The Boy from Smallville

Here is where Smallville started

2006-09-09T20:07:00.000+08:00

Cagayan de Oro has two faces.
She is the memory.
She is the place.

Cagayan de Oro the memory begins usually in late afternoons, when a sturdy old man backs an old Ford out of the garage and interrupts a full-blown Olympics of kiddie games and asks a particular litter with soiled feet, scabbed knees and runny noses to hop in for a trip to the city bakery.
It flashes over to a port and a harbor, where Gramps, the sturdy old man, leaves the children for a while to check on the day’s log of ships that have come and gone, and those coming and going.
Those were the days when the pier was clean and muscled, dark-skinned port hands could still be trusted with the life of even an infant child.
There is something poetic about the coming and going of ships that draws the boy, hot pan de coco in hand, into sitting at the edge of the pier, his feet dangling over the lapping sea water below him. He inhales the scent. Exhaust from the ships are not enough to ruin the fragrance.
He watches little chugging pilot boats escort big ships out into the horizon and his young mind tries to grasp the meaning of it all, the coming and the going and how they seem to reflect the relentless cycle of sunrises and sunsets that make the summer stretch almost endlessly.
It continues to Sunday mornings with kids running and screaming from the church all the way back to the house, getting ready for a day at the beach.
Under the bright sun, it seems like the whole world converges weekly into this tiny patch of sandy beachfront, the whole universe playing patintero in the sand and holding its breath underwater. Daredevil boys seek out the hidden river that spills itself into the sea and crossing its width while retelling legends of river creatures guarding lost treasures and feasting on naughty, overeager kids.

But Cagayan de Oro the place is all dressed up and ready to go nowadays, like every other city overtaken by progress. There’s a fenced in golf course now on the plateau that used to be an open field guarded only by willowy cogon grass, where kids would fly kites and call each other names.
Malls have sprouted and brought with them the Big City indifference that make you yearn for those mom and pop grocery stores where you can purchase freshly-sharpened pencils even if you’re a couple of pesos short of the tag price and come back the next day to pay what you lacked.
Bars and video arcades have stolen teens and pre-teens from afternoon sessions of agawan-base, beach patintero and gang-biking.
The main river with chocolatish water that splits the city into two parts sewn together by a pair of quiet bridges is no longer alive with clandestine post-school splashes made by bronzed kids on a pre-home stopover.
And people now shrug off the legend that sleeps at its depths.
The bustling port no longer has its quiet moments, when a young kid can sit on the edge of the pier and watch big boats disappear into sunsets.

And in each return to Cagayan de Oro, the place and the memory, it seems, are tugged farther apart.

Sometimes, though, you get lucky.
And Cagayan de Oro the place, sheds off her clothes and allows you a peek at the naked simplicity of Cagayan de Oro, the memory.
And you sit by an open window, listening as the wind whispers her secrets into it. When all of a sudden, the moment just turns out perfect and it fuses both the memory and the place as one. Then you can close your eyes, feel the feathery tickle of the breeze against your face and catch the faint scent of sea water and freshly-baked pan de coco and hear echoes of distant yet endless summer laughters.

Because someone asked about Cagayan de Oro

It's Thursday, it's raining and my guitar's untuned. So sorry.

2006-09-07T19:07:00.000+08:00

Okay, so there I was, a Wendy's Big Classic double in hand and a Biggie iced tea in the other.
No television. No interesting book to read. No company.
At least, there was the clock.
It said 1:45 p.m. Thursday afternoon.
That meant I was two hours off my last workout. A measly two hours had gone by and there I was, polishing off a half-pound slab of ground beef topped with cabbage leaves, thin tomato slices, pickles, onions and a generous amount of mayonnaise pinched-in by yellowish buns.
Plus iced tea.
Does that mean that the 1-hour, 30-minute exercise I earlier did was a waste of effort?
Allow me to post a hypothetical question then.
You're in a rush to get to Greenbelt 3 because you have a one-on-one interview there.
You want to save time.
So, instead taking a cab from, say, Farmers in Cubao, you decide to hop on the MRT.
Okay. So this is the time when you go "I get the punchline, what're you going to do with all the time saved?"
Naaah. It isn't that.
Stay with me awhile.
While on the train, you pick up a romance novel that someone had accidentally left behind. Having nothing better to do, you leaf through the pages. You made it through halfway through the book when you realize you've reached your destination.
You go down walk away and from nowehere, the voice of your Lit professor echoes through your mind: That book you read was a waste of time.
My question is: In the grand scheme of life, by reading such rubbish, did you throw away the minutes you saved when you took the train?
Help me. I'm stumped.

Runaway train of thought

2006-09-06T21:49:00.000+08:00

I almost had a psychic girlfriend.
But she left me before we met.

I read somewhere that God’s greatest gifts to humanity were imagination and a sense of humor. The imagination part, we use to compensate for what we are not and the sense of humor we use to accept what we are.

That thought kept playing over and over as I leaned on the glass window of the train I took with no particular destination in mind. There is a thrill, I swear, in going out of the house and traveling with no definite plan. By train, I refer to the MRT that slithers back and forth the opposite ends of EDSA.

That’s the closest train experience I’ll ever have. Or the closest I’ll risk taking. I’ve heard too many horror stories about the one that choo-choos past squatter shanties to dare fulfill my train fantasies there. Oh yes. I love trains. The one thing I love about India is its trains. If I ever get an India assignment, that’s the first thing I’ll do. Ride a train. And eat something spicy.

But that’s straying from the original thought. Like Zen masters love to preach: I’ve got to learn to tie a string around the neck of my monkey mind. Otherwise I’d be nothing but a cesspool of straying, scattered thoughts and disjointed images.

Focus. Focus.

I woke up realizing that I had a day off from work and nothing planned. I checked my black book to visit the most exclusive list in the whole universe: My list of 100 things to do before I die. Still unticked-off were 84 items.

Among those 84 items was this entry: Ride a train.

I planned an end-to-end ride on the MRT so I taxied straight to the Taft Station and bought my ticket there.

“Can I have a ticket please,” I asked the female ticket seller, purposefully speaking in English so that I could set her up for a joke.

“Where are you going sir?” she asked.

“I’m going nuts,” I answered. I consciously flashed a smug smile before telling her to book me for North Edsa. Then I saw a vague reflection of me in the glass that served as a chasm between both our worlds and realized I looked so dumb. In a flash, I realized I managed to feel smart and look dumb at the same time. That has to count for an amazing feat, eh?

Still, I smiled at no one in particular as I made my way down the stairs and into the waiting, almost empty train. In a world were everything good has been eroded by the reality of going in an unstoppable downward spiral, it’s nice to have a semblance of a sense of humor.

My friends tell me I have a great sense of humor. And they tell me I have an amazing sense of imagination too. See where this is all leading to?

I have God’s two greatest gifts in me!

I ought to be proud. I was, for a while. Until I realized what those gifts were meant for. One to compensate for what I’m not and the other to accept what I am.

Imagination helped conjure an alternate me. A devilishly handsome, smoky-voiced, long-haired, muscular, talented, artistic rock star with a knee-melting, heart-stopping cocky smile. Sense of humor helped me survive every encounter with a mirror and an honest, tactless friend.

A blaring visual treat of a highway billboard featuring a sexy girl with a refreshing smile blew past me, snapping me out of my mental (as in, of the mind and ‘yo dude, mental!’) wanderings.

Imagination: She’s smiling at me.
Sense of Humor: She’s laughing at me.

Not too far apart after all, eh?

And then came to mind the familiar Internet and SMS joke that I’m still trying like hell to understand where it fits into this whole rambling:

I almost had a psychic girlfriend.
But she left me before we met.

The devil wears a Meryl Streep exoskeleton and stars in a movie

2006-09-01T21:37:00.000+08:00

I mean…
Need I say more?

The movie’s not Oscar-bound, but could likely compete in the Golden Globe.
The Devil incarnate, though, should have the nod for every acting award available.

Minsan, useless maging Superman

2006-08-25T22:14:00.000+08:00

Minsan ko ng nasuot yung costume ko. Yung blue, red at may S sa gitna.
Lumipad ako sa kalawakan.
Pinuntahan yung pinaka-love kong baby girl.
Di niya alam na ako at yung barkada niyang mukhang kulugo ay iisa.
Pinuntahan ko sha kasi minsan shang hinabol ng isang bangungot.
Dumating ako upang iligtas sha.
Dumating ako upang patayin ang bangungot.
Nagtagumpay ako.

Mula noon, tuwing nabubuhay ang mga multo ng kanyang nakaraan, may sakit sha o umiiyak mag-isa sa gabi, nakaugalian na niyang hanapin ang superhero na dumarating sa hatinggabi.

Yung kumakatok sa bintana niya, tumatabi sa higaan niya at nagsasabing: “Ayus lang yan. Wag ka ng matakot/malungkot. Sagot kita.”

At ngingiti sha, hihinga ng malalalim at matutulog ng mahimbing.

Pero ang superhero, hindi diyos.
Ang superhero, may hangganan.

Nandun sha.
Nakahiga sa kama.
Tumutulo ang luha.
Isa ang bukambibig.

“Superman.”

Eto ako.
Lumilipad sa kalawakan.
Tumutulo ang luha.
Isa ang bukambibig.

“Hindi puwede.”

Lecheng putanginang bangungot na halimaw na yan.
Pinaligiran ang kuwarto ng baby girl ko ng kryptonite.

(Hikbi)
(Singhot)

Goodness, ungracious

2006-08-22T15:43:00.000+08:00

Define good.
What are the moral consequences of goodness?
I think it was one afternoon during study group for an exam in Philo 101 that we came up with a premise that the only things you can define are those whose existence you can prove. Is that why religions try to come up with their own definition of a Divine Being? To prove that one actually exists?
But I digress.
How does one, then, prove the existence of good?
In that same study group, we came up with a rather circuitous solution. To prove the existence of good is to prove the existence of its opposite and then deprive it of that opposite.
Again, the premise is hinged on an established piece of information from a different field: That all actions in the universe have an equal and opposite reaction.
Similarly, since everything is a product of the laws of force and action in the universe (and this is whether you are creation, big bang or time snap theorists), then everything that exists has an equal and opposite reaction or force or being.
Every forward has its backward.
Every lift has a fall.
Every cola has an uncola.
Every good has an evil.
Vice versa.
That, of course, leads to a very interesting sidebar. If that premise held true, then the population in this world would always be in an even number. Otherwise, we would have produced that rare and unique being, one who has no equal and opposite counterpart.
But again, that’s straying.
Good is the absence of evil.
Evil is easily definable.
Therefore, good is easily definable. Which is why dictionaries have a field day listing the many definitions of good.
But my concern is good to mean moral excellence. Because whether morals are flawed or excellent, they have consequences. That is exactly why I want to know the definition of good in terms of morality so I can find out if all moral consequences of performing a good act or being good are likewise positive.
When you visit the ill, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, bury the dead and what have you, do these result in positive moral consequences?
St. Thomas Aquinas, a favorite by default (as opposed to St. Francis, a favorite by personal choice), urged the corporal and spiritual acts of mercy in the hopes of spawning a pay-it-forward type of society. If everybody performed them then the world, tah-dah, will be a batter place to live in.
But if you are the sick, are you excused from one corporal act?
And in the end, we are faced with the final question, one that has become, sadly, an SMS punchline nowadays.
If we do good to others, who does the good to us?
Why isn’t there a default set of consequences for every good act performed?
Do we have a flawed concept of what good is so that what we deem an act of goodness isn’t thought to be so by the Divine Being that supposedly hands out the credits for every benevolent act?
Have we gotten the definition of goodness wrong?
For instance, is charity an act of goodness? Feeding the hungry? Clothing the naked?
If we presuppose the existence of a Divine Being, shouldn’t these acts of charity border on blasphemy?
Think of it.
Your seatmate needs an 80 over a hundred in the final examination to validate his university scholarship. You know he needs it badly, being one from the lower stratum of the economic class.
By his estimate, he is one correct answer short of the count.
By your estimate, feeding him the correct answer to item No. 97 seals his scholarship and qualifies as an act of mercy.
Does it?
Doesn’t every educational institution brand such an act as cheating? Whatever the motives are?
Does a Machiavellian form of charity affect the goodness of that act and the moral consequences that follow?
If yes, then why should we feed the hungry? Why perform acts of mercy? Wouldn’t that be tantamount to cheating?
After all, the Divine Being we presuppose is of possession of unimaginable powers. If he wanted to, he would have caused bread to rain from the skies so no one will be left hungry. Or he would direct streams to flow into the heart of parched homes, so no one would be thirsty.
Who are we to interfere with the freedom that the Divine Being has given each and every individual? Everybody takes the test. Why take pity on he who is on the verge of failing it? However badly he needs it?
And yet the major religions of the world endorse charity. Some make it a point to require it. Would they, then, endorse cheating for charity’s sake?
The Catholic Church will probably not. While it preaches charity, it draws a line on how charity is dispensed. The end does not justify the means, reason why Machiavelli’s defining work, stripped of its redeeming values by secular critics, has been labeled under Index Librorum Prohibitorum, or banned books.
Could it be that the reason why our acts of goodness have not been rewarded properly is because we have a misguided concept of goodness?
Or is there simply no earthly moral consequence for moral uprightness?
Is this why we have found a convenient excuse to believe in heaven? So that we may credit all our acts of benevolence on earth to the existence of a place where all these would be rewarded?
In our life, we are confronted with several circumstances that erode our faith in the need for moral uprightness. While those that seek nothing but personal gain are apt to get it, those that strive to help others also get it—flush on the chin. Worse, those who have spent their lives confining themselves to the constricting fences of moral uprightness are those who are usually struck with unimaginable tragedy.
“Why me?”
“Why them?”
“He/she was such a good person. How could this have happened to him/her?”
Maybe, just maybe, it is because we misjudged him/her.
Maybe it’s time for us to re-evaluate the grounds by which people are judged to be good or bad. Heaven, whether you believe it to be a fact or simply a philosophical concept, is too flimsy a prize considering that religion allows for the absolution of all sins if the sinner, at his death bed, seeks it.
And usually, it is those who perform the evil tasks in this world that live long enough to have a shot at earning absolution.
Do we thus shoot for nothing more than an afterlife that gives both saints and ex-sinners front row seats to that great basketball game in the sky?
Why not get a few rewards here? A few good breaks while we live?
Maybe it’s time to redefine good.
Then we can get our answers to the questions above.

The Greatest Story Never Told

2006-08-20T21:13:00.000+08:00

(Because I have nothing else to post today, a Sunday)

Red Smith. Grantland Rice. Damon Runyon. Shirley Povich. Rick Reilly. Forget those names. Commit mine to memory. Here was the mother of all scoops—sports or otherwise. And this would make me the greatest sportswriter in the history of the universe.

Ever.

You’ve heard of Heaven. Of the cottony clouds that surround you, of the angels that hum in sweet unison as you walk its pathways, and of the hallways lined with portraits of all the saints and martyrs you’ve read about.

This is where I am now. Heaven. And I’m actually going to live to tell people about it.

The entrance to Heaven is a large and endless brick wall that stretches seamlessly both ways and interrupted only by a silver-gray gate fashioned out of solid iron. A cobbled path fans out of that gate, one lined with wooden porches vandalized by souls who’d had to wait while judgment was being passed on them. (One of the graffiti on the bench I sat on read: “The Pope was here.”)

Strangely, though, I do not remember how I got here.

But who cares? I am in Heaven. Not only that, I am here on an invitation by a really Very Important Person hereabouts to write a story that will have the whole world kneeling before me.

The banging of metal against metal startled me. I stood up as the Gates of Paradise opened and out stepped a very old yet distinguished-looking man with a neatly-trimmed hair and wearing a bluish suit.

“You the sportswriter?” the man asked, rather gruffly.

“Yes,” I answered, rather meekly.

He stared at me with the look of a cranky land caretaker who had been roused out of sleep by an unwanted visitor. I could tell he didn’t appreciate my presence here.

“I hope you understand I don’t appreciate your presence here,” he said. Told ‘ya.

This was, without doubt, St. Peter, the Guardian of the Gates. I could tell he was St. Peter because not only did he have the aura of authority of someone who had guarded the Gates for—literally—an eternity, but also because the black nameplate pinned to the right side of his coat read “St. Peter.”

I followed him and we entered the Gates. We were walking through a narrow—what else?—path walled-in by lines of coconut trees on both sides and I was trying to think of something for small talk when he beat me to it.

“I still don’t know why He invited you here,” he snorted. I just smiled.

After a few minutes, he spoke again.

“He never invites just anybody here.”

I let that one pass, too, and smiled again.

After a few minutes, he spoke again.

“I mean, you don’t even pass the most basic criteria for a person to enter Heaven!” he roared. This time, I got hot under the collar.

“Listen, old man,” I said with a tinge of anger. “I may not have been a saint like you. I may not give to charity a lot and I may be scared to visit those in prison. But I am definitely not a bad person. How dare you judge me as undeserving of Heaven? I never killed a person. I never stepped on anybody’s toes. I never stole money. I never entered politics. What makes you think I should be hell-bound? What makes you think I’m undeserving of a visit to Heaven? What basic criteria haven’t I passed? What? WHAT?”

“You’re not yet dead,” he said, matter-of-factly.

Oh, thaaaat.

Finally, the narrow path forked into three more narrow roads. One led to another solid iron gate above which the word Heaven Village was engraved. I presumed this was where the good people lived. I pictured a whole village with rows and rows of townhouses and beautiful parks and gardens. One led to another gate. The heading on top of it read Heaven Palace. I pictured a huge castle where the Holy Family lived.
The third one—the one St. Peter brought me to (after gruffly saying “I’m glad he didn’t allow you a full tour.”)—led to another gate. Above it, the sign read: Basketball court. I pictured, well, a parquet hardcourt with goals on its opposite ends and bleachers around it.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’m here to cover a game. An annual basketball game so exclusive that it is only held in two places. One of them is here. And it isn’t just any other basketball game. It’s one that pits the best of Heaven against the worst of Hell.

Saints vs Demons. One is skippered by no other than Jesus Christ. The other by the Prince of Darkness himself, who happens to be a playing-coach.

I do not know why I was invited. I probably did something good that I wasn’t aware of.

The invitation came one morning with the mail, just as I had finished dressing up for work. I opened it, read it, thought it was a joke and dismissed it. But when I turned around, an angel with actual wings said this was no prank.

And when an angel with actual wings tells you that an invitation from Heaven is no prank, somehow, you just have to believe him.

I was halfway through nodding yes when I suddenly found myself on a bench outside a really, really big gate. I really do not recall how I got there. I just remember staring at the so-called Pearly Gates. Which had no pearls at all. Or wasn’t even the color of pearl.

And now, here I was, standing in front of a cushioned gymnasium door while St. Peter explained to the angel stationed there that I was cleared to watch the game.

A few seconds later, I was sitting in the front row of a jam-packed coliseum, right between Joan of Arc and King Arthur (mental note: Tell the world he’s real).

The Heaven team was dressed in white and blue uniforms. Hell came in black. Typical. All of them had jerseys with no names at the back, which was a problem.

Having slept through all my Religion classes in school, I could not make out the players of both teams clearly. Except Jesus Christ. The Hell guys looked all alike: Dark-skinned and with a pair of tiny horn stubs protruding from their foreheads. One of the court generals, though, bore a resemblance to Hitler. In fact, his teammates kept calling him Adolf (Either because he really was Hitler or because he looked like Hitler). Another one looked like Freddie Mercury.

Except for the players, the game proceeded like any other basketball game. Tip-off. Run and gun. Banging bodies. Surprisingly, the guys from Heaven dished off a few elbows of their own. Not surprisingly, the players from Hell complained about every foul slapped on them (the referees, I learned later, were from purgatory so they had to be honest. You don’t get Heaven passes for whistling in favor of the good guys).

I wanted to take game notes but then again, I was in Heaven. What better thing to do than to go stargazing? Princess Di was there. So was Mother Teresa. Pope John Paul II was there and he was really into the game (He was watching the game for the first time, so we were more or less in the same boat).

The game itself boiled down to two crucial plays. With 33 seconds remaining, Team Hell had possession of the ball via a steal by the Freddie Mercury guy and had a chance to add to a one-point lead. But Jesus Christ stood in front of a driving Adolf look-alike and fished an offensive foul, falling hard to the floor in the process. The Adolf look-alike did not like the call and muttered something really politically incorrect about the Jews and their King.

Team Heaven then burned a timeout with 21 seconds left.

In the ensuing play, the ball went to Jesus’ hand and almost instantly, he was swarmed by a triple team. Satan, one of the guys who covered him, said: “If you turn the ball over, I’ll give y…”

Christ cut him off: “Oh give it up, you already know that doesn’t work.”

Jesus whipped a pass to a lumbering big fellow (Artie identified him as St. Christopher) who went up for a bank shot. He was fouled by a Ted Bundy look-alike as the buzzer sounded.

Christopher sank the front end of his free throws and all of Heaven exploded into one big roar. I was left to wonder what was happening back in Earth. He was whispering a prayer with the second when Jesus called out to him.

“Hey, big fella, stop that, your adding to the noise I hear in my head,” He said jokingly.

Artie couldn’t look.

“He’s the worst free throw shooter on this team,” said the king of Camelot. “Smart defensive move by those demons. You’d think their brains would have been too fried out to think of something like that.”

Christopher tossed his second shot and it bounced twice in Hollywood fashion before swishing through the net. Heaven won, 103-102. The crowd went berserk. Satan muttered every cuss word in every language before herding his team into the dug-out.

A little later, the gym was empty. An angel-usher led me to Team Heaven’s dug-out for a post-game interview with Jesus Christ. My heart was pounding as I sat on a chair and waited for Him.

He came out of the shower area dressed in sweat pants and a loose white t-shirt, his hair pulled back into a ponytail. He sat down in front of me with a towel wrapped around his neck.

“Hey, I see you made it,” He said. I realized He had a British accent and, strangely, sounded like David Beckham.

I nodded, not knowing what to say.

“Loosen up kid. This is a once-in-a-universal-lifetime thing so you better get on with it. Have lots of prayers to sift through and, well, you don’t have all the time in the world,” he said, smiling.

Okay. This was it. Here was a guy everybody had questions about. And I was the guy who was in the position to ask them all. I didn’t know where to start. Was the thing about him and the Magdalene true? When was he really born? When will the world end? Was Herod gay? Where is the Holy Grail? What is the Holy Grail? Will Dan Brown go to hell when he dies? I wanted to ask the smartest questions.

“Why do you sound like Beckham?” I finally said.

“You came all the way here to ask that?”

“No. Okay. Ummm. Do you ever lose in these annual games?”

“Yep,” He said. “At times, when Satan hosts it down in Hell.”

“But you could easily snap your fingers and they wouldn’t be able to shoot a single basket. The game a while back shouldn’t have been even close. How do you lose?”

“Well, mainly because we don’t cheat,” He replied.

Oh.

“How do you resist the urge to cheat?”

“Well, when you’ve faced death and have been offered an easy way out and not fall for it, resisting the urge to cheat during a basketball game should be pretty easy, right?”

Okay.

“What’s the court like in hell?” I asked.

“Pretty much the same as here. Except for the heat maybe. We do have a better design architecturally. Maybe it’s because we have better architects here,” He said.

“Of course you have. You probably have the best professionals here.”

“Not really. They’ve got better lawyers, politicians and rock stars,” He answered.

“Why’d you pick me for this?”

“Not to burst your bubble, chap, but there was no special reason. It was a cosmic accident. A random choice. Your name came up,” He replied.

Ouch.

“Pride, tsk, tsk,” he said. “What else?”

“You took a pretty hard fall for the team in the game,” I said.

“I took a harder one for you, remember?” he replied with a smile.

(Blush).

“Hey, don’t worry,” He said softly. “Any sacrifice for you, the people down there in Earth and the guys on the team is worth it. I take pleasure in it so no need to feel guilty.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem. Any more questions before I send you off?”

“Well, there is one thing I want to know about your Father. Is he involved in these games?”

“Of course. He’s our coach.”

“Coach? How come I didn’t see him on the bench?”

“Well, duh,” Christ said, His eyes rolling. “When you’re God, you can be anywhere and still coach a basketball game.”

“Oh. Of course. How is He as a coach? Is He super serious and strict? ”

“Dad? Of course not. In fact, He’s got a really big sense of humor. He’s even a prankster.”

“God has a sense of humor? Really?”

“Of course,” He said. “He created man, remember?”

Funny guy.

“Besides, you, of all people should know that he’s a prankster. He set you up big time,” Jesus said as he stood up to take his leave.

“Me? How? Why?”

“Well, think about it. He invited you here so you could write the greatest scoop of all time, right?”

“Right.”

“And when you get back to Earth, you’ll start writing all you can remember about this trip, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’ll write about the game?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And when you finish it, you’ll submit it for the world to read, right?”

“Yup.”

“Now, ask yourself,” He said, an eyebrow cocked upwards and a hint of a playful smile on His lips. “Who’s going to believe you?”

(Moral of the story: When you’re invited to cover the next Heaven vs Hell basketball game, bring a video camera. The Hell team’s got these really luscious-looking cheerers…)

One day, isang araw

2006-08-16T15:54:00.000+08:00

(Minsan ng na-post sa yahoogroups. Ni rehash lang. Sensha na po)

Isang araw, sa Smallville, may isang bata na nag-isip: Hindi habang buhay, bata ako. Tatanda rin ako.
Pero, ano ba ang purpose ko sa mundong ito?
Bakit ako binigyan ng kapangyarihan na ganito kung di ko rin lang naman magagamit sa ikabubuti ng marami?

Hindi niya makuha ang sagot.

Kaya naisipan niyang pumunta sa pari sa simbahan nila. Hindi relihiyoso ang bata. Pero ang sabi ng barkada niya, magaling daw ang pari. Ang daming alam na sagot tungkol sa mga importanteng katanungan sa buhay.

Isang umaga, kinatok niya sa Father. At tinanong niya: “Father, bakit po ako nandito?”

“Ako ang magtatanong sa iyo iho. Bakit ka nandito?” sabi ng pari.

Napangiti ang bata. Alam niya ang style ng pari. Gusto niya mag-isip ang bata para sa sarili niya.

“Hindi ko alam father. Basta, ang alam ko, nung pinanganak ako, kakaiba ako sa ibang mga bata. May mga nagagawa ako na di nagagawa ng normal na tao.”

“Eh ang tanong pa rin iho, bakit ka nandito?” tanong uli ng pari.

“Hindi ko po alam. Ang tagal ko na iniisip ang tanong na ‘yan. Para saan ba tong kakaibang lakas ko? Bakit nakakalipad ako na simbilis ng fighter jet? Bakit kaya kong tumira ng laser mula sa aking mga mata? Bakit di ako nasasaktan tuwing binabato ako ng kung anu-ano ng mga barkada ko?”

“At higit sa lahat iho, bakit ka nga nandito?” banggit uli ng pari.

Medyo napikon ang bata.

“Hindi ko nga alam father eh! Kaya nga ako nandito. Gusto kong makakuha ng sagot mula sa yo. Nandito ba ako para tumakbong mayor ng Smallville balang araw? Para iligtas ang mundo sa mga masasamang elemento? Para maging hero? Paano kung gusto kong maging ordinaryong tao lang? Pandaraya ba ito sa tadhanang itinakda sa akin?

“Bakit father?!? Bakit??”

“Iho, ang tanong ay bakit ka nandito,” sabi ng pari. “eh kanina ka pa hinihintay ng nanay mo sa palengke.”

Si father talaga. Hmp.

(Kay Rick Reilly po hinalaw ang panghihimutok na ito)

Give me a hand

2006-08-15T23:35:00.000+08:00

Thanks to a blog of a high school friend, my attention was drawn to an article based on an international sex survey conducted by a men’s magazine.

The survey, to nut-shell it, said that:
a. South Korean men have sex more with their wives than any other nationality
b. British men spend less time with foreplay
c. Brazilians have sex with a lot of different partners and
d. Filipino men love the art of self-stimulation

Six times a week. That’s the average number of times a Filipino hand-jobs himself for sexual release. Six times a week. I refused to believe it until I conducted a study of my own.

As it turns out, there is truth in it. But before you Filipino girls (or girls of any other race for that matter) think that it’s a pathetic statistic, read the reasons why Filipino men engage in self sex a lot. Maybe you’d realize it’s not really their fault.

10 reasons why Pinoys prefer the hand

10. The hand can be who you want it to be.
Try asking a real live partner to engage in a little playacting to spice up your sex life. You’ll probably get as far as a generic, fictional character commonly found in porn mags. Lolita, the lusty student with failing grades. Annamarie, the stiff bank teller by day and wild hot thing by night. Ditas, the duster-wearing, sweat-soaked househelp. Try to be specific and ask her to be, say, Nicole, the 16-year-old classmate/crush I had in high school who loved to wear knitted green sweaters and carried three pens in her pocket every day and you’re going to end up getting slapped. And painfully deprived.
Now, the hand. The hand can be Nicole. Won’t complain about being Nicole. Or some sexy young thing on the boob tube. Or the officemate you’ve always had the hots for.

9. The hand does what you want it to do.
Unless you’ve been sexual partners for at least three months, telling her to “go down on me, honey” doesn’t quite cut it. Or, if you’ve been lovers for a year and have hit the sack twice only during that stretch, you’re bound to get nothing more than the traditional missionary position.
The hand? Close your eyes and anything goes. You can be with, well, Nicole, in a forest setting. Underneath cascading waterfalls. And she’ll be down on you in a second and stay there for more than an hour if you want her to.

8. You don’t need to stimulate the hand.
No need for backrubs. No need for lingering kisses on the neck. When you’re doing it with a partner, foreplay is like a root canal. It’s a necessary evil.
With the hand, though, there’s no need for all that crap. Like Apple computers, the hand is user-friendly. Just plug and play.

7. The hand won’t cry harassment.
Or worse, rape.
You’re always safe from any form of legal action. Hence, blackmail will never come into play. Seven days a week, twice on Sundays and holidays. The hand won’t raise a howl.

6. The hand won’t get pregnant.
With a real sexual partner, there’s always that half-moment of hesitation just before release. I mean, what’s so primal about “Oh god here I come… Oh. Wait, I’m pulling out, Ahhh!”? The rubber doesn’t give you that natural feeling and any other form of contraceptive still leaves you with lingering doubts in your mind. Doubts that don’t leave you for as long as a month.
The hand is worry-free. Come as you are. Come when you want. It ain’t going to be running to you with a tear-stained face saying “I’m pregnant” one of these days. Better yet…

5. The hand won’t give you disease.
It asks you to do just one thing: Wash before you engage it. That done, the only thing you have to worry about is pneumonia. And if you make sure you don’t do that thing you do while leaning on the cold tiles of the bathroom, you’re pretty much safe even from that.

4. You don’t have to have a relationship with your hand.
Ladies, it’s just sex. Now, if Pinoys prefer to whack themselves over trying to figure out what series of sweet actions can get him into the sack with you, there’s your answer.
The hand doesn’t attach any emotional requirement to sex. It’s liberated. It’s, well, everything Nicole wasn’t. Guys can go out with any girl they like to without having to worry about the hand getting jealous.

3. The hand is low-maintenance.
No need to take it to the movies twice a week. No need to take it out to dinner. No need to mark important dates. No need to try and keep an appointment you’ll always be late for.

2. You don’t need to marry the hand.
And as such, there’s no need to worry about someone ruining your Sunday = Sports time by telling you to tale out the garbage or fix the toilet plumbing.
Better yet, the hand doesn’t nag. It doesn’t wear mudpack on its face every night.

1. The hand doesn’t go shopping.
Believe me ladies, the one thing Pinoy men hate more than their mother-in-law is having to tag along with you for hours while you try to find the right clothes and then complaining once you get home that you don’t look good in it.

Of course, I know all these because of studies I made. Quite honestly, I really cannot relate to the sexual practices of Filipino men.

I am, after all, Brazilian-Kryptonian.

Nasaan ba ang Smallville?

2006-08-06T17:16:00.000+08:00

Wala lang.
Baka lang kasi trip niyong pumunta minsan.
Invited kayo.
Di naman mahirap hanapin.

Para bang Neverland.
Second star to the right. Straight on til morning.
Madalas ako dun dati.
Ikaw ba naman, nakakalipad ka kahit walang happy thought o pixie dust.
Eh di puntahan mo na rin.

Mahirap nga lang gawan ng mapa papuntang Smallville.
Di mo ma-i-drowing.

Ang Smallville kasi, gawa binubuo ng mga maliliit na lugar na hiwa-hiwalay.
Na pag pinagsama mo, hindi lang isang town ang makikita mo.
Makikita mo rin ang kasiyahan. Ang kaligayahan.

Alternate reality. Parallel universe.
Dami nilang tawag dun.
Ako, Smallville lang.

Isang eskuwelahan na napapaligiran ng tawiran ng gutom.
Isang gasolinahan na daig pa si Master Showman kung magpuyat.
Isang maliit na bar na nakasuksok sa isang tagong kalye sa Makati.

Minsan, di niyo alam.
Pero nasa Smallville na pala kayo.

Isang mall na lima ang sinehan.
Isang basketball court na minumulto ng ayaw mamatay na alaala ng mga larong naganap na dun.
Isang masikip na flat na kasya lang mga limang tao at libo-libong awit at halakhak.

Minsan, di niyo alam.
Pero nasa Smallville na pala kayo.

Isang bahay sa 164-Kapiligan na tambayan ng malayang kaluluwa.
Isang bahay sa JP Rizal St. sa Mandaue na silungan ng pagod na kaluluwa.
Isang bahay sa Anastacio Neri St. sa Cagayan de Oro na pinagmulan ng kaluluwa.

Minsan, di niyo alam.
Pero nasa Smallville na pala kayo.

Di mo kailangan maging henyo sa heyograpiya para hanapin ang Smallville.
Kung pilit mong hanapin sa pamamagitan ng paghanap ng mga nakapaligid dito, di mo makikita.
Walang hilaga, silangan, timog at kanluran.

Para mahanap ang Smallville, kailangan lang sumama ka sa mga taga-roon.
Madali lang naman kilalanin sila eh.
Pag magkakasama sila, laging masaya.
Yun bang, parang laro lang ang buhay sa kanila.

Pag sumama ka sa kanila, nagiging ganun ka rin.

Makikilala mo sila sa ngiti nila.
Palagay ko, minsan, naka-gimikan mo na rin sila eh.
Kasi nga diba,

Minsan, di niyo alam.
Pero nasa Smallville na pala kayo.

Ang Smallville, di binubuo ng lupa, kalye, burol, bundok, gubat, gusali, dagat, bukal o kung anu-ano pa.
Binubuo ito ng mga taong di pankaraniwan.
Ang mapa ng Smallville ay nakaukit sa mga puso nila.

Napuntahan mo na yun.
Di mo lang namalayan na andun ka na.
Pakinggan mo ang buhay sa kuwentuhan ng mga taga-roon.
Pansinin mo ang kalayaan ng kanilang mga tawa.
Kapag napuna mo ang mga ito, nasa Smallville ka.

Pamilyar, diba?
Kasi nga,

Minsan, di niyo alam.
Pero nasa Smallville na pala kayo.

'Single'-handedly

2006-08-04T13:20:00.000+08:00

Tell ya a secret.
I don't post my blogs.
I'm a complete idiot with computers.
The first time I heard about the internet, I thought it was a complex system deep sea fishermen use to haul in more fish.
So what I do is write a blog, mail it to my beloved baby sister and she posts it.
Yup. She knows my password.
So if anybody reads anything here they feel maligns their person, don't just sue me.
Sue my baby sis.
Anyway, this is my attempt at posting something on my own. Singlehandedly.
And whaddya know?
Tucked in some byte of my computer's memory is an essay fit to celebrate the occasion (Did I spell that right?).
Something I cooked up for a friend who managed to transform several tubs of lard into a mean muscle mass. That isn't what the essay's about, though.

Single blessedness
(For Gerry)

Oh, the joys of being single.

You don't have to mark important dates on your calendar. You don't have to worry about forgetting why the hell you marked the damn date after all (Is it her birthday? Anniversary? Time to feed her pet snake? Pick up her mother at the airport?). Imagine the stress you save yourself from.

You don't have to fidget all day at the cold "Oh, is that so?" she gave you after explaining that you came home late last night because work kept you at the office until 3 a.m.

You don't have to wonder if she said "yes" to mean "no" or if she said "yes" to make you think she meant "no" when, for the first time, she really meant "yes." You don't have to skim through thick, hard-bound psychology books to find out if she's really okay when she said "it's okay" after you forgot to pick her up at Starbucks 10 minutes ago. Imagine the mental juice you can save for some of your bigger problems in life... Like deciding whether you should buy yourself a new Fender stratocaster or that Canon Rebel T2 a friend suggested or set your car up with a new sound system.

You don't have to wait an eternity mumbling "you look great" 50 times while she tries to match her nth dress with her nth shoes. And you don't have to yank the hair from your scalp when she tells you now it's time to find a matching purse. Imagine the time you would have saved, enough to flood two pints of coffee into your veins while waiting for the movie to start. A movie you were in time for only because it took her too long to get dressed.

You don't have to worry about "that time of the month" when she will snap at you for the smallest of mistakes... Like jacking the television volume a little bit too high for her to concentrate on her mud-packing duties. Imagine the mileage you add to your nerves.

Better yet, imagine the things you can do.

You can drink the whole night and go home at 4 a.m. with a six-pack cradled in your arms without having to answer to anybody.

You can spend Sundays on sports, watching basketball, wrestling or Formula 1 without someone nagging you to take the garbage out first.

You can invite your bandmates to your place, crash the joint, play loud and melodiously-challenged music without a cream-faced woman in curlers and robes telling you to tone it down because the next-door neighbor is approaching your front yard with the business end of a cocked shotgun aimed at your windows.

You can stay at a friend's place overnight, where you can talk about the good ol' days, waste yourselves with alcohol and weed without having to feel guilty that someone's waiting for you at home.

Oh sure, you won't have breakfast prepared when you wake up. But what's Wendy's there for?

Oh sure, preparing dinner will be an adventure that could outlast the Lord of the Rings trilogy. So? There's always 7-11 and its microwaveable wonders.

Oh sure, you'll have the laundry to worry about. But laundry shops have sprouted everywhere, anyway. Besides, with the economic situation we're in, it's easy to find someone to do your laundry for you for a measly price.

Sexual release? Have a relationship with your hand. At least you don't have to worry about taking it to dinner or to the movies once a week.

In fact, when you're single, the world is your buffet table.

You can pick your choice from among the scantily-clad women in a bar, flirt with her and pay her drinks, even if you know you're not going to be taking her home anyway.

Or maybe you might be lucky. Or maybe, just maybe, you might hit the jackpot and find someone really nice... and somehow fool her into actually going home with you.

And then you wake up beside her in the morning and stare at her face. And, as if on cue, she wakes up and stares at yours. And for no sane, logical and explainable reason, both of you smile at the same time, later exploding into little giggles that mimic the sound of a thousand butterflies flapping their wings at once.

And then you realize that this is the face you'd want to wake up to every single day. For the rest of your life.

And then you realize that no matter how many times you've read this shitty piece to the point of committing it to memory, you'll find yourself asking: "What's so blessed about being single again?"

A Tuesday with Dory

2006-08-02T21:13:00.000+08:00

Try explaining hockey to a fish.

Not just a fish, but a really famous fish.

Not just a really famous fish, but a really famous fish with a short-term memory problem.

It’s not easy. Especially when you’re a shark.

That’s what I had to do when I woke up one Tuesday morning. Explain hockey to a really famous fish with a short-term memory problem. And that’s what I was when I woke up one morning: A shark.

I don’t know how I became one. All I know is that I went to bed stoned and woke up one morning swimming in some ocean as a shark. At least, I think I was a shark. My movements were so powerful and effortless that I could have only been a shark. My senses were so heightened, I could see a hundred times better than I usually do—underwater at that—and I could detect even the most imperceptible trace of electrical charge emanating from every moving body in the ocean. I had to be a shark.

Besides, when Dory--the really famous fish I had to explain hockey to--turned a coral corner and nearly swam into me, she let out a blood-curdling scream: “Shark!!!”

I had to be a shark.

Anyway, Dory, who starred opposite Nemo in Finding Nemo, did a quick 180 and was about to race off when I hauled her in with a pair of shark fins that I was surprisingly adept at using (I had to be a shark. Try being adept at using shark fins if you were a clown fish).

“Hey, easy Dory. You’re not my breakfast,” I told her. I felt her quivering and patted her lightly.

“I’m here to explain to you what hockey is.”

She looked at me quizzically.

“Hockey? To me? But why?” she asked. (She does sound like Ellen DeGeneres in real life).

Yeah. Why, indeed. Why in the world should I explain hockey to a fish who suffers from short-term memory loss? I know I woke up one morning with the mission to explain to Dory what hockey is but it’s the why I don’t know. I was about to ponder about the purpose of it all when I realized: Wait a minute. I’m a shark! How does that make sense? It doesn’t. So why try to make sense out of explaining hockey to a blue tang? I didn’t even try. I just cursed the existentialists.

“Look, just go along for the ride and listen,” I told her.

“Listen to wha—shark!!!” she screamed. Boy, this was going to be tough.

I hauled her in with my shark fins and did the you’re-not-my-breakfast routine to calm her down again and said I had to explain hockey to her. She asked why and I cooked up a reason pretty fast, lest her memory problems seize her again and she goes yelling shark! for all to hear.

“To try and cure your memory problems,” I explained. “Maybe if you can listen to me talk about hockey and retain what I teach you, it would be a big step.”

“Cool,” she said. “What makes you an authority on hockey?”

“I’m a sportswriter,” I told her.

“You’re a shark,” she said. (Hah! I told you I was a shark).

“Well, I went to bed a sportswriter, I just happened to wake up a shark for some reason,” I answered.

“Oh. Okay.” Amazing. She swallowed the whole explanation hook, line and sinker. Although I really didn’t think the words hook, line and sinker were popular hereabouts.

So we swam off and I started talking with a tang by my shark cheek and I began explaining: “You see, hockey is…”

“Shark!!!” she yelled. Here we go again.

Yep, hauled her in again. Yep, explained to her again what I really was going to do.

“Oh,” she said, cheerfully. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I said, talking with much more urgency and speed right now. “You see, hockey is much like wrestling. Except they allow you to use sticks.”

“Now, repeat what I just said to you,” I told her.

“Hockey is much like wrestling,” she said, turning to look at me. “Except th—shark!!!” Hoo-boy.

Yep, the whole routine again.

“Look, Dory,” I told her once she stopped trembling. “You gotta focus girl. You’re not going to get cured if you keep losing focus.”

“I can’t help it,” she said. “I try my best not to forget but it really doesn’t work.”

“Focus on my voice Dory,” I said. “Focus on my voice.”

I must have sounded really hypnotic because she just kept nodding and her eyes grew loony big while looking at me.

“Okay, I’ll try,” she said, slowly.

So we swam off again and I started from the top. You could tell that she was trying to focus so hard because her body would shake spastically every time she was losing a grip on her memory. I kept encouraging her to just focus on my voice and she would nod and grit and really try her best that you’d have to feel a tinge of pity and want to cuddle her if you only saw her.

“Also, in hockey, they allow you to use head gear so your brain doesn’t get banged a lot and you don’t fall into a coma,” I told her. “So in a sense, if boxers want to inflict pain and earn a lot of bucks, they’d be a lot safer if they switched to hockey. You understand so far?”

“Y-y-y-y-e-e-e-p-p-p,” she said, really digging deep into her will power.

She calmed a bit, her body softened and she started to smile. Then, she turned to me and, yelled: “Shark!!!” Then she raced off.

I counted to 10. I had to. Not only was I starting to lose my patience, she also started to look like breakfast. By the time I had gotten to 10, I managed to catch up with her, give her the whole shitty routine—with less zeal this time—and calm her down.

“I’m sorry. This must be really hard for you,” she said in an agonizingly sweet and pitiful tone. “Thanks for sticking it out with me. And please, don’t give up on me. I know it’s kinda frustrating, but don’t give up on me.”

My shark heart melted.

“I’ll really try my best this time,” she promised.

And so, off we were again. And this time, we were really making progress. I kept rattling off explanations and she kept repeating them. Pretty soon, she was catching my drift.

“So, hockey’s like the Royal Rumble, right? Except that everyone’s grouped into two teams,” she said.

“Yep. And, instead of pinfalls, you win by trying to sneak in a puck through a goal every now and then.”

“And the goal is guarded by some goalie guy, right?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“And you can whack him too?”

“Yep.”

“Cool,” she said. “Hey, you know what? I think I’m getting cured! I really think I am. I’m thinking clearly now!”

She was so excited, like a kid who wanted a red bike for Christmas and got it. She swam around, flipping her fins wildly and telling me everything I taught her about hockey. And then she stopped and stared at me.

Uh-oh.

“Hey, shark, you think if there’s ever a Finding Nemo 2, I’ll still be on it?” Whew.

“Why not?” I asked her.

“Well, now that you cured me, how am I supposed to be effective with my role as a fish with short-term memory problems?”

“Hey,” I said. “It’s acting, Dory. You don’t need to be a vampire to play Count Dracula.”

“But you see, I was such a natural for the role, that’s why they gave it to me. I really didn’t have to act. If I tried to act now, I might do it badly. Critics might call me a bad actress,” she wailed.

“Hey, easy, Dory, calm down,” I said.

“First of all, bad actors are in vogue in Hollywood. Ask any producer out there, they’d tell you that. Second, if it’s a sequel, you’re not expected to do good anyway. Sequels are supposed to stink.”

“Besides, what are you to do with all your fame and good acting, if you’ll keep forgetting them anyway?”

“I have reminders in my house. Posters. Fan mail. They remind me,” she said.

“Yes, but isn’t it better this way? When you don’t have to be reminded? When you can swim around the ocean always knowing you’re famous?”

“Hey, you know what? You’re right!” she said.

She swam in gleeful circles and I watched her, like a proud father who’d just seen his child graduate from kindergarten.

“I am cured!” she sang, going in circles and more circles, swishing up, spiraling down, turning round and round until she bumped into me.

“I’m cur—shark!!!”

I didn’t bother to chase her this time.

(Moral of the story: Never explain hockey to a fish. Especially a really famous fish. Especially a really fam... What the heck, you know the drill. And another: If you think you’re a shark, you probably are.)

Chapter None

2006-07-27T14:48:00.000+08:00

I woke up one day and performed my everyday morning ritual: Head for the refrigerator to see whatever leftover food’s there to eat. There was a cup half filled with some Starbucks concoction that was begging me to finish it up. No problem, I told the cup.

I sat down on a wooden chair, one of four that surrounded a wooden table, thumbed off the lid from the paper cup and gulped away.

And then I asked myself: What am I going to do today? Besides work.

Then it dawned on me (Not exactly as quick as it took you to go from the previous sentence to the one that precedes this. It took about a couple of minutes longer).

I’m going to write a book. Simple as that. Boy, that sure got me excited. So this was how it happened for the Stephen Kings of the world. You wake up, the sun shines, the birds sing, the early worm smiles before shrieking as a winged predator dives at it and a voice from the heavens shouts at you: Write a book.

But every idea has a devil’s advocate. Mine came screaming at me faster than my morning drink lost its appeal.

Why the hell write a book? What for?

Being too lazy to plow through the garbage pile that used to be a decent living room for a pen and a paper, I started mentally listing the reasons.

It looked like this in my head:

Reasons to write a book:

1. To become famous. Imagine, my name on a bookstore shelf! What can be cooler than that? Besides, I’m not good looking enough to be on Pinoy Big Brother.

2. To continue the reign of the mediocre. If shitty singers and shitty shows can be famous, why not a shitty book?

3. To get it on with the chicks. I can already imagine my standard pick-up line: Hi, I’m a very famous author. I could make you the heroine of my next book if you would let your clothes join the crumpled sheets of paper on my bedroom floor.

4. To earn money. Then again, considering the decreasing interest in the art of reading, I better scrap this off.

4 (still). To be able to greet friends in the acknowledgement pages. Great marketing ploy, really. For every name I put, that’s one buyer of my book. So I’m thinking, half the number of pages, I would devote to acknowledgements. My family will get just one line. They’re not buying the book individually anyway. It’d just be one for the family library. Though I’m not sure if our clan has a family library.

5. To have something nice said about me during my funeral. Like: "He was a, well... a, uhmmm... Oh! He was an author! He wrote a book."

Then, I asked myself: What would I write? I could write about my life, but who would care to buy a book about me? I haven’t killed a man, held public office, saved another human being’s life, won the Tour de France or gotten crucified. Nah, that wouldn’t do. I could write about my sexual conquests. Anything loaded with sex sells. The problem is I’d probably have more pages about my right and left hands than I would about actual people. Besides, how many things can you write about your calluses?

And then it hit me. Maybe I can talk about the importance of sleep. Sure, People will buy that. We all love to sleep. I do. I can do it for long hours a day. I once did it for 38 hours straight. No bathroom breaks. I once did it standing up. I once did it sitting on the toilet bowl. I once walked out of a press conference to do it for seven minutes.

I would call it The Importance of Sleep. Direct. Simple. Easily understood.

I tried to recall what I learned during science class about what the importance of sleep really is. I didn’t want to do any research or interviews with experts. I’m doing something as exciting as writing a book, why ruin the fun with such mundane duties?

Here’s how the book will go:

The Importance of Sleep

By (My name here)

Fly leaf

Dedication page (do they call it that?): To my pillows, don’t worry, your cases will be washed in this lifetime.

Table of contents:

Page 1—Acknowledgement

Page 347—Introduction

Page 347—Chapter 1: Sleep to repair the body. This is where all the scientific explanation goes. I’m sure I can think of enough details to fill half a page. Or I could lengthen the introduction.

Page 348—Chapter 2: Sleep for fun. Here’s where my authority stamps its mark in the book. I could go on and on here.

Page 352—Chapter 3: Sleep for peace. If everybody slept, who would have time to make war? Or rob a bank? Or cheat the public?

Page 353—Chapter 4: Sleep to escape from reality. Oooh… Psychobabble shit. I could probably go new age-ish here. That would appeal to the young minds of society.

Page 355—Chapter 5: Conclusion. I can come up with something. I swear.

Page 356—About the author

Page 500—(Hey, if they’re going to talk about the book and about its author, I’d better make sure they get the facts straight). Index.

There you go. 500 pages. Man, this is going to be a hit. Or is it?

Again, the Devil’s Advocate in my mind started rubbing his palms against each other and laughing in that stereotypical devil’s advocate laugh.

Listen, it said, to what the critics will say (Comments in parenthesis are the author’s):

"[My name] doesn’t know shit about the importance of sleep. This is nothing but a pathetic attempt to be famous (at least the motive was right). You know how some books are real page-turners? Well, you read the first page of this one and you want to stop (Not if you know that you’re one of the names in the acknowledgement section). Who even sleeps for peace nowadays? And 144 pages about the author? (I want to get the facts straight, idiots!). This is the worst (at least, it’s still a superlative) form of writing in the history of the world (Obviously, they haven’t watched a Filipino soft porn flick yet)" – Newsweek

"The Importance of Sleep is a book written without any thought process at all (Have you tried recalling the name of every friend you’ve made, asswipe?). After finishing the book, you’d still end up wondering what the importance of sleep really is (At least, they finished the book). What’s supposed to be an intelligent and analytical dissertation on the importance of sleep to the human body has turned into a farcical novel written for no absolute reason but to satiate a deep-seated egotistical desire to become famous (How about that? An honest piece of work. At least no one’s going to blame me for being hypocritical. I did say I wanted to be famous)." –New York Times

"Stupid. Ignorant. You wouldn’t pay a single cent to buy this book (Again, not if I listed you in the acknowledgement pages)" –So and So Book Critics Guild of the Universe

"Don’t believe what this guy wrote in page 433. He did not study in the University of Santo Tomas. He did not attend my creative writing class." –Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta, poet extraordinaire and former dean, UST College of Arts and Letters

"[My name], who?" -Lourd Ernest De Veyra, poet and musician (I placed your name on the acknowledgement pages, damn you!)

Okay. So maybe writing a book about sleep isn’t going to be a success at all. Back to the drawing boards (Who said there was no thought process involved here?)

Why not write something you actually know about. Something work related?

Okay. I’m a journalist covering the sports beat. Maybe I could write about sports. I could write about the greatest basketball games ever played. Or the stories of the sports heroes who inspired a nation. But then, that would entail research on numbers and trivia. That would entail interviewing sports personalities. Too many hassles.

I could write fiction. I mean, how much work do you have to do verifying things you would make up anyway? Then again, that would take creativity. And every dot of creativity in my body you can fit on the dead nail of my little finger of my left hand (Hey, maybe there is something I can write about my hands!).

Let’s go back to step one.

I like to write a book. I plan to write a book. It has to contain something about everything. It must be something I am good at. It must be something people will buy and believe in. It has to be something critics won’t have a field day tearing up. It has to be something I can write sitting down, without having to do menial work and does not need too many doses of creativity. It has to be about something apart from my biography or my sexual (non-)conquests. It has to be something that I am an authority on. Something that very few people will contest (Religious topics are definitely out).

It has to have a little about sleep. About sports. A little bit about me and a little bit about sex (apart and different from each other). There has to be an element of fiction.

I got it! Or, to put it in a scholarly way, Eureka! I’ll write a self-help book. A Purpose-Driven Shit. I’ll call it: How To Live Life Without Really Trying. I’ll cover all the important questions about life and the quest for truth and unity in the universe. I’ll have a thesaurus by my side so I can use deep words that go beyond my usual three-syllable vocabulary.

I’ll include my own nuggets of wisdom and I’ll write it in some profoundly vague way so that people cannot exactly say if I’m right or wrong. Something like:

"Beware of the hurricane, for at the center of its storm, there’s an eye that cannot see."

Hey, that sounds great!

Without bothering to wash my face and brush my teeth, I whipped out my Apple I-Book (If the book won’t sell, I better include a few advertisements to earn a little on the side) tossed the empty cup of Starbucks (Hah!) concoction to the growing pile in my living room and got ready to start.

But hey, I have all the time in the world. Why rush?

I decided to do the next best thing. I went back to sleep.

Sino nga ba ang batang taga Smallville?

2006-07-25T19:59:00.000+08:00

Sino nga ba ako?
Ewan ko. Basta alam ko, bata pa lang ako, napansin ko na "different" ako sa mga kasing edad ko.
Pansin ko lang naman, di ko pa masyado nahahalata.
Kasi naman, tahimik ako. Bihira ako lumabas ng bahay. Pagkagaling sa school, derecho na ako sa kuwarto ko.
Hindi ako mahilig sa laruan. Di ako mahilig manood ng TV.
Kaya yun, sabi ko sa sarili ko, iba nga siguro ako sa mga bata.
Tapos kaya ko pang tumalon hanggang sa bubong ng bahay namin. Na apat ang floors.
So, diba, iba nga siguro ako?
Nung tumagal, natuklasan ko rin na di naman ako gaanong kakaiba.
Ang mga kaibigan ko, meron din sariling lihim na kakayahan.
Oo nga, bihirang normal yung nauunahan mo ang iskul bus tuwing umaga papuntang iskul na tumatakbo lang.
Pero wala yun kay J, ang isa sa dalawang bespren ko.
Kayang matulog ng nakadilat.
Isusuko ko yung kakaibang lakas ko (minsan, sinapak ko ang alagang kalabaw ng tatay ko, dalawang araw bago nagising ulit—pag di nyo pa nahalatang kakaiba ako, ewan nalang) kapalit nung kakayahan na yun.
Nang dahil sa talent na yun, di na kinailangan ni J tiisin ang mga lecture ni Ms Mercado sa Math. Tinutulugan nalang niya. Pero dilat.
Si Faye naman, ang daming talento. Kayang matulog na nakatayo. Kayang matulog na nakaupo. Kayang matulog ng dalawang sunod na araw. Kayang matulog sa banyo. Kayang matulog ng di humihinga. At kayang matulog kahit gising. Grabe. Bibilib ka dun.
Bale wala yung palipad-lipad ko sa bukid habang naghahabol ng mga ligaw na saranggola (sabi ko naman kakaiba ako eh).
Nakakakalahating araw na si Faye sa school, saka pa lang niya namamalayan na di pa sha gising.
Lunchtime na sha nagigising. Pero nakauniporme na at higit sa lahat, nakasagot ng dalawang tanong ni Ms Adora sa Chemistry.
Na-explain niya ang chemical properties ng oxygen ng hindi niya nalalaman.
Samantalang pag gising yun, ang alam lang niya na oxygen, damit.
Kaya rin ni Faye tumingin sa kaliwa at manood ng TV sa kanan. NG SABAY.
Galing noh?
Ang ibang kabarkada ko, ganun din, may kakaibang kakayahan.
Si Jillian, ngumiti lang, natutunaw na ang nakatingin.
Si Trizza, di nagdadala ng payong kahit may bagyo. Sa payat niya, iniilagan na lang niya ang mga patak ng ulan.
Si Ace, kayang ngumanga ng isa’t kalahating araw. Derecho.
Si Joana, kayang mag-chat at mag-text ng sabay. Habang kumakain.
Si Jhea, kayang manuod ng walumpu’t anim na soap opera ng walang patid.
Si Zel, kayang pumatay ng langaw sa pamamagitan ng pagtaas lamang ng mga braso.
Si Mau, kayang mag-yosi sa tenga.
Si Ik, kayang magpawala ng baha sa loob ng bahay sa loob ng ilang minuto lang.
Si Angela, kayang pumunta mula sa iskul hanggang Cubao ng labing tatlo at kalahating tumbling lang.
Dahil sa kanila, di na ako mashado naiilang kahit napupuna ko na medyo, medyo lang, iba ako sa mga batang katulad ko.
Tinanggap nila akong normal na tao.
Tulad din ng pagtanggap ko sa kanila bilang normal na tao.
Pero ang talagang tumulong sa akin para wag mailang sa pagiging kakaiba ko ay aking nanay.
Minsan, tinanung ko sha, Nay, bakit pakiramdam ko may kaibahan ako ng konti sa ibang bata?
Anak, sabi niya, wag kang mabagabag. Ganun talaga ang pagkagawa ng Diyos sa mga tao.
Iba-iba. Unique, ika nga. Aba’y kung pare-pareho lang tayong lahat, eh di para tayong manyika na nanggaling sa isang factory line lamang. Iisa ang ngiti. Iisa ang damit.
Saka anak, talagang iba ka ka naman eh. Eh ikaw lang ang 55 years old sa barkada mo eh.
Nay naman.
Pero di nga, anak. Lahat tayo ay unique at kakaiba.
May sobrang matalino.
May asintado.
May magaling kumanta.
May magaling magpinta.
May mataas tumalon.
May magaling sumayaw.
May magaling kumanta.
At may nakakatunaw ng bakal sa pamamagitan ng laser rays na nanggagaling sa mata.
Balang araw, anak, magagamit mo rin ang iyung kaibahan sa mabuting paraan. Yun bang makakatulong ka sa mundo.
Balang araw, magsusuot ka ng blue at pula na costume na may S, may cape at labas ang brief at tutulungan mo ang buong mundo.
Balang araw, hihirangin ka bilang superhero.
Si nanay talaga, nagkukunwari pang fortune teller.
Anuman ang naghihintay sa akin balang araw, ang importante, di ko na nararamdaman ngayon na abnoy ako.
Ako ang batang taga Smallville.
Tulad mo, normal akong tao.
Tulad mo, hangad ko lamang gumawa ng mabuti. Para sa sarili ko. Para sa kapwa ko.
Tulad mo, may pangarap din ako.
Pag dating ng araw, wag niyo sana akong husgaan base sa mga kakayahan ko, kundi sa mga ginagawa ko upang ma-overcome ang mga di ko kayang gawin.
Di ba nga, yung ang tunay na sukatan ng tao?
Kung paano niya nababago ang mga bagay na kayang baguhin at paano niya tinatanggap ang mga bagay na di na kayang baguhin.
Ako ang batang taga Smallville. Ikinagagalak kong makilala kayo.

I blog

2006-07-24T08:58:00.000+08:00

I know.

You must be thinking what I’m doing here.
“I never thought he’d get around to writing blogs.”
“Does he even know what a blog is?”
But yeah, here I am. Writing. Finally.
I still don’t know what I’m going to write about.
Unspoken thoughts.
Unsold ideas.
Unheard-of philosophies.
Uncalled-for rantings.
Unread stories.
Name ‘em, they’re probably going to be posted here.
Today.
Tomorrow.
Someday.
In English.
In Filipino.
In Tag-lish.
However, whenever, they’re going to get posted.
The important thing is I have a blog.

Therefore I am.