being kicked out because of gnr

I almost got kicked out of school because of the Gun N Roses song Sweet Child o' Mine.

This happened way, way back in high school in Colegio San Agustin - Binan (nowadays, they refer to the school as CSA-Southwoods, pa-sosyal pa!) when I was part of our batch's band, the Hexxad.

A bit of a backgrounder: CSA, like all other Catholic educational institutions is run by priests. In the case of CSA, it is run by the Order of Augustinians who try (notice the italization? I've got a lot against CSA-Binan's particular OSAians) to emulate their patron St. Augustine.

Of course, being a Catholic school, there are rules and regulation that should be followed by its Catholic student populace and this included the types of music that can be listened to, performed in public and generally, "allowed".

This particular incident of me almost getting kicked out happened during the annual Ms. CSA -- a beauty pageant held to determine who's the brightest and loveliest of CSA's female populace (before they made it a fund-raising program which declared the winner as the one who sold the most tickets) -- and our band, Hexxad, was picked to perform during the show.

That era was, of course, glam rock era and the likes of Guns N Roses, Poison, and Jon Bon Jovi were the rave and idols of many wannabes -- us included (our repertoire included such beautiful music as Knockin' on Heaven's Door, I'll Be There for You, November Rain ... catch the drift yet?). And so, when we learned that we were to perform at the Ms. CSA Pageant we chose three cover songs -- Sweet Child of Mine by GNR, Losing My Religion by REM, and if I recall correctly, Isang Bangka by the Dawn.

The choice of Losing My Religion was an obvious attack at the institution running CSA. That was the reason Losing My Religion was the 3rd song in the lineup (Isang Bangka was first). But we never expected Sweet Child of Mine to be the catalyst that would've meant our expulsion from school.

The choice of performing rock songs was already a red flag for our beloved Father Rector and Principal and the rest of the Augustinian priestly community watching the pageant but the whole gang lost its temper when during the interlude of SWoM, I started gyrating onstage ala Axl Rose, dancing with the mic stand and doing all sorts of rockesque antics -- I don't know what came over me but I felt one with the music and that memorable "lead" part mesmerized me into nothingness that I just floated into air.

No, I was not high. I was not drunk. I was not on drugs.

But the Augustinian fathers thought I was since my onstage antics rubbed off on my fellow band-mates and in intance we were "nagwawala" -- going agog -- on stage. Our lead guitarist decided to swagger ala Slash and our bassist was head-banging as if he wanted his head to fall off. Adi, our drummer, was banging away like a maniac.

Up the stage stalked the school's Rector-Principal and demanded that the curtains be closed while we were still finishing the song. The crowd went wild. The last thing I remember before being hustled off stage was looking furiously at our Rector-Principal and basically stamping like mad.

And then we walked out of the stage and out of the gym where the pageant was being held. We didn't finish the pageant and that marked the end of my banding days in high school.

For the next couple of days (which was fortunately a weekend), I blew off my steam and my disappointment. Monday the week following, my band-mates and I found ourselves inside the Guidance Counsellor's office being adviced upon to allow our general common sense and practicality to prevail. We were due for a meeting with the Rector-Principal over our antics at the pageant and the Guidance Counsellor strongly advised humility and to seek for forgiveness.

While we initially wanted to protest and voice the injustice brought about by the prayle system (friar system: during the Philippines' Spanish colonial regime, schools were run by friars or priests), we relented and good sense prevailed (imagine the fiasco that incident would've created with our hardworking parents had we steadfastly refused to bow down).

We finally met with the Rector-Principal and made peace with him. He had initially wanted to expel all of us from school on the suspicion of drug use but was prevailed upon by the faculty and others who knew us that we were just kids who loved that type of music and didn't mean to be discourteous or disrespectful.

Lessons learned, the band and I kept our rock antics out of the school thereafter.

Here's to reliving high school days --