~* IT'S THE NEW YEAR! STOP THE POLLUTION! *~

Ok, I am typing this amidst the New Year's Eve noise of firecrackers that pollute MY air and render me coughing to the point of quasi asthma attack. Lech. This is what I hate about the new year... the air pollution. Gaah. Anyway, I am currently trying to drown out the sound of "Pinoy, ikaw ay Pinoy... Ipakita sa mundo..." from our crazy videoke-worshipping neighbors with "S-s-sound the alarm... what we have built is gone... Mayday! Mayday!" from my Urbandub Embrace CD {thanks for the gift, Sis!}. I am successful in doing that -- except during the 4-sec. song gaps.

Anyway, I just have to sneak in this story first. I swear, I just have to share this:

So there we were on the dining table, watching the news over dinner (yesterday).
I think it was TV Patrol. There was this news about the cops in Bulacan
confiscating those illegal firecrackers like pla-pla and stuff. To my horror,
the footage showed these dimwit cops dumping the confiscated firecrackers in
*horror of horrors* a nearby creek/river or whatever body of water that was. I
mean, wow. There's EXHIBIT A. OF UTTER STUPIDITY! Sure, let's get rid of the
illegal firecrackers by throwing them on the river! Wow! What a bright idea!
Let's do our humble contribution in water pollution! Yey. I swear, what the hell
were they thinking?!?! Oh. Wait. That's it! Apparently, they were NOT thinking.
Oh dear.

Anyway, late last night, I met up with my friends Abbie, Charo and Tin for our little New Year get-together. We hung out at Starbucks Shell SLEX. We arrived there a bit before 10pm and whoa, Shell was packed! The parking area was almost full and the people of all ages were milling about the area like it was some kind of a mall. Wow. Apparently, the gas station was the "in" place to be! We were there til past 1am, I think. And then we transferred to Starbucks Petron on the south-bound SLEX {Shell was on the north-bound side}. I know. Crazy isn't it? We have such an affinity for Starbucks in gas stations. Haha! Nah. Actually, we went to Starbucks Petron coz the Shell branch ran out of those ultra super-duper special 2006 Planners that Abbie and Charo wanted to claim coz they already completed that sticker thingie they had. After that, we went to Abbie's house for some picture-taking. I think I got home a bit before 4am.


the happy campers with their ultra super-duper special starbucks planners


of course, what's abbie's house w/o the adorable cats?!errm, there were supposed to be two kittensbut the other one ran off before i could take a proper picture



after a coupla tries on positioning the digicam for self-timed snapping, here's our best pre-new year snapshot :)

~* KIKAY OF THE JUNGLE *~

My dad was trimming our yellowbell in our garden this morning while Kikay, our pitbull, was chained to the gate nearby. She didn't mind having the cut branches thrown her way. In fact, she was quite content with lounging amongst the pile of branches. Or then again, maybe she had no choice since she was chained!:P She looked so cute that my mom asked me to take photos of her. I had some fun putting captions on her photos :) She's just so adorable!

~* YEAR-END THINGIEMAJIG *~

I've been googling for a nice year-end survey to put on my blog coz I didn't want to re-do last year's year-ender post. That would be sooo last year (read ala Legally Blonde/Clueless gal). I think I may have the same answer to the questions and that would totally suck. That would mean I have not matured, improved, had any diversified interests or exciting new things that happened in my life.

So I'll do a mishmash of things here...

BEST THOUGHTS:

• Where did we ever get the idea that if we don't forgive people, they suffer? (from: Happiness in a Nutshell by Andrew Matthews)
• Happiness is a choice.
• Don't sweat the small stuff.
• He's just not that into me.

BURNING QUESTION OF THE MOMENT:

• What does the Eraserhead song "Spolarium" mean? I got into thinking what the song meant after seeing the Imago footage of the ultraelectromagneticjam on myx. "At bakit ba tumilapon ang spolarium dyan sa paligid mo?... At ngayon di pa rin alam kung ba't tayo nandito. Pwede bang itigil muna ang pag-ikot ng mundo?" I looove the song. I love the way Aia sang it. It's my LSS of the moment. {Superthanks Sis, for giving me the ultraelectromagnetic jam CD for Christmas!}

RESOLUTIONS I HOPEFULLY CAN KEEP:

• Exercise and put the Ab-Lounge my dad and I bought to good use. Must lose this marshmallow tummy!
• Divert my extra money to my savings account.
• Open a time deposit account.
• Buy only what I need and not what my impulse-buying mind wants. Umm. Okay, I am allowing myself to splurge once in a while especially if I am depressed and only a shopping spree can give me artificial bliss.
• Go to work on time.

BEST MOMENTS OF 2005:

• Our family trip at Subic around Holy Week. My Ocean Adventure whale encounter. My parasailing experience.
• Birthday celebration at 19East with my highschool friends
• When I got my Technomarine watch as a gift for our team's great 2004 performance/in lieu of our planning session in Malaysia that got cancelled due to cost-cutting directives.
• My cathartic SMS conversation during my b-day with The One Who Got Married

WORST MOMENTS OF 2005:

• unexpected bumpingS-into-someone at the friggin' terminal
• When I unleashed my inner-biatch with that *very* bitchy SMS I sent to someone during his -- of all days-- birthday.

BEST BUYS OF THE YEAR:

• CDs: Hale, SpongeCola's Palabas
• BOOK: He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt
• RAM, hard disk and DVD drive upgrade for my PC

WORST BUYS OF THE YEAR:

• CDs: Cueshe's Half Empty Half Full, Soapdish, Smooth Escapes by D'Sound

I REGRET... :

• liking Cueshe when they came out with "Stay". I thought they'd be a great band but the critics were right... they're cliches. And they keep getting jologized by the minute.
• saying "a-hole" in one of the text messages I sent
• not keeping in touch with some friends simply because I think I "outgrew" them

NEW THINGS I DID THIS YEAR:

• Grew my hair long. But damn I hate the longer time I need to spend on rinsing out conditioner and untangling/combing my hair after taking a bath.
• Went to a gig by myself. Went to Fete de la Musique alone coz of some screw up in my previous plans with friends who were supposed to go with me. But I'm so proud of myself that night! I survived being there by myself, just tripping out on the music and frantically taking pictures and videos of my fave bands. I stayed there til the end of the show with much satisfaction for having experienced such a great gig.
• Went retro with the CDs I bought: Pearl Jam's Ten, Stone Temple Pilots' Thank You, Nirvana's [black] best-of album. {Still hunting for Hole's old album with the songs Miss World, Violet, Asking For It...}

BEST GIGS I'VE BEEN TO THIS YEAR:

• Fete de la Musique at the Alternative Stage in front of Podium
• Ultraelectrimagnetic jam in UP Diliman
• Back to back SpongeCola-Sugarfree gig at Hard Rock
• Ad Congress opening day performance of Mig Ayesa

ANNOYING STUFF DURING THIS YEAR:

• How people become way too flashy and over-customize their Friendster profiles with crazy video plug-ins, flying pictures that swim left-to-right and uncool graphic webpage background. That's exactly why I hate logging in on MySpace. Too much trashy profiles.
• How MYMP used to be so nice to watch/listen to but their super duper over-saturation of the music scene/media (think: Nina's videos from the same friggin' Nina Live session) has rendered them totally ear-bleeding to listen to.
• How our cable operator re-shuffled the channels this Dec. AXN and Star World, Myx and MTV Phils. are not next to each other. It totally screwed up my auto-channel surfing skills. And they still don't have ETC. Gaaah.
• How Simple Plan has become way too whiny. Whine, whine whine... that's all they do in their songs. What a bunch of whiny emo guys.
• Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. One word: ewww.

COMMENDABLE PEOPLE I DON'T PERSONALLY KNOW:

• Yael Yuzon - he strives to always keep in touch with the people in the SC egroups. He sounds smart. He exerts positive influence to SC's young fans by encouraging them to stay in school and study well. He bothers to ask one's name when having one's CD/poster signed.
• Xavier/Anna and the rest of the moderators of the Hale egroups - I swear, about 14,ooo+ subsscribers and say, half of them actively posting.... that's one helluva eyesore-inducing responsibility. One helluva controlled chaos ;-)
• Barbie Almalbis - she unashamedly proclaims her faith in her songs and her public image is just so squeaky-clean. When you meet her in person, you just get drawn to her. She is one of those few people who emanates such a positive aura. She is an inspiring person.

FIXATIONS OF THE YEAR:

• Since I got into the rock band phase... Yael Yuzon (SpongeCola), Boogie Romero (Dicta License), Champ Lui-Pio (Hale)
• Getting to as much band gigs as I can. I love seeing bands perform live.
• Buying OPM band CDs. Good thing they sell 'em at a cheaper price than foreign artists' CDs
• Shopping for BIGGER clothes since I gained a lot of weight. (I went from small to medium!)
• RockStar INXS - the music of JD, Marty, MiG, Jordis
• Shoe-shopping and shirt-shopping (esp. the sequined/sparkly beaded ones and the statement shirts... I recently got an "I ROCK MANILA" shirt from Bayo. The word "rock" had sparkly beads on it so it was hitting two birds with one stone!)

PEOPLE I'D LIKE TO SAY I LOVE YOU TO BUT I CAN'T (VERBALLY):

• My family. I love you Dad, Mom, Sis and Dean!
• My highschool best friends. I love you Abbie, Tin, Charo, Mitzi, Ivy!
• Three other persons. Despite how things turned out to be. Yes, I know I'm crazy. What can I do? I'm a shmuck for romance.

PEOPLE I'D LIKE TO THANK:

• God. I know you hear my whinings. Thank you for not being tired of watching over me. Thank you for protecting my family from harm and giving us life despite a couple of ailments. Thank you for the money that we are earning and the food on our table. Thank you for not taking away my family and friends from me.
• My family and friends. Because they keep me from feeling totally alone. Because of the unconditional love they give me.
• Our househelp. She's been with us since I was in high school. She can be counted on and can be trusted. She updates me with Big Brother stuff and other {showbiz} news. Despite the fact that she misses out on cleaning my room because she's too busy taking care of our five dogs among all other daily chores. Despite the fact that sometimes I run out of office attire to wear because she hasn't washed/ironed 'em yet.
• Those who comment a lot on my blog... Ivah and Yuki, you gals top the list :) To everyone who ever commented on my posts: Thanks for posting your thoughts/reactions/musings. I like the interaction:) As for the others, your silence is deafening :P

~* MY COUSIN'S WEDDING *~

We attended my cousin RJ's (Ruby Jean) wedding yesterday at Victoria, Laguna. {SIDE NOTE: *Gasp* I've been overtaken! She's just around 24! And me, holy cow, I'm 27! *panic mode*} The color motif was lavender so I was happy to see a lot of that color everywhere :) The flower girls had purple butterfly wings strapped on them so they looked adorable. Later on, after the wedding rites, some of us were given a thin paper with a butterfly in it, then we all released the butterflies at the same time. Funny, since my lola (but we still call her tita!) had kinda poor eyesight, she didn't know what the thin paper was for, so, umm, she accidentally disabled the hapless butterfly. It got a bit squished :( Awww.

Ok, here's a funny anecdote: so the pastor goes on explaining marriage stuff during the rites and he happens to mention Elton John and gay marriages... my 10 yr. old nephew whispers to me: "Anong ibig sabihin ng gay marriage?" Oh. Great. How do I explain gay marriages being legal in some countries? And in the first place, how do I explain man to man/woman to woman marriage per se? I was not sure if I had to define the word "gay" first to him. I was stalling when he goes: "Gay? Ano yun, bakla?... bakit... bakla ba yung babae (referring to my cousin RJ, the bride)?" Haha! That cracked me up! He was confused coz come to think of it "RJ" sounded like a guy's name. Hehe :P

the bride's my cousin :) ... there i was, releasing my butterfly... one of the butterflies stuck on the shoulder of my cousin. he was not too happy with that. hehe. he was afraid of it!

me and my cousins

~* NOW PLAYING: Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day*~

A fitting song in anticipation of the new year ;-) ...

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.

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

~* LOLA'S 85TH BIRTHDAY *~

Twas my Lola Nene's 85th birthday yesterday so we had this huge family affair consisting of a feast of high-cholesterol/fattening food & desserts (say hellooo to my marshmallow tummy! gaah. must. do. the. ab-lounge. now. argghh.), balikbayan relatives, a mini-speech/b-day greeting from each of us, Magic Sing galore (omigosh, I just realized that we have become the videoke-singing neighbors that we usually hate! haha! ;p) , and umm, more eating and singing ;-) Oh and of course, the pictures...

the happy birthday celebrant
my family (Dad & my nephew/godson Dean - standing up; my sis, mom & me) with grandma

me & my sis with lola

me & my cousins


the grandchildren and great-grandchildren with lola
me and Monty - another godson of mine

~* MOTION IN THE OCEAN TONIGHT *~

Whatever you do choose life
The thoughts on your mind choose life
Wherever you go choose life
Choose life.

~ soul searching {g. alipe} fr. "influence" album

by row: {1} urbandub embrace t-shirt; gabby alipe (vocals); john [john brown] dinopol (guitar)

{2} lalay lim (bass); john [jan] mendoza (drums); urbandub

{3} urbandub {4} reg rubio of greyhoundz jams w/ urbandub

At last! I finally saw Urbandub perform live!

I've been longing to see their gig for the longest time but since Urbandub remains to be a Cebu-based band, their Manila gigs are scarce. The last time I was in Cebu for Ad Congress I was only able to catch a listening party at Kahayag Cafe. Hermmfft. Imagine my disappointment... this one time I tried to catch a gig, it happens to be a friggin' listening party with Urbandub sitting down with everybody else as we listened to their new album. Was supposed to see the Alert The Armory vid there but there were tech problems so we only saw like the first 45 seconds of the vid. Now that they've come out with their 3rd album Embrace, they are making the rounds here in Manila to promote it. So yes, who cares if we didn't have a car for the night. That's what cabs are for ;-) It's a rare opportunity to be able to see Urbandub so I went to Capones together with Tin and my sister (who started to like Urbandub upon hearing A New Tattoo and No Ordinary Love as my blog's background music)

This acid-jazzy band called Sound opened the show. They have this cool Di Na Natuto (Gary V) lounge-sounding version. After them, this urbandub-y sounding band called Angulo performed onstage. They're quite good... I like their sound :) I guess it's because their guitar riffs and vocals sounded like Urbandub. Oh. And their drummer looks kinda cute in an Adam Sandler kind of way ;-)

Fresh from the NU Rock Awards, Urbandub proceeded to Capones. I was surprised to know that I am actually taller than Gabby. He's probably less taller than Yael (SpongeCola) -- if you know what I mean. Nevertheless, Gabby rocks! Actually, all of them rock! Lalay... wow, such an astig gal on bass. She sooo rocks! Jan's furious poundings on the drums is just great. John Brown makes you wanna rock yourself out with all that high jumping up and down while doing killer guitars. Darn it, I would have wanted to snap a pic of him while in mid-air but it's all too fast. Oh well.

They basically sang songs mostly from Influence and of course, Embrace. Oddly though, they didn't play A New Tattoo and Alert the Armory. Gabby was a bit sorethroat-y by the end of the set so he asked Reg Rubio of Greyhoundz (gasp. sya pala yun. he was just in front of me) to jam with them.

Then, I think that was Velcro who performed after Urbandub.

By 1AM, Capones looked like an after-show party for the NU Rock Awards. We spotted Rivermaya's Rico Blanco and Mark Escueta; the drummer of Mojofly (that ___ Alejandro guy); Jr. Kilat; Boogie Romero of Dicta License [hmm. funny how everytime I see him he's like walking in slow motion. ya know, like in the movies. nakakatulala. damn.]; The Dawn; and, no less than MiG Ayesa [with wife Simone (if i remember her name right)]. Thus, an impromptu jam session with Jr. Kilat [Yep. Sya si M-16. At your service, bai! Dang. Why oh why do I know the lyrics to this song?!? Ackkk.] I didn't understand what the heck he was singing but anyway, the reggae-rock sound of Jr. Kilat was quite ok with me.

We were supposed to leave already after the Jr. Kilat set but then The Dawn played and called on MiG to jam with them. They performed U2's In the Name of Love. I think they started with Unbelievable by EMF. MiG performed in true RockStar INXS fashion. They requested MiG to try the bongos and he graciously granted the request. Hmm. That didn't fly though.

mig ayesa jamming with the dawn. aww, there's buddy zabala. sniff. i remember the good ol' e-heads days again...

Wow. And to think the entrance we paid at Capones was just P120. One friggin twenty for all those bands who performed. That was so sulit!

So there. We left Capones around 3:20AM. I think I got home around 4AM.

~* PARA SA MASA *~

My friend She from Honda had complimentary tickets for the ULTRAELECTROMAGNETICJAM: The Music of the Eraserheads album launch in UP Diliman (a very apt venue coz it was the alma mater of the e-heads) so without any prior notice, I found myself on my way to the far side of QC come 7:30pm last Nov. 29. Twas an instant gig night with Rose, She and Rick (my college friends). I didn't have a digicam. I was wearing a friggin' business jacket. We didn't have dinner. In our hunger we made patol to the P20 siopao for sale at the UP Theater. We had a siopao-eating contest. I ate siopao asado (which I am not too crazy about, by the way!) in record 3 mins. or so. And we were standing at the lobby while eating and gulping mineral water at the same time. We were in so much hurry to go in by 9pm coz we would've lost our good seats if we came a minute later. So there. We were in row 5 (I think), right near the center/right stage.

Twas a two-band stage set-up thingiemajig so the whole gig was fairly fast-paced. While one band was singing on one side of the stage, the next band was already setting up on the darkened other side of the stage. A video interview of Ely, Raymund, Buddy and Marcus, and the bands who performed that night was interspersed throughout the show.

I think almost everybody there grew up hearing e-heads songs. I found myself automatically singing along to the e-heads songs I fondly recalled. It felt really nostalgic to be hearing all those e-heads songs. I think I was around 2nd year high school when Ligaya became their break-out single. Ahhh, those were the days.

clockwise: spongecola's yael yuzon, barbie almalbis, e-heads' marcus adoro and imago's aia de leon

South Border opened the show with their rendition of With a Smile. A slew of big-name bands played after them: Kitchie Nadal sang Ligaya (ermm, imagine her sleepy dragging voice singing the boppy tune. tsk, tsk.), SpongeCola did Pare Ko (tsk. sana they adjusted yael's mic stand while there was no spotlight on him yet. hayyy. wawa tuloy.), Sugarfee and Imago sang tunes unfamiliar to me. Radioactive Sago Project performed Alcohol (the vocalist cleverly put a kodigo of the lyrics on a bottle of *whatelse* an alcohol). Paolo Santos sang Magasin with e-heads guitarist Marcus Adoro (the crowd went wiiiild with him playing onstage. Some gave him a standing ovation while some did a we're-not-worthy motion), MYMP sang Wag Mo Nang Itanong. 6CycleMind was very lucky to have gotten the song Alapaap coz this song got everyone pumped up, jumping up and down (funny, the vocalist jumped off the stage to elicit audience participation but he forgot that the stage was quite high and there were no stairs in front. so by the time he wanted to go back on stage, he had to time his big jump while the guys up on the stage pulled him up. haha!) . Barbie Almalbis sang Overdrive, Cueshe did (a so-so version, in my opinion. tsk, tsk.) of Hard to Believe, Orange & Lemons performed Wag Kang Matakot and this Tori Amos-y artist called Isha (whom I haven't heard of prior to this tribute album) sang Torpedo.




ito ay para sa mga masa
sa lahat ng nawalan ng pag-asa
sa lahat ng ng aming nakasama
sa lahat ng hirap at pagdurusa
naaalala niyo pa ba
binigyan namin kayo ng ligaya

ilang taon na ring lumipas
mga kulay ng mundo ay kumupas
marami na rin ang mga pagbabago
di maiiwasan pagkat tayo ay tao lamang
mapapatawad mo ba ako
kung hindi ko sinunod ang gusto mo

pinilit kong iahon ka
ngunit ayaw mo namang sumama

ito ay para sa mga masa
sa lahat ng binaon ng sistema
sa lahat ng aming nakabarkada
sa lahat ng mahilig sa labsong at drama
sa lahat ng di marunong bumasa
sa lahat ng may problema sa skwela
sa lahat ng fans ni sharon cuneta
sa lahat ng may problema sa pera
sa lahat ng masa

huwag mong hayaang ganito
bigyan ang sarili ng respeto

{e.buendia} (p) 1997 BMG Records (Pilipinas), Inc.[from the album "sticker happy"]

By the time the last band finished playing on stage, the audience didn't budge from their seats. We were all hoping for the e-heads to come out of the backstage and do a number. Or maybe a speech. Or a simple wave and smile to the crowd whose lives their music touched. Dang. Nothing. No e-heads appearance. I remember seeing Raymund Marasigan at the parking lot so I know he's there. And Marcus Adoro, of course, was definitely there (oh well, at least he jammed with Paolo S.). Sigh.

Anyway, I got goosebumps and felt this lump on my throat as "Para Sa Masa" was played as some sort of a closing/goodbye song to the audience as we milled out of the theater.

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. The e-heads memory lives on. The e-heads will forever rock. They may have their own bands now but nothing will ever come close to the ultraelectromagnetic legend of Eraserheads.

From http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=goodLife04_nov28_2005:

Here’s a legend any Filipino music lover would attest to be true:
A dozen years ago, four brilliant but then underrated musicians cast rocks into a pond.

Then lo and behold! Instead of causing ripples, it created a tsunami that swallowed everything in sight.

They were The Eraserheads. The pond was Original Pilipino Music.

And the tsunami was pop alternative; proudly Pinoy, made flesh then and has dwelt among us since. The end. Not yet.

Years after Ely Buendia, Raymund Marasigan, Buddy Zabala, and Marcus Adoro a.k.a. Eraserheads parted ways, the music of the acknowledged flag bearer of Pinoy pop alternative music continues to run through the veins of the very generation they defined. It’s all because they made nine groundbreaking studio albums that collectively sold more than a million copies; churned out, oh, only just about dozen or two hit singles that composed the collective soundtrack of a nation and; won every imaginable award the industry could give them.