Far From Neutral Notions - Philippine politics, culture and stuff

A friend emailed this to me on Valentine’s day (hence the 14), actually, and felt the urge to blog about it just now. Just a peek into what I’m listening to I always have my iTunes on shuffle mode; since I don’t have a lot of space on my hard drive, I never save songs I wouldn’t want to listen to on any given moment. In fact, that’s the best part about my music collection: one minute I’m working away on something, oozing agression while listening to Pantera’s Fuckin’ Hostile, the next I’m being soothed by Ka Freddie’s Alaala

So here’s a random 14:

Let me just say right now that I actually own the original CD’s (yeaaaaaah riiiight) for most of my collection

Honest

The last CD you bought is:

Dream Theater, Live in Budokan. Lent it to Jean, and I see no point trying to get it back, since, well, stuff happened. I hope she listens to it from time to time. I hope she thinks kindly of me, if at all.

Write down five songs that meant a lot to you/your relationship:

Hoo boy. I’m not gonna write down my favorites, just those that really *do* mean a lot…

1. Drive by Ziggy Marley
2. I’ll Be by Edwin McCain
3. Ikaw ang aking mahal by VST
4. Fly me to the moon
5. Moon River

Now there’s a story behind each song, and it’s about a girl. Just one girl. The one that got away…

Dammit, time for some Children of Bodom…

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It’s been one hell of a nerve-wracking week, and I’m glad everything got sorted out. A friend of mine was at the wrong place (read: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and the wrong time (read: the day a piece of jewelry was missing) and, being easy targets all foreigners are in that harsh desert land, was accused of the theft. I didn’t know what I could do, but thoughts of rasing hell over at DOLE and an infinite number of government agencies came to mind. Thankfully it did not come to that (and I never had to come to grips with the impotence of the Philippine government when it comes to protecting it’s citizens), as the piece of jewelry was just misplaced it seems, in the car of the accuser.

Arabs.

This recent encounter also made me realize how much of a racist I can be. I was all too ready to denounce an entire nation - and how easy it would be, wouldn’t it? They’ve always been brutal in our view, these Middle Easterners. Terrorists. War mongers. Their laws are totally alien and cruel to the “modern”, “civilized” (read: westernized) thinker. It’s so easy to hate them, especially when something like what happened to my friend happens. Especially with all of Bush’s rhetoric floating around. Especially given their ancient animosity with Israel, whose Judaism is infinitely more palatable to the Chrisitian mindset than Islam. And after all, they themselves are among the most racist in the world.

So easy. And it’s all I can do not to.

Edit: I got off track with this post; it was supposed to be on the power of prayer, and how God always comes through. I just got so angry… but I’m glad it’s all over

In other news

I gave a seminar on PHP-MySQL-xHTML-CSS for the graduating class of AMA Caloocan yesterday, and it struck me how totally unmotivated the students were. It’s like there’s this blanket of indifference over all of them - which either speaks badly for my speaking skills or their outlook in life. For their sake, I hope I’m just boring

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How come I’ve never heard of them before? With hilariously jazzy remakes of the classics “Hey Ya”, “Astrocreep”, “Smack My Bitch Up”, “Rape Me” and more, these guys are a joy to listen to. I don’t see their stuff in Tower Records or Odyssey, but that’s why we have Kazaa and Torrent A must listen.

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Thoughts of Yano invariably lead me to the dreary and lonely years of college - that is, the first time I was in college in Diliman. It’s been so long since I last listened to Dong Abay that I actually forgot the lyrics; heck, I even forgot I had the mp3’s in the first place. But when I came across them, all I could think of was you, especially with this song:

It seems irreverent, doesn’t it, that a Yano song should invoke memories of you? But then again, just about everything does. Everything good and wonderful in this world I have discovered because of you, and through you I have also seen the dark underbelly of this “Savage Garden”. It’s all I can do not to despair.

Just in case you ever make your way back here again, Poodle’s doing fine, the job’s good so far, but the band seems all but dissolved. I haven’t even seen them in months. Dad was here over the weekend to visit lola, she’s not doing so well, and I promised dad to visit her more often.

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In my endless pursuit to distract myself, I recently bought a Wacom Graphire tablet, something I’ve been meaning to get oh, for the last five years Thing is, it’s been so long since I last drew *anything* that I’m admittedly rusty. Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far:

Both were done in Painter IX and Photoshop CS, and I did the guitar in Illustrator CS. I used the FHM 2004 calendar as a reference for Francine, and relied extensively on the watercolor, artist’s oil and blender brushes (Painter). I used Photoshop mainly for the detail work, with the burn/dodge and smudge tools. For the self-portrait I tried something new, something that I’ve been dying to do, and that’s paint using only the palette knife. I didn’t have a photo reference so I kept going back to the bathroom mirror to see how I look like. I *eherm* accidentally made myself look thinner (honest!) but it doesn’t really look like me

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Of late I’ve taken to seeking refuge in the passion of my youth: books. While I’ve made myself a musician, and dabbled in arts and design, there was one thing that I always was: a reader. I didn’t have the urge to create music, to tell stories and to paint pictures as I do now; that came later. In my youth, and unto now, my best friend was always a good book.

I’m almost done with Anne Rice’s The Vampire Armand, only the third book I’ve read of hers. I (naturally) picked up Interview with the Vampire back when the movie was coming out, but I didn’t like both all that much. The next book in the series that I read was Memnoch the Devil, much later, and it got me hooked. Of course, that was two years ago, and in that time I’ve read a grand total of fourteen books, I think. Subpar for me, but I’ve been busy and too cash-strapped to part with almost PhP400 (around $7), even for the Dune prequels (I have Wrandell to thank for lending me his books )

But now, a new job and a less hectic life later, I’m glad to be back to my Neverland. Waiting for me are The Vamprie Lestat, The Queen of The Damned, and Pandora all by Anne Rice (yes I know I’m not reading them in order, but those were all I could find and it’s not really a ’series’ anyway)

I may not be the happiest of men, or the most satisfied, but as escapists go, I think I’ve done well

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Kaydee rasied a most interesting question a few posts back: ‘could you find some inspiration?’ and the quickest answer I have is ‘I’d better’ …

I wear my emotions on my sleeve, and that’s not always a good thing. I can be the most productive man on the planet when my personal life is going smoothly, but when the shit hits the fan, well… everybody gets crap on their faces. Damn if that’s not an awful mental picture.

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