Sunday is a friend.

Encountering former students who already graduated from college lead me to introspecting certain choices I made in my life. I wonder if with the technology we have today, everything in their lives are like a fast paced download – no buffering, no converting needed. I tend to lean to conservatism and play the “experience is still the best resume” part, but I don’t know. Everything can be bought now, and learned. It’s like you can’t be extra special since everyone can learn your skill in the internet. “We are the same, you and I” is getting scarier year by year. Uniqueness is becoming a passing trend.

It also made me think of how much I miss working in a school setting. I have always loved being part of that small community which nourishes young scrawny minds to sprout beautifully from obscurity. I just have to give it up since I got sick of the measly salary and my marriage broke down. I was in search for some fresh air, and I found it in Manila. That’s a very contradictory statement but let’s leave it at that. 

Anyway, I want to go back because I know I am good with relating with young people. As much as I want to teach, I can’t because I need a MA degree diploma. And that degree is temporarily put on hold for the nth time. I am having trouble focusing with all the priorities lining up. Now. I have a collection of subjects with incomplete requirements. It seems my time management skills are failing. Worse, PUP (my graduate school) has a 5-year “finish your course or f**k off” policy and that scares me since I have like a year to make my life as shiny and bright as those artificial lights wrapped around the trees in the Ayala Triangle.

I have been thinking of old age. Music does revitalize youth, and gives you that sense of being part of whatever generation. But I am currently on the quarter life crisis (yes, I am faaaar from mid-life) where I ask existential questions, and music isn’t giving me that numbing satisfaction to black this all out. I do know that I want to teach and play music for the rest of my life. I also want to own a house with a cool music room where I can conduct my own symphony of madness. I want to own a Vespa, and maybe manage a Mediterranean cuisine restaurant. These are all plausible. But money is an object you can’t abracadabra over and that’s the main ingredient to be able to achieve all of these possibilities. It sometimes feels like I am earning money to just pay for my responsibilities which makes me not enjoy the simple things. I want everything fast paced too. There, that’s me contradicting my first philosophical stand in the first paragraph.

It has been a while since I found myself an inspiration that pushes me to my potential, but I worry that it will crumble too. I want security but I don’t trust that there is such thing since everything in the world is a product of change. And that makes me unfair to everyone around me. That is something I am working on. I worry too much.

I am writing now at past 7 in the morning on a Sunday. Yes, I am working on getting my brain emptied from the lashes of all the morning afters I have collected for the past years, and I don’t know if it’s working.

There will be more Sundays to find that out. 

SWEATER WEATHER CHATTER

It is futile to resist the charm of a November morning.

The kiss of sweater weather, but not quite there yet.

And a litany of change looming in. 2 months to go and a new year. That was really fast.

Thinking. More thinking.

I have always dreamt to be a professor upon learning the joys of facilitating classes.

 Music and Teaching seem destined to work hand in hand in my book since you will always be in touch with pop culture and the youth in general, there will be adjustable schedules and lesson plans, plus my passion lies between those two threads. But only lately did I find myself considering an Arab Cuisine Restaurant business venture. It roots down to my impatience for my parents to find a suitable means of living since my mom is retiring from her nursing job in Saudi. Why not invest on something you love doing - like cooking, I suggested. They just won't listen. Now I know where I got my stubbornness. 

Bicol lacks a good Mediterranean restaurant. Oh correction, they don't lack one - they DON'T HAVE ONE. There goes my slot.

My bloodline is one advantage too. I grew up eating Arab food, with my dad being the best cook in the world. I would know if it's good stuff or not. So why not? I may lack the cooking skills, but I'll get there. And it's Mediterranean food for god's sake - the best cuisine in the world, with its rich aroma and spices. Not like those ugly looking Korean dishes that smell of artificial flavoring. I choose to push my subjectivity here as the only objective truth. Kiss my stubborn Arab bumbum.

Need to do more thinking.

I have learned that there is a new 2-day music festival brewing (search 7101 International Music Festival) early next year. As always, I am ecstatic for I'm one of the few who can't seem to afford to go to other countries just to experience one. Just too much expenses. I have always been frustrated with the productions here for exhausting their audience with folk singer has-beens and crooners, and that kept going on for a decade. This is a welcomed change.

I just hope when they choose the local acts to support their events, they will lean to diversity instead of marketability. I mean, look at it this way, people won't go to your concerts for the Pinoy bands (sad but true). They can watch those guys whip out their repertoire in Saguijo or Route196. They will be paying good money for the artists you are bringing over. Why not put random, but good bands who need exposure in the spotlight? This will be a good platform for introducing deserving bands to new ears. You in turn will reap a big amount of gratitude for giving them the break they deserve.Yes, I am quite biased and keen to mention my band to be part of that train of thought, but I also can recommend others who should be given opportunities like this.

Enough of bands monopolizing the scene. I do know that this isn't their fault. Who doesn't want a good gig? So productions, please, this is not show business for God's sake. Don't milk these bands to their last spill while the other rot in their barrel. there's enough good music for everyone.

I’m not sure if that was a good metaphor, but it was worth a shot. 

This has been the subject of my tweets a couple of days ago, so this blog will be the final nail to the coffin. I hope someone was listening.

The thing with twitter is you can rant publicly without claiming responsibility.

But all your slips, all your outburst, all your good-bad vibe are mirror pieces of you. You are letting the public take a sneak peek of your unconscious mind.

To be found out - for some, is worse than public execution.

Well I still give out my piece of mind loudly. I do admit I am an opinionated prick (but adorable at that). I am starting learn to choose the words because a little sensitivity goes a long way. Besides, I will be George Costanza here and go "I am more comfortable criticizing people behind their backs, thank you very much."

Ah the complications of initiating acceptable social interactions!

meet my new baby: NAMI

Is it just me or fans of Tegan and Sara are generally part of the LGBT movement? I don't mean to be sexist but it is a major observation. Does people relate more to them since they share common sexual preference or experience the same discrimination? T&G's songs usually deal with love and loss, which is also a universal theme. Hmmm. There is a connection somewhere.

ANYWAY.

I have been dying to own a guitar of my choice where I will pour on my savings (last time I checked, that word is not part of my vocabulary) and cherish it like it came out from my own womb.

I know guys don't have a uterus, but there is such a thing as Hyperbole.

I love my pink Squire Telecaster to bits (I lovingly call her "Areola") but that guitar was once a black telecaster owned by Khalid, my brother. It was passed on to me ever since I proposed the idea of Your Imaginary Friends. Besides, he preferred his red Aria back then. Eventually, there was a telepathic agreement on the change of ownership when I invested on getting it repainted.

5 years in the band, and 2 magnificent EPs later, I felt from my heart of hearts that I need to overhaul my sound to prepare for the best things that the next 5 years has to offer. I sold my guitar effects to get a new Zoom G3. I was using a Joyo California Sound for my dirt but eventually disposed it. 

***Currently in search for the best overdrive.

And so, we go back to the topic at hand: finding my dream guitar. Since there is the aforementioned dilemma of a non-existent savings account, Mawhi and I decided on conjugal ownership, which is swell since we were basically in sync with owning the best semi-hollow guitar out there.

We were almost convinced that Epiphone es-339 is it when I got a phone call from Czandro Pollack (Sugar Hiccup/Prank Sinatra). That course led me to agreeing to be the new guitarist of the indie/psychedelic outfit Prank Sinatra (Alright!), and meeting the incredible guitar collector Iman Leonardo, the brains behind the band. This guy knows guitar more than he knows his wife. I would visit him and take pictures of some of his rare gems.

He is instrumental of offering me what I have now: a Teisco EP-8T.

It is a red, small bodied, full hollow 1960's Japanese guitar that was exactly of my specifications..and more! Just look at those classic Teisco pick-ups that can emit a crystal sound, like a bastard child of a single coil and humbucker, or a noiseless, clearer P-90s, but more bad-ass looking.

Iman claimed to have found it one day when he was looking for his harmonicas, not knowing he owns one (Man, he got 400+ guitars. You can't expect his battered neurons to memorize everything). He remembered then that it has all that I want in the guitar. It did.

my muse and my "muse".

Mawhi was equally ecstatic upon seeing the internet images of the model. We did not expect it to look like a stunner with its wooden lipstick finish but boy, we were charmed beyond belief. We bought it home last September 13 along with a VOX pathfinder 10 to complete the package.

We baptized it as Nami, Japanese word for ocean waves. It represents peace of mind and continuous flow of positivity. It is also Iman spelled backwards, in tribute of the good man who dug this treasure for us.