aysabaw.com

This was my first New Year in the island.

Since I worked in the Maldives, I always got the chance to go home for the New Year except this time because of the changes on our leave plans.

Our team had a dinner around 8:30pm. A lot left the table about 9:30pm and four of us stayed until midnight, discussing about the the wrongs and rights of our festive season and where and how else can we improve.

While a lot of our colleagues, the younger ones, joined the guests on the dance floor, all waiting for the countdown, I took a cup of coffee and sat on the dining table to gear up for the long conversation.

Around 11:45pm some of us went to the jetty, the dancing crowd kept swaying to the beat of 90s music played by the white-bearded DJ.

At midnight, we went around wishing everyone a happy new year and at 12:30am, I was already in my room, ready to welcome the New Year in dreamland.

However, as I lied down and opened my phone which I wasn’t supposed to do, youtube showed me this video of Rico Blanco. The title didn’t want me to skip it: Reading Fan Mail from the 90s.

I’m not a big fan of Rico Blanco but I do not dislike him. Rico, as well as the Rivermaya are just like entities. They are just everywhere whether we like it or not, but most usually we do. Anyone from any generation (except the generation in which they have not yet existed) will know at least one of their songs, consciously or subconsciously.

And talking about content, for me, by far this is king. I mean, have you also noticed the appearance of so many celebrities on youtube recently? I feel that they just, probably, realized how much money youtube can offer them given the amount of followers that they can effortlessly accumulate in a short period of time because they are already popular. Everyone suddenly became instant vloggers with contents ranging from a 2minute comical clip to a 30 to 45minute video showing off their closets, bags and mansions. Some of them even take Alex Gonzaga as guest vlogger to probably, let everyone know that they are also, already on youtube.

Back to the content, this is by far my most favorite and this made me like Rico Blanco a lot. This made me see him as a normal human.

Rico has kept these fan mails all these years and have even replied to them. He even remembered the people who sent him the letters. And in the time of social media, Rico’s envelop containing fan mails is a treasure.

This video gave me a nostalgic feeling. Seeing Rico open hand written letters in stationery that were also most probably scented earlier, made me remember about the days that I have collected such. Smooth, scented pastel colored stationery that I have kept in case I’d need to write a love letter to someone  whom, unluckily for me, didn’t come until the time of unli-texts. (Can I write a novel with this title then: ‘Love in the Time of UnliText’ ?) So unfortunately for me, my scented stationery ended up either with my friends or the box that went away with the mud that Ondoy brought into our house.

Several Rivermaya songs were mentioned in the videos and I thought of the songs and how they give me comfort upon hearing them randomly. How they make me feel young again whenever I sing them and how they make me remember my childhood dreams of becoming a musician whenever I play them on my guitar.

And as Rico’s video came to an end, I slowly drifted into sleep while thinking of the good old days.