The Freak Show

rarities, oddities, defects and such. Like human physical, the mankind emotion is full of them

There is a notion amongst moviegoers. “I want to go to cinemas and have a good time” Good time can come in several pleasant combination; a short line of  ques, problem-free ticket purchase online, a great company of friends and loved ones and warm popcorns that are not pre-packed and left to cool down along the counter. In short, a good time at cinema is a movie that does not tire your brain digesting it. It as easy as “happily living ever after” or “good triumph over evil”

Amongst the actor, they are more likely to take up good, positive and protagonist characters onto their portfolio. It poses fewer challenges. A good character does a stoic sympathetic face, It attracts good karma and garners admiration by fans. No actors/actresses badly want a prostitute, pimp or gambler role on the silver screen. Bad, for most actors is the third entity in love triangle, but not to such badassery of mentioned above roles. Off camera, there is no fear of living and being associated with bad character they brought. Its play safe.

Amongst the director they want to do an easy-to-digest movie. Like baby food, movies should be fluid and quick to pass the throat and into stomach, so that the next can be fed more and more and more. Directors dislike( in my words, failed ) to articulate characters in a subliminal way – so a gangster must obviously spoken “ lu, gua, lu, gua “ and a businessman must have emphasis on scene where they chaired meetings and discuss about selling stocks and arranging meeting with fictitious Mr.Yamamoto from Japan.

Producers choose to fund “feel good” movie. At this time of writing, feel good movies can assert itself as escapism cum fairy tale. Like the recurring theme of poor god-loving tudung girl marrying a filthy rich man but along the way, a jealous girl tries to wreck the relationship and you’ll shed a few tears before the epic ending. Suggestive titles like Dhia, Levender, Elysa, April, Qaseh and a whole lot of contemporary feminine names pulls young girls with identity clout to say “hey, this film is like a mirror to my life! Lets watch it!” adds the variety to this subgenre.

Sponsors are more likely to contribute their merchandise/product to movies that convey positive messages in it. Besides, what would a product be any good if they pour sponsorship upon actors which played the role of a , say… a pimp, a gambler or a prostitute. On a bright side, even though it made them look more pimpy and first class prostitute respectively, still, a no-go. Definitely, a clothing company wouldn’t want people saying “ Yeah! This is what a pimp/hoes/hustler use “

Is Malaysian films that FUBAR ?

I got that skeptical look from my father. “ What a bad film title!? “, he hasn’t watched Malay even Malaysian movies since forever. He is a keen movie goer. The recent title was Dream House starring Daniel Craig, which is a lukewarm Hollywood product (I admit,I watched it too). I persuaded further to convince him to watch this film, I even said it had artistic flavors of arwah Yasmin Ahmad – Plus, Syafie Naswip is amongst the cast, " Syafie Nas what...? "my father again gave me the skeptical and uncertainty look. Even the versatile late filmmaker cannot leverage the film that it’s no typical Malay movie made by someone awarded Professor Madya.

I do not even have assurance that the film would be good, I only relied on scarcely available movie reviews. I defy the old saying ‘never judge a book by its cover’, im utterly convinced by the film poster which is plain minimalistic but well thought out ( coming from architecture background, less is absolutely more )

Finally he let himself in, the whole family watched the movie at a cinema in Seberang Prai. We remained seated for the next 100 minutes, thus, exiting the cinema, we did not say much. Until at one moment my dad mentioned one of the strings of praise for the movie “ Watching Fauzi Nawawi playing a pimp is likeable! He really knows how to act! ”

Along the way back to Sungai Petani, he kept non-verbatim mentioning lines from the movie like “minta berkat” ( a scene where Shaheizy Sam being cynical to his new boss )   “ Ad! Jahanam kereta aku “ ( again Am scolded his brother spontaneously went on fire inside confinement of a wreck Saga )“ Anak kalau kecil kecil memang comel, bila dah besar, baru tau “ ( Am confronts Hawa after she refuses to sell her father-less baby to a syndicate), we laughed calling back the fragments of the film scene that still vividly runs in our mind.

On serious note, he praised the humanity aspect which is portrayed by Ad, the character which regularly visits an old prostitute and believed (or might have) been his mother. The theme and portrayal of the modus operand of human trafficking. The heavy subject which became the spotlight, and the intricate, scene by scene that unwrap the storyline very delightfully albeit with a help of thinking until the ending credits ( bet, who would like to do thinking inside a cinema? A library is probably the better place to do so ) .

My Malay-cinemaphobic dad gives 8 out of 10 rating for Songlap. Thats impressive. Isn’t that eye opening for him?

Leaving Normalcy At The Door

Songlap is a movie that will never eclipse, even, matched the collection made by Osman Alis Ombak Rindu also playing along currently. Judging by the attendees of the cinema that day (Saturday) , Songlap might not recover their filming budget of RM1.5 million. But Songlap successfully distanced itself from other archetypical Malay (yes, im tired of using the word typical ) as a brave realist sociocritique movie. It did more than distance, but joins a niche distinct class of its own following the footsteps of Perempuan Jalang dan … )

On socioritique alone, a film cannot fascinate. Songlap cannot achieve this without a combination of chemically compatible cast, intuition-defying storytelling , witty scripts and daring filming methods. Front lined by triple-S ( Shaheizy, Syafie and Sara Ali ), these actors really packed a punch to provide consistent drive force to the film. Shaheizy Sam which I started to notify how startling his acting when he played a blind man in a teledrama years ago, never disappoints. Sam move to never let ( or he got tired )‘Metrowealth’ encapsulate him and sucking him dry on recurring stagnant themes , is definitely a smart move. What recurring theme? Well, a hint, In Songlap, his character, Am, owns a car to spin around Yipee! Syafie Naswip acting has found new leash of life after the departure of Yasmin Ahmad. Sara Ali ,an architecture degree holder in real life, effectively plays the moody post-natal mother of child born out of wedlock

Secondary ensemble, includes Normah Damanhuri which played an old hoes and takes rm30 per half hour of feel good session, he is accompanied with Chipun, a pimp that would woo men and women to visit his red lit little ‘happy house’, he is brilliantly played by Fauzi Nawawi. Eliza Wong played Mama, a women that runs the baby mill house and his strings of Chinese staff that forged documents through Photoshop CS5, cooks and manage the house. Omar Abdullah plays a father that shamelessly raped his daughters ( yes, raped two daughter to get that animalistic libido done )

Intuition defying is best described when audience actually nodded or bemoans oh! and ah! at certain important juncture of the story. I was led to believe the story would be going somewhere, but as the seam connects, it turns out to be the other way around. Yet it still floats and maintains my keen to follow-on till finishing, nothing of the misleading crap that makes you want to walk out of cinema.

Finding dark and tight corners in KL for filming to realize the sinful nature of the film theme is a technical challenge. In Songlap there are no Japanese sport cars burning its rubbers on Dataran Merdeka or exploding upon crash, the focus of cinematographer is  simply human emotions – and to capture the dynamics of human emotion from stressed, to fear, to hopelessness, to the expensive 'I-don’t-know what to say’ face is priceless. Added doing scenes during night time? Clearly a humongous challenge there. No wonder even Professor Madya like to do daytime scene and having comedian-actor ensemble to do….., what else…., comedies, because that’s the challenges befitting the title Professor Madya.

Effendee Mazlan and Fariza Azlina Isahak are penggiat seni that have closed the 2011 chapter of Malaysian film industry with an eye opener, for those who chooses to still take the dreamboat washed by ombaks and gelora, that’s their choice. We cannot line them up and force them to watch something as realist as SONGLAP. Life is not all about sugar, SONGLAP hits me like a freak show, A freak show would have weird human oddities, defects and abnormalities for display – oddly enough SONGLAP had drawn similar projection of the ugly heads of whats life and how people got through it, felt as good as reading Shahnon Ahmad Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan, A.Samad Said Salina and Abdullah Hussein IMAM .


 I did walk out of cinema hall feeling good after all.

The Atelier #1: Scaling Back and Staying Relevant in Architecture

Welcome to 'The Atélier', a series of blog entry I specially made for thoughts on architecture. On this pilot entry, I shall describe in layman terms the harsh reality architecture as a career. And the vast possibility when architecture embodied as a 'spirit'. Nothing spooky okay.

Welcome to architecture. A career where its participant would aim for the stars. If you doesn’t come from an architecture background, names like Mies Van Der Rohe, Rem Koolhaas, Santiago Calatrava and Antonio Gaudi would sprung series of mental imagery of buildings you commonly see in magazines or places you have visited before. By the way, those architects are some of legends which had carved their names in the architecture constellation – something like sailors do when compass doesn’t exist. We look up to them when we are lost, but it seems most of us never admitted we are forever lost

But times have changed, and as the architecture field gets crowded, your chance to carve a name in the constellation becomes faded. The architecture field has not become a field of passion, but extreme competition, client demands, cut costs and dog eats dog cannibalistic scene. Architects would work to extreme hours next to nothing, sight of blankets and toothbrush at workplace is nothing uncommon. It pays barely pays your bills and emerging architects overtook you from behind fleecing your clients with further ridiculously lower prices for such valuable design advisory you had your neurons spark for with the help of caffeine.

Present economic volatility had construction industry halted or slowed down to a snail pace. Malaysia is no more in its glorious boom seen in mid 80s. Construction is guaranteed the first to be affected and even get out of the clout. I fondly remembers my lecturer saying “ a sign of healthy economy is shown through the construction industry “. Even so, when times are good, your client would never forgets the discounts given when you scrambled for living during hard times, so, the struggle becomes a vicious cycle and balancing act on a tight rope of karma and luck.

Architecture firms are getting much more like hypermarkets. Only big firms seems to cut the deal and mopped the floor clean, if they employ you, they pay you real cheap, you are taxed for being in a well-known firms.  While the smaller firms folds or survives on unique idiosyncrasies that majority of people wouldn’t seen it necessary.

But amidst the frustration the real world doesn’t give a F of your superb green design or poetic aesthetic light-coming-through-a-froghole features, there is no need to throw off the hat. Architecture is a versatile knowledge. It lets you swerve and maneuver with plenty of room keeping your mental faculty occupied and your hard earned college credits relevant. Architecture spirit simply doesn’t quit on us. It’s a matter of we quitting on them.

Alternative careers for architects are endless. I always picture Architecture as an accumulation of several branches from the tree of knowledge. We learn to articulate our ideas ( mostly bullshitting thou ), so we are naturally public speakers and happily accept offers to give any fiery speeches at a rally. We learn how to sketch, so we can utilize that and illustrate wonderful things ( and probably gets into someone pants, I mean, their pockets). We calculate things, our calculus mastery is somehow superior, few notches behind engineers, but, yah, still commendable. We learn to read people minds, we learn to understand the current trends and most importantly -  we design.

Identity by design

Design is always something which people disregard. Nissan, as a case, had suppressed its car designers in turn for cut costs with awful plastic and interior upholstery selection. Nissan nearly went bankrupt when Charles Ghosn, the new CEO, had given designers more freedom in designing and material selection and Nissan fortunes began to turn.  

Apple Inc. the makers of iMac, iPod, iPhone and other i-whatever-devices had similar blunt decision to disregard design. Before Steve Jobs were at the helm, a corporate trained leader was at the top, telling designers to forgo their wet dreams and instead ordering manufacturer to boost up production. Their products failed to sell and had been stockpiling like an old junk. Apple was at terminal stage when Old Steve Jobs took over.

Steve Jobs, being an innovator at heart recognizes design as part of product and subsequently, company identity. In 1998, we saw the candy colored iMacs, from then on; Apple design has been simply stunning and refreshing. The rest is history.

The rooms are there for us, there are people who attentively listens and humanely considers what we do to an extent that doesn’t diminish our creative flair. The Architecture spirit is never confined to the design-follows-budget stigma. Architects like Hijjas Kasturi who had come to great heights locally finds time in to designing watches, lifts and yatches. Why such figure wants to scale back to designing petty stuff that people rarely use? Has he lost his prestige? 

Nah, IHMO, Its because the spirit of architecture roams everywhere, architects can wake up at 4 in the morning and went to the drawing table just to sketch an eclectic space inside a home. Nobody stops them, because ideas comes like a squall or gust and goes away quickly.

Arkitek Kampung

Scaling back of our dreams means we don’t have to murder our Architecture spirit. Instead of licking the floors at big firms and envisioning to construct the next  300 floor towers, try looking at the community level. Architecture can contribute a lot to the society by improving the existing spaces. It doesn’t mean an excavated clear ground is always our playground, present spaces can be our canvas of creativity.  May it be a kindergarten, taska, wet market, 4 footers, 6 footers or Sunday flee market, these spaces desperate for an architect’s Midas touch.

Architecture also needs perception change with people unfamiliar with them. Parents expect us to design multistory complex for a multinational companies whatsoever and laughing our way to the bank with millions, while it seems viable ideally, the contrasting reality seeks architects to dedicate their energy in a different way. In college, I was though about simple installations, a panel or mirrors or just string encompassed in-a-way to concentrate certain qualities of a site – the genius loci, blending and respecting what came earlier to the place - this is the next of architecture.

 The imagery of heavy pile driver and noisy bulldozer chasing like cats and mouse on-site should be applied with much more opacity to it. Architecture now is no longer an all-out intrusion but a tacit intervention, just like Glenn Murcutt quote “Touching the earth lightly ”

Architects were also given task to give a new leash of life onto old building. Cities like Malacca, Penang and KL has plenty of pre-merdeka building that needs restoration to retain their beauty and historical value. There also might be a fine-tasted financier who would want to turn old walls into exciting place for candlelight dinners. We, architects, can step up to the plate.

Architects can be a bona-fide superhero. When crimes arise in densely populated cities, it’s the responsibility of architects to help the society out. We change the existing landscape from crime prone to something safer and better for people. Little changes like straightening of streets and installation of lamp posts make a huge difference!

In short, these hard times had architects arrested for upward growth, but who cares, we grow sideways. We reconsider and explore new possibilities and keep the architecture spirit (yes, architecture is a spirit, not profession ) relevant throughout times.

The Entrusted

Entrusted to the boarding centre, the cats were left for a week to starve and die. Now, we humans in Malaysia, how much longer can we entrust those we entrusted ?

Recent news headline sees a cat boarding centre had neglected their promise which had caused 13cats dead. They had shattered and infuriate many cat owners which had trusted them wholeheartedly to take care of their cats while they went on for festive holiday season in various parts of the nation. No words can describe how shaken these pet lovers had felt, in return, the alleged owners of the pet boarding service offered an apology citing they were shorthanded, plus, they wanted to sue pet owners responsible for breaking into their premises in order to rescue the distressed pets.

Between broken premises and broken promises. Which one has a higher magnitude? Don’t need to be shock with the outcome. Amidst the ruckus of pointing fingers and blame game, one direction had struck me: the tax collector

I recently found the wise words of Mohandas Gandhi: “One can measure the greatness and the moral progress of a nation by looking at how it treats its animals”. It is no less true in this case when we failed to provide good treatment onto animals, which are non-talking beings, it would imply mankind would simply treated as bad, or borderline bad, nothing beyond satisfactory, excellent would be farfetched – this is all cukup makan.

Difference between a ‘food’ and ‘real food’

Cukup makan mentality exists in bazaar Ramadhan. No, its not about the food portion where it is just too little. We petite Asians do not eat huge serving portions like fellow Arab, European or Americans. It’s a hurting to walk at the stalls seeing foods were prepared in reluctant and somewhat deceitful . Unethical business practice like putting too much ice instead of juices are widely spoken for years, but we had been a slave to cukup makan culture that we surrender and swallow after all these types of food. Going to bazaar ramadhan is akin to looking for a speck of diamonds in a teaspoon of sands – it takes both sides of brain to precisely calculate and abstractly judge. Well, some may argue food preference is something very subjective. But take a stranger to a bazaar, and let them pick the food randomly. There will be an undoubted sense that the poor stranger would end up forcing untasteful food down his/her throat rather than feeling satisfied.

The usual Malay response would not favor much the ‘customer first’ etymology taught in business school worldwide, instead we go the emotional way “ kalau nak sedap buatlah sendiri makanan yang nak makan tu”, while no one utter that, the action speaks louder than word, if hard proof is needed, then, look forth on food poisoning cases nationwide during Ramadhan. If I were to pass on a RM5 note on a meal, I expect it to be good, well prepared and tasty for my buka puasa. I do not expect anything bombastic with an exquisite garnishing or lavish content. I have idea how hotel food tastes like, and when I stepped to a bazaar ramadhan, I knew I wanted a real food which that suits my bujang and single status. (Yes, if I had a wife or girlfriend, I’ll asks her to cook )

My RM5 note is undervalued in bazaar ramadhan. My RM5 plastic tear-free note would compensate the worker time, energy and cover the basic material spend on those food. I entrusted them with my RM5, but its too little for them. Recycled oil, old vegetables, bland, half cooked, greasy - the seller don’t care “kalau engkau tak nak beli, ramai lagi datang nak beli “What I get is food. Edible but, its just a food. But I sought ‘real food’

Where can I find real food? I instead went to Carrefour and bought some lamb shoulder and grilled them to well-done tenderness, I bought pastas and made ala-carbonara and Alhamdulillah, I cooked a dozen time for both buka puasa and sahur I had this year. I got my ‘real food’, but there is a price to pay for that.

Robbed

If I’m shortchanged of my RM5 by reluctant bazaar ramadhan operators, how about those who pay taxes by the thousands ringgits per year. The citizens which entrusted other by the thousand ringgit. Do they feel shortchanged ( or worst, robbed? ). The answer is very apparent about what perception floating in the air regarding of our ‘tax collector’ and ‘how the money made use’.

Take for instance, tuition centres. We…pardon me, I mean.. tax collectors dedicate a lot on education expenditure every year. Indeed, when you travel around, many new schools are being built. existing schools is busy undergoing extension and erection of new blocks, with new classrooms comes new tables and chairs, new appliances, laptops and textbooks given out, likely iPad would be given out in near future. Teachers are being trained and re-trained annually without exhaustion and syllabus were being reviewed almost every time the minister responsible changes. Big words are being used like ‘transformasi’ ‘perubahan’ ‘anjakan’ ‘berprestasi tinggi’ ‘bestari’ etc, etc. which makes a lovely headlines

But parents still has the urgency to send their children to tuition centre because what their children get in school is considered ‘insufficient’. Although tuition centre doesn’t replace school as a prime avenue to get taught, tuition cannot be dismissed altogether. It seems school and tuition co-exists with an irony that tuition centre teachers mostly school teachers too.

Malaysian kids could claim valuable time doing outdoors, bonding with family or doing something outside-the-schema – but instead when the school system failed to address this, the classroom hours extended into the night, in the form of tuition; with 8pm to 10pm classes, weekends eats up by more tuition and further intensive tuition towards the last minute. It has been ingrained within the minds of parents nowadays, similar to the bazaar ramadhan eulogy, “ kalau mahu yang sedap, buatlah sendiri”. You get ‘education’ and shut up, be thankful of that. Forget ‘real education’ and whatever it meant.

You have to swallow that a school is not responsible for academic excellence, incapable on its own of turning a child into an all-rounder, and if so, they don’t mean to sculpt your children to become outstanding, superior or distinguishing –teachers are there not to seek your child talent and refine them, they have strict schedule to complete. Unless, if you want so, please do spend more that you have paid with your tax, send them to intensive tuition centres or private schools which uses special syllabuses.

Robbed Again

Security is another apparent area where we got robbed. Housing areas in Klang Valley and other big town had similar sight of one-man guardhouse with roadblocks, what they’ll do is asks for your MyKad number – a nuisance during rush hour or during festivities where your relatives comes over– then, after obtaining your ID, they’ll let you pass and bury themselves in the guardhouse equipped with a FM radio. These guards, usually Bangladeshis or Nepalese, need wages, their wages were not borne by the tax collector, instead, tax payer had to cough additional money to pay directly to these guard.

Additional money were spend installing trident grills and other scary contraception that block the drains and other openings from any walking and talking organism. Give and take no chance, and the next thing they realized is they are living in the safety of their own prison, surrounded by these intimidating hardscapes of walls, barriers, gates and roadblocks replacing the green lungs and landscape.

A minister holding this portfolio, previously responsible for the education, loves making statistical headlines in the news. Powerful and confidence-inducing words like ‘improvements’ ‘extra personnel’ ‘crime reduction’ ‘mobile stations’ litter the daily, when something tangible are much comforting rather than rhetoric. Acid splasher, raided mamak stalls and snatch thieves; these would put a dim to our days and days ahead.

Like Apple Inc. announcing new products in San Fran with Steve Jobs looking all casual. You all know how Steve Jobs would begin his presentation boasting about numbers. Millions, thousands, hundreds in pie charts, graphs, quotations. Once in six months or so, a convention hall is rented and open for public to announce these claims in a eventful ways . ‘improvements’ ‘extra personnel’ ‘crime reduction’ ‘mobile stations’ … sorry, the safety of our citizen is not a matter of Applesque reality distorting presentations. Serious change is needed.

Back to Gandhi wise words: “One can measure the greatness and the moral progress of a nation by looking at how it treats its animals”. Logic is animals couldn’t speak, and if they were given certain rights and protected properly, it’s a guarantee, humans can go beyond that. But what we have witnessed here, animals are left to rot by persons which had been entrusted, and humans sooner or later may fell to that state of despair where its fine to rot, a green light given by the people we entrust. Today, our level is borderline – cukup makan. and who cares, we are not aiming to be a great nation after all.

The Proton Saga

remember when the first iPod was a little inferior mp3 player without a FM-tuner? Well, tables have turned biotches!

It bemuses me to see somewhere in July 2009 Proton releases a variant of second generation Proton Saga called Saga SE (Special Edition, I assume). I stumbled upon its printed ad where a man looks on to the readers. With his spiky Korean-esque hairstyle, beside him is the same man, with the same shirt and staring the same way at the readers only difference donning an overgrown shades. The punchline of this printed ad is “ Tampak Perbezaannya! “ ( which means noticeable difference )

Never mind, the differences. No doubt, It exists in a littlest form. Proton Saga SE prominent change was the black painted roof to mimic a panoramic roofed cars. And screamed “ Tampak Perbezaannya! “

Seems like Proton has thrown a blanket of sarcasm onto itself; akin to spitting in the air only to see the spit landed back in its face. Moving back in time, the first-generation Proton Saga has been a subject of discreet yet strong criticism, one thing is for sure: Proton likes selling 18 year old models. In a desperate bid to push old models for people to swallow, little cosmetics modifications were made. Such as brushed metal gearknobs, larger circumference air-cond vent for our warm tropical weather, futuristic designer dashboards, aggressive fog lights, and a more contemporary ‘Saga’ badge at the butt. The above mentioned ‘features’ lined up the Proton Saga catalogue to woo potential buyers. Other car manufacturer had their catalogue brimmed with real engineering-backed features that literally bubbles salesperson mouth with automotive knowledge to the bleeding edge, if I may say.

Of course, Its hard to build a car, or introduce practical automotive innovation nevertheless, to market it effectively. If making cars were such an easy business, people would have made it in their backyards. But the national carmaker messy line up of models seems like Proton is taking its shot in the dark of the vast vehicle market. Mid-sizes hatchback like Gen.2 has to share market spaces with Waja and Persona sedan. The Satria Neo two-doors compete with Savvy fighting for the young. They wanted to make utility vehicle (discontinued Arena a.k.a Jumbuck ),they had an executive vehicle ( Perdana ) they wanted to initiate in-house performance tuning arm ( R3 ) and they enrolled themselves in rallies of different categories all over the world. What is Proton trying to relay to us with all this?

It was the introduction of the MPV Exora that I began to realize that Proton could possibly reemerge as a small but significant car manufacturer in the world by targeting the value-seeking family-oriented motor transportation.

Sweet Spot Strategy

When AirAsia started offering low fares flight, we wondered how AirAsia is going to pay its pilot? Stewardess and its staffers? Initially we had a paradigm of air travel being reserved for the affluent. Not forgetting pilots and their handsome wages. Did they use fourth-hand aircraft that would split into two in mid-air? Did they pay drop-out pilots that lacked training? Do they use rethreaded aircraft tyres?

As time passes, we become comfortable and convinced with the word ‘now everyone can flies’. Travelling with airasia is casual slippers and Bermuda, undiscriminating, had turned a blind eye to the how-much-you-earn factor. Minus the frills yet people can still say ‘ tak adalah cikai sangat naik AirAsia’

At first MAS did not respond to this model. Perhaps they perceive the future of airtravel is a two layer strata of executive high-end experience and low-budget airlift. Advantage is never on AirAsia side, they were initially denied to some travel routes, had scarce aircraft and uses the cheaper less architecturally versatile LCCT which nobody would upload to Facebook.

But things turned out differently. MAS had a series of financial hiccups requiring several management shuffling and administration changes. They had to sell off their building in Jalan Raja Laut. On the other hand, Airasia thrives and continued to expand. Today, although not being told, by guesstimating, AirAsia could be several times bigger than MAS and would eat the latter any time.

Airasia must have figured out the sweet spot of air travelers. They delivered the basic services demanded and cut/lessen the icing off to offer a noticeable better deal than the national carrier. But vital to this success is to sell it in volumes. Very large volume.

In a scenario where great competition involves between two or more company, a strategy seems likely the light out of the dark tunnel. The sweet spot strategy. We all knew like AirAsia, Proton had little to less advantage in its side. Proton is ages behind to compete with the likes of Porsche with its vast hall of fame of automotive innovation starting from Dr. Ferdinand Porsche (whom designed tank turrets for breakfast). Nevertheless to challenge Subaru or Mitsubishi with their mean blazing fast all-wheel driven performance cars engineered gram by gram.

Proton should consider sweet spotting the car market. And by all means, Malaysian market if it’s feasible enough. Make a vehicle that people needed the most, design it wisely, price it nicely, dedicate their engineers to this model, update it frequently and push it with volume. One particular candidate is the second generation Saga. Particularly the Saga FL.

Why is the second-gen Saga is the best? Because Proton branded Saga as the ‘peoples car’ hence it suppose to behave like one. It is suitably sized for a young family of two kids with ample space for bags during balik kampung, equipped with adequate 1600cc of engine displacement that guzzle octane prudently, modestly designed to agitate a Kancil, reliability from wiper to electric windows and attractively priced. With these factors, Proton can push this single model in large volumes and probably crawl out of the red.

In fact, the amazing rollout of Saga FL had pushed Proton sales numbers over Perodua sales!

Proton doesn’t have to feel ashamed with lacking its in-house performance tuning arm. A miniscule of motor vehicle user would be such enthusiast to morph their vehicle into a mean machine of highway dominator. Proton can drop models that isn’t necessary to its aspiration making better returns.. If we assume Malaysian thirst for nimble city transporter, a ‘peoples car’, and a spacious large family vehicle ( plus, affordability applied to all subsequently ) then Savvy, Saga and Exora would be great to start off. Lacking of models? Roll out face-lifts say, every 8 months and replacement every 24months and people would flock Proton showroom like Apple store.

Make the entry generous

For almost every company, the entry level product is the eye opener. The closest approach for first impression. It’s a segment where car manufacturers can be generous to people who seek value, run for their money, bang for buck or whatever you may call it in marketing mumbo-jumbo. It’s usually much affordable product in the line-up. Think entry level for first time car buyers. Think Honda City, Think Toyota Vios, Think Mazda2. In order to create brand following, the entry level model is great place to start.

Proton offering comes in the form of Saga. Proton gave the production name of Saga as BLM or Base-line model, thus imply its target market segment. Currently on its second generation, the Saga FL (referring to facelift) bares a remarkable new facade. The introduction of Saga FLX proves that Proton commitment to lure this market segment. The FLX offers a real engineering-backed feature through the inclusion of CVT ( Continuous Variable Transmission ) Powertrain – which no other models had to offer, except the Mitsubishi Lancer-derived Inspira.

CVT, in laymen terms, offers a smoother transmission through variation of pulley diameter. In other words gear change is adjusted according to your driving style. If you’re hard pedaling a delay in gear shifts are made to deliver more powah. If you’re cruising, a different gear ratio is engaged to keep fuel consumption at minimum. Im glad, these are much more deserving automotive features rather than USB Ports, skirting or chrome-like lining on air-con vent holes. And that’s an X-factor of Saga FLX, a pleasant addition to the Proton entry level model.

Kudos to Proton, and if they are really aggressive to bring out more to Saga, they might have a winner model here. Roll it, wrap it and let the people say “Tak adalah cikai sangat Proton Saga”

The Brave New World

Cikgu Shidah, Milano Evans, 100 Apology Tweet and Rebecca Black – these are real people presented to you, they emerged and made a pass into your life. Internet life is fun and beneficial, but like real life they are risks involved and big brothers frantically watches you in ways creepier than you can never imagine.

I can’t help thinking about those people who instilled such high hopes doing broadcasting in the yesteryears, to break into the television world was such a tight and closed loop of beautifulpeople and rich man, you know the 1990s images of The Bold and Beautiful. Things definitely changed, people which had zero broadcasting backgrounds ( perhaps, without the ‘package’) however successfully broad casted their creative ideas, thoughts and showmanship with higher viewership- remember Cikgu Shidah and her rendition of Shakiras’ waka-waka?

Then we had come to the ‘Rebecca Black Effect’ that light heartedly proven to be a successful failure. Such failures were so epic that people celebrate them for whatever idiocy or despicability it embeds. Yet, her millions of view is a testament that people approves (if not really wanted) such things. People never felt vindicated by bleeding their eyes out of the television programming did to the masses once in their prime monopolistic moment – all they need to do in this internet era is press stop and move onto other videos, yeah, they can drop a comments too.

Few days back, the appearance of Milano Evans ( not her real name) puts a stroke of laughter in our life seeing a 14 year old girl blogged admitting she is not virgin anymore ( seriously, in a place like Malaysia). Luckily our community had long been/never been a Taliban mindset, her nose had been spared. Milano Evans put up a resistance of her admittance. Response ranges from supporting her staunch feminism and rights to control the usage of her reproductive organs to the way she liked it, to those who regarded her outspokenness is quite foolish when other girls would have lost their virginity but remained hush hush and some quarters had prayed to God so that she will be “shown the light”. Oh yeah, the baulk of commentators were swearing to do unworldly harms towards her. Me? I remained at the sidewalk as observer to this unraveling ruckus.

Then, there is the 100 tweet of apology story. It happened here. An activist, who tweets about a company HR policy being unfair towards his pregnant friend which were then working ewith that particular company. The company, BluInc Media, publisher of Malaysian Female magazine reached a settlement for him to write a hundred tweet apologizing to avoid defamation suit. He successfully reached 100 tweets within 3 days and gathered much support from the followers. With that, we ponder on what kind of law and order internet shall have? Can it become a beacon of truth which spreads fact which are sensitive for certain organization, such as his employer if they did do some unjust. Or would internet become an anarchist nation, with varying rules for each states? Who could rule and moderate internet? Why it should be moderated? Define Internet abuse? Does internet abuse exist? An endless circle of cat and rat games that extent to religion with fellow Muslim asking - when someone tweet they are in a mosque, does that constitute to ‘riak’? (doing of things for publicity)

Life on show, like its nobody business

As an architecture student, I firmly believe that value of properties would be indirectly set by the amount of foursquare check-ins. The more check-ins, the higher market value a property shall gain. This makes sense as they are reliable piece of data, highly accurate and happily contributed by the participant itself. Imagine you and me; we were a partner intended to open a café, we would very much seeking strategic location that could cater to as many potential customers as possible. We could just skimmed the data of where the people love to hang out. Forget the handing out of questionnaire in public spaces, just a waste of tree.

Or perhaps that café would only serve lunch. Then, I would skim the foursquare check-ins, I shall specifically look at which place the crowd would be during lunch time. Bam! There I have it, a spot for restaurant perfect for lunch seeking monsters.

This can be applied to anything specific. A gay bar, a hair saloon or a caviar selling al-fresco diner; these are target specific requirements. Where Gays usually hangs out? Where do caviar lover gather? To detect where are they heading to is impossible ( if breaking privacy law) unless, when they willingly check-in through mobile apps like foursquare –doing it willingly telling everyone where they are without breaking into somebody privy life ( did I just took the word from Mark Zuckerberg? )

But how do we know those people are Homosexual? High Income? Or vanity obsessed? Well, the dynamics of data collection through mobile apps is not rocket science or hypnotic magic. Gay people may openly admit their sexual orientation through social networks, even if they don’t, the pages they liked, the celebrities they followed and websites they visited, music they listens and movies they watched – these all combined can determine your gayness in some way.

You may ask does Google dedicate its staff to stalk 24/7 and determine gay people. No. These are what we called ‘algorithms’. When gay people, for instance (no discrimination intended), often visits particular websites which if many of them do, at a sustained rate, it creates a pattern. Other examples; book lovers would often watch movies that were adapted from books and drops by Google to read those reviews; while petrol heads watch automobile related reviews on YouTube – all of these searches are registered for each computer thus it provides a pattern, when Google knows you read too much books of a particular author or obsessed with cars of specific make, their advertisements were tuned according to your searches. Again, simple non-rocket science thing.

High Income people, how could you find them online? We used to judge them by the cars that they owned, but generally people are getting lesser on the road. There is a mobile apps which updates your Facebook profile with credit card purchase. Once you swiped the plastics the data is instantly uploaded and appears for your friends to envy: “John/Jane Doe had purchased a Zara Type X Jeans @ Pavilion KL at RMxxx.xx “, these are regarded as something fun for people who allowed them (for me its snobbish and showing off), yet, for Google it’s a valuable data. They encourage you to do so, these data of purchases you made through credit card will determine not only your affluence, but your purchase habit (and your low IQ and enthuastic show-offing). Google can sell these data to other jeans maker like Guess, or brands alike that you are willing to spend a bomb on jeans pants alone.

Relationship status, Credit card purchases and daily ranting, all can appear for public consumption anytime, anywhere. With all these, comes the issue of privacy. In a brave new world where people had happily exposes personal things akin to being in a birthday suit strolling along nude beach. We share too much on the net that it had no ceiling to all these. Of course, Internet is about volatility you change whenever you want when we enter different phases of life where you no longer want to be ‘nude’. But your old life of being carefree ‘nude’ still lingers in the internet realm. That’s when nasyid singer past life photos can leak and reveal their shocking past, which people dig this.

But, above all these paranoia of internet privacy, concerns of internet reputation and freedom of speech. Google, Facebook and Apple loves what we do on the internet right now. Sharing of information when you regard your life is akin to an hour of telefilm. The three tech giants skimmed through your internet behavior and status updates and iPhone SMS inbox to study you like you are a lab rat. When you think its nobody business to tell people what you eat, wear or whom you’re with – the three giants made your data as their business.

A week of foursquare check-ins is sufficient for them to create a pattern of your behavior and predict almost accurately where you would be next. Employer skimmed through profiles to screen possible workers, so they wouldn’t employ a chap like the one would defame its own HR department. The internet is a scary place to be in, if you know how things works inside them.

The Jins, Samprits and Toyol

Oh yeah! Other than glorious food, Malaysia is glorious with ghost, spirits and trolls. They come to a cinema near you baby!

Before I left my high school, I decided to leave a memento in a shape of a Malay satire entitled ‘Bikin Celluloid’ . It’s a novel effort of telling a story through the eyes of Mr.Producer and his teams working on a film entitled ‘Cinta Semerah Marikh’. The crisis in the story lies in Mr.Producer who funded this movie expecting to see it all happens the way he ever wanted. He envisions a film that none has ever created and would left a ‘ding’ in the industry. Yet, the unsupportive Mr.Director has a different approach in mind to moviemaking. He’s not only getting the film to silverscreen, but does whatever it takes to create a film can make biggest profit. Mr.Producer noticed that his vision is hindered by a shortsighted Mr.Director who decided to use clichés of the market. In the end, Mr.Director singlehandedly altered many things and left Mr.Producer questioning himself when will the Malaysian Cinema would get sick of the same clichés and grasp the hunger for a change. Bikin Celluloid can

be read in the 2005 edition of ALIRAN annual school magazine.

Its been long years since it was released for public reading. Humbly, I admit being a bit shame to read my own sophomore literary works until this moment leaving Bikin Celloid somehow ‘orphaned’. The satire represent is a little voice inside the many of us to see change in the cliché of the post millennium Malaysian cinema landscape. From 2000 until 2005, in that span of years, movies were primarily about boys meet girl and soon fell lovesick people singing the blues of the heartbroken. Along the timespan did the government decided to open the floodgates for idiotic and intellectually cheap horror ghost stories. For sure it had appeal to the masses, because that’s the only choice of genre they’ve gotten. In short, Malaysian moviegoers were force fed with tahyuls. Plenty of jins, samprits and toyol were haunting the silverscreens raking millions, bringing production house, actors and studios back to life from the deadly plague of 1997 economic crisis which may have brought them down bitting the dust.

Producers, just as businessmen, would want to fund movie titles which market ‘demands’. Of course, any sane minded person who invested their hard earned money wants to see plentiful returns. Thus, the safest and guaranteed way to see money rolling back with multiplied amount would be a boy-meets-girl and falls in love cliché. Adds slapstick humor and the rolling back gets faster and reap better.

Bikin Celluloid takes readers to a realm that a visionary Mr.Producer alone is not enough. It takes a supportive crew. From the cameraman, make up artists, props man to the aunties which sweep the floor to anticipate the movie. In the end, the governing bodies should as well aid in the birth of exceptional non-comformist works into the Malaysian movie pool by giving . It all adds up that making a great movie is impossible without the right ecosystem. Mr.Producer is doomed and left speechless by the way his ideas had been hijacked.

Nam’ron

Nobody can give an insight better than the person who is in the industry itself. For Nam’ron, an old timer theater actor, quoted from his blog had deemed our film industry were born with umbilical cords still attached to the fantasy cliché. Not the Star Wars or Avatar type of fantasy. Its good versus evil. Its alim ulamak versus secular jahils and dark versus the light. We will never see those Silence of the Lambs or Shutter Island because it is difficult to swallow.

Nam’ron cleverly draws the parallel between ours and Indonesian sinetrons ( soap operas where a 25 year old son can have a 27 year old mom). He deemed himself as cheap actor, fulfilling side roles which requires minimal appearance. As minimum as possible, almost akin to extras or characters that need to appear less than a minute per episode.Our producers were bound by television networks which are obsessed with pretty face in skin tight jeans and mammary safely held by half-cup bras wrapped in MNG cottons. With their Brazilian keratin treated hair, they take lead roles, usually the good characters facing all these worldly challenges and emerged victorious at the end of the earthshattering clout.

While Namron puts it straight that the main antagonist is not his either, they cast the ugliest face, those which are quickest to hate. Namron never had the space for job, no matter how professional he is and active erstwhile in the theatre scene for many years, television networks are obsessed with pretty face – they don’t bother experience anyway. Namron kept himself in the theatre scene while making himself open for any cable television acting job.

In my opinion, this scramble for pretty face had indeed caused a furore and created bad apples within the pool of talents . That’s why recently we saw the creation of local Paris Hilton in the form of La-Lucah, with spotlight on, they do their bad things and gets the publicity they needed. Generally, stage actors, learned discipline and doing things correctly, shunning their emotions during work while understanding characters that are beyond their nature, they play characters that ordinary people cannot apprehend; A gay, a child from extra-maritial sex, a lesbian, a rapist, an atheist, a pagan and whatnots. Stage actors has panache about acting.

The television actors pledged their faces for certain cable networks and left trails of emotional outburst for paparazzi to pick it up as news materials. Television scripts are mundane fairytale type of things which can be plucked from standart3 textbook “ who-saved-a-cat-and-get-applauded-by-the-teacher-during assembly” kind of things; except the “who’s” is wearing a push-up bra and the teacher wears a tight kebaya. Of course, if possible, the television may have stipulated all the students gathering during the assembly should be hot hunky boys ala-Jacob of Twilight and cherry lips girl. Only one thing stops them. Cost.

This is when Namron jobs fits in. As a ‘cheap labor’ he does the acting when the budget had been eaten up for extremely ugly and extremely pretty cast. He described himself as neither of the one. Neither ugly or pretty. Just a patsy. An instrument, a screw out of the machine that operates on glamour and rating numbers and advertisements. Producers even had to negotiate with cable networks to explain the rational for Namrons involvement. Like I mentioned before, “Namron is in because there is no more money for super pretty and super uglies “.

There you go. Namron had exposed the inner working of our movie industry and expect no changes for at least a few decades.

The Ecosystem

When Namron portrayed the outlook as deplorable and undesirable, there are efforts going in the background to scavenge and work things out. I’ve seen Namron acting in ‘Gadoh’ and ‘Aku Tak Bodoh’, they deliver strong messages that has Namron being ‘gam’ ( another word for banned ), but none bothers Namron, no harm made on him, he lives, work, sleep and think like he does. Namron belonged to a whole new ecosystem, the ecosystem which is sick of the mainstream choking tahyul and boy-meets-girl clichés into the eyes of moviegoers. Namewee, Sharifah Amani to name a few, you won’t or rarely seen them on primetime television. They were long ‘gam-ed’. But that fact won’t squirt not a pee from them. They are safe within the ecosystem.

The ecosystem that im talking about consists of producers and directors that incept, adapt the ideas and gathers the resources. Screenwriters. Casting Agency. Props master. Actors, right down to the people who swept the floor. At the other end, there are moviegoers, those who chuck out their hard earned cash to watch movies, shows and works of these people. What binds this ecosystem is their like-mindedness. Hunger for a change.

Directors like Boris Boo of ‘Aku Tak Bodoh’ fascinates people on his insight of common reality among multicultural Malaysia. The extreme concerns amongst Malaysian onto their young eds. It breaks boundaries and makes us forget our ethnicity once engaged onto the movie. This all eloquently delivered in 120minutes of regret-free movietime. Production need not to replace the I’s in Boris name with 1Malaysia symbol, he is, in a refreshing unforcibly own way, Malaysian.

Mamat Khalid’s ‘ Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah’ is clearly a satire taking shots at Malaysia flood of tahyul mahyul movies. A versatile punches and jabs without being offensive towards the intended subject, Mamat Khalid bravely served some good ones to the political realities in Malaysia. Unmistakably, there’s a scene where Pak Jabit says “ kita boleh tukar parti, tak payah buat pilihanraya” ( referring to Perak State Assembly reps switching parties ) Amazingly, it attracts all lapisan masyarakat to watch it. May it be the ones that had been tied to tahyul mahyul for their silly ghosts and serious thinker for the subliminal jabs on current occurrences. And, Yes, Khalid’s “I” have not gotten replaced with 1Malaysia symbol either.

KRU Studios is setting itself apart with daring visual effects and movies with substantial contents. The studio heralded the true Malaysian striving spirit for exceptional quality for SFXs combined with KRU experienced music making, KRU Studios holds the synergy of making a memorable if not successful films. Realistic SFX coupled with good music scores would ring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in everybody’s mind. Everything is done here on our soil without the need rely on foreign expertise. Ah yes, ask anyone before those KRU brothers raised the benchmark, our SFXs were nothing near 1971 Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back. While most people whine and draw comparisons with directors who’d raised the white flag unable to fulfill such ludicrous demands, KRU Studios stood up to the challenge. Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa is what KRU Studios has in store for us, while its soundtrack; Sedetik Lebih by Anuar Zain is gaining heavy airplay the moment this blog’s written.

Continued with endless backing from movie goers, things seem to look alive again. Alternatives are now within reach. Finas squinted its eyes to see local movies flourish, it’s a matter to channel their resources to those who can really put a ‘ding’ on the industry. Skim Wajib Tayang puts a compulsory screening period on cinema operators to have at least two weeks of movie preview of local titles regardless of reception. Talented scriptwriters are eagerly waiting to show their talent and there are plenty of surprises in the bag for new, bold and daring actors.

Bikin Celluloid ends with Mr.Producer having a latte in a café, and it happens two complete strangers were clamoring for change. Mr.Producer had eavesdropped the conversation and left his two cents: “Maybe in the year 2020, we might see change” ( Mungkin kita dapat tengok perubahan tahun 2020 kot ).

The Abused Award

AJL ended few weeks ago followed by echoes of dissatisfaction. It is still heard until today radiating with heat, heat and more packed heat.

The annual music award are mend to recognize music producer and composer adds a sense of academic in an industry which are known for stardom and glamour. In other words, AJL primarily recognize the person behind each tunes and notes regardless how alluring or handsome the singer is (which delivers the songas an artpiece). Having industry’s grandmaster in the shape of M.Nasir as chief judge clearly define the anugerah of all that mentioned above. It sets AJL apart from SMS based awards which is, after all the gimmicky of putting power into people hands, still had judges to sort things out.

Of course, the award had its share of criticism through voices that were unable to conform to the fact that the anugerah was given to a newcomer songstress, Ana Rafalli. There was a little commotion back during the night she was crowned winner; with the usual uneducated tantrum of throwing water bottles, tissue paper rolls and whatnots. While on the mainstage Ana was being showered with glimmering colourful confetti’s and brought back home a handsome amount of cash.

Many would have never heard of Ana Rafalli. Ana who? A sweet baju kurung totting girl who gained fame through the power of Youtube. Similar to the case of Marie Digby, she flamboyantly uploaded her crooning videos which eventually sparked the creative bulb inside of Aidid Alfian head to pick her up and morphed her into full time recording artist. In just a snap, she grabbed an anugerah- it shook the corridors of entertainment industry nationwide to witness such meteoric rise. In the after event interview, M.Nasir noted the frustrated reaction by some pockets of people, but as an old-timer in the field, no matter how properly things were done, not everybody are happy with it. The old timer even put a slight hint to his face: abaikan mereka ( just let them be – sore ).

Personally, there’s no issues with the decision putting her as a winner. Her efforts put to produce and compose the song on her own should be applauded; the award should gave her a kick start for a future all-rounder artist. We had enough of express-made pretty faced or jambu boy band delivering songs created by others. Surely M.Nasir has made a commendable choice.

Yet, the post-event interview also made M.Nasir tired due to some pressure put on him. Not that M.Nasir’s too handicap in making judgment ( remember Mawi? Who was the headmaster of AF? Who doesn’t like him during his heydays? ); M.Nasir had been the father figure or reference point to the industry, yet the entertainment industry cooperate agenda has its hand behind all handling out of awards. This is what pressuring and bothering M.Nasir.

Choke us with maximum exposure

If this starts to sound like a disgruntled dissident voices of blogging community, then you should think again; we shall look at a bigger picture of the anugerah. Who hold this anugerah? It was TV3, a private free-to-air television channel that had been running for 26years. In the past ten years, TV3 had made effort taking over other private free to air rival channel ntv7, in the process they had cultivated new channels such as 8tv and tv9; thus leaving the private television channels dominated by these oligarchy of channels..

These channels come together and collectively forms an umbrella group known as Media Prima, a conglomerate which owns a couple of other mass media medium such as dailies ( NST, Berita Harian ),radio station ( FlyFM, HotFM ) and physical advertisement space. These are very extensive media group that had its arm coiling onto different types of people all over the nation. Even the channel programming was arranged in a way to target different audiences, age, ethnic, income groups. For example we would never see TV3 and 8TV airing comedy simultaneously as this would split viewership amongst these channels. Even if they do air comedy simultaneously ( or whatsoever genre of movies) during similar time slot, it would be of different languages, each aiming to garner the viewer groups.

All this corporate strategy explains how AJL was given maximum exposure all throughout the free to air private channels across Malaysia. From interviews to cook shows ( or parenting shows); anything that wasn’t sponsored by other private companies; have had host reminding the audience about the pending anugerah. Radio station would pompously hold talk shows speculating the winners for the anugerah. Newspapers under Media Prima would have weekend center spread doing article about the anugerah like it’s an election result analysis. This intense publicity clout was done to create fever pitch anticipation ( honestly, the more you know about this mechanism, the less anticipation you had prior to AJL ). The whole Media Prima medias works seamlessly as mental conditioning tool.

It never ends swiftly; the anugerah would have be made like tsunami that leave its deep and lasting path. All Media Prima mediums would still throng the anugerah even when Stadium Bukit Jalil had been cleaned from tissue rolls messes due to Ana Raffali shocking victory. The next morning HotFM would untiringly play different songs from the anugerah; assuming its royalty free; they might rake clean profit from these airplays without knowing their audience had terribly wanted the audibly crispier sound of the studio version. The AJL recording of sound were a complete mess of noise unsuitable for airing on the FM, it would be a different story when previewed on television. This would carry on for weeks with the FM announcing that its an ‘exclusive’ previews like the deejay had to delve into some web filled archive room to collect the oh-so-exclusive-recordings.

Newspapers under the conglomerate would publish petty news during the entertainment event, like whose performance looked like illuminati advocate in subliminal form? and strings of other publicity hungry types of headlines. Winners of best performance were interviewed about how they execute their gimmicks ( surely, a report on Hafiz shot-on-stage can fill half a page )

Oh, not forgetting, channels of the conglomerate would squeeze every inch of the anugerah that can be made into full-duration content for their respective channels. They did whatever it takes including freezing or slowing down the motion and query what Cheryl Samad felt in the dressing room when evidently she had hosted the anugerah for ten straight years.

Can AJL be an event on its own rights? The corporate decision to ripping materials off from AJL had tarnished the anugerah to the extent of devaluing it. Can someone from the corporate table tell me does the cost saving synergy worth it?

Backdoor Award, the Anus.

All the frustration with Media Prima would have been worst if Astro do not exist in the industry. Nearly half of the artists competing during the anugerah night were of the highly popular show; Akademi Fantasia, the talent search reality show by Astro. Astro produces a stable of highly capable artist appealing to wide spectrum of audiences, far better than what Media Primas had able to produce through their desperate rollout of shameful and sometime last-minuitesque reality shows ( TV3s Mentor, LG MyStarz and Gangstarz; Ntv7s Audition; 8TV One-In-A-Million and Malaysian Idol )

Akademi Fantasia, although a clear ripped off idea of La-Academia from Venezuela; were executed nicely and Astro calmly never needed another reality talent search show. Akademi Fantasia has strong presence to wipe the floor clean and steal the thunder from Media Primas mediocre stable of six reality shows. Akademi Fantasia is on its 9^th run and still amongst the highest rated programs in Malaysia.

So those mediocre products, where can they be leveraged? Of course through long established anugerahs like the AJL, which untiringly build its reputation through 24 years of continuous awards. Now it had to be sold cheaply to help float drowning products of OIAM, Malaysian Idol and Mentor. Names like Faisal Tahir, Black, Tomok, Jaclyn Victor and if possible One Nation Emcees. Sadly names like Wana, Suki, Daniel had their artistic career neutered as it would be too ridiculous to award them first place in AJL.

It is clear that AJL are being abused to leverage ‘their’ artists. Its not too far to see that if Astro were never to exist in broadcast business today, we might see Black as the champion, Faisal Tahir as first runner up and Tomok as second runner up. It’s a purely corporate strategist that would chop off M.Nasir hand to cast his votes on Ana Raffali that night. People would be hurrying home from the award in a state of pandemonium to know that songs they hardly heard won the 24years running anugerah.

M.Nasir would have to appear on television with poker face and sell himself cheap to admit that Media Prima artist had intangible artistic quality although their song never received that heavy radio play deemed as measure of popularity.

Yet, the corporate intervention still has hearts to put first runner up to one of ‘their’ artist. Nevermind, maybe it’s hard to grasp the idea that their artist lacked the quality to compete with Akademi Fastasia huge stable of much popular and talented artists, not forgetting emerging independent artist like Yuna and Ana Raffali that owe no allegiance to neither Astro nor Media Prima. AJL had been abused to leverage one of ‘their’ artist; someday people might just question the credibility of AJL never hesitantly leaves AJL for another anugerah.

When that scenario comes true, AJL organizers cannot take that abaikan mereka treatment; they had to approach Price WaterHouseCoopers to count the weekly votes and scramble to bring back the credibility. Hell, when this abuse goes for a long time they might change the name to AJM ( Anugerah Juara Melodi ) or AJLB ( B for Baru ) or just Anu, reflecting the cockiness how this award is given.