okt dog budibadabadu: 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005

Thursday, December 30, 2004

::: you're not, or you're nut?


Ini SMS Badu tadi malam. Tidak ada yang istimewa, kecuali betapa dia selalu berhasil menemukan sesuatu dari apapun yang sedang dia baca atau tonton, untuk mengejek saya:
“You’re not weak. You just don’t use your head.”
(Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes, in Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger, 1948)
Mungkin Badu benar.

budibadabadu 23:11

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

::: kamboja


ya, orang bermuka keruh itu saya.
saya baj*ngan, dan saya akan sukses.

budibadabadu 15:18

Monday, December 13, 2004

::: badadream, badaboom!


in hotel cells listening to dial tones
remote controls and cable moans
in his drink he's talking
gets disconnected sleepwalking back home

other people wouldn't like to hear you
if you said that these are the best days
of our lives
other people turn around and laugh at you
of you said that these are the best days
of our lives

[“Best Days”, Blur, The Great Escape album, 1996]

Surprise! Bada finally showed up. He’s feeling better. In fact, he felt much better this morning that he decided to go to Negeri Dongeng to see his ‘parents’ for a vacation. Why not? He deserves a break, and what place to have it than neverland? It is a small resort north of Far-from-Hell where Bada’s ‘parents’ live in a condominium near a lake. There are forests and gray skies, arthouses with great movies and rare stuff, and a place called Korova Milkbar with waiters with little leather bow ties.

I took Bada to the Timbuktu airport and watched him fly away. My personal take on the subject is that Bada is an angel sent from heaven. Yeah, from Heaven (with goddamn “H”). He never acts meanly, never holds a grudge, never takes revenge (though Pulp—one of his most favorite bands—once sang, “revenge is gonna be so sweet..”). He cries when he sees homeless cats near the freeway. He never gossips, never backbites against the losing losers around him. He is an angel. But angels are not humans. They cannot have children the way welfare fathers and fastest stenographers and great directors and interior decorators can. That’s what I expect to find out when I die: that Bada was an angel after all.

We’ve been together now for almost twenty five years. We can read each other’s thoughts by now, and we usually spend our time together pretending to be dogs. But at the bottom line, he is an angel. Now he’s off to Negeri Dongeng. My tears dropped.

After Bada flied I drove home. In the treehouse I found Badu was still playing chess with Death, and Boris was still busy with his melancholic soap opera scripts. We got drunk. Sid Vicious of Sex Pistols once said, "I've only been in love with a bottle and a mirror." Haha. I read stories and sang them a lullaby for an hour. They slept, and so did I. The nightmare began. Bad dreams as usual. Strange and stranger. This episode: I sat next to an attractive woman in white with beautiful lips. She used to be my shrink. [Awfahkk, I spend half my life talking to my shrink!] “I’m a psychotherapist,” she said. “I’m working on the psychological correlates of death.” I sighed, “What does that mean?” She explained, “I mean the psychological states that accompany imminent death. Like how people feel after they’ve had terrible accidents.” Go fuck yourself, I thought. The sure mark of the loser: treating gifts as a burden. Then she gave me Prozac, Zoloft, whatever, as usual, just to make me um.. stay calm or something.. but I hated it soo much!! So I ran as fast as I can. Run, Forrest, run!

Insane with delution, I got my car—no, it’s not my car.. it's Badu’s car, with license plate D 374 VU—and drove down Sunset Blvd to Strip-Writer, a strip club right next to the new Max See Ad Hotel. It was perfect for Timbuktu. The waitress [Diane Selwyn or Betty Elms?] serve only fruit juices. No alcohol. Tomato, tomato! And then the strippers introduce themselves and smile before each number. “Hi, I’m Lana, and I’m going to dance for you…”

I watched for a while and then I drove home. Why not? Why the hell not? A little kid from outer space is accused of murdering a stripper and has to be saved from a lynch mob of psychopath by a mystical-machine-gunfire. Why not? Yeah? Well. If you’re so fahkkin smart [yes, I am!], why don’t you think of a better one?

I hated this. I came here to dream, not to fight. Maybe that’s why I’ve never really fit here. This is town of streetfighters, not daydreamers. But I don’t know where the town of daydreamers is located.

: or maybe is it where Bada now stays in?

(inspired by Ben Stein’s Hollywood Days, Hollywood Nights. Some words are taken from it, and mixed with Badu’s thoughts.)

budibadabadu 13:24

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

::: bittersweet bundle of misery...


Saya mendengar kisah ini dari Boris, kolega baru kami. Dia mendapatkannya dari seorang peri cantik yang berumah di sebuah negeri indah bernama Masa Lalu. Tampaknya ini sebuah opera sabun, padahal saya bukan penikmat tipikal cerita seperti ini. Dan saya tahu persis, di sebelah saya, Badu sedang berusaha keras menahan tawa—baik jenis sinis maupun geli—ketika membaca kisah tersebut. Tapi Boris tampak begitu serius, jadi kami tidak tega. Hohoho, ada satu bundel cerita yang dia bawa ke kami. Kira-kira begini ringkasan episode kali ini:

“Oh, Katie... What's up?”

“I want to leave him. He wants to leave me. It’s really the only thing we can do. And yet, neither of us can do it.”

“For God’s sake, Katie, you pack a bag, and you leave. So simple.”

“It’s not that painless, Bor. It’s not that simple. I love Bradley. I really do. We have a home together. Not just an apartment with furniture in it. We’ve got a home. And a history. And we cared enough about each other to get married in the first place, so, you know… We have more of a reason to split up than most people, and no kids to keep us together, but we both still want it to work so very much…”

“Oh God…” I shook my head, mopped with half a heart at the remaining cold cream on my face, held Katie in my arms while she sobbed.

“I like it better when things are more black-and-white, Bor...” she said.

Saya melirik Badu. Dari raut mukanya—cold, as usual—saya tahu dia tidak tertarik dengan cerita sentimentil semacam itu. He's a tough guy, or at least he always wants to be. Tapi entah kenapa, kelihatannya dia menyukai Boris. Betul dugaan saya: tak lama kemudian, Boris resmi diangkat menjadi anggota Brotherhood of Badu. Hey, saya tetap penasaran mendengar komentar Badu tentang kisah yang dibawa Boris. “Klise...” ujar Badu dingin. Lalu kami bertiga berlari menembus hujan, menuju mobil Badu, VW Combi merah marun dengan plat nomor D 374 VU.

budibadabadu 21:17

Saturday, December 04, 2004

::: "nothing.." or "no, thanks.."?


Lola: So, what do you do?
Hlynur: Nothing.
Lola: What kind of nothing?
Hlynur: The nothing kind of nothing.

101 Reykjavík (Baltasar Kormákur, Iceland, 2000)

Tau-tau sudah Sabtu lagi. Hari-hari berlari seperti peluru. Jadi tengoklah agenda, check list kerjaan minggu ini, berapa yang sudah bisa tercoret? Apa, tidak ada sama sekali? Mari salahkan suasana hati. Ini lagu lama, Bung: bahwa mood lagi tak bagus, bahwa melankoli seolah-olah adalah kambing hitam yang sah, bahwa gerimis November kemarin tiba-tiba dimaknai secara berlebihan, dan kata-kata andalan quote laris minggu ini: “gue lagi gloomy.” Bah! Baiklah, baiklah. Berlari kita pada musik yang dirasa tepat dengan lirik mewakili, atau mencari pembenaran pada setumpuk film lalu membatin “ini ceritanya gue banget!”. Bah! Atau mencari bahu teman untuk ditangisi—teknologi jaman sekarang menerjemahkannya sebagai: SMS curhat, e-mail keluh kesah, Y!M-an tampilan kelabu, atau telepon-telepon panjang di tengah malam. Larut, dan sepi.

"Alangkah sunyinya malam," bisik Hasan di film Atheis-nya Sjuman Djaja—dan saya akan menontonnya kembali. Ke Jakarta aku pergi.. Ke Jiffest menghibur diri. Melihat saya begini, Badu jengkel sekali.


budibadabadu 07:41

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

::: cult. cold. colt.


"Well, I'm responsible for you now. You know, the Chinese say that once you've saved a person's life, you're responsible for it forever."
[James Stewart, in Vertigo. Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1958]

"talk is cheap, lies are expensive."
[Green Day, "Walking Contradiction", 1995]

i.
A telephone call from J., the “executive assistant” to the man in the black pajamas.
“Can we just put that, um, Timbuktu thing on hold for a few days?” he asked.
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that my boss thinks maybe it’s too heavy for today’s youth market. Can you just give us a few days to think about it?”
“Take your time.”
”You understand we still love the story and we still love you, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Say hello to the kids.”
I don’t have any kids. I won’t.

ii.
badu told me i was in the director’s cut of NC’s new project, Citizen Duck, for two long scenes as donal, and that spells F-A-M-E to me. [awfahkk, dr. strangepop is in da house! help! help!] god, get me out of my office and in front of the cameras! and as far as possible from… real life.

iii.
I was reading Ben Stein’s Hollywood Days, Hollywood Nights. The diary of mad screenwriter, flo told me before she said goodbye. And Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of A Death Foretold, a birthday surprise from itbo.

iv.
in the country he wore a .357 magnum on his belt, and its armored bullets, according to what he said, could cut a horse in two through the middle. during the partridge season he would also carry his falconry equipment. in the closet he kept a mannlicher schoenauer .30-06 rifle, a.300 holland and holland magnum rifle, a.22 hornet with double-powered telescopic sight, and a winchester repeater. he always slept the way his ‘father’ had slept, with the weapon hidden in the pillowcase, but before leaving the house that day he took out the bullets and put them in the drawer of the night table. “he never left it loaded,” his ‘mother’ told me, in a strange smile.

v.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
(Voltaire. 1694-1778)

vi.
wherever you are you will carry always/ truth of scars and the darkness of your faith/ slowly move on/ how did we get to here/ it all went wrong/ gravity claiming all your tears/ everything looks so much better now/ everything looks so much better now?/ you will get yours/ you have no right to ask me now/ you were never that around i have missed/ reality daytrips and your suit me suit me ways/ turn out the light switch we’ve been awake for days/ and no-one’s coming round here no more/ no-one’s coming round here/ you will get yours/ you will get yours/ you have no right to calm me down/ you were never that around i have missed/ cold contagious all the mighty mighty men/ what you save is what you lose out in the end/ cold contagious/ paint your perfect day/ i don’t mind this/ i’m better off by the way deeply grounded/ you will get yours/ cold contagious all the mighty mighty men/ what you save is what you lose out in the end/ cold contagious!

vii.
"frenzy, frantic, freaky.
kitty, kindly, kinky."

F for faith, and K for “kehidupan”.

* * *

budibadabadu 07:35