Late posting: Manny Amador

We had a running joke, Manny and I: come sing Summertime and get your free beer, come on!

He always played Summertime whenever he saw me walk in at the Outpost. He would play anywhere, with anyone who's willing, who's more talented, who's less talented, and he didn't even think about that.

He thought about how fun it would be to make music.

I still find myself looking for pieces of him online.

I won't sing Summertime the same way ever again.

Now he can turn his Marshall amps up to 11 in heaven.

Film shoot with Kahlil de Pio

These days, there's been a cropping up of films on zombies in the local scene. I do not know whence this comes or what the triggers are.

Weekends are generally for the cooler stuff. This sunday, Khalil de Pio is shooting a film called "Zombie One." Very interesting project to get invited to do; I wonder what Cebuanos think of zombies -- creatures that aren't very much part of our mythology. This should be exciting.

Because you vex, I hex.

When I woke up, everything seemed wrong. The day was wrong, the internet was slow, and most of all, it is Monday.

The Monday Motherfuckers are at it again, like I always say. And this time it came in the form of a comment whose bitter aftertaste kept lingering, but I couldn’t seem to put my finger on it, until two hours earlier.

There's think-time, and then there's happy think-time. It was the latter for this weekend, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that something vulturine had been waiting for me to pay for all that exceitement over the weekend. "Here's your bill, ma'am."

I remembered Cattski's blog on musicians and day jobs and how some people can be unwittingly offensive. I can forgive their lack of tact owing to the fact that not many people understand it. Forgiveness, though, will come later. MUCH later.

The Daily Grind

Today, I am "Sucker Punch"-ing.

I am busy evading duties for an hour, war zone style, playing jazz war drums in my head. There's sanity to be preserved every day, and it is always a feat. I am relishing the last few minutes of this hour, like a hot cup of cocoa and cigarettes and rain all at 4 o'clock.


It's comforting to know, though, that some people are in the same boat. It makes one hopeful for oneself and for the rest.

The Project I have been working on is at a standstill, to boot, which makes things a little more frustrating. But like my friend said: if things nothing's moving, go out and have coffee.

Turtle's Nest # 4

January 15, 2011

The place is empty save for the staff, and the cat who has no idea I'm supposed to leave the place in about ten hours. I sit on the familiar couch reading a magazine at 3 am. This time, I'm the only one home. This time, it's just the yellow light, and the amber-colored beer.

I flip the magazine open to a random page where Roy Lu's article is – he's talking about the then-newly opened gallery of Turtle's Nest. I flip to the front page and find that it's a 2006 edition, right about the same year when I started hanging out here.

Looking up from the magazine to the empty café, it's hard not to imagine the old folks sitting at the long dining table, bottles of beer in between them; the old crowd trickling in, the crowd who weren't necessarily friends with each other, but who knew who was which or what time they usually arrive at the little quaint café, staying for hours never mind if blaring on the radio was "Sana Dalawa ang Puso Ko" like it is now; because sometimes, everyone suddenly bursts into song together like in musicals because growing up wherever we did, no one could ever escape the labandera's AM radio music, the karaoke next door, or the Hot FM songs to which the jeepney driver is humming along. Looking at the small annoying gang of skimpily clad teens in tank tops and and boys in razorback shirts at the dining table, I start to think that not one of these new ones really understands what this place is about anymore, especially that they're drowning out Janno Gibbs with Justin Beiber. I'd offer that pretentious idiot to Heaven in exchange for Jimmy Hendrix anytime if I could – that is, if the Lord (or the devil) doesn't get equally annoyed.

Turtle's Nest #3

Jan 13, 2011

I wake up and it's 2003.

Russ is rapping at my door, and after I put on my robe and open the door he asks, "Are you hungry?"

Turtle's Nest # 1

June 2, 2008

It's easy enough to hatch ideas in Turtle's Nest; succumb to the temptation of a couple more hours after work in the book café near the street corner where I take my second jeepney home. Buy a beer, a couple of smokes, musta bai? And before you know it, you've downed five bottles of beer with five other people at 11 pm, and while you wait for another set of beers, you're talking about God, who's putting up the next exhibit in the small gallery of the café, or some random story for the day. Here at Turtle's Nest, everybody knows everybody who has become a pilgrim of the place, enough to also leave each other alone on silent weeknights, each to his own table and his own cup (or bottle) of thoughts.

Turtle's Nest #2

2^nd week of May, 2010     

Swaggering a bit with a good two-beer buzz in my system, I try to make my way through the back entrance and up the darkened staircase to the second floor. In the dark I can see the faint outline of the furniture; the chairs have been upturned on the tables, the doors locked. The customers swaggering through their way home as well. On the second floor lies my hole; I had just moved in to the place about a week ago. Turtle's Nest had always been a watering hole for my merry gang of two gay guys and two girls, me included. It seems I've promoted myself from "frequenter" to "resident" a bit too late though – twenty thousand storms after, the place feels run down, has lost its spark, the warm yellow of the lights feels like old piss.

2011: This better be good goddamnit

Happy New Year, my non-existent readers. It hasn't occurred to anyone I do like the feeling fo actually addressing people here, so in lieu of any actual online presence, I regress to my 6 year old self and bring out the imaginary creatures.

Anyhoot, to the point at hand: As much as I'd like to remain in the state of denial, it has become a fact that ushering the new year is the death of an era. I live in a bohemian cafe, a much coveted spot that I waited for for about four years because it's a feat to evict anyone who has taken root in that house (Board-mate has stayed there for a good long 7 years)...unless the owner tells you to, which in this case has come true, due to unforseen circumstances beyond the Nest Queen's control. I haven't even stayed a year in that house and now I must move out.

Along with it, Neile Genica became the harbinger of awfulness when she reported to me that (I may be late in knowing this, I don't know) NU Cebu is taking after the mother ship in Pasig -- it's being transformed into a vessel of an abominable music stash. Where on God's graying earth are we to listen to Wolfgang?

All this in the online conversations I had today with friends in the midst of the daily grind (which entails being witness to the massacre of English grammar rules).

I can't comprehend the gravity of these situations happening all at once -- they defy the cosmic order of things.

But, at least, by the time I'm 40, I can tell my children, "Hey Kids, you know I once lived in a bohemian cafe?" Awesome.

Neile: btw, till jan 15 nalang daw ang kukuk's
?
 Sent at 4:28 PM on Wednesday
me: jan 30
i'm not sure
but ako taman na lang ko jan 15
Neile: oh... and NU cebu's last airing will be on jan 15 pud?
me: what?!
IS THIS THE DEATH OF THE BEST GODDAMNED ERA EVER? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THE PROLIFERATION OF CHEESY RADIO STATIONS!
Sent at 4:36 PM on Wednesday
me: WE'RE GOING TO MELT!
 Sent at 4:37 PM on Wednesday
Neile: reformatted to Win FM
so they can play justine beiber and papa piolo
 Sent at 4:40 PM on Wednesday

me: "Intoy: first, i heard about kukuk's closure..but ang lahug rmn kaha?
me: lahug ra
Intoy: second, NU? WHAT!!!!!!!!!!?????
me: exactly.
Intoy: waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh
me: we're doomed. We're being punished by God, He's using Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga/.
Intoy: hahahahahaha"

Neile: we should repent na, chai
me: we should repent
yes
i agree
Neile: burn all ramones cds
ahahaha
me: maybe God will trade in Kurt cobain for Justin Beiber.
when we do
 Sent at 4:42 PM on Wednesday
Neile: tsk
god has plans, indeed
dont worry chai
e________ will try to save us [name has been deleted for my, and said harbinger's protection]
 Sent at 4:44 PM on Wednesday
me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NOW THAT'S EPIC!
 Sent at 4:46 PM on Wednesday
Neile: (play star wars theme, please)
me: hahahah. perfect

* * *

Intoy: first, i heard about kukuk's closure..but ang lahug rmn kaha?

me: lahug ra

Intoy: second, NU? WHAT!!!!!!!!!!?????

me: exactly.
Intoy: waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh
me: we're doomed. We're being punished by God, He's using Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga.
Intoy: hahahahahaha
 Sent at 4:40 PM on Wednesday
me: Verbal massacres, Kukuks closing, NU reformatting to pop. we're dead
we should repent
 Sent at 4:42 PM on Wednesday
Intoy: repent..hahahahahaha..and start writing religious songs chai
 Sent at 4:43 PM on Wednesday
me: bitaw. get God's flock and ask them for indulgences, we can be rich
 Sent at 4:47 PM on Wednesday
Intoy: haha..and this time we should have a church choir
me: berto ipa-head sa choir.

Intoy: and dave can lead the mass..

On the JY Streetside

After work one day this week, I went to buy some cigarettes from the takatak man of whose wares I am a suki. I found him hanging out, while peddling his cigarettes to jeepney vendors and passersby looking for a nicotine fix, with two drunkards enjoying a bottle of Tanduay Rum with Sprite under 4 o'clock sun. Manong Roj was in charge of the tagay, but more interesting was their other companion who took care of that afternoon's entertainment: Fidel Inserto.

Mang 'Del, according to 'Nong Roj, is in his forties and had lost some of his marbles. That afternoon, 'Nong Del was crouched against the wall and holding two sticks; in front him, a big carton box and to his right on the ground was an empty Tanduay bottle in lieu of snare drums and cymbals. The pedal and the bass drum were left for him to imagine.

From what little I was told, I conjectured that his stint with the military had left him scarred. "Na-Warshock na siya, 'day." But, 'Nong Roj said, his drum skills had earned him his previous position in the military band; he had always loved music. Now, without a means of livelihood and having only a portion of his sanity spared, he is left with nothing but wine and music.

And how he rocked the streetside.

We sang in time with his drums and he banged his way through music from the past few decades. He remembers where the drum rolls fit, while flashing a genuinely happy smile at people who sing to fill the gaps where the lyrics or the hooky guitar riffs should be. I stayed with them for a good ten to fifteen minutes drinking my coffee, smoking cigarettes and singing as loud as they did. Beatles. Deep Purple. Pink Floyd. Journey. Frank Sinatra. Name it, he knows it.

Passersby could only look on with passive interest at the motley crew.

Or if they did wonder, perhaps some few minutes after, they might have thought of how this decrepit old man has so much passion over a box and a bottle. Or why this short and curly haired call-center employee (I was still wearing my ID) would hang out with these hobos.

I can only surmise about the first question, but I do have an answer for the second: if it's any consolation to 'Nong Del, I hope he feels that there is at least one person who understands his choice for this escape route at the expense of his marbles. I feel I owe him that, being part of an industrial world that generally holds higher esteem for scientists or mathematicians, the world that has cast him away among the forgotten. And despite this, I could only hope he feels I understand that wide grateful grin, and that I sing along because I remember the soul that was given him, now left for dead in some distant hopeful decade.

In their behalf, 'Nong, we who understand this pain apologize.

Here's To The Dead

We remember the dead for the good they brought to the world.

Yesterday, Mr. Ralph Cecilio, our senior high school English teacher fondly called "Papa Lap", succumbed to lung cancer a couple of hours after midnight. He once exclaimed to his students, with his usual infectious enthusiasm, that he was going to be "the best god damned teacher you'll ever meet!"

Unless some other equally brilliant academician bagged the best-god-damned-teacher-you'll-ever-meet award, I think I am right in saying he made a self-fulfilling prophecy. For most of us who have gone under his instruction, he left still bagging that award uncontested.

Monday last week, some 57 people died in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, in among the most heinous of crimes to humanity. Friends, families and loves of these 57 people weep for their losses, while the country weeps for the injustice, crying "foul."

But during funerals, we remember the dead as more than the fun-loving, life-loving people that they were; more so, for the good they brought to the world.

We remember how we were taught that solving crossword puzzles not only enhances vocabulary, but that it can help shape our manners of expression. That one can travel through books. That there are wonders to be discovered in reading voraciously. Through Macbeth and Hamlet and a host of other stories, sonnets and poetry, our young, naïve minds were introduced to the happiness, sorrows, strengths and frailties, even the bestiality of the humans that we are. We remember when we were first taught both the joy and the importance of engaging in any meaningful, and substantial form of discourse.

Because, to borrow concepts from Lourd de Veyra, engaging in discourse online or otherwise helps shape the sensibilities of people. For instance, in light of recent events, sharing opinions and facts help people understand, and discard misconceptions; it teaches us to speak out clearly and demand what is due us – justice, and protection for the citizens of this country, whether or not the sanguineous perpetrators are government allies. As for dealing with sorrow, words can heal.

We remember that there are people who still have faith in social, or political change despite living in systems deemed corrupted and hopeless; that there is still reason for even the disillusioned to bank on that same hope. That, like crossword puzzles, we have every reason not to leave holes gaping at the sky without answers. We remember that the written word can be armor; and that, if a million strong can speak collectively, words can spur people into productive action.

So, this is how I commemorate my teacher – I write. In return, this too is how I can commemorate those who were martyred in Mindanao. I write. For any cause I might take up in the future – literary, social, political – I will write. And if I should get any chance to help mold the minds of others as Mr. Cecilio did, I will. So I write.

Here's to the 57 or so who did not lose faith in democracy. And here's to the best god damned teacher I've ever met.

Limbo

How does one begin to write again? If he sits down, pen in hand, and a blank sheet in front of him asking for ink, he could waste the hours away in the frustration over blankness staring right back, over his inability to reach meaning, over the ugly imperfection of displaced stitches between words he attempts to sew. If he sits still to watch the world, these only pass as dizzying kaleidoscopic pictures, and music is as good as a mother's nagging: in through one ear, bouncing around the walls of an empty head, and out the other ear. They brush past cold skin and that is all. All that the world has become is a noisy classroom in insignificant restless buzzing. He has lost his seat at the back. He is in the uncaring middle with the forgettable No-Faces, the good boys and the good girls who eventually leave without the fame of infamy and notoriety, or goodness, prosperity and success, those who simply exist as a result of their happenstance existence, those whose choices are limited to the groceries, or clothes on their back. In what is often tritely described as a colorful world, they have buckets and buckets of gray paint.

Private Laughs

At the screening of "Valentino: The Last Emperor" in SM Cinema 2 last Friday:

Alone in the movie house, you can fart aloud and it'll all be drowned by Dolby Digital Surround Sound.

Angst: TV

that our TV is littered with mongrels who are better off not meddling with skills that,obviously, they otherwise have no right to deal with

that truly skilled ones have to eat shit first, or not get anywhere at all

that some celebrities out there have neither the heart nor the guts to speak back at gossip-mongers because their lives are at the mercy of these snake-tongued fiends.

that these gossip-mongers have peso signs in their eyes everywhere they go and whatever they do.

that there isn't anything worth listening to from these gossip-mongers

And yet people watch The Buzz

that we are a backward country because the TV teaches us to listen to our hearts, while they use their brains to pocket millions at the expense of this stupidity

that even lousy politicians make blatant lies with TV promotions, that they do their jobs despite millions unseen, unidentified, dead, locked away; despite international scolding they claim success for hard work

that politicians use love and sympathy and people's idiocy as bullets for their guns.

that Kris Aquino has disgraced her father

that the Filipino people are no longer worth dying for

because we're not even sure where the taxes of Kris Aquino, top tax-paying citizen, are going to

because the Filipino people are all about Wowowee and vagrancy, whitening and fear of brown skin, all heart and no brain (especially if Erap wins again), divided, divided, for shame, divided, apes in Beyoncé and Rihanna costumes, hollow heads in lipstick and perfume, and you can add up to this angsty list unless you are one of them too.

Dear Me,

I haven't been in touch with you lately. These past few months my friends have been absent on the table on the monthly meetings, and all that's left in the remaining seats are those that have yet to sit at the head of the table. Conversations among the others have dwindled so, too. So I've decided to talk to June about this, and he says that I tired them too much with my questions about myself, and that if I hadn't talked to him he would have been gone too by the time July was at the head. He said, "pay attention to who's at the head of the table. I guess I'll see you when July comes...it's so frustrating that you're paying attention to me now when no gathering's been scheduled."

How's the weather? Outside, a maelstrom is coming, I can smell the rain stampeding in. I'd like to go outside and meet it, but I have a deadline with this magazine for which I occasionally write. Oh, it's just stuff they assign me. Sometimes stuff that catch my fancy, but lately it's all been assignments. But I think I'll sit outside a while and mull over things. The colors are nicely bleak outside, a nostalgic faded Coca-Cola ad.

That's as much sentimentality as I can get at for now. Write me a response if your brain should start functioning again. Apparently, you need a different kind of fix.

Mga random nga pangutana kabahin sa Sinina ug Katrina Halili

1) Kung balihon ang sitwasyon kunuhay nga ang mga babaye ang nagbutang og hidden camera, mao ra man gihapon sah? ang mga babaye ra gihapon ang luoy ug trippingan sa mga tawo sah?

2) Nganong ang mga designer ngari sa atong dapit mag buhat buhat man og "FALL" or "WINTER" collection? Wet and Dry ra man ta... unless naa sila'y mga baligya ngadto sa gawas noh? Pero ang uban wa man...Funny na nuon ta...

Pero mahimo ra baya'g mag winter collection ang mga ahente sa call center sah? pwerte man ka bugnaw sa ilang opisina... mag shower na lang tingali silang styrofoam aron murag snow, nya mag sul-ob sila'g mga maanindot nga jacket... hrmmm...pweydeh....

"Junior" by Macaulay Culkin

I made a bad purchase and chose a Culkin book over Kerouac's compilation of stuff, or Coelho's Brida, and other stuff that may save me from the lazy state into which my braincells have retreated. Yes, a Macaulay Culkin book that received lousy reviews such as "infantile".

I purchased the copy on impulse at Fully Booked last night and thought how human these schizophrenic rants are. That at the time of writing he knew it was going to be trashed, but either he needed to do it to keep sane, or simply get back at the people who box him into that Home Alone image. Whatever his reasons, it's not at all the best read but neither is it brainless. And it is very human. And to reciprocate this manifestation of humanness I will read through the book down to the last page where the sincerest of all printed forms of gratitude can be read: thank you for reading.

Of Puzzles

Part of my routine after pushing the office door and depositing my things in my work station is to fix a cup of coffee and grab the daily. And then, weilding a pen, I bow my head for the 8 o'clock habit.

I buy the dailies for one reason: the only things appealing to me in the dailies these days are the crosswords and sudoku puzzles in the entertainment section. There's a certain simple joy in filling the boxes with the correct letters and numbers: that what was a problem previously is now solved by your doing.

The news in the city, in the the capital and abroad are the added bonus I get that allow me to play informed smart-ass among the irregular newspaper-readers at work. But that also means that the randomness of my newspaper-reading habits fill me with generalities.

Today though, I decided to flip to neighboring sections before proceeding to answer the number game.

Story number 1 was of a man who entered the afterlife after having an argument with his girlfriend. According to news, girl did not allow boy friend to join an outing she was attending with former classmates. Thus, the noose.

Story number 2 is of another man who kills himself after having been left by his wife,who brought along with her their kids. The latter packed up after having been hit by the husband while engaged in an argument.

Apparently, trends also tend to happen with crimes. Consider the latest hyped story of the murdered call center agent, and that of the MEZ employee, both of which happened a week apart. Both deaths also resulted from texting.

And what's the count on females who were butchered, and whose parts were wrapped in garbage bags and carelessly disposed in various areas?

Or the drive-by killings, many cases of which remain as jigsaw puzzles with missing pieces.

Daily, at least one dies by someone's wrath or one's own will. Suspects are shown in technicolor, most of them remorseful for their acts. To the reasonable and functional, it is very puzzling how repercussions never occurred to them -- all that time they put to waste by going stale in prison.

As for political bickering -- I do not touch the stuff as I am not an expert, unless I am up for teleserye-ic following of the developments on the pingpong of rebuttals and retorts. It's muddy enough in the mush of truths and lies in their arena; very unappealing to the random daily-reader like me.

These stories neatly laid out on newspaper pages provide us our daily dose of confusion. Despite the distance we maintain, the more one reads the more one becomes concerned. Paranoid. Angry. The rabble-rabble of people's opinions do not provide enough explanations to fill in the large hole that is "WHY". It makes one think that the Filipino people are up to their ears in their own shit. And as these stories pile up day after day, they become mundane and one tires of the befuddlement.

I flip back to my sudoku to refocus my brain.

Those who do not keep abreast with the latest crimes and current events choose to do just that because there's enough disorder to think about in their own spheres.

Other modern-day Houdinis escape news of the city's atrocities by answering games answerable by logic.

We opt for the crossword, or the sudoku, because unlike reasons for the heinous and the atrocious, the blank holes in the puzzles do not gape at you without answers.

February Promises

Read, read, read.

Dance, dance, dance.

Go, go, go.

Shut up and Run

During times of doubt Russ always asks me: What does most of you say?

Most of me says, get out, ditch the explanations you have tried to put together for them that lengthen uselessly as they steer farther away from comprehension. Shut up and Run. And sing "1979", or "Hang on to your IQ" while you're at it.

This is Banshee Rabidcat signing back on.