Secondhand Serenade

Secondhand Serenade; a one man music project by John Joseph Vesely.

He came up with the name 'Secondhand Serenade' because he loves serenading his wife(or ex wife) , mostly with secondhand songs. I'm not sure about this but I feel it makes sense. And it's so sweet of him. Also, it is reported that most, if not all, his songs were written for and about his wife(or ex wife).

What I like about John Vesely? His originality, his ability to tell short, yet very meaningful stories in his songs, the way he puts so much effort into creating flawless albums of powerful songs, the way he puts himself in front of people. His music; it's exquisite, it's overwhelmingly down to to earth, it's such a beautiful form of artistic expression. Almost every time I turn on a SHS song, there's this great gush of electricity cursing through my veins, emotions flashing left to right, it sometimes makes my heart pound. And no, I am not exaggerating how I feel about him.

SHS was a big part of my life, when I was 12/13. Yeah, was. I have no idea why I stopped listening to him for a year and a half. Maybe it's because I listened to him too much. You know what they say, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. But really, his songs never get stale if you listen to them regularly, cause' he's got plenty in store for us, each with a different story to tell. By his songs, meaning, his older songs like, Broken, Awake, Stay Close Don't Go, Your Call, Let It Roll, A Twist in My Story, I Hate This Song, It's Not Over, Vulnerable, Take Me With You, Why, Last Time, Pretend, Maybe, Suppose, Stranger, Half Alive, Like a Knife, Goodbye, The Last Song Ever and End. If you're wondering, yes, I just listed all the songs I can remember by him, but I know that's not all. I definitely think 'Broken' was the first song I really fell in love with from SHS.

Play a song from him and you'll sigh in relation to them, you will feel the need to breathe in deeply and out, for you can't comprehend how much John's words are taking your breath away(Ehehehe). You will indulge and engulf yourself in his music, enjoy every single harmony in the vocals and also the strumming and tapping of his trademark acoustic guitar. You will feel the need to sing along, or at the least, hum along. You will feel tugs left to right, have your pulse quicken and slow down following the beat of his songs. Bring the music outside, look up into the night sky, or serenade a friend and/or lover yourself. :) (Well, maybe that's just how I feel)

I remember when I was 12, my brother, Keith liked playing SHS songs, and I'd sing with him almost all the time. He downloaded a SHS album for us, and even set it into our MP3. But we never had it burned into a CD. But anyway, those times were fun, at night before sleeping, and in the afternoons after school, ...SHS was plugged into my ears.

I think right now, I'm beginning to sound like an obsessed fan. (LOL) But hey, John's really good. And also, I feel really intoxicated for I recently and currently am listening to SHS.

So to sum up today's post, allow me to update you on my week. This week's my first semester's holiday. And tomorrow, I'll be going back to school as usual, so I'll be inactive again. But rest assured, I will always come back to blog, I'll force myself to. LOL. Finally, I will get my eyes off the laptop screen and rest them along with my rest of my bones.

:)

Past Loves (Part 1)

Maybe when you saw the title, you thought, "Oh! A story of Renee's exes!" or, "Past loves? Hmmm.", or... "Past loves!? How many does this ********** have!?" It's nothing like that though. HAHA OWNED JK.

When I was younger(Yes, younger, and I'm only 14), I used to have insane crushes on a few teen pop idols. One of them being Jesse McCartney. But this was all before I turned 12, and my brother, Keith, introduced me to Screamo music. I listened to rock music more often after that and lost all interest in pop (LOL), dissing every top pop hit on the radio and TV. But I'm a bit, laid-back now, if you know what I mean. I like any music as long as they have 'meaning'. So anyway, back to the subject, this was the Jesse McCartney I was head over heels with:

I forgot how hot he was back then. LOL

Really cute.

I miss his golden hair.

But I guess people really 'lose it' after their teen years, the only years they become hardcore heartthrobs. And what were his biggest, top-charting, butt-kicking, heart melting hits? Of course, 'Beautiful Soul' and 'She's No You'. (I never bothered to research on all his songs, to be honest) But I knew, that, he was the one. Meaning, I believed, he was well, the most incredible solo artiste at that time and at my age.

Jesse McCartney, was, basically, a cute guy with a cute voice and sang cute songs. Everything about him was cute, BACK THEN. I remember having my mom roll her eyes every time I'd sing along to his songs on TV and the radio. And having my brothers groan every time I squeal of his appearances on shows, or his songs about to play on the radio. I was just another pre-teen fan, like this decade's generation of, Justin Bieber's pre and pre-pre teen fans LOL. It's a little embarrassing to look back at who I was before, naive and ignorant(and a nuisance LOL).

So this entry's conclusion is: (Allow me to rephrase)He was just another pretty face with a cute voice. Period.

To be continued.

My First Valentines :)

Just like the title of this entry, today was my first Valentines ever :) Today is a holiday because it is Nabi Muhammad's birthday. I'll be going back to school tomorrow and then there'll be another two days of holiday the day after because of Cap Goh Meh(The Latern Festival) Anyway, back to the topic, I planned to go out with Syamsul instead of Judge, but then Syamsul chicken-out (LOL). He asked me to ask Judge out instead. We had two choices, to go to Everise to bowl, or to go swimming, then I realised, I was on my period. ==' So we spent an afternoon at Everise. It sounds so lame, but it's the thought that counts and, I think, the whole date was so sweet. Cause' it's all I ever wanted for a first Valentines date; to go out with a close guy friend and make some memories. Hehe.

We met at the staircase next to the lift near the photo-studio shop and Watsons. At first, we went up to Popular because I had to buy glue for my mom LOL. It was branded glue by the way, so it wasn't cheap! LOL And then Judge helped me choose the right pens. I'm going to give Fardyana the purple pen I bought there. And I grabbed a random comic at the comic section. There were barely any comics left. They must be out of stock. Argh.

And after that, we looked at toys at the toy shop on the 1st floor. I saw this really cute penguin plushie, ...that cost RM29.90. (GARGHHH I'M NO WORKING WOMAN LOL) So I didn't buy anything from there. After that, we went to ground floor and Judge bought two milk drinks, on him. He had the chocolate flavour while I had the blueberry he recommended. We went to the bowling alley while waiting for our drinks to be prepared (Judge's idea) but then I told him that the sign in front of the doors said "No outside food and drinks". So we had to walk down the stairs again and finish our drinks. While enjoying our milk beverages we visited another toy shop, went to Watson's a while, and also looked at watches at the watch shop near the snack corner in Everise.

I dared Judge to pour some of his drink on the roof of the video shop from the 1st floor(where the bowling alley is). But he dropped a milk 'pearl' instead and we hid later. Ahahaha XD Then he paid for me to go to the toilet LOL. And finally, after all that, we went through the doors of the bowling alley... only to find out that all the bowling lanes were taken. They were so many people, and I was shy, so I asked Judge to go karaoke-ing instead. We booked a room for an hour, which cost RM20. We payed RM10 each. On our room's door wrote "60's music, The Beatles" I was thinking, "60's music?" Then looked at the other door rooms, "50's music", "70's music", "80's music" and "90's music, Micheal Jackson"(That's the only artiste I remember, sorry)

The worker gave us instructions on using the karaoke remote. I questioned him about the chinese symbols on the buttons,"Kenak button tok nok basa Cina?"(Why are the buttons in Chinese?) and he replied, "Tok remote ciplak ba"(This remote is cheap/fake) LOL And the screen had Chinese symbols as well. But nevertheless, they had English songs, Iban songs (LOL), and Malay songs too, which Judge refused to sing. He said he doesn't like Malay songs.

Our first song was, if I remember, "Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On", which I sang all myself. Judge took a video of me, unable to hit all those high notes LOL. So it was an epic failure. I didn't do any voice warm ups so, I just went for it. We had trouble trying to change to a new song so Judge called the worker and the worker told us that, we had to press 'next' a lot of times because the 'people' carelessly downloaded the same song over and over so they are many copies of it. LOL And after that was, "Aerosmith - I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing". The both of us sang it. I went on the table and sang my heart out. LOL. Next was, "Backstreet Boys - Incomplete", "NSYNC - Bye Bye", "Bon Jovi - Bed of Roses"(I sang myself because Judge didn't know that song), and then together we sang "Bon Jovi - It's My Life". We also went through a few Pussycat Dolls songs, "Beep", "Buttons", "Wait a Minute" and lastly, "Jai Ho". The last song we sang in the menu was "Backstreet Boys - Drowning", which made me go through some flashbacks of how I used to treat him, badly. Aw.

After that, he decided to walk me home. A few of his friends spotted us, but I didn't care, Judge is my best guy friend. We talked on the way, he told me how he was going and how Sabah has 'rised up' since his family left. He curses it so much. LOL. When we reached the front of my house, I invited him to come in and play with my cat but he refused, saying that he promised his dad he would wait at Everise. Which was nuts because he has to walk all the way back. Before he left, I gave him a long hug, as if, giving the message, that I miss him so much and I wish, I didn't treat him like I did and that I wouldn't want him to be anyone else's best guy friend. I miss him.

To sum up everything, today was great! And let me rephrase, my first ever Valentines date! Thank you so much Judge. You'll always be my best friend :D

EDIT: Seeing that Valentines Day isn't a 'real' holiday, we could only go out today because I'm not studying in the afternoons like normal days.