My childhood is at times a little hazy. I remember “seeing” things which I still can’t prove are real or made-up.

When I was younger (and barely a teen) – I got my education and reading material from magazines like Circus, Metal Edge and Hit Parader. I would buy them in 2nd hand bookshops a couple months (or even years) after the original publish date. I remembered picking up a copy of CIRCUS magazine once and saw New Kids on the Block featured in it and was seriously What the Fucking. 20 years later it still kind of boggles me up till a few minutes ago when I found an article written in 1990 about this.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3065/is_n10_v19/ai_8914548/

In short, the New Kids on the Block boosted sales in teen magazines when they appeared in or on the front cover. The idiot at Circus Magazine thought maybe by featuring NKOTB in their “Heavy Metal” magazine, it would appeal to other teens to buy the magazine and eventually “dawdle a little bit” before moving up to magazines like CIRCUS. The magazine had one of the sharpest fall offs, a 29.3 percent drop, from 307,092 in the first half of 1989 to 217,056 in 1990. Now the WTF award goes to the publisher and editor in Chief for Circus Magazine at the time – Gerald Rothberg – for thinking this kind of marketing would work. Brave move but FAIL.

I’ve been meaning to write about this. Will possibly create a ‘category’ for my somewhat dormant ‘journalistic’ skills…..must kickstart “thinktivity” in hopes not to burn what little is left.

Last week (and how aptly on Friday, the 13th), it came to my attention that Greek “black metal” band ROTTING CHRIST is set to perform in Malaysia in May. The tentative place for absolute chaos is Stadium Melawati in SHAH ALAM. This is all sorts of WTF.

Let’s break it down in point form:

• First of all, the band’s name is ROTTING CHRIST and for them to perform in a Muslim country (with already ridiculous laws about concerts) is an instant WTF #1. Perhaps they can escape the blatant blasphemy by using their ‘metal’ logo when filling out permit forms. From a dyslexic point of view – it looks like “Rolling Thrist”

• WTF #2 is the TBC place of concert – in SHAH ALAM. The most conservative-predominately malay-muslim area in the Klang Valley. Ironically, it’s the Malay-muslim men that are the biggest fans for this genre of music.

• WTF #3 - Malaysia has made headlines for their ridiculous conceptions of what is “black metal” is. Forget the music, if you’re wearing black and listen to rock you worship Satan. Here are a couple articles online you can refer to:

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1473198.stm
• http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1137605897185
• http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/BlabberMouth.Net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=46261

Some years back at a local hardcore show, some idiot reported it to be a black metal show with goat sacrificition (crap is that even a word? Sorry all this WTF is getting to me and now I can’t continue with the “WTF”’s.)

To be continued after lunch…. in the meantime, look/listen to the awesomeness that is ROTTING CHRIST:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syMDP5xhCbo]