I completed a month on the new job yesterday. There are lots of things I don't like about the place ... stuff I miss from the old company. Like paper cups. India's third largest IT company and they don't got paper cups. Bludy pisses me off. You gotta taka a damn mug and wash it before and after you have your coffee. Is this how they counter the effects of the appreciating Rupee, I wonder? Just a matter of time before they tell us to bring our own coffee in a flask from home. Also there are no paper napkins in the loo (nobody seems to know why) ... next thing you know there'll be no toilet tissue! Seriously, it wouldn't surprise me.

***

So Mel's gone interactive. Pretty damn cool having your blogger talk to you, innit? But don't be expecting me to do no such thing ... public speaking is something that always scared me shitless.

I was wondering the other day -- how many of you actually like the music I play .... and how many of you even listen? Not too many I reckoned. So it was nice to get an email from Sangy this morning telling me the music does nice things for her soul :)

And she's got a request ... seems she's a Paul Hewson fan. Me too. Awesome bugger that Paul Hewson. Here he is babe ... just for you.

I'm driving through the Mojave in my open SUV, the hot desert wind lashing my face. Got a freezer-box with a couple of six-packs in the back, and lots of great muzak. Anybody wanna hop in next to me?? ... we'll be in Vegas by sundown :)

we are like flies
all looking for something to feast on
some feast on something sweet
others feast on shit!

At least if he had used that AK-56 of his to shoot this donkey dead, it would have been worth it going to jail for 6 years. What a waste!

Someone suggested the next part in the Munnabhai series be called 'Chud gaya Munnabhai'.

No comment.

***

Also it seems there was a Save Sanju (what is he - a whale?) campaign being planned by some jokers in Bollywood. However his sister Priya has asked them to desist from any such move.

But do you think such a campaign could actually influence the decision of the Supreme Court? And if the media had to join in, would we see an outcome like we did in the Jessica Lall case? One can only wonder.

From the soundtrack to Reservoir Dogs ... Stuck in the middle with you.

I can still see him sometimes, his head leaning out of the window, the breeze gushing at his face, humming a tune. He never liked talking to the other kids on the journey home. School would get over at 5 pm and in the winters it was almost sundown by that time. It was a feeling he loved. And he would dream ... about all sorts of things, disturbed only by the sight of a fancy sports car that pulled up alongside.

Now he just rolls the window up, rests his head back against the seat and dozes off, wondering where all those dreams died.

the struggle never ceases

we just call it different things
at different times

I wish companies would stop trying to drill their so called "values" into the heads of new joinees. Because to me it sure didn't seem like anybody preset at todays induction gave a rats little weener about any damn corporate values.

And why do they make us listen to speeches by the big boss ... like we owe him so much and should be eternally grateful for being given the opportunity to serve him. Yes, we know how your company grew from a paan tapri to a global conglomerate. But so what? I remember Mich telling me how totally shocked people were when she had joined Infosys and didn't have the slightest bludy clue as to who the much revered Chief Mentor was. I mean, what sea of gratitude does she owe Chief Mentor anyway? Chief Mentor would have been nothing without the commitment and dedicated service of all the thousands of people who've worked their butts off for him over the years.

Which throws up an interesting question actually -- Who owes whom more ... the master or the servant?

***

My first day on the job tomorrow. I guess I'm past that stage where one is terribly excited about things. I just take it as it comes -- one blow at a time.

Vonda Shepard with the theme from Ally McBeal. I happened to see a re re-run of Ally on some channel the other day ... sure was good to see Calista again. I just love her. Yeah, I've always had a thing for skinny women.

You know this little turd has taken over the world when your roadside bookseller has taken out everything he usually sells and has only Harry and the ... whateverthebludyhellitscalled. And the price - 750 bucks! Aren't you supposed to sell this stuff for 2-3 hundred, I ask him (that's what they normally sell copies of bestsellers for). He looks at me as if to say ... Lena hai toh le, nahin toh aage jaa! Turns out they ain't bootlegs.

So Harry rules and there's nothing anybody can do about it. The entrance to Landmark bookstore had been converted to look some dark medieval castle with Hogwarts written on it. And as I look at the kids (and many of the hulks) as excited as Christmas morning, I can't but help wonder -- do they know anything else? I mean there is so much more for a kid to do these days than just revel in some fantastical hocus-pocus.

If my old man had bought us guitars when we were seven, we'd have been right up there, my brother and I ... no doubt about it. But all we did was watch TV and read Enid Blyton and stuff like Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. So the question I ask myself -- all these kids going gaga over Harry Potter, will they 10 years from now be saying: what did we get out of it?

The way I look at it, you should give your kids stuff that adds value. What kind of value addition is any kid getting from Harry Potter? If somebody would please care to tell me.

... Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this whole Pottermania thing.

***

Anyway, here's some really good music for those of you not busy reading Harry.

This is Jimmy Page, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson and Allan Holdsworth performing that Jimi Hendrix classic - Little Wing. Quite a lineup, ain't it? ... and you know what they say happens when the Gods get together -- They raise hell!

I tell you, eating Rajasthani thali should be made a crime. How on earth do they expect a person to eat so damn much ... There was enough food going around to feed an entire village in bludy Somalia.

My last day. I managed to say goodbye to everyone ... everyone that mattered anyway. The Butterfly was very quiet ... she looked so sweet, and so lost. And she wasn't dressed in something stunning like she is most Fridays ... just the jeans and pullover.

Anyway, I'm happy it's all over. As per company policy I'm eligible for re-employment in 6 months time. They won't think twice before taking me back, I know, but I don't think I could ... unless things turn out to be real bad where I'm going.

I said this in my farewell message ... from a comment that was left here sometime ago by It is I. My thanks to her for that.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover -- Mark Twain.

What I feel right now is a nervous excitement. But I am happy. And twenty years from now I will not be telling myself I wasn't bold enough to risk it.

I was going to say something here, but then I read this. Now all I wanna do is shut up and listen to some music. Oh t, you always leave me speechless.

This is the legendary John Lee Hooker (with Robert Cray) .... title track from the album Mr. Lucky. He was 74 when this was released (in 1991) and it reached number 3 in the UK album charts, making him the oldest artist ever to achieve that position.

John Lee once said -- 'I don't think about time. You're here when you're here. I think about today, staying in tune.'