Mirrors, masks, shadows

Why do we like movies? Sometimes it's because they take us away from here. To galaxies far, far away. And sometimes, in rare instances, they show us who we are. Or give us coordinates by which we can get our bearings. Or maybe just give us memorable lines with which we could resonate. As far as movie ending lines go, it would be tough to beat these two:

After that it got pretty late. And we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again, right? I realized what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her and I thought of that old joke, you know, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken." And the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" And the guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much how I feel about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and ... but I guess we keep goin' through it because most of us need the eggs.

--- Annie Hall, Woody Allen

So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers, all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person, but that's going to change, I'm going to change. This is the last of this sort of thing. I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm going to be just like you: the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisurewear, luggage, three-piece suit, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing the gutters, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die.

--- Trainspotting, John Hodge (based on the novel by Irvine Welsh)

It's a variation of the inner ipod playlist, I guess. Instead of coming up with songs, it came up with movie lines from the playlist in my head. Those 2 lines are me in a nutshell. The last 10 years. It's been quite a ride.

In keeping with the recent rock n' roll theme...

Life of a punker is a simple one: be a singer for the
most influential punk band in America, make
some cheesy movies about youself, keep your
hair long 'n' dirty, and make the music fun and
gritty.
In your Next Life you find Ronald Reagan in HIS
Next Life and kick him with your Chuck Taylors.


Which Dead Rockstar Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Le weekend

The weekend consisted of experiments with apple pancakes and honey, red monggo with bacon, and banana turon with cinnamon. All were a rousing success. Well, not so much the red monggo. My kids sometimes have a traditionalist streak in them and were concerned that the monggo beans weren’t the usual green ones.

My girls ate the apple pancakes with lots of grated cheese on top. I didn't think of that, but yeah, somehow the saltiness of the cheese balanced out the tart-sweetness of the apple. The cinnamon on the turon also was met with skepticism at first but when Cael dipped her fingers in the sugar-and-cinnamon mixture I was going to use, then tasted it, she expressed approval. She has always been skeptical about my use of cinnamon on french toast before (I didn't let her see I put some in the pancakes), so I was pleasantly surprised with the thumbs up. (Cinnamon doesn’t really have any taste. It’s mostly smell. Try this: pinch your nose then place some cinnamon on your tongue. )

Mostly, the weekend was spent just vegetating, except for the time it rained really hard and we couldn’t resist going out and playing kick-the-ball until the street started getting a bit flooded and we had to move back into the yard. We had a good time and made up for the resentment the girls felt Saturday morning when I hogged the remote. I promised them they had the run of the TV on weekends but The Last Waltz was showing, Martin Scorsese’s movie on The Band’s farewell concert. I had to see it. Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, The Staple Singers, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, and The Band? I mean, come on. I could be forgiven, right? Anyway, after letting them play outside in the rain, all was forgiven.

The inner iPod's playlist

The inner ipod kicked in on the shuttle home again and came up with songs I haven’t heard in a while. The ride home is short, good only for 4 or 5 songs if the traffic isnt bad. I could play amateur shrink and analyze why my subconscious chose these, but “Rock got no reason; rock got no rhyme” which brings me to the first song:

School of Rock (Jack Black and the School of Rock) – This one’s easy. At least 4 movie channels were playing this all week. My girls loved it and they don't mind watching it again and again and singing along with it. I sometimes find them doing Dewey Finn impressions. They use ‘Math is a Wonderful Thing’ to give each other pop quizzes.

Steppin’ Out – Joe Jackson. There was a rivalry in my head in the old days between Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello, and it was neck and neck for a while until the album Night and Day came out and clinched it for Joe. “We, so tired of all the darkness in our lives, with no more angry words to say, can come alive. Get into a car and drive to the other side.” For me it’s a wish.

You Can’t Get What You Want (Til You Know What You Want) – Joe Jackson. This one’s from the Body & Soul album. Thanks for stating the obvious, Joe. But really, what do I want? Two words: ‘It’ and ‘All.’ The whole nine yards and then some. But not for me. Im not that important, but I do get in the way. I have to learn to dissolve into insignificance so I can get what I want, so help me God. I mean it, God. Help me.

And finally,

Deacon Blues – Steely Dan. One last shot at a dream, giving it all, going out with a bang. This one resonates. There’s something romantic about this loser’s song that appeals to me: “Learn to work the saxophone, I’ll play just what I feel. Drink scotch whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel.” I like to find reasons why I didn't pursue this dream or that dream. I like to justify and rationalize. I had to put my own dreams on hold because I had to take care of the family, yada-yada-yada, but as the years go by, all those rationalizations, all those justifications seem so hollow. Now, as then, my life isn’t mine own. They belong to the girls now. That makes it much more difficult to bet the farm. But dreams die hard. I could take the easy way out and kill it, or I can wait for that one last bus and catch it.

33 years later and it's like we never learned anything

It’s a sign of the times. I was listening to the radio this morning on the way to work and there were a lot of phoned-in comments from listeners. Most of them were nostalgic for the Marcos days. And he was supposed to be this brutal dictator who trampled on basic human rights and robbed the people blind and yadda-yadda-yadda. To think that most of the callers would rather live in that Philippines than in this one, this so-called democracy.

In 2001, when the presidency was handed to GMA without her having to do anything, there was a feeling of hope that maybe this time we’ll get things right. Not much, since she was, after all, GMA, the astute politician who would do anything, compromise anything, to get what she wants. But the feeling of hope was there, since it was so-called civil society, this network of NGOs and People’s Organizations who have been working at the grassroots trying to make life better for those without a voice, that spearheaded the revolt against Erap. Maybe GMA would listen to them out of gratitude. Plans were drawn up, an agenda for her new government. Through emails and internet fora, the call came forth from these civil society groups for suggestions. I had a few suggestions on electoral reform, but they were too radical and kept them to myself. I suggested instead an obvious program of action that should be part of the new administration’s policy: lessen our dependence on foreign oil. This wasn't a new idea. Just before EDSA 2, I read a Marcos pamphlet on his vision for the Philippines and this is what he said about it (paraphrased): “Reducing dependence on imported oil is a matter of national survival.” Wow. National survival. It can’t get any more important than that. So in my reply to the civil society member who asked for points they could put in the national agenda, I quoted Marcos, the very fella that EDSA 1 got rid of. I said the new Arroyo government should reduce our dependence on foreign oil by instituting a comprehensive energy conservation program plus a program for looking for alternative sources of energy. This was so obvious I’m sure this was suggested by various sectors. The new administration didn't even need to start from scratch. They could just adopt the old Marcos programs: banning vehicles above a certain engine displacement, developing alternative sources of fuel (I remember the old Marcos government was promoting the use of ethanol, bio-diesel, etc), developing geothermal power plants, etc. The Bataan nuclear power plant was even part of this whole lessen-dependence-on-foreign-oil thing. Marcos also had a massive educational campaign on energy conservation to go with everything else.

Whether or not the energy conservation program made it to the final draft presented to GMA, I don't know. What I do know is that there was no energy conservation program instituted after GMA came to power, no calls for alternative fuel sources. It was business as usual, everyone going on their merry way. Government officials rode around in convoys of huge SUVs as if the supply of petroleum would never run out. There was an air of optimism after the ouster of Erap, but this was just too darn optimistic. We had no control of foreign oil and from all indications, the price of petroleum products was going to rise. But there was no sense of urgency. I knew that this would bite us all on the ass one day and that day has arrived.

Now calls are coming from Malakanyang for energy conservation; for the reduction in the consumption of petroleum products, for alternative sources of energy. They’re even quoting Marcos: This is a matter of national survival. Better late than never? Of course, but this should have been first on the agenda from Day One. National survival, remember? The Cory government and the Ramos government botched this as well. Ramos’s enduring legacy is the PPA which guarantees that independent power producers make money no matter what. You and I can cut our electricity consumption by one half and still it won’t affect our utility bills because the IPPs get paid whether or not the energy they can supply actually gets used.

Say what you want about Marcos but he had vision. Compared to the short-sighted leaders we seem to be getting, he was an absolute genius. The present leaders’ idea of government I think is: Let the next president take care of it, I’m going to have a good time. No wonder those radio listeners were nostalgic for the good old days of the dictatorship.

Name that garden slug

Sometimes you never know where your limits are til they hit you in the cojones.

“What do you call your p?”

“Huh?”

“Your p. What do you call it? Does it have a name?”

“What? No! Why should it have a name? That’s just weird.”

“Im a weird girl.”

“Sometimes weird is good, but this is just…” I was going to stay ‘stupid.’

“Come on. Give me a name.”

She wasn't going to let up. I wanted to get this over with so I sighed a sigh of resignation and gave her a name off the top of my head. “Call it [some stupid name].”

“Haha. That’s so funny. If yours is [some stupid name], mine is…”

“Stop. Just stop. Girls don't give names to their genitalia. You don't mess with tradition,” was all I managed to get out. Tradition my foot. I wanted to tell her how personification of female genitalia made my stomach churn, but she was obviously enjoying herself and I didn't want to put a damper on her idea of fun.

“Hahaha. Ok. Youre funny.”

I’m beginning to rethink my friendship with this chick. I can handle gross-out humor as well as the next person. I can dish it out as well as the next person, but this… Brrr-r-r-rrr. This was just creepy. It felt wrong in some fundamental way that I can’t explain. I know some guys give names to their dicks in the spirit of fun. It’s allowed. I mean just look at it. The penis is just asking to be made fun of. It looks like an eyeless little alien with one tiny mouth. It looks like a garden slug. It’s a party-going garden slug and I wouldn’t exchange it for anything, but female genitalia are something else entirely. They are the very cradle of life. At one time in human history, they were considered sacred, so much so that medieval architects modeled entrances to cathedrals after vaginas. Maybe that’s why there’s something so fundamentally wrong about something sacred being allowed to be defiled by multiple party-going garden slugs. We have a name for women who do that. Maybe I descended from one of the stone masons who worked on a Spanish cathedral and by the prodding of some genetic memory, am aware of the intrinsic sacredness of this tunnel of love. You just don't make light of it.

“Did I creep you out?,” she said.

[Duh.]

“Sorry. I thought it was cute.”

[Silence.]

Work. Ho-hum

This is my first work-related blog entry. I don't know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. What we do for a living is part of what defines us, and the fact that I haven’t had any work-related entries may be seen as a denial of that part of myself. That’s bad. This job keeps food on the table and it deserves a bigger part of this blog. On the other hand, I’d like to think Im much more than the thing I do for a living, and seen in that light, not blogging about what happens at work is a good thing. Besides, nothing really bloggable happens at work. Im not hip to the latest office chismis (read: I dont give a hoot).

This isn’t the same place it was when Grif, Delphi, and the Niggook were here. And the Big Shot and his twin. (B is still with us, but he’s in Indonesia.) Those were the days when we terrorized Blarney’s. I think we were the only All-Pinoy team that ever won their Thursday Quiz Nights. We’d come in during happy hour, order happy-hour priced beer, and nurse them til the quiz begins at 9 when happy hour ended. We never ordered anything after nine. Too expensive. The owners must’ve dreaded us coming in because we never ordered anything full price and yet were always contenders for their prizes, which sometimes included free booze anyway so we never had to order more. Blarney’s had what we called a ‘house team’ composed of expat Brits. These were the Blarney’s regulars who, unlike us, ordered a lot of stuff and kept the place in business. Naturally, the owners wanted these limeys to win. The house team even supplied some of the questions to the quiz, we found out. But still we kicked their alien royal arses a lot of times. It was always down the wire between us cheapskates and Her Majesty’s big spenders.

Anyway, where were we? Head admin chick called my attention this morning to a member of my team’s attendance record and it was appalling. He’s been skipping work a lot. He was tasked to take care of the family business and that’s what’s taking up a lot of his time. I was supposed to talk to him and give him a warning and all that. I’ve never had to do that. He’s an asset to the team and everyone who’s ever worked with him on projects talk about how helpful he is, how he’d drop what he’s doing if there’s anything he could do to help you out when you ask. I spent the whole morning wondering how I’d word the warning ek-ek just right. Warning? What I was going to do was ask him to quit. More accurately, I would reason with him in such a way that the only logical conclusion he’d come up with was to quit. With his record, I can’t find anything for him to do since I wasn’t sure when he’d show up. I asked him once to go fix his schedule and at least give me a regular schedule so we can plan stuff around it. He was willing to work at home if there was anything. But he couldn’t come up with a regular schedule so he ended up doing odd jobs for the team which wasn't making full use of his talents.

So he shows up at 2 and I said to myself, Let’s give him a few minutes to settle down first. So I chilled. After a couple of minutes, email comes in. It was from him and he was quitting. I said, I’d do the same thing if I were in his shoes and thanked him for all the work his done for the team and the company and all that. He saved me the trouble.

Thanks, [blank]. You were a great help. Good luck. And when youre rolling in the moolah, don't forget your old team.