What is your current state of mind?
I keep thinking about the $4 million house I’m supposed to be living in by now.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
A star. At least in my job now I get to work with the stars.

What is your biggest achievement?
The international acknowledgement that I get with working with the best celebrities of our time.

How do you spend your Sunday mornings?
I like to arrange gatherings with friends and share a good drink.

What is your idea of hell?
I’m not sure, but what you give is what you get. I believe in karma.

What is your guilty pleasure?
Furniture.

How do you recharge?
By watching TV. The news makes you feel a lot more fortunate when you see all the awful things going on in the world.

What’s playing in your iPod/MP3/CD player?
A mix of all sorts of music, what I hear depends on my mood.

What’s your taste like?
I generally like modern things with a classic touch.

What do you collect?
Furniture and lights. I also have tons of watches and bags.

Where would you like to live?
If I could choose anywhere at all, it’ll be Tokyo, because it challenges an artist creatively.

Who inspires you?
Madonna. She juggles family and career superbly and has a lot of drive. She’s an all-rounder who lives for the moment and has tremendous amounts of energy.

What personal trait do you appreciate the most in others?
Passion.

Which living person do you admire most and would like to invite for dinner?
Madonna. Or Zhang Ziyi.

Is there something about you that scares others?
My serious attitude, especially when it has anything to do with coiffure.

If you had to play a character in a movie, which movie and character would you choose to be?
I’ll just be myself and act according to how I feel at the moment.

What belief have you carried on with you since you were 18?
To be honest with yourself and not waver when it comes to your goals.

The Style Asia Presents Singapore Water Polo Championships 2006 is in view and we eye the hunky sportsmen as they sweat it out. Thrilled, we jumped into our swimwear and got wet with one of them.

Any recommendations for this year’s most fashionable beach wear?
My vote is for the bikini! This beach apparel will never go out of fashion.

Besides having a gorgeous physique, what are the other advantages of undergoing tough water polo training?
Water polo promotes sportsmanship and teamwork. It builds one’s character and enhances one’s EQ and IQ. In addition, we get to hang out with a great bunch of guys!

Do you have screaming bikini babes rooting for you every time you compete in water polo competitions?
Yes! We do have girls screaming during competitions, but it’s likely that they just want us to score the goals. Unfortunately, they were not dressed in bikinis! But we are indeed anticipating some lady-supporters in bikinis at the Style Asia Presents Singapore Water Polo Championships 2006.

Who is your most ardent supporter?
I have two. They are the women in my life—mummy dearest and my fiancée.

What are the ingredients for a wet and wild time in the water?
Wet and Wild Time = Hot Babes + Hot Water Polo Players.

Ever swam with sharks?
Yup, I get that feeling when playing against my teammates! The rule of survival applies—eat or be eaten.

Boys drenched in water are attractive because…
Of the added definition that is made to their six pack hot bods, the luscious muscular silhouette … But I am more into girls.

We know your favorite outdoor sport. So what’s your favorite indoor sport?
TV marathon! I am quite a TV junkie and a couch potato. However, I am rarely allowed to indulge in this pastime now, with a heavy work schedule and the training.

What is more exhibitionistic, doing fashion shows or swimming? Why?
Both! At fashion shows we flaunt our hot bods and try to get the nonchalant catwalk look right, when playing water polo we get to exhibit our talents and strikes.

What were you doing before you went into fossil hunting and marine exploration?
I was a professional diver of tropical fish at 20, and I lived in a sailboat before that in San Francisco. I fell in love with marine life then.

Who or what sparked your interest in fossil hunting and marine exploration?
During one of my dive jobs at the Dominican Republic, one of the miners showed me an unpolished piece of amber with a bug inside. That triggered my interest in spiders, insects, lizards and frogs. From there, I branched out to looking for shipwrecks and dinosaurs.

How did you learn the ropes of fossil hunting? Did you encounter any difficulties along the way?
I read a lot of books and papers, did other research, and spoke with the relevant people. I didn’t have many difficulties except that diving and fossil hunting was considered “a man’s job” and I had to first prove myself. Once I passed that, everything was alright.

How did you find Sue’s fossils?
In 1990, I was a volunteer with the Black Hill Institute where they often searched for dinosaur bones. I had been looking for dinosaurs without success for 10 years. That day, everyone else left the Institute, and I went out walking along the cliff and found a hollow three vertebrae fossil bone in a ranch 30km north of a town called Faith in South Dakota. Only carnivorous dinosaurs have hollow bones, and I was pretty sure it was a T-Rex.

How would you describe your first reaction when you found Sue?
Utter disbelief. Even until today. I think the first word I muttered was an expletive.

How can you tell Sue’s age?
At the place where I found Sue, the rocks were around 65 to 68 million years old, so that would roughly be the time when Sue died.

Among all your hunting and exploration adventures, which did you enjoy the most and why?
Finding Sue, as it’s important both scientifically and publicly. My favorite dive expedition was one in San Diego, when I found a shipwreck and a 400-year-old chicken egg! Also, the sunken city of Herakleion, where I found statues of the Pharaoh and his wife.

Describe some of the experiences you have had among all your adventures, good or bad.
Diving is more dangerous than fossil hunting, while fossil hunting is relatively safe if you’re well prepared. There was once, though, when I had my truck stuck in the Chilean desert with no water. If you’re unlucky, you may fall off a cliff.

The ex-senator whose well-known slogan is “One Husband, One Wife” has regularly appeared in local newspapers, criticizing songs like “Khon Leaw Tii Rak Teur”, music videos like “Doom Doom” and pocket books like Ying: Sex. Her straightforward, conservative critiques again and again become the talk of the town. She never ceases promoting monogamy and campaigning against pre-marital sex and sex in the media, even though she gets a lot of negative feedback. Apart from making public appearances, she also is Chairman of the Happy Family Association and president of HIV Patient Help Centers, which have 851 branches in 74 provinces.

The fact that the rate of HIV infection in teenagers is a lot more than in the other age groups concerns me. Youngsters these days have sex earlier than in our generation. And many of them don’t use condoms.

I’m worried about these kids. If they are all infected with HIV or addicted to drugs, the country will lack quality people. That’s why I campaign for women to preserve their virginity and for people to have a social conscience, especially those in the media.

The media is very influential to the young ones. They consume news and entertainment all day long, in and out of the home. A picture we see lives on our mind, lasting longer than what we hear, smell or taste. Research shows that 87% of what we perceive influences changes in us.

We are making wrong things normal. Violence, rape, murder and nudity are seen in newspapers and on TV every day. Some teenagers like to say it’s fine to dress sexy because actresses on TV do so. In newspapers or magazines, they answer sex questions boldly.

We are becoming a society addicted to sex. Fathers have sex with daughters, grandpas with granddaughters, teachers with students and everything ends up on the front page.

That famous singer can’t say the DNA test proves that he’s not the father. The fact that he had sex with such a young girl shows he has no morals or virtue.

I’m going to write a letter of congratulations to James Ruengsak. He appropriately said that he has a girlfriend but he will set an example for teenagers by not hugging or kissing in public. He said an actor or singer could be counted as a teacher. Kids see them, remember what they do and imitate.

Look at Laos singer, Alexandra Boonchuay—she’s very lovely, always wearing traditional dress. Do we have such a nice example in Thailand? Laos’ calendars are praiseworthy. No nudity in them.

In Thailand, just to sell alcohol, they spend millions to hire a model, as if the quality of their product can’t sell itself.

Sometimes, some families encourage their sons in the wrong way. If you are a man, you can’t touch a broom. Housework is women’s work. When that son grows up, they bring him to a whorehouse. Why train your child like that?

Some people say I work on monogamy because my husband has a mia noi, or I have a mental problem. There’re a lot of people who don’t like me. But I don’t care; I know what I’m doing.

Even when being threatened, I don’t feel afraid. We live once and we die once. I had some threatening letters, saying rude words, asking to have sex with me. Karma will return to them. I don’t have to do anything. One day they will regret it.

I never mean bad things to anybody. I just try to contribute to society.

I want to see women prove themselves with their brains, not their flesh.

I never blame women. Whether they are mia luang or mia noi, once they belong to a man, they will love him with all their heart.

Was this your first time in the competition?
No, it’s my second. Last year I didn’t even pass the first round.

Why do you think you failed in last year’s contest?
Because I didn’t truly know what “flair” was. I was a bit upset, but it was my own fault for not studying enough. I did more homework this time. I prepared for two months, paying more attention to the soundtrack and on pouring drinks and juggling bottles.

Why do you think you won this time?
Calmness, maybe. I was calmer in the performance than the others. Personality, too.

What are the cocktails you made in the contest?
Bacardi Gossip and Barcadi Whisper. They are scented and sweet and sour—good for the ladies.

Is it different, making cocktails in Amanpuri and in Bangkok?
Of course. Amanpuri is a simple, quiet resort for businessmen who don’t want hustle and bustle. It’s more serene, so cocktails are mostly frozen ones. Bangkok cocktails should be more colorful.

Have you ever been to Italy? How do you feel about going there?
Never. I am very excited to go to the international stage. I have no pressure. I will go to gain more experience and learn new things so I can come back to improve
my own skill.

How did you prepare for the international competition?
I needed to prepare a lot more. There, I know nobody so no one can help me. I will have to do everything myself.

What is your career goal?
It may be opening a bartending school and teaching a new generation of bartenders. I have experience, knowledge and skill, so I want to pass on all my knowledge.

Why do you think cocktails aren’t very popular among Thai people?
I think they don’t understand what a cocktail is. It’s not just soda, whisky and bottoms up! It’s an art. It’s not just drinking to get drunk. Drinking cocktails, you have to enjoy the smell and the feel of it, in a romantic way.

It’s tough staying true to yourself. Most people are constrained by environmental and societal inhibitions from expressing themselves. Which is why Tara Melwani, the woman at the helm of the Jay Gee Group, which distributes Levi’s Jeans, launched the “Stay True” campaign recently under the Levi’s banner—to discover what makes individuals original and different, and to celebrate individualism.

What is your current state of mind?
A happy mental state of mind.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
My ambitions change every year, from an air stewardess to piano teacher to social worker. I’ve also done graphic design.

What inspires you?
My spiritual teacher, the Dalai Lama; and this current “Stay True” campaign.

What personal trait do you appreciate the most in others?
Kindness.

What is your idea of hell?
When you are a prisoner of your own mind, when you go through physical pain because of some illness or when you go through very difficult experiences like a divorce, a break-up—that’s hell.

What’s your guilty pleasure?
Drinking cappuccino and the sugar I add into it.

How do you recharge?
I need quiet time to focus my mind. My mind creates the experience of my life and affects how I feel. I take time to reflect and flip my mind to take a different view of things.

What’s playing in your ipod/MP3/CD player?
’80s music.

What are you reading?
Practicing the Path by Yangsi Rinpoche.

What do you collect?
Nothing. I’ve given practically all my clothes away and my wardrobe is kept to its minimum.

Where would you like to live?
Singapore. I have never lived anywhere else.

Do you have a cause or do you support one?
I’m raising funds now for the Maitreya Project Universal Education School in Bodhgaya, India.

What is your biggest achievement?
Organizing the Dalai Lama’s public talk in Bangalore a few years ago. It was attended by 9,000 people.

How do you spend your Sunday mornings?
In silence, meditating and reading the newspapers.

Which person do you admire most and would like to invite for dinner?
Mother Theresa, the Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi.

What about you that scares others?
I honestly don’t know. You have to ask them.

If you had to play a character in a movie, which movie and which character?
I would want to be the fifth hobbit in The Lord of the Rings. There are only four hobbits, so they’ll have to create a fifth girl hobbit just for me.

What did you believe at 18 that you wish you still believe now?
Everyone has goodness in them and wants to make a difference in the world. And that it’s our right to be happy in this world. I believed in these then and I still do now.

In The Great War, parsleys stand proudly upright, resembling trees in a dense forest. With the help of a sprayer, rain pelt down mercilessly on toy soldiers holding little machine guns. We stare awestruck as animated objects tell us a story about soldiers during the First World War. With mouths agape, we sit down with performer Herman Helle to know more about the play.

What can we expect from The Great War?
The Great War is about the life of the soldiers in the trenches of Europe during World War I. We do that with miniature battlefields, sugar, parsley, little guns, little cannons, puppet soldiers which are about 10cm high, and small surveillance cameras. We’re making live animation, using simple props to create realistic effects such as explosions. There will be a composer on stage too. We also have letters from real soldiers which tell of what happened then.

What kind of dramatic elements will drive the play?
There are several. The landscape at first is a beautiful portrait of Western European villages. During the play, it gets destroyed and becomes more like hell. Another important part is the sound. The soundman will have sounds on his computer, but he’ll also use objects to make “live” sounds for horses and the wind. There are also the surprise factors that’ll drive the play. For example, the scene may be peaceful one moment, and the next, you’re in a middle of a tremendous attack, with lots of noise and explosions. People may get the feeling that we’re just grownups playing with puppets in the beginning, but after a while, they believe in the story. Because they know what they see is not real, they use their imagination and get very involved. These are the elements that’ll drive the play.

Is the play going to be cinematic and dark, or is it hopeful?
It is not very hopeful. There is a scene of dead soldiers, where you will see snow and rain. You see that war is over and life goes on, but still, there are people lying beneath the earth. The ending is not so much hopeful but sad and melancholic.

Why do you choose World War I as the subject for this show, and not other wars, like World War II?
We wanted to do a universal story about all wars. The First World War was the first real modern war in Europe. Machine guns, poison gas, tanks, airplanes, submarines and torpedoes were used for the first time and in a way, the war says something about all wars in general. But the Second World War was much more complicated. There is the Holocaust, the Germans and more. It’s very hard to tell a general story using the Second World War. It’s easier to talk on a more general and universal level with the First World War.

How did you go about researching for The Great War?
Coming from The Netherlands, we did have to do quite a bit of research. Holland was neutral, while Europe was at war at that time. We had to read a lot and look at documentaries. We also went to the battlefields in Belgium and France. We saw the trenches, the ruins, the barbed wires and the forests.

So where has the show been performed at?
Besides Holland, we have performed in France, Spain, Slovenia, Poland, Germany, Britain and Italy. Singapore is our first stop in Asia, and I’m happy to visit the place where my father had spent part of his life at. He was a prisoner of war at Changi Prison.

Rock ’n’ roll has often been associated with several things—sex, drugs, youth or that antisocial dude stoning in a corner and talking to his guitar. We chat up producer Azrin Abdul Rahim, who tries to give rock music a more wholesome image in his newest offer, Rock Opera The Musical—A Rock Anthology, a Malay musical with English subtitles.

What’s the concept behind the show?
It’s a sequel to last year’s Rock Opera—An Artiste Life. The whole concept of Rock Opera The Musical—A Rock Anthology is to bring the appreciation for music, especially rock music, to a new level. We’re looking at how we can increase appreciation by including ethnic elements and an orchestra. Ultimately, the whole concept lies in this one liner: “progressing without leaving behind your roots.”

What kind of ethnic elements will we see?
There will be ethnic percussion instruments, and the story line is very multiracial. It talks about how the main character and his band, Roots in Motion, struggle for five years before they get signed as an artist under an Indonesian label. Their promoter is an Indian guy, and the main character is in love with a Eurasian girl.

Tell us more about the performers.
We have a blend of actors and four professional singers. The freelance actors have done stage and TV. I have full time musicians with me too. Look out for people such as Sulaiman Ekbah, Azyza and Eka Mairina.

Why do you choose to revolve the story around rock musicians?
I am captivated by the energy of rock music. Rock is a metaphor for energy in the show. In the ’80s, the top rock bands were the Malay groups. Rock music is what we as a community, is good at. It’s one of our achievements. When you think of a rocker, you think of a Malay guy. But now, there are a lot of negative opinions towards rock, and I want to turn things around. I hope to use the energy to bring across desirable values and beliefs.

The theme song is composed by revered Malaysian artiste M. Nasir. What is it about?
The title of the song is “Cin Tamuagung.” Literally translated, it means “greatness of love.” My personal view is that the song is about self awareness and love between people. But on another level, it’s also about the manifestations of love between man and his creator, saying how this love has no barrier and cuts through time.

Are all the songs featured in the musical rock numbers?
The musical tells a story about rockers, but in terms of music, we have different genres of music besides rock. We have ballads, pop, blues and more. The whole idea is to fuse everything well, and to make the music sound good and acceptable to the masses. I hope that at the end of the day, people can relate to it.

Do you intend to come up with a sequel next year?
Yes, some people may feel this show is not a full musical because there is quite a bit of dialogue being spoken instead of sung. Next year, I plan to produce a full blown musical, with more dialogue sung.

Are you pure Peranakan or is only one of your parents Peranakan?
Both my parents are Peranakans, but I have to clarify. In the past, when a Chinese man marries a local woman, they and their children are Peranakans. It is more of how much you live a Peranakan’s lifestyle that matters.

Can you explain why the Peranakan culture has such a great influence on you when it is usually something which older folks are interested in?
When I was 15, I watched a baba play with my father and he was crying throughout the show, but I didn’t understand a word of it. I replayed it and examined the subtitles, jokes, insults, ceremonies, household lifestyles. Eventually, it got me interested in the lifestyles of our forefathers.

What is it about the Peranakan culture that intrigues you?
The Peranakan culture is the fusion between the Chinese culture and the local culture with smacks of European influences. Peranakans were rich and philanthropic. They commissioned works of tea sets, porcelain and beads onto jewelry, and so on. There are amazing pieces of jewelry bearing Chinese culture with Malay influences, tea sets of European designs but with Chinese motifs foisted on them. That’s what intrigues me the most.

What’s your most prized Peranakan possession and why?
A beaded shoe handmade by my mother. We were very poor when I was young and had no antiques in the house until I started buying them. The first item I bought was the sedan chair (senda) and that’s a favorite piece too.

How has introducing the Peranakan heritage and culture among tourists and Singaporeans helped them?
Younger Singaporeans are more aware of their roots and cultures. After touring my home, they trawl through family photographs and some discover that they are actually of Peranakan descent. They understand the intricacies behind the work of the kebaya. The Europeans and the British become aware of how they have influenced the Chinese, and the French are astonished to see their own kind of beads on Peranakan patchwork.

How do you view the future of the Peranakan culture in Singapore?
It has already died out because we don’t live the way we did 200 years ago. But Indians and Chinese also don’t live like they did years ago. The issue is what constitutes a baba or nonya lifestyle. Food will stay, other practices will evolve and customary ancestral worship will die out as more embrace Catholicism and Christianity. It is evolving into a culture of study rather than one that exists, but I don’t feel that that’s a bad thing.

Phyllis Battle toured the world as a (post-flower power era) member of the Grammy Award-winning group, Fifth Dimension. The former legal secretary got her start 25 years ago as a back-up singer of choice for the likes of Donna Summer, Rita Coolidge, and Nancy Sinatra. Ms. Battle’s boots, it seems, were made for walkin’—at least until last week when she sprained her ankle on a Charoen Krung sidewalk.

The now bandaged diva is recovering nicely and performing six nights a week at the Oriental Hotel’s cozy, but smokey Bamboo Bar. Her surprisingly subtle voice is evocative of jazz greats like Nancy Wilson and Carmen Macrae, but is at times overpowered by the very capable Bamboo Bar band. Ms. Battle is at her best when given the room to open up and allow her very authentic takes on jazz standards to be fully expressed. Phyllis Battle is the real thing.

Naturally BK wanted to hear all of the juicy celebrity gossip, but Ms. Battle remained appropriately tight-lipped and professional, except for a passing mention of an incident involving a well-known disco-era diva, her male roadies and raw eggs.

We leave it to you to press her for the details, and remind our readers that Phyllis is here because of her first love—jazz. Requests for Fifth Dimension hits like “Up, Up, and Away,” “One Less Bell to Answer,” and “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” just might fall on deaf ears. So drop by the Bamboo Bar and lend Ms. Phyllis Battle your ears, your support, and an ACE bandage or two...