Archive for May, 2009

Rock and Roll Summer

Rock and Roll Summer

corna

Now nothing seems so strange as when the leaves began to change
Or how I thought those days would never end
Sometimes I hear that song, and I start to sing along
And think, “Man, I’d like to see that girl again.”

- Kid Rock, “All Summer Long”
Rock N’ Roll Jesus, 2007 Atlantic Records

Sunshine and summertime now gives way to rain falling angry on tin roofs.  Seasons can be more fickle than ex-girlfriends and crushes, lasting no longer than three months, at best.  Then again, that has always been the way of the seasons: they never stay with you longer than you want them to.

At least for this year, the season has passed.  Like ex-girlfriends and crushes, it’s hard to let go of it all.  Then again, there’s always the next summer to look forward to.

May 31, 2009 0 comments Read More
140-Character Nuggets

140-Character Nuggets

If people were able to take these 140 characters and develop a poetic Western form… that would be a satisfying thing.  But that’s not what I see when I read them.

- Hugh Laurie, quoted by Hello Magazine
May 28, 2009

I sometimes wonder if, thanks to Twitter and Plurk, all my thoughts turn into 140-character nuggets.  Have I become this desperate or banal?

A hundred and forty characters.  I can make two sentences with those.  Or three.  With enough room for phrases and proper punctuation marks.

Yet, Dr. House wants poetry.  Oh, I’m not a poet.  I do not know if I can write clean rhymes and lines with 140 characters.  Bleh, I’ll try.

Is my wisdom limited to 140 characters?  Maybe.  I limit that wisdom, compared to “H3LlUr p0Wh” types who take cutting lines to the extreme.

May 30, 2009 0 comments Read More
Confessions of Måröchárîm: Literati

Confessions of Måröchárîm: Literati

sdc10061“Uy, nag-Dumaguete workshop ka lang ibang-iba ka na ha,” a friend of mine said when I arrived, sporting a ponytail that made me look even more like a woman.  “Di ka na ma-reach!” another friend said.

I sat down on a chair, puzzled and confused.  I poked around the platter of chicharon bulaklak and wondered if they served beer in the place.  Mmmm, beer and chicharon bulaklak. Nothing did change.  It’s not like I’m the first and only of anything or anywhere.  It’s not like attending a workshop divorced the threesome marriage between myself, beer and chicharon bulaklak.

Then we moved to another place, and a friend recognized me.  “Wow, akala ko kanina kung sino ‘tong artist na ‘to, ikaw pala.” I don’t know if it was my girly-looking ponytail – Steven Seagal perfected the man-version – or if the writerly-ness of attending the National Writers Workshop at Dumaguete was arising naturally from me.  It oozes out of me.

Then again, I was still very comfortable with my pants.  I doubt it was my mild tan, either; I resisted the urge to drop my pants to check if I’ve tanned myself enough.

I no longer have the problem of people asking me if I have a band; the quandary becomes if I’m an “artist.”  I say “writer,” and then everyone goes gaga over it, without a poker face in the room:

Q: Do you write poetry?
A: No, I don’t, sorry.
Q: What about fiction?
A: I’m working on a couple of stories here and there, thank you.
Q: Oh, what kind of stories, Twilight?  (Acquaintance calls her husband and children… oooh, here’s a genuine writer!)
A: No, I’m working on non-fiction.  I’m writing about call center agents.
Q: (With that “sayang” look that becomes poker-faced) Oh… I see.

Twilight… what the fuck was that?  Must I insist on my writerly cred?  Don’t make me do it!  Now you’re leaving me all alone here?  COME BACK HERE WOMAN, I’M A FUCKIN’ WRITER!

I guess they’re right: I might as well play to my ego.  Hmmm… fuzzy.

May 29, 2009 3 comments Read More
Shame

Shame

Salus populi suprema lex esto: the good of the people is the highest law.

The wisdom of Cicero’s statement should have a clear echo in every office, agency, and branch of all governments.  This country is no exception; here, in fact, it should be a deafening roar.  The highest law is the call of the Senate.  Every Senator is a vanguard, a protector, and a warrior of the public interest.  This Government should be at the very front of the line to figure out ways and solutions to feed, educate, and mitigate the suffering of the many who are poor.

Today, it is at the very front of the line of questioning the morality of sex tapes, not to mention the technicalities of making one.  I write this condemnation in the spirit of shaming, something that I hope can be accomplished with the limitations of a blog entry.

Shame, ladies and gentlemen.  That emotion, that bout of conscience that the Senate should feel.  A rare commodity in shameless places.  Redundant, but true.

In a country where the first signs of dissent and expressions of discontent are often met with the wrath of a truncheon and the fury of a water cannon, the Senate chooses to investigate – in aid of legislation – the Hayden Kho-Katrina Halili sex tapes.  In a country where malnutrition, underemployment, and a lack of education are pressing problems, the Senate chooses to scandalize lawmaking by making a spectacle out of women’s rights and surveillance.  In a country where newspapers and tabloids are replete with every crime known to threaten the very foundations of civilization are daily fare, the Senate embarrasses itself by turning their august and honorable task of making – and safeguarding – the laws of the land into a showbiz talk show.

And yet, for what?  Publicity?  The interest of the people?  Ladies and gentlemen, there is a difference between the public interest, and an interested public.  The task of governance is towards the former, and not the latter.The scandal taking place in the Senate is an embarrassment of national proportions.  There’s a difference between matters of public interest, and matters for public consumption.  While the wisdom of the Senate’s investigation on a sex scandal is timely, it is not proper, and it certainly is not right.  As the august and honorable Senators of this nation, many other issues hang in the balance.  Poverty, malnutrition, the state of education, health, the laws of the land, the welfare of every single Filipino have now taken a back seat to the technicalities of sex videos, and the stretching and extending of this issue to cover the rights of women.  The women of our nation who, much like a lot of other people, are poor, malnourished, ill-educated, sick, and have not found a refuge and a crying shoulder on the laws of the land.

For that, I take this opportunity to shame.

May 28, 2009 1 comment Read More
Father’s Parkers

Father’s Parkers

When I was in elementary school, Father always gave me a new Parker pen to start the school year.  I wanted the pens my friends had: those big, 24-color retractable pens that looked like spaceships.  They were much cheaper than the Parker pens my dad insisted I use; instead of jewel cases and brushed-metal finishes, the pens I wanted were funky-colored ones that can be worn as necklaces.

I was about the only kid in class without the Big Fat Retractable Multi-Colored Pen.  I was the kid with the Parker pen: it was so uncool, so nerdy, and I only had a single color.  I didn’t have nouns written in orange, adjectives scrawled in green, and punctuation marks in violet or pink.  What I had were notes and quiz papers in neat, even cursive, written in black ink.

I argued with Father over the Parker pens.  The value of the pens weren’t lost on me, but I was always teased for not having the coolest pens around.  Before classes started, Father gave me the pens for the term: the Parker with black ink for writing, a red Pilot sign pen for “exchange quiz papers,” and another Pilot sign pen – this time blue – if I were asked for a signature.  I was not to lose the pen, and I was to ask Father if the pen ran out of ink.  Most of all, I should keep my handwriting perfect.  Father said that pens as good as a Parker are too good for scrawling or shorthand.

“But I want the big pens, Father, the ones my friends use,” I pleaded, trying to appeal to the strict countenance of my father with childlike – if not childish – innocent pleading.

“You can’t write with those,” Father insisted.  The next day, the pens were near my school bag.  The school year just began.

May 28, 2009 3 comments Read More
A Boy With A Bias

A Boy With A Bias

In their social relationships, people often rely on tried and true “recipes” for how to handle such relationships.

- Alfred Schutz

I think it would be very pretentious of me to say that I accept everything about people, that I am not prejudiced, and that I acknowledge and respect every difference in this world.  The truth is, I can’t and I don’t; I have my biases, and that everything about society will always be a struggle not immediately for acceptance, but acknowledgment.  Recognition and respect.

Baby steps, so to speak.

I can only see so much and accept so much given my very limited perspective of the world.  I can’t have a 360-degree view of everything, so I have to settle for so much given how I perceive my reality.  The challenge, I think, is to accept your own biases and prejudices as “learning aids” to help you understand society better.

Nothing could be more true for society that that ticklish subject: alternative sexualities.

I couldn’t have known that the person I long acknowledged to be a guy is now a transsexual.  The prudent thing would be to be welcoming and accommodating of that new revelation and truth, but I have to admit that I have my biases, and that I’m viewing the world from prejudiced – if not jaundiced – eyes.

Frames, so to speak.  When it comes to sex, I am very secure about my sexuality, even if lighthearted jokes have been made about that.  I’m not one to impose rules and beliefs, either.  My perspective of the world will always be framed by the many things that make up who I am.  When it comes to my view of sex, one of those frames is that I’m straight.

May 27, 2009 1 comment Read More