Music Du Jour

Linkin Park has struck again.

This is “Leave Out All The Rest” from their Minutes to Midnight album.

I’ve always been a fan of the band.  I like the fact that their music is loud and makes sense. And Chester’s a sexy geek – so’s Joe Hahn.

I was lucky that when they came to the Philippines to promote their Meteora album, Eric was able to score tickets for the moshpit – my one and only experience in a moshpit. I still remember the sweaty bodies slamming into each other and me, shielding Eric from the thrusts. It was as insane and intense as I’d expected it to be. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

How to Spend Saturdays

 

Usually weekends are leisure days for the rest of the world. Not for me.

I have work on Saturdays.  It’s kind of aggravating travelling to and from work while the rest of the world’s planning how to spend Saturday night or on a weekend getaway or just sleeping through the day.  But what can I say? C’est la vie.

It’s not all bad, though.  Usually weekends mean less crowds at the gym.  It also means no bosses at work (because they’re enjoying their weekend).  Less traffic and it’s way easier to get a cab.

The cherry on my Saturday’s though is the Salcedo Park Open Market.  On Saturday’s the Jaime Velasquez Park in Salcedo Village becomes an organic market slash open air eatery slash cafe sidewalk where you can watch the well-heeled and, occasionally, the well known browse among the hoi polloi like moi like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

When Eric was still here, we’d go there and eat our hearts out – on healthy (well, reasonably) and organic food like the delicious Vietnamese rolls with shrimp and meat pungent with the aroma of mint. We’d eat it with two pieces each of juicy pork barbecue (I actually ate mine down to the fat – hey, it’s grilled meat, not fried) and wash it down with buko juice.  For enders, we’d usually get my mom some millet-based suman or one made with mango slices.

Of course, the prices reflected where the stuff was being sold.  Dirty ice cream would be 30 pesos a pop.  The suman would be like 25 pesos each.  The buko juice 25 pesos a cup. Usually, I’d bitch about the prices but not here.  Here rich kids played at being ordinary vendors - until you’re tempted to ask for a discount, at which time they switch to their haute-monde faces and wonder who let you in at the gates.  Well, some of them.

But the appeal of the market was beyond that – it was just fun seeing all the stuff they’d bring down from Baguio and hawk it in this rich man’s enclave like it some Baguio market stall.  One area would have beautiful flowers and orchids like one would catch at Dangwa. The smell at the area where they sell the fresh fish and other seafood was no different from the whiff you’d catch from the wet market in Cubao (although being in an open air setting kind of sanitized the smell a bit).  People would be eating food in the designated areas like they’d do at some tianggian - dressed to hilt with beehive hairdos and the wasp-y pearls.

Last time I went, they had a Kapampangan festival.  They had the requisite carvings from Betis and the parols from San Fernando.

However, I was drawn to my favorite Kapampangan product of all time.

I couldn’t resist so I had halo-halo at 8:30 am for breakfast. And pork barbecue. And Vietnamese rolls.

That day, I added like 500 crunches to my usual number at gym. Had to.

52 Days

 

I have a friend who’s a psychic – well, he says he is.

He’s dabbled a lot in esoterica and wiccan lore/practice.  He reads the tarot, palms, does numerology, reads auras and has had his third eye opened by no less than Jimmy Licauco (why he had it closed is another story).  As far as I’m concerned, his credentials are legit.

During the early days of our friendship, he told me about the 52 day cycle.  Apparently, the first 52 days from the date of one’s birthday is supposedly the luckiest 52 days of that person’s life.  Inversely, the last 52 days before one’s birthday are pure hell.

I’m a hard-ass when it comes to believing stuff like the 52 days but what struck me when we had that conversation was how every year, like clockwork, the last few weeks before my birthday is when I feel my lowest, the shittiest things happen to me and depression becomes a way of life.  Like PMS.

So that explains everything, I thought.  So it’s not my fault at all why, for the past several years, I’ve felt like I was juggling emotions ranging from being anti-social, suicidal, homicidal and genocidal from mid-July to early September. It was a relief to know that I wasn’t going crazy. At the very least, I can train myself to expect the worst so the blows wouldn’t pack as much of a punch like they used to.

Like last Thursday, when I got apprehended by personnel of Makati city hall – for littering.  One would think that I’d know better after having worked and practically lived in Makati for more than 10 years – but that day, my inner-stupid kicked in and I was served. 

Thank goodness for knowing about the 52 days, a sense of humor to put my first (and hopefully the last)apprehension in perspective and Eric for telling me about “Details in the Thread” – (“You’re like an island of reality in an ocean of diarrhea”). 

Calm down
Deep breaths
And get yourself dressed instead
Of running around
And pulling on your threads and
Breaking yourself up

If it’s a broken part, replace it
If it’s a broken arm then brace it
If it’s a broken heart then face it

And hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way
Hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way
And everything will be fine

Hang on
Help is on the way
Stay strong
I’m doing everything

Hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way
Hold your own
Know your name
And go your own way

And everything
Everything will be fine
Everything

Are the details in the fabric
Are the things that make you panic
Are your thoughts results of static cling

Are the things that make you blow
Hell, no reason, go on and scream
If you’re shocked it’s just the fault
Of faulty manufacturing

Everything will be fine
Everything in no time at all
Everything

Hold your own
And know your name
And go your own way

Are the details in the fabric (Hold your own, know your name)
Are the things that make you panic
Are your thoughts results of static cling (Go your own way)

Are the details in the fabric (Hold your own, know your name)
Are the things that make you panic (Go your own way)
Is it Mother Nature’s sewing machine

Are the things that make you blow (Hold your own, know your name)
Hell no reason go on and scream
If you’re shocked it’s just the fault (Go your own way)
Of faulty manufacturing

Everything will be fine
Everything in no time at all
Hearts will hold

Just in Case

From www.enigmagraphics.com

These days, having insurance is considered practical and necessary. Admittedly, our excitement at using insurance is at par with our excitement at getting a root canal or bouncing a bowling ball on our toes. However, as an adult-size security blanket ”just in case”, insurance finds it’s real purpose.

 

Truth be told, our need for reassurance or anything  approximating it is something we’re introduced to at a young age as adults grappling with their fears wean us on our first ”just in case”:

 

”Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

If I die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take”

 

Recently, I’ve been thinking about my own ”just in case” as a creepy e-mail has been making the rounds in cyberspace. According to the e-mail, a massive earthquake registering 8 in the Richter scale will hit Manila on July 18 leveling the city as a result.

 

The email couldn’t have had worse timing. Two weeks before the 18th, two minor tremors were monitored by scientists in the Philippines. A week later a larger tremor hit Taiwan. In recent memory, the 7.4 earthquake which devastated Baguio and Cabanatuan occurred in July, 1990. Likewise, in July, 1900 a massive temblor destroyed swaths of Old Manila. So as far as I’m concerned July as earthquake month isn’t something I’d laugh about or -off easily.

 

Yes, the email creeped me out enough to ”inspire” me to post this but I also think that at some point, all of us not only have to think of where we’re headed but what we’re going to do when we get there.

 

So this is my ”just in case” list (known to more the more affluent as their Last Will and Testament):

 

·         Despite everyone’s opinion that black is slimming – no one wears black. Not even a little Black dress. Eric’s not too hot on black neither am I.

·         I want a cocktail party – a smart one. So nobody should expect to be served San Mig Lite or Pilsen. No sisig or chicharon either. People may bring hors d’oeuvres if they want to showcase their talents in the kitchen.

·         One word: cremation. This is non-negotiable and should be immediate.

·         No sappy ceremonies. This also non-negotiable. Mourning does not become me or my friends (hopefully the cocktails will enhance the conviviality of the occasion).

·         Conversation should be may be slightly off-color or bitchy – better inappropriate than maudlin.

·         Instead of gaudy flower arrangements, I want people to give the money they planned to spend to Golden Acres.

·         The choice of music should be left to Eric – he’ll hate it when he hears the OPM in my mp3 player. Yes, he can play Mariah – but no impersonations, please.

·         As my partner, Eric gets everything – I want him to get something outrageous for himself or go on a vacation somewhere he’s always wanted to go. I want him to always remember how to be happy because that’s how I will always remember him.

 

I ‘m fully aware that I have no power over mortality or destiny or natural phenomenon. What I do have power over is the way I live my life, the way I love and the way I want to be sent off. That being said, I just want to remind all my readers (yes, all seven of you) that all of the above is just in case.

Music Du Jour

This One Republic. 

Heard them over Myx last night and I couldn’t get the melody out of my head.

It also kind of helps that the lead is cute, sort of. c”,)

Our Naked Selves

 

As gay men we put it out there more than the regular Joe (or even Jane for that matter).  We live life with flair and we are fierce about it.  Average does not just cut it for us.

Nowhere is this passion slash obsession more evident than in the way we take care of our bodies.  The gay man who is a non-gym goer or uninvolved in any sport is a rare bird.  If a certain activity results in toning, sculpting, or defining our bodies into perfection or, at least, a semblance of perfection – we’re in.

But what does that word – “perfection” – really mean? What does it mean and what does it take to have a perfect body?

Recently, I came across two British television programs that offered a different perspective on the conventionally and collectively held definition of what physical beauty is and what it took to achieve it.

How To Look Good Naked hooks up full-figured women with a British sylist who provides them with tips on style, beauty regimen and diet applicable to their body shape.  Most of the women who appear on the show not only lack style but, more significantly, a sense of how they really look in comparison to other women. To wean them away from their negative self-image, the stylist provides  a stiff dose of reality by comparing them a group of like-bodied women.  By the show’s conclusion, the women – armed with a more confident sense of themselves, allow themselves to be photographed naked and their naked glory splashed on a big screen in London.

(from www.Channel4.com)

A program running along similar lines is Say No to the Knife.  Hosted by two women, a stylist and a psychologist, the show presents men and women desperate for change with options other than cosmetic surgery.  The hosts are given four weeks to work with each individual coaching them into making informed choices on style, diet and other health issues.  The show likewise provides the participants with counselling sessions as their issues with their body-image may also be the result of emotional distress or some deep seated insecurity.

While the name of show leans towards being anti-surgery, in fact, at the end of the show, the men and women are given the choice between pursuing their ideal physical dimensions via surgery or via the alternatives proferred by the show’s host. 

(from TheLifeStyle Channel)

Frankly, the shows appeal to me because I get a sense that people are finally recognizing that before trying to look good, we need to feel good about ourselves. We need to weed out our insecurities and recognize the obviousness of one of the hosts’ statements “Not everybody can be a model or look like a model because not everybody is born the same way.  Some people are born with features to be part of the fashion industry, some people are not.”   Instead of stripping away flesh and fat, we need to strip away all of our issues with ourselves because we may not look good naked to everybody but we need to look good naked to ourselves.

Me, I don’t have a model “gene” – but what I do have is a gene that compels me to be the best that I can be, trust my instincts, develop what I have found to be my own talents, make my world my own private runway and strut the stuff I was born with.

(For Eric, whom I love - whatever his shape may be)

These are a few of my Favorite…

 

…Blogs

Ever since I discovered the world of blogging, I’ve always been impressed by the ability of the writers in setting down their ideas and in finding humor in all types of situations (even the ones that are cringe inducing cf. Misterhubs’ Prostatic Discharge)

Now that I’ve begun my own, my respect for these writers has deepened as I begin to understand the juggling act required to meet professional and personal deadlines AND cranking up a decent post. Equally impressive to me is how some writers meet the seeming lack of interest with that indispensible weapon of expressionistas: deadma.

I wrote this post as a belated “Thank You” note for all the writers who’ve made me think and laugh.  They are word-savvy, (sometimes) bitchy and relentlessly entertaining.  (Should anyone wonder – the list is in no particular order.)

1.  The McVie Show

2.  Misterhubs

3.  Mandaya Moore-Orlis

4.  The_Empress

5.  The Chronicles of Ishna Vera

6.  The Lyka Bergen Show (the metamorphosis of Las Tres Estrellas)

7.  They Call Me Maruja

8.  Bryan_Miseducated

9.  Ang Mga Karanasan Ng Isang Boytoy (Manumbalik Nawa!)

10. Mga Kwentong Parlor ni Wanda Ilusyunada (Manumbalik Nawa!)

Thanks guys (and ghels).

Music Du Jour

Music currently ringing in my ears. 

The video, though, I have mixed feelings for.  On the one hand, I like her outfit (a bit starshaped); on the other, the extras were kind of distracting – kind of like seeing Sesame Street characters in forest drag.

Enjoy.

The Fountain of Ironies

Darren Aronofsky’s film, The Fountain was a film that I had been anticipating prior to it’s local release mainly because of the two leads: Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz (yes, I am starstruck by these two).  The lead ads for the film featured images as arresting as the premise of the film but, in the beginning, my draws were Hugh and Rachel.

˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜

In a nutshell, the film speaks of the inevitability of death and the continuity of life, not despite of but, because of death. That life goes on because of death. This theme drives the film and does not make for a easy watching – then again, Aronofsky’s oeuvres hardly are.

By coincidence, I’d heard this theme echoed a few weeks prior to Lent at a funeral mass. Mourners gathered around as the gospel read that night, reflecting the occasion of our being there, asked us to consider how the seed needed to die so it can bring forth life.  Growing up in the shade of the Church, I learned to take the message of the parable of the seed on “faith”.  Later in life, I’d recognize it better as an irony.

It is only with hindsight that we eventually realize that the ironies of this life are inescapable. Because we hardly realize these truths unless we’re actually at the receiving end of its consequence. Or when we are provoked into thinking about it after watching a film like The Fountain:

We buy the future at the expense of the present.

We wage wars to secure peace and stability.

We preach both the Beatitudes and hate from the same pulpit.

We extol the human spirit but only in a collective sense.

We yearn for lasting relationships but have none with ourselves.

We cling to life and self-destructive habits with the same tenacity.

If it were a mere harangue of our common habit of leading an unexamined life, the film would have lost its appeal to me in the first 30 minutes.  Ultimately, what bound me to it was not its portrayal of our frailty but its opposite.

You see, beyond irony, the film speaks about letting go of our fear of being lost or abandoned as the people we love are taken from us.  That when we love, our connection to each other survives the tenuousness of all other things human.  That empirical data and our egos may reign in the quantifiable world but useless in the face of moments that are clearly abstract and sublime such as death and love.  At it’s end, what I bear away from the film is the certainty and strength of Isabel’s words to Tomas ”Together we will live forever.”

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

The Broken Hearts Club is a film that I still watch when I need to feel a particular way.

I like how I’m familiar with relationships between the men in the film as they reflect my own.

I like the way pre-Scrubs Zach Braff looked with blonde hair.

I like Dean Cain as the ‘mo player.

I like the “I-don’t-give-a-flying-fuck-what-the-world-thinks” character portrayed by John Mahoney (Frasier’s dad in the series “Frasier”) and his relationship with “Purple Guy”.

I like that the film has wit - and witty repartee.

In one scene, Cole – Dean Cain’s character - is being called out for his Romeo-as-a-living-heart-donor antics by Taylor.  Taylor happens to be in a relationship and necessarily punctuates the beginning of each statement to Cole with “As a person in a long term relationship..”  This, understandably, raises Cole’s hackles.

Cole :   Is there a sentence that you don’t start with “as a person in a long-term relationship”?
Taylor :   It speaks on my authority, in matters of the heart.

Cole : It speaks of your boyfriend’s insanity!

Later, Taylor credibility as “a person in a long term relationship” is seriously damaged when he learns that his boyfriend has dumped him for a guy named Dash (“I was left for a punctuation mark.“)

Inadvertently, Taylor’s cinematic comeuppance made me go over a list of situations and review each one if I had, even once, sanctimoniously intoned “As a person in a long distance relationship…” and unwittingly drawn the ire of the universe with my arrogance.  I’m glad to report that except for a non-specific “Long distance relationships are not for everybody..” statement I made in a drunken haze, I’m in the clear.

As the two readers of my blog know, I happen to be in a long distance relationship.  In contrast to Taylor however I will not attempt to hold up what Eric and I have as a template for a long distance relationship.  Different people have different styles – and I respect that. Thus, as a further disclaimer, I’d like to categorically state that you’re free to scoff in disbelief at any time. 

Eric and I were together for more than two years before INS threats to cancel his green card made moving a reality for both of us.  I did not try to convince him to stay because I knew that it had always been his plan to go back to New York. Neither did I try to make him choose between staying with me or following his plan because I think it would most certainly tip the balance in favor of not only leaving but staying away. 

Not that I didn’t want him to stay. I did. But I knew that being in a long distance relationship with him was infinitely better than losing him altogether by forcing him to choose.  So, despite the distance and the logistics issues and the upside-down hours, we decided to stay together.   

In the beginning, we reassured ourselves that “Hey, if OFW families can do it, so can we.”  Nearly two years later, I think we’re still telling ourselves that.  Because we have to.  Between us is an ocean and barricades, physical and legal, courtesy of the U.S. Dep’t. of Homeland Security – we need mantras like that to anchor down our goals, reassure us when times are tough and remind us that we have something good to look forward to: a life together.    

At this junction, I think we’ve managed to work though most of the difficulties (knock-on-wood) of loving but living separately. We may never get used to the separation but at least we’ve learned to modify the word with “temporary”.

Along the way, I think we’ve learned (and continue to learn):

a)  that a relationship such as ours needs to have a form and flexibility ready to adapt to circumstances as they occur. 

b) that communication – it’s presence or it’s absence – can make or break us (thank God for the Internet).

c) that “together” doesn’t mean joined at the hip.

d) that romance never goes out of style - neither do flowers or even simple cards.

e) that, in real life, absence can make the heart go dimmer – especially if you aid and abet it.

f) that laughter saves us most of the time; other times we just need to walk it off, shut-up, stay-still back-off or just listen.

g) that trust is non-negotiable.

h) that words should never be taken for granted especially promises, apologies and terms of endearment.

i) that love is not a shield against disappointment, frustration, mistakes, depression or fights;  knowing the one you’re with will go through with you through all this, is.

I watch Broken Hearts Club when I want to remember how good it felt to be beside him, quietly enjoying a moment together and not caring at all as time melted away because it was just the two of us.   In truth, it is not his absence that makes my heart grow fonder but the memories left me and the memories we’ve yet to make.