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The Umpteenth Journal Attempt

(Hopefully) daily ramblings from the hazy mind of Hasief Ardiasyah

Friday, August 13, 2004

Done, done, on to the next one 

FINALLY! I'd go into detail, but I'm too pooped. So instead I'll reintroduce you to an old friend. Yes, it's time for the return of...

Cosmic Pop Culture Coincidence of the Day!

So last night as I was working, the TV was on E!, and they were showing one of those Top 100 shows. This one was new: Hollywood's best-kept secrets. One of the secrets was about Back To The Future, the movie that launched Michael J. Fox's big screen career. Except it almost didn't, because the role of Marty McFly was originally offered to Eric Stoltz, but they dumped him because they felt he was too intense to deliver a comedic performance.

The reason I zeroed in on this particular tidbit is because of what the movie means to me. One of the first movies I ever saw in the cinema, one of the last movies I saw before the family moved from London to Jeddah, and a franchise that stuck around for my first few years in Jeddah, as Hanief (my big brother) seemed obsessed by it. And you know how the sibling trickle-down effect is. After not giving the movie any thought of late, that E! show suddenly sent all the memories flooding back.

And now for the coincidence: guess what movie was just on Trans TV a few hours ago? Unfortunately I switched on about three quarters in, namely the climactic high school dance thing where Marty has to fix his parents up, otherwise he disappears. If you've seen the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, go check it out, it's a classic. I've recently realised that, whenever movies I've seen years ago come on the TV, I check 'em out anyway. In most cases, I watched those movies when loads of subtle things went way over my young head. So with the benefit of wisdom gained over the years, I can finally appreciate the subtleties. Example: at the high school scene, the band takes a between-set break. In the parking lot, Marty gets accosted and thrown into a car's trunk - the car turns out to be the band's, who were spending their between-set break inside it getting high (which accounts for the smoke that rises up after the get out). Tonight was the first time I'd realised that; pot references aren't usually intended consumption for six year olds. Maybe one day I'll rent or buy the movie and see what else I've missed.



posted by Hasief  # 8/13/2004 11:15:00 pm (0) comments

Just checking in 

Thought I'd drop a line just in case you, dear readers (yes, despite the relative absence of any comments per post, I'm sure someone somewhere is reading this), think I've gone into one of my slumps and lost the urge to blog. I'm fine, just hanging on to the last shreds of sanity as I try to complete my seemingly never-ending revision in the face of an ever-crunching deadline. If you read the last post, well unfortunately most of my plans for today were shot down: just started the revision this morning and had to miss the Hoobastank press conference, haven't completed my revision but went to the gig (which was kick-ass, by the way. More on that soon). Now it's nearing midnight and I'm sleepy, but I gotta soldier on. Please God, just one final push...

posted by Hasief  # 8/13/2004 12:23:00 am (0) comments

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Departure of the Manure Killer 

No progress on the revision front, at least in terms of content. The printing and binding process, however, is another thing. Checked out a printing shop nearby; if I put it in by Thursday evening, they can have it done by Saturday evening at the latest. Cool. Hoobastank is also a go, with a press conference on the morning of the gig. So that means I have to get this shit done by the wee hours of Thursday at the latest, print it out, attend the conference, meet my supervisor for his signature, head to campus for my other lecturers' signatures, drop the revised manuscript at the printing shop, and then off to the gig. That's the plan, let's hope it all works out. Work, man, work...

But before work, a moment's silence for the departure of Danny Murphy to Charlton Athletic. Players move club all the time, but it's different when it's your favourite. I've mentioned him several times here, but I don't think I've ever explained why he's my favourite. In several hours' time, Michael Owen may be gone too, but I won't be as depressed. Considering my priorities at the moment, I'll hold off the explanation as to my personal appeal for Murphy until a later time. Or better yet, read his career timeline here, specifically his tenure as a Liverpool player. Whether you're a football fan or not, I think you'll appreciate the man's ability to bounce back from major setbacks, something we could all learn from. Here's hoping he bounces back from being unwanted by his old club.

posted by Hasief  # 8/10/2004 11:57:00 pm (0) comments

Monday, August 09, 2004

And now, back to reality (or "Reality, Sucky Reality") 

After two weeks of basking in my liberation from university, it's increasingly dawned on me that it'll all mean shit if I don't get the thesis revision done. And soon - yes, the deadline's on August 16th, but the stipulation is that I'll have it all bound in hardback by then, and that takes time - maybe a few days, maybe even a week. So to sum up: I have to get it done, submit it to my examiners and hope they give it the thumbs up (as opposed to The Finger, otherwise it's back to the drawing board), and then send it off to the printers. Fingers crossed.

On top of that, there's still my monthly work to do, and fit in the Hoobastank gig (which at the moment isn't a done deal, but considering who the promoter is, it's a 75 percent certainty I'll be there). And then there's the very real possibility that Danny Murphy might leave Liverpool after all. It rains when it pours, doesn't it?

And now on to a section I'll call Useless Pop Culture Observation of the Day:

So I was watching 'Things Will Go My Way', the new video by The Calling. Basically it's a collection of live footage of pretty-boy singer Alex Band on the road with the hired help musicians. The thing is, afro-ed fat boy guitarist Aaron Kamin isn't in the video with him. I thought he was, but the guy whom I mistook him for had longer, blonde hair and was much thinner.

Why is this important (well, not important as in big-deal headline important, but important enough that I actually spent some brain-power on it)? For the answer, you've got to delve a bit into the history of the band. Or more specifically, the initial public perception of them. When they first came out, they came across a proper five-piece rock band that just happened to have Alex and Aaron as their founders and songwriters. Then they started losing members, something I'd assumed was down to the old "creative differences" excuse - in this case, wanting more creative input and not getting it. So far, so what...but when that happens, bands usually find replacement members. Wasn't the case with these guys, who were presumably a proper band, at least until the 'Here For You' video off the Daredevil soundtrack. Yeah they were the only two members visible (you couldn't even see the drummer properly, and everyone else was in the string section), but the thinking was, maybe they haven't drafted in full-time replacements yet.

Then came the promotional campaign for the second album, in which Alex and Aaron went to great pains to underline the fact that the two of them were and are The Calling, full stop. Everyone else (including the bassist and drummer who sued them) was hired help and was told so since the beginning, but the record company were the ones who "misled" the public and made them out to look like a five-piece. So to recap: The Calling are a two-piece, and everyone else is just there to make them look like a band. Hence the 'Our Lives' video, which sees a quartet performing in a garage, but only Alex and Aaron get any significant camera time. All clear?

Well it would be, but then the new video came along, with no Aaron in sight. I'd read that he was recently sick, which meant Alex had to go about promotional duties on his own. But not even appearing on tour, and by extension, the video? Had things got so bad that Alex's chubby buddy finally bailed and Alex decided to soldier on while retaining the band's name?

As it turns out, nothing so dramatic: after a little research, I've discovered that Aaron's pulled a Brian Wilson/Beach Boys on us, where he's decided not to tour in favour of writing and producing at home, while Alex deals with the promotional stuff. Mystery solved, case closed. And now I get to wonder why I just spent five paragraphs writing about this, as I'm not even a fan of theirs (I find them tolerable, at best).

posted by Hasief  # 8/09/2004 10:03:00 pm (0) comments

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Googling 

I have no idea why, but I suddenly thought I'd do a Google on my name. Just the first name, as it isn't too common. I figured it might be interesting to see what my internet presence is like. I came up with two pages, the contents of which are as follows. I've divided them into three categories:

1. Yes, they're talking about me:

- One link to this blog
- Two references to me on blogs by people I know (Indah and Grace)
- Two Q&A sessions with members of Teenage Fanclub in which I participated
- A mention on Weezer's website regarding an Indonesian Weezer tribute gig held almost two years ago at Nirvana Cafe
- A mention on Weezer's homepage at their record label's website, because I made note of Muse's Matt Bellamy complimenting The Green Album in NME
- A mention on www.football365.com as a spotter for their Mediawatch page (but for the life of me I can't remember what I spotted)
- Two mentions with regards to Malesbanget.com
- An article regarding MTV's impact on Asia, featuring yours truly's two cents on the matter (the link I've found suggests the original article's been licensed out and recently republished, considering I did this about two years ago)

2. Might be talking about me:

- A link to BlogPulse.com, an "automated trend discovery system for blogs and a portal into the blogosphere," specifically the Key People ("prominently featured people across today's weblog entries") section for April 12th 2004. It's unlikely I'm the key person in question, and the website's archives don't go back that far so I can find out who they're referring to. But after a quick glance through my blog archives, my entry on the corresponding date talks about The Pink Panther's 40th anniversary, so it's likely that that's what everyone else was talking about on the same date as well.

3. Definitely not me:

- A link to some website owned by these three Malaysian guys in their mid-thirties with no apparent connection apart from their birthdays being in late February. Not really much info as to the point of this website's existence; aside from the birthday info, it has their home addresses and weight (they all weigh 75 kilos! Spooky!); their hobbies (Sports! Fishing! Gardening! Candle collecting!) and their children (no mention of their wives' names). It's on the latter part where the Hasief comes in, specifically M. Hafizuddin Hasief. I assume that they call the kid Hafiz for short, though I wonder if they thought the whole thing through. See, based on personal experience, people keep getting my name mixed up with Hafiz...

- Two pictures of some baby whom I'm sure isn't me, at Breastfeeding.com. Unfortunately, no actual breasts are visible.

Speaking of breasts, this looks like as good a segue as any to mention Coupling (I was going to say "mention Coupling again", but I just noticed that I haven't mentioned it here before. Read here to get up to speed). It's a British comedy that they tried remaking in the U.S. in the hope that it would be able to replace Friends, but that version tanked horribly, even though it involved the original series' creator and the risque-ness factor was toned down to suit the U.S. audience. Anyway, thankfully they're showing the U.K. incarnation on Star World twice on Saturday nights (9 and 1:30, local time), so if you need a reason to stay home, then this is definitely it. It's lucky they show it twice, which means no scheduling works once the football season kicks in next week.

Back to the topic of breasts, last night's episode dealt with just that. Here's the synopsis:

Jeff and co. can’t take their eyes of a beautiful stranger in their local bar. And the girl can't take her eyes off Jeff. Jeff goes over to talk to her, only to discover that she doesn’t speak a word of English, which to Jeff of course is quite a relief. Her interpreter, Alice, tells Jeff she’s Israeli, then whisks her away.

The next day the girl is back and Jeff attempts to chat her up. With neither speaking a word of the other’s language, it is an utter disaster. The girl is led to believe that Jeff fancies Alice, not her. Jeff is led to believe that 'Shadayim' is the girl’s name, when in fact it’s Hebrew for 'breast'. The heartbroken girl reluctantly arranges for Alice to meet Jeff at the bar the next day. When Jeff says to Alice, 'I’m sorry, I was expecting Shadayim,' the flat-chested Alice punches him in the face.

I'm not sure the description alone is enough to make you laugh (it was for me), but the magic is in the execution. Before the episode aired, I knew what it was about. When it got to the chat scene between Jeff and the girl, they didn't have any subtitles to let us know what the girl was saying. After four previous episodes of comic gold, I had an initial feeling that this oversight would render this episode a major disappointment.

But then again, if there's anything the previous episodes taught me, it's to expect the unexpected. And lo and behold; after the end of that scene, they suddenly "rewinded" it and played it again while telling the audience to "imagine you're Israeli". So they replicated the exact same scene, but this time the girl's speaking English, while Jeff is speaking some incomprehensible gobbledy gook (which the actor, Richard Coyle, had to come up with and memorise during rehearsals). Definitely one of the most ingenious pieces of TV comedy I've ever seen. I'm going to buy the DVDs if I ever find them.

posted by Hasief  # 8/08/2004 01:44:00 pm (4) comments

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