New Year, New Tag

I got tagged by my favourite stalker, Dramaqueen, so I need to respond. You know the rules; if you're tagged you respond, even if you're the legendary Sri Lankan blogging hero that goes by the name of Java Jones.

My problem is that I thought about New Year's resolutions last night and decided that I don't have any, well I don't have any of those proper serious ones. The ones like "I'll give up smoking by January 2nd" or "I'll be better friends with God", something I say with the utmost respect to Hissyfits, Dramaqueen and themadcatwoman, yes, to all of them.

It's cool with me if she wants to improve upon her relationship with the G man, it's also fine with me if you decide you're going to stop smoking. It's just that I don't really get the whole thing about resolving to do something on January 1st, then by about the third week of January it's gone, forgotten and gone. And forgotten. Again. On the other hand, if it works for you then go for it I say.

My mindset on this is that life is all about making our own choices, making our decisions, taking responsibility for them and getting on with things. So, when people wish me luck, fortune, cup cakes and all sorts for 2009 I gratefully accept their wishes and blessings, with the firm feeling that my year will be as good as I want it to be.

But, I need to think of some resolutioney things to please Hissyfits. So, if I was that way inclined, these would be my 2009 New Year's resolutions:

1. To listen to more music I don't like, particularly Jazz.

As a musician I need to do this to keep learning and to broaden my musical horizons. Jazz is a style that I love to watch live but just don't appreciate or understand when listening to. I want to though. Whenever I watch people playing Jazz I'm usually awestruck by the level of musicianship on display. Of course the whole listening to more music I don't like is one thing, but you won't catch me listening to classical music. That's crap and you know it.

2. To try to enjoy the moment more.

I haven't decided which particular moment that is but I reckon that one that happens now would be a good starting point. Living for it, living in it, savouring it and truly enjoying it means being in the now, without thinking, worrying and stressing about the next thing. I've started working on this already and it's quite nice. And quite nice is good.

3. To take less shit from people.

It's a complicated one this. I mean that I should stamp on behaviour that I find unnacceptable sooner. I'm quite good at telling you that I think you're behaving like a total and utter wanker, it's probably one of my best skills. If there was a new Olympic event called "telling someone that they're being a wanker without the slightest hint of diplomacy or subtlety" I'd be a master at it but I'd never win a medal. Why's that RD? I hear you asking. Well it's because I have tendency to leave it too late. I let people get away with behaviour for too long before I call them on it. Then, when I do it, they're so surprised that my words don't really achieve much. In my new fantasy Olympics I'd be the best athlete around at the new event but I'd turn up too late for each race.

Those are all the ones I can come up with so far. There's a vague one about the perfect pair of jeans but I've half written a separate post about that so I'll save it for later. In my world the post is always half written, never half unwritten. Also, as I started writing this I thought I'd chuck one in about listening to more Placebo. I'd started listening to an album and thought it was smashing, fantastic and spiffing.

It is, but after about fifty minutes it's finished and I'm bored with them. So we'll forget about that one.

I'll tag Java. He'll groan and moan, he'll scowl a bit but I hope he'll do a post.

I'll also tag David Blacker, just because any post of his is always a good read.

And I'll give Soixante Neuf one. Just one more post 6 please. Surely you can do that for us.

And I'll resolve to start less sentences with an "and".

And use "less" quotation marks.

Soixante Neuf - The Real Truth

I was trusted with this information and I hope that 6 will understand my reasons for revealing it to the blogosphere.

In her life there's been heartache and pain, it's crazy but it's true. There's nothing more to say, no more ace to play. And after all the laughing like children, living like lovers and rolling like thunder under the covers, it's time to be a big girl now and big girls don't cry.

The fact and the reason the relationship didn't work out, something I'm sorry to have to reveal at this time of the year, is that the mystery man was......Father Christmas.

It was all going so well until 6 discovered that he only comes once a year and that's down the chimney.

The truth is out there.

6 - please forgive me but I had to tell them, they need to know what he's like.

Bastards!

Looking around at the Kottu blogs this morning and I discover that Mr De Alwis is the latest person to delete his blog.

First it was Soixante Neuf and now Dinidu.

It's not on. I don't mind it when people decide they want to stop blogging, that's their right and I'm sure they all have their reasons. But this annoying thing about deleting all the previous posts is just that; annoying. Yes, yes I know there are ways and means of reading the old stuff, through Google Dreamcatcher or whatever, but that's not the same.

It shouldn't be allowed.

Leave a comment to show your disapproval.

Lately In The Sri Lankan Blogosphere...

It's been a while, but since I've started blogging I don't think I've seen things as quiet as they are at the moment, in the Sri Lankan blogosphere at least.

It's as if most of my regular haunts have decided to shut down and only post very, very infrequently. Maybe it's part and parcel of having a blog, that people do it for a while and then get a bit bored or just lose the desire to continue. Perhaps inspiration is in short supply these days, maybe the cost of living in Sri Lanka is so high that inspiration is way down the list of items to be purchased. Who knows?

But there has been activity and some of it has been interesting, a lot of it has been interesting in a highly sex based way, thanks the to new kid on the block, a certain Miss Soixante Neuf. I've written about her and I'm one of many whose interest, as well as other things, has been aroused by her sexual memoirs.

Dinidu's gone and caused a bit of a stir. Nothing big really, he just wrote something that would probably offend anyone in the world who holds any religious beliefs whatsoever. He says that he thinks those who practice a religion are:

"for the lack of a more diplomatic work (sic), stupid."

and this has kicked off an avalanche of comments, if "avalanche" is the right collective term for comments that is. Now I like Dinidu, I like his blog and I would consider him as a friend. But frankly his comment is, in my opinion, stupid. That doesn't mean that I think that Dinidu's stupid, not in the least. I think he's as bright as a button, but his comment and his thinking on that particular issue is stupid.

He has a right to be an atheist, I just find it hypocritical that a person who is a sexual rights activist, which I assume means that he fights for the rights of gay people, can make and believe a statement like that. Presumably Dinidu's all for tolerance unless you're religious, in which case you're stupid. Am I just being all mature and uncontroversial when I say that yes, religion has caused wars, death and volcanoes? It's also brought lots of happiness to many people and caused good things, like Father Ted for one. But people who practice a religion are stupid???!! I don't think so Dinidu. I was joking about the volcanoes by the way. As a rule I don't generalise.

The Missing Sandwich has been going through a poetry phase in recent days. She's worried that the ability to write prose has left her for good and writes one of her brilliantly worded posts to tell us about the worry. If Alanis hadn't totally fucked up my idea of it I'd probably think there was irony in that.

Java reports a heartbreaking story. It's yet another example of some people putting short term profit before the environment. It's in Sri Lanka, but it needn't be, there'll be one of these scenarios going on right next door to you wherever in the world you're reading this from.

Lord Cerno of Cernosville has been churning out his usual eclectic mix of posts. You won't be surprised that my attention was kidnapped by his one about the drumming Gorilla. I don't know about you but I'm never sure whether to write the name of an animal with a capital letter or not. I don't mean "Gerald" as in the Not the Nine o'clock News. I mean "Gorilla" or "gorilla". I think it's the variety in Cerno's blog that I love so much. One day it's that post about that (G)gorilla and the drums and immediately after there's one about building unmanned aerial vehicles in Sri Lanka. His mind really is like a fart trapped in a collander.

Over in Portrait land Electra complains about too many friend requests on Facebook. I understand her problem, I have a similar thing in real life. Oh no, I don't, that was a dream, now I remember. Those lines between reality and dreams get so blurry sometimes.

In Glasgow Darwin's been doing a few things. Firstly she's fallen head over heels for a Mexican, mostly because of his fondness for cleaning. Now we know how to get into everyone's favourite parachutist's erm, good books, just take along a cloth and some disinfectant. She's also been playing in the playground and getting all youthful. She's lucky that she's a woman. If it were a strapping young man like me who had done the same things there'd be a load of worried mothers warning their kids to stay away from me and calling the Police.

Over the pond T has been fruit picking. She's kindly posted a photograph of her lovely pair of peaches for all to see. Worth a look lads, I tell you.

Sach's review of the Thriloka and more gig at Barefoot made me pine for Colombo like one of those dogs locked in a room and forced to listen to a guitarist practicing Sweet Child Of Mine. I've heard from many people about how brilliant Thriloka and the older chaps were and I'm left with even more love for Shiraaz than I had to start with, in a manly hetero drummer's way of course, not that I think gay people are stupid or anything mind.

That's about it for now, at least in terms of my regulars. On a final note I'm missing Kalusudda . I don't know where he's got to. He went away with old Mrs Kalusudda and young Miss Fukuoka, fell down a mountain and survived to blog about it and now he's disappeared without telling us.

Come back Kalu, we miss you. I'm a fan and I think it's interesting to watch how his blog is developing. It started as a very factual record of the blogs he has visited and commented on and it's developed into a mix of that plus a blog about his life and times too. Very different and very captivating.

Have a nice weekend all. I'm off to see the Ting Tings tonight and Billy Cobham tomorrow. It's a drumfest in these parts!

RD

A Bit About Soixante Neuf

My new, my first and my only stalker, apart from Dinidu, goes by the name of Soixante Neuf. The more cosmopolitan among you will know that Soixante Neuf is German for a sausage and a furry cup or, as we say here in England, a 69. It's best not to say this in the local Chinese Restaurant unless you want the Chicken Chow Mein.

Soixante Neuf (whom I'll refer to as 6 from now on) has a blog. It's quite the novelty in the Sri Lankan blogosphere and each of the few posts has generated a lot of comments. Why? I hear you ask.

Because it's well written? Yes, it most definitely is. 6 has a way with words. Her tongue is most definitely her weapon. Each post is interesting and thought provoking and presented in a way that a master story teller like Chuck Norris would be proud of.

Because it's full of eye catching images? Yes again. The blog is decorated with pictures of beautiful and sexy people. Sensual black and white photographs of two women about to do some serious bean flicking, dimly lit almost abstract images of a neck about to be kissed at the same time as the custard truck is unloading at the other end of the motorway. They're all there.

But, the most fascinating thing, the thing that has caught all of our imaginations, is that each of 6's posts, of which there are confusingly 6 so far, talks about sex. 6's blog starts off with an introduction, as many things do. It would be so confusing if we started things off with saying goodbye then introduced ourselves just before walking out of the door. We'd spend the whole meeting not knowing who the other chap was for a start, or for an end.

I digress, 6's opening line, her entry into the blogosphere (as far as we know) is

"I have always been intensely curious about sex"

Bang! Now that's what I call an opening line. Guaranteed to get the attention of every red blooded male who reads the odd Sri Lankan blog. I can't be bothered to look it up but I suspect my opener on LLD was something like

"Hello, my name is Rhythmic and I play the drums and live in London."

If 6's opening line goes Bang! then mine goes pfffft, like a balloon deflating into a swamp.

Then 6 goes on to tell us, in language that is vivid and elegantly written, some of her thoughts on sex. She gets five comments, with David Blacker being straight in there with a warm hand upon her entrance.

Her second post succeeds in not failing to disappoint us. It's a delicate and sexy little number about 6 being kissed on the neck for the first time. With lines like

"And let me just say, quite appropriately: Fuck."

it continues to tantalise the male regulars on Kottu, as well as a few of the fairer sex too.

The foreplay is over by the time we get to post 3. The introductions are done, the gentle neck kissing is done and we move on to full scale hide the sausage in the bushes stuff. It's no holds barred as 6 tells us about adventures with her date

"I returned the favour and blew him till he came, crying out, in my mouth"

Again the language is poetic and precise, but surprisingly this time there are no comments. Maybe because none of the blokes were left waiting for more after this one, they all turned over and slept or something.

Post number 4 kicks off with the line

"Earlier this year, I slept with a woman for the first time."

Just when you thought she'd climaxed she goes a bit further, teasing us, her hot and sweaty male readers, about her first sexual encounter with another woman. You may have guessed that from my quote of her first line. It's well written in every possible way, even to the extent that she's got one of those little accents above the second e in clich­é. I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to do that, but clichés are about as rare as pink elephants in this blog. She tantalises us as she gives us the background on her experiences with female on female sex, finishing the post by promising more.

More is only ones of three things to come in the next post, Femme Fatale. This is the climax in which our sexy heroine describes her first experience of girl on girl action. The writing is as good, if not better, than her previous posts and predictably there's a bucket load of comments, all from admiring male readers. I would imagine half her readers are trying to figure out who she is and the other half are trying to figure out who her female lover is. At the same time the other half are trying to figure why they didn't try just that little bit harder at maths in school.

Miss Neuf's descriptive powers continue to delight us as she regales us with details and information that most blokes understand from watching porn films. Women probably wouldn't understand, unless they bat for the other team.

The final post (so far) walks and talks us through the act of 6 losing her virginity. It's as sexy, as vivid and as erotic as her loyal readership have come to expect.

And here we are. I'm a firm 6 fan. I think she writes rather brilliantly, so much that it almost doesn't matter to me if the stories she narrates are true. But, it does matter. I find myself wondering what's going on here. It's almost too good to be true. A twenty something girl who loves sex and feels that it's good and healthy. And she's got a brian too. If I was twenty ten years younger...well I'd still be way too old.

Could it be a journalist or writer trying out their skills on an unsuspecting public? Or is Miss Neuf really some bored 50 year old fat bloke sitting in an office somewhere and having a bit of a laugh at our expense?

Maybe it's one of "her" regular commenters in a different identity. Perhaps it's JP's alter ego, perhaps it's me, this post being an even deeper level of bluff in my evil game.

Perhaps it's all as it seems. In which case there's a queue of men who want to meet her. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind Miss Neuf that drummers can do different things with different parts of their body at the same time. No reason, just thought I'd say that.

Check out the blog though.

It's really rather sexy and it's really rather good.