Monthly Archive for January, 2006

When Martha Stewart tells you to use an electric mixer fixed with a paddle attachment, you use a paddle attachment.

If you choose not to follow Martha because you don’t have the said paddle attachment, and switch it for another mixer attachment, say, oh, the whisk attachment, something inexplicable happens to your cake. Something mysterious. Something that looks a lot like this picture.

In what can only be described as the Butter Pound Cake Massacre, a lava-like pit formed in the middle of my pound cake without my knowledge.

When I cut into what looked like a perfectly baked cake, a molton flow of sugar, butter, flour and egg burst forth.

Except for the Paddle Transgression, I followed Martha’s recipe to the letter. I can only guess that I was supposed to fold in the batter, and not whisk it furiously.

I can hear Martha in my head going: Are you sorry yet? Are you? Are you?

The Word of the Year is “truthiness”, according to the American Dialect Society. It follows in the esteemed footsteps of red state, blue state, purple state in 2004; metrosexual in 2003; weapons of mass destruction in 2002…

What is truthiness, you ask? Easy. It is “truthy, not facty”.

Truthy: Bush is well-informed because he reads the news voraciously.
Facty: Bush is as well-informed as his carefully screened news bulletins.

Truthy: Dot and Jay live in a charming house set in a cul-de-sac with plenty of room for gardening and other activities.
Facty: Dot and Jay live in a fixer-upper with weeds in the garden. Plenty of room only if you are a midget.

Think real estate agents, lawyers and everyone you know who fudges facts in the name of selective truth. Then, yes, you understand truthiness.

Comedian Stephen Colbert peppers his show generously with Truthiness, and he claims credit for making it Word of the Year. For the record, he (and his brilliant Comedy Central writers) also came up with “Trustigious” (combination of trusted and prestigious). Try not to fall off your chair laughing.

His new show The Colbert Report (pronounced Col-bear Re-pour, with the silent “t”, as Colbert is, well, French and important-like) and Jon Stewart’s equally fake news Daily Show help news junkies like myself get a cathartic laugh out of all the depressing things happening in the world today.

Alas, Truth is funnier than Faction. But if you think about it, we all live with parallel truth/lies. What fact are you hiding from?

I wish life were as simple as Colbert’s untenable truth: “If beauty is truth and truth beauty, then I look fabulous tonight.”

Thus starts off the world’s filthiest joke.

We watched The Aristocrats last night. I was curious about it since many of my favorite comedians were in the movie.

Well, I say “movie” loosely because I soon found out it’s more like a joke-fest-documentary-homage-to-comedy type thing.

With taglines such as “100 Comedians. One Very Dirty Joke” and “No nudity. No violence. Unspeakable obscenity” and generous reviews by the likes of Newsweek and Rolling Stone – “If you’ve ever heard of Pat Robertson, bring a defibrillator” – you could say I was highly intrigued.

Jon Stewart, George Carlin, Drew Carey, Robin Williams and some newer faces of comedy horrified, shocked, and numbed me for an hour and a half. If you think that’s a long time to listen to a single joke, you are wrong.

As you can tell, I’m not giving away much, except to say it involves a couple, their kids and a family pet. If I did, I think I could be arrested for repeating parts of the movie. The premise is, there is a common start and end to the joke. Each comedian puts his or her own spin on the middle part of the joke.

Everyone starts with “A family walks into a talent agency…” and has to end with the punchline below.

“And what do you call yourselves?” asked the talent agent.
“The Aristocrats.”

With its litany of obscenity, I am pretty sure it’s banned in Singapore. Certainly it was an original film. I loved watching the comedians try to one-up each other with obscener versions, all the time laughing outrageously at their inside joke.

The film ended with a call to viewers to create their own Aristocrats joke and many ordinary (and not-so-normal) Americans took up the challenge.

Personally, I endured just one of these written jokes before I was totally grossed out. (It is completely different reading the joke versus watching your favorite comedian deliver the joke.)

Be warned. Be very warned.

“Dude, a bunch of random people ride the bus,” I said.

“Random people ride the bus to get places,” Jay replied.

I rode the bus for the first time today, the 9:03 from our place to downtown. I like to sit on those seats that face sideways, so there is nothing blocking you when you have to make a run for the door.

In a city where more drive their own cars than ride the bus, it is inevitable that I find myself with a random collection of people on the M3 headed downtown. A disheveled woman staggered on board with a half-eaten bag of chips. A teenager in just a T-shirt (the temperature was 40F/4C) got on. A well-suited woman in heavy make-up got off the bus.

I played a game of “Guess what these people do for a living” as I stared at my fellow commuters.

This girl works in health services. This woman’s a receptionist. This geeky guy is an unemployed ex-Microsoftie.

As a matter of fact, there appeared a high number of unemployed, and I’m guessing, homeless people on the bus. Several factors tipped me off. One, the wearing of at least 10 layers of clothing including several coats; two, a distinct smell of alcohol; and three, the carrying of many items in a large backpack or double-tied plastic bags.

I felt sorry for them. But I was simply stereotying. Who knows what their stories really are?

I wonder what people make of me, in my jeans and clogs. Waitress. Speak-a no English-a immigrant. Hooker. Homeless runaway. Mother of three. Brilliant writer with amazing book proposal guaranteed to sell tens, if not hundreds of copies of her first book.

I think I say “dude” a little too often.

This is especially so for someone who grew up in a “dudeless” environment. A humid tropical island with 90-degree temperatures and no surfing to speak off doesn’t exactly engender dudespeak.

I might have picked up the habit from Jay and his friends. I believe I never used to say that, but I began to notice it one day.

And now, when it does come out of my mouth, I immediately feel self-conscious. I mean, DUDE! I am a Singaporean Chinese who grew up in Asia. Dude has no place in my life.

But to my amazement and/or despair, I’ve increasingly noticed my usage of the word, mostly in reaction to some incredible news, like “Dude! That’s crazy!” or in place of “damn”, as in “Dude that sucks!”

After much soul-searching, I decided that “dude” is my Americanized version of “wah lau”.

[Singaporeans can skip this] According to the Coxford Singlish dictionary , wah lau is a Hokkien term, probably the most common Singlish expression of all, and it is used in much the same way as “oh my goodness”, “wow”, or “damn”, depending on the tone and the context.

I “wah lau’ed” this and “wah lau’ed” that in Singapore. You could say I used it quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong though. I still swear a lot, using something that is definitely not “wah lau” or “dude”.

So what does that make me now? A lost Singaporean in search of a clean swear word?

I believe The Dude from The Big Lebowski (above left) explained it best when he said: “Yeah, well. The Dude abides.”