Marilyn Chua

My fantasy throughout my teenage years was always to be a dead rock star.

If I wrote the script of my life, I would have been the lead guitarist of a band, fall in love with some famous female musician, go out with her, become famous because of it, and then write lots and lots of angsty songs. One day, I would OD on drugs, and I would knock out like Kurt did, and my band and I would become a legend.

I wanted to fulfil this fantasy, so I went for guitar lessons at Yamaha. There, they made me strum the C and G cords at regular intervals… It grew so boring that I quit after two lessons.

I did join a band, though. I met a bassist at my holiday job when I was fifteen, and we began chatting. His name was Tet, and he was a Libra—the perfect horoscope for any band. We went drinking one day, because he had just turned eighteen, which was a good thing in Singapore where Seven Eleven attendants are super paranoid about alcoholic beverages. Maybe they were afraid that alcohol would turn a teenage person into Teenage Mutant Ninja Human or something.

Well, the only good thing about alcohol is that it makes one sing, and that was how I sang in Tet's presence. He loved my voice, and for weeks on end he pestered me to learn the lyrics of popular stuff like Radiohead.

Now, there is a difference between listening and singing. I loved rock, even cheesy teenage-angst ones, but I simply had no idea what the hell they were singing about, because I had aspired all my teenage life to be a guitarist, not a vocalist. Anyway, to make my fantasy come true, I mastered all the lyrics he wanted me to.

Then, there was the part about being in sync. It took me weeks before I was officially in Tet's band, which was called Enmity. As the vocalist.

Still, that didn't make my fantasy come true. I wasn't famous yet, and neither did I know anyone who sold drugs.

It didn't seem possible for me to become famous so long as Enmity played covers, so I proposed the idea of writing originals to Tet. Tet thought that was a fabulous idea, except that the guitarists and the drummer in Enmity couldn't compose even if it was to save their lives. With only Tet and I, it was hard to orchestrate an actual song.

I made plans to oust the idiots out of the band, just so that I could get my fantasy fulfilled. But that didn't happen, because Tet was good friends with them, and anyway I didn't know of any good replacements. All the feasible ones had already formed their own bands.

After waiting for weeks, I decided that there was still one thing I could do. I could sleep with a famous personality!

I didn't know anyone remotely famous, until I met Belle. She was a model who posed in Her World. I practically threw myself at her, hopeful that she could make my fantasy real.

Belle ignored me. Instead, I got all drunk, bitched to Tet about Belle the whole night, and ended up the next morning in Tet's bed… naked, which wouldn't have been a bad thing if my waist wasn't hurting so much. I had puked, apologised to Tet and left his house feeling all strange and sorry. I didn't plan to ever see him again, but the next day he called me up asking for me in a weak feeble voice. I'd learnt that he was at the hospital, and some sort of infection had taken place, which was dangerous because the rectum was filled with germs and abrasions there caused very serious problems.

So I travelled over to TTS Hospital, and stayed there all night with Tet, talking about nothing but crap at first. Stuff like how Belle's figure was shit compared to Tet's. He had laughed, and seemed to forget the pain. Then we went into details of our lives, how we thought things that were never possible became real and how things that we'd never wanted became true and in the end we gained something else after all. It was that conversation that really connected our two pathetic teenage souls. By the time Tet was dehospitalised, I made up my mind that I was a stinking faggot and that to sleep with Tet was the only thing I wanted—I didn't want to sleep with any famous personality at all. (Of course, I also realised that I had to use lubrications next time, and especially never to go over to Tet's place when I wasn't sober enough to remember to.)

Again, that plan was obsolete. Damn.

I was turning eighteen by the time I cut off all connections with Belle, and decided to focus on the one last aspect which could still save my fantasy—that was to OD on drugs. If I did that, maybe my name would appear on the newspaper and I would become a legend through other unconventional means.

I started going to clubs and stuff with Tet and the rest of Enmity after our jamming sessions. They knew people, and people knew people. Pretty soon, I knew almost everyone in the English rock scene in Singapore.

That didn't really help, because I didn't know anyone who had access to drugs, which was supposed to be strange, because it was said that rock and roll was all about sex and drugs.

My fantasy died completely.

After sitting my butt down somewhere at Coffeebean's looking at lyrics, I pondered over my life and what I should have done next. Stuff like Scenario Planning that governments advocate. I realised the sole problem with it in the first place… I was living in a small tropical island where it was considered a feat for any local rock band to sell more than 500 copies of their CD.

By the time I was eighteen, I realised that fantasies were dumb. Reality turned out to be this: I had flunked school thanks to my lousy rock band. I went to NS, suffered greatly there, and had hardly any time for Tet. Somehow, Tet was still sort of my boyfriend at the end of it all, and I was despised everywhere because I was in love with someone who was not of the opposite sex.

I'm now working full-time in Tower Records, helping the company to bring in good music as well as those that will sell (although the former was my intent). Recently Tet and I had a quarrel because he loves kids and I hated (I guess I don't mind them so much now) kids, and he wants to adopt one. Just a week after I said sorry, I found out that it was illegal to marry Tet in Singapore.

If I said I was disappointed and wanted to kill everyone in the Nazi regime, that would be merely half the story. But I wouldn't go into detail about that.

I don't fantasise any longer. Fantasies are dumb, all right, and they never work out. But dreams, they're different. My dream is to earn enough money so that I could finally migrate with Tet to UK, where I could marry him, and probably fulfil his dream—to adopt kids.

Then again, maybe after I migrate with Tet to UK, we could form a proper band, and our band could become famous, because they have a good rock scene there. And I could OD on drugs, because they sell drugs there…

Oh well. If I fulfil this age-old fantasy, then I would never have a chance to fulfil my current dream, which is to marry Tet and live in a lousy old apartment and marry him so that I'll be the only one to sleep with him legally. In this dream I would never contract Aids. And neither would I OD on drugs.

…When I found my dream, I no longer wanted to OD on drugs (or alcohol or sex).

And that, my dear friend, is not the end of the story, because one day, I'll write: "My dream throughout my twenty-plus years was…" Let's just hope that that day's entry will end with, "by the time I was thirty, our kid had grown to be a smart. Tet taught him classical guitar, and I taught him that alcohol and drugs were bad. I asked him what his fantasy was, he said that it was to be a doctor, and to never OD on anything except dreams."

footnotes: IhopeyoulikeitpleasecommentorIllcommitsuicidecozImdesperateforanexcusetodoso. I'm really sleepy. Night is a bad place to be. Art burns your brains. Melts it down. Braindrain. Wednesday, 12 June 2002 12:32:17 AM

Last edited: Thursday, 13 June 2002 2:55:10 AM

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