New York Je t'aime

What a fairy tale trip it was to new York. From the day I have landed in US I have longed to visit NY. Somehow it never happened. The closest I came was when I was in JFK Airport for few hours on my transit from London to LA. But the wait was finally over last week. How it happened is an amazing story in itself.
So last week I had an enormous Cummunication Breakdown. My Macbook Graphics card died(hence no monitor), within minutes my jailbroken iphone froze. And my Desktop PC has been a infested by Trojan Viruses for weeks now. We I went to Apple store to get it fixed. I took Sarah along as we wanted to watch A Serious Man after we were done at Apple. While I was at the Genius Bar, Sarah found 150$ return tickets on Orbitz. It was on dates that I could not go. But such a deal is hard to pass. So Sarah bought her tickets to NYC in the apple store. On my way home I kept changing my mind about going to NYC to be with her. We had always wanted to go to NY together & it was the closest we have come. I finally decided to not go. It was quite depressing. I went to work & she went to a Pumpkin carving party at her friends house.
At the party she met Janie, who was move by our story. She immediately used her rapid rewards with Southwest to buy me a ticket to NY for the dates I could make it. In her kind words "You guys are yound & in love, He has never been to NY, Its a very romantic time of the year to be there"
God bless her. If Los Angeles was really a city of angels, she definitely is one of them.

And I loved New York. I wish I had moved to NY instead of LA. I miss Subways. It was so good to not need a car. Loved East Village.

Week 40 2009

1) Yegelle Tezeta - Mulatu Astatke

2) I am not a Robot - Marina & The Diamonds

3) Run Into Flowers - M83 ( Abstract Keal Agram Remix) A great song taken to another world by a great remix...

4) Driver's Seat - Sniff' n The Tears

5) Skye - Whats Wrong With Me

Week 39, 2009

Finally I bought a car. The 1st car I paid for since I moved to USA. Its a 2001 Hyundai Accent. I bought it from a really nice gal ZOE. Its manual, so I won't be driving it too much because of my sprained Thumb.

This week I discovered a really good blog - Audio Drums for my kinda music.
Since I discoevered them just 2 days back. My songs of this week will be from that blog.

1) Bye Bye Bayou - LCD Soundsystem This would be the song of last week for me.

2) Fate or Faith - Ror Shak

3) Tom is my only Friend - Rescue Cat Poorly made video doesn't do justice to the song.

4) Your Tiny Mind - Relation Another Brit group.

5) Exotika - Chris & Cosey - I was looking for sunglasses at Trading Post & song song was playing. I had to write down the info.

6) Like a Hobo - Charlie Winston A good song. When remixed well, it can sound even better.
Tru_Fix is that person.

Week 38, 2009

1) Green Eyed Love - Mayer Hawthorne A regular song elevated by CLASSIXX. They are master of that.

2) Luv Deluxe - Cinnamon Chasers A great video hooked me to this solo project of Russ Davies, nephew and son of Ray Davies and Dave Davies respectively, two founding members of The Kinks. I love almost all their songs so far.

3) Hugh Masekela with Paul Simon Thanks to Jaideep my other big discovery of this week. The last 5 mins of this video gives me goosebumbs...

4) Chileshe - Hugh Masekela

5) Missing the Light of the Day - Air

A Nobel Problem

What a world we live-in when winning the Nobel Peace Prize will harm the recipient. When we are discussing if winning the biggest prize of the world is good or bad for the President.

I think the Nobel Peace Prize is undeserving for Obama. I wish he had refused to accept it. But I'm very happy they gave it to him. It will give him so much advantage in his fight against the establishment. Esp in his peace efforts in Middle East & his desire to get out of AfPak war without a disaster.
For once I agree with Rush Limbaugh. He thinks that the Norwegians gave this to him to put pressure on him to work towards peace. Duh! I don't see anything wrong in that. But its interesting to watch 90% of the people bitching about it.
Maureen Dowd wrote a really hilarious op-ed about it.

Week 37, 2009

This week just flew by. I don't even know if I managed to do anything at all. Not a good thing to think of in the midst of a major depression. Anyways Music to our rescue. I could not find links to 2 of the songs this week.

1) Green Onions - Booker T & the MGs Not a bad masterpiece to begin this list eh?

2) Threat - Jay Z This is my fav song of the Black Album this week.

3) Midnight in a Perfect World - DJ Shadow What a smooth song. One of the best DJs of last 2 decades.

4) You Can't Go Home Again - DJ Shadow I love the song. More so because of the video. It reminds me of the masterpiece I am Cuba.

5) Son of Tribe - Tribe This if from album Rebirth released on Planet E.

6) Aneugalam - KZA(Forces of Nature) This is a compilation by Japanese artist KZA. Album is DAE(Dig & Edit) on Mule Musiq records.

Week 36, 2009

1) Astral Weeks - Van Morrison What a beautiful song.

2) The Way Young Lovers Do - Van Morrison

3) A Mountain of One - Bones Mario Cotto opened his set this saturday with this song.

4) You'll See It - Washed Out Discovered them @Hypem.

5) Threat - Jay-Z My love for the Black Album continues.

6) Faxing Berlin - Dead Mau5 A nice Sunrise song for an outdoor party.

7) Safari - Andre Kraml

8) After the Dawn - Peter Kruder

9) Emotional R - In Flagranti What a fuckin sexy song... Just heard it 10 minutes back.

Week 35, 2009

1) My 1st Song - Jay-Z So far I think this is my favorite Jay-Z song. I finally checked out the Black Album last night & now i know why it is considered his masterpiece.


2) The Numbers Song - Acid Girls Fantastic Electro/Techno song with blazing hot chics walking around half-naked. Sounds like just another music video, but this one is unlike any of them. It fits the music perfectly & creeps the hell out of you by the time its over. Its also a song that will be not liked by everyone. Esp because its techno. And thats why thing is a good song that separates the loser snobs of music.

3) My 1st Big Break - Cut Chemist

Worlds 1st 360degree Panaromic video.

4) Sing Sang Sung - AIR They are back with a new album. From how this song sounds seems to me like its a return to Moon Safari.

5) Velvet - The Big Pink I like almost everything I hear from their new album.

6) Die Slowly(Tobacco Remix) - Health

Add On Softwares

I discovered some really cool tools last night at 4am trying to go to sleep. Thanks to Farhad Manjoo @ SLATE. I never miss his articles.

I discovered the Prototypes on Facebook. I liked the Desktop Notification add-on for Mac OS. Now I need to sync it with Safari instead of Firefox.

I also opened a much needed account on MINT. Its a really fantastic tool to keep track of all your finances. Now instead of going to 3 different bank websites, i can keep track of everything on Mint. It also helps you organize your finances better. They just got bought over by Intuit last week for $170 Million.

Then I browsed FireFox Add ons for a minute just to see whats going on there. I ended up installing Cooliris.

Oh I completely forgot. Check out TWONES. Its a software that integrates all your online music accounts like Hypem, youtube. Its exactly what i needed. Now all I need is a invite. I even joined their Facebook Group( something I never do).

Week 34, 2009

A Flaming Lips Week. Esp their best album Yoshimi.

1) Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt.1

2) Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt.2 - My fav track of the Album.

3) Fight Test

4) She Don't Use Jelly

5) Die Slowly( Tobacco Mix) - Health A really cool song I heard on the first Hypem Radio Countdown.

Worst week in a decade

A Car Accident.
Car Totalled.
Thumb Sprained & Immobile.
A very very bad week.
A new low in depression.

Things can only get better.

T-Mobile finally fucked me

After being a super satisfied customer in LA of T Mobile for 4 years, the have finally screwed me last month. One sunday night I was suddenly disconnected without any warning. When I called then I was informed that my bill had crossed the limit of 150$. Which surprised the hell out of me since my automatic payment to them had just gone through a week back. Apparently I exceeded my 1000 text messages and had touched 1500 texts last month. And the charge you 20 cents per text once you go over your limit. Pretty steep i would say.
Now there are two problems with this scenario. I was never warned that I had crossed 1000 texts. When I complained about that the operator lamely told me that I can always access that online or on my phone. Agreed. But who checks that everyday. Even if I do the T-Mobile(or any other company) must warn me about it.
What sucks is that I have been contemplating buying a i-Phone for past one year. I just never did because of the bad reputation of ATT. Everyone portrayed them as some kind of monster. And I was quite happy with T-Mobile. Maybe I would get a Google Phone once they stop being that ugly. They are half-way there. They just need hipper & younger people than Whoopi to be on their commercials.
So maybe in next couple of month I will finally move to iPhone. So long T Mobile.

Week 32, 2009

After 2 weeks of absence due to a dear friends wedding & doing sound on a short made by Sarah I will present 10 songs this week. Also I will end the list for next few weeks with Miles Davis songs.

1) Eclipse Broadcast - Empire of the Sun There seems to be two songs in this. I love the second one that starts at 3:35.

2) Heaven - Nas & Jully Black

3) Sunday Morning - The Velvet Underground & Nico

4) Sort of Revolution - Fink

5) Get a Move On - Mr Scruff

6) Everything Up (Zizou) (Mock n Toof Remix) - Zero 7

7) Breaking The Chains of Love - FITZ & The Tantrums

8) These Are My Twisted Words - Radiohead

9) Funny - Soulwax

10) So What - Miles Davis

Week 30, 2009

This week I made a CD for our trip to Big Bear.

It had 4 songs from AIR, 2 french songs from Iggy Pop's new album, 2 songs from the collaboration album of DangerMouse, SparkleHorse & David Lynch plus a few other songs. Everyone loved that CD so much. It played non stop for the whole time we were there. The 2nd evening when I tried to change the music by playing my songs from Hypem.com people immediately asked me to turn it off.
So all my songs this week would be from that playlist.

1) La Femme d'Argent - Air

2) Le Voyage De Penelope - Air

3) New Star In The Sky (Chanson Pour Solal) - Air

4) Les Feuilles Mortes - Iggy Pop

5) Je Sais Que Tu Sais - Iggy Pop

6) Sexual Sportswear - Sebastien Tellier

7) Revenge (feat. Wayne Coyne) - Sparklehorse & DangerMouse

8) Everytime I'm With You (feat. Jason Lytle) - Sparklehorse & DangerMouse

It was the music for our Voyage in outer space. Every song seemed perfect as they kept playing one after another. I had to burn 5 CDs for everyone as a souvenir for the trip.

Big Psychedelic Bear

We reached Big Bear around 6. Cooked Pasta in 45minutes. Dropped A sid & ate our dinner. During the dinner it hit Kunal 1st. He could not stop laughing. Neither could he stand straight. After a while Pablo & Mauricio jumped in the Jacuzzi. It hit Mauricio there. He was uneasy & dizzy. He got out of the tub. Pablo was tripping hard & happy & giving the best vibes. I was peaking too & joined him in the tub. It was bliss for the next 2 hours. Me & Pablo had the best times. We discovered a Freeway for aeroplanes.
Meanwhile We kept feedng Satish more & more & after a point we just gave up on him. Which sucked. Because no matter how high & happy we were, esp me & Kunal, the thought would always bother us that Satish is not feeling it & it was supposed to be all for him. He kept eating more shrooms & smoking more we ed. I went to sleep around 3.

I woke up at 9 & cleaned all the dishes & made coffee for everyone. We all sat down & talked about how silly we were the night before. Satish took some more shrooms. I send him out for a walk alone as i figured thats the only way he will get high when he is not around us & theres no pressure to feel high. And it finally worked. He came back in 30 minutes dehydrated & high. And paranoid about his mom calling him. He seemed to have fallen somewhere as his shirt had dirt on it. But he could not remember anything. He started worrying about calling his mom & talking to her. He finally called her & got it done with. We had our brunch & headed out to the lake. I wanted to drive around the lake once but the people in the back were not very receptive to this. Later on I realized why they were dying to get out of the car - 4 guys in the backseat. We reached the lake & spent the next 3 hours lying around in the grass & just staring at the sun & the trees & the fishes. We named that spot BIOSPHERE.

We bought some tequila & went back to our house. Mir was tired of his high & wanted it to end. I was tired of the same cd & changed the music. The 1st 2 songs were very heavy & Mir wanted me to change. Seeing him, Pablo started having a really bad trip. He thought he might need proffesional help. He thought he would never come out of the trip. Meanwhile Kunal make dinner & I cleaned the dishes. We had the best fruit salad & lots of delicious tequila drinks made by Mauricio. I passed out soon after.

All in all a fun trip.

Here are some pitcures...

Week 29, 2009

1) I got a Man - Positive K Another Old School classic. Songs like this always brings out a smile in anyone's face.

2) The Beat Goes On - Casino Music A really funky version of the Sonny & Cher classic.

3)Yes Ma'am(All night Long) - Visti & Meyland

4) More Than This - Roxy Music

5) Madh Assalian(Makyo's Zen Breaks Remix) - Cheb I Sabbah

Week 28, 2009

The Band that I discovered this week is Fat Freddys Drop. A Reggae/Dub group from New Zealand. Can't stop singing their song ROADY.

1) The Camel - Fat Freddys Drop featuring Alice Russell

2) ROADY - Fat Freddys Drop

3) Shakara - Feti Kuti The one and only Feti Kuti. Garth Trinidad played a 15 min version on Friday night. And its been playing in loop since then.

4) Battle Flag - Lo Fidelity Allstars

5) ) Perhaps? - Benji Boko

6) The Beckoning Bell - Little Death Orchestra Love this video. This and the Camel video have really inspired me.

Week 27, 2009

This week I discovered this new band THE DEAD WEATHER. The vocalist is the super hot Alisson Mosshart of The Kills & Jack White is on the Drums. Its more like a side project for 4 talented & successful musicians. I doubt this will last.

1) Hang You From The Heavens - The Dead Weather

2) Tape Song - The Kills

3) Riminini - Diskokaine I love the name Diskokaine.

4) Spanish Death Song - The Builders & The Butchers This Portland Band was my other discovery this week. So instead of a link to this song I have linked their myspace page where they have quite a few songs. all very good.

5) In Between Days - Mystery Jets & Esser(The Cure cover)

6) Ich Fumbus Grossen- The Chicago Afro Beat Project. Couldn't find this song on Youtube.

Fleas Not Bed Bugs

Last one week was hell. Almost 11 days back I woke up with lot of scratching my legs & arms. For few days I thought it was a allergic reaction. After Benedryl didn't cure it away I suddenly figured its some kind of bug infestation. Since it always happened when i was in bed I assumed it was bed bugs. And then the nightmare began. I spoke to people who have dealt with bed bugs & heard their horror stories. I called our Slumlord Rick Chua to get it fixed. The Asshole refused. I filed an online complaint with Health Dept. But i started thinking maybe its not bed bugs. It could be something else. Like Fleas. They are always fucking with Pizza. So I trapped one of the tiny motherfuckers in a box & showed it to Jenna who had just had her house cleared of fleas 2 weeks back. She confirmed that it really was fleas. What a relief.
Got Flea Bombs from Home Depot & Bombed on Sunday. Then I mixed Baking Soda with Iodized salt & sprayed in all over my floor. Its Tuesday morning & I am still working on putting back the house in order. I have already washed the clothes 3 times in last one week. Last night was the 1st time I slept more than 4 hrs in 10 days.

Week 26, 2009

1) She Spoke to Me - PRINCE

2) Awesome - The Bloody Beetroots feat. Cool Kids This is the second song featuring Cool Kids.

3) NYC Crack - Wu-Tang Clan (Feat. RZA) This is from the new Wu Tang Clan album. Awesome song.

4) Everybody in the Club Gettin' Tipsy - Chingy

5) All the Way Down - Slow & Local Album 10" Jazid Collective