Ode to Edith

And the easiest raket was the Probe edit, not because of the nature of the work, but because of the familiar, comfy work environment. A day after commuting to Makati, pretending to know what I was doing, then meeting up with K in Q.C. for script revisions, the Probe atmosphere was just what I needed.

Even if I felt like a zombie, editing until 1 am, I felt relaxed and in tune with myself. Editing is my most hated chore in production, but last night, mingling video and audio soothed me.

And there's something about "individualized teamwork" that makes me feel good. C, M, and I edited in separate rooms, but I still felt we were working together. I liked it when we entered each other's rooms and hunted for tapes or transcripts.

Nostalgia, I guess. Them good ol' days.

Ode to Rakets

Hours after writing the previous post, I received a call from G, asking if I wanted to be an E.P. (executive producer) for a teen show. I told her "no" on the spot because being an E.P. meant doing the same things I did in my last job. But she called me up to tell me the details and soon, I found myself accepting the post. Okay, that's one raket.

I received a text from C, asking if i was free to edit a segment for Probe. I needed to make easy money so I said yes. One of the things I really like about Probe is that they pay on time. So that's two rakets.

That night, J called me and asked if I could write an AVP script, due two days after. Mmmm, I hesitated. I was going to E.K. the following day. But she pleaded and wheedled. And besides I really wanted to do it. Why not? That makes three rakets.

And finally, 3 days later, a scriptwriting raket for a children's show on which I've given up hope, resurfaced. The contact was asking for the script outline A.S.A.P. Before I even had time to count, I suddenly had 4 fabulous rakets!

And because of those 4 fabulous rakets, I became fabulously tired and busy. I wasn't able to go to my HS friends' get-together last Monday and lick the icing off the White Choco Mousse birthday cake T brought for me.

Hay, be careful what you wish for. But really, I'm thankful.

Anymore rakets out there? :)

Angst Season

...has officialy begun.

After 7 months of non-employment bliss, and a day after turning 28, I am neck-deep in pure, putrid angst.

I am running out of money. And I still haven't found anything that I am willing to earn from.

Writing for magazines is great, but it doesn't pay much. TV production is something I know, but I don't want to pursue that anymore. A 9 to 5 job is stable but it takes too much of precious time. So what else is out there?

Beggars can't be choosers, I know. I guess I'll be a beggar forever, or at least, for a loooooong time.

My Musical Journey

Disclaimer: Non-music lovers may find this a bit (heaven forbid!) boring.

I think I have a middleground taste in music--maybe bordering on the alternative or obscure, but not too much. I really consider myself as a product of 80s music though my teen years happened in the 90s. It's just that I didn't like 90s music that much.

My older brothers however, entered their teens in the 80s. And since, their stereo would blast out songs that were popular then (they'd buy a new casette tape every week), I loved those tunes as if I could relate to them.

ELEMENTARY MUSIC
Between the popularity battle between Spandau Ballet and Tony Hadley's velvet-smooth voice. After all, I heard my kuya said that Simon Le Bon admitted in an interview that his vocal stylings are products of synthesizers.

Once, when I was mouthing Hall and Oates' Out of Touch, my high school busmate was so amazed and challenged me to a Name that Tune contest. So we waited for the next song, and as the first few chords were struck, I immediately blurted out, "Pale Shelter!" My opponent looked at me in admiration and asked me who sang it. I looked at her as if she were from Mars and answered, "Tears for Fears, siyempre." She asked me how I knew those songs and I told her about my brothers who played these tunes almost everyday in their room. To show off, I even sang parts of the song (I didn't know all the lyrics) but I knew I made up some of them, just as long as "they sounded like" the real words. After all, I was only 8 years old.

My brothers bought all kinds of music--Kool and the Gang, The Cure, Dire Straits, The Commodores, Stray Cats, etc. There was a lot more; I wish I can remember them all.

GROWING UP
Highschool came and it was the 90s. Though I listened to Paula Abdul, Go West, The Candyman (all of which don't top my musical favorites now), I disliked Snap, Roxette, Rick Price, and the like. Okay, so I had my share of fanatical crushing on The New Kids on the Block. But hey, I was only 14 and it was part of the maturity process.

I turned to my kuya for musical enlightenment and found myself falling in love with New Wave. Those were still 80s songs, but somehow when I was 8, I seemed to have ignored this genre. The songs sounded familiar, and in my re-discovery, they sounded mysteriously divine. The lyrics were so poetic yet sung in a detached way. Listening to them made me feel I was cool.

My favorites were This is the day by The The, The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen, Happy People by Yazoo, Big Country by Big Country, Wrong Heaven by Eggstone. For Christmas, I asked for casette tapes (CDs weren't in yet; besides, I didn't have a CD player) and my kuya gave me the best of The Smiths, The Police, and China Crisis.

I dug into their drawer of 80s casettes (most of them were warped) and I fell in love with The Style Council. Until now, my favorite song is You're the Best Thing. From time to time, I listened to NU but I think the most memorable song I listened to was Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes.

I started keeping a notebook of lyrics. On weekends, I'd tune ito LS the whole day, with my blank tape (my old Menudo tape I recycled) in the recorder, poised to dub a serendipitous song. When I'm lucky enough to record a song I like, I transcribe the lyrics, pushing the pause and play buttons on the player (didn't care about wear and tear). My notebook is still somewhere at the back of my closet and contains lyrics of Bong Gabriel's Awit para sa Iyo, Howard Jones' No one is to Blame, XTC's Peter Pumpkin.

Across the University

I was only a college freshman when Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Cranberries, Enigma, etc.) but I think my first two years in college was marked by OPM music.

Thanks to Jim Agustin, our Filipino lit teacher, I discovered Buklod, and Joey Ayala (beyond the Karaniwang Tao fame). That was the height of Mayric's and Club Dredd. On the summer after freshman year, I returned to my blank tape-recording phase, but this time, I was tuned in to LA 105.9. I spent my days listening to Philippine Violators, Datu's Tribe (Praning was the best! It always topped the weekly countdown.), Tame the Tikbalang, Rizal Underground, and Yano.

I can't remember much about the second half of my college years, but my car stereo was always playing the 1896 album (siesyatnebonsotneicostolim by Sugar Hiccup) and an Eraserheads song.

NOW WHAT?

I really have no idea what I'm into these days. Music has become so diverse that it doesn't really follow any one trend anymore (which is good). I think I stopped learning music for a while then when I entered my second job, I discovered Moonpools and Catterpillars, Screaming Cheetah Willies, Pineforest Crunch, The Cardigans, K's Choice, and Bran Van 3000. These bands' songs had nice intros which we stealthily used as scoring for our stories. But the company doesn't do that anymore, promise.

Right now, I'd settle for a soothing Dave Matthews song, or even one from John Mayer, Jason Mraz or Incubus, which are all very mainstream. Locally, I like Urbandub. And if I want a trip back to the 80s (where it all started) with a modern feel, I listen to The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. :)

Cold Day

It sucks to be sick but sometimes I am thankful for the sudden illness. It forces me to take a break, to just spend the whole day in bed and nurse myself back to health.

Last night, after badminton, I suddenly felt my throat hurt, making swallowing difficult. Then I had a montage of sneezes. Right there and then, I knew I was going to have a cold—my most hated of diseases.

As a child, I loathed the common cold. I’d experiment with different sleeping positions to stop the mucous from dripping. But of course, there was never any effective solution to that problem. So I always ended with a slumber-less night. In frustration, I’d punch or kick the bedroom wall. I SO hated having colds. If given the choice, I’d prefer coughs to colds anytime.

But when I grew up, I learned to live with having the occasional cold. I learned to live my life more or less normally when I had it. I studied, and eventually worked, while sniffling, sneezing and blowing my nose.

So today, I just spent the whole day at home today, napping, snuggling to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, sketching, and sucking the sour-sweet meat off the santol seeds. I didn’t go to CLL’s birthday lunch, and I won’t be playing badminton later. I have to respect my body’s desire to rest.

It still sucks to be sick. But it’s cool to feel like a kid again, who needs TLC. For me sickness is part of a cosmic plan. There’s time for work and play, but there’s also time for rest. We can’t control everything in this world like the common cold, and in a weird, logical way, that’s comforting.

Our Turn

Working for a children's show for more than 3 years was great. The show breathed its last episode last May 2002 but I still haven't gotten fully over it.

We worked with kids, who graduated from the show when they turned 14. Then we accepted new hosts 8 years old and above, who stayed and grew up in the show until it was their turn to say goodbye.

But we, producers, were always the ones left behind. Like sturdy trees witnessing the passing of the seasons, we were observers of their growth and stayed constant doing the same work (shooting, writing, and editing), but never going through the same experiences because we worked with different kids.

Sometimes, during merienda time, we huddled in the office kitchen and marveled at how fast these kids grew up. Their changes in clothes, hairstyle and voice pitch were the main topics of our lives. One of us may had even bumped into a show's graduate from 2 years back. We were shocked to find out that he/she already had a boy/girlfriend. We celebrated when one of them won in a contest or appeared in a commercial. And we were tickled pink when they remembered our birthdays and asked us how we are.

Now, we've all gone our separate ways-- both hosts and producers. We, producers, have lost our objects of our fascination. For a while, (or maybe even a long time), we struggle with this unfamiliar loss and we travel our live's paths still dazed. But eventually, we learn that there are still some things we can be fascinated with -- like our own growth. It's our turn to take that first out-of-the-country trip that is not work-related, our turn to risk trying out another job and see if it'll love us back just as warmly, our turn to write about our own stories, not as TV scripts, but as life-defining choices.

Everytime I meet up with a co-producer, I always look for these good changes. I am happy to hear that M finds fulfillment in her current job and has a blooming lovelife. I'm proud of J's plans of buying a car and learning how to drive. D has now moved out of her parent's house. And I'm so pleased that A has made a crazy, happy decision to have a 500-peso haircut. These are things we wouldn't have achieved back in the no-money-but-good-ol' days.

And whenever we get together with the (no-longer) kiddie hosts and we tell them these things, it's nice to know that they are as proud of us as we are of them.