Parasite Love Song

Suck and suck. Suckin up all you can suckin up all you can suck.
Workin up under my patience like a little tick.
Fat little parasite. Suck me dry.
My fruit is bruised and borrowed. (You thieving bastards.)
You have turned my blood cold and bitter,
beat my compassion black and blue.

Hope this is what you wanted.
Hope this is what you had in mind.
'Cuz this is what you’re getting.
I hope you’re choking. I hope you choke on this.
I hope you’re choking. I hope you choke on this.

Taken all I can taken all I can, we can take.
Taken all you can taken you can, we can take.
Got nothing left to give to you.
Blood suckin parasitic little blood suckin parasitic little
blood suckin parasitic little tick
Take what you want and then go.

Suck me dry.

Is this what you wanted?
Is this what you had in mind?
Is this what you wanted?
Cuz this is what you’re getting.
I hope, I hope, I hope you choke.

- “Ticks and Leeches” by Maynard James Keenan (Tool from Lateralus)

This song is my current soundtrack right now. I’m listening to a whole lot of Darkthrone albums this past week but I always see to it that I put Tool’s Lateralus album on whenever I can and be blown away and be comforted by this song.

The lyrics do it for me. Hearing Tool singer Maynard James Keenan spew forth the venomous bite of his lyrics is nothing short of a transcendental feeling, a spiritual release. Like a deer caught in an 18-wheeler truck’s headlights on a breezy October evening, wondering about the what-could-have-beens become useless when the WHAT-SHOULD-BE becomes staggeringly apparent.

Surprisingly, I didn't have to go down completely in The Pits to get a firm hold of myself. I just needed to stop and think carefully, weigh the loss accurately and use my fucking brain for a while. And then I knew I was going to be A-OK.

Choke.

Rolling Eyes To The Tune Of Maddening Sighs

My band that's immensely influenced by Black Sabbath (first 4 albums) and Mastodon (all albums) was supposed to have a band practice RIGHT NOW, 1pm to 3pm, on this lovely sunny Sunday afternoon but at around 12:55pm, I received a text message from my guitarist bandmate saying he and our drummer (they're brothers) won't be able to make it because of some last minute family affair they had to attend.

Fuck.

So here I am at the internet cafe where I printed my thesis back in 2005. The band practice space my band uses is just above where I'm at right now. I've been awake for about 19 hours now - and counting - and my brain's too fucking fried to think of anything remotely progressive or constructive to do. About two months ago, I've read somewhere that normal human beings use only about 10% of their brains in everyday functions whereas the terribly shrewd fuckers, like Albert Einstein, use (or in Einstein's case, used) about 15% of their brain's potential. That is some fascinating and frightening information. First, come on, if that wasn't fascinating, then Michael Jackson is indeed white. Second, it's scary because if normal humans only use a tenth of their brain's capabilities in their lives, there's a whole lot of untapped possibilities that's being left wasted.

I wouldn't want that to fucking happen to me. Being ugly and destitute is one thing but being a fucking dumb piece of shit is quite another. I'd like to use at least 12% of my brain. Ha.

The day is still young and I am not yet on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of sleep deprivation. There's still a lot of possible constructive shit to be done.

(a lightbulb flashes on top of my head)

I'll go home.

Drink black coffee.

Work on my my zine IA's issue #8's layout while listening to Bad Religion's late 1980's to early 1990's albums.

Then I'll think about the girl I've been thinking about these past several weeks and wonder if she's thinking about me, too...What a fucking loser, huh?

Broken Thoughts

I've just finished listening to Iron Maiden's Killers album the other day when a string of vicious facts hit me hard: I was (A) not dating any woman, (B) I'm ugly (which is greatly correlated to fact letter A) and (C) I'm terribly broke (which in itself greatly affects the previous two reasons).

Simply put, I'm a fucking loser. The funny thing is, being a loser all these years has afforded me the convenience to relax a bit. I don't know about you but listening to music, a whole vast of music, brings therapeutic effects on me. A solitary activity that, err, does not attract women. I couldn't help thinking about it. As much as I'd like to just chill out and shit, I couldn't make myself to do so. Completely, that is. I'm slowly threading my way through it successfully and I think making zines, writing, and music will eventually help me swallow the Vicious Facts easily.

Busrides

Riding buses in Metro Manila is an interesting experience. It keeps you grounded. You get to ride with people that's extremely different from each other, from bank tellers to hard labor workers, to call-center agents to bored 9-to-5ers, a busride somehow acts as some sort of an equalizer to a palpably unequal society.

The weirdest shit I've seen during a busride happend early this year, around late January. There was this female call-center agent who got punched in the head by the female bus conductor. First of all, female bus conductors (those who sell tickets) are rare. Second, the physical commotion happened moments after I boarded the bus which was on the corner of Taft Avenue and Gil Puyat Avenue in Pasay and Makati's border.

Anyway, the verbal tussle between the female passenger and female bus conductor apparently started when the former was insisting she had paid her fare already. The latter was vehemently denying this and was creatively cursing in Filipino, curses which I honestly think don't have any English counterparts but them curses were very very intense in meaning, if you get my drift. Then the bus conductor began giving the female call-center agent a beatdown, an intense one. It was bad. I couldn't believe the other passengers were not doing anything about the situation. Maybe they were just minding their own business. As impossible as it may seem, I think there could have been at least a witness to the situation if the female call-center agent had paid her fare or not but no one was stepping up to alleviate the tension. Eventually, I've had enough of the uncalled-for violence and I tried to pacify the bus conductor and told her to calm down. After about a couple more punches, she miraculously stopped.

The female call-center agent then began telling the conductor that she had indeed paid her fare already and the former flashed her company/employer's ID to the latter to prove that she has integrity and has paid already. But the bus conductor wouldn't have any of it. On a side note, I think the call-center chick had lost her ticket already, for some reason.

Two blocks or so later, the call-center agent left. Minutes after she had left, the bus conductor was still as pissed as shit.

I paid my fare moments before the aforementioned confrontation occurred. When I finally arrived at my stop on Ayala Avenue in Makati, the bus conductor asked me if I had paid my fare already. I showed her my ticket and she looked at it with distrust screaming from her face. I left the bus unscathed from any violence, verbally or otherwise.

I think a degree of injustice happened that day.

Synapse

I took this photo using my friend's SONY Cybershot digicamera which I borrowed for Magrudergrind's upcoming late-June grindviolence Phillippine onslaught. I'm in no way an expert - let alone an aficionado - of photography but sometimes I like shooting at things just for kicks.

I shot this picture last week when I was on my way home at around half past midnight. It's the intersection of our street and United Nations Avenue in Manila. I didn't knew what got into me but I just pulled the camera out and shot this. After seeing the picture afterwards, it occurred to me that there was something about the street lights and traffic lights; they looked liked auras (like the shit in Stephen King's book Insomnia). Or vibes. Negative and positive, focused and incoherent.

Same shit, different day.

A Dose Of Junkie Blues And A Girl

After my band's practice yesterday at around 6:00PM, I went to Malate to do some errand for my mother when I passed by someone from our neighborhood, someone who I really didn't know personally but knew by face. I'll just call him JC.

JC used to look remotely normal and good, in fact, he was supposed to appear as an extra in some local TV show back in 1996 but he didn't like the idea of being an actor and didn't bother attending his screening for the part. How the fuck did I knew about this? It's because I had this feverish crush on his younger sister that's why.

JC is about 3-4 years older than me and I can safely guess his sister's right about the same age as I am (25). When you're 13-14 years old and extremely smitten with a girl in your neighborhood, it's automatic that you learn things about her, about her interests and of course, her family. I guess that's all I have to say about that.

JC didn't look his age. He had hair that looked liked the one Mel Gibson had in Braveheart sans the dread-like parts (shit, I'm not even sure if those were dreads). JC's appearance gave away his smell and it screamed intensely rancid. The funny thing about seeing him yesterday was that I didn't recognize the motherfucker right away which is very not like me as I remember faces of people very clearly. He was sitting on a plank across the base of an electric post on a corner in Malate and he was actually the one who greeted me first and it probably took me about 3 seconds to recognize him. I was surprised that he greeted me but I wasn't really surprised when he asked if I have some loose change. Being the thrift fucker that I am, I quickly said I didn't have any (that's why I was walking) and he nodded morosely then followed his question with another one: where was I going? Thinking quickly, I answered him I was on my way to borrow money from a friend. An expression between disappointment and sadness peppered with a lethargic glee came across his face.

I knew the drugs have gotten him. Whatever his drug of choice was, it certainly did its job wonderfully.

After my brief encounter with JC, the thought that got stuck on my mind like a fly to fresh dogshit was his sister. I haven't heard the term back then but now I can describe that JC's sister to whom I've had the hots for was drop-dead gorgeous. Drop-dead fucking gorgeous.

After I remembered her, I silently hoped to myself that she's doing well and good. The Past sometimes has a wicked sense of humor. The thought brought a smile on my face and quite admittedly, smiling is something I haven't done a whole fucking lot lately.

The Patient (Part 1)

the wait
is something i can tolerate

the wait
is something i knew was coming

the wait is long
but i still went on with it

i knew the possibility
was a resounding "slim-to-none"
but i still went on with it

the wait might have been long...
but the regret of not trying would
have been longer.