My kids came home after a birthday party with these little plastic toys that mostly look like junk and a waste of petroleum based products to me.  I asked them what they wanted to do with them and if I should recycle them or throw them away, but they both were like ‘no way, we need those!‘  Of course need and want in a child’s mind is the same thing.  My son then proceeded to take them and line them up on top of the TV.  For some reason I thought his enthusiasm and interest in doing something with them was cute so now they adorn the top of the TV and will probably be there for quite some time because that’s where they ‘need‘ to be.  I have to admit that I smile when I see them mostly because in my mind I see his excitement of finding a place for them that made sense to him, and I remember him smiling while he was putting them up there. (See photos of these little toys to the left and right in this post.)

They are also into these things called Silly Bandz, which are basically colored rubber bands in all sorts of different shapes and sizes (e.g., dinosaurs, sea animals, princesses, pets, etc.).  I don’t know where they first got them but my son just showed up with them one day and said he got them from a friend.  I think their dad bought them a bunch more.  My son is pretty good at getting more of them but my daughter ends up giving hers away to other kids and then gets upset and wants more from her brother.

They both have seemingly opposite ways of dealing with these things.  I remember my son would come home with a bunch of Pokemon cards, and I’d ask him where he got them.  He would say “they gave them to me.“  I would ask him who gave them to him and he would say some friends at school.  I would then ask him what he gave them and he said “nothing.”  I said how can that be that they just gave you these and you didn’t give them anything and he said “I dunno, they just wanted to give them to me.“  I was perplexed at that but I really couldn’t ask him anything else because I know that he gets along well with other kids.  I find myself wondering if this is a talent of his I should encourage or not!  Now my daughter is the one who wants to give her things to people and I’ve seen her give things to her brother when he asks, but I’ve also seen him give her stuff when she asks.  If someone likes her Silly Bandz and asks her for them she’ll gladly give them away, but I don’t think she really wants too but feels she has to because later (as I mentioned) she will go try to get some from her brother because she thinks it’s unfair that he now has more than she does.  I try to explain to her (she’s only 5) that it’s not her brother’s fault that she has less but she doesn’t get that and then eventually her brother will let her have a few of the ones he doesn’t want.  The end result is that I’ve decided they can’t take the Silly Bandz to summer camp.  We’ll see how long that lasts.

So I wonder how these fads are created and I wonder when these particular ones will subside.  Us humans ebb and flow in our desire for things whether they be big, life changing things or silly things like rubber bands in the shape of a dolphin.

We decided to grab some dinner and headed over to Baby Acapulco’s which is just across the street from the theater.  We were pleasantly surprised with the band who was playing that night – The Brew.   They play Latin Jazz music and they were really good.  She had heard of them before and I wasn’t sure if I had.  We both enjoyed a margarita and the show!  They even had a free group salsa lesson that I participated in despite the fact I was wearing flip flops.  I’d love to take salsa or almost any kind of dance lessons some day so it was a fun experience.  A bunch of us lined up in front of the stage and my practice partner ended up being another woman who was there supporting the band so she already knew how to dance salsa.  She was older than me and really sweet.  She just got back from Hawaii and was wearing a pretty flower in her hair.  We took turns being the man in the practice sessions as did others because it was mostly women who came up to participate in the free lesson.

The Brew has a sound similar to the Gipsy Kings so beautiful and romantic.  Musicians are entrepreneurs and I’m always impressed when I see a band who is able to seemingly make a living sharing their talent.  To me, hearing them after watching Salt was a nice way to calm the nerves after watching an intense movie!  I look forward to hearing them again sometime soon.

Lion Statue in Barcelona, Spain

Of Lions and Beasts

The lions stand defiantly,
Overlooking the aging sea.
The ocean waves around my skin;
The quiet roar won’t let me be.

The plastic cages keep me bound,
Tightly, softly in a dew-like tether.
They move my mind to places I cannot go;
Which lead me to regions nether.

So I must wait until the time,
The rising sun will shine upon my heart.
And take me to a warmer clime;
Where love is appreciated like discriminating art.

But the beast that lives in all of us,
Is harshly judged by one and all.
And will never truly live without much fuss;
Until we can safely emerge from underneath the shawl.

© June – July 2010 Aruni S. Gunasegaram
Barcelona, Spain; Austin, Texas

I decided to share another poem on my blog.  This one didn’t come as easy as the Streets of Barcelona.  Well, I’d say 90% of the words came, but it took longer, and I had to do more editing before it felt right.  I wrote most of this while sitting next to this statue of the lion in the photo.  These statues were just across the street from a little port where they launched tourist boats to sea.  I played with the visual presentation a little bit.  If you look closely you’ll see that one line in each stanza is slightly longer than the longest line in the previous stanza.  You’ll also see that the first and third lines in the first two stanzas don’t rhyme but they do in the second two stanzas.  In a poem I wrote on the airplane flight from Madrid to Dallas, the last words of the 1st and 3rd lines of each stanza relate to each but don’t rhyme.  I didn’t realize that until after I had written that one which surprised me a bit.

This poem is about the majesty of lions and the beastliness of them as well, just like humans.  Humans are so powerful and noble, yet we often forget that we are also made of animal/beastly stuff that surfaces from time to time.  The lions and lionesses, fortunately, have no such rules to deny their beastly sides because they are free to be what they are unless they are captured and put in a zoo.

The reference to ‘shawl’ has to do with religions that require their women to be covered up so that men cannot see any of their flesh that might tempt the beast in them.  In Western religions women don’t have the same rules to hide most of their body, but I’ve come to discover I/we hide other parts of ourselves: our true minds and thoughts.  As women, moms, wives, proverbial keepers of the family, we hide behind those shawls for many reasons mainly because we were told in lore they would keep us safe.  The trouble is they don’t keep us safe from our true selves and what’s hiding behind those shawls might be much more provocative to others (men or women) than mere flesh, which could explain why in some parts of the world a woman’s opinion/voice is just not heard.

I’ve seen other women cling to customs/behaviors and judge others based on them.  Not because they believe them to be right or true but because that’s how they were taught, and they are too afraid of change and sometimes even freedom.  I’ll be writing about a book I’m reading on the topic of choice.  With choice comes more freedom but also a lot of anxiety and stress.  The more options we have, the more knowledge we have about the ‘paths not taken.’

She got divorced a couple of years ago and says her music reflects much of her emotional life.   I think most singers/writers works reflect their emotional lives.  I know my writing does.  She has two daughters named India and Taja, whose father is Indian.  It’s nice to see that she has been able to use her emotional experiences to write songs.  She admits it’s harder now with two small kids because “being able to have long periods of time to focus on nothing but myself and writing is long over.  I live in a pretty ADD world right now.”

She is also reviving the female musician focused Lilith Fair tour that she helped start many years ago.  Successful musicians to me are the ultimate entrepreneurs.  They are betting against the odds of making it big that are probably 100 times greater than a technology company making it big.  There are so many more people trying to be successful singers (e.g., just look at American Idol) than there are business entrepreneurs.  I was reading the article and wondering how it would be to go to a studio every day of the week to work with someone as talented as her musical partner, Pierre Marchand, who helps her complete her songs.  I have to say I was day dreaming a bit while I was reading the article.  She has the benefit of great successes behind her before she had kids and she can play the piano as well as the guitar.  I can’t play either…but there’s hope!  They also featured Ozzy Osbourne in the magazine and he says he can’t play any instruments either.

I sing one of her older songs called Ice Cream (you tube link) to my kids sometimes.  I drop them on the couch during the part where she sings “It’s a long way down” and they laugh hysterically.  It makes me laugh while I’m singing it to them.  “Your love is better than ice cream…your love is better than chocolate.”

I wonder if it’s possible to find someone out there who could be my music partner who is looking for a lyricist/singer like me and if we could both take a month or so off and create music.  A nice little dream…

The Book of Eli

Set in post apocalyptic earth, the main character, Eli, is played by Denzel Washington.  He is responsible for taking a book – The Book – across the devastated American continent to the west coast where it can be reproduced.  It was an interesting plot and of course Eli is virtually indestructible.  He relies on faith and keen insight to guide him to his destination.  Near the end of his journey a young woman helps him fulfill his destination.  I happened to meet the guy, Armando Kirwin, who led the special effects team for this movie at a monthly event called Nerd Nite.  He was presenting that night, and I chatted with him for a bit before he gave his entertaining talk.  Turns out that Armando might be able to help one of our companies at the Austin Technology Incubator (one of our interns came to the event too) so it was a good random coincidence that we met.  I thought the Book of Eli was a good movie.  Even though the plot was somewhat predictable, it had a surprise ending and of course the special effects were cool.

Hot Tube Time Machine

Your life will be just fine if you never see this movie.  A bunch of older dudes and a teenager travel back to the 80′s when some weird Russian beverage short circuits a hot tub at a hotel the older guys used to stay when they partied.  The 80′s hair styles, clothes, and music was interesting but otherwise this was a very cheesy movie with way too many weird things happening, putting down of women, and unnecessary cursing.

Cold Souls

This movie was a little bit depressing as it’s based on a premise that you can harvest and store your soul.  The main character, who is an actor, is tired of his soul.  It’s weighing him down so he gets it extracted and feels better but empty.  He rents another soul of a Russian poet who happens to be female and his performance as an actor improves.  His soul gets stolen and taken to Russia and is placed inside a woman who wants to be a better actor.  They try to insert some comedic moments (e.g., the way the souls look in the jars after extraction varies from chick peas to prunes, etc.) but it all seemed very serious.  I have often wondered about our souls and how it is that our souls come to be in our bodies or really what unique interaction of neurons in our brains/minds display our unique souls.  Anyway, that’s too existential a topic to go into here…

Knight and Day

This was an entertaining movie with neat special effects.  I heard that Tom Cruise did all of his own stunts in this movie.  The main characters were Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.  The film’s plot was fairly predictable with Tom being the good/bad guy and Cameron being the sometimes scared out of her mind, dim witted gal.  In the end, she’s the pro and saves him but in the beginning I sometimes wanted to wonder out loud why she just didn’t get her stuff together and act like a reasonable person.  Anyway, it was fun to watch.  Whenever I see a Tom Cruise movie, I wonder how they shoot the film to make him look as tall as the actresses he usually plays across.

I was reminded of a few other movies I had seen a while back when I saw the previews in in the beginning of the rentals.  My memory of them has mostly faded but a couple of really good ones were:

A Single Man – An intense movie about a man trying to cope with the loss of his longtime partner.  It seemed to be set in the 50′s or 60′s when being gay was not as accepted as it is now.  He tries to find the courage to live and comes close to killing himself several times until a student of his connects with him and gives him hope.  It has a tragic twist ending.  The movie has several flashbacks to the main actor’s time with his partner and does a good job of illustrating the pain/feelings he is struggling with.

Cheri (with Michelle Pfeiffer) – a French courtesan and a young man, who is the son of another courtesan, have an affair and subsequently realize they are in love.  The character played by Michelle has the advantage of age and experience on her side to help her mask her true pain and feelings when the young man gets married because that was what men his age were supposed to do.  He being less experienced in the tumultuous, often painful experience of forbidden, unrealistic love cannot cope and is miserable until he finally kills himself.  A powerful movie.

The Runaways – This movie is based on Joan Jett, famous female rock star, and her first band.  This was also an intense, bizarre movie with more than enough footage about her sexual preferences and drug use.  It’s a deep look inside the life of a rock star and how extra hard it was to make it as a female rock star in that day and age.  It’s impressive that she and her other band members lived, but then again it’s impressive that most members of rock bands live given their stereotypical hard running lifestyles.  I have to say this movie made me cringe a few times but at the same time I was proud of her and her female band members for having the guts to go all the way to fame-dom!