as the tracer glides...

sometimes when you throw a piece of paper out a window...it doesnt get very far.

that was one of the many lessons i learnt living in SAFCO.
which was the name of this bubble that we lived in while in saudi arabia.

welcome to...
(cue intro music)…The spectrum A to Z (part II)

i was a mithun chakraborty fan when i was growing up.
i like to think it had something to do with the fact that he played a rockstar named Jimmy in disco dancer.
but i think it was more to do with the fact that he had an all white wardrobe.
like me. (including the shoes)

in any case.

although music and religion came relatively easy to me, i left major fashion decisions up to my mom.
which really wasn’t a very good idea.

to accompany my all white ensemble …i also had an all red and an all green.

this means that i had a red shirt. which i wore with my red pants.
and a green shirt. which i wore with my green pants. (this helped immensely on st. patricks day)

and then we could always mix and match. (which helped on christmas)
obviously.

and i always had my trusted white shoes which really went so well with everything.

i also had a black vest.
we here in pakistan call it a “kotee”. made of corduroy.
which i wore all summer long. black corduroy.
in the desert.

i feel its important to talk of these things to let you, loyal readers, understand that its okay… its ok to not wear cool clothes.
im a perfect example of how bad clothing really makes the man.

but what really makes a man is how creative you can get with showing your love for indian film actors with white pants.

when youre growing up in an expat colony in saudi arabia there are some things that only you know:

you know theres a world outside your community that is nowhere as nice as yours. so you really don’t bother with anything happening beyond the gates. as far as you’re concerned…there is nothing outside the gates.
and then after the nothing-ness there was aramco. (another expat colony).

you know that the filipino handy-man is a cannibal. as are all asian people in the community. except duane and his sister denise, who i was in love with when i was in pre-school. i could never confess my love though. being that i was friends with her brother.
and i knew it wouldn’t go down well with her parents. i was muslim. she was, i’m assuming, an atheist.
and i was 4.

another thing you know when growing up in an expat colony in saudi arabia is that the locals are all wild uncouth savages. we don’t talk to them, we don’t look at them.
and its ok to be scared of them.

you also know that the entire world revolves around you.

which is why when i sent out my declaration of love to mithun, by cutting up my moms stardust magazine and pasting a picture of mithunda onto a paper and writing “i love mithun” below it, i surely expected big things to happen.

i completed my work of art.
and decided to not let the traditional audience (mom, dad, sister, filipino handy-man) limit my viewership.
i knew i had to do something big, something that would create an impact far too great to ignore.
so i threw it out my bedroom window.

here were the possibilities in my head:
1) mithun would find it and come and save me from my life of boredom. maybe appreciate my sense of clothing.
2) some relative of mithuns would find it. (since there was an indian family living down the block) and they would then forward it to the man himself and then possibility (1) would happen.
3) and number three obviously was a worst case scenario which really could never happen since the first two possibilities were so totally fool proof... that the kids in the compound would find it and i would be recognized for my cool taste in… uh… men.

i found the paper stuck in the cement grill outside my window a couple of months later.
apparently mithun had sent it back, I thought to myself.

but by then i had other things to worry about.
this man was on the cover of time magazine and the world thought he was cool!
he too had a great sense of dressing.
so i got my mom to buy me a red jacket just like his.
and i got gloves. although mine were black (his was silver) i never let that deter me.
this was to be my uniform for the next couple of years.
my gloves and my red jacket. in the desert.

we're not the same, dear; as we used to be.

'sup?

this just in: readership of this blog has gone up by 100%.
im very excited.

ive become a fame junkie.
when i started blogging about 3 years ago...i used to crumble under the pressure.
i used to tell people to not tell other people about my blog.
i was humble.

well...not really.
but i used to act like it.

i thrive in the limelight now.

soooo...i shall take this opportunity to introduce myself to my throngs of new readers.
in a special three part series that i shall call "The spectrum a to z"

PART ONE

my name is ali.
thats "uh-lee" for all my local fans and "alley", for all my international readers.

i was born in 1977.
which is when all the great people were born. some of them are bono (fellow musician), john milton (fellow poet), roy lichtenstien (fellow pop artist) and lionel ritchie (fellow hello).

the beatles were also born in 1977.
on september 11th.
all of them. (except ringo)

as was i.

i was born in lahore. at 9 pm. aparently it was dark, and there were complications. and i almost died*.
but fortunately i didnt. otherwise there wouldve been no http://www.alialam.com/
and that obviously would have been a great tragedy.

so from lahore i decided that our family needed to move abroad so that we cold get a better education etc.
i asked my dad to start looking for jobs in the international market.
preferebly closer to mecca. (because i was always religiously inclined)

so one fine day alam (my dad) came home and said "ali! (thats me) pack your bags!! we're goin' west!"
i was obviously really excited.
and i hurriedly packed my things. and my guitar. (because i was always musically inclined)

so we moved to saudi arabia when i was almost one.
and stayed there for 9 years. until i decided to come back in 1986.

which incidently is when all great people returned home.
the beatles, bono, the dalai lama etc.

*true story. look up 'ali alam' in wikipedia. not right now...but after a couple of days.

coming soon in part 2: ali saves the world..celebrates his third birthday.

and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

that title could very well be the entire post.

i post to say hello to arsheen.
hello arsheen. tv is really overrated.

so we had our little gig the other day. the one with aunty disco project.
and it was ok.

atleast i thought it was. i think we sounded way better at the jams.
but such is the way the cookie crumbles. i tend to brood over performances that dont go as well as expected and that night i would have, if it weren't for the group of friends i have and love so much.
so instead of brooding we went out for dinner and then spent the night smelling random perfumes till 3am. and found one that smelt like burt reynolds.

about the gig...
the sound could have been better i felt.
apparently it sounded alright off stage. but onstage it wasnt all that.
i think what we lacked most was the camaraderie. somehow we didnt gel onstage as much as we should have.
and that seems to crawl into the stage performance. even though i thought oba put his heart and soul into it.
and he is still in my opinion the best frontman ive seen in a long time and i really hope he becomes famous :)

at the end of it all i guess it was an alright show. about a 6.75 /10. but its over. and we didnt sound horrible. and i think we made some money. not as much as we should have. but at least we're not paying out of our pockets. which is what i thought we would be doing.

but we have something to look forward to again!!
on the 5th of June we shall take centre stage at t2f to play another acoustic set.
this time with miq joining J, oba and myself.
we're still working out the times alloted to each performance and the guidelines to the performances. but once that is out of the way... i'm hoping to do an all originals set. which im really excited about. :)

this has been a boring post.
im expecting to lose readership.

i'd rather be a hammer

this is really no time to blog.

i have tons of work to do.
i have radio in a couple of hours.
i have a show to perform tomorrow.

yet i blog.

such is my joy at having installed a sitemeter.
i actually unknowingly installed it about a month ago.
but i have just learnt the true scope of its powers.
(insert evil 'i-will-take-over-the-world' laugh)

and ive noticed that i got something like 43 hits to my last post.
which means that there are atleast 5 other people reading this. (i read my posts myself about 38 times a day)

btw...what i forgot to mention in my last post (because i was so over enthusiastic about the bollywood award show i witnessed), was that the new strings album is finally out.

and i love it. :)

i think all 5 of you should go out and get it.

and so it begins...

soooooo...
lots has happened since i last blogged.

most importantly..
the lux zee cine awards were on last night and i sat through most of them.
:)
this was me spending time with family.
but i did learn a couple of things along the way.

1) karan johar is an idiot.
i already knew that... but now i have proof.

2) i think neha dhupia is hot.
as is kareena kapoor
and katrina kaif.

along with bips.
who i think is the hottest.

3) everyone sucks up to shahrukh khan. thats the rule. apparently. for no apparent reason.
they constantly give him awards he doesnt need or deserve. and in most cases doesnt know what theyre for.

4) and in a moment that can be best described as the most awkward censored moment in tv history.
this guy called sunil lulla was called upon to give an award.
yes. thats his real name. Sunil. Lulla.
and some smart alec at geo though that he should censor the name.
so he censors the last name.

which means that we end up seeing idiot host say "please welcome!...Mr. Sunil ____" and mouthing his last name.

what smart alec geo guy didnt realise was that when a presenter comes up onstage they write their name in subtitles on screen.

so while we were wondering which sunil this is...shetty, gavaskar, sharma(?)...out walks Mr. Lulla.
causing the first real silence in my khaalas tv lounge that night.

5) i like the following songs : mauja hi mauja. the dance-y song with saif ali khan in Race. and dard-e-disco.
i sense a trend here.

6) fake audio applause can only get you so far. indian award show directors need to start adding fake visuals so that when they cut to the audience they actually look alive, and not like theyve just been woken up by this ear shattering applause thats seemingly raining down on them from the heavens.

7) have i mentioned i think bips is hot?

i fell asleep before the best actor and actress awards.
but i did see the nokia advert about a gazillion and one times before i did.
and i still didnt get it.
my khala thinks its a typewriter in the sky.
which makes about as much sense as giving shahrukh khan that award from dubai citi gold city in london.

i realise how this blog will make no sense to anyone, seeing how its not making much sense to me either.

we spoke of was and when.

did everyone in the world know that hannah montana (weird whine-y pre adolescent tween singing sensation)'s real name is miley cyrus??
AND did everyone know that shes the real daughter of billy "achy breaky heart" ray cyrus (brc)??
and that brc plays her dad in her sitcom who writes her music?
i just think thats weird.

weird because its the kind of thing i would expect me to know.
i'm usually quite 'hip' with what the kids are upto...if you know what i mean.

i think its important to stay up to date with these trends. if only to earn the respect of my nephews and nieces.
nothing makes my heart fill up with joy more than when i can impress them with my knowledge regarding ninja hathodi, dragonballZ or their current favourite...the blazing teens.

of late i find myself being left behind quite a lot.
and then i cheat.

i act like i know my blazing teens (who apparently are kids with yo-yos?!?) but i really have no idea.
i pick up on snippets that i hear them talking about...and then throw it right back at them. so they feel they can connect with me better because i know who matthew and leon are.

another favourite these days is MAD on cartoon network.
i havent seen that either. but i totally act like i have. ive heard it stands for "Music Art and Dance" and it actually sounds better than anything else on tv these days.

i dont like how gauhar (of jal) lecherously looks at that girl while she's walking away with that hybrid half pink-half brown cycle of hers. and he does it every ten minutes on every channel in the world.
and speaking of which...why in the world did gauhar get the girl and why was farhan relegated to role of unimportant wingman.
i guess thats still better than shazis role of cycle mechanic.
haahahahaaaa....this blog will make no sense to my international readers...
like my good friend who replied to my earlier post with his little speech on ju-dy gar-land. (i dont want to say it properly because i fear he'll come back)

hadiqas singing that weird "its all the same" song on tv abhi.
what the hell is that all about???

even though i dont speak punjaabi i once wrote a punjaabi song.
well, actually, i cant take all the credit (blame). misbah and i wrote it at indus.
i dont know why.

its not really a song.
we sort of imagined it as a rap (gangsta ...if you please)

here is the original (with a translation for all of us non punjabi speaking folk)

Sanu pyaar karaan teray naal...
main tainu naa chuddunga.
(I have loved you...
I won't let you go.)

the "tainu naa chaddunga.." line is actually a threat.
hence the "gangsta" feel to the song.

tussee heer raindeeh-ay assaan dil ki
main tainu naa chuddunga.
(you are the heer* of my heart,
I won't let you go.)

ballay ballay sohniye, aaja aaja heeriye (obligatory punjaabi words that basically mean "i have the ball lover. come here lover")
oho oho, a-haa brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrruah.
(uh-huh , yeah. thats right. uh-huh, yeah.)

[the oho oho's can be replaced with the more jawad ahmad-esque ho-haa's]

if that doesnt have 'hit single' written all over it i dont know what does. maybe i should give abrar a call.

*[fictional heroine of tragic folk love story where heer either drowns or gets killed by evil uncle, or both. not necessarily in that particular order]

if i could open my eyes.

how i wish you could see the potential,
the potential of you and me.
its like a book elegantly bound but,
in a language that you can't read (just yet).

i'm in love with death cab for cutie all over again.
i love the new single.
i can't wait for the new album.
(narrow stairs: releasing 13th May 2008)

there are days when outside your window,
i see my reflection as i slowly pass.
and i long for this mirrored perspective,
when we'll be lovers,
lovers at last.

you gotta spend some time--love,
you gotta spend some time with me.
and i know that you'll find--love,
i will possess your heart.

i havent been this excited about new music in ages.
but this single, i will possess your heart, is absolutely the most inspiring piece of songwriting i have heard in very very VERY long time.

ive been telling this to everyone i meet lately. and everyone thinks im wierd.

as always the brilliant mr. walla is producing but it sounds nothing like his production. it sounds like the bands been jamming on this stuff for ages. and it sounds like theyve discovered Wilco.
:)

i love Wilco.

speaking of which... i think the company that makes MR. WHITE (smokers toothpaste)- For the entire family, has out done itself with its new brand ... and im not making any of this up...

As if being a 'smokers toothpaste' for 'the entire family' wasnt confusing enough...they felt the need to add further interest in the brand by launching a new product.

MR.WHITE... BLACK??!?!

its still a "smokers" toothpaste.
its still " for the entire family".
its still Mr. WHITE.
but now...its also BLACK!!!

i have personally seen posters of "MR.WHITE -smokers toothpaste- For the entire family- BLACK" ,
featuring Moeen Akhter reprising his role from the obviously hugely successful initial campaign, wearing not a white suit like he did previously, but a black suit.

everything else is more or less the same.

i wonder if the paste is actually black.
that would be something.

i would buy it. i but stuff like that. hina hates it. but i buy any new candy that comes out in the market.
i can proudly state that i have had countless 4evers, hilal ki super sours and khopra candy (of the "banay phirtay ho hatim tai...khopra candy hum ne khilai- jingle" fame )

interesting fact: the afore mentioned jingle for khopra candy ("banay phirtay ho hatim tai..." etc.) was sung by Hasan Jehangir's daughter.

wierd...
but true.

kind of like me.

im wierd.

hello miq.
get the DCFC song!!!
:)