I just saw in the BBC Entertainment News section that Danny Boyle, Director of “Slumdog Millionaire”, was named the Best Director by the Directors Guild of America; which makes him a strong contender in the Oscar race. Although I am not that big of a fan of the Oscars as I used to (I’ve aged cynically), the thought that occurs to me how great it would be if “Slumdog Millionaire”, a film directed by a Brit that is starring a mostly Indian cast, actually won the Oscar—either for Best Picture or Best Director. It certainly would herald in the cultural and political significance of this upcoming era it seems we are about to enter; where we have a multi-ethnic President and it is very possible to have a film starring most foreigners of a very different ethnicity and skin tone can win this American award. It all makes me both proud and excited about the times that we are living in—as well as the vast potential of goodness and open-mindedness it possesses.
All this talk of “Slumdog Millionaire” makes me want to see it again. Perhaps I’ll go to a later showing this evening and invite my quiet Asian flat mate who doesn’t seem to go out much—I’m sure she’ll be pleasant company.
In the mean time, this all reminds me of an incident that happened to me last Friday when I was at a friend’s house party/get-together which started out as a jam session around the neighborhood of Spitalfields—Simon Fox is the name of host; lovely fellow. One instance which puts him in a near and dear place in my heart was when I was at one of his house parties and someone asked me who I'm friends with here--to which Foxxy responded for me "Charlie is a friend... of the world." Awwww shucks!
I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations with him which have spanned as to how once, unbeknownst to him, he offended an Arab man by putting his feet up on a footstool; thus displaying the bottoms of his shoes. The Arab in response stood up and started yelling at Foxxy (as his friends call him). I guess even English people are just as capable to unknowingly offend other cultures as Americans (though based on the past 6-7 years, I think flashing a shoe-bottom is a little offensive than invading countries….).
Anyways! I lost my train of thought. Oh right! I was going to talk about Indians (actual Indians, not the American ones whose land we raped and stole from them).
So, this jam-session at Simon Fox’s house turned into a bit of a party. There were two Indian girls--one of whom is not worth mentioning; except behind her back I called her a “party’s equivalent to the recent economic downturn.” A lot of my fellow ‘mates’ thought this was funny.
The other Indian girl struck me. As she reminded me of a girl whom I once fell head-over-heels a few years back when I was a freshman in college. Fortunately, this didn’t evoke any instant/bad/crazy emotional response but we got on talking about music. She told me about how she used to play classical piano and talked about Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata suite. When I hummed the cliché slow piano melody out loud, she immediately went off on talking about how nobody knows the third movement of the piece where it’s incredibly fast paced and full of piano arpeggios. I asked her to hum it, to which she said that there’s no way she could do it.
We then got around to the question of how I knew these people. Nonchalantly, I immediately told her that a week earlier I met this guy named “J.W.” at this pub ‘The Market Trader” just around the corner from the flat and through him I met everyone else there that night. She immediately looked away and uncomfortable. I knew what she was going to say next:
“J.W. is my ex-boyfriend.”
* * *
Now, I would consider J.W. my first real friend that I more or less have made so far across the pond, here in England.
On my second night out in London, when I was avidly going to different open mic events at different pubs in London; I was walking towards this pub called “The Market Trader” near Liverpool Street Station. As I reached the entrance, I noticed a bunch of younger (though I found out they were actually a few years older than me) looking chaps talking, smoking cigarettes and holding pints and half-pints in their hands. I noticed one fellow had a pin with the Obama ’08 campaign insignia on his jacket. I idly passed them by and entered the pub to inquire about the open mic.
After the man who ran the open mic told me that I get free drinks from the bar for performing, I immediately went to the bar to try the vast array of English brews that were probably all delicious compared to the generic stuff you’ll find back in the States.
The bar was crowded, so it was quite difficult to get the bar tenders attention. As I was squeezing my way to the front of the bar I noticed that this fellow with the Obama pin from earlier and his friend. As I was waiting, I made some sort of comment which I don’t remember but it certainly sparked a conversation which led to him making a very dry comment referring to a controversial British comedian, Russel Brand, without mentioning his name. I got the joke and chuckled, while his face remained stoic. The bartender finally came to the two of them and gave them both respectively their drinks. They walked back outside to where they were before, when I first entered. I got a pint of ESB ale.
As I couldn’t find any other potential social openings in this crowded pub, I went outside with my pint. This fellow with the Obama pin was talking to a black girl. I soon entered the conversation and properly introduced myself to them as the fellow introduced himself as “J.W.” and the black girl said her name was “Rebecca.” I forgot it immediately, but when she later wrote her name and e-mail on a sheet of paper for me later—I put more effort in memorizing it.
This J.W. fellow explained the pin by saying that he worked for the Obama campaign last year for 6 months in Colorado. We later spoke of politics and history and tried to convince him that Jimmy Carter wasn’t a “shite-President”—as he put it. He concluded his argument by talking about how contradictory his character of “peace-figure” was by selling to arms to Indonesia—or some other South Eastern Asian country. I didn’t know how to counter that since I had never heard about it and in some ways it seemed plausible given the influence of our nation’s Military Industrial Complex on policy. It was quite a mental and intellectual exercise to argue with a Graduate Student who is working on his Master’s degree on International Policy and Foreign Relations. I wondered how my brother’s Tommy, Paul (and maybe even Danny) would have dealt with this considering that they know more about America’s dark underbelly than I do.
Either way, through these two; I met their friends. A dozen or so people who were with them that night as they all gathered to see their friend, Jordan, perform at the open mic that night and later went back to Foxxy’s flat and hung out till near dawn.
* * *
Anyways, regarding J.W. and this Indian girl: when she told me that they used to go out I assumed that J.W. was the heartbreaker here since based on my previous meetings with him I could not see him as the overly emotional type who gets his heart broken. However, my presumptions were proved wrong when I brought this up to him that I met her about a half-week later when I met up with him at this bar located in an abandoned part of the London Bridge train station.
He told me that a few years back they had been going out and that at one point she went back to her homeland in India. While there I believe she cheated on him and dumped J.W. In response, he decided to travel to that part of Asia and go where she was in order to win her back—however, it didn’t quite work out as well as he had hoped.
I do believe there are more details to that story. However, I can’t quite remember them. Either way I think that is more or less the gist.
To quell any fears or ideas, nothing happened as the conversation died out and I talked to other people at the party. I had the slight suspicion that she may have been coming onto me while talking, however she didn't bother saying 'Bye' when she left.
....
Anyways! Slumdog Millionaire anyone!?
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