what is a writer?
what is a writer?
when people ask what i “do”, i invariably pause for a moment, reflect upon the myriad jobs that provide the paise to buy the khana that give my body prana and allow me to do what it is i do…..
what do i do?
well…
i work in a restaurant, flirting with the guests…i gently persuade them to eat just a little more food than they are able and spend a bit more money than they expect…so that makes me a waiter…
i mix cocktails and serve meals at a variety of posh functions for a number of catering companies in honolulu and kailua, so that makes me a bartender/banquet server…
i brandish a chainsaw and wear a harness whilst trimming trees (mostly independently and sometimes for other companies) all over the island of oahu, so that makes me a tree trimmer….
i am a second-year ma student in the english department at the university of hawai’i @ manoa, currently writing my master’s thesis, so that makes me a student and procrastinator…
i trade some of my time, each week, working the reception desk at yoga hawai’i in kaimuki, in exchange for unlimited yoga classes, life lessons, and a mirror to my true nature, so that makes me a sevak…
i am the on-again/off-again helper of gaye chan, the dynamic chair of the department of art and art history at the university of hawai’i @ manoa, so (according to her) that makes me a “handler”…
i am honored to donate some of my time to my sanskrit professor, dr ramanath sharma, helping to organize his library, etc., and i receive, in return for my meager efforts, expert guidance through the occasionally labyrinthine logic of panini and vedic philosophy…so (some would say) that makes me a chamcha…
i have, for the past 3 years (with my partners, dj monkey and dj toki) irregularly thrown a regular monthly party called pundarika @ kaka’ako beach park (noon2nine), so that makes me a promoter…
i have spent the last year of my life being ambiguous and inexpressive about my feelings/intentions toward someone with whom i have sporadically been romantically involved, so, that makes me a liar…
i have been disengaged from the one activity that gives me passion, the one thing that i do the best, the singular utterance which i, in my humble opinion, believe i was born to exclaim, and that makes me a coward…
back to being a waiter…
why? because it provides me with the majority of my income and it is the most visible of the forums in which i interact with my public…what am i waiting for? i wonder…when will i trade in the “a” for an “r”, the “eh” for the “are”, and begin living a purposeful life?
this is it, folks….
no more running…
no more pretending….
if i fail, you all get to see it in glorious blogiscolour…..
i am finally coming out of the closet….
in case anyone is interested…
”i am a writer!”….
that means i write…
every day…
without fail….
it doesn’t necessarily mean you read…
it simply means that i write…….
that simple, that easy….
maybe all of my writings will suck, maybe i’ll crash and burn…maybe i’ll make a fool of myself, become a laughing stock…that’s ok, for it is infinitely preferable to the alternative…to die trying is far better than the eternal waiting, the wasting away…
josh lake, a dear friend of mine recently sent me an article entitled the 1,000 words rule of blogging (book excerpt). he is the most supportive person in my creative community and i am eternally grateful his thinly-veiled suggestion that i “take a potty or get off the can.” according to josh, “the longer your blog site sits empty, the more of a liability it becomes.” so, here! my first blog post is jibberish, ranting…i am desperately trying to get to 1,000 words without exposing myself too much.
what is really on my mind?
today i was struck by the absurdity of uniforms….i was sitting at an oceanfront table @ krishna restaurant in arambol, goa, looking out at the steadily growing crowd of “alternative” tourists…russian mafioso goons enjoying their vacation packages, israeli hippies traveling on the “hummus trail”, european and american psychedelic neo-tribalists (poi balls and fire staffs in hand), amidst “domestic” tourists from all over india… and i was dumbstruck by the woefully diluted expressions of individuality that we have collectively constructed and inserted into our social structures—dreadlocks, tattoos, body piercings, dmt, psytrance…
all just another uniform…
the same thralldom…
same poop different dhoop….
i don’t claim to be any more “enlightened” or “alternative” than anyone else on that beach….as a matter of fact, i’m probably worse off than they are—more of a poser—at least, they are all living their dogma…..i, on the other hand, am dictating my dogma to myself and writing it in a love letter to the world word-for-word and line-by-line…pathetic!
if this blog ever accumulates anything vaguely resembling a history, then this post will surely go down, in the (hopefully) cavernous archives of the aforealluded-to history, as the lowest-quality of them all….let’s hope so anyway….or not…
are you still reading?
if so, i am truly grateful….
after 83 days in india, i’m not sure what to think…i have spent all of my time in bombay’s western suburbs, pune’s shivajinagar, and the beaches of arambol, goa….my friend, sheri lyles, on the other hand, has spent almost a month in exclusively rural settings “living off the land” and “amongst the people”…..it could be argued that i am not experiencing the “real india”….is that true? i mean, the people (20.5 million at last count) of bombay are entirely extant…they exist…they are real! you end up bumping into one of them at every turn…..the mansions of juhu were actually there when i saw them and touched the outer walls of the compounds…shivajinagar, the hallowed bastion of maharashtran ultra-conservatism, is an actual geographic location populated by some of pune’s most rock-solid hindu families, and goa, as dreamy as it may seem, as insulated as it can be, is as “real” a part of india as dharavi!
where does that leave us? currently @ word # 1038 as i wrap this baby up and put her to bed. however, it also leaves us with the proposition of and exploration into the “idea” of what constitutes the “real india”…a question to be explored, authentically, at a later date…or not.
