Of Dreams And Music

I haven’t blogged for more than a week. Has it been that long?  My mom’s 84th birthday celebration last Saturday  was a mini-reunion for my two brothers, their families and Nissa’s family sans of course our youngest  brother and his family whom I haven’t seen for more than five years but we get in touch often through phone calls and e-mails. He’s been in the United States since 1991 and he has embraced the American way of life.

Josef and I embarked on a bold project of painting our grills and two front gates over the weekend.  It’s fun to undergo something like this but the heat hinders us from working the whole day. Anyway, our gates are sporting a new look – in bold reddish maroon color. We were able to finish painting the two spans of metal grills fronting the house and there is a lot more to do in the coming weekends. It’s good, paints nowadays no longer have that strong smell that makes you cough. Davies paints are odorless and easy to apply. You need to have a good brush and roller though to make everything smooth. It is an accomplishment that I am proud of.

Last night, I dreamed I was teacher. Yes, I was teaching high school kids to appreciate music. It’s not the kind though where you need to recognize wind instruments and chimes or guitars. I was teaching them how to listen to David Cassidy singing Cherish and The Associations belting out their more popular Never My Love. Ancient you might say but I remember in my dream telling them about the British Invasion in the music world and what baby boomer means :).  Earlier on, a friend posted some old, old songs from YouTube and it made me remember being a child of the sixties. Then I suddenly thought of  teen idol David Cassidy. I was in high school during the early seventies and one such program that I never failed to watch was The Partridge Family. Never mind that we didn’t have our own TV set and just viewed the series on a small black and white unit of our neighbor whose children loved the same program.  It was such a poignant reminiscing of the good old days. I also remember another figure that I loved, Mark Lester. I used to scrimp on my allowance just to be able to buy the monthly issues of Jingle Chordbook magazines where most of the time, they had colored posters of popular singers back then.  I never learned  how to play the guitar though because my eldest brother who taught me was left-handed and even if I could read the chords it was hard to interpret it when you were  holding it the other way. My dad used to play the guitar and even composed some songs in the vernacular and one of my uncles played the violin. I guess I was the only one who never learned, but I am proud to say I could carry a tune. So much for dreams and music.  Hearing your favorite tunes from childhood makes you smile.

 

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Welcome April

The moment I woke up, a lovely song was humming in my head. I always love the month of  April despite the heat because it brings back memories of long ago. April 1st, April dream. Then I think of Dionne Warwick belting out the song  April Fools. Yes, I particularly love her version of it. It’s pure happiness in a song.

In an April dream
Once she came to me
When you smiled I looked into your eyes
And I knew I’d be loving you
and then you touched my hand
And I learned April dreams can come true

Oh are we just April fools
Who can’t see all the danger around us
If we’re just April fools
I don’t care, true love has found us now

Little did we know
Where the road would lead
Here we are a million miles away from the past
Travelin’ so fast now
There’s no turning back
If our sweet April dream doesn’t last

Are we just April fools
Who can’t see all the danger around us
If we’re just April fools
I don’t care, we’ll find our way somehow
No need to be afraid
True love has found us now.

So here I am borrowing the tune from YouTube.  Hello April, what have you got in store for me?

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The Summer Of 42 Reblogged

Moments.  Oh please, don’t ask me how this came about. I was just listening to the music of Henri Mancini, Two For The Road particularly when I suddenly remembered  those movie themes that I regularly listen to on YouTube.  There are times when you get a little sentimental over sad and beautiful music that you grew up with. And I  wish to share  my very first blog which I originally posted at my Multiply site.   My journal entries way back in college don’t count of course, they are more personal – the growing up years contained in a thick notebook  which I still keep until now.  Funny how, this story talks about teenage life, first love, and heartaches. It reminds me so much of those days and nights  that I’ve done the same soul-searching. Life is full of chances to grow a little better, life is full of experiences that teach us how to truly love.

The Summer of  42 (April 22, 2008)

I truly believe that something happens when you least expect it.  Yesterday, while I was waiting for my urologist at the satellite clinic of the Medical City at Ever-Ortigas, I decided to while away the time going to my favorite jaunts. First stop was NBS, they have this bargain bin in one corner of the store and it is always a delight to find something worth-reading.  Next was a visit at the friendly Booksale lady at the 2nd floor.  Third stop was at Books and Mags. I was just browsing with no particular book in mind. There is a growing stash of books most of which I made on impulse buy.  I decided that I will stick to my Wish List and wait for another sale perhaps at Bestsellers and NBS.

Tom Clancy (plenty stuff there), Dean Koontz, Binchy – I found this small volume, Summer of 42 by Herman Raucher, a Dell book, 1971 edition. What came to mind was the music, Theme from Summer of 42 by Michel Legrand. I distinctly remember that way back in 1971, this was one of the contenders for Best Instrumental Arrangement/Composition along with Theme from Shaft by Isaac  Hayes and Theme from Love Story by Francis Lai, for the prestigious Grammy Awards. Of course, Theme from Shaft won hands down (and I still have my Jingle chordbook magazine, Chapter IX to prove it),. But I am digressing here.

Summer of 42 – made into film by Warner Bros. with Jennifer O’Neill (Dorothy) and Gary Grimes(Hermie) as the main characters.  In everyone’s life, there is Summer of 42. A beautiful love story, poignant, warm, funny, sad, coming of age – it is just perfect.

The summer Hermie turned fifteen, he fell deeply  and passionately in love with an older woman of twenty-two and a married one at that.  Along with his two best friends Oscy and Benjie, Hermie spent his time running and playing on the beach and it was there that he saw and fell in love with Dorothy.  The story revolves around the fun and mischief of the three young boys, displaying their raw innocence about sex. It behooves me to think what life was like in ’42.

I dare not describe the details here because it is always best to read the book and enjoy it. The wording  of the song from the book sums it all:

last night I started out happy
last night my heart was so gay
last night I found myself dancing
in my favorite cabaret.
you were completely forgotten
just an affair of the past,
then  suddenly something happened to me
and I found my heart beating, oh so fast

there will be no new romance for me,
it’s foolish to start
for that old feeling is still in my heart.

(note: I don’t own the video, just uploaded it from YouTube)

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Rainy Days And Sundays

It’s been raining cats and dogs since last night and I am glad that I attended an anticipated mass earlier. When I woke up this morning, it was again raining hard, a downpour that  you could do nothing about except to  look out of the window and count the splash brought by some cars braving the heavy downpour.  Yes, a hot cup of coffee would ease the sense of let-down that one feels  but this I guess is also the best time to let your mind wanders. There are things and events that are best remembered on rainy days, memories that give that smile on your face and lit your world like a 100-watt bulb  sans the pain of recalling  the sad times.

Music always brings  that glow of remembrance and the selections at YouTube come in handy when you are reminiscing the good old days. Perhaps you’ll agree with me that the rainy days are the best times to reminisce  or simply put, I may just be growing old. I don’t know but I am having a blast right now listening to Stars on 45  by the Beatles and the Carpenters before that.  And you guess it, my mom used to sing with the Carpenters while making peculiar dance steps alternately with  my baby daughter and her older cousin by a few months.  And you guess it right again, her favorite was Top Of The World 🙂 by Karen Carpenter, the best female vocalist of her time.  That was twenty-nine years ago and my daughter is expecting a son in a few months.  How time really flies!

I am never tempted to watch television on a Sunday, I’d rather catch up on my reading or update my blog, or chat with some friends at our closed group on FB.  So you see, that’s multi-tasking to the max.  I am looking for  more rainy day songs to borrow and upload here at WordPress.  And I remember the other blog I did a year ago, about having LSS when a favorite actor during my high school days added me up in his friend’s list.  So of course here’s first on the list, Rainy Days and Mondays by Karen Carpenter.

And don’t you just love The Cascades?

And this one is the best I think, from the Cascades, one of my favorite groups of the sixties.

And that’s how rainy days and  Sundays go, listening to music and remembering a period in one’s life with fondness.

(Thanks to Vinyl solution, Nelson Wilby  and YouTube for all these great songs)

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Tony Bennett And More

Love’s Theme, Somewhere In Time, Theme From Sunflower, Summer of 42, Percy Faith, Mantovani, Mancini, Paul Mauriat.

Or maybe I am an old soul, liking  instrumental music on a rainy night like this. There is something so nostalgic  listening to the music of old.  Last night, I visited my blog at Multiply and played most of the CDs  that I painstakingly uploaded from my collection.  How I’ve missed the  peace and quiet at Multiply, exchanging comments with a few close friends  compared to the hustle and bustle of  Facebook.  It gets to a point where you no longer want to read what a friend is having for lunch or dinner or what places your friends will visit next or the incongruous shout-outs from some online friends. Maybe I am getting old. I’ve just changed the music to You’re So Vain by Carly Simon and tapping my foot to the rhythm of the music.

The other day, I was delighted to receive a CD from a friend in the US. He sent it through his sister via mail. It’s Tony Bennett’s Duets featuring the likes of  Bono, Michael Bublé, Celine Dion, Diana Krall, George Michael, Barbra Streisand and other famous artists  from the sixties to the present. When I saw the music list, I was surprised to see the name of  Paul McCartney too and I thought, jazz, ballads and R & B  don’t simply mix in one album but it did. It was a beautiful collection, a celebration of the 80th birthday of Tony Bennett.

Music can make you feel happy, it can make you feel sad, it can make you feel like singing too but as long as the emotion is there, you’re okay. It can fill up the void  of feeling alone at times. Aldous Huxley couldn’t have expressed it better when he said ,”After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

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Goodbye Robin

I am actually at a loss for words as I write this.  And I am playing some of their songs on YouTube while doing this blog. One need not introduce the Bee Gees because apart from the Beatles, they’re also one of the most influential groups while I was growing up. Back in the 60’s when I was in grade school, my dad used to have those round flat disks which they called 45  then LPs (long-playing records) followed suit. If you ask me, I guess the 60’s has the most number of  music artists and singers that ever graced the music world. And the era was so rich with unforgettable music including The British Invasion. Ano ang pamana ni Lady Gaga?

Okay, okay, I am feeling so nostalgic that I want to play all the popular Bee Gees music.  Here are some of their well-known songs that catapulted them to fame during the 60’s. Thanks to those who uploaded them on YouTube. Got this particular album Best of Bee Gees on cassette but I don’t know where it is now because we no longer have cassette record player.

Know what I mean? Before you know it, you’ll be humming the same tunes long after you’ve heard them. That’s what you call LSS to the max. I am also looking forward to tomorrow’s hearing on the Chief Justice’s trial. Finally, CJ Corona will grace the witness stand to prove that  whatever wealth he has accumulated during his term of office as a government employee has been included in his SALN (Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth) which is a requirement for them to file every year. It does not matter how much, whether it is a mere P10.00 pesos or $10,000,000.00 dollars, the Filipino people have a right to know the truth.  Always remember this, the truth will set you free and you can sleep well knowing that you’re not hiding anything.

Good luck Jessica Sanchez. Show them  all that you’ve got what it takes to be a champion.  Make the Filipinos proud. Let’s hope that you’ll also find time to visit the Philippines because I am sure you will be welcomed with open arms.

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Goodbye April, Hello May

There were times in my past posts when I would blog about saying goodbye to the receding month and saying hello to the new one. Lately though, life has been a bit muddled so I completely forgot all about it.  April was uneventful except for the time that two more members of my online Apostolate came over to meet me. It was the first time we saw each other after almost two years of exchanging comments at our group.  Carolyn came  home for a two-week vacation and Nestel who works in Angola came over from Bataan just to meet me. These are those times that I truly feel grateful for having friends who show that they care. Lilet  of course has been here  several times already so she knows the place very well.

Ah yes,I almost forgot,  Bobic, my eight-year old niece tagged along when my brother and sis-in-law brought back Mom from  a month stay in the province and we celebrated the latter’s 83rd birthday last Saturday.  My niece was brandishing a new cellphone which is even better than the one I am using. She proudly told us that she got the highest honors in Grade III so my brother bought her a new one. I wonder if this is practical considering her age but she could navigate every gadget she gets her hands on in a matter of minutes, and her texts come with smiley emoticons 🙂  She promised to take a short vacation  here once her advance summer class is through.

Come to think of it, I am listening to some songs in YouTube while typing this blog, humming along with the music, It Must Have Been Love from the movie Pretty Woman. Sometimes, just sometimes, I miss listening to songs  like this, definitely a  I am happy-you-made-my-day kind of feeling, if you know what I mean.  Next in line is Richard Harris’ MacArthur Park, another favorite . Goodness, it’s the thrill of listening to these old, old songs that makes me smile. One thing though that I am always reminded of every time month of May sets in is the song by The Bee Gees, First of May. That completes the nostalgia trip….haha!  I created a new account at Facebook because I am trimming down my contacts exclusively for close friends and will use it as repository for my blogs here on WordPress.  I thought of using  networked blogs, on second thought I don’t want to link every blog I post here.  And I was laughing out loud when a friend made a marathon of reading my links and even had a nostalgia trip reading I Do All My Crying In The Rain because she could relate. We both admire Cocoy Laurel. Those were the days, the days of Lollipops and Roses. 

And in between updating my wall, I am trying to finish Stephen King’s Cell.  This has been with me for the past three years, a book sent by a high school classmate from the US but it’s only now that I got the time to read it. You don’t read Stephen King’s books at night, do you? Because I am sure that if you do, you’ll get a nightmare.

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Always And Forever…Today

It’s now 4pm and the sun is still searing hot. This is one of the hottest summers ever. It really makes one feel so lazy and lethargic. I wonder how long we’ll have this hot weather which easily burns the skin and makes one sweat like crazy. You could not even take a siesta, one leisure you used to enjoy a few months back.

Anyway, I tried reading but the words were a blur so I switched on the TV but the noontime shows were of no appeal to me. Then I found this program called Always and Forever….Today (A Tribute to Angelo Castro Jr.) being hosted by one of my favorite DJs of long ago, Long Tall Howard and Tina Monzon Palma on DZMM Teleradyo.  Who would not know the famous broadcast journalist Angelo Castro, Jr. of  The World Tonight fame?  He was the bespectacled guy with the well-modulated voice, he was behind the longest- running newscast in Filipino called TV Patrol. He succumbed to lung cancer almost a month ago at the age of 67.

They were playing famous songs of the 60’s like The Beatles, Everly Brothers, Vicky Carr, Frank Sinatra, and a spattering of the 70’s  Kenny Rankin and James Taylor. It was a good two-hours of listening and viewing pleasures.  Just like the rest who enjoy listening to the Golden Era of Music, I am a Baby boomer. I was eight  when I first heard of The Beatles and the Everly Brothers and a teenager during the 70’s. Gosh, remembering the childhood years, the teen crushes in high school, the guitar-playing schoolmate who had a penchant for singing James Taylor songs and  watching Tina reminiscing about one of my favorite song writers,  poet Rod McKuen made the hot afternoon tolerable. What makes the music of the yesteryears so different from today? It’s the simple melody, the easy recall and the lovely lyrics. And why are songs mostly about love?  Do they really convey the true meaning of the word?

I remember one of my friends who must have been greatly influenced by the group that he named his son after The Beatles, John Paul George and guess  what’s the nickname of the child,  it’s Ringo, of course.  (Paul, if you are reading this, I am sure you are smiling).  During the 70s, Stairway to Heaven was one of those songs that you kept humming wherever you go and  who could forget the Bohemian Rhapsody, a ballad, guitar solo and rock music all rolled into one? I remember my college days when my close friends and I used to watch the yearly concert of the UST Central Seminary.  I remember those seminarians who could belt out the high notes of the song like a pro.  But nothing could beat my most favorite song which still vividly plays on my head time and time again, Absolutely Free, Absolutely Beautiful by Magic.

Always and forever? Do you believe there is really such a thing? Or do they just live in songs and poems?

P.S. from WordPress:

Goal of 890 Posts Completed. Congratulations!

100%

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I Do All My Crying In The Rain

Ignore the title!

I am just having a LSS  and humming the song like crazy while writing this.  Perhaps most of you won’t remember the group who sang this song way back in the early seventies (I was in high school then). Sounds of Sunshine are more popularly known for their song Love Means (You Never Have To Say You’re Sorry) . It was that line I so clearly remember from Erich Segal,  the author of the book  Love Story and the film of the same title. But that’s another story worthy of another blog. I am getting a little sentimental  right now, watching film clips of the movie, the best scenes and lovely dialogue.

I do all my crying in the rain.

That’s how it starts,  thinking of the good old days. And before you know it, your tears are falling just because the song reminds you of something precious, memories of the past that you wish you could just forget but it is in their very essence that makes  you remember. And the rain outside doesn’t help.

Actually, I found this song by accident last night while looking for something else on YouTube. And I had a blast listening to all the songs I found, songs of yesteryears, songs from my childhood, songs that I associate with the first stirring of love and the first heartbreak.

It started with Cocoy Laurel.

Yeah, do you remember him? He is that talented guy who’s the son of our former Vice-President Doy Laurel.  Remember him in Miss Saigon? He studied at prestigious conservatory schools like the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Juilliard School in New York and The Facultad de Bellas Artes in Madrid. And we are friends on Facebook.  I thought it was a fan page but I was surprised to see that it is his personal account. I am a fan and he accepted my request. What could be lovelier than that? Don’t tell but I got this picture from his site.

What I remember was his  debut movie with Nora Aunor (that long ha?), Lollipops and Roses.  Lollipops and Roses was also his signature song in the movie.  So you can imagine how he captured the heart of a seventeen-year-old-me. Here’s one of his earlier songs,  I think it was also recorded back in the seventies when most movie theme songs were played non-stop over the radio.

Traipsing down memory lane.

I also found Walter Navarro’s videos while searching YouTube for more earlier recordings of Cocoy.  Now I know who resembles Walter, it’s Enchong Dee, Walter was just a little fair and Enchong is chinito.  Walter was one of the top ten matinee idols of the 70’s.

Yes, it felt like I was watching a mini concert last night, listening to the likes of various local artists like Novo Bono, Jonathan Potenciano and Julius Obregon.  The best Filipino artists of the 70’s, where are they now?

(Big thanks to Wilbert’s Music Library for the two videos uploaded here and to Cocoy’s Facebook account for the picture)

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Books And Music

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. – Aldous Huxley

Books and Music.  Music and books. Whichever comes first, it doesn’t really matter because I love both.  As I write this, I am listening to the soundtrack of the movie Dying Young. I have uploaded the whole CD album at my Multiply site. I could not count the times that I’ve watched this particular movie even before I found out that I had cancer too. I love the characters of Hillary and Victor and Campbell Scott was so good portraying the role of someone whose days were numbered because of cancer. It’s now even more precious, if you  can call it that because I can definitely relate. Knowing the feeling of being helpless and down, knowing that you are not hundred percent fit definitely makes for a good cry. And it never fails to make me cry. I was lucky enough to find a copy of the book which was written by Marti Leimbach.  I love the book but I love the movie even better.

I was reviewing my Multiply site  a few minutes ago and I just could not believe that in the three years since I started it, I have made around 645 posts, uploaded several pictures in 128 albums, posted 20 CD albums from my collection and maybe about 50 videos . I love music, though nowadays I don’t get to listen to it much since obviously,  I spend a lot of time in front of my PC.  How nice to listen to Dreams, Color My World, Never My Love, Castles in the Air, Summer Breeze, Going in Circles, to name a few. Can you recall a particular song that you can readily relate to because it was a part of your growing up years? I do. Absolutely Free, Absolutely Beautiful has been and always will be my favorite.  It’s one of the most lovely songs that I love listening to over and over again.  It really holds some kind of magic. Alphonse de Lamartine was right in saying  that music is the literature of the heart, it commences where speech ends.

I’ve finally finished reading the sequel to The Hunger Games which is entitled Catching Fire but the ending is kind of disappointing because it’s a trilogy and we have yet to buy the third book Mockingjay. It was released last August 2010 but my daughter is reluctant to buy the hardbound copy since she has  the first two in trade paperback.   And didn’t I promise to make a review of the first two books?  I will, eventually when I’ve read the last one. There are several books still unread but I was looking for something that is easier to finish, possibly in one or two days. I was about to start with Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, but just like his other books, I am really not inclined to read another one of his. Some readers have made so much hype about his first book which was later made into a movie but I didn’t find it that really arresting. There are other thrillers which are better than The Da Vinci Code. I turned my eyes to reading a few lines of  Rod McKuen’s poetry, and it would make my day searching for that one perfect line that would exactly describe how I feel at the moment.

It’s nice sometimes
to open up the heart a little
and let some hurt come in.
It proves you’re still alive.

If nothing else
it says to you–
clear as a high hill air,
uncomfortable
as diving through cold water–

I’m here.
However wretchedly I feel,
I feel.

Why am I teary-eyed again?  His words never fail to make me a little nostalgic.  Remembering, always remembering.

When the evenings, like forever,
started fleeting, going fast
I could see you at some distance
disappearing in the mist.
In the mass of fondled faces
one imagines in a lifetime
yours was there just out of grasp.

We come into the world alone,
we go away the same.
we’re meant to spend
the interlude
between in closeness
or so we tell ourselves,
But it’s a long way from morning to the evening

Words soothe and define one’s feelings, music comforts a lonely soul.  Books and music, music and books, it matters not really, I just wanted to have a good cry.

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