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A Theme for 2009

Mon, 4 Jan 2010 20:55:29 +0800

Here I am after a looong holiday vacation; I prepare for the rush of a looming Monday. I have fixed my room after having turned it upside down through a series of lengthy sleeping and lounging. I have picked up and thrown away the gift wraps that have accumulated on the floors. I have made the list of people who will received the unwanted gifts that made their way onto my lap this season. (Bro, bless those who sent the fruitcakes my way. They have no idea I’m pre-diabetic.)

And now I prepare for my lesson plan for a first day lecture at Sienna College.

On Life’s Simple Complications and Complicated Simplifications

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 23:19:47 +0800

I still thought so much about that place where everything seemed to be perfect for holiness and always near to God. But I have chosen to be tempted and I freely immersed myself to temptation. I was the man in Paradise who knew everything God had forbidden. I was also the woman who only looked at the apple and craved for the worldly bliss a bite of it could bring. But I never warned myself nor had I taken heed of my knowledge. As a consequence I was both Adam and Eve thrown out of Paradise.

from Mea Culpa, an autobiographical paper for my MFA class, DLSU, 1997

This entry is quite difficult to write. The honesty it demands, the humility it requires, the unwanted memories I have to recall... all of which I have fought long and hard to type down the thoughts and emotions that have deluged my life since the date above. As my readers may notice, my last blog entry was way back October of last year. I was trying to compose the next entry on February 2, thus the date above. I never get to finish it. Now I’m writing over that entry and retained the date. And, yes, the picture too. My life story has never been simple again after said date.

So much have transpired since. My birthday spent with friends and family at Hundred Islands. Being a fellow in Baguio. Being a delegate to a conference in Kalibo, Aklan. A vacation to Boracay. Strides made in my teaching job. Singapore. Ondoy. So many events I could have blogged about. So many discoveries I could let the world read about. But around these events, were experiences that have earned insights, overwhelmingly beyond I could express in a single blog entry. It brought with it complications that prompted me to ask whether such weaving of stories, whether by intention or accident, is all worth the arrest of my so-called plain and simple life routine. Looking back at the pleasures and pains that left me with bitter aftertastes, I wished for the simplicity of my routine before February 2. During then, I had a lover whose distant presence was no hindrance to being supportive. Like clockwork, I hit the gym after classes in Ortigas. Work I could be proud of for helping skilled workers fulfill their dreams abroad. On my way home, I dine at Farmers, Cubao. Home is spent on cable or DVD. Or fill my room with music as I slip into bed under mood lighting. Otherwise I was at a coffee shop somewhere Morato. On weekends I meet up with friends I could intellectually parry with. Have a couple of beer. Visit some old joints to comment on people and their behavior. Perhaps get acquainted as well. As one friend would put it, Saturdays are spent for “social obligations”. Go home at the crack of dawn. Sleep all day. Television wastes the time away when I wake up. Or maybe blog or chat. Some escapades in between, but those were bonuses I never looked forward to. Monday begins the cycle.

Mondays may have been an element that spar my weekly cycle but in greater time frames such as a year, there were mistakes I made that repeat history. Was it by an unrelenting hunger for adventure or reckless management of the heart’s affairs? I don’t know. I’d like to believe (in spite of... despite of...) that at 40 I am still naive. But nobody would buy that. And so do I.

I have lost count of the many times I lost the simplicity of life. Like a curse, I always get to suffer complications no matter how intelligent I would want my choices and decisions made. I was known to make intelligent steps. But why I end up in a chaotic situation is blamed perhaps to having me follow my fickle heart instead of the logic of my mind. I may be intelligent, but I needed to be cunning. Yep! I’m such a sucker. This bull, after all, is just human. Naive.

Recently, to get my mind away from things, I browsed through my files to clean my Mac of unwanted pictures and items that ought to be forgotten. Bad move. There I found a soft copy of an autobiography I wrote for my MFA class in La Salle way back 1997 where I chronicled my adventures and misadventures, life discoveries, complications brought by otherwise-could-have-been-good decisions, from 1986 to 1996. I could have thrashed this file for bringing into mind some memories last March (I was suppose to submit the paper to UP for my creative writing MA application and a recent ex did the computer entry from the remaining hard copy... sweet). But deleting it was one act of simplifying things that I could not do. Reading through the unedited lines, some scenes in my life outside 1986-1996 came into mind. There was a Cluedo game board I threw at a pyre at the back of my school building as a grade school classmate threatened to burn it (1979). So I burned it myself. No regrets. I was there at Window A of the US Embassy handing over my green card (1997). No regrets. And some other stupid things I did with no regrets at all... whatsoever. Some, though, I did regret. Like breaking up with Ryoichi (2004). Taking on Tambs in exchange for Ryo. Relegating my relationship with Bagbag into some uncertain space called limbo. I never regretted an immigration related mistake which hindered me from going back to Singapore earlier than a month. There was a solution in the offing. It was me listening to empty promises that was, so far, the greatest regret I have to take. There was no regret in getting into a relationship that betrayed my commitment to Bagbag. The other party simply said we had an adventure. I must agree. It was just that. An adventure. And I think I did have good days. But adventures usually run awry. There lies the regret; when adventures, just like any adventure for that matter, turn into misadventures.

Having fun in adventures is quite simple. But adventures are always complicated.

In times of regret, questions arise. What ifs. There I am crouched under the sheets in fetal position as I conjure answers that mutate to complicated theories. At the end of this long thread of conclusions, I comfort myself in simplifying things by asking another question. This time rhetorical. “Ah, what’s the point?”

Yes. There is really no point at gaining answers or explanations. Complications were borne from simple mistakes. We can’t help but live with such. Cliche but true -- life...

Chatting over text with an ex-office mate, I narrated my internal storm. As a reply, I got the proverbial “God has a plan...” I ended the chat by texting: “There was no plan. There was only a mistake waiting to claim it’s toll. And if ever God has a hand on it, it was there to correct that mistake.” I should have added that divine interventions entail a certain degree of sacrifice. Sacrifices, regretfully, were meant to be excruciatingly painful. Like being thrown out of Paradise.

Day Recycled

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:59:27 +0800

So I said I’m back into blogging. I lied it seems as it took me more than a month to come up with my next writing salvo. It would be trite to say that I was busy but, yes, I was busy. Aside from teaching IELTS full-time, there was my advertising sideline. On one given weekend, I was editing a video up to 6 in the morning out of town (Sta. Rosa, Laguna) and had to catch my 8 am class in Ortigas. I still have class on Sunday like it’s just another Monday. I have forgotten the concept and purpose of sleep. With my sugar surging up to 180, I crushed into dieting that not even a rat could live with. Now my lymph node is swelling I have to skip the gym for a week. I’m beginning to feel the pains and aches of being almost 40 and I can only smile thinking: I feel, therefore, I live.

Today begins the long weekend. The other day my video editing project concluded a sounding success. Thus, yesterday, I slipped into a comma. I never left bed from 4 am to 6 pm. I might have urinated and defecated in there without knowing but, boy!, ending a grueling work schedule by being comatose is bliss. When I woke up, I was wondering if we now have autumn in the Philippines brought by the shifts in climate change and such. Six o’clock in the morning was too dark for, ahm, six o’clock in the morning. Ooops, it was six in the evening. Took my oatmeal and continued my horizontal position. I still can’t recall the rationale behind sleep but, for a hedonistic point of view, sleep last night was next to sex.

Now I am fully awake and in an unstoppable vacation mode. I started it by washing the dishes that are beginning to reek with unbearable smell. I discovered that my housemate Rollo left a piece of spam underneath the pile and it’s starting to become a venue for a festival of maggots. The trash has not been taken out for two weeks. Beside the pile was a plastic pouch tied up to seal a murky content. Two weeks ago, I believe, the content was in a solid state. Now it’s liquid. I was about to pick it up when it hit me that this biodegradable mass has now become a biohazard. I have to be in a proper suit just to pick it up. O well, I thought, it might be some of Rollo’s science project he wasn’t telling. I left the plastic as is, where is. One week more and it would mutate to another state. Worse, maybe another dimension.

In the corner of my room, my newly washed fragrant clothes sit beside my rancid laundry. They are starting to mix. I wonder, am I wearing a fresh underwear? At the center of the room my bed sheet has not been changed for three months. Ok, this one is an issue of mere aesthetics. Changing the sheets would entail replacing the comforter that matched its design and pattern which, when removed, has to be immediately brought to the laundry which would eventually cost me Php350.00 for the comforter alone which would culminate to an incalculable impact on my finances. Ok, so this is also a matter of economics.

I opened my cabinet. There I found the inspiration for Manila’s current urban planning. Aside from a gamut of clothes, my perfumes (both half-full and empty) sit side by side a digital camera, a USB cable (for which device, I cannot remember), a convolution of broken and out-dated necklaces, a bowl of devaluated coins, more coins outside the bowl, my expensive wireless Mac mighty mouse, tubes of fungal and steroidal ointments, more cables (both PC, Mac and something else), a faulty iPhone earphone, keys (for which door, I can’t remember), some canceled credit cards, some membership cards clamoring for renewal, a couple of bills (both paid and unpaid), a docket of papers (both legal and illegal), a dossier of disconnection notices (this month, last month, and last year’s)... behind them my clothes piled up into a heap of disgruntled cotton products which, when pulled out carelessly, would knock one of the items listed above resulting to a domino effect that would only culminate into one of the world’s greatest chaos.

I like my cabinet’s physical arrangement. Every time I take out something, I felt like a Zen master trying to patiently pull a block beneath an assemblage of unsecured blocks which would... ah, you know the routine. Choosing what to wear is just part of a totally contemplative exercise.

FROM A HIATUS I RISE

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:57:32 +0800

I’m back. And I’m here to add disturbance to your boring existence.

You may have forgotten me and my online ranting but may I remind you, my horde of five fans, that my last blog entry was way back March. You might not have noticed but haven’t you felt that while I was gone your life sank into the abyss of boredom, insignificance, and lack of teleology (I am indeed back as you have to once more grab your dusty dictionary)? But while I was up in the mountains of Banahaw gathering the forces of the writing universe, I felt your thirst for the inane and frivolous. You realized that compared to your monotonous life, my purposeless drivel seem to have more spark, flash, and fire. Gnash your teeth no more! Be free from the pains of being lost! I hereby command you to cease from killing your brain cells bit by bit! I now write. Thus, read and live!

Whew... Once in awhile we get to pamper ourselves with unbridled self adulation.

I have tried to write a considerable number of times, but there was my niece getting married and I was the organizer. A lot of significant events, both fortunate and otherwise, made a serial in my life in the past five months but the chance to immortalize them escaped me. I missed the days when I step on a cockroach and write about the similarity between the joy of squashing a pest and the ecstasy that could be had in wringing a dreaded ex’s neck. I stepped on countless roaches and never found the time to write. There was my Bagbag arriving for a vacation and such. There was a trip to amazing Palawan but that too only materialized as a video (it was a successful video though as it was being used now by a hotel/resort travel website). While doing my niece’s wedding video, I stumbled upon a pile of old family pictures - theatrically faded and brimming with tear-jerking impressions. I felt the itch to write about them but the video has to get finished first. When I was done, the only itch I had left was one that haunts many blood-thirsty creatures on full moon nights. I could have blogged about turning almost forty last April, my Bagiou trip with Bagbag and Praxedes, Ryoichi’s weekend vacation from Singapore, my student’s grizzly grammar, another niece’s wedding, the rise (sigh...) and fall (yehey!) of the peso, some friends’ here-today-gone-tomorrow relationships, some here-today-gone-tomorrow friends, a pact recently made with an ex, people who matter, how a dog ate my homework, your misery. But then there was Bistek’s Quezon City Independent Film Festival falling on my lap and a Toyota video project. I eventually trashed the former just as I did with writing stuffs I don’t feel like pursuing. Wala lang... Such is the temper of a writer. But with Bistek’s project, I was not being a writer. I was just a totally different story. Me stepping out of a scene that has all the ingredients of a consequential disaster. Suffice to say, I have kissed asses all my adult life, both for pleasure and business, but I was not about to kiss local government officers’ assess.

Now, don’t get me started on government affairs, if you can call them that.

In my trash bin, one may find plans for an international film festival in partnership with Gateway Cineplex and Cinema One, project proposals to a condom distributor, application to Singapore and the UN, contemplation to resurrect a self-frustrated opportunity in Dubai, the lost city of Atlantis, Superman’s underwear, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster’s marriage contract. My trash bin was overflowing. Before my life gets into the heap, I went full-time as a grammar/IELTS instructor and finally start nailing the lid on the coffin of my advertising career. But I was teaching seven days a week! I have to cancel my Fitness First membership as I needed the gym time to check papers, draft a syllabus on very-very elementary English for skilled workers to whom English is a fifth language, and monitor the test program I designed. I realized I was not being kind to myself when my niece sent me a text message for a delivery of slurpee. I asked why. She clarified, “Because you’re 711.” That woke me up muttering “Advertising is good... Advertising is good...” And soon enough a former advertising boss rang me up for a project. Taking that project would mean adding an 8th day to the seven in my week and forfeiting my right to a weekend. However, that was going to be money in my pocket. Yes, advertising is good.

My schedule is far from being normal. I do not wish to put my blogging in the back seat, though; not really for so noble of reasons. Being human, I am also entitled to both self-loathing and self-aggrandizement. As per the former, I am bad in spelling or say, ahm... I am not a bottom. As per the latter, aside from...er... being an exclusive top, I can also say I am a good blogger. No, make that an excellent blogger. I swear (I really have to swear on this one) I have recently met a person or two I never knew before who would recognize me in my blog. They say I have made a mark on them. Ryo even said I have fans in Singapore. Hi, hi, hi...

Several times I’ve been identified as the bald guy. Good thing being bald is in vogue. Also, the gay guy. Who cares?! Some times the pec or the biceps guy. That was elating. But nothing is more elating than when I was referred to as the blog guy.

Blogging is good... Blogging is good...

Lost in Spontaneity

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:17:10 +0800

I must have knocked my head hard on the floor when I heard the current Binibining Pilipinas World’s duh reply. I went blank, I’m not sure for how long. When I went back to my senses, I begun to doubt the order in the universe.

I was once taught in my Philosophy class that the world, or the universe, issued from God’s spontaneous power to create. That the creation of the universe was by no means a part of a divine plan. In low metaphysics, the world simply is because God’s omnipotence went berserk and has gone awry. It makes sense when one talks about an omnipotent being whose mere presence puts all things into existence. Besides, pure intelligence and planning put together is an oxymoron. Only the limited finds security in planning. We were further told that man, a product of such potent being, shares in this power. Thus, he shares His creative power (procreative), omniscience (rational), omnipresence (supremacy over all creatures). However, a trip to Romblon proved that God’s spontaneity has an ill translation in man’s spontaneity.

What could be more spontaneous than answering a question without preparation save only for a claim to being confident. And confidence, whether over or under, can be a dangerous thing. I was in my hotel room checking my students’ papers while Binibining Pilipinas was running on TV. My mind was reeling over how to comment on my IELTS students’ bad grammar with utmost benevolence and magnanimity. Suddenly, lo and hear ye, out of the screen came the worst of all grammar; and it came from the mouth of a babe. It hit me like a train, my brain was dislocated in an instant!

I have nothing against speaking Tagalog, being a writer in English and a grammar instructor that I am. But, by the mercy of the muses!, will somebody campaign for Tagalog while Tagalog (or Pilipino) is still legal?! If Ms. Venezuela could call her interpreter on stage, why can’t Ms. Philippines? The current Binibining Pilipinas World ought to be told that Pilipino is still the national language of the country she’s representing. She could have saved her round ass from shame by utilizing the language. Heck, all is lost in words and bad grammar. Here is a text book example. Blame it to spontaneity. When everyone in the country is taught that English is the measure of education, everyone spontaneously answers in English no matter how bad. To say that the Philippines is an English-speaking country is a bull, and I am a bully. I should know; teaching very-very elementary English is my specialty. I also speak Latin, but I was once also lost in spontaneity. I was asked in Latin how I was doing, I answered “I don’t know” in embarrassing Latin-Spanish mix “Non comprendascio.” There goes my career as an orthographic Latin editor.

On my first night in Odiongan Island, Romblon, I joined a couple of men for a drink. These were not my butcher students. One is the island’s head of the Department of Labor, another is the head of the Department of Trade and Industry, and the other is the OIC-Director of TESDA. As the air was beginning to reek with alcohol, these burly men started to talk about the pageant that was recently held for students in Romblon State University. One, who was a judge in the said beauty pageant, commented on the proper definition of indigenous materials as used for a costume. He said, “One contestant used plastic underneath her puffy skirt. Huh! The designer can’t fool me. So I gave the score to the one wearing a train made of anahaw fans arranged like a peacock’s tail.” Then the other one butts in, “The rest of the judges are so stupid. They gave the best night gown award to the one wearing green. Hello! Night gown... It should be red or black!”

I almost fell on my seat. Here are men, over beer, in a spontaneous commentary on gowns, costumes and beauty pageant -- three items that occupy space between G-A-Y. I, being gay that I am, was lost on the theme of red, black, anahaw fans, and a flamboyant peacock.

Somebody, please hand me that gin-pomelo.

On my first teaching assignment in Odiongan last December, I was invited to a barrio celebration to toast the newly elected SK representative. The mother was a barangay captain. I went there riding a motorcycle over gravel road, under a dark night (Stupid me! Am I expecting sunshine?). Over roasted pig, tons of pansit, bottles of spirits, bowls of blood stew and caldereta, the mother tells how, on a rainy night she saved her son’s candidacy from the brink of losing. Without her son knowing, she secretly went off to where the town kids were gathering and inquired how much they received from her son’s opponent as payment for their votes. It was like a little around Php200.00 to Php300.00. She pulled a bundle from her pocket and handed them Php500.00 each. Consequently, you know what happened. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be stuffing those sumptuous cholesterol down my system. I was appalled. I’m all ok with stage mothers and all. I can handle the Anabelle Rama variety. But a purveyor of corruption!? The corruption of your son, nonetheless! This is a story told in spontaneity and out of it I was lost in the logic of Philippine folk election culture. And who’s the loser? Not me. Definitely not the son.

Speaking of logic, I am not sure as to what governs the minds of local provincial officials in sending messages to their constituents. Below are some photos of billboards et al jotting the island town:

Say Odiongan then show the port of Romblon. Say (and show) that again?

Marble capital of the Philippines? So when’s harvest time?

Unfinished projects tell us that a) GMA is once again amiss on her motherly responsibilities, b) the town coffers is empty because c) the officials already pocketed the funds. Their mothers taught them well, it seems.

This is the gate of Rombon State College, a school for higher learning, ahem... Just how many exclamation points does God’s glory really need?!!! Commas in a non-sentence? Holler, university-level English please.

Dirt road... what century did you say we are in?

Singing Kuh Ledesma

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:06:27 +0800

Yes, I like Kuh. No, I can’t sing. At least, I admit that when I sing, I am only successful with one thing -- afflict my listeners with unbearable annoyance. So why do I want to sing Kuh? Because lately, I was in a crossroad enough for me to sing in my sleep, “Ditoh bah? O, dito baaaah?”

My powerpoint presentation was well-applauded. I’m insulted. I came here for a talk on semiotics, holler!

But, of course, present with style and flair.

After the literature convention I was prattling about in my previous entries, I was convinced that I was ready to retire from advertising and take my place among the academics. This realization was triggered by the fact that, I must say, the convention was a success... no, I am rather a success in the convention! My claim: a number of invites to talk on Umberto Eco (now I’m alarmed as to whether I quoted those references correctly), applause (notwithstanding audience sincerity), some professors asking for my number (wait, I think that was a pick-up move), and an advance invitation to speak again in next year’s gathering of intellectuals, this time in a grander scale: inter-Asia!

Inter-Asia convention, here we come!

F. Sionil Jose. My brother got all his books. I got him, at least in picture.

Call me trigger-happy, but those exclamation points are in their right places.

In the convention, I was able to reconnect with some personalities that shaped my affair with the letters, admiration for teaching, or simply my unrequited love for academic engagements (not the academics themselves). Marjorie Evasco, my mentor in poetry at De La Salle was unrelenting in her entreatment that I should go back and complete my M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing. I insisted I already lost my residency in the program as I was last enrolled more than ten years ago, in 1996. She said, “Just go to La Salle. I think the people in-charge of the program will credit your units.” I was elated. And in situations like this, you just want to try if you’re weighty enough to grab more favors. So I said, “Eh, Ma’am, Wendell Capili of the University of Philippines is offering me a better deal.” She suddenly stopped walking, faced me, and said in Tagalog, “You... you pick your school like you’re choosing a company to fulfill your career huh.” I guess I overly-presumed my weight. But then again, isn’t a graduate degree a preamble to a career?

But, Ma’am, for some a graduate school is a career.

And there was my creative writing professor in San Beda College. Like a stage mother, she applauded my talk as if on queue. While puffing menthol along the road outside the university, she touched the pendant of my choker and prayed that I’d be blessed by the stone she believed mystical. She said, “Bless this boy. I love him.” For applauding my talk in spite my noticeable anxiety for being not-a-professor before a crowd of professors, I love her more.

I love this motherly prof.

This incident is the rationale of my resolve to become an academic. One day, I too might touch my student’s neckband and pray, “I love this boy.”

Yes, dito na nga (here na nga me).

However, the year of the rat has too many promises for me. Right after the convention, I was contacted by some advertising acquaintances and prospective clients with a number of humble requirements:

“Gregg... can you conceptualize an event for Bistek this summer? Gregg, help naman with a script! Ang pangit kasiii... you direct na rin the shoot. Hello, Gregg, this is Arun from Singapore. I need a profile for my upcoming business... Gregg, meet tayo. Need ko PR. Kelan ka available? Hoy, I’m planning to put up a foxhole for creatives. Kaw mag-head.”

Or the glam of advertising...

I rather not translate in consistent English. You might think I’m a show-off. Well, yes, I am.

But the most endearing of them all was:

“Gregg, I hope you reconsider your plans of retiring from advertising. Marami ka ring matuturuan dito. Come back to Makati na.”

Gods, I’m only human! And under the vast sky, what could a mere human being do? Ah, ito ba? Dito kaya (say in diving intonation)?

Postscript: I know I have taken so many paths and the main photo above says a lot.

How Do I Write Thee?

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 03:34:11 +0800

...And I have counted thy ways... three months in the making and I’m still not done!

Presentation would be next week and I’m on the verge of panic. What’s panic? Never mind.

Yes, this Umberto Eco thing got me bullied. Now the line up of speakers have come out and, according to the list, I’d be presenting my paper side by side with names like F. Sionil Jose, Vergilio Almario, Bienvenido Lumbera and Gregg Lloren?! Wait! Who’s that?

Ahem... Let me introduce myself... O, crap! I’m nobody! And I’m going to talk about Umberto Eco and semiotics before an assembly of academics! Is panic the same as hyperventilate? Does it come with palpitations? How ‘bout blood dripping out my nose and ears?! Kidding.

My writings have ended up in the dailies, billboards, magazines, brochures, name it. I have written scripts that ended up on television, radio, and as ordinary as a monitor standing nondescriptly in a mall as lures to real property seekers. But one monitor sits in a corner of the Philippine consulate in Moscow pontificating on Philippine heritage and such. Now I’m venturing into one kind of writing where authority is borne out of research and meta-literary jargons (what am I saying). I have come to unimaginable risks challenging my limitations. I believe I have proven myself in that resolve. But doing Eco and semiotics is a risk beyond challenge.

I have to thank Rollo for cheering me on. Well, he dragged me into this. However, at a coffee shop in Gateway, I was discussing my paper with J. Niel C. Garcia. He remembers, way back his studies in semiotics, a book three inches thick. He ended the recollection with the line, ”It’s pointless, really.”

Thanks for the help, Niel.

Doing this paper has brought me into rethinking what writing is all about. After making good money out of writing for advertising, I started to think of writing as a hobby. Thus, this blogging. I once doubted writing as an art deserving the respect owed to technical science which has helped alleviate poverty, disease, human advancement in the field of engineering, computer technology, the categories continue. If I am to write about the foibles among politicians and street vendors, will the peso skyrocket on the next day’s trading? If I am to comment on a taxi driver’s transformation from demon to devil during the holidays, will the LTO act accordingly? In bullying that dreadful ex in my writing, will he change his ways and enter the monastic life? Several times I have met my readers in the bars, some gatherings; God forbid, not in a mall. There and then I was accorded my fair share of adulation. The first time was euphoric. The last time, I was stone-faced. As the fan was attempting to critique my blog entries with hints of idolizing and sense, edging on blood-curdling veneration and irrational deification, in my mind I was responding, “O, thank you! I’m still poor.”

Once, in an overnight stay at Nympha’s sister’s house in Sta. Rosa, a friend came with a boylet in tow. I was introduced as a writer. Weeks later, the friend reappeared in another gathering. He said, “Remember that boy I was with in Sta. Rosa? He was wondering if you’re really a writer since you don’t have a car.” Because of that this friend will remain simply as “the friend” in my entries, in contrast to my other friends whom I have crowned the privilege of having character designations such as Porto, Ryoichi, Rollo Dolfino, Praxedes, and Nympha.

Nah. I take no offense, good Sir. Between having a car and being a writer, I’d choose the latter. And being “carless”, my position as a writer is now secured.

In an episode of Sex and the City, one of the girls went off to Los Angeles. There she met an old acquaintance, a writer. During dinner, the guy would spit pieces of steak out of his mouth after having been chewed and the juices supped up. In an understandable disgust, sister couldn’t help anymore but ask for an explanation. Spewing out those chunks of meat, it turned out, was the guy’s way of maintaining an L.A.-ish figure. Sister exclaimed, “But you don’t have to be that conscious with your body...” or something like that, “You’re a writer!”

Every time I miss the gym for a week, I try to recall that line. Now, It’s almost a week since I went to the gym. But this time, as my love handles are starting to look unlovable, I find comfort in the following syllogism:

I am writing a serious paper.
My deadline is at hand.
I will sacrifice my delicious body.
Therefore, I AM.

Postscript: I wanted to elaborate further on the unlikely coexistence of two somewhat contrasting interests: bodybuilding and writing . But that is another story I am contemplating to construct. A blog topic that is actually a preamble to an article I was asked to contribute for a book. It is about a longing for a sensible exchange of ideas with a dear intelligent friend who has come to frequent the company of chubby-chasers.

(see my right eye wink)

Take Me Back to the Renaissance!

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:38:55 +0800

Between a choice on accidence and on the cosmos trying to tell me something, in a bid to rationalize a random act of picking up a book from Rollo’s shelves, my choice is the latter. I am not one to be reckoned when it comes to fatalism and divine intervention, but I believe with utmost certainty that the universe has in store for me a life-changing revelation when I picked up that book. That it was high and ripe that I should trace my roots. My proud past. My ancestors. My previous life, even. Was I a princess once betrothed to a knight who shall tragically meet his doom in Jerusalem fighting the infidels? Was I a scorned noblewoman who relinquished everything for a life of sacrifice and contemplation in a nunnery somewhere off the cliffs of Mt. Carmel? Was I the rumored female pope who once sent kings and princes kneeling on the snow for my absolution?!

Ok. I’m over-acting and it’s getting into my narrative’s cohesion. So there I was picking up a book from Rollo’s shelves as if in a trance. Now, there are about a hundred books on those shelves. That, at least, gives us the idea why I was so perplexed in unconsciously picking up a book, like as if I unknowingly tripped on a stock of Absolute Vodka at the grocery, sending the pile careening against the floor, the ensuing broken bottles would consequently bring economic catastrophe to my legendary bank account (read: legend). No, it’s not like that. Because picking up this book is far more remarkable than such.

On the book’s cover is Michelangelo’s David with a characteristic Japanese tourist camera slung about his neck. Yes, indeed tacky. But it’s not even this muscular sculpture that called my attention. It’s not like the picture gave me an idea that the book has enough content to compound my pornographic fantasies. This book turned out to be a tourist’s guide to Europe. Inside, surprisingly, was a survey of European history from the prehistoric up to the modern period, plus more, written in humorous prose filled with trivia that gives the reader a different summation of European life centuries past. I immediately went for the Dark Ages. Then the High Middle Ages, thinking the informations would supplement my readings for a paper I was talking about in my previous blog entry. Suddenly I was immersed in copious reading, digesting informations like I was engaged in unbridled sex! Trillianes may start an anti-government riot among the squatters (wittingly than he did among the privileged in Manila Peninsula Hotel) yards away from my pad and I would not give a hint of interest. My resolve to continue reading was as immovable as my nonexistent coiffeur. In less than an hour I covered 1,000 years of European history.

The Renaissance was an age that surged with intellectual and creative atmosphere. There was enough baroque art to pull heaven back to earth. The human body, mostly glorified in the male form, was immortalized in marble just as I would picture my men lounging on my sofa. As I progressed into this era, I felt like I was browsing my scrapbook entry; I was there in the photographs. I was Micheangelo’s fan pulling wigs with Da Vinci’s the day both masters were pitted against each other for a church design. According to the book, the painter and biographer, Vasari, once insulted Da Vinci’s slow pace to finish a work and bragged that he himself had done Da Vinci’s mural in the entire Roman chancellor’s palace in 100 days. Michelangelo quipped, “It’s obvious.” When someone suggested to Niccolo Machiavelli that the Italian city-states might unite against their common enemy, France, Niccolo wrote back, “Don’t make me laugh.” In both details of the book, I disagreed. Uh-ah, those one-liners were spat by me. Yes, in both instances! I was there! I was in the middle of Florence in the company of Rapahel, Donatello and Michelangelo (The Masters, not the turtles) exchanging ideas on the supremacy of sculpture over painting. I was sipping wine at Lorenzo Medici’s courtyard exchanging wit and humor with Boticelli. I was at the Doge’s palace carousing with Casanova. I made corrections on Vivaldi’s libretto. I pulled white hairs off Pope Julius’s beard! I was configuring St. Peter’s transept, for crying out loud!

This book has brought me the inevitable epiphany: that I, in my previous life, was rubbing elbows with the great minds of the Renaissance! Short of saying I was one of those great minds.

Oh well... back to earth, I am just a son of a driver and a laundry woman. Average looking but generally pretty. Intelligent, if only relatively, but definitely learned. Humbly, has enough pride to compete for the next Ms. Universe pageant, age notwithstanding.

Hey, what if I really lived in Europe during the Renaissance times?! Maybe I did have contact with Michelangelo after all. Look, somebody has to model for the guy’s creation. Notice any semblance between that of the Sistine Chapel Sybil’s deltoids and trapezius above with that of mine below (Figure 1)?

Fig. 1

Lack of Words, Signs, and Symbols.

Mon, 7 Jan 2008 17:13:58 +0800

It’s been a month now since I’ve been wrestling with some writing assignments. As if I was not masochistic enough, I gave in to an invitation by UST’s Literature Department to present a paper on the convergence of literature and philosophy. I was able to pass the abstract and was accepted. After sourcing my materials, I am now lost as to what’s the next thing to do. Below is the abstract. I can’t bully on this one. Suddenly, I am plunged into serious writing. @*^(((*&!!... the conference is at the end of this month!

Help! Prayers, perhaps?

Finding One’s Way Through the Labyrinth of Words, Signs, and Symbols: The Semiotics of Fiction and Reality in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

By Gregg S. Lloren

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… and the duty of every faithful monk would be to repeat every day with chanting humility the one never-changing event whose incontrovertible truth can be asserted.”
(From the first two lines of The Name of the Rose)

It is but relatively just and ontological that every thinking creature’s unending quest, though debatably whether by volition or revelation, to discover truth arguably either by the metaphors of fiction or by the empirical matrix of reality. And in both ways, mortal beings, his finite intellect trapped between the crevices of a feeble mind, can only find the comforting utility of words, notwithstanding its multifarious forms, to assist him in traversing one of life’s many odysseys. It is thus tantamount to claim that, in the complex compendium of discursive practices, fiction and reality compound and compliment each other, inviolably hinged together like the essence of a triangle, inevitably resulting to a journey that is obstructed by a gamut of perplexing interpretations, incorrigible ideas, indistinct cognition, illusory information, unwise counsel, confounded inspiration, unfounded assertion, meaningless names, unintelligible signs that are kindred to incomprehensible symbols, ambiguous expressions, sophistry, rumor, not to mention lies and deceit, which, for the uninitiated, sadly concludes to making trivial nominalism a province of truth. In the midst of this convoluted incertitude, it is imperative that a traveler (writer, teacher, student, reader) must, therefore, brave the walled pathways of fiction and reality – walls fortified by words, signs and symbols. And in this cyclical world of learning and doing, stumbling upon both is a necessity: the latter being dead-ends (enigmatic, allegorical, cerebral, undetermined yet comprehensible, theoria), the former as winding hallways (tedious, verbatim, sentient, predetermined yet unpredictable, praxis); the total experience of which would give clues that would, not without challenge, lead to the heart of the matter. Truth.

In this exposition, the researcher brings light on Umberto Eco’s labyrinthine semiotics just as the lamp of William of Baskerville and his faithful novice, Adso of Melk, illuminated the abbey’s labyrinthine library amidst misleading signs that lead to even puzzling directions purposely fashioned to shroud the way to a euphoric realization of truth, the epiphany of which is aggravated by being essentially tucked away between words, signs and symbols. This is an exposition that seeks to marry philosophical investigation with literary dissemination, as what was once done by the Scholastics to science and theology, under the semiotic machination of prose, narratives, discourses, tracts, imprints and metric lines. In serendipity, this exercise of configuring truth is preambular to what seems to be an uncharted concept – literary epistemology.

Christmas What? Holiday Who?

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:42:28 +0800

To describe holiday traffic in the Philippines with adjectives like horrendous, killer, murderous, horrible, terrible and such is an understatement. Throw in superlatives and you are led to proving language being a futile attempt to picture reality. This year’s traffic is an exception. Exceptionally horrendous, killer, murderous, horrible, terrible. Oops... Rollo and I are believers of words’ magical powers. Being writers we consider ourselves wizards. When it comes to the matter pointed above, I am helpless. Yes, I’m being futile. Traffic is a formidable dragon to which wizards are no match. We need a knight in shining armor. But that’s another legend.

Down Malate, Manila competing for a cab, I had the urge to climb up an idle car’s hood, clinch my fist, and declare, “Commuters of the world, unite!” No I didn’t. It was just an idea.

In Robinsons Mall, Manila, I was surprised to find the Starbucks side quiet and in respite. I thought, the holidays are over. But I took a wrong turn and ended up at the bazaar area. It was teeming with people. I almost yelled at everyone, “People, go home!” No, I didn’t.

How does Gateway Mall, Araneta Center look like at this time of the year? It would be hard to presume that the mall is deluged with shoppers. Because in Gateway, people don’t shop. From getting off the MRT, they just pass by and hop on to the LRT. Would it be enough statement if I shop there? You know, just to spite. No, I thought I would stand at the LRT entrance and scare people with expletives, “You people are so cheap! Get back inside the mall and buy something!” But then, I would be doing the Aranetas a favor. So I didn’t.

In Greenhills, I was waiting for Ryoichi who was on vacation from Singapore for the season. Prior to this event, he has indicated, after a mere six months or so abroad, how stranger he has become in this beloved corrupt Philippines. He has forgotten where Oriental Gardens Makati is. He has forgotten where Palawan 2 in Cubao is. And he gets rattled when taxis run on the right side of the street. Now it has taken him two hours to get to Greenhills from La Loma, Quezon City. Ok it’s THE TRAFFIC. Thirty minutes after texting “near na me”, I texted back, “In the Philippines, drivers are on the left side of their cars; near means three minutes away.” So he arrived but I was there in the middle of Wilson Street tagging at taxis in between bumpers. None of them would give me a ride back to Makati. It’s only 2 PM. I wanted to put logic into this chaos but that too would be an exercise to futility. My consolation was to blurt out the most ignoble of statements - putang ina!

As if I am so curious as to how hell feels like, I’m writing this entry at Coffee Bean, Mall of Asia. A meter away are annoying mascots. Now a mob of children ten times annoying are starting to assemble around them, as if threatening to replace the government with these saccharine characters. If that is so, then these kids have better ideas than Trillanes. I might start joining them.

I gotta go...

Configuring the Stairs

Fri, 7 Dec 2007 13:53:26 +0800

Stairs are made for ascending and descending; that’s what we were made to believe. Convincingly. Truly. So many things could be said about stairs though. But for what good all stairs are but that for every step ascending one comes nearer to heaven, taller, higher, status elevated if only for so brief. In every descending step reality checked. In any case, stairs speaks of both lofty and lowly endeavors, both achieved by a couple of contrived, controlled, patient steps. By irony, stairs are metaphors of fairness. Every plank is both narrow and wide, thus, more than one may ascend or descend, side by side, yet not on the same plank space. Limitation and freedom combined.

Stairs are also good to sit on. Goof around with. Yes. A place to cuddle a loved one, thus, dear moments forever etched. Definitely. Stairs can bore us questions, a progenitor of thought, if only we can think much deeper and open eyes we never thought we had. Imagine how stairs lead us to reachable goals. An upper floor full of rooms. Rooms of possibilities. Or descend to a vast floor where freedom of space spread. How’d we wish all goals can be reached likewise. By a few steps. And by all too few effortless lift of an able pelvis.

Stairs are the simplest of man’s innovations yet the most momentous such as the wheel. A series of plains, not necessarily fashioned after a clock’s precision, spaced in uniform intervals, but like a song they sometime pause in refrains called landings. However, stairs of grandiose measure outdid their utility. Glorious palaces necessitate stairs of marble embellishment. From stairs, kings and queens parade in splendor. Once, papal pomp and circumstance commencd from the imposing Scala Regia. Tourists savor Roman air and romance by the Spanish steps. Dragon stairs define a Chinese emperor’s mandate from heaven. This acquired regal character of stairs may have been the reason for a Spanish governor general to prefer the stairs as stage for his assassination by a mob of friars.

We can all look up, or look down, to where stairs lead and for mere mortals, our less than grand stairs may not have elevated us in the hierarchy yet it has left us memories good enough to keep. On Christmas, stairs lead us to quaintly wrapped gifts. On prom nights, pretty girls in dazzling dress come down from the same stairs. So do pageant contestants. Stairs led winners to claim their gold. On Valentines, we rush down to waiting arms via stairs and off to a memorable dinner. For some of us, on some heated nights, the stairs are much more sizzling than a soft bed. Goodbyes begin at the top of the stairs; some dramatic reconciliations happen at the foot. Sadly too, from the stairs we watched our parents quarrel. From the top of the stairs I watched my father fought for dear life, as a matter of fact.