Busy, Busy, Busy

Man, i've been busier than i've ever have been in the past. not finding time to blog as much as i'd like to. hopefully this just means the quality of it kicks up a notch because the quantity is definitely lacking. i have some good ones in store that i'm waiting to unleash but i don't want to rush them. i'm never satisfied with my posts when i rush them, well i'm not satisfied when i don't rush them either but the satisfaction exceeds that of the rushed ones. you know what i'm sayin'.

so i've been working a hell of a lot more which is good but it comes with set backs like posting less and i've taken a pay cut to work the morning shift so i can still have a social life. those cheques get a lot smaller and the savings dwindle because i go out after work on an almost daily basis. it's summer though right? gotta enjoy it while it's here. i miss watching movies all the time but i get to read at work, in fact i don't even read at home anymore. so there's the pros and cons of work right now. boring, boring, boring, boring... moving on...

THE FUNDRAISER! now before we get all excited about that exclamation mark, let me clarify that the punctuation mark represents a little bitterness for me. the whole process has somewhat soured me from wanting to do it again next year. i didn't think it would be easy but it's definitely harder than i thought it would be. well, not harder either, more like frustrating and stressful. there's not much to it really, the hardest part, the only hard part is getting people on board. ya, i know, you thought that would be the easy part. IT'S NOT! stressing, stressing, stressing, stressing... can't move on...

of course, getting close friends to come and buy tickets is not the problem. it's when you're reaching for the other ones where this becomes tricky. you definitely have to hustle and convince and harass and sell and then hustle and convince and harass and sell. you get a lot of "ya, i'll come." but in no way is that a concrete "yes". that usually just means "leave me alone, if i have nothing better to do, i might come." i'm a pretty "happy go lucky", "go with the flow" type of guy so hustling, convincing, harassing and selling isn't really in my repertoire. one of my friends on the other hand isn't having much problem at all. the guy can seriously shoot the shit with the best of them. i was with him one day, stressed about selling tickets and he got on the phone and sold like 5 in 5 minutes. i don't have it in me to chase people and bother them. i was naive in thinking people would just call me and ask for tickets. only 1 person, YES 1 PERSON! called me without me having to call first, asking for tickets.... and that was just yesterday, after about a month of promoting. now i realize i'm being a baby considering the eventual good that is to come from all this but dammit, can't things just fall into my lap!?!?!? the air on this page is getting stuffy with grievance. annoying, annoying, annoying, annoying... moving on...

i'm going through major life changes at this point and embarking on scary experiences that i know not how to handle. i will stress, i will learn, i will evolve, i will write, i will de-stress. i will stress, i will learn, i will evolve, i will write, i will de-stress. evolving, evolving, evolving, evolving... let's move on...

The Barber Shop

Us men, we have one person to brag about and endorse to others, our barber. women have their nail girls, their hair girls, their wax girls, their massage girls, their girly girly girls. we have barbers. our barber's are the best barbers in the world, ask any man that visits one. he wouldn't go to him, if he didn't think his barber was the best.

I remember going to the barber's with my dad when i was but a wee lad. this place in east van complete with that bottle thing that spins with blue, red and white stripes. i wonder what those are called, they fascinate me to this day. you don't see them too often anymore though.

I must've gone through a multitude of nameless barbers until i found Art on scott rd. art was old school. i would be shocked to find out he was still alive. he never used clippers, only scissors. that's an art in itself. the first time i went there was when my mom had to do some shopping and dropped me off for a cut while she shopped. thank god she left because art's coffee table was littered with PORN! and i'm not talking about playboy, i mean HARDCORE PORN! needless to say from then on i rode my bike for a half hour to get my fade and fix. i would hope for a wait on the way and once i got there, i would be totally nonchalant, give it a minute or two, act like i was so bored that i might as well take a look and pick up where i left off as discreet as can be. as discreet as a 12 year old boy ogling hardcore porn in a barber shop can be. there's a special relationship that takes place between every young boy and his first brush with porn. maybe not so much anymore, what with the internet and all. there's no excitement of the hunt and the eventual jackpot anymore. the kids these days don't know what they're missing, it's too easy for them, the thrill is gone. i digress, porn's a powerful agent of digression. art retired.

Now i was ready for the real thing, the lovely ladies of great clips. i learned women talk too much even when cutting hair. asking dumb questions, trying to sell me $20 bottles of shampoo and shit. peace out, bitches!

then came ali and jamaal, 2 brothers working out of a garage. probably the busiest barber shop for miles, these guys turned themselves into local celebrities and did quite well for themselves. ali moved to white rock and opened his own shop soon after, he being my go to guy, i stopped going there. jamaal too, recently opened his own full fledged barber shop on king george hwy.

My barber, vinny was a great guy working out of his car port. one of my friends discovered vinny because he lived down the street. vinny's make shift car port barber shop turned into a social hub for all the boys. my first experience of a barber shop part of a social scene (other than the one my dad went to but that social scene didn't exactly involve me). vinny was great except that he was a first class pot head and he usually insisted on smoking before cutting. he also loved his paan (an indian style chewing tobacco with spices and masala). your barber spitting in a bucket while cutting your hair doesn't exactly encourage your confidence in him. but he was a really nice guy, he'd even give me a ride home if there was no customers waiting. plus he would sing and if in the mood, he would invite you into his house to listen to him rock the tabla and sing old school hindi songs. and he gave me free haircuts in exchange for magazines i would get for free from my then place of employment, newsgroup. vinny was going to school to become a nurse. he did. end of another era.

finally, my current barber, bharat. bharat's not the best barber by any means. the best barber without a doubt is elmer, a vietnamese, soft spoken man. problem with elmer is he lives far (also working out of his garage), you have to make an appointment and he takes a full half hour but you come out looking like a million bucks. i'll go to him for my wedding or something special. right now it's all about convenience for me. bharat's basement barber shop is a 2 minute walk away. he's quick, he sings just as vinny did and it's also a neighborhood social hub but with the younger guys, a lot of my brother's friends go there.

for now, i'm satisfied with bharat. i'll save elmer for a hot date. this is my story and these are my barbers.

Friends, How Many of Us Have Them?

DISCLAIMER: this post was not written with foul inspiration stemming from an event or person. it's simply a train of thought i've been carrying in my mind for a little while hence it's erratic flow. bare with it, please. it's thoroughly sincere.

One thing i've noticed over my 29 years on this planet is that all of us are more or less the same. we all need to eat and breathe, we all have things we fear and love. we all need each other in one way or another.

it's in the details where we can become vastly different from each other. our fingerprints, our dna, how we are raised, where we are raised and by whom. these things alter who we become and the variations of these outcomes are infinite.

if i were to clone a caucasian version of my baby self and plant him, let's say in russia, i would imagine my cloned self would be a much different version of me, but would still somehow be me. i wonder how my likes and dislikes, my habits and personality would be different and how they would be the same.


that being said, i wonder if my friends would be similar to the friends i have now. we choose our friends by common interests. all my close friends are freakin hilarious and most of them love music. in fact, i have friends that became so because of our similar tastes in music and with some of them i don't think i've ever even talked about anything else.


my whole life, without realizing it, while growing up, i've automatically been drawn towards the people that make me laugh and share a similar sense of humor with. i moved around a bit and when at a new school after the initial awkwardness and shyness i made friends by cracking them up. the ability to make people laugh has served me very well in my social encounters. (if only i could somehow transfer that to this blog. being funny and being able to write funny are two completely different things, the latter being much harder.) maybe a little too well. some days when i don't want to laugh or make someone laugh, i get a lot of "what's wrong?" "something bothering you?" those questions are really what bother me. anyway, i'm losing my focus again.


i love my friends, no question, but sometimes i think if i stayed in vancouver and grew up there, would my friends really be much different from the ones i have now? i know we all like to think we're unique, but are we really? as great as my friends are, there's probably a guy just like "mike" in vancouver, in any given neighborhood. there's probably a "me" somewhere in brazil blogging bout his friends right now. only the minor details in personality are different right? maybe the other mike likes something this mike doesn't but the mike's all over are pretty much the same. are we really that lucky to have the friends we have, like we think we are?


did i just cheapen the value of friendship?
a lil bit, a lil bit. sorry for febreezing away that essence of friendship we all hold dear.

time, i think is the biggest factor in friendship or any relationship for that matter. either time spent with or time spent apart. i have friends from as far back as elementary school. i like to think i'm loyal but really i probably just have abandonment issues. which is why i think i don't like to lose touch with people. with time we realize the ones that are going to stay around. i have some friends now that have been my friends forever and are so just because of that fact. sometimes i feel if i were to meet some of them now at this point in my life, i wouldn't dislike them but i wouldn't think we would become as close of friends as we are now. so are we close friends then?


i have friends i seldom see anymore. with some, when we finally meet, we don't miss a beat. it's as if nothing's changed, we're on point with each other like tip and phife. and at the same time there's others that remind you why you don't see them that much anymore and why that fact is no longer bothersome.

the time together is why russian mike is unique from my mike. there's a reason why i want mike to come to the concert with me, to read what i read, to watch what i watched, to listen to what i listen to, to not read what i write.

you might feel, after reading this that i have no respect for friendship. you're wrong. i love my friends more than family. i chose them.

experiences shared is what makes our friends unique.

The Sun's Trap

First off, i'd like to apologize for not writing more often. the sun is directly to blame. i'm sure i've mentioned before that i write more often in the darker seasons. once the sun starts to come out for some reason i'm not as inspired. i love the sun and although it enlightens my life and spirit, it doesn't enlighten my thoughts much. i'm usually left with a false sense of euphoria. i'm a little more happy-go-lucky than usual, which in a way forces my brain to be a little more lethargic. and isn't that what happiness really is? slowing the brain down. sweeping the clutter under the rug. eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. "i think i'm dumb, maybe just happy" - kurt cobain

i've been blogging more often than i even thought i would be able to... up to about a month ago. this is has a lot to do with the fall and winter seasons. in hindsight i can see there was no way this blog would've started in spring or summer. there's something about the dark that keeps me thinking. lying in bed is when i come up with my best stuff but more often than not i'll be too lazy to get out of my warm blanket to get all the thoughts down. somewhat of an insomniac, i've written damn near whole stories and posts in my head trying to sleep. of course, this is completely counter productive towards my goals of sleeping AND writing. the faster the brain ball rolls, the further my slumber runs away.

often walks home from the bar or a friends house, with a buzz, the wind strong against my face and the occasional rain pour, start to strike strong clear thoughts and ideas within. a lot of times, i'm offered rides and my friends are perplexed to why i would walk when i can get a ride, well now you know. a lot of these posts are products of those walks. as soon as i get home i rush for my notebook or laptop.

this also explains my deep love for vancouver. lord knows, we get an abundance of rainy days and few sunny ones. but when it's here doesn't it make it that much more BRIGHTER!

the sun's bugging me right now and is holding me back from continuing further. so i'm just going free my fingers from my keyboard's cathartic grip and just enjoy the sun for what it is, the easiest, natural form of escape.

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)