Me, being nice

I’m sick of the almost hourly reports about First Gentleman Mike Arroyo’s recovery after an eight-hour surgery of his heart. Imagine, for five days the Inquirer bannered the story like the rest of the nation care. On TV, breaking news also update us about how he’s doing, who visited him, where he’s recuperating. Is there nothing else newsworthy in the country that we have to be assailed by this absurdity?

In context, the time and resources spent on the FG was maybe comparable to the mutiny, his wife’s impeachment trial, typhoon Reming, Garci controversy, EDSA II, and Erap’s ouster. Even the news of Jun Ducat’s exploits died down after three days; well, it certainly wasn’t given banner treatment after the 3rd or 4th day. So why, oh why in Vicky Toh’s name is the media playing up quite a routine story?

I have a theory. Hehe.

I think catapulting the First Gentleman to, uh, bigger proportions is the media’s way of being proactive. Let’s not forget that FG filed more than 40 libel cases against journalists, editors, and correspondents for supposedly maligning his name. His primary contention in filing the libel cases was the media has no right to wash his dirty laundry in the public because he’s a civilian that happens to be the husband of the president.

Well, this strategic move, along the Supreme Court’s decision ruling that FG is a public figure whose actions are vested with public interest, throws down the private citizen argument down Jose Pidal’s deceitful bunghole.

That aside, I wish FG well and into the arms of his Gloria once again. Everybody’s entitled to his/her own piece of heaven and if the First Gentleman is Gloria’s own big, er, humongous piece, I couldn’t find it in my heart to begrudge her of that.

Sorry, that last remark was premature — I feel something boiling inside of me. Wait a sec.

Geddemit! He needs to get well coz he and Gloria, they deserve each other. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Breathe and count backwards from 10.

Inhale.

Exhale.

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…

uh, Okay… NOW, I couldn’t find it in my heart to begrudge her of that.

It’s not global warming, it’s hell

Arrgggh! It’s HOOOOOTTT!

I haven’t seen hot like this since I was back in high school and I wore those blue stretchable pants which hugged my thigh until before the ankle, a blue denim jacket, a punk midriff shirt, white robertsons shoes and extra-thick yellow cotton socks (that kssss-ing you hear is me smokin’ hot, Woohoo!).

I couldn’t think, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t stay outside in the heat for more than 10 minutes without developing a headache, I couldn’t stay outside, period. Hell, I couldn’t even sweat. My perspiration just sort of fizzles, evaporating into gaseous state before it can liquify. You go outside and there’s just the sun, hammering down on you. On extra hot days, I swear I could hear the sound of its rays pounding on me.

Pound. Pound. Pound.

There must be something to this global warming thing. I read somewhere that the earth’s temperature rose two degrees over the last decade compared to just two degrees from the 1900 to 1990. Two degrees might seem diminutive but considering the sun’s core has temperature levels reaching 13,600,000 degress Kelvin, two degrees of that is like, ah…um… Okay! I don’t do math. So sue me. It’s scorching though, I know that much.

This heat is kinda bumming me out. Imagine, I have to take a shower now twice a day. Twice! whereas before I take a shower twice a week. Hey, we have one of the best waters in the world, no sense wasting it on something as immaterial as taking a bath, Hehehe.

Haahaay… got to get to work again. I already took a shower, buttered my armpits with a deodorant and splash on a little cologne. Why do I even bother when 10 minutes after I walk out that door I’d be smelling like a wet dog bitchin’ in the heat.

And there would be the sun waiting for me, a hammer in hand and a smirk on its face.

I know. It’s clobbering time.

Holy Crap

I remember exactly when I stopped going to church. It was my birthday during my second year high school, the first day of Misa de Gallo. It was still 4:30 a.m., but the air inside the church was stuffy, nearly clotted by the sheer number of people inside. It felt like we were Jews during the Holocaust about to be gassed.

I was sandwiched between two massive bulks, a mother and her daughter I guess. The daughter gave off a scent that could only be described as vinegary sweetness — a blend of sweat and perfume. Meanwhile, the mother, well, forget the mother. I huddle closer to her daughter. Two grown men in front of me blocked my view of the pulpit. The hum of the priest’s voice ricocheted around the walls. I felt very drowsy.

I heard the priest bless the cup containing the “blood of Christ,” I strained my neck and I couldn’t see what he was doing. I heard the priest bless the Holy Eucharist, I tippy-toed and still I couldn’t see what he was doing. Fuck this!

I stormed out of the church and went out to buy puto bumbong. Never paid much attention to priests since then. Oh, I’ve been to church several times. I even attended Misa de Gallo again and attempted to finish the traditional nine mornings. I would have completed it, too, if the girl I was courting that time (and that is why I was escorting her) hadn’t said yes on the 7th day. So the day after, she went to mass alone. Hehehe.

So what went wrong? It seemed silly to drop religion on account of a little acidity from some girl’s armpit, wasn’t it? Yes, it seemed silly but, to borrow a worn-out phrase, that was the last straw.

I grew up with my lola in an old house stuffed with religious images. Aside from the Holy Family, we also had a Sto. Niño, the Sacred Heart, a big rosary, and a poster of Jesus Christ. I grew up venerating these icons, especially the Holy Family — more prehistoric than my lola, I was told.
(Hmmn… antique? Ka-ching!)

Back then, we prayed a lot. I was quite adept at praying the rosary and could recite the mysteries backwards; the Angelus at 6:00 p.m., the way of the cross to Shrine each Holy Week; I even knew how to pray the novena for every occasion, sa patay, sa buhi, sa hapit na mamatay. When I wasn’t at home, I was at the catholic school I go to and you guessed it, recited the rosary, prayed Our Father and droned out the Hail Marys. Oh, almost forgot the three o’clock prayer.

No, there’s no Eureka moment nor was I hit with a thunderbolt which triggered a sudden realization that all my life I’ve been had by religion. My reason was much more mundane and bland than that. I just got tired of it all.

Which gets me thinking… why is it that priests speak in monotone? No, scratch that. Why is the whole Eucharist conducted in monotone? The voice of the priest, the songs, the melody — all make for a banausic impression. I have a theory. I think, it’s a grand conspiracy. The lifeless, bromidic ritual taps into our alpha waves or something, lulling us into relaxation and therefore more open to suggestion. You remember those tapes back in the 80s that supposedly dribble satanic verses when played backwards? I think when you slow down the ceremony just about right, you could hear subliminal messages whispering “we are the way or you’re going to hell” or “give more to the collection plate or you’re going to hell.” They have nearly two millennia to perfect the system, right?

I mean, all that ceremony and what do we get!?! The Holy Eucharist which is no bigger than a five peso coin. The priest doesn’t even allow us to sip the wine! At least, other religions feed you with a sandwich and juice. If you have to be fucked in the behind, might as well be fed for it. I draw the line with Quiboloy and his Kingdom of Christ, however, they not only not feed you, they make you sell pulvoron in the guise of scholarship as well. The only thing which sucks more than that is my blog.

I’ve been called a lost child, an agnostic, atheist, or even a satanist. Sometimes I welcome the labels, just so I know I belong to something. Don’t get me wrong, I envy those who don’t question and just let their faiths steer their destiny. They seem so cute and placid, like sheep. Awwww…

It’s easy to think that being amoral sans responsibilities is fun but it’s difficult to suspect what has dominated and continues to dominate all aspects of my life; it’s especially difficult to doubt when it’s all I have left of my lola. If nothing else, religion was our connection. She was proudest when her apo led the novena for the first time and our neighbors praised my skill. She never said a word but I’m sure she looked at the empty space beside her when she recited the Angelus in front of the Sto. Niño.

My lola is now dead. I cried hardest when at the time she needed it most, I couldn’t even allow myself to recite a short prayer for her. I wanted to but that seemed hypocritical. I guess at that moment, there’s no turning back for me.

Yet, this whole crap is so embedded in me that even as I conclude this entry, I mentally make the sign of the cross.

My blog sucks

Here I am, changing my skin again. It has nearly become a bi-monthly routine for me and it’s got nothing to do with my current mood or my frame of mind at all. More often than not, it’s mainly for lack of anything better to do. Just goes to prove that being a bum is not all sunshine and butterflies.

Another purpose in changing skins is an attempt to keep this blog fresh. At least, until I could distract everybody else from the reality that my entries are stale, a hackneyed, monochromed reel of my so-called life. I thought that if magicians could use the trick of distraction and enjoy the prestige, so could I.

I belong to the generation where my savvy in computers is limited to the “barely adequate” category; where CSS and HTMLs are acronyms you paste in sodas and canned goods along with the ubiquitous reg.phil.pat.off. Sure I could google porn but that’s about it.

After about two weeks, when the audience’s eyes have caught up with my quick hands, the colors and the patterns lose their luster. And only after looking at the other blogs out there that I realize: the design of my blog sucks.

Great. Now I have two things to be insecure about: my writing and this blog’s blueprint. Why do I do this to myself?

More than anything else, this particular template seems apt. The bug-eyed birds remind me of a deer caught in headlights and that’s exactly my state of mind right now — it’s knowing that an 85-ton mack truck is heading your way running at full speed and you can’t do any damn thing about it.

So you freeze, brace for the full impact and hope as hell it’s your lucky day.

In Bukidnon, Cows don’t Moo

I always associate Bukidnon with the Kalachuchi.

For what reason, I don’t know. But even as I write this post, the smell of the Kalachuchi waft through the air and its overpowering scent disturbed the equilibrium of the room. The intrusion is not at all unpleasant. Like a friendly greeting from an old friend; or a slice of chocolate cake in the middle of a diet.

I was about 11 or 12 years old when my family spent a summer in Bukidnon. We lived with an evangelical pastor who was the partner of my father in a potato farm business a few kilometers from his house.

His house sits on a hill. No, it’s more like a anomalous growth but the dirt road knew better than to cut through it and offend the sensibilities of a messenger from God. So the road snaked around that mound — adorned with fruit trees, bermuda grass, a small garden of gumamela, violets, baby’s breath and shrubs — before it staggers and get lost around the bend.

At the back of the house stands the Kalachuchi. So huge it seemed to dwarf the two-storey house but that’s not true, of course — its dimensions forever distorted by a distant memory. Without fail, right after daybreak, the pastor’s little girl religiously fetched the goat from its pen and tie it to the Kalachuchi. A bald spot around the Kalachuchi where the grass couldn’t seem to grow just shows how long this custom has been going on.

At night, the shadows seemed endless; fractured only by flourescent lights dangling precariously on creaky lampposts. You could count shafts of light in the main road before the darkness swallows the rest of them. As the light of moon pallidly touched the winding path, the flowers of the Kalachuchi perfumed the air, adding to the ghostly atmosphere.

“It’s the moths,” the pastor told me one night. “The Kalachuchi tricks the moths into thinking it has nectars to give and so the moths come back again and again.”

Again and again. Quite a deceitful one, that Kalachuchi.

But this post has nothing to do with Kalachuchi.

It was our first night at the Pastor’s house. I was lying between my two brothers in the sala. My father was in one room with my mother; my uncle and two other cousins slept in another room near the kitchen. In the dark, the ordinary furniture looked menacing. Naturally, we couldn’t sleep. As the crickets and toads crooned, we listened… for strange noises, for a deviant clatter, even a familiar thud (the kind that falling dead bodies make when clumsy psychos stumble).

Nothing. Every sound accounted for. The hum of the electric fan, the rustling of the wind on the tin roof, my heavy breathing. I start to doze off.

Then suddenly. I heard a faint sound in the distance.

I listened.

“Mooo.”

“Mooo.”

I heard what a cow sounds like when it “moos” and I knew THAT wasn’t a cow. It sounded guttural, like a raw wheeze from deep in the stomach; a drowning man struggling to breathe.

And it’s coming from the kitchen.

“Mooo.”

“Mooo.”

The sound is defeaning. A pause then a moo. I pulled the sheets up to my head. My brothers followed suit.

Moo. Pause. Moo.

It surrounded the house. It swallowed the house. I didn’t know how I managed to sleep that night. All I remember was waking up all covered in sweat. I went to the kitchen to drink Milo and walked into a conversation among the adults. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who had a difficult night.

“Sabaa ning Janwart oi! Sige lang ug Moo Moo, di ko katulog!” my cousin complained.

Apparently, when my uncle snores, he moos.

There’s no moral to this story but nobody snores like my uncle. Nobody should have to. That’s inhuman. You scare little children that way. Even cows stop to moo when they sleep.

Hidden Talent

You have a sexual hidden talent You have a sexual hidden talent. You might not look it but you are a dynamo in bed. Most of your lovers think that it is from years of practice, but really, you were just born with it. Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Eherm! Man! this quiz is accurate… hehehe. Now, where did I put that hammer and nail so I could frame this.

Two words: Advertise baby!

Credit grabbing

Was it a politician’s publicity stunt?

A day after “helping” to facilitate the release of 26 schoolchildren from Musmos Day Care center, Luis “Chavit” Singson couldn’t wait to gloat to the whole world about his role in the nearly day-long hostage drama.

The quotation marks in the word helping was intentional because I didn’t think Chavit did much. Wasn’t it Sen. Bong Revilla who told the police earlier that Jun Ducat, the hostage-taker, vowed to release the children by 7:00 p.m. that same night? Indeed, at the stroke of 7:00, Ducat opened the bus door and… well, we know what happened next. So whether or not he showed up the impasse would have ended at 7:00.

And now, here we have Chavit sending a 12-paragraph press release to 130 e-mails of publishers and reporters praising himself for being a hero. Count it, 130 e-mails. Must be hard being a hero when you have to remind everybody else why.

Read what Chavit has to say about himself:

“It takes guts and bravery to risk your own life to help rescue children caught in a hostage crisis.”

“When I was called to the site of the hostage-taking, I didn’t think that I might be criticized for supposedly riding on the incident.”

“I just thought that it was more important to save the children. It was the children who were on my mind.”

Oh?

And what say you monsiuer about zeez latest stunt? Merde! I zee right zhru you monsieur Chavit. (I know, bad French accent)

If he was only thinking of the children’s welfare, why in Jueteng’s name should he send a praise release?

I have a theory. Chavit claims Ducat’s companion Cesar Carbonell called him up to ask for his help, I say it’s the other way around. I think it was Chavit who called the hostage-takers’ number (it wasn’t hard, Ducat wrote his number and glued it on the bus’ windshield) and begged them to throw him a bone. Do you think Carbonell had Chavit’s number on his phonebook? Not damn likely.

Chavit is every inch guilty about endangering the lives of those children as Ducat was and should be thrown in jail with him. In his attempt to look like a hero, he collected the two grenades, with the pins unhitched I might add, from Ducat so he could be the one to give it to the police himself. What if one of the grenades fell during the exchange? He could have called a police expert to receive the grenades if he was interested in protecting the children. But nooo… no suh! Heroes don’t do dat suh.

Now, Ducat’s in jail and Chavit’s gloating. Ducat deserved his fate because he’s a recidivist, I’d have more sympathy for him if he took politicians hostage instead, but do we deserve this crap from Chavit?

Was it a politician’s publicity stunt?

You’re goddamn right it was.

A stranger walked…

A stranger walked solitary.
As the sharp edges of the
Sunset wounds the sky,
Casting a fiery shadow;
Tainting the horizon
With blood— painting it scarlet.

The remorseful sun
Inconspicuously hiding
Behind mountains benighted.
Hoping no one notices its crime.

The wave’s orgasmic sighs,
As they make love to the
Sandy beach, drown
Dusk’s screams;
And the nightingale’s songs
Muffled the sun’s hasty steps
As he makes his escape.

Nobody notices the transgression.
Not least the stranger —
Who’s presently revolted
By the mud silts clinging
To his pants as he makes
His way to the disco next town.

Vanity

Vanity— is the maggot
That slowly gnaws
And gorges away
The flesh
Of the carcass,
Leaving only the bones.

The soul was consumed
Long before…

Along with dignity.

Which Superhero Am I?

Your results:
You are Hulk

Hulk 65% Catwoman 65% Green Lantern 65% The Flash 50% Robin 50% Superman 50% Supergirl 45% Spider-Man 40% Iron Man 35% Batman 35% Wonder Woman 20%

You are a wanderer with amazing strength.

Click here to take the “Which Superhero are you?” quiz…

Maayo na lang na Hulk ang pinakataas… hapit pa ko na catwoman. hehehe