Counter Culture

People talk about art, the idea of it, the great altar of creativity where lesser human beings with real jobs and real problems just wouldn't fit in. Despite all recent evidence to the contrary -that great art can in fact not only be inspired but catalyzed by the sheer drudgery of modern, mundane life- people still talk about Art. Not art, but art. The idea of it. That electric wasteland of eccentricity and divine inspiration and unquestionable genius where the gainfully-employed fear to tread.

I'm sick of this reverse-snobbery. I'M NOT WORKING CLASS, I want to scream into the ears of the barista as he hands me my morning coffee, his pencil moustache acquiver, eyes accusatory, hands pulling away too soon in pariah-appraisal of my keyboard-smoothened fingertips. I turn and look around me at the expansively alternative ensemble of tattoos and piercings and ripped garments and fedoras that are part of this daily scene. I CAN BE QUIRKY AND IRRESPONSIBLE, I scream silently at these Gods of detached Cool, I CAN BE PAINFULLY AWARE AND SARDONIC AND 

She's here. She of the espresso eyes and latte lovin' lips. I meander: first the sugar-and-cream-counter, then the newspaper stand, then back to grab a second paper napkin, all within a couple of feet off my customary bar stool. All this just to hear her order : "coffee: black. No, regular but no sugar, no no black, sorry, so black coffee, no sugar please. And a chocolate muffin?" The troughs and crests of her dietary indecision bounce off the pall off my smitten heart with a sort of pronounced nonchalance. Her voice has done this since the begining of Time, this dilly-dallying over the choice of beverage, that ridiculous question-like inflection at the end. Hearts that get broken along the way are merely the collateral of such dedicated caffeine consumption.

                            First date - Blink 182

Some like it angry

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Where everybody knows your name

Singapore Diary # 2

The Lot, Stock and Barrel has quickly become a home-away-from-home of sorts. See, I grew up on 90s television. Which means I believe in having a 'local'. Central Perk for Friends, Monk's Cafe for Seinfeld, the pizza place for the folk from Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place. I've always wanted a regular joint where everybody knows your name, where the bartender slips you your drink before you order it.

This I suspect is a generational malady. I dare say I'm not alone in this particular craving for some sort of recognition, of gratitude and respect for your loyalty. In a way, it's a personal attempt at celebrity, no matter how small the scale. For those few minutes -while you wait for your beer while the newbies, the passers-by all queue up and enunciate the names of their fancy little cocktails hoping the bartender will get it right- for those few minutes, you are king. You can see it in their faces, the pangs of jealousy at the easy familiarity between you and the person behind the counter.

Of course, being a 90s child, and being very much of the grunge-and-flannel persuasion, it just wouldn't be right if things didn't go horribly wrong. I was conditioned -by years of TV and absentee parents- to believe that everything will go wrong, that life is basically shit. So even the seemingly harmless little pleasure of barface celebrity would not be as pleasing as it is if it was entirely welcoming. So while, I'm very much a regular (it's just across the road from work), I'm something of an unwanted regular, like that chronic-bachelor uncle who shows up at all the family weddings and funerals and baptisms, the one nobody likes.

And this is why I love Lot, Stock and Barrel. Pauline, the owner, told me that she used to be a hotshot lawyer before she bought the place. She didn't choose the name. I told her I thought the name was too obvious, too posturing-ish. She didn't take that very well. The usual bartenders -this nerdy/indie Malay girl with glasses, a Sri Lankan engineering student who wears teeshirts with fire and cheesy heavy metal insignia on them  and this other girl who climbs up on the counter and sings Valerie for me every night after closing time- they all fake the necessary camaraderie, but the one truly great thing about the place is that they let you know at all times that its all unreal. It's a commercial establishment. I drink, I pay, I puke, I make gross confessions, they listen, they don't care. Its modern community living. Where you have to pay for conversation, where you have to be inebriated to be capable of intimacy, of honesty. Its all very physical and metaphorical and metaphysical in one go.

Like all normal men, I've always wanted to own/run a bar. This is exactly the kind of bar I'd like to own/run. There's a projector for the big games, there's always footy on the telly, there's a very retro jukebox with lots of retro tunes, its dim and dark and depressing and moody, and you can order takeaway and have it delivered at the bar. And eat it there. Its the dream. And they'll never tell you to leave as long as you're still buying drinks. No matter how big a fool you're making of yourself. Doesn't matter if you ask the big fat sailor if his moustache is actually a furry rodent resting on his upper lip, or if you play If Only You Were Lonely twenty times on loop. All you gotta do is pay. Keep paying, keep playing, and everybody knows your name.

                Valerie - Amy Winehouse (RIP)

Little Women

Despite premonitions to the contrary, this is actually going rather well. I look around the scant crowd inside the Seven Inch, and across the table at her. Little Miss Piss-pot is doing rather well for herself, sipping her third Corona and expertly skirting past nervy second date territory with generous laughter and vehement agreement with anything I say. I decide I cannot use that nickname any longer for such a nice person.

How's it going, she wants to know.
What?
This, us.
Oh. I'm having fun, I manage, probably blushing a little.
Not quite soulmate-city though?
Definite power-ballad potential, I assure her.
She laughs. She suggests we move across the road to the more radio-friendly Mellow Yellow.

How's this going to end then? she wants to know. She has to shout to be heard, and the effort makes a nerve on her temple stand up a little. Her eyes suddenly have the shiny glaze of too-much-drink.
Are you ok? I ask.
Oh, live a little, she says. She's a mean drunk. How's this going to end? What's the break-up going to be like?

I like this particular game. Its very postmodern, hip. The dating equivalent of saying break-a-leg to an actor about to set foot on stage. Let's be modern, let's be incongruous.

I give this serious thought. I'll probably cheat, I say, and hope you find out.
This does seem most likely. She's too nice and I'm too cowardly. I could never bring myself to break up with her. Why the hell is she crying?

It was a joke, I lie, I thought we were being postmodern.
My last boyfriend cheated on me, she says, and the one before. I have that quality.
I'm at a loss. I'm saved by the gentle vibrations of my prehistoric phone.
I have to take this, I say, be back in a minute.

Its my ex. I think I might die childless, she declares.
I look at my watch. CET is seven hours behind Singapore. She's drunk at one in the afternoon.
You ok, I ask without really wanting to find out.

My ex and my mother are the strongest women I've ever met. I depend on them in ways no self-respecting man would do. I suspect they both suspect I'm still in love with them. In different ways of course. I let them suspect as much. It is an act of selfishness I have convinced myself is kindness. It lets them douse the raging fires of my self-loathing with their pity without feeling guilty. Anything more than pity would be asking for too much from women I have let down repeatedly. Pity can be administered guilt-free. Pity requires minimal involvement.

In the last few months however, the established statusqo has changed uncomfortably. I have somehow become the Man in our respective relationships. Both my ex and mother have somehow become tormented, unbalanced imitations of my own emotional core. I don't grudge them this. They are both -in different ways- at hormonal odds with the world. This is affecting their personalities, and consequently our carefully constructed equilibrium. At great personal cost, I try to help, to be supportive.

I'm just saying, says my ex, I'm 32 and childless. And single.
I'm on a date, I say.
How's it going?
She's crying.
First date?
Second.
What'd you do?
Said I'd probably cheat on her.
Too nice?
Too nice.
You want to have my babies? she says.
What?
You know what I mean.
Would we-
No. There are..processes.. for that sort of thing.

I promise I'll think about it. She knows I won't. I shuffle back in, wishing it'd rain. My date has cleaned up. Some tell-tale mascara aside, you can hardly tell this woman has just had her heart broken by her imaginary boyfriend of about 135 minutes.
I'm sorry, I say. I didn't mean it the way it sounded.
S'okay, she says, it was just a game. I'm sorry.
We smile. I want to go home. I also maybe want to see her again. Definitely maybe. Not tonight though.

Who was that on the phone? You looked pretty concerned. She says.
Oh, that's my ex. She wants to have my babies, I say.
I know I have just said the wrong thing. I know this as I watch hurt, then, anger, then disappointment, then rage, then indignation, more anger all well up internally like a physical presence and push against her eyes, her forehead, her ears, even her nostrils, threatening to break through, like the not-so-gentle probe of a prostrate exam.

This has to be the worst date in history, she says, and you're not even tall. 

Small World + Big Data = Not So Great Second Date

So I was thinking (and thinking is never good): if the internet and the mobile phone and budget airlines have all made the world smaller, why is it so much more difficult now to connect?

I remember growing up in Trivandrum,   all those years ago. Those days, it seemed almost normal to make a new friend every other day. Not a friend for life admittedly, not a bro or a wingman or any of those sitcom-flavored forever-relationships. Just people, people who would calmly step into your life with a lightness of feet and clarity of purpose so transparent, you practically welcomed the intrusion. The Trivandrum Public Library was a great place to make new friends; playing cricket in the little lane we shared with the other three houses on our little residential colony was another. Strange kids would step up and ask you when you planned to return The Five Find-Outers mystery you were holding. The conversation would turn to other authors of interest or maybe a new movie, and for the rest of the summer we'd talk and eat ethakka appam in the old canteen and swap books. And every now and again, a new kid would show up with tennis ball and MRF-emblazoned bat and maybe a bottle of Pepsi and ask if he could play the next game; "I live right around the corner," he'd say," in Shanti Nagar, and I saw you guys playing yesterday and I thought I'd join in."  It seemed like the most natural thing -that somebody passing by would want to do that- and of course we'd let him, if a little proprietorially of the house rules. Because every group of children who've ever had to make do with a straight strip of cement instead of a grass-green cricket ground have their own rules - dispatching the ball into the unfriendly neighbor's house was out, you could only bowl under-arm, something or the other. But we made do. And they came knocking. And we went asking. And we played.

Its not much harder to meet people these days. But unlike then, you can't help googling (yes, it is a verb) a new acquaintance every time you make one. Inevitably, you're hit with a storm of information - confessions of bed-wetting on their blog, photographs of bad hair days on Facebook, shameless self-promotion on Linkedin- and you can't help thinking its all a little too much a little too soon. Of course its your fault for looking; but its also human nature isn't it? You don't clap a hand over your ear if you just happen to be sitting next to a loudly bickering couple at a boring conference. Why do people do this then? Why do we put ourselves on display for such intense inspection, why do we voluntarily make ourselves vulnerable to constant public character dissection? I know I'm as guilty as the next person, and the only reason I can think of is that its somehow gratifying to get a response, to be heard. And because a response -any response- is sometimes so much more gratifying than just being heard, we constantly create content that's guaranteed to do just that. Which also means a lot of those "OMG!!" moments never actually happened. Or that picture where you're "soooo drunk!" at "Pat's pad" was really just a picture you took off your own sleepy self after a boring movie marathon at Pat's pad. Or maybe Pat doesn't even exist. I don't know. It's just so frustrating when you meet someone and you meet them a second time loaded with all that detail from the internet, dying to talk all night about their passion for wildlife or a new band or cooking in the nude, only to find that it was all a carefully constructed branding exercise.

Whereas all those years ago, it was okay to find out the new kid with the great bowling arm has a disgusting habit of rubbing snot all over the ball because you've already known him for a good few weeks then. You've exchanged sweaty high-fives and smelled each other's farts and met his sociopath parents before the disturbing snot-revelation, and while its no less disgusting, it is eminently more forgivable. He had time on his side, we had something going already. Finding out on the second date that she really doesn't like the Screaming Trees all that much on the other hand is the deception of an almost-stranger. And that much more grave. It leaves her with no chance really. You already don't trust her, you already think she's a drunk or an exhibitionist or a wonk.

What's the solution then? I don't know. But if you're going to piss yourself every time you have a few mojitos, I'd rather find out after we've known each other a while. Or I could just not find out at all if that's possible; just go to the bathroom or don't get that drunk. Either way, don't let it show up on your Facebook page in the  form of a picture of a wet denim-clad crotch and a hundred thousand comments below it all touting the tune of "Oh no, not AGAIN, tee hee!". Really? We've known each other a total of three days. We've only spent three of those hours in each other's company. What am I supposed to do with that kind of information? What face do I put on tonight if you order a drink? You've only just gone and ruined my Saturday night. You silly little piss-pot.


  *Image courtesy Weheartit