Being a Dick

Sometimes having a dick and being a dick means the same.

Anyone who says 'Doesn't it always mean the same' is a big hairy rug
munching lesbian.
--
<

Tabasco

Tabasco goes with everything.
I love to add tabasco to everything.

In the morning I add a dash of Tabasco to the glass of juice at breakfast.
Surprisingly tasty!

All my apple slices get a dash of tabasco too!

Vanilla ice cream with tabasco - now that's a nobel award winning idea
-well at least a Pulitzer -if not a MTV Viewers choice award.

I never knew Tabasco goes with everything.

I bet you didn't either!

That's right folks ...Tabasco Goes With Everything!



What !?

Mc Ilhenny Co. won't give me a lifetime supply of Tabasco Sauce?

Just because I'm not a celebrity?

But what about the free tagline I've created for them?

No...I didn't steal it from any brand.

Wait! You guys haven't even heard the jingle...wait...picture
this,three frogs sitting on a rock in a lake.

They go 'Ta-bas-co,Ta-bas-co' get it?

You know they don't go ribbit,ribbit like all other frogs...

Hey! Who are those big guys with night sticks,and why are they wearing
uniforms...hey are they security???

Hey!Why are they lifting me up? Gosh Guys It wasn't that good...I just
want my lifetime supply of Tabasco Sauce...


Hey! Hey! You guys are going the wrong way...that's the exit...

Hey! Hey! Whoaaa!

Tabasco! Tabasco Goes with everything!

(I dream of Jeannie.Not really.These days I have dreams about ads.This
was an ad for tabasco.Well sort of a viral video for Youtube.I also
dreamed up a generic ad for either a cell phone or a cell phone
service provider, but the hitch is that it will work only in
hindi.Damn these dreams.I just want salma hayek topless in my dreams
once, not some stupid ads that I can make money on!)
--
<

Spring cleaning in december

I've begun spring cleaning in december.
I'm in brazil, about 80 miles from Rio.
Since we are in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are reversed.
We are having a very hot and sweaty christmas here.

What better time or place to begin your spring cleaning.

Out goes the old so that the new can come in.

I only post stuff that I've already let go.
These issues that I've posted no longer bother me.

But as I looked through some old stuff, I found that I hadn't let go
of some old things and somehow forgotten them altogether without
letting them go.

Which is why I searched my hard disk for all my old stuff.
I labeled these as old posts and after a cursory glance let them go.
I posted them, because it does not matter anymore.


This is my way of letting go of the past.
This is my way of inviting new thoughts and ideas for the coming new year.

I make no new year resolutions, apart from that of letting go of the
past and inviting the new.

This is my spring cleaning in december.

Merry Xmas and A Happy New Year.
(But if you are not feeling particularly merry,happy or gay, and wish
to be morose, then that's fine with me too.
So I wish you a brooding xmas and a glowering new year)

P.s. Our Xmas party is still going strong.
People have roasted a suckling pig and they have butchered many
christmas carols.
Filipinos are either good singers or good drunks, but not both.
(Strangely neither am I)
Karaoke and beer do not mix.
I repeat.
Karaoke and beer do not mix.
Oh, and you cannot sing like Mariah Carey because you are a balding
dude on the wrong side of forty.Come to your senses man!

--
<

Complimentary

Its true that men don't get as many compliments as women.
Its also true that as a result most of us are hungry and will take any
compliment that comes our way.

I remember once all us guys were together, waiting in line for our
annual medical check up.
You know, the one where we allow a complete stranger to cup our balls
and fondle them while we are made to cough.
(Hey, it's better than than someone poking a speculum inside me)

My friend who just got out of the checkup was looking unusually
happy.Happy in a 'grinnig-from-ear to ear' kind of happy.
Why was he so happy?
Hmm...?
We wondered if he got a prostate examination along with other vaguely
homoerotic medical procedures.
Spread your cheeks wide and relax your anus.This will not hurt a bit.I promise.
Relax it damn you!

We found out that after the doctor had cupped him, and ahem...checked
for...what do doctors feel for when they fondle with our balzacs
anyway?
Hernia, yeah right!(Balzac=ball sac.Get it ?)

Anyways, I don't know what the doctor found out, but as he was
checking out my friends family jewels, the doctor told him casually
that he should have been a

pornstar and not a seaman.

Is that borderline creepy or what ?

Hey Doc...Hey Doc...Leggo of me.Those are not meant to be squeezed
like that.Hey! Are you a nutcracker? Hey! Ow...Owww! Yes...I'm a
pornstar...thank you

doctor...owwww! Leggo of me....Nurse! HELP!


Anyways, the doctor did not molest this guy.He only paid him a compliment.
A compliment about his manhood, of all the things!

That too from a guy who squeezes nuts all day for a living.
He must compare sizes all day.

Hung like a mule.
Pencildick.
Weiner.
Hung like a pornstar.
Baldheaded Eagle.
Mr.Shortypants.

Dr.Nutcracker knows what he is talking about.

We men don't get too many compliments in general, so sometimes we will
take whatever we get.Even if it from a sixty year old white haired guy
who just cupped

you and made vague sexual innuendo.

My friend was so flattered that he went on telling everyone about the
doctor's remark.
Later that night, we heard him singing 'I'm a Pornstar'

The rest of us could only cringe and hope for an examination that was
less awkward.
(Spread your cheeks wide.It's just a finger, two at the most.You won't
feel a thing.I promise.
Brrr!)

Women are particularly stingy about complimenting guys.

The art of giving compliments is essential for every human being who
wants to be socially savvy.
Compliments are a much better social lubricant than alcohol.
I take pride in myself for inventing never before heard compliments.If
you listen to them carefully, they are not even compliments!

That being said, there is a fine line between complimenting and
kissing ass and brown-nosing.
(Have you ever wondered why american slang is so anally obsessed?)

It's true that imitation is the best form of flattery , but it is also
equally true that sycophancy is the worst form of flattery.
The art of giving compliments has to be learnt.
A few useful pointers:
1)It has to be unique.
2)It has to be a custom fit.
3)It must present a never before seen side of the complimentee.
4)As much as possible the compliment must also reflect you.

I get compliments from older women...

A lot of compliments.

Weird and creepy compliments.

A bunch of older aunts and assorted grandmas will at times viciously
compliment me to the point of extreme embarrassment.
One nonagenarian with hunchback once started squeezing me in
inappropriate places saying that I was the most manly thing she had
ever seen.
Yikes! Down Grandma...Down! You had your menopause four decades ago!

Another said my hairy arms were very sexy, all the while trying to rip
them off my shoulders.(she was extremely strong her her age and
gender)

Once a middle aged lady kept following me and then finally came up to
me and said that I had royal feet.
Royal Feet !
What the EFF Granny? (My feet are burnt badly and permanently scarred)

The only other type of females that overtly compliment me are
foriegners...I mean, when I visit another country, thats where women
openly compliment me, as

you've read before.
I have a theory for that.
When women know that they will never see you again, they tend to be
more aggressive and bold.I'm a foreigner.I usually don't tell them I'm
a sailor, but I

think they assume that I'm either a sailor or a tourist.So this might
be the last time they'll ever see me.
So what the heck! Lets tell the guy what he wants to hear.

But here's the kicker- It's men who compliment me the most.Even though
I don't want them to.

In china, the defacto english greeting for me was"You're so
handsome...How many girlfriends do you have?",
I used to replied,'Nihao! I have four and counting'

That's why I asked her once 'tell me, what is it that you like about me?
I wanted to know.
She didn't like the way I dressed(it's too loud),or the way I
talked(its too fast), or the way I walked(it's too straight),or the
way I ate(it's too much)...
So what DID she like about me?
I wanted to know.

She had no answer!
I persisted.

She then began babbling about how much her friend liked me and thought
that I was very smart...
I cut her off.
I don't care what your friend thinks of me.I've known that she's had a
crush on me ever since she first saw me.But I want to know what you
think.

She said,and I quote,'I dont want to tell you,It might just go to your head'.

Strangely mom and dad subscribed to the same fact.
Well son...It was good, but I know you can do better next time.

Bah!

Well son...It was good, but your friend did better than you.

BAH!

Even now, mom cannot give a direct compliment.

She said,'People keep telling me how smart you are.There must be some
truth to it.'

BAH!

Hey women! Learn how to compliment a man for a change.You've been
getting lazy listening to all the compliments.
Appeal to his masculine vanity a bit.Let his head float in the skies a
bit.You can drag him down later.
We men are vain creatures too you know.

Learn from the old ladies- and tone it down about 50%, and you'll be good.

Mom finally gave me a compliment.A true genuine, heartfelt one.
'I have to tell you.It's great that you have continued playing your
guitar all these years, even though you're so bad at it'

Gee! Thanks Ma!


--
<

Toothless Aggression (some old posts that I don't remember posting)

'Mom, I've got some good news and some Bad news'
"good news first...I'm coming home soon ma!'

'WHY, WHAT's WRONG WITH YOU?"

'Well ma, I fell down today and I'm missing a few teef!'

'CRAP!"

Isn't it cool when you can still make your mom swear?


'It's ok ma, look at it this way.

On my way to the hospital, I found out that the chief engineer on the
ship next to us had died.

Me?

I don't have a single scratch on me.Not a drop of blood, except for
two fractured incisors'

'I saw the body being carried off the boat.It was the same boat in
which I was supposed to go back to my ship.
The body was kept in the back.

I sat in the front, right next to the driver smoking his stinking
Gudang Garam ciggies.

Phew! They stink! They can be used to exorcise the undead.

So just in case the ghost of the dead chief engineer hovered around,
it would never come near me!'


Oh man! I was never afraid of dentists until now.

All my life, I never went to a bloody dentist because my dad was
stricter than Willy Wonka's dad.
As a result, I never got a single cavity, and since my family did not
believe in orthodontics, I never corrected my bunny teeth.(what's up
doc?)

SO, I didn't fear dentists.

Some of my best friends are dentists!

I don't remember much of my fall, or how it happened.

I only remember waking up from a dream which I could not remember,
only to realize that I was lying face down on the deck(that's floor to
you landlubbers) for god knows how long, and getting up with a
throbbing pain in my face.

There was a hole in my soul,
filled with an unnecessary hyperbole,
I had to use the word thole
just to rhyme this paragraph in whole

Actually, my tongue felt an emptiness, a void as it licked my upper lips.

And then I went...

Holy Shit, My Teef are broken!

I woke up, and searched for my broken tooth.Found it lying calmly besides me.
You bastard!How dare you secede?

As soon as I went ashore,I was sent to the doctor.The doctor called
his assistant, a burqa clad twenty-something girl.
They both pointed at me and began laughing.
My driver laughed with them.

I wanted to punch them because I didn't understand a word they said.

Then they took me to a dentist.

A thirty-something lady with two cute-as-a-button daughters frolicking
around in her office.

She made me lie down, and poked my gums with a sharp needle.

Needles.
I can handle needles.
I ain't no sissy.

Then came the pliers and the drill machine that went
'Whirrrrrrrrrrrrr' and a sledgehammer.

I can handle needles.
I ain't no pussy.
But c'mon, a sledgehammer?

The plier was on my tooth.
I stiffened at the sound of bones crunching.
I was holding onto the chair with a white-knuckled death grip.

'Meester!,

That's what she says, I swear to god,'Meester, you need to relax,meester'

'Hola, senorita, me no hablo espanol!'

She had exceptionally strong forearms.
It comes with the job.

The pliers clamped on the teeth once again.
She planted her foot next to the chair for support and braced herself.
With a herculean cry, she pulled out the tooth.

Owww-Arrghh-crap!

She messed it up and only a part of the tooth came out.

Out came the bigger pliers.
And the drill that went'whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr'
The sledgehammer was just for effect.

She let a warrior princess cry and 'CRAAACK!'I could hear my tooth
being separated from my jaw, and from my soul.

'Now meester,it ees over, no need to sheever, see!'

She handed me a mirror, and as I looked at it and something died inside.

I looked like a bloodythirsty vampire with blood dripping from my
teeth and an empty void that said'What Me Worry?'

I went outside and the driver tells me that the boat has been delayed.
It is carrying the body of the chief engineer.

So he asked me if I want to have a good time.

Sure! Why not?

Where's the nearest cyber cafe?


No No No! No have internet! Small City ! Only computers!No internet.

But have girls!
You want?
They very special?

How are they special? Do they have teeth in their boxes...
Do they have 4 titties? 2 kittys ?

No No No! Very special!
No have open place...Very Private, I call, she come.

Ah! Indonesia! I've even been solicited by a ten year old boy.
I felt pity and disgust at the same time for the boy.

I've also learned that moralistic replies are not comprehended.
A pimp trying to hustle will always try to bully you.

Try this reply sometime...

'I don't do those things.
I don't feel it is right.
It's not safe either.
Besides, she should pay me for the sex,
and not the other way around!'

...and you'll get laughed out of this solar system.

'Ok my friend, you no like girls? We get you boys for you, ok?'

'Hey, hey hey, I like girls, not boys...'

'So, you take this girl...no problem! Very nice, fresh...make you happy happy!'

'Arrgh...I don't do those things...'

'No problem, if you no like girls, I get you a boy.He special also!'


'Arrghh!'

So, I have my own solution...

I say

'I'm too drunk!And Little willie wants to sleep'

or say

'No have money my friend'


or say

'Fuck Off'(This reply should be used sparingly.You don't want them to
attack you)

SO I told him that I didn't do those kind of things.(for my
satisfaction), and told him that I was badly injured and wouldn't be
able to get it up, and he stopped pestering me.

I waited for the boat.It was delayed because it was carrying the
body.Once the body came, I went on the boat and went back to my ship.





--
<

Green Frog (Some old stuff that never got posted)

I had a green plastic frog once.
It was very realistic, with warts and green bumpy skin and a smooth
white underbelly among other things.
I used to squeeze it hard and it would go 'RIBBIT!'
(and not bud-weis-er)

It was my favourite toy because I could throw it on girls and make
them pee in their undies.
I used to do that a lot.

I don't have that frog anymore.Mom gave it away after an
over-caffienated spring cleaning binge session that lasted for nearly
two weeks.

I was distraught for a few days, and mom got me a new frog.
The new one was no where as good as the old one.Suddenly no one was
scared of my frog attacks.They all smelled a cheap imitation a mile
away.

I missed my old frog.

I missed it so much that soon I began using the image of my lost frog
in a self-referential manner.
In essence I became a frog to compensate for my loss.
But it was my little secret that I had become an amphibian.

I was also a frog because it took a princess to change me.
I am no prince charming, but no longer a frog either.

We both were in the process of transformation- a gradual metamorphosis
and in the process of changing ourselves, we changed each other in
more ways than anyone could have ever imagined.

I was a frog because it took a princess to change who I was.
But that's where the story ended.
But I wish I would be a prince charming some day.

Come closer children, and listen to me very carefully.
None of my fairy tales will ever end with 'and they lived happily ever after'.
I do not want to purport a myth or plant lies in your tender unripened
minds about everlasting happiness.Sad as it is, for most mere mortals
happiness is a fleeting sensation.
Take Grief and sorrow...now those can last, but happiness itself has a
curious way in which it evaporates.

Happiness-fleeting happiness
In it's essence
is effervescent evanescence

Kiddies,write that down somewhere.


I was a frog because it took a princess to change who I was.But that's
where the story ended.
No the story did not end.
The story teller decided to call the quits, and took a very long coffee break.

I hate to admit it but sometimes I have visions.
As a rational minded sceptic, I always dismiss them as Hallucinations.
Years ago, I knew about my future.
I would be a storyteller.
I saw myself, old and wrinkled, and telling stories that healed
people.That was my mission.
Thats what I was supposed to do in my Busman's vacation.

But I always dismissed these visions for what they were.
Hallucinations.

I knew I'd disappoint my parents when I woke up one night with a
strange dream of me chasing an owl which was wearing hornrimmed
glasses.It was injured and could not fly.But try as I may to catch it,
it would hop away and flop at some distance. Eventually I crushed it
to death by mistake.
To me that dream meant I would be an academic failure, and a major
disappointment to all the dreams and aspirations of my father.

I would not become what he had meant for me to become.I would never
become an engineer like him.

Another dream, a waking dream nonetheless, told me of my first love.In
that dream, I saw that when she had to choose between me and her
ambitions, she chose the latter.

Strangely , I also know about the girl I was going to marry, or how
many children I'd have.(see how I've already put the future in the
past tense)

Bloody hallucinations.

Sorry.

They can be so tantalisingly detailed.

When I met her for the first time,there was no surprise, there was no
recognition, there was no love...but there was acceptance.
It was as if we both knew even before we met.
It came as a surprize to no one else either.For everybody,our marriage
was the most natural thing that could have happened.
It was as if everybody knew even before they knew.

Hallucinations...I've deeply studied altered states of mind and
methods of inducing them , so that I could understand my own
visions,my hallucinations.

But I did not believe in them.They were only hallucinations.And as
such , carried no merit, but then realised their potency when I saw
again what I had seen before.
They were all coming true.

I was tempted to call it deja-vu.
Yes , I did call it Deja-vu and hallucinations and other things,
because I was a rational man and rational men did not have visions of
the future.


And I was a frog because it took a princess to change who I was.But
that's where the story ended.
No the story did not end.
It diverged.
Just as it happened before, and I was seeing again all that I had seen before.
It was inevitable.
The wheels creaked and events aligned themselves underneath and paved
the way for the Juggernaut.That was how the Juggernaut Universe rolled
forward.
Once the wheels were upon these events, the sheer weight of the
universe would imprint these events on the fabric of space and time.
The imprinting of events was permanent and irreversible.
The only things that could be changed were inference and illation, for
they were made of the very same stuff that dreams and nightmares were
made of and thus were wispy and malleable.

Kiddies,little children, I see some sleepy eyes amongst you, so let me finish.
Let me tell my story before the sandman claims you.

Occasionally you might hear people talk about my strangeness, of how I
could talk to animals or hold my breath for a long time or how in the
past I have narrowly missed death from all strange things not limited
to falling coconuts and/or speeding trucks.
There is also that idiot who keeps telling people that I had once left
my body and traveled outside to meet him.
Disregard all of them.
Especially that idiot.

I'm just a man.

An ordinary man.
I'm just a storyteller, because that was what I was meant to be.

I'm no superman,rockstar or a godman/guru.

People will try to mythologize me, but reject all myths.
I'm just an ordinary man.

Someday, people might tell you that I was a frog before.
That's true.
I was a frog because it took a princess to change me.
I'll be forever indebted to her for doing so.
I'll be always in love with her for doing so.

But that's where the story ended.
At least for now.

The future is still ahead of us.


--
<

Elegy (some old posts)

Death ends a life, but it does not end a
relationship, which struggles on in the
survivor's mind towards some resolution
which it may never find.
— Robert Anderson
I Never Sang for My Father

Call a man great if he can make you realize that you already know what
he is talking about, and that you've always known it all along.

Human life is full of experiences vastly different if you look at them
minutely through a microscope , but viewed from a telescope , from
afar,from an alien spaceship it looks mundanely similar.

You may be a doctor, I may be an accountant,you may be a singer, I may
be a janitor but our journey is etched with the same important
landmarks...that is we all are born one day through sheer luck and
fortuity (fortuity ?) (our birth is virtually impossible to be
replicated under normal circumstances, given the millions of
spermatazoa vying furiously to win the death-race to reach the egg and
fertilize it !), and then after a passage of time, be it minutes,hours
,days or decades , we die.
What happens in between may or may not be remembered by others ,
depending on the gravity of your deeds.

Tapping in to the vast reserve of human experiences is therefore
deceptively easy and exceedingly difficult as it looks.Great writers
have the ability to resonate with your deepest beliefs (or core
beliefs) and make it seem personal, like they were saying it with you,
for you.

As an old man, my teacher once told me..."I'm not here to teach
you.I'm only here to make you realize , to make you know that you
already know."
But he was critically wrong in a way.
No one can make you realize anything.
Realization must come from within...

I know... I understand that you've heard this aphorism hundreds of
times and believe that it is very cliched , therefore does not evoke
any response out from you , but believe me , you'll be jumping around
shouting 'Eureka !' when the moment of 'Satori' , the japanese term of
enlightenment falls upon you.

The trick is then to tap into an universal experience, or rather an
universal emotion and exploit it in any way you can, and milk it dry
.(emotions in my opinion are empty names to the multitude of complex
chemical physical and psychological action-reaction bombs exploding
within,and for example calling fear as fear itself would be
frustratingly inadequate when the first fear is because you saw a
cockroach and the second fear is because you are five feet away from a
hungry tiger about to pounce upon you )

And believe me, enlightenment is not atonement.It does not free you
from anything, but rather makes everything else meaningless, and thus
dealing with life becomes less of a hassle.
Buddha was lucky.
If we are to believe in his story,even though he had to wait for years
, enlightenment came to him as a whole package...but you and I are not
so divine and therefore we'll have to be content with our 'Mini
Satoris' and our once in a blue moon instalments of 'Aha ! 'moments
that make life worth living for another day.

As I've somewhere said before , we are never ready for what we are
about to face , until the moment we face it.All the mental
preparation, all the vicarious experiences will fall short of the
truth.
Then why as humans , do we seek out such experiences ? Is it because
as humans all we have is one life , and all the decisons we make , the
paths we take cannot be taken again ? Is it because whatever paths we
once choose , we cannot at a later stage erase those paths and
consequences out completely.

I believe that we implicitly know of our false illusion of immortality.

We know that we , or rather the 'I' or the 'self' does not persist
through eternity.
Whatever may be eternal(you may call it god for simplicity) , but
with the last expiration of air through the lungs, with the shutting
off of all vital organs , we know that the 'I' or our individuality
ceases to exist.

If 'I' don't exist ,
Then what does?
If 'I' don't exist
then why bother?
If 'I' don't exist ,
Then Who cares?

(This philosophy , I found out very recently is called
extinctivism,whose proponents believe that the soul is a figment of
imagination created by the mind that essentially is incapable of
imagining the lack of being)

So we choose to enrich ourselves with a lifetime of experiences in our
fields of interest and we become collecters of experiences.
But the tendency I've seen in people is that they stop at the stage of
collecting ,for they do not know how to proceed further.

It's funny to know that...Everybody's lost.

I've seen spiritual shoppers with hundreds of books in their
bookshelves but lacking even an iota of spirituality in their
souls.I've seen car enthusiasts who are forever stuck with their
magazines but without the slightest hint on how to enjoy their own
cars.

I couldn't read the last chapter of Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable
Lighteness of Being" in one go.
To me it seems like he saved his best punches for the last.
'Karenin's Smile' is devastatingly beautiful.Each line is masterfully
crafted to evoke the deepest emotions.
All the emotions associated with loss, I've found are more powerful
than the ones associated with any other emotion. Lust or jealousy or
even anger does not wield so much power as grief and Happiness is
frustratingly fleeting.

The grief of loss is truly an universal emotion , far more poweful for
it persists through ghosts and illusions , for it resonates and
infects every particle around it.

Buddha asked the distraught mother of the stillborn child to get him a
fistful of sesame (or some other insignificant thing, I don't
remember) from any house that has not experienced death and thereby
teaches her that loss is inherent , and the attached pain is but a
normal and valid reaction.

Am I obsessed with death?
I've seen fear in the eyes of the bravest when it came to facing death.
And it has made me curious, but I know its a one-way trip.

I almost lost my Moti.So I couldn't read 'Karenin's Smile' in one go.
I had to make brief and frequent stops to reimagine and relive my own
experience.Thus Milan Kundera had succeeded in making the chapter a
shared experience.
Someday I'd be like to write like him , only better.
Till then I have to be content at clutching and flailing and failing
to grasp the straws of truth.


(When I wrote this moti was still alive.)

--
<