9-mile

I haven't written a blog for a long time. Frankly, because since Jeanie's left I have somewhat lived a very uninteresting life. And maybe last Saturday would have been the same, if not for a gig that I played both as part of my  longtime punk band, PayItForward, and as  DeathToPuberty, Ellen Degenerate was also supposed to make a debut in that gig but our last practice at Albertos made us realize how  we are yet unprepared as a musical unit to perform.

But just the same Ten and Jen decided to watch the gig (and also to sell Shinda Ningyo dolls), and it was not only them but also Roni and Luwi and most specially Leyza whom I last saw the day before Jeanie went to the Netherlands.

Before I would go further I would also like to express gratitude to the kind folks of Zero Mass Productions, for accomodating both PayItForward and DeathToPuberty and for patiently bearing with us that night.

Punk and Disorderly
To sum it up it was a night of fun filled punk rock courtesy of Bad Omen and Albert Ascona's side project with Aji Adriano (of The Wuds); that played those very cool classic punk rock covers of The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers, and The Wuds.It was really good to hear those guys and not to mention to see the forebears of the scene make an appearance in a gig where you're playing, imagine seeing members of legendary pinoy punk bands like that of Betrayed and Private Stock. Kieth Dador was also there to take pictures, maybe soon I can post some of those images here.It's also noteworthy that I'm The Bridge, one of my favorite Q.C. punk bands weren't able to join, (too bad...)

DeathToPuberty
The original plan was for Ellen Degenerate (a punk rock cover band that composes of me, Reggie, Ten, Mark and Jen),to ditch DeathToPuberty and play DTP's supposed set, but we're not yet ready I decided to honor my previous commitment to play a set there, but since we've focused on pumping up Ellen Degenerate, to play I've altogether took forgranted practicing with the rest of the members of DTP, so I decided to just play solo, which I've done before on a number of occasions. All in all I think a played a fairly decent set, (I mean its just plain stupid to play a sloppy set if you're alone…)

PayItForward
This is a different story, we were supposed to play  right after Bad Omen, but as I was about to bring my bass onstage the bassist of  The Wuds brushed me aside saying that its 11PM and that's their preferred time play their set so I asked Mark and we both agreed okay, cool after all they're punks. Too bad though we're not that much of a fan of their music basically since they played their newer songs which were already a way to far departure from the punk rock music they played that I for one come to love, so I decided to step out of the room and have a chat with the nice folks of Bad Omen.Once The Wuds played their last song Inosente Lang Ang Nagtataka (a song which was recently covered poorly by River Maya,) we stared to make our way into the room but Joe of Ginseng the gig's organizer asked if its okay if Oh Man Oh God, would play their set first since that's only fair to them since they were the first band to arrive in the venue.So we said okay, after all, they're DeathToPuberty's friend in MySpace, and once they started I can't help but feel a bit weird at their set basically since for starters they don't have a bass player and they're a freakin' 3-piece unit; another was the fact that they played this eerie hardcore/grind/thrash whatever kind of music that maybe I'm just too old or happy shinny to appreciate, (I really am no fan of aggressive, and angry music).Oh Man Oh God's set was quite quick with each song they basically played lasted only for about 2-minutes max.

So again I tried to make my way onstage with the rest of the band outside Laix decided to call them again as I and Peejay (of Slumber Army Productions) who was helping me carry the other guitars to the stage were making our way there those douchebags from Purple Chickens stepped in with their guitars and started their set to the astonishment of Joe who was about to introduced us.I stepped out of the room pissed of basically because they elbowed their way around the lineup, and that's plain wrong. Outside we had a chat with Peejay reminiscing the good old days of Slumber Army. So after those assholes played their set  we  stepped on stage and played a very sloppy set which you can read in more detail at PayItForward's blog.

Purple Chicken Kups
Under normal circumstances I don't ditch other bands even those whose genre of music I do not fancy, for them I would like to make an exception.First off, I am not a fan of plain old rockn 'n' roll, hard rock, pop rock or whatever cheapshot rock genre it is that you play. I don't like your music plain and simple.Another is that you act as though like you're rock stars.

Reality check: you're not rockstarts. Dressing up like one or acting like adolescent assholes doesn't make you a rockstar.

Let us be clear that there is a lineup, and provisions as to the bands who get to decide about their place on the lineup are given to those established bands who already have proven themselves, namely The Wuds and Bad Omen.
What about you?

Maybe you already get paid on gigs or whatever, but plain and simple you're not underground legends like Bad Omen nor are you counter cultural icons like The Wuds. You're just an obnoxious band that play in obscure productions like this one.

Think about it?

Because you have messed up the lineup schedule K.D. Sistema and another band walked out off the gig altogether.

Has anyone among you experienced being bullied?

Well, I have and the way you acted there reminded me of the good old high school days when I was a geek in a world of basketball-playing jocks. Or of the numerous times that our band was forced out of the stage by Rap-Metal bands and fans because we chose to play MxPx rather than the manufactured angst of Korn and their contemporaries.

I don't know where you came from during that time but like you I supposed we were all tired as well and would have really loved to go home early as we also have our own schedules to meet the following day, and I think we pretty much deserve to play ahead of you since we did our damn best to be on the venue on the preferred call time.

What about you?

You haven't even spent more than 30-minutes in the venue and there you go, stealing PayItForward's set on the schedule, and right at the moment we've set  stage you step out of the bar  like the assholes that you are.Thankfully, the organizers are smart not to invite you guys again. Douchebags….

Bad Omen
Bad OmenOne of the highlights of that night was also the release of Bad Omen's new album entitled God is Everywhere, which were sold there along with Ginseng and All Wound Up's split EP.Personally what I find special is that Bad Omen's bassist Albert Sy who was kind enough to put me and Gato in the album sleeve's acknowledgment, which made the night worth it...Thanks guys...

Thanks
Gracias! also to Joe and Joel of Zero Mass who invited DeathToPuberty and PayItForward to play, also to the nice folks of AWU and Ginseng

Here's to more gigs to come!
Cheers

The Power of Words

Last Sunday I was blessed to have the opportunity to give a short talk on creative writing at Grace Bible Church. Below are excerpts from the presentation that I gave to the audience:

Words

Everything that we know or like, as in stories, movies, cartoons, etc. is written by someone.

We would think about Frodo of The Lord of the Rings or of Aslan of Chronicles of Narnia and we would not think that they simply spawned into existence they were created by someone who had a story in his or her head who decided to put it into writing using words.

It is words that break our solitary confinement and saves us from isolation.

Words are powerful. They are really very powerful and Biblically speaking it is so powerful that God’s Word became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, as Christ is the Word of God, (John 1:1,14 – Christ the Logos) as testified to in the entire narrative of the Bible. Moreover they are powerful enough to change the lives of men. (Hebrews 4:12)

And it is all because word communicates and it is because God is the first and greatest communicator and His Words in Scripture is His written communication to His intelligent creation.

Today, we will dwell more into words, as we would study them and try our best to use them to articulate our thoughts, feelings and our faith, as we will have a study of creative writing. Now I cannot guarantee that you will become good or shall we say ‘creative’ writers (as I also am not good), but what I can guarantee you is that in knowing the power of words it is my prayer that you will be challenged to write but also to read and understand the value of communication as it is creatively articulated.

Write it well

We write because we want others to read it.

Knowing that others would read it we must then know how to write well. Especially in this day and age where writing down our thoughts has sort of become a chic especially with the advent of weblogs or blogs, which honestly speaking a majority of them lack literary value as most of them tend to focus on the mundane and the disinteresting, because it just serves our vanity in which we believe that people are interested with our lives.

It is a sad truth that even if the Philippines prides itself with its proficiency in the English language we are also at the same time guilty of not being able to speak or for this matter write well.

Write for God

God gave us this talent so that we can use them to glorify Him and bring honor to His name.

If we would have a study of church history we will be surprised at how God used people to write down His will.

It is my prayer that as we would now take time to study the lesson that we will be led by the Holy Spirit to be challenged to not only write but write well for the Lord.

Note: The slides below serves as guide to the entire flow of the lesson as it was originally presented during the lecture.

click here to download the slides in Microsoft Powerpoint

Theology according to Leonardo Boff

Theology, as the word suggests, is a discussion about God and all things as seen in the light of God. It constitutes a singularity in our species that, in some moment during millions of years of evolution, the consciousness of God appeared. With this word, “God,” is expressed a supreme value, a final sentiment of the universe and life and an original Source from which all other beings came.

This God inhabits the universe and accompanies human beings. The sacred texts of religions and spiritual traditions testify to the permanent action of God in the world. He always acts in favor of life, defending the weak, offering forgiveness to the fallen and promising eternal life in communion with Him.

It belongs to the faith of Christians to affirm that God approximated Himself to human existence and made Himself man in Jesus of Nazareth. In this the promise of blessed union with Him is anticipated and will be the destination of all the beings of the entire creation.

Among the many functions of theology today two are most urgent: how theology collaborates in the liberation of the oppressed, who are today’s “crucified Christs,” and how theology helps to preserve the memory of God so that we do not lose the sentiment and sacredness of human life which is threatened by a culture of superficiality, consumption and entertainment. We should always unite faith with justice, where a perspective of liberation is born, keeping the flame of our sacred lamp burning so that it can feed the hope for a better future for the Earth and all humanity.

from http://www.leonardoboff.com/site-eng/lboff.htm

Rancid: ...And Out Come the Wolves...

A couple of weeks ago in a forest area a couple of miles outside Jakarta I was playing Rancid's Roots Radicals in an acoustic guitar together with a young Indonesian computer hacker doing the lead guitar part and a Dutch anti-nukes activist singing the vocals, we weren't able to finish the song though since the other folks who were with us then insisted that we ought to play a song that they all know and could sing along to so we were then forced to play Oasis' Wonderwall instead.

What's interesting with that jam session is that it reminded me of an afternoon sometime in 1996 where in the midst of a summer storm I along with my friend Jarme (who was my constant record shopping buddy at the time) bought two of the most influential records at the time, as it would determine the musical direction that we'd individually pursue in the subsequent years.