Of stories and those who tell them.

It's been a while,hasn't it? A while since I have done......well , anything really. What was fresh and exciting becomes drudgery. What was fun becomes a Russian play's 3rd act. What was refreshing is now stale, like the hunk of cheese in my fridge that neither me nor my roommate wants to finish off (I wonder why ???).

The closest I have come to reading Kafka might be reading the blurb in a collection that the aforementioned reading the other day, but existential angst is really the best way to describe what's happening right now. The world seems a drab, a little out of focus, like one of those old colour photograph that you discover in your mother's drawer. OK perhaps angst is too strong a word, maybe existential boredom sums it up better.

Sometimes it seems like there is never enough too do, and never enough time to do it in. Strange, right. So what exactly is it I'm looking for? Peace? Love? Substance to abuse? Nah. I guess I am just looking for stories. Does anyone else feel like that? Like life is just a collection of stories, and you are living in far too many of them? And that none of them are very well written or make much sense? I guess I am just looking for the perfect story. MY story.

There is something incredibly romantic about minstrels. To move from town to town, just telling stories, the idea itself is so intoxicating. Oh sure, they would sing and dance and play an oddly shaped instrument or two, but what they were were storymen. They were never the heroes, or the villains. They didn't create legends, but they kept them alive. They were for all practical purposes inconsiquential, unimportant, and in their own way, the very basis of everything I hold dear. I feel a bit of kinship with those wandering verbal magicians of the middle ages. When I am gone I won't be missed, but perhaps the stories will be.

Moody Blues

I have been getting pretty moody lately. I never know why, It's just that I feel my life is getting in a rut, and nothing no new job, no new friends, no nothing can pull me out of it. it isn't one of the heartbreaking, sob-inducing depressions I used to have, it's just like I've become more resigned to things. I find it very dangerous. Thankfully I'm reading again, not heavily, but at least Pratchett is drawing me in like he used to. I'm pretty glad I bought the Tiffany Aching series despite initial reservations. Generally Pratchett's witch books are IMHO slightly weaker of the lot (Particularly because I find Granny Weatherwax just too bloody predictable), but here keeping her as a minor character has really worked. If anything it has made the second book superior to the first one, which had no character other than Tiffany, really.

Tried to watch Shaurya today, man what a crap movie. I cannot understand this fixation people have over Rahul Bose, the supposed thinking man's hero. The man plays essentially the same character in every movie, and can't do comedy worth a damn. When Javed Jaffery outperforms you in a dramatic role, no less, it's just sad. The plot is waaay too contrived for my taste, with things happening just so other things can happen. And as a journalist, it's almost insulting to see the female lead, a "reporter" go to the house of her subject and ask about his father, not knowing he(the father) is dead. Shekhar Suman did it better on TV ten years ago, and he did it pretty bad to begin with. And then she lectures people about doing their job right. I will post a proper review later, but it just pisses me off to see a movie like this and know that it came from something like A Few Good Men. Not to sound like an absolute dick , but why is it that a supposedly visual Hollywood movie like iron Man can have a better and more meaningful script than a Bollywood thriller?

Talking about hollywood, I really think manyof the summer blockbusters are going overboard with the marketing. I feel like I have seen too much of TDK already, and the new trailer was so disjointed, it was quite disappointing. The ideal marketing strategy would be to build up the hype, so that the movie comes off almost like a crescendo, a huge splash after the big wave has hovered in the air for that split second. Here it's breaking apart. Give us a break now, hollywood.

I realise this was different from most of my columns, starting off as a "how i am" thing before going off into films, but hey, it's my blog, and nobody reads it anyway. So sue me.

The Rock Snobs

"... they were cursed by what we can call the 'bee gees' curse. which is: 'write amazing songs, sell tons of records, and consequently incur the wrath or disinterest of the rock obsessed critical establishment'."
Moby : 2003 (on Duran Duran)

They were the original rebels, the anti-heroes, the rule breakers. They were the ones who would not conform to society's norms and bring music to the masses. They were the rockers. The saviors of music. They would rescue us from the horrors of disco, manufactured bands, and indeed anything that you could listen to without rupturing an eardrum or two. But what about the ones like us ?? The ones who didn't really want to be rescued. The ones who were happy with their Cliff Richards and Bee Gees and Roger Whittakers and Chris de Burghs. You know, the not-really-charismatic guys who could do one or two things (namely write songs and sing) really really well?? How dare we ?? How dare we ignore the druggy genius of Nirvana and Pink Floyd and gravitate towards saccharine based pond scum like the aforementioned guys ? Didn't we know we were ruining, simply ruining music by listening to people who could actually... you know...sing?

Well I didn't.

I don't hate rock, or metal or rap, or anything labeled as extreme. But nor do I buy into the belief that a parental advisory sticker on an album jacket, or smashing instruments live on stage are signs of instant greatness. I have enjoyed November Rain but I was bored by anything else by Guns and Roses. I love Wherever I may roam, The Unforgiven, but find any other stuff by metallica pretty mundane. And no, I don't dismiss them without hearing them . Its just that some songs by the backstreet boys or n'sync give me the same kind of pleasure as the songs mentioned above. A different flavored pleasure, to be sure, but what sounds good, sounds good. I don't care if its soft, or loud, or rough, or smooth, or written by the artist or by a hundred songwriters slaving away in little cubicles in an effort to transform five good looking teenage boys into stars.

But I digress

Something that really pushes me away from the harder stuff, is the obvious snobbery among rock fans. For a section of people who claim to be anti establishment, their behavior is strangely similar to the monocled lords of Wodehousian England. Somehow heavy metal and hard rock had to be worshipped or you did not appreciate good music. And in a delicious twist of irony, those two brands of music became the favorite for every corporate radio station, music magazine and music channel that realised angst sold better than anything else in the world. Every teen and preteen feels that the world is unfairly stacked against them anyway, so give them the music that just reaffirms their theory and tells them to go nuts. Well, you can have your music and eat it. And when you want something different just try being a rebel for once and looking around. I'll be in that small crowd in the corner, listening to "Summer Holiday"

Yo Jo!!!!

I had planned to write a well thought out blog about fantasy and my love for that genre of literature. I really did. Then I thought i'd go to joblo.com for a while. And I saw this.

YES!! YES YES YES YES YESSSSIIRREEEEEEEE YES!!!
For those of you who have no idea why a grown(well semi-grown at least) straight man is behaving like ........well you know, let me tell you two things.

1)You don't deserve to live
2)That gentleman there, is known to hordes of fanboys as none other than Snake Eyes. At least that is how he will appear in the upcoming J.I.Joe movie (for those who don't know what J.I.Joe is, go back to point 1....and please stay there). And as you can guess, I'm not displeased. Snake Eyes was my favorite Joe, and I always felt the animated series never did justice to a character with such potential. Of course, it's easy to see how the designers just opened "Cool for dummies" and copied out everything they saw. I mean the guy's a futuristic ninja who wears all black, doesn't speak, has his origins shrouded in mystery and carries a katana. Couldn't get more textbook than that.