Indulgence

It Was Not Vague (It Just Won't Be Talked About)

2006-11-20T11:36:00.000+08:00

Roisin Murphy from Ramalama (Bang Bang) (written by Roisin Murphy and Matthew Herbert)
Can the body close the mind down?

It was an unusual day. There was something that wasn't allowed. There was a grin, a smile, a lie. Shades were used to hide the lying eyes. There was a convincing performance. There were things that walked right through. But it was okay. It was all okay. For the first time in my life, I was a Jedi and I was quite good with the Jedi mind-tricks.

Drink. Drink. Drink. Smoke and smoke and smoke. There was dancing and zipping. There was a pool. There were people jumping into a pool. There was something that was left behind. There was something that was brought along. There was a kiss somewhere where no one could see. It was a good kiss.

There was a lot of smiling. There was a lot of genuine smiling. There was a lot of posing. There was a lot of beckoning, but not with hands but eyes. There was a lot of ignoring happening too. But it was great.

It was an afternoon that became a night. It was filled with beauty and happiness. It was filled with loud music and dancing. There was drinking. It was a Sunday.

There was good company. There was excitement and energy. The feeling was electrifying. The feeling lasted until the next morning. It was far over and done with but it could still be felt.

They were looking. I know they were. And it felt fabulous.

Getting Back to Normal

2006-11-01T13:25:00.000+08:00

Jonathan Swift
We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another.

Sometimes it's hard to believe in something good when you're down in the dumps and trying to get back on your feet. These days, every moment I get to have a chance to get into the clear some large heavy object lands on my head and knocks me for a loop and I wake up a day later and finding that things have just gotten worse.

I'm such a severe and extreme person, it would be great if I could just learn to relax and not think so much. I just wished people just gave me time to get back on my feet and I can have a chance to go back to normal.

I'm tired and truth is, quite angry but I refuse to be. That's where great friendships come in. Yesterday, I was having a really bad day and I called up my bestfriend and he was having a really bad day as well and so off we went to have dinner and I had 2 and a half beers (got a little drunk) but after 15 minutes of mouthing off my angst I was fine and in good spirits. He, on the other hand, was getting through some stuff and I was just glad to be there to help, to listen, to offer my support and whatever good energy I could give.

What I would not be able to do without the help of my friends. This, the worst year of my life, would have forced me to do the unthinkable, if it were not for the precious life-saving good energy of my friends. I'd hate to say it but this time round, family wasn't the people I could run to. Some of them were the problem, and the ones who could help were far away or had bigger problems of their own.

There's a time in your life when you have to grow up and just be on your own. I was there, I failed and ran back home. I'm thinking of doing it again but I have got to be smarter about this because when I leave, I don't ever want to run back. I want to be on my own, strong, secured, assured. Everything is there, I can see it. I just have to fix up this messed up life I've got right now. It's all paper work really.

Fight Club doesn't sound like such a bad idea after all. Ha Ha Ha

Sorry if I haven't been writing here often. I've been finding my multiply blog much easier and more convenient to write on. You can still check up my mundane thoughts there. On the other hand, my concept blog modern everyday gods is taking slower than I thought. I think it is a good concept and I like what I've written so far but the concept itself has become the problem. I have to find a parrallel story or myth to base my writing on. But I'm not letting go of it. I like it. Modern Everyday Gods is my idea, had it since 2000. It will be the title of one of my novels. It's going to work.

I'm getting back to normal. It's going to be tough. But I've got great friends.

Michael Silverblatt on Books

2006-10-08T21:39:00.000+08:00

as texted to me by my Dad
A stitch in time would have confused Einstein.

This is a super fantastic article I got from my Dad. He e-mailed it to me and I was reading it and I was floored. Of course I was floored, I want to be a writer. This stuff is important to me. When I finally discovered the joys of reading, I always felt a little out of place because a lot of the people I met were not readers. When people asked me what I did for a living, I would say I'm a writer and then they'd immediately say ah! So you read a lot?

Why did that necessarily have to follow? Back in the days, in my parent's time, I'm guessing, everybody would read. It was normal. It was a natural thing. Now people can say I don't like reading and it would be an okay thing to say.

It was one of the things that I enjoyed most about Australia. So many book shops everywhere and there were always people inside looking for something and buying something. People lying in the grass at the park, reading or holding a book, reading over a cup of coffee in some coffee shop. I don't find talking about the book I'm reading now very trendy here. There are only a handful of people I can really talk books about. Sad thing... Sad thing...

Here's the fantastic article. Enjoy!

***

Michael Silverblatt on books
by Michael Silverblatt

How did it start? First it was a friend saying, "I don't read as much as I used to."

This was someone who read Gravity's Rainbow as soon as it came out, but all these years later still hasn't opened Mason & Dixon. Maybe he owns David Foster Wallace's essays or subscribes to McSweeney's, but he simply doesn't have time to read everything now. Of course, he never read everything anyway. He just knew about everything new and smart and hot.

A few years later he says, "I just don't have time to read anymore."

Well, hell, who doesn't know him? The first horrible job, the first baby, the house that needs renovating, the hours spent googling on the computer. No time.

Then later still: "I don't read."

This in the same proud voice of someone who, when asked for a match, says a little too quickly, "I don't smoke." Or, holding a hand over the wineglass, says to the waiter, "I don't drink."

Then the nadir. Last month I had a conversation that boiled down to:

"What do you do?"

"I host a public radio show about books."

"I hate reading."

I felt like I'd been spat at or slapped. I fought the impulse to say, "Well, I hate you." But soon I met a whole brigade of reading haters. My niece hates reading, an art dealer I met hates reading, the publisher of a brand-new magazine hates reading. So, after crawling out of a puddle of tears, I began to wonder why people hate reading. Why do they say it so calmly? Why do they say it to me? Once they would have hid the truth and pretended to care.

I think the answer I came up with is interesting, and I want to tell it to you, and I want you to listen and to stop laughing at me. Sit down.

I think you have never been taught to read.

I know I shouldn't say this to you (you're very nice) but I know it to be true, or true in so many cases that the exceptions don't matter.

In 1962, poet-critic Randall Jarrell published his essay "The Schools of Yesteryear." In it, he examines the Appleton Readers, once the most popular school readers used in American public schools, and he found that in 1880, the fifth-grade reader contained works by Byron, Coleridge, Cervantes, Dickens, Emerson, Jefferson, Shakespeare , Shelley, Thoreau, Mark Twain and "simpler writers such as Scott, Burns, Longfellow, Cooper, Audubon, Poe, Benjamin Franklin and Washington Irving."

Fourth-graders were reading Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" and poems by Wordsworth. If you're thinking to yourself, "How could that be? I didn't encounter anything like this until college," well, that's exactly Jarrell's point.

A decision was made about how to teach reading that, by the 1950's, ensured Americans would not know their own (or any other) culture. We're all consequences of that decision.

Remember second grade? We opened our class readers and read something like:

See the dog run!

Go, dog. Go!

Go, go, go.

And in case you missed the point, this was accompanied by a bright picture of a dog . . . going. We were given more and more of this, readers and workbooks and special projects, and the sure thing is that these words were not written by a writer but by a committee, a committee of reading specialists whose assignment was to create a program to guarantee that everyone would be able to read by the fourth grade.

"Able to read" means, of course, able to recognize simple words, a skill of sorts but not to be confused with reading. We were taught to recognize words but not to enjoy reading, and we weren't given anything of value to read. So we learned not to read, but to respond to a reading technology.

What did the technology leave out? Only everything. The crucial thing it omitted is the rich and valuable experience of incomprehension, the most important element of reading. The art (as opposed to the technology) of reading requires that you develop a beautiful tolerance for incomprehension. The greatest books are the books that you come to understand more deeply with time, with age, with rereading.

I would bet you my entire library that after elementary school you never read the school reader again, except perhaps to laugh at it. Why would you reread "Go dog, go?"

It has nothing to tell you about dogs, or running, or going (whatever that is). It teaches you effective word recognition, but reading isn't done with just the eyes, or the eyes and the lips, it's done with the mind. "Go dog, go!" doesn't engage the mind, not even a child's mind. All it does is give the child the experience of achievement, instant and complete understanding - in other words, the usual American virtue of immediate gratification.

If the teacher read you a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream in third grade, and then you struggled to read it out loud with the rest of the class in fourth grade, and you read the complete play in seventh grade-you would have the incredible experience of discovering that the mind comes to terms with its own incomprehension. The clearing of the fog of incomprehension is the yardstick of growth, every kind of growth: emotional, intellectual, moral, aesthetic, human growth.

By now it isn't just one generation of kids that wasn't taught to read, their parents weren't taught either.

"A new figure has conquered the social stage. This new species is the second-order illiterate," writes Hans Magnus Enzensberger, a brilliant German culture critic, in his essay "In Praise of Illiteracy."

"It contributes to the second-order illiterate's sense of well-being that he has no idea that he is a second-order illiterate. He considers himself well-informed; he can decipher instructions on appliances and tools; he can decode pictograms and checks. . . . The ideal medium for the second-order illiterate is television."

By now second-order illiteracy has become so common that we elect second-order illiterates to office. Our president is only the most obvious example. Other second-order illiterates seem to identify with and to be consoled by the second-order illiteracy of their leaders. They like direct statement (they learned from that school reader) and have low tolerance for complex argument-really for complexity of any kind.

I don't have a solution, but I'll make a deal with you. If you will compromise and admit that you don't hate reading, I promise never to recommend a book that will waste your time. Maybe, gradually, I can persuade you to do good: to help change the way reading is taught in this country. Maybe we can alter our future.

Starting Over

2006-10-04T01:55:00.000+08:00

Anonymous
Life is drawing with an eraser.

I felt every day of September pass. It was a long month for me. Day after day, the gruelling struggle for survival rages on. There wasn't that much to do in September. Most of the time I was waiting for things to happen. Things that were scheduled that never pushed through. There's something rotten in Denmark and it is not the fish! I can't stand this, the sudden rush of work and then the static energy that suddenly takes over when I receive texts that there is no shoot tomorrow or there is no edit tomorrow.

It's inertia. An object at rest will remain at rest until a greater force can force it into motion. I like working and I like the long hours. I like trying to figure out when I can meet my friends during my busy schedule and finding the time and making it work out. The problem is I lose my momentum and when the momentum is lost, the desire is quickly gone. It's gotta maintain otherwise, I just lose my nerve.

And things are moving so slowly right now for the show that I've started thinking, really thinking about what other options I have. Why work in an industry where I am not wanted? They want me to write formula movies with song titles for the title of the movie. Yuck! Blech! I'd rather barf. They want me to write formula, uninteresting things for the sake of keeping the status quo. Nobody in the industry wants to do anything good or new. The public is demanding what they want to see and the industry doesn't deal with them, they play along. It's become all about the money and that is sad to me. That is really sad.

So I've started asking myself if this is really what I want to get into. After all, the people who did offer me projects to do something different, to write something new, have all faltered and fallen away. They couldn't get their act together or, if not, they couldn't bring up the finances to. Sad. Very sad.

So now I have to really think very carefully what I want to do with the rest of my life. Some serious questions arise and I really have to consider this properly.

And then, I go to Astrology Zone by Susan Miller to discover what is in store for me on October and lo and behold! This is what she says:

The new month will be just what you need: a calm, quiet environment that will
allow you to sort out life's recent changes and to make new plans.

My God! She just read my mind. But there's more! She says:

Eclipses in Pisces and Virgo will allow you to see yourself in a fresh light and
to shape your life in a new way. This would be necessary now, even if you liked your old life. If there is anything that is constant in the universe it is that everything changes.

Now that is frightening. Not that I am not accustommed to change. I'm always changing. But I know this won't do anything with my friendships. This isn't about my friendships or my lifestyle but my career. I'm not yet willing or ready to leave the country. Not when I just found a great group of people I really enjoy being with and that I've rediscovered 2 old friends and a new one that has come along and we are re-establishing ties that will not be so easily cut, not like before.

If I am to pursue this dream of making movies, it would most probably not be here. Not at the onset. I've got to go where my stories are wanted. My friend Daniel said that I shouldn't give up but just slow down. Pretty good advice, if I may say so. So I'm not abandoning the dream. I'm just going to take a slight detour to make everything right again. Give myself a better foundation to make it all happen.

This change I am welcoming. It will force me to be more flexible, to stretch myself and push myself to the very limits. I've wrestled with the fabulous and the bohemian and the daring and I didn't win but it doesn't mean I won't win. I will now wrestle with the mundane and the banal, the routine and the processes of everyday life and conquer it. And when I do, and I'm ready and stable and secure, the fight will begin again.

I'm thinking of it as training myself all over again. Starting from scratch to improve and add on more of what there is in me. The better to tackle the difficulties of my later fights, the one I've desperately been losing these past 2 years. There are more than 1 road to any destination. I'm pretty sure it doesn't say that we can only take the road we've chosen. We can stray from the path and find the other route and still get there. The journey is just as important as the arrival. And part of the journey is taking as many paths as it takes to get to the finish line. So I may have taken a longer route than others; what's important is I get there and I had fun and became a more well-rounded person in the process.

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

2006-09-23T14:15:00.000+08:00

Bugs Bunny
I like DEAD END signs. I think they're kind. They at least have the decency to let you know you're going nowhere.

The computer's power source blew up. No particular reason. It was just old. But because of that, I've not been connected to the internet for weeks. Thank God our marketing manager hasn't been all there for the show because we haven't had a confirmed sponsor in a while so work has been a little lax. I kept myself busy doing other odd jobs for awhile. Anything to keep me afloat while I wait for this show to start.

Inertia sets in, you know? I can't stand this starting and then stopping and then waiting and then starting again. It's really killing my momentum and I need that to really throw myself into the work. Everytime I stop, I just stop and an object at rest will stay at rest until a greater force can get it moving again.

Human beings are just as susceptible to the laws of physics.

But I'm back on-line agian. Sorry for having signed off. We were experiencing technical difficulties. We now return you to your regular programming.

Brittle, Fragile

2006-09-11T18:12:00.000+08:00

from The Fantasticks
Who can explain the harvesting of the grain, or why we must all die a bit before we live again?

I'm seeing the end of something here. Ooh the drama queen strikes again! But I've gone through so much this year and there's a new shift in mind and emotional state. There are so many things said about when life is suppose to begin -- some say right after you graduate from college, some say at 25, others at 30. I'm saying 27 but then, that's because I'm going through another life lesson and coming out someone different. Justify it! C'mon, Pisces, justify it! I'm coming around full circle and then finding myself in someone else's shoes and they're rather big and I'm scared to fill it out. Oh please, you want it! Who are you kidding? You want it!

I've been growing up. Everyone grows up. Some faster than others, others at a snail pace. I change so quickly, it scary. Sometimes I wonder if I can catch up. Suck it up! Take it like a man! Just when I wanted to indulge in all that life has to offer, I find myself slowing down, chillin' out and taking it a little more steady. Yeah, you can indulge on the laid-back and on first gear but when you say the word indulge you really are giving the idea of excess and extravagance. Throwing yourself and your whole being at the moment. I think I've been doing just that. But since I've really slowed down to 2nd gear (no longer at 5th), maybe, indulgence is no longer the theme of my life. That's it, get introspective. Cull it for all it's worth. Make it work!

Yeah, I'm seeing the end of something here. Sorry for this. But I have to find myself in a state of mind that allows for all these changes. A state of mind that doesn't actually get so confused when something big happens and things have to push since something is shoving. I'm too brittle, too fragile even at the moment of reformation. I come back new and whole again after these big events and yet, I'm still so susceptible to things changing me. I'm too much like water. Too much metaphors! Too much! Say what you really feel. Keep it real! I got to find that state in which I can change and still be me and not be so affected and bothered by what goes on around me and how it affects me.

I'm slowly putting it all together. You always are. You've never been whole enough long enough to have had a solid foundation for any kind of one being. You keep saying you are coalescing but a few months later you're all shattered and broken again. When is it going to end?

Maybe this is the last time.

Why I Don't Blog So Much Anymore

2006-09-06T18:13:00.000+08:00

William Blake
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.

I don't post as often as I do and it's not because I have another blog at my multiply site. I have enough thoughts in the world to maintain 3 or 4 blogs at a time. I wish I could be paid to blog but then again, that's what you call a columnist; and I've been dying for one for the longest time but we don't always get what we want. So yeah, my unproductivity in terms of blogging has not been because I have a second one to maintain.

Far from the truth.

Work has been getting to me and it's been my life for a while. I'm still opinionated and could still yack away at other various stuff but my whole focus, right now, is getting the job done. We're at a precarious stage at the moment. Can't afford to lose my sights on the goal.

Also, I decided to try living more instead. Blogging takes about 20 minutes for me. Sitting in front of my computer with the blogger page open and then another window open either chatting with someone on-line or e-mailing or reading up on stuff in other sites, it is not an instantaneous thing. Blogging is something I do to help keep me from getting zoned out. As I'm typing this, I'm also reading some e-mails. Go figure.

But it is still 20 minutes or so of my life and so much can happen in 20 minutes. People experiences their greatest joys and deepest regrets in a matter of seconds. I could be out there doing something amazing instead of sitting in front of my computer and basking in the radiation that is supposedly coming out of the computer monitor.

Instead of blogging everyday, why not live more and then blog less. Just blog more substantial stuff and not every fluff that enters my head? There's so much more to do than record that which is happening in our lives. Let our memories of our time together be the record; that is enough. There is time enough later on to put it down into writing. Why not just enjoy the heat of the moment?

Or maybe I'm just in denial that I'm all about work again and that's the only thing on my mind as of the moment. Maybe I'm just in denial that things are becoming routinary again. But that's not true, either. Geez! I could tell you what happened to me in the weekend, but then, I'd probably get shot with what I would have to reveal. No, I'm not living a boring life. It's just a life I'd like to savour more, personally and intimately than to share it right away and turn it into some anecdote; another story in the life of...

Let's do some more living, that's what I say.

The Big Man Upstairs

2006-09-03T10:57:00.000+08:00

As texted to me by my Dad
Time to check: Is there anything you have forgotten in your life? What's missing? Do you miss it at all?

I finally got to do it. Kudos to my brother for making it happen, but finally, I've been able to go to church today. Ever since I got back from Australia, I started getting this burning desire to give thanks for everything that I've gotten so far and to have made it this far, in the first place. I wanted to go to mass to show my gratitude.

Many people who know me well, knows that I am not a religious person. Some people even think I'm an atheist. Not true. I am a theist; I do believe in a God, but I'm not a Catholic, I don't believe in that particular God. I think the term for myself is Agnostic. I do believe in a higher power yet I'm still not sure who or what he is. There is no definition because a being capable of creating a universe from scratch, a being whose imagination is so immense and infinite that he/she could create 8 billion different individuals just amazes me. How can I understand what he is?

So my relationship with my creator is diffferent than most and I don't usually talk about it. I like to project this heathen, devil-may-care, "I'm evil" sort of attitude but in truth, I'm very awed and inspired by The Big Man Upstairs. It's a very personal relationship. There are moments when I just give in and say, Damn it, God, that's a gorgeous sunset.

After everything I've been through this year, all the ups and downs and all the craziness, I'm just glad to still be alive. Things could be better but I'm stronger now and I'm wiser now. I get to have a chance to make things right, you know? Not many people have that chance and I want to say thank you.

And for something like this, it isn't just some closing of the eyes and saying it to Him, like I usually do, no, this is different. My thank you needs to come off as sincere as it really is and if that means I have to wake up early and go to mass and do the rituals, I'll do it. Just so I'm sure that this time, when I thank Him, He'll hear it loud and clear.

Another Shuffle

2006-09-02T11:05:00.000+08:00

As texted to me by my Dad
Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs.

There was another crazy shuffle at work last night but I hope this time, it's the last. There's too much to do and very little time left for new changes. We're all at the brink now and if someone falls over, others will have to catch `em. If you are all at the cliff's edge, hanging by your finger nails and then someone falls, you only have 1 hand with which to catch them with. If you use both, you'll both fall down.

It was a very strange night last night as the shuffling continued and then stopped; we began working on solutions. Then my direct superior began to break down. It was very strange. She's much older than me and she was talking and talking and not making any sense. I wanted to leave because my presence there was no longer needed but at the same time I couldn't because doing so would've made obvious what was not being said: what was happening before me was embarrassing and, in a sad way, completely unnecessary. Her direct superior, who happens to have a streak of sadism and the "know-it-all" syndrome was genuinely trying to help her sort out the mess in her head. The problem was, his approach only managed to fuel the fire of her confusion. She was becoming hostile and emotional. It wasn't a pretty sight.

I wanted to leave but she asked me to be there and hold her hand through this. I had no idea she had fallen. At that moment, I reached out and grabbed her and holding us both at the cliff's edge with the other hand.

It was a very heavy moment. Surprisingly enough, though, much good came from the whole thing. Her direct superior was able to get through to her, finally and let her know that she was just panicking, she was getting over-whelmed, she should just rest. Teary-eyed, she stood up and thanked him. All her efforts were recognized, at the least and her problems have solutions, she just needs to focus and put herself back together.

On the way home, she asked my opinion and I gave it to her. I walked her home, telling her how I felt and in the end, found myself instructing her what to do when she starts feeling over-whelmed again. I started telling her how to deal with her bosses and how best to not have to enter that kind of situation again. I was talking to her as if she were a college student and I was the mentor. The weirdness of the situation dawned on me a few minutes in when I realised she was at least 2 decades older than me.

I gave her a big hug and kissed her and told her that things will be easier, things are going to get better. We won't let her fall, I told her. Life is strange, sometimes. You think you're so tired yet you find the strength in you to be strong for someone else when you need to be. And age really is just a number, not any real form of indication of how mature people can be. Different types of people, all shuffled together and then passed around like playing cards. Sometimes, we keep what we need and replace `em with new stuff, or you feel confident enough to play with the hands you're dealt with and then sometimes, you're folded because it isn't enough to play the game.

living by the word

2006-08-29T17:33:00.000+08:00

Carl Sandburg from Windsong
I love you, said the great mother.
I love you for what you are
Knowing so much what you are.

I've been thinking a lot about writing again. Not just the work writing that I do. I mean serious writing. Back to what I had first imagined for myself back when I was still in College, back in High School even.

Back then, I had dreams of becoming a novelist. One of those career writers who live by writing books and nothing more. Maybe occasionally teaching in-between fervent writing fevers. I thought I'd be spending a lot of my time living, walking around and hanging with friends until I find an interesting story and then BAM! I'd disappear for weeks just furiously typing away in my computer.

Later on, my love for film had taken over and I was going to be making movies and it became the sole purpose of my writing. I've been trying to break in since 2003. Script after script met roadblock after roadblock. I was running out of steam, ready to give up.

But I didn't. I kept pushing and fighting. I lost my way a bit but found myself back. And now, I'm here, trying it out and working hard in making it work. This is all I really want to do. Live life, collect and gather experience, hear everybody's story and then write.

And now, reading all these non-fiction books, I think I've found the genre that really suits me. Rather than have to throw away my own personal opinions and judgements, I use it as my own voice. I'm such an opinionanted son-of-a-bitch; I can't help but have an opinion. Why not let it be my voice?
And why can't I write books and stories and write film as well? Why can't I have it all?

I'm in a good place right now. I'm ready. I'm in fighting form. I want it all.

Picture of me reading in the beach at Calicoan, Samar taken by Paulino, June `06.

Bacchanalia

2006-08-27T14:43:00.000+08:00

Sam Sneed
I have never dreamt of becoming a millionaire; only to live like one.

Wine has always been considered as part of the finer things in life. Anyone can drink wine, that's for sure. There are bottles that go for 200 pesos, after all. As long as you drink enough, it'll still do the trick. But it takes real sophistication to enjoy wine. Watching Sideways and listening to real wine experts talk about wine as being "dry" or "strong" or "biting." Do you taste the oak? This one is very fruity. It's something I'm picking up and learning slowly. There's a chi-chi quality to drinking wine and even on a cheap house wine, there's a feeling of class, of being able to enjoy the finer things in life. After all, unlike other hard drinks, wine doesn't immediately bring you there. Even the hit, the drunkness of it is different.

I was assigned by Metro to cover a gala dinner that was hosted by Wine Depot. It was a charity auction where the best premium wines from all over the world were being auctioned off and the proceeds would go to charity. Now, we all know I'm totally not a formal person and I couldn't find my tie, which I have not worn in 2 or 3 years. My leather shoes were worn beyond repair and I had to borrow my brother's pair. My coat hasn't been used in 2 or 3 years. Thank God I bought it in Italy in 1998 and, in my opinion anyway, was still in good condition and style.

I arrived at 6:30pm, the third person to arrive and immediately they started serving us wine. We began with a Banfi Rosa Regale from Piedmont Italy and while many people found it very fruity and sweet, I liked it because it was suave in taste and texture. Later on, John Silva disagreed with me saying that he'd rather drink champagne if it was to be this sweet. I agree but I did prefer the Banfi Rosa Regale than a biting wine.

People were coming in slowly and so we had to stay outside for a good number of time and the ladies pouring the wine were rather charming and I found myself having drank 4 glasses already and was getting considerably drunk. Then they ushered in for dinner.

What followed was a Nobilo Icon Sauvignon Blanc 2004 from Marlborough, New Zealand which I thought had a lot of character and was quite biting. I thought it was too strong as it was but what followed, the Simi Russian River Chardonnay 2003 from Russian River Valley in California was even stronger.

I shared a table with the other press people, joined by John Silva and Bambi Harper who are good friends of my Father and Mother and gave me some valuable insights on the wine. Also there were a couple from The Philippine Star who also shared some of their knowledge of wines. And Tim Yap joined us also and shared his thoughts on the wine. We accentuated our dinner, which was excellent, with talk on the tragedy of the Guimarras oil spill, the anti-gay column that was written by Isagani Cruz and the visit of the son of Princess Caroline.

Following were the Banfi Brunello di Montalcino 2000 from Montalcino, Italy which I found rather dry but easier to drink than the two previous bottles. The Arzuaga Crianza 2006 from Ribera Del Duero Spain followed and that was forceful and assertive. And yes, I could taste the oak. The Veramonte Primus Carmenere Merlot Cabnernet Sauvignon 2003 from Casablanca Valley in Chile was the next and by this time, I couldn't tell the difference. The dinner was excellent but was rather rich in flavour as well. And no amount of water or walking towards the smoking section could not free me from my inebriation. I was in it. I was in it deep.

The auction was intermittent, selling off 2 bottles per dish (it was an 8-course meal) and while some of these wines began their bid at 8,000 pesos, they would eventually sell for double that amount. The highest bid began at 30,000 pesos and was sold at 64,000 pesos. For charity, one particular wine whose bid began at 21,000 and was sold at 44,000 would be matched by one individual -- he was going to match the price and give that to charity and in one bottle, The Springboard foundation was to receive 88,000 pesos.

By this time, I was drunk, talking fast and a little louder than usual. I had eased up in my discomfort and was conversing easy. I was amazed at the amount of wine and the money being thrown around for charity and a bottle of fine spirits. The last two bottles in our menu very much helped me ease into the mood -- the Torbreck Steading Grenache Mataro Shiraz 2003 from Barossa Valley, South Australia and the Grant Burge Filsell Shiraz 2003 also from Barossa Valley were good but by this time, my taste buds had failed me. I would not have been able to qualify its taste. All I know is that it was good.

It was the finer life that I had been a part of last night. I was so very conscious to fit the part, you know? No elbows on the table, no scratching of the plate with my utensils, things like that. I was so trying hard to make sure that I was in the best of behaviour. It had turned around for me, especially since quite a lot of people decided to speak to me about my parents, and so there was very little dead air. It was no longer uncomfortable and awkward. I was no longer just press, a mere observer, but somehow, even though I did not participate in the auction, was part of the revelry.

I remember studying the Bacchanalia in ancient Greece, where people drunk in wine, enter wild orgies, loud music and the overflowing of wine would turn the steps into a cascade of spirits. It was a grand debauchery, it was extravagant and wasteful. I wouldn't say that that spirit was alive that night, though a lot of wine wasn't finished and if you open a bottle of wine, you better finish it before the taste is lost. But if you think of the half a million pesos that was raised for The Springboard Foundation, to help under-privileged children in the country, you think the wine was really what helped coax out the money.

Yes it was grand and extravagant but in the end, it was helpful, in a larger scheme of things. And I was a part of that last night. Once in a while, it's nice to get out of your comfort zones, wear clothes you don't usually like wearing and playing a part that you are never comfortable with and just submit. You always end up learning something new, anyway.

Once Again, A Contender

2006-08-25T19:40:00.000+08:00

from my Dad
Time is what keep everything from happening all at once.

I've been very busy lately with work and all and today, I just got another invite to write for another show but there might be difficulties with regards to the show I am currently writing for airs in the rival network; I might not get this one. Shucks!

Lately, I've also been spending time with Berna as she prepared to leave for Cebu. And then with the Planetzips crew because I haven't been hanging with them and that's important to me. They are important to me. And I'm kinda happy that I was able to go to NMI today after my trip to ABS to get my next set of articles to write from Publishing.

I also got to hang out with Ann again and it has been a long time and once again, we had one of those fantastic conversations where we tried to dissect life and living and why things are the way they are. In doing so, we dissected ourselves and laid us bare to each other. Soul-stripping with Ann in Greenbelt. I miss that. Her mind is so sexy, you know? It really is very stimulating and she knows how to temper it with humour so it is always a joy to speak with her.

I like this, you know? The work is coming back and I feel that I'm coming back to form and I'm getting energized again. A second wind, so to speak. After everything that happened mid-year, it's good to be back in the game again as a contender.

Soon, it will be back to working like a workaholic, regularly hanging out with my friends like Cholo, Lance, Michap, the Planetzips people and Jay and the gang. Smiling comes easier again and I'm reading voraciously once again.

I'm reading Nick Joaquin's Culture and History and I'm totally fascinated with it. I hated his Woman with Two Navels but love his short stories. Very powerful stuff, his short stories, especially Summer Solstice but now, I'm reading his thoughts on Philippine culture and its history and I'm just riveted. I'm glad to be reading again and I'm getting more and more excited about writing non-fiction now.

I want to be able to tackle something that has truly happened and turn it into something beautiful and artistic. Let it not be said that it was just an experience but it was a story, that served to entertain and inform. Let it be said, that one day, I will be remembered for it.

Reality

2006-08-23T09:10:00.000+08:00

George Harrison
If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.

I'm chatting with Lance and we're talking about everything, again, as usual, and then we manage to start talking about how, as Lance puts it, reality sucks the life out of us.

I manage to say, you know, reality really has a bad rep. Reality is fine as it is. It's our dreams and ideals that make it look bad. How can reality compare with what our imaginations say things should be?

And it is true. We really just have to ride it out, you know? Live it, adjust to it and learn to move through the ebb and tide of its movements. Roll with the punches. Learn the footwork. Box like your opponent is going to kill you. Kill `em first.

This world is tough, tough for everyone. Deep down inside, I really, truly feel that God doesn't put us through what we cannot handle. So everyone who's going through so much means they're just tougher people than most. At the same time, though, I also believe that we get what is coming to us. Some people, despite all the rational thinking and the obvious clues and signs, still manage to fuck up their lives because they chose to do something stupid. I mean, hello? if you don't work, you won't get money, you starve! You going to do criminal things, if you get caught, you go to jail. Suffer the consequences of your actions. Work hard and earn the life you want to live. Some people go through tough shit and they get through it. No one has an excuse to slack off, to sit down and blame the world.

Look at Hellen Keller. She was born deaf, dumb and blind. She fought against it and was able to succeed. What right does anyone of us have to sit down and cry and demand for a better world? Make it so.

Yeah, life sucks at the moment. There's definitely something rotten in Denmark. So what are you going to do about it?

what I learned last Friday night

2006-08-20T14:15:00.000+08:00

Bill Gates
I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything he ever dreamed of so he can see that it's not the answer.

Berna is leaving for Cebu for work and she might not be coming back soon. It's a permanent job, after all. Well, permanent as long as she likes what she is doing and she grows as a person. I told her to go and do it. It will offer her new opportunities, and honestly, she needs a change of pace too. She has nothing to lose and so much to gain. It will help her grow and I might be losing one of my closest friends to the distance between the cities in which we will inhabit; but I've never been one to stop someone from growing, much less myself and this will be good for her so with all the love in my heart, I told her to go.

We celebrated her despedida (going away party) last Friday. Her old friends from college and high school, mixed in with people she's met along the way. I got to see people I haven't seen in a long time. My friends from 2004 -- Ann, Jaypee, Maik, Charles and Japs; friends from NMI (who I saw 2 weeks ago except Ivan who was in Boracay at that time) and so on. I got a little nostalgic but it didn't last very long. I'm not a sentimental person by far. I was just extremely happy to see them. If anything, I was able to tell myself that I'm still changing, growing, learning and developing. It would be such a scary thing to have the same thing going on in my life everyday.

What's important is my love for them has not left me, as I had left their constant company. With the gang, we were inseparable, until our work took us away from each other and left us with just weekends, and sometimes, not even that. Then I was in NMI and it was the same deal. Together, stuck like glue and happy about it until I needed to get out. I got out and sort of lost contact with them, other than the occasional yahoo messenger chats and texts.

But my love for them hasn't faded. I'm so happy to get a chance to be with them and I really, really have to learn how to divide my time properly. I'm always throwing myself at whatever I'm working on, I'm such a horrible little workaholic, a self-obsessed workaholic for that matter, that it is hard for me to give myself to others; no matter how much I want to. But you have to. I remember a quote from Alanis Morissette in an interview regarding her being a negative songwriter, always writing about anger and hate. She said:

The biggest blessing came when I realized that the more I love the so-called
dark parts of me, the happier I become. The more I am okay with being
angry, confused, vengeful, attached -- all those bad, insecure, self-hating
aspects -- the better I feel. Some people think, if I push negative
thoughts away, I'll be happy. But I don't know anyone who's happy when
they're pushing away parts of themselves. (Insider, July 2004)

And I find that very true. And they are all an essential part of me. Their opinions and thoughts and stories have come through me and affected me and I should respect that.

We work to live, afterall and not live to work. Once again, I am reminded that my work cannot define me. It's okay that it does, I like what I do. But there are other parts of my life that I leave behind because I put all my energy to my work. And that can't be good for me.

Ecology

2006-08-18T16:50:00.000+08:00

Tanita Tikaram from I Might Be Crying (words and music by Tanita Tikaram)
Yeah, I might be needing you
The need it doesn't end

I've got so much work and I'm very thankful for it. Thankful because once again, I feel useful to the world; that I'm doing my part and that I'm part of the bigger picture. I'm a cog in the machine, I'm part of the system. It's ecology -- how one thing is inter-related to something else. I'm a writer. I cannot be just an observer. I have to be a part of what is happening so that I can then, later on, step away and then write about it. An observer may be able to see everything, from so many different sides, but he would be hard-pressed to explain the heart of it all. That's the one thing I don't want to have a difficulty with; the ability to express the heart of it all.

It's the connection that I'm after, you know? It's why I want to be a writer.

I've begun to enjoy my solitude and I've learned that there are times when I have to be by myself -- walk around the mall alone, eat dinner out alone, watch a movie alone. Give myself time to just get to know myself again, find out what I need and to coalesce, to get back together and just put myself back at peace.

But the rest of the time, I have to be out there and interacting with people. I always have to have my finger at the pulse of how a person is thinking or feeling. I have to be constantly receiving this kind of information, trying to figure out how it all fits in in the larger scheme of things and then figuring out if it fits in at all? I am constantly trying to define this life, this world, this reality based on my own experiences and from other people. And then, I try to bring it out and tell the world what I've discovered.

That's what I like to do. That's why I write. That's why I like to talk and share about myself, so that others will share themselves with me. That's why I love movies and music and books. That's why I find myself texting people out of the blue and asking them how they are and then calling them up and just talking, for the sake of. It's connection. It's ecology.

quite happy about that

2006-08-17T01:07:00.000+08:00

Goldfrapp from Ride a White Horse (written by Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory)
Lend me a whole new world
All night
Feel life

So today my Dad arrives and I'm moving about the city doing some errands. Everything goes like clockwork considering that I woke up 2 hours late. It was all personal stuff anyway, nothing that was actually business or professional. So I'm moving about and doing my business and I'm getting a flood of ideas for films that would never be made -- only if I had shitloads of money and could afford to make films without thinking about the profit afterwards, you know? These films that would be great to make if I were in America or in some other country because there would be an audience for it. If it were really any good, it would be watched; not like here in the Philippines. It's gotta have a formula if it is to be succesful. Sad fact of life, but I have to accept it, right?

And still, everything goes clockwork. It's nice to know that I can go to NBI to get the clearance for Monica that she needs to become an Australian citizen and it took me about an hour and a half to do it and it wasn't idle waiting, which I thought it would be. I was really going all over and getting things signed and done. It was all good. At least I felt that things were moving and I wasn't waiting in line, not doing anything. During the walking around from 6th floor to 3rd floor to 4th and then 5th, I kept myself company with my thoughts and all those crazy ideas for movies kept me very much occupied. Everything went really smoothly.

Checked out some nice walking shoes in Glorietta before I discovered that I can't withdraw from a Makati branch if I opened my account in a Greenhills branch. Not until I get my ATM card which I'll be getting next week. I applied for a savings account with Banco de Oro and I swear, I'm really very, very happy with them. I feel they are taking care of me and the service is great and I just love it.

So I go to Greenhills and withdraw money there to pay for my rent and so that I have money to buy my walking shoes tomorrow which I really, really need. So I was able to accomplish much and that felt really good.

I also got a text from my dad. It was very simple and yet it was so heavy with meaning. He texted: I have good news.

No smiley face. Nothing else but that. I was ecstatic and thrilled to get that text except I told him that I only like suspense in movies and books. I can't stand it in real life. But I waited; he said that he had to tell it to me to my face. So I waited.

I got home, watched Milan for research (I hated it! There were good parts in it but it was mostly trash) and then Dad arrived home. We had dinner first with the whole family then Datu showed him his new car and I watched the first part of Rockstar Supernova. Afterwards, Dad was ready so we both went to our room, away from all the noise and distractions and he told me the good news.

And that's all I'm going to say about it.

Afterwards, we talk like we usually do and we easily shift from colleagues and co-workers to Father and Son and then to friends and then men with similar minds. It was amazing and it just keeps impressing on me how important my father is in my life.

When all was said and done, he goes to sleep and I watch Rockstar Supernova which drives me insane. It is Storm's first bad performance. I love Storm and she has become one of my favourite singers and her version of The Cars' Just What I Needed and David Bowie's Changes are my favourite songs as of the moment. I hate having to see her do a bad performance. And now Ryan is stepping up to be a real contender. He's very good. Toby is still good but I can no longer see him as the lead singer for Supernova. Lukas is beginning to bore me. He still is an amazing arranger but his performances have become redundant. He doesn't excite me anymore. Between Zayra and Patrice, I wish Zayra would stay one more week since Patrice has fallen so far out of grace for me -- though her version of My Iron Lung is still superb and absolutely fantastic. Zayra will have a fantastic solo career, even if I'm not that impressed with her original song. But I know for a fact that she is a unique performer and a fantastic singer. She will go far.

Now I'm here writing on my blog and will soon sleep to catch the elimination later in the morning. I had a very good day. I'm quite happy about that.

Kinda reminds me, actually, of arriving in Sydney on the 5th of August. Tired and horribly sad to leave Melbourne. The bus picks us up and we travel all the way to the middle of Sydney and the fantastic Swissotel. In room 1821, Glen and I put down our bags. We don't unpack since we were only staying for one night but boy! There is nothing like a 5 star hotel and a great suite to stay in, even for 1 night. I felt like a king. Huge beds and a fantastic bathroom. I love hotels, as long as it isn't too long. But most of all, I love hotel breakfast buffets. They're the best, really. The Swissotel experience was just a welcome break from the very rushed, stressful and pressure-filled Australia trip that was both lovely and depressing. All these wonderful things to see and no time to go off and explore. Of course, the 5 star hotel treatment, even for one night, was enough for me to say, hey! This is work. We got perks but we got to earn it too. It was nice to be a king for a night.

And with the good news and how things have been turning and changing lately, I can settle for that for now. I'm a happy bunny.

Bondi Beach

2006-08-16T10:21:00.000+08:00

Charles Darwin
It's not the strongest of the species that survive, but the one most responsive to change.

It's amazing, really, when you think about what a human being has to go through year after year. Incredible highs and incredible lows. One moment there're such unbelievable moments, magickal moments, movie moments and we can't believe that life can be so good and then there are moments that are just so bad, it can ruin you, destroy you and break you apart, tear you into little bits and you spend a great deal of time just putting yourself back together.

There are those people who just give up. They are torn asunder and they just don't have the will to try and put themselves together again. Some resolve to just drink and drink and not have to feel anything but the buzz, others just stay home and disappear from the world. The scariest form of giving up is when a person goes through the day-to-day without any joy. They tell everyone that everything is all right, that there's nothing wrong but they don't strive to do anything. They just go day in and day out doing the same thing, not dreaming of anything good, not hoping for anything great and they just basically are going through the motions. That's the scary one. That's almost like a zombie, a robot. It's mechanical. It's frightening.

I'm trying to remember if I ever found myself at a point that I became mechanical. I can't remember. I'm more of the type that really shows what is going on inside me. I have outlets, channels. I just express it and I let it out and then, when things start getting better, I shift, I adjust, I get better.

On our last day in Sydney, we found ourselves with only 1 interview left to do so I made a decision to take the bus to Bondi beach. I found the idea of a beach just 20 minutes away from the city so appealing. If I needed the moment to recuperate, to just soak the sun and swim in salt water, it would just be a bus ride away. I thought that was the most amazing thing in the world.

We took the bus from Hyde Park to Bondi. We passed East Sydney down some streets in Paddington before leaving the comforts of my city map and then up a hill to a sunny residential area with very friendly homes. We stepped off the bus and made a short walk to a bend in the road going down hill but over the hill we could already see the massive, beautiful beach that is Bondi.

I was thrilled! 8 foot waves were curling above the water. Surfers were having the time of their lives. In the middle of winter, there were Aussies walking in shorts and sleeveless shirts barefoot on the sand. People walking their dogs at the concrete and people jogging. While Glen was taking his shot, I saw some of the residents in the homes nearby just walking out of their apartments in boardshorts and slippers. They lived so close to the beach they didn't even need to bring a towel. It was dip and go.

My executive producer remarked how big my smile had become. I was energized and excited and was obviously having the time of my life. When Glen had made his shot, we rushed down to the beach where Glen began taking more shots and I took off my shoes and socks and walked in the sand. I felt the soft sand beneath my feet and took a whiff of the salt water air. I soaked in the sun. I said, if I were ever to move to Sydney, I'm moving here!
If ever I had become mechanical or zombie-like, if ever I gave up, I would never had had the chance to witness a beach like Bondi. I would never have been able to get the job to write this show and see a place like this. I would never have been able to come up with a dream that one day I'd be living in Bondi.

I can't allow myself to give up because I would just miss out on such spectacles such as this.

Journal

2006-08-14T15:45:00.000+08:00

as texted by my Dad
I shouldn't say bad stuff about illiterates... I should just write it.

I found myself opening my last journal and scanning through the empty pages -- things that would have been filled up by my thoughts and experiences of 2005 had I conitnued writing on it. I don't remember exactly why I stopped. It was becoming the same thing, page after page -- whine and complain about every little thing. Why so and so doesn't love me or why I can't seem to get such and such project to get on board. I was just so freakin' plain miserable that I was getting depressed having to write it all down day after day. Then there would be that one entry where things are okay and then it was another string of bad experiences. I was getting sick of it. And then I had this, my blog, so I didn't see the need to continue on paper.

But I picked up my old journal for a reason. I started writing in it again. Never one to keep my own secrets, I'm always finding some friend or family member to talk to and to let out whatever is in my head -- I've decided to try and start writing in my journal again. I want to see if I can start keeping my own secrets for myself. I'm probably going to fail but it's nice to think that I can try.

And anyway, there are some things I cannot write here and for that, I'm going back to writing in my journal. I've got a couple more empty ones just waiting to be written on. I've just got back from Australia. I got back with my friendship with Jay. I got the Planetzips people whose company I do so enjoy and have great memories with and I don't want to share them with anyone else but them. So many new things happening in my family and in my personal life. Stuff I would be putting on my journal uncensored; un-edited.

So I'm returning to my journal. Just wrote another entry again, after a year and half. My last entry was dated December 25, 2004. That was a long, long time ago. It's time to get back because you can't ever re-live the past and you can't learn from that which you don't remember. And it's good to remember.

a picture or two of Sydney

2006-08-13T22:24:00.000+08:00

Steve Wozniak
Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

Just got back from a very relaxing and fun trip to Caliraya with my Planetzips crew and friends of Planetzips. Got to meet Cat's parents and some more of the gang's friends and family. It was so much fun and with the coming busy schedule, it was well-timed. After this, it's just going to be a rollercoaster.

But before I go off and start talking about other things. I think I owe everybody some pictures.

The picture is a little blurry, though but I think you get the point. I was with Monica, Bryan and Camille that Sunday night I met up with them. I was just so happy to be with them and it was a cold night and we had whatever cameras were ready, this one in particular is Camille's and it was freezing but we had a blast.

At the Rocks, looking at the Harbor Bridge with Monica. Camille was taking the picture and Bryan was hanging around, hopefully, having a good time as well. It was a fantastic night.

More pictures to follow and more thoughts to be shared. I got a lot on my mind right now and a lot on my plate too. I'm thankful and I'm happy.

a pause before the rush

2006-08-11T17:26:00.000+08:00

Cicero
Numquam se minus otiosum esse, quam cum otiosus, nec minus solum, quam cum solus esset. (Never less idle than when wholly idle; nor less alone than when wholly alone.)

Just finished a meeting and saw that now that the first shoot of the television show is done we're going to be going full-throttle with it. I'm going to be more swamped than I ever was before. I was looking at the schedule we were making for the first 4 episodes and I saw that things aren't going to be the same anymore, again. Which is how I like it anyway...

Destination for the next set of episodes are set and that's kind of exciting. I've never been to those 2 places before so I'm going to go bananas. I won't say where. I don't want to lose the spontaneity of the show, afterall. I want you to be surprised.

But then again, how the hell am I suppose to keep my mouth shut! Ha Ha Ha

It's been a while since my last Rockstar Supernova entry so I want to talk about that. I love the fact that there have been a lot of David Bowie songs in the line up. I love Storm Large's take on Changes and Zayra did a great job on All the Young Dudes. They both did a good job, with Storm doing a super-fantastic job on it. I'm glad that Josh is gone already. I knew from the first episode he was not meant for the band. It's about time he's gone. I thought Jill was a drama queen and hard to work with and after a while, she was a one-dimensional singer. She just has a powerful voice but that's it. Power does not a rockstar make. I like Toby but he's not for Supernova. Neither is Zayra, for that matter. Storm, performance after performance, is a superb singer and she definitely can front Supernova. Magni also is a superb singer. I was a little doubtful in the first episode but as time past, those doubts were erased. Now, after seeing his performance of Dolphin's Cry, I am sure he can front Supernova. Lukas is still a very good singer and I love the arrangements of his songs; but I still don't like him. Ryan did a fantastic job with Losing My Religion and Enjoy the Silence. He did a really, really fantastic job. He just needs to loosen up a bit more and he can be in the running.

Right now, I'm paying my bills, getting through the day and trying to get out of this daze. I mean, no one goes to this amazing place and not come back changed. And I'm trying to catch up with the changes and get back to the daily grind without any friction. I would love to have the time to sit down and be able to integrate, to coalesce but there's no time.

Well, that's not true, either. Tomorrow, I should be on the way to Caliraya with the Planetzips crew to just relax and unwind. I can't wait, really. I'm going to zip, swim and soak up some sun. I'll get to hang with the crew again which I haven't done in a while.

So that's going to be great. A last hurrah before work takes over. I don't mind. This is what I asked for, after all.

a magickal moment

2006-08-09T22:40:00.000+08:00

Jorane from Roll the Stars (words by Jorane and Simon Wilcox and music by Jorane)
Everything makes sense
After work, after dark
It's a graceful silence
I'm just sad I can't stay

Yesterday was a magickal morning. There was no denying it. I woke up early. Other than one interview, we were pretty much done. We were full of stuff for Sydney as it was. So it was scheduled in the morning for a free day and then after the interview, the rest of the afternoon off.

I woke up early because I wanted to take the bus to Bondi beach. Australia is etched in my mind for its fabulous beaches and I really wanted to visit one. My last beach trip was in June and so it was time. I wanted to get sand on my feet. I wanted to see the surf. I wanted to smell the ocean.

Astrud and Glen, executive producer and camera man respectively, wanted to come with me so I woke them up and then went down to have breakfast and to change my money. I needed some cash for the bus tickets and since I was going out of Sydney to the suburbs, would be needin’ cash for the train.

It was early and the money changer was to open at 9am and it was only 8:55am so I was there, standing in the cold, hands buried in the pockets of my jacket when a middle aged man with a kind smile passed by. He might’ve been Middle Eastern but he could’ve been Pakistani or Indian. I wasn’t sure exactly. He passed by in front of me, turned to look and stopped.

“You are a very lucky man,” he said. Cautiously, I thanked him and, since I was waiting for the shop to open, tried to stay out of his way without moving.

“No, you don’t understand, I’m a fortune-teller,” he said, beaming brightly, “You have a very fortunate face. You’re features are lucky.” I felt strange at his statement but found myself speechless. He smiled again and repeated, “You are a very lucky man.” Then he left.

I stood there and watched him walk away. I wanted to chase him down and tell him that he was wrong. I was sorely depressed all of May and June. I made so many wrong choices and I was just getting by, still living hand-to-mouth and it would be a long while before I get back to being okay.

That morning, I went to Bondi beach and saw the immense ocean and my mouth was a full-on smile that wouldn’t leave. I took off my socks and shoes, despite the freezing cold, and walked on the sand. We had the interview at noon and then left by train for Cabramatta which was not what we were expecting.

That night, separated from the group, I took the monorail twice around its route and then walked to the Rocks and just circled it three times. I sat by the harbour and looked at the Sydney Opera House in the distance and then the other way to see Harbour Bridge. I then walked the distance to the Opera House and walked up the steps while people were walking down, probably coming from watching a show. I turned up the volume of the I-Pod that Jay lent me. It was Forgiveness from The Prayer Cycles by Jonathan Elias. Linda Rondstadt was belting out beautiful melodies in Spanish and there and then, I just broke down and cried. I was just amazed by the beauty of the whole place and the whole situation that I was in. Here I was, at the prime of my life, swallowed by the magick of another land.

The guy was right after all. I am a lucky bastard!

Sydney

2006-08-06T16:17:00.000+08:00

Sarah McLachlan from Elsewhere (written by Sarah McLachlan)
I love the time and in between
The calm inside me
In the space where I can breathe
I believe there is a
Distance I have wandered
To touch upon the years of
Reaching out and reaching in
Holding out holding in

I arrived in Sydney yesterday and it has been harrowing. There was the concert going on and then I had to go and do our shoot because our host has to leave the next day and my executive producer is starting to break down because of fatigue, lack of sleep and complete culture shock.

I'm starting to lose my nerves, having a hard time to make it as efficient as I can while controlling it to have at least just a few hours to myself. Sydney is so much bigger than Melbourne and I will hardly get to see any of it without some time off. Not the way I want to see it, anyway.

Sydney is so different from Melbourne. Sydney really is a city. It's huge and unbelievably urban. I saw a monorail and can't wait to ride it on Tuesday and the roads are bigger and they are a little more strict here than in Melbourne. My heart was sold to Melbourne just a few hours in the city and I was told to expect something not as charming here in Sydney and that I might not warm up to it as I did to Melbourne.

It was true, I didn't warm up to Sydney right away. It seemed to huge and intimidating and cold but now, on my second day, I'm starting to see myself fit in here, somehow. It will be a hard choice between Sydney and Melbourne but they are both definitely in the running. I like it here. Australia surprised me. It never occurred to me that I would like to live here for awhile. I thought it would be a nice place to visit, but to actually inhabit? Even for just a short while? I was quite shocked. But I like it here. I really do. Things work here. You can make it work out here.

I'm still in a dizzy, actually. So much information coming in, too much data streaming into my consciousness. I don't even know where to begin, really, but I'm sure that the moment I get home and I start telling the stories over and over again I'll really get to figure out what I would like to say about this trip.

I'm really exhausted and my feet are about to explode or fall out and while we had some sun today, the night has creeped in and it's freezing and I'm tired and I don't want to see the crew for a few hours and just disappear and be by myself but despite all that, I'm still having fun. I can't believe I'm here! I'm having a blast and I can't believe I am doing this from the strength of the work I put in and the work I have put in that has become a basis for their trust in me.

I'm still alive and I'm still down under!

The Explorer Conquered

2006-08-03T06:01:00.000+08:00

Ivy from Edge of the Ocean
We can begin again
Shed our skin and let the sun shine in
At the edge of the ocean
We can start over again

I can't believe I'm in Melbourne! I'm just so thrilled. Astrud, the executive producer of my show, looked at me and said you're smile is so big! Then, half a day later, she looked at me and said, it's still there! It's still so big! I'm just so amazed to be here.

I'm loving the city and it's only been a day. I love the whole mixture of the old and the new, built side-by-side, inspiring the other into this amazing city. The roads are huge and the traffic system works. As you walk along the streets, the trams come by and you can see people on their way to whatever. But what I like about it is that it is also a walking city. I'm walking everywhere here and I'm so happy.

It is cold, though. It's freezing! It hit 7 degrees Celsius last night but I'm happy despite it. It adds to the experience, being here in the tail end of winter. Everyone is so dressed up and I'm actually wearing gloves and a scarf! Never would have to in the Philippines, but here, I just fit right in.

I've made friends with Rain, the lady at the Philippine consul who is assigned to assist us. She's a Filipina who's lived all over the world and has taken to Melbourne for her studies. She's been here for a year now and she loves it and she is in love with the look on my face. She's so proud to see how much the city she has called home has amazed, entranced and beguiled me.

I'm just so happy to be here. It's a little expensive so I'd have to properly plan if ever I'm to go back; but I want to. I want to live here for at least 2 years. Ha Ha Ha Wasn't I saying the same thing about Shanghai? Ha Ha Ha I'm such a nut but what can I say? I felt like the explorer who was conquered by the land he came to see. It's just so modern and new here, but also, very cultural and it has its own history and its own charm and identity.

I can see myself here, suffering from the cold, studying, taking my Master's and working here. I can see myself walking towards the beach, which is just walking distance from the city, or taking the Tram or drinking coffee in one of the many street cafes.

They have such a strong artistic spirit here and a love for reading and they really value education here. I feel this from the many people I've been talking to and from all my explorations of yesterday.

I can't wait to show pictures!

A Family Tree

2006-08-01T01:40:00.000+08:00

as texted to me by my Dad
God save us from the people who think they're doing the will of God.

My mom is here for a while. She arrived this morning and then she's staying for a while. She'll be gone before I get back and so we sorta spent as much time as we could. Heard a lot of news about my family in the States and my family in Bacolod. It's good to know what's going on in the family. I must admit; I'm not the most filial of people. In my family, nothing goes before the family. It's a very strict code and I respect that. After all, my family are the only ones I can really trust. They have proven it time and time again that no matter how they regard me, especially since there are times that it has been very low, they will stand by me and support me and be there for me. They always have my back covered.

I would like to think that Jay and the gang, the Planetzips crew, Michelle Pascual, Lance and DC, Cholo and Tesa and the rest are my family too and that I could always fall back on them if needs be -- truth of the matter is, I'd never ask that from them. My pride is too big to be a burden to the people I care about. My family, on the other hand, won't wait for me to ask, they'll just help, whether I like it or not and that's a little irritating, a bit frustrating but, on the whole, extremely comforting.

But my extreme inability to commit to anything and this negative need for freedom finds me running away from the ties that bind; because I fear, I am guessing, that by allowing them that closeness, would take away from my freedom.

I can be so stupid, huh?

But my family is always there for me. And it gets bigger and bigger as the seasons turn, as the months pass, as the years stretch. There is always more and more coming our way. It's nice and comforting to know that I'm in a family that cares and that will be there, even if I can't handle it.

They'll handle it for me.

Of course, I've said it often, I'll miss my friends and my crew when I go to the land down under. But deep inside, and though I've never said it, I'm going to miss my family too and I feel sad I can't share it with them.

Fighting Form

2006-07-31T12:10:00.000+08:00

Bette Midler
I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.

I'm sorta amazed at myself. Cleaning up a lot of lose ends here before I leave; after all, I don't want to be in the land down under and be thinking about running to an internet cafe to fix up stuff back home. I want my mind all there on the job and on the experience. I want to be like a machine when I'm there -- just thinking about the show and then, when free time is available, relish in the experience.

I got a call from the dynamic duo that is closely attached to my film writing career. Wonderful people that they are, they tell me that I've got to come up with something new, in relation to what some people want or expecting from an older pitch that we did. They called sometime last week, like around Friday. Then I told them I was leaving on Tuesday for Australia. They were happy for me but also shocked. I told them not to worry; I'll give them something to work with before I left.

All weekend, my mind was working on overdrive and then it hit me and in one day, I come up with something I'm extremely proud of. My mind is back to its fighting form. I'm really out of my slump now. I've noticed how I'm more aware again of how people feel. My empathy is back up to optimal levels and I'm beginning to feel what others are feeling again. My sensitivity is back on track now. It's not all me-me-me like it was when I was depressed.

My creative juices are flowing... no, my creative juices are flooding. Things are appearing to be better again and I'm just so glad that everything is working out. I'm excited about living again and I'm just happy that things are falling into place. No more of those insurmountable odds, those hurdles that were just way too high to jump over. Now, I'm push a little, I get pushed back a little. Not like it was in April to June where I was pushing and pushing and throwing my whole weight at it and it just wouldn't budge. Now it seems like things are fair, things can happen; what I do matters or can matter.

And I love it that my creativity is back. I'm ready. Australia, here I come!

Am Going Down Under!

2006-07-29T17:42:00.000+08:00

William Blake
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

I'm going on over-drive. I got my visa accepted so it's sure -- I'm going to Australia. As Lance said the other day Wanggo's going down under! How apt!

They said it's winter there at this time so I'm really freaking out. Heard it gets down to 10 degrees and boy! That's cold. I've never been one to handle the cold very well. I'll be freezing my butt off, but that's okay. I'm going to Australia. Nothing beats that!

I'm so excited because I'm going to get to see my step-niece again, Monica. I haven't seen her in years and she is always fun to hang around. At least I'm not going completely blind. I'll have my little tour guide around. Monica is the step-daughter of my sister and she's a blast to be with. She's funny and fun and really refreshing. We had lots of fun hanging out before she moved to Australia. I totally forgot she's there and I just remembered today so I got her number and we're going to see each other and that's just so cool.

I'm already borrowing digital cameras and stuff because I can't stop thinking about all the marvelous things I'm going to see and it's just going to be great! It's going to be swell. I'm so excited. I'm really, so excited.

I'm leaving after this weekend. I'm stoked. I am so bleeding stoked I don't know what else to say. It's the only thing on my mind right now.

a wonderful day

2006-07-28T18:47:00.000+08:00

Rumi
Wanderer, stay hungry,
And honor your exile.
Wherever we came from in the first place,
That's where we're headed.

I am having a wonderful day. It hasn't been going like clockwork; I've been late for some of my meetings by a few minutes but things have just been falling into place and I've been able to properly mix business and pleasure today.

Went to Greenbelt to have lunch with Tesa. The rain didn't fall but it was windy in Greenbelt and the sun was shining and it was cool and breezy and sunny. It was a lovely day to stay outside and we did. We had a terrific lunch and wonderful conversation. We haven't seen each other in such a long time and her vibe was just invigorating! I was re-charged, energized and re-freshed.

Tesa then told me that they have released the re-issued old albums of Bjork. I was so happy. I went up and immediately bought myself Debut and, when I get paid again, will also buy Vespertine. Once I buy that last album, I'll have completed all of Bjork's solo albums. I'm an extremely happy bunny already. After all, I've been dying to have my own copy of Debut for a long time. I love The Anchor Song and this version has Play Dead in it which I've never heard. So I'm really happy.

I then went to work and discovered they've stamped my visa. I'm going to Australia! Can you imagine my glee? Can you imagine my joy? I'll be leaving for Melbourne on August 1 and stay there for 6 days and then going to Sydney for 3 days and then going back home. I'm working on a new television show and it's really great. I get to work, gain more work experience, try something new, while I'm in a country I've never been in. How exciting! I'm so freaking happy I can touch the sky!

Big smile on my face. Big, big smile on my face.

Plus, Storm Large got the encore in the last episode of Rockstar Supernova and Phil was removed and not Zayra and so it seems like this week, the world is back to something I can understand again.

I'm really, really happy.

moments of grace

2006-07-26T03:58:00.000+08:00

Roisin Murphy from Love in the Making
Each man must stand alone
Walk alone along a road
Of his own making
Can't turn your back
On your particular ending

I get home and turn on the computer to do some writing and lo and behold! The internet is working. And then, an hour or so later it just dies on me while I'm sending mail and downloading some stuff that I need. Great! Nice exclamation point!

In my anger I started defragmenting the computer and then stepped out to watch television and then I caught Jerry Maguire and I got hooked. So I was watching and then that fantastic scene in the backyard when Dorothy (Renee Zelwegger) comes out and finally tells him that it is all her fault, their relationship, how she took advantage of his vulnerability and his "sense of responsibility" and thought that she could "love enough for the both of us" was just tremendous. I was brought to tears and I was crying and crying. Had I the strength and the clarity to see things as such; maybe I wouldn't be so messed up. It was amazing. The lines, the words, were just so on the mark. It's movie dialogue, I guess, we are never so lucid, so articulate in the moments of pain.

But then, there are times, when we are struck with moments of grace; those amazing moments when the words come and they are exactly what needs to be said at that time. It's chilling; how everything works out for one moment -- the right words, the right look, the right tap on the shoulder and the right cock of the head to the side. It happens, when everything just seems to be perfect at that point.

I remember a lot of those moments and most of the time, it comes to me or to my friends in great stress. All of a sudden one of us is crying (or near that point) and one or the other is explaining their situation so clearly that it is mapped out completely from start to finish. Both know what the hell is going on and why one is crying and the other has to remain strong and then, with only but a second, the other speaks and gives a truth, that is both painful yet so simple that it is understood despite the anger and the hate and bitterness and frustration. Those words that somehow just peel away the ugliness and everything is just right. Everything is just right.

I remember 2 years ago when things broke down for me and the Spaceman and I found myself in Paolo's condo, talking to Paolo, Anne and Ayet and we were just sharing stories and it was perfect. We spent around 4 or 5 hours just talking about, breaking it down to these moments. It was amazing. These stories of how one person broke our hearts and how we just realised it was over. We connected. They didn't say because life is like that which is usually difficult to swallow. They shared what happened to them, something similar, or something that evokes the same amount of pain and bitterness and frustration and it was something I can chew.

Yeah, life is like that. It is messy and painful and frustrating. But, I guess, we need to see it, hear it, feel it from someone else to be able to digest it.

That's why I like movies so much or music or books. When they are well done, I can see it and feel it and hear it. I'm experiencing it again but from someone else's point-of-view and then I know that yeah, life is like that. It's messy and painful and frustrating. But we all go through it. And we continue to walk on, put another step forward and just keep walking onwards to wherever we are going to end up. How can you give up when everyone is taking that next step forward?

I love those moments of grace. Sitting in the balcony, just the two of you, each with his or her bottle of beer and a cigarette. Or both sitting in the sand, at the beach, holding your glass of rum coke and getting fanned by the wind, underneath the stars. Or sitting at the curb of the road, clouds forming and it's about to rain and your staring at the pavement, side-by-side. The words come out and they are just what you needed to say, just what you wanted to hear.

Sometimes, you're sitting in your living room watching Jerry Maguire and you hear the words and it hits you in the gut and it's about something else entirely but you are reeling from the hurt and you know that yeah, it's not okay right now, but it will be, like it was a few days ago, or 2 years ago or 10 years ago. It's not always down and it's not always bad and it's not always painful. You go on.

What else can you do?

play with the cards I'm dealt with

2006-07-25T20:09:00.000+08:00

Imogen Heap from Hide and Seek (written by Imogen Heap)
Hmmm what you say
Oh that you only meant well, well of course you did
Hmmm what you say
Hmmm that it's all for the best, of course it is
Hmmm what you say
That it's just what we need, you decided this
Hmmm what you say
What did she say?

I was rained on this whole day. Getting from meeting to meeting as the rain changed the colour of my pants and made me jacket another 10 pounds heavier. Ugh! My feet are swimming in the water that managed to sneak into my shoes and once again, I find myself in an internet cafe spending money to work.

My workshop gig just got postponed which means I could've been able to do this gig for Planetzips but since they were conflicting and I had committed to the workshop gig for Nestle first; I couldn't take the zip gig. Now it got cancelled and I'm like, shit, this sucks.

But I don't want to complain and complain and complain. I hate it. Whining is useless and just makes things worse; it doesn't make anything better so I'm stopping right now.

On a good note, it looks like things are going steady on the television show I'm putting together. If all goes well, I'll be going off the the land down under for 9 days. I've never been to Australia and I'll be going there as a journalist. That'll be my second stamp on my passport as a journalist. With Shanghai and Australia in my passport, it might be easier for me later on to start getting stamps. If the show goes well, I'll be able to keep putting stamps on my passport and I'll be seeing the world -- because of work and not on my expense. Not bad.

Morx got me a fantastic set of songs to listen to. He downloaded lots of songs from Grey's Anatomy and I've really been loving it. I'm now a huge fan of Roisin Murphy and Imogen Heap and Sigur Ros. I'll be ordering their albums on-line the moment I can get a chance to. I also like Emiliana Torrini and will probably be getting her albums too.

Reminds me, also, to get Stina Nordstram's albums... I remember liking her a lot and Rex has a couple of Stina Nordstram songs in his Ipod and I liked a lot of them.

Projects are coming in and I've been doing my best to be thankful, to work hard and to just keep plodding on. Some of them are not to my expectations, some of them got postponed and then moved to a date that I cannot be available for and the like. But hey! That's life and life is messy. I had a pretty good childhood and I never took advantage of what I got when I was a kid and that was my fault. Now it's time to work and I got to work it. It might not be fair but that's the way the world works and who am I to change all of that? Can I change all of that? How do I even begin to change it?

I can't so I won't. I'll just play with the cards I'm dealt with and hope to God no one's got a better hand than me.

Not as bright and cheerful a blog entry as I would have wanted but I'm down today and yesterday; a stark contrast from being up and peppy and perky in the weekend. I hope I have internet access on a brighter day. Gloomy days like these were meant to be spent underneath a heavy comforter and half-awake.

hassle

2006-07-25T15:16:00.000+08:00

Tennessee Williams
Life is a fairly well-written play, except for the third act.

I hate this! I've been out of the loop because our computer is fucking busted! It can't read the God-damned modem, which is there but since it is so old, it just doesn't work. I've been out of touch with everything and everybody and I haven't been able to update my blog and I lost out on some good gigs because of it.

I now have to pay to do my work. And I can't save my work because I use internet cafe computers. I have to send the file to my e-mail and use my e-mail as a storage space that way, no matter where I am, I can access those files.

HASSLE!!!

The rains have made it impossible to get to my meetings dry and presentable and I really, really can't stand having to trudge through the puddles and putting my jacket over my head just to stay dry.

I'm just so pissed off... And you know what? I've been pretty serene and happy and calm lately. It's just that everything just piled up today when I realised all these shitty things happening, all at the same time...

I'll just go to a meeting now that the rain has abated and I'll be back with a much happier post.

Right now, I just want to grab a dove in mid-flight, force him on the ground and shit on his head for once!

little spaces of comfort

2006-07-21T20:19:00.000+08:00

from Grey's Anatomy
We believe in superstitions because we're smart enough to know we don't know everything.

I had a very stressful last 2 days. It's not even funny. Work started all arriving at the same time, work I already committed to, so I couldn't get out of any of them. I accept these jobs and try to schedule them in a way that they don't overlap, or that it can be done but somehow, something always happens to manage to screw up my schedule. A client submitted their information late so I couldn't start on the script on time and the whole time table was adjusted drastically, eating up on another project's time table. I wasn't pleased but what can I do?

Haven't had much sleep. I went all of 2 days without any sleep and I'm tired but thankfully, I was able to find 2 to 3 hours of time to go to Bel-Air Park 3 where I joined Paulino's class. I taught again, after such a long break, and zipped like crazy. I forgot how much fun it is to be in a big field with other poi-dancers, just zipping away. The laughter came easy and the adrenaline rush kept me awake to help me finish my edit.

And then there's always my friends who will drive all the way to where I am to meet up with me and then keep the smile on my face geniune and true. They tease me, comfort me, support me and encourage me and tell me that I'm holding up great. Now, even if it isn't true, I think it is and then it becomes true. Thanks Morx, Jay and Rex. That was much needed unwinding last night.

Work is such a big thing -- once again it takes all of my time and comes suddenly and without warning. It erases the promise of happy moments so precisely that there isn't a chance for those moments to come to fruition. But I like working so the whole thing just becomes something else -- a different experience altogether. It's somewhere between pain and joy; frustration and gratification. I like it but not if it consumes all my waking moments. And then, every once in a while, I retreat to little spaces of comfort -- zipping, hanging out with the zips crew, hanging out with Jay and the gang or reading a book or exchanging texts with Michap or Lance or some good old friend, watching a movie or finding 30 minutes to just get absorbed into the music. And then I have to leave but then everything is not so bad. Everything is alright.

So I cannot say that things are bad. Things are pretty cool, actually.

Rockstar Supernova Week 3

2006-07-20T02:14:00.000+08:00

Texting with my Dad
Wanggo: Am okay. Busy. Still trying to learn to say "no." Would be easier if there were some sure things, but then, there's no such thing, right? I'm better, not so bitter anymore. You?

Dad: I'm not bitter, either. I just, one morning ten days ago, decided to be happy. And it worked.

Wanggo: I know! I started reading again, getting involved with the music I listen to, make jokes that aren't bitter or angry. It was great. It's not just a reaction, being happy, it is also a decision, I guess, to accept it when it's there.

Dad: I think so too. Sometimes we just get too filled up with our "sense of destiny" although it's important to have it.

I don't want this blog to become some sort of Rockstar: Supernova blog but I can't help it. The show really moves me and I'm very much involved and attached with the contestants and what happens to Supernova. The show is playing with my dreams and ideals and frustrations of being a rockstar. The show is telling me that if I had the talent and the love for it, I could be a rockstar. Not just the whole struggling artist thing but a real rockstar. For these contestants, their dream can be fulfilled. How can you argue with that?

And I love Guns and Roses and I love Motley Crew and because of the show, I'm really admiring Jason Newsted. He's a fantastic bass player and his comments are always spot-on. He's the man! I can't wait to hear Supernova's first record.

So on to my comments!

Patrice Pike
I like Patrice. She's got a great voice and she really knows how to rock and rock hard. Helter Skelter was rockin' and it was great she was tough about it. She didn't handle the argument with Jill very well but then, Jill doesn't look like the easiest person to talk to. Jill just likes to hear herself talk and I bet if she let Patrice say what she had to say, it would have been clear. But that is not the case. Anyhow Patrice is good except she still doesn't stand out for me. Like I told my brother, she appeals to me as the talented second guitarist who sings back-up. She's Nancy wilson, not Ann Wilson. She isn't big; she isn't a rockstar. She needs to get out there and really own that stage.

Josh Logan
Yeah, so he's got a good voice -- he isn't a rockstar. Like Jay says, he should be in a boyband. Like Datu says, he's lame. He is not the lead singer of Supernova. I'm sorry. He's not. He is a very soulful singer, I'll give him that. But this is going to be a dirty rock band. I don't think he's dirty enough. He should've been the first to go.

Storm Large
I absolutely love this singer! I love this girl. She has fantastic song choices, quirky even -- Pinball Wizard, Surrender by Cheap Trick and then Just What I Needed by The Cars. Great songs but more than that, they are quirky, playful, full of character and she sings them, takes control of them -- they don't control her. She made it work and she made it rock. I love the whole performance attitude she brings -- very Freddie Mercury, very Annie Lennox. I love her.

Jill Gioia
Fine. She did a good job this time round. But I still feel she's a little too trying hard to be a rockstar. Powerful voice, I'll give her that and good control but since I find her attitude a little too trying hard, I feel that it isn't authentic. She's not there for Supernova. But she deserves her spot this week.

Ryan Star
He bores me.

Phil Ritchie
He can sing, he can rock but he doesn't look like a rockstar. His stage presence is weak. He looks like a college kid in a college band and not very convincing. Daniel Johns of Silverchair was 14 when they first came out and though he was just 14, he wasn't a high school kid in a real cool band, he was a rock star already. I disagree with Dave Navarro, Jason Newsted upstaged him completely.

Toby Rand
I love this guy but this was not his best performance. Still has a great vocal, still a great singer but this was a step backwards from his earlier performances. He's still my 1 of 2 choices for the lead vocalist of Supernova.

Lukas Rossi
Once again, he took over and he owned that stage. His rendition of the song was extremely cool and he proved that it isn't about the song choices; not if you are a good singer. He proved taht you can take any song and make it rock. This guy would be in my top 3 if I didn't think he was too intense or taking himself too seriously.

Zayra Alvarez
I didn't have a lot of good thigns to say about Zayra in the past 3 weeks but today, she proved she was a contender. Fantastic arrangement, fantastic vocals, fantastic performance. She nailed it this time. Definitely a wow!

Magni
I am beginning to like this guy a lot. I like his personality in the reality episodes and I am starting to like his performances. He's definitely good and he is a dark horse for winning this race. He has what it takes to really win this competition and if he is just holding back enough to really nail it in the end; I'll be happy to buy the record of Supernova when it comes out.

Dana Andrews
I totally forgot about ther. I knew she was earlier in the show but I don't really care much for her. I hate the song as it is, not a big fan of Bon Jovi, so her singing it made everything so much worse. This is her last performance. She's not a rocker. Not at all. She should take her voice to American Idol. She'll definitely impress Paula.

Jenny Galt
I have to agree with the band, she's too Lilith Fair. That's why I like her so much. I love her voice, I love her arrangements of all the songs she has sung and she's extremely sexy with that guitar. The girl knows how to play that instrument! But she's not Supernova. I hope she stays long enough though to keep singing so that I can keep hearing her work. I love this girl.

Delana
Best performance of anyone in the show yet. This girl is amazing and she just rocks my world. I love her attitude in the reality portions of the show, I love her sensitivity and then, when she gets up on stage, she becomes this performer, this rock-witch that thrills me and excites me and sends shivers down my spine. She is my second of 2 people who I want to front Supernova. I love this girl!

So this is turning out to be a very interesting competition and I can't wait to see it unfold!

non-fiction

2006-07-19T13:30:00.000+08:00

Peter Marshall
Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change; where we are right, make us easy to live with.

I've been reading a lot of non-fiction lately. The last 3 books I read were non-fiction -- The Devil in the White City, Kate Bush The Biography and Piece by Piece. I've become so fascinated with the lives of people who have really lived. Kate Bush and Tori Amos are people I really relate to; or more correctly, are people who relate to me and we've never met! But they have written songs that speak to me, console me or fire me up. They totally reach into me, inside me and then tear me apart and put me together again. In The Devil in the White City I am fascinated with the dark side of the story, the story of the serial killer Holmes (that's his name, if I'm not mistaken) and I am drawn to that which I cannot embrace -- that depravity and that feeling of how the world's laws and rules are beneath me. That aspect of the story chills me. I am also drawn to Burnham's desire to create something beautiful, grand, elegant and lasting; most importantly lasting. The World's Fair in Chicago may not have lasted long, but it's effects did.

All three books chronicle the amazing struggle of these extraordinary people. Both Tori Amos and Kate Bush had been playing the piano at such a young age. Both women composed music at a very early age. Tori Amos doesn't read music but she can play by ear. Kate Bush has never taken a real voice education and just learned proper breathing techniques. She pushed herself to raise her voice's range all by herself. Burnham, the lead architect for the Chicago's fair, was a businessman and an artist. He was a leader who was able to successfully put together a stunning, moving World's Fair in a matter of 3 years under great opposition and hardship. Even the serial killer Holmes was able to mesmerize, fool and swindle people throughout his life until the bitter end. These amazing people took what they were given and pushed it all the way to achieve great (and horrible) things.

I'm amazed by all this and have found myself quite taken by this literary form. I've taken classes with Marj Evasco and Luisa Aguilar-Carino-Igloria on the genre and I plan on returning to this kind of writing.

Do I feel that my life is interesting enough to write about? Do I feel that people would be interested in reading about me? I guess I do. At one point, having kept this blog for 2 years and have written on it constantly, I feel that I do have something to share. At one point, I realised, I do have something to say and I do see the world in a unique and interesting way. I may not have a unique life and many of the things I've done have been done by others, but maybe it is in the way I see it, the way I perceive the world and this experiences that may be the key to some point of... what? I don't know? Enlightenment? An answer to a question long asked? Maybe just connection.

I am so used to stripping myself bare all the time through the written word. I am so used to exposing my deepest fears and joys. I am always telling something about myself. Maybe I've turned it into some sort of skill or artform (which is basically the same thing, really). Maybe fiction is not my realm but that of reality.

I'm excited to see what comes out.

Drowning in the Music

2006-07-18T17:02:00.000+08:00

Neil Young from The Painter
It's a long road behind and it's a long road ahead. If you follow every dream you might get lost.

Soaking up the Tori Amos book like a sponge. I was hoping for something more sequential and gave facts about the recording process and how much money each album made and what she thought of those moments and what she did on the tours and how the public accepted her. But I was so wrong. The book is nothing like that at all. It really dissects Tori Amos' creative process and her philosophies and her ideologies and how it all translates into her work and her daily life. The book is really a complete inside look into her mind, her brain, her heart. I don't know if this would be as successful with any other artist because Tori Amos is extremely aware of the process and she's very literate and articulate. She reads so much and, much like a sponge, just absorbs so much information into her. Like she mentions many times, she's not just a song writer, or to put it closer to what she said, a song writer is not just a creator of music -- he/she is a translator, a teller of stories, an investigator and a shape-shifter. A song writer is many things in order to properly create this artform that can move, that can push. It's an amazing book. It's not what I expected but I'm happy with it. I'm really soaking it up.

It's really a far cry from the Kate Bush book which was written without Kate Bush's involvement, rather taking interviews from people around her and the few interviews she did conduct. Here, the book's author Ann Powers has interviewed and spoke with Tori Amos intently and constantly to help formulate the content. Talking with Tori Amos, apparently, about her creative and artistic processes requires quite a bit of appreciation for archetypes, mythology, and some previous reading of the universal subconscious. Oh yeah, and a whole lot of religious knowledge -- especially about the Gnostics and stuff. It's such a treat. She talks about things we really discussed in length in our literary criticism class. To know that Tori Amos is so well-versed in archetypes and the Jungian theories is just chillin'.

Rockstar Supernova is up again and I just finished watching the newly uploaded reality episode from the net. I continue to favour the following and hope that they reach the final five -- Toby, Dilana, Jenny, Storm and Patrice. I wish these 5 would be the last ones standing with either Toby or Dilana fronting Supernova and the other 3 ladies (and the one not chosen) having their own illustrious solo careers. I find Jill a drama queen and her voice is powerful but not very emotive. It's strong but I find it cold and not containing much feeling. Magni has a gorgeous voice and he might come up to the number 6 spot. I said Lukas is an amazing performer and has a great voice, but if he continues to sing with his throat; he won't last in this competition.

And then, I found their spaces where they put their blogs and everything. I was just giddy with excitement. Too bad they haven't put up much yet but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

Haven't been feeling 100% but I continue to plod along and getting everything together. Getting a little overwhelmed by the amount of work going on but hey! It's definitely better than what was going on before so I won't complain.

I've been bringing my CD walkman everywhere with me now, completely filling up all the time in-between human interaction with music. I love it because the music blows straight into my ears and I can hear instruments in the background that I didn't hear before. Listening to the music on speakers lets you "see the whole picture," let's you receive the whole sound as one whole. But on the ear phones, you can start picking the instrumentations apart. You can start separating the sounds and layers. I'm so tickled by the whole experience. I love it. I'm discovering new things, little details, in the music I've loved for so long.

I'm really just throwing myself at the music thing. It is my one big frustration in life.

Stepping Out of the Page Into the Sensual World

2006-07-17T20:49:00.000+08:00

Kate Bush from Kate Bush, The Biography (written by Rob Jovanovic)
I really don't think it's possible to make things perfect, really. In some ways, there's almost an attempt to try to achieve something that is quite imperfect. Do you know what I mean? And to be able to find a way of leaving it with certain raw edges so that the heart doesn't go out of it. I don't think of myself as a perfectionist at all.

Bought the hard bound copy of the book Kate Bush, The Biography the moment I saw at Power Books. I was looking for Tori Amos' biography but couldn't find it. I saw a picture of Kate Bush and I immediately bought it, no matter how much it cost.

I finished reading the book on that day. I was amazed at her world. Can't say much about the writer, though. He definitely is a fan of her work but I was a little miffed about his comments for most of the songs on The Red Shoes and Sensual World. Often times he would remark them as not working or failed at the musical intention when I felt that they were good songs. They might not have been her best work but they didn't fail. I don't think so. But whatever the case, he did an amazing job piecing together her life through interviews with frequent collaborators and from the little pieces of publicity she did. Kate Bush keeps her private life to herself and hardly conducts interviews at all. So this little bit of information was a welcome change.

I was so happy to read it I finished it on that day. I was so starved on information on Kate Bush and for reading something as well.

Today, I got Tori Amos' biography. I can't wait to start reading this one. This one has Tori Amos more hands on and that excites me. I want to investigate her own personal mythology and how she came up with some of those songs.

Between Kate Bush's biography and then Tori Amos and Rockstar Supernova, I'm going to really hit a peak in my frustrations for being a singer. Music is really an important factor in my life. I love the sensual quality to music and how it can caress you even if its just sound. The mixture of tones and the timbre of certain instruments, sometimes mixed with the words, can be so alluring, comforting or it can drive you mad and wild. I just love how my body responds to it. Yeah, music is unbelievably affecting for me.

I hope I won't be disappointed by this week's Rockstar Supernova. I saw how Jenny Galt was at the bottom 4 last week and that pissed me off. She is so good, she has no right being at the bottom 4. I loved her version of Soft Cell's Tainted Love. It was so dynamic and new and fresh and really complemented her voice. I hope she stays long enough to get a good record deal and an International release. I think she'll make a great record out.

Internet has been really bad at home. Our computer is falling apart. The modem, though properly installed, can't be detected by our CPU. Some days it can, some days it won't. The past few days it didn't and I got stuck to using internet cafes and the bill is just getting way out of hand! I'm getting really annoyed by this. It sucks. I hate this.

Otherwise, life has been better. Really lovin' Pink's I'm Not Dead album and I'm paying for things again so I can go out and have fun. Life has been cool. Paying off my debts one by one. Soon, I'll be back on my feet. With the new Tori Amos book, I'm going to enjoy this week, I think.

Title was taken from the words of Kate Bush's song The Sensual World

I want to be a Rockstar

2006-07-13T17:22:00.000+08:00

Umberto Eco from In the Name of the Rose
Laughter kills fear, and without fear there can be no faith because without fear of the Devil there is no more need of God.

My friends all know I'm a frustrated singer. Hell, strangers know I'm a frustrated singer as I walk the streets of this city with my CD walkman in my bag and the ear phones connected to my ears. I mouth the words and bang my head to the beat and sometimes, people discover that I can't sing when an occasional off-note comes out of my lips. I love music so much, I'd give up all the things I'm good at to be able to sing, play instruments and write songs.

But what I'm not sure is whether people realise that I'm really a rocker at heart. Sure, people know I love to dance and I go clubbing and I love to dance to electronic music. People know that I like to belt out to pop tunes and I'm not afraid to admit that I like ABBA and I like quite a lot of Celine Dion songs and that I may hate Mariah Carey, I will admit that I'm a big fan of One Sweet Day, Always Be My Baby, Music Box and her version of Bringing on the Heartbreak. Hell, I'll admit to owning a Britney Spears CD, Shakira, Marion Raven and Cher.

But I'm not sure if my friends realise that I'm really a rocker at heart. Maybe I'm not a dirty rocker but I've got my roots. I grew up listening to folk rock like John Denver, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Neil Diamond and the like. There was always a lot of classic rock playing at home like The Beatles, John Fogerty, Fleetwood Mac, Clearance Clearwater Revival, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, The Doors, Peter Gabriel and Jimmy Hendrix. U2 and Sting have always been favourites at home. Later on, my brother Datu was influential in making me appreciate the music of Motley Crew, Guns and Roses, Metallica, Pantera, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Lynrd Skynrd, White Shark, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins and the rest.

Eventually, my love for feminine vocals led me to discover the women of rock -- Heart, The Pretenders, Stevie Nicks, Annie Lennox with The Eurythmics, Pat Benatar, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and of course, Kate Bush. Modern times called for more modern singers and I was drawn to Bjork, Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Sheryl Crow, Courtney Love, Nina Persson as A Camp or The Cardigans, Skunk Anansie and more. I even rock on to the music of Chantal Kreviazuk, Heather Nova, Holly McNarland, Leah Andreone, Nina Gordon and Veruca Salt, Skin and the like. And yeah, I really love the music of Poe.

But I've decided to explore my horizons having added Coldplay, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Our Lady Peace and Audioslave to my playlist.

If I were going to become a singer I can't help myself but I'd be a rocker. I'm going to want to rock out and write intense rock songs akin to Tori Amos, Bjork, Fiona Apple and Kate Bush; just male version. Ha Ha Ha Or better yet, I'd love to be David Bowie.

A little side note: David Bowie is one of the greatest singers/song-writers ever. I love his songs and the way they are so complex and intricate and intelligent. Bowie's songs really are great to sing to and can really make you think. And just in case you were wondering, Kate Bush can really rock. From the Hounds of Love album you can hear the strong underlying rock themes of Running Up That Hill and I've got a kickin' rock version of Hounds of Love. From Sensual World, I've got an awesome rock version in my head for Rocket's Tail (Song for Rocket) and in The Red Shoes she's got an awesome rock ballad And So Is Love with Eric Clapton providing some real cool guitar playing. Listen to Big Stripey Lie for some real cool rock guitars played by Bush herself. The girl can rock if she wanted to but her music is bigger and grander than that.

So I'm really digging Rockstar: Supernova. Unlike Rockstar: INXS where they are looking for a vocalist to take INXS to a new generation and they have an established sound and famous hit songs, Rockstar: Supernova is out to start a whole new band with a whole new sound with some really great rockers. This is more exciting to me because this is really the start of something extremely new.

My little fantasy? I actually can sing and play the guitar and piano, I'd join and if I had a chance to choose my songs, these are the songs I'd sing on the show. Smashing Pumpkins' Bullets with Butterfly Wings, Bjork's Army of Me, Superman is Dead by Our Lady Peace, I'm Afraid of Americans by David Bowie, Come Together by The Beatles, The Guns and Roses' classic Paradise City, Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac, The Door's Paint it Black, Yellow by Coldplay, Rocket's Tail (Song for Rocket) by Kate Bush, Good by Better Than Ezra, Sweet Jane by Lou Reed and Baba O' Riley.

But that's just me.

I'm enjoying Rockstar: Supernova right now and I've got my own little set of favourites.

Jenny Galt: one of my absolute favourites in the show. I love her voice and her arrangements. I am totally in love with her version of Tainted Love but I know for a fact she won't win. Her voice is too sweet for the kind of dirty rock that Supernova is looking for. She's a lot like Liz Phair, Nina Gordon and Poe -- hard rockin' chicks but their voice brings their rock a level down. But I love her. I hope she stays for a long time, gets signed by a big label and starts churning out record after record. Because if her version of Tainted Love is any indication of her musical tastes, I'll be buying every record she releases.

Dilana: A fantastic performer and singer. She scares me totally but she knows how to use her voice and boy does she know how to rock out. Her version of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire was absolutel rivetting and I thought it was the best performance that night. She proved that you don't have to scream loud to rock the house. She can carry the intensity of a rock song without exploding. The intensity is that of an implosion and can be just as strong. I also love the whole Stevie Nicks outfit. She's going to last to the top 4, I'm sure.

Storm Large: Big woman, big voice, big talent. I love her but she's not a dirty rock singer. She's not Supernova but her fearlessness and ability to really carry any song she sings makes her a winner for me. Team her up with Nellee Hooper in 1 album and then Rick Rubin in the next and Jon Brion in another album and I'm telling you, I'm buying all them albums! I am definitely going to watch out for this one.

Toby Rand: Great version of Knockin' on Heaven's Door and a really kickin' version of Somebody Told Me by The Killers. This guy is definitely a winner and a great kick-ass rocker. I'll be enjoying every performance of this guy until he reaches the top 3.

Lukas Rossi: I don't like him. He's taking the whole rocker thing too seriously and he's too confident. My problem is: he's a fantastic singer. He's got this great voice, fantastic intensity and he really knows how to control and restrain and then explode. The guy is good and I won't be surprised if he makes it to final 4 and might even win. If not, he's going to make some real good records.

Dana Andrews: The girl has a fantastic and powerful voice. Amazing voice! Unfortunately, the girl is no rocker. She's as much a rocker as Britney Spears is when she sang I Love Rock and Roll; you may honey, but rock n' roll sure don't like you. In fairness, I did like Britney's version of that song but it wasn't a rock song. Dana Andrews can sing but she isn't a rockstar. She'll make it as a pop-rock princess but she really needs to get down and dirty if she wants to get far in this competition.

Patrice Pike: Patrice Pike is good. She's really good. But I don't remember her. She isn't outstanding. She doesn't stand out against the others. She's going to have to really break it through because she just gets swallowed up by the intense performances of the others. She's going to have to step it up if she's going to be noticed or remembered.

Josh Logan: He may have a great voice but I can't understand anything he says. And what the hell?!?! He's doing the whole soul thing and forcing the issue when Supernova is going to be a kick-ass, dirty rock band and there's no way he's going to make it. Like Jay said, he has this whole boy band vibe going on. Give me a break!

The others don't really evoke a strong emotion in me to talk about them except for the fact that Jill Gioia screamed her way through Violet and I love Courtney Love and she really ruined that song. She acts like a pop-tart and how dare her not own up to the fact that she was trying to copy Courtney Love. What kind of rocker is she that she doesn't know what the hell Courtney Love is doing and to say that she didn't care what Courtney Love is doing. You don't care? Courtney Love is a fucking rock goddesses! Be humbled, Jill, you are not in her class!

The State In-Between Hopeful and Jaded

2006-07-12T08:02:00.001+08:00

Chicane from Stoned in Love (written by Nick Bracegirdle, Ray Hedges, Tom Jones, John Pickering, Nigel Butler)
You're stoned in love but not with me

Good luck, cause we're not feeling stoned in love
It's how I'm feeling now
I feel the love is made of stone
We're not feeling stoned in love

I just have to say that my current favourite song of the moment is Chicane's Stoned in Love featuring the amazing Tom Jones on vocals. What an amazing track! It's catchy, it's powerful and intense and it sure makes me dance and sing along. I can't get it out of my head.

Of course, I'm still not sure exactly what it means but I'm sure it's about realising that the relationship isn't working out. I don't know why stoned in love if that has any meaning towards being stoned, as in having taken weed and if that's a good thing or not. But definitely, with the words you're stoned in love but not with me means that they aren't giving the love to each other now, are they?

I have to admit, letting go of certain things made it easier for me to just be happier. I thought letting go of my conservative view on casual sex would lead me to stress about it less and while I have found myself not obsessing about love or intimacy or relationships, the search for gratification, whether permanent or temporary is just totally not within my capacity as a human being to deal with or figure out. I just don't know how or why it is so easy for other people. I can't figure it out at all!

So while I'm still open to the idea of casual sex, just so that I don't stress out on it anymore, I am, once again, letting go of picking up people on-line. The pay-off is just not worth it. It's not what I'm looking for.

I'm somewhere in that state between love and indifference, that state in-between hopeful and jaded. I'm in that space between all fed up and wanting more.

It's gonna be hard, really, since I don't go out anymore. There was that one instance where I really wanted to go out and stuff but it's gone now. It will be awhile before I'll have that rush to go out again. I don't know how I'm suppose to meet new people, especially if I prefer to spend my time at home or at Jay's or hanging out with the Planetzips crew during classes (which I haven't been attending because of the rains and being under the weather and all).

I don't know where I am right now, in terms of wanting or not wanting a relationship. I'm not obsessing over it, which is good. I'm not closing my doors to it, which is good. But despite being in a good place emotionally and mentally, how come I feel that this is all not good.

I don't know what I need. I don't know what I want. I am at the crux of change. I thought I had changed already but I realise I'm still at the stage of transformation. I'm still inside the chrysalis. I have yet to free myself of the cocoon.

I know this is a good thing but I'm scared of what will be revealed.

Why I Can't Be Superman

2006-07-11T16:44:00.000+08:00

Tori Amos from Your Cloud (written by Tori Amos)
Do you think just like that you can divide this
You as yours, Me as mine to before we were Us

There's also another reason why I found myself drenched in tears as I got home after watching Superman Returns last night. I didn't want to talk about it because I might end up spoiling the movie for others. So if you don't want to know certain things about the movie and have plans to watch it, then maybe you should skip this part all together.

And yeah, this get a little dramatic.

In my last entry, I talked about a selfish thing that Superman did. You were probably wondering what the hell I was talking about, right? Well, in my opinion, he disappeared for 5 years to try and find his home planet of Krypton when Astronomers found remnants of it in space. He just left and didn't even say good bye. Then he returns and expects everything to be as they were. He didn't realise that Lois Lane would have a child and would be living in with a good man. It pains him. It drives him insane with guilt and jealousy and regret. That is actually what I liked about the film -- the humanization of Superman. I could finally relate to him as a person.

BUT I did not appreciate him flying to her and trying to get her back on the rooftop of the Daily Planet. I do not appreciate his attempt to win her back, to find out if she'd say it, that she loved him. Taking her in a flight over the city and trying to romance her with the idea of who he is. That was just plain selfish. He cannot leave and expect to come back and erase 5 years of people's lives moving on, going on. That's just plain unfair. Yes, he may have given everything he has to the world -- saving it and making it a safer place to live in. But that's the sacrifice he chose to make. And while the world can be thankful for it, he cannot expect the world to stand up and wait for him when he just goes off to do something for himself. Not if he didn't ask the world to wait.

I ended up crying because I empathized with Lois Lane at that moment. To be in love with someone who is neither there nor away. That person just suddenly ups and leaves without saying good bye and then you are, waiting, wondering and hoping. 5 years past and you move on with your life and you just have to keep moving on and you can't look back because if you do, you will never be able to let go.

And then one day, that person returns and still, that person doesn't tell you what that person wants. I don't blame Lois Lane for expecting/assuming/thinking that Superman was going to ask her back; not that he ever told her that he wanted her too. That is so unfair. Now that she's moved on, found someone good. Maybe Richard (played by James Marsden) can't fly on his own or can lift airplanes and boats or can repel bullets with his body; but he's a good man who really cares for her. He should have very much well left her alone. He made his decision and she made hers and he should've respected both decisions.

I cried because I felt that way. Someone who just left and came back when that person felt like it. There was no care or consideration at all for how I felt. Well, that's what I think. There wasn't even a good bye.

Maybe I am over-dramatizing this or reading in too much into the movie but it struck me on that cord. And yes, maybe later on, I did feel sorry for Superman because he was raised to use his power for the sake of mankind. He was raised and told to take care of people and be a beacon for mankind, to be their guidance to show them that they can be good. In exchange, he gave up a chance to live a normal life. That sucks be he didn't have to choose it. He didn't have to live it and maybe the world will be a darker place without him; but we cannot demand that from him. We can't demand anything from anybody.

His happiness or everybody else's? I wouldn't have the strength to make the selfless choice. So, yeah, I applaud the idea of Superman. I salute the idea of a man who can give up his own happiness for everybody else's. But don't take away someone else's because you didn't get what you want.

We all make our bed and we all have to sleep on it. That's what I believe in.

Being Superman

2006-07-11T02:01:00.000+08:00

From Grey's Anatomy
The upside to free falling is that it gives your friends a chance to catch you.

I decided to watch a movie today. I mean, I think I'm the only person in Manila who has yet to see Superman Returns and that's kinda sad. I mean, I already missed Mission Impossible 3 and I heard that its loads of fun. I didn't get to see a lot of films and that just ticks me off. So I found myself with time on my hands and decided to watch Superman Returns.

And yes, I will reiterate, I don't mind watching movies alone.

So I sit down and the movie starts and in the first 30 minutes of the film, I'm finding it really slow. Naturally, I cry at the scene Clark Kent/Superman has with his mom. I'm a sucker for good family bonding moments and Eva Saint Marie (I think that's the actress's name who played the mom) was just amazing. I felt her fear and worry and concern and love in such a short scene.

Movie plays out and I'm slowly starting to enjoy it more. I like seeing Superman humanized in such a way that he becomes real to me. He's not some epitome of goodness. He feels regret, he understands that he made a mistake. He does a selfish thing. And I was so unimpressed with Brandon Routh from the interviews, the trailer and the articles about him but I was charmed by his portrayal of the Man of Steel. He was actually good.

It was great to see Superman a little flawed, human and capable of a little selfishness. There was a moment I hated him, empathizing rather strongly with Lois Lane. And then, when tragedy strikes at Metropolis and he goes off to save them, person by person, tragedy after tragedy and the hero shot, Superman carrying a huge construct of a planet just as it is about to land on some unfortunate pedestrians, he floats down to put it safely out of harm's way, I just begin to cry. I sob. A hero, selflessly giving up precious moments of time that he could have for himself, has no time for his own desires. He watches it simply trickle out of his hands like water.

Superman has no time for his own desires. He lives for us. And I was angry for that one little selfish act that he did, when his whole personal life slips from his hands, I blame him for that one moment of desire. Oh yeah... Boy was I feeling small at that moment.

I get home after the movie and as I sit on my bed to take off my shoes, I begin to cry. I just start sobbing. I just can't stop the tears from falling; not that I want to anyway. A good cry is good for you, I think, every once in a while. Submit to the feelings, accept the pain and ride it, so that it can't consume you later on or hit you when you're not expecting it.

I guess I was crying because deep down inside, I want a hero. It could be anyone really, to just come here and fix all my problems away. I made a mistake. I made a couple of really stupid mistakes and I find myself starting from scratch, paying off debts, trying to work things out and trying to pick myself up from where I dropped myself. It's not easy. It's really hard. And I just wished someone would just come in and take over, you know? Someone would come and just say, Everything is going to be okay.

I guess, I thought, it was okay to make grave mistakes at 21, 22, until you're 25. I mean, I got it all figured out at 25: I got 2 jobs that didn't conflict, gave me tons of money and I was just working 3 to 4 times a week. I was having loads of fun while honing my craft and making a name for myself. And then everything disappeared and I just couldn't get back up on my feet again. It took me 2 years and a lot of adjustments and then when I thought I got it all figured out, I leapt and fell flat on my face, down a crevice I didn't know was there.

I'm tired. 2 years of trying to get things right. Trying to get back to that pinnacle that I was in. I got myself there and I can't seem to get back. The road is different now. I've lost the way.

I made my own mess and I have to clean it up. I don't know if I have the strength to do it alone. But I have to because I'm not the kind of person who can ask someone to give up anything for me. I could never. I never made any demands from anyone.

But my friends have all been terrific. Jay and the gang, the Planetzips crew, Berna and Michap and Lance and DC and the rest have all been so supportive. My family still cheer me on and hope for the best. They might not take away my problems or solve it for me but they are there, every step of the way. So maybe they aren't made of steel and they can't move faster than a speeding bullet. So they won't give up their lives for me (and I wouldn't want them to) but they are there and that's all I can really ask for, anyway.

So I gotta be my own Superman and I don't know how to be that strong. But I got to try. After all, one must jump again and again if one is to fly. And if I fall, my Superfriends are going to be there to help dust me off, fix any of my many broken bones and watch me jump again.

all vegetable like

2006-07-10T16:05:00.000+08:00

from Harold and Maude
Vice... virtue... it's best not to be too moral, you cheat yourself out of too much life... aim ABOVE morality.

Getting back on track, at least. I did disappear all weekend but I had no pressing deadlines and I really needed it. I stayed home all of Wednesday and Thursday just working and I'm guessing, at one point, when you work at home, the desire to get away from work also means the desire to get away from the house. After all, if I want to unwind and get away from work, and I work at home, it only means that by staying home, I'm just reminded more about the stuff I want to get away from.

So last weekend, I hung out with a friend and didn't come home until Monday. I just turned to jello and didn't get up from where I was. The furthest I ever went was to stand up and go to the bathroom. That was probably it.

It was nice to just sit around and be all vegetable like for a while. No pressure and no expectations. Just lying down and watching television or DVDs.

Now, I'm all so ready to tackle work and to just throw myself at it, you know? I really feel re-charged.

Quite a Lot of Sleep

2006-07-06T12:47:00.000+08:00

As texted to me by my Dad
It's not the letting go that hurts, it's the holding on.

I woke up at quarter to 3 in the morning last wednesday and stayed up all day working. I was in front of the computer the majority of the day just typing away. I was so sleepy by 8pm but I stayed up to continue downloading some files I needed to research on for another project coming in and when it finished at 9pm, I went straight to bed.

I thought I was going to wake up in the morning and I did, I woke up at 7:30am awhile ago but the sun was just peaking through the clouds and it was so nice and chilly that I grabbed the blanket, wrapped myself up in it and then caught a bit more Zzzs.

I woke up at 12 noon. So I'm so refreshed, and to ensure that there's no more catching Zzzs, I took a cup of coffee after lunch. That was so much time wasted.

Now it's going to be a full day of work and I have no excuse for exhaustion or lack of sleep. Work, work and work. My mind is going to be so focused.

Now, if only the client sends me the stuff I need to start writing my scripts, everything should go like clock work today...

new hair

2006-07-05T11:40:00.000+08:00

Edgar Wallace
An intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting than sex.

I just love my new hair. It's short enough so I can see my face and it doesn't get in the way but it's long enough that I can play around with. I love it! I love it!

A New Burning

2006-07-05T03:16:00.000+08:00

Wong Kar Wai
You can never compete with the past, with memory. We love what we can't have and we can't have what we love.

It's a slow start but things are getting better. Work is coming in and they're prepared to pay, unlike my former employer of 3 weeks, who finds every excuse to delay my payments making things difficult for me to pay my bills. I'm getting really angry at them and ready to start some smear campaign -- but that's bad, I know and there are better ways of channeling my anger. I just can't believe how some people can try their best to get away with not paying. The whole concept is foreign to me. I mean, everyday, we go through life paying for things immediately as we purchase them. And in this industry, they get to have work done without downpayment or not even paying anything and then take whatever time they want to pay. Can you imagine going to a restaurant, ordering food and eating and then paying 2 months later? I can't.

Well, this is starting to sound like my older posts, the ones I hated writing so often, so I'm moving on.

I've really changed, though. The fire that was burning brightly within me before, years before, was a bright red, maybe even bright orange. Now, I feel, the fire that burns inside me is of a different colour. I feel that the fire burning inside me is coloured blue. It's not as bright but it burns just as hot. I feel a lot less haste or rush now. I've lost some of my spark and edge; the sharpness is gone. What replaced it was something very cold, very calculating, a little detached but more observant, more cautious. I'm scared because I don't know yet the intensity of this new burning. I'm no longer bustling energy, no more brightly burning. It's heat, concentrated, much like a laser.

When I work now, it's less hyper-active energy, less zeal. There's more thinking through things. It's kinda weird since this is the way I work. It's changed and I don't know how to deal with it. It's like having to learn how to walk again because you've got a different set of legs. My center of gravity is gone. Gotta learn to live with this now.

Cutting Off the Last 2 Years

2006-07-04T02:44:00.000+08:00

Mark Twain
The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right.

Got my haircut today. I wish I still had my old phone so I could've taken a picture of my new haircut which I totally love. My friends helped arrange a haircut with Geoff Simpson, probably one of the best hair stylists in the country. My friends Len and Che insisted I do a Patrick Dempsey haircut from Grey's Anatomy, our shared obsession and I conceded. BAM! Geoff did a coup and it looks fabulous and I'm extremely happy with it.

There's something to be said about not having all that weight around my head or the pressure of having to pony-tail my hair back tightly. I love this feeling of being so free, to run my hands through my hair and it doesn't take more than a second to do so. There's something to be said about seeing my face and not having to constantly brush my hair out of the way. I never realised how hassle free having short hair was (or is it 'is?'). Actually, it's not that short -- it's long enough to play with and style and do stuff with it. It's just not long enough to be a hazard.

No more pony-tails, no more head bands, no more caps or bonnets. Sweet.

I thought it would be tough to let go of 2 years of hard-work. Growing my hair was an amazing feat of willpower on my part. There was the awful awkward period where people were telling me constantly how bad I looked. Everyday I wanted to have it cut but restrained myself. Then when it was a certain length, I started receiving much compliments for it. They said it gave me character. Then it reached a point where it was just too long and I had to do something about it. But that was 2 years of growing my hair! Could I just cut it all off, just like that?

I did. And I'm happy about it. Jay said something awhile ago. It was meant to be a joke but it meant something to me. He smiled as Geoff began cutting and he said, that's 2 years of your life your cutting away, Wangs. I don't know how happy that statement made me. Yes, I did enjoy the 2 years I spent with NMI and the friends I've met there. In those 2 years, I had the unbelievable fortune to become close friends with people like Berna, who means the world to me. I was able to give all of myself to a company and to a product that I believed in. But those 2 years also was a period in my life I can't seem to bring myself to let go. I want to move on from it. I've changed again. I've hit rock bottom and I'm moving up and if that means the hair that it took me 2 years to cut has to go, then it has to go. I always make symbols up from what's going on around me to help force myself to accept the need to change.

So I'm going to change and accept it. Submit to it. And I'm going to enjoy this new hair style for until it grows again...

Adjustment

2006-07-02T23:27:00.000+08:00

Marlene Dumas
L'art ne motre pas du doigt, il n'est pas au service du bien. (Art doesn't point fingers nor serve 'the good.')

My Saturday was pretty laid back and chill. I watched television then had dinner with my bro and then we watched movies -- Underworld 2 Evolutions and Alone in the Dark. We weren't expecting much from either and while the latter movie was worse than we thought, the former was actually quite fun. I guess it had a lot to do with already lowered expectations but this movie was much, much better than the first installment of the series. Kate Beckinsale looked really good and the fight scenes were really well done.

After the films, I went to sleep because I had to drive my Dad to the airport and then I went back home to sleep again. I was suppose to go with my brother to Shangri-La to just walk around and bringout little baby Eve but they woke up late, were rushing and failed to wake me, so I was late for zips class. I zipped and taught and then Cat and Migui and I went to eat at Dencio's were we had a couple of beers and then went home.

My weekends have become very chilled lately as compared to my weekends of years before. I'm getting comfortable with the way things are now. I'm beginning to see how I've changed and what that means in terms of what is going on in my life and how I'm affected by the world. I guess that is something you have to go through every 6 to 10 years. You change. That's inevitable, or the world changes around you and you have to be in a constant state of adjusting to these changes, be it from you or from the world.

So don't get stuck to one frame of mind. After all, that's kinda boring.

Going Out

2006-07-01T20:38:00.000+08:00

Colin Higgins
Much of the world's sorry comes from people who are this yet allow themselves to be treated as that.

For the first time since, I don't know, 2004 maybe? Yeah, for the first time in a long time, I really felt like going out and dressing up and being seen. I don't know what it was, really. It was just the whole vibe of the moment, of my Friday. I didn't feel rushed or pushed around or whatever. I even got an invite and was put on the guest list at this party. So it seemed everything was pointing towards this feeling of going out, which I haven't had in 2 years.

I really thought I had just grown older. I guess, there are moments when you just want to feel young again. I don't know.

So I dressed up nicely, met up with my friends and we went out. I had a screwdriver (that's orange juice and vodka, right?) and later on 1 beer and that was it. I didn't dance at all and we pretty much just hung around and talked. Didn't stay at the club for too long. Preferred to stay at Cuisine where we saw Mitos and Kate and just blabbed.

I saw a lot of friends, some from high school which was a shock for me. I was feeling fine despite not doing stuff that I always did when I'm out. We left early, around 2:30am after a fantastic breakfast at Cafeteria and was asleep by around a little past 3am.

And I had a great time. I felt good, I felt like I looked good. I got to talk and hang out with my friends. I was able to unwind and though I didn't dance or drink a lot (not that I can anymore), I had a great time.

Yeah, I guess I am older now.

liberation

2006-06-30T12:35:00.000+08:00

Hole from Awful (written by Courtney Love, Eric Erlandson, Melissa Auf de Maur and Patty Schemel)
If the world is so wrong
You can take it all with just one song

I was in a curious mood last night. Very curious. I was a little off during zips class but I'm guessing it was because it was a very long day. I got very little sleep and then woke up early to help out my Dad, setting up a little workshop session with 2 big stars who wanted his help to let them be more comfortable for each other since they are going to be lovers in a movie they are shooting. But I couldn't help out for the whole session, had to leave for Manila for a meeting with a client. After that, I went to Glorietta to watch the Metro and Metro Him fashion show at Rustan's. I saw Cat there and we had dinner where I had the most enjoyable time with the extreme added bonus of seeing Michelle and Pam Pascual. I love Michelle and I miss that girl horribly and horrendously. We hugged and kissed and really caught up for lost time. Afterwards, I went to zips class and then to Jay's house where I watched the first disc of Will and Grace season 1.

I had a crazy inclination last night. I don't know if it were brought about taking swigs from the bottle of wine that Tals brought or if it came from the admission to Amanda that I've decided to start making a turn-around. I told her, I'm not down anymore and she was so happy she gave me a hug. Or maybe it has something to do with spending a lovely time at the fashion show with Cat, talking about the stuff we did (sorry, cannot disclose). Maybe it had something to do with the elation that things are going to be better and that I was just so filled with emotion and weightlessness that I decided to just do stupid things.

Started texting and saying the most outrageous things. Jay told me not to do it since he knows me. He said I'll enjoy it now but will regret it the next day. I told him I didn't care and I wanted to do it. And I did and I got no response from people. Well, from some but not all. The ones who responded were also the real texts, not the outrageous ones. Jay started laughing at me, of course no one is going to reply, it's 1 am! Well, he has a point. But I liked that feeling of not caring, of not giving a damn and doing what I liked. For that one moment, I had no dignity nor did I have any fear of the repercussions and it's very liberating. I felt so free that moment.

The next day I began texting, trying to see if I offended anyone or what. I apologized and then went on with the day.

There is just something so free-ing about having one moment where I can consciously just do as I feel. I'm just so thankful for that moment and for the moment I had to be able to fix up any ruffled feathers. I know that I shouldn't think I'll always get away with it nor do I intend to do something like that again. It was just nice to be able to have that moment at this point of time. It allowed me to let my hair down and take a breath of relief.

Things aren't all that bad after all.

putting on my game face

2006-06-29T05:08:00.000+08:00

As texted to me by my Dad
Creativity is unusual stuff. It frightens. It deranges. It's subversive. It mistrusts what it hears. It dares to doubt. It provokes. It acts. Even if it errs.

I'm putting on my game face again. This time I'm tackling all the projects I've got. I'm getting there, to that point of focus again. There'll be nothing but work for me. No more distractions. No more moping around.

Found out recently that a contest I joined didn't even get me into the short-list. It was a writing contest, naturally. Decided to use my skills to figure out how well I did. That way, if I got bad news, I can just throw it in with the rest of the bad news of June. If it was good news, I could say that things are finally looking up. Well, it was bad news. Just more bad news from the month of June... But it's also a wake up call for me. I need to brush up on my personal writing, the writing I do for myself. I'm not as tight or clean or as good as I was back in college when I was going through workshop classes in writing and I was constantly surrounded by inspiring and inspired people. I could feed off from them and from my mentor's who were always encouraging yet firm in their guidance. I got to do it for myself now. And if I can write really good film scripts, then the rest should follow. I just have to tap into that younger self that absorbed things like a sponge.

I'm dead certain that there's no where else to go but up. Ben asked me the other day, so you've had a terrible June, huh? Is July going to be better? I then responded, it's gotta be! It can't get any worse. If it did get any worse, I'd be on the streets! Probably an exaggeration but it really can't get any worse. And the only way to make sure it doesn't is to get out of the funk I'm in.

So I've gotten rid of some expectations -- from the world and from myself. Ben and the rest of the gang at Tuldok Animations call my lifestyle The Bohemian Lifestyle and while there are elements of my life that follow it, I could be more bohemian, more liberal. Maybe I should return to that sort of thing. Maybe I should go back to that frame of mind; when I wasn't so stuck up over certain things. I was more loose. I was more free. I put certain standards to myself which didn't really do me any good. In fact, it made things worse.

No more of that. At the end of the day, anyway, the people who matter don't care. As long as I'm not hurting anyone and that I'm happy, their happy. And putting up those ideals didn't do me any good and hasn't made me a better person. In fact, I got more restless, more distracted, more lost.

So none of that now. More bohemian. Put the game face on. July is going to be different.

analysis of the retreat

2006-06-28T20:40:00.000+08:00

Winston Churchill
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

My Dad's here for a short while. Some business he has to attend to. Found out we've been having the same string of unfortunate events. From April to June, my Dad and I have been sorely depressed. Things haven't been going our way. As he arrived today, we kept talking about all the things we've learned in the three months of moping and acting out against the world. Where my Dad lashes out and gets angry, finding himself with very little patience, I retreat into a small, little world where no one can come in.

It's funny, you know? How, back in college and a few years after that, I've somehow built a persona that made people run to me for advice or comfort. I'm the one who people find refuge with. Or, I'm the guy people hang out with for some fun. People like my company, I've been told. When I had my moments of weakness before, I had always been told to snap out of it! We're not used to seeing you like this. And no matter how I was feeling inside, I'd have to be the usual funny-guy, always reliable, trustworthy Wanggo that people know and love.

So it's become almost immediate that when I'm not myself -- if I'm down and depressed and confused about everything, I retreat from the world. I don't show myself except to a very select few. Unfortunately, that select few don't include anyone in my family. I retreat even from them and they don't like it. As my brother has said when he gave me a good talking-down to last week, You're sweet when you want to be but when you're like this, you're a real ass. Fair enough.

My Dad's here and we're both getting out of our deep funk and it's funny that we are both here, talking about it. It's not a lot of people's month, really and then now, Mercury has to run into retrograde. Whoopee-doo-dah! But I am getting out of it, smiling easier now and spending time with my family and becoming a little bit more congenial again. I got through this by watching 2 seasons of Grey's Anatomy. My Dad saw this video of a guy who was shouting and shouting because of this utter helplessness and powerlessness that he was feeling. He could relate and realised that it doesn't solve anything nor will it make anything better.

That's how the cookie crumbles. Life is really messy. It helps to know that we're not alone.

getting back to before

2006-06-27T03:38:00.000+08:00

as texted by Darwin
I've realized that life is indeed full of contradictions. Sometimes it's crazy to be sane, you need to fall to fly, people suffer because you care, you have to unlearn to know the lesson, you have to give up because you are strong, you have to be wrong to make things right. Nonetheless, life's complexities are also life's source of beauty. We should cry to laugh again, fall apart to be whole again and get hurt to love again.

I got the new Nelly Furtado album Loose and it is quite good. Funny, coming from me, to think that most of the album was produced by Timbaland and has a very strong R&B/hip-hop feel which, anyone who knows me, is not my favourite of musical genres. But I like Nelly Furtado and I like Loose a lot. I can definitely dance to it.

I also got to see The New World with Collin Farrel, Christopher Plummer and Christian Bale. It's a beautiful film. Much like many of Terence Malick's films, The New World progresses slowly and is wonderfully shot but be patient because the story is unbelievably beautiful. I was very much moved by it. Malick just breaks down the whole experience of exploration and the exploration of something new then he twists it around. And the metaphorical exploration is just... oh God! It's such a good film. I could go on and on.

I tried to quit smoking. I had quit smoking for 2 days before I got back into the habit. That was 2 days of quitting with cheating. I had 2 sticks on each day. How's that for willpower? Ha Ha Ha Guess it wasn't really the best time to go and try and quit smoking.

Throwing myself back at work again. Went a little stir-crazy because of love (or to be more precise, the lack of it). My brother gave me a good talking down to; and though I noticed that there was so much he didn't understand about what I was going through, truth be told, it's because I wasn't being open to him. I just wasn't around. He didn't have a choice.

I was telling my friend Migui that we know how much he wants to help us out and be there for us but he had to give us a chance to be a friend and to take care of him too. It couldn't always be him taking care of us. A relationship is two-way; you get taken care of and you take care back. Accepting the help and love and concern of your friend is your duty as a friend just as helping, loving and being concerned for their welfare is part of your duty. I got caught by myself, being a hypocrite, for telling that to Migui when I wasn't doing that with my brother, of all people.

There was a lesson I learned before in a club, of all places, that life gets easier when you just accept. Submit. It is beyond our control, what gets thrown in our way but we can control ourselves. I let myself be a victim to the ravages of the world and truth be told, we all go through hard times. Some worse than others. I'm embarrassed but at least I still have a chance to make things better now.

I'm smiling again.

wanting and not getting and wanting too much

2006-06-26T17:57:00.000+08:00

Jellaludim Rumi
Wind, and a tree gently waving. Remembrance and the heart -- leaves tremble.

There are ups and downs in life. There are moments when it is just the most amazing thing to be alive -- the exhiliration of happiness and joy and bliss when you're having a really good day or when you've just accomplished something wonderfully hard and fulfilling or when you are just having a simple day. And then there is the flipside -- those moments when you can't believe how the day is going, how everything just seems to not go your way and nothing can cheer you up because there is no reason to, things are just bad and ugly and messy.

But that's life. It comes with the territory of being able to feel and having a normal human experience. Sometimes it rains when you're walking down the street, going to a meeting and you can't find a shade or a cab or a jeep to take you to where you want to. Sometimes the checks never come and sometimes people are out of reach. But you cannot say that there were days when everything came like clockwork or when they were messy, all the answers came to you as fast as a bolt of lightning. Those moments when there is nothing wrong with the world and you could say that you have not a problem in the world.

We could try to wish there were more of the latter than the former. But these things are not in our control, has never been in our control. We never had control. Getting through life has always been about how well we can weather the storm and how well we can react to what life throws at us, and later on, how well we can take what we have been given -- good or bad, and turn it to our favour. Sometimes it is really easy and sometimes, it just seems impossible.

I'm reminded of a Garbage song, The Trick is to Keep Breathing. Yeah, that's it, really. The trick is to keep breathing, the trick is to keep moving on, the trick is to do what you need to do to get by and if you find yourself doing crazy things, make sure that you haven't hurt anyone in the way and apologize to those who you may have hurt as you are trying to get by. Because I find it hard to believe that you are going through this world with no one loving you, concerned and worrying for you. And sometimes, these people are the ones we don't really notice, are the ones you ignore as you mope in the darkness asking why everything is so fucked up.

KT Tunstall from Other Side of the World (written by KT Tunstall and Martin Terefe)
On comes the panic light
Holding on with fingers and feelings alike
But the time has come
To move along

The fire fades away
Most of everyday
Is full of tired excuses
But it's too hard to say
I wish it were simple
But we give up easily
You're close enough to see that
You're the other side of the world to me

I've fall in love with Grey's Anatomy and it is probably my favourite show on Earth right now. I've finished watching the first 2 seasons and I just immediately related to Meredith Grey and company but most of all with Meredith Grey and how dificult it is to focus on trying to just do everything right and still try and get what you want.

I am just amazed how the writers of the show seem to be talking to me in every episode they write. They reach to me, speak to me in particular and all of a sudden, the answers come in very clearly. I find myself unable to turn the DVD player off, crying after every second or third episode and my emotions toyed with as every plot turn twists and every line uttered.

In the end, I realise that a lot of my problems stem from the fact that there is so much that I want. It's the wanting and the not getting that really got to me, that threw me into the depressed stupor that I am in... that I'm getting out of. The only reason that it was easy for me to be with Jay and company and the Planetzips crew is that everything I want from them I get or they give me. I don't feel the pain of wanting and not getting. With everybody else, it seems that there is still something I'm not getting and it could be from something oblique to that person -- not necessarily something I want from them but they remind me of it, of one of those many things I'm not getting. And I couldn't deal. I just couldn't handle it.

Yeah, I realised all of this from watching Grey's Anatomy and I thought I'd understand it from reading a book or the poetry of Rumi or listening to music but this time around, I got this revelation from a television show. I don't know why I find that really funny.

Sheryl Crow from Where Has All the Love Gone (written by Sheryl Crow and Jeff Trott)
Sometimes the world's a scary ride
It's hard to hand on
Along the way we got off track
Now, if we turn around
Could we ever get back?

I didn't mind wanting too much before because I like feeling alive. It was important to me, important for me to feel like I am alive because otherwise it wouldn't make any sense, to be here and not feel anything. My feelings justify me, justify my existence. I'm not letting go of that. It is the reason why I got so hurt and I was thrown to the floor -- because I allowed myself to feel too much and when it seemed that everything I wanted I wasn't going to get, I just crumbled, I just fell apart.

The trick is to keep breathing. The trick is to keep moving on. The trick is to do everything you can to get by, as long as you don't hurt others along the way. The trick is to not want too much at any one moment and when the hurt starts to learn how to roll with the punches or to take it like a man or if not, cry and grieve and then let it go.

I've almost let this whole month be consumed by this anger, this bitterness. If I go through my blog, I'm sure I'll discover it was for much longer than that. I'm not going to forget it but I'm going to let it go. I'm going to keep breathing. I'm going to move on. I'm going to get by and not hurt others along the way. I'm going to continue to want things and when I don't get them, cry and grieve, roll with the punch and take it like a man. That's all there is really left to do.

Pick up the pieces and move on. I'm pretty good at that.

can't cry anymore

2006-06-16T17:33:00.000+08:00

Sheryl Crow from Can't Cry Anymore (written by Sheryl Crow and Bill Bottrell)
Wouldn't it be good if we could hop a flight to anywhere
So long to this life
So much for pretending
Bad luck's never-ending

Slept through my alarm again. Hopelessly late for a meeting. Got it anyway. Lots of awkward smiles and uneasy looks. Got the job and I ran straight home. From Makati to San Juan. Right as I hit San Juan, the bright sunny day was immediately exchanged for a really powerful downpour. As in, not just cats and dogs, goats and pigs! It was raining goats and pigs.

I was stuck under the shade of a condominium with 8 other people, all waiting for the rain to go away. I was stuck there for a good 30 minutes. That's 30 minutes of my time that was gone forever.

Fucking shit. I sincerely wanted to cry. How could life get any more difficult? I don't know. But I know it can. And I'm just holding on with as much humour is left in me to throw out. Assault all this madness with humour -- be it biting, sarcastic and jaded; at least I can still make people laugh.

How do people do it? Live life day-to-day, constantly being beaten down by invisible clubs and their bruises are never seen but for those unguarded moments when they stare into space and there is no calm, no serenity behind their eyes. They just stare into space. Gone. Somewhere better. Somewhere where reality does not exist.

I almost cried in the rain as I walked home but the tears just wouldn't fall.

I'm sick of all this complaining. I ain't coming back here to write unless it's good fucking news.

getting desperate, getting angry

2006-06-15T19:40:00.000+08:00

Fiona Apple from Better Version of Me (written by Fiona Apple)
Oh, after all the folderol
And hauling over coals stops
What will I do?

I find myself getting more and more desperate here as people still refuse to pay up and my finances are dwindling down and I'm wondering where the hell am I suppose to get the money to pay for things? Whine, whine, bitch, complain and moan. It's the song of the day, it's the song that's on the top of the charts. I'm getting really tired of it, you know?

One big time ad agency owes me 20k for something that is already said and done, used up and thrown out and probably will never once again see the light of day. Oh, you know what's worse? This same big time ad agency handling super big clients and all still owes a recording/sound studio over 1.5 million pesos from work that was done since the start of the year. I know a lot of models and photographers who still have payments pending from this big time ad agency that has affiliates all over the world, main office somewhere in the United States of America. How the hell can they have the gall to green light a project if they can't even pay on time. It's not like they don't have the money since the client has already paid them. What is their excuse? I have no idea and it can be shot down at every syllable, because work was done, you pay up.

My former company also is screwing with me, not giving me my paycheck for the hours I put in for them when I was there. The lady at the finance department suffered a miscarriage and wasn't able to handle my accounting. So they are passing it over to somebody else now to take charge of it and I'll be expecting the check next week. That's if I'm not in the streets, assholes! Well, fine, I should be sad for the girl and I am. No one has to lose a child in such a manner. And there's no way I'll be on the streets next week. But this is the second employee in 2 months to have a miscarriage in that office. I wonder how the hell do they think they can get away with treating their employees this way? Fucking bastards!!!

And I have a client who demands speed and haste, receives the script for comments and disappears for 3 weeks and all of a sudden comes back with all her comments and expects us to just sit up and work on it as if we don't have other things to do. Wanna hear the punch line? During pre-prod she kept saying that I don't want this to be like any other corporate AVP, I want this like a commercial, hip, young, casual and informal. That's what she said. After disappearing for 3 weeks without any feedback, no mention of the changes in schedule, she returns, saying her major comment is that she wants it to come out more formal. Now what do you say to that? What a fucking bitch!

Today I was asked to go to a final casting. I got the call at 1:30pm. I was suppose to be at the final casting at 2pm. Now isn't that great? Yeah, like I sit at home and wait by the phone for you to ring. What bastards!

I swear to God I'm really losing my patience. My Dad told me to wait, be patient, something's gonna give and I've been waiting and I'm really losing hope. Nothing is giving, Dad. I'm getting poorer and poorer and I'm living from hand to mouth and it's not funny and it's not what I was expecting to be doing at 27. I'm seriously thinking of giving up the great bohemian dream and really just swallowing my pride and taking a fucking day job and just be one of the herd.

Sorry, very judgemental of me. There's nothing wrong with having a regular job. It's just not for me. Taking one will make me extremely unhappy. I've done it, it's happened -- it was a very ugly sight. I don't know how long I have to wait. I'm just working and working and working and no one seems to care. Well (insert fucking client's name here) or (insert big time agency's name here) or (insert former employer's name here) don't seem to care enough to pay. They cared enough when they needed something from me but now that they got it, it seems, they can take whatever God damned time they want to pay me. It's just not fair.

And you know what is more unfair? The fact that I'm probably not going to be around when karma bites them in the butt. I'd love to see them get ruined for the way they treat people -- but I'll probably never get to see it. I'm never that lucky.

Full Moon in Samar

2006-06-13T23:01:00.000+08:00

John Updike
Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.

I just got back from Samar today. I was with the Planetzips crew and we had major fun. We were all, at one point, drunk and smashed. The resort we were in, The Surf Camp at Calicoan beach in Eastern Samar was a lovely, lovely place but it was sorta empty since the waves haven't come in and June, being typhoon season, kept it down to minimum guests. We were practically alone our whole stay. Or at least, if we wanted privacy, we had it.

Samar is a beautiful province. Lots of green scenery -- foliage and trees and beautiful sights to behold. We landed in Tacloban airport and had to take a rather long drive to the resort but it was worth it. We had to go on the San Juanico bridge and it is impressive. It's a huge bridge and it turns in the middle! What an amazing sight! I never saw a bridge that actually curved. Later on, we passed another bridge, much, much smaller but it's view was just amazing! We saw the ocean and a huge rock with a cave and the blue, blue water just sparkling. Suffice to say, it was a photo-op for all of us!

We saw mangroves on the way and all kinds of trees. It was just lovely.

We spun fire at night. We drank and some of us pigged-out! Lors, Migui, Tals, Paulino, Amanda and Paolo got to surf. Tals, Migui, Cat and I really worked hard on our tans. For Lors, tanning, apparently, comes as easily as breathing, so she didn't have to work too hard for it. We drank some more. Others slept at the weirdest hours. Paulino and I got some reading in, as did Cat. Paolo and Paulino caught up with old friends as did Tals and Cat. Some of us got caught in the rain while Tals and I got sick. Tals and I got to bond with Migui and we all celebrated Amanda's birthday. Oh yeah, did I mention we went drinking?

And it was a lovely full moon night for the three nights we were there. It hung high in the sky illuminating the whole evening, it looked like it was morning, even if it were still midnight or 1 in the morning. Everything was in a shade of blue because of the bright luminescence of the full moon. It was just lovely. Of course, the flip-side were all the rain clouds and the lightning that flashed brightly illuminating the moment for but a brief second before fading away back into darkness. That was nice too.

I had a great time with great, amazing people whom I have grown to love as a family. The Planetzips people are really some of the best people on Earth and I'm so glad to be a part of their group. I had a wonderful time in Samar and I may be sick now and paying for it in the next few weeks, but the truth is, I'm so much happier now for that experience and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

some thoughts before leaving for the beach!

2006-06-09T21:41:00.000+08:00

as texted to me by my Dad
For all the fine talk about Christian charity and the evils of wealth, there's always the idea behind it that anyone who's poor has done something to deserve it.

I'm off to Samar in a bit. Going to hang out at Jay's place for a bit and then meet up with the gang as they watch the World Cup in some bar. Not really my thing, the World Cup but hell, I'm game to just soak in the energy before we leave.

Been a busy day, really, coming from a press conference and then a concept meeting for a television show I'll be writing for. I like the way it's going: I like the show, the concept, the host and how I've positioned myself in the team. It's going to be a while before it starts to pay up but when it does, it will be a big turn around for me.

It's all about weathering the ups and downs of life, you know? I guess some people have more ups than downs and vice-versa. It's just cause I can't seem to focus or really find that right path to where it is I want to go. But then again, who does know the right path one has to take to make it towards their dreams. And even if you do know the right path, there will always be things that will lead you astray to take a different one.

It's only if you know how to enjoy getting lost and finding your way back again that you can truly enjoy this life. But then, that's the bohemian in me talking.

I just can't wait to feel the sand on my feet and spinning fire with the rest of the Planetzips crew again. We had a gig yesterday and I still haven't had enough. I just love their vibe and energy.

Next week, I got a date with Berna and Bel and some friends from NMI and that's bound to be fun. We're going to watch a play. Fun! Fun! Fun! And then I've got a date with The Spa and finally make use of that gift certificate. More writing in the future already planned and a whole life ahead of me.

I may not be at my best, financially, but I'm certainly at my best experiencially... I wouldn't trade it for the world.

2 kinds of people (and the third, less savory)

2006-06-08T11:46:00.000+08:00

Marie Frank from Save a Little Love (written by Marie Frank and Jacob Eriksen)
I'll draw the curtains on a day gone by
I'll keep my shades on when I'm in bed at night
'Cause whenever I lay down my guard I find
I'm invaded by people who rob me blind

I have been blessed with a lovely group of friends who really like my company enough to help pitch in to make sure I get to go with them to Samar, on our group's outing. How can one argue with that? I've never been to Samar and I want to. What loveable people!

Considering the fact that I've gone to Boracay with all expenses paid for, pay anytime I can, last summer. And this is a different group of friends, mind you. They just wanted me to be there. Boracay won't be complete or as much fun without you, I was told.

It is so wonderful to be wanted, to be needed. I think about all those times, before, when I was left behind, for no real reason. I remember back in college, how my circle of friends stop showing up and seeing me because I graduated and worked in school and had my own office. They could never say why they never visited me or never hung out in my office, when it was more comfortable and more private than our organization's office. I even remember how one of them got sorta mad and told on me to an older friend in the circle. He came to me in the office and told me her thoughts which I quickly shot down. I have a job now, I can't just keep going to the Malate office to see them. They can, of course, come here and see me. But I don't know why they don't want to, no matter how many times I've offered. So don't tell me I've got a problem, it's them who do, I said. The message was quickly related to the person with the grievance and she decided to talk to me and she began to cry as she realised I wasn't avoiding them, it was they who avoided me. After a week, nothing happened. My old circle of friends continued with their lives, not passing by for me, not looking for me and not taking advantage of the fact that we had a great hang out in school. That benefit was picked up by Jay and Morx and company and a new chapter in my life began.

I guess some people just grow apart and I don't mind that. But what I couldn't stand was the fact that they tried to put the blame on me. I just want it on record -- they left me. A friend gate crashed a party I had with another friend, found his way to the hidden condominium unit and stood at the lobby and didn't move until he was brought up just to say his piece. He felt better knowing that his side was given a voice but it solved nothing, changed nothing. It didn't explain my former circle of friends' side at all. Just made them more infuriating -- trying desperately to say their piece but the point being, they still didn't make any effort to bridge the new gap that was formed by my graduating and my new responsibilities. I tried, told them to spend their time in my office, as students were perfectly allowed to. They refused.

What made things worse was that they had said somethings that made it appear that I moved away from them. It's called growing up, graduation, getting a job. Let's all adjust, right? I guess it was too much for them.

But that's okay. I moved on and I found a group of people who wanted me to be with them and no matter what situation I got myself into, they made an effort to see me and vice-versa. Wanting to see each other was a mutual thing.

Marie Frank from Save a Little Love (written by Marie Frank and Jacob Eriksen)
I won't be as generous as I was before
Too little left to go around once more
I've been blowing it off being far too kind
I just opened my heart and they bleed me dry
I'll save a little love for myself this time

Now someone I like is using me only when it is convenient to do so. But on an ordinary day, there is no attempt to spend time with me. Coffee? Forget it, person has better things to do but if the person needs company, especially when substances has been used and good company is really needed, boy! ain't I the one to call? Why do I bother? Why do I even bother?

And then there's the fantastic group of people who want me regardless of the situation. Jay, Rex, Che, Len, Morx, Naira and Dave and the rest of the gang; dinners in Makati, shopping, talking about the exciting beginning of a business and an industry we have always brushed up against and now they are throwing themselves in it. Growing up and discovering what this world has to offer for the youthful with so much energy and love of life.

And then the Planetzips crew, Cat, Paolo, Paulino, Amanda, Lors, Tals, Migui, Kage, Mikko, Tessa and the rest -- with our passion for poi dancing and spinning fire without batting an eyelash. Our love for adventure and travel, the beach and laughter. Growing up and discovering what this world has to offer for the youthful with so much energy and love of life.

Sometimes, I wonder why I even get myself into these stupid situations with people when the answer is so clear before me. I can be so dumb sometimes!

bubble wrap

2006-06-07T21:11:00.000+08:00

Natalie Imbruglia from Intuition (written by Natalie Imbruglia, Phil Thornalley and Dave Munday)
Should have turned left
But I turned right
And I ended up here
And I feel alright

Strange and funny how bubble wrap can make everything just so right; how bubble wrap has this consistently calming effect on one's sanity. It was great to just pop and pop that bubble wrap while lying in bed, smoking a cigarette in my free hand as my head just pounded and pounded.

Been a busy day, as I had been all over the city, practically. Been on the MRT twice, going to the farthest of stations (Taft and the other one was the second farthest at Quezon Avenue). It was for work, thankfully and it helped keep my mind off of things. Some things that have become just more and more bothersome. More information has come in, and from the strangest of places. My friend hasn't been all that forthcoming; some information has been left in the dark. You know how it is with darkness -- fungus grows there. Most sane people would have dropped the subject long ago; unfortunately, I'm not sane. I'm kinda pissed about it and really willing to start trouble -- but decided against it. Let it play out. In the end, I'm not going to be the loser, as long as I keep away from this as much as possible. There's been too much emotion spent on this whole fiasco as it is.

My problem is I hold on too tightly. I don't know how to let go. Funny, since I'm not at all a sentimental person.

Pop, pop, pop. More of the little dots on the bubble wrap go to bubble wrap heaven. Getting it out of my system.

Saw the Mall of Asia and it is huge and rather impressive. Well, scratch that... I meant to say that the part of Mall of Asia that I did see was impressive. I didn't walk around like I would've wanted to. I just saw a bit of one wing. It was pretty big. Must be a place for further exploration on my part.

Traffic is getting bad. First time to try and get on the MRT from Taft station during rush hour. It was unbelievably bad; all that pushing and shoving. There was a line made to separate the people who were going up the MRT and the people going down the MRT and there were still some assholes who insisted going counter-flow! Going counter-flow! It was such a piss off.

Pop, pop, pop. More of those little dots going to bubble wrap heaven.

Oh yeah, my phone got redirected since I forgot to pay my bills. People texting me and me, poor little poor ol' me, unable to text back. The frustration of it all. I forgot to pay the bill! My bad! And now, while I have no cash because my former clients -- Coke, hasn't paid us yet. Yeah, I wrote an AVP for Coke last March and they probably used it already and their sales conference is already over but they still haven't paid us yet. But one cannot complain, since, apparently that's industry practice. If you won't adhere to that, then they'll just drop you, there'll be some other guy willing to wait for kingdom come for them to pay up. Hey! After all, they're a multi-national, regional company that makes millions of pesos/dollars a day. God knows it's going to really affect their whole accounting system to pay up for services that were rendered.

It makes me wonder about poor models too, you know? The commercial or print ad gets aired, the material is being used and the model can't get any job that is from a rival company or product and yet they can get away with not paying the model for 5 or 6 months. How does one get away with that?

Pop, pop, POP! Bubble wrap is almost gone. So many things one has to deal with in this life. I'm surprised there are still sane people in this world.

Things that made me go "Hmmm..." today

2006-06-06T02:19:00.000+08:00

Natalie Imbruglia from Sunlight (written by Natalie Imbruglia and Gary Clark)
Today we don't know who we are

Today, I arrived late at the bank. Couldn't wake up at 11am as I had planned because Dad left the air conditioner on. I had slept late the night before, but earlier than usual, because I had every intention to make it to the bank and deposit my check. I really need the cash to pay my brother. Nope, it didn't happen. Not this time. I got there and it was exactly 3pm and the bank just closed and they wouldn't sneak me in. Truth be told, I didn't even try, really. So their clock was 5 minutes earlier than mine. Can't argue with that. They follow their time, not mine.

So I stayed home and worked on some articles and had a very interesting chat with Raab, a friend of mine who is now living in Davao. Opened up an interesting alternative, which I didn't know existed. The type that made me go Hmmm... So of course, I went Hmmm... and a plan began brewing in my head. The plan only works if everything that was offered in the past 2 weeks pushes through. If it does, then the plan begins.

Had dinner with my Dad. It is his last night tonight and then, in about 30 minutes, I'll be taking him to the airport. It was brief and we didn't get to talk much like we usually do. He had a lot of work and I was barely at home. He sat me down during dinner and told me that he wanted to talk to me about my work ethic but couldn't because he had no right. He said that he was just as messed up and lost as I am now when he was my age. He was just worried about how little sleep I get to do and how scattered I've been, working on some many projects at the same time but then, he was just the same when he was 27 (of course, he thought I was still 23. I told him I was 27 and he was like shocked, mouth agape and wide-eyed). He wanted to talk to me about so many things that he felt needed some mature guidance but the truth of the matter is, he was just the same at my age. So what he did was he told me that I should just be patient, work it out and to take care of myself. If I keep digging I'll get there. If I keep working at it, something will give soon. I told him that it is usually me and he said, well, now I'm telling you not to give up this time.

Natalie Imbruglia from Sunlight (written by Natalie Imbruglia and Gary Clark)
Too many times we let the things we feel
Get in the way of letting us heal the wounds
That open in the dark

I decided to figure some things out on my own, texted the friend and ended up with more stuff that just seemed to baffle me. Called up Jay to get some bearings and unfortunately, I heard some things I didn't want to hear. Never ask questions you aren't prepared to hear the answers to, I always say. I should've listened to my own advice. Eventually, Morx heard the story and gave me a call so that he can give me a reality check; more like a reality slap, if you ask me. But I need those every now and then.

I just wanted it so badly, I guess and the mind works its wonders. That's what is so dangerous with a hyper-active imagination that is not limited by reality -- an imagination that can truly bend reality despite all the clues and hints towards a certain direction: you can just ignore all of that and still imagine it to be the way you want it to be. I can be my own worse enemy.

Happily enough, I was at Valle Verde 1 again, spinning fire with the Planetzips gang and had a marvelous time. This was the second straight night of zipping for us (3 consecutive nights for Paolo, Cat, Paulino and myself) and though I was physically tired, I am never emotionally or mentally tired to zip. In fact, for a moment, I totally forgot what was happening around me and I loved it. I was able to push myself to another level, I think, tonight and I got a compliment from Cat which really encouraged me to try harder and harder.

At this point, of all the work I've put out this year, zipping has been the most satisfactory. I got paid on time, the work in itself was just fantastic, the people I zip with are just so cool, the work was very much appreciated and I get to go to the most interesting of places for it. How lucky could I be, right? Now if only I could do it more often.

Natalie Imbruglia from That Day (written by Natalie Imbruglia and Patrick Leonard)
That day, that day
What a mess, what a marvel
We're all the same
And no one thinks so
And it's okay
And I'm small and I'm divine
And it's beautiful
And it's coming
And it's already here
And it's absolutely perfect

Jewel is singing what's in my heart...

2006-06-05T15:50:00.000+08:00

as texted to me by my Dad
When people walk away from you let them go. Your destiny is not tied to anybody who leaves you. It doesn't mean they're bad people, just that their part in the story is over.

My previous post has been on my mind. Can't get it out of my system just yet. It will be the subject of my whining for a few days more. Lately, I've been listening to Fiona Apple to help me get that angry, vengeful person to speak up and get mad. I wanted to give this anger a voice and maybe slap some people back to Earth because they're flying too high without a care for other people, namely, me.

But lately, there are some songs on Good Bye Alice in Wonderland that have been striking a cord. Here they are, saying things that are rumbling in my heart.

Again and Again (words by Jewel Kilcher and music by Jewel Kilcher and John Shanks)
Listen dear, I need you to hear I cannot disappear. I've tried again and again and again and again. I know we said that we'd give up, said we'd had enough again and again and again and again but you, you're always on my mind. It's like this all the time, say it's cause you're mine all mine. And if you will, I will, try to let it go. And if you try, I'll try. Try to let it show us the way. Cause love is here to stay. Just look me in the eye this is do or die. I will not say enough till you say enough. There is no giving in, there is no givin' up on love. Walk down the street stare at a lot of things that pass in steady streams, again and again and again and again. Do what I should try to stay busy your face is all I see, again and again and again and again but you, you're always on my mind, it's like this all the time, say it's cause you're mine, all mine. Like a movie I once saw, in the darkness I recall feeling the beauty and the pain like when you call my name, say you feel the same.

Good Day (words by Jewel Kilcher and music by Jewel Kilcher, Greg Wells and Kara DioGuardi)
I say to myself, self, why are you awake again? I'ts one a.m. standin' with the fridge wide open, starin'. Such a sight, florescent light -- the stars are bright -- might make a wish if I believed in that shit but as it is I might watch t.v. cause it's nice to see people can be more messed up than me. I say to myself as I smile at the walls let myself fall. It's gonna be alright. No matter what they say, it's gonna be a good day. Just wait and see. It's gonna be alright cause I'm alright with me. It's gonna be, it's gonna be -- it's gotta be. I shiver shut the door, can't think standin' here no more. I'm alone my mind's racing heart breaking. Can you be everything I need you to be? Can you protect me like a daughter? Can you love me like a father? Can you drink me like water, say I'm like the desert just way hotter? The point of it all is that if I should fall it's still your name I call. It's gonna be alright no matter what they say. It's gonna be a good day just wait and see. It's gonna be okay cause I'm okay with me. It's gonna be, it's gonna be, as long as we laugh out loud -- laugh like we are mad cause this crazy mixed up beauty is all that we have. Because what's love, but an itch we can't scratch, a joke we can't catch, god, but still we laugh. Get back in bed, turn off the t.v. You say it'll be alright, baby just wait and see. Uh-oh, I'm awake again, it's one a.m. staring such a sight, well at least the stars are bright.

Where you Are (words and music by Jewel Kilcher)
I called you late last night said you didn't feel like talkin', had to blow off a little bit of steam, said you were tired of feelin' so uptight. You make me so blue, I get so lost inside of you that I cannot always find my way to where you are. Oh it used to be so easy, used to be so much fun. You said, yeah, well that was back when you believed in my love but things are not so simple now. I've turned out the light somehow and in the darkness you cannot always find your way to where I am. Please don't take your eyes from me cause if you did I would no longer be able to see. Please can't you see I need you. I am a princess and I'm locked inside this stone tower of song. I'm trying to write messages on the wind, god, how I just want to belong. Choose me, choose me, pick me, take me. Oh, I need to believe no one else exists for you now, on one else exists for me. You are my home, I've finally found my way to where you are.

There's still a bit that I really feel a connection to, and I could go and put the Fiona Apple songs that really strike a cord in me, as well, but maybe Darwin is right. Get rid of the elephant in the room. I got to do something to move on from this. Wallowing is a specialty of mine, but just because it worked in the past doesn't mean it's the best way to deal with this situation. There's probably other, healthier alternatives. There is always another alternative.

The Elephant in the Room

2006-06-05T02:06:00.000+08:00

Fiona Apple from Oh Well
I was feeding on the need for you to know me
Devastated at the rate you fell below me
What wasted unconditional love
On somebody
Who doesn't believe in the stuff
Oh, well.

I could talk about the extremely different and left-of-center gig I had at Calatagan with Paulino, Paolo and Cat. It was really left-of-center, if you consider the twister we saw out at sea was merely one of the many things that happened that day. Yup, it was pretty out there.

Or I could talk about my first real date in a long, long time. Must've been years since my last date, actually. I could talk about that. Or I could talk about how my Dad keeps coming back and forth from Manila and Bacolod and how much I love him and miss him and enjoy it being able to talk to him about stuff that interests us in the depths of which we discuss these things but, how, it makes things harder on my sense of independence. I need the space; I need a space I can truly call my own.

I can talk about today, how I went to Valle Verde to assist Paulino again for zips class because I'm training myself to become an instructor. Currently, through Paulino's discretion, I've been assigned a designation as Assistant Instructor and I couldn't have been more prouder. Ears were flapping so hard I could fly when I saw it put on the design of my card that he sent to me. After class, we started spinning fire for a video and we got to watch it afterwards and it was so weird to watch myself perform.

But no, I won't talk about those things. Not right now. I've got so much shit going through my head right now. I'm going to talk about something that really disturbed me, but I can only talk obliquely since someone else is involved and that person cannot be named.

And no, it isn't Sauron or Chthulu or Voldemort (or however you spell that fucker's name).

It was a late night and I got home at around way past 4 in the morning. I took a shower, changed to sleeping clothes and got into bed, eyes closed and trying to relax when my phone gave a beep at around 5:30 in the morning. Someone texted. At this time? I asked myself. I checked it and my heart almost shattered. It was from someone long ago. Someone I really, really cared about but things didn't go the way I wanted things to. It ended very vaguely and, in my opinion, in a very messy way.

We had tried to resolve it and in a way, sort of re-connected but we never talked about what had happened before. It was dropped then, 2 years ago, and it stayed there on the floor. During that time we had re-connected, I was wondering if I was the only one who could see the remains on the floor, just lying there, all messy and... and... unclean. My friend didn't even mention it. I couldn't even get the hints that my friend had even realised it was there. To me, it was just there, just lying there.

I left it at that. At least we weren't avoiding each other anymore. At least, now, should we see each other in public we could say "hi" and be all nice and stuff; not like before were we had become the elephant in the room that you couldn't talk about. It was like, there you are, in Embassy and there's this elephant and you can't say Look! There's an Elephant! What the fuck is an elephant doing here in a club? Or worse, to walk by the lobby of a movie theatre and see each other and say, I didn't know elephants watched movies in Greenbelt. It was annoying and hurtful and made things so complicated and I was glad it was over. It wasn't cleaned up but we could deal with each other despite the mess being there. In a way, there were some foundations being built over the mess. Instead of cleaning it up, something else was just put on top like something you put under the bed or under the carpet.

It's not how things should be dealt with but that is how it is. I just decided to take it rather than cull another dramatic moment, another moment of tension. I had just wanted to end things.

It pretty much died there until the text. My friend desperately needed company and was asking if I was awake. I had no idea how many people my friend texted before me but truth be told, I was awake and I replied and I just fell back to the same old trouble I found myself in 2 years ago. Damned Blue Moon!

It was a very awkward moment in my friend's car while we were trying to figure out what to do, where we could go to hang out. In the end, I was sent back up home to sleep and my friend went home or so my friend told me. Except I couldn't sleep. Not anymore. My head was just racing with thoughts. I was back in the same old grind, being grounded to fine powder.

And until now I can't get my friend out of my mind and I was thinking of it as maybe an excuse to try and start things over or something, discovered that the feelings had died but are easily resurrected. I still think the world of my friend and would probably find no trouble falling in love again.

But thinking it over now, thinking it over and over again, I don't want to. It was so messy, so complicated 2 years ago, it doesn't seem to have gotten any better. And I've really changed for the better since then. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. That's how it should be, right? That's how I always lived my life.

And why? Is my friend the only one I could be with? Of course not! In fact, I just came from a date. It was surprising and refreshing and different from what I was expecting but it turned out well, I guess and it was shared that there would be a second and I'm truly, delightfully excited for that next meeting.

But once again, there's an elephant in the room. It's not a very big room but the elephant got in. And I don't know what to do and it is really, really digging deep into me.

Yeah, I am not okay.

lethargic

2006-06-02T19:12:00.000+08:00

Willa Cather
What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself -- life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

The rains have come and this lethargy is taking over me. The desire to just stay home in bed is extremely strong and I find myself finding any excuse to not work. One little brown out stops me in my tracks. I'd rather wait until the current is stable before I start working or any stupid crap like that; any excuse just to not start. I don't even have the urge to pick up a book and read. I just want to lie down in bed while Dad or Datu or Kristi and not work and just lie there and enjoy nothingness -- that sweet oblivion were nothing can reach you.

But of course, I can't do that, I can't let that happen, so I got to get off my ass and start writing. At least, tomorrow, I'll be going to Punta Fuego for a zip gig and I'll be so happy to be near such a large body of water. I hope it rains its fill now and tomorrow will just be sunny days and I can get a tan.

I'm just so lethargic right now. The cold wind coming in through the windows -- I just want to grab somebody and cuddle underneath a soft comforter. Now wouldn't that be sweet?

Getting By and Surviving with a Smile

2006-06-02T03:14:00.000+08:00

Umberto Eco from The Brotherhood of the Rose
The only evidence I see of the Antichrist here is everyone's desire to see him at work.

Lately, it has been easier to smile. It has been easier to smile, lately and I'm very happy for that. It has been easier to tell a joke and it has been easier to make fun of myself and get people to laugh. Lately, it has been easier to be around people, people I don't know -- strangers and new acquaintances because I'm happier now; I'm more in control of my feelings. It's not running away with me, it's not taking control -- my emotions. Well, I suppose it is, it's just that this time, I don't mind because these emotions are positive and perky and happy in nature.

Life's been looking pretty again, lately. Work is coming my way and while I haven't paid off all my debts yet, I haven't been borrowing anymore just to survive the day-to-day. And I can see the money that is coming that will help me pay off large chunks out of my debts. So, yeah, things are looking up. Yeah, things are beginning to pick up and while I won't be swimming in cash like I used to in 2004; at least I won't be begging in the streets.

But it is so gross to talk about money. What happened to my class? My upbringing? My sophistication? Down the drain it went, along with my dignity! My fault for having to decide that I want to live my life in the open -- not hiding anything. Well, it has been on my mind a lot -- money. So there you go, no class, no breeding, no sophistication. Stab me with a dirty bolo, why don't you?

There's someone who's got me smiling for a different reason and I'll be meeting up with this person come the weekend. I'm both nervous and excited. Susan Miller at Astrologyzone said that this is the month that love will begin to bloom for me. The past 2 years have been impossible to start a lasting, romantic, happy relationship, or so she says. But the universe is now more open to the idea of letting me have some fun on that department -- something real, something romantic, something that will really make my heart pump blood faster. Well, I really do hope so. No matter how many times I've said that I don't want a relationship right now, I know I am ready for one. But relationship! Shit! I'm getting way ahead of myself here... Let's just survive the first date. Then we'll see. Take it slow, do this right and let everything fall in their proper place.

And then work is going to be swell, she said and I can already see it. I've got to get everything on paper before June 19 and then I can let go a bit, work with a little less effort; be a little more lax. I've been throwing myself at the whole proposal portion of the project; once it gets signed, I can take my time to perfect the project and make it better. No need to be rushing all the time, to be rushing like a chicken without a head.

It would be nice to disappear and just find myself in some hammock, hearing the sound of the surf right beside me, fanned by a sea wind and a cold drink in my hand and nothing in mind... absolutely nothing at all.

Thankful

2006-05-31T05:26:00.000+08:00

Scott Adams
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

I want to be grateful. I don't want to take anything for granted. Life could be worse. Life could be much, much worse. So I want to take this opportunity to be thankful.

I am thankful for my family. I have a wonderful family who understands me and if they can't understand me, they try to and they accept me without question. They will air their grievances, they will share their reluctancies, they will be open and speak their mind but they do not discourage me, they do not hold me back. They do their best to guide me but let me make my own mistakes -- they let me live my life. I am very thankful for a family like this. This is where all my luck went to: being born in this family.

I am thankful for my friends who chose to ride the waves of my emotions -- my many ups and downs. They accept me for who I am and love me for it, for everything that comes with it. I have fantastic friends who take care of me when I need to be taken care of and they allow me to take care of them. They let me go when I need to be free and do my thing and they hold on to me when I go too far, they won't let me go. They wait and they rush me. They smile when I make a joke and tell me that I did wrong when I do wrong. I am thankful for these people whom I found and who found me. We both make the effort to make this friendship work.

I am thankful for the blessing of being provided for. That no matter how indecisive I have been in my life and how careless and carefree I've been, I've never wanted for the things that kept me alive -- a roof on my head, food on the table and all the other basic necessities that I need to sustain my living everyday. I am thankful that an opportunity has always come when I needed it to come and that though I can only count 2 instances in my life when I have been wealthy and, maybe even affluent, I've never been hungry, really hungry and desperate enough to have been immoral. I am thankful that I've been in a position to make ends meet.

I am thankful for the times that I have been hungry, living alone and counting pennies and making sure that everything is paid and that I may have lived on instant noodles and peanut butter sandwiches for weeks on end and walked to work from where I lived (which was very far) that it taught me what I really needed in life and what it takes to stay alive and the value of working hard and earning your keep. I am thankful for the lessons it has taught me. It has inculcated into me the importance of paying your dues first before indulging in the pleasures of life.

I am thankful for the opportunities I've allowed myself to indulge in -- to have worked in a school and be a teacher, to have worked in advertising and know how hard it is to sell an idea, to have worked in the television industry and realise the power of media and its reach and the power of writing and how it reaches people and touches them in different ways and to be a performer and to realise how 1 moment of entertainment can be such a powerful thing. I am thankful that I've allowed myself to work hard and earn a trip to Shanghai and to many parts of my country -- La Union, Cebu, Bohol, Boracay and Palawan. I am thankful that I've taken the leap of faith across the chasm of uncertainty to have found that landing in the other side is both sweet and sour. The grass is greener on the other side but it has its flaws as well.

I am thankful for having an open mind and for allowing myself the flexibility to let new ideas come in. I am thankful that I am not set in my ways and that I allow myself to adjust and change when something new and innovative comes to mind. I am glad that the wold still holds wonders for me and that I will always be able to learn something from people. I am thankful that I am porous and that there I see the value of other people -- from learning from them and letting them affect me.

I am thankful that I am open to sharing my view with the world. I am thankful that I am open to the world and that I want to be a part of it -- by living it and sharing what I've learned. I am thankful that I understand the importance of communication; that through interaction can we truly enrich our own lives and others. I am thankful that people are open to hearing what I have to say and are honest about how they feel about what I have to say. I am not alone in this world.

I am thankful that I have not taken this world and all it has to offer for granted. I am thankful that I am alive and that I'm going through all this, that I am capable of experiencing happiness and sadness, pain and pleasure. I'm thankful that life is not meaningless to me and that I have the power to make my life better or worse and no one else holds that power over me.

I am very, very grateful.

fantastic friends

2006-05-30T02:05:00.000+08:00

Margaret Sangster from Sin of Omission
It's not the thing you do, dear, it's the things you leave undone that give you a bit of heartache at the setting of the sun.

Haven't been too much of a good friend as of late. I've been to involved in my own predicament that I haven't been available to my friends. That's the problem with being self-obsessed and self-centered -- the tendency is to only focus on your life when problems strike; when things aren't going your way. When everything is good, and there are clear horizons ahead, you have all the time in the world for everyone. But when things are not okay, then you retreat inside and want to take care of yourself but the tendency is towards moping and sulking.

That is why I was so very happy to have met up with Lance and DC last Friday. And, on an impulse, I invited Berna to go with us. I've been dying to hang out with her and realised she would be in good company with Lance and DC and I was happy and quite fortunate that she was available and willing. I don't usually mix friends, I hate that awkward moment when you start talking about people that are not within the same circles as some people in the group. I hate that. At the same time, DC and Lance are really good friends from a long time ago. And Berna has been a major, significant part of my life in 2 years that Lance and DC were not a part of. They are people from 2 different worlds in my life. There are things I'd want to talk about with Berna that I can't do with the 2 guys and vice versa. But there were not similarities with the three of them that I knew we could hack it. At the same time, I was pleasantly pleased to be able to put Berna in a sort of backseat and just observe me with other people. I'm different, I guess and it's great for me to actually show her what I'm like rather than hear it spoken from my mouth. Now, she doesn't have to take my word for it. She actually experienced it.

Happily, Lance brought a camera so we were able to have some actual footage of that crazy evening. I met up with Berna and Lance at Glorietta where we watched X-Men 3, The Last Stand (Berna for the first time, Lance and I for the second time). Then we went to Kitchen to meet up with DC and have a late dinner. We stayed in Kitchen the whole time and just chatted all night until Berna had to leave because she had an early call time the next day and Lance had to go to work.
DC and I then proceeded to Jay's place where we caught up and just had great conversation. I am always thankful for DC to always be so aware. With DC, I have this fantastic conversations that I would like to call "pedestrian philosophy." We don't exactly have the terminologies and the science of actually speaking philosophy, but we keep asking each other questions and stating examples about how we see life and the world and we break down the exact nature of things when we converse. At the end of this amazing conversations I have with DC, I always end up enjoying my life more. I always end up with a big smile on my face and a better understanding of myself and of DC, as well. I end up having to articulate my beliefs of how I see things, things I never bothered thinking aloud before -- I did it because I knew it was right for me, but I never had to think about the whys or try to articulate it. And when you articulate it, put it to words, it makes more sense than knowing it on an instinctive level. It is so satisfying to have conversations with DC.

DC eventually left when the sun rose and I slept at Jay's. I then woke up, went home to change and then go to Alabang for a semi-family reunion and then back home to get my things and change and then went to Chicane.

Chicane was more of a concert than a rave but it was perfectly fine. Chicane is an amazing composer and I like his songs and I had a grand time but the location was lousy. The place was extremely hot and completely uncomfortable because of it. The speakers were bad at the first 30 minutes of Chicane's set. I saw some people I wish I didn't see and saw some people I'm very glad to have seen.

Now, things are looking pretty good. Some things were thrown my way and instead of taking them, I chose to be wiser and told them I'd think about it and I really did. And so I might not be in a very good place now, I'm going to be very soon. I've been working hard, I've been getting rest, I've been figuring out what I need and what works for me. I'm cementing an image of myself that I want and working slowly to make it stable and not to break it again, like I always seem to do.

I have a calm and serene feeling right now. I wish it would remain this whole week and it because something burning bright with passion and excitement by next week. I've been sulking and moping for a little too long now.

Happy with X-Men 3

2006-05-25T05:03:00.000+08:00

Henry David Thoreau
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Considering my father and my literary education and my elitist views on art and the human experience -- I do know how to watch a film. There are movies that insists you take it seriously and you do and you tend to judge that film based on the standards it sets for itself. Then there are movies that insists you sit back, relax and just enjoy and then you base your standards on that. I judge a movie by what it tries to do. While Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy insists you sit back and watch the cinematic presentation of that great work of literature, I was awed and amazed by how much of the book he was able to bring out, how much of the intentions of the book he was able to reveal and how much of the joy of reading that book he was able to evoke. When Peter Jackson made King Kong, I watched it and I began to see that he did not want to try and make a powerful, moving piece as he did with J. R. R. Tolkien's literary work; he wanted to make a really good version of an old film. And so, I decided not to look for depth or, as the newspaper critic would call it, a story and instead just allow myself to be brought into this journey. And with such expectations, I enjoyed King Kong greatly. I had fun watching the giant gorilla fall in love with the enchanting character played fantastically by Naomi Watts.

As such, I can enjoy movies like the first Charlie's Angels, wherein it is an action/comedy that defies traditional reality in exchange for the surreal and the humorous. On that level, I was not expecting logic or a grounded sense of reality. What they presented was fun and I enjoyed myself. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the sequel, which I found too "over the top," as they say, and the actors were having too much fun at our expense. They created a groundwork for the surreality in which they existed in the first movie and then proceeded to take 3 steps further without regard for our own enjoyment.

The point I really want to get to, really, is to say that I just watched X-Men III The Last Stand with Datu and Kristi and I enjoyed this movie very, very much. Yes, it has its flaws, but the good parts outweighed the bad. From the first scene, I was glued to the spot, huge smile on my face and shouting deep inside, All right, Brett Ratner, I like what I see! Bring it on!

For the first part, this is much, much bigger than the first 2 X-Men movies. Not only in locations, where everything seems like a real location and not a set but the characters use their powers in normal situations. For me, these people have powers and they use it, it is part of their lives. It wasn't like the Brian Singer films where the powers were used in conjunction with the story-telling or to emphasize a character. This is the true super-hero movie I have been waiting for all my life.

You have to excuse me, I'm a super-hero geek, deep down inside. I grew up reading and collecting X-Men comics as a kid. I watched cartoons religiously. I read every super-hero genre comic that was available to me. I was (and maybe still am) a comic geek. I can recount to you the history of the X-Men from The Dark Phoenix Saga until the first few issues of Joe Kelly's run of the X-Men. That's from the early 80s until the late 90s, if I'm not mistaken. That's 10 years of X-Men history, for you.

I was growing up thinking of what my super-hero name would be and what I could do and what my costume would look like. I grew up thinking of my super-hero team and what was our angle, what made us different. And truth be told, there are days when I don't think about the great book or movie that I'd be writing, or the great love story of my life. Yes, there are still days when I day dream of having super-powers.

And everytime a movie comes out with super-powers in it, I was always sort of, kind of disappointed. Because of budget constraints, it never really reaches the point where it gets really messy and everybody is using their powers. I loved The Incredibles because that's what a movie about super-heroes should be like. X-Men and X-Men 2 was fine, but it didn't have that bigness. Everything felt contained. The Mysery Men was funny but it wasn't your true blue super-hero movie. The old Superman films suffered from poor special effects. Batman Begins is fantastic and one of my top 10 favourite films but Batman Begins is not a super-hero movie. Batman is extra-ordinary but not superhuman.

Funny, but the closest thing to a super-hero film that really made me excited was Sky High. While I enjoyed the film greatly and satisfied my super-hero fantasies, it was written for younger audiences. Hellboy was fun too, but it was mostly Hellboy that we got to see. League of Extraordinary Gentleman was fun and cool too, but they were bordering on the mystical and the extraordinary (Duh!) but not really super-powered. No, I'm sorry... None come to mind now except for The Incredibles, Sky High and, of course, X-Men III The Last Stand.

Let me start, first, of course, by saying that every comic fan of the X-Men will probably be throwing hissy-fits at the creative licenses Brett Ratner took to making his X-Men film. Let me continue by saying, I don't care! At this point, there is no way they could make a fun, believable and tight 2-hour film by following the canon. That's over 20 years of history that they have to put together, after all and not everyone read the comic book. So he's allowed to play around, and let me tell you, he played around a lot.

But the movie was big, action packed and continues to move on in every scene. Not one point was I bored and I was excited by everything he throws at us. Let me say, no one is safe and I was jumping in my seat with every new surprise coming my way. Wolverine loses his fierceness 80% of the movie but is given his due in one scene. Magneto proves why he is one fearsome mutant and not one to trifle with. Jean Grey is given her due, as well as Kitty Pride and Juggernaut. Ian McKellen had a blast as did Famke Jansen and Rebecca Romijn. Anna Paquin is as lovely as ever but lovelier still is Famke Jansen, who, I think, really gets to shine. I'm very happy with what they did with Juggernaut and was totally thrilled by what they did with The Beast and, ultimately, was absolutely blown away as each scene led to a fantastic climax.

I also salute him in lessening the screen time of already developed characters to make way for new ones and for his directorial vision to use certain characters as metaphors for the message of the movie. They might not have done much, but in truth, they helped spread the message of the movie. Some people will be wanting more and yes, I do want more, but for the 2 hours that I was sitting in that theatre, I enjoyed every minute. He was courageous as a director and I applaud him for that. It was a great, fun, summer blockbuster film. It didn't change my life, but it did affirm the inner comic geek in me. Just like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy of Peter Jackson brought a teen-age fantasy to life for me in the big screen, Brett Ratner's X-Men III The Last Stand brought a childhood fantasy to life. Thank you for that!

I so enjoyed myself that I'm going to watch the film again with my friends on Friday (which I am supposed to but I couldn't wait when Datu offered to watch it last night) and I'm sure to enjoy it again.

Bright and Early

2006-05-24T17:28:00.000+08:00

Jewel from Satellite (written by Jewel Kilcher)
We understand a lot of things
About modern technology
But not about dreams
Our hearts are on the shelves
We can't fix ourselves
But we can fix a satellite

I like waking up early and going to work. Worked with a very difficult client. We are totally not on the same page and as the producer, director and executive producer were losing their cool, I, who has lost my cool at home or at Jay's house and bitched and whined and complained about this client, was able to keep my cool, look her in the eye and said, Okay, Ma'am, so what is it that you want from us? She has stepped too far and is asking for too much and, unfortunately, it is a complete misunderstanding. The producers did not properly set the parameters of what she was to expect from the costings that we gave her. It is not her fault she does not understand the jargon and what comes with the cost estimate. She said what she wanted and we did the translation in our heads based on what the approved budget was and what is expected of an AVP. Unfortunately, when she said she wanted a commercial we thought she meant she wanted a commercial treatment for the AVP. Our bad. But as much trouble as it would be for us, it's our job as service providers to provide the service that is expected.

I really hate client-servicing projects such as this but what can I do? It's the highest paying job a writer can get into third to movies and television but both forces you to deal with producers who think they are artists and muddle up the whole process. But I take it all in. The pain killers aren't the toughest or the strongest but it helps me stay a little numb and gives me reason not to be so talkative or perky as people expect me to be.

But I accomplished much today and made a plan of attack and then passed by Greenhills to reserve tickets for a movie with Datu and Kristi. I did some shopping with the very little money I have left -- bought Jewel's Good Bye Alice in Wonderland and Barbie Almalbis' Parade. While they are not super happy/jump for joy purchases -- they are enough to pass me by the month of May. Anyhow, Satellite and Last Dance Rodeo are my favourite Jewel songs (though I prefer the versions that came out in the Unplugged performance). I am enjoying Where You Are and Again and Again so it's not a complete loss or waste of money. For Barbie's album, well, I've loved her since the Hungry Young Poets days and I've always found a winning song in each album. For Parade, I am enjoying Dahilan and Overdrive and I fell in love with the song High on the radio and was surprised to find that it is her with this band called The Speaks. And Pag-alis is one of my favourite songs from the first album of Barbie's Cradle. To hear it again with a different arrangement just affirms how much I love this song.

It's strange to walk around with the bandages on my face. Datu went a little overboard when he put it on and the sterile strips went on my eye lids and that made it very uncomfortable and I ended up rubbing on it so now I have a black-eye. I replaced the sterile strips this morning on my own and made it smaller and kept away from the eyelid. It's more comfortable now and while still very obvious (it's on the nose and the eyebrow, after all) it isn't as menacing or freakish. Now, people are staring because it looks like I came from a fight. I look tough and serious. Girls are afraid of me and guys end up sizing me up. I've really learned how to walk tough in the streets to keep people from messing with me and it all adds up to an image of myself that I'm not use to. After all, with my friends, I'm the one they make fun of, or maybe they come to me for trivial information or maybe ask advice. But I'm not the tough guy at all.

Now I'm home and I'm doing some work and then I'll take a little nap before dinner, watch the movie with my brother and sister-in-law and write the new storyline of a possible project I've got. It's amazing -- for months, I've been fixing the God damned thing in my head to no success and just today, it comes from nowhere. I figured it out. I'm excited to throw myself at it later. It's going to be impressive.

Fishing, I was told, is not just hooking the fish to the line. I was told that you have to gently push and pull, tug to secure the hook and then to let it go a bit to allow the fish to get the hook deeper in. It's a process of pulling and pushing before you reel the fish in. The creative process is like fishing, I guess. Sometimes you jump off the boat and club them fishy bastards and other times, you just sit back and wait, light up your cigarette and wait for the suckers to bite the bait.

You learn something new everyday.

Jewel Kilcher from Satellite (written by Jewel Kilcher)
The pope can't fix my broken heart
Rock-n-Roll can't fix my broken heart
Valium can't fix my broken heart
Ms. Cleo can't fix my broken heart
But will you fix my broken heart?
Cause I'm gonna give you a satellite
Fix my broken heart

(picture above taken by Jay sometime April, 2006; picture of me, looking out at the sea in Cagbalete, Quezon taken by Chinkee during Holy Week of 2006)

stuck

2006-05-23T14:51:00.000+08:00

Queen Snow White from The Tenth Kingdom
I know she was bad? Of course I did. But I also knew that I couldn't keep the door closed all my life just because it was dangerous... just because there was a chance I could get hurt.

Am on self-imposed house arrest today. I've got bandages on my face and anti-biotics and pain-killers running through my body so I'm afraid of what I'll be like outside of the house. I now think about the whole tripping over the carpet thing with much amusement. After all... that was really dumb! It puts a smile on my face. At least now, there won't be so much picture taking for a bit. They'll be asking me to take the pictures. Ha Ha Ha

I got to thinking about being stuck at home and not being able to go out. The mole on my feet is starting to itch. If it was just a voluntary choice to stay home, then everything would be fine, but it isn't. If it was voluntary, I'd be able to sit still and just read a book or finish my writing but this isn't that sort of thing. I'm stuck here because of the state I'm in and that always gets my wanderlust aching.

That's probably the reason why I have commitment problems. When something is expected of me, I go nuts! I go crazy. I guess I don't deal well with demands -- unless I like the person/situation who is making the demand. Planetzips can make any demand of me and I'd be gladly willing to meet and then exceed their expectations. I like them and I like zipping. Or when I was working on TXTube in GMA NMI. I believed in the show and I loved working with Binky and Bam and Berna. They asked anything and I'd do it. But something like my work in my most recent office -- I was having difficulties enjoying that sort of hold.

Right now, I just want to go to Greenbelt or something. Just walk around and see people in activity. Except it just rained and that will make things difficult and I'm just scared of having to commute all that way and it might rain again. It rained pretty hard here at my area. With these bandages on my face, I'm pretty vulnerable right now. Or at least feeling vulnerable and the pain-killers are making me a little slow.

I nice trip out would be great but I can't afford it. Got to work. Got to work...

(shot of Greenbelt, taken with my old phone sometime in February (or was it January?) 2006. Shot of Jay, Morx and I on our arrival at Mauban, Quezon, taken by Jezer during Holy Week of 2006)

a rush of blood in the head

2006-05-23T02:34:00.000+08:00

David Cronenberg
We think identity is genetically given, but I believe there is creative will involved with the decision of who we are going to be.

I left for Jay's birthday party that sorta-kinda lasted for 3 days. 2 nights of fun and a day just to relax and chill and hang out, to let the weekend pass by and go home normal, rather than blundering from a night full of partying.

Well, the first night was a bust. A new friend, Nino, got drunk and insisted I take shots of wine and champagne. I was totally against it. You don't shoot wine or champagne! You taste it! You're just wasting the taste, I would shout but he was vehement. He wanted me to have as much fun as he is. So I drank. And I drank and drank some more. I got to the party at 10pm. By 1am, I was so God damned wasted, I made a really stupid case against why anyone would want to wear a tie (all it does is create an arrow to the penis!) and generally made an ass of myself. Everyone thought it was funny and okay and they said I didn't push the boundary or made fun of anyone severely. Everyone was laughing at me and with me. So no harm done. Of course, Kate and Cathy arrived at around 1:30am and I didn't even get to exchange more than 10 sentences with them before I passed out on the couch. Next thing I knew, I woke up and I was on one of the beds with someone else. Oh shit, I thought to myself, I got wasted.

The second night was fun as well and nothing untoward happened, at least. It was just a great time with great friends. Less people, more intimate. It was a great idea of Jay to invite the closer friends on the second night -- the ones he has been really spending much time with and whose company means a lot to him. It created a very intimate and personal atmosphere. It was really a treat. Had a blast.

Sunday found just the four us -- Jay, Rex, Morx and myself just chillin' out at the hotel room. We were just hanging around, filled with so much toxins that we didn't really feel like moving about. So we watched television, ordered fast food delivery and then ate without much gusto. We sat down in bed again and fell asleep and woke up to watch television. We were lying down for hours before I decided to stand up and get a glass of water. On my way out, I guess I must've stood too fast or something but the blood just rushed out of my head so quickly, I sorta lost balance, then I tripped on the carpet and ended being woken up from the floor. Rex was holding me and asking if I was okay. Wangs, what happened?

I said, what am I doing here? Wasn't I in bed? And he looked at me, incredulously. He asked me if I remembered having stood up to get water. It was vague. I was having a really vivid dream when Rex woke me up so I had thought I was just asleep but when he mentioned me getting up for water, I remembered standing up to get water. I remember filling the glass with ice and then approaching the water then darkness. I had fallen unconscious while tripping on the carpet. I remembered the head rush and the dizziness.

Then, like a movie, I was smiling and I'm sure blushing because I was really embarrassed and then Rex's eyes went wide open and he said you're bleeding! And I said, I am? And when I brushed my fingers over my forehead and looked, there was blood all over my fingers. Morx came out about this time and started shouting, Oh my God! There's so much blood! It was like a movie because I didn't feel anything. I was like, it's probably just a cut. And then Rex and Morx insisted I go to the hospital. Jay turned white.

I slowly started walking to the bathroom to inspect the damage and asked, how long was I out? And Rex said it was just moments because the moment they saw me fall over, he ran out to check on me. Strange, I said, because I had a rather long dream. That, of course, freaked everyone out some more. When I finally reached the bathroom and looked in the mirror, my face was a bloody mess! I had a gash in my nose and I think some bone could be seen and a large gash in my eyebrow that showed the skin cracked and parting. The only thing I could think of was, Shit! I'm going to need stitches! I hope they give me a really strong pain killer!

I refused to go to the hospital without brushing my teeth and changing my shirt and putting on deoderant. I wanted to take a bath but they wanted me at the hospital right away. After all, I might be suffering from a concussion or post-traumatic stress syndrome or whatever. I was just so calm, I didn't want to over-react. But they were really scared. I brushed my teeth, sprayed my Nivea Anti-perspirant/Deodorant spray and changed my shirt and was ready to leave. When I got to the hospital, I looked like a bloody mess but I refused to just sit down, I wanted to keep moving. Everyone was telling me to sit. I'm such a horrible patient.

Apparently, I didn't need stitches. If I did, it would have been just 1 for the nose and 2, at the most, for the eyebrow cut. But these could be healed by sterile strips. It wasn't that serious. So that was cool. And I had to take a CT scan and that was fun. Never had one before. The doctor wasn't scared at all because if I had internal bleeding or a concussion, I should've vommitted after my fall or when I woke up. But I didn't so there was probably no internal damage. Hey! I have a hard head! He He He

Got out of the hospital and I'm so happy because aside from the anti-biotics, I have a prescription for pain-killers! Hee Hee Not that I'm an addict or anything but the doozy feeling of walking around with your head in the air is the only thing that's fun in an injury or an infection. I don't go around buying pain-killers and taking them without doctor's approval. In fact, I hate taking any kind of pill with or without doctor's consent. But if they prescribed pain-killers, I'm so happy for it. He He He That's the addict in me, I guess! Ha Ha Ha

So here I am now, back from a super enjoyable weekend party. I've got sterile strips on my nose and on my eye brow, looking like Nelly whose stylist just went overboard and I've got this little head ache at the nose area where the pressure is building because I asked Datu to put the strip on tight so that it really closes the gash and I'm going to see what life is going to be like in the next coming days.

Exciting days are coming. I can feel it. And it has nothing to do with the bump in the head. It's just that it can't get any worse than that! Damn, carpet! He He He

not enought time

2006-05-20T16:42:00.000+08:00

John Updike
The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.

I just don't seem to have enough time to do anything! I just quit my job and on my last day, they throw me a presentation and 5 concepts to work on. And of all the days, that was when we were working very, very slowly. I was losing my temper, getting all red in the face and totally incapable of anything slightly resembling humour.

And on the day that I've decided to quit and allow myself more free time for myself, I get a call from someone who is offering me a project. Great! I felt lucky to know that something will always come up for me. Felt is the appropriate word. The person on the other end of the line gave me a Monday deadline. I got the call on Thursday.

I still have articles due to submit and a script I have to finish. Why can't they tell me earlier? Why can't I have a week grace period to work on anything? Why does everyone want me to think up of something and write it in a matter of 2 or 3 days? I know, that in the past, I have been able to deliver and it's great to know that people believe in me but right now, I just want to have a chance to do some stuff for myself.

Stop it! Stop it, Wanggo! Don't complain. You're always complaining but you never say "no." And it's going to put food on your table and pay for the ceiling that keeps you dry from the rain. I just find it unfair that people who need things, willing to pay for them, have no concept of time or how hard it is to rack my brain for something that they want. It's tiring too and if I don't have a chance to have a life, there is no way I can come up with something new and original and exciting. I need to have time for myself -- to read a book, to watch a movie, to walk in the streets and see what people are wearing, where people are going, what people are saying and how they move and react to the world.

People don't understand that creative people -- artists, artists, painters, writers, actors, production designers, architects -- all kinds of people who have to make something beautiful and functional at the same time (yes, art does serve a function and... oh! that's a whole `nother blog!) have to have lives. Creative people have to be able to live to be able to do their jobs well. You chain them to their office and their ability to create dies right there, frozen by the cold steel of the chain.

Datu wants to play an RPG game and I've got so many people who want to meet up with me, and my Dad and Mom need me to send something -- and truth be told, I want to do all these things for people. I want to play RPG with Datu because I know what it means to him; though I don't enjoy it anymore. I want to meet up with all my friends but there are only 7 days in the week and I only have so much money. I want to do the stuff for my Mom and Dad, hell, I owe them so much, but I don't have the time to do it with work and all (they asked me to do this stuff when I was in the middle of working in the slave-driving office).

Sometimes, when all these things come together, it starts to feel like demands. When you don't have the time to do the stuff you want, all these other things, though not demands start feeling like it. But that's the life I have right now so I'm going to live it and make the most out of every situation.

Oh yeah... and something else is happening to me. Something weird and strange and totally unexpected. It is all a bunch of coincidences and experiences that, when put together, all of a sudden makes sense, somehow.

Talk about it soon...

much ado about The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-19T04:57:00.000+08:00

from The Princess Diaries
Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the realiation that something is more important than fear.

I just watched The Da Vinci Code with Datu and Kristi. There were so many people who were trying to get a ticket that they had to open a whole theatre at 1am just to accommodate the amount of people who wanted to watch. Datu told me that the SM malls were not showing the movie because of its anti-Catholic/anti-Christianity theme. So more and more people were flocking to other theatres just to watch it.

It was fun. I think Ron Howard was a great choice for director, considering his amazing ability to visualize the abstract. His vision in A Beautiful Mind and ability to make us see the inner workings of the main character's mind was just sheer genius. Again, it was needed in this kind of film where, other than being able to pick out the clues from visual imagery in terms of the paintings, there were historical concepts that needed to be brought up without being boring. He was able to tell the main point of Dan Brown's book and still keep it an adventure-mystery story. At the same time, he saw the movie (or the story) as being something of a meeting point between the past and the present. His directorial choice to let the images of the past meet the present was an excellent move on his part. The movie was very entertaining.

Naturally, a lot of the book was missing but what did you expect? How much could they tell in 2 and a half hours? They took what was necessary and showed it. I've read the book and still had fun. In my opinion, that means it is a success.

Don't get me wrong, though, I'm not a big fan of The Da Vinci Code. I found the book entertaining and informative. It got me to thinking but not by too much. I had already discovered some of the things the book was trying to uncover on my own, from reading other stuff. And I didn't find the book life changing in any way since I'm not a Catholic. The book was asking questions I was already asking -- just that it was more well-researched and more historically based. But I had fun, the 2 days it took me to finish the book. It was a fun adventure and an interesting and intriguing mystery, and while I won't say that it's a book that is anywhere near my top 20 list (it isn't) but it didn't waste my time.

What can I say? I'm a literary snob. I was trained to read by Dr. Marjorie Evasco, Dr. Cirilo Bautista, Dr. Luisa Aguilar-Carino-Igloria and other luminaries of Philippine Literature. I'm more impressed by lyrical prose, by the merging of form and substance, the literary quality of books that separate pop art and true art. I consider Annie Dillard's For the Time Being as a spectacular book and I'm enthralled by the writing style of Jeanette Winterson or the immediacy and straight-forward prose of Philip K Dick. I have much higher standards for my literary inclinations. (Fuck, I'm such a fucking snob-bastard!)

What gets to me, though, is how a lot of people are so pissed off at Dan Brown and The Da Vinci code for its supposed anti-religion/anti-Catholic/anti-Christianity themes. The Opus Dei are so against it and the religious owners or managers or whoever of the SM malls banned it from being seen in their theatres. Why? It's not as if the books points were completely impossible? It's not as if he went so far as to create false events to paint them in a bad light? In fact, there is so much history of the violence of the church throughout the years that it does make for very good fiction. And he's always said that it is a work of fiction. I think the book, and the movie, has a very good message in the end, despite how it may portray the Opus Dei and Christianity.

In the end, it's not the facts that are going to change the world but people's faith. No matter what you know and what is put before you, your faith shall carry you through. This book is not going to change anything and neither is the movie. At the most, it will make people think very hard about what it is they believe in and it will make it stronger, or if it won't, it will make people ask questions -- questions that will lead them to the answer they need to get through. And that's not such a bad thing, really. It makes people not take things for granted.

I think a lot of people take too many things for granted. They do it because other people are or worse, they do it because it has always been that way. That's so awful. We should always ask questions and keep asking questions and we should always be looking for the truth. We should never be satisfied with the testimony of others but find the answers for ourselves. And when we've found it -- when we've been through hell and high water; then we can rest easy at night and no one, no movie or book will steer us away from that which we believe in.

So say what you want to say, ask and keep on asking. In the end, I will make up my own mind and so should you.

full moon in Paris, sunrise in Mexico

2006-05-18T18:25:00.000+08:00

Antoine de Saint-Exupery
What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

I've been chatting with Djong on the yahoo messenger today and we kept talking about our dreams to travel the world. Live the lives of bohemians and live by the day, throwing caution to the wind and really making the most of what this life has to offer.

But fear is stopping us from making that step forward. We are easily deterred from taking that monumental journey that will complete our way of making ourselves who we want to be. But once it happens, once we get to that next step, BLAM! We will be able to fully realise who we are and we're going to be unstoppable.

I've been thinking a lot about the things I want from the world and all of a sudden, while being rich and having money is a great fantasy, it's more and more falling down on my list of priorities. I want to see more exotic sunsets in gorgeous beautiful locations. I want to have more and more interesting, deeply personal conversations with interesting people, characters who have done things and seen stuff.

I want to be able to zip in beaches that are not in the Philippines. I want to read more books and read them in weird places like in a train station in Vienna or in the airport in Iceland or in a coffee shop in South Africa. I want to drive down a street in Hyderabad or ride a boat in the rivers of Malaysia or Laos. I want to find myself bargaining with a street vendor in Egypt or haggling over the price of a finely woven carpet in Morocco.

I want to write a book and be read by an Englishman on his vacation in Paris, a New Yorker reading at home on the weekends, an Indian professor in-between checking his student's papers at the University in New Delhi. I want to have pictures taken of me in The Great Wall of China, The Taj Mahal and the Outback.

I want to go dancing in a club in Russia and walking in the streets of Amsterdam or go shopping in a mall in Singapore. I want to kiss the Blarney stone in Ireland (is that right?) and work in a sheep ranch in New Zealand for 3 months. I want to go surfing in the beaches of Japan and sun bathe in Cape Town.

I want to see the new moon from the streets of Shanghai or get crazy with the full moon in Paris and find myself in some thrilling, romantic experience with a stranger that lasts for the 3 nights of the full moon and to always wonder if that was the one? I want to watch a sunset in a beach in Indonesia and find myself in a cruise around the Mediterrenean. I want to find myself on a beach in Acapulco, watching the sunrise with a half-full glass of Zombie and a smile on my face. I want to have a cup of coffee with 3 good friends in a beautiful little shack in Alaska while watching the Aurora Borealis and throw another coin into the Fountain of Trevi.

I don't see myself ever settling down. I don't see myself with a sedentary life. I'm not a tree but a vine. I'm not a lake or a pond but a river and a waterfall. I'm not a satellite with a fixed orbit but a comet that travels that universe in search of something brighter than my own brilliance.

taking it back

2006-05-18T04:40:00.000+08:00

Margaret Atwood
The Eskimos have fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.

A great big burden has been lifted from my shoulders. The weight is off my back. I can breathe easy again. It's done and over.

Yes, today I told my direct superior and friend, Leigh, that as much as I love the Strategic Development Team and that I found the work fun and challenging, it was just too much. I understand that it is big business but I would wake up and immediately go to work and then stay at work the whole day and then come home and it was go to sleep and back to the same old drawing board -- or sometimes, stay at Jay's house so that I won't be so late anymore. Or worse, get home and work at home so that I can submit stuff before the morning comes and we can submit the stuff before hand. It's just crazy!

It's big business. I'm sure there are people who love that sort of challenge, but I'm not up to it. I'm not afraid of hard work but I believe that if I'm going to work that hard on something, it has to be something I believe in rather than getting people to buy more of a particular product. I cannot abide by capitalism. I don't live by that code. Sure, it's great to be rich and have lots of money but that is not my be all and end all. I want to make a difference. I want to be able to enrich people's lives. I cannot work in the office whose sole purpose is to help big companies just make more money. If I were to work that hard, like I did for TXTube, it better be something that will actually entertain or make people's lives better. TXTube was entertaining for a lot and we were able to show people interesting things to try out.

I didn't have a life anymore. Day in, day out, I was just a machine. I was just working and working. I haven't seen Mission Impossible 3 yet or I haven't seen an episode of any new television show. I'm still in the same chapter in my book, haven't read anything new and am far from finishing it. I've only seen Jay and those who visit him because he lives 2 blocks from my office. I need to have my life back. I want it back, so that's what I did. I took it back.

So I quit. Finishing the week and then I'm back to freelance land and I'm going to look at all my options again and hope that things will be better this time round. I'm hoping that the other job offer is still open. That's something I can really sink my teeth into.

Many thanks to the Captain, Cat, for helping me out and chatting with me this whole week and helping me clear out my head. I've missed out on some good zip gigs but I think I'm back on track. I won't be so hard on myself like I was on this moment. We are allowed to make mistakes. Just learn from them and it will be okay.

(Cat and I at Caliraya at the end of March, 2006)

itchy feet

2006-05-17T09:55:00.000+08:00

Ralph Gerard
Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them.

I saw a movie last night called L' Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) and it was a French movie set in Barcelona. The lead was going to take Economics in the University of Barcelona. While he was there, he rooms in a tiny apartment with 5 different students -- 2 girls, 1 from Spain and 1 from England and 3 guys, 1 German, 1 Danish and an Italian. They were all from different countries who had gone there to study. In one of his classes, he meets up with a Belgian who babysits to pay for her room rent. There were scenes when they would all talk and it's college talk -- idealistic, studied, structured and very passionate. It was so appealing. I was just getting excited. I was having a hard time understanding the film because the film wasn't formatted for the television set and the subtitles were tucked at the bottom, half the letters of the lowest line in the subtitles were being eaten away and it was making it very difficult to read. But there they were, students from different countries, dealing with each other, studying, becoming whole. I wish I could have finished (and started) the movie but I had to sleep. But I saw what I needed to see.

It was such a wonderful look into what life could be like.

I started to think that maybe there are so many other options for me. What am I saying? That is exactly what I told my friend Daniel from Denmark yesterday. There are always options -- choices that we didn't know were available to us. We just have to sit still for a minute and clear our heads and it will present itself. Studying abroad has always been available to me if I just work it. I should get off my ass and finally apply for that Fulbright Scholarship. Start setting money aside for that trip abroad, for the tuition, for the money that scholarships can't provide for.

What am I so scared of?

I've been to so many places, more than some people and I've seen wonderful things. I've been dazzled and amazed by the Bund of Shanghai, the cathedrals of Rome, the Duomo of Florence, the buildings of Hong Kong. I've been to one of the oldest mangroves in the world in Sabang, Palawan and drank fresh from a mountain spring in Quezon. I've been up to Baguio and have gone to Boracay which is not provincial anymore but practically a city already.

There is just so many things to see. I want to see them all.

I've been getting this itch to disappear for a month to write something -- a novel? A movie? I don't know. But I think it's time that I start getting something done. I've been sitting with my thoughts for far too long. No more time. I've been dawdling, I've been distracted, I've been taking too much time. What am I so scared of? There are things that I want that, in truth, I'm also very scared of. I'm a person who so easily falls into my comfort zones and I can't get out of them. Truth is, I guess, I'm not as brave as I think I am, or let myself out to be. But at one point, I'm just going to burst and I need to do this. I really need to do this. What am I waiting for? That point of explosion? It isn't going to do me any good. So let's scratch the itch, let's scratch the ache. It's now or never.

(picture of a river in Banahaw (Quezon) taken from TXTube footage, taken in May 2005. Shot of one of Palawan's islands taken from the airplane by Rica de Ramos, June 2006.)

Switching Lanes (the swerve to the left was a mistake)

2006-05-16T17:53:00.000+08:00

Oscar Wilde
Experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes.

I've had enough. I did not leave one place in frustration to just come back to another place that's exactly the same. This is not an exercise in futility. I didn't get here just to go back to where I started. I made a decision to do what I love. I refuse to love what I do; or better yet, I refuse to love what I have ended up doing. I have choices. I've received so much encouragement and praises for having chosen to live the life I wanted. I am not going to turn back on all that just for some false sense of security and a whip on my back!

I have always told people that you can be sustained by that which you love. It may not make you rich but you can live on it. Afterall, whatever it is you love, you will do well. And whatever you do well will be received with pleasure and much acceptance. There is energy in passion and people will see that energy, some people feed on that energy and that is what will sustain you. I've been weak. I've strayed. Not anymore.

Tomorrow it ends. Tomorrow I'm putting an end to this and hoping to God that there is still a chance to grab that opportunity that presented itself just a little too late. I've never been a patient man, and so I quickly make mistakes. Thank God it also means that I'm quick to fix it. I took a swerve to the left. It just seemed like the right route to take at the time. Never make desperate decisions. Clear your head. Think. We can't see the future but we know ourselves -- and that should be good enough.

complaining, whining, bitching

2006-05-15T10:21:00.000+08:00

Pablo Picasso
I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Am in a financial slump as of the moment. I've all this money but no access to it. I'm getting frustrated. I have to tighten up my belt much more tightly now than ever if I am to make it to the next payday. Whenever that will be!

And I get home in the weekend with the utmost need to use the computer and internet and I discover that our internet account has been frozen. Datu and Kristi haven't paid. And so my whole schedule was disrupted. Because of my financial problems, I don't have the money to pay for a full day usage in an internet cafe. So my whole schedule was fucked up and I don't know what I'm going to do to be able to catch up to my backlog of things to submit.

The rains haven't been helping either. I was hoping for a final blast of summer before the coming of the rainy season but typhoon "Caloy" made his presence known in a very inconvenient way. The rains made things very difficult -- like moving around, getting home, getting to work and stuff. I was wearing the wrong clothes for the weather. I was prepared and wearing clothes for the summer and it was raining in the middle of May! We were all hoping it would come later in the month but it came early this time round. Damn it!

Down in the dumps. If it weren't for great friends and 30 minutes to an hour every other day that I can sneak in my reading, I'd probably have jumped off a building by now.

mind control

2006-05-12T16:36:00.000+08:00

As texted to me by Cholo
Ability may let you reach heights, but only character allows you to stay there and enjoy it.

Last night, I decided to practice mind control. There is a theory that if you write down, on a piece of paper, statements in the present tense regarding yourself, they will come true, if you read it aloud 15 times a day. For example, if you write I have a million dollars in my bank account, it will come true if you read it often. The theory is that the human brain does not function in the future or in the past -- it only functions in the present. If it keeps receiving the statement on a regular basis -- let's say, 15 times a day, it will start working on a subconscious level to achieve the truth of the statement. You will subconsciously start to save money and then, before you know it, you have a million dollars in the bank.

The rules are that it must be in present tense. The wording should be in the positive, not in the negative. Instead of saying I don't cheat on my diet you should say I follow my diet strictly. Negative statements affect the brain in a certain way and might ruin the process. Keep it positive. At the same time, it should be hand-written. The brain responds better to your own handwriting than, let's say, printed with Word.

A friend of mine shared this mind control technique with me after reading it somewhere. I think it was Reader's Digest. My friend tried it and it worked. My friend had a huge bank account, which is what she wanted to achieve. This was back in college. I told my sister's good friend Tutis and she decided to try it. She put in the wall of her room I drive my own Pajero and within 8 months, she bought her own Pajero. I told Jay about it and he said that he did it once and managed to achieve what he had written. The statement holds true.

For some strange reason or another, I never did this technique. I don't know why. I guess I didn't want to get things in such a manipulative manner. I wanted to be in full control of my achievements. It's the control freak in me, I suppose.

But last night, I decided to write down in a piece of paper some things I wanted to achieve. I ended up with 7 statements. The first involved my social status. The second involves ownership, a material thing. The third and fourth is a statement regarding my finances. The fifth is about my career. The sixth is with regards to my appearance. The last is with regards to a skill.

Let's see if I can control my mind, force my subconscious to work with me rather than against me.

a very Extraordinary Machine

2006-05-11T11:15:00.000+08:00

Bjork from Headphones (written by Bjork and Tricky)
I like this resonance
It elevates me
I don't recognize myself
This is very interesting

I made a great disservice to Fiona Apple and Mike Elizondo. I said I love all the songs from her 3rd album Extraordinary Machine but that I prefered the original, unofficial bootlegged release of Jon Brion. But after constantly listening to the official release of the album, I must say, I now understand why it was re-recorded and why everything sounds the way it does.

Extraordinary Machine, as produced by Mike Elizondo and Brian Kehew, is a fantastic work of art. Fiona Apple, as a songwriter, has really evolved and grown and has become unbelievably superb. My Dad doesn't like her because he finds her too wordy. I don't mind. I find it very intelligent, revealing and deep. The official release, I said, took out the emotional intensity of Fiona's singing from the unofficial release. I said that the music lacked punch and that the quirkiness and eccentricities of Jon Brion's musical production managed to move in accordance to the lyrics.

But now that I'm listening to the Mike Elizondo sessions, I see why Fiona didn't like the unofficial versions -- it was too busy, too frenetic. The music shrouded over her and while the message remains the same, the impact of the song is two-fold, except, rightly so, with the songs Extraordinary Machine and Waltz (Better Than Fine) which should retain that over-production. They are immense songs and require that sort of "big-ness" to it.

On the other hand, Mike Elizondo and Brian Kehew downplayed the music to bring out the words, the meaning. The music just became a bed for the words to really play itself out. It doesn't usurp the song, it doesn't take it over. It is merely support. And I like how that works for Fiona Apple's songs. What makes her songs powerful are the words and her voice. And the re-recorded vocals are fabulous. Instead of being overtly emotional as it sounded in the unreleased version, the re-recorded vocals are more tempered, giving it a chilly feel that all of this is being told in the past-tense. There is more control and it restrains itself from being too dramatic, too emotional. It's just right. It's perfect.

And her songwriting is unbelievable. It's quirky and destroys any regular format of songwriting. Like my Dad said, it's wordy and gets to put so much thought in in one verse. Some songs don't follow the verse-chorus-verse-chorus format. She flits and darts from melody to melody. It's just unbelievable that anything can be this good. But it is. I love it.

Oh Well, Red, Red, Red and Better Version of Me are my favourite tracks in the album and of course, Extraordinary Machine, whose chorus is something I like to use on my yahoo status messenger whenever I can. It's a superb album and I'm so happy to have it and I'm sorry if there are people who didn't buy the album because I wrote a few weeks ago that the unreleased bootleg versions were, in my opinion, better. No, I was wrong. This is a more mature, more focused and more intense version.

Now, I hope she doesn't wait for another 6 years to release her next album. Because already, I am excited and giddy with excitement to hear with what she cooks up next.

my body gave out

2006-05-10T17:49:00.000+08:00

Alfredo Navarro Salanga
No tree lives without dying. No tree dies without touching the sky.

My body gave up on me. I finished the concept at 6am this morning and since I had to be in the office by 8am, I decided not to sleep anymore and just get ready for work. All I did was sit down on my bed to gather my coins, my house key and wallet and the next thing I knew I was awakened by my phone ringing. My superior was asking if I had fallen asleep since we were texting that morning when I had told her I sent the e-mail already. So I told her I was going to rush to the office. I stood up to urinate and the next thing I knew I was waking up on my bed and it was way past lunch time with 2 or 3 missed calls and a couple of texts. I was flustered! How did I get to my bed when my last conscious moment was peeing in the bathroom? My head was pounding, demanding more sleep and I was trying to get up but it began to rain and my body was telling me it needed more sleep. It took me forever to try and get out of bed. You know that feeling, lying in bed, willing your body to stand up but it totally won't do it. It won't get up? That's what it was like. Physically trying to get out of bed. It was horrible. I felt like an invalid.

I ended up sleeping a bit again.

Now I'm just resting my body. One whole day of just rest and not thinking about anything. I'll try to read another chapter of my book and maybe I do some creative writing. Gotta get my mind out of work for a day and then go back refreshed and ready for another week of tackling the mundane. While it's fun and challenging, I realised my work is really consumerism at work. It is using abstract and creative ideas to end up selling more. It's an amazing concept, really but it's funny considering I'm such an anti-capitalist. Deep down inside, I'm a bohemian, a free spirit.

Been asking people for stories, advice, anything to process what's going on inside right now. I'm fighting all my urges and quick judgements -- initial disappointments, attraction to the glitter and gold, expectations, unrealistic fantasies and assumptions -- to just be able to make a better decision. I don't want to make another mistake. I'm clearing my head. There's still so much work in my head right now. I gotta clear my head.

masochism at the workplace

2006-05-10T04:09:00.000+08:00

Fernando Afable
You can't get lost if you're sure you don't know where you're going.

Today was spent working on a concept for 1 event. We were to think of 2 possible activations that we can do in a school. Toughest thing I've ever had to think up of. It was more demanding than any of my Literary Research professor Doctor Bernie Oloroso's demands; and anyone who has gone under Ma'am Bernie would know what I mean. In fact, we haven't finished yet. Instead, we decided to take home the work and finish all our seperate parts and submit it all in the morning to have someone merge all the ideas together. I'm mentally spent, completely drained. I also know that the moment I step into the office tomorrow, they're throwing another school event at me, but they promised it would be easier. I like the work but it's just so demanding. Everyday, I'm like a sponge squeezed dry. I start the day excited and happy. As the day draws on, I try to keep a happy demeanor and throw out concepts like a madman. I make jokes and I make fun of myself to keep the atmosphere light. I end up smoking more and I've caught myself drinking soda and eating chips when I can. I look out the window and think what it would be like walking the streets of Makati at that moment. By the end of the day, the smile is gone, the jokes are a beat behind and my shoulders have slumped. I get home to wish for my bed, only to realise that I'm not yet done, I've got one more concept to do.

On a side note: don't get me wrong about Doctor Oloroso, she is a super fantastic teacher. Every meeting, we had to submit a new portion of our mock thesis and it was very demanding work. Deep inside, we were cursing her (or at least I was) and I just wanted to get the class over with. Everyday it was a new requirement, a new set of research materials to be passed. Nearing the end of the term, she told us that the following week we had to submit our mock thesis. We went nuts! We stood up and objected, we told her it would take us more than a week to finish all our chapters. She gave us a quizzical look and laughed at our faces. For everything that you passed and I returned, you take a look at my comments and do the necessary revisions. Then you compile it all in order and that's your thesis, was what she told us. Every week we were actually doing the mock thesis and we didn't notice (or at least I didn't). So by the time the deadline came, we were all passing it with smiling faces. It isn't one of those terms papers where you are told weeks in advance and then you only start doing it a week before the deadline. We went through each process one by one and made no shortcuts. It was amazing. I heard Doctor Oloroso is a fascinating teacher and I wish I got a class that dealt with literature more than the research of it. I wanted to have taken a class with her that was theoretical and more focused on the discussion of literary work rather than something that was strategic and process oriented. She left La Salle after that term. We all have very fond memories of her and we tried to visit her in the Filipinas Heritage Library when we could.

Today I got another job offer, one that is more to my liking. It came in a week late, though and I'm cursing the stars for such rotten luck and timing. I'd actually have been able to sleep more had I just waited another week, damn it! This was the kind of job, or the line of work, that I wanted to get back into. But now, I can't accept it in its entirety. I'm conflicted. I always have rotten timing.

Mistake after mistake. When will I learn my lesson? I'm such a masochist!

the juggling blues

2006-05-08T02:23:00.000+08:00

Wei Wu Wei
There is no mystery whatsoever -- only inability to perceive the obvious.

I'm going around in circles. Juggling time is almost over and then a call. Something else I can do on the side. Juggling again. As one ball is almost done and I'm about to put it down, another is threatening to take its place. I smile and say, "Bring it on."

I texted my Dad telling him that Emmy Lou Harris and Mark Knopfler has an album that they did together. It just came out in the US and when it arrives here, I'm going to get it for him. He texts me to get him that CD and a book Black Swan Green and I agree. He then calls me up and says, "Wanggo, please stop burning both ends of the candle. We're all worried for you here." This takes me by surprise. "It's out of my control, Dad but after Monday, everything will be all right." There is an awkward silence of about 3 seconds. "Okay," was all he could really say. We exchange salutations, "I miss you, I love you," and then he puts down the phone. He probably doesn't believe me. Someone has been telling him about my not coming home and working hours on end. It's probably Datu. It's sweet, really but quite annoying. Dad tells me that this is the year to get rich. Datu asks me every once in a while if I have the rent money already. Well, it's his right, really. He should because if I don't pay my end, he'll have to cover for it first. But I don't have the money. That's why I'm working so hard. I want to be able to have the money when I should be paying the rent and I don't ever want to not have the money again.
I don't know if I'll ever get to see the beach again until later in the year. Already I miss the rhythmic sounds of the waves crashing into the shore, the sand on my feet, the salty breeze and the warm sun on my back. I've been to so many beaches in a span of a month and yet I feel already as if it is not enough.

People get through life with just one job and move on along through many years that way. They only go to the beach once a year. They don't go traveling as often. They are sedentary and are pretty content about it. They don't worry about money. They wish they had more but are not needing it. I'm not built that way. What a scary thought? To not be able to be grounded in any way. Sure, I'd get to see the world and go to the beach more often than most people, but in the end, my cycle of life will be one of worry, of constantly looking for that thing that I cannot keep or hold. I will try now and see how far I go. I like what I'm doing but deep down inside I don't know for how long I will be satisfied. I'll be juggling for a long time, it seems.

(picture taken during Holy Week in Cagbalete, 2006 by Chinkee)

haven't been home

2006-05-07T08:35:00.000+08:00

Bill Cosby
Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home.

I haven't been home since Thursday. I have been staying at Jay's place a lot because he lives 2 blocks near my work. Anyway, he's much happier for it since this is the first time he's lived alone in his whole life and he's much needing the company. Jay's always been surrounded by people who loves him -- family and friends and so the move has been very much difficult for him, I think. It makes things convenient for me, though and that's great for the both of us, in that regard. I went to Blackdog Media to work on a project that has been delayed for a while and we shot and began editing and I ended up sleeping in the office. It was pretty much an all-nighter.

Truth be told, I miss my bed, I miss my room and all my CDs. I miss just lying down and reading a book. I haven't opened The Devil in the White City for a couple of days now and that's sad because it is a very interesting book. I want to finish it to see how the story goes and at the same time, someone has lent me a pretty interesting short story compilation by another writer and it would be nice to finish another book. I miss having my change of clothes nearby and all that stuff.

I don't miss waking up to Dora the Explorer though or Barney at full volume. I can do without that. I don't miss having only particular places in which I can smoke or having forgot to buy goodies or snack food and arriving home to have nothing to munch on. That's something I used to be very good at when I was living alone in Wack-Wack Twin Towers.

In Wack-Wack Twin Towers, I miss most of all the silence and the quiet and the ability to do what I want -- walk around naked after a shower or playing my music as loud as I want or having the option of bringing friends home at whatever time I wanted. Of being able to come home anytime (even if I haven't come home in days) without having to tell people where I am. I'm glad for Datu and Kristi's concern, really, it's a part of what family is about. But I'm 27 years old now and really, it's about respect. But the truth of the matter is, I've taken in a lot of work now and I cannot remember to always text because I'm so tired.

At one point, I've got to continuously re-define my concept of home. It changes from time to time depending on how much has changed and things have changed. Things are different. Things are different for me now, again. And I've got to adjust.

It's not always easy being grown-up.

a good night, a good day

2006-05-05T15:37:00.000+08:00

as texted to me by my Dad
There is no road to happiness. Happiness IS the road.

I'm actually having fun. I've got 3 hours of sleep to add to my measely or 5 hours of sleep I had since Tuesday. That's a total of 8 hours of sleep from Tuesday to Friday. But the moment I stepped into the office, I sat down on the couch and we began brainstorming for a concept of the event and the ideas were flowing smoothly from my mind. Bad or sketchy ideas were quickly shot down, without much fanfare. A quick explanation as to why it doesn't work and then we start on a new idea. It was fast and easy and fun. I love this whole brainstorming stuff. I love this group work activity. I think things are going to be okay. I think I can stop panicking now. Sure, there's a lot of work that's going to be done and needs doing but hey! That's work.

I spent the night at Jay's condo so that I could be nearer to the office so I have more time to sleep because I don't have to wake up so early to account for travel time. I planned to wake up 20 minutes before work and then walk the rest of the way to the office. It's that close by. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. My body demanded for just a little bit more time.

But as I arrived at Jay's place, Rex and Jay were watching A Lot Like Love and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie. We found ourselves in Jay's balcony and talking and talking about love. I want to feel it again. I want to feel love again. I want to be in love again! I then told Rex the whole story about The Spaceman, since Rex never heard the story and how everything seems to mirror the movie. I'm starting to get very anxious. I just want to be in love again.

I even said, I want to be in love again, even if it's unrequited! Just to have that feeling coursing through my body. Rex then said, what about that person loving you too? Don't you want to feel that also?

I replied, One step at a time, Rex, one step at a time. I can't even find someone to be in love with, I'm going to ask for requited love as well! I got to be realistic.

We all laughed at that. I meant it humorously, anyway. But as we said our "good nights" and I hugged the pillow and wrapped myself in the blanket, I thought, I wish I was wrapped up in something else. It's hitting me hard. I can't wait for me to catch up on my sleep. When I do, I'll be able to throw all of myself into work and when that happens, sometimes, briefly, I forget how much I want to lavish someone with love and attention and care. I love working so much it helps me forget everything else. And I need that right now.

The City

2006-05-05T00:08:00.000+08:00

Woody Allen
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

I took a trip to Antipolo and on Sumulong highway, I looked out of the jeep and saw the immense city laid prostrate in front of me. It's skyrise and concrete facade is both daunting and attractive. I know what goes on in there. I know what it is like in there. But looking at it from the outside, I'm amazed by how inviting it can appear -- how with its tall edifices and concrete and metal structures, it promises wealth and work and wonder.

But I'm not so easily fooled. It was in 1992 (or was it 1993?), as the plane landed in the runway at Hong Kong, I feebly (I was sick then) looked out the window to see the even more immense towers of Hong Kong. The grid lines of the streets promised order and structure and efficiency. I was taken aback by the appearance of this Asian city. I was told to expect one large commercial, shopping district, for that was what my family and I were set to do that 5 day vacation and it hit me in that manner. Yes, there will be shopping done that week. You could see it in the appearance of the city.

In 1998, my family and I arrived at the airport near Rome and took a speeding coaster that was traveling at over 70 miles per hour. We didn't feel the speed. The roads were flawless. Later, we were greeted by huge freeways and as we reached the city, we were struck by the old exterior structures that were kept, and later, awe-struck at the contemporary and modern appearance of these structures within. As you travel around the city, you see buildings, though not as high as say, Hong Kong (I don't remember much sky scrapers in my Rome trip) but every once in a while, you have the view of a very old and ancient sculpture situated in front of a long avenue. Huge churches with their crosses in display, towering over every citizen and tourist, like a hawk watching over your every move. The grand coliseum that could fit thousands and thousands to watch gladiatorial combat and the immensity of St. Peter's Basilica. Unlike Hong Kong or Manila, this was a city made of stone. It may not sound as impressive as metal, steel and concrete but when you think of its history, how old these stone structures are and what they've seen and been through; the whole idea of the great events that have transpired here, that this is one of the seats of civilization, one we always term as classical, the very thought of it makes me weak in the knees. There is power in Rome.

In Florence, 8 days later after our arrival in Rome, the city was smaller and more artistic than it was powerful. It was more subdued rather than awe-inspiring. It was a gentle respite from the magnitude of the idea of Rome. But my brothers Jubal, Bing and I climbed over 400 steps up to the tower of the Duomo and witnessed, with bated breath, the beauty of Florence's elegance. While I did not feel the same way I did with Manila, there was no promise of work or wealth, I did feel the inviting presence of something wonderful, of something beautiful. It's appeal came more in the form of finding something small and pretty and magnificent. That was Florence's appeal to me.

2 years ago, I arrived in the airport of Shanghai in the evening, unable to see the splendour of the city. But we drove in and, much like Rome, we were impressed by the wide streets, freeways that seem to stretch for miles and were even wider than the roads. The roads were almost 6 to 8 lanes. South Super Highway only manages 3 or 4 at the most, I think. When we arrived at Shanghai itself, it was unbelievable. The sky scrapers literally scratched out the sky. The streets were still huge coming into the city. Gardens, parks were littered all over to give the city breathing spaces between such structures. There is the Bund, the old part of Shanghai that was left untouched as the city began to progress. The parts of the city that did progress and develop and improve were testimonies of the greatness of human perserverance. Tall buildings with amazing lighting structures. The streets were in proper grids, allowing smooth flowing traffic. Yet it still had the quaint charms of a huge district of bargain goods in stalls -- a market of anything and everything. Then there are temples with monks holding prayer sessions and hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of Buddhas. I'd have to find my memorabilia, but we even went to the fortress where royalty stayed when they visited Shanghai. A sprawling walled palace with gardens and beautifully kept and preserved structures of ancient China. I was awed, I was spell-bound. Where did we stay? We stayed in the Hyatt Shanghai, the highest hotel in the world. My room was on the 77th floor. Every morning I awoke to see the expanse of Shanghai before me. The river, the Bund, the city lay vulnerable to my gaze. I was so high up, if I could open the windows to my room, I would actually know what clouds felt and tasted and smelled like. Manila promises a level of wealth and wonder, as every city does, Hong Kong is consumerism, Rome is power and history and magnificence as Florence promises wonder, elegance and beauty. Shanghai promised me progress and development and awe.

I wish I had the pictures to show. Maybe I'll return to each city and take pictures and show you what I mean.

I am a city boy, through and through. As much as I love the beach and find myself at peace and joy in such places -- it is a city where I truly thrive and flourish. This is where I live, this is what I call my home. I am not the idyllic writer, taking pleasure in the surroundings of nature. I'm one of the many inhabitants of the concrete jungle. It's stories amaze me, fascinate me, entrance me. I want to know more. I want to visit them all.

Juggling Act

2006-05-04T05:54:00.000+08:00

from the film A Clockwork Orange (film screenplay by Stanley Kubrik based on the book by Anthony Burgess)
When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.

How does a man with only 2 hours of sleep manage to be at 3 places at the same time, conceptualizing ideas for events, ads and sampling techniques for 3 separate clients while meeting a group of high powered executives and trying to wow them with the script you wrote for an AVP for their company's profile while monitoring a shoot for an AVP that wrote. The answer? He can't. It's not possible. I've yet to hear a man successfully bi-locate, much less tri-locate. If you've heard of such a story, give me a lead, I'll follow it and learn the process. It will be very helpful.

With 2 hours of sleep, I tried to do all that and failed in one miserably, handled one rather well and managed to sail on by one of them without incident. Ran to a meeting with Planetzips and hung out with the coolest bunch of people. In fact, that meeting was the best part of my day. After the meeting, we spun fire for kicks and practice and I hungrily took fire set after fire set and spun it to release tension. It reminded me on how I was to enjoy my life. For a moment, I forgot I was having a bad day. Learned a new move as well and got some burn marks and a blister from doing a chainsaw. Exciting things are brewing for us and it makes me want to quit my job and be a free agent again but reason and logic is back on the driver's seat and I know that isn't exactly feasible. Not right now, anyway.

Went to a birthday party afterwards but with so much take home work to do, I couldn't properly enjoy myself. I was acting manic, crazy, hyper with absolute fear that I wouldn't make it in time. I still have a shoot to go to in about an hour as of this writing. I still haven't slept. I'll be going through this whole day without any sleep and there's still so much demands to be met.

I think a comatose is in order. A deliciously long coma in a warm bed is just what I need. But to do that would mean all the things I'm juggling will end up falling to the floor and that's just another mess I'd have to deal with when I wake up. So I keep throwing things in the air, catching them as they come near my hands and try to find a way to put them back on the table until I'm just watching one thing.

Well, blogging time is over. Got to get back to work. Back to juggling.

(Picture of me fire-zipping in Boracay April 20, 2006 taken by Jay)

and suddenly, it begins to pour

2006-05-03T01:15:00.000+08:00

Tori Amos from Muhammad my Friend (written by Tori Amos)
And Moses I know
I know you've seen fire
But you've never seen fire
Until you've seen Pele blow

It never just rains, it pours. It's never just a meal, it's always a feast. But when there's nothing, it's a drought. If I'm hungry, it's because there is a famine. It never comes one by one. It never comes slowly. It never comes in little bits, in little specks. It always comes as a deluge. It is never easy. It is always in large piles, in large clumps, in large quantities.

I don't want to complain but like I said, I'm tired. And while I got what I wanted, I'm too tired to enjoy it and I've got too much work to get some rest to better enjoy it.

You see, everything came today -- the news that I start work in the new job, at the same time, I also got word that another project on the side has come in as well, one that I needed had the job offer fallen through. Oh yeah, at the same time, I had a fire zipping performance awhile ago and yeah, an old project finally pushed through and they want/need me there during the shoot.

So tomorrow (or later, to be more exact) I have to be in 3 places at the same time. I have to actually split myself into three. Oh yeah, and I have to submit a script in a couple of hours -- hopefully before 2am, at the latest. Oh yeah, I also have an 8am brainstorming for the new job and wait! There's still the shoot for the old project that's come back and don't forget the Planetzips meeting in the evening (but that one I really want to go to and enjoy).

So I finally have work and I've got loads of it and I'm in demand again, all of a sudden and yes, I am very happy and yes, I'm relieved and there is a smile on my face again and yes, things are finally going to get better but please, can it all come one at a time? I wasn't doing anything of all last week. I spent most of my days at Jay's house just hanging around. I was too busy being depressed to go and make something happen, now I don't have to make things happen because everything is happening and there's just so much of me to go around. And don't mistake, I'm happy, I really am. I arrived home today to see my brother Datu and I told him with a huge smiling face how things have turned up and it's a happy complaint, you know? Sure, there are so many demands but at least there are demands now and that it will be compensated.

But for once in my life, it would be nice to get them one at a time. All offers and requirements and demands, please fall in line and you will be dealt with in an orderly and organised manner. You will all be given your due; just please don't crowd.

So for the next few days, I'm expecting to be awake for almost 80% of the whole day and I won't be getting much sleep and I'll be squeezing out anything that's inside of me. It's going to be a very trying and tiring 3 days and I know I will benefit from the gift certificate from The Spa and I will be putting it to good use next week but I have to survive the next 3 days first.

Thank you for all of this, God, universe, Shiva, lords of labour and industry or whoever is there to be thanked. I am and will not be ungrateful. But please forgive me if I just whine and complain just a little. It's who I've become and my really good friend Berna and my brother Jubal would not recognise me if I didn't.

(picture taken by Jay sometime last week. Need some water? How about some order?)

troubled sleep and a clear morning

2006-05-02T09:29:00.000+08:00

The Cardigans from 03.45: No Sleep (written by Peter Svensson and Nina Persson)
The comfort of fireflies
Long gone before daylight

And if I had one wish fulfilled tonight
I'd ask for the sun to never rise
If God lent His voice to me to speak
I'd say "Go to bed world"

I was suppose to have an 11am meeting today but it was moved to 1pm. But I didn't know that until 20 minutes ago. So I knew I had to wake up by 8:30am if I were to make it to the meeting at Manila so I tried to sleep early. I finished all I had to do last night at around 12am and was in the darkness until 3am and I still couldn't sleep. Had too much to think of. Anxiety attacks keeping me from falling asleep. I was thinking of my sad, sorry state regarding the absence of a lover and the fact that my work life is sketchy; my finances are at an all-time low and there's so much I want to do. I just couldn't sleep. I was going mad, surrounded by the darkness with the light from the city creeping in from my open window. I just couldn't relax, couldn't keep still.

I was lucky to find half a mogadon in my room. It might've been my Dad's which he uses to get some sleep or it might have been mine from another time. Whatever the case, I quickly took the damned thing and drank some water and tried to sleep.

I could feel my body relaxing, my mind unraveling until it was nothing but abstract thoughts not making any real sense. I got a text from someone I didn't know. It said still up? I asked who it was, having lost my phone, I lost all my numbers. There was no reply. I asked again and tried to leave it but it was bugging me. I was waking up with the wonder of who it could be. So I called the number to ask and while the person on the other line answered the call, the person said nothing and I was left asking silence who's this? Hello? Who's this please? Then I dropped the call. The person then texted make out? That took me by surprise. Who's this? I texted back and then the person sent his name. I said I didn't know anybody by that name, and requested for some sort of idea -- where did we meet? Have we met? Who gave my number? No reply. So I texted Forget it. I'm not replying to your texts anymore. Then I put my phone away and went to sleep. And I was able to.

I went to sleep and woke up at 9am. I had breakfast then discovered my meeting was moved to 1pm. Now I have all this time available to me. Gonna' write a bit and get myself psyched up for work -- I took in another project while the waiting game continues. Got a zip gig too later in the day.

Then during breakfast, I get a text saying the dream job is ready. If I could start today, it would be great. So I said I took a job, I didn't think I got the job, could I just finish the work? I can start on Friday. They said they were sorry for the late reply but could I start anytime earlier? I said I'll work something out.

And so now, I know what is happening. I have a clear definition of what the horizon looks like. I start tomorrow without the haze; without the unknown. I start today.

wanting to be held

2006-05-01T20:16:00.000+08:00

Sophie B. Hawkins from Help Me Breathe (written by Sophie B. Hawkins)
It only takes a fateful moment
To become the one you thank

I had a dream a couple of nights ago (or was it just last night) and it was definitely about my being single right now. It was quite vivid and quite jarring, especially when I woke up. I don't want this to be a problem. It's so shallow when there's so much else to think about right now, but it's hitting me really hard up the nose that it's like I'm bleeding and it won't stop. Lately, my fantasies have moved away from my career and has been centered squarely on relationships. I'm just so lonely now. And I hate it because there is no reason to be. I'm surrounded by friends who love me and whom I love and family who feel the same way. But there is an absence of something that makes me very anxious. I am filled with so much feelings of... I don't know... disappointment and anxiety and hostility and impatience and... And I don't really want to go on and on and on about it with my friends since they've heard it all before. And in a conversation with The Spaceman over coffee about 2 or 3 weeks ago, we ended up talking what it is we are really after in a relationship. The Spaceman wondered why I needed some level of emotional or intellectual intimacy with someone when, I'm completely and utterly open to my friends and family. I hold no secret of myself -- everything about me is out in the open for everyone to read or to hear.

So is it just sex? the Spaceman asked. Maybe. But sex is just too easy. I could get sex if I wanted. I know where to look. The problem lies deeper than that. Apparently, based on how I am feeling now, there is more than just unloading all your feelings and your mind to someone. I'm chatting right now with my friend, Daniel, from Denmark and he kept asking me what's wrong and I ended up saying, I just want someone to hold or someone to hold me and know that everything is going to be okay. It's really that simple, I guess.

It's getting in the way of everything. I think of all the friends I've got and the family who love me and think of how it would be great if we could all just hang out together and for a while, I'll be okay. But truth is, there are quiet moments when I'm thinking, how great it would be to be in this moment with my friends with a lover right beside me, arm on my shoulder, or leaning into me. Yeah. It comes to my mind sometimes. And I really hate it.

How did I get here? How did I get here when I was on such solid ground? I got to get back to myself. Because I'm losing it. I am so losing it.

(picture taken in January, 2006 by Eyron in Greenbelt. Berna, Fay and I pretending to be in some love triangle)

Hope is a Double-Edged Sword

2006-04-30T21:39:00.000+08:00

Jacques Cousteau
Il faut aler voir. (We must go and see)

The picture is of Amanda, Paulino and I at the DJ Tiesto rave early April of this year. Paulino and I are showing off our backstage passes which allowed us to go into the event without need of buying tickets. No messy lines, no waiting, nothing. We just entered the performers entrance at the back and we were going in and out without a problem. We zipped on stage while DJ Tiesto, the man who, for 3 consecutive years, was named the best DJ in the world. I was right beside his deck and mixing table, spinning the ribbons to dizzying effect. When our part was over, I went down and joined my friends at the VIP section at the right (when facing Tiesto) and was able to re-connect with old friends. It was a very important time for me. Bracing for a new chapter in my life, one filled with old characters from older chapters.

Right now, I'm in limbo. I've got over 30,000 bucks in collectibles which I haven't collected yet and people are knocking on my door asking when I'm going to pay for the stuff that I owe. I don't blame them, I feel exactly the same way with the people who owe me money. What about the dream job, you ask? Well, it's a little hazy at the moment and right now, I haven't heard any news. Like I said before, I'd be happy to get it and I'd be happy not to get it. It's either or but at the moment, I don't know if it is either that or this. It's hard to move when you don't know how solid the ground is going to be on the next step. It's the crossroads that's getting me down. I've got 2 roads before me and possibly 3 more, if I look hard enough, but since I'm waiting for a decision regarding my possible employment in this new dream job, I'm kinda stuck.

Morx, Rex, Len and Che were talking about 5-year plans and 10-year plans and the people who really have succeeded in business had one and mission and a vision that they never wavered from. I can see the logic in that. And I guess Morx is right saying that everyone who wishes to succeed must have a 5-year plan but I'm not that kind of person. I can write and write and write but if the opportunity never presents itself to get these things published or produced, there's no point. I could fight tooth and nail to get someone to listen and to get the work out there but I'm very scared I'm tired.

Right now, I'm looking for more backstage passes to get me in without having to go through those God damned lines. I've been on that line since I was 14, when I first started writing professionally. Unfortunately, for people with my kind of life, where everything is subjective and based on the tastes and perceptions of people -- it's really hit or miss. I've been out there, churning out word after word and still I'm in the drawing board. Lots of mistakes. I've made lots of mistakes and I haven't learned yet. Patience is the key and I have none. Never really been the patient one.

I can feel it. All this joy and bliss, all this happiness I've been feeling for the past 3 or so weeks is about to go. I'm about to fall again and I'm quite used to it that I know exactly what I've got to do. This depression that I'm about to get into to, I know how to deal with. I know what I'm going to be like and so I am ready for it. I just hate it that these fucking mood swings are something I can already almost predict. And like a trained veteran, I know exactly what is going to happen, what I can expect, what I'm going to do. This sucks big time.

Everything was going so well. And now everything is falling apart around me. I'm tired. That's what I am. I don't want promises of things getting easier and better. I want things to just be easier and better. It's been an uphill climb for 3 years God damn it! How much farther up is it going to be? I'm just exhausted. I'm living my life on the promises of others. I can't do that anymore. It's the problem with hope -- it keeps us going when we should have learned by now that the mountain won't move, the river's current will not change. Hope is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it keeps us fighting, it helps us to perservere. On the other hand, sometimes it keeps us going when the fight is long over and we've already lost.

There is always something to be said of knowing when to let go and when to keep pushing. That's my problem. I hold on to hope so strongly I sometimes forget when to let go and when to move on.

Best Summer Ever

2006-04-29T18:42:00.000+08:00

As texted to me by my Dad
We are here to be creators. We are here to infiltrate space with ideas and mentions of thought. We are here to make something of this life.

I keep thinking what a fucking lucky bastard I've been these past few days. I left GMA NMI sometime in February and started doing some freelance work, writing for events, corporate AVPs and 1 or 2 articles and while I didn't get paid for them yet, I found myself with a lot of gigs performing for Planetzips. I may not have been wealthy this summer but I've been able to get by, you know? And then, re-connecting with old friends allowed me to go to so many beaches this summer. A commercial gig, because of Planetzips again, also got me to the beach and because of friends from Planetzips, I found myself going to Caliraya for the first time, a beautiful lake in Laguna. I've been offered so many things -- 2 movies, a fantastic regular job and a possibility to go out of the country. And while none of them seem to be pushing through, the point is, people want me. There have been days when I didn't want to do anything so I didn't do anything -- I would stay in my friend's condo the whole day, lying down, smoking cigarettes, eating chips and watching television and sleeping.

I've finished a really good book and am starting a really fascinating one now -- The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson and it's rivetting. It's my first non-fiction book in a long time and it chronicles the events of the World Fair in Chicago in 1893 following the lives of the 2 men who best exemplified it. The architect who built it and the serial killer who used it to bait his victims. It's well-written and I think I'm going to enjoy it immensely in the coming days.

I feel so bad because I keep promising myself that after this, I'll start to get busy. After this, after that... but afterwards comes another chance to just enjoy. Sometimes, I wonder, if this is a reward for continuous hard work of the past 2 years and that I deserve to just enjoy my life for this brief instance or is that a trap? Maybe it's some wayward path that will bring me towards a spiral of laziness and high expectation? I don't know.

But right now, I don't want to stop having fun. I've never been more creative. Already, I've thought up of 3 new stories that will translate well into films or short stories. I've got germs of ideas crawling all over the spaces in my head. All I ask is for some downtime, 3 days where no one is here at my place so I can just write and write and write. But it gets so busy here with the baby and all and noisy and so many things to do, so many distractions. I prefer being out to have some time for myself in-between getting to places. But I keep spinning around, keep moving on. This will lead up to something, I'm sure. Just don't stop. Keep moving forward. And this is not a road block, this is not a time out, all this enjoyment and fun. It's all part and parcel of making something of this life. I won't stop. Life should be this fun.
(picture of me laughing was shot in Cagbalete, Holy Week 2006 by Jay; picture of me fire-spinning was taken in Boracay April 22, 2006 by Jay)

Experience

2006-04-27T02:57:00.000+08:00

attributed to C. S. Lewis
Courage is not a single virtue but all our virtues coming together at a point when we are tested.

I just finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Once again, I was left crying in my bed, holding a book to my chest and just feeling the moment. It's a good book, really. Lyrical prose, very descriptive yet full of movement -- both internally for the characters and the plot. It's always moving. It's definitely in my recommended reading list. It's a beautiful book.

I've come to think of my life in a certain way. Had a conversation with someone recently; I remember telling them that I'm an extreme person. It's very important for me to feel things. It's why I take everything personally and seriously. It's important for me to feel something. Which is why, sometimes, I choose to do stupid things. Sometimes, being smart is safe but safe never brought you far in this world, in terms of experience. Maybe I'm the kind of guy who learns the hard way and I prefer it that way, really. My brother Datu has been through a lot and Jubal is very logical and reasonable and they tell me often that I'm about to make a mistake but no matter how well they map out the situation for me, I'll still do it, you know? I got to learn it on my own.

I don't know if that's a writer thing. Better to experience it myself, so as better to write about it later on, rather than just take it on hearsay and never really know what it really is about. It's important for me to go through the motions, to go through the decision-making and then the consequence (or reward). I want to taste the bitterness and the sweetness of life. It's not enough for me to reach the finish line; I've got to reach it with mud on my shoes, perspiration on my shirt, and with cuts and scratches. I don't want to reach the end line pristine and just how I left. There'd be no point, otherwise.

So yes, I'm an extreme person. Sometimes, I consider myself all heart and no head; ready to bleed as long as I come away with something after. Because that's the treasure. It's not what's in the chest but the fact that you went through hell and high water to get it. The value is not in the gold and how much it is worth, the value comes from what you did to get it.

I don't know why I ended up of thinking of this. I thought it would be more in tune to the book Never Let Me Go. I thought I'd be talking more about the human soul but I ended up thinking about emotions and life and the way I live it. Funny.

I think this picture says a lot about how I feel right now. Do you know that Smart Ad on the beach with Bamboo? If you've seen it long enough, you'd see the fire breathers and fire dancers all over that commercial. I'm one of `em. It was a good gig, really. Got to go to the beach for free and got paid good money to dance with fire all day. In-between takes, I'd jump into the cool water to cool down and I got a gorgeous tan right afterwards. At one point, I had to climb up onto a platform that was 15 feet up in the air and spin my fire poi and though you barely make me out from the half-second it aired and from the many other things to look at, I was up there for a good 40 plus minutes. Had I fallen or had the pole fallen, I would have been seriously injured. But that wasn't the point, I guess. The point was that I went up the ladder and spun fire on a platform 15 feet up in the air. The heat was unbelievable and the height was dizzying but I had a huge smile on my face and I kept cracking jokes to the other fire dancers on the poles nearby. Hey Migui! I can see your house from here! I kept shouting. And I hadn't slept a wink the whole time and we were exhausted at this point. But should I find myself talking to some kids in my old age, what a story to tell, eh?

If it is one thing that can define me, it will be my passion, my zest for life. And honestly, there's nothing about that to be ashamed of.

(picture taken in the first week of April in Calatagan, Batangas by Christelle Santa Maria)

In-Between the Spaces

2006-04-26T14:47:00.000+08:00

Rumi
I can feel you in my heart, though you belong to the world.

I could talk about so many other things but right now, I had a wonderful time yesterday talking to people who truly matter to me. I spent a good whole day with good friends Jay and Rex, and then over drinks with Anne and Berna and then from midnight to early morning with Datu, my brother.

It amazes me how connected we are to people. The idea of just spending time with people and talking to them, learning more and more about how they see the world and how I want them to see the way I see the world. This sharing of perspective, of opinions, of views, is what makes relationships so special. At one point, there is a single moment when you understand someone, or at least the attempt to understand someone is a magickal feeling. I think this is what Anne meant, yesterday, when she said she wanted a moment when everyone is on the same page. I like that thought. She even pushed it further by saying that it will probably be only a moment, when all of us are on the same page in our lives but what a truly amazing moment that would be.

I've been away from Jay for 2 years and now Rex is an integral part of the group and I'm getting to know Morx and Jay all over again and am amazed at how they have grown and changed and bloomed. In a way, I'm thankful for the 2 year gap that had transpired because it allows me to treasure them in a new way and it allows for us to grow and accept the changes that have transpired between us. If we had stayed as close as we were, everything would have been the same and I cannot take that.

On the flipside, Berna and Anne, I haven't seen in just a few weeks but there is so much happening in-between the spaces because of the kind of lives we lead. Anne has traveled to Sagada, Thailand and Vietnam and they both began taking diving lessons. Berna's work is emotionally tiring but rewarding. The kind of growth they come into is just inspiring.

On a strange note, the Spaceman has returned in my life. I let the Spaceman back in. More than anything, I can't stand this pervading feeling of longing in my heart and I decided I just wanted the thrill of wanting to be with someone back in my life. 2 years has gone since we last spoke and it's nice to see also how much I've changed since 2004. But deep down inside, I can feel it, I'm beating a dead horse.

Strange how I can imagine Jay or Berna or Anne or Morx's life going on and I'm there in the periphery coming in every once in a while. The connection is that strong. But with someone like the Spaceman, I have no idea what happens in-between the texts and the few and far between meetings. I can't imagine what goes on in the Spaceman's life outside when I'm let in. As much as I want the connection there, it doesn't come. And if I want to be truly honest with myself, it probably never will come.

It's these moments of longing that really get to me these days. Weird when I'm having so much fun connecting with people and so much has happened and there is so much to share with my friends which I'm nurturing a lot of -- friendships. So much to learn and so much to enjoy and here I am trying to find someone to throw it all to. It's a conditioning that I want to get out of.

Now when I'm so happy, I make these stupid little wants and mistake them for needs and it's annoying, is what it is. Because at the throes of the company I'm with, I forget it, you know? It's in the spaces between these moments that it hits me hard. It's now learning how to set up the buffers when I'm alone, I guess, and I'll be okay.

(picture taken in Boracay, 2006 by Jay. That's me spinning fire.)

Back from Boracay

2006-04-24T15:55:00.000+08:00

from The Contender
Principles only mean something if you stick by them when they're inconvenient.

I had a grand time in Boracay. I was with a lot of good friends and got to meet even more. It was more chill out than my usual Boracay trips where I would go to the bars and stuff and dance. We pretty much kept to ourselves except when we went to Hed Kandi at Hey Jude! Hed Kandi was okay. The people seemed to enjoy it but I found the music a little too laid back for my tastes. I want to dance and it wasn't the type that really gets your heart pumping. At Hed Kandi, I was just sipping my drinks and just swaying to the beat, not really losing control. Kinda hard with Hed Kandi music which is very laid back. It was the perfect setting, though. Hey Jude! is the best bar in Boracay, in my opinion.

What was important, for me, was that I got to hang out with my old friends again. Jay and Morx are really good friends from the past and it was great being with them. I'm also getting to know Rex, a new addition to the mix and I got to hang out with the rest of the gang again -- Che, Lai, Len, Hycee and Corks and I got to meet the guys Nino and Komang. I also got to know Naira and Dave more, people I met last week. So it was a great time to be there, really. It was all about renewing bonds of friendship.

I was able to once again, experience the Boracay experience -- the soft sand that never gets hot, the cold water, the Boracay sea wind and the people who are generally in such a good cheer.

But now it is time to get serious. It's time to get into work mode. I've lived the life. It's time to make it mean something.

happy but never content

2006-04-20T07:34:00.000+08:00

Olive from Outlaw
Couldn't you have told me before
I would've loved you and so much more
Couldn't you have told me before
Feelin' like an outlaw

I leave in a few hours for Boracay and last night's Planetzips meeting ended with Cat saying that pairs of fire zips were available for sale; so I instantly bought a pair and am happily, extremely excited to bring it with me to Boracay. I HAVE MY OWN FIRE SETS!!! We dipped them in kerosene and spun them out and it's to my extreme joy to know that the set I'm spinning is my own! Yeah, baby! This is the reason why I wanted to learn how to zip in the first place, to be able to dance with fire. Of course, I've fallen in love with the ribbons as well. There are movements that I'm extremely comfortable doing with my zips but then, I can't do the chainsaw with my zips. I am extremely happy to be a part of Planetzips. Unbelievably happy. I found great people whom I love and love hanging out with, who understand me and I found something that I enjoy doing and that I can actually get paid for. Wanggo is very happy.

So later, I leave for Boracay. This has been a most fulfilling summer. Opportunities arrived when they were needed. I needed cash and zipping gigs came. I needed to get out, offers to go to the beach came -- some all expenses paid, it's my company they wanted so badly that they were willing to pay for my way. Astrology Zone was right, actually, the last 3 years were hard and painful and that starting this year, everything would come easier. It's my time to actually start sailing. Every month since I started reading Astrology Zone, the predictions have been right on the dot. I don't know if that scares me or what but all I know is that there is a Boracay sunset out there, waiting for me and my new pair of fire zips.

I had coffee with my friend Adrian and I had said that I'm not the kind of person who could be content; I could be happy but not content. The moment I get something I want, I find something new and start trying to achieve that immediately. I could never be settled with what I got, I got to have more. So while I can be happy, I cannot be content. I still stand by that. I'm extremely happy now, with things going my way and a beautiful clear horizon in the distance. Am on my sail boat, letting down the sails and catching wind. It's going to be a beautiful last hurrah on the beach before I get down and dirty. I've got the new CD of Skin and Fiona Apple, I've got a pair of fire zips, am reading Kazuo Ishiguro's new book Never Let You Go and enjoying it's rich and distinct prose (thanks Morx) and I'm darker than coal from the beach and I've got a job to return to next week.

What I hope to learn from this is the belief in the rewards of hard work, patience and gratitude. I don't ever want to take any of this for granted. I want to remember that I worked my ass off since I was 14 to get to do everything I wanted to do when I grew up and that I cannot rush things, you've got to let everything take its natural course through time.

(Mauban sunset, taken by Jay during Holy Week, 2006)

Nothing is Wasted

2006-04-19T12:53:00.000+08:00

as texted to me by my Dad
We are here to be creators. We are here to infiltrate space with ideas and mentions of thought. We are here to make something of this life.

I recently bought Skin's new album Fake Chemical State and I love it. Especially songs like Purple which totally gets to me. Her voice is still so powerful, so intense, so evocative. Forget Alanis or Avril, Skin is truly the poster girl for the intelligent angry woman. Jay bought me, from Hong Kong, Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine dual-disc and I love it! Unfortunately, I still really do love the released versions, whether or not it was the way Fiona Apple or Jon Brion wanted it to sound, it had more power and intensity. Sad to say, as well, because I really like Mike Elizondo. I was sold to his producing skills from his Nelly Furtado track The Grass is Green which is a fantastic song. But somehow, the pre-released versions of Extraordinary Machine is messy, chaotic and absolutely fantastic. And somehow, Fiona Apple's vocals in those unofficial sessions were more evocative, more intense; which is how I like her. But, of course, I had to buy the album in support of one of our most intriguing and talented songwriters and singers of my generation (my opinion). I want her career to fly because I think she should be appreciated for her amazing ability to convey emotion through song -- whether it is a cover or original material. Now that she has released 3 albums, I can safely say that she is one of my favourite artists of all time -- up there with Kate Bush, Sarah McLachlan, Bjork and Tori Amos. I felt that 2 albums would be judging her too quickly but 3 albums is enough to convince me that she really got the goods.

Tomorrow, I leave again for the beach. Boracay is the destination this time. I'll be with Jay and Morx and a lot of other friends from my college days and some new ones that Morx and Jay have met along the way. It's going to be fun. We're going to have exchanges like this

Morx: Wala bang defence against sand mites? (Is there any defence against sand mites)
Wanggo: Off lotion?
Jay: Para sa mosquitoes lang yan. (That's just for mosquitoes)
Wanggo: Well, walang sand mites sa Boracay. (There are no sand mites in Boracay)
Morx: Meron. Nakagat na ako dati. (There are. I got bitten before)
Jay: Wala yan! (There are none!)
Wanggo: I don't know... I never got bitten. Even when we
were in Cagbalete, I wasn't bitten. And I didn't even put anything.
Morx: Kasi, akala nga nila putik ka! (That's because you look like mud.)
(general laughter ensues)
(in reference to my extremely dark skin from over-tanning)

Friends who are intelligent, witty, clever and unafraid of you. There is trust there that no egos will be bruised, that everything is in the sake of truth but general merriment. I like that idea that I can just unload and if I deserve it, I'll get trashed for it or what I say can be agreed upon.
It's just nice to be in their company again.

And then I'm off to start a new job. Yup, that's right, I got an offer I can't refuse. It's creative, in nature, and it'll probably work my ass off like anything but right now, the money is just too good to pass up. Yes, I know I said I wanted to enjoy my freedom and everything but here's a chance for me to make a shitload of money, man! Yeah, I'm after the money this time and I'm going to give them everything I have and make this work out for as long as I can muster. I'm taking things one step at a time. Slowly but surely. Like I told someone recently, I can just keep on giving and I'll never run out and I feel that the statement is true. And if I do run out, I can go knowing that I gave everything I had to the company and that what they paid me for was worth it. I'll be exchanging a lot of my freedom for security but this kind of security will last me for a very long time. This time, I'm using my head.

All of these are stories, our lives are stories that we are continually writing. I'm just taking the long route to the happy ending. Nothing is wasted because everything can be used later on as a story for a book or a movie, anyway. Nothing is wasted.

And I'm happy. I'm not having second thoughts or anything like that about this whole deal. When it came, I was just the happiest person in the world and I had no sinking feeling in my gut. I'm going to go with my instincts on this one. So one last hurrah -- Boracay with Jay and Morx and then back into the fold. I am having a great year where everything is really going my way. I'm going to be hard-pressed to find something to complain about in future entries.

(all pictures taken by Jay in Cagbalete, Quezon sometime around Holy Week, 2006)

hopeful, joyous, happy

2006-04-18T16:34:00.000+08:00

As texted to me by my Dad
Never mind loving your enemies... just treat your friends a little better.

It would be wonderful to go off and write about the many wonderful conversations I had in Cagbelete during Holy Week or to talk about the amazing changes that have passed between people, real close friends who haven't seen each other in 2 years, or maybe to talk about the quasi-spiritual experience of sitting in a beach under the light of a full moon and everything is quiet except for the surf and your own breathing. I want to talk all about that but in a matter of 2 days, my whole life has changed again.

I asked for something and I got it. I got it almost immediately. There was a moment of panic and then it was complete and total submission to the situation and all I could think about was God damn it! I'm a God damned lucky son of a bitch! Of course, I probably worked my ass off to get this far in my life. I can't say I haven't earned it. I've worked since I was 14. I got to where I am without the help of my Father. Maybe having his family name helped, but I never asked him to connect me with anyone. I proved to him that I was a good writer, otherwise he would never have asked me to write for him. I proved to people that despite my heritage, I wasn't a fake, I'm the real deal. I proved to myself that I can go far beyond what people expect of me. I asked for it and I got it.

So now I've got 4 amazing, wonderful group of friends whom I trust and love being around. Some old that I've returned to, some new that I am adjusting to and finding my place and others in the middle ground creating a space where we can all find time to meet again between our busy schedules. I really, really can't ask for more.

Yet I have and I got it. A cup of coffee, 3 quarter pack of cigarettes and 2 and a half hours of conversation has brought my heart up into a tailspin.

As I texted Cholo after the night:

My God, Cholo! I'm in a tailspin! I'm in mid-air and I don't know if
I am flying or falling! Everything is weird. The good news is that I
think I'm coming up with something big. Something we can do. Wish me
luck! I'm not releasing the parachute just yet. I'm going to see
where this takes me. I hope you are in a good place.

And this might be stupid but it's the hope, the thrill, the electricity running through my spine that I love. I love this feeling of having something to look forward to. It's been 2 years since I've felt this way, this kind of energy coursing through my body. All of a sudden, I'm 2 shakes away from writing something meaningful.

This week has just been pure heaven and it's only Tuesday. On Thursday I leave for Boracay, to just absorb all that has happened in the past 2 days. One thing I'm sure of, I said it was time to get busy. When I get back, I'll definitely be busy.

Life can't get any better than this, for me, at the moment. I am extremely grateful.

(pictures taken in Cagbalete, Quezon during Holy Week, 2006. Those are good, close friends Morx and Jay, happy, I hope, to take me back in.)

time stopped

2006-04-17T00:33:00.000+08:00

Nelly Furtado from Picture Perfect (written by Nelly Furtado, Gerald Eaton and Brian West)
Please bring me along
Please take me away
I don't want to stay
And I want to see everything you have to offer me
I want t see everything the world has to offer me
I want to show everything I have to offer it
I want to show everything I have to offer it now

I spent 5 days under the fury of the sun's rays and 5 nights under the tenderness of the brilliance of the moon, 3 nights of which it was full. I was fanned by sea breeze and accompanying the music that we played, the sounds of the sea rushing up against the tides were rhythmic and gentle. I was in the company of friends -- old and new and sometimes I found myself alone, listening to music, watching the moon or reading a book.

I had more fun then I expected and a truly wonderful finale; our last night was spent hanging out as one by one, people went to sleep and my good friend Morx and I spent the whole night talking about books, movies and the way we live our lives. It was truly amazing, sitting there, listening to good music, under the light of the full moon, fanned by a strong sea wind and just talking openly and without hindrance.

Slowly, I've begun to come back to my old friends -- Morx and Jay. The distance has done us good. It has allowed me a chance to grow on my own and to allow me a chance to see them grow and change and develop. It's not a bumpy ride as I thought it might be; unconsciously, we are reverting back to old roles but played by new actors. I've changed much since last I saw them and so have they.

We left Tuesday early morning and got to the beach by Tuesday late morning and then we left on the morning of Sunday. That's practically almost a week. For 5 days, the world stopped. Except for the brief interludes when someone would text, it seemed like there was nothing to return to and that we came from nowhere. There were points when it felt like we were just there. Those days in the beach of Mauban, Quezon, I was just so into the moment. Very little bothered me. And then, the moment I got back into the city and I saw the buildings and the lights and the cars and I could hear the hum of electricity running through the buildings and the streets, my clear memory of the trip had begun to fade. Memory is a tricky thing, really. We must always be careful.

So much to say and I don't even have the pictures for it just yet. But I'll get them soon. I just wanted to say I'm back and that I've done a lot of thinking and I've been on my ass for a while now and it's time to start making my moves. I'm going to start taking these things seriously.

I've had my rest. It's time to get busy.

the last hurrah before everything starts

2006-04-10T14:07:00.000+08:00

Kitchie Nadal from Fire
You will seek him with all your heart, soul and strength
You'll count all the cost as you walk out the door
Without a warning you'll set the world on fire!

Dad left today for Bacolod. I won't see him again until work brings him round again to here. While I now have the room all to myself, I should be doing backflips in glee, I find myself feeling a little more empty. I should have stopped watching television and given up on the game that refuses to install properly and slept relatively early last night that way I could've spent more time with him before he left. It's always on the way out that you actually remember the things you want to say to someone.

We've had a good couple of months, at least 3 or 4, to have said what we really wanted to but somehow, they wouldn't have compared to any conversation we would have had this morning had I been awake. There is something to be said about the immediacy of the advent of leaving. It grants weight to your thoughts and words.

Patience has given me a gift and things are looking up again. Of course, it is no promise of flight, but at least my head is up and there is something to look at. Something tangible that I can try and make it work. I can make it work. Whether this allows me to leave for a few days and see a different part of the world or it ends up throwing money at my lap and the corresponding work, I don't really care. These are all stepping stones to where I want to go.

No more jerking around, no more wasted time. I will come back with my head straight on and my heart dead-set on coming out with dirty hands, a bleeding heart and a script worth producing. It begins now.

But first off, I have a fire spinning gig later for a thesis defense and later tonight I leave for Cagbalete, an island where I will spend the Holy Week with old friends. I won't be back until Sunday, hopefully with pictures of our forays into indulgence, which is always the case, and maybe a new set of sunburn.

I'm ready to explode with the anxiety of having to make something out of this year. It's not like last year where I worked on a level of commitment to my job and doing all that needed to be done because I was part of a system. That is not the case now. I am my only system and if I don't do anything, regardless of the promise of work, then nothing will become of me. I want to be a writer, so whether or not I have a producer, I will start churning out scripts.

I am no machine so I won't churn out scripts like some fantasy machine thinking up of the possibilities and just heading forward. Instead, I will be a creator, my own little god, telling the stories of the possibilities and little realities where things go the way they should, so one can laugh or cry or feel something akin to hope or loss.

There will be no more wasted time.

of summers and things to do, places to go

2006-04-09T07:18:00.000+08:00

Albert Einstein from his address at H. A. Lorentz' grave
Everyone followed him gladly for they felt that he never set out to dominate but always simply to be of use.

So yesterday, I went out to meet up with Cholo and his friends and I had a lovely time. I've always been comfortable with older people. My father and mother always had their friends over and they told me I would always sit down and listen intentively to them and share as much as I could showing off a precociousness and a talent for being mature. They would tell me that days after, I would be copying the way their friend would speak. Being the youngest of the family and not having my own set of friends until second year high school, I was always more comfortable with older company. I had a blast talking with such distinguished and accomplished people. People who made themselves who they are or at the very least, took advantage of what life offered and really lived -- people who've seen the world and took it in their hands and worked with it. Very inspiring.

Am preparing right now for my Dad's leaving -- he'll be going back to Bacolod for an indefinite amount of time, to work on the Negros Summer Workshop in Multimedia, which he does annually. I will miss him but I have to admit, there is a certain level of joy to know that I will have my room back all to myself. I will always reiterate, once you've lived alone, it's hard to come back to living with others.

Holy Week is in preparation. Everyone is preparing to leave for somewhere or choosing to stay in Manila for some peace and quiet. I am once more going to the island of Cagbalete just off Mauban, Quezon. My friends have property there and so for 5 days, approximately, we'll be in a private island all to ourselves. Not bad, really, except there were some complications that arose. I almost decided not to go because of it, but I have to. More than anything, it would be great to be in that company again even if there were some complications.

It would be marvel to just lounge around under the sun with a good book and just enjoy the heat of the summer burning me again. Right now, I'm really dark, almost black from last Monday's foray under the sun, from sunrise to sunset in Calatagan. My skin is peeling off, though, and I've got splotches of discolorations. I'm going to need to smoothen it out with some sunbathing.

And then I have an offer to go to Boracay with some friends on the weekend of the 20th of April and then an offer to go to Bohol on May. I want to take both but it all depends if my money comes in. Otherwise, I'm landlocked again on summer like last year (though, last year, I could afford to leave Manila but I had work up to my eyeballs so I couldn't). This time, I don't have any real obligations to stay but I can't afford it.

I also have a little secret (though, not so secret, some of you know it already) and I have to keep my schedule open should this secret actually come true and then I'm off to somewhere surreal and I can't wait. I really don't want to count my chickens yet, since the eggs haven't even been laid yet but it would be such a dream to be able to go. Yes, to the very astute and keen reader, this secret involves traveling. So there you go.

And we might get some sudden gig to zip at some event at some beach party; I've got to keep my schedule open for that as well. It's weird, for me, to not have to zip these past few days. And since my zips were accidentally placed in someone else's stuff, I haven't had anything to practice with since Monday. Funny too, since I've never wanted to practise more than now when my zips are not with me! Ironic, huh?

Yeah, well, it happens. To those out there who are enjoying the sun, the sand, the surf and the sea, I envy you. You cannot imagine how much I envy you.

(picture taken by Jezer in Cagbalete sometime Holy Week, 2002 [maybe 2003] -- Tanya, Lelei and me)

Wanggo in Wonderland

2006-04-07T16:14:00.000+08:00

Skin from Movin'
And when I find my place
I'll make this stupid feeling last forever
When I find my way
Nothing left in this sick world will matter

Been having very vivid dreams lately. Usually, I can help people figure out what their dreams mean. My Dad told me something about a pyschological method of reading into dreams -- everyone in the dream is you, being represented as someone else, to show the different sides of you. You have to keep asking yourself questions until you discover what it is your dream is trying to tell you. After all, dreams are really messages from your subconscious, telling you things. I never could explain my own dreams, though. Never had that skill. I could read the Tarot for others yet never could for myself. I could give pretty good advice to friends and even strangers, but I could never give advice to myself. Weird, huh?

But these dreams have been very vivid, lately. I remember 2 involved people from High School, people I haven't met in a long time. One was vividly sexual, graphic and shameless. Another involved heavily into fantasy; the game that my brother Datu and I play once a week or so. People I haven't thought about in a long while keep popping up in my dreams and I would wake up to only want to go back to sleep again because I know that the dream, every little detail holds some important meaning -- my subconscious telling me the secrets to my own happiness.

It's a little unnerving, actually. But truth is, I'm quite happy, because in all the dreams, I've been very much myself -- extroverted, uninhibited and unafraid. Sometimes, when I realise that I'm dreaming, I become frightened, rather than courageous. I am afraid of the chaotic nature of dreams. But these past dreams, I've been very confident and holding true to myself despite the strangeness that surrounds me in them. I force myself to stay the same, to not bow down to the oddness.

It's like I fell into Wonderland and instead of asking questions, I am posing declarations and answering inquiries. There are no question marks on me. Just periods and a wry grin.

(picture taken by Morx with his P900 Sony Ericsson phone in JayC's bathroom sometime December 2003)

It Will All Come To Be

2006-04-05T20:02:00.000+08:00

Wild Colonials from Heaven and Hell (written by Angela McCluskey and Scott Roewe)
Saw you again the other day
Walking into the night
"There's nothing wrong with me," you said
"Think I just saw the light."
And I tried, tried with all my might
And I tried, tried with all my might

Well, all the money I made from zipping the past few weeks have gone straight to paying for rent, my phone bills and my credit card bills. I'm not complaining, am just happy that I'm still able to keep up with my payments. It's just weird, because I was promised loads and loads of cash from my horoscope, my numerologist and everything else. Well, that's what happens when you believe in these things. Actually, I can see all the potential -- it's all there, within view. I just seem incapable of tapping into it. Like, I'm scared to, that if I tap into it, I'll lose something essential within me. Or am I just so scared of hard work? I've worked so hard to only get by this past year. I remember 2004, where I was making shit loads of money for half the work I did in 2005. 2005, I was doing real work, hard work, honest work and on something I really believed in and all it got me was tired. Nothing more, nothing less.

Am I actually scared of working hard again? Could that be it? Am I just looking for those 2 television shows that will make me rich and where I don't have to work so hard? How did I get those 2 shows, anyway? God! I really messed those up. That was a real sweet deal and it's all gone now.

But I'm really a happy person right now. I mean, I got to do everything I wanted and I got to really focus on zips, which have become an important, integral part of my life, I feel. And I wouldn't have been able to do that attached to some regular employment. The freedom I have, I am really enjoying. I just wish that people would pay on time and would pay what it is worth, you know? I wouldn't have these pangs of giving up this life. I wouldn't be thinking of looking for a part-time job.

I love this whole bohemian lifestyle, you know? I am really enjoying this. I feel very artistic and very free and it allows me to really just dream and be alive. I feel that a year of this will follow a rush to write it all down and I'd have an excellent manuscript for some non-fiction novel, you know? I feel like a year of this kind of living makes up for wonderful writing.

I'm just scared, you know? That to go back to regular employment might make me lose important opportunities that are just waiting to be grabbed. And that those opportunities don't come if I don't hold on for just a little while longer. I'll try to be patient, try to survive for just a few months more and see if I can make it work out, you know?

Truth be told, a lot of people would die to have this life, to be able to control my schedule and make money from that which you love doing. This is a privilege I'm not taking for granted. Be strong, Wanggo, be strong. You can do this. It will all come to be.