Tuesday, July 26, 2005

dive into my bowl

I just have to say this. I now have a tagboard! Feel free to put anything you want there--views, comments, rants, obsceneties, philosophical musings, literary farts, intellectual cum, or invitations to orgies.

Oh and I have another blog. I created it a few months ago but it’s not updated, which means it’s pointless to direct you there really, but, what the heck. Go check it out if you want to. It’s a free country.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

these fucktards made my day!

It’s good to be in the company of friends who don’t regard me as a museum oddity. Friends who can read through the massive fortress I have erected to shield my feebleness; friends who offer me a puff of their Dunhill cigarettes and encourage me, a non-smoker, to go on and try it like I were some high school kid; friends who would offer to give me a wet smooch, tongue and all, whenever I feel I’ve been shortchanged by love; friends who would listen to and argue with me at Starbucks, oftentimes impaling me with their scathing diatribes for fucking up my own life; friends who strive to see things through my eyes without necessarily conceding; friends who don’t look at me like I was a talking specimen of alien life forms from Pluto; friends who do not lick my ass now and bugger it with a chainsaw the next moment; friends who do not go around announcing to the whole world how dirty my undies are.

Oh yes, they do exist. Through billows of cigarette smoke, they give you their smirks and smiles and dirty fingers. Over tall glasses of Frapuccino, they slap you awake with crisp curses, obscenities, and blasphemies so hard that the customers on the other table think you’re a bunch of Satanists out on a holiday. Whenever you’re feeling blue, they would not even try to comfort you. They’d tear and mangle and desecrate your very soul while trying to decipher your psyche. And then, when you’re already dismembered and bleeding, they would knock you down with their own take on your issues and suddenly you feel like a lame fucktard for having felt depressed in the first place and then you’d just laugh your ass off and then put your ass back in place and laugh it off again and slap it back in place ad infinitum.

After hanging out with them last night, I felt I could breathe again.

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Tuesday, July 19, 2005

where the pool ends

When I was just starting on lap swimming, I never stopped in the middle of the pool. I used to goad myself to go and touch the tiled wall on the other side. It was my little personal goal. A lap, once started, should always be finished. No stopping in the middle of the pool however breathlessly tired I was. I thought, if I could not finish this, then how could I expect to finish my thesis, or anything for that matter?

That’s how I encouraged myself to take lap swimming seriously. I did finish my thesis, albeit haphazardly, and some other little triumphs on the side. But now I feel I haven’t been touching the tiled wall on the other side that much. The water is now too cloudy to give me a clear picture of what’s ahead, not to mention the other swimmers who produce more current disturbance than a quadruple-boiler ship. Sometimes I even end up unwittingly encroaching on other swimmers’ lanes, duped into believing that their goals are mine, too. Sometimes the tides change and I feel I am swimming toward where I came from, suddenly finding comfort and repugnance with the familiar.

Most of the time, I feel the tiled wall at the end of the pool does not exist at all.

Friday, July 15, 2005

and you call that rambling?

Whenever bloggers write ‘I’m just rambling on in here,’ I always roll my eyes and say, ‘you call that rambling?’ It does not even come close to being disjointed, confused, and inconsequential. Compared to my ramblings, theirs are literary masterpieces. When I ramble on, I really ramble on, without thinking of the sense or organization of what I write. Or maybe I’m just more bored than most drifters here in blogosphere. Yeah, maybe that’s it. I’m way too bored to even try to tidy up my thoughts. Or I’ve really gone bonkers but don’t want to admit it. Or my brain’s pretending it still has some functioning dendrites when in fact it has nothing but sawdust floating around like white thingies in a snow globe.

Whatever the state of my mind is, I know I can ramble and babble and jabber and prattle and talk nonsense very well, thank you very much. That’s what I do best. Come to think of it, this whole freaking blog is just a load of nonsensical, higgledy-piggledy bullshit.

Anyway, I saw this file being eaten by termites inside my hard disk. I decided to extricate it from the deepest bowels of my disgruntled Drive C: and air it out here a bit. I wrote it in a brief moment of dementia (which is not infrequent, by the way); finished it in one minute tops, without pausing, without thinking, without reflecting, without breathing. I entitled it…

The Principle of Trajectory Endeloscopic Malfunction within the Context of Eloidical Amalgamation of Presumptions: A Philosophical Treatise

With the introduction of all the possible protracted imperfections resulting from interlocutions of elitist ponderings, now wanting in castrated ramifications, now smelling of placated shimmering, or oscillated windows, all lip service of the shod of the matron who consecrates the mawkish wanderings of the prefect whose wife meanders into the marshes of sanctimonious leprosy, warrants undivided attention. Why then must the lusty porcupines finger the listless fodder of the lemur? Because of travesty and megalomania? And what of the leaping umbilical protection afforded by the lackey’s blistered lopsided mush? In this never-colliding machinery, the spent locomotors cease to entangle plausible pundits. However, knowing fully well the recalcitrant domain of the king’s loquacious plenary trappings, the amalgamation of slivers and trapezoids arrests the vortex of seasoned ebbing. This very senile shade, in whose folds rests another rapacious yet cranky shenanigan, sees the effervescent pleadings of a truncated, masticated, and emaciated tendon. If, however, we perceive a contraction in the mezzanine of canonical bonkers, the sanguine pores of the meticulously calibrated scumbag leaps into another zooming goulash. Granting that this perception tingles the trumpeted finesse, the pockmarked leasing of unity’s posh canine holster must not presuppose a possible beating.

The presumption, therefore, of a bloated linden nourishment trims our intellectual perspicuity into another lobbying enigma, a trinket in limbo, a princely innuendo of a precarious, elemental contrition. Of all the lampooned premises, this one creates a lucid tinkering of a nunnery. Could it be the legalese that a horde of rambunctious lechers lubricates to form an elephantine ermine? Perhaps it is, or perhaps not, judging, I presume, from a kinetic celerity that chases the perfected onomatopoeic pontifical crest. However, my proposition adjuncts an overarching, lashing yet brocaded plummet into a hegemonic pandemonium. If this is the hemispherical bolstering, then the crowned, pilfered stealth of a crinoline piston does more to the draconian fleeter.

Provided that the fictitious shamble procures a sabbatical amputation, however suppositorial or endemical, we can project a pincer. And why not? Shall lisping be tiered to fixate moribund somnambulism? That would be a stark contradiction of Leplupaditot’s theory of transcendental implications. Lost within the peristaltic embellishment of the pristine mesentery of a Calvinist torque, we can, in all filigreed somnolence and opulence, extricate the limpid sonority of aquiline prosthetics.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

glitz, glam, and boys in thongs

I was at the glitzy opening ceremonies of the the Cinemalaya Film Fest at the lobby of CCP’s Main Theater last night.

Cinemalaya is a bid to resuscitate the dying film industry by encouraging the production of independent quality films. Six short films were premiered that night, amid pomp and pageantry. In the darkened lobby, only spotlights on the floor illumined the platform that was diffused with stage smoke. All the huge, swanky chandeliers were draped with white, gauzy cloth. Amid half naked male dancers with gleaming body paints and fancy headdresses, the filmmakers were hailed like returning Roman conquerors. I was, like, OK enough with the hype. We’ve already been convinced that it’s worth our while. No need for trumpety fanfare. Cut the garish bullshit and let us get on with the damn films!

After an overly dramatic performance of the theme song by Grace Nono, who staged a faggoty entrance via the grand, twisting, smoke-choked staircase, we were instructed by the voice-over girl to “follow the balangay (ancient pre-Hispanic boat) toward the Little Theater.”

And so, led by Grace Nono in an ethnic-inspired, Graeco-Roman robe and silver-painted boys wearing nothing but silver thongs (where the hell did the women in thongs go?), rowing their oars in theatrical slow-mo, we all trooped toward the Little Theater while a recording of Grace’s voice suffused the misty air. With all the TV cameras around, I felt like a Hollywood star on my way to the Oscars as I walked down the carpeted stairs leading to the Little Theater, forcing myself not to get distracted by the bare back of the woman in front of me, who just slung some cloth to cover her breasts. (Down boy, down.)

Inside the theater, the naked boys, again, struck a pose onstage, still rowing and doing some mild body movements in synch with the theme song’s MTV playing on the screen behind them. When we’re all settled, the filmmakers were called onstage for the nth time for yet another round of hail-the-returning-conquerors blah blah. Not again! This sort of stuff should come after the screening, when we would have already judged the merits of their films.

After all the rah-rah, the films were finally shown. I must say they were gems. I won’t go into the nitty-gritty of each of the six films. Suffice it to say that most of these filmmakers know how to tell a story effectively, however mundane their subject matters are. They used powerful images that would impact you emotionally but would not gross you out unnecessarily. Sure these films could use some polishing at the edges, some trimming of overwrought psychological exploration, and more fine-tuning to make their plots tighter. But as a whole, they do rise slightly above the standard fare. I noticed, though, that Hollywoodish filming style has crept into the crevices of our film industry so deep that even supposedly indie maverick filmmakers have taken to it with ease. Gone are the long, drawn-out, contemplative scenes that invite the viewer to participate by way of introspection and interpretation. In its place is a swiftly paced, cut-to-cut editing typical of MTV, which does not leave you much headroom for some thought processes. Having said this, I still immensely enjoyed watching those short films. Maybe there is still hope for our degenerate movie industry. The only problem is, how do we mainstream these films? How do we create a market for them?

But that’s the least of my concerns right now. Until such time that these films can already elbow out trashy commercial flicks, I would continue to patronize indie film fests, gaudy thonged boys notwithstanding.

Friday, July 08, 2005

cancer of the armpits

I bumped into Jaybee at the office cafeteria a week or two ago. Why are you having lunch alone, he asked. I said I didn’t want any company. I hate gossiping. Let me gossip with you then, he replied. So he sat at my table and started talking to me about how rotten the system was. Now that was no gossip. I couldn’t agree more with what he said. After rattling off stinking tidbits of power politics in the office, we ended up talking about the government. I said there seems to be no point in working for the government. Everything you do is just for show. You’re just one huge roll-on deodorant that masks the stench of the presidential armpits. He said the whole machinery does just that, to make the President look good.

Studies have shown that deodorants can cause cancer of the armpits or something. That means the President’s armpits, underarm hair and all, are already stricken with some kind of malignant, incurable tumor. We should pity her. Poor Gloria.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

get the hell out of there

It is hard not to take a stand these days. The political ruckus is just too disconcerting to ignore. As much as I want to convince myself that my activism died on that surreal day when the moron was deposed and the opportunist was thrust into power, I cannot force my mind to shrug it all off and focus on more important things in my life. After all, where would these ‘important things’ be if my country is spiraling down the drain like tapeworms being flushed down the toilet bowl?

The president must resign. Now. She must stop scaring the country by dangling the prospect of a Noli de Castro presidency, which Vishnu knows, would probably be worse than Erap clambering up the presidential throne again. But that’s beside the point. She has already lost what little credibility she had when she first ascended the presidency. She can still resuscitate her dying dignity (I’m assuming, of course, that she is still dignified after what she has owned up to) by resigning, and thus, ridding us all of an undeserved albatross around our neck. This has gone on for so long. Her apology, at best, merely soldered the public’s suspicion that she indeed cheated in last year’s presidential elections. The public can never lap up the mea culpa of a sorry-ass president pretending to be wallowing in contrition. Seasoned thespian Zenaida Amador, who used to coach her in her State of the Nation Addresses, is already dead. She has no acting coach to make her statements believable now, which explains her catatonic posturing during that laughable, televised apology.

What I find terribly disheartening, though, is the fact that the opposition itself is just as tainted as Gloria. Their only concern is to push Erap’s fat ass back into Malacañang, or at least, get him off the hook. And then there’s the brooding nightmare of Noli de Castro taking over the reins. A military junta is out of the question, and so is the transition government being peddled by the clergy. This kind of thinking is dangerous, especially in these times. Who would constitute this transition government? Who would choose them? And by what power would they choose them? This perhaps, would invite other sectors to venture into political adventureerism. If a group of personalities could take it upon themselves to elect a body to rule, then what stops other groups from doing the same?

An extra-constitutional solution will merely send our economy plunging down the depths of whatever is under Hell. But judging from what has been happening, this might be the only thing that would make Gloria leave the palace. Contrary to what some sectors are saying, this solution is not exactly unconstitutional. As constitutional expert Father Bernas put it, the Constitution recognizes the right of the people to revolt. But a peaceful uprising would never fructify if the middle class and the military would not join it. The former is still making up its mind as to whichever is better: tribulations with Gloria or hell with Noli; and the latter is still weighing its options, possibly thinking of how it could highjack the situation to their own advantage.

But then again, are we not doing the country more harm than good if we take this path?

We are only left with one solution. And that is for the president and the vice president to resign. Noli’s mandate is as questionable as the honor of the president he serves. These two should leave their posts vacant for the conduct of a snap election. The officials of the Commission on Election, too, must resign to give this process some semblance of credibility. Either that or we go for more drastic measures like a charter change that would usher in a parliamentary government or federalism. We can’t just sit and pray and hope that everything goes well. Whether or not we accept it, things will still get worse. And no amount of praying can help it.

photo from news.yahoo.com

Monday, July 04, 2005

the boy that was

Hey, kid. Come here. No, don’t run away. I’m no pedophile. I won’t make you drop your pants and fondle your tiny weenie. Please. I just want to talk.

Here, sit beside me. There you go. Ah, your eyes, how could I forget those long lashes, droopy eyelids, and thick brows?

Let me see the scar on the bridge of your nose. Good thing that wooden folding fan struck you at that exact spot. If it had missed by a fraction of an inch, you would’ve ended up with just one eye. Don’t ask me how I knew about this. I just do.

He still has that scar and he still keeps that wooden fan.

What is that you’re holding? Can I see it? A book? You wrote it yourself? That’s wonderful. Choose your own adventure. Oh, so you patterned it after the famous series. Cool. And you have another one? An unfinished detective novel set in Victorian England? Wow. So you really got something out of reading Sherlock Holmes, Hardy Boys, Agatha Christie mysteries, and Poirot novels.

He does dabble in writing, too, albeit not as beautifully as you would have wanted him to. He had written a few short stories and some essays but he’s still struggling to have his works published. Only two, so far, have seen print. The shit that gets published by his office doesn’t count. Oh, shit, don’t say shit. It’s a bad word, OK?

Writing is such a bitch, you know. And he doesn’t know if that’s what he’s cut out to do. He loves the craft. But he doesn’t have the requisite flair.

Do you still paint? I know you turned one whole wall in your parents’ house into your own mini-Louvre. You painted your own version of Mona Lisa and a detail of a Pompeii fresco in watercolor. You even mounted pictures of Venus de Milo, Aphrodite, and the Pièta that you had cut out from glossy art magazines.

He still paints once in a while. He has done a couple of nude paintings and some symbolic subjects in watercolor. One time, he painted a nude Christ crucified against the shadow of a hooded figure. His mom got so shocked when she saw it hanging on his bedroom wall. No, it’s not sacrilege. It has nothing to do with Jesus. It’s more of a social commentary. But you’re too young to understand that, kid. And they’re all too devout to get the message.

He does have his own ‘mini-Louvre’ at the office, within his little blue cubicle whose walls he adorns with his own watercolor attempts. But painting, too, like writing, has eluded him.

He has come face to face, though, with Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and the Pièta. And the experience exhilarated him. But that’s as far as he could go.

I am boring you, am I not? I mustn’t talk so much about him. Why don’t you talk about yourself, kid? What are you up to now? What’s keeping you busy? Spanish? You’re learning Spanish? They’ve long abolished that in high school. And you’re not even done with sixth grade. Oh, you’re learning it by yourself? You found your sister’s old Spanish textbook and you are now studying it without anyone’s help? That’s great. You seriously want to become an old-world geek, huh?

Well, no, he doesn’t speak Spanish. He speaks a little French and is now learning German. He just doesn’t know what the heck these languages have to do with his life.

You have this penchant for learning things on your own. I like that. I especially like how you learned to play the piano. You bought piano books and taught yourself how to read notes, practicing with your niece’s toy keyboard. And then, when the notes ventured to the extremities of the musical staves, you drew three octaves of piano keys on a cardboard and practiced there even without hearing how the notes sounded. By the time your family bought you a rusty, second-hand piano, you can already sight-read.

He doesn’t have the time to play the piano anymore. He used to play such fine pieces like the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia or Jim Chappell’s Gone. But not anymore. His piano is now home to roaches, mice, mosquitoes, and Vishnu knows what else.

How he misses those days. Especially the first few weeks after the piano was bought. The original owner was Cookie, a tanned pretty lass that looked too sophisticated for a fifteen-year-old girl. She started frequenting his house after the sale, under the pretense that she missed her piano. Soon, Cookie and he were playing piano duets; chief of them was the irritatingly stale Blue Moon.

They had something going on, he and Cookie. Oh, yes, she admitted it through faintly scented love letters. Allusions to Erik of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera were actually referring to him and no one else. I know it was such a macabre way to refer to your crush. And quite insulting, too. But he took it all in. He actually delighted in them because he had feelings for her. But he found her too aggressive, his teenaged heart was not yet used to the convolutions of flirtations and flings. Oh, but he has grown up since then. He knows better now. He would never pass up such an opportunity again.

How about you, kid? Tell me about your long-time crush, Karen. Oh, come on, loosen up. These things are natural. It’s all right to talk about them. Crushes, relationships, and sex are a part of life. Don’t be too shy. You might be surprised when you see him now. He’s no longer as timid as you are, no longer saddled with masturbatory guilt. Jacking off did not make him blind. So much has changed. He even—oh, I’m sorry. Am I scaring you? Forgive me. Please, don’t cry, kid. There’s no need to. Nobody will bully you. No one would call you a sissy klutz.

And nobody would tease you again for being the only born-again Christian in your class. Guess what, he found a great solution to that. He discarded religion all together! If you ask him about it, he’ll just say “Fuck religion!” Ooops, no, don’t say fuck. You didn’t hear me say fuck. Fuck is a bad word. You can do it later on in life, but don’t say it now, OK? Kids should not go around saying fuck all the time.

You’re scared again. No, he’s not a monster. He just does not believe in those stuff anymore. Things change as one grows up. And gods lose their haloes over time. You’ll understand these things soon.

I bet you’ll get even more scared if I tell you that he almost joined the communist movement up in the boondocks.

What? No. Please don’t leave yet, kid. Me and my big mouth! You shouldn’t get mad at him. He is just following his heart. Please stay. Please.

If you must know, he is very proud of you!

He often tells me how you sang live on a Christian radio station, how your voice was heard by millions all over the country. He cherishes that memory. He once lent his voice to worthy causes too. Like you, he is no stranger to the stage. He just got kicked out from the theater company he joined because he always sings off key.

He also treasures your collection of academic medals. He even added a dozen more to it, though he no longer equates medals with intellectual maturity. He’d rather boast of your matchbox cars and ziggy toy collection. Sometimes, when nobody sees him, he still plays with your toys, desperate to see you again through them. But you never showed up.

You are very special to him, even if you had once wished for him to die after college. Unfortunately, he didn’t die. He is very much alive. And he wants to see you, if you would only let him. I only wish that you give him this chance to meet you. You don’t have to like him. He just needs to connect with you again. Just this one time. He misses you. After this, you can forget about him if you like. Don’t worry; he is as nervous as you are.

So, shall we go see him now?


Friday, July 01, 2005

i've been tagged

There are necessary evils in blogoshpere. And this is one of them. Since I’m trying to be a good citizen of this crazy community, I’ll try to do my obligation like a proper, law-abiding schoolboy. Weng, I’ll be sending you truckloads of viruses by the end of this month. Just wait.

Instructions:

List down five things you enjoy doing, even when no one around you wants to go out and play.What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level?Post the list on your journal and then tag 5 friends and ask them to post it on theirs.

Ok, here it goes:

1. pinching my nipples till they bleed

What? Sado-masochistic fantasies don’t count? Ok, strike that one out.

1. a long swim in a huge pool, uninterrupted by critters who swish and splash like they’ve never seen chlorinated water before.

2. reading a great book on a hammock while sipping black Russian with cherry

3. listening to Secret Garden, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Debussy, or Rent.

4. sight-reading new piano pieces that rock

5. staring at the blurring, passing countryside through a bus window

now, I pass the curse to the following people. If you break the chain, your anus will seal up faster than you can say “that sucks!”

1. Dionne and Joven
2. Tet
3. Marc
4. Jen
5. Just put Dionne down here and Joven on number one.