Tales from The End of the World

Scenes from a bus

2011-12-29T20:39:00.009+08:00

A day a week I get up early to catch a creaking bus to the world's second largest Oil and Gas terminal. The road to this terminal is long and winding and some days you could be stuck on the bus for a good hour and something.

The ride to Sangachal is one of the most stupendous, ridiculously beautiful morning work rides you’ll ever take. Between scenes that look like they’ve survived a nuclear holocaust you encounter these huge mountains made of mud, the by-product of dormant mud volcanoes in that area (Many parts of Azerbaijan still have active mud volcanoes; apparently harmless they just gurgle up mud all the time).

Over the years copious amounts of mud have formed these ranges of bare mountains. A part of you feels like you’re in the first Star Wars movie on your way to find a young Anakin. The force is definitely strong with this place. Sometimes you catch a house at the foot of the mountain with no sign that anyone is staying there.

The ride starts off with what is an abandonned rig from the Soviet times. This thing is amazing. It sits there all by itself in the bay, with no one around. It’s been sitting there for decades now and home only to the birds that come to nest. Something about it. Every time we drive by my neck cranes left. As the road winds in you see it from afar and as you approach it builds slowly into view till it dominates the view of the sea. Killer.

On your right is a rusting pick up truck in the middle of a pool by the side of the river. The pool has a 80:20 spread of oil and water. This small pick-up truck is parked in half submerged water with only the roof and windows peeking out of the water. In the winter morning sun when you drive by it’s like that scene is frozen in time. It never changes even though you know that truck is slowly rusting away and in a couple of years nothing will be left. We drive by too fast every single time and I curse the camera on the phone for once again missing a prize winning photo opportunity. Sometimes the sun catches the screen and the car gives you a wink as you drive by.

One day my colleague Azad zooms down the highway in his swanky car; pointing out things and places. He chuckles as we drive by a half built resort. This resort is a piece of work. The owner imported hundreds of palm trees and planted them all along the entrance and the road leading to the resort. Unfortunately no one told him that palm trees don’t like to hang around in weather they are not used to. Both the trees and the half built resort just slowly die away. It’s like the owner like the trees lost all enthusiasm to carry on with their vision of grandeur.

Just before we pull up to the terminal we pass these blocks of houses. It’s looks like someone took a massive box of cardboard painted it , cut little holes in it for windows and placed it on the ground. They look like these massive boxes just placed there. I stare at them wondering who’d live in them and what would life be like in them.

All the while the Caspian sea gently laps at the shore and in the horizon you see boats, rigs and seagulls flying out into the silvery skies. Most of the passengers put on their headphones and stare out. It’s the one bus ride that everyone is sorry when its over.

Someone once told me when one moves to a new country one must try not to live like a tourist just observing and reporting. One should absorb and soak in as much as they can because the chances of ever going back are zilch and decades from now when you live that memory again make sure it’s so well absorbed that the picture in the mind feels like it was just yesterday.

With dozens of bus rides ahead of me that ride is something I’ll always remember.

Sound of 2011

2011-12-26T14:00:00.006+08:00

Playlist of the Year.

1. No Church in the Wild – Jay-Z & Kanye West. An absolutely pitch perfect blood soaked song that conjures up images of the last scene of Scarface imagined what the place looked like after the bloody shootout scene. Love is indeed cursed by monogamy.

2. The death of You and Me: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. A terrific song from the best albumn of the year. When the New Orleans Brass band kicks in the song instantly becomes a classic to be heard time and again.

3. New York: Snow Patrol. Yeah I don’t know a Snow Patrol song ranked third? Something about this song that makes me want to listen to it again and again. The whole ‘come on, come here, come out’ bit becomes a plaintive cry by a lover wishing the curve of her was curved around him. Super. Such a sappy love song and still scores.

4. Pumped Up Kids: Foster the People. Every year there’s one breakout indie gem (cue: MGMT, Empires of the Sun, Mumford and Sons) and this year its Foster the People. The whole of the Torches album is very good . You will catch the hilarious video for Don’t Stop on the telly but it was Pumped up Kids that got it all rolling. The peppy song with dark lyrics about a teen shooter going mental killing people made us all outrun his gun to pick up the albumn.

5. Sophia: Laura Marling. The breakout hit of the year. Laura Marling’s albumn ‘A creature I don’t know’ is astounding because of the fact that she’s only 21 years old. The music, the lyrics show a maturity far advanced than her years. I had Sophia on repeat for a long time. Hear how towards the later part of the song the song picks up speed.

6. The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie: Red Hot Chili Peppers. RHCP channel U2’s Where the Streets have no name in their video however the song is all their own. A really funky get up and dance number courtesy a super bass and a new guitarist with tons of cool Maggie makes us all Lipstick junkies. The song just gets better and better with each listen. No-one does cool like RHCP.

7. The World as I see it - Jason Mraz: The shape of things to come from the next Jason Maraz album. Released as a free single in September, the song is familiar Mraz with a little bit of 90’s pop mixed in.

8. Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys: Hands down the best music video you’ll see this year Chocablock with celeritities galore. Starting with Elijah wood rocking out to Ted Danson, Steve Buscemi, Will Ferell, Will Arnett , John C Reilly. The song is hip-hop god. How do these guys still sound like a bunch of teenagers?

9. Home: Mumford and Sons: As the buzz builds up for the next Mumford and Sons album (they say that it’s going to be Black Sabbath meets Nick Drake) they release a single that’s as depressing, meditative and soul pulling as a Nick Drake single. Months on the road and months of writing the next albumn means we are looking at a CD that’s going to be super awesome.

10. You are a Tourist: Death Cab for Cutie. We end the top 10 with the one song that reminds me that no matter how faraway I am from home (wherever that is) and how much I miss it. I did feel a burning in my heart to get out I did always feel like a visitor and I’m glad I moved when I did.

11. Discoverer: REM: I see desolate cities and a man in a suit running down the roads with no fixed destination to arrive at. A truly pulse pounding rock song

12. No Light, No Light: Florence + The Machines brilliant follow up to their brilliant debut Lungs. The albumn Ceremonials is a true belter. The band is going to be around for a long time

13. Switchblade Smiles: Kasabian. Kasabian are in top form in and the whole tape is really very good. A top song from a band that’s hitting their peak

14. Sweeter – Gavin DeGraw

15. The Roller: Beady Eye. We end side A with Liam Gallagher’s voice crooning The Roller. The song and the video are super. It promised wonderful things to come but the albumn was mediocre. It did have some good peppy rock n roll numbers but sadly none as good as The Roller

The B –Sides

1. A.K.A What a Life – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
2. I wanna live in a dream (in my record machine) – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
3. Welcome to the Jungle – Jay-Z and Kanye West
4. Man of Simple Pleasures - Kasabian
5. Fallen Empires – Snow Patrol
6. Wildfire - SBTRKT
7. We all go back to where we belong: REM
8. Alligator, Aviator, Autopilot: REM
9. So Cruel – Jack White’s cover of the U2 song
10. The Fly – Gavin Friday’s cover of the U2 Song
11. Superheavy – Superheavy a.k.a Damien Marley, Joss Stone, A.R rehman & Mick Jagger
12. Nothing – The Script
13. The Flood – Take That
14. Paradise – Coldplay
15. Afterlife – Paul Simon
16. Stranded on the Wrong Beach – Noel Gallagher & The High Flying Birds
17. Heartlines – Florence + The Machine
18. Girl Panic – Duran Duran (I’ll admit the video is the reason why the song is here)

Sound of the Year

1. Noel Gallagher's high flying birds
2. Watch The Throne - Kanye West & Jay Z
3. Ceremonials - Florence + The Machines
4. Collapse into Now: REM
5. Fallen Empires - Snow Patrol
6. Torches – Foster the People
7. Velociraptor – Kasabian
8. SuperHeavy - Super Heavy
9. Achtung Baby 20th aniversary Deluxe Edition
10. A Creature I don't know - Laura Marling
11. Dark Was the Night - Various
12. The Dreams We have as Children - Noel Gallagher Live at the Albert Hall
13. Ahk-toong Bay-Bi
14. Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: REM Greatest Hits
15. Different Gear Still Speeding - Beady Eye

See what it was in previous years:
Sound of the year 2010
Sound of the year 2009
Sound of the year 2008

Quote

2011-05-04T10:39:00.001+08:00

"Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race."

- Tarantino

Month 4

2011-04-30T21:50:00.004+08:00

The joys of a long weekend!. No juggling time and running out of it, no grumpiness on the train ride to work the next day promising yourself that you'll make the most of a day that runs into the night.

I got here because I wanted to post a song on my facebook page but you know... no one really cares so just so that I can document why the music this year is so good here is the best of what I've been listening to:

1. Different Gear, Still Speeding - Beady Eye.
Their debut albumn and yes its very good. Liam Gallagher still has the best voice in modern day rock and roll and the albumn throws up some really good numbers. It's a top setlist and Liam refuses to lose his Lennon hangover especially in the song 'The Beat goes on'. The Roller is the coolest song on the CD.

2. Belle & Sebastian Write about Love - Belle & Sebastian.
Yeah do a search for the band on these pages ad you'll see I slagged them off for the BBC sessions but I caught them live late last year and I re-discovered all their music. The lead Stuart Murdoch is a bundle of energy - you got to admire that. So I got the new albumn and its pretty damn good. The collaborations with Norah Jones and Carey Mulligan are super but the stand out song is 'I didn't see it coming' - the video makes me smile but they all look so serious and earnest when their a real fun bunch when you see them live

3. James Blake - James Blake
Runner's up in BBC's Sound of 2010 poll. The albumn oscillates between Massive Attack territory and Gomez tijuana Lady sounds. The kid's 25 years old and has produced an albumn of immense talent. The debut song 'Limit to your love' and the video that goes with it are trippy as hell only to be outdone by the trippier Lindesfarne I and II

4. Collapse into Now - R.E.M.
U2's peer's are back after a mediocre couple of years they shine in this high octane albumn. Discoverer plays once a day on my Ipod. Its one stadium selling out song and surprisingly they're not going on tour post release. All the best, Mine Smells like honey, Everyday is yours to win is all vintage R.E.M. Stipe's voice is still new adventures in hi-fi but man he's aged. Check the discoverer video he looks all old and shaggy with that beard

5. So Beautiful or So what - Paul Simon.
What to say about Mr. Graceland....I mean this is his best effort since Graceland. I love his voice the musical arrangement the African beats, the fusion of Indian music, his honest voice, his tongue in cheek lyrics. A legend. Afterlife, Dazzling Life, Rewrite and the title track all shine.

6. See my friends - Ray Davies
Ray from The Kinks reworks his greatest hits with collaborations and everyone from Springsteen, Mumford, Metallica and Gary Lightbody show up. Lola, This time tomorrow, Better days are all given a spin.

7. Kiss each Other clean - Iron & Wine
Iron & Wine's song 'The Trapeze Swinger is one of the best song I'd heard. Its been a favourite of mine for years now. Whoever has listened to it agrees it is just a brilliant piece. So I picked up his latest thinking there would be be more swinging but the album is a departure and it works. It is my best album of the year so far. Blessed with a killer voice and an upbeat tempo the album does not disappoint and trips on the train are filled with his music.

8. The Blue Valentine Soundtrack. - Grizzly Bear
Ryan Gosling is very talented. One of the smartest actors of his generation and by the looks of it killer talent as the lead singer of Grizzly bear. The end credits of Blue Valentine is the best I've seen in a while and the song Alligator a meditating choir that builds and ebbs in a classic and the song 'You always hurt the ones you love' makes this a top addition to the year's music

So there we are. I just saved 85 people the painful experience of seeing another recommendation they don't give a fuck about.

There are some individual songs that are playing as well:

You are a Tourist - Death cab from Cutie
Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys
Union Town - Tom Morello - The Nightwatchman
Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground
Please (live in Rotterdam) - U2 (goes straight to my top 10 list of songs performed live by the band)
The Ghost of Tom Joad - Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello... just see the video it needs no introduction

Film in 2010

2011-02-23T00:22:00.002+08:00

and here it is my list of Top Films in 2010. A bit late but was catching up with the last of the Oscar films and now I'm cool with my list

The Social Network: Best film of the year hands down
Animal Kingdom: The mother is the creepiest woman this year. Must see film from the land down under
Blue Valentine: Best Love story of the year
The Kids are Alright: Mark Ruffalo brings easy charm to his role of an interloper in this film - a family drama for today's day and age. Julianne Moore and Annette Bening are super believable as a married couple
Youth in Revolt: Thought this was the funniest film of the year. Micheal Cera is in top form
Udaan: The only Bollywood flick to make my list this year and what a well told story
Never Let me Go: Horror, Sci fiction, A love story. Tragic and Heart-breaking. Garfield is a star in the making
The Fighter: Bale and Wahlberg light up the screen in this very good family drama
Green Zone: Best war movie in ages and so well directed.
Kick-Ass: Why this uber cool violent film didn't do well in the cinemas is beyond me.
Despicable Me: Much better than Toy Story 3 and my pick for Best Animation
Scott Pilgrim vs The World: (Full disclosure) you have to be sufficiently high to enjoy this film. Without alcohol the film is a drag
The American: Scores highly because of the excellent cinematography
Easy A: Reinvents the American teen comedy. Emma Stone is easy on the eye
Black Swan: Natalie Portman shines in this tragic movie about a ballerina who actually 'eats'
True Grit: Bridges, Damon and Brolin make it look all so easy
Toy Story 3: Loved Lotso the mean teddy bear
The Heart breaker: French candy floss comedy but I like Romain Duris and he plays the title role with an easy going charm.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - A twisted whodunit
Shutter Island - I wish I hadn't read the book earlier as it kind of ruined the whole experience and the end but oh well; still well made and well acted.

Yes, no Kings Speech and no 127 hours. I've started to hate films that are essentially weak but get critical acclaim for a strong author backed lead role (cue: Last King of Scotland, Capote, Milk). Best Actor for the year was Ryan Gosling and he wasn't even nominated. Best Actress is Natalie Portman.

Blue Valentine

2011-02-03T03:40:00.003+08:00

Must see movie. The performances are mesmerizing. You almost feel like a voyeur looking in to the coming together and breaking apart of a couple. In a year of Social Networks and King's speeches don't forget to get blown away by this stand out flick. Love is dead folks. Before Sunrise / Sunset and all that shit you hear from everyone (everyone) who's seen it about how there are lines from the movies they've said and blah blah blah (shitcuntmothertit) please do throw up all over them and recommend this film instead

Dean: "I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl, ’cause we’re resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I’d be an idiot if I didn’t marry this girl she’s so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kinda pick the best option… ‘Oh he’s got a good job.’ I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who’s got a good job and is gonna stick around."

U2 at the end of the world

2011-01-31T05:59:00.003+08:00

In Perth where we lay our scene, it's a hot summer afternoon as me and my friends make our way to Subaico.
Today is the 18th of December, 2010. Today is a day about twenty years in the making. Mysterious Ways did it for me. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen - the belly dancer, Bono with his long hair and the psychedelic video captured me. I remember.

Over the years the band's songs have meant different things at different times. In the dark ages 'All I want is you' played late into the night. In moments of exhilaration Vertigo, Where the Streets have no name and Discotheque jostled for mind space in my head. A very special relationship ended years back and the song from that day became Until the end of the world...the lyrics for the song eerily close to the situation, party girl started every playlist I made, sometimes you can't make it on your own became the song I need to hear when I miss my dad, their songs became the soundtrack to my life.

You get the drift. Which brings us to this day. I've flown miles to get here for this evening. I stand there listening to the crowd chatter, I see the crew work their stuff in the background, I soak it all in. Jay-Z comes on - he opens for U2, the older lot in the crowd murmur something about he being Beyonce's husband - completely unprepared for the R&B experience and boy is he awesome. He opens with Run this town and gets everyone bouncing, bounce bounce bounce - the beat goes on and on and under an hour he's done.

We wait - restless. We wait - the crowd is alive and dormant. The specially designed stage called The Claw is coming alive - this stage is a monster - the fifth member of U2 waits. The lights go down, its dark, the jungle is my head, the lights come on and go crazy, the band strolls on nonchalantly. Bono comes and stands right in front of me sizing up the audience, The Edge straps on his guitar. I can feel my throat screaming literally screaming in delight. They're all there, all body parts intact - this is exactly how I pictured it a million times and they're letting it rip - one masterpiece after another.

I call my girlfriend when Mysterious ways starts (first time I met her the line that most described us was 'She's the wave - She turns the tide, She sees a man, inside the child'), I call Arun my friend who knows how cool this is (Vertigo tour veteran) when Miss Sarajevo kicks in. I call Mum & Dad when With or Without you kicks in. This was Mum's favourite song and growing up I would hear the song constantly from their bedroom. I call baby bro when 'Walk on' kicks in because that boy has been walking on for sometime now. I take pictures. I sing along. I watch mouth agape as the screen descends and envelopes the stage. I reach out as Bono reaches out to the thirty thousand people below. I watch the Claw go absolutely ape shit - the screen is blitz, the lights just explode, the disco ball goes crazy.
The coolest part of the show is the ending of Until the end of the world. There are two bridges that flank either side of the stage. Bono stands on one and the Edge on the other and as the song ends Bono reaches out his hand for the Edge and the frickin bridges start moving closer to each other (yes I know all stage managed but so infinitely cool I came thrice) - the edge reaches his arm out and as the bridges move's closer their fingers almost touch...almost, and the bridges pull apart. Perfect. Perfect for the song as well.

It all ends too soon. Bono blows a kiss, the band takes a bow, Moment of Surrender lingers all and the claw goes back in its shell for another night.

Words will never capture the concert, nor will the photos and the grainy videos. It will linger long in my memory. I will hopefully tell my kid someday about that day I joined thousands of people in singing the Where the Streets have no name, or that I stood there right under the band and mentally ticked off #1 on the ten things I want to do before I die. 9 more to go and I'm sure we'll get there.

The setlist:

1. Return Of The Stingray Guitar
2. Beautiful Day
3. I Will Follow
4. Get On Your Boots
5. Magnificent
6. Mysterious Ways
7. Elevation
8. Until The End Of The World / Anthem (snippet)
9. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / Movin' On Up (snippet)
10. North Star
11. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
12. In A Little While
13. Miss Sarajevo
14. City Of Blinding Lights
15. Vertigo
16. Crazy Tonight / Relax (snippet) / Two Tribes (snippet)
17. Sunday Bloody Sunday
18. Scarlet
19. Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet)

Encore(s):
20. One
21. Amazing Grace (snippet) / Where The Streets Have No Name
22. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
23. With Or Without You
24. Moment of Surrender

Top Music 2010

2011-01-31T03:06:00.003+08:00

In the last four years that I have been documenting the sounds of the year this has been the best year for music So here it is, the top albums and songs for 2010

1. MumFord and Sons – Sigh no More
Best Song(s) The Cave, Little Lion Man, Dust bowl dance, Sigh no More, I gave you all
On a flight back in early January I gave this album a listen and that was to be the end of it. I bought the CD in November and is in my opinion the best debut of the year. Everyone who's listened to it since agrees that the CD is the reason why people like me stay up all night listening to the same song on repeat till daylight breaks. I can't think of a better collection of songs put together in a long long time.

2. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs.
Best Song(s): Ready to Start, Month of May, Empty Room
Watching the intense video for Ready to Start and the crescendo it builds up at the end of the track makes it the best song of the year. You might live anywhere in the world but no CD brings back the memories of the suburbs you grew up in than this CD.

3. Kulashaker – Pilgrim’s Progress
Best Song(s): All Dressed up, Modern Blues. A smashing return to form by one of my favourite bands. I admit its the nostalgia that makes them rank higher than some of the other gems on this list but that's fine. Nostalgia is what we need more of.

4. The National – High Violet
Best Song(s): I’m afraid of Everyone, Terrible Love, BloodBuzz Ohio. Will be watching this band live in early 2011. Very strong and improves on its predecessor (but only just)

5. Wolfgang Amadeus – Phoenix
Best Song(s) 1901, Love Like a Sunset Part II, Lisztomania, Girlfriend (a bit late, this CD came out in ’09 and fully deserved the Grammy for Best Alternative)

6. Hurts – Happiness
Best Song (s): Wonderful Life, Stay, Evelyn. This is the record Depeche Mode never made. Very strong debut; The Hurts are going to be around for some time to come

7. Flight of the Conchords - I Told you I was freaky: What a brilliant album really. One of the best TV shows that I've seen and it's really a shame that the show is over. The songs are yes very funny but they are so well crafted.

8. Florence and the Machine - Lungs.
Best Song(s): Kiss with a fist, Dog days are over, Rabbit Heart
Its a tough one for grammy voters for the best new artist. Either go for the soul stealing Mumford or the more popular Florence. (Well...Justin Bieber is in the running and with the world's collective IQ going south you never know....) To really understand Florence's vocal range you got to hear her cover of 'Halo' I guarantee you'll like it better than the original

9. Kings of Leon - Come around Sundown.
Best song(s): Radioactive, Pyro, The End
Well on their way to becoming a stadium selling out band comparable to the best in the business

10. Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures
Best song(s): No one loves me and Neither do I, New fang (one angry, monster of a rock albumn)

11. Bruno Mars and the Doo Wop Hooligans - Normally don't listen to this radio friendly stuff but the kid has a really good voice - reminds me of a young Micheal Jackson

12. Broken Bells - Broken Bells. A super collaboration between Danger Mouse (one half of Gnarls Barkley) and James Mercer- The shins to a brilliant CD. More time with this and it would have broken into the top 5 for the year.
Best Song(s): The High Road, Vaporize

13. The social network soundtrack. Trent Reznor made the movie cool. There's no way that Social Network would've been interesting without the background score

14. Entourage Season 7 Soundtrack

15.Foundling - David Gray
Best Song(s) A Moment Changes Everything, Davey Jones Locker

16. Vampire Weekend – Contra
Best Song(s): Cousins, Contra, Horchata
Actually this should be #15 but I can't be asked to edit!)

17. Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer
Best Song(s) (The internet sensation) F**k you, Bright lights

18. I and Love and You – The Avett Brothers

19. Maroon 5 – Hands All Over
Best Song(s): How, Stutter, Crazy Little Thing called love
I got a special spot for Maroon 5 and wish the albumn was better.

20. Kanye West - My dark twisted fantasy
Best Song(s)(special mention to the song Monster for the line: 'Have you ever had sex with a pharaoh, I'll put the pussy in a sarcophagus' Power, Runaway

Assorted songs that I heard and stood out

Can’t keep no good boy down – The Parlor Mob
Blood Like Lemonade – Morcheeba (Skye has rejoined the band and they've discovered some of their old mojo)
War – These New Puritans
Bring the Light – Beady Eye. (Oasis Reloaded: The new band without Noel Gallagher; everything about the band from the art work to the opening song screams Rubber Soul
The Roller - Beady Eye
She Said – Plan B
Space – M.I.A
WTP – Eminem
I Need a dollar – Aloe Blacc (mark my words; this guy is a major talent in the making)
Girl I love you – Massive Attack (one slinky Attack number, too bad the rest of Heligoland is crap)
Are you Ready – RPA and the United Nations of Sound (Richard Ashcroft’s new band)
Born Again – RPA and the United Nations of Sound
Swimming in the Flood – Passion Pit
Meet me at the Equinox – Death Cab for Cutie
Resistance – Muse

Another year passes us by and the search for the perfect playlist continues....but there are songs here that comes very close to that list. See you at the end of 2011.

I'll leave you with a gem of a song. This was recorded by Mumford and Sons when they toured India. It will give you a taste of the wonderful music they make:
To darkness - Mumford and Sons & Dharohar Project

Waiting for the miracle

2011-01-31T02:48:00.004+08:00

So many nights have passed just staring at the blog-screen waiting for the miracle to come . It annoys the life out of me that once upon a time the writing came ...you know just like that. Snap! and I had something written down. The past year has been spent in paralysis. I've written loads...pages and pages to just delete it at the end. When exactly did I become so critical of my writing?
A rant feels stale, an opinion feels re-run, rehashed, a music recommendation is well...you know check it out on NME why here?. As the blog shows you...page after page, it was an extremely cringe worthy excersise in battling depression. But I've been depression free for I don't know two years now and maybe I'm not depression free just in a state of limbo, floating around just above the ground. Waiting to hit the ground hard, just waiting, the fall will come, impact and stuff and we will bleed over the cold hard ground but for now the float rocks my boat (haha?).

The who turning 30 thing was a revelation as I'm sure it has been for many a person who's reading this. The dreams (and oh boy did we dream!) vanish, you wake up, get dressed all the while your fucking tragic going nowhere - just another commuter with fancy cologne- I cooked prawns last night- watched another oscar nominated film-updated facebook status (not smart this time) - I mean fuck it. Really. see how easy it is to fall into a rant to avoid the shit. (The shit: Have nothing to say and whine to pass the time)

So turning 30. Boy what a drag I must say. Don't blame the age. But I have to. I had these things I wanted to do with my life - we all did but somehow we decided to settle down to what we have. When exactly did my life become about High Definition? A state of limbo.

Tragic.

Frostbite

2010-11-10T17:45:00.001+08:00

It blows, it flickers it glows, it moans, it’s the beast raging, its alive, we all shall strive, lead a better wife, down we go, hell is a chasm, paradise is orgasm, could it be the comeback, could it be bareback, we don’t know which way she will blow, eyes burning, oozing, bleeding, living, ember burning, flicker, still, lying still, comatose, menopause, far within, wild thing, spin, make me sing, beat catches the flame, anorexia, concave, convex, obese, dead, type II, type I, he blows steam, catches the cold air, coolness reigns, far within, explodes, turns, makes it glow, embers come to life, fire burning in her eyes, we wait, we pause, we glower she growls, cat in the night, eyes light up the fight, it catches, we make it glow, ember, flow, its turns golden, crimson, we wait, arms folded, ready, wait, it could start , it does…it makes us move, it could be the bareback, I stand proud, I enter the crowd, I mingle, my head feels the shingles, I could be decayed, I turn it around, we all are awake, making it rage like a broiler plate, I type, my hands are weapons, I come into my own, I disappear all alone, who we are is replaced with Who I am, is? Interrupted, thought, impure in its decay, enfolding, the skin covering it up all you see is a hollow cave, cave…cave I like the cave I come out, I attack, I fill up the air, I’m alive like a lion breathing in the mountain air, I stand on the top of the hill with the fool on the hill, I eat him up, I drink his milkshake Eli, I am alive, blood flows from my chops.
Is there life left in this, it pulses, ember glowing, pulses, Its alive, ordinary is a far cry away, boy, you got a long way to go boy, break out of the web, deceit, suspicion, vegetation, cough, sex, smoke, smoke , man breathing in the cold air, remember, everything connects, flows to the top, erupts like a bubble, trapped in a bubble, falling up and back down, smashing to the ground, ebbing, flowing, joining millions flowing, one of them, one among them, walking among them but am I one of them?

World Sick

2010-08-31T11:22:00.003+08:00

Wait, let me guess you’re bored out of your skull. You spent another banal day at work yesterday, then the evening hit, you planned to work out at the gym but your testosterone left you two hours before the appointment. You fret and worry about what to do with your evening. You swear you’ll gouge your eyeballs out if you watch another DVD, you might go to the bar for a drink (but do you really want to?) you might say ‘lets do a little window shopping’ or you might just head on home to cook up some pasta; you’ll try and make the evening mellow, put on some music, open a bottle of wine, chop some garlic, heat some olive oil – you try very hard to keep yourself distracted, you zone off and troll the web, you look at status updates and photos, you pick up a book and then put it down. You pout yourself a drink, the CD – you put in another one. You look at your phone, you look at it again, you take out the thrash, you clean up, you go back to the sofa, you sit with the laptop, you check some inane videos on Huffington post, you check the latest episode of The Daily show, you look at what music NME is talking about, you read a review of a film you want to watch over the weekend, you scroll through your address book looking for a number to call, you check out how your football team is doing, you try and write and then stop at Line 2, you make funny faces in the mirror, you pour another drink, you change the cd, you lie on the sofa again, you shake it off and go do some pull-ups, you lean out of the window for a breath of air and a cigarette, you wonder what people are up to, you think about buying a telescope to peer into the houses of other people, you gaze at the people walking down below, you moisturize, you brush your teeth, you curse not going to the gym, you swear you're going to find things to do, you swear you'll sign up for a martial arts class in the evening (like that's ever going to happen) you tidy up a bit more you wait for the clock to hit 12:30 a.m before you head to bed
You head to bed. Lie there in silence, looking for the cold spot under the pillow and you wait for the sandman.

You sleep.

Repeat x 365

The Remains of the day

2010-08-21T21:43:00.003+08:00

Goodbyes to family at airports are heart wrenching affairs. There's the shuffling of the feet, the spaces of silence, the mandatory cup of hot chocolate no-one wants but is drunk to kill time before immigration.

There's the walk to the departures section all the while the lump in your throat grows bigger. My father reaches out to put a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket, I refuse and suddenly there's a huge back and forth row that puts everyone in a good mood for that little bit.

You touch their feet, that kiss on the cheek and the eyes start to fill up. Your nerves of steel mother lets a tear slip. My Dad and I are veterans of goodbyes - we've done this four times in four years yet his eyes fill up, I let that lump grow and grow, my head feels heavy. I hug my mother in that awkward way and for a moment she's lost in my hug - she struggles to understand the tears.

You watch them depart holding their hand luggage, there's that turn around and wave goodbye and they vanish into a blur of people getting to where they need to. You stand there at the glass that separates you , the lump in your throat still threatening to explode, your girlfriend slings her arm across your waist, i worry she's going to catch my irregular breathing. She doesn't say anything - she gives my arm a couple of squeezes . I stand there for a bit trying to catch my breath and we take a quiet cab ride back home.

Its that's moment you enter home and stand at the door wondering where the past week went, heavy like a loaded gun I walk around the house tidying up. There's dad's last cup of tea, there's a sachet of empty low calorie sweetener lying on the kitchen table. There's the piles of newspaper that Mum read before bed. There's that brochure from the Hippo open bus tour, there's the water bottle for the night in the bedroom. There's that underwater world ticket. There's that strawberry jam dad likes in the fridge, there's his apple he didn't eat. There's mum's case for her glasses that she left in haste. There's the light glow bulbs that dad ripped out of the streamers that they gave to us in the Opening ceremony for the Youth Olympic games, they life there - dead and lifeless but it captured my dad's excitement for a whole morning.

We all move away from our folks - we fight, we don't talk, we groan when we see that SMS asking to log onto skype. Yet when it comes to goodbye's we become blubbering 6 yr old's not wanting to go to school.

We watch them age in one week snapshots every year. We go back to Skype conversations, we watch each other's lives via a screen and facebook updates.

....we clean up the remains of the day and the next day comes, we get ready for the morning commute and carry on with life.

At the crossroads...

2010-07-05T16:41:00.002+08:00

and so it goes I come to another one of those dreaded crossroads in life. There’s this line I read in this book the other day. It went ‘the only things I regret are the things I did not do . It rings a huge church bell in my head. Life’s been all about taking those safe roads and avoiding the road less travelled. Unfortunately the road much travelled is again made up of many crossroads where that decision to take or not to take hits you.

I’ve been here before and while it’s been extremely inconvenient ; the light always shines through.

This time though (158 hours and counting) the light hasn’t come. I’ve made up my mind and backtracked and done this routine that would tire a hamster on a wheel and give it a heart attack.

We normally do not behave in this manner. We take a decision and stick with it. We abhor indecisiveness but unfortunately we become the things we hate.

But I see where this comes from. All my life it’s always been about uprooting and rebuilding. Build a huge fucking castle and then strap it with so much dynamite that it would make Wile E Coyote stand up and applaud.

Walk far away to my little box that says TNT and boom…beep beep.

I’m getting a little tired of it now. I want to donate my TNT to Africa , retire, build a home, smoke a pipe and rape natives.

Unfortunately this time the crossroad has a huge neon lit sign (its dark) that says ----------------->“Go here.” It’s good for you; it is the land of milk and barbiturates

But like I said the shock of uprooting might kill me. Make me weak and kill me slowly….I’d be like Catherine Earnshaw, unable to get out of bed, go bonkers, give birth to a baby and die. (or something like that)

So just this one time please someone listen to Othello and someone take that neon lit sign and put out the light and then put out the light.

I just want to stand here for a bit. I know nothing lasts forever but just for a wee bit ….don’t change anything.

Ek Lund ki kahani (Story of a knob)

2010-06-15T09:53:00.003+08:00

Avantika made my lund very hard. Avantika mother of two, lonely milf, Avantika smelling like obsession, Avantika with hair like silk, Avantika with tits like sugar, Avantika who like her G&T's, Avantika who moaned and liked nibbling my ear. Avantika who treated my lund like her third child. I met Avantika on the train.
She entered at a station after mine and behind those huge glasses of hers I could make out that she was sizing me up. We got off at the same station, its only now that I admit that I followed her out; just so that I could see her ass as she climbed up the escalator. It was everything I thought it would be and it was the first time that Avantika stirred my lund.
Everything I describe about what happened next is in slow motion. The four year old boy slipped while Avantika was tending to the baby she was carrying. Instinctively I reached to hold out to the boy. The boy fell. His head would have landed on the steel escalator had it not been for my hand that he landed on. My hand cut deep and bleed like a bitch. I pulled out a handkerchief and tried to bandage it as the blood filled up everywhere. At the top of the escalator Avantika consoled her kid and I asked if she was okay.

For the first time Avantika took off her glasses and all I thought about was imagine those doe eyes looking up at me while she sucked my lund. I tried to act concerned and patted the boy head but all I was really thinking about was angling into a position to see Avantika; who was squatting down. Specifically to see her ass crack for a memory to jerk off to later. Avantika’s ass crack was covered in a tiny silver thong, the lace going all the way down making my lund throb. I came back to reality when Avantika asked me if I was okay and I kept saying I was. She insisted we go to the doctor; one that she knew worked nearby and soon I was staring at her ass as she climbed up the stairs of a walk up apartment.

Lunch followed. Curry staining her baby’s frock, jokes, stories on Pune, we lived on the same street, she was 38. Cougar town. Second marriage. Husband travelled. Condo living. Housewife but was in advertising before life happened during advertising plans. Phone numbers exchanged. Promised to be introduced to lots of single friends of hers who’d love to date me. I didn’t want to date. I just wanted to douse her jwalamukhi with my warm cum. I got invited for dinner.

Dinner; jazz music playing in the background , kids were put to bed early with the help of some Benadryl. It was just the two of us sitting on a sofa framed between photos of her husband and her. Pati. Patni aur who for the millennia audience. Husband far away selling fabrication material for air conditioners in Shanghai and his wife - Avantika between my legs with my jeans pulled down giving me a blow job while looking at my face with those big doe eyes, the glass of wine slipping from my hand making a stain on the white sofa.

I shagged her on her shag carpet, on the dining table with rocket salad stuck to her ass, shagged her on her bed while her husband’s smiling face looked down on us, shagged her in the bathroom with her head banging against the shelf dropping her Gillette glide razor, shagging her before we slept, shagged her in the morning before I left. She let me out her face looking a mess; mascara stains making long dried black tears on her face, her hair a tousled mess, her night shirt carelessly unbuttoned. Her nipples making bumps against the soft fabric.

That was the end of it.

Then why am I writing to you from a hospital bad?

I underestimated the consequences.

I reached home . My wife opened the door. I had told her it was a late meeting and I mumbled my way to the bedroom. The last thing I wanted was for her to taste another woman on my lund.
I showered; changed and reached for my phone. 15 SMS’s in five minutes. I messaged back. ‘I’ll cll u l8r’ – another 15 sms’s followed. Her English was not that good. In-fact her ass had a lot of blotches. Her tits weren’t firm – my wife looked much better. It was the morning after and I realized that everything I made her out to be was made in my head. Avantika was a great one night Milf but I needed to put it aside and carry on with my life. Avantika didn’t let me .

SMS's became calls. It became difficult to explain to my wife when I left the room or ignored the phone frequently I met her again a week later. She wanted to divorce her husband and wanted us to move in together. I told her I was married. She created a scene. Stainless steel cups flew and I ducked, the other customers looked on. I ran out from the restaurant, my head bleeding from a cut.

Avantika showed up at my house after a couple of days. I had just come back from work and saw her as she sat there with my wife and was telling her about my SMS’s before the dreaded dinner. She told her about the mole on my back, the scar on my thigh. Wife left. Promised to make my life hell. It was only Avantika and I and there was nothing else to do but to fornicate.

It was after-eight hours in my house just like it was the last time. This time there was just silence and grunts as I fucked her so hard making her scream . Pleasure at the thought of hurting her coursed through my body. Pleasure that turned to quick disappointment when her painful expression broke into a big wide smile of pleasure, those doe eyes wide shut in moans of delight.

I tried harder till I had spent myself on her back.. I laid down next to her and told her ‘Bitch get out’ It was then that my wife returned home and saw us lying there on the bed and like a mad woman rushed out only to rush back in with a kitchen knife yelling ‘AAAIIIIII’ I’m sure her Chinese ancestors would be proud of little Atilla the hun It was not a first time lucky shot. She had to take a couple of swipes while I ducked and dived but when she got lucky she swiped it off clean.

My proud lund lay there between the sheets while I bled like a mad man and whimpered like a dog on a chain too long. I whimpered and cried as I lay on my side and watched my wife storm out of the room; her back disappearing in a blur of tears. Avantika was crouched in the corner, covering her nakedness and once she heard the door slam; she got up and started to put on her clothes. “Bitch” I shouted. Call the doctor bitch” Oh bitch” She gazed at me for a minute while I writhed and called her names. She reached for the phone dialed the ambulance. Later she came over to me and hunched over me – just like she had done when her boy bumped his head on the escalator.

I was lying on the wooden floor, my hair a sweaty mess, my face streaked in tears and snot, curled up in a fetal position . She giggled, ruffled my hair and then walked over to my lund. My formerly proud lund that used to fly . S
he picked it up and I noticed for the first time that she never did have a wedding ring on her finger.
She walked over to the bathroom.
I heard it splash into the toilet bowl with a plop.
I heard the flush, flush it away.
I imagined it going round and round in the toilet bowl; its final wave of goodbye to the world and then it was gone.
______________
end of Lund.

You said you'd wait until the end of the world....

2010-06-10T12:17:00.007+08:00

For the oil spilling thousands of barrels in the ocean everyday for what seems like eternity destroying the fragile ecological balance of the gulf. For the Americans who are learning a hard lesson in Karma for your highways, hummers and oil guzzling drill baby drill ways, for Iran that don’t understand the word ‘sanctions’ for North Korea Kin who cant understand South Korea Kim, for Israel for turning Gaza into a glorified concentration camp to avenge the holocaust, for the planes crashing and burning in Libya, Afghanistan and India, for the suicide bombers the world over who are crossing their fingers to hit a jackpot of the worst kind, for the great pacific garbage patch slowly introducing death to our food chain, for the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy who waited all their lives for justice too come to little and too late; for the zillions of red bull swilling twitterati who’s rage is a creative 7 word tweet, for the kids who’s idea of exercise is getting on a Wii Fit, for every fucking parent who nods in approval every time their child asks them ‘Mummy can I throw this’ before adding another plastic bag into a ravine in the Himalayas, for the 15 year old Nepali girls sold to the sex trade in India, for the Africans who know no better since the time a bottle landed from the sky in God’s must be crazy; for Jacob Zuma who can’t stop fucking everything he sees, for a prayer to god to please give inspiration to Pope Benedict to molest Justin Bieber, for the blind rut that religion today is stuck in, for Hindu godmen who’s greatest magic trick is not creating a gold necklace from ash but how they continue to enrapture millions into blind faith, for each Asian who thinks the white man is a god, for single friends who show you the left hand of fun, womanising and debauchery but cleverly hide that right hand of loneliness and despair, for Hollywood that produces mind numbing summer blockbusters that are ruining what film means to me, for the red and blue shirts in Thailand – get a new color you fucks, for me for letting it drift away...to see the sun shine on someone else's day.
....For all that, the end of the world is upon us. Goodnight and Fuck you.
Goodnight and Fuck you playlist
Saltwater – Julian Lennon
We didn’t start the fire: Billy Joel
Imagine – John Lennon
I’m outta time – Oasis
Waiting for the World to change – John Mayer
Until the end of the world – U2
Weapon – Matthew Good Band
Fake Plastic trees- Radiohead
Devils and Dust – Bruce Springsteen
Hey Ma – James
In the Name of the father – Bono and Gavin Friday
Welcome to Lunar Industries - Clint Mansell
Waiting for the miracle – Leonard Cohen

The Other Hand by Chris Cleave

2010-05-29T11:09:00.005+08:00

Once in a blue moon a book comes along that chews up all your nails, takes away all your sleep and you end up only thinking about the book, the prose and the way the magic unfolds.

The other hand makes no bones about letting the magic unfold. It, in fact tells you to wait and watch how the magic unfolds. You buy this book thinking its a cheap marketing gimmick to not tell you what the story is about - just that you are in for a wonderful reading experience. The past month I've been accosting everyone I know and asking them to read the book and that's all I can say. Whatever I read in the rest of the year will, I know pale in comparison to The Other Hand

High Violet by The National

2010-05-27T14:10:00.004+08:00

Sneaked out of office for lunch with the girlfriend and she bought me a copy of High Violet by The National. A CD that the BBC is calling a potential albumn of the year. I discovered this band a couple of months back and have been playing and replaying their sublime CD 'The Boxer' time and again. Fake Empire literally became the song I slept and woke up to and then when I moved appartments I had Appartment Story on loop. So my joys know no bounds to own a freshly pressed copy of High Violet.

I mean just give a listen to the first track 'Terrible Love' and you'll know why excite is coming to me fast!

Thank you.

Love me Like a Sunset....

2010-05-26T11:10:00.002+08:00

Love me like a sunset,

move in – move out.

Set in set out.

Make in – make out.

Take me up and take me down.

Light it up.

Set it off.

Move.

Sway, sway…sway……

like the sunset take me down.

Moonlight my sky.

Seagull my nights.

Sway…sway….

Line up that cloud.

Disappear in the twilight.

Dissolve, evolve, energise,

burn, scorch, cool.

Love me like a Sunset.

Drench me in the light,

sway …sway, hips sway they all say.

Make it mine.

Love me like a sunset.

Send in the alarms, put up the chimes.

Let the wind blow in – blow out .

Sway. Move,

drape all over me,

Love me like a sunset.
Fill me up –

Fill me in on the day that has gone and been.

Blur my evening;

smudge my perspective.

What is wrong, what is right.

Empty the crowded streets;

hang me out a bus, soak in – soak out.

Take me up and Take me down.
Sink my toes into the sand,

stand on tiptoe,

dive in,

feel the water all around,

slow it down,

down down.

Come up , come around.

Love me like a sunset......

The boy with the Jockstrap

2010-05-25T16:03:00.001+08:00

We all have that dream to strut around the beach in our swimming trunks with our muscles glistening in the sun. But most of us end up like a prototype for a future Homer Simpson.

I am no exception. I have dreamt of having a near perfect chiseled body and while doing my hourly gazing in the mirror I fantasise about me playing beach volleyball in my Levis jeans .

But for someone who’s content reading a book this is a tough dream to accomplish. Of late I’ve been thinking about it more often. It started with a pull-up bar in the apartment and then push-ups and now I’m ready to sign up with the local gym.

Today is Day I of training . I look forward to embarking on my journey from most intelligent man in the room to the dumbest jock on the planet.

Urban Dic defines a jock as: Signs of a jock: Rude, arrogant, stupid, beats up people, dates only cheerleaders and hangs around other jocks

Can’t wait!

Somewhere on the border of Iraq

2010-05-25T11:03:00.003+08:00

Teōtīhuacān: Because Oil is God.

2010-05-25T10:06:00.002+08:00

‘Where’s your water bottle son’ /Erm its in the car/ Better carry your water son or you’ll be pissing dark stuff all night/ Ermmm…/ The best way to know if you’re dying is to look at your piss son/ Right / It’s all in the piss son.

And so began my visit to the site where the fourth largest oil reserves in the world are pumped through thousands of pipelines. At one point I was standing on top of a Oil tank about 30 meters tall and 20 meters wide. I was literally standing on top of millions of dollars of oil right there. I trudged through a sand storm (very different from a dust storm) in my overalls, helmet, boots with the sand whipping my face as I saw the process of how thick sludge is converted to black gold. It was a heady experience. Kuwait went through a massive modernization project after the war. Even now after two decades you can see the damage caused by Saddam’s evacuation as they set many oil fields on fire across Kuwait. Saddam also channeled all the oil into the sea and set it on fire – the wall of fire that prevented the armies of the world from entering Kuwait by the sea.

Fascinating.

I trudge along visiting one gathering centre for the oil to a place where massive attack pipes are being laid under a six lane highway. The area is full of construction workers with helmets, dark glasses and handkerchiefs around their faces . You don’t know if they are looking at you or just staring into space. You wave and they wave back. Eyes – hundereds of them following you around as you walk around in your iron clad boots feelings bit like Tony Stark.

The well planned Oil refining units looks like a set out of a James Bond movie. Iron staircases leading up and down, across pipes and installations. You walk with a sense of your impending vertigo on these stairs while below you the oil makes its way to the Pipe trains that push the oil to various wells where they will go on to make petrol, diesel, Vaseline, your phone, your shampoo, your shoes and....I can go on but you get the drift.

I stand there thinking this is what its all about. War is just about business within , without.

100 years is the time frame the Kuwaitis have given themselves before the oil runs out. 100 years of drilling and transporting the oil that mother nature took millions of years to make.

As I leave the sand gives me a huge whipping. Its stuck to my face, its in my ears, I blow out sand. Mother nature’s way of making you pay for the rape of her land.

Fascinating

Wine and Women: Part II: The story of Eth

2010-05-24T23:03:00.002+08:00

In Kuwait absolution is a permanent state of mind. There is no drowning your sorrows in alcohol...

Most trips to a restaurant make for hilarious moments. There I am sitting with hardened veterans of the SAS, biceps bulging from every corner and when the waiter asks us what we want to drink, in one voice all go 'Pepsi'

But across the city the two million expat populations brews their own liquor at home. I had the (dis) pleasure of having a glass of finely distilled wine delicately named 'Australian Red 1994' ...not a good year trust me.

That glass of wine was just ethanol and grape juice and it knocked me out like nothing I've had before . Rocket fuel burning my throat on its way down to burn a penny sized hole in my liver. I spent the best part of the next day walking around like an aimless derelict .

Apparently I had it easy. I heard on the grapevine (the pun is lost on no one) that one bright spark popped open a can of Budweiser Non alcoholic beer and popped in a shot of 'eth' .

What no one told the poor sod is that Ethanol takes 40 hours to dissolve so what he proceeded to do was to drink 100% proof alcohol , pass out and had to have a tube shoved up his dick to flush his stomach. Ouch.

Eth is drunk in copious quantities over the weekend (being Friday & Saturday...because its Jhumma on Friday and Filipino Chumma on Saturday)

Eth makes people do stupid things like kidnap a young filipino and drive her to the desert, gangrape her and leave her there. If that doesn't give you a chill have a glass of eth.

Eth can be your worst enemy, it makes you the rashest driver in the most dangerous city to drive in the world. Making for headlines everyday in the newspaper about another wanker who totalled his car off the highway; the other headlines (like the search for the 'Salmiya Kisser' who accosts young women in Supermarkets; kisses them and runs away. Apparently his two day stubble is leaving massive scratches across the faces of many a nubile expat.) pale in comparison to stories of Eth.

Eth is your best companion on the dinner table. Everyone has a story to tell about Eth...between shots of eth everyone has heard a story about Eth fucking someone over.

Beware of Eth.

Wine and Women: The story of pussy. Part I

2010-05-15T16:11:00.004+08:00

Wine and Women. Two topics that dominate all conversation in Kuwait. Pussy and JD are two things that are rarely available in town. Pussy is your regular over the hill beached whale. Se gets to relive her glory hole days by being centre of attention for a couple of years more. As my know it all colleague informs me...'a year in this dump and even a camel starts to look sexy'

I'm a big fan of progressive nations like Belgium and France that have banned the hijab after watching from close quarters the obese uni brow equipped women here I am convinced that banning the hijab is a mistake of colossal proportions. Maybe your radical Imam wanted to spare you the sight of all these ugly women walking around.

In the lift the other day a woman walked in front of me. I didn't get a glimpse of her face. She had that nice apple bottom but for the life of me I couldn't see her face (it was like that Roald Dahl short story with Uncle Oswald in it). When her floor came she turned around to excuse herself out of the lift and fuck! it was a really really good case of the body of baywatch and the face of crime watch. She was so ....'damn bitch you are one ugly looking bird'

No wonder she tried to hide her face .....see if she was wearing a hijab we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I am trying to get as faraway from myself as I can.....

2010-05-14T20:48:00.003+08:00

I want to reach down to my toes make little slits with a knife at the end of each toe and slowly peel the skin of my body right up over the skull and then put it in a bucket of warm soapy water and scrub with a gentle loofah till all the dust comes off . Then follow up by soaking it in mousiterizer before I wear it back on. I mentioned dust in the older note but nothing's prepared me for the past 24 hours. It started as innocently as a gust of wind and from the sand dunes of Iraq in rolled a dust cloud that sits on top of this city and my head like the worst case of syphillis you'll never see.
It's flipping everywhere and it fills you up. It cakes the bath tub. It raises a puff when you sit down on the couch. It covers the remote, the kitchen table, the curtains. You look around for that elusive hole to catch where its coming from only to give up tired and sit down on the couch to gaze up at the air vent letting in a steady stream of dust.
You sneeze it, you spit it out (pittoey pittoey) but it never leaves. The sun creeps up to 50 degrees and in the heat you are blind. Visibility is 30 metres and this is no Delhi fog. It's Hell.
From Hell. I can now tell you that I've been to hell and I can tell you it's everything they said it was.

The Sky is a landfill

2010-05-10T19:08:00.000+08:00

Theres dust everywhere. Dust on your clothes, dust on your glasses, dust forming a protective layer all around you.
There’s dust when you sneeze, there’s mounds of it stored for the future when dust ceases to exist. It fills you in. Welcome to Day IV of Kuwait.
Strangely optimistic I carry my camera around hoping for an oasis. A memory to capture my month here. But it’s just one dust pile or another barren landscape. I get drawn to the flares from the refinery like a moth to a light. The fires dance out in funny shapes and it helps kill time as you stare mouth open at the dozens of flares all lighting up the evening sky.
The food is kebabs, pita, falafel’s, saffron rice the mandatory slice of onion and sugarcane juice. I eat in the silence that is my apartment.
The silence is another thing that is all encompassing. It follows you around reminding you of how low you sit in the food chain. You feel the silence as your pajero whizzes past a dozen people hanging out the back of a truck waiting to reach the highway to clear rubbish with their hands.
The heat; a friend of dust and silence withers you down. Makes you wince, makes you moisten your cracked lips, the heat seeps through your clothes. Desolate and tired pavements that you walk on ain’t no friend of yours.
Work starts at six in the morning and starts to wind down at six in the evening. 12 hour days everyday. Most have been doing this their whole adult life. Day in and day out just the weekend to chill. The weekend is Friday & Saturday. (Jhumma on Friday and Chumma on Saturday)
There’s no drink to drown yourself in. I wasn’t looking for redemption but redemption found me. Redemption is Kuwait city.

The Sky is a landfill playlist:
How was it for you – James
Sometimes – James
1901 – Phoenix
Lisztomania – Phoenix
No Tears to cry – Paul Weller
Little Bribes – Death Cab for Cutie
Fade In-Out – Oasis
Fake Empire – The National
Apartment Story – The National
Mistaken for Strangers – The National
Empty Cans – Mike Skinner and the Streets
Turn the Page – Mike Skinner and the Streets
Sun it Rises – Fleet Foxes
The Sky is a landfill – Jeff Buckley

Don't...

2010-05-02T13:51:00.003+08:00

...jump in a cab in an Asian country, drunk as fuck hug the cabbie and say 'Me love you long time' followed by 'je voudrais titty bar'
That will get you ejected out on the pavement and you'll lose your chance to stick it to an obnoxious cabbie by throwing up in the back seat

The birth of the Have's and Have nots

2010-05-02T11:42:00.005+08:00

Back in the day the only thing we obsessed about was stationery. Stationery decided the level of social acceptance you had in class. The better the stationery the better your chances of being 'with it'

You had the army kids with their Rs. 30 Hero pens which were insufferable. The ink came out from the nib in thin scratchy lines and after writing half a page you couldn't be bothered with homework really.

You had the bottom of the food chain - Reynolds ball pen users. Rule #1 was never hang out with the Reynolds ball pen guys. They'd do embarrassing stuff like hang out at the tuck shop to buy refills for their pens. Ball pen refills. Ugh.

Worse it was Gaurav Talwar, Anshu Chandna, Rulhan who'd use Reynolds...and they wouldn't even buy them. They'd come on exam day looking pathetic and ask for a pen and someone would grudgingly hand them their back-up reynolds which you'd never see again.

(The three names mentioned above were (hushed tones) repeaters - they had flunked the year and were repeating the year with us - the junior batch. Of course 'repeater' was the polite - African-American term the real nigger term was 'failure' but you rarely called them that apart from the elite (racist) top 5 that mocked their failure by hollering 'ay failure' across the classroom. Everyone avoided the failures (I'm racist too though I barely scraped through every year I didn't flunk)

I did however sit with Anshu Chandna... no one sat next to him because he had polio. I thought it was very big hearted of me to sit next to the polio kid ...I was like a male Mother Teresa nursing the downtrodden. What people don't know is that I sat next to him to observe his walk so that I could perfect my polio impersonation... It lasted all of three weeks. It was rubbish. The bugger smelt like fuck (yes you have polio but does that hamper the bathing process??), there were groundnut shells littered in his desk drawer and Reynolds refill packets everywhere. For a failure he sure wrote a lot)

You had the our-parents-are-too-poor-to- afford a god pen but you still got to write well pen - The white Luxor Pilot pen. Rs. 15. All white with a blue dot on the back that you could remove to fill ink into the blotter. The blue bit all chewed up to kill time.

Luxor also had the much sought after Pilot V-5 Hi-techpoint. The use and throw Blue wonder that let you see how much ink you had left. It cost Rs. 45 and you needed to save every rupee of your miserable pocket money to buy it and because, all kids were stupid, instead of using the pen only for special occasions- you used it for everything even when there was nothing to write about because it wrote so well. You felt posh writing with your expensive instrument. So after 5 days you were back to whatever nimrod pen you were carrying (I is a army kid as well so it was Hero ink pen and my bottle of Chelpark ink)

There were the Camlin Rs. 10 ink pens that one bought in dozens...each one of them hemorrhaged and died at desks but you lived in some twilight zone where you though that one of these pens would work beautifully. It never did. Ever.

Soon the Reynolds lot had an opportunity for an upgrade - the Rs. 8 Stic pen. All blue masquerading as a V-5 but didn't miss the eye of the elite in the classroom. The stic was actually a good pen but after a while the soft tip would fray and make the writing look rubbish.

and then there were the elite Marwari kids. The kids who had imported Parker Pens before they came to India. The Parker pen was looked on with much envy. It wrote in a thick lovely mess and you could curl your letters and practice your signature with a flourish. If you were nice to a fat rich kid he'd let you use your pen for a half hour class.

My dad had a Schaeffer ink pen. It was the most delicious ink pen I'd known. My dad would joke that the pen was all he got in dowry and had been with him since the last 15 years. I used it occasionally but it wrote too thick and my teachers didn't like it. I once day pleaded with dad to please let me take it to school and he told me I'd lose it and I promised I wouldn't.
I lost it....carried the guilt for many years and the day I earned my first salary I went straight to Walden in Hyderabad and bought a schaeffer ink pen for him.

Later came the uber cool cartridge ink pens. They mean mofo's were efficient and fast. They'd write just the right amount of thick and you could be proud of the pen. Make a big show of changing the cartridge like you were loading a gun to assassinate someone. The cartridges cost a bomb so some kid brought a medical syringe to class and he's use the syringe to re-fill the ink. Soon everybody had an injection. When fights broke out we had more needle marks on our arms than junkies in the park and the injections were banned from school and the expensive cartridge ink pen met an early death

Each trip Dad took abroad brought a whole stack of Bic ball pens and god I loved them but like Jesus I handed everything to the people around. Fair weather best friends who'd hang around long enough to ask for a pen and never share notes and homework once they had made use of my good fortune.

I still have the first pen stand I got. It sits on the table in front of me and holds a Bic, a Schaeffer Ink pen, a Cross ball pen (gift from the Nair's to jump-start my writing) and an assortment of stationery that I never use.

Sitting here in front of the laptop staring into space I find inspiration in the closest thing.

What am I going to write about next? The joys of my duvet?

Our worst fears lie in anticipation

2010-04-25T01:05:00.003+08:00

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated and yet the menace of the years finds, and shall find me unafraid .

Worried maybe. That the years will take the edge off. I find myself thinking constantly that ten years from now I'll look back at my dreams and aspirations as nothing but the follies of youth. I will sit there on my chair my bulging waist line straining as I reach for another cigarette from the pack lying oh so far away while my little off-spring plays on the carpet purchased at Ikea to join the millions in their little nesting culture.

I'll gaze admiringly at my house and tell myself how well I've done. I will be content, happy. Calls I will be making calls to check on my friends.

I will worry about tax, I will plan holidays home, I will break a sweat wondering about my next medical appointment. I will surf the net on ways to keep your cholesterol down. I will make appointments with the dentist. I will worry about erectile dysfunction, I will carry a planner.

The future is neutered.

Neutered and happy. Happy in the ignorance that we just merged into the million who commute to work everyday. That face that blurs into the crowd. A real nowhere man. Sitting in his nowhere land singing all his nowhere songs for nobody.

Goodbye J.D. Salinger

2010-02-18T22:58:00.006+08:00

I remember the first copy of The Catcher in the Rye I owned. I was 14. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is what I was doing when I read it and why I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth but I'll tell you anyway because It had been a very tough year.

My folks wanted me to join the Doon School in Dehradun. It involved tons of tuition, an expensive entrance fee and well very many sleepless nights thinking of how this will finally make me a man. (Actually the fact that I am still a child can be put down to the fact that I did not get admission in the school that made Vikram Seth a wanker). All our relatives kids had passed through Mayo or Doon and in keeping up with the Jones's I was destined to join the ranks of a Doon boy or a Mayo boy.

Since I specialize in giving away the punch lines these days you already know I didn't make it. Instead I studied in St. Thomas's College Dehradun (why it was called a college and not a school involves a very boring long winded story which I will not get into). A school for shopkeepers sniggered our relatives which was not true. It's just that the school/ college (fuck it) resided just after Paltan Bazar the place which housed the ghastliest shops and alleys caked in dung and smelling of incense. Goels, Aggarwals, Jains, Guptas all studied at my establishment only to run home at the end of school to sit in the shop. All were fantastic in Math and athletics and being in that class I had a feeling that I was riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind.... It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college.

My teachers thought I had shit for brains. Crying on report card day (I only did it so that they'd give me that extra mark to pass) flunking the Doon entrance test. Algebra, kilos of books, tuition, more tuition. Tuition with Vishal Sagar who'd break an egg in his head when the class would start and slowly massage it into his scalp while he explained a particularly tough trigonometric equation, tution from Mrs. Sen for Bilogy, tuition from Mr Krishnamurthy, tuition for Geography from Mr. Ravi Verma, tution for hindi from Mrs. Katoch, tuition on English grammar from Mr Sen's daughter with the St. Bernard's but I didn't go for the extra study too much, at home no-one could understand how I was studying so much and failing, it all boils down to the fact that I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.

So as you see it was easy to fall in with Holden. I found him that same year on a dusty shelf of a cousin's house. I was smitten with the cover. It was a musty book, the pages yellow with time, bits of cement stuck to the pages, proof of a recent renovation exercise in the house but what killed me was the cover, just the title and Salinger's name on a white background with a bunch of rainbow lines on the top left. My cousin asked me to read it. Mumbled something about John Hincley Jr. and the book was mine. It stayed with me till I met a girl who was all keen to get a bit of reading done. I figured she likes the same music I do so she's honest and she'll return it dumb I know but she was real dumb, I mean I gave her my favourite book and she comes out and tells me she might be a dyke how dumb is that? If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's dumb? Nobody. (or maybe I never recovered for being left for a woman)

I bought another book, gave it away, bought another, gave it away. It happened again and again, it's like I wanted the whole goddamn world to read the book. I gave up a couple of years back and now Mr. BananaFish does not own a copy of the one book that ever mattered.

I watched Conspiracy Theory and smiled at Mel Gibson's collection of The Catcher in the Rye's and how he obsessively buys it when he sees it. I watched Will Smith's monologue on The Catcher in the Rye in Six Degrees of Separation on repeat, the Gin Soaked boy became my favourite song because of the line 'I'm the old school in the tie, I'm the catcher in the Rye' . I read what a twat Hincley was, what a twat (II) Chapman was and read phony books like Vernon God little because they said in the press it was the second coming of Salinger. I bought more rye and gave it away. I fantasied about opening a school for children who didn't have anything in life. That school would be their salvation or they'd fall of the cliff.

Every disappointment, every step I took backward. I just read the book and everything was okay. Holden went through worse. It's okay, get on with it. Come to think of it I don't remember ever re-reading it when life was super, it was like comfort food. It made me feel better almost immediately. I looked for Phoebe W. Caulfield in every girl I met and then the obsession with the book just vaporized. The book became a part of my personality and I'm not obsessed with myself. I'm not a phony.

I was in a place far away when I heard. There were a couple of mails that I read in a half asleep half hungover state. They were condolences. Like I'd lost a family member. I read and re-read every asinine tribute to Salinger all the morons of the world united to say and all that crap about what the book meant to them, helping them through adolescence and all that rot. For me it meant something too... but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth

J.G Ballard. Frank McCourt. J.D Salinger within months of each other. They're falling out of the sky. Age they say. But they live forever.

Sometimes an education is not always by the book...

2010-02-16T01:26:00.009+08:00

I've been carrying around those two fighter planes since 1990 anywhere I've gone. Its accompanied me across India every-time Dad was transferred. It followed me to B-school, to Bombay, back home, to Singapore. They've always been there. On one shelf or another, the parts slowly coming apart, ugly as hell jarring every other thing that's sat on the shelf with it. Now a days they park themselves on my bookshelf. For two decades they've been my little window into my childhood. But sorry dear reader I've not come back here after ages to dvelve on a long forgotten childhood memory. I'm here to tell you an amazing story that warms my heart as I write it.

Those planes are taken everywhere for a reason. Whenever I've looked at it (and let's be clear I didn't gaze it at fondly every day of my life, it was more of a ritual of setting it up in a visible place everytime I set up shop somewhere new) it reminded me of that one man who really made a difference and I'm sure contributed a great deal to the man I am today.

1987:
Rudy Keswick was my grandfather's hunting partner back in the day when hunting was what people did because the Play station hadn't been invented. Rudy uncle would come down to our estate and go on hunting expeditions with grandfather and later with dad. Ofcourse I'd never met Rudy uncle till 1987 because in the late seventies he had migrated to Perth Australia. For some reason he'd send over a parcel on Christmas full of goodies, chocolates, toys that the Indian customs department would rape and pillage and mail it to us with some really apologetic tape in late March.

You can imagine for a boy growing up in a country which had no Pepsi / coke, Nike, Levis, toblerone, fancy remote controlled cars why that package was such an obsession.

Me and my brother Vishal would ensure we'd be around the house when the postman came in the afternoon to see if he had our parcel. Yup those parcels sure as hell left a mark on our childhood...well more so on me than Vishal because this one time when the package arrived me and my brother got into a fight and I yanked the package from him. A young angry Vishal climbed up on a table and flung himself at me and sank his teeth deep into my back and held on with his canine milk teeth like Kate Winslet held on to that piece of log in Titanic. I needed injections, medication and can you believe it still had to share everything 50:50 with him inspite of all the trauma he caused me!

If you look closely on my back you'll see the marks of that mauling by Dr. Lecter.

...ah but we digress. So yeah those packages sure as hell made the March sun seem cooler. In 1987 Rudy uncle came to visit with his friend and it was the one time I met him. I remembered the beard, the worn out baseball cap and the goodies he bought for us and how the voltage was bad when he was there and the whole week the lights were a strange dull dim. I remember it was a happy time to meet the man who'd been sending us all this stuff and just like that he was gone

We moved to from Secunderabad to Pune in 1990 and the packages followed us there. The video cassettes full of recorded TV shows changed from Sesame street to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the pencils to pens, and a poster of Vanilla Ice with the TMNT. I loved that poster! (possibly tacked out from a music mag) I stuck it up. Got a Vanilla ice hairstlye and watched TMNT on repeat. The video tapes recorded Aussie shows like Robinhood and Marian with Sean Connery, Napoleon and Jospehine with Armand Assante (you'd have to Google him to know who the actor is but I thought he was the best actor I'd ever seen). Soon those parcels became an education. The toys gave way to stamps from all over the world,(I mean a first edition Elvis Presley stamp! how cool is that), coins, , uber cool stationary that got me addicted to Bic pens (I mean I even have the logo of Bic on the picture up there), documentaries, films and I was hooked. I watched them again and again....my window into a world I didn't know. I knew all about Napoleon, World War II, the holocaust, French architecture, the amazonian rain forests all by the age of ten. The two planes were part of the last parcel we received.

1991 / 92 brought Music Television, Star Plus, the Wonder years, Liberalization and also made us move this time to Dehradoon up in the Himalayas. Dad lost Rudy uncles address (no facebook remember), Rudy uncle didn't know where we went, we kids were too lost in the television to care and the story of the packages ended there.

....or it should have ended there but like I said I've carried those planes everywhere so that I will always remember to be thankful to Rudy uncle.

December 2009.

I was sitting with the family back home in India and I told them about my upcoming business trip to Perth in January. We got talking about Rudy uncle. I said I wanted to see if I could locate his family. Mom told me that Rudy uncle died a couple of years back and they'd gotten a letter about it. It saddened me that I'd gotten this chance to go to his state and was too late to stop being thankful and actually say thank you. I went on a trip down memory lane and went over most of what I've written above and my folks just sat there and listened. I guess they probably had no inkling how strongly I felt about the packages. We started laughing about how Vishal bit me over that one package and I told them about the planes, mom took out a pencil sharpener designed as a water pump that he'd sent and she'd kept it all those years as well. Nostalgia hit everyone in the room. I said 'Maybe I could try finding his family' . Mom thought it was daft. She said it's no point it's been 20 years. Dead buried long gone.

But it wasnt for me. I felt that if I could locate the family and just meet them and understand what made this man send all these packages year after year to two boys back in India and just ...you know say thank you. It's just manners.

So I got back to Singapore and started looking. On the internet a lot of Keswick's got a lot of crazy emails about parcels and fighter planes and Vanilla Ice, I looked up e-groups, called the embassy for directories.

There did not seem to be in Perth a Keswick family that I was looking for.

That should have been the end of it really but when I got down in Perth they have in hotels what they call a phone book. Mine was dated 2003, dog eared and hopelessly out of date . So I flipped to K and found about two dozen Keswick phone numbers in the directory. I shut it - too much work had gone into chasing a stupid childhood fixation and I let it be. That's till Friday evening hit and along with it came the realization that Perth shuts at 6:30 in the evening. So all alone in my hotel room, the phone book on the opposite bed I gazed at it for a good minute picked it up and started dialing.

The first dozen numbers rang into nothing. Zilch. Noone picked up. The next couple were answered my flummoxed Aussies who wanted to poke their ear drums out than hear a thick Indian accent go "Good day mate!" and (I swear this is all true) the last number I dialed a man picked up. He said this was the Keswick residence and I told him my story in brief and he said he had no idea what I was talking about. I was about to hang up and then he said 'Son what are you doing to me? It's all coming back. Are you Freddy's son?' The hair on the back of my neck just stood up. Freddy is my dad's pet name....I then spoke to Rudy uncle for five minutes . He was not dead he was alive - a man al of 86 years old with the memory of an elephant, a man who lived in the outback, who went fishing with his son and drove into the wilderness every weekend with his son in a hell raising four wheel drive. I could hear his excitement on the phone as I'm sure he heard mine.

I got invited for lunch the next day. After getting lost finding the place and arriving a good three hours late I was standing in the living room of Mr and Mrs. Keswick. There were old albumns laid out with photos of me and my family with notes explaining who we were and where we were from. There were letters from Dad written in his sexy handwriting signed 'Freddy' on his 7th Cavalry letterheads. They stared at me like I didn't exist. I sat down with them and had lunch. His youngest son all of 50 but looking 40 hovered over me. Showing off his insane chilli sauce that he spoke about for ten minutes and making me drink a bottle of his home brewed beer. He treated me like a long lost friend and I did feel like I was welcome, the house felt like my own. I belonged there. I wasn't a guest.

They were delighted that I found them. I talked with Rudy uncle a bit more. I sat with Aunty and she spoke about her days in Vizag, she spoke about how their phone number does not feature in the phone books anymore because it's an unlisted number now (imagine! ) he spoke about his days in Calcutta, he told a story about how he saved my grandfather's life from a bunch of Naxalites who had come to assassinate him, he told me about our estate in all its glory, he spoke about his experience as a solider in World War II. He spoke about the pneumonia that almost took him early last year, he spoke about his nine children....Imagine nine kids to look after and he still sent those Christmas parcels for us. Why? I'll never know....it made no sense asking. It was a stupid question to ask. He just did it....he just did it

I just listened. I didn't thank him for any parcels or my education. I just sat there and listened.

Later in the night I came back to the hotel called Dad. I told him the whole story that I'd found Rudy uncle. Dad was stumped for a few seconds and I got a 'damn good, like a needle in a haystack, I can't believe you found him'

I can't believe it to Dad. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him because he had gone to sleep by then but that's the right way. Me going there had triggered a host of memories for him and I'm sure as he slept his dreams would have been about days of his youth, his guns, his life. Peace.

I am at peace too.....

The picture you see below is Rudy uncle in his garage.

There is no End.

2010-01-13T11:41:00.000+08:00

Depart. Its two strangers meeting in the cold. Overcoats and stuff. Stubble (2 day). Cigarettes. Many. Sunken cheeks. Overcoat 1 carries a gun. Overcoat 2 carries a heart. Not his). Did I mention they’re standing on the terrace of a 60 storied scraper(sky). Did that story just change for you? Did the end suddenly become that one of them plunges to his death? Well you’re wrong that’s not how this story ends (both plunge to their death actually)

Overcoat 1 is actually not alone. He’s brought an accomplice who’s hiding behind the loft. See. He set up this meeting so he can put one man behind the loft, one on the terrace next door and etc. Does. Etc bother you? Do you think he’s the Deus Ex Machina that will show up towards the end (it’s a she) . Well you just got to ask yourself more important questions than etc who? Like why is Overcoat 2 carrying a heart. More importantly why are overcoat 1 and 2 wearing overcoats in January. It’s in the middle of summer here In fair Southern Hemisphere we lay our scene where; a lot of uncivil blood is going to make uncivil hands unclean (Just the fact that I used that line as a bow to W.S makes me feel like Tarantino paying homage to grindhouse)

The heart. Yes the point of it all was the heart. This isn’t some cock-a-mania heart in the body. Overcoat 2 is actually carrying a heart. It’s in a little freeze box to keep the sun out. + Overcoat 1 and Overcoat 2 are in love with each other. Or so Overcoat 2 would like to think (overcoat 2 could be a woman).

Why they choose the setting is beyond you isn’t it. Why have overcoat 1 put accomplices on the roof of the other building. Can you trust the narrator?

Panic

2009-12-23T00:37:00.002+08:00

I am sorry for the hurried note but I don't have much t9ime and its all shutting down like the electricity, the battery, I don't know about ti which makes this note even more urgent because I have this message for you and humanity.

Maybe I should breathe and tell you about my plight because without the plight everything will not make sense. Believe me . Please. I don't have video, I could have shown you I look just like that day when you ripped my heart from the ribcage and looked me int eh eye with that glee. The monster. It has the same glee but my heart beats fast in the rib cage. My legs are chewed up the tendons ligaments all lie shredded knee downwards, its like I have wires commander, wires running out of my knees but wait who is this? Please listen,; I got this message to tell you but I want her not you. Is the battery there? I am typing to a blank screen I hope you are seeing this
I just think there is some juice I see a light blinking. Oh god know! no there is soething the crashing. I don't want to die. Why did we let it go. Are you understanding this is my last message. I feel mutated. I dream about bus. 's that bus ride we took. Not with commander but with you. We sat at the tope of the double decker and we ooked out at the ski and remember that black cloud we thought was Chernobyl it was us!!! we created it. Melted down like the ships. Saddest about the ships. Those poor dogs. The real dogs. That afghan hound bleeding..remember? we took care of it and it turned on us. Why??I used to leave the home to visit that hole we buried it in. Its all inconsequential now. I wish this screen would flicker and I could see it once that pretty face of yours.
So much pain. Its' cold now that water, oh god it touches the knees I feel the sharp pain. Don't look back now keep walking I know these letters are coming through. You are the choosen now you have to turn that dial. Its here the MONSTER IS heRE! Just remember what I told youtfvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

If Yoda was human...

2009-12-17T15:33:00.001+08:00

A collection of great one liners from a bunch of mails received today from the same guy

I think better we verbally talking about it, in order I get what you expect are

I’m thinking to drop you email, and suddenly your email was coming

Some colleagues potentially contact with her on that time (or in a day before).

We working at same place, and people interaction frequency during working hour in between both organisation is quite high.

If any more advise is welcome.

We just request for more clear.

Uuuups.

Adrian Mole - The Prostrate Years

2009-12-17T01:24:00.005+08:00

If you read this old note I wrote when I bid farewell to Adrian Mole you'll know that my joy knows no bounds to discover this book sitting nice and pretty on a book shelf in Kino.

I've had a surprisingly erratic year with reading. I started to put down a top 10 list of books for the year and realized that I've possibly read just ten this year. Oh well since I'll be in prison for a month in February I guess I'll catch up then but for now I'm going to enjoy Adrian Mole's Prostate.

You go Sue Townsend don't give up on us. Hope you finish the continuing deconstruction of the life of Adrian.

Holy Fuck!

2009-12-17T00:59:00.002+08:00

Its like that guy I met who blew all his fingers out when a grenade blew up in his hand while he was doing some good old poll - booth capturing. and this is true. The mofo blew all his fingers off except for his middle finger.
He doesnt care! He still shakes your hand. Imagine. Imagine what it does to you when he reaches out his hand to shake yours and you in your open friendly way reach out for a firm handshake only to grab a palm with a middle finger it's a mind fuck. Picture it. All of 5 ft. 5' 2 day stubble mole on cheek, that hair my Mum calls Marwari hair (it's all oily straight, needly like and they have to keep flicking their head to get the hair out of their eyes) that fake Versace T-shirt that would do Kasab proud and those white sneakers. White sneakers, this piece of work just mind fucked you with his finger - how is your self esteem ever going to return . He's mocking you. He's taking revenge on the world everyday by shaking hands. I mean what better way than to say fuck you than to reach out your middle finger and get someone to grab it and shake it.
Brutal. He should be shot (twice) .

No wait there's more. You should then chop of his hand and put it in a museum embalm it like that priest fuck in Goa, let people come 100 years from now and stare in wonderment at Saint Fuck You's hand of Fuck

We are who we are

2009-12-17T00:22:00.002+08:00

Why do I have to do it? Why change it? Why change me? Why do I need to conform? Social structure can kiss my skinny ass. I don't care that I don't have the things I am supposed to have. I don't care about a silver spoon, I'm sorry I spent time getting educated. Go ahead take me for a ride, Enjoy it. I won't get rid of that or this or you we'll suffer together. I am not going to grow up because I already have and this is me. No more no less. Me. I can't suddenly be someone else. You're messing with the ecological system here. Lovelock? Remember? Nature always fights back. Let it run free. It ain't hurt me till now and it aint going to hurt me later when I become old and need things and stuff. Well I ain't old now. So let ME regret it later do not regret it for me now. It's messing me up. Look at the girls. Look at them. From their conservative families where the dad kept you in check with his cock and cane, look at what you did with their trust? Competing with Filipino maids on a friday night for some white cock while your pussy gets discussed at touch rugby the next day. Look at the prim and proper act you are putting up. I have met your parents and no they ain't got no class therefore you don't have any class and no I've not read that book because it was fucking boring and you know it you dumb bitch. I know you've sucked cock more than Khajurao it's written all over your face. I see it. Wake up and do something. Snap out of it. Scream it out. Why isn't it here? I've been waiting for it for so long. It's just not here. It's just waiting somewhere like loneliness and hunger. Just fucking waiting. Mundane routine. Just scream. No. Just stand there like a packed little sardine and spend all your time looking. It all goes like this year. So fast. You're getting older and things aren't going anywhere they've remained the same but again don't mess with the ecological system because (refer para 1)
I'm at a crossroad, A juncture. It's very important we stay the course. Holding the line is not an option because we destroyed the line. The line is wrapped in a 100 dollar bill on its way up your nasal passage.
I hate it. I know it and I hate it but If I say something I lose. Maybe you are right. Maybe I am crazy. Kook. The Kooks. Maybe for a minute if you could look from this side of the looking glass maybe I see you crazy.

Its a dumb ass profession look in the mirror you're just secure in the knowledge that Daddy's little piggy bank will take care of things once you've failed. Destined to might I add. I got this tightrope yes. I can't fall but I still got to run free right. I ain't got no little piggy bank but I am my own man...and when I look inside I see a big shiny god shaped whore.
Frustrating that I have to be regarded as the fuck-up and not you. I don't think so at all. Okay maybe sometimes there is a fuck up but not like a massive fuck up like your life.
You dont' even realize it but (refer Para above) I hate it but if I say it I lose.

I'll be fine

Top 20 Songs of the Year

2009-12-16T23:34:00.004+08:00

Assassin - John Mayer. - Easily the sexiest moodiest song of the year. Battle Studies is a top top CD.
Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap - Like I said it's exhilarating.
We are the People - Empires of the Sun. This years MGMT. Need I say more.
Lucid Dreams - Franz Ferdinand - The last three minutes of this song is pure gold.
Moment of Surrender - U2 - I really don't understand the criticism. No Line is a brilliant albumn
Heartbreak Warfare - John Mayer. So many recent memories attached to this song
Fugitive - David Gray - The first single from Gray's seminal CD Draw the Line His voice is as comforting as hearing an old friend after a long time. The Annie Lennox duet Full Steam Ahead just misses the cut
Meet me at the Equinox - Death Cab for Cutie - The best song on the New Moon Soundtrack (readers please note this is the last time I will praise anything related to the Twilight series)
Winter - U2 . OST. Brothers - How in GOD's name did this song not make the cut on NLOTH???
Stellify - Ian Brown - Love the video. Love the song. Ian Brown's a modern god.
Walking on a Dream - Empires of the Sun
Zero - Yeah Yeah Yeah's - Best dance number of the year hands down
World to Me - David Gray - On the live CD that comes along with the Gray CD
Four Letter Word - Gossip - Funk. Love this fat girl's voice
Carol Brown - Flight of the Conchords - Funniest bittersweet song this year. Love the nod to Paul Simon in the song
Bull Black Nova - Wilco - Love the last couple of minutes. Those guitars go crazy
Underdog - Kasabian. If you recall the Kaka Sony ad you'll know this song. West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum is a really good CD
Life in Technicolor II - Coldplay - Fell in love with the song during the Coldplay concert was my favourite song in the beginning of the year but as 1 -17 show... memory is a very here and now thing
White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes (cheated a bit, it's from last year but god I've loved this song)
Ulysses - Franz Ferdinand. If this doesn't get you dancing you mean nothing to me.

If Holden was 60...

2009-12-16T23:29:00.002+08:00

Read's just like something Holden Caulfield would say...

What the hell does it all mean anyhow? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nothing comes to anything. And yet, there's no shortage of idiots to babble.
Not me. I have a vision. I'm discussing you. Your friends. Your coworkers. Your newspapers. The TV. Everybody's happy to talk. Full of misinformation. Morality, science, religion, politics, sports, love, your portfolio, your children, health. Christ, if I have to eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day to live, I don't wanna live. I hate goddamn fruits and vegetables. And your omega 3's, and the treadmill, and the cardiogram, and the mammogram, and the pelvic sonogram, and oh my god the-the-the colonoscopy, and with it all the day still comes where they put you in a box, and its on to the next generation of idiots, who'll also tell you all about life and define for you what's appropriate. My father committed suicide because the morning newspapers depressed him. And could you blame him? With the horror, and corruption, and ignorance, and poverty, and genocide, and AIDS, and global warming, and terrorism, and-and the family value morons, and the gun morons. "The horror," Kurtz said at the end of Heart of Darkness, "the horror." Lucky Kurtz didn't have the Times delivered in the jungle. Ugh... then he'd see some horror. But what do you do? You read about some massacre in Darfur or some school bus gets blown up, and you go "Oh my God, the horror," and then you turn the page and finish your eggs from the free range chickens. Because what can you do. It's overwhelming! I tried to commit suicide myself. Obviously, it didn't work out. But why do you even want to hear about all this? Christ, you got your own problems. I'm sure your all obsessed with any number of sad little hopes and dreams. Your predictably unsatisfying love lives, your failed business ventures. "Oh, if only I'd bought that stock! If only I-if only I purchased THAT house years ago! If only I'd made a move on THAT woman." If this, if that. You know what? Gimmie a break with your could have's and should have's. Like my mother used to say, "If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a trolley car." My mother didn't have wheels. She had varicose veins. Still, the woman gave birth to a brilliant mind. I was considered for a Nobel Prize in physics... I didn't get it. But, you know, its all politics. It's like every other phony honor. Incidentally, don't think I'm-I'm bitter because of some personal setback. By the standards of a mindless, barbaric civilization, I've been pretty lucky. I was married to a beautiful woman who had family money. For years we lived on Beekman Place. I taught at Columbia. String theory.
-- Larry David's opening monologue in the Woody Allen directed 'Whatever works'

Father and Son

2009-12-08T22:20:00.003+08:00

In an earlier post I wrote about that magical mystery morning climbing a hill in Ooty. Dad today pulled out the photograph and sent it to me.

APSD and CPSD in 1984:

Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap

2009-11-09T00:40:00.005+08:00

Sweet Disposition is the best song I have listened to this year. I picture sketches becoming huge architectural marvels, cities being born. People in a mad cap rush. The heart bursts out of the rib cage and makes it soar.

The frantic tempo of the song is superlative. Just a great song everyone must listen to.

It's a tough CD to find but the album its from - Conditions is a top collection of ten songs with some gems like Fader and Love lost. But this disposition number is the stand out song.

Do that mood of yours a big big favor and listen to the song on loop. Guaranteed to make your lunch hour super.

...even cold November rain...

2009-11-08T23:58:00.002+08:00

Would you believe its been a year since Project 100 ?. Time. 370 days and where are we? The writing is gone now. Sporadic bursts sometimes that those couple of loyal readers come back to read. Apart from that its been quiet. Regret mostly. A writing skill built over two years just left to rust and now its come apart and the joints.

Creaky, old like an abandoned school playground. The outlines of that once glowing park are there - the swings, the rungs, the merry go apsd round. But it gathers rust, grass and kate moss grows thick and fast. It rains most days of the year and the children all grown up pass by and look at the park with longing about those good old times.

Potrait of an old , young, whatever

2009-11-08T23:41:00.004+08:00

It worries someone I love that she cannot read me. It makes her uneasy that she doesnt know the truth from the story, the heard from the unheard, the said from the not said. I can see why it is inconvenient. My impulses and cold calculating personalities walk together - both don't know which one is going to show their hand. What will I do? contemplate a plot? or let is flow in a burst of exuberance?

I spend too much time by myself. A lot. Hours / days / weeks all by myself. Its like a drug now. The more I try to be a part of something the more I want to pull away and let the thoughts take a free reign of my mind.

So who am I? Am I the charming man people love at the party? or am I the lazy procrastinator who waits for the last minute before a blaze of glory? am I the doting brother? the cold son? the debt ridden schoolboy chewing his nails? am I the passionate man or am I living off borrowed art? am I still the boy who came last in class and cried? or am I cool as ice? am I going to give you a lesson in the art of seduction or am I going to be endearingly clumsy? Nerd or jock? Square or hip?

I run my house, I pay my bills, taxes, take care of everything, solutions for most problems...grown up. I can also throw a tantrum like a 4 year old child. Go days without food and survive on milo because 'food is boring' Have uncontrollable bursts of energy and weeks of not being able to get out of bed.

I just want you to know if it makes you uneasy sometimes not being able to read me.... imagine what I feel like to be living with me all the time.

Tired.

The passenger

2009-11-08T23:33:00.002+08:00

We're vessels - our bodies, minds - everything is a vessel. Nothing more nothing less. Just a mode of transportation. Our mortality is certain. You can get rid of those crow feet but the passenger knows. A day will come when the passenger will not need the vessel anymore.

Would the passenger be better off or worn out from the journey? Fight, fuck, fornicate. No end. Chase the money, chase the life, chase the wife, chase - what are we running for? we're vessels.

The most good looking person in the room today - tomorrow just an old cunt rotting away in an old age home. The passenger waits for the vessel to break apart and is set free.

Why this struggle then? It's all time bound no? We're not going to be here tommorow? The passenger does its time like pennies in a jar.

Passion, creativity, enthusiasm - leaving your indelible mark on society. For nothing. The passenger doesn't care. The passenger looks for that other ticket to another journey. We be selfish but that is ironic because within ourselves there is a selfishness of the passenger using us to further its journey.

I hope you see its nothing. Everything is nothing. Because once the darkness sets in the only person who really feels sorry is the person left out on the will.

I am a vessel.

Sadly you are one too.

Where is my mind?

2009-10-15T10:03:00.003+08:00

I’m in a dangerous place now. There’s an erosion of self-confidence / worth / esteem and I just didn’t see it coming. It’s made me paranoid, suspicious and fret. All the time. The mind sinks, it ebbs and it bleeds – out of control. The jaw tenses up most of the day. I struggle to sleep - I keep trying to unclench the tightness I feel in my face. I struggle with my emotions – give too much , give too little that all elusive balance is a mirage. Everything’s shut down. I don’t read, haven’t bought a CD in weeks, don’t feel like talking to anyone, don’t feel like going out – films my one true solace has now dissipated into the occasional marathon session of Dexter. Speaking of which even the ever recurring voice in my head has shut down. All quiet.

Small. I feel small insignificant and slow. I’m not quick. The chess game on the computer beats me in 6 moves flat. I don’t run, I don’t swim. I smoke like a chimney and then get giddy and nauseous later. I try to work. I really do. In quick bursts I finish off everything and then the feeling (or the lack of) returns. Placid. Staring at my screen trying to conjure up words to a story - idea I have – nothing zilch. The escape of picking up a new gadget, clothes, cologne leaves me with a feeling that’s similar to nothing. No irritation, no anger. Nothing.

Trapped –– that mind that could conjure up something all the time – it seems to have left me and it scares me that it might not return. My one true companion that always gives me a free ride to neverland has gone. This has never ever happened before.

I feel the need for a human connection. I feel the need to reach out and ask for help and support. I need a crutch. Me. I need one. I can tell you it’s revolting thinking like this but like I said – there’s no feeling.

Got to come back here and write more. Got to let it out .

With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind?

The year so far - April to September

2009-09-14T19:46:00.003+08:00

Mandatorypostbirthdaynote.

Turned 29. (28 on paper. In addition to a birth certificate that reads born : 11th September, 1981 Mother also wiped out hospital records as well so its just my word against all the proof). Looking good for a 29 year old (see picture with young Anakin below)
Oasis broke up...I have not taken the news well
Watched them live in April. Started to cry when Noel sang 'The masterplan'
Frank McCourt died...I did not take the news well
Went home after 4 years. Spent 2 days in Hyderabad on me mum's birthday. It was swell. She now wants me to get married and move into the new floor they are building upstairs.
Met Surbhi , Arun , Renu, Anuj in Bombay. Really great coming home to friends.
Going on a holiday with them this December
Wrote a short story about Jakob Stern the jew who got shipped to a concentration camp a day after he got a Brazilian wax job done on his pubes. Story follows his state of mind as he realizes he has to strip naked and stand with thousands of fellow jews who did not get a Brazilian wax done and how the SS guards see the humour and let him live.
Lost my mobile phone.
Discovered the music of Placebo (Pick up 'Once more with feeling - top CD)
Discovered that Ian Brown (lead singer of The stone Roses embarked on a pretty good solo career, love all his music. New CD due out in September)
Went to Bali
Went to Shanghai
Got brand new impersonations...moved on to the animal kingdom now - can do a Velociraptor, a mole and a pigeon (the raptor is a personal favourite, it's funny and scary)
Top 4 shows you can't miss: Mad Men, In-betweeners, Breaking Bad, Dexter, Entourage S. 5
Top 4 books you got to read: City of Thieves, Fatherland, Of Mice and Men, A special providence
Waist size down to 28. Worry? Not worry? (wax on Wax off??)
Younger brother VPSD and I sorted out stuff. We speak every week now..stuff happens you got to just get on with it...was it Liam who said "Everyone knows that if you've got a brother you're going to fight'
Lyn got married
Joe got married
Dad is still obsessed with getting his webcam working so that he can look me in the eye and ask if I am saving money. I miss the old man everyday.
Rambo the last of our dogs passed away in April after 16 years.... my family hasn't recovered and there are some nights I lie awake and think of him.
Kabir - my godson turns a year old this September....his parent's are mortified that their son is a Virgo, bought him an Arsenal t-shirt much to the chagrin of his Chelsea loving father
Surbhi is still the coolest 30 year old woman I know.
Moving into a new apartment soon - it is very cool. I'm going to be like Thomas Crown in my 3 bedroom pad just me surrounded with a lot of cool art.
The Singapore chapter is my life comes to an end in 2011.
Headache problem solved...apparently it wasn't brain cancer ...it was a faulty pillow
Fred Perry fan... definitely maybe obsessed
Arsenal's season seems to fluctuate from going north to going tit's up. Why doesn't someone fire that moron Bendtner. Arshavin on the other hand is a pure diamond
I still struggle with stuff in my head but you know what it's okay.
I am content, happy and these are easily the best days of my life and I think the relationship I am in plays a huge part in making me feel this way. .... its everything I wanted ....thank you.
She says that the top 3 reasons she's with me is because I am funny, smart and sensitive (good-looking does not make the top - 10).
Top 25 most played:

Moment of Surrender - U2
Razzmatazz - Pulp.
Running up the hill - Placebo
Whatever - Oasis
She's a mystery to me - Roy Orbison
Stellify - Ian Brown
Zero - Yeah Yeah Yeah's
Foux da Fa fa - Flight of the Conchords
Easy to Please - Coldplay
My Delirium - LadyHawke
Inbetween Days - the cure
Who put the weight of the world on my shoulders - Oasis
Clubfoot - Kasabian
Song for a friend - Jason Mraz
The fuse - Bruce Springsteen
Doctor my Eyes - Jackson Browne
Its' over - Boz Scaggs
Party Girl - U2
Teotihucan - Noel Gallagher
You get what you give - New Radicals
The mad men theme song - OST Mad Men

It's like that last scene in American Beauty just before Kevin Spacey get's his head blown out....if you know the scene you'll know what I'm talking about.

Anakin and I go for dinner

2009-09-14T19:06:00.002+08:00

Piggish

2009-07-17T14:46:00.002+08:00

I have to meet a woman regularly who is the exact human version of the picture to your right. Same. Everything. The way she smiles, the way she exhibits joy, the way she gets angry, the way her body fills out her clothes. Same. She’s like a marauding ton of bacon that crushes everything in her path (no serious I’ve seen her walk) Sometimes she flicks on her IPod and does a little jig as she crosses the street. I feel ill just recollecting that ghastly memory.
Sometimes it’s tough to understand what she’s saying. It’s like grunts. Like Monica Seles grunts. Now all I want to do is face-fuck her till she gags on my cock while I coat her esophagus with my cum. I think about it all the time.

How
Do
I
Deal
With
This?

As you see there's no one around....

2009-06-30T13:14:00.002+08:00

Dad,

Talk about a long forgotten memory. This is all the way back from 1987. Vishal was a precious two years old and the four of us had gone up to Ooty for a holiday and we lived in that spooky spooky house that belonged to a relative (why did we never go back?). I recall the toy train ride up the hills and how fascinated I was that they had a life size toy train. I remember the house vividly and remember the bare room before the master bed room and how I’d run by the room at top speed to avoid the ghosts from creeping up on me. I remember those cold nights and the smell of the firewood burning in the fire place. I remember those long walks up those hilly sides and that poem mum would keep telling me about how far Delhi was. Because we all were addicted to candy I remember those pit stops at the sweet store at the base of the hill. We’d pack a brown bag full of those hard boiled sweets in their different colours and walk up the house sucking on the sweet. The colours staining our tongues and the sourness making our eyes wink. Sometimes I’d go running into the reeds in a brave attempt to find and kill the monster in the daylight and step in a huge pile of muck. I did this constantly and after a while my shoes just gave up and refused to dry. I had to then wear a pair of blue slippers for the remainder of the holiday.

But that’s not the memory I’m talking about and I wonder if you remember this but one foggy morning you woke me up and took me out for a walk. Just the two of us. You and I walking hand in hand down the road before we chanced upon a little hill around the culvert. We walked up with only the sounds of my slippers flapping against my heel and chanced upon this little clearing. You took your camera out and then lifted me up and made me sit on a rock. Just then a man walked by and you asked him if he could take a photograph of the two of us.

Just in those final seconds you looked at my slippers and told me how absolutely shabby they are going to look in the photo. In that moment I sheepishly grin and try and hide my feet behind your leg and the photo is taken.

Do you remember? Well if you don’t then you should go to my room and that very same photo hangs there above the bed.

Somehow that moment is clear as the fresh early morning air 22 years back.

"....and we don't know just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
The street heats the urgency of now
As you see there's no one around"

The (old) idiot's guide to dating a (much) younger woman

2009-06-26T16:15:00.001+08:00

Suck it up. No matter how much you work out your unappealing stomach is no match for a couple of athletic dim brain 20 year old's who want her as well.
Get Beyoncé, Ne-Yo, Usher on your playlist ASAP coz she's not interested in your music especially if you start your lines with ‘you were 2 when this album came out’
Develop a taste for fast food. Say 'That sounds yummy' when she says 'lets go to McDonalds'. Try not to cringe when she dips her fries in your ice-cream sundae in the middle of an animated conversation
Do not get into an argument with her. She's way faster with coming up with stuff. Instead be Zen like and nod your head like a zombie whenever you are asked a question. Nod a lot. Tilt your head sideways like George Clooney and nod the fuck out of your head.
Dump the ray-bans that's for 60+ lot (Sorry Dad) . Get Oakley's look serious. Remember the only reason she likes you is because you’re old and crusty so play it up.
When she is running up a flight of stairs do not follow in a giddy puppy dog like way. Because:
a) you'll reach the top wheezing and panting
b) Old men running behind young girls is just so wrong.
Instead walk with a casual gait that does not put too much pressure on the knees.
Don't start sentences with 'In my experience' nobody wants to listen to a old bald fuck give his two cents.
Get with it. Know the nightclubs in town. Befriend the bouncers and casually drop lines like 'last night at Attica...'
Stop for god's sake drinking Shandy's. and while we’re on the topic no one gives a fuck about your 1-1 appletinis. Instead get a cool drink like a gin & tonic and always try to stay at least 4 drinks behind her and don't try keeping up because there's nothing more embarrassing than being dropped home and put to bed.

Be careful

2009-06-25T11:02:00.000+08:00

Quit. But see it knit into a quilt on a day of Bloomingdales.
Green but rabbit all around
Cryptic but lost in the sound
Meaning who knows
Muddled but wandering
Lost but searching
Found but gone there
Quilt. Food on the table
Flute..glasses. Clink.
Chinks in her armor
Got a question but I got a dancer
Word I speak. Centre of attention
Dimension. Push. Night light.
Blur. Music is her radar
Sad. Waking up in a hotel room
Panic.
Panic
Panic
Careful. Carefree. Hold on Hold steady
Bee-Bop. Rock Steady
Ramble. Cadaver
Not your average lover
Flower. Gopher. Loafer
Quit. Panic. Routine
Lazy. Move on. Wake up
Sleep. Night. Day hours.
Pillow. Wine. Music
Fuck
Fuck
Fuck
Eat. Live. Pity.
Selfish. Panic. ,Panic>
Ctrl. Alternate. Vanish
Joke. Lost. ^Worth
Self.
Will
Got it? Lost it?
No. Yes. Who?
Cares! Syntax.
Error. Panic.
Panic.
McPhisto
Get it Get it
Panic. Quit. Restart.
Formidable
Horse in the stable
Drinks on me.
No. See.
Wait .
Please. Wait.
Message ends
Decipher. Code. Yes?

Rant

2009-05-25T10:17:00.000+08:00

If we got to start with a beginning to explain when the rot set in let’s start now. Of course there is no real beginning, middle and end as any time traveler will tell you. There are spaces in time and spaces where your face used to be. Most days I wake up with a space. The early morning is the hardest and its not because of drugs, alcohol or any substances its because the last night you’ve left the air conditioned remote at a far away place and spent an hour deliberating whether you should wake up and get it or just lie there shivering. You’ve now woken up to the worst song on the player. I’m still lying in bed staring at the remote that is so far away. Franz Ferdinand asks Elanor to put her boots on. I rather do Blonde on Blonde. Every inch of my throat is screaming at the shell I have trapped myself in. It is said a hermit crab goes out of his way to make his shell a fine place to live. Well bollocks! The shell is freezing cold and any minute my fingers may fall off from frost bite.

Soon I’ll get ready to go to office…wake up for the morning commute. Walk to the train station like an android, mix with other cyborgs on the train, and stare with a deep sense of revulsion at someone’s mole cluster at the base of their neck. Little ugly raised dots screaming for attention and getting every decibel of it. The air conditioned air permeated with a heady mix of perfume cologne sweat, sweat and more sweat. Is it a crime to want to feel alive? It is. Just shut the fuck up…no shut the fuck up and be quiet, don’t forget to put your blinkers on and relax it ain’t worth it.

What will it be today? What will be the one thing that will excite you? Your 4 miles running? The exquisite scrambled eggs on toast you make? The playlist you choose? The music you buy? The exquisite going nowehere prose you write for nobody? The cup of tea you bought only to rid yourself of all the change? The banter with the sandwich lady? The staring at your mailbox wishin someone would write a long letter that you can then ignore?

You wanted the better life? Better than the good life? But the good / better / best are no different from the miserable life you ran away from.

Cash for votes

2009-04-12T16:17:00.002+08:00

In less than a week my country goes to the polls. The largest democracy in the world will attend the 15th general election and another pull & tug will start at the centre. Seats will all cost a bomb. Parties holding half dozen parliament seats will be known as kingmakers. So it goes.

Meanwhile in the slum close to my house its life as usual. Meena our maid will still wake up at 5 in the morning to fill her two buckets of water. She will then boil some rice and wake her diabetic daughter up and give her the medication that will keep her alive well into her early twenties (she's about 15 now). She will then wake her husband up who will spend the rest of the day smoking beedis at the nearby hooch stall.

Meena is asked in jest if she is going to be voting in this election. She nods in agreement. She will exercise her right to vote yes. But it comes at a cost. The going rate for the people who reside in the slum that's ironically called Gandhinagar will each vote at the price of Rs. 200 (that's about $ SGD 6) per person + one plate of the famous Hyderabad Biryani. As election date nears the sum of Rs. 200 will become Rs. 220 and the word chicken will be added to the Biryani.

...6 dollars and a plate of food and another corrupt politician gets to become the sitting member of Parliament from the constituency. Over the next five years he will ensure that not only him but his whole extended family + sycophant's also die rich people. Meanwhile for Meena, she just goes back to her life washing dishes and cooking food in our house and waiting for the water supply to come, the roads to be paved and the death of her daughter.

The largest democracy in the world or a scam of the largest kind.

This is my country.

"I don’t really think there’s anything left to vote for. I believe that I, as a person, can only change things once every 5 years and that’s by voting, and my point is that even casting that vote means that the same guy gets in, the only difference is one has a red tie and the other has a blue one. That’s all it means.” - Noel Gallagher.

A retired Jedi knight writes....

2009-04-12T13:51:00.001+08:00

Dad has a very interesting message on his facebook page. It reads:

"The welfare and future of my country & my flag..did I fight for the flag in vain? for some petty politician to barter away the interests of my country??!!"

Did he fight in vain?

If we've seen further...

2009-04-12T09:50:00.004+08:00

Speaking to an old friend of mine this morning. Questions eventually veered to family and I asked him how the old man was doing. You see his dad was the coolest class teacher I ever had. I still remember those cold wintry mornings when he'd come into class with a copy of As you Like It, and just a waist coat nonchalantly worn to protect him from the biting cold.

A life dedicated to teaching. It got me thinking about my other friends fathers. Doctors, Lawyers, Bank managers, Police Officers, Income Tax, IAS officers, construction and the occasional corporate lot (what most of us became)

On their meager salaries they planned holidays in Goa, bought that fancy colour TV, put that precious savings in the stock market only to watch it disappear in the big scam of 92 and then built it back again, put the children through expensive schools, sent them abroad, paid the mortgage and gave their family a life that they as children didn't have or just didn't know...there was no starting point was there? they just got on with it.

For years they stayed in the same job, most retiring after 25 years of service possibly doing the same thing they did when they started albeit with more responsibilities. These were our nation builders.

They took the morning commute and worked and worked, oh sure they complained (doesn't everybody?) but they worked in a time where there were no evolved laws on Health Safety, Abuse, Harassment (the first one came about only in the UK in 1974 and the other countries picked it up via the ILO conventions only in the 80's) and we gave them grief for not spending time with the family or grief about the difference between sports shoes for tennis and sport shoes for basketball.

They sacrificed their own dreams so that you could be reading this in your fancy office, on your fancy laptop and drive your fancy car when, most of his adult life he's spent slogging it on a scooter and a motorcycle.

Should we be thankful / grateful or should we worry about the demands our kids will put on us because with the life we lead buying the kid a PS2 is what parenthood has become.

You got to say you are the solid person you are due to what he did in his lifetime. We've seen further only because we stood on the shoulders of giants

The flag is at half mast

2009-04-11T02:27:00.005+08:00

So it went one Saturday evening with the Sex and the city girls (they talk about breasts, sex and vagina names while I sweat)

Asian Samantha goes: " So since I date an American my pussy is.... Sam (confused face on Arab Bradshaw)
Asian Samantha: Like Uncle Sam you know ...for American...you know Sam .....
Asian Bradshaw: Oh! Ha Ha oh yeah that makes my pussy.....
Asian Samantha: Jack
Asian Bradshaw: Uh.....
Asian Samantha: Like Union Jack....you know British.
Asian Bradshaw: Oh! Ha Ha ha.

and I went back home with a gloomy forecast for us Indian men...the reason the Brits and the Americans get so much action is because their Asian woman fucking brand their pussies with fancy names like Sam and Jack. (you know what's coming next...)

this means that any woman who sleeps with an Indian guy will 'proudly' call her pussy (wait for it) (just a little bit more.....) Mother India

Mother India.

...we're doomed for failure

Happy Birthday old man

2009-04-09T16:44:00.000+08:00

To watch this photo and to see you with your hair all white and that all knowing look of serenity on your face makes me cry.

Cry with happiness and joy and so much sadness as you run the last lap of your 16 year life. I love you and think about you everyday my friend.

My favorite mornings were when I'd wake up on a cold winter's day to see you curled up at the edge of the bed and how you'd on those rare morning give me a rare lick with that salami soft tounge of yours.

Happy 16th Birthday Rambo Beau

Why March is sexy?

2009-03-28T04:47:00.000+08:00

Got promoted
Watched Jason Mraz live
Watched that ex singer from Morcheeba called Skye Live and told her I loved her and she said we could be friends
Found more people to hate
Found more people to hate me
Watched Coldplay Live
Got a hefty bonus
Met new people
The Tomlinson's Rock
The Srivastav's Rock
Clocked 8 km a day running
U2 came out with a super CD
I discovered the best sandwich store in the world
I was patient with a situation and let it pass....it's a recorded first
I got invited for loads of home cooked meals
I finally learnt how to operate a microwave
I finally bought a king - sized bed and it hasn't bitten me yet
Arsenal is back in form and I think we're going to win the Championship League
The King of playlists sent a song that blew my mind
I watched In Bruges which easily makes it to my top 10 movies of 2008.
I think my colleagues are the nicest people to work with
I love my job
I got an additional S added to my already complicated designation
I fight carbon footprints for a profession
I fell in love with the book Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano
I fell in love with the book The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock
I straightened my hair and now look like Douglas Jardine from the Bodyline TV series
I learnt how to cook a new dish
I discovered the joys of Organic Low fat milk
Two close friends are getting married in May
I got a second chance to excel academically and I took it and made something of it
I got two bosses
Both are cool
A father arrives in two hours to spend a whole week with his son who thinks he is the coolest person on Planet Earth

I'm guessing March was good for you as well.

The dream Oasis set

2009-03-28T04:37:00.000+08:00

When Oasis dig out their soul for us in a couple of weeks if they play even half of my dream set I promise to be happy and cheerful till the end of the year.

The dream set:

Fucking in the Bushes
Go let it out
Don't look back in anger
Champagne Supernova
Acquiesce
She's electric
The Hindu Times
Song Bird
Do you know what I mean
The shock of the lightning
Bag it up
I'm outta time
Hello
Roll with it
Wonderwall

B y my count that's just 45 minutes of music and they're going to play for about 90 minutes so if they bring out all their old classics I swear I'm going to weep tears of happiness.

On DVD: The Proposition

2009-03-17T19:31:00.000+08:00

'When?' said the moon to the stars in the sky
'Soon' said the wind that followed them all
'Who?' said the cloud that started to cry
'Me' said the rider as dry as a bone
'How?' said the sun that melted the ground
and 'Why?' said the river that refused to run
and 'Where?' said the thunder without a sound
'Here' said the rider and took up his gun
'No' said the stars to the moon in the sky
'No' said the trees that started to moan
'No' said the dust that blunted its eyes
'Yes' said the rider as white as a bone
'No' said the moon that rose from his sleep
'No' said the cry of the dying sun
'No' said the planet as it started to weep
'Yes' said the rider and laid down his gun

From the phenomenal Guy Pearce movie called The Proposition, the lines are whispered throughout the movie and at the end is played as a beautiful violin filled song. The movie written by Nick Cave (yep the singer) and set in the Australian wilderness of the early 20th century the movie is fantastic ride into the wilderness with beautiful sun drenched scenes. It moves slow and then there's a sudden burst of violence that is so real you can almost reach out and wipe the blood off (or maybe I just have a real good television)

Highly recommended

Andrei Arashvin has arrived

2009-03-15T01:15:00.000+08:00

My last note on the EPL ended with hope on the Gunner's turning around the season with the help of Andrei Arashvin. 5 games on he's been slinky as a fox working those chances in for the asshole Nicolas Bendtner (yup he didn't score tonight as well) but for all his chances he didn't have the dream debut Samir Nasri has ...a goal in his first match (but surprisingly bland since the matches against ManU and Chelsea)

Tonight Andrei Arashvin announced his arrival to the English Premier league in a 4-0 thumping of Blackburn rovers. What a match! Arashvin scored the first goal in a mess of bodies but the second one....oh man! the second was pure class he weaved in and out a russian rope-a-dope and bang top corner. He then helped Eboue (poor chap's been out of form and everyone's been yelling at him) score the third a penalty courtesy a Carlos Vela trip-up (thanks Rover's our confidence is back! and Van Persie didn't even play!)

A little bit about Arashvin...he tucks his football t-shirt into his shorts, he has a diploma in designing clothes for women (are you choking just yet?) he er.. claims he did it to met women. Smart. He comes from a family of extreme poverty. His wife flies in a hairdresser from Russia to cut his hair so that he maintains his style and did i mention...Arsene Wenger is a genius for persevering through the blacktape of Zenit Petersberg to bring him on to the world stage.

Super....and oh yeah Liverpool beat Manchester United 4-1 and I haven't seen Sir Alex this red.

The league is all open between the top three and my gunners are going all the way in the Championship League...the return of the Invincibles is just a matter of time

Film Review: Last Chance Harvey

2009-03-13T10:38:00.000+08:00

Look at it as 'Before Sunrise' with senior citizens. This is the first Dustin Hoffman film I've watched in a theatre (on a side note De Niro and Pacino get all all the top press but Hoffman has strangely stayed under the radar) and while the movie is very light (it's all about Harvey's last chance) Emma Thompson and Hoffman are a joy to watch.

There's these two scenes I really like. Its the one after Harvey's been told by his daughter that she's going to ask her step-father to give her away at the wedding. Harvey stands alone in the bathroom adjacent to his reflection in the mirror, you can feel his pain.

The other is just before Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman are about to enter the reception and all you see are there sillhoetes against the bright lights from the ball-room and in those seconds it captures the hesitancy and nervousness of the two characters.

Recommended, especially after the heavy on the head Boy with pajamas

Film Review: The boy in striped Pajamas

2009-03-13T10:34:00.000+08:00

Out of the tired and beaten to death genre of holocaust and World Warr II movies that came last year (The reader, Valkyrie, Australia) the Boy in Striped Pajamas is a stand out film. I say stand out because the two 8 boys playing eight year old on either side of a concentration camp fence are amazing actors. The expressions on the German boy’s face as he comes to understand that his father is a monster or the curiosity with which he views the smoke coming from the chimneys’ shows the slow unfolding of the boy’s innocence into a stark adulthood. The boy in the concentration camp is a study in sadness and their chemistry lights up this film.

I did not see the end coming. It is unexpected and you feel deflated. The last shot in a room full of clothes says so much though no words are spoken and you are left a mute observer as the film closes.

Highly recommended.

Coming in April: Oasis Live in Singapore

2009-03-09T20:58:00.000+08:00

Man you got to love the recession. That's the only explanation for why so many top acts are coming to town they ain't fillin up any stadiums in the rest of the world. Dig out your soul made it in my list of top 10 albumns of last year and I own their entire discography, live shows, the T-shirt and the kitchen sink , now, I'll finally get to watch my second favourite band live! just a couple of blocks away. fucking amazing.

I just booked my tickets and we're going to take one lucky girl along to definitely maybe talk to a songbird.

I've died and gone to heaven.

No line on the horizon

2009-03-08T21:23:00.000+08:00

How, do you do a 'review' of a band that has been with you through all the good times, the down and out times, the depressing times, the happy times for more than half of my life? How? Well you don't. Your personal heroes are never up for a review especially an instant coffee one.

Over the past week I didn't take a snap call on the new U2 albumn calling it a classic or a failure because this band deserves a respect like no other. Their music and lyrics have hit chords deep within. I have learned more about life as I have delved on a U2 song more than any life experience...most song of theirs finds a place in the soundtrack of my life.

Ever wondered why, when you watch a U2 concert their are always a majority of people in their twenties in the audience? How is it that as the band grows older are they able to continue to appeal to younger and younger people. All through the decades they have something that has appealed to the young men and women that no other band has been able to capture.

So even their bad songs (do listen to Pop, there's plenty on it which is goddamn awful) gets a fair listen time and again and its because of that the song 'Please' from Pop is on my top 10 list of favourite U2 songs of all time. So with a feverish excitement that I feel very rarely I unwrapped the CD from its super packaging - complete with a 32 page booklet, an Anton Corbijn Film, a surreal U2 poster and fonts and colours that hits you like a bomb. The end thank yous mention Jay-Z, Green Day and the mandatory Save Burma, contribute to the Red campaign and all. I started it out with No line on the Horizon and ended with Cedars of Lebanon.

I was transfixed. I heard it again...liked it more and then played it all night after I jacked my headphones into the player and knelt by it and listened (like someone once said 'if you want to kiss the sky better learn how to kneel, on your knees boy') and then played it every hour I could during the week. The music on the CD ... the back-up guys Brian Eno, Danny Lanois show up, Will.I.am shows up on the keyboard for a couple of songs and they have arrangements for pianos, guitars and keyboards from an assortment of I'm sure very talented people ..just like Achtung Baby did.

Their travels across Europe to record the albumn presents a wonderful smorgasbord of the places they stayed and worked at the most visible sounds of a place is noticed on Cedars of Lebanon.

Well a verdict if I can give one...the CD is better than All that you can't leave behind and How to dismantle an Atomic bomb which more mainstream crowd pulling rock music. The failure of Pop made the band go back to their rock roots and that is fair. But after more than 30 years in music U2 is in a place where I wonder if they really care what the listening public feels and so they went back to the studio to experiment and we the U2 loving fans waited to see if they'd turn out a Achtung Baby or a Zooropa or meet their Waterloo in Pop version 1.2

I can't begin to tell you what a classic this album is. Each song grows on you like no other I've heard since I dismantled an Atomic bomb. There are three excellent get the crowd dancing songs - Stand up comedy, Breathe & Get on your boots. Four super super slow numbers - Moment of Surrender, Cedars of Lebanon, Fez - Getting born and White as Snow. The other three - No line on the horizon, Magnificent, I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight and your regular rock songs and one a-w-f-u-l song called Unknown caller. I can't seem to like it no matter how many times I listen to it.

If good music is everything that you think we were given as an escape from the world go buy No line on the horizon....it won't change your life but Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen & Adam Clayton will try their damnedest. The influence of Bono and The Edge was way too much on the previous two Cds on this one Bass and Drums get an equal footing...they sound like a complete band with all four minds working toward the same line on the horizon.

And as all the hype machine dies down news comes that a new CD by the band may come before the year ends (the band recorded close to 60 songs in their sessions) I'm booking my ticket to go see them live when the tour itinerary comes out. Classic. Sheer genius.

A track wise introduction to the CD:

No Line on the Horizon: Different in its music arrangement from the the song inthe Singles CD I had picked up earlier. She starts with a couple of seconds of ominous sounds before a flash of guitars hit you before Bono's voice hits you, complete with the whoooo ooo owws . Edge's guitar is omnipresent in this one. Best parts of the song is the beginning and the slow down to a twinkle between 2:50 to 3:10 before the songs picks up again.

Magnificent: Larry Mullen shows us who's the boss in the band with a whoop drum set in the beginning before Edge kicks in with his guitar. Top lyrics in the song "only love can leave such a mark, but only love can heal such a scar, justified till we die, you and I will magnify. Moment of Surrender: My favourite song on the CD. Brings back memories of So cruel, With or without you, Walk On and Faraway so close as a Beautiful love song but is a stand alone classic in its own right. Slow, bluesy, the greenlights from a 7-11 are replaced by 'punching numbers into the ATM machine, I could see in the reflection a face staring back at me' What a song! each lyric, each tune hits the mind in the mellowest way possible. "I’ve been in every black hole At the altar of the Dark star My body's now a begging bowl That's begging to get back Begging to get back To my heart To the rhythm of my soul To the rhythm of my unconsciousness To the rhythm that yearns To be released from control...."

Unknown Caller: I can't say I like anything about this song, maybe because Moment of Surrender has just stole all the thunder? Dunno. So I let it pass.

I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight: Belongs on the All that you can't leave behind CD. It's got the same feel of all the music from back then. Bono yells incredulously 'It's not a hill it's a mountain!'

Starts out with a rat-a-tat of information:

"She's a rainbow and she loves the peaceful life
Knows I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight

There's a part of me in chaos that's quiet
And there's a part of you that wants me to riot
Everybody needs to cry or needs to spit
Every sweet-tooth needs just a little hit
Every beauty needs to go out with an idiot
How can you stand next to the truth and not see it? "

The Edge's guitar will make you tap your feet like hell.

Get on your boots: I'd written previously about it so I'm not going to repeat but since the CD also comes with the music video I'm hoping you caught the usually immobile Adam Clayton do a little shoulder jig as he plays Bass in the video...it made me smile

Stand-Up comedy: LOVE the vibe this song gives you. It's cheeky and the closest you'll hear Bono rapping and a bit of self mocking thrown in as Bono (all of 5'7" sings "Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas")
The get up and dance number in the CD. Love the bit where he sings "...but while I'm getting over certainty stop helping god across the street like a little old lady.." Bono owns this song.

Fez- Being born: Cant say I love how this song starts, it borrows the 'Let me in the sound' line that ends the pulsating Get on your boots but it's like the song's..well being born before it meanders in the streets of Morocco, its got everything a whole lot of bass, Bono's wails, the guitars and drums taking the song to a super pitch, the song is devoid of lyrics, the focus is on the music. Top song.

White as Snow: It's a 'soppy' love song and I don't do soppy. But The Edge's strumming steals the show. Bono's voice is a low growl and he sounds like he's at the end of a long journey. This awesome French horn courses through the song.
"Where I grew up there were no hills at all, the land was flat, the highway straight and wide
my brother and I, we'd drive for hours, like we'd years instead of days our faces as pale as the dirty snow"

Breathe: And just when you think the band seems to have run out of steam. They bring in Breathe. In my opinion this should have been the track that introduced the CD to the world instead of Boots. The song loops and twists and boy is it good. We are all people borne of sound and this song is a testament to how much sound there is in this CD. The music is textured, there's the usual from the boys but then a cello is thrown in and more keyboards. This band as Bono sings plays a striptease in our heads.

Cedars of Lebanon: And it ends too soon with the classico Cedars. Bono adopts a conversational style as it slips dangerously close to 'If you wear that velvet dress', the sounds of Lebanon come alive frequently in this track.

" Now I’ve got a head like a lit cigarette
Unholy clouds reflecting in a minaret
You’re so high above me, higher than everyone
Where are you in the Cedars of Lebanon?
Choose your enemies carefully ‘cos they will define you
Make them interesting ‘cos in some ways they will mind you
They’re not there in the beginning but when your story ends
Gonna last with you longer than your friend"

It slows the whole pace of the CD down as the song lingers, blurs and disappears ending a fantastic CD. So much time has flown between now and the last albumn. I mean I bought the last one on tape and listened to it in a Walkman frantically rewinding and changing sides....

As we grow old U2 reminds us that we can capture youth at any point of our lives.

Cd review: Franz Ferdinand: Tonight

2009-03-01T20:45:00.000+08:00

Franz Ferdinand's earlier CD 'you could have it so much better' was loud...like really. At night if a song from the CD came on you'd wake up and you know while I liked it it was hard to really enjoy it all the time. Apparently someone has had a chat with the boys from Scotland the numbers are still loud but they tone it down considerable and flip in a slow number here and there. Their new CD is fanfuckingtastic. Let's just say after you've had your fill with The Killers Day & Age CD this is almost like a great sequel to play after.

You might be mistaken if you think the track 'Ulysses' is the best number on this fantastic CD. That honor goes to 'Lucid Dreams' (I don't have a link to give you because the version on youtube is a poor version of the track). If you've heard Ulysses on the telly you'll recall that electric purring sound at the end. Well in Lucid dreams Franz Ferdinand gives you a whole 3 minutes of it. Its brilliant really. The song dies out and then comes alive in a pulsating electric purr (you can picture lights go off and on all around you. Super. The cheeky Turn it on is another really good good number before 'No you girls' picks the tempo back again till the band lives up to its Post-Punk revival genre with the song Twilight Omens. Katherine Kiss me slows this CD down beautifully like an old Drifters song and ends a really top-notch CD.

The artwork is brilliant. Just like the cover it has these paparazzi photos catching the band out on a wild night (the albumn is the story of a wild night. I mean you can imagine Ulysees being played as they enter a club and Katherine kiss me the end of the night with the dawn breaking and one of the band members in bed with a woman...who's named Katherine. Smart.)

Highly Recommended. Could go down as the best albumn to play at a party in the first half of the year.

CD Review: Jack's Mannequin: The Glass Passenger

2009-03-01T20:31:00.000+08:00

Andrew McMahon the lead singer of Jack's Mannequin was diagnosed with Leukemia and went into intense chemotherapy came out completely cured and wrote this damn good albumn. Don't go expect songs about his struggle instead listen to the spirit of the songs brimming with life. On 'Resolution' JM conjures up memories of 'Boston' by Agustana (this may be due to the Stephanie Myer (writer of the Twilight series) directed video with the ocean playing a big part). Its the #1 song on the CD and I listened to it till ..well I can't stand it anymore and started listening to the other songs in the CD.

The lady at the CD store bounded up to me grabbed me by the arm and said 'YOU got! to listen to this' (don't you love it when people do that?) and by did I listen. 'Caves' is a classic slow and ambling for the first couple of minutes then goes all crash boom with guitars and pianos. Swim is the other solid song on the CD. My personal favourite is the moody 'What gets you off' I love the surreal feeling that the song gives you. Overall the other songs are pretty good too but the songs mentioned above are the best on this 14 track CD. The artwork on the CD is pretty good with lyrics (which have become rare in CDs these days)

Recommended

Film Review: Role Models

2009-03-01T20:22:00.000+08:00

Easily the funniest movie from last year. I laughed myself silly from the first 30 seconds when Sean William scott makes Paul Rudd (who is one of the writers of the movie) smell his fingers and says 'Guess who I was with' right up till the end after the LARP (click on the link. I'm a fan! I can't believe such a thing exists! Sign me up). There's not just one funny person in the movie, everyone fills up the screen bringing their laughs. The little kid with the potty mouth gets the loudest chuckles especially when Sean William Scott's character confides to Paul Rudd with a terrified look on his face that he can't be alone with him or when the kid keeps calling Paul Rudd Ben Affleck ('if you're white you're Ben Affleck'). Gosh! Im still chuckling as I write this. Last year was slim pickings with funny movies. The other two that were funny were the Will Ferell comedy Step Brothers, Tropic Thunder and Forgetting Sarah Marshall but Role Models wins the race for most laughs.

It left me feeling light as a feather.... but again I rarely am in a bad mood anymore.

Recommended.

CD Review: James: The Best of

2009-03-01T20:11:00.000+08:00

$4. That's all I paid for this CD that I've been looking for a decade. No joke. James I thought completed the holy trinity of great Brit bands from the 90's. Oasis. The Verve and James...that' a music lovers wet dream. (Blur who?) and on a random sale I went weak in the gut when I saw this delicately packed CD sitting there waiting to be picked up. I had picked up their new CD called 'hey Ma' good with some classics like the title track and the R.E.M - Leave inspired ' 72' what a song but overall the tape was about okay and now sits somewhere in my CD collection.

But there stuff from 90's in sheer gold and on their best of tape they have all their hits...all 18 of the most amazing music I've been waiting to get for the longest time. Where do I begin with my favourite song? Is it Coming home? or Laid? or Sit down or Tomorrow (are you getting the drift?) or Say something, or Lose control or is it the frantic Destiny calling. Man! I love this CD it takes your breath away in a torrent of music that makes you want to swing.

Chances of you getting your hands on a CD are incredibly rare so I'm going to do a rare thing, indulge in piracy and burn you a CD. It will be a gift you'll cherish for a long long time.

Just ask.

and oh highly recommended. A CD that will play long into the night in a time capsule.

U2: No Line on the Horizon - First Listen

2009-02-24T21:21:00.000+08:00

Do you (like I do) read with amusement about those nimrod Harry Potter fans who organize book readings within hours of the book being released? How these retard kids and (unimaginative) adults sit for hours and read the book in a marathon session (if you are one of them please leave) or read about the (uber-cool) Star wars fans who camp outside the theatre waiting to get in and catch the first show at the earliest?

Well I behave exactly the same way when an U2 albumn comes out. Post Achtung Baby I can clearly tell you where I was and what was I doing the preceding days before Zooropa, U2 Greatest hits, Pop, All that you can't Leave behind, The Best of 90 - 2000, How to Dismantle an atomic bombs & U2 Singles came out. Yep I'm a fan and make no bones about it.

It's been so bad that I have over the course of the last two months woken up in the middle of the night and checked the news on their new CD 'No Line on the Horizon', I've left comments like 'Oh my god! I can't wait' on U2 message boards and got into an arguement with Radio_head68 online over who was the greatest band in the universe.

So with great joy I made my way to HMV this Sunday to pre-order my No line on the Horizon CD. They threw in a free U2 coffee mug and gave me a CD of their single ' Get on your boots' but what was like Christmas morning for me, I discovered that the CD came with another song the Will.I.am produced (I know! I wonder how the band can sleep at night knowing that they gave producing rights to the assholico classico who came up with the asinine 'Baby where did you get your body from? (...from her mom... for the uniformed) who also does backing vocals on the track (all he yells along with Bono is 'No'..truly what a fucker)

So the two songs...well Rolling stones calls the CD their best since Achtung baby and gave it an unprecedented five stars and by the looks of it these two are right up there with their best. I mean take Get on your boots. I listened to a crappy d'loaded version for the better part of February but listening to the smooth preppy track with all the hidden instruments this is a real textured song. I love it. The video is great the concept amazing (give control of the world to women because men have made a massive fuck-up of everything) the lyrics - 'the future needs a big kiss' and the pulsating end 'let me in the sound' awesome stuff.

No line on the horizon is again a great track. Right from the hesitant beginning to the drums kicking in to Bono wailing ' I know a girl who's like the sea' . What a brilliant opener it goes up and then goes down with the Edge's familiar guitar taking it through.

Six days more and along with the rest of the world I will soak in the sounds, music and lyrics of the four boys from Ireland.

I can't wait but I finally see the line on the horizon...

and the Oscar goes to...

2009-02-22T05:40:00.000+08:00

* Does not necessarily reflect my top movies and performances for the year

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight
Best Actress: Kate Winslet for The Reader
Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz for Vicky Christina Barcelona
Animated Feature Film: Wall - E
Art Direction: The curious case of Benjamin Button
Cinematography: Benjamin Button
Costume Design: Revolutionary Road
Directing: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire
Documentary Feature: Man on a wire
Editing: Undecided (A throw up between Dark Knight or Slumdog)
Makeup: Benjamin Button
Score: Slumdog
Song: O Saya
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Sound Editing: The Dark Knight
Sound Mixing: Wall-E
Visual Effects: Benjamin Button
Writing (Original Screenplay): Wall - E

So do log on after the show and see how I did. Personally I feel Anne Hathaway should win best actress for Rachel Getting Married and I thought Benjamin Button was a much better film than Slumdog but don't think it stands a chance.

Coldplay: Live in Singapore

2009-02-16T23:56:00.000+08:00

Young Anakin woke up bright and early to buy us tickets to watch Coldplay live on the 23'rd of March here in town. I thought Coldplay had; in Viva La Vida the albumn of the year but god knows what goes on in the foggy old heads of the folks who vote at the Grammy's.

So we shall sing along with our main man Chris Martin about that long and dark december that we clearly remember ...

Book review: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

2009-02-13T00:58:00.000+08:00

There's someone you know who lives on Revolutionary road....I am sure of it. Hell there are bits and pieces of people you'll meet on those pages that will either remind you of someone you know or may hit home. As I turned page over page I saw bits of Frank Wheeler in my personality. I hide my bitten to the skin nails just like he does, I had a moment where I turned an argument around and hid in an alley and laughed my self silly at the thought of the person's face. I saw a bit of April in a girl I loved. I saw bits of Jon Givings in a person I once knew. I felt like I was riding the lift up to a dull office. I saw the bleak future of the human Dream even though the book is a deconstruction of the American dream in the 60's. This book is relevant today as much as it was so many decades back.

I mean a story about a bored suburban couple in America. I mean how thrilling can the book be right? Wrong. The book is a goddamn page turner. You pass your days in office in a daze because you cant wait to chug along to a coffee shop and devour page after page of the book.

Yep that bloody good. So vivid that each page comes to life in the simplest prose possible. You sit with Frank and drink those martinis. You feel the tempt of that fling. You know you're a fake when you read about Frank and his ways and mannerisms. I've had a moment just like he does where just as I am concluding a story I realize I've told the story before...but realized it too late and realize that the intent gaze is just polite nodding.

But the supporting characters shine as well. The Givings with their asylum incarcerated son (such a livewire character....sometimes the insane ones are the most lucid). The Campbell's the Ordways and Pollocks of the office come alive on page after page.

The book mainly follows Frank through the brief journey of their marriage and suddenly towards the end you switch loyalties and give a patient hear to April....I still stand by what I said a long time ago....when a relationship goes wrong (honey I screwed up!) it isn't any body's fault. Just two views so opposite in their opinion that reconciling is not an option.

So please please pick up this classic by Richard Yates and savour every moment. I meanwhile am going to pick up the rest of Mr. Yate's stuff this year so you're going to see a lot of him on these pages.

Next up is the highly recommended Barrel Fever by David Sedaris.

A selection from Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. 1961. Random House.

"She leaned the backs of her thighs against the fender and folded her arms in an elaborate display of resignation while he jabbed and shook a forefinger in her face. " You listen to me. This is one time you're not going to get away with twisting everything I say. This just happens to be one damn time I know I'm not in the wrong. You know what you are when you're like this ?" "Oh god, if only you'd stayed at home tonight" You know what you are when you're like this?" You're sick. I really mean that " "And do you know what you are?" Her eyes raked him up and down 'You're disgusting' Then the fight went out of control. It quivered their arms and legs and wrenched their faces into shapes of hatred, it urged them harder and deeper into each other's weak points. showing them cunning ways around each other's strongholds and quick chances to switch tactics, feint, and strike again. In the space of a gasp for breath it sent their memories racing back over the years for old weapons to rip the scabs off old wounds; it went on and on....."

Film Review; The curious case of Benjamin Button

2009-02-12T11:33:00.000+08:00

This movie about a man born under unusual circumstances is a visual treat. The art direction, cinematography, special effects, makeup, narration are top notch. The audience let’s out a gasp not when you see an 80 year old Brad Pitt but when you see a 24 year old Pitt looking younger than his Thelma and Louise days. Three stand out scenes in the film are the breathtaking colour as Benjamin Button backpacks through Varanasi in India, the WW-II scene with the boat and the submarine and the one whole bit where Pitt and Blachett’s characters move into a house and live on a bed – for those few minutes the movie loses its detachedness and becomes a tale of love so very briefly. Check out the scene in the ballet room where they stare at a mirror to savor the one time that they are exactly the same age. The real chemistry comes between Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt’s character as he slowly falls in love with her over the course of a couple of weeks in a lonely hotel.

The move stands at a daunting 166 minutes but rarely do you get bored as you watch this slow movie takes it time as it traces Benjamin Button’s journey from an old man to a baby. Going back to the narration it is really spot on. The bit where Button explains the circumstances leading to Daisy breaking her leg is a slow retelling of that scene in Snatch where the carton of milk makes a big unhappy mess.

The film is going to win all the awards in the technical department. It’s a pty the actors perform their parts rather coldly but I guess this was because it wanted to stay clear of Forrest Gump territory (the screenplay is written by the same guy who did Gump) and paint the life of ....well a normal man born under unusual circumstances. The film moves in shades of dullness which I found quite appealing

If you’re looking for a visual treat then this movie is highly recommended

"It's a funny thing about comin' home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You realize what's changed is you.... "

The Prodigy Live in Singapore

2009-02-08T11:45:00.000+08:00

Tuesday night I had what was definitely the wildest night in Singapore. The Prodigy were in town and over the course of 150 minutes I was drenched in sweat as I stood upfront in the pit and let the music blow me away as I jumped up and down as they played most of their hits from Fat of the Land and their new CD (out in March) titled Invaders must Die.

To understand why this show was so special for I we have to go back to 1997. I was in school then and in the whole town there was this one guy called DJ Ajay who owned what was apparently the only copy of Fat of the Land. Because of that any parties that were thrown by the rich girls in school (seriously why are there only rich school girls?) had this DJ logged in. So, Smack my bitch up, Breathe & Firestarter were played with abandon and for us kids we had never heard music like this before. It made you feel like an undercurrent of electricity was running through your body.

But I wasn't alone. The world was hooked, everyone you know loved them. The songs showed up in many a movie, even the bollywood film Kuch Kuch Hotai hai used 'Smack my Bitch up' in the trailer. It was all over the place. Over time you heard some of their newer songs in a trailer here and there and time passed us by. To put it in context when The Matrix came out we loved it again we had never seen anything like it but by the time 2 & 3 had come we had seen it imitated so many times in the preceding years that the directors who started it all were beaten at their own game. Likewise with the Prodigy they came out with stuff but there were other acts who had successfully managed to copy and better their sound in the years in-between. However I think they got some stellar songs from their new CD.

Back then as I moved to their music I never thought that more than a decade later I will actually watch them live

Which brings me to the show. When the band walked on (I thought it would be a DJ spinning and the two vocalists but hell they have the most hardworking band player you'll see and a guitarist as well) . By the third song the crowd and the band were drenched in sweat as their soongs opened up the humid night in town. I got into a scrum at the pit and I must say violently pushing a whole lot of people around is a head-rush.

They played all their hits and when Firestarter er...started I just stood there in the jostling crowd and soaked it in. For their encore they played 'Smack my Bitch up' and relived every memory of those days in 1997 as Liam Howlett let the mix kick in and Keith Flint went absolutely nuts during the second rendition of FireStarter. What a show! and let's not forget the lights. The lights would go off and on as the tempo went up. Fucking brilliant.

After the show ended I caught up with a delirious Joe (assistant to the Fire warden) who was so pumped that I thought he was going to start punching people randomly.

We need to get to that U2 concert and plan for an Oasis concert in the future. This way we would re-live every single childhood memory all over again.

Super.

Film Review: Doubt

2009-02-08T11:23:00.000+08:00

To qualify for the BananaFish club you have to be a movie buff. This means you could dragged to watch a film at a moment's notice. But then what if your movie buff friends drag you to a movie you just don't want to see because in your head you've already branded it as 'arty' and not interested.

So after tons of hesitation and last minute headaches I finally relented to watch Doubt. What made this movie real fun is that I will never pay the price of a movie ticket to watch Philip Seymour Hoffman in a lead role and yet there I was at the end of a thoroughly engrossing movie that showed what it is to have two master actors show off their class. Meryl Streep brings it in this film. She's top notch in the role of a nun who has a 'feeling' that the priest played by Hoffman might have had an improper relationship with the school's first black student. No make-up looking like a pale ghost under her hood and a demeanour that will make you remember the sternest teacher you ever had I loved her in the film.

The title 'Doubt' plays very well in this strong film. All Meryl streep has is her certainty on things she'd been told by the younger nun played by Amy Adams. The conversations between the two leads is gripping as the argument swings back and forth. But there is an undercurrent of real subtle humour that runs through the film. Like Meryl Streep addicted to the transistor radio she confiscated of a student or the light bulb that keep's blowing up, or the little kid sitting outside the Principal's office resigned to his fate or the contrast between the staid dinner the nun's have and the laughs of the priests table.

The stand-out scene in the film is the one with Meryl Streep and the lady playing the black kid's mother.

The movie is apparently based on a play and there are times when you feel like you are watching one.

I now solemnly swear that I'll watch films with ugly actors

Film Review: The Wrestler

2009-02-05T00:53:00.000+08:00

When the lights come and the credits roll and you hear Bruce Springsteen ask you 'if you've ever seen a one-trick pony in a field so happy and free?' you're left with a lump in your throat and vague feeling similar to depression. You've, over the course of about 100 minutes lived inside the sweaty messy body of Randy the Ram. You hear his wheezing breath and struggle through his hearing aid as he fights one brutal match after another (the one with the staple gun is really something....like really the flashback to the fight and to the present is classic) you wince when you see the scar from the surgery or smile at his stint at the Deli or while picking out a jacket for his daughter.

You fall in love with the movies because of films like 'The Wrestler'. At about half-time I realized I was watching the movie with a wrinkled brow. There are some scenes in this film that just break your heart. This is one of the most down beat depressing films I've seen in a while. There's nothing to like about the lead character and yet you wish his daughter would not let him leave with less than he had before. You wish Marisa Tomei's character would just say she loves him and wish for that glorious happy ending.

It doesn't happen. You're a mute observer in the life of Randy the Ram. Watch that last scene where he throws everything at Marisa Tomei and says 'The only place I get hurt is out there. The world don't give a shit about me.' (just before Sweet Child of Mine starts to play...fantastic) There's no Mickey Rourke in the movie...there's only Randy the Ram playing Rourke. If you've read the back story you'll know the similarities between the character and Rourke which makes you root like hell for the underdog

I'm not going to tell you about the film and what happens. Just watch it and don't leave till the Springsteen song finishes...its been a while since a song has actually moved me from deep inside.

Rourke's winning Best actor. There's no way in hell Sean Penn's MILK is a patch on his performance here.

Essential viewing.

PostScript: And if you haven't then do watch Requiem for a Dream by the same director. Similar to Rourke; Ellen Burnstyn gives a performance that lingers weeks/ months after you've watched the film. The score in both films is by Clint Mansell - a genius composer. Give a listen to Lux Aeterna and be prepared to be blown away

News Video Review: The Mangalore Incident a.k.a Smack my bitch up

2009-02-02T14:06:00.000+08:00

Shekar Kapur has a very interesting post on his website about the Mangalore incident where a bunch of self-confessed assholes beat up a couple of girls in a bar. My NRI grainy news videos from India watching days continue. Today I watched one classico which had this woman talking about her ‘investigation’ into the Mangalore incident and the ‘nude clothes’ that the girls were wearing……

…I paused and backed up a bit to see if I had heard correctly (see it for yourself) she says Nude clothes!! Like really! This dumb-ass lady is the next Magnum P.I. She’s gonna wield her sari and solve cases. The only thing missing in the interview is her lethal Ray-Ban shades to cover the seething anger in her eyes.

Which brings me to haute couture 2009. Nude clothes is a fashion statement by the snazzy people of Mangalore. Nude clothes looks like a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to the normal eye but to a deranged fuckwit its all tits and ass hanging out. Nude clothes is what our hero lady investigator sees. Anything short of a sari is nude clothes. You, me and everybody else we know can't see it but Sari lady sees an aureole so big it would make you attack it...she understands. Yes men watch out nude clothes is here to stay. I can't wait for the next soundbyte by Miss. Sari Investigator my only hope is that she doesn't turn on the Mangalore men and accuse them of 'Nanga cocks'

I went on watching the video. They interviewed the guy who tried to stop the thrashings. He goes on to say ‘they’re spreading false rumours that I’m a Muslim….I’m Shetty’
Go and watch any Bollywood movie the scariest guy was always called Shetty. You don’t mess with the Shetty but clearly this Shetty is terrified of being branded a Muslim.

What’s worse is at the end of the video it shows the Nimrods wearing saffron scarves (they looked like the Indian Version of Big Bird) being released on bail and yelling ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ (the irony that they’re hailing ‘Mother’ India’ is not lost on me) like they’ve won a massive battle.

Don’t you just hate election time? All political parties lose their balls in a ‘let’s not ruffle feathers till the elections’ phase. So it becomes a free for all.

However I’m sad to see no video of Barkha Dutt lighting a candle for the Mangalore girls on the NDTV website

"Everybody was dancing wearing so many nude clothes and all.
That is why they did what they did, they (the attackers) said"

Postscript: And since we're on the topic of beating up women I have just been told of this thing called the Donkey Punch. I can't believe such a thing even exists. Now picture that Muthalik guy riding a Hindu cow and doing the punch......(hilarious no?)

Football Mundial: The crazy world of the EPL

2009-02-01T14:52:00.000+08:00

Now before you write me off as a wannabe football fan I would have you know I've been watching football since 1986 (Mexico & Maradona and me all of six years old, this is what happens when you have a soccer crazy mom) but I've been a convert to the EPL for a little under three years now and because I'm such an avid follower every weekend that when the season is over I go through serious withdrawal symptoms.

Which brings me to this year's Emglish Premier League. It's a mad mad world...a bit of Mtv Cribs, a bit of Lifestlyes of the Rich and famous, a bit of a dramatic soap opera, a bit of the thrills and chills of a Hollywood blockbuster and nerve racking final minutes that will make your nails scream blue murder.

You just can't guarantee who is going to win on a particular weekend. Liverpool did well in the early half of the season but ever since the injury to Fernando Torres and the assault case on Steven Gerrard it all seems to be coming unstuck coupled with this is Benitez's erratic behaviour. He spends all this money to hire Robbie Keane and then washes his hands off the player. Can someone do a count of how many good strikers he has gone through in the past couple of years? God only knows what goes on in his bald head.
.
Chelsea looked the team to beat but look at them now. The dismay on Big Phil's face says it all. Drogba is a shadow of his form last year and everyone looks tired and defeated all the time. The rich arab owners of Man city keep pumping millions of dollars in but there team gets beaten by a lowly Stoke city. Aston Villa could I think become serious contenders, you got to admire the tenacity and dedication of Martin O'Neil and Chris Moyes work at Everton for holding their own. Lowly Wigan has drawn with the big four and are unbeaten for quite some time. The Spurs and Newcastle languish at the bottom and face the threat of relegation. The drama is still there in Newcastle with reports now coming out that the owner is broke. West Ham lost their shirt sponsors. Juan Ramos fired from the Spurs is now the coach for Real Madrid and then there's ManUtd. The red devils I love to hate but you got to admire them. Trailing 7 points at the start they now lead by five points. You just can't take it away. Sir Alex is the best club manager in the world whether you like him or hate him.

Which brings me to my dear club Arsenal. I love the club (Top 5 loves in my life: U2, Arsenal, Milo, JD Salinger, WW-II) how you wish they'd fire on all cylinders every weekend and how dissapointed you get when they draw (and now lose) at home. They have beaten Chelsea, Man Utd and drawn with Liverpool and yet get held to pathetic draws against teams at the bottom of the table. I mean look at the line-up it has the most exciting young guns, look at that beautiful game they play, look how they freeze near goal. Look at their injuries its mental (Rosicky, Eduardo, Walcott, Fabregas injured for months now) & the genius of Arsene Wenger holding it all together. Early in the season I thought this was going to be their season but they don't look quite there just yet. Last night they drew with West ham and now look to be fighting to finishing fourth (although I still think they could break into the top 3 soon..Chelsea, Liverpool are getting their wheels unstuck). Van Persie is truly the glue that's holding the team together. I still don't understand what Nicolas Bendtner is doing in the team. How many chances is he going to be allowed. He misses the goal so many times you want to tear your hair out.

Another 16 games remain and it could still be anyone's season for the taking so while I fervently pray for the arrival of Zenit Petersburg and star of the Euro 2008 Andrei Arashvin's impending arrival to Arsenal I have a nagging feeling that it's going to be ManUtd all the way.

Tonight is Liverpool v/s Chelsea (hope they draw) and then there's Rafael Nadal v/s Roger Federer truly a sports night to watch out for.

Post script: I used to follow the Guardian's football reviews but over time I find that they are very biased (like the Singapore media that has a constant hard-on for Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool) and have now switched to The Independent's football page it's unbiased pure news and views. They also have a great live page that refreshes with live scores and results. If you want to get into the action and the drama I'd recommend it.

Book Review: Great Apes by Will Self

2009-02-01T14:31:00.000+08:00

Great Apes is a tough book to read. It takes the world of apes and makes them humans and makes the humans the equivalent of chimps. Its a crazy world where the apes go human shit as opposed to going apeshit. The first 50 -60 pages are hard to go by as it builds the story and the characters. But please persevere because the novel is a hoo-hooo-raaa---hilarious trip. I mean I've now gone days going 'euch-euch-' at everyone on the street. It messed with my head...I felt like a hairy ape while reading it (as opposed to Singaporean girls thinking I am a hairy ape and I disagreeing....where's tht safety razor)

Zack Busner is a character right up there with Randle McMurphy, Yosaarian, Billy Pilgrim. He's truly memorable and a wonderful anti-hero. It's hilarious reading about this Doctor chimp who wakes up in the morning to watch all his off springs mating with pomp and vigour early in the morning. While we humans might check our hair or our teeth as we walk out of the house. Dr. Busner checks his asshole one last time.

The book has pages and pages of chuckles. The story revolves around an artist called Simon Dykes who after a night of doing drugs and alcohol wakes up to discover that the whole world is run by chimps. Everything is turned on its head. Bill Clinton is an ape. The genocide in Rwanda is happening to the Bonobo apes and everybody is fucking everybody.

The author Will Self creates such a believable earth inhabited by apes that you get completely taken in.

Apparently there's another book by Will Self where Zack Busner is human! I can't wait to get my hands on a copy.

Highly reccomended. Thank you Mr. Flick-Switch (actual nickname..not something I gave) this was a fantastic (if difficult) read. If you don't get put off b the daunting length and the slow build up I guarantee a wholly enjoyable read.

Postscript: The book came out in 1997. Imagine it's taken 12 years to discover the genius.

Quickie reviews

2009-02-01T07:28:00.000+08:00

The reader: Kate Winslet is naked for most of the first half in the movie. Her tits are saggy and are headed straight for the prune factory, her ass is pure heaven, she fucks almost as good as she did in Little Children and you gotta love her because she's one A-lister actress who has and continues to take her clothes off in every movie. You want to punch Ralph Fiennes in the face, he roams around looking sullen and moronic throughout the movie. (If we know each other then remind me to show you my Fiennes impersonation it's a riot) A theory by young Anakin is that he has that face because he never got to screw Winslet in the movie (a younger person playing his character got all the action). The second half drags an otherwise engaging first half down. It does not deserve its Best picture nomination. If you want to enjoy The reader then read the book. It is a fantastic piece of work.

Defiance: Another Edward Zwick film with the same problems like Last Samurai and Blood Diamond had. It's a good story, great acting, Daniel Craig and Jamie Bell shine in the Belarus cold but somewhere in the middle it slows down and that ruins it really. This one especially suffers from one set...the whole movie is just set in the forest so for about 114 minutes you're in the forest with them. I don't want to take anything away from the true story this film was based on but the movie as a whole fails. There are bits that are good and I think you should see it on DVD along with Chinese takeout but it does not warrant the price of a movie ticket.

Go ahead time it. That's quickie reviews for you.

Coming soon: The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

2009-02-01T07:19:00.000+08:00

Dear Dad,

The week you are here we are going to hang with Ethan Hawke, Rebecca Hall & Sam Mendes. Coming in March is the William Shakespeare play directed by Mendes and starring Hawke and Hall (Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona) called The Winter's tale. Can you believe it? So totally page 3. We're gunning for the VIP box and just for show we'll carry binoculars (is that for the opera? fuck it we'll still carry a pair) and talk like we're experts about Broadway (that's a street for hookers in New York right?)

Mogwai: Live in Singapore

2009-02-01T06:59:00.000+08:00

Last week I had my ear drums blown out of my skull when I went to watch the Post-Rock gremlins invade Singapore.
Mogwai has been around for 14 years now. Over the years they have built a steady fan base, got louder and louder over time, got into a massive fight with Blur and became Zinedine Zidane's close friends.

Remember the Micheal Mann directed Miami vice? Those cool instrumental songs that play in the background are Mogwai at their best. On a recco I picked up their CD 'The sky is howling' early in January. The music blew me away. Me! I can't stand music without lyrics and there I had the CD on repeat. Hooked I bought the ticket and headed for their show.

I can't begin to tell you what a mind-trip of an experience this was. The concert hall was bathed in lights made to look like the sun was rising and setting, the music builds into a crescendo of noise...dissapears and then comes back again with a roar. When they played 'Auto-Rock' (my favourite Mogwai track) I had goosebumps all over as I swayed to the music. They played most of their hits from The sky and Mr. Beast. "I Love You, I'm Going to Blow Up Your School", "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead" "Batcat" were phenomenally done and even the ones I didn't know didn't matter in the end. I sat there for about an hour and a half in a barely filled auditorium completely enthralled. The drummer apparently has a pacemaker that's been fitted since he was 12, in a tour not so long ago as he played the pacemaker came unstuck and jutted out of his chest...creepy but kudos on keeping the show going on.

This is music and if you were in town and missed the show well, that's criminal. Below is a photo just before the lights started swirling in the darkness.

Film Review: Milk

2009-02-01T06:44:00.000+08:00

Watched it 3 weeks back (I've been out of it haven't I?) another movie in a long line of movies where the acting makes up for an otherwise mediocre film (others in the past few years: Last King of Scotland, Capote, Erin Brockovich) Milk works because of Sean Penn, James Franco, Josh Brolin, a fiery perfomance by Diego Luna and Emile Hirsch. The story is a big big yawn. I still don't get how this whole drama about 'Prop 8' deserves a movie of its own. A documentary? sure (I won't watch it) but I mean its a 4 line story. .>Prop 8. > Gays don't like > Gays do something about it > Gays win. End of story. Sure Harvey Milk is a great character story but somehow while you watch it you get the feeling that this kind of story is done to death. But the movie has it's moments....I can't remember many right now but the end with the candles on the streets gives you goosebumps.

The movie didn't do anything for me. Aren't you supposed to feel inspired and moved by this sort of stuff? The stories it follows meanders into blah. Except for the Josh Brolin track and the two realationships Penn has with Franco and Luna there is nothing much to make you want to reccommend the movie.

On the plusses if you have to watch it then watch it for Sean Penn. It's the exact opposite of his acting in Mystic River and that is what a great actor can do.

I guess it's become fashionable to recomend a gay movie these days to show you're 'with it'

I am apparently not 'with it'

U2: No Line on the Horizon. First Single

2009-01-21T02:09:00.000+08:00

It's here! the first single by U2 from their new CD 'Get on your boots' is out and I've had it on repeat all frickin evening. I love it. Just love it. Hearing a new song by the band is like meeting an old friend after years and finding out what they've been upto all this time and then being absolutely delighted that all is well in zoo station.

Give it a listen - '...let me in the sound'

The album cover has also been released. According to the site The album cover artwork is an image of the sea meeting the sky by Japanese artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Film Review: Rachel Getting Married

2009-01-18T13:16:00.000+08:00

Anne Hathaway gives a razor sharp performance as Rachel's sister in this movie I like to refer to as Hollywood's answer to India's Monsoon Wedding (the similarities are striking). The movie has that fly-on-the-wall camera direction and classifies as Car crash viewing (movies that you watch cringing..like The Office where you don't know whether to laugh or go Ouch when you watch David Brent).

The movie tells the story of Anne Hathaway's character who comes home from rehab for her sister's wedding. The whole house is tense with her arrival, in addition to this there has been a tragedy not so long ago that lingers on every person's mind through the wedding. The sibling rivalry, the ganging up, the arguements of fairness and favouritism are superb.

I thought it could have been atleast 15 minutes shorter but I'm not complaining. Later when the movie was over and I was thinking about Hathaway's charachter and how she's carried the blame of the tragedy for so long her dad actually understood (this is never clear in the film) that's why he was so over protective of her and maybe that's why he divorced his wife.

The movie is written by Sidney Lumet's (Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico)daughter and directed by Johnathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) and is acting of the highest kind. Highly recommended. Anne Hathaway is a sure shot Oscar Nomination.

Film Review: Eden Lake

2009-01-17T03:02:00.000+08:00

This evening I stumbled out of a theater still numb with the carnage I witnessed. I'm a huge fan of zombie / horror / slasher / lots of people slowly dying films. Disaster flicks suck-ass because where's the fun in instant death?? I've seen every single brutal movie (teen slasher flicks are a personal favourite) ever made. It's great escapist cinema at the end of a tough week. Last year I dragged many a friend to watch: The strangers, Quarantine (great shock value), The Eye, Prom Night (err I know..awful but teen slasher you know...) so I read with great joy when I heard that 'Eden lake' was headed to the sunny shores of Singapore. Hailed as the best horror film in years I gleefully booked my tickets and headed over to The cathay.

It's been a while since I physically flinched in the theatre. This is one of those rare one-of-a-kind horror films that's so bloody smart that it keeps you at the edge of your seat from beginning to end. A collegue told me not so long back that he doesn't ever want to go back to the UK because gangs of 12-15 year olds walk the streets with knives and paper cutters looking for a fight.
I had laughed then and called him a pussy. But then I read reports and heard Gordon Brown on the telly talking about this menace...it suddenly wasn't funny.

This film took me back to that conversation I had with him. It tells the story of a couple who are mercillesly stalked by a group of 12 year olds in the middle of the wilderness. Flinch. You actually flinch when you watch this movie. I love the power of cinema when it can make it so real that you actually believe what you're seeing. This is not some make believe man with a chainsaw running riot kind of set -up it's bloody believeable and wrongly falls into the horror genre because it has the mandatory (and many of them) Boo! moments. My friend had his hand over his open mouth in shock horror...it was that good!

Telling you more about this film will be giving too much away. All I can say is if this is a genre that appeals to you then go watch it. I guarantee you'll have your heart in your mouth for most of the running time.

Highly Reccomended.

The Ting Tings Live in Singapore

2009-01-14T02:34:00.000+08:00

Well we didn't shut up and let them go. The two band members were phenomenal as they brought the park down in the first night of Big night out, the rain held out and a soft cool breeze blew all around as we stood under the sky and sang our hearts out. My companion (for love or squalor) almost got into a cat fight with another girl and I surprisingly broke it up (i love cat fights remember Alexis and Krystal cat fighting in 'Dynasty'? oh man!). Most people swear by two member bands. The white stripes, The Kills and The Ting Tings have a loyal following and The Ting Tings in my opinion were the best newcomers in the UK last year.

Watching the energy and creativity of just two people doling out loud rock songs is seen to be believed. For the lesser informed that second song that plays in the Slumdog Millionaire trailer is 'Great DJ' is by this band (it made the already super cool trailer SO much better)

With a lot of pushing and jostling we got to the front of the pit and listened enthralled to the 45 minute session (I know short - they only have one albumn out but, even if they had more songs how do you keep the tempo up after about an hour!) they switched guitars, played the drums with wild abandon, an assortment of supporting instruments came out and they treated us to 'We Walk', 'Great DJ' 'Traffic Light' 'Fruit Machine' the title track of their CD 'We started nothing' and the two mega mega hits 'Shut up and Let me go' and ended the evening with 'That's not my name'

What a show. I have hardcore 'cock'throb' for the singer Katie White. She is oh so sexy (lucky for her she went straight to my list of rockstar women to sleep with) and I gazed in sheer voyeur delight as she pranced around the stage, played up her cuteness and shook her blonde head around (I did however notice that she has a big head but it's okay I love the way she sings...such a little tantrumn thrower)

Both, Katie and Jules Martino were so in-sync with each other. Truly an adrenalin pumping, hip swinging evening to remember. Truly a top band with a wonderful future ahead of them.

On a side note: The opeming act was an awful Singaporean Band called (true story) Force Vomit. Mediocre and looking like a green in the gills we're so cool college band I thought it was insulting for the headliner band that the organizers choose these vomit faced kids as the opening act. It got worse though.... the second act was a hip hop rapper called Wylie with his co-rapper Set-top and their band (...which consisted of a Guantanamo Bay escapee looking bald guy on a Mac Pro playing recorded music...my respect for the black community fell a couple of notches.)

Oh well...like it's recently been pointed out I'm way to critical. So I hope the supporting acts on Day II of Big Night out for The Prodigy are better.

Coming soon: Jason Mraz Live in Singapore

2009-01-09T16:56:00.000+08:00

Yeah I don't know what it is. How is it that a man with impeccable taste in music shares the same enthusiasm about Jason Mraz that a 12 year old screaming girl does? I haven't understood it. Normally music and musicians like this are viewed with a lot of trepidation but in the case of Mr. A-Z I think he's super cool.

So with great joy I heard Mr. Makintosh tell me that this live wire performer in headed back to Singapore in the first week of March.

Whoop. But it gets better. My boss recently got married and they had a band that flew in from America to perform at her wedding.....the band is the opening act for the Mraz show. This means backstage passes and cocktails with Mraz.

AND because I got her hooked onto the music of Jason Mraz guess who's a prime contender for a backstage pass as well.

Yes! eyes wide shut baby eat your heart out. We're going to be partying with the popstars in March.

Added to this last night I went drinking with a relative of Morten Harket . I was joking about how he resembled Chris Martin and then he jumps in with this bit of trivia. I fell off my chair. If I had breasts I would have bared them. I rarely meet A-ha fans and here was someone who knows their entire discography possibly better than I....I mean he said that they meet at funerals and stuff that's got to be close right?

This is great priming for when I watch U2 Live later this year.

Concert Review: STARS - Live in Singapore

2009-01-08T09:46:00.000+08:00

I’ve been looking forward to this concert for a couple of months now and gosh! It didn’t disappoint. It was the perfect start to a season of concerts The Stars is a lesson in living the Indie-Band dream. Stripped away music, a warm and personable approach to their audience, this is no stadium churning rock, this is mellow, silly in love, bitter in break-up kind of music. The lead vocalists play themes of love, hurt, and betrayal off each other…in-fact at times it’s almost like watching a musical. The small (cozy and wooden) auditorium at the Esplanade was filled up with all of 1500 people. Imagine a top band playing for an audience that small..it's like they're playing only for you. I stand just ten metres away and soak in the music and sing along to the songs I know (they have four - five CDs out and I only have one, I think most people in the audience did not know many songs in their set …yes I’m guilty as charged as well.) I had gone for the show alone, noone I know wanted to bust $140 for the band but as lady luck would have it sitting right next to me was this funky girl from our Creative design firm who seemed to be a huge fan, what followed was a rapid fire discussion on Arcade Fire, Matthew Good, Death Cab before the show started

They played most of the songs from Set yourself on Fire. They got the crowd on their feet with ‘Ageless Beauty’ slowed it down with the beautiful ‘Calendar Girl’ played their top hit ‘You Ex-Lover is dead’, did the last lines from ‘Soft Revolution’ (my current top Stars song) and brought out ‘Your ex-lover remains Dead’ for the encore. The lead male vocalist is high on the histrionics; the lady is grounded and clearly is the nuts and bolts of the band. The piano player looked like a bored Ben Gibbard from Death Cab, the bass guitarist had cool Jack Black dance moves going but the coolest member of the band was the lead guitarist, wearing a suit and standing in the far left corner looking like the coolest guitarist in Singapore. I left soon after the concert but had second thoughts and came back to stand in line to shake hands with the band after the show. It was that bloody good

I thought I’d record a song in HD and proudly show it off but to my horror when I saw the video last night you can hear me sing along in the background. Oh man! I sound like an eve teaser in Delhi University. The horror! Oh gawd the horror!

The revolution wasn't bad
We hit the streets with all we had
A tape recording with the sound
Of the Velvet Underground
A K-Way jacket torn to shreds
And a dream inside our heads
And after changing everything
They couldn't tell we couldn't sing

...After changing everything
They couldn't tell we couldn't sing
They couldn't tell we couldn't sing
And that changes everything......

On DVD and in the Cinemas

2009-01-04T19:07:00.000+08:00

The theatres in Singapore sucks major ass in December. I've seen a pattern over the past three Decembers in this town. They slow it down and then suddenly in mid Jan there's such a surge of good movies that sometimes you're in the thetatres watching movies back to back (like last year starting at 7 in the evening I watched: American Gangster, Eastern Promises and Darjeeling Limited one after another and then went home caught some sleep and came back the following afternoon for There will be blood....this is a movie watcher's wet dream come true)

and so it goes this year as well the past month has had awful movies in the theatres and we only saw one film - Pride and Glory. Look at this is a poor man's 'The Departed' it's good, gripping, excellent performances but its missing something so as soon as you leave the theatre you move on and don't give the movie a second thought. Edward Norton is mighty good and wtf happened to Colin Farell?? I remember not long back I caught the Recruit in 2003 (at a theatre in Malad Bombay ...how do I remember this?) and Farell was touted as the next big thing...he looks bloated and washed out just five years on.

Because of the slim pickings we caught a lot of film at Home.

Rescue Dawn: Starring Cristian Bale and Steve Zahn, I had caught 20 minutes of the film on a flight but swtiched it off because wasting a good film on that small a screen is criminal. The movie is good but at half time I was yawning. It's a true story about an American pilot who escaped a Vietnam POW camp and was resuced.....so for an hour and a half you watch knowing fully well how it's going to end.

Noise: Starring Tim Robbins. I loved this movie. Its the blackest comedy I've watched in a while, the first hour is absolutely amusing but the movie kind of meanders to an end which is sad becuase it made me laugh so. It tells the story of a New York vigilante (played by Tim Robbins) who goes by the name 'The Rectifier' who destroys cars with unattended car alarms. The look on his face as his concentration breaks everytime he hears an alarm goes off is priceless and the seriousness with which he takes his role as the Rectifier is hilarious. Reccomended

Do keep coming back over the next couple of weeks. The days ahead are packed with new films: Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood), Ghost Town (Ricky Gervais) Milk (Sean Penn) Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), concerts (Stars next week and then The Ting Tings, Mogwai, Prodigy (yes! the smack my bitch up guys), and AniDi Franco.

Super! I love the first couple of months in the new year in this town. You live the good life before work catches up with you by April but for now we're just going to turn it up in the headphones.

Top Music 2008

2008-12-31T02:07:00.000+08:00

** Among CDs released this year

1. The Verve - Forth: 5 Really solid songs in this 10 piece CD. Right from Sit & Wonder to Appalachian Springs the music captures and takes you away to the world of Richard Ashcroft and the Verve boys. Three months and counting I listen to this CD everyday.
Top Song: Appalachian Springs

2. Oasis - Dig out your soul - Everything about this CD i love. Easily their strongest album since What's the story. Some songs like 'I'm out of time' give you goosebumps especially the end where John Lennon's voice comes on almost like from the grave. Love their devil may care attitude and the way the CD switches gears from hard to fast to slow easy.
Top Song: I'm outta time

3. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid - On a routine investigation to find out the song that plays in the Burn after reading trailer. I discovered Elbow and life hasn't been the same since. This CD is a dedication to a friend of the band Bryan (he's the seldom seen kid). 'Grounds for Divorce' is the grittiest rock song I've heard this year and I love the violins in 'One day like this' truly the indie discovery of the year.
Top Song: Grounds for Divorce

4. Coldplay - Viva La Vida - Too much has already been written about this CD already. It's a good no doubt but as the year ends with all the top press it's getting I think the hype is greater than the music
Top Song: Violet Hill

5. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular - Late discovery in the year. Easy music that gets deeper as you listen and we're all fated to pretend
Top Song: Time to Pretend

6. Jason Mraz - We sing, We dance, We steal things - Don't get put off by the repeated viewings of 'I'm yours' on the telly. The CD has stronger and more memorable tracks. Butterfly and Coyotes are personal favourites. Best live act I saw this year
Top Song: Butterfly

7. The Killers - Day & Age - If 'Human' doesnt get you on your feet I shall eat my feathers. 7 solid tracks in this CD and a massive should have been follow up to hot fuss
Top Song: Human

8. Kings of Leon - Only by the night. Right from the opener 'Closer' to the wonderful 'Sex on Fire' to 'Revelry' this CD does not disappoint hitting one high after another.
Top Song: Sex on Fire

9. Sigur Ros - With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly - I can't understand a word they're singing but the music makes the heart soar. All the way from 'Gobbeldigook' to 'All Alright' these Icelandic rockers are true role models for Radiohead
Top Song: Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur

10. Kanye West - 808's & Heartbreak - A truly smashing attempt to break new ground. The Auto Tune grows on you and makes you a believer that anyone with good lyrics can be heard singing. The CD stays true to the title of the albumn and has some gems along with valuable support from 'Lil'Wayne, Young Jeezy and Kid Cudi
Top Song: Welcome to heartbreak

Honorable Mentions:

11. Maximilian Hecker - One Day - A little known German musician, his music has all but taken over the hour before I sleep a fantastic CD and a great discovery this year
Top Song: The Space that you are in

12. Guns & Roses - Chinese Democracy - Has some of the loudest angst filled songs I've heard this year
Top Song: I.R.S

13. Nitin Swanhey - London Undersound. A mash-up of world music of the highest kind. With guest vocalists Paul McCartney, Anoushka Shankar and Imogen Heap this is a political message via music.
Top Song: My Soul

14. Adele - 19. This fat lady can sing. I love her voice and the rest of the band ain't too bad.
Top Song: Chasing Pavements

15.Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I lay my head. Sure, most of them are covers but this lady has a solid voice and the music sounds like its drowning (that's a good thing) love the David Bowie produced 'Falling Down'
Top Song: Falling Down

16. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago. Love the music, maybe given more time I would have put it in the top 10
Top Song: Skinny Love

17. Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs. Memorable, especially for the top song: I will posess your heart

18. Beck - Modern Guilt. I prefer this albumn to Odelay. It's solid and tough to pick one top song from the CD. Profanity Prayers and Soul of Man are super.
Top Song: Gamma Ray

Live shows:
1. John Mayer: Where the Light is
2. Oasis: Live at Manchester stadium
3. Jason Mraz: Tonight not again. Live at the Eagle Ball room
4. U2: Under a blood red sky

Assorted Songs:
Shut up and Let me Go - The Ting Tings
Sweet and Low - Augustana
We cry - The Script
All Summer Long - Kid Rock
What them girls like - Ludacris
The Day I lost my voice (the suitcase song) - Copeland
The Beginning of the twist - The Future Heads
72 - James
When will I see your face again - Jamie Scott & The Town
Sour Cherry - The Kills
Further - Long-View
Beautiful Summer - Primal Scream
Silver Lining - Rilo Kiley
A-Punk - Vampire Weekend

Hope, that we'll be around to do a list at the end of 2009. Have a good year ahead. Don't drink and drive.

The Life and the Times: Greatest Hits: 2007: 2008

2008-12-27T15:41:00.005+08:00

10. The birth of rapper 'Deo-licious
9. The saddest playlist I have
8. When the writing really started to work
7. Sleazy APSD
6. The funniest according to readers
5. I thought it was funny; noone else did
4. The most lucid memory
3. Don't you know you're a shooting star
2. ...and we finally did strike back
1. Pa

The B-Sides:
1. You can't handle the truth
2. Good Morning Vietnam
3. The Best in aborted Project 100
4. Absolute Power - Conspiracy theory at its best
5. Scent of a woman

and you can now follow reviews at: thedailyapsd.blogspot.com

Music Review: MGMT. Oracular Spectacular

2008-12-27T14:31:00.000+08:00

While you take the time out to come here and read a review and hopefully trust the taste of the writer I, Bananafish only trust the NME word when it comes to recommending music (sometimes the absolute Punk word but mostly its NME).

So early this month I read the Top 50 albums of 2008 with a bit of a raised eyebrow. The number one CD belonged to a band called MGMT....I hadn't heard of them before. A quick search on the Wiki informed me that they were previously known as 'The Management' till a burst of creative imagination made them rename the band to MGMT and the number one CD this year by them is called 'Oracular Spectacular'

So I bought the CD, the cover didn't impress me and nor did the art work. A bunch of punk kids whi I found out were the singers on the cover and it looked mighty blah.

I slotted the CD in (A CD i recommend goes through a 3 phase trial ...it starts on the home theater, then makes its way to the CD player in the bedroom before it finally gets on the MP3 player and then only if it warrants does it get a review) to the player and started to listen to the psychedelic tunes from the first hit single 'Time to pretend'

Its one of the most fun songs you'll listen...it's like being on a massive acid trip with a complimentary video to boot. I neglected the rest of the CD for a bit and had this song on repeat....

'I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.'

On repeat the song takes on a deep and sad meaning...atleast for me.

Sample the lines:

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute.

Forget about our mothers and our friends
We're fated to pretend
To pretend
We're fated to pretend
To pretend

I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home
Yeah, I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone.

There's really nothing, nothing we can do
Love must be forgotten, life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we'll get a divorce
We'll find some more models, everything must run it's course.....

The line 'we're fated to pretend' repeats through the track and it really hits home. We as a generation are fated to pretend don't you think? When was the last time you did something original? or better yet when did you last see / hear something that made you feel like this was a once in a lifetime experience? It's out instant noodles instant karma life. We got everything we want at a snap of our fingers...and even the joy .....it's all a pretense...we're fated to pretend.

But as the days rolled on I started listening to the other songs on the CD. The psychedelic feel is throughout the CD. Trust me when you're high THIS is the CD you'll listen to. 'The Youth' is another great synthesizer gone wrong song. 'Kids' is a real favorite. It's got my feet tapping as I write this.

The memories fade
Like looking through a fogged mirror
Decision to decisions are made
And not bought,
But I thought this wouldn’t hurt a lot.
I guess not

'Electric Feel' , 'Of Moons, Birds & Monsters (are you mad at your walls, Or hoping that an unknown force can repair things for you? . Pardon all the time that you've thrown into your pale grey garden? If the ship will never come you've got to move along...) The Handshake and the shaky but great 4th Dimensional Transistion make this a top CD.

I'm not going to agree that this is the best CD of the year (my vote still goes to 'Forth' by the Verve but this easily slips into the Top 10 CDs of the Year (the list will be up by the end of the year)

Give 'Time to pretend' a listen and I hope you see the light when he sings the line 'we're fated to pretend'

Highly recommended

Book Review: J.G Ballard - The Kindness of Women / a novel

2008-12-26T04:16:00.000+08:00

This novel caps a brilliant year of great books and some priceless discoveries. I immensely enjoyed reading this sequel to 'Empires of the Sun' however unsettling it is. When I reviewed Empires of the sun I mentioned the loss of innocence and as Jim grows up his fascination turns from toy airplanes to well...women. The book is by turn raunchy, sexy, funny, deeply introspective and there's the underlying connection to Jim's three years in a POW camp...it keeps coming back. He sees it everywhere and in everything.

...and you see it with him. The two books together take you on a journey through Ballard's life (what is fiction and what is true is left to the reader to decide). As the title suggests it's because of the kindness of women that he survived through life. It starts with the girl in the POW camp who kind of becomes a soulmate....a child marriage of sorts that keeps him going, he then goes on to get obsessed with a dead cadaver in medical school. It follows him through his misadventures through the RAF, his trysts with pregnant prostitutes, his love for his wife and the uneasiness of the thought that she yearns for another kind of life, the death of his wife in a tragic mishap that he blames squarely on himself, the celibacy that follows, the experimenting with LSD and meeting crazy women who beg him to ass-fuck them "Bugger me, Daddy! Beat Me! Pixie wants to be buggered" and the prison camp that keeps coming back.

The sex is almost written in a sterile way...like the one scene where he sleeps with his recently dead wife's sister you're taken aback at the matter of factness with which he writes about it...like it's customary

In between there are hints at being neighbors with Salvador Dali or watching a bull fight where El Cordobés( a personal hero of mine) dazzles the crowd or just living in a time of President assassinations, the birth of rock n roll, the Vietnam war. The book encompasses the history around Jim as well as his life.

Do read it...and if you haven't then read Empires before you attempt to read this one. The language and the vividness comes shining through.

A totally gripping and wonderful read

Postscript: About El Cordobes. I recommend the book 'Or I'll dress you in mourning' by Larry Collins and Dominique la Pierre ....its a true gritty story and yet is written like a stylized thriller. A true rags to riches story and encompasses so much of Spain's recent bloody history. I forget the line that opens the book (hey! I read it in '96 so cut me some slack') it's basically a quote that Cordobes tells his sister before his first major bull fight. I think it goes " Farewell my sweet sister, tonight I shall buy you a house or I'll dress you in mourning'

Goosebump stuff.

Trust me

Music Review: Kanye West 808's & Heartbreak

2008-12-26T03:56:00.000+08:00

"My friend showed me pictures of his kids,
And all I could show him were pictures of my cribs.
He said his daughter got a brand-new report card,
And all I got was a brand-new sportscar."

Kanye West 'sings' those lines in the track 'Welcome to heartbreak'. It's been a suck ass year for Mr. West. His mum died from plastic surgery complications and then he broke up with his fiancee...he also stopped blogging for a bit added to this he regularly got into trouble with the paparazzi. When I watched him live late in October I mentioned how depressed and alone he looked up on stage. Celebrity looked like death on him.

But, Mr. West is a one of a kind entertainer. I mean he rapped 'Through the wire' after his accident with a wired jaw. He also always claimed that he didn't just want to be the world's best rapper but instead he wanted to be the best singer.

808's is the step in that direction.

Now let's face it this guy can't sing to save his life and yet he does (there's not a single song where he raps) helped with a whole lot of auto tune (each song is sung in auto tune) he tells us stories from his broken life. It doesn't work...atleast on the first couple of listens but as you keep listening the auto-tune grows on you and the songs come shining through. Personal favourites are 'Welcome to heartbreak' 'Robocop' (about a super possessive girlfriend):

'Bout the baddest girl I ever seen
Straight up outta movie scene
Who knew she was a drama queen
That'd turn my life to Stephen King's
up late night like she on patrol
checkin everything like i'm on parole
I told her it's some things she don't need to know
She never let it go, oh'

I like the opener 'Say you will' . Love Lockdown has been played to death and I feel it's not the strongest song on the CD. 'See you in my nightmare' is another stellar track . Overall I think it's mighty brave for him to try something completely new than his contemporary hip-hop / rappers

Highly recommended and an A+ for effort.

Here's a bit of trivia for you. All of Kanye West's CD covers have had a bear on them ....and a parental advisory label. This one has a deflated baloon (shaped like a heart) on the cover and a picture of West looking forlon inside (that's the picture I've put up there) ...but if you ask me he looks like a well dressed bear

The week in movies

2008-12-26T03:47:00.000+08:00

We're trying to take advantage of our long vacation and catching the odd film I missed in the cinemas and watching them on DVD.

I finally caught Rock On ( i can't do a review because I know that I'm possibly the last person to see the movie) and think it's a very well made movie. Farhan Akhtar makes a promising debut and everyone else does not to bad. Akhtar's voice is scratchy but you grow to like it. I liked the sneak references to The Eagles like the 'we were just on a break line' or naming Arjun Rampal's character after The lead guitarist in the Eagles ...smart. I like that.

I also watched the MTV produced 'Stop-Loss' Ryan Philippe is putting together an impressive list of movies starting with Crash moving to Breach and now Stop-Loss. The movie deals with the US government policy of redrafting it's soilders back into the war after they've completed their service. The moves ends with a note saying that out of the 6,75000 (can you believe the number?) who served in Iraq and Afghanistan about 80,000 were stop-lossed and sent back. The movie deals with Ryan Philippe's character that refuses to go back and frantically looks for options to fight the rule. The movie has a strong supporting cast and I thought it made for good viewing.

Music Review: Belle & Sebastian: The BBC sessions

2008-12-26T03:28:00.000+08:00

Belle & Sebastian will get you laid...don't believe me? well burn your lady a mix tape of their best numbers and I guarantee she'll willingly open her legs (wide) and let you stick two fingers in her vulva and lick the sticky juice of your fingers (er...its the book I'm reading really it's messed me up). This is 'sensitive guy' music...chicks dig this kind of shit...trust me. So, while the music is just awesome and great for those romantic evenings I've kind of left the sensitive guy thing and now walk around with a foul mood most of the time. So silverchair and the Sex on fire gang are welcome but Belle and Sebastian has to sit the round out.

But, because I try to give a non-biased review I guess the music is something you and your better half can enjoy. The CD mostly covers their greatest hits but has got some songs I haven't heard before. Also the production quality on the CD is massive. You can hear each instrument trickle through (or it's just that I have a really good player) the new ones that I hadn't heard before 'Like Dylan in the movies' 'Shoot the sexual athlete' & 'My girl's got miraculous technique' are top notch. However my favorite B&S song is 'The state I am in' (second is the Boy with the arab strap..not on the CD) and it plays really swell on the tracks.

What really sucks is that the UK version comes with a live from Belfast CD as well with covers of 'Here comes the sun and the Bowie classic 'I'm waiting for the man' ...rats!

Recommended ...especially if you're swimming in the seas of puppy love or sharing a bottle of wine with that special someone or just looking to get laid via music (i feel like such a mid-wife)

Music Review: Radiohead. In Rainbows

2008-12-26T03:14:00.000+08:00

The disclaimer is I never thought (and still don't) that Radiohead could be looked at the successors to the greatest band in the world (the reigning kings are U2 and if you are a doubter you are dead to me). I've tried sitting through many of their CDs - The bends, OK computer, Hail to the thief and all straight in the puke bucket. Sure they've had some good numbers but who doesn't these days?

However In Rainbows has really surprised me (am I selling out?) its been almost a year since I got my hands on the downloaded songs and I just kept going back to it. There's the surreal 'House of cards' (is it just me or doesn't the video do full justice to the song?) I love the line "I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover, no matter how it ends no matter how it starts" and the frantic 'Jigsaw falling into places' the get your feet tapping 'reckoner' 'Bodysnatchers' 'Nude' & Video tape complete a solid piece of work. It's a must for any music lover's collection and I've gone and picked up the CD (it sounds so much better than pay what you can download crap) . Though the CD artwork has a bunch of stickers ...a DIY make your own CD cover (wtf? I didn't pay $21 to make my own stuff assholes)

But the music well...I fear Radiohead is starting to grow on me...a part of me is finally a phoney but in my defence this is good stuff to sell out to.

Highly recommended - will definitely make any top 10 list for the year

Music Review: Silverchair - Young Modern

2008-12-22T21:57:00.000+08:00

I've been waking up early for the past couple of weeks and going on 5 k runs almost everyday. Each lap is about 700 meters and I time the fastest lap for the week and the rest of time I attempt to break it. Ive noticed that the best times are achieved when the song 'Straight Lines' by Silverchair starts to play on the player. I went back and checked the other site and I've never done a review for Silverchair's 'Young Modern' which is strange because the tape is uplifting and can put you in an adrenalin fueled mood.

They also count among my favourite bands and one of the best things from Down Under. The lead singer Daniel Johns is wrongly called Mr. Natalie Imbruglia (Ek Imrugli anek Imgruglia). Mr Johns has a rocker identity of his own which he's carefully groomed over time and maybe Gavin Rossdale or Mr. Gwen Stefani should take some tips.

Coming back to Young Modern I can guarantee if 'Straight Lines' is the song you get ready to then you'll have a fantastic day because it puts you in a great mood. What's also amazing about this song is the back story about Daniel Johns. He battled arthritis, depression and anorexia and this song is his wake up call to fight all of that.

"Wake me up lower the fever Walking in a straight line Set me on fire in the evening Everything will be fine Waking up strong in the morning Walking in a straight line Lately I’m a desperate believer But walking in a straight line"

The Cd opens with 'Young Modern Station' ...the lyrics read about his condition from one sickness to another but only if you paid attention will you notice it otherwise its just a great song to sway to.
Reflections of a sound starts of with the line 'In the sun we are found to be reflections of a sound' the song slows down the tempo that gets built by Straight Lines.

Another favourite in young modern is 'The man that new too much' I love the beat the 'dan dan dan' that is sprinkled liberally through the song. Other stand out numbers are: Those thieving birds, waiting all day, Insomnia and Mind reader.

In the production notes Daniel Jones thanks his wife Bono and everyone who bought their records.

You're welcome.

Music Review: Kings of Leon - Only By the night

2008-12-22T21:31:00.000+08:00

Been following this band since their A-ha shake heartbreak days and the albumn was good but you'd move on a couple of months later.
...and then came 'Because of the times' and man! I loved the CD. Picked it up late in 2007 and had it on repeat for a long long time. The first 12 songs in the CD are solid. 'Ragoo' 'Camaro' 'Charmer' 'On call' 'Fans' were solid hits and great music to have in the background of a wild house party. Caleb Followil the lead singer has a real unique voice...I mean you can recognize a KoL song even if you haven't heard it before just by listening to his voice.

and I'm ashamed to say that instead of following my own instincts I listened to Liam Gallagher who said in an interview early this year that he didn't think too highly of their new CD 'Only by the night' . Sorry Liam you're off by a mile. This is a fantastic picece of work...the U2 The Edge inspired guitars continue but that isn't a bad thing at all. It's easy to find your favourite song on the CD. It has to be 'Sex on Fire'. Followil sings it with an urgency that conjures up images of the sex being on fire as we listen. Super. The first single Closer followed by Crawl, the two Somebody songs and the finale Cold Desert (slow bluesy and leaves you with a good feeling long after the CD is done) make this a must listen. The CD artwork is nothing great...it tries to be funky but you can't make out anything that's written unless you squint and stand under a bright light.

Recommended.