I love you. Jon's 33rd.

Dear Jon,

I have a confession to make. 

I had planned a reunion of sorts on your birthday because I was stumped about what to post for your 33rd. So an event or a meaningful meeting would definitely give me something to write about. 

On Monday I texted a certain someone whom I've not seen in a long time asking her to join me for a cup of coffee on Wednesday. It didn't happen. 

I also scheduled a much needed, long awaited dentist appointment late in the afternoon on Wednesday. 

That didn't happen either. My dentist had an emergency. 

So there I was at two minutes past two wondering what to do, seeing the futility in plans 'of mice & men.' My phone rang almost immediately. It was my dear techie friend AL asking if I wanted coffee. The universe works in mysterious ways I mused. Yes! I replied almost immediately. 

AL swung by in less than 20 minutes whisking me away to the deep recesses of Old Klang Road to a hipster coffee joint serving bagels with cream cheese and spicy potato wedges washed down with gula melaka latte. We sat in the small converted link house enjoying the fare while young local Chinese baristas hustle about the cafe in their oversized t-shirts tucked into tight high-waisted jeans. They seem to be doing fine especially the resident cat. After a healthy dose of single origin African coffee and conversation we left for another new coffee joint in Sect. 14 PJ but it was closed. 

Cafe' Cat by PineForest

So we went to a nearby cafe restaurant owned and run by a friend named Jonathan. Having visited him several times before I could see he wasn't his usual self. He looked depressed, and troubled by business woes. Ever since the post-covid recovery phase, Jon has been struggling to make a living to support his young family and in the past few months business has gotten worse at his cafe at Jaya Shopping Center. 
I tried the standard blanket statement of 'all of us are also suffering bro' but I didn't think he bought it. 

In fact he confessed that in the mornings before he opens his restaurant, he'd sit in the dark pondering the fate of his business, and that of his family, driving him to the brink of a breakdown. 

Here is a man who has had the courage to strike out to practice his craft of creative cooking but circumstances seem too overwhelming to endure. It seems that he was beginning to entertain all thoughts of abandonment and resignation in search of employment. 

I have often wondered how people in business are coping with the post-pandemic fallout. Now I am getting the answers as if in search of stories to mirror my own. The only difference is that I don't have the yoke of a young family to weigh me down or spur me on. Either way, suffer we must. 

Ponder, reflect, contemplate day and night in solitude we must, until we come face to face with our predicament. And maybe if we are patient enough, we will find the answers we seek in ourselves. 

We sat with Jon a long while, listening to his plans pre and post-covid and as he talked us through, it seemed he had a couple of viable options available for him to decide his next steps. We left him feeling and looking much more cheerful than we found him even though he refused to join us for dinner at the newly opened Chinese Muslim Mee Tarek and Mee Hiris Restaurant downstairs. 

So looking at what has unfolded today, if I were to have a man to man talk with Jon the cafe owner, I wouldn't know how to tell him what I think he needed to know in a way he'd understand because it would tantamount to preaching and enter the realm of meta physics. 

Hence I just sat there listening and holding space for that young man to vent. 

However, if it was you Jonathan, my son in a similar situation, I would probably say these to you;

1. Survival is not a problem. Live.

As long as we are willing to adapt, we can survive under any condition. 

If we are used to eating five meals a day, cut it down to two. This will reveal our eating habits are just that - habits we have gotten used to unnecessarily over feed our bodies even though we are not hungry. Our body will thank us for not over burdening the system. 

2. The mind is and always will be our enemy. Be mindful.

Most problems only exist in our minds. We just have to remind ourselves that every problem has a solution as long as we are willing to face them. When we do that we begin to see that things aren't as bad as we imagined. But the mind's primary job is to think and even overthink incessantly. Our job is to control the mind and use it to serve us and not the other way around. To do that, we have to be mindful. To focus on our breath that will bring us to the present moment. To stay in the present is to focus on everyone and everything around us because this is the only reality that exist, right now. So by constantly being here now, will silence the mind and lessen the endless chatter. 

3. Fear does not exist. Live exuberantly. 

When we're fully present, we begin to realise that fear has no place to dwell in our being. Fear is what we encounter when we lose unity with the present moment. Our mind then dwells in the past or gets anxious about the future. 

4. Everything is temporary, ephemeral, transitional. 

All that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing. the Buddha said. That is a universal, scientific truth. 

No matter what we are going through, whether it be a joyous situation or a negative one, it will pass. 

After the winter, comes spring. It's only natural hence irrefutable. 

And sure enough the sun will come shining through. 

If it's not shining yet, keep going, singing in the rain, soon there will be laughter in the rain or sunshine. 

Well Jon, this is your post. The message is that I see you, us in every young man especially the ones named Jonathan. Just like you he's talented and hardworking. And I know just like you, he'll be fine.

 

Happy 33rd Dude.

P/s. I've chosen a song by my childhood crush for your birthday soire'. She's a Hawaiian hottie.  

I love you. Ken's Visit

 Playing Host to Ken Brady

Everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong on one of the most important nights of my life. 

Image:Bangsar-babe

I sent a courtesy email the night before to ascertain dinner at 8 and to wish him and his partner a safe & pleasant trip. He replied as early as 7am the next morning to advise of a flight delay from Bangkok landing in KL at 5pm instead of 2. My proposed dinner time was still doable. I calculated. 

So I went about my day with scheduled meetings with Fai and Al, an intern from Kuantan. Our meeting went fabulously well but there were further delays in Ken's flight into KL. There was a second departure delay that had them sitting in their plane on the tarmac at Suvarnabhumi for another 90 minutes while airline officials off-loaded luggage for no-show passengers on a full flight. They finally landed at KLIA at 7. I was still at the office and made a mental note to leave at 8 to fetch Ken from his hotel in Bukit Bintang. With traffic coming into KL from KLIA on a Friday evening, I anticipated his arrival at the hotel at 9 at the earliest. 

I was wrong. Just minutes before 8, he texted they had arrived and checked-in at their hotel. Horrors. I was still at the office. We rushed out the door into Friday night traffic going into the city center. It was a nightmare when in our haste we missed a right turn into Raja Chulan leading to Bukit Bintang. 

We finally made it to the hotel lobby at 8.41pm. Our dinner guests looked very relaxed and seemingly unaffected by the day's delays. Ken looks as dashing as ever as does Mac. We quickly piled into Fai's car inching up Bukit Bintang, one of the busiest roads in town, slowly and surely making our way to nearby Hakka Restaurant (since 1956). All is well I thought, we can still make our dinner reservation. But no, we were chased and stopped by a Police patrol car, told to wait in the car while a summons was slowly handwritten and issued to Fai for running a red light. What red light??

As we reached our iconic restaurant, thank god they were still open and kept my reservation, I was silently contemplating what else could possibly go wrong with the night. 

We got to our table, sat down and ordered wine, food and crabs! Chilli crabs are what we came here for. 
They're Mac's favourite. 

I settled down, sat back to look at my guests like prized catches, to fully appreciate and acknowledge their presence and let out a satisfying sigh. Then I looked around the old establishment and recalled the last time I sat here was in late 2018. I was having dinner with four lovely and very powerful ladies.

One was an investment banker, another an heiress to an international Swiss watch brand with her teenage daughter and the fourth, an heiress of a property-based conglomerate. Yes I felt like a sausage in a basket of rich muffins. To be precise, three muffins and a cupcake. 

I snapped out of my stupor when the waitress slapped a menu on the table and cried; "No more crab."

What the..??!! I began exclaiming when I realised I found the answer to the question I was earlier contemplating. No crabs. I buried my head in my hands resigning to hopefully the last thing to go wrong tonight. My head went limp in my hands partly from embarrassment from the misfortunes suffered tonight and partly from utter disbelief. I finally showed my face to my guests and apologised painfully. My gracious guests took it in their stride for the second time that night. It was a sobering night. Even the delicious New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc didn't help much. 

But we had a fabulous time. 

Ken was his usual talkative self enlightening us with some of his travel stories in Egypt with Michael Ball. He kept remarking at how he remembered eating at this restaurant many years ago. Mac was grinning affably enjoying his maiden trip to KL while Fai paid full attention to Ken having sat down next to him on my left. I was feeling pleased in the moment enraptured in the fact that I am once again in the presence of my mentor who I respect and admire and who has played a large part in shaping my professional life. This time I was hosting him in my city. A city Ken has grown fond of and familiar with. We ate the fish and prawn dishes, drank wine and talked till closing time. Then we drove Ken & Mac back to the Marriot way past his 10pm moratorium hugging and leaving them happy and tired from their day of travels and delays. 

We left feeling a huge sense of relief everything went fabulously well. Including the misadventures. In fact we agreed that they made the milestone event more memorable.

Later that night as I sat on my balcony, reflecting my friend Ken, I realised he was the only 'Big Brother' father figure person left in my life. My mentor who has known and nurtured me for over 30 years. 

We first met and instantly connected at the poolside of a beach resort in Kuantan where I had my first taste of training conducted by 'the' Ken Brady, one of the founders of Ogilvy's Magic Lantern training series worldwide. It was the first of many to come, starting the steep curve of lessons turning me, a scruffy Malaysian Chinese hooligan into a gentleman, better an advertising executive in the mould of Michael Ball leading directly to David Ogilvy, the father of Advertising. 

I try to make regular visits to Bangkok to see Ken. I remember my last visit right after my divorce just before the Covid lockdowns. I needed to tell someone about my life at that point. I had no one to tell to except Ken. He mirrored how I felt. He felt heartbroken, mumbled some comforting words and sat with me in silence. I suppose it was at that point that my healing started. 

We have kept in constant touch via email. Ken would send a barrage of daily emails mainly curating tid bits of news, images, videos, jokes, or anything interesting worth sharing. His daily missives would occasionally be peppered with detailed and thoughtful travel posts after he returns from his travels from  anywhere. Ken travels at the frequency of migratory birds. Throughout the years he has I'm sure amassed quite a following from his travels to share his daily emails far and wide. In fact I would say this advertising guru started email marketing and community building decades ago. 

Image:KenBrady

Speaking of community, no visit of Ken is complete without fraternising with the guys. These would be the remaining male colleagues left from The Ball Partnership & Spider days, the nineteen eighties and nineties They all showed up in full force. All four of them. So the seven of us had another round of seafood dinner (with crabs) hosted by Ken at Hokkaido Seafood restaurant in the fringes of the city on Saturday night.

All of us still had our teeth to enjoy the sumptuous crab dinner and our memories to reap the dividends of comradeship invested over 30 years ago. It was a happy reunion sans our fearless leader TL whose legacy we have become. He passed in 2009 and it was at his funeral we all were together last and according to Ken, it was at a dinner we had on that night that he had never laughed so much since. 

Well, seeing what Ken has accomplished in his lifetime, in a vocation that brought us together, it is no wonder he is having the last laugh. It was a life well lived as is still being lived. Very richly. 

Now that is an incredible story for another day.

First I'll have to track him down, sit him down to tell me history.