Sin City, Jay Bee – a tribute to Johor Bahru


by Azly Rahman

Where have all those memories gone
Of the city that never sleeps
Sin-filled you are
… Offering life’s panorama
A pandora box of a lushness of emotions

Jay Bee
You may be called a city of filth
Of gang wars and transvestite agalore
Of rock kapak geniuses conceived immaculately
From the womb of Papa Rock
Ahhh New Johor … New York you may want to be
Thou shall never attain that notoriety

Sweet city sin city
Celebrating the velocity of money
It is there I knew love’s inner beauty
As we walked up and down the Lido Beach
whose middle name is “filthy”
Ohh Jay Bee … you are a soul that is one with me

Jay Bee
Sin city
where politics stink
where corruption gets a nice daily wink
where the power elites are the underground kings
where the poor are hoodwinked
where the children of the working class roam the streets in motorcycles with bilng bing
where the smell of ganja filled the air like a pissed-on fermented drink
Ahh Jay Bee
City of Sins

Your hunchback of Tanjung Puteri is dead and gone
Committed sepuku at the sight of what has become
Of you sin city Jay Bee
Si Bongkok died of a death he long-willed for
As the sight of the crooked bridge broke his heart that exploded with a roar
Ahhh… thanks to the Johor Corridor
And the Disney of Nusajaya Johoreans adore
Sin city
Jay Bee
Your economy, like a Segget River , stinks till eternity

Love is gone
Of the one my heart held on
As I walked countless miles
Along the Lido beach
Time has not been kind
To this city that never sleeps
To this sin city
That weeps
The yesteryears of the loss of pride that run deep
Love is gone
The deal is sealed
Sin city you are now sold
To the forked tongued nationalists grown old like ageing Disneys

Sin city
Jay Bee
You were once mine
You will no longer be

  1. #1 by undertaker888 on Sunday, 24 April 2011 - 1:12 pm

    anything that pokey muck umno touches will turn to filth. they have this king my-a$$ touch.

  2. #2 by limkamput on Sunday, 24 April 2011 - 1:29 pm

    It is not just JB
    It is every town and city
    From KB, Tawau to JB
    People do whatever they please

    Yes, cities of disorderly
    Clogged drains
    Filthy eateries
    Garbage plenty

    Local government is about pomp and pageantry
    Officials sitting around waiting for corrupted money
    There are no mandated duties
    There is no accountability

  3. #3 by sheriff singh on Sunday, 24 April 2011 - 3:05 pm

    “Sin City, Jay Bee”

    hey, man. You forgot to mention that old famous place where the action was not too long ago.

    You know, that famous place where the the Singaporeans used to flock over every night for the ‘show’ (wink, wink).

    It used to be the in-place where everybody goes to, even the big-shots and it was near where the Palace is.

    I am of course referring to the Seaview Hotel where that famous club was:

    MECHINTA NIGHT CLUB

    Those who grew up on both sides of the Johore Straits can never forget this place and its ‘floor shows’ (hehehehe). Enough said.

  4. #4 by on cheng on Sunday, 24 April 2011 - 3:13 pm

    Johor, stronghold of BN, also have the highest water tariff in Malaysia, after Johor start purify raw water, Johorean! wake up, why with relative low population density, high water resources, how can your water more expensive than Penang or Selangor or Kedah?

  5. #5 by waterfrontcoolie on Sunday, 24 April 2011 - 5:03 pm

    I am wondering what happen to Cintanegara. He should be able to explain all those negative images of this nation. Or he in in agreement that all those characteristics are in line with our national objectives in term of Maruah? Surely, one cannot be so blind as to see nothing in spite of news reports; which in fact are reported randomly. The costs of crimes are such that the real impacts will never be computed, not even by cintanegara. Anyway, he prefers to compute only those rambutans on his trees!
    The national wasteage based on all these negative actions is large eniugh to stagnant our progress to the Dreamland of 2020!

  6. #6 by raven77 on Monday, 25 April 2011 - 12:35 am

    Sad isnt it….home of UMNO…now a world renowned sin city not to mention the horrific infrastraucture, its disorderly traffic and truly dirty drains………..

    Its a dream gone by….I am not sure even if PR comes to power they would be able to clean up this place anymore…

    Perhaps the Sultan ought to cede JB to Singapore to save it….

  7. #7 by boh-liao on Monday, 25 April 2011 - 12:39 am

    D WORST icon in JB is CIQ – d building dat showcases d incompetence of M’sian designers n officers 2 all visitors (who drive or by bus) d moment they arrive in JB fr Sg
    CIQ is truly a ill functioning building – cars got jammed, causing a long queue back to Sg, n pedestrians kena punished walking long U-turns, pity d seniors n those with weak legs
    Just listen 2 d curse n swear of drivers n pedestrians while they r there
    CIQ – d building dat brings national SHAME n showcases d BODOHness of UmnoB/BN

  8. #8 by dagen on Monday, 25 April 2011 - 9:01 am

    Lee Kuan Yew is laughing right now isnt he. Didnt he say this many many years ago. That jb is like a cowboy town – a town full of kidnappers and carjackers (something like that). And whoooa, those protests by loyalist true malaysians in umno and in mca, then.

  9. #9 by desireegasper on Wednesday, 27 April 2011 - 12:26 pm

    Dear Mr Azly,

    Could you please explain why you wrote this poem? Did you experience all these things yourself or did you hear about it from someone else?

You must be logged in to post a comment.