Positive Superlative Saturday

All star cast, from left: beer + brooklyn white pesto with uncle moe’s sauce + bolano = Positive Superlative. A little later on, Erwin arrives and gives me:

!!!!!!! Ikr. Just when you think the uncle moe’s combonalo (SIDE NOTE:  a contemporary local compound slang word that should represent the present state of Filipino language, dominated by taglish or a combination of tagalog and english. Combonalo means a winning combination. It is made up of two words, “combo” from the english word “combination” and “nalo” from the word “panalo” which means “to win”) couldn’t get any better, here comes a writer I truly respect with a belated birthday gift that made me get up and hug him. What is not to love???

I don’t know about you but I really do take my Saturdays seriously. By Thursday, I would’ve some semblance of a Saturday plan, a gig to go to, a dish to eat, a store to visit, friends to meet, an errand to run only for the reward after. This Saturday has surpassed any of my recent Saturdays. And to think it’s only 721pm.

Won’t push my luck though. Will stay home tonight. There are a few things I need to finish. Monday is a deadline. But that’s okay. Because it is really a positive superlative Saturday. I hope you are having one yourself!

I Wish it was still the Weekend

And that I lived in a house with one of these. And I’d be hanging out here all day long.

this one’s not bad, too:

(both photos from youaremyfavejr)

In other news, Roger just won. Such beautiful, if not stressful!, tennis. And this is just first round. Times like these make me reach out to Radiohead:

Thom does Joy Div

A quick note, as this is my niece and nephew’s last today. Thom, with Atoms for Peace, does a cover of Joy Division. Awesome.

Music Trip: Past and Present

Sixteen years and one day ago, I came home from my first ever guitar recital to a sad news: Kurt Cobain shot himself in the head. I was about 12 years old then, a big Nirvana fan. On Bio channel last April 5, I learned that his performance of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” at MTV Unplugged  was the only time Kurt Cobain acknowledged himself.

He was asked to do an encore, his Bio informed, but Kurt declined. “There’s no way I can top that,” he was heard saying. Or so the Bio channel reported. In any case, there’s no denying it. Sixteen years later, you can still see it, feel it.

I’m no longer as big a fan today, but his death, I am surprised to realize that it still shakes me, as it did then. I still think Courtney Love shouldn’t have sold his journal. But what do I know? I’m just a fan.

In any case, also this week, Thom Yorke premiered his side project Atoms for Peace at Roseland NYC. The song is, as expected, incredible. It’s of the same strain as his new songs (“The Present Tense” for instance), repetitive single note on the guitar, his fragile voice taking center stage. I dunno man. Thom can do no wrong.

What can I say? I love Radiohead. I love Thom Yorke. It is my dream to watch a concert at Roseland.

Lifemappin for the nth time

This afternoon has been a rollercoaster. On the way back from an interview, I was thinking about how it would be awesome if I could just “fillet the fish and throw everything away.” In my job, I like the interviewing part and the writing part. To do just that would be a dream. In between, I was thinking, I could really learn how to cook, you know? Or read. Or surf the internet. To and fro interviews and shoots, I get to see the rest of the world while away and take pictures.

This thought was confounded when logistical nightmares started to happen…and started to haunt me. Even as I was outside of office. I thought I was evolved enough not to let such small things affect me but I supposed wrong.  I am not as evolved as I think I am. And so I got angry I got stressed I got bleh. I was thinking I could really live without this, how I didn’t want this anymore, how much I only wanted to write.

And then: an SMS about a possible interview with Jens Lenkman. Mr. Lenkman, you see, will be coming to Manila on March 31, to open for Kings of Convenience. I will be watching that show. Obvs, I am a fan. And that text msg more than erased the “11″ forming between my brows; more than made up for the logistical stress that my position entails.

So, as Radiohead’s “How Can You Be Sure?” is put on loop, I can’t help but feel as though Thom is addressing me: How can I be sure I don’t want this anymore? How can I be sure I don’t belong here? How can I be sure?

I forget the artist who sang the song but it had these lines: it’s the same world that brought you down is the one that will pick you up.  Or something like that. And it’s true. I hate my job (or so I think) but there are all these opportunities that reinforces what little love I still have for it.

I still think I belong to publishing and media. But here’s the twist: I don’t think I belong in the Philippines anymore. The logistical shit comes from the fact that I keep on having to clean up the dirt that comes from third world thinking and third world doing. I don’t want to clean anybody’s shit anymore.

I want to take this a notch higher. Maybe I will. International media, here I come! But the necessary question: How do I go about this? Anyone?