Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Poor Dirty Cheap Men

"Aage aloor dam nau taka chilo. Ekhon baish taka. Sara din khete eksho taka moto jogar kori. Apni bolun ki kore cholbe. Khete to hobe naa ki. Ekhon jodi aloor dam aeto badiyedai aamra ki korbo bolun. Chap er dam 4 taka kortei hoyeche dada. Naale mushkil hoye jache. Aasho le ki bolun to. Ei bam front ke vote diye kono labh nei. Amito vote agger badh Momota ke diyechi ar ei badh o debo. Apni dekhechin Nondigramme aar Lalgarhe ki kore rekheche....||he goes on, I refute, he answers back||",the owner of a roadside tea shop when I asked him why the price of his aloo chops suddenly increased.
In her words the roadside tea shop was a dirty place to be in, with cheap people eating cheap food. A place where "I definitely don't want to end up".A place where "I'm not going to go there, its too dirty and cheap."

'Rich' man's class. Business Communication class. Question is asked.
"Does anybody know what propaganda is?"
||Still and silent||
"Ok....how many of you watch the news everyday?"
||A few hands go up||
"Just because your parents have the remote?"
||Some giggling||
"How many of you read a newspaper everyday?"
||Fewer hands go up||
"Okay? How many of you watch more than one news channel a day?"
||More hands than the last time||
"So, can you notice the difference between how the same news on different channels are presented?"
||Everyone looks around||

I like poor dirty cheap men.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Under-Rated Bands Who Deserve Mainstream Success

  1. Flipsyde
  2. Black Stone Cherry
  3. Fiction Plane
  4. Mastodon
  5. Fleet Foxes
  6. TV On The Radio
  7. The Afters
  8. Soho Dolls (They're not bad)
  9. Static X
  10. Wolfmother
I'll add more when I remember more.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Where's The Music?

I heard Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" today and I remembered how I almost cried the first time I heard it. Thats because I was passing through a horrible phase at the time. I screwed up my exams, lost any hope of getting into a good college, was in a depressed mood, visited Oly and Mirage even more frequently, and I didn't know Bukowski back then; I was a complete mess. I heard it then. It sounded like a Chinese rip-off at first and I didn't really get the lyrics. MiniLyrics(software which automatically downloads lyrics in the .lrc format) downloaded the lyrics after that. And I almost cried. The next thing I know I was banging my head like it was a metal song. I suddenly became obsessed with Dylan. I played the song on repeat mode, shaking my head in rhythm, shouting the lyrics in sync with Dylan's singing, started downloading his wallpapers, looking for quotes, downloaded his discography, so on and so forth.

Whatever happened to songs with good lyrics, and I dont mean love shit. I dont mean the Beyonce and the Alicia Keys and all that stuff. I mean John Lennon and Kurt Cobain and Radiohead. There are very few of them remaining. The winning formula to a song nowadays seems to be a catchy singular tune, some singing, a chorus like "We're gonna party aww night yeah", a very famous rap artist feature, a good bass (very important) and a sleazy video, with a lot of girls and a few guys b-boying. The number of artists adopting this formula is not even funny. It's sad really.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The Guy With A Weird Eye.


Apparently, he heard Jeff Buckley in a concert, came back and recorded "Fake Plastic Trees". He took two takes and then burst into tears. Before this, Radiohead made "Creep", about a girl who he was infatuated with while in Exeter University. I was hearing both these songs today. Its music I can feel.
There has never been and will never be a band like them. There will never be another musician with a weird eye. There can never be. He's not social like the others. Miley Cyrus and Kanye West hate him, but the world loves him. His songs are fiercely alternative, unique, refreshing and transcendental. There's too much pop and punk nowadays with lyrics written by a four-year old. But there's hope. There are still some musicians left. Only one has a weird eye and he's the best. He's probably the only musician who isn't against illegal downloads. He just wants people to hear his band. He doesn't care about the money and the girls and the drugs. Very rare to find.
He almost died though. An airbag saved his life. His band wrote "OK Computer" after that. Thank God for airbags.
Unfortunately, the other musicians are dead. Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Woody Guthrie, Bob Marley...all dead. Bob Dylan's still alive but I'm not a big fan of his love stuff. It's way better than the other shit around nowadays but after "Masters of War" and "Like A Rolling Stone"its tough to get a proper follow-up.
Therefore, the guy with a weird eye, please don't die.

The Old Wart-faced Alcoholic Genius


There are very few humans in this world. The rest are robots.
Get up. Drink coffee. Get dressed. Go to work. Drink Coffee. Work. Eat lunch fast. Work. Get shouted at. Drink coffee and some pills. Work harder. Go back home. Eat dinner very slowly. Too tired to fuck. Set the alarm. Go to sleep. Repeat.
All you get in return is green - coloured paper. Paper so amazingly valuable people lie, betray, torture and kill for it.
I love that old wart-faced alcoholic. I love him. A guy who sees through the system, understands that its fucked-up and yet doesn't try to change it. He disrespects it. He spits on it.
We labour for pieces of paper. Our lives are controlled by paper. Paper which killed thousands and continue to do so everyday. The robots whole existence depends upon this paper. Take out the paper...and what are you working for? Ironically, even I am studying to be a robot. Ill almost certainly end up as one. Ill try not to, but its tough to be old, wart-faced and hungover and I know Ill fail. So while I'm still not a robot, allow me to make fun of them.
The old wart-faced alcoholic was smart. He lived a bum all his life doing menial jobs, like in Factotum. He stayed as long as he liked the job or as long as it gave him his share of alcohol. Then he left. He earned enough to have a place to sleep, eat and drink. When he grew old and his drinking got the better of him, he decided to write a book about how insignificant that paper is, and he made lots of it. He died, richer than before, but not rich enough. However, he died a hero. The old wart-faced alcoholic is a genius. A true genius. He drank, slept, ate, fucked and thought. Thank you for existing human.