On Richard G.

May 14, 2010

I don't really know how to begin this as I haven't written like this in a long time, but the news of Richard's passing away triggered some distant memories my friends and I have of one of our favorite band figures here in the city. No, we were not very close to Richard, we barely even knew of his personal life. I'm not even sure if he remembers our names. We only shared a short time together in some concerts here around 1996-1997, just laughing over some silly stuffs. I remember us calling him "Tita" because his acting out gay was our favorite antic. But of course, there were interviews with his former band Souls of Leash (SOL) for our former do-it-yourself zine, La Puztizo (LP), so I thought of going over my old stuffs to see if we had a long interview with the band just to remember how Richard was before.



Surprisingly though, there was no long interview with SOL. The feature on them was just a short section, but highlights the question "Why SOL (as name for band)?" to which their answer was, "Ambot kay Richard! Islan tani namon amon ngalan galing kay too late na." Richard's name, though, can be seen repeatedly in some small sections of several other issues of the zine, like in a gig review, "Richard says Unan (a song of SOL, FYI to those who forgot/don't know) is about an unwashed awfully smelling" and in another article called Skeletons in the Closet, we wrote, "We used to label SOL as no. 1 in our list of bands we would love to send to Pluto (Chard, forgive us) because... we don't know." Yeah, no offense to Johann, Kim, Tata, and the late Scott, but Richard was our favorite SOL member it seems. ;) And Richard was one of the few band figures who still greeted us even after almost a decade of not seeing each other.



I was about to give up on my search when in the second to the last issue of LP I looked in, in a section entitled Mushy Mushee (our different take on Valentine's), I caught sight of Richard's name again. There was a poem written in Joy's handwriting and at the end was the caption "By Raymond Ja_____, ah, uhm (Chard, ano to gani ah? Nalipat kami)." I remember Rej saying that he did give us something for the zine, but how he came to give it to us, if we coerced him or what, I can't remember anymore. I do remember him saying not to put his name as the author, but to put his cousin's name, Raymond Javelosa (if I remember it right, Rej? Joy?). When I read the entire poem, well... I was looking for something and this was not what I expected, yet it seemed to be the exact thing I needed to find. I don't know if I'm just overreacting because the news of Richard's demise is still fresh, but you be the judge. So I'm sharing this with everyone who knew him in some way or another... this poem deserves a better place than hiding in my old and dusty shoebox, don't you think?

Written by Bles Garachico

co-Honcho of LaPuztizo fanzine and Tattletale 

memoir-ing

After party crashing at RACI's post-polls party and finishing the last remaining pages of The Tender Bar (Wide White Spacers (April 2010), you should get this), getting home around 11pm, i still amazingly found time to stay up till one 1am to write write write drafts for the long overdue assignment.

i am terribly past deadline but not quite shaken. Alfredo will understand. Recalling the pasts is as difficult as a kindergarten trying to learn the linear equation. It is to me.

The next day, i surrendered to Keith the Book (The Tender Bar) because he "expressed" interest to read and "and maybe also do some writing" and join the workshops. (Oh, yes.)

Late again for office, but has managed to find some time for facebook, i came across Blesela's message, a very long thread of our private, personal chitchats. the final entry was: "Shyet, napatay si Richard!!!" which was totally out of topic because 1.) the thread wasn't about him; 2) the thread was about manila people 3) the thread has mutated into a discussion on zynga-facebook rift and the horrors it will bring to facebook gamers like Blesela. So Richard died -- rich--WHO? Somebody we knew. Not our friend, but somebody we knew. and somebody of our age range.

Last April 12, my friend, and fellow graduate student Cornelio (Kune) also died. he had congenital heart problem and apparently died from heart attack. He had been suffering from "lain pamatyag" few days back but i don't think he really was expecting he'd die from "lain pamatyag". But he did and it shocked me. (just like somebody actually dies from pasmo...pasmism)

(I didn't fo to his wake. I don't like going to wakes. I even avoid attending the wakes and funerals of my relatives.)

It';s sad, how, it seems, that every month a friend, an acquaintance, an ex-friend, fellow varsity player, a schoolmate, dies as if 30-ish has become the average life span of a Filipino.

30 is the new 70. now that's scary.

(do i look like i'm 70??!)

In late March of this year, a fellow UP schoolmate died from cardiac arrest as a result of lymphoma. more than a year ago, we also thought my sister was gonna die from a rare, malignant and aggressive breast tumor, Phyllodes. But she probably is a "masamang damo" and everything turned out fine as the tumor hasn't yet metastasized. Just as her daughter turned 4 months, she had her mastectomy.

So this May, Richard, the polio-tic drummer of some college band i liked, well, we liked, my friends and I, died of heart attack. he's not so much older than i am, also 30-ish. I remember their guitarist, Scott, also died in a motorcycle accident some years ago. Then there was Benjie, not their band member but some close friend of theirs (who became one of my friend's friend in the university) who also died from a vehicular accident. Some more years back, in the late 90's another one of their friend (or maybe he was just their acquaintance, who knows?), Sym, died from massive brain hemorrhage after he crashed his head on the pavement when their motorcycle collided with the center island. They were just coming home from a gig in a fiesta somewhere, lacking sleep and apparently still groggy from alcohol. They didn't know they were overspeeding and life stopped when their bikes crashed.

i was excited to come to office and write about the rest of my drafts after the writing frenzy last night but apparently this death thing changed it all and i can't concentrate anymore. Over the election vacation i dug through my old journals (found tickets of a river maya concert i attended in 1995, nostalgia galore), brought the more recent notebooks/journals back to Jaro hoping that i, in the mighty glory and power of the journals i'm beholden to, will be given enough memory to write. But no, richard died and all the 90s memories came rushing in and i have no material! gaddamit, no material to write on. so the drafts, the writing flow had to be revised because my brain wants to recall things from another decade.

(who was i with in my first Sigabong..clash what??--1994...noreen? WHat concert did i first meet you Bles? Last concert i went to in UPV grounds...what Sigabong was rained on--was it even sigabong or some other band. ANd why was i not able to attend the The Youth concert? something whent wrong with Dodong Cruz's strings in the middle of the song, supernova. Who came first, eraserheads in west of rivermaya in San ag? GRRRRR. pi-ang pa si kitoy sang nag tambay kami upod ni mokie antes sang what fucking concert or battle of da band was that again???)

I will get my materials this weekend, from Bles, apparently who, without telling me, burned all the letters from her correspondents during our zinester days. how are we -- am i -- supposed to write about it now then? because i don;t want to write fiction. No. No fiction.

(my sister said: mabait na kabayo, madaling mamatay." that's why she survived, because she's not a kabayo -- i mean, she is not mabait.)

and meanwhile, recalling my aunt's house form the 2005 visit, there seems to be a big wad of envelopes in one corner of her house. and those letters were mine. and now they are probably gone also. she probably threw them out. after all, only the crazies like me and Blesela keep them yellowing decade-old letters, the concert tickets and the posters we stole weeks before the gig actually began. so now how am i gonna know who i wrote to being reji tattletale?

projects...projects.

this weekend. will start one. and finish two.

tree hugging

Ira, my friend and high school schoolmate, took pictures of the red shower of the firetree in UPV Iloilo City campus, few days ago.

i will attach the thread of the facebook discussion here.

later.

AND.

[7 days laterzzzz......]

i'm sorry it will strain your eyes...and even if you click on the thread pix it won't make it any better.

anyhoooo. below is the picture of the firetree (Delonix regia) that we want to replant around UPV City campus, and eventually gain back the nostalgia, romance and beauty that the campus once have.

We will start it once the rainy season begins (hopefully in july of this year). If proven successful, I hope we can inspire the Ilonggos to re-plant the firetrees in the plantable areas of Gen. Luna, and for the the street to regain it flamboyance, retain its part of history that the ignorant leaders and planners of this beautiful city has so long taken for granted.

for firetree enthusiasts, please leave your comments.

IRA and I will greatly appreciate it.

THE WORKS: An Introduction

I am a frustrated writer.

Other than that, i don't see any other reason why I do not say "No" to practically all the workshop invitations of Afredo Diaz, despite the fact that these do not come for FREE. I want to write and I want to learn how to write well.

Yes, workshops don't come free, just as any university education would. Any form of education (except the basic education which is compulsory and should be provided FREE of charge by any rational-thinking government) should be worth investing on. i am way past the "ranting" age where I would just blame my parents for everything that I did not get or experienced while under their care. (Like blaming them for not allowing me to take up Literature, perhaps?) Now that I can afford to send myself to some writing education, I will spend for what i really want.

I believe that writing, just like any passion or hobby should be mastered both ways: technical and talent (the innate). I admire people who can survive by just their mere talent but much of us do not have that within our reach. Some talents also need fine tuning, otherwise, we should just all scrap the Fine Arts degree, which as we all know, primarily banks on and screen students based on their innate capabilities. This is where I believe the technical mastery comes in. I remember reading a memoir of a retired National Geographic photographer Annie Griffiths-Belt. She said that photography is a mastery of proper techniques and all the mathematics that comes with it, more than it is a talent. I still cringe at the self-proclaimed photographers who preach that they are after the art, not the science.

Oh, well, maybe it works for them.

The Writing Mom and Death of a Father are my sample works for the workshop. Our deadline for submission is tonight, April 28, at 12 MN. I hope the readers of my blog (OH! i see 9 in my feedburner! -- and there is about 6.7 BILLION people in the world -- the 9 readers are amazing, really. Stroke yourself, you have found a GEM (rolleyes)) will comment. and if i may request, comment on the "technical" part...the flow, the cohesiveness. Pose questions if you will because that is what i am really interested in.

Salamat!!

Mother Studies (#0.2): Writing Mom.

Mother, if I have to write about you I would have to take a week break from everything, especially the internet because I am just so addicted to pushpullbar now; I scanned and scanned and read through the forums the whole day. There are 83 threads in the general chit-chat section alone and I’m still on the 17^th, the 3^rd post, to be precise.

I wish you’d advised me to take up architecture. I would have enjoyed these online forums better, more than I do now. Instead, you advised me to take up Biology because, you said, had you the money you’d have been one of the best doctors ever. It’s very apparent by the way you used prescribe us the medicines in absence of a legit doctor’s prescription. I thought it was just pure genius; I didn’t know we were just lucky enough not to have died from self-medication.

Mother, I know we do not have the best of relationship. I proved that when I realized how expensive Zoloft was, being a jobless 23 year-old graduate of one of the premier universities in the country living with you, a menopausing workaholic middle-aged mother of 5.

I also know you were a frustrated wife, having to content yourself with an andropausing, Star Craft-playing middle-aged husband who you said, “has taken you for granted all these years.” But no matter how I repeatedly tell you give yourself a break and stop living your life for him, you end up coming home to your husband for some self-declared emergency, few days short from your supposed solo vacation cum bonding time with your granddaughter. You are the reason why I never believe in marriage. Forgive me for not really enjoying the supposed wedding you arranged for me and Keith. Weddings are such huge embarrassment to me.

Despite all of these, you were always easy to forgive, hopeful for that 3^rd chance, the 4^th and the 5^th. You know I am not in favor of that mother. I resent it, I really do. Please understand that for a stubborn daughter starting a family of her own, it is frustrating to say these things over and over again, “The first mistake is forgivable. Letting the second one pass is sheer stupidity.” Mother, there is no hope in the 3^rd chance but I know you’re beyond redemption. I’ll consider this a glitch in your normal brain function but please do not come to my house in a total mess again. I also have a very busy personal life to attend to.

I’m sorry, but when Daddy said you look like a refugee, I totally agree with him. I know “pack light” may sound alien to you but I can teach you how. It’s pretty easy if you really try and give your utmost dedication. It’s just a simple switch of perspectives. I understand that you look at things this way: How many bags are needed for all these things I’ll be carrying? I strongly suggest, and that you remember all the time to look the other way around: How the hell would these things fit in just one compact bag? It’s fairly easy, and before you knew it you’ll be getting rid of the 10 smaller bags inside the 5 other bags, and learn to prioritize. No mother, 5 bags do not qualify as emergency bags because the human hand can optimally carry only two, without the fear of ball and socket dislocation.

And stop worrying. Stop worrying about us. We can survive. We will survive the way you survived at 20, without a mother and with 6 younger siblings to attend to. When you worry too much, you also make us work beyond our imagination and we end up with bruised egos and strained relationships. I hope you understand our situation. As much as we would like to help you with your money making, get-rich-endeavors-so –you-kids-can-have-stable-future, we also have personal commitments that need to be fulfilled, now that we have the stability and liberty to do so. Just imagine you having money, wanting to be a doctor, and your mother telling you to stay home and pack muscovado, deliver it to supermarkets and be confronted with screaming purchasing officers who have rougher skin and uglier hair, but thanks to make up and hair serum those issues can be hidden from public view. It’s a little graphic but I hope you understand.

Fifty is the new Forty, they say. We would really like it if you try to enjoy and get a spanking new life.