By Mortz
C. Ortigoza
While
eating our sumptuous lunch treated by Dagupan City’s Mayor Belen T. Fernandez
at the Emerald Hall of the fully air-condition Stadia during the 3rd Youth
(Journalism) Summit, I asked Philippines Star Photo-Journalist Cesar Ramirez,
48, how his collection of old vinyl record long playing (LP) albums and his
phonograph fare.
Our
conversation led to Beatles where Cesar is a rabid fan.
“My first
encounter with the Beatles was when my military father brought me to Zamboanga
City when he was assigned at the Edwin Andrew Air Base, and where the famous
Barter Traders thrive,” I cited.
I was in
second year high school in the early 1980s when I kept hearing college students
led by a “Beatle maniac” and rock and roll freak the diminutive Elvis Bolivar
magnified to wide eyed and gullible school mates about music virtuosos’ John
Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
“My music
standard then was based on Cascades (on their songs like Punch and Judy, Last
Leaf, others”.
“…and Bee
Gees,” Philippine Daily Inquirer's Correspondent Gabriel “Ging” Cardinoza,
who was in our table, butted in.
“..yes Bee
Gees with songs like Too Much Heaven, How Deep is Your Love, others being
played by the blaring loudspeaker of the American Protestants’ ran college
there whenever there was a lull in the occasions held outside the edifices,” I
added.
FM or
Frequency Modulation stations were still foreign during that time in
our rustic town M’lang, Cotabato and one needed to install a prohibitive priced
TV-liked antenna so one can enjoy non-stop music played by FM stations in Davao
City – a three hours bus ride then.
When I
asked the sales lady at the barter trade in Zamboanga that I want to buy a
Beatles' cassette tape, the sales lady asked me what kind of albums.
“Anak ng
baka, madami pala iyong albums ng Beatles na naka display doon sa shelves nila
(Geez, I just learned that Beatles have countless albums that were displayed at
the shelves there),” I told the duo who were amused by my naivety.
Because of
my ignorance, I randomly pinpointed to the blue covered tape with title’s A
Hard Day's Night.
“Veinticinco!” the
Tausog-Chinese sales lady quipped the twenty five pesos tape in the Spanish
sprinkled Chabacano vernacular.
When I
played it at my Japanese Sanyo’s cassette that my father bought too in
Zamboanga after I disembarked from the C-130 military cargo plane at Awang,
Dinaig Maguindanao’s airport, I squirmed as if I eaten a raw ampalaya (bitter
gourd) as my Cascades and Bee Gees honed eardrums were too culture shocked with
those yelling and fast paced singing style of the album’s Tell Me Why and Hard
Day's Night.
“Law-ay
man sang Beatles (Beatles suck),” I told those sons of peasants college
students who bought lines and sinkers the bravados and marvels of the baggy and
faked Levis lousily garbed Elvis to them.
Elvis, the
son of a vegetable vendor, side slapped the back of my Marine white sidewall
head and told his gullible and unsophisticated friends not to believe my
declaration.
“Ignore
him, he doesn’t know what he was talking,” Elvis vigorously warned his pals as
if I committed “blasphemy” to his fabulous four gods.
I told
Cesar and Ging that after two years, I stumbled with the flamboyant self-styled
Bimbo Solis, a soccer star in our town, who brought his powerful sounding U.S
made RCA boom box at an outdoor soccer game, where a Come Together song blared
its melody and lyrics where a "Shoot!” quipped from Lennon, as the
first word of the song, accompanied by his hand claps and McCartney's heavy
bass riff and Starr’s drum roll instantly enthralled me.
“Shoot!
Here come
old flat-top, he come grooving slowly
He got ju-ju eyeballs, he's one holy roller
He got hair down to his knees
Got to be a joker, he just do what he please…
He got ju-ju eyeballs, he's one holy roller
He got hair down to his knees
Got to be a joker, he just do what he please…
(Chorus)
Come together, right now
Over me….”
Over me….”
“Geez, man
that was not only scintillating and psychedelic but sheer serendipity,” I told
myself.
I
felt I had my first orgasm and ejaculation brought by that great song composed
by Lennon to a requested political jingle of Timothy Leary when he ran against
Ronald Reagan in the governorship race of California in 1969.
“Who
sang that song?!” I cried to Bimbo who was enmeshed in deceiving with his
dribbling football skills the vaunted soccer funny man Elvis, yes, that
sonnafabitch who side slapped my almost shaved head that rocked my long chin,
who retorted in between his huffing and puffing: “Beatles!”.
“Beatles?” Those
guys with lousy songs like the Beach Boys in Hard Day’s Night?” I quipped.
Until I
saw the tape cover of the album titled Abbey Road (click
story here) sprawled at the Yanks funded well-manicured grass, just
like Camp John Hay in Baguio City, of the school field.
An album
where the Fab Four in a single file walked on the right side of the zebra
crossing at a street called Abbey Road in London with Lennon leading, followed
by Starr, a barefoot McCartney, and Harrison.
For me,
Abbey Road is the best album of the Beatles’ 11th album. Its
Side B's songs Polythene Pam, She Came Into the Bathroom Window, Golden
Slumbers, and Carry that Weight I could sing with my acoustic guitar with
feelings. I could shed a tear to the sad melody of the last song The End. It
was literally the end of the Fab Four as Abbey Road was their last album (not
Let It Be) before they separated with each other.
In
the early of 2000s I even bought a more than three feet by two- and- half feet
poster at Odyssey Record Bar at CSI Mall in Dagupan City and asked someone to
put it in a portrait so I can conspicuously display it at my room’s wall.
“Come
Together” was released as a double A-side with “Something” composed by George
Harrison and as the opening track of Abbey Road. The single was released on
October 6, 1969 in the US and was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for
16 weeks, and reached No. 1, according to Wikipidea.
Rolling
Stone ranked "Come Together" at Number 202 on their list of “The 500
Greatest Songs of All Time and Number 9 on their list of the Beatles' 100
Greatest Songs.
Video: Gary Clark Jr - Come Together (Official Music Video) [From The Justice League Movie Soundtrack]
(You can
read my selected columns at mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and
articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at
totomortz@yahoo.com)
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