Clearing out...

I spilled my cuppa over my keyboard and now my computer is crippled. This is written via my smartphone.

I am  in the midst of moving and have thrown and given away most of my furniture. 

Feels lighter after clearing alot of junk I collected over the years. Almost no possessions now and definitely no religion too!

ps. I have some posts of my past moving woes. It makes amusing reading, and now looking back, also rather educational. Click here.

Kid's Play

Kids grow up and leave their Garden of Eden. Childhood fades away as the attraction to the opposite sex becomes more enticing as it is to the instinct to procreate. Now, the innocent clarity blurs, the photographic memory falters and visions are filtered by layers of conditioning.

Bring back the child in us - the divinity that  lies within. Nothing has ever been lost, they have just been forgotten.

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For more of Kid's Play, click here.

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Anger and Judgment

It was not usual. She didn't utter a word when we met this morning, not even the greeting of 'good morning'.

I later found out that she felt that i am not a responsible person to the family and am also a man vulnerable to being unfaithful. Sounds familiar?! :) And her mere suspicions alone were enough to make me guilty as charged. I was told no explanations were required as she will not accept any.

I heard of women jumping into conclusions in matters pertaining to the heart, but in this case, I was not even an involved party in the broil, if there should be one to start off with. I am neither her spouse nor her lover and ironically her summary judgment on me was that I am a bad influence to her husband.

I am glad I was a mere observer and not sucked into her whirlpool of sad thinking. Life is a game and one becomes cynical after brushes like this. There was virtually electricity biting in the air throughout her cold and silent reception. Then, I decided to turn around and run the other direction, as I won't like to get involved!

Acting the Villain

Many faces, same soul.

Which one of this is the real me?

Of late, I have been playing villains. Casting directors love actors with a beard. They seem to associate beards with villains, or perhaps they are playing to the likes of audiences that love to see their villains larger than life - with beards, gold chains, tattoos and other ferocious looking ancillaries. Villain roles are tiring. As an angry and yelling screen character, the first and most affected person would be me. The rule is that whenever we get aggressive or violent, we feel lousy. Whenever we think aggressively, we feel lousy, as we would be the first recipients of such thoughts.

Thankfully, the same goes for any type of thoughts, including loving or peaceful ones, as we feel their immediate glory and peace. Loving thoughts precedes a calm and peaceful mind and it begets loving thoughts from others around us. Recently, I had the good fortune of doing a shoot by the shore of a placid lake. The environment was so congenial that I actually felt more relaxed after the shoot than when I started.

This really means that I should choose to act in more calm and peaceful films than violent and nasty ones. Sadly, there are more nasty ones around, as there is more demand for them. As Ekhart Tolle said, "... more pain films demanded by pain bodies...".

In real life, we too have to make our choices, and I would choose a peaceful story any day.

If you like to visit my actor's blog, click here.

Get a Life!

"Get a life!" so she said, describing those of her friends who are married and whom she said merely rush and fetch their children from childcare, get home and then cook dinner everyday.

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She on the other hand, single and a well-paid lawyer, goes out in the evenings and party, and travel, hike and climb mountains for holidays. That's what she thinks is "life" to her.

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But aren't all these just activities?

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Activities are just manifestations of life, and life is more meaningful if manifested through love. In the midst of the daily seemingly mundane chores of taking care of the family and children, is life lived through love.

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On the other hand, activities in the absence of love hardly bring one much 'life'. These could well include pubbing, clubbing and dining in places among single well-heeled yuppies and glamorous people who are 'hanging-out', especially if they are there out of the fear of loneliness and disorientation.

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So it is not the activity, but whether it is done out of love.

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Acting - Sharing Public Space

Singapore is a small place for location shooting. Often, we do not have the luxury to block the entire place for ourselves, as many of the locations are live amid the daily hussle and bustle of the community. So inevitably, the location has to be shared with the public.

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Most people are very accepting of the presence of camera crew, equipment, lights and actors occupying their common spaces, however there are always one or two who would be the exception. These rare few would make a big issue of the slightest inconvenience.

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Here are some amusing incidents I encountered during my shoot:

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1. In one of the scenes the camera was doing a close-up of me on the running tracks crouched in excruciating pain of a collapsed knee. As I laid down on the inner side of the tracks, there came a jogger who had 6 other outer lanes to run, but instead chose to run just inches behind me, in front of the camera! "Cut!!!"

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2. In a simulation of an earthquake scene, we blocked off one lane of a minor road. Most of the cars would pass us oblivious of our activities and some would wave and smile, but there was one school bus driver who stopped and complained of the inconvenience and that he had to ferry the school kids in time. I tried to marshal him through the narrow lane, but he chose to stop his bus and continue to scold me, wasting more time than he would have if he had just passed us by. He then called the police. The police came, but they didn't stop us filming!

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3. In a scene at a lively hawker centre, one old 'uncle' came and scolded us for using the place for our location. He insisted to sit at the table where we were shooting.

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4. I was playing the role of the father and was with his little four year old daughter getting out of the car, walking across the car park and towards her kindergarten, when we were visited by three police patrol cars, after the take. The police said that they had received reports from members of the public that there were young men fighting with parangs (machetes) where we were. *LOL*

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5. In one of my taxi driver scene, I had to hurriedly drive out of the covered car park when the town council staff chased us away because we were using their electricity. I had to find alternative routes for the shoot. The camera was still rolling live and I had to pretend to act cool and continue with the dialogue.

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As said earlier, most people are considerate and would share public spaces generously. However, being in a tiny and densely populated city like Singapore, we need all the cooperation we can get, without which, the show cannot go on.

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There are also problems of noise, change of ambient light and the weather, but those issues are enough to warrant another article altogether.

If you like to visit my actor's blog, click here.

A Bat Home

First, it was the sunbirds making their nest on my balcony, now the fruit bats have come to hang out at the entrance.

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Oblivious of the human traffic, it hangs in there...

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There it is...