Imitation of Life

Do We Look Awkward in the Light?

2006-01-09T14:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, while flipping through the magic box, I caught two female political analysts on CNN discussing the possibility of a Condoleeza Rice/Hillary Clinton showdown in the 2008 election (their names aren't important because in my book political analysts, sportscasters and weatherpeople all rate very low when it comes to reliability.) This wasn't the first time I'd heard this bandied about and I was struck by the progress American women have made in the last century or so.
It's encouraging to know that people are letting go of outdated prejudices and moldy misconceptions about femininity. Many ultra-feminists would argue that there's still so much to be done, but frankly the mere discussion of a Hilary/Condi showdown is monumental and exhilirating. Take into account that one has maintained her dignity throughout repeated attacks from the right and then had to step out from the giant shadow cast by her devilishly charming albeit philandering husband, and that the other grew up in the racial powderkeg of Birmingham, Ala. during the 1960's and counted Denise McNair, one of the victims of the infamous Sixteenth-Street Baptist Church bombings, as a close friend. Add to that both women's remarkable accomplishments and intense drive and you have the makings of two candidates with spectacular qualifications and one very intriguing race. (Rice received her Master's Degree from Notre Dame at 20 and Clinton's ambition is so legendary that she actually takes heat for it from critics.)
That this view is shared by more than women and gay men is a testament to the leap forward this country's taken in the last 150 years. If you'd told Andrew Jackson that a woman was running against him in 1828 he'd have laughed in your face, pulled out his pistol and shot you where you stood. True, in the modern era countries elect women all the time, most notably India and Britain. But the two most obvious examples are also the most misleading. Indira Gandhi's election runs concurrent with India's maddening insistency on holding onto the past and a nationwide penchant for electoral nepotism. Indira Gandhi is, of course, Jawarhalal Nehru's daughter (India's first P.M. for those not in the know) and deceased former P.M. Rajiv Gandhi is Nehru's grandson, while Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv's widow, now a power player in Indian politics...was born to Stefano and Paola Maino in Orbassano, Italy. This all happens in the 58 short years of their independence. In some ways the days of the Raj never ended in India.
Margaret Thatcher's election as Prime Minister in Britain is captivating because of her visible lack of charm and warmth; Iron Lady is not a nickname you ever want to have as a woman...ever... no matter how badass you are. This election makes perfect sense though for a country whose history of female leadership is so rich that historians named their two most storied periods after the Queens who dominated them.
A female leader of the United States though? A nation with such a brief history? Ninety years ago women couldn't vote in this country. Sixty years ago the only woman at the office sat at the receptionists desk. And thirty years ago the only woman on network news was in front of a weather map. To say American women, in particular, have taken giant strides toward social equality in this country is no exaggeration.
As with every moment of social change though, some bad inevitably stoops out of the shadows to stand alongside the good. Religion, for all its noble intent, is used in the name of war incessantly. Saturday Night Live gave us Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy, but also Joe Piscopo and Rob Schneider. The sexual revolution encouraged people to be open about their sexuality and removed it from the realm of taboo; but this same revolution, I'm sure, is directly responsible for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the ongoing decline of the American Male. I try not to shave for days on end, and I stopped putting things in my hair a few years ago; but when confronted with the Raspberry/Peach face exfoliant in a girl/friend's shower the other weekend, I knew I had to shave before I used it or else my sensitive, oily pores wouldn't receive maximum exfoliation. (The scent was divine; how sorbet tastes in your mouth, but with a lingering sweetness.)
Anyways, good/bad, Happy Days/Joanie Loves Chachi, and finally yesterday female presidency/Guys Gone Wild.
That's right, Guys Gone Wild, an all dude version of the wildly popular, highly demeaning drunken reality nude-fest Girls Gone Wild. For those who've never been up watching Comedy Central past 11:00, this is where somebody's absolutely wasted daughter is convinced by some sleazeball to take her clothes off and get in the shower, possibly with someone else's absolutely wasted daughter. Now imagine that, except in this case with somebody's son.
There's a strange congruence to these two subjects. A female president, for the most part stamps out any general talk of gender inequality. A woman becoming President, for al intents and purposes, shatters the glass ceiling. Officially women now do everything men do; the qualifier "can" finally thrown to the floor, like high heels for the patent leather dominatrix boots Ms. Rice sports when in Terminator mode. Female executives, doctors, race car drivers, the WNBA, Sofia Coppola, Condi in '08 (?)...and low budget soft-core pornography.
For years I ascribed to the theory that women are inherently "better" than men. Not by a lot now, I've met enough exceptions to the rule in my life to know it's not by a lot. But still, women are directly associated with too many exalted virtues to deny their current evolutionary superiority to men. Kind, nurturing, gentle. Plus they can actually have babies. If they ever find a way to produce sperm without an actual man present then I believe that our sex will have completely run out of uses. (They don't even need us to pretend like we're fixing things anymore. They just get on the internet and find a way to fix it themselves on Google.)
Men, on the other hand, are aggressive, insensitive, bad listeners. Men are responsible for war. Men go into the forest with guns and shoot at things for fun. Men drink beer, grab themselves and spit (sometimes against each other, in the ongoing evolution of the pissing contest, seeing whose saliva can cross the greatest distance.) And yes, it's mostly men who enjoy pornography and make into the billion dollar industry it is. Any man who tells you otherwise is a liar or a priest.
But Guys Gone Wild indicated that maybe women wanted in on the action as well. So I decided to do a little investigating myself. I called all 216 girls in my cell phone...I called all 19 girls in cell phone. They range in occupation: waitress, teacher, consultant, medical resident, student etc. and are all in the process of entering the legendary sexual peak of their late 20's early 30's. Seventeen of them said they found pornography demaning and/or disgusting. Two of my more, shall we say, sexually curious friends admitted to using it "for ideas" and nothing more. Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy would be proud to know that their art does more than inspire erections.
But to a T all of them found men with other men completely out of the question.
"That's disgusting." a girl/friend of mine said sharply over the phone.
"Because it's wrong?"
"Wrong how?"
"Like in Christian sense?" I asked.
"No!" She snapped, "Of course not! It's just that men are awkward."
"You mean like clumsy... or something?" I asked well...clumsily.
"No. You're awkwardly shaped. You're thingies look funny, cause they're just kind of out there."
I laughed, "Our thingies?"
"Shut up Krishna. Your.." she hesitated for a moment because in essence she was about to demean my entire gender for what was fast becoming its only real worth on this planet, "...penises. Your penises are weird to look at in the light. It's odd enough seeing Jason's when he comes out of the shower. The last thing I want to see is a bunch of them on TV."
Our conversation ended and I decided to take a shower. Not so much because I was dirty, but I felt dirty after hearing what she said. Looking at myself in the mirror, I realized she was right. I never really considered myself in an aesthetic sense, but men are awkward in the light and our thingies are just kind of there.
So why does it exist then, why take it as far as Guys Gone Wild? Not for women. And I would assume not for gay men because the drunk, obnoxious, fratboy meatheads so gloriously represented in these films usually aren't their type, penis or not. (I'm reminded of a friend who believed all gay men lusted after each other because, as he said, "there just aren't enough of them to be picky." Ironically, he moved to Miami three months later.)
No, Guys Gone Wild exists purely because it must. Social evolution dictates it. We came out of the swamps, climbed down from the trees, went into the cave, came out, built cities, fought wars, built empires, fought wars, found new worlds, all the while keeping women at bay; "It's for your protection," "It's not a women's place," all the excuses to keep women down had a hard time fitting in the door. Once humanity settled in though and civilization found a semblance of peace, evolution followed its course and now our protection, our government, counts a woman as its third highest ranking member. Everything else is bound to follow suit. Monday Night Football and Espn to Oprah and Lifetime. Clinton in '96! to Clinton in '08! And to the dismay of apparently everyone I know, Girls Gone Wild to Guys Gone Wild.

Because in the end, for every step forward we take, we're bound to get our feet stuck deeper in the mud. Freedom and empowerment don't apply only to the righteous, revolutionaries, and dreamers. In the wrong hands, freedom and empowerment lead to insult and exploitation. Whether it be the heavy-handed browbeating of FOX News that clubs you into submission and Pavlovian acceptance of radical right-wing anti-intellectualism; or the knuckle- dragging avarice of Joe Francis, founder of Mantra Entertainment and creator of the Girls/Guys Gone Wild franchise, men still find ways to plumb moral depths thought previously unfathomable. (*Moment of Bitter Irony* Francis was kidnapped recently by an associate, tied up, held at gunpoint and forced to lie facedown on a mattress and say "I'm from Boys Gone Wild, and I like it up the ass."...while being videotaped.)

I guess all of this could be a chicken/egg too, or egg/chicken...whatever. Humanity has a way of righting itself so a female president might be just the antidote to all this extremism. But just in case we're all wrong, I'll go ahead and vote for Nader.

Yeah right...

the year in the rearview

2005-12-30T12:55:00.000-08:00

Recordings

5. Spoon "Gimme Fiction": Simple, bold,

and eye-opening; like a cup of coffee after

a long night on the town. Britt Daniel is a

songwriter of sublime talent.

4. The Game "The Documentary": Stark

honesty + inspired production X ferocious mic

skills = west coast revival. The album drips

with consequence and guilt; two weapons

most rappers aren't hard enough to hold.

3. The Wolf Parade "Apologies to the Queen

Mary": strange melodies, disembodied vocals,

and two emotionally raw songwriters ; the most

unsettling brilliant album of the year.

2. Thelonius Monk Quartet w/ John Coltrane

"Live at Carnegie Hall": Two masters at the peak

of their genius converge for a truly monumental

musical and historical moment. The music

surpasses any raised expectations the pairing

creates; blazing, expressive and focused.

1. Kanye West "Late Registration": All the

hype (his own and others) aside; this album

stands alone because it is a unique instant of

ambition matching execution. West and

co-producer Jon Brion reache into every decade,

every genre, and create something dynamic

and wholly unique. Hip-hop roots itself

in this creative esthetic of

deconstruction/reconstruction; and this

album stays true to his endearingly

schizophrenic vision of a hip-hop landscape where

Paul Wall, Curtis Mayfield, and Adam Levine from

Maroon Five can co-exist. We respect Kanye

West because he continues to prove he's an artist of

blinding talent. We love him because he's not too

self-conscious to tell you that some of that glare

is shinin' off the diamonds on his chain.

oh, canada

2005-12-24T07:58:00.000-08:00

why isn't it cold inside hockey rinks? not that they're always the most comfortable temperature, but still, that's ice they're skating on and i'm all right in a long sleeved shirt. hockey makes sense in the winter, kind of like snow and jesus, so i watched an entire penguins game the other night. two words to describe the new nhl: fucking awesome. no icing, no scrums in the corner as if it was rugby on skates, movement, passing, space. all of this leads to more offense, which leads to more fans, which ends in better ratings. too bad they didn't do this before they stuck a skate blade in all their fan's backs by letting last season get cancelled.
also, i love that there's no ties in hockey anymore, even though i admit i'm still confused by the third number in the win-loss-? column. each shot of a shootout is quite possibly the most exciting 10 seconds in sports that doesn't involve maria sharapova searching for a ball to serve somewhere inside that thing she calls a tennis outfit. in soccer the goal is too big and the ball is too small. in some south american countries i hear they kill you if you miss penalty shots; it's that easy. but hockey is a completely different beast. a small goal and a large russian goalie that fills just about all of it evens the odds. if a hockey player misses a penalty shot or the goalie saves it maybe they show the highlight on sportscenter, maybe not. you're definitely not gonna get shot in the parking lot on the way to your car though.
the other great thing about hockey is penalty boxes. what a revolutionary concept. sometimes you feel like guys in the nba and the nfl just don't get it because really, what kind of lesson is someone making a symbolic hand gesture or throwing a little yellow flag in your general direction. hockey gets it right by actually making people sit in a little box and think about what they've done. two minutes for minor infractions barring a goal which "kills" the penalty, to five minutes in the box no matter who scores for major penalties. kind of like the difference between scolding your child and grounding them. much more effective and i get a kick out of seeing hulking, grown men who get paid millions of dollars lower their head and shuffle to the penalty box like my dog does when he shits in the house and i make him go outside and think about it for awhile.

see no evil

2005-12-12T08:41:00.000-08:00

"white people be going 'why do you hold your things?' Cause you took everything else, mother fucker."

richard pryor 1940-2005

fool's gold

2005-12-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Syriana

Directed by: Steven Gaghan

Rating: as messy as the exxon valdez

why do people think gaining weight is the mark of great acting? it's all de niro's fault. everyone's always talking about how much weight he gained when he played jake la motta in 'raging bull', the 'astounding physical transformation.' and they're right, his physical commitment to the role is amazing, along with the absolute ferocity of his performance: the primal streak of viciousness that underlies all of de niro's work, but most specifically his films with martin scorcese.
the problem though is that de niro already staked his claim to greatness in a series of films that required no weight gain at all. starting in 1973 until 'raging bull''s release in 1980, de niro made 7 films including 'mean streets,' 'the godfather: part ii,' 'taxi driver,' 'new york, new york,' and 'the deer hunter.' groundbreaking, influential, timeless. there are a million superlatives one could pour all over these films, but none of them required him to gain weight.
so all these actors search for legitimacy by playing people who are out of shape, which makes an odd sort of sense for hollywood, the only place in the world which gives people awards and accolades for gaining weight.
and oddly these are the thoughts that swirled through my mind as i watched george clooney and the 40 lbs. he gained for his new film 'syriana.' actually, to call it a george clooney film is a bit misleading. there are so many actors, and so many stories in this movie i got that nervous feeling i get sometimes when i'm at a bar on sundays trying to watch five football games at once, and can't keep track of all the scores.
'syriana' is about oil. about how people lie, steal, cheat, and kill; for and because of it. about how it is an undercurrent of all of our lives, whether we accept it or not. that a film like this is even possible in today's political climate is remarkable. steven gaghan, george clooney, steven soderbergh et all set out to change the world with this picture. but sadly, in the mad rush to inform the public about the seedy nature of the oil industry and our government's explicit involvement in said deception and corruption, the team behind 'syriana' forgot to make an actual movie. gaghan, who directed and wrote the screenplay along with ex c.i.a. agent bob baer, throws too wide of a narrative net to create a taut thriller; invests no time in building his characters and in the process loses any sense of epic drama; and with all the fictional plot elements lacks the bare-bones impact of straight documentary.

'syriana' follows a similar structural pattern to 'traffic' (written by gaghan,) connecting four narratives to tell one overarching story. his direction lacks focus though, and the small moments he presents us with to humanize the characters, such as jeffrey wright's alcoholic father or george clooney's angry young son, are dealt with in such a hasty manner that they become distractions, almost as if you were watching a completely different movie starring the fat george clooney from 'syriana.' gaghan jumps from one narrative to the next, almost as if on a timer, and the audience is never given time to fully grasp the nature of the character and his motivations.
not surprisingly, the one instance where gaghan plays his cards right is in the narrative depicting a young man's transformation from oil field laborer to holy warrior of the jihad, just as in 'traffic' it is through the eyes of benicio del toro, an outsider, that we bear full witness to the vagaries of the international drug trade. gaghan manages to humanize what we consider monstrous, and in the process open our eyes to the fallability of american government and industry. we are no different from colonial nations that rose and fell before the united states; we want no cultural exchange or exchange of ideas, merely any natural resources or anything else of worth. we take oil from the middle east, diamonds from africa, labor from south america and asia, all at minimal expense. mazhar munir, who plays wasim khan the laborer turned mujaheddin, uses his childish, innocent face to convey beautifully all the doubt, fear, and desperation that lead to such a horrific decision. if only this entire film could be as starkly honest and affecting as these scenes.
many of the other performances in the film, however, come out flat; victims of cutting room floors and poor directing decisions. with attention divided between so many stories, each one felt like a dry stream drawn from a shallow river. clooney shows moments of fire as wronged c.i.a. man bob barnes, but mostly we are left with silent shots of a tired man who looks short on breath, and bares a tremendous resemblance to george clooney if he were to gain fifty pounds. matt damon is left with no room to show how he deals with the loss of his young son, and amanda peet, playing damon's wife, is given a woefully underwritten and underrepresented role. gaghan's choice of two of today's most boyishly charming actors in damon and clooney, who at 44 still seems to have the youthful energy of a 25 year old, to play such unglamorous characters might fill the seats, but it doesn't help the story. people want to see damon and clooney having fun and playing it loose, which is when they're at their best. to see them toiling and wearing away under accumulated pressures (and clooney under accumulated fat) draws the audiences attention away from the message of the film.

finally, 'syriana' comes off as wholly effective diatribe. the audience draws out of this unfocused, unfiltered picture some very uncomfortable truths. the most important truth is expressed through a fine performance from jeffrey wright as corporate lawyer bennett holliday. wright, an actor of breathtaking versatility, is the vehicle through which gaghan shows us the corruption and capitulation of the american government and like many of us, wright hides his exasperation and shock with a smirk and a shrug, because he grudgingly accepts what the rest of us give scant thought to: that whether we like it or not, oil is still king.

we're on our way home

2005-12-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

october 9th, 1940-december 8th, 1980

it never crossed my mind that he was also a libra. why not?

this still makes me sad.

when the man comes around

2005-12-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

i do not sleep well anymore. this started about a week ago...no, exactly a week ago. thursday, december 1st, the day that splits my past and my future. on that day i heard a tap, tap, tapping on my door, our doorbell yet another victim of my dad's limited scope of what was necessary in a modern home (i.e. "i didn't have a doorbell growing up, so why do we need one now?" this can be expanded to other things as well, "i didn't have heating growing up, so why do we need it now?" or "a toaster? we didn't have toast growing up, so why can't you eat your bread cold?") i am amazed, at times, that he actually grew up in the same half of the century that i did.

my excitement grew. it was me who called a week earlier and made the appointment. it was me who stumbled across a deborah johnson, the best phone salesperson i've ever run into, who informed me of a spectacular deal on on-demand digital television (less than our normal service by $7.00, but more channels than i figured humanly possible to ever watch all of.)

or maybe not.

it was me who opened the door and let in the cable guy.

it took him 13 minutes to install the digital cable box and program the remote. i counted each second in my mind as i watched this fidgety, slight little man with a red hat ply his trade. he handed me the remote and started talking to me, but the words drifted away as i began to devise a plan. a wild, maniacal, twisted plot.

to watch everything on tv.

as i began to close the door on the cable man's face, he gave me a strange look. an adult puzzled by a child's fascination with the simplest of high-tech objects, the universal remote, as if i might put it in my mouth any moment and attempt to eat it as i would a banana. as if my simple mind couldn't grasp the complexities of digital cable, the awesome magnitude of the intercyberglobotech industry.

'you sure you don't have any questions?'

'no, thanks for everything.' i shut the door and held my breath, heady with the possibilities that stretched out in front of me.

fuck the intercyberglobotech industry. what's on hbo?

i made my way back downstairs. i left the lights off so that all that greeted me as i felt the carpet on my toes was the soft blue glow of the digital cable guide. i began thumbing through each page with the page down button, progressively processing the amount of time i'd have to spend in front of the magic box to fulfill my goal.

i started watching digital cable 7 days ago. it is true what people say about television. it's mostly shit, actually to quantify that, i'd say it's about 80 percent shit. the 20 percent that's not shit is divided as such: 13% is sports, which are nearly impenetrable (barring player salaries and at the very least on the playing field) from the vagaries of commercialism and capitalism. 4% belongs to hbo, which is a considerable amount for one channel. the other 3% belongs to the rest of television, the other 400 or so other channels.

the amazing thing about all this shit though; about all this crude, artless shit....i can't stop watching it. i try. i've been trying for 7 days now. but every time i leave the basement and come back to the light of the first floor, a part of me remains on the sofa, a faint imprint of my soul. it is this part of me that i convince myself i get back everytime i return to the wash of blue light.

tv is the great magician of our times. the houdini of the post-cold war world. we watch in hushed anticipation for its next great trick. deciding a presidential election, putting a man on the moon, the beatles, monday night football, mtv, playboy channel, pay-per-view, digital, on-demand.

on-demand. we are no longer slaves to our tv's. or at least that's what they want us to think. thursday nights spent watching the cosby show, monday dinner with archie and edith bunker, sunday evenings with the simpsons. we used to limit tv to the twilight hours, a way to fill in the monotony of darkness. george carlin said in a recent special that we never left the cave. he's right, it's just that our fire is the tv.

now television does on a daily basis what mankind has dreamt of and written about for years; manipulating time for its own benefit. you can watch anything, anytime, anywhere (well, almost) you want. imagine modern television as a drug, visual crack for our brains; highly addictive, and way more accessible than cocaine was in the 80's. we know its bad for us and we can't get enough of it.

seven days and still i can't say no. the military channel taught me how tanks are put together, and bobby flay outdueled iron chef sakai in international battle trout. eric idle sang a silly song about freedom and isaac mizrahi showed me how to arrange flowers.

i haven't slept soundly for seven days.

what's on hbo?

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner...

2005-11-22T11:23:00.000-08:00

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Directed by: Mike Newell

Rating: Spellbinding

734 pages. 734 pages and the girl that went to the movies with us actually complains that they left stuff out. leo tolstoy's 'war and peace' is 1392 pages long, and the film version with audrey hepburn and henry fonda ran a lean 208 min. (or 3 hours and 28 min.) so if 'harry potter and the goblet of fire' is 734 pages long and the movie ran for a 157 min. (or 2 hours and 37 min.) then mike newell and the team that created the latest potter film did a hell of a better job of being true to the source material than is even within the realm of imagination for vidor's 'war and peace.' its exactly this sort of infantile criticism (coming from a woman over the age of 25 oddly) that any director tackling previously written material faces, especially material as fanatically revered and loved as the potter franchise. alfonse cuaron's interpretation of the third book, 'harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban,' finally made the films feel as magical as the novels. newell's film feels much different than 'azkaban,' not because it fails to capture the spirit of the books, in fact it succeeds admirably in this respect, but because he plays to his strengths as a director much as cuaron did before him.
many years ago newell directed a small romantic comedy called 'four weddings and a funeral' and then followed that three years later with a mob suspense film, 'donnie brasco.' oddly, it seems to be these two films that help newell shape 'goblet of fire.' j.k. rowling's fourth book is a sprawling mix of coming-of-age romance, tense suspense, and moments of incredible violence. in 'four weddings' newell captured the ups and downs of being single a bit too late in your life. taking great care with the younger actors in his cast, newell gives visual form to the achingly funny moments of adolescense that rowling so astutely observes in her books: boys are infuriating, girls are confounding, and no matter how simple our english is with each other we will never, ever understand what the opposite sex really means. being a teenager is, above all else, immensely confusing and newell strikes a delicate balance of humor and keen emotional insight in these scenes.
the other part of the film, and the one of ultimate importance to the rowling's overarching story and to harry potter fans the world around, is the resurrection of lord voldemort. here, in an attempt to streamline the story and make it fit the parameters of a feature length film, newell does in fact leave out much detail; tinkering to the point of removing characters and reinterpreting scenes to fit his narrative (something he was forced to do with characters based on real, living people in 'donnie brasco.') amazingly, none of this takes away from the lurking, unavoidable sense of dread that rowling creates in the book (as a very vocal fan of the potter novels, i accept all the criticism of fanboys and fangirls out there with this statement: get over it, newell did what he had to do.) once ralph fiennes finally enters the scene as lord voldemort once again given physical form, the film crackles with searing energy and life. fiennes looks like a fully paralyzed man given the ability to move again, stretching his skin and cracking his unused, withered bones. even though he's only in the film for roughly 20 min., fiennes gives a delicious wicked taste of the evil we're in store for.
overall the cast impresses. surrounding the young stars of the film with experienced, talented actors like brendan gleeson (who gives a wild, manic, inspired performance as mad-eye moody) , michael gambon, maggie smith, and fiennes; is the best acting education these relatively unexperienced actors can receive. daniel radcliffe, rupert grint, and emma watson have obviously learnt a lot in the past four years and they do an excellent job of carrying and conveying the emotional weight of the events occurring around them. hermione granger says at the end of the film, 'everything's going to change now, isn't it?' if 'goblet of fire' is any indication of the growth and change of the franchise from film to film, i can't wait for 'harry potter and the order of the phoenix.'

every picture tells story

2005-11-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

title: closer

medium: ink

artist: laura isabel menendez

as gangsta as i wanna be

2005-11-02T11:30:00.000-08:00

i want to start this with some photos:

the figure on the left is familiar to most, curtis '50 cent' jackson; former drug dealer, attempted homicide victim, and superstar rapper. on the right, jim sheridan, the director of such acclaimed films as 'my left foot,' 'in the name of the father,' and 'in america.' the space between their backgrounds is an ocean, literally and figuratively. sheridan grew up in dublin while fitty, in the grand tradition of hip-hop, constantly reminds us that he grew up in the 'jamaica' queens section of new york. sheridan grew up with a father who directed for the stage and spent his early years immersed in the theater scene of dublin before moving to new york and directing for the stage and screen. fitty lost both parents at 8, apprenticed to the drug trade at an early age, did jail time, started to rhyme, got out the game, got shot nine times for gettin' out the game, then went platinum six times over
this unlikely creative partnership bears its fruit this weekend in the form of 'get rich or die tryin.' fitty makes his motion picture debut in the film directed by sheridan, which draws mostly from the rapper's life for its story. sounds familiar, doesn't it? hot young rapper, critically acclaimed director, loosely based on said rapper's life story...can anyone say 'cool as ice?' (ha...vanilla ice...that's a whole other story though.) the similarities between 'get rich or die tryin' and '8 mile' abound. there's something disconcerting about fitty's participation though, while eminem acting doesn't seem like much of a stretch. first of all eminem, for all his prodigious skill as an m.c., will alway occupy an outsider's place in hip-hop, the white man on the black man's throne. also, every persona he embodies seems to be an act (slim shady, marshall mathers, eminem,) albeit an impressive one. ultimately, his ascendance from dr. dre's psychotic white boy sideshow to the reigning figurehead of hip-hop holds a place as one of the greatest constructions of character ever, ranking alongside ronald reagan's transformation from B-grade actor into Ronald Reagan: the steely,conservative savior on a white horse, and, oddly enough, dustin hoffman's transformation from michael dorsey into dorothy michaels in 'tootsie.'
fitty, however, presents something entirely different. he gives physical form to the archetypical gangsta rapper. if there were an interview it would go like this:

Q: "have you ever sold drugs?"
Fitty: "yes. many, many times."
Q: "have you ever been shot?"
Fitty: "yes. many, many times."
Q: "have you ever been to jail."
Fitty: "yes. many, many..."

you get the idea. with his menacing scowl, prison-cut physique, and resume, fitty embodies the gangsta ethos: money, power, respect, bitches, hoes, endo, chrome 4-4...i'm not sure about the order. after becoming quite possibly the most famous attempted homicide victim in new york city though, something clicked, and he let out more of himself; the sly, dangerous charisma, a disarming sense of humor, and a willingness to smile about the fact that he just made the biggest hustle of his life. it was only a matter of time, really, before hollywood and all its old white men came cashing in.
so they make his life into a movie. it's really an amazing story when it comes down to it and for the most part fitty keeps it as real as a guy who makes videos for mtv, endorses reebok, and dated vivica a. fox can. then they pick a white guy from dublin to direct it. no, not that white guy from dublin, but jim sheridan.
jim sheridan is a fine director, an excellent director actually ('in america' is one of my favorite movies of the past five years.) but why ask an old white guy from dublin to direct a movie about a 26 year old black kid with a rough past from queens, new york? to lend it credibility to an older, whiter audience (you know, fitty's biggest fans.) the whole thing reeks of sell out and what perplexes me is why fitty, who has called out amongst others for being fake, phony or otherwise not as gangsta as he: fat joe, ja rule, jay-z, kanye west, his own protege the game, and todd bridges (okay...not todd bridges...that would be a sweet fight though...todd bridges would probably straight whoop his ass...the man was desperate enough to rob a liquor store once.) would not fitty find it ungainly to have an ancient white man from dublin direct his debut picture; let alone one based on his own, actual life?
apparently not. yet another case of hollywood winning out over verisimilitude. friday we'll get a glossed over, glorified story of gangsta redemption and triumph. fitty, like em, will stand proudly on the stage at the end, looking into the camera with his gangsta- scowl, perhaps sneaking in one of his now trademark 'fuck-all-y'all' smirks to sneak out and the picture will fade. the audience leaves and then we cut to a smoky penthouse in a glossy high rise building where sumner redstone, 82, owner of viacom, parent to mtv and paramount and jimmy iovine, 52, head of interscope light cigars with fitty and the g-unit as they pat them on the back and smile darkly at one another. 'get rich or die tryin'? not likely once you're in hollywood's gilded walls fitty, might want to change it to 'get rich and help old white men get even richer.'

every dog has his day...or in this case four, or five

2005-10-31T09:31:00.000-08:00

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Directed by: Nick Park and Steve Box
Rating: as delicious as aged gouda

i haven't seen an eyebrow this expressive since jack nicholson's. with a mere twitch, a lilting at different angles, this eyebrow can evince pain, frustration, amusement, happiness; any of the attendant emotions of the human psyche. oddly though, this eyebrow, this majestic purveyor of feeling...belongs to a dog. not just any ordinary dog mind you, but gromit, loyal companion and irrepressible savior of wallace, professional inventor and amateur cheese lover.
after two academy award winning short films starring the duo, director nick park offers the first full-length story with his two most famous creations. the story begins with wallace and gromit being applauded for their efforts at humane pest control, as all the rabbits they capture eating the local's vegetables are housed in pens beneath their house. when an experiment to rid the rabbits of their near unsatiable craving for vegetables goes awry though, the dreaded 'were-rabbit' of lore appears and our two intrepid heroes must capture the beast (humanely, of course) before lady tottington (voiced by helena bonham carter) begins her annual big vegetable contest and the evil victor quartermaine (voiced by ralph fiennes) can take care of the problem in a much more bloody fashion.
park's and co-director steve box present an antiquated england, where all the immediate fears and trappings of current society have no place. the people go about their simple lives, and their greatest fear is whether their vegetables will grow large enough to capture the 'golden carrot' at the vegetable contest. painstakingly crafted and detailed, park's and his team's rendering of this world is full of charm and whimsy.
the real treat though is the interaction between the two principles. next in a long line of bumbling leading men and their inimitable, indispensable sidekicks that goes all the way back to p.g. wodehouse's bertie wooster and jeeves, wallace and gromit are the most endearing, unique heroes to grace the screen in years. filled with moments that are funny for both adults and children, park's allows the story to explain the nature of their relationship in a manner that most cartoons are unaccustomed to. holding back from the in your face emotional blast of most american made animation, 'wallace and gromit' allows the world of the characters and the current of their day-to-day existence to quitely convey the depth and strength of their bond. wallace and gromit are not just master and dog, but are equal partners (even if one is silent) in their business ventures, and in their relationship with one another (the dog does the driving.)
finally, park's fills the screen with set pieces and animation that are astounding regardless of whether they're handmade or not. beginning with an opening montage that is an homage to charlie chaplin's 'city lights' as the two heroes are woken, washed and dressed through a complicated rube goldberg machine and dropped down on to the breakfast table, through allusions and tributes to the great lon chaney, boris karloff monster movies of the 30's and 40's, and ending with a hilarious nod to king kong (also a tip of the hat to the the first famous piece of stop motion animation, which parks has mastered in all its intricacy and beauty,) 'wallace and gromit: the curse of the were-rabbit' is absolutely delightful, engaging filmmaking that reminds us of the first rule of true friendship: you stick with them, even if they drive you crazy sometimes.

The Taste Monkeys

2005-10-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

and now for something completely different...

Specimen Days

by Michael Cunningham

an older man, a young boy, and a young woman make their way (in different forms) through the new york of the industrial revolution, its post-9/11 fear and insulation, finally ending in a post-nuclear old new york where the first alien race contacted have replaced the irish, african, and chinese hands that toiled in the most thankless of jobs, all while walt whitman's spectre plays participatory witness. its impact almost equals its ambition. specimen days is a swirling, intoxicating, ultimately haunting work that captures the endurance of the human consciousness, and the ties that bind us to this earth.

Girls Can Tell

Spoon

the essence of unaffected cool. britt daniels's smoky, stretched voice bounces all over the band's sparse garage funk, like some sort of bizzaro blue-eyed soul experiment gone awry. clocking in at just under 40 minutes, spoon's third full length is perfect pop minimalism; the sound of life behind the cigarette smoke and underneath the gin-soaked whispers, in the corner booth with your heart in your throat.

The Simpsons

The Complete 6th Season

the show has suffered recently from the competition of other not-so-subtle animated comedies (this means you seth macfarlane); this season reminds viewers why we love the simpsons, but only laugh at stewie, peter et al. while the family guy, south park and american dad attack and criticize society with their humor the simpsons mirror it and reflect back an image that, while cartoonish in its presentation, makes one feel more deeply about the characters and the world that they, and ultimately we, live in.

The Taste Monkeys

2005-10-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

Your weekly guide on what to look at, talk about, and listen to:

Oryx and Crake

by Margaret Atwood

Atwood's thrilling, if slightly heavy handed, take on one man's seemingly solitary future amongst the ruins of a world torn apart by genetic engineering and biological terrorism. A chilling view of what our desire for perfection coupled with human ingenuity can lead to if left unchecked.

Babylon by Bus

Bob Marley & The Wailers

recorded on their first world tour in 1978, it captures everything that makes marley and the wailers' music so powerful; brothers carlton and aston barrett's propulsive, insistent rhythm work, junior marvin's guitar floating and skanking throughout the album, and above all marley himself so full of soul, righteousness, and conviction towering over the group like a dreadlocked moses, leading europe to the promised land.

South Park: Season 9 (wed.@ 10 e.)

First off, kids swearing is always funny. That the show manages to be so much more on a weekly basis just adds to its greatness. TV's most realistic take on kids, and as cynically honest as the "daily show," it inspires the sometimes uneasy laughter of all great social commentaries. Thank God they're cartoons, because to see stan, kyle, kenny and cartman grow up would be a shame.

back in the day

2005-10-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

i used to be in a rap group...(long, cathartic sigh)...it's not a dark secret, not something i need to hide like those pictures of me dressed up as a girl when i was 2 (another long cathartic sigh)...but most of the time anything that starts of "an italian, an irish guy, and an indian"...usually ends with a punchline where either one or all three die some stupid death over a bottle of booze or a woman...but nope, this one ended with "start a rap group." actually, that might be a funnier punchline than any.
there are those small moments, thrown in between bigger memories of first crushes, family feuds, failed exams, and first loves; the small moments that fill in the spaces in our history and give it shape and color; the taste of your favorite dessert, the color of the sun the first time you saw one rise, the feel of the sand between your toes at the beach, and for me the first time i heard snoop doggy dogg (ne' snoop dogg) slink over the loping, head-thumping bass beat of dre's "nuthin' but a g-thang," like some revisionist southern snake-oil salesman, hoodwinking a whole generation into buying the idea of "gangsta." the difference was that dre and snoop didn't come off as fake like m.c. hammer or outright insulting like vanilla ice...the difference was that i was kind of scared of dre and snoop, and part of me wanted to know more about that fear, to walk into the dark cave and see how deep it went.
so i start to tiptoe into hip-hop around 8th grade. had my mom buy me "the chronic" with my thumb over the "parental advisory" sticker and then promptly denied the clerk's offer of a bag and shoved it into my pocket. then back to the house where i'd put it on my headphones (to avoid being discovered listening to a song called "a n***a wit a gun" by my mother) and listen to it over and over as i tried to picture the los angeles they were talking about, a los angeles a million miles removed from the one i grew up in.

so one thing led to another. i worked my way through everything dr. dre related...n.w.a., solo ice cube...and once that well ran dry i made my way out east, in no way prepared for what waited.
my exposure to rap was at the time limited to what i saw on mtv and heard on the radio, and "yo! mtv raps" was on so late that i could only catch it when i managed to stay up, so east coast rap basically meant ll cool j and public enemy. then i saw a video one night with a bunch of crazy looking dudes (one of them was wearing a fencing mask) on a dilapidated city bus, talking just about the craziest shit i had ever heard, and it seemed like there were 18-25 of them in the group. the wu created a whole different world to rap in;the hard knock life mixed with arcane eastern action film references, mazda mpvs and comic book heroes cohabiting the same verse. based on lyrics like these, no wonder i wanted to be in a rap group. hell, an italian, an irish guy and an indian could talk about comic books, kung-fu flicks, and dorky cars, right? right?
in the years that followed though the wu, like so many other rappers, fell off. the manic, infuriating brilliance of odb fell victim to his lifestyle, method man sold his soul to hollywood and deodorant, and the rza went the "mothersbaugh route" and started to write movie soundtracks. through it all though, ghostface lost the fencing mask, lost the "killah" and, like his superhero moniker 'iron man,' came bursting out from under the rubble of the wu-empire swinging, with one excellent solo album after another.

this brings us to last thursday, where i finally witnessed the reborn ghostface. from going above ground, where i saw him with the rest of the clan in front of too many people in '97, then back underground where he seems much more at home because, to put a spin on what a wise old dirty bastard once said, "wu tang is'nt for the kids."
almost 3 hours into the show, after a promising but somewhat flat set from ghostface's crew (the hilariously named 'theodore unit) and a bizarre, spaced-out performance by cappadonna (who mind you, was making a living driving a cab recently) ghostface finally took the stage, and the reception was thunderous. taking the stage to chants of "ghostface" and with wu-tang "w"'s held proudly in the air, he ripped through an eclectic mix of solo songs and verses from tracks he did on other albums, most notably some classics from raekwon's first album "only built for cuban linx." and as ghostface and the theodore unit traded rhymes and worked the audience into a frenzy, and the kids at the front of the stage held their "w"'s up as long as their arms would let them, as all the white girls shook booty, and 4 chinese guys rapped along with ghostface while 3 black dudes cheered them on; i realized why i wanted to start a rap group in the first place and that the cave i walked into years before led right into the light

Rock and Roll Is Fun

2005-10-11T14:24:00.000-07:00

title: you could have it so much better with...
artist: franz ferdinand
rating: most excellent

about 15 years ago, kurt cobain and nirvana simultaneously made rock and roll relevant again, and also managed to completely suck the life out of it. the whole "why me? i just wanna write songs, not be famous," mentality created a whole generation of rock stars who simply hated the attention. there was no room for the mick jaggers, the david lee roths...certifiable rock stars that at once made great rock music and seemed to have a great time doing it. rivers cuomo, fiona apple, lauryn hill...all succumbed to the pressure of fame at one time or another.
then about four years ago there were rumblings of a rock and roll revival of sorts coming out of new york. the strokes were coming...rock and roll is back!!! or at least everyone thought so, but you couldn't understand a damn thing julian casablancas was saying, and when i saw them live in 2001, it seemed like they wanted to be doing something else (which i overheard, verbatim, from casablancas in the bathroom only 20 minutes before the show.)
so the wait continued. then about two years ago i got my hands on a copy of a cd by a scottish band named after the guy that got shot to start world war I. i listened to the first franz ferdinand cd about 4 times in a row, and i could feel it again, the pure elation that rock music can provide, even when the songs are about the boredom of being middle class, about being broke, and all the other sad/angry things that rock music's usually about. their choppy riffs, new wave rhythms, and above all alexander kapranos's cocksure, wink-and-a-nod voice that floats and wails all over the band's rhythmic exercises and exchanges was not revolutionary but absolutely refreshing.
on "franz ferdinand" kapranos always sounds like he's got a drink in his hand, and maybe a bit too much pick me up in his pants, unable to even keep his focus on one specific gender ("michael.)" the new album is no different. it's not so much an "album" as a collection of singles, each one standing on its own. 3-4 minutes of exuberant, brazen rock and roll come ons delivered without artifice or pretension. franz ferdinand is not out to change the world, a la u2, or even change rock and roll. what they do intend to do, and succeed at so masterfully on "you could have it so much better...," is to kick rock music square on its ass and inject it with the sex-drugs-party-drinks-sex-kiss off attitude that the genre sorely misses. the sounds on "you could have it so much better..." vary greatly from "franz ferdinand," with kapranos doing his best paul mccartney over some piano riffs on "eleanor get your boots on" and the guitar work seems to owe more to 70's garage rock than they do to the 80's new wave of the first album. "you could have it so much better..." holds true to its title though, because franz ferdinand take everything they've learnt over the years about rock and roll and put it together to create an album that manages to breathe life back to what many people thought was a dead genre.

I wonder if these guys know Abba...

2005-10-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

does swedish sometimes sound like japanese? or is that just me? i think its the way they elongate their vowel sounds. many think that japanese is a rough language, along the lines of chinese, but sometimes i think that impression comes more from people who live all their lives in an environment so dependent on time and efficiency that they cannot, amidst all their other luxuries, afford lazy day conversation. japanese, spoken by monks who have stripped themselves of worldly worries, use a sonorous, lilting form of the language, melodic in its delivery.
i've never studied sweden (i did, however, spend three horrific years taking japanese) but i'm going to assume they're a bit more laid back than the japanese, or they'd be more than the country that gave us abba.
abba fooled us all though, if only for a minute, by singing in english...plus only two of them fit the image of swedes as blonde locked, blue eyed valkryies and vikings...the other two looked like my neighbors jim and nancy. and their american english was impeccable, effortlessly aping our accents and idioms (check out the rising "ooh yeah" at the end of the chorus of "dancing queen," how they almost close that note only to come back up again, like they were channeling the spirit of ronnie spector at the end of the chorus of "be my baby.")
but the whole thing, ultimately, seemed fake: a gross interpretation of american popular music, lacking the honesty and emotion that defines the best american music all the way from billie holliday to the notorious b.i.g. so, perhaps due to abba's insistence on being something they weren't, i don't think i've ever heard spoken swedish, save for the swedish chef, but i think its possible he suffered from a mental disorder so you can't really accept him as an example.
so on saturday night, in strode dungen to the empty bottle. very obvioiusly swedish: this time there was no jim and nancy to fool me, these guys are all skinny rock and roll vikings; long blonde hair thrashing in the red glow of the stage lights. when gustav ejstes opens his mouth though, you'd be hard pressed to identify it as swedish, stretching vowels and holding consonants in the back of his throat as he bounced across the stage for an hour and twenty minutes. then, between songs, he'd serve platitudes to his u.s. fans in a broken english eerily similar to that of balki bartokomous.
occassionally, as the lead guitarist and rhythm section played off each other furiously, he'd put down his tambourine and grab his flute, or pound on the keys. familiar songs turned into extended jams, a strange brew of pink floyd and the grateful dead as the songs built through the band's interplay, becoming something ethereal; there but not there like fog, until the original song came rushing back like some shrouded memory.
dungen rocks, in the tradition of all great rock and roll, because it makes you feel, even in a language so incomprehensible to me that it sounded like something from a country 5000 miles away whose only similarity to sweden is a common love for seafood. ultimately, dungen do what abba never could by understanding that the one language that's truly universal (unlike swedish, japanese, or english) is music.

sun is shining

2005-10-06T08:15:00.000-07:00

flipping through my limited cable channel selection the other night (70 channels, no HBO and no onDemand, so basically i watch commercials) and while flipping, i stop on the TV Guide channel to see what's on, and the next thing i know joan rivers and her ever-so-annoying daughter melissa are braying at me like two donkeys competing on american idol, absolutely entranced by how "mah-velous" the cast of "desperate housewives looks on the Emmy red carpet.
i am not bullshitting when i say joan rivers reminds me of george burns's walking corpse. if you put thick black frame glasses on her, take off her wig and shove a cigar in her mouth, joan'd have you saying "Goodnight Gracie!" in the time it takes her daughter to sound like an idiot (which, for those that don't know, is roughly 3 seconds.) but i digress, the real issue at hand is what aired after joan rivers' prattling almost caused me to have an aneurysm and i switched over to watch the post-emmy coverage on the E! channel...or maybe it was the post-post-Emmy show...or maybe even the post-Emmy party-post show. anyway...even the horror that is joan rivers could not prepare me for the world's most delicious train wreck, witnessed immediately afterward on the E! channel...tara reid in her own globe-trotting adventure show, "taradise."
the exclamation mark is the most important part of the "E!" channel brand because it indicates the "E!"xcitement and pure "E!"lation to follow the "E"!, as in "E"ntertainment!!!! with wall to wall coverage of who and what your favorite stars are doing, nothing beats "E!" in terms of pure junk food for media-obsessed fanboys, sycophants, and stalkers alike.
there's a moment in "the big lebowski," incidental but important, when a bikini clad bunny lebowski (played by tara reid) asks the dude to blow on her freshly painted green toenails, and then offers him a blowjob in exchange for a $1000, thus establishing two key plot points A: bunny is in desperate need of money, and B: she's willing to do anything to get it. then, after the post-Emmy wrap up-pre-post-Emmy party show, tara reid herself appears before me, on her new E! channel show "Taradise," and confirms what i'd always been suspicious of since that scene in "the big lebowski": tara reid is A: in desperate need of money and B: willing to do anything to get it.
For those of you not familiar "taradise" involves tara in sort of skimpy clothing to so-skimpy-she-might-as-well-be-naked clothing (depending on the position of the sun), hanging out with her friends, drinking, eating and having a "tara"-effic time (made up that one myself...)
not 5 minutes into the episode do the words "i'm horny" come out of her mouth...and then...amidst an entire group of people at dinner..."i need to find a boy to make out with." mind you, this girl took part in one of the finest American comedies of all time, and now she's playing herself in some sort of faux-"girls gone wild" motif (sans nudity sadly, thereby depriving the viewers of the two most interesting aspects of tara's personality) and stumbling her poor drunken self through the new wave of celebrity reality: the downfall. but hey, at least she's not like poor danny bonaduce who actually cried (like a man mind you...like a man) about the dissolvement of his marriage due to his alcohol problems. ms. reid avoids that dilemma, apparently by drinking herself to the point where remembering even her own name, let alone the guy's she slept with, becomes problematic.
"taradise" helped me realize something though. entertainment, in most cases, sucks. broadcast tv, with the odd exception of an "arrested development", a "family guy", or even a "lost" (which by the way makes for quite riveting television, despite the absolute impossibility of its premise), lacks substance and style. take this over to music and the song remains the same. the radio blows, spouting mostly vapid and artless drivel. ditto movies (i mean come on..."the dukes of hazzard"? of all the shows in the history of television, they pick one where the main characters are a car and a girl's ass to make into a feature length film?) so what i propose to those select few that are chosen by me is to turn this site, my blog, now your blog, into a way to rant about the things in and around us that completely piss us off and a place to rave about the things no one else might know about and should know about. together, like voltron, we can defeat the forces of evil that allow tara reid to destroy herself on television, and allow maury povich to degrade young women and men on a daily basis by airing their innermost secrets and privacies on national television, in front of a leering, abusive audience. let us rain down on their kingdom of stupidity with brazen wit, unyielding cynicism, and an absolute lack of tolerance for bullshit. once the door opens, they'll never be able to close it on us again.

home; where my music's playin'...

2005-07-11T06:33:00.000-07:00

america calls me in my dreams...i know it sounds strange: i leave our increasingly cookie-cutter country, with its strip malls and rest stops, houses full of people spending lazy sundays watching dale jr. careen past jeff gordon on the final turn at talladega...or darlington...or wherever NASCAR nation's eyes are fixed and arrive in india; a country as unpredictable as storm clouds on an otherwise sunny day, a country so rich in tradition and history that it boasts the world's oldest organized religion and the first written language not based on symbols; only to find myself yearning for the indian summer of the lake michigan shoreline.
india represents my past, not in a completely tangible sense as it does for my parents (even though many summer's passed just as this one did, in the languid, easy company of forever-doting aunts and uncles, cousins whose lives pass by me in regimented stages: the reckless play of children unattended; the cautious, confusing conversations of adolescence; the ease, and excitement of young adulthood and the freedom of the future.) india is my past primarily in how my parents raised me. the blood that flows in me, the ideals that i live by, find their roots here in the decaying, faded ancestrial homes of my parents, in the aging bones of my grandparents. the india i face today is as strange and foreboding as the first motion pictures must have been to people over a century ago. a picture living so fast that it ends with everything changed, transformed into a vague silhouette of what it once was, living and breathing even at nighttime, a time when it used to rest and recover its energy.
so i find myself drawn back to the familiarity of america, the comfort of its experience as the forerunner of the 20th century. india is much like the careless, troubled adolescent that we all once were, taking bold steps without watching where it puts its feet; while america, even with all its faults, struts along far more comfortably.
so the india of civil unrest, where religion squirms its way into politics and politics weasels its way into religion, and where progress moves forward at the sake of preservation is not the india i cherish, the india i choose to remember. instead i'll remember summer days spent at my grandfather's side, relishing the wisdom that comes with age and a thirst for knowledge, evenings spent with my aunt and her four daughters salivating over indian dishes that even my mother, the high priestess of epicurean delights, could only dream about; gossiping and doubling over with laughter at the expense of various other unnamed relations; feeling the warmth and affection of relatives i haven't even seen in years because family is forever, no matter how many generations removed.
i dream about the america that is my future, but i'll always remember the india of my past.

the rising

2005-06-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

my spirit wanes when i watch children beg for money...india: the sleeping giant that rolls over and crushes the less fortunate. progress: a man on fire that burns anything standing in its path while it rushes madly for water. in the mad dash to modernize, westernize, and super-size india conveniently forgets its problems; like an alcoholic drunk on a heady brew of technology and growing wealth. like all alcoholics though it wakes to face the mirror and finds the lines under the eyes a little deeper , the same problems that lurk under the skin spreading like cancer.
to say that india has changed is an understatement. every industry in india grows at rates equalled only by china, and because of its status as a democracy (albeit one as corrupt as richard nixon) it also carries the strength and support of the u.s. that the chinese lack. more cars, more malls, more high rises are merely cosmetic differences though. as we sat in our air conditioned car, on our way back to my aunt's lush home, a young boy, clothes ragged and face weary from absorbing the blast of heat and suffocating pollution of india's streets all day, hobbled up on two crutches and one leg, knocked on the window, and extended a bone thin hand. my mother,luckily, saved her leftovers from dinner and gave both containers to the boy along with 10 rupees. his first proper meal in god knows how long happens to be scraps from somebody else's plate.
sadly, most of india's poor are children. poverty here varies vastly from poverty in the u.s. when in big cities; chicago, new york, even indianapolis, many of us confront a few beggars here and there, mostly aged men and women, or rambling alcoholics and drug addicts. here they number in the thousands, their faces are young, their bodies are small and they live on the streets. life here offers no options, as the closest thing to upward mobility is an elevator in a nearby glass-plated high rise. a quality education is a right reserved for the wealthy and india still toils in a nameless caste system that they claim to have discarded decades ago. if you are a servant's son, in all likelihood you end up a servant as well. there are no rags to riches stories here, no dickensian fables of a poor boy done good. i cannot help but keep my eyes open to the horror of the truth.
i am struck by the duality of india. the beauty of its untouched regions, of its outer layer is unmatched. the himalayas majestically providing a barrier between two growing superpowers, ancient temples and forts a testimony to its inherent spirituality and its glorious past. but when you get to the city centers, the heart of this country, you find underneath the facade of gloriously modern buildings and spiraling highways, a country allowing itself to rot from within. there are thousands of indians overseas that have made a profound mark on their adopted countries (my parent's included) but they return to their ancestrial homes as outsiders, aping concern for the state of their mother land but doing nothing about it. the wealthy within india's own borders(and there are quite a few) are content as long as their coffers continue to grow, walling themselves inside modern housing developments, complete with their own supermarkets, health clubs, golf courses, and gas stations, so that they're only foced to face the truth on their way to work and back. india cannot survive if its foundation, the people without, continue to suffer. desperation is a mighty force, and progress cannot build a wall strong enough to contain it.

Outside in the cold distance...

2005-06-04T04:43:00.000-07:00

monsoon season arrived without warning the other night...i've been going to bed early, and have settled into a routine which for me seemed impossible...rising at 7:30, breakfast at 8:30, lunch at 2:00, dinner at 8:30 and then bed by 10:00...yes, all of this order and punctuality from the Don of perpetual lateness...
so i finished the book i've been reading ("everything is illuminated" for those who were wondering...spectacular book..different from anything i've read before...) and i turned off the light, keeping a close eye on the wall lizard which decided to roost in the corner of my room for the evening...yes...it sounds backwards and rundown but that's not the case...you just cannot keep these little bastards out of the house, no matter how much netting you put up...there's just too many of them in this climate...
i fell asleep rather quickly, probably something to do with the full meals i've been getting recently, as opposed to the substitute for nourishment i'd been surviving on in indianapolis...
i awoke at 3 a.m. to the loudest clap of thunder i'd ever heard. i thought that the india-pakistan nuclear testing war had reached a head and i'd managed to get myself stuck close to the border at the worst possible time...the lightning that preceded the thunder caused the light next to the bedstand (which wasn't even on!!!) to blow out in a flash of brilliance....the air conditioning cut out and i could hear the wind roaring in from the east, and the rain pelting the window pane to my left...this ensued for nearly two hours without pause...lightning so bright that for a split second the entire room was illuminated and i could see my reflection in the mirror which stands directly in front of the foot of my bed...thunder that pounded my ears relentlessly...and the mixture of humidity and heat that only comes with the monsoons...as it poured torrentially outside, my brow and back sweated profusely...i tossed and turned in my bed for the rest of the night, listening to the rain and praying for it to stop so i could finally get to sleep and maybe the power would come back on..
sadly, this wasn't to be...i wandered like a zombie through the next day, only to be greeted in my sleep with another storm, this one more vicious than the last. by morning, power and phone lines were down, 4 people had died in the storm, and the sun and heat made the only reminders of the storm the over 400 trees that were felled by the onslaught...i realized that this wasn't just rain, but some higher power flexing their muscle...

on top of the world, hands to the sky

2005-05-28T23:26:00.000-07:00

i boarded my flight at 9:00 p.m. on may 23rd. lufthansa, typical german efficiency all the way down to the no nonsense attitude and grim faces of the flight attendants. if they weren't bringing me free beers and peanuts i'd be worried that they were going to throw me in the ka-be. the flight proved to frankfort proved tremendously boring, 9 hours of listening to my i-pod and squirming around uncomfortably in the 2x4 box they call economy class seating, which for someone who stands 6'2" is no easy feat. i woke up intermittently throughout the flight, whether it be from lack of comfort or the constant peppering of questions from the video game designer from dallas who sat next to me (all 280lbs of him..my luck could only have been worse if he'd decided to eat me for dinner instead of the prepackaged inflight meal.) a rough landing in frankfort had me sweating and nauseous and i kissed the ground of the tarmac as soon as i set foot on it.
my next flight left 45min. later so i hightailed it to the departure gate (which luckily, was only 5 gates down from where i arrived.) and popped two dramamine. ten minutes into the flight, no more nausea and no more consciousness. i woke up with one hour left of the nine hour flight to delhi and an empty stomach. i managed to keep down some form of german pastry (for the cooking they are definitely not world renowned) and exited the plane into the hot delhi night. the temperature outside topped 93 degrees at 12:15 a.m. 12:15 a.m.!!! i forgot how much life this kind of heat can eat right out of you.
instead of spending 10 hours in the delhi international terminal waiting for my next flight to bagdogara and my uncle's tea gardens, the family of my father's best friend were kind enough to allow me to sleep, shower, and eat breakfast at their home before i left for my next flight.
at 10:10 a.m. i boarded my final flight and landed in bagdogara (nausea again) at 1:00 pm. both my grandfather and uncle (aruna's brother) were there to greet me and it was a welcome sight. as most of you know, being alone is not one of my strong points and i hadn't had a chance to run my mouth for over 28 hours and it felt nice to be around family. my uncle's gone grey around the edges, but still carries himself with the same dignity and pride that i remember so well. my grandfather is also no exception and aside from his advancing years which have brought about a slight hesitance in his gait, he still radiated wisdom and kindness.
large banyan trees and acres upon acres of tea plants pepper the west bengal countryside. in the distance the himalayas cast their endless shadow over the state, snowcapped peaks visible above swirling monsoon clouds. the people of west bengal are mostly of mixed descent, nepalese and indian combined to create darkskinned people with distinctly asian features. my uncle manages over 2500 acres of tea garden, and they are tended by these people who have lived on this land for centuries. their knowledge of the soil, planting cycles, and weather patterns is unequaled and the success of the goodricke's tea company is dependent and almost wholly due to their aptitude.
civilizationi has yet to make a distinct mark on this region of india, with most people still living subsistence farming lives and the towns not yet runnover with pollution and modern filth. luckily coca-cola and cable tv have found their way to this remote outpost so i don't feel completely lost. the first few days in the garden were spent recovering from jet lag (which didn't take too great a toll on me) and spending time with my two cousins who were only 8 and 10 the last time i saw them. both are now handsome young men who for some reason have a penchant for heavy metal music. one thing i'll never understand is how heavy metal managed to retain its popularity in india while becoming a subgenre throughout the rest of the world. so i spend a few hours each day playing them songs from my i-pod and hoping i can turn them on to some different sounds before i leave.
this saturday we made the 3 hour drive to darjeeling, a mountain outpost that is the closest city to the peak of mt. everest. over the years darjeeling hosts thousands of tourists, many of them european and american, and this time of year is no exception. i will probably see more white faces here than i will anywhere else in india (not that it's a bad thing...we all know what happened the last time there were too many white people here.) the city is set on a mountainside and if you look to the east you can see everest's magnificient peak peering down on the rest of the world. i've never felt so awestruck and insignificant in my life. in the morning's you wake up in the clouds, not in fog, but literally in the clouds. as the sun shines, much of it is burnt away and you can see down almost 10,000 feet to the river valley below. homes and more tea gardens dot the mountainside and you can see how civilization finds its way even to the most remote parts of the earth (including the internet, as i'm writing this post while looking out over the nepalese side of the himalayan range.) the majesty of the mountains though, remains the most remarkable aspect of this visit.

-krishna "tenzing norgay" thinakkal

p.s. i will post pictures once i get to bangalore and can get my hands on a high-speed internet connection. while progress has crawled its way up the mountain, its still moving at dial-up speed.

To infinity and beyond...

2005-04-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

i'd like to welcome everyone to my blog. hello everyone. i don't like the word blog though, sounds dirty. not dirty in a sex way, but dirty like the dishes that my roommate never does unless i put them in his bed. so from now on i'm going to call it my "spot." if any of you would like to put things on my "spot" then feel free (actually you have to get permission from me so i guess it's not free...) but ask me for permission and post away on my "spot." except rory. definitely not rory.