Another Christmas come and gone meaninglessly. I don’t know what ‘meaning’ I expect out of it, but I guess I just think that if you don’t know or have a meaning, you shouldn’t have reason to acknowledge or celebrate the occasion either.
Santa is not enough of a meaning or reason.
In contemplation, I admitted without meaning to, that I am killing my spirit. I complain uselessly that my world is darkening and entirely too suffocating, but in truth I am probably the cause of it. The black is more within me than it is around me; if my world leeches the life out of me, then I am also leeching the life out of my world.
The Grinch. That’s exactly what I am. Every day of the year.
As much as I would like to hope otherwise, good things cannot be in store.
It is no more the time when I can say “I am becoming…” Whatever it is, I have already become.
Joyful, joyful.
“We're just alike. You think sex is so unimportant you don't do it. I think sex is so unimportant I don't care who I do it with.” – Niki
Air French Band – Sexy Boy
Whigfield – Gimme Gimme
I don’t have a bicycle. I remember when I had so wanted one and when I had one and wished it was better and when I’d stopped using it and wished I had the time to start again. I don’t have a bicycle anymore.
In cities such as this, it doesn’t matter what kind of vehicle you commandeer, you will eventually, knowingly or otherwise, willingly or otherwise, become a pestilence to the general public. Everyone tends to think that they are above average drivers, but the truth is, it doesn’t matter. Even if you did turn out to be above average, it only takes one ignorant dick to put that huge dent in your fender or his. Or hers.
One needn’t leave the city and then return to realize the awful state of our roads. Every day that you spend navigating the traffic gives you fresh instances of plain old moronicity. Pedestrians from hell… ineffective traffic police… and an unholy abundance of vehicles great and small. Tin-box buses that threaten to either explode or just come crashing down as they shake, rattle and rumble their way down the street. Auto-rickshaws that turn on a dime to reverse their direction of momentum; probably the most manoeuvrable machines in the universe, strangely beautiful and at the same time, utterly disgusting. And it’s amazing how many people can get their clunky two wheelers over foot high lane dividers just to beat a traffic signal.
On the whole, we tend to have absolutely NO traffic- (or for that matter, good-) sense at all. I don’t know if it’s something in the water, but it is something alright. After 10:00 am, one can just expect every traffic signal encountered to be completely choked for the remainder of the day. An ever increasing population coupled with a similarly rising economy leads to more and more vehicles vying for space that each believes it truly deserves. You will see construction workers on rickety bicycles with the exact carefree attitude that allows them to swerve across the street without so much as a backward glance at the traffic they are displacing behind them. At the same time, the Lords will take their chauffeured luxury cars down the narrowest of streets, incessantly blowing their horns for the lowly to make room.
Frustrating, disillusioning, blood-boiling affairs, but if one is ruffled by them, or so perturbed that one is afraid to experience it again, then one should understand that one has not the smallest right to live in this city, or indeed, country. For it is our given nature to live and grow in the midst of chaos and, by the looks of it, we are thriving.
Change topic: Celebrities. I often wonder what makes a celebrity… I supposed that you need to be ‘celebrated’ to be a celebrity. Wrong. Today says that if a whole lot of people know your name because/and if your paycheck/inheritance is made public… turns out you’re already a celebrity. Oh, and it also helps if you can entertain in some way. That comes in handy if you’re ever asked to justify why so many people should register your name in the parking lot of their mindspace.
But really, with all the people who are becoming famous overnight, I would imagine it’s sort of unnerving, even despicably unfair, for the already famous folk. They may well have had to work their way up through the layers of their respective industries by way of years of hard work/talent and agents of varying degrees and then suddenly in walks Johnny two-shoes with his unconvincing hairstyle and annoying confidence, rubbing shoulders with them after a stylist and two months of appearing on some sort of talent-search television show. From no-name to first-name basis with Jim Carrey.
And since I’m near the topic, I may as well go on a bit about TV: TV is boring. TV is a synonym for boring. TV equals reruns and reality shows, the instant success quickfix everything pill. The instant celebrity sea-monkey squad, except without the “sea” part…
Once you get used to the barrage of sub-quality offerings, even a moderately different idea seems interesting, effectively glorifying what would have otherwise been relegated to the halls of mediocrity.
Fin.
“You’ve got me...? Who’s got you?!” – Lois
New fav: Ellen Page
Donovan Leitch – Hurdy Gurdy Man
Iron Butterfly – In A Gadda Da Vida
Out of the blue, shocking news for me. Possibly not shocking, but definitely disrupting/disturbing. This kid I used to know a long time ago apparently died last week under mysterious circumstances. Scary stuff. I remember him ‘cos he squirted me good once, when I used to “know a long time ago” him. There we were, this little dude a coupla years younger and me… and there I was with two fistfuls of, well, two stupid water balloons and there he was with this big old gun, no, rifle. I needn’t spell out that he won. Stupid water balloons - once you’ve thrown them, whether or not you miss pathetically, you’re screwed. And when his gun was empty well and proper, he skipped off like it was nothing; but I didn’t forget that day of spray.
I’m glad I didn’t. Otherwise I would have had no reason to remember him at all.
Happy trails, dude.
I don’t deal with death very well; in fact I don’t deal with death at all. I know of quite a few people who have passed in the last few years; some family, some acquaintances, some known, some barely. But I don’t recall that I had much of a reaction to any of them, even while I was standing beside the open coffin, even when I dropped my handful of dirt. Pitiful.
I suppose I never actually learned how to react to death because I have been so shielded from it. Well, people death, anyway. I’ve buried budgies (and one parakeet) in the dead of night, though - pretty unpleasant business, that. More than a mild sense of remorse or a fleeting thought of a fleeting life, I cannot normally pour much emotion into it.
It’s really quite rude if you really think about it. Would I be satisfied if I died and a someone I knew didn’t care enough to wish that Superman would fly Superanticlockwise at Superspeed and turn back time so that Lois Lane would live again? I mean… so that I (not Lois) could live again?
People expect you to show, maybe even feel some grief, offer condolences, do the mopey, black tie and suit thing. And here I am, not. Pitiful.
In other news, you know who I like? Emma Roberts! (I do wish she’d stop saying ‘sleuthing’, though.) And MacGyver! And Herbert’s sister, Sara! Ok, I made that last one up; she doesn’t really have a brother named Herbert… or does she…??
And what the fuck is up with Calleigh Duquesne? What kind of messed up fucking world are we living in, where syllables are not spelled anything like the way they are pronounced?? Are we ALL SUPPOSED TO BE FRENCH??? George is getting upset!
In other other news, my barber disappeared. Very inconsiderate of him, actually… After my planning it out so I could enjoy the weekend without having to waste time getting my hair cut and then leaving work early Monday evening so I could first watch Jim and Pam get it together before heading off to Mr. B… he’s not there! His entire fricking shop just up and left… disappeared, I tell you! Really obnoxious chap, he is. Not only was my masterplan completely ruined, I’ll have to go a while with this awful hair before I can find a new someone to trim it for me.
And, what of our conversations? Did he conveniently forget the long and decidedly awkward silences while he snipped and I sniffed? The unnecessary nods of appreciation when our eyes accidentally met in the mirror. The abrupt bursts of chatter when I finally thought of something grown up enough to say out loud and the golden pauses that followed when I had said it all too soon? Where will he find those moments now??
The Ungrateful Man.
Foo Fighters – The Pretender
Miami Sound Machine – Conga
Everyone wants to be a badass, but if everyone is, no one will be. Just like everyone wants to be unique; at least everyone with a decent sense of self. But in trying so hard, half of the lot end up being ‘different’ in the same old way. And for those who don’t want to be different, well, they’ve already begun imitating somebody else in that case.
You only get to be different when YOU decide how you want to be, without the influence of external stimulus. Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of being able to think for ourselves. In a world of microwave ‘gourmet’ meals and instant gratification, who has the time or energy to invent new and refreshing ways of expressing their originality? Instead, let’s do the next best smartest thing and be like that guy on TV who appears to be cool because he’s different. Then we’ll be different, just like he… uhh… is. Hooray, mission accomplished! Clueless monkeys.
If I seem like a complete mess, a total fuzzbrain or an isolated imbecile, it’s not an altogether inaccurate perception. But at least I know (or think) that it’s in my own way. If there is someone else who also thinks they are a complete mess, mediocre to extreme fuzzbrain or any kind of imbecile, feel free to be that way but just don’t copy me!
That was such an empty statement because there are so many clueless people searching for an identity out there, that we are all in pretty much the same boat. Clueless, not because they want to be or don’t know any better; clueless because their lives have drifted to where they are no longer fully in control. There is hardly any value in anything much anymore and most people who are supposedly happy probably only think they are happy because they think they have the things they have been told they need to be happy. Now there's something you can tell your friends!
But it’s not as if that is going to stop anyone from being ‘happy’ at the first chance they get.
As someone said very recently, in an unexpectedly entertaining movie, “It’s not the age, it’s the mileage!” Time is still the greatest thief, as one already knows, but it is also a boon that not very many of us make the best use of. You may say that you are out of time, but up to that moment, all you had was time! A few minutes more when you badly want it and suddenly time is a bringer of joy. It’s hard to be angry at a frustration that often reverses its role without needing any prompting. In another form, it is a grocery list item to be given, taken and bartered, but still having the same effects as its nascent occurrences.
So, although it remains a creeping assassin, I’m always grateful for the gift of time and those who give it. That girl might know.
Damien Rice – The Blower’s Daughter
Coldplay – Warning Sign
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch – Good Vibrations
Many choose to say that “people are basically good” and bad people are the result of bad circumstances. I say people are fundamentally assholes.
Just assholes who behave themselves most of the time, because it’s what is expected if they don’t want anyone else to be an asshole right back at them. Why do you think it’s easier to be a dick than it is to be well mannered as the Earl of Warwickshire? And power/responsibility brings it out slowly so you can’t feel it emerging; by the time you know it’s out, you don’t see the difference anymore. I have dealt with hundreds of people who would have all liked to tell me to go fuck myself. It’s true and I wouldn’t have blamed them. But they didn’t. These days I barely stop short of telling people to go screw themselves and their brothers at the slightest cause of irritation.
When I first saw it, I thought I was going through an “asshole phase” like a number of behavioural “phases” I’ve seen over the last 2 years, but now the sum of all those phases includes a more than adequate helping of that addictive product called “Prick”. It’s already hard enough for people to not dislike me at first meeting, so here I go further confounding things for myself.
In less than a month, life has gotten a lot more complicated than I would have expected. Surprises have hit me in the face and I’m not in any kind of position from where I can reasonably well decipher the consequences of either rolling with them or going against the flow. It’s probably just life as everyone knows it, but I’ve never been found especially resourceful at that sort of thing. Typical.
I’ve complained plenty about the state of our country, our traffic, our close mindedness, our religion-mania, our cinema and our people. While this gives me ample conversational fodder, it also presents me with an annoying conundrum to contemplate.
The easy to choose option is escape; move away to a place that actually offers me everything I ask for and grow old in contentedness. But neither side achieves anything real in the end.
The second choice is to stay and believe that we will eventually grow up. A large part of this belief is about modifying the definition of what is acceptable and setting expectations with a realistic upper limit in mind. Recognition of progress is another wheel on the carriage. I need to appreciate what I do have before I begin to want what I don’t have.
Presently, the so called cream of the social crop operates almost completely in the English language, setting the apparent benchmark for the rest of us to define our level of cool. It’s probably because I have been so influenced within the walls of an English establishment, rarely having to use another tongue, but rather than trying to belong among hip company, I make an effort to be acceptable to proper Hindi speakers. I mayn’t have seemed like much of a patriotic bastard thus far, or for that matter, ever, but the national language has a je ne sais quoi that quite appeals to me. It gifts you a permanent sense of identity. I have cribbed about the tendency of Indians to clump together wherever they have settled in foreign countries, but I would rather be tagged an Indian abroad, than just another coloured foreigner.
Plus there’s nothing like the look of a white dude wondering what the fuck’s going on when you switch over to the language of home.
For now, I’d rather drive on the left side of the road. For now, I’d rather miss the blonde with the cute ass. For now, I’d rather watch a cultural re-emergence.
But that doesn’t mean I’m setting down my martini.
I don’t get all these commercial advertisements and movies that show people lying in bed with just their feet sticking out from under the covers. Who the fuck sleeps like that?? When I’m in bed I like to make sure my feet are firmly tucked in beneath the covers, regardless of how well the rest of me is covered. What the fuck is the point of using the covers if you’re going to have cold feet all the while? Unless it’s hot… and in that case you wouldn’t need the covers anyway! Morons.
Pearl Jam – Yellow Ledbetter
“You give me the most gorgeous sleep that I’ve ever had
And when it’s really bad I guess, it’s not that bad.” – Underneath It All
Another Christmas come and gone meaninglessly. I don’t know what ‘meaning’ I expect out of it, but I guess I just think that if you don’t know or have a meaning, you shouldn’t have reason to acknowledge or celebrate the occasion either.
