I can’t find my star

I’ve written a handful of Christmas articles towards the season and having trouble finishing one tonight. I’ve had Christmas trinkets since October and a little Christmas tree that called for me at the mall, I was going for the smaller one but opted for the bigger, yet still small tree. Its been about a month yet it seems the spirit hasn’t truly come through. I’m even 40% done on my gift shopping yet I feel I’m missing the heart of it.
My tree has been up for about a month already with cute little Christmas village houses resting below it, but with no star above it. Try as I may, I couldn’t find one that I feel like putting up there, maybe the heart that I couldn’t find is with that star.
Meanwhile, I’ll just enjoy walking my way home and feeling the Christmas breeze, watch the nightly fireworks by my little balcony and wake up to the chill of December mornings.

Lost in Trance- the intergalactic debauchery

The past weekend was a really long one, I prolly pulled off a 48hour debauchery stretch which kicked off with attending a house blessing with my family. Our matured relatives are slowly moving back to the country by fear of graying in the promised land.

 

Episode 1-the chaos begins

 

Saturday started with a conservative lunch and a tour of my tito and titas victorian home in Brittany, having my two elder sisters and my brother in the car is always a chaotic experience. I hate why when it comes to matters with my sibs, I define it to be chaotic. I guess I’m just so used to living by myself and creating my own chaos. Anyhoo, we drove off to white plains to drop my wicked sisters and went back to my pad where I took my sweet time preparing to attend Trance Alliance with Jane and Christian.

Episode 2-Getting Lost In Trance

Night fell as I coordinated with Jane about what time to go. Jane aint so much into house or trance music that I felt there can be a chance, she and Chris will not push. But by all means, I’m ok not to. I have also been pestering Martin and Basol to go and tag along but they dont seem to have a plan. Armin just wrapped a week before and watching gimmick budget is a close call. Lucky for me, I won tix/guest listing from Jayvee Fernandez’ blog abuggedlife (tnx much jayvee), I’m sure next time, he’ll do it in pairs.

Its getting late and its almost time to go, Jane and I agreed to head to A. Venue at 11pm. Soon afterwards, she called it off and offered their tix up, which I was quick to claim for my guys,Martin Carlo and Basol. Now we’re rolling! Got our entrance stamps and Carlo followed. Digital blonde was playing when we got in, we decided to grab drinks at WG Diner to cut on cost and power up with booze. One joke lead to another, and its me! my guard is down tonight but not as much as Martin (ehem!).

                                    

Its 2am and the party is just starting for me and the boys. Back at the venue, the crowd has thickened than when we left, the music is loud but the crowd is not. It’s a totally different story when John Flemming took over for the spin. The parasol of laser lights and strobes beaming over my head is heavenly, like streaks of lightning clouding in my head. I’m lost in trance, drowning in the sound, breathing first and second hand smoke, feeling like Alice in a wonderland of nicotine and all that jazz! 

The crowd waned down as morning dawned, we’re chasing the sun at 5am. Our next stop was at Club Government, once again–I’m the only rose among the thorny roses. Carlo fled the scene from here while I stayed with the company of friends with substance.

Episode 3-Crash Test Dummies

Morning sun found me at my place with my mac open for business, turns out I have a deadline to make, its a case of the flesh is willing but the mind is weak. I had my first taste of morning booze with Martin and Basol, gulping vodka cruiser and my new vodka iced tea concoction, followed by a mix of brandy and iced tea. DJ and Roj soon knocked and joined the party, we had to get another round of booze as the party got bigger.

Martin is beaming with happiness with the tons of text messages he’s reading, and then–another one walks in completing the cast of half-naked gays hanging around me lol. Something went balistic, Martin had tears in his eyes and it didnt stop flowing until the afternoon before we departed just before 30 past 4.

Episode 4- Lost in Space

Took a shower and felt I can start working, two scripts on the line, I felt like fainting. I Stole some winks and fell deep into sleep. And boom, my sister is standing over my shoulder at 5pm, talk about sleep deprivation. I faced the mac and did what i had to do, ran out to send an email while my fingers kept busy locating Jay, whom I saw at the event before the lights went out.

Exerted effort eating dinner and finally got a hold of Jay a couple of hours before midnight. Ed is prepping the place for a supposed Alanis appreciation night party at Virra 1, the stars aren’t aligned so I guess, party number 2 is up. At 2am on Sunday morning, Martin and Basol had an epiphany, they had to find Jay. Ed and I on the other hand are officiating a baptism, a coming of age for a guy who has been under a rock but nevertheless open minded and has natural good vibrations.We witnessed the melting of inhibitions. Party on Mike!

For as the mac got me working, it was Ed’s mac we drove like a vessel throught he black holes and the bounds of infinity. I look back now and laugh at myself, I was a fairly good captain that even Captain Hook will envy.

We stepped out to the balcony and caught the breeze of the first night of December, we watched the glimmering lights of makati skyline, watching intently as the glare from each lamp post locked in our vision. We gazed at the stars shimmering like silver dust scattered in the night sky and waited till the clouds zoomed in floating like cotton in the field.

Episode 5- Crash and Burn

Morning broke but the party aint over, music pumped the minute Basol, Martin and Alden walked in. Monday morning booze is yet to flood! We drank and laughed until smoke caught Martin’s eyes and river flowed. His flight ceased to take off yet again. My eyes gave up and shut, woke up alone in the room, still under a blanket of smoke, Ed is up. 9pm, dinner time! Off we go to  North Park, washing down alcohol with soup and lotsa food we cannot possibly finish.

Whatta weekend!

 

A State of Trance with the lost boys

I cant believe how many club parties i’ve attended in these latter months, what a late bloomer! lol

Friday night was my trip to the state… of trance with Armin Van Buuren held at the World Trade Center. This is probably my most expensive dance party but I just couldn’t pass it up; glad i didn’t. After all, I’ve been planning for this a since seeing Chicane. Too bad NA couldn’t make it cuz of some shit. 

I stepped in the venue slightly drunk from the 2 bottles of beer Carlo and I had at dinner. This is the only event where I entered the floor with the gang–there’s me and Carlo, Basol joined later on, the glimmering and bronzed beauty of Martin came into view, followed by the boot clad Jane and Christian. 

Blake Jarell is on and he’s playing it good, pretty mind blowing and were loving it. He really pumped up the party that had almost everybody go wild and free. And for his finale, he did Chasing Cars and a GV mix of Around the World. We can’t help but notice how synched the light direction is with the music progression. This early in the show, I reckoned this is gonna be a dream party. To top it all, he’s quite cute too.

The great Armin Van Buuren jumped in and continued to bring pulse to the prancing zombies. He’s a bit dramatic with his transitions, strangely enough, if not for the low nano seconds in between mixes, the music never piped down even to the last beat. I was drowning in trance and fancied by the lights when something so familiar came on–came back to my senses hearing Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. I thought that would close his set, but he kept on. The crowd thinned by this time but party animals still lingered. Basol came to pick me and Carlo up, turns out he and Martin were already outside waiting. 

Its already 5am and were chasing the sun, this is the latest (or the earliest) we stayed for a BigFish event. This show kills the rest I’ve been to, indeed the best party this year, a dream set for everyone in a state of trance. 

I stayed a while with the company of Martin, Basol, DJ and the rest of the lost boys till the sun hurts. I unlocked my apartment door surprised my sister ain’t there as previously planned. Counted sheep and fell asleep and woke up in time to sleep, but I figured I’ll do my weekend grocery shopping. I lost a day! guess I’m the lost girl. I was prolly awake for only 5 hours on Saturday. 

I had a full week, I deserved a full weekend of great music, friends, alcohol and why and what not?

70,000 strong-Chris Brown and Rihanna- Live in Taguig

I found myself among a crowd of 70,000 RnB enthusiasts at the Fort Bonifacio open field last Sunday. I dont know Chris Brown much or follow his work so his set was a bit a drag for me. One of the rants of seeing RnB acts live is that it’s like watching it on TV, they have commercials! show intermissions and frills that does’nt thrill anymore specially when you’ve standing up, but that’s how it is.

Chris Brown is one hell of a dancer, he should have done a dance concert instead, than a concert with more vocals on playback than live sung. Rihanna is a darling, she talks and smiles to the crowd and even did a portion of BEPs Bebot ( Filipino!). It turns out she is friends with lots of Filipinos, she looked happy to perform to the Philippine audience.

The first part of her set is quite slow though and both their performances run short on energy and luster, blame the sound system–layers of instruments are missing, or so i thought but the lights are pretty. The energy started to pick up in the middle of her set, its sad cuz people were more energetic during Chris’ set which was really a drag.

Unfortunately, we had to wait until the show producers rework the stage with hydraulics and staircase for Rihanna. Flips are such fabulous people, producers felt the need to put on a pyrotechnics show to keep us entertained while waiting. 

Rihanna started with Disturbia which disturbingly didn’t hype audience, the audio was poor during that one. the show hightlight was when she did Unfaithful, where everyone sort of sang before her and sure enuff, Umbrella where Chris jumped in singing Cinderella. 

Such a nightmare to exit Fort Bonifacio in that magnitude of people walking, cars crowding and cabs unabiding. We had to kill time and find somewhere to rest our tired feet and collapsing knee caps. It would have been nice to find a cozy corner to chill out. But were hungry, thirsty and out of cigarettes and all ATMs are cashless–already, I’m so angsty and sleepy. Thank god, Diane’s dad arrived and we hitched a ride out of the Fort.

I just realized, i ranted the whole blog through, i did enjoy the concert except for the many things i wrote above. It was a freaking Sunday and I have work the morning after, so rant.

Random thoughts and wicked philosophies

Contentment is subjective, it may be that you are content for a moment and suddenly empty in the next. contentment is like gravity, it has its push and pulls. Find an angle and keep it still, there’ll be times when you may not be able to hold it. That never has to be the case, everything changes. What fills you now wont fill you for long, it can even bleed you dry so keep going.

 

FRIENDS… 

It continues to amaze me how 2 people can be so alike yet be so different. Hanging out with a friend over the weekend gave me a perspective of friendship and its loopholes and wonders. 

I have friends whom I think should never meet or they’ll throw words and things at each other for simply being worlds apart. Yet why are they both my friends? 

All our friends are who we are collectively. There’s a bit of you in each of them, but why do I feel like there can be chaos between some of them? It’s because inside our psyches there are forces that collide. In the flesh that is the person of your friends, the same can happen.

Fine Fine Pine!

I’ve been killing myself for the past months and I’m aching for a break from the chains. Like what i always do, I hop a bus to Baguio, tag a friend and wake up to the cool breeze. The long drive doesn’t count anymore, although the bus had 3 stops making the ride complete 8 hours of butt breaking travel.

The city though now pestered with tons of public vehicles and annoying vendors still does me good in more ways than I know of. It has been my tradition to visit Cafe by the Ruins and scribble my thoughts on paper as I gulp fresh brewed coffee, this time is different since it was our first stop. It’s also Ed’s first time in Baguio so I showed him the best place I know.

I ordered for Carbonara and he had meatball spaghetti. More often than not, I order for dishes I cant prepare myself, its a different story with Ruins, coz this is the origin of my love for white sauce pasta. But I must admit it tasted 10x better about 10 years or more ago. We also had the famous kamote bread with liver pate, simply mouth watering.

 

I’ve been going to Baguio since I was a pea but have never been to Tam Awan Village, the garden in the sky. its not much but its always refreshing to be able to visit places you know existed but have not been able to go to. I enjoyed having organic soya coffee at Arko ni Apo just across the main village gate, there,Ed bumped into friends whom we met later that night at Nevada.

bridge way

Ifugao houses

taking photos of paintings are prohibited, but the sign was mounted somewhere people don’t normally look at when coming in. I already took this pic before I knew, my bad.

slowing down with soya coffee in Arko ni Apo Gallery

 

From the village, we headed for an early dinner at one of my new Baguio routines–Pizza Volante. for a moment there, i thought i was gonna get sick after biting into fresh onions on the chili con carne pizza we ordered for. The dining experience was great as usual and food is A ok!

No fratboy chasing us this time, that makes it even better.

We harked back to our room to freshen up and get ready to party, Its a saturday night and we’re on vacay, what else can you do? Gettin ready, Ed and I got crazy we put on a show on ourselves and played halloween puttin on black lipstick and fake stitches.

I must have ended drunk and tired of prancing that night, i wasn’t able to snap at least one photo. Drinking beer in such cool weather is heaven. We started off with a few bottles in that bar I cant remember the name of and met with the cool couple Eon and Jayce down at Fridays.

Meeting Eon is like going into a ball of strings, he’s an acquaintance of Ed, a blogmate of Martin, a schoolmate in college and im pretty sure there’s one more that i cant remember.

Sunday morning found me so uneager to get up from late night of alcohol and long walk from Nevada to session road. Lunch was penned at 12nn at Little John’s in Camp John Hay, which due to the growing population of Koreans in Baguio has been appropriately renamed Kim Jung Hei. We got there on time and waited a while for the couple, waited to be seated only to find out the baby back ribs I have dreamt of is no more! damn!

Finally, at the Manor, it suddenly seemed like a lazy Sunday when you feel like sitting around sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes, having an intellectual conversation while looking at vast greens and old couples reading books together by a fountain. It sure is a picture of the sweet life. For that one day, that very moment–that was my idea of slowing down and being good to myself sans the cigarettes. I knew I was ready to go back to reality. I knew i have to travel down south to see my family, however chaotic it may be.

 

Here’s to a strong bond

I can’t thank Sabiclub enough for the people it allowed to pass thru its doors. 

Behind the crappy management and the schemes the could kill, here we are

with a bond and a friendship stronger than Macoy! lol

through good times and bad times, with or without alcohol, with or without cigarettes and 

definitely without the other stuff…

 

After all, the only thing we get from bad companies are the good company of friends. 

 

joint birthday celeb at Memento

 

one of those sabi parties

the after party

The Marlboro Team with a special guest

Partee nights for the Chicane show

Halloween Cream Ball

Carlo’s Bday bash at warehouse 135

My Birthday bash 

one of those emergency gimiks

the trip that made it all

my last official Sabi gathering

Cream Halloween Ball

It’s the 30th and my plans of attending the Cream Ball foiled a week before when I decided I’d just go see Armin on 21st November. Martin have been asking me to go but I kept refusing as I have plans of going home. It all changed when Jane texted in her evil plan…

The next thing I know, I was at the Landmark getting pre-party preps ( AKA a mask) which Francis and Mart tipped me to get. My brilliant plan was to get face painting tubs till i figured that’s so last decade and i forgot where to get really good ones. 

I’ve been wanting to attend Cream in the past halloween nights but never got to, this year almost slipped,thanks to the graces of  AXN Beyond, I partied with the midnight flyers and the living dead. 

Its also refreshing to see mid-aged folks get in on fins and carry a trident. There were wicked nurses, a hamburger lady, the Wildcats, roman gods and the ice queen–if that’s what she/he is. 

It was also a night of battling demons–inner demons. Its a good thing Jane was on close guard and Jay wasn’t always in sight (we saved each other from our demons). 

Missed to see Laurence in the hall though and Jay missed to see Diane which I only got to bump into late into the night.

JohnBoy Lee wasn’t at his best, he did better opening for Chicane, the show of technical glitches origin. Above and Beyond didn’t quite live up to its name or i may be too drunk or could it be the glitch again. 

Hope Carlo, shiela, yssah and NA were able to go but altogether…I had a blast

Not As We

 

This song leaked mid last year when Alanis performed it at the CD launch of the Tom Morellos Nightwatchman, she had just been out of a relationship and the words fit right what i imagine someone would feel after a break up from a long committed relationship. i say imagine only coz i don’t necessarily have to relate. i send this out to friends fresh from a bad break up, whom i like to emotionally torture ( my bad!)

When Music Mattered

thru the passing of time and the changing of tunes, so much has evolved yet not all are for the better. 

Music for instance meant so much more not too long ago, listeners and music enthusiasts looked thru words and hears more than melodies, we heard flowing emotions and connected with them in a way that we take songs as our own.

Artists are taken seriously, respected, adulated for their talent, for the deeper power of their voices. Now, artists are plain entertainment, they are no more just people who commoners pick out on to get pass their own frills and thrills. No more do they write and speak their minds out, the paparazzi and the idioteque celebrity news shows does that. it doesnt matter if the songs they write and perform are audible enough, they just have to be in the happening places and flash their firecrotches–Here is a star. Yeah! 

And sell outs—Madonna is the queen of queens, hands down.. but she can get away with it and I love her. And Mariah — if only she were a man, She’d be the king. I don’t even wanna get started on these two, only because having nothing for and nothing against Mariah voids my objectivity. Her earlier work against the later ones after butterfly is soul baring trash yet people still buy it. 

Every now and then, there will be artists and performers that will earn the ears of the people, there will be good breakouts that will be coated with recognitions, objectivity and art expression that later proves to be bubblegum that we chew and spit. The Black Eyed Peas gave us a socially relevant song that both opened eyes and entertained, we can even dance to it, and along came My Humps- a chronicle of men feasting on breasts and derrieres that parents cheer on their little girls to sing and dance to. You just have to ask, what is wrong with the world momma?

I happen not to find anything sexy about Justin Timberlake, or was that Timberflake? Sexy back? c’mon! What defines sexy these days? long tanned legs, puffing cleavages, shirtless buckled black men and skinny bitches who talk shit and thinks they can save the world in 4 minutes? who can save the music world in 40 years? if the kind of sexy he’s talking about is the one where sensitivity, intelligence, confidence and integrity is on, i’ll be all over him.It doesn’t seem like it though, just go for the grind, flake. 

Thank God for Coldplay and maybe Maroon 5, a bit of the genre I grew up with scratched even if only an inch. Where have all the crop of artists who formed the music movement in the 90’s gone?  the answer is, they are what they are…true to their music and playing it to people who appreciate them. They’ve not sold out to go where the masses will welcome them. Their art lies where their heart is. Its not the music that changed, its the people who listen to them.

All hail Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, Chris Novaselic and Nirvana, Kirk Hammet and the rest of Metallica, Stone Temple Pilots, Radiohead,Soundgarden, Alanis Morissette, Dolores O’ Riordan and the Cranberries, Shirley Manson and Garbage, Butch Vig, Fiona Apple. Billy Corgan, Billy Joe Armstrong, Sheryl Crow, Natalie Merchant and 10,000 maniacs, Dishwalla, Rob Thomas and Matchbox 20, Stephan Jenkins and 3EB, the “Jewel” i know, En Vogue, the Braxtons, Toni Braxton and yes even the Spice Girls, your bubblegum can still be popped.