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Last time Sheena came into town, we were listening to a lot of Nirvana. Aaaaah the memories, of wearing flannel shirts over concert t-shirts and ripped jeans; of thrashing, moshing, and body-surfing and not calling it dancing; of first using our instruments as tools to make noise, then turning it into music. When we were in a band, Nirvana was one of Tolgar's bigger influences, and we ended up doing a good handful of covers. Aneurysm, D7, and other b-sides and covers Nirvana did that no one ever heard of. Lol.

Nowadays I'm making music that's more focused on purity of tone, and ridding all the nuances blips and squeaks that dirty up my sound. quite a contrast from yanking, banging, and thumping my strings between low rolling basslines. But Nirvana and loud noise will still hold a special place in my heart, so I'm sure I'll turn into an old man that'll associate the group with memories that the next generation will have no grasp of, and probably consider them "classic rock" or some lame genre term like that. Worthless.

I had an awesome weekend. Me and a few buddies went out to Michigan to visit my roommate's family, and to see my guruji in Michigan perform a concert. That was it in a nutshell, but we spent so much time jamming, talking about music, practicing different things we've never really tried before. The drive to Michigan has always been awesome. When I used to make the drive by myself, I'd bring classical cds with me and listen the whole way there, it was great time to just sit and listen to an 80 minute recording of one raag. With buddies this time though, on the way drive there we were trying to sing raags and figure songs out, and trying to sing taans on the fly. It was the first time I've ever really tried singing raags. They were even rappin while I was beatboxin beats. Lol, it's on. One morning I was singing Oceans by Pearl Jam and Black Hole Sun my Soundgarden over kerwa beats. Rahul helped me break down some meends I've been practicing, and was getting me to play other variations. I finally saw Rajanji perform a concert. In the 5-6 years I've known him and studied with him, I've never seen him perform a concert, and played a classical piece in Raag Yaman, and he played two of the gats he taught me! He actually played the very first gat I ever learned. Some of the taans were even the same as what he'd taught me, it was awesome to hear. Afterwards he showed us pictures he had of him and Vilayat Khansahib and some of the other artists he used to bring to Detroit for classical concerts. He had some beautiful pictures of Vilayat Khan. He had this one black and white pictures of him early in the morning, sitting in front on a window with the sun shining in behind him, his hair still dissheveled from sleep, but really into what he was playing. It was just a beautiful picture. We had a small concert with Rahul and Maninder and stayed up late singing song, sharing melodies and just chillin. Oh man, so much happened this weekend, it was just awesome. Nowadays with all my friends having so many things going on in their lives, including myself, it's really rare to get a weekend like that, it was just really great.

It was a long morning today, I woke up at 6a and practiced for a bit, then made some breakfast and tea for Sheena's parents who are staying at my place. Sheena's mom is in town for a conference she's attending in Rosemont, so we took the train to O'hare, and we dropped her off at the shuttle bus that was to take her to the hotel for the conference. From there, uncle and I took the train back into the city so I can go to work, and he's hanging out a bookstore right now. On the train on the way back in, I took my hat off and rested in on my lap for the 45-minute ride to relax a bit, but as we rushed off the train at Washington, I must have forgot to pick it up off my lap before I got up, and it must have fell onto the floor of the train. I realized after we had gotten outside and I wanted to put my hat back on that I left it on the train...

That hat's been every where with me for the past 8-some odd years. It's been to India with me twice, to Brockout, to Seminar, through finishing up school, through me and my sister running our own business, through me moving out of my parents house, to me starting to study the sitar, to doing metal covers of Bollywood songs, to playing covers songs on stage at Mugwump, to me rappin, to Smart Bar, to Liar's Club, to Big Wig, to hip hop shows, to metal shows, to Indian classical music shows, to Experimental shows, to me emceeing shows, to performing in shows, to raves, to club nights, to farm parties, to house parties, to road trips to New York, to sitar lessons in California, to Cubs games, to Bears games. It was always the way people remembered me, that dude in the orange hat, and always the way I still stayed myself no matter how I dressed, in casual gear, or dressin up. It was my way of saying I'm still gonna be myself in a crowd of business people, or blending in when rolling with mah boys. Fuad gave me an orange shirt from his trip to Thailand to match my orange hat, my friends Eric and Kelly gave me a pack of white socks and orange die one year for Christmas so I could make socks that matched my hat. I knew one day I'd proly stop wearing it, but I was hoping I'd retire it by choice, not something lame like losing it on a train... worthless. But maybe God was telling me it's time. 2 days before I get engaged, I lose my orange hat. Talk about a symbol of me moving on to a different phase of life....

Back in July, a friend of my girlfriend, Angel, and I threw Sheena a surprise party at Angel's apartment in New York. A video was taken of the actual moment of surprise by her friend Joanna, and she was able to get the video up on YouTube. It's on:

The video's a little shakey, lol, but check it out.

Sheena and I had our horoscopes matched by a friend of ours, and it was awesome talking to her about what she saw. But even more inspiring is how she deals with asking to charge people for doing horoscopes and matches. All the money she makes from doing horoscopes she donates to people or organizations that need help or support. The money she asked of us to do our horoscope match she donated to an organization called the Raina Foundation based in India. Here's a little about what they do:

"The foundation is involved currently in six major projects. The first one, is the Raina-Prayas project, where the foundation has joined hands with Prayas one of the largest charities in India and adopted 400 children from the slum areas of Bawana in Delhi. 'There are about 400,000 slum dwellers in Bawana, with virtually no means of education, livelihood or medical facilities. In spite of being razed to the ground, we have an 11 room school with all the facilities plus we provide food, clothing, picnics, toys, medical aid etc to these kids. Every Saturday there is play or some performance by the kids and awards are given, These plays, and other acts by them go on to become a part of their annual day. Every class is allowed one hour of TV as part of having fun, and watch everything from cartoons to the Discovery Channel etc,' says Raina and adds, 'Rooms to Read, is providing books for the kids and we are very happy with the way things are going there.'

The second initiative the Foundation has undertaken is empowering women. A self help group of 600 slum dwelling women, are being helped with education, self-empowerment and all kinds of support to fight against any abuse. If a family or husband abuses a woman the other women show up in groups to confront them. They also have a kitty or rupees 100 each month and when someone needs money she is provided the money from the kitty and pays it back later. The women preside over all transactions themselves. 'A couple of weeks ago,' says Robin, 'we also trained them in martial arts through policewomen from Delhi Police who came over and showed them how to protect themselves from sexual and any other kind of harassment which is very prevalent in slums.'"
[ full article ]

I find it an inspiring demonstration of generosity when someone takes ALL the money they make for using a talent or skill they have and donate it to causes like this. If there were more people in the world like that, the world be a much, much better place.

I went up to Michigan to visit a buddy Ajit Saturday night, we chilled in Ann Arbor, stayed up late jammin a little, chillin and watchin movies, then came back the next day. It was a good trip, but too short. This coming weekend I'm going up to Connecticut to visit my girlfriend along with my parents, so my parents and her parents are going to meet for the first time. CRAZY, and extremely exciting.

So, has anyone had any problems posting responses to my posts? I've noticed since I redesigned my site, responses have dramatically dropped off. Is it because my posts are no longer interesting? Or because there's somethings functionally confusing about how to post a response? On the old system, you used to type up your response, hit post, and it would be live. But on the new system, after you hit the preview button, you'll have a chance to see what your post will look like before you actually make it live. Is that at all confusing? Worthless.

I was over at my cousin's house this weekend, and he was joking about how it was 'peanut butter jelly time.' Of course in this age of Myspace and crappy hip hop on pop radio, I have no idea what these kids are laughing about nowadays. But luckily, my cousin keeps me in the loop. So even though I'm proly like a year late, I can still be cool for a few minutes. Here's what he was talking about, an 8-bit dancing banana with maracas. And apparently it was spoofed on Family Guy. Marketing genius.

This weekend my girlfriend surprised me and came into town for my birthday. CRAZY! We hung out with some friends the day before my birthday, went out to dinner with my family on my birthday, and just hung out. We went to the temple by my parents house together, and sunday morning went to the mass at the catholic church down the street from my house. It's a beautiful church, and was a nice, pretty, summer morning. The priest spoke about the eucharist, defined by wikipedia as:

"the rite that Christians perform in fulfillment of Jesus' instruction, recorded in the New Testament, to do in memory of him what he did at his Last Supper. Jesus gave his disciples bread, saying 'This is my body,' and wine, saying 'This is my blood.' Christians generally recognize a special presence of Christ in this rite, though they differ about exactly how, where, and when Christ is present. The word 'Eucharist' is also applied to the bread and wine consecrated in the course of the rite."

He talked about how the bread and wine Catholics drink at the end of mass doesn't merely represent Jesus Christ, but is Jesus Christ. And by taking his sacrament, baptised Christians are accepting the blessings of their union with Jesus Christ. In everything he talked about, I saw some similarities between eucharist and Hindu prasad. Before I went ahead and assumed they were the same thing, I did a little research. Here's a paper criticising churches for allowing non-baptised christians to take eucharist, explicitly describing how it's not the same as prasad:

"The ruling metaphor of holy communion has always been that of the last supper of the Lord with His chosen disciples, His intimate students... the eucharistic elements have never been understood to be analogous to hindu prasad of tibetan buddhist tsog, which is ritually sanctified food to be eaten by all preset as a blessing, nor is communion like the antidoron (blessed bread) given to all after communion in orthodox christian communities."

There are two main differences between eucharistic food and prasad that I can gather here—what the food represents and who it is meant for, which leads to further differences in who we are in relation to God. Prasad is food that has been blessed by God, we eat it in thanks, and take God's blessings. Eucharistic food represents Jesus Christ himself. The more complicated difference lies in who the food is meant for. Hinduism believes that all living creatures, be they good or evil, man or animal, are all children of God. Our atma (soul) is a small part of God him/herself, and no matter what actions we take in this life, we can always look to him/her for guidance and support. Because of this, yes, prasad is meant for all who's present, be they hindu, muslim, sikh, jewish, catholic, atheist, or what have you. If they wish to take prasad with an understanding of what it is and what it represents, they may do so. But the 'understanding of what it is and what it represents' is not formal, because the nature of hinduism doesn't have all-encompassing overall procedures indoctrinating it's followers into different level of intimacy with God. We do have rites that represent intimate interactions with God, but it's not as much saying 'after you do this, you're down,' nothing as formal as the catholic church. Eucharistic food, since it's meant to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ, is meant only for those who have a more formal understanding of what it represents through being confirmed. Unless you're a confirmed catholic, you're not supposed to take the eucharist. This is because only those that have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ are allowed to take it, which implies that by nature, we're not all automatically closely connected to God. It's more something that nurtured within us through learning and teachings.

It's interesting to respectfully learn difference between mine and other people's belief systems. Not to say one is better than the other, cause in the end however we choose to connect with the divine to be better people is good. No one way is better than another. But interesting nonetheless.

On my street, there used to be this woman, Maria, who had a big yellow umbrella outside the entryway to her house. Every morning, summer or winter, she'd have two coolers, and a few big gatorade jugs out, and she'd be chilling out there. People walking by, and even people making special trips in their cars would stop by and pick up some of her tasty tamales and her rich and thick Mexican hot chocolate. I had some on quite a few occassions, she had plain cheese tamales that she knew I was always getting cause I was vegetarian, and she'd always insist I needed to eat more than I was getting from her cause I was so thin. Lol.

The past few weeks she hasn't been outside in the mornings, so I wasn't sure if she was on vacation, or had a family emergency or something. But yesterday morning I saw some triangle flag banners in her front yard, a 'for sale' sign up on her front fence. I'm not sure exactly why she's selling, but either way, she won't be around selling her home made tamale's anymore. I'll proly talk to her to see where she's moving, so I can try to stop by every now and again to pick up some tamales. Worthless.

A friend at work gave me a heads up about buyblue.org, it's a website where you can look up companies you buy services from, and see how they invest their profits, and what they're politics with their money is like. From their about page:

"BuyBlue.org uses our power as consumers to vote with our wallets, supporting businesses that abide by sustainability, workers' rights, environmental standards, and corporate transparency. At the same time, BuyBlue.org focuses sharply on businesses that violate the essential values of a sustainable, fair and profitable society through their policies and the politicians they support."

So let's see, I have cell phone service with Verizon, which is largely Republican in their political contributions. I have a credit card with Citibank which is also largely Republican, and apparently has been having issues with treating workers in Korea fairly after an acquisition. I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, and they seem about half and half, and they have articles on how they haven't treated laid-off employees very fairly, but have a non-profit award program. So not to say that I should make all my buying decisions on this website, cause there are many sides to every story. But it's definitely an interesting look at how corporations I "invest" in by using their products or services use my money.

I just got back from Connecticut last night. I ended up extending my trip out an extra handful of days, so I was out there for about a solid week. I played some tennis, ping pong, pool, mini-golf, cooked a bunch of food including black-eyed pea and kidney bean shak, fried plantains, ravioli pasta, and apple cinnamon pancakes. Mmmmmmmmm. It was a great week, relaxed and chillin with my girl and her brother, very fun and relaxing. I also saw a bunch of movies, some I had already seen like Spaceballs and The Goonies, but her brother's really cool about checking out cool foreign films. We watched this Japanese animated film called Howl's Moving Castle that was beautifully animated, and had a great story. We also watched a German film called Im Juli which translates to "In July". It was about this really uptight math teacher, who randomly meets this girl and completely falls in love with her, and ends up hitchhiking from Germany to Turkey to find her. But he ends up hitchhiking with this other girl who's totally mad about him. Has anyone in Bollywood seem this film yet? I'm sure they're already working on their own version... but that was a great movie, too! In the classic movie style, it starts right before something major happens to the main character, and takes you through his journey, and you can see how he changes as he learns more about himself and his situation. It was awesome.

On Sunday night, me and Angel threw my girlfriend a surprise birthday party at her apartment in New York. It was crazy, she had NO idea, outside of a really, really small suspicion that she couldn't validate. So when we got there, she almost leaped through the ceiling when Angel open the door to her apartment and a crowd of my girl's friends yelled 'surprise!!!' Lol, it was crazy, and a lot of fun. A bunch of her friends from college came by, her roommate from grad school came, some of her roommates from her internship in Boston came out, her family came out, all these people living in nearby states mind you. So it was cool seeing all these people together at one time. Afterwards we went to this cool billiards bar in Queens, and played some pool and some ping-pong. I haven't played ping pong in forever. I remember my first few years out of high school, me and a few buddies used to get together at my friend Fivel's house and play ping pong in his basement for hours. It was cool as hell seeing a ping pong table at a bar. I gotta find a place in chicago that has one. Anyone out there know of one?