Folk’s Future: Slide by Jake Bugg

In one of the most pleasant ways to discover new music, I was first introduced to Jake Bugg’s music through a commercial, a Gatorade one, of all things. Sounding like a new-age Bob Dylan as well as modern-day contemporaries and fellow Brits Alex Turner, Miles Kane and small hints of the Gallagher brothers, Jake Bugg’s body of work seems unbelievably mature for a young man of only 19 years of age. From his eponymous debut album, this is Slide, a testament to his growing potential as a cornerstone of the folk and indie genre.

Finding a Method to Daniel Day-Lewis’ Madness: A Reflection on “There Will Be Blood”

“I, drink your MILKSHAKE!” (I’m sorry, I had to get that out)

I remember first watching Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans as the film’s protagonist, Nathaniel Poe, or Hawkeye, with his long flowing hair competing with him for screen time. I enjoyed his performance, but to be honest, it doesn’t really take much to portray the prototypical action hero torn between two sides. Then I saw him go nuts as Bill the Butcher in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, which to a young kid back then, was off-putting and disturbing, in a totally positive way. Day-Lewis has always had this penchant for choosing odd, eclectic and diverse roles, from the aforementioned characters, to Irish painter Christy Brown in My Left Foot, to showing some vocal range as Guido Contini in Nine, and most recently, as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln, but it was in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood that Day-Lewis widened the gap between his fellow thespians as one of the acting greats of this generation. He was Daniel Plainview, power-hungry, mad, insane, greedy and psychopathic. If there was a handbook on method acting, Daniel Day-Lewis’s mug should be plastered on the cover. As a guy not brought up in American history and grew up outside North America, he made the California oil boom interesting. He was a man possessed in this movie, and I loved every second when he was on screen. In the same film, Paul Dano portrays the hapless evangelist Eli Sunday (and also his twin Paul Sunday), and while Dano’s performance is entertaining in itself, he is absolutely swallowed and consumed by Day-Lewis whenever both are on screen at the same time, and pretty much for every scene in the film for that matter. He commands the screen in every scene with an almost unquestionable authority, and you can’t help not taking your eyes off the screen no matter how disturbing the scene. Absolute brilliance, and for his efforts, he bagged the Oscar, which would have been a damn travesty if he didn’t.

Six years on and in deep retrospect, I wracked my brain figuring out who could have been Daniel Plainview had Day-Lewis not accepted the role. Nada. Nothing came to mind. Maybe Christoph Waltz could have got the psychopath part down, but he definitely wouldn’t be able to match Day-Lewis’s rage and imposing, primal aura and would probably end up playing Col. Hans Landa again, much as I wouldn’t want to criticize his similar roles in his films. He inhabited the character so well that actor and character seems inseparable like Brando to Don Vito Corleone. You just can’t see anyone else filling in Daniel Plainview’s boots and scruffy facial hair at this point, and the same goes for the other roles he has taken in previous and present films. With There Will Be Blood, Daniel Day-Lewis redefined what it meant to be an actor,  more so the difference between “movie star” and actor. Surprisingly, for a guy who’s been in the industry for over 30 years, he has only appeared in 20 films. He clearly doesn’t do his day job for the box-office receipts. Not everyone does it and not everyone will do it, but he has established the art of acting in a whole new dimension. Acting, in the Day-Lewis sense is like fine machinery: smooth, precise and efficient. A man willing to put himself in physical pain to “pretend”, well in his case, “inhabit” a character is astounding in itself and with his eccentrics both on and off the screen, Day-Lewis, as Daniel Plainview, has given us the best acting performance of the past decade.

In There Will Be Blood’s final scene, as Daniel Plainview maniacally hammers a bowling pin down poor, defenseless Eli Sunday’s skull, and afterwards simply excaliming “I’m finished!” to his butler, Day-Lewis is both scary, menacing and entertaining. To watch a scene as gruesome as this and walk away with a strange feeling of satisfaction and entertainment is a rare feat by any actor, but Daniel Day-Lewis has been doing this all his life. We may wait for 3-4 years for his next film to come out, but that wait will be very well much worth it.

An Old World Feeling

Late last year, Newsweek, one of the most recognizable publications in the world, printed its very last physical issue. Future issues of the publication would now be all-digital, made specifically for tablets and phones for easy access. I remember how in my high school years I would sometimes spend my free time at the library, and read copies of Time, Newsweek and local broadsheets, and it has just occurred to me that maybe in a few years, I’ll only get to read these with a laptop and an internet connection. I remember flipping through those rough pages with that distinct, rustic scent, moving from one article to the next, and fully engrossed in what I was reading which was enough to make me oblivious to the world around me. That was several years ago.

Today, we’re in a different world. The fast-paced lifestyle of contemporary man has forced methods of the past to either conform to the change, or die out. It seems that the publishing industry is on track doing both, specifically the newspaper. Newspaper sales have been down. Major publications have been jumping ship from their physical counterparts and are now making do in the web. I myself haven’t read a newspaper in the past month, even my after-Sunday mass family tradition of reading the newspaper before lunch seems all but dead. The public demands information by the second, and to many, newspapers simply just can’t fulfill that purpose anymore. Newspapers may die out in a few years, but I’d still gladly read one over an internet article any day. Why? Nostalgia? Well not really, and while it’s one reason, it’s something else entirely, something more simple and primal.

The beauty of the newspaper that an internet publication can never have is this: the pleasant surprise. You use the internet to look for something, to search for something specific, something you intend to read or find about. There is that premeditated thought influencing your actions on the web. That isn’t the case with the newspaper. One moment, you may be reading about the local news, next, your reading about a feel-good sports story that you found on the right bottom corner of the page. That’s the beauty. That’s the spirit of randomness and spontaneity involved in experiencing a newspaper. You didn’t intend to read about that certain thing, but you find yourself amused and satisfied by reading it nonetheless. An internet article is just there, on your screen. That link will only bring you to what the link contains. Nothing more.

Another thing the newspaper brings to the table is peace, peace in the sense that it’s just you, your chair, and the newspaper, nothing more, nothing less. You really get into what you read and gain the greatest satisfaction from it. Time takes a backseat and before you know it, you’ve spent hours reading it from end to end, your fingers a tad grainy from the ink.  An internet article brings too many distractions. Ads pop out. You tend to click links that prevent yourself from even finishing what you were reading in the first place. What happened to learning and gaining something from what you read? At this point, it’s all superficial now. The main thing is, newspapers provide that moment of stillness, a break if you will, before moving on to the daily scramble that is life. 

I could name several other reasons as to why newspapers will always hold a special place for me, but those two had to be the most important. That unspoken tradition after Sunday mass looking for loose change in my pocket to buy a broadsheet from a vendor in the street for my parents may now only exist in memory, but newspapers, 5, 10, 30, or 40 years from now will always find its place on my shelf. It’s an old-world feeling struggling to survive in new-age ideals.

Diamond in the Rough: Thoughts on who should be this year’s NBA Sixth Man of the Year

Basketball is a team game, but success in the NBA itself is decided by a handful of superstars. LeBron, Kobe, CP3, you know the rest, but there’s always that one guy, the x-factor that may be the key to getting the precious W. That “x-factor” is the sixth man. A sixth man serves as the leader of the bench, the guy who provides instant energy, the guy whom coach brings in to change the momentum of a game, and lastly, has the potential to become a superstar himself (e.g. James Harden). With that in mind, and as the ’12-’13 regular season nears its conclusion, three names top my list for this year’s award: Jamal Crawford (L.A. Clippers), J.R. Smith (New York Knicks) and Kevin Martin (OKC Thunder).

In that trio of names mentioned, one has won the award already (Crawford), now let’s analyze what each player brings to their team. Jamal Crawford has been one of the bright spots in an already deep bench for the Clippers this season, providing instant offense from the bench for the Clips. With a season average of 16.7 points per game, Crawford seems comfortable playing second fiddle to Chris Paul and Willie Green. Not only does he provide instant offense, but he is also second in total points scored for the Clippers this season, behind Blake Griffin and just ahead of Paul. Seems like he’s poised to take this year’s award again, right? Well, one problem has been nagging him this season and pretty much his entire career that may give his other counterparts the edge in sixth man voting: individual depth. Jamal Crawford is no doubt a pure scorer, with his shooting touch and deadly behind-the-back crossover, he can put up points in a real hurry, but basketball isn’t all about offense. He scores well, but there is nothing else. (1.6 rebounds and 2.5 assists just won’t cut it) There are far more intangibles involved, and this is why Jamal Crawford, whether he likes to admit it or not, is a one-dimensional player.

Now we move on to Kevin Martin, OKC’s prized pick-up from Houston late last year. Like Crawford, Martin is a pure scorer as well, and if left wide open, it’s going to be nothing but a pretty “swish” sound. He had big shoes to fill, taking the sixth man reigns from James Harden, now exploding on a nightly basis in Houston. No one ever said he had to fill those shoes, but Martin could’ve at least tried. Martin is a very streaky shooter, and had one of those shooting slumps earlier this year that may have cost OKC gaining the upper hand against the Spurs for the best record in the West. He suffers the same individual problems with Crawford, scoring but little else. He was poised to thrive in coach Scott Brooks’ system, and thrive he did, but it isn’t enough to garner him the award.

Lastly, we come to J.R. Smith, who obviously after reading the past two paragraphs, is my pick for this year’s Sixth Man of the Year Award. Intended to bolster a Knicks roster prepping for title-contender status back during the lockout, J.R. Smith has proven himself to be one of the key pieces of this Knicks team, dare I say only second to Carmelo Anthony in value to the team. This year, he’s averaging a scorching 17.8 points, a career-best, 5.2 rebounds and 2.7 assists. Surprisingly for a bench player, Smith is second in minutes logged per game (behind Melo). J.R. Smith is the definition of a sixth man year. He can pick up where the starters left off. He brings energy to the team. He isn’t afraid to take the ball into his hands at the closing seconds (as evidenced by this and this). Put him on any .500 team and no question he’d be a starter. He even had that 30+ point consecutive game stretch earlier this year, proving that when the offense runs through him, the opposing team better be prepared to defend. There are honorable mentions for this year’s Sixth Man of the Year (Ray Allen, Jarret Jack, Gordon Hayward), but no other player deserves it more this year than the guy in blue and orange, J.R. Smith.

Shapeshifters from New York: A Brief Review of the Strokes’ “Comedown Machine”

“untouchable”….for a few years at least. (Photo from Pieter Van Hattem/NME)

This album, much to my surprise, flew under my radar quite a bit.  Nevertheless, once I heard about it, I happily snapped up a copy of this latest outing from the self-effacing rock wunderkinds, the Strokes. With my ears still a stranger to the music inside, I wondered if this was going to be an Is This It, the seminal album that thrust these New Yorkers into the spotlight, or if it was going to be like Angles, a complete about-face from their traditional style of effortless garage-rock. After hearing this particular 11-track outing, I can safely say that Is This It can breathe safe,  knowing that it still is the best Strokes album, while Comedown Machine in itself may very well be the best post-Is This It album they have ever put out.

Comedown Machine is a good example of an artist continuing to redefine itself, and continues to defy fans clamoring for their older brand of music. It is different from their past albums but their influences are unmistakable. The opening track, Tap Out and Welcome to Japan, reminds one of the synthesizer-laden Angles, with the same playful and rambunctious lyrics like “What kind of asshole drives a Lotus?” that provide reminders of their earlier albums. All the Time harkens back to the more traditional garage rock of Is this It and Room on Fire, while tracks like Chances and One Way Trigger, definitely sound new, well for them at least. As a whole, the track order is discrete, as it was in previous Strokes albums and very much unlike what you’d see in a rap album, for obvious reasons. Most Stokes albums end with up-tempo and upbeat songs, but it’s different this time around. Call it Fate, Call it Karma ends the album on a solemn note, and to me, is the album’s best track. Lead vocalist Julian Casablancas’ falsetto absolutely takes you to a bygone era: the 1930’s and cleverly ties the album to it’s minimalist album cover, a cover that resembles demo tape covers of RCA records during the aforementioned time. 

The Verdict: How far have they come. Comedown Machine is a chameleon, shapeshifting from track to track, keeping the listener guessing. As an album it falters to create a cohesive mood and atmosphere and lacks that standout song, but each track in its individuality succeeds, and has enough eclectic-sounding songs to make it the best, at least for now, post-Is this It album. For anyone looking for a recent and good rock record, this is it.

Comedown Machine by the Strokes, RCA Records:

01 “Tap Out”
02 “All the Time”
03 “One Way Trigger”
04 “Welcome to Japan”
05 “80′s Comedown Machine”
06 “50/50″
07 “Slow Animals”
08 “Partners In Crime”
09 “Chances”
10 “Happy Endings”
11 “Call It Fate, Call It Karma”

Let’s get the ball rolling.

This was one of the papers I wrote during my freshman year in UP, originally for an Eng 10 class. I can’t think of anything to write about right now, so this paper may very well have to temporarily suffice. Entitled “Free as a Bird”, it talks about a person that may be familiar to some of you who ply the UP-Katipunan jeepney route. Here I go:

When it was time to choose someone to interview for this paper, my class partner Bono and I had a bit of a hard time thinking of who to choose. We immediately decided to not interview a professor, or a student, because we didn’t want an interview with predictable answers. We wanted someone unique and someone no one else would probably interview. With that said, we settled on the “buff” jeepney barker that usually hung out near Vinzon’s and the College of Education as our interviewee. He was one of those people who we see everyday, but really fail to take notice of. In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, this man was just another blur who I passed by, until now.

Having arranged the meeting two days prior to the interview, we started heading to the interview place, somewhere along Shuster Street. I already saw him by the street corner, sitting down on the curb. It was lunch time, just like what we had agreed on. He was wearing a white tank top, dark-colored shorts and slippers; his signature outfit if you will. With his closely-cropped hair and unusually large biceps covered with tattoos, he definitely exudes a tough-guy persona which makes him such a character in the area and made us slightly nervous as to why we chose to interview him in the first place. As we neared his spot by curb, I was thinking of how we were going to approach this whole thing, because funnily enough, we didn’t even know his name.

When we reached him, he stood up and smiled at us, remarking on how we came on time. Before we started, we looked for a place to conduct the interview, and he led us to a small set of stairs leading to the entrance of the College of Education, where he usually did the business of barking. With Bono playing the part of hard-nosed interviewer and I the transcriber, the three of us sat down and got down to the business of asking questions.

Bono asked what his name was and how old he was. With a cool, relaxed demeanor, which permeated throughout the rest of the interview, he replied, “Alex, 33 years old”. Unsurprisingly, he did not reveal his surname, and Bono and I looked at each other in a way that said that we would no longer dare to even ask about his surname. As for age, it was within the range I estimated him to be, though I expected him to be younger. Afterwards, Bono asked him how long had he been a barker for the UP-Katipunan jeeps. He told us that he had been doing this for three years now, and he suddenly became animated when he told us that before assuming the position of barker in the Vinzon’s area, his father did the “barking” for the Katipunan jeeps years prior. At this point, I realize that he likes to talk about his job, more than anything else. Then we asked him what he was into prior to being a barker. He revealed to us that he worked as a photocopier in Caloocan and when that didn’t work out, he spent a year out of work, unemployed and lived the life of a tambay, if you will.

The next question was in the vein of something more abstract and intangible. Bono asked Alex if he enjoyed his job being a barker. Breaking into a smile, he simply said “enjoy”. He then added that the whole process of being a barker was just like playing around and making tambay was the agenda for most of the day. The fact that he had no superiors breathing down his neck like cubicle workers have to contend with and that his time is his own and very flexible at that, makes it all the more worthwhile and enjoyable to him. Next, Bono asked if he had any memorable experiences on the job. He told us that he really didn’t have any to tell us. He emphasized on how he takes great care to maintain his good relationship with his “usuals”, the ones who are regulars when lining up for the Katipunan jeep, Bono and I included. Bono then retorted by bringing up the video that the UP Industrial Engineering Club made wherein some members dressed up as Katipuneros and rode a Katipunan jeep, with Alex making a cameo appearance in the video. Having remembered the incident himself, the three of us shared a laugh.

After the momentary pause from the laughter, Bono then queried him on what he would likely be right now, had he not become a barker. Alex replies in a more serious tone, saying that he’d probably still be in the business of photocopying. He then reminisces on how he was a construction worker at the young age of seventeen. Then he tells us that now he is in a job where he is free to handle his own income. Then came the question of how hard it is to be a barker. Alex calmly replies that it really isn’t difficult. What he earns now doesn’t even compare to what he earns back then. He then explained to us a bit about the wheeling, dealing, relationships with the drivers, and how the whole process works, which is too long to write about here, fascinating as it is. Bono then lays down the final question, actually more of a request, which was to give us one word to describe his life right now. He simply replied, with the smile back on his face, “Happy”.  “Happy with the situation I’m in. Happy with how simple things are. Happy with the friends I have made here in UP. Happy with my relationship with the passengers”, were his parting words to us. And with that, the interview ended. Having shaken hands and exchanged smiles, the three of us went our separate ways, to each their own endeavour for that day.

Looking back at that answers he gave us, he truly shed some light on himself. A nameless face in the routine no longer, Alex defines a man of free spirit, a man who makes do with what he has and does things not entirely for the money, but just for the sake of doing them. Days after the interview, as I head towards Shuster St. to join the queue for the Katipunan jeeps, and as I eventually give my fare to him, he now smiles and we give each other a reaffirming nod, a silent nod that speaks volumes about our newfound familiarity with each other.

So this is the product of boredom…

Having nothing else to do at this point, I decide to write. Write while I still have summer. While I still have time. Write about relevant and irrelevant things and hope that you, the one reading this right now, bear with my self-indulgent ideas.