Rah-Rah-Raw-Meat-Dress. No. Just No.

'Lady Gaga' (what a sinfully disyllabic second name, speaks volumes of her aficionados) has always toed the line - in the name of weirdness.
No judgement there. No, really. Weird is good, in my book.

But what weird is too weird?
Enter Lady Gaga.

For a while, I sat and smiled at her harmless outlandish get-ups, smiling because it showed how impressively oblivious she was to others' norms (which I valued) and sitting because the newspaper kept tearing loose.
Big hair, crazy eye-make up, flashy synthetics. Great. great. As long as the she fed her digitally enhanced voice to the world.

But toeing the line is quite different from crossing the line.
Who, seriously, would want to wear a dress of viciously slaughtered animals?
But there she was. Strutting, with meat hanging off herself.
Disgusting.

If that wasn't enough, Kate Walsh later decides to put on a sushi dress. Yet she wore a dress covered with fish guts.
Charming.
And she wonders why Derek Sheppard left her.


But the main point here is not the hideousness of their appearance but the atrocities animals are subjected to, especially to satisfy the whims of humans.
It's stomach-wrenching, nausea-inducing truth that makes me sick.

I hope one day, karma gets a bite of human ass and we see a cow, sporting a very fashionable human dress.
That's unbelievably and cynically bitter.

But once again, humans prove not to make any arguments to elicit sympathy for their side.

Karma is a b*tch.

The Tiger in the Wild Woods

Golf, arguably the most dignified, regal sport has had its world spiced up in the the past few weeks as a scandal erupted, scorching the greenish innocence of the fairway.

Golf's main man, Tiger Woods has been bitten and scratched by the recent scathing headlines and not to forget, by the vicious, razor-clawed, zealous paparazzi that seem to prowl in his wake.

This poor little feline, once proud of his squeaky clean reputation has had to curl up in the corner with his head hanging low.



It was a diminutive incident that the press vultures attacked with savage eagerness, tearing up the event to the carcass and then proceeding to make sense of it all; putting the pieces together - a couple of telephone calls, numerous insiders, consultation with Tabloid headlines and BAM! They had themselves a full-blown juicy scandal. Everything they could hope for - A seemingly good guy, a Swedish model-wife, a bit of violence with the crowning touch of a golf club being used, a car crash, extramarital affairs, rowdy parties - The gossip columns practically wrote themselves. Extra, extra, EXTRA!



But in all fairness, Tiger Woods did publicly apologise, regretting every 'transgression' as he called it.
He even admired his wife's courage after the crash.

And then, the media speculation hyped up once more as "Elin files for Divorce!" made the Front Page. Big Picture. Exclusives. Pull-out Editions. Obscure people began that very night jabbing on rickety typewriters 'The Life and Times of Elin Nordegren : From Top-model to Tiger '. Click. Clack.

She is now demanding half of his fortune and full custody of their kids. Tiger Woods is being hit hard, risking all the endorsements he gets from being the Good Guy who wears a Tag Heuer watch and shaves with a Gilette blade.

Worse. It's affecting his Golf. The thing that made him who he is today, why he's famous in the first place. He is undoubtedly the King of Golf and now, his empire is crumbling.

Ahh. Tiger Woods. I'm torn between pity and shock.

Hopefully, he can make it through this horrific episode and continue to putt and swing like a pro because he really does belong on the Green.

Golf without Tiger Woods would be like Pop without Michael Jackson. Dead and gone...

Tyranny of the Toothpicks

I was mall-walking the other day, browsing through stores, running my hand against the soft, smooth fabric of clothes on the rack, giving an approving nod or two and taking in that pleasant fresh scent of new garments.
It's not that I like shopping. Heavens, no.
But it is fun to act skeptic, walking tall among clothes that seem to have been laid down for your final scrutinizing and judgement.
It was when I was examining a rather Cornish-pixie-dotted pair of pants(They really do exist. Check the last display rack, right of the changing rooms.), that a girl walked past; to be precise- a stick of a girl walked past.
She was so rigidly skinny and wrapped in miniature clothes- It made me marvel at the fact that people come in such small sizes.
This is in no way a ridicule of said girl. She merely is an example, or rather a representative of thousands of teenage adolescent girls who have fallen prey to anorexia nervosa.
Yes, yes, we know- Nicky and Paris Hilton, Victoria Beckham, Lindsay Lohan... all disappearing and vanishing before the eyes of the paparazzi and the public, wilting away like yesterday's salad lettuce leaves.
I did a bit of Google Image Searching on anorexia and I nearly needed a bag to puke into when the pictures hit the screen.
There are female beings with limbs that seem to be sticking out of them like oddly bent straws and their skin is stretched faintly over the pile of rickety bones, they call their skeletal structure.
Tripping over some one's feet may end up as hairline fractures for them. Fragile, breakable, light as thin ice, their bones are.
There is no need to starve yourself or take drugs to drop a few dress sizes or loose a couple of extra pounds.
Be happy with your body and you feel lighter already with the weight off your shoulders.
J.K.Rowling once wrote about the 'wanarexia' craze spreading contagiously in clear, logical, pragmatic writing. http://www.jkrowling.com/ is her website where she wrote her article posted in the 'Extra Stuff' section of her website under 'Only for Girls, probably..'
Take a read and think about the whole idea rationally.
Does it matter the size you are? Isn't it more rewarding to be a better person rather than a starved, malnurtioned, underweight product of society.
Your Food, Your Body, Your Future.

Michael Jackson: The Warped Journey of a Pop Legend

The Man Behind the White Mask and the White Sequined Glove


The world is still staggering in shock with the news of the death of Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, the star of Motown.
His name has made it into tabloids, magazines, newspapers and numerous headlines over the past 50 years, both for his amazing talent and skill as well as for his atrocious abuse.
Now, as of June 25 2009 his whirlwind fifty years have come to an end and we must bid him a fitting farewell.
He will forever be immortalised in the pages of music history as the unrivalled King of Pop, the man who brought freedom to 'Black' musicians, the genius behind the moonwalk, the little singer who could and the sensational performer that he proved himself to be.

It was on August 29 1958 that this prodigy was born and at the age of five, he made it to the big stage. He sang with his brothers in 'The Jackson Five' but his outstanding flair for music was never hidden among them.



As he took to the solo act, he revelled in the spotlight he was destined for and soon couldn't stray from the public eye and the media.
His albums topped charts and became instant best-sellers, selling out at a mind-boggling rate. He still holds the record for the highest sale of CDs.
He brought business to the 'music video' industry and sizzled in the freshest of dance moves and highest of fashion.
He brought the world together to raise their voices in unison to a rousing chorus of 'Heal the World' and helped South Africa with the awareness it had stirred and the charities that had benefited.
The best was yet to come. 'Thriller' flew off shelves as soon as they hit them. The dance video was a pop representation of the 80s. Everyone everywhere listened to his music and immediately got hooked to the addictive beats and the funky dancing. His classic video still continues to be held high in the dance community and has even inspired Filipino inmates to dance it out in their own music video( An instant YouTube hit).



But the rock star life is not always as easy as it sounds. The stakes were high, the anticipation overwhelming and the media was acrid and biting.
His albums were sensational but nothing could live up to the phenomenon of 'Thriller'.
Jackson's life started to spiral downhill from this moment. His bizarre fascination to change his appearance and his rather curious rejection of adulthood lured in the starved media. They latched on and his career exploded.
His plastic surgery, his child molestation accusations, his financial meltdown and extensive loans were publicly blown up by the press vultures.
He grew mentally secluded at first, retreating to his haven he called 'Neverland' and lived the life of a boy who never grew up, a realistic Peter Pan, surrounding himself with children, toys, amusement parks, zoos and theatres. His virtual fantasy soon lashed threw his piggy bank and his coins fell out to pay bills, court bails and loans.
He then turned to Bahrain, the place I blog from, where he lived for a couple of years incognito, occasionally making his way into the newspapers, photographed wearing traditional Bahraini women's attire.

And then soon, he was forgotten. His name was like a forgotten saga of a bygone pop age. His star glittered on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Yet it was the only thing that sparkled in Michael Jackson's blackened life.
Then, in an attempt to make a comeback of a lifetime and pump back the glitz into his dying once famous name, he launched concerts across the UK and the USA.



He was working vigorously, perfecting his dance moves and vocals for those elaborate sizzling concerts when the unforeseen happened.
The comeback never did come and he never made it back.
He was found dead in his rented apartment. Cardiac Arrest. It all came to a grinding stop. The end of an era.
Jackson's death more than saddening, is startling. He always seemed to be there. That household name he created seems immaterial now. He's gone. It seems impossible, unreal. He was a part and parcel of our lives; his videos on MTV, his songs on the radio, his face plastering the front page in all its cosmetic surgical glory.
An autopsy is underway as forensics question what had happened, how the Jackson Empire came crumbling to ruins just yesterday.
The news may shock us or cause grief. It may give us greater conviction when we stand at candle light vigils, listening to his epic music.
It shows us that there was something genuinely real beneath the artificial exterior.
Whatever it does, it surely will write the closing chapter in Jackson's memorable life.The book is finished, the contents are done, the pages have been immortalised with the legacy of the King of Pop and now it lies there for the world to read the tale of a boy who lit up the stage and every one's lives by the magic of music and dance. And his story will be told for years to come, unforgotten by the music world, the fans and our hearts.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson
1958-2009