Happy Birthday to my little brother, Rodell… that little pipsqueak…

Excuse me while I waste a blog entry to greet my youngest brother, Rodell, a happy birthday.

I think he’ll be a bit peeved at me greeting him a happy birthday when there are only a few minutes left before his birthday is over (his birthday is the 26th, and there are 30 minutes left before it becomes the 27th, haha). Well, actually, since he’s in Chicago right now, his birthday has come and gone by Eastern Standard Time, so… yeah, I think he’s pissed, haha.

I didn’t have money, so the gift I gave him was something that didn’t cost me anything except maybe a couple hours of my time - a customized Friendster profile. Well, I sent him the codes but I dunno if he incorporated it yet, but here’s a link to his profile just in case. You can greet him too, if he seems like an interesting person to you ;)

My brother has finally joined his two older brothers in their 30s. Now, you shall experience the beginning of your midlife crisis, muahahaha!

For those who don’t know, my brother Rodell is an opera singer. A tenor to be exact. You might have already seen him on Philippine television or read about him in the papers, being one of the top winners in the Metropolitan Opera competitions (kinda like the “American Idol” of the opera world). So anyway, he’s working for the Lyric Opera of Chicago right now, racking up some more performances in his portfolio so he’ll have enough arsenal for overseas gigs.

When he was still here in Los Angeles, we were in the same apartment. So imagine my mom passing by our rooms, hearing Verdi or some other dead guy’s opera being sung by my brother in his room, and then after a couple steps suddenly hearing White Zombie or Metallica blasting from my room. Was enough to confuse and annoy my poor mother. But she loves us both nevertheless… such a martyr…

Such a discrepancy in musical taste didn’t stop us from collaborating somewhat. I told this story before, but since it’s his birthday, and he is getting all the limelight in this blog entry, I’ll squeeze in some of my own so I won’t get overshadowed by him… well, I’m already overshadowed by him, like a tree’s shadow over an ant, but anyway…

I had a few songs left over from my rock band days in college, songs that didn’t see the light of day because of my abrupt departure from the Flip lands. One of them was a rock ballad named Going Towards That Light, and when I was trying to play it one afternoon, my mother and brother Rodell heard it, and my mom asked if I was interested in letting Rodell sing it.

Since it was arranged to be sung by ME (yeah, surprisingly, I can sing… who woulda thought!), I had to rearrange it and change some of the lyrics to make it a little more wholesome and fit to be sung by Rodell. The result was… well, you decide…

So far, that was my only collaboration with my brother. I guess I should try and get some more of my songs to be sung by him… when he becomes famous around the world, these little collaborations could be collector’s items, hahaha… yeah right, keep dreaming, huh?

Anyway, happy birthday Rodell. You know how brothers don’t usually get into the brotherly love thing because it isn’t macho, but being my brother, you know how it goes… I’m always kinda glad that my overwhelming amount of talent poured out of my bodily orifices and seeped into you and my other brother, Rommel. So, you guys owe me… yeah, that’s right… When you get famous, I’ll collect…

I’ll end this blog entry with this:

Hmm, kind of an old picture, with me on the left, and Rodell on the right… and our mother looking at us like we’ve both lost our minds… well, as they say, moms know best…