Alone Again, Naturally

"Take a sad song and make it better"
- Beatles, "Hey Jude"

A movie's final sequence convincingly portrays the protagonist conquering all odds and you leave the theater feeling triumphant over the victory of good versus evil. But you won't pay to watch the same movie again. Same with novels. Once you put them down, you don't find yourself reopening the pages. But with songs, the experience is intense to the point of being spiritual - soul, heart, and senses in one swoop and you find yourself repeatedly consuming the same songs whose representation have not diminished by time.

Two years ago, in the month of July, a 'debasement tape' of sorts to honor a friend's bleeding heart was carelessly prepared. 7 songs consisted that list:

1. Circle (Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians) - Being alone is the best way to be/When I'm by myself/ it's the best way to be/Everything is temporary anyways.

2. Fortress around your heart (Sting) - If I built this fortress/around your heart/encircled you in trenches/and barbed wire.

3. Fact and Fiction (Kristen Hall) – I’m weighing the fact and fiction/Diluting the truth with diction/and empty promises.

4. Fake Plastic Trees (Radiohead) – If I could be/who you wanted/all the time.

5. God Only Knows (The Beachboys) – If you should ever leave me/life would still go on/believe me/the world would show nothing to me/so what good/would living do me.

6. World Before Columbus (Suzanne Vega) – If your love/were taken from me/all the trees freeze/in the cold ground

7. Half A World Away (REM) – This could be the saddest dusk/I’ve ever seen…My hands are tied/my heart aches/I’m half a world away.

An updated list is in order, I decree. Senti.

1. I Eat Dinner (Rufus Wainwright) - No more candlelight/no more romance

2. Hand on your Heart (Jose Gonzales) - It's one thing to fall in love/but another to make it last/You know it's one thing to say you love me/but another to mean it from the heart.

3. To The End (Blur) - You and I collapsed in love/And it looks like/we might have made it.

4. Shattered Like (Rivermaya) - Have you been drinking/have you been messing up your life/as you did mine/not long ago

5. Clever as You (Sheila and the Insects) - I could have loved you more/but my heart/is not as clever as you.

6. Disarm (Smashing Pumpkins) - The bitterness of one who's left alone

7. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (Postal Service) - And I am finally seeing/why I was the one/worth leaving.

8. One More try (Kuh Ledesma) -It really is quite tough/when love is not enough

9. Fragments of Forever (Nonoy Zuniga) - Now we're left with nothing more/thank God, there's still worth living for/than fragments of forever/we saved along the way

10. Country Feedback (REM) - You wear me out, you wear me out.

I'm tired of this. Get a life - memo to self.

Thank You for the Music

“Thank you providence, thank you frailty
Thank you clarity, thank you consequence,
Thank you silence” - Alanis Morisette, “Thank You”

A gig was cooked up by college friends Jigolo and Gae, along with their friends from the Taclo-BAND scene to help me transition to the wellness track.

Over at FB, this plan stewed. Since I don’t have an FB account, I was clueless until the last minute. I admit to having reservations at first – people might think I was making a business of my illness although I squashed the thought at once. Just because I can be malicious at times (ehem!) doesn’t mean everyone is. I apologize, gracious Lord, for thinking badly of my fellow.

Over that, it’s the squeaky feeling of being fussed at, that nagging thought that I don’t deserve this attention. I am immensely grateful and humbled by this unexpectedly pleasant effort. I feel the love, my heart flies.

The generosity, thoughfulness, and kindness of friends and relatives since I got sick are just in full tank. Just thinking about it leaks some liquid round my eyes. Tissue, please.

Guilt sometimes creeps at being a bum on the road to health but a religious friend enlightens that crises are vehicles for people to demonstrate their goodness. By helping someone in need, people are actually reaffirmed. That thought makes me feel a bit lighter.

It’s reaffirming too that music is the vehicle by which all this display of generosity and talent gestated. If I had a say, I would have suggested macho dancers gyrating in libidinal abandon (are you reading this, Jigolo?), elephant and hurricane wouldn’t prevent me from attending the gig.

I heard that Morrissey and Duran tunes were played, a fitting tribute to the days of our innocence. When Jigs dropped by our place on the day of the gig, he caught me playing songs from “Hatful of Hollow” rather loudly – The Smiths-mode, so time-warped. Spank me.

Again, a whale of thanks. Me and my family confer all the sacred blessings in this universe to all of you. Salamuch from the bottom, top, lateral of my promiscuous heart.

The Sky is a Landfill

A Jeff Buckley bio-pic in the offing, I just read in an entertainment website. Two names are being tossed: James Franco and "Twilight" star Robert Pattinson to play him. Even if I find James Franco beautiful, I will have no moral baggage ripping his throat out if he screws up. Oopps, this is not an open endorsement for him to ink the deal or am I that easy.... to read?

As an adorer, shall I compose chants of resistance with my naked voice? Shall I organize the army to storm the gates of Hollywood, pointedly criticizing the thematic conceit of these producers that they can serve justice to the memory of a gifted artist in full benediction?

There is nothing that would enthrall me than for people to create sequels after sequels of Buckley, stubbornly refusing to let his legacy die but a bio-pic? I have to lend some misgivings. Isn't "Amazing Grace" enough? Must some people continue to make money out of his short and brutish life?

"Opened Once," is ringing in my head: "I am a railroad track abandoned, with the sunset forgetting that I ever happened, that I ever happened." It's my "Hello, Pain hymn" as I am fond of setting a musical score to my personal mythologies. I have a soundtrack for almost anything - a soundtrack for doing laundry, a soundtrack for scrubbing floors, a sountrack to get a spiritual lift, and so on. Anything to get me going.

I cannot imagine anyone singing with so much consecration the haunting lines "Just like the ocean, always in love with the moon...We fly right over the minds of so many in pain. We are the smile of the light that brings them rain. In the half-light where we both stand, in the half-light, you saw me as I am." (Opened Once)

Frak! These rebellious tears so early in the day.

Play That Ugly Drug Music

"Play that ugly drug music" Elvis Costello, "13 Steps Lead Down"

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?" (Nick Hornby, “High Fidelity”)


John Cusack, one of my favorite actors for sentimental reasons, admits to being a “music snob” and considers himself cliquey when it comes to music, reminiscent of Rob Gordon, the character he portrayed with such aplomb in one of my favorite movies, High Fidelity.

I was quite amused by his unabashed confession because I have encountered his kind in this lifetime – people who judge people by the music they prefer or listen to. I also fall into this tendency sometimes but not to judge people but to determine if a guy is a skirt-chaser or a crotch-grabber.

I am not insular when it comes to music. I am the exact opposite. I pimp my favorites, as a matter of fact. I used to burn CDs for people with unaccustomed diligence just so I could impinge on them my revered musicians. I am rather unsuccessful on this account.

I wish people listened to the late Jeff Buckley more than they listen to American Idol alumni. I wish REM and Blur were more appreciated. I wish people stumble into Simon and Garfunkel or Jim Croce before they graduate from college. I wish that instead of numerous cloning of Elvis Presley, people are introduced to Elvis Costello.

Yet at the end of the day, it is our own musical journey anyway. You get to pick your drinking buddies. One important rule everyone must follow, I must insist: Pump up the volume!!

Doobie Brothers

I don't normally retreat from a challenge so to R who's curious as to what my top 3 songs on ganja:

1. Panalo (Color it Red) - "Sindihan na yan! At uuubo." Forces you to remember your first puff-the-magic-dragon.

2. Burn One Down (Ben Harper) - "herb the gift from the earth, and what's from the earth is of the greatest worth". Go organic. And as Raul Julia's druglord character in "Tequila Sunrise" bravely predicted, "grass is the future."

3. Legalize It (Peter Tosh) - "good for tuberculosis....goats love to play with it." No argument, no argument.

This Charming Man

3 days ago, the Moz celebrated his birthday. When I declare that Manchester is home of the world's finest musicians, he isn't far from my mind. I don't blame him for my mopiness but how punch-happy and upbeat would I have become if The Smiths didn't bust my eardrums some summers ago.

He's no longer my drinking buddy but I relish the memory of his brave advice "Shoplifters of the World, Unite." Naughty capitalist, this big mouth is. But a capitalist you just can't hate.

3 Men and a Baby

There was no money to buy novels when I was growing up. I relied on my school’s library for the Hardy Boys’ series; my classmates for the Sweet Dreams series; my classmates’ parents for the erotica staples; and the neighbor to our right for romance novels.

In highschool, I only knew of three categories of men: cowboys, gypsies, and pirates.

Cowboys were tearfully boring. They lacked refinement and cerebral enthusiasm, they held no interest for me. Gypsies were esoterically mysterious. With music and fortune-telling as their enduring legacy, I associated them with the circus and the carnival. Pirates were like rainbows in a cloudless sky.

Before Johnny Depp breathed life to Jack Sparrow in cinema, I already decided to surrender my chastity to a pirate.

But my pirate had no face. Hence, when news of Somali pirates hit the headlines recently, I hungered to catch a glimpse. How remotely did they resemble the marauders of my highschool daydreams?

I shouldn’t romanticize them though. Their acts are fuelled by the crude demands of socio-economics. Word on the street: Somalia is a failed state.

What’s left of those who ferociously desire to survive? There’s almost nothing to loot on the plains. So they revolt against the shipping boundaries and pillage what is out there in the ocean.

Pirates terrorize and mesmerize just as the ocean does. Astronauts may have conquered outerspace but the sea and those who try to have dominion over it holds a mystery. At least, for me.

Gary Granada who’s known as a protest-singer, appreciating its dialectic, penned a love song using the metaphoric echoes of the ocean:

“Dagat na pagitan ng ating pag-ibig
Sinlawak, singlayo, singlalim
Ngunit sa isang panig, dagat ang nagsasanib
Ng dalampasigan mo sa akin”

The sea yields a great many narratives. Separating continents as it connects, the sea offers life in its bounty as much as it deprives without remorse. We send off our beloved to far-away lands and anticipate his homecoming from the same shore.

This probably explains my fascination of pirates. The ocean is their domain, their playground and I want to play with them. Or I want them to play with me? Ahoy!!!

All work and no play, lalalala.

Barbarians at the Gate

Another survey of the 50 best albums in the last 5 years was posted at http://www.stereogum.com/. As usual, bruised egos and “you’re morons!” reactions abound. Surveys are not exactly without value but they are to be taken with a grain of salt and a pitcher of lemonade.

What I found appalling among the reactions was that the list contained too many Brits. What’s objectionable about how the Brits create their music anyway? Besides, music supposedly, has no nationality.

On some mornings, I listen to Victor Jara even if I hardly understand what this Chilean is singing about or Sigur Ros even if I don’t get their shit. A friend burned me some Cuban music which I dance to with George as a partner. There’s nothing from the Buena Vista Social Club though in this compilation. If you have not heard of them, try watching the documentary that the compelling Wim Wenders directed. It has to be in my top 3 of favorite music-docus, thanks to Joma.

Anyway, there’s also this old cassette tape of lullabyes in several languages that I liked so much which I couldn’t play anymore. I know of some people born in this enchanting city of Tacloban who can listen to bossa-nova all day or some music from India or Africa labeled as “world music,” Putumayo is laughing its way to the bank.

I mean you don’t have to be anything except deaf to be smitten with music. Not unless you prefer the sound of missiles and bombs and human cries of anguish. The irony of it all is that those who send the bombs are located far enough to hear the deafening sound that their foreign policies bring. But I detest talking about them today. Not when I just enjoyed my morning coffee.

The world is in shambles and I opt to talk about my first favorite band (a 2-minute drum roll) – DuranDuran who happens to be Brits, those yummy boys from Birmingham. Most of my HS freshman year was devoted to Duran-adoration. At that time, I only knew of them and Tears for Fears. Before them, my idea of a band were the Cascades and the Lettermen, thanks to my father.

And another atrocity committed by my father was telling me that the BeeGees was going to be bigger than the Beatles – “Wah! Ha ha! Staying alive, staying alive.” Can’t exactly blame him – he did a better impersonation of Barry Gibbs (or was it Maurice?) than John Lennon.

But DD, they paved the way for the British invasion of the airwaves. Saw their performance at Private Sessions 2 weeks ago and they sounded better than ever. They were not popular though with my classmates who preferred Menudo, the former boyband of Ricky Martin.

Got a huge crush on DD’s drummer, Roger Taylor (not to be confused with Queen’s drummer). Let’s just say, he’s the first man to make me feel like a girl. His monicker in the band was “Froggy Barnacle” and I cannot anymore remember why. All I can remember is how badly I wanted to change my name to Froggy.

DD does not figure in the list of best bands or best albums and as a fan, I don’t mind. I don’t believe in superlatives anyway. Besides, everything is subjective. What is nourishment to one could be poison to you.

So I don’t subscribe to the idea of a best album or best film or best book or best poet. I have favorite albums and films, influential books, and poets that I dig. Herman Hesse, for example, is not exactly a celebrated novelist but his novels are quite influential to me.

These guys behind A-lists, they serve a purpose – as gatekeepers of certain standards. Precisely, they should be kept at the gates. Don’t invite them to your abode and invade your universe.

More importantly, differentiate what you want and what you need and don’t allow these gatekeepers to convince you that what you want is not exactly what you need. That’s just how it goes – either they F-you or you F-them.

Enjoy the rest of this fucking great summer, people.