the zeppelin of burning dreams

If Cupid were here right now
I'd show him who was boss.
That's what I would say
if I were feeling great.

The first thing to go was the immune system.
I heard myself say, "What the f**k?"

A major part of me went on vacation
for a month, the month of hearts
for the shortest bloody
month of the year.

Cupid with a .45,
there was no love
scheduled for this year
since his wings were stolen
by angels last Christmas season.

Now he's grown a beard
and a six-pack set
of abs.
He bought a
Smith & Weston
forty-five caliber.

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM

I can't remember
just when I hated Cupid
more than when he hit me
with a bullet
in my medulla oblongata.

No, he didn't miss.

The bullet sent
an electronic pulse
down my spinal canal.
It sent all my
anti-bodies into
premature vacation,
a massive
white-blood cell
yosi break,
with coffee and
doughnuts
and a room at
Sonya's Garden in Tagaytay.

I met up with
a cold the next day.
Now, I'm stuck
at home
I can't work
I can't read
I don't want to watch TV
I can't write.

I blame Cupid.
Him and his .45 pistol.

A new haiku and photos by Mahasa percussionist Obbie Agustin. New poem entry, and finally updated Mahasa gig skeds.

I've been downloading the Naruto manga recently. Ever since the dearth of available content from O-manga and its affiliates (either that or I don't have enough bandwidth at my disposal to do a bittorrent on the bigger caches of media), I was hard put at finding a reason to stay online other than chatting with people. I didn't really research on the net - I hardly research for anything, actually, I usually just stumble upon my info - and the mailing lists and forums is really a very ungainly method of group conversation. I often give up following the threads of chatter, especially since most of the people don't bother to edit the messages. You end up getting miles of written white noise.

Naruto's become an interesting way to pass the time, though. It keeps my connection refreshed, so I could say that I wasn't slacking off even though I don't reply to any of the instant messages I get. And hey, sometimes the story really gets interesting; if you look at it, Naruto works on the same charm that Harry Potter does. I won't go into details as to how that system's like. HP loses its charm for me once I figure out how Rowling's fixing her stories. At least with Naruto, I get to see some really good ninja ass-kicking.

I've this little superstition that if I say I'm feeling good about something, they backfire on me. This explains why on some instances I freeze in the midst of doing something; I'm usually berating myself for thinking or saying something that could probably turn sour on me in less than a minute. It isn't a major superstition. I don't think I'm that paranoid. Really.

But what I've been meaning to say was

That

I've been writing. And it isn't writing nonstop. I've managed to segragate the tasks of writing into schedules, and although I'm not following them to the letter, I do try. And I think it might be working (crosses fingers). In order to keep the verbage flowing smoothly though, I'm keeping my blog entries very unflowery. This is like my serious language training all over again, except that I don't do short paragraphs of the sort; instead, I try to keep the style up throughout the entire entry. And yes, I know I missed some lines earlier on. I didn't say I was doing it perfectly, haha.

Seriously, I think I keep my online journal for no other reason other than writing practice. There were a couple of months back where I would've done very little writing at all if it weren't for my blog.

Please do not point out all of the mistakes in this exercise to me. I'm more than capable of that myself. You should see my drafts after a long night of editing. I use this pink Faber-Castelle highlighter pen and a ballpoint, and I've developed my own style of proofediting (a combination of proofreading and editing, a word which I hopefully am the first one to coin) along with proofediting symbols. I haven't fully memorized the widely-used editing symbols is why, and since I don't carry my codigo around with me wherever I go, I decided to develop some of my own in the meantime.

Yes, someday I will learn the real editor marks. But not today.

The sunshine's quite nice right now. I often wish I was sleeping like any other normal person. That way, I'd wake up early in the morning and enjoy the smell of the rising sun and the morning dew. As it is, I'm just on my way to bed.

There's nothing sadder than when you feel like writing a mind-blowing piece of prose that achieves a golden balance between the sentences and the images whilst giving, or dissecting, an important aspect of the philosophical implications of the society we live in today and providing the clearest, freshest, and most outstanding points to ponder - be it negative or positive, constructive to a fault or destructive to a T - when in fact, your mind is floating on a sea of beeswax coated with chocolate rhum and dogpiss, trying desperately to keep itself afloat with a typewriter on one hand and a pastrami sandwich on the other.

Yeah, I call music muzak. Apologies to those who didn't initially understand what that word meant.

Gig-related news: we've a gig tonight (yeah, feb 17) at Alky's Bar and Billiards. No Front Act Nite ito, so do please try to pass by. We also have two gigs next week on the same day (friday, feb 24). These will be at Powerbooks LIVE! and Freedom Bar, respectively.

Other peoples' gigs: on the 25th of February, Razorback will be playing (yes! Finally!) at Music Museum. Filling in for the absent David Aguirre will be various guitarists, including Kakoi Legaspi (I think he was with Rivermaya) and the newly married Manuel Legarda (who has sworn off guitar playing as anything other than a hobby). Tickets are 200 clams each. Bloody hell, this is worth it.


And I figured out one of my favorite CD's early this morning. Pearl Jam's "TEN" has the best kind of guitarwork I have ever heard. Especially in Jeremy. I always end up in a trance when listening to this CD.

Back to writing. Haha.

Hmm.

Pinoys take politics way too seriously. This is why both the government and the people (protesters mostly) end up in opposite sides. Both of them want too much of everything, they end up with nothing.

I really don't understand what the protests are about. The so-called state of emergency was put up early last Friday as a safety measure against possible insurrection within the ranks of the military. Due to this, the government, in light of this recent turn of events (and as far as i know) probably broke a few rules and regulations in detaining people. But from what I know, this is normal fare for governments. Local governments have done worse things in the past. I'd look to Makati for proof, but Binay's daughter is a friend of my sister.

However, Filipinos have this penchant for being high-strung when it comes to politics. Tighten national security a little bit, expect a rally in EDSA. I'm probably stretching the truth a bit, but that's a fact. We pinoys are spoiled with our democracy. We don't know how to handle something such as free speech. We can't even balance our daily activities.

Ma'am Gloria, however, is a classic Pinoy through and through. Pinoys rally against her? Media inadverdently shows footage that might put the government in a bad light? Let's tighten the belt, they might calm down. Hell, all she did was worsen the situation. Now people are out for her head.

I curse both sides. We were supposed to have two gigs that night. We cancelled both of them due to the threat of chaos in the streets and a nationwide curfew.

Curfew what? we were out drinking up to the wee hours of the bloody morning. And we were drinking at a Gas Station. Curfew my foot.

Pinoys are spoiled brats. We don't know what's good for us, we just know what we want.

Pwe. Let's hope that both parties spontaneously combust at the same time. That way, all of us simple folk in the middle won't have to live with such bothersome rallies every time a government official gets fat.

Maybe if they do, something can be done about whatever survivors are left in that Leyte tragedy. How selfish can people be?

"Chic" is the new deep, according to girl-pop books.

Meanwhile, "trendy" has been taken over by jologs, and "leftist" is elitist with the word left as the prefix, but both denote high-minded and often snobbish deviant thinkers.

If you take the word "deviant," you will end up with something synonnymous to intelligent and / or creative, as pictured by media-hyped laissez-faire minded modern man in his ramblings across the hive mind called the internet.

"Modern man" is increasingly similar to hermit, although technically, he is connected to other people via cyberspace.

This "cyberspace" is an ideological term that is similar to gathering hall, town square, and barroom (cantinas in most hispanic regions) in terms of usage. However, in this you will find "spam" which no longer relates to luncheon meat, and "e-mail" which has no cost, no postage, no swirly letters, is delivered instantaneously therefore cutting the time of anticipation by 200% and somewhat reminiscent, when opening an e-mail client, of a pop.

"Pop" is now frowned upon and is no longer pop. "Indie" is now the new pop, which apparently is not to be confused with independent music according to indie listeners, despite assurances from NU 107 VP Mike Pedero that Indie music is not a classification of music at all, and instead pertains to the production and marketing of music by a given artist.

"Artistic" is now a desired situation, replacing intelligent. "Intelligent" has devolved to overbearing and / or insufferable.

"Life" has proceeded to be rated by the amount of peons you have cleaning your shoe. And "shoe" has ultimately become the food people eat to stay healthy.

"Healthy" is a state of mind; whereas people used to stay healthy in order to work, people now stay healthy in order to enjoy that latte, that glass of cabernet sauvignon with medium rare New York steak (which probably didn't come from New York at all) for more years.

"Smoking" is now frowned upon. But is still cool.

"Cool" is "in" which is synonnymous to "pop" and "hip" which no longer relates to that part of your body where the outer edges of the pelvic bone rest.

Let's play Boggle!