After Making Love, You Hear Footsteps*

dawa garo mayo man; huna nindo lang

pirming igwang nagdadangadang. Ika

handal tibaad an saimong kasaruan,

sabi mong haloy nang nawara, basang

na sanang magbutwa; siya man masundan

daa kan ilusyon na an sugid haloy niya

nang itinalbong, alagad ngonyan saiya

tibaad nag-iidong-idong.

Sa laog ka'ning kwarto garo igwang

nakahiriling saindo. Sa saindong pinapaiplian

garo man sana dai kamo nalilipudan. Pagmati nindo

pirmi kamong linalamag kan kun anong duwang kalag.

Dai man daw basang na sana sinda nindong binarayaan

ta nganing sa kada saro kamo magpasiram-siram?

Sa saindang kasuyaan, dae ninda aram

kun sain maduman. Yaraon sinda bisan diin

kamo magduman. Sa saindang kasusupgan,

dai ninda kamo tinatantanan. Mga kalag sindang

dai nagkamirisahan. Ara-aldaw ninda kamong

sisingilon kan saindang kamurawayan.

*Dispensa ki Galway Kinnell

Past Blessed the Child

It was great to be a child in those days.

On lazy afternoons, my brother Mente, my sister Nene and I made horses out of Mother’s pillows and played the Zimatar or Diego Bandido episodes which we heard over DZGE, the local radio station.

We played in the rooms upstairs, riding our pillow horses, facing our enemies and pursuing our adventures, until our Manoy Ano scolded and told us to bring the beddings—blankets, sheets and all—back to order or else Mother would call it a day when she returned. But we would play to our hearts’ content; after all, we thought Mother would be pleased because we were only playing inside the house. That way she would not really be bothered.

Some other days, in my grandparents house which we call Libod (literally, backyard), my cousins and I would play taraguan (hide and seek) and be thrilled by not easily finding all the playmates. After a while, one would give up not “seeking” the last one hidden; and find out he already left because his mother asked him to run an errand. And so we’d stop and think of other games which would thrill us.

We would then gather and tell stories we would just invent. Once, I wove a story about the pictures from a book I read until my cousins pestered me to finish it perhaps because it did not make sense perhaps because I only jumbled them.

At the time, we made our toys out of materials just available to us. We made our own toys and games and we enjoyed them. Perhaps they were cruder but we and our imaginations, not our toys, not other things, were responsible for our own enjoyment.

Our parents—aunts and uncles—did not mind especially if we were all playing in Libod. Here, left to our own devices, we devised our own games, things and stuff and in the long run, made memories which we can only consider ours. In the open yard of our grandparents’ compound, my parents ancestral house—we were free to play. The space, the time, the freedom given to us by our ginikanan (parents) allowed our imagination to create things that pleased us. And when we played our games, we did not only kill our boredom; we also made some things worth remembering.

In those days, a child’s play was also his passion, if not his “profession.” If my nephews Yman and Yzaak play their Ragnarok or Pokemon cards today, I also collected my own set of tex cards and lastiko (goma or rubber bands). In those days, to have your own box of tex cards or a string of lastiko was like to have invested well in stock market. In our time and place, these were the child’s prized possessions.

The game of tex and lastiko went side by side. For each player’s turn, we flicked three cards—my own and those of two other opponents and added up the numbers of the cards facing up. He whose cards faced up with the highest sum won. For the bets, we piled tens or twenties or even hundreds of rubber bands of grouped colors. The winner took all these wagers.

We would do this routine until someone among us knew he’s collecting the cards of all the rest. Anyone who refused to continue playing after he’d won big was called saklit. Having gained such reputation, he would be avoided by others. In my case if I began to win big, I just felt lucky if my playmates parents summoned them to run an errand or already asked them to go home. That formally excused me from gaining the “ill repute.”

In our sixth grade, my classmate Michael Arimado from Triangulo was the “official” King of Tex and lastiko, having won over every other classmate from Baybay, Iraya and even Tigman. He was undisputed. Like a small-time Mafia, Michael would hang his long string of lastiko on his neck, while he swung his sinampalok (tamarind-shape bolo) during our hawan (weeding) sessions in Mr. Olarve’s Industrial Arts class.

At recess, he would invite Edgar Bayola or Sulpicio Purcia to challenge him at the back of the Marcos Type Building. Talk of the early days of UFC. In these Days of Pre-Physical matches, Michael would win big and reclaimed his “title” now and again.

It came to me that I could be like Michael. So gradually I went to start “collecting” my own set, by playing other classmates and betting my own sets of cards and lastiko. When I became fond of tex, it wouldn’t be long till I had won my own box and some 500 pieces of lastikong sinaralapid (braided rubber bands of various colors) which I now hung like the two snakes of Zuma’s, the Aztec-inspired character I read on Aliwan Komiks.

Like my classmate Michael, I had become a self-declared King of Tex in my own right, through my own tex, sweat and cheers. But this glory would be short-lived; I would soon declare “bankruptcy” of this investment after Mother discovered my necklace-length collection of lastiko. She must have thought I was already distracted in my studies so she asked Manoy Awel to burn this “investment” one evening when he was cooking our kinusidong abo for supper. No questions asked. Barely having arrived from an errand, I tried to save them from the stove but it was too late. That night I cried the hardest and the loudest.

In those days it was great to be a child.

My Christmas Rack

Songs They Sing for The Son 

“Sing a song of gladness and cheer!/for the time of Christmas is here!” sings Jose Mari Chan, in his all-time favorite anthology “Christmas in Our Hearts” (1990). Very well, these words spell my mood, inspired by listening to these heart warmers in my Christmas collection. 

Through the years of Christmas celebrations, holidays and December vacations, I acquired them. Every year, I have continually appreciated what they offer to the soul. They share grace and joy to whoever can listen to them. How these albums got into my rack or how I got these masterpieces I have yet to recall.

But regardless of their history and motivations, in all their original selections and covers of traditional songs—they offer one and the same message— ceremoniously and soulfully they pay tribute to Baby Jesus, the Lord of All.

Bonding with the Boy

98 Degrees, "This Christmas," MCA Universal, 1998

Boy band, boy bond—whatever term you use, Nick Lachey and his friends give us all the reasons to celebrate Christmas as they render cool covers to most traditional Christmas carols like “Silent Night,” “O Holy Night,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and “Little Drummer Boy.” Here, they hardly resemble NKOTB, evading the boy band image by hitting notes that spell sweet things like “mistletoe” and “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” The solos in some songs display vocalization and rhythmic intonations that remind us of more solemn choirs in churches. Surely, such style does not fail to send shivers from the spine to the soul.

Little Redeemer Boy

Glenn Medeiros, "The Glenn Medeiros Christmas Album: Recorded in Hawaii," Amherst Records, 1993

This 90s Leif Garrett is more than a heartthrob when he croons way, way beyond his pretty-boy image. When he reaches high notes, he is surely pop. He sounds like a lad who has seen the Baby Jesus so he doesn’t need to act silly—he just sings holy. His “Feliz Navidad” and “Ave Maria” are choice cuts, baring innocence and jolliness in varying degrees. He does away with his shrill voice when he allows the instruments to do it for him—he focuses on hitting the emotional rises of the lyrics to render a slightly pop finish. In all, Hawaii-born Medeiros’ almost girlish voice makes recalling the Nativity a simply light moment—just like the playful child Who shall redeem us from our lack, or utter loss of innocence.

Persons are Gifts are Instruments

Ken Navarro, "Christmas Cheer," Galaxy Records, 1996

This virtuoso acoustic guitar player offers an alternative way to remember our salvation. It sets your Christmas mood through an instrumental overload—with some traditional songs like “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “Silent Night” as choice pieces. Listening to Navarro’s one-of-a-kind string renditions may tell us that salvation—by the Holy Child—need not be brought about by pain and suffering [like rock or harsh or hard sentiment]. Rather Christmas is all about cheer, strummed away by the heart. With Navarro’s work, Christmas has never been so jazz, light and easy. For sure, you would want to play this bunch before you go to that Christmas party in which you’d render a surprise lousy fox trot number for all of them to see!

Cowboy Christmas

Randy Travis, "An Old Time Christmas," Warner, 1993

You would easily know how an ordinary Christmas carol sounds—but add to it some cowboy or any colloquial twang, then you get Randy Travis. But you do—not just for nothing. Here is one cowboy—whose stereotyped licentious lifestyle may tell you otherwise, whose pieces might ring a bell because they match with those of other CMT favorites—Travis Tritt, Allison Krauss or Garth Brooks. With this album, Travis proves that something more can be done beyond saddles and stall. He lets loose his soul when he chants both holy and hallowed. While his “Winter Wonderland” may perfectly fit the Marlboro ad in Time’s December issue, his reconstructed “Oh What A Silent Night” allows the guitar to sway the thoughts of the soul lulled to slumber. This cowboy’s treatment of traditional songs affords us easy cool and listening that can make us even remark oddly, as “Cowboys have Christmas too!"

Rebels We’ve Heard On High

Various Artists, "Christmas on the Rocks," Viva Records, 1994

This album hit the stands during the grunge and rock era—a time when anxiety and discord were the heyday. It gathered mostly artists and rockers who were perhaps angry at how Christmas was usually celebrated. Featuring covers of songs composed by National Artist Levi Celerio and other traditional Filipino compositions, it portrays and documents the consciousness of a more realistic Christmas, at least as defined by Filipino experience. For one, Sandugo’s “Pasko ng Mahirap, Pasko ng Mayaman” sings away a social realist stance—perhaps a self-talk on the part of the oppressed class who claims it’s also Christmas in their part of the world, despite their poverty and forlorn state [or even state of mind]. 

While DJ Alvaro’s “Gabing Tahimik” is a more soulful rendition of ”Silent Night,” which hit playlists and charts in 1990s, Ang Grupong Pendong’s “Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit” completes this collection to compose a sort of a Lino Brocka’s counterpart opus—it collectively makes a statement on the dismal social realities brought on to Filipinos at Christmas. You may not necessarily be one of those donning a cheap Che Guevarra T-shirt to appreciate its message; but one’s own salvation, according to the album, is simply working for social justice—and all it entails.

True, my collection is not the one you may have to die for—it is neither hard-to-find, for these artists are not as popular as, say, Ray Conniff and his singers, Chipmunks, Destiny’s Child, Frank Sinatra or even Nat King Cole. Yet, in this season of cheer and giving, their music all the same strikes chords in my heart and mind; when I play them,  I do not fail to realize all of mankind intensely desires to share the innocence, the joy, and the promised redemption by the Holy Child.

Good news from heaven the angels bring,

glad tidings to the earth they sing:

to us this day a child is given,

to crown us with the joy of heaven.

                                                      ~Martin Luther

Life with America

The music of Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley of the folk group America has affected my sensibility all these years. Playing my copy of their greatest hits has not failed to amaze me and for life, I think, it won’t.

Inspector Mills

The unnamed cricket in this song has been my and Nene’s friend ever since. In the ‘80s, I and Nene had great time listening to such sound when Manoy Awel played the song to lull us to sleep because Mama would arrive later in the night because she still worked in her father’s house that hosted Cursillo classes, a three-day Christian renewal made famous to most Catholics through her father’s and his family’s efforts. What else was there to say? We couldn’t ask for more. It was just fine even if Mother was not there when we slept. We were lulled to sleep in my dear brother’s bed. Though I never saw the cricket in my dreams, I had something else that made me just sleep on it. The cruel nights without Mother were with one tender brother, Manoy Awel.

Special Girl

One particular Jenny would come to mind whenever I played this ballad during my board work as disc jockey in FBN’s DWEB-FM back in 1996. Once I knew one special girl. And I must have played this song many times for her—without her knowing it— without her knowing anything at all. What did I do? As if I could ever tell her anything when we worked together for the English department’s pathetic newsletter. Or that something mattered more than the verses which I’d hand to her after Rudy Alano’s class. In fact, nothing special happened in that lazy afternoon while Enya’s Shepherd Moons played in the DevCom laboratory. How could she ever know?

I Need You

I never liked this song. I never wanted to listen to it; I always skipped this cut. The funeral tempo makes me paler. It embarrasses me to no end. “Like the flower needs the rain... you know I need you.” As the song goes on though, in times when I could not help but not skip a shuffle setup, things start to make sense. The second voice sounds clearer and it’s the one I’d hear. The voice spells my detached involvement in the dismal situation presented by the singer. And the litany of “I” needing “you” simply fades senselessly. After engaging me to listen to one heart’s song, it drops me nowhere. This song is the ugliest in the album.

Sand Man

Since the day my college buddy Arnold Pie sang its lyrics—“Ain’t it foggy outside…” then the mention of the “beer” in the song—which must have reminded him of something in his young drinking life, I became curious about the song. But the slow introduction hasn’t appealed to me much; my illogical prejudice against anything unfamiliar because it’s something Western did not at all help me appreciate the song. One day after we found out ourselves that we’re working again in the same corporate complex in Pasig, I realized we have yet to have these unconsummated “bottley” and bubbly sessions—for some issues in the past that were never addressed, the time when we badly needed each other’s company but never did because we could not. Either we had no time or did have much of it.

You Can Do Magic

When cousins Shiela and Achie mastered the steps and strutted and danced with verve and grace in one of our reunions to the tune of this song, I was amazed by such a spectacle. They even knew the lyrics. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, and “when the rain is beating upon the window pane and when the night [it] gets so cold and when I can’t sleep, again you come to me, I hold you tight [and] the rain disappears; who would believe it? With a word, you dry my tear… You can do magic… You can have anything that you desire…” The show of my cousins just went on, and it’s still going. Now, the London-based Achie, an overseas nurse, just cannot help but do magic with her work; all her toil and diligence are simply paying off. Her generous earnings now can indeed help her have anything that she and her folks desire—new car, new house in the city, and hundreds of euro-pean possibilities for her siblings.

Right Before Your Eyes

My cousin Jokoy—who has adored anything Western from Vanilla Ice to HBO to Michael J. Fox to Sean Connery—knows the lyrics by heart, or at least the “revolving doors” part. We used to listen to it in Bong’s room in Naga, which he then acquired when his Ania Bong went to Manila. Of course, the Life pictures of Rudolph Valentino flashed in my mind, and Greta Garbo stared at me like there’s no tomorrow—a haunting photograph of one celebrity whom I hardly met. I scowl at the thought that I could hardly relate to them. I have yet to live a diamond life like them to simply live. Though no other memory follows, “do- do-do-do-do makes much sense. And emotion? Er.

A Horse With No Name

Effortlessly, I imagine the Assembly Hall of my Ateneo High School, where I picture the city, the sea, and the horse finding itself after being freed by the person who rode him. The original radio version—and not the live version—renders more sensibility. I also sing along this one of the longest codas to date—la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la” “After nine days, I let the horse run free ‘cause the desert has turned to sea.” There were plants and birds and rocks and things…” and many other things. I have yet to see these hundreds of things which I have long thought as an overachiever in high school. I have yet to free my own horse, though my deserts have long become oceans of uncertainties.

Never Be Lonely

This is my recent favorite—my pirated anthology is a rare find because it has this cut. When I was younger, this was hardly played over the local FM radio stations. My cousins who had the LP because their father was an avid fan would know better. “Got you by my side, I’d never be lonely; got you by my side, I’d never be afraid.” Never be lonely tells me that I am. I even once sang along accidentally, “Got you by my side, I’d rather be afraid.” This after realizing many times how relationship with someone makes you feel more alone than being literally alone. The song is a futile attempt to avoid being sucked into an emotional vacuum.

Tin Man

The impressive introduction plus the cool mumbling of brilliant lyrics prods this genius composition. Of course, I hardly knew the lyrics especially—tropic of Sir Galahad, soap sud green light bubbles, oh, oh… Oz never did nothing to the tin man”—“ but the tempo, the music is enough for me to like it. And adore anything that went with it, including all subconscious memory it reminds me. The bubbly keyboards at the last part— plus the na na na na na simply define how life is beautiful. Yes. It’s amazing how ignorance [of the lyrics, of artist’s realities] makes you know too much [of your own, which are more essential things].

Sometimes Lovers

“Sometimes there are teardrops across your face; sometimes there are rainbows in the same place… I don’t which way to turn.” “Lovers hiding in the covers of innocence and pain. No love, no pity in this town.” Of course, Jokoy always festered me with this relationship with Anna, one that mattered to him more because he did not like her for me. Or he preferred other girls for me. This sad song is sadder because I just cannot seem to relate to it because a certain Maria cannot just be it. After hurling the worst and best curses and cusswords in the world which tore both our hearts because they were swords that lashed out at our souls, nothing just seemed to matter more but ourselves apart, not ourselves together. The bridge—hold on tight… oh, oh, oh—makes everything more intense—“I will lay beside you till the night is gone…” when? When? When? Sometimes, indeed the song makes you think of many other things, such as not being able to forgive yourself for anything you’ve done. And you just stop loving. You stop caring for anything. Something just dies. Something just happens abruptly as the final beat of the drum.

Daisy Jane

The plane is leaving. My Dulce Maria knows the setting so well. The lyrics she even braved to articulate to me and relished with me because she liked the song so well. And I think they were accurate, every time she’d leave me in this sordid city for her cozy Iloilo home. “Does she really love me I think she does. Like the stars above me, I know because...” There’s not much to say on these, because she’d left me many times in the airport. “But the clouds are clear and I think we’re over the storm…” And I just gave in many times that I have gotten used to I see her off every time she did. One time I did not. I did not choose to. I had reasons and I did something else after that. “Daisy I think I’m sane. And I guess you’re ready to play.” I did something that indeed made her leave. Since then, she has always left me every time.

Don’t Cross The River

Yes, I can hear the river; it’s burbling; and I can’t help but row on it. “There’s a little girl out lying on her own, she’s got a broken heart.” “She knows and plays it smart.” The drums and the guitars are the water streaming down the gorge so fast—in cadence with my heart—racing past something like a void, racing past a cracked rock serving no definite purpose comes any tide— high or low. I have always raced with something— perhaps a memory all the time. But never the present reality. The past always has a way to catch up with me. And I am always sinking, but I keep on singing, “don’t cross the river if you cant swim the tide…”

Ventura Highway

The road that one man traveled was paved and the day before him was too long—the sun stood long hours. The freeway was a winding road, a blind curve. Later that day he was killed around the bend. It was a wrong turn. He never came back. Where did he have to go? After all the numerous places I traveled and chose to travel, I have yet to see this one highway. After all those persons I have been given chances to meet, I have yet to find someone important who will have to make me see. Whatever happened to the father whom I never had, the one who would have rather told me that I can “change my name,” or the one with whom I can share some “alligator lizards in the air”? I have yet to meet him. One fine, long day.

Lonely People

The guitar introduction thrills me to no end. The low vocals—“this is for all the lonely people, thinking that life has passed them by”—never allowed me to know why I was literally lonely in those days after my mother died. I desperately listened to it in the afternoons when I was jobless and desperately seeking any work that would pay—after my scholarship’s graduation stipend were depleted, spent for mailing my essays and poems to Manila-based magazines, that never even saw much publication. Writing never did pay, and that time I hardly knew that it didn’t or that it could. “This is for all the single people, thinking that love has left them dry.” Yeah. What could be more heart-wrenching than being ignored by one Anna who could hardly care about how I chaliced her. Nothing follows. The guitars, keyboard, and the dismal vocals just had to fade. Please.

Muskrat Love, etc.

Unimaginable characters which could have just existed in my mind—never a reality—thus the vague memory. Does the character look like Stuart Little? Ben? Why is Sam skinny? Is Susie fat? Does it matter if she is? For one, I can’t care much. I can hardly relate. My other favorites “Stereo,” and “The Border” are not in my disc while “Jody” “Only In Your Heart,” “Sister Golden Hair,” “Woman Tonight,” and “You, Girl” have yet to present my own realities to me, if any.