One late night post

Recently is the first time I have been justified in my obsession with old music, I'm talking 1940s and older maybe. I can actually answer most of the questions on the Buzzcocks, feather in my cap I hear you say, silently anyway!

They say that a smell can take you back to that place, that time; and music does the same for me. What I would give to see the Stones play! And there is a longer list of people I want to see live, but for the moment my poor old laptop and I are the only ones who enjoy what I call my mouldy oldy fine collection. But I'm no dinosaur, I have a lot of the recent stuff too, but it helps me to keep track. And I have new found respect for the shuffle button.

Imagine this, like tonight, start with me working away on some creative, sprawled all over the floor buried in papers and 32 little Lindt Gold Bunnies lined up to keep my company, add a little bit of AC/DC's She Likes Rock N Roll, next on to The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter (remind me of Sunita's essay on the Stones); then a fairly modern one of Deadmau5's excellent remix of Medina's You and I. Hit the next button to Lips Inc's Funky town (I always have to listen to The Bangles' Walk like an Egyptian for my mom)...on to Alanis Morisette's Thank You; and yes at this point I am crooning broken lyrics; throw in a bit of Curtis Mayfield's Superfly (the only tune that suits Gregory House's new fire cane) and Black Sabbath's Iron Man; a dash of Stillwater's Running Free, a smidge of Engelbert Humperdinck's Release Me, a tad of Coldplay's Shiver, an ickle bit of Moby's Porceline (best concert at This is London). Now how can I forget The Beatles' Day Tripper, The BeeGee's Tragedy, Toxic Avenger and Orelsan's N'importe comment (visiting Vivienne), The Global Deejay's remix of The Mamma and Papas's Califonia Dreaming (Ritesh and his highway driving), Fat's Domino's Blueberry Hill (reminds me of breakfast and the Jukebox at Blueberry Hill at 7am with Omar, after staying up the whole night playing cards). How dare I leave out Lenny Kravitz's American Woman, Micheal Jackson's Don't Stop Till You Get Enough (spending the whole summer listening to David singing only the "Ohh" sounds MJ makes), Bobby Darin's Mack the Knife, Incubus's Drive and Frank Sinatra's My Way (which I saw a street performer playing today, very well might I add, at the street corner with a paper bag on his head, and, yes you guessed it, tonight I walked home singing the only lyrics I remembered of the song). To continue with my endless playlist: John Lennon's Imagine(the lyrics of which I learnt by heart), Franz Ferdinand's Matinee, Never Tear Us Apart by INXS (which is set on Charles Bridge, the most beautiful place in all of Prague), Massive Attack's Teardrop (I miss my conversation with Evan about the meaning of this song),Phil Collins's sick drum solo in In the Air tonight, Morena My Love by Tom Boxer (Mona and her BMW) and finally before I am done, The Animal's House of the Rising Sun.

And oddly without knowing it 29 songs later, I am done with work and it's good night moon.

Inspired by The Ask

A respected business leader once said, "The word ask is no longer a verb, it's become a noun and it is now known as The Ask"

Mumbo jumbo? Marketing buzz words? I thought so too, but only initially. Only when I allowed the meaning to wash over me did I realize the truth in every word.

The dictionary defines it as: to call on for an answer, and there are various other interpretations along the same lines. In contemporary usage the word has been reappropriated a whole new meaning. It is fascinating to note that while it is an ordinary word, it transcends our understanding of the language as we know it. It brings to mind the Oral society of Marshal McLuhan and the repercussions of the written word. Now I'm not going to get all philosophical on you, dear reader, but just take a minute to decipher what I could mean by the difference between ask and the ask.

I find myself converted to a disciple of the ask. It's not just an idea, it's a way of life.

Steve Nash said, and I am paraphrasing here, you will miss every shot you don't take. This sentence while perfectly logical on it's own, can be connected to the ask in a rather perverted fashion.

So what in the world am I on about you might ask, and I'm going to put your mind at ease. Come with me on this journey, the universe is a limitless vacuum where we are left to essentially fend for ourselves. From the Darwin to evolutionists, we cannot agree how we came to be on earth, but now that we are here, our lives are what we perceive it to be. It is widely known that what we see around us is our perception of it and not necessarily its exact form. The ask becomes powerful here because to make the ask, we must know what we want. Call it a sales technique but it's definitely a very zen life choice. To distill the meaning, I would define it as what we know of our final destination to ensure that all efforts are mindlessly yet effectively directed at what we ask for.

This is the mantra:
I am determined to ask for what I want. I know I will always get what I want and sometimes I will get what I need because I ask for what I want. It might be the long way around but essentially in it's purest form, it's the optimized route.

The fabulous thing about this idea is that it is a paradigm shift. It shifts the onus from the universe to ourselves and empowers us with the power to ask for the ask.