Xn3cTs

August 21, 2005. Early morning, Ninoy’s 22nd death anniversary, the moon’s on the wane after reaching its peak fullness the day before…

With Susan (my trusty old guitar now lost to typhoon Ondoy/Ketsana), I jammed with the street children who usually loiter at the corner street in front of Angono public market, where this Moslem guy cells CD’s and DVD’s. (From time to time, this guy would have free movie screenings, for the folks who happen to be loitering there in the wee hours of the morning.) I sang Yano’s “Banal na Aso, Santong Kabayo.” The kids responded with Parokya ni Edgar’s “Chikinini.” One even rapped a few (I’m thinking, improvised) bawdy verses…

I had fun. I think the kids did too. Checked the time on my cellphone. 4:00 am. Or thereabouts… Put it on the sidewalk where I was sitting. And forgot all about it. Somebody must have taken it while we were having a blast.

Oh well.

best regards,
ian

“The Filipino’s worth dying for.” – Ninoy Aquino

Tags: Filipinos, Jamming, Music, Ninoy Aquino, Parokya ni Edgar, Yano
Posted in Filipinos, Life, Music | 1 Comment »

Drugs and alcohol can open up a spiritual experience. But, as Bhagavan Das pointed out, it’s a dark (tamasic) path and the danger is in being eaten up or swallowed by the substance, instead of the other way around.

I haven’t taken hallucinogens. (I’d like to, someday, with reformed drug addict Rudy as a “guide.” To make sure I don’t harm myself or another…)

I think my first experience of “psychedelia” was Sesame Street. (“1,2,3,4,5…6,7,8,9,10…11,12… doodoodoodoo…,” among others…) My parents were not hippies. They listened to Bread, middle-of-the-road stuff…

But I had a cool uncle and aunt. My Uncle Boyet brought me to an open-field rock concert when I was maybe 6… where I think I first heard Pepe Smith. This uncle would show me his psychedelic paintings and taught me my first cool words: “Hayuup!” “Haneeeep!”

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Tags: Alcohol, Drugs, Drunkenness, Lucid Dreaming, Music, Pasig Market, Penguin Cafe, Pepe Smith, Psychedelia, Rock, Sobriety, spirituality
Posted in Filipinos, Life, Love, Music, spirituality | 2 Comments »

Para Mama, Para Nga!!!
(isang monologo para sa bagong taon)

alay sa mga bwakanang files ko na nabura noong bisperas ng bwakanang bagong taon…

ni Body Dancer

Sampung taon na ang nakararaan ng una akong mag-odisyon para maging scholar ng Tanghalang Pilipino Actors’ Company. Mula sa mahigit limampung ininterbyu bago mag-odisyon, naiwan kaming kulang-kulang 20. Tatlong araw yung odisyon. Bawa’t araw, nababawasan kami. Matira matibay. Survival of the fittest. Darwinian natural selection. Selecta. Choose your own adventure.

Umabot ako sa pangatlong araw.

But ultimately failed to make the grade.

Almost made it. But didn’t.

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Tags: Art, Life, Love, monologue, Music, songs
Posted in Acting, Art, Education, Filipinos, Life, Love, Music, Theater, Writing | 9 Comments »

Books Liked/Loved:

The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas)
El Filibusterismo (Jose Rizal)
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
The Favourite Game (Leonard Cohen)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra / Genealogy of Morals (Friedrich Nietzsche)
The Trial / Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
Doktor Faustus (Thomas Mann)
Cubao Midnight Express (Tony Perez)
The Alphabet of Grace (Frederick Buechner)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig)
Written on the Body (Jeanette Winterson)
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevski)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera)
Personal (Rene Villanueva)
Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco)
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (D.H. Lawrence)
Siddharta / Narcissus and Goldmund (Herman Hesse)
The Book of Lights (Chaim Potok)
Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
A Little Book on the Human Shadow / Iron John (Robert Bly)
It Is Here Now – Are You? (Bhagavan Das)
The Last Three Minutes (Paul Davies)
The Dancing Wu-Li Masters (Gary Zukav)
The Clowns of God (Morris West)
Zen Guitar (Philip Toshio Sudo)
Sophie’s Choice (William Styron)
The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron)
The Day of the Jackal (Frederick Forsyth)
Inside the Music (interviews with contemporary musicians)
Writing Down the Bones (Natalie Goldberg)
Ordinary People (Judith Guest)
The Teachings of Don Juan (Carlos Castaneda)

Tags: Art, Books, Life, Literature, Love, Music, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, spirituality, Writing
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Well, I’m writing my first post here in this site. (I wrote “Acting as a Path to a Spirituality of Compassion” a long, long time ago. 2001? My brother Errol posted it here.) I don’t know much about blogging. All I know is that, at the very least, without meaning to be derogatory to those who do practice it, it could be some kind of an “online diary or journal.” Or simply, where one puts up the ramblings and rumblings of one’s mind. And heart.

I’ve had some posts in my friendster account: http://xn3ct.blogs.friendster.com/xn3ct/

And one of these days, I’m going to organize the writings I’ve done. Perhaps here.

For now, let me “talk” about the name of this site: xn3cts.com

I first thought of the name “xn3ct” in the 80’s. There was this song “Dear God.” (No, not the one by Midge Ure which has lines like “Give me… peace in a restless world…”) I’m thinking of the more scandalous (and for me then, probably heretical and blasphemous) song of the same title by xtc. (Some of the lines go like this: “Did you make man after we made you?” And this was way before I even heard of Marx and Feuerbach.)

Anyway, I thought the name of the band was clever. Instead of spelling “ecstasy,” they had “xtc.” And remember this was also the era of bands like the INXS (“In excess.”)

It was 1988, I was still in the seminary and I was thinking of a name for a band to form. I came up with “xn3ct.” Yeah, for “eccentricity.”

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Tags: Music, names, Philosophy, Writing, xn3ct, xtc
Posted in Life, Music, Philosophy, Writing | 2 Comments »