Here It Comes

Lift your head and look out the window
Stay that way for the rest of the day and watch the time go
Listen! The birds sing! Listen! The bells ring!
All the living are dead, and the dead are all living
The war is over and we are beginning…

New Post

God it feels good to be back. Nice pristine white walls around here.  And you, yes you, do look beautiful today.

I’ve got almost 5months left till the end. I’d say time flies, but we all know that’s a lie. Time doesn’t fly, it knocks you out cold and vanishes the moment you wake up groggily feeling abject loss . Oh yeah it steals your kidneys too.

My heart’s pretty much all set on leaving for America next year. It also rams itself against my chest periodically telling me to stay. Mom says she’ll definitely cry if I leave. Thanks Mom.

Question: Mass Comm or Journalism?  One’s theoretical. One practical. Both fun things to do whilst finding myself in New York, Evanston, or some place where I can kick back, stare at the setting sun and write a song or two about people finding themselves in setting suns. Or California.

I’m reading Sandman now. No screw that, I’m forging an indigenous, almost congenital relationship with Neil Gaiman’s multiverse. It’s amazing. It’s the stuff Dreams are made of.  I’m at vol. 5 and already I feel like I know these characters, images and themes so well. They’re like extensions of ma soul man, good Lord. Think the Sandman will always be a part of me, and us, till we hear the sound of her wings. (I was floored by that line, only bettered by ‘I am Hope’ *dies*)

I’m walking around in HMV. I close my eyes and pick a cd off the rack. I’ve found Stars, alongside The Dresden Dolls, Sigur Ros, Imogen Heap and the Manic Street Preachers. Maybe you’ll find love, God and everlasting happiness this way too. You make your own memories.

I discovered recently that my motto in life was to live life with no regrets, to be the guy everybody wanted to be, to be the one who was fwoahhhh* inspiring. We’ll see how this goes,starting with this new post marching to the strains of Dakota. I think i’m different from before. I think i might have something else to bring to the table. So take a look at me now.

*ask me. it’s profoundly simple.

Of Me

Ghetto Pills

WHERE BE DA HOES MANG! Not up in yo crib so brace yoself foo Ima gonna show u sumpin. The only way to get them fine azz bitties up in yo crib be if you gotz the monsta Cak. Ima hook a little g up with a sto that will send u a free bottle of boom pills so u can step yo game up foo. http://sizenew.com 

 

Evidently my msn originates from the south side of the Bronx.

 

Story

“One day, a man and a woman meet — two melancholic, lonely people. They like one another and secretly hope to join their lives together. All they need is the chance to be alone for a moment and say so. Finally one day they find themselves unobserved in a wood where they have come to gather mushrooms. Ill at ease, they are silent, knowing that the moment is upon them and they must not let it slip by. The silence has already lasted rather a long while when the woman suddenly, “involuntarily, reflexively,” starts to talk about mushrooms. Then silence again, and the man casts about for a way to declare himself, but instead of speaking of love, “on some unexpected impulse” he too talks about mushrooms. On the way home they go on discussing mushrooms, powerless and desperate, for never, they know it, never will they speak of love. Back at the house, the man tells himself that he did not declare his love because of the memory of his dead mistress, which he cannot betray. But we know perfectly well: It is a false excuse he invokes only to console himself. Console himself? Yes. Because we can resign ourselves to losing a love for a reason. We would never forgive ourselves for losing it for no reason at all.”

Signify

 

People used to look out on the playground and say that the boys were playing soccer and the girls were doing nothing. But the girls weren’t doing nothing – they were talking. They were talking about the world to one another.  And they became very expert about that in a way the boys did not.

Lay It Down Slow

I have never witnessed a more cathartic, more poignant ending to a television show, ever. I am emotionally spent. Be the change you want to see in the world. Amen.

Such A Long Road We’ve Been Walking On

When I am alone
When I’ve thrown off the weight of this crazy stone
When I’ve lost all care for the things I own
That’s when I miss you, that’s when I miss you, that’s when I miss you
You who are my home
You who are my home
And here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this..

In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies

In your love, in your love, in your love

 

 

I feel strangely…callow.

Grey

I found a silver hair today, sticking out unassumingly yet not ashamed. I was greatly distressed for I had dreams, hopes, fantasies. Don’t be, she whispered. These things are but an inevitability, in the same way that love is inevitable, and death is inevitable.

I’m not ready to die, I told her.

She smiled.

But are you ready to love?

She never looked so out of place yet so at home before.

You Were Never Like This

Emmanuel Adebayor tried to put a slightly more positive spin on the proceedings before admitting that United were deserving of the final result.

“This season we are still progressing,” started the Togolese striker.

“Don’t forget that last year we only reached the quarter-final and now this year we got to the semi-final. I think next season Arsenal have a chance to win it.”

We reached the Final in 2006 dipshit. Stop making excuses, stop looking like a lost child in the opponent’s penalty box, stop giving away possession so much and start acting like a Gunner, then maybe we’d have a chance to win the damn thing…

I’m fabregasted. At the sheer lack of  fighting spirit, determination, and quality that was on display this morning. I don’t care about all the tactical nous, nor do I attest to being an e-Shebby Singh. I’m just an Arsenal fan through and through. An Arsenal fan that was not sorely disappointed that we lost the tie, but rather at how we let the opponent just walk all over us and coerce us into sorry submission. The other team deserved to win because they capitalized on our mistakes, they had the will to win and they were ruthless enough to seal the tie off after 15 minutes. We deserved to lose because we had no teeth, no spine, and no balls.

I still believe Arsene Wenger when he says that this team is a work in progress. I forsee Arsenal only realistically challenging for titles and achieving a stability like the early ’00s only in a year or two. But using youth, inexperience and the fact that this is a team ‘in transition’ as an excuse for failing to show up on the big occasions just doesn’t cut it for me. I look at it objectively and see how incredulous it is to expect players my age to carry the expectations of the club and the fans on their shoulders against other teams with loads of experience, but frankly that shouldn’t be the way should it?

The Arsenal I saw this morning had no one to lead them, no one to push them forward, nobody to take the game to the other team. They were so soft at times it was unbearable to watch. At 1-0 down on aggregate you’d expect any team with a semblance of heart, much less the Arsenal, to go for the throats of the opposition from the get-go, not stroke the ball around without a sense of urgency. Fabregas, as awesome a playmaker as he is, just does not have the fortitude or gumption to rally his team mates to overcome a deficit. There was no aggression, no steel. It’s no point if you can keep a 64% possession in your own damn half if you can’t make it count.

What really saddened me was that the Arsenal of old wouldn’t get pushed around like that, on home turf, by of all teams man u. As much as I hate the arrogant bastards, what wouldn’t I give to see a player like rooney, fletcher or tevez in the Arsenal squad, someone willing to run at opponents, chase every ball and never giving the opposition space to breathe. We were shrugged off the ball, nobody got stuck in, nobody had the desire to win. And when we went 2-0 down by the 20th minute to two freak goals (granted, a good shot by ronaldo but it really should have been Almunia’s as he demonstrated with some excellent stops later on), I knew that a comeback was impossible. Scared stiff and running all over the pitch with no goal in mind, pun not intended, for me the final whistle couldn’t have come any time sooner. It was a horrible nightmare.

We have no working men in the Arsenal anymore. All that’s left are a bunch of kids trying  to wayang their way through arguably the best team in Europe. All the other top teams have defensive stalwarts, players willing to give their all for the club, willing to chase every ball.  Just look at Adebayor. Granted, he has scored magnificant goals and has contributed his worth to the team. However, being one of the oldest players in the squad, being the striker up front, the person through whom Arsenal’s chances should have come from, he has let the players, his manager and  the fans down by choosing to remain annonymous throughout the match. I have never seen him track back. I have never seen him chase a ball like Rooney. And don’t even get me started on his performance at Old Trafford. Each time I watch him, and this Arsenal team for that matter, all I can think of is – what would, or rather could Henry, Bergkamp, Veira et al do instead.  Dude if Milan wants you, please go.

For posterity’s sake, here’s the squad that originated Arsenal’s brand of flowing football and went 49 games unbeaten in the ‘03- ‘o4 season:

Jens Lehmann
Ashley Cole
Sol Campbel
Kolo Toure
Lauren
Robert Pires
Patrick Vieira
Edu
Gilberto Silva
Freddie Ljungberg
Thierry Henry
Dennis Bergkamp
Jose Antonio Reyes
Ray Parlour
Martin Keown
Gael Clichy
Kanu
Jeremie Aliadiere
Sylvain Wiltord
Pascal Cygan
Cesc Fabregas
Graham Stack
Mathieu Flamini
Robin Van Persie
Justin Hoyte
Manuel Almunia
Jermaine Pennent
Quincy Owusu-Abeyie
Arturo Lupoli
Stuart Taylor
Emmanuel Eboue
Phillippe Senderos
Rami Shaaban

This squad, and of course the amazing ‘97-98 double winning side had the grit and guts to win. We didn’t’ have that this morning. We haven’t had that for most of the season. It is a young side, and I will always keep my faith with Wenger. Hopefully we’ll see tangible results in a year or two once this team matures, gains experience and Arshavin’s no longer cup tied.But as an Arsenal fan who claimed one day off in lieu just to watch the match, I was aghast at the lack of  spirit and passion which I’ve always associated with the Gunners. Similar feeling towards other entities that began in 1886. But I digress. You were never like this, Arsenal. Let’s turn this around together. Victoria Concordia Crescit.