ellipsis…

search strings

people have reached this blog in strange ways… a majority of them via searches for me. and then another bunch searching for my sister, pooja. she’s become pretty famous all of a sudden, on account of being featured at film festivals in germany, spain and the rest of europe. i think. i really should keep in touch with her. and get her to send some clips to put up on her site. here’s one i found.

but a couple of strange searches have brought people here… abhishek bachhan with hair band (after all, that’s what this site is about…) and how to hack airtel recharge cards (i strive to provide useful information for everyone…)

and an update: i finally got back all those posts which disappeared while upgrading. the vox back-up really helped. up next: the missing comments.

jd tara

in all the confusion and hassle i mentioned in the previous post, i couldn’t write about something pleasant (and unpleasant) that happened the previous week. the jack daniels tennessee backstage first annual indian rock awards. yeah… that’s the full lame name. why do these corporate sponsors have to take over every possible part of the event name? what could have been the riff awards, or just the indian rock awards, became this long-winded un-memorable tongue-twister. (they refer to it as the jd tara, by the way.)

anyway, it happened a day after a surprise party for sam at park baluchi, where i met up with some faces i hadn’t seen in ages. andy, pankaj, adil, gary, arpan and random others. almost everyone has moved on from the early starving rock days. except gary. but he’s still young.

the main awards ceremony was held a day later at elevate. and we were all in the vip section. posh! we even got to wear those supposedly un-tear-off-able wrist bands. and they were pouring jd on the house. being the whiskey man i am, i did not complain. hell… they even converted “half-beer” gandhi into a four-pegger. missed most of the awards on account of being a bar-prop. from what i remember, a giggly neha kapur and vir das gave out the first set of awards. with a random walk-on by zila khan. she got on stage, shook hands with the mc’s, said hi to the sound technicians, and walked off. when it was her turn to give out awards, she burst into song. sufi song. if i wasn’t drunk, i’d have laughed my ass off. she must have been on something, too.

and vir das is not funny. seriously. you don’t make himesh reshammiya jokes at a long-hair convention. we don’t get that kind of humour. and it doesn’t improve things by making seventeen jokes about him in one go.

performance-wise, pentagram blew my mind. again. parikrama did an all-original set (i think), a day after they opened for iron maiden with an all-original set. good going for them. motherjane, infinitely better than their last performance at cafe morrison. them clones… they’re consistent. bandish… well… i went out to buy cigarettes and socialize a bit.

but pentagram. fuck. they’re miles ahead of everyone else. the songs, the energy, the presence. especially the presence. that’s something bombay bands have always had over others… they look like rockstars, they act like rockstars, they get treated like rockstars. not like a bunch of bored call centre executives at their annual festival.

and the downside to the evening. two things:

• sam told me to wear a suit. i passed on the message to everyone else. bummed a coat off achint. felt like an idiot when i got there.
• i threw up when i got back. that ended my puke-free since ‘93 session. bummer.

airtel: expressing myself

we just took up a new place for our studio. (yet another) barsati on the the 4th floor, but this one has ample space and sunlight and fresh air. and i’ve got a decent landlord. and it’s peaceful. and i didn’t have to go through the neighbourhood scum broker. all in all, a good deal.

the tough part came around when i had to shift the landline from the old place. it took the retards at airtel 12 days to shift a phone line a hundred metres. first, they misheard 20 “d for delhi” as 20 “b for bombay.” then, inexplicably, they decided to make an entry in their records that i asked for a further delay in shifting the line. somewhere along the line, some illiterate call-whore thought it’d be well within my rights to make as many calls as i wanted during the delay, and that airtel would foot the bill.

sure i’d asked him if i could do that, but what sort of lame-ass company hires morons who decide to be generous with their employer’s money?

and all this while, all the furniture was already shifted to the new place, and i was sitting in the old place with a comp on the floor. one’s ass tends to hurt like a bitch after a week or so of sitting cross-legged. and by the tenth day, i’d lost my patience. a day full of heavily abusive calls to supervisors, team leaders, technical executives and other fancy titles later, i finally got the phone shifted. and my language! i’m surprised that they didn’t just slam the phone down on me. but if they’d tried, there would have been blood all over the place.

the phone finally got shifted last friday.

and this morning, some idiot wakes me up to tell me he wants to come over and shift my phone. from 20 d to 20 b. because that’s what’s written in their records.

i don’t think he’ll be calling me again. seriously, if you don’t want me to say nasty things about you and your mother, don’t wake me up before 11am.

<aside>the title of this post is based on airtel’s slogan: express yourself. it worked for me. reliance’s slogan has always been misunderstood by me. my terrible hindi translated “kar lo duniya mutthi mein” as “do the world into the ground.” never understood why they’d take on such a negative sounding catch-phrase.</aside>

usurpation!

i’m a slighty reluctant about editing at wikipedia. up until now, my username was pottenkulam, and it identifies me too easily. but thanks to their usurpation policy, i’m now joseph.

i know. they both take you to the same page.

i know. big deal.

utopia, or not.

there was a time when utopia welcomed.. even favoured punk bands. years ago, when messiah was the only one around. but this whole tribe of messiah-wannabes (and i’m naming bands here, something i don’t normally do)… kolorfools, nomads, and now airborne. what the fuck is your problem? how many years in a row do you guys want to get beaten up? and then promptly bring your sidekicks/hos along. punk ethos is good and all that shit. just don’t act like morons.

1. things that are not cool at spa:

1. messing around with girls (unless they’re your own)
2. messing around with sound equipment
3. messing with the bands
4. acting like a prick

2. things that are cool, however:

1. getting drunk
2. getting stoned
3. enjoying yourself
4. beating up people who indulge in 1.1/2/3/4

the moron from this year’s fight at utopia was caught doing all four from section 1.

messages to people:

@ the guy who got beaten up: i have your bag, with the two books you were reading: manufacturing science and notes to myself: my struggle to become a person. you’ll really need that second book. and your air force application form… forget about that. they do drug-tests before they let you in. and your sweater… man, it stinks. i gave it away.

@ deepak/nitin/other random “punks”: you guys are not welcome. ever. the announcement i made was for you guys, and your friends. even if you come in on crutches, you will not be spared. you should know that about us. no amount of giving gurtej or me the eye would make you a hero. you guys are not kush/sumit/sarvesh… and you will never be welcome here. take a hint. and tell your friends that when they’re getting beaten up, they shouldn’t namedrop you guys. it just worsens the situation.

i know none of these guys would be around here. but if someone would be kind enough to pass on the message, everyone at spa would be very grateful.

postscript: the guy survived, he was last seen crying and running across the ring road, dodging trucks. he even gave me the metal horns on his way out. or was it the finger? i guess i’ll never know.

this post appeared in a slightly different format over at rsj.

lost it all… again.

i’m blaming surdy for this one. he’s just starting on his blog, and i was setting it up for him. and then i find he’s got wordpress 2.1, and i’m still on 2.0. and i love to be cutting edge, and bleeding edge, even.

so i decided to use fantastico’s auto-upgrade option. and the whole thing fell apart. and i had to pack it up, uninstall, and reinstall the entire thing. and i can’t figure out how to import sql, so i’m stuck with manually re-entering the posts one by one. its a good thing i just started out a few months back. so it’ll all be back on once again.

and another new blog. by pg. but he’s on blogger. there’s one google product i’m not too fond of.

ps: just saw this. i guess i need to upgrade again.