I ended up watching two out of the five bands playing at Lolopop, which featured Filipino American musicians. The one that drew me (and the only one I recognized) was Julie Plug which I blithely described to Andy as a girl-fronted alterna-pop band (which was apparently the fad in the late ‘90’s) I first heard about them in the waning years of my college career, introduced by Manny. Their first CD ”Starmaker” rapidly spread virally amongst my friends and there are quite a few memories attached to some of their songs (in particular ”Sometime in June”) We watched a couple of shows, the last of which was in SF in 1998 after we all graduated.

Since then, a couple of their tracks got played on the erstwhile show “Dawson’s Creek”, they came out with another album entitled ”Whatever You Wonder”, and they continue to do shows, mostly in SF.

So mostly it was trip down memory lane, reminding me of how perhaps grotesquely ancient I have become, considering that most everyone there was probably in their early to mid 20’s. I also haven’t been among such a large contigent of Filipinos in a long time, not since Ronel got married and almost all the extended family was out in force.

The other band I watched was Pedro Gil, named after a street (and LRT stop) in Manila (which was in turn named after a famous Filipino who among other things, was an activist and then later a politician during the American Commonwealth Era.) One of their clear influences is Julie Plug themselves. I dig the crazy spelling of the lead singer’s name Czara (which seemed to me to be pronounced like “Sa-ra”.)

I had this conversation with Elaine when she came to SD for an interview. Being in residency, it seems like our lives have contracted utterly and have become hugely devoid of any creative outlets. (We once dreamed of starting our own band in med school, but we could never convince Ysh to jam with us.) I write very little of worth these days, and the little that I do write tends to be the drek that I spew all over this blog. So going to that show reminded me how desperate I am to do something creative and fun. I find my guitar and my keyboard essentially unused, and I rarely find myself in the mood to sing, even if it is only in the car.

I’m hoping that it isn’t always going to be this way, and that one day in the future I will once again become a fully functioning human being, although I’m kind of worried that maybe it will never happen, and that I’m destined to become some sort of heartless zombie. (Already, my heart is dessicated into ash, crumbling, and blowing away in the wind. Ah well.)