Ear Health and a Concert

Updated 8/31/07

My first exposure to extremely loud music was during a Tears for Fears concert. They had massive speakers and I had ringing in my ears right after the concert and maybe the next day. I later learned that the ringing was symptomatic of tinnitus. I learned more about tinnitus and hearing loss through organizations such as H.E.A.R., which featured ads in a guitar magazine I frequently read:

There's also this article, which explains how hearing loss will likely be more prevalent today than before due to the use of in-ear earphones, loud concerts, etc. As expected, many musicians have suffered some form of hearing loss or tinnitus due to repeated exposure to excessive noise. These musicians include Pete Townshend, Sting, Jeff Beck, Ted Nugent and Mick Fleetwood. This Rolling Stone article lists some ways to prevent hearing loss (e.g. turn down the volume, give your ears a rest after exposure to loud noise).

Speaking of hearing music, I just came back from the Freddie Aguilar concert. It was great to finally hear Aguilar perform live. He sang the classics, of course ("Magdalena", "Ipaglalaban Ko", "Mindanao", "Bulag, Pipi at Bingi", "Anak", "Bayan Ko", "Pinoy", "Kumusta Ka", "Estudyante Blues"). It was pretty cool when he let the crowd sing along to some of his songs. And to hear him sing "Ang Bayan Ko", well, what can I say? Simply amazing.

Aguilar wasn't the only one to perform that night though. Comedian Ella V. and actress/singer Ara Mina performed for about an hour and forty-five minutes as the opening acts. As far as opening acts go, I think Aguilar should've had an up-and-coming Pinoy rock or folk band open up for him. I'm not saying Mina and Ella V. were bad. Mina was ok, I suppose. But I think she knew that the audience wasn't there to see her so she did her best to win them over by going into the audience while she sang a few songs. Gotta give her credit for that. Ella V..... well, what can I say? She basically did raunchy humor. If that's your cup of tea, then you might enjoy her comedy. But I also gotta give her credit for going up there to entertain the audience. Comedy is tough. As the saying goes: dying is easy, comedy is hard.

In addition to the above performers, Aguilar's two sons also performed -- his guitar playing son played two songs while his other son rapped two.... uhhh ... raps(?). His guitar playing son is a pretty good guitar player, but he did a bit too much showboating and posing a la 1980s hair band. Overall, the concert was great, but it would've been nice if Aguilar sang more songs. He only sang for a little over an hour.... a bit bitin, if you ask me. My one suggestion is that there be less of the other performers and more of Aguilar. That's who people paid to see, not the others.

Updated: Below are two (albeit not that great) photos I took during the concert:

Ara Mina goes into the audience and gets swarmed by folks with cameras:
Aguilar performing:
8/31/07

Technorati tags: tinnitus, Freddie Aguilar

Gym Membership

My workplace is finally offering a gym membership for a small fee. It was supposed to have been offered months ago, but there was supposedly some haggling over the price. After all was said and done, the fee difference b/w the original price and the haggled price amounted to about a penny. Way to negotiate, guys. Anyway, I'm looking forward to joining a gym b/c I hate to admit it, but I'm sort of vain. For one thing, I don't like having a spare tire for a gut. I'm not exactly fat, but skinny guys like me can still get a spare tire if we don't watch what we eat and don't exercise. Besides, I'm just a month away from having abs like this guy in the photo at left (courtesy of sfgate), football player Jerry Porter. The thing about my body type though is that unlike my brothers , who are both just naturally big, I got the gene that makes me naturally skinny. So, I have to eat and work out a lot just to look like my brothers (in other words, not skinny). One of my brothers is in the photo at right. I'm the skinny one.

Still, joining a gym has it's other benefits and that other benefit is the use of the swimming pool. Since I've taken up surfing, I probably need to become a better swimmer in case a rogue wave or rip current ("rip tide") drags me far from shore. My problem with swimming is that my calves cramp up pretty quickly. It's probably b/c of not warming up properly or maybe I'm just not as conditioned for swimming as I should be. Either way, its definitely something I need to work on if I'm going to be surfing La Union anytime soon. That's the 'hang loose' sign, btw, not the 'call me' sign, at least in this post anyway.