Playlist Monsters

Oddly, my current playlist is dominated by artists I don’t regularly like + artists I never heard of (at all) before. I'm heavily listening to singles I never expected to come out.. just right in time. Despite the fact that the artists in focus aren't appealing much to me, I found these beats are perfect summer anthems, especially for imperfect people who loved and lost, but choose to live. Take time to reflect on these tracks, you might be surprised you're unknowingly filling someone else's shoes. You'll realize that you are not alone; other people have heavier burden right on their shoulders.

Cracking first is Pink’s ‘Just Give Me A Reason’ (featuring Nate Ruess of fun.), a single that is ironically, overflowing with emptiness. This is a pretentious single about wallowing on something that's already lost. With such a charm, I bet everyone's digging for this tune at this point of time. And on a very rare occasion, I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

Then, comes a straight-to-the-point, ‘If you ever change your mind’, courtesy of Marion Aunor, finalist from 2013 Himig Handog Love Songs. Nothing really lasts forever, thus, we need to accept that expirations are inevitable. At any point, anything could possibly go wrong. And when worse comes to worst, one must learn to love himself enough not to try to put things back together as not all things that break needs to be fixed.

Further talk about separation anxieties and Angela Miller’s cover of The Beatles classic, ‘Yesterday’, from American Idol 2013 fits well with the job. There are tons of wonderful things brought by love but there are hard consequences associated to it as well. Watching someone leave is an example.

After a relatively heavy line-up, here's a positive note, and it's happening in my playlist right now: Justin Timberlake’s ‘Mirrors’. 

Well it’s a hard lesson to realize what terrible things we could be thinking, much as we like to think the best of ourselves. There are things that send us into dark places within ourselves. Oftentimes, we ended up trying to believing that those broken things could still be fixed. We are afraid to accept that some things are really over in which we ended up pretending and hanging on to lost memories. 

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Manabu Make-up Climb

This post is a few months late now, so let’s step a bit back in time.. once upon a time  last February 16..

My love for the outdoors is bringing itself to the next level. The quarter hasn't been ended yet (as of the day we did this climb) but we've already gunned for the fourth mountain already. As a consequence of missing the official Manabu (abbrev. for Mataas na Bundok in Sto. Tomas Batangas) hike set by the team, I, with a climbmate spent the third weekend of Feb to make up for the missed climb. Manabu is part of the Malipunyo range (beside Malipunyo peak and Susong-dalaga). It's gifted with a straightforward trail, mild terrain, and a level-up peak view instantly gaining my love and admiration. plus, bonus points for the good weather that day. The going was pretty good, with no major crux, obstacles or other tricky parts, thus, a good hiking site for new hikers (like us).

It was a perfect day as we set out. Though, I think this is the most tiring climb I had, compared to the four previous ones so far: Mt. Maculot, Pico De Loro, Mt.Kalisungan, and that hill near the campus. One compelling reason for this is the fact that we finished the supposed 2-hour trek in less than an hour by skipping the mandatory takes (rests/breaks) as we go upclimb. We had minimal stopovers all throughout. Furthermore, the easy climb turned out hard mainly due to its coincidence with the UPLB's Feb Fair week, a season made to keep elbi people awake for the whole week (in my case, at least). True enough, I barely had sleep the previous night. 

There’s nothing much to say about the trail as everything went in a flash all the way to the summit. We've got no pics along the trail, but we have these photos at the peak:

The peak was a good site to see Mt. Maculot, Mt. Makiling, and the Malipunyo range, of course. These peaks are cool to see and we felt privileged for having the chance to see them straight from the Manabu peak. As per drill at any summit, I made sure to savor the moment before descending. My concerns on how the climb might go, given that my eyes were drooping during most parts of the trek, all faded away. I was relieved by the fact that we get there safe and sound. Here photos of the nearby peaks I was talking about earlier.

It's nearing 12nn already when we took our usual, favorite lunch (take-out from Jollibee Turbina). After the meal, we traversed to visit the grotto where we were able to have a long chat (about some mountaineering stuff) with some fellow hikers. I was actually amazed and inspired with their rich experiences and their passion of the sports. 

Before reaching back to the base point of the mountain, we fulfilled the unnoted buko juice drinking ritual. We may haven't noticed but we always get to taste the buko juice offered from each of the mountains we're climbing. That was very timely because I badly needed some refresher at that time, after a bad-belly-encounter just a few moments ago. The Jollibee lunch was good, but they all turned.. poooof.. koko krunch along the way. 

After this climb, I realized a few things, lots of things, which I'd rather want to keep private. 

Edited part: As per reading the first comment from Ser Overthinker, I realized a few more things. In the end, it boils down to this: Through climbing, I see, more than the world, but the idea of simplicity, harmonious, and worthy living--which basically, is what I need. Or so put it, I just wanted to be where my thoughts drives me--because it's that simple and harmonious living I deeply, currently long for.

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The Art Of Losing Isn’t Hard To Master

Because losing is usually the saddest, and goodbye, more often than not, comes with it, we have to learn the art of it. I had a totally different view about losing 16 months ago. But now I'm starting to agree with what Elizabeth Bishop was saying, especially with the way things are going lately. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that losing, like anything else, could be learned (how to be dealt with). The more we experience losing, the easier we get through losing itself when another losing opportunity is at the brink of the brim. Series of losses makes my body get used to it, until it becomes a routine, until I realized that losing is a pretty normal phenomenon. We all have a fair share of it. We all have a taste of it. It’s alright to lose once in a while. We can lose so much, but just enough not to reach that point where we have lose ourselves, for a man who gains the world is nothing if he loses himself in the process.

Here are some surely-not-loser hits, accompanied with stories of losing from different points of view.

Welcome To The Black Parade – My Chemical Romance. A few weeks ago, My Chemical Romance announced their decision to part ways. Sure enough, people who once dreamed of joining the black parade are mourning over this news. I would admit I’m an MCR fan to death and seeing yet another legendary door closing is painful. Maybe, MCR is done. But it can never die. As Gerard Way puts it, MCR is not a band, it’s an idea. It will always be alive inside all of us. The black parade isn’t ending. We are not losing a legend. // And though you’re dead and gone, believe me, your memory will carry on

Far Away – Nickelback. Victor Joel Ayson, a UP alumnus and a hiker, is still missing after a solo climb two weeks ago at Mt. Maculot. This is extremely saddening especially now, I mean today, that it's his 27th birthday. May he stand by his words and soon come back. // Just one chance. Just one breath. Just in case there's just one left.

Tuyo Na’ng Damdamin – Silent Sanctuary. The board exam is coming this September but ignoring McMurry, Chang, Atkins, and co. (these are Chem book authors) for the past few months, cancelling dates with my problem sets and other review materials, treating my calculator a mere stranger, all count as bad signs. I’m supposed to be burying myself with these stuff but I don’t have the time, the drive, and the guts. And to make life easy for me, I won’t be taking the boards. Because if I do, I’m heading to a looming pit. At least I’m choosing to lose this early rather than risking for a much greater loss in the near future. // At kahit na anong gawin, di mo na mapilit at madaya, aminin sa sarili mo na wala ka ng mabubuga

I Lost My Head – Gentle Giant. I lost a phone last week. I lost another one just a few hours ago. I lost all my important people’s contact details. I’m having this feeling that this would equate to losing people in my life too. I’m a bit lost more than I presume. // I lost my head, It wasn’t easy

Bad Day – Daniel Powter. Now I’m down to the hardest part, the hardest to admit: I hate my job. And I should have never accepted it in the first place. This job is the last drink I should have never drunk. I’m dead tired. I’m exhausted doing things without a heart. I wish to rest this case soon. Nine months’ already down, and three months’ still seem too long. // Where is the passion when you need it the most?

Losing comes in many shapes. And it comes to all of us. Each people have their own battles they’re fighting for. From these battles, we gain some, we lose some. It is in gaining that we see things we like but it is in losing that we see things we really love. The more things I lost, the more I realize which things really matters, the more I feel my life matters.

Now where the hell is the point of this post.. I guess it’s lost, too.

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Jubilee Cross Extra Climb

Jubilee Ville | Los Banos, Laguna | 02 February 2013. This post has long been an overdue as I was waiting for photos-to-steal for this purpose. XD. Cameras were flashing from everywhere on that day so I set the documentation part aside and just focused on enjoying the whole thing. Unfortunately, the rightful owners of those unborn photos seem to have no plans yet to upload the pics up to this moment. Well the long wait isn’t over yet, but I have to cut the wait right now, I’ve got a few shots plus a few more from another friend to start the work on, nonetheless.

To be honest, the climb wasn’t really a good one. It’s not a real climb to begin with. It was a stroll in the park. It took us just around fifteen minutes to reach the summit from the jump-off. In fact, previous climbers who climbed the hill were a group of kindergarten kids for their PE course. haha. Bitin.

But what made the climb special was the people who were part of that climb. Contrary to the usual drill, I wasn’t with my regular climb-mates on that day. Rather, I was with some friends who were not at all interested to climb but was there because I forced them to. Sincerely, I pretty appreciated their effort to make that climb possible. Here they are:

Before the sunrise, we decided to meet at some point near the UP Gate and waited for others to come. From there, we had long walks over the campus to reach the jump-off point at the Jubilee Village. It took us around an hour to complete this step essentially because of those occasional stops to capture these:

Fast-forward, we reached the summit in a glimpse. Though the trail shouldn’t be underestimated because of the relatively long and slippery assault, the whole thing just happened so abrupt. Negligible sweat left my pores. Foreseen difficulty level not met. Fail. Epic fail. Nevertheless, we made it a point to do the highlight of this trip called photoshoot.

After a few minutes of rest, sight-seeing, and photo sessions, we started to descend. We then took the alternate route back to campus via IRRI. We had our breakfast there before we finally headed home. We also rode the famous trolley, which was my first time.

Credit: Some of the photos are owned by Jocelyn Cardenas

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Just another childhood shit

Long hours of solitude are always an opportunity to reflect, or in my case, overthink. The very long Pangasinan-Laguna bound bus ride is certainly not an exception. As a product of this overthinking thing I endured for the past 12 hours hours, I managed to step back in time and squeeze out some of the details on my early music obsession history from the hidden corners of my childhood memory.

And I came up with this list of the first few songs intertwined with my childhood days.

Bryan Adams – Everything I do (I do it for you). Released on the year I was born, I assume this song was heavily lurking the airwaves during my first few months here on Earth. No wonder that I effortlessly memorized the whole lyrics unconsciously for no reason. Let’s admit, the song is not great, not bad, just good. But this was a huge part of my formative years as my earliest memory forces me to believe.

Kansas – Dust In The Wind. This was my favorite song when I was on the first grade, that time when I started liking music in a deeper sense, apart from melody and tone alone. I somehow became a little more appreciative of the content. I began understanding the lyrics. I was concerned with what a song is all about. One afternoon while giving this track some turns, I knew, for the first time, I listened. Right then, I loved music itself.

John Denver – Take Me Home Country Roads. This was an overplayed single on our house back then. People around me were massively into this hit. This used to be a certified karaoke favorite in our family. In fairness to it, it’s not that hard to love.

The Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever. The Beatles’ magic was still inescapable up to my premature years even decades after their colossal domination. Hits like ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ and ‘Hard Days Night’ had been ragingly bombarding our rested-in-peace player way back then, however, my heart poured out for a less popular ‘Strawberry  Fields..’ mainly because I had made a few good memories out of this song, which I’d rather want to keep private from the rest of the world.

Simon & Garfunkel – The Boxer. My 90s self regarded this track as one of the greatest singles ever written. Surprisingly, my current self never changed that certain take. Btw, I was actually playing this track when I gave this site its name.

Bob Dylan – Blowin’ In The Wind. The answer, my friend…

Bee Gees – How Deep Is Your Love. Blame it on that Bee Gees compilation cassette tape loosely displayed on that very shelf on that corner of our house where those other treasured tapes were neatly cascaded. ‘How Deep..’ had been a major radio crasher since my discovery of those treasures.

Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger. When I first heard ‘Champagne Supernova’ over the neighbourhood, I started digging for more Oasis hits. Proudly joining millions of Oasis fans around the world, ‘Don’t Look..’ stood out to be my most-loved one.

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit. Another track I overheard from the neighbourhood. However, I refuse to call myself an eavesdropper. It’s more proper to conclude that my rockstar-wannabe neighboor is sort of deaf. His stereo’s volume has always been on the maximum that I was left with no other option but to listen to what he’s been playing. Despite that, I wanted to thank him for exposing my ears to crazy world of rock and roll and rock and roll \m/

I’m a bit exhausted because of the extended ride due to the turtle-paced bus I rode and the heavy traffic along Edsa and Calamba. I'm cutting this thing at this point. I'll resume the list pretty soon. Good night everyone.

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American Idol 2013 Doppelgängers

The annual tradition is back. Tried and tested, this Beat Box series has always been a best-seller. Let’s see if the magic stays for the third time around. Photo credits here.

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Bloc Party | Kettling

High school memories rushed through me when I first heard about the famous Bloc Party going to Manila after their four long years of hiatus, or more appropriately, drifting apart. I had a chance to enjoy their music early on with their formative years. The release of their fourth album tagged Four during the fourth quarter last year was unknown to me until I heard about them going on concert this March.

The primary shock out of this comeback is the seemingly slowness of how their songs had become. The sound of dark layers and exhuming twangy guitars are somewhat missing. Sort of mellow at that. I had my ways to have a few rounds treat on the tracks off the album, and it was an awesome pleasure, though. It's just a bit strange for some reason to hear them this quiet.  

Their lead single is the revolutionary, sweeping, and equally strange ‘Kettling’, which is by far the best off the album. The heavy opening guitar riff trailed by the swaggy Kele vocals is an undeniable ear-candy. Despite the totally new sound they’re trying to prove as they somewhat abandon the usual Bloc Party formula in the past, the signature Bloc Party passion and anger still effortlessly resurfaces out of nowhere throughout. Certainly that distinct Bloc Party tinge remained intact despite the wasted time.  

Unfortunately, beyond this excitement is the fact that there’s no way I could get myself to World Trade Center this coming March 22 to witness yet another would-be-once-in-a-lifetime event (which I hope not). I have to miss potential best spit-firing strobes, up-in-the-air handclaps, and the on-top-of-the-lungs sing-alongs. Better luck to me next time.

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Playlist Monsters

It’s been two excruciating months since a music post was spotted on this site. And right at this very moment, I’ll be sharing what’s been rocking my sleepy mornings, lazy afternoons, and gloomy nights during the previous weeks. These are some of those lovely hits my ears are glued to when I get tired of listening to that alcoholically classic Itchyworms’ hit ‘Beer’.

Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks. This one’s just perfect in every way. The folk element is timeless. The shouts from the crowd are infectious enough, catchy, harmoniously brilliant. Check out the lyrics for a good dose of heartache.

Pasta Groove feat. Armi Millare, Nikki Cabado & Junji Lerma – Habang Tumatagal, Lalong Tumitibay. Because Armi Millare is ♥

Passion Pit – Carried Away. I’ve been watching the vid since Valentine’s Day.

Oktaves – K.U.P.A.L. Since it's nearing school year end and people are surely digging for nice graduation songs, I think this one's a good option. :)

Mumford and Sons – I Will Wait. Surely, this will sound familiar if you were able to catch the Grammy’s. This one's just too hard to dislike. Despite the hint of mournful sound from the lyrics, the upbeat tune leads to a contemplative hopeful direction. I'm sensing this will top my playlist one of these days.

Edited: I removed KZ Tandingan's 'Scared To Death'. I just sensed that it's too out-of-place.

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You aren't dead yet, you idiot

I understand that you’re having a hard time lately. The unfortunate turn-out of events has been dragging you to hell. You are in a messy wild again. You had difficulty fixing yourself―you go after missing keys which are actually on your pockets, you had trouble matching the keys for the right locks, *you're missing the key to success*, and you end up almost breaking things. 

You have a life, you idiot. Stop screwing things up. The universe isn't against you. You just chose to think that way. The wall you need to conquer is that one you built in your mind.

Remember, nature has its own wondrous ways to make things complicated. There comes a time when attacks from multifaceted problems hurt you real bad. It’s inevitable. As you address a certain aspect, another deadly one sprouts. One comes after the other. Learn to learn the art and science of weighing things out. Don’t let yourself get swallowed by the system.

Try to compose yourself to keep a smooth sail on this rough ride; even though the weight and intensity of these disasters hits you too hard. Don’t get half-hearted when the efforts you exert to compensate for these disparaging damages seem to be not enough. You're only as good as your last laugh. You can do more. You can laugh more. You are better than what you are now.

You are dealing with real problems now. There’s no way to escape but deal with it face to face. Move. Just keep moving. You will go nowhere else if you remain stagnant. Go out and participate with the rest of the world. The sun won't shine for those who refuse to feel its warmth.

You were able to wake up this morning. It's something you have to be thankful for enough.  Don't waste the gift of today. Things expire in no time. Other people weren't given the privilege to have a breathe of fresh air you are inhaling right now. Be contented. You have all the fortunes others are deprived for. 

Do not depend your happiness on other people's hands. You are the master of yourself. I understand you're screwed right now. So get the screwdriver and unscrew yourself.  Don't wait for someone to do the job. It may take you forever if you don't move right now.

You may have all the valid reasons to grieve. But you have more than enough reasons not to dwell too long on that. Stop thinking that the universe has conspired to cause you all these pain. You are a mere tiny speck of dust compared to it. You are negligible compared to its size. You are nothing, at all, important, for the universe to care.  But despite that, your life is still important for some people around you. Sadness also obeys the rule of flow from a region of higher concentration to a lower concentration. Whatever you feel will surely affect people around you, including those you care so much for. And you don't want that, they don't deserve that.

You idiot, aren't dead yet. Let go of all those clutters. You have more important things to attend to. You are about to face biggest battle there is in the taking. Do not waste time. The bells of the boards are wildly ringing now. It's time to take a break from that trap. Free yourself from that indefinite hiatus. Stop lurking around the zero zone. You have lost a lot of stuff before, but you can’t afford to lose this one. Your future is at stake. Don’t let your dreams shatter without at least putting a good fight.

For the mean time, get some sleep. Because right now, I feel you'll be needing a long, good one. 

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