OstrichSpeak

Meat

2007-10-14T05:11:00.000-07:00

I stared at the steaming pile of corned beef in front of me.

It wobbled gently from side to side from the force of its landing

Little bits of onion and tomato made it all the more vivid

I thought to myself, " This meat has issues"

And ate it anyway

Sometimes we are unable to resist pleasures of the flesh

Even if it has a neurotic pesonality

Or does that just make it more appealing on a very base level

Well atleast i didn't have to club it on the head and drag it cavewards

It slopped itself on my plate very compliantly

And i ate it with a fork, napkin tucked into my collar...very civilised

Almost civilised enough to disguise the primordial oozy nature of its appearance

Given a millenia or two it might have evolved into something sentient

Alas today i shall have to deal with dumb meat

House arrest

2007-10-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

vis a vis a vis a vis a vis a vis a vis a

no i dont' mean face to face... it my new favourite chant. I want my Visa so i can go back to london and get on with my life! I have a languishing band, a restless hand and a pen that won't stop writing songs. I need to get them finished with the rest of the fellas and i'm also experiencing severe gig withdrawals. I need to play soon before i tear my hair out/pluck my eyebrows with a pair of pliers/ Go on a depressed diet of mashed potatoes and Rufus Wainwright...

On the bright side finally got the track i did with a very good producer in london. It sounds sthooper...i'm very happy with it.

To be quite honest i'm tired of chronicling....maybe you should read my poetry blog instead? www.ostrachised.blogspot.com

or listen to my songs on www.myspace.com/samiramohamed ?

or try rubbing your tummy and the top of your head in opposite directions?

Or wink at an autodriver and see what happens next?

Or drink a beer while standing on one foot?

Bombay- A Short Salty Aircon Satyricon by the Ostrich

2006-09-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

Misplaced priorities took me north this weekend…to a city that buzzed so hard it made me grind my teeth. Sitting in a coffee shop, after a quick cappuccino, the vague techno beats in the background made me want to sit up and do something with my life. With me was a serial Bombay lady killer with a stuffy nose and a wicked smile who told me to calm down and stop worrying about the time.

I leave for London in 8 days
I’m not packed
My closet is stacked
With clothes I can’t bear to throw away
And a rice cooker too old to be sold

I ended up gravitating to places in the city that were akin to my favorite haunts back home. Despite packing for a possible society bitch evening, my shiny blue rhinestone studded heels never saw the light of day…or night.

I had very bad luck with cabbies. Inspite of local residents telling me how honest and meter-worthy they were, I ended up paying 200 bucks more than I should have to a Bihari who pretended his taxi broke down half way. This is after he bummed a cigarette from me AND interrogated me as to why I wasn’t married yet. I told him I was too old for cannabis and too young for connubliss but just right for Amul chocolate. Of course he didn’t know what the hell I was talking about and just stared down my shirt at a traffic signal. He’d pegged me as a tourist and dismissed me ages ago when I said matchbox instead ‘macchis’. Incidentally the cab I took on my way to the departure terminal 3 days later also broke down halfway...it just wasn’t meant to be.

I did however spend two OC nights in complete comfort in a plush hotel room with a bowl of complimentary pears, green tea toiletries and the aforementioned lady killer. Seriously, I don’t think it gets any better than that.

Somewhere in my head
A Pomeranian with a Scottish accent
Wonders where to fling his poo
Flicks his over-blow-dried do
And I wish to god i knew,
How the movie producers would react
To the way we annihilated their horrid hit movie

I attempted to make good on my primary excuse for the trip by going to linking road but soon discovered it was neither cheaper nor of better quality than the shopping I was accustomed to in Bangalore. I did stop to stare at some shiny objects like a magpie though. Armed my two resident, hell-raising, evil twins in tow, I was spared the agony of bargaining. I just pointed to a pair of earrings I liked and they took care of it for me. I wish I could pack them into my suitcase.

(Spoken to the meter of beans, beans)
Twins, twins, good for the heart
The more you meet
The less you can tell them apart
The more you part
The worse you feel
So let’s keep the twins close at heel

Went to Ghetto’s whose walls were painted by the same artist who has graced Mojo in Bangalore with his rock inspired, psychedelic frescos and felt right at home. The beer prices were the only thing that gave it away. That and perhaps the inability to get in a frame of pool because the waiting list was closed to non-regulars. Mondy’s was enjoyable except I screwed up my jukebox selection and played some idiotic world cup anthem instead of Ava Adore.

Bombay you are a city of dreams
The same producers probably snored in your salty breath,
The night we did
So salut and Good cheer
Maybe I’ll be back in a year
And speak to the producers about playback
Or just maybe my glorious tan
Growing chocolate on a sunny terrace in Milan
Will reflect my disdain for their plots

3 days, excellent company, a round of goodbyes and one heavy aching heart later I was back at the airport. It’s true, I’ve lost focus. If anyone finds it please drop it in a mailbox.

Back to Frontwoman

2006-06-02T06:15:00.000-07:00

I have returned. New computer set up, armed with a DSL connection i'm ready to take over the world.

My Electronica Project Dominant Season has finished one Album, 11 songs. I love them all. Looking around for a records label to pick it up. Wish me luck. I've Put up a new poem on Ostrachised, you can click through from my links section.

It's good to be back

Half Way Point

2005-12-11T08:43:00.000-08:00

Weddings are a huge circus and this one is at the half way point. This ol' clown is feeling the cracks in her thick make-up. They're starting to resemble the ones on her heels. The red veins in her eyes are nothing compared to the big one on her forehead, straining for a view of the happy couple. One of the rightful Ring-Mistresses, she is demoted daily to bearer of sherbets and ghee engorged sweets. This act has been on for way too long, and its only at the half way point. She will have to plod on, smile her twisted smile, the 2 frozen teardrops, the reddened nose... all for the flashing bulbs of posterity. Tomorrow maybe she'll sing a sing. Maybe she'll strangle an aunt... who knows. One can never tell at the half way point...

Life and then some

2005-11-11T22:55:00.000-08:00

I have moved to a lovely big flat with two lovely mad women. As soon i get around to unpacking the last of my boxes i have this feeling i'm going to buying many things for the house... Compulsive decorator. Although much to booma's dismay and violent projectile vomiting there is one set of pink curtains in the living room :) *hug* for Boomsa

Went on a bender the day before, still recovering... Off to a jazz concert today. Bassist Jonas Hellborg from sweden is playing at the Windsor Manor and for once I've been invited to something interesting. The last time they called to see if i wanted to go to Ivan and Barker's pool grind...Um....i don't think so Tim. Will review concert in next update. Hope its good, not like the last Swedish installment the Dylan/Reed aspirant.

In other news, Hook has finished recording a 3 song demo. Roger, will send you a copy Asap. Mail me with your address again. Also in the pipeline, collaborating with a German producer to make some lounge rock style music. Meanwhile my solo album still languishes...

Still haven't got computer set up yet. Will be a while before the posting gets really regular again so bear with the Ostrich. Or Beer with the Ostrich... both are good. Ta

Tall Cold one....

2005-10-27T04:20:00.000-07:00

It's official. I have been cannonized. I am the Matron saint of beer. My three miracles:-

1. My chilled beering hips
2. My beer hugs
3. My bottoms up.

From now on you may address me as Saint Ostrich the Yakke

That will be all

Back and Forth

2005-10-12T05:38:00.000-07:00

Spent a week in the mountains with my band Hook. It was such a wonderful trip for the three of us. Went on a trek and picked our own M&Ms. We've finished 2 songs and have half a new one. they're all awesome. All recorded on my trusty MD PLayer, many thanks for loan of microphone to R of TAAQ. Had my first Hallucinogenic experience. It was beautiful. I am an organic girl, its settled. Felt like a little mouse in a shoe, while S played guitar outside the door, thrown open to a spectacular view of the mountains. He made the flowers grow with his music. I was so happy i cried a little. PLenty of Table tennis, Tea, Whiskey, Music and snooker. Speaking of Snooker i think its time for me to graduate from French table to tournament size for good. I played both the boys on one team and me on the other and wiped the table with them. 20-80. T'was a proud moment :)

On a different note, came across a poster for a local music school. It said that the times of Janis joplin and JImi Hendrix were over so its safe to send you little girls and boys there for good clean music lessons. Idiocy is rampant. And that's an incredibly narrow way to look at music. not to mention judgemental. It makes me very angry.

Seen the mountains, now off the beach with my 2 best friends. Gokarna beckons. Intend to float around on the sea and burn like a happy brownie. Back on Monday.

Pfft

2005-09-24T01:06:00.000-07:00

My Love is shattered
my life's a mex
And what on Earth will i do for sex???

Waiting for pieces of the puzzle to fall into place. G's right about most things. Some people are just born with integrity up the wazoo. Perhaps i am not one of them, but that's okay. I have decided to open up to myself, scars, flaws, virtues and all. Quite frankly its come to a point where i can't even be bothered to spend time thinking about facets of my glittering personality. I am getting closer to just being... i can feel it

Excuse me waiter...
Is this doughnut baked or fried?
Will it expand my backside?

OKay somethings crop up from time to time....

Pangs of Alone,
Pricks of tears
The newness, the sum
of my fresh fears

Right now i'm tired of living out of a suitcase. Need a roomMate now! Refuse to go back to a matchbox life. I can't afford a home for my Queensize bed on my own. Damn techies! Driven up all the real estate....

HOme, Home on the range
where the deer and the antelope play
where never is heard of the Ostrichy bird
She never worked at Microsoft Pay

I'm off to the hills tomorrow with my two very able guitar/violin players. We're going to barbecue some cows, swim in a freezing pool and play snooker on a table in the middle of the forest. MOst important of all, write some fresh finger-lickin' good songs

Nothing is ended
Nothing is over
What is my best friend
is no longer my low-ver

Time to make up for that disastrous Georgia Village Nightmare.

Back on Thursday. Ta.

Media Studies

2005-09-20T03:59:00.000-07:00

I watch TV for an update on sports
Scan the paper for the business reports
Why can’t I find intelligent views?
Or believable facts in the mainstream news?

Something Old, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

2005-08-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

The Maggots

At sunset, on the river ban, Krishna
Loved her for the last time and left...

That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt
So dead that he asked, What is wrong,
Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,
No, not at all, but thought, What is
It to the corpse if the maggots nip?

- Kamala Das (from her collection 'The Descendants')

Smoke screen Begone!

2005-07-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

A long absence, a short abstinence and a tiny little twitching pain in the dead centre of my uni-brow, if I had one. Its been three weeks since my last cigarette. 7 years and 15 cigarettes a day later I have woken up to the fact that smoking is like too much make up. Its only looks cool in professionally taken photographs with nice lighting. I wish I’d figured it out earlier. There is nothing cool about the little black hard bits, set in clear sputum that my lungs cough up or the recent throat swab I just had… except maybe that old, familiar, beautiful feeling of the smoke curling down your throat and snaking out your nose…

There is no question about how disgusting a habit it is. And there is absolutely no debate about how damn good it feels. The psychological addiction of having a cigarette between your fingers and the various physiological and geographical associations you make with them is as strong a bond as your closest school friendships. Quitting is like restructuring your life in more ways than just kicking a habit. It’s changing a huge part of who you are. Saying “I’m not a smoker” is something that involves rewiring a large part of your brain.

I had a very long life line on my left palm that extended nearly up to the middle of my wrist. In 7 years as a smoker it’s shrunk considerably to a modest curve that ends just below my mound of Venus. Hopefully I will stay cigarette free and it will work like Wonder-Gro, returning my Life line to its former meandering glory.

So far I’ve survived a 3 day non-stop weekend of drinking with a big bunch of smokers, living with a smoker and perhaps its the passive smoke that’s gotten me through these last few weeks in one piece. But it looks good. I make a living with my voice. Smoking for me is like coming to work drunk every single day and sexually harassing my co-workers.

*Flexes muscles in show of strength and resolve*

A much younger love

2005-06-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

I love a stranger
Whom I’ve known for many years past
Since school dances and bygone fashion
He plays a guitar
Better than I can hope to
And for that I love him
He’s far away.
Further away than ever in those Internet cafes
But closer than many in close proximity
It hinges on the promise of a future
And the things that could be
Togetherness seemed so perfect
It was
Whether it will stay that way
Time will tell
Till then we hang to the dream of that perfection
Not knowing as children what to do
Perhaps as adults it will come around
And then they will be actualized
Till then we creak on the hinge
Oiled by non personal communication
And the memory of the last brief perfect setting.
At the back of my mind there exists fear
From the uncertainty
And the wild oats are there too
I long for them
But I fear risking love
Over sexual gratification
From another stranger
Who I haven’t known that long
And probably will not know after.
Impulsive behavior is pristine
And rationality is the corrosive element
That keeps us joined in this many mile bridge
But in chaos there is opportunity
And the principle that drives every human war
Is dealt with and broken down
Only at the micro level
So it is foretold
That the chaotic hormonal activity that is love
Will cause it to be nulled
In its own self destructive nature
Nurtured by human nature
And we gaze longingly at an exploit from different corners
And feel that our time will come.
Carrions of our youthful demeanor
Aged by the adult ambition of togetherness.
Boundless in its promise.

Rain and relaxation

2005-06-20T02:08:00.000-07:00

The gig at Opus went really well. A shaky start and then things started to move. Thrilled about it.

Took a flight home the next day. I'm currently cooling my heels at home in Kerala. Came for a wedding reception that finished quickly. The tradition in cochin is guests just eat and leave. Suits me fine. no extra hanging around and pretending to recognize people i don't really remember. I have 24 FIRST cousins on my dad's side of the family so you can imagine how chaotic it is keeping track.

Soon after lunch a cyclonic wind began to blow and i saw the Monsoon come in. It was beautiful, especially on the waterfront itself. There's that smell... its not rain on earth, its more rain on salt water. Hits you like a brick to the face. There were little kids crying and running to their mothers yelling "Tsunami!!!Tsunami!!!" And somehow you just know that at least half the adults are thinking the very same thing. Only they're too dignified to run in their silk Saris and white Dhotis. There was dust everywhere, a muddy taste on your lips as you lick them and a grainy feeling on your exposed neck as you rub it. The Robin Liquid Blue-White Shamiana turned tan and then back to its original colours as the ropes of rain began to fall. Long, thick and consistant.

Its been raining ever since. My house is on the water front so there's always that smell that accompanies you. Over the bouquet of grated cocoanut, frying curry leaves and boiling tea. You can smell the rain on the sea. Exquisite.

Lift Off

2005-06-08T22:09:00.000-07:00

Finally after all these years of jamming with different people i've found the perfect spot. Wedged between an incredible bassist and a super guitarist. Both of whom aren't wankers which is the highest pinnacle of musicianship...without switching over to jazz. There is only so much one can be impressed with technicality. After that you need feel... soul.

Its so difficult to find people who know exactly when less is more. I've found mine. At our very first gig, something magical happened. i cannot really describe it. One of thoses where no song is introduced, most are songs no one in the audience knows, there was no noise while we played, rapt attention and something really special happening on stage.

Thank you mysterious forces of the universe. I will be eternally grateful...

"Sometimes a Jimi Thing slides my way and keeps me swinging"

Interview with an vampire ostrich

2005-05-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

Picking up from Criminal English, I have been asked five very interesting questions by JP. Here are my responses.

1. Adopt or reproduce?
Definitely adopt. Preferably several potty trained canines.

2. You're allowed to watch just one television channel for the rest of your life. What will you wear while watching it?
A straight jacket, pajamas and a beer hat with a straw if it’s a movie channel. If it’s a variety channel absolutely nothing. It’d make the inevitable evolutionary regression much easier. I don’t want to go backwards to pithecanthropus and then wonder which tree these strange and bright leaves came from.

3. You have just discovered that you belong to a parallel genetic strain evolved from saurians rather than mammals. Who are your closest living cousins?
Pomfret, The Water Babies, Lotus Eaters and Mark Spitz. Also twice removed are eagles, airplanes, wild imaginations, stubbed thumbs, bruised egos and the bottoms of first time horse riders as they either CAN saur or usually ARE saur.

4. How many blues singers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A hundred. One to change the bulb, another to lament the loss of the old one and the ensuing darkness and 98 to cover that song. Out of these, the bulb changer will be written off as a sell out, the first singer of the “Lightbulb Blues” will be largely forgotten except by a few rabid fans who will have the scratchy LP. The rest will go on to be members of white blues bands and eventually some of them will have their own album out on Blue Note records.

5. Was Columbus gay?
As fruity as a cabana boy. It is rumored that he was thrown out of the gay man’s chorus and signed up for the explorer job. He was under the misconception that explorers often found homosexual paradise isles. He mistook the shout of “Land Ahoy” for “Land O-Boy”.

I've already typed this twice and Blogger has bombed on me, so I’m just going to steal the instructions from JP. If you want to be interviewed by me in this manner, just read the following.

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Enjoy.

Fou Anglais

2005-05-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

First of all thank you all for the lovely thoughts. Doing better in the health and general well being department.

Blogging will resume in a more dedicated manner. Been very busy with rehearsals for a gig. Doing back up vocals for another band. Totally new experience for me and its harder than it seems. I'm so used to singing the main melodies that its hard work to provide the necessary oohs and aahs and in the case of Angelique Kidjo's version of Voodoo Chile, phonetically noted Yoruban. Very interesting experience and the music i'm backing is a real change from usual fare. Some Steely dan, Stevie Ray vaughn, Morcheeba, Simply Red and Cream in that mix.

My dictionary.com word of the day was Carmilla. What a beautiful sounding word! A flower maybe? Or one who grinds automobiles into flour? well there's none of that flower/flour niceness, turns out it means a cabal. One with rat-like undertones at that. While on the subject of words and meanings also learned Assassin comes from the word Hassassin or Hashish User. According to the site:

Word History: At first glance, one would be hard-pressed to find a link between pleasure and the acts of assassins. Such was not the case, however, with those who gave us the word assassin. They were members of a secret Islamic order originating in the 11th century who believed it was a religious duty to harass and murder their enemies. The most important members of the order were those who actually did the killing. Having been promised paradise in return for dying in action, the killers, it is said, were made to yearn for paradise by being given a life of pleasure that included the use of hashish. From this came the name for the secret order as a whole, an, “hashish users.” After passing through French or Italian, the word came into English and is recorded in 1603 with reference to the Muslim Assassins.

Okay school's out. If i had my way i'd strip it down. Since the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth?

My Bell Jar

2005-05-04T01:40:00.000-07:00

So Sluggish i see snails racing past at top speed. Time is tried and hung like a horse. Dangling slowly from side to side. The only visible movement is the ceiling fan that whirs endlessly and an occaisonal piece placed in the three thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. Trial and error. Mind is shut down. Not matching by eye, just plain drone like trial and error.

The energy around me is sucked into my excruciating pace. it is cadmium yellow, like jaundice. A sickly bilious aura. Somewhere out the window there is work to be done but my body is on strike. Maybe its just the medication.

"Just imagine these are your ovaries", said the doctor making ball hands. "Imagine someone has taken a fistful of marbles and thrown them in"
Just great doc, thanks for clearing that up.

HOwever on the bright side, its not harmful right now. Whatever.

"Sitting in a bell jar stewing in my own sour air", You said it Sylvia Plath.

Curious Cassandra

2005-04-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

She scratched his arm just a little, like a bed bug. Gentle, almost unfelt. He sighed in his sleep. Under the surface she found a conversation between lovers.
“You exhale, I bathe myself in your tawny vapors”, said the woman.
“I stand at the edge of your skin and whisper a hundred things. My dreams are velvety gold. Yet, I wake up with the beast inside me”, said the man

Marveling at her discovery and eager to discover further, she placed one sharp fingernail in his chest and scratched a little harder. He moaned and turned onto his back, still slumbering.
“The beast is a function of you that I cherish beyond the realm of the illusory gentleman. When your animal expresses love and desire, it awakens mine. Honest and pure. The sophisticated gentleman is always too polite”, Said the woman
“Given that thought, I’d probably eat you if you were served up on a platter. Feel you, under your skin. But the problem is I can’t live you”, said the man

Putting her nails into the tiny chasm, she dug further. He winced but continued to sleep, imagining he was running but his legs were weighted. She stopped when she found the next tableau.
“This instinct is potent. As long as you carry me, I continue”, Said the woman, frowning sweetly
“I would carry you. On my back for as long as it’s worth. Human cries in the throes of passion belong in the animal world. But how do we sustain this state of intensity? I love you. I don’t want to tire”

She was very excited now. She scraped with all her might in the bloody cavity. His face paled but still he did not wake.
“You scare me my dear”, said the woman “but you invade my thoughts with such startling constancy. That wolf inside you scares me, taunts me yet haunts me”
“I don’t know if it will work, but it’s a cloud that has a thousand silver linings”, said the man “We could very well have a parallel Eden. Some sort of ghost town that lives with normalcy. As for the sleeping wolf, I’ve heard its cries and tried to overlook its light. I’m even more scared to think you’ve seen it already.

Ignoring the pulsing, throbbing organ, she pushed further and further till she found the last thread.
“Am I fooling myself?”, Asked the woman “Am I living in a sea of my own abstraction. That a simple question has meandered so shamelessly?”
“Yes” he replied. Slowly growing fangs, fur and claws and leveling with her throat”

She gasped at this gruesome final curtain, oblivious to the mess she had made on the sheets. Finally he awoke, in unbearable pain. “You wanted intensity in every minute of us. You wanted to see everything all at once. And now you’ve killed me”
She covered her face in her bloody hands and wept uncontrollably as he slipped away.

Post Ray Sunday

2005-04-17T01:55:00.000-07:00

On this very lazy, tardy Sunday I sit re-discovering TYR. Tony Martin is an incredible vocalist. But Ozzy’s still the man. A case of being distinct overriding technique. Ozzy means more to me in Sabbath.

Watched “Ray” last night. Very good performance by Jamie Fox. Ray Charles was an incredible businessman. The genius is already spoken for. Art forgives its wayward human beings and their casualties. Art can be as ruthless as war. I came away with mixed feelings. Awe and disgust to be more specific.

I can smell breakfast. Cheesy eggs from the kitchen. Bless him.

Emotional Rescue

2005-04-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

Behind every successful man/woman is a mastery of schmooze. Booze is an important schmooze lube. Kissing ass is just for the small fry with no vision. Tiny brown nosed little people playing tag. The Big Boys play a different game.

The more I interact with people in the entertainment industry here; I get an itch right between my toes. The kind that just drones and makes your eye twitch sometimes. Is this the world I have chosen to belong to? An Itchy, scratchy world. Have I really chosen?

Have an angle, a hook, bait. Reel them in and cross market. Sell your songs. Sing with soul. Sell your soul. Circles after circles after circles.

Here’s my current objective- to make enough money with my first album to make my second album.

It’s a conundrum. Write beautiful songs and pay due attention to muses. Then say beautiful things and pay undue attention to sleaze. The first part is infinitely easier. The songs become more maudlin with every step up and the art isn’t pure anymore.

I want a manager who will deal with the realities of the business. Won’t a Brian Epstein step up to my plate and protect me from this necessary parallel universe that my work travels through?

I had a dream that Ani Difranco offered me a record deal. I was thinking to myself as she smiled at me “Wow, Righteous Babe is an organization I would actually be proud of belonging to”... Should I have been dreaming of Sony Music?

I’m not whining. I will survive this industry. One way or another. Such is the nature of the beast and I will take it on.

As for audio post here's where you can get a song i recorded with my old band

http://www.geocities.com/planetclockwork/Presence.mp3

or

http://mp3.rsjonline.com/MP3/Clockwork%20Orange/Presence.MP3

Fashionistas and rain

2005-04-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

When Gene Kelley was singing in the rain, he was alone and ecstatic. Lucky guy. Remind me never to take on a show at a high society party... even if it IS Tommy Hilfiger's spring/summer bash. Five songs into my set, my very capable keyboardist and i were bullied off stage by torrential rainfall. Risking electrocution i did one song all by myself at the insistance of the event manager. wet, soggy Bonnie raitt song. My Leather trenchcoat practically ruined.... tired...

Been away for awhile thanks to my ten day project which will end this saturday. I've spent them teaching a group of techies to sing for their annual intra-office show. 'tis a gruelling task. While most can actually carry a tune, overall they have no sense of time and its driving me nuts. The things we do for money....

Have another gig coming up Saturday evening with Boomsa. that should be fun.

More later. Sleep now....

...zzzzzzzzz...xxx.....zzzzzzzzzz

My Captain, My Captain

2005-03-30T13:28:00.000-08:00

My Father was a military man. From the tip of his stiff, white peak cap to the toes of his cherry blossom blanched navy shoes. He demanded order, punctuality and discipline. He was very good with his hands. Our various garages were always converted into workshops while our old trusty Standard 10 stood outside in the humid coastal air. He made my very first bicycle from parts of an old Russian circus bike and then helped me learn to ride it.

Never one to show much emotion, me and my brother knew how to discern his secret pride at our youthful accomplishments. The smile that looked like a straight line when I topped first grade, that nod when my brother won the Cochin Refineries Tennis Tournament and that quiet appreciation when my mother made an especially delicious chicken a-la-Kiev. My brother and his friends used to slink around him and called him Rambo behind his back. Unfortunately, this rigid, impenetrable demeanor was often frustrating for me as a young girl. The few times when I’d seen him let go was on our many long distance drives when Abba was playing on the car stereo. He would stick his head out like a turtle and withdraw in time with the music and it made us laugh. When I was in the seventh grade he bought me a cheap Phillips walkman for doing well at my boarding school.

Four years later, he and I were on driving down to Calicut on the first leg of our journey to Goa. My Mother was taking the evening train there as she couldn’t miss that day of school. He was in a particularly cantankerous mood and had been recently diagnosed with diabetes. There was no Abba on this trip. Only a grueling drilling about the whereabouts of that ridiculous walkman. The thing had broken down, been repaired, broken, repaired again and eventually lost by my brother who took it to college. He insisted that I was careless with my things despite my strenuous defence. It was a bitter session and frustrated, I ended it by telling him to never speak to me again. The rest of the journey passed in silence and when we reached my uncle’s home in Calicut, he took off to play a game of badminton at the club. I stayed home.

After the game he thought he had acidity and sent his friend for some Gelusil while he waited in the jeep. He had a cardiac arrest and died alone. He was two months away from my parent’s 25th anniversary, four months away from my high school graduation and six months away from his fiftieth birthday.

My dad had been known to say “When your Visa comes from above, you have to go.” It was so offhand. But I was the one who crumpled my mother with the news as she got off the train, glowing from her facial and all set for our week of family fun in Goa. My brother arrived the next day from college in Madras and the rest of my relatives flocked there in no time at all. I didn’t cry. Instead that night after putting my mom to bed I made jokes to my brother about how he’d look dressed like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” and stayed numb. In the following month I helped sort out our finances, pensions and wrote scores of letters to banks and insurance companies and tried to look after my family as best as I could.

When the month was up I went back to boarding school. On the very first night I realized I had no one else to look out for there. I thought of the last conversation I’d had with him and cried so deeply and incessantly in my bed that I woke the matron down the hall and everyone in my dorm. After a couple of hours there was talk of medical sedation and as suddenly as it began, the storm ended. The idea of all that drama made me sick and I went to sleep.

Thoughts of you made me crawl out of bed at 3 Am and write. I’m sorry.

Gremlin Cabal

2005-03-27T23:23:00.000-08:00

Newspapers collecting in the kitchen one day, strewn like chicken shit the next. A neat cupboard before a party and then suddenly, an amorphous fabric pile. The phone waits, waits, waits and rings when you’re in the bathroom… and dies when you rush out clutching your wet hair in a sodden bun and your body dripping wet. House plants die no matter how well you look after them. A newly dusted surface grimy in 24 hours. A much admired blouse, bought, ugly the very next day. A week gone by playing half life, a vacation plan on the weekend, suddenly work gushes through the cracks of your mail box. New debit card arrives promptly after five working days; the pin arrives two weeks later. The can of sugar suddenly ajar and teeming with ants. Freshly laundered sheets, stained the next morning. Long awaited album takes weeks to download, the hard drive crashes. The request show you faxed into has called you to put you on call on international TV, freak lightening blows your TV set up an hour before the show. The internet suddenly stops working the day you’re waiting for a reply on the huge deal you’ve cut.

Modern living. All this comes with the territory. All this is actual experience. If you have had these experiences, you have gremlins in your home too.

Long distance

2005-03-25T11:34:00.000-08:00

Ostrich: Hey sam, howya doin'?
Sam: smashing
Ostrich: I hear there are 62 Mount Carmel girls going to chennai
Sam: Yippe! that's 124 flapping vulvas....

Planet Police

2005-03-23T23:07:00.000-08:00

Where does the violent tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colour, but where does the first blending enter into the other.
So with sanity and insanity.

-Herman Melville

“They’ve killed half the forest, the bastards”, She said, slurping her Earl Grey a little. The curtains were still now. The rain had melted away and eloped with the breeze. She was reading through the day’s newspaper and frowning over a front page article on Progresscore Pvt. Ltd’s new industrial site. There was a photograph of looming, cold iron giants spitting ropes of smoke out into what was once a thriving natural rain forest. “Stupid bastards”, she said again, “Kill the trees, kill the animals and make fucking injection moulded space parts. They’ve messed up the planet so much we might just need them after all.”

Terry is part of the Planet Police. A covert and very radical group whose manifesto outlines a return to humanity’s hunter-gatherer roots. They burn down factories and assassinate toxic waste dumping captains of industry. They believed that animals should not be raised for mass slaughter and that every grass, tree and fungus is sacrosanct. Hunting for sport is the biggest no-no. If you’re going to kill something, at least eat it. During the last fox season, there was not a soul in the woods. The previous year PP had shot several about 10 people and now no one dared to set foot there.

It had been a tiring night. Last night she had been on her first killing operation. She and three others had assassinated the president of Oleo, one Colonel Green, in his mistress’s apartment. She was out of the place of course. They had seen to that. They had drowned him in her bath tub, cut him up and stuffed him into four separate freezer compartments. “Green sacrificed for green…ironic”, they had joked after.

Terry Yawned and stretched on her chair. A small wind blew in through the curtains and she thought to herself “Ratfart”, and smiled. Earlier this morning it had rained and gusted heavily. Unpredictable, confused, ridiculous weather. Just another side effect from the massive environmental damage.

She showered and dressed and headed out to the city dump. Hidden behind the back wall was a small shed that served as PP’s OP centre. There were twenty people in her chapter and she was the last one to arrive. Soon they began drawing up their next mission involving the looting and burning of a laboratory that used Capuchin monkeys to test cosmetic products. They would use the product on its face, kill the monkey and then peel of the skins to see whether the lipstick had reacted with it. The meeting took about three hours. Only the appointed cook of the day excused himself early to prepare lunch for the group. Putting on a “kiss the cook” apron, he whistled as walked into the kitchen.

Lunch looked delicious! There were organic haricot beans, asparagus, potatoes and an assortment of table greens and especially succulent was the Pot Roast Green. They always ate what they killed.

Rock n' Roll Children

2005-03-22T23:01:00.000-08:00

It had been a long day for Fred Andrews. He painstakingly unlaced his calf length Black army boots and hung them up behind the door of his bedroom. He stared at them wistfully for a while, they were his pride and joy. Cost a bomb at the surplus store despite the fact that in actuality they were standard issue because there was no war going on in the world except the one he and so many of his kind were fighting. And they couldn’t do it without militia gear. It gave them an air of organization and mystique. Besides, women love a man in uniform. And like Steven Tyler said at an award ceremony, it costs a lot of money to look cheap.

So there you have it. Women, enigma and talent. The three things that made the rock and roll star, or terrorist in Fred’s case. Tough times had befallen the world of music. Consumerism had made lazy fools of the public and they were ready to swallow anything that was packaged and familiarized. People needed to know what they were buying before they bought it. Gone are the days of the joy of trial and error. The way Fred had discovered Led Zeppelin. Music was reasonable in those days and he still remembered the shiver that ran up his spine every time he bought a new tape and put it in his player. Would it be good? If he wasn’t quite sure whether he liked it or, he’d play it 10 times over till he could decide. Nobody did that anymore. Everything had to be certified and approved before they’d even go and buy it… forget taking the trouble of re-listening to it to form your own opinion. If Music star magazine gave it 5 stars, it would sell millions on the printed word alone. Unbeknown to the milling population that flitted in to the music store to buy that album that everyone just had to own, the pimply faced, overweight critic that wrote the review was sunning his voluminous posterior on his favourite beach getaway courtesy the music company.

Fred spat hard. Because of the thought of this lazy World and it’s irresponsible media and partly because while thinking so hard he’d let the toothpaste work itself into a nice rabid foam that was precariously dribbling down his chin. "Opportunists!" he thought and spat again. It was 100% minty wrath. "Damn the bastards, they’re going down."

It had begun like every other day. Wake up at 0600 hours, work out for a half hour. Cold shower to get his body moving and then 2 long hours of grueling scales and arpeggios. He played pentatonic and Hungarian and chromatic until the hard, flaky caps of his finger tips had string grooves in them and his chest developed welts. Then he picked an album from wall, today’s was permanent waves by rush and played along with Alex Liefson through every single track on the album. If he didn’t know it, he’d learn it till he could play it tight, down to the last hammer on. Thus the morning wore on. By afternoon he had his first meal of the day with Andy, Geoff and Bug in the common room of the base. There was custard today and he loved custard…plus it was hot! Great! They spent some time on composition after lunch and then lined up for assembly.

From the air it looked like row upon row of colorful tees and Black boots. On main stage stood a flamboyant creature with colorful scarves tied around his microphone. "Greetings music militia", he began, "today, we are about to set out on some very important assignments and I trust all of you have been trained to give this mission your optimum. All of you are soldiers to the cause of war and some of you may not return. But know this…you are putting your life on the line for a belief…your belief and your religion. And therefore it becomes your duty, to your soul, to protect the integrity of the music that we treasure so dearly. The music that we have grown to love and broken our backs to master. We will not be lead into blind consumerism by company dictatorship that no longer respects their fundamental function of bringing the music to the fan. So go forth with a song in your hearts. Let it be your own and let it be a song of joy and faith. "LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL!"

Amid cheers, grunts and calls the man pulled out his zippo, ignited it and swayed his arm from side to side. The assembly followed and it was to be seen that all of them had the words emblazoned on their lighters. A band of longhaired, boot-clad men then took the stage and began to play the song. A young man with a voice remarkably like Ronnie James dio was screaming the chorus, "long live rock and roll, let it live, let it live, let it live", with great feel to the frenzied mob. Fred and his unit picked up their arms at the silo and went over their plans one last time in the car on their way to the office of Sony Music ltd. Similar units were headed out to all the major record label offices and some even to certain radio stations.

"So you guys have got everything?", said Bug, "Guns"
"Check" , said Fred
"Explosive?"
"Check"
"Fuse, chamber and plunger?"
"Check"
"Alright then we’re ready to roll. Let’s go", said bug a drummer and like most had a need to control time. We’re going in at 1730 hours." "All set." said Andy, bassist, looking to Geoff the throat Atkins who was often given to brooding thoughts and disappearing for hours with his notepad and pencil. "Geoff, not now okay. This is important."
"Fuck you man. I’m ready", said Geoff, "and to hell with those monosyllabic illiterate fools, I hope we make them suffer like we have."
"Okay, then we’re set.", said Fred, " on the count of three we get out of the car and take position. Ready?"
"As I’ll ever be", mumbled bug under his breath.
"One…two…three…"
See how they run.

Geoff and Andy took the main entrance while Fred and Bug did a quick Reiki of the compound and joined them mid-gagging the security guard.
" We’re going to let you go man, you’re just here making a living and that’s cool. As long as you’re not directly involved with this inbred, blood sucking organization", said Geoff, always ready with a speech.
" Enough chit chat. Let’s move", said Fred
"And don’t forget that no matter which fake breasted bimbo they put on the pedestal, she’s going down sooner or later and when she does Pan and Alice Cooper will dance all over her mangled, empty soul. Remember…"
"…Aww man, you’re scaring the shit out of him. You want to make a real point and get on with this job or are you going to spend all day trying to convert this dude?", said Bug
"Remember man…" said Geoff waggling his finger at the security guard as they ran toward the Elevator.

Inside, they got busy sealing it off with explosive and spray painting ‘long live rock and roll’ all over the walls. With incredible efficiency, the fuse was rolled out of the elevator and into the parking lot and over by the side of their car.

"Okay Freddie fingers, do your thing", said Andy.
"With pleasure", said Fred, pumping the plunger…

They stood for just a fraction of a second, watching 20 stories of bad Karma come crashing down in a heap of rubble and limbs. It seemed like a lifetime before they stashed their boots and hair back into the Jeep… driving double time back to base.

There was chaos on the nine o’clock news. Every major record label had been hit around 6PM that day in the most unprecedented act of terrorism since 9/11. A few popular radio Stations and Magazine head quarters had also been razed to the ground. The president was making a speech about how the government was going to get to the bottom of this… "They will be caught, and justice will prevail", he said…

At the base, loud speakers were blaring AC/DC’s ball breaker and the JD was flowing. The crowd calmed down for a while when the colorful creature took the stage.

"First of all, you guys have done an amazing job", we’ve wiped out the big fish and now it’s up to us musicians to go out there and see to it that the distribution of music does not return to the corrupt, commercial totem of inhumanity that was. It’s up to all of you now, start studios, set up clubs, go forth and spread the goodness of music in the world. It may have been at a great cost, but it was necessary to protect the integrity and spirit of our way of life. We may look like terrorists, but we’re really just victims of a colonist regime that took our lives and made us robotic slaves to their produce. When you go your separate ways today, you will not breathe a word of what went on here and what you did. I wish you and your bands all the best of luck now that there is no more a wall between you and the people. Play live gigs, connect with people and teach them to love and not be cultural zombies. LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL"

"LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL!!!!" was the shout that filled the halls, illuminated only the light of so many flickering, waving Zippos…

Ten green bottles

2005-03-20T23:50:00.000-08:00

"Come on baby, show me some I-d", he said, cross legged and perched on my shoulder.
"But I really shouldn't", I said, frowning a little
He stuck his tiny, silvery tongue in my ear and whispered sexily," but we've been having such a good time this week. Why stop now”
“I’m going to be in trouble tomorrow…again” I said “You never talk to me in the mornings. You just leave me alone in my agony”
“True darling. I just can’t stand all that moaning and groaning you know. How you look with your eye make up running…your flaky complaining nose…”
“I suppose”, I said “you just come running at the first pop of a bottle cap.”
“That’s right baybee! Here I am. Have another… For me?” Uncrossing his legs. He started to fondle my hair and using one of its layers as a rope he climbed up o the top of my head. Standing erect at the crown, he surveyed the room and looked at all his friends, on my friends. With a wink and a whistle he slid back down, this tantalizing Tom Thumb. When he started nibbling on my ear, it sent tingles up my spine and I sighed
“ Okay, lets have another”
“That’s my girl. Make it a double.” He said, “Here, I made you something”
I peered at the slim white paper roll and giggled, “Liar!!!!” and joined the circle. It passed from person to shoulder person, shoulder person to person.
Curly herby smoke mixed with a sour hop, but by now I was impervious…concentrating only on that seductive voice stroking my hammer, anvil and stirrup.
“ Mmmm, that’s so good”, he said, pulling my eyelids down a little.

I woke up. Alone again. Running kajal and flaky nose. Moaning and groaning. He was gone. But his memory remains in the tight little knot between my eyes. It’s Monday.

Steven Seagal's secret understanding

2005-03-16T20:37:00.000-08:00

In almost every action movie, during the last epic battle, the hero always gets roughed up a bit before he finally vanquishes his arch nemesis and cronies. In everything from Star Trek to mortal combat, Time cop to Terminator, there's always a struggle to the finish. The Good guy gets bloodied and battered first and then inspired by thoughts of wronged mother/ master/sister/child/partner etc, makes a brilliant comback on his last store of adrenaline/hidden inner strength.

Except....

...in Steven Seagal Movies. He dispatches the first baddy with the same ease as he does the last tier ring leader. Without a hair out of place. All his films have an anti-climax final battle. Makes you wonder if he picks his movies based on the characters indestructability.

The Ides of March

2005-03-15T03:45:00.000-08:00

Today's the day that Caesar died and today's the day my brother was born, all ancient history of course. And the look in my older sibling's eyes as I tell him it’s his turn to make tea is no doubt as lachrymose as the emperor's at his final betrayal. Poor guy. But there's something to be said for his kind of guy. The strong silent variety that talk only one on one. The kind that insist that they should scrub the floors too if their partners do. So just today, on a day he would gladly give up because he's embarrassed by too much attention, I salute him in all his dark horse glory. He really is the cream in my canole! I love having someone in the family i can talk to about all my escapades. This is rarity for people who come from my land of emotional repression and general misogyny. When i think back on the fights we'd had growing up, it amazes me that we can be so close and intact now.

My brother’s birth was seen as a little miracle because my mother has polycystic ovaries. There's so much sinewy tissue in there that it’s a big wonder any swimmers got through at all. My birth, seven years later and two miscarriages later, was even more so. Before i was born my brother made a clandestine bet with his best friend that i would be a boy and staked half a packet of boiled, hard Ravalgon sweets on it. So the first thing he said, to the shock and consternation of my mother (my father was away at sea) was "Oh no! It’s a girl!" and I just wailed the way new born babies do. That was to be our equation for many years to come.

When I was about six, he told me I had leprosy. First my fingers would fall off, then my toes and finally my nose and i would die. I howled like a banshee. Then he laughed at me saying "don't be so stupid, of course you don’t." I stopped. Then the return "Actually Sam, you DO have leprosy, I just didn't know how to tell you". More howling. "Ha Ha! Fooled you again". Crying stops. "Oh! but you do!", "Nooooooooooooo!" And so it continued for an afternoon.

And then there were times when he and his friends were off playing battleship armed with actual walkie-talkies and I was denied entry to any of this fun. One day he riled me so badly that I chipped his tooth by slamming my palm on the water bottle he was drinking from (we used to store water in washed out glass whiskey bottles). As my mother used to put it, we were “like snake and mongoose”. Mortal enemies. Except for the time he beat up this nasty neighborhood boy who ran me down with his bicycle and various small assorted Kodak moments. There was so much childish resentment between us. I was younger and more spoiled, he was older and more disciplined. He was older and got a weekly allowance (enough to buy tapes), I was young and foolish and had to make my money caddying for my dad at a buck and hour (Indian money that is! And I used to stupidly think to myself Yay! Four Fixy Foxies i.e. my favourite gum). Anyway, that’s the way things were.

Eventually, he went off to college and I went off to boarding school and in some years the age difference lessened and with the first admission of each others first sneaky cigarette/the viewing of the same porno stashed behind my dad’s book case (as if we wouldn’t find it there!), we were friends. Things have gotten better and better from there, we grew close sharing more substantial things than our exciting new vices.

It’s been such a long, strange trip. Growing up was fun with all our differences and when I think back on what he said when he first saw me, I can’t help feeling it’s kinda cool. Considering where we grew up, our religious and cultural background and how he COULD have turned out, in our root-sense he never treated me like a “girl”. Maybe it began then, maybe it didn’t. We moved apart, in opposite directions, found our paths and eventually met at the same spot. Full circle. Best friends, independent adults, brother and sister. Always, brother and sister.

Um...well...okay then

2005-03-11T07:45:00.001-08:00

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's" Inferno Hell Test

Days later...

2005-03-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

It’s been an ultra-exciting 3 days and I’ve taken a while to recover. I went for the Mark Knophler Concert with Boomsa. I was a lackluster Ostrich when we walked through the gates, but two songs into the show I really started grooving. By the time “Telegraph Road” came on I was BALLISTIC with happiness! All those people who said he looked like an old man just come in from the office to play a gig, I’m working up a really gigantic gob of spit for your iris. Really, it’s unbelievable that one would expect him to jump around and be overtly energetic. It’s like taking everything that’s great about him and nuking it to hell. The best thing about him is that quiet, sophisticated violence; it’s a mix that smells like soap and water…fresh, natural, just so damn Present. And no matter how advanced in years he might be, he has that incredible swagger that only certain British rock n’ rollers can carry off with élan. That elusive quality of being able to just shoot off trembling, vibrating energy while standing fairly stationary. And OH! Those thumbs! They seem even longer in…well not in person… but on the giant screen showing close-ups. Even Marks get the Blues! I’d stop and give him a lift, anytime. I jumped, I screamed, raised my arms in mass exultation and had a fabulous, almost sufi-ish spiritual experience. After the concert Boomsa and I went off in search of our good friend Beer.

At the witching hour I turned 24, on a day that greeting card companies cash in on. A belated women’s day shout out to all my lady friends…and some of my man friends who are more lady than my lady friends, Cheers!

In the spirit of growing older, we drank scotch instead of regular whisky. So much tipple, it made me topple. But not before we bayed passionately till 3 AM, courtesy my very wonderful fret-nimble friends (Prakki & Raveen) and my brand new birthday guitar. Songs sung blue and songs sung black included:-

Anarchy in the UK (Don’t ask how we managed on an acoustic guitar, but as a group we had enough spirit…pardon the pun…to carry it through)
Rooster, Would?, Man in a Box and various other Alice in Chains songs
Boomsa’s Etta James song (loverly)
Lasagna (sung to the tune of La Bamba)
An assortment of Police Songs (Yes, including a shrieky Roxanne)
Hendrix’s Angel (Had great fun with it)
Kick out the jams
Like a Rolling Stone
Several Joplin songs... of course!
A very, VERY strange version of mouth for war

I’d tell you more about the party, but I can’t remember…therefore, it must have been good

Spent the next day recovering…Hung-over but happy. Not going to do that again for a long time. There’s only so much abuse my body can take….*hic*…

Giant Thumbs

2005-03-07T01:01:00.000-08:00

I'm off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of...well...not Oz, but England. The Professori Anglais himself, who can bring an air of sophistication to lyrics like:

"Last time I was sober, man I felt bad.
Worst hangover I ever had.
It took six hamburgers and scotch all night.
Nicotine for breakfast just to put me right”

Today’s the Mark Knophler Concert. I hope to get right up front and watch those Sissy Hankshaw-esque thumbs in full action. Glory Days! Hoping for catch material from “Rag pickers Dream”, yes, yes, I do have a soft and sissy-feminine spot for “Darling Pretty”

Finally! I get to hear “Sultans of swing” the way it’s meant to be played and not from the screeching plectrum of some semi-literate hotel band. And I presume Mark will have all the lyrics down pat and I won’t have to endure (as I have in the past) the verse “Well Harry doesn’t mind, If he doesn’t make the scene…” repeated, ad libbed and ad nauseum, in place of the correct lyrics.

When my sentences get this long, it generally means I’m over-excited. Looking forward to this evening, will report back with Mr. Big Thumb’s activities.

Ostrich, Over and Out…

Autorickshaw Drivers- A study

2005-03-06T14:28:00.000-08:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have found it. The missing link. So primal in its behavior...the Khaki Clad Autorickshawdriverus Erectus. Here are some instances of observed natural behavior:-

1. Has developed rudimentary language skills by way of grunts and an assortment of other angry noises. Also has command over certain local expletives. Uses aforementioned language after shamelessly cutting off other motorists. Always seems to imagine it is in the right despite its glaringly obvious lack of lane discipline and road etiquette.

2. Waits for female passengers, re-adjusts rearview mirrors away from traffic, trains it on mammaries, and then proceeds to drive fast over speed breakers thinking to itself “Hooray for Boobies!”

3. Certain members of this species are unable to control basic physiological urges. With caveman like Id, it sometimes whips out and flogs genitals in full view of bystanders. In a more evolved maneuver, it will perform this act while single handedly driving alongside uncomfortable looking female pedestrian.

4. Has no concept of city area beyond MG Road and its 2 KM radius. Refuses to travel anywhere except in that area. Even when given a multiple choice of destination. Highly territorial.

5. When parked in auto stand, one can observe a fine example of pack behavior. In a group they will loiter and make lewd comments. This seems to be manner of social bonding. In situations when one of the pack attempts to carry off a passenger before his turn, the rest hunt him down, whooping, and drag his rickshaw back.

6. The concept of numbers is not firmly founded. The A.Erectus seems to imagine that when change amounts to 5 bucks or less, the passenger forfeits the right to collect. If passenger objects it will use its nascent language skills, grunt angrily and drive off in a huff feeling wronged.

7. Seem to have a very strong political sense. Will vote at every election. As a pack they are constantly wooed by politicians for their strong united lobby. Candidates are elected between ‘Greedy parasite no.1’ and ‘Greedy Parasite no.2’

8. Uses one standard Phillips screwdriver for all manner of repairs to its vehicle. This does not include ornamentation i.e. painting on of local movie stars and slogans like “Like is pore poyson”

9. Uses not only its handlebars, but also its buttocks to steer and balance its vehicle. Will shift wildly from side to side like a sailor when executing sharp turns, all the while hunched Quasimodo-like with nose, mere inches from windscreen.

That concludes my study of the Autorickshawdriverus Erectus, I hope you found it insightful. If spotted, approach with caution.

Book Post

2005-03-04T07:36:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to you Sachin Rao, for the work of your naughty little paws on the front of 'Fierce invalids home from hot climates' It makes me smile every time. It reads-

"Nothing like a jolt of unexpected boldness to make a woman's nipples stiffen"

isn't that the truth!

Monster

2005-03-03T07:18:00.000-08:00

Tonight I’m a monster. A walking patch of black, snarling, with wiped off smiles dangling limp and lifeless in my jaws. A mass of negative energy so ferocious I will crack open your bones and fill your marrow with cold aching dread.

Frustrated insecure artists foam in the mouth, feeding off their own bad vibrations. Artists with great feedback loops are happier people. Right now there is not a single positively charged particle in my entire body and my brain is heavy and swollen with doubt. I haven’t slept in three days and my head aches… I cannot drag my carcass out of the door in the mornings and be productive. I feel distant and lonely and when I look at my relationships I can think of only two that do not exist conditionally. I have nothing to offer anyone right now, no mirth, no joy and definitely no pleasantness. My nose is bloody from allergies and prevents me from crying, despite the many, many sorrowful overfull lakes in my eyes. I want to rip off my body and be weightless. But instead I’m still here, Caliban-like, paralyzed in my fear of abandonment. If ever there was a good time for supernatural intervention, this might be it.

Yet all I can think of is Layne Staley and how he might have looked when they found him and stories of disemboweled pregnant women from the Hyderabad riots of the early 90’s. This is a downward spiral, maybe some tea, a cigarette, a book and Chick Corea and his Elektric Band to the Stars will help.

Hmmm....

2005-03-01T21:41:00.001-08:00

Handholder

You go out of your way to build bridges with people of different views and beliefs and have quite a few religious friends. You believe in the essential goodness of people , which means you’re always looking for common ground even if that entails compromises. You would defend Salman Rushdie’s right to criticise Islam but you’re sorry he attacked it so viciously, just as you feel uncomfortable with some of the more outspoken and unkind views of religion in the pages of this magazine.

You prefer the inclusive approach of writers like Zadie Smith or the radical Christian values of Edward Said. Don’t fall into the same trap as super–naïve Lib Dem MP Jenny Tonge who declared it was okay for clerics like Yusuf al–Qaradawi to justify their monstrous prejudices as a legitimate interpretation of the Koran: a perfect example of how the will to understand can mean the sacrifice of fundamental principles. Sometimes, you just have to hold out for what you know is right even if it hurts someone’s feelings.
What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.

Spirited Away

2005-03-01T21:41:00.000-08:00

The IMDB website says, "if you liked this movie you will probably enjoy....... 'Harry potter and the Philosopher's stone'..." I feel to weep. No offence to JK Rowling, i've read and enjoyed all her books. But Hayao Miyazaki's vision isn't something to be merely enjoyed. It is to be savoured, so delectable that it makes you yearn for more when it has been wholly swallowed.

"Spirited Away" is seamless. I watched it early 2004 right after 'Princess Mononoke' and began expecting just Manga fun. But as the story told itself i found myself hungry, happy, sad, relieved, and running through a whole host of visceral and mental tingling that are too various to list. There is no good or evil, just the duality in different balances that exists in people (ref. real life) A fantasy grounded firmly in human nature. Perfect... just perfect. Only a true master can knit actual personality into fantasy.

And the attention to detail! Chihiro puts on her shoes, taps the toes on the ground to make them snug and THEN takes off. Lin's expression of pained regret when she explains to Sen that the surliness was just a cover. Haku's elation at discovering his true identity. Just thinking about it makes my stomach race and i pinch my owns cheeks hard in supressed excitement.

I realise this is not a well thought out article, but it isn't meant to be. This is simply a gushing fan gushing. At an age when i tend to ask myself "do i feel things deeply enough?" it is liberating when something comes along that moves me beyond belief and restores all faith in emotion.

So... i'm not an android that deserves to be melted... phew...

I wish to surround myself with these things. Even the simple journey of discovering art that makes the knees of my bees weak, makes life so much more bearable and meaningful.

Chuckle...hfft...snort...hehehe

2005-03-01T20:13:00.000-08:00

Note to Bill Watterson:

Thanks for the never ending chuckles. Have been reading and re-reading all my Calvin and Hobbes. Gets me everytime. How you've fused art and thought just sends tingles down my spine. Though short, your career as a cartoonist has produced a better and more intense product than most people can hope for in a lifetime. And that includes Niel Gaiman who i think would be highly overrated in comparison...is anyway if you compare Sandman to the Lucifer series and other comics in the same vein. Good luck in whatever you're attempting now. Photography is it? Until you tire of THAT, i have a feeling you will infuse you work with the same heart and technique that is so evident in your Comic work.

Now if you'll excuse me 'Revenge of the Baby-sat' awaits...

When coffee shops attack...

2005-03-01T13:09:00.000-08:00

When i was 17 and a student at NIFT (or the National Institute for Future Tailors as we were wont to call it), there used to be a tiny eatery in the Chandrika hotel basement that served the most phenomenal Aloo Parathas. Looking back i wonder if that memory of the aforementioned parathas was based on my circumstances at the time. I was broke, spent all my money on colour pencils and was fresh out of boarding school in South india. Aloo parathas were relatively exotic for someone who had spent the last 7 years holed up in Period architechture in the Nilagiris. Anyway, i stray from the narrative. The reason i wonder about this at age 23 is that i ran into a familiar looking man in glasses and Orange t-shirt today. He walked up to me and asked me if i ever studied in NIFT and that caught me off guard. At first i thought he might have been some obscure management senior of mine, but it turns out he's the guy who used to run the paratha place.

I managed to thwart his friendly overtures with monosyllabic aswers and eventually he gave up and moved on. I was too busy at the time immersing myself in some glorious fiction ala David Mitchell's 'Number 9 Dream' interspersed with intense rounds of Sega tennis on my phone to welcome this intrusion. When he slunk off defeated, i noticed that his orange tee had the Barista logo emblazoned on it.

Barista indiranagar is where i eat lunch on most days, a place of respite where i catch up on reading between meetings etc. Recently they've changed caterers and the food has taken a turn for the worse. Alarmingly so. They seem to think patrons prefer their new line up of soggy, stale half-ass Mexican chicken wraps to the creamy chicken pastas of yestermonths. Did Mr.Orange T Glasses have some hand in this turnaround, this homogenization... this pandering to mediocrity? I think they should maybe consider serving Aloo parathas, curd and pickle instead.

Clockwork Orange

2005-02-28T22:35:00.000-08:00

The band is dead, long live the band. But the songs remain the same...

http://www.geocities.com/planetclockwork/Utopia.mp3
http://www.geocities.com/planetclockwork/Presence.mp3

All music written, arranged and composed by Clockwork Orange. Produced by Sharmon Ibrahim. Recorded at Soundbytes Studio, Bangalore. For more info on Studio mail Sharmon at sharmonibrahim@yahoo.com

12 bar flues

2005-02-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

Been away for a week. Drank a whole bottle of whiskey in chennai and developed rosy glow on nose. It was a wonderful beacon for tiny viruses with harmful intent. And as if that wasn't enough, there was a lighthouse by way of a perpetual cigarette dangling from my lips ala Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry. Given the extreme thermo-shift and all these little road signs i'd put out for my virulent friend, he found me without any trouble. The efficient bastard. Makes me wonder why i drink.

I think I'm going to watch the sunrise

2005-02-13T15:48:00.000-08:00

So, its 5.20 AM on Monday morning and i'm still wide awake. Had a terrible start on Sunday... Dishes piled up from here to kingdom come, absent maid, no water in the Taps... couldn't have a bath even. So, so irritable. Finally got out of the house at 4:30 PM, no food in our bellies and a head full of angry bees. Plus i missed my favourite TV Shows. Headed straight to Pecos and abstained from beer and settled for a Pub Lunch. trying to rescue my voice from the ravages of pollution, dust, smoke and the like. Not doing very well in that respect.

Things started looking up around Sicks...clever...ptooey. Met up with the gang from the airshow and shot some pool at Guzzler's Inn. Didn't Drink. Was dying to. "please sir, can i have a whiskey water" Oliverette Twisted. Post Pool, headed to the Dragon Villa... watched child genius. Felt smart about myself until i realised it was a Quiz designed for 8th Graders. Bah, Humbug. Went Home after and the peops and i had some laughs and things were good again. Took loads of pictures and videos on my phone and then settled down at 1:30 AM to watch 'Red Beard' directed by Kurasawa. Lovely Film and i'd recommend Akira to anyone who's had a dismal to so-so day. Only it finished about 3 1/2 hours later. Bananarana had given me a fabulous oil massage earlier so took a hot bath, washed the smelly oil out of my hair and here i am.

I'm leaning towards a couple of games of Rocket Mania and then i shall watch the sunrise. Ages and ages since i did this sober. Its a surprising feeling. Like when you run flat out after years and the feeling of speed gives you a wicked shock. Intense feelings you haven't felt in a while. They seem to sit, waiting patiently in the depths of your Long Term memory and jump out with an overwhelming "Surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Like good scotch, matured and then aired. scotch...mmmmm

Watch sunrise it is, maybe take a shot or two of it as well. And then lie in wait for the maid when she comes in at 8:30 and give her an earful... Tomorrow will be a long, dreary Monday. But atleast the Morning will start beautifully.

Tea in the Sahara

2005-02-11T11:24:00.000-08:00

Never thought it'd happen but i watched Sting in concert. It seems the personal dream fairy waved her fickle wand in my direction. A culmination of long hours spent listening, imbibing, ingesting the Police, feeling the melodies, memorising every note, devouring the genius.

The evening was lovely and the duress of waiting two hours to get close to the stage melted away as Sting's fretfreak walked on stage. followed by the rest of the band, and finally the master himelf, impeccable in his pin stripe trousers. a great grey bee. The spotlight was on, but the aura was far more intesne than white light. Calm, collected, aware, together backed by exemplary musicians. Simpatico. Send your love, appetizer, Fragile, Main course... delectable. Frenzied crowds, including a tiny maldivian couple who knew all the words and a tall Brit who shared my joke about a giant Back stage chillum. And then, silence. The sound of Nylon strings, plucking magic and sending shivers up my spine. I stared, mesmerized and dusty. Driven to tears even. Been years since an instrument made want to weep, from yesteryears upright bass to the moment's acoustic guitar and vocals. Synchronicity. Danced like a dervish, wailed like a siren and got bitten like a chicken leg.

Ixnay Blue, I'd never pay to see you play. Go to Delhi... or Ludhiana...

Too too funny

2005-02-07T03:15:00.000-08:00

www.weebl.jolt.co.uk

Check out 'Anywhere' that's my personal fave

the merits of breakfast

2005-02-01T20:41:00.000-08:00

Breakfast is a lovely thing!

merit 1- It's healthy to eat breakfast, and it sets me up to be really hungry by lunch

merit 2- when you finally get around to doing so, you start your day with a sense of organisation that would normally set in during lunch. And then you'd have to eat Lunch ofcourse after which you're too sluggish to really get anything done... viscious cycle

merit 3- All those lovely breakfast foods! If you didn't eat breakfast they'd sit around getting old and mouldy on your kitchen shelves and that's not very nice to look at.

I stringly reccomend breakfast to everyone! Especially freelance people like me who need to push themselves to do work....

Inspiration Point

2005-01-30T07:10:00.000-08:00

What is it that brings inspired ideas gushing in? Or did i just answer my own question?! I have a dislike for hard drugs because i magine that even while they unlock some parts of your mind and make for interesting experience, you tend to miss all that's really interesting in the world around you. Introspection is a very important thing for an artist but can you really produce good art if you don't connect the personal to an experiential anchor? Anyone would be a complete liar if they said they didn't feel the need to connect with other warm intellegent bodies.

I've thought about this a lot because it directly effects the sonwriting process. Anyone can use a medium cleverly, but its not enough. You need to have a sense of reality, whether your own or situational. There is no one way to do things and its that variation that makes art and culture so captivating. You can have a product thats peppered with superb language and have not a single good idea within it. At the same time, you can have a simple, straightforward piece of verse that is bursting with ideas. Tastes vary but I pesonally much prefer a fabulous idea that's not masked under layers and layers of euphamisms. And if you can combine thought and feeling with genius craft then more power to you!

I had an interesting discussion with a friend who believes that music has no higher purpose than to entertain. And on the other hand her band mate felt otherwise. I thought while they were making different arguements on the surface, in a big picture they were both just saying quite similar things. Considering that shallowness and depth are fabricated, there is a thought process that goes into either. And that would be the art, of making music presumably. So you've set out to create something with an idea of what its meant to acheive, acheiving that response validates it. whether it's having people tune out and just bopping to some ridiculous pop song or tuning in and re-evaluating their lives.

Commercial... what a frowned upon word! I think some of the best work is commercial! Led Zeppelin, Mozart, Dave brubeck... its commercial in some sense of the word. Their work makes tons of money, gets a huge amount of publicity and inducts new people into their various fan clubs daily. The reason lies in their work being oustanding. Having the ability to touch millions on many levels. So that makes Classic another euphamism for commercial....hmmmm...

Makes you wonder if there really is any art for art's sake alone... or just sour grapes...

Taking my head out of the sand

2005-01-30T02:11:00.000-08:00

Private Journals are so passe! In with the Blogs! Out with locks and keys! Just had a Marvelous Breakfast of Sausages, Cheesy Omlettes, Fried Tomatoes, Smoked Beef Bacon, Toast and Tea.... This is India, Nothing says i Love you like a clogged artery. Point in case the grandmother. Mine refuses to let me get off the table until my eyes pop. If you can still walk away, there's probably more room she feels.

The first thought i had this morning was that the gates at the Sting concert open at 5.30 and i need to be there by 5.25. Its a week away and i'm already smiling like a complete Idiot. Time to take out my treasured Police Box set and gaze at it lovingly again. Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, one of my favourite holy Trinities! Anyway, One out of three is good enough for me! And How!

Happy Happy Happy! Joy Joy Joy!!!