What I Like These Days

Long hours on an empty road, and a cup of cutting chai at the end of it. Hip-Hop music bleeding through my speakers, loud enough to shake my soul : Common, 2pac, Nas, Jay-Z for the obvious choices but I bump The Roots new album, my iPod serendipitously played the entire Doggystyle album while on shuffle! And my car transformed into '64 Cadillac, chromed out and rollin'. I play B.O.B. and Drake and J. Cole and my smile gets wider and wider. I've even started flashing the peace sign coupled with that New York head nod 'Sup to people stuck in traffic around me. Bombay City knows not what to do with the kid.

I love my new Chevy. Twenty years old, but she still got it. A little love, a little paint and a whole lot of toil, and you should see her. Girl looks mean. Can't go too fast but like Kanye said, "Ain't no rush to get grown, pump your brakes and drive slow homie", which is exactly what I do (plus she can't really go that fast). But when you drive a car like that, with the joy she brings me, I don't need to go anywhere - I am the destination.

The monsoon, brothers and sisters, the monsoon. I had forgotten what a Monsoon (capitol absolutely) used to be before I moved back here to the tropics. We're talking wrath of God rain, wash you down and knock over trees rain. It's so beautiful when it catches you out on the street. For the first ten seconds you hate the world, and then it washes even that hate away until you're left smiling, wet, and fucking care-free. The world's problems and your day's stresses just do not matter for that moment. Granted it turns Bombay into a fucking nightmare but we're Indians - we get used to it.

Did I mention coffee? I must have. There have been many odes to Coffee that I have written, and yet...it's never enough. How I adore thee, I refuse to count the ways. You wake me up, and supercharge my days, you fill me more life than the absent Sun's rays. You make my breath smell like coffee bean trays. And my poetry stinks even after I drink you, but I find I don't cares.

The fact that I'm writing again. God bless the ghosts of Hemingway and Billy Shakes, and Shelley and Yeats, and my main man Wallace Stevens. God bless them for watching over me and making sure I strayed not too far away from our beloved Pen. I'm grateful that I found my way back to this art I love, and this desire to be better at it. I love it. Now I just need to dust off the old sketchbook and get that sketch hand strong once more.

The trailer for the new Stallone movie "the Expendables". Damn! Have you fellows seen that shit? Looks friggin AWESOME! It's probably going to suck but best believe this man-child shall be at the first day first show with coffee (of course) in hand and a giggle prepared. Nicholson can act his ass off, Spacey and Pacino ain't no slouches either, Bardem is the dude and Robert Downey Jr. is the king - but Stallone? Stallone is the ultimate dude. Ay yo Adrian, I'm back! Word! Welcome home Sly, welcome home. Show em how it's done, because his action scenes aren't blurry and annoying like all Hollywood action scenes have become, with the camera shaking so hard and fast you get a headache before you get a clue. Stallone don't speed the camera up, he slow it down. He wants you to see him knock a mother#$#!'s teeth in.

And many more things, but I'd rather be doing them than talking about them. So I'm going to go and do that right here, and I'll tell y'all about it tomorrow.

One love...