Prankenstein

Pranks, I love. Not that I advocate or dispense them upon hapless folks (unless you’re a true-blue, real life friend, then watch out), but there’s this wicked glee to be derived from pranks. So long as you are not the unsuspecting recipient of the practical joke.

A warped blogfriend fired off a text message towards a mobile number which was presumed to be mine. His gag went along the line of soliciting for a textmate and that the number was found scrawled in bathroom stalls.

The true owner of the number freaked and immediately accused another real-life friend of perpetrating the malicious mischief.

Sensing the prolonged, awkward silence blogfriend followed up with a message asking if he indeed reached my number and if not, thereby extending an apology for the mis-targeted gag.

Number owner exhaled in relief and forwarded me the number and messages of blogfriend.

I howled in laughter when I found out of the whole naughty mess.

So I felt obliged to boomerang the joke.

“Pare, pwede maki-sexmate? Errr, textmate.” I thumbed on the message.

He wasn’t amused.

Sore snot.

~ ~ ~

So I’m back. Tired as hell. Gearing for another trip come next weekend.

Also, I have multiple long-overdue blog entries to post.

It isn’t slacking. It’s time deficiency.

Oh, who am I kidding?

Ok, it’s slacking.

Deal with it.

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A Slice Of Gay Lite

Do not be deceived into thinking that Kambyo is another one of those shallow, pretentious digital dreck that serves no sensible purpose except to gratify the director and the public's insatiable lust for a gay fuckfest and gratuitous nudity. Yes, there is nudity in Kambyo, yes there are torrid sex scenes, yes there are gay issues, and surprisingly, yes, there is a lot of heart in this movie.

Kambyo is the current cinematic oblation of Joselito Altarejos and Lex Bonife, the director-writer tandem that helmed the bittersweet, lyrical, identity-searching Ang Lalaki Sa Parola and the sympathetic view on a crude coming of age in Ang Lihim Ni Antonio. Both previous films pushed the boundaries of what's permissible in local gay-oriented film making—a very discouraging landscape riddled by hawk-like vigilance of all-purpose Catholic guilt, scissor-happy censors and the public's thickening disinterest in local movies.

Altajeros and Bonife braved these challenging elements and emerged as consummate Quixote-Pancha cinematic anti-heroes that delivered works that are provocative, resonant, compelling and achingly honest. Whereas the two previous flicks treaded the frail, darker and ponderous nature of sexuality, it is refreshing that in Kambyo they made a crisp twist into the lighter side of alternative lifestyle.

The movie follows the summer road trip of cousins Macky (Rayan Dulay, Bathhouse) and Manuel (Kenjie Garcia, Ang Lihim ni Antonio), their joie de vivre-bursting friend Xavier (Harold Macasero) and an unacquainted trick named Aldo (Gabz del Rosario). Macky initially impressed on everyone that the trip is all about experiencing the surfing rage in La Union but (it was eventually revealed that) what he really harbors in his heart is the pursuit to reunite with his long-lost college buddy Philip (Johnron Tanada). They ambled on in a ramshackled mint green van and as they inch out of the metropolis to the bumpy roads of the provinces unspoken fondness, nursed secrets and latent desires explode into an almost-casual, sometimes solemn-sometimes funny send up to the pristine rural landscapes.

I must admit that the movie crawled on a torpid start. Following the bedraggled van onscreen from Quezon City to Tarlac made me recall The Death March. A mild migraine threatened to clench in, which was thankfully dispersed by the crisp zingers tossed by Xavier.

I will not reveal much of the story as I highly suggest you go out and watch this movie. It is an earnest love letter for anyone burdened with a search for closure, identity, an exploration of friendship, love, and desire all delivered in brisk openhearted sincerity. The movie is agreeably stripped of superficialities and puffiness which makes you concentrates on every story each character tells. This is where the potent persuasiveness of Altajeros and Bonife lie: the facility to tell plausible plots, believable dialogues and scenes that are not too contrived but fall smoothly into a cohesive narrative. The whole movie is speckled with many gentle, almost-placid moments without boring the audience to tears. In fact the writer and director understand the subtleties of when to crack a comical dribble and when to hush up the crowd with the most tender line, all orchestrated with unassuming deftness.

Another great thing I have observed in the works of Altajeros and Bonife is how they can pen characters and treat scenes and actors with sympathetic dignity that makes you root for their well-being and happiness. True, their characters are clumsy, awkward, confused, pining, hurt and flawed, but the way they were conveyed makes you feel like you are standing in front of a huge mirror and you witness your very own thoughts and emotions tossed out with non-glossy candidness.

Also notable is the growing confidence of the director-writer in the technicalities of film making. Essentialistic and sometimes tipping towards minimalistic production design and art direction is made up for by the clever, poignant script, compact framing in cinematography and the gorgeous lighting (especially in the steamy scenes) that seems obsessed to reproduce the masterful chiaroscuros of Caravaggio, Rembrandt or Van Eyck.

It also helps that casting is almost pitch perfect. Ryan Dulay navigates the confusion and yearning of his character with quiet desperation and suspended optimism that attests to his confidence as an actor. Kenji Garcia is the epitome of restraint and self-assured talent, that his lines, if uttered by lesser mortals would come off hysterical or melodramatic but he tosses his lines with naked authority that makes him a talent to watch.

Harold Macasero crackles with precision with punchlines that hit the pinpointed mark. His heartrending scenes were equally-delivered, proof of his versatility (no pun intended). Gabz del Rosario carries his end with disarming naiveté and unsettling frankness that in his disclosures you behold his bare struggles without milking for saccharine sentimentality. Then there's the smoldering Johnron Tanada who made the confrontation scene simmer with elegant truthfulness, which got lost among overeager horny fags who strain their necks to see past his pubic region

Kambyo is a refreshing cinematic cocktail of friendship and love—heartwarming without being cloying. It is veracious minus the moralistic sanctimoniousness. It is Gay Lite with weighty resonance. You laugh along its antics, you ponder along its confusions, you sigh with its instances of newfound tenderness, and you get out of the theater buoyant, your faith in humanity and independent films restored.

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Galadriel In Briefs

Hugot is a cinematic Pièce de résistance. It is a superlative pièce de résistance but for the sake of your sanity I suggest you resist your hormone-induced urge to rent or buy the DVD now that the theater run is over.

[side note to foreigners reading this: The title, Hugot (pronounced hoo-goot), taken on a sexual context is the act of pulling out the penis, and two hours worth of rickety pixels later, the only hugot you'll ever experience is carried out in your mind as you pull out rusty forks from the eyeballs of the producer and director.]

Needless to say I love Hugot because it is a rich digital ore for ridiculousness. It seems to be bidding Salvador Dali for a surrealistic duel with the characters on stern, mandatory obligation to exhibit every possible cellulite in their body.

Take for instance the opening sequence in which the narrator types into a laptop. His expression glaringly suggests complete incomprehension as to what he is doing in this movie. He randomly jumps the narration of the gnarled episodes and switches the stories like an omniscient epileptic with a multitalentless cast, a microscopic budget and a screening deadline. And to visually remind the audience of the fact that this IS an indie flick, the scenes' transitions hiccups along like a slide show projected by a malfunctioning Kodak Carousel operated by an overcaffeinated assistant with terminal arthritis. It is as if instead of linear editing softwares the producers used Powerpoint being assaulted by the Melissa Virus. What can I say: Pure visual smörgåsbord!

Don't attempt to decipher the stories unless you are the anal kind who haven't suffered enough. I am sure there IS a story wedged somewhere in the movie but the scenes and narrative reminded me of how my alcoholic uncle would recount his World War II exploits. Add to this convoluted digital mash a very awful sound editing: throughout the movie your nerves are shredded by dialogs that seemed to be passing through a drum being banged by Incas on marijuana high.

Everyone is hysterical. And campy.

There's this episode where a guy walks around in his underwear in some sort of perpetual trance. He is preceded by his stomach flab. He continues his trek like a sedated salamander, descending a mossy path until he is confronted by a flaming clothesline. (Moses will be pissed.) I remembered that Lothlorien scene in LOTR. So I call him Galadriel In Briefs.

Gladriel In Briefs (from hereinafter refered to as GIB), is tormented by some horrendous memory and the dang flaming clothesline is a reminder of this nightmare. The Flaming Clothesline is like a jilted fag you declined as friend in Guys4Men: Hell-bent for vengeance and wont let you be. To avoid the clothesline he alternates standing in the middle of an indeterminate living room, with another guy nagging him to death, who also happens to be in his briefs. They both speak Oration Style they can rival Phaedra in Hippolytus if Phaedra gargled Botox prior to speaking.

Then there's this classic scene where GIB is trying to write on a yellow pad paper and the screen splits and the Eternal Nagger Guy rattles off a litany of guilt-mongering odes while furiously jerking off.

I was stunned. I wasn't equipped with words to describe it. High Prince of Camp Joey Gosengfiao has finally found his torch bearer in Jonison Fontanos.

In another episode, a queen of a policeman strips to his pants and swirls around singing “May pulis may pulis sa ilalim ng tulay!” with such abandon that will make my tranny neighbor's blood curdle in embarrassment.

Then there's the super chic flaming gay character whose skull got smashed by the Miss Gay trophy he just won. He was so chic he wore a tie dye shawl without giggling.

Not to be out-staged there's another hysterical vignette where two nursing student slash political activists play a psychotic question and answer game with a yuppie who freakishly lacked facial pores. The yuppie reminds me of society matrons who abuse face lifts their eyes migrate to the sides and finally looked like a fish. In this rip off of a strip poker game, failure to correctly answer the question meant they have to shed a piece of their clothing. The questions being asked are beyond absurd. It begs for an alternate universe by itself.

Hugot is an inspired masterpiece. It is so inspired that there is nothing I wish more than the auteur be stricken of irreversible creative block.

That or permanent residency in Alcatraz for all our sakes.

~~~

Joven Tan's Paupahan is another masterpiece in the School Of High Camp. I'll write about it if boredom doesn't bitchslap me into lethargy.

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The Last Schmaltz

Hypothetical scenarios are fun because it's a chance to warp realities into your very own ideals. This supposed scenarios took a bizarre shape during an animated dinner with a bunch of people I am genuinely fond of. Streams of conversation finally tipped towards hypotheticals and as yet another manifestation of how the universe has a sick sense of humor Ms. Syrup popped this hair-splitting question:

“How do you imagine a perfect date?”

I clenched my jaws, knotted my tongue and feigned short-term deafness.

Not because I am an apathetic bastard. But because deep down my misanthropic hide I am the mortifying opposite. A fact I am keen on camouflaging as long as I can. No amount of bubbly or familiarity can ever make me spill my maudlin streaks in a spirited repartee among inebriated folks with sharp memories. The same is true with almost any personal details - things that I willfully obscure during boozy moments. While many of drunken friends regurgitate the most drippy confessions about love and such I shut up and cackle in glee in my head. A moment like this is a goldmine for blackmail.

But the question bugged me all the way home.

How, indeed!

Dear voyeur, If you are looking for blanket of stars, sex in the beach and the likes now is your last chance to make a sharp U-Turn and search for universal truths in Hollywood or the nearby Hallmark stand. I have none of that breed to offer especially now that I have realized that my idea of a perfect date is remotely swoon-worthy. In fact my ideas are so mundane it's not a spit away from serving a roomful of cannibals with boiled tofu.

Doomed (potential) Loudcloud dates can look forward to the following 'perfect date' scenarios. (Perfect is used arbitrarily here because the author is of unshakeable impression that perfection is a scary concept that do not exist yet insisted upon.)

Scene 03. (Preferably) A good-humored disagreement. Over dinner. You can get a glimpse of a person's character and strong convictions if you can get him/her to passionately disagree with you. Passion outlasts the temporary flickers of romance. This will also filter out echo chambers.

Scene 02. Show Me Yours I'll Show You Mine. Go over your date's flat (or vice versa) and plot a challenge: S/he pick his/her best five DVDs for you to watch and you do the same. You'll be surprised with two things: Potential Compatibility and your threshold of tolerance. (If s/he insist on repeated viewing of Yentl, Titanic and The Notebook dash for the woods screaming). Porn is not an option.

Topping the above is my schmaltzy streak:

01. Breakfast. I believe the metric of a great date is the lack of awkwardness the morning after. I'm no stranger to Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma'am episodes but allowing someone to stay and wake up next to the following morning says heaps about that tiny glint of ache that this encounter can be stretched far beyond momentary, wild, detached sex. This is where my mawkish fantasy would get on hyperdrive: Me, attempting to counterfeit Cafe Bola's Caramelized Spam for breakfast; The Date, surprising me with a new twist in brewing coffee. Both in tousled hair, underwear and creased white shirts. Laughing like lunatics. Thoughts freewheeling, hoping for ten million breakfasts like this to befall each other.

With each other. Permanently.

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RPG In The Demographic Key Of C/D/E Minor

Hewhoisnottobenamed is back with a hilarious hijink.

loud cloud: whats happening lately
loud cloud: i'm out of the loop
loud cloud: have you been to the wasteland?
hewhoisnottobenamed: which wasteland are you asking about?
hewhoisnottobenamed: ah
hewhoisnottobenamed: the wasteland
hewhoisnottobenamed: yes i always make it a point to check the wasteland
loud cloud: kwento
hewhoisnottobenamed: there is treasure in them refuse
hewhoisnottobenamed: hahahah
hewhoisnottobenamed: hahhaaha
loud cloud: lalalalala
hewhoisnottobenamed: there are the usuals
hewhoisnottobenamed: i found someone who does cybersex
hewhoisnottobenamed: the long search is over
hewhoisnottobenamed: and some who do sop
hewhoisnottobenamed: but these people are 'karakters'
hewhoisnottobenamed: some bore you with their moaning
loud cloud: LOL
hewhoisnottobenamed: some sound funny they're distracting
hewhoisnottobenamed: hahaha
loud cloud: karakters
loud cloud: do tell of these karakters
loud cloud: new breed?
hewhoisnottobenamed: i got a call early early this morning
hewhoisnottobenamed: from someone with whom i've apparently had sop with before
loud cloud: *listens*
hewhoisnottobenamed: so he starts out
hewhoisnottobenamed: and narrates
hewhoisnottobenamed: and tells me what to do
hewhoisnottobenamed: and then all of a sudden
hewhoisnottobenamed: he says
hewhoisnottobenamed: ikaw si piolo
hewhoisnottobenamed: at ako si sam
hewhoisnottobenamed: ngek
loud cloud: hahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahaha
loud cloud: hahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahaha
loud cloud: hahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahaha
hewhoisnottobenamed: hahahahah
hewhoisnottobenamed: hahahha
hewhoisnottobenamed: how pedestrian
loud cloud: hahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahaha
loud cloud: hahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahaha
loud cloud: hahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahaha
loud cloud: you gotta be kidding me!
loud cloud: hahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahaha
hewhoisnottobenamed: unless my dream was that vivid hahaha
hewhoisnottobenamed: i gotta stop talking to these people who don't switch channels beyond studio 23

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Debunking Dirhams

Benefiting from intoxicating delights of beer and fond company of friends is one of my favored pleasures. So over chilled beer and garlic mushrooms (the rest ordered an odd-tasting Sisig which revolted me, and I love Sisig) I have had high hopes of playing catch up with a friend (an advertising art director) currently based in a continent where the simmering sand dunes pile up aplenty. We were pretty much enjoying the insanely hilarious nostalgic spree then without preamble it crept in. It happened so swift and much more alarming than the fashion pack threatening a bell-bottom comeback: this friend began talking about money. No let’s put it this way: he launches into an eloquent glossolalia in the double key of Dirham and Riyals. On how it’s pouring out there like the Nile, and can be easily had if you are cunning. The abundance of income, as I gathered from the pissing-higher-than-your-grandfather competition that ensued, undoubtedly made the Manna incident look like a mere Relief Operation of the UNICEF to Sudan. This is when I became aware that my toenails lost all sensations and my brains (and my common sense) ticked the deceased box.

Talking about money bores me. There’s always an excess or lack of it and to elevate that kind of conversation into the high grounds of “Why Are You Refusing Fortune By Remaining Here In The Third World Cesspit?” makes me adopt the emotional quotient of Norman Bates.

I am not one to get jealous or get bitter about the great fortune of others. I have no ambitions to be the threat to Warren Buffet; I only have the demented ambition AND requisite ego bloated enough to take on the gods of KesselsKramer, Wieden+Kennedy AND Mother to a Pitch Off. THAT or outselling Grisham, Clancy and Crichton with a monumental opus that would make Kazuo Ishiguro and Milan Kundera mope. Kidding.

What is mildly annoying about the sordid money brandishing binge was how it was rubbed in the faces of other friends who no doubt are secretly dwarfed by the PaySlip Face-Off Bonanza. I caught the eyes of two other people in the table and we swapped incredulous looks.

I’d blame the beer. Inebriation can bring a fungus out decent human beings. In the name of friendship I’d like to take a skeptical stand: this friend probably hadn’t intended to brag; that waving about his acquisitions before the eyes of friends (especially those struggling for a hard-worked promotion) is nothing but a friendly banter gone awry.

At least three of us steered the conversation into more pleasant direction but no, Dirk Dirham, went on, exhorting us to be just like him: to pack our suits, potted plants and relocate our cactuses to where the Riyals Run High.

I was so tempted to test his financial claims by asking for a really huge loan, so huge Credit Suisse will blush, but decided against it in the bizarre urge to remain courteous.

“Millions!” he vocalizes in drunken sing song. “You’ll rake in millions in less than a year! And the best creatives are all going to the Middle East!”

I forked in another batch of garlicky mushrooms.

“Manila recently snagged golds and silvers and citations in Clio, Cannes, New York, London and Asia.” I finally butted in. “I’ll jump into the exodus wagon when YOU win Dubai/Qatar/UAE its first D&AD Black pencil AND its first CannesLions Titanium.”

Silence.

“Fuck you.” Came the response.

Hearty roars of laughter erupted all around. Something thick wads of Dinar can’t slap a price tag on.

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Streaming Rolls Of Flaming Feces

Movies are cheaper than therapy. But what if movies like Hugot and Paupahan encourage you to file class action suit and demand for therapy bills reimbursement? I am still thinking twice about writing an overdue review for both flicks because I cannot go into a nerve-grating exercise of recalling the scenes without hammering tacks into my eyeballs. I probably will later, when dead planetary rocks collide and a perverse streak hits my skull. Meanwhile I'll be very kind and give both films a capsule review:

Both cinematic opus mentioned bring out powerful imagination from comatose viewers: That of barrels of boiling turd.

~~~

Thank you RTM for the YM message! And for digressing in here :-)

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Truant

Deliberate or otherwise, your reckless stunt bruised me. It punctured deeper than I'd care to admit. But I am conceited and is not given to admitting defeat without first entertaining an amicable alternative to resolve all tangled thoughts and foolish acts. I ruled out judgment; I anticipated simple gestures of courtesy. Is it too much to expect? I don't think so. So I held my breath. Waiting led to minutes that dissolved into hours and hours bloomed into days and days drifted into tongueless limbos and only the elongated silence that amplify these aches can prove that you once existed. A belated apology surfaced and I somehow debated the merit of the expressed sincerity, hoping for both our sakes that it was just an inevitable human lapse during an excited rush and a moment of weakness. If one should insist on accounting for all the hurt reaped from the easy episodes (and that barbed beginning) then we have a blurry ledger to audit. Is it too late? Slowly it's dawning upon me: We both have cowardice to tame, and you toss unnecessary apologies to mend your embarrassment. Eventually all this will float into forgotten corners and we will both resume breathing freely in different compartments of our individual lives. Until then, the key you tossed under the door will lie quietly on top of my desk. Its contours glowing softly, much like the mellow timbres of your first hello.

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Goatzilla In Cannes

Unanimously, the panel of juries composed of myself and my multiple personalities, hereby bestow the Hernia d’Or to Brillante Mendoza’s Serbis.

Serbis is that rare gem that once in a while sneaks itself through and outmaneuvers the high standards of the Cannes Film Festival and instantly makes Serious Critics’ garters all knotted up. Not us, the very fine-tuned Panel of Absurdity who have just the combustible appetite for Films From Hell. And Mendoza is our shining beacon of hope, the kind of hope who profoundly understands the crucial need to out-squalor India and Somalia in the determined dash for Cinematic Sordidness.

Serbis is brandished as a story of arbitrary morality. It follows a mishmash of activities of a family operating a seedy porn movie house and the hormone-crazed habitués populating it. Or so it hopes to be received.

As a warped, rabid consumer of local indie flicks it hits me this way: it’s not a movie about the human condition—it’s a bleak Third World aerobics video disguised as an artsy movie/celluloid provocateur! It’s actually a herniating two-hour voyeurism; an exhausting trailing of the characters in lieu of spectator workout: you lose five pounds just sitting through the entire movie what with too much going up and down the dingy stairs like a grimly-lighted exercise cassette. At one point I was half expecting Jane Fonda, in matching Rainbow Brite head/wrist/leg bands, to pop up into the screen and cheerfully exhorting everyone. “Ok! Great! Now! Two More Flights Up The Grimy Stairwell, Folks! A-One! A-Two! A-Three!”

In the opening sequence a young woman, newly-bathed, purr at herself in the mirror. She croaks “I Love You…” in breathy repetition while the camera languidly spans the slopes downhill from her cocoa-tinted nipples to her bushy black-pubed crotch. A poster of Jesus and several iterations of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary looked on with beatific smiles while she goes on a narcissistic spree. Classic! This scene got slammed for “gratuitous nudity” by certain critics at Cannes. Being a passionate Absurditst I indignantly disagree! How can they not see it? It’s Mendoza’s love letter to self right there. You can almost picture him contemplating his own nakedness in front of the mirror, as he tweaks his own nipples in self-congratulations and breathes “You are a fabulous auteur! I love you…”

However this has a reverse, ironic effect on majority of the gay audiences that I presume to be the core audience of Mendoza’s Cinéma-vérité.

“Kaloka!” squeals an offended fag, and by the tone it was uttered, he’s plotting class action suit for psychological trauma.

Come on! Is it really difficult to love the Mendoza's School Of Filmmaking and it’s underlying genius in Techniques In Making The Rounds Of The Awards Circuit? Forget craft in storytelling! Forget character depth! More Nudity! Sex! Raw Living Conditions!

Capitalize on the exoticism of squalor! Show clogged bathroom pipes! Extend protracted shots of grimy drainage hosting three thousandth generation of Escherichia coli!

And while you're at it, pass the Xanax! AND the Maalox!

This technique will appeal and will come off very provocative for the likes of say, Paris Hilton or the entire population of Sweden or Switzerland (where poverty is unheard of) who will involuntarily bronze Brillantes as a visceral visionary.

However, show this movie to the populace of the innards of Quiapo and you’ll get a big “SO?”

Despite all these purported foulness, I laud the movie for its abundance of absurdity.

Take for instance the character of Coco Martin, who plays billboard painter slash reel delivery boy. Just when I was almost convince that he has the acting intensity, a convincing tortured look and a believable limp, it was finally revealed that it wasn’t really his talent: it was a humongous boil at its ripe, terminal stage throbbing on his butt cheek! The awful boil (which deserves its own billing) in a brilliant exhibition of third world DIY surgery, was popped out of commission with the help of a long-necked whiskey bottle. While collective chorus of disgust floated from the audience at the sight of pus and blood oozing from the quashed carbuncle, I wanted to leap out of my seat and do a manic ovation in behalf of all Nip Tuck fans everywhere! Coco Martin is a poster boy for courage!

This is not to say that the film is lacking in talent: Gina Pareño as the grand matriarch bristles like a blue blooded thespian in her scenes that command your respect and attention. Then there’s Julio Diaz, whose gravitas is felt despite all the 'quiet' acting and the jarring premises and scenes that threaten to eclipse him. Then there’s THE Jacklyn Jose, who can convey three thousand emotions just by slowly pursing her lips. Jacklyn rises above all the ludicrousness and she solidifies my respect for her prodigious talent. Here she once again proves she’s an actress of the highest order by delivering the line “Inang, May Nakapasok Na Kambing!” ("Mother, a stray goat got inside the theater!”) without bursting into giggles. Another thing about her that begets my respect: she carries her scenes with solemn composure and unwavering dignity despite her botchy, caked faux tan slowly melting like she’s an animated Madame Taussaud's exhibit delivering the lines from Medea next to an incinerator. Meryl Streep, you got competition.

Serbis is crude, and visceral; It is a daring celluloid umbrella of great actors (even the very minor actors toss their lines with convincing faculty) which is diluted by the film's pretentious over eagerness to be taken seriously. The cinematography is incredible, the art direction spot on, but this film suffers the advance stage of Auteur Syndrome: the inability to film with a steady camera. It is like saying: If the camera movements aren’t shaky enough, then it’s not indie enough!

Listen: we get it! It’s supposed to be raw, but would nausea be necessary? Isn't floors flooded with urine and other excrement head-spinning enough? It is as if Serbis' (or any other current indie movie) main purpose is to induce vertigo or tourette and if the audience don’t launch their previous meals into projectile vomiting then the movie is a failure!

Nevertheless Serbis has its moments of pure glee. For an anal retentive dork like me, pay attention to the graffiti and vandalisms all over the theater walls in the movie. What would one make out of “Dodong Charing” for instance? I snickered like hell. Then there are those ST movie posters with equally-hilarious titles and subtitles: “Tampisaw: Hindi Lahat Ng Laro Ay Sa Apoy!” Indeed!

Then just as I am about to get that sinking, let-down feeling the most brilliant moment happened.

In (one of the) film's orgasmic scene, where the screen is flashing hardcore sex and the characters are busy doing unprintable filthy fun with each other inside that squalid theater, a goat - yes, a goat - appeared in front of the screen bleating like an amused character who jumped out of Salvador Dali’s cranium right smack into Mendoza's cinematic opus. I can’t quite gnaw the metaphor there but it was a very rich moment in Philippine Cinema.

Will we ever unravel the monumental mystery on how on Mendoza's colossally-gifted imagination did the fantastical goat climb several flights of stairs in a very dense commercial district, elude detection by prostitutes of every gender loitering the hallways of the raunchy theater, and steal the scene and do a riotous coitus interruptus for the orgasm-determined characters in the throes of smutty theater sex? I guess we'll never know.

Serbis is supposed to be a bold essay of austerity but slides into the centerfold of conceit and absurdity. It is like a wry joke trying its luck to pass off itself as drama. All things considered no one should deny Brillante Menoza much-needed encouragement or credit (at least) for all the chutzpah. But gunning for an award? Sure. Hand out an award.

Give it to the goat for making sure we got a good laugh for the door price.

~~~

You haven't heard the end of absurdica yet. Next to be celebrated in this blog: Hugot.

Not recommended for anyone with IQ over 20 and have no warped sense of proportions.

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Is She? Is She?

Convulsed with laughter. Great One, Amateur Misanthrope!

Meanwhile, misterhubs, I am alarmed that you are becoming more right about Chet and DILF Frank of Hardy Boys! Hahaha. Remind me to steer clear of your hyperwarped imaginings.

~~~

Let it be said to quash all the moanings and bitchings about me avoiding people...

YES, I am avoiding EVERYONE even on YM because I have to pour undivided attention on gasping projects floating in limbo. Even in avoidance I am democratic. Hehe.

Don't even remind me of the unfinished work that gripped the newly-moved in flat.

I'll go berserk.

~~~

Dear Mali,

First, he'll wince. Then he'll dwell on the sting for ten minutes. Then he'd shrug and hum Ben Folds Five's Last Polka especially:

My, my. . .
the cruelest lies are often told
without a word
my, my. . .
the kindest truths are often spoken,
never heard

she said,
"you've been pushing me
like I was a sore tooth
you can't respect me
'cause I've done so much
for you."
he said, "well, I hate that
it's come to this, but baby,
I was doing fine
how do you think that I
survived the other twenty-five
before you?"

Be well and be happy. In your happiness you'll look back at all these things and be kind.

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Give

Don't be a selfish snot. Extend a hand!

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Drifting

Contradictory to even my most conscious denials I am, possibly, already becoming fond of you. Self-respect will always dismiss the ridiculousness of this silly thought. But how else can I explain sliding into sleep at night and the last thing I could muster is a coy half-whisper circling every syllable of your name?

How can I ever justify the jealousy nibbling on my earlobes at the thought of someone else tousling your hair?

How can I commit into words the mad, territorial greed that clouds my mind every time I start imagining fingertips other than mine that glide across the length of your spine?

How can I ever dismiss the warmth rushing in when I hear Elton John’s Your Song and everything liquefy and my thoughts drift towards you?

Apothecaries have no antidote for this mortal affliction. The best I can hope for is to long for a day when this brewing madness dissipates into mere schoolboy crushes, and all will be well in the world again. For me, at least.

For the time being your lopsided smile continue to unrest me.

It’s piercing, this troublesome feeling. Its a form of cruelty: much like catching a glimpse of a lovely face in crowded trains, and, after the overwhelming exhilaration of sudden attraction subsides your heart sinks into despair knowing it will be the last time you’ll ever gaze at such loveliness. This is where my thoughts pitch their tents: the joy and ache of meeting you, of not knowing you profoundly enough before we both retrace our steps back into the neat compartments of our respective lives, struggles and dreams.

In parallel universes there will be a little footnote in the great volumes of What-Could-Have-Beens. It will be about me having the courage to deal with your sly, deep, piercing gazes. Gazes that make me lose grip of my arrogance, gazes that come arrowed with smiles.

It is a difficulty I am too proud to own up to. It is a difficulty I struggle to forego.

Or, maybe, it’s just how it is.

We are all captives in the constancy of wanting. Whether it concludes on tragic or happy endings such hunger will always administer to wound you.

If it doesn’t, then it’s not true.

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Abdoabomination

Synchronicity is not in my glossary these days. Not only do I engage simultaneously in disparate things, my unconscious deeds seemed like that of a confounded parakeet shoved into wandering aimlessly in a Max Ernst canvass.

Incoherence is hysterical. Unfunny if it concerns yourself.

To illustrate how hilariously disjointed things are:

Wading through the unsorted junk littering the newly-moved-in flat I discovered among the stack of dusty boxes a forgotten ABSculptor. This nefarious instrument was abandoned in my apartment like Stork droppings by an irresponsible cousin. It has been with me for seven years and it’s only just now that I dredged up its elapsed existence.

I gave out a hearty, insane laugh upon unearthing the equipment of torment. Like the similarly torturous Nordic Rider Bike which I bought some nine years ago, both implements serve no practical purpose but double as unintended vacuum cleaners. They have been magnetizing dust to put a Dyson blushing. I fear both have developed independent lifestyles by now.

Not that I need the dang ABSculptor at all: my abdominal area has no extra ounce of unwanted flab. But I am warped, so after the hearty chuckle I said, why in hell not.

I stripped down to my whitey white undies, lied on my back in the parquet floor and eased my neck into position and started pulling and kicking. But before I did the mid-body flexes I flicked a button on the stereo controls and the School of Surrealism commenced:

How many pseudohealthconscious people out there do abdominal crunches to blares of Tears For Fears Greatest Hits?!! Hahaha.

And the odd thing was I didn’t notice I was doing abdominal bends and simulated mid-air bicycle kicks while Sowing The Seeds Of Love and Everybody Wants To Rule The World dilute the pungent air of the room (a hired help varnished the parquet yesterday and it hasn’t completely soaked in the wood surface, ergo the mummified smell, and here I am, shirtless and lying on the partially sticky surface. How deranged is that?)

I realized I am working out to illogical soundtrack somewhere between the chorus line of Woman In Chains and Everybody Wants To Rule The World.

So I flicked the remote again to switch the disc (my trusty 50+1 CD changer proves its merit once more).

Hillary Hahn’s Bach Concertos drenched the air. Just great: amplify the Salvador Dali moment! Too preoccupied by the splitting sensations in my stomach as I continued the crunches Daniel Hope’s Bach immediately followed Hillary’s. Which jumped into The Jayhawks Rainy Day Music, which jumped to Viktoria Mullova’s Bethooven-Mendelssohn’s Violin Concertos, Which jumped to Nelson Freire’s Chopin & Villa-Lobos, which jumped to Interpol’s Antics.

The music accompanying the impromptu abdominal work out will give an onlooker a Rene Magritte moment.

Not me.

I was too busy yelling obscenities in between gasps for air every time the blasted ABSculptor rips and shreds my stomach into kingdom come.

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Fünfzig *

“Talent borrows;”-a distorted brainiac once famously announced-“Genius steals.”

In the same vein I will rip off misterhubs' most recent entry because despite all the insane incidents and universe-realigning original topics swirling in my head (maniacally winking to be blogged about) I, for (bleep!)'s sake cannot muster to sit five minutes in a row without getting butt blisters. Add to this chronic restlessness my occasional impotence in the coherence department. I would sit with a germ of an idea that will no doubt mature into a monumental literary opus and my generally-dormant but irresponsible wart of a mutant chromosome starts kicking in and my thoughts would disperse like Paris Hilton's IQ at the Hollywood Mensa bureaux.

This entry is also mired by unblushing narcissism because my drivels got casually wedged in his list--the mere mention of my blog elsewhere gets me sexually aroused. I begin to get turgid and my lungs constrict, my breathing gets labored as I reach for my...

Ok, let's not go there.

I also have an excuse: I want to distract my mind off mind because if I dwell on the fact that my newly-moved-in flat remains a striking dead ringer of Kabul after the great American sodomy I'd sooner go stark raving mad. Compounded by a series of homicide-inducing dustups with a consultant to a client over an ad campaign last week, I am increasingly prone to waving at members of the clergy with four fingers bent. That, or start open-firing at a Rotary Club convention. Or start knitting spindles of dental floss into miniature flags of member states of the United Nations while humming a gravelly Ray-Charles-meets-Macy-Gray-on-speed before hitting the allegro molto crescendos of It's A Small World After all.

You get the drift.

Fifty random things I like:

01. Oversleeping. Sadly, this activity hates me back because I'm not getting enough of it.
02. Brilliant Warpedness - Dilbert, Krazy Kat, Cathy, The Far Side, but one will get a special billing:
03. Calvin & Hobbes.
O4. Mcflurry. (a toss up with Cookies & Cream flavored ice cream)
05. Mangoes.
06. Brilliant Warpedness 2 – David Sedaris, Cathie Pelletier, Dave Barry, Mike Royko, Erma Bombeck, The Gangster Of Love, Woody Allen, The British Version of The Office
07. Music. EXCEPT: all those Wimp Rock “I Hate Myself I Wanna Die” EMO Shit; “Woe Is Me I Am Bluer Than Picasso's Series That I Wanna Overdose On Prozac” country music; the vaginal shrieks of Celine Dion, (sorry attorney hubs!) Mariah Carey, and the retardation conducive sounds of Shania Twain, Britney, Hanson and Backstreet Boys.
08. Sarah Silverman.
09. White boxerbriefs.
10. Downy white sheets.

11. Books.
12. Magazines: The New Yorker/Atlantic Monthly/Radar Magazine/Adbusters/The Believer/McSweeney's/(the now defunct) Zembla Magazine/ 032C/Matador/ Domus /Casa da Abitare/ Wallpaper/Monocle
13. All Cameron Crowe films. Yes, even the calamitous Vanilla Sky.
14. Nick Hornby
15. Maison porn: Vitra, Capellini, Herman Miller, Artek, Philippe Starck, Tord Boontje, Bang & Olufsen, Rose Lovegrove, Yves Behar, Ron Arad
16. Fierce Modernists: Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Santiago Calatrava, Renzo Piano
17. Indie films.
18. Scalding hot showers after a nerve-grating day at work.
19. Waking up to very soft music in the morning.
20. The TV series, House, M.D.

21. The color blue.
22. The mind-bogglers: Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Helen Frankenthaler, Paul Klee.
23. The Sixties. (No, I wasn't born during the sixties. If you are in the creative industry you'd know what I mean.)
24. The Thursday Group! (pronounced Tars Day by the German Moreno School Of Mangled Phonetics) Fatima Alvir Forever! Nyahaha.
25. Seiko Films.
26. Scrabble.
27. A great argument.
28. Laughter.
29. Striking up hysterical conversations with complete strangers in foreign airports.
29. ZOMG talking fruits!
30. skinny neckties.

31. Clear summer afternoons.
32. Splash of androgynous CK One on women, Hugo Boss on men.
33. Seafoods
34. The poetry of Sid Gomez Hildawa, Rilke, Neruda, Lourd de Vera, and Angelo Gelo Suarez
35. Contemporary fiction.
36. Scandinavian/Nordic Design.
37. Swiss typography.
38. The vibe of Tokyo
39. Piquant Antics: ian's, misterhubs, datu, coldman, q, agentboytoy, xienah, cofibean, kwentongbarbero, noisy noisy man
40. The mind-melders: Freud. Kafka. Chekhov.

41. Deliriously slow, sensual fuck.
42. The sudden rush of connection with someone.
43. Hearing 'Thank you,' 'I'm sorry,' and 'Apology accepted.'
44. Lancing the touchy-feely, fragile egos of idiots.
45. The mobile phone not ringing on weekends.
46. Horse-back riding.
47. Pedaling downhill a steep slope with the brakes acting up.
48. Seeing a smile race across the face of a cynical client during tough concept briefings.
49. Smart, funny people.
50. Brilliant Warpedness Part Trois: Daria, The Simpsons.

50 and a half. My new ex-next door neighbor.
50 and three fourths. Beer.


* Fifty if I do Gestapo Speak

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A Is For Avocado, Apathy, And In This Case, Amentia*

Pearl Jam was the paste.

“I love Pearl Jam,” you blurt out, and before you can further accessorize such declaration of worship for the brilliant drawls of Eddie Vedder (who ranks as one of the Rock gods in my book) my head began spinning. In a blinding flash my over-agile imagination immediately constructed lewd landscapes. Words like bed, sex, you, me, destiny swirled like windmills that went haywire in my carnal mind. I used to steal probing looks at you when I thought you were unaware I am staring and all I saw was a magnetic face. Beautiful but shallow. Uncomplicated but attractive—too attractive for comfort for mortals with shaky self-esteem. Too attractive enough to reduce others into feeling like fungal mold standing next to you. But your abrupt declaration on Pearl Jam pulled the rug under my conceited feet. It made me look at you in different light.

Suddenly a combustible crush crept up my spine, and realizing it's infantile manifestation, I shivered. I shook my shoulders to ambush the ridiculous thought, before it germinates into something terminal. But who am I kidding: your gorgeous face, the easygoing charisma and suddenly, Pearl Jam. Love.

But being me, self-preservation prevailed. My alert defense mechanism sprung into knee-jerk cynicism and self-annoyance slapped my smitten daze back into sobriety. This happened in split-seconds before I totally slide into irretrievable pits of fatal absurdity. Apathy and mild disdain demolished the sudden awareness of your newly-discovered charm. Yes, I was a prick. A qualified idiot. A self-defeating schmuck who had the last shred of restraint to save us both from ourselves.

~ ~ ~

This drivel was inspired by this album:

which I rediscovered among jumbled mountains of CDs randomly tossed like a salad by the charming hired hands who helped me moved into the new flat. The CD was intended to be a holiday gift for the subject of this blog entry (who also happened to be one of the more recent friends). However we drifted away a couple of years back and the CD remains a pristine, sealed duplicate of the album I already own.

It will remain that way, a dust magnet, eating space.

* idiocy, retardation

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Dreadful Departures

Reluctance, sadness, acute nostalgia—they grip me as I finally say goodbye to you. We have been together for eight years. Eight ripe years! Given the shelf-life of Hollywood marriages our shared number of years together borders on the naïveté and endurance of old fashioned romance. So it is with pinch of melancholy that I will be moving on, leaving you behind. I felt the wave of embarrassment floating up my nose like a flagrant lover diminished of gratitude and devotion.

Farewell 25th floor, Unit (X).

As I move many many floors up, I glance sideways and I can see, lucidly, as if for the first time, speckles of stories soaked by your fading walls. Beautiful stories, heartbreaking stories, carnal stories, insane stories, hilarious stories, tender stories, and stories laced with secrets, malice and lust. I will carry every unwritten word of these memories with me.

When I finally close the door, and twist the knobs to seal your emptied rooms for the last time all these fond remembrances will come rushing back like ignited fireflies swarming a tree branch in the calmness of midnight.

I will remember the struggles I’ve had some years back when I was in-between jobs. Those bleak times of pork and beans and toasted bread weeks in a row because I was too proud to call home to bail me out.

I will remember tossing and turning past three in the morning either pining over a beloved or outwitting the potent spells of insomnia over difficult deadlines that make me have self-doubts about my professional worth.

I will remember casual encounters and the rush of guilt and regret when morning arrives and my lungs are reminded of stale sex clinging on the sheets.

I will remember quiet moments when I lay on my back on the cold parquet, staring at the ceiling with very soft music soaking the deep joys of solitude.

I will remember the excruciating moments when editing the perpetually growing number of books, CDs, DVDs, magazines that spill over the shelves and the agonizing option paralysis over what to cast out and what to keep.

I will remember the accidental brushes with voyeurism when I flung the canvass curtains open and beheld the next-door neighbours fucking like crazed rabbits with their lights burning bright and their windows wide-ajar like the legs of a two-dollar whore.

I cannot even begin to imagine the copious volumes of books I can write about our time together and maybe, if things conspire to be so permitting I may start that first page.

Such is life, though. We have to embrace even the most awkward of changes. But life itself cannot expunge these memories. Memories define us. They will sit quietly, waiting for the precise opportunity to spring back to mind and unfold a smile upon our face.

Farewell 25th Floor, Unit (X). It is my fondest wish that your new occupants will dwell in you with deep affection in the same manner you have been kind to me in the rich expanse of those eight beautiful years.

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Suffer The Suffrage

Vote! Come on, vote! Like you’re getting paid to do it, dagummit!


And join in like the suspension of your very own mortality depends on it!

Thank you!

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Tome Foolery

Paying no heed to the gongs of alarm clanging at the back of my head I splayed my anemic wallet wide open and bought the marked down books despite the shrill protests of my semi-existent practical conscience.

Enough of this monograph fetish!” it screeches in horror.

Which I cheerfully ignored.

Here is my recent loot:

I went home blissfully bankrupt.

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No Prada, No Thanks

Plenty of Cute people swarmed last night’s ϋmobile launch at the Rockwell tent. I decided to attend at the last minute because the friend I was to meet at Starbucks decided to intrude the occasion.

ϋmobile, from what I gathered from the breathless hype-o-rama is a new ad-centric mobile service but whoever designed its identity systems must be on federal-regulated substances. I was like: Come on! An umlaut over a Nickelodeon splat? How very…distinctive. No, not quite. It’s kind of creepy; like a grape that got run over by a ten-wheeler truck and still smiling.

“LG Collins will be raffling two hundred fifty phones!” someone from the PR team beams.

“Is it the LG - Prada phone?” I asked.

“I don’t think so. No.” came the reply.

“There goes my erection, then.”

He stared at me in the same way you would at a petri dish growth.

My friend nudged my ribs. Before I could protest he shoved a bottle of beer into my hand.

I didn’t win the phone because I left early. When my name was flashed onscreen as one of the winners I was already home furiously beating my...

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Withrawal Syndromes

Banks are institutional equivalents of purgatory. You voluntarily fork over your cash to them, watch it diminish before your eyes, and expect assorted shades of torture to hit you back. Doing banking transactions might as well be classified permissible masochism in contemporary civilization.

OK, now, that's a sour note for a comeback entry but I just can't help it. Banks never cease to get my goat. Here's why:

Being up till five in the morning beating deadlines three days in a row didn't put me in a sterling mood. I was practically walking around with nerves made of bundled dynamites waiting for a trigger to detonate. And the charming bank people are just a bunch of beaming lighters too eager to ignite my fuse.

Bleary eyed and surly from the back-breaking deadline-meeting spree I rushed straight to "You're In Good Hands Of Satan Bank" (from hereon referred to as YIGHOSB.) I was ready to collapse from the exhaustion but I need to pay some bills and cash a cheque. After a lengthy wait my transaction number dinged at the electronic wall counter and I was ready to burst into tears from sheer joy.

My exhilaration's short-lived. As we all know, it is engraved somewhere in the gold bouillon of banking code that it is the prime duty of bank staffers to wipe the smiles off the faces of clients. Failure to do this requires mandatory disciplinary action of being imprisoned in time-delay deposit boxes with Celine Dion Greatest Hits looping till you peel the paint off the wall with your molars.

Anyway, I shoved my cheque for encashment and the charming teller shot it a quick glance, continued punching God knows what in her fucking keyboard and without looking up mumbled:

“Go to counter 4 for the bank manager's approval.”

You know that shower scene in Psycho? My thoughts exactly.

I waited for my blasted turn and the amount of time I spent was enough for me to scale the Great Wall of China! Only to be told I have to slide into another queue. I can hear my teeth clenching under my breath.

Eaaaaaaasy, Hannibal. I know you're upset, but please do not snack on the cheerful teller.

After almost two hours where my lower extremities evolved into another life-form I was face to face with the bank manager.

“I have encashed so many cheques from the same clients before how come this one requires your approval?” I said in a struggling-to-be-calm manner.

Charming manager replied “Let me check.” then casually stood up, walked away and approached a steel cabinet in another corner, rummaged through files, pulled out a client sheet and stared at it intently like any given moment words like Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin will suddenly appear. That, or the Secrets of Life itself. Or the winning Lotto Combination. My paranoid suspicion had another slant: she's doing it to know how long can she hold me hostage before I meltdown or disintegrate into a quivering protoplasm.

I was sitting there, huffing and puffing, battling to contain the leakage of my homicidal tendency.

After another lifetime, she returned to her desk, and with the proficient skill of professionally avoiding eye contact grabbed the desk phone. Then she kept on dialing and dialing digits like she's too determined on sending Morse codes to Jupiter.

“Is there a problem?” I asked, my voice slowly belying impatience and annoyance.

Again she mumbled about trying to contact the client.

“I'm not cashing in the entire Bill Gates Foundation Trust Fund!” I quipped to dispel my aggravation.

The humor is lost on her.

Finally I snapped.

“Look,” I said slowly, emphasizing the syllables, “There is a very good chance that they are not in the office yet. Ever thought of dialing their cellphones?”

Her face lit up like the belfry on the Vatican on Easter Sunday. Then she scanned through the client sheet and dialed the cellphone number in it. My nerves assumed the condition of grated Mozarella.

She then talked to the client's finance person and after the alien babble scribbled Martian scripts on the cheque at hand and declared the most wanted instruction of the day:

“Please fall in line in counter 6 for encashment.”

It's fortunate for both of us that I don't own or carry an Uzi.

The day is determined to escalate my aggravation quotient, obviously. After encashing the cheque, I had to rush to a nearby branch of "We Find Ways To Screw You Up Hahaha Bank" (WFWTSYUHB) to deposit the cash into my current and saving accounts.

This is where I am fully convinced that the Banking Industry is Satan's tool for even the most pious of people to effortlessly violate The Lord's Sixth Commandment.

(continued...)

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