HEY GOOD LOOKING

So my fantastic sister Jennifer has a mate whose company I get the pleasure to enjoy from time to time. He’s a curious fellow. He, to me, appears to have a firm grasp of the person that he is and is wonderfully comfortable in his own skin. So when Jenz informed me that he had laid down a gem in conversation, I was genuinely interested.

And rightly so! This is how Jenz relayed it to me:

“He kinda said… ‘Girls who say ‘I dress for myself’ – crap! Personally, I dress so others will agree that I look good’”.

A smile crept across my face when the idea sunk in, and then I found myself fully on board with his thought train. Even in the case of the most extroverted people it seems true– I went to the Rankin event last week for the new magazine ‘The Hunger’. There was a fellow dressed in forehead-to-toe black patent ‘leather’, with a huge, black tousled wig and red lips.

I say ‘fellow’, because I was fairly sure it was a man as he stood at about 6' 5", but for the life of me, I couldn’t detect any tell-tale bumps or clues. Now this fellow, I’m sure, felt they looked good, by means of their own unique definition of the word. But there was a reason he kept circling the densely packed room – so everyone could get a good look, and silently agree that he was shocking and amazing and all that stuff that he was desperately trying to be.

So that girl with as much of her boobs out as possible without actually showing off her areolae, and that guy with the trainers so fresh that they cause momentary glare-blindness – it’s all for our benefit too. Though if they had simply asked, I would’ve just said ‘no, I simply don’t agree’, and that could’ve been that!

*You may be wondering 'why Johnny Bravo?' Well, because he looks good, and is convinced that everybody agrees. And damn it, he's right!

MUSH!

Just got a great comment on fb, from a young man named Kieran. Literally, one of the best fb comments I've received I reckon!:

"good to see your writing again, read one of ya blogs like a year ago, you write well, and your repugnance of the common man and the rat race goes down well too lol"

At first I thought 'repugnance' was a bit strong. Then I reconsidered...

Thanks Kieran. It's comments like that that light a bit of a fire under me.

MIDAS TOUCH

Still on that learning vibe, here’s another person that I feel compelled to take my hat off to. So Tom Ford. I suppose a lot of you will be at least vaguely familiar with his name, associating it with fashion in some kind of respect.

Any you’d be right. He has his own brand, titled after himself which he launched in 2005. But before that, he was the man behind the name Gucci. Now, before I loose your attention, I’ll relay the piece of info that made me reach for my bowler brim (that’s the kind of hat I imagine myself wearing). Within the space of a year, once Tom jumped on board the Gucci train, sales increased by 90%. Yes, that’s very close to 100%. And yes, that’s unreal. Moreover, he joined the group when it was on the brink of bankruptcy, and by the time he left, it was worth $10billion. Count the zero’s.

This guy isn’t messing around! Also, if I was Mr. Gucci, frankly, I’d be embarassed of myself.

So Tom, do you know what, take the whole hat. You deserve it!

FAIL

erm... fail?

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

In the spirit of not feeling like doing work, despite being at work, I’ve spent my morning learning and generally informing myself about various topics in arts, politics and religion. Who says skiving can’t be positive?!

So, I thought I’d share a lil’ bit of it. So Damien Hirst. I took a pic (probably illegally) of an image of his 'For the Love of God’ piece when I was in an art gallery in … somewhere in Australia. I liked that it was a bejewelled skull, in the first instance. And then I loved the title. As it was on the plaque, it read, ‘For the Love of God , laugh.’ The piece is a Memento Mori, which is a style or genre in art that aims at reminding us of our mortality.

I then learned that it weighs a total of 1,106.18 carats and is made up of approx. £15,000,000 worth of diamonds. Yet, it had the asking price of £50,000,000. Yes, we’re talking about millions here – count the zero’s with me.

I did a lil’ research on the fine fellow and found that he is reportedly Britain’s richest living artist. ‘Playa has game’, I hear you say. Indeed.

A quote that stuck with me went a little like this: "I can’t wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At the moment if I did certain things people would look at it, consider it and then say 'f off'. But after a while you can get away with things."

So the aim of the game is to amass enough wealth and power that you can basically do whatever the hell you want. Don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for that day. Legend.

SNOOZE

Do you ever wake up to find that you're simply not in the mood? For generally anything? 'Sans everything...' Now, don't get me wrong - I can handle life and the things that it throws at me; I've come to terms with the epic charade.

But today, I just can't be asked. Just seems a bit long really!

Rain-check, please.

FABULOUS

There's something about Vivienne Westwood that thoroughly fascinates me. I find her utterly riveting and genuinely exciting - that's the woman, rather than the label. If given the chance to see a picture of her, I'll take it. Simply said, I think she is fully fabulous.

LESSON ONE

So I was on the bus this morning, casually making my way to work just like any other day. And against my will completely, I was smacked in the face with the topic of suicide.

OK, I’ll set the scene. One of the many down-sides about getting the bus to work is that all of the school children in the city seem to try to squeeze their pubescent frames onto the confined space of a bus going through rush-hour traffic. And once they’ve sufficiently squeezed themselves on, they then speak at the uppermost levels of volume that they can reasonably sustain, about all of the goss that’s going on in their micro-societies.

And this morning, the topic of the day was a young girl, who was apparently in year 11, making her 15/16 years old. This girl was pregnant with twins. And this was her fourth pregnancy, after having the first three terminated. She was with the same boy who seemed to encourage her to get the previous abortions, and this time he seemed, as the word on the street suggested, somewhat put out!

Now, neither the pregnant girl, nor the impregnator was on the bus, allowing this particular group of girls to speak their minds about the topic freely, never mind the 100 or so strangers that surrounded them… So amidst proclamations about how stupid the girl is, and how they would never allow that to happen to them, in the same jovial and boisterous tone, one of the girls announced, “I’d commit suicide if that happened to me”. For me, the whole conversation took a serious turn. For them, it was just another comment that they all whole-heartedly concurred with, adding jokes to cement their assent.

I understand that they are too young to be bringing up babies, and it’s probably one of the least ideal situations to find yourself in. But suicide? It really shocked me. It made me wonder about the weak will that these kids seemed to possess. That they’d rather end it all rather than struggle and, for all they know, eventually find themselves in a not so bad situation. It made it clear what school isn’t teaching:

Life is hard - find a way to deal with it.

JUST TRYING TO HELP

I know the feeling Henk!

REAL LIFE HUSTLE

Ok, so the pensivebuddha has fully fallen off, as our good friend Drake might say. ‘Where have you been?!’ I hear you scream. In short, chillin’, stealin’, drinkin’ a Bud. In long, working and generally keeping up the hustle that is real life.

Yep, real life. It’s a bitch. Been working hard, interning, i.e., working for free and brandishing a badge that says ‘Peasant. Treat me as such’, apparently. But it’s paid off because I’m currently working in exchange for monetary gain! ‘Result!’ I hear you cry. Indeed! I’m working for Thomas Cook as a content writer, so it really is onwards and upwards.

And in those same spirits, I’ve decided I really wanna pick up this blog thing. So you’re in for a treat faithful readers: more frequent posts, letting you know what’s generally popping in a buddha’s world. I know, I’m excited too.

Watch this space.