where's chuckie?

in the grand tradition of where's wally i challenge you folks to find me in this photo taken from the Pilipinas, Go Renewable! Bike, Run, Walk for Clean Energy event last Sunday

here's a probable casue why i might not be a good example to my nephews...

PayItForward: the story so far






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Skateboarding anyone?

Skateboarding has entered an era where top riders sign corporate sponsorship contracts with "anti-offensiveness" and "no disparagement" clauses, mainstream television stations like ESPN- Disney's sports division - show the X-Games and skateboarders shred at the Olympics. Thanks to corporations like Nike we can eat extreme pizza, drive Nissan's X-Terra SUV, wear extreme deodorant, hire extreme consulting firms and invest in extreme equity funds. But if we are all extreme now, then where have the real rebels gone? Disappeared in a haze of Ritalin?
Maria Hampton
How Nike Conquered Skateboard Culture
Adbusters #65 May-June 2006


The quote above echoes the same sentiments when I along with my girlfriend Jeanie, and her students shot a video of my skateboarding nephew Gato for an advertising project a few weeks ago. The shoot brought back memories a lot of memories including that when I along with other skate buddies rode our boards to a fast descent in at a bypass in Edsa during EDSA 2: Or when I would skip school to skate; or when a 'skate scene' flourished in front of our house in Teachers' Village.

Skate-punk no more

At that time we were having the time of our lives because it was rebellious, nonconforming and firmly tied to punk rock. It was uncool. People hate us and preppy kids made fun of us for sewing rubber pads on our busted sneakers. But nowadays skateboarding all of a sudden turned hip. Starting with the integration of skateboarding scenes in the videos of jock-core band Limp Bizkit, up to the anthemic 'sk8rboi' trash of Avril Lavigne. It seems that the tables were turned to those of us who skated before the advent of the present status of skateboarding culture in today's youth. It's no wonder why I'm no longer riding my board and play at the scene in front of our house; in fact none of the people I skated with still play there.

I guess the corporate-powers that have come to realize that skaters were a troubling yet alluring demographic for big business.


Light at the end of the tunnel

But as I look at how the skate-punk subculture has faded into obscurity with its marriage to corporate-consumer culture that caters to your average mall-going teen I still see a light at the end of the tunnel...

X-Games 2001 champion Bob Burnquist is an avid Greenpeace supporter and is a part of the Action Sports Environmental Coalition, in fact he's also an organic farmer and grass roots environmentalist. He and his wife had supported Greenpeace work in the Amazon, and were also instrumental in making the 2004 The Summer X Games: extreme and green.

Also skateboarding can be an art, hobby, sport or A METHOD OF TRANSPORTATION. It is common knowledge that climate change is a by product of our dependence in fossil fuels to get us power including to power to drive our cars. It's quite fascinating to think of how much power would be saved if we'd all try out skateboarding, in the same way that we've ride our bikes to school or work.

Thinking about it makes me stoked enough to grab my busted Vans shoe and to ride my board to work while listening to Pennywise or NoFX, how about you?

note: originally published in Cool the Planet

I must be getting old...


I just checked out my playlist recently and from my mp3 player and discovered that most of the songs that I listen to have departed from punk rock.

but anyways here's my take on them and maybe you can check them out...

Billy Bragg - Stephen William Bragg (born December 20, 1957), known as Billy Bragg, is an English musician renowned for his blend of folk, punk-rock, and protest music, and his poetic lyrics dealing with political as well as romantic themes.

Bright Eyes - Bright Eyes is an indie rock band consisting of
singer-songwriter/guitarist Conor Oberst, multi-instrumentalist/producer Mike Mogis, and a rotating lineup of collaborators drawn primarily from Omaha's indie music scene.

Dashboard Confessional - Dashboard Confessional is an American
acoustic/electric guitar driven indie rock band, led by singer-songwriter and guitarist Chris Carrabba from Boca Raton, Florida.


Elvis Costello -
Costello was an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s, and later became associated with the punk rock and new wave musical genres, before establishing himself as a unique and original voice in the 1980s. His output has been wildly diverse: One critic has written that "Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can reinvent the past in his own image"

Pedro The Lion - Pedro the Lion was an indie rock band from Seattle, Washington, and, for over a decade, the main creative outlet of singer/songwriter David Bazan. The band combined a biting wit with first person narrative to cover both politics and faith.


Rocky Votolato - While country-inspired singer-songwriters are never in short supply, Seattle's Rocky Votolato stands apart. After dedicating a grueling year and a half to writing and recording his Barsuk Records
debut, Makers , the twenty-eight-year-old father of two -- backed by little more than an acoustic guitar and the occasional harmonica -- has produced an album full of songs that reflect his gift for understatement.



the quantum

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Petron: we fuel pollution




I've been wanting to do something like this lately. this are some songs that I listen to a lot and there are a lot lines in them that ring in my mind lately anyways maybe it's just that I wan't to share it here. anyways see the song and the video of those songs below:


Billy Bragg - Waiting for the Great Leap Forward "If no one seems to understand
Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman"









Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Oliver's Army "Don't start me talking
I could talk all night My mind goes sleepwalking While I'm putting the world to right"









Rocky Votolato - Suicide Medicine "Is it the red wire, or the blue wire just pick one and cut, it just doesn't matter anymore or did it ever, cause I could never control when the bomb would explode"









Dashboard Confessional - Hands Down "My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me. So won't you kill me? So I die happy. "









Audio Karate - Nintendo 89 So game over she said the level needed for the time
and the place has been defeated so dont blame its hard to believe it wsa love we had
because ive been doing fine









Boxcar Racer- There Is "With every single letter in every single word
There will be a hidden message about a boy that loves a girl"









Saves the Day - Sell My Old Clothes, I'm Off to Heaven "There's a beautiful sky tonight and if you were by my side then we could share it but you are gone. So come at me with your moon and burn me in the stars cause nothing matters anymore."






The Casualties - Punk Rock Love "Into a scene, full of lies Met you there, you seem alright
Gave you love, Gave you a heart All you gave me broken heart"









Bic Runga - Sway "And there's no cure, and no way to be sure Why everything's turned inside out Instilling so much doubt It makes me so tired - I feel so uninspired My head is battling with my heart My logic has been torn apart"









Jimmy Eat World - A Praise Chorus "So come on Davey, sing me somethin' that I know.
I wanna always feel like part of this was mine. I wanna fall in love tonight."









Alkaline Trio - Private Eye "I dragged this lake looking for corpses Dusted for prints, pried up the floorboards Pieces of planes and black box recorders Don't lie, don't lie And I've been preoccupied with these sick, sick senses That sense DNA on barbed wire fences Maybe someday I'll find me a suspect That has no alibi"









Pedro the Lion - Priests &Paramedics "You're gonna die, we're all gonna die Could be twenty years, could be tonight Lately I have been wondering why We go to so much trouble to postpone the unavoidable And prolong the pain of being alive"






Strange thoughts flash inside my head
Standing on one leg, resting my weight
Leaning on the cold concrete alone
Cars and their headlights flashing
Lampposts with their fog lights and fluorescent bulbs
A fire burning across the street
The stench of a nearby flood drainage
Pollution from passing trucks
My lungs feeling pain causing me to cough
A sudden gasp for air
Which turns out as a disappointment?
Whereupon black smoke engulfs me
I'm left here feeling tired and exposed
If not for the kind heart of a good man that invited me in
It makes me wonder why I sit here
Now writing, miles away from my loving home
Dodging mosquitoes, looking at this piece of paper
Writing silly thoughts and asking 'why?'
If not for love this would not have made any sense...

Life or something like it...


Nothing really makes sense right now.

It has been a while since anything substantial has been put into writing in this blog. Gone were the days of 300-words of fun-filled Saturdays, theological babblings, well-thought-of political whines, and stupid essays about trash-culture undercurrents that have cluttered this blog back in 2004.

What happened?

Honestly I do not know. It feels as though as I've ceased to be human now.

Hardly do I get the creative knack to write something. All I have now are borrowed ideas and amateur photos that I took of things and people that I've taken photos of.

I've wanted this to end but it looks as though that I've been clinging to this blog simply for keepsake. I missing the old me right now.

Is this the curse of growing old?

By that I mean to pose a rhetorical question that asks:

"Does growing old, mean growing cold?"

Because that's how it is right now...

I guess...

I am no genius anyway...

I just wish that I'd feel the urge to write again. To be happy enough to be excited so as to put words into the emotions that I feel right now. To be pissed off and put it in writing. To be agitated enough to provoke you. Or to be lonely enough to bear to you my soul...

But that's what I cannot do right now...

I mean it's not that nothing's happening with my life. In fact, this is a point in my life that a lot of things are happening right now. Happening so fast that I can hardly cope up.

Always feeling like a plastic candy wrapper that's thrown out of a window in a busy highway, always drifting and experiencing the 'Doppler effect' first-hand.

I wish I could feel life again.

I'm tired.

I'm lonely.

I feel like I am hanging on a thread, waiting for the fall...