POWER OVERWHELMING

A CHEAT. A code for a cheat I resorted to when I knew I'm about to lose in Starcraft, a LAN game I used to get hooked onto in my high school. It amplifies your units' damage in very huge proportions. The first time I used it I felt uncontrollably powerful. I was floating in elation knowing that I'm still going to win with just a band of zealots going up against an army of nasty Zergs. Name it.

I was there sitting in the lobby of DDB, in Two World Square building in Mckinley Hill. I was listening to my own songs in my iPod when a tall and pretty girl approached me. 

"Are you James?", she smiled.

"Yes." I smiled back.

She extended her hand. 

"I'm Kris, was it Rica who called you?"

"Yes."

"Follow me." 

Just a few steps and we got inside a not so big room with a long table and several office chairs. If I recall correctly, there were 5 or 6 of us in the room. 

But someone looked so familiar. She is a beautiful woman and I believe I've seen her on TV. She introduced herself but I didn't hear her name 'cause my mind was flying trying to recall where on TV I saw her. 

"James Leyte, right?"

"Yes."

"How are you? Do you know why you're here?"

"Uhmn.. Rica called me. She says something about PhilPop and that there's a technical problem with my entries."

"Right, right. Actually, we're close to completing the screening and we need to make sure that there are no issues with the entries. What is the name of your song?"

"I submitted two actually. An english song called "Fall Out Of Love" and a tagalog one called "Brown"."

"Great. Let's check Brown first." 

Then she started working on her laptop. 

"Are you sure you didn't encounter a problem when you uploaded Brown?" 

I felt nervous even though the lady had a very friendly aura. I tried to recall the guidelines, the rules, etc. 

"I really couldn't think of anything. I guess I followed everything posted in your site?"

"You believe so?" 

I felt more uneasy. I had mixed emotions. Anxiousness and excitement combined. 

"I guess so?"

"Are you ready to be one of the best songwriters in the country?"

"What.. do you mean?"

"James, your song Brown has made it to the top 14 in the first Philippine Popular Music Festival!" 

I attempted to say something but no words came out of my mouth. It was like I was floating. Her face was like an angel spreading a very good news. There was this kind of energy trying to get out of me. I tried to contain it. I didn't shout. Didn't cry, nope. Hell, all kinds of things entered my mind though. I noticed the camera was pointing at me. I smiled widely. LOL. But I couldn't ignore that power creeping from under my skin. I couldn't forget that feeling.

 I got power overwhelming.
 

The Call That Started It All

Ring. Ring. Ring. I didn't know who was calling. It was a Smart number. Just when I was about to answer it, the call missed.

"Okay, whatever. Back to sleep."

It was around eleven in the morning and I had to catch sleep. Or so I thought. I had to catch sleep almost everyday. The room had no AC. And I've got to sweat all of what I've been drinking every time. Yeah, summer is really hot and humid in this country.

After more than a couple of hours, I woke up. I had to eat something. I left my roommate who was still sleeping and I ate outside in some karinderya*. Since sleep was no longer an option, I decided to go online. Facebook. No messages. No activities on my wall. Still the same pending friend requests from random people. It was a boring afternoon. Good thing though being in a net cafe wasn't as hot as it was in my room. Still, boring. All I saw were friends' posts about how exciting their trips were. Some, taking photos of delicious food. Elementary and high school friends in bikinis. Whew. And some random rants. SSDD. Hate me.

Almost three weeks ago, I submitted two song entries in PhilPop (www.philpop.com.ph). A songwriting contest spearheaded by Mr. Ryan Cayabyab, one of the Philippines' most renowned and well-respected composers. So I checked the PhilPop website for updates. Still no mention of the results. I checked my Gmail hoping to read something like "We are sorry to inform you that your entry didn't make it...da da da.". Not sure if that's worse than waiting for nothing.

I remembered the feeling when we recorded the songs three weeks back. It was one of the times that I felt so satisfied with being able to create something. And it was the first time I recorded my songs in a studio. I shelled out almost seven thousand pesos for the recording of two songs. I didn't have a way to record them myself as I lacked resources. I even battled whether I'd pay my mom for something I owed my brother (complicated story) and the rest I'd buy a pair of shoes. I did go for the recording. But instead of going for my amateur guitar skills (been playing like crap for 5 years), I asked Jez if he could play for me. Jez is a good friend and a guitar virtuoso. We've been trying to form a band but its been months and nothing much happened. How could we if we only meet twice or thrice a month. But I had a soft heart for him. A very talented guy with broken dreams. I thought "Soon, we'll let you rise from all of these." I told him I am about to join a songwriting contest and this one is kind of serious.

I let him hear the melody, gave him the chords and asked him to just play the guitar better than I could. He admitted that he had a hard time on my tagalog song "Brown" as my style on the verses has fast off-beats. He is a blues and jazz player and my kind of style is something new to him he said. It took us two days for him to master it. He did a beautiful job putting in some lovelty guitar leads on both songs.

So two days before the deadline I uploaded my two entries in the PhilPop website. I didn't really hope big but I felt so excited and happy with what I did. There was some feeling that kept creeping me out about the whole thing and I just couldn't explain it.

Three weeks had passed and there I was in a cafe; checking for an update that didn't come. So I went home which is just about twenty steps away. I played the guitar hoping to wake up my friend who was still sleeping soundly. I played and sang for hours just like what I've been doing every time. Same songs. My own and some of my favorites from MJ, Jason Mraz and Maroon 5. I love fast songs. I love upbeats. I love happy melodies. I just love being happy all the time that I even tend to turn sad and slow songs into fast and groovy ones.

Then my phone rang again. Not sure if it was the same number that tried to connect earlier.

"Hi, who's this?".

"Hello, is this James? Leyte?".

Some kind of energy bolted my nerves.

"Yup, its me."


"This is Rica from PhilPop, I'm part of the committee who screens the uploaded songs in the site and it seems like yours has run into some technical problems. Can you come tomorrow probably late afternoon?"


I was overwhelmed by what she said that I just simply replied "Yes."


"Okay I'll text you the address."


"Okay."

The line went dead. I was speechless. A prank? I was not stupid. I knew there was something more than a "technical problem". But I gave it the benefit of the doubt. After that call, I didn't know what eating and sleeping were.




*karinderya = a small eatery usually located beside the streets.