This past weekend I gathered some friends together and shot what is now the music video for my song, Moontide. I’m posting it today in solidarity with the Lysistrata Project, a worldwide theatrical event in which over a thousand theater groups in over 50 countries are performing
Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata on this day, 3-3-03, as a form of creative protest against war.
Lysistrata is an ancient greek comedy about how the Athenian, Trojan and Spartan women conspire to tease and titillate but withhold sex from their warrior mates until war is stopped. During the course of the play, helplessly hard-cocked men could not concentrate on their war efforts and decide to go home and give peace a chance.
My favorite scene is the Oath of Women. Here’s my own translation:
I will have no military man
For a husband, lover or casual encounter
Not even his boner will win me over
I refuse to put anything on
Except what shows my body off
That every GI Joe may burn with desire
But find no release from his groin’s fire
To warmongers I won’t raise my toes to the ceiling
Nor stretch on all fours like a pussy
Both the front door
And the back door
Will be locked.
As I drink from this cup
I will abide by this oath.
It’s a fun little fantasy, but a satisfying way to express myself as a global citizen. I know there are many people like me who are citizens of one country, yet residents of another. I was born and raised in the Philippines, but I’m a green card holding California resident. Neither government has the right to speak for me, nor wage war in my name. The internet is quickly creating a global culture, and it is to this global community that I pledge my allegiance.
I wrote the song Moontide as an ode to the moon, its power over the tides and its supernatural connection to women’s life cycles. The music video, loosely based on Lysistrata’s Oath of Women, celebrates soft sexy women in sheer seductive fabrics contrasting against militia and industry for a striking feminine anti-war statement.
Pretty soon, my pretty baby
the moon is on my side.
Pretty soon, my pretty baby
she’ll change the tide.