thanks chris
Today’s Columbus Day, and as a proud Indian, our community needs to celebrate this auspicious day. Why? Cause Christopher Columbus sailed westward from Europe with the intention of landing in India and exploiting our people for tea and spices. He landed and initiated the takeover of what he thought was India. He brought weapons the natives had never seen, and used them to kill em off and steal their land, and he thought he was doing that to INDIA. When actually he was doing it to some island in the Carribean. He gave the Europeans a false sense of discovering India, so India could prosper without being meddled with by colonialism for another few hundred years. For this, I raise my glass to Christopher Columbus, and say ‘you fucked someone over, but it wasn’t India. Either way, thanks a lot, asshole.’
Saturday i went to a movie screening of Around the Bend, Christopher Walken’s new movie. It was a feature in the International Film Fest, and Christopher Walken was there. Some dude interviewed him before the movie. He was talking about a lot of his older, older movies, which I had never seen. And some of his more recent stuff, like the Fatboy Slim video and whatnot. He’s a character, dude. He showed up like he just walked out of bed, with his hair all stickin straight back and shit. My buddy Paul from work was with us, and he snuck out and got Christopher Walken to autograph a COWBELL, and then he gave the cowbell to me. How awesome is that?! I now own a cowbell autographed by Christopher Walken. Hell yea.
What I’m listening to right now:
Vilayat Khan and Bismillah Khan, Raagini Yamani — I just picked this CD up from Devon over the weekend. The performance is okay. Vilayat Khan plays a lot more than Bismillah Khan, and what he does play isn’t the most outstanding stuff I’ve heard him play. But regardless, I just can’t get past what a shotty recording job the producer did. It’s a jugalbundi (duet) with Vilayat Khan on sitar and Bismillah Khan on shehnai, an oboe-like instrument. And the linear notes say how ‘such a recording would not be possible without modern recording technology,’ because the sitar is a much more quieter instrument than the oboe-like instrument. But the levels are still ALL OVER THE PLACE. Vilyat Khan sings in part of the performance, too, and when he sings he’s so much softer than everything else, so you have to turn it WAY up just to hear him, and when the instruments come back in turn it WAY down so you don’t blow your ears out. You can’t just sit back and listen to this CD, and that’s kinda irritating.