I Write The B-sides

This week, I will be appearing at Bintangsepi's Diaryland page as her guest writer. I am submitting to her one of my B-side material, But Lalat, You're Too Young For Me, written around the same time as Thus God Created Penis, although parts of this B-side writing had once been given a bit of spotlight when it was uploaded to the Chronic Mass page, not finished and unedited, on March 3rd, 2003.

For those of you who are not familiar, 'B-side' originated from the music industry, meaning a material, often a song from an artist or a rock band, that did not make it to be released to the public in an album (LP format) or as a single (EP format). The decision to whether or not a material is to be released as an A-side (i.e. to be put as a single or in an album) or as a B-side (i.e. never to be released officially) is often made by the artist or the band members, and not the record company. It is generally accepted to assume that an A-side is a material of better studio quality and higher commercial value than a B-side.

But Lalat, You're Too Young For Me is about, among other things, the process and ordeals of making friends with the opposite sex, or in reference to the central character of the piece, making friends with a girl. There are several parts to the writing: one, chatting with a girl online; two, past experience of a childhood friendship; three, issues pertaining to older girls; and four, dealing with the girl from part one. The timeline varies from the near past (kindergarten and high school days) to the present.

Its title is a take on the material's comment on the kakak/adik angkat phenomena.

The piece was written as a product of both introspective and retrospective thoughts; reflecting on the events of the present, observe them and then question oneself; and going to the distant past, recall a related memory, understand the decisions made during that period and gain answers to the questions at hand. It is rich with small personal details, and most paragraphs are minimalist in nature -- the same sentence structure repeated over and over again, with slight variations each time, to induce poetic air.

But Lalat, You're Too Young For Me was written as the B-side to Thus God Created Penis, which is not so surprising since they share the same male chauvinistic rhetoric and the central character's grandfather appears in both pieces as a source of cause to the issue at hand. As we all know, Thus God Created Penis made it as the A-side for that week, for it was a stronger effort in the aspect of blogwriting alone and has to it a more provocative theme: sex and God and everything in between.

However, the main reason But Lalat, You're Too Young For Me did not make it to the cut, to be published as an original entry at the Chronic Mass page, was that it lacks continuity and flow. It capitalizes too much on the rich details of its contents, hoping that the reader's emotions would react to the central character's opinions as he desires them to be; whereas in Thus God Created Penis, there is no single central character to form and manipulate the reactions of the reader -- Thus God Created Penis is more of a collage of stories and viewpoints that are strongly connected by a central theme/motive. In this aspect, But Lalat, You're Too Young For Me is by far the weaker writing piece.

From time to time, I will release a few B-sides from the past to those who are willing to publish them for me on their site, but it must be said that these B-sides are often in an unfinished condition, and to work on them so that they can be decently presentable to the public takes a lot of time, energy and will.

Read: Thus God Created Penis and But Lalat, You're Too Young For Me