iNSOYMADA » environment

Air Supply is safer

insoy — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:58:57 +0000

A NEWS item that came out in this paper last Sunday had me googling the words “videoke” and “killings.” Just when I thought videoke violence is nothing but media exaggeration caused by a dearth of newsworthy events on weekends, this story about a stabbing inside a videoke bar in my hometown of Pinamungajan convinced me the Aquino administration should now create a task force to investigate videoke killings in the country.

If it happens in Pinamungajan–or Timbuktu, or Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland–it happens everywhere.

The task force should be handled not by policemen or NBI agents but by musicians, particularly lyricists. You call the police or the NBI when it’s about drugs, or alcohol, or guns, or Joavan Fernandez. But when it’s about videoke violence, call the songwriter. Unless our law enforcement institutions include “Lyrics as Cause of Violence” in their training, drug raids and checkpoints will never solve videoke killings.

This is Google Research I’m talking about, the most reliable source of information for very serious researchers, like college freshmen and humor columnists. My comprehensive Google research told me video killings are intimately linked to the lyrics of the song that caused the fight. Take “My Way” for example.

A dozen articles dissecting the lyrics of “My Way” crop up when you google “videoke killings.” If you think I’m making this up, here’s an excerpt: “The number of killings connected to singing of the song (My Way) may simply reflect its popularity in a violent environment…The song’s ‘triumphalist’ theme might also be a factor.”

“The lyrics of ‘My Way’ increase the violence,” the study continues. “The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody when you’re really nobody…It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads to fights.” The typical Filipino irritates.

It makes sense. Remember the last time you went videoke-ing with your friends, and there’s this guy in the next table singing “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” with all the braggadocio he could muster and you were so damn annoyed by it? Of course you don’t blame the lyrics. “I know just how to whisper/ And I know just how to cry/ I know just where to find the answers/ And I know just how to lie” is down pat annoying but only because you hate Air Supply to begin with.

You want to blow Hitchcock and Russell and their legion of fans to smithereens, not that drunk in the next table. And we’re not talking about the Bee Gees yet.

Now, imagine that same guy screaming, “For what is a man? What has he got? If not himself–Then he has naught…The record shows I took the blows. And did it my way.” Man, that guy’s annoying!

In fairness to Sinatra, he didn’t write “My Way.” It was Paul Anka, who re-wrote it from the original French, which he described as “a bad record, but there was something in it.” That “something” is murdering videoke singers all over the country. Creepy.

The Pinamungajan incident offers an additional twist to the videoke rage phenomenon. The song is not “My Way,” thank God, but Fred Berame’s Cebuano classic “Samtang May Kinabuhi.” In the context of the videoke rage in the country, the song sounds equally creepy.

No, we won’t dissect Berame’s lyrics right now. We’re running out of space. Besides, I hear somebody singing “My Way” at the videoke bar outside, and I have a mission to fulfill. Give me that gun now.

By Insoy Niñal
Sun.Star Cebu, July 20, 2010

BOOKid! a success

insoymada — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:29:56 +0000

Magpasalamat ang Tsinelas sa EWIT mountaineers ug sa Lamac Multipurpose Cooperative sa kalampusan sa maong proyekto.

Ang pagkatkat dili gara-gara, dili palabwanay sa abilidad. Ang pagkatkat, gawas nga pakigsuod kini sa kalikopan, pakigsandurot usab sa mga tawo nga nagpuyo sa bukid o sa palibot niini. Ug ang gibuhat sa EWIT nagmatuod nga dili kini imposible.

(more fotos of BOOKid here)

Living on a dolphin’s prayer

insoymada — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:03:06 +0000

I am not into marine conservation thing and stuff. My exposure to the richness of our oceans’ resources doesn’t go beyond the gastronomic pleasure of eating grilled tangigue (Spanish mackerel).

But a couple of weeks ago I was touched by news about dolphins dying under mysterious circumstances. It was not the image of dolphins breathing their last that touched me. It was the image of them alive, swimming thousands of nautical miles just to hear Bon Jovi sing “Living on a Prayer.”

If you think I’m making this up, here’s the AP news, dated April 19:

MIDDLETOWN, N.J. – Since winter closed in on a family of dolphins that had been living in two New Jersey rivers, many observers felt the animals were living on a prayer.

On Saturday, the body of another dead dolphin was spotted in the Navesink River just outside the Middletown home of rocker Jon Bon Jovi.

If it’s confirmed to be part of the group of 16 dolphins that had spent half of last year in the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers, it would be the sixth to have died. (AP)

What prompted these charming creatures to leave the deep and die outside the home of a 1980s spandex rock star? The question has profound environmental significance because it hints at how the 80s pop culture could have contributed much to the destruction of Mother Earth.

Remember how Greenpeace last January filed a P10 million civil damage suit against broadcaster and 80s creation Korina Sanchez for polluting the environment from years of applying Spray Net on her hair? Greenpeace estimated that Sanchez had used up enough Spray Net to melt a glacier the size of Mount Apo. This is true. I asked Greenpeace Southeast Asian campaigner Von Hernandez about it and he said, “Ha?”

Anyway, I made my own investigation and everything suddenly made sense. The song “Living on a Prayer” is from Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet album. It is the band’s signature song. Meaning, vocalist Jon Bon Jovi is cursed to sing it every day, even while peeing into the Navesink River.

Released in 1986, the album is featured in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, a musical reference book edited by Robert Dimery. Now, the musically-inclined dolphins must have taken the book seriously. For many years, they’d been wondering how Bon Jovi was able to produce the sound “umba umba um / umba / umba umba um” in the song and get away with it.

Dolphins sing low-frequency songs or emit whistles and clicks to attract mates, keep track of offspring or locate prey. They have yet to create music that can charm an entire generation now and irritate it 20 years later. They will give their blowholes up just to listen to Jon Bon Jovi sing “Living on a Prayer” live.

A similar occurrence took place in the Philippines last February, where at least 200 melon-head whales were rescued from the shallow waters of Manila Bay. Experts said a sea quake might have damaged the dolphins’ eardrums and disoriented them.

But to an observer who believes in the cosmic connection between marine mammals and showbiz oddities, the whales’ visit in Manila had something to do with Korina Sanchez. Around that time, Sanchez and Sen. Mar Roxas had revealed what their gift for each other will be on their wedding night: their virginity!

The whales were there to tell the two that all creatures of the deep would rather have the Spray Net story anytime.

SUN.STAR, APRIL 28, 2009