Kaleidoscope/Map
I remember listening to ‘Kaleidoscope World’ by Francis Magalona when I was about 3 or 4 or 5 or somewhere around that range. The music video on the old dusty CRT monitor was barely there cause the afternoon sun bled from the balcony into our living room that was adjacent to it. I could see shapes moving, muted colors, but the red sun was too bright for the screen to do its job, shadows of a shadow from a half-dead bulb. Yet the song was still there - transcended physicalities, and rose above the chug and pulse of Makati that, more often than not, swallowed moments like these whole.
I don’t listen to that song much, it’s a good listen, but it’s not my go-to song. I don’t even know why I started writing about it. I try to find a reason like “it reminds me of my childhood” or some other filler fit for a procrastinated last minute paper doomed to be a victim of an eye-roll from my AP literature teacher, but I know that whatever I write won’t be enough for me - just doesn’t feel right, instinctually. Maybe the reason’s hidden underneath all that rubble, only appearing in hindsight. Or maybe I’m putting too much meaning into something that I can half-remember, clawing at the edges of a memory stitched up by myself to seem whole instead of a sandwiched dream.
I do know Francis was the first time I thought about death. He had cancer and died when I was 9. Didn’t understand the gravity of it all, thought he was just sick. In the midst of nationwide mourning, I asked my dad if he’d die too, and he nodded. Then I took out one of those magic-8 balls we had and asked the same question to only get the same reply after a heart-wrenching shake.
Still, I’d like to think Francis M as my very first song means something. As I try to draw a map of my almost-22 years here, I know some things happen and they send you off to an unimaginable trajectory even if they only budged you a millimeter to the right. Same way with this song I guess: Francis M to Parokya ni Edgar to Sandwich to Nirvana to My Chemical Romance to All American Rejects to Cage the Elephant to The Ink Spots (played Fallout when I was 11) to Bob Dylan to Alt-J to Sea Shanties (???) to Arctic Monkeys to Bright Eyes to Third Eye Blind to Johnny Cash to Wu-Tang Clan to Connie Francis to Mitski to TV on the Radio to Village People to The Growlers to Tame Impala to Nick Cave to Handsome Boy Modeling School to Hendrix to Pixies to The Breeders to Kim Deal to Interpol to Mos Def to Pharcyde to Skeeter Davis to Blind Melon to Godspeed You! Black Emperor to Funkadelic to The Wytches to Wavves to Slipknot to Machine Head to Death Grips to Swans to Daughters to Beach House to Joy Division to Father John Misty to 70s Cambodian rock to Brockhampton to U.S. Girls to Talking Heads to Portishead to Dr. Dog to The Books to Okonkolo to Sons of Kemet to Silver Mt. Zion to Modest Mouse to The Microphones to Clipping. to Lightning Bolt... and so on and so forth. Jesus, if I kept going I’d probably turn my brain into moldy pulp as the question “what the hell happened there?” keeps pummeling my cerebral cortex while it dusts off memory banks and plays detective in its own crime scene.
I don’t know why I listen to the music I listen to. A lot of maybe’s and a lot of or’s swirl around, not knowing whether they’re “and’s” or not. There’s the usual culprit my cortex suggests that says “Makes me feel good” which is true. And there are some other hippie yaya stuff tempting me to connect the dots but I’d rather throw away the cereal box than spend some time with it.
But it was nice though, to look back, to try and draw a linear map of cringe-worthy music tastes and fail, and to conjure up that image of Francis M, a shadow of a shadow, on our CRT monitor swirling about and layered over by fuzzy static.