Rants, Chants, and Pants

RANT and PANT, from an uncle of some unplanned situation

2012-01-29T16:03:00.000-08:00

It’s obvious: truth’s little fingers comb

the inner walls of her growing womb.

No use for secret. Secret is a hypocrite -

it would rather dwell in the dark.

Secret transfigures into truth.

Truth desires to see light,

learn to walk on its two feet, learn speech.

Don’t wait for truth to point it’s finger at you.

The universe conspires for a flourishing, healthy truth.

If you need to explain, explain it to the truth.

Make your explanations easier to swallow.

Roll and fry a meatball of a joke. Truth might laugh.

Unplanned situations demand unplanned laughter.

ii.

Truth grew up, your spit and image.

His little sister blossomed - has your smile.

Burly as your dream, he’d search

The fats of your memory, bits of your love,

On toys that came in boxes.

She’d be bright as lanterns

Reed thin with delight

the gleam in her eyes gone.

They grew older than their ages

Permitting emptiness’ presence

In their lives, tired of asking questions on Christmas,

on birthdays, because nobody answers,

nobody comes.

iii.

Mother, she held the camera

like a gray day holds its clouds.

Truth’s little sister stared farther

out of the photo. The sun took off

for some other landscape to be more picturesque.

The principal called the parents to take

their places at the pews.

Mother’s litany of love came gushing out.

“Papa wants to see this in Kuwait.

Mama’s working hard in Cayman. Make them proud.

Don’t crease your barong. Don’t frown.”

Truth, knowing the special weight of this occasion, smiled with the flash.

He hides it very well – the big elephant

looming in his young life,

never asking about them, why they should be there,

and why they aren’t around.

iv.

A pool, whatever the depth, can entice in its stillness.

What comes out from its blue mouth is serenity.

Wading in it is learning its language –

movement of arms here, twisting of legs below,

mastering the figure 8 with your limbs,

and you and the pool will commence to communicate.

Truth’s little sister, playing along the necklace of brushes

around the pool’s pellucid face,

is eager to understand the silence of its surface.

Her little feet, testing the viscosity,

wanting to know if the temperature is right

and, if warm on a cold night, more tempting

to study the language of floating,

would test me, teasing with a splash, see if she can speak

what the pool is saying

about silence – the dreadful sound

that usually happens when no one’s around –

I make myself ready and wading in the middle,

hollering unwanted fears, tiptoeing on the ceramics.

In the rain, you both wanted to perform

a disappearing act, see if I miss

both of you in the restless curtain of water –

running further towards the road, playing tag on the puddled street.

My heart thumps fatigue and fear.

5 and 8, the ages when the world

invites you to ask questions and be brave,

you both follow where the spread of gray asphalt ends,

stop at the edge of soft earth or where you both can’t decipher

if you must go further or stay.

Sometimes you both see your father in me.

Sometimes, your names sound louder than thunder.

I don’t know where that sound comes from,

why my voice can carry it with such weight.

But it calls you both to come home – such force,

that in the middle of the street it makes me stay

with an open umbrella in my hand, and wait.

RANT: Something I have always noticed...

2012-01-28T10:18:00.000-08:00

Some artefacts veiled with dust
on a decade-old cabinet:
a bowl of goldfish
full of stones and air;
lamp clocks with hands
rendered still;
shell with a palmful of dead
batteries, hair clips;
pictures of babies
now grown, suffering
distances and absence;
and a face mirror where
the cheeks of a man turned
dangerously edged, stares back
puzzled with his position.

Cris Hugo

2012-01-26T17:29:00.000-08:00

Some unfortunate news you read
on a small column in a tabloid :
three columns in width, ten lines of phrases
impressed together, tells
the final story of his mortality.
You want to be more familiar of him,
sketch his face as it stares back
from the page: want to understand
how his eyes smile like an old friend's;
want to know this stranger more
scribbling his mouth, what dreams it could tell;
want to hear with his hand-drawn ears
what he heard, how the bullet spinned
and splayed him on the pavement.
You'd switch ink from time to time,
black to red, red to black, wondering why
a world promises then quickly takes
a hopeful glow to guide us in the dark.
Your hands become heavier, the strokes thicker,
the lines of his profile more chaotic
and confused, you forgot when you started
and why you can never stop.

Everett Ruess

2012-01-26T17:26:00.000-08:00

- Where I go, I leave no trace.

I followed the narrative to Escalante
where the Earth shimmered brighter colors
and stones have stories, none of which told where
you last left clues of your final presence.
Now we go about acquiesce to the toil,
the rhythm of days, rest of our lives pushing
cities further upwards to the sky,
something marvelous you didn't envision
because the wilderness, a constant Muse,
has always been most beautiful, sui generis.
Now I wonder the fragments of bones
that can have your name, the spot of canyon
where I can make pilgrimage - mysteries
not even the old wind can answer
even if he frequents himself here
in the other hemisphere.

Afunakwa

2012-01-26T17:20:00.000-08:00

i.

Nights I can't sleep, I let you
disturb me, one more time
in the room, haunt me
in my sleepless disposition,
let your formless self whisper
a lullabye in the dark
some old folklore:
a father sojourning further
the edge of the island;
an orphan crying his name.
I wonder that name,
which syllable lilted
to comfort the little boy
or some child I keep
hidden in my heart.

ii.

Your music rose ambient
like flood in every corner
had me grasping to put
a face to your voice
which the decades hid
like a mystery unsolved,
nothing visual to cling on
but an aging record
whose hiss before the end
becomes more profound
because it precedes the silence
that is more silent
than the hush of your sound.

Mosquito

2012-01-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

If you must bother his night, make haste -
hands can be indecisive. They murder in vile.
Sopor is a luxury he wants uninterrupted
coming off from grinding days wide awake.
He knows there are more of your scuttlebutt kind
buzzing from the corners, crowding the dark.
Be careful tempting an unpresuming colossus
from whose blood you thrive.

Fly

2012-01-11T15:25:00.000-08:00

Fly crawls over the page
of a planner full of schedules,
desolate of plans. Nothing comes
out of it. Nothing (let me name it
air, and it sits still) rests smugly
and stares back nonchalant.

Fly misses feeding on the ink
of names and numbers scribbled hastily.
Boxes of supplements clamor
departure from their cabinets.
Bank accounts require more zeroes
to follow a prime.
Air sits still, probably smiles.

Fly remains, pressing its legs on paper.
I follow my trail of thought into the dark.
Sometimes a page tells a story
so clear by remaining blank,
or a phone tells more information
keeping calm.

changed title, 01/16/2012.

PANTOUM: Easter Bunny

2012-01-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

Something to read to my niece and nephew when Easter Sunday comes :-)

There in her kitchen, painting eggs
in every colors of the rainbow,
the Easter Bunny would dab her brush
on the hard and white but fragile shell.

In every colors of the rainbow
she'd paint some triangles, circles, and squares
on the hard and white but fragile shell.
The colors burst in wonderful shapes.

She'd paint some triangles, circles, and squares -
patterns of stripes and curls and swirls.
The colors burst in wonderful shapes:
blue diamonds for boys; pink hearts for girls.

Patterns of stripes and curls and swirls;
little figures of animals, shapes of clouds;
blue diamonds for boys; pink hearts for girls;
oh what magic she does with lots of love!

Little figures of animals, shapes of clouds,
the Easter Bunny would dab her brush.
Oh what magic she does with lots of love
there in her kitchen, painting eggs.

Breather

2012-01-05T00:38:00.003-08:00

Outside, we arranged ourselves
by the brand of cigarettes we loved
to play with our mouths, pushed
the thin smoke with our breaths,
watched them as they silkily rose
and vanished in congested city air -
hints of translucent white
we will never remember.

In between breaths, chatters -
how the call went, how slow
in the head the caller was, who's
going out with whom, who's not
out of the closet, how many
deductions we got from the last
monitoring, how come you hit
your conversion and i can't -
filled the certain spaces
we stood on like wafts
of mutterings and mumblings
ascending with volatile
indecisive patterns.

At the ground, I realized
time when we crushed the little
embers that burned with our chatter,
the sinless asphalt an unwary victim
of soles that twisted and murdered
some little fire that gamely lit
from the opposite edge, unaware
of how little time it had
between our conversations.

PANTOUM: The Nativity

2012-01-05T00:25:00.000-08:00

Too late for Christmas, hehehe
made some edits. 01/06/12, 3:15 pm

Over a stable, humble and small,
A choir of angels sang with the stars.
The little baby slept quiet as night
as shepherds and kings gathered from afar.

A choir of angels sang with the stars.
A mother welcomed the gathering crowd.
As shepherds and kings gathered from afar
The father hushed the giddy throng.

A mother welcomed a gathering crowd
under the light of the bright North Star.
The father hushed the giddy throng
while the wind whistled a happier song.

Under the light of the bright North Star
A little baby slept quiet as night
while the wind whistled a happier song
over a stable, humble and small.

Dead End

2012-01-01T23:45:00.000-08:00

Here, I can relate to the blue
cushions of my cubicle, my blue mug,
blue purse scant of coins - that color
cool as mourning, resting on thick plywood
like some unwanted hue.

Out there, I would not understand blue
but a hot spread of sky,
thick iridescence of happiness -
infinite blanket of morning
covering the city.

So this is the event horizon of my future
staring at the throb of an electric eye,
leaving fingerprints or what can betray me
on the black keys, dusts of time swirling
from the beams of an old structure, collapsing
from within, and white is light from the ceiling
flickering in uncertainty.

Obscurities i (1st revision)

2012-01-01T23:31:00.000-08:00

Let's say I have lost form. I have lost an imprint to leave on your memory - silhouette of a body gone: form of the familiar, gone. Now, transference. Think of formless hands shaping a vase. Let's say the universe doesn't want this vase, and tips it over from the edge of some comfortable, stable matter: table, cabinet, window ledge. Let's say I am that vase. Now my form of a vase is gone. Instead you find pieces, shards with irregular shapes - shapes that are me, always me.

Let's say I'm something different now. Now I am water and I have lost structure - only what you make of me as I rush through your mind. Now I am fire and I do not conform to one shape. I can be infinity to you, dancing while the embers burn. Now I am wind, comprehensible to how you feel.

I want your attention to me. Here. Don't look at the table. It is just an illusion spaces of this universe has accommodated to be. Don't look at your hands. They will only understand what you can understand.

Believe me.

Obscurities i

2011-12-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

Now I have lost form. I have lost an imprint to leave on your memory, the silhouette of a vase gone. Instead you find pieces, shards with irregular shapes - shapes that are me, always me.

Now I am water and I have lost structure - only what you make of me as I rush through your mind. Now I am fire and I do not conform to one shape. I can be infinity to you, dancing while the embers burn. Now I am wind, comprehensible to how you feel.

I want your attention to me. Here. Don't look at the table. It is just an illusion spaces of this universe has accommodated to be. Don't look at your hands. They will only understand what you can understand.

Believe me.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T08:35:00.000-08:00

The air, quite cold, quite crisp, whispers around the old pillars that pushes upwards the dilapidated roof at the front of my mother's home. Bursts of fireworks wash the night sky, their numbers more scant than last year's and the year before. What didn't decrease in number are the loud popping sounds from rebintador and sinturon ni hudas. Beside me my nephew and niece complain how little the amount of fireworks we will be lighting to welcome 2012. In a house filled with grown ups, we forgot there were kids. My brothers opted to welcome the new year in dreamland. 4 hours ago they gulped the bad memories this old year has brought with beer. It's funny how the line of houses in our street are sombre, their front lawns enveloped in the dark. Years ago they had the habit of competing whose house had the best fireworks. Now they're just... well, sleeping.

Midnight strikes, and the whole sky is ablaze. Some of them come out to watch flowers of light exploding in the black, point at which one burned brighter, or which one bloomed with more color. The blossoms of fire that sprout from faraway houses, a mall or two, is indeed a spectacle to watch for free. Are these the same people I knew for years?

Then the tipping point when all those swirls and fantastic display will slowly die down. The seconds of burning, of release, will eventually cease. Everyone comes back into their houses with the memory the sky has shared unselfishly.

And then I see the futility of why I'm trying to make sense out of this. My neighborhood has changed, no point for me to rationalize what I missed. I bring the laptop inside the house, to the family who wasn't here last Christmas. I tell myself a new year has come, and they are here.

They are here, and all will be well.

Poetry Exercise: Free Association

2011-12-26T20:27:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I am doing this correctly, but I read somewhere that one of the exercises in learning how to write poetry is what they call "Free Association" (please feel free to correct me as I'm not really sure what I'm talking about here). I think the objective is to select some words or phrases and try to make a poem out of them. I did one yesterday and listed words I read from an article:

dust
cobwebs
white walls and floors
cabinets painted white
broom
gray clouds
return

I came up with this work --

Cleaning House

On your return I carefully swept
some yesterdays that you were gone
out of the door, out
where the cobwebs of gray clouds spread on the sky
and sunlight caught like flies and dusts.
The broom scoured meticulously
the white walls and floors,
and the feather duster brushed as best as it can
the corners of cabinets painted white
to shoo away that insect solitude
crawling on all eights.

Shoot me some of your thoughts. :-)

Happy Happy Holidays

2011-12-26T20:11:00.000-08:00

There were so many "firsts" for me this Christmas: first time I saw a champagne of fireworks burst out from the outlines of Rockwell Makati's skyscrapers; first time I wrapped sighs around presents for people who are islands and islands away; first time I missed children mutilating Christmas carols; first time I tread glumly lit streets and marveled at windows of houses where the laughter of families shone out along with the blinking Christmas lights; first time I saw a mom cradling a kid with encephalitis waiting for Christmas eve in an overpass, her hands extended for alms to people who are rushing home; first time the city and I spent Christmas, and how it hummed its warmth to me while I silently answered with an inner hysteria.

Christmas is really about family, about getting together, isn't it? Too bad I decided to celebrate it all by myself. Me and my shadow didn't get along quite well.

Bitch

2011-10-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

She usually ends it with a ridicule, your mere presence equivalent to a derogatory remark. She's done it so many times in the past. You don't get used to it because of the different ways she can creatively concoct phrases that can magnify your shortcomings, it's as if she took a Ph. D. to make your life hell. She will arrogantly scrub on your face her intellect, that her logical way of thinking is far superior than yours. You wouldn't be able to quickly respond to it because of the sheer audacity, and she'd take that as a slowness on your end. You could blame yourself for not getting used to quick banters, and she'll blame you for that too.

Now be wary of celebrations. A little bit of enjoyment can put your guard down. A fool like you would start inviting other friends to another friend's party to jack up the number of people coming. You always thought, the more the merrier. You didn't ask the celebrant if she wanted to have more people come to it, you fool. So enter the bitch, asking you - are you invited in the first place? Yes, you don't know how to respond. Oh your mojo is gone! she'd add without any rationality behind it, but it fits with the ridicule. So you'd play hard to get. Ok I'm not invited. I'll go home. She'll label you too sensitive. You don't win you see, that's how the game is played. Then silence. Smoke clears, and you invite yourself.

The celebrant gets a party of eight to come to her in a pizza restaurant. After everyone is seated somebody plays a question and answer game. You play along. You like games. You answer them as out of the blue as you can. How does the bitch play it? Base it on experience. Justify this, justify that. Bitch doesn't want to be humiliated if her answer provides an outcome she doesn't like. How perfect. She pulls you beside her, well you're seated beside each other, not that you wanted to, and she does some more justifying. Justify this, justify that. She wants you to know she's intelligent, like a spinster schoolteacher talking to a grade school student.

She'll tell a story, something that might interest you. Mining. Baguio. Gold. She promises to tell you how much the miners earn from their exploits, but that will be forgotten later in between bites of pizza and chicken, strands of pasta, gulps of iced tea. She'll stretch her arm over your plate while you're eating. God forbid the germs that gets sprinkled on your plate from her skin. She'll holler over the table your lack of physical strength in slicing the pizza when she's the one holding the knife.

In that party, the girls outnumber the boys, so girl talks will definitely dominate the discussion. One of them wants to join your business venture. Bitch would discourage her because of your laziness in handling it. Bitch still can't forget she paid you money joining the same business venture, or was it so she has first hand knowledge to validate your failure?

The girls love talking about relationships, something you don't want to talk about. Pain still fresh? That was a long time ago my friend, move on. But you can't lie: pain is still fresh.

Well look at the bitch! She's got an opportunity lambasting your being single. The other girls join in the series of queries you don't want to answer because you want to be more careful now: one single word can put you in a hot spot. Then comes the part where you don't want to remember the questions, and instead look at their faces. You're tired of talking. You respond with silence. Your silence disappoints them. You whistle. They find your whistling disrespectful. They wouldn't understand that you are whistling to calm yourself down. These people don't care. They want to have fun, and they want you to be the source of that fun. Bitch wants that to happen. Bitch wants to make sure they don't care as well. You look outside. You check your watch. You look outside. A road stretches between the malls. You want to traverse that road as soon as possible.

Going home is odd. You feel like popping 50 balloons in your head. You're tired of asking yourself if you are in the right place. Then you remember that every time you pass by bitch, she'd look at you as if you're an oddity. A queer creature. I can read your mind, bitch always says. Yeah, you're God, you'd tell yourself. Bitch never believes in your convictions. She'd easily step on it like a cigarette butt. She's done it so many times in the past. She usually ends it with a ridicule, your mere presence equivalent to a derogatory remark.

RANT: How Come Donald Sutherland Has Never Won An Oscar?

2010-12-21T15:11:00.000-08:00

Video above is a scene from the film Little Murders

Canadian actor Donald Sutherland has been around the industry for, I think, half a century. He has made significant acting contributions to films such as The Dirty Dozen (1967), MASH (1970), Klute (1971), The Day of the Locust (1975), Fellini's Casanova (1976), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), the Academy Award winning Ordinary People (1980), JFK (1991), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), and Pride and Prejudice (2005).

In some of the films listed above he has been overlooked for Oscar nominations, and I wonder why. Just the scene above should merit the Oscar trophy.

After the fire

2010-11-13T00:09:00.000-08:00

PHOTO taken from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 2, 2010. Caption reads "A GIRL looks at the charred remains of her house, one of at least 50 which were razed when a fire hit Agham Road in Quezon City." Photo taken by Raffy Lerma.

   As I was reading an issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer dated September 2, 2010, a photo from the Metro section caught my attention. The photo had a girl standing under what was left of the door frame. She stared further to the horizon, subdued and forlorn. In front of her was the carcass of what looked like the wooden beams of a room, or probably another house. Remains of burnt slippers scattered along with some clothes and ashes. I doubt she will be able to hug the stuff toy that looked as if it was tipped over in surrender. I wondered what it was in the horizon that she was staring at. Whatever it was, she will have to carry it along with her dreams.

   This picture reminded me of a poem I wrote two years ago. The inspiration happened in Malibay, September 12. We attended a christening, and the day was deplete of sunlight. Thick smoke rose at least 10 blocks away. I did not ponder at the disaster because the day was reserved for celebrating a child's entry into Christianity. It was only when we passed by the neighborhood four hours later when I was able to survey the extent of the fire. Pails were left on the streets. Neighbors tried to console themselves about certain things they might be able to scour. Firefighters complained how hard it was to negotiate their fire engines through the cramped streets. A mother and her daughter sat at the sidewalk. They stared further to the horizon, the same way the little girl on the picture did.

   I added lots of liberties in the poem, trying to make a picture of a scene that might have happened while the fire razed and that no camera was able to take.

Malibay, September 12

The day a lit cigar consumed their house
the sky was purple and heavy with clouds.
The pails were flying. The water was wasted.
The fire engine was two miles away and stuck in traffic.
Her mother held on to some salvaged photos.
Her father was drinking somewhere with the neighbors.
She tried to burst what the others cannot hold back
as their memories danced away with the embers.
And finally, someone began to pray
and wished everything would still be well.
The wind grew colder, and the thunder threatened,
but that day the rain did not fell.

CHANT: Poems about the Typhoon

2010-10-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

Typhoon Juan (international code name Megi) flattened the northern parts of Luzon with sustained winds of up to 260 km/h (if I remember the reports well) or probably 230 km/h (as per information from wikipedia.org as of October 24, 2010). We felt its presence here in Manila with the sudden darkness that enveloped the entire city, and the strong rain that flooded the street in front of our apartment. Prior to its arrival and during its stay it made me write two poems. Enjoy!

TYPHOON

We thought it would never come:

the dark clouds,
the rumble of an orange
world turning purple,
the slaps of light
flashing
over the wet roofs
and streets.

It opened its allegro
with drizzles, light gusts,
and the birds
sketching circles with their wings
slicing the serene
with piercing solos.

It compelled the birds to exit
towards the line of light
at the south and let
the symphony rise
muscular
from the orchestra of clouds.

It took the cicadas by surprise -
their choruses hovered
sudden from the trees,
the notes stuck
from the restless palms of leaves.

How it armed its way
through the city
with the unpredictable
drumbeats of rain.
How it bullied the tranquil
trebles of a sunset.
How it put us
in our proper places -
spaces of surrender
echoing the sound
of our breaths
waiting for the music to end.

JUAN

In the higher floors you pull the horizon
closer to your heart and love the movement
of the restless panorama - how the storm whirls
the tails of clouds to touch skyscrapers' scalps.

The storm is its own monster. Often it is temperamental.
How to comprehend it, that's the adventure.

Sometimes its wind tries to pull
the rusted roofs from their houses. Sometimes
its raindrops are the size of your fingers.

Sometimes you look farther in the further gray
and tributaries of lightning
hoping you were where the sky is so silent
and the world hums.

NOTE: I changed the title of the first poem, from "Symphony" to "Typhoon". I think the new title is more appropriate.

The Former National Bird

2010-10-07T22:55:00.000-07:00

The Maya bird: an oriole, a finch, or a sparrow?
Above picture: a tree sparrow. (source: wikipilipinas.org)

The bird that perched on the sill

chirped a few notes with the creek

sang with the hum of the sun

and flew with the whistle of wind.

That bird, tiny and brown

as dried leaves feathering the huts

had a name so familiar

so common as grass,

I kept forgetting what it was.

PANT: How a vending machine tells you to get your drink from the water cooler

2010-09-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

A vending machine discharges a can of soda from its square anus as long as you feed it four pieces of 5 peso coins, or a used 20 peso bill. It has two mouths to devour the money, and an eye the size of a grown man's finger flashing digits that tell you if it's satisfied with the amount you have fed it or if it wants more because the numbers don't add up. If fed well it immediately excretes the fecal metal. Your hands embrace the chill and the sweat of the tin can shit, where you pull the tab off its aluminum scalp and drink more of the shit.

Like humans, a vending machine can also experience stress. When it does, it becomes constipated. When it becomes constipated, you have a problem.

Sometimes we bully the vending machine to give us our shit. If giving it a shake our human strength can muster doesn't work, kicking it at the side might force it to crap. Sometimes we wish we could claw the damn soda crap from inside through the dispensing slot.

If the vending machine and the universe has conspired against our desire for a carbonated gulp and belch, we surrender our names and the amount of money we lost to the security guard's ledger, filled with the scribbles of other disappointed individuals. You can almost see their disappointment from the weight of the strokes of their cursives on thin paper.

Finally, you get your drink from the water cooler, and you experience a certain enlightment about water: how it is so much better, just by being its own usual water.

Poem: Halo-halo

2010-09-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Red cherry kisses the top

And orange gelatin hugs the ice.

I spoon the yellow fingers of langka,

Nibble green gems of kaong

Below the candy sprinkle blue sky.

Oh I miss the indigo star apple bits

Where the violet ice cream melts.

Drops of milk speckle my mouth.

Ears of corn cram between my teeth.

Leche flan melts in my tongue.

Ice, colorful ice of summer

Glistens under the tropical sun.

How east is mixed with the west in

The clear, tall glass.

NOTE TO SELF: Must read this from time to time to check its likability. I'm not sure if children appreciates a poem like this.

NOTE TO SELF 2: Two people who read this poem thought it had sexual connotations, therefore this poem can't be for kids. Oh well.

Bauhaus Punk

2010-08-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

Bauhaus is a German school that popularized the design approach of radically simplifying the form for a more rational and functional look. The idea applied to architecture, sculpture, visual arts and other art forms.

Punk rock is a music genre that burst out in the mid 70's to challenge the perceived excessiveness of mainstream music. Punk rock has a do-it-yourself approach, and in the words of The Ramones drummer Tony Ramone, is "pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock and roll."

Bauhaus Punk is an animation concept I'm working with that maintains the minimal, stripped down ideology of both Bauhaus and Punk rock. Wish me luck.

Poem: Fruits

2010-08-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

Tasting the fruit is like tasting the place
the faraway rustic region that made it real -
hints of its wind, scent of the earth,
sweet juice of the rain that nurtured it.
I wonder the tree that brought it forth
or the name of the land that fed that tree.
I wonder the landscape, the arboreal clumps,
the dust of the road that wraps it in summer.
A way I can learn is how my tongue
reads the taste of its watery flesh.
Bits of itself might tell me its world
different than the giant trees of stone
and glass of my world, where fruits grow
inside, have opposable thumbs, learn
to walk upright, dream of other places
and write, and taste each other's fruits.
The world of the fruit I have in my hand
must have a fog that crawled from the mountains,
a fog that was once the fruit of the sky
called cloud, plucked by the wind, and silently
made its way to the orchard, dispersing
as it passes those tiny fruits of water
called dew, each having a memory
of the sumptuous troposphere where they came.
Tasting the fruit is like tasting the peel
of atmosphere that surrounds the earth
which is like the fruit of a tree called Sun,
gravity rooted in the wide universe.

Poem: The Fool

2010-07-25T21:07:00.000-07:00

The fool cocoons himself
letting the moulting decide his fate.

In the garden, others
clink their glasses and lightly
laugh with the wind.
Butterflies of different colors, they spar
their loftiness under the sun.
Temperament weather, it hovers
like a cautious calamity over everyone.

I know why I'm seeing this, why
I'm here, but I'm not with them
like the fool, oblivious, blessedly
a fool. Or probably it pained him
to learn how late it has been
to understand the atmosphere,
he weaves himself a veritable coffin
spun with strands of decisions
and indecisions, compacted
by sticky filaments of miscalculations -
big words, all his, genuinely
his, nobody else's.

I try nudging him to wake, tell
the iridiscent things i caught
from the flaps of their dresses
and coattails, but he doesn't slip
from the pattern of stars bursting
brightly in his dreams.

I know why I'm seeing this. I'm awake
and resolved to the fate of seeing
others rescued by what they have known.
Or probably it pains me more not having
another fool to be with, while around
the branches, nibbling the greens
and some little specks of sun,
my dream still crawls.

RANT: Yet another poem

2010-07-12T21:25:00.000-07:00

I remember writing this out of memory. It happened before I graduated. I recalled the image of that day and tried to stay true to it. The things that happened afterwards, well that's the story i'm sharing to make me less bitter :-)

Breakwaters - March, 1999

The time we tried to escape the world
for water and endless skies,
I stood behind the knee-high wall
by the city's side.

You were by the bay's. "Come over here
near the waves. We came to feel the splash,"
you reminded behind your courage.
What I did not understand held my feet.
The seafoams laughed at the few inches
my face could have felt the spray.

Years later, I got a mail from where
your chasing the horizon has brought you,
the blue ink telling me about the lonely
golden spruce you saw glowing
in the middle of a forest,
or that the rainbows were different
than the ones here at home, wish I was there.
We came to feel the splash, you remind me again
handwritten on powdery-white paper.

Tell me how are our lives now different?
How does light flow in your part of the world?
Is it glum, a subdued white, and flickering
like mine's - deplete of vibrance, struggling
to be relevant before it is swallowed
entirely by the dark?
The seafoams are laughing again
from a flash of memory snapped by my mind.
I can still taste what I did not taste -
the salts of their infinite fingers.

Beetles

2010-07-12T20:22:00.000-07:00

leftover tracks of bark beetles, from wikipedia.org

They know their lumber very well
in the forest, they leave trails of themselves.
Some other days, you're sure they were there
carrying specks of light their wings can bear.
What you're not sure is where they are now:
little friends of your polaroid and introspection.
Creatures of this earth, conspicuous and minute,
have a way of moving under the sky.
You're lucky if you know their secrets.
Being left alone - some of them want it.
Hiding is a game they play with a watchful sun.
Wondering where they are sprout like mushrooms
from time to time, in the woodlands of your mind.

Three Poems: Water, Water, and Water

2010-06-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

These past few months I was able to write poems with a water theme. The first one is about things people find at sea. The second one is about the lack of it. The third is about a certain insecurity. Enjoy!

Calatagan

The tide receded with the sun
and revealed the navel of the shore
where we found the scraps of dreams
our childhood had been looking for.

I took a liking to the waves
surrendering further to the pull
of a faint full moon in a late afternoon,
dragging the fishnets perilously
to deeper waters. Their laughter,
drowning but never painful, something
i as a child would have wallowed in -
alone in the ebb, unafraid of the taunts,
comprehending what the waves say to the sands
in a language only they can understand.

Isabel squirmed at the sea slugs
thrusting through the seaweeds.
We feigned not noticing her hands
cautiously fan out between her thighs.
Light piercing through clear water,
her reflection fragmented into puddles,
she quietly gathers the dead
starfishes where they have scattered.
Nobody but the sea can remind her
what she doesn't want to remember.

You finally saw the line of glimmer
glowing with seawater on the scallop skins
throwing you back at the time your fingers
fit the holes of bullet shells.
The shimmer that you wanted then
made itself ready for your hands
spanning wider, much bigger, more
voracious, grasping memories
like rainbows marooned in the sky
after the rain: there but never there.

Drought

The water turned itself to heat
leaving the land flaking to dust.
He wonders how the crops will grow
emerald and robust
when the brown color of burning
has crawled its way from the tips
of leaves down to the stem,
the demarcation of struggling
to survive has become smaller
and smaller as summer progresses.

Resolute he will never be
broken and seeking refuge
in an onomatopeic, scalding city
subjugated to a career
having the sunloved backs of his palms
parallel to the ground.
He prays for something biblical
to redirect a river's flow
and quench the acres of dried
desertifying land.

But the river itself is thirsty
having lost its being a river -
So he ponders displacing to somewhere
water is still water.
Then again, there's nowhere to go
when the heat, cloudless and unyielding,
burning slowly whatever it touches,
bearing the heavy belly of its air
over the earth, borderless as the wind,
smugly blows around his archipelago.

Pictures of Fishes

Here's what I snapped
discreetly from the pond:

a koi
tattooed from birth
with what looks like
a citrus orange
map of China
accidentally spilt
on its silver skin.

Here's what you caught
with a white flash:

the name
of a flowerhorn
painted as if
with horsehair brush
permanently on its blood
-red scales.

You tell me your desire
to compare skies
and horizons in different
parts of the world;

I tell you my disillusions
of having people
not know my name.

Let's trade.

You're taking too long to realize

2010-06-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

Buboy. My main protagonist. One year of conceptualizing the story arc. One year of inputting characters and writing character sketches. One year of visualizing the different settings. A lifetime of putting it on paper. Here we go!

Poem

2010-06-02T03:19:00.000-07:00

I wrote this in the office when we were not allowed to bring notebooks and pens - things you can do while you glance sideways to see if someone's going to catch you using forbidden materials :-)

Pantoum: Shirt

My shirt dances at the clothesline
to the hum of the warm wind.
The smell of detergent wafts
with the whiff of tropical flowers.

To the hum of the warm wind,
the scent travels farther
with the whiff of tropical flowers
while its thin fabric flaps.

The scent travels farther
over fields and summer plains.
While its thin fabric flaps,
the aroma of wilderness clings.

Over fields and summer plains
my shirt dances at the clothesline.
The aroma of wilderness clings.
The scent of detergent wafts.

RANT: the election is this coming monday, and i lost my registration slip

2010-05-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

I remember the registration line in the municipal hall as if it was, well, something that happened recently while I drowned myself in a 450 page compilation book: twenty rows of chairs, an aisle in the middle dividing the rows into two columns, twenty chairs each, the procession of people worming around the hall like an impatient serpent, babies crying every now and then, chatters of strangers asking whom they can lend money from for the holidays, eight computers located near the foot of the stage of the auditorium, two tables surrounded by five verifiers each, one of whom is wearing a headscarf which she eventually turned into a neck scarf to look more fashionable, and reminders that echo from all the four corners of the large hall on where to fall in line, where not to fall in line, who should fall in line, why are we falling in line, where the hell is the line.

I got my registration slip after 5 hours of waiting, and was quite disappointed at the piece of paper: it looked more like a scratch with one of the edges torn carelessly from the rest of its long sheet; the number scribbled by the floor supervisor was done impatiently; her affixed signature was signed as if she was practicing how to perfect it. My Mini-Stop receipts looked more presentable.

I cannot blame myself that I lost it, since it looked inconsequential. I did try not to remove it from my wallet, but when my wallet bulged with too much unnecessary papers and receipts I must have stashed it somewhere where unnecessary papers and receipts are kept, which are eventually thrown in the trash bag hanging from the doorknob of my room.

Now I'm worried that if I show up in the precinct and I won't be able to produce that paper, I will not be allowed to vote - no indelible ink on my forefinger to show to the office as proof that I had to get the unpaid time off to exercise suffrage. I will go home feeling disenfranchised by my carelessness (a word i'm using liberally for the people who thought of the idea of just giving out a paper strip as proof that one can vote 9 eternal months after registration, and for my stupidity). Maybe if I make a scene, like bawl like an eight year old who dropped his ice cream, they may let me vote :-)

So I finally joined...

2010-04-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

... and it was tiring. This is my first time. I stayed away the past ten years because I had other priorities. But there's no stopping me now. Nothing's going to stop me from joining: not the strong rain that poured over the entire metropolis and still imprisoned the city heat that no sudden storm can't seem to drive away; not the theme of the collection that is so morbid and questionable as a source of inspiration, makes me wonder if the poems won't find their way into the garbage bin within seconds; not the change of office location that is so out of everyone's way, mostly accessible by cab or car; definitely not the dizziness that blighted me while i traversed a section of Makati by foot, and hummed the road to Taguig with a dilapidated vehicle.
I don't want to win - not with this collection. I'm just testing the pool. If ever I place then this must have been a weak year. I'd rather celebrate the winning pieces with my anonymity, my nobody status still intact.
Why join without the desire to win? I don't know. I probably relish being a nameless statistic. My objective was for my collection to be read. My objective was to scare. I hope my works will inch their way into the nightmares of the judges.
I won't wait for September 1 with great intent. The news will definitely come, but I want it to be as if it's just plain, ordinary news - nothing that will quake my disposition - like my name appearing in the roster. I will have none of it. It won't make me hungrier. And I want to be hungry.

RANT: Kings of Convenience

2010-03-28T01:20:00.000-07:00

Yep. They are coming to Manila. Yep. They will perform at the NBC Tent, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig on Wednesday, March 31st. Yep. Tickets are available at certain stores all over the metropolis, one of which is Kate Torralba's. Yep. I so damn want to see them perform live because they may not come back to this country again. Yep. I don't have work, since our schedule was moved to an earlier time, making it possible for me to watch them. Yep. I will move time and space just to get a ticket. Yep. I should be buying tickets now. Nope. I've got other obligations to settle.

Damn.

Not so Strange Dog

2010-03-25T03:44:00.001-07:00

A few months ago my office mate and I were taking a cab home. I took the cab with her since she passes along my route. On our way out of Araneta Center going to EDSA she then told me of a dog that usually trots by the sidewalk between 12 midnight to 2 a.m. I didn't find that odd since there were so many stray dogs scattered all over the metropolis. Then she mentioned that she always sees the dog during that exact period, as if it had a precise ritual to be in the same spot in the wee hours of night. I told her that she might be mistaken. It might be a different dog she saw passing by the spot. She believed it was the same dog - its left hind foot was strangely cut so it had to limp walking along the sidewalk. It was white, and not the hairy type as all stray dogs in the metropolis are.

The following day I went home at around 1 a.m. The cab I rode, like most cabs, had clear windows. I was looking at some people who were trying to cross the highway when a dog suddenly appeared from a corner street and limped its way to an old light post. It was white, not much hair on its body, and its left hind foot looks as if it was sliced clean from its limb. This is the dog my friend was talking about. It rummaged over the pile of garbage bags left at the light post, and started chewing the black plastic. I wondered if that was the reason why it was a frequent visitor of that spot. Stray dogs are peripatetic creatures, and they probably haunt a certain place if there is something for them that would support their survival. Leftovers are welcome treats. Dogs are seldom choosy. My cab continued to speed over EDSA. Inside I kept reminding myself to share my thoughts on why the dog visits that same spot. Nourishment is always a good reason.

I glanced back at the old light post to check on the dog one more time. I saw another tail wagging behind the garbage bags. I thought it would be cheesy to add this information too, but then there shouldn't be any use deleting certain information even if it may sound like it's fabricated.

Poem

2010-03-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote a poem that targets teenagers. It's quite mediocre, but mediocrity is where I'm currently swimming nowadays :-)

Rollercoaster

We ride in pair
I'm glad you're there
just beside me -
I hope you'd be.

It's nice to know
you're here with me
to hold my hand
and calm my fear.

It looks immense
from where we are
this roller-coaster
chain of box cars.

You crack a joke
to make me calm -
hope you won't mind
my sweaty palm.

The cars go up
the iron rails
up to the top -
might as well dream:

when it goes down
and turn around
the loop we feel
like upside down

might as well scream

spell "aggravate"

2010-03-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a friend of mine asked me while he was taking a call how to spell the word aggravate. You see in our business words have to be spelled correctly and every word should be typed or enunciated verbatim. I looked at his computer screen and contemplated at his spelling:

aggrievate

If history was tweaked differently this word would have found itself in Merriam-Webster or Oxford, the marriage of aggrieve and aggravate. I researched the etymology of both words in Merriam-Webster. I found out that aggrieve is derived either from middle English agreven, from Anglo-French agrever, and from Latin aggravare, meaning "to make heavier". As for aggravate, it is derived from the Latin aggravatus, which is the past participle of aggravare.

So as not to burden my friend with the period of waiting for my response, I advised him that the correct spelling was aggravate. I cannot blame my friend. Aggrieve and aggravate sounds very similar, being that both share the same ancestor word aggravare. It is quite interesting to learn that we might sometimes unconsciously misspell a word and if little research is done it actually makes sense why the word is misspelled.

Pantoum - Carousel

2010-03-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

In the middle of the fairground
the carousel turns 'round and 'round
Around and 'round and 'round and 'round
in the middle of the fairground

The carousel turns 'round and 'round
Boys and girls on wooden horses
in the middle of the fairground
galloping in measured paces

Boys and girls on wooden horses
parents wondering why oh why
galloping in measured paces
restless time swiftly passing by

Parents wondering why oh why
must little children grow up soon?
Restless time swiftly passing by
morning must turn to afternoon

Must little children grow up soon?
The world is like a carousel
morning must turn to afternoon
time pirouettes in its own shell

The world is like a carousel
in the middle of the fairground
time pirouettes in its own shell
around and 'round and 'round and 'round

RANT: ABS-CBN and the Oscars

2010-03-08T06:54:00.001-08:00

This morning I got to watch the live telecast of the 82nd Oscars in ABS-CBN channel 2. I used to watch the Oscars in RPN 9, when that channel had sole propriety televising it here in the Philippines. Last year I was not able to watch it live because I was at work, but I did manage to follow it online via the website www.awardsdaily.com. I watched the replay on Studio 23 and had to be very patient with the long list of commercials that parade in between the program.

This year I made sure that I devoted a certain amount of time following the winners as they were announced. What made Oscar-watching more exciting this year is that I had the chance to win the 10,000 dollar pot money in theauteurs.com website. With the list in hand I checked out the winners one by one. theauteurs.com requires everyone who will win the pot to match each of the winners perfectly. One mistake and you're out of contention.

I was able to match the first five winners as they were announced. What followed afterwards is a travesty. Where was the winner for the live action short? How about the documentary short? Who won in the best foreign language film category? There is no memoriam for the artists who passed away last year?

I suddenly realized that in order to accommodate the schedule and maintain on track for Wowowee's one p.m. timeslot, channel 2 dropped these sections of the ceremony. Wowowee! Talk about being inconsiderate. Viewers deserve more than this unabashed shortening of a program watched by billions of people worldwide in favor of a mindless, maudlin and emotionally manipulative noontime show hosted by an asshole who for some reason earns 500,000 pesos a day by being more incompetent than his fellow co-hosts. ABS-CBN should have known that the Oscars might run for more than 3 hours. ABS-CBN should also cut the crap of putting so many advertisements in between. My natural reaction when the ads were up was to quickly change the channel. I'm pretty sure many other people did the same. In the age of remote control, it's moot to put in so many advertisements when nobody will be seeing them because people can easily browse through other channels with a click. With lesser advertisements this would have certainly accommodated sections of the program which I would have loved to watch.

Flustered as I was, I still managed to finish the program. I already had two incorrect predictions -- the adapted screenplay and sound mixing categories -- so the chance of winning 10,000 dollars was already gone. I found out later I also predicted the documentary short and live action short incorrectly. My total tally was 20 out of 24. Not bad I must say.

I wish the Oscars would go back to RPN 9. Even if it took 4 hours for them to telecast the program, at least they didn't have the gall to edit it out. I know channels would like to earn lots and lots of money from viewership, but ABS-CBN's insensitivity to the viewers makes it more obvious that they prioritize the income more than the people. Talk about a television station with sociopathic tendencies.

Boy Looking Through A Window

2010-02-26T05:30:00.000-08:00

He charged through the busy avenue like a lost stray cat, and found me typing away on a laptop. Playfully he looked at me, inquiring silently what I'm doing inside a cafe deplete of customers. I answer with a stare older people would usually do to more inquisitive, curious kids. He looked like he spent most of his time in the street, unmindful of the wheeled contraptions that can easily squish his body with a careless swerve. I didn't mind his presence at first, but the intrusion of my private time caused my hands to cover my lips, imitate Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker" and accept the challenge of my younger rival.

His first move was sticking out his tongue - see if I respond with something more crazy. I have resolved to stay still - not move an inch, just stare. He opened his mouth, shaped it into an "O", then crossed his eyes. I conditioned myself to be like a part of the furniture. He placed his hands over his eyebrows as if peeking through the pane, probably wondering how to move a stone without touching it. Swiftly he hid himself behind the cemented division of the wall, then quickly jumped out the window as if to surprise me. I almost lost my constitution, but remained firm.

A lady who wore a bob hair appeared beside him, and scolded him about nobody watching over the rice cakes she is selling beside the light post near the hospital. He followed her jumping like a farm goat over the pavement. Our match has finally concluded. He might be disappointed that his conquest to get a certain reaction from me will be left unfinished.

But I lost. He didn't see my finger twitch.

Promotional Items

2009-11-10T23:02:00.000-08:00

Whenever I’m at Starbucks ordering the usual mocha frappuccino, I find myself in front of a large cabinet of mugs, tumblers and stuffed toys that have the logo of the coffee shop imprinted either on the tag or on the item itself – promotional products that help market the coffee shop. I ponder at the tumblers, arranged uniformly on the shelves, armed and ready to entice this mocha frappuccino drinker into surrendering the few hundreds of pesos left in his three year old wallet.

I might as well buy one. Any offices I’ve been to I see someone using a Starbucks tumbler, whether they be a call center agent, in-house fashion designer, or magazine editor. It’s conveniently spill-proof. I can easily fill it with water from the water dispenser. I can sometimes use it as a container of a 15 peso goto I buy from one of those Oras ng Himala concessionaires. It’s not cheap, so I can boast I was able to afford one, even if it will still be the same tumbler I’ll be using five years from now.

On the other hand, maybe I shouldn’t. I already have a tumbler, with the logo of the company I previously worked for printed paper white against its shiny metallic-blue surface. I got it as a freebie after my regularization, and I didn’t even have to shell out money. It has the same features and benefits as the Starbucks tumbler, with the exception of a black handle that makes it look like a hybrid between a tumbler and a mug. One time I brought it with me out of the office and into a convenience store where some fresh graduates can’t make up their minds which companies they would like to apply to. They saw my mug and wanted to have one as well. Needless to say, I had four new friends come with me to the front desk to pass their resumes.

I sometimes wonder if somebody else’s tumbler reminded me I missed Starbucks’ mocha frappuccino every time I went there. What the heck, it’s good to be reminded sometimes.

Cloud

2009-03-29T01:48:00.001-07:00

If asleep
I'm like Arctic night cloud
and you a star wanting
to embrace me in your glow.

Pardon
my stillness to your advances.

I want to gather more water
from the days you've become my Sun,
the days when I'm all puffed
morning white -
listless frenetic and obedient
wherever the arms of your wind
carries me;
a silver crown over a mountain,
a shadow over a lake,
until I'm nimbus blue and heavy
continent vast, battle-ready
to shower and gust
and thunder your love
until I dissipate
and evaporate in your light.

2 Poems

2009-03-10T07:01:00.000-07:00

I found some poems I wrote last year in two notebooks.The first poem was written during my cousin's wake. I was alone that day. The visitors were scarce. The second poem I wrote after Valentine's day, also last year. It details an emotion that was waiting to explode that time. Enjoy!

Regret

Ask me what the leaves say
together with the wind -

Ask me what that voiceless wind
says as it settles over noon -

Ask me what an opal sky carries
in its early summer cape -

Ask me why white cotton candy clouds
dissipate under a hot butter sun -

Ask me why the birds hide
in the shadows of tree branches -

Ask me all these things now
before the music of the rustling
brittle leaves is done,

then the day ends -
and you gone.

-- for Jong, RIP
January 23, 2008

Suspicion

I will resist the devil
charging electrically through
my fragile synapses
about some thoughts
that poke my suspicion
whether you just lent
the yellow hanger
that carries his maroon towel
or it just took too long
for you to converse
with him in careful
whispers last night
or the frequency you drank
water from the second floor
when you usually never did,
or the way you described how
he looks more handsome
the longer you stare at him -
I will resist the devil
like a lost soul resists
burning in his own cauldron.

-- February 20, 2008

RIP Francis M.

2009-03-06T04:40:00.000-08:00

It was summer break. Kuya and I was fighting over whose tape should be played on the cassette. I was into 80's pop, the kind that you'd like to dance to silly in private. Kuya was inclined to this fresh new artist who delved into the genre of rap when rap, for me back then, was equivalent to country music - meaning it sucked. He bullied me with Francis M.'s "Cold Summer Nights". I hated every moment I was forced to listen to a man crying over spilt milk. It's not that the song wasn't good, because it was. It's just that I thought my brother used the song to irritate me for not being able to have my song played in the cassette.

The hate didn't last long. Because my brother had me listen to it so many times, I eventually had it memorized to the point that I sing the song to myself. One time I was going to school and I was singing "Cold Summer Nights", one big boy told me he almost wanted to shove me because I looked irritatingly lanky. He didn't because I was singing his favorite song. Needless to say, Francis M. saved my butt.

Fast forward 19 years later. One of my favorite artists died from septic shock today at noon. I watched an online mini-video of Eat Bulaga hosts announcing his demise. I cried. Funny how songs remind you of days that will never return, albeit mundane and common. You still cherish them because something about those days reminded you of a good thing you still enjoy even up to now.

I hold that memory with me still. I hold that song more closer now. Thank you Kiko. May you rest in peace.

44th

2009-01-24T07:37:00.000-08:00

Hail to the Chief! Barack Obama officially became the president of the United States of America and the most powerful man in the world last January 20, and I'm still giddy with excitement! It's the new frontier for American politics, and a new frontier for US diplomacy. Yes expectations are high for the man, and they should be rightfully so. Nobody expects mediocrity from this man, and I assume he expects only the best from himself. Concerns on the economy that has rocked the world's banking institutions, climate change, and the two-pronged wars is a big full plate to handle. No wonder his mantra is "We shall overcome" - very consistent with the Hope slogan during his primary and presidential campaigns.

Poverty as a Motive for a Film

2008-12-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

Two years ago I drafted a script for a friend who was an aspiring filmmaker. The script was about a young boy whose mother was an OFW. The boy imagined that his mom was Darna, a comic book heroine created by the legendary Mars Ravelo. The boy's family was lower middle class, and his grandmother and elder sister were the ones who lived with him in their cozy and respectable apartment. My friend wanted the script to be a funny and quirky story. I opted for the tragic and surrealist approach, wherein the boy eventually becomes a ghost recollecting memories of his mother. In the final scene I even had the boy disappear like a bullet fired towards the sky, which was possible since he was already a ghost. I strongly assumed my friend didn't like how I transformed a story with a quirky idea to a cautionary tale, because I never heard him discuss the script after I gave all fifteen pages of it to him. Instead I offered another script, this time the protagonist is a cross-dressing thief who enjoys snatching expensive wristwatches and jewelries from hapless victims. My friend asked me what the protagonist's motive was for living a life of crime. I told him that my cross-dressing hero/heroine was orphaned at a young age and therefore had to resolve to snatching expensive items in order to live, and the probability of escaping an impoverished future would be easy if s/he was able to save enough money, start a business and come out clean. My friend scoffed at the idea of poverty as a form of motivation. Poverty has always been a motivation in most Filipino films. Couldn't I be more creative with the protagonist's motivation?

When I thought of it, I did notice that most substantial Filipino films are indeed motivated by poverty, from Himala to Scorpio Nights, Jaguar to Balweg, Crying Ladies to Magnifico. Even in Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, poverty is an issue. Poverty probably had always been a scapegoat for stories. The old mother killed her child because she cannot feed her anymore. A young couple was forced to live under an old, decaying bridge because they cannot afford a home. A woman resorted to a career of crying in funerals because the opportunity to pursue her dream was bleak. But how do we escape poverty as an issue in our films when it is part of our daily lives? Wouldn't it be a great disconnect to the Filipino audience if the motivation was more first world in sensibilities? As artists, shouldn't our works reflect society's issues, and not just create art for art's sake by putting into story a motivation that may not even tickle the fancies of an ordinary Filipino viewer?

I personally believe that poverty should always remain a motivation in our films as long as it exists in our society. Even if my friend wants me to be more ambitious in looking for a different motivation, I believe that will be difficult for me to do. I don't want to pretend I'll be this genius who needs to put a blind eye on everything around me and surrender in my ivory tower so that I can pull out an idea that might change the face of cinema. I'm mediocre, and I'm not afraid to say otherwise.

Hmmmm....

2008-12-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

A little buzz is inching its way inside my cranium, almost to the point of my mind losing consciousness.

Scary thing for me to be in right now.

Lost

2008-11-25T06:20:00.000-08:00

"Do you know where you're going to?
Do you like the things that I've been showing you?
Where are you going to?
Do you know?"
- Diana Ross

Sometime ago I was walking around Mandaluyong Circle watching Christmas lights blink like fairies in the wee hours of night. Some childhood memory suddenly came clouding my mind. I began feeling vertigo. Then an existential question suddenly blocked my synapses and began asking, where the hell are you? What the hell are you up to? Why the hell are you here?

A sense of discontentment seeped in my chest, and the christmas lights suddenly lose their magical wonderland luster. This only happens whenever someone I knew was in the news, the broadsheet proclaiming how well they've done with their lives. Yes, someone recently won a literary award, the first Filipino to have such distinction. Yes, someone is introducing a new kind of ice cream business in the country. Yes, I'm still in the rut.

I don't know what to do with myself.
I just don't know what to do with myself.

I start blaming opportunities that I currently have. If I was the son of an oil tycoon, I could have pulled some connections in the writing industry. I could have been that first Filipino with the distinction of winning said award. If my family were well-off and able, I could've pioneered my own kind of business, and I would find myself in the broadsheet too. Because I'm no scion, I should content myself with jumping from company after another just to find my niche. Because my family had to struggle to make ends meet while I was young, I've no choice but to work like a fire ant so that I'd be able to save money for the business I so desire.

Hopelessly, I've surrendered my luck to a national game of chance, praying that the next lotto numbers were the ones I previously selected. However, my astrological sign tells me that my luck would only start to progress when I'm 52. Suffering, toil, and depression would be my companions first before I'm given a break. So as to believe that I'm not playing for luck, I've rationalized my approach on how to win the lottery. I'm currently applying the science of statistics for my vested interest to go around my unluckiness. There is comfort in believing that if it doesn't go your way, start analyzing how to make it go your way.

If my friends could only see what a sad, pitiful creature I've become, I'd be laughed out of existence. My great fear is that I felt like more was expected from me. I've become an Editor-in-Chief of a literary folio. Back in college that was a major accomplishment. I should be able to duplicate that after graduating from college, probably an Editor of a major magazine or one of those stuff. Now everyone's a manager of some sort, while I'm a clock-in/clock-out worker of a manufacturing company. So much for expectations.

The worst of it all is that I feel like I'm like my family when I was young: stuck in a rut and cannot make ends meet. I shudder at the daily diet of ma-ling with rice for lunch and skyflakes for merienda. It's not ma-ling anymore, but I thought by this time I should be eating Italianni's type of food. I thought by the time I reach the age 30 I should be driving my own car, or running my own company. Well, well, well - how reality struck me hard. I know I'm darn lost right now, and I'm ranting about it.

Ah, ranting.... and the space for rants. Thankfully nobody reads this. Now my negative energy's out and expressed. Time to start dreaming again :-)

Green Art

2008-11-22T06:48:00.000-08:00

Earlier I was fascinated by an artist who created artworks out of garlic juice. According to Jessica Soho of Jessica Soho Reports, the young man would buy garlic from the market, half for their homecooked meal and the other for his paintings. Judging from the artworks he has produced, they're no amateur works. The paintings may sell in the range of P5,000 - 10,000. But if they take into consideration the material used, the price should be higher.

There are no limitations to the Filipinos' creativity. It is easy to buy art materials from bookstores nowadays, but for a Pinoy artist to create his own material is something to admire. If I may suggest to the young man to use garlic that are rotting instead of garlic that are still good for consumption, since this would focus on conservation and not letting material that is believed to be un-usable go to waste.

As the future president of the United States of America, Barack Obama will usher in the New New Deal to the US by way of The Green Industry. To coincide with this, let me usher in the New New Deal for the art world - Green Art. Hehe. I'm pretty sure somebody somewhere in this big big world has probably thought of this, so I believe I'm pretty much unoriginal on this concept. But let me be a foremost proponent for Green Art, starting with this slogan - nothing must go to waste. Art has been at least a form of entertainment, and at most an expression of the human spirit. With a group of green artists paving the way, this revolution may yet rival the group of 20th century artists who ushered in the movement called Impressionism. Seriously, if we are to save our world, then our art should be reflective of this movement. Some Pinoy artists have already started using materials that I consider is green art, namely:

Solar ray painting. An old piece of deadwood can serve as canvas, while a magnifying glass that refracts sunrays to its surface guided by the most careful hands to produce wonderful masterpieces is something to behold.

Recycled sculpting and installation art. From discarded metal objects like car doors and old refrigerator, a sculptor can meld the metal and turn it into something wondrous that only his or her imagination can fashion. Those old bottle caps and plastic cans can be converted into installation art ala Alexander Calder's.

Shredded paper maches. I know this is a cottage industry inside Bilibid prison, where inmates use discarded paper from yellow pages and turn them to baskets or waste cans. An artist may have a much clearer vision on how to make this material more accessible to people with discriminating tastes.

I'm pretty excited about the prospect of this movement. With Filipino artists using this philosophy, I hope we take the art world by storm. :-)

10 year genius experience theory

2008-11-21T07:56:00.001-08:00

I'm an avid viewer of the Rachel Maddow show, and I stumbled on a segment where the guest talked about experience. He mentioned that eventhough someone shows potential because of his or her gifts that suits the field or career he or she is immersed in, it will never be enough to achieve success unless he or she has been practicing, honing and growing in the career path he or she has chosen. He mentioned as example a young boy who, at a young age, possessed the highest IQ score in the world. Much was expected from this boy. When the boy turned adult, his last contribution to society was limited to a trivial book that is rarely known nowadays, much less read.

The name of that boy is William James Sidis. When he was 27 he published a book called The Animate and the Inanimate(1925) where he believed that there is a region in space where the Second Law of Thermodynamics operated in reverse to our local area, which may have predicted the existence of black holes. He also delved into the study of evolution in his book The Tribes and States (1935) where he suggested that "there were red men at one time in Europe as well as in America." He coined the term peridromophile for people who love transportation research and streetcar systems. His last known published material, Collisions in Street and Highway Transportation (1936), encouraged the use of one way streets to limit accidents. Save for the previous works, this was not enough to remember him by. Whatever it is that he did during his lifetime, his body of work may have lacked focus. Comparing him to other geniuses like Mozart who lived music his entire life and produced sonatas and operas, or Van Gogh who may have started painting at 27 but was highly prolific up until his death at the age of 37, Sidis never stayed in one field. 10 years in Physics might have brought more dissertations from him. 10 years in anthropological studies might have provided insights on human evolution. That never happened.

Save for the IQ between 250-300 that was supposedly registered under his name the time he took an IQ test at a young age, not much is remembered about Sidis. His contribution to society had been, at most, a footnote. He remains a cautionary tale of talent that didn't live up to expectations, but it is unfair to have expected big things from a man who once said that the perfect life meant seclusion. Sidis is probably not the man who wants to be remembered. I think he is someone who wants to live life the way he wants it to without the burden of society giving him a place in history that he may not really have wanted in the first place.

After the Sidis example, Rachel Maddow's guest then applied his 10 year experience theory to Barack Obama. Obama may be a highly gifted politician, but he is aware that he needs to surround himself with people who already has experience in Washington because they know the ins and outs of Capitol Hill. I think this is a pragmatic move on Obama's part. Being a Washington outsider, Obama knows his weakness is that he is still unfamiliar with the way Washington works. Yes he has been immersed in politics for more than ten years, and he may have displayed a Presidential image during the debates, the financial crisis, and trips to Mideast and European countries to jack up his foreign policy credentials - but like what Bill Clinton said, no one is ever prepared to be president of the United States of America - not even Obama, who I believe is the best presidential candidate ever produced by the 2008 presidential campaign. Yet I should say the same for Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and even Joe Biden: all of whom touting experience, but never has Barack Obama's temperament.

Right now I wonder about this 10 year required experience in a particular field to be considered an expert or at least be knowledgeable. I prefer becoming an animator someday, yet most of my animation experience is in watching animated films and tv animations. The last animated short I've done clocks in at 11 seconds. This is hardly a body of work I can show to companies who are looking for animators. Most of the work I'm doing right now is in the field of graphic design, mainly designing packages, marketing collaterals, and photo touch ups.

However, I've been studying how to write scripts ever since I was young. Hell, I've created my first role playing story at the age of nine, when me and my brothers played in this make believe world I've created out of boredom. This is important, because a good animator is also a good storyteller. And I don't take for granted things that I learn while I'm doing graphic design. I know all of these things will be put to good use in the future. I'm planning to have at least a year's experience of doing graphic design before I venture into other fields of art that would help me fulfill my dreams.

I'm already 31 years old, and I'm still taking baby steps. But I don't care. :-)

2008 US Presidential Election

2008-11-06T04:34:00.001-08:00

Finally, the US election has ended. The candidate I wanted to win the election won it decisively. John McCain, for all the nastiness, childish and churlish behaviors he has exhibited during the campaign, saved himself by graciously conceding to President- elect Barack Obama with utmost sincerity. One wonders where this John McCain has been during one of the longest campaigns in the US Presidential election history. Sarah Palin, thankfully, will return to Alaska as its governor. She may run again in 2012, but the wow factor would have been diminished by then. Joe Biden, an aneurysm survivor, is now the Vice President-elect of the United States of America. Joe the Biden. He's a funny man. Like Barack Obama, he's a good man.

The 2008 US election is indeed historic, because whoever wins will claim to be the first: Barack Obama, the first African-American President; John McCain, would have been the most oldest elected President (Reagan, who was older when he was re-elected, shouldn't count because he was the incumbent president at that time); Joe Biden, the first Roman Catholic Vice President; Sarah Palin, would have been the first Female Vice President.

Hopefully, there will be lesser regrets this time. Americans voted for someone whom they deemed most competent and pragmatic. One can count the days left in the White House for someone irrationalized (Dubya) by ideologies that has led the USA in great peril. One can count the days of using fear as a tool to rule. Hope won a big victory, and it won with a mandate.

Poem i

2008-10-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

I have a blog in my Friendster account, but it hasn't been active for the past six months. I still have some poems there that I want to extricate, but the system is not allowing me to even enter the settings. Aaaarggghhh!!! Anyway, I've got a poem to share:

Glance

How slow
the fishes swim
in the aquarium.

You swear
a glimpse of rainbow
fleetingly reflect
on their scales.

How fast
your gaze rests
on his speckless shoulder.

I swear
a little star
flashed brightly
in your eyes.

Christian and...Hateful?

2008-10-11T02:50:00.000-07:00

I've been Roman Catholic for the past 31 years of my life. However, I'm not whom you would call a devout Christian. I rarely go to church nowadays. Big reason why is my apparent laziness. Sometimes I would rather stay at home and sleep than spend an hour with God and his big family. I know it's my shortcoming, and yes it's unforgivable, but I'll make it up to God one of these days. Promise :-)

Anyhow, my faith has also taught me never to bear false witness against my neighbor. It is one of those things that I try so hard to do. Thankfully I have not bore any lies to my fellows that would eventually derail or destroy their careers for the purpose of promoting mine. The reason why I haven't resorted to such action is because I highly value my integrity. I mean I would probably let other people bear lies against me if they can't help it, but that's their loss not mine. People who bear false witness against their neighbors lose their integrity and credibility. Not only that, they lose the trust of the people they have told their lies to if these people found out that these lies were lies.

This is the thin thread that John McCain and, most importantly, Sarah Palin is twiddling with right now. The US General Elections has now been about the economy, what with the DOW Jones dropping to 8,000 level and the 700 billion dollar bailout appearing to have not worked well to stop the bleed from the stock market. As a democratic presidential candidate, this is Obama's strong suit. Right now he is leading in the polls by an average of 6-10 %. So what are the Republican candidates in the top ticket doing right now? Attack the other candidates' character.

This is what I don't understand about this. If the republicans do represent the evangelicals, the conservative christians, the pro-life, the Bible, everything that is supposed to be right(in the right wing sense), then shouldn't they practice what they preach? In one of the McCain stumps, some members of the crowd would call Obama a terrorist. Another would even shout kill him! What is odd is that McCain and Palin didn't even respond to these members by telling them what they're doing is uncivil and downright disrespectful. Their silence almost meant they condone it.

Maybe I can let McCain be McCain. I've always believed his temperament is brittle, and leaving his first wife for a blonde heiress has already shown his character. But as for Palin, I expect more from her. Because she used inflammatory words onstage, words like "dangerous," "dishonorable," and "risky" encouraged the vitriol from the crowd. This proves my point that she doesn't have any business at all in this election. How she can easily be swayed by the crowd shows she lacks conviction. If Obama's inexperienced, she's incompetent.

Christians have no place being hateful. "Love thy neighbors", that's what the Bible says. Anyone who lets themselves be influenced by hatred is no different from the crowd who allowed the Son of God to be crucified at the cross.

Dreamer

2008-09-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

When I was nine years old, I remember sitting by our living room window and writing a story on our coffee table. The story was about a genie who ruled four worlds in a bottle. That bottle floated restlessly in space, its impenetrable and magical glass shielding the worlds within from cosmic forces that could cause havoc and destruction.

When I was two years old, the most vivid memory I had was doodling. I remember someone old teaching me how to write. What I did instead was doodle circles on cheap writing pad, the one that had the texture and thinness of newspaper.

When I was twelve years old, I started creating characters with superhuman abilities. One had the ability to fly like a rocket; another had the ability to shoot powerful light rays from his hands; and another one had superhuman strength. For each of these characters I paired them with members of the opposite sex who also had similar capabilities, albeit not as spectacular.

When I was four I already knew what I wanted to be when I grew up: an animator. Dazzled by Popeye, Mickey Mouse and Friends, Thundercats, Transformers, and Mask, and inspired by the success of Walt Disney and Jim Davis of Garfield and Friends, I made a promise to myself that someday I will become a well-known animator. If not, that I will make a fortune out of animation.

At thirty one, I am now working as graphic designer. You'd wonder if I have already forgotten my dreams, these personal legends I desire to fulfill. I haven't. I always see myself fulfilling these dreams, and what I'm doing right now is a stepping stone to what I want to be. For all I know I might have dreamed of what I'm doing right now but because it was never vivid I've completely forgotten about it. Or that I might be living someone else's dream, I'm darn lucky to be living it.

DNC and RNC National Convention

2008-09-06T07:37:00.000-07:00

The conventions have already wrapped up. Gallup poll for both presidential aspirants, Barack Obama and John McCain, are at 48 - 44% respectively. The most dramatic day of the DNC convention was held at Invesco Field, where approximately 80,000 people in the stadium and 40 million people back home watched as Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech. For the RNC, it was in the Excel Energy Center, where 37 million people back home watched Sarah Palin, a relative unknown in the presidential campaign until John McCain chose her to be his running mate, accepted the candidacy for Vice President of the Republican Party.

So, what are my thoughts on the candidates?

The Presidentiables
Barack Obama. The sole reason why I'm tuned in to the US presidential election. I'm from a conservative country with a conservative approach, but he is those once in a lifetime, grade A candidate. His speech was electrifying. Try speaking in front of a crowd for 45 minutes without getting them bored. I personally like what he stands for -- the American Dream. That's something the previous US administration usurped and abused for 8 years. I shouldn't care much about my American counterparts because I'm not American but hey, if you see someone who resurrects political interest in the youth and the world you are compelled to shout out and tell the Americans not to screw it up again because, let's face it, we may not really like them that much but we don't want to see them self-destruct.

John McCain. Overall impression I have of this guy is that he's very very very.... old. Ancient. Aged, and a bit obtuse. 26 years of service in Washington is laudable, but if you insist that you're an agent of change when you've been part of the problem because you're one of Washington's old timers is insincere, lying, and downright pandering. He probably wants to be seen as an Obama. His selected VP was careless, and scary (more about the VP pick later.) What he should have done was focus on those issues that he stood for in the past that helped the American people, and with regards to issues that unfortunately didn't help the Americans he could've said he's only human and that he makes mistakes - wisdom that is typical of old people but unfortunately I didn't find on this man. I've seen issues on abortion, gay marriage, the economy, etc. Compared to Obama, his approach is practically to maintain the same policies of the previous administration. (Obama's into spending BIG TIME, but he's made it clear that he will get the money by taxing the rich, most especially the ones who are worth billions of dollars.)

The Vice Presidentiables
Joe Biden. The Democratic Party's attack dog. I'm waiting for a moment from him. I've watched him attack the Republicans for staying from the issues. It appears as if he's careful to respond to the VP choice of McCain. He doesn't want to give a perception that may be mistaken as sexist. But I say the Republican's VP choices administrative issues are fair play. Regarding his speech, one of his senior moments was when he mistakenly referred to McCain as Bush, but got back big time by explaining "Freudian slip". Classic. I'm still waiting for him to bare his fangs.

Sarah Palin. She's been a very effective attack dog... while reading scripts. She did that during her acceptance speech. She did it again in Wisconsin. What she's not effective is telling the truth. And giving interviews. She shunned the press and we barely even know her. Right now she has a large following, exciting the Republican base, probably the reason why she's not giving out to interviews so that she can maintain the sizeable following of the Republicans. Putting them in the dark while they still admire her, Rove might think. I may be conservative, but her conservative outlook is very scary. I was expecting her to be a celebration of a woman in governance. It turned out she's the negative experience. Everything that came out from her mouth recently has been negative. Fairly disappointed and disgusted, because I was rooting for her. A game changer in American politics, much like Obama is.

Overall observation: While the Democrats (who have campaigned negatively in the past) have that positive aura swirling around them, the Republicans (who should be campaigning in a positive tone) have taken that negative mantle to their campaign. Good vs. Rove. Let the US General Election begin.

:-)

Crunchy Roll

2008-08-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

Recently I discovered a website that lets me watch anime-manga for free. In case you haven't visited it, just type the web address www.crunchyroll.com.

I've never been a big fan of anime-manga, most especially during college. I wasn't really fond of it, and felt aghast when 90% of the artists in the publication drew in anime-manga style that it immediately became generic. In other words if you can draw manga, congratulations! You're now one of the most promising artist in the campus, nevermind originality and innovation that tends to be bypassed because someone can imitate Eugene from Ghost Fighter better than Girl With A Pearl Earring by Jan Vermeer.

Most of the artists of our university's literary folio were inspired by the anime-manga style. Some of us were quite desperate in developing the skills of these artists because it wasn't the art style that we wanted to go along with poetrys and fictions and thoughtful essays our student writers wrote. We thought they deserved much better illustrations.

For those of us whose minds weren't de-virginized by Ranma 1/2 and Dragonball Z, we fought with intense activism not to let even exaggerated large eyes mutilate our works. Some of us eventually gave in. Not me, even after I became the literary folio's Editor-in-Chief. I never raised a white flag.

But as you gradually grow old, your tastes tend to shift. From what I gather, most of these aficionados who developed their illustrating abilities with the anime-manga style are either working in advertising companies, flying abroad for big projects, mounting exhibits in galleries, or simply moving on with their lives, choosing a path that was different from what they thought they would become after graduation - become an anime-manga artist in Japan. I can barely see traces of the anime-manga style they so laboriously loved doing when they scribbled on their notepads or doodled on the character warbooks. The Ranma eyes and Dragonball Z hairs are gone. Now their personal styles dominate most of their works.

This is quite a transgression from me, you see. From anime-manga hater to avid follower of the Shugo Chara series, I'm now just beginning to appreciate the art form that artists five years younger than I am appreciated then.

I may be growing backwards, but this is new to me. Leave me and my Shugo Chara be.

Yuck!!!

2008-08-17T08:47:00.001-07:00

I googled my name online just to see if I can find anything interesting about me - if I'm already famous, which is moot, or if I'm acting like the invisible king of the world that no one ever pays attention to, which is more likely. I chanced upon this site:

http://members.fortunecity.com/dlsuwg/seascape.htm

This site was loaded with works done by students who joined a writer's contest back in college that focused on an environmental theme. I chanced upon a poem that had me as the author. When I read it I thought it was probably written by someone else who had the same name as I do. When I read it the second time it dawned on me that I wrote the poem. So what did I think of that poem? One word:

YYYYYYYYUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!

That's right. It was bad. Horrible. Prosaic. Too literal. Amateurish. Pretentious. Everything that is a negative adjective, that's that poem. I remember how proud I felt writing it then. It was my first jab at being Nerudaic or Derek Walcottish. Jeez. Did it really have to take twelve years for me to realize how ugly it was? How bad a writer I was back then? (I'm probably still bad even now, but it will take me another twelve years to realize that too) Boy I'd like to kill myself because of this sucky poem. Here it is in its full glory:

SEASCAPE
In taking morning walks, I become nostalgic
watching sea-waves roll and foam at the shore.
Each bare steps on the fine grains of sand
is like a walk in a land where wearing shoes
and sandals are out of style.I inhale every delightful breath
of wind, coming from the horizon
where I anticipate the glorious sunrise.
I remind myself of watching
the azuring of the sky;
by chance I might spot a lone seagull
flying in space that is as clear as a peaceful sky.

This seascape is a pleasure to me,
a masterpiece I cannot exchange
to factories' spewing and vomitting
grays ans blacks from their chimneys and tunnels,
tainting two of the earth's fairest blues;
to the factories' products the earth cannot swallow, warting the fine face of the beaches;
to the factories' smokes, murdering
the birds and the immaculate wind.

the tide of progress is not worth the risk sacrificing
the seascape beauty that inspires my spirit.

I just did a revise of this poem. Let me see if I'll appreciate it after another twelve years.

SEASCAPE
Sea-waves roll
and foam at the shore.
The sand moves
at the waves urging.
We tread the last days
of summer barefoot.
The sands cling
like memories on our skin.
Pick a rock to bring home,
one with grooves
like craters on the moon.
I'll pick a white one,
smooth like lava stones
immaculate as June.

Afternoon sun clears.
Try to remember the sky
as seagulls sail
like pairs of yachts
gliding by.
Take a good picture. Snap a second
this day is willing to share.
Snap more. Silhouettes change.
Horizons refrain to darkness.
There is not a moment to spare.

Strong Rains

2008-08-16T00:13:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I walked from the MRT station to the boarding house. My friend enjoyed looking at the throngs of people waiting at the sideways for a public utility vehicle that will never come, given that these scrupulous jeepney drivers opted to spend their 2-hour vacation waiting for the rain to stop and for the flood that surrounded the city's municipal hall to subside. Now they enjoy the additional 1.50 increase to the transport fare by not providing the service required of them by the hundreds of stranded passengers along Bonifacio highway, even if the price of oil in the international market has dropped from $140 to $118 because of the summer season.

Yesterday, they did it again. I had to walk from MRT to the boarding house while the sky lashed out its gazillion of raindrops to the people below. It felt like walking through Victoria falls without the spectacle. I was soaking wet from head to toe, and I was using a new umbrella. It felt like a 20-km walk in the rain. And those jeepney drivers opted to stay out of the rain and the floods, for fear that their stainless steel contraptions might get wet. Those stupid fools.

The good side of this was that I was able to save 17.00 pesos for the two days I walked from the train to home. Another good side of it is I had exercise. These days I never had the privilege of going to the gym, even strut my yoga positions at home. I always wanted to walk from MRT to the boarding house if it wasn't for the black smoke that vehicles farted out while they attempt to zoom through a road that is congested with traffic and incompetent traffic aides. The pollution and stress is enough ingredient for suicide.

But I still want to get back at those jeepney drivers. Those fools don't deserve the transport fare increase if they're gonna act like brats. Honestly they wouldn't be able to feed their family if it wasn't for the the commuters who shoulder their incessant whinings about not having enough money for their daily lives. I think they don't even pay for their taxes, while the minimum wage earner (before President Arroyo decided not to tax them) had to contend with parting an amount from their measly earnings to give to a corrupt and incompetent government.

Give service where service is due.

The Olympics, Part II

2008-08-14T07:25:00.000-07:00

I don't think most people know this, except if you live in a landlocked nation sandwiched between Russia and China. Naidangiin Tuvshinbayar, a Mongolian judoka, recently won the first gold medal for his country in this year's Olympic games. Congratulations to him! I think Filipinos should celebrate this Mongolian's amazing feat. Actually, I am celebrating right now :-) .

Why, you may ask, am I celebrating? Well, first off, Mongolia is the only country that has the distinction of winning the most number of silver and bronze models without winning any gold medals than any other nation. It has 5 silvers and 10 bronzes. The next country with the most number of Olympic silver medals without gold ( or even bronze for that matter) is Namibia, with 4. As for bronze, that would be the Philippines, with 7. Now that Mongolia has officially won a gold medal (barring Tuvshinbayar's disqualification for taking in performance enhancing drugs or dope), Namibia ( which should celebrate unless they win a gold) now holds the distinction as the country with the most number of silver medals won without gold, and the Philippines (which will never win a gold this Olympic year, mark my words) now holds the distinction of being the country with the most number of bronze medals won without gold.

But the fun doesn't only end there. When Mongolia still held that distinction, the combined total of all silver and bronze medals they had was 15. The next country with the most number of medals without a gold medal won was, you guess it, the Philippines! with 9 medals - 2 silvers and 7 bronzes.

Wow. Talk about a mathematical perspective that I can take pride on. Now I can proudly say that the Philippines OWNS the distinction of having the most number of medals, without winning any gold medals, than any other nation IN THE WORLD. At least in the Olympics, where the Olympic spirit is mistakenly measured by how well a country did in the medal standings, we get to be number one without even winning gold. Honestly, I think that's very great!

So to future Filipino athletes, it's okay not to win gold medals, as long you're winning silvers and bronzes. We need to protect this distinction of ours! GO GO GO TEAM PHILIPPINES! Get those silvers and bronzes!

The Olympics

2008-08-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

Hmmm.....

The Philippines started participating in the Summer Olympics in 1924. That was hosted by Paris, France. Since then, our country has racked up 7 bronzes, 2 silvers, and no gold. We are 72nd overall in the world in terms of most number of medals won in the entire Olympic history, and we are 2nd to Mongolia with the most number of medals won without winning gold.

Yes, we are lagging behind some of our Southeast Asian neighbors. Thailand already has 17 medals:5 golds, 2 silvers and 10 bronzes. As of press time, they won another gold in women's weightlifting, so their total should move to 18. They started participating in 1952, when Helsinki, Finland hosted the Summer Olympics. Indonesia already has 20 medals: 5 golds, 8 silvers, and 7 bronzes. As of presstime, they won another bronze medal, so that should boost their total to 21. They also started participating in 1952, in Helsinki Finland. As of presstime, Vietnam just won a silver in, you guess it, weightlifting! Like Indonesia and Thailand, they also started participating in the Summer Olympics in 1952 in Helsinki, Finland.

So given that we have the longest period of participation in the Olympics compared to our neighbors, I'm going to push this big elephant in the room out in the open field - Why haven't we won any gold medals yet?

Should I blame the government? But I bet $340,000 pot money for the first Filipino athlete who wins gold is no small thing. Then again the government hasn't shown much commitment and dedication in developing world-class athletes. What I noticed is they keep sending the same athletes who can't close the deal (I'm speaking to you Harry Tañamor) when I think there are other deserving athletes who should have been focused more on and not left in the sidelines. Heck, if Manny Pacquiao was developed first into an Olympian before he became one of the best pound for pound fighters, he could have won us another bronze, possibly a silver by the number of punches he might've landed on his opponent - A gold if he knocks them down cold.

Should I blame luck? Mary Antoinette Rivero was so close to entering the medal round, but had to contend with a hometown Greek athlete and, with all biases involved, settled for a score of 3-2.

Maybe I should blame poor officiating? Ah, but I can't just go through that particular area since most of the athletes who've won medals for the Philippines are boxers, and boxing is a field that has a long history of CORRUPTION, most especially in the Olympics.

Or we're probably just not that physically "superior" compared to other races, ... whatever that means.

My forecast for Beijing is that we'll still go home empty-handed and brokenhearted. I've given up hoping for the best for my fellow countrymen who participates in the quadrennial event. It really is a matter of pride, saying to other people in other countries that "Hey, we have a gold medal winner too you know" (Barring any American braggadocios who may boast 896 golds at your face but hey, you just gotta love them ;-) ) I think it takes someone with a heart of a champion to carry the burden of winning the country's first gold medal. Looking at the athletes that we've sent, I think they've got big fighting hearts who will savor the thought that even if they don't win at least they're in the elite group of 10,000 athletes all over the world who at least were selected to participate.

But I'm still waiting for that champion.

Sunday Scare

2008-07-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday my family and I went to SM Mall of Asia. We bought toys for my godson Jomjom, whose birthday was last Friday the 25th. There were four adults in our group -- me, mom, my brother, and Jane. Jane is the caretaker of the kids, and she's only 14 years old or probably younger. Her attitude that time was irritating. She complained fatigue while she let my mom, who happens to be a senior citizen, watch over my nephew and my niece while rummaging through clothes in the boy's section of the department store. I was a bit relaxed about the excursion because there were four adults and there were just two kids to watch over. The youngest, Maemae, is bright, active and downright playful. Only four years old, she'd confidently go through the toy section, sometimes all by herself and with no one watching her. I made sure not to let my eyes off her. Since I was tasked to pay for Jomjom's new pants, I was confident that someone was looking over her. When I came back, I asked my mom where Maemae was. My mom said she was with Jane. I looked for Jane and asked her where Maemae was. She said she didn't know, and that she wasn't watching over her that time. I started to panic. This was not the first time it happened.

One time I was scared when we went to the supermarket on a Sunday, all the aisles jampacked with shoppers. Maemae, playful kid that she is, would run from one aisle to the other, trying to hide from me. It was tiresome but I cannot let the kid just disappear from my sight. Then it happened. Turning to the next aisle, Maemae was gone. Panicked, I ran in the middle section of the grocery where a large aisle that overlooked the smaller aisles was also filled with people pushing carts. I cannot find the other family members because they were probably busy shopping for their own items, and must have trusted that I can take care of a very active kid. After five minutes of not seeing Maemae, I approached one of the saleslady and told them my dilemma. A minute later, Maemae came out along with Jomjom and my mom.

That was not the only instance when Maemae got lost. In the department store of the same mall, probably because nobody was attentive of the little kid, my mom and Maemae's previous caretaker, Emily, thought that my niece was just toggling along. When they looked for her they found out she was gone. It took them five minutes to look for her. Eventually she was brought by a good person to the customer service counter, where they paged my mom and Emily about a little girl wearing a pink shirt who was lost.

Eventually we found Maemae after fifteen minutes. A staff of the mall approached her because she was all alone and crying. He brought her to the customer service counter. I heard the page of the customer service and quickly proceeded to the counter. There I found my mom hugging Maemae. I was very angry that my companions were very careless at watching over Maemae. I was very infuriated with Jane. She was supposed to watch over the kids. But given she's only fourteen years old and not old enough to vote, I wouldn't expect her to really feel responsible for not watching over my niece. But I'm still shaken by the situation. Next time we go out I'll make sure that Maemae is harnessed at either one of us. For it to happen three times is unforgivable. I shudder the thought of something worse that may happen. Better prevent the habit of carelessness as soon as possible.

Stress Reliever

2008-07-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

There was a time when I was complaining that nobody wanted to hire me because I was too inexperienced or I flunked the examination. Now when I got the job as graphic designer for Jockey International, I'm complaining that there's too much work to be done, but too little money saved in my bank. I was supposed to be earning an amount that would have been psychologically satisfying, figuring that the recession that's happening all over the world is just in my head (as Phil Gramm, John McCain's top economic adviser turned future ambassador to Bulgaria, did say two weeks ago). But then because of too much taxes and questionable computations, I'm getting an amount lesser than what I got four years ago as a call center agent. Imagine that. I was earning more when I was doing less than now when I'm doing more.

I shouldn't be complaining because this is one of the things I've wanted to do my entire life. More so I wanted the title that comes along with it: Graphic Designer. A career in designing posters and stickers is at least more artistically satisfying than listening to complaints and being asked to do the impossible like, say, change the weather. But sometimes it seems impossible to cater to different projects thrown at me, because people in the company I work for don't seem have the notion that I'm the only graphic designer in the company and that even if I'm proficient with the tools required to do the job, I'm no magician when it comes to doing things fast. Take, for example, our marketing manager. She's nice. But when she asks me to do five packages and design a poster while I'm printing out names on envelopes made of parchment paper to ambassadors and VIPs ( a job that I'm not supposed to do since I'm not the President's secretary and, you guess it, I'm the fucking GRAPHIC DESIGNER!) with the minutest mistake to the point that I'm anally attached to the printer, and she wants it done within a day, I'm flustered. Like I wanted to tell her if she's serious or what. Hey Lady! I'm not Wall-E! I'm not efficiently mechanical like your printer! I'm not even the Second Coming, so give me a break!

Which reminds me of the thing my friend said five months ago - "be careful what you wish for." Hey. I love this job, but I don't want to kill myself doing this job. These people are killing me. The stress is really something. It's even affecting my diet. Before, I can eat two cups of rice and mounds of viand and drink lots and lots of water. Now, I feel full even if I just sipped a small bowl of beef stew.

That's why blogging's gonna be a part of my routine from now on. I'll be able to release stress here. I'm pretty sure nobody reads this anyway. How lucky I am to be a nobody. :-)

Chants - Face Recognition

2006-12-17T18:22:00.000-08:00

There is this new interesting engine online called www.myheritage.com with a very special amenity: face recognition. It gives you the chance to see who you look like amongst the different celebrities all over the world. Guess what? In my frowning portrait, failed James Bond actor Timothy Dalton and loudmouth narcissistic rapper Kanye West came first at 63%, and incredibly cool Gene Simmons at 61%. Jet Li is also not far behind with 57%. When I'm smiling, I'm a 71% look-alike of China's beloved legendary deceased actor Leslie Cheung. Jet Li also happens to always figure in the list, either smiling or frowning, with 67% and 51% similarity respectably. And whoa, Brazilian soccer great Ronaldo with 68% similarity. Thank god I have no pretty boy look-alikes!

Well, almost. Freddie Prinze Jr. figured in the list with 56%. Jesse Bradford at 53% similarity. That sucks!

Rants - Family Members

2006-09-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

A moment ago my nephew got water inside his ears due to unguided bathing at our backyard. I asked myself if my brother and sister-in-law where even watching their child take a bath. I assumed, as always, they weren't. 10 minutes later my nephew was crying like a piglet ready for slaughter. I suggested using cottonbuds, since cotton can absorb water immediately. My brother replied the cottonbuds might puncture his eardrums. I was taken aback by the stupid response. You're just going to put it inside the ear, not move it around and clean the ear. I also thought my brother should do it, since letting the kid put the cottonbud in his ears might be another accident waiting to happen. Arrogance led my brother to leave his kid, this time crying louder, like a piglet already being slaughtered. Then my sister-in-law suggested to sip the water out from my nephew's ear using her mouth. I thought she was joking, but she mentioned it twice, and she sounded serious. Unbelievable. That's one of the reasons why I can't leave my mom's house and leave my mom in their care. Right now it's as if I'm playing a real-life version of Big Brother or Survivor: Mom's House. I want these idiots booted out.

Twilight

2006-09-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

Some people would rather stay away from the darkness or light entirely. They measure their existence by the scattered sunlight before it rises or after the day dies. It is constricting, but in such times, when either the world is awake or deep in slumber, these people see the brightest stars.

I, for one, tried to see the world during the magical blue hour. I tried to smell the flowers, since they were reported to smell the strongest during this time of day. Sadly, all I can smell is dry grass.

Fingernails

2006-09-12T03:47:00.000-07:00

Fine time for me to remind myself why I need to cut my fingernails. Earlier I entered a cubicle in the men's comfort room when the cubicle door automatically bounced on the wooden pane with my fingers in between. Luckily my fingers were nimble to evade the door and avoid a minor injury. Unluckily my very long fingernail was chipped off, looking like it was chewed on. I honestly don't want to leave an impression that I have such an unhealthy habit, so tonight my fingernails will have to undergo some trimming.

Wanderlusting in your Imagination

2006-09-09T07:21:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine forwarded beautiful pictures of earthly places I wish I was born in: a pink umbrella left on a lovely wooden bridge, complemented by pink cherry trees in the background; a solitary citrus green tree in the middle of a lavender field; golden autumn leaves lining up a forgotten road; winter glazing the trees and the fields white; a glacier glowing in the darkness of the Arctic region; a row of windmills standing still beneath a late afternoon sky; a shaft of sun piercing through a canyon gulch; a field of yellow flowers on the foot of a snow-capped mountain range. My eyes remained on those pictures for half an hour. I look outside our office, and see glass monoliths drenched in afternoon thunderstorm, the lightning slicing through the velvet darkness of heavy clouds. We only pass this way once indeed.

Resurrection

2006-09-01T18:36:00.000-07:00

Time to start anew.

Old things are not forgotten easily, specially for someone who's got an elephant memory. People stay. People go. People forget to stop by and say hello. People you know pass by as if you're someone new. They forget your name, pretend you're a stranger, and when you strike a conversation, their first sentence consist of the words "Hey! Don't I know you?" You wish you'd slap them silly, then find it unnecessary, and surrender to the awful general view: they're human just like you.

But they're not like you. Not with your elephant memory. And you remember everything they do. And they'll keep doing what they do - forgetting me and forgetting you. But you'll remember that too.