Archive for May, 2009

Lyrics Translation: Careless Whisper/Pabayang Bulong

Lyrics Translation: Careless Whisper/Pabayang Bulong

Musical burnination = lyrics translation, I say.

Like many people, I have had it up to here with this whole Hayden Kho-Katrina Halili scandal.  It’s not from some moralistic standpoint or an invasion of privacy, but because I cannot stand the song.

I’ve always thought of WHAM! to be that George Michael-led duo that sang “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” but it took the “sex video” (it’s not a good video, and it takes a pair of good eyes to know it’s sex) to make me realize that they also sang “Careless Whisper.”  It seems that everyone is singing it, everyone is LSSing over it, everyone’s obsessing over it, and I bet you that right now someone’s having sex to the tune of it.

Whatever happened to old-fashioned 70s porno music and Carlos Santana’s “Europa?”  Pshaw, people would probably have already had sex to the tune of “Single Ladies.”  That’s a disturbing thought…

Because I’m sick of “Careless Whisper” and the anything-but-erotic tones in it, I have taken the liberty of translating it.

Pabayang Bulong

Translation of “Careless Whisper” by WHAM!

Di ako sigurado
Pagkuha ko sa iyong kamay
At ika’y idala sa sayawan
Ang awit ay namamatay
May nakita sa iyong mata
Naiisip ang pinilakang tabing
At malungkot na paalam

Di na ‘ko sasayaw muli
Paang sakdal, di nagkakasabayan
Ang magpanggap ay madali
Alam kong di ka tanga
Nalaman sanang wag dayain ang kaibigan
Sayang ang pagkakataong ibinigay
Di na ‘ko sasayaw muli
Gaya ng pagsayaw ko sa iyo

Di maaayos ng panahon
Ang pabayang bulong ng tunay na kaibigan
Sa puso’t isipan
Mabait ang katangahan
Walang ginhawa sa katotohanan
Sakit lang ang mahahanap

Di na ‘ko sasayaw muli
Paang sakdal, di nagkakasabayan
Ang magpanggap ay madali
Alam kong di ka tanga
Nalaman sanang wag dayain ang kaibigan
Sayang ang pagkakataong ibinigay
Di na ‘ko sasayaw muli
Gaya ng pagsayaw ko sa iyo

Ngayong gabi maugong ang kanta
Ang kapal ng taong ito mawala na sana
Baka ang lagay na ‘to ay sapat
Masasaktan lang isa’t isa sa ating isusumbat
Ang galing-galing nating dalawa
Sayaw na habambuhay tayo’y magkasama
Sino nang makikisayaw sa akin
Dito ka na lang

Di na ‘ko sasayaw muli
Paang sakdal, di nagkakasabayan
Ang magpanggap ay madali
Alam kong di ka tanga
Nalaman sanang wag dayain ang kaibigan
Sayang ang pagkakataong ibinigay
Di na ‘ko sasayaw muli
Gaya ng pagsayaw ko sa iyo

Ngayong wala ka na
Ngayong wala ka na
Kay mali, kay mali
Na iniwan mo ako

May 25, 2009 1 comment Read More
Dibidi Ix

Dibidi Ix

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The makeshift racks and stands had everything from Victor Wood karaoke compilations, wrestling pay-per-views and movie “sequels.”  The real “treasures,” though, are to be found at the back of the racks.

Just behind the Jason Statham compilations and the “50-in-one” Chinese kung fu movies were the merchandise that kept the enterprise going.  Some other vendors would brazenly and bravely display the DVDs for all to see.  The nondescript table became a Disneyland – more like mall-wide sale – for anything and everything pornographic.  This was all part of “Dibidi Ix.”

“Boss, ix?” The hawker was nudging me, calling my attention to a handful of pornographic DVDs.  “Ix, boss?  Ano hanap mo sir?  Artista?  Intay boss?  Tinedyer sir?  Iskandal?”

Anong akala mo sa akin, manyakis? I muttered under my breath.

May 25, 2009 1 comment Read More
Summertime in Sugarland: The 48th National Writers Workshop

Summertime in Sugarland: The 48th National Writers Workshop

48th-dumaguete-national-writers-workshop

The 48th Dumaguete National Writers Workshop fellows.  From left: Gabrielle Nakpil, Monique Francisco, Mariane Abuan, Philip Kimpo, Jr., Keith Cortez, Marck Rimorin, Jonathan Gonzales, Niño Manaog, Ana Margarita del Rosario, Aleck Maramag, Patricia Magno, Arkaye Kierulf, Stanley Geronimo, Gabriel Millado, Joy Rodriguez.
Photo montage by Fred Jordan Carnice.

I’m a writer, but I don’t write those summer vacation essays anymore than the student who’ll write it next week.  The sandbars become stockpiles for construction work, the sparkling seas get replaced by shiny office windows, and you’re swimming – literally – for breathing space at any one of the three lines of the train system.  So much for memories of summer.

No, at least not this year, though.

This is how I spent my summer vacation: as a fellow of the 48th Dumaguete National Writers Workshop, held from May 4 to 15, 2009, at Dumaguete City, Oriental Negros.

May 23, 2009 5 comments Read More
Line in the Sandbox

Line in the Sandbox

sandbox-picMobile blogging isn’t exactly my favorite thing to do in the world, but I believe that it has its potentials.  Unless you make the whole country wi-fi ready (that is not difficult to accomplish, as long as you’re ready for political scams), the best way to “democratize” blogging would be to use the platform available for almost everybody: the cellphone.

I’ve been using the SandBox service of Smart Communications for quite a while now.  I’m not a techie or what, but I think that Smart had a great idea in making the SandBox service an all-in-one place for social networking, blogging, picture hosting, forums, groups, bulletin boards, video, and just about everything else.

I like the idea of SandBox.  I like the idea of mobile blogging (even if my idea of it is still to lug a laptop to a wi-fi hotspot).  I like the idea of making blogging available to the people.  Yet my problem with SandBox – for the while that I’ve been using it, anyway – is that it’s just too much of a jack-of-all-trades, and a master of none.  I want to see SandBox improve, I want to see more people using SandBox, but it’s just too much of a work-in-progress for me, at least.

May 23, 2009 1 comment Read More
This Is Scandalous

This Is Scandalous

Read “Scandalized (Stripped Down).”

Last I checked, scandals are supposed to spark some sort of righteous anger in the collective conscience of society.  The mob was not above or below instruments of torture: stocks, pillories, ducking stools, drunkard’s cloaks, scold’s bridles, and the every-once-in-a-while hanging were all used as remedies for scandal.  Scandal was a disease, a plague, a pox upon every house in the community.  At least, that’s what it meant for a time.

The boonkaka over the Hayden Kho-Katrina Halili sex scandal sparked anger, all right, but not the kind that hits at the conscience of the people.  Some feel angered, all right, but still others feel aroused by and horny because it.  Different strokes for different folks, but where’s the righteous anger?  Where’s the kind of rage that would have people react to the issue so harshly, so vindictively, in a raging manner, in no uncertain terms?  Where’s the kind of hatred levelled towards Hayden Kho right now that would have us all demanding for a garrote?

Now that’s scandalous.

May 21, 2009 1 comment Read More
Bad Drag

Bad Drag

An ancient Greek legend goes that when Achilles defeated Hector, he stripped his enemy’s corpse and dragged it around along his conquest from behind his chariot.  Victory, humiliation, domination; Achilles treated the Trojan prince like any other piece of meat, like a war trophy, like anything else that may catch the dust from his horses’ hooves and his chariot’s wheels.

Appalled by the treatment of the hero’s body, the king of Troy then knelt before Achilles to offer Hector’s weight in gold, in exchange for the body.  It was then that Achilles had a chilling revelation that his own death will come soon; perhaps, he thought, through a fate worse than that of his fallen foe.

Years later, Paris shot an arrow into Achilles’ heel.  Achilles died.  Ah, hubris… ain’t it a bitch.

May 19, 2009 0 comments Read More