Wannabe Wanna Be Wes

Taking a break from auto-replays of We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things:

Endorsement time, folks. I scored a find, yezzuh! Although I must say, I'm still in the process of going ga-ga over it. Thank goodness for clearance sales courtesy of Music One in Glorietta (sorry, last day today). Got a Putumayo CD that I've been eyeing for the longest time (it's all right) and Bloc Party's Silent Alarm (it rocks).


Wes Cunningham, who predates Jason Mraz in the acoustic pop-rock era, is a gem. Plus, unlike Mr. A-Z, he's totally indie. Meaning, he's no sellout (not that I'm saying Mraz is... love you, JM!). And--dig this--this Texan singer-songwriter was actually born in ole Philly. You know, as in, the Philippines!

>>Click here for a sampler<<

I especially lurv Good Good Feeling. For some reason, listening to the record makes me wanna go back to my aborted songwriting origins. Yes, folks, I have origins. There you have it. Another one of them not-so-secret secret life moments of mine. This was in the 90s, and I used to go nuts with the guitar at home. When you're a budding nerd (meaning you don't always find yourself in front of a book, although sometimes this can't be helped) and your parents are so strict that summer break means house arrest without pay, you develop non-traditional means of channeling that youthful spirit thing. And thus began my lingering summer fling with songwriting.

Hemingway, what am I going on and on about songwriting for? And in the same breath as the mention of such snazzy creative minds as Cunningham and Mraz, too. Just goes to show how much of a delusional music nerd I am. And the crazy thing, this stroke of insight totally comes just now, 10 years after my first ill-fated attempt to pen a runaway train of a hit.

Well, those were the days.

***

Happy Hari Raya to my Muslim peeps!

Secrets of The Heart

Haha. Yes, dear reader. I was once a trying-hard pseudo-novelist. No, not the Leo Tolstoy type of wannabe. Not even the JD Salinger or Sue Monk Kidd type. I was leaning more toward a different genre: Popular romance. No, not Harlequin, for crying out loud. More like… Sweet Dreams… or Love Stories.

Girlfriends of the 90s, remember these titles? “More Than Friends.” “Hot Summer Nights.” “Sharing Sam.” There was also that cutesy yarn about a ménage-à-trois that smacked of a well-meaning "re-telling" of Sabrina, which I think is just one of the most fab movies ever.

I don’t remember any of the titles from the Sweet Dreams line, but man, they were some good reads! Aside from going on three-hour phone marathons with girlfriends, getting brainwashed round-the-clock on MTV, and occasionally browsing through the encyclopedia set in the living room (coz these were pre-Internet times), this was my pastime. Reading was my childhood thing. This was what I would rush home for twice a week (my average reading rate then) after a quick browse through the school library. This was my almost-undoing, my late-night partying, my underage drinking. It should be quite obvious now, I had no life. (Probably still don’t.) But you can hardly call me a nerd at this point, as reading rom novels isn’t exactly the same thing as trying to finish “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking (which I have yet to read, btw) during summer break.

So getting back to the almost-novel, the eventual conclusion of a lifetime of gorging on books… As you might have inferred, the characters were based on people I knew back in school. Okay, so it was my crew versus some other group. Although for the life of me, I now can’t figure out who RY and CA were supposed to be.

Get a load of this: the popular but biatchy versus the only-sorta-popular but not quite as biatchy. Har har. Plus, dig this: the heroine doesn’t know who to pick--the cute longtime friend that she bumped into again after so long? Or his bestfriend, the popular hunk who saw her first (in a romantic sense) AND who’s actually really super nice? Haha! Toxic formula for a runaway bestseller, I know. Well, common sense –smarts did kick in after a few chapters and this wannabe writer realized she just had to pull the plug on this secret project that’s now not so secret anymore.

Hahaha. I still can’t get over the whole thing, though. It was a major kick digging this up from my prehistoric files. Cracks me up like anything I’ve ever seen.

“Secrets of The Heart?”
“Montpelier Mammoths Cheering Squad?”
“James Madison High’s Star Circle?”
My. “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now.”

Ha-friggin’-ha. Them dorkdom days of old. God, how I miss the times.

I'm Not Hungry.. Not Per Se...

Dammit. I am sooo making an appearance over at Salcedo Market soon for one of these babies.

It's been so long since I dropped by the area. Heck, it's been sooo long since I actually got up and about on a weekend morning. If it weren't for my semioccasional efforts to lifestyle-shift into the Sunday morning racing scene whenever I think I could muster enough strength for it, anyone would have easily taken me for a totally nocturnal little something-something. Of course such things skewed to the contrary I try to document without exception in this blog, if only to commemorate the days when I do get some weekend UV exposure and show that I could be a little less of the lazy ass that I usually am.

Plus, this is to serve as proof against the claim once made in fifth grade by our dear valedictorian that I was a bloodsucking Bram Stoker devotee. Spawn of Dracula, that little Lea Salonga wannabe said. Flippo. I mean, come on. I didn't even know about Bela Lugosi or the nosferatu until the following year. That was when Dad broke in the adult-level Grolier encyclopedia set and I learned of worlds outside the four corners of Zamboanga City. That was also the first time I came across the term "schizophrenia."

Shit, I'm rambling again. Gotta feed.

Oh, no—not these! Please, no!

Photos courtesy of TSOGB.

The Sweetest Thing

Aren't the pics below the most precious things you've ever seen?

My family loves cats. No, scratch that--they don't just love them. They're crazy-obsessed with them. Not Ripley's Believe It Or Not crazy-obsessed, mind you. Just the normal kind of crazy.

Growing up away from the fam in college, I'd be coming home for vacation to a house that's bursting at the seams with tawny and black-tipped furballs. Each vacation stay is a different family history: a whole generation of cats that replenished the line of the ones that ran away from home wanting to be independent. I mean, who wouldn't, with my family smothering them with TLC like anything you've ever seen. Mom and the kids would adopt pusakals or stray cats by the truckload with willful abandon, not caring where they came from or if they had the playboy bunny gene which predisposes one to make more babies than they can keep track of. Apparently, we’ve become quite popular in the cat community as the good samaritans/suckers of Gov. Ramos Avenue that strange cats would just show up on our doorstop, expectant and waiting to be taken in and fed and bathed. There has never been a more implicit display of effective word-of-mouth marketing than in our extended household.

Them cats are like family that sometimes it’s hard to tell apart my brothers from the short-hairs lolling about the house with a languorous air of entitlement. If the kitties make a boo-boo, Dad would scold them in the same way he would us kids, and even practice his corny jokes on them every chance he could. Ina/Grandma was once in tears, heartbroken, when Faisal, my brother, accidentally ran over the dazzlingly white kitty that was everyone's favorite then because it had the misfortune of playing in the yard when brother dearest was pulling the car up into the driveway one night. If anyone in my family had an allergy to the cat species, even if it killed them, they'd better get over it real quick lest they risk being booted from hearth and home where our furry, feline adoptees are deemed little overlords.

Right below is how Dad would look like in a classic family scenario if we turn feline in our next lives. Except that maybe it should be "7pm" instead of "11pm". Dad's old school like that.

I super love the furry, merry brood of critters in this selection. Looking at them, I hate to say it but I'm going "Awwww..." all over again. Sappy, I know. But what can I do? These pics instantly tug and poke at certain parts of my heart. Damn cute.











Photos courtesy of icanhascheezburger.

Revelations, Revelations

~written on December 31, 2006

I’ve calmed down a bit. It’s been a little over half a day since I received the final wake-up call of the year to date, after all.

I don’t think I can take any more surprises today, the official end of twenny-oh-six. I figure fate probably couldn’t hand me any more shockers in the next 12 hours coz I’m shutting myself off from civilization long enough to enjoy a nice New Year’s Eve with the fam. Kind of like trying to start the coming year with a clean slate.

I’ve been neglecting posting updates these past few weeks on account of work and preparations for my pilgrimage to the homefront. Anyhoo, in the interest of making a neat summary of my two-week sabbatical thus far, I’ve come to the following agreements with reality:


1. If you’re the hero of your own story, others will always be the bad guy. At some point, everyone takes their turn at trying to make life a little more complicated for you. And I do mean everyone.

2. If the market seems too bullish to be true, it probably is. Look before you leap. Don’t assume your stock will always soar.

3. I am Cold Fish. Normally, I’d go for Ice Princess or the proverbial Girl-on-the-Pedestal or something equally privileged-sounding. But I feel I’ve been a tad too generous to myself this year. Time to make like Calvin Klein and get hard-core minimalist.

4. Sometimes you’re on top, sometimes you’re not. And sometimes others need the prize more than you.

5. Every dog has its day. Just hope that yours comes at the time you need it the most.

6. Muay Thai is always a good idea, especially if you’re feeling the need to beat someone to a bloody pulp. Trust me, a mental picture won’t be enough. Of course, this doesn't mean that I condone violence. Like the ladies in the beauty pageants, I wish for world peace.

7. Secrets are a fine thing. Everyone should tuck away at least a couple funny ones to smile to for times when life seems a little less fantastic than usual.

8. You can’t blame parents for being how they are. You may be right, but they know best. Usually, anyway. Or at least until you become one yourself.

9. Despite your best efforts, you can’t change society. It’s either get with the program, or get your walking papers. Good luck to you too, Oprah.

10. Consider this: You’re strolling along downtown minding your own beeswax when all of a sudden, one by one you run into each member of your family, plus a few outliers in your family tree (i.e., baby-ridden relatives you see only at weddings and religious holiday parties). And get this, all in the space of 5 minutes. It’s enough to make you go off your rocker. But if your own uber-overprotective dad bumps into you at a time you least need to be conspicuous and at which you took pains to go incognito, then you know it’s time to pack your bags and skedaddle. There’s no such thing as anonymity in downtown Zamboanga City.


Happy 2007, everyone!

Friday Madness

It's Friday once again. Yay. So what's on the agenda for the weekend? Nada. Well, maybe the usual play-all-you-can badminton gig on Sunday. But Saturday was supposed to be reserved for watching the UAAP Cheerdance Competition. It's high time the UP Pep Squad licked the UST Salinggawi Dance Troupe and regained their former glory as the cream of the crop in collegiate cheering.

Alas, we ran out of tickets. So friggin' labo. Well, whatev. Haven't been to any of the UAAP cheering tourneys at all during my time in college, and so I guess it's safe to say I won't know what I'll be missing. So that's that. Guess I'll have to wing it then tomorrow, see whatever catches my fancy. Stef invited me to see The Motorcycle Diaries (starring the wickedly beautiful Gael García Bernal of Y Tu Mamá También fame) with her at Instituto Cervantes. I'd like to go, but Valero beckons, and with more pressing--and hence, less enticing--matters that need to be addressed. But since I operate on a mood basis, who knows? Especially if the damn rain continues to literally put a damper on things.

***

Blech. I can't stomach this stuff. Fibermate, it's called. I was browsing through one of the magazines my housemate regularly brings home and saw this ad for a new health product. Fibermate is a food supplement that contains psyllium, which is "universally recognized as a premier source of dietary fiber." The quite informative ad looked good and so last night, I dropped by Mercury Drugstore at Glorietta with Nor, my old Persian 10 collaborator, and bought a small packet, just for a preliminary taste test. Good thing I didn't buy another packet; it doesn't go down the pipes easily, I tell you. The thing costs 16.50 bucks, too! Quite overpriced for something that makes me wanna hurl.. It's not usually my style, but I'm gonna pull an Asiong Aksaya and drain my cup in the pantry sink right about now.

***

We still don't have TV at home. A little over a week ago, cable companies put their collective foot down and went on a metro-wide crackdown on illegal cable connections (dunno if those in the provinces were also affected, as I haven't been watching the news lately). As a result, not only were we unable to watch the US Open finals in which Kim Clijsters bested Mary Pierce in the singles championship match, but my housemates also missed their weekly dose of showbiz cheezmax, courtesy of Krissy and Boy. I can just imagine Jub gnashing his teeth and stamping his foot in incredulity when, instead of regular airplay, the now-all-too-familiar gray screen greeted him upon coming home. Now that would have been a true Kodak moment. If the name of the game was Facial Contortionism, he could well give Serena Williams (who, according to him, is "mukhang kalabaw") a run for her money. Of course, Jub himself could never hope to look like a kalabaw, not when he's the unofficial "wallpaper boy" (as opposed to being a calendar boy) of our colleagues over at the China office. But I digress.

As for me, I don't feel as strongly about our disenfranchisement. When I moved to our place, our cable TV had already been illegally connected, and so I was spared from having to consider the ethics of the whole thing. (Not that I would have been expected to, either.) Granted, it was nice to be watching my favorite shows and forever not having to worry about monthly payments, so it is a little bit sad, in a way. But on the whole, I could do a lot worse. If it weren't for Sex and the City reruns every Sunday night on Wowow and the occasional blockbuster premiere on HBO, I really couldn't have cared less.

I got used to not watching TV for extended periods of time in college since I lived in a dorm all throughout my stay in UP. There were TVs, of course, and sometimes I would sit with my dormmates and watch TV Patrol or some primetime show on Studio 23. But it wasn't a weird thing for me to not watch TV at all for a whole semester, or a significant portion of it, straight. But don't get me wrong, I haven't been channeling all the time that could have been used for boob tube viewing towards more intellectually enriching pursuits; there were a lot of other things that I found myself preoccupied with after school, like malling until SM North EDSA closed up for the day, going to org meetings and gimiks, making chika with my roommates and other dormmates till the wee hours, having movie marathons and late-night therapy sessions in Ayesa's room, stuff like that. Except for Meteor Garden in my final year in school (yes, yes, I admit to being a sorta quasi-fan of the hit show from Taiwan, so sue me.. I mean, come on, practically EVERYONE was into it then), there wasn't anything I found really worthwhile to follow.

This incidental deprivation, however, would only be relieved whenever I went home down south for my much-needed vacay. (That would be about three times a year then.) Of course, at home the idiot box would be on the whole day. My brothers managed to refine the art of hogging the TV all day long while attempting to blast away at alien creatures on the PC. In my parents' bedroom, the TV would be tuned in to the noontime shows and telenovelas. (And from time to time, tennis and boxing matches, but only when Mom would let Dad have his way.) On weeknights, I would find myself by my lonesome in the living room, watching MTV/Studio 23/the Lifestyle Network or some movie rerun on cable while the rest of the fam congregated upstairs for their daily fix of Korean rom-coms and--lemme not forget--those lovestruck Kristine Hermosa starrers. Seriously, I never understood their fascination for any of it. The endless whinings of Kristine-and-posse about not being able to be with the guys they know they're destined to be when clearly, if they weren't dead set on making their own lives miserable, they would have bagged the guys already and moved on to their happy-ever-afters. And vice-versa for the guys. Sheesh, I think I'm getting a headache here, just thinking about the roundaboutness of it all. And don't get me started on them Bea Alonzo-John Lloyd Cruz primetime tickets, puh-leez! I don't want my weekend to kick off with an untimely reminiscence of all things cringe-worthy about boob tubeage.

So much for all this. Well, gotta run.. Before I get thoroughly worked up here and pop a vein in the process. Happy weekend, everyone!

UP Fight!

Firestarter

Picking up where I left off, let me clarify that I consider myself no teacher of life. My delusions are limited to presumptuous musings about the mundane. And life, in the grand scheme of things, is anything but.

In fact, I think my experiences to date would more aptly serve as one big lesson to be learned. In CliffNotes, for easier digestion.

Yesterday was interesting. I think I almost burned down the office. By accident, of course. But it wasn't my lucky day (hehe). I almost choked on yellowish opaque smoke that the microwave belched. We had to open the windows to let the sinister smell out. I had to herd my office mates in the conference room to avoid having any one of them pass out in the event that the smoke proved to be too much. Thank goodness, the biggest casualty in this episode was the microwave. Even after Ate Lyn, the office help, scrubbed its insides clean, the poor thing is still stained and stinks of the burnt garlic toast that I tried to make a little more edible by sticking it in the machine for a wee bit longer than I should have. It's a nasty stench, not the mood-inducing aphrodisiacal sort. I had to channel my inner Martha Stewart to appease the natives at the office, else I'll have some serious explaining to do when the head honcho comes back to our shores sometime next week.

All in all, it was funny. I am so glad.

But my arsonist tendencies run much deeper than this. My brother and I, back when we were thick as thieves in Medina, set fire to our living room couch, which naturally spread to the rest of the living room and eventually enveloped the whole apartment in flames within seconds. Of course, it was an accident-but-not-really because we did touch that lit match to the couch. Anyway, rescue was just a few feet away. We weren't alone in the apartment. Good thing Dad was having his lunch in the kitchen, but he was oblivious at first to the commotion in the living room. It was only after the combined effort of my bro and I to contain the blaze proved futile that we resorted to calling Dad in. And boy, was he in for a big surprise.

I still remember Dad heaving the water-filled pail (or was it palanggana? Were there even palangganas in Saudi?) to the living room from the nearby toilet several times in a vain attempt to douse the flames. Neighbors were coming in to help, but we were obviously licked. And what were my brother and I doing? Beats me, probably bawling our eyes out. But get this, I was able to muster a coherent thought in the midst of all the brouhaha. I remember telling my dad, "telephone", like this autistic kid that just learned how to speak. And then he was off to find a working phone to call the fire station. In typical soap opera fashion, the firefighters arrived a little late, but--take note--not too late, to save the day. *Sigh* My dad, the hero.

When my mom found out, I think she went ballistic with worry. Which suited us kids fine since we felt a good spanking could have been the automatic and proper ending to the story. Nothing tragic, thank goodness. At the end of the day, we still had each other. Sure, the apartment was a lot less pretty than when we first moved into it. And we had to keep an eye out for scorpions that would suddenly materialize from thin air at the corners of the apartment, something that rarely happened previously. But hey, it was all good.

Okay, so enough reminiscing. Later.