Monday, October 29, 2007

Chicken Chic

Gone are the days when I won’t be subjected to the daily torments of hellish traffic en route to work. For a few blissful years our Emerald Avenue office in Ortigas was practically a stone throw away from the building where I live. I can go home après lunch and have a ten minute nap and happily stride back to work, enervated. Since August when I hopscotched into another job and relocated to Paseo de Roxas in Makati my nerves are habitually assaulted by blaring horns and clunky vehicles practically on a standstill along Buendia, just when I’m rushing madly for an appointment. The good thing however is I discovered the best chicken I’ve eaten in years. Nondescriptically tucked in a parking lot structure, Bugong, is my new morphine. Nevermind the gravy, pass me the salsa!

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High School AKA Your Time-warp Portal To Unspeakable Horrors

Grating as Regine Velasquez’ caterwauling my landline hiccupped incessant shrill rings. Which wound me up. I groggily reached out to the floor and fumbled for the blasted cordless phone buried under a glorious mess of magazines, half-read fictions, discarded underwear, strewn shirts, neckties, empty potato chips sack, green tea bottles, and butchered limbs of a hooker. Kidding.

“This had better be good!” I croaked on the phone.

Stunned silence from the other line. I drowsily glanced at the alien green blink of the Oregon Scientific Philippe Starck-designed clock. It read 1:42 PM. Oh, drat! I’m supposed to brief a few people for a project at work by 10 AM! I’m phenomenally late!


“Who is this?” I droned on, annoyance creeping up my nasal chords.

“Leonidas, the Spartan! Remember, your high school classmate?”

I was swiftly sucked into a time-warp. High school! Haha! Zits! Rampaging hormones! Circle jerks! Kidding, again.

“Whoa! Hey! How did you get my landline? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

He mumbled another classmate’s name. “She gave it to (name of another blob of a classmate) who gave it to (another protozoan classmate) who gave it to me.

I’m getting a migraine.

“Neat! How have you been?”

For another thirty minutes he patched me up into a conference call with four other high school gargoyles and we had a blast catching up. A mini reunion dinner slash get together is set.

I’ll bring the year book and make everyone cringe.

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

Cream Scream

Hackneyed costumes abound at last night’s Cream Halloween gig at the World Trade Center I was rolling my eyeballs when cutified versions of Dracula, goth angel and boring zombies pass by. I wasn’t keen on going because Psyche wouldn’t be around. Then again I thought the hell with it. Just because she’s stuck elsewhere I should stay home and mope. All my pseudofriends seem to be preoccupied somewhere else so I decided to meet our office assistant Indigo, our intern Mercutio and my intrepid assistant Psylocke. Despite the general languor I felt earlier we had a blast. I was hitting on a very slick chick in a bright cheongsam whom I was grinding with in the VIP booth and given her heavy flirting I was all set of messing my sheets tonight but then the hilariously dorky thing happened. Psylocke got smashed from having too much beer and she was whirling around like the megastar Pole Dancer in a Vegas Revue. Things got thornier when we bumped into the Japanese-Brazilian model that she had a major crush on and she wildly switched from a professional office vixen into a hormone-crazed puma on a prowl. Very rich moment. I wanna cringe but I chuckled at the absurdity of it all. However I ended up babysitting and was muttering foul, obscene oaths in my head for the missed ONS. That did it. From hereon never go out with young assistants with low tolerance for intoxicants if you care deeply about your hormonal well-being. Sad. Very sad.

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Saturday, October 27, 2007

Farce You

Dear Piolo Pascual, Don’t lose your sense of humor. Show those dense wags that you are capable of irony. Wear this shirt on your next TV guesting or interview. Your non-fan, Loudcloud.

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Deliverance

Blasé and idle I had a shining idea: why not post neat quotes in pure typographic treatment? After doing multiple cartwheels in self-congratulations for my gleaming genius I started with this favorite nugget by the preeminent postmodern anti-consumerist provocateur, the brilliant, confrontational Ms. Kruger. This maybe a convenient space filler, and, I fear will be a nasty, recurrent habit from time to time when my mental faculties are on astral travel mode. Someone silkscreen this into a shirt. And send me a copy!

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Friday, October 26, 2007

Exhilaration

Tender me the gentleness that I may be able to love you in still spaces. Let you be my camouflage from all the nameless storms, an indulgent interval where I can breathe freely. Touch my nape and words will be needless; your elbows knitted around my neck, your hands nestling on my shoulders will pacify all the impulsive blizzards in my tattered core. Nudge closer, your lovely temperate gaze soothes erratic exhalations evading my blustery eyes. This is where I yearn to wake up. Our adjacent nakedness huddled like sovereign clouds melting into the elation of one intersected quiver.

(for Psyche and her deep beautiful gazes)

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Kindness

Opening YM often brings me neat surprises.

"(10/25/2007 10:59:24 PM) I have not checked your site for a while and when I did today, I was overwhelmed by the number of entries you have put up. Short they may be, yet so rich in content. I do not read Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He is too surreal for me and I do not claim to be well-versed in his style. Yet that is what I feel with your recent compositions. I feel like an unwelcome third wheel who is concerned yet cannot do anything about it. I can only say that I shall lend an ear when summoned :)"

- a kind, comforting assurance extracted from hewhoisnottobenamed's offline YM message, to which I am awed, and truly grateful.

Thank you.

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Translucence

Plausibly, if there are no suitable words, if there are no proper gerunds to isolate this sprouting restlessness it won’t be of any consequence. If there are no fitting clauses to describe its unsolicited advent then I can write off its grey shadows as nameless, uninvited guest. I can deny its arrival. But I cannot wipe away its sweet-tempered trace, embossed like a faultless promise, watermarked like damp kisses descending the slopes of my neck.

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Rubbing Palms And Whispering Lies

Crafting letters is a primitive art. Notwithstanding best attempts we are unable to beckon sense and coherence to articulate all the infinite things we desire to disclose. November is looming and it’s somehow saddening, thinking that we may be incapable of honoring our fervent affections. Apologies are needless; they are but mere words dispelled to cloak our consummate fears. So we decline in secret, warming our hands and whispering lies.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Send Me A Postcard When You Reach The Peak, Sisyphus

Clarity hit me on my way home, half drunk of laughter, intoxicants and the tender fondness of proverbial friendships. Consequently, apologies will be dispensed sparingly. I’m fatigued, crestfallen, and three measly breaths from sliding into jadedness. Optimism occupies my mornings yet I do not neglect the constellations of emptiness swirling at the far corners of my eyelids where disenchantment dwells. They both populate a genteel place in the infinite, enigmatic terrains of human heart. Such is our private curse to bear.

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Egress

Quit it.

I am declaring a truce. Opposed to my better judgment I’d go the great lengths and fulfill an undesirable act of vulnerability. This is a hesitant admission: you prevail in this brutal battle. I’ve waged far superior wars and this kind of defeat is new-found; I am trying to reconcile with the why, the how and the ways I have yielded. We both know I am not easily perturbed. I hold a steady gaze, and blinking isn’t my characteristic gesture. This defeat, though not fairly won, is another sparkler in your proud laurels. I’ve allowed myself to lose. For the reason that it’s the most clouded way I know into our reciprocally-needed stillness.

Be still. And in the wake of silence bask in your conquest.

I’ll soundlessly fade into the nightfall. Like a muffled gust that was never there.

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Monday, October 22, 2007

Intangible

Curious thing this unpredicted hunger for invisibility. Amidst cyclones of engagements, obligations, and ceaseless rivers of tasks to rise above, this sudden feeling to dissolve like clouds is ever-smoldering like restless ambers in the ecstasy of fury. To be forgotten like creased postcards. To welcome the dawn with complete incomprehension of names and emotions. To walk briskly in crowded streets and not see mirrors of your private voids and starvations. To slide through sunrise and dusk, concealed, voiceless, with nothing but dreams and laughter bouncing off inside like aimless flurry of fireflies in calm fields of drowsy wheat.

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Sweet Is The Sting

Melancholia is a bittersweet affliction. You are very much welcome, Datu, the disheartened wilted prune!


P.S. Odd, that after a brief bout with option paralysis I decided on the inclusion of Dido’s Don’t Think Of Me (which you identified as Hunter) over Here With Me which I felt strongly to be the one in that compilation. Damn accessibility! Haha. Five Years is by Sugar Hiccups, not Sweet Hiccups although they almost mean the same thing. Angel is a fine Mclachlan material and I cannot listen to it without wincing a little. I have it in The City Of Angels Soundtrack. Buy the soundtrack, ignore the groan-and-roll-your-eyeballs sappy-beyond-belief movie.

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Daze Of Our Lives

Happy Mondays at Embassy Cuisine is your roadmap to understanding aspirational dynamics, the inexplicable need for self-validation, social and hormonal powerplay and that inner sadness everyone seems to be subverting with crisp phony laughter. It’s a fertile well of possibilities everyone wants to drown in. Years later we are still drunk on its unfulfilled promise.

Tuesday cocktails at M Café are polite, civilized, sophisticated. Like two contradictions trapped in the binding spell of a decorously lackluster marriage.

Hip Hop Wednesdays at Embassy is when you channel your inner pseudo gansta to surface with laughably ridiculous upshot. Or you’d endure lukewarm conversations with cheerful hounds at Rock Candy’s French Wednesdays. You’d be in either of the places and wish to be in another. Or you can go bisexual on this: prime at Rock Candy, nightcap at Embassy.

Brazilian Thursdays at Rock Candy is a hit and miss thing. At times it’s a massively fun turn out, certain times you’re aching to be home, watching re-runs.

Predictable Fridays at Ponti will make you have that quaint Nabokov’s Lolita sentiment. And you haven’t hit thirty yet.

Driven Saturdays at Warehouse 135 is a demographic fruit salad. A social buffet marinated in sweaty grinding bodies and pretty young things in a hurry to max out their youthful privileges.

Drowsy Sundays are personal. Indulgent, lazy, a breathing legroom for self acquaintance.

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Moments Without Proper Names

Pondering on the past week that flashed before my eyes I think it ushered more discouraging moments than much-needed exhales of relief. My steady resolve was battered by moments of uncertainty and my faith wavered slightly at the flush of unsympathetic circumstances.

I initially deliberated on blogging about the excruciating trip last Saturday, the ongoing ordeal at work, the constant bouts with frustration, the continuing saga of conflicts among two of my married friends who are in the process of rethinking this whole matrimonial mistake, my thoughts on celebrity controversy, the Glorietta blast claiming lives, and somewhere in between pepper my conceited banters with a brief nod to the abrasive potency of enduring discontent.


Writing is easy. What is difficult is trying to make sense of all the differing weights of emotions and their respective significance, substance, implication and urgency.

I may have written about this to a point of redundancy but I think I’d admit this difficulty once again: the most momentous moments in my life remain undocumented. I’d like to think that they are the ones worthy of proper names. Yet they remain unacknowledged. They remain anonymous figments obscured from public intrusion.

One day I’ll come to terms with this dilemma. Meanwhile spare me a moment to flounder in selfishness.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Sampunglibong Origaming Tinupi Mula Sa Isandaang Guni-Guni Na Pinunit Sa Hibla Ng Isang Hatinggabi *

Maalon ang bawat
panaganip kagabi.
umiikot ang mga sagwan
umiindak, lumulukso
sa bawat hampas
ng mga alon
sa dalampasigan
ng kawalan.
bawat yugto
ng mga kumakawalang
hininga
ay tumatampisaw,
pumapailanlang
tulad ng mga pariralang
hindi maibibigkas,
hindi mabibitiwan.
ang mga tala ang piping tinig
mga tuldok sa ulap na dumidilig
ng kalungkutan sa bawat hinagpis.
sana, sana, ito ang nalalabing awit
ang panghuling bilang
para sa isang gabi
na muling
daraan.

* hindi po ito tula; ito ay pinagtagpi-tagping tilamsik ng isang malikot na isip para kay Toni, bilang patunay na ako ay marunong managalog ;-)

~ ~ ~

Three overdue entries will be posted when the cosmic rocks align well.

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Sunday, October 14, 2007

Wish You're NOT Here

Commonly people would wax poetics on the romance and glamour of traveling. Cynic that I am I look at this whole business with a partially jaundiced eye. Having left Manila at an insane wee hour last Saturday, enduring three modes of transportation and do the same thing the next day is something I’d prefer to call a Masochist’s Day Out. Or, how about: Excruciation Excursion? Now I’m back to the insane grind of city living and for the first time finally started to breath steadily again.

P.S. a blog and responses to your comments/offline messages later.

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Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Humping Irony

Following the recent cyberpoll ruckus my YM banter buddy hewhoisnottobenamed put things into perspective:

hewhoisnottobenamed: i'm reading your blogs now
loud cloud: i only know CD, texting and this thingabob called podcasting
hewhoisnottobenamed: blink, blink
loud cloud: go back to reading
loud cloud: lol
hewhoisnottobenamed: almost finished
hewhoisnottobenamed: wow. talk about achieving world peace
loud cloud: indeed!
loud cloud: bwahahhahah

Irony. Glorious irony.

~ ~ ~

Absorbing the carcinogenic glare of my laptop screen at three in the morning I was pleasantly surprised when my rabid cyberpoll campaign manager, Toni, popped me a YM message! Whoa, wow! Thank you thank you thank you Toni for salvaging me from utter boredom and yawning gaps through a brief chat!

Random messengers are welcome to annoy me through YM. Pop me a message when the YM icon in my blog is blinking it’s cheerful hepatitis yellow skin!

Chats beginning with 'nasl?' will be summarily ignored.

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Monday, October 8, 2007

Smugness

Talk about igniting a heated stomp.

Buzz-er definitely had a lot of people’s garters all bunched up. The once-sedate cyberpoll is suddenly ablaze with people grinding their teeth and spewing eruptive magma of indignation. I try looking at the whole shebang with objective detachment and not let all the negativity inflame my already conceited, swollen ego. This is becoming hysterically comical by the minute.

Here’s the thing: despite all our presumed cleverness we still have cavernous room for misinterpretation. But for the sake of clarification let me state the following:


  • 01. I am not saying that I am being accused by anyone of personally rigging the voting process. I am a pathetic technoretard and wouldn’t have a bleeping clue as to what proxies are and if I wanted a migraine I’d dip my hands on their complex technicalities. What I resent is the implication that the only way I can win a poll is if I rely on pumping proxies. (If you have been reading my past entries, winning or losing is irrelevant; finding inexhaustible supply of absurd things to write about is the great deal - it gives this blog an insane rush.) I can say with conviction that I haven't ask anyone to rig the poll in my favor nor will I encourage it. I am confident that the limited number of people actually reading this blog is sufficient to go on blogging than the validation of ten thousand mindless drones. I do not recycle forwarded jokes in my blog. I do not cut and paste other people’s entries. I’d certainly hammer my molars with a mallet than write a tepid entry on how my day went. (If I did/do kick me in the face to remind me.) Now, if it is still not apparent, this is why this blog is unpopular: I write in a certain way—five hundred percent cuteness-free which is quite radioactive for a lot of bloghoppers. My conceit also reigns supreme which is an effective filtering device to weed out cutey-pahootey dorks.

  • 02. I do not deny anyone’s right to question the veracity of the voting process: that’s for the cyberpoll founder’s area to defend. However no one can deny that no matter how flawed the system, Filipino Blogger Of The Week provided everyone a convenient online clearing to pry upon each other's thoughts. Through that thriving site we marvel at the volume of mediocrity out there and delight on the occasional gems we stumble upon through its initiatives. So I do not appreciate the mocking manner of generalizing on everyone’s authenticity. I do not look at people to be shining paragons of niceness but there is this little thing called common courtesy. This is a civilization so courtesy is a major proof that we have shed our Neanderthal skins long ago. Or, have we?

  • 03. I can handle smug retorts. Hell, I can be a bastard too. I make snide, sniggery, sexist remarks. That ostracizes me among touchy-feely gay people: I am viewed as a pretentious nutsack by proclaiming this muddy business of bisexuality. However, as this quasi-controversy progresses a little nugget of a statement makes me want to chuckle AND launch into channeling Hannibal Lecter: “for loudcloud and everyone else affected including other fags: i am not accusing anyone.” Fags? If that little shining word is used to compartmentalize people because of their personal life choices then I am grossly misinformed: The last time I checked Macho Homophobia was extinct two decades ago. Yes, I have used the word not to put people down but to amplify the absurdity of certain behaviors. I am ready to let the comment slide if that little word is meant to be a wink wink nudge nudge jab, but the more I reread that brilliant line the more it makes me want to giggle like a hormone-crazed schoolgirl. Before I lunge and peg a Mongol No.2 on anyone’s retinas.


Having said all that, I do not change my opinion on iampaperbag’s obvious blogging faculty. He has the gift, the flair, the aptitude. I do not believe in suppressing dissenting opinions. I encourage it as a matter of fact. It’s a democracy; and shedding valid questions is every Joe’s basic rights. What bugs me is when people make nasty, reckless, sweeping generalizations.

We strive to be individualistic, to proclaim to the blogosphere our distinctive self-proclaimed genius. And I do not buy this whole sordid notion that I am comparable to the next random blogger—to be a name filler in the succession of comas in The Great Pigeonholing Method to validate someone's self-satisfied suspicion on the foulness of a certain system.

We can be smart and drive a point without abandoning our manners.

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Acute Cuteness

Cuteness in excessive doses brings out my latent Nazi tendencies to surface.

I have repeatedly written about this: Possessing an uncomplimentary reputation of being openly warped relieves me from all the feeble obligations to logic, level-headedness and sobriety. The downside is it also makes me look at all things candy-coated-fluff as emotional butane to unleash my homicidal streak.

Unbearable Cuteness exploded at Talksmart’s Blogger Of The Week today. I clicked on my blogroll to check who aced the week’s nominations and was delighted that iampaperbag won. The little that I know of the blogger can be summed up through this personal bias: iampaperbag is one of the engaging, articulate blogs out there. So I did what Toni and JoyJoy did: I campaigned. (It’s not everyday you get to rally for one of the refreshing voices out there in the vast wasteland that is the blogosphere.) My elation was cut short, however. Thanks to the übercute antics of hyphenated buzz-er.

Who was so cute I am reaching for a revolver.


7 Oct 07, 15:56
buzz-er: congratulations to all winners! those proxy servers must've pumped up in the past week! Hehehe


7 Oct 07, 16:00
buzz-er: before using proxy servers, make sure to exhaust campaign techniques to make your victory believable for the next week. there's no such thing as INFLUENTIAL BLOGGER when you have PROXY.. good luck!:-D

7 Oct 07, 16:05
ester: to proxy server, ur simply teaching us to cheat? well have fun.. we dont have to do that but thanks for the info..

7 Oct 07, 16:08
ester: to buzz-er i really think iampaperbag deserve to win and not because to cheated


7 Oct 07, 16:11
james: hmm..i think buzz-er opened a can of worms. congrats pinoys and to pacquiao


Now let’s see. I am not one to lose my sense of humor but I fear someone drank expired KoolAid.

Allegation of proxy servers rigging (whatever that is, I’m a technoretard, don’t ask) maybe a rampant practice, and as such, to deny its existence would be simplistic. If people won using this technique are we dense enough not to figure it out especially if his/her blog is as shaky as a cauldron-full of gooey tapioca? Talksmart's rules would have it that winning the popularity poll (proxy-rigged or rightfully-won) is only one part of the process; all nominees would still undergo the weighted evaluation/votation of different judges with the final ten percent weight bestowed by talksmart himself. As I mentioned on the site's message board: I personally fill the quota for scepticism when popularity is invoked, but I would be the last one to campaign for popular mediocrity either.

In a dazzling display of self-convinced cleverness and what can be passed-off as narcissistic levity buzz-er posted something that would make the entire Sanrio Store pale in embarrassment:

7 Oct 07, 19:14
buzz-er: i did and i love it. smart one. can someone nominate loudcloud, nadriamez, cantiilanon, and iampaperbag next week. proxify the votes woohoo!

Buzz-er, Buzz-er, dude, calm down. Stop inhaling paint thinners. Desist using Liquid Sosa as ionizer reagent. And for all our sakes stop confusing mothballs and Tang. Also, it’s high time you layoff the Hello Kitty fetish. It’s corroding your brains. Seriously.

If you step out of your presumed shrewdness a second and actually browsed through my archives you would have noticed that I failed miserably the previous attempts at winning the cyberpoll. I have whined publicly (and shamelessly) on the lack of rabid supporters. But does that give me license to haze with malice the Blogger Of The Week’s aim to bring together a diverse range of bloggers into the one online clearing for everyone to converge in? Insert your vicious innuendo in explaining the reason for my sudden win if you must, but I can safely deduce my blog would be better written than your offensive tirade. (See, I have no problem in the self-esteem department and humility isn't my most sterling virtue. )

But I agree with you on one aspect: Yes, people are delusional (that includes me). They think writing about their ugly pets or breathlessly narrating their daily non-events is worthy of public adulation and support. Yes, there is that tendency to cheat. But who are we fooling here? A gazillion trophies cannot obscure the glaring lack of writing talent. Counterarguments will be viewed moronic and summarily ignored.

So Buzz-er, dude, pare, tsong, isn’t it a tad cute of you to utter such immortal line “can someone nominate loudcloud, nadriamez, cantiilanon, and iampaperbag next week. proxify the votes woohoo!” and not go down blogging history as the most ill-mannered, resentful douchebag version of Jay Leno In Baby Pink?

You have unmasked me! As Julia Phillips would probably write: My Fraudulent Butt Will Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again! I feel sooooo exposed, Oprah! Hu hu hu, hand me the Kleenex, Dr. Phil!

The mere fact that you overlooked the fluid, rhythmical craft cantilangnon infuses in his blog, in a dialect true to his roots as you hopscotch about in self-congratulations for your technical guile horrifies me: ignorance is the common breeder of dismissiveness. Dissmissiveness begets anger. Anger begets suffering. Suffering leads to the darrrrkkk side! Hrrrmmm? No, wait...

So please do us both a favor. Stand on your head and see if brain oxidation is feasible. Or join this semi-clever game I just made up: I’ll give you five dollars. You go away. Everybody wins.

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Fictitious, Fallacious Faith

Regardless of your supreme faith sometimes cosmic forces conspire that you harvest disenchanted scars from abundant hopefulness. This is the price you have to pay for nursing conviction in the eye of ominous challenges. You hold on to that sliver of hopefulness notwithstanding the skin-searing odds because of stubborn belief in the latent goodness of people or the general benevolence of the universe. You struggle hard on tenterhooks of something ideal, something you are passionate about, in that great anticipation that your efforts will grow abundantly into something far greater than yourself. You bargain for another day, another minute, another blink that will alter the course of constant indifference and vindicate you from enduringly demoralizing scepticism. Then you are hit with a sobering realization: Optimism is but a spitting distance from false hope—not dissimilar to a lobster in the restaurant aquarium.

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Peace And Other Self-same Delusions

Conflicts abound lately and not only because CNN thrusts our current affairs binoculars on Darfur. On a personal level it’s getting maddening. In the wake of last week’s feud, things aren’t peachy between PoshyKat and my sometime friend Cretindell. The short of it is PoshyKat wants to fire Cretindell and wanted me to help in the uprooting. Tough shit.

Clicquot, my Francophile colleague slash friend is at odds with our group’s chairman, who happens to be his Dad. His dad is at odds with his fiancée who happens to be another bratty friend. Convoluted.

Another beloved friend plots a Vengeance Date with her ex, who also happens to be a mutual friend. What she really wanted is that I orchestrate a sit down dinner, invite her ex and his wife, then she can size up the girl so she’d have the wicked feeling of supremacy in the end of it all. Insane.

Our image connoisseur is having a stalagmite-calibre legal battle with his mentor who happens to be another friend who happens to be married to PoshyKat. Migraine.

Amidst this whirlwind I stare in awe. My diplomacy level strained to the limits I sometimes get this uncontrollable urge to start yelling at everyone to get a grip and grow up. The problem is they are all grown up, sensible citizens clouded by revulsion and bitter resentments for each other.

There is so much self-expression in the world and brokering peace is discouraging.

Diplomacy is for the quixotic.

And, sadly, Quixotics are a moribund breed.

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Friday, October 5, 2007

Nocturnal Emissions

BMW sponsored 24/7 Nocturnal Navigator’s Awards night last Wednesday and it felt like a premature ejaculation: it was quickly over before you can fully relish its orgasmic pleasure.

I didn’t plan to be there but my annoyingly relentless demiglamourpuss friend PoshyKat bullied me into going with her.

“I’m in a meeting,” I dismissed her invitation. “In fact I’ll be in a meeting till later.”

“Oh come on!” (I can imagine her rolling her eyeballs). “Be my date! I’m actually in the corner of Makati Avenue! Go down na, I’ll pick you up in the Paseo entrance! Won’t stay long in the event myself!”

Let me tell you something about PoshyKat: The word NO is irrelevant as far as she’s concerned.

So I went. To shut her up. Only to want to kick myself later.

Nothing spectacular happened: A snorefest performance by Michelle Branch/Vanessa Carlton wannabe Julianna and handful awards handed out in variety of faux accents I was beginning to suspect I was shoved into Phonetics Class for Illegal Migrants. The usual suspects won, which extracted a loud yawn from a bored guy behind us. A funky/soul performance by SinoSikat was upstaged by Cool Vodka tonics as the highlight of the event for me.

Having exchanged pleasant hellos to acquaintances and random quasifriends present we loitered a bit. We shook our heads every time waiters heave a tray of hors d'oeuvres in our faces. Then we swigged our final cocktail and split, abandoning the post-awards party in the BMW Pavilion.

Congratulations to the winners! Special Merit should be bestowed to 24/7 for pioneering the recognition of various Manila nightlife habitués and establishments who, despite the lack of mind-blowing production/awards show, reminds us to be thankful that we are superiorly advanced in nocturnal verve than, say, antiseptic Singapore!

~ ~ ~

“Wanna drop by RockCandy’s French Wednesdays?” I ask PoshyKat as we navigated our way out of The Fort.

“Only if they serve Cristal.”

“Go home.”

~ ~ ~

After PoshyKat disgorged me in Greenbelt I called my plucky assistant to bring my laptop/bag so I won’t go back to the office to meet Nicodemus, Beowulf and some friends in Embassy.

Upon hitting the bar area they drank a brain-spinning, tourette-inducing assortment of intoxicants while I stuck to beer and a couple of vodka and grenadine. The VIP room’s loaded with gorgeous folks tonight compared to slow Wednesdays in the past.

I was latching my sight on a gorgeous chick on a sea-green little dress who was dancing in sexy abandon. Beguiling. Until her screamy friends emerged from the main hall and started swirling her about in drunken wailfest that I ditched the brewing urge to chat her up.

“I love your shirt!” a foreigner grabbed my shoulders which prompted me to turn around.

(Translation: Hey, wanna fuck?)

“Thanks!” I replied, spewing a casual smile.

(Translation: Fuck off!)

“Where did you buy it?” he went on.

(Translation: Hey, really, seriously, wanna fuck?)

“It’s not from the store. It’s made to measure by a friend who designs clothes.”

(Translation: Hey, no, but let’s improve the chances after my tenth tequila shot.)

He slinked off and focused his hunt for another prospect, a more eager, consensual victim. I later bumped into him in the main hall grinding to hiphop beats . He flashed a shit-eating grin. I nodded and smiled and headed to the bar for another bottle of beer.

Nicodemus and the rest of our retinue were raging drunk. I got drunk but my faculties strangely sober. It’s amazing how my mind still insist on being sober while I marinade myself with alcohol.

A strange thing occurred to me while dancing with the gang and occasional strangers who happen to intrude. Why are we so determined to max out our youthful privileges? Why do we need this frenzied gimmick to assert our childish need for validation?

Before I get philosophical on anyone’s ass I took another swig of lame beer. I oscillated around frantic bodies squirming and yelling amidst thumping beats that camouflage the creeping sadness in everyone’s ecstatic face.

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Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Eisoptrophobia*

Channelling King Solomon is not an act of just, diplomatic wisdom; it is an amity equivalent of having a raw root canal especially if the opposing camps are mutually beloved feuding friends. You’d want to be open-minded, to be objective, to be impartial but both camps would want your sympathy, your patience, your understanding, your comfort, your support and your bias in their favour. (Despite glaring evidence of prime retardation—and no matter how shocking it may come—I actually have friends. Treasured, cherished, precious friends. Friends who demand to be heard, to be proven right in their arguments). Inasmuch as I want to take the neutral side, or to feign disinterest or declare non-involvement there’s this nagging necessity from within to bridge the communication and resolve things. Why do we engage in such rituals? Why do we want to fix things even when the problem refuses to be fixed? Why do we want peace in the face of proud stubbornness? Shouldn’t we just wave the big fat forefinger and shrug our shoulders off and proceed with our neat lives or choose obliviousness and face our own private chaos? I must ask. Not because I’m playing dumb. It’s because it’s difficult being smart with these things. Even the smart ones are not half as smart than they give themselves credit for. Because in the end, who can really say what’s right? Or what’s wrong? If ever these things exist at all. I am beginning to fear the dawning of a realization that we are all ignorant vagrants in diligent search for elusive truths. And achieving the truth will invalidate our sense of purpose. That’s why it’s stored in a secret vessel beyond our grasp: To give us a bogus sense of understanding. And in our great ignorance we begin to inflict each other our sense of righteousness. And we use what we know, no matter how flawed and fractured, because we look deeper into our inadequacies and summon and use what we suspect to be right. Possibly we are all wrong; but oh, how we ache to be right! Because we are trying to make sense out of our vaporous perception. Because the last thing we want is a mirror of our incomprehension. Because we don’t want to catch a passing glance of ourselves at the store window and see dirt staring back.

(* Eisoptrophobia- Fear of mirrors)

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Monday, October 1, 2007

Meandermonday

Monday finds me like a bomb. That's been left ticking there too long… No, wait. That’s an Annie Lennox song! I should sleep. My mind is working improperly. Will update with a decent entry later when the cosmic rocks align in favorable configuration.

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Freakazoid Grabs The Laurels

Pin your ears back if you must but I feel I must issue this disclosure: I am as stunned as you are! You see I am a Natural Born Loser. I never win anything if the basis of the competition is popularity. I’ll tell you why: I am a highly-opinionated skunk and as you can glean from my previous blog entries there is an opaque likelihood that I will ever be awarded the Mister Congeniality sash anytime soon. Or at all. I have inborn talent for offending pleasant, mild-mannered, touchy folks and I do it with such glee that instantly ranks me up there with Howard Stern in terms of obnoxiousness.

So it came as a shock that I aced the Filipino Blog Of The Week cyberpoll for Week 74. Before that I lost the first nomination, and then to advance my humiliation, I lost the second nomination, too!

How did this sudden winning happen? And why am I writing about it belatedly? (Dirty word: work. Hellish weeks at work.) Shouldn’t I just shut my trap and start gloating around in the same violent delight manifested by Stalin when he got all of Europe in the nuts? (No, but I'd gloat anyway!)

First question is still a mystery. One probable explanation is that majority of cybervoters, having had a steady diet of bland ‘how my day went’ entries, suddenly developed the kind of masochism associated with papercuts and started fingering their way through Merriam Webster’s hollowed leaves. Could be. But I’m a skeptical lot, so my most logical explanation is the manifestation of the screaming color pink in my blog. And of course, there’s my threat of posting Hello Kitty pics to augment my chances in generating more votes.

The idea of multiple Hello Kitties proved to be an effective mode of mental torture and just the mere thought of such rampant evil induced many alert voters to block this initiative by clicking to catapult my blog into the leading front.

All throughout the voting period I am greatly indebted to the furious campaign raid of Toni, Joy Joy and the charming folks in my blogroll who each grudgingly voted under stern threat of bodily harm. I am also in deep gratitude to random voters who, for inexplicable logic, voted for me as well!

Thank you very much!

And to The Composed Gentleman, who upon learning that I’m learning voodoo, made a wise decision to fast-track my deification to the grandest Hall Of Fame before strange lesions start sprouting in areas too embarrassing to describe.

Thank you Eric! (Please continue supporting the fresh crop of weekly nominees and if you want your blog to be in the roster of nominees leave a tag at The Composed Gentleman’s site.)

Finally, THANK YOU to The Academy, my mom, my dad, most ESPECIALLY to MY PARENTS, for all the tuba/banduria lessons when I was six!!!

Now, you ask: Where is this going to lead you? What good will it bring to the general blogging populace? Now that you have achieved open support for your unbridled Narcissism will you (cue Gollum’s voice here) go away and NEVERRRR COME BACK!

Ha ha!

Whew! You’ve got a fine sense of humor, folks.

Now that I am glowing with the patina of newly-vested prestige of a Hall Of Famer I will abuse my power! I now have the clout to buy anyone! Fame! Fortune! Friends! I will blog more!

While you’re gritting your teeth I’m finishing the final stitches of my Hello Kitty Voodoo Doll!

Bwahahahahahaha!

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