Indulgence

ending it with a bang

Kobayashi Issa
Far-off mountain peaks
Reflected in its eyes:
The Dragonfly

I had a lovely evening last night. Scratch that, I had a lovely day. Woke up at noon time to have lunch with my brother and sister-in-law after watching two good movies the night before. I then dressed up and went to Megamall to meet up with Jaypee and we talked for almost 3 hours. We haven't seen each other in ages and I didn't get to go to his television show's launch. Check out Salt, Thursdays 11:30pm to 12:00am on Studio 23. So we just caught up on lost time and had a great time. Of course, we talked a lot about the matters of the heart (or lack thereof) and it's obviously something that's been on my mind lately.

I'm still the shallow type of person who puts looks above all else but I know that unless I get the complete package, there is no real chance of anything happening long-term. I'm screwed by my own set of standards which I am not bending or compromising. This is a standard. I don't want to settle for less. If that means I'll end up lonely, then so be it. At least I didn't go below what I'm worth.

But we definitely had fun whining and complaining about the lack of choice fish in the sea. We need to swim in a bigger ocean, I suppose.

I then took an mrt ride to Makati to meet up with a good friend Cholo, who is here for a bit before he leaves for a wonderful traveling experience. On the mrt, there was a model I've been crushing on for quite a while now. I actually held my breath from Shaw station to Ayala station where we both got down. The model was so close that contact would have been inevitable had I been bolder. Funny thing is, I could've initiated a conversation since this model has been introduced to me before when Young Star was still around and I was writing for them. It was an easy way to just strike up a conversation. The thing I didn't want was to appear pathetic. I didn't want to be thought of as a pathetic loser. I let it go.

Walked around Greenbelt 3 biding my time since I had arrived early. Checked out Tower Records and Music One but found nothing I wanted to get; considering that I had already bought Tori Amos' Tales of the Librarian, Aimee Mann's fabulous The Forgotten Arm, Mishka Adam's special edition of God Bless The Child and Imago's Take 2 on Saturday. They were all great purchases on the day before so there was no need to buy anything for the sake of. I walked around smoking looking for People's Palace. When I found it, I sat down outside, cooled by a breeze that came few and far between and ordered an Ice Tea.

Cholo arrived and from 7pm until 12am, we had the most amazing conversation. His friend Chico joined us and it was just amazing. It's funny to think I've only met Cholo once before but you know, for a fact, you've found a friend. And Cholo, much like my friend Jaypee, understands give and take and he's intelligent and cultured and sophisticated and so it is great to just butt heads with him and pick his brain for whatever thoughts are in there. It was engaging. I think that is the best way to really put it; the whole experience was engaging.

It's nice to have friends like that whom you see rarely but when you do, you are just pushed to your peak. People other than Cholo who do that for me are my friends DC, Michap, Tesa and Brian. The thing that they all have in common is that I don't see them very often but when I do, I enjoy myself entirely. The totality of existence is summed up in that one moment. It could end there and I'd be happy. My Dad does this for me as well but I see him more often than them.

The day before was spent just enjoying a day to myself. With my brother, sister-in-law and their beautiful baby Eve went to Shangri-La and we separated ways as I bought my CDs, fixed my cell phone bill and just walked around and looked at clothes and things that are nice to think of buying but not really, being an impractical thing to do in my current financial situation. But the time that was spent just with myself, on my own terms was bliss.

Friday night was a magickal evening. The Rockestra in Folk Arts Theatre was probably the best concert I've ever attended. It was even more moving than Alanis Morissette (whom I saw twice, when she came here in 1997 and 2000, I think) or Incubus or Avril. 6 bands, 3 songs each with the Manila Symphony Orchestra. It was just amazing. Cambio, Silent Sanctuary, Imago, Twisted Halo, Sugarfree and Sandwich were the said bands. Each one was amazing.

Cambio is a good band; unfortunately, their brand of punk rock did not seem to merge well with the MSO. They should've been more playful with their arrangements and in the end, in my opinion, clashed with Cambio's rock guitars. Sandwich was amazing. They certainly rocked the house and Raymund Marasigan is definitely a spectacular performer; but I feel they didn't use the MSO properly. They felt more like a keyboard making ambient sound rather than an orchestra. Don't get me wrong, the performance was amazing but it wasn't a marriage of Sandwich and MSO. It was more like a Sandwich performance and the MSO was just supplying the strings and brass.

But the other 4 bands were unbelievable! Their performance was completely and utterly sublime. It was a true marriage between rock band and full orchestra. The music became richer, more full, more powerful and moving. While Silent Sanctuary's music has a space for strings in its songs because the band's line up carries a violinist; the orchestra only enhanced this space. Twisted Halo's music just went several notches higher creating epic rock in the likes of Led Zeppelin. Their songs reminded me of Led Zeppelin's Kashmir more in the terms of Puff Daddy's remake Come with Me for the Godzilla soundtrack. It was rock in all its glory.

But the toss up for the best performance rests either with Imago or Sugarfree. Aia de Leon's powerful voice lends well to a full orchestra and Akap and Tangin was just superb and gave me goose pimples and made my hair stand on ends. Sugarfree though had the most intimate relationship with the orchestra, the boys of Sugarfree letting the string section come to the fore in the middle of the song, pausing playing their instruments to help the strings gain momentum and then throwing their consecutive energies to a musical climax like no other. Let's just say I was in heaven. I did not want the night to end.

I had a difficult week and it ended badly with a half-baked segment of mine airing because I fucked up yet again. This weekend was a nice flipside to the whole thing and it was just so amazing that after Cholo and I had said good bye and I brought him to his cab, I knew that I could not end that night with a cab ride home. I had to take a bus home and become one with a sense of randomness again.

I stepped into the air-conditioned bus and it was full to the brim. People of all walks of life were there getting on and off at different points at EDSA. Estrella, Guadalupe, Boni, Shaw, Megamall. I got down at Robinson's Galleria and took a jeep ride back to the street where I live.

I got up to my room, took out a cigarette and lit it and put in Mishka Adam's CD and began to unwind. I began to think of the possibilities. All the possibilities of this weekend. I then lit another cigarette, switched to a Nina Simone CD. Late I took a shower and then after, went to sleep.

posted by wanggo @ 1:32 PM