Freedom

I remember the first time I heard the name Lady Gaga, around a year into my stint in America, I assumed she was a really popular porn star.
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I need to get out of India. Free money, anyone? Technically, the whole world is open to me ... but that doesn't make it easier. The difference between having no choices, and so many choices that you freeze up completely.
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It takes effort to be courteous. A sad truth that most people probably never consciously appreciate because it's a function of culture.
You can't expect people to stop pissing on the streets when there's maybe one publicly available toilet for every 50 people. (this is my conservative estimate, and could possibly be an exaggeration) Even if, somehow, magically, toilets were to appear - I doubt many people (read: men) would use them, just for the sake of being contrary. Indians are fucking stubborn.
You can't expect people to make way and show consideration for others on the roads and sidewalks when there's barely enough place for one person at a time. No one's going to stay comfortably in a queue and board a bus in an orderly fashion, because that would be foolish in the extreme! Everyone else would be first and I wouldn't! Can't have that, boss.
This country depresses me ... but then, so does the rest of the world. I hate politics, have I mentioned that? I feel like I've mentioned that. If not on this blog, then for sure in person.
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Songwriting is hard - and made harder, in a way, paradoxically, by my musical training (classical training does not a jazz musician make). A poor working memory doesn't help much either.

Tragically Comic

Bet you thought I was gonna talk about Robin Willams, huh?
Guess again.

Nah, I'm mildly (and darkly) amused by the mess that those American police officers got themselves in by shooting Mike Brown. It seems a total breakdown of civil order in that area is pretty much inevitable right now. I bet Mr Williams is happy he's in a better place. Hmm, speaking of a breakdown ...

Oh, also the bullshit going on with ISIS. Yeah.

Oh, and also all that cow dung with Israel / Palestine.

















HA! Thought that was it, didn't you?
Ebola should keep you on your toes.
Okay, I'm done for now. I guess I should be grateful.

Be Free, Genie. Genie, You're Free Now (a.k.a. "When The Comedy Is A Joke")

Hey, bet you can't guess who's the latest victim of Life, that cruel force.
Here's a hint: his first name's not Williams, and his last name isn't Robin.

The internet says it much better than I ever could, especially considering how little of his extensive filmography I've seen - but here goes:
Farewell, Master. Few can hope to even dream of matching your comedic and dramatic prowess.

There's also my little pet hypothesis that every single well-known comedian is probably depressed. Well, I'm willing to extend that to even lesser-known ones.
Heck, there's a lot of people who aren't comedians who're probably depressed. So don't feel left out.
But hey! It's actually not merely a hypothesis, when it's pretty much the norm. We'll come back to this in a sec.

Depression in a person whose career is one of comedy ... is a special beast. It seems counterintuitive - except that, of course, they're also human. In order to see the joy in life, there has to be some perspective on misery, or else all so-called comedy is nothing but genuine trivialization, generalizations, and a joke.
Robin Williams performed for deployed American troops, and had a tickle fight with Koko the sign-language-speaking gorilla. He's done quite a bit of charity work, from what I've been told. He struggled with substance abuse.
Of course, what makes his death any more significant than all the dead children in the Middle East, I wonder? (There is an obvious answer to that, but let's keep this on topic.)

I try to be funny, sometimes. On occasion. Every now and then. Periodically. Intermittently. Every so often. Once in a while. Observational comedy was usually where I got the most laughs.
America changed me (as most international trips during a person's formative years do). I was myself, yet no one knew that. No one knew me, and I re-invented myself, and everyone knew me. Well, having a somewhat unique name and upbringing for the locale kinda sorta probably helped ...
I was sheltered and awkward growing up in Dubai. Partly through the vagaries of circumstance, partly through my own faults. My penchant for observation and the freedom of culture in the USA taught me a lot without overtly changing who I was. The immediate and complete (and fast!) availability of information simply added to what I had long previously learned from Isaac Asimov and World Book Encyclopedia: namely, that 1) everything I see and know is nothing in the long run, and 2) people are dicks to each other in general, and to women and black people in particular.

But what I'm getting at here is, where does humor come from? The truth is, in order to even dream of coming close to what Robin Williams could do, one has to be well-educated. Well-read, smart, observational, and fearless - he talks about it. You can't joke about things you haven't heard of - and you're basically a prick if you run with something that you just read about in the newspaper headlines five minutes ago without any additional backstory.
I could never joke about drugs - I can barely tolerate alcohol, and I've never smoked. I couldn't joke about women or relationships - a grand total of one girlfriend at the fresh age of 21.5, lasting about 5 weeks. Yeah, I'm frickin' Casanova. I made jokes about friends, games, pop culture, the Middle East, India, the USA, religion, science. I had my ethnicity as an advantage, and by God I milked it. You can only do what you know ... and when you know a lot, like Robin Williams or any great person of history - you see all sides of humanity. From the utter pits up to the truly blessed.

I truly believe that the great comedians operate at a higher level even than the most renowned philosophers of any time - past, present, or future. In order to bring so much joy to humanity, they have to connect with the audience on a very fundamental level; and in order to connect effectively, there must be some form of understanding. To see into the nature of a subject and bring out genuine hilarity will always 1) offend someone* and 2) give the comedian a clear view of the dark side. I know it, because I've seen it, I've been there, and so have plenty of others ... and I'm not even that great of a comedian.

You know what, just forget everything I'm saying. The articles I linked above say it so much better than I can. I've forgotten how to speak since I left America.
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*There are distasteful jokes. They exist. But they are largely a matter of context ... you can't have a smartass white comedian going on about how hard it is to be a woman in a country they're never lived in - while a woman from said culture would rake in the dough. And beyond that lies a matter of being able to laugh at oneself - which is not easy. There are jokes about rape and rape culture that, delivered tastefully, do not detract from what a serious problem it is. People joke about the Titanic, recognizing the hyperbole of proclaiming it unsinkable. And the list goes on.
And a truth that very few people want to recognize - there should some part of you that recognizes the realities that make comedy possible. This is the part that dictates whether you laugh or get offended, whether at your own expense or at others'. If that part of you is insensitive, then you have lost your humanity and humour is most certainly not for you.

Fearless

I live in perpetual fear of ...

... the minuscule lapse of attention it would take for me to be struck by a car on Indian roads.
... the infinitesimally small margins by which buses avoid head-on collisions as I commute to/from work.
... a meteorite hitting the planet.
... a meteorite hitting me.
... falling into the gutter, on account of my poor balance, or the rain, or being forced off the road by a vehicle driving close to the edge of the road.
... the one mosquito bite it would take to contract malaria, or worse.
... the one fall, on stairs or concrete, that could leave me with a broken neck.
... my mandolin strings snapping as I play, cutting my skin and giving me tetanus.
... falling off my bed as I sleep.
... wetting my bed like I did as a child.
... slipping in the shower.
... stepping in cow dung.
... missing something important.
... loneliness.
... beautiful women.
... life.
... death.
... going insane from the stress of dwelling on all of the above and more on a daily basis.