‘Your papa was a rolling stone’

Would you willingly attend an “Album Launch” that starts at 11 pm, place yourself in an enclosed space with the volume practically busting your eardrums as it reaches needle breaking peaks, while one band performs after another, and then like Cinderella, the featured band called Firefalldown takes the stage at Midnight to crank out music from their latest album. If you’re an “Old school” guy or a senior citizen like me, you might opt to stay home and chill.

On the other hand you could “watch and learn” about the similarities and difference in music and lifestyle that “our generation” has with our children and realize that maybe, just maybe they have improved and learned from our past. As I watched and listened to the bands and the crowd, I told the “kids” around the table that the bands were playing the same stuff their “parents” were playing.

The music remains the same in terms of being rock or metal, reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top. It still speaks of personal and societal issues although the performance is more unleashed. The musicians are well aware that people are taking videos and uploading their stuff unlike their parents or performers of old who had bouncers and signs telling people not to take photos! Today’s musicians need people to upload! Unlike the Old School performers who played music for a living. The younger set are a mix of professional musicians and professionals who have day jobs in the corporate world, they are well educated, well traveled and globally exposed. Unlike their elders, being a “musician” no longer makes you ineligible or poor husband quality.

Today’s bands “live off” smaller cult followings, friends, and family members and unlike old timers who often fought over gigs and star billings, bands today help each other and generally speak well or promote each other. They have to given that they now play smaller crowds in smaller clubs with even smaller stages. The biggest difference I saw was the smoke free environment, people did not gorge or pig out on crispy pata, chicharon. Even the chicken wings went cold and it was OK to order ice tea instead of strong beer. You could actually stay up all night, go home and remember everything you said and did at the bar unlike in my time when people did not even know how they made it home!

As I watched the band Maryzark and Firefalldown I learned that most bands take about five to seven years to come up with new material or albums signifying that they have other lives, creativity is natural and they are not commercially pressured to grind out new albums every year which actually works for the community since there are so many new and young bands that fill in the gap providing a richer and varied menu of music. I hope they all come up with their own music awards body because the recognition of your peers is what seals the deal!

* * *

After seeing a front page photo featuring the masked victims of smoking carrying labels of various smoking related diseases, I really wondered why the government and the combined houses of Congress have not simply outlawed the manufacture, sale and use of tobacco and cigarettes in the Philippines? Since smoking cigarettes ultimately kills people and the deadly weapon that is involved are tobacco and cigarettes why not categorize tobacco and cigarettes on the same level as illegal drugs?

Why should the Philippine government live off on “Sin Taxes” from the sale of a product that is scientifically proven as Cancer causing, addictive, and ultimately destructive of the users body? Doesn’t that make the government and our legislators conspirators or accomplices to “murder” every time a cigarette smoker eventually dies? Do we have to wait for enlightened times when Philippine Courts and Judges follow the lead of US and western courts finding fault against Tobacco companies?

* * *

For the record, I am a former smoker of at least 25 years and I am now paying the price for my ignorance. I stopped smoking in 1991 not by choice but as a consequence of a life threatening disease that mandated I kicked the habit. It wasn’t much of a choice but I ultimately became thankful because it made me mentally sharper and faster.

Unfortunately, the price to pay came much later in life when a lung specialist determined that I was suffering from COPD or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. In simple words I was now regularly prone to getting lung infection as a result of mucous or phlegm constantly building up in my lungs because parts my lungs had been damaged from years of cigarette smoking and could no longer naturally expel or expectorate the unwanted material. As I got older, the bill I had to pay kept coming. The asthma that I had as a child, reappeared and in order to deal with it I was prescribed an “inhaler.” I thought it would only be for a season as in “rainy season” when the humidity was high, but I now find myself relying on it to avoid coughing episodes that interrupt my sleep as well as those nearby.

From time to time I would have to use an air conditioner or a dehumidifier that takes out a lot of the water in the air I breathe. The tough part so far is that I can’t sleep on my left side because I wheeze so loud its like whistling while trying to sleep and you all know that doesn’t work. I wish it were funny but that has seriously affected the quality of sleep and rest for me that I some times simply get up opting to make up for lost sleep later. It is tiring, frustrating and ultimately scary because if I get to live up to the eighties by God’s will, the possibility of having emphysema is highly possible. I can only hope on God’s tender mercies that I am spared that nightmare and it is in that same hope that I share my personal struggle hoping to make a few smokers out there realize what they will encounter if they don’t stop now.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]