“Invitations cannot be purchased and are not transferable. Controls will be in place at all entry points to the event to ensure that only persons with invitations are allowed to enter…”

–Louis C. Camilleri, CEO, Philip Morris,

on the E-heads reunion concert

Come on, Eraserheads. This is bullshit and you know it.

I mean, fine, who doesn’t need money, right? We’re in the middle of an  economic crisis, and a couple of million pesos does sound pretty sweet right now. But it’s one thing to write the jingle for a Burger Machine ad or to ham it up on camera to sell Chippy, and it’s another thing altogether to finally agree to come together and play again but only for people who are above 18, smoke Marlboros, and signed up for Marlboro’s Red List.

Thank You For Smoking

Goddamit. I know you’re people, too, and it’s unfair to look up to you as rock gods who will do things in the spirit of rock and roll, for the love of music, and for the sake of the kids.

But you wrote and played the songs that became the soundtrack of our lives and still give us goosebumps more than a decade later. You sold us the idea of friendship and love and fellow feeling and punk zappa and ginataang susi, and we bought into it because you guys were so cool and we felt that you wrote from the heart. I personally gave up my meager allowance to buy your albums and felt like it was Christmas when you played at UPLB in ’99. I fucking smashed my nose into my knee because we were all having a great time when we watched you play in Diliman, and it was alright because it was rock and roll and we were young and the music was fine.

What you’re doing now, getting back together because Philip Morris paid you enough to forget about your artistic differences for just one night is bad enough. Getting together on behalf of Philip Morris to play only for people who smoke their cigarettes, and to get others to start puffing is as unrock and roll as you can get without pissing on a statue of the Virgin Mary onstage while repeatedly clubbing a baby seal until it dies.

What you’re doing spits on everything you’ve ever done since Ultraelectromagneticpop! and makes you just another band who played good songs for a few years and then stopped.

You broke my heart, Eraserheads. You broke my heart.

–OneTamad smokes Winstons.