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William
Shakespeare, a minor mid-18th century poet known today principally for
his loco-topographical “graveyard odes,” once said that
"Fat paunches have lean pates." Arafat Kazi has a fat paunch;
however, he prefers gelatined goose pates with little bits of bacon
in them.
Arafat says of
himself: He remains fat because he eschews the Atkins diet. He shuns celery. The only thing he has ever exercised is his right to be fat. He will die at age 27, waistline 60 inches, choking on a stick of butter. On his grave, they’ll write (in big fat letters): “He was Fat.” Every day, in every way, he gets fatter and fatter. If he ever makes it big, it’ll be by saving the world from a gigantic space cannonball of sharp cheddar with a hamburger core and wrapped generously in bacon. For some inexplicable reason, it will be hurtling towards Earth at a speed fast enough to fry the bacon. He’ll eat it. They’ll perform Fred Rose’s “Roly-Poly” at the prize-giving ceremony. It goes:
But what about the man outside the fatness? Fans may well ask: How can such a fat man achieve Arafat’s level of percussive ferocity? There are questions to which the Universe has no answer. This is not one of them. Simply put: Arafat Kazi has, through a lifetime of incompetence brought about by his massive fatness, learned to deal with said incompetence and produce maximum results with minimum efforts. In Jhor, for example, when the song calls for double-bass drumming, he asks bassist Farhan Hasan to play it. When playing the song live, he just doesn’t do that and cites creative genius. Detractors may argue: “Isn’t that cheating and doesn’t that make Arafat a fat bumbler?” Arafat nods his head wisely and ripostes: “Yes, that may be true, but you weren’t the one who won the Benson and Hedges Star Search Best Drummer Award in 2000!” This is, of course, if he’s awake. When in the studio with The Watson Brothers, he rarely is. Speaking of studios, Arafat’s at his best when he’s at Art of Noise. Not only is he cloistered with four other guys in a sound-proofed, air-conditioned room, but he also experiments with temporal reality. Basically, Arafat’s theories on the sonic properties of percussion can only be expressed through a variable curve. Mathematicians all over Nobabpur have been trying to express his tempo fluctuations through a three-dimensional graphical representation, but so far they have all failed. When he isn’t playing the drums with The Watson Brothers, Arafat Kazi is a minor internet celebrity and enjoys long walks on the beach and poetry. It is important to say this because he’s desperately looking for a girlfriend. The Secret Confession of Arafat Kazi Send him email at futhman@thewatsonbrothers.com |