I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

This from a song By Sandi Thom - couldn't have put it better myself.

Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In '77 and '69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

When the head of state didn't play guitar
Not everybody drove a car
When music really mattered and when radio was king
When accountants didn't have control
And the media couldn't buy your soul
And computers were still scary and we didn't know everything

When pop stars still remained a myth
And ignorance could still be bliss
And when god saved the queen she turned a whiter shade of pale
My mom and dad were in their teens
And anarchy was still a dream
And the only way to stay in touch was a letter in the mail

When record shops were still on top
And vinyl was all that they stocked
And the super info highway was still drifting out in space
Kids were wearing hand me downs
And playing games meant kick arounds
And footballers still had long hair and dirt across their face

I was born too late into a world that doesn't care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair.


Wonder what our song will be forty years on.

Another one from susie..

Unbeknownst to Susie, the last post is doing the rounds, and in pitches in Daddy with another one from her in her Dilbertian mood...


"am not doing too much!!!
Still following the policy...look busy, take it easy!
Have tons to do, but no enthu!"

She's rich, that one!

Susie....

Susie is not usually big on spouting truisms, but this one was too rich for me to let go.

" ........and howz work going?"

" Oh the same old deal! you know? Meet clients - act intelligent......Meet Boss - act stupid, Meet colleagues - act competent..."

I think this is what is going to be my career's epitaph.

Out of the mouths of babes and ...bosses

In my new avataar as mint-fresh b-grad, i rather too wholeheartedly took to the job of designing a new channel structure for a widget product offer from Acme Global. Ol' John Silver warned me about how important this was to Acme global, and sternly demanded rigorous detail in the research and analysis. "We like to think we hire the best people, and here's your chance to show we did right!!"


Followed weeks of dust-filled days of interviewing customers and consumers (aha!), gathering data, wringing out all my meagre knowledge to squeeze out sensible conclusions on the channel structure, crunching the distribution cost figures into respectable looking excel sheets -complete with linked sheets,modify-able assumption figures each neatly fonted in red, with comments in the important cells.




Two weeks later, Ol' John Silver beckons me into the meeting room "Slave - you ready with the numbers?" "ulp!..eh..sure" ... I stumble into the glassed in meeting room.....begin gaining confidence as i open my laptop like a an egyptian peddler about to show off his new range of aprodisiacs .....the screen blinks into life...and emerges my tabbed, highlighted, commented 17days, twenty two hours and 3 zillion grey cell worth excel file - row upon row of gleaming ratios and percentages.....kilos and tons of product....hundreds of thousands of consumers...just waiting to make millions for Acme Global....I launch into my spiel....take care to bring out the nuances in the channel structure - different options i'd considered but discarded in the face of crystal clear consumer insights before arriving on this gleaming model, different combinations of which are laid out in the shining specimen now awaiting his razor-sharp, analytical brain's incisive attention.


....pause..


Ol' John narrows his brows, scratches his chin thoughtfully ....." I am not interested in numbers, slave". "Eh, Lord John?" (they are quite informal around here..no tedious usage of full names unlike other stuffy companies. Even a cheery "your highness" could pass muster on saturdays)


"I said i am not interested in the numbers.." leans back in sleek, ergonomic chair....and looks at the ceiling..."I want to know what exactly is the moral ground holding your channel structure together?"


Kerrrr-whump!...... "eh, what?"


"I said what exactly is the MORAL GROUND HOLDING YOUR CHANNEL TOGETHER?"


"eh? ....er...moral..uh..well...economic incentives?" (this while cursing myself for the classes i've slept through.)


Ol' John is in into his stride now "You mean to say that the only thing holding your channel together is economic rationale?"


"err....well...no...i mean..there is ..umm..bonding.. mutual resp--"


"blah blah blah ........anyway, we'll talk about this tomorrow -it is too important to ignore in our business. Channel members must be morally bound as well as economically incentivized and you should have thought of this".


May the sweet lord help me.

A pub conversation between an MBA and..well..read on

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon and I was sittin' in a pub with a rollercoaster depressive-creative woman in one of her more stable moods and getting introduced to this succession of wonderful women (esther, karen, zoe, tang and sowmya -I hope you're readin' this) absolutely lolling happily in the high spot of post-pubescent male life (its been a calmish life so far, I must say), lunchin' on pork and swimming in beer, I was a content man. Until he happened. (if you think HE's going to be turn out to be handsome hunk with honey drop eyes….you should be reading cosmo!).

He turned out to be this bearded man with a booming laugh and a seemingly inimitable air of dope and genius about him (I am sorry but this one is NOT gonna be about the women!) and the conversation inevitably veered to love and sex, and to my liberally middle-classed mind- the astonishing exclusivity of these two. (nope - its not about love and sex either - I did recommend the damn cosmo, right?). Anyway, said bearded person was holding forth on some theory that involved him making quadrants with love and sex as the dimensions - the theory itself is another story - but suddenly he thundered ".........this sort of denial is well explained by a term called cognitive dissonance!!!" implying by his tone that us mere mortals couldn't possibly know what it meant. Reading my open-mouthed shock as an unquenched thirst for knowledge, he went on to explain it as "post-decision rationalizing" to feel better about the decision .

OW! I managed to gather my senses and stutter that CD was actually "post decision (purchase) concern/dissatisfaction about decision and possible looking at alternatives at next purchase". (this may not have been the best way i could put it but i was a few down myself).

He looked down his bushy beard to locate the mortal who had dared voice doubts

"ARE YOU FROM MARKETING, BOY?" .... "er..yes" ...." I AM A BEHAVIOURAL SCIENTIST, AND NOT ONE IN A PARTICULARLY ARGUMENTATIVE MOOD EITHER BUT I WILL SAY THIS - ALL YOU MARKETING BOYS DO IS READ STUFF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND FULLY AND TRY TO USE IT TO MAKE SILLY THEORIES TO TRY AND SELL MORE TOOTHPASTE".

Well - he may have had something there but my sunny sunday afternoon had graduated gently to a pleasant evening but my mood had a taken an arc rather more steep and a hue much deeper. Of course, it improved with some unselfish ego massage by karen but that wasn't enough to gloss over the painful fact that my own smugness could be shattered by another's rather more deeply set one.

But what was good about the damn tiff is that the realization that b-school can take you within a sniffer's distance of actual knowledge - and that can be pretty rewarding - as long as you don't think of it as the last bloody word on anything.

Post this sordid episode, I can only fantasize about how that evening would have turned out if he was wrong and ended up grovelling at my feet for more knowledge or - at the opposite end of this miniscule spectrum of knowing and not knowing - wonder about how I would have felt about my existence I hadnt a damn clue about whatever he was talkin' about!

"Absolute knowledge" - utter fiction, I tell you,

Banned!

This is rich..It really is. And I've got to record this. Today is July 18, 2006, and for the last 11:42:32 hours (not really but being absurdly specific seems to add a certain sense of drama), this blog stands banned in India! (Actually, I think blogspot has been banned but it doesn't hurt to do a lil credit hoggin', does it?).

I always knew my inane chatter about holey pockets and white-trousered women were mildly offensive, but to have it banned by the powers-that-be adds a dash of credibility like a shot of vodka to a cocktail. All ye mere mortals, do not lose hope..i stand unshakeable for the towering values of mundane chatter about irrelevant areas that touch our lives in hugely uncertain ways.

PS: I am so struck by the drama of it all - this post has a certain war-like air of strife-stricken scratchy voices sending messages out to the world listening with bated breath.

Over and out, so to speak,

A life less lived...

Life seemed peaceful. The days were sunny, birds chirped lightly, and all the whifflewaffle seemed rather content to be whiffling and waffling harmoniously. It all seemed too good to be true, and oddly enough, it turned out to be one of those times when the forces-that-be condescend to lend some truth to these paranoid phrases.

Even now i recall the sheer tranquility of that time - made, as it was, to lend truth to usually rancid claim of being the lull before the buggering thunderstorm. It all started with my favourite pair of trousers, or to be more specific, the pocket of my trousers, or to be simply idiotic in being this specific, my right-hand trouser pocket.

It started innocently enough, with my discovering the odd dime in my sock and the occasional slice of toast stuck to my shin. Pondering longish over these unconnected pieces of evidence, I landed, with a fair thud i might add, at the conclusion of the presence of a hole existing peacefully at the wily vortex where the lining of my pockets met.

Oh.. a mere trifle, you might say, and right you would be too if you were one of those content to experience life from the comfortable depths of your armchair. Me, as my nanny will no doubt attest, I was always one to take life head-on, and given this predilection for gory battle, i do tend to get in the way of life's blind jabs, and this one, i must admit, got me fairly square on the sniffer.

Coming to an- as it turns out - ill-advised conclusion that this was a matter to be dealt with at leisure, I walked on, on the merry path called life. It was not long after that i began to contemplate suicide.

All of a sudden, my life seemed to be full of little objects that could fit into my pocket, seemingly with the sole purpose of falling out of it. They not only seemed to able to choose the trouser pocket they went into, but also the opportune moment they slid out of it.

I cannot forget the day when - in the middle of an impassioned intellectual debate with the Chairman at the Tway's club when i thumped my foot rather loudly on the wooden floor – (we were talking about M'Lady Betsy's form at the summer derby - a filly i had my heart and quite a few quid on ) and my trouser hem discharged out seven coins of varying denomination, a briar pipe and a pair of nose-hair clippers, the aforementioned not an inch away from the venerable chairman's gleaming brogues.

I won't even go into the agony of the Awagean ball that i attended, and my ill-fated waltz with the pretty daughter of the owner of the "Wailing Ale". (Suffice to say, my line of credit at the Wailer was withdrawn indefinitely.) Or recount the horrifying coincidence of my teaching the seventh graders at Chilton High when Gerald got the flu, my five-year old niece's birthday and my carrying a roll of rather pink satin ribbon for her birthday party in my pocket.

Haggard, jumpy and well wary of even the hint of a habit of stuffing life's essentials into my pockets, I had begun to seriously consider the prospect of spending the rest of the summer in roomy polka-dotted PJ's tending to my tomatoes at the farm, far away from all civil company when my tailor rushed back to town. Clucking with sympathy, he swiftly proceeded to deposit the offending pair into the dark recesses of his shop, offered me a cup of weakish tea, promising to sew in reinforced steel linigs on the pockets of all my trousers and sent me on my way.

After a month long diet consisting mainly of carrots and brandy, i approached something close to my good cheer - while not being reckless enough to venture into society yet, but well enough to look forward to contemplate what tomorrow might bring with not an unduly heavy heart.

A sordid tale I know, but one that had to be told.

A lot of clay to build in my bricks...

It’s interesting how people take my views rather too seriously… and if I were not wiser by the virtue of my follies, I’d probably do the same. Well.. here I was gloating like an egg that had found its bull’s eye .. nestling cheerfully in the yolky satisfaction of my, even if I do say so myself, well-expounded “white trouser” theory.

Until of course, I got pronged, rather rudely I might add, by a few bristling women. “I wear white trousers, don’t you know” as if by the very fact that they did, they completely turned the fact that they were, in fact, exactly the kind of women I was talking about, on its head.

Well… I was jolted, I must admit, by the fury of these hustling bustling women but it does incite me to cast further light on this much-argued about theory of mine. Let me first bung in a disclaimer. Like all theories worth their yolk, “The White Trouser Theory” does the usual thing – rustle up a conclusion first and then build a complicated routine around it. In the face of counter-arguments, cold logic and even hard evidence, the WTT like all theories will simply build natty little corollaries which will, to all intents and purposes, render the theory gloriously impotent, but will not let it relinquish the sensational glory that surrounded its introduction.

And now to business ... Oh yes I agree –– there’s nothing elaborate about white trousers anymore, white trousers have lost their elitist halo, and now every woman worth her waistline has a pair to boot. While this does take away from the trifling detail of relevance from my theory, it does go rather a long way in proving its original premise. After all, where does a woman get her hankering for a new couch .. an antique for the hallway.. and oh before I forget.. a new piece of apparel such as .. hmm.. let’s see now.. a white trouser from? From the happy coincidence of seeing it owned by, with or on another woman, of course! And who are these women next door craving to be like? The quintessential “white trouser” woman.. thus spreading the elitism thinner.. and thinner.. until of course the next “white trouser” comes along .. ridiculously hard to get ... prohibitively expensive .. thoroughly impractical.. and positively leaking style at its seams. And the entire cycle starts over.

And all this while, us enlightened species watch for these tell-tale signs.. and stay well clear of these moody women.

Beer, anyone?

About spewnotes....

I am at a loss to understand why, but i am compelled to defend what i blog at spewnotes. Well, i suppose the reason is i have been reading some damn good blogs..

One thing that struck me about all these blogs, is the sheer entertainment value through the quality of writing and (to use TJ's lovely phrasing: tacking on one more objective to the sentence, being too lazy to actually work the sentence in) the sheer purposefulness of it all.

Well. lets get one thing clear.

Spewnotes, in no way, intends to educate, inform, propagandize or entertain and aims (using the term loosely and thereby implying much less work), at best, to be something approaching a rambling read.

More about women...in white trousers.

Its a Thursday evening, and i am a content man. Monday class is far away. Assignments look humanly possible. I am still reveling in the afterglow of Mclaren's maiden win this year at the Spanish GP. Kimi Raikkonen appears with a halo in my dreams these days.


Reclining lazily on the soft cushions of this peaceable picture, I set my mind to weightier matters - and for this post it is the pleasurable task of detailing my much-applauded (mainly by me) White Trouser Theory.


Or to be more specific. White trousers wearin' women.


I first started on this theory on the airport express from Hong Kong airport to Central. An hour long journey in an air conditioned train (i use the term loosely. To my untrained heart, it ran faster than the plane i had landed in.) That was when i spotted this British woman. Tall. Full. and wearin white trousers. Her long flowing gait, sunglasses perched fashionably on lovely auburn hair, she looked gorgeous. But something bothered me. I couldn't put my finger on it.


My next vision of a white trousered woman was in Bombay. Funnily enough, a similar looking woman, stepping of a sleek black Merc with, almost inevitably, Louis Vuitton shopping bags in her hand.


And then, on that trip in Bombay, I kept running into this succession of white trousers and women in them. Something kept nagging at me right through, and over paani-puri and chicken frankies on Linking road, it hit me. There was a common thread (no pun intended) running through all these women.


And it had to do with white trousers. And unattainability.


What kind of woman wears white trousers? Remember women and their finickiness about appearances? So what kind of woman puts herself up voluntarily to that acid test?


If it hasn't struck you yet - and i don't blame you - it took me long enough - it really is the kind of woman who is supremely confident about what her day is going to dish out to her. The kind of woman who has a handle on almost every factor in her life.


More specifically, it is the kind of woman who knows that her home isn't that kind that springs nasty surprises in the form of an un-vaccumed portion of the sofa. The kind of woman who knows her bags aren't made of the cheap leather that could streak your trouser leg as your bag swishes against it as she walks. The kind of woman who organizes her belongings in such a way that not a single thing need go into her trouser pocket.


Picture, if you will, a white trousered woman's day.


She steps out of a dustless home, into a gleaming elevator that swooshes down to the floor like a molecule beam. She spends all of seven seconds in the sun as she walks to a vacuumed, de-odorized car whose chauffeur has the air-conditioning humming at twenty-two degrees while the tarmac melts on the road he is about to drive her on. Her palms are dry and cool and she smells exactly the way she intended to.


I jerk out of my reverie as the puri disintegrates soggily in my hand, and splooshed down on the pavement, splattering my sneakers. I realized then that this was exactly the kind of woman who a bloke didn't want in his life. The kind of woman, who a man instinctively shies away from making passes at. And I relaxed, as I looked at the another white-trousered tower of feminine intimidation, for a brief moment gleaming whitely in the morning sun, as she glided back into the cool, dark interiors of her car. She may gleam and shine, I am never going to want her to be mine.


Solving life's little puzzles gives me an almost obscenely, disproportionate sense of satisfaction.

About "bein cool"

As i love sayin, Let me explain. Coolness is an abstract concept and carries much more weight than its frivolous wording indicates. It doesn't, as folks tend to infer, hinge upon good looks or a drawl. It could, but that's not the kinda coolness we'll worry about. That's as passe as a local train. It hinges, rather crucially in my opinion, upon two not unrelated things: first, presence of substance, and second, a tenacious ability to cling to your identity.

The first is easy to explain. But before i do that, let me bung in the fundamental characteristic of "cool" here. Its anything that is different from what most blokes do/know/have and yet care about. It'll get clearer as we move on.

Getting back to substance, we need to understand that most folk know a little bit about everything . When people are cool, is when they know a little about everything, but also, in addition to this common denominator, know a hell of a lot about something. Like music. Like sport. Like motorcycles. Like tobacco. Like coffee. Like books. The list is not nearly as endless as i am leading you to think but really it is a very generous criterion.

Identity. This here is a crucial one. It basically flows from our "substance" theory but not in what you would call an obvious manner. Its like this. Picture your self as a flower child hangover from the seventies. You wear sunglasses four inches across, you wear brown corduroy, and dual color sneakers. You dont mind polka dotted shirts with collars that look that could easily be mistaken for a small plane's wings. You wear your hair long and shave once in a week. You smoke three packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day, have an ambidextrous talent for rolling joints and eat three cheese rich burgers a day. You listen to Dream theatre and Rush, think nDJ stands for Desk Job and you haven't a clue about Trance.

And you are in B-school.

(Granted this is a nasty picture i draw, but then the greatest breakthoughs could have never come without experiments that refrained from animal testing, right? )

So this here is an uncool situation. (or have i tipped my hand by being too obvious?). Anyway, my point is this. If you cling on to even this time-warp identity for a fair amount of time, you'll be cool. Any step towards modernity, in the face of relentless social cold shouldering, would send you hurtling rather inevitably into the dark abyss of social outcastism.

Why? Like i said, coolness is about being acceptably different. And if you have the second, the first will follow. In due course. The trick here is to cling onto what ever germ of an identity you have, and just wait it out.

Simple enough, eh?

about social life at B-school

Its strange how life chooses the strangest moments to turn you inside out, churn you around and return you to almost the same molecular arrangement that you were in before. This "almost" of a difference could result in either a an improved version or not but its the transition itself that is unnerving.

I am a 28 year old bloke..an age where you are "just right"..neither confused nor abstract. Its a calm unflappable period of time where you are young enough to be cool, and old enough to have the right to look smug occasionally. Like i said, a good age to be. Like i didn't say, its an age that doesn't handle change too well.

B-school is a lot of things and one of the things it also is (like most things which involve more than one human being above the age 14) is a social drama, where you need to have your role and your identity clearly etched out. Its about "bein cool".

And at the crux of this is the "Positioning" issue. Posish is an important deal, if you aint cool. Either you identify with the cool hip crowd or with the riff-raff. Either way, you need a clean posish for a stress-free B-life. In simpler words, you need to find the right crowd to hang out with so the masses can have an ID to match your face to. Its an "Ours" or "Their's" thing.

And here i am. Talking about this, when i am 28. Grief.

It is always a sign of something seriously wrong, when you are at odds with what you are doing and what you are ..well..are.

As you have no doubt discerned from my blog, i am a seriously skewed personality, and now i am in that epitome of conventionality - B-school.

Its quite a strange place this. A sort of accelerated society race, where everyone is trying to fit in a matter of minutes by using terms like "knowledge aggregation" - a beauty i heard over dinner tonight - in casual conversation. In here, everyone are all alike in their desire to be drastically different, and yet they share the same driving forces, similar dream destinations and similarly different ideas about life.

Strangely enough, i like it. And that's what's worrying me. Karen, my cute friend in the ad world, sent me off with a cautious pat on the back, that seemed to say "good job, mate but are you going to turn into a "suit"?

I am going to think some more about these wise words.

About Nirvanians...

Returning to the subject of women, a favourite subject, i had abandoned, under the duress of a woman feminist (yep. there are.) haunting my messenger with questions containing what she imagined to be cutting to the the very core of the issue. Women and Logic are like beer and ice cream. You can have one or the other.

Well, anyway, there is a rather recently discovered species of women that i want to talk to you about. Their very existence, almost confirmed, has shaken me to the very termite-eaten legs of my favourite armchair. In fact, ..oh wait. I am getting ahead of myself. Let me break this to you gently.

During the course of my intense, back breaking journey of human nature,(happening, as you might imagine, over millions of tankards of refereshing beer) i have chanced upon a truly original species.

We all know the anguish that Gautam Buddha went through, choosing as he was between worldly desires (what he imagined to be worldly in a world that didn't have beer or pizza is beyond me) and an existence free of desire, and hence(apparently), truly existing. Well. He needn't have bothered.

There exists this, thankfully rare, breed of men and women, that bring the two together - (for you slowpokes - Desires and detachment) - in a rather vicous cocktail of personality liquors.

These blokes look like they are swimming on the waves and desires of emotion just like the rest of us. Actually, all they are doing is going through the motions of the above mentioned activities, but in reality are rather securely paddling gently perched comfortably on a bed of detached social outlook.

This is wonderful. Un-understandable as the above paragraph may have sounded, this is a magnificent piece of evolution. Take my word for it.

Let's break this down.

What's the most important thing in the world to you?

How good you think you are.

How do you know how good you are?

From what your mates think how good you are.

(Let's not waste any time on the psychological problems that are supposed to happen here. This is what everyone does. Period.)

How do you know what your mates think of you?

By what they tell you. And for the slightly more intelligent person, the way they tell it.

Now, we all know that mates bullshit you. And they know you know. And you know they know you know. So we repeat the entire process of finding out how good we are by matching our opinions of ourselves with a more objective audience. Until the associative process of self evaluation with an objective observer nullifies the objectivity, either positively or negatively. And you are left with a foetus of an unbiased opinion. You take what you get, and move on to the next. And so on.

Right through this process, we have a few parameters, all centred around one basic fact.

The System treats you the way according to what it thinks of you. If you are a winner, they think you are a winner. Completely unconversely, if the system thinks you are a winner, you become a winner. A chicken and egg classic.

Now, coming to the nub of my post, this back and forth between people adding to or detracting to their worth of themselves, forms an admirable platform for manipulation, and in fact, most of our wiles and wares. What i have discovered is this breed of men and women that do not fall under this basic umbrella of human behaviour.

Your opinion of them slips off their back like water off a seal's back. They like and love as do all of us, but their loves are neutral and impassive. More cerebral than cardiac. Their opinion of one does not change what they feel for them. (If you stop and think, you'll realise how bloody important that one is)

With such a person, you are completely powerless, and in fact, just due to this abnormality, they seem to hold inestimable power over you. There's no way for you to get through to them. or at them. They are calm, unflappable. Truly Nirvanian.

What makes them that way? I don't know.

How can we become like that? No idea.

An orphan blog

This is coming from nowhere. Really.

As i write in today, i wonder about the presumptuousness of it all. The utter arrogance in assuming that the world needs to know what you think. Or feel. On further pondering - not too much; kills brain cells- i am deeply comforted by the fact that most great art (great used in the "great haircut!" sense of the word. My cumbersome pondering might lead you to think otherwise) comes out of a confluence of constipated urges and deep enjoyment of satisfying them. I really doubt Pablo Picasso would have painted, had he known what he could end up as, in deeper shades of tan to reflect museum lights in a more muted way. Then again, he was an artist, and i, loath as i am to say it, am a hustler. What then? Do i do this to relieve my urges and enjoy the satisfaction of the ensuing relief, or do i do this for an audience?

Weighty question, that. Need another beer.

And more was to come, but for Karen

I can't even begin to tell you the viciousness of the reaction to my couch theorizing. I, for one, was so happy with the pregnant nascence of my effort that all i could think of was how much more i could add to all that i said last time.

And then she happened. A precocious little thing with too many opinions, she got into a virtual catfight demanding an explanation for my simplistic views.

Her points and (probably most of those who do end up reading what i put up yesterday).

1. Are things so black and white?
2. Is everything men do designed to "get some"?

Well. its like this. (its what i told her and i hope it makes sense to you too).
Its like you land in Mazgumma city and want to know everything about it! In your enthusiasm, you'll probably run out of steam ten miles out of the airport, hobbling as you would be between every nook, cranny and cafe you see.

Now if i gave you a sheet of paper that said
1. Mazgumma Palace: 10 miles out North west. (Take a tonga)
2. Mazgumma Museum: Behind airport. Walk.
3. Mazgumma Park: 6 miles south of airport. Its twenty square miles. Pack lunch.
4. Mazgumma strip bar: Look in the direction of the big bear, when it gets dark. The Neons. Minimum Tip charge: 10 Mazgus. Waitress bum pinch on the house.

Well, you bet that's not all there is to Mazgumma city, but you get my drift.

Take in the broad highlights, and then go looking for that tiny place, hidden away three miles out at Mozbulka Market, bang opposite Zenot bookstore, that serves Mazgumma's best panzanika.

To all accusations of simplicity, that what i have to say. An understanding of the subtleties need to follow a basic understanding.

A rather splendidly made point, i think.

Women

For all the literature in the world on women, there is still some scope for improvement. There are still millions of unmated men and women out there. All because they dont know the rules. Strange but True.

Well, in this edition of spewnotes, i try and cast some light on the matter. My locus standi? fuck knows. At any rate, here we go.

Women switch between two basic states, and if men have a hope of getting any, they need to cater to two of these all the time. Yes. All the time.

Woman to Child (W2C)....(HEIL THE HENPECK)
Basically, a Mom state. Very strongly defined in most women, its a simple state of mind needing to arrange the world in a pre-determined order. (The order itself is common to most women, but let's not get into that.) All you need to do is fall in with this order For eg: Bathing before Sunday lunch or some such.

If you try and be ultra-cool, and want your space, be careful. You may get it. For me, and most guys, i suspect, this is the state most difficult to get used to. It is like getting your maleness pounded into flaccid submission. Painful.

There is an upside to this though. (This note, written as it is being by an enlightened male, aims to share the cheerful state of existence of "been there, done that".)

If you time it right, you might get your fortnight's laundry done at bristling pace by woman in the throes of getting her world to look exactly like the way she wants it to look. All you have to do, is observe the frequency of above state. (This is very specific to each woman, but you might find that this eruption usually happens at the time of your favourite game on TV. You see, finding you in the middle of bristling constructive activity takes the fizz out of the whole exercise. Finding you somnolent watching "John Snead's amazing pool trickshots" is much more satisfying. Who said women werent logical?). Well anyways, it is important to let the woman squeeze as much satisfaction out of the entire episode. If this means that you hold on to your TV Couch, against all your gentlemanly instincts, do not budge. Secondly, try and leave all your unwashed laundry / cigarette butts / expired porno in one massive pile. Concentrate on the game. You'll find a squeaky clean den and a happily martyr like woman the next day.

(NOTE: A dangerous refinement - actually trying to incite this "W2C" state, when too lazy to do your laundry- is something best left to married men.)

Woman To Dad(W2D)...(CUDDLE THE COBRA)
A Child state. At times, the best part of women, its the state where they want to be hugged and protected. It brings out the Male instinct, and is a bit like alcohol in that respect. It fills you with that warm woozy feeling, suffusing every fibre of your being with a warm glow, makes you think you are the First Emperor, when all you are really doing is dissolving your insides in some harsh liquids and killing some brain cells. Women, really, are hardly any different.

Of course, there exists this particular brand of refined male, who having been through countless encounters of a similar type, and having had to deal with the aftermath, now know what this is. A heaven-sent opportunity to make out. And that's what it is. Just follow steps 1-3.
1. Do the cuddle.
2. Don't solve problems.
3. Whisper sweet nothings (And that's not as hypocritical as it sounds. Might sound like a paradox to males, but it is really a meaningful routine that works for women. A bit like the psychiatrist's couch).
4. Make out

Wonderful approach. Highly recommended.

Of course, there have been well-intentioned men, who have dismissed above approach as farcical. There are few of them left to tout the positives of their approach. (Most of them are either dead, single or temporarily gay). But some hieroglyphs have yielded the fact that their approach may have been not as wise as they had hoped.

Apparently, They followed the following steps:

1. Cuddled. (Honestly, this is instinctive)
2. Listened. (Apparently, this is where the disaster began.)
3. Reacted. ( One of the rare moments which was satisfying to both parties concerned)
4. Set out a plan to solve the problem (Ouch)
5. Went to bed with a plan and determined clench of the jaw.
6. Woke up to find woman considerably less victimized than she seemed the night before."AH! she's being brave! Attagirl." (Poor man. Clueless.)
7. Met woman the next evening. Expecting to be gazed at with loving adoration. Almost expecting the Final Token Of Male superiority - The Blow Job. Things dont go quite according to plan. Woman arrives somewhat peevish. Allegations of "running my life" ; "control freak" ; "obsessive" pile on late through the night.
8. Next morning, finds said male run over by bus. (Apparently didn't read the sign "Crossing the road while Wondering about why-girlfriend-dumped-me is Strictly Prohibited.")

On the whole, its a state that's responsible for keeping most relationships and marriages going.

These are the two states, that i like to think, are the ones that one needs to be aware of, if one is looking to get some. There are other more superficial states. Periods, Marriages and Engagements, that bring out some interesting shades in women.

We'll get into that sometime. Its late and i gotta get home!

On my second post, and really, i am yet to establish an equation with my blog, puzzled as i am with this paradox of publicly personal note site. A bit like shooting vodka to sober you up.

I wonder what blog protocol is. Is it for selected public viewing (as in inviting mom and pop and the dying rich uncle to read it) or do i keep it separate from my social circle in the hope of attaracting some lissome lass from spain? ( A blog for a snog..i am sure that's not a unique concept..or as they say in Ukrainian..Item log pe impression marega)

I am Spew

Well. Hello. I am Spew.

..and i now have a blog. Except that i have no idea what to do with it.

I suppose we 'll figure it out as we go along.


That's a start. (Whew)