this story originally appeared in the philippine daily inquirer on October 25, 2001.
They say you’re past your prime when you start pining for the old days. If so, I must be getting old. Sometimes I feel like going back to when things were simpler, when life was a Sunday afternoon walk in the park and the future looked so bright I had to walk around wearing shades. But those days are gone and, like Atlantis and Milton’s Paradise, forever lost to us.
What would you change if you could alter the past?
Me, I’d give more attention to my cassette tapes and find better ways to keep them in tip-top condition. This is because my tape collection is the soundtrack of my coming of age. Each cassette conjures fond recollections of someone dear or something funny that happened in the past, triggering a flood of flashbacks that sweeps me back in time.
I’ve been collecting heavy metal and hard-rock albums since I was in high school. I was in second year when my brother, now an AM radio news hound, introduced me to Bon Jovi while drinking with his buddies. He played the band’s “Slippery When Wet” cassette and told me to listen. From that moment on, my musical inclination went askew and veered toward the extreme. Lately I had to explain to him that Linkin Park is to the gentxt what Bon Jovi was to the 1980s.
In time my cassettes overflowed carton boxes and became the envy of fellow metalheads. After a while, I discovered Nirvana and the other stalwarts of the so-called alternative scene: Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Faith No More, Soundgarden, Hole and Smashing Pumpkins. Venturing further, I came across college radio staples like the Lemonheads, Blake Babies and the Eels, and, further still, the more obscure Vanilla Trainwreck, Chainsaw Kittens, the Caulfields and Dillon Fence.
Later I gave in to the lure of the Beatles and the Doors and soon found myself hooked on the psychedelic swirl of the stoned age. The only problem is, recordings of the tie-dyed generation are hard to come by. It’s a pity they don’t sell Janis Joplin records anymore. Bummer.
I never go anywhere without my tapes. Everywhere I move, I lug them along in boxes. And even if I now compile CDs, it kills me every time a cassette succumbs to molds and dust. It’s mushy, I know, but I’d give almost anything to have my tapes restored to their original state. If Santa were real and granted me only one wish, I’d ask that he repair my tapes. I’m not sure, though, whether I’d go so far as to bargain with Mephistopheles, having had ample warning from Goethe.
Why fuss about cassette tapes? Why the schmaltz about thin strips of plastic-coated ferrous oxide? Why wax eloquent on analog schlock when digital is all the rage?
It’s quite simple. I rant because life is short. By rote we mouth this worn-out saw, and it is so familiar we simply take it for granted. Yet we keep forgetting how fleeting life really is. We relegate this foreboding to the dim recesses of reminiscence, where it meanders as figment of thought, a vague notion in the back of our head. We decry its significance when it’s too late, when the end is nigh and the Grim Reaper is staring us in the face.
I hate to state the obvious, but therein lies the faint connection. My tapes are there to mark my time, to remind me to rage against the dying of the light.
And what’s the point of this morbid drivel? Not much: only that life is too ephemeral to be wasted on insouciance, on living without passion, bereft of drive. This is a dirge, but only for those who wallow in apathy, those who thrive vicariously and those who merely skirt the fringes. This is the swan song for those who forgot what it means to be alive.
This is for the motormouths who blabber on without saying anything. This is for the nosy wags who know everything about everyone. This is for the “kitikitexts” who’d rather send messages to someone far away than talk to the one beside them. This is for the disco flies who don’t dance but sulk in the corner and whine.
And, yes, this is for those who only work for a living but never for pride, excellence or fun. This is for those who have found the truth and those who know the way to salvation. This is for the power hungry and the power mad, and those who wield power to oppress the powerless.
You know what this is? This is the knell for you and your ilk. John Donne put it this way: Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
