Here’s something our city government should consider: http://cops-so-fat-they-can’t-see-their-weewees

I’ve a confession to make. Since I’m so into fashion these days that I’m starting to doubt if I’m not gay, I need to tell you this: I want to be an emo. Yes, you hear it right, E-M-O. I know my girlfriend will kill me for this. But girlfriend, I know you knew this all along, so this won’t come as a shock to you anymore. If this means goodbye, please give me back the eyeliner I sent you last Christmas because I actually bought that for me and my emo friends for our emo nights spent watching emo concerts on some emo parking lot under the gray emo sky.

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The “skinny” is that hideous garment that for about two years now has fooled women into thinking they look 50 pounds skinnier in it. But the skinny is that hideous garment that only displaces all those fat elsewhere and to the top of the waist up to the neck, making women look like chicken lollipops.

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Rianne, a fellow sun.star editor, arrived in the office one day and asked me why I was so early (10 am). I said I’m writing a column (I can’t write at home. I don’t know why). She said you know what, writing seems to torture you; everytime I see you writing you look like the saddest person on earth. Her exact words: “Grabeng pag-antos nimo anang imong column sa?”

So true. Writing is never a happy experience. And writing the first two paragraphs is the most torturous part, literally, as in “causing great physical or mental anguish”. Give me those first two paragraphs and the rest will be less laborious, but never pleasant, still. So, if someody tells you writing is a wonderful experience so pick up the pen and join us, split his skull open.

When people use the phrase “starving artists”, they definitely don’t refer to these musicians. Music is both art and business, a good business at that. But try doing these things at the same time: write songs, produce them, play them live, promote them, and make sure the money keeps coming. Mabuang ka. An artist is seldom a businessman and vice versa. Somebody should take care of the “non-creative” part of music and leave the songwriter to his art.

So who are they referring to by “starving artists”? Most Cebuano bands, of course.

Between the later part of 2006 and middle of 2007, I received three offers from three record labels to reproduce and distribute Missing Filemon’s two albums – the debut ‘Mising Filemon (Suroysuroy)’ and ‘Sinesine’. “And if things are good, we have money for your third album,” they told me. The condition, and this had to be on contract and non-negotiable: “Write a few songs in Tagalog, and record some Tagalog versions of your old hits.”

I told them something like “Fuck you and your Tagalog market.” I never heard from them again. I was reminded of this after reading Bordowitz on Nirvana and the Seattle ‘grunge’ scene. Read, too, what made Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ work. If there’s a song that gave me courage to finally quit my seminary studies, this would be it.

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Caught in a time warp, these people! What ‘popular music’ are they talking about? I’m not a huge fan of Bisrock – many Bisrock songs suck bigtime. But despite its flaws, Bisrock has done what Cebu Flop Music Festival can only dream of, that is making Binisaya songs popular to the masses. ‘Nuff said!

TV commercials just don’t get it. THEY ARE IRRITATING! What advertising principle says the best way to sell is to insult viewers’ intelligence? Even if you have an IQ of a tadpole, you feel the urge to fling the remote against the TV screen upon hearing these freakin line “HAVE A HAPPY PERIOD!” Since when did my girlfriend’s monthly period become a ‘happy’ experience for both of us? Hah! I should have paid my cable bills, damn it. – insoymada

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To Cebuano bands writing songs in English, stop dissing Cebuano bands writing songs in Bisaya. As far as lyrics are concerned, both of you write crap every now and then. The only thing is, it’s hard for a Cebuano to “analyze” English lyrics without exposing his own limited grasp of the English language. So, the easy target: Bisrock. So, while stupid Bisrock songs get the beating, stupid English songs by local bands enjoy the presumption of being brilliant. (Note: we are only talking about the lyrics, for now.)

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One reason I’m still working for a newspaper – instead of doing what everybody else is doing, that is working in Afghanistan as a forklift truck driver – is that in media, you are the ultimate voyeur, the keeper and revealer of secrets, the spoiler of crooks’ fun. And on days when work gets boring, you receive mails that remind you life never runs out of amusing stories to tell. This one we received from Uldarico Perez, engineer, from Tipolo, Mandaue City, who suggested tapping the expertise of frogs in the fight against dengue. This came out in the SpeakOut section of today’s issue of Sun.Star Cebu. – insoymada

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