jason lee, not the actor

i’ve been a fan of jason lee since my girlfriend told me that earl and randy were like spongebob and patrick. i then started noticing him from movies like jersey girl and almost famous. then after watching alvin and the chipmunks (which at first i had no interest in watching but since jason lee’s in there…), i browsed upon earl’s imdb profile and learned that he was a former skater! not just that – a pro boarder! so i started looking for youtube videos. imdb says he was in sonic youth’s 100% skateboarding video so i watched that. it was fun seeing him at a young age – to the point that i’m laughing when there’s nothing to laugh at. then i stumbled upon this video. turns out, he was a legend. read his wikipedia profile.

broken

i know i’m not supposed to write stuff when i’m mad or if i’m in a really bad mood, but this thing crossed lines, broke rules, shattered egoes.

i feel i’ve been scarred emotionally for life. like a bottle of unprofessionalism just hit me at the back of my head. i couldn’t sleep, and all i can think of while lying on my bed, in the middle of this humidity, is that incident.

sure sure, everbody’s experienced a scuffle with their boss before – so i shouldn’t complain right? but when i got shouted at, it brought back childhood memories that has been long buried six feet under my life’s experiences. just like every tension-preventing person would do, laugh it off. watch tv or something. observe kittens. watch youtube clips of baby bears fighting playful with one another. get a massage.

which makes this thing really big because it has gone beyond the barriers of my temper. i’m not even mad… i think it broke me.

thursday last friday

just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, pulp announced that foreign act thursday was coming to town to play and make emo kids happy. before the end of 2007, i was already informed that a couple of my favorite bands would play here. the rumor wasn’t true though for the used, but upon learning that thursday will be playing here – foreign redemption.

what’s really great about foreign bands coming here is the fact that they’re not here too often, that’s why i think 2008 is the biggest year for music here in the philippins. all those great international bands give our local acts a great chance to show what pinoy stuff is.

i would’ve started a running diary about the concert but i didn’t have the tools (electronic notebook) and because i’m too lazy (this is my first post in about two weeks). so i’m gonna try my best to tell you everything that happened the friday night that thursday played.

what a relief it was finding anto, keies, and mei because we were a bit lost in makati. so the temperature of the place (a-venue) was really comforting. about 30 minutes before the first band started, we came up with this great idea of taking pictures of people’s shoes for our already frustrated attempt to start a cool website for the youth. then after a few minutes, we started readying for the show as we stood up front.

first band was april morning skies. i didn’t know much about them aside the fact that they were with tower of doom which is my friend’s band’s label as well, so they probably played hardcore/punk/emo or something. and so they did. i didn’t really like them too much. i thought they tried too much to impress thursday and i’m really not a very big fan of growling the lyrics to a song all the way (growling is very different from screaming). i wasn’t alone in not liking them, some of the other audience was shouting “last song!” on their third song. now, that wasn’t very respectful of them but they were at least shouting what they thought: that this band wasn’t good enough to front for thursday.

next band was anggulo (which i think everybody is mispronouncing). they a bit (a bit) better than a.m.s. but was too soft. they, like a.m.s., were trying too hard to impress everybody that they were doing the opposite (plus, dressing up like my chemical romance didn’t do them any good). seeing them play here didn’t do anything good to those who heard them for the first time – not in an environment like this.

the third band is good enough to be main act for most of their gigs, chicosci. however, i’m too prejudiced to write anything good about them. they became emo (to the point that they are imitating my chemical romance. seriously, what’s with mcr that everybody wants to be like them? i think it’s gerard’s boyishly handsome looks). they’re so arrogant that they called all their fans vampires, they worship the devil, and they still play the song that made them famous (paris, it went 52 weeks in the nu107 midnight countdown which i think is impressive). you know which bands still play the songs that made them famous? the old ones who are trying to make a comeback with their 50-year old singer and 25-year old guitarist. those songs shouldn’t be allowed to be played in concerts unless you’re a really great band that has never stopped playing and are still very active in 20 years.

last band to front was typecast which played a great 5-song set. i thought it was fitting that they were the next to last band. the 4 front acts went from not so good to really good before the main event. i was really happy seeing them again for the first time in about 3 years (last time i saw them, i really didn’t know them and was intruiged as to why everybody was shouting “try me! try me!”). they started with an explosions in the sky-like instrumental which almost made me cry inside (outside i was saying, “ugh, they’re copying eits). their poise on stage was brutally good which made me hate the other three bands more. steve’s voice makes me a bit effeminate, melvin’s beats just fits so right with their songs. and their songs… so amazing when you hear it live (now, let me tell you that i only like them live. when i listen to their record, i hear the words clearer and they’re just too forced if you ask me). what makes their songs really special is how they close them. steve’s riffs has never failed to dazzle me. it’s pure genius. and it made me really think about starting my own band. it made me feel really bad about my guitar skills, and now i’m contemplating about my writing skills. which is the irony of watching them play, they make you feel good and bad at the same time. i love it.

the main act was up. the crowd was chanting their name. i was laughing because there wasn’t too many people (i think only a third of the place was filled up), but the good thing was that you knew that these people were real fans and not the posers that i saw when incubus played here. we all were there for one thing and one thing only, great music. i think thursday is one of the pioneers in this kind of music and is one of the most influencial bands to us filipinos (others are dashboard confessional and the used). this explains the reason why their oldest of old songs (understanding a car crash, cross out the eyers) were such big hits to the crowd. what i love about thursday the most, is not that they are a human rights band (although it’s up there), but because they recognize good music. just before their last song, they acknoweledged typecast for being a great band. they advised everybody to support local music, go buy their albums, go to their shows, not just because they’re our family and friends, but also because they play good music. these words are something you won’t hear normally from foreign bands, and that really says a lot about thursday. now i see why people (including myself) love them.

p.s.

pictures here. and i’m still thinking if i am to start a band when clearly i don’t have good enough guitar skills, songwriting skills and stage presence. i mean, i’m saving money to buy a guitar but now i’m thinking of getting a notebook instead. somebody talk me into trying again.

have a nice life

i’m writing this because i want to congratulate my former co-workers who finally tied the knot after who knows how many years they’ve been together. the way they jel together and their chemistry, i say they’ll have a wonderful life living together as a family. i wish them a nice life.

now back to talking about me.

i never could imagine my self getting married to anyone except with my girlfriend right now. i know, i know, i’ve said a lot of things before but it only makes this one extra special. because this time, i’m proving that i am for real, and this is for real. however, we’re not at that point where we want to marry each other yet which is something that i really like about her. we’re not hurrying things up (a major major personal mistake in the past). we’re not talking about it, or about kids – but we do talk about kids our own. and the most important part, we are determined to make things work which i think is essential to every relationship (i learned this from my good friend). at one hand i feel really bad that i am learning this just now (maybe it comes with age and along with a bulging belly), but on the other hand all those other break ups led me here so it’s really hard to regret it.

so to my readers (yeah, all five of you), if you want to be as happy as my friends are, all you need to have are committment, trust, and most of all faith. oh yeah, love is good too.

expect the unexpected

i’m just startled right now. my co-worker just got his shoulder dislocated just by giving a high five. man i’m just so shocked right now. bedazzled, dazed, stunned like i was in the receiving end of a kabuki warrior’s blinding powder. now they’re bringing him to a nearby hospital.

this just shows you that some things are just so unpredictable and you can never be sure of what’s gonna happen next. forecasting things like these are just preposterous and absurd. i should know this because i’m in the operations side of a contact center and we always forecast how many calls we are going to receive in any given day – and we usually are wrong.

while i’m writing this, i got another news that my former boss got into a bus accident and was injured and is in the hospital. man, they just keep coming.

however, an epiphany came to me while thinking of these things. i now know the real meaning of the phrase “expect the unexpected”. it shouldn’t no mystery to any of us that these thing indeed will happen to anybody including our peers. so we shouldn’t be enraged or be deeply saddened by to the point that we’re suicidal or whatnot. these things will never be permitted unless granted (if you understand what i mean). everybody hurts, everybody dies. everybody will cry, but never let them affect you because they are unexpectedly expected.

mentally sick monday

more about my sleeping predicament

so i finally got more than 4 hours of sleep for the day. i think i got 6 or 7 hours and i wanted more. not the kind of want that’s on my mind – my body wanted it. meaning i’m in bed after 7 hours and my eyes were still sleepy. unlike previous days where i was making my eyes feel sleepy. so this was different. it was so different that i was pondering about calling in sick to sleep more.

i didn’t call in sick. i was being professional. yeah, my new thing is to be professional and be a role model to my team because i’m already one of the senior guys and i wanted to be an example to them. i started by going to work real early like one of those basketball players who goes to work the earliest and also the last one to leave – something like that.

writing for a magazine

so last week i was contacted by this guy who was like an editor for a local magazine. i submitted an article to them about a year ago and he told me that they were going to publish it and they are scheduling me for a headshot. i thought it was cool because i like writing even though i’m not very good at it.

writing is in my genes to tell you the truth. my grand daddy was a well known novelist in the philippines. you can’t find him online or whatever but you can try googleing “d.g. dumaraos”. it’s really cool. his work was the screenplay for the very first rated r movie in manila. that feat is not very appealing but i think it’s nice to be the first of something. i think i’m the first person to talk to himself on his own blog.

anyway, i told my dad that i was getting published and he nodded in approval. that’s how he is, he never tells you how a great job you did but he nods so i felt proud of myself because i made my dad nod. yes, we’re weird. then he asked me if i wanted to try out with one of their publications, he said he’d pass my work to his boss who was the president of their company or something. i’m really hesitant about it because i’ve read the magazine’s writers and they’re all great. i think joey dizon and jason caballa are great writers and to help with their writing, they have music experience and know-how which i think is essential in their work. me – i can’t even finish writing a whole song.

one time when i was trying to sleep. what kept me from getting asleep was thinking of the writing gig. i was thinking of how to sweep their feet over to liking me. but that was it, i ended up just thinking. classic charles.

thursday is coming to town

my girlfriend told me about 2 weeks ago that she read somewhere that thursday was coming to play here. i was really pessimistic about it because i went to thursday’s website and their myspace page but there was no listing there. then i stumbled upon pulpcommunity.com and saw their big poster there, but i was still gloomy about it. the only time that i felt sure that it was going to happen was when i saw their facebook events page.

i guess facebook is more credible to me than their own website. lol.

ranting mood

before i start, i just want to say that the office, the ever-terrific office, made social networking sites legal again. and not only the ones i used to use (multiply), they also legalized the rest of them (frisdfjkanjister, myspace).

the first one to be legalized (man i feel like i’m talking about marijuana right now) was facebook. this was because dell sponsored a group in facebook and i guess they wanted everybody to join the regeneration movement. it was no surprise to me really, it was funny.

however, just days after legalizing facebook, they’ve blocked digg.com because it was stupidly classified as a dating website. a dating website? how? that’s probably one of the most idiotic decisions i have evern seen.

anyway, back to the ranting mood; i was browsing a network site when i got into this ranting mood which i rarely get into nowadays. one of my pet peeves is the use of keyboard network shortcuts. but not like LOL or ROFL or the like. i mean those shortcuts that filipinos use such as using the letter Q in place of K; or removing all the vowels and what not. sometimes, letter cases are used alternately. and the most annoying of all, and annoying being an understatement, bad grammar. never use the english language if you’re gonna murder it on your profile for everyone to see. the grammar police is gonna come after you and will beat you up like cutty’s punching sack.

and what is up with all the graphic comments? it’s a friggin comment for goodness’ sake, not deviant art. whatever happened to testimonials that will say something about the person? whatever happened to good old fashioned descriptive words?

writing songs

in each day for the last week, i’ve been battling a sleeping problem. i can’t seem to get more than 4 hours of sleep which is sad, because in the same week i’ve been sleepy in the office. that really bites because i got my circadian clock back on track in the prior months and now it’s broken again and i forgot how i fixed it in the first place.

so to battle the lack of sleep, i’ve been trying to write a song which i seem to be unable to do as well. i’m not sure what’s wrong with me so i think i need some professional help.

i was watching a bunch of smashing pumpkins videos when it hit me that i wanted to write the same kind of songs. so i picked up my intellectual guitar and starting visualizing songs while watching the videos. the problem is, even in my mind, i’m a very lousy musician. writing a song in my mind is pretty much the same when i pick up a real guitar.

however, 5 minutes prior to the start of this blog and five minutes after getting attacked by a swarm of ants, i kind of wrote two songs. 1 was a song i’ve been trying to build up since a month ago, then another one which just was a production of my constant murder of the guitar instrument.

this breakthrough made me want to call up my friend so we could do something about these songs but i guess i was too lazy again. it’s easier to write when you’re in the mood. in my case, i’m only in the mood once a week and only during the times that i need to sleep.

eminem and proof freestyle

every body thinks im this big rock fan who only listens to rock music. the truth is, i like almost all kinds of music (exceptions are trance, house, country, and filipino novelty music) including rap/hip hop.

my favorites include the roots, fugees, nelly, and eminem. i stumbled upon this eminem video on youtube freestylin with the late freestyle great, proof.

As you will see, this is documented proof of how well eminem & proof meshed when they freestyled together.

slump be broken

writing slump

the phrase would commonly be regarded by most people as writer’s block. but to me, a writing slump is just me getting either too bored to write anything, nothing to write about, or im just too lazy. my laziness has gotten the best of me most of the time. mostly with work and me writing in my blog. i got all these ideas to write about but when i think more about it i usually just do something else – like sleep.

so now that im over the slump, here are a few things i wanted to write about for the past 5 minutes.

a new phone

whenever i get a new phone, it’s usually because of my indecisiveness. i never know which phone to have for a year or two. when i see these other people who’s had their phones for a long time now, i always think: why can’t i be normal just like them? why can’t i just have one phone and not want to have another after about 6 months or so.

anyway, before i sent it off, i had to ask my friend if i could sell it. she sold me that phone and she kind of have a mutual attachement to it. i think i already talked about that in a previous post from a previous blog. i sold it to another friend who was just estatic upon receiving my offer at a very low price – she always wanted to have that phone. in fact, she was the first person i thought of when i decided to sell it.

my new phone is great. it doesn’t do much, but i think it’s great. im never really a big fan of all-in-one gadgets so i had to purchase my stuff like it was unique from my other stuff.

nowhere fast

just before i started writing, i was looking for music to listen to while writing. i initially looked for explosions in the sky since theyre an instrumental band and i don’t have to sing while listening to it. i was look for a good title when i stumbled upon an incubus b-side called crowded elevator. so before i started writing, i was singing along to the song. i was reading the lyrics when i realized that at a recent point in my life, i also was in the same situation. it was not a crowded elevator but it was an elevator nonetheless. i wanted to say something to somebody but i couldnt seem to let it out. of course a few months later, i let the million words and phrases out the tip of my tongue and now where together.

it’s quite cool how some songs seem to be written about you, only it was written because of this band’s experience. only goes to show that people have the same experiences everyday. it could be in a different setting, circumstance or time, but when you think on it, it’s all the same.

so after crowded elevator, i decided to listen to this other incubus song whose intro riff has been ringin in my head since the other day. reading the lyrics while singing to it, i realized that i’ve had the same experience a million times. not on the road though, but in my head.

ever worked on something then you get distracted a little and you start another thing then get distracted again and you end up doing a whole ‘nother thing from the one you started? it happens to me all the time. it contributes to my indecisiveness perhaps. but it’s just so hard to not look at a car crash.

speaking of nowhere fast, make yourself is now my favorite all-time album not because of the hit singles it produced, but because of the first five tracks, i miss you and battlestar schralactica.

kenan and kel

i just finished downloading 11gb, four seasons worth of orange-soda loving, whyyy-asking, slapstick comedy kenan and kel. it’s probably the first sitcom i ever favorited. now i’m fixed for the next two weeks until watch jack bauer.