🎧 New playlist? Sure.

After a string of typhoons and earthquakes, a battered Philippines needs your help.

🎧 A new playlist! This should be fun, especially since I was kind of stuck in a rut and needed to listen to some Scandinavian radio to dig me out of it.

This is a piece I've mapped out for a year—although I've been arguably writing it for the last 25 years. Let's talk about mental health, and the "neurodivergent", and why they're being shut out of all those conversations...

🎧 I haven't thought this month's playlist on the Once Monthly that much through.

The third entry in the Once Monthly's Song Trigger series is on Hajji Alejandro's "Panakip-Butas", apparently a Filipino cover of an English song... and somehow much more painful.

The Philippines is engulfed in yet another all-consuming corruption scandal. I don't think anything will change... at least not until we stop turning everything into a morality play.

My latest (read: from last Friday) Plaka Note is on the new album from Lola Amour, and why it might feel like Bini all over again.

🎧 I've got a new playlist, which is mostly about a really rainy July. A tad ironic considering it's really sunny as I post this.

My latest Plaka Note is on new singer-songwriter Earl Agustin, who's apparently gone viral (whatever that means) despite his songs being rooted in very old styles. You may not have noticed because it isn't flashy. But then again, does old fashioned have to be a bad thing?

But then, a technicality!

🎧 This month's playlist on the Once Monthly feels like a one-way thing. I know that doesn't sell it, but do I just say it's a mix of old pop and new pop, or should I still be mysterious about it?

I do a tribute album for this month's Plaka Note, and then go on a bit about whether the tribute album still works as a tool for music discovery in this day and age. Oh, and it's Offshore Music's Cutterpillow tribute, by the way.

And now, kind of from out of nowhere, a new edition of my new-ish Song Trigger series, featuring Lee Hi's "Hold My Hand".

🎧 Yep, I did forget to post my latest playlist on here. I've been busy. I've been yearning for cozy. What is cozy? (A smattering of K-pop for me, in this case.)

...and now, the kombucha of disappointment.

It's not a new month if I'm not spiraling.

Oddly, for the second time in one month, I almost appeared on TV.

My latest Plaka Note is on the new EP from P-pop veterans SB19, who climbed a pretty tall mountain to get where they are. And who else could've done it?

As long as it’s a flight to Manila, fuck your row numbers and fuck your entry arrangements. We will fucking fall in line and we will take our seats first.

This must be my first foreign trip in a really long time where I don't go home with a newspaper. Oh, wait, I transited from Hong Kong and I got a copy of the SCMP. That covers it, right?

🎧 New playlist on the Once Monthly -- and this one's accidentally(!) about staying young, and growing old, and passing on, and all the regrets that come with it.

I sure hope I can see a newspaper somewhere in Jeju today.

🎧 I launched a new feature on the Once Monthly! Say hello to Song Trigger -- one song, and one thought it's triggered. We begin with a classic in the Filipino folk oeuvre, Florante's "Handog".

🎧 My latest Plaka Note is on the latest album from Filipino indie band SOS, and how intimidated I was by them before, and how they seemingly hesitated to go all the way in this record.

I think I'm returning to South Korea in three weeks.

🎧 This month's playlist is a battle of sorts between old and new. Between me feeling more of my age with what radio stations decide to play often, to me somehow finding a connection between Doechii and Rupert Holmes... yeah, you get the idea.

Can I write a post on BlueSky with exactly 299 characters? Maybe if I spell it out, I can. "Two hundred ninety-nine characters?" No, I still have too much, and that's weird, because I can write really long if I set my mind to it, but here, I have to compress everything until it all fits just right.

The latest in the Once Monthly's Dispatches from the 63 series is on Alex Eala capturing a lot Filipino hearts after her stunning performance at the Miami Open last week.

🎧 My latest Plaka Note is, once again, on Bini, the biggest musical act in the Philippines today. They've got their sights on the world, but their new English-only EP, BINIverse, is forgettable... but does it even matter?

I have a feeling something pretending to be someone is attempting to interact with me on Substack.

🎧 This month's playlist on the Once Monthly is a little more random than usual, but I think it sounds good. But also, why is it random? That kinda makes me panic.

Don't call me "bro". That is a microtrigger.

I still have a fear of being banished by the communities I helped build. It's happened so many times.

🎧 My latest Plaka Note on the Once Monthly is on a band I kind of missed all these years, Cup of Joe.

I remember listening to Israeli radio once, many years ago, and thinking that it feels so warm, which isn't a nice feeling considering I live in a tropical country and this was in the middle of a particularly dry season. Will someone call me a supporter of genocide because of that throwaway fact?

Great, yet another sleepless night.

🎧 Despite the ennui, there are still reasons to be cheerful. But the ennui doesn't really leave, does it?

Happy Valentine's Day... and specifically, happy Scorpio Production Day.

The very definition of "adulting": your induction cooker broke down, so you have to buy a new one, stat.

I know she's singing "simulation" but I can't help but hear "secret laser"...

That makes it two gigs in Kapitolyo where I ended up chatting with the mother of the headlining artist.

The scariest part of letting my cat sleep beside me as I work is that he might push my laptop off the desk. And I know he’s capable, because he’s pushed the laptop stand off the desk with his floofy sleeping body alone.

If you have nothing "cozy" to say, Niko, then shut up.

The album reviews (of some kind) are back on the Once Monthly for 2025! But my doubleheader features two records released last November...

I've been worrying about the coffee maker in the office. I don't know how to operate it as I've never had one. Turns out, there's no coffee at all...

My latest Hyperfocus essay marks ten years of GFriend, still K-pop's unlikely heroes after all these years. (There's also a rumination on what constitutes a "warm" Seoul winter.)

Just another day when I'm convinced I'm just not at all likable.

Who would've thought, eh? Friday on the Once Monthly.

🎧 The Once Monthly's first playlist for 2025 is interesting... but it also reflects what has been a pretty shitty month, so there's that.