Before Amitabh Went Bollywood

I don't understand how grown ass brown people born and raised in canada watch bollywood movies. i understand why people in india do, it's a huge part of their culture as hollywood is ours. art in india is mostly underground and for the rich. the people who have the time and luxury to hunt down art if they wish to. the artsy music and movies and stuff stay underground and take a far back seat to the mass produced bollywood crap. they're all for the most part, musicals and the music is the pop music of india. so the movies are like a double whammy of crapola! the soundtracks often make or break the movie. in fact, you can have an awesome movie on your hands but if the soundtrack sucks, your awesome movie, will without a doubt, fail. and you can have the shittiest movie of all time but if the soundtrack's a hit so is the movie. could you imagine if that was the case with hollywood movies? haven't seen a bollywood movie? watch grease, or mama mia then cut out the kissing, there you go. imagine watching movies like grease for the rest of your life? scary, i know.

the thing is though, the indian people haven't been exposed to much of anything else because other options are far and few. also the largely poor population just wants to escape from their shitty lives. eventhough hollywood just like bollywood find a money making trend and run with it (scary movies in the 90s, superhero movies, teenage comedies and now with the fucking vampires), hollywood also has indie productions that steer from these trends and keep things fresh and new. india doesn't really have these available to anyone other than college kids, either making or hunting them down. as critically acclaimed as some of these are, they almost never make a dime. lack of funding for promotions keeps these forever in the dark. some of these are probably more popular here than there.

i even understand why some white people watch bollywood movies, every now and then. the east indian culture has been slowly seeping into our pop culture for awhile now. it started with timbo and other producers experimenting with eastern sounds in pop music and the popularization of yoga and then finally with slumdog millionaire. all these things slowly accumulated and now the south asian culture is a full blown fad in our pop culture. it's the cool thing to do or be. but mark my words, it is just that, a fad. it will fade just as it came to the forefront. so ya, i can understand why white people watch them. but they don't live them, as some of my peers do.

i don't completely hate bollywood. i have a strong sense of nostalgia tied with them. amitabh bhachan, (the actor the slumdog chases down for an autograph covered in shit, in the movie) was my first obssession. i would watch bollywood movies growing up with my parents, well it wasn't exactly "bollywood" then, they were just hindi movies. amitabh was like brando, deniro, pacino and eastwood all rolled up into one. actually, he still is. he's not only still the biggest bollywood star of all time but he's also the focal point of all the movies he's in. he hasn't really taken the supporting role even into his 60s. anyway, i was completely obssessed with him as was every other brown kid in the world, as evidenced in slumdog. during my summers in india, my cousins and i would go on amitabh binges. watching 2-3 different movies of his EVERYDAY! our goal was to watch every movie he had ever made. WE DID! eventhough that was still fairly early in his career, he had an abundance of kick ass flicks. let me see, if i can wiki up some kind of idea of how many movies that might've been... i went to imdb and it was just over 100! obssessed to say the least. he took a break for awhile and that's also when i came back here and grew up a little and have pretty much avoided bollywood ever since. i recently heard that wal mart now carries hindi movies, so i might just pick up an old school amitabh dvd or 2.

Brainstorm

Of these boisterous winds
That carry me like wings
Across plains, I dream

Frantically across the range
With a calm so strange
That puts me at un-ease with ease

Lack of vision makes the journey excited
Lack of wisdom makes the journey un-guided
And no particular destination

Makes it one of neglect and obsession

this is my favourite piece of work, not because of what it is, but because of what it represents.

years ago i was in a hole, at the bottom of it. sitting at the floor of this well i picked up a napkin and a pen. i wanted to write like my grandpa, i wanted to write like tupac, i wanted to write like kurt, i wanted to write like anthony, i wanted to write like billy, i wanted to write like thom. (i didn't have the mental capacity to want to write like andre yet.) i wanted to write. i wanted to have something i wrote make a difference to someone else, just like all of them did for me. i was working security, which meant sitting in parking lots for hours. so ya, i picked up a napkin, i picked up a pen. i wrote.

i used to write a little here and there for kicks. i used to write really lame raps, those raps turned into something a little bit more substantial in my notebook. this is before the hole. it was camp, the fad disappeared.

but those men, that job, that hole made me find that napkin, made me find that pen. i wanted to write something substantial now.

i wrote. it was shitty. i was trying to climb out the hole. my pen and paper turned into stepping stones. my climb exposed light, my feet felt a little lighter. i wrote more crap. i wrote some more crap. same old shit, same old shit, it all sucked.

then one night i lay in bed, words swarming around me, buzzing. i grabbed my notebook, just wanting to write. knowing it's gonna suck. not knowing what to write. what to write? what to write? what to write? i need to write...

IT HIT ME, write about wanting to write!

i wrote "brainstorm" in seconds! minutes would do that thought more justice. it happened so fast but i'm sure not as fast as it felt! despite time, it was sooooo easy, sooooooo natural, soooooo perfect, soooooooo like i wanted it be!

immediately after writing it, i knew this is all i want. this feeling of self accomplishment, this feeling of self validation, this feeling of self produced euphoria. self. me. this is what i want to do. i want to do this over and over and over and over...

i was already writing not realizing it was what i loved to do. after that blessed moment of writing and reading what i wrote, i knew it! i impressed myself! i got HIGH off it! i didn't believe it! did i just make that up? did i just write that? did that come from me? did i just write something deeply mine? at the same time could this be completely different to someone else? i smiled, like i've never smiled. i wanted that feeling again....

i've been chasing that feeling ever since....

Just 'Cause You Feel It Doesn't Mean It's There

Freedom, love, hatred, happiness, anger, trust, confidence, spirit, soul, belonging, security, warmth, hospitality, generosity, wealth, sorrow, intellect, artistry, reliability, camaraderie, relation.... SELF.

the title of this post is a lyric from a song called, "there, there" by radiohead. the very first time i heard it, it struck me instantly, the lyric, i mean. i thought about it over and over, and what it meant. then all of a sudden it hit me! it was so obvious. above is what i think it means. it's up to you to decide what it means to you. what does it mean to you?

i'll take this opportunity to inform those who have not realized yet, that a lot of the titles to my posts are lyrics of songs. a lot of times i'll hear things in music and they will spark something in my head completely different than their intention, so i assume.

let's run through;

the miseducation of amman parmar was named after lauryn hill's album, the miseducation of lauryn hill

i don't like to dream about getting paid; title of a song by the dogg pound, a very diffenent song than what i posted to say the least

it's evolution, baby; is from pearl jam's "do the evolution"

on the side of my bed, where no good ever stayed; is a lyric from "jazzybelle" by outkast

(i originally wrote this post on the 22nd of last dec. the first paragraph anyway)