To my Brother Syd

How I wish I can say you're here now, brother Syd, because everything has just began. The psychedelic colors that you've wished and experimented before, though for me its the marvelous architectural formation of the novel, is just starting to get form.

The niggers in my dick and monkeys are all off my back now -- an almost three years of subtle planning and scheming with a help of a friend. I took the risks, didn't I? I tried to force the condition (again) through articifial means, but unlike you, I have learned how to swim and avoid getting drowned, which you, fortunately did.

My brother Syd, we are dreamers -- dream chasers -- and on how far my journey will take me to fulfill my own, may the soul of the universe Sila stand by my side and guide me with her words: Sila ersinarsinivdluge.

A Trace of A Planned Stealth Writing

The place is already a ghost town, and now finally the story will be told. Don't know it I can or how long I can give it a try to get a crack at it. Drat! Can't write without the "it."

Nevertheless, this song is apt to get the muse going while I acclimatize myself to the lower ground.

Lose Youself by Eminem

On Basketball and the Local Scene

It has been said and repeated often: there is no sports in the Philippines that is closest to the hearts of the Filipino than basketball. We may lack in physical speed and height to be competitive internationally in the game, but we compensate this with an avidity as shown by the proliferation of makeshift basketball courts in almost every streets and fields all over the country – a sign of how fanatics we are really about the game.

We have our own professional basketball league: the PBA, which spawned cagers like Jaworski, Samboy Lim, Dondon Ampalayo, Alvin Patrimonio and lately Fil-Ams players like Eric Menk, Asi Taulava, Mark Caguiao and Danny Sigle. It is only sad to confess that for years now I stopped following the league.

During my childhood, I would sit beside my uncles, who drank beer, while glued on the TV set entertained by the exciting plays brought by the local cagers and imports (Billy Ray Bates coming in my rusting memory.) Now, my excitement of the old days for the PBA has waned ever since NBA penetrated my basketball geography. Blame it on Michael Jordan who paved the way for the NBA to turn into a global sports entertainment with his graceful aerial repertoire of dunks and jump shots. Blame it too on those people behind the telecast of NBA games, especially the Finals, to the local tube. Lately, the games in the whole season are already available via cable.

Though I one factor my appetite for patronizing the local league waned was the observable slowness in how our cagers move and execute plays in the court. When you just have watched an NBA game, especially the Finals, then switched later to watch the local league, you can spot right on this matter and the difference in the quality of the game.

Another thing that started to turn me off from the local basketball league is the numerous championship tournaments played in a year (there is three tournaments I think in a year.) When this is the case it becomes tiring to see repeatedly a handful of teams vying for championship that is happening every three months. It diminishes the gravity and importance of the title to think that anyway a team can take a shot again at it come next tournament.

Yet, there is an unflinching hope in my heart that someday, somehow, we can produce local cagers that can slug/shoot it out with the foreign ones, and eventually make the list of the NBA roster.

A short glimpse lately, on how our local cagers move the ball on the court, I observed improvement, especially in the terms of speed. Right now, there is no 6’6” who can move and leap like a regular NBA forward, still there is no telling that there will be no Filipino cagers that be of this mold.

On Writing

How I wish I can easily weave stories. There are those writers who tell how surprised they are when rereading their works that probably some alien entity had got in the process of the writing that they can't believe that they were able to write some parts of it. Me, how I wish that these entities really exist. Even a doubleganger would do. It would sit before my writing table and scribble good, publishable stories while I sleep in my bed dreaming of penetrating the literary scene, even just the local.

I used to practice writing, on the goal of someday (when?) I can say I'm ready to write those stories running in my head, by keeping a journal. Unfortunately, the journal, which spanned more than a decade and sadly lost and deleted in my old PC by a hacker, can be summed up as mere whinings about my inability to write.

Now that I avoid staring at a blank paper, still sleepy and in need of a nicotine fix early in the morning, fearful of being bashed again by the reality of failing to write anything, I recall a college classmate who said something about writing stories that it sounded so easy anybody who is literate can do it.

"'Tol, magkukwento ka lang."

How I wish it is that easy.

On Stealth Writing and Some Concerns

A relative long silence broke in this blog, interspersed with sporadic short posting that meant nothing but gibberish talk pointing at nothing.

I mentioned about the process of stealth writing: the process of hiding and keeping to oneself what he is writing at the moment. This is far from the so-called “guerrilla writing” where the writer does his work anytime he sees an opportunity. Well, stealth writing poses as a silent bomber, a kind of a puzzle or anticipation-maker for the reader what the writer is working on.

Don’t show a rough draft of your piece to anyone. Never. This is a lesson Gabo learned when he was establishing himself as a story teller, unencumbered with the expectation of his growing followers. The act has nothing to do with the readers. The beneficiary of this contained humbleness and secrecy is the writer himself.

Letting the readers, even one, get a glimpse of what the writer is pursuing somehow, and probably for sure most of the time as experienced, get the inspiration to write blow like a bubble. When somebody a rough draft, prior on finishing the piece, especially if the writer is wrestling with himself the jumbled storyline thrown at him, the story get stuck up, or worst never reach the culmination of being finished.

I would say the catharsis, the inner driving force of the writer, is vented too early. Some steam has escaped and the momentum to go on is lost, if not forever.

Straying from this discourse, though not totally out of line, I tried to keep my mouth shut from telegraphing the projects that I had been trying to finish last April. But sad to say, out of the three major projects that I had set, only one was able to beat the deadline of submission. (I mentioned in the previous post that it was mainly because of lack of internet access/PC brought by financial difficulties.)

Nevertheless, rummaging without reason inside my room this afternoon, I found old stories I had written four years ago. It was a surprise for me. I never thought that I had written a number of stories then and now is ready-made material to be my new projects. Of course, a wall-to-wall rewrite is needed to polish it and apply whatever lesson have I learned so far since writing them.

Furthermore, there are several new stories, essays crowding and vying for my attention like bees buzzing in my ears and mostly the thoughts try to stir me during the wee hours of the morning when household rules forbid me to turn on the lights.

Anyway, I’m still in the process of holding myself from writing essays and journals and the likes. Whenever I feel the urge to write those kinds of stuff, I bury myself in my bed and try to sleep off the inspiration. The time for practicing is over. I have to control myself now on taking head on the task which in the first place is the reason why I’m writing.

Some Developments

The deadline for submission of entries in this year Palanca Awards is over several days ago. Now, of course, everybody in the literary community knows it already so the first statement of this post is sort redundant and of no use.

Anyway, I just mentioned it since for weeks, or months? this is only one of the times when I got to sit before a PC, with an internet access, and post something in this blog of mine.

My target for this year's Palanca is two short stories of different genre, but unfortunately (because of financial and internet access) I had no choice but to miss finishing those pieces.

Though I still have an ace in my sleeve in terms of writing contest. I've submitted an essay to a contest sponsored by Newsbreak and World Bank. Hopefully before this month ends, finalists will be given a note if they have made it to this first time held essay contest.

The Laughing Buddha

During the simmering heat of Holy Week, giving in to my excesses and indulging in small-time gambling like a Jew waiting for Christ to take his last breath on the cross, the idea of receiving Blessing and Grace in the duration of the Holiday was far from my mind. Anyway, when was the time that I expected such blessing to bestowed on me? Memory fails to recall an instance.

On the cable, I caught a psychic talked about the benevolence, blissful Lenten Season it would become. He explained about the occurrence of a fullmoon on Holy Thursday for the reason; witching hour that will bestow Grace and Blessing not just for those gifted in paranormal talents but also for the rest of the humanity.

If I would follow the pronouncement of that psychic, there was indeed some lessons/wisdom learned/given to me.

Nighttime, during Easter, the mind cluttered with small concerns and boredom, my channel-surfing landed me watching with curious fascination an Indian woman talking calmly about life. (As of this writing, memory fail to recall what she had beautifully said. But the next guess, an old causasian woman, an American and also a writer, who obviously belonged to the same spiritual organization of the previous guess, gave the stirring piece of wisdom that unexpectedly, came to feed my soul and spirit.

The sentences that came out from her lips were spoken as a matter of fact wisdom. The lesson learned cannot be attained without a journey. Nevertheless, the journey, no doubt, can only make you tough.

And the telltale signs of reaching the wisdom she was saying is when... A question: Have you heard about the Laughing Buddha?

if any one of you are a bit curious as of why the silence in this blog for sometimes... it's because i'm practising a kind of writing. if there's such a thing as guerilla writing... then mine is a stealth writing... (details of what i have been busy with during this long silence will be told in the future post, if i still feel like writing about them.)

flying over clouds....

Remembering Now: The Story

The last deal which made his mind writhed in silent agony over how to make the best of three number pairs had had an overwhelming unbearable weight on his shoulders – considering his bet was what remained of his hundred pesos – that when he got home and upon entering the front door the first urge for him to do was slump on the sofa. Laying his body on it, his back felt strained and fatigued, and wearily stared his eyes at the ceiling.

He had lost before. More in fact. More than a hundred pesos. Though surprisingly, this time had a similar bitter pang of losing several thousands. Or, perhaps, even more.

“There’s still a next time,” he tried to console himself.

He felt the stereo’s remote dig behind his ribs. He groped for it and turned the stereo. All the time exhaling with bass moan, unloading the pressure within him and trying to slow down the adrenalin left in his veins.

“Turn the sounds low, Ignacio,” a female voice commanded from inside a room and added, “You took so long. Just put the milk on the table.”

He turned the volume low. Just enough for the music from the radio station wafted smoothly through the air.

A love song seeped through the speakers. The song made popular years ago by a female artist whom Ignacio could not recall the name. He could not also recall whether he was in his puberty or late in his teens when the song first hit the airwaves. The song was a sad one, but he was clueless why it was so since he was not particular on listening to the lyrics. He just knew the song was a sad one based on the melody.

The volume and the song fit perfectly well. There lingered a grace of ethereal fluid of nostalgia in the air. The soft wisp of cool, music-laden air brought tingling in his skin. He began the pressure within him disappeared. His limbs relaxed. As if he was hypnotized. Though, there stayed deep weariness in him. His eyes squinted sleepily.

He looked at his arm, hand, then the fingers. He softly scanned his prostrate body on the sofa, down further at the couch next to it. Then he moved his eyes toward the barren crass white-painted wall of the house.

He felt an odd nostalgia. It was as if he had been here, in this position, in this same time and place feeling the same experience. It was as if he had already gone to an unspecific time in the future where he was at peace. He was there now as he was now here, on this sofa he was laying on. He was looking back enigmatically at this present time. Like thrown back through time, he was experiencing and feeling a past, a memory: the mood, the atmosphere, the soft touch of air. His present experience seen not from the state of Now but of the future.

Then the feeling snapped like a cut rope. It was gone.

The music stopped.

“Where is the milk?” asked the woman clutching a baby.
“Uh?”
“Where’s the damned milk?”
“Oh, I forgot. I’ll go buy it now, hon,” he said.

Ignacio pulled himself up, dazed, and strode for the door. Once outside, he brushed his hair using his hand, wondering what it was he had remembered a while ago.

Drat! I've Just Been Published by Read Magazine

This news is just fresh from reading my e-mails. My "article" Sentimental Yakking has just been published by Read Magazine. As a gift, besides being featured by this magazine I admire because it is published by Powerbooks (my pseudo-private own library where I read for free countless of books, especially of Jack Kerouac and Italo Calvino), I will receive the book Front Row by Anna Wintour and a complimentary copy of the issue.

Wow!! It's just like winning an award. And that persistent urging in my head to continue writing because you have what it takes to write is never been louder than before.

Yipeeeee!!!

YuriGligoric will run immediately to the nearest Powerbook branch and gonna ogle seeing my "article" hugging a space of the Read magazine.

Eulogy for Saint Caloy

The last time I heard about the indefatigable freelance photographer Carlos Sanchez was several years ago. He was featured on prime-time news and an anchorman slash reporter held a microphone before him, getting a statement from him. Caloy sat on a hospital bed, thinner as a skeleton that he was and strands of his unkempt long hair stuck on his gaunt countenance. He spoke at the microphone in low gnarl voice, making a plea for financial help from his colleagues in the media. He was battling tuberculosis, which by then seemed at its advance stage.

But this was not the worse that Caloy had to deal with. It was being forced physically from doing what he loved best: capturing through the lens of his camera the political and crime drama unfolding everyday in the metropolis. Inspite of being confined on his hospital bed, he passionately expressed his impatience to get back to work, to bolt out, to rush to where another scoop is happening in the city, click the shutter of his reliable camera and produce, once again, the next day’s front-page photo.

That was the last time that I heard of him, until a couple of days ago when somebody informed me that he would and could never again use his camera. His camera had retired, finally. Because Caloy Sanchez had passed away already several years ago (he probably succumbed to TB).

I got a close-up look at the man when I did my practicum at WPD. Quickly, an impression formed in my young mind, something that I could not name then but only now. Though my arrogant practicum handler seemed to see differently since he would diss in passing Caloy, as if here a pesky beggar, a useless dreg in the press corps loitering in the corridors of the WPD. Well, Caloy indeed looked like a beggar with his disheveled hair, unshaved face, and with an outfit of soiled, worn-out clothes.

He would usually sit quietly on the floor, unmindful of everybody, just starring with his saintly stare at nothingness. His style of sitting showed his idiosyncrasy and rarity as a media man; he sat on the floor as if he were about to shit – this is the squat that became his trademark.

Though, whenever I would look at him, I knew that his dedication and passion toward his work, his vocation, was of a saintly embodiment of personal integrity, which I can compare and comparable with that of Haydee Yorac.

This saintly infectious persona he exuded – I spotted it right away and could not help myself grin with the view – when it would manifest on how the guys in my group would sit Caloy-style on the corridors of WPD, stare at nothingness, unmindful of those god-damned ordinary, no-good cops passing by, as if silently saying in cool, haughtiness: Damn, we’re gonna grow up like Saint Caloy.

Caloy had a collage of photos showing him, camera dangling around his neck, in black blazers, side by side with top political honchos whom he had chanced to cover and meet. These were displayed right next at the door of the office of the press corps. Caloy, like a boy who had met the big boys populating the highest strata of political stratosphere, was proud in his achievement of meeting and recording in photos the political hotshots he met.

But I think, it should be the other way around. These top politicos should be the one who should feel proud of having their photos taken and meeting the saintly hoodlum-looking Caloy.

The impression of saint Caloy which I could only name now: another damned crazy diamond who knew how to swim.

Wherever you are now, Saint Caloy, saludo ko sa yo, ‘tol! A well done job; and finally, your camera can have its much needed rest.

Rest in Peace, Saint Caloy.

Found It

After a long time of not-searching yet searching, I already found I have been preparing for since I started writing. Probably it will take me two years just to make a draft of the project. But it is already definite. It hit like a thunderbolt, and hit me really hard.

Some Fine Lessons

Lesson No. 1 -- A college degree, even if he/she earned a masteral, does not equate a person into an educated one. Formal education only teaches a specific field, nothing more. And sometimes, one's understanding of the world that can be compared with the wisdom of a mystic/sage, to this person is almost nil.

Lesson No. 2 -- Being put in the position of a leader does not guarantee a leadership quality whose main goal is to understand and bring out the best in every member of his group. A shallow understanding of leadership is forming a clique in the group (when this is the goal of the leader he/she obviously is afraid to stand alone on the top, fearful of relative height, of being misunderstood. The tool he/she uses to get the job or the goal right is through PR and camaraderie, which unfortunately has the downside of hesitating to get his/her members hurt or bruised. But, unknown to him/her, the function of letting the members of the group get bruised and beaten, is making them tough in pursuit of excellence.

Lesson No. 3 -- People always treat everything personally. And when you treat everything personally, you learn to hold grudge, blur the capacity for objective judgment.

Lesson No. 4 -- Those who avoid threshing out misunderstanding through talks, open communication are usually those who are afraid to expand their understanding.

Vignettes

What else could we do then? Laugh our stupid laugh at our own stupidity. Mike had you by playing with your paranoia. “There’s cops outside!” Lights and the tube quickly turned off to shut down the universe. You felt for the cold floor, scrawling like a marine, ordering panickly Mike to do the same who then at that time was grinning, trying not to squiek a guffaw as you peer endlessly and moved furtively in the dark, through the stairs onto the second landing. The rest of the group had a good laugh when we heard the story, story that we really didn’t understand then. We didn’t know better. We were playing with your battered soul.

*
We had just inhaled the rolling white universe, when you stood up, firm or was there that perennial smirk in your lips. Trouble, we knew. Let it go. “Just let it pass,” Eric tried to calm you down. But, as I said, you were firm. You walked out of the gate into the darkness. Eric, Mike and I stared at each other. You madman. Mad that you probably would have wanted to die. “Stop him!” someone from us yelled. What did you do then? As you approached the dark small wooden bridge into the squatter area, seeing Balbon, you tapped him from behind. The moment he turned his face, your fist greeted him. He staggered for balance, as you, smirking that madman smirk, turned around for the kick, your foot landed on his guts. He thrown against the empty water containers in the corner, and the women started yelling, calling the tanods. There is no such thing as the wrath of man with talisman running in his blood, you thought. But you failed to think that Balbon had an evil twin, lurking in the darkness, and quickly the shadow bearhugged you. Drat! You could not move, as Balbon gained his footing, and shadow dancing in the dark, aiming for straights and hooks and uppercuts. Trying to parry and wiggle yourself free, the three of you had the curacha dance. Swirling, gravity pulled the shadow and you on the ground, and you saw (yes, you said you smirk this time) the creek a foot from you and you planned to maneuvered by a quick veer to the right, when Kapowwww!!! A kick broke your ribs and sending you, rolling in a quick plummet down the mud of the creek. Caked by shit and putrid soil, you saw above, a toilet bowl hanging in the air against the sky, then a woman’s voice crying loud: Wag! Maawa kayo! The pang of Death suddenly opened its maw on you and you said you knew that you would not die, that the bowl would not be thrown at you, or if ever, what was your arm doing, solid, firm and hard as a steel you bragged, drat! that smirk again.

Intro: I Wish You were Here, You Crazy Diamond

It was more than a decade ago, penniless and tipsy under the shadow of a close store, facing the barrenness of the grassy field under the starlit sky, when you said that you can smell mysticism blowing in the winds, that good God! you can smell its rose-smell tingling the spine on your back; us, not knowing if you’re up again in your smart-ass intelligent talk, or probably the bottles of Red Horse, splayed on the gutter and on the street, had too much an effect on you that you’re imagination and the poet in you was talking, trying to create and impress ripples in our inebriated minds. You said, like a hint of what your soul would then take on as its journey, that you can tell heaven and hell. “You’re just drunk,” Mike said. But, you didn’t take it seriously. “We’re going to be a great band,” you prophesied, “we’re going to conquer the world; Pinoy-style music from the pits of my soul.” So, we let you go on with your dribble-talk, not taking any fancy thoughts about it since we knew anyway that you knew what you are yakking about, the leader of our band, our composer of metaphysical songs, our sleek lead guitarist, the older among us, the one who had read more books than us.

We stood nearer to the sun, its obliterating electric sunshine melting our faces. “Tingnan mo kung okay yung tunog,” you asked Eric. “Okay, okay.” Stoned and calm as a deep ocean wave, we faced the maw of hell as it broke loose and pushed on the surface the carcass of junkies megadeath. There was no blacker or as black as that that stood in front of us. Then, you said you saw white gold started flying in the air, its velocity and altitude the perfect parabola of what you had been imagining and seeing in your dreams, the perfect rainbow color, for they all landed on the stage soundless as they hit the wooden floor, violet-hue flowers. “Putang-ina nyo!” You turned around and walked away cool and grinning, still strumming your Fender.

“Pa-byahe ka pa,” you ordered, “katorse na lang.” You were an insatiable beast. “Tang-ina, pahinga naman tayo,” Mike would say. Days were turning more and more into gray color. Drat! I could not even see the blue beyond the clouds, or really couldn’t I since we were probably holed for days in your house, eating nothing, playing our new songs, your new songs, your new eulogies to the universe as you put them. Ivy wanted to go home already. But you did not want her to.

Time for Real Writing

As another issue of The Edge magazine is in the works now -- the job becoming more and more easier as we get accustomed to deadlines and preparations for the line-up of articles -- I cannot help but feel relieved. As those who have followed the struggle we had to hurdle when coming up with the premiere issue, this time it is almost like a walk in the breeze (though there are still one article, the main cover story, that I still have to cover much less make a final appointment as politicians and their press people are prone to be treated as if you cannot catch them to talk to them, always delaying their approval for the coverage.)

Though, there is a relative success in my professional work as writer slash editor slash art director, I'm being bugged by my inability to write short stories or any story for that matter that can metamorphosized later on into a book form or the like, like being included in an anthology.

Bereft of time to think, to look at the sky, or even at the ceiling, and even to read fiction books to recall the cadence and form of how to write fiction, my artistic juice would not flow like it used to. Just a simple gibberish sound in my head is totally absent.

Yet, probably, sometimes, somehow, I will find time to write something. Or rewrite, wall-to-wall, old stories I wrote a long time ago. It is just time. It is just time that I need. Probably silence to hear again the pulse and flow of my artistic juice.

Drat! There will be time for this artistic goal I'm sure. I just have to be patience in waiting for it. And once I find it, I will grab it by the horn and shit do everything I can do in that limited time.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Remember when you were young,
You shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes,
Like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.

You were caught on the crossfire
Of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!

You reached for the secret too soon,
You cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night,
And exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome
With random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

Like your buddies/friends who have seen you shine you crazy diamond, my admiration and somehow close affiliation with you in the mystical blowing of fate; as Jim Morrisson classic song Break on to the Otherside you have successful done it. Hey you, Syd! Enjoy, suffer, fear and learn from it. May your soul learn the psychedelic reality.

Happy Holidays!

It's the middle of the Yuletide week, Christmas has come and passed already and New Year is just several days away. These holidays, being free from my work, has given me free time (though with less money since my last pay for this year had been delayed until the 2nd of the coming year) which means a lot of time to do whatever I want to do -- but again, reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac and History and Culture by the late St. Nick is something I have to exert an effort to do so (like literally tying myself to the post of the house so I can stay inside and just sit and read those two books).

Literally, it has been a fast-paced holiday slash vacation for me. I barely could hold of the events and happenings unfolding as each day passes by. Yes, a lot of boozing. It was only on the eve of Christmas that I can recall that I really had a rest -- I slept early that night only to wake up the following day, Christmas, with coffee and cigarette morning ritual that lasted until I had my second stick before a neighbor set up a beach umbrella and several chairs in front of his store and, grinning, challenged me already for a morning Christmas boozing.

The 26th was the birthday of my father, and, as expected, another bout with boozing.

Yet, it is already the 27th and the exhilarating atmosphere of Christmas still lingers in the air much stronger.

Happy Holidays to all! Hehe

Possibility of Being Published

Several days ago I received an email from the editor of the Read magazine. The editor was requesting if I could provide them a two to three-sentence write-up about myself. She said there is a possibility that my piece (Sentimental Yakking, a post on this blog which I polished and submitted to them a month ago) could be used by Read magazine for its Reader's Write section. I could not hide my glee and premature celebration that they, most likely, will published my essay/personal-emotional-outpouring. I even asked the favor if they could, if ever they used my piece, compensate me by giving me Ignacio Padilla's Shadow Without a Name or Italo Calvino's Difficult Loves. Though a second email was sent to me to inform me that the book that will be given to me, in case they use my piece, depends on the promised book prize mentioned in the previous issue of the Read magazine. Nevertheless, that is a non-issue. Being published by them, for that alone, is enough compensation that they could give me. Wow! I said to myself. The magazine of my favorite bookstore, Powerbooks, where I have done a lot of free reading, got a work of mine and implied their interest on publishing it. Now, that is a good news, no doubt about it.