3/31/2022 ‒
Youngest no more

This thing about how we stop listening to new music at some point in our 30s - specifically, once we turn 33 - always comes around on my consciousness once every few years.

I first came across it seven years ago (as it turns out) when I still ran the music blog. It was actually through an impassioned defense from someone past the 33-years-old threshold. "By the time people hit their mid 30s, hopefully they've developed a thing called taste, as well as some broader interests," Myf Warhurst wrote. "So while they aren't searching for One Direction's latest offering without Zayn, they might be searching for less popular music. Possibly new music, from lesser known artists. This doesn't make them out of touch – just more highly evolved."

I'm 33 now, and I'm starting to understand what she means. Then again, I've long sensed that my music tastes have coalesced and calcified towards particular genres, eras and feels. Like, I never listened to much hip-hop back then, and there's no chance I would have a greater appreciation for it now. I could say I still listen to radio stations that specialize in new music, but - and perhaps this is the music blog being closed for three years speaking - it's more difficult for me to pay attention, more so "discover" a new song I would start loving.

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3/29/2022 ‒
Left slipper

Last Friday, the one thing I have been anticipating for months, but could never really be prepared for until it happens, happened: my slippers broke.

Specifically, my right slipper. It was an old pair - those cheap-ish rubber slippers that you use for quick errands, like picking up deliveries from the lobby or, in this case, going to the laundry. That's the first sucky bit. I wasn't home. I was at the laundry. Well, I was getting my laundry done. I wasn't waiting there: I was at the 7-Eleven downstairs buying a drink. Must've shifted my foot the wrong way and, just like that, my right slipper snapped and it's pretty much unusable. I had to walk back to the laundry with one slipper. And then I had to wait an hour and a half - a wash cycle, a dry cycle and me folding the clothes - before I could go back home. I decided to do so barefoot, because, well, why bother walking with just one slipper when you can walk with nothing at all? It doesn't really matter anyway, right?

The security guard at the entrance asked me why I was walking barefoot. I guess it's illegal, for me to walk into a building I have a unit in with no footwear, because they're broken. So much for being home.

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3/16/2022 ‒
My crowd is bigger than your crowd

Not that anybody is asking, but I feel I have to clarify why, despite being relatively center-left, I have devoted recent entries being critical of Leni Robredo's campaign and, more specifically, her supporters. I don't know. I feel like I have to defend myself from potential allegations that I am, heavens forbid, a supporter of Bongbong Marcos, just because I am not keen on joining the pink brigade. You know discourse these days and how you're just supposed to be on one side or another, and never in the middle.

There's really a simple answer to that: I write about what I see, and what I see, more often than not, are supporters of the vice president. You know social media algorithms and how it narrows your world view by serving you only the things they think you want to know. (Well, that, and you blocking people whose political views don't align with yours, in the holy name of "self care".) That, and I have more contacts who post about their support for the vice president with alarming regularity.

That means seeing their posts a lot over the past few days, when the Robredo campaign went on full swing with several rallies in vote-rich spots across the country. I never followed the minutiae of national political campaigns, but I can't help but know the narrative - their narrative, I suppose - of how powerful folks, both in government and business, most probably allied with the "other side" are preventing a huge turnout at the rallies, whether by canceling buses in Bacolod or starting road repairs in Cavite. And yet the power of the people prevailed: 40,000 people in General Trias, 70,000 in Bacolod. And they're keen to clarify that, nope, they're not paid. As if crowd size is the sole basis for one's popularity. Then again, we haven't really had crowds for two years, so I guess our perceptions are warped.

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3/07/2022 ‒
And now, something most, if not all, of my very few readers won't care about

Today a bunch of competing radio stations in the Netherlands are coming together to raise funds for Ukraine. And by "coming together", I mean "airing the same show for one whole day". The same shows, the same presenters, the same jingles, the same music - interesting, considering the radio stations involved range from youth-targeted in-your-face pop stations to nostalgia-driven rock stations, and even this one jazz and soul station that tries hard to not sound dated. To raise funds, apart from donating all advertising proceeds to their partner organizations, they're encouraging listeners to donate, in exchange for a song request.

This isn't unusual, or at least not in Europe. I know one of the radio stations involved in this initiative does this every year, a format that has been adopted in other countries. It does seem like a nifty idea: we'll play your song - and I assume they're not limiting themselves to the song on the daily playlists - in exchange for a donation to a chosen charity.

Would this concept fly in the Philippines? I highly, highly doubt that.

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