Often compared to Letters to Cleo, Juliana Hatfield, That Dog, Tanya Donelly, and Veruca Salt, this Tracy Bonham is the same dudette that took last year’s Boston Music award by storm. And now with her latest album, she’s whipping through the charts again with her gullet-wrenching lead single “Mother Mother.”

“Mother Mother” sets the mood for her album. Written as a phone call of a living-on-her-own daughter to her mother, this song starts of with an easy albeit sharp flow of lyrics. Then, wham, she belts out a scream in the refrain, intimating the repressed screams of the child of this age in the US.

“Navy Bean” follows as a melodic rock, then a prayerful “Tell it to the Sky.” “Kisses” comes close to becoming another angry-girl lilting yarn. “Brain Crack” becomes one of the more imagist of the songs. “The One” pulls off excellent guitar work before Side A closes with an on-and-off “One Hit Wonder.”

Side B pulls off five more Bonham songs that display her wonderful range and minute weaknesses., doing well as I drive along EDSA back and forth. I’m hungry, I’m dirty—goes one song—I’m losing my mind!... But thankfully, this album rocks well and keeps me sane during rush-hour traffic.

“The songs are not really complaints, but they are little observations. They're human. Life and death, this and that. It just felt like the image of a person with a whole bunch of burdens trying to remain upright, sturdy,” Bonham says of the title.

After the Mari Mar flashflood, another Mexican pop culture icon is invading our tvs. Who else but Sergio of Mari Mar?

So far, I have seen his incessant black and white, well-edited MTV on RPN 9, oh about a dozen or so times. The tune is catchy, his voice pop-py, the lyrics undecipherable, something you can shake you hips to.

But five viewings ago, I managed to pay attention and catch the beginning of the MTV. Morato Alert! Morato Alert!

The MTV cuts the image of Cappetillo smoking/playing the guitar with the image of a blond teenage girl in a high school uniform rubbing herself against the teacher's desk. Pretty lame stuff compared to other mind-bending, montage stuff that American MTVs come up with.

But these Mexicans slipped one past the censors: In the third or so cut, maybe a half-second or less, you catch a glimpse of the crotch of the white panties of this school girl.

This is tv! Primetime! With no PG rating!

Pedophilia!

Oh, it's so fun to be a prude. I wish they did that contreversial Calvin Klein ads here.

Maybe it would be an experience to be Morato for a day, have a talk show and say all these ultra-conservative opinions about how morals are lax, about how civilization is in decay, about how I'm better than everyone else.

Which reminds me of the trick joke: Whatever you do, try not to think of a pink elephant.

Bye-ee.