Ready to die?

Breivik. Sickest. Bastard. Ever.

May all his victims rest in inviolable peace.

And all this hue and cry over Amy Winehouse's death is irksome. I'm sure she was talented and everything (who am I to judge), and may she have an untroubled existence in her afterlife, but AAAARGH. I haven't listened to her music and I don't intend to. Her passing on at 27 ensures that henceforth, all magazine articles and news features talking about rockstar excesses(ergo, deaths resulting from all these excesses) will mention her name in the same breath as those of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin who all died at 27. This clique has been, quite unimaginatively, called the '27 Club'. Duh.

Example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8657002/The-27-club-the-musicians-who-played-fast-and-died-young.html

Names like Duane Allman, John Bonham, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bon Scott and I'm sure many others aren't remembered in the common sphere the way the 27-ers are. And these people were as talented and as fantastic and as brilliant and as magical as the 27-ers. Just saying.

One good thing has come out of all this though. Russell Brand has written a tearjerker tribute to Winehouse and I was pleasantly astonished by the way he writes. I like. I should grab his 'My Booky Wook' soon.

'They(addicts) communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his “speedboat” there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.

Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.'

The whole thing can be read here.

Can't, Won't, Don't Stop

He(Pete Townshend) marvels at artists – like Pete Seeger and Chuck Berry – who continue to perform well into old age. "Isn't it wonderful to see them," he says. "A lot of people may not agree, but to me this is like the last time you're going to get to see any of these people. Imagine if you could go watch Mozart today, even if it's the last, crappiest show he ever played. What a thrill that would be."

:)

Make it?

These are dark, smelly and dubious times indeed.

It has become so tough to keep the faith, but keep it I will. Schumi, Vale let's just tear something up, despite how improbable it seems at this stage. Where did the magic go? Why does it refuse to have a good time with us these days? Quit being a heartbreaker, you.

Idiots who start having aneurysms every time it even looks like their sports team/player/hero might possibly lose should just stop watching sport. Write your own sports storyboards in your own heads with your preferred endings and feel warm and smug inside.

It's almost as if my two deities are tripping on me. Deity number three is in retirement. But no matter. They are heroes. My heroes. Always have been, always will be.

Josh Homme had something to say in 'Make It Wit Chu' which seems apt here.

'I ain't here to break it,
Just see how far it will bend.'

Laugh-daap

I haven't been pissed off at movie trailers in quite a while. The good ones make me feel warm and soft and fuzzy, and the bad ones(eg. Singham) make me laugh. Seriously what's with the 3-stage boob-grabbing technique proudly displayed by Ajay Davegn(Devgun? Devgan?)? Thoo. God, it's bad. But funny too. Take another shit movie like Murder 2. You know what to expect here, with Emraan doing his usual thing and the actress kitted out in lots of leather, pumping and grinding anything, absolutely ANYTHING within her sights. So one doesn't really care.

But the trailers of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara are on another level. All its trailers I have seen thus far are mind-numbingly and cringe-inducingly unfunny(the music is also quite bad, but Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have been quite useless in recent times). Right from the 'bwoyz' to the 'mushi-mushi' to the 'lou' to the one in which the three guys are bombarding us with their singing talents(ie. lack thereof). I think my extreme irritation stems from Abhay Deol's involvement in what might be a total WTF film. He should have learnt his lesson from Aisha. The other two don't matter because they will have their blockbusters even if this one doesn't work. And I don't really expect quirkily fantastic performances in smartly made cinema from the other two. Abhay macha, I hope the film is decent, and if it's not, you should just walk away from this kind of film in future.

But yes, despite these trailers being about as exciting as a damp, fungi-infested sock, I will end up in a theatre that's screening the film next week. I don't have anything better to do.

After the bad, let's move on to some awesome.



Neil Young, after all these years, has still got it.

Enjoy.

Always has been, always will be

'I understand the sport like this: When one player is better than you, at this moment the only thing you can do is work, try to find solutions, and try to wait a little bit for your time.

Last five times wasn't my time. I gonna wait and I gonna try a sixth. And if the sixth doesn't happen, to the seventh. It's going to be like this. That's the spirit of the sport.'

El Mago?

A new king's born today.

You Djoker, you deserve the No. 1 ranking macha. You have been bwilllliant all season. Rafa had correctly pointed out, referring to the Federer vs Djokovic match in the post match interview he gave to Cedric Pioline after thrashing Andy Murray(hahahah) in the French Open semis 4 weeks ago: 'It is the best player of the moment playing against the best player of (the) history.'

Anything other than a Djokovic victory would be a surprise. The Rafa second serve, which Murray was returning like an epileptic chimpanzee, will be murdered by Nole. His groundstrokes are laser-sharp and his accuracy is maddeningly unerring. And he's moving on court like Nadal used to 3 years ago. If he gets off the blocks quickly, Rafa will have problems. Biiiiiiiiiiig problems.

I predict a Djoker win in 4, possibly 5 sets.

But I hope the Raging Bull rages once more and conjures up some 2008 magic. At the very least, it should be a dhamaka match.

(Contrary to what I had said earlier, there have been 2 sensational matches post the Rafa-Delpo encounter. This one promises to be the BAAP.)

Whoopty whoop!

PS: I might go and catch Delhi Belly now. IF IT DOESN'T RAIN. Harrrumph.