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I bought a new domain last week. Just because. I don’t quite know what to do with it. So I pointed it to my current website. One day it shall become my permanent homestead, I think. idlanzakaria.com will be used for professional purposes. That is, if a career ever takes off.
www.notpermanent.com now takes you straight to me.
Last season the flavour of the month was lesbians: The OC saw Marisa ‘dabbling’, One Tree Hill decided to up the ante by featuring a female bisexual, and the L Word.. well, the L Word was just full of them.
This season, a recurring feature seems to be the five stages of grief. You know: denial, anger, guilt, depression and acceptance. All explicitly made into episode themes of House M.D, Scrubs and just now, One Tree Hill. Seriously, people, creativity. You are all lucky I am just here for the music.
Yet another quietly depressing song, courtesy of this week’s ‘tv watching’. Ten years ago I might have sat down hard and thought about a lot of things after listening to this. These days.. these days I know I can’t even save myself, let alone you. But having seen you as of late, I’m pretty sure you’ve saved yourself pretty fine.
How to Save a Life by the Fray
(you can cop a listen here – usual ‘related’ emails can be directed youknow@where.com)
Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it’s just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you’ve told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you’ve followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he’ll say he’s just not the same
And you’ll begin to wonder why you came
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
A couple of years ago (I think two), in conjuction with Euro2004 I launched the Chit Chat Bola project, which was basically nothing more than community blogging about the European Football Championships. I tried to follow on with a similar project for the English Premiership, but the long season made it easy for interest to be lost midway, and the project died a natural death.
Sashi asked me if I was interested in launching the same project for the World Cup this summer, to which I said yes, provided we could garner enough interest in terms of the writing team. So here’s an open offer :
Chit Chat Bola : WC2006 is recruiting diligent aspiring sports writers to provide casual commentary and punditry for the project. Nobody gets paid anything, it’s all in the name of ripping each other’s throats out, and you get to channel excess emotion via writing. So if you’re interested – at all – drop me an email at idlan@idlanzakaria.com with your name, email address, url (if any), favourite football team(s), the team you support at the World Cup and your odds-on favourite to win take home the Jules Rimet. And while you’re at it why not give me your credit card numbers, mother’s maiden name and PIN code as well so I can buy myself more new gadgets.
So yes comrades. Come and join the fun.
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Random depressing, slit wrist song of the week:
“The news that truly shocks is the empty empty page
While the final rattle rocks it’s empty empty cage
And I can’t handle this”
First heard aeons ago on City of Angels (perhaps the only movie I liked which I only watched once because I can’t stand Nicolas Cage), and then revisited during a recent Smallville episode.
If you like Peter Gabriel, try and find a copy of him, Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe singing ‘Red Rain’. Superb.
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If anyone has been trying to get in touch with me via email over the past couple of days, my apologies : I have been away. I will get round to replying / forwarding / sending on info / etc soonest.