I fucking hate New Year’s Eve. There, I said it. Every year, my hearing gets a little worse thanks to the fireworks that go BOOM in rapid, obnoxious succession. The smoke from said fireworks is pretty smelly, and it colors my boogers black (heehee, I said “boogers”). I stay up ‘till ungodly hours (read: 9am) because my family heads on over to my lola’s house in Dasmariñas Village AFTER 2am, and we party until after the sun comes up.
Perhaps the thing I dislike most about New Year’s Eve, though, is the resolution-making. Every year, people ask me what my New Year’s resolutions are, to which I mumble incoherently so as to disguise the fact that I don’t have any. I don’t make any resolutions because I think they’re silly, desperate attempts to correct the previous year’s mistakes. I mean, most of the resolutions I’ve heard were all based on what my friends should’ve done in 2009. I should’ve been friendlier, therefore I resolve to be more social this year. I should’ve taken more care of my figure, therefore 2010 will be the year I diet and exercise! I should’ve fallen in love, therefore I will leap at the opportunities that present themselves in 2010.
Blah-dee-blah-dee-blah. I don’t see why people should start their years by thinking immediately of their regrets, nor do I see why they attempt to make up for these regrets by making these vague, impossible-to-fulfill promises to themselves. Saying “I promise to be better” opens you up for disappointment, especially since the goals set during New Year’s Eve are usually too hard to reach.
But this isn’t some rant entry. In fact, it’s supposed to be quite jolly and optimistic and motivational. Let’s rewind and brighten things up, shall we?
In retrospect, New Year’s Eve isn’t too bad. Sure, the fireworks can be deafening, but they’re also really pretty, and I happen to find them very romantic. The smoke does get pretty gross, but the awesome Silent Hill-like fog the morning after makes the city look a lot more interesting. I may lose sleep over the holidays, but that’s because I’m drinking and partying with people I really, really love.
The resolutions, though, I still find kinda silly and desperate. I guess it just isn’t my thing.
And then I remember that 2010 is the Year of the Tiger, which to my overly-cheesy mind reminds me of Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. This, my friends, is THE YEAR OF THE THEME SONG FROM ROCKY. Because The Immortal Power Ballad of Triumph now plays in my head every time I think of what year it is, I must pay due respect to it. I must overcome physical exertion, mental exhaustion, and an indecipherable Italian-American accent. I must challenge myself and succeed. I must… make some New Year’s resolutions.
See, I like to approach life with a little spontaneity. Resolutions kind of take away from that, like planning what you’re going to have for dessert before raiding the fridge does. Telling yourself, “I’m soooooo gonna have ice cream,” before opening your freezer door can have one of two effects – A) You get your ice cream, and you are satisfied over getting exactly what you want; or B) You find that there’s no ice cream, and you’re left with that lingering craving for cold, creamy goodness. Opening the ref without really planning your dessert brings the possibility of pleasant surprises. You can peek into the freezer and go “HOLY SHIT ICE CREAM FUCK YEAH EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE JOY”. You can find that there’s no ice cream at all, but you weren’t really looking for it anyway, so there wasn’t really any loss. Or you can look into an empty freezer, have your eyes wander downwards, and find cookies that you didn’t know you wanted until you saw them. Approaching life with light expectations (because, of course, you’re still hoping to find dessert in the ref) just brings you more avenues for happiness through serendipity. Heck, the night I met Lauren was a prime example of that (you can read her fantastically-written account of that evening here while I'm still writing my own).
This outlook towards expectations has never really failed me, and I really like the ways things are now. I don’t really put too much pressure on myself or on the things (or people) that make me happy. But then Survivor’s words echo through my mind, and I recall the sweet, sweet feeling of triumph that Rocky reveled in when he got past that final step at the end of the classic movie montage, and it makes me want that feeling. Bad. And if New Year's resolutions can give me that feeling, well... Maybe they aren't so silly after all.
And so, with Eye of the Tiger playing in the background, here are the steps to my Philadelphia Museum of Art:
1. Write all those blog entries I wrote in my head these past two months and finally post them, GODDAMMIT! I’m giving myself until the end of next week for this one.
2. Update my blogs a lot more. Attempt to write an entry in either blog at least once a week. This one counts.
3. Once I’ve gotten the hang of writing more often, shoot for an entry a day for an entire month (probably May or October).
4. Give my sister the Most Awesome Palanca Ever for her final high school retreat.
5. Learn to draw better poses for my doodles.
6. Unlock the mysteries of perspective drawing.
7. Finish a painting I’d actually be proud of.
8. Make my girlfriend insanely, butt-wigglingly happy through some sort of gesture (although this is always a goal).
9. Gain five pounds. Preferably of muscle. Preferably before I take my 6-foot+ junior varsity cousin on in a basketball game I challenged him to.
10. Stop making such stupid challenges.
11. Make enough money to be able to buy myself a Wii, a Rock Band set for Susan (my shiny new Xbox 360) and still have enough left over to keep myself comfortable.
12. Make myself a kick-ass personal calling card.
13. Learn a new skill, or refine an existing one. Drawing doesn’t count.
14. Make at least two more fwends. Two because I’m kinda shy. *blush*
15. Travel one more time (domestic or international) this year, after Bangkok this April.
Okay, so maybe my list is 57 steps short of the 72 that Rocky ran (does this appease you, fellow trivia nerds?), but I’m all about consistency, and staying consistent with myself means keeping my expectations for myself light. I’m also pretty good at disguising my inability to think of more goals (at least those that I think are achievable) through semi-believable rationalization. It’s going to be fun coming back to this list in the future and checking to see what I’ll have achieved by then. I have a horrible feeling I’m going to fail number 10, but 14 out of 15 ain’t so bad. I think. Anyway, I’m going to attack this list and do my goddamn best to rise to the challenges.
Eye of the Tiger, bitches. It’s my year. Roar. Meow.
Showing posts with label Hair Bands Teach You Everything You Need to Know in Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hair Bands Teach You Everything You Need to Know in Life. Show all posts
Monday, January 4, 2010
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Axl Rose Helped Me Find a Girlfriend
One of the great things of what I’m doing for a living is that writing inane prattle like this actually helps me on the job. They say that if you want to get started on writing, go do some writing. I’ve found this advice to be incredibly useful, especially to get my mojo flowing. Now that I’ve appeared to hit a bit of work-writer’s block, it’s time to write whatever it is that’s on my mind.
And that, my dear friends, is where our title comes in.
I honestly believe that Axl Rose, legendary frontman of ONE OF THE GREATEST BANDS EVER, helped me get into the relationship I’m currently in. We never met, I never emailed him for tips on dating (which, I imagine, would begin with “Step 1: Get her drunk."), nor did I win Lauren’s heart by serenading her with my rendition of “Paradise City”. No, this is way more unnecessarily convoluted than that.
I grew up listening to Guns n’ Roses, among many others. Back when my mind was still a musical tabula rasa, my older brother and his same-age cousin were raving all about them. They played them constantly on their cassette players (this was before those CD-doohickeys rendered them obsolete). Even though our parents frowned upon the band for their occasional use of colorful language, there was no stopping them. GNR was the pure, liberating power of rock and roll. Understandably, then, they became my early childhood definition of AWESOME.
As I got a little bit older, I’d learn that a few of my GNR favorite songs were “revivals” – our early term for covers – of popular songs from those mysterious years that came before I was born. “What is this blasphemy?” I thought to myself. Surely nothing this fantabulous existed when dull, boring, non-GNR-loving adults were young. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be so dull, boring and – worst of all – non-GNR-loving.
It stung to be proven wrong. My brother had made a mixtape for our road trips, and I was quite shocked to hear my dad singing along to “Live and Let Die”. He explained to us that it was remake of a popular song by some dude named Paul McCartney (Who the hell?) and a band called Wings (NOT Guns n’ Roses). I then went on to learn that “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” was another revival (Bob Dylan). This got me curious – what other songs out there were based on old music?
Turns out that two of my favorite songs at the time, Ugly Kid Joe’s “Cats in the Cradle” and Mr. Big’s “Wild World”, were written by the same man: Cat Stevens. I was young and all, but I knew from the lyrics of those songs that whoever this Cat person was, he was a good writer. And so I decided to give the originals a listen. I fell in love with them immediately.
Since then, I’ve been sampling the many tastes that retro music had to offer. I tripped out to Jimmy Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and worshipped Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”. I felt the pains of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” and marched off in righteous indignation to Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”. I even grew an appreciation for Elton John’s music from long before The Lion King made him relevant to my generation. No matter how good the songs were, though, I always had a soft spot for Cat Stevens and his genuine, folksy sound.
Fast-forward fifteen years later, and I’m a socially-inept 22 year-old virgin. I had just met this amazing girl named Lauren, but since I absolutely lack any serious game, my expectations are low. In one of our early dates, I ask her my fallback, hey-I’m-cool-enough-to-carry-a-conversation question – “What music do you listen to?”. She mentions, among other things, folksy music, the kind you find among certain Indie bands and dead 70s artists.
Folk? From the 70s? My inner douche was bumping my fist and proclaiming “SCORE!” at the top of his lungs. I knew right then and there that, aside from liking zombies, this unbelievably amazing girl and I would have a lot more in common.
It’d be a few more months and a sappy trip to La Union before it would occur to me to let her listen to some Cat Stevens. By then, we were blissfully in love, and discovered oodles of things we had in common. Sure, these things would have naturally come about in the course of our relationship, but music is a big thing to me. One of my most ideal romantic moments involves rocking out to the same music together and singing your lungs out to one of your favorite songs. The potential to do that with Lauren gave me a lot more confidence in a relationship with her. The rest is cheesy, mushy history.
And so, by great leaps in logic, that is how Axl Rose helped me get into my current state of happiness. For those of you who don’t want to put up with the length of my ramblings, here they are in flowchart form:
Axl Rose is the vocalist of Guns n’ Roses → GNR is AWESOME → GNR did covers → I got curious about covers → Learned about Cat Stevens → Learned to appreciate old music and 70s folk → Met Lauren → Learned Lauren likes folk → Gained confidence → ♥
Ah rambling… You bring out the incoherent sap in me.
And now, back to work.
And that, my dear friends, is where our title comes in.
I honestly believe that Axl Rose, legendary frontman of ONE OF THE GREATEST BANDS EVER, helped me get into the relationship I’m currently in. We never met, I never emailed him for tips on dating (which, I imagine, would begin with “Step 1: Get her drunk."), nor did I win Lauren’s heart by serenading her with my rendition of “Paradise City”. No, this is way more unnecessarily convoluted than that.
I grew up listening to Guns n’ Roses, among many others. Back when my mind was still a musical tabula rasa, my older brother and his same-age cousin were raving all about them. They played them constantly on their cassette players (this was before those CD-doohickeys rendered them obsolete). Even though our parents frowned upon the band for their occasional use of colorful language, there was no stopping them. GNR was the pure, liberating power of rock and roll. Understandably, then, they became my early childhood definition of AWESOME.
As I got a little bit older, I’d learn that a few of my GNR favorite songs were “revivals” – our early term for covers – of popular songs from those mysterious years that came before I was born. “What is this blasphemy?” I thought to myself. Surely nothing this fantabulous existed when dull, boring, non-GNR-loving adults were young. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be so dull, boring and – worst of all – non-GNR-loving.
It stung to be proven wrong. My brother had made a mixtape for our road trips, and I was quite shocked to hear my dad singing along to “Live and Let Die”. He explained to us that it was remake of a popular song by some dude named Paul McCartney (Who the hell?) and a band called Wings (NOT Guns n’ Roses). I then went on to learn that “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” was another revival (Bob Dylan). This got me curious – what other songs out there were based on old music?
Turns out that two of my favorite songs at the time, Ugly Kid Joe’s “Cats in the Cradle” and Mr. Big’s “Wild World”, were written by the same man: Cat Stevens. I was young and all, but I knew from the lyrics of those songs that whoever this Cat person was, he was a good writer. And so I decided to give the originals a listen. I fell in love with them immediately.
Since then, I’ve been sampling the many tastes that retro music had to offer. I tripped out to Jimmy Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and worshipped Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”. I felt the pains of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” and marched off in righteous indignation to Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”. I even grew an appreciation for Elton John’s music from long before The Lion King made him relevant to my generation. No matter how good the songs were, though, I always had a soft spot for Cat Stevens and his genuine, folksy sound.
Fast-forward fifteen years later, and I’m a socially-inept 22 year-old virgin. I had just met this amazing girl named Lauren, but since I absolutely lack any serious game, my expectations are low. In one of our early dates, I ask her my fallback, hey-I’m-cool-enough-to-carry-a-conversation question – “What music do you listen to?”. She mentions, among other things, folksy music, the kind you find among certain Indie bands and dead 70s artists.
Folk? From the 70s? My inner douche was bumping my fist and proclaiming “SCORE!” at the top of his lungs. I knew right then and there that, aside from liking zombies, this unbelievably amazing girl and I would have a lot more in common.
It’d be a few more months and a sappy trip to La Union before it would occur to me to let her listen to some Cat Stevens. By then, we were blissfully in love, and discovered oodles of things we had in common. Sure, these things would have naturally come about in the course of our relationship, but music is a big thing to me. One of my most ideal romantic moments involves rocking out to the same music together and singing your lungs out to one of your favorite songs. The potential to do that with Lauren gave me a lot more confidence in a relationship with her. The rest is cheesy, mushy history.
And so, by great leaps in logic, that is how Axl Rose helped me get into my current state of happiness. For those of you who don’t want to put up with the length of my ramblings, here they are in flowchart form:
Axl Rose is the vocalist of Guns n’ Roses → GNR is AWESOME → GNR did covers → I got curious about covers → Learned about Cat Stevens → Learned to appreciate old music and 70s folk → Met Lauren → Learned Lauren likes folk → Gained confidence → ♥
Ah rambling… You bring out the incoherent sap in me.
And now, back to work.
Monday, May 4, 2009
All I Need's Just a Pair of Wheels
I sometimes wish I could wear spandex.
And spritz hairspray all over my long, unkempt mane.
And grab my crotch on stage.
I've got a love for cheesy rock anthems, the kind that sets your soul on fire with motivational words, emboldening guitar chords, and ultimately ends up as the main theme on movie soundtracks. For as long as I can remember, I've been performing hits like "Eye of the Tiger", "Blaze of Glory", and "All for Love" in the sanctity of my shower. There's just something about these songs that makes me feel (dare I say it?) alive.
Perhaps it's the catchy tunes the songs typically hold. Maybe the incredibly cheesy lyrics strike a familiar chord with me (I mean, have you read the previous entry?). It might even be the fact that these songs are best sung from the chest, belted out like a primal affirmation of modern masculinity. Whatever it is, I've been hard-pressed to find music that's so unabashedly emotional.
And so my fantasies are better explained: the spandex is for the outfits the bands used to wear back in the anthems' heyday; the hairspray for the hairstyle that goes with the costume; and the crotch-grabbing for me to be able to hit those really high notes. I absolutely love these songs and love singing them. Hell, I don't know the lyrics to most of them, but I will audibly mumble along to the choruses.
What makes me enjoy them is the incredible passion behind them. Yeah, it's probably all commercialized mainstream money-making hogwash, but it's pretty fucking effective. I can feel the fire burning in my eyes whenever I hear one of these bad boys playing. I can feel myself standing up, pumping my chest, and belting out this declaration of my manhood. I am the man who will fight for your honor, goddammit!
So what's the point of all this lame drivel? I've decided to actually listen to one of the songs, and not just ride the wave of awesomeness it brings to my senses. The song of choice is the now-classic "Man in Motion" by John Parr, main theme of 80s brat pack flick "St. Elmo's Fire." I mean, take a look at some of those lyrics:
How does that not make you want to make something of yourself? How? John Parr has awakened something in me that no other 80s singer, not even Rick-fucking-Astley, can ever hope to bring out.
See, I'm going to quit my job soon, and among other unfortunate things, one thing that's been holding me back from finally telling the bosses to shove it is the fear that I might be making a mistake. I don't want to leave my job thinking it's holding me back, only to find out that I made a mistake. I don't want to see myself as an idealistic young tool whose ambition got the better of him. And yet, I do know that the company isn't going to take me anywhere. In the end, all that's left is my fear of changing things to which I've grown accustomed.
Well, to fuck with that. I'm going to be a man in motion. I'm going seek those new horizons underneath the blazing sky. I am going to soar with the eagles (but stay a Lasallian!) and take a mighty flying dump on the occupational wasteland I'll be leaving behind. Hell, I might be making a huge mistake, but I'm young, and I know that things will get better than what they are now eventually, even if I do end up taking a step backward. Hell yeah I can feel it burning in me! AWWWW YEEEEAAHHH!!!
Also, I really do need a pair of wheels. I'll probably need to learn how to drive first. AND I WILL, BITCHES. I WILL.
And spritz hairspray all over my long, unkempt mane.
And grab my crotch on stage.
I've got a love for cheesy rock anthems, the kind that sets your soul on fire with motivational words, emboldening guitar chords, and ultimately ends up as the main theme on movie soundtracks. For as long as I can remember, I've been performing hits like "Eye of the Tiger", "Blaze of Glory", and "All for Love" in the sanctity of my shower. There's just something about these songs that makes me feel (dare I say it?) alive.
Perhaps it's the catchy tunes the songs typically hold. Maybe the incredibly cheesy lyrics strike a familiar chord with me (I mean, have you read the previous entry?). It might even be the fact that these songs are best sung from the chest, belted out like a primal affirmation of modern masculinity. Whatever it is, I've been hard-pressed to find music that's so unabashedly emotional.
And so my fantasies are better explained: the spandex is for the outfits the bands used to wear back in the anthems' heyday; the hairspray for the hairstyle that goes with the costume; and the crotch-grabbing for me to be able to hit those really high notes. I absolutely love these songs and love singing them. Hell, I don't know the lyrics to most of them, but I will audibly mumble along to the choruses.
What makes me enjoy them is the incredible passion behind them. Yeah, it's probably all commercialized mainstream money-making hogwash, but it's pretty fucking effective. I can feel the fire burning in my eyes whenever I hear one of these bad boys playing. I can feel myself standing up, pumping my chest, and belting out this declaration of my manhood. I am the man who will fight for your honor, goddammit!
So what's the point of all this lame drivel? I've decided to actually listen to one of the songs, and not just ride the wave of awesomeness it brings to my senses. The song of choice is the now-classic "Man in Motion" by John Parr, main theme of 80s brat pack flick "St. Elmo's Fire." I mean, take a look at some of those lyrics:
I can see a new horizon underneath the blazin' sky
I'll be where the eagle's flying higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
I can climb the highest mountain, cross the wildest sea
I can feel St. Elmo's Fire burnin' in me, burnin' in me
Just once in his life a man has his time
and my time is now, I'm coming alive
I can hear the music playin', I can see the banners fly
Feel like you're back again, and hope ridin' high
Gonna be your man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future's lyin', St. Elmo's Fire
How does that not make you want to make something of yourself? How? John Parr has awakened something in me that no other 80s singer, not even Rick-fucking-Astley, can ever hope to bring out.
See, I'm going to quit my job soon, and among other unfortunate things, one thing that's been holding me back from finally telling the bosses to shove it is the fear that I might be making a mistake. I don't want to leave my job thinking it's holding me back, only to find out that I made a mistake. I don't want to see myself as an idealistic young tool whose ambition got the better of him. And yet, I do know that the company isn't going to take me anywhere. In the end, all that's left is my fear of changing things to which I've grown accustomed.
Well, to fuck with that. I'm going to be a man in motion. I'm going seek those new horizons underneath the blazing sky. I am going to soar with the eagles (but stay a Lasallian!) and take a mighty flying dump on the occupational wasteland I'll be leaving behind. Hell, I might be making a huge mistake, but I'm young, and I know that things will get better than what they are now eventually, even if I do end up taking a step backward. Hell yeah I can feel it burning in me! AWWWW YEEEEAAHHH!!!
Also, I really do need a pair of wheels. I'll probably need to learn how to drive first. AND I WILL, BITCHES. I WILL.
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