Typewriter Returns!

The Japanese multinational Brother sold 12,000 electronic typewriters last year in the UK, which is its biggest market in Europe. Electronic typewriters, not computers. BBC is now saying many people are going back to the tired old typewriters. Why?

The writer Will Self is a convert. He went back to using a manual typewriter several years ago. "I think the computer user does their thinking on the screen, and the non-computer user is compelled, because he or she has to retype a whole text, to do a lot more thinking in the head," he said in a recent interview. More

Who is the James Dean of the Philippines?

His name is James Also. Ha ha ha.
James Din.
Momentary silence because Lou Salvador Jr., the James Dean of the Philippines, died only recently.
Here's the obit.

Vintage Supots

The Silliman Rengga

Here's an old poem I discovered:

Silliman Beach
Random Lines written at Siliman Beach by five young poets 16^th of June 1968

Here where we leave prints running to the coves
The sea’s want of our presences is felt; like
Waves, ripples, your shriek, or the breakneck wind:
We are, we shall be, but we’re not – the lost prints
Are imaginings; our images conjured in sand
Are incomplete like tops of shells or pairless shoes.
DONEL PACIS

Sails and shoes are prints indeed, lost in the sea;
Patterns change as patterns leave the light –
But children’s voices spilling over pebbles echo
Through the jagged coves of mirthless hearts.
Yet even these will like the falling waves subside.
ELSA VICTORIA MARTINEZ

Subside, fall off like paper waves rolled out
By the sea’s typewriter carriage, the heart a battered
Machine: the single shoe stringless and tattered
EMMANUEL LACABA

Tattered too are paper plates and prosaic poems
Left in the summer aquarium. Suddenly our presences
Are days descending. We hold a snail, think of seagulls:
The ship shrills two distinct notes; the sea watches us
Draw shadows tall tailed by tense time.
CESAR MELLA JR

And so we stand, mute spectators
As the sea draws these prints –
Prints once real as salt spray
Upon our faces now lost.
AIDA CUNANAN

From Weekly Nation August 5, 1968

Bontoc

Just came from Bontoc. Stayed in a new hotel in Samoki. Most of the new hotels are now in this part of the town. So you stay beside the rice terraces, kamote patches and pigpens. Not to be fastidious but these had been here for centuries. The hotels seem to be the intrusions here.

Santi Bose aka Santa Rose

I received this email from Bob Boyles:

In San Francisco, in 1976, while waiting on my flight to Osan AFB, Korea, I struck up a conversation whith a retired Air Force Master Sgt. on his way back to the Phillipines. We parted ways at Travis AFB, California and he presented me with a handmade pen and pencil holder for my desk that I would occupy in Korea. It is in the shape of a Valentine type heart, obviously handmade, with two holes on the top of the heart for pens or pencils. It appears to have been glazed in a kiln (?) with hand painted reddish orange braid around the top-left edge of the heart and blue-green braid around the right edge.
On the right side of the heart is handlettered
SOUVENIR
BAGUIO CITY
1969
On the left side of the heart is handlettered
MAY '69
I don't recall the name of the man who gave it to me in 1976 but he had told me he had gotten it from a "kid about 17 or 18 years old named Santa Rose" while he had been stationed with the USAF in the Phillipines in 1969. I was 27 yrs. old in '76 and I just stuck the heart in my duffle bag and somehow the heart has manged to stay wiht me through all these years and many, many moves.
There's no name on the heart but I came across the heart yesterday while showing my 11 year old granson some of my Air Force and travel keepsakes. My grandson is a pretty clever kid ( not just because he's mine ) so he wanted himself and I to research Baguio City. When we looked Baguio City up on the internet we also came across " Santi Bose " which, to me, was very close to " Santa Rose " that the man had called the "kid" that made it in 1969 (?).
That's all I can recall about how, where and from whom I obtained my Baguio City 1969 heart but my grandson and I are letting our curiosity get the best of us. Will you please take a moment or two to share your thoughts on my ( now, according to my grandson ) OUR small treasure which is 3 inches by 2 and 1/2 inches in size.
Thanks for taking the time to read this "book" that I've written here but a reply would thrill us both.
~~Bob Boyles and James Ferguson ( 11 yrs. )

I'm Currently Listening to Vinyl

When the Column About the Poems that Came Back to Haunt You Also Came Back to Haunt You

While looking for the author of a poem which we wanted included in "Mondo Marcos," I came upon my poetry column in Sun Star five years ago. This was written in Nov 26, 2002:

When your poems come back to haunt you
By Frank Cimatu

LAST Friday, I got a copy of my old poems. These were made more than 10 years ago. Many of these poems I have not seen since sending them to Palanca. I was still using those huge, really floppy disks then and using Wordstar 5. They were killed by primitive viruses and molds. Anyway, my poems looked primitive now with those ribbon printers. Some of the poems I didn't know I submitted.

And the typos! I was surprised these poems won the Palanca. For one, my Filipino poems were titled Desaparacido/Desparadico. It should be "Desaparadico" but in my haste, I forgot the crucial "a." Then looking at them last Friday, I realized it should be "Desaparadiso." How I want to creep into the Palanca office and edit my poems.

Because I have the worst filing system in Baguio, I have no copies of many of these poems and the sight of them is similar to a passage I recalled about an archeologist opening a tomb unopened for centuries. When he opened the lid, the body was intact and right before the archeologist's eyes, the body collapsed upon contact with air, leaving a tempest of dust. It was so Spielberg.

When I saw my early poems, I was so filled with pride seeing those twist of lines and rhymes. And then the air filled these poems as you recall those attempts of revisions filling at least five spiral notebooks. And then you see the grammatical errors, waylaid commas and semicolons, and a line (in one instance, a crucial stanza) that you forgot to put in. How can I be so stupid! How can the judges not see these? Then your poems collapsed in front of you.

In the case of the archeologist, he was left with dust and also, the fine battle uniform and the jewels. At least I have my old poems, that I have to edit and rework until they look fine again. Or until the next long-time-no-see.

I remember Jun Cruz Reyes, the Raymond Carver of Philippine literature, saying that he has some things that some of our great writers would die to retrieve from him. He has their works which they submitted to the UP National Writer's Workshop. Now don't get me wrong! The UP workshop is the most prestigious rite-of-passage in the country and getting there is no easy task. Talent, or even the occasional brilliant flash-in-the-pan is not enough.

Sometimes, I think the panelists bring in some fellows who has some potential but is still not of workshop caliber. Or some of the usual suspects. You know your Sun Tzu - you kill a rooster to scare the monkeys. Bring in a fellow who is really terrible and slaughter him or her in front of the other people. Watch them cringe and swear literature off their bodies for the rest of their lives.

I attended the UP workshop in 1988 (yes, The Great Batch of 1988) and believe me, it was a bloodshed, not like the patronizing ones I observed later.

Philippine literature is looking for those rare ones who rise from the trenches and eventually become the greatest of their generation.

Let us not be ashamed of our juvenilias. Except for a few exceptions, and I assure you it's not the brand of baby milk that made the difference, all of us were terrible ones. Some of us are enfant terribles, others remained terrible and infantile while the rest rose from the ranks.

It's not easy to be a writer. You need your formulas: Three Ps (persistence, patience, peskiness), Three Rs (read, revise and revise again) and others.

You need your muses (Don't marry them. The unrequited ones are more ideal) and your succubi and incubi.. You need to love and fall in love and when you fall, fall down hard. (I remember writing a review on the Eraserheads' Cutterpillow and telling them to find more heartbreaks for your own good. Last year, I got an email from another rocker saying he clipped that review and highlighted that particular advice. Told you I am better than Joe D'Mango).

Release your poems and let them live by themselves. When they come back to you like what some of them did last Friday, you feel like the prodigal father who had to serve a feast for them. That's why I have to pay the bill even if I didn't order what you ate and drank (Tes, Etot, Day, Mary, Vince and Evie), it's because my poems had come home (Thanks, Grace).

Let's Surf Before the World Ends at the End of the Month

because according to NASA, the Asteroid 2007 TU24 will closely approach the Earth to within 1.4 lunar distances (334,000 miles) on 2008 Jan. 29. So we better surf the end, man. Let's party like its 1999!

Dana Batnag: I Am But A Small Voice

Our friend Dana Batnag is now the news. She is being tagged by anonymous PNP intelligence (oxymoron!) sources as the one aiding and abetting a rebel military leader so he can escape from Manila Pen last November. She was supposed to be handing him a press ID (Aha! so we are carrying blank IDs all the while!) so he can leave the premises as a media person and escape the eagle eyes of 1,500 police officers.
Dana was tagged for having long curly hair. Ha ha ha. We know Dana for a long, long time. Sometimes I tease her by singing "I Am But A Small Voice." When she was in elementary, she composed this poem that won a UN contest. Roger Whittaker turned it into a song which he included in his Greatest Hits. I remember her being interviewed and she said she wanted to be a police detective. He he he. It was also in Channel 9. Maybe they find that old footage and use it against you. Her father was from Besao, Mountain Province and her mother is with a national language commission. Dana has a sister who was a journalist for Daily Globe. Dana worked with Philippine Graphics before becoming the one-person news agency bureau known as Jiji Press which is based in Japan. She also teaches at UP Diliman. Oh boy! Dana B, sikat ka na naman.
Part of her winning poem goes:

May ngiti sa araw
At kung umuulan
Makapagtampisaw
Malayang daigdig
Ng kawalang malay

The sun is smiling and when it's raining, we can wade on the
puddles without any care for the world. 
Yes, we knew that part of our youth

But stupid police. 

Faster, Tarantino! Padyak! Padyak!

Hey, Manila lover Quentin Tarantino said that he will be remaking Russ Meyer's classic (and the only non-NSFW), Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! with Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian and Eva Mendez in the mammaquatian roles. I hope he goes on location in the Philippines, in Paoay for the desert scenes. And remembering that he once rode the traysikad (Pinoy rickshaw) while he was here, I hope he brings that up also in his remake. Well, would it be Britney as the Blonde (once played by Lori Williams)? Eva as the Ethnic Lesbo and Kim as Varla, the dominatrix in black stretch jumpsuit once played by Tura Sutana. What casting coup! And remember when the old man said (this was in 1965): Women! They let 'em vote, smoke and drive - even put 'em in pants! And what happens? A Democrat for president!
It's so now, because a woman president from the Democratic party just might be it.

Miss Kwan?

In that celebrated camp movie, "Temptation Island," Guess who was Miss Kwan?" Uy, ayaw ni Joey de Leon niyan.

The original Miss Kwan?

Eraserheaded

It was said that the Eraserheads were our Beatles. It's not hard to see why. The Pub Four were influenced by the Fab Four. They were into concept albums just like the latter Beatles. They did songs with reference to drugs although only Marcus and Raimund seemed to look like hippies. Then they split. Some said Ely just texted the three that it's over. He said he graduated (why then would Ely call his new band, Pupil?) That's why the three were bitter, even when Ely suffered a major stroke and benefit concerts were organized in his behalf. One magazine featured Marcus Adoro saying he would have wanted to see Ely but he got lost or his guide deliberately lost him. He said he will surprise Ely one of these days. He played though while Raimund and Buddy Zabala made themselves scarce throughout all these charity-o-rama. B,R and M called themselves the new "Eraserheads" and played in Makati last April with a girl, Kris Dancel of Fatal Posporos, as their new lead vocalist. Then later, Marcus also quit and Buddy and Raimund, the original Molave Dorm Boys, got two others to form Cambio. Buddy also joined The Dawn. I saw Marcus one time surfing in San Juan, La Union. He seemed to be at peace with himself. I think he even organized a Dec. 26 gig in San Juan featuring Mike Hanopol, the Jerks, Pepe Smith etc. I forgot all about it and never saw a thing in the papers. Until today when I read a newspaper and a famous someone asked Ely about his share of crazy fans. Part of the question was: I remember a fan letter from a girl who said that if you wouldn't sleep with her, she would kill Marcus.
Ely's answer was: To that fan I now say, "I AM NOT GOING TO SLEEP WITH YOU."
He is not going for marital fidelity, my friends. He is going for the jugular, and that particular vein happens to be Marcus's. Sad. Bitter. Erase.

Mail-Order Catalog

Hey, this is where the winners shop. The greatest mail-order company in the world.
P.S. The anvil was dropped in 29 episodes of Looney Tunes. Cross dressing, however, is more the norm with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Goofy Gophers and both Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote crossdressing in 49 episodes.

The Christmas of Five Magdalenes

Titillating viewers in Christmas 1965

Papaya Update

Good friend Elmer Mesina of Philip Morris is an avid collector of vinyl records and he has a 45 of "Papaya." It was recorded in 1973 so that settles the issue about the date, Edu M.
The "plaka of Papaya" of the other E.M. is in mint condition and he wouldn't part with it. One of these days, we will ransack Elmer's collection. Ito, meron ka?

David

When I was still studying at the UB Science High School. our Christmas Cantata was never complete without our Gregorian chanting and Dave Tabligan, who made it his panata to go home from somewhere in the world to play on piano Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. He used to have an Afro then and he was jolly and funny. Years ago, he went home for good and now plays at the Piano Bar at John Hay Manor. He is diabetic and slowly lost his signed. He also lost his Afro. I visited him yesterday and I have to introduce myself, short of telling him that I was a tenor till 4th Year. Ha ha ha. We became good friends back when I still go to Luisa's Cafe. Dave can still play any song ever recorded by a major label and some obscure ones and he still does it wonderfully. Merry Xmas, Manong Dave. Here's to you and dear Emmett, wherever you are.

Seuss, Pasko na Pala

Coco Banana: Where Are You When We Are Now the Matronas and Aging Barflies?

We always thought (we being the Marcos babies) that Manila’s 400 during the Martial Law were having a party. As it turned out, yes. As Imelda’s disco throw pillow would say, Nice Girls Go to Heaven but Bad Girls Go Anywhere. I don’t know if Imelda went to Coco Banana’s but her daughter Imee certainly did. In fact all the innnneresting people did. Ernesto Santiago, the fashion designer, started the bar on June 12, 1976 and it became the tres chic’s best way to beat the curfew. The world knows where we are, was the come-on. No address. One time on TV, they showed what’s going on there: Life-size retablos using real people as saints. One time, Santiago came with a white and mirror party then Carousel, Rocky Horror or even West Side. Drugs were everywhere but I heard you had to bring them with because drugpushing was not allowed. Santiago as doorman was said to be worse than St. Peter at the Gate. Even if you can afford the ticket (which rang up to P150 at that time) but if he doesn’t like your face or vibes, You’re so out. He doesn’t like your outfit, go home and change. But you had to come back because the music was so UG NY. Underground New York. The Coquettes (the classy gay troupe) and James Cooper (that hairdresser of the stars) as Diana Ross stirred the Studio (Highway) 54 crowd. Helen Guerrero of Azabache would come as a geisha. The top models at that time were always there as wallflowers. Imagine that? You don’t know what to expect. The party could go on till 4 am. You would know the party was ending when Barang Streisand and Donna Summer’s “No More Tears” could be heard. You know the refrain, enough is enough is enough. Santiago said enough in 1988 when he just locked up that old house in Remedios for good.

Craig Williams' Chapter Headings

Craig compiled 1,000 songs, mostly jologs rock, to bring him to the mood while writing his book. Here are his 19 chapter headings:

AC/DC, “There’s Gonna Be Some Rockin’”

ABBA, “Take a Chance on Me”

Motley Crue, “Looks That Kill”

Xanadu, Olivia Newton John and Electric Light Orchestra

Def Leppard, “Rock of Ages”

Donna Summer, “Hot Stuff”

Ratt, “Round and Round”

The Police, “Invisible Sun”

Van Halen, “Hot for Teacher” and “Panama”

Missing Persons, “Words”

Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle”

Electric Light Orchestra, “Don’t Bring Me Down”

Faster Pussycat, “No Room for Emotion”