Achieving Happiness

1) Horrible, horrible thing. Okay, so am not referring to the Macapagal-Arroyo presidency today (and its grovelling subservience to the US government as seen in the illegitimate Philippine president’s shamelesss and pathetic expressions of loyalty, gratitude and allegiance to the Red, White and Blue’s so-called war against terrorism campaign at the recently held UN Summit).

My second-hand tape deck chewed up my R.E.M.’s Reveal album from way back 1991. My favorite song in it is Imitation of Life. Am devastated, really. The song suddenly stopped playing and I panicked. I pushed the stop/eject button and the cassette regurgitated spools of brown tape. Aaaaaaaaaargh.

Anyone reading this with a CD of Reveal, pahingi naman ng burned copy. Please? I really love that song.

At least the cassette didn’t eat the other REM album I was playing just before I popped Reveal. It was Out of Time which contains the walang kamatayang Losing my Religion (remember the video where Michael Stipe’s dancing like, well, like had a neurological problem and couldn’t quite control his limbs. Whatever. I love Michael Stipe) and Shiny, Happy People (o, I suppose you remember the time Michael was on Sesame Street and he bobbed and bopped around with various multi-colored, furry beasts with googly eyes and toothy grins and changed the lyrics of the song to, you-guessed-it-give-the-guy-a-lollipop! - Shiny, Happy Monsters).

Sometimes when am so exhausted and I feel like committing seppuku, I take out my old tapes and listen to songs that haven’t been played for at least a decade. Fine Young Cannibals.Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes. Fiona Apple. Nirvana. The 10,000 Maniacs. Everything But the Girl. Sting singing that heart breaking Ghost Story from A Brand New Day album. U2’s Stay.

Listening to their music helps me block out recent headaches and annoying concerns, nevermind that the amnesia is only temporary. REM’s At My Most Beautiful …

At my most beautiful

I play your messages just to hear your voice

You always listen carefully to awkward ryhmes

you always say your name as if I wouldn’t know it’s you

At your most beautiful…

I used to have a boyfriend who played bass guitar for a punk band. He worshipped the Cure, and he would often sing "Just Like Heaven" over and over and over, and I never got tired of hearing him sing it. Now, years after the relationship (which I remember with amusement and a measure of fondness, holy gee), whenever I hear the Cure I am reminded of how I was like as a 20-year old and how it felt to believe that to fall freely without worrying about the possibility that there wouldn’t be nets waiting at the bottom was waaaaay cool.

2)I pushed my wallet into a coma the other day when I went to Powerbooks. It was just too much for me– I had to get my own copies of the Tahanan series on three sibling dogs Pilantod, Ang Asong Tatlo ang Tuhod; BotBot, ang Asong Kulubot; and Jack, ang Asong Kaaway ng mga Bulaklak. They’re children’s books and I’ve wanted them for so long because of the artwork (the stories are also good, but there’s something lacking in the language. The stories read like the author thought them out in English, and then mechanically translated them to Filipino).The pages are sepia-tinged and everything’s rendered in pencil.

Again, a memory of a former boyfriend. I gave him copies of the said books when everything was still hunky-dory between us. When we broke up, I couldn’t very well ask for them back, could I? But I really, really wanted to, darnnit. Not because I wanted to be mean, but because, heck, I really loved those books, and he was never really into dogs anyways. Flashforward today, harharhar, I have my own copies.Yay for me!

I still have my old Adarnas (Pik Pak Boom, of them. I love dogs), Roald Dahls (not that he’s really just for kids) and a  beautiful hardbound, illustrated (in watercolors) book on Witches. Shel Silversteins, Enid Blytons and harharhar the pride of my bookshelf devoted to juvenile literature- Nick Joaquin’s Pop Stories for Groovy Kids.

My favorite of Sir Nick’s stories in the series are Elang Uling, Johnny Tinoso and the Proud Beauty, and Lilit Bulilit.

  3) Kakain na muna ako ng fishballs at kikiam. We just finished up a small photo-op gimmick on the GRP-Venable LLP Charter change lobby contract which, according to reports in the Manila Times, has already been scrapped. Norberto Gonzales must have swallowed an entire lapu-lapu fishbone when he first read the reports exposing the contract he signed on the sly along on behalf of Mrs. Arroyo. Now they’re backpedalling like crazy.

Am so hungry I could probably eat P30 worth of cheese sticks etc. 

Again, do a good deed and email inaalleco@yahoo.com an mp3 of Imitation of Life.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 17th, 2005 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Hammersmash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.