Wow. I Didn’t Know Dick Lee could get so Political.
Posted by intellisg on April 26, 2007
Dick Lee @ His 30th Anniversary Concert, 2004
“Count On Him, Singapore”
The video should be understood in the context of this and this.
See also Dick Lee’s “Rasa Sayang”
33 Responses to “Wow. I Didn’t Know Dick Lee could get so Political.”
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THE INTELLIGENT SINGAPOREAN 
shawn said
lol. ok i don’t normally like his style, but his talent (and balls) shine thru here…
cheryl said
haha i was there at his concert, and i can say it was fantastic. the atmosphere of the scene in the video was electrifying.
lassie said
lol it was hilarious. I was actually there. Dick lee is very talented better than podcasting I must say.
anongal said
🙂 very nice change of format. Something puffy and light. Dick Lee is definitely one of the evergreens a bit like darkness bambi. Much welcomed IS for the post 😉
wbg said
Partisan hackery for shameless self-publicity.
Kenny said
A true blue Singaporean but with balls.
fried rice said
I now look at Dick Lee in a new light. 🙂
celluloidrealitys said
A true Singaporean.
Jolene said
To Wbg:
Judging from your website, you are rather partisan yourself.
It helped explain the tone of your comment, thanks for the ‘enlightenment’.
Harphoon said
673
Harphoon said
cycling STSP. It is a go. Thx
Harphoon said
Its that time of the year again – team leaders take note; let’s try for another zero accident year.
Harphoon said
Pls note: A few weeks ago our Malaysian friends training with us for the transalps, suggested, we check for frame alignment. I had done a check and no one in Singapore knows what I am talking abt.
I found this on YouTube
It doesn’t look like rocket science. Or maybe it is? I believe, we may need to acquire the technical skills to check our frames.
Can someone pls drive this?
Thanks
Harphoon
Keith Ho said
Looks like Mumbo Jumbo to me. Harphy, why dont you try it out with your 8K frame first?
Chronicler said
Darkness wants to find out who is the list of 11. If bernard leong is on the list.
Start the whole machine again from the top.
scholarboy said
Chronicler,
Just tell him it’s not there – it’s all over.
scholarboy said
Let us try to get along with the Malaysians. Last year we were termed as “arrogant and inconsiderate.”
This year, there was even talk, they will NOT train with us.
So this has been arranged with the help of our diplomats.
I think it is a good idea to arrange a makan session with Encik Idris in Eunos.
Scholarboy.
atomic monkey said
Frame bending? R u serious Harphy? Coming to think of it, my bike has a strange tendency to yaw port side.
Can be very distracting.
I spoke to Darkness abt it, he told me, it had to do with the right leg being slightly more muscular than the left, so the stroke tends to be slightly off veer.
From what I see in the vid, it looks like a kitchen sink.
I dont know abt this, but that doesn’t inspire confidence.
I go with Keith on this one, no one is touching my frame.
pumpman said
We have siaow cha-bor like KKP posting in SG Daily using our dedicated SLF – chronicler, the ICG requires more lines, they seem to be having a hard time streaming the Olympics – it doesn’t look good, the images look choppy and the sound is “no good.”
You better speak to the guilds and get us 6 to 7 more SLF’s.
The intellution lines do not seem to be able to carry the bandwidth.
Pumpman
chronicler said
‘We have siaow cha-bor like KKP posting in SG Daily using our dedicated SLF” – it is not an economically viable proposition to try to change the mind of every psycho in the net.
We can only control ourselves. We cannot control others.
‘they seem to be having a hard time streaming the Olympics – it doesn’t look good, the images look choppy and the sound is “no good.”
You better speak to the guilds and get us 6 to 7 more SLF’s.’
What are you saying pumpman? R u telling us to revise our expectations?
Let me be crystal clear; failure WILL NOT be tolerated, not for something as important as this; if you want to play nine lives, pls go and join YPAP, here failure will not be tolerated and cannot be negotiated away!
If you fail, you and your entire NIMROD team will be replaced! No one is indispensable. The system is greater than the whole.
There are no more lines! This is as good as it gets.
One more thing, pls do not go behind my back and talk to darkness abt this.
You will never find him where he used to be these days.
Chronicler
chronicler said
Harphy,
Transalps Challenge? I know you probably believe you are one of the ‘untouchables,’ bc Darkness regularly talks to you.
Listen to me. Last year, we sent 3 riders there. One of them broke his leg within the 1st km, the rest didnt even complete 100 km bc of mech issues!
The guild bankrolled this. They are not happy as those 3 riders do not seem to be serious and instead they show every reason to form the opinion, they are having a free holiday?
I want to say this, there is no training regime, no team work, no route planning and from what I can see no nothing!
Let me just share with you how far we are – 2 months, we intercepted this from an Italian / Israeli team – this is how far they have proceeded.
This brings me to my point Harphy – no one likes Nacramanga (including me), but we can agree, he has the most disciplined cycling team – so blue team will take over.
Just remember money does not grow on trees. This is a business decision.
Sorry to give so many bad news this time of the year. I felt it should come directly me, least you hear it from the others.
Chronicler
chronicler said
Harphy,
Transalps Challenge? I know you probably believe you are one of the ‘untouchables,’ bc Darkness regularly talks to you.
Listen to me. Last year, we sent 3 riders there. One of them broke his leg within the 1st km, the rest didnt even complete 100 km bc of mech issues!
The guild bankrolled this. They are not happy as those 3 riders do not seem to be serious and instead they show every reason to form the opinion, they are having a free holiday?
I want to say this, there is no training regime, no team work, no route planning and from what I can see no nothing!
Let me just share with you how far we are – 2 months, we intercepted this from an Italian / Israeli team – this is how far they have proceeded.
This brings me to my point Harphy – no one likes Nacramanga (including me), but we can agree, he has the most disciplined cycling team – so blue team will take over.
Just remember money does not grow on trees. This is a business decision.
Sorry to give so many bad news this time of the year. I felt it should come directly me, least you hear it from the others.
Chronicler
Harphoon said
Kiat,
What is your problem? I don’t understand.
astro boy said
Aiyah, why u even bother to ask harphy?
We all know how the shit flow chart comes around.
Council tekan Guild tekan Chronicler tekan us, then Darkness hammers the shit out of the Council and the whole shit starts again.
Standard lah. It’s been this way since I came in and I do not see why it should ever change. I personally dont think, its good for moral to threaten ppl.
AB
chronicler said
I met up with the asdf (council of the wise) today. They humiliated me. You see there is this article written by this reporter, Tracy Quek – apparently, she rubbishes all our reports and suggest that we were not thorough enough with our business plan – personally, I think, this is Sphgirl’s gang and they are gunning after us. Cut a long story short, we lost $ there, so they are angry.
They even told me, I may have to pay for it from my own pocket.
Chronicler.
chronicler said
I am sorry, if I came across as edgy. I have been under alot pressure from the memphisto and gang.
Darkness said
So they call me a liar.
Chronicler, inform the Navigation Guild break the time parallax and transport me to the year 1790 somewhere in the grounds in the palais de Versailles at exactly half past six on a June’s morn.
Tell the ASDF to send a representative to met me. We will settle in the old way.
Darkness said
I tired of talking.
atomic monkey said
That’s settled. Next time Chronicler come to us first. We’ve sort it.
Remember the internet is a great social networking tool, everyone knows everyone here.
scholarboy said
TWIMC,
Here you have maybe 2 or 3 levers to “control” – “bargain” – and if u r really savy and smart, even craft a way to “negotiate” for a compromise. All this is possible here.
You can do it here bc it is a fish tank.
Outside the fish tank, it’s the wide open sea, blue water, there’s no scope for anything. Nothing. Everything u r familiar with goes right out of the window.
Think!
Just remember this when you calculate your next move.
scholarboy said
Pls don’t come to us in the future and say; why didn’t we tell you this. We are telling you now in very clear and uncertain terms, so that you may reach a “good” decision and not an “emotional” one.
This is not a threat. It is a statement of fact as to what will and has to happen.
Try to roll with it. We know it doesn’t go down very well, trust me, we know – but what to do? That’s how it is with ; the truth.
Harphoon said
Chronicler, Broadcast this in the Strangelands. I feel it’s important to inspire many in the rubber band brigade working on the Olympics broadcast. Many of them are working with meager resources, under appreciated, but there is hope, there always is
Reg, Harphoon.
Why is so difficult to find a Singaporean Bill Gates? – A Journey To Self Discovery.
I am sure somewhere in Singapore there is a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs to be found? We’ve just haven’t found him yet – have you ever wondered why Singapore doesn’t regularly produce these sort of mavericks. I am not talking about just making machines, that I am sure is important. Rather the focus of this article is what does it really take to produce stuff that inspires meaningful to change in the way we work, live and play?
To put it in a nutshell, it’s a state of mind.
Is Singapore the place to produce these mavericks? As much as I like the idea supporting start-ups and nurturing entrepreneurship holds the key. By nurturing budding inventors, mentoring scientist, nourishing visionaries or even tooling good managers. I remain skeptical.
Do you really want to know why and what I believe it takes to be the next Singaporean Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?
Well before I begin, let me just say, I have as much credentials to talk about this subject as a bald headed man trying to sell you a comb. I am still one of those who haven’t really made it, rubber bands, superglue and duct tape still feature in my life to remind me, I am a long way from the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs– but there is one area where I do know a whole lot about, that’s the whole process of leveraging on innovation and creativity to create competitive advantage. I mean, I don’t know it like how it’s so often used today as a bag word when one hears it spoken on the radio, TV or even when one reads about it – I know it from the inside out, there’s a big difference, because if you really took the trouble to ask any of these people who regularly use these bag words. I guarantee, you’ve be hard pressed to get even one sentence of what they really mean when they use that term innovation and creativity.
In a sense when I see it being used so often these days to sell products, services and even justify ideas – the real meaning of “innovation and creativity,” is leaching away faster than a sugar cube in hot tea. There’s even the real danger it would probably end up being one of those words, like ‘your sincerely’ where we don’t even know what it really entails.
Let me give you an example of what I mean by a bag word, one bank describes its function as “leveraging its regional network to provide interconnectivity solutions by providing a portal to diverse markets.” I mean what does that mean? I really have no idea. I guess if you break it down with a sledge hammer, I means they’re there to help their customers wherever they are (period).
That in a nutshell is what the phrase “innovation and creativity” suffers from – large doses of gobbledygook and deficits of common sense.
And this brings into sharp focus my first point: if you really want to know what makes Bill Gates, Bill Gates – you first need to gut out much of the mumbo jumbo that is associated with the word “innovation and creativity.” That’s to say, you need to be able to pin that sucker down in a Petri dish and pick it up with a pair of forceps and say, that’s what it is – I see it and this is what it looks like. Sure “innovation and creativity” means different things to a scientist as it does to a common sense scholar, but lets be clear about it, if you don’t even have an inkling what it really means you might as well throw a dart from space and try to hit the bulls eye in some board in any pub – probabilities don’t make possibilities.
You just don’t know – and in short it just means, when you use those words they are convenient sound bites that mean very little and probably has as much inspirational quotient as graffiti in the shit cubicle.
Let’s get real – if words are like “innovation & creativity” is to transcend their dictionary meaning, it needs to take stock of the reality words apply directly to living communities. To give them a sense of scale that allows others to make sense of these words, they need to be de-constructed into the ordinary language where people can make sense of their meaning on a daily basis and even weave it into their life – it doesn’t really matter whether it is trying win the Nobel prize or to write that article your editor has been hounding you over. You first need to get first things first by getting a handle of on the word innovation and creativity.
That’s why when I hear words like “innovation and creativity” being used as an adjunct or at the end of a general statement and recently even “passion” has being thrown in for good measure, it irks me to enough to ask: how much do these people really know what they’re really talking about?
My point is this, if we are to progress, we need a clearer picture of what innovation and creative really means not from the outside only but beyond the mythology often clouds the whole picture of what really separates the winners from the losers – truth of the matter is Bill Gates was no more an innovator than someone who just extended the scope of on established idea. This may come as a big fat surprise to many, but you can go and check it out, if you don’t believe it – Microsoft word wasn’t a new revolutionary idea anymore than the steam engine was new to inventors who studied it and made it run on fuel instead of coal – it’s an idea that’s not so different from how the printing press gave way to paper and how Microsoft word was simply an extension of an established concept – that IBM bought into when they selected MS for the operating system of their new PC and made it an open standard. To put it in the right perspective – that’s what we typically term “innovation and creativity” it isn’t so much big bang theory stuff like splitting the atom as it is gloss on an old idea. Getting out of the hyped and spin sets the right perspective, it allows us to set realistic expectations and dramatically improves our chances of success in pursuing innovative and creative enterprises.
I feel qualified to say this because I being there, run the gauntlet even, got the T shirt seen it all. My first invention was termed as a dumber than dumb product. It didn’t stop me working on day and night in my kitchen. I even sold my car, house and everything and most of it is still floating around in ebay. Even today, I have absolutely no idea what I was really doing or even why – I just did it – I guess if you’re looking for a historical precedent that explains this sort of madness, it’s to be found in the silicon valley phenomenon of the 1970s which literally spawned garage industries powered solely by the dreams of young men and women. Not everything needs a really deep philosophical reason sometimes it just feels good to make stuff work.
That’s a far cry from an established formulaic approach that is currently sold and marketed as the great hope of innovation and creativity these days where polished science parks form the backdrop along with well paid and high educated people who go around spouting about innovation and creativity when they don’t even have a single patent that’s passed from the realm of theory, manufacturability to commercial success.
In truth the real innovators are people who all have this craving hunger and most of them are hanging out in garages soldering lousy components – as for the government, they don’t even feature, yes occasionally the dengue mosquito Mr fatso man makes his rounds and knocks on my door to check the flower pots. Or maybe a nice girl in a short skirt from the feed back unit flashes her card along with other stuff and ask whether I think a meteorite is going hit Singapore within the next 5 years – what they hell do you expect me to say after living like a caveman in my kitchen for 30 days – yes la and while we are at it let’s skip the foreplay and get down to the serious business of species preservation!
As for my dumb invention it failed, for years it languished in obscurity, despite my best efforts to promote it locally. Eventually, I tucked away in a shoe box and slipped it underneath my bed – by boss Dr Pang was right, “hey you think you are so smart! Let me tell you this, whatever is in your brain or will be in it has already being thought through by some ang moh!” Yeap he was right, I sold everything, placed it all on a number and lost it all – even lost my job and had to resort to writing love novels to pay off my debts. By that time, the only innovation and creativity I was reduced too staving off the heavily tattooed Ah Long. And the only “passion,” was the prospects of being nailed to a cross if I didn’t pay up my debts.
But as the sages say, we plan our lives only to be ruled by the god of accidents, on January 17, 1995 at 5:46:46 EMT in the Kobe a mother of an earthquake measuring 7.3 Richter struck with a force of at least 5 atomic bombs – overnight, that dumber than dumb bolt, I invented was pushed to the forefront, it didn’t make the headlines, not even as much as a ripple, but today, it’s used in bridges, rail road tracks, nuclear reactors and even mountain bikes.
Eventually, my patent was sold off for a modest fee to a Japanese firm specializing in toolsets – there was no fanfare – no confetti – no sense of vindication not even the slightest wave of redemption that comes from seeing a thing successfully through – It was a silent victory one which I celebrated all alone with a big Mac and a super sized coke laced with some cheap whisky in McDonalds. You could this is how the story isn’t supposed to end but what I say? I only live once and I am telling it the way it panned out.
I suppose what preoccupied me most during that period was only what I can describe as deep reflection what it is means to be proven so right, its an anti-climax, I realized – life is best understood as a learning journey, and we must all accept what comes to us in the guise of failure and adversity are all grist to the mill – innovation, creativity and passion, I realized aren’t just simply sound bites to be used and abused, they may be to others like some guy who stands up there in the podium or to even the pastor who drives a sports car who keeps talking about it – it’s a deep spirited commitment to the path of seeing a thing through and believing it will one day work out. I realized even those who are best qualified to talk about it aren’t so much possessors of these vision but merely their custodians – the quest I realized for searching for the likes of Bill Gates in Singapore was futile, misplaced even. Only because the role of leaders is not to put greatness into people but to elicit what’s already in all of us. For if the truth be known, Bill Gates is already in every single one of us.
That’s a good start a very good start indeed, only because it starts from the inside out this time.
[This has been brought to you by Aurora / written by Darkness / Technology / Economics 98372857 ES The Brotherhood Press 2007 / This article was first published in WOS (“What Others Say” and has been archived by the Brotherhood Press]
Harphoon for Darkness said
To The Internationale,
“There is a land I want share with all of you. I have seen; lived and fellowship with its people; who are those people who offer us sanctuary, no matter where we go? I have often called out their name only for nothing to come forth, not so much as a murmur. When our servers go, who are these faceless people who rush to fix them? Why do they do the things they do? Working furiously and mysteriously, as they do – never ever staying even long enough for a thank you? Again I looked on and called out their name and yet no reply came forth. No one knows whence they from. Some say they were born with the net, I just call them the rubber band brigade, the make do community and there are thousands of them working in garages, sheds and rooms where clothes go to die all over this planet. For the better part, they’re just killing time, figuring out endless ways to make their computer clock faster, never ever wishing to be seen, never to be counted and never to be heard. It’s just a way to go through life. No one even knows what motivates these people – no one cared, no one bothered and like all things that the world once considered worthless thrown to one corner like ragged doll, forgotten and crushed by the weight of time – yet I never stopped calling out their name. Then one day, one of them stepped forward from the shadows, followed by another and soon more came – here in this land where there is no boundaries imposed by nationality, race, creed or religion I saw them for what they were – fellow human beings – you ask why? Because I have always known, the furthest distance that separates two people is not two points from which the furthest stars stand apart, it is when I stand directly before you and you do not even see me or hear my name – I am darkness 2005”