All- possesing madness in me mounted. Bedeviling me. While in high dudgeon I revel in the thought of bludgeoning sense into her head. Flesh out words instead of trying to soften hard truths with a sweeter voice. I took a blow of mockery in the face of her sudden flight from reason. Her array of shit spewed in mid-air nearly unleashed the Jeffrey Dahmer in me.
"Art is my window and my opportunity to make the butterflies in my stomach fly free."- Brandon Boyd
I had my first Incubus experience exactly four years ago today. It was magical. It was mind-blowing and life-altering almost like a spiritual awakening. The hauntingly beautiful patron saint of serial torso-baring has phenomenally delivered yet another awe-inspiring performance in last sunday’s concert at the big dome. The enigma that is Brandon Boyd along with his bandmates: guitar nazi Mike Einziger, little drummer boy Jose Pasillas, trip-hop genius Chris Kilmore and the funky, always smiling-at-the-concert Ben Kenney were back again and showcased their schizophrenic funk/metal/jazz/progressive/pop melange. The concert started at around 8:20ish but first with Up Dharma Down as opening act. They sang about four songs i think. I did not pay too much attention they were not the peak of my interest. They instantly became an afterthought. I was so wrapped up with my personal whatever, too preoccupied fidgeting my videocam preparing to gear up to capture everything. When the opening act was finally over, the foreign bandcrew set the stage and made a quick soundcheck. Then the lights went out the crowd went crazy. I went crazy. The instruments started to play and the flickering lights flashing from cameras gave us a vague shadowy glimpse of the band. Excitement grew more when we heard words escape the lips of Brandon Boyd. Practically everyone knew the lyrics to the first song Quicksand. Brandon Boyd officially pierced the night with their follow up song A Kiss to Send us Off. Everybody who knew the song by heart sang along with him with so much enthusiasm including me. Anna Molly and Oil and Water followed the set list. They did Drive like how they performed it on their concert at Red Rocks four years ago. They also did Stellar and my personal favorite, The Warmth, all three from their Make Yourself album. I have again blissfully witnessed Brandon’s utter disregard for shirts. He first took off his shirt leaving his oversized "sando" on him. His voice swaggered on several harder-edged songs like Vitamin, Favorite Things, Pistola, Circles, Sick Sad Little World and Megalomaniac. They also did Talk Shows on Mute. After a while Brandon grew tired of his "sando" and took it off. By then Brandon was topless which made the screams of legions of teenage girls with raging hormones reverberate. It shook the coliseum. He slithered and cavorted like that of the lizard king Jim Morrison but with more energy. Hyper-actively insane. His whole body thrashing about everwhere on stage. He wa scorching. He was on fire and he burned us with his flame. It was impossible not to be affected. He was infectious. I lost myself into all that euphoria. The music alone was so good it was practically narcotic and seeing The Invisible Floating Torso Man again made it even more exciting. It was great to finally witness them play Nice to Know You, a song I really wanted to hear at the first concert. They also did the ditty Wish You Were Here were the crowd went singing loud and proud. After that I saw Mike change his guitar and picked up another instrument, a kokyu. I had a strong feeling it was going to be their last song. Aqueous Transmission with it’s soothing woodwinds and Chinese kokyu backed the gentle drawl of Brandon. He sang it almost like a lullaby. We definitely did not want to sleep. We wanted more. We did not want it to end. Four long years I patiently waited. Well, it was worth all the wait. Every bit of it. Kudos to that! Happy Birthday, Ben Kenney. Cheers!
Stuck in the far reaches, quotidian arctic wilderness of my social life, I have unwittingly neglected the art of basking in the warmth of friendship. I have been comfortably living my life that I failed to reconnect with long lost friends from my not so distant adolescent life. I guess I have been so wrapped up in my personal tragedies. Lately, I allowed myself to partake in a get-together. I went to what is considered the cultural center of the masses– the mall. I haven’t seen M or P in over two years. M was there sans P and brought along B, an acquaintance. We had to wait for P. She was on a meeting. P is a dermatologist while M is a nursing student, her second course after finishing Mass Communication. We were settling comfortably over lunch and after only 30 minutes into the conversation, I was ready to transform myself into a hedious beast wanting to devour B in the process. His awfully irritating one- track -mindedness was just too much. He really pushed my buttons. I had to restrain myself. Anyway, M has always been a pleasure to be with. Through the years she has gracefully maintained her tolerance, her impeccable breeding, elegance, her kindness and humility. If one could only learn from osmosis I’d be a better person and B, an actual person. The rarity of our togetherness made me oblivious of some of her delightfully funny idiosyncrasies. Details about her. Her being dreadful of flies feasting on our italian lunch, her obssessive alcohol handwashing, her careful choice of words, to her being ever so passive. I had almost forgotten that part about her. It reminded me of things past. Later P arrived. P more than M came so much more than a surprise to me. It’s exhilirating to find how she has managed to learn to tone down her loudness. I didn’t even felt the urge to put my finger in my ears everytime she would opened her mouth. She’s more mature and definitely more secure about herself. It is such a lovely rediscovery. I wish I could say the same for myself. As for B, I could only wish one thing. I wish for the ground to open and devour him lovingly. He’d make a good fertilizer.
My daily abusive dose of coffee has taken its toll on my sleep pattern. Ever since I was a little abomination I have always sported eyebags and with puberty came dark under eye circles. Nowadays, not only do I possess these to die for aesthetics I now look like I am bestfriends with amphetamine, alcohol, and nicotine. To the people who know me, I swear it’s just coffee. Few weeks back someone told me I look like I’m in dire need of a pharmaceutical intervention. That I need vitamins or something. I have lost a quarter of myself from dieting and it magnifies to the nth degree my near Nazi-concentration-camp look. Or am I just exaggerating? But it’s okay. Coffee has caffeine, a stimulant. It’s addictive. It’s just yummy. I should just shut up and enjoy.
I remember my last few months in high school. It was spent devising clever ideas about unconventional courtship. I was so smitten in an exponential level that my sole preoccupation was with the ichy love stuff. The idea of courting my pubescent paramour came to me like a crashing thunderbolt. It was with Luanne , my bestfriend, that I had shared this marvelous plot. We were so in a cupid lovestruck mode I swear I could hear E.B.Browning’s "How much do I love thee", in my head. My silly infatuation had made an absurd romanticist out of me that led me into spilling my heart out via sappy Hallmark cards, late night calls which gave me tremendous convulsive ‘kilig’ moments, spray writing love nonsense in red Pylox paint over a government wall to immortalize my insanity over him, to sending trivial pudgy little pig stuffed toys best for gathering dust and cobwebs. It still escapes me as to why I gave him the latter. I had written him a library of love epistles and as I wrote those down I had to compose myself from drooling and took deep breaths lest I fall into a swoon from complete and utter joy. It hemorraged letters from me everyday. It was on Valentine’s day that I had received a token from him. It was a silver I.D. bracelet with the words I LOVE YOU engraved on it. The object of my affection finally took notice of my borderline obssession. It made me deliriously happy I felt like I grew another vagina. Luanne and I were partners in crime. We were fueled by our curiosity and our raging hormones. I have a lot of blog-worthy juvenile misadventures and a huge part of it is with her. My adolescent life would not have been as formative, fun, and memorable had it not been for her. I share a landscape of life-altering experiences with her and it most certainly rippled the waters of my sometimes stagnant pond.
Some people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. Ponder on that pretty please. Let’s engage in a very stimulating cerebral excercise. Sweat our way to enlightenment. Feel free to throw your comments, suggestions,opinions ,and whatnots at my direction. Please don’t suggest that I get a life, that would only bore me into a coma.. Enlighten me.. Cheers!
I have been trying to play Brahms in my head to calm my demons, but it keeps on morphing into well, noise. I must say I have been passively bitching a lot lately. If there is such a thing. For days I have been trying to put into words all the revulsion I have been feeling towards a certain mutant. Apparently, I have a habit of picking mutants as friends. Sob. I pretty much consider myself an open-minded individual, a liberal. In fact, someone told me I am liberal in many facets that sometimes I am mistaken for having twisted morals. I do not pass judgement without sufficient data. Recently, my friend Trog, Hot Momma and I decided to grace a newly opened, yuppie-friendly mall up north with our presence. Hot Momma is the type who exudes effortless coolness and is a single mother to a 5year-old boy while Trog is a fairly nice man in his 30’s. The ill feeling I have is towards the latter. I have known Trog for many years, but it is only now that it dawned on me how hard it is to expostulate with him. No, it is not due to his high intelligence, it’s the utter lack of it. He revolves in his tiny little orbit and thinks himself the master of the universe. He is starved for attention and would do anything to get it. He takes everything personally. Let me just share with you the snippets of what went on with my day with Mr.Personality. I was the first one to alight from the metro rail train and it was close to an hour after Trog arrived. We were bursting with excitement for it has been 2 years since we last saw each other in the flesh. We exchanged pleasantries, updated one another with our misadventures, etcetera. We circled the floors of the mall until we felt the little animals in our bellies reminding us it’s lunch time. I wanted to wait for Hot Momma, but I guess she was moving in slow motion for it took her an eternity to arrive. We opted to satiate our hunger lest we start frothing in the mouth. We each had a mouthful of hot greasy fried chicken when she joined us. She ordered then sat. The three of us shut up and ate. Days before plotting our rendezvous I promised Trog a treat to the cinema. That day I had to postpone my treat to the cinema to lengthen the time for chatting and catching up. I knew that would trigger a tantrum. A tantrum came faster than the speed of light and minutes later he was whining like a toddler who miserably lost his chance to ride his bike. It was so unnerving to witness a grown man throwing a fit. It was almost unbearable I wanted to push him off the escalator just to shut him up. He has a way of dredging up my dark side unleashing the inner bitch in me. It’s as if he wanted to invite chaos. The details of his drivel didn’t amuse me at all. To appease my mutant friend, I suggested to treat them for coffee instead of the movies. I was queueing up with Hot Momma, and even from there I could see his face contorting expletives, and his eyeballs spinning into outer space. I tried explaining to the mutant how it would be better if we just made ‘chika’ since this is our first meeting after 2 years. I told him I was sorry for postponing and we could meet up again to watch the boy wizard. I tried everything humanly possible to restrain myself from slapping him silly. It was half an hour past four when we said goodbye. Four quick days later we were again in the confines of another mall sans Hot Momma. I had to keep my promise. While inside he suggested to buy something at a local clothing shop adjacent to where we met up. At the other end of the shop I was checking the newest merchandise and I was blithely unaware of the fact that he was ready for a word war on the opposite side of where I was. He went rushing at my direction, informed me that he wasn’t treated well, that the salesperson wasn’t accomodating enough, and that he didn’t like it. He was on a roll devising little torments inside his head. There I bore witness as the mutant belittled the poor innocent young thing. He was practically telling him how to live his life. He was yakking himself to kingdom come. The salesperson was apologetic, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t amusing not even close to funny. He certainly has an impenetrable air of arrogance around him. I felt the desperate need of hard liquor. Why don’t I just tell you what I find repulsive about him whenever,wherever. First, let me clear that I do not hate him. What I hate is that thing he does. I hate it when he acts all mighty cerebral. Not that I’m flawless,but I don’t think someone who doesn’t even know what he is talking about half the time, has a combined I.Q. of a raisin, and an ignoramus has the right to impose someone to do better when his supposed intelligence is nowhere in evidence. It’s embarassing to be around him when he gets that way especially in public. He adores drawing attention when incessantly explaining his opinions. He loves thoroughly vivisecting every miniscule detail of every mistake. Frankly, in my opinion, he is the dumbest friend I have come to know. Dumb in so many ways it hurts my head just thinking about it. Mentally inadequate and self-absored in an exponential level. Dealing with him requires massive doses of painkillers.
With sleep still lining my eyes I ran my lazy fingers up my mother’s coffee table and tried to find my vibrating cellphone. I grabbed it with such hurried manner it was as if my life depended on it. I was so careless the souvenirs from Istanbul my father had brought with him a few years back almost fell and break into smithereens. The reason for my sleeping there is a different story far more embarrasing and a secret as well. Anyway, I wanted to throw the damn thing against the wall ‘coz it was making so much noise that it annoyed me. My tired brain still wasn’t functioning well and I really wanted to go back to sleep. I didn’t want to read the barrage of messages, but upon close inspection I saw in bold letters the words: ceasarean, blood pressure 220 over 150, and the name Tiffanee that went along with it. It was indeed enough to make me jump out of where I was lying down and pillage through the kitchen like a pirate. I found an abundance of coffee, great! My bestfriend of more than a hundred years gave glorious birth to her first born; a son. A bouncing baby boy and if you know Tiffanee and her hubby you’d probably know what I’m talking about. She got married to my wonderful cousin a few months back and hold on to your seats– I was the Maid of Honor. Now, imagine that and try very hard to digest it. Even I could not believe it. Hahaha! Shortly after, I was stirring my cup of coffee when I had an episode of chilhood flashbacks. Snippets of when we were still in first grade during our christmas party. From there it went to the time we were in high school and used to go around town with only a meager twenty pesos each as ‘panglakwatsa’. I have phenomenal memories with her which include problems with boys and our dysfunctional family not to mention our endless battle with weight gain. And with that in mind, I felt like crying. In fact, I wanted to wail and make such hideous noise like that of a banshee, but not a single tear fell. I guess I wasn’t ready for my close up. It would have been cinematic. Huh! Tough luck. Maybe I was just too happy and excited for her. Through the years whatever news assailed me I have been calm. News like this have a weird effect on me. After voraciously consuming great amounts of coffee enough to give me crazy-fuck palpitations, I found myself in the bathroom. No, I clearly wasn’t shitting myself to kingdom come. It wasn’t like that, promise. Like an obssessive-compulsive freak I gathered all my cleaning agents and started scrubbing like crazy. Every crevice of every tile, every damn dirt my eager hands could afford to scrub. I made sure to annihilate every minute living abomination that existed in that bathroom. I scrubbed with so much love I wanted to marry it. Cleaning is my way of coping. Some smoke, some shop while others do drugs. Some even do each other. I clean. I guess I was made that way. What can I say? It’s in my DNA. Time surely fly with great speed you never know what would happen next. People get married and sometimes they get separated while others in an unfortunate circumstance perish. At times I am assaulted with a distinct scary feeling like dementia, but it doesn’t matter much now.. It doesn’t bother me that much like it used to. I know for sure there would always be a room for me to clean. That would be therapeutic.
I have come accross a strangely enchanting world where lies drip like honeyed words from angels lips. Lies, lies, lies. Alone in a world where in my sleep they sing me whispered lullabies of false pretense. Like an earth-bound spirit I am lost. I have been circling a lifetime for different reasons. I am a slave to my impulses. Majestic in its subtle silence pain hover over my head like dark clouds. Somewhere between being blissfully unaware and knowing I dream of hope. I dream of dreams I have long forgotten. Dreams of flying as a child. Dreams of flying me back to the world I once belonged. Dreams that would someday fly me back to myself.
