Pink ribbon scars, that never forget

Summer 1993, in dreams…

It's always around April, mid-afternoon, somewhere around 4 or 5. The time of the day when everything's in golden hues and the landscape is colored brown filled with occasional patches of green and the royal blue sky is clear and slowly giving in to dusk’s red light. The streets are filled with young mothers, nannies and little kids, engaged in their own animated games and conversations. Among them is your sister who just started her academic life as a kindergarten student, playing with her friends Mandie and Honey. 


You’re inside the house listening all day to the radio. Enjoying alternative tunes and feeling like a real sophisticated adult for appreciating something that’s supposed to be an ‘alternative’ to the ‘stupid’ posturing of pop, not knowing it’s the same movement perpetuated by the very same entities who gave you the pop music you abhor with passion. 


You wander outside and go west towards the direction of the huge water tank, and the breeze is cool and dusty and smells of dried grass, hay, an unknown but familiar sweet-smelling blossom, and the slightest hint of dried cow dung. 


Walking past the Ematas and the Eusebios, you find yourself at the end of the cement road in the middle of a large field that used to have been rice paddies up until the late 80s but are now just barren soil used to grow assorted crops like squash, watermelons and a wide variety of weeds. 


You take a deep breath as you stare at the setting sun just beyond the huge tank looming in the opposite side. 


A sense of tranquility flows over you and a feeling of relief that you survived the first year of high school with just a few bumps and bruises. You go over your game plan for the next school year to show everyone how serious you really are with studying. And you're filled with intense pride at the thought of what you can accomplish in the coming years while in school. 


Until your little sister suddenly yells from afar to break you out of an almost drunken stupor; ordered no doubt by your mother to have you summoned for a little housework. You sigh and use your walking stick to poke a paleolithic-looking creature resting in the crevice of a large cement drainage. It won't budge. 


You glance at the receding rays of the sun one last time and head home.

The Vermillion Skull Grinned

"...but what about the butterflies...?" --U.P.


"...but what about the snakes...?" --T.L.


*Debate between two professors over the issue of clearing the thick vegetation at the back of their dorm. (UP, Miag-ao)


I heard my former professor back in college is now a resident of the very famous institution in the western part of Mandaluyong. No less than my sister confirmed this as she also belongs to the same college as I did--as well as the professor. I guess fate really does catch up with all of us sooner or later.

I heard a lot of horror stories about Ms. Panama (not her real name) when I was still a freshman; about how she conducted lectures that would make the March Hare and The Mad Hatter proud and her natural predisposition for terrorizing unfortunate students who offended her sensibilities. The way she conducted her classes was based on her template that all students on the quest for knowledge should work hard for it. Ergo, you do all the research that you think is vital for this course: If you're taking English I (basic communication skills), then find any books that's related to the subject, then create a --in her own words--"well organized compilation" of what you learned and submit it at the end of the semester. Bibliographic entries/list of no less than 50 books from the library was required during the first week to see if the students knew what they were looking for. I submitted 50 titles of rock albums just to submit something (using the library at UPV was like killing people for the cause of preserving life). i.e: Corgan, William Jr.,Basic Communication. (1993), Smashing Pumpkins Press. See if she can see that.

The way I saw it, however, was that it was an elaborate excuse not to perform actual lectures every meeting so she could indulge in her sadistic hobby of persecuting students she didn't like. She did check the attendance and asked questions related to the subject every now and then, but not to gauge how much her students (subjects, actually) knew, but to humiliate anyone unfortunate enough to be called who doesn't possess any strand of wit or sophistication to answer in kind. Most of whom were gays, the token promdis (country bumpkins) and token kikays (sassy women). She had no tolerance for homosexuals (gays, lesbians, bis) but I found what really made her furious beyond belief were the kikays. One girl she found wearing makeup in class got a taste of the teacher from hell reputation when she was told to wipe all the colors off her face. Natural beauty, she said, needs no artificiality to conceal it. The promdis, she admonishes without mercy but does it in a seemingly helpful way. Mild sarcasm comes to mind, if there is such a term. 


I remember one time she called a timid-looking girl who was obviously not from any city--she looked panicky and nervous everytime, one suspects she's mumbling every prayer just to be ignored by everyone especially her professor. This time, however, the Gods turned a deaf ear. Everything, from her footwear to the way she tied her hair weren't spared. This, the prof did in a "nice way". Simon Cowell from American Idol seemed polite and considerate in comparison.

Ms. Panama belongs to the old-world conservative thinking I'd like to associate with the movie Pleasantville where everyone was expected to behave a certain way to give the viewers a semblance of a normal and happy life. Either that or the uptight and humorless aristocratic Victorian-era highbrow pompousness one can always see in caricatures (i.e. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride) from all sorts of pop culture references. The total lack of tolerance for others who do not fit into the mold of how anyone is supposed to behave and act jumped at me when I was her student.


Back then I already sensed something was slightly off-kilter. It was just a matter of time when the rigidity becomes too much for everything to break.

Billy Corgan Interview

Billy Corgan is one of the songwriters I really admire. Smashing Pumpkins is a band that defined my generation. Here's a little glimpse inside the mind of the brilliant musician...

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Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan worries that today's music industry is hostile toward individuality

May 13 - Why were the Smashing Pumpkins and some of their ’90s cohorts able to achieve a level of commercial success unknown to the alt-rock bands today? Sure, you have your boy bands and gangsta rappers, your Justin Timberlakes and your 50 Cents. But the recent Coachella festival outside Los Angeles featured the best of today's indie rock—think Bright Eyes and The Rapture. What, never heard of them? NEWSWEEK’s Bret Begun talked with former Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan about his era of rock—and what’s different today. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: If you survey the alt-rock landscape these days, there is a kingdom of good bands, but no king. Why?

Billy Corgan: You’ve had an erosion of mystique. You have to be on the cover of Maxim. Michelle Branch was on the cover of FHM. It’s a constant series of compromises that takes away from the very essence of what it means to be an iconoclast. They just sign 40 guys who are better looking than Kurt Cobain and sing just like Kurt Cobain. But what you lose is the spiritual essence of the individual who seems to come from out of nowhere. All the great icons of rock have been incredibly insane individuals.

Is it impossible for a great icon to come along again?

What we’re going to see now is a different archetype rise up. It’s not going to be the Elvis archetype; it’s going to be something we can’t even imagine. It’s going to be someone, maybe, who’s more spiritual, somebody who doesn’t want anything to do with corporate industry. Somebody who’s an Internet star. Some kid who makes tapes in his bedroom and says, "F---the world. This is my version of it." And then people will latch on. All the music factories in the world can’t manufacture that kid. To me, Elvis was the innovator. We’ve basically just been watering down Elvis. We’ve lost the desire to support individuals. In the early ’90s, you had six or seven top people—Courtney [Love], Trent Reznor, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains. We all got assassinated because we didn’t live up to some sort of idealism that never existed: a perfectionism of rock and roll attitude mixed with drug addiction. So what replaced us? Kids who looked the part, acted the part, but they weren’t saying the same things. They’ve been successful, so why would the next generation go back to what we used to do?

Why be original, in other words?

There’s just as many talented people in this particular generation, but the compromises are too great. The constant message to kids—particularly kids who are starting new bands—is: this is really not that important. The way you look is more important than your song. Being an individual? That’s too much of a problem. Act like you’re an individual, but don’t sacrifice like an individual. Where’s everybody putting their fingers in their ears? When you water down the basic image of what it means to be a rock star into something that’s tattoo-ready and MTV-friendly, where’s the rebellion? There isn’t any. Rebellion is doing something where people like me have our fingers in our ears going, "This is s---." We’re so blind, we don’t even see the genius.

Is anyone on that trajectory?

No. Radiohead is constantly compared to Pink Floyd. I don’t think that’s a comparable comparison. If you’re Radiohead and you’re told now that you’re the Pink Floyd, what else do you have to shoot for? You sort of retreat into your own vision. When Pink Floyd had "Dark Side of the Moon," it told someone like me, "Wow, you can be yourself and you can have all the success in the world." Where is that earth-shattering moment where everything changes? The Beatles did it. Elvis did it. U2 did it. Nirvana did it. Is this generation any less talented? Are they more into their cars or something? No. There’s no reason to step into that light because there’s no reward there for anybody.

When you were beginning, how did you measure success?

In 1988, when the band started, success was playing the Metro [in Chicago], which was 1,000 people. Sonic Youth played the Metro, Dinosaur Jr. If you were on that level, you were successful. The idea that you could reach a point where you would play the Riviera, which was 3,500, or the Aragon, was unfathomable. Much less arenas. Much less be on MTV more than once on "120 Minutes." So, in 1988, if you were on "120 Minutes" and you sold out the Metro, that was it. That was Dinosaur Jr. You were the top. When the sales came in with Nirvana, everything changed. In 1990, I think there were seven alternative-rock stations in America; now there’s something like 90 and most are corporately owned.

The notion of "selling out," licensing songs, how has that changed? Fifteen years ago, that seems like it would have been unacceptable.

Career death.

Is all this completely different now?

I’m not romantic about the notion of "selling out." People who are not in your position deciding what is and isn’t selling out I always thought was a crock of s---. The song I wrote, "Today," which ended up being a pretty big song—that song literally saved my life. I was completely suicidal, and I wrote that song in a cold bedroom on a day where it was like, "I’m either going to kill myself today, or I’m going to live because I’m sick of thinking about this." When I played it, it was an intense, extreme feeling. Last year, I was offered heavy, heavy money to license that song. I actually turned down two huge, huge, seven-figure-plus deals last year for two songs.

For "Today" and for which other song?

"Tonight, Tonight." That’s a fundamentally difficult position to be in. At this point, it’s just free money. Song’s already been played. It’s been exploited. The record company’s literally begging me: go ahead and take these commercials. At this point in my life, I don’t feel comfortable. Those songs are the reason I’m alive. If your music is not sacred to the point where it’s a really, really, really heavy decision about whether or not you would allow somebody else to exploit it, then what’s not for sale? For a long time there was this dream that you could hit this utopian point The Beatles hit. "All you need is love." You’d write that song that would change the world. That seems to have gotten lost. Now songs are just vehicles for personality. The song is not the sacred thing anymore.

Is the cultural climate one that would allow a musician to hit a "utopian point"?

Maybe the silver lining here is that people just don’t need rock music like they used to. Maybe they feel better about themselves. The machinery of the entertainment business is so overwhelming. All people want to feel is that whatever they do is empowered. When everything is connected back to something, well, then where do you get that sense of feeling it was your decision? Maybe you hear a song on a McDonald’s commercial and you buy the CD, but it’s not like you heard about it in somebody’s basement. When everything is everybody’s, then nobody owns anything. This culture, I don’t think, values the song. It doesn’t value the icon. It values the moment and whoever feeds that moment. But we lose that it’s human beings creating the moment. And when the culture thinks that it’s the puppet master, then, of course, why wouldn’t you have "American Idol?" One question that comes up a lot is, "How did you do it?" Like it’s a trick. The code is 1-2-3, turn the knob to the left. It’s not like that. But watch "American Idol." It says, "If you go 1, 2, 3 and turn the knob to the left, you win the whole thing." That’s the wrong message.