When I Die

DJ In The Making. Half Life 2 Is Out.

30th October, 2004

The new batch of freshers came in a week or two back, and today we had the fresher's party.

What this is supposed to do is help those poor freshers get along with us seniors (break the ice, forge new relationships, burn some hearts, and so on and so forth).

We got a DJ who played some lousy trance songs and then me and a buncha guys went and told him--despite the protest of many--to play some heavy duty metal. He started belting out soppy Guns-n-Roses. I hate 'em.

So I asked the DJ to take a hike, filled in for him and played what I consider to be heavy metal. Rob Zombie, Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Metallica, Marilyn Manson, Bush...

And we played it all so loud on those big speakers, the feeling was out of this fuckin world. The fellow rockers had already started banging their heads, the others were wondering what the fuck was going on. They were all looking at me and probably thinking, How the fuck can a little dude like that listen to stuff like that!

I loaded in Scorpion's "Rock You Like A Hurricane". Not a Metal song by any means, but at the decibels I was playing, with every single guitar riff amplified, it sounded like Marilyn Manson on DMT.

Halfway through the song, Umesh came up to me and said, "The Principal's here."

And that fat grouch came trudging right behind Umesh. He asked me what the hell was I doing. And my fellow rockers told the Principal to quit the damn nagging, it was their fuckin day, for Christ's sake.

So the Principal went packing, and we started grooving back.

Two hours later, soaked to the damn bones, I finally stepped off.

And the DJ looked at me like I was some kind of freak from Planet X.

"What?" I asked.

"Why'd you fuckin hire me," he said, "when you had you?"

"For the mainstream masses," I said.

He grinned, went back to playing his stupid trance songs (and gave me a look which said, "Hey, I don't like this stuff. I just play it."), and I left the DJ podium.

Outside, in the green lawn, they'd put up a makeshift stage.

And they were asking the students to do a pole dance up there. Now, as long as the guys and the girls did it seperate, I didn't mind.

But then a couple of girls and a couple of guys climbed on stage and started grinding their crotches on the pole together; and that sent my circuits on overload.

It was just so damn pathetic. Vulgar doesn't come even close.

And the crowd cheered them on, and they danced and danced.

What happened, I think is this: they mistook notoriety for popularity. Many kids do that, you know. The guys, for them it's getting famous; you know, getting the chicks. What they do end up doing is getting labelled. Labeled strange.

Does that sound like a party pooper? Well, I don't think so.

There's other ways to have fun. Even dirty, stupid fun.

And I think most kids know this. Then why do they do all their stupid shitfests, anyway? I think it's because they're scared to speak their mind. Peer pressure, folks. It brings you down. At least it brings most people down.

What most people don't know is that everyone is just as full of shit as themselves. And there's no point in doing something if you don't want to.

Anyway, don't want to brood on that a lot; I'm sure there are about a million books out there on Life Of The 15-25 Year Old.

During all the cheap shit was going on on the stage, I went to the rest room upstairs and splashed myself with water all over. Pulled my hair all the way back like Jack Nicholson, tucked my now out shirt inside. Then wrapped a handkerchief over my forehead cause I was still sweating like crazy.

I came out, glanced through the balcony, and downstairs, on the stage, the guy had removed his T-shirt and was flaunting his skinny bones for all to see. Everyone was laughing, but he didn't see that, did he? Didn't know that there's a difference between being laughed at and laughing along with.

I started climbing downstairs, met a professor (one of the few good ones in our college). And he gave me bad news: they were terminating his services along with the other good professors. Why, I asked, and he said, "Because I don't have the right qualifications." He doesn't have a PhD.

This guy who's taught for ten years, who teaches better than most professors I've known, who knows his subject, for a change. They're removing him. Why? 'Cause he doesn't have some shitty piece of paper saying he's got a degree. And a degree that is not even fucking related to the course he's teaching.

What a fucking pisser. And the bigger pisser is that no other college could take him either; because of the same reason.

"What are you gonna do," I asked. "After this, I mean."

He shook his head. "I haven't really thought about it. You don't prepare yourself for something like this, you know."

"Private classes?" I asked. "We'll send plenty of students your way."

"I'll think about it," he said. "I'll still be there till the end of the sem, though. So there's some time yet." Then he smiled a sad little smile and left.

I think Fate is a bitch where good men are concerned. The really amazing men, they're always the ones life keeps pushing around.

I walked down thinking about what'll happen to this college if all the good guys leave (like they will at the end of the sem--'sem' means Semester; that is, a half-term--or six months--for those who don't know).

Someone clipped a paper heart on my chest and said, "You gotta play the game, man."

The game, he said, goes like this: if you're playing, you get a small paper heart the size of a cookie clipped to your clothes. When you see another person wearing a paper heart, you go and ask him/her something. If they say no to your question, they have to give you their heart. If they say yes, they're exempt. Same applies to you; if someone asks you something and you say no, you give your heart to them and you're out of the game, unless you buy another paper heart for five bucks.

I normally don't do such cookie-stuff, but I was in one of my stupid moods so I decided to win the fucker if I could.

So I saw a girl I'd never seen in my life before, went to her, and she was wearing a paperheart. The other guys would've asked questions like, "How about a date" or something (she couldn't refuse, remember. If she did, she lost). I asked, "Do you know my name?" Of course she wouldn't, is what I thought.

"Oh yeah," she went. "Your K--, right?"

Oh yeah, she wouldn't know. Right. No shit, Sherlock.

A guy came up to me, wearing a paperheart. "Say, you gay?" he asked.

"Yeah," I went. "Wanna party?"

He shook his head and went away while me and my temporary nuisance buddies (TNB) laughed.

Blokes were standing in a line at the food booth. And I went to one of the guys standing in front and saw he was wearing a heart. I asked him, "Can I stand in front of you in the queue, pal?" The line was quite big, about fifty kids at the least. And this guy was standing about two away from the food.

He shook his head. Then decided against it, and started to take me in, remembering the game. And everyone behind him started cussing so he didn't let me in and lost his paperheart.

That's how it went and I got about fifteen paperhearts.

Someone asked me if I'd ever slept with a guy. I said, "Sure, when I was a kid." He went away stupidly.

By then my woozy mood was swooning back to its usual self, so I went and sat on the pavement and rested my head on one of the pillars and closed my eyes and yawned while the DJ played some shit-eating hindi remix song.

And I opened my eyes and Ash stood there. Looking like you wouldn't believe.

"Where've you been?" she asked. "We looked all over for you, KC!"

I told her I was sleeping on the second floor cause I had a headache.

"He's lying," Sid said, showing up from nowhere. "He was spinning all those Metal tracks you heard."

"Oh," Ash said. "I should've known." She looked at my paperheart. "You got a heart."

"I got fifteen," I said. "You're not wearing one."

She sat down beside me. No perfume about her, no sir. Which was way better than all the smelly stuff most other people squirt under their arms.

"I lost mine," she said.

"What happened?" I asked. "Who's the sad guy?"

"Very funny." She rolled her eyes. "A guy asked me if he could write my name on his T-shirt inside a heart shape. And if I could sign below that. Jesus, what a goofball." She laughed. "So I took my heart out, gave it to him and told him, 'sorry, buster, tough luck, but I got better options than you.'"

"Who was the guy," I asked.

Sid sat cross-legged in front of me and said, "You know that Anish?"

Anish is a guy with fat hips, crooked teeth, a generally arrogant pissant mind, and an attitude which spews out EGOBRAIN by the bucketload.

"What better options?" Sid asked.

"Definitely not you, Sid," Ash said. And we all laughed. Then she said, "I got a few."

And Sid looked at Rishi and both winked like they knew something we didn't.

"It's a stupid game, anyway," Nisha said, her hands on her hips. She didn't sit down. With the kind of jeans she was wearing, it's a miracle she could walk around in the first place. What's with girls and tight jeans, anyway? Sheesh. I'm sure most guys appreciate (and ogle over) that, but ma'am, how can you fuckin stand those tight little things? Forget that, how do you get into them in the first place? Shrink-wrapping or something?

"Yeah," I went. "The game's stupid all right. Worse than kids' stuff."

Ash nodded. "It's way better than the stuff those guys were doing upstairs, though."

I asked her what stuff.

"Trust me," she said. "You don't want to know."

I found it out later, anyway, cause such stuff always gets around. And trust me, you don't want to know.

Rishi handed us a couple of bottles of Mountain Dew and we drank it. Cool and refreshing, but nothing like Limca. Limca is tops. Second only to Canada Dry. those sons of assholes stopped producing Canada Dry in India 'cause it didn't sell very well. The good stuff is always under-appreciated, I think. Pink Floyd, anyone? System Shock 2? BMXing? How about The X Files?

On stage, they were starting their singing round. Karaoke and stuff.

Kapil and Meena and Gauri asked me to sing and I told them no way, Jose. Not happening. Kapil had a heart on his chest, so I had to give him all my fucking hearts 'cause I said no.

Well, lah-di-dah.

"Well," Ash said, "you lost all your hearts now."

"Still got one," I said. Tapped my real heart. And then thought about how cheesy, corny, mushy it sounded. Like something straight out of a Mills & Boons story.

"That's fucking sick," Rishi said.

"Absolutely," I said. "Sorry."

And then someone or a lot of someones yanked me up from my little seat and carried/pushed/shoved me all the way to the DJ's podium and commanded me to start the headbangin again, brother.

So I did. And it was fun. That handkerchief wrapped over my forehead soaked so much sweat it fell down due to the damn weight. I tied it up again while Soundgarden sang about the Black Hole Sun (mixed with Smashing Pumpkins' Soma).

When I got tired enough to see black spots, I quit. But not before I did a pretty nifty mix of Metallica's The Memory Remains and Pink Floyd's Hey You and Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall and Manson's The Reflecting God (letting them sing along all the time, pausing and muting tracks all the time) and Pearl Jam's Dissident.

And then I played the last three minutes of Metallica's Nothing Else Matters. When the guitar riff came on, I closed my eyes, pushed the fader all the way to max, and was dead sure the last one minute would burst the damn speakers.

It was like nothing I've ever known before. The sound, they way it blanked everything else out completely. The way it became the whole universe. The way it filtered everything out and pounded in my head like I was dying.

When the cobra guitar died away, I felt so huge I thought I'd bulge and ripple and explode.

When I came out, Mike took me by the shoulders, said, "That, pal, was fucking awesome. Fucking awesome!" Mike hasn't got much of a face, but when he's happy, really happy, his face lights up like a nebula spark and man, is it gorgeous.

Nothing like what I saw next, though. Ash. Her first words were, "How did you do that!"

I started to tell her that there was nothing special about it. Anybody could do that shit. And I didn't cause doing it would've taken that look away from her face.

"You fuckin genius!" Sid said.

And I don't understand shit about it. All I did was move some faders and change some discs at the right time, is all. All I did is know beforehand where which part of a song comes, thanks to all those endless listening sessions, is all. Everything else was done by the amazing speakers, buds. I didn't do anything worth jack shit that a thousand other DJs don't do in clubs (and do better than me, I must say) every day. All I have over the ordinary music listeners is a keener sense of timing, is all. Ask any musician, he'll tell you what I just did. Making good music/singing well is all about having that ear for what fits and what sucks.

So I asked them to quit it, cut it out. And after a while they did, which was a relief.

Nisha said I had to friggin teach her how to do it. So later, just after they unhooked the speakers from the amps, I showed her how. It's easy, really. Anybody who's operated a standard CD deck will get it as easy as a bicycle rider gets the motorcycle. I mean, I got it in half an hour. And if I can do it, buster, anyone can. I mean, I'm probably the only guy in the world who learned to tie his shoelaces after he learned to use the potty.

And though it has no connection, just before leaving, the DJ asked if I was interested in DJing at Razzberry Rhinoceros. I haven't decided yet. I'm not sure if I can spin stupid remixes and hiphop. And I don't think many people listen to what I like best apart from metal, which is psytrance or psychedelic ambient. Or experimental. Anything that isn't mainstream, in other words.

Back to the current timeline. It was evening by now, and most of the head bangers and the disco dancers were shit tired, and a good many of them simply left, still shaking their asses and wiping their brows.

I was hungry. So I gobbled down a couple of vada-pavs (potato burgers, like I mentioned somewhere else) and then shared some fried rice with Ash and Manoj.

And then a few other minorly significant things happened, but they're not worth mentioning (and my hands--my fingers--are tired from typing and pressing buttons and wiping sweat).

We left in the pitch black night.

And Ash and Nisha came to my home even though it was nine in the night. Mom wasn't home, gone out to Shirdi. Will be back Sunday.

They wanted to see my music collection. Nisha in particular. Well, I know what getting carried away by real rock feels like to a new listener, so I guess I know why she wanted to see my music shack.

And I felt a stupid, boyish little privilige of walking home with one goddamn beautiful and one not half-bad looking girl.

We yapped mostly about the day at home.

I asked them if their parents would worry about them staying out so late (well, Indian parents are way too protective about their girls--and it's right too, India ain't safe for women). They called their parents up and said they were at my house. Nisha's Mom/Dad/Someone asked her who the fuck I was and she said I was a friend and I was all right, but Mom/Dad/Someone didn't sound convinced. Not that I heard the other end speak but Nisha's talking pretty much told me everything.

Ash's Mom knows about me, of course. And I hope I'm in her Mom's "NOT RABID" group of guys.

Nisha told us about the time she wore braces and how she heard chittering sounds all the time, and how they pissed her off. And she said that Nirvana's You Know You're Right sounded just like that and it pissed her off, but in a good way. I said amen.

Mom called up and wanted to know what the female voices in the background were and I told her it was the TV. And those two dumbheads went ahead and screamed, "Hey, K-, is that your girlfriend!" right then. Mom didn't say anything, but I guess I'm in deep shit when she gets home.

Then we went down and walked to the circle and sat there in the cool breeze and the soft streetlights. A couple of muffaroos (ruffians) walked past and ogled the girls like a dog ogles at freshly cut turkey. Geez, sometimes it's sad being a part of species Male, y'know.

Ash asked, "Sonya come back yet?"

I shook my head. "Not yet."

"Who's Sonya?" Nisha asked.

"His special friend," Ash said. "Very special, right?"

"You got a girlfriend after all, huh?" Nisha said.

"You're a shithead," I told Ash.

"You got a girlfriend?" Nisha again. Disbelief, as if I couldn't ever have one. And who can say she's not right to wonder, anyway?

"You tell her or I'll start my voices," I told Ash.

And Ash, as ever afraid of my voices, told Nisha about Sonya.

"Since you were kids. Man!" Nisha said.

"Sounds too damn cute, I know," I said. "There were seven of us."

And that's all she's gonna get from me. My brotherhood isn't for everyone to know about.

"And that's all he's gonna tell us, right?" Ash said.

I nodded. "We did lotsa bad things and we doan need no stinkin copses and Eff-Bee-Eye after us, mesdemesseleures."

"What the heck was that last part?" Nisha asked.

"French," I said. "Or Spanish, or something. Who cares?"

More stupid talk, and then some more, and then my brain gave me a nice message: go to sleep now or you'll drop dead.

So I sweet-talked them into leaving, got them in an autorickshaw, walked home, typed this up, and now am gonna shut it down and go to friggin sleep.

Muchos love,
---Chimp - Awesome DJ in the making.

PS: This entry was for Sonya, who tells me I write more about everything else except what's happening in my life--day in, day out.

#

1st November, 2004

Kingdom Hospital

Been home for two weeks, didn't shave, have got a beard the size of a horse's tail, didn't bathe for a couple of days, and smell like recycled shit.

Why, you ask?

No particular reason. I guess beneath the usual squeaky-clean guy, there's a lazy, badass monster who likes discord, who doesn't give a shit.

Well, I do have an itsy bitsy excuse: I was studying for the exams (they start on November 17th), and like I've said before, exams can take a floating fuck at a water rat.

The thing I want to talk about is Kingdom Hospital. Just saw the first episode yesterday. It's typical King. Consider the deal about him rehashing his accident from another point of view yet again, consider that antelope, consider the way the dog says, "How do I know, I'm just a dog"; consider all that and you know it's typical King.

I don't know where this tale is headed, but I'm in for the ride.

What I noticed, though, is King's narration. His vocal background narration. Cool, distant, a little wide-eyed. Just like his writing. Not many writers have that knack, you know. Not many talk like they write. Chuck doesn't. Ramsey Campbell doesn't (though in his case his narration's better). Harlan Ellison doesn't.

King narrates the tale the way you'd narrate it to a bunch of kids (I know, I've done it a few times--and let me tell you, there's nothing like telling a story to kids).

Many people criticize his work, you know. Ever since From A Buick 8, there's this FUCK KING trend going on. Well, I don't think so. What I'd have you consider is this: that man could've hung up his socks thirty years ago, said, "Screw you, world, I got all the money I need and I'm gonna do whatever the righteous fuck I feel like." You know why he didn't? Same reason he narrates those tales the way he does: he likes telling stories. Simple as that.

It comes down to all the stuff I wrote about art in the previous entry. If God has given you a gift, you just can't not use it. It keeps itching at the back of your spine if you don't use it.

All that money, all that fame, and he still is so humble. You don't even have to meet him to know it. Just read his frigging work. I'd be damn glad if I were as humble as he is. I'm not. I'm a rash, pretentious, ugly little asshole you won't like having within three miles of your sister.

Many have said that he lost his touch after the accident. I don't think so. Dreamcatcher is one of his very best books. Right up there with It and The Shining.

People say Buick's ending was a letdown. Ditto Dreamcatcher. Well, I'm not a fan of big climaxes, and that's part of the reason I like King. I guess you'll notice that little thingy if you read my tales: no big endings. In fact, if I had my way, I'd never resolve a conflict if the story didn't ask for it.

I haven't read his Dark Tower books, and many a fan have said the last two DT books are a letdown.

Well, I guess the letdown will be the ending. I think King will end DT in a way that ain't so romantic.

Now, I don't have a clear idea of what the Dark Tower is about, but from reading his other books (they all connect to the DT in some way) it's about Roland and his quest to find the dark tower--a tower held together by beams which are being broken by special creatures called Breakers.

According to me, here are the possible endings:

1) I guess Roland'll pick up a few companions on his travel. I think all of them will die and he alone will find the DT. It's the classic voyage story. Remember LOTR? There the companions didn't die, but Frodo did leave most of them behind, didn't he?

2) Once he gets there, the story ends.

3) Or, he goes inside, and he finds himself back at the beginning of the very first book. Lather, rinse, repeat. I wanted something to end this way for a long, long time. Fuck the critics, fuck the way everyone says this kind of ending would be fooling and tricking the reader. I want to actually read something that has the guts to end this way. And if Dark Tower is the best King ever wrote, this is the way it should end.

I don't see how else he could end it.

Any which way, I've heard that DT 7 is his last fiction work.

If so, then an era--quite possibly the biggest era in fiction--ends.

All hail the Age of the King.

And unlike le roi est mort, I hope this age ends with vive le roi.

Long live the King.

Bless him.

<>

Paris Hilton, poor rich gal

There's a new series here featuring some thin "doll" called Paris Hilton who leaves her big, fancy life and goes to live in a farm.

Why the fuck should I care?

What exactly are they trying to show here? That the rich can still get along with milking cows?

Why the fuck do I want to know that?

When I go to sleep at night, will knowing Paris has a limo but for the show she walks in stupid slippers--will knowing that make sleeping any easier for me?

What the hell is wrong with reality TV, anyway? I don't want reality TV. Like, hello, I watch TV to forget reality for a while.

Why the fuck should I care whether a guy chooses a chick over a million dollars or the money over the chick?

And do you seriously expect me to believe that reality TV is really real? That Paris doesn't go to sleep in her motorhome when the day's shoot is over? You have to be pretty fucking stupid to think I'm stupid enough to believe it.

Are these shows supposed to tell us that hey, look, celebrities are really human, just like you, no different?

Well, I know that (there's one rule of life I believe in: everyone else is just as full of shit as I am, and I am just as full of shit as everyone else), but they are still about ten million times richer than me, ain't they?

So if Paris gets a boil on her poor foot from walking too much, I don't give a fiddler's fart. If Pammy's insomniac, well, she can kiss a dog and make it sing lullabies. If *insert poster guy here* is sad cause *insert poster girl here* broke his heart, well, fuck you very much, amigo.

What exaclty is it that interests people about the lives of the rich and famous?

I don't get it. It's not even fun.

Oh, please, you mean to tell me knowing why exactly Ben Affleck broke up with J-posterior is the most important goddamn information in the world? Or is it knowing how many pets Ozzy Osbourne has?

I'd rather study (which I truly abhor) than know such stuff.

Reality TV can kiss my bender. E! can kiss it doubletime.

The only reality TV show worth a damn is the DAILY NEWS. That's reality. In your face.

<>

How often do you...

...really love being alive? I don't exactly know what's come over me, but now I'm glad to be alive almost all the time. Everytime something good happens, I think, Now that wouldn't have happened if I was dead, right?

Shit still happens, but that's part of the package.

There's good stuff happening too.

Watching The Village is an example. As is getting to watch Kingdom Hospital.

You might think the above are small, trivial joys.

But for me they're not, you see. I'm quite happy with such happiness. These small things.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't take any big things if you gave 'em to me, but I wouldn't care if you didn't.

These small things.

Things like still getting to hear Shpongle's "Are You Shpongled?" whenever I please.

Things like hearing the music I want to hear.

Things like having a choice in everything I do: movies, music, games.

Things like looking forward to getting Half Life 2 someday in the future. (Next to next year, maybe. The game releases on 14th November, but I don't think I'll get it in India anytime soon. And I don't know if they'll ship a CD-ROM version or if it'll be on DVD. If it's on DVD I don't have a DVD-ROM drive and will have to wait till God knows how long. Five years maybe.)

Thins like waiting for my brotherhood in my inbox.

Things like meeting good people.

Things like telling a joke or reading a story out loud and wondering if they're really along for the ride or just putting me on (it always feels like both).

Things like playing an instrument, singing.

Things like writing.

Things like reading.

Things like hearing a few people speak--not caring what they say, but hearing their voices. Ash comes to mind. Sonya comes to mind. Wally comes to mind.

Things like walking on a street and suddenly flashing back to a sweet memory.

Things like eating your favorite food.

Things like breathing the clear morning air.

Things like feeling the wind brushing your face through the bus window on route to college.

Things like watching a young boy getting up to let an old man sit in the bus.

Things like remembering what love feels like.

Things like sneezing your lungs out and then looking in the mirror with your red-rimmed eyes and puffy nose and saying, "What a life, huh?"

Things like reading in the toilet.

Things like bathing.

Things like writing in candlelight.

Things like hanging around with someone in the dead of the night.

Things like running the back of your hand on a turned off PC monitor and watching all the hair stand up.

Things like waking up from a nightmare.

Things like waking up from a dream.

Things like hearing someone use a word you say often. Like watching someone do something you do often--like a two-fingered salute, or a thumbs-up with a wink.

Things like idolizing a guy. Doesn't matter if he's a drug junkie. Doesn't matter if he's dead.

Things like wishing you had someone to mess with your hair in the dead of the night.

Things like dismissing the above line as bullshit.

Things like knowing that the above isn't really bullshit.

I'm glad I'm alive when things like these happen.

I really am.

<>

And I Think To Myself...

...what a wonderful world.

Was looking out my window, the road below, the trees, the cars.

A little boy and a little girl--probably eight or younger--walked down the pavement, arm-in-arm.

Writing about it feels stupid and romantic. But right then, watching them--him in his black pants and yellow shirt and her in her white T-shirt and blue skirt--I felt awfully happy.

No, the right word is gleeful. For those three minutes, that Louis Armstrong song ran home for me. All the way.

Maybe it was they way watching them reminded me of my walks down that same pavement--with Sonya, with Ronnie, or with someone not in my brotherhood.

They were talking--I suppose they were talking about owning the world, or maybe it was that all favorite topic: cartoons--I don't know, but they were happy, the girl was giggling, and they were pacing forward to the beat of a song they probably heard in their heads.

When they disappeared, the magic seemed to diminish--not leave,exactly, but lessen.

What I did before I lost all of it is get down and write it.

<>

U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind

This one's a big kick in the guts to all those pretentious rock bands out there. You want rock? This is rock. No heavy guitars here, not even the slightest hint of those oh-so-mundane heavy metal riffs. This is just straight fire-gelled rock: the words, the theme, the emotion.

Brian Eno produced this album. Can an ambient album rock? This is living proof it can.

Bono's lyrics, coming from someone else's mouth might feel a bit amateur. But coming from his mouth--his voice--they sound so damn soulful you wonder if there's something wrong with you for calling his words amateurish.

Sample: Life should be fragrant.

I'm sure we've all heard life compared to almost everything out there. Life should be peaceful, life should be like a this, like a that, like a motherfucking bat.

But fragrant?

I don't think I've ever heard that before. Not in my life. And that line is deceptively powerful. Life should be fragrant. Why not, most of the time, life is shit. And I don't think shit smells good, does it?

Thing is that the sense of smell is ignored so often in music that just a simple word brings up scents. And the combination of sound and scent is more potent that any other--visual, symbolic, any other.

What I remember from my farewell party most clearly is the smell of it all, and the sound of it all. Amy's light perfume, Amy's hair, mint, cool sea breeze. Aerosmith and Bryan Adams and some stupid hindi singer singing We Are The Champions, And We Can Conquer The World If We Want.

There's a song on the album: "Walk on".

Hear it.

It'll relieve you of a few things.

To be very honest, I didn't expect such a deep, resonant album from an outfit like U2. I mean, sure, I like their music. Joshua Tree is one of my favorite albums.

But this album is a complete rarity. Something I would expect from a Pink Floyd, a Dire Straits, a Pearl Jam. Not from U2.

It happens sometimes. Everything goes right on an album, as if the album is working itself out. Remember Metallica's Black Album? Same here. Forces colliding.

U2 as a band have been somewhere in the background. Never as excessive as a glam-rock outfit as, say, Guns-N-Roses, but never quite reaching that subdued cult status that you'd associate with Bush. They've been the intelligent rock fan's pop artist. That's the best way I can put it.

The intelligent rock fan's pop artist.

Hear this album if you haven't. You'll love it because it's honest. You'll love it because its merciless. You'll love it because the most pungent truths are conveyed in a simple, melodic, shy manner.

As Bono sings of Grace, this album brings beauty to everything.

My words don't do this album justice, really. You owe it to yourself to check it out.

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Writing About People Doing It

A good friend here at W.com suggested that I try my hand at some sex. His/her argument was, what the heck, it can't hurt, right? I kinda agreed. I also agreed that suppose I had to write about it someday... and suppose I fucked it up then. It's better to fuck it up right now.

I may be lazy, but when it comes to fuck ups, I'm as punctual as old Death.

So I gave it a try. Halfway through the disrobing (jerking their clothes away is more like it), it hit me: just what the fuck was I doing, anyway? This was all so absurd I burst out laughing. Giggling, really.

Why the heck was I writing about a hunk and a babe getting it on when I could be writing some stuff I really want to write? Like that story about a man donating his eyes to an eyebank in his will and then waking up blind in heaven (or hell, he doesn't know where he is), or the one about the room which changes seasons everyday. Why wasn't I writing about that?

What I had written wasn't a sex scene, not really. What it was was a guy's first time. You know, the confidence he would feel when a women let him touch her breast, the amazement he'd feel at seeing her naked, the nervous fear of what she'd think of his naked body, his dick; the amazement at just how it feels like to go in her--just how fucking different from a hand or a cold-cream-slicked hand. That kinda thing. In short, it was everything you'd expect to read from a virgin.

I read the junk once again. Felt like reading a stupid Sheldon/Collins/Robbins novel. And God forbid I ever have to read one of those again.

It also felt lifeless. I can't give two cahoots about someone I don't know about. That's pretty much why porn doesn't work for me, I guess. They could be pigs in to-and-fro motion instead of men and women in those porn videos, for all it does me. The other stories I write, I care about the guys--might not seem like it, from the way I butcher their lives apart almost all the time, but I care. Here I just didn't. I briefly wondered if this could take on a horror twist. But that succubi thing has been done before, done to death. So has the incubus thing. And any other form of weird take on sex would just sound like a different version of a succubus or a vampire.

You know what? I stopped writing that piece of junk right then and there. Was it me bowing out? Was it pure cowardice? I don't know. It's just that I was trying to do something the guy from the unsane didn't want me to. I was doing something because someone else told me to. Like asking Peter Straub to write like Sydney Sheldon or asking Walt Disney to make pornography.

You might think I'm sounding prude--and maybe I am--but writing about sex just for the sake of sex doesn't do it for me. It just doesn't please me like writing about weird things just for the sake of their weirdness does.

I think some people are just wired to do somethings and some people are not. Many people look upon erotica writers as assholes and many people look upon horror writers as assholes. So we're all in the same boat. We're all writers.

If I can't write about sex, it's a shortcoming, more than anything. Because a writer does little more than put emotion into words. And if he can't do it--write about love, write about fear, or passion, in this case--he's gonna pay for it. Somehow.

I don't care, though. I'm quiet happy writing about my monsters and ghosts and things that aren't there. They please me. And I hope they please you.

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Just what the fuck is going on here?

Where have all the good folks gone? Seems like an age since I last talked with them. Kali? She left the site. Pita? We talk, okay, but we don't YAP like we used to. Anood. She's back now, thank heavens for that.

RAIN! Where are you? I miss you, miss you, miss you.

Ambie! Where are you?

Mari!

Dyrad! You're back!

Gyppy. He left the site. He had a big foul-up and got demoted... but forget that. He was one of the finest writers here. Probably the best. He'll get published someday. I'll buy his book if I ever get it in India. Promise. He just had his shit together. He was opinionated, sure, I suppose some of you considered him an asshole, but he wrote like you wouldn't believe.

Tal! He left too.

Andrea! Been ages since we chatted. Been ages since I read thy work.

PB! He's been away for so long!

Chris left right after I got promoted to blue, but that guy was a good man, all right.

Shit, I don't want to look back upon the time I spent here on W.com, because it's too emotional, and because this entry is already too big.

Suffice to say that wherever you are, folks, you have my wishes. May you sleep fine every night and may you have more joy than sorrow, more comfort than pain, more music than crying, more words than silence.

Love you,
---Chimp.

18th November, 2004: GOD IS HERE

Half Life 2 released today. I'm just about shit-tired of typing, but I am gonna talk about this. I know it's not fair, I know it's not right, but I FUCKING HATE living in India right about now. I'll have to wait a whole year before we get that game here. And I don't have any money either to get it right now, so even if it were available, well, all I can do is kiss my sweet ass.

Just reading the delicious review on pczone.co.uk makes me want to kill someone. Yeah, kill someone. Angry doesn't even fucking come close. I don't want much, not most of the time, but I've wanted this for three fucking years. That long. I want it. I want it. I want it.

You might think it's stupid to go this crazy over a computer game, but I am CRAZY and I don't mind that one fucking bit.

All of you people reading this. Grab your wallet, go out, get this game and play it. Use your fucking chance. Use it cause I don't have one.

I got no money, or I would've downloaded the game via STEAM. But I don't got no fucking internet connection worth shit either, so there goes my baby down the shit-well.

Yeah, okay, thousands of kids in Afhganistan don't get their food daily. I should be glad I get at least that.

But before you tell me that, go tell it to Colin Farrell. Tell it to Arnie fucking Vinegar. Tell it to *insert big corporate asshole*, tell it to his grandson. Tell it to Schumacher, tell it to Sampras. Tell it to the prince of England. Tell it to your Hiltons and your Mercedes, and your Fords and your Spears and your Williams and your Bruckheimers and your Sodenbergs and your Spielbergs.

See if they give a shit.

I don't think they'll fucking play this game, so how about asking them to send me the game? For charity, y'know.

See if they give a shit.

50 cent--don't like him--but what he said was true: get rich or die trying.

And then see if anyone gives a shit.

Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

Yeah.

---Chimp. Pissed off, and how.

PS: Moral outrage aside, here's the sober me asking you something: play that game for me, will ya? I've been saying it before, but right now I mean it. Play it for me. You know, I wanted to wipe the entire entry you just read (the stuff about the freshers' party, et al) and replace it with just this bit about Half Life 2. I wanted to have an entry title which went: BUY HALF LIFE 2 NOW OR SUFFER MY WRATH.

PPS: I could get a pirated copy for 100 rupees (three dollars), but I've never done that before and God, if I do it for a game like HL2, I don't deserve the right to be called a gamer.

PPPS: Notice how I said "BUY IT AND PLAY IT" and not "BUY IT AND SEND IT TO ME, PLEASE"? I could've asked. I think a few of you would even get the game for me (love you folks), but I didn't; and the reason why I didn't is not necessary. The ones who know me, know the reason, and will nod their heads now. The ones who don't... well, some other time. I came this close--this close--to asking you and everyone I know, though. I came this close.

At a higher altitude with flag unfurled, we reach the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world... - Pink Floyd, "High Hopes"

The sphere was solid with Plunkett, and only waited for someone to be in. Like, like the meaning of a word waiting for a word to be the meaning of. - John Crowley, "Engine Summer"


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