Spankin' DA Monkey - Dave Avran's blog: 03/01/2005

"You don't have to swim faster than the shark, just faster than the guy next to you." - Anonymous

Friday, March 25, 2005

I had to trade him my Porsche calendar for an interview

Posted by: Dave Avran / 7:58 PM 1 comments

what would we do without our phone cameras?

Posted by: Dave Avran / 7:56 PM 1 comments

How To Be A Bad Boy

There I was in La Bodega Deli, Bangsar, sipping on my overpriced draught beer and discussing a new website with partners-in-crime Stuart Godwin and Arvind Pasricha when I saw them out of the corner of my eye.

My peripheral vision picked up a gorgeous chinawoman draped around a typical bad boy. The more she sinuously snuggled up to him, the more he ignored her. Suddenly my beer tasted flat and jealousy flooded my mouth with its hideously familiar taste.

You know the type - the swaggering, cocky, macho jerk who treats women like they're replaceable, while they're waiting in line to climb into his bed. Men hate these guys, yet women love them.

Ask any single woman on the street what she's looking for in a man and she'll tell you that she wants a nice guy with a sense of humor who will treat her well. But then she'll turn around and fall all over herself trying to get a Bad Boy who will use and abuse her.

What's going on here, dude?

Granted, what women say and what they actually do are generally miles apart, but even the usual female self-deceit doesn't seem to cover this one. So let's look first at some of the traits of the typical Bad Boy and see what we can learn from him.

I promptly speed dialed my astrologer and arranged a séance with the late James Dean. In return for a copy of the 2005 Porsche calendar, this is what he shared with me:

The typical Bad Boy

is cocky, arrogant
always puts himself first
is inattentive to a woman's needs
does what he wants when he wants to do it, regardless of what anyone else thinks
acts like a loose cannon
struts his masculine sexuality
isn't even remotely a "nice" guy
treats women badly
often uses women for sex

All negative character traits, to say the least. Yet women flock to these creeps in droves. Why? No sane woman would openly choose to be abused, so there must be some other factors operational here. To find the answer, we must examine the positive side of the Bad Boy traits to see what women are really attracted to.

A Bad Boy exudes untamed masculinity, independence and confidence. To women, these traits, especially confidence are an aphrodisiac. The problem is, in the hands of the Bad Boy, confidence becomes selfish arrogance. But women are responding to guys like this on a purely elemental, emotional level.

Just as men are turned on by a woman's femininity, so too do women respond to overt male masculinity - and the Bad Boy has it in buckets. What's going on here is that she's having a gut reaction to his confidence and male strength, and is blind to anything else.

So the trick is to learn to take the Bad Boy's negative traits and spin them in a positive direction to make them work for you - in other words, to become a Bad Boy without really being "bad." This way, you can still maintain your gentleman status without turning into an abusive jerk.

Yes I realize the temptation to insert Micheal Jackson’s name here with all the references to “Bad”, “Boy” “insert”, “spin” and “jerk”. However, decorum shall prevail and I shall resist. Sorry, I seem to have gone on a tangent and I digress…

Here are a few things you can do to improve your Bad Boy status…

Dial up the independence
Act as if you couldn't possibly care less about getting women. Never change who you are to please a woman or in the hope that you'll get her into bed. Get involved in your own life and your own interests. Make plenty of time for male stuff. Your attitude should be: "This is who I am -- if you like it, fine; if you don't, fug orf."

Don't show emotions
Be indifferent and don't show you care. You should have a poker face at all times. Remain mysterious and don't let women know what you're thinking. Keep them guessing.

Furthermore, ration your words and make sure everything you say has a purpose. Don't volunteer information. Simply answer a question if asked.

Put the kibosh on crap
Refuse to tolerate any female BS. When she tries to test you, don't give in - tell her to grow up. Don't be afraid to say "no." Stand your ground, or simply walk away from a situation.

Get her off the pedestal. Run the relationship by your rules, not hers. If you don't agree with her, say so - don't be a doormat in the hope of getting laid. And if she doesn't like it, show her the door.

Light your fire
Bad Boys are all about sexual confidence, and women appreciate confident lovers. So don't be afraid to let your natural masculine sexuality shine. This doesn't mean you should go around leering at female chests all day, but you should be comfortable and confident about letting a woman know you're attracted to her without becoming a pawing jerk. And when you do step up to the plate, make sure you know what you're doing in the bedroom.

Make yourself scarce
For women, guys who are too available are boring. Bad Boys are selfishly independent - they aren't desperately hanging around women, hoping to get tossed a few scraps of attention.

Women always want what they can't have, so make yourself busy and scarce. Be a mystery man. Be unpredictable. Be a challenge -- let her do some work to get you.

Turn on the confidence
Bad Boys always assume that women want them - insecurity has no place in their personal vocabularies. This is the exact opposite of the usual male desperation. So your attitude should be that you're the catch, not that women are doing you a favor by talking to you.

You can't afford to be too nice - catering to women, agreeing with every word they utter, paying for female attention (all things Bad Boys don't do) - because women see this as "weak" and wimpy.

Be decisive and don't hesitate when talking. Don't second-guess yourself after you've made a decision. Voice your opinion and don't worry about offending others.

Bad boys, bad boys

Bad Boys may be jerks, but they have a lot to teach the average guy about attracting women. By observing a few of these typical Bad Boy traits in action, you can learn to use them to your advantage without giving up your nice status.

Even if you don't look like Brad Pitt, you can still attract lots of women simply by oozing male confidence. Or you could buy a Harley like that jerk in La Bodega.

Yes, I’m still jealous - dammit.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 7:37 PM 3 comments

Monday, March 21, 2005

Last night, the Drifters led by Billy Washington performed for an hour and sang their greatest hits:
WHEN MY LITTLE GIRL IS SMILING
SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME
UP ON THE ROOF
THIS MAGIC MOMENT
UNDER THE BOARDWALK
SWEETS FOR MY SWEET
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES
ON BROADWAY
THERE GOES MY BABY
DANCE WITH ME
I DONT WANT TO GO ON
ROOMFUL OF TEARS

Posted by: Dave Avran / 11:40 AM 0 comments

They epitomized the vocal group sound of New York City. Theirs was the sweet but streetwise sound of R&B suffused with gospel influences.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 11:22 AM 0 comments

There have been 30 different singers who, at one time or another, were members of the group known as The Drifters, including Ben E King. The Drifters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988

Posted by: Dave Avran / 11:08 AM 0 comments

The Drifters were an important band in the history of Rock N Roll as they served to link fifties Rhythm & Blues and Doo Wop with sixties soul music.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 11:03 AM 0 comments

My sincere thanks to Mr Arun Chandran, Executive Assistant Manager, Holiday Villa Subang for the generous invitation, dinner and the unique opportunity to witness a piece of history in action.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 10:58 AM 1 comments

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Paula Abdul, Clay Aitken, actor Alan Cumming actor Bai Ling, jazz musician Ken Watanabe, singer Ruth Sahanaya, magician David Blaine, actor Nick Stahl (Carnivale) Joey Fatone (N Sync) and Carmen Electra.
Datuk Michelle Yeoh later became a translator for Jackie Chan, who brought Nicholas Tse and Yumiko Cheng on stage for their performance.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 1:05 AM 0 comments

the highlight of the concert was the reunion of Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill. Both were former members of the Fugees. They belted out three songs Oh La La La', Ready or Not' and Killing Me Softly' from their old repertoire.
Local artistes Sheila Majid, Innuendo, Dayang Nurfaizah and Anuar Zain performed five songs.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 1:04 AM 0 comments

13,000 people packed the Stadium Putra in Bukit Jalil

Posted by: Dave Avran / 12:56 AM 0 comments

The concert, scheduled at 7pm, started an hour later. It surpassed its target collection of RM10 million, which will be used for relief efforts.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 12:54 AM 0 comments

Force Of Nature

While I have the utmost respect and admiration for the monetary aid and efforts generated by force Of nature, I have a few questions, too:

1. With the heavy duty people involved in the FON, is raising RM10 million all we're capable of? With the PM personally behind this admirable effort, 10 minutes on the telephone with the likes of Berjaya corp, YTL, IJM, Petronas, Astro et al would have yielded 100 times that amount in pledges, in my humble opinion.

2. Do we really need international acts to generate interest in a purely Malaysian fund raising effort? Can our top Malaysian artistes not pack the house? Sadly, the answer seems to be no.

3. Why was the massive FON publicity effort such a mystery? The website raised more questions than answers. There was no secretariat. There was no telephone, email contact or FAQs. There were no media resources or press release downloads, least of all an image gallery.

So where were we to source information from? My colleagues in the media were calling me for updates as often as I was calling them, all of us going round and round in circles.

At the end of the day, it left me with a bitter feeling of "shiok sendiri" in the mouth. Let's create some major hoopla and amuse ourselves while doing a little bit of charity. It's sad. to me, FON had the capability and capacity to do wonders, yet at the end of the day it fizzled out and spluttered like a wet sparkler left out in the rain compared to its humoungous potential for humanitarianism.

Many years down the line, people still talk about about "live aid" and "we are the world". For me, FON did not generate that kind of publicity outside of Malaysia, despite the involvement of heavyweight Malaysian politicians, public listed corporations, Malaysian celebrities, global celebrities, personalities, and the backing of international media juggernauts.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 12:01 AM 7 comments

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Thanks to the kind people at UMW Toyota Motors Sdn Bhd, I ended up going for the F1 again this year.
As usual, I wasted no time as I went in search of photo opportunitinies of high performance machines.

Posted by: Dave Avran / 11:58 PM 0 comments