Balikbayan II: The Multimedia Round-Up

Cue the Pinay sing-along...


Mr DJ, can I make a request?
Puwede ba 'yung love song ko?
Mr DJ, para sa 'kin ito
Sana ay okay sa iyo
Hihintayin ko na patugtugin mo
Thank you ulit sa iyo
Kahit luma na ang aming awit
Nais po ring marinig

[PIC: My dreamy mirror-stage view from the balcony of our rental in Makati]

Kahit man lang sa aking alaala
ay makasama ko siya
Nasaan man siya
mayro'n mang iba ito'y para sa kaniya
At sana'y nakikinig siya naaalala kaya niya?
Ang love song namin noon na niluma na ng panahon

Mr DJ, salamat sa iyo sumasabay din ako
sa love song namin noon na niluma na ng panahon...

That voice, ladies and gentiles, belongs to none other than the Philippines' reigning grande dame of cinematic love teams and saccharine song-stylings, Sharon Cuneta. In "Mr. DJ," Sharon's 12-year old croon sounds mature for its age, but still endearingly coltish. "Mr. DJ" was her breakout hit way back in 1978, the same year my mom and I first left the Philippines to move to the States. I was 5. Sharon Cuneta was my first unrequited crush. How could a budding lesbeaux not fall in love with her or this song ?!? She asks Mr. DJ (quite politely, peppering her refrain with lots of "thank you's" and apologies) to play her favorite love song just in case her dear heart will hear it and remember their time together, even though her beloved is with someone else and the song itself is old. [RIGHT: Sharon retro tee at the Mall of Asia, Pasay City. The largest mall in--you guessed it--Asia. Oh were I small enough to fit in the petite Pinay sizes!]

Like the pubescent girl singing sweetly to Mr. DJ instead of directly to her lover (gotta appreciate the Catholic mediation), I felt both sentimental and hopeful when I got to Manila. Hopeful that I'd hear, smell and taste the things I knew, while sounding, smelling and feeling familiar enough to my luma ("old") love.

Ang love song namin noon na niluma na ng panahon
(Roughly: The love song that was ours back then, that now ages with the passing days...)

[ABOVE LEFT: Reunion at the Iloilo airport with Tita Mellie, my 75-year old great aunt (grandma's sis), and Bibing, who is technically my aunt but more like a big sis in our extended-fam "compound" in San Antonio Village, Pasig, Metro Manila. RIGHT: Onas family portrait. The baby on the dashing gent's knee is my grandma, Linda Onas Katindig; the girl in the pink dress is Tita Mellie Onas Morales; the adults are my great grandparents...Lola Salud Penuela Onas in the carefree years before WWII.]

The strange thing about it is that Mr. DJ, or rather the collective DJ's of everyday culture--the cab and Jeepney drivers blasting their radios; the barkers at the beach bars in Bora'; the "Palawan Idol" winner singing "More than Words" & Jobim classics between shifts tending bar at El Nido; the Manila Municipal government who use swanky sound systems to pipe soft rock into Rizal Park (the city's monument to the slain national hero, Jose Rizal)-- all managed to play the old songs that were mine.

Para sa 'kin ito.
This is for me.

Of course I know it wasn't really just for me. But my Balikbayan narcissism and diasporic sentimentality allowed me to experience the everyday soundscapes of Manila, Iloilo, Palawan and Boracay as my own personal audiotopias. (I've been really into reading Josh Kun's book lately).

[MONTAGE: Street scenes from Chinatown and Divisoria; (R) Rizal Park].

Maybe some of that narcissism has to do with the musical legacy, for better or worse, of my mom's side of the family. The Katindig clan are often remembered as the Latin Jazz "innovators" of the Philippines. In the late 1950's my grandpa, Romy Katindig, and his 4 bros lead the Latin charge with their shiny tight suits and wicked mambo king looks. I'll try to scan a picture for a future edition of The I. Emperor.

My mom's bro Boy Katindig is carrying on the family name, I suppose, but in the "smooth jazz" realm. Yes, his name is "Boy," like Boy George--but to all you folks not fluent in Pinoyisms out there, "Boy" is the nickname given to the eldest son in just about every Pinoy fam. Anyway, my mom made a go of it for awhile as a budding popstar in Manila. But regardless of her success, she could never get any respect for being the "girl singer" in the fam and it pisses me off to this day. We've all let some of that baggage go ever since my grandfather died in '89...let's just say the macho music man bullshit is something I have experience with, first hand. Anyway...

The same night I landed in Manila, I had a chance to see my great uncle Eddie (grandpa's older bro) work the vibraphone during his weekly gig at Merk's, one of the last remaining 24/7 jazz clubs in the city. Tito Eddie, otherwise known as Eddie K or "the Filipino Kenny G" for his saxational stylings, has been taking a break from the sax, which as some of you know is my instrument too. He's now revisting the instruments he played back when he was in the band with my grandpa Romy. Here's a glimpse of him vibing it up:


Richard Merk, the owner of the club and an old family friend, is a Dean Martin-inspired playboy and crooner who was once linked to the "icon of Philippine cinema," and "the actress of the people," Nora Aunor. That night at the club, through my San Miguel "Strong Ice" goggles, I was was shocked to see Tito Eddie looking so old. It had been awhile since he stayed with us in the I.E. as part of his ill-fated attempt to immigrate to the states. After a botched marriage of greencard convenience with a "working woman" he hooked up with in L.A., he was deported back to Manila. But I digress....As a gal pal exclaims in the video, "he can still kick it!"

[MONTAGE: (L) Merk and Me after too many Chivases on the rocks; (R) from left to right, Kangagi, Blissie, Merk, Joya, Tito Eddie and yours truly, bloated after platefulls of Bangus belly (Bottom L) Merk giving me and Tito Eddie an Earful. Am I dressed like these dudes, or what?!?]

Most of our time in Manila involved reunions and sentimental surprises scored to pop, jazz and Pinoy indie rock. Seeing the uncles and aunts who I grew up with, and with whom I scampered away from the ghosts supposedly shacked up in the ancient Duhat tree in our carport, made me remember how much I hate the bullshit interactions of the profession and other uptight situations. I mean, my balikbayan journey to Manila had the potential to be as artificial as it gets--all the burdens of family reunion that require manufactured sentiments for the long lost cousin/niece/pet. But as I mentioned in my previous post, it was easier than I could've imagined, and for that, rewardingly complex. It all flowed and me and my original homies--Tito Ogie, Tito Jojo, Tita Bing--picked up where we left off. It was as if nothing had really changed except for our waistlines, hairlines, and in my case, my accent. I've resolved to go back as soon as possible. And not just because of the sexy beaches with polvoron sand. [(R) Puka Beach, Bora] I just want to see them again. Color me emo. I certainly don't plan on waiting another 24 years...

Honestly, I was stumped when the Merk called me out from the crowd during Tito Eddie's show and asked me to tell everyone what I thought had changed in the 24 years since I was last home. I made a crack about "democracy" and everyone, including the senators in the audience catching some "sounds" and gin, laughed. The real answer? Everything and nothing. I know what I'm saying right now sounds eerily similar to the the final scene in the stage production of Dogeaters. But give it up to la Hagedorn for hitting the nail on the head with that one, and for reaping the corniness for all its scrumptious truth. What can I say? I'm a sucker for dramatic symmetry. A child of the corn(y).

[(R) Building a mystery...strolling through the garrisons at Intramuros, the original walled city that was Manila during the Spanish Occupation]

Again, all of these feelings require more than words. (OK, lame song title riff, but it's my blog and as far as I know, no one really reads it). I'll let the pictures paint a thousand words...The reason I know all the lyrics to "Feelings," and Bread's "If"?

Ako'y isang Pinoy!

Action Alert: Save My Neighborhood Dairy Queen!

We interrupt my already interrupted Pilipinas travelogue to call all you Blizzard-loving sistahs to action! I was just informed by J-Sto (after she read another Ramona High School pal, Nova's blog), that MY CHILDHOOD DAIRY QUEEN is on the City of Riverside's redevelopment chopping block.

Yeah sure, the DQ ain't nothin' but a chain, and the "something different" logo calls out the fact that it's trying too hard to be otherwise. But like I say over and over again in the RELOCATIONS project, it's what you make of the chain that transforms it and you. Chains of love, baby!

Even though this DQ (built "mid-century" in the 50's) was part of the whole prefabbing of America, it's still a place with grain and moxie. It's still my place. It was my first hang, a mere S-shaped block and a half away from the 'rents place. [MAP: From Midway down Santee Place to the green arrow on the corner of California and Monroe] I'd ride there on my first banana- yellow 10-speed bike with the brown ram's-head-handlebars and the "I heart My Dog" sticker on the rear reflector. Soundtrack of choice: "Ghost in You" by the Psychedelic Furs on my Walkman. I had to rewind the casette manually to put it on "repeat."

This DQ is where I'd go to cool off after a game of street-baseball using novelty mini-bats and chewed-up tennis balls with the neighborhood fellas, all who adopted me as their immigrant tomboy. This was one of my first tastes of "America" and its dreamy soft-serve.

Plenty has already been leveled at that corner called "California Square." Some of it I don't mind. While I loved the Alpha Beta grocery for its healthy selection of Smash Hits mags, I'm down with the fact that it's evolved into a Maxi Foods, a Mexican chain that services the new demos of West Riverside. My mom buys all her oxtail there for crockpots of Kare-Kare.

But I sure do miss Geno's Pizza (I was the "Centipede" stud). And I owe my wicked Rom-Com knowledge to my very first video store directly across the faux-courtyard from Geno's: Marie's Pick-a-Flick. Marie, the deaf Native American owner, and her Wilford Brimley-eseque former G.I. hubby used to give me free movie posters. I was probably the only 11-year old within the city limits (or anywhere for that matter) who wanted the one for "That's Life!" starring Julie Andrews and Jack Lemon. You gotta give it up to my proto-geriatrica.

I ultimately graduated from DQ slushies to Flaming Hot Cheetos and bottles of Cisco, Bartles & Jaymes and Club "Sex on the Beach" at the liquor store tucked next to the produce entrance of the AB. The owners confused me with my mom and didn't card me all through my senior year at RHS, so I was the BBPOC (big booze pimp on campus) for Thespian cast parties. H-O-TTT. Aside from the DQ and its precarious life, that liquor store is all that's left of the California Square that held me ever so tight through my awkward adolescence. Even though it's just another So. Cal stripmall, these places are special to me and to so many. Each square foot of that transient lease-space has staged countless rites of passage.

If this isn't enough to make you want to run out and chain yourself to the bulldozers, maybe Nova's story will:

Sunday, August 05, 2007
Save the Riverside Dairy Queen!

Many of you in the Inland Empire see all the new development in the IE. Some of the developments are no doubt for the better; the Riverside Plaza is so much better than the old Monkey Wards building. The latest is revamping the shopping center on Monroe/California Avenue and the demolition of the old Dairy Queen building. I believe this should be seriously reconsidered by the City. Those of you who reside in the 'Side know this little building with two walk up windows is nostalgic; it's also part of the charm of Riverside that might be quickly dismissed by those who never truly lived in Riverside. This Dairy Queen has history, memories, long lines, and not to mention some good blizzards! It's unique from most Dairy Queens because it's a tiny building built in the 50s, and walk-up windows that only sell soft serve, no food. There was no air conditioning or cash registers until the 90s! [Photo below features Riverside resident, Melissa Lewandowski, who began the letter-writing campaign to city officials].

The DQ is one of the rare buildings left in Riverside that have a little history and charm. In LA there are tons of cool old buildings that remain [comment from I.Emperor--"It's an epidemic sistah. I suppose the grass is always greener"]. An LA business like Pink's in an old structure that hasn't changed since the 40s, but people still love it after so many decades. The DQ in Riverside is certainly no Pink's in LA [I. Emperor--"It sure isn't...it's BETTER!"], but is nonetheless legendary in its own vein. This hits home for me since this particular Dairy Queen is where I had my first job. Interestingly enough, today I work for a city/redevelopment agency that would generally take the opposing position in this situation. For those of you who still live in the Riv, if the Dairy Queen means anything to you, write the Mayor & appropriate City Council Members. It may not be too late! Please click on this PRESS ENTERPRISE article for details on the story: Thanks!!!
Nova

Balikbayan: The Metanarrative

I'll get us started in true Pinoy fashion with a song. The EraserHeads' hipster cover of a Hotdog classic, "Manila." Given the popularity of canned meats in the 'pinas, especially WWII-era mess like SPAM and Vienna Sausages (mmmmm all that nitrate goodness!), I always found it totally appropriate that one of the Philippines' most definitive and best selling pop bands of all time is actually named "Hotdog."



As the song says, I'm goin' back to Manila. Or rather I just went back for my first balikbayan journey as a grown-up without parental chaperones. Balikbayan translates literally to "return to country" in English, but refers in a more spiritual and colloquial sense to the Pinoys and Pinays living permanently abroad who return to the country, and who implicitly always have a country to return to. The official def, according to the Philippine National Statistical Coordination Board (for immigration purposes) is "those of Filipino Descent who acquired foreign citizenship and permanent status abroad." This was my first time back since I was 10-yrs. old, circa 1983, and since I acquired my US citizenship and passport in 1989, when I was 16.

Needless to say this was all a very big deal for me, my beloved Kangagi who accompanied me, and my fam waiting anxiously in the I.E., concerned that my So. Cal accented Tagalog would somehow lead to cultural alienation in forms both benign and fantastically violent. It's the kind of stuff that inspires memoirs and fictionalizations of fuzzy disaporic feelings and deep psychic drama.

Beyond the flipside (so to speak) I've also imagined that this could be the moment that all the bullshit stuff played out in academe about racial authenticity would finally get to my head, and that my "failure" as a brown subject in the US would be affirmed by the threat and promise of the "cultural alienation" feared by my own kinsfolk (primed as they are by the paranoia-inducing local news).

As if things weren't heavy enough, this was also the kind of sitch more often than not aggravated by white scholars who (consciously and un) like to to see brown folks inhabiting their "real" exotic selves, while waiting with baited breath to bestow ethical judgments upon those who might fail to fit the bill of "a real person of color"--whatever that might mean. In collusion with cultural nationalists in the academy of the most self-serving stripe, these culture vultures (very literally) just can't wait to call you out for a coconut: brown on the outside, white on the inside. And there's nothin' like a balikbayan journey and its potential pitfalls to tickle the imperialist impulse of folks who like to collect color, and purport to know you and "your people" better than you do.

But back to Hotdogs.

Play it again (this time, the original):


Fact of the matter is, despite all the twisted emotional stuff I freehanded for you up above, the experience of going back to Manila after "walking the streets of San Francisco," and trying all the "rides at Disneyland" as a post-diasporic So. Cal suburbanite, proved to be way easier (and for being so easy, way more complicated) than I or anyone else ever expected. Like the song "Manila" in all of its incarnations--the scratchy, beat-laden, remixed cover of a tinny original that itself covers the musical idioms of the jauntier Billy Joel songbook, crossed with Latin horn shouts, and the Americana Dixieland of Disney's Carnation Plaza, which is in turn culled from the French quadrilles, blues and bluegrass of Cajun, Creole, BlaLatino New Orleans--my balikbayan journey was "quesorap," a punny ad I saw at the Budget Mart convenience shop in Iloilo. And we all know how much Pinoys love puns.

Queso (Spanish for cheese) smushed together with sarap (Tagalog for "tasty"), combines for the English equivalent of "cheesetastic," while adding the post-colonial, Spagalog layer of meaning with "Que sarap" ("very sarap," or very tasty).

I'm gonna spare y'all a more complicated explanation for, and explication of, all these sensations and insist for now that we keep it simple. That we keep the cultural affirmation I experienced for my love of soft rock and fried foods in the Pilipinas as simple and profound as it really was and is. As simply profound as the pop architectonics of the song that asks we be brought back again and again to the place I've never stopped knowing in my soul and stomach, despite having been "gone too long..."

****************************************************
Stay tuned for Part II, the not-so metanarrative that promises to be picture heavy. But before then, another take on "Manila" from the pop It-Girl, Ms. Right Now, Sarah Geronimo:

Quickie, Mart - Kawa Market

There's trouble in Rivercity (R: Fig. 1, One man's Orientalism is another's...? The Chinese Pagoda at the Downtown Public Library, Riverside, CA). I should've acted sooner and re-posted this information courtesy of a non-partisan, myspace civic activist group called SAVE-RIVERSIDE. The Save Riversidians recently commented on one of my old posts, "Show Me the Mizithra," about the City of Riverside's dastardly plans to shut down Kawa Market, a 100-year-old mom & pop shop that became an Asian market some 30 years ago. In that post I went on and on about the "resilience of mom & pop" operations in Riverside and reminisced about the alive and kickin' Kawa, the place my mom and I went together to buy Pinoy treats like the pugent and salty breakfast fish, tuyo or smoked, shredded tinapa with some 2-liter kegs of Squirt or Cactus Cooler to wash it all down. The Mayor and his merry band of citycouncilfolks made a chump outta me.

Kawa has no future. Its owners Lin Lin (aka "William") and Wendy Guan have surrendered the property to the City's "eminent domain." In the words of Press Enterprise Columnist, Dan Bernstein (an accomplished whistler who my dad accompanied on the piano for a gig at RCC's Landis Auditorium), "Riverside surrenders something too."

Where is your scrappy soul, my hometown?

Its raggedy afterglow remains, perhaps, on homemade videos such as this one featuring Riverside City Council Candidate, Mike Gardner, bellied up to the Kawa counter for some good old fashioned politicking alongside the Guans. For more curiously poignant "Save Kawa" video (so much to say, so little time), see the "Save Riverside" site linked above or visit Riverside Land Grab:

From the East to Electrelane (with Tenderness)

I'm knee deep in my summer of indulgence. A better jag than my usual summers of indolence. I've had plenty to write about from So. Cal's east, Inland and adjacent, including a "geographies of Long Beach Pride" meditation (technically south...but "the east is so many things" qua Electrelane). The LBC pride chat has been wedged in the back of my foggy noggin ever since my Delta y Kappa posse collectively gorged a Medieval Times-inspired roasted turkey leg before Jennifer Hudson's set on the mainstage. But today, with the slight shiver of an L.A. June gloom in the air, and with a faded base-tan from my own recent overcast off-days spent rolling in the sand in Laguna and Malibu, I'm going to wax tender about my week spent gloriously awash in the sounds of another beach town's finest, Brighton's ELECTRELANE.

I'm a relative latecomer to the band's music, which is to be expected from an I.E. popslut, no doubt. I'd only heard of them about 3 years ago despite their nearly decade-long career, and went to see them for the first time at the Troubadour in 2005 when they opened for Dutch punk grandaddies, The Ex. I was actually lured to the show by a coterie of academic friends, one of whom had (and I presume still has) an intense fanboy lust for guitarist, Mia Clarke. I came away from the show enamored of the all-female band from Brighton and less than enthused by the rage-against-age Nederlander masculinity of The Ex.

Little did I realize that later that same year, Electrelane's music would serve as the soundtrack for the torturous unfurling of my own new love story, my own new sense of desire, friendship and place. The Kangagi brought Electrelane full force into my life with a mournful mix simply dubbed "Late Nights." It was quickly loaded to my pod as I retreated to Europa, Europa to sort things out over winter break, where I listened to "Birds" on endless, interpretive repeat as I wandered through Deutschland forests and sludgy Parisian streets trying to figure out what the sonic narrative meant to us. Would mean for us.

In retrospect some obscurists and completists would call us out for our trite song choice--for scoring a made-for-tv moment of puppy love to the melodic single instead of to one of the band's more sweeping and "cinematic" instrumental explorations. But aren't the predictable conventions of love part of what endows the whole experience with an element of formalist pleasure? And isn't it that same, strange dialectic of urgent improvisation and impeccable formalism that makes Electrelane sound so fucking good?

Two years since and the Kangagi and I are jolly muppets in love who get to hang with the band--and most importantly, we get to hear them play live whenever they roll through So. Cali. You see, little did I know in the midst of all my Shelleyan brooding that Kangagi's good pal (let's call her D.Mac for the purposes of this blog) is lovebirds with the incomparable Emma Gaze, resident heartthrob and co-founder of Electrelane, along with vocalist, keyboardist, virtuoso, Verity Susman (alter-ego Vera November). Emma (E-z) is not only an "ace" of a good time (did I use that Brit idiom properly?), but she drums with the disciplined antsiness of a British schoolboy. At least she does in my imaginary, which is shaped by grad skool Victoriana and Inland Empire New Ro' Anglophilia. I mean it as the highest of compliments.

This week we had several Patrick Fugit in Almost Famous (but much cooler) moments courtesy of D. Mac and E-z, be it peeking from the wings at the sold out crowds at the Greek as Arcade Fire rumbled through their set, or smoking responsibly on the tour bus so as not to set Griffith Park ablaze. It was also on the bus where we got to hear pocket-sized mack daddy bassist, Ros Murray, wax poetic about the facial expressions of Mary Lynn Rasjkub (aka Chloe O'Brian) on 24. Perhaps this obsession with tempo and gesture in its primetime formats is what makes Ros the kind of languidly cool bass player who can keep a rhythm section honest.

But the best moments were reserved for their return to the Troubadour last night. This time, Electrelane were the headliners of a sold-out show. While catching them on tour with Arcade Fire, one of the moment's IT bands from Canadia, is certainly something to behold, especially in an atmosphere of nachos, tumblers of beer and backwards baseball caps at the corporatized Greek, there's nothing like seeing the band in their own moment, amongst their own fans in the admittedly gentrified but still studiously scruffy Troub.

Opening for them was the French queer popster and one-woman tour de force, Tender Forever. TF served up delcious nibbles of chanson in a sonorous rasp that would make Bjork jealous. Melanie Valera (she who is forever tender) provided one of the evening's best moments when she covered Justin Timberlake's "My Love" with just her voice and a ukelele, subsequently making the pop whores amongst us ticklish and grateful, while challenging the hipster-curious to loosen up a bit and quit pretending to hate melodies.

By the time Electrelane took the stage the crowd was squirming with anticipation. They were ready to genuflect before Verity's power chords on the organ and Mia's metal-jam riffs delivered with such elegant control that it was like seeing some wild, pheromonic scent harvested into a precious glassblown bottle of eau de toilette. A few tunes in, Electrelane played their latest single, "To the East," an Ostalgie lovesong saturated with a kind of wistful comfort. Any song with a nod to Gdansk (a place I fetishized as the site of a major women's tennis tournament in my proto frat-dyke days) deserves to be a hit.

From my vantage point at the far end of stage left, I could see the band was begging for more on the monitors. But regardless of what they might've heard from onstage, the sound was perfect. The band was tight and sonically communicative with each other, as well as the audience. The rhythm section was precise, the proggy progressions and jams were disarming rather than intimidating. The crowd shouted. The crowd called. As my desperate grasp at the eau de toilette metaphor above belies, I actually don't feel like I have the capacity to describe what I heard, saw and felt on stage last night with any veracity or eloquence. If there were enough youtubers in the world, I suppose I'd be able to find a lovely bootleg clip of Electrelane performing their signature cover of Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" as their encore. Instead, I'll close with a vid clip of their new single from No Shouts, No Calls.

"It could be home...it could be home...it could be home..."
For now this music is.

The Stars are Hollow

My butch cred, tenuous as it already is, might suffer a blow from this admission. I blubbered like a baby the other night because my beloved Gilmore Girls screwballed their way through the quaint corners of Stars Hollow for the very last time. Though I'm usually pretty damn diligent about keeping up with developments in the televisual landscape, I was totally checked out this time around. I was so consumed by end of the semester bureaucracy that I didn't even hear that the show was cut from the languishing CW prime-time line-up for next season.

Or was I just being a delinquent fan? I've been so wrapped-up in this season's Idolatry that I'd let GG episodes gather dust in my Tivo playlist until I felt like having "a very menses evening" with my fave trash snack: Totino's wafer thin extra- crispy Supreme Pizza.

I know lots of fans have moaned about how awful the first half of this, the 7th (and ultimately final) season, played out. Lorelai marrying Christopher in Paris? The tedious plotline about Luke's custody battle for the irritating "oops kid" he sired for Sherilyn Fenn? Both industry and popular wisdom thought the show was done-zo after Amy Sherman Palladino decided to relinquish most of the writing duties to other scribes last year. But this is not the stuff I want to dwell on here.

I'm just gonna miss it, damn it. I'll miss Luke's infuriating yet oddly endearing butch woundedness. Like many butches, he was afflicted with an old-school lesbionic aphasia around Lorelai. Never could say how he really felt or what he really wanted. Always underselling his efforts. Always hanging back. Waiting for the right time, but temporally challenged. FUN FACT: the character of Luke was originally written for a woman. That says something, I think, about the tone of this TV romance. HOTTT.

I'll also miss the girls themselves. The inappropriate desires they enacted and engendered in others. The finale, despite taking some flack from TV Watchers in journoland, the blogsphere and beyond, was appropriately quiet and absurd. No big weddings and cymbal crashes. Just a party and the butch-bottomy remark from Luke to Lorelai, "I just like to see you happy" before they kiss. The show ends with a shot of the girls chatting and chewing as they so often did in Luke's diner. It's an external shot, and they're framed by the plate glass of the diner while Luke himself arranges ketchup bottles in the background. This creates the effect of our noses being pressed up against the glass, as if to say "this world continues elsewhere: you just can't watch anymore."

When I started working on my RELOCATIONS book project, I imagined ways in which the "small town ethos" (like Stars Hollow's) often became appropriated by suburban artists and suburban types as an analogue for their own eccentric encounters. These encounters might provide a precious 'grain' for those daily experiences alienated from the "contact" of urban settings. The oddball everyday. That's what GG served up in generous greasy helpings.

The show also had some great tunes, long before gaudier forms of music branding hit the primetime scene (The O.C., Grey's Anatomy, etc.--Kangagi has a great paper about this and the Patsavas TV soundtrack empire). The hipster soundtrack was attributed to Lane Kim, the Korean drummergirl whose main mischief involved hiding cd's from her 7th Day Adventist mom in the floorboards of her room. I personally could've done without the "town troubadour" in seasons 1 and 2 (a pal of the Palladinos), but now that the town square is silent, I'll probably miss him too. In honor of the Gilmore Girls' soundscape, I created my own "Stars Hollow Mix" of tunes from the show (featured incidentally or as part of the diegesis) a couple of years ago. I shared it with some core GG watchers like Doylie and Gia. I've added a couple since this season. I share it now with you so the stars won't feel quite as hollow...

1. "I Can't Get Started" - Ella Fitzgerald
2. "Cities in Dust" - Siouxsie and the Banshees
3. "The Crystal Lake" - Grand Daddy
4. "Know Your Onion" - The Shins
5. "Flower Girl from Bordeaux" - Esquivel
6. "Teenager" - Camera Obscura
5. "Why Does it Always Rain on Me?" - Travis
6. "Time Bomb" - Rancid
7. "Legal Man" - Belle and Sebastian
8. "Church of the Poison Mind" - Culture Club
9. "Que Sera Sera" - Doris Day
10. "Suburban Homeboy" - Sparks
11. "The Man Who Sold the World" - David Bowie
12. "The Killing Moon" - Echo and the Bunnymen
13. "I Will Always Love You" - Dolly Parton
14. "My Little Corner of The World" - Yo La Tengo

And a late addition (in video format):

Ringtones | Genoa | mp3 downloads

Empire States

The emperor is bedraggled after a long couple of months of hustling and flowing at fine institutions all across the US of A (see the "halogen lit" tour I alluded to several posts ago). Never has my heart simmered in the refrains of Journey's "Faithfully" with such earnestness. I'm obviously lying about the "never" part. [Picture: Main Street, Riverside, CA ca. 1920]

Anyway...smack dab in the middle of Emperor's road show was a "homecoming" date of sorts. Even though I never went to or taught at UCR, Highlander-land is close to my heart. And not just because it's a stone's throw from D'Elia's Grinders. I had the privilege of giving the keynote this year at their annual (dis)junctions grad student conference, one of the biggest (in my experience) and fun grad student gatherings here in SoCal. Shout-out to the organizers Patrick Randolph and Helen Lovejoy for wrangling everyone together.

(dis)junctions also marked the first time my folks ever came to see me "do my thing," and I knew I'd be in big trubs if I didn't tell them I had a gig in our proverbial backyard. I warned them I'd be speaking some deep queer theory--basically another language, not only to native Tagalog speakers, but to plenty of folks "in the biz" as well.

Grandma's response?
"I do not care if I don't understand you. You just better have good style while you're doing it!"
(This explains a lot about me, and my Mamang, the mangled faux-Tagalog name I bestowed upon her instead of the traditional "lola" for grandmother).

My mom, meanwhile, asked if I wanted her to bring sandwiches in her wheelie stay-kool lunch bag just in case "people got hungry." Talk about an Erma Bombeck moment. Needless to say, I declined. But I was nice this time and tried not to reenact that awkward moment in The Prince of Tides when Jason Gould, ridiculously kitted out in football shoulder pads, rebuffs Barbra's/Momma Lowenstein's offer of pastrami sammiches after a rigorous session of butch lessons with Nick Nolte in Central Park.

In the end, my mom still managed to smuggle in a stash of homemade peanut butter cookies (since when did she start baking?!?), which she promptly distributed to the Kangagi and Mr. Troll, who were there to support me with spiritual foam fingers and glitter signs. My mom also managed to spread the cookie love to a jolly if underslept cohort of some of my USC graduate students who presented amazing papers. "So proud, naman!" Before the talk, my mamang pulled the ol' Catholic mass "turn-to-greet-your-neighbor" maneuver and announced to an unsuspecting conference participant sitting next to her, "I am the grandma." (Imagine rolled "r's"). Said conference participant was slightly confused until Doylie revealed la familia was in the house when she introduced me. [Picture L-R, My mom and my grandmother having "halo-halo" at the Salo-Salo Grill in MoValley shortly before the talk.] My dad, meanwhile, put on a show for the colleagues who came up to me after the talk by managing to chug an entire jug of water without ever having the bottle touch his lips.

We capped the conference weekend off with another "research excursion," first to the Menage, and then on to VIP (sans parentals) with some of USC's finest: Princess Charles, Scotland and "the Married Girl." Mr. Troll started a curly-fry trend; T.Ham rocked the dancehall once the "reservations only" drag show ended; Kangagi and I actually won a doubles pool showdown, and we all met some nice kids from Yucaipa who make the trek out to Riverside just to find something to do. Sadly, the RAZR pix I snapped of the his-and-hers Venus de Milo and David statues above the bar are all gone because of a phone mishap too boring to go into here.

A mere week later I found myself in the empire state, in New York City (imagine the Pace Picante Sauce pronunciation) for the splashy AFTER CBGB: Gender, Sexuality and the Future of Subculture event organized by that sharped dress braniac who brings sexyback to academe, Tavia Nyong'o. It was great fun, and I especially loved my old gradskool pal, Matmos co-founder, and Soft Pink Truth-teller, Drew Daniel's glorious riff on the 80s East Bay punk band, Gender Confusion. One of my favorite outcomes of the event was that after my usual suburban riff, James Spooner of Afro Punk fame espoused the glories of hitting up suburban music clubs, not only on the east coast, but back in the day when he was growing up in the "I.E.-adjacent" Apple Valley. He even reminisced about taking excursions with his crew to Riverside's legendary all ages punk venue, Spanky's.

The rest of the weekend was a Pinay-fest and karaoke revolution. 'Day--that's Dr. Christine Bacareza Balance to you--had a stellar dissertation defense prefaced by rich food intake and even richer intellectual conversation. With her Imelda coif and her Pinay posse surrounding her (including her sweetheart si Gars, Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns and Jessica Hagedorn--as well as myself and soon to be USC Mellon postdoc, Robert Diaz) she put on a dazzling display of ube cake-fueled chat with her committee consisting of the Imperial Princess la Shimakawa, lady Munoz, Tavia, Kandice Chuh, and LMSP Burns. [Right: J.Hags and 'Day celebrating at the end] Sadly, the QBN MAMI and Freestyle Queen, Doctora Alex Vazquez's sister chose to have her baby on the same day, so our homegirl in piracy and hoop-earringed dreams could not be there.

Here's a quickie yearbook spread of that afternoon featuring lots of Pinay on Pinay love, a couple of Cubanas/os and some East Asian sistahs for good measure...


If only my mom were there to bring the pot of adobo. But that craving was taken care of with a mass migration, apres defense, to Cendrillon for goblets of Calamansi Margaritas and nouvelle Pinoy cuisine. (The daing na trout on garlic rice was sarap to the max!)

Appropriately, the night was capped off by a frenzy of Karaoke at a little Chinatown fusion spot called Asiaroma. I'll soft-disolve into a photo archive soon. I will pause to say that among the highlights of the evening were multiple duets featuring JJ Chinois and Nao Bustamante taking their performance art to an entirely new level. Since the informal riff I delivered at the CBGB event was all about the Karaoke revolution, I'll let that text provide the backdrop for a slide-show of our song-fueled intimacies. I'd like to think we brought a little of the I.E. back to NYC that night...
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FUTURES of A FORGOTTEN PAST
For today's event we were asked to pick a clip that speaks to a future or history of a subculture that we love. This filled me with a tremendous sense of anxiety. I felt I had to pick something really cool and underground that would attest to a cosmo hipster fetish for obscurity and completism. But when I thought about something I’ve watched over and over again in the past couple of years—something that harkened back to those nights spent scarfing curly fries near the pooltable, or watching music videos unspool at alternate house beats in the corner of the I.E.'s stripmall video clubs, I couldn’t help but play THIS of all clips



I shared these repeat viewings with my old pal and artiste extraordinaire, Lynne Chan aka JJ Chinois. And we luxuriated in this gaudy scene of unbridled vocal prowess and physical awkwardness. Carrie is singing HEART of all things, and the duo has been inducted into the pantheon of rock "dykeons" despite the fact that they aren’t practicing Sapphic sisters. (Their cameo on the L-Word in Season 2 only sealed the deal). By drooling over this clip, were JJ and I just a couple of post-suburban brown butches reliving a forbidden lust for the high school prom queen circa 1991? She sure ain’t in Checotah anymore. As it turns out, my andro-hooves "aShane" girlfriend actually WAS the prom queen in her Sweet Valley high school. But I digress...

JJ and I didn’t even grow up in the same ‘burbs. Very different ones, in fact, in opposite parts of the golden state.

JJ grew up in Cupertino/Saratoga—The cradle of the so-called “creative classes" and the home of Macintosh Computers.

I grew up in Riverside—Home of a Rohr defense manufacturing plant since shut down, that was already an industrial substitute for the citrus industries of yore.

So what DID make us loop Carrie on repeat? Was it the same thing that brought us together when we met in college—studiously repressing our suburban histories as we aspired towards indie-dom—until we realized we could split the harmony parts to the chorus of “Galileo” and spit Hall and Oates’ “M-E-T-H-O-D- O-F L-O-V-E” without dropping a beat? Was it about the fact that our future as members of various subcultures would always be defined by an unacknowledged past?

What about the sub-cultural desires spawned somewhere else? Born in provinces, or in the suburbs….in and around malls, in schoolyards after hours or in the words of Alex Vazquez, on the “slippery naugahyde seats of a Dade County Public School Bus?"

Made in garages (thank you Christine), in the dormitories at UC Irvine (thanks PJA), in basements, attics, public softball fields radiant in twilight smog, their abandoned dugouts serving as open bars stacked with Tallboys and Hennessy. It is, was and will be in these “transnational suburban hubs” that we bump to AZNBlatino Freestyle (thanks again, Alex Vazquez). There that we conduct our pinoy Practices of Everyday Performance like the karaoke in our parents’ carport or at the community rec. center (Christine Bacareza Balance). In many respects what America understands as acts of Idolatry are performances cribbed directly from an old Pinoy variety show long before American Idol was born. A show called Student Canteen, where girls "Prom D" or pulled “prom D probinces,” barrios and squatter areas would “break it gently” to Angela Bofill:

I DO YOU BETTER THAN YOU.

Like Idol and the Pinays that have graced its neon stages (Jasmine Trias, Camile Velasco), Student Canteen continues to be beloved by the so-called "Prom D’s" whose children are still provincial, even after they supposedly “ARRIVED” in places like West Covina and Torrance.

In these transnational sub-urban hubs ('cause lots of immigrants can’t afford to live in cities anymore) we honed our subcultural skills through singalongs with our sistahs or bros, by choice more than blood, while riding 3-across in the backseats of Nissans on the 60 West—insert your stretch of freeway, bridge or tunnel here…

The radio plays our favorite song, and that's what keeps me holdin' on...baby do you miss me? Now that I'm gone?

When I was young I'd listen to the radio, waitin' for my favorite songs. When they played I'd sing along...it made me smile...

The clip I played today, one that dares to revel in Idolatry, isn’t just the cry of that forgotten and some would argue justifiably forgetable, sub-urban past of arbitrary immigrant and queer musical discovery. The kind of musical discovery that doesn't happen in a hip little record store with snobby salesclerks, but is dredged up from the bargain bins at K-Mart, amply stocked with Air Supply’s greatest hits (such a smash in the South Pacific). Or it's summoned forth from the the Columbia House Catalogue—10 Cassettes for a penny!—that came in the mail with our mothers’ invitations from Ed McMahon. Indeed, what Carrie Underwood gives us is a glimpse at a future heralded by the Casio trumpet blasts of an empty orchestra.

It’s THE KARAOKE REVOLUTION people, on and beyond your PS3’s…(aren’t gamers another sub-urban subculture thriving, mutating colliding?) I would argue that this Karaoke Revolution is in its sinews if not on its surface, a queer, working class, racialized revolution not cool enough (just yet) to make it on a white hipster’s tshirt. Not the cool that the creative classes trade as capital, and that makes cities too expensive for a place like CBGB. Now CBGB’s future is purportedly in a Las Vegas mall. Everyone’s saying subculture is dead.

Maybe subculture hasn’t died…maybe it’s simply RELOCATED…

Relocated back to where it came from but felt too embarrassed to name…where the kids have nothing to do and don’t give a damn ‘bout their bad reputation as freaks, geeks, queers, immigrants, gangstas, minimum wagers—yes, they live in the suburbs. The thrill is there. There where you ultimately learned enough skillz in your high school choir to bust "Alone" apart on National TV with open throated ferocity, face framed by a Jon Benet mane, sleepy (or is it sultry?) winks of glittery eye-makeup for emphasis…

And it is there where you sounded sweet and low like the saccharine with the same name. Like Karen Carpenter of Downey, CA. She honed her chops as a female lyric tenor in the Long Beach State University choir (choir geeks, band geeks—aren't these subcultures?). This was shortly before she and her brother Richard launched a little musical form we call the POWER BALLAD (Heart’s “Alone,” if not the earliest, is one of the best). In 1972, with “Goodbye to Love,” before there was a 710 freeway to slice across Long Beach and graze El Sereno along the way, the Carpenters created the spark that would inevitably ignite the world with innumerable butane flames, thanks to Tony Peluso of “Instant Joy’s” distorted "melodic fuzz" guitar solo.

What lies in the future is a mystery to us all…
I’ll say goodbye to you with a farewell clip featuring the form that taught us how to cry "Alone" in our bedrooms with our headphones on in the dark until we found those precious others who did the same in nowhere elses...while an unmistakable voice sang with a tender faraway sorrow, as someone played a sad guitar…