UPDATED.. Joe Kidd: “Jangan Hisap Dada”: That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore – Part One and Two of Many

note: Early this morning, a cousin of mine died. He was just in his early 30s. This one’s for you, Adna.

“Jangan Hisap Dada”: That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore
by Joe Kidd

Ya. Dulu, pertama kali aku dengar, aku gelak terbahak rabak. “Jangan hisap dada,” kata dia.

Klasik. Genius. Ianya seolah-olah si Menteri ni sorang pelawak bersifat “humor gelap” yang amat bernas. Sifat-sifatnya lengkap, cukup serba-serbi. Grim authoritarian tone? Check! Dry sexual connotation? Check! Horrendous toupee? Check!

Would I remember it if Samy Vellu had taken the time to learn the pronunciation proper? “Jangan Hisap Dadah”. Whooosh! Masuk telinga kanan, keluar telinga kiri.

It’s like the recent “Tak Nak!” anti-smoking campaign. Dia orang must have think it’s snappy, catchy, effektif; cukup afdal untuk dapat “kabel” menteri dan lesen free untuk main-main dengan berjuta-juta duit orang. Nope.

But it could have been different if it says, “Don Wan!” or “Don Wan One!”. Or “Tak Mboh!” for Terengganu or “Tok Say!” for Kelantan. Maybe a lengthy one such as “Doh Mung Ingat Aku Bodo?!!”. Or maybe a much punk rock one, like “Fuck Off!”.

Anyway, all those campaigns never did anything for me. Back when I was really curious about “dadah” (dan juga, ehemm, “dada”), they had a TV campaign, featuring one of the first Malaysian animation (not digital lagi lah!).

If I remember correctly, there was this guy who merangkak naik this dark, high and long tangga. While he laboriously make his way up, the man gradually turned into a crawling skeleton and dropped dead halfway through.

Yeah, very grim but also quite funny lah, especially if you remember how bad was the animation, just like the one on ADK (Agensi Dadah Kebangsaan) site now: here and here

How effektif is a bunch of slogans anyway? It’s utterly simplistic, lagi shallow la tuan. It’s also not very funny lah boss. Funny campaign sticks to the senses. Usually lah. Like there was a time when the slogan “Punk’s Not Dead” sounded like a battle cry, but after a while the one that really tickled the brains is “Punk’s Dead? Nah Mate! It Just Smells That Way!” or the classic “PUNK DEAD – NAH MATE, THE SMELL IS JUST SUMMINK IN YER UNDERPANTS INNIT”.

So what’s the most effective way to hammer in the facts into the increasing braindead younger population that Hard Drugs Are Bad? Well, fuck. I don’t know. It’s been more than 20 years since I was a teenager anyway, so how the hell would I know?

BTW: I emphasise on “Hard Drugs” as “Soft Drugs” are exactly that, that is it’s “soft”.

In my days, we started experimenting with drugs around the age of 16. Today, I would venture that the age bracket would be too old!

In my days, we would have a joint at the local kampung bus-stand and the Police would just laugh at us and went on their way, or they would come at us with much angry noises and then went away with our stash.

One time I went to “sambar” some dope and found out that the three guys playing cards in the house were cops!

I went there, showed them my money and one of them said,”OK. Ada dua batang dalam almari tuh”, while menunding jari to a cupboard. I went to the cupboard, open it up and there were three police uniforms hanging in there, and some dope, of course.

=========================================

The first time I had a puff of ganja was when a bunch of us friends from the same kampung were strolling to the pasar malam one night in 1980. We all have been smoking for years by then, but not ganja though. Ganja was the “orang tua” punya barang, Us kids would not touch it.

We heard the local popular kedai sup kari was using it to cook and get “loyal” customers. We also heard the local “muezzin” or “tukang bang” at the mosque also used it to enhance his voice, feel and skills. They would call it as “tembakau khayal”. Fair enough. But us kids, no way, not even after listening to The Wailers, Bob Marley or Peter Tosh going “legalizezit.. legalizezit..” Good song, but we didn’t even know what that means.

Anyway, it was early night and we were walking in one long row, covering the breadth of the jalan kampung. Suddenly I smelt something peculiar, wafting in from the other end of the row and it’s not smelling like the then “exotic” keretek from Indonesia. Then it got passed on along the row and it’s nearing me. Almost everyone puffed on it. I thought hard against it but when the next person shove it up to me, I took it.

By the time we were at the pasar malam, I can’t walk proper. My plans to feverishly rummage through that fresh bundle of 2nd hand t-shirts from Japan was lost in the stupor. I sat down. I can’t remember where the rest of the friends went. I sat down but actually I was kinda swimming.

My other friend, one nerdy guy named Ariffin came over, he sat nearby and we started talking about Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde, putting it up against Bob Dylan’s Bob Dylan, his first album, which is for me now a much better punk rock album than anything ever put out by The Exploited, even if it’s all acoustics, and covers of ancient delta blues and Woody Guthrie.

One thing about Ariffin; he was a book nerd and a toy war machines freak. We both and another friend (Rosdi) were the same that way, we collected books, pictures of James Bond (don’t ask!) and built World War II tanks and fighter planes from found toys. However, while I would listen to any sort of music I fancy, he would stick to only two Bobs.

Bob Dylan and Bob Geldof (of the then excellent new wave band The Boomtown Rats).

Anyway, so Ariffin came over and talked to me about Bobs. Minutes after came another guy who’s interested if I know anything about motorbikes. I know the guy, a prototype of the modern “Mat Rempit”, so to speak, while Ariffin didn’t have a clue. So there I was completely zonked out of my mind, with two guys competing for my complete attention. One side it’s all about the Bobs and the other, all Yamaha or Suzuki and how great it would be to have a Harley with the forks going 10 feet away from the tank.

I tried my best to keep up with both conversations, simultaneously that is. I have never been a rude person, if I may say so myself, but switching from one subject of thought to another completely different and keeping it going well was taking its toll.

In the end I stood up, stumbled and said something to the effect of; “FUCK OFF! FUCK OFF! DO YOU REALLY THINK I CARE ABOUT YOUR FUCKING BIKES AND FUCKING BOBS! FUCKKK OFFF!!!!”

==================================

Sorry to interrupt, but I just have to share with you this song. Both me and Ariffin loved this, and I still have a spot for the whole album If you ever want to check out The Boomtown Rats, just pay attention to the first two LPs, this one and the self-titled debut released in 1977. By the 3rd LP, the band has lost whatever magic they had.

[audio:https://vintage.ricecooker.site/mp3_wp_rc/br_dont.mp3]

Don’t Believe What You Read
by The Boomtown Rats, from their 2nd LP, A Tonic For The Troop, 1978

As soon as I wake up every day,
I look at the papers to see what they say,
I know most what I read will be a lot of lies,
But then you learn really fast to read between the lines,
‘Cos I know (he knows)
What I read ain’t true
I know (he knows)
And I’m telling you
I know (he knows)
If they say it’s red, it’s blue
Don’t believe what you read,
Do you believe what you read?
No, I don’t believe what I read.

Never put it down in writing the old man said
I didn’t know then but now I know what he meant
And if you’re wondering why your letters never get a reply,
It’s just when you tell me that you love me I need to see…your eyes.
‘Cos I know
What I read ain’t true
I know
And I’m telling you
I know
If they say it’s one, it’s two
Don’t believe what you read,
Do you believe what you read?
No, I don’t believe what I read.

And if you pick up a book and you’re starting to read it,
I’ll tell you what you’d better do,
You can read it till the end and even if you believe it,
That doesn’t mean to say it’s true…

Don’t believe what you read.

==================================

note: When my cousin died in Tumpat, Kelantan at 6AM this morning, nobody went to see his body, apart from his mother (my auntie) and his closes family members. Why? Well, that’s what AIDS does to you…

PART 2

So yeah, you could say that I was having a bad trip. My first experience with drugs and already I was no longer in control of myself. That realisation took me aback and it also took me quickly back home, to my room, where I lay all night thinking about it.

Was it good for me? Nope.

Would I try it ever again? Nope.

However, for the next few years, I would join in these impromptu ganja sessions, especially whenever I found myself away from the boarding school I was in. Even though I preferred rolling ganja with tobacco, I tried my best at inhaling from the “oga” in one single effortless go. The “OGA” is the “bong”, as the typical American brats would call it or “dapur” for those “stoning” themselves back in the mid-80s. Finishing up one burn of ganja with one single intense drag of the “oga” is one part of the dope smoking “machismo” contest everyone wanted to excel in. The other is not to cough, or worse, to puke (in front of everybody). I failed in all three disciplines. I also failed to heed an advice given to me by a stranger.

A few months after my first “toke”, me and my friends were summoned up to a house behind mine. This big-ish wooden house on stilts had been empty for quite a while. The back door of this house faced my old “playhouse”, a three-storey chicken-coop my dad made that proved to be too big, and so it was given to me when I was 12 years old. On one wall, I’ve written “Heavy Mental” with arang. I thought that was the spelling for “heavy metal”.

The guy who called us up was Aziz, or Abang Aziz, a notorious “tak-makan-saman” drug-user-addict-pusher who had been in and out of rehabs and jails all over Terengganu and Pahang for years. He was supposed to be dead, several times.

We didn’t know him well, but we know of him, like a legendary evil, one-eyed, one-legged pirate myth. It’s only Ripin who had known him for sure, for Abang Aziz was his older brother, a much older brother that was usually absent.

All we heard of Abang Aziz then was that he’s a nasty fellow, someone we all have been ordered to avoid at all cost by our parents. I saw him once before. I was at Ripin’s house waiting for him to come with me and raid the mempelam Siam stalls (don’t ask!).

I was at the gates, when I looked up and saw Abang Aziz hovering on the upper floors of their two-storey house, fleeting from one window to the other, gaunt like a ghost, skeletal as that doomed man crawling up the stairs in the TV campaign.

It was chilling. This was a person vilified by everyone, the neighbourhood’s boogeyman.

So me and my friends were summoned up to this creepy house. There were eight of us kids. We were 16. There were me, Ariffin (or Ripin, pronounced as “ripeng”), Rosdi, Mang (Man Kerapu AKA Man Kurap AKA Man Disko), Yahya Rebus, Shaari Tok Ubang, Sheik Ibrahim & Mamat Black. We all grew-up together. I met them when I joined Sekolah Rendah Batu 48, Dungun in 1975. Some were neighbours, some lived a few miles away.

When we got to the back steps. Someone called us to go up and leave our selipars on the top of the stairs. We were scared but at the same time excited. Some of the guys squatting there were older figures in town, people which we’ve known and heard of from afar. They were cool. We heard some of them played in bands or at least very good in playing them kapok guitars! Shit! Some of them can do the whole of that John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton album, complete with the solos! Wow!

Once we went in, I noticed that there were nothing in the living room. Nothing but sheets of newspapers on the floor. There was no linoleum. No sofa nor chairs or tables. It was bare. Just wooden floors with gaps between them, and between the slits you can see chickens scratching away for another day.

A voice from the other room asked us to sit. We didn’t know where to sit but we sat anyway, an orderly line of us on the floor at the back wall. Then Abang Aziz calmly walked into the living room. He was smoking a cigarette, wearing a pair of worn out blue jeans, white t-shirt, barefooted.

He paced the floor for a long time. And for a long time he didn’t flip his cigarette ashes, instead he held the cigarette straight up, the lighted point upward. When he smoked it, he would lift the cigarette up and brought his mouth to the butt. It seemed like he wanted to keep the ashes there at the burning point, his goal to have a long stick of nothing but ashes.

Then he spoke. He told us that he has heard that we were trying out ganja.

We looked at each other, scared out our wits but we didn’t say anything.

Then he dropped the cigarette ashes and pulled off his t-shirt. And he went…

“DO YOU WANT TO BE LIKE MEEE? HAAH!!??,” he shouted, pointing at his skeletal self.

I almost shit my pants.

========================================

TO BE CONTINUED…