Kape, Pare

Just came from Manila. Ginagawa ko nang Quiapo ang Manila. And everytime I go there, people tell me I bring the rains.
Well back in Baguio, had a taste test at Starbucks. I didn't know that they give free lectures about gourmet coffee as long as you can gather enough people and give the Starbucks people two weeks to prepare. This is their way of weaning people away from just your usual frapuccino and kapi-ti-native.

Irony of our Pinoy Times Part I

Sept. 4, 1998. Please don't forget that when you encounter these messages (no editing):

Date: Sep 14, 2005
By: jefferson
Subject: mapeh
Message:
hi willy kamosta kana ang galing naman ng iyong boses ay parang artistaparang christian bautista
walang nakakaiba ikaw parin ang magaling sa buong mopndo.

Date: Oct 19, 2005
By: mar
Subject: bawal na gamot
Message:will you please send me, bawal na gamot lyrics i want to practice that song wholeheartedly. thank you, mar.

And many more. Of course, you would be wholeheartedly exasperated like duds here who wrote much earlier in this forum:

Date: Feb 07, 2005
By: duds
Subject: patay na po si willy garte
Message:
baket kayo helo ng helo kay willy garte e matagal na po syang namatay noh.. mga 1998 pa po siguro, kasabay nya na namatay na rin na si ric segreto of kahit konting pagtingin noh

So you see (joke)? Willy Garte who composed and sang "Bawal Na Gamot" may not be a Stevie Wonder (as in we should never mention "Willy Garte" and "Stevie Wonder" or "Ray Charles" in one sentence ever again. Maybe we can mention "Richard Gomez" and "Willy Garte" because they are against drugs). "Bawal na Gamot" is totally devoid of irony and poetry in the metaphorical sense, it is pure diatribe against drugs. Willy became blind when he was five because of measles. He sang on the streets and came out with this jukebox hit, which incidentally is a favorite of a neighborhood adik in Sampaloc I once talked to. The song made the rounds and he was signed by Universal. I think Willy made a little money and then BNG went out of the radar. Willy kept on singing in bars that kept getting smaller (Sorry, no Jolibee Birthday parties would invite him then) but his wife was always on his side (Grabe na toh! This is from Ariel Rivera's rendition in Maalaala Mo Kaya). But "always on his side" was just an idiom ha because on Sept. 4, 1998, as duds partly recalled, Willy Garte was run over by a bus driven by a shabu-addled driver. Yes, the irony has come full circle.

Eclipses

NASA reported that only a tip of Mindanao would be under the total lunar eclipse where the sun would look like your eyes after drinking big time at Rumours. Worse news is on the solar side. No solar eclipse for us up to 2025.

Presidential Bilbil

I learned French today. My phrase is "poignees d'amour" or bilbil. This refers to the love handle of the French president which was Photoshopped in one magazine friendly to him and was thus exposed by a rival magazine.

No One Belongs Here More Than you

Hey, you would love how Miranda July markets her short-story collection.

Pinsky's Alphabet

Robert Pinsky here recites his "ABC" which is an acronymic abecedarian. Am I right?

"ABC"

Any body can die, evidently. Few
Go happily, irradiating joy,

Knowledge, love. Most
Need oblivion, painkillers,
Quickest respite.

Sweet time unafflicted,
Various world:

X = your zenith.

Pork Chopsuey

Ramon Zamora R.I.P.

American Pie

In Grade IV, I memorized all the lyrics of "Miss American Pie." not knowing fully well what they meant. I think I knew a bit of it now. And this YouTube attempts to be its concordance. Who is Miss American Pie? I think the documentor erred when he said she was a Miss USA candidate that Don McLean was dating. But the others were OK. McLean was selling newspaper the Day The Music Died and like Billy Joel, he gave us a capsule history of the music in the 1960s after Buddy Holly died.

Bolex

Hey, some of us bought Rolex from our Muslim brothers. They are so cheap they must be fake. But for the sake of conversation, you want to know if your Rolex is fake or not. Here are some guides.

CIDG

I Googled for "CIDG" and instead was brought to "Cardiac Inherited Disease Group" and "Civilian Irregular Defense Group." I thought the second one was a joke on our CIDG which is Civilian Intelligence and Detection Group, but then CIDG is a real thing. The CIA created CIDG or Sidgee in Vietnam in 1961 as a low-level intensity conflict. The Green Beret has their ADC or the Area Development Centers mostly among the Montagnards or the IPs of the area. This is so eerily similar to the Philippine situation then and now it got me into a praning mode early Monday morning. And then along Session Road, there was a rally of placards denouncing the NPAs.

Tayaotao

Twenty-seven year old Marine Sergeant Michael Tayaotao, said to be the first Igorot soldier to die during the Iraq war, will be buried Friday (Saturday Manila time) at Poway, California.Tayaotao, a bomb disposal technician with the 7th Engineer Support Battalion, was killed Aug. 9 in Al-Anbar province while undergoing combat operations.

According to her aunt, Connie, the Tayaotaos trace their roots in Balili, La Trinidad. Though Michael was born in San Diego, CA and was never been to the Philippines, he was an FBI or a Full-blooded Igorot. His father Mario is a retired US Navy serviceman and mother Hilda is from Kapangan. Connie said that Michael's grandmother Bibiana would be attending the burial. Michael would be buried beside younger brother Vincent who died last October while a student at the University of California in Irvine.

Tayaotao is a bemedalled soldier who was even praised by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a courageous man. "His courage is an example of the extraordinary commitment that is displayed every day by our nation's service members. Each time we lose a member of our armed forces, we are painfully reminded of the cost of freedom and democracy," Schwarzenegger said in a press statement.

Tayaotao was on his third tour of duty when he died and has already spent nine years in the Army. Another Fil-Am soldier was killed last week in Iraq, bringing to six the Fil-Americans who died in Iraq since May. Army Private First Class Paulo Marko U. Pacificador, 24, died of wounds on August 13 in Qayyarah when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. Pacificador, a son of a Filipino soldier, was a resident of Queens, New York City and was born in Buguey, Cagayan. Pacificador joined the US Army in January 2006 and was on his third mission when he and two others from the 5th Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 1^st Cavalry Division died in Iraq. His father, Jose, belonged to the Philippine Air Force. Mark was six when their family migrated to the US. Four other Fil-Ams died in Iraq since May.

GoogleEarth of LOL Catz

This is Spartaah

Spartacat, actually

Nap

Please help NAPOLEON JAVIER, Nap to us in Baguio and former general manager of DZEQ, Radyo ng Bayan.

Three weeks ago he was felled by a stroke and has been at the intensive care unit of the Notre Dame Hospital on Gen. Luna St., Baguio City, since then. A few days ago his vital signs started to stabilize, but he's not yet out of danger. Meanwhile, his hospital bills are mounting and his daily medicines amount to almost P10,000 a day.

Nap is a friend of artists and writers. He helped organize the visual artists' group Tahong Bundok and is a founding member of the Baguio Writers Group (BWG) along with Cirilo Bautista, Luisa Igloria, Butch Macansantos and Gabriel Keith. When the BWG was revived last year, he took it upon himself to organize a poetry reading on the air over DZWT which he co-hosted. He used to read poetry, too, in his former radio program "Nightfall."

Nap was also responsible for the "barangayan program" wherein basic government services were brought to the barangay level in Baguio City.

Your readers may want to assist Nap and his family. Donations may be deposited in the account of his wife Erlinda A. Javier, Banco de Oro savings account # 940056623.

Elmar Lost His Phone

From Elmar Ingles:
I lost my celfone to snatchers in broad daylight in a very public area last week. Tried to resist but I was easily outnumbered and overpowered. May dalang balisong ang mga hitad! Please delete my Smart number 0919-6771737 from your phone books. I'm now using Globe 0927-7871800 and will secure another number for my Smart correspondents as soon as possible.

Trailer to Cebu Thriller

You watched the YouTube and you think life is good at CPDRC. They dance the Thriller and YMCA in unison and people give money. Byron Garcia, the security consultant, must be cool guy to come up with this idea. Right? Wrong!

My Dead Sea Scroll

Many summers ago, I borrowed "On The Road" at the YMCA Library and read it in one delirious night or as Paris Review's Matt Weiland said it, I devoured On The Road and the book devoured me. It was what Jack wanted anyway, having written it in three weeks. It was my brother Arell who brought me into Kerouac, with his copies of The Subterranean and Desolation Angels. I can not find a copy of On The Road, until that day. I read other books and essays on Kerouac after that. Kerouac matters because he believes that writing is salvation. He often said that Beat came from "beatitudes" and not "beaten." He wrote feverishly the way Van Gogh painted feverishly. The raw energy is real, not like Tom Wolfe's sartorial exclamations. The book has music the way James Agee's prose is psalmic. There is optimism and we don't know where it came from, knowing on hindsight how Kerouac turned from a handsome guy to a drunken slob. We just knew Kerouac was on a search for something. Whenever I see a copy of On the Road in bargain bins, I buy them and give them to friends or students. I hope they share the magic. The original yellowing and friable manuscript was recently auctioned and it was rolled like a telex paper or a fax machine. It was our Dead Sea Scroll. I can't wait to have the new version of On the Road. It will enlighten us once more.

Mga Kuto ni Gabito

I love this passage from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's autobio, Living to Tell The Tale

Until I was five, death had been for me a natural end that happened to other people. The delights of heaven and the torments of hell seemed only lessons to be memorized in Father Astete’s catechism class. They had nothing to do with me, until I learned in passing at a wake that lice were escaping from the hair of a dead man and wandering along the pillows. What disturbed me after that was not the fear of death but embarrassment that lice would escape my head too in the presence of all my relatives at my wake. But in primary school in Barranquilla, I did not realize I was crawling with lice until I had infected the entire family. Then my mother gave me another proof of her character. She disinfected her children one by one with insecticide for cockroaches, in thorough cleansings that she baptized with a name of noble lineage: the police. The problem was that the sooner we clean than we began to crawl again, because I became reinfected at school. Then my father decided to use drastic remedies and she forced me to have my head shaved. It was an act of heroism to appear at school on Monday wearing a cloth cap, but I survived the mockery of my classmates with honor and completed the final year with highest grades.

The Other Nguyen Classic: War Chronicle

This time he has a teacher who has a sense of humor.

New Blog

Next month, I will have a theme blog. Wait for it. And, Pigeon, before you forget, Rick wants to tell you something:

Childrenville

Many years after my father died, I returned to the Philippines of my childhood and met one of my father’s closest friends who told me a secret. “Your father,” he said, “was hard on you when you were growing up, and that was him, hard as stone. I never saw him cry. Only once. He came to me one night with a crumpled piece of note. It was something you had written. You ran away from home remember? He could not comprehend how you could have written something so wounding. He was visibly hurt, in tears. But I also remember how easily he shifted from that hurt, how his face suddenly lit up and he exclaimed, “But damn, what my son wrote was brilliant!” He was hurt but he was proud of you.”

This is part of Willi P's Palanca-slamming entry, Lost in Childrenville. It is about his Dad and is 23-pages long so if you want to read it, leave your email add at the end of the beep.

Free Wi-Fi in Manila

1. Alexa's Deli - H.V. dela Costa street, Salcedo Village,
2. Arnelli's Pizza, E. Rodriguez Sr. Ave. near St. Luke's Hospital
3. Baang Coffee in Tomas Morato, QC
4. Bellagio - Tomas Morato
5. Big Bert's Professional Auto
   
6. Burger King at SM North
7. Casa Xocolat, Katips
8. CCW (Coffee, Cakes & Waffles) Guijo corner Sacred Heart Street, Makati
   
9. Chef & Brewer in Emerald Avenue, Ortigas
10. Cafea in Bohol Avenue, Q.C. in Manila Peninsula
11. CCW Cafe - Guijo street, San Antonio Village, Makati
    
12. Coco Cabana Grill - Kalayaan Ave, near Grilla
13. Cravings - Katipunan Ave. QC
14. Country Style - Rufino, Makati
    
15. Diamond Hotel
    
16. Embassy Cafe - the Fort in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig
17. Jayjay's Inasal (Ortigas Home Depot along Julia Vargas Ave.)
    
18. Lia's Cakes - Commonwealth Avenue
    
19. Libreria - Tomas Morato, QC
    
20. Manila Pavilion Hotel lobby, United Nations Avenue, Manila
21. McDo Philcoa
22. Murphy's Irish Pub at V.A. Rufino cor. Esteban St. in Legazpi Village
23. Nitz Restaurant in Fairview, fronting FEU
24. Park Square 1 around Mobile One
25. Pier One
    
26. Podium Ground Floor
27. Read and Brew-Fairview
    
28. Robinsons Galleria East Wing
29. Robinson's Place Manila - Taste Buds
    
30. Robinsons Place Pioneer (Techlounge)
31. Rustan's in Alabang Town Center
32. Shangri La Makati Hotel lobby
    
33. Shell Maya - Sen. Gil Puyat Ave., Makati City
34. Shell Station Magallanes
35. Starbucks Ashcreek along Ortigas ave Greenhills
    
36. Starbucks - Waltermart, Pasong Tamo
    
37. Tower Inn, Lobby, Pasay Rd. at Makati Ave.
38. Traders Hotel

Call Center Blues

Every morning I see them at Zola and Pizza Volante already on their fourth beer at 9 in the morning. They speak in English, for kraysakes. In other words, they're call center agents. Why are they so depressed? Because they have to contend with these everyday (night to us):

Sich Number One: Can't open her documents
Call Center aka Agent X44: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop".
Customer aka Wengweng Brain: "OK".
Call Center aka Agent X44Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"
Customer aka Wengweng Brain: "No".
Call Center aka Agent X44Tech Support: "OK. Right-Click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
Customer aka Wengweng Brain: "No".
Call Center aka Agent X44Tech Support: "OK. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?"
Customer aka Wengweng Brain: "Sure. You told me to write "click" and I wrote "click"".
Call Center aka Agent X44Tech Support: "OK. In the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you see the "OK" button displayed?"
Customer aka Wengweng Brain: "Wow. How can you see my screen from there?"

Nguyen

God, how I love to meet Peter Nguyen. He could win the Palanca for creative fiction. Oy, Grace Subido, let your students learn from him. Actually, he also has an essay on an unknown WWII hero. But what would you expect from a young Vietnamese-American? He will kick any American ass any war.

Congrats, Willi

Willi Pascual bagged anew the 1st Prize in Essay in English of the Palanca. Congrats! His first one is on Nora and he was tagged as a Noraphilogist. Now it's about his Mom. Galing! And for you (and for Jeni, whose DLSU project is a pop-up book on Nick Joaquin), I give you this MTV of Shitdisco. Not really good song but the concept!

Joy Flores 3

Here are Joy's text messages (through her friend who minds the sanglaan) :

Kuya kamuta ka yan sa bahay mo kuya kailan ka babalik dito kuya ma tatagalan ka
ba yan sige po babay

That was yesterday. A while back, this is what she texted:

Kuya nasaan ka ngayon nasa bahay mo ba ikaw si Joy to kuya sa 23 ka babalik
texbak

Sad about that is she misses their house so much because she is more concerned about me in my house. Oh man

Translators Traydors

Baguio lost in its bid for the Ad Congress. Subic won. Anyway, we should not feel bad. Ad writers, anyway, are failed creative writers. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux." Not only that, Parker Pen decides to sell its ball-point pen to neighboring Mexico. Their ad should read: "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." The problem is, the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so, ergo: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant." Condom pen. A dressed chicken company also translated its ad: "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" in Spanish and this is what it re-translated back to: "It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate." When Pope went to Miami, a T-shirt wrote "la papa" instead of "el Papa" so his Tshirt read "I Saw the Potato." Good for him. The Dairy Association which made "Got Milk?" a success turned into stupid in Mexico when it came out with its slogan, Are You Lactating?
You find this funny stupid? What about the Israelite humor? This is posted in a bus there:

HOw Google Works

How Google works

Joy Flores 2

Went to visit Joy and his Dad in their corner of the world at the corner of Bayview Restaurant. Left a bag of clothes, vitamins, milk and others. They have decided to leave for Davao but then Guillermo is thinking of leaving Joy with me. I told him I can't but I will keep that in mind.

Idea

Someday you will run out of ideas for your poem/novel/whatever and where do you go to? This.
Anyway, to my sister, here's your birthday cake.

Farrokh

Farrokh Bulsara was born in 1946 in the British colony of Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania). His parents were Zoroastrians (Parsis) from India. As a boy he was sent back to India to attend boarding school in Bombay. He did very well in studies, was a competitive boxer, and also learned to play the piano--even participating in a 5-person band called The Hectics. He graduated from St. Mary's High School, and then moved to England where he obtained a degree in Art and Graphic Design from Ealing Art College. In 1970 he joined a failing rock band in London named Smile when their lead singer quit, renaming the band in the process.

Secrets

Many many years ago, FRANK started PostSecret which is one of the biggest shared secret site in the web. You mail your secret to Frank and he would post it. The more compelling are going to be compiled into a book while the yuckiest have been turned into a Buble video.:

Karaoke Attack in Seattle

Because we believe that we are the portal for karaoke death, we give you this little incident in Seattle. This guy sings "Yellow" by Coldplay when this woman who drank only one Jagermeister yelled at him and said, "Oh no. Not that song. I can't stand it" then she punched him. Uy, Seattle P-I reported this which is "Wow!" because I used to work there and think of it as the Manila Bulletin of Seattle and I remembered that no one then wanted to report on Pearl Jam's concert at the Dome after many months.

The Commitments

Hey, who doesn't like The Commitments? Who doesn't want to be the next Commitments. The Moose!! The "Dublin Saviors" were so good they were bad. And they don't exist. They only exist in the movie based on the novel by Roddy Doyle. Heard The Corrs were among the 3,000 who auditioned and one of them got a bit part. The Commitments is one of the best bands that never existed. Also included are The Rutles from the Monty Python and The Electric Mayhem from The Muppets. Here are the rest from Earvolution.
My main bone is that GorrilaZ is not included, and also Stillwater from Almost Famous. Yeah, also that one-hit wonder which Tom Hanks directed. That Thing You Do. Wendy's favorite. Watched that on the plane.

Disco Cats

Joy Flores

While I was in Bayview last Monday, I passed by 7-11 on the right side and chanced upon a father lovingly waking up her daughter asleep on the pavement. Now, there are dozens of people sleeping on the pavement and on the park across the street. The daughter was cute and chubbily innocent. I learned to be streetsmart and knows who's faking or not. When I saw her a few hours later again on my way to 7-11, she smiled shyly. On Tuesday, I was about to buy Inquirer (Yes, Bulletin given free still reigns at Bayview although Business Mirror is given also for free at the lobby) when it rained. So I asked the girl to buy for me and since I was late, I just get it the next hour. She bought Philippine Star. The next day, she bought the right one. That was also the time when the typhoon lashed at Manila. I can see it from the window although the airconditioner was all I hear. How insensitive! The next day, I again bought the newspaper through her but I give her a tip. I also talked to her. She is Joy. They were only in that home (behind three potted plants near the Internet shop) for a month. They came from Cavite. I gave whatever food is left from Chi (the Mother Theresa of the NGOs) and Kook. That night, I bought her a yellow Nafnaf blouse at Cinderella. Yesterday morning, I brought her and her father for breakfast at Wendy's. They used to stay in Dasma but I think the wife (something unsaid) decided to dump him and he got their only child. They got only a few clothes and money. He only now found a job at the photo shop delivering photos to Luneta tourists. They only have enough to feed themselves. He doesn't want to go back or maybe he did something regrettable. I don't know. But Joy was held hostage. She is ten years old and wanted to go back to school. I often see her scribbling on cigarette cardboards. What Joy told me Thursday was they planned to go back to Cavite next year which might be the rest of their lives if they stay on the streets. Guillermo, the 37 year old father, said that they planned to go back to Davao. He asked for the boat fare at the Pier and they said that it would cost one person P2,000, which is beyond their means. Joy said that his father's only vice is smoking. He said that some wife of a Swagman habitue wanted to adopt her but he said it is only now that they are bonding with his daughter. Being a bleeding heart, I promised to help them go back to Davao. Maybe he can go back to Manila and work but her daughter has to be in a safer place. I will be back next week, hopefully with some moolah to help. Chi promised to help but said I should not give them false hope because that would only add to her depression. Chi, BTW, is helping in HOPE which is really for abandoned children. The stories are more depressing there, she said. I gave the father and daughter all the soap, napkins and other free items from the Hotel. I bought Joy some books, shampoo, comb and other thingamajigs. I also gave Guillermo some of my clothes. She was also having a little fever so i gave them about P500. As I went home to Baguio, I still am not satisfied with what I did. I don't know how I would do it but I just know I have to bring them to Davao.

Shy Mango

You are shy? It doesn't mean you have slow self-esteem, it's the genes and the anxiety to new situation. LiveScience tells you more. And those with sex drive only smell better than you, so the Axe commercial just might be right.

What Not to Name Your Blog

Slate shows the way. Rule Number One: Irony is a Cruel Mistress

Dharrel

My nephew, now enrolled in UP for Malikhaing Pagsusulat, has a blog in Multiply. He is a very good writer and I don't really know where he got it. I still don't have a Multiply.

Stuck in Manila

I fought my urge and bought only three books at Robinson. I bought Jonathan Lethem’s “Fortress of Solitude” anew. Only because it is a first edition hard bound copy. I am lucky that way. I also have a HFE of “Prague,” “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” Delillo’s “Underground” and Cris Ware’s “The Adventures of Jimmy Corrigan.” These four books I care so much and makes reading a joy and writing a joyous possibility.

I also bought “The Modern Lover” and an illustrated life of Nabokov.

This is the first paragraph of Kafka’s Metamorphosis:

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as if were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like brown belly divided into stiff corrugated segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes.”

Nabokov edited this by making “Samsa” as “Samza,” “a troubled dream” instead of “uneasy dreams,” “monstrous” instead of “gigantic,” “corrugated” instead of “stiff arched” and “flimmered” instead of “Waved.” “Flimmered” is a combination of “flitter” and “shimmer,” which is probably his Portmanteau or invented combination.

Of course, Nabokov also drew his version of the insect at the top of the page. Nobody knows insects among writers other than Vladimir and so he observed that Samza can not be trapped in his room because the insect he described can fly. A good find for me, this book on Nabokov by Jane Grayson. Nabokov, like the disgraced Gunther Grass was good in drawing and he drew illustrations in many of his manuscripts.

Kristel

Kristel was born and raised in a cheap hotel opposite Utrecht railway station. She was a precocious child who would inflame the lonely, sad-sack commercial travellers. "I twirl around, I'm an acrobat, an agile cat," she says, looking back.

Yes this Kristel is dear Ms. Sylvia Kristel, the heroine of most of our adolescent movies of lust. Emmanuelle. Lady Chatterley's Lover. She is now 55 and she came out with a memoir. Telegraph reviews "Undressing Emmannuelle."

PGMA Prays for Rains. Religious Leaders Heckle.

From -- http://www.professionalheckler. blog-city. com/ --

Prayers

Hoping to end the dry spell, President Arroyo is reportedly seeking divine intervention now. Rumors say she has sought the help of some of the country’s religious leaders to ask God for continuous rainfall. Their responses are as follows:

Archbishop Oscar Cruz:
"Pray for rain? Sige, we will pray for rain. Pero… mag-resign ka muna."

Ka Ernie Manalo:
"Mahal ng Diyos ang kanyang Iglesia! Ipagkaloob mo lang sa Kanya ang sampung porsiyento ng iyong suweldo, tiyak ibibigay ng Diyos ang iyong minimithing ulan."

Bro. Mike Velarde:
"Mahal na pangolo… Kong may pananaleg ka, balegtaren mo lang ang iyong payong at ewagayway mu ang eyong puting handkerchep at pakekenggan ni Yahweh El Shaddai ang iyong kahelengan. Ngayon din mahal na pangolo… oolan! Babagyu! Seksek, legleg at omaapaw pa!"

A Self-Proclaimed Imam in Basilan (Refused to be identified):
"Tutulong kaming manalangin kay Allah upang bumuhos ang malakas na ulan ngunit sa isang kondisyon Misis Prisidint: pupugutan ka namin ng ulo! Deal or No Deal?"

Bro. Ely Soriano:
"Tarantado ka pala eh! Tagtuyot man o tag-ulan, kagustuhan ng Panginoon 'yan. Kung 'di ka ba naman tanga at kalahati, bakit mo pipiliting umulan kung panahon talaga ng tagtuyot? Gago!"

Besbol

This is the U.S. Baseball Map. From Strange Maps.

Dark and Stormy

The crater of the volcano glowed red against the black sky, looking as if God had taken a drag of His cigar - if He smoked - which of course, He didn't.

Wendy Spoelstra
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

This is the shortest entry to the 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Not bad, considering Bulusan Volcano is due to explode anytime. The winner by the way is also volcano-related.

Gerald began--but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them "permanently" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash--to pee.

This gem is from Jim Gleeson, a 47-year-old media technician from Madison, Wisconsin. BLFC celebrates bad writing. I have the book on the first winners, back in 1982. This means that this edition is the 25th. The website, reminded to us by Butch Perez, said:

An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."

I am at an Internet shop in Manila, specifically near Bayview. I am early only because I want to make myself suffer watching the last inning of the Boston-Seattle baseball game which Seattle is losing. Most of the clients are preparing their resume for the US, which is just in front. They hope to make it to the US, knowing it is a dark and stormy chance.

Loving Other Writers

Excerpts from "Writing is a Communal Act", a chapter from "Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within" by Natalie Goldberg

We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don’t have our own style. Don’t worry. Writing is a communal act. Contrary to popular belief, a writer is not Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire We are arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas and soda pop of our time. It all gets mixed up in the writing.

Writers are great lovers. They fall in love with other writers. That’s how they learn to write. They take on a writer, read everything by him or her, read it over again until they understand how the writer moves, pauses, and sees. That’s what being a lover is: stepping out of yourself, stepping into someone else’s skin. Your ability to love another’s writing means those capabilities are awakened in you. It will only make you bigger; it won’t make you a copy cat. The parts of writing that are natural to you will become you, and you will use some of those moves when you write. But not artificially. Great lovers realize that they are what they are in love with.

And don’t be jealous, especially secretly. That’s the worst kind. If someone writes something great, it’s just more clarity in the world for all of us. Don’t make writers “other,” different from you: “They are good and I am bad.” Don’t create that dichotomy. It makes it hard to become good when you create that duality.

It is also good to know some local people who are writing and whom you can get together with for mutual support. It is very hard to continue just on your own. ..Kill the idea of a lone, suffering artist. We suffer anyway as human beings. Don’t make it harder on yourself.”

Reasons to Get Drunk this August

People think I'm a drunkard. No denying that but if the daily limit is three beers a day, i believe I can make it through the week within the limit. Ha ha ha. Anyway here goes:

August 1. Modern Drunkard Magazine, where we are filching this, was established in 1996. Cheers!
August 2. Peter O Toole’s Birthday (1932) "I was so drunk I thought I was Peter O Toole," said Richard Burton. I watched POT in "Venus" and I am enthralled, as usual.
August 3. Feast of Caligo (Roman) All hail to the Mother of Chaos!! And her son.
August 4. St Sithney’s Day. Patron saint of mad dogs. Ha ha ha to Grace and Del.
August 5. Andy Capp debuted in Britain’s Daily Mirror in 1957
August 6. Robert Mitchums Birthday (1917). "The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I've spent some time in jail." You watched "Cape Fear"? He was the original Robert de Niro character there.

Extended Jail Sentence
1 oz Jack Daniels
I oz southern comfort
1 oz gold tequila
Flash blend with ice and serve

August 7. Customer Appreciation Day. My father's birthday. Thanks, Dad.
August 8. Anniversary of the Great Train Robbery (1963) When alcoholics converge and plan well, they can be successful. Here, they carted off with $7 million
August 9. National Polka Day. Beer beer beer.
August 10. St Lawrence of Rome. Patron saint of cooks and protector of vineyards.
August 11 Puck Fair. Puck is often blamed in Ireland for finishing pub goers' drinks.
August 12. Internatioal Youth Day
August 13. Don Ho’s Birthday in 1930. Died this year. Patron saint of fat drunks in Hawaiian shirts
August 14. Trifon Zaresan Festival. Bulgarian wine drinking festival.
August 15. Liechtenstein National Day. The residents of this small state (very hard to spell Liechsteinians?) drink more per capita than anyone in the planet except the residents of New Lucban.

Mighty Mouse
1 oz vodka
¾ triple sec
¾ oz genadaine
Mix and shoot

August 16. Poet Charles Bukowski’s birthday in 1920
August 17. Feast of the Hungry Ghost in China. Chinese ghosts are afraid of whiskey.
August 18. Bad Poetry Day
August 19. Witches Day in 1609


Frisky witch

1 ½ oz black sambuca
1 ½ oz vodka
Mix and shoot


August 20. National Homeless Animals Day. Don't say "Pulutan."
August 21. National Forgiveness Day

August 22. Dorothy Parkers Day
"I like to have a martini
two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
After four, I'm under my host"

August 23. Anniversary of Braveheart’s death. Freedom, freedom.
August 24. Fesival of Vulcan and the nymphs
August 25. Sean Connery Bday in 1930
August 26. Womens Equality Day
August 27. Feast of the Incandescent Rebellion in China
August 28. St Augustines of Hippo’s day. Patron of breweries wrote that God don’t mind the occasional blender
August 29. Pardon the Sea Day in Britain. Tsunami.
August 30. Aga-ou Festival which is the main voodoo festival in Haiti
August 31. Snake Dance Fesival of the Hopi

Butch Perez sent me the Basic Food Groups of Zombies for August 30.

August 3

President Gloria Arroyo finally acknowledged my legacy. She declared tomorrow, August 3, a special holiday for college and high school students. Yeah, she knows it’s my birthday. That the students need to register as voters Friday is just an excuse.
Pero no love lost. We are just having less rains as we want and then here's the banner headline of Philippine Star:

GMA eyes emergency powers

President Arroyo is ready to ask Congress to grant her emergency powers to enable the government to immediately address the effects of the dry spell on the economy if the drought worsens.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said in the meantime, the government has mobilized nearly all agencies for the implementation of various measures to mitigate the effects of the drought as well as other actions to minimize the use of water and power.

“As the situation warrants, I’m very sure that there’s nothing that would prevent us from asking Congress for emergency powers,” Ermita said, adding the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) is closely monitoring the situation.

How bilis naman ni Lola to jump into the situation. Hay naku, Napoleona talaga. I'm past loathing. It's my birthday. Peace. I will be in San Fabian Resort. No email until Saturday. But it will be no Fortress of Solitude. I will be lecturing Beneco officials on how to write power features. Expect love stories behind your electric bills.

Fortress of Solitude

Hay, Jonathan Lethem. Hey, Willi Pascual. They found the Fortress of Solitude. Now, we can never truly be alone.

"It was entirely possible that one song could destroy your life. Yes, musical doom could fall on a lone human form and crush it like a bug. The song, that song, was sent from somewhere else to find you, to pick the scab of your whole existence. The song was your personal shitty fate, manifest as a throb of pop floating out of radios everywhere. At the very least the song was the soundtrack to your destruction, the theme. Your days reduced to a montage cut to its cowbell beat, inexorable doubled bass line and raunch vocal, a sort of chanted sneer, surrounded by groans of pleasure. The stutter and blurt of what-a tuba? French horn? Rhythm guitar and trumpet, pitched to mockery. The singer might as well have held a gun to your head. How it could have been allowed to happen, how it could have been allowed on the radio? That song ought to be illegal. It wasn't racist-you'll never sort that one out, don't even start-so much as anti-you."

The Coffee War

“It is disgusting to note the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects and the amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. Everybody is using coffee. If possible this must be prevented. My people must drink beer. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were his officers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer; and the King does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be depended upon to endure hardships or to beat his enemies in case of occurrence of another war.” Frederick the Great of Prussia

“There are various theories as to what characteristics, what combination of traits, what qualities in our men won the war. This democratic heritage is highly thought of: the instinctive mechanical know-how of thousands of our young men is frequently cited: the church and Coca-cola, baseball and the movies all come in for their share of credit; but, speaking from my own observation of our armed forces, I should say the war was won on coffee.” Ilka Chase.

I Lived On The Moon....NOT

Below you would see Kwoon's I Lived on The Moon from their first album, "Tales & Dreams." Yannick Puig made the animation and the clip had been viewed almost 500,000 times since June. Many love the clip and they see themselves in the young boy.
Now when I was a young boy, this was already the reply. Time Machine, activate! Here comes The Muppets (and Aaron Neville)!!!!



Well, I'd like to visit the moon
On a rocketship high in the air.
Yes, I'd like to visit the moon,
But I don't think I'd like to live there.
Though I'd like to look down at the earth
From above,
I'd miss all the places
and people I love,
So although I might like it for one afternoon,
I don't want to live on the moon.

I'd like to travel under the sea.
I could meet all the fish everywhere.
Yes, I'd travel under the sea,
But I don't think I'd like to live there.
I might stay for a day there
If i had my wish,
But there's not much to do
When your friends are all fish,
And an oyster and clam aren't real family,
So I don't want to live under the sea.

I'd like to visit the jungle,
Hear the lion's roar;
Go back and meet a dinosaur.
There's so many strange places I'd like to be
But none of them permanently.

So if I should visit the moon,
Well, I'll dance on a moonbeam, and then
I will make a wish on a star,
And I'll wish I was home once again.
Though I'd like to look down at the earth from above,
I would miss all the places
And people I love
So although I may go,
I'll be coming home soon,
'Cause I don't want to live on the moon.
No, I don't want to live on the moon

Captcha

This is an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers And Humans Apart. When you comment on this blog, you meet a captcha which you copy. Captchas are the seemingly useless letters and numbers used to prevent automated software from spamming the website. A captcha has an algorithm to show different new challenges which requires real human intelligence to solve. They are supposed to be random but sometimes randomness can be funny or bad: