Vick Teo – After Idol

My job often puts me in the proximity of celebrities in all shapes and forms. According to the laws of irony, anyone who is crazy about celebs will probably never get to meet one. The reverse is also true. I’ve been so uncrazy about famous people (since passing my teenage years) that very few of them can get me excited.

When I got a two-hour notice to interview Vick Teo, I didn’t have time to do any research. Not that this is an unusual phenomena. Fortunately, I’ve actually paid enough attention to know who Vick Teo is and one or two things he’s done this year.

Vick is very personable and easy to talk to, and was very nice about repeating himself in both English and Chinese. Of the two reporters present, one isn’t too good in English, and the other doesn’t understand any Mandarin! After that interview, I am very pleased to have met him, and delighted to learn that he also can’t go to sleep without spending some quality time with a book first. He is currently reading Lizzie’s Story by Stephen King, and just finished rereading HP7.

For the rest of the story, you’ll just have to look out for my article in PostMag next month!

We had Vick pose for photos after the interview. Since we did it on the 2nd Floor of Crown Square, excited passerbys recognised him and had their photos taken with him. One of the organisers asked if I wanted my photo taken with Vick. I said there is no need.

I’ve always felt that the reason people like having their photos taken with celebs is to prove to their friends (and themselves!) that they actually met the person. I like staying behind the camera, and I’m content to take photos of them instead of with them. I don’t need to prove to anyone that I met Big Star X. The most obvious reason is because my article on them is proof enough.

The other reason is that it is enough for me to have met them, spoken to them, and if I really mean it, tell them that I enjoy their work. That’s just me. I leave the camwhoring to Ducky (whom I didn’t bring yesterday due to the last minuteness).

No more notebooks!

Most people know me as a writer and reporter. Friends who go further back might know that I also used to be an artist. Therefore, the most natural gift to get someone like me for occasions and non-occasions is something to write or draw on.

For a couple of years, it falls under the grading of “thoughtful gift”. But I later realised that all the notebooks and sketchbooks are not getting used at all. Not even the ones I accumulate on my own. There’s just something about a pile of blank pages bound in a pretty cover that I find irrationally irresistible. I know it’s not just me.

The above are all my unused notebooks. My big toe is in the picture for scale. The oldest one is about two years old. Oldest notebook, not toe. My toes are all the same age. A lot of them (notebooks) are just too pretty to use. Not that I need them any time soon. Here are the notebooks that are currently “in circulation”:

On the left is a big blank journal with zebra skin cover. I use this as a sketchbook and idea book for a while, but it’s just too big to lug around so it’s hanging around the bedroom – too used to be regifted, too empty to be retired. On top of that is a sketchbook I got from Techno Graphic, half filled with old sketches.

On the top right is my paper journal, which I haven’t updated since August. It has its own special fountain pen for me to write with. Below that are my two most used notebooks.

The black one is my precious Moleskine Reporter Ruled Pocket, which is the perfect size for roving writers to hold in their hand and take notes with… if you can stomach the price tag. I use that for a mixture of writers convention notes, story ideas and brainstorming, and a travel journal because it’s small and hardy enough for frequent handling. I love it. I will mourn when I run out of pages. Then I will shell out an astronomical amount of money for a new one.

For work, I go for a cheaper notebook, which is the inelegant purple one in the photo. It doesn’t matter that it’s inelegant or that it falls to pieces very quickly. Once I finish using it, I toss it into the bottom of a drawer at work and forget it’s there until I run out of storage space. I buy a bunch of these when I find them because they’re the closest to being able to fit in your hand without being so stupidly tiny, I have to flip pages every 30 seconds of interview conversation. Like so:

The irony never ceases, because my latest project consists of making my own notebooks out of reclaimed paper and photographs I took.

These will be available for sale soon.

This post was brought to you by my attempts to stop well-meaning people from giving me stuff that I don’t need. So no more notebooks please… unless it’s the kind I can plug into an electrical outlet and surf wirelessly and probably looks like this:

Now this is something I need.

Winner of the Wrong Category Award

Every year, journalists and reporters in Sarawak will come together for the Kenyalang Shell Press Awards, an award recognising excellence in journalism.

It is like the Academy Awards here, and the biggest perk about winning something is the prize money. Because we glamorous journalists are so well paid in this business, most of us can only afford to drive Kancils. If you win something, you will definitely be able to make the down payment for another Kancil and have something leftover to chia colleagues who know you have the money.

I’m not blogging because I won something or I went and want to tell you how exciting it all was. I’m blogging because I’m baffled that I was invited.

Based on what longer serving colleagues told me, you only get invited if you submitted something (and therefore stand a chance of the night being worth leaving the house for). I didn’t. As long as I’ve worked for the paper, I’ve not written anything that fits into the category of any local awards. Heck, I don’t write anything that fits into most “writing contests” organised on this side of the country ever. Not unless they start giving out awards for best Book/Movie Review.

I guess their MO is different this year, but I don’t plan on attending. I have what promises to be a long work day in store for me and the last thing I want to do when I get back is dress up, overeat and watch other people get awards. I’m sure they deserve it and I’m happy for anyone who gets a windfall, but I don’t have a reason to be there. I got other things to do.

Now if they took my advice on the dress code/theme, it would have been a different thing. I remember colleagues discussing the dress code – 60′s, 70′s or 80′s?

I suggested that we dress up as something fun and out-of-the-box – accident victims.

It would have been fun. We can wear whatever we like as long as we are in casts, bloody bandages, wheelchairs, crutches and bleeding from gashes. Fashion of the decades is done done done. If accident victims is too crass, I have other suggestions, like ninjas and pirates. I’d totally go just so I can dress up as a pirate wench in public.

But seeing who our guest of honour is, anything fun and out-of-the-box is out of the question.

Oh well.

On a related note, the company that throws the coolest annual staff parties is KFC. Everyone came in costume, even the top brass.

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