Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like today, if I did things differently when I was young. I am not regretting what I have today for I am truly grateful and blessed with what I have now. It’s just that I am quite curious, quite bedazzled by the idea of having a different life now, I life born from a “what if.”
Sometimes I wonder, what if I walked a different path? Would I be happier? Would I be more content? Would my life be much simpler?
So many questions, so many what ifs. All I can do is daydream and wonder.
It’s been a while since my last blog post. I promised myself to write consistently however, doing so is just plain difficult because of my laziness and constant procrastination.
One of the things that I’ve been doing lately (although is not necessary and I do it purely for fun and sentimental purposes) is being a deejay again. Yet this time not in an actual radio station, but in the confines of my own home. Internet Radio. A new form of broadcast medium but using the internet. Although broadcasting is live and in real-time, there is a bit of a lag for a few seconds in internet streaming. This is due to the conversion of signals into data and how fast data reaches from one point to another, which relies on the speed of the internet wherever the receiver is.
So it isn’t that glamorous like being an actual radio station deejay. And although the audience can be any person with internet connection all over the globe, there are already lots of online internet radio and some people find the radio just too old school, they would rather download their own songs and listen to their own playlists.
But for the sake of personal enjoyment and reminiscing the past and glorious days of my being a radio station disc jockey, I decided to relive it and perhaps make it a hobby. When I was in high school, I thought being a deejay is the best job in the world and I would do just that for the rest of my life. And when I did become one, it only took seven years to fall out of love from the profession, abhor it and finally quit it. It was amazing to know that there were people listening to the music you play and what you have to say.
My interest in being a deejay began when I saw the movie “Good Morning Vietnam” with the late Robin Williams playing a deejay character for the American GIs during the war in Vietnam. His jokes and antics in the movie as a deejay was hilarious, that it inspired me to be one. Yet I sadly did not develop the quick comedic wit of that character. Then there was another movie based on a real deejay, played by the actual deejay himself, Howard Stern in the movie “Private Parts.” This movie is one my personal favorites in comedy. Below is a clip from it, the “Match Game” one of the funniest parts and I couldn’t stop laughing every time I watch it.
Another movie was “Pump up the Volume” with Christian Slater playing a deejay character who does unauthorized broadcasts from his own illegal make-shift radio station.
As a teenager, these movies gave me the drive to be a radio deejay. I wanted to be funny and more vocal like those characters, however the first and only radio station I worked for didn’t provide enough freedom for me to develop my skills and show. I only hope I would do much better in this online radio deejay hobby.
So as a teenager, I professed to my mother my interest in being a deejay, so she encouraged me to apply at a radio station but I got turned down because I was still in 3rd year high school then. When I graduated from high school, I still wanted to be a deejay and with the help of my grandfather (he wanted me to work while studying college to stay away from drugs), I was able to apply in a radio station being managed by a distant relative (he was a nth degree nephew of my grandpa), luckily got hired and worked for free (under probation) for the first five months, took the KBP exam, and became a fully licensed radio station announcer/deejay for the radio station.
During my stint as a deejay, I was not able to improve my lines and talking points because our radio station was more of a music station, and therefore talk would be considerably less. The station manager made all programming and show decisions, even when I became Radio Program/Production Chief. So my talents and creativity as a deejay deteriorated as well as my interest in it. There would be many times I would just go on board, set a playlist with all songs and commercials ready, then sleep on the job. That’s how bad it became. I ended up hating the job after 7 years because of a bad boss and his poor management.
There’s an upside to it though, because I didn’t have to concentrate my work in developing the radio programs I was handling, I delved into other projects during my free time, such as developing my computer repair and troubleshooting skills, learning computer networking (I was also the designated IT guy), learning photoshop, audio recording, video editing, camera operation and many related aspects. In a way, as I slowly lost my love for being a deejay, I gained from learning a lot of other things. Things that make up for the skills I currently do today.
Before I left for Thailand, my first encounter with internet radio was meeting the guy who ran Radiopilipinas.com. He was into the indie music scene and he was looking for people to fill in as deejays. I planned to produce our own talk/rock music show with Chip and Kym, bought a couple of microphones, headsets and used Chip’s old PC with Cooledit Pro for recording. We tried and fumbled with making the show and its talking points, some of them were pure nonsense. I wanted it to work and perhaps continue doing recording of it through Skype when I went abroad. But like many plans it didn’t push through.
Then years later, Eric, the guy who ran Flipradio.net invited me to be one of their deejays. I was interested however, I didn’t have the equipment and place to do a live broadcast because they also required a video stream of the deejay. I also had internet problems then, so it wasn’t meant to be.
Then recently when I met Chad, who also used to be a radio station deejay back in my hometown Tacloban, during my time and now also living and teaching here in Thailand, he mentioned he started an online radio, but purely audio, and no video stream. He invited me to be a deejay and I gladly took it, provided I would have programming freedom and only do it for three hours late at night during weekends.
This show I started in his online radio station “Smartmuzik.com” runs from 9pm to 12 midnight (GMT +7) and is entitled “The Late Night Weekend Radio Show” and is currently a music show featuring Top40 hits and classic hits. I am currently working on making it a better show and perhaps make so fun segments, but it does require a lot of work and a lot of time. So hopefully, it will get better and gain ground gradually. Maybe start actually doing the thing I wanted to do in the first place.
September is about to end and for the whole month I have been guilty of procrastinating and taking too much time watching videos and movies. I suddenly became interested in finishing my modules for the AB English Degree course I have enrolled in when I went to the Philippines in June.
Distance Learning is not easy. It is very difficult. What makes it more difficult than studying in an actual school is the discipline one has to instill in oneself to read and read continuously. I should have researched on ways to prep myself for this kind of studying. I should have set a schedule and kept myself busy reading at least one or two lessons a day. I suffer now from cramming all these lessons into my brain. I am afraid of flunking it and do not wish to, for I am paying for this out of my own pocket.
As of now, I have completed only two modules for 4 of my subjects. I have a total of 7 subjects, each with 5 modules, equivalent to 21 units. My wife is pushing me to take the most number of units possible so I can finish the course in a year and a half. It sounded easy at the beginning, but now I realize this is actually more work than those free on-line courses I have taken at Coursera.org. At least with on-line courses, you have to check-in the website at least once a week and the material is mostly on video with additional reading. This distance learning degree course is basically reading a ton of stuff and working your way to finishing it in 5-6 months per term. Much more difficult if you tend to procrastinate and have a lot to do at work.
I procrastinate on purpose sometimes because I feel that I need to let my brain take a break once in a while, otherwise I might overuse and dry up those creative juices, whatever that means.
Anyway, writing this post can be another procrastination from what I should be doing, yet I owe it to myself to write what I feel about this busy life of studying in this lil’ ole blog of mine.
On an old IBM Thinkpad I decided to erase Windows XP and replace it with a Linux OS. For days I have been searching for the perfect Linux for it, I started with testing it out with Linux Mint, had a few issues with it trying to boot up due to the machine being “non PAE” which means it is a really old one. When I got it working it seemed to boot up quickly, though running some programs seemed to make the machine sluggish. I downloaded Lubuntu, a lighter version of Ubuntu, installed it and tried it for a day and it seemed pretty quick to run programs, though booting up took some time and playing videos was not so good because the OS was forcing all videos to be played at the highest bitrate possible, therefore making the videos stutter.
Then I came across some forums looking for another Linux OS that as a good following. And there was Crunchbang.
After downloading and installing it, I ran a few programs and it did work beautifully. The videos were okay for an old machine, the interface was simple and lightweight, and I love the fact that the main menu appears when you just right click on the desktop.
So it looks like I will be using this old IBM machine often for browsing, blogging, and practicing Linux command lines, and dedicate my Lenovo Windows 8 laptop for my heavy duty graphics and multimedia work.
An American friend of mine from work gave this to me a couple of days ago for my newborn son. He got it from his trip back home in America. How thoughtful of him. It never occurred to me that I would see and hold a real one during my lifetime. The first time I heard of a Dreamcatcher was through a movie from Stephen King of the same name. It may be contrary to my non-belief of the supernatural, but it does interest and amaze me to hold one. Wicked.
I don’t smoke cigars but if I had some, I’d be giving them away.
More than a week ago, my wife gave birth to a baby boy. Wayne Ezekiel. Zeke for short. She picked the name because for some reason she finds the name “Wayne” quite interesting. Anyway, I am quite happy that we have a boy for I always wanted to have a son. My daughter seems to be a little jealous because of the attention this baby boy is getting, especially the presents. She is getting a bit naughtier than usual and probably is seeking our attention more often. I love her so dearly, sometimes it hurts me to scold her for being unreasonable sometimes but she also needs to learn the right ways so she could be a great “Ate.”
Wayne is more than a week old today, and he’s getting much bigger… and livelier. My wife is getting less sleep and she sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night (which I hate doing) just so that she wouldn’t be the only one doing all the work.
Anyway, I am so gratefully happy to have two kids with me. And one kid who’s far away back in my hometown, whom I miss the most.
Been reading a comment thread in one of my groups in Facebook, about how local bands or musicians in my hometown are still being exploited or manipulated by event organizers to perform for measly talent fees. I grew up being a part of the local music scene, as both a musician and organizer in a few occasions. The problem is, there is no local public entity that looks out for the welfare of the musicians, and even the musicians stoop down to a low pay even they are worth more just to get a quick buck rather than nothing. This has been going on and on and nothing is being done about it. So this thread I read (and rather participated) was about setting up this kind of entity watchdog for local musicians.
When I was a with my buddies in a band, we would even perform for free just to get seen and heard. But after numerous gigs and with experience up your sleeve, sometimes performing even for a measly fee is just not worth it. Its okay if its a free event with friends for a cause, but if if you know that the organizer gets big bucks for the gig, I think its fair to get paid generously as well. There should be some kind of expectation set before agreeing to perform for a gig.
A musician’s life is not easy, and a lot of money is spent before one gets to a certain level of experience. Getting paid enough for the performance is to compensate the investment made. I remember paying a lot of dough just for our band to practice for countless hours in rehearsal studios, just to get to an amateur performance level. Then you also need money to buy your instrument and stuff that goes with it and your craft.
So I hope the guys back home would start setting up a guild or organization some thingy. That would help ease the burden of local musicians from the hassle of haggling with organizers for a decent talent fee. It would also even the playing field and set a standard of quality of local performances.
That is absolutely true. If I had lots of it, I would be a materialistic pig. If I had none of it, I would be just a simple pig. Money is like “heroine,” at first it feels good to have it in your system but then you begin to crave for more of it, to get that high, just like buying stuff you want but you don’t actually need. Ultimately, if you have a lot of money, you become high all the time, everything that you want, you already have, just like the last high wasn’t better than the previous one, so you crave for more money even if you have lots of it. Then everything else in life doesn’t taste better than money, so you forget all of them and stop taking in what you really need. You then become sick and die a lonely death.
Now lets put that perspective into our society today and how it uses money. Because of money we consume too much resources from the Earth even if we don’t need it. Because of too much consumption, we pollute and make a lot of waste. With already depleting resources, we taint poison into resources left because of too much waste and pollution. We are all going to die because of money.
For the past few Saturdays, we have been visited by a fellow Pinoy who is a pastor from some Christian church. He drops by our humble abode just to bother us with something he calls “Bible Study.” The pastor, whom I have no idea where he comes from and what religion he represents, is welcomed by my wife, for I am busy with the laundry (Yes, my extravagant lifestyle has come to this). I do not blame my wife for inviting him in, for she is just being hospitable and friendly to a fellow pinoy. She and I agreed beforehand that we would not convert to whatever religion this pastor is trying to lure us into.
Now, for thirty some odd minutes, after a lengthy conversation of God-knows-what, he begins to share his bible to us and start preaching. The Bible is a good book, people treat it with much respect and consider it holy. For me, it is just like any other book. I’m just not sure where to categorize it, for I believe it is a work of both fiction and non-fiction. This poor pastor probably does not know the origins of the bible. If he had the time to search the net in wikipedia or some site about religious history, about the book’s origin and its relationship with the “Council of Nicea,” then I bet he would think twice of studying the Bible. I think there is no problem studying it, but the way they do it is to pick verses from different parts of the book from different authors, put them together to present an idea or message, which he obviously concocted and practiced for years. Why do that? Why can’t they read the bible just like an ordinary book, from beginning to end? Why flip from page to page, reading excerpt from excerpt, just to put an idea together? That doesn’t make any sense. The authors of those books of the bible are probably laughing at us for jumbling excerpts together to make a halo-halo special. Jesus! That only means, I can come up with something weird to preach, let say for example, “Humans are pests of the Earth” and find verses in the bible that can relate to that idea, and then convince other gullible people to believe it because it is the word of God.
Anyway, we let the pastor do his work, and we being polite, go along with it. And whatever he said about those excerpts, I just smiled and displayed a face of affirmation. But inside my thoughts, he reminded me of those poor souls who do a good business of bothersome preaching inside buses or jeepneys in between routes in Manila, asking for donations to their church and their beliefs.
The pastor knows we are Catholics and we go to church every Sunday. I was born a Catholic and even though I no longer believe in any form of organized religion, I still go along with the religious hullabaloo just for the sake of my family, especially my growing daughter. I think religion can instill good values to kids when growing up, just like making a kid behave or the “boogeyman will come and get ya!” But if you’re all grown up, it isn’t appealing if you still believe in some mythical deity up in the heavens, or should I say “some boogeyman in white robes.” In the kind of primitive immature society we have today, I believe religion does good to kids or people who need it so they don’t do any harm unto others. But other than that, religion is also a farce belief system, a mind-controlling system, a gargantuan con job, a big business that is outdated with the science and technology we have already achieved in this world. If I was Einstein and I believed in God, I would have put a bullet inside my head. If spirituality is a religion, then I would rather choose it than believe in something that is obviously been created by other human beings thousands of years ago.
So this pastor makes a remark about there being only a one true faith, as he takes it out from an excerpt in the bible. He is obviously insinuating that his “faith” or religion is the true one because he wouldn’t if he wasn’t sure if his religion now is the “true faith.” So it is also obvious that he is slowly trying to convince us to join whatever “true faith” church he is into. Which is too bad, for he is just wasting his time. I would rather kill myself than to become a primitive troll that believes in an imaginary supreme being.
So then he talks about redemption and the usual stuff because judgement day is soon and sure to come. In one of his sermons, he knew about the blooper of which Harold Camping caused, which makes me wonder, why can’t he realize that Armageddon in the bible is a fairytale and the real World’s end is actual physical obliteration of the Earth and humankind because of global warming, the magnetic fields of our dying Sun or nuclear war? There is no scientific fact or basis to prove that a supreme being will return to earth and take our souls and throw the non-believers into the bottomless pit of the Inferno. It’s absolute bullshit. Maybe the supreme being is the alien Annunaki, like what Zechariah Sitchin is trying to theorize, but waitaminute, we are beings of a primitive society using a primitive system… there’s no way aliens would want to befriend or socialize with us if we can’t even evolve and elevate to their plane of thought. To them, we are barbarians, because most of us still believe literally in stupid fairy tales from a book that has been edited and edited for centuries by people who want to get other people to join their true faith.
So after the time wasted of talking about the verses in the bible and putting “his own” meaning of those verses into light. He bade us farewell and left, hoping to see us and waste our time on another Saturday. This is what my wife and I will have to go through for the next few weeks. Ultimately, he will try to convince us to visit his so called “church” and be a part of it and maybe contribute to it financially. Because that is how religions work. Because a religion without money in a society that uses a monetary system cannot survive. And if there is a religion that has no need or use for money, then I praise the Lord Jesus Motherfucking Christ! Alien!
Too bad we will have to turn him down on any offer of converting to his “true faith” and be sorry for having wasted his time and effort. But at least we let him do his job.
An American friend of mine from work gave this to me a couple of days ago for my newborn son. He got it from his trip back home in America. How thoughtful of him. It never occurred to me that I would see and hold a real one during my lifetime. The first time I heard of a Dreamcatcher was through a movie from Stephen King of the same name. It may be contrary to my non-belief of the supernatural, but it does interest and amaze me to hold one. Wicked.