the brewing machine

It was over way before it started. It was 14 months in the making but when it finally arrived, it lasted only for six weeks.

Over at Kamagong Street in the southern outskirts of the wilderness of Makati City, a resto-bar called Booze Stop was the place where I was once part of a band.

In front of blinding lights and all, I played rhythm—and sometimes lead—guitar and second vocals for an act called Scala. I never got the catch of the band’s name though.

Tuesday night was gig night. For a few weeks I experienced the thrill of hearing people clap after every song we play. For a few weeks I took off early from my Tuesday class in UST, hailed a cab, and cockily clutched my Ovation guitar upon arriving at the place.

I felt my ego caressed by the slithering wind each time I strut my way from the cab to an empty table inside the bar. I was living my dream.

Or was I.

In hindsight, it wasn’t as smooth sailing and ostentatious as I wished it would be. The lights on stage were not that bright to be blinding. The crowd was more often sparse than packed. And applause came in every four or five songs, actually.

To add to that, you can count with your fingers in one hand the songs we played well every gig.

It didn’t help to know that I was the least skilled instrumentalist in the group. But because of that I devoted most of my time practicing, particularly lead guitar playing. And just when my fingers gained confidence on the guitar’s fret board, I had to leave.

In those six weeks I learned as much as I did in the whole of last year in guitar playing. Thanks to Pau, the other guitarist.

Scala still plays every Tuesday at Booze Stop. One of these days I will drop by and jam with them. One of the last songs I sang with the group was Play With Me Tonight. it’s not a bad idea for them to play with me again. One more time.

Pikoy was his name and he knew how to love.

The first thing you should understand is that you don’t find it, it finds you. And when it does, it hits not just that fist-size perpetually pumping muscle inside your ribcage, but your entirety.

It’s like lightning when it hits. You get struck before you know it.

It’s like a missile from outer space…from an unknown galaxy. In utter stealth, it plummets down to you while you lie supine in your backyard, stargazing, exactly at the moment you decide to blink. Booom!

And in its presence, the sit of intelligence (supposedly the frontal lobe of our brain) bows down to it.

I once thought that the human mind is the final frontier. I was mistaken. Love is.

It was Doctor De Leon, our professor in Psychodiagnostics, who said that emotion is always paramount to intellect when studying human behavior. I wouldn’t be surprised. Remember, it was deemed capable of conquering everything.

Yes, conquering everything.

Only the creator of everything has the power to conquer everything back. I guess it’s no coincidence that people say God is love.

But I know I’ve just started to scratch its surface. The greater a thing is, the more elusive its true nature gets. I’m afraid that even if I experience it a million times it will remain unfathomable.

It can make you, hey, even complete you. But it can also break you into a million pieces.

Huh. I don’t care. It’s all worth it. For only upon the time when it stops wandering in the cosmos and decides to finally give you a knockout that you start living. Before that, you were dead, a zombie walking on the face of the earth whose existence is without meaning.

Pikoy is a bird.

He ceased to be a zombie (a zombie-bird) since the day he started loving the people who adopted him. When the time comes when he is to be set free, he will be shattered into pieces. But I’m sure it was worth it for him.

It was worth it for Christ. All those wounds.

Amidst all the pain, He was happy.

In a time when the proverbial coolness of rock is as hackneyed as some idiomatic expressions like “she is beautiful inside and out”, a musician finds solace amidst the nonchalant snobbery of jazz.

When it comes to jazz music, I am far from being a guru. That holds true today, but probably not tomorrow. The artists I have listened to who are closest to being considered jazzers are but pseudojazzers only. Perhaps mainstream jazz will eventually appeal to my ears. Mishka Adams is a good start.

Maybe it has something to do with my love for coffee. I wonder if there’s a correlation between passion for coffee and jazz music. Or perhaps it’s my love for books. Or maybe because I’m just getting fed up with rock. Blame it on rip-off artists and posers dominating the airwaves today.

Or, perhaps I’m simply outgrowing my interest for the music of devil worshippers.

Whatever the case may be, James Douglas Morrison is still a genius, John Lennon is irreplaceable, and Bono will always be a god. Most things change, but a few never do.

On March 25 I will be checking out a gig by Johnny Alegre Affinity at Shag-rila Mall. I want to hear them live and see what the buzz on this group is all about.

Joining the bandwagon has never appealed to me. I read somewhere that people under the sign of Leo don’t run with the pride. They prefer to stand alone. Maybe that’s it. Read this paragraph again because here lies my theory for my recent interest in the music of free improvisation. Some even say it’s the musical apotheosis for “freedom”. Wheew! Whatever.

People oftentimes ascribe the adjective “cool” to the music. Yeah, yeah. Jazz is cool. But it’s too lame a word for me. Let me do the describing. Jazz…jazz rocks.

Regine was doing a cover of Southern Sun’s Hold Me In Your Arms while I struggled to get my guitar’s pick-up to work. After a couple of minutes I gave up and resorted to figuring out the chords of what Regine was singing. The chords were F-A/F-B flat 9 in the chorus.

Last night was my one and only brother’s wedding. It was beautiful, surreal even, as he and Ria danced to Regine’s masterful serenade. That part was unplanned, mind you. But the wedding was seven years in the making and it was worth the wait.

Waking up the morning after, I felt quite emotional. Firstly because Vit, my brother for 26 years now and my room mate for 13 years is moving out. And secondly because of a couple of other reasons I’d rather not mention here.

I was sleep-deprived for two days before the wedding. I can’t explain why. I guess I felt the tension of getting married vicariously. To add to that, I was worried that I’m going to use a new guitar that my fingers are not comfortable playing yet. Use the same guitar everyday for one and a half years and suddenly switch to a new one two days before the occasion eh.

So I guess it was a blessing in disguised that Justine and I did not get to do our set.

I’m happy that my parents were happy. And I am even happier that my brother and Ria were happy. It is such a rare happening in our family that each of us can sincerely claim that we felt deeply happy about one thing during the same night.

My only regret is that I did not get to say my piece, because Justine and I were awkwardly doing a Claire Marlo cover. I purposely did not prepare a speech, although I had an idea of what to say. The reason is that I wanted it to be natural and sincere.

This day has been subtly poignant. I guess the Holidays atmosphere adds to it.

But last night was one for the books. The idea was to make the wedding intimate. The last thing they wanted was for it to turn into a shindig. Well, last night was the quintessential intimate wedding.

I guess things will be different form here on.

I am a prophet. I prophesy. I used to be a philosopher who philosophizes. I guess I philosophized my way to prophet hood.

Last night, somewhere between rapid eye movement and wakefulness, I had my first vision. It was that five-foot two-faced liar considered by many as the president of the Republic of the Philippines whom I saw. She was standing on a podium when a six-foot male Caucasian clad in sinister black approached her. The guy was like a black cat guilefully strutting his way to his prey amidst the clumsy mob consisted mostly of paparazzi.

“Good evening Miss President.”
“Who is the gentleman?”
“Bong. James Bong.”

The fictitious Mr. Bong clutches his gun, a cold metal anxiously waiting for the call of duty while still strapped in its holster inside his Armani suit. Then in one swift motion, he pulls it out and shoots the President. As the gun remained pointed at the twitching corpse, it glistened in the cold night.

Mayhem followed. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo lay sprawling on her blood.

The President is dead.

Waking up from my trance, I was thirsty as a horse. But the cold water jolted me back to my senses in a jiffy. Recalling my vision, I smiled. Then I chuckled, put out the lights and hit he hay for good.

I haven’t had the opportunity to test the accuracy of my visions yet. Like I insinuated above, this is all new to me. Right now I can only see the “what” but can’t answer the “when” yet.

However, basing from how things are looking, I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens tomorrow. Brush up on your history and you’ll see that assassination is a corollary of chronic social and political unrest. Death is the ultimate retribution of a leader who leads his people to doom. You don’t have to be a political science luminary to make such an inference.

This can be complicated. But if my visions continue, I don’t have a choice but to make a career out of this. Who knows, I might just save the world someday.

I can’t wait to be in a party or a social gathering of some sort and be asked, “So how about you, what do you do?”

“Me? I’m a prophet and I prophesy.”

I don’t listen to the radio. What’s wrong with that picture? I’m a musician, for crying out loud.

I can understand some professional guitarists who don’t have a clue how to read whole notes, half notes, or time signatures. Leave that to elementary music teachers. But a musician who doesn’t listen to the radio is unfathomable, unforgivable even.

Watch your mouth Vince, you’re talking about yourself.

It has been 16 months since I last drove a car regularly. And prior to that, I’ve always had a car to drive wherever I go ever since I got my license in 1996. And interestingly—it was only when our SUV was subjected to mortgage last year that I noticed—all my life I only listened to the radio when I was riding a car.

Today’s urban culture is so diverse that it’s hard to get a view of the big picture. Most of us wake up everyday with a tunnel vision of our frantically dynamic socio-cultural sphere. You can lead a life that you thought was abreast with the latest trends but be oblivious of the fact that you’re missing out on something awfully popular, or even crucial, to the majority.

For all you know, you’re no longer in the know. Or worse, you never were.

Right now, the biggest and most prestigious sports event in this part of Asia is being held in our country. Go Pilipinas! The SEA Games is arguably the most significant phenomenon in the land right now. But I’ve bumped into a couple of people clueless that the SEA Games are here. They are both call center agents—members of the most significant work force and subculture in the Philippines today

The call center trade is not just an industry. It is a cultural, economic, and industrial phenomenon. Almost a cult. This is true not just in terms of economic significance but also in the sheer numbers of these nocturnal Homo sapiens. It’s hard to fathom how some are not aware of the SEA Games.

Blame it on the rain, not. It’s because of the immensely diverse way of living in the city.

In my case, I’m unaware of what’s being aired in the broadcasting industry, particularly in FM radio. Yet I’m still updated with the latest in the music scene. And I’m not just talking about culprits for the irksome Last Song Syndrome—songs belonging to the mainstream–but the latest hard-to-finds as well. Thanks to MYX, MTV, bootlegged MP3’s, the Internet, music mags, and regular visits to Tower Records.

This was unheard of ten years ago, when radio was the alpha and omega of popular music knowledge.

I think I myself am a perfect inclusion for my previous article, The Reign of Magneto. There I mentioned that Ms. Morissette noticed the preponderance of irony in life, and even wrote a song about it. It should have included the likes of me.

Who reads blogs?

As normal human beings (By "normal" I mean egocentric and narcissistic. Hehe.), our impulse to speak is infinitely stronger than our impulse to listen. Our urge to express ourselves is more imminent than our tendency to take notice of others’ bellyaching.

So who reads blogs?

I don’t have a damn clue how many, or should a say how few, have read my pieces, including this one. The last thing I want is to delude my self in thinking that some actually read my crap if that is not the case.

Stephen King defined writing in one word—telepathy. It couldn’t be put any better. Right now as you read, we are not in the same place and time as when I wrote this. We may not know each other personally, or we may not know each other, period.

It doesn’t matter.

If I am an effective writer, as you read you will have the same cognitive and emotional experience I had when I wrote this. For five minutes, we will have a common experience, an arcane communion of thought and feelings.
Regardless of how we are connected in the real world, while your perspicacious intellect absorbs the ideas and emotions conveyed by my words, we will be the closest of friends.

We will share a fleeting yet personal journey that only you and I can relate to.

Call into mind your favorite book. Chances are it made significant emotional impact on you. Do you remember how the author, through his eloquent story telling, roused your deepest passions and desires? Do you recall smiling or even giggling by yourself (yeah, exactly like a psycho) because the story or the character was hilarious?

How about falling in love? Interestingly, to no particular person, right? But yes, a story can make you experience that euphoric feeling of as if you’re floating in the air. You felt what the character felt. That seemingly infinite emotion that conquers all!

Can you explain why it was so difficult to unglue it from your eyes until either you finish it or you drop asleep?

And how about when you’ve finished reading, closed the back page, held the book with both hands and contemplated? You looked blankly into space and acknowledged the fact that the story touched you. And you like the feeling. It’s almost addictive.

What the writer was successful at doing is connect with you telepathically. Penetrated your mind and stirred your heart even though he wrote it in a different place and time.

So what’s your book?

I know mine.

There, for five minutes we thought of our favorite book. I know you know what I mean by saying it made us fall in love. We understood each other. We knew each other.

We took that ephemeral telepathic ride together when you read what I wrote.

For five minutes.

But now that five minutes is over. I don’t know who you are again. No matter what I do, I cannot know who you are reading this article.

I don’t have a clue, but I’m content.

No art form is meant to be the bread-and-butter for the artist who practices it. Works of art are products of spontaneous spurts of the creative instinct, which are usually unleashed by highly emotional or intellectual stimuli from daily experiences. It is a rare ability to be able invoke one’s creative prowess on-call.

For today’s gallant artisans who have their craft as their day job, there is one thing they dread experiencing more than the common flu. It’s called the “artist’s block.”

I aspire to be a writer by profession someday. Being a columnist would be quite fulfilling, not to mention keeewool. And yes, I think every aspiring writer wishes to write a book and have it published and read by a multitude of readers.

But how can I expect to be a writer if I can’t even regularly write a decent entry on this blog? How do those guys do it? How can they put verbal wizardry to use on-call? Stephen King said on The Master on the Craft to prod your self to write everyday. The idea is to make quality-writing part-and-parcel of your daily activities, to be your second skin.

And that is the remedy for the writer’s block? I guess I have to try it first before questioning.

Anyway, whether I land a writing job or not, I will still write for this blog. And who knows, I might inspire somebody. And maybe with that one bored pathetic bum, who is a computer addict at night and a potato couch during the day, I could form an alliance. Later on we might decide to form a cult, with me as the morale leader and him as my liaison for our goings-on with future affiliations with international secret societies.

I will call it The Priory of Vincent, a new world order for the brave and the enlightened. And it will be such a cool success story because it all started with an ordinary blog entry

Who knows, it might be THIS blog entry.

Shit it’s almost 5PM! I still have a class!

I think I’ve accomplished something just now. I think I overcame my writer’s block for today. Cool.

It took a whale free-falling from 50,000 feet above sea level, experiencing firsthand acceleration-due–to-gravity while asking “what is my purpose in life?” to prod me to write another entry. The picture you have in mind may be utterly surreal. That’s exactly the word to describe the movie from which that scene of the philosophizing falling whale came from.

No it’s not a Charlie Kaufman or a Cameron Crowe film. In fact I don’t know who that brilliant-bordering-to-schizophrenic screenwriter is. If you happen to pass by Video City, you might want to check out Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In this flick, a narcissistic president whose demeanor is a cross between that of a rock star and a futuristic prince governs the entire galaxy. It also features a super computer whose answer to the “ultimate question” is a numerical value—42. When asked by the galaxies population to expound on it, the computer rationalizes that they did not give an exact definition for the “ultimate question” hence it gave some sort of a, numerical estimate. If you don’t get it, so do I!

A controvertial fictional book whose title, Where God Went Wrong, was also fleetingly mentioned in the story.

But all these out-of-this-world stuff entered the picture when Vogons—eight-hundred-pound monsters with an IQ of an eight-year-old kid—annihilated planet earth to pave the way for the construction of a transportation system that makes use of applications of cutting edge quantum physics. Wheeew!

Deep!!!!

But wait a minute. This flick really is a comedy more than anything else. Despite being a sci-fi movie with tremendous philosophical undertone, it’s fraught with silly comedy in every scene.

If you’re having a hard time imagining how this film really is like, just go check it out for your self. But hold on tight to your sanity, because this movie’s psychotic brand of comedy might snatch it right at the get-go.

Yeah.

What is boredom? Is it sufficient to define it as the state of being bored? But what does “bore” mean? Does it mean being weary due to things that are too dull and monotonous? But what is insomnia? Is it really the prolonged inability to obtain adequate sleep? Does boredom beget insomnia or does insomnia beget boredom?

But boredom stirs the mind. It tickles the heart. It rouses the creative facets of the human intellect. So what now? Is boredom good or bad?

Is it then justifiable to say that creations of art are mere slipshod experiments of the bored, the confused, the tormented, or even the neurotic? Is poetry simply laments of a jerk? Throughout history there have been evidences of the thin line between genius and lunacy.

But to regard art as a mere and necessary consequence of boredom, insomnia, bewilderment, or lunacy drags it down to the squalid nature of these four concepts.

But what is understanding? Is it the ability to perceive and explain the meaning or the nature of somebody or something? Do you understand that definition at all? Does such a definition give you an understanding of “understanding”?

Is it literally the result of the sum total of an infinity of neural impulses that occur every millisecond inside our brains?

Is the whole really greater than the sum of its parts? And by seeing the bigger picture, will we really achieve understanding?

Tell me, why is it necessary for me gain understanding of the nature of boredom now that I am experiencing it?

Hmmm.

Good question.