If you’d watch the movie Space Jam you’d at some point be humming `Are You Ready For This’ all the way home reliving the antics of cartoon characters hamming it up with basketball legend Michael Jordan.
Psy, South Korea’s unlikely artistic ambassador is a less athletic kind of superstar but the aftershock from events of the last week could see him rid of his Oppa Gangnam Style signature song.
Cue in the theme tune sung by the Jock Squad and favoured wall music for a rousing performance of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
For the more musically alert among readers out there, you might just have made the cheeky association between this funky ditty and our Prime Minister’s unfortunate attempt in Penang over the Chinese New Year weekend break to rouse a response from a far from accommodating audience recently.
Michael Jordan in the animated movie could make cartoon characters shoot hoops but over at the Han Chiang College grounds which was the venue of Psy’s Malaysian 8-minute appearance, an audible section of Penangites refused to play ball.
By now even the most fervent card-carrying ruling party member would have been aware of the public relations faux pas that exposed the Prime Minister to such churlish and ungracious reception.
But then look at the circumstances leading to Psy’s fleeting visit.
Paying the Korean crooner – any singer for that matter – crazy money just to be entertained and supposedly to brighten up the Chinese New Year celebrations is tenuous at best.
A mere eight minutes of gyrating and (thank God he did not mime) and incomprehensible singing (seriously, do fans out there really know the meaning of the Korean lyrics?) does not add up to much of a positive return on Penang’s investment.
Even if Psy may have Chinese lineage, why is he travelling and not sitting down to a kimchi reunion meal with kith and kin back in his Korean kampong? And to just sing an extended version of any song for big bucks, a world record of some sort surely is being notched here!
Calculative to the core, the DAP-led State Government took the politically expedient course in expressing support for the BN-initiated jaunt. Anyone who dares douse the expectancy and cast out a wet blanket to cover the show would most probably be a politician taking leave of his senses.
But displaying cunning shrewdness, he conveniently excused himself from turning up for the event as he had to welcome the Queen who flew in to Penang on a private visit.
Across the now-denuded mountain tops that form the spine of the Bintang Range caused by the Rape of Lojing, PAS through its spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat was also dragged into the mire. Apparently he too provided his two sen’s worth by declaring he had no objection provided Psy was decent and ‘tutup aurat’.
Some anti-PAS commentators immediately jumped the gun and derided him as an ignoramus for not realizing this interplantery sensation was – jatae (that’s Kelantanese for male)
But hey, give the ulamak a bit more street cred – what he was referring to was the chorus line that makes Psy’s ungainly dance moves more pleasing to the eye. (If his so-called nag-like moves a dancer makes, then I am Nureyev!).
Without the backing of the bevy of sexy dancers in skimpy outfits serving as eye candy, maybe he would only have a zillion Facebook likes, instead of a mega zillion!
The first time I got an inkling that Psy was developing into “psy-nomenom” and that we were witnessing the revenge of the proverbial nerd was during the Hari Raya festivities last year when a former journalist Rohiman Haroon posted on Facebook the antics of his children with a coterie of their cousins.
In between weaving the ketupat and filling in the lemang, they gleefully re-enacted the Gangnam gig giving it their own unique, rough and ready kampong style treatment. That drew plenty of LIKES and many more similar attempts followed by others, with varying degrees of choreographic artistry, at times discordantly hilarious.
Since then, the craze just took off to stratospheric levels. Somehow I can just imagine the denizens out there in outer space are horse-humping it like crazy in some Martian disco. Jupiterians might take some time before they get to join in the bandwagon as they are another booster rocket-blast away.
Maybe the spate of meteorites and asteroids peeking – and indeed – landing on earth; with perilous consequences ; could well be ferrying an entourage of alien K-pop groupies on their own inter-galactic search for Psy sing song.
The equine exertions somehow became contagious when news filtered from Europe that meat declared as beef for so long had traces of Shergar the Stallion?
Apparently, some burgers sold in supermarkets in the UK contained bits of 100% horsemeat. Hold on - horse meat, as with many exotic carcasses are biologically fit for human consumption. Only cultural mores make you regard your lazy moggie as a prized pet while a peasant in the Mekong Valley might eye it with culinary intent.
You would turn your nose at the common garden snail but Pierre in Paris considers a serving of exotic escargot as prelude to erotic foreplay. That’s even before we talk about the protein value of crocodile kebabs, the natural endorphins attached to snake penis or the rejuvenative powers of a tortoise’s testicles!
So it was that Psy’s name was invoked in vain by failing to show up when invited to join in the spirited tossing of the yee sang. Perhaps the organizer of Psy’s show in Penang should be reminded that while one can drag a horse to water, one certainly can’t make Psy sip, much less drink it.
If the equine exertions of the past week can serve as any lesson, perhaps anyone wishing to ride a runaway horse should first look to tame the beast.
Or perhaps we should look at our own homegrown four-legged attractions like the kuda kepang dance for instance and get an equally duff dancer to propel it to Psy-like universal acceptance.
Razak Chik remembers working part-time for McDonalds in Woolwich in the UK which enabled him to save enough for a skiing holiday in Andorra. There was this elderly customer who always came to the counter and asked for Quarter Pounder complete with relish but without the beef. Here’s one guy without any equine issues to worry about.
Razak Chik
Mon Feb 18 2013
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