“ARE YOU AROUSED? ALL OF YOU? FUCK YOU!”

  “I SAW YOUR ASS, MS. K.”

 

I saw your ass, Ms. K.,

up there on the stage.

I saw how you twirl

that red flower to cover

a bloom much brighter,

saying,

“I am poor.

I can’t even buy me a dress.”

But you forgot to offer the flower

and say,

“Merry Christmas everyone.”

I saw your ass, Ms. K.,

“and all the world dropped dead.”

THE RAGE OF REASON

THE RAGE OF REASON

 

I should have slapped Ram hard on the face, slashed his gut out or at least punched his rib out of place. I should have kicked his head or elbowed him on the nose. I should have done something exquisite with his worthless existence that he himself would call it an art. But, no, I only pulled his dry hair across the Atrium like a sissy girl, him struggling, me twisting him in anger. The pull was kind of silly and now that I have removed myself from that moment of pure rage, looking back, it was somewhat funny. I chased him like a rat and he was screaming for help all the while. My outrage sounded like a fart but at least I vented out a good steam.

 Part of the outrage was ego. But it was not my ego against that insipid creature’s ego. Since it is about ego, it was actually all about MY ego.

But do I have this pin-sized ego that I heed to that animal’s nuisance? Am I this hot-headed bastard who involuntarily attacks on something that pathetically provokes me? Does my perspective range only from something low-angled to zero degrees that I do not think before I act? Who cares? It is my ego. I love stroking my ego and the moment you try minding how I rub it, there’s gonna be a lot of problem.

Do I need to resort to violence? Yes. I feel I do. Again, this is not about Ram’s irritating existence. Too bad for him I’ve been having bad days that the person who piques me the worst gets the kick in the ass. Part of the outrage was also an outlet of my combined long-suppressed anger to the world and those living in it. Yes, it was a stupid act, a stupid act done to a stupid person. It was stupid that it was immature beyond the level of a third-grader. And stupid that it’s like a Willy Revillame song. It was plain stupid. Period. But I tell you, the act was fulfilling. Freaking out is sometimes good.

I want to ask: How many times have you kept white, hot rage inside you? How many times have you felt smashing a bottle and stabbing the broken pieces into someone’s eyes? You feel this dire need to break a neck but all you can do is punch a wall. But what good does it do to you? I forgot what American book I was reading but it said that both keeping in and letting out anger cause heart attack. No one ends up with a good choice so I chose the latter. At least revenge is a fine delicacy.

Yeah, you said so many times to yourselves that you have to keep your cool and to act civilized because the society expects these out from you. Bullshit. You are always reminded that you are “intelligent”, that you are above from dogs that bite each other’s balls off. Studying in UP gives you the all the freedom of expressing yourselves. Yet, does it not bar you from actually doing what you want? You are prevented from doing the slightest mistake for god’s sake, things that you really want to do, things that you might need in life to grow up.

Outrage is a stupid mistake. Yet article 3, verse 4, soup number 5 of the holy book of Constitution gives me every right to exercise this expression. I chose to make this act just for the hell of trying something new. Try ignoring Ram? You can’t even ignore a puny goddamned fly. Try confronting Ram and talk it out? Have you tried talking to a cow? A cow will moo and will act as if it does not hear you. But a cow would understand you far better than what Ram could comprehend about the difference between his stinky feet and his stinkier face.

Giving in to rage is not always being the loser. Who told you you are the one at lost once you lose your cool? They are either chicken or they are just not well enraged. They’re only half half-baked human posing their half-baked emotions. Though, my emotions have short life span, shifting from one extreme mood to the other opposite extreme, I can proudly say they are all well-cooked. I can use them very well on my advantage.

Okay, so it turns out that I lost (given that I am defending my action). So what? This is not about winning. This is about raging.

We always hear other people say they are in rage, in pure rage, in pure white, hot rage. But what do they really do with this precious, god-given rage? Who knows what kind of heart attack they are nourishing in their body? People who claim they are in rage do nothing but rant, rant, rant! Or walk out! That’s why Trillanes was a joke.

Those people who are always entranced with violence in news, movies and the American wars are the ones who are always have strong conviction against violence. I feel that they have seen too much violence in colored screen that they feel they know violence well. They masturbate on violence yet they freak out on the moment they see the first sign of actual violence. They are the “intelligent” ones who know better at understanding rage and violence and tell you you are a loser. They contemplate on rage and violence yet don’t know the actual difference. At the first sight of red shedding, I can see them either running away or running towards the first blood. They say it’s bad but the fact is that they are lulled into seeing more hitting and beating. They say “bad” but they love it. Ram was infatuated with violence that he didn’t not know he was asking for it the whole time. Someone has to give it to him.

So let us stop intellectualizing rage. Rage does not need high cerebral impulses that make you understand it. It’s an act of its own backed up only by other concepts of human coexistence. Rage alone is tiring.  Go take the rage back into violence. There has to be a reason behind violence and the only valid is rage. Violence without reason is vapid. Also, stop romanticizing violence as something we only do our brothers and sisters and something we like to do when having sex. Go reunite rage and violence. Go place it back to the ground level of nature and back to the rawest form of humanity.

If raging Trillanes went beyond than just being angry and cute in front of the camera and start shooting some little president, like a depressed white teenage American, he could have done something practical. I should have done something practical, too. I should have made more beautiful things to Ram. Piercing his forehead with an ice-pick is not bad. Or whacking his head with a piece of wood to the point that I see bloodied teeth fly out from his mouth. But all I got are few strands of dead sticky hair. Maybe I could use them to put a vex on that little bitch.

 

_______________________

Note: If anything happens to that ugly being, I have nothing to do with it anymore. I did what I could and I’m done with him. Again, this is not about him. This is about rage. MY rage.

 

MY EYEBAGS ARE CHEAPER THAN YOUR SECOND HAND PRADA BAG

HELLO MY FAITHFUL READERS!

Yes, you! you two!

 My ultra-orgasmic faithful readers. Meloi and Titit. Two not-so little pigs. Two slimming pigs. Two fat things that I wish were my boobs.

What was I up to for the seven months that I was not able to properly write things on my blog, you ask? Those times when you said you missed my writing, wanting me so much to write. Well, I’ve been reading things.

For seven or so months, I submerged myself into the pools of literary waters. That black, crystal ocean not all understands, not all able to decipher. See these two fat curves hanging under my eyes? They are the results of reading three Anne Rice (two novels, The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned and one erotica Beauty’s Punishment), Mitch Albohm (Tuesdays With Morrie), Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights), Lewis Carroll (Alice in the Wonderland), Annie Dillard (An American Childhood), collected poems by Ricardo de Ungria (Waking Ice and Pedgin Leviations), essays by Jessica Zafra (Twisted 6 and Tw7sted), collection of short stories edited by Noelle de Jesus (Fast Food Fiction) and David Thornburn (Initiation), Wikipedia.com and Microsoft Encarta articles, two comic strips collection by Manix Abrera (Kiko Machine vol.1 and vol.2) and many more readings from Survey of English Literature II and Survey of Philippine Literature in English I. There are more works and figures I’ve read that I forgot to mention, more interesting reads than what I could remember. These things are so addictive, like white caffeine, they can keep me awake for three straight days.

Three days straight without sleep makes one boy hell of a gothic trash. These two dark curves hanging under my eyes, so vampiric, they are also the results of watching too many television series and movies from pirated DVDs. There were Prison Break Season I and II, The Avatar Season II, Monster Episode 1–74, Fushigi Yuugi, One Piece, Miyazaki Hayao and Studio Gbili movies (My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Monoke, I Can Hear the Ocean, Whisper of the Heart, Kiki’s Delivery Service, etc.), Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhand, Betelgeuse, Nightmare Before Chritmas, Finding Neverland, Big Fish, Bride Corpse and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), two arthouse (Short Bus and Anatomie d’Lenfer) and many lousy films. Hear that word shooting like pop corn. It’s everywhere. Lousy. Lousy. Lousy.

Lousy music seems to affect my eyes, too. I can’t listen to rock music anymore because every time I hear bass, drums and electric guitar, they automatically register a crop of hair bangs to my mind. I’m so appalled by the emo phenomena that every scream I hear, I see an eyeliner kid being crucified upside down. Not that I’m grossed out, or being so uncool, it’s just that I don’t want to evoke my sado-pedophilic tendency, especially to those sensitive boys crying because they wish to be a gum under a chair. So I went back to the local FM stations, their everywhere pop music and their senseless deejays. In jeepneys, I don’t get too close to the speakers. I can smell their breaths. But I am loving what they do to me, keeping me awake for nights, making me lie down on my bed, stare at the ceiling wide-eyes.

Wait! Wait! Wait!

 Why am I writing again? Who do I write for? I’m curious. Maybe you two, Meloi and Titit, are just playing with me. Wanting me so much to write, telling me how much you missed my writing. Maybe you two are these ugly things under my eyes, two fat things, one for each eye. Well, let me tell you, you two dark curves hanging under my eyes, two fat things that I wish were my boobs, I’m… I’m… I’m… I’m so loving you. You are doing things that you are unaware of that lift up my mood.

People say, “So gothic, the eyes. Where did you get those dark eye bags, emo kid?”

I say, “From my seven-month-old entertainment waste basket and my two fine friends.”

_________________

*disclaimer: I am not emo nor gothic. i just look horrible.

teet.

duha2 co tit kung gamiton naco ni blog para sa among poetry pero try lang.

meloi .. teteeth.

buing. dili co ka transfer sa blogspot kay kapoi buhat. dial up lang mi.

 lage. lage. balik na co sulat og mga walay pulos.

naa nami net Tit, Mel!

wee.

break. break. break

oi. uga ang utok, mel. uga

Reunion ver.2 (reviving a lost poem)

 

REUNION ver.2 (reviving a lost poem)

 

 

So we’re back in high school,

playing hoops on our old court,

running and shouting under the same denim sky.

Reflecting the planets above,

our half-naked bodies glisten

from some far pale lamp post.

Chains rattle and the ball bounces,

echoing the beats of our heart.

Ghosts come, whispering old jokes.

The wind gathers our laughter

and scatters them into the night.

Up in the bench our beer gets warm.

The music from the hall is still loud

but slowing down.

After we gather our car keys and

forever leave this place,

only the night remains to remember

our secret desires, our hidden delights.

 

“The last look through the window is the hardest ” (edit.)

“The last look through the window is the hardest “ 

The last look through the window is the hardest
as the thought heavies
like a stone dropping into an empty well,
screaming as it hits the bottom,
piercing echoes of deafening mute.

My hands long to touch your face
as a palm to the glass is always never enough.
To sink my nails into that reflection
which separates what I believe is true
and what is becoming the truth,
like seeing my face fading,
like smelling the sky in a blurring,
to give you more than a fleeting kiss,
to say more than this is all too well.

But I will not touch you
nor even come close to you
(my hands all trembling
my breathing pausing),
not to pretend this is not happening,
not to give you another handprint that
will bastardize your drying face.

I want you to break that glass.
To replace that dead hallow inside your chest
with my fist
that will pound
the way your heart beat on your skin
much harder and much, much stronger
than how you gathered the claws
that singled your life into a single wound,
a mere cry to the world.

I want you to breathe again
to wake up
and slap the hell out of me
until the brushing of my wet eyelashes
on the back of my arm is nothing more
than a fresh butterfly drying its wings from its cocoon.
I want you to look straight at me
and shake the life in me
until I stop recalling
that they all die too soon,
that butterflies are never free.
I want you to wake up
and tell me that the rain
does not fall to mock us all,
to whisper that the heavens feel our loss,
to caress that the gods did their call.
I want you to break that glass
and scream the hell out of your abyss,
to crawl the hell out of your pit,
out of that deep shit.

I want you to cry
“This is not how I want to die”.
Not bleeding on a cold concrete,
not alone on a side street.
I want you to get up
and tell me how to be there
to stop the blood from oozing out,
to stop the breaking out of sweat,
to lock up the gates of our hell
and to assure me it is not too late.

But I want you to have peace,
peace that will make the heavens cry
peace that will bury your mind.
I want you leave with
a lasting beat that it was not in vain
to leave with the knowledge
that you are always with us in the rain
never leaving our side
always playing in our minds.
I want you to go.
I want you to go now.

This is not for you.
And I swear to you
this is not through.

I may have stared at your face longer than I should
but not to linger on the last image I will have of you.

Growing Up (edit.)

Growing Up

Carelessly you toss your head
into the air while your hands whiten
as you hold tight onto the truck railings.
Child-like spirits die old
but the scream of sea lives on our skin,
flowing and always thrashing,
never afraid of slipping away.

Our hair races in the night,
never fading but to the denim sky.
Our weights are crushing the brittle nuts
inside canvas sacks that presses prints
on our dancing bare feet.
The night wind washes our faces,
spacing out our burnt cheeks
(like the kisses we make
on the bottles we share)
while you close your eyes to the little lights
wishing summer is not dying so soon.

It may be our young hearts’ desire
that takes chances of what has entrusted.
Forgetting what we are leaving for
you slip your arm around my shoulders
to whisper “we’re gonna be okay”.
This is not the end
just another beginning.
Going back to the city takes only a short while
and these hitch-ride will quiet us down.

demo

Demo

If it were not for the free snack,
I would not be here where
the room darkens as
conversations die into hushes and into
complete silence in the background.
The big screen blinks white, then
winks blue, then into
a myriad of flashing images of
glistening frying pans and
glowing electric stoves and
shining blades slicing through
bleeding tomatoes like
sliding away samurai limbs.
“This is our latest product,” says
the man in black suit and
blinding white smile.
He takes out a metal rod,
lengthens it by pulling its tip and
points to the screen
slashing the images into two.
“This one is best for cooking eggs.”
His gaze searches the crowd for
a willing face to help
his trembling hands.
He finds mine and
pulls me into a table where
white lights shouts like
a child drowning in black water.
“This is made with high precision.”
I pick the knife and
rub the dark handle with its rough plasticity.
The blade shines in the white lights as
it slices onions and
minces garlic cloves and
cuts my finger into two.
The appendage falls and
rolls on the floor into
the darkness where the crowd holds its gasps
while the wound burns from
the thickening organic juices.
I clutch my hand and
run to an open door where
orange lights are seeping through.
I left but not before
grabbing a plastic bowl
filled with onion-and-garlic soup.

This is not for You

This is not for You 

The last look through the window is the hardest
as the thought heavies
like a stone dropping into an empty well.
It screams as it hits the bottom,
piercing echoes of deafening mute.

My hands long to touch your face,
as a palm to the glass is always never enough,
to sink my nails into that reflection
which separates what I believe is true
and what is becoming the truth,
like seeing my face fading,
like smelling the sky in a blurring,
to give you more than a fleeting kiss,
to say more than this is all too well.

But I will not touch you
nor even come close to you,
(my hands all trembling,
my breathing pausing)
not to pretend this is not happening,
not to give you another handprint that
will bastardize your drying face.

I want you to break that glass.
To replace that dead hallow inside your chest
with my fist
that will pound
the way your heart beat on your skin,
much harder and much, much stronger
than how you gathered the claws
that singled your life into a wound,
into a mere cry to the world.

I want you to breathe again,
to wake up
and slap the hell out of me
until the brushing of my wet eyelashes
on the back of my arm is nothing more
than a fresh butterfly drying its wings from its cocoon.
I want you to look straight at me
and shake the life in me
until I stop recalling
that they all die too soon,
that butterflies are never free.
I want you to wake up
and tell me that the rain
does not fall to mock us all,
to whisper that the heavens feel our loss,
to caress that the gods did their call.
I want you to break that glass
and scream the hell out of your abyss,
to crawl the hell out of your pit.

I want you to cry
“This is not how I want to die.”
Not bleeding on a cold concrete,
not alone in a side street.
I want you to get up
and tell me how to be there,
to stop the blood from oozing out,
to stop the breaking out of sweat,
to lock up the gates of our hell,
and to assure me it is not too late.

But I want you to have peace,
peace that will make the heavens cry,
peace that will bury your mind.
I want you leave with
a lasting beat that it was not in vain,
to leave with the knowledge
that you are always with us,
never leaving our side,
always playing in our minds.
I want you to go.
I want you to go now.

This is not for you.
And I swear to you,
this is not through.

I may have stared at your face longer than I should,
but not to linger on the last image I will have of you.

now na?

Growing Up

Carelessly you toss your head
into the air while your hands whiten
as you hold tight onto the truck railings.
Child-like spirits die old,
but the scream of sea lives on our skin,
flowing and always thrashing,
never afraid of slipping off.

Our hair races in the night,
never fading but to the denim sky.
Our weights are crushing the brittles nuts,
inside canvas sacks that presses prints
on our dancing bare feet.
The night wind washes our faces,
spacing out our burnt cheeks
(like the kisses we make
on the bottles we share).
You close your eyes to the little lights
wishing summer is not dying so soon.

It may be our young hearts’ desire
that takes chances of what has entrusted.
Forgetting what we are leaving for
you slip your arm around my shoulders
to whisper, “we’re gonna be okay”.
This is not the end,
just another beginning.
Going back to the city takes only a short while
and these hitch-rides quiet us down.

happy birthday to me

naguba among computer.

someone buy me a life.

disillusioned

 Disillusioned

When I was a kid I watched the Spiderman the Animated Series on television. That cartoon series in which Spiderman’s suit was really of strong red and blue and in which one could feel from Peter Parker’s face the graininess and the dots from the original comic strips. The only episodes I remember though with clear picture were the ones in which he was “infected” with the Venom and turned into Black Spiderman. For a little kid with little asthmatic lungs, I could relate with Spiderman, as there was really tension, a depletion of air in the surrounding, and a struggle inside the character while he battled with the Venom. In order to overcome the Venom, he must also overcome himself. In those episodes, his real enemy was himself. The Venom brought out the hero’s evil id. Evil it may seem; it is still Spiderman. The Venom was only the vehicle for bringing out his other self, probably his true self. For my four-year-old head, those episodes were so dark that if he were through with the Venom, there would be no more Spiderman. There was no point for Stan Lee to invent another enemy. Heroes need enemies and his self was his greatest enemy.

I planned to watch Spiderman 3 on the big silver screen but I already saw it on pirated DVD. During the movie I thought of things that I could use my eighty-five pesos. Maybe buy a new pair of shades or another pirated DVD. In a parallel dimension, with that amount of money, I could have bought a ticket, cramped my ass inside a dark, cold cinema and watched a movie that does not worth a crap. That movie would probably be Spiderman 3.

Instead of the Venom making Spiderman (Toby Maguire) uncomfortable, it was Mary Jane (Kristen Dunst) who was bitching herself into his life. There should be the “inner struggle”, no outside factors. Also, I was bored with the Peter Parker alter ego switch, which was the corky and flamboyant Parker. It worked on Spiderman 2 but not in this instalment. In the movie trailer, I was lead to expect that the Black Spiderman would turn out as an emo-shit. With emo kids with their emo hairdos and emo music everywhere, the movie could have at least speak for a generation. But it was just melodrama. Like a chick flick. Peter and Goblin a.k.a. Harry Osborn (James Franco) were perfect for each other.

The other characters were non-existent. Sandman was supposed to be Evil. I do not like villains who induce pity just because they got evil for doing something humanitarian for their sick children; that it was not really their intention to do bad things in the first place. If they wanted me to sympathize for them, let me see them wallow in their ugly mutated face like Doc Oc or in their insecurities like the older Goblin or for simple cold revenge like Harry Osborn. And who was that another photographer? What did he do?

By the way, it is not necessary to kill a character just because he has repented from his old ways that it is pointless keeping him alive because his only purpose of being is to be bad. Hollywood is so predictable with their villains, if they turn good they get sack. Filipino moviegoers say how some Filipino movies are but catalogues of cliché scenes from other movies. The barfing of a female character after a night with the leading man, the omnipresence of pancit and juice in family scenes, police showing up after the mess is through and movie titles that turn up in a conversation. People of the Philippines, watch Spiderman and see America do their catalogue of Hollywood clichés.

I was disappointed because after Spiderman 2 in which Spiderman showed his sincerity in helping people, with his Jesus Christ position saving the runaway train, I thought he would really be… the saviour. With that hero equals Jesus passé, when there was Neo, Superman, and the boys of Sparta in 300, only Spiderman in the second instalment nailed it. There was also a scene of Descent when he passed out after stopping the train and the saved citizens carried him above them inside, unmindful of his identity. “He’s too young,” someone said while looking down at his face when they laid them down the floor. “He doesn’t look older than my son,” one man said. But in the third instalment, where was Christ?

***

After Jayla’s birthday party, we went to Gerome’s house in Buhangin to have after-party. There were seven of us: Gerome, Carlsberg, Burt, Donita, Goofy, Bogart and me. They planned to have a get-together a month ago, a reunion for all of us they say, but I did not come. It was almost eleven in the evening and there were no more stores open that sell packed ice. One of my many images of hell is a dark lively bar offering bottomless beer except that they are warm like piss and with no ice. My other image of hell is watching Japanese animé series the original version, uncut and no pixels but without subtitles. We finally solved the problem by having Gerome climb Everest. He came back down with the Philippine flag. We believed he used the pole as ice pick.

We had not opened a bottle yet but I was already imagining things. Drinks in the middle of the night are tricky. I could not figure out if I was already drunk or that sleep was just creeping behind my eyes. In order not to fall into Dream Island I nominated myself as the “gunner” and won by landside. Actually, I won by default.

The talk of the night, as always, was about our past relationships. We heard the stories many times, but with our foggy sights and foggier piss-filled bladder, we just needed another final confirmation and clearance on what really happened when who was still with who back high school. I spat at Carlsberg while I blamed him for me taking sides with Cracker. When they were starting I was somewhere in the midst of their relationship, taking some pride that I did a part in bringing these two twisted blokes together. Carlsberg would tell me almost everything that a friend needed to hear. But when they broke up because of Cracker toying with another guy in Visayas, I was left ignorant of the situation. I could not blame Carlsberg for being a man and in silent anguish about the situation. The only words that got to me were from Cracker. Who knows what sugared version she told me. Cracker is also a friend but when I asked certain questions, I wanted it answered by both sides. That I hated about Carlsberg; he never talked. He said he told me. I could not remember. He pointed out the time when he cried on my shoulder. I could not still remember. There was an incident like that but it happened when they were still together, two years before their break up. But I tell you, when he cried that night, I never felt a heartbeat that fast and strong on my skin. If that heartbeat would belong to me and it was jumping all over my skin, time to see a doctor and start drinking herb tea. Carlsberg must have really loved Cracker.

There were so many same drunken talks, jumping from one person to another. We scrutinized each other with the same drunken inquiries. But the one that scared the sanity out of me was when Gerome asked me why some men are not contented with just one woman. Why do they always look for someone else and keep the relationship with their girls? I nearly chocked and puked at the same time. I have not been in a serious relationship or with a woman perhaps. What do I know?

Gerome was known to have ways of cooing a girl. Being a pretty boy, he easily swayed into girls’ hearts. Only to realize, to the horror of the girls, that he had supposedly used them as subjects for little boys’ betting game for love and lust. He said that there were feelings and seriousness for the girls, that he does not really took part in in any wage to have the girls say yes. I believed him. I do. I believed him when I saw how serious he is with his present girlfriend. He introduced Lav to us, brought her a few times in our priceless get-togethers and he prided her but not in a way other guys would pride their girlfriends like trophies. Why – he did not win Lav in any contest. I only told Gerome that the way he asked me that question is a hint he is not happy with Lav. “Maybe you just envy other guys. Maybe you just need to be less loyal to her.” He said he does love Lav and he does not want other else. I believed him. I do. 

I also believed in the stars, our memories and the music that had become the background score of our life. We were listening to some songs in Gerome’s iPod attached to speakers until The Killers began singing their “won’t you feel my bones, on your bones?” I said that song is so gay just to spite the guys. They love the band. I said what kind of man would sing about his bone feeling on someone else’s bone? I also said “Mr. Brightside” is also gay. “It’s about a man’s jealousy!” they cried altogether. Yeah, but the way the man sings, is it the kind of jealousy a man would have for a girl? The first line was subtle but too giving. “Coming out of my cage” could mean “Coming out of my closet”. And there was also the issue of having a “boyfriend that looks like a girlfriend”. Right then and there, my little boys’ source of machismo was attacked. But I love these boys. I also love The Killers. They are not gay. Just some of their songs.

Goofy and Donita were so gay beyond my definition of gay. They did not touch even a single drop of sweat from the bottles. I could not blame them for distancing themselves away from alcohol. I have seen them drunk like mad little men that it was fun to expect what they would do next. They roll to the ground, puke everywhere, kiss total strangers, shout like hell and cry like the little boys that they are. Of course, I can not take it. I can not have people who steal the show for me. So we let them be but not before they search us food in the middle of night.

They returned with chips and more alcohol. What I got was a small pack of Ding Dong that would never open like hell. I used my teeth to open the piece of shit. Remember when we were young, we would grit our teeth on these packs of tidbits snacks and the kids in front of us would also grit their teeth watching us, just waiting for us to give them their share, for their moral support. It made even more difficult to open my little pack last night because Burt was exactly doing the same thing those little blokes would do. I could not control my laughter. He gritted watching me grit on the pack. Burt was glowing red.

After several packs of tidbit snacks, more bottles of beer and another two of toothpaste-flavored lambanog had run out that I needed a leak. I went to the dark corner of Gerome’s garden and pissed like a mad firefighter. When I looked up the sky to look for orange clouds that bring floods in the middle of summer heat, I swear, I saw the stars spelled my name. It was beautiful that I felt my left shoe burning in warmth and wetness. The stars quickly disappeared. I washed away the piss from the shoe with melted ice.

When I returned everyone was down. Goofy had drunk several shots of lambanog and puked like hell and now asleep. Gerome went inside their house and did not return. Carlsberg and Bogart shared an iron bench, their arms locked in tight grasp. Burt was on the table also asleep while Donita, in his weary eyes, searched for any song in the iPod that was not from The Killers. I said that if they would not wake up and finish the last few shots, “I’m going home!” They did not budge and gave me only a belch and a fart. I gathered my things and left them in the middle of the night. It was already four in the morning.

Some things were just so unreal that only kids would believe them. We were once kids and we believed. Only when we grew up, we grew up from believing. Spiderman was a joke. Even my friendship with these guys was a joke. When they plan for a reunion, I ditch them. Now they asked me to stay for the night. For the bringing back of something lost in our childhood. But not before the night was through, they slept on me and I left them.

Spiderman, The Killers, Cracker and Lav, the stars and the memories may have disappointed us now and then. When we meet them again, maybe shredded from image of what we had when we first knew them, their essence is still there. Maybe I should have returned to Gerome’s place when I still had the energy. I fell asleep sitting on the curb, waiting for a ride home. I counted the days before my birthday comes. I had already made a promise to them that before the summer ends, they could come to our house, stay and drink the night until it bleeds. There would be no leaving after the party because I would be staying; it is going to be held on our house for God’s sake. And we would listen to The Killers all night.

5/22/2007 3:26:16 AM

Voices in My Pillows

Voices in My Pillows

I can’t sleep. Jessica Zafra’s voice is still in my head.

Tw7sted reminded me of my very lesson in Jean Claire Dy in Creative Writing 101 that you should always try finding your own voice. Zafra also mentioned that in her article somewhere in the book. I figured out that this voice they were saying is not something that you try to speak inside your head, instead it is something inside your head whom you listen to. It is scary because for the past two years I have written for online-based news and on weblogs, the voice that dictates what I write comes from the image of Zafra. I’ve been reading Zafra now for four years and no other voice comes louder in my ears than hers. She is so noisy.

I have finished reading Catcher in the Rye and lent it to Bogart. Holden has a voice of an older brother. It was lovely. But the book was somewhat disappointing because I expected the final chapter to be a long whistle blow. The book was full of canon blasts and colorful fireworks that the end sounded only like a brief whoot, like a fart. The book was good all the same, though. It “killed me” when Phoebe put Holden’s hunting hat on him. I finished reading the book without fulfilling my prophecy of self-delusion about me becoming a Holden. It was the other way around: Holden became me.

While reading the book, my sister kept bugging me to let her bring the book with her to Ateneo where she worked her scholar-volunteer hours. She insisted even when I was still not through. She mentioned that she wrote the way J. D. Salinger does (she writes in her blog and plans to submit her works to her school paper) indirectly saying she was Holden.

I don’t know if I’m right, correct me if I’m wrong, but the kind of literary technique Salinger employed is called stream of consciousness. It reveals the character’s feelings, thoughts and actions and somewhat spontaneous to the character’s feel of the world. The speaker becomes the star in a work even if the story is about something else. I first saw this style on Bob Ong, then Zafra and many other more. It is the reason why I am not enthralled with how Catcher in the Rye is written. The best writer to ever put this style on work for me was the Irish-American autobiographer Frank McCourt. My sister also claims that her writing is similar to those of Ong and McCourt. She is not a Zafra, I believe. Zafra is too noisy for her.

Whatever the name of that style is, it is so appealing. It is easy to fall in love with the stitch of thoughts that some readers claim it is their own thoughts, it is speaking their mind and that it is their voice. Sometimes they claim that the author is stealing their identities.

It is really scary when other people’s voices leap out from their heads and penetrate on mine, especially when the voice I hear is from a self-confessed cynical mutant like Zafra. Much worse, the voice is taking my sleep. I keep Tw7sted under my pillow after I read it at night.

When I finish reading Tw7sted, I will cover the book with newspaper and write on it “KEEP OUT!” I will keep it in a carton box, under a bed, in a bodega, in a castle, somewhere out in the space.

5/18/2007 3:24:52 AM

Louse

Louse

Last night I went to see Bogart for first time this May. We rarely ever see each other nowadays and it was only our second time being together for the whole summer season. We like to think that we click like hell but we are two different minds that can’t occupy the same conversation at the same time. It is best for us to only see each other occasionally.Since my sunglasses broke while at the beach, I received a hundred and fifty pesos to buy myself a new pair. The heat in this country is unbearable but the glare is unspeakable. I went out of the house the moment the sun receded into the horizon. There was enough daylight for me not be called a creature of the night.

It was already dark when I reached Bogart’s house in Boulevard, much darker when we went out into the night. We walked the length of Roxas, talking and assessing her life and her relationship with her boyfriend I haven’t met. She told me that the guy confessed to her that he kissed another girl while he was in a game of dare. She said she thought of the worst. He would have never told her that incident if something more suspicious had happened. She added that while in a period of resentment, they never contacted each other. One night, she decided to send him messages for guilt trip. “If we don’t love other people blah blah we might as well spare them from hurting them.”

“That was a lousy,” I told her.

We talked all the way to Gaisano Mall and went into the same store we go to since high school days: National Bookstore. There, I saw new copies of Tw7sted by Jessica Zafra on the shelf, as pink and as alive as ever. I first saw the copies on October two years ago. I had the money then but I decided to postpone a week to see if I still wanted the book. When I returned, there were no more pink Zafras. I waited for another batch of stocks to come but there where none.

A month later after the first apparition, I saw Titiana parading her own copy of Tw7sted. I managed to borrow the book, only to return it immediately the next day. She never brought the book back to school after that and flew out of Davao the following months to study in Manila. She returned to Davao this summer and before I could borrow her copy again, she flew back to Manila. I barely got the time to read half of the Tw7sted articles in that one night she lent it to me, much more to memorize all of them by heart.

I was such a fanatic of Zafra. When I decided to become a writer, I wanted to be like her. I even went to the point of liking her by constantly writing her e-mails and comments on her blog. I told her that she’s the only person I look up to that even with my airy disposition I am humbled by her works and I am willing to be called her ardent follower. She never replied to any of my mails, and rejected all my comments on her blog. I silently criticize Bogart for being pathetic and look what I am. I make actions that I regret the moment I made them. Just weeks ago, I sent a text message to Benjamin, someone I’m in a bad term with for a long time. When he replied the next day afternoon, I was wasted. The only time that I may ever drink for the whole summer and I spoiled it by ruining the chance of getting along with him by sending him an embarrassing message. He never replied.

All of those things went into my mind when I saw Tw7sted back on the shelf. Unhesitant, I bought the first copy that landed into my hand. Before the mall closed, Bogart and I decided to call it a night and separated ways. People at home were looking for the sunglasses. I showed them the book. I remember that the book has images of Zafra’s spectacles.

Tw7sted cost a hundred and forty-five pesos. Five pesos less the year it came out. When I checked the pages for printing defects, it was seven pages less. Thursday, May 17, 2007 4:07 AM

pretty phony

Thursday, April 26, 2007

 

Pretty Phony in a Real Summer Country

 

There’s just nothing to do here in our house during summer so I just do things whatever comes my way. I play computer games, watch television and read books like The Catcher in the Rye.

I wasn’t expecting it but when I reached the moment that I would finally read “the catcher in the rye” being mentioned in the book, it was a quick sharp jolt of electricity going from my head through my fingers and onto the page where I was actually reading the words “the catcher in the rye.” It was like watching a moment in a Nora Aunor or Rez Cortez or whoever-superstar film when she finally says the movie title, only everything is in a series of déjà vu. It sounded something like “inagaw mong lahat sa akin ka” sort of drama and there goes a slap or a gunshot or a tear-on-one-cheek or a wine splashing on a pretty villain’s face. I was on this part where Holden Caulfield was talking to his sister, Phoebe, about a poem with a line “If a body catch a body comin’ through the rye.” Holden was thinking the whole time it goes that way but Phoebe pointed out it was “If a body meet a body comin’ through the rye.” So another story was told where it has to force its reader to know why it was titled that way.

I won’t mention anymore of what a good badass writer J.D. Salinger was because his character Holden was a testament of Salinger’s greatness in itself. I won’t also be a freak giving analysis on what made Catcher in the Rye a killer. Holden himself was a killer and he’s enough to make generations idolizing for the dead. He was the reason why John Lennon, John F. Kennedy and Kurt Cobain died.

When I was reading the book I was worried because, at first, I didn’t find Holden striking. Maybe I’ve read too many books about junkies or watched too many Japanese cartoons that nothing strikes me good anymore. I was holding this idea on my head that he was just another adolescent boy character that has nothing better to do with his god-blessed young life but badmouth the world. In my idea, he was a stereotype. But I kept on forgetting that before Robin Padilla, Mark Herras and Chin Chan came, there was Holden, the archetype bad boy we either pinch in cuteness or strangle in too much cuteness. What I’m saying is that it was hard for Holden to melt into sublimity because I had already an idea on what he was going to be in the book. But as the pages and moments passes, it wasn’t hard to get the feel of Holden anymore. I was digging in the idea that his character is very catchable.

Holden made me feel depress as hell, though, like the way it depressed the hell in him when phony stuffs came crossing his way. What was more depressing was that the moment I felt his contempt for the world in my blood and actually liking him for doing that to me, faces of people I know who said that they were like Holden came flashing in front of my vision. These people, mostly had just finished reading the book, go around thinking everything was phony. I’m only halfway the book, and I’m very affected on how the world becomes a real phony place. I’m afraid because after reading the book, I may go around saying that I’m somewhat a Holden and go disliking things because I think they are phony and be a snob and just shut up about it, keeping these observations of phony stuffs to myself, thinking more that I am greater than anybody else because others only see the world as it is, while we Holdens see the world phony. If Holden is a real person, I won’t go near him. And if I were Holden, I would start disliking myself now, especially during this hot season.

There’s really nothing to do here in our house during summer so I really do things whatever comes my way. I play computer games, watch television and read books like The Catcher in the Rye. Need not to say the obvious, I’m just bumming around.

I read the book mostly around one o’clock in the morning until the sun blazes in around seven o’clock. I like staying up during the night because it’s cold and there’s no sun barging in and heating up our house. Plus, there are no people disturbing me when I’m bumming myself to death. I sleep around eight or nine in the morning and wake up just in time for the afternoon Japanese animé shows. If it’s still too hot in the afternoon, I will stab a slab of ice from the freezer and smothers it all over my neck while an electric fan blows wind to my face. Pretty bohemian, huh? (I wonder if I’m being conscious about the climate for the first time and beginning to notice that summer in this country is really hot or I’ve seen too much of Al Gore and his global warming documentary that I’m considering this summer as the hottest in thousands years since the last ice age.) Other than that, I just sit in front of the TV or lie on my back reading the book most of the time.

Few days ago, while watching a television show and while contemplating about alcohol, tobacco and guns after reading an Encarta article about this agency in America that deals with them, news about a Korean-American boy blares on the TV. Reports say he was on a shooting rampage killing thirty two students and teachers in Virginia Tech. I thought of the documentary by Michael Moore and the movie Elephant that tackled the subject of the Columbine Massacre: two White-American boys, in a rampage, shooting people around their campus, leaving everybody dead and killing themselves in the end. America is such a nice place to live in. There are no people tightening their asses, they don’t keep things to themselves and they don’t think what a great phony place a world we live in. If they don’t like somebody there, they shoot them.

I am not so affected by this kind of news, though. Everything that comes out of TV or books, even scenarios that are most likely to happen in our living room, comes out phony. I won’t say that I am an emotionless organism equally numb and stoic as a stone. It’s just that things like these don’t strike me anymore. Maybe it’s just America because anything can happen at anytime in that god-blessed country. Or maybe this just is Philippines where in no terrorism, calamity or massacre story scares the hell out of anyone. Unless it’s a story happening right in front of his or her face and he or she is the main character.

This is a summer country where, also, maybe due to the heat, nothing shocks anyone anymore. Especially the real. But I wonder what things should have not been phonies when those shooting kids were growing up in god-blessed America.

erap and the suzaku warriors

4/2/2007 1:07:59 AM

Erap and the Suzaku Warriors

The impeachment episode of the former President Joseph Estrada brought the nation to its thinking feet. At that time, even the most uneducated man could go on talking about constitutional chuvanes, political chorvas, economic cheverlyn and all that big words without really sounding stupid. Of course, one could not really hear what each side has to say. The objective of every discussion in every household was how to press one’s opinion onto others even if it takes stepping on the other party’s principles.

We, the children of that time, felt the heat of the moment pervading through the television screen as we watch lawyers object to irrelevant and immaterial questions, audience shatter moments with colloquy and senators dance in front of the mob’s anger. But we couldn’t yet fully comprehend what was happening to our country. Needless to say, we, the children of that time couldn’t care less of what was happening to the world. We were watching the impeachment proceeding because we were waiting for it to end. We were watching because we couldn’t wait to go back watching our favorite shows.

Because of the Impeachment, one thing stuck to my innocent mind: GMA network stopped airing the Japanese animated series Fushigi Yuugi. And because of that, I felt as if my lifeline, my escape from the reality of a crumbling nation, was cut off. What Marcos did to Voltes V three decades ago, they were doing again to Fushigi Yuugi during the Impeachment.

I heard the many reasons why GMA stopped showing Fushigi Yuugi. The most obvious reason was that the network didn’t have much air time to compensate what airing the impeachment proceeding has taken. I couldn’t blame the network for that. The Impeachment was an important national matter and the networks were just doing their job to let the people know what was happening. Even though it really didn’t matter, I blamed the senators, lawyers and the President for doing such crappy jobs running the country. They could have been effective leaders and saved the Philippines all the trouble.

What was nerve-wracking was that even after the Impeachment and the ousting of President Estrada from his post, GMA didn’t return Fushigi Yuugi to the air. My generation, like the generation of Voltes V, was too young and dumb to react and protest to anything.

Later, after forgetting what has happened during the Impeachment and finally getting on with life without Fushigi Yuugi, I heard the other reason why GMA has stopped airing the animated series was that Fushigi Yuugi was beginning to show violent and sexual contents that were not suitable to its young patrons during the time when it should have continued airing. The network could have simply cut those parts off but it would come out futile because some important conversations and events took place while the characters were slashing each other’s limbs and licking each other’s faces. I thought why would a commercial network tell us what is brutal and sexual? And when did an imperialist-thinking institution, like the media, care for the corruption of the youth’s mind when it didn’t do so much as eradicating its corruption to the thinking of its nation and its adult viewers?

A friend asked why such passions for an animé that was nothing but melodrama and full of corny scenes. I asked him, “What would you do if Dragon Ball and Ghost Fighter were suddenly cut off in the height of their conflicts?”

“I never really liked Dragon Ball,” he said. “The fight scenes were always too long and it seemed to never end. But Ghost Fighter? Probably, I’d feel bad but I won’t mope like you do.”

“How about Gundam Wing?” I asked.

“Whoa,” he stopped short. “That is different. Gundam doesn’t have…”

I really can’t blame him for having such sentiment. At the time, little boys’ entertainment was not wholly from Japanese cartoons. Boys back then went for computer games, Final Fantasy, Counter Strike and anything that has robots and guns like Gundam Wing. Girls, and “soft-hearted” boys, on the other hand, went for Japanese animation series, which have female characters that have colorful hairdos and legs longer than their bodies. What were guns to the boys were big sparkling eyes to the girls.

A while ago, I have just finished the last episode of Fushigi Yuugi. I felt blessed because in the present generation, when you miss an episode of your favorite television show, you go click YouTube.com or go buy the whole season in a pirated DVD. The Voltes V generation didn’t have that luxury. It took them decades to find out what happened at the ending. But in my part, it only took me six years to know what happened at the final episode of Fushigi Yuugi.

And so, after six years of being dormant in my heart, the fire of the beast-god Suzaku flared once more. It reached to the heavens to be called by its Priestess and her Seven Celestial Warriors, bound to protect her and the southern nation of Konan from the evil forces of the eastern nation Kotou, which was also protected by another beast-god called Seiryu. The Priestess must collect the Shinzaho of the northern beast-god Genbu and the western beast-god Byokko in order to defeat and seal the war beast-god Seiryu. I lost count of the times I clapped and mumbled “char” every time Hotohori would draw his holy sword or Tasuki would go chibi, fighting stupid things over Tamahome.

Watching the whole episode now made me realize that Fushigi Yuugi was really a crap. Hearing the dialogues, even in the English-dubbed version was really revolting. The “Universe of the Four Gods” was in great turmoil but all there was to be worried about is how the love of the Priestess Miaka and her warrior Tamahome could be consummated despite their duties.

But regardless of the awkwardness of some situations, Fushigi Yuugi has some qualities worth of a literary critic’s attention. Fushigi Yuugi showed the importance of literature on how it elevates its readers to other worlds. The story revolves around two Japanese middle school students who were taken into the world of a book called “The Universe of the Four Gods” and played the characters themselves.

I agree that animations nowadays are more complicated and have more ambiguous characters. But I wish there’ll be something exciting that will happen to the nation. Because the more chaotic our country, the more people want to escape reality. With this, only real good entertainment appears on TV. Then the government will ax it for teaching children violence and sex, swaying the nation from the real problem. The children of each generation will then revolt. This is when they learn the true lessons of watching animated series.