Suffer The Shmuck

Option Paralysis hit me. But, eventually, declining my friend Nicodemus’ invitation to the Preview Magazine Best Dressed bash at Embassy in favor of watching Cris Pablo’s new digital opus, Moreno, is one of those complicated, conflicting life choices that in the end makes you want to have wished for raw root canal as an alternative. That or on the spot euthanasia.

I chose hitting the Cineplex because as a recurring theme in Chris Pablo’s movies would put it: humans should prefer masochism if given a choice. Clearly I am a terminal masochist because I sat through the entire film. That’s how dedicated I am. That’s how disturbed I am. Though for the record I should insist on profit participation just for sitting still.

Chris Pablo is a heartfelt, intense filmmaker. His movies have the passionate earnestness of someone determined to find a dropped contact lens. You try hard to root for the movie, anticipating for a moment of revelation that will wipe out all the agony of enduring it; you want to be open-minded and give it a chance to grow on you. Then you read the end credits while a disgruntled flaming fag in the audience moan “Yun lang?!” then adds a snorty “Walang kwenta!”

Obviously the peeved fruitcake bought the tickets in high-ceilinged expectation of seeing attractive hunks bonk each other into kingdom come. Or at least, copius supply of pandering, gratuitous nudity. When the movie exercised moderation on these aspects I wanted to point at the horny hag and explode into a maniacal: bwahahahahahahah!

As my feminist friend would have succinctly put it: Belat, you horny toad!

Moreno recycles the auteur’s fixation with masochism. Like his previous flick, Duda, the protagonist is a documentary director who lives with a philandering lover whom he inexplicably also cannot ditch. Excuse me, Cris, but aren’t you plagiarizing the life of Gretchen Baretto in reverse?

Cris’ lover (whose name escaped me, therefore shall be referred in a substitute name) is a skinhead, bronzed schmuck who is the unchallenged Donald Trump of negotiating maximum allowable terms in carrying out blatant infidelity.

“Three days ako sa kanya,” he bargains. “Four days sayo.”

You gotta admire the temerity.

At one point Cris somehow redeemed himself from being an utter doormat, and in one shining moment burst into a look of someone who has had it. He glares and scowls “Isama mo ako!” He wanted to bonk whomever the lover forks.

Now there's a progressive type of pseudorelationship!

“Paano kung ayaw ng ka-sex ko sayo?” Donald Trump protests.

Cris pouts, stomps his feet, pegs both hands on his waist and invokes the spoiled brattiness of Paris Hilton. No, I’m making that one up.

Donald Trump relents in a strict condition that if and when Cris decides to have extracurricular sex he should also jump in the hormonal salad, thereby proving that contemporary gay relationships are out of hand.

Then Donald Trump tossed in a fat, acne-ridden girl in the pot.

Hahahahaha! What a gem! While collective groans of disgust floated among the nauseated gay audience I think I chuckled my lungs out.

I don’t find the idea of having sex with a girl revolting at all but must we, the paying audience, be subjected to the trauma of extreme close up of facial features that remind us of the lunar surface? Shouldn’t we be encouraged to file class action lawsuit for torment and psychological damage? Is this a wickedly sly conditioning method for bisexuals to abstain from having sex with females? Shouldn’t feminists’ protest of women being portrayed as unsolicited, nuisance sexual cohort?

But you haven’t witnessed Donald Trump’s best gambit yet. On the night of Cris' departure to document the plight of Muslim women subjected to arranged marriages in Mindanao, he organized a bash. He whipped up home-made spaghetti, printed three continuous-feed banners. “Happy Birthday!” then “Happy Anniversary!” then “Happy Trip!”

“In case makalimutan ko,” DT soulfully says to Cris while installing birthday balloons and pointing at them banners, “Happy Birthday! Happy Anniversary! Happy Trip!”

How thoughtful of Cris Pablo to think of the visually-impaired members of the audience. Classic!

DT then sensually goads Cris to a slow dance and offered to fix themselves a glass of wine while they are waiting for their friends and guests. He quickly careened to the kitchen and laced Cris’ drink with sleeping powder, an act which prompted the alert fag in the audience to remark, “Ayyyy! Ano yan, Vetsin?!”

Then DT gave Cris a head job and in a matter of sloppy split-seconds Cris lost consciousness only to awaken to an orgy in progress involving all their friends and guest with DT leading the pack in flagrante delicto.

I will not spoil the plot but Cris proceeded to Mindanao to film the project. His boss for the project is the ST siren Ynez Veneracion, who, in the film is an NGO Head committed to effecting change in a Muslim culture (where women have no choice as to who to marry, and often suffer as a result thereof). To signal that this is not the usual Ynez Venerazion fare, she conceals her edible cleavage—which is a bummer—and wears nerdy eyeglasses, which is very creditable for a Starlet With A Ph.D. look. Ynez’ facial complexion is extra-smooth that makes you wonder: If she’s personally exiled in the far-flung province for five years how come she’s so luminous like she’s on regular Diamond Peel maintenance. And how come, if the area is so remote she’s sporting subtle highlights like she just emerged from the tony chairs of Franck Provost? Significantly, how come no one had the presence of mind to ship Muslim women DVD copies of Liberated 2; Huwag; Magagandang Hayop; GRO; Masarap, Masakit Ang Magmahal; Selda; or Babae Sa Dalampasigan? This is of course not to show them mistreated women what they’re missing sex-wise, but to make them feel better that hey, at least, their pubic region are not open for public viewing?

But here’s the welcome revelation: Ynez delivers! No, I’m not being sarcastic or ironic. She acts with characteristic restraint I forgot all about the cleavage and got mesmerized every time she’s tossing her lines. This is where Cris Pablo’s strength lies: he can assign roles to certain actors with surprising precision and achieve a believable rendering of a certain character. Even DT’s acting chops are evident, though unpolished; you know the glint of a douchebag relishing his unapologetic brazenness is there. Then there’s Cris who - though emanating sincerity and tortured gravity - looks like he’s sleepwalking on valium overdose.

Another revelation is the many quandaries of Muslim women, which are so unnerving it makes you want to jump and torch your bra. (The auteur have a knack of making great film premises, plots and characterizations and regrettably watch it disintegrate like a rapid deflation of a raging turgid shaft). It makes you want to be good and help out, then you realize you’re in a Cris Pablo movie so you calm yourself and reach for a handful of popcorn and a slurp of soda.

Like what happened in Duda, Cris Pablo regurgitated the Multiple Narrator Syndrome in Moreno, and, given how negligibly one-dimensional they are, you just wish you have a remote control to the projector room and just fast-forward and pause to the nudity.

Many cranky people on the audience complained of the ill-supply of torrid scenes and lingering penis exposure. I wish I can sympathize with their deprivation.

I’m not worried about getting embarrassed standing up with a boner. I am very worried I can’t stand at all: I’ve lost all sensation and locomotors functions from the waist down on the first fifteen minutes. Which is a tedious cinematic way to conclude my previous option paralysis.

However take it from me: Spread the good news! Encourage long-suffering owls to watch the film: Moreno is a brave two-hour triumphant cure for insomnia.

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Anatomy Of Absence

Absence wounds in such a way that is too thorny to commit into the nakedness of familiar words. Neither Science nor Logic can decode its cryptic verses; Apparatuses cannot measure its degree in thresholds, yet you feel its existence. You suffer its presence when everything starts to cave in and only the nearness of a yearned name could dispel your vast constellations of voids.

Call it a hunger, a malaise, an affliction, an ailment in which no one is immune. It is the cornerstone of smouldering yearning; of petty, blinding jealousy; of wanting too much that it hurts.

How can you describe the anguish that shadows its arrival? How can you justify your freefall into undignified depths of being too needful? How should you deal with muted gaps which intensify your great deprivation? Or how should you reconcile with the thought that you are not missed in the same way you toss and turn in the hollowed spaces of profound vacancy?

Missing a much-loved is an affront to your self-sufficiency. Your memory-triggers dilate and everything liquefies and carried away into unconscious soft whispers of the truant’s treasured scents. The mere fact that you cannot bear even a slender departure ignites emptiness too overwhelming to contemplate. Your heart constricts and your restlessness swells into oceans.

Wistfulness descends upon you and you conceal your wretched, intimate poverty with premeditated missent messages. There is no rationality to this business, this sending deliberately ‘unintended’ sms. You just have to, because every breathing nerve of your pining self tells you so. You revel in slow-burning ache while waiting for a response, suspended between anticipation and regret. Getting a reply, with due explanation of its erroneous reception, prompts a birth of smile. Delayed or non-response propagate the most unreasonable dawn of flaming suspicions and resentments.

Such is your misery. Such is your fond wish that missing someone badly can be abolished by anything mortal.

Such is your fervent desire, and your immense discontent. Because even if the beloved is away you do not cease on loving. Because the insinuation of reunion wipes all lingering twinges of sorrow. Because proximity is a reward itself.

Because just being in the same room, silent and breathing together, is reason enough.

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Polaroid Of A BitterGourd

Perhaps you have undoubtedly heard by now—as reported by Christiane Amanpour via CNN, speaking through choked tears of indignation and outrage—that my daily insanity was nominated for Blog of The Week, and—I am inscribing this in my own blood—I lost!

Embarrassing details of my degrading defeat reached me belatedly. The past few days have been a steady bout with hellish demands at work and I haven’t checked my status as regularly as I would have liked. My Knowledge of such devastating result happened only when I dropped by one of the bazillion wi-fi-enabled neighborhood Starbucks for my afternoon caffeine fix. I flipped my laptop open and torpedoed straight to the polling site. My giddy anticipation is met with a glacial polling stats result, which, all at once blared before my eyes: I’M BEATEN!

Suddenly the Starbucks began to spin, and as I was told later, I began jumping, shrieking and flinging diners with brown sugar packets.

The mall security subdued me and notified people in my phone’s In Case Of Emergency List, who brought me home, force fed me with sedatives, and buckled me to bed.

My cyberpolling disgrace can easily be summed up as blatant anti-intelligence, sexism, and the sheer tidal wave of envy directed at an appealing, smart, infuriating, paranoid individual who dares to have it all—I am the Anderson Cooper of bisexual blogging!

Nevertheless, being a scorned contender, I am not brashly complaining or going public of any suspicions of vote rigging, rumors of sexual favors or bribing voters and judges with Google stock options, Lamborghini Diablos, and prostitutes; though I feel strongly that my fictional army of mindless clique and cohorts must erupt into spontaneous outpouring of love, support and aggressive protests that is due any second from now.

With this glowering crush sympathetic kibitzers invoke Martin Scorsese losing to unworthy yet more popular competitors or that I should have consoled myself with the fact that the luminous Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth) lost to the sophomoric Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare In Love). Fitting comparisons, only the injustice I feel is, of course, far graver. Cate and Martin can always have another year to trounce competition with another mind-blowing masterpiece. I, on the other hand only have this golden, shining beacon of an opportunity. They were only up against Hollywood mainstays. I am clawing for respect and recognition from bloggers and fellow voters who misuse the color pink to the point of overkill! I am Paris Hilton auditioning for the role of Mother Theresa!

My incredibly lofty anticipations for this competition are now but ashen hopes. I remember the very moment I learned of my nomination: I was so ecstatic I had a boner for a week! I even wrote my glowing victory acceptance speech in which I would forget to thank my quixotic friend Doc Ian, for suggesting I use the midget Mahal as my official blog mascot! I remember stealthily digressing into competing blogs and in the true spirit of sportsmanship and fairness, listed their flaws. I was to flaunt these blemishes towards the voting populace and ensure my unassailable deification. What I did not anticipate, however, is that they have something I do not possess: a legion of faithful thrall too eager to catapult them into the winning stratosphere! Given my dismal number of so-called friends, and my deplorable disability to make new ones, my obscure brilliance paddled along the competition like an asthmatic rower against the raging Niagara!

Now The Filipino Lesbian, a laudable opponent, stands shimmering on top of my fractured ribs. This is my thanks for subscribing to the feminist theories of Camille Paglia! This is my thanks for rooting for Portia Di Rossi! This is my thanks for encouraging the warped antics of Ellen!

Presently I gradually inch myself out the pit of unspeakable mortification. I am recuperating, and wistfully musing over at the idiosyncratic habits of the voting bloggers, and as I begin to feel exponentially sympathetic to Cho Seung Hui, I think this whole sordid, sad episode is a point of epiphany.

As I lie in bed, smiling bitterly, I drink in my defeat as a stirring hodgepodge of cruelty, hostility, jealousy, violence, glamour and heartache. I reach for a pint of Haagen Dazs and the clicker for pay-per-view porn.

Thusly beggining my slow, rousing path to healing.

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The Inconvenience Of Work

Ethical persons would religiously flaunt off this weird concept of not mixing work and blogging. Obviously these are seriously disturbed people which I cheerfully ignore. In the past two weeks, however, work priorities have demanded so much of me that I barely had a moment to catch my breath. Nine sleepless nights in a row and I have semi-permanent dark circles around my eyes that no one can tell the difference between me and a crazed panda.

As a direct result blogging took a backseat as glaringly apparent in my anemic number of entries of late. Not that it’s such a huge deal to anyone, but it’s like missing a daily valium fix for me: blogging is therapy.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is a wanker in my book.

Despite my nerve-wracking work backlogs I allowed my friend Euclid to drag me to Fabric, the ongoing fashion series at Piedra. I missed some of the prior Thursday gigs but this particular Thursday I relented. Amina Aranaz was showing her artsy bags.

The crowd was slightly different; it’s more urbane, smarter and a neat contrast to the usual excessive fare of glossed up super-attractive partymeisters in high heels and low IQ.

Amina announced she’s going to award a great piece to the lady, or a man, who best exemplified the zeitgeist of the evening.

The winner was a transvestite in a drag. Women scowled, men groaned, fags cheered and giggled.
There is twisted justice in the world.

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Cyberpolitics

Talksmart nominated me, and from hereon this semi-obscure ramblepot will be up for scrutiny and subject to polling for the honor of Blogger Of The Week. Thank you so much Talksmart! I am not sure if this may be a Biblical sign that Earth is going to detach itself from it's designated orbit and hurtle towards the sun.

I'll revise this entry later. I seriously need to sleep.

Meanwhile, if you are deeply bored and have a glaring, huge lack of better things to do vote for me here. Voting is open everyday; so do your bit for charity and induct me to the hall of fame and fortune by voting for me everyday till the polling week is closed.

Not voting for me, or anyone for that matter won't postpone the Apocalypse either.

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Graphic Details

Obsessive kibitzers of this blog (actually there’s only one anonymous voyeur who messaged me but I’m hallucinogenic so in the interest of shameless theatrics I’d exaggerate and write in the plural) demanded to know what’s my typical day like. The curiosity was conveyed through leaving an offline message at Yahoo Messenger. It alarmed me because I am beginning to fear he drank expired Kool-Aid that rendered his mental synapses suddenly screeching towards irreversible coma. I mean: This blog is not enough?! I have routinely inflicted unsuspecting bloghoppers with the most inane, dreadfully boring, mind-numbingly long-winded wordy litany of my daily minutiae delivered in steady monotones and still I get asked what my typical day is like?!?

*Insert augmented sound of one elongated manic shriek and rupturing veins here*

But I am not a crabby, lousy spoilsport. Ok, let me catch my breath and I’ll make you happy, son of a git!

Haha. Kidding on the expletive.

So, the question floating on the sauce pan is: what is my typical day like?

Aside from unvarying occurence of sexual arousal I can’t think of how to put my typical day in words. Since I’m increasingly, evidently brilliant, I thought I’d be more effective if I plot my daily preoccupations as information graphic. Yes! The fact that nobody in the entire blogosphere thought of this before instantaneously inducts me in the pantheon of genius! (Plagiarists: don’t even think about it!) Step sideways, ngarag-haired Einstein and your silly Theory Of Emcee Squares or something! I’m THE most gifted deoxyribonucleic acid strain to ever grace this undeserving phlegmatic earth! Yay me!

God, I am so good I’d marry me! Haha. Nah.

Anyway, in response to you, nosy anonymous offline messenger who probably followed a link from somewhere, let me give you a graphic description of my every day constitutional:

So there! Still I can’t believe I thought of this universe-altering blog idea, my brilliance is radiating through my nostrils; I’m so luminous, baby!

No, I didn’t overdose on Likas Papaya shit.

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Serial Singles

Universal common knowledge has it that the month of June might as well be thirty April Fool’s Day in a row. I’m a romantic therefore I shall call it Four Weeks Of Unadulterated Masochism, in consideration of the fact that on this particular month insanity is on an all-time high. I am of course talking about weddings.

Early on today I got rattled off an erratic sleep by shrill blasts of my phone announcing ill-timed text messages. It read:

Yound girl praying: Please God, let me marry an intelligent Man…
God replied: That’s impossible! Intelligent men don’t get married!!!

Comical had it reached me on a sober time.

I groaned, rolled my eyeballs and darted my vision towards the clock: six forty five a.m! Who in fuck’s sake wakes up at six to send dopey messages?! Apparently my demented friends, who are usually given to take liberty in disrupting my daily constitutionals with dorky messages or impertinent calls whenever they feel like it. Crankiness started to creep up my throbbing head as wobbly recollections of last night’s intoxicated clubbing fracas at Embassy start to tidy itself in my consciousness.

It appears that the friend in question is also getting married, and is officially announcing the engagement through SMS. One word flashed in before my eyes:

Goner.

This announcement led me into a dreaded evaluation - a slowly dawning grasp of my unrelenting and glaring choice to remain single.

Single. A seemingly innocuous word. It connotes a civil status synonymous to the euphoria of unrestricted advantages.

Long Ago I wrote: Undeniably singlehood has its fair share of necessary liabilities. This is painfully apparent when inasmuch as I want to roll over and find another snugly sleeping body rising and falling with the modulation of unhurried, steady breathing, I'd reach out only to find dissatisfactory substitutes consisting of lumpy pillows.

As someone who naively believes that there is an element of romanticism in waking up next to a certain fondness, I always somehow manage to be a living proof of contradictions: I am one of those far-out breed who is brutally vigilant in kicking flourishing possibilities towards the One-Way-No-U-Turn freeway.

Casual encounters do not count because there is an implicit contract that requires each party to recognize if the (temporarily extended) welcome is overstayed. It simply is: a mutual barter of pleasures, not to be regarded otherwise. Random sex scarcely ends up in joint breakfasts. Breakfasts, no matter how innocent, are suspect. It should be inscribed in stone somewhere that they are the inflammatory prerequisite of unanticipated combustion: the carcinogenic intimacy methane — therefore must be regarded as mildly alarming panic gong for relationship phobics everywhere.

Single people, with much enthusiasm, would freely rattle off the innumerable rewards of remaining unencumbered; of not being beholden to the demands of maintaining a marriage or a prolonged relationship. This is basically to remind married individuals (and those bound to steady attachments) of things they have consciously denied themselves in exchange of domestic bliss. However it is not probed deeper whether this tendency of the so-called self-respecting, crowing single person is nothing but want coated with hedonistic cynicism.

Sure single people can dismiss joint warm breakfasts; or the tenderness of wasting time in bed together on Sunday mornings (with light bossa nova softly croaking from the overhead stereo); of scoffing at the thought of rainy days shared watching TV reruns over hot mallow-topped chocolate. Mention of such seemingly negligible intimacies would induce single people to produce vomiting sounds, feign horror, groan in disbelief, rolling of eyeballs or summon a face of utter confusion. The argument being: How can anyone give up the pleasures of remaining unattached? This is frequently punctuated with smart-alecky comments and snide (if not slightly jealous) remarks which segue into litanies of privileges of inhabiting Singletown.

While, at the back of his head, he's already brewing mental images of helping fold laundered clothes with an imaginary beloved--silently getting drunk in crisp clean aroma of down and detergent that censor remaining scents of gentle but sweaty sex from last night's beddings.
Singlehood is also another word for denial.

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Strange Little F Word

Inamin na ni Gretchen Barretto na totoo ang kumalat na litrato sa internet na nagpapakitang naghahalikan sila ng aktor na si John Estrada ngunit itinatanggi nito na mayroon silang relasyon ng aktor. Sa pamamagitan ng kanyang manager na si Boy Abunda, isiniwalat nito ang katotohanan sa likod ng kontrobersyal na mga litrato sa programang ‘The Buzz’ ng ABS-CBN kagabi. Ayon kay Abunda, hindi itinatanggi ni Gretchen na siya talaga at si John ang nasa litrato. - from scads of scandal sheets, blogs and tiresome telecasts

Hardly anyone is talking about fidelity anymore. It’s one of those quaint, old-fashioned, naive notions that went extinct with Betamax, home-cooked meals and cassette tapes. Mention fidelity to a potential date and you’d be stared at the same concentration as a three day fungal growth while warning gongs erupt everywhere in his head. You might as well be Kathy Bates in Misery.

Wedding anniversaries are suspect: what is wrong with these people? How can they stand each other for such a long time without sliding into homicide? Are they deeply masochistic? These mystified thoughts usually precipitate from the very skeptical ones who got weaned from Hollywood weddings where the bridal gown’s train is longer than the marriage. Oftentimes these come quick among those who can’t hold their own end of the bargain.

You can’t be blamed, you say to yourself. You have scars to show for trustfulness. Several bruises later you smarten up. You coat your affection with cynical detachment. Every strand of hopefulness is self-pruned. Distrust becomes your primordial antibody; the confidence of unlimited potential partners out there being your ultimate justification. The question is: Who are we deluding anyway? At what point does our recklessness come to a proper halt?

Sometimes you remind yourself this is the selfish generation; a generation not briefed to the virtues of restraint and self deprivation. Instant gratification is the tenet to live by, and the wounds gushing behind every footstep are coldly chalked off to experience.

Indeed it is a generation so desperate for connections yet guardedly isolated. An inspired, keen ad by Kenneth Cole puts it thusly: "People spend more time in chatrooms than the bedroom. "

This is the generation of people making out in crowded dance floors with one eye fixed on the door in hope that something better will barge in. This is the generation of people hugging while secretly wishing their arms are so much longer. Personal space is everything—so is the thirst for thrilling new stimulations to stab off boredom. In constant pursuit! The Excitement! That Spark!

It is a burning generation where fondness is disguised by steam. Sex is more of a commodity, a transaction. A mutual relief. A handshake. Passion is a flaw; detachment is a basic, instinctive, and an essential survival aptitude.

Whatever happened to fidelity? It’s like dreaming for magic while erecting fences of jadedness all around.

Not dissimilar to rummaging around for penguins in the sands of Sudan. It may not be there but one furtively hopes all the same. And in that imagined hopefulness lays our shared yearning for old-fashioned faithfulness.

Knowing its nonexistence brings nothing but unjustifiable emptiness.

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United States Of Baldness

Rather a bizarre thought occurred to me: is there a cosmic crochet going on? Because I detect a peculiar pattern which leads me to my not-so-earthshaking doubt: is hairlessness hip again? Significantly, why are we seeing a lot of Will de Vaughn and Geoff Rodriguez popping everywhere like lustfully chewable erotic mushrooms?

Thursday night we returned to Piedra to support Twinkle Ferraren for the ongoing Fabric series, some glamour chain of events running the gamut of local designers and their hordes of party retinue. My mad stylemeister friends usually go there frequently but because I officially laid all claims to the title of Social Malingerer and devote huge chunks of energy to ongoing creative collaborations I skipped the past few Thursdays except for that of the launch night.

Saturday, for lack of better things to do, we hit Warehouse 135 and this is where my odd theory ripened. Both the Piedra and Warehouse gig were populated by Will de Vaughn and Geoff Rodriguez and hordes of Mr. Clean wannabes. I spotted at least nine bald edibles particularly that dude wearing black Levi’s and a smart striped black brown and pale yellow dress shirt and if you happen to be reading this blog consider this an invitation to hormonal fencing. Kidding. Even the Warehouse DJ was bald, wearing a black shirt with “Knob Tweaker” stamped on it. Mmmmm.

Baldness is doing a rampage. Bald people are hot, so hot my crotch was doing an internal calisthenics. No, not really. But you get the drift.

We downed a potent assortment of intoxicants, danced like demented lizards and swapped flirty squints with similarly inebriated random strangers.

Then there’s this slender babe in lime green dress who was so gorgeous she should come with a fire hazard caution slapped on her forehead. I was itching to sidle up and prod her to dance with me but she’s perpetually surrounded by a swarm of her protective boring female friends and despite my state of drunkenness I resigned to the age old rule of not approaching a flock of chicks. Unless, of course you are deeply masochistic, and would want your cock trampled by irate stilettos, then by all means stir the hornets nest.

I’m not wholly sure but I think it was Luke Jickain free-styling nearby with his date, a cute girl who looked routinely bored she should have stayed home and violated a broomstick instead of looking like an uptight twat. They were slithering with the other guy who appears to be their friend. The guy is wearing striped shirt and dark pants and dark (grey?) tie. He’s tall, slim but not skinny, and has a cute face like he just leapt out of a Bel Ami video, skid through Hedi Slimane’s runway and now slinking to the thumps of house music in Warehouse. He has a choirboy’s face and I was thinking: Hmmmmmm what a clean wall to vandalize!

My bionic peripheral vision also locked on a sleek, gorgeous morena with sexy squinty eyes, fawn-like neck, a knee-weakening smile and cleavage that would call to mind the St. Andrea’s fault line. In another corner a hunky cute guy in powder blue shirt bobs his head like a crazed woodpecker who just inhaled a line of narcotics. He’s pretty much fuckable but he also comes across as someone who is smart which lends him the aura of desirability.

Subsequently I caught sight of another cute dude who has the combined appeal of a college boy and a young corporate upstart. He’s sporting a carefully disheveled hair, black denim, brown cotton jacket with nude stitches and a brown shirt with the number eight graffiti in it. Surely a prime contender for Pederast Boss Bait trophy.

Yet with most of Manila’s stunning Saturday night crowd colonizing Warehouse 135, the invasion of glossy and stubble heads upped the ante in the arousal department. It seemed like a casting call for Caligula. If Caligula has a razor.

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Adorable Little Gargoyles

Leave it to kids to disgorge the darnedest things.

I was dining out with my cousin, my sister, her husband and their three hyperactive, smartly-inquisitive kids when, out of the blue, my irrepressible nine-year old nephew turned to me and blurts out:

“Tito, is it true that if you put your tongue inside a girl’s vagina you’re going to hell?”

At least five tables surrounding us instantly halted into silence. Ill at ease, glacial silence. Iced tea shot out of my cousin’s nose and my succulent steak remained suspended millimeters away from my teeth.

My sister, mortified, discharged a panicked yet amused glance towards my brother in law who is just about to burst into hysterical laughter. Flushed with embarrassment, she began looking around with an apologetic “I Swear This Is Not Regular Dinner Conversation At Home” appeal at sympathy from random diners.

I chuckled like a deranged tarsier. The demented dork in me is severely tempted to have said “You’ll surely know the concept of hell if you don’t lance her clit with your tongue!”

Apparently my nephew overheard older boys at his school’s playground who were debating the varied permutations of sex and religious guilt.

“Well,” I answered back, winking at my sister, “You have to grow up fast to know and understand. You can start growing up fast by finishing your dinner.”

Amazing how kids make adults cringe.

I remember a riotous moment involving Mahal (yes our ubiquitous noontime show midget) who was constantly visiting her agent who used to live in our building a couple of years ago. Then there’s this prima donna, übersnooty Povedan little missy who also used to live in the same floor as I do. One time this little diva (my kid neighbor not Mahal) entered the lift with her parents. It was crowded. People were barely inhaling. Then the lift stopped on another floor and in scurries Mahal. The little diva neighbor stared at the midget wonder and when Mahal stepped out of the elevator immediately blurted in her crisp Catholic Schoolgirl Accent:

“Mummy, I’m SCARED of Ma-hall!”

Bwahahaha!

The whole lift burst into roars of uncontained mirth.

I turned to the kid (who has this habit of chatting me up in hallway, demanding to know what’s inside my laptop bag, where I’m going etc.) and asked: “Why are you scared of Mahal? You’re so much bigger than she is.”

“She’s, um, SCAary!”

There’s another incident in a wedding where a curious kid asked the mom: “Mommy why is the bride wearing white?”

“Because,” the mom answered “today is the happiest day of her life, honey.”

“Then,” the kid persisted, “Why is the groom wearing black?”

The mom glared at her.

I was tempted to pipe in “He’s mourning because his wife is a gold-digging slut who will forbid him from hanging out with his buddies over beer and bonking cheap hookers!”

But the classic, riotous kid blurt out happened while I was watching Spiderman1 at Megamall. It was the confrontation scene between the original Green Goblin and Spidey. The atmosphere's terse, thoroughly hushed silence, people gaping with bated breath. Then in the complete darkness a cute little kiddie voice squeaked:

“Huwag mo nang kausapin…patayin mo naaaaa!”

Bwahahahahahahahahahaha! What an inspired moment!

We forgot green goblin and erupt into a chorus of communal laughter.

Kids! I love kids! Especially kids like that!

Heaven would likely forbid I get one.

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Love In The Time Of Schizophrenia

Well-meaning friends got dimly incensed when I rain-checked on hanging out at Warehouse 135 last Saturday night. Following a semi-elongated silence in the course of a disgruntled phone call I can hear them wordlessly contemplating on engraving my forehead with a fluorescent tattoo blinking PARIAH in brash tangerine.

I’m not losing interest in bar slash club-hopping, nor am I in the theatrical depths of gloominess. I just can’t find the enthusiasm or the impulse to gargle on intoxicants, have a screaming competition with the sound system in an attempt at a conversation, or having inebriated stab at cloning a dancing move.

Confidently speaking, this is not premature geriatric fogeyness setting in. It’s a mixture of fatigue, general blandness, and the curious craving for calm and selfishness.

I figured I’d have a more gratifying weekend if I jump in bed in nothing but white boxer briefs, bury myself in downy pillows and crisp white linens and catch up on escalating DVD backlogs.

And I did. I had a blast convulsing in the maniacal hilarity of Danny Boyle’s Vacuuming Completely Nude In Paradise, the vaudevillian farce of Luis Bunuel’s The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie, the mental savagery of Noah Baumbach’s The Squid And The Whale, and the surreal romance fermenting in Michael Gondry’s The Science Of Sleep. Also I had a tremendously dandy time watching the skewed circus of ineptitude and compound operational jeopardy in the first season of the original British version of The Office: Think Dilbert meeting Spin City in a hyperventilating corporate mardi gras on amphetamines.

The Science Of Sleep stars the consistently erotic Gael Garcia Bernal. Gael memorably wanked off with the absolutely and equally fuckable Diego Luna in Y Tu Mama Tambien screaming “Salma Hayek!” as he furiously spanks the monkey. That movie is a bisexual’s celluloid wet dream. He also made my nipples harden in La Mala Educación (My Bad Education) where he astounded audiences with a striking resemblance to Julia Roberts. He was dreamy in The Motorcycle Diaries but I was panting even in his gritty take on in Amores Perros and as an errant cleric in Crimen Del Padre Amaro. I happen to own aforementioned DVDs and In The Science Of Sleep he essays Stephane, an idiosyncratic calendar artist who is about ten seconds from sliding into complete schizophrenia. In his constant dreams he is the anchor, producer, director and gorgeous protagonist of StephaneTV in which he provides an alternate universe to the daily drudgery of his job. The problem is, it is increasingly apparent that the line between reality and fantasy keeps getting squished and our hero is reeling on a struggle not to overlap the two parallel dimensions.

Anyway what struck me most about The Science Of Sleep is not the general bizarreness or the romantic angle lacing the riotous matter-of fact dialogues. Beneath the surface of wacky exchanges is a certain mystifying fierceness of passionate skirmish skating on the façade of friendship, affection and that dreaded L word. But I’m digressing.

I am not privy as to how the filmmaker developed the plot for The Science Of Sleep but I have strong suspicion he spent time looking at Marc Chagall paintings, wedged in the concluding plotline for Jose Saramago’s The Tale Of The Unknown Island (lost my copy to an irresponsible borrower) and the alternate universe of Pleasantville executed in stop motion storytelling of The Nightmare Before Christmas speckled with demented imaginings of Willy Wonka and Norman Bates in American Psycho.

I shouldn’t be deconstructing this movie with unfounded, suspicious Frankenstein theory. I should be out there downing vodka shots and having drunken banters with strangers in crowded bars.

Instead I’m fastening my eyeballs on the steady glower of a plasma screen, dreaming of substitute schizo universes. Hopefully I won’t be hearing voices in my head soon. Particularly the one that goads you to torch an inept boss’ desk.

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Sunday Evening I was scouring Bestseller’s in Galleria for a copy of Surface Magazine when I spotted two paragons of lusciousness. The first edible is quite oblivious, reading The Secret, that dopey pop inspirational book wearing Oprah’s imprimatur. (I haven’t read it, but given the breathless gushing of a how-to colleague I gather it’s for people whose personal shelves carry The Purpose Driven Life and The Celestine Prophecy; the kind of genre that inspires me to go berserk and perforate Dr. Phil’s smug face with an Uzi. The book is a demerit but the positive side is that this paragon of lusciousness IS ACTUALLY reading. How many hot guys around are literate, or can recite the alphabet in its entirety, huh?) He’s so absorbed in his reading and I took advantage of his lapsed vigilance and made him my featured evening entertainment. He’s wearing a plain cerulean blue shirt (which makes me go ballistic given my anomalous attachment to the color blue), denim shorts and Nike runners. He’s sporting a sexy three day stubble and his not quite lengthy hair sort of strung together in mock ponytail. He is somewhere between sophisticate Japanese rogue, a Costa Rican gigolo and something that leapt out of DSquared’s catwalk. I inspected the shelves slowly; occasionally pelting him debauched, laser glances.

On the loft section of Bestseller’s I spotted another edible wearing a black cap, military cargo pants, a maroon T-shirt with golden neck lining. Not quite a Hedi Slimane in terms of style but the dude’s cuteness overcompensate the mismatch color palette. Then it dawned upon me: Is Bestseller’s becoming the new Powerbooks/Fullybooked? I mean, is it becoming the new idling ground of good looking self-sufficient people? Drat. I hope not. I hope it won’t get reduced into a cruising gulf for the loud types and ruin it’s semi-obscure vibe. I love Bestsellers for its airy, bright and roomy ambiance and it’s less populated character.

Literate guys are a turn on. After a steamy intercourse you can commence on a literate verbal orgy.

Or drift to sleep, rocked with muffled slurs of an adored Neruda Verse.

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