Baker's Going On A Break

Folks, I will be away for a few days to take a much needed break.

To those of you who reside in the US, I wish you all in advance a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday!

To everyone else, take very good care of yourselves.

Although I won't miss my work, I'll certainly miss blogging and bloghopping through your sites. But I'll see you all again in a couple of weeks. Until then, take care everyone!

A Couple of Sentimental Favorites

It's a quiet Saturday evening where I am so I decided to enjoy the moment by listening to some favorite songs. My CD player has been quiet these past couple of months because thanks to a rather busy work schedule, I wasn't able to spend some time listening to any of my CDs. Anyway, with some free time on my hands finally, I decided to end the quiet streak to once again listen to some old favorites.

I've loved this Free Movement song from the very moment I first heard it played on DWRK 96.3.

It was the mid-eighties. I was in college and at the time, RK 96 (which was how DWRK 96.3 was known then) was the station I listened to whenever I needed my "oldies fix".

The radio station was still rather new at the time and during my first couple of years in college, the station broadcasted out of a building at the corner of Senator Gil J. Puyat Avenue (Buendia Avenue) and Bautista Street in Makati City. If my memory serves me right, the building's ground floor was occupied by a branch of the United Coconut Planters Bank. ("UCPB") The radio station set aside Wednesday of every week to play nothing but oldies songs all day. The folks at DWRK called this program "Oldies Wednesday". Or maybe it was "Sixties Wednesday"? Hahaha! I can't exactly remember now but anyway....

It was through RK 96's oldies Wednesday program that I was introduced to the song above. It's called "The Harder I Try (The Bluer I Get)" and was a tune that The Free Movement released back in December 1971. I love the song for the simplicity of its lyrics and the beauty of its music. Talk about true "easy listening". Too bad though that as a group, The Free Movement didn't last long for the group had ceased to exist by 1973.

Anyway, let me just share with you the lyrics of this little musical gem a great vocal group gave us from the distant past:

At night I find that I can't sleep
All day long I walk the streets
My heart is filled with misery and pain
Tears fill my eyes when I speak your name

The harder I try,
The bluer I get;
Lord knows that I
I haven't gotten over losing you.

I can't get over losing you...
I can't get over losing you...

I'm so lonely I've lost my pride
And I've got tears that I can't hide;
Every day I'm so sad and blue
Without your love, what would I do?

The harder I try
(The harder I try)
The bluer I get
(The bluer I get)
Lord knows that I
I haven't gotten over losing you.

Last night I held someone new
But when I kissed her lips I was seeing you
A kiss like this has no meaning you see
And life without you has no future for me

Oh, the harder I try
(The harder I try)
The bluer I get
(The bluer I get)
Lord knows that I
I haven't gotten over losing you.

I can't get over losing you...
(Losing you...)
I can't get over losing you...
(Losing you...)
I can't get over losing you...
(Losing you...)

As for the radio station DWRK 96.3, I was a junior in college when it moved from its humble digs in Buendia to its new and current location at the FEMS Tower 1 Building on Zobel-Roxas Street. I still make it a point to listen to the station whenever I'm in Manila. The building that used to house the station at the corner of Buendia Avenue and Bautista Street is still there. A UCPB branch still occupies its ground floor. Like the song above, this station has remained a sentimental favorite of mine because I remain grateful for the countless songs it introduced to me many years ago, songs I still love listening to to this day.

Lost Them..... For Now

I don't know how many people find themselves in a similar predicament but what has long been a source of personal frustration for me is the fact that I do not know enough of my family's history and heritage. And by this, I'm not just referring to one side of the family. I'm referring to BOTH my father and mother's respective sides of the family. I find it quite pathetic not because I didn't care enough to find out but it is mainly due to the very limited information available from close relatives.

Let me start with my mother's side of the family. My mother does not know where both my grandfather's parents are buried. My maternal grandfather, an only child, was born in 1897 and died in 1983. Both his parents had passed away by the time he was in his early 20s in 1920.

Being the seventh of eight children and having been born in the latter part of the 1930s, I can understand and even forgive my mother for this lapse. However, the situation becomes quite absurd when one learns that none of her older siblings also know where their grandparents are exactly buried. All I was told years ago was that the poor, almost forgotten couple were buried in a cemetery somewhere in Malolos, Bulacan.

However, when I asked my mom the very same question just this past week, she said that there isn't even a degree of certainty that my maternal greatgrandparents' remains even lie in a Malolos cemetery. All she now knows is that they were buried somewhere in Bulacan. Oh great. Just effing great. Now, all of Bulacan's cemeteries just became search candidates. If I had to start my search at this very moment, I would have to first come up with a master list of all Bulacan cemeteries that have been around for at least a hundred years and are still used today. God knows how many such cemeteries are out there. And worse, there's also the possibility that the cemetery those poor folks were buried in nine decades ago may no longer be a cemetery today. For all I know, on the cemetery's old site could now stand any of the following: a children's playground, a subdivision, a tiangge (flea market) or worse, perhaps a row of uber-trendy restaurants. I certainly hope that that's not the case.

At least I know my greatgrandfather's full name if in case I have to search through some birth and death records. Researching about my greatgrandmother would be more of a challenge. Although I know her first name, neither my mom nor any of her siblings know what her maiden name was. I guess I could attempt to find a marriage license somewhere that has both my greatgrandfather's full name and my greatgrandmother's first name on it.

On my father's side of the family, things are only slightly better. In contrast to my mother's side, both my greatgrandparents' names, their birth and death dates are well documented since they're both buried in the family plot at Manila's North Cemetery. However, even though I was told that my greatgrandfather was part of a rather large brood, I do not have any information as to the names of any of his siblings. Neither does my father nor any his surviving siblings.

I also know next to nothing about my dear greatgrandmother. I do not have any information as to who her parents and her siblings (if any) were, and where exactly in Manila she grew up. At least I know her maiden name and that would be a start. She was quite entrepreneurial according to my father. She was the brains behind a successful family business that operated in both Manila and Makati City back in the 1930s. She passed away from old age when I was four years old.

As for my greatgrandfather's heritage, I have mixed information. Looking at old family photographs from the early 1930s, my greatgrandfather had very strong Chinese features. From the photographs I saw, he possessed a rather fair complexion and Chinese eyes. I was also told that my greatgrandfather's father had worked as a cook somewhere in Binondo during the 19th Century. My father and relatives say that we are of mixed Chinese and Filipino heritage. That's probably right because it's quite common in the Philippines.

But again, nobody knows where my great greatgrandfather lies buried. I don't even know the name of his wife, my great greatgrandmother. No one in the family knows what her name was. I have no real information on any of my greatgrandfather's siblings either. My father has second cousins but I didn't find out who and how many they were until I visited Manila last year. What makes matters worse was that in all the many years I lived and grew in my hometown, I never knew (and my father never bothered to tell his children) that those folks had been living in a neighboring district all that time!

As for the origins of our family name, the answer I got was that the name was/is quite common in Batangas. In particular, our ancestors were supposed to have migrated to Manila from Batangas, Batangas. How nice and yet how generic. But here again, growing up, none of my cousins and I were ever introduced to any Batangueno relative. None of us were even taken to Batangas on a single sentimental trip to see an ancestral home. The only memories I have of Batangas were of family excursions to beach resorts in the summer. But no memories at all of any single trip that was taken for the sole purpose of meeting up with a Batangas-based relative.

Seriously, I have my doubts about our family's Batangueno roots. And the reason I say this is based on our family's collective command of the Tagalog dialect. Whenever we speak to each other, we hardly use deep or profound Tagalog words. Our vocabulary is pretty much limited to common or everyday Tagalog words. The deeper Tagalog words we learned along the way often came from school and from people who married into the family.

If still possible, I also want to find out what our original Chinese name was. This is due to the fact that our Chinese features are so strong that people often mistake quite a number of my cousins and I for Chinese rather than Filipino. When I was in Hongkong earlier this year, a lot of locals came up to me and spoke to me in Chinese. It may be close to impossible at this point but I still hope to set the record straight someday.

Given all this family history mess, I definitely have my work cut out for me. I plan to spend a good deal of time in Manila someday to work on sorting these things out. I hope I will still be healthy enough if and when that time comes. I want to know more about my family's past. I'm not very happy with the very limited information I have right now. I feel bad for my long deceased relatives whose names are almost lost to history. I feel bad that as a family, we haven't done a very good job of remembering the people who came before us.

I believe we owe it to our ancestors to keep memories of them alive. I also believe that we owe it to future generations of our family that they get a sense of where they came from and who they are. I fervently hope that records still exist in some government or municipal office somewhere that would provide me with leads or clues as to who they were, where they lived, and aside from us, who their other descendants are.

I'm still not certain as to what I'll do when the day comes and I finally have all the information I've long sought for in front of me. All I can say right now is I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

A Very Big Thanks!

I would just like to pause for a moment and thank a few blogger friends who, over the last couple of months were very kind to award yours truly.

First of all I would like to express my deepest thanks to both Blogusvox and Ever for sharing with me the Oops Award.

Accoding to the folks who came up with the Oops award, the award was created and is to be given to bloggers who inspire others with their humor and their talents, also for contributing to the blogging world in whatever medium. When you receive this award it is considered a “special honor”.

The following Uber Amazing Blog Award was given to me by one of my first blogger-friends, RDL. The Uber Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who:
~ inspire you
~ make you smile and laugh
~ or maybe gives amazing information
~ a great read
~ has an amazing design
~ and any other reasons you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

Her blog was one of the first I enjoyed reading and visiting when I was still new to blogging. As such, a very big THANKS goes out to her.

Last but not least, the following Friendship Award was given to me by Madbong23 all the way from New Zealand. I enjoy reading about his life stories and experiences in that special part of the world.

Friends, thank you very much again for these awards. I apologize that it took me quite a while before posting them on here but please know that I appreciate the thoughts behind them very much.

Oh Those Republicans

This is a piece that I will write straight from the heart. It will also be my last write-up on last Tuesday's election

After suffering a devastating loss last Tuesday, the Republican Party is said to be doing some soul-searching as to the causes of their defeat. They are trying to figure out how to rebuild the party after two consecutive election losses that led first to the Republicans' losing their majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2006 and second, the loss of the White House to the Democrats with the victory of President-elect Barack Obama.

Although Mr. Obama scored a landslide victory over Senator John McCain, the Republicans are consoling themselves with the thought that even though Mr. Obama garnered 53% of the popular vote as compared to Senator McCain's 46%, Senator McCain's percentage of the total vote was still higher than the 43% former President Bill Clinton got when Mr. Clinton won the Presidency in the 1992 elections.

The Republicans still think that they can win the electorate back in future election by emphasizing conservative principles such as their beliefs in smaller and more efficient government, lower taxes, a strong military, meritocracy, strong religious and family values, and the capitalist economic system.

On the surface, those conservative principles the Republicans espouse ought to be attractive to a lot of people, especially immigrants who want to start a new life in a new country. But the problem with the Republicans is that there are sectors within the Republican Party who are racist and stridently anti-immigrant. Although these bigots (let's call a spade a spade here) do not make up a majority of the Republican membership, their voices were loud enough and their numbers were big enough to prevent President George W. Bush and Senator McCain from enacting a comprehensive immigration reform law back in 2006.

President Bush, in the early part of this decade, realized the need for the Republican Party to be a more racially inclusive political party. For all his imperfections, Mr. Bush was a politically moderate man who wanted more minority groups to be welcomed and represented within the Republican Party. He knew and understood that a lot of minority groups share the same socially conservative and pro-family values that the Republican Party stands for. Thus, Mr. Bush worked hard to win the support of minority groups and promised them that he will work to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill into law.

The bill was basically aimed at attracting illegal aliens to come out and register with the government authorities. Mr. Bush wanted the illegal aliens to pay taxes on income earned in the US but in exchange, they could gain a path towards permanent residency. His proposal enjoyed widespread support among Democrats and moderate Republicans such as Senator McCain. However, Mr. Bush ran into stiff resistance from members of his own party, specifically Republican congressmen who hid their racism under the guise of respect for the rule of law.

To make a long story short, the bill was defeated in Congress because of the hardline stance these anti-immigrant Republicans took. As a result, minority groups, especially the Hispanics, who helped Mr. Bush win reelection in 2004, switched their support to the Democrats and thus contributed significantly to Mr. McCain's defeat against Mr. Obama.

The irony from last Tuesday was that the Hispanics and other minority groups punished the Republican Party by voting against Mr. McCain, the man who helped Mr. Bush champion the ill-fated comprehensive immigration reform law. In addition, the Republicans are rapidly losing their hold in the most racially diverse areas of the nation. In the Northeastern region of the US where I live, with the lone exception of Maine, all Northeastern states (New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticutt, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) are now represented by Democrats in the US Senate. The same is true of the West Coast. As of last Tuesday's election, the entire West Coast region (made up of the states of Washington, Oregon, and California) are now likewise represented by Democrats in the US Senate.

If the Republicans seriously want to win back both the White House and Congress in the coming years, they need to reassess their attitudes and policies towards ethnic minorities. The demographics in the US are changing dramatically. According to the latest figures from the US Census Bureau, 44% of American children today are ethnic minorities, almost a 1-to-1 parity. The bureau projects that by 2050, non-Hispanic whites will make up 46% of the US population, down from 68% today.

But in spite of such statistics and projections, a number of Republicans still continue to ignore the immigrant community. They still pursue policies seemingly under the assumption that what worked well for them in the past in a predominantly white America will continue to work for them in the future.

What a lot of Republican politicians and their followers fail to realize is that by continuing to ignore immigrants and minorities, the Republicans run the risk of being reduced to a regional political party and worse, probably an irrelevant one in the years to come. Over the last few days, I read several reports on the web and on newspapers as to how the Republicans plan to revive their party. However, most of the Republicans' plans still fail to mention the urgent need to reach out to minorities. Some voices of reason and moderation within the party see the need to do so but for now, it seems that the Republican Party leadership is still clinging to their old ways.

I said at the beginning of this piece that I was writing it straight from the heart. I did so because of feelings of anger and sadness for the very sorry state the party now finds itself in. This Republican Party was a party that was once led by the great Abraham Lincoln. This Republican Party was the party that had once fought so hard to free the slaves and effectively ended slavery. It is highly ironic then that a hundred fifty years later, due to the narrow-mindedness and bigotry of some groups within it, this Republican Party is a party that now finds itself shunned by the very people it once fought so hard to free.

Congratulations, President Obama

This blog takes a few moments to congratulate former Senator and now President-elect Barack Obama on his historic victory. After a campaign that was remarkable for its discipline and consistency of message, his victory was indeed sweet and definitely one for the ages.

African-Americans have gone through a lot of pain, suffering and injustice since they were imported from Africa as slaves in 1619. It's been close to 400 years since they first set foot on American soil and yet, millions of them remain impoverished, unemployed, trapped in broken homes and live in tough, crime-ridden neighborhoods. The income of the average African-American family lags that of the average white American family. A disproportionately large number of inmates in American prisons are African-Americans.

I just hope that all African-Americans, especially the kids, will find inner strength and inspiration from Mr. Obama's achievement. I hope that a lot more African-American kids stay in school and do good for themselves so that someday, more of them will get to achieve what Mr. Obama did last Tuesday night.

Discovering Me

I want to live, I want to give;
I've been a miner for a heart of gold.
It's these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old.

I guess everyone goes through a phase where a person starts to depart a bit from the person his parents want him to become to that of the type of individual he thinks he ultimately wants to be.

I wasn't introspective at all during my childhood and early teen years. My needs were simple and shallow: I wanted to have fun but at the same time, I wanted to stay out of trouble, especially with my parents. Having fun was easy because I was an easy-going and gregarious kid. I stayed out of trouble with my folks by observing the appropriate conduct when in the presence of other people (except in the classroom), by doing my fair share of the housework (we stopped having maids when I was eight), and by trying my best to earn good grades at school.

Although I passed all my subjects in school, I must admit I passed a few of them without really internalizing or understanding them. I thoroughly studied the subjects I loved but for those that I didn't, I used fear of my father's wrath to motivate myself to study and pass them.

I made a lot of "friends" in school without really giving much thought as to why I even considered many of them as such. I ended friendships either through heated arguments or through fights and didn't think much afterwards as to why those friendships ended. I disliked and viewed some of my teachers with utmost contempt and yet at the same time, I wasn't certain as to why. At home, I did and accepted as truth a lot of things my folks told me.

But my education and all the experiences I had up to that point were all catching up to me. After all the studying and living, I was starting to learn. I started to develop my own views and I started to question long-held beliefs especially in matters of faith, culture and tradition. I started to develop my own interests and views but yet lacked the confidence to voice them to my parents out of fear. In countless talks over the dinner table, I realized that although my parents worked hard to send their children to schools they believed would provide quality education, they were not exactly prepared to hear statements or assertions that went against their own beliefs and biases. Thus, ever the diplomat, I largely kept my views to myself. For the sake of maintaining harmony at home, I felt I had to maintain a semblance of conformity.

But outside the home, things were different. I became a lot more selective with my friendships. Although I continued to outwardly maintain a friendly demeanor, I became more guarded within. I distanced myself from people I deemed were mere users. I shunned people who felt the world revolved around them. Whereas before, I used to hang out with almost anyone in my class, I now started limiting myself to just four or five really close friends. Whereas before, I had accepted the majority's view as truth, I now started thinking on my own. I became more vocal with my friends about the hypocrisy I saw around me.

The process of self-discovery undeniably brought with it a fair amount of loneliness. Everything comes at a price I learned. My struggle and effort to become my own person brought with it a lot of arguments and misunderstanding both within the home and outside of it. I love my parents a lot but there are things in this world where they and I will never agree on. With other people, the process was a bit easier in a way because all it took was to cut off all contact with people I no longer trust or agree with. With the friends I have left at this point, they will probably remain my friends to my dying day. The relationship I have with them is such that they're never afraid to tell me things I may not want to hear and vice versa.

But outside of books and friends, music became a refuge for me. It was through music where I found strength and validation. One of the songs I listened to a lot during this time was Heart of Gold, a 1972 hit by Neil Young. This song had been around for many years when I first heard it as a sophomore in high school. The opening guitar and harmonica riffs conveyed the sense of loneliness one felt while in search of a true friend or a true love. I listened to this song a lot during those days when I needed gentle, caring souls to understand me. This song remains one of my favorites to this day.

Heart of Gold was a single cut from Mr. Young's 1972 album, Harvest. Let me just share with you below Mr. Young's beautiful live performance of this song from the early 1970s. Enjoy.

McCain and "Palin" on SNL

In what could be their last joint appearance on Saturday Night Live, Senator McCain and Governor "Palin" were on the show last night to "raise" additional campaign funds to help counter the Obama campaign's tremendous advantage in campaign finances.

Earlier in the week, the Obama Campaign purchased a half hour of air time on three major networks. Presented as "infomercials" on Senator Obama, these were supposed to package the Senator's "closing statements" in the dying days of this historic campaign. It is known that the state of the McCain campaign's finances compare poorly to Senator Obama's. Thus, the following comedy skit from SNL shows Senator McCain's two-fold "response" by not only getting some air time but also raising some much-needed campaign cash:

I must say that Mrs. McCain did some pretty good acting in that cameo appearance, didn't she? :-)

One very positive thing about these American politicians is that, unlike their counterparts in many Third World countries, most of them don't take themselves too seriously. A lot of screaming, debating, arguing, and insulting may occur between them during the heat of the campaign. But once the campaign is over and the election results are out, the will of the voters is respected and the losing candidate promptly concedes and congratulates the victor.