Cold
Hell must have frozen over by now. The cold weather has lately been, well, colder than usual. It feels like we’re transported back to the yuletide season. I live three floors above, in a building that looks as though it is waiting to be condemned and, worse, to be demolished. From up here, it feels like the unforgiving coldness of the breeze is exponentially raised. I am even tempted to wear a thick jacket while inside the room, the ones that you see in the polar episodes of National Geographic. I may look like an eskimo—or, as the eternally perverted Joey de Leon puts it, es es ki…never mind—lost in the Pacific but that isn’t really an exaggeration. I do not know what’s causing this arctic sweep in this tropical country, but I’m quite certain this is a good time to indulge yourself in a nice warm cup of coffee. Those with fecal incontinence should beware though. Too much caffeine and your ass muscles can loosen and blow that other end of yours, the lonely spot where the sun never shines, to smithereens.
To those who love Gloria so much…
…and her relentless pursuit of seizing the Cha-Cha train like a big banana, I made a special treat to show my unwavering love for her. Long live the queen! Read it here.
Miracles
CNN recently hailed Himala as the best movie of all time in the Asia-Pacific region. The 1982 film tells the story of Elsa in a marginal town, a girl who claims to have seen the Virgin Mary. She turns into a faith healer and begins to conduct healing crusades in a forgotten land. The film is the brainchild of writer Ricky Lee and director Ishmael Bernal. Who could forget Nora Aunor, arms spread facing the sky, white veil on her head, shouting “walang himala”? Or I may be mistaken with the veil and the arms, but nonetheless the recognition of the film is testament to the glory of Filipino films in earlier times, transcending age and time to great lengths.
While at that, I can’t help but recall the recent Senate probe on the fertilizer scam. Fresh from the United States, Jocelyn Bolante was bearded and grilled at the Senate floor. That came after he was admitted at St. Luke’s Hospital for health reasons, confusing his digestive problems for a heart ailment. I do not know if human evolution is yet to see its better days, finding remedies for some stomachs reaching as high up as the chest. I do not know if that is a symptom of dementia either, but his age and white hairs do not seem to prove him any wiser. His evasive responses to the questions hurled at him go to show how much of either his gross ignorance or his defense preparations—perhaps both—have made a monumental lackey out of him.
In the Hands of Death
I was still in fifth grade back then and attending school felt like a coerced responsibility. I had to sleep earlier than usual since I had to be fully awake by five in the morning. Of course, “fully awake” for me meant being stirred to life by a cold shower and the rants spewing out of the radio on weekdays. What can I say? Back in our place, we start our day with a full serving of diabolic sermons from radio commentators first thing for breakfast. Or at least that is as far as I can remember if my memory won’t fail me. Suffice it to say, though, that Mondays through Fridays were days of burden for a young learner, and to this day I still have the eye bags to prove my point.
Come Saturday and my siesta would stretch from dawn until dusk, and sometimes from dusk until the next evening. Either way, my body would willingly submit itself to a full stretch of rest on weekends that oftentimes I forget to eat. If anorexia was a fad back then, and somehow I felt it was, I could easily pass for a popular restaurant commodity otherwise known as toothpick, but that’s another story. Going back, I could very well recall one lazy afternoon when I touched the freezing hands of death, which is the only way I can literally justify a horrifying experience with an understatement.
Wikipediaphile
Information should be shared, plain and simple. Selfishness in spreading knowledge has no place in this world. At least that is what I believe in. Quite apart from that, those who want to look like geniuses by deliberately making others grovel in the darkness of ignorance should take their egocentric and elitist delusions to the underworld where they can rot without the world being informed. One way or another, the distribution and access to information should take the form of a socialist’s greatest dream, or one that is close to being just that: enlightenment without borders and bias, without restrictions set forth by no one, not even Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, the developers of Wikipedia dubbed as a “free online encyclopedia” that anyone can edit.
Anyone can edit. There you go. In its early years, Wikipedia has been home to a number of contributors who post “open” articles, which means any sane and insane web browser can freely retouch the original content of these entries. No wonder a deluge of cyber vandals were able to penetrate and corrupt the thousands of pages of articles, thereby polluting the brainchild of Wales and Sanger with mines of deceptive words and phrases.
Things I Learned from Pinoy Movies
Having been able to watch several Filipino movies in my life, I’ve learned quite a lot of things. Although I’m not an avid viewer, I’ve plucked several grains of ideas and lessons out of these films and willfully accepted them as facts of life. It’s not that original Filipino movies—though some people say it’s an oxymoron—are the only sources of virtues and vices in this side of the world for there are streams of information running elsewhere. It’s that these movies can sometimes make you laugh and cry at the same time; some of them are so good at causing you a moment of madness it’s ridiculous.
For starters, the main protagonists in action films are always either handsome or beautiful, making their sidekicks look more sorry than they actually do. They wear leather jackets and tight jeans, or anything that has long sleeves, creating the impression that they’re such an enigma. Short hair lathered with pomade and long ones washed in oil, they look good even when they’re shot in the chest by the villain who looks like a replica of Jorge Estregan or Paquito Diaz. And these cinematic heroes do get laid by a damsel in distress just before a bunch of hoodlums stage an attack with long rifles.
Bloody Brits
From the looks of it, you might probably wonder how and why in the world it continues to happen that way. A few months ago, it was Terry “Susan” Hatcher in Desperate Housewives who gave foul remarks on Filipino medical practitioners that swept a portion of this nation into a state of rage. Now, Harry and Paul, purporting to be a “British sketch,” has joined the bandwagon. In one of its recent episodes, “a Filipino domestic worker in a maid’s uniform danc[es] provocatively in front of a man in an attempt to seduce him,” reports an article from ABS-CBN News. Apparently, moves to demand for an apology from BBC are being pushed. How and why are these things happening, for Jesus H. Christ’s sake?
Goth Milk?
Just a few days ago, we bought some bread at a local bakery. Letting my eyes wander around the small stall while waiting for our ensaymada to be handed over to us, one thing caught my attention: a laminated coupon bond with a full paragraph written on it, stating that the shop do not use milk products from China for their goods. It sought to extinguish any fear from their patrons as it hanged just in front of the cashier, visible enough for the buying customers to come across it as they line-up to pay. I dare not mention the name of the establishment. Suffice it to say, though, that it owes its name to that girl with golden locks of hair with the family of three bears nowhere in sight. And no, it isn’t Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Hairy Bears.
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Korean Invasion
“More Korea towns rising in RP,” reveals a feature story in ABS-CBN News. Because of the country’s “steady climate” and the relatively low cost of living here in contrast to that in South Korea, more and more Koreans are flocking here than one could begin to imagine. Which shouldn’t surprise us why they have become the country’s top tourists. Despite losing businesses in Baguio and some other parts of the Philippines, Koreans continue to herd and breed in this country. Some time in the past, Korean telenovelas flooded the local tubes. Now, we see them in full flesh right in our neighborhoods.
Stuff Brown People Like
Stuff White People Like is about—who would have guessed—stuff white people like. Christian Lander—the man behind SWPL—blogs about everything a blog is not; Lander “catalogs the tastes, prejudices, and consumption habits of well-off, well-educated, youngish, self-described progressives,” Benjamin Schwarz writes in his review of the “runaway hit”. For the millions of hits it received, its ardent followers can now literally browse the thoughts of Lander with their bare hands. SWPL now has a book version which “investigates, explains, and offers advice for finding social success with the Caucasian persuasion.” Mr. Lander is white, and I bet he likes the stuff he’s been getting lately. Good stuff, of course.
