Pounding The Keyboard

  This is the end Beautiful friend This is the end My only friend, the end…        The world is probably ending.      Israel and Iran finally went to war with each other and are now bombing each other to kingdom come.      And the demented US president seems inclined to join and help Israel.      Russia’s military officials are saying that World War III is forthcoming.      Russia and Ukraine are still fighting.      Putin, Russia’s president, is threatening war on UK, which Putin accuses of helping Ukraine with the war, and an attack on UK is an attack on Europe.      And with all the nuclear weapons most countries have, the world will not survive another world war.      Hitler is happily tossing and turning and laughing in his grave.      And to make matters truly worse, my Instagram account, inactive except its messag...

  Chasing the clouds Forever trying to unveil a shroud It’s the perfect metaphor Like running after some elusive cure Happily Desperately Like searching for the Holy Grail It's always bound to fail Chasing the clouds You'd never be allowed Chasing the clouds You might as well attempt to kiss God...

       A few weeks ago, I was trying to create a (commissioned) concept for a planned comics for children, and as usual, I first browsed through music albums (mostly rock) to procure some ideas. Lots of my stories (I am, believe it or not, a published writer) come from song titles, and I mean a lot, (my first published komiks story was entitled “Brain Damage” from Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage”) and so while I was browsing some Radiohead albums, I saw “Paranoid Android” from OK Computer album. OK Computer is the band’s best album, IMO, and “Paranoid Android” is the best song in the album and, according to myriads of music critics, one of the best songs of all time. Its title comes from “Marvin the Paranoid Android” from the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy . Thom Yorke, Radiohead's frontman, wrote it after an unpleasant encounter with some stalkers inside a bar.      Anyway, so I was trying to write a concept about an android which is, well, ...

  “I know which side I’m spread, I promise The tantrums and the chitty chat, I promise Even when the ship is wrecked, I promise Tie me to the rotten deck, I promise…”        A small tragedy happened while I was inside a pet shop a few weeks ago, trying to buy our dog some food. The song “I Promise” was starting to play somewhere inside the pet shop or outside, I wasn’t sure, but it was abruptly stopped and replaced by a hip-hop song. It would have been a thoroughly miserable moment, if not for a Golden Retriever who was gently rubbing its head on my leg.      “I Promise” is a Radiohead song. It was slated to be included in the 1997 OK Computer album, but Thom Yorke and the band thought it wasn’t good enough, so they discarded it. Apparently, they had a change of heart regarding the song and decided to include it in the 20 th anniversary issue of OK Computer. OK Computer, by  the way, is the band’s greatest album.    ...