The Public's Face

Chapter 18.

Suffering From An Open Mind

Delusion...its the only way into Glendall. A place where creatures like man have proven they can live in harmony within their different races and cultures. Everything you know around you, is just a little bit better in Glendall.


I went to places like that as a kid. You wouldn't need to actually walk. You can go there any time you like.


I think I used to go there because making up a fictional world of my own was better than living in one created by smart people.

Why aren’t the right things important to us?

Right now, a woman on the BBC is forcing correspondents in India to say that terrorists in different part of the city have taken PARTICULARLY British and American people hostage. She keeps asking each person she speaks with, to first and foremost, if they ever wanna be aired on the BBC, claim that the reason is particularly against what the western world represents. She just needs them to do it for a while…till the west gets bored of the story…taking away just what they heard in the beginning.

That terrorists against the white man are at it somewhere in this world again. Unstable regions.

Somehow, we don’t know who these people are, but hunches from the local police or admins are going for the ol’ Islamic fanatic of course. The footage they keep showing…is of a hundred people looking like they’re crowding the front doors of a hotel in a very disorganized way…but helping some people who’ve been shot in clearly visible spots on their bodies into ambulances.

America and Britain condone.

Now they’re hearing from the British governments. Official statement. We need to kill terrorists. It’s those terrorists again. Extremist stuff goin on there.

A gay looking Indian man is suggested by the reporter to say whatever he’s trying to suggest. It’s that they were looking particularly for whiteskins. He does.

A cop whose been shot is carried away. His arms remind me of a weaker version of mine. And I’m not a cop. Far from it. I’ve had no training either, clearly. He’s acting like he’s on K or something. Look at him.

Ordinarily…I wouldn’t be bothered by anything happening anywhere. But right next to this clearly troubled region that now requires much attention and intervention…is MY country. Our religious people aren’t harmful. They’re like the Amish. They really are.

If there was a camera recording just enough footage before, and its still and ongoing situation….why isn’t there any more footage? What on EARTH is going on?

I’ll tell you.

A bomb went off somewhere in Lahore some days ago. Because of it…my idea of entertaining people was delayed for a month. I’m not happy about this. Because these people…don’t…exist. And they’re STILL winning.

I was wondering what it was, y’know. Why I haven’t felt like I’ve had anything to say for so long. I’ve been thinking way too much. I suppose I felt this as a last resort to say something. The reason I didn’t sooner?

I don’t think it does anything. Speaking out. Writing things in blogs. Marches down a bunch of city blocks. Charity gatherings and functions. Public appeals.

There IS no public in Pakistan anymore. No one sees the kind of horrible FARCE we’re being turned into in the eyes of the world…no one cares. Why should they?

We’re just waiting.

Maybe it takes a hundred people to make us snap. Maybe it takes a thousand. Here’s the idea.

Don’t come into this region.

Behind me, the woman on BBC asks them to please PLEASE say they were particularly looking for people the US and Britain sent here as martyrs.

No. Not martyrs. Diplomats. Whatever.

They still don’t know who’s responsible. The damage has been done though. No one really asks about who the dead were.

No one asks why that police officer looked like the heroin addict he’s supposed to arrest.

No one counts the population in the slums of Mumbai city.

They do this all the time. And we don’t laugh. We never laugh.

They play a game. And the world watches and says, “Wow…I wonder what’s happening inside. I just heard a blast. These damn terrorists.”

No one responsible. No crazy dude sitting on an oil barrel with an uzi in his hand making a cell phone call…talking to someone about what they perhaps even WANT…since as it stands right now…they’re just a bunch of dudes who ran into a hotel, threw some grenades in random places…and shot some people. Now they’re holding them hostage…but as the guy just suggested…even thought they have no idea who it is…they’re probably willing to die.

If I click post on this blog right now…everyone in that hotel will die by the end of this.

But I won’t. I’ll instead hope that I didn’t pass that fine line between mildly amusing and downright BORING and you’re still reading this…long enough for me to ask you…

Someone comes into your house tomorrow morning…and tells you and your family how you’re going to start living all your lives from this moment on. You are to adopt his language…his clothes…his idea of good music…behaviour…food…and law.

He tells you it’s in the interest of letting you be you…only…more FREE.

He’s right.

But he doesn’t say please. Instead he walks right in and starts. So you ask him to leave. And he does. But he doesn’t look right in the eye.

So then he goes and stands outside your window and calls his friends. They make you watch them toss things into and wreck your apartment with various ideas and chemicals and bombs. You throw things back and tell em to piss off as much as you can…but they always come back and wreck your shit more.

Then they offer to clean it up for you. THEIR way.

Would you be weak about it? Or still say no?

I wonder if I’m seeing things that really aren’t happening or just suffering from an open mind. I wonder if we jumped from stereotyping people as terrorists to calling it racism SO quickly…it actually made us OK with what happened in the first place…long as it’s not ALL of us anymore.

2 hours. No idea why the cameras aren’t rolling. Isn’t WORLD news anymore. It’s all we needed. Now they’re reporting a good thing happening in some European country. And now, 25 kids in Nigeria are dead again.

Fine balance.

I don’t know how long it’ll take for the world to feel it’s ok to invade us and start fixing things now…but I just hope someone tells me the plan soon because…I’m not falling for it anymore. These bombs outside the Rafi Peer festival. Something very fishy going on. Truly religious people actually DON’T care if some colourful idiots are dancing somewhere in a stadium.

Apparently…all it takes to create a sense of security is a bunch of cops on a road and NO order this time for a suicide attack…likely plotted by the same people who put those cops there in the first place.

Ah, puppets.

03:51 now. People just wanna know what’s going on. They’ll believe anything they’re told. So it’s Muslim fanatics. Let’s wrap up the day. We don’t know what they want. They just randomly bomb things and kill people. They come from across the border. A little place called Pakistan.

And yet…no one wonders why some people just randomly walked into a situation they have no way of walking out of. Not one witness. Not one phone call. Nothing.

2 of them are dead. By tomorrow…you won’t be keeping up with this news further than the newspaper that gets printed and sent to your own home…tallying correctly with the news on t.v.

Even if these TERRORISTS speak out about what they want…you’ll never know. They’ll be dead by the morning. We’re still hot on the suicide idea.

04:30. Some terrorists have now been arrested and detained. They never want to talk to authority. Why don’t they say something to the public? Saying too much? Police wanna beat the right words out of them? Who ARE they?! Why don’t they want to talk right at the publics face?

I’m pissed enough to wake up and start caring again.

Tell whoever you can. Leave us alone.

Or come get your revolution.

I’m clicking post.

A Few Rehearsals

Chapter 17.

Whoever You Are

I was in a theatrical play a good while ago. It was titled DON QUIXOTE...based on Dale Wasserman's "Man of Le Mancha". It went...well. It was a musical so about half a year ago when I auditioned, I asked if we would be using playback vocals. We weren't. And as far as memory served, I hadn't seen anything like that having been done here before...so...to anyone who knows me well...that was reason enough. You know, show people how it's DONE. We were to perform it at the Arts Council Karachi.


The people I met through the experience were a strange lot. Such good people and so confused as to how a man like me can actually be so loveable yet often behave the way I do. Everyone was wondering if I'll ever even keep in touch. Guess they've heard things about my loner lifestyle.

Anyhow, the show got subjected to reviews. Not PEOPLE reviews. CRITIC reviews. Which seems inevitable though it's never the reason anyone should actually DO something. But I suppose it IS something of a job to give opinions. There were good reviews and bad ones. Particularly from some dude who didn't quite understand why he was being made to cover a play for DAWN that day when he had so much ass out there to chase and never get his hands on. So many parties to attend that he never got invited to. Plus I think the AC went off for a while the night he reviewed. Plus he has a seventeen year old girl's job which perhaps doesn't meet up to all the levels of that wierd trianglular diagram showing different degrees of job satisfaction that they made you memorise in Business Management class for A levels.


Along with myself, one fellow performer, who played the nervous but happy go lucky sidekick Sancho Panza, had the honour of being tested like lab rats for the opening scene where a 30 foot ladder is brought down from the centre of the stage to have US climb down FROM it. I remember telling him, "Dude, if you slip, fall and break your neck, don't worry, I'll improvise.". And despite the whole BREAK A LEG culture, we actually made it down that ladder safe and sound each night. Now the only problem I saw left was that I was on stage in front of complete strangers, and I was wearing a shirt with frills, and lowers that only reached down to my calves, and the entire outfit was made of velvet.


BLUE velvet.


I understood a thing or two about make up as well. Apparently, no matter how talented you are, or no matter how much make up school might have attempted to give your life, often enough you WILL resort to Cherry Blossom's white shoe polish to make people look old. Our incredibly hard working and superbly gifted make up artists, however, didn't want to put that polish on MY hair for some reason...so, naturally, they started slandering huge amounts of the same beige coloured TV STICK make up they applied on my face just minutes before, straight onto my head. I say naturally, because it seemed like they knew exactly what effect they were going for. I tried not to laugh about this. Which was relatively easy when I reminded myself about the clothes I was wearing. It's always funnier on someone else.

There was a line in the play where my character speaks his full name with such pride and conviction, that the higher authority among the prison riff raff is indeed FORCED to reply, "OOOHHHHH...a GENTLEMAN!"

I wanted to say, "Well, more GENTLE than MAN as you can see from my pants.", and then move onto my ACTUAL line...but I didn't. I didn't want to confuse anyone on the very first night.


By the fourth night, my voice was gone. Which is deathly for a person who has to sing about 5 songs during the performance. And reach the back row CLEARLY over the sound of AMPED accoustic guitars and a friggin DHOLAK and some tambourines and clackers. Or clappers, I'm not sure, but if I spend any more time trying to remember what that little thing was called I might turn into a nerd and shoot myself. But it all worked out for the best. After every performance, though I hate the whole MEETING people afterward thing that everyone does, all I could ask any ONE of those many people who came and shook my hand, or patted my back afterward if they were reasonably older than I am, was whether or not the volume of my voice was high enough to reach clearly, whether or not the lyrics were fully understandable, and most of all - whether they were any sort of authority ON this or not - if my singing was any good.


All comments pointed to yes, which was exhilarating, but I can't help but think if it was just that no one really wants to get you down after a performance by raising their palm, tilting it from side to side and saying, "Eeeeeehhhh...there WAS this ONE part....". And if everyone was just in such a fun mood after the thing that they didn't really feel anything was missing. But I trusted them. I'm usually my own worst critic. I downright hate my work...from my writing to my drawing to my acting to my singing. So this time, I just trusted THEM.


The show eventually had a CLOSING night. Not having to go for it's rehearsals or the actual performance the few days after wasn't wierd tho. It was actually VERY relieving. Once that curtain went up each of those five nights...the only thing I had keeping me from passing out was looking into the eyes of people playing characters I had grown to love. Those eyes kept me from losing my balance. From mistrusting the good in this world. From turning into a man called Alonso Quijana. Now...a month I don't meet them...and that's EXACTLY what happens.


I don't do things for the same reasons someone else would do that very thing, you know? When I close my eyes...sometimes...I don't even see black. I don't make money off my art not because I think it corrupts the process, but moreover because I just don't know how. I don't know how to put a price on something you did, since I've only ever done I actually just felt like doing for no reason other than my own spiritual ones. And money never makes it to that VERY exclusive list.


But I'm trying to fix myself. Even if I have to keep coming back to this stupid senseless page to remind myself to CONTINUE fixing myself, I'll do it. But I'm losing too much too fast in my life. And my greatest fear is soon becoming that after a while, I won't really mind losing every single thing I ever had. Because THAT'S what I'll remember my life as BEING. I wonder if we really ever find what we look for in life, or just change what we're looking for so often that we eventually end up telling ourselves we have everything we might ever have wanted.


I'm in another play now. Don't want to jinx it by saying too much. But I will say this. I like acting. It's an escape that cannot be matched by any walk in a forest or even helping a stranger push his car when it stalls. And as of recent, because of something that I intend to explain and post soon, not for you, whoever you are, but so I can find words to describe this madness inside of me, I feel acting is something that just helps me forget who I am. Because the more years of my life that pass, the more I dislike what I'm becoming. I prefer being someone else. Even if it IS for a short while, a number of performances, a few rehearsals.