Thursday, October 16, 2008

My B Sides - for my groupies.

So below are all the postings that did not eventually make as official
blog posts over the past 2 years.

Purposely unedited, with spelling mistakes, poor thought formation,
but to cleanse and show to my loyal following the roughness and energy
of some of the work. I am at heart a beatnik and the raw comes more
often from a deeper honesty that the editing can often kill.

But you have to know the rules to break them as kerouac said. well I
don't know if I know them, but by breaking them, I am that much closer
to knowing.

Enjoy it, or ignore it, but its for you and only you.

All my love to you.


PS - a big shout out to my loyal following in Romania.

ideas for short stories

Writing. if I treat this process as mechanical and put my time in I
will see the difference. I rush and do things too fast. Thats my
problem. i need to dedicate more time and not get emotionally upset
when things don't work my way. Things move only with hard work and
dedication done without attachment. Remember that. Just write then
give it a day and look over it and then you will see a big difference.
You can write those short stories....

How about on women. Cliche but women are universal. If I could
capture the many facets of women.

1. being a beautiful woman as a man

2. Monica Lucia, 35 year old fading beauty trying so hard to hold on
to life as it slips by

3. Renu bhabi , the beautiful widow frozen in time.

4. Isabel, the woman who loved too much

5. Raping a Nun.

Top ten - HA HA

Here, just to play to my cheesy american side, I will make a list a la
letterman of my top ten concerns for humanity (I am aware that such a
framework is stupid but I want to entertain you, which I also realize
is dangerous, given you may be contented by the amusement value of
this exercise which would mask the capacity necessary to feel the true
discontent necessary to make change, in your life and in others)

- China. From their fish, to their global adventures in pursuit of
natural resources, to their dangerous quality of goods, and to their
eventual inevitable aggression. Before we pack our kids off to fight
them, wake up!

- middle east blah blah. Important but lets not get caught in a
hyponotic trance by the poetry of 9-11 and the jihad. China, asia
even is a far more important part of the world to come to terms with.

- The FARM bill. obesity, ethanol, high fructose corn syrup,
immigration, third world poverty all come colliding in big time in

- PHARM- med Complex, an 80 billion dollar a year industry.
America's make of 2 percent of the world yet consume 50 percent of
prescriptions. This is one of America's biggest exports. 10-20
percent of this usage is probably justified and a needed palliative,
but the problem is in the over-prescription and efficacy of medical

-. ok, global warming, but its more than just recycling. Stop
driving! Stop the Agricultural industrial complex. With its
pesticide run offs, antibiotic, hormone pumped meat and dairy. Not to
mention the cruelty to animals. Kill them but don't torture them.

- The internet. I know, the irony of it, but really, a better
assessment is needed to understand this medium. Currently it is
unquestioned good. We need to come to grips with its seductions and
powers. Google, GSM, facebook, there is a concern about privacy and
also a possibility that one day we will live in one big pod. American
high school reading rates also dropping, we need to do a conscious
assessment of what the digital age provides and what it takes.

There are more, but this is what is on my mind.

So what are you gonna do about it? I am uncomfortable with the
"professionalization" of activism and campaigns to save the world.
Its important but the first step has to be personal, individual, you
have to feel the gains in your life, from understanding this

Into the Wild - random ideas inspired by one of the most important American films to come out in a long time

Into the Wild

Sean Penn's new film is profound on many levels.

Historically being based in 1991 after the fall of communism and the
end of history, no coincidence.

Pre SSRIs and all the mental health maddness. in this day and age
someone like him would be convinced that they were nuts or think they
were nuts and drug themselves up. Back then these did not exist.

Plays on the tradition of Thorueu, interesting to note that the Wild
was not hostile to him back then though we have gotten so faraway from
nature that it attacks and kiils us. In all of T's writing there is
not an element of a fear of surivival. American man at that time had
sufficient contact with nature in order to surivive. Penn's character
is saved by a bus, a piece of modernity in the jungle.

The idea of solitude in nature is a strange one. Striking that Penn's
character did not want to be around people. Can't take the American
out of the boy, individualism, alienation, go at it alone mentality.

The need to cut himself off from his family. It was what he
questioned least. It gave him the greatest sense of freedom. The
family, especially post 50s American family has been the greatest
source of destruction on children, with what they feed, the schools
they send you to, the stuff they buy you, the TV they make you watch.
you can be free unless you have no feelings for them. That radicalism
is needed nowadays, that no mercy, non sentimental way of living.

He is very clearly not a hippie in the limited sense of that word. he
does not want free love, does not want drugs, does not even want sex.
he doesn't care about any of those things. He is beyond that, not
interested, what he wants is a divine connection with the wild. Why?
What does it give him?

The modern world with all its trappings is absurd and frustrating,
especially for a 22 year old searching for the truth. That was where
I ws for a time. And i am still on that journey in many ways.

New York - so far so close

Big Apple Fashions was a huge success. Its fitting irony that my
father sold dresses to black women. That they adored him and he
secretly them. Like all Indians, my father was a bit of a racist. In
that Archie Bunker, loving way. New York egged on his prejudices.
The city is surprisingly tolerant to expressing verbal bigotry,
probably explaining why we all get along so well. Because we express
just how we feel about jews, the chinese, gays, blacks. If you over
hear any real new york crowd of kids on a school yard, faggot and
don't jew me out are a accepted part of endearing yourself to someone.
Political correctness was invented by upper west side liberals who
went to columbia and NYU. The rest of us used language to express our
endless frustrations.

My father was also an anti-semite. Jew this and jew that. He got a
c+ in graduate school in a course taught by a jew. It was his only
non A grade, and he became convinced it was because of the jew. In
the the class there were also my father's other indian friends.
According to him they got c+'s as well. I heard that story millions
of times. I got strange chills reading Mein Kahph years later with
Hitler expressing similar dismay over a C he recieved by a jew that
turned him off painting. Jews should be careful with grades they
give. man.

But my father loved Israeli jews, and the orthodox. He called them
real jews. Most of his interaction was at the falafel place on Jewel
aveneue, a hassidic enclave. Back then, there were not many options
for vegetarians when they wanted to eat out. My parents would eat
pizza or go for falafel. overtime these falafel joints became hindu
haunts. It was filled with yamacas, those hairy curls, turbans,
salwar kammezes, it was astounding how well we got along. I still
remember the warmth and friendliness of many of those people. They
would come sit next to my father and talk of india. Many had gone
there after their military service. India held a special place in
their heart for them.

I dream of Brando

In the Rajastani desert, this past summer, I had a communion with
Brando's spirit. He made me realize who i was: an actor and a
teacher. I couldn't believe that we got together but there he was,
standing by a window, over looking paris, asking me who I thought I
was. He did it with a sense of strenght, no nonsense directness, with
love and kindness.

I remembered this watching "The Ugly American" the other night, a
hallow film, made brighter and candid by Brando in the leading role.
He overpowers it with each move, perfectly doing what he always does:
be himself yet still convince you somehow of the role he plays. Its
as if brando is everything, takes on so many characters but what you
see, and what attracts you to him is his authencity. You know deep
down, he is always brando, and he winks and nods to you underneath
there but it doesn't take away from the character. He tells you to be
anything you want to be, as long as you know who you are and have a
strong foundation on that. Everything else is just play.

Live by the Drug, Die by the Drug

Live by the Drug, Die by the Drug

This modern world puts you between a rock and a hard place. It makes
you choose between your first born or your left arm. The calculus and
choices it imposes through its framework and rules is horrific. It
just wants you take the first step into the maze, and then its got
you. Take a drug, it makes you feel better, though now that you have
accepted this game, you have to work your way around the haphazard
science and the side effects. Try new ones, old ones don't work
anymore, keep uneasy, unstable, completely preoccupied with the state
of your health and mind.

Health, its the way to de-stabalize any resistance. How you gonna
fight george bush if you are sick? If we are not internally well, all
big changes are lost. Thats why they attack it, sickness is the basis
of domination in America. Their business is to make you sick and then
make you better. Providing solutions to the problems they created and
keep this cycle going. This is what is called economic growth and
progress folks. Wake up.

Always the lesser evil is justified in a world of such intense
suffering. Nothing is seen as being sacred, true, pure, the right
way. A good friend takes welbutrin to quit smoking, my expressing my
horror at such a choice is met with my not caring about how lung
cancer will end his life. My sister wants bariactric surgery, she is
obese and her diabetes is getting to her. Decisions decisions. I am
told I am an extremist and unrealistic. The day people stop saying
that about me, I know I will be doing something wrong. This world can
only be met with extremism and to be a realist is to be insane and
completely unhappy.

I met a great young woman, though a woman is a woman is a woman. Even
if they are activist revolutionaries. She doesn't believe in the
pursuit of happiness. And is not sure if anyone is happy. I felt so
sorry for her though she wanted to feel sorry for me. Its sickness
when we like feeling sorry for people. Patronizing, christian,
charitable, mind sickness.

If only you understood what its like to be alive, out in the wild.
But you are too scared to travel. To comfortable with your pain.

But these lame people, there only aim is to instill doubt in yourself.
Some doubt is healthy, but don't confuse doubt with fear.

I understand Neitzhe's frustration with people. We institutionalize
and justify weakness. We coddle people's problems, we take ourselves
way to seriously and fret when we have everything.

even if you got what you wanted, you would still be unhappy. Don't
you see that it has little to do with that? Our mind falls into
patterns and churns away good and bad.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Telling stories to myself

My friend, in explaining his justification for taking psycho-tropic pharmaceticuel medication for his mental disorder, told me a story.  About synapses and seratonin.  He is a bright guy, full of intellectual rigor and I realized quite suddenly that his decision to take this drug was because the story that was told to him about his brain made sense to him.  In fact, without that story he would not have taken it.  There had to be a story.  Now whether or not that story was complete, true, or false, is hard to assess.  Most of medicine for years and years has not been based on these stories but authority.  But the empowered consumers we are now, makes experts create elaborate stories about our brains.  And it works.  

Likewise, nations create myths, build histories bending the truth and in some cases lying outright (Israel) - but who cares, it works.  

Stories are powerful, especially the ones we tell ourselves.  

We all have them.  They either haunt us or give us a sense of worth.  But to what extent do they have to be true?  Fake stories also have their utilitarian function.  

As a child, my father used to call me a genius.  He used to say I could do whatever I wanted, that I was the smartest boy he knew.  Imagine the effect this has on a 5 year old.  I immediately felt a sense of responsibility, of having to always be the best, and prove my father right.  I often wonder how I would be if I wasn't given this encouragement as a child.  

In retrospect, I am no brighter than the average bright kid.  But my father with this story, he captured my imagination, and made me work to make it true.  

What stories do you tell yourself?  If we just break down all the narratives we have flowing endlessly in our minds, it would tell a lot about us.  I am not saying there isn't any objective reality out there, a truth, a certain way, but there are blurry lines, that can be crossed, smudged over that can make the difference, make the reality, reality.  

Positive affirmations work on this assumption.  As does Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain.  These techniques work, I don't know how, but they work.  

The mind is such a powerful thing.  Its sad that most of us subject it to television and allow other people to fill it with nonsense and worse, so many people drink it away.  Maybe they are afraid of their powers.  Of what's possible.  For with power comes responsibility.  

Dear reader (you know I love to refer to you as such), I miss you, wherever you are.  I send an electronic rose for your troubles and sorrows.


But cheer up and take in the day.

I am here in Delhi awaiting the change of seasons.  What a marvelous place to be, even as bombs go off around me.  

I know I have not written in quite sometime.  It happens.  But I owe to much to this blog to abandon it.  Whenever I meet new people and they discover this archive, I feel as if they have had the privilege of entering and playing with my soul.  If they care, at least there is a written testament to what I believe in, what moves me, and the beauty of words.  

I met a girl in Lebanon who said my style reminded her of Henry Miller.  

Another girl wanted to fuck me immediately, while reading Blake.  

This all plays so well with my narcissism.