Last weekend was a bottleneck. Everything just happened so fast. We had a new record, we played in Naga and we almost lost (we may still be losing) a bandmate. We'll come to that later. Everything's just sinking in.

The Naga trip was a sort of brutal shake to our stagnating little lives. That day, was sorta "our most productive" day for years, as a band. You can't help but miss the time when you were just coming together, wide-eyed and full of hope and happy thoughts that you'll be okay. But then shit happens, once, twice, until you don't notice how often it happens, until you no longer even give a rat's ass if it does happen. Until that fateful Friday.

It started off from the beginning. By nature and by human frailty we were becoming hopelessly late for the long trip. Rain and heavy drinking the night before ditched our scheduled 7:30 departure to a mind rattling 10 am. Yadda, yadda, yadda, long trip, silent, long, sleepy, landscapes of green and smell of carabao dung, we arrived in Naga, a little before lunch. More private detours, then we started looking for the Canamaan studio.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, questions for directions, missed turns, shouting, arguments, until we finally found the place. And the first thing that'd come to one's head would be: what the fk happened to the city? It was a little like the middle of nowhere. The transpo left us, and we started looking for food. The drummer from Negative 13th Xray, met us and thanks to him, we sorta have a connection with the world as we knew it. He "assisted" us with the ups and downs of the place, until we all realized it's all downs, and by down, we mean, there was no place for lunch!
It's one of those mistakes "yanos" commit when they speculate that anyplace Metro is a "complete" spic and speck place. And on that day we made the same tragic mistake to think that Canamaan is still part of the glorious Metro Naga. So on that day, the menu was cup noodles, and a pack of soap-flavored crackers. Plus we have to disturb the studio guy for borrowing all sorts of utensils while Negative was laying down their tracks.

For a while with our filled bellies we calmed down. But another predicament arrived. The catch was, the studio things were rented by Bob Marlin for a reggae mon gig later that day, in other words, we have to like record as if the world is at the end of a burning wick if we want to produce something that day.

And of course the pressure was on, and showing. Eric the guitar whiz, had to repeat his tracks a couple of times (which I guess naman is normal in more humane situations), and, I don't know and I don't really wanna know, who kept on farting an unmoved baggage-fart, INCONSIDERATELY, in the air-tight room.
When exhaustion was bending us down, all we wanted was to wrap it up and finish the task. And so we did.

Skip, skip, skip to the Wharf gig. And Flat Earth played their last song for the nth time (heheh). Time to assemble for the mattress. Cheeky goodbyes, drunken banter, high fives, we are the best yowls, and then it was over, doors were closed, paths home were taken...finally. Then the realization: someone was left behind.

Then the drama. And a little blood. And a long, dragging night of arguments in repeat mode. The endless cycle of apology volleyed by drunken minds. Tirelessly a dead end was sought. Until finally sleep took us all.

In the morning, if you had seen the movie "Almost Famous" that part where there was a crazy party where Still Water's guitarist jumped off from the roof to the pool, shouting "I am a golden god" and his friends picked him up in his boxer shorts, and they were all silent inside their tour bus--we had a moment like that. Unfortunately we didn't have an Elton John song for us to sing with and make everything cool again. So there.