Lost in time

No time for depression
No time for melancholy
Can't sell your soul for peace of mind 1
I wish for happier days

1. Square One by Tom Petty

The Apple, the Pod and I.

Prologue:

Things have been disappearing. And, they disappear, while I am in transit, mysteriously. Oooooooooh.

Take for example my father's glasses, he wore them at my aunt's place which is a block from the sugarcane-juicewalla who is on the end of our block. On his way back home, down the street to the juicewalla and then right turn to go up the slope into the elevator into his 9th floor fancy abode, his glasses disappeared. Kaput.

Ch I

Similarly lost, was my wifey's podie. (Notice that the previous sentence was not in active voice) It destroyed the much needed recent balance my life and I had acquired. A balance that I had dropped when puberty hit me, ten years ago. Finally at 22, not only did I graduate college, I was also comfortable in my politics and my decision to be a liberal in-the-business- of-saving-the-world realist and I had found my balance somewhere in the khaki laptop bag I carried around. I carried it around because, I had many homes in the east coastal united states.

And it was in one of the bright orange pockets of the khaki bag that the podie was placed. And then it disappeared along with my balance. Just like my father's second pair of eyes, the soundtrack to wifey's life was lost. And all I had done, I'd like to clarify, while the balance and podie were busy losing themselves, was go from one home to another and to another in search of a bed and some company.

(What I had done too, however, was left the wifey's company, she didn't want to join, it was my other home not hers. We are separated you see - I sleep on the couch.)

So. My khaki bag left couch, lost black apple and found imbalance and a bed.

Ch II

Following this, I made the mistake of sitting, drunk, in an arena with approximately three thousand nine hundred and ninety nine other mostly-white liberals to indulge in political humor. I sat up high in the arena, problematically, with two pro-israeli, libertarian, nationalistic, american jew friends of mine, with 27 bald heads twinkling on the floor section directly below me.

The situation begs three questions:

1. Why did I count the heads? But Why? The question begs itself, especially because I had just paid two thousand three hundred and thirty one rupees to see a very funny man, be very funny.

2. Why is the national political religious identity of my fellow spectators mentioned and generalized so?

Important digression: Stand up comedians are important cultural commentators in our modern/postmodern world. They assess our reality and point out that it is very funny. It is their job to analyze the world and a very funny man, has superior analytical skills.

Ch III

Answer to question 1: much needed distraction.

This very funny man analyzed his world and made enough money to flee the country once he had a breakdown. He recovered and came back and stood before us to point out to this audience, once again, that weapons of mass destruction were built into our imaginations (or in Saddam's house) to support a singular unaffordable life style.

Its an old joke. WMDs are a joke. As they should be. (WEAPONS of MASS DESTRUCTION. Like the crystals of Krypton to build a continent that will wipe out most of North America!˚)

Three thousand nine hundred and ninety nine people laughed, my two friends included. As they should have. I however, however sadly, sat in passive rage and then, noticed many shiny heads. To distract myself I counted them.

My rage was stupid enough, storming out in rage would have made me look like an idiot who couldn't take a joke. Instead, I pondered my generation's hair loss epidemic.


Answer to question 2: my opinion, my bias (Weapon of mass destructions)

Things were said by my friends: "Israel might bomb Lebanon back to the 70s (ha. ha.) and I'd be more than glad if it did"; "everyone has a right to choose, people should be able to decide whether they want to drink coca-cola, pesticides or no pesticides;"

"America should and has the right to protect its interests."



How could i laugh WITH them about nonexistent Weapons of mass destruction ?

And we laugh. And those who run this country today, signed a Statement of Principles nine years ago:

'Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;

• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;

• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;

• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.'*



We need laughter. I need laughter. Reader's digest has proved that laughter is the best medicine. Medicine for?

Imbalance.

So, imbalance is where the personal met the political.

"The difference between the sprout and the bean...It is a twisted string"**

The apple, the pod and I.

And I was done for. This meeting of personal and political imbalance, led me to believe that nothing could ever make me feel better. Not true. But for two days I had a horrible empty sinking feeling and the twisted string in my chest got pulled lower and lower pulling down my vitalorgans.

Epilogue:

If one closes one of their nostrils with their thumb and inhales with the other and then closes the just-inhaled-from nostril with their pinky and exhales with the just-closed-by-thumb nostril one breathes equally.

Equal breathing, my mother just told me, if done 20-30 times a day, brings balance in thought and mind.

I vow to breathe equally. Speaking of which, if you want to be cool you must use nonsensical adverbs. Proof: Scanner Darkly, Gnarls Barkley (not up for argument).

I am moving to the capital of the United States, where personal is unavoidably political. I will be social, entrepreneurially.

Deep breathly.



˚From Superman Returns

*See: http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

** lyrics from Joanna Newsom's The Sprout and the Bean

teamwork

Some of you may have heard of Tenacious D? Among their many great compositions is a song called **** her gently. Me thinks you should all listen to it.

Here is a lyrical fragment:
"And then you say hey I bought you flowers
And then you say wait a minute sally
I think I got somethin in my teeth
Could you get it out for me
That's fuckin teamwork "

You know what I think is Fuckin Teamwork?

BUNTY --> BUNTI --> I-BUNT

hahahaha

did you know

that,

o minha maconha
minha torcida
minha querida
minha galera

o minha cachoeira
minha menina
minha flamenga
minha capoeira

o minha mi nina
minha querida
minha Valeria...

o minha maloca
minha larica
minha cachaça
minha cadeia

minha vagabunda
ominha vida
minha membembe
minha ladeira

o minha menina
minha querida
minha Valeria

o minha torcida
minha flamenga
minha cadeia

o minha maconha
minha torcida
minha querida
minha galera

minha vagabunda
minha mambembe
minha beleza
minha capoeira
o minha menina
minha querida
minha Valeria...

minha torcida
minha flamenga
minha cadeia
o minha maconha
minha torcida
minha querida
minha galera...









actually meant,

oh my marijuana
my fellow football fans
my darling
my people

my waterfall
my girl
my flamenga
my capoeira
my girl
my darling
my Valeria...

oh my shack
my hunger
my rum
my jail

my tramp
oh my life
my mambembe
oh my steep path
oh my girl
my darling
my Valeria

my football fans
my flamenga
my jail
my grass
my fellow football fans

my darling
my tramp
my mambembe
my beauty
my capoeira...

oh my girl
my darling
my Valeria...
my fellow football friends
my flamenga
my jail

oh my grass
my fellow football friends
my darling
my people








----------------------------

Well i dint

What does Rama Rama look like?

Courtesy of Websites as graphs. I wonder if it means anything...

I am free falling...

I always thought that Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's "Pack up the plantation" was one of the best live albums ever. I think that now needs to be replaced with the concert that took place last night at the Tweeter center in Camden, NJ. It can be released under the title, "Unpack the plantation".

The band played to a packed record breaking crowd. Never before have so many people been fit into the center and never before has so much noise been made. You could hardly hear Tom sing in many of the songs because the crowd took over.

The opening band was the Allman Brothers and they did a brilliant job too. They belted out "Layla" which in my opinion sounded better than Clapton's version :-) They also played "Highway 61" with the Heartbreakers and the jam with Mike Campbell sure did take my breath away.

Tom Petty finally showed up around 9pm. It was quite eerie that they opened the concert with "Listen to your heart", which has been my shower song for the last few days. It got even stranger. I usually go to a concert hoping that the band will play one of their obscure numbers which happen to be a favorite of mine. It usually never happens. So when Tom said he was going to play a number from his "Echos" album, I still did not think they would play "Good to be king". But low and behold they did and sweetened it with an extended lead in the end.

Tom also played "Not Alone Anymore" from his Traveling Wilbury days followed by "Learning to Fly". It sure made me think of wenerd who introduced me to Petty. So thank you, my dear friend, it is indeed good to be king even if only for a couple of hours... I just wished I had met those two gunslingers too on King's Highway.