I FOUND HER.

                                                    the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

rigor mortiz

I wonder about the legacy I'll be leaving behind when I croak.

How many people will choke back tears and let their sobs resonate over the bathroom walls
to avoid questioning stares and fake condolence greetings.

Who will contribute pictures of my once smiling face, claiming to be the love of my life?
claiming to be a variable that got affected by my words, music or my life ---
if there is any at all?

A terrorist once quipped, "it is not suicide if you offered your life for a cause".
I envy people who knows their cause.
I want to determine my fate.

I wonder if I can be a lost spirit hiding behind trees
eavesdropping as moths or butterflies
about tales shared over 3-in-1 coffees and repetitive card games.

Who will be brave enough to recite eulogies
to spread my ashes or throw petals on my new found bed

What songs will they play? I reckon they need to dig up
my favorites. and I reckon it will be hell. pun intended.


DeathCabforCutie.theSmiths.Beatles.Weezer.Morrissey.Nirvana.Pixies.ArcticMonekys.Rarariot.Phoenix.theStrokes.thePostalService.Pavement.theRadioDept.Thirdeyeblind.StoneTemplePilots.FriendlyFires.Lennon.TheLucksmiths.theDrums.Stars.FountainsofWayne.Thursday.Kowalski.MemoryHouse.SonicYouth.ModestMouse.theCribs.YeahYeahYeahs.theShins.HeadAutomatica.theSundays.theCardigans.Slowdive.MyBloodyValentine.EliottSmith.theXX.Oasis.Blur.JeffBuckley.Ash.SmashingPumpkins.SexPistols.theCure.JoyDivision.


Plans should be set.
There isn't much time.

SHE SAW A RAINBOW LAST NIGHT

an imprint, I will blemish on
your lips
iron out the erogenous
with my
signature, dye your woes with loud
syllables
dripping minor-key guarantees
as you moan

your monochrome unmuting its
sad creaking

my bare fingers like a trusty
crowbar will
unhinge intricate details
conspiracies
you choose not to disclose before

to birth
front porch allegories
of how

we created hues in
that TV-lighted room

purrrr me...

poor me...

ANG ALAMAT NG NARSISO

It has been 4 days since I tried this one-cup-of-rice-per-day routine and it seems I am getting used to it. I think the trick is to not really be conscious of the regime. Lourd De Veyra will surely lash against my kind for being “Di Tunay na Lalake” but I own a pink telecaster for god’s sake ( which I lovingly named Areola) so I don’t think I was ever leaning to the macho stereotype.

I also have been walking. The choice to walk home every night can be excruciating when you don’t have anyone to hold hands to, but my trusty Experia has Ben Gibbard’s new album on it so I think I’m alright.

I’m not sure if there will be some kind of effect that will magically turn my limp glands into Popeye muscles but I can always reason out that it is for health reasons – which is a real good reason, by the way.

I need to shed off these extra pounds in my belly because I am starting to look like a human light bulb. The verb Starting is pushing it way too much since this is old news. I just want to feel good about myself for once.

The female of the species torture themselves with over-consumption of food when they feel bad about themselves. What they don’t know is that guys, even if their testosterone-driven brain will never admit it, suffer from the same insecurities. It is another version of survival of the fittest. They want to get ahead of the pack by winning flames and dames, and they resort to aggression and over-consumption of worldly pleasures (sex, alcohol, drugs etc.) when these needs are not met.

Even without this critical analysis over man’s narcissistic tendencies, I don’t think I’ll ever give up drinking. What’s the fun in that? Though I am too open and chatty to ever need some boozing to perk up my nights, it does wonder to social interactions especially for people who are not…well, open and chatty.

I hope to win some damsels in distress soon and maybe the world -- stir some reactions, explore and hopefully, without this flabby suit.

I am drinking tea right now, and thinking of sleeping off lunch time.

ME AND MY DANCE SHTICK

I miss playing dance-y tunes. 4 to the floor beats, pulsating, heart-heavy bass, and funky effect-drenched rhythm guitars adorned with light-saber synthesizers meant to injure your bones by electrifying it with deadly beats. No, I am not talking about the "showband" band kind, dishing out endless EWF covers with a front man resembling a zombie-fied Charice. With all gusto, I will exclaim my allergy to that shtick. This is not your ordinary disco.

2008: Must be the influence of Narda's 2nd incarnation and my love for Yeah Yeah Yeahs that I secretly injected my love for postpunk/dancepunk into my other Bicol band The Doldrums. Fortunately, my band mates were open-minded to the genre and swallowed the pill whole without hesitations. But 2008 is so far away now. I miss playing with those gals (and a guy!). They know how to riot by heart.

Fast forward to present tense:  while I'm listening to The Drums' Portamento and Friendly Fires' Pala here in the office, I can't help but wiggle my butt and sway like a bushy tree (I know that sounds wrong, but all my moves look so damn wrong so that's exactly a very apt metaphor) to the high-mid static of my phone's speakers.

This resulted to me daydreaming of having a band that plays the same shtick. One close call is when Ryan Villena (of Narda/Techy Romantics fame) and Nico Africa (of Narda fame) invited me for a jamming session somewhere in UP village 3 years ago. I was not really close to this guys but it seems they like my singing style, and me – well, let me just say I was flustered from the fact that my idols were inviting me to cook up something with them.

It was a strange set-up. Ryan was in bass, and tinkering with his keys while Nico is adding textures like The Edge learning to do J. Mascis in cocaine, interchanging riffs from his delay-heavy guitar to a reverb-heavy synths (man, I say "heavy" too much). I was asked to just sing along with whatever melody or words come to mind. Not familiar with this rehearsal style, I open up the draft folders of my trusty Nokia 6600 and mumbled words amidst the beautiful mess. I sounded like a pot-bellied Michael Hutchence. And you know what, it worked. Ryan is aiming for that LCD Soundsystem punch and I was heavy on Cut Copy then so our sound was not far-fetched to that dream genre which can allow me to be a swaying bushy tree (see reference meaning on the 1^st paragraph of this blog). We packed up with live recordings recorded in Ryan’s laptop and went home.

Never got to hear those songs again. Techy Romantics got big (and they are one of those bands that need to be experienced live) and everyone got busy with day jobs. So that was the last sighting of the trio.

Going back to the premise at hand: I am very much in love with Your Imaginary Friends (our new songs are awesome!) and a side project Everyday, Airplanes, who’s going to blow everyone’s butt with our own version of indie folk music, is writing more songs (and praying for more gigs), but I hope to find a couple of people to jam with that can do a synth-dance project with me. This was triggered insistently again to my subconscious last last week, upon witnessing how breathtaking the Foster the People guys are in entertaining their crowd and delivering their goods.

Plus, I want to justify my epileptic moves with well-written music. I can sing or play guitar or something whatever. Mark Foster did it. Diego Mapa is killing it. And Ed Macfarlane, no matter how gay those hips are, is a dancing demi-god.

So….know someone?

I DREAMT OF FINALLY TALKING TO YOU

I dreamt of finally talking to you.

your almost-mechanical smile, now hidden in my dying brown wallet
as a pocket-sized artifact,
rippled into a clumsy giggle
against the noise of the morning rush.

I can only hold my breath for too long to savor the echo for breakfast.

"the greatest thing since The Smiths 
and peanut butter", I teased.

I forgot to ask where we are,
if you have found yourself now.

I was not brave enough to bargain 
for answers, but 
restraint is never my strongest suit.

so I stirred my coffee, clanking 
the sides of the cup with my spoon 
nervously hinting that we've ran 
out of sugar this early.

I never really knew how the dream ended
or we,

but I choose not to know now.