When the remote becomes remote….

Over the past few weeks, I have been coming to terms with a very frightening fact, namely, in the world of HBO there is no place for a remote control.

The shock wasn’t so much that I had to keep my hands off the remote as much as that I couldn’t do it. The last time I had to watch TV without commercials was a decade and a half ago. As a fifth grader with an attention span of 4500 hours and with desi doordarshan the only thing on TV, it didn’t pose much of a problem. Plus there was always someone around to hand me the bag of chips.

Didn’t the people at HBO study the human psyche at all? Didn’t they think about insatiable human obsessions ---chocolate, Pepsi, Bill O’Reilly, the telephone and the internet that sometimes --- just sometimes--- rank a tad higher than the show you’re watching?

The task(?) of watching TV is inherently designed so as not to expend too much energy. At any given time there is only one ideal configuration to sit in and watch the idiot box. This is decided by several parameters---your eyesight, hearing, the angle of your couch towards the TV, the distance of your couch from the TV and the glare from the window. And once you have settled in, there is very little reason to move a muscle---well, other than the ones you use to laugh while watching Friends or frown while tuned to Fox news. And the less your options, the less the permutations and combinations for changing your position (physically of course, not in the Fox news kind of way). Considering I have one chair, a TV that sits on a weather-beaten suitcase, a fan that only seems to dispense air in one direction and a processor that serves as the other piece of furniture in the room, I have even less reason to move than most.

And while your body is enjoying this state of sedentary bliss (whoever said we are constantly moving towards inertia certainly knew what he was talking about), the remote control is trying its dandiest best to counter it.
And your treacherous index finger gladly obliges, surfing channels and playing with the volume control, in the process, pandering to your low attention span (or the incompetence of TV shows as the case may be)..
And for those of you who think my worries are frivolous, here are a few things you take for granted with commercial breaks:

Run into the kitchen to grab a bag of chips, thus doing eternal justice to the term “couch potato”.

Be courteous enough to take a call from a friend and tell him/her that you’ll call right back (which usually means ‘at the top of the hour’).

Call your best friend and shriek, “I am soooooo in love with Bill Maher” only to hang up and go back to Bill.

Google ‘McCarthysm’ before the History channel program threatens to go way over your head.

Answer nature’s call because you have an over active bladder, what with the Pepsi and all…

Flip to Fox News to hear that ridiculously stupid viewpoint that only Sean Hannity can provide.

Tucker Carlson moves his show to the 11 pm slot pushing the three programs you watch religiously (you watch the rest non-religiously) to one half hour of divine television. Though watching snippets of Stewart and Tucker and Chandler all in half an hour doesn’t appeal to my digestive system, I would certainly like to have the choice….

My Favorite Libertarians

While the rest of mankind seems to have evolved to forks and knifes over 4 million odd years, I still eat my steak by tearing it up with my fingers. So it must come as no surprise that the libertarian party---the party of no government--- is the only one that makes any sense to me.

So while Democrats and Republicans with their respective love for large government and small government exist on a stalemate in Capitol Hill (and on all news networks except Fox, where GOP is the clear winner), I propose the “libertarian” party as the default party of the world.

Why then, you might ask, have the libertarians failed in a more than humiliating fashion the few times they have had representation in federal elections. For this, you need to understand the concept of political quagmires (and who better to learn it from than a specialist in quagmires, be it in real life or on the TV). The inherent dilemma of the libertarian party--- the party of individualism---is that they can’t have a leader. After all, when you say I am my own president, you can’t elect one (and Ralph Nader merely ensures that by representing them).

Anyway, I decided to defy the fundamental idea of libertarianism --- the shunning of a theoretical orthodoxy --- and do what I do best --- wax eloquent about a subset of very few people that are (un)fortunate enough to fall in my “favorites” list. Here’s my pitch for a libertarian party candidate in ’08…
Counting down:

5. Tucker Carlson

He calls himself a “paleo” conservative, but since I have always liked this bow-tie wearing sloppy-haired right-winger of Crossfire fame, I am going to let him run for the libertarians. Plus, with The Situation, he’s risen to a whole new level. While on Crossfire he was just another screeching conservative, on his own talk show he’s a surprisingly smart and tolerant analyst. And his libertarian views sure make it to the surface a whole lot better when he is not fulfilling duty as Bush’s infallible advocate----with dubya pushed to the back of his mind he apparently finds the time to do more useful things—like oppose affirmative action and push for life-enhancing drugs and smoking in public places. And if he can pick a running mate as well as he can pick talk show guests, he’s well on the road to victory (Max Kellerman and Rachel Maddow absolutely rock :))

Favorite Carlson quotes: On his new show, “Is it too good-natured? Is it not nasty enough? It’s just not unpleasant enough. It’s one of our major problems.”

On 9-11, “... The attacks initially made me sorry I voted for him….My family sat unprotected a few miles from the scene of a terrorist attack; Bush hid in a bunker on some faraway military base”.

4. Dave Barry

It’s obvious that Dave doesn’t like the government. Hilarious as his digs at politicians, the IRS tax code and government-mandated low flush toilets are, I didn’t translate it into being “libertarian” till long after becoming addicted to his columns ;) He not only makes a point, he does it while letting you laugh away your Monday morning blues. He won’t need a speech-writer---that’s for sure… And he’ll inspire laughs without having to say “nucular”

That apart, if Barry makes president, you can be sure of a few things:
There’d be none of those annoying stickers on fruits
Telemarketers will be banned from getting within fifty feet of a telephone
People (or food packagaing) will stop reminding you that the cheese you’re eating contains fat
We sure need to get some of those shackles off.

Favorite Barry quote: “….I began to think about all the government people I knew ... who were theoretically for the common good. Then I realized not one of them was [for the common good]." That led him to his ultimate insight about government: "It's stupid."

3. Trey Parker

When most people want to express a point of view, they do it by screeching on a talk show or writing a blog. Not Trey Parker. When Trey Parker wants to express an opinion, he crafts the most ingeniously colorful (pun unintended) animation, not only getting the point across but also depositing it in a very memorable part of your brain. I never watched cartoons (Simpsons doesn’t count) till I started getting used to watching four foul-mouthed little Colorado boys sounding off on everything from Mel Gibson to Walmart, while waiting for Jon Stewart to come on air. (Aside: Stewart sometimes seems reverent by comparison!) And for once in my life, waiting actually became fun.

Favorite Parker quote: “What we're sick of — and it's getting even worse — is: You either like Michael Moore or you wanna fuckin' go overseas and shoot Iraqis. There can't be a middle ground. Basically, if you think Michael Moore's full of shit, then you are a super-Christian right-wing whatever”.

2. P.J. O’Rourke

He loves fast cars and advocates drugs. In other words, the guy has no restraint : )

Describing O’Rourke as only he can, paraphrasing: He has no ideology, no agenda, no catechism, no dialectic, no plan for humanity. All he has is a belief that people should do what people want to do, unless it causes harm to other people. And that had better be ‘clear and provable’ harm. No nonsense about second-hand smoke or hurtful, insensitive language. He doesn’t know what's good for you. You don't know what's good for him. He doesn’t know what's good for mankind. And he doesn’t want to tell all the people in the world what to do. This is because he believes in freedom.

Favorite O’Rourke quote: “I really think cigar smoking does make you smarter. Or maybe it just makes you sit still long enough to be smart. Or maybe it creates such a big stink that nobody comes around to bother you while you're trying to be smart. Anyway, it works”.

1.Bill Maher

He’ll never make any nomination in this country---he’s too self-assured, too self-confident and far too intelligent….. He’s the Galileo of the day telling people the earth is round, but people are either too stupid or too scared to believe it.
But he’s my top-contender.

Anti-religion, anti-marriage and utterly agnostic, Bill is AS libertarian as can get. Fearlessly pushing political hot-button issues (to the point of getting fired for them) may translate as being iconoclastic to Jesus-loving, bible-ruled Americans; to me he represents the ultimate in political, journalistic and vocal freedom. And if you don’t like what he says on-screen, his life makes a statement for itself—a guy that apathetically does away with feel-good factors like God or a life-partner is most completely his own man!

Favorite Maher Quotes: "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."

`I'm single and middle-aged, which of course is against the law in America. It means you're evil and wrong and commitment-phobic''

Is humor in the testosterone?

What happens when two of the smartest, wittiest men in the world get together to discuss world issues?
You get Fareed Zakaria and Jon Stewart Leibovitz in the Daily Show studios in New York.
Besides the witty banter (that invariably happens everytime Zakaria is a guest on the show---three, to be precise), I can't help but smile at the irony of the situation.
A third generation American jew and a first generation American muslim sit down to crack the Islamic terrorism problem. The jew makes a joke about the fatwa and the muslim makes a joke about the kosher and all seems to be well with the world.

But my question is not about jews or muslims or religion, but the other big equal opportunity concern: Why is it always the men? Why cant two women sit and discuss religious fanaticism and be funny? Hell, they can discuss Charlie Brown and not be funny. Is humor in the testosterone?

Why are the people that make you roll on the floor with laughter at midnight always a Bill Maher or a Jon Stewart or a Jay Leno? Why does Conan O'Brien merely have to toss his head and do a jig or mimic Dubya to make your sides split uncontrollably?

With all due respect to women, Ellen Degeneres is just not funny. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did great as Weekend Update anchors but that’s contrived. You can't put Fey in Bill Maher’s chair for instance and expect her to be insanely funny with a guest that’s as boring as Alec Baldwin or as unpredictable as O’Reilly. In fact the one time Fey was on the Daily Show, she was barely funny. Even someone like Stewart is out of the running trying to instigate the funny side of his women guests (Sandra Bullock excepted). Not that his show needs any help in the humor department ---a four man one woman team is pretty self-sufficient (point to be noted: Samantha B never instigates the kind of raving applause that Steve Colbert or Rob Cordury are invariably greeted with, and for good reason).

And it’s not just restricted to the real world:

Would we find it so hilariously witty and endearingly philosophical if Calvin were Calvina? Hell, even Hobbes is male! So are Bart and Homer, Dennis the Menace and Jughead Jones. Susie Derkins is smart and earnest and Lisa Simpson is brainy and righteous---just never funny.

Chandler and Ross are funny, old Woody is hilarious, Frasier is witty, Jerry Seinfeld is a natural comedian, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy are the most hilarious characters that ever walked the earth ---they all have just one thing in common… they are all men….

Is it just my inherent bias or is humor in the testosterone?

It’s all about the colors!

Well, Squawkbox bailed on me, taking with it the most entertaining part of my blog—the comments section :(
And it was then that I realized that I was the only moron still using squawkbox in the entire blogosphere. I’ve always been slow with technology; I like to think its cos of my razor-sharp brain that doesn't need any 21st century help ;)

So I had to revamp my template (the blog's I mean; mine is beyond repair), and I decided that while I’m at it, might as well add a backdrop of color. I had stuck to my dull white one as long as I did so as not to distract from the important message my posts usually convey ;). Today I decided that my words were bright enough to stand out against any splash of color. And if they don’t, certainly my caricature here will :D (which by the way, I went through a lot of pains to downscale from its original lifesize---yeah I have a huuuuuge head).

And besides, if Jon Stewart himself had to redesign his studio, my blog was certainly in need of a facelift. I have spent a good hour doin this (including half during my nightly date with Stewart) so someone better acknowledge it.

Music Musing

I have been music-tagged by Mitokondrion !!!!
And since I believe in always doing my byt(e) for the cyber-community (like I haven’t done enough already), here goes….

Disclaimer: I am relatively tone deaf --- I think it happened when I sang “Wouldn’t it be loverly” at the top of my lungs during a high school play --- it bode well for me as an actress that Eliza Doolittle was supposed to sing off-key. So, music veterans, forgive me if the following sounds more like a biography than a list of musical favorites----in my defense, that’s why my weblog is christened thus and there’s more to music than music!

The last CD I bought: Coldplay’s X&Y
Song playing right now: Blvd of Broken Dreams (in my head)

Songs/artists that mean a lot to me, that I absolutely love, in no particular order:

Nothing at all, Ronan Keating: I have been maniacal about this song since long before I started appreciating music. At the time, I only listened to music while driving (that should successfully explain my incompetence in both areas) and I heard Keating’s gem when a pal loaned me one of her CDs. I don’t know if just about anything sounds good after hearing Rush Limbaugh scream on NPR, but post-Limbaugh, I am still in love with this song. I promptly got my then music guru to send me all possible songs by Ronan Keating; seeking the opportunity, he sent me a ton of others I never listened to cos “Nothing at all” was on Repeat for about two months ;).

Blvd of Broken Dreams, Greenday: The reason I even heard this song was cos of Tower music records--- the only shop that stays open till midnight in Philly----and my haven for the short time I was TV-less and daunted by the idea of walking into an apartment that didn’t scream, “there are other people living on earth”. So I walked into the store and randomly began pickin up CDs to listen to (random here meaning the names I’d heard my die-hard music-loving pal Vidy throw out casually during many an intensely musical conversation not involving me --- except for political insights like “Wasn’t Springstein campaigning for Kerry?” that were blatantly ignored). Happily, Greenday’s was one of the CDs I picked---I am now irrevocably in love with the band. And when they played the song to signify Federer at Wimbledon, I knew for a fact that this had to be MY song.

Dancing queen, Abba: Fell in love with it after Abba played the score for Mama Mia (that was the time I didn’t like a song for a song but rather for what I remembered it by). One of the best musicals I have ever been to---I still smile when I re-play it in my head, two years hence. And more importantly, it prompted me into getting my first music CD ever.

Ain’t no mountain high enough: I love Stepmom for a lot of reasons (Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon and the cutest li’l boy on earth) but this song was DEFINITELY one of them.

Big Yellow Taxi, Counting Crews: As far as I am concerned this is the most-played song on FM and I heard it about ten times a day in the lab during grad skool. It successfully drowned out my co-workers’ chatter on bad days and made the bugs behave better on good days! I don’t know if the song just grew on me, but with skool far behind me, I continue to listen to it….

A horse with no name, America: I am not sure where I first heard this but I think it was in Atool’s car (correct me if I am wrong; that way I can figure out the answer to the all important Q: does anyone read my blog before going to the comments section?). I remember thinking it complemented the mountains but it also sounded out of the world within the confines of my best pal’s apartment a couple months later. That was my first real attempt to listen to music actively (the muted TV or google.com always seemed more active by comparison) and I still absolutely adored it.

America, Simon and Garfunkel: I heard it in Borders after a friend recommended it and realized for the first time that corporate giants don’t let you hear the 4-minute tracks on their CDs completely while you can read a 1000 page book to the very end. Talk of double standards. But it works for me—I’d choose a book with coffee while relaxing in a chair any day over struggling with fitting the headphones with one hand and clutching my coffee cup in the other, while resting precariously on my bipeds. Yeah, that was reassurance that music was not my cup of coffee. But if I put up with the incredibly uncomfortable posture anyway, I must like this song a lot.

Indian favorites:
Pooh Pookum aasai, Minsara Kanavu
Sa re ga ma, Boys
Mere khwabon mein, DDLJ
Snehithane, Alaipayuthey
Mein koi aisa geet gaun, Yes Boss
Abhi alvida mat kaho (as an Indian hi-schooler you’ve heard this in a farewell party every year and you still never tire of it---that says something!)


I am TAGGING Sid...He needs to do something worthwhile….

The healing power of water

And I don't mean that in the "Aqua Fina" sort of way, cos God knows that the sound of fizzling, golden-brown Pepsi cascading over a heap of crushed ice would sooner heal my colds than a gallon of pure water.

What I mean here is the healing power that comes from senses other than taste: the sights, sounds and touch of water [and in the case of some insane human beings---“feel”---yeah, those members of our very own species that actually bask in the feeling of hair bunched over their brows or water dripping off their ponchos].

I've been thinking about this "healing prowess" a lot lately and I must say that while the internet and the microchip are all good, the lesser known, less-hyped evolution of human beings that we don’t talk about in PC World is in developing innovative ways to seek panaceas for all evil.

The most popular, of course, is this higher force called "God". I don’t have a problem with God, except that, as I see it, he seems as helpless as I am at preventing the unforeseen, the unexpected and certainly unwanted miseries of life. Nevertheless, to my heretical statements, there is often intense opposition. “He can’t control everything,” people say quite vehemently, protecting the credibility of an entity that may or may not exist and that quite certainly they have never seen. Take it from me: if the attorneys for God functioned in a normal court of law, prison cells would be empty.

And if you don't turn to God, you turn to Nature and this I don't mean in a Darwinian sense (no offense to old Charles; I am a huge fan of his theory, only this is neither the time nor place---and God help you if I decide to make it). Reason why people escape to a park or a stream or for those lucky hillbillies, the mountains to be one with nature during difficult times.
For me (I have discerned after 26 years) this is the simple sight of water ---whether it lashed from the distant horizon while I contemplated trivial high-school troubles on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, shimmered in its reassuring closeness along the banks of the Hudson while I battled with more complicated feelings than the inability to be teacher's pet in many a disheartening Jersey moment or the little lake in a tiny Colorado town I crossed mountains to get to during painful graduation hurdles, water has made washing away my worries just a little easier. What can be better testimony to this than the sheer elation I felt on discovering the Schuylkill River a few short blocks from my apartment a few weeks ago…..I have certainly been a happier person since, though I am quite sure Roger Federer had something to do with it as well. But since he falls under the category of the Gods I have already discussed, I’ll leave it at that. (Isn’t it wonderful to see the sheer invincibility that allows him to make shot after creative shot, putting away with effortless ease every hurdle in his path to the crown? If only we could battle Fate with a racket and quite so supernaturally at that).

In all fairness, the idiot box deserves some credit for my newfound happiness as well. That brings me to my next contender: Nature’s hegemony at delivering solace is fast being threatened by man’s own creations ---- the towering skyscrapers in New York City have oft given me more strength than Nature's concrete counterparts along the Eastern Ghats or the Rockies. Probably comes from the sense that My own species built this mammoth: I must be stronger than I think I am!

And whilst man is deeply involved in figuring out his own ways of dealing with misery, Destiny is deeply involved in figuring out more versatile ways of doling them out. The less vulnerable he is, the more ruthless she seems.
And so the cycle of life continues....