90's Alternative

Playlist X.

1. "Sure Shot" Beastie Boys

2. "Devil's Haircut" Beck

3. "Song II" Blur

4. "Creep" Radiohead

5. "Wonderwall" Oasis

6. "Big Me" Foo Fighters

7. "In Bloom" Nirvana

8. "Down By The Water" PJ Harvey

9. "Only Happy When It Rains" Garbage

10. "Sabotage" Beastie Boys

We who are

We who are not as others

We who are not as others

We who are not as others

We who are not as others

We who are not as others

We who are not as others

We who are not as others

We who are not as others

Huckleberry

Our coach for this season is a retired sherif from Chicago area called Tom "Huckleberry" Nolan, the author of the book titled "Chasing dreams - I". He is one helluv a character and at times, he does remind me of our dear friend, Chewie. We've had such interesting discussions that I was (and still am!) very much tempted to record our exchanges, sometimes of pure philosophical nature, to get myself good material for this blog for some time to come. We've had a couple of high tempo practices which were exactly of my taste: non-stop hard work and sweat. How much our little team with so limited assets will accomplish under his leadership is yet to be seen since making some soup out of this mix of uneven (read oil and water) chemistry and being short-handed almost at all times is a very tough challenge.

I am reading his book on the way to and from work and I can say that the baseball content of the book is very rich to say the least. Anyhow, I am more than happy to experience a real (probably my first ever) baseball coach and I will try to squeeze as much as I can out of him which given his "Hilly Billy Huckleberry" character is not an easy job. According to his book, "baseball is designed to have fun" and that (among some other minor things) is my main goal for this season.

Waiting for P & S

Place: Geneva airport

In the flesh

Back in the days, Pink Floyd and The Wall were incredibly popular at home, everyone liked them and even those who couldn't spell their name or their tracks were spraying Pink Floyd on the walls. This wide popularity which I regarded to be genuinely shallow led me to dislike or rather hating them without even listening to their music for once. This and the fact that my brother and my musical idol wrote something on my wall but that's a whole another story. Anyhow, in the early days of my university, a good friend of mine aka mzmk_ir, who was much into Pink, gave me a print out of the lyrics of The Wall album and a worn cassette and insisted that I gave it a shot. I was reluctant at first but  finally I gave in and...well, as cheezy as it sounds, the rest is history.

Now many years have passed since I started listening to Pink and many many unforgettable moments have been created throughout the years that are associated one way or another with Pink Floyd. Tonight, I am going to see Roger Waters play The Wall (for a last time?) and I know that when I hear the last solo of "Comfortably Numb", I will be crying out loud with each and every one of these people right beside me:

Xerxes_g

Mazda

Farah

mzmk_ir: Thank you again for showing me the light!

Amin Feiz

babak4

bsrod

sagmehr

lolo

Alim

Chewie

p.kh
aghahe
Soord

dadasha

k-me

Said B

Parsa & Farzad

Peyman & Mazi S

Ishtinbil

Stephon S

Gharach

Shirzadi

FFaili

KAZZ
ARNouri
PTL
The boys of mtl-75

And many more which just don't pop into my mind at the moment, it's gonna be a blast y'all!

My fantasy baseball team

Shagging in the outfield during BP is slow and boring job but at the same time, it gives you some time to contemplate. I normally get drowned in my own thoughts and here's one of them: What if I could replace everyone in this team with 'my guys'? That would have been mainly my friends who were related one way or another to basketball. What if we all played baseball instead and formed a so-called "doostan" baseball team? So without further ado here's the line-up of such fantasy team:

1. Pitcher: AHF: Simply because he is the only one with solid pitching experience. McVich would be the relief pitcher or closer but his arsenal is limited. We need more pitchers and the fact that our pitching staff is not so deep would be an eminent weakness of our team.

2. Catcher: AJK aka Chewbacca: He would be one of the few or the only catcher who throws with left, yet another one of his mysteries! He is capable of stopping the runners on home plate and with a good left arm, he can throw straight to 2nd to burn the stealing runners. His knowledge of the game and being able to call the game correctly is a given and more importantly, he can/does establish a good chemistry with the man on the mound.

3. 1st base: Ghajar: He is also an obvious choice, one of the power sluggers in the team who fits perfectly well for 1st base.

4. 2nd base: Mani: Here I had a hard time to find the right person but I think he will do very well in this roll. He is short and fast and we definitely could use some fast runners on the offensive end. He covers his area well and doesn't need to have a very strong arm as he throws mainly to 1st or 2nd.

5. 3rd base: Myself: I put myself in my favorite position and I have a good on and off the game contact with all the infielders and pitcher and catcher.

6. Short stop: Shirzadi: Again, difficult to find a suitable person here but Shirzadi's agility and many other capabilities as well as his unselfishness and game vision leaves me with no other better choice.

7. Left field: Kamran Nejad: Because he is a lefty and the slowness of outfield activity fits his character.

8. Center field: Farah: Another power hitter in center with good arm to throw to 2, 3 and home.

9. Right field: Mazda: 2nd fast runner in the roster and a righty.

1st base coach: Ffaili: Functions mostly as a moral support and is in synch with 3rd base coach.

3rd base coach/batting coach: Fkhaleghi: He is the perfect person to take advantage of every tiny mistake by the opponents, read their game and give the orders accordingly.

Pitching coach: BTourani: I don't think I need to say anything here.

Manager: Kavoos: Tobacco chewing, short tempered and extremely foul-mouthed manager with little knowledge of the game and is in constant fight with umpires, gets tossed out frequently and kills each and every one of us on practices with conditioning drills and hard labor, he is JUST PERFECT for us.

Batting order:

1. Mani

2. Mazda

3. Ghajar

4. Myself

5. Shirzadi

6. AHF

7. Nejad

8. Farah

9. Chewi

In the dugout:

ATN (OF)

Hesam Z (OF/DH)

Nima (OF)

McVich (P, IN/OF)

Masters of improvisation

Hossein Alizadeh Tar

Kayhan Kalhor Kamanche

Madjid Khaladj Daf/Tonbak

I saw these masters last year and at one point during the concert, I inevitably cried.

It was one fantastic spiritual journey.

I had seen Kalhor once before with Shujaat Husain Khan (sitar) and Swapan Chaudhuri (tabla) which formed Ghazal group and I enjoyed it a lot. Here's the thing: once you have seen Kalhor's playing, you can barely listen to others play kamanche, the bar is set so high that it is impossible to top. That performance had obviously more theme of Indian in it but this one, with the combination of Alizadeh and Khaladj was something else. It not only touched my heart but also made me proud, it seldom happens that you feel this way during a musical performance.

It was indeed something else.

Trademark songs of "You look so precious now..."

Playlist IX.

1. "For Whom The Bell Tolls" Metallica

2. "Paranoid" Black Sabbath

3. "In The End" Linkin Park

4. "The Beautiful People" Marylin Manson

5. "South Of Heaven" Slayer

6. "Breathe" The Prodigy

7. "Aenima" Tool

8. "Dead Skin Mask" Slayer

9. "Dead Horse" Guns N' Roses

10. "No Leaf Clover" Metallica

A little house keeping

Work is being done to find a new and better look for the blog...veuillez patienter!

Courchevel

The love of the mountains and the thirst for feeling the raw and unfiltered speed were sufficiently quenched by one week of staying at propbably the largest ski resort in the world. The picture below does the justice to the beauty and the greatness of the 'matter' at hand more a thousand words.

Photo courtesy of AB.

One of the many subjects that the company of ours touched during this trip was the reason why we are so passionate about mountains. Answer (according to me): Because they remind us how minuscule we are in terms of being a 'being' and that, somehow, not only makes us happy in a strange sort of way but also creates a sense of passion and respect. The same goes with the stars and heavenly bodies or bodies of water in the nature. It's just that different people choose different paths; some choose the mountains, some choose the sky and some choose the sea. This long discussion is better left unfinished here and in conclusion, on a sort of irrelevant note, I wrap up by a quote by non-other than his holiness(?) The North Face which was reminded to us by Mr.P himself:

"Never stop exploring!"