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.