Milestones

The Story of Us

He was the interviewee and I was the interviewer. I thought he had good qualifications and pretty eyes. Something clicked. After we had gone out a few times (it wasn't internal hiring so we weren't violating workplace decorum... I think, haha) he sent me another resume. This time, it was an application to become my boyfriend. He had detailed his objectives ("To love you and to cherish you..."), background (his previous relationships and how long they lasted), and skills and traits ("hardworking," "honest," "terrific cook," etc.). Cute, but who knows how many other applications he had sent out?

We were as different as night and day, and not only in complexion. He wore his heart on his sleeve, spoke his mind, had blatant disregard for punctuation and spelling. He was fearless in a way. He seemed undaunted by the many trials he knew we would have to face. Like other boys I've known, he liked cars and motorcycles and weapons of mass destruction. Unlike other boys I've known, he stayed.

Needless to say, both his applications were successful.

Happy anniversary, baby. I love you. :)

----------

Dear Sage,

On the occasion of your first birthday, let me tell you about your name. Yes, it's a plant. I hope you don't mind that I've named some of your stuffed toys Parsley, Rosemary and Thyme, as an homage to Simon and Garfunkel's classic tune. 

Your name is also an archetype typically found in science fiction and fantasy. Most of my favorite characters are sages: Gandalf, Ben Kenobi, Yoda, Ogion, Hiko Seijuro, The Doctor. They are wise, transcendental, kickass.

You were named Sage because Angel and Princess were not an option. It's not our wish for you to break your back trying to live up to unrealistic standards of "goodness" or to become a helpless pretty thing, detached from all the world in your ivory tower, surrounded by the latest fashion and gadgets (we don't have the money to buy those, anyway, especially the ivory tower).

All we can really hope for is that you grow up to make wise decisions.

(I know it's not mere coincidence you were born on Women Human Rights Defenders Day. Because to live your life for something greater than yourself -- that's the wisest decision of all.)

Happy birthday, anak. I love you to infinity and beyond. :)

Love,
Mommy

A Royal Affair

Maybe it was the ubiquity of Kate and William in the news lately that I thought I saw my own star-crossed-commoner-and-crown-prince romance in you. Of course, you're not really royalty and I am anything but common (hah), but you remind me so much of a dapper young man whose mother, Benazir Bhutto, was the closest thing Pakistan had to royalty. Like him, you speak with an upper-class British accent, indicative of your posh exclusive schooling and expat upbringing in the land of your colonial masters. Also like him, there is a regal air about you, compounded by the fact that you are simply and undeniably hot. But most impressive is the power and substance by which you forge your words -- I'm sure they would have been even more powerful and substance-filled if I wasn't so distracted by your eyes. It does not alarm me that I first saw you at a discussion on women human rights defenders, at a regional forum that I had gatecrashed, or that the very next day I bumped into you at the gay pride march. It only goes to show that you are confident enough in your masculinity to advocate women and gay rights.

Please know that this admiration is without hope or agenda, because I knew you were leaving the country right after the forum. I only wish I had told you just how cool I thought you were, but then I reckon somebody -- or some people -- had already done that, easing a bit of the massive self-doubt you harbor despite your seeming perfectness. And in that, I can already be happy.

I never told you this, because we never spoke a word to each other, but I have a pathologic inability to maintain any form of romantic relationship. That, or I have the worst luck in the world. Often, the romantic relationship just wanes and dies a natural death; sometimes, the guy turns out to be a complete ass. But saddest of all, the romantic relationship turns out to exist only in my head. (Yes, apparently this can happen. To me, anyway.) You'd think I would be jaded by now -- and I admit, I believed I was for a while -- but seeing you, feeling the way I did about you, made me realize how much I am still very much alive inside. And how can I be a cynic now, when in this universe of countless permutations I've crossed paths with someone like you? The odds must be in my favor. Maybe next time, the guy wouldn't have a plane ticket in his pocket, and maybe I would actually get to talk to him instead of just blogging hypothetically about him.

So thank you. I might not ever see you again, but that chance encounter was enough. I am un-jaded and hopeful, free from all excess baggage and once again ready to throw caution to the wind, even if it means losing over and over again before I finally meet him. I only hope he has your regal aura and sharp sense of style but even if he doesn't, I know he'd still be royalty in my eyes. It would certainly help a lot though if his name was Harry, Prince of Wales.

It Runs in the Family

a poem in five parts by Loffy
(written for her DevStud 123 class a long, long time ago)

I.
Be the change you wish to see in the world
preached my father -- or was it Gandhi?
Forsake not the poor, for the poor is with us
and a bird has the right to be free
All these and more, I learned from my parents
who were quick to make me see
that though I'm a child, I can choose to care
about how government spends our money

II.
Land, life and liberty
the cry of a thousand voices
and yet never heard
But from the mountains come
a strength and will
and spirits undeterred
A plan to alter the course of a river
never saw the light of day
For they had deemed their lives as just
a very small price to pay
Pedro Dungoc
a Kalinga leader
with Macli-ing Dulag fought
the Chico Dam project
its plunderous structures
the oppression that it brought
Dungoc died a red fighter
but to this day
his legacy lives on
in his sons and daughters
who continue the fight
for self-determination
Pedro Dungoc, Jr.
a force behind TAKDER
is proud to have his father’s name
and be his father’s heir

III.
Three is said to be a magic number
a sturdy balance
a center with two wings
And so we have three men in a tub,
the Holy Trinity,
three wishes, three kings
Suffice it to say
there's simply no space
to identify all the others
But we must not forget
to include in the list
the three Villegas Brothers
Jose Jr. is a labor leader
and crusader for human rights
known for his ideals
of industrialization
and labor co-ownership insights
Bernardo is a favorite economist
of the U.S. Embassy, for one
whose capitalist nature
has given him
an extra mile to run
Edberto is and always was
a parliamentarian of the streets
whose intellect
and trademark zest
even jail can not deplete
Each is as different
from one another
as three brothers can be
But each is headstrong
in fighting for
his respective advocacy

IV.
The truth is said
to set you free
but it was different for Joe Burgos
For he was arrested
and imprisoned during
the dictatorship of Marcos
The publishers
of a newspaper that sought
to reveal the truth
Joe and Edith
have been harassed
and left with hurts to soothe
Jonas, like his parents, fought
for his own set of beliefs
A member of the KMP
he felt a farmer’s grief
And Jonas now,
like his parents then,
is being made to pay
for being a “threat”
to the structure that
is rotten all the way

V.
Be the change you wish to see in the world
I now preach to my son
For that’s the most that I can leave to him
when all is said and done
Perhaps an “activist gene” is carried
on to our next kin
Or maybe we just really think
indifference is a sin

The politics of color, wizard-style

Westernization is so ubiquitous it is not only contained in this dimension of time and space; it has spilled over to the realm of high fantasy as well. The general assumption in fantasy is that the heroes and main characters are white, basically Western. If someone is dark and less-than-good-looking (curious how these two traits seem to always go together), he is undoubtedly a member of the big baddie's legion of doom and would go on to be decapitated in the battlefield.

Until the Earthsea Cycle. Ursula Le Guin dares to challenge the norms of Westernized fantasy: why shouldn't the hero be dark-skinned? (Or more importantly, why shouldn't the hero be dark-skinned AND good-looking?) Why shouldn't the morally upright people of power look like sun-baked natives? Why shouldn't society resemble anything other than Europe in the Middle Ages?

Earthsea is a vast archipelago with a temperate climate, populated for the most part by brown-skinned people whose ways of life revolve around the sea. (Hmm, sounds like a country I know.) Magic in Earthsea is governed by Equilibrium, by Balance. I like how the use of magic has certain consequences -- whereas Harry Potter and his friends can cast spells here and there, the boy Ged was deaf and mute and blind for days after weaving a difficult spell. A Taoist theme is evident in that magic is supposed to be in harmony with the world: it should let things be as they are and must only be used to restore balance. So although a great mage can conjure up a comfy bed and whisk away rainclouds so easily, he goes to sleep on the ground under the pouring rain, much to the chagrin of his weary prentice.

What is also remarkable about the Earthsea Cycle is that there is no big baddie. There's no Sauron building up his grand army to fight the batttle to end all battles. There are even no battles -- at least not ones so hackneyed as good guys and bad guys hacking away in an open field. The conflicts are among and within the people and their beliefs and their understanding of the world they live in, which I've found to be more compelling than the archaic good versus evil storyline. The entire series is very philosophical and existential. It goes beyond the mere entertainment value of typical high fantasy to actually make you think. And while there are allusions to good versus evil, it throws you for a spin by asking, is what you've always believed to be good in fact truly good?

In this era of cardboard-cutout fantasy books fashioned to be as sellable as possible, the Earthsea Cycle is in a class of its own. I just hope and pray that Ursula Le Guin is the kind of writer I think she is and that she'd never allow Earthsea to be butchered by the biggest baddie of all -- Hollywood.

Dreadlocked Dreams

There is this dream I keep having. In it, I am getting married to some dreadlocked dude with tattoos snaking from his neck to his face. We live in a Volkswagen van and I wear flowers in my hair.

In real life, this is problematic on so many levels. For one, I do not believe in marriage and even if by some miracle I change my mind about it, my mother will kill me before she lets me marry someone who matches her definition of a druggie. I also do not approve of uprooting plants and flowers for aesthetic purposes and besides, flower-in-the-hair is so not my style. But I guess I'm fine with living in a VW van. I've always wanted to paint on the outside of one.

But I have to wonder: why do I keep having that dream? Is my subconscious, or perhaps a higher power, trying to tell me something? Like maybe I haven't yet fully recovered from my Jason Castro rabid fan-girl phase?

Whatever it is, I've decided not to make too much out of it. Still, every time I meet someone with dreads and tattoos, I find myself telling him determinedly in my mind, "Nope, I will not marry you."

Whammy Bar defined

Although it sounds like some sort of chocolate candy, the whammy bar is actually a steel lever attached to the bridge of an electric guitar.

To the mere guitar player, the whammy bar is used to "shake" a note or to create a vibrato effect. This is done by a mechanism that can only be explained by someone with a triple degree in physics, philosophy and engineering and a Ph.D. in astronomy, so I'd rather not go into that.

But in the hands of Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Dimebag Darrell and Steve Vai, the whammy bar can do most anything. It can make the guitar sound like a horse, a cat, an exploding bomb, an alien and other things not of this world. Just as a magician has his wand, the guitar virtuoso has his whammy bar.

With the whammy bar, there is an infinite spectrum of sounds to experiment with. Only the imagination is the limit. There is also a variety of facial expressions to discover and practice, because to play the whammy bar without engaging in facial muscle acrobatics is just plain wrong.

The whammy bar represents everything I think guitar-playing should be. Avant-garde, radical, fearless, playful, weird. It also sounds like chocolate candy, and I'm all for that, too.

Why I am voting for KATRIBU Partylist

The Constitution, through the partylist system, provides for the representation of the country's marginalized and disadvantaged sectors, and I can not think of any sector that fits the bill more perfectly than the indigenous peoples of the Philippines. Comprising fifteen percent of the population, IPs have been left out of national governance and decision-making for, well, pretty much the entire of history. Yet they are the ones who face the direst problems and issues, whose struggles are literally life-or-death.

This is not to say that IPs are a victim of powerlessness. Not at all. For didn't the IPs triumphantly resist the colonial forces that sought to breach and convert them, and were thus able to preserve to this day their cultures and ways of life? (Ego-bruised at having lost to spear-wielding natives, the colonizers pegged them as savages and monkeys with tails growing out of their backs. Real mature, I know.) And some thirty years ago, didn't tribal chief Macliing Dulag lead the fight of the Kalinga, Apayao and Bontoc peoples against the World Bank-funded Chico Dam project that would submerge whole villages and rice fields? Even in the face of rifles and army tanks, the Northern Cordillerans stood their ground. April 24th, commemorated today as Cordillera Day, was the day Macliing Dulag was shot and killed by Philippine Army soldiers. His death only intensified the fight, and the dams were never built.

IPs have long fought for rights to ancestral land. They have long opposed government policies that pandered to foreign interests and put the environment at risk. They have always stood up where land, life and liberty were threatened.

And still they remain marginalized, a people on the fringes of this nation.

A paradox, so it seems. But it will make sense if we take a look at the backdrop against which the IPs' plight takes place. With economic policies that promote "development" at whatever cost, centralization of social services (if any) in the urban areas, absence of a genuine land reform program, and a lack of understanding of indigenous culture -- or more accurately, a refusal to understand and respect indigenous culture -- it should come as no surprise that the IPs face the plethora of predicaments that they do. They are essentially being marginalized by the entire system itself, by formal and informal structures alike. To put it plainly, if the IPs' struggle were a movie, it would be called You and Me Against the World.

Here lies the beauty of the IPs' plight. Though well aware of the unfavourable odds, they continue to fight, for theirs is an enduring legacy of vigilance. They go to battle against gun-toting imperialists with only arrows and spears, for theirs is an enduring legacy of hope. This is a kind of steadfastness and fervor that can only be rooted in a deep sense of the rightness of their cause: the assertion of the right to ancestral domain and self-determination, the collective rights of IPs as well as their civil and political rights, the promotion of sustainable development, the acknowledgment of and support for indigenous socio-political institutions and knowledge systems, the cooperation between IPs and non-IPs towards a nation that respects, celebrates and thrives on diversity.

And now the IPs undertake a different kind of fight: the fight to have a voice in Congress. This voice is embodied by KATRIBU Partylist which is made up of various IP organizations and individuals that have long been at the forefront of the struggle.

If elected, the IPs win so much more than a seat in the House of Representatives. And one does not need to be a member of the sector to see that it is a fight worth supporting.

I am voting for KATRIBU Partylist because I choose to be part of this historic fight.

I am voting for KATRIBU Partylist because I believe in the rightness and importance of their cause. The issues they face today are more pressing than ever. The time is ripe to have IP representation in Congress.

I am voting for KATRIBU Partylist because in these troubled times when it is so easy to lose faith in the country's electoral process and structures of governance, the IPs take the difficult road and choose instead to see hope and promise in their bid for representation, as they've done in their every fight. And I choose this as well.

How many books do you read in a year?

George W. Bush reads about 90. Apparently, no one told him picture books don't count.

I have never kept track of the number of books I read in a year -- no, not because I read so many -- on the contrary, I don't get to read as much as I'd like. (Which is why during the two-week holiday break, I took it upon myself to read at least twenty books. I ended up reading eight.) But all this talk about George Bush reading 90 books a year got me curious. Because what does that imply, if you read that much you become stupid? Or maybe 90 books is not enough to raise one's level of intelligence? It could also be that he's just fooling us all with his dumb cowboy act and is, in fact, an intellectual giant. But why the heck am I so concerned about George Bush?

To cut to the chase, I am tasking myself to read eight books a month. That would make 96 books in a year. (Beat that, George Bush! Ahem, yes, I'm very competitive. Haha.) So far, I've finished four this month -- So Long and Thanks for All the Fish (Douglas Adams), Everything on a Waffle (Polly Horvath), The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling), and Emma (Jane Austen) which I started reading way back in December. I am currently on my fifth, Mostly Harmless (Douglas Adams), and sixth, Children of Dune (Frank Herbert). Maybe I'll read Asimov for my last two. My prospects are looking good, but then this is only January.

On a side note, I went looking for a portable e-book reader (ala Amazon Kindle) yesterday, and the salespeople didn't even know what I was talking about! And we are supposed to be a techie people. But unfortunately not a well-read one. Kind of reminds me of the time when I asked a sales attendant at Powerbooks if they carried Philippine Genre Stories. The sales attendant asked me, "Ano po? Genre? Paano po ang spelling no'n?" I was so stumped I wasn't able to spell it.

Anyhoo, if anyone wants to challenge themselves this year by reading as much books as they can, then I would gladly compete with you. Haha! What I meant was, a little friendly competition gives one motivation and is therefore helpful in reaching one's goals. Yup, that's what I meant.

I honestly, truly believe it in my heart of hearts that the reason kids today are so dumb is that they don't read. They only know iPod and PSP and mobile phones and sex. You know, if you read more, you can become a person of power then you can get a lot more sex. But seriously, for your own sake, children, read! It doesn't matter what -- graphic novels, magazines, SCRAs, the back of a cereal box. Just read. And you just might become a president who can easily duck shoes (bet you didn't know those lightning-speed reflexes are from reading a lot).

New Year Poetry

New Year Poetry
by Loffy

Sitting here by my computer
listening to Zakk and Dime
I feel a sort of gripping power
a compelling urge to rhyme

Once again a year has gone past
and we're all a little older
I hope with all the bursts and blasts
that you don't lose a finger

But more than that I hope you are
most happy and relieved
that what you gave surpassed by far
all things you have received

And while you've lost more times than one
at least you've won some too
And though your love life's dead and gone
your friends have stuck by you

I hope you look back with fondness
and look ahead with hope
The future's friggin' bright unless
you won't quit smoking dope

So here's a toast to the year that was
Good riddance, fare the well
Be sure to make the good times last
Here, have a San Miguel

Happy New Year!

A Second Dose of Prose

Jacob
by Loffy

He's sworn off drinking and smoking
and he wears his ethnicity like a badge
He is considered "guwapo" by those around him
but he never seems to notice
He possesses utter dislike for anything
mainstream and Western
and would gladly take a bullet
for his principles.

He is destined for greatness
Not the Bill Gates kind of greatness
nor the kind found in a stadium of fans
or the bulwark of political cronies
but the silent kind of greatness others speak of
as their eyes make water.
In his lifetime, he will help more people
and touch more lives than all the
politicians in this country put together
ever will.

He is a constant reminder that
the improbable is not impossible
if we remain
persistent
unwavering
vigilant.
He restores my faith in the innate
goodness of the human soul
-- what apathy and indifference we see
is the spawn of the twisted society we live in
But we can resist, look inside what is pure
and like him, choose to care.

He is always lugging around
his heavy backpack chockful of
memos
newspapers
subversive documents
that he gladly shares with me
and anyone who would stop and listen.
He is forever pushing the envelope
and challeging the status quo
Stops only to admire the peace, love and good
happiness stuff that still abound in this world.

He is the big brother I never had
who gives me his bottle of iced tea
when I see the wavy lines of heat
and am delirious from thirst
He is the one person
I can talk to for hours on end about
politics
art films
the occult
and things considered
too trivial by the pompous world.
He never ceases to amaze me
with a wit and intellect
that is entirely his own.
He is a mystery whose complexity and depth
I struggle to fathom
but perhaps never will.

To be indifferent is to be half-dead,
this he'll tell you and more.
And while the people who pass by
see him as just another face
(albeit a good-looking one)
I see a giant of a person
a genius of his time
a warm ray of sunshine in this otherwise dreary world
and the reason I am straight. =P

What About Us

a tribute to Live's "I Alone"
by Loffy

Leave your worries at the door
All the love you need is here
I'm so glad you could make it
now just sit back and let me steer

Forget about everything you know
I'm the only one who truly loves you
You're lost at sea -- deaf, blind and dumb
Hold fast to me, you'll be brand new

What about us, what about them
Will we ever see the light
Lost at sea -- deaf, blind and dumb
we can't tell what's wrong from right
What about us, what about them
When you talk in rhymes and riddles
it's the world you condemn
What about us, what about them

There is no need for questions
Let me explain it all to you
Don't ask, don't think, don't do anything
You're still weak, it won't do you good

Is it starting to make sense?
Do you finally see the light?
Didn't I tell you I'm the only one?
All the others will just leave you out at night

What about us, what about them
are we as worthless as you say
Unless we mouth the words you feed us
We'll be saved some other day
What about us, what about them
Dare you speak of love and mercy
while the world you condemn
What about us, what about them

Look down at all the tired, weary people
and you'll see the foolish and the lost
You were once lost but now you are found
Because I found you -- you're nothing without me

What about us, what about them
can he hear us up above
or have you told him we're just garbage
underserving of his love
What about us, what about them
Dare you speak of love and mercy
Well, it's you we condemn
What about us, what about them

Silencer

an emo song by Loffy

Tell me
Why the turnstile
spins round on its own
Defying friction
Show me
How the silence
cuts through flesh and bone
Imitating your words

Tell me
How I have been
a sinner or saint
Refusing justice
I wonder
Why you're older
but still sniffing paint
Tragic irony

Chorus 1:
No one's here
Not a single soul
to witness me bleed
I'm trickling on the floor
No one's here
Still I'm hoping
that you'll come along
Stagger right through that door

Ask me
When I'm fading
what options have I
Counting backwards
Tell me
What one motto
you live your life by
Stoic bastard

Time is running out
I'm turning cyanotic
How can I argue
With your twisted logic
But through wounds and days gone past
Through silencers and glass
I see no one but you
coming to my rescue

Chorus 2:
No one's here
And for years I'll wonder
when you will be
I'm getting used to the dark
No one's here
But I'll wait eons
for you to come around
We have yet to leave our mark

Tell me
Why the turnstile
spins round on its own
Tell me
How your silence
cuts through flesh and bone

Kuwentong Musikero

The first time I played in a band was as a drummer. But it wasn't a real band. And I wasn't a real drummer.

The summer before Grade 6, I took up drums at the Musar-Yamaha music school in Baguio because I had nothing better to do. Piano was quickly losing its thrill (or was I thrilled about it in the first place?) so I thought I might learn some other instrument for a change. Drums seemed like the perfect choice -- no note-reading, no chord progressions, no freaking theory that frustrated me out of my skull. I thought, how hard can it be just banging away?

Of course, drums proved to be more than just banging away. It demanded total body coordination which I sadly did not have. And although there was no note-reading, there was drum notation which was sometimes just as confusing. And to think I was only playing the standard 5-piece drumset. It's a good thing I did not know Mike Portnoy then or I would have gone out of my mind trying to figure out how he does what he does.

One afternoon, I was practicing in one of the rooms while my teacher wandered off somewhere, as my teacher was wont to do. A guy who I assumed was also a student there knocked on the door and asked if I could please play a simple rhythm on the drums while he and his friend played guitar and bass. They were working on something in the next room and badly needed a drummer, and they had heard me drumming through the not-so-sound-proof wall so they decided to ask my help. I said okay, as long as it was a really simple rhythm. Anything more than that, I was afraid, would short-circuit my brain.

So I came into the next room, a jamming room, and played the rhythm they taught me (which was simple, thank God) as they shredded away on their guitars. All the while, all I could think of was: wow, I'm actually playing in a band. It did not matter that I completely sucked at drums. It felt like the coolest thing in the world.

Nine years later, I still feel the same way. The only difference is that I now play the guitar (and can't remember a damn thing about drums). Nothing compares to the high of playing with other musicians. It's the high of forging a music bond, and a music bond, unlike so many things, is always profound and enduring.

Novel Shmovel

This is chapter 2 of a high fantasy novel I'm working on right now. Well, it's not a term paper so it must be a novel.

**********

Waldorf Wox was not a typical Mroothian boy. He looked like one -- tall and lanky with bronze skin, black hair and sullen eyes -- and even talked and walked like one, but deep within himself he knew he was different. For one, he was deathly allergic to prunes. And just how many other Mroothians were allergic to prunes? Zero, as far as he knew. Everyone ate prunes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and if there was enough they ate it for midnight snack. Waldorf Wox could never do that. His lungs began to constrict at the mere thought of prunes. So he ate coconut meat instead, and cheese, if his best friend Corzhak Ollie was able to smuggle some from the dairy store where he worked nights as a floor sweeper. There was not much food variety in Mrooth, you see, because of the trade embargo that has been in effect for the last forty-seven years.

But it was Waldorf Wox's second trait that was much more fascinating.

Time and again, scientific studies abroad have proven that something in the genes of the Mroothian people made them an incurably tone-deaf race. They were born tone-deaf, they died tone-deaf and they never played or sang a single correct note for all those years in between. There was not much that the Mroothians could do about it especially since they were too poor and technologically regressed to conduct studies of their own, much less launch a genetic-code-altering program. Resigned to their fate, they can only lead their lives in dreary tuneless-ness, forever cursing their genes and, ultimately, their being Mroothians.

But Waldorf Wox wasn't like that. Because whatever Mroothian gene anomaly it was, Waldorf Wox didn't have it. He had Perfect Pitch.

With the exception of Corzhak Ollie, he never told anyone. Who would take him seriously after all? His drunkard of a father who only came home every three moons? Sure, if he wanted a healthy beating. His school teachers? They thought him a menace at best. The Government? Please. Their instruments were much more out of tune than their staff. They'd only ship him off to Hwoog's Hospital for the Hopelessly Demented.

(Corzhak Ollie -- now there was a typical Mroothian -- believed Waldorf Wox when he told him he had Perfect Pitch. Then again, Corzhak Ollie would believe anything you tell him.)

So Waldorf Wox thought it best to just keep it to himself. He went about his daily business just as a typical Mroothian boy might do -- he went to the Conk County School, mucked around with his classmates, worked odd jobs whenever he could, and at the end of the day went home to his dilapidated shack in Frooper Colony. And sometimes, if he was lucky, he would even have something to eat for dinner.

The Frooper Colony, as the locals fondly called it, was made up of roughly three hundred tightly-huddled shacks perched precariously on the steep hillside by the river Froop. The walls of the shacks were so thin (they were made from plywood scraps and cardboard) and so close to each other that there was no hiding anything from your neighbors, not even a burp. But Waldorf Wox had learned early on that despite his peculiarity he didn't have to hide anything.

After all, no one knew -- and could possibly know -- that the beat-up acoustic guitar he played around with in his shack was perfectly in tune. No one knew that every night, before going to sleep, he would lay on his cot and listen to the music inside his head, the music he desperately wished others can hear too. And no one knew that he dreamed of worlds beyond, of concert halls in Locq and guitar universities in Vandrixton and all the magical places he had only read about in books. His neighbors might catch him smiling in his sleep but they will never guess why.

With allergies and Perfect Pitch, Waldorf Wox was indeed not a typical Mroothian. But unbeknownst to him, he possessed one more thing that no Mroothian has known for over a thousand years -- hope.

Painless

A poem by Loffy

Four little white pills
lined up neatly in a row
vanish in an instant --
down my throat they go.
Oh what a warm, happy feeling
as they course through my veins,
numbing me until I feel
not an iota of pain.
I drink them with coffee
sometimes with milk tea
but I dare not take them
when my stomach is empty.
With my precious little white pills
I never have to feel
anything painful,
anything real.

Disclaimer: Relax, I'm no druggie, I just take pain meds for my dysmenorrhea which just kills me every month. Heh.

A Dose of Prose

Variations on a Theme by Alastair Reid
by Loffy

Curiosity may have killed the cat
more likely, the cat was just unlucky
or else suffering from clinical depression
that went undetected for years
The odd fellows in goggles and lab gowns
never quite found out whether the cat
had crossed the fine line between
genius and lunatic
or was really just curious to see
what death was like.
So the cat's file read "Heart attack"
but it is interesting to note
that the cat had led a healthy lifestyle
and was nowhere near obese.

Nevertheless, to be curious is dangerous enough
To be disillusioned with the comforts of familiarity,
to turn your back on your trusty scratching post
and dependable rubber mouse,
venture into the uncharted and the unknown,
peer into a hundred foot abyss and see
the next great adventure
only to find that you are back where you started.
With curiosity comes hope of finding Something
and the terrible danger of finding Nothing
Perhaps the cat was naive in being an optimist
Always expecting a big bowl of quality cat food
at the end of each dark tunnel
Only to be crushed every time.
Had it expected an army of salivating brutes,
it might not have stung as hard.

Face it. Curiosity will not cause us to die.
But disappointment will.
They say only the curious have, if they live,
a tale worth telling at all
But suppose there is no tale?
Suppose you have gone to hell and back
and the only difference is that
it was a couple of degrees hotter down there?

Dogs say cats love too much
and perhaps they are right.
Cats let their emotions lead them astray;
that is their blessing and their curse.
They are not afraid to be different,
to love until they can not love anymore,
to take a path trodden only by psychiatric patients,
regardless of what the conformist dogs may say.
That is why cats have nine lives
No, it was not awarded to them --
they demanded it, because eight was not enough
In the same way seven was not enough
and six was not enough.

But the awful truth is that
the world is unkind to cats
And that no matter how many lives they lead
the world will never appreciate what they have to offer it.
It is, after all, a dominantly-dog world
where prevails much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Maybe the cat, lying in the morgue,
had in fact suffered from depression
after years of having the cruel world trample on its dreams
and give in return to its eager curiosity nothing
but stark disappointment
But to give up is an improbable choice
a cat is likely to consider
No, indeed, for a cat never accepts defeat
but spits -- or hacks a furball -- in the face
of those who dare to belittle its genius
if that is the last thing it does.
No, a cat will not take its life to escape,
but to embark on a journey more promising than
the one we have during this lifetime.

Perhaps in death it hopes to finally find
a big bowl of quality cat food.

Experiment One

Today is the day to end all days.

Today marks the triumph of the quest I resolutely embarked on many moons ago, the quest that has taken me to the edge of the earth and back. I have searched high and low and far and wide, never once stopping to rest, and today will go down in history as the day I found it.

A DVD copy of The Motorcycle Diaries. Haha.

I don't know why I even tried looking for a movie like The Motorcycle Diaries in CD stores at the mall, of course they'd have nothing but bigtime Hollywood trash. I thought for sure I'd find it in Quiapo but when I didn't, all hope began to wane. How can anything NOT be in Quiapo? It seemed to defy logic.

But then I found it. And right in Baguio, too. It was in a tiangge/CD/DVD shopping complex at the lower part of Session Road. I forgot the name of the place but it's right next to Dunkin' Donuts and across the street from Pines Studio. Great place. Great selection of movies. The lighting isn't bad either unlike most tiangges although it can get very hot in there in the afternoon. But hey, being baked alive is a small price to pay for all the rockingest CDs and DVDs on this side of the hemisphere.

So why all the trouble for a movie, you ask? Well, obviously you have not yet watched The Motorcycle Diaries, or else you'd be out hunting for a copy yourself. Aside from being an autobiographical account of this century's most shamelessly-plugged revolutionary (and my personal favorite) it stars the sinfully yummy Gael Garcia Bernal. That should be reason enough if your gender preference is male.

Just as I expected, it was no less fascinating than the first time I saw it. The scriptwriting was witty and not one bit trite, the cinematography breathtaking. The story was poignant-inspiring and Gael Garcia Bernal was perfection personified. Bravo, bravo.

Also, while watching the film a thought dawned on me about how Che Guevara is one of the reasons I scribble my name on desks, write blogs and love to have my picture taken. And then I fused this thought with something I've read by Margaret Atwood and came up with a pseudo-theory:

[Warning: Nigel Tufnel-esque philosophizing ahead]

See, many people (myself included) aspire to be what Che Guevara was, and I don't necessarily mean a redneck communist. At the back of every person's mind is the desire to accomplish great feats, "change the world" so to speak, and be someone great someday. But the sad truth is that most of us will not even come close. Most of us will never have our faces emblazoned on t-shirts and caps and coffee mugs that are to be sold to a generation that wouldn't really know who we are and what significant, history-altering feat we have accomplished but will buy all those merchandise anyway.

Most of us will only fade into obscurity after we die and the world will proceed as if we never even existed. Depressing, I know.

So what do we do instead? We immortalize ourselves. We carve our initials into wooden desks and write "so-and-so was here" on the doors of cubicles in public CRs. We create masterpieces. We write journals and blogs and take pictures of ourselves. Anything to prove that we exist -- that we once existed. Because contrary to what some of us might have heard, man's greatest fear is not to be lonely. It's to go unnoticed.

(Do take note of the difference between "lonely" and "unnoticed." The two, however, may not be mutually exclusive. Anyhoo. =P)

People like Che Guevara remind me how difficult it is to become great. You have to be a visionary. You have to have enough courage and determination to break free from the norm, from the dictates of a flawed society. You might even have to take a bullet for your principles.

So is that why I scribble my name on desks, write blogs and love to have my picture taken, because I've given up on my delusions of greatness? Hell, no. Remember what I said about how most people's faces will not find their way to a t-shirt? Given that, the blessed few whose faces will should ensure early on that they indeed have pictures to put on a t-shirt. I want my children and grandchildren to cash in on my fame, you know. Hahaha!

But kidding aside. I guess I immortalize myself for either reasons but also because I'm really just vain. And oh yeah, here's the most important and overlooked tip if you want to become someone great: don't plan it.

Damn, there goes my merchandise.