Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Life in terminals, twenty years hence

If I had to sum the narrative of my life up in just one statement, it would have to be a line by Ian Curtis; "touching from a distance, further all of the time" from Joy Division's song, Transmission. This wouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who frequents I Don't Want To Miss You Anymore, tell us something we don't already know. Hinting at yet another encounter with the said narrative by way of having mentioned it in the first place would be completely justifiable given the nature of the past few months for me. As of the moment, I think I may have exhausted the notion of distance as an underlying theme in the formation of my character in previous years; this will no longer be about that. The past for the most part shall now remain distal as I have chosen to situate myself as a person of today, living and acting in the present.

In previous entries, I have interchangeably used the terms wayfarer and drifter to describe what I see as the condition of a perennial lack of permanence in the field of human relations; at least as far as the individual situation and shared phenomenology is concerned. More often than not, I use these terms in reference to myself. These two shall however make way for the usage of a more canonical term from within my personal taxonomy. From now on, I am a transient. The whole notion of being a transient and its inherent transience shall now stand over distance as the basic foundation of my rambling under the premise that whereas both distance and transience imply situation, being a transient assumes movement whereas the distant subject operates from within the condition of distance.

Long story short, I'll be writing from a slightly different perspective. It's about time I did.


Focusing on enrollment and the first few weeks of class for the greater part of November, I haven't really spoken much on the things I've seen and/or done during the semestral break. A while back, my band went on a short tour of Luzon, hitting three dates over the span of five days. Last year's tour was incredibly botched with guitars getting knocked out of tune, me disappearing intermittently and having the guys commute place to place with a box full of merch I promised to carry. Don't forget how I so conveniently left our drummer's return ticket all the way in Tondo. It was terrible to say the least.

Not wanting for any of this to happen again, I sought to help make this year's tour run as smoothly as it possibly could. I managed to secure transport and a place to stay, hooked us up with shows and everything. Paeng gets to Manila first, the three of us follow a few days later. Save for the long trips between shows and the place we stayed in, things went by rather smoothly. A few friends of ours helped us out and made the whole endeavor particularly enjoyable, organizers, other bands, bums, comic book nerds, elitist hipster snobs et al.

First show was for Joe and Tubby Trousers productions; came home with a cd from Ponchie of Encounters With A Yeti, an amazing post-rock band with an awesome ass video to go along with their live set. A lot of great bands that night, I feel like crap for missing FilterFilter though. Aunt Audrey was nice though. Second show was Earth Decay '09 in San Pablo, Laguna for our good friend and hardcore dad, Agee Linan. Aunt Audrey was there, too. Got there just in time for Wagyu (also known as that band with the really pretty drummer) and that blistering set from the fastest band in the land, Rush IxDx. Got bumped off the lineup quite a few times, which pissed us off a bit but well we got to play, so all's well. It's not easy organizing events like this anyway. Omerta and Curse/Gift didn't get to play which disappointed me, but seeing bands like Shoulder State, Goo, and Tame The Tikbalang left me content. Still royally hating myself for not going to SPC earlier to see Agee's last set with Legarda ever, Ang Bandang Shirley and Ginseng Luzon. Third and last show was for the up and coming Asterisk* Collective, show with quite a number of real screamo bands played that night and it was easily the set I enjoyed the most among the three. Crowd reception was great over the course of the whole tour, first time we've ever had people move to the things we played, much less sing our lyrics back to us. Amazing shows, those three.

While not playing shows, I chose to spend most of my time with some new acquaintances; one of which, I had a particular interest in. I think I've mentioned her a few times in IDWTMYA but yeah. This really didn't end well between me and her. After weighing things out, it's better this way. Sure, I felt like I was led on at some point but I'd like to put that behind me. We just weren't coming from the same time and place. As for her friends, well we still talk. They're fun to talk to from time to time so it couldn't be all bad. It's nice to have a little crazy every now and then, at least not the kind of crazy I'm used to. Now fuck off, Carl Rogers. On to other matters.

Oh, on a side note our drummer left a few weeks after tour following a fairly messy set. We're still working out arrangements for a replacement but we surely will miss the guy. He's been there since day one and did a lot for this band. We'll miss you, man. Move on to greater things and make us proud.


Came home on the 29th of October to enroll for the second semester. Nerves shot to shit, I was incredibly tense as to my status in the AB-Psychology program. If there's anything I want to get around to, it's graduating so I could get the hell out of here. I couldn't afford to stay in college any longer than I have to, there's just too much riding on this for me to take everything lightly. Apart from what my folks are spending on this and the time I've already spent in school, there's just too much of an emotional investment in the program and its people from this end.

I'm incredibly enthusiastic about this semester and I've got all the textbooks I need for this; additional references, a new schoolbag, notebooks, supplies et al. Sure, I spent the greater part of the first week in queue in and around the SS Division for the absurdly tedious task of adding and dropping subjects but I got the job done and classes are working out well so far. The professors are amazing and I love all of them. I have 21 units this semester and I'm enrolled in Social Psychology, Experimental Psychology and Research, Agrarian Reform and Taxation, Writing Across the Disciplines, Cognitive Psychology, Abnormal Psychology and Christian States of Life.

What's my target grade for this semester? Well, that I wouldn't know. All I'm saying is I intend to deserve what I get and things are looking good.


Sleep has been off for the past few days. Personally, I find that a bit off given that my sleep patterns were actually a lot more stable during the semestral break. Good thing I have that new alarm clock though, it really helps me wake up in the morning. That coffee mom brought home from Indonesia works too but still, I'm going to have to rest earlier to make sure I have enough energy for the day to come. Next stop, I should probably work on my diet but first thing's first I need to learn how to sleep.


Since we got home from tour, the CB guys and I took it upon ourselves to let the band a rest a while given how tiring the whole thing was. Consequently, this left me with a lot more time to work on my other bands and projects. Since 2006, I've been doing some solo material- fairly recently under the moniker, Love In Athens. Recently, I just added a new member and things are turning out well for the both of us. We're working on new songs for various compilations.

I've also been playing bass in a Tragedy style hardcore/punk band called Disobjectify with Paeng on guitar and vocals and Paris from Capgun Robbery and We Spell Disaster on drums. That shoegaze band IP and Wilson were starting with me and Janno is on the back burner but I have Love In Athens for that as of the moment. A friend of Denise and I, TJ might get me to play bass and do some programming for this band he's starting. Hopefully it ends up shoegazey enough for my tastes too. We're all into My Bloody Valentine and M83 type stuff so it shouldn't be too far off.


This bastard still follows me around everywhere I go. He's been following me for a few months now and it's driving me nuts. Okay, okay, I exaggerated a bit there. Statistically, it's highly probable that I may see the same cab a number of times especially when we most probably travel the same routes from time to time. It's just weird how many times I have to run into 666. How kvlt is that?


Well, took me a while to put this up but that's the past few weeks for you. It had its ups and downs but it was all worth it. I see good things ahead and well, I'm still taking things one day at a time. See you soon, IDWTMYA!

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