The Happy Light Deluxe

Trying to come out of the bog that has swallowed me the past year. My only solace has been my DVR that always waits for me in my bedroom baring gifts-- Conan, Community, Parks and Rec, Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, even the schmaltzy Hampton fare Revenge... I could go on. Whatever feeds my flannel-wearing, olive-coloured fancy I ingest through a tube (as well as through cable and wi-fi) as my once youthful backside rots away like my hold to well-being. My sweet friend Shivaun has been imploring me to go back to blogging/writing/what-have-you, for that is just in her character to be supportive of me notwithstanding well, everything--warts, shingles scars and all. Truth is I miss writing but the quag is thick, unmoving and unpalatable as pea soup after 1973. 

Truth is depression is a bitch. Life is a bitch. I do not wish to tear at life's weave in a Love & Hip-Hop cat fight. I just wish to live it and, no matter my anti-social tendencies, live IN it. I am slathered in blessings yet I act like a first-world ingrate. I am sick of melancholy. I am sick of mundane bull-shit. I am sick of other people and the banal. I am sick of me. I am sick of being sick. Carpe diem even if there is not enough of it this time of the year (grrr) and even if youth and a fast metabolism are not on my side (arrrgh). At the very least, just blog the shit out of it....

Niceties and Garbage

This is easily the kind of thing I spook my friends with. Except for a very precious few, I am surrounded by a confounding amount people that I have nothing in common with. Sure their concern may be sincere as much as the details that precede may be titillating fodder during mouthfuls of lechon and carbonara. I could be in a room full of my green-joking, work story-swapping and karaoke-belting ilk but I'd still feel hollow... and alone.

Happiness lately is to be curled up in an oft unmade bed, in a finally silent house that is not mine, cackling maniacally to the bleeped continental profanities of Craig Ferguson addressing his Skeleton Army or; witness Colbert in full-on right-wing smarm call a Coulter-clone's writing racist and banal or; swoon over Stewart and his fine Mexican waiter ass and all while commiserating with fellow absurdist comedy nerds in Team Coco. Even yukking it up on Chelsea's panel and eviscerating pop culture with sigh-inducing McHale have been salve to the spirits after January's clusterfuck. (At least until November.)

Yes, that is me. That is my life. I can happily take your kid to school but I may blow-off your barbecues here and there. I may forget to buy a baby shower gift but that cake I bought from Ya-ya's is from the heart (and I promise I'll get you a real gift!) and NO, I will not go out with any of your relatives. Don't bother putting in a good word to the next available young doctor who comes through the door that I have to coach through ordering a protocol Heparin drip. Please refrain from advertising in my behalf that I am trying to land a white dude. Don't go asking people in happy relationships if they have a brother to spare, just because I happen to get along with them. I can call on you for being profoundly gauche but that just may go over your head or if just barely, leads to nothing but trite exchanges of douche-baggery from both of us. I'd rather be watching Quackers the shit-eating duck and, reliving Norm MacDonald's moth joke. I respect that you find rock concerts and clubbing bacchanal and museums are not your thing. Find a hobby like cross stitch or purchase new drapes. We may not be kindred spirits but I am still a friend. And yes, I have a huge lady-jones for Shirley Manson.

Now leave me to my videos.

25

MICHAEL JACKSON HAS DIED. Those were the words I heard as I stumbled from the bathroom to bedroom where Brian Williams broke the news in a voice that was both calm and stricken. I sat down for a second only to fail at absorbing what was unfolding on the TV before me then I rushed downstairs, running late for work and forgetting my wallet.

THE KING OF POP HAS PASSED AWAY. Outside, the world moved and weaved through traffic in slow motion. From every car, his songs emanated from each open windows as every radio station of every genre it seemed, scrambled to change their programming to include Michael Jackson songs. The kind girl at the I-95 toll booth who let me through even with a dollar short of the fee, had something from Off The Wall blaring from her station, while the DC rock station I'd listen to going to work, played Wanna Be Starting Something & Dirty Diana and was taking more requests of the like.

PETER PAN IS GONE. Gone is that mythical human being who conquered the world with talent and moves that both defied gravity and gravitated the emulation and adulation of a generation from California to Calumanggan. That precious little boy with the gigantic gift in those filler films from 70's TV specials; that angelic voice who signaled the coming of the Season by his urgings to give love on Christmas Day, who became the world's golden child, can now only be revisited in the grainy, jumpy annals of YouTube and our sepia-hued memories. He is the idol we vaunted in childish braggadocio in dusty neighborhood streets in the weekends and summers, in flooded school halls after a typhoon, and in the classroom when Ma'am Sultan or Ma'am Alcachupas was looking away. He is the MJ I'd scribble in slumbook questions about first crushes. He is the superstar that my sister, Pinky regaled me with factoids she'd read about and known way back when he was in Jackson 5, which jumpstarted my ardour for him. He is the pop phenomenon my sister Melissa made a reverential scrapbook for, with clippings from the TIMEs and tabloids our Auntie Letty sent us from Canada and from "songhits" she has collected, which I eventually inherited. He is the teen idol whose posters Melissa put up on my wall in the bedroom we shared when we first moved to BISCOM. Meanwhile, the rest of the world went through the same adoration that I felt solely was my own, in varying manifestations, in similar degrees of awe. He had no color, no race, no nationality. There was nobody like him, yet he belonged to all of us. He was just Michael.

R.I.P., MAN IN THE MIRROR. Somebody in Facebook bade farewell, one of millions in a matter of minutes after the news broke. Admittedly, I despised the his transmogrification after Thriller. In the years leading to his death, he seemed to have devolved from Hero to the Hunchback of Notre Dame. His music, genius and even the moonwalk never waned but it was us who changed. We grew up. Worst of all, it was our image of him that changed and we turned on him. We marched to his bell tower where he dangled Baby Blanket with torches, tabloids, TMZ and even with doves released after a trial. How we pitied him and his bizarre sad life, and how dare he defaced the Michael who lit gritty city streets with every step in Billie Jean and electrified us with this.

AND NOW MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD. We try to wrap our head around a world without this icon of our lifetime. We are getting old. Like Elvis before him, we will share his music and stories of what made him great and precautionary tales of extraordinary individuals with feet of clay. And he will win over generations more of fans and followers even after death. He will live forever in our general psyches in the image we chose to remember him by. In every soundtrack that punctuate the moments. In every lazy summer afternoons of childhood dreaming big dreams listening to Jackson 5 on AM radio. In every fond memory of our lives. That's how icons are.  

As I'm writing the end of this post, Janet is on the BET Awards both thanking & expressing the pain of the loss of a brother, then Ne-yo & Jamie Foxx sing, I'll Be There....

THANK YOU SO MUCH, MICHAEL. 

P.S. Here are far more evocative tributes from friends & writing idols from the web: Shivaun, Jessica Zafra,   and Jay Harvey.  

And the far more eloquent, Anna and Hortense of Jezebel.

ultraelectromagneticbandlove

I am a week or so behind blogging about the Oscars or as I call it, MY Super Bowl (and I did bring out the chips and the spinach dip). Despite my excitement last year, Watchmen is here, anatomically correct cerulean blue man-thing and all, blah, blah, blah. For the time being I leave the Hollywoods snark to Jezebel & my FB friend Jay Harvey; the fanboy vs. literati discourse to the Vultures and; the clever sentiment-veiled barbs to my friend, Shivaun. I am even laying aside the ton of figurative and rather literal crap I have to get over with before I fly off for the familiar, comforting shores of home.

The greatest part of being indubitably, viscerally a Pinoy of my generation-- progeny of the Martial Law years, Marcos despotism and stabs of a fledgling republic at democracy gone invariably bananas-- is to lay claim to the Eraserheads as our soundtrack, mouthpiece and badge of honor. Within the same month of August '08 while I was taking in the third year of the US Virgin Fest, the iconic band that defined the Pinoy cool held a much attended reunion concert with as much drama as the events that lead to its realization, overtaken only by the syncopal episode of lead singer, Ely ("the One Who Got Away") Buendia that became it's culmination or rather lack of.

I have gushed about this band before and I have no plans on stopping whenever the chance arises. Now, in honor of their Last Set that's held on this date, I dedicate this to a beloved band and cultural touchstone. As I eschew assignments, nursing marathons, chores & clogged toilets, I, like many proud Flips away from home and can not be there to sing along & cheer on Messrs. Buendia, Marasigan, Zabala & Adoro, content myself with footage of the night the E-heads are together again in You Tube posterity. 

Of course there will always be memories of them at the Hard Rock Cafe in Singapore--Ely wiping his sweat with my hankie; Buddy politely refusing it cause he has a cold; surprisingly appealing eye contact with Marcus and; Raymond leaving us in stitches with enunciations of "Hah-rrd Rahk Kah-peeh!" Pakiusap lang sana hindi ito ang huling El Bimbo, please lang.

P.S. Rest in Peace Francis M. And maraming salamat po.

ANG YAYA NI ZUMA

 Click here to connect to No Doubt official website

Somehow in the last three of the alphabet generations, a girl is never just a girl until she (even remotely) admires Gwen Stefani or, emulates Gwen Stefani, or wants to be like Gwen Stefani, or mentally befriends Gwen Stefani or, dye her hair pink like Gwen Stefani or, projects conjurations of girlish dreams acquired and evolved by the years, through Gwen Stefani. It is not Gwen Stefani's world that we happen to live in. It is a world where a girl wouldn't mind being Gwen Stefani. She is the every-girl Malkovich. This is further compounded by that gorgeous hubs of hers. Like who wouldn't do THAT? Even so after all these years, one can not help but be vicariously titillated by thought of her and Tony Kanal. There are Sid-and-Nancys, Cobains-and-Loves and Fleetwood Macs but Stefani and Kanal are the Julia & Richard, the Tom & Meg of rock--adorable in fantasy, but they're probably better off and far less dysfunctional as friends. 

After years of hits, personal anthems, pop forays, fashion spreads, fragrance lines and genetically endowed offsprings No Doubt of the Orange County is to reunite for a world tour. It is not the Beatles reunion, or the end of wars, or the splitting of the atom but it comes in really fierce heels.

So in honor, here's hoping they play this song. It is my personal soundtrack for all couple-ly buffoons who like to ram couple-dom and all its saccharine glory down my throat and such a manner couple-righteously so.

in an alternative universe, born in the first world

I Will Possess Your Heart by Death Cab for Cutie. Album: Narrow Stairs (2008)

A waif wandering the globe restlessly, eyes wide, haunted & taking in everything, face framed by arty bangs swept aside casually way to many times, hair tousled enough to be eccentric, and a rock band of of nerds serenading me with similes about "a book elegantly bound" from a giant meat freezer: this succinctly portrays my fantasy life.

As a matter of fact this may unwittingly be my life right now.

Add butt-loads of crap, errands for ice water & pain meds, constant assignments by married coworkers to CMV and almost every isolation case--for no other reason than I'm single & therefore (by their implication) have not much at stake--and the burning varicose veins, life unfolds like Urban Outfitter vignettes elegantly bound, love.

Killing Time Until The Season Premiere of Mad Men

House of Cards by Radiohead. Album: In Rainbows (2007)

Sorry fellas but Camden, NJ is just a tad too far from my side of the East Coast for one grrl to drive alone to. The area around Tweeter according to my Googling sure ain't no Columbia, MD. Please consider stopping by the BW area next time or maybe if you decide to extend your north American leg.

ANOTHER VIRGIN SUMMER

Yep, that time of the year is rolling closely again. Nice to meet you finally, Dave! Closer, Trent Reznor. We meet again, Scott. Mano po, Lolos Bob, Iggy & Chuck. Ola mader Moby.  Manash Kanye don't pull a Bonnaroo, ok girlfriend? It's the days of crab cakes & Southern Comfort again!!

Damn you, Weezer, Rage vs. the Machine, Beck & Radiohead. Love you but damn you. Next year perhaps? A grrl can hope.

Click on title for the the updated line-up and on links for the Spin & RS article, bitches!

closing walls and ticking clocks...

Oh summer, how much can one cram into three wee months of sun before the cruel grays of the cold months take over?

They may not be necessarily the greatest band ever although they are one of the biggest, there is something about Chris Martin & co. that stirs an ardent, polarized yet somewhat civilized wide-scale kaffeeklatsch. There are far more brilliant lyricism and far more innovative musicianship but they are far from middling either. Perhaps casting comparisons and A-list affinities and proximities and being in the know aside, these blokes just happen to make good music that happen to resonate in our joint existentialism. The song below is a prime example and a particular, personal fave other than Shiver (see past blog post).

Much like the summers that come and go into our lives and the questions wether we have made the most of them the song ticks and tocks with an urgency and constancy like a timepiece that seemingly verges but refuses to bog down-- "cursed missed opportunities..."

Speaking of summer, with several fellow greats have albums out and are of course touring. Foos, check. NIN, check. Dylan, check. Cornell, maybe. Have to check my sched. REM, have to find somebody to switch with at work. Radiohead, I wish but Chicago is too far. Pearl Jam may be out of the question. Damn PJ for being too expensive (why Eddie, why?)!!! Coldplay.com please pick me for the free Madison Square gig, PLEEASE!!! After all these, I'm going to be broke. Damn it.

Coldplay is releasing their fourth album taking part in series of unconventional releases by big acts in a show of middle fingers to the evil record company traditions.

Clocks
Coldplay
from A Rush of Blood to the Head, 2002

Lights go out and I can't be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
You've put me down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and plead, singing
Come out of things unsaid, shoot an apple off my head and a
Trouble that can't be named, tigers waiting to be tamed, singing
You are, you are

Confusion never stops, closing walls and ticking clocks, gonna
Come back and take you home, I could not stop, that you now know, singing
Come out upon my seas, curse missed opportunities, am I
A part of the cure, or am I part of the disease, singing

You are, you are, you are, you are
You are, you are
And nothing else compares
Oh no nothing else compares
And nothing else compares

You are
Home, home, where I wanted to go,
Home, home, where I wanted to go,
Home, home, where I wanted to go,
Home, home, where I wanted to go.

pro bono, edge, adam, and sigh, larry...

...also my family and then some other creatures

Click on title to link to movie site.

This was worth braving through the salty, biting winds of the Inner Harbor, the labyrinthian rush hour of Pratt St. looking for the only IMAX theatre within 10 miles of my zip code not to mention $18 for parking and a lost ticket for space on the other side of the Harbor. 

Somehow Friday seemed to be the day that the well-to-do East Coast urbanites of nearby Federal Hill would come out of their Ethan Allen-ed lairs and their JC Penney ad-styled world. They seemed to be everywhere that I would have checked myself if I was still in Baltimore had it not been for the homeless guy who asked for change and the crab cake platter I ate over fries and hush puppies while waiting for the 7:30 pm show.

 At an Urban Outfitters (love their stuff btw but), with the mean girls and the catholic school-garbed gossip girls and the artsy hipsters loitering as clientele, I could not help but think of this hilarious other blog I stumbled upon. Side note: I'm into about 85% of the entries and by default, fall into entry #11 (which kinda makes me glad for my choice of a Hestia-esque existence, btw), so does that make me white or just pretentious?

As my fellow audience members started to mill into the Science Center theater, I could not help thinking I'd intruded into some neighborhood party and exclaiming, "Shit I'm the only black person in the room!" I picked a center seat third row from the front--nausea central--but could not care less for I intended to be un-bothered by the more ideally-seated mob behind me and other than the old couple five to six seats down, I was the closest to U2's virtual genitals like I had wanted to.

Anyways, on with the show. Any bitch-fest I had hatched up prior to it became null as the lights dimmed and the IMAX place became a rock arena and fittingly enough the familiar opening count of Vertigo sucked us all into U2-pia. 

Uno! 

Dos!

Tres!

KATORSE!

Anthem after another, the rock arena became a religious experience as Adam Clayton (the group's resident true rock star) handed me his bass; Edge (the token prodigy/deity) let me strum his guitars and; I fly over the stage close enough to kiss Larry Mullen's nape. The audience were clearly intended to feel more than a sense of being there but to be like spirits floating around basking it all. Bono sang One and stretched out his arm and our palms met. He angles his a certain way and I found my pedestrian hands ensconced in the virtual palmar that touched those of the late Pope and lead one of the world's greatest rock bands. The other star was rather very heard than seen. The sound engulfed and washed one into the core of the event. Screw DVDs and HD TVs. This film could only be truly experienced in an IMAX. 

Behind me, the Fed Hillites sang-along, woo-whooed and shouted Free Bird. Grams and Pop-pop five seats down were not immune and Grams did not hide her appreciation every time we panned close to Bono's designer jeans. Speaking of which I should be happy about the crotch shots but up close to one of the sexiest men alive I could not help but think that the way he wore his $5,000 denim kinda reminded me of how my Tatay would wear his pants. NOT GOOD. Good for my dad cause he's analogous to Bono but for me, nooo! Not good at all. Aargh! It shouldn't be. Aaack! You are #1 in my list of sex symbols I'd like to hear singing in my shower. Why, Bono? Baah-keht?

The song below is a favorite from their How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb album and has driven me to tears early into U23D. I once have "theme-songed" this to the wrong couple of people in the past tarnishing one great song every time it plays in my i-Pod. Stupid me when I needn't have looked farther than my own blood to dedicate this to. If there's one thing these Irish lads have taught me is that family is the greatest rock band in the universe.

Nay, Tay, and all the rest of my lovies click on play  below or click here for the lyrics. Thanks for all the unequivocally loving and supportive e-mails. Love and miss you.

Season's Greetings To Fellow E-heads Everywhere

This was meant to be posted as a comment to my friend, Jean's profile but friendster does not seem to allow embedding from YouTube in their comments boxes anymore. WTF.

Anyways, this band deserves more than and, encompasses any kind of box. They are the best thing that has rocked the swill-fest that is Philippine entertainment. Always the lovable losers with their profound poetry and sublime sound, they have proven that substance and masa market value need not be bleached, Belo-ed and brain-fed by the likes of Fermin and Nay Lolit. Quintessentially Pinoy wether it be with their tanzan collection or their childhood-ingrained allegiance to Star Margarine, their work in music, video and even print proved that to be bakya need not be a total belief in the witticism of Boy Abunda, by incorporating pop culture, philosophy, satire and absurd kanto-boy humor.

They shattered expectations and made one proud to be Pinoy, but were always the odd ones in the Flip showbiz freakshow, which made them even more loved because they were one of us. Not better or larger than life, like an FPJ or Ate Guy. No Cinderella sob stories. No Richard Gomez working at McDo getting discovered. Just four dudes from UP with a penchance for Voltes V, rock music and a point of view.

For a very short span of years (way too short) in the 90's, Pinoys have been given credit for having working brains with countless anthems like Ligaya, Pare Ko, Magasin, Ang Huling El Bimbo, Fruitcake, Wag Mo Nang Itanong, and the massive, With a Smile. A personal favorite is Shake Yer Head. They may have gone their separate ways through the years, but their words and music still remains significant for every long-suffering Pinoy scattered among the continents and perhaps, for non-Flips who've been sucked into our tight circles.

They are in memories of LVN and Sampaguita movies in the afternoons of our childhood. They are in every heartbreakers and campus crush ng bayans we busted our asses making their thesis for. In every rainy afternoon coddled with the one you love be it your honey, your boo-boo or your nephew. In every road trip and food trip you make running away from your problems. In every drunken sessions with the Magic Sing. In every prayer meeting with San Miguel while bonding with friends over isaw. In every balikbayan box opened with glee or with an "Ayoko nito!" They still sound so damn good and that is a sign of f---in' greatness, man!

one big reason why john lennon is a genius and a prophet and why we've barely scratched the surface of his divine brilliance

December is the month of John Lennon's death anniversary. Decades after this song came out, the words & music of this great man has never been more painfully true.

"A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

We hope it's a good one..."

Thank you Sir John. So much.

september ends II

THANK YOU, FLEA
Originally uploaded by cjbando

Last September of 2006, I had the two most surreal extremes in one week. On September 23 I got to witness the Chili Peppers and the Who in the first ever US Virgin Fest. On the 24th, I flew to Toronto to watch, along with my sister, my most beloved band in concert on the 25th. The day after, one of the happiest nights of my life became one of the saddest. On September 26 I found out my dear friend, Puppy had passed away in most tragic circumstances.

Finally after a year of respect for the memory of a friend, I have finally had the gall and the time to post that one hot minute of sheer happiness before I come tumbling down into a bawling, mourning heap. This post is a loving tribute to love, to a band I love so much it hurts and to a friend I love like family.

Once upon a time in this girl's life, in a Dragon Mansion in the Spottiswoodes of the Lion City, a Puppy named Maribel sees me off, along with our friend Christine, to my first rock show at the Hard Rock with the best advice for a rock fan ever: bring a handkerchief for an Eraserhead to wipe his sweat with. The hankie is still tucked away in my journal at my childhood bedroom, still permeating with Ely Buendia's cologne. Thank you and I love you, Pup. It still hurts.

reflections on a backwater pearl part 1, the rants

They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that'll never change.

-Meat Puppets, Backwater, from the album Backwater, 1993.

Upon arrival at the NAIA, I realize, I have boarded a plane (my third in a series of connecting flights) in Nagoya to my final destination, Manila, and stepped out of a time machine.

There are about ten open cubicles at the fully packed Customs. Two are asssigned solely for OFWs and balikbayans. All the rest, including the closed ones are for the Anglos, the Euros, the snotty, noisy fellow Asians and a Midwestern family of Children of the Corn whom I shared a plane with since Detroit. The Flips outnumber the foreigners 5:1.

The average Flip man has no trepidation to openly stare and leer at any exposed female flesh even in the year 2007. The lighter the skin, the more lecherous the overtures.


It is some form of social buttress to rub in the have and have-nots. A freebie Lacoste tote and a hack-job Louis can supersede but easily cower in the face of true substance and character in most concourses.


To quote the great Jessica Zafra, "It is easy to be mistaken for an intellectual in this country." Peppering one's sentences with English words or phrases and random TV trivia is like accesorizing an outfit or brandishing a cell phone.


The horizons of Metro Manila are riddled with billboards of fair-skinned and celebs endorsing skin-whitening products and cosmetic surgery centers, conveying to the ordinary, hardworking joe who aspire for their lives: If you are brown and your features are less than aquiline, you are not good enough.


Beneath these 50-foot images of misled perfection are shanty towns, perpetually constructed roads, decaying structures, the hustling and the hustled jousting for space on streets & in malls and then, there is the world's worst traffic.

In the face of dust and heat and an unfortunate lack of A/C during one's commute, thoughts form that Manila is a hellhole where hellholes come to die.

Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town

Aah, this song, this song. What earthly word of utter love can you use to describe this masterwork by Eddie Vedder? Jesus Himself must have come down and grabbed this man's arm on the night he scribbled this miracle of a song. By God if this ever gets more beautiful one can explode and create a small planet from one's dust. You may not remember exactly when and where you first heard this song, but you know it's always been there. In the warm fuzzies of your soul along with your first Christmas..lullabies in the safe nest of your mom's arms... your grandma's smile...

Been in a download frenzy lately for music from the 90's. Must be the influence of the Pumpkins at the Pimlico... or my usual angst having been propelled time & again into the reality that my choices are rather unusual by suburbia's standards wether pinoy or otherwise..or it may be just another homecoming anxiety. Shite! I'm so excited yet so dread to go home. HOME. Only to say good-bye all over again.

Hope to sing this to Jeremy and Jethro as I rock them to sleep...

i seem to recognize your face
haunting, familiar, yet i can't seem to place it
cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
lifetimes are catching up with me
all these changes taking place, i wish i'd seen the place
but no one's ever taken me
hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away...
hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away...
i swear i recognize your breath
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising
me, you wouldn't recall, for i'm not my former
it's hard when, you're stuck upon the shelf
i changed by not changing at all, small town predicts my fate
perhaps that's what no one wants to see
i just want to scream...hello...
my god its been so long, never dreamed you'd return
but now here you are, and here i am
hearts and thoughts they fade...away...
hearts and thoughts they fade...away...
hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away...
hearts and thoughts they fade away.

-"Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A SmallTown",
Pearl Jam, Vs.,1991

LET'S PLAY A GAME

Not a Nickelback fan but this video is just too adorable to pass up on. Maybe it's the afterglow of another Virgin summer. Or maybe it's my horoscope. Aw hell, I just love rock 'n roll period.

Anyway, on to the game. How many celebrity cameos can you name in this music video? How many friends, neighbours, and relatives in it can you claim to know? How many cities/places can you recognize here? Participate. participate, participate. Turn up your noses some other time.

I'll give you a free pass. That Nelly Furtado is showing some support for her fellow Canucks, eh? Now I leave the others to you. Enjoy the shallows. The water's fine.

SAVE A HORSE, RIDE A VIRGIN (Year 2): Post-its From Two Days of Crab Cakes, Southern Comfort, and Rock Fests

Amidst the 100-degree heat, losing the Anne twins to the half-naked sunburnt throng in between acts, Wu-Tang and Velvet Revolver; the dust clouds of All-American red dirt; my trampled trusty Ikea mat that has managed to remain pristine after last year's fest; stark tanlines left by my torqouise hommage bra to Amy Winehouse; the Southern Hurricanes rendered watery by the heat and popularity; being shaded by a Walmart-bought Rolling Stones towel; snuggled, comfy, and in raptures wrapped in a recyclable garbage bag watching Pumpkins; picking empty bottles of water to earn the protection of that garbage bag from a summer storm; coming close to a public orgasm at the sight of Sting mouthing Don't Stand So Close To Me; hearing an incredulous "Mmm-hmmm," from a Pimlico gate mama jaded by years of Preaknesses, when I pointed out that the dainty tin of lavender-chamomile tea inside my backpack is INDEED lavender-chamomile tea (she let me through anyway); warding off advances from Hollister-clad jailbaits (just a couple) and; catching the eye of a rebel billionaire causing a huffed moment of panic and mental blabberings about fears of being a querida, nunhood and breaking my father's heart, I've said this before and I say this again and to infinitude (pause for breath): VIRGIN FESTIVAL 2007 WAS A MOTHERFRIGGIN' BLAST!!!!!!! The proof is in the crab cakes.

Click here for more, more, more, more, more, more, and more.

To the twins Lou-lou and Row-row thank you for sharing this year's bacchanalia with me. What a summer! Mini-me, shove your Incubus pics up your ex's arse. Lou, thank-you barely encompasses my gratitude for your selfless persuasive talents over pimp-daddy, Beckham-wannabe trash-collector guy. Here's to looking forward to next year.

I'm saving my grungy Ikea mat and the garbage bag for next year.

2Pac reconnection

Once again in an insomniac state and glued to VH1, I come across the Rock Doc, Tupac Resurrection.

Back in the day, I had gotten wind of Tupac Shakur through a TV feature on Poetic Justice, some US Billboard video show or, a some sneak peek show on movies showing in the States that would likely end up in either limited distribution in my shores or, straight to pirated VHS or Betamax after losing out to Sharon Cuneta commerce. Some time later I found out through my aunt's padala of People Magazine, his performance was better-received by critics than Janet Jackson's debut, and I gathered that he was also a rapper and a post-Rodney King era icon.

Now, I do not claim to be well-versed with his discography. The only song of his that I am truly familiar with and, happens to be a favorite, is California Love which I first heard though Rick Dees Weekly Top 40. Very edgy.

The cool kids of La Salle talked about him on rotation along with all the other MTV idols of that era because they can afford cable TV. I could only get to watch cable then while waiting for my take-out of inasal chitlins (bul-o & tina-e) and 2-peso serving of rice at Nonoy's Barbecue outside the old Era Theater. I did sense he was a figure of reckoning, spinning out of control towards immortality, a fact that escaped most of the Giordano-clad whose hero-worship of him and of Vedder, Cobain et. al. were wielded like Benetton bags. Along with irony.

I learned he spent a good part of his childhood in Baltimore and was classmates with Jada Pinkett in a local performing arts school. He thought Madonna was a nice person and so was Tony Danza. Janet Jackson's people asked him to get an AIDS test before a big love scene. He liked Don Mclean. Like any self-respecting art-school geek, he read Shakespeare. The late Gene Siskel was a fan of his.

As I was choosing a picture for this blog, I could not help but choose the image above though, I was spoiled with choices of him shirtless, ripped, and in deep thought. I'd seen it before maybe from People (of course) and it stayed in my psyche. He just seemed so calm here yet his eyes look like he was about to explode and not to mention, so young.

The documentary, featured him as how both his adoring and detractors remember him. Young, charismatic, arrogant, volatile and fiercely beautiful. His ideals, his passion, his liasons, his rawest emotion, were not merely worn on his sleeve. It was tattooed, pierced and cocked like a loaded gun. Like every cursed and tragic spokesperson of a generation, he shall never grow old--an heirloom of youthful rebellion to be passed on to the next in line. Hard to imagine him beyond 25. No great comebacks. No tour de force at Madison Square. No Oscars. No T-Mobile endorsements. No collaborations with 50 or Kanye or JT. No Live-Aid reconciliations with the former Puff Daddy and and Biggie. Even turning 30 or 40. 

He shall and always will be Tupac.

For my friend Shivaun.

GO, GO, GO....PLEASE!!!

VERY worrying news of late about the incomparable Amy Winehouse.

Amy, you may not know me or any of the numerous nameless who are in awe of your gifts but are pulling for you to live through this hell. You were party to one of the most singularly felicitous hour of my life when you performed at the V-fest at the Pimlico as you have been to thousands of others that hot memorable summer day. There is no doubt to your brilliance and we are all praying for your spirit to get past your delicate heart’s failings.

Please hang around with your anonymous adoring longer not for our own happiness but for your own good. Take care of yourself, love. Help yourself.

I'M SO GONNA HAVE STING'S BABIES

Hello Beasties. Hello Wino. Hello Pumpkins. Hello Wu-Tang. Hello Slash & Scott. Hello Brendan Boyd. Hello Future Gordon Sumner offsprings.

It's that time of year again. It's the VIRGIN MOBILE FESTIVAL 20FUCKIN'-07!!!!!

Wino please don't cancel.

Sting my eggs are are ready.