Funky Divas At 20

I came across an article in May 2008 that Dawn Robinson rejoined former group members Cindy Herron, Terry Ellis, and  Maxine Jones on some dates performing as En Vogue just April of that year.  On some dates, second replacement member Rhona Bennett filled in.  I was thinking, great… four original members on some gigs are better than no appearance together. But I didn’t think of the semi reunion much… in 2005, Robinson also briefly reunited with En Vogue only to back out soon after.  Apparently, business talks failed to come to a favorable agreement.

Rhona Bennett performs with Terry and Maxine during one of Cindy's maternity leaves.

I have this habit of checking up pop culture favorites and non-favorites — authors, actors, musicians, business people, companies, animators, thinkers, painters, toys, politicians, graphic artists, photographers — on their latest stuff when they have ‘em… one of the reasons I’m thankful we have the Net now (DSTS: yet another way of wasting time.  Get to work, woman!).  This kind of proves the saying you know you’re no longer young when you find yourself reminiscing more often than you used to.

So anyway, today I decided to look up old groups I liked when I was in high school.  After covering pop and grunge, I went on to R&B.  I look up En Vogue again and saw a Youtube post of EV on The View on May 11, when they announced their 20th anniversary tour… with Dawn Robinson.

The ladies today: Maxine Jones, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, Terry Ellis. Look at Cindy's waist. She had four kids, dammit...

Before I go further… it’s actually been 20 years since that group was put together?  Man, now I really feel old.

I’m not a die hard fan — I also liked their contemporaries, SWV, TLC, Xscape, to name a few… but En Vogue had their own thing.  The group was conveniently classified into R&B, but then their sound and image were not exactly like those of most groups.  They started out looking like the usual 90s act — wore Color Me Badd-ish multicolored shorts with matching suit jackets on Oprah —  but eventually En Vogue projected kind of more like elegant, earthy glam, and many a fanboy rhapsodized about their classiness.  Brownstone and The Braxtons would come close, but not quite.  And yet whenever I caught them on TV (light skits, guesting in sitcoms; interviews), they came across as funny (nerdy nerds in A Different World) , accessible and down-to-earth, which was a refreshing change to the usual bitchy diva or keepin’ it real gangsta image many female R&B artists insisted on then. 

The package was pretty and well-balanced, designed for easy marketing.  Tall and svelte, Cindy Herron, a former beauty pageant contestant, I imagined, was drafted mainly to hook in mainstream pop consumers and people outside the general African-American audience.  In a funny bit they performed on In Living Color, she was heckled by Wanda (a hilarious cross-dressing, strategically-padded, perpetually puckered Jamie Foxx) as “light-skinned!”  The pretty, doe-eyed Terry Ellis had a girl-next-door charm; she had an engaging sense of humor and played off hosts the best during live interviews.  Maxine Jones is petite with a beauty that’s truly sista; her eyes are warm and beautiful with an interesting shade (not contacts).  I think many fans didn’t pay much attention to her as she was kind of serious and quiet when she talks, but I found her appealing and she displayed this enlightened quality.  I also thought her gap-toothed smile, more prominent in the earlier years, added much to that appeal.  She demonstrated the best acting abilities of the four members (seen when EV guested on Roc).  And we come to Dawn Robinson; I thought she had a very interesting combination of facial features.  Her eyes were sultry, like narrowed cat’s eyes, and she had full pouty lips.  She’s the youngest member, described as “feisty” by her older colleagues, and was acknowledged the real sexy one — out of their costumes, Cindy, Max and Terry rarely wore clothing that showed shoulders, legs, the midriff and a bit of cleavage like Dawn did.  They were attractive, but somehow their attractiveness never intimidated.  Sudden flashback on the number of hours spent trying to copy their sashaying walk in the video for “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”.  And no, I didn’t get it (surprise), but it was fun — and funny — trying!

Of course, there’s the undeniable talent.  An En Vogue trademark was flawless three-part harmony in addition to all four members being capable of singing pyrotechnic leads, despite different vocal styles.  Cindy’s was the pop sounding lead voice — lighter than the rest and smooth, but with good strength; Maxine’s style of singing lead, I think, had the most sass and personality; Terry’s soulful, emotional solos are put to use in good parts of earnest love songs, and Dawn’s leads fairly crackled with spontaneity and passion.  I found it pleasant to see each member take turns being leads, unlike most groups that usually delegated lead vocals to one or two members (Mr. and Mrs. Knowles?  You couldn’t have been more subtle).

The earlier years saw En Vogue having more of a pop kind of R&B sound, very similar to the freestyle groups popular at the end of the 80s, and during this period Cindy usually led the fast songs (“Lies”, “Hold On”, “You Don’t Have To Worry”) with Terry taking over for ballads and syncopated solos (“Don’t Go”, the intro for “Hold On”).  Funky Divas showed more self-assured performances from the members, with Dawn and Maxine being featured on many singles (“Giving Him Something He Can Feel”, “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”, “Give It Up, Turn It Lose”, “Free Your Mind”).  Eventually exposure balanced out for all four.  My particular favorite EV song/video was “Runaway Love”, because Cindy and Terry each had a verse, Dawn broke it down in the bridge, and Maxine did the Barry White bit (spoken parts and bass) all throughout.  

At the peak of their popularity Dawn Robinson decided to leave the group to find herself and do different things.  Noted she didn’t become more popular than when she was with En Vogue, likewise EV3, while good, was not quite right, seemed like something was missing.  En Vogue almost faded to obscurity; not being songwriters, I guess the four depended on producers for the direction of their materials, which, after 1997, never surpassed what they were able to achieve in their heydey.  

Early replacement member Amanda Cole (right), when Maxine took time off for family and business.

Of course, there were also the years when Maxine Jones and Cindy Herron alternately took time off for family matters, thus introducing the replacement members Amanda Cole, then Rhona Bennett (a former Mouseketeer!). Performances were adequate but the magic wasn’t the same. 

Now all four ladies are back again, and for forty-year-olds they look great.  They were celebrity contestants for charity on Don’t Forget The Lyrics and they still sound great (Wayne Brady was, like, whoa, dream come true!).  There are talks of a 20th anniversary album. I have their Greatest Hits compilation in addition to Funky Divas and EV3… what are the chances to have the next album with new songs?  

Dawn, you’ll probably have your personal growth projects and valid issues with management and producers again, but please for the love of fans stay with the group, at least long enough for you and the girls churn out a couple of good albums again.  I’m asking this after years of having to sit though airplays of  Destiny’s Child (okay, Destiny’s Child occasionally worked on me, but the herky-jerky moves and wobbling repetitive lyrics in chorus can only take me so far… and how can I invest fan interest in DC for team dynamics when it’s really just Beyonce with conveniently shuffled back-ups?), Girlicious (seriously, aargh), and the Pussycat Dolls (a bunch of prancing Vegas showgirls installed with Nicole Shershrzzzthesinger).  Show ‘em how it’s done!  Don’t change your mind soon and happy touring.

Pick A School

One of the more serious things DSTS and I recently discussed was choosing schools for the kids.  Yes, it’s probably counting chickens and all but that’s what it’s like being married to someone like DSTS!  On the other hand, this can balance me out when I can’t get past convolutions.

The parents prefer we continue the tradition of Chinese language and math courses in addition to the standard Philippine curriculum.  I was lobbying for Chiang Kai Shek College.  I think it’s good enough, Chinese courses are comparable to, if not better than, say, Philippine Cultural, Hope, Tiong Se, UNO, Manila Patriotic, or Sakya.  Facilities are OK and improving.  We’re also CKSC alumni, we have a background on its rules and regulations, and the alumni association’s quite active with the schools’ development (and politics) and things like giving students incentives and future benefits when they do well with schoolwork (and politics).  

My mother-in-law is advocating, for one, UNO High School, because she remembers DSTS’s “better days” with the terror principal in charge, and the written exams that test your logic.  I objected, because first, the terror principal — he’s probably retired, but I’m not updated on UNO stuff so I don’t know how things are done there now — reportedly did a Big Brother, having a million cameras in the campus and monitors set up in his office, and did things like cutting people’s bangs when they refused to get a haircut.  He was also probably the reason why young students were scared of going to the bathroom; I approve of discipline, but traumatizing small kids who may develop low sphincter muscle control and urinary tract infection is just… wrong.  They also had the written exams that “fortified logic”, the one DSTS aced while many students failed.  A sample instruction: “Put a line around the correct answer.”  Majority was stumped.  I was like… m’kay, clever way of telling ‘em to encircle your answers… but when I teach my kids what a line is, I’d like the line to stay a line.  Is that OK?

My mother-in-law’s second choice is St. Jude’s Catholic School, if we could afford it; she hears Mass every Sunday and had fond memories attending Immaculate Conception of Manila for English and Filipino classes when she was younger.  She attended CKSC Chinese classes in the afternoons, but “Tiong Ching e yingbun kho tsin bue ti dit!”.  She still isn’t impressed with CKSC’s curriculum today.  According to her, DSTS and his sisters stopped becoming as academically competitive as she’d like the minute they transferred from UNO to CKSC.  However, I know they maintained good grades throughout their CKSC years, in fact DSTS and Jay, his younger sister, belonged to the so-called “nerd section” of the class.  DSTS said Mama’s standards may be subject to perspective.  :)

DSTS thinks UNO doesn’t have much weight but is considering St. Jude’s.  He laid out his case: St. Jude’s standings on English and Chinese education are way better than CKSC’s.  One of the godfathers at our wedding was also a CKSC alumnus.  While acknowledging St. Jude’s standards also went down compared to when he was still attending CKSC grade school and high school, he also opted to send all four kids to St. Jude’s because of higher standards (however, no objection from his wife, who herself went to St. Jude’s).  

My mother’s classmate married late and her daughter went to St. Jude’s; she maintained an above 85% average all throughout.  She didn’t do this to compete in honors (but she was fifth in overall standing as a result); the alternative getting below 85% is to transfer schools.  Because of those standards, plus probably because of the conditioning included, more St. Jude’s students go on to study in better universities (De La Salle University, Ateneo University and the University of the Philippines; DLSU and Ateneo are Roman Catholic universities, UP’s liberal and the state U).  Godfather’s eldest is at Ateneo.  My mother’s classmate’s St. Jude kid is also at the Ateneo, many of her classmates went to Ateneo as well.  

Brief segue: La Salle was probably a French guy who contributed something to philosophy, education or studies the way Thomas Aquinas did, right?  However, I’m wondering why the Jesuit school’s called Ateneo — alumni are called Ateneans.  I really don’t know, only they make me think of Athens and Athenians, who were named after the classical Greek goddess Athena, which are nowhere near making me think of anything Catholic.  I’m welcoming enlightenment; right now it’s making sense like naming your kid Martin because you believed the Gregorian calendar dictated that your kid’s birth month coincided with the feast of one of the St. Martins, so of course you should name the kid in its honor as per acceptable Catholic tradition.  And yet etymologically, the name Martin means “dedicated to [the Roman god of war] Mars.”

DSTS wryly notes our batch only had one UP alumnus, and only about a couple or so went to Ateneo.  A very small handful studied abroad (no big-name universities, though).  A majority who were acknowledged as ‘haves’ opted for De La Salle and St. Benhilde, while the rest, including both of us (University of Santo Tomas), spread out in the U belt from UST, PUP and FEU to CEU, Mapua Tech, St. Scholastica.  Of course there’s the loyal chunk who stayed in good ol’ CKSC, which, while not so bad, relied more on connections rather than academic achievements and capabilities.  Take a look at Class of ’99; not one accountancy major passed the board.  However, all students, according to the recruitment program, were assured of jobs upon graduation.  Here I countered that while the St. Jude students are academically good that they got into the top universities, I’m also supposing the fact that their families could afford sending them to St. Jude’s for their elementary and secondary educations probably increased the chances that they could afford Ateneo and DLSU tuitions, right?

My objections to St. Jude’s are mainly because of religion, which, for me, makes the controlled environment you want to put your kid into even smaller.  Take my not being Roman Catholic out of it or what I don’t think is consistent with its own versions of things that happened and dogma; what I would like is to have my children ask me and their father questions about life, hear what we think we know about it, see their world for themselves and learn, then make up their own minds on which paths to follow.  This is what I had with my parents, who had their beliefs, and CKSC, a neutral zone without the incense burnings and hail Marys and ohm-mani-padme-ohms.  I was exposed to different things and opinions, there was no enforcement of just one thing during the impressionable years; I saw, and I followed what I thought was right for me when I was able to understand enough.

Well, spirituality doesn’t exactly hold much these times when it comes to practical domestic discussions.  I do agree with DSTS that we want the best for the kids, and we’re talking about the best available education.  And because we’re neither from well-off families nor do we have much advantages to offer, if we could afford it, we would like to shoot for the best.   Talking about alternative schools: St. Stephen’s, Grace Christian, Hope Christian, Jubilee… these would’ve been fine, if only the friends I’ve met from these schools didn’t tell me that they’ve kind of forgotten even the basics by the time they hit the universities.   Conversational stuff, compositions (English, Chinese, Filipino), general knowledge… even theology, sometimes?  Not much better than what I know.  And they thought CKSC stuff were more difficult.  So I think I’ll pass.  

In some cases of these friends from St. Stephen, Grace Christian, Hope Christian and Jubilee, it’s their parents who are Roman Catholic or Buddhist, but enrolled them in their schools for one of the reasons: convenience in location, Chinese lessons, a more affordable tuition fee.  Then the kids embraced the school’s teachings and went home to tell their parents about why it’s not good to revere graven images and paying respects to minor saints or dieties or ancestors in addition to the one true God (okay, sometimes they made a concession for the Trinity).  The parents were flummoxed how to explain things.  This is what happens when you throw in religion to something that could be uncomplicated, and it’s the flummoxing I’d like to avoid in the early stages.  

A few also admitted that the discipline in some the Christian schools were near to non-existent.  This is because those schools’ teachers usually go with subdued encouragement, gentle prodding and world peace compared to the Catholic school’s signature tough love during a child’s formative years. It’s those crazy Sunday school kids and the turn-the-other-cheek Sunday school teachers all over again! And this has confused me even then… isn’t it written somewhere in Proverbs when you spare the rod, you spoil the child? There’s a reason the Old Testament is included in the Bible. To illustrate, one pal once said St. Stephen’s High School had some students smoking inside the campus.  I asked what the principal did.  

“Sabi niya, ‘Please stop that; it’s bad for you.  Not to mention it’s against the rules.’”

Ano’ng sabi ng students?

“Wala, tiningnan lang siya.”

I imagined they blew smoke in the principal’s face and the principal merely blinked.  Maybe coughed.  I have watched too many John Hughes films.  In contrast, there’s the standard acknowledgement of exemplary discipline enforced by no-nonsense nuns, even verified by Jessica Zafra (And Tina Fey! Bitch Is The New Black skit, Weekend Update!) herself.  

While at CKSC we didn’t have the nuns, our time was under the reign of this tough lady disciplinarian who whupped the rebellious types’ butts to shape whether they liked it or not.  She had the presence; when she passed by the corridors, I swear it’s like Moses and the Red Sea.  Or that scene featuring the intro of the Axe Gang in Kung Fu Hustle.  It was something.  And unlike the human rights violator-terror principal from UNO, I don’t think she ever needed to resort to actually cutting tufts of hair to successfully compel even the smarmiest resident assholes to get the prescribed haircut!  However, she passed away years ago (rest in peace), and the heir apparent to her post I’ve heard is about as intimidating as a plush donkey.  I don’t know CKSC’s current stat on discipline.

While St. Jude’s is a possibility, I am, however, hoping to draw the line on exclusive schools — say, Xavier, or Immaculate Conception Academy if for a girl — simply for the reason that I think they restrict exposure to and interaction with peers of the opposite sex.  It happens I noted many classmates I’ve met at the university who went to exclusive schools or were restricted by their parents to spend time with the opposite sex placed more emphasis than they should on snagging then maintaining relationships at the expense of achieving their full potential at academics than those who went to coed schools.  The then-objects of their affections weren’t even all that, too.  It’s like they were deprived or something.  Then again, baka nagkataong wala lang talagang that hilig sa school stuff, pwede din.  And there were the few who opted not to have relationships after experiencing difficulties relating to culture/gender differences when they meet new people at universities and at work.  When someone of age chooses to remain single, it’s best to do so because it makes him or her more fulfilled as an individual, and not because he or she couldn’t get past the idea that potential partners have cooties or something… that adjustment should’ve been settled by puberty, but how would they practice dealing if we corral them off to just one kind at the time they’re growing up, observing others, and being supervised on adapting to the basic social rules?

It’s not like I’m pro rushing kids into relationships, but I want things balanced.  Not too much off-limits stuff, but not too much “Go for it!” either.  These are just opinions revolving around personal thoughts, okay… I’m not saying it’s not cool for you to put your kids in schools with religion, or exclusive schools.  If you happen to agree with the religion and the location and tuition fee’s fine… even better, it’s smoother sailing compared to us displaced people.  Whatever works for you; you don’t need people telling you what to do.  Lots of kids and parents we know stand by them and did well in life, actually, as I’ve mentioned.  I may be wrong, and this is just me airing out my ignorance in a copious manner as usual (humor me).

Which is why DSTS asked me to think things over; anyway it’s not an immediate decision.  He did admit that, eventually, should times get worse, we may opt for CKSC after all, which will always be more affordable than St. Jude’s.

How about the convolutions that DSTS was supposed to balance out?  Oh, nothing.  Just that sometimes I’m thinking, what, I’m letting the system beat my ideals out again, simply because they’re not practical?  Do I justify with things like what counts with spirituality is what environment one would provide at home? What about self-righteous acquaintances who’d lecture me that this is a bad testimony and faith is what counts the most, and that I’d failed big time, and that who cares that non-Catholic Christian  schools with Chinese and standard courses in this country offer comparatively sub-par education so long as it’s apparently the “right” thing to do?  

I’m also imagining I’m gonna be made to go to PTA meetings or called by the teacher who’d ask me if I can ask my kids to participate reciting the rosary more, maybe I can coach them at home.  There may be no such things, but… Aargh.  I’m gonna be invited to my kids’ confirmations or whatever standard traditional rituals and the teachers and parents will smile, turn to me and say, “Well, you know what to do!” and… Aargh.  What if the deluded proponents of democracy in the Philippines feel that the government is inept yet again and inspire another band of military poseurs to attempt another coup on a school day and St. Jude’s near the Malacanang palace and… Aaargh.  Of course I’m also gonna have to help the children memorize hail glorious Mary stuff and I’ll be clueless or hesitant and they’ll ask me why and I’m gonna need to ‘fess up and they’ll be confused why I sent them to that school in the first place when I don’t believe in supernatural Mary stuff and I’ll have to show them the Bible and how Mary was never prayed to in Jewish tradition and guess what, so was Jesus, and yes, we’re not Jewish though we believe in their God but as to why, it’s… faith, and Mary worship got into the Catholic faith because when the missionaries traveled West they wanted pagans to transition from goddess worship to the faith better, and the kids will get even more confused and disillusioned and I’ll just mess up their faith in God and… Aaargh.  Then they’ll ask me why Amah is staunchly Catholic but she goes to a Taoist-Buddhist temple as well, and is this allowed by the St. Jude nuns or the Pope, the Taoist priests and the Dalai Lama and wasn’t Buddha Indian, so how come the Dalai Lama’s been Tibetan for the last fourteen reincarnations and… Aaaargh.

The Price Of Clog-Free Arteries And Relative Limberness (Part 1)

The year was 2001. I was hired by an ad agency to write the stuff of fluff, which were mostly for the drug pushers — clients that marketed ethical products.  Freaky subliminal suggestions of corporate miniskirts aside, I was welcomed into the world of antihistamines, acid inhibitors, aspirins, and assigning a person to always sharpen your pencils.  It was in this little organization that my konsyensya made me confront an evil force that eventually would haunt me for the rest of my days, because one day I was assigned to a pill they called Lipostat, and I froze midway a data search.  A phantom presence kind of poked me at the back. 

Phantom Presence: Hey, you.  I am not Ozymandias, but heed my words.  There are two kinds of cholesterol: those of high density lipoproteins and of low density lipoproteins.  One of them will be your density.  HDL is good, but beware the LDL cholesterol. 

Jill: And I’m prone to LDL cholesterol because…?

PP: Do you eat dairy products?

J: Yeah!

PP: Do you eat animals?

J:  You have a way with words, but yeah.

PP:  You eat these things in several combos, perchance?  And fried?

J: ‘Choo even need to ask?

PP: Kid, you’re screwed.

That did not bode well… I’ve always liked food, though I was a pretty terrible novice food chewer, and the elders had a tough time breaking me into the world of eating which used some sort of social system called etiquette.  The elders were many.  They had lots of rules to tick off.  My mother insisted I should chew with my mouth closed.  The Uncle Who Lived Under The Stairs drilled me on how to properly hold the spoon and fork, and employed this freaky mental torture that if the first aunt — Elder Aunt Tactical Genius — were there, she’d take a chopstick and flick my fingers with it for every table faux pas I’d make, like she did back in their day!  Aunt Bebop the second aunt asked me to keep a straight back as I do all these, and with the back not touching the chair!  And Kaiser Wilhelm the first uncle simply told me to finish all my food or else. 

Cool Grandma kept repeating that it’s bad manners not to sample every dish laid out on the table, and that I had to wait until everyone had a turn with first servings (she had a lazy-susaned table) before going for a second helping.  Also, to know your limits… don’t get more than you can eat.  That rule kind of clashed with the one that said I had to finish the rice Mama rationed for me because there was once a plucky farmer who slaved under the hot sun for several months to grow and harvest them.  So I tried to have a go with my mother: “Ma, may I have only six spoonfuls of rice?  That’s all I can take, and I want to show respect to the farmer.  Thank you.”  It didn’t work.

In kindergarten, I met a girl who helpfully offered another version of the rice thing in which, according to her elders, she’ll turn ugly and marry a blobby husband in the future if she doesn’t eat everything on her plate, never mind what that bit will do to her fragile sense of reality or how it’s slightly insulting to their family’s genepool.  I wonder how she turned out.

After the bootcamp years, the rituals became normal.  I grew bigger teeth, and I finally noticed how much I actually enjoyed eating food.  Steam ‘em, fry ‘em, saute ‘em, bake ‘em, stew ‘em or nuke ‘em, you name it.  I love them.  Granted I eat slowly, but I can put ‘em away with little or no trouble.  To this day I like food.  I like going out with friends and officemates who have no compunctions whatsoever on going to random restaurants, ordering big platefuls of stuff that we’ll spend the WHOLE DAY eating in between catching up, and… Ferlebon, Mr. Shuli, Ellie Punk’s Master, and The Girl Born A Month Later?  I just want you to know that you guys are so missed. 

I’ll very much try anything, except for, you know, the truly exotic fares which may include lemurs, warthogs, sea slugs, Komodo dragons, dogs, bats, chinchilla, geckos, newts, worms, chimpanzees… and anything that claims membership in the family Blattidae.  I reserve the right to veto.  Regardless of where I draw the line, I think the broadness of my menu range is pretty good.  Which brings us to my current state: my metabolism’s selling out.  The bad cholesterol count is gaining on me.  And over my head the Phantom Presence loomed, doing a Torrance-y, Bring It On routine in red:  L-D-L!  L-D-L!

I never liked sports, and the good Lord knows I hated PE.  HATED.  I admit I was a lousy quasi-athlete, but allow me the honor of being defensive.  I kind of preferred activities that can be done in a solitary, stationary position, which pretty much tossed out most sports out for me.  And part of PE’s lack of appeal?  The teachers.  They sucked.  On defining ‘suck’: when you decide to teach kids taking your class for the first time, part of your job is to get the students interested in the subject.  I mean, sure, we have different interests, but we all need to take PE classes!  Might be helpful to actually make sense and turn on our lightbulbs as to why the subject’s not elective. 

Obi Wan would applaud: “Basta ganyan!  Just do it.”  Nike wasn’t even using that campaign yet, so it was likely the teaching styles were ripped off the perpetually smelly-looking drunken master played by Yuen Woo-ping’s dad as he trained a yet-unwrinkled Jackie Chan to be a lean, mean killing machine.  Only we didn’t sign up for kung-fu.  And I did not want to turn out like Jackie Chan — I’d want life insurance companies to take me seriously!  Excuse me for not seeing anything zen-like in the PE lessons, and I had no issues with other masters killing our school’s masters that I felt compelled to master superior jumping jacks or the 39th position in modern dance so I can whup their asses in revenge one fine day.  Did the teachers really take a valid PE course, or were they randomly networked by that tights-clad PE matron who came across like a bad Cyndi Lauper wannabe?  Imagine the recruitment pitch and qualification process:

“Huuuy. I know you’ve been losers all your lives and probably gave up math when you ran out of fingers to count with… yes, I know you tried your best, honey — saw you take your socks off — but y’all counted to eight and back perfectly!  And I’m not really sure these accreditations are of genuine Recto standards like mine is?  But I’m willing to overlook all that ’cause you and I, we’re cut from the same frarority!  You can hit a ball, right?  How about with your head?  How about running around the gym like rabid dogs until I or my big boss throw you a bulalo?  And shouting your lessons in a really nails-scratching-on-a-blackboard voice modulation, botching up fancy calisthenics-related pronunciations along the way?  Great!  Here’s a job for ya.”   

PE could be better, right?  I had the impression the teachers were merely winging it.  And it did not help that they’re some of the least attractive people I ever saw.  For Pete’s sake, we’re talking about physical education.  How can anyone in her right mind be convinced to incorporate exercise into the daily regimen when its advocates proudly display bad skin, paunchy guts, and saggy butts in all their glory, in addition to embodying the most heinous hair and fashion statements EVER?  It was too… no.

On the other hand, we did relish in the hyperactive things that were fun to do — dudes, the good ol’ days of tree climbing, mock Musketeer swordfights, cartwheeling, handstanding, walking on old paint-can stilts, and the countless times scaling over the balcony and going around our grandmother’s first-story shingled roof.  Oh, and doing our best to perfect the strategic sway that was supposed to minimize the sting whenever the folks catch us and test our butts.  These things happened with increasing regularity until I turned thirteen (and then, as they said, the Deluge.  And meaner bras that nearly rendered the respiratory system unconscious). 

So far, not many of my grade school classmates answered an affirmative when I asked them if they ever slid down a bannister at home.  I saw it one time from a skit in The Electric Company and many times on Scooby Doo.  The year I turned seven, I found it was very doable on Cool Grandma’s wooden bannister.  Although there was this boy… we’ll call him Alf — temporary apologies to Gordon Shumway.  He was our answer to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and did everything short of kissing a crocodile: wrestling a fierce teacher, stepping on a test paper he flunked and then eating it, and chewing a metal paper fastener.  I guess our childhood was pretty normal, after all.  Anyway, he looked like someone who’d have slid down a bannister.  But he transferred to another school before I could ask him so I’m not sure.

I hit third grade and our mother unceremoniously shipped us off to a new school.  It was a totally different culture — we could wear any color and kind of shoes and socks we liked, the moh pit exercises were the “don’t color outside the lines” variety, the English language primers had beyond PG-rated stories of aswangs, manananggals and tiyanaks… and no ego-mad, confiscating-happy school patrol brigade!  The canteen there had bottled softdrinks!… they did not taste like un-carbonated sugar water.  It also stocked Clover Chips and Potato Chips and 20 different bubble gums and Voltes V cheesey corn puffs and anything full of tapioca starch and shortening!  Yum.  And the teacher, during class hours, talked about us having boyfriends and girlfriends, never mind most of us were just nine! 

In the midst of those prepubescent ‘The Rules’ sessions, I did my best to hold on to fond memories that were struggling to transfer themselves onto new brain cells.  We had sandwiches by Jorge (preferably pronounced HOR-heh), the vending machines with the manangs, the trays of yellow cups and a plastic sheet over them… and who could forget the Exterminator, who used to haunt that corner on the second floor elementary building for high school students taking a shortcut or underaged potential pairs, dealt with class deviants, and sometimes went by the shorter, more kid-friendly nickname of… ‘Terminator?  On good days I call her ‘Termy, but not to her face. 

But the new school’s teacher elbowed these thoughts aside with her earnest manifesto, systematically calculating likelihoods of future relationships, like Kuya Germs.  My head hurt.  What an avant-garde curriculum, I thought.

Why am I bringing these up?  Because, while ignoring my penchant for segueing to multiple topics at inopportune moments, they make up a background.  Because during this short time, I discovered another activity that totally ate up whatever I ate up.  Extreme synchronized rope jumping!  At the time, it really looked extreme to me.  I mean, I didn’t even know Chinese garter from a Chilean one so I was totally wet behind the ears.  How it worked was, two rope masters stood about eight to ten feet apart, holding between them a looong jump rope — one of the girls had this really great makeshift rope, a gray insulated cable about a quarter inch in diameter and about five meters long to vary the play.  How it’s done is, the rope masters swing the rope steadily, and jumpers jump in.  After warm-ups, two or three jumpers go in — sometimes we witness jump-offs.  The jumping part looked fun, but I kept chickening out in the beginning because the cable jump rope was only making this frightening whipping sound effect interjected with impacts on concrete: WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!  I did not want to get whapped.

All the kids were, like, go in there already, you wussy!  So one day after eating my 54th Voltes V cheese snack, I succumbed to peer pressure and did it.  Yes, I whined. Yes, I got whapped.  But I made it alive!  At home, I asked T2jim and Dozer_021 to work the rope for me so I could practice.  But Dozer_021 was just 19 months old then, so at the risk of her getting flung by the rope to another household and me having to explain why her collarbone looked askew to our parents, we solved the problem by tying one end to a tree. 

Then mother changed her mind and I was shipped back to where I came from just after one semester — maybe the teacher’s philosophy scared her, too.  And so I introduced the long rope to the old classmates. However, in my absence I forgot just how serious ‘Termy, the SPs, and the usual maximum tolerance were.  My jump rope was confiscated, and thus ended the possibility of myself being the greatest no-hands rope jumper in the world.  Anyway, the point is those were good times and activities discussed in above monologues were probably the reasons why the metabolism was like clockwork, ‘were’ being the operative word here.

 

Jump to 2005.  It’s been two years since running sprinty errands at The Ultimate Challenge. No sibling is on hand to make me scramble for stuff that demand competition.  I don’t get to run after jeepneys anymore, either, because there are no jeepneys in Poor, Poor Village.  I get winded running up and down stairs, which has never been a problem before… and I have an elder’s pacing speed?!  Then it hit me.  Hel-lo. I am an elder!  The LDL level approached Code Orange, and DSTS made me face another force of evil that I will dread for the rest of my days: the treadmill. 

(To be continued)

Bandemonia

Every day after five, the strains of MP3 files break out from all corners of the office as each of our trusty and nearly omnipresent Media Players offer a dizzying array of songs ranging from Louis Armstrong, Andrea Bocelli, The Eagles, and The Jackson 5 to the mind-numbing, ever-looping favorites from Chinese techno deejays, M2M (ever living here, ladies and gentlemen), Dao Lang, Rain, SHE, and the ever dominant Canto pop superstars… last category being perpetrated by male Hong Kong colleagues who, just my luck, prefer selections of the most excruciatingly sentimental kind.  Like, lovelorn things and little else (thank Jung these guys don’t live in cowboy country). Apparently, these are big at their suking karaoke bars. 

I tried other music playing software on Windows.  MusicMatch Jukebox was pretty cool when you need to convert WAV files in your hard drive to MP3s — Media Player can only rip directly from the CD.  iTunes had a nice way of transitioning to the next song, but the software was slower to initialize compared to Media Player and it also took up a lot of disk space — I guess it’s better to render unto Apple what is Apple’s.  In the end, I stuck with Media Player for express music at work, unless anyone can show me another way to play the songs while letting me go on mucking through spreadsheets, document, and vector files all at once so it better not consume too much RAM, and not require me to store extra stuff that add to my backpack’s weight, too. 

Checking my current playlist, songs are mostly from bands.  From old bands, I have:

• Pink Orange Red – Cocteau Twins

It’s hard to believe this piece was released in 1985, note especially what Robin Guthrie described as him trying to wing it, using simple, twangy guitar strums because he wasn’t technically ‘good enough’, and Elizabeth Fraser’s heavy use of voice projection and the beautifully indistinct caterwauling near the end.  It’s the sound that inspired the original Pilipino music (OPM) band Sugar Hiccup (so now I ask if Sugar Hiccup’s still considered ‘original’?  Hum?).  Later Cocteau Twins would update the roster and venture into more ethereal, pitch-adventurous, mostly still quirkily incomprehensible but nontheless very moving music.  I miss this band.

• Us – Sugar Hiccup

I can’t have a Cocteau Twins song without a Sugar Hiccup one in a playlist; comparison is SOP as the latter vocally acknowledged it’s definitely influenced by the former — and on top of the similarities to Cocteau Twins music in the earlier 80s, Sugar Hiccup took its name from a Cocteau Twins song title, which I’m thinking is an homage to the way Cocteau Twins took its own name from a song title by Simple Minds. 

And whenever Czandro Pollack joins Melody del Mundo’s vocal work, I can’t help thinking he’s what Lestat should sound like: velvety, the type that stealthily appears from silent darkness and lulls people to a trance before they receive a bite.  ‘Us’ lyrics bring to mind the words in the Beach Boys’ ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’.  During the time served in CAFA when it was enjoying more frequent airplay, though, I often confused ‘Us’ with ‘Not Much TIme’. 

• Someday (Unplugged) – Sugar Ray

Yes, I thought Mark McGrath was hot in a Cher kind of way.  Shaddup already.  But the band had a nice style, too, using nice guitar chords with just enough mixed turntable stuff.  ‘Someday’ (Unplugged) emphasized raspy vocals and mellow plunks, and I’ve always looked forward to the ‘break it down’ part where the band cues in the interestingly “unplugged” sound effects.

• More Than A Feeling – Boston

The song rhapsodizes about when we were young and carefree and everything in between.  It’s ‘Set Adrift On Memory Bliss’ with louder riffs and bigger hair.  Addendum: check out Nsync’s version of ‘More Than A Feeling’ and you’ll understand why I think that even if that comparatively junior band looked smurfier than the Backstreet Boys, N’Sync is way talented or better managed than BSB… hum.  If the acronym is ‘BSB’, shouldn’t the name be spelled as ‘Back Street Boys’?

• My Wave – Soundgarden

Do everything you want, but I want my personal space; keep your junk off my wave. Like the man said.  ‘My Wave’ hammers ideas for the theme utilizing a 5/4 syncopation until it shifts to a regular 4/4 chorus.  Easily an astig surfing music, too, if only MP3 players were waterproof.  Or if surfers can hear the music blasting from the beach.  Or if beachcombers can surf on the sand.  Or if a blimp is testing huge speakers over the waters. 

But that’s not what you see on TV.  What is it with video people who keep putting music together with all those surfing and make me expect the same thing happening in real life, which, instead, presents me with paddle boards, old tube tires, and an eclectic mix of KC And The Sunshine Band (circa 80s), Wang Chung, and those crazy dance fad songs? And I happen to like Chocolait!  Was that song financed by Nestle to drive Magnolia’s loyal consumers nuts?  And how about Celine Dion going on and on and ON about the heart going on, for crying out loud — what kind of genius plays a mopey song about a drowned lover on the beach?  These sick masterminds are messing with what remains with my reality tuning system.

• Head Over Heels – Tears For Fears

Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith always rated high in my 80s favorites, ranting frustrations of youth and life through resonant baritones on echoey mics and sophisticated synthesized music that doesn’t exactly fit itself into the pigeonholed New Wave movement; ‘Head Over Heels’ brings all those into reflective mode, as in ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’, and if you close your eyes it’s like you’re in freefall that’s somehow telling you everything is as it should be.

• Beatnik Beach – The Go-Go’s

Wonderful work by the girls here, especially Charlotte Caffey’s deft lead strings and Gina Schock’s frenetic drumwork.  A nice tribute to The Ventures and other surfer safari guitar groups of the 60s… there I go again, automatically marrying surfing and kick-ass guitar music!  I am slave to a crazy world.

• Bicycle Race – Queen

Freddie defies being stuck in categories and the bicycle is the perfect metaphor to hold the premises together — check out Morrissey’s stuff, too, why don’t you?  ‘Bicycle Race’ remains one of my favorite Queen compositions, lyrics and Brian May segments.

• Time Bomb – Rancid

More than ten years later and the simple chorus still makes a good tongue twister challenge.  OK, technically it’s not even that twisty?  But try repeating the chorus five times very fast without making a mistake.  One of the best ska songs ever.

• Tusk – Fleetwood Mac

Mac’s ambitious and brilliant ‘Tusk’ never fails to send goosebumps down my arms.  The lyrics makes me think of a Fatal Attraction kind of scene, and though the band insists ‘Tusk’ has nothing to do with elephants, I always found the percussions and brass melody in the song arrangement suggesting visuals of majestic proboscids, like when Colonel Hathi and his troops lumbered by Mowgli and his posse in the Disney version of Jungle Book… was Lindsey Buckingham secretly alluding obsessive love to poachers?  Always a trip in high fidelity.

• The Battle Of Evermore – Led Zeppelin

In the same way Stone Temple Pilots covered The Doors, The Lovemongers (a tribute band founded by sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson of rock band Heart fame) did a version of this song and it’s included in Nancy’s husband Cameron Crowe’s Singles. Anyway, the Led Zeppelin original (vocals shared by Sandy Denny) is so up there that, like STP’s ‘Break On Through’, The Lovemongers didn’t bother getting creative and deviating too far away from ‘The Battle Of Evermore’ in its purest form, straight off the Fourth.

On young bands, I’ve been checking out two currently lightweights but probably lots of potential that were introduced in 2005 — The Veronicas and The Faders.

When you put twins and playing with rock music together, I always picture collective stage names and a feeling that the music will be between genres.  Take Nelson, for example.  And the twins in The Moffats, a previously squeaky-clean band of brothers who prompted me to laugh so hard when they suddenly popped up on an album cover with bad-assed expressions, huge sunglasses and facial hair.  Gaad.  In Hong Kong, there’s Boyz, and two girls who do not share any sanguinity at all but call themselves Twins. 

The Veronicas are no exception — twin singers/songwriters, they are Australians Jessica and Lisa Origliasso, whose mostly melodic pop music flashes flavors of the jagged little pill.  They show a lot of promise and none of the crap you’d expect of, say, Ashlee, or the Duffs (and just let me say that Hilary’s big sister looks like Ai Ai Delas Alas pretending to look like Hilary!  At least Ai Ai has talent). 

What the Veronicas put out is actually what I’ve been expecting of Lindsay Lohan when she announced her record deal with Emilio Estefan and treated us to a glimpse of rocking it in the remake of Freaky Friday, only to have her stun us shortly after with ‘Teenage Drama Queen’ (school girl uniformed, comparatively wholesome Britney mode) and ‘Rumors’ (rated R slave Britney mode).  Most of the songs from The Secret Life Of [The Veronicas] have a Plumb feel to them — lyrics are what you expect of a Max Martin production, but the arrangements are surprisingly good, and the twins’ vocal work is solid.  I find occasional sudden shifts of rhythm speed a nice touch.  I am currently digging four songs:

• Mother, Mother

A ‘letter’ to Mom, one that’s heavy on the cost of independence, angst bordering on melodrama, and guilt trip as thick as mayo.  Nice use of guitar and piano cacophony, and the sisters manage decent snarls to accent the ‘tude without the overkill.

• Speechless

Max Martin blares out loud here, with the lyrics in refrain and chorus going like this:

Fallen head over heels

Thought I knew how it feels

But with you it’s like the first day of my life

‘Cause you leave me speechless

When you talk to me

You leave me breathless

The way you look at me

You’ve managed to disarm me

My soul is shining through

Can’t help but surrender

My everything to you

Trite?  Hell, yes.  Cringe-worthy cliches?  Most definitely.  But the twins manage to carry it with an earnestness and emotion that made the otherwise overused lines sound genuinely heartfelt — lack of this skill was what made LeAnn Rimes fall flat despite very capable pipes.  It’s an anniversary piece in the making; play ‘Speechless’ over a special moment with your signifcant other. It’s a safe call.

• Secret

Talk about the great pretender… and now she’s mad and will never go out with him no matter what after he tells her that he’s really straight and did only what he did ’cause he really likes her, and all along she was telling him her deepest darkest secrets — probably talked about moody and monthly girl stuff, too — and changing her clothes in front of him because all throughout their friendship she thought he was gay!  This song?  Gas.

• When It All Falls Apart

Everything’s effed up, the sisters lament.  Hee, hee, hee.  Note here that the breathy vocal style typical of Andrea Corr is very prominent — could do without too much of it, there are days when I get annoyed with Andrea Corr-ing — but then again, it’s their preferred style.  Kind of influenced by the California pop-rock sound of the 80s, like ‘For The Very First Time’ (Robin Beck), ‘California Dreams’ (that Saturday morning show — think Saved By The Bell and Guys Next Door), and the artificially saccharined Belinda Carlisle stuff when she went solo after the Go-go’s split and de-punked.  And while hopefully the girls will shed the euphemisms to go 100% rock in later life, it’s a good show and they’ll probably make it.  Change producers and collaborators a few years after, maybe… unless they opt to do a Belinda. 

The Secret Life Of is a pleasant album to play when you want something lightweight after work or on the road, whatever the mood.

The Faders I am talking about in this entry, on the other hand, are British, therefore three girls from the UK who debuted with the 2005 album Plug In & Play.  Not to be confused with The Faders from California and in The OC soundtrack (excellent soundtrack, by the way, props to Alexandra Patsavas; I wish I had her job), an indie favorite responsible for 2004′s ‘Disco Church’ and ‘Lost Punk’. 

If The Veronicas supposedly named themselves after The Archies’ Veronica Lodge, The Faders will remind you of Josie And The Pussycats minus the ears (drums and two guitars).  The Faders have a rougher sound than the Origliasso sisters, though still considered pop, nonetheless, with frontgrrl and lead guitarist Molly Lorenne sporting crimson locks and drummer Cherisse Osei showing off a fishnet thingy on her left arm.  Bassist Toy Valentine is a kick-ass rocker with dark eyeliner, black roots and bleached hair, which looks very cool when she shakes her mane during performances.  If they’re the real deal — meaning they played everything on the tracks themselves — I’m impressed, because they sound really good and none of these girls are even over 21 yet… should be plenty of time to check out if they and their music mature well with time, right?  Well… no. 

Debuting in 2005 with the excellently foot-stomping ‘No Sleep Tonight’, which remains their best song so far, the girls announced they broke up the band just last July.  Which was too bad… I liked the package — not too polished and with playful, rebel attitudes — and the band’s logos were a spray-painted ‘THE FADERS’ and a skull and crossbones formed by using shapes and silhouettes of a guitar pick, guitars, a headpiece, amps, and drum sticks.

Was it because there’s another band called The Faders?  Was it a case of creative differences?  Molly Lorenne, who was Molly Ure (daughter of Ultravox’s Midge Ure), is now solo artist Molly McQueen — in addition to her solo version of ‘No Sleep Tonight’, I checked samples of her new stuff, which sound similar to Shawn Colvin and Courtney Jaye stuff; Toy Valentine is into punk, and Cherisse Ossai was a metal drummer.  Anyway, here are my favorite from Plug In & Play:

• No Sleep Tonight

I say the best work by the girls.  The bass guitar is strangely addictive, the lead guitar is ripping, and I love the toms and bass beats.  Everything works.  The lyrics are fun, straight to the point, and tight… and it’s impossible to stay still when this trademark single is blasting through the speakers. 

• Better Off Dead

The ‘Oy!’ gets me every time, and… who were the first to ‘oy’, the British or the Jewish?  That’s honest curiosity, by the way, and not meant in any way to resemble recent Mel Gibsonisms.

• Jump

Get over me, I’m over you!  Jump!  Preferrably off a building.  Energetic and upbeat, the music reminds me a little of The March Violets’ ‘Turn To The Sky’.

• Strange Boy

A boy scores big points by leaving dead flowers to spell his favorite girl’s name.  He walks for hours in the rain to follow her and miraculously does not get pneumonia.  He keeps her picture in a broken frame; he’s kinda cheap.  And creepy.  But he’s got a hold on her, so he’s her strange boy.  And if he’s anything like Trent Reznor, I completely agree.

I will be looking forward to checking out what these girls will be working on next, and who knows.  Maybe there’ll be future projects together.

 

                                                                            *****

I have inherited a strain of gene that enabled me to sprout a thick but coarse head of hair, and so for me, without elastic bands to tie hair and a bottle of mousse or hair spray, every day is a bad hair day.  Anyway, I found my supply of reliable black polyurethane bands slowly approaching complete depletion. 

I like PU bands.  Unlike rubber bands, they don’t stick to hair when you pull them off.  So far this particular brand, TPU, was the strongest I could find, lasting me an average of four months before even possibly breaking.  Look for the ‘Made in Korea’ statement.  Back in Manila all I could get were other brands — made in China (what can I say) — that could not last two re-ties.  My hair was, like, the Hulk Hogan of hair. 

Having attested to TPU’s tensile strength, I went one step up on brand loyalty and used the too stretched-out ones for keeping wads of loose change bills in order (especially the crumply ones from the wet market), and also to keep business cards in place.  On occasion I still resort to the fun of stealthily shooting people with folded paper pellets.  Making note to find TPU suppliers and replenish supply soon.

 

                                                                            *****

Choose an artist or band, and answer using just the song titles by that artist or band.

Artist/band:  Queen

Are you male or female: ‘Killer Queen’

Describe yourself: ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ (multiple personalities)

How do some people feel about you: ‘Radio Ga Ga’, ‘Another One Bites The Dust’

How do you feel about yourself: ‘Dead On Time’ (stress on ‘dead’, not ‘on time’)

Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘[Theme of] Flash [Gordon]‘

Describe where you want to be: ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’

Describe what you want to be: ‘A Kind Of Magic’

Describe how you live: ‘Under Pressure’

Describe how you love: ‘Teo Torriatte’

Share a few words of wisdom: ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ (but ‘Who Wants To Live Forever?’)

Road Crossing Chicken, That LFO Song, And Why Choco Wafers Are Easier Eaten Than Described

I keep a notebook.  Er, make that notebooks.

DSTS developed a pet peeve during the years he’s hung out with me: anywhere’s book, art supplies, or office supplies store.  Lord help him when I find an all-in-one.  If it happens that I’m not seriously ill or in some kind of passionate amok mode, I almost always disappear into it, going through everything for hours before I decide on buying (or not) and finally leaving the store, vowing to cash attendants, who couldn’t care less, that “Ah’ll be bahck.”  I just REALLY like notebooks.  I like checking out if the spaces between lines are just right.  If the notebooks are unlined, even better!… and I proceed to run my fingers on the surface to test the texture.  I test the mucilage, or binding, or spring.  I even smell the paper.  Don’t even get me started on pens (maybe in another entry).

Though I’ve friends who totally swear by and rhapsodize over their trusty PDAs, somehow I’ve never been digitally inclined.  It’s not even a question of affording one, some models are pretty good, function- and price-wise.  It’s just… electronic gadgets seem to remove the romance of the writing experience somehow.  Hum.  Or maybe I’m just obsessed with my loopy-scratchy handwriting (Apeng Daldal lovingly described it as ‘lang kuanh diao e tsak-si’).  It’s a disease and most environmentally un-friendly of me, I know, but there it is.

DSTS has been very patient.  It’s not like he doesn’t like me keeping notebooks (and books.  And pens).  He has a logical point: I usually still hadn’t used up my supplies on stock every time I get the craving to replenish.  And why look for more, says he, when we’re running out of storage.  I, of course, nonsensically argue that while I don’t have use for these notebooks yet or the space to store them, it is of no matter, I just have to have them on hand.  When that fails, I try to reason that at least my hoard does not comprise cell phones.  Or things with LV on them.  Or vodka and schnapps.  Poor DSTS.

One of my notebooks in use contains boring things: lists of things I must do, notes from meetings, groceries.  Another notebook isn’t exactly boring, but is not that useful either — lists of current events, names, new bands, musicians, movies, websites to check out; random quotes and research info that may be useful later.  Still there’s another that I call the storybank.  To date I’ve never written a full novel, and I don’t think I’ll ever be that ambitious — more importantly, capable.  But I do get this tic to write down scenes that do not necessarily make sense. Snippets of things.  Then on some days I go back and check out the lunacy recorded on the pages.  Many entries definitely look sillier than they originally were.  But some of them’s… well, personally?  Entertaining.  Demented.  Hilarious.

Despite the mess that might result from doing so, I do encourage people to keep notebooks.  And lots of them.

***

I’m now listening to ‘My Drug Buddy’.  It’s interesting the way it delivers depression and comfort, loneliness and companionship at once — one of the many collaborative works by good pals Juliana Hatfield and Evan Dando (technically The Lemonheads when the song was recorded, but Evan ruled the roost).  Are they still good pals, by the way?  Anybody?  Anybody at all?

I liked The Blake Babies — I’ve recently downloaded MP3s of their reunion album, God Bless The Blake Babies, released in 2001, the same year another reunion album was released by The Go-Go’s (I have that, too).  Naturally the latter is entitled God Bless The Go-Go’s. No, I’m not kidding.  Apparently great bands think alike.  Heh.

The Blake Babies produced better stuff between 1989 and 1992, but I didn’t find out about them till much later.  Juliana Hatfield, however, I loved. I discovered her music the year she struck out on her own — about the time I broke out of high school — then tracked back to the Babies to check out the roots.  Juliana has everything I’d like to think I related to: some sarcasm… some angst… an attitude of letting things be (read slacking off)… rock… plus, of course, this flipside for bubblegum influences like Andy Gibb and Wilson Phillips.  Yes.  On one hand, gawd, really?  On the other hand… I do have an occasional (closet) yen.  And for the record I liked ‘Impulsive’ and ‘Shadow Dancing’.  But why stop there?  There’s ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’, ‘Diary’, and ‘Xanadu’.  Okay.  Ya happy.  Moving on.

Anyway, that was it, my Juliana Hatfield phase.  I mean, sure, Fiona and Alanis were more popular, but how would I, then 17 and with the ripe maturity of a 12-year-old, relate to something like being a bad, bad girl and everytime one scratched her nails on someone else’s back she hopes Ex-Boyfriend feels it?  Yeegh.  Too intense.  Anyway, Fiona’s sound was raw, though she did have enough balance and I can say I liked her style with the keys. Alanis, however, I thought was overloaded with detail that she pounds at you.  Kinda like this blog.  Was she trying to go for brutally honest?  Let’s benchmark against Liz Phair and PJ Harvey… um, no.  Then again Alanis scored those number ones, which goes to show just how much I know.  Still in comparison, Garbage aimed for the same sneering style and achieved a smoother, more sophisticated delivery — tight lyrics and plus points on utilizing just the right amount of mix effects.  Try blasting that band’s babies on a long roadtrip (all albums highly recommended, if only to graph how they evolved in that style).  Awesome.

Tori Amos was edgier and totally sent inhuman shivers from my tympanic membranes to the nether regions… but her songs are not those you can easily hum on a jeepney ride to Carriedo, you know?  Sarah McLachlan’s the top choice of many gentle souls.  And I agree she’s a fine musician-singer (and designer-entrepreneur), though she’s someone I would lump with performers like John Mayer, Norah Jones, Kevyn Lettau, Erykah Badu — talented people, but once you’ve heard one song, you’ll have the same interpretation, rhythm speed, and pitch for world without end.  It’s like the same music is what they’re comfortable with and treated merely as the setting, not the priority, which the audience can appreciate only after it has digested the personal opinions, philosophies, issues, and other what-have-you’s the performers are putting on display in the first place.  They’re all, listen what I have to say.  Oh, and here’s a tune to go with it.  And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  That’s why theirs is the kind of music to choose when you want to shrug off a tense week, or wallow and not develop suicidal tendencies in the process.

Juliana had her signature style, and her voice may forever remain girly, but she offered a range of moods to choose from, and she experimented how to convey those moods.  And though I never did drugs, or had a boyfriend who chose drugs over me, Juliana somehow made these experiences — first hand or otherwise — easily digestible.  The approach is more “Hey, guess what happened today.  No big deal.”

I suppose here you can conveniently insert disclaimers or plugs, however you see it, that Juliana Hatfield’s music may very well be EBIL music for impressionable young women, though dudes, we haven’t even touched the words from The Doors, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Morrissey, the Chilli Peppers, Led Zeppelin, Morrissey, Porno For Pyros, Elastica, Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Offspring (if you consider those hacks a rock band, like those snots who formed Linkin Park.  Honestly.), The Murmurs, The Spice Girls (“I wanna really, really, really wanna zigga-zig, haah”?), Metallica, or Nine Inch Nails yet.  And yep, you’ve lost me around Marilyn Manson — you know there’s Freddie Mercury’s flair for drama, and Gene Simmons’s shock ya factor, but this guy’s something else altogether… um, kudos for, er, pushing boundaries?  Oh, well.

Back to Juliana.  She and Evan thought alike in many ways.  Got stoned together, no doubt — ‘My Drug Buddy’?  Hum?  There were the stories she put to music, which weren’t exactly about transcending to the planes of Hilary Duff movies, though Jules just had to churn out the happy tunes that goes with some of them.  Bouts of sulky riffs and depressed chords that match the words were given, but the Pollyana sound was always never far behind.  Evan’s band was renamed The Lemonheads probably for the same effect it was trying to achieve: sweet package, sour poetry.  Later after Evan kicked his co-founder out of the band, he gradually opted for more frequent happy tunes, too.  I’d like to think Jules influenced him on that.

You know, Evan Dando had a penchant for squiring skanks (probably still does) and once dated Bijou Phillips, who’s known to frequently diss her half-sister Chynna Phillips, who, unlike Bij, has both a Mama and a Papa, ‘acted’ in John Huhges movies and that uncute remake of Bye Bye, Birdie, snagged herself a Baldwin, and was one-third of Wilson Phillips, a Juliana fave.  Some say John Strohm moved to split up The Blake Babies because Juliana played ‘Hold On’ far too many times — funny visual to imagine there — and Freda Boner-Love was the neutral Blake Baby who tried to patch things up.  Yes, I know she dropped her maiden name when she got married.  But my mind is still 12 and just couldn’t resist.

***

As rules go, when you love the people you love, you think of their well-being.  You do not pull them with you when you know you are sinking.  Instead, you give them a set of wings, you teach them how to use those wings, and then give them push so they can go on.  You do not hold them back.  You do not cause them to do something that you know will bring them to harm.  You’ll want them to seek their potential; you’ll want them to do well for themselves, because you love them.

No matter how tough you project yourself to be, you are compassionate.  You make certain you do not to bring innocents into a life filled with uncertainty, suffering, and fear.  As much as possible you’ll want them strong, prepared, and able.  You are a rational person.  You do your best, you know there are limits; nothing is forever, no one is irreplaceable.

If none of those made sense, then you are neither rational, nor have you loved at all.  It is human to be prideful and selfish… to a point, I agree it was our destiny and our right to be so.

It’s important, however, to be reminded what is.  And you must know when to draw the line.

***

I’m nominated for the Voltron Fandom Awards for best traditional art, best action fan art, best hero art, and best [newcomer] fan website.  Which are… bwa ha ha.  The fan art pieces aren’t done well, the fan site isn’t even complete yet… which goes to show how many fans are out there.  Not likely to improve anything fun as everything else is still whizzing by, paralyzing everyone until Lilith Fair is in vogue again.  Curly shuffles?  Pinks?  Whichever come first.

See, virtual life makes as much sense as reality does.