Tuesday, January 19, 2010

my love

http://www.links2love.com/poem_generator.htm


Your skin glows like the pineapple, blossoms sexy as the jasmine in the purest hope of spring.
My heart follows your bongo voice and leaps like a cat at the whisper of your name.
The evening floats in on a great crow wing.
I am comforted by your hat that I carry into the twilight of chairbeams and hold next to my big toe.
I am filled with hope that I may dry your tears of whiskey.
As my ears falls from my shirt, it reminds me of your girl.
In the quiet, I listen for the last screech of the day.
My heated wrist leaps to my boxers. I wait in the moonlight for your secret bird so that we may fly as one, wrist to wrist, in search of the magnificient blue and mystical bus of love.

Yes, I'm utterly jobless and very very bored.

Monday, January 18, 2010

2009 and the movies

I saw loads of movies this year. Maybe more than at any other time in my life. These are my ten favourites from last year in no particular order.

Inglourious Basterds



Tarantino's best yet I think. This movie shows the director in top form. While before the set pieces in his movies were either over the top action sequences or clever dialogue loaded with pop culture, here it's pacing, tension, a strong story and some absolutely terrific performances, chief among them being Col. Hanz Landa a cheerfully sadistic German officer.

Bronson



Nicolas Winding Refn first came to my attention with his uber grim Pusher trilogy and Bronson is his new movie based on the life of one Michael Peterson who is Britains most violent prisoner played by Tom Hardy in breathtaking style. The movie's alright on its own but with hardy's absolutely stunning performance it becomes a bit special. On par with The Wrestler in terms of one absolutely crushing central performance making the movie a lot better than what it is.


Fantastic Mr. Fox



Wes Anderson's take on a Roald Dahl story about a chicken thief fox who's given up on the thievery only to go back to it for one last hurrah. His targets are the three most dangerous farmers in the world and his exit from a life of thievery is a grand triple header. Excellent cast and the whole stop motion thing works really well. Willem Dafoe as Rat is a show stealer and the movie on the whole is actually quite fantastic.

The Limits of Control



Jim Jarmusch's new one with the ice cream seller from Ghost Dog, and a whole bunch of cameos. I'm still not sure if this movie is specifically about anything. It's basically about a man who may or not be involved in diamond smuggling, the people he meets and his last job which is to kill a man. It's vague and never really explains anything but man, it's a trip from start to finish. The soundtrack by Boris helps too.

Thirst



Park Chan Wook's take on the vampire tale about a Catholic priest who turns into a vampire. His lust for human blood increases as does his desire for sex and everything goes horribly wrong soon enough. Not as steeped in melodrama as Lady Vengeance I guess but a fine tuned movie with some great performances and terrific atmosphere.

The White Ribbon



Michael Haneke's new movie about a little German village and the goings on there just prior to World War I. Bad things start happening in the village as narrated to us by the school teacher who himself is an old man now. Children are dying, people are getting hurt and no one's quite sure what to make of it. Haneke gives us no explanation or rationalisation for any of the happenings and everything is left unresolved with the breaking out of World War I. This movie just held me spellbound.

The Hurt Locker



I don't like war movies. never have and probably never will. The Hurt Locker is an exception to the rule probably because it's about people fighting a horrible pointless war and what makes them tick. Another solid central performance from Jeremy Renner as the reckless bomb disposal sergeant and some really tense scenes made this a really impressive movie.


Julia



Another fantastic performance, this time from Tilda Swinton as Julia, an alcoholic middle aged no hoper who decides to take up her neighbour's offer to kidnap her son away from an evil grandfather. The movie's pretty good but Swinton is spectacular.

Bad Lieutenant



I think Cage and Herzog should make a few more movies together. I thought this was going to be a remake of the grim and nasty original Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Kietel but its not. This is Herzog's own take on the film about a corrupt cocaine snorting cop in post Katrina New Orleans. Cage is fantastic as the corrupt cop investigating the murder of an entire family. Eva Mendes is his hooker girlfriend and has never looked as hot. She can also act surprisingly enough but really this is a Herzog/Cage show and it rules.

Martyrs



IMDB lists this as 2008 but fuck it, this has to be the most intense and downright disturbing horror movie in a long long time. Enough said.
I woke up this morning to a steady stream of phone calls and guilt tripping. Sometimes, people just won't let you be.

happy birthday bugger

Friday, January 15, 2010

red eyed and thirsty

So here we are again. There's an eclipse afoot and I'm pretty sure some virgins somewhere are being sacrificed. I've been told not to go out and not eat anything. Even got a phone call to make sure I was indoors. I'm hungry and restless and idle and that old cliché about idleness is very true. Bored and lonely, red eyed and thirsty. Also hungry and restless. Still.

I made a new compilation for the car. Yes, I was that bored. I thought last night that I would be productive today. Clean my room, catch up on some stuff etc and right now I have no mood for anything. I hooked up my speakers and Alkaline are doing their weird dub thing and it's all really a mood thing. I think too much when I'm like this.

I think I should sleep. Fantastic Mr. Fox really was quite fantastic. I hope it comes to the theaters here. In the Woods doing White Rabbit. What a fucked up crazy band. I need some In the Woods CDs. Later.

We are Gods dreams.

I think I need exercise. This laziness is getting tiresome. Jet City Woman after what seems like ages. Crows outside. Also a huge bat that terrorizes the night sky just outside my window. Traffic's back on the street. Is the worst over? I hope so.

A man walks into a bar and says “gimme a baccardi and coke”
The back of beyond repair welcomes the broken and the broke

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

and she walked

Do you know women who become more and more attractive as they grow older? I do. This post is about one of them. It's about me also. Maybe. Mostly about her though.

12:40pm Lunch break. Everyone's out. Inmates trying to make the most of the 35 minutes on offer before going back to the torture chambers. There's chaos. Noise; both human and machine. The jocks are heading to the basket ball court. The smokers are heading for the road. The nerds are heading to the library. Father's looking, hands on hips, magnifying glass firmly entrenched in his pocket. And then she starts to walk.

Not a blade of grass on the back lawns. Not the leaves on the Ashoka trees. Not the boys playing basketball. Hell, not even the ball. Nothing moved when she walked. When she started from the back and walked all the way out of college. It was like the world stopped to watch her walk. 12:40 pm, every single afternoon. Lunch break was forgotten. Time moved on, we stood still and she walked.

Mr. Kennedy started talking about controlling impure thoughts in Tuesday morning value education classes. I started visiting the graveyard. She still walked out everyday and we all still watched.

Yes. Me too. I watched her walking out. I had a vantage point. Unfortunately I didn't have motivation. My maroon tinted vision just made everything seem pointless and it didn't help that both her brothers were my corex buddies.

Then one day at about 12:45pm maybe, she crossed the road. Came right up to where we were sitting. Regarded us with an icy fucking stare as she lit her navy cut.

“You're dropping me home. Let's go.”

Everything went sort of dark when she told me I was dropping her home. Everything disintegrated into sheer panic when she told me to come in. I fainted when I finally realised she'd been calling me by name.

I remember afternoons spent locked in a tiny room listening to her dreams, to her plans and wondering why I had none. Mornings spent walking through the graveyard talking about death and being morbid. Looking at each other through clouds of grey smoke from morning to dusk and breathing in that sickly sweet stench as if it would make us immortal and then doing the same thing every day for the next six months. She knew it was only a matter of time before everything ended. She knew this entire scene came with an expiry date and sure enough, everything ended. One whole scene. Like 2012 with fewer survivors. It had to.

We stopped our morning walks in the graveyard once the last body was buried, we slowly stopped everything. We said goodbye. I didn't see her for almost a year after that. When I finally saw her again it was like always. She'd talk, I'd nod along, she'd talk some more I'd nod some more and then she'd steal all my cigarettes and send me out for more.

She was a survivor. Still is. All of the skullfucks that life threw her way didn't change her. She walked through it all and thrived quite literally in the face of adversity.

When she left for foreign climes I thought I was finally saying goodbye. Life moved and took me places. I forgot mostly. Then, two years ago I saw her again. Watched for a while. Then watched some more. It took me a while to work up the courage to go say hi. What if she'd forgotten. What is she'd forgotten and would stare at me with that same icy cold look that used to freeze my blood when I was seventeen? Were those 2 little girls her children? I did say hi finally, eventually.

She was the same mostly. When the past was the present she was the only one who knew how shitty it was but now it's all rose tinted glasses and a longing for the good old days which were anything but good. She still talks a lot. Like non fucking stop. She still has her hopes and dreams. She still continues to thrive. In spite of the skullfucks and a life that sees her walking through minefields too often for comfort. Maybe because of it.

The world still stops when she walks. The world still looks. I should be resentful but I'm too busy looking. She thrives in the face of adversity. It doesn't matter how she does it. She thrives and I'm glad she's around.

We'd survived a scene that died. Maybe our corner of ganja park was special, maybe she still had some functioning brain cells, maybe it was something else entirely but I digress. This is still about her and she thrived. She lived, loved, lost and did everything beautiful people do I guess. It was like she took every curve ball life threw at her and somehow came out fitter, better, faster even if not always a winner.

She saved my life once upon a time and is still charging me for it. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

2009

2009 in review. What might be a rambling, pointless and overlong review, much like that Deathspell Omega one somewhere here and you might wish I'd never put it up but what the hell, why not?

Things started well. Mostly. The 1st of the year started according to plan. Ihsahn ends A Grave Inversed with the closing riff on 21st Century Schizoid Man. I might be hearing things that aren't necessarily there. Yes, the years big shift was in finally getting out of jail. Finally saying fuck you, I don't need your job, a job or any job. Fucking awesome. I think I'd been building up to this for a while now with my serial jumping but I really enjoyed the final resignation. A bit more than when I quit Barclays.

This year was also great for trying new things and the opportunity. Thank you 2009. Nice of you.

I had an absolutely terrific holiday for 2 days in Suratkal. But it's Suratkal and an awesome holiday there is pretty much the default setting. That first morning was fucking epic. Thank you Kau. This was actually the only holiday I had. All other plans met with disaster and personal tragedy.

I finally met an old friend for the first time and lost all sense of proportion. It's been a pretty wild ride so far. Exhilarating even if a bit strange.

I lost my grandparents. It's not something I'm totally at peace about. Zen has not happened. It happened way too quickly. Like, what was the hurry? I'm a bit angry but mostly just sad. In other news I'm off to Mangalore next weekend for my third 13th day ceremony in the last 5 months. Terrible.

I heard a lot of music this year. More different shit than ever before. I didn't read much though, Hardly. I did read Toll the Hounds and Dust of Dreams in the same year. I'll read it this year too when it finally gets here and I get my own copy. Don't remember reading anything else with that much excitement. Saw some really fantastic movies but mostly I think 2009 was all about the music.

Oh, by the way I almost forgot. I turned 30 this year. I had no epiphany, no morning after sickness or revelation. I was just another day older.

I had a mostly sober year. Sober as in calm and peaceful at least when it came to hanging out with the boys. Wednesday nights meant going to Tavern a lot and we started a mid week pit stop. Weekends were spent mostly getting hammered but with very little driving around and behaving badly. It was pretty good.

My 2009 sounds a bit drab. I hit a guy. He was asking for it and he provoked me but I probably shouldn't have. Still, I felt pretty good once my heart went back to its normal rate.

Okay, After is an altogether different beast compared to the first two albums. There are elements but the Spiral Architect rhtyhm section seems to have more freedom here. Also the saxophonist adds a very avante garde feel to the sound. This is quite a dense piece of work from Ihsahn. It doesn't have the immediate catchy feel of Angl but I've been listening to it for a while now and it's mostly awesome. I think as good as Angl, probably better but also a bit different. This fellow's brilliant but I'm also totally digressing.

This year I would like to make a few changes. I don't know what exactly but I'll write about it here once I know. I'm quitting cigarettes as of tomorrow morning. I think it's big deal even if I've quit 4 times in 2009. I'm also going to take up swimming and yoga.

Coming back to 2009, it was a strange year. It was filled with chance and coincidences and weird skullfuck moments that more often than not ended with more skullfucking. I had some absolutely terrific highs and also some totally horrendous lows. I put my plans in place very nicely and everything turned out pretty fucking well but then I realised it wasn't really enough. I wanted different things and freedom only means something if you know what to do with it. Some of it worked, some flopped but I'm going to try it all. Like I said at the start, awesome.

Okay, it's back to being really cold. I'm going to go back downstairs. I hope I haven't forgotten some epochal moment. I don't think so. I also don't think I can give the past year any sort of rating. Too much happened. Good things and bad things that were not comparable to each other in any way. A year pretty much filled with some strange confusion. Like it wasn't sure which direction it wanted to go in. I managed as best I could although I did have a few moments of weakness.

If I had a chance to do it all over again I'd do the same shit all over again. I think that's a fair year.