Thursday, November 30, 2017

Finding a Soul in a Soulless World


The death of Society is real but it needn't be the end

We live in a diffused, fractured society where we are trained to do whatever is necessary to succeed. Climbing the corporate ladder ranks higher than wrestling with the myriad moral and ethical questions that arise during that ascent. Maneuvering to get another's job or to win a treasured promotion is standard operating procedure among the upwardly mobile segments of the population. 

To rationalize this approach by citing family concerns, bills, survival, status, etc is to cleverly elevate the self while disregarding a greater responsibility to the moral fabric of the community. Young people maturing in such an amoral environment are vulnerable to the inherent contradictions and inconsistencies. The adult world practices a creed of avarice and acquisition ignoring the consequences of such blind depravity. Homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, racism, and general emotional despair decorate a nation intent on propagating spiritual negligence. 

Are there no opportunities for those persons endowed with conscience? Must an individual, in order to feed himself and his family, sell himself to whichever godless corporation that will take him? Why must the truly compassionate be forced off the mainstream into low-paying jobs with non-profit organizations? Why do we raise our children to submit to the soulless 9-to-6 rat race mentality? 

Are we so lacking in moral conviction, imagination, and inspiration that we do not demand alternatives? Are we so frozen in fear of authority, of challenging the status quo, of the risk of losing our financial stability that we willingly aid and abet the spiritually bankrupt nature of the job market? 

Why do we not take a stand against greed, corruption, ruthlessness, insensitivity, and egocentric behavior ?. The human consciousness is so muddled and confused that the entire human race creates for itself problem after problem after problem. We were granted the privilege to populate a most beautiful and bountiful planet. The richness and diversity of both fauna and flora, the incandescent azure, aqua, ebony, sepia, emerald, ocher, magenta, scarlet, and amber, the luminous fragrance of a midnight moon or a sunny sea breeze, the kitten's soft, ticklish coat or icy snowflakes on a wintry afternoon, and the lions's roar of ocean surf crashing upon rocks or the buzzing bumblebee dancing from flower to flower comprise the sensual wonderland of our world. 

Instead of rejoicing together in this vast splendor and frolicking amongst ourselves in childlike purity, we choose to establish boundaries, to rape and pillage the planet and each other. Our history is one episode of domination after another with one society enslaving another or one culture suppressing another. Human beings have little interest in sharing and collaborating. Each seems driven to ennoble his own peculiar pettiness at the expense of others. If god is there, he must sometimes wonder why He allowed such lowly evolved creatures to ruin one of his most exquisite creations. 

We live in a society that determines a person's value based on his financial status and his willingness to conform to pre-set standards. Economic viability and conventionality rank higher than compassion, kindness, and tolerance. Those who strive for uniqueness and who tend to diverge from the mainstream find censure and ostracism as their reward. 

Since the vast majority of the population is without deep-rooted conviction, anyone exhibiting such conviction is viewed as a threat. If this individual also chooses a rather unconventional lifestyle, he is viewed not only as a weirdo eccentric but as a dangerous element that must be dealt with accordingly. 

Socrates drank hemlock; Martin Luther King ate lead. Society is most unforgiving when its arbitrary status quo is in jeopardy. A child will incur his parents' wrath if he adopts values that are incomprehensible to them. There is tremendous societal pressure to fit into a greedy, self-aggrandizing slot. 

To listen to one's conscience without compromise guarantees unending ridicule and persecution. To be a light in a dark world generates malice and animosity from the mediocre masses who hide behind walls of corruption, paranoia and condemnation. Still, its never too late to change the path! Choose wisely, live purposefully! Truth always has a value. GM

Friday, September 29, 2017

Building a Blogger Community


Uniting Movie and Music Bloggers across the world

Two years ago, sometime in March, I wrote to all my fellow movie bloggers about starting a new website for the Movie Bloggers Network. For those unaware, the Movie Bloggers Network is a movie lovers community of movie bloggers, movie critics, film makers, actors and film fans I founded in 2012 along with the Music Bloggers Network, an identical community but aimed at the music scene. Rather too ambitiously, I also invited all of 'em to register their movie blogs. And yet almost 27 months later, I have to sheepishly admit I failed. Yeah, it sucks to admit defeat. 

Well, at least I didn’t get it off the ground I originally intended to. I suppose it's largely my own fault. Rotten planning, running a creative agency (that’s my full time job), too many distractions, too much travel and an unwilling investor. Or maybe I should blame the self-defeating desire that most of us have – do more than you actually can and being a perfectionist, doesn’t help either. Now it's going to be October and once again, the feeling of unfinished resolutions is overwhelming. 

This seems to happen to me every year, especially around my birthday. June is supposed to be a time when my world of work takes a back seat to leisure and laziness! Yet every year, I end up swamped with deadlines - which means that I spend much of the month hunched over my laptop with the calendar reminding me - hurry up, you are late, half a year is already over. 

Though I generally try not to focus too heavily on the business side of the Movie Bloggers Network, I hope you’ll all agree that maintaining a website is, ultimately a financial cost plus the time and concerted effort to keep it fresh. Particularly in these tough economic times, when newspapers are filled with grim tales of corporate implosions, I felt it's was very important to keep all of my fellow blogger up to date on news from my mother ship and mailed all of em about the unfortunate slow progress. This post is actually an extension of that original mail.

Anyway, if this sounds like a depressing setup for some sort of grim announcement, relax! The good news is that I have finally got traction for the new site and not just one but two. One for the Movie Bloggers Network and one for the Music Bloggers Network. 

Without much fanfare, I have been working with my small but devoted crew since December 2016 in creating a fresh new website and a mobile app too that hopefully every music & movie blogger and every music and movie fan will love. So if you've already registered your blog for the new website, its time now for you to send us your photograph (nice pics please), your updated web and social links including your facebook profile, your facebook fanpage (if you have one), twitter, youtube, instagram, etc) to let us know how famous you are, a short bio about yourself (in third person voice) describing all that's good about you and anything else you want the world to know. 

For those who are yet to register, the time is now to join us and become part of a new movie influencer and music influencer community. So, if you are a movie blogger, register here and if you are a music blogger, register here. And do help me spread the word around by tweeting, sharing and liking and anything else across the social space.

Regardless, if you're taking it easy this month, please savor the time. Think of me staring at a flashing cursor, and I'll picture you at the beach with warm sand running between your toes. And I'll try not to feel resentful. In the meantime, I promise to stay in touch and blog more often. And, as always, I remain grateful for your support, suggestions and feedback. Onwards and upwards.

Monday, August 21, 2017

Wintry Leg Blues


Why winter is bad for a shameless leg addict

A long winter is awaiting. Summer has come to an end (well almost) and with it, the never-ending search for the perfect pair of legs. A lot of guys call themselves breast men or booty lovers! Boobs, hooters, ass.. whatever you want to call; it is what gets their rotor in action. I am not patronizing nor am I a sexist but you can’t see getting all hot and excited on a lazy afternoon over something that women keep mostly covered up no matter what the temperature. But legs, think about it, they are generally out there, bare and beautiful and often neglected from the male psyche unless he is clearly into leg fetish. 

I think more guys are leg men then they would think of themselves like that. Breasts really require a certain amount of mass, a critical mass or a shape you could say, to reach a true erotic enticement for men. And asses are just too all over the place to find a lot of very attractive ones. Usually a woman’s, any woman’s, most attractive part, or at least the part most easily made attractive, are her legs. An expensive pair of nylons (and they are all expensive) can hide a lot of flaws. A short skirt, no matter what it is revealing, catches every guys eye. 

A good friend commented, he recently shaved his girlfriend’s legs for her! Yeah, he did. He lost a bet and she put him to work for the day, not exactly a worst gig if you think! In the end, he made his girl happy, got the full appreciation for having her legs just as smooth as he liked, and it was not much work apparently. A lot easier than shaving our man face, he told me. 

I’m making this much more personal than I intended but legs sometimes just drive me crazy. Maybe it is the knowledge of what treasure lies at the conjunction of the two beautiful rods or the beauty of two legs flailing uncontrollably in the air behind my back. You just don’t get that much in the winter though. Most everything is done under the sheets in the winter making for much constriction and zero views. Many women cannot stand to be cold no matter how hot you make her... Maybe you should try turning the heat up in the room heater. 

So, it’s obvious to assume that I also have a fascination (not a fetish) with a certain aspect of the female form (and just the boobs or the ass). That which keeps us upright or serves to hold us tightly to each other when in the vertical. One cannot but agree that the perfect pair of legs must be proportional and I don’t mean in regard to each other silly. Proportional: as in from the top down. Whether they are fat or slim can be a turn-on or turn-off depending on what body type you prefer. Legs can be thin, heavy, long or short and still guys are thinking what they would feel like wrapped around their torso. After all, for each, his own. All said, there is indeed something about having a smooth feminine thigh touch against your rather ugly manly (and mostly hairy) leg that just drives home the obvious contrast between men and women. And that erotic contrast is an easy one to see when you compare a man’s leg to a woman’s! 

The true problem for this appreciation is when winter arrives. Suddenly, all those women with their bare legs out there for all the world to see are nowhere to be seen in the colder climes unless of course you live in a tropical country. I am just bemoaning the fact that it will usually is between 3 to 6 long wintry months before you can spend a lazy summer afternoon just admiring the legs of the pretty women of the world. 

I travel a lot you see. I was in sunny Thailand a few months ago, on business of course. The women do have nice legs in Thailand and you’ll find them aplenty. I guess it really is a prerequisite for living in a humid climate where you must have them out there all the time. But attractive legs really do not seem to be a regional phenomenon, I have found them all across the world, even in hostile snowy weather like Russia. For instance, when I was in St. Petersburg in March, I got to sample a little whiff of the legendary Russian winter. When I say cold, it’s not like anything you have felt elsewhere, it’s really freezing cold, the extreme kind of cold that would turn your balls blue! And yet, I was surprised to so many women of all ages, all covered up on top but in short skirts and big heels, flaunting their legs fashionably as if they were impervious below to the minus degree temperatures! I must also admit, Russia has the prettiest and hottest women of the planet that probably explains how Russian men (and tourists) weather the harsh winter & stay warm and happy! 

So, it brings down to the finding the perfect set of legs? I actually found them around 5 years ago in a sports club where I was a member. She was tall, cute and a brunette to boot. She helped train basketball during the summer and her husband was the coach. They were newlywed. I remember that she was really good, better than me, and had the most incredible pair of long slender legs. Perfectly tanned too, about as tall as her legs that is. She didn’t come back the next season though. Heard she had divorced her husband over the winter. Turned out she was a closet lesbian. Imagine that guys. The best fucking legs out there and they are wrapped around some girl’s head right now. Leg up, life truly is not fair.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

What's love got to do with it?


Loving and Living in a selfish world

Gazing down the airplane window, trying to distract myself from the impending take off, I pondered about a TV documentary I had just finished watching on my phone before boarding. Interestingly, it was about an aspect of human existence I haven't spent much time considering, that is, until lately - on the hows and whys and whens - of love, of sex, of lust, of the more basic physical instincts that men and women grapple with, of relationships. 

So much so in fact, that the subject of "love" has been amazingly neglected. Maybe what the author said was true. I suppose in many respects I have also become a little jaded and cynical when it comes to what "love" is all about anyway... I mean, what does love have to do with sex, and vice versa... Can anyone really explain it? And, when do you really distinguish between the two?

How many times have you heard people say - "When you're in love with someone, you'll just know it..." Know what? Know how? Know when? They never seem to explain "it" and most of us - I'd wager - would have a hard time verbalizing exactly what "it" is... So I ask you now - what is love? If that isn't the most open-ended question on the planet at this moment - I don't know what would be!

Throughout history reams and reams of paper and countless barrels of ink have been expended by those in search of in explanation of  love...  Shakespeare wrote "Live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That hills and valleys, dales and fields, And all the craggy mountains yields..." Perhaps Shakespeare knew what love had to do with "it". Perhaps if he was still alive and kicking he could enlighten the rest of us - who can say...

Hollywood has made more than its fair share of attempts at interpreting love on the big screen over the years - From Here to Eternity and Casablanca are only a few of the classic films that come to mind. Even today in this post modern century, everyone still seems to be in search of "it." I remember reading an old article in Salon magazine by Barry Sullivan, a series of essays written on spending 34 years making love to and loving the same woman... Is Mr. Sullivan an anomaly? Is long-term "love" a generational thing, and have we forgotten how it works in this day and age - or did we ever know?

I believe the sole answer to all of the preceding questions is quite simply "No." How many of us with parents still living (and still married after 30, 40, even 50 years) can look at them and know they are, in fact, truly happy - or they have never cheated - or have they just acquiesced to an existence of tolerating each other, of a life time of disengagement because being engaged with each other ceased to be a passion for them long ago... I'd bet the scales are tipped pretty evenly in that regard.

Love wins out sometimes, other times - it does not. Pity, most of us still look for the flaws in the person who loves us instead of rejoicing in their love. Selfishly, we get more interested in stuff like money, looks, age, race and so many other things that we entirely forget why we even fell in love with that person. We only want to accept and have the love we think we deserve. 

Perhaps the one thing that can be said - is that when you do happen to stumble upon love - or it stumbles upon you - and you do inexplicably know - cherish it, hold it, revel in it - because just like the weeds that invade and strangle bright blossoming gardens, love will leave you, if don't care for it...if you don't protect it..if you don't respect it.

All these musings as usual, provide more questions than answers - but that's part of life that makes you think, think, think... I hope at the very least we are continuing to do that - even if we are habitually late and ignorant in recognizing true love when it comes to us on a platter. Like someone said, being ignored by someone who's attention means the world to you is the worst feeling ever.

I am a pessimist when it comes to love but I still believe we must like living each day to its fullest all the time and find and cherish the love we find. Maybe, we should all enjoy life while you're at it! Just because the summer of love slipped away and the winter of loneliness is on the way, is no excuse for staying cooped up and forgetting how to - live...and love and try again. Try it sometime and I think you'll quickly become addicted. 

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