Monday, May 29, 2006

Mass indignity on Singapore Idol


I just sat through this week's [May 28's] Singapore Idol, where the 60 humans picked out from the mass auditions by four judges on May 21 became 28 - 14 guys and 14 gals. Voting by members of the public begins from the first Sunday in June.

I cringed to see the wheedling and pleading and tears from those who didn't make the cut - a 'performance' right in front of the judges and on national TV. What's with them?? Some actually thought they could sing - thin vocal quality, shaky (and even off-key) notes and poor vocal control notwithstanding.

Have they no self-awareness? Do they have friends and relatives around who are too polite or too biased or too tone-deaf to tell them they can't sing and that they should really find some other vocation in life?

It's not just self-awareness they don't have - they don't have dignity either. Four judges tell you that you aren't good enough or you aren't ready. Just say "Thank you" and make a quiet exit, for heaven's sake.

Instead, they turn on the tap and blubber away. Or they turn on their Excuse-Making Machine. Here are some that I remember hearing in the past two weeks, when those machines were in full churn:

'Maybe I chose the wrong song. Maybe it would be better if I sang another?'

'Maybe it's because of my sore throat.'

'Maybe I was too nervous.'

... all excuses under the sun except 'Maybe I Just Cannot Sing To Save My Life.'

Good grief, do they know how pathetic they look when they plead and beg, with or without tears? Or do they know the TV cameras are rolling and are just playing to the cameras, hamming it all up because it makes 'good' TV?

[Here, the assumption is that reality TV is good TV, but that's another can of worms altogether. Don't even get me started on it.]

And saying that the judges don't know better - like that sad sack Michael Buble-wannabe did - is such poor form. If you don't think the judges know better, keep it to yourself. The four of them have, for right or wrong reasons, been picked as judges. To blame them when you didn't make the cut is to behave like the proverbial lousy workman who blames his tools when his product is fucked up.

Not to say I'm a fan of the judges, heck I'm not even a big fan of the 'Idol' series. But hey, I recognise that the quartet bring some credentials to the table - as record-maker/talent scout, song writer, singer and long-time radio programme producer. They are there, like it or not. Accept their decisions with some grace. As with all contests, "the judges' decision is final".

Many of these young humans who are taking part have really one-track minds. They have failed to see that 'Idol' is just one way to get a foot in the door to a singing career. If they really have the talent, they would have been talent-spotted some how, don't you think - OK, maybe not in 2006, but somehow, somewhere, some time?

I remember the 'Talentime' series of years ago. Contestants came up, sang their song, and if they weren't good enough, they were knocked out. That was that. The best survived till the finals.

Is there something different about these dream-chasers today? OK, so they have dreams of seeing their names up in lights, but many of them behave like they have no Plan B when they are told they aren't good enough. One suspects all they think about is that a singing career is a quick ticket to fame and riches. [Oh, they could be so wrong. Do they know a singing career can be stopped dead in its tracks by fickle fans, poor career advice, personal scandal and goodness knows what else?]

What does it mean to want something - stardom, fame, money - so badly that one cracks into a million pieces, cries on national TV and loses all shred of personal dignity to go in chase of this pot of gold, even when clearly undeserved?

Have they no mental strength [testicular fortitude - that is, balls!] to take another route, or to find another purpose to life?

These young humans should just take a leaf from us moggies. At least we go through life with a quiet grace, no matter the hand that is dealt us - a shitty one like a life on the streets, or the high life, where one dines on gourmet catfood off a crystal plate and is included in the family will.

Friday, May 19, 2006

They say I'm smart!

I heard Auntie S telling my human over the phone the other day about how I've taken to parking myself on the top bunk of that double-decker bed in the room, 2m off the floor and away from the bad smell of overnight cat funk coming from the room's litter pans.

There are three of them, lined up in a row, and after a night when any combination of my roomies might have paid them visits and 'made deposits', 'funk' doesn't begin to describe it.

Auntie S, laughing indulgently as she always does when talking about any of her charges, then told my human how I'd be the first one to fly down from that bunk bed immediately after the litter pans are cleaned out to make my dump.

'He's so smart, you know,' Auntie S said, adding: 'He wants to be the first to use the litter!'

I could just hear my human cooing in delight, and I could see the clouds of her pride over her 'Smart Boy' coming out of Auntie S' cellphone. Purple swirls, if you want to know the colour of pride.

I was emitting purple fumes myself at this praise. Heh!

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The art of just being


Humans just don't get it. They rush around the whole day, filling up every waking moment with activity.

Take my human and her family, for instance. They work pretty long hours. The few hours that they are home, they go work out [hey, what's the bloody point in getting all sweaty?], read or clear the mail [mainly bills!], clean the house or do laundry.

[Yes, Virginia, life gives you three certainties when you are a human: death, taxes ... and dirty laundry. We moggies only need to contend with one of the three. Ergo, it is better to be a moggie.]

On weekends, they spend time with the kids or their friends. Or they are preparing to have friends over - shopping, cooking and cleaning the house and then cleaning it [again!] when the party is over. That's fun??

Even younger humans are scheduled to death, aren't they? If they aren't in school, they are going for tuition or doing homework or going back to school for some "co-curricular activities", or going for enrichment classes in music [violin or piano, take your pick], art [even if they have a snowflake's chance in hell of becoming artists] or the languages. Kids nowadays are so easily bored. They get restless and complain when they have nothing to do, and this carries over into adulthood.

Humans should just learn the art of Being. I spend a lot of time doing that. Sometimes I just sleep, of course. But I am also content to lie down, propped up on my elbows with my front paws tucked under me. Then I just Be.

Sometimes I sit up straight with my front paws together and stare at a point ... oh... maybe 2.84m in front of me. This almost always freaks my human out. She thinks I'm seeing "things" [read "spirits"] in the house which she cannot see. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. [Anyway, freaking her out is half the fun.]

But mainly, when I sit there just being, I become really aware of my surroundings - every smell, every sound and the thump-thump of my own heart. Sometimes, I think about things, Great Thoughts about what I've seen going on around me - or whether I should sleep in my basket or annoy her by jumping on the red sofa.

But truly, when one just sits and does nothing in particular, one can cultivate one's inner life. It's a more silent world there, with none of the daily distractions, noise. With people rushing around doing this or that - mostly tied to the mundane logistics of daily life - they hardly have time to recognise this inner world, do they? It's a world of the unspoken, the intangible.

I've heard my human complain time and again that the weekend "went by too fast because we were having fun". What crap. The weekend stole away while she was busy trying to do the 25 things she set out to do. She should have dropped half or three-quarters of those things on that "to-do" list and then sit back and notice the difference.

I don't have a Masters in the Art of Being for nuthin'.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Be still, a eunuch speaketh...


OK, so I was neutered. I was "done". I'll never have The Urge to "take a lady" or sire kittens. Neither will my friend pictured at left. He was a stray rescued off the streets and was neutered, and is now awaiting adoption at Auntie S' home. So both he and I have been shut out of male cats' essential experience of sex and parenthood, but I think a greater good is served.

Excuse me, but here's where I'll do a little commercial for responsible cat care:

Neutering is the right thing to do by your cat. Here's why:

  • It curbs its wandering instinct - somewhat: OK, so I've made some escapes to freedom, but I really, really took my human's home as my own. It had my own smells, and even after a daring escapade or two, it was where I'd come home to. And because it was my territory, I hardly felt the need to mark it by spraying [ie, peeing] all over her furniture. Neutering therefore makes it entirely possible to raise [and love!] a 100% indoor cat.


  • A housebound cat is safe from harm: When a cat stays indoors all the time, it is less likely to get hurt or killed by cars or pick up pests and diseases from other animals or the neighbourhood. Indoor cats have been proven to live far longer than their street cousins.


  • A neutered pet will not go around spreading unwanted progeny: OK, this is the obvious one. Go take a look at the latest picture book produced by the Cat Welfare Society (CWS) about life on the streets for strays. [The title is "The Real Singapore Cat". Click here to get to the webpage where you can buy it and help the good folk at CWS!]


  • Many well-meaning people have been seen feeding whole families of stray cats. While it is a kind thing to do, it just exacerbates the problem of stray cats in the neighbourhood. When food supply is not in question, full-blooded [that is, intact males unlike yours truly] will just do it (thank you, Nike). They beget kittens, who, in less than a year, will beget their own as well.

    And when a neigbourhood group of cats grows in number, they just set themselves up for trouble. They are noisy come mating time. Do you see the I-Hate-Cat-O-Meter turning orange? They may trespass in areas where they are not liked. The Hate-O-Meter glows red here. They send pet dogs into a frenzy - and maybe a few pet dogs have gotten lost/kidnapped/run over this way while they chase a wayward cat down the street. Now the Hate-O-Meter goes off the scale...

    Way too many young ones are being brought into this world by cats which can still do it. Many of these cats don't make it to adulthood. For those that do, life is not pretty. Food is not a sure thing. They get run over by cars. They get all manner of unspeakable acts done to them by cat-haters. [See various reports in The Straits Times over the years about cats who have had hot water poured on them, or have been thrown off high-rises, or have had rubber bands tied around their tails or ears, causing fatal, maggot-filled infections. That's how you get a pus-sy pussy - grim pun fully intended.]

    And then when Sars hit, stray cats got blamed - wrongly, I believe - for spreading the bug. Hundreds of Singapore stray cats got rounded up for culling. Many of the cats in Auntie S' house awaiting adoption were rescued from death by culling. That was genocide!!

    The Cantonese have a stock phrase that insults us cats. They call us lat tat mau, literally, "dirty cats", as if filth, pestilence and odours are a natural part of our anatomy when they really aren't. [If you have ever kept indoor cats, you'll know we are clean and odour-free, unlike dogs which start to smell a mere four days after a bath.

    So I say to all of you out there who are feeding stray cats: DON'T. You have two options. One is to round them up, get them into cages and have them sterilised. You may then re-introduce them into the neighbourhood where you found them. They can live out their natural lives there without swelling the stray cat population. Your other option is to adopt them as your own and keep them indoors - and get them sterilised too, for the reasons outlined in this post.

    If you continue feeding them without getting them "done", you'll just be adding to the stray cat population. I'll say again it is not a pretty life, and no one can fault the simple logic of the folks at the Cat Welfare Society: The fewer cats born, the fewer cats suffer and die.

    This is my message today. Top Cat checking out.

    Friday, May 05, 2006

    The day I learned about the birds and bees...


    Remember my previous post, when I pretended I understood when Sam, the neighbourhood's alpha male, talked about "taking ladies" who then gave him his broods of kittens?

    Well, I was to find out the connection between "ladies" and "kittens" some months after meeting Sam - through a live "show" that took place just below my balcony.

    It was pre-dawn when I was alerted to noise just below the balcony, so I went to check. My hackles went up when I saw one of the cats that had been hanging around the condo grounds for some weeks now, a grey male who seemed to have come from elsewhere.

    He looked too clean and groomed to be a stray. The dead giveaway of his status was the blue-and-green tartan collar around his neck.

    With him was a mottled black-and-tan female, whom I had also seen around the block. She was a stray for sure, a little mangy-looking. Or maybe it was her colouring that made her look that way.

    Well, they did it right there below my balcony while I watched, intrigued.

    I talked to the grey male later after Ms Ugly had slunk off. Let's call him Bob [after a certain "sexual athlete" my human knows].

    Bob: "What's it with you - you like watching?"

    Me: "Er..."

    Bob: "What - you never taken a lady before?"

    Me: "Er, no. What was that about?"

    Bob [teasingly, in sing-song fashion]: "Oh man, we got a virgin here, we got a virgin here!"

    I flushed a deep crimson [though humans would never have able to tell this from looking at my pure white fur], whereupon Bob became kinder and told me about the "business" and that it was "accepted tradition" was to leave the "lady" with buns baking in her oven.

    Hmm, I made a mental note here to check with Sam, who seemed to be living happily with his "ladies" and his young 'uns. Now wasn't that a happy family? Maybe he "loved" his ladies [see red heart in picture] in a way Bob has never done?

    Bob then asked me how I dealt with The Urge when I wasn't allowed out of the house. Where did I find relief, he wanted to know. I looked blankly at him.

    Me: "Urge? What urge?"

    Bob: "Oh my... don't tell me you were "done"?"

    Me: "Done"?

    I was feeling panicky. How was it that I didn't know all this stuff?

    Bob: "Hmm. We got more than a virgin here. We got us a eunuch. Don't you remember the visit to the vet when you got "done"?"

    Here's when my vision got blurry - you know how they do it in the movies to signal that a flashback is coming up...

    Yes, yes... there was that one time long ago when I was brought to the vet not long after I had moved in with my human - and it was not for a cold, or diarrhoea, or for my annual shot.

    She brought me to see Dr Ng, who explained to her what he was going to do [against a background yowling-spitting-hissy "song" provided my yours sincerely]. I recall now his saying that "it" was going to be a "relatively simple job since he's a boy", and that I'd recover in a couple of days - no stitches needed on my family jewels, even.

    I was put under and everything during and a few hours after the operation was a haze. Luridly-coloured fish danced before my eyes and I floated in mid-air.

    When I became more aware of my surroundings, I felt a numbness between my rear legs - and a huge satellite dish around my neck. What the fuck?

    When the anaesthetic wore off, I felt a little sore down there, but it wasn't that bad. I wanted to turn around to lick myself, but that white plastic monstrosity got in the way.

    I heard my human describe in detail to her husband that afternoon what had happened to me. She said the vet had cut open my testicles, pulled out my spunk tooobs, made a cut and "just stuffed everything back in the sac". EEEEWWWW!

    They spent the next few days laughing at my satellite dish, saying things like maybe they could now get FM Gold 90.5 in the house [which has unaccountably bad radio reception].

    The "unkindest cut of all" on my jewels healed nicely soon enough.

    Bob [in impressive mimicry of a computerised voice]: "Earth calling Eunuch. Earth calling Eunuch."

    That snapped me back to my present.

    Me [in a flat voice]: "I don't have The Urge. I never taken a lady and never will. I'll never have young 'uns."

    Bob: "Why are you blubbering about? I just do it when the time comes around during the year. I can't help it. Something kicks off in my head that tells me it's time, and I go look for a lady to take. Don't get so damned sentimental. You are a cat, for crying out loud."

    All of you out there who hope to read salacious cat porn in this blog can leave now.

    [Should I be sorry? You humans believe sex sells, right? I mean, that's why people like Xiaxue can afford to live off the advertising revenue she gets in her blog?]

    Thursday, May 04, 2006

    Wanderlust


    My human kept me as a strictly indoor cat. I didn't complain, but hey, a cat's wanderlust never quite goes away, right?

    From hanging out daily in the balcony, I saw what the world outside - the world beyond the balcony - looked like: There was a swimming pool to my 2 o'clock, a garden beyond that, and a Very Interesting Neighbourhood of landed properties to my 9 o'clock beyond the fence ringing in the small condo that was my home.

    But dang, she was always careful to keep the front door shut, so there was little chance of my walking out the front door.

    The apartment was only on the first floor though, and the balcony always looked safe enough for me to jump. [That's me in the picture, doing one of my "shall-I-jump" stocktakes]. For a long time, I never did - not even when she stood just below the balcony once, holding out a chicken wing from their garden barbeque and calling my name. [Her friends always asked though: "Doesn't he ever jump off the balcony?"]

    Maybe I had come to regard their home as my territory, and it was enough turf.

    Maybe I was just a wuss...

    But one day, wanderlust got the better of me and I leaped off the balcony. I landed on my feet, no problem, nothing broken.

    I Was Free!

    I first explored the basement carpark of the condo. Nothing much interesting there. It was a week day and most of the residents' cars were out. The half-dried out oil stains on some of the lots smelled disgusting, it went all the way to the back of my nose and then some.

    I next slunk my way across the garden, across the service road and leapt up the chain-link fence on the boundaries of the condo. I was outside it! It was amazing how big the world was.

    I was in the Very Interesting Neighbourhood. The houses there were bigger, all with gardens and fancy front gates. Strange smells assaulted my nose, including dog pee, other cats' pee - I made a mental note to be careful - as well as cooking smells coming out of kitchens.

    What if I came across other cats? I was on their territory. Should I hang my head and acknowledge their supremacy, let them know I was just passing through? Or should I put up a fight as only a big boy like me can - a [ahem!] muscular mass of flying white fur, flailing claws?

    I went for Option A. I had no other choice, really. Outside one of the houses, I had come upon at least seven cats [including adolescents and kittens]. They were all strays, four younger ones, a couple of females and a male. [I was the bigger boy.]

    After some opening snarls and raised hackles, we sat about 2 metres apart, seemingly at detente, till they figured I wasn't going to play hero.

    I went no closer but a civil conversation ensued, nevertheless.

    They said they hung out there because food came every day courtesy of the nice family from the corner house. There was enough food to go around, and fresh water too.

    They seemed a happy lot, a pecking order among them was in place.

    So I asked them: "Don't your humans ever let you into their house? Mine keeps me in there!"

    They looked at me like I was loopy.

    Sam, the black-and white male who appointed himself the spokescat, spat and said imperiously: "Why would we want to go in there when we can be free? Take me, I'm free to roam anywhere I please. I can just 'take' any of these ladies here any time too. Look at the brood they gave me!"

    Um, er. I had little idea what he meant by "taking ladies" and how that connected to the young ones, but I wasn't going to show I had a "critical information gap". Gotta find this out, somehow.

    "Well," I replied, adding: "Do you have a bed that's dry and warm, especially for colder nights? What if you fall sick or are run over by a car? And how do you know your little ones will have enough to eat when you go? What if this human family moves away?"

    Sam narrowed his eyes to slits and arched his neck towards me. He hissed: "I don't live for the 'what ifs', you dumb clod. I just live. If I go, I go. If you keep assessing risks, the what-could-have-beens, you miss what's under your nose. C'est la vie, you pansy."

    Hmm. I was sure there was a deep thought about life here ... like: So, he didn't consider the "what ifs". But then, neither did I.

    But my case was different, vastly different. I didn't have to dwell on the "what ifs" because food, safety, territory, a place to sleep, medicines when I got ill ... they all came to me because my human ensured that. I never needed to wonder.

    Maybe, I thought, I should appreciate what I had more. Mine seemed an easier life by far.

    I explored the rest of the neighbourhood and didn't stop to talk to anyone thereafter. The assault on my sense of sight, hearing, smell and touch was enough to deal with. I ducked under cars parked on the roadside whenever I saw humans approach, and also when cars whizzed by.

    I stayed out all night. I wanted to see the place by night, when I was in my element. I stayed under one car for half an hour as the light faded. It had just been driven and there was a nice warmth coming from the engine as the human slammed its door, strode across the street and entered his "gate house". [Hmm. I wondered why my human didn't live in such a double-storeyed monstrosity. I wonder what he did for a living, this fella.]

    Under another car later that evening, I saw other denizens of the night come out. Roaches, for one! I swatted one and its wings flapped. I played with it between my paws and then let it go when it was 74.26% dead.

    I felt a bit hungry and wondered whether the roach would be crunchy. If one were to believe that half-crazed, opinionated celebrity cook Anthony Bourdain, who travels to God-forsaken Third World nations to try out their food, bugs are crunchy. I'll take his word for it.

    I thought about going back home soon for some kibble.

    I slept for a bit under the car, but kept an ear cocked all night. The experience was too weird for me to allow myself a full-on slumber. Nothing like my basket back home with its coloured cushion, all infused with Eau de Nookie...

    At around 4am, I made tracks for home. Then a problem hit me: How was I to get back in? The balcony looked a tad too high for me to jump back in. Gravity helped me get down earlier, but now...

    And it wasn't just a matter of jumping that high up - a lot of precision would be required to land exactly between the vertical railings too.

    I decided to go home by the front door. I had no problems figuring out which one it was. I made it up two flights of steps and there was The Door. I had always been on its other side, wondering if I could ever get out for a walk. Now I was wondering how to get in.

    I meowed once, loudly. Everything inside was still. I guess they were asleep. I looked up at the door and the crucifix on it and the dried-out palm above that.

    "Jesus-Mary-Joseph, please come open the door," I willed silently. Nothing happened. Maybe I wasn't praying right. I lay down and tucked my front paws under my chest, and figured a long wait was in the offing.

    Early morning saw the block's earlier risers clatter down the stairs on the way to work or to school. I had to duck somewhere to hide each time these people went by my human's door:

    There was Justin, the noisiest kid in the neighbourhood from upstairs, going to pre-school, and his executive dad Robert in his pressed, long-sleeved pastel shirt and tie. There was also the young fella from the fourth floor - was it Joshua or Moses or some sorta Biblical name - and the Chinese couple from the apartment just across from my human's.

    At around 8:30am, my human's door opened! She had come out to get her newspaper. [Sheesh, she works all day in a newspaper office and still has to read this smelly, inky thing first thing every morning? I just don't get it.]

    I sat up immediately and meowed. She looked at me, smiled broadly and went: "Nookie! You are back!"

    To her husband, who was somewhere in the flat, she called: "Hey, the cat has come home!!" I swear I heard the man go: "Oh damn, oh fuck."

    I padded in, lay down at the foot of the dining table while she patted me, and looked me over.

    "He seems fine, just a little bit dirty, but he's fine," she said to the man, relief flooding her voice.

    "Damn," I heard him mutter again.

    I was home.

    Wednesday, May 03, 2006

    Zzzz...


    Oh! Sleep it is a gentle thing,
    Beloved from pole to pole,
    To Mary, Queen, the praise be given!
    She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven
    That slid into my soul.

    - Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)


    The vigorous are no better than the lazy during one half of life, for all men [and cats!!] are alike when asleep.
    - Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.)