For Feroz, my free-flowing feral friend who loved felines... (repost)

Feroz Faisal Merican @ Feroz Dawson (17 February 1966~12 August 2012)

On August 4th I found out that Feroz Dawson was in hospital. Apparently he had been admitted to University Hospital a couple of weeks earlier, after his mother (my old friend Faridah Merican) found him unconscious at home.

I hadn't seen Feroz for many months, but he took delight in trolling his friends on facebook. More than once, I had been amused by Feroz's habit of saying rude things to people he didn't even know. The young man had a big chip on his shoulder, that's for sure. Pretty much the same chip his old man, Leslie Dawson, had carried around for years.

Leslie Dawson and Faridah Merican were married in the mid-1960s and Feroz was their genetic legacy. When Feroz was 3 his parents split up. Imagine growing up as the offspring of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Both parents were exceptional actors, utterly passionate about theater; and both had been radio personalities. 

I got involved with local theater in 1976 and two years later found myself acting alongside Faridah Merican in an epic production titled The Battles of Coxinga (originally a puppet play by Chikamatsu, translated into English by Donald Keene). Early rehearsals were held at Faridah's spacious home in Petaling Jaya - and it was there that I was introduced to the 12-year-old Feroz.

In 1990 I had the great honor and privilege of sharing the stage with Feroz's legendary father, Leslie Dawson, when we did a 3-man one-acter by Israel Horovitz called The Indian Wants The Bronx, directed by Joe Hasham (who married Faridah Merican and inaugurated The Actors' Studio in 1989). Leslie turned in an absolutely unforgettable performance in a role that had hardly any speaking lines. Little did any of us know at the time, it would be Leslie Dawson's theatrical swan song.

Fast-forward to 1993 or thereabouts and meeting Feroz again as an aspiring writer, returned from studying in the U.S. (where he married a young lady from the Midwest whom he greatly adored, even though it turns out they had little in common). Feroz shows me a few of his short stories and I'm impressed by his acerbic, shoot-from-the-hip style. His head is full of ideas for screenplays. However, he finds himself recruited into the advertising world as an apprentice director, and subsequently gets assigned to a production house in Jakarta. 

"I don't like the fact that most Malaysian writers are journalists, lecturers and lawyers. For our literature to be vibrant we need criminals, maladjusted youngsters and psychotic housewives to write fiction. Then we'll raise some eyebrows." ~ Feroz Dawson

In his princely domain with a "French bulldog" (posted a week before his 46th birthday). 

Is there a difference between French and British bulldogs, a friend asked; 

and Feroz's response was: "Yes, the French complain more."

Truth be told, I didn't have much contact with Feroz, although we had lots of mutual friends. Like his father before him, Feroz sought his spiritual highs out of a bottle. There was always a feral, rebellious streak in him that inclined him towards a species of sardonic existentialism. He also relished the shock effect he had on the sensitivities of those easily offended, especially when it came to social taboos and religious dogma. He made an artform out of raising eyebrows and rocking the boat. In short, Feroz was well equipped to be a literary and cinematic enfant terrible.

"Finally the lovers get what they want, a dead husband, life insurance, all the property he owned, assets, bonds and cars, and the two girls escape to Mexico, one step ahead of the law. With no paw prints..." (caption for one of Feroz's famous feline portraits posted on facebook)

Call him maladjusted, a social misfit, a professional delinquent - a larger-than-life personality like Feroz Dawson is rarely appreciated or acknowledged for his talents and unique perspectives until he's no longer among us.

The last time I saw Feroz was on August 7th, in ward 12 of University Hospital, where I found him bound to the bed to stop him ripping out the feeding tube stuck down one nostril. His eyeballs were yellow - a sure sign of jaundice caused by liver malfunction - and he was startlingly bloated. But his life force was vigorous and I figured he stood a fighting chance of recovery. I think he recognized me, because he kept attempting to speak, though his words were barely coherent. I told him he was dearly loved by many, especially his mum, and he instantly calmed down. "It's really up to you," I said to him. "Sure, it will take some time to get back in shape, but it's worth the effort. Do stick around a while longer, please. At least get your collection of stories published first!"

"The husband, lonely and hungry for Whiskas Tuna and Sardine biscuits..." (from Feroz's facebook album)

Well, it looks like his stories will be posthumously published - and the rest of us will be reminded, once again, how easy it is to overlook thwarted genius while it's alive and kicking.

[First posted 12 August 2012, reposted 23 August 2020]

"How Sexually Confident Are You?" (flashback & repost!)

[Sometime ago, in the early years of the 21st century, a popular women's magazine sent me a questionnaire on sexual confidence. I kept my responses in my personal folder and just stumbled on this fascinating document, which I'm reposting purely for entertainment purposes.]

The Marie Claire Interview: "How Sexually Confident Are You?"

1. On a scale of one to 10, how sexually confident are you?

When I was 15, maybe about 7... between 30-45, possibly 10... after 51, maybe about 7.

2. How would you describe yourself? Your personality etc.

Approachable. Friendly. Honest. Romantic. Affectionate. Abductable?

3. How do you view your body and sex?

No hunk like the muscle-bound species some girls drool over (who often turn out to be gay) - but appealing enough that I'd go out with myself if I were a woman. How do I view sex? Very favorably indeed! Seriously, sex is a very powerful key to holistic consciousness. Which is why it has been deliberately made a taboo subject, so people will be more easily controlled through guilt, fear, and frustration. In a sexually unrepressed community, folks would laugh wannabe dictators out of town.

4. Do you flirt? What's your come-on move like?

All the time. Don't have any (and even if I did, you think I'd tell and spoil it all?)


5. If you're outgoing, would you say you're confident sexually too? If you're shy, would you say that is the same when it comes to bedroom manners too?

I'm generally outgoing. As for sexual confidence: what you really wanna know is how long and strong my schlong is, admit it! (Haven't a clue what else you might mean by "sexual confidence.")

6. What would you do to make yourself more confident?
Overconfidence isn't very sociable and it ruins the economy.

7. Do you dress the way you feel?

Of course. Okay, that's not entirely true. I really don't care too much for clothes, the climate here doesn't support anything beyond sarongs. But I've yet to show up at the theater clad only in a sarong (besides, most auditoriums are way too cold).

8. How do others view you?

With great affection and profound admiration... I hope!


9. Is it important for you to be sexually confident?

Unfortunately, yes. Despite all protestations to the contrary, men generally think with their dicks. I'm perhaps one of the more genteel ones who thinks with his Richard.

10. Your name, age and occupation please!

Antares... I stopped aging at 52 (but am officially retired)... I'm a phase modulator for planetary shifts and galactic alignments. I also maintain an eclectic website at www.magickriver.net and a blog at www.magickriver.org.

[First posted 2 December 2006, reposted 31 July 2018]

MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE (repost)

I rarely have meaningful dreams supercharged with symbolism – or perhaps I occasionally do but just don’t remember. So when I read about people achieving their dreams, the idea doesn’t actually carry that much excitement or veracity for me.

What dreams? Like the one I had earlier today where I found myself in a room full of accumulated memories discussing with Rafique Rashid how to dispose of his brother Rehman’s earthly possessions? Or the one I had a couple of days ago where I was just sitting in a coffeeshop, paying for my tea and I counted out 80 cents in coins – which made me realize when I woke up shortly afterwards that I had traveled back in time to the late 1980s when a cup of tea or coffee cost less than a dollar.

The Frank Zappa dream that came to me a couple of weeks ago was interesting. I was hosted to dinner by Mr and Mrs Zappa and all through the meal I kept thinking that Frank somehow didn’t look the way he’s supposed to look. He had boring hair, wore a middle-class suit, and his nose wasn’t quite right. This wasn’t by any means the first Zappa dream I’ve had. After my first and only close encounter with Mr Zappa at the Fillmore East in New York in the summer of 1968 - where I also exchanged small talk with saxophonist Ian Underwood (husband of percussionist Ruth Underwood) and shook hands with Jimmy Carl Black (the Indian of the group) – I had a series of vivid dreams involving Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

In the first Zappa dream I was a kid back in my hometown Batu Pahat sitting on the  front steps when I heard a squadron of aircraft overhead. I looked up and realized they weren’t actually airplanes but Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention flying in arrowhead formation. As they got closer I felt a compulsion to join them the way some kids suddenly decide to run away and join a circus. Then there was the dream where I was walking around a gypsy caravan and had to step over thick electrical cables coiled like black snakes all over the floor... then I realized I was on a movie set and noticed Frank behind a glass window in the control room tweaking some knobs.

Well, okay. The Zappa dreams do contain a whole load of symbolism if you care to delve into them, just like the vivid dream I had about a grizzly bear a few years ago. But the only dream I would like to see fulfilled is the lucid waking dream I have held close to my heart since the age of 19.

What is that dream? It’s not easy to articulate, but certainly worth an attempt if only to see how it sounds when verbalized...

I dreamt I had accomplished the greatest feat possible for any living creature on earth – to remember its own mysterious origins and to free itself from the illusion of limitation and separation! In my dream this spontaneous awakening to and realization of the absolute sacredness and miraculousness of life rippled out in all directions and dimensions, from the subatomic to the supergalactic and beyond, creating a domino effect of illumination and jubilant celebration.

Source reconnecting with Source, as the accumulated experience and memories of every expression of consciousness, encompassing the unconscious, in infinite feedback loops of awareness. All of it flowing through Me and all other aspects of my boundless cosmic Self, eternally and effortlessly, in ecstatic multidimensional mandalas of timeless beauty and self-regenerating, self-reintegrating truth.

The word “ecstasy” became a living reality and I perfectly understood what mystics, dervishes and yogis have spoken about for generations when they describe transcendent states of consciousness – using terms like samadhi, satori, beatitude, baraka, bliss. Remember, this was long before ecstasy became nothing more than a designer drug for techno-trancing urban kids. Let me tell you: once you have experienced pure cognitive ecstasy, sustained over days, even weeks, you will never settle for humdrum human notions of “success.”

Well, it’s true that at various times of my life I have entertained, albeit briefly, aspirations towards enormous worldly success – after all, would any young person spurn fame and fortune if they were within reach? And so at the age of 24 I embarked on setting up a company with two childhood friends. It was to start off as a creative consultancy catering to the advertising and public relations industry and after a few years, when we had sufficient capital, we would diversify into production of books, music, films, perhaps even launch an airline... nothing was impossible for a creative powerhouse named I.N.R.I. (for Igni Natura Renovatur Integra, an alchemical code signifying that the fire of passion completely renews or revitalizes the natural world).

This venture lasted all of three years and the main reason I eventually gave up was because I couldn’t get Telekom Malaysia to provide me with a phone line – despite residing in a diplomatic enclave in Kuala Lumpur. I even wrote a long, impassioned letter to the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications (no reply ever came, of course). But after I capitulated and accepted temporary corporate employment, the phone finally arrived.

Anyway, it was simply impractical for me to remain in a permanent state of carefree euphoria – not when I was already a father to two beautiful princesses whose mother, fortunately, earned a regular income as a dedicated schoolteacher. So I learned how to be immersed and involved in the world, but in a detached manner, lest I became trapped in its deceptive glamor.

My inner and outer lives were not always in alignment. Even though I was enjoying an active public life as a stage actor, musician and party animal, I went through patches of intense existential angst verging on despair. My Achilles’ heel was a tendency to succumb to an overwhelming sense of futility arising from a distressing mismatch between my dream of heaven on earth and what was apparently going on in the outside world. It was hard to find someone with whom I could discuss my self-doubts and the nagging sense that there might be something fundamentally wrong with me. So I took to recording these states of mind as poems and doodles (which I eventually compiled into a collection titled Moth Balls, published in a limited edition in November 1994 and now accessible online).

From time to time I would have a peak experience – whether spontaneously or with the help of psilocybin mushrooms (growing wild on grassy fields where cows grazed). Very rarely a kind friend would send me some good acid on a blotter via airmail. At these times my preferred default state of divine madness would be reinstated and my vision of paradise would snap back into crystal clear focus.

Nearly half a century has elapsed since my first glimpse of our true potential as sentient self-reinventing creatures on this bounteous planet. I used to feel a little isolated – the only other humans, a mere handful, who shared my vision were either living on the other side of the earth or long dead. But their thoughts recorded in words reassured me I wasn’t completely mad.

When the internet came along I discovered a growing network of human beings who share my dream of heaven on earth – and each one is a fractal of the whole, with unique experiences of universal truths, each one a significant piece of a colossal and magnificent cosmic jigsaw puzzle.

What we had in common was simply this: we had achieved vertical alignment with our own limitless potential, our Oversouls (I think Paramatman is the technical term for this in Sanskrit). I realized that the problem was how to persuade more humans to make a conscious 90-degree shift from being trapped in the horizontal plane where predator-prey games of eat-or-be-eaten prevail. On the horizontal plane, people subscribe to spurious notions of profit-and-loss, win-lose, and Us-versus-Them. Because resources are finite and limited on this plane, aggressive competition becomes the norm, each fighting for more food, more space, more influence, more power over others. The result can only be hell on earth!

Any individual who achieves that all-important 90-degree shift to the vertical also gains access to Source Energy – call it the morphogenetic field, the planetary mind or cosmic consciousness – and no longer buys into the illusions of limitation, separation or scarcity. Once liberated from scarcity conditioning (fang and claw, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth programming) cooperation becomes spontaneous and this allows for the power of dynamic synergy to take effect, and we suddenly become clear and coherent fields, attuned to all other fields and interacting in effortless harmony. The overall effect is that we no longer feel burdened by gravity as it only takes a bit of levity to neutralize the sense of heaviness. And once we can laugh at ourselves and everyone else, everything transmutes from being merely laughable to being genuinely lovable.

The world as we know it also transforms into something altogether different. We no longer need to be convinced that laws and lawyers, courthouses and judges, and law enforcement agencies are utterly unnecessary - the moment we become self-governing and accept full responsibility for our own thoughts, words and deeds.

Our ancestors found themselves entangled in webs of deceit and falsehood which made them turn to external authority for instructions as to what to do or don’t – whether that authority presented itself as an invisible all-knowing, all-powerful deity; an all-too-visible priesthood; an occasionally visible monarchy, or the monarch’s appointed agents (that’s right the income tax department)!

Photo by Lesly Leon Lee

Generations before us have lived and died ignorant, disconnected from their own divinity and innate nobility. Their souls often get trapped in the astral and many of them attempt to seek redemption and some misguided notion of salvation through their living descendants – namely us. Once we become aware of this, what we can do is to become enlightened ourselves; and in liberating ourselves from our own benighted condition, we also liberate our bloodlines from the curse of abysmal unknowing.

How is this possible? We are bearers of genetic codes and, as anyone who works with codes knows, once an error is rectified in the present, the correction sets the entire program aright in the illusory past as well as the illusory future.

So that’s my dream, folks. I just wish to see all wrongs set right, all cages and prisons dismantled, all locks and keys discarded, all doors and windows left open to the gentle breezes of conscious, eternally rejuvenating, growth-facilitating, ecstatic change. In a community of fully conscious humans, criminal or destructive behavior will be swiftly outgrown and become obsolete - because no one will suffer lack or the indifference of others. With the illusion of scarcity dispersed, a new age of abundance for all will dawn.

10 November 2017

[Reposted 18 November 2018 & 14 December 2021]

Selected Poems of Arlen Riley Wilson (wife of Robert Anton Wilson)

ARLEN RILEY WILSON (16 July 1925 - 22 May 1999)

HOLISTIC REMEDY

This is the world that man made.
These are the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
This is the doctor prescribing the pills
That treated the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
These are the plants and labs and mills
That manufactured all the pills the doctor
Gave to treat the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
This is the banker with tellers and tills
That backed the plants and labs and mills
That manufactured all the pills the doctor
Gave to treat the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
This is the general with trumpets and trills
Who made the war that saved the bank that
Backed the plants that manufactured all the pills
The doctor gave to treat the ills that plagued
The world that man made.
Here is the mother all forlorn
Whose one and only child was born
To die in the war the general made to save
The bank that backed the plants that made
The pills the doctor gave to treat the ills
That plagued the world that man made.
This is the angel that blew his horn
To comfort the mother all forlorn
And fired the general and closed the banks
And shut the mills and scattered the pills,
Retired the doctor and cured the ills
And ended the world that man made.

Our Lady of Outer Space

Reach down for the sun, reach down
for the stars, reach deeper for the secret
places of the body of her the stars adorn.
You are lost and found in her embrace.
There is nowhere else for you to fall and
no escaping from her love for she is
black and pulsating source, her
million twinkling nipples nurse
all life, her jeweled ardent
body twines around you
always and there is
no place to go
but home
to her

SAVE YOUR BREATH

Don't budget deficit me you old men with eyeglasses and no lips
who say we can't afford to house the houseless or to heal the sick.
Don't fiscal responsibility me you devourers of the fat of the land
may it clog your devious up-for-election arteries.
Don't balance of trade me you horny-handed peddlars of shoddy shares
in finger-crossed bonanzas based on non-existent enterprise.
Don't national security me you who make deals behind our backs
under cover of law-proof dark.
Don't family-values me you who force apart man woman and child
in the interest of an ever-grosser national product.
Don't state of the union me you unctuous apologists for quotidian horror
may you choke on your aw-shucks-just-plain-old-me charisma.
Don't pay your speech-writers one more cent on my account
or your column writers or The News Tonighters.
Epoxy in my ears before I hear another word.

HAIKU
1999


This is the end

of the tunnel

and guess what

there is

a little

light


[First posted 10 July 2009, reposted 25 August 2017]

15Malaysia: 'ONE FUTURE' by Tan Chui Mui

This stark film by Tan Chui Mui starring Tian Chua and Ida Nerina is my personal favorite of this week's crop of short features presented by the exciting 15Malaysia project. In exactly 4 minutes and 44 seconds, Tan Chui Mui successfully conjures a hyperrealist nightmare vision of a conformist dystopia.

Tian Chua is absolutely convincing as The Man, while Ida Nerina is provocatively enigmatic as The Agent. Pete Teo's narration is crisp and tight and crucial to the dramatic flow.

Principal Cast
Tian Chua, Ida Nerina, Pete Teo (Narrator)

Supporting Cast
Cynthia Gabriel, Azman Hassan, Low Wai Sun, Oon Lai Keat, Lam Pooi Leng, Charlotte Lim, Diana Fernando, Sumining, Melissa Fernando, Noreen Joseph, Lee Kai Yin, Syed Harun, Muhammad Nazmi, Nikki Tok, Nor Aliya, John Teti, Albert Law, Christine Teti, Scott Issaac, Lee Ming Jun, Lee Yee Ling

Executive Producer: Packet One Networks
Producer: Pete Teo
Director: Tan Chui Mui
DOP: Tan Chui Mui
Editor: Tan Chui Mui
Music: Ng Chor Guan
Post Audio: The Ark Studios
Translation: Copyleft Studio

[First posted 3 September 2009]