My funny friend

I've just managed to print out ALL the year-end copies of Alex's missives to be mailed out. I may have been a litte late in doing so but it's better late than never. So, if you have a snail mail address in the system, you would get one or if you have shared an e-mail address previously, it will be in the post. Soon enough.

I'm enjoying both the wet and sunny days of Kuala Lumpur at the moment. It beats the warm humid summery weather of Adelaide. But within the confines of a loft overlooking cloudy skies which has become a project room for the last 2 weeks or so, suffice to say I have accomplished far more than I thought I would.

When my funny friend initiated me to become his project coordinator some 4 months ago, I didn't think I would enjoy it all that much. I would enjoy being involved in his life, his musings and helping him get his ideals to where he wants them to be but I wasn't sure I would do him justice. But months on and with lots of determination, the book project, managing of his social sites and the Foundation; they have provided a strong sense of accomplishment.

It is of course difficult to keep an altogether professional outlook, when someone is dear to you. That is the challenge and it has been managed. Sometimes you have to constantly brave hell for the things you need, much less the things you want. Eventual success as always is defined by our ability to get on our feet and walk through that fire. I have no doubt in my mind that expression is being said and mirrored by someone who's thankful she's not living inland Australia during the summer months.

If my funny friend's justification for "being alright" with the solitude relies on the part of him that breaks the world around him down to nothing more than a machine of cause and effect, so be it. It's a whole lot easier than him having to listen to the constant advice of a sickeningly optimistic perception that masks the bigger problem. He's been there. He's done that. He's grown past it. It's just not for him (or me).

In the final moments of his chapter, regardless of what you may think about his methods. It works for him. It probably won't seem like much to you, but I'm proud of everything that he has transpired so far. He's worked hard for it and made it through appreciating every moment of it. Somewhere along the road, as long as the end result fits his perfect little picture, would you even care about how he did it? That's the angle he's always worked with here. Because at the end of the day, regardless of what we say or do, we keep forgetting that we don't want to understand how he lives his life. We stopped trying to put ourselves in his shoes because all we can see is how our own lives have worked for us. We're looking at the same elephant through different eyes.

So you know what? It doesn't matter at all. I may be a freckled face bitch from Down Under but at the very least, I have a fucking heart and am willing to do what it takes!

Continued ...

This was one of the last scribblings Alex sent me. It sums up a fair bit of his jumbled thoughts just before his collapse at Incheon recently.


It's not easy doing what I'm doing
So alone that it’s no longer a feeling
It’s a presence

Following me everywhere
Eyes glazed over with apathy
Taped on a plastic smile

I’ve got everyone fooled
My only friend is what’s inside
He’s overstayed his welcome

Echoing those thoughts over and over

My disconnection goes unnoticed
It’s just me and the darkness
I’ve never much liked them anyway

Solitude isn’t so bad
The constant numbness becomes soothing
Then silence can take over

I’ll truly be alone

I let the dark out

That Was It

James Russell Lowell once wrote,

The beauty of his better self lives on

In minds he touched with fire,

in many an eye he trained to truth's exact severity;

He was a teacher

why be grieved for him

whose living word still stimulates the air?

It's almost haunting that Alex's last entry into this blog bearing MJ's definitive swansong, would also to be his last.

Anyone that has known him intimately would know how much he had gone through emotionally in the first half of this year. Physically, he is a pale shadow of who he once was. The vibrancy and fiery passion he possessed was dissipating faster than he could muster them. There are no doubt sparks of cheekiness and that all-familiar mischievous glint in his eye that has become such an endearing characteristic of him still existed.

I've had long chats with him ... more frequent than I've ever had in the past 7 years. Even during his periods of anguish, hurt and emotionally incapacitated self, he still managed to provide wisdom, learnings, advice, comfort and most of all, love, not only to those who seek but also to those who had forsaken him.

Alex had become both the master and victim of the life he created and lived. At his best, he was the perfect person and friend. At his worst, he bore far too much on his shoulders and hid away to the point of anonimity. In his life, he lived with the philosophy of there being "choices" and that we never should blame anyone on the outcome of our choices. In that sense, he bore far more than the average person would and could.

Alex was all about utopia. A world with no borders, to love, live without prejudice and to pay it forward. I sometimes think he is delusional with his aspirations and outlook in life. I look back to the time we had together some 18 years ago. And yes, while I was in awe of him, I also had a constant fear of how much ache his heart could actually take before it became overly brittle - far too brittle for his courage to hold together.

Yet when I questioned him some months back, he would say this "Life is not lost by dying. Life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways. The question is not whether we will die but how we will live." You tell me something more poignant than that to shut me up and I'll show you the selflessness Alex possesses. But I still feel he sometimes wasted himself on people who are far too callous and far too selfish.

I am just soooooo angry at the moment ... angry enough to fly to that stupid police republic and bitch slap someone!

To be continued ...

This Is It

Once in a long, long while there comes along an individual who would grace our lives and leaves imprints even if we don't know them personally.

After having good fortune of witnessing the last LIVE recording of Michael Jackson at the "This Is It" Movie Premier last night, I am humbled and deeply saddened that there will possibly never come a man such as he again. Nor do I want to.

If he had made it through his concert, this would have been an incredible last series of concert and it would have been a very memorable performance. Witnessing his passion for perfection in almost every single detail of his concert from audio to graphics application and timing of his choreography in sync with the music, I can't imagine anyone else taking that sort of effort.

It was simply masterclass!

We can watch his anticipated choreographed dance moves 1m times over but yet, I think we can still be left mesmerised by him. He may literally be a pale self of who he once was but Michael Jackson is still Michael Jackson. His stature is unparalleled.

He has definitely left us richer with the experiences and his talent.

Let bygones be bygones

Some months ago at a government agency I was assigned to, I met with a group of people that was downtrodden and almost defeated.

I asked why they felt as such ... and they pointed out that the "flavor of the month" was wreaking havoc internally with the organisation structure ~ displacing individuals within their divisions without consulation and using his ability to intimidate, thus causing them grief.

Now, anyone that has known me over the years would know I am upfront, a sometimes hard but just person ... even to my staff or my peers. They would all prefer me to be as such because it makes getting the job done easier and there's no malice. And we can all have happy hours together.

But what happens when you have a scoundrel in the mist who uses terms such as "do the honorable thing and resign"? What impressions would you have of this individual?

He gathers a group of his peers and mandates that? Mind you, these are mothers and fathers who have families and their own version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to care for. I wonder at that given point of time if this individual actually thought about what he was asking? I wonder if he actually have any compassion or felt any remorse when he issued such a directive?

In any case, some months later, he fell by the sword that he wielded as he is now slowly falling out of favour with the CEO ... and he is now trying his best to weasel his way back into the good books of the peers he charateristically assasinated.

He is now asking for his peers to "let bygones be bygones" and that they should all work together as a team and move forward.

I’m sure that most conflict-averse and those who think of themselves as “moderates” find this sentiment emotionally appealing. It is not, however, very attractive from a rational point of view or at least in my humble opinion when faced with such adversities. Because, you see, unless we are currently at the best of all possible places, then we are somewhere less than optimally positioned, which means we must have taken a wrong turn or two to arrive here ... or the individual has in this instance.

Now, just as I am a very forgiving person ... I am also of the opinion that while emotions change, character seldom do ... and frankly, I have my doubts about individuals who after displaying their streaks of hostility, callousness, tactlessness and complete disregard for the livelihood of others, whether they can actually feel remorse ... or if they can ever apologise with compassion?

Like I said, I doubt ... why? Because in my life, I have met with some of the most desirable and beautiful people who appear as such from the outside but deep down, I feel they don't exactly mirror their exterior exhuberance and that's why society is as such ...

People can extend hurt just by keeping mum ... sometimes it's not about what you say or do, but about how you make someone feel ...

In this world, we get what we pay for or reap what we sow. Cliched as it may be, it holds some truth. And if there is no price on error - in other words, if error is free, then, amazingly enough, we are going to have far more errors than we ever believed possible. Especially if we refuse to even examine what those errors might have been, and admit our wrongdoings to those who matter.

On a personal level, for as sure as it is wise to withhold cheap grace in this world, it is refreshing to learn that there is such a thing as retribution as well. That, at any rate, has been my experience. It demands patience and a perverse variety of self-discipline that requires us both to avoid forgiveness and retribution, and let time and Nature or even Karma do the dirty work we only imagine.

And let’s not forget God.

As I climb into bed each evening, and petition Him to forgive “those who trespass against us,” I acknowledge my poor powers to add and detract, and am content to leave the business of vengeance and pestilence and cosmic justice and boils in the hands of an expert.

It may not come in our lifetime but I do believe karma can slap you when you least expect it ... and by then, I hope all of us are conscious enough to realise it's a postlude of how we have treated individuals in our lives. So, yes the warm sake can taste really sweet right now ... but there is always a bitter aftertaste lingering in there.