Our life's work

Sunday Life
Our life’s work
HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes
Sunday, September 21, 2008

It’s been a grueling month and an especially backbreaking two weeks
leading to Sept. 20. Danny and Boboy and I worked very hard to put on
the best show we possibly could for our 39th year anniversary at the
Big Dome.

It is the Wednesday before September 20 as I write this so I cannot
say with certainty how the show actually went since it has not yet
transpired. I only hope it went well. But what I can tell you is that
it was our best. It has to be. Because every show we do is the best
we’ve ever done, as far as we are concerned. Anything that we could
have done better is hindsight. As in everything we do in life, each
time we do a show, we can only conclude that we really couldn’t have
done it better.

The whole past month got me not just thinking but, more importantly,
realizing that APO can actually lay claim to a life’s work. I remember
one of my sisters telling me about a guy she dated who asked her what
her life’s work was. At that time, she did not know what to answer
since she didn’t feel she had achieved anything or had done anything
significant for any length of time.

I know it can sound a bit pretentious to talk about our life’s work
until you consider that we have actually been doing APO — including
writing, singing and performing — for a very long time. All the songs
we have written and sung and performed, all the places and venues we
have visited, and all the patrons who have seen us or bought our
albums, or liked what we do are witnesses to our accomplishment.

A distinguished, seasoned and accomplished architect can show off
the buildings and houses he has designed as physical evidence of his
life’s work. In our case, what we can show as performers for all these
39 years is far less tangible. No matter how good a show we mount,
people eventually forget how great it was until we do it again. Our
so-called “body of work” is hard to define since performance is
fleeting. Whatever is real about what we do, though magical, disappears
into thin air at the end of the show. In the end, we, through our
representations — such as the songs we have made — live in the hearts
and memories of our public where we share space with other songs
written by other people.

A life’s work is what you have done to define yourself. It is the
entire effort you have put in through the years, on a day-to-day basis.
It is the lifelong effort of chipping off chunks and slivers out of a
solid undefined block of potential, and carving an image and persona
that you long ago decided was how you wanted to be represented in the
world.

That is only one part of it. The other part is, with the same image
and persona you have created, you can act on the world and fashion it
accordingly. People are potential students in the eyes of a teacher. To
a businessman, they are potential consumers. To a performer, people are
his audience.

German Moreno starts his radio program with the classic line from an
old Hollywood song that goes, “Everything that happens in life, happens
in a show.” To a performer who does nothing but perform, the show is
his life, and life is everything. The show therefore is everything.

Danny, Boboy and I subscribe to this, and will continue to do so.
Even amid personal tragedies like the death of loved ones, relationship
breakups, or whatever else life has dished out to us, we have showed up
for our scheduled gigs. The show has gone on. And even in those times
when we were not really up to it, we pretended that we were, until we
brought back the true joy of performing.

The show is life. You default on one, you miss out on the other.

There is an intimacy we experience when we dedicate ourselves to
something we love. Like a woman to a man who desires her, a career or a
calling is something you show up for, fall in love with, and yes, even
marry. A cousin of mine, cynically humorous as he was, warned us about
this. He said that you should never fall in love with your job because
you end up marrying it, and then you screw it!

But I believe that with a real life’s work, it is a perfect match
where you and your career do the day-to-day work of putting it all
together. Contrary to how my cousin put it, you make love to it at
every opportunity, not just to tame it, get familiar with it and enjoy
it, but to be conquered and enjoyed by it as well. And the more you do
this, the better it gets.

But just like in any relationship, there is also the downside when,
at times, you feel alienated in the world you have chosen, and without
that spark to keep going at it. The road is long; it’s quite a distance
through the desert and there aren’t any sure signs of an oasis on the
horizon. But if you plod on, sure enough, little patches of green will
begin to appear.

With APO, sometimes it is work. Rejections happen. But the journey
isn’t over until you give up. Sometimes, it feels like all we do is
bump our heads on a wall hoping that the wall breaks first.

Thirty-nine years is a long time to look back on. But it’s been a
good span for me and my friends. We have put in a lot of effort, shed
tears, and done physically exhausting work. In turn, it has helped us
provide pretty well for our families, and supported our other dreams as
well. More importantly, it has given us a sense of place in this thing
called life.

How much longer will APO last? None of us really knows. Sometimes it
seems like we are running on empty with only hubris keeping us going.
At other times, we feel like a brand-new solar car that can keep on
going forever.

Whichever of these we are, at this point, it doesn’t really matter.
What is important is that we made a choice, showed up and did what it
took all through these years, and continue to do so. It was a choice
well made and a decision well-kept.
* * *
One of my passions is photography.

I am having an exhibit and it will be open to the public starting this Wednesday. Do drop by.

“Skin: A Photo Exhibit by Jim Paredes in Black and White and Red”
runs from Sept. 24 to Oct. 2 at Renaissance Gallery, fourth floor,
Megamall Building A.