House of Choti

hitting "reply all" when you can not clearly identify EVERY PERSON on a group email...

 

tut tut...

 

not pointing any fingers here....

Yet another hilarious exchange of cleverly written emails. God bless Lizzie Lamb....

 

Painting the scene - it is 1994, Liz and I are all of 13 years old. We believe we are destined to be famous rockstars, we feel the anxst and pain/suffering that all real musicians do (usually relating to less than perfect maths results hehe), we identify, we're playing with big guitars in the Lambs' poolhouse. We are emulating (attempting to) the Pixies and Ramones...I am crap and getting nowhere, Liz is clearly outblitzing me on both bass and guitar, she sees my frustration, calls in the big guns. Liz lends me her gold nugget live recording (a tape of course) of 'the pixies' for some inspiration...

 

Liz: "Mehreen, this is the only copy I have of this live recording which was done in the USA (as the pixies have never toured oz before) so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't lose it...."

Mehreen: (nodding head excitedly, thinking to myself "THIS is the inspirational break I have been waiting for my whole life...a Pixies mix tape with a side serving of Green Day on the flipside") "Yep, for sure, I'll make a copy and give it back to you next week."

Liz: "Cool..."

Mehreen: "Cool...."

 

Alas, that was the last either of us ever saw of the pixies live recording and I have carried the burdening guilt ever since. Occasionally in times of sheer drunkenness we will reminisce over the poor mix tape but recently thanks to triple j i thought i can finally lay my guilty conscience to rest. as i said earlier, god bless Lizzie Lamb :) see emails below:

 

 

no one does pop music like asians. especially the taiwanese. im telling you these guys put sugarplumfizzycolabubblegum yanks to shame!

 

i cant tell you the name of the albums or the names of the exact tracks but jolin tsai (chick) and jay chou are absolutely amazing. i have been bopping along to their tunes for the last few days. qual qual qual.

why would you ask someone to 'go to the movies' when you want to "catch up" with them? i couldn't imagine anything more antisocial for an occasion that is supposed to be highly social and chatty.

 

osb - offensive social behaviour.

 

 

apart from being evacuated down 60 flights of stairs TWICE yesterday (big earthquake hit Indonesia and we got the big aftershock treatment) and being reminded that this space is still in existence today, i owe a snapshot of the last few weeks. apparently the southern coast of indo has been devestated and we are supposed to be expecting more from the 'ring of fire' tectonic plates that sit underneath indo's surface. freaky shit. sitting 30 levels above the ground, i tell you it was a tad on the scary side watching my desk sway side to side and wondering if i was having a flashback to adolescent days of stupidity :)

 

both mum and wooj have flown through on their way to pakiland and have had too much fun with both, pics uploading shortly.

 

chinese new year was also really fun fun fun! wei was kind enough to adopt me as his familys orphan for the weekend, so i got to spend a lot of the festivities at the tan's place. we ate so much cool food, including a home done steamboat for the reunion dinner on new years eve when all the kids stay up as late as possible gambling to ensure their parents have a long life. no gambling was done but i do think i stayed up very very late that night (probably reading salman rushdie which i have not been able to put down!!).

 

i witnessed yet some more fab music moments (i was seriously not expecting it in SINGAPORE of all places!!!) when i firstly saw Muse, but more importantly caught the Beastie Boys at the Good Vibes festival. Having seen them at several big day outs and once at the metro in sydney, i was absolutely surprised to see them rock harder here!!!!!! they were simply buzzing all over the stage and entertained us all for over 1.25 hours!!! love a pleasant surprise, cos i was expecting them to be a bit flat as they are old codgers by now....

 

latest discovery (yeah im a bit daggy and tech unsavvy) but have discovered a WEALTH of music on the jjj website. live sets, mixed tapes, it's simply wicked stuff....im sharing the goodies, get on and have a look: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/music_specials/artist.htm

 

ok, pics being uploaded later. sorry for being boring, lets hug it out bitch.

chots xo

 

 

his name is jack. he is early forty something, a widower, has a daughter, works for the us ctu (counter terrorist unit) has great ties with the president and all fbi/cia senior heads, leads a highly unbalanced life jam packed with adventure, conspiracy, lots of big guns and a tonne of freaky coincidences...

 

it's official. i am having a fictional love affair wth a fictional tv character.

 

meet jack bauer, the lead character in the best tv to ever hit our screens - 24. i never really bought into the 24 concept (24 x 1 hour episodes of real time events) because the pain and hassle of watching 1 x episode a week has never sit well with me - coming from a person who tries to avoid watching tv at all costs because of the annoyingly long ad breaks (!).

 

but the story that unfolds with each season of 24 is not only spine tingling and at times stressful, it is one of the best thought out and written plotlines ever. we are faced with our lead character jack, around whom the characters constantly rotate depending on the national crisis he has been summoned to save the usa from (mainly the city of la). he has a menace of a daughter, kim, who he simultaneously rescues as she is prone to always get herself into trouble - she is usually scantily clad in skimpy, tight white singlets.

 

apart from watching a stack of 24 recently (managed to fit in around 13 hours in 2.5 days this weekend passed) and celebrating Haroon's bday (see pics), things have been pretty low key. have started attending the most amazing yoga/meditation class that will warrant a separate entry unto itself because it is actually infiltrating all aspects of my life. safe to say, choti has slowed down the pace a notch.

 

chots xx

culture vulture time again - this time for my first asian chinese new year. coming up on the weekend of 19 feb and being the dirty expat that i clearly i am, i somehow managed to forget i was in asia momentarily til this weekend passed. leanne was here from sydney on her way back from europe (bless her, she rocks!) and we walked down to chinatown and all 5 senses were chinafied within seconds.

 

the smell of smoky sweet woody incense that lingers in your hair and clothes for the rest of the day, the music of the high pitched chinese sopranos (and percussion frenzies at key plot thickening intervals), the vibrant bright red and golds, the touch of the gooey jelly sweets and cakes that wobble in your hand like cheap plastic boobs, brushing past clans of 3 generations of the same family all buying big on their red packets for pre-death inheritance distribution and eating soupy dumplings in the rain.

 

we had many an amazing conversation this weekend, but i posed a really interesting thought starter that when i am to make my oscar winning film (of course boycotting the actual event) and move to paris, i would hold small dinner parties with my favorite anti-establishment famous friends (well, they would be my friends by then).

 

at this dinner table i would invite the following people:

- johnny depp: he lives in paris, destined to be a regular i reckon

- madonna (have identified that she is exactly like me, except a few years older, white, great dancer etc etc but you get the drift) and maybe guy ritchie if they stay together. surely we could smalltalk about movies, maybe collaborate on my second oscar?

- benicio del toro: he's about as anti-establishment as they come, hides from the paparazzi, doesn't turn up to his own movie premieres.

- thom yorke: do i even need to justify this one? he signs off all his emails and blog postings with a 'x'...sigh

- my current favorite f*cking cool designers/artists http://www.eleykishimoto.com

 

a very very smart ex coleague of mine confessed that she uses this question in interviews to test a persons ability to identify inspiration (and subsequently passion) and i must admit i have stolen this from her in recent times...so who would you invite to your dinner party? dead or alive?

 

hmmm, maybe the moral of todays post is that it is finally time for that career move i been contemplating for such a long time??????

 

x