Everyday's Like Christmas Day Without You

It's cold and there's nothing to do.

Not really sleepy yet.

Taking a break from the guitar inventory series to bring you what's become a yearly tradition: the Christmas wish list. I understand that it's been a few evenings past Christmas Eve, but would it have made a difference? I thought so.

Let's take a look at last year's list:

• Mac - Typing on it as I, uh, type
• Clae McQueens - didn't get this, but only because I procrastinated until it ran out of 7's. Got Creative Recreation kicks instead.
• Guitar effects and cables - Digitech Grunge and Planet Waves cable, check
  
• Broadband internet at the Condeaux - this was inevitable anyway
  
• An abundance of free time - Oh, so close
  

So all in all, not a bad percentage of "success" for the past year, if that's how we keep score. But I did retail therapy myself through 2009, so all this isn't a surprise. More on this in the Year in Review post, when I get there.

It hits me that one reason that I didn't post a wish list is because I don't really need anything right now now. Nothing tangible, at least. But here goes:

• Absolute Death. The book, not, you know, the sweet release of.
• Strangers in Paradise Omnibus, when it comes out. I understand there are only 1,200 copies but it is a wish list.
  
• A Lego Hotel.
• A Blackberry. Ok that was quick
• A guitar case, and a pedal board.
• A Vox amp.
• A Les Paul.
• A gig to play the Les Paul at.
• To still fit in all my clothes.
• A decent vacation, with indecent company.

Obviously, I've set my targets a bit higher in 2010.

Taking Stock Part 1: Gibson SG Custom

I took an inventory of all my electric guitars earlier. Of course, it was only an inventory of four so that took all of five minutes. But it got me thinking about the stories behind each of them, and that took a wee bit longer.

I'm excluding acoustic guitars because I went through probably seven of them very quickly in a few years since I couldn't take care of them very well. That's what happens when you always want your amps to go up to eleven. Besides, only one of them is still with me or in working condition, and there's no stories behind it. So far.

So where to start? From the beginning, of course.

Where did you get it? I got my first electric guitar in 1993 (1994?)- a fake Gibson SG - from a classmate whose specialty was playing Gin Blossoms covers. He sold it for the princely sum of P1,200, so he could buy what I assume were car speakers. I remember making the transaction in the Ople household - I have no idea why.

He first played (what else) "Hey Jealousy" to show me that it was working and in tune. But the deal was closed when he played the shred part of the solo for "Sweet Child". (The tab and friends call it Fill 1, it's the part of the solo that scales up the neck really fast and is actually played by a second lead guitar on the album. Wooo.) Oh how could I resist.

The SG wasn't as popular then as it is today but I was thrilled regardless. The most popular SG player was and still is Angus Young from AC/DC, and it was also the main guitar for indie goddess Juliana Hatfield and Soundgarden's Kim Thayil, so that was enough cred for me.

There are a couple of things that bugged me about it though. For one, the Bigsby tremolo was a bit out of place on a guitar known more for metal. Second, it hardly ever stayed in tune - mainly due to the trem - and the low E string was hell to keep in pitch.

It's also the only guitar I have that came with its own hard case. Which me and my friend dutifully vandalized one drunken night. I can't understand some of those hieroglyphics now either.

Where has it been? In college I was part of a band that played songs that had acoustic rhythm parts, so our rhythm player used an acoustic guitar while I used his electric. So instead of using the SG I used our rhythm player's Yamaha super-strat, which was a bit more mainstream and was more likely to stay in tune throughout "These Are Days".

My dad's friend used to come over and play Ventures songs on it for hours on end, which made me wonder how he made it sound so good. He died a few years ago and I never got to hear it played that way again. May God rest his soul.

The SG did make it on stage to one gig: Kampo in 1995, opening for Passage. Yes, Ira Cruz probably saw me die of embarrassment. And after that failure of a show I was convinced to get a new guitar if I am in any way going to play in front of people again.

Who was the girl you named it after? I actually don't call the guitars by name, but they do have names. Of course they do; I'm just that type.

I didn't know any girls in high school, so the SG had to wait a couple of years before it got its name. And no, I'm not telling because I've already died of embarrassment involving this guitar once and I won't again.

But the guitar (and the girl, for that matter) did change my life so it's fitting that they share their name.

Why aren't you selling it? Because it's my first. And you never forget your first.

Good To Go

Still there?

It's not true that all my stories occur in 1995. Here's one from 2004.

I resigned from MPI in the middle of a huge project after doing everything I could to save it. Some people will have a different version of that sentence, and theirs may be more accurate, but that doesn't really matter anymore. I was a kid then and a bit idealistic about how companies and projects are run (still am, I suppose) and basically I had enough of office drama - I think my exact sentence was "This is no longer fun." As if that was the point of working in a multinational corporation.

Anyway, people had already known my intentions for a while, so when I tendered in my resignation it was immediately followed by the exit interview even if I still had 30 days to go. In fact I had two interviews: my team lead who was at the project site in Ortigas when I got to work, and in the afternoon with his boss who was in the Makati office. So after lunch I left my car in Ortigas, took the train southbound to talk to her.

The second exit interview took over two hours. Where she found the time out of her busy schedule I don't know. I'm way too honest at these things, and I can't stop talking.

This was on the 1st of October, and I had a night out planned in Metrowalk for the first day of Octoberfest. So by the time that the exit interview ended it was 5:30 PM on a Friday in Makati and I was without my car. And this part I remember quite well. I ran to the station and somehow (on a Friday afternoon) ended up on an empty train car. I made it to Ortigas in fifteen minutes. I asked permission to leave early (everyone else was doing overtime) and when it was granted I kissed my functional consultant thanks and good-bye.

I got my car and made it to Octoberfest with time to spare and got seats on the second floor balcony away from the crowds and spent the evening with cutest thing I've ever seen.

Now that was an awesome day, but somehow it's a day I don't want to happen too often.

In that second interview I had a gem of an answer to my boss' question: "What makes you happy?"

"The perfect Sausage McMuffin on the perfect Tuesday morning with the perfect girl listening to the perfect song."

(I said it was a story, I didn't say there was a lesson.)

Retail Therapy 2

Because I refuse to admit that Twitter has taken over my life, so I'm trying to write something with more than a couple of sentences.

Also, it's the tail end of a long weekend and I realize I haven't written anything all month that's longer than 140 characters. So here are the highlights for August.

Fully Booked on Serendra celebrated it's anniversary and these are the stuff I scored:

• Daredevil: Yellow
• Spiderman: Blue

I realize I enjoy Jeph Loeb's reimagination work than Frank Miller's. Hmmm. Yeah that means nothing.

• Gorillaz Rise of the Ogre
• Sticker Bomb

Yes, it's just a book of stickers. In preparation for my Stratocaster hard case.

Saw Taken By Cars live around five times or more this month, including both of their performances during Manila Design Week. I'm not complaining. Also saw The Dawn at Clubb Dredd and feared for my life.

Tragedy struck my former classmate's wife while giving birth to her fourth child.

Yellow fever took over the country with back-to-back Aquino memorials.

Ateneo won over DLSU in basketball on consecutive Sundays. Saw both games the same way: in Fridays High Street, in the same booth. One-track mind, much?

Work is still work. Bleh. But I did manage to get Sun-certified in the process and basically turned every chapter in the review book into an excuse to drink expensive coffee and stare at girls in Starbucks.

By the way, realized that cross-posting is working again; but that means there's a stretch of posts that are on Multiply but are not on Blogspot. So if you're reading this on Blogspot you missed out on my valuable life lessons and outrageous hi jinx for three months. Which is like four posts, total.

(Just saw options in Multiply to copy to Facebook and Twitter. Be still my lazy, geeky, heart.)

Is There A Line That I Could Write

Reposting from the distant past because words fail me in the present. But that doesn't make any of it less true. Originally published August 12, 2007.

When You Left I Was Last To Know

It was 1995. (Most of my stories start out with that sentence, I've come to realize.) September 11 or 18, I'm not so sure anymore. Pretty sure it was a Monday at least, because Mondays are notorious for these things. That was the day I saw you holding his hand.

To be fair, it wasn't like it was side-by-side-walking-in-the-park; he had his behind his back and you were holding them behind him, as if he was taking you somewhere. Somewhere fun. Would things have been different if it had stopped there? Probably not. But.

Days later, perhaps it was that Thursday, or the next: there's a narrow set of stairs at the corner of the foyer that maintenance people use to get to the air conditioning boxes outside the second floor. I've never seen anyone actually go up there.

Anyway, it's a pretty secluded hiding spot, except maybe if you took the shortcut from the campus' main artery to the foyer, or turned that corner coming from the library. And that's exactly what I did when I found you (plural) there.

Maybe I was coming from class, or just walking around aimlessly because that's what I do when I'm angry or depressed. No, I'm lying: I was looking for you, and I guess it worked. I muttered something under my breath while I walked past and picked up the pace, something along the lines of "Fuck".

Now I didn't think there would be another 5-day stretch that would hurt like that did. I was wrong.

Forever Was Just Too Long

I really should take more pictures and stop relying on YouTube for content.

I first saw Paramita at Fete in 2006 (not sure if it was 2006; whatever year that was when they held it in El Pueblo and some idiot smashed my turn lights in the parking lot), at the "alternative" stage. When Ria Bautista brought the house down playing kickass drums while singing, I actually felt bad for the next band, which turned out to be my friends from the band formerly known as Olympic Smoker. Sorry, Justin!



Anyway a lot of failed attempts, I saw them again Friday night along with Terno bands Up Dharma Down and Radioactive Sago Project. They're still pretty good live, and I still don't know how you can play drums and sing at the same time, even if I've seen the Hell Freezes Over DVD. I can barely keep time playing guitar.

Saturday was the three-way birthday party for some folks at work. Quite fun even if I did go to it alone and officially uninvited. Now maybe it's because I didn't get drunk or anything, but I still don't get the point of kicking chairs and spilling Coke off the roof. So much for your Russell Hammond moment. Left around the same time everyone else did, except those who were clearly not going home until morning. Pics, as usual, are with everyone else.

And on the way home, a wasted Drei sat on my copy of Cutterpillow. Just the reissue version, but still!

My arms and shoulders are sore, and have been since Friday. This is strange because I have not been to the gym in weeks. Am I doing push-ups in my sleep? Can I tell my body to quit it, or at least do crunches instead? Then I'd be unstoppable.

Run Baby Run

Not going out tonight because tomorrow Condura Run is at 5 AM, which is around the same time I'm usually in REM sleep. I'll be on the 5K track so which means I'll be done in time for lunch. I kid.

I had to buy running shoes because I realize I don't want to be the guy who shows up in basketball shoes for a running event. I went with Asics solely on the coolness factor of this video:


Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

Anyway, I'll see you guys at the finish line.

Yesterday was a bad day at work (actually, almost the whole week). Thank God for cake.

And I'm dead tired from all the late nights in and out of the office (more on this if some deep insight comes along; I doubt it though), and earlier today went to Gara's surprise baby shower at SM Marikina. And got lost looking for my car in the parking lot for the second straight night. Idiot.

Speaking of stuff that makes me feel old, one of my old friends from the old work got married in the US recently and I was going through this journal trying to find any stories about her because I'm sure there was a lot. Then I realized I started this blog after I resigned from that company. That's how old this news makes me feel.

Kick Up A Little Dust

When I couldn't land a job after I graduated because of the last recession (or at least I think it was because of the recession; it's probably just as likely I was a horrible job interview), I joined a nine-piece band, counting all four vocals. I don't actually remember what we were called; and since most of the gigs we had were wedding receptions of friends and family, I only know that group as "The Wedding Band". I don't remember ever us getting paid, but the food was always good.

It didn't last long, or at least I didn't last long in it (I probably played less than a year with them on and off), but what it did do was introduce me and my playing to songs and genres that I wouldn't normally do or listen to intentionally, but were still cool as hell. Since I'm feeling nostalgic (plus I have a bunch of one-liners I need to put into writing), I list some of the memorable songs we did from that uh, era.

Breakout and Am I the Same Girl from Swing Out Sister. Probably the most well-known of the set, not counting one pop song (more on that later). The main riff of Breakout is pretty fun to do. One complaint is that we didn't get to do La La La (Means I Love You), which means no one got to shout "LA is a great big freeway..."

Promise Me a Carousel by David Benoit. Ridiculously hard to find a copy of this nowadays. Great guitar and bass intro and that's it.

Midnight at the Oasis, Spend Some Time and You are the Universe from the Brand New Heavies. Fun stuff to play, at least the parts you can actually hear guitar on. I also fake the solo on Spend Some Time. I only have one noticeable part in Midnight (at 0:26 in the video) and sometimes I even forget to do that.


Carnival by The Cardigans. Great song with a riff that goes on and on. Listen.


Fast Love and As by George Michael. I'm not sure if Fast Love went well with the wedding crowd, and I really didn't have much to do on As, unless you count doing the George Michael dance during the chorus.


If You Had My Love by J-Lo. WTF. There's an intro, and all of three notes after that. I think I skipped the only gig the band played that to an audience.

Roll On Snare Drum. Curtains.

I actually wanted to delay this review post until I found a half-decent graphic or video to go along with it. But what the hell.

Eventful weekend just passed with the Watchmen movie and the Eraserheads: Final Set concert.

First off, the movie: I actually liked it, so much so that I don't get why some people didn't. It's a movie based on a comic book whose purpose was to explore the limits of the comic book medium. Naturally some parts of it won't translate well to the big screen, but I think Zack Snyder and Co. pulled it off as well as anyone could have. How many comic-book movies and movie franchises can claim even 90% accuracy with the book(s) they were based on? The Dark Knight? See: that Rachel character. X-Men? See: The Last Stand. Superman? See, uh, Kate Bosworth.

Comedian Patton Oswald sums it up well: "Tell you what -- before you go and see THE WATCHMEN, plunk down and watch CATWOMAN, GHOST RIDER and DAREDEVIL."

Before watching had dinner with Tina, Nikki, Paul and Pierre. This company should have shutdowns more often.

Saturday was the final final Eraserheads reunion concert with Arvil and his band of brothers. That night the E-heads showed us how it's done. (SMART and MTV and whoever was responsible for the audio, not so much.)



Video courtesy of some guy with a camera.

There's not a lot that needs to be said about that concert; it was a great end to the band that wrote the soundtrack to our lives. I actually get a bit teary-eyed on some parts. (I'll write more on this when I get a bit more articulate than "Wow.") Strange but I've actually never seen them live before that night.

Speaking of better late than never, I've finally joined Facebook. Tons of AJAX going on in those pages. I should know because I work with that stuff everyday so I know what it's capable of. One day after my 1000th search for the same name, I think it's going to pop me a message saying: "Just add her already!"

Why Do I Waste Valuable Time?

Is it March already?

I'm reeling from the epic fail of a night I had last night. I got all dressed up for a black-attire party and spent a total of ten minutes there because I hardly knew anyone and I couldn't figure out where the open bar was. I swear, this is the last time I let Facebook invite me out.

But that was actually better than last week where I got all dressed up and did not go the the party at all. It's like I was imagining what the rest of the afternoon would be like at the party and I just couldn't bring myself to make small talk...future small talk. All that Neil Strauss reading for nothing.

Predictably, the evenings I enjoyed were watching bands play, even if I did forget their names the morning after. Well, except for Turbo Goth, who successfully doubled my knowledge of Smiths songs.



Other notables in the week was training day on Monday, which I enjoyed despite not learning anything new, Friday's Recess Session, and Saturday morning jamming and uh, troubleshooting. Actually a pretty busy week to preempt a pretty busy month, despite less and less reason to have one.

Earlier...

Last week while I was procrastinating on whether to attend a children's birthday party my grandmother,who was in Subic at the time, was rushed to the hospital for feeling weak, and sent the entire family scrambling for everything from medical advice to cash to contact numbers. Turned out to be a false alarm, but still...I don't think I've ever felt that scared and useless, like, ever. I think I went straight to the bargaining step.

I guess the question is, what I am still doing partying and blogging?

Trophy Display Of Bruises

Because I'm a sentimental sap, I looked up all the posts on the old blog on or near February 14th. And what I've seen is that since 2005 I've been writing about the, uh, holiday, with varying (increasing?) degrees of disgust/depression, finally culminating in last year where I didn't write a single post the entire month of February. But as with the devil, just because you don't believe in Valentine's Day don't mean it doesn't exist. So I must write on it again. Ok, not must but there's really little else going on anyway.

I've actually only sent/gave flowers in February twice; once was a scam which was the subject of the 2005 post, the other was anonymously where I only admitted to be the sender like a year later. Those happened two years in succession I think, which means I haven't done it since. I don't even know if I can still pull something like that off. That either means that I've gotten smarter...or less brave.

Now, serenades is something I get behind on. I was, however, the one sung to last Friday, which I will file under "office prank" unless someone convinces me otherwise. (Side A's "Forevermore"? Really?)

In other news, spent last week with the Wommies and for some reason wound up with "25 Minutes" as my signature videoke song (another song that would make a lousy serenade). I also wound up with a couple of bruises from slipping down stairs, which explains the lack of pictures.

Went to the UP Fair for the first time ever (I think -- I may have been there before but probably passed out on the back seat of a car). On Thursday there was barely anyone there despite the great band lineup (Urbandub, Pupil, Radioactive Sago Project). The second night was a bit more exciting; they had to stop the show since the emo kids broke down one of the walls. I can't imagine why they'd pull a stunt like that. Unless Side A was playing.

The New Twenty

A couple of relatively big changes to rein in the new year: first up, my Black Spider-Man-inspired hair, which wasn't actually by choice since the barber didn't want anything to do with it until I had it "fixed" first. And so the result is a new look for me, and hopefully it's not as out of place as, well, a Black Spider-Man.

Second would be finally moving into the Condeaux. By moving in I mean spending two consecutive nights there; I swear my family keeps coming up with plot devices to get me to go home ("We need the car", "It's your birthday", "We have cake", "Go home").

We finally had the place installed with cable TV and internet. Now it's exactly as if I were at home locked up in my room.

Work is as good as work that involves cutting costs at every turn can get. I'll leave it at that. But a good couple of weeks of extra-curriculars though; saw the following bands (plus a few more) in the span of a week: Enemies of Saturn, Angulo, Mayonnaise, Bagetsafonik, Sugarfree, Analog, The Late Isabel, Imago, Fuseboxx and Up Dharma Down. That's probably more local acts than I saw all of 2008. And more to come hopefully. Anything to get that bad senti-rock out of my ears from Jason's New Year's party.

I'm racking my brain to come up with insight on this 21st of January and nothing comes...so let's force it. As if turning the new twenty wasn't bad enough, Blue Monday was earlier this week, so called by sociologists as it is supposedly the most depressing day of the year due to a number of coincidental convergences. I didn't notice, and I didn't mean that as a good thing.