Soundtrack Of Our Lives

There I was; lying on my back with Tristan above the almost entirely rusted roof of his house, staring beyond patches of nimbo-cumulus-filled March noon sky of olive and green burst when I said to myself, "I am going to do this forever."

On the roof, Tristan and I weren't talking to each other at all. With the silence, I felt alone with God. I swear I could've measured our position with a parallax and proved we were at the center of the universe in total bliss.

We virtually had nothing to do that morning as two of our friends went to work, leaving us with a potent jimmy. We had no choice but to smoke it.

As we froze in silence beneath that sun-kissed '94 sky, wearing nothing but our treasured Levi's 501s and dreaming of Tali beach (at least that is what I was thinking), the soundtrack of our lives were playing: "...once, I thought the world was blue, now it's raining colors, a paralyzing hue...I am never grieving the wicked things we've done, let's walk into a whirlpool heart and die while we're still young..."

While the facade of my homecoming (his first time to come home for the holidays) friend's house resembled that of a Mediterranean villa, "upstairs" over the bungalow's lush green surroundings is a view of a ghastly and abused city ran by unscrupulous politicians; crooks who never cared at all.

Thank God for our music and our tastes which is fairly over ten notches better than those who drowned themselves with mainstream rubbish, although in terms of nutrition, we had to make do with Nilagang Baka, which was cooked and served for us almost every day by Tristan's wonderful maid, Manang. She also called it Pochero sometimes. Now in fear of being emaciated, (Meaning: very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold) we merely had to accept that fact. Well, I guess that explains the jimmys.

Moreover, our little cook made it sure we were fed daily for as long as we supplied her with cigars, courtesy of our two working class heroes DD Lof and Homer...err...Alfie Boy who both worked at Tabaqueria Cigars. Those stuff came in handy all the time.

The cool months are beginning to fade before us, and only the dregs of the holidays' breezy wisps of air were there to soothe us amid the afternoon sun, when it played again in my mind: "This is the day your life will surely change. This is the day, when things fall into place..."


Tony Ripoll of Razorback fame (a.k.a. "Tony Rifle" when he DJ's for NU107), since he is Alfie's first cousin, gave us the go-ahead to stay at his place in Tali Beach during the Christmas '93 season. The five of us (this time with Gimovox) all packed our bags and headed for the beach that Sunday morning just after a night of revelry at then popular rock bar, Weekends Live! and rode in "The Quiet Car" (God, please rest her soul) with our The The's Soul Mining album record propped up against the rear windshield for those goddamm nerds (my boss is not a nerd, ok) to examine from a distance ('coz I was driving at 100 miles per hour) our insignia.

We spent two days devouring those wicked egg sandwiches, and if not for the local dude who offered to cook for us for a fee (no, not free), we would have spent the third and last day--still with egg sandwiches.

If I can remember right; the first day we drank rhum (Alfie's favorite), the second day DD Lof and Alfie rented a boat and got it to accidentally sink into the deep azure Batangas territorial waters.

So, the night after that scene the two boys created, (we had to pay the fisherman owner dude 400 bucks for it) we reflected on our thoughts with rhum again (that's all we got), and yes, with the ever-reliable cigars. The third day was simply nuts: we just laid on the sand and checked out chicks at Tali's main beach.

On the way home I can hear Paul Weller whispering to me "...I was there to inspire you..." Inside our humble abode lay wait spreading before our eyes a feast of the most delicious pasta and the most colorful oysters and clams and mussels I have ever seen. It was Manang's gift, for it was Tristan's birthday.

We came just in time for the whole preparation, and although we arrived at Tristan's place with our egos intact, we came home with a broken axle.