How to be a "Master"? (viva Brad Mehldau)

"The ever shorter and shorter life span of each trend perpetuates a sentiment that's characteristic of some of our jazz critics these days: a fetishistic obsession with "Masters." To be a Master you must do one or more of the following: A.) Imply, with the help of Yes-Men, that you are nothing short of a Messiah; B.) Rise from prolonged, unexplainable obscurity; C.) Have a good portion of your work recorded before 1965; D.) Die."

--- Brad Mehlday
line notes to Elegiac Cycle

South Park... yes...

Ladies and fellas, yes...I know... I promised in my last blog that I will post some pictures of South Park "tomorrow", but it's been delayed and delayed again because of weather and of course, my schedule.

So now, here we go... a picture... and a video...

So what have I been doing...?

I'm not in New York now, some of my friends would know it.

I'm in South Park, and I'm not kidding. I AM in South Park, in Morgantown, West Virginia. OK, if you don't believe me, I will take a picture tomorrow and show you.

I came here to play with my buddy Yew Choong, who has a severe hearing problem. When he's wearing a hearing aid, he still has to look at your lips so that he could figure out what you're talking about. Which means, he could hear your voice, but couldn't hear your diction.

And yet, this chap is finishing up his DMA and piano performance here. He won my utmost respect. So I agreed to play for him right after he asked me.

We chose one of the hardest of all piano literature --- Cesar Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano.

We've been practising many times now. And in the same time, non-stop makan (eating) with our fellow Malaysians who study here --- this place is full of Malaysians (and also Indonesians and Thais...and...not to mention, Koreans [di mana-mana pun ada]).

Morgantown is a peaceful little town where you don't really have much to do. The "downtown" here is small it's so cute. A very sleepy place --- just the place for a New York person like me to calm down and recharge my energy.

Oh, nearly forgot to mention! Yew Choong and I played badminton yesterday!

That was a short game, but we had great fun.

It's pretty easy to satisfy a Malaysian huh? Food + badminton. Haha...

To All The Hipocrites in the World...

If you wanna say "shoot"
Say "shit"
If you wanna say "gosh"
Say "God"
If you wanna say "freak"
Just say "fuck"

What is so hard?

You mean the same anyway.

Intention is the essence.

If you don't intend to curse, don't say it altogether.

"Shoot", "F", "Freak", "Gosh"...

What the fuck?

Say "Shit"... Say "Fuck"... Say "God"!

Finally...

Finally...something that I find very interesting to write about and it motivates me to move my fingers.

See, I've been working on this stupid work by this composer from the Midwest.

There's ONE particular part that's sooooo difficult and didn't sound good AT ALL. It's a whole bunch of triplets in semiquaver (16th Notes to some of you) for four fucking pages.

We're so mad that we decided to burn the motherfucking piece after we played it.

And guess what? We did it! :)

Pictures provided... See below...