where the wild things are

BE STILL!!!

why?

because, you can’t eat me.
you didn’t know that, so i forgive you.
but never try it again!

why not?

i have powers from another land, from ancient times. don’t make me show you.
i had to show these vikings once

vikings… is a viking…. ?

they wear horn hats, and they’re big. bigger than all of you!
one time they attacked me in my ice fortress. they tried to cave in the roof, but i had made it too strong.
i told them to be still, but they didn’t.
i conquered them; i had to make their heads explode.
and then they realized…: that i knew all the secrets to the world.
and then you know what happened?….

They made me their King.

happy birthday?

so roughly a year and one day ago, i wrote a note on facebook on my birthday…

i have no idea who started the renowned phrase “happy birthday”, or what they were thinking when they made it, or how long ago it was made. the two words “happy birthday” alone make absolute sense, but when put into a sentence like: “happy birthday dude!” or etc, it’s completely, grammatically, incorrect, or left to be assumed a run-on sentence. now, “i wish you a happy birthday!” or “i hope you have a happy birthday!” makes absolute sense. but not a lot of people use that one do they? maybe when this phrase was first created, grammar itself hadn’t evolved yet, and maybe it made sense back then.
and belated birthday greetings, i don’t believe in them, they are pointless, no, they’re not pointless, they are just grammatically and in practicality, incorrect. because the purpose of greeting someone on their birthday is to wish them a happy day. to wish this upon someone belated, would defeat the purpose because the date would have already expired. i’m not perfect, i also use the phrase “happy birthday” without the “i wish you a” sometimes, but i try my best. life is too short to pay attention to these kind of things, but i do pay attention to detail. and life only goes by faster the older you get, so spend everyday as if it were your birthday (to a degree). and never forget about family, unless they forgot about you.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

i know

i often think about..
if i could change it to how it was before.
however,
with time and growth, life, finally,
restored.

i’m different now, and i suppose,
it’s better than feeling nothing at all.
i wonder how, if the chance arose,
if i’d take that step,
cross the bridge
leap the gap,
i failed before.

pinch in my chest, taught by jealousy, best.
continue my quest,
once more.
is this real? could it be?
inability to feel.. no more.

i sat on mountain tops,
without a hair of awe.
should’ve marveled, should’ve had to lift my jaw.
and now i look at you,
the universe out the door.
taken to a place,
beyond time and space,
i’ve sojourned once before.
didn’t think i’d revisit this soon,
although i’ve seen countless moons,
since then.
heart lifted,
spirit shifted,
jealous….. yes.
for what?
i do not know.
at least i know.

the search

what is life about?
no one knows. (probably because it’s not about anything)
but from experience, i could say mine is, and will continue to be about the experiences, and what i take from those experiences to apply to my future experiences.
although human life is as insignificant as the insects’ crawling on the wall. if not, more insignificant.
what pushes us to continue such a purposeless life?

the fact that we can.

everything we do in this life, whether it be as simple as taking a shower, or something more grand like curing cancer, or creating artificial intelligence, it will be insignificant when we have nuclear war, or when a meteor collides with the earth. everything will reset, and everything we’ve worked towards will be forgotten, as if it never was. life will start again with single-cell organisms and evolve and evolve and evolve. and even if the aforementioned armageddons don’t take place, or are avoided, humans will some how destroy the earth alternatively because of their greed and their need for more.

negativity aside, this shouldn’t stop anyone from living long and wonderful lives.

from the moment i watched the film “dead poets society”, i’ve been about “CARPE DIEM” (seize the day, for those who were born yesterday). i realize no one can “carpe diem” every second of everyday, but it’s a nice phrase to live by.
as i grow and age, i’ve learned that genuine hard work needs to be applied if you are to make “it” in this modern day. you NEED to work your assss offfff! but the payout is always worth it. which reminds me of something my elementary school teacher taught us; “work before play”, “there’s a time and a place for everything”. it’s hard to “seize that day” when you’re working your ass off, but it’s a necessary sacrifice so you can seize the crap out of your future days.

my life is about experiences, especially with love. love for one another, love for the arts, love in general. what would life be without love?

?

i have a dream, that i share with many, a dream that i truly believe is reachable. ever since i realized this dream, every passing year gets better and better. i’m not even close to my dream yet, but i grow and learn, and every year i get closer to the dream, which makes it all worthwhile. if each passing year is not getting better and better, you are living life INCORRECTLY. you need to correct that. you need to find your dream…

insert title here

people often say, musicians are cocky.
because of their musical knowledge, or what have you.
this is a career, like any other.
i would not judge a chef for having the ability to cut carrots a certain way or because they can make fantastic beef stew, but embrace it, and appreciate it, and take from it what i can.
parallel a construction worker, and his/her ability to lay bricks, or concrete.
but if i were to say, ” i can play guitar and sing, bass and drums too”
one would sense arrogance. why?
is it because of the value of music? the role it plays in our everyday lives.
would someone who is gifted in music be seen as more gifted in general?
although the gifted chef creates food. something necessary to our survival.
and the construction worker, shelter, another necessity.
couldn’t we all live without music?
what creates the arrogance?

gotta be somebody

When i was younger, I had this ridiculous belief that Nickelback was a terrible band. That they had no talent, and that only odd people could love such a band. I based this on Chad’s voice, as I’m sure most Nickelback haters do, and not on actual musical talent. I remember a while ago i saw a MuchMusic interview of Green Day, and i remember them making fun of Nickelback and Creed for having similar raspy voices, and i used to think it was funny. Years later… I find that I’m in a completely different situation. I’ve grown mentally and physically. I’ve learned and realized many things and I’ve gotten more mature. Things that used to matter to me before may not matter to me anymore, and there’s certain things I didn’t pay attention to before, that may be very important to me now. My musical taste has changed since then, I’ve grown to be very specific in my music and the music I listen to. The music I listen to has to meet certain standards in order for me to enjoy it, but they are MY standards and are not to be taken for standards that interpret whether a song is great or not.

Over the passed year I’ve heard a few new Nickelback songs… they’re always catchy… but i don’t always love them. “look at this photograph” haha, the way he sings that is very memorable. I remember the first time I heard this song (gotta be somebody), it was on television, and I remember thinking that the video was awesome; cameras panning from space to earth and to different locations and back to space, showing how small and insignificant we are and yet how big the earth is and how many people there are out there. At first, when I read the song title, I thought this song was going to be about being successful and making it, as a human, in one’s pursuits and adventures. “gotta be somebody” I thought it meant gotta be somebody… like to be a somebody. I liked that idea, of it being about success, but when I listened to the lyrics, I liked it even more.

For a long time I’ve been wanting to write exactly how i feel and interpret into a song. I wanted to write a song about finding the one, but my problem is, when I get into songwriting I always want everything to be perfect, and it holds me back from getting a lot of work done, because of my insecurities. I need to learn to just let go and let the pen do all the work. I wanted to write a song about truly wanting to find that somebody, and to try to explain how it would feel to find her, and how it feels while in the process of finding her, and what one thinks about while in the “waiting room”… and this song does exactly what I wanted to accomplish. when I read the lyrics I was shocked, because it was almost exactly how I would’ve wanted to write it, if ever i found contentment in my writing. It’s almost like the song is telling me how I’m feeling, like it understands me.

So now when I think back at that Green Day interview, I also think about myself back then. How close-minded were they, and was I, that we couldn’t look passed his voice and actually listen to the music. I’ve recently learned that Nickelback is one of the biggest and successful modern rock bands, and yet they are also one of the most hated. I think being one of the best, although followed by countless fans, also comes along with countless haters. The biggest and most successful acts always have the most haters: Nickelback, the Jonas Brothers, Coldplay, Michael Jackson, Kanye West. People always find a reason to hate someone, regardless of their talent. So here’s the song and video i’ve been talking about, listen closely, and enjoi the visuals.

like violence, you have me, forever and after.

humans have an absurd fascination for pain. people will pay big money to watch this, but if someone were to die, as a result of this, it would be different, people would be sad, and hurt, or disgusted, as if there wasn’t a slightest possibility. people pay big bucks to watch the best fighters (essentially, a person who has been trained to inflict pain on another human being (which is disgusting in it self, that a human would need to invent such a practice, instead of loving and respecting one another)) battle one on one in the ring (e.g. UFC). to me this is no better than warfare. at least soldiers fight for a purpose, it may be a corrupt one, but at least the soldiers have a goal, a purpose embedded in their minds, they’re risking their lives for a reason. not to say the UFC is at all comparable to war, but it is a simple, less extreme example. humans are the most embarrassing of animal species, everything we do is non-beneficial to our existence. we pollute, we over populate, create useless rules and regulations, put value to unvaluable things in order to sort out different classes of humans, we commit gluttony and the other 6 deadly sins, and etc. with great power comes great responsibility, in this case, our knowledge and brain capacity is the power, and unfortunately humans naturally want more and more, and we are not responsible for our actions. the plants and animals would be better off without us, too bad we’re here to stay. i digress……

so yeah humans love pain and destruction, another perfect example of this: car crashes. you’re driving down the road, you see the remains of a vehicle that has been in a collision, you slow down (risking another accident), get a good view, just like everyone else, you might even pull over and watch. same with public fights, people circle around fights like magic tricks. the more damage inflicted, the more interesting the fight is. people go “OHHHHH” “AHHHHH” and chant “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT,” as if they were robots, as if they were created to fight. then, the most sane and rational person would stop the fight, and shockingly the crowd sighs, “AWWWW”. back in the days gladiators fought for their lives, at the entertainment of all the people. how far have we really gone since then, not that far. there’s more rules, less chaos, modern gladiators live to fight another day, and make a great living out of it, still no morals. no morals then and no morals now. it will never be right to hurt another human being, especially for money. it just goes to show how messed up humanity is when there are multimillion dollar companies such as the ufc, completely based on violence among humans, and yet there are people starving and dying on the other side of the world. i’m not saying you should stop watching UFC, but you should at least remind yourself what you are really watching. it’s not entertainment, it’s live violence, and for what, for pride, for numbers, for pieces of paper.

twitter….?

“ What has this world come to?… when everyone feels the need to be in touch with everyone at all times, to let everyone know what’s going on with them, ALWAYS. i can’t believe something as rEdiculous as twitter has gotten as big as it has. This site allows you to share your current state with everyone in the world or whatever message you wish to vent, and it let’s you know who actually cares about it, that’s pretty much it. websites like facebook, myspace, and even youtube allow you to do the same things, and MUCH MORE. and yet, SOMEHOW, twitter has become SO popular, that’s an enigma to me. There’s a “stay connected” phenomena occuring, ever since the internet became public. It’s all great and everything… people staying connected, people meeting new people, people getting in touch with people that they haven’t been in contact with in a while. But people get caught up, and over-do it, and that’s when it gets in the way of what’s really important (whatever that may be).

I don’t remember the last time that i ACTUALLY missed someone…well other than someone that i really, really like, because that’s easy. nowadays, it’s so easy to not miss someone, because of how connected we are. txt, facebook/myspace/youtube/friendster/etc.., email, cell phone, twitter, msn, bb messenger. Even if you barely know someone, you would still know that they went to mexico 2 weeks ago, they had a martini on the beach with susie and mary on tuesday night, went to the club on friday, took massive amounts of pictures for no reason the next day… etc because of myspace and facebook. If you’re this connected with acquaintances, all the more with your close friends. Remember the days when there was no internet, no cell phones, just home phones. Those were the days when you could actually miss someone, minimal communication. How do you miss anyone in this day and age? How can you miss someone when all you have to do is take out your blackberry and bb msg them, or talk to them on msn, or go on their facebook and write on their wall, or you can even go oldschool and actually call them, all on the same little device, the glory that is BlackBerry. I always see wall posts on facebook saying i miss you this, i miss you that.. which i don’t believe. When they say “you” i assume they mean the “you” mind, body, soul. but really, you could extract mind and soul connection from them through internet or telephone.. so really, all they’re missing is their body, what they really miss, is their physical body….anyways, i’m digressing, let’s get back to the topic….

twitter, it’s so stupid. you can even connect your facebook status to your twitter status, which i find is the BIG BRIGHT SIGN, telling everyone how idiotic it is, cus they’re pretty much telling you, “Look how great we are! We are so great that we can get you (the idiot, but VALUED customer) to be an existing facebook member (a site with much greater capabilities), to sign up with us, because you can share the capabilities on our wonderful website, even though facebook can do the exact same things on it’s own.” I could only conjure up 3 main uses for status updates on facebook/youtube/myspace, or twitter. 1) to advertise, to get a name out, for exposure, because they know people will see it. 2) to teach, to inform the masses with whatever it is you feel needs to be heard. 3) to create attention, because you love the attention, attention whore. i’m not saying that’s a bad thing, don’t get me wrong, if you love attention, there’s nothing wrong with that. reminds me of my ex-girlfriend, i remember she used to like changing her status a lot, to let everyone know what’s going on..and back then i never used to change mine, and it confuzzled me, cus i couldn’t think of any reasons why anyone would want to do such a thing. i like to think i’m a practical and rational thinker, so i asked her, cus truth be told, it annoyed me, being practical and all. we got into a fight, her only argument was that she liked doing it, and like i said earlier, if you like doing it, nothing wrong with that. I kept telling her, “oh, cus you like the attention.” and that’s why we fought, cus she denied it. What other reasons could there be other than, to create attention? people who don’t like attention, write in journals, or make personal messages to individuals, they don’t post it on the street for everyone to read. so.. that fight went nowhere, cus both of us thought we were right. But nowadays i change my status on facebook, and yes FOR ATTENTION. BUT, 99% of the time, i do it to advertise music, my band, something i like, or just something that i need to get across to everyone. I’m not gonna say that I’ve never had a pointless status change, cus i’ve prolly had one before. “Pointless“, as in, Arthur: notices it’s raining outside.

I think i know why twitter is so popular, because celebrities use it. But what people don’t really understand is.. celebrities and people in the media, use it to become more popular, because they NEED people to care about them, or their spark will fade. Deep down, everyone wants to be a celebrity. “

follow A12Tsatelites at http://twitter.com

where is the love?

where is the true love? every song on the radio is about sex, money, drugs, violence, or the negative effects of love and relationships. what happened to all the ballads, the romantic love songs that have captivated music lovers hearts for decades? when was the last time you heard a truly great love song? would the human race rather “make love in this club” or “lean and rock wit it” or “bust caps” and “empty their clips”, instead of fall deeply in love, which in my opinion is the definition of existence, if there were such a thing. in my opinion, to write a song or poem about true love and be able to captivate someone and inspire someone to believe in love and to aspire the coming of the moment when such events occur in their lives would be one  of the noblest of acts.

it is in human nature to seek companionship, no one wants to be alone. the f***ed up thing is, the media has desensitized our minds to sex, drugs, and violence. if i saw a hot, naked, drug addict, fighting another hot, naked, drug addict, i wouldn’t think much of it, nor would i have a hard-on if the woman was just in the nude. this is how desensitized i am as i’m sure many of you are. i think this plays a huge factor in today’s society. people place too much value on immaterial things, things that our role models or people we admire, glorify. unfortunately it is also in human nature to want more and more and more. we will always have technological advancements and will always feel the need to research countless unnecessary matter believing it to be beneficial to our existence, instead of focusing on what’s truly important. i wonder what the elderly think about, as each new generation spawns and grows and ages. media has turned us into a money loving, sex prowling, drug abusing society, although it was bound to happen, you can’t help but wonder where we went wrong. or perhaps you don’t wonder, perhaps i have been doing too much pondering.

the way media effects society has a direct effect on popular music. popular artists nowadays glorify sex, money, drugs, violence…. just very unessential things. as the generations come and go, we slowly lose all the important things, all the meaningful things, and thus losing the lyrical content. back in the days when there was no internet, or cell phones, or cd players, back when women wore their skirts at a certain level, and men were gentlemen,  and life was very simple. go to school, work, get married, stay married, have children, and the cycle continues. times when musicians wrote love ballads. songs about falling in love, being in love, forever. theres a reason why love ballads are so popular and why they are timeless. people can directly relate to love  whether they are in love or long for it. and no matter how much time passes, a classic love ballad will stay relative and will be passed down through the generations. there’s a reason why boy groups always get so popular and it’s not just cus of all the sex appeal it’s because they sing love songs, and whether or not a little girl is attracted to them, everyone out there can relate. i’ve noticed that there are no more boy groups, no more catchy boy band love songs. when i was a kid, nsync and backstreet boys were very popular with little girls. little boys would never admit interest in those boy bands, but as you grow older you begin to relate to the songs, and as you grow even older, you realize how great those songs reallyare and no longer feel ashamed of liking them. nsync and backstreetboys are like my generations stylistics or temptations. but the point is, no one’s making real love songs any more, and i know one day people will realize that songs like “slow-motion love” and “where one world ends” by my band Satelites, have the content that music is missing, classic love songs with romantic lyrics, not heartbreak… heartmake. love is the movement.

the first day of summer

so the first day of summer has finally arrived, and what better way to showcase its fruits, but with great weather.  i went outside and practiced skateboarding, and in between breaks i had my guitar handy, strummed a few chords. happy go skateboarding day, happy first day of summer, happy fathers day, and happy birthday to katrina and luis! damn, i probably should have gone to the beach today, unfortunately i have not a companion to accompany me. i haven’t been feeling like myself lately (which i will blog about another time) and the days feel less and less valuable or meaningful unless something truly eventful occurs. summer doesn’t feel like summer anymore, until i look back at it. tonight i watched the new star trek movie with gerald, which was quite entertaining, but that wasn’t the important part. afterwords, gerald and i walked out of the theatre at about 9:02 p.m. and the sun was still out. one thing i love about summer is, the sun loves summer too and she stays out for a long time. clouds were almost untraceable, i probably should have taken a photograph with my phone, beautiful shades of blue fading in and out, yellow and orange too. wind, at a pleasing temperature…. it felt like summer, and today was only the first day, how refreshing! i love hoody and shorts weather, and tonight was one of those nights although i was not wearing a hoody. i long anticipated nights like tonight, but i have further dreamt of the one i would spend such nights with. i long for those future summers, and those future summer nights. but one should not dwell within a time frame not tangent to the present, or will lose grasp of life. excuse me as i digress. on the bus ride home, a stranger disclosed his relation to us. a former school mate from our highschool that recognized us, i recognized him as well, but i am not one of those people who would randomly admit it on the bus. he told me that he watched the television show i was on and recognized me and my band from school, he sent his support and genuine interest and we spoke of the outcome of the show until i got off the bus…

i like it when you can talk to a stranger or an acquaintance and not have a very awkward conversation or one that has to end when both parties run out of words to say. walking home from the bus stop was a treat. the weather was very accommodating, so much that after entering my quarters, i picked up my notepad and Ipod, and made my way to the bus stop outside of my building, sat down, and wrote a verse. this is how i spent the first day of summer.