Review: Self-Titled by Itchyworms

Deliciously crunchy Pinoy power pop-rice

I'm a big fan of this band, so where do I start? I'm at a loss, really, 'cause I can choose to focus on the novel/fresh, inventive/original, and witty sides of Itchyworm's Self-Titled album (Sony BMG Music Entertainment, 2008). ...All of which they have already established in their second album Noontime Show. Yup, this their third album is no different: it should spell another success for the group!

The tracks (13 songs plus three fillers) are equally entertaining and have the potential to be new cult classics like "Beer," and "Akin Ka na Lang," right from the first few notes down to the closing lines. The band combines the best angle of Parokya ni Edgar (all-Pinoy humor) and Eraserheads (Filipino pop sensibility) and sets the music to neo-punk rock fretwork and lots of controlled noise, with a whole bunch of other eclectic influences: Eraserheads, heavy metal, jazz, disco, J-pop, '70s Manila sound/swing, Pinoy folk.

Here, they give more of that fun-sounding, i.e., non-angsty, music with un-faked social conscience without the turn-offy grimness of leftist politics. The themes chosen this time are just as notable for accurately capturing the pulse of the times and just as impressive in their variety. "Suplado Ka Pala sa Personal" reminds me of a less extreme version of Eminem's "Stan," that dark, brooding tale of a distraught and disillusioned fan. Among my other favorites are "Penge Naman Ako Nyan" (on the temporary virtues of drinking alcohol), "Steady Lang Tayo," "Ang Gusto ko Lamang sa Buhay," "Bugbog-Sarado," and "Freak-Out, Baby" (a break-up song).

"Steady Lang Tayo" is a song on commitment-phobia and a potential political jingle for Mayor Fresnedi of Alabang ("Fresnedi... (in place of "steady...")/Fresnedi lang tayo..."). "Pataasan ng Weewee" is a, um, sociourinary approach to studying Lucky Manzano. ("Congressman ang aking tatay. Artista ang aking nanay. Tatlo ang ganyan ko sa bahay.")

Like E-heads' surefire formula, the Itchyworms's strategy is to plumb the shallow waters of young contemporary life, yet emerge with enough depth while taking the music to the path of happiness and humor. Expect no Sugarfree-like drama (not that it's a bad thing) from this bunch because they are that loony. You might have a bone to pick with the vocals, but you can expect delightfully screwball lines like this chorus to "Misis Fely Nimfa Ang Pangalan": "Misis Fely Nimfa Tan-Mercado-Dela Cruz-Garcia-Gomez-Ong-Bermudez-Anderson-Lopez-Perez-Chung-Padilla-Robles-De la Rosa-Bautista/...Kung sa 'kin ka nag-umpisa/'Di na kailangang pang maghanap ng iba." How the heck did they set that into catchy music?

If you really want to know, then I strongly recommend you buy the album.

Itchyworms' Self-Titled is supermarket-fresh power pop-rock with gifted Pinoy musicality -- and non-stupid brain cells. Like I said, you'll like the songs on the get-go, but you'll love them even more upon hitting the Repeat or Shuffle buttons. With this album being sort of a validation or reinforcemnt of their talent, you know this is the type of band that can do more albums that win effortlessly. But, wait, do these guys know what their name means (if interpreted as an American idiom)? Clue: Google it. :-)

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Barack Obama. Barack Obama. Barack Obama.

John McCain. John McCain vs. Barack Obama.

John McCain vs. Paris Hilton.

Stupid question for BSP

Are you one of those irascible fellows who throw away 5-centavo and 10-centavo copper coins in disgust? You're so nega, you know, but I understand you: those coins are worthless. But you may be violating the law and might be charged guilty of vandalism.

Did you know that it takes about Php5 (or even up to Ph10) just to manufacture such coins? I, too, didn't, until I saw Mike pick up one dirty 5-centavo coin along the mall path we were taking. I was aghast. "What are you doing?" I said. Then he replied, and told the story behind those worthless copper coins.

But I couldn't contain myself. "Why manufacture worthless coins when the cost involved is far higher than the actual worth of the coins?" I gave Mike the face of incredulity.

"Wait, I'll ask around," he answered.

Mike works as a computer programmer for BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas). I hope he'll get me good sources of info.

Job description

- Extra-paranoid
- Extra-presuming in seeing everyone as agent of terror
- Brave, doesn't have necrophobia
- Preferably looks fearsome, like a certain wrinkly-faced dog breed
- Willing to feel or grope certain body parts without malice, for the sake of the art of security
- Willing to mentally invent gossips on everyone passing by to entertain himself
- Won't mind different smells wafting from from people's breath and armpits
- Willing to risk the ire of offended, closed-minded individuals (who may accuse him of fondling them for purposes other than expressly stated by law)
- Willing to be trained in roping in potential terrorists, like Wonder Woman
- Willing to use toothpicks to prop up droopy eyelids during odd hours
- Willing to be at risk for communicable diseases and psychological disorders

Oh, to be a security guard.

I show mercy and compassion to them by calling them, "Boss" or "Chief" without a hint of irony.

A war borne of overpowering fishiness

The war is real. I know it because I have an officemate from Iligan who's constantly keeping up with news reports on Mindanao. His mother lives in Iligan. It's so awkward to blog about anything when you know this little war could explode anytime and reach your office cubicle, commuter path, and gimik places. I'd like to think it's a war we have nothing to do with -- because an overwhelming majority of us oppose the forced creation of a new sub-state because the ostensible explanation under the circumstances the plan was hatched is not convincing. May the war end soon. Let justice be given to those whom we have really oppressed and justice be brought to those who have wronged us. But may everyone return to the negotiating table. May all sides refrain from wantonly presuming guilt where there is none. May all innocent victims get on with their unheralded lives.

**

Flash report in Ayala

Every working day, I pass by the Insular Life along Ayala Ave. Daily, without fail, the building flashes the day's good news, courtesy of Good News Pilipinas, in a giant crawler that catches everyone's attention (making it a potential traffic hazard). The 'flash reports' (headlines actually) have become my new source of news, a welcome alternative to being besieged by the latest bad news on TV (and morning radio).

With the obvious contrast, I can't help but ask: What is news? What, indeed, is news? Is bad news news? Is good news news? Shouldn't being 'new' the only criterion in telling whether something is news or just about a man bitten by a dog?

Should the Insular crawler news proclaim "Stock prices reach Mt. Everest levels!!!" even if it's the end of the world?

Bring us the news, period. Doesn't matter whether bad or good.

**

BPI, check your grammar, please

This noon, I went to the Bank of the Philippine Islands main branch (also in Ayala) to deposit something. Unfortunately, I was in a bad mood, so it's inevitable that I'd notice the wrong things inside the bank, particularly the area fronting the tellers.

First is the sign that says, "Preferred Banking Clients." Wow, I thought, I've been seeing this sign for a certain lane for years and I've always felt kinda offended; I just couldn't tell why. Now I discovered that I've found the sign offensive because it is too vulgar, even for commerce. "We prefer certain banking clients" means "We like other clients much less." Rubbing it in is plain offensive. The message "We'd rather have business with those who have more (or much) money rather than waste our precious time with you" just comes off very badly. Maybe I'm too paranoid or neurotic, but it just doesn't feel right. There is something that stinks somewhere that I thought could only come from the gunk of the lower-level echelons.

Another bank sign that struck me is this: "Client Representatives and Non-Clients." What does this sign mean? If someone walks into your bank for anything involving a money transaction, then that person is automatically your client, right? Or does BPI actually mean "Client and Non-Client Representatives"?

BPI: Explain first thing in the morning Monday.

Also: Please explain why you denied my transaction when I said I forgot so-and-so's account number and can you please retrieve it using so-and-so's name? (I forgot my cell phone with me (I left it in the office), and that's where I stored the account number.) "Since I've been depositing money in this bank monthly for a long time, maybe you can just retrieve the account number for me?" But no, after a longish consideration, a guy in polo barong approached me and respectfully apologized (to be fair) that it's not possible. Is bringing in money (no matter how little) a potential crime now? Will it risk a bank run or bank holiday? Unbelievable.

I walked off the BPI building in a quandary: Did I look like I would ask somebody's account number for nefarious reasons? Or am I just too closed-minded?

Who owns this bank? You owe me an explanation, BPI. Monday morning.

Interview: Ivan Henares

Why pursue the subject of either mummifying, pickling, or refreshing/rebooting antiquity in these times? Or, alright, why consider something like the concept of adaptive reuse at all? Our friends at Heritage Conservation Society and the media have been pursuing all possible slants on this issue, including:

1. national identity, which we hardly have
2. national pride of place and self-esteem, which we sorely lack
3. beauty/aesthetic value, which we can't afford to lose
4. history, to make Philippine History 101 lectures more concrete
6. the need to protect patrimony/cultural heritage, for the sake of future generations of Filipinos

All of which are valid and equally convincing. However, there is one angle that I noticed our friends are missing:

7. the quality of life, particularly the patina of dignity that antiquity lends to a place. Money can't buy dignity, and it's hard to fake a dignified look/ambience. Mindless modernity defiles it.

Let's get heritage advocate Ivan Henares's reaction.

**

Hi Ivan, what do you say to that? Could you perhaps expound on it?

Ivan: Heritage indeed is an asset people do not realize they have until it's finally gone. When it's gone, you can't bring it back. It's sad when people realize how heritage could have raised the quality of life in a community. And when they finally understand it, they try to recreate it, but could not.

Ironic, no?

Another angle is the money-making angle:

8. If you're into business, you can bank on heritage because that air of dignity and class has a high premium in the tourism market.

You can also call it greed, but I'd rather call it "creative capitalism," job creation, and responsible (because patriotic) entrepreneurship. What's your thought on this?

Ivan: That's part of heritage conservation. You have to make heritage economically viable if you want it to survive. The term there is adaptive reuse. We use heritage buildings by carefully altering the interiors to suit modern needs. Most of the important tourist districts in the world have revolved around heritage. Sad to say, many businessmen here are so short-sighted, they consider all these old buildings as useless, tear them down, and build hideous structures to replace them. If packaged in the right way, people will flock to the heritage areas like Binondo, Sta. Cruz and Quiapo and that increases business. Dr. Trevor Hogan, an Australian sociologist said, "If Quiapo were in Melbourne, the rich and famous would be scrambling to live in it."

Our neighbors have fine examples of adaptive reuse, districts with preserved exteriors and chic interiors, such as Boat Quay and Clarke Quay in Singapore, San Ma Lo and Plaza Senado in Macau, and the Bund in Shanghai. They have been transformed into trendy attractions.

I've written a post that tries to explain away common folk's apathy on the issue. I hazarded that the concept of heritage conservatism is kinda elitist given the colonial nature of our national narrative. To the common Pinoy's mind, heritage conservation is irrelevant in the face of their poverty, their pressing needs. What's your reaction? Do you really find your endeavors worthwhile in the face of people not having enough and people from all walks abandoning their Filipino citizenship?

Ivan: The country is suffering from cultural amnesia, that's why. It's not the poverty but the lack of nationalism which leads to this apathy. There were many countries poorer than the Philippines which rallied behind their heritage and national identities that have overtaken us. It all boils down to understanding who you really are as a Filipino, loving everything about Philippine culture because that's who we are as a people.

As we continuously destroy every trace of our past, we are diminishing our pride as a Filipino race. There will be no visible symbols that we can use to bring us forward as one people. And mind you, many poor communities in countries around the world have turned their situation around because of heritage and cultural tourism. Here is the Hue Declaration on Cultural Tourism and Poverty Alleviation to guide everyone on how heritage has become a tool for poverty alleviation: World-Tourism.org.

There's more in the side bar of my blog such as the Yogyakarta Declaration on Cultural Tourism, Local Communities and Poverty Alleviation.

May we know the latest accomplishments of HCS? Could you give a brief recap? Are you finished documenting/cataloguing the various heritage structures around Metro Manila? What's the latest on the Metropolitan Theater?

Ivan: It's a really long list. We've sponsored a lot of lectures on heritage conservation, a heritage identification and documentation training (HIDT) to help equip local stakeholders on documenting heritage, and the annual Town & Cities Forum among many other advocacy projects. We're working closely with the Manila Heritage and Historical Commission for the documentation of Manila's heritage as well as the restoration of the Army & Navy Club. The Metropolitan Theatre restoration is being done by the NCCA. For more on the HCS activities, check out: Heritage.org.ph


**

Personals

Hey, you must be a rich kid to do all that traveling and documenting. Do you have sponsors? Can you reveal to us where you get funds? Do you have corporate sponsors?

Ivan: That's a misconception. My blog tries to prove that anyone can travel even with the smallest of budgets. You just need to be resourceful and avoid being picky with accommodations, transportation and other stuff. And when I use my own funds, that means sacrificing a lot of other stuff which other people usually enjoy. It's been months since I've watched a movie for example; the world is my movie house anyway. I avoid expensive nights out in Metro Manila; nights out in the middle of nowhere are more fun to me.

There are times I get to travel because of work or if I'm representing the country at international youth or heritage meets. And that's how I get around often too.

You've been around our stunningly beautiful archipelago. Which part of the Philippines is your favorite, and why? I know it's like asking whether apples taste better than atis, but could you indulge me the Friendster-like or beauty pageant-like question? No, I won't ask you to do a quarter-turn to the left, haha.

Ivan: This question has always been difficult to answer because the Philippines has so much to offer. I'll give several instead: Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras in Ifugao; Anawangin Cove in Zambales; the provinces of Palawan and Bohol; and Gumasa Beach in Sarangani. I wish I could visit Batanes soon. I just couldn't find the time at the moment.

Who and/or what are your influences? You're a UP grad, no? What's your course again? What's a guy like you at an age like that (twentysomething) doing in a place like that (heritage conservation)?

Ivan: I love the Philippines! That's what influences me to push forward. My UP courses are Economics, MBA and Urban & Regional Planning. It's the third degree that is closely related to heritage conservation. But the first two help me realize the need for economic sustainability if we want to see heritage preserved for the next generation of Filipinos.

You'd be surprised that heritage conservation is powered by a really young group. We have very active youth chapters around the country.

Thanks, Ivan! I really wish you well in your work.

ID-ing neighborhood noises

"Squoink, squoink, squoink!"

Strange sound. Something I heard for the first time.

I wish what I just heard last night was a similar scene from Suzanne Vega's "Luka," that '80s song about child abuse, possibly even child sex abuse. But it's not. The guessing game would've been easier.

The song goes, "My name is Luka/I live on the second floor/...If you hear something late at night/Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight/Please don't ask me what it was..." What I heard instead was a cross between a chittering, a squawk, and a mewing issuing from the house in front of my place. "Could it be a crow? Or a kookaboora?" I asked my brother one night. "It might be a crow," he answered. "Or maybe a quail." We settled for yellow-vented bulbul, for lack of consensus.

We live in a place that's a cross between a third-rate village and a typical Filipino barangay. It's supposed to be a functioning village but for the lack of strict regulation. The occurrence of strange sounds alone in unexpected times of the day will attest to this. I'm not proposing that certain sounds be deemed illegal, but there are certain sounds in certain decibels that cry, "I am illegal, please catch my owner."

Sure, there are the usual askals, some of which are mangy, which I fervently hope would be either run over or turned into azucena by either the raging food crisis or the kanto-boy drunks. There are also the pet dogs that are raised like special kids in our neighborhood. You thought the people here are kind of poor, but when you notice how they are able to afford expensive dog breeds, you begin to doubt. Like the other day, I saw a lady talking to a guy, and they each had a not-so-easily identifiable dog breed on a leash. As they were exchanging notes on the state of estrus of their pets, their dogs were having sex. The word "transference" popped in my psychotic head.

But apart from the predictable noises from dogs making love, lovebirds making love, and other such creatures, there are the more otherworldly sounds. It's easy to ID the different dog breeds' barks (if it barks, snarls, and howls like a dog, then it must be a dog), but not the other pet species I've encountered. Near our place, I swear I've seen either a mongoose or a ferret being taken for a morning walk, if that's not a civet cat. Then I also saw a purple heron, a gull or a tern, and who knows what it really was. The Bureau of Wildlife Protection should inspect this place for a possible wanton flouting of the wildlife/environmental law.

One corner sari-sari store sells assorted parrot and parakeet breeds, but I've seen a zebra dove, a quail species, and unidentified seabird all sharing the same cramped cage as in Nazi-era Dachau. The surreal sight almost made me crazy because I happen to know how diverse the habitats occupied by each of the birds in nature. (Near Baclaran church, it's even worse: crested mynahs, zebra doves, colasisis, and mayas compete for space with young chickens that have been bathed in different food colorings.)

It goes without saying that, by dawn, the strange creatures begin to out themselves one by one. There are the strange cawing, crooning, caroling, and other calls that you are only supposed to hear in a rainforest, all competing with the sexual taunts, brown jokes, and insults the neighborhood thugs throw at each other as they render OT hours for alcoholic recreation.

You'd think Tarzan is an official resident here. Either that, or the people indeed actually prefer to receive the gifts they sing about in "12 Days of Christmas" that their true loves abroad sent to them.

My feeling exactly

"My whole thing is that I saw 'The Dark Knight'. I feel like I'm dumb because I feel like I don't get how many things that are so smart. It's like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I'm like, 'That's not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.' I loved 'The Prestige' but didn't understand 'The Dark Knight'. Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I'm like, 'I get it. This is so high brow and so [expletive] smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.' You know what? [Expletive] DC comics. That's all I have to say and that's where I'm really coming from." - Robert Downey Jr.

Hee-hee-hee.

Free hugs to: Moviehole.net

One drop of rain for Manila, one gigantic flood for mankind

(Editorial)

This is the main headline that pops in my head as I wonder how it's at all possible that a brief downpour can cause flooding of Noah's Ark proportion in Metro Manila when the floodway system has been supposedly fixed? A forthnight ago, hundreds of people were trapped in Pasay Rotunda waiting for nothing from 6PM up to 12 PM! Last night, people panicked that that might happen again because there was flooding somewhere in Magallanes and Nichols/Villamor. Thankfully, traffic eased when the PUJs reverted to their declared signs and began loading passengers. We've long been suspecting the real cause of the flooding are the people themeselves, particularly their sick habit of throwing away their thrash anywhere it's convenient. But could it be that something is seriously wrong with the drains too? A little rain now and then shouldn't hurt, but how come we seem to have clogged the drainage and sewage system with cement? We know there's a war in Mindanao, but if we can wage such a costly war, why can't we wage a war against flood in Metro Manila?

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+Jose 'Pitok' Blanco, folk realist painter
+Lucrezia Kasilag, composer of classical music inspired by indigenous sounds

Editorial

I count myself lucky for having visited the Blanco Family Museum in Angono (or is that Tanay) and inspecting all those paintings up close (to see whether Blanco did the tints right) and all, and meeting his son and all that. Now, re. Kasilag, how come I know zip about her or her work, which is supposed to be important? I do smell another polemical essay somewhere, but not now.

**

Russia's invasion of Georgia

**

Zero

I've accomplished none of my target goals for the long holiday break. Instead I ended up attending meetings that drained me mentally/emotionally, playing Solitaire on and off in the computer, and picking up, all possible things, Erma Bombeck's Aunt Erma's Cope Book: How to Get from Monday to Friday ...in 12 Days. I tried to conceal the book as I went out malling with Ian and Mike, but the darned paperback bulged, so I had to admit I was carrying in my pocket a suspicious book, to which Ian and Mike gave a quizzical look.

What I didn't explain to them was that I bought it because I was so upset earlier that I had to humor myself by buying someone humorous. Somebody whose work I was editing earlier wrote with sudden tense shifts, which are so disorienting, and used adverbs ending in -ly when the dialogue involved a character who's nearly dying.

But the unexpected find was just Php15, so who's complaining? Staggering and irresistible were words that came to mind.

Microreview

Of course, coming up next is the inevitable side comment: I was wishing for the Jeeves book or at least a funny P.J. O'Rourke article, but this weird answer to my prayer wasn't a cause for dismay, either. The book wasn't as hilarious as the other Bombeck essays I've read -- it's more on the bitter side, but it's nonetheless a smart satire of domesticity, motherhood, and self-help books in an achievement-oriented society that naturally looks down on housewife-hood as not our idea of successful, not an achievement, not fulfilling enough, and therefore not respectable. This satire by a stressed-out supermon LOL-ing at herself made me appreciate the multitasking skills of mothers all over while they're going through a hormo-emotional roller-coaster ride around their workplace, the house, from pre-term pregnancy to the time they catch empty nest syndrome. The book made me think about my own mother and how she raised us, her children, how she could've been an accomplished 'somebody,' and how I must have inherited certain things from her (like IQ and EQ). This is a book she should've both read or pulled off writing but didn't, or wasn't able to, so I'm reading it on her behalf. She wouldn't like the bilious humor anyway, or am I misunderstanding and underestimating her?

**

Ultramicroreview

I also tried to squeeze in reading John Steinbeck's novella The Pearl. Wonderful writing ("The roosters squared their wings and ruffed out their neck feathers."). But the theme leaves such a bad taste in the mouth. I expected it to be profoundly depressing, being a Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath), but it depicts colonialism to be 100% evil and the colonized to be 100% pure. I hate Steinbeck's oversimplification. I hate him. Tell me why I shouldn't.

"The Ten Conyo-mandments"

(Swiped from the P.P. list)

(By Gerry Avelino and Arik Abu)

1. Thou shall make gamit "make+pandiwa"

"Let´s make pasok na to our class!"
"Wait lang! I´m making kain pa!"
"Come on na, we can´t make hintay anymore!"

2. Thou shall make kalat "noh", "di ba" and "eh" in your pangungusap

"I don´t like to make lakad in the baha nga, noh? Eh di ba it´s like, so ewww, di ba?
"What ba? Stop nga being maarte noh!"
"Eh as if you want naman also, di ba?

3. When making describe a whatever, always say "It´s SO pang-uri!"

"It´s so malaki, you know, and so mainit!"
"I know right? So sarap nga eh!"
"You´re making me inggit naman, I´ll make bili nga my own burger."

4. When you are lalaki, make parang punctuation "dude", "tsong" or "pare"

"Dude, ENGANAL is so hirap, pare."
"I know, tsong, I got bagsak nga in quiz one, eh."

5. Thou shall know you know? I know right!

"My bag is so bigat today, you know."
"I know, right! We have to make dala pa kase the jumbo Physics book eh!"

6. Make gawa the plural of pangalans like in English or Spanish

"I have so many tigyawats, oh!"

7. Like, when you can make kaya, always like. Like, I know right?

"Like it´s so init naman!"
"Yeah! The air-con, it´s like sira kase eh!"

8. Make yourself feel so galing by translating the last word of your sentence, you know, your pangungusap?

"Kakainis naman in the LRT! How plenty tao, you know, people?"
"It´s so tight nga there, eh, you know, masikip?"

9. Make gamit of plenty of abbreviations, you know, daglat?

"Like OMG! It´s like traffic sa EDSA."
"I know, right? It´s so kaka!"
"Kaka?"
"Kakaasar!"

10. Make gamit the pinakamarte voice and pronunciation you have para full effect!

"I´m like, making aral at the Arrhneow!"
"Me naman, I´m from Lazzahl!"

Nerdy to-do list

I won't be around much here because of the long vacation. Here's my wish-to-do list:

I want to read more about:

- Father of scientific management Frederick Winslow Taylor's piece rate payment model/theory vs. competing theories

- I want to get hold of The Cloud of Unknowing
- Merton's writings
- G.K. Chesterton's writings
- "Humanae vitae" and all other controversial encyclicals
- I fervently wish a copy of Jean Vanier's Becoming Human, because I deeply admire a person like Jean Vanier.

(Attention to bookstores: Please make these stuff available in cheap newsprint. Thanks.)

- Also: I've been meaning to read the Monstesquieu classic essay.

- Read "The Yellow Wallpaper" just because. Read James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Read the other short stories considered by critics to be the best. (I still love Luigi Pirandello's "War," etc. I recently discovered Carl Stephenson's "Leingen versus the Ants" and Ray Bardbury's "There Will Come Soft Rain.")

**

I plan to compose full-blown essays around these ideas I picked up from counseling:

To quote myself, "'Feeling the pain' is a necessary step in the healing process precisely because it's a natural reaction that the patient failed to go through, which resulted in all sorts of defense mechanism. Healing comes only after the inner self says it had enough (of the pain). After the denial phase, one is on the right track if one is going through or, as the counselor says, 'feeling the pain.' Of course, this doesn't meant giving in to the temptation to be hysterical about it and end up in despair. It's important that the pain is managed while it is being expressed. What's important to avoid is short-circuiting the process. There are no shortcuts to healing. Short-cuts are a result of denial, which only leads to more denial, more projection, and more complex defense mechanisms."

"Spiritually yet concretely," replies Harry, "[the process of healing life's traumas] is like going through the paschal mystery of passion (intense suffering), death, and resurrection."

"Openness is also extremely important. What you choose to conceal won't be healed."

**

When I said, "Wait, I'm confused." He answered, "Confusion is (or could be) a form of defense mechanism."

Sshhhhh, it's the silent film festival!

Advance selling of tickets to the following screenings is tentatively
scheduled to start on Monday, 25 August 2008:

August 26 - The Black Man with a White Soul/El negro que tenía el alma
blanca (Spain)
music by Novo Concertante Manila
August 27 - Cascading White Threads/Taki-no-shiraito (Japan)
music by Bob Aves
September 3 - The Oyster Princess/Die Austernprinzessin (Germany)
music by Noli Aurillo with The Schübligs, featuring Louie Talan,
Wendel Garcia and Kakoy Legaspi
September 4 - Cabiria (Italy)
music by Caliph8 (with Malek Lopez and Matt Deegan)

Tickets are P75 and available at the Shang Cineplex, Shangri-la Plaza.

Deal? Or noodle?

(Or, What is "cool"?)


Can you imagine Sharon Cuneta in real life slurping Lucky Me noodles for breakfast like an appreciative Chinese diner while canoodling with Kiko, Frankie, and KC? No, you can't. That's why her commercial is a form of lying. It just doesn't wash or slide down our throat.

Now, can you imagine shirts bearing the iconic mug of Ninoy Aquino in framed glasses selling like hot-off-the-grill corndogs to the young?

I'm not bitter in any way, okay, don't psychoanalyze me, but these two ad campaigns caught my attention because the people behind it don't quite get it -- or are pretending not to. I mean, come on, the concept of what's allegedly "cool" is their field of specialization, and now this?

Error No. 1: Wrong endorser. No matter how sosyal the endorser you get, her elitist aura won't infect or rub off on the product by sheer osmosis so long as the product is considered cheap by the masses. You might as well hire the gap-toothed manang on the street selling kwek-kwek made of orange dino eggs. Low-end and A-list (Snob edition) just don't mix.

For something to be cool, it has to be stylish, novel or faddish, luxurious, (which may necessarily mean expensive and thus snobbish), has an air of mystery (or mystique possibly from shameful mistakes) or at least rare or non-mainstream enough so as to be snobbish. Subliminal message: If everybody has it, then I don't want it. I have it -- and you don't; poor you. Maybe Sharon Cuneta peddling exotic tom yum soup or pad thai noodles is more convincing?

Error No. 2: The "iamninoy" campaign in ee cummings-case is something I like to support 100%, of course. But I don't think young Filipinos will buy in wagwagan and ukay-ukay bulk. Why? Because Filipinos are the first to look down on their own kind. Familiarity breeds contempt, your honor. Local = uncool. That's the reality on the ground, folks, that you got to admit, despite encouraging changes in the local rock and roll scene. Why are obscure bands being namedropped by snobbish music critics considered cool? And why do those same bands suddenly become a mere blip on the radar screen after they become successful (or after "selling out")? In the case of Ninoy, it's because Ninoy lacks something this society's perceived rebels (Che Guevarra, Chairman Mao, even Gandhi) have, despite Ninoy heroically rebelling against a feared dictator and earning his stripes at Fort Bonifacio. Ninoy's creds were ramrod-straight, screaming mainstream in bold font. Let's face it: Rebellion against the Establishment, going against the so-called grain, has an attractive undercurrent of glam.

Let me explain further: Since Roman Catholicism, for instance, is mainstream in RP, and Ninoy is a product of it, Ninoy won't be perceived as a dangerous rebel in the glamorous sense. He just doesn't have the required hipness factor of a communist who smoked marijuana or got high sniffing coke while pickling in whiskey, bedding hundreds of girls, and almost dying in the ICU after the complications of having too much fun and courting death too much. Organized religion is uncool.

Corollarily, this is the reason why Jesus Christ, while the greatest revolutionary ever to have walked the earth, at least according to his followers, just doesn't sell on cool T-shirts and pins. Which is just as well to "J.C.", because "J.C." will most likely scoff at popularity, which ironically should make him cool enough.

Of course, it doesn't help either that Ninoy Aquino had a ruling political and landed (haciendero) background, no thanks to his family and sheer association with Tita Cory C.-A. Politically speaking, coming from the successful I-had-it-so-easy mainstream is a kiss of death when it comes to coolness. To repeat, mainstream = easy = unrebellious, even though we all know that to be a terrible lie in Ninoy's case. Just ask the little Kris visiting her father in prison (and look what it did to her: according to someone, she exhibited a form of dysfunction, constantly looking for a strong father figure she could lean on).

What is cool is rebelling against authority, open defiance, hating mom and dad, villifying the elderly and dismissing their collective achievements, embarrassing the Church, avoiding cliche-d ("old-fashioned," "so last century") things "like hell," even when all of the above are right.

Alas, the twisted values of the young will only produce twisted parallel universes, but that's their version of incontrovertible reality. Take it or leave it. We must at least acknowledge it if we can't respect it. We all were young once, we all were not born yesterday, so that should be easy to do for all of us. But is it, really (grin)?

The 'glammed-up' version of rebellion is cool, that's why Madonna was or is cool. Look at how she celebrates dangerous sensuality:

"You've got style/All your suits are custom-made in London/But I've got something that you'll really like/Gonna dress you up in my love/Feel the silky touch of my caresses/All over your body/From your head down to your to-oh-oh-es."

Tupac Shakur's embrace of a violent life was cool. So are other fifty-cent rappers with a catchy beat: Despite their embarrassing private-life revelations, barf-inducing dirty linens, and the potty mouth to go with it, they sell because they are "kewl." James Dean's undercurrent of dysfunction (sex, drugs, what else) was cool. The punk lifestyle's vampiric embrace of darkness is cool. Harry Potter is cool. Anne Rice novels are cool. (By the way, she recently made a right turn by embracing Catholicism). The former artist named Prince's bisexual freakishness was much too cool to be derided.

Shifting back to the local scene, Jose Rizal can be somewhat the height of Filipino cool. He's got "chick-boy" chic -- babaero, in other words, plus the requisite air of mystique to match his worldly genius, encyclopedic vocab, and embrace of liberalism. The problem is he's not adequately exotic for our young people, and being of old, is automatically old-fashioned. Nora Aunor should be cool because her life is much too irregular to be deemed mainstream and arrow-straight. But because she grew up poor and became fabulously rich yet developed poor taste in certain things, and her TV show Superstar was so bakya, you can't count on her silhouette to project coolness, unlike say, the controversially fab and hot Marilyn Monroe, who became a cool icon with Warhol's deconstruction. In a certain way, she's got the "duende," yes, but not the required minimum of coolness.

What is cool in the Philippine context? Being born super-rich is one. It doesn't matter where the wealth came from. The potential for coolness of having it so easy and going through much suffering and pain may be absent, but the very inaccessibility of it sells like French perfumes. Feigning rebelliousness is another, just as faked boobs are cool. In a conservatively attired culture like ours, going out in nothing but brassieres and lace, and nudity for the sake of shocking people (as opposed to titillating) is cool because they're a form of open defiance. Being ramp-model-thin is cool. Being tall and mestizo/mestiza is another form of cool. Being trendy, the servile following of the globalized fashions of the day, is cool. Uttering the catchphrases of the day is cool. New technologies that catch on (e.g., latest cell phone models, mp3/mp4 players, online gaming, handheld gaming consoles) are cool. American shows/values/lifestyle (including premarital sex and sexual nonchalance) are cool, America being the world's only remaining superpower, which also happens to be super-rich (and we might add, super-loose via Hollywood's constant projections on the world's silver screens). Just try to study our national and highly dysfunctional 'childhood' phase, and you'll understand our national inner child, enough to either forgive or pity ourselves.

Why am I telling these things? I'm 100% sure the big shots at McCann Ericson and Ace Saatchi & Saatchi know all these. They should be the one giving this avuncular lecture. They only know too well that 'working' a product to achieve coolness is to hitch the product onto the right wagon: the wagon of perceived coolness no matter how mistaken that may be. If I sound like I support campaigns that fool or trick the target audience into believing what's allegedly cool, it's because I am. I think subliminal and viral are the keywords, or stop making him look cool at all, 'coz he ain't, but so what, right? But if they (admen, PR men, copy men) must insist, then good luck on correcting the young the obvious, didactic way.

Latest SEO terms

Moymoy Palaboy YouTube hits - great spoofers of MTV vids!! Fun second-rate Jim Carey facial contortions! Uniquely hilarious kadiri choreographies and idiotically brilliant spiels! Stupid dance steps! You're not sure which is more pervy: the Palaboys or MTV! They're now on TV! Watch them and watch your heartbeat race! Move over, Allan K!!

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Txtd suggestion for Manny Poohquiao's spiel: "Inrits ur bocabolary: Updated edition. Tactics - tunog ng orasan. No Peer - commercial nya. Motor Kid - pag-ikot nya sa Manila. Check in - manok sa McDo. Corrupt - pagsara ng mata. Wit - timbang. Duet - gawin mo. Noodle - sagot kay kris sa deal or no deal. Quotes - twag nya kay Freddie Roach. Cake - sipa. Pants - suntok. Stirs - hagdanan. Leap - kaliwa."

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Japanese TV comedy shows (particularly those that have game participants submitting themselves to gross public humiliation in variegated ways; an old zany Jap strategy (viz. Takeshi castle), really)

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Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, husband and wife, legalized spouses.

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Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps.

PNP, help

Because life is hard, crime is rampant. But just because life is hard, it doesn't mean we should abet crime.

If you have close contacts with the police, kindly relay to them this info:

Who: Armed (knife) holduppers/snatchers

Area of operation: SLEX, Magallanes Cloverleaf, and front of Asia Pacific College.

Get-off point: Nichols/Villamor interchange going to Merville Access Rd.

Alternative escape route: Dashing across SLEX, endanger all motorists

Suspected hideout: The ramshackle houses being demolished by the MMDA along the badly lighted PNR tracks in the area

Favorite time of operation and modus operandi: Lunchtime or non-rush hours; often targeting jeepneys that are not fully occupied so they can execute their Plan A smoothly. Or, when traffic is heavy, they content themselves with snatching the cell phones of commuters the minute the jeeps speed up after a stop, or suddenly slows down. (Where do all these snatched cell phones end up? Your guess is as good as...Greenhills?) Or, these criminals may also strike when it's raining so hard no one can hear the poor screaming passengers. Life is hard as it is. We don't want to say Life is a horror.

Please help if you can. Thanks.

Editorial: Burying the news

If we are to be negative about it, life in between the news will look like coffee-breaks in hell. No sooner than a hot-button item is milked for its newsworthiness in column-inches or airtime than another earth-shaking disaster, man-made or natural, strikes to hold us all in its firm grip. It's crazy. Columnists and bloggers have yet to exhaust their energies raving and ranting on this or that, and here comes another, a bigger one, burying the big one at the moment. It is like living in the Land of Unending Earthquakes. It behooves people in media, therefore, to remind themselves the importance of updating the rest of us on what's happening so far. Here are a few examples of yawning gaps that need to be filled in between the 'big ones':

Sulpicio Lines disaster and its victims: Are the bodies recovered yet? Is the ship now towed safely back to shore? Are the survivors and their relatives being taken care of? Are their emotional and mental needs being met? How are they moving on with life? Has Sulpicio Lines not reneged on its promise of financial reparation?

Glorietta explosion: What is Ayala Corp.'s plan so far? Since their underground sewage system blew up, how is the mall doing right now? Where does it throw away or store its waste? Has there been an alternative action plan? Are the other wings of Glorietta okay? Don't their own sewage systems pose the same danger? How sure are we that these are working properly? Are the mall's sewage system in tip-top shape? Are the other malls and establishments in similar danger? How can we be sure the disaster won't repeat itself in the future?

Ces Drilon kidnapping: How is she now? So she was suspended, but what is she doing? What about her companions? How are they faring so far? Is the law running after the kidnappers/terrorists?

Iloilo flood: How are the Ilonggos recovering from their equally tremendous loss? Are there success stories so far? If none, are there any inspiring stories of people behaving in the best possible way at the worst possible time?

Like I said, the above are just a few examples. We are pretty sure that, after this MILF thing dies down, the issue will be buried deep just like the others, together with the more important issue of giving justice to the oppressed Muslims/lumads and granting them full independence if that's what most of them want.

We can't blame media; they need to prioritize the most pressing news with their presumably limited resources. But someone should remind them that they might have been unintendedly (to distinguish things from the intentional 'killing' of a story) burying the news, together with the underlying issues that matter to all.

One-liners

(Fwded mail)

When I was born, I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.
Join the army, see the world, meet interesting people, and kill them.
Until I was 13, I thought my name was 'Shut Up.'
I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.
Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
I've never been drunk, but often I've been over served.
The road to success is always under construction.
I say no to drugs -- they just don't listen!
Marriage is one of the chief causes of divorce.
Work is fine if it doesn't take up too much of your time.
When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
Born free; Taxed to death.
Everyone has a photographic memory; some people just don't have film.
Life is unsure; always eat your dessert first.
Smile -- it makes people wonder what you're up to.
I love being a writer... what I can't stand is the paperwork.
A printer consists of 3 main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.
The hardest part of skating is the ice.
The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot; the guy who invented the other three, he was the genius.
The trouble with being punctual is that there's no one there to appreciate it.
If our constitution allows us free speech, why are there phone bills?
If you tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe, he'll believe you. But if you tell him a park bench has just been painted, he has to touch it to be sure.
Beat the 5 O'clock rush: leave work at noon!
If you can't convince them, confuse them.
It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end.
I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
Hot glass looks same as cold glass. (Cunino's Law of Burnt Fingers)

Can I add this old one from somewhere?: If symptoms persist, insult your doctor.

Notes on Frankl

(Quotable quotes from Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning)

The primary motivation of man is the will to meaning (___).

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comofrting others, giving away their last piece of bread. Everything can be taken frmo a man but one thing" the last of the human freedom -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. (86)

Existentialism is the struggle to find meaning in ilfe. Not all sufferings/pain/mental anguish is a neurosis but something normal or even good (or leading to something good). When you can't find meaning in your life, you're in existential distress, which is good and not necessarily a neurosis. (124)

What man needs is not happiness/homeostasis/equilibrium/tensionless state, but rather the striving and struggling fro a worthwhile goal, (which is) a free chosen task. (127)

Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice (135). If you know the know the why, you'll have to bear the how, said Nietsche (___). Negative happiness means, as Schopenhauer put it, "freedom from suffering (___).

Man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. Suffering, though, is not necessary to find meaning. We are only referring to suffereing that's unavoidable suffering. ... To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic, rather than heroic. (136)

Unhappiness is not always a symptom of maladjustment (or neurosis) (136).

Logos (meaning) is deeper than logic (141).

Every age has its own collective neurosis, and every age needs its own psychotherapy to cope with it (152).

Nihilism is the thought that being has no meaning (152). Cf. Existentialism according to the likes of Camus et al.'s absurdist view of life as a mere struggle to transcend or survive meaninglessness. Cf. George Sargent's "learned meaninglessness (177).

Cf. Nothingbutness is the theory that man is nothing but the result of biological, psychological, and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment (___). Stray thought: Does this view has soemthing to do with the bildungsroman literary genre (novel writing)?

Criticism of 'pandeterministic" thought: Pandeterminism is the view of man which disregards his capacity to take a stand toward any conditions whatsoever. Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. Man is self-determining. (155)

We may predict the movements of a machine,... more than this, we may even try to predict the mechanism or "dynamisms"of the human psyche as well. But man is more than psyche.


Concept of freedom: Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. That is why I strongly suggest that New York's Status of Liberty be renamed to Statue of Responsbility. (156)

Concept of tragic optimism: One is, and remains, optimistic despite the tragic triad of pain, guilt, and death. (The opposite of which are faith, hope, and love.) (161)

On happiness: Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue (162).

"The pleasure principle" is a fun-spoiler, a form of hyperintention, as in telling people to "Say cheese" whenever they are photographed, resulting in faked smiles (163).

The existential vacuum syndrome results in depression, aggression, addiction -- a feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness (166).

Concentation camp survival has proven "the defiant power of the human spirit." There is "attitudinal heroism." (171) E.g.: Life story of Fr. (now Saint) Maximillian Kolbe, which Frankl mentions in the last page.

Know how to suffer (171).

(Frankl also often talks about "potentialities," which sounded like Deepak Chopra to me. He often attacks "today's society's "achievement orientation," contending that people who suffer also achieve much by coming out of suffering with their dignity intact.)

Therapists should see their task in immunizing the trainee against nihilism rather than inoculating him with the cynicism that is a defense mechanism against their own nihilism. (177)

Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake. (179)

See also: Frankl's "will to meaning" vs. Freud's "will to pleasure" and Adler's "will to power"

Stray thought: Hitler's unspeakable, intolerable evil continues (Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, etc.). In a more subtle way, there's the example of the urban poor. It's easy to see how this world is a kind of a concentration camp especially to them who have to live under extreme want. The urban poor are traumatized in different ways and on many levels. They need urgent help.

Bumping into a face in the news

By the unierse's sometimes wicked design, I caught sight of this famous senator (or notorious, depending on which side you are) at close range last night. He looked charismatic in person. I guess I was starstruck a bit. But my next instinctive reaction was to try to avoid looking at him directly. His immediate presence reminded me of all the negative posts I may have written against him. It didn't help that he had two menacing bodyguards in tow. I mentally reviewed my archives whether there was a cause for me to be weak-kneed and paranoid. I figured I should stand firm on everything I said. I resolved not to take back anything. I never write about things lightly, unless I am joking. And even when I'm joking, I often have something else, something more serious in mind. In short, I am holding my ground.

One thing I am reminded of is how small this city is. You can run into just anybody in the news if you are in the right place at the right time. Our world is so small that one's action can directly impact somebody else's life, and that you can actually run into people just by being in the mall.

I remember how I run into PGMA and her family one time doing their toy-shopping at SM Makati. It was so unexpected; I could have bumped into the First Family literally, were it not for the menacing lineup of well-chosen guards building a Great Wall of China near the famous personalities.

Then I recalled how a friend of mine, knowing how I like editing erroneous drafts, have just emailed me a copy of a letter he was trying to draft. He said he was drafting said letter as a secretary to his dad, who happened to be working under the Office of the President. In short, I found myself editing, or laboring on, a solicitous, even fawning, letter addressed directly to the President, who has been the subject of so many critical posts I had (in wildly punning or deliberate palenquero styles). It's a weird feeling to be the person editing a loyalist's request prayerfully addressed to her and at the same time recalling how I have been blasting the same subject to bits.

Editorial

(Thoughts on Philippine aesthetics at a time of impending war)

It occurred to me that, since we are a country of the kundiman and the abakada, a style of abecedary that appears most elementary, our concept of beauty lies in simplicity, artistic naivete, purity. That's the artistic path, I presume, that we must pursue, if we are to gain our "own identity," because it can't be helped anyway: that's what we apparently are in the first place.

Our simplicity is not equivalent to Japanese zen-sibility, though, because ours does not reach the abstract level of aesthetics.

But make no mistake. That 'naif' sensibility is more complex than it seems. Why? Because it is complicated by the accompanying opposite: we are also a country and a culture of seemingly senseless mishmash, the mumbo-jumbo of mismatching and conflicting influences that we deem acceptable (or more accurately palatable) for one reason or another. Media favorite Gilda Cordero Fernando correctly likened us to the halo-halo dessert. Therein lies our other identity, if we must have another.

I once called this conflict a paradox (obviously I was too enamored of the word/concept), but I am not so sure now. The better term is "conflicted," I think. Could it be that we are simply just being ourselves: a product of waves of dysfunction, brought about by the colonialism, which we are still trying to resolve up to now?

We may be looked upon as disordered on one side, but the resulting tension may be good. It means we are in search: the search for meaning as a nation or identity as a people. This searching is evocatively essayed in the classic movies by Eddie Romero, Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon starring Christopher de Leon and Agila starring Fernando Poe Jr.

Meanwhile, the national narrative -- or Pinoy telenovela, if you will -- continues to unfold over periods of seeming peace and the punctuations of pocket rebellions (especially now in Mindanao). Where it will lead us is anybody's guess at this point. Everyone seems to wish all this confusion leads to a beautiful resolution. But is waiting for some kind of a resolution the right approach to take? It seems our conflicted psyche is at home in the constancy of a world in conflict.

David: "God is 'weak'!"

In his talk "Strength in Weakness: The Language of Paradox in St. Paul's Letters" at the San Carlos Seminary Auditorium in Guadalupe, Makati last Saturday (16 Aug 2008), Bishop Pablo David, STD (!), mentioned how the pilosopo* Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach slapped Christians black and blue (and practically all people of other faiths too) with his assertion that deists' image of a "powerful God" (as in ejaculations of "Alleluia!!! Our Mighty and Powerful God!!!") is but a projection of mankind's hidden desire for power.

Bishop David said that, for once, he agreed with Feuerbach. "Indeed, we all secretly love power. And indeed, we got it all wrong. For God is not the powerful God of our own imagination. What we might have been worshiping all along is our own desires: ourselves. It's all been self-worship."

"...Because God can be seen as a 'weak' God," continues Bishop David. "And it appears to be the more accurate way of seeing God": a God who dares to be weak, if I might dare fine-tune the point. God is a weak God in terms of His daring to love (because love that is forced is not love), a God who can be prevailed upon by His beloved to change His/Her mind, a God who waits, a God who relents in His punishment, and "a God who even hopes in us, as theologian Jurgen Moltmann once asserted," like another bishop noted, even as we hope in Him.** A God who forgives seventy times seven times, opening himself up to abuse, to hurt. A God who is hurting. A God who suffers. A God who remains in suffering.

That's the basic paradox beneath the "palimpsest of paradoxes" in the Christian faith: a God who would dare abase Himself and become man, so that the angels would forever sing, O felix culpa, ("O, happy fault"). A God who would choose to be vulnerable, helplessly nursing at a Jewish woman's breast. A God who would go down the level of His creation and be reincarnated in Mary's flesh and blood. A God who would surrender to the ultimate humiliation of all: the Cross, seeming Defeat, and corporeal Death.

A God who would be willing to become sacrifice lamb for a world in sin. The Forbearing Father of the prodigal son. The Good Shepherd, hunting for the last sheep missing. The Hound of Heaven. The Persistent Lover. Unconditional Lover. Gentle Dove. The Sweet Spirit.

What a wondrously 'weak' God we have!

At this point, I am reminded, ironically, of (the atheist) Arthur Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a classic sci-fi movie which has an outer space scene that I misinterpreted to mean that the God of the universe is an infant. A happy fault -- because, in retrospect, it had planted in my mind the dangerous idea that God could be powerless like a newborn, as in His decision to grant free will to mere creation.)

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*Come to think of it -- there's a thin line between a pilosopo and a theosopo.
**Cf. Bishop Tagle's related thoughts on hope.
**Cf. Fr. J.Lingad, SDB on hope. He says hope is not an abstract entity, but a person: Jesus Christ.

On presuming guilt

In one Ignatian retreat (a form of guided retreat, as a opposed to the free-flowing Augustinian one) I attended, I learned that what we consider to be the worst about ourselves are also the exact opposites of what we think as the best things about ourselves. I have often wondered why that is so. I've tried to connect that Ignatian observation to the psychological concept of projection, but I have failed so far.

In projection, we unconsciously reflect onto others, as though on a screen, what we don't like about ourselves. It follows that what offends us the most about other people is also what we hate (consciously or unconsciously) the most about ourselves. It is that basic.

In my case, I am most easily offended when people presume I'm guilty. Maybe (or most likely) that's because I am sometimes (or often) rash in my judgment, a defect I am not very proud of, surely. Fortunately, I know from that unforgettable Ignatian retreat that the opposite of presuming guilt -- that of balancing and refining my judgment (by being open-minded) -- is also one of my strengths, a self-knowledge that's no small consolation to my ego.

Anyway, being presumed guilty, motivated no less by evil, insults me so easily, malice aforethought hurts me so profoundly. But I figure that, if a raw nerve was touched at all, it could be a projection of the same evil in me, or that I am too desirous of being seen as virtuous and kind (at least some or most of the time).

I am kind of grateful for this place I live in for exposing this particular weakness. As a regular commuter, I get to meet all sorts of presumptious (a word I invent to distinguish it from presumptuous, which is different) people. I bet you too are familiar with all these examples:

-There's the next guy walking on the road who presumes I'll mug him. I can see it in the way he panics as I draw near towards him or behind his back.

-The girl who wears a micromini and has plunging neckline, then presumes all men are out to take a peek. We can see her presumptious paranoia from the way she covers herself as she stoops or picks up something from the floor in your presence.

-The anonymous seatmate in the bus who gropes for his pockets (in your face) the moment you stand up to get off the bus for fear that his wallet or cellphone is gone because he sat next to a petty thief: you.

-The saleslady who keeps an eye on you and assumes you're either a klepto or a desperate hobo even when you are dressed up as the CEO of Citibank and conspicuously waving the latest laptop model, with a cup of Starbucks macadamia nut frappuccino on one hand.

-The jeepney driver who guiltlessly accuses certain passengers of not having paid yet and that they were doing it deliberately, out of their shamelessness.

-The teacher who accuses the student of cheating when the student merely moved his head 25 degrees to the left because his neck was aching a bit or forgot to do his morning exercise.

-The transvestite who dresses up like a hooker and acts like all cross-eyed drunk men are about to rape him/her.

-The security guard who presumes all mall-goers are terrorists and under special FBI surveillance.

-The gorgeous girl or guy who assumes too much: everyone who meets his/her orbs by accident is hopelessly in lust with him/smitten by her. (Having a crush is not among those that we tend to misinterpret as a crime, though. :p)

-The friend who hastily presumes that an anxious reaction is a neurosis (arising from a dysfunction), when the reaction is something healthy and even perfectly normal.

-We who conclude that someone's lot in life like sickness or poverty is a result of either laziness, bad karma, or divine retribution -- in short, punishment.

-Drivers who presume traffic ordinances "are mere suggestion."

-Poor people who presume that rich people are greedy and evil.

-Rich people who presume poor people are lazy, stupid, or plain envious -- a bunch of criminals.

If the line between presumed guilt and misplaced paranoia is thin, it is because presumption of guilt is also a reflection of the depths of evil society has plunged into. In an utterly corrupt world, no one can be trusted, and so distrust of one's fellow man runs rampant. These are what all these actions above say below the surface. But that's not the kind of presumed guilt we are dealing with right now. What we are talking about is presumed guilt out of self-righteousness and possibly, a projection of one's own guilt.

The opposite of presumption of guilt (especially guilt based on a flimsy proof) is, needless to say, trust -- giving the benefit of the doubt; in short, being charitable. That's how foul and mean presumptious guilt is. It's only obverse can be kindness, purity of heart.

Post-holiday notes

Dear diary,

Sorry, had to catch a talk and thumb through seven books to get me through the holidays. The following have grabbed me by the collar I was practically kidnapped into other worlds.

The talk was about paradoxes in St. Paul's letters. Titled "Power in Weakness," it was delivered by Bishop Pablo 'Ambo' David, who turns out to be Randy David's brother. The topic alone was, of course, such a delicious bait for this rat (me). I intend to blog about the new things I've learned about Christian paradoxes.

I got me the following books:

The Little Flowers of Saint Francis: The Life of St. Francis of Assissi. (Konecky & Konecky, [no publication date given]). Translated from the Italian (probably by Franciscan monk Ugolino de Montegiorgio) and edited by Cardinal Manning. - This is the Christian (okay, Catholic) version of rock and roll. Really, this saint's life is so arresting. He and his brother-friars really have been "the most angelic human beings to ever have walked the earth."

The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe. (Bantam Books, 1975) "Exposes the myths and men of (American) modern art." - The first Tom Wolfe book I found adequately readable -- and surprisingly likeable. Reminds me so much of Sassy Lawyer's attack on the local literary canon. Again, the difference is Wolfe has enough material to back him up, and he sure knows his subject intimately. Oh, how Wolfe had a field day attacking the ugliness of modern art (chiefly European and American) that I could only say, "Bring it on!"

With Open Hands by Henri J. M. Nouwen. (Ave Maria Press, 1972) His first book, which is about prayer and how a prayerful person is essentially a prophet, devoid of selfish will (not to be confused with the will to surrender) and therefore 100% free to do as he think he ought.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. (Washington Square Press, 1984; first published 1946). I am jubilant to just to have laid hands on this modern classic. Frankl is, of course, the man behind 'logotherapy,' which is based on the theory that man's primary motivational force is his search for meaning ('will to meaning,' as opposed to Nietszche's 'will to power,' Freud's will to have sex' (more accurately, the 'pleasure principle' or the 'will to pleasure' ), and Adler's 'striving for superiority,' just like Nietsczhe's).

I'm kinda guilty about it, but I also didn't resist picking up a Mad compilation of witty comebacks, to further strengthen my arsenal of 'insults' (more of reprimands or avuncular sermons, really) for my favorite subjects of unrelenting 'attacks': those who think tomfoolery/crime (including ugliness) is king.

I also bought two collections of short stories (one classic and another modern (New York stories)) to satisfy my craving for stories.

It is so distressing to find that the prices of my favorite magazines have risen to such unaffordable levels. What crime.

Pinoy punsters strike again

(A new set of too-tacky-it's-actually-wacky business names; Forwarded email)

CUT AND FACE, beauty parlor in San Juan
STARDUCKS, balut wholesaler in Batangas
VIOLYBEE, eatery in Nueva Ecija owned by Violy
CAFE PINDOT, internet cafe
SUMMA CUM LAUNDRY, laudromat in Manila
PAKITA MO PET MO, pet shop in Kamuning
MEKENI ROGERS, restaurant in Pampanga
LITO LAPIDA, tombstone maker in Antipolo
PAKOPYA NI EDGAR, copy center in Quezon City
STAR WASH: ATTACK OF THE CLOTHES, laundromat in Quezon City ()
CHICKPOINT, beerhouse in Cavite
SA GOAT KITA, kambingan
WA-THIRST, water station in Manila
DR. SHOE-BAGO, shoe repair shop in Marikina
SHOEPERMAN, shoe repair shop in Quezon City
We Will HEEL you, save your SOLE, even DYE for you, shoe repair shop
PETNESS FIRST, pet shop
INCOME TAXI, taxicab
SUSAN'S ROSES, flower shop
HIPON COMING BACK, shrimp store
KISAME STREET, ceiling installer
BANGGA KA 'DAY?, car repair shop
FISH BE WITH YOU, aquatic pet store in Bulacan
WASH YOU PROBLEM, laundromat
PINOY BIG BARBER, barber shop in Cagayan de Oro
GOTO KO PA, goto eatery
HAIR DOT COMB, beauty parlor
COOKING NG INA MO!, a restaurant in Cainta (?), which is right beside...
COOKING NG INA MO RIN!, a competing restaurant (They sure have great cooks for mothers)
FUNERARIA MABUHAY, a funeral parlor
GUADALUPE FUNERARIA SALON, a beauty and make-up salon in Guadalupe
HURRY CUTTER, barber shop
CAINTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN - fastfood in Cainta, Rizal

**

Quick commentary: Pinoys are great 'punsters.' I haven't seen a big business, though, that has a pun for a name. Makes one think.

Du-rag? or doo-rag?

Never expected this, but I got me three irked reactions to my old post on du-rag. Is that the right spelling? Whatever. Who cares? I didn't mean it to be racist. Just that some people have no sense of humor and take themselves too seriously. Enjoy.

(Meanwhile, get well soon, Francis M.)

**

I've begun riding FX taxis again, so I dug up, dusted off, then updated this post to remind myself that, sometimes, the ride can get pretty funny in an unintended way: Achilles' knees.

Editorial

Ano'ng meron? Wala.

Wala. What an apt word to describe what's happening. Everything is going down the drain, and yet nothing concrete is happening to help lift us out of this rut of rising everything.

...Despite the people essentially throwing their support on the current administration, by not staging another EDSA. ...Despite the Catholic bishops throwing their support by not issuing a pastoral letter that's harsh enough, even though it's not their duty to give veiled political statements.

We're all tired of doing yet another EDSA because it won't reflect good on us. We'll be the laughingstock of the world. Another 'people power' will reflect badly on what we have achieved at EDSA 2. Maybe we've become as guilty of little and big hidden acts of deceit and corruption, that's why we can't, we won't, be as angry this time? Or maybe we're really, really tired? Whatever. Even Mother Nature seems cooperative just to give this administration a chance, another chance.

But please, run the country well naman! Wag nyo naman gaguhin ang tao at babuyin ang bayan with another feckless attempt at Cha-Cha. Bastusan na 'to.

Dati pa naman eh. Nagtimpi lang kami. Maybe because we wanted to show the booted-out Estrada how much we disliked his garapal politics. Maybe we wanted to be proven right.

Pero, sadly, di hamak na mas garapal and drunk with power ang pumalit. Parang nagkamali kami.

"What happened to Benny? What happened to his heart, and the ideals he once pursued?" lament a main character in the otherwise racy musical Rent, a play where everything in the world is "rent, rent, rent." Benny is a former friend who sold out and, like the opposite of St. Paul, has found reverse conversion and now becomes his old friends' major stressor. Mga aktibista kayo lahat dati ah. Ano'ng nangyari sa inyo? Ba't mas masahol pa kayo kay Marcos ngayon? Even Erap and company now look like St. Francis of Assissi sa kapal ng mukha nyo. Doesn't that spite you enough? Doesn't it insult you that not a few of today's young people look up to Marcos and refer to the infamous martial law years as "better times"? Who can blame them? You just have to look at yourselves. Soon, just to spite you, they shall declare the infamous Imelda and Ferdinand as national heroes.

All the early critics of this administration were right in swimming against the tide. They were all right -- especially those who had so much to lose yet spoke up anyway. They are honorable Filipinos. They are modern-day heroes. And they're quite many to count. As a 'nobody' citizen of this country, I am deeply consoled and honored and gladdened.

**

Obvious ba? We don't want you anymore. Kumita na ang drama nyo, mga lolo't lola. The least you can do now is step down ang give the power to the young, poor, naive, and untainted with political ambitions, but who actually believe in democracy. (Like someone said, "revolutions have always come from below, not from the top.") But we know you won't do that. Stepping down is farthest from your mind because it could mean going to jail for all of you. But since we don't want you anymore because you have lost all right to be in power because you don't know how to handle it and you had so much fun being possessed by it, you can go now. Suggestion: you can choose to go to the USA or anywhere else where you can spend the rest of your life in the safety of luxury.

Our torment must end. It must. We're sick and tired of having nightmares. We're sick and tired of you.

Ano ba!?%#@!

The pervading signs of the times are the following:

NO ENTRY

NO EXIT

DISCONNECTION NOTICE

And yet, you wake up in the morning with the headline:

CHA-CHA, A DONE DEAL.

Juice ko, kahit di ka nagmumura, mapapamura ka.

Mga ser, mga ma'am, ang kakapal nyo naman... po!!! Umalis-alis nga kayo diyan, pwede ba ha! Ba't di kayo mag-Nursing lahat?. Sana maging US at Canadian citizens agad lahat kayo.

Pati mga MILF, ginagamit nyong palusot, wag lang mawala sa pwesto. Akala nyo maloloko nyo lahat ng tao. Kala nyo lahat ng Pilipino bayarang puta tulad ng marami dyan.

Dahil sa inyo, naalala ko tuloy 'yung pangit na chorus ng pangit na kanta nung mga dekada '90: "Bakit ang panget-panget nyo!?"

Offbeat bits

Phony sheep - How to recycle old landline phones. Btw, would you believe that landline phones today have practically become useless? PLDT's solution? Convert landline accounts to mobile/SIM card accounts. Result: A bunch of people claiming to be on the road carrying their "landline" (on their cell phone).

What's your reaction to the Spanish basketball team's advertisement pic for their Chinese-made shoes? I don't find their slanting-eye gesture offensive in the context it was used. It's not easy to accuse the subjects of malice, based on the picture itself.

**

Religious news

CDW Issues Directives on the Use and Translation of the Name of God in the Liturgy and Liturgical Music - In other words, the use of "Yahweh" is banned.

Yup, I've also been keeping updated on the Joel Osteen's wife's case.

Wondering

I, for one, have been in support of a separate nation for the Moros if that is what it takes for peace to finally reign in Mindanao. Now that they are being given what they wanted, why are some Moros declaring war?

I agree that, due to PGMA's legitimacy issue, this action may be seen as yet another act to buttress her beleaguered presidency. What if, she's in fact keen on resolving this age-old conflict once and for all? After all, it takes several dancers to dance the elaborate steps of the choreographer (Malacanang), and these dancers (including US and Japan representatives) are hardly the push-over types. Will the Malacanang-instigated MOA be a dangerous precedent for the Igorots? Will we become another Yugoslavia, as some people fear?

In a world that's becoming increasingly one entity, why are we splitting apart? I guess it's because the Muslim mind can not, or will never, accomodate a secular setup of government, and that's fine, as long as they restrict the application of their laws to their adherents only. Will that arrangement be good enough for the Muslims, or do they in fact want something else?

The use of the word "juridical" is likewise confounding. What does it mean? Is it supposed to mean different from "judicial"? I assume the word is much related to "justice"?

I'm very glad somebody wisely pointed out that the real natives of Mindanao are the lumads (aborigines), not the Muslims, although some lumads have become Muslim. Will this historical fact somehow soften some Bangsamoro people's disagreeable stance of wanting to take over the whole of Mindanao and Palawan?

What is bakyâ?

What is 'bakya'?, Carlos Celdran asks the thought-provoking question in his blog. 'Bakya' is, of course, 'baduy' or tacky or kitschy in the cheap, tasteless, eew-inducing way. Here are my answers:

- Guys with conspicuously unclipped pinkies, the better to scoop out their kulangot with -- and perhaps even ice cream. The unclipped fingernail functions like an all-around tool, like Swiss knife.

- Sofa sets covered in plastic for posterity

- Realistic-looking plastic flowers, especially when they have gathered the dust of the centuries. Flowers are meant to wither after their expiry date, oy.

- A rainforest of plastic plants and trees as office decor. I'd rather have nothing (for the zen effect).

- That blinking cell phone borloloy. Aren't the bars enough indicator of how strong the signal is?

- Cheap dashboard decors of the day, the ones that everybody else has

- Moviestar adulation to the point of using his/her cutout pics as bedroom wallpaper

- Asking a movie star's autograph or minding him/her when the celeb is trying very hard to melt in the crowd

- MMDA's pink-and-sky-blue bridges. They're functional, yes, but in a country with so many creative talents to use, they're tacky, tacky, tacky, cheapening Metro Manila by 100 points. Here's a clue to remediating the mistake: Use a metallic combination of shades, and make the color as unobtrusive (not garish and gruesome like it is now) as possible.

- MMDA 'art.' To MMDA: Please ask artists to volunteer: sculptors, painters, graphic artists, graffitti artists, even tattoo artists. Thanks.

- Many Manila's streetlamps, especially those that have lost all sense of proportion.

- Three conflicting designs of ugly streetlamps in just one short stretch (I swear I've seen this somewhere in Manila.) Behold how you've tranformed Manila into a ten-peso slut machine.

- Overly melodramatic and cliche-d movie and TV scenes. Enough. Ang cheap nyo. Life is one big drama, I agree, and I love it when people are sweet, but there's a way of doing those scenes with restraint. Mag-enroll nga kayo kay Joey Reyes at Ricky Lee o sa UP Creative Writing Center o Silliman University.

- Demolition of defining art/architecture and historical heritage sites, then replacing them with high-rises with terrible architecture.

- Functionally ugly bauhaus architecture, instead of really futuristic designs. Give us Star Wars structures, for gad's sake! Look at Beijing and Shanghai.

- War and terror as a means to resolve disagreement.

- Useless blogs that earn huge sums (in dollars) despite their uselessness. To Google and Adsense: Is this how you reward content? (Update: Okay, a little sidebar: A blog is useless when its content is driven purely by the most current/hot-button-clickable SEO terms.)

- PR stuff passed off as news. If it is PR, then there should be no byline. Duh. Do I have to say that?

- Media content that's 90% PR. Repeat after me: Nobody reads PR stuff. (Not the fault of PR writers, though.)

- Giant billboards with certainly unattractive faces. If you decide to invade our public spaces, be sure you look either really gorgeous or holy enough to be adored as god/God/someone godly.

- Tabloids that thrive on nothing but porn, plain tsismis, and other pure forms of sleaze.

- Hastily Tagalog-translated Billboard hits of the day (like "Low"). Pakisampal nga ang mga nagsulat nito? Utang na loob. (And I'm not complaining of the stealing of ideas in broad daylight.)

- Local compositions that try hard to be RnB, reggae, bossa etc. but failing miserably at it. Be original kasi. Or if you are to cover, "do it better or do it different."

- Pop songs with rhyming lines, uniform measure, non-catchy beats, and incredible predictability. To composers of such: Enroll in Beyonce school of pop song, for instance.

- Overdone 'kulots' in singing ballads. Give it up. It's dead. It only works in RnB, soul, and the like.

- Fair- and brown-skinned ladies who are pug-nosed and bleach their hair blond. Out of charity, I don't want to offend the poor, malnourished, and sunbleached Badjaos (who have invaded the Metro with their tin/PVC pipe drums, wonderful beats, and graceful dance moves), but the similarity is just too irresistible. Mag-highlight or streak na lang kaya kayo? Kulutin ko kayo eh.

- Devotion to America as role model in everything. Wake up. Americans are extremely baduy in a lot of things. Including most Hollywood films.

- Polyester barong. No explanations necessary.

- Inserting an incongruous 'h' in one's name to make it sound more foreign and even more foolish. Examples: Romy --> Rhomy. Michael --> Michaehl. You're not Portuguese.

- Lavishing honor and glory on national celebrities/stars yet neglecting other artists, like writers, poets, composers, singers, etc. Or even Math Olympiad winners. Malacanang: Ang cheap naman... po. Ang values natin, nabibisto masyado.

- Not falling in line. Ang mahilig sumingit, mukhang singit.

- Throwing one's trash in the street. Huwag maging baboy sa sariling bayan.

- Living off other people's misery

- Show biz personalities who enter politics armed with nothing but little knowledge, little skill, and a lot of suspicious motives

**

Personals:

- Servile attitude on fashion trends. For me, uncritical adoption of Western fashions deserves all the heckling it can get. "When everyone thinks alike, no one is thinking much."

- Boxing - I don't get it. Why glorify violence on "God's temple"?

- Beauty contests - You don't get it! Beauty is actually in the inner eye of the beholder because beauty is not skin-deep!

Cockfighting - Beautiful bird. Despicable gore. Poor bird.

**

Updates:

Carlos's latest blog on the subject lists down a coupla things I've missed here but gleefully heckled or at least noted in the past:

"Crazy portmanteaus" as bus/jeep/tricyle names
Cheap, shameless copycats of foreign hit songs (have they ever heard of patent infringement?)

Things I haven't noted yet but with which I wholeheartedly agree to be bakya:

Puns on existing business names as business names (especially unfunny puns)
Making boso
Swimming with huge T-shirt draped on top of swimwear
Drinking in plastic bags

Noah's ark story, 2008 edition

(Forwarded mail)

In the year 2008, the Lord came unto Noah, who was now living in the United States , and said:

Once again, the earth has become wicked and over-populated, and I see the end of all flesh before me.

Build another Ark and save 2 of every living thing along with a few good humans.

He gave Noah the blueprints, saying: You have 6 months to build the Ark before I will start the unending rain for 40 days and 40 nights.

Six months later, the Lord looked down and saw Noah weeping in his yard - but no Ark.

Noah! He roared, I'm about to start the rain! Where is the Ark ?

Forgive me, Lord, begged Noah, 'but things have changed.

I needed a building permit.

I've been arguing with the inspector about the need for a sprinkler system.

My neighbors claim that I've violated the neighborhood zoning laws by building the Ark in my yard and exceeding the height limitations.

We had to go to the Development Appeal Board for a decision.

Then the Department of Transportation demanded a bond be posted for the future costs of moving power lines

and other overhead obstructions, to clear the passage for the Ark 's move to the sea.

I told them that the sea would be coming to us, but they would hear nothing of it.

Getting the wood was another problem. There's a ban on cutting local trees in order to save the spotted owl.

I tried to convince the environmentalists that I needed the wood to save the owls - but no go!

When I started gathering the animals, an animal rights group sued me.

They insisted that I was confining wild animals against their will.

They argued the accommodations were too restrictive, and it was cruel and inhumane
to put so many animals in a confined space.

Then the EPA ruled that I couldn't build the Ark until they'd conducted an environmental impact study on your proposed flood.

I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Human Rights Commission on how many minorities I'm supposed to hire for my building crew.

Immigration and Naturalization are checking the green-card status of most of the people who want to work.

The trades unions say I can't use my sons. They insist I have to hire only Union workers with Ark-building experience.

To make matters worse, the IRS seized all my assets, claiming I'm trying to leave the country illegally with endangered species.

So, forgive me, Lord, but it would take at least 10 years for me to finish this Ark.

Suddenly the skies cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow stretched across the sky.

Noah looked up in wonder and asked,

'You mean you're not going to destroy the world?'

'No,' said the Lord.

'The government beat me to it.

Q&A

In a mailing list, I played the devil's advocate on the issue, and I found my face slapped left and right after I asked this:

Me: Can married people on the list indulge me this question? Pro-contraceptive people claim that it's impossible to control having sex, making natural contraception impossible. Is this true? How often are typical married people supposed to have sex? (Should it be everyday?) Is it true that natural contraception is downright impossible?

Respondent: i don't know that you would find truly reliable statistical data on this. google statistics+married+couples+sex+frequency and you'll get many varied answers. how would you determine what's scientific or not? you would have to take into account the sampling, the geographical location, the respondents... you'll have to factor in the desire for privacy... how do you find out if respondents are honest or not? people who look at sex as "performance" may give you a highly inflated figure; people who don't think it's anyone's business may choose to not participate at all. you'll even have to factor in age, what the respondents' understanding of "sex" is, etc. for instance, there are teens who think they've had sex but really haven't, etc. you'll have to look at what research methods were used, e.g., online questionnaire, paper and pen, interviews, etc...

i'm going to take the risk of sounding simplistic because i trust you all to be kind, patient and charitable with me. when it comes to Theology of the Body interpretations and Natural Family Planning, i don't hesitate to discuss Church teaching, but i also want to be deeply cautious. the beautiful and tender privacy and mystery within marriage must be protected not only on the individual level but on the collective level as well, and i'm not sure how we can do that and at the same time be chatty about it. it's something we really need to guard against.

when JPII wrote the Theology of the Body, he did so with deep respect for this privacy and mystery, at all levels. a married couple can choose to read and benefit from this theology and/or they can choose to follow the intimate and specific grace found within their sacramental marriage as so many married couples have done before TOB and NFP. at the collective level, i get concerned that privacy is undermined. that by talking about these matters in such a collective way and in mixed company our sensitivities may be blunted. the mystery becomes less mysterious. which i believe is one of the reasons so much of society has fallen the way it has -- we've taken the sacred and the divine and chose to profane it by digging into matters best left in the realm of "mystery".

i believe that there is value in protecting the privacy and mystery of intimacy within marriage. i become disheartened sometimes when even within Catholic circles there can seem to be pressure *to know* about all matters intimate, private, and mysterious, as if people are like school-aged boys discussing the discovery of an uncle's Playboy magazine. St. Therese shares (though i don't have exact quotes) that she is cautious not to share too many intimate details of her encounters with the Divine in order to not take away the shine, the intimacy.

i'm sure that that there are, and that I can think of, exceptions to the above...but i'm increasingly tired of exceptions being used to justify the undermining of a normative and simple truth:

within the sacramental marriage between God, husband, and wife, grace flows between the three in a private, intimate, and mysterious way. the marital embrace is to be protected and is designed to be procreative and unitive. within this framework of faith, hope, and love, is where the common couple needs to find purposeful suffering, joy, and the salvation of their human souls.

Me: Ouch.

Tough questions

(Forwarded email)

Question 1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who
were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had
syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Read the next question before looking at the response for this one.

Question 2: It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts.
Here are the facts about the three candidates. Who would you vote for?

Candidate A. Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologist.
He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B. He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in
college and drinks a quart of whi skey every evening.

Candidate C. He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an
occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.

Which of these candidates would be our choice?

Decide first... no peeking, then scroll down for the response.

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question: If you said YES, you just killed Beethoven.

Pretty interesting isn't it? Makes a person think before judging someone.

Wait till you see the end of this note! Keep reading..

Never be afraid to try something new.

Remember:

Amateurs. . .built the ark.
Professionals...built the Titanic.

And finally, can you imagine working for a company that has a little more
than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
* 7 have been arrested for fraud
* 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
* 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
* 3 have done time for assault
* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
* 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
* 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
* 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year...

Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up yet?

It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.

The same group that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

Today's tasty bits

Finds

- "Tallest buildings as leading indicator" - Towers of Babel = Bubbles bursting? (via Bayi News Service)

- What the heck. Yesterday, it was Iran Photoshopping its nuclear warheads. Today, China is reported to have faked the Olympic fireworks. Maybe Beijing just wanted to cut down on air pollution.

- Rick Astley and Roderick Paulate - Together Forever - What a surreal sight! Inquirer's Tals Diaz even has a back story on it.

**

Religious news

- Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says "Gay relationships comparable to marriage"

- PCED confirms SSPX NOT in schism

- Ugandan Anglican leader raps Archbishop of Canterbury - "[W]hy [is] the leader of the Anglican communion chosen by the British government?!?"

- The pro-contraception bill camp says, "Natural Family Planning method is also a form of "contraception" since couples are advised not to have marital intercourse on days that the female spouse is fertile." Here's a rebuttal by Cormac Burke, which I have yet to read. To understand better the Catholic church's stand on why it won't support a contraception mentality anytime soon or anytime in the future, we'll have to read through JP2's "Theology of the body" in conjunction with "Humanae vitae."

- Also: The vindication of "Humanae vitae", a sober, and intelligent rebuttal by Mary Eberstadt. To anti-life people: If you can write as cogently as this, I might consider your position.

Dangling modifiers can kill

(Forwarded email)

Just can't get it right

The following is an ad from a real-life newspaper which appeared four days in a row - the last three hopelessly trying to correct the first day's mistake.

MONDAY: For sale: R.D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale. Phone 948-0707 after 7 P.M. and ask for Mrs. Kelly who lives with him cheap.

TUESDAY Notice: We regret having erred In R.D. Jones' ad yesterday. It should have read "One sewing machine for sale cheap. Phone 948-0707 and ask for Mrs. Kelly, who lives with him after 7 P.M."

WEDNESDAY Notice: R.D. Jones has informed us that he has received several annoying telephone calls because of the error we made in the classified ad yesterday. The ad stands corrected as follows: "For sale R.D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale. Cheap. Phone 948-0707 after 7 P.M. and ask for Mrs. Kelly who loves with him."

THURSDAY Notice: I, R.D. Jones, have no sewing machine for sale. I smashed it. Don't call 948-0707 as I have had the phone disconnected. I have not been carrying on with Mrs. Kelly. Until yesterday she was my housekeeper but she quit!

Colored

(Forwarded email; a poem allegedly written by an African kid)

When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black

And you white fellow
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you gray
And you calling me colored?

English signs abroad

(Forwarded email)

Here are some signs and notices written in English that were discovered throughout the world. You have to give the writers an 'E' for Effort.

In a Tokyo Hotel:
Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such thing is please not to read notis.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Leipzig elevator:
Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.

In a Belgrade hotel elevator:
To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

In a Paris hotel elevator:
Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a hotel in Athens:
Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.

In a Yugoslavian hotel:
The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In a Japanese hotel:
You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery:
You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.

In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers:
Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On the menu of a Polish hotel:
Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop:
Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

In a Bangkok dry cleaner's:
Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Paris dress shop:
Dresses for street walking.

In a Rhodes tailor shop:
Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

A sign posted in Germany's Black forest:
It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Zurich hotel:
Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:
Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

In a Rome laundry:
Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency:
Take one of our horse-driven city tours - we guarantee no miscarriages.

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand:
Would you like to ride on your own ass?

In a Swiss mountain inn:
Special today - no ice cream.

In a Bangkok temple:
It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Tokyo bar:
Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
We take your bags and send them in all directions.

On the door of a Moscow hotel room:
If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:
Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

In a Budapest zoo:
Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

In the office of a Roman doctor:
Specialist in women and other diseases.

In an Acapulco hotel:
The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

In a Tokyo shop:
Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.

From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:
Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:
When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.

Chemical romance

(Filed under: Random nothings -- domestic front, or Sunday musings to inspire you.)

There are quite a number of chemicals left lying around the apartment, so instead of throwing them away, I thought of experimenting on them. I'm afraid I made new scientific discoveries.

First to be committed to empirical testing was the leftover Amway glass cleaner. Target victim: earthworms that intrude into my territory. Findings: The sprayed foam wasn't very effective. A drizzle of salt does the job of killing better. A lot of foam is needed before the worms give up squirming. I thought it's better to use the foam for their intended purpose: clean glass.

Next. Expired Dove soaps. They melt like butter if you so much as stared at them for five minutes. Findings: They're effective in cleaning up my hands after applying Bench Fix hair wax on my hair. They're useless in killing germs, though.

Next: Joy liquid dish-washing soap. Hypothesis: If this chemical is effective in eliminating grease, it should be effective in washing laundry. Results: All positive. It is even more effective in killing earthworms.

Next: Baking soda. I tried mixing it with table sugar, hoping roaches would take a bite and get bloated to death by dyspepsia. I was also hoping my illegal tenant, the rat, would catch pancreatic cancer with it, but the pet pest was just too smart for my formula than expected. Results: Not a single animal dared.

Conclusion: Leftover chemicals are a cool instrument of torture.

**

A male Devil Wears Prada

In other equally important matters... For a change, watched this John Lloyd Cruz and Sara Geronimo starrer because M. dragged me to it because she finds John Lloyd very cute. Saw this guy in person twice, and I must say I don't think so. He's just a regular guy who happened to be tall and tisoy. I've seen Richard Gutierrez too. These upstarts lack something important for a star: charisma, mystique.

Anyway, going back, I pity this movie because it could've been such a great comedy, a male version of The Devil Wears Prada were it not for the excess, especially the melodramatic end scenes that are such a discord of shifting tones. Sayang. I haven't seen a local movie this hilarious and yet, it left such a bad taste in the mouth. The writer and director don't know the word superfluous, or are they pandering to the audience, presuming them to be dodo-dumb? I dunno. It could've been an excellent film. They ruined such a good material, especially since Sara Geronimo did her naive glorified aide character excellently. What a waste.

Nen, my new officemate intends to watch it for the same reason. T., another officemate saw it with a female friend and said it was hilarious, most especially since there was a kid in the audience who shouted "Bastos yan! Bastos yan!" every time the word "sex" was uttered in the movie. (The movie is about a male editor of a men's magazine who is obssessed with being No. 1 because he had an inner demon to slay.)

May I implore film people to please stop such pathetic superfluity?: Don't waste your talents and our time by throwing filmic restraint to the wind.

This movie's sins of excess were so offensive I walked out on it near the end and deliberately forgot its title. I didn't even care to know who wrote it and directed it. I felt I didn't deserve being insulted. Someone should tell mainstream film people that, if deliberate excess is their object, they better be sure the end product is campy. I really felt so bad that my plan of watching Monster Mom of my own accord just to see Anabelle Rama either play herself or make a fool of herself, was thwarted. I shall be watching Adam Sandler instead. Perhaps I'll have a better time.

Debottlenecking

(I am boycotting the Beijing Olympics. I despise China's human rights record. It's such a shame the whole world is partying with them.)

We can choose to see the bottlenecks in our daily lives as a symbol of our refusal to evolve against the pressures of modern life. We refuse to open up the jeepney lines to direct competition with the FX taxis, slightly pricier but which commuters are willing to pay for. Result? Commuter bottlenecks everywhere. We refuse to let go of our feudal ways in favor of genuine democracy. Result: developmental bottlenecks. We lend a deaf ear to equal opportunity at work, in government, etc. Result: profound bottlenecks in our development as a people, our national well-being. We refuse to exorcise Marcos' legacy of multi-level corruption. Result: a dysfunctional state, the mother of all bottlenecks, resulting in overcrowding (mislabeled as overpopulation) in cities and town centers.

One solution I see to this debilitating disease is debottlenecking. For example, since 90% of Filipinos are leaving this country anyway in the next 10 years as a result of all of the above -- resulting in airport and post bottlenecks -- I propose the welcoming of top-priority reverse immigrants.*

Another quick-fix solution, I bet, will appeal to the advocates of the contraception bill: Pray for the death of a certain minimum number of people (I've read the exact figure somewhere) during a natural catastrophe to balance off the population growth.

**

One of the worst bottleneck scenes ever is the neck-to-neck queuing of commuters at the Ayala MRT station. The North Av., Quezon Av, and Pasay Rotunda bottlenecks seem worse, but the one at Ayala bears closer attention because it's a more interesting picture in the interest of mixed metaphors.

Have you seen an anaconda? Now, allow an anaconda to bite at the tail of another multiplied by 20, and what do you get? That's how ridiculous the rush-hour queuing at this station is. It's the equivalent of 10,526 string beans strung together end to end. It's a wonder how anyone doesn't faint while participating in this anaconda dance. Makati workers are a tremendously patient people -- maybe that's why they got hired in the first place.

But clearly, something has to be done, like perhaps better engineering and redesign of the concourse area. Thanks to the necessary paranoia of security, i.e., the assumption of every individual citizen as a carrier of weapons of mass destrcution, getting rid of the turnstile scene (security guards, checkpoints) is out of the question. Good thing the Philippines is reputed to be good in crowd control technology, particularly in breaking down the inevitable onrush of crowds and the threat of stampedes with the use of barriers like metal ropes, much like the use of zebra roadblocks and traffic cones to divert traffic. The secret lies in creating seemingly superfluous and serpentine single-files, reroutes, counterflows, etc. that are certain to annoy the commuter but will be life-saving in the end, no matter how time-wasting it seems. I have proposed before for people to exchange residences, so there's no need to commute in the first place. Or for business establishments to diversify work skeds to get rid of rush-hour traffic. Since we never lack for geniuses, maybe they also want to contribute saner suggestions.

The queuing time -- clocking in at 30 minutes, or an hour in worse cases -- is equivalent to one Koreanovela episode, dinner at home and quality time with the kids, and BP rates shooting up to borderline level. If there are no weird fashions to laugh at in secret or pulchritude to check out not-so-subtly before you are treated to the sight of the extra-lengthy escalators going down (given the Christo treatment lately by Lipton Milk Tea), it's even worse.

Awful scenes like this sure needs a soundtrack to calm you down, so maybe you want to play Chris Brown's wonderfully built-up "With You" (never mind the high school lyrics). Or if something local is your preference, you might want a replay of old songs like True Faith's "Shotgun Baby" just so you could try to make sense of the gibberish, while the long-snaking queue unspools ever-so-slowly. Or if your cell phone is capable (equipped with a stylus, the works), you may write down what's happening minute-by-minute. You might also finish, finally, the classic Russian novel you've been reading since college. But with the greenhouse humidity and heat, you'd rather be in a catatonic conversation with someone else, with topics ranging from Not Price Increases, Not Sulpicio Lines, and Not BangsaMoro Juridical Entity. You might also want to grab a bite at the nearest fastfood then watch a movie first, but what's the point of going home? You might as well pitch a tent and camp somewhere along Ayala Ave. where there's a Portalet. If all else fails, you can spend having dinner in the middle of the anaconda dance, but what a pathetic sight would that make, right? Unlike munching on burgers (which are best eaten as snacks), shoveling spoonfuls of rice while walking would be quite a feat.

This is the downside of life like you never imagined it to be. To think that you're not planning to buy your own car for the simple reason that you can't afford it. No, not in this country, unless you're lucky or you're corrupt. While it's true that you never imagined the day that there will be Starbucks in every corner, it's also true that you've never imagined the day you'll be in such a record-long line as this when all you wanted to do was buy a ticket to an air-con train ride. As Jose Rizal failed to say, it's such an unnecessary complication.

Another more logical (i.e., less whimsical, less surreal) solution, therefore, would be to again take to the chartered FX taxis (if you can handle the comparably steep fare) or air-con buses (now with a minimum fare of P12). A friendly word to the wise, though: Avoid buses like Jayross Lucky Seven Tours because of their criminal practice of overloading the aisles even if they're just one-lane affairs. You want to avoid being hobbled and holed up in one monstrous bottleneck in favor of another that's even worse. It would be like being inside that old joke about coffee breaks in hell, all coffee breaks being preparations for yet another round of ever-worsening torments.

**

*United-Nationite

Since RP will be emptied of Filipinos by 2020 or so, I hereby propose repopulating it with the best people from around the world, like America has wisely done. Here are the top-priority categories (automatic 50 points):

-American call center trainers and Hollywood types
-African-American sportsmen and rap/RnB/sould/blues/jazz artists
-Algerian-French contemplative monks
-Argentine tango dancers
-Austrian classical musicians
-Belgian chocolate and waffle makers
-Brazilian models and samba and bossa nova musicians
-British administrators and English literature teachers
-Burmese cowbell craftsmen
-Cambodian craftsmen
-Chilean seabass breeders
-Chinese acrobats, entrepreneurs, and alternative medicine doctors
-Colombian graduates of beauty queen school
-Croatian basketball players
-Cuban premium cigar makers
-El Salvadoran beauty contestants
-French chefs, fashion stylists, film directors, perfume makers, vintage wine makers, and visual artists
-German engineers, architects, and frankfurter makers
-Indian computer programmers, doctors, mathematicians, vegans, and curry powder mixers
-Indonesian sambal formulators
-Iranian Persian rug weavers
-Irish coffee blenders
-Israeli doctors and medical transcription specialists
-Italian pasta, pizza, and gelato chefs; high-end shoes and suit makers
-Japanese engineers, scientists, anime creators, film makers, sushi and wasabe makers, and food stylists
-Jamaican reggae musicians
-Kenyan safari tour operators
-Korean love story writers
-Laotian handicraft makers
-Malaysian rubber farmers and manufacturers
-Mexican taco shell molders and tequila makers
-Mongolian barbecue grillers
-Norwegian salmon breeders
-Peruvian guinea pig raisers
-Omani sheiks with interests in oil and gas
-Qatari princes and princesses with interests in polycarbonates and other oil and gas by-products
-Romanian gymnasts
-Russian ballet dancers, gymnasts, former spies and other defense department employees, and vodka makers
-Saudi entrepreneurs
-Singaporean roti makers
-South African diamond tradesmen
-Spanish sardine makers
-Sri Lankan tea farmers
-Swedish masseuses
-Swiss cheese makers, watch makers, and Tweetie Bird clock makers
-Taiwanese factory operators
-Thai plastic surgeons, skin whitening chemists, and superior sweet and seedless fruit breeders
-United Arab Emirates sheiks with interests in fancy projects (palm leaf-shaped islands, acrophobia-inducing buildings, etc.)
-Vatican City theologians
-Venezuelan beauty queens
-Vietnamese pho cooking specialists

Let's roll out the welcome mat for the above categories. Perhaps then, debottlenecked and depopulated-then-repopulated Philippines will become the next superpower, at least in terms of gene pool -- in which case, it will become the new Noah's ark. Finally, I propose that incentive schemes be devised for those who intermarry with the few natives left by then.


**

Read this piece together with: "Sadomasochist chamber: the MRT ride in mixed metaphors" and "Commuting, Manila's extreme sport."

Latest SEO terms (hehe)

(SEO = search engine optimization)

Local

CamSur wakeboarding. Caramoan beach. Population control bill. SONA. BangsaMoro Juridical Entity/Moroland. MILF. MNLF. Eraserheads reunion concert.

International

Beijing Olympics. Beijing's stunning modern architecture. +Alexander Solzhenytzin, Russian novelist and writer of The Gulag Archipelago. The Dark Knight (Batman movie starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger).

**

Random offbeat news
Peru: Guinea Pigs Get Dressed... and Then Eaten!
Germany: In the first surgery of its kind, a German farmer gets a new pair of arms.
England: Chef: sorry for suggesting poison plant in salad
Barbados: The world's smallest snake etc.

On temptation, 2

I realized that the conflict I've been through two Saturdays ago was no conflict at all. Both views are two sides of the same tempting coin. The contending points are beautifully reconciled in this (very looooong) article by Archbishop, Cardinal Henry Edward Manning of England. (Thanks, AG!)

It turns outthat temptation is yet another entry in my vast armory - or treasury - of paradoxes. Temptation is something you need to 'befriend' so you know when to run away from it. Yes! I got it, finally! And my disagreement was not merely projections of certain issues I wasn't conscious about.

Criticism of charismatics

(For Catholics only please)

This topic has been taking up my time lately. I'm revisiting it after it made my blood simmer to a raging boil. I credit the local charismatic renewal movement for leading me back to seroius Catholicism and to a study of the saints' and mystics' works while 'communing' with Protestants, particularly Pentecostals, whenever there was a commonality that could be accomodated. It's therefore perplexing, to say the least, to read harsh criticisms against it. But I've opened up and softened since then, thanks to people who've seen it fit to press on with their duty to point to things that are or may be in error.

This post is not meant to help bring down the charismatic movement but to wish its further strengthening by ridding it of what may possibly be weighing it down, like the unending divisions and subdivisions in the Protestant churches.

A little history sidebar: The charismatic culture immediately invaded Philippine Catholic churches because, in that watershed event at Duquesne University, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, there happened to be Filipinos present who were searching themselves. They quickly exported what they learned after they came back home. I got to meet and became a friend to one of them, who founded the first covenanted charistmatic communities in Manila, long before the advent of El Shaddai and the Couples for Christ. The rest, as they say, is local Church history.

I strongly advise our friends in the circle to read through these only when in a good mood, as these criticisms are capable of ruining their day. Praying for an open mind for everybody... :)

"Errors of (Catholic) charismatics" by Rev. William Most

"A closer look at charismatic renewal" by Gary Hershman. Here's the "Sixth Malines document" being referred to in the article. Related document: "Ardens felicitatis"

Also: "Speaking in tongues: A historical, psychological, and Biblical analysis" by Robert Sungenis, M.A. (Ph. D. cd)

"Traditionalists, charismatics, and the liturgy" by Adam Tate - A stinging criticism of the alleged charismatic abuses in the University of Steubenville

On the other hand, a somewhat pro- stance: "Charismatic renewal - General (Ecclesiastical acknowledgements)"

A similarly conciliatory note.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, one country's honorable writer in such a dishonorable time, I honor you.

Thank God for evolution

Dear God,

Thank you for evolution.

I can't imagine life with dinosaurs around. I like Steven Spielberg's movie version, but to actually live in Jurassic Park! No fire-breathing dragons and punkster brontosaurs for me.

I certainly won't appreciate a Neanderthal for an uncle, with petroglyphs as his version of graffiti art. I don't want a monkey for a mother nor do I want a gorilla for a father. I appreciate Homo sapiens clothed, thanks, even though I tend to enjoy heckling the fashions of the day.

I don't like a life of communing with nature. I am grateful for innovative technologies containing it, taming it -- sustainably, of course.

Without evolution, there would be no love, only the struggle for survival of the fittest.

Without evolution, making a living would be like going to war, moving in for the kill, waging death and mutual destruction, instead of creating out of passion and finding meaning. Work would just mean earning one's bread, if not grim punishment. And sex would be cheapened to just mean pleasuring oneself, or giving in to baser instincts.

Without evolution, there wouldn't be chemicals and industries to make life even better.

Without evolution, there wouldn't be intelligent design.

Without evolution, there can only be the paranoia of terror.

Who's afraid of evolution? Not me. And not You.

Because You invented evolution.

Made in Cheap Manufacture Country

(Filed: Random nothings)

Cheap umbrellas have lately been my new officemates' chosen topic of import. It's a great comfort to know that we share the same experience about those incredibly cheap umbrellas, so cheap they make you laugh in equal part delight and equal part disdain. Here's my PCIJ-strength investigative report.

If you take the MRT and are suddenly caught just with your undies in public in the middle of an extra-angry monsoon rain, you inevitably meet a lot of micro-entrepreneurs in any given station, whether you embark on your journey home or on your way to work. One of those entrepreneurs are the extra-pushy vendors, not of dry clothes, but of cheap umbrellas, often foldable black umbrellas and most likely made in Cheap Manufacture Country. The umbrellas cost Php50 each, which is a basement bargain price compared to the P250+ mall price or even Php500 for high-end brands.

Because I dislike carrying an umbrella or being caught dead having one if it's not raining, it goes without saying that I am consistently rewarded for my vanity: Either I get sopping wet or I am forced to buy an umbrella when a sudden downpour leaves me without much choice notwithstanding my supposed gift of free will.

Since those Php50 umbrellas shoved in my face come in handy, I have ended up collecting quite a number of them. It's sheer stupidity, I know, but maybe I have collected at least five -- all plain black, and all totally useless after their expiry date, i.e., one or two uses. These umbrellas self-destruct, as if on cue, like Mission Impossible top-secret messages. Either they break in two for no reason, suffer a rib fracture, or catch a mysterious mechanical disease. The ways they break down as summer draws near are legion!

Since it's always raining hard these days at the wrong time (just when I leave home or the office) and I had to watch my wallet, I've tried to punish myself by not buying another one ever again. What I did lately was repair the last purchase I had whose damage was luckily minimal, so far. I fixed it by putting on my modiste (?) hat and sewing back on one detached tip. I figure that having it repaired in an umbrella repair shop might cost me even more, at least Php100 if I'm lucky.

The bigger stupidity is I own one regulation umbrella. I had bought it from the mall. And I have other umbrellas, sure, but those old office giveaways are just too bulky to carry around.

The other problem is, whenever it rains going back home, I'm sure to have forgotten to bring my regular umbrella to the office, or I've always left it in the office by mistake whenever it rains on my way to work. Therefore, buying a new cheap umbrella from the street hawker who grabs me by the collar is the new necessity for me. I am a friggin' captive market.

Whoever made these products are evil not cute, but certainly clever.

Separate opinion

Atty. Jose Sison on contraception and abortion. Please redirect all bashings to him, alright?

Tchotschke?

(Filed under: Invented problems)

Trust Yiddish speakers to invent useless words for uselessness. Take "tchotschke." Who would've thought that useless knick-knacks -- the kind that you give away on Christmas and are received with delight, only to trap dust, breed mites, and induce asthma, urticaria and angioedema -- deserve a lot of letters that don't go well together? Beats me. The word ends up sounding like bad chopsuey: a mash-up of Baguio and lowland vegetables.

For what's the logic behind pairing off 't' and 'ch' when they sound similar... only to be paired off with another pair, 'sch' and 'k', which also sound alike? Pairing off two pairs of similar sounds is just nonsensical. It overstretches the dura mater like a nonbiodegradable polyethylene terephthalate film. Tchotschke. Tchotschke. What a totally, uselessly, impossibly ugly word. It goes against the grain of German cuts and German cutting-edge technology's ethic of efficiency. It's as though the Yiddish speakers wanted to invent a word only their glottids can use. I'm not even a Jewish-hating Arab, and yet I am somewhat annoyed. This word just chokes me.

I propose the deletion of this t word. "Knick-knack" is better. Even the somewhat icky "thingamabob" is more manageable.

Paging William Safire.

Deicide?

(Filed under: Invented problems)

That's not a typo on the word "decide", but an actual word, which can only mean "God-killing." I saw the sign on the back of the shirt of a guy with a punk-inspired getup, which was, needless to say, in fearsome shades of black. The font used reminds me of what graphic design from hell must look like. I wouldn't have minded much were it not for the fact that the guy inside the church was intently worshiping God on a Sunday, not Satan.

Which reminds me: One of the finest voices I admire is that of an American band's frontman who exudes this punk surfer-guy aura: Brandon Boyd. His voice, not to mention his songs, are just a winner, easily landing on my top 20, up there with Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, Michael Buble, Craig David, Usher... But I can never understand the band's choice of name: Incubus. I happen to had watched this trashy '80s movie of the same title. That movie scared the living daylights out of me. Which, needless to say, made me consult Webster's. And my findings didn't help me cure my chronic insomnia.

Incubus (n): a male demon who infest females.

Some people just don't pore over the dictionary anymore, do they? Surely Incubus must have done their homework, but what the heck, the choice is still tasteless. And that guy wearing a "Deicide" shirt must be implying his illiteracy without even knowing.

MergedWorldInc

Did you ever expect to live to see the day you'd see corporate entities like this?:

GlaxoSmithKlineBeechamBristolMyersSquibbMeadJohnson&JohnsonAkzoNobelNovartisScheringPlough

How many original company names were you able to count? 15?

Answer: You're wrong. Each letter is part of an acronym. :p

“And where do you think you’re doing?”

(Anti-Dilbert cubiculture)

One of the most entertaining officemates are those who feign their English fluency with impunity but without shame.

Jeck was one of them. There were times when Jeck would stop people dead in their tracks with an arresting reprimand like this: “And where do you think you’re doing?” Which I’m pretty sure would be written as, “And where do you think your doing?” The stunned individual naturally didn’t know what to do, where to go, let alone what to shoot back.

Another example is Yeye. Anyone with a name that rhymes with "yeah-yeah" can only have Riot as her middle name. Yeye wasn’t even officially a fellow employee. She’s just the boss’ cousin, who always tagged along during extracurricular company affairs like summer outings. In the middle of conversations, Yeye would keep you suddenly mum then make you burst into laughter with a punctuating line from her like, “What you see is what you don’t.”

Eventually, people like Jeck and Yeye often ended up the willing victims of office jokes because their lines got immortalized like Hollywood stars’ sidewalk stars. Gorgeous was, of course, the bitchiest among those who'd steal Jeck's and Yeye's malaprops. With a probing eye, Gorgeous would stop people rushing out the door with revised lines like this:

“And who do you think you’re going?” (Which Jeck naturally would write as “And who do you think your going?”)

Gorgeous dispensed such lines with a booming voice, so that everyone took notice and was in on the game.

Attacking the complicated grammar and intricate idiomatic quirks of the English language is a very productive office hobby. Try it!

Another example is: “What you say is what you don’t” –- obviously a deliberate confusion of “What you see is what you get” and “What you say is what you are” with "Believe it or don't" -- the latter being a form of deliberate error itself.

Then there’s: “What on earth are you going?”

Like DHL and Fed-Ex service, the key is in the fast and clear delivery of the unexpected mix-up. The minute you buckle, the jeers are on you. It's especially unfortunate for anyone belonging to an office of hecklers like ours.

As you can see, this kind of joke is a variation on the very Filipino “It’s-raining,-aren’t-they?” scheme.

My favorite attack is the following because it attacked the office’s favorite frenemy, Ramil (code name: Mac), the perpetual malcontent and perfectionist:

“Poems are made by fools like me. But only God can make Ramil.”

You can never imagine how getting back at someone like that could be so sweet.

It’s…complicated

(The outsourced life)

Ruthless content editors in Israel. American big bosses. Filipino mid-level managers. Indian IT guys. Filipino doctor-writers. Filipino doctor-editors. Filipino copyeditors. American counterparts. HR Department in another building. ISO this, ISO that. AMA this, AMA that. Can online publishing life get any more complicated than this?

No wonder my new boss is always on the verge of a hissy fit. In situ office life is like a Friendster option (on marital status): It’s…it’s complicated.

What a jabroni to do other than swallow his saliva, and switch on a sweaty sir-yes-sir mode?

Flat org chart, now!!