HXA as DJ

This may seem like a small thing, but its actually quite momentous. It's so meaningful and deep for me, that I haven't told many about it. My bros know, coz they know me, and they get it. I've just now started to clue in my closest friends.

I've wanted to DJ since I was 14. I've long been a househead, since I got into music at 11. Long story short, I chose filmmaking instead, and have since (mostly) denied my immense desire to do anything with music. Rather, I end up writing and making films that feature characters who do music; they're either DJs of some kind, have been or are in a band, etc. I suppose that's me as a creator attempting to bring my worlds of film and music together.

In September I went to Berlin and I went out and experienced the nightlife. I had to, as Berlin's the current techno capital of the world and has been for about a decade now (after London and after Detroit) - and also I wrote about Berlin clubs in my script, so I had to actually go and experience at least a couple of them. Of course, the tunes I heard were terrific. A couple nights after returning to Los Angeles I found myself becoming the impromptu main DJ at a welcome-to-film-school party that my classmates and I put on. It was FUN. Having 250+ or so people in Soundstage 2 dance to the tunes I chose, was extremely fun. I've done some DJing before, randomly and off-the-cuff, and because I listen to music and especially to DJ mixes constantly, I don't find it tremendously difficult, but a great thrill.

After that night at the end of September, I decided, bas, that's it. I've made enough excuses for way too long. So I spent some money and finally got some gear. Learning how to properly DJ I think will be a meaningful and healthy hobby for me - I already spend a lot of my downtime listening to music, and always have, so I might as well make it more effective and useful in some way.

Here's a clip from yesterday. Monday morning, start of the week, eating cereal and exploring. Alhumdulillah a great way to start the week. Playing one of my favourite tunes from my high school years.

This is a big part of me attempting to take better care of myself, inshallah.

On getting older

This is an exercise in procrastination. Oh well. I keep getting told I need to take better care of myself, so am gonna write this first.

For several weeks or months now I've been thinking about how hundreds, probably thousands, of people have walked in and out of my life. This is the result of having lived in multiple places, being in multiple circles as the result of multiple identities, multiple jobs and networks from those jobs. At some point we realize that there are only a few people who actually do stick around, and I can count those friends on one hand. That is all we need really. And though some of them are married now and have kids, every now and then we're able to reconnect, and if push comes to shove, I can reach out to them.

For them, I am immensely grateful that they have stuck around, despite all the bullshit I've put them through, over years, or decades. Perhaps it's no coincidence that two of them happen to be therapists...wozzup K & M.

Pretty much almost everyone else just passes by though. Somehow during my twenties in New York I built an immense network. When I am back in town there are only a few people I do actually see and/or who make time to see me. And that is totally fine. It would be exhausting and impossible to attempt to maintain connections with scores of folks there. I had a trip back to NY just a few days ago and I fully appreciated and enjoyed the time with the friends I did get to see. Quality, not quantity.

When I was briefly back on the monstrous social media site that rules too many of our lives, I "defriended" probably over 1,200 people (this defriending has happened over time, not all at once). People who lived on my floor in freshman year at college, people met at parties or events, etc etc - there is no need for me to be on that network or for us to be connected on it. It's interesting, I realized that as I "defriended" someone that I would probably never come across their name or memory again.

My brief trip to NY made me realize that close to 2 years after having left, that I am finally over NY. I'm over that city. New York is an incredible and emotional and long chapter in my past. I am not romantic about the city anymore, I think. Perhaps it was because I went in December, and it snowed - and thus then got grey and mushy - perhaps it's because the MTA is much more worse now, perhaps it's because I find the new and gigantic constructions aggressive, ugly, and in some ways, violent - my heart doesn't yearn for NY anymore. I used to write "NY meri jaan". In some ways it still is - but that's really only because of the incredible people I know there.

I feel much more ready and willing to embrace LA now. Come on Los Angeles, embrace me. Give me a massive hug with your tall and skinny palm trees, 5 lane freeways, avocados, and the lovely home I happen to reside in, alhumdulillah.

Many have told me that it's harder to make friends as you get older. I can certainly attest to this. I'm sometimes with those who are much younger than me - they want to stay out late and party, meet lots of people, etc - that was me. I'm way past that now. Those were the things I did in NY almost a decade ago, and later on, most of the people that I met have come and gone. I'm going from having a massive network in NY, to being much more selective about who I spend time with and attempt to befriend, here in LA. I think it's better that way. Because, most of the folks in the past are just that, in the past. Thinking about the present and the future now, in this city that I'm now looking to embrace much more, I'd rather more fully connect with just a good small number of folks, than attempt to befriend everyone I come across.

So here's to getting older, and maybe, though probably not, wiser. Hopefully spending my limited free time to building well with good people. Call me an introvert, I don't care. My days of going out and roving around with whoever are long gone...I think. I'd much rather have a handful of decent friends to connect with here, and spend my other free time working on myself inshallah. I still haven't really gone hiking here, dammit.

I suppose now I should actually finish this assignment...

On being an anti-war filmmaker

People are dying. People have been killed.
People are human beings.
Iraqis are human beings. Iraqi civilians are human beings.
Iraqis matter. Civilians matter.

In the last couple of years there have been 2 NYT investigations related to Daesh and Iraq that have utterly devastated me. The first was this report from August 2015 on their sex slavery camps, that raised many uncomfortable questions in my mind about Islamic doctrine. The second, is from an email I received a couple days ago from Azmat Khan, a journalist who I went to college with a decade ago at the University of Michigan. Azmat, tremendously, courageously, and astutely, alongside with her colleague Anand Gopal, spent 18 months in Iraq uncovering the number of civilians that have been killed by U.S. airstrikes that supposedly target Daesh. Read their investigation here. 

There are so many meandering thoughts in my silly little brain after reading their work, and after hearing Azmat's interviews on NPR and PBS Newshour.

Of course my first thought is of how the American government does not care, at all, about how many civilians it kills. Indeed, they are uncounted. People like Iraqis, are seen to be expendable, as not human beings. Their lives do not matter to those who decide to invade, occupy, and kill. The journalists mention that the U.S. government actually doesn't even aim for 0 civilian casualties. And so a little 2-year-old girl, Rawa, will be the only survivor of an airstrike that killed 7 members of her family, including her parents. Her home was targeted due to faulty and outdated "intelligence". The American government could not care less, literally.

I remember 2003. I remember March 2003, when America invaded Iraq for the second time. I was in high school in Metro Detroit, and I went to a school that was a third Arab (and is probably about half Arab by now). I grew up during the Bush Administration, during the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, this so called War On Terror, and felt the boomerang effects of the war as the war came home via draconian surveillance on my faith community - and all of it is still ongoing. During these years I felt that I was facing an immensely massive, angry, violent dog, and in turn I was backed up into a corner. It's during this period when I first became politicized, and this is the same age and time when I decided I wanted to write and direct films. I realize now that it is because I wanted to reclaim and portray the humanity of my people. The humanity.

I've been told by my father's side of the family that I am 1/8 Iraqi, that I have a great-grandfather who came to India from Iraq. This is a mystery to me that I've longed to uncover someday, somehow, before it's too late, but I don't know how and I don't know when I'll get to dive into this history. Along with wanting to further explore the villages and towns in Bihar/Jharkand that my grandparents were from, some of which don't exist anymore as they got erased during the Hindu-Muslim violence of Partition, I also want to go to Iraq and see where this ancestor of mine came from. Iraq has frequently been on my mind since 2003, and I've created past film work about the war before. Perhaps it was because of this subconscious connection, perhaps not.

During my more activist days I identified for a time as an anti-war filmmaker. Since I've been able to dive more deeply into creating fictional work, which was my goal all along, I haven't used that label for myself as much, as it didn't seem as applicable.

But for the last week or so, my mind has drifted back to the notion of me being an anti-war filmmaker. Is creating films about migrants anti-war? Is creating films that complicate the narrative of what it means to be Muslim, anti-war?

Perhaps not directly. But anti-war also means anti-violence. Forced migrants, largely migrate because of violence. In creating films that are about migrants, there is a subtle and indirect, and sometimes very direct, commentary on "legal violence" that migrants are subjected to (a term I learned recently). And in creating films that show just how varied Muslim life is, that too is anti-war as it's a means to humanize my faith community - to get away from the language of war and terror, to show life as it is actually lived instead. And so perhaps just creating humanizing portrayals of communities is inherently anti-war, anti-violence.

I am an anti-war filmmaker. I do try to not put more labels on myself, but I think this is one I am returning to. It's a label that very few use now unfortunately, even though we now need more anti-war storytellers more than ever, as the violence in the world we live in just seems to be increasing.

I am so proud of what Azmat and co did (and for once I feel proud of the Umich connection, and I think is also a reason of why Azmat was able to connect to Zareena Grewal, mentioned in the report). I cannot fathom how difficult it must have been to spend 18 months talking to so many victims, survivors, seeing so many wrecked homes, the horror from the aftermath of airstrikes - and the reporters were in Mosul and the surrounding areas when it was all until very recently, under Daesh rule. Ultimately though, this is not about me, or about them, at all. It is about Iraqis.

Transcript from the NPR interview:
"KHAN: Well, it's very fascinating because Basim tried himself to report this case on multiple occasions.

MCEVERS: Right.

KHAN: And he even had a cousin who was a professor at Yale who had written an op-ed in The New York Times about this airstrike. Basim is somebody who speaks fluent English. He lived in the United States for years. He has access to email. He could document his case really, really well with GPS coordinates. There was a video of the airstrike.

So here's somebody who's really acting in the best-case scenario. And in his case, it took him a year and a half to get the coalition to admit that these were civilians publicly. It took him a year and a half to do that. So what chance do these Iraqis who are much poorer, who don't speak English, who don't have access to these resources, who don't necessarily meet a Western...

MCEVERS: Right - have cousin at Yale University.

KHAN: Exactly. What chance do they have?"

On men and Harvey Weinstein

“What are you studying?” he asks repeatedly, louder each time. I’m reading the Guardian and not paying attention to anything else, and I realize this stranger is addressing me. He demands to know, because of course he demands, he thinks he deserves my attention. “Film”. “Oh, do you wanna be a producer or a director?” I think, I’m already a director, arsehole, and have been for years. “Directing”. “Good luck, you’re at a great school. You’re gonna make it”. I don’t need your encouragement, random bald white man, nor do I want it.

Then the classic. “Where are you from?” I’ve finally learned that I do not have to answer this stupid fucking question, and of how to ignore it. “All over”. He laughs. “That’s a good one”. He says something about how he owns a house south of here. I don’t care about your house and nor do I ever wanna see it. I ignore him. He moves one seat closer and I continue to ignore him. He soon leaves, thankfully.

This past Sunday I walked around after doing some work, enjoying the day, the sun, the music on my headphones. A man cycled up to me; I couldn’t hear him coz of my headphones, but I could tell he was saying “Can I ask you something?” I was at a crosswalk. I told him no, and ignored him. I didn’t want this man, yet another man who thinks he’s entitled to my attention, time, or conversation, to ruin my day.

If these men think I’m they’re “exotic erotic”, they can and should piss off. I don’t know if its my brown skin, my hijab, how I loosely wear it, I dunno, but these stupid encounters happen too often, and interrupt my day. I currently wear hijab (and sometimes I don’t, depending on the space) and I wonder if I didn’t wear hijab at all anymore, if I’d still get encounters like this or if they’d change and become worse. I’m also not highly feminine, nor do I try to be, and I wonder if I was, if these encounters would again get worse.

Why do so many men think they’re entitled to a woman’s attention, time, conversation – or body? Why? We have words as to why, patriarchy, misogyny, etc., but just naming these things doesn’t make them go away. These are universal diseases and unfortunately, they’re also timeless and classic. Meaning, this shit has been going on for so long, practically everywhere.

Why did Harvey Weinstein think he’s so entitled to women’s attention, time, conversations, but especially, their bodies? To so, so many women. When the news reports first started gathering about his sexual assaults just a few days ago, I wasn’t surprised, at all. I’m no Hollywood insider, nor do I aim to be, but I’m aware enough of Harvey Weinstein to know of his status and power, and how he’d use that all to his advantage and think that he’s entitled to having women. I say “having” because essentially Weinstein, like billions of men throughout history, view women only as objects, as something to have, to consume.

So many of the reports – and there are more women coming forward everyday – but still not many men also speaking against him – talk of how scared the woman was of Weinstein, not only because of his size but also of his power. His power. Power. His power to start careers and end them, completely at his own will. The women were too afraid to report before, in case he would sabotage their careers (and he did to those who did say anything), and/or were afraid to fight back in case he’d sabotage their careers (and he did that to those who physically resisted).

This man, this Hollywood giant, assaulted so many women over decades, was able to get away with it this whole time, because of his power.

Power is disgusting. Harvey Weinstein is disgusting. Men, those who think they’re entitled to speak to me or suggest things to me, just because they’re men, whether they’re strangers or men whose phone numbers I have because I work with them, are disgusting.

I don’t know what else to say really. I suppose I’ll repeat what many others have already said: men need to be raised better.

I think of my nephew often. Let’s call him Joey. Joey is so sensitive; he’s always asking about people, and isn’t afraid to tell people that he loves them. I hope Joey always stays that way, to be so emotionally intelligent, and I hope other little boys are also raised without the notions of machismo, that trap them. Indeed, when men free themselves from the trappings of patriarchy and misogyny, of thinking of themselves as more than their sexual organs and thinking of women as more than objects, all are more free.

On dissonance

I returned and saw something new on the fridge: a flyer for a rally that took place when I was away, by the Burmese American Muslim Association to raise awareness about the genocide of the Rohingya.

After more than a week and a half of being back, today I stopped and looked more closely at it. There's a photo of a highly distraught woman carrying a half-naked toddler. Both are severely disheveled, and the woman is crying. The image of this woman and her child is distressing, and I think that's the point and why it's on the flyer.

However, I will never meet this woman. She has no idea who I am, and I have no idea who she is. What's much worse though is that there's practically nothing I can do to actually help her. The horrors this woman has seen and faced, and survived, I will never know, can only attempt to imagine.

The dissonance is that a photographer in the field snapped this photo, uploaded it to a wire service, from where it got utilized and the designer of this flyer found this photo of this woman and child, and stuck it on the flyer, which is now on our fridge. I almost wish I could unsee this image, but that speaks to the volumes of privilege I have over this woman, in that I do not have to face war, genocide, or forced migration, rather I can very easily turn away from these things and never have to know about it.

The dissonance is that I wish could meet this woman and her child and family, do what I can to pool resources and provide those resources to them, and make sure that they will always be safe, healthy, and have a home and a community to go home to. But I can't do any of these things. I could donate some money to any relief efforts that are on the ground, but that is most likely the only actual thing I can do.

I will post this and go back to working and listening to music. Why is it that my own life can be so frivolous and I can attempt to work for meaning in my own life, but this unnamed and unknown woman...I wonder where she is sleeping tonight, if they are safe, if they have food and water - but honestly they probably don't. I have all of these things. Alhumdulillah. But why can I have many things - all of which I'm grateful for - and she has nothing?

Most of the world is in willful ignorance about what's happening to the Rohingya. They are facing genocide. They are Muslim. Is it because they are Muslim, that most of the world is not causing a fuss? A few years ago a term "Islamo-fascism" was getting thrown around; rather it is Muslims who have faced fascism, with genocides in Bosnia and now in Burma. They are seeking refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh, a South Asian and majority Muslim country. Is it because they are not going to Europe, that the world is again not causing a fuss? The Rohingya are also coming on boats. Those boats are also capsizing. What will it take for people to just even be aware of what's happening? I am made aware due to the flyer on my fridge put there by my Burmese roommate. If this hadn't happened and/or if I didn't live with her, I too could remain willfully ignorant.

The dissonance is that I can write and post this while this woman will continue to suffer, and there's nothing I can do about it.

On work

Excerpt from Gibran Khalil Gibran's جبران خليل جبران‎‎ poem "On Work" from The Prophet:

"Work is love made visible.
    And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
    For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
    And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine.
    And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night."

This passage has come back to me a lot these last couple of weeks. First, it was when I was writing like a fiend in an attempt to finish my screenplay (insert cliche of Los Angeles *here*, yes). It was hard but thrilling and as I got closer and closer to finishing, I got more excited. The effort was worth it and sometimes I thought, why am I doing this? Like, why? Why does this matter? And then I remembered Gibran's line: "Work is love made visible". That is essentially what I was doing...I poured myself into pushing keyboard buttons, hoping that it'd all make some sense, because I wanted to, because it's important to me, and because some part of me did enjoy it - a big part of me felt fulfilled, with writing and finishing that writing. So yes, that was work made visible.

I have worked this whole summer - which is actually what I wanted. I didn't get any time off, and the end of August was the culmination as well as the beginning of a bunch of things. However, I felt grateful, as it was only 2 years ago as I was telling a coworker, when I had nothing at all going on for me. I was out of work, out of money, out of ambition and ideas. That's the moment when, pretty much exactly 2 years ago, is when I decided to apply to graduate film schools, and when I seriously started pondering leaving NY, of actually doing so this time. 

2 years later, on Thursday last week was the last day of my full-time paid summer internship at a socially-conscious film company, and it was perfect for me; I also had to turn something in major that day (duas for that, fingers crossed, etc, duas for real); and I had to pack and clean in the midst of it all, as well as receive my subletter. It was a lot for one day. In addition I showed my subletter around a bit as it's her 1st time in Yankland. So, an incredibly full day, but in terms of work, yes it was a lot of work that I had to do and put in, but I'm grateful for it all, because I know what it's like in comparison to have nothing going on. 

It's not even a week later and I find myself itching to work again. What happened? I never thought of myself as a workholic. I don't think I am one. Perhaps it is anxiety about my trip, that might be it. Though filmmaking in general is a very anxious thing, as it's a 24/7 hustle. You can't ever really take a break from it. Because if you do, the whole machine can just stop. And right now, the only part of that machine, is me. To get a film going, it's all on me at this stage. And it takes a lot of effort and muscle and brainpower and time and commitment to get anything off the ground, especially when it's just one person. Other people don't come into the picture until much later. For months and years, it is just me: pondering, researching, writing, applying, fundraising. So it's constant work around-the-clock, and I find myself, at a time that I supposedly have off, that no, this isn't really time off, there are things I need to research and connects that I need to make, ASAP. 

It's anxiety, yes. Whether it's travel anxiety or filmmaking anxiety, I'm not sure, but the only way to tackle it is to work. And it's work I enjoy doing. I'm lucky now where my work consists of working on my films - I don't have to do anything else. Even that internship was pretty specialized and fit my goals really well, so I greatly enjoyed it and got a lot out of it, alhumdulillah. Basically these days, I find that the work that I'm doing is for myself, for my films, which is what I've wanted so badly for so, so long. Who knew that I'd have to go to school for that to happen...it clearly didn't happen on its own like it has for others. By the way, I know what real anxiety is like and how crippling it is...last year it resulted in me not being able to do anything, at all...whereas now I just want to keep working and moving. Thank God.

Anyway, blah blah. Work. I'm in Metro Detroit currently where I spent 8 months last year. Today I drove around and saw some of the places I worked at - the library, cafes, etc. A big part of me wishes I could just spend the rest of my time here doing my work at these places, that would feel pretty great, but I can't, there are a few rounds I have to make, and it'd annoy Mum if I spent all my time outside the house. Part of me wishes I could spend a month in MI - on my own - and do my work at the libraries and cafes that I know and enjoy. 

But that is not likely to happen, for reasons I'll write about soon.  

Edit: Part of me thinks I should have spent this night doing more actual work. But instead, I read, and I wrote (blogged...this). I know in the end it'll be better for me to have taken time to reflect, read and write, than just plain keep working. Because all of that is work too, and makes my "actual" work, better. If I want to be better at what I do, I should be better, and reading and writing makes me, perhaps not always better, but at least more reflective and hopefully a little bit more aware about things. Hopefully.
Also I'll be spending part of tomorrow working at a locale I know well...and I am geekily excited about that. 

On Being A World Citizen

I'm a world citizen. So is Salma Hayek.

People tell me that I'm a world citizen, "a citizen of the world". The Guardian calls Salma Hayek a world citizen as she's Mexican-Lebanese, lives in London and is married to a Frenchman.

Some time ago somewhere, my awful memory can't remember how or where (#migrantlife), but I think it was in L.A. - I met a black Londoner who told me that she's from Islington. I then had to explain for the somewhat-thousandth time the reason for my accent. I've always envied people who can definitively say that are from somewhere, that they can claim a place. Once at a friend's gathering in Jackson Heights some years ago there was a go-around of intros, and people had to say which place they can claim. I honestly can't remember what I said for myself. Bihar? London? UK? Michigan? Metro Detroit? Certainly not New York, in a room full of many actual New Yorkers.

I very recently met a journalist who calls herself a "permanent migrant" on her Twitter bio. I think that is a terrific term. As HXA, I often use "#migrantlife" to comment on the many ways that all of my moving around has permanently affected my psyche: I'm often confused (see above), having vivid flashbacks, and will forever be an outsider - a "forever outsider".

It's not only that I don't belong to anywhere - I will never belong to anywhere. Ever. It's impossible for that to happen. I will never be "from" anywhere. For even if I were to move back to any of the places I have ties to - I can't say I'm from them, remember - I will still not be from there, I will still not belong - India, London, New York, Michigan. Because I have spent too much time already in other places. I explain to L.A. residents who I meet that: "I was raised in the UK and Michigan, and lived in NY for several years before coming here" and it's always a similar reaction: "Wow, you've really moved around" / "Wow, you've seen a lot of America", etc. Yes, yes I have. Yes, I am messed up as a result. Yes, I as a poor person use film, the most expensive medium, to express how messed up I am because of my migrant life.

Is there an advantage to being a world citizen? I can look at America as both an insider and an outsider I suppose, and other places too. To me though that feeling feels overrated because being a world citizen is quite lonely for me; my brothers have been much more successful at finding life partners for themselves (mashAllah). And there are other things; the reason I am typing this actually at 4:17am is that I had a very early appointment at the passport office yesterday at 7am, and then after work I came home and my nap became me sleeping until 3am. Being a supposed world citizen ruined my sleep cycle - thanks, world.

Also, there's a comfort and an ease that someone has when they can say something like "I'm from Islington" so effortlessly, confidently, and with poise. Whereas I have to say a paragraph just to explain why I'm standing in front of someone, of how I ended up HERE. Right here, in this spot, let's mark it with an X. I can't say "I'm from XYZ" so easily, because it's just not true. It's why I'm going to London next month for a few days; I just want to see the city I was born in, to reconnect with it in some way, in my own time, hence I won't be staying with relatives. I want to see what London is like with Sadiq Khan as mayor (yay!) and after Brexit (Goddammit).

"Where are you from?" is a question that I and many others who aren't white Americans, really hate. Because for me when I'm asked this question, I can't just say one place, I'm forced to mouth my whole paragraph. But most of the time my soul resists answering so fully, because I honestly don't think this complete stranger who I will never talk to ever again, deserves to hear or know my life story - it's not worth my time or energy. So I try to deflect the question as much as possible but sometimes I can't escape it and give a forced answer, to not come off as completely rude. Fuck that though.

Whiteness still annoys me. Even though I feel like in the last few months because of an essay I read (that I have to write about soon) that I'm aiming to move past looking at identity markers, especially as a writer who develops characters, I still cannot get over whiteness or white supremacy. And I probably won't, and I think that's perfectly okay, because white supremacy is not ending tomorrow (how AMAZING would that be though?!). So when a white American asks me where I'm from - a European doesn't matter as much, as they clearly are also not from here - but when a white American asks me that I internally get pissed off, as I know what they are really asking is "Where are you from? Because you're clearly not from here" (hey thanks for reminding me whitey!) or "Why are you brown? / Why do you look the way you do?".

However, when an immigrant and/or a person of colour asks me where I'm from, I don't mind, because I see it as we're comparing notes on our life experiences. Hence when NY taxi drivers asked me where I'm from, I usually just said "My parents are from India". Because I knew what they were really asking me was which Muslim country I'm from, as they were often Muslims themselves if not also South Asian, or they had lots of Muslim friends. But a white American from Massachusetts - "from", hah - asking me the same question pissed me off immensely, and I left that convo as soon as I could.

By the way, I have enough labels on me that I either stuck on myself or that other people stick on me, so I'm not going to add "world citizen" to that silly list.

P.S. the head photo on this blog was taken at DTW in 2009 in what I like to call its "techno tunnel". Yes, taken at an airport. Like I said, #migrantlife. Wow, I really can't escape it.

cinema.

cinema.
an affliction, a disease.
one that i've embraced, rather than tried to get rid of.
for half of my life now.
i think she's here to stay, in fact i hope she does.
but cinema has hurt me in so many ways.
i love cinema, i really do, i can't get her out of me
i absorb and absorb, she's in my pores my veins
my eyes
my mind
she's ruined me pathetically
disrupted my life in so ways
is my life in so many ways
is my life
is cinema my life
i'd like her to be
cinema cannot leave me
other things have left me, or never even came my way
all because of cinema.
and when people ask me about her, i just say,
"i just hope it's all worth it in the end".
who knows if cinema will ever reward me.
cinema's made me useless, really.
though it's really quite obvious, anyone could see
that i blame cinema, rather than myself
for the things that left me or never even came my way.
i am lacking as a human being. am quite useless, really.
so am i to blame or is it cinema's fault
she struck me at 16 

Master of None

I was having a really, really hard day. Really down. Again. (Big surprise). This has been the story of my life for many years, the sadness comes and goes. I came home and tried to sleep. But I couldn't. I finally got up, got dinner together for myself (meaning I used my microwave and cooked an egg), and decided to watch the last episode of season 2 of "Master of None".

I was told some weeks ago by a friend of what to do when I'm down - have a routine that makes me feel better. I'm still figuring out that routine, but clearly wanting to just go sleep never helps. I need to make more of a habit of distracting my mind sooner rather than later.

So for that, I thank you Aziz. I've had mixed feelings about you for years, but I wanna thank you for helping bring my mind back to a more sane place tonight. There are a couple of silly things I just haven't been able to get over for too long and I long to just throw myself back into my work and forget about it all...so thank you for creating some TV that helped me get my mind off of stupid stuff (that I'm sure Dev could relate to actually. Actually I kind of wish I could hang with Dev and Arnold and get their advice).

Some meandering thoughts on your program/television show/Netflix series:

- This second season is MUCH better than the first one.

- Glad to see you date women of colour. Even though your character didn't end up with one.

- My God, you really love food. You must have great metabolism. I mean Dev - Dev must have great metabolism. Or maybe he walks around a lot. I miss all the walking I got to do in NY. In L.A. you have to make an effort to just walk around.

- I still can't buy that Dev and his family are Muslim. His name is DEV. His dad's name is RAJESH. You picked the most Hindu names for your TV family. My guess is that you didn't think this through, maybe you actually wanted them to have a Hindu background, then people called you out on it (rightfully so) and you decided to add some Muslim-ness to this season. In your "Religion" episode, I couldn't get past their names and think that they're Muslim. So my brain kept saying "That's Aziz. Aziz". A super Muslim name, even though you're not Muslim anymore - and hey, I get it, trust me, that's totally cool.
It might've been better to not add the Muslim stuff. Or to have just given them legit Muslim names from the beginning. I'm sure you know Aziz, that desi Muslims just don't have those names. Maybe a Hindu who's converted to Islam - but even then, they'd probably change their name (though they don't have to), but they probably would, just coz names like DEV and RAJESH are 1000% Hindu. I mean Dev means "God" in Sanskrit. Not hating on these names, but they don't work for characters who are meant to have a Muslim background. It'd be like if I made a TV show with a character based on me, who's Muslim, and her name was CHRIST. It'd basically be the same thing. Wouldn't work, right?

- Ok, moving on.

- Your parents can't act. Sorry man. Even though you're a better actor around them, but if you're going for the authenticity thing, well first off - you failed with those names, and second, you can't make up for authenticity by casting your own parents. I wasn't sold at all on it, bad acting is bad acting, and I can't look past it and consider these characters to be real people and not just people in a TV show. I mean when I watched "Master of None" the only people who felt like real people to me were the people in the "NY I Love you" and "Thanksgiving" episodes - and those didn't feature Dev and Kevin and their families...sorry.

- Alongside that, what also felt inauthentic to me (I dunno what other word to use) is that Dev is a native New Yorker. Look, you're Aziz bloody Ansari. Everyone knows you're from South Carolina. This show is basically about YOU (hello, you casted your own parents...duh). So why make Dev supposedly from NY, I'm guessing, Queens? You were a transplant to NY. Dev basically acts like one too. Trust me I know - I was one, albeit much more broke. Dev does transplant things all the bloody time, and acts like one dresses like one walks like one. Nothing about Dev or his parents - or his friend Kevin too, btw - makes it seem like they're New Yorkers. The only time I believed Dev was from NY is when you show him as a teenager smoking weed - that kid sold it. I believed that brown kid to be from Queens. Why? Probably coz the actor wasn't you.
On the other hand, Denise is clearly a New Yorker. She has that swag. (And that actor is from Chicago). Dev doesn't have that swag (hey that's a word I learned in NY - trust me I have no swag myself at all). Aziz why'd you do things like this - it takes viewers like me completely out of the story and annoyed with the show and you! If you're gonna make a program about you, and cast yourself (and your parents - don't forget) in it, you might as well as stick to the same story, and get that authenticity that's so missing...like imagine pasta with no sauce. Dev supposedly being a New Yorker, is so inauthentic it's like eating pasta with no sauce. Or, or...pizza with a knife and fork (shout-out to DeBlasio).

- The season shined with the episode that followed around a bunch of New Yorkers (getting told off for yelling "vagina" in ASL - HIGHLARIOUS) and of course that Thanksgiving episode, Angela Bassett really killed it. Nice work on those episodes. They don't really feature Dev, btw. I'm not hating on Dev...but those episodes were a lot more interesting to me. And to my friends who I whatsapped with about your show. So that's at least...3 people, including me.

- I did get sold though on Dev's feelings. All the feels. I get it, to be into someone who's taken, and it's mutual - in my silly life it's one of the worst things in the world and it repeatedly happens (don't blame me, I hate it). I get it. So I felt what Dev was going through. I got past the fact that Francesca is another white lady for Dev, coz I really recognized his emotional anguish, and for some reason her being Italian helped me look past her whiteness - coz she's a village girl, basically. Wooed by a brown man in a big city. But anyway - even though those scenes and episodes weren't my favourite (see above) this relationship played out much better than the one with Rachel in season 1 - that writing and speeded-up timeline just felt lazy.

- Chef Jeff. I recognize that actor from "The Station Agent" (great film, great actor). I think with your season endings you attempt to shove too many things too quickly right at the end, and so like the shit that went down with Rachel, this shit also felt like it happened too fast. Though the Raven show and cameo, were super funny. Oh yeah - I like the knocks made on reality TV shows, that was done well.

Alright Aziz. Thanks for entertaining me, giving me something to watch, something to write, and for making me feel better. I hated on you a bit (like a week or so ago before I watched this season...sorry) for not being political like some other comedians. But the personal is political too - how could I forget that (?!) It's POLITICAL to show a desi/brown/Muslim person on telly who's just obsessed with eating out and is trying to have a love life. Not everything has to be on-point political. Our real lives do mostly consider of food and whether or not we're lonely, it's exhausting to just exist (as Dev nicely pointed out when he talked to his parents about airport security). So, I get it, I think I know, what you're doing. I appreciate the show and I'm not gonna hate on you for not making it more political...we already are just by existing.

But throw in some Tamil again next time, or South Indian food. Dev's gotta eat a dosa or two. Foodies love dosas, and he's a brown foodie.

Is That All There Is?

This post is about watching TV.



Wow. What a song. Don't know if I've ever heard a pop song like it. Such a melancholic, witty, and knowing pop song. Turns out it was a major hit back in 1969.

It's featured at the beginning and end of episode 8 "Severance" in the 7th and final season of MAD MEN. I restarted watching the show recently, starting from the 6th season. I could never figure out what I liked about Mad Men, I always said that it was a weird and difficult show, hard to like.

However, in May I watched the 1st season of TWIN PEAKS. Don't think I'll watch the others, including the new one. Everyone I talked to about this would say "Isn't it weird?" and I would always respond, actually, it isn't. Watching Twin Peaks now, it feels like a lot of TV shows today; it's cinematic, long, directed by a film director, with lots of awkward pauses. Sure, back in 1990, it must've felt really bizarre, in the era of sitcoms. But I think David Lynch broke a lot of ground with this program, and influenced a lot of current TV, as many episodes of many shows now are directed by film directors, if not the entire series.

In rewatching Mad Men again, I realized very quickly that it had whiffs of Twin Peaks in it. Mad Men is also a weird and awkward show, and I finally figured out where that's coming from - I could really sense at times the impact that Lynch had on television.

I also like the program much more this time around. Before, I liked watching it, but I didn't know why. This time around, with rewatching season 6, the 1st half of season 7, and now I'm watching for the first time, the final 7 episodes, I can see what Mad Men is so good at. The writing is terrific, because you can never tell where the story is going. Even though I had seen most of these episodes already, and only a couple of years ago, I still found myself surprised by the actions of the characters. Terrific writing leads to terrific directing and acting. Mad Men is full of surprises. It's unconventional in that way, and that's why it's so good.

So that's what I'm learning from Mad Men, how you can never tell where its going to go.

The show I was watching before it was THE AMERICANS. I tend to only watch one program at a time; that's all my brain can handle. That's also a great series, and also happens to be set in the recent past. That also has great writing, directing, and acting, though I don't feel as compassionate towards the characters, probably because they are spies and assassins.

What I learned from The Americans, is how every little detail counts. Something appears in an episode of a show or in a film, because it matters. It might not matter right then, but it will come up later. For example - a mailbot that goes around the FBI offices...it might seem inconsequential, but it's not, at all. The mailbot drama - an innocent woman ends up dead, the spies risk their cover and lives, the Russians make choices based off of their intelligence from it, and once the FBI finally figures out that they're being spied upon from it, people's careers are on the line. All this from a mailbot, that first appears so casually and comically.

There are so many things like this that pop in The Americans, and I love how the writers handle things like this and play with your head.

One last thing - I think Mad Men has much better music than The Americans. 60s versus the 80s...the older decade wins in regards to its musical output.

Not sweet.

Yesterday a server kept calling me sweetie. This slightly irritated me. I really wanted to respond: "Actually, I'm not that sweet". I wonder what on earth made him think it'd be ok to call me that.

---
Today I was explaining to someone why I love New Order so much. Unlike other favourite bands of mine, I don't really own their albums, rather their singles collections. I grew up knowing their main hits. When "True Faith" came out I was a little kid in the U.K., and I still recall that iconic and strange music video that I watched from way back then.

Here's the thing about New Order. Imagine you're in a band, that is getting lots of press and new fans everyday, you're about to blow up, and then your lead singer who is one of your best friends...tops himself. He ends his own life. What do you do?

To my understanding - and, I haven't even read New Order's wikipedia page, so I could just be making this up - but what I think they did is, they took a hiatus. They mourned, they took a break, they regrouped, and came up with new sounds and rhythms and lyrics that took the world by surprise. Everything in New Order's music - from the instrumentation, to the vocals, to the lyrics - is wired with emotion. At least it is for me. Anytime I listen to any song of New Order's, and this has been happening the whole time I've listened to them, since middle school or high school - their music evokes emotion in me. It reminds me of something, it makes me feel SOMETHING.

No matter how many times I listen to their songs, it's the same thing each time - high emotion. I can work while listening to them, and I can also just sit and truly listen to them, and do nothing else. And that's honestly all I want to do right now, but I must go off and work.

I should read up more about them. I was told today that the band collectively wrote some of their lyrics. I wonder how they came up with this genius that I'm currently obsessed with (again):

"I was standing by the ocean when I saw your face
I couldn't look at you
I guess you knew it but I never realized
That we were through

And now I'm down here all alone
With every feeling that I own
You can't take that away

And with every breath we take
And the illusions we create
Will come to you someday

And I was touched
By the hand of God
Never knew it
But of course I was

I never hoped to do the things in this world
I wanted to
Because everything I own
It belongs to you

I never looked at you in a sexual way
In my life before
And I've never woken up like this
So desperately before

And I was touched
By the hand of God
Never knew it
But of course I was"

When I sing this song to myself, either in my head or out loud, I sometimes replace "by the hand of God" with "by that hand of yours". But seeing the actual lyrics, I see what they were doing. 

Bye bye bye

Somehow, the things I wrote about in my last post actually came true. I think a lot about technology and social media. Probably too much. There is a joke, something like, how do you know when someone is an atheist, or vegan? How? Well, that person will always tell you. I've become that sort of person in regards to social media, although it's usually a response to people asking me if they can add me on Facebook, and I tell them that I'm not on it. Hey, I'm answering their question! But then I seem like one of those people who loves to talk about how different they are ("I'm an atheist", "Actually, I'm vegan", "Yeah I do CrossFit"). Mine is "No, sorry, I'm not on Facebook. Would you like my email address instead?"

Not being on Facebook though, I'm forced to or they are, to exchange more personal info like email addresses. I left fbook in November. I say to people that I left because of the election, but actually I left near the end of November; as since I was alone in LA, I didn't want to be bombarded with photos of people's Thanksgivings, even though it's a holiday I myself don't celebrate (I appreciate invites though). Since leaving Zuckerberg's empire, I found that I was on my phone a lot less, and that I was a lot less distracted overall and much more focused on my work. I was also a lot less upset by the news, as I wasn't constantly reading about how everyone else is also always upset. I find now that I can read the Guardian headlines and think much more analytically and retain more information, rather than clicking on a gazillion links from fbook, from which I was never able to remember anything I read, all of the words just going in and out of my brain.

Try it, folks, it will do you wonders.

I also left Twitter. Though I have to log in once a month so that Twitter doesn't permanently delete my account (one day I think, I'd like to go through my old tweets, as they document my brain at those times). I also left Instagram too. But I found that, being off of all social media, I felt even more isolated. Would people back East remember me if they don't come across my profile/s? I do still exist. So I logged back onto Instagram. After a couple of days though I also took it off of my phone. I find that I've been able to kick the social media habit, as I've only glanced at Insta a couple of times from my laptop since then. Insta, I tend to reactivate every now and then.

Why do I spend so much time thinking about my social media habits and wanting to break them? Maybe it's because I know that overall that being off of Facebook has greatly helped my mental health, even though my social life has probably suffered as a result, as everyone else uses Facebook events. I am also terrible at making and breaking habits. So being able to wean myself off of this technology, is an accomplishment for me. I hope to do the same, with sugar. Inshallah.