7 songs

I'm probably the world's greatest procrastinator. I have an assignment to turn in. My coloreds are still to be laundered. My books need to be unpacked, my bookshelves organized. I need to sleep but because of the caffeine I'm blogging away. Hey, when the blogging muse calls you gotta give in, man. Anyway here are my seven songs.




1. Blister In the Sun- Violent Femmes. I wake up to this ala of course, Angela Chase. The CD is in my clock radio/boom box.

2. My Friends- Red Hot Chili Peppers circa Dave Navarro. See blog.

3. Time of Your Life (Good Riddance)- Greenday. See blog.

4. I'm So Bored in the USA- The Clash. I play this in my car stereo when I'm pissed at Americans.

5. Especially in Michigan- Red Hot Chili Peppers.From Stadium Arcadium. Listening to it now in my i-tunes. Intend to drive with it but I don't have an i-pod yet. hehehe. I like the title.

6. Dance, Dance- Fall-Out Boy. Strangely calms me while I'm driving. Probably because the band's hit "Sugar We're Going Down" last year while I was risking driving to the city with a learner's permit played on the radio almost everytime I get behind the wheel to go to work (I could have sworn it was following me) . Sheer happenstance but it was reasuring.

7. I Write Sins Not Tragedies- Panic! At The Disco. Not a big emo fan but this plays in DC 101 a LOT!!! The part with the wedding and the bride being a whore, cracks me up. And, (it's a tie)
The Wrong Way- Sublime. My favorite Sublime song. Funny, misogynistic, poignant, and endearing. Don't know wether to laugh or be offended. Another DC 101 staple.

I don't know who to tag. Perhaps I should try my Friendster list.

Driving One Rainy Autumn Evening (with John-John, Billie Joe, and God)

This song, since its introduction to me via the saccharine MTV Asia during late '97-early'98, has been a recurring anthem throughout my Gen-X jaunt. I think it's safe to say this also applies to most of the alphabet generations. I remember it striking me as an unusual turn for the famously rambunctious punk band. But like every great song it resonates through time and the lives of those who have listened to it and loved it.

I was just a wide-eyed new grad raring to work her first real job in a foriegn country, with glamorous notions of living the MTV high life. But as always, actual existence is far from wishful thinking. The video initially beyond me, haunted me in my rudest awakenings and in the bittersweetests of memories, now only contained in photographs and recollections. I was one of those kids with the menial jobs who would look wistfully into space, reflecting past, present and questioning what's in store beyond and fighting the fear of being in a rut. But with the friends I made, the little life truths gradually revealed, and yeah, the truly happy times that seamleslly interweave with the bad in a complex tapestry that you won't have one without the other, it was all worth it.

And now here I am in the land of my dreams teethering between despair and realization, caught in sluggish gridlock at I-695 at a crawl of 20 mph. As another classic video by another great band has once deduced, there is nothing like bad traffic when it comes to forcing to look at one's life. I ruminate my struggles, my pains, the loved ones that I lost in series, the lives of those that I still have, my past, my present, and yes my future, my dreams, my fate. Then, this song plays over on my favorite DC rock station. The lyrics are as true as ever, perhaps even more so. This life is excruciatingly painful and unpredictable to go through but in quiter times when you think back, its right. Let the song speak for itself. Thank you Billie Joe Armstrong. Thank God for Greenday.

Good Riddance
(Time of Your Life)

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why.
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind.
Hang it on a shelf of good health and good time.
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while.
I hope you had the time of your life.

I hope you had the time of your life.

-Greenday from the album, Nimrod, 1997

For My Ashton

This may be a foray into the superficial, but fuck it, I dare say.

To my knight in shining armour and loyal steed, you had protected me and served me well. To my friend and confidant, you had been the quite spectator to my madness, my goofs and my guffaws, my rage and my tears. When I was not welcome in my own hearth and home you were my refuge during the winter chill, so valiantly trying not to let dissipate too quickly your waning heat. My co-conspirator, you had taken me to haunts of my longings, encouraged my obsession with independence. You had seen me stumble through naivete to thriving street smarts. Throughout all these you never judged even when I crashed and slammed you and forgotten where I last left you. You just kept driving on, dings, scratches and gashes and all. And when I called for you to know where you were, you said, "I'm right here, mama," You had far more character in your clunky metal heart than any of my fair-weather friends.Through sun & rain & snow you plodded and pulled through at my behest. You shared my journey with me complete with a soundtrack provided by you, and what a trip it had been my dear friend.




Now, I must give you up. I am not rejecting you and trading you for a newer model. I am setting you free. May my new John-john be as half as wonderful as you are. I shall always look for you when I am on the road. I will always wonder where you are. With a prayer, I wish you will have another who will treat you with as much care as you have of me and will treat you for the beautiful thing that you are, my baby, my blessing. Thank you, thank you, thank you, a thousand times, THANK YOU.


Always remember, that no one ever forgets their first.

September Ends

Numb. I try not too feel too much for fear I might spontaneously combust. I drown myself in the tides of the everyday, yet find myself skimming the surface adrift, lifeless but awake and moving, functioning like a wind-up drone. Can I crawl into a ball in a corner? Can I cry my eyes out? Can I scream my head off? Can I mourn?

Can I mourn the loss of yet another uncle? Can I reach out to yet another of my own blood for the loss of their father? Can I comfort yet another parent for the loss of her brother. Can I myself lament the loss of more than a relative, but a kindred spirit in the love of books and the arcane as much as the first loss was a kindred in love of laughter and child-like irreverence and beyond that-- a primal recognition and an innate understanding that these are one of your own? Can I cry that the world seems a little bit lonelier place for those very losses? Can I cry for the dwindling of childhood and care-free times? or how about for fathers who will never be able to see the fruition of their dreams for their offspring?

Can I bewail the untimely loss of a dear friend? Does it help if she is like family? Would it warrant your sympathy, if I tell you
in one point in our lives we shared an apartment, a room, a journey? or how we laughed away our angsts over work, homesickness and unrequited love and how they are forever encapsulated in photographs, in stories, in memories as vivid as now? So vivid, it's sooo fuckin' hard to believe she's gone. The great ceremony of a home-cooked meal. The passion for the blend of flavors. The singing. In the kitchen. While doing the laundry. Looking out the window awaiting for birthday mail. During innumerable karaoke nights. The mythic birthday parties. The dancing. The tears for missing home and over a Judy Ann flick. The leche flan. The epic debate over Ben vs. Noel. The inebriated nights over Boon Kwe Lew Chew. The quotes worth repeating but shall always be her own. She told me too grow my hair long and that love will come in its own time. And so it did for her in her own terms and in a fashion entirely hers. How she doted on her nephews then. Now we could only imagine how she could have been as the mother that she dreamed to be to her much sought for child. We, your friends could only attempt to replicate your affections for him but we could never be you. Cause there could be only one like you, Puppy. The memories would always be vivid as your soliloquies and for every memory we would mourn.


Finally, can I mourn for every time I'm in a church I light a candle for the people I love, my family and friends, that they may be around to share this life with me a little longer? including these very people? Can I pray that I do not question the designs
of a Higher Power and that there is a reason for everything and just keep on lighting more candles?


Video: My Friends, Red Hot Chili Peppers, One Hot Minute, 1995.

SAVE A HORSE RIDE A VIRGIN: post-its from the fest (drafted 9-24-2006, Detroit International Airport, while waiting for my flight to Toronto)

"Welcome to the tea party!!", and that is how my first true blue, fucking real rock fest got kicked off: by Tom Meighan of Kasabian,whose music reminds of (they probably get this all the time) Oasis and Kula Shaker. And that is how I like my bad boys: skinny (no, wiry), scruffy and British.

A plane flies overhead being tailed by the banner: SAVE A HORSE RIDE A VIRGIN, an odd reference to Barbaro the racehorse who won the Kentucky Derby and most likely shoo-in for the Pimlico's Preakness earlier this year had it not been for such an unfortunate freak accident during the race. It is also a flash of the proverbial middle finger to the rich folks who would normally inhabit the grounds of the historic (refer to Sea Biscuit) Pimlico Race Tracks. I look at the banner as I lay lazily in my most Penny Lane-like outfit, on my Ikea mat that I share with my friend, Amy and thought, "How true."


"They shot some scenes for that movie with Tobey Maguire you know," says Amy. I fight the temptation to kiss the ground Spidey might have walked on, not because he's Spiderman, but because he's Tobey Maguire and looks good shirtless.