From the archive: Loko

september 2005

this announcement has long been forthcoming. now i can finally make it official. i've landed my first record deal for one of my orignal compositions. the song is a midtempo love ballad entitled "loko" and it's one of four tracks in the debut cd of new teen pop-rock artist angeli mae. the cd is now available in record bars everywhere under the viva records label.

there. it feels so, so good to finally let this story out after holding on to it for months. i didn't want to preempt or jinx it in any way so i kept it a secret all this time. the story started february when i wrote and recorded the song and sent demos to three labels. viva called in march and the song got produced in may. the cd was initially scheduled for release end-june, then rescheduled for mid-july, then got bumped off for august 30.

you can't imagine the excitement i carried when i went to the record bar that day. you also can't imagine the disappointment i felt when i didn't see the cd there. or anywhere else. i checked back again every single day thereafter. i also checked with my contact in viva at the end of the week. he said it's been shipped to the record stores and that most likely the stores are still in the process of making inventory and labeling the cds. he advised me to check the stores again the following tuesday, the regular release day of new records. (it's what wednesday is to new movies.)

i did. still no angeli mae. she would not appear on the record store shelves until two tuesdays later. at this point my excitement had already subsided and picking up the cd of my professional recording debut didn't feel special. only unusual. and funny. both for me and, moreso, the salesladies in the store. after all i got 5 copies. the cashier had to double check with me not just once but twice if i was indeed buying those many copies. of the same cd. of a new unknown artist. i can tell she thought it was weird, i was weird. her smiling face threatened to break into laughter. for a moment i considered explaining myself. but then i thought that would be too defensive. and proud and shameless. so i just nodded my head and gave a wide smile. i too threatened to break into laughter.

please do get a copy of the cd. it's fun, it's melodic, and it rocks popfully (or pops rockfully). and that's no loko.

Unipods (a.k.a. The Windmills of Bangui, Ilocos Norte)

They’re not the windmills of my mind. They’re way, way, way better. Intensely better. Surreally better. Out-of-this-world better. Towering, massively imposing all steel structures that look and, more crucially, feel like unipods with a trinity of thin, long blades as propeller – or weapon of mass destruction. I swear that throughout our 15-minute stay in the area I was half-expecting them – all 15 of them – to start grumbling, lift off the ground, and shoot laser beams that’ll blow us up into ashes.

Sorry

It happened on the second hour of Christmas day more than 20 years ago. My dad, who had stormed out of the house after a major fight with my mother a few hours earlier, walks into my room, sits beside me in bed, embraces me, and, his voice cracking, says “Sorry”. Then he leaves as quietly as he came. I wasn’t able to say anything. I didn’t get up. I didn’t even embrace him back. I think I froze. It was the first time he opened up that way. It never happened again.

Little Princess No More

By Eric Cabahug (from the August 2006 issue of Starstudio magazine)

These days Sarah Geronimo is singing a different tune. A very different tune.

In her surprising, risky new CD, Becoming, she purrs about “running wild”(!), buzzes about touching that “feels like fire”(!!), and coos about “making love till the dawn”(!!!).

Yes, that’s the new Sarah for you (Miss Geronimo if you’re nasty!). Little princess no longer, she has become a heady, worldly young woman who’s practically imploding with sensual passion.

But don’t worry. It’s all just for the record.

“Sana po mag-mature na ang pag-iisip,” Sarah intimates with a sheepish smile during the sit-down for this story. We are at the lounge in Amerasian Studios, where Viva artists record their albums, and Sarah has just come from a three-hour session laying down the vocals to 2 additional songs for the repackaged Bituing Walang Ningning teleserye soundtrack CD.

Dressed in tight light baby blue jeans, baby pink shirt, and a cream-colored distressed cotton jacket, hair kept in a ponytail, Sarah looks very, well, Sarah. Girly. Teeny. And when she talks it’s still all sweet naiveté.

So when she tells you that becoming mature is one of her wishes for herself for her 18th birthday (last July 25), you wish the same thing for her. If only so that she can engage in a meatier discussion of the daring new themes and sounds she explores in Becoming.

Sarah admits having a hard time doing the record. But it had little to do with the mature, if not outright adult themes in this 14-track collection of non-tweetums material.

“Na-pressure po ako!” she says. “Kasi yung ibang songs po ni-record namin sa States nung may tour kami. Medyo ngarag-ngarag nga kasi hinahatak lang po kami para mag-record [in between shows].”

There was little time to study the material, much less to revise their original arrangements to the higher, belting ranges that Sarah is used to and actually prefers. But it’s all perfectly fine with her. “Very foreign!” she enthuses about the album’s sound.

Working with non-Pinoys (headed by US-based producer Christian de Walden) added extra pressure. “Nakakapanibago nung una kasi first time ko [to work with foreigners] at sa abroad pa ang recording. Pero mababait naman po sila. At ang gagaling!”

The same can be said of Sarah. Adventurous, confident, inventive even, the 18-year old successfully transitions from teen-pop princess to OPM royal lady-in-waiting with this sophisticated record. No more vocal acrobatics and histrionics, thank you. Her voice has become deeper, richer; her singing more elegant, layered, soulful.

So don’t go looking for the wailing lovestruck adolescent of “How Could You Say You Love Me”. She has grown into the strong, quietly secure lover of “I Still Believe In Loving You”, Becoming’s gorgeously mellow, guitar-kissed Toni Braxton-lite opening track and carrier single, where Sarah tenderly but assuredly sings “I’m not sure why you were leaving / But I’m gonna let your heart go free / You won’t see me cry”.

That’s just for starters. There are the aforementioned bits about running wild (in the standout country-ish upbeat track “Baby Blue”), touching (in the Santana-lite pop/salsa number “You Mean The World To Me”) and making love (in the sexy, jazzy groover “Is This Love?”).

And the 18-year old sounds so convincing throughout she makes you totally forget that this is a Sarah Geronimo record. That’s the genius of her work here.

Stress on the work. Sarah hasn’t had any real experiences of the sort she sings about in the album. (Her brushes with romance and love have so far been limited to “crushes lang”.)

So how did she manage to do justice to these songs? “Kinuha ko lang ang emotions ng mga kanta, inilagay ko ang sarili ko sa situations and just imagined.”

Sarah sure makes it sound like child’s play.

Summer Scarlett

Scarlett Johansson doesn’t only have the face and figure of a sexy, sultry, smoky starlet from the ‘30s. With her recording of the Gershwin classic “Summertime” (from the album Songs from Stars) she shows that she also has the voice of one. This is not just a summer sizzler; it’s a scorcher.

Closing Cycles

By Paolo Coelho

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot forever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it maybe!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the ideal moment.

Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person. Nothing is irreplaceable. A habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

Let go

An excerpt from Paolo Coelho's "Close the Cycle"

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

Madge in New Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair will be releasing a special issue on Africa in July with not one, not two but 20 different covers. Madonna appears in two! Bono guest edits.

Alis dyan!

Oo, may iniisip ako. Ikaw. Iniisip ko, ano kaya kung sabihin ko na sa’yo ang matagal ko nang gustong sabihin. Na gusto kita. Magugustuhan mo kaya? Bibigyan mo kaya ng pagkakataon ang sarili mo na magustuhan din ako? O bale wala lang? Gaya ng pambabale-wala mo sa mga pagpaparamdam ko. Alam ko naman na may lamang iba ang isip mo. Pero wala ba talagang pag-asa na isipin mo rin ako? Kahit kailan? Siguro iisipin ko na lang na may putok ka. Para hindi na kita isipin.

12th French Film Festival in Manila

June 7-17 at Shang Cineplex Cinema 3
Shangri-la Plaza Mall
Screening schedule and synopses attached

Open

Yesterday at noon I stood at the street corner where I last saw you standing, love. The midday sun breathed furiously above me, sending waves of heat to my head like a steamer in a beauty spa working full gear with a broken timer. I stood there open and still the world would not yield me.

Sino'ng kontrabida ngayon?!

Panahon Na

San ba pwede mag-sign up para maging professional event/party host? Professional meaning may bayad. Ilang taon ko na kasing ginagawa 'to -- sa school, sa office, sa simbahan, sa weddings, birthdays at kung anu-ano pa. Patok naman. Very professional daw. At natatawa ang mga tawo sa akun. Pramis.

Missing

I miss you most when you're right next to me.