SKIRMISHER

If I had my way, I’d be a rock star. Nightly gigs, touring and taking all the free booze, drugs and sex that came with that whole rock and roll lifestyle, that’d comprise my daily activities while other people wash dishes or become medical transcriptionists. Like my idol and personal god Jim Morrison, I’d probably be living a decadent existence, shooting up chemicals and getting every STD known to man. When I tell people that I’m in a rock band they say oooh, wow, rock band, why don’t you record your songs and be famous like Kitchie Nadal or something. I want to be famous, yes, but like any other upright musician who doesn’t compromise his music, I’m not about to compromise my identity as a dirty, drunk and drug-addled blues singer to become a sober bore.

As opposed to the rockers of yesteryears, being a rock icon in the Philippines today requires a hell of a lot of responsibility. And responsibility, as we all know, is crap. If you’re a famous musician, or want to become one, you have to go through all the music industry machinery shit, much like how a high-profile career woman is implanted with programmable chips to become a Stepford wife. Packaged neatly in a modified modern rocker mold, your wardrobe is done by stylists who mix pearls and lace with leather bracelets and metal spikes. You are not allowed to cuss and you have to deliver inspiring messages to the youth. “No to drugs!,” “No to teenage pregnancy!” when everybody knows you snort coke by the kilo, or you were first porked when you were 13. Last but not the least, you get the harrowing experience of guesting on local variety TV programs and having celebrities with the musical IQ of negative 10 jamming with you and murdering your song.

But then, I know I’ll never become famous because I’m fat, my skin is not flawless, I drink and curse like a sailor, I don’t photograph well and my songs are not about eternal love and failed relationships. With that, I say goodbye to my rock star dreams, do my usual gigs in hole-in-the-wall rock bars and pass out in the corner from too much Red Horse Beer.

Stumble it!