disease?

maybe i should stop being cryptic and really say what's on my mind. i'm frustrated, with alot of things. i want to get out of singapore because it feels kinda constrained in here. maybe i'm too familiar with things here, maybe i keep second guessing things and nothing ever phases me anymore. perhaps that's what i'm afraid of, finally going numb, and not acknowledging that this life is worth living. maybe that's why i need to get out, or escape. i hate escaping, it's a shure sign of living, but its also a shure sign of survival.

look, i'm just saying the first things that come to mind, so don't take my word for it. this might be a brian talking to you that even i don't know about. something that's slowly finding its way to the surface that you might either like or hate. i can't feel it, i feel numb, i feel empathatically numb.

and then i just want to immerse myself into a craft these next two semesters. like, i want to be good at something, i want to write the songs that are in my head, i want to get them out so that i can look at them as if they were vomit. the tunes and muses that have been plaguing my system, where what once gave me joy and strength are now intoxicating my system, they have outlived their purpose and i have to get them out of my head, out of my heart, out of the system, i want them exorcised so that i can be reborn.

so please come down for a gig on the 6th of febuary at the bar none. maybe we'll talk, and you can see the spectacle of brian exorcising certain spirits that aren't sitting too well with him. let's try to make it out of this alive. yes, you know that he will find you.

batteries and back up dolls
so yesternight, thomas and i made our semesterly pilgrimage to mr misse where he set us up with our pedalboards. YAY! i've been waiting for this for a tragically long time. there is now no more need to lug all my pedals around in different boxes and set them up every single time we jam or play. this my friends, is a new moment in music history. well, mine at least. and then, as all brothers do, we talked about a lot of things, and for once, for a change, i think i was the one who needed to be given advice and it made its peace within me. or is starting to.

guru
this incessant living is going to drive me insane. but then i exaggerate to cover up my flaws.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

i'm only doing this because..
Four jobs I’ve had in my life
Wedding Videographer
Yard Manager's Assistant
Intern
Myopic Rockstar Bassist

Four movies I can watch over and over
Terminator 2
Fighter In The Wind
Black Hawk Down
Pulp Fiction

Four places I have lived
Perth Western Australia
Singapore
RSN209 Persistence
Perth Western Australia

Four TV shows I love to watch
House
Scrubs
Robotech
Bleach

Four places I have been on vacation
Japan
Sydney
Melbourne
Sentosa

Four websites I visit daily
blogger
pitchfork
yongfook
shift

Four of my favorite foods
ice cream
chicken rice
char kuey teow
carrot, orange and apple juice

Four places I would rather be right now
heaven
an intimate gig
the end of everything
graduating

Four bloggers I am tagging
napkin man
marian
angie
debz

Monday, January 23, 2006

reclaiming lost ground
every once in awhile, you lose a few battles and you have to lie in your bunker and wait for the siege to pass. things around you get bleak, and we start to call in for reinforcements but the communication lines are down. so you have to dig in and wait it out. don't give up, don't ever give up, you lose a few battles, but you don't lose the war. it's foolhardy to think that just because you won one battle, you could win the war on your own. it's a constant war until the day the war ends. the war will end some day, it has to. but we already know who wins the war. hang in there, don't lose heart, take courage, stand your ground. do you want to live forever?

Saturday, January 21, 2006

everything is wrong
yes, i do wonder if blogs like my brown set the standard of blogging in singapore. that if this is the stuff that inspires, and people take his word for it, then we'll get a nation of my brown's with my brown thoughts and my brown lookalikes and have the same cool as my brown. i think it bothers me somewhat because i never really fit in.

Friday, January 20, 2006

i'll sit and watch the world go by
guess what, i'm still at work. oh the makings of a rockstar, brought back to earth on a plane of dogs eating dogs. i'd stand above it if i didnt feel the incessant need to sniff someone elses butt. and yes, it's always the most inconspicuous people, those that don't have anything else to do but watch, that bear the omnious gaze of observation. take their word for it, because you've been digging a ditch, and its the only thing you know how to do. oh, how there is a glorious path toward the future, how there is a light of destruction that would make it all anew. and maybe i'm just rambling, but tomorrow we will take the stage and tear it apart. and even so, that's not going to curb our ravenous desire to drink your blood and spit it back out. turn around young ones, turn around and be strong.

what i found in beth orton's cd sleeve
"One more thing... gender is an excuse, relationships shouldn't just be an excuse, love is often an excuse, although sometimes these excuses are all we have to hold on to, death is the reason and living is the celebration."

oh why can't i kiss her now? and tell her (beth) how much sense it makes -)

ethereal

maybe now i know what i should be looking for? no, that's not right.. i don't ever want it to make sense.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

pre-gig warm up exercises
egads, the gig's on saturday. we've really been practicing hard, the sheer venue of the place is a absolue bummer, but i'm hoping that people will come down in the name of capitalist fun(d)! yes yes yes, soak up the drenched sounds of leeson's twisted boppy pop rock with extra dose of cheesesticks!

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

i didn't mean to hurt you
and i love you like i love the sunrise in the morning
and i miss you like i miss the rain
when i'm burning..

- spiritualized


today i was just thinking to myself, i don't need a girlfriend. no, not now. well, maybe not now. but let's look at it this way? if i want someone that doesn't want me, the tragedy would be that we actually got together. that would be the ultimate tragedy because from a certain angle, it was never meant to happen.

so what is left right now? maybe i will find her (you), maybe she will find me. and like star-crossed lovers, ill-fated chums, we will keep bumping into each other because the duel of the fates state that we were meant to be. maybe i don't know it now, i only hope i will know it when it finally hits. wait for me, i've been waiting ever since..

and what helps in the process, is that perhaps now i know i'm free to pursue a life that does not need to take another person into consideration. i can form rock bands, make music with whoever i please, go to wherever it takes me, work for whoever and whatever wages catches my fancy. when i know my life is no validated by a society that sees singleness as lonliness, i will strive with the help of my God, a fulfilment of singlehood that can only come by pleasing God. and when the time comes for a partner, i will then know what was planned and willed by my creator, and it will always be meant to be.

"how can a young man keep his ways pure? by living according to your word."
psalms 119:9

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

solitude breeds sanity
and if it's yours, it'll find its way to you. and if it was not meant to be, you can't hold on to it even if you tried. today i'm just toying with the idea of going to japan after this year. the next three years, living in a rural place, teach english, save some capital, experience a different culture, get inspired, acquire new skills, write more songs. come back at the end of it, twenty seven or twenty eight and then begin a career. it's not that long, three years, better to do it now, than later right? after all, i have no obligations here or in perth. where does thou lead me?

hung out strung out and left to dry
we finally finished digitising the tapes, that just means copious amounts of editing and scary bliss when the work you've been taping starts taking a life of its own. sometimes it breathes grusome bubbling cesspits of nauseus tendrils, at other times the sweet aroma of hidden beauty rises from within. a surprise waiting to happen that i can't contain my jubilant sleepiness. ooooh, it's raining now, wish there were time for a nap.

everything comes at a cost
nono, i'm still here even though my existence seems soley to exist in a circus of work and experience. i must confess, i'm really starting to lose sight of the reason because i just want to survive. and something in me compels me to argue that this is not it. this can't be it. and yes, when there is time to think and reflect, it's always good to draw it back to God, something which i haven't been doing of late. something i haven't been wanting to do of late, because i wanna run my own life and have my own success. but it gives me no peace of mind, and i know i'm not pleasing my Father's heart. and so.. if it pleases my Father, tomorrow is another gift to get it right with him.

Monday, January 16, 2006

nary an avacado or shrimp roe
after lunch with cell friends, band practice and dinner with jo and nic, it is nice to know that we're not so alone afterall.

"Options" Pedro The Lion

We were walking, holding hands
With our bare feet in the sand
And the seagulls overhead
When I borke the spell and said

"I could never divorce you
Without a good reason
And though I may never have to
It's good to have options"

But for now, I need you
But for now, I need you
But for now, I need you

But it was only in my head
Because no one ever says
What they really mean to say
When there's so much at stake

So I told her I loved her
And she told me she loved me
And I mostly believed her
And she mostly believed me

Saturday, January 14, 2006

your breath on my skin
i had the strangest dream last night. i dreamt that leeson were playing a gig in the garden of some old colonial-looking house. i realised i didn't have a guitar strap, so i asked wayne coyne of the flaming lips who was sitting amongst the audience if i could borrow his. he revealed from his jacket a whole stack of white guitar straps that looked more like velcro strips, but i took one anyway. and the strangest thing, was that instead of playing bass, i was playing guitar.. with a piece of velcro as a guitar strap, and for effects i had a delay pedal as well as some unrecognisable multi-fx unit. the first song we played was "the fast" and i had no idea how to play it, so i just made stuff up. gt shot me dirty looks but i didn't care.. the gig went horrible, and then i woke up.

Friday, January 13, 2006

new light of tomorrow, a heavenly day
and i gave you all and i was there for it all, but the tragedy is that you could never be there for me when i needed you the most. still, love is patient and kind and not self-seeking.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

tie your mother down
sometimes i feel as if there's nothing holding me back here, i've moved so many times i don't know if my roots here still exist anymore. i think i'll go to Japan to teach english after i graduate.

stories tell themselves
and please know that while we were under fire, as shells were going off all around and the air was filled with the whistling of dramatic ordanance, i held my ground and stood by your word, that we would get through this, that we would set foot into the promised land.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

what if i always wanted you but never loved you?
today's band practice was really good, in the sense that we're starting to tighten up the sound, remembering all the old songs and piecing together all the new ones. i'm pretty shure by the time we hit the sembawang fest we'll have a kickass set, a kickass sound as well as a kickass show. so if you don't come down for the party and the frolicking, you won't know what you're missing out on. the old songs sound great, the new songs sound greater! there's a sense of urgency to it all, and you'll be lost in it all. especially when you have a bass player who's taking it all out on the fourstring, that might be a sight to behold. hahaha.. but everybody's really pushing the envelope, and i really hope that we'll get many more converts to our comfort in the sound.

painting a picture black when it's not
and so for once in a long while, i come home at one in the morning and my whole family is up watching a movie on the television. before i take a shower, i open a letter that contains my sporean driving licence! but that does not mean i have a car here.. kinda puts things into perspective. right now, i'm really finding solace in the gripping chasm of benton falls, the way it ties you down, and screams in your ears that our lives are spinning out of control, and what are you going to do about it? it stares at you from top to bottem and starts to make you feel uneasy, so much so that it forces you to retch your guts out. and the only way you have some semblance of peace is when you close your eyes and the twin assault of the guitars stab pins into your heart and you feel it squeeze one last time as your eyes roll into their whites. you pass away, only saying the name that comes to your lips. and then all is calm at last.

Sunday, January 8, 2006

if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is
ironic, that the line that came from my least favourite bloc party song should be the one that jumped at me the hardest in my bout of soul searching. if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is. i couldn't put it better myself, this resignation as well as peace with the way the scales have finally balanced out. that some things are beyond our powers, and that if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is.

Blue Light

You'll find it hiding in shadows
You'll find it hiding in cupboards
It will walk you home safe every night
It will help you remember

If that's way it is
Then that's the way it is

I still feel you and the taste of cigarettes
What could I ever run to
Just tell me it's tearing you apart
Just tell me you cannot sleep

And you didn't even notice
When the sky turned blue
And you couldn't tell the difference
Between me and you
And I nearly didn't notice
The gentlest feeling

You are the bluest light

Saturday, January 7, 2006

when the minutes drone on
and there is solace in sound. is this the only place i can find refuge? where there are bustling lights and blips and strange noises so that i don't feel any more alone? i know i'm supposed to pray, but what am i supposed to pray for? i just need some sort of a saving grace, i just need or want to be loved all over again. its so disgusting when i crave the attention of those around me, when all i want is to be left alone until you see me for all i am, flaws and all.. and still accept me in infinite grace and love.

Friday, January 6, 2006

and then everything falls down and spins around
totally whacked out day in the office, in fact i'm still here clearing up my work just so other people can carry on with the strange mechanics of their lives. which is good, it keeps me distracted if not my paranoia causes me to think about the end of the world and then beyond. i've got a good three to four more minutes before i reach my life outside of the office, no in fact.. it's just done and i can leave this place now! look out world, leeson are in rehearsals now and we will rock good, if not for you then at least for ourselves. peace out everyone, you can't all have a piece of me.

Thursday, January 5, 2006

hallelujiah hallelujiah hallelujiah
sometimes i wonder why God takes so long in bringing me a great fantastic wonderful girl to love, and sometimes i wonder if i will ever find/be given a great fantastic wonderful girl to love. twenty four and still no girlfriend! allow me to air my insercurities in the open so that perhaps they might dry out and i can wear them all over again. -)

Wednesday, January 4, 2006

there's no place like home and no day like today
who's going to pay a ticket back to perth for me..? 289 dollar airport tax!

Tuesday, January 3, 2006

to be a good man
sometimes good intentions just aren't enough. good intentions must be coupled with good actions, if not they just become empty thoughts that have no meaning. you tell me to dare to dream, i will tell you to turn that dream into a reality, don't just dream, dreams have a funny way of staying as dreams. recently i've learnt that even feeling is subject to the creator, and though i may want to be numbed once more, my savior, lord and friend is telling me to entrust hurtful emotions to him, for him to bear because he is sovereign over all. that the way i feel, may not even be my right, but something i have to yield before him, in order that he may be glorfied above all else. tough lessons, and even tougher actions.

Monday, January 2, 2006

and so i wish for you my friends
in a future frought with danger and uncertainty, i just pray that everyone of you who reads this blog find something to hope in, hold on to, because when it comes sweeping in like the flood, you'd best be holding on to something. you know what i hold on to, but i can only urge you in, someday, tomorrow just won't be there anymore. something to think about and believe.