when an anti-establishment hippie is established...

I'm coming

Now I present this huge and highly laughable  possibility:

that I am going insane, that I have tripped over the tidy lines of reason

that I am tumbling head knee feet ass eye first into blankness and I am open-armed, laughing, guffawing to myself becausedeepinsideIamthrilled to see the pain rush upwards and towards me

the poles and spikes and shards and steel and rocky, pointy objects I grew myself and within and ALL THAT STONE I put out there

 so I am never humiliated and mangled by others not I

because only I can hurt myself only I can only I

Posted by: Hoon at 18:11 | link | comments

YES, MASTER

So here we have it, energies and molecular sinews in focus, taut, seconds before release.

I want to get a masteral degree in Media Arts. There are a few kinks yes, one being dismal state of economic affairs and second having no portfolio work of any kind to build upon…..but. The iron gates of goal settings have creaked and cracked open and I am in. I am thus concentrating all visionary efforts into creating this scenario, or variations of:

 

Inside room with desks and chairs and professor, etc; generally known as classroom:

Me pushing indie bangs away from brows furrowed over presented work problem.

Construct an audience-specific environmental message where target audience = hipster.

On the blank lines, I poise a fat pencil and begin to write: You recycle clothes and musical preferences. Time to recycle something of real value. (Place token hipster here).

Then a classmate, a tall, bearded vegan named Joe suggests redirecting our advocacy towards animal slaughter.

I draw a piece of tofu looking cool but bored in a pair of skinny jeans. And an off-center cow looking too excited and unexcusably shoddy.

Joe suggests the tofu should be walking a dog.

I draw a baby-carrier and a year-old androgynous kid strapped on to the tofu.

“I said dog, not a baby” Joe says.

“Aren’t they the same?”

 

Like I said, or variations thereof.

 

The more important thing right now is to make stuff. Funny how I’ve spent three years “teaching” “Video” and “Creativity” and “Production” and never really got around to doing anything myself----except that millipede film in which I spent an entire Sunday following a horrified millipede around the house with a creaky camera. There was also that one time I made an instructional “How-To” video for my hapless Elective students, relying heavily, nay, entirely on Windows Moviemaker, which, aside from my ingenuity and deviousness (deviously drawing upon my sister’s Halloween shoot for footage, and Jose Gonzales for extra emotive pull) was my only tool. Needless to say, not a lot of award-winning material in stock.

 

But therein lies the beauty. Here I am being perfectly presumptuous, but this is my space and I have every legal right to: Because film-schooled applicants to desired Media course have churned out (and have been churning out) films and videos and portfolios by the buckets, I thus apply the Law of Repeated Action Resulting in Boredom. They have been shooting and framing sequences for years, and are therefore, sheathed by theory and principles and Laws of Thirds and Fourths and other Holy Film Mandates. They are, they could be, there’s some probability that, they might be bored. I, on the other hand, emerge from a completely unsullied, unbesotted…(okay,okay) unschooled (at least not formally)  point of origin. So, I am screaming, I am jumping, I am doing 300 km/ph at the chance to finally create something, something, something real. I may or not shoot a man sleeping for 8 hours and call it “Sleep.” I may or may not film punk-looking characters dragging on cigarettes, engaged in shallow conversations that in fact have deep philosophical undertones. I may or may not shoot 100 people shouting from 100 different angles. I may not even come up with anything original. But I will do it with commitment and heart, and more importantly, I will do it because it is time. (I am fully aware that by speaking such words I have revealed myself to be overeager, shabby cow and not bored, tight-jeaned tofu. I am only slightly regretful).

Posted by: Hoon at 03:18 | link | comments

Blue Berry

One thing I love about the city----overhearing snippets of talk between strangers, and then just being looped in. Was munching on a blueberry muffin and slurping at a sadly watered-down cup of coffee from a rolling Jolly Jeep-style food stand outside Barnes this morning, when a dreadlocked man comes wandering along and stops to stares blankly at the menu. An old man yells cheerily at him, “Make up your mind yet, Mr. Murray?” as he himself ambles nearer the stand. Mr. Murray is confused. He doesn't think he knows the man, but evidently the man knew his name---he looks seriously perplexed for 2 seconds until suddenly both men are doubling over, chuckling at the nametag Mr. Murray had forgotten was stamped on his chest, and more ribbing and chuckling ensues. I am a happy witness until both men start looking over at me for approval and I am soon hearing how Mr. Murray had lost 40 pounds in 6 months and how he could see his feet for the first
time in ages. It’s all about the attitude, he says, sipping on his Lemon Zing tea and opening up his own blueberry muffin. We exchanged emails, and he got a refund for his muffin cause the food stand guy burned it.


Ironic how just that morning, Sandra was sitting on the steps, looking particularly sad, as she told me how she doesn’t understand why people in New York are so indifferent. “In Peru, is so different. When you meet a man, it’s ‘Ola!’ here people not say anything. Is very different. I love New York, but not to live,” She tells me in her beautiful Spanish accent. And she asks me if in the Philippines the little kids kiss the mothers. I say yes, we do, and abruptly I feel fall and the cold coming in and I miss my parents.


Sandra is here for 15 days, to watch the U2 concert at the Giants stadium. She goes to the gym in the city every morning, and the first time she had to use the subway, I went with her and drew her a map. “F Train I go in, I wait, then 42, out,” she repeated over and over, more to herself, as we walked down 7th avenue. I don’t remember when and where I went when I took my first subway ride by myself, but I understood exactly how she felt, standing there, small and anonymous, at the platform.


When Mr. Murray leaves, I go inside Barnes and plant myself on a bench, armed with Plath’s The Bell Jar. I immediately love it, not only because it’s set in New York, not only because the character is wary of New York, and not only because she goes crazy in the end. I imagine Ms. Plath’s low, haunting voice writing the book, and I am in love.


I tell myself it is time to write again.

Posted by: Hoon at 01:46 | link | comments

in ernest


he took her with her mouth full
and retreated blistering
in the bold cold room
folding her instincts
she took off after him
and wet her mouth against his chest

he of taste
of smell
of flesh
of creviced noir
unpatterned
feral patterns
sick and swollen
bitten, bitten he is sweeter
then

Posted by: Hoon at 18:39 | link | comments

for everyone's monsters

When it comes, creeping and silent but so wretchedly she wonders why it never makes a sound---like the screeching of gulls or cawing of crows, for instance---so wretched she lays still half an hour longer in the mornings, afternoons and just before bedtime, listening, for the batting of wings, the scratching of claws—but nothing.

This thing---it comes for her. Formless. Black. Misshapen. Lump of badness squatting in her belly, kicking, tearing, gagging her with greasy fat fingers she couldn’t see, choking her valves, screwing and unscrewing, slapping her, taunting, balancing on one stout leg then falling, tumbling, scraping hard against her insides. A riot. A scourging. An oily mess.

Some days it drags her to the kitchen and makes her watch the stove, makes her stare at the bacon (thick) popping in its own flesh. Pulls her face towards the meat, the fat catching oil, the oil catching bits of her---hot. Could fry her own skin if she wanted to.

"Be like bacon."

Sometimes it comes, as she is turning the pages of a book she does not want to read. It pulls her hair, pulls her down so the words are blurred, and the eye is scraped against the pages, for she must keep them open wide, wide, like her mouth.

Some days it buries her like a thick, falling blanket.

Or whispers ugly things, things that make the world ugly.

Or laughs at her, noiseless, raspy laughs that do not end.

Some days it just stares.

These are the worst days.

When it sits, unmoving, unheaving, looking and sitting and squatting. Scratching. When it sits, staring. Nothing. Not a sound.

The way it creeps towards her, never making a sound.

It comes every month.

This thing--it stares the hardest when it’s cold.

 

Posted by: Hoon at 20:01 | link | comments

An Installment

 

 

I.

Today, in the dome, They looked past her, walked past her, elbowed her out of their way. They asked, “Are you an Artist?” and she fumbled, stammered and did meaningless gestures with her hands, and They moved on to the next. In the last couple of hours of this Artist’s opening exhibit, Nobody even asked for her name.

 

II.

She thought:

“This is what we all want. We want a reality that’s our own. We want the freedom to think on our own terms without the unending babble of human opinion.” She wishes people never learned to express themselves so eloquently in a language. She wishes she could grunt and emit shrieks, and tear her hair out while people screamed and lobbed pieces of earth at each other to communicate.

 

While lavishly motioning to one framed, cast, hanging, pinned, roped-off piece, They say:

 

“This is a reaction to the super id which flows from every individual and connected, like, in subconscious spurts of ‘me!’ into the circuitry of human connection.”

 

“This one talks about, or rather, in its silence, doesn’t talk about, but conveys a childlike sense of rhythm, similar to fearless doodling and scrawling on kitchen walls.”

 

That one is..yeah. That one’s me right there, exploding in a tub of colors, and a simutaneous ‘fuck you’ to those who don’t get it.

“This is a melancholic take on pain and pointlessness.”

 

“This is my version of 2040.”

 

“This looks at the world through disdain, at the enormity of human recklessness and waste, the pinnacle of human letdown, a tearful sorry to a future, the unborn chidren and mammals we’ve disappointed.”

 

 

 

 

 

III.

She thought:

Take the art route and stand in line, take a number, and wait---

 

There’s a guy smashing wine goblets on the floor and reciting the Illiad backwards while rolling around in the shards.

 

There’s a woman placing dots on the walls, no, do not startle her: it’s a portrait of abomination and futility.

 

(He’s sort of haughty, I’m just doing my shit, nothing like him. I do ART man, I create worlds of my own, I don’t really care, this is me, and I’m gonna do this till I’m old).

 

Wait---there’s a woman cutting her hair and fashioning it into a sculpture of her mother.

 

“This represents my growth as my mother’s daughter, of intimacy, and being cut off at the root, to declare my newborn personhood, a regrowth, based on but away from the shadow of expectations.”

 

Wait---there’s a boy and a girl twisting their bodies around and around and they do it for the blood, blood eventually comes out, they collect the blood and they use it to paint their bodies untl its washed away by more blood.

 

You’ll get your turn. And you’ll get your space, your reality, the moment you’ve been waiting for, all this time (although I know you don’t care, really..you’re just, you know…you’re just doing what you do). 

Yes, yes, of course everyone will be in awe, of course, everyone will remember. Yes, of course everyone will remember you forever.

 

 

IV.

            a.

The next time I paint I’ll think of nothing more complex than an apple. Apples have loads of meaning, it’s easy to dismiss this fruit as innocuous, but listen, it’s the root of all evil. You know this, right? You’ve seen that cartoon, and you’ve read that story, right? What are you saying, it’s money? Ho, everyone loves money. Money is beautiful. But the apple caused the world’s decay man. The rotting apple did it. Yeah, man. This world will rot like that apple.

 

 

            b.

It took her a lot longer to realize she’s just on the payroll, like everyone else. Everyone else except Them, that is. Them who run out to the woods, Them who flee the society that repulses them and this established order that imposes. Those who flee recapture life as ordained by the real god, the legit; not that thing created by shells and parrots. Those who left were the real men, the McCandless and Thoreaus. A few. A greater number stayed and decided, “I’m an artist. I’ll draw my own reality and tramp it out in MY own fucking forest. I’ll eat off the crumbs of my work. I’m just a dude who paints, so I’ll wear what I want and drip bloodstains on my canvas.”

 

c.

She wishes she did that earlier. Blew off her degree and bought paper and paints and self-confidence, whatever came with it. So that by now she’d have trained herself enough to say, “Well, yes I do some art,” sort of humbly, whenever somebody asked:

<Are>

<you>

<an>

<artist?>

or she could say, very grandly, “Aren’t we all?” and grin like she believed we all really are, like she believed Ed the accountant is an artist, even if Ed could not come up with a single creative thought, even if his entire life depended on it, like if he was held at knife point by five big men who needed help with their art project, but poor Ed wouldn’t be able to,  because all his life he’s had to punch in other people’s expenses day in and out, minute after minute, until even that tiny part of him that could draw realistic-looking battleships when he was five had been squeezed out and he could no longer remember how.

So, yes, so she could grin and say that even though deep inside she knew it was shit. Ed with his ledgers and bundy clocks, and all the other sad fucks who worked in his office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

            d.

“<Are>

<you>

<an artist>”

 

A lead bullet. A machete. A giant spade that fell from the sky and hacked at her. It chewed tastefully upon her flesh like 632 hungry, little fanged rats.

 

 V.

He stood there, not talking to her---nobody has talked to her in the last 3 hours. He was talking to him, and she was listening.

“I’ve been an artist for 30 years, and I know one thing for sure: Artists are selfish…” he began.

 Perfectly enunciated, perfectly at ease those sentences rolled out of his tongue. It was effortless, he proclaimed it so easily, so uncluttered by self-conscious pauses, inaudibility or volume or spaces. He owned it, he knew it, he’s been saying it for 30 years.

 

The registry knew. They buzzed and whispered amongst their little circle. “Pretentious freak. Wow us, astound us, blow the world away first with your version, be in a magazine, cut off an ear, squint at the ordinary, be endearingly strange, strangely endearing, be raving mad, wear nothing,  wear the sheets, drink a boatload of alchol, die, be silent, be bored, do anything but that pathetic, presumptuous act of yours.”

 

He gave me a pat on the head and showed me his notebook, full of half-ideas, question marks and dark lines scrawled all over. “This is art. That one’s not. What that is is something you’re trying to siphon out of your crap.” 

 

VI.

In the exhibit, people were starting to leave.

 

“This one sort of makes me feel like there’s something ethereal, something holy about the way the shapes commit to each other, and there seems an almost intentional disregard for process in the design  …?”

 

“I love how the symmetry of this one suggests a parallelism between two opposing paradigms, if you look at it from this angle, there is a smiley face.”

 

“You should come to my opening next week.”

 

“Well you should come to mine.”

 

“Well, both of you should go to mine.”

 

VII.

She thought:

This is my version of synchronized mouths flapping, and overlapping. Self-explaining self to people who just want to get through the night.

 

VIII.

She thought:

This is my version of human torture, of dying a futile life, tormented by the profound fear of the known: that one will die having done nothing, Nothing at all.

 

IX.

She thought:

This is my version of my failure.

 

X.

And they said:

This is ours.

Posted by: Hoon at 03:08 | link | comments

 

the lost, last world.

 

On my last day in Basco I rose before the sun did, and almost bawled as this soft, orange orb swelled over the landscape, revealing all that I would, in a few hours, leave behind. I would leave behind the most beautiful splodge of earth I’d ever set foot in; I’d be leaving behind a way of life I never thought could still exist. As with all weary humans who’d experienced and understood the pulsing interconnections between the two great C’s--- Culture and Civilization---in this great place, I did not want to go.

Even more than astounding man with its enormous beauty, Batanes rouses in him the ancient, forgotten life core---a life free from modern excess, untroubled by the cold dictates of currency. Batanes, with its green fertile belly, fuming, fish-filled seas and massive cliffs at once stunned and reminded people how the world once was--- and how far from it we urban creatures have gone. 

Of course. The island is 200 km away from Manila, separated by oceans, winds, legends, typhoons, so no people are perhaps as unfazed as the Ivatans are by Capitalism, viz. Malls, money, Mickey Mouse. A hand-written sign on a small town’s wall reminds people that gasoline is sold at “P57/ liter,” and please, “exact amount only.” In Sabtang, a smaller island 45 minutes away from Ivana’s port, only a couple of stores sell cooked food---by request. After all, everyone grows and raises their own chickens and cows and crops for their own consumption.

“Others still find it embarrassing to sell their vegetables; they find it strange to have to ask for money for what grew on their fields,” Auntie Cielo told us as we dug into the escabeche she placed before us, some minutes after we knocked on her door, lured by the sign that declared it a Food Hut. Her restaurant was not open (we hadn’t informed her earlier) so she kindly set before us her family’s fish dinner.

Even in the island of Batan (where capital Basco is, hence the most citified in the Batanes archipelago), people hardly grew crops for profit, so plots for each family remained just the right size. Livestock freely roamed the fields; the abundant fields make up a communal pasture owned by all.

There are no barbed-wire fences in Batanes. There are no gates prohibiting entry in any of the beaches. There are no ‘No Trespassing’ signs. There is no need to parcel any of the island’s beauty and claim it as his and his alone. At the most, there are hedgerows: labyrinthian, shoulder-high shrubs that are more tourist attractions than property delineators. They also serve as windbreaks, habitat corridors and a means to prevent erosion. Centuries before sustainable development had become a buzzword, these people had been practicing it.

My theory is that if the rest of the Philippines were as isolated and as regularly taunted by ferocious typhoons---hurtling at 200 km/ph or more---we’d be as civilized as the Ivatans.   

 

In the rural arteries of Basco, somewhat near the foot of Mt. Iraya, whose volcanic ashes once spewed into the island of Batan and turned the entire island fertile and brilliant green, a neighbour discovered an old man squatting alone in a tiny hovel. She immediately assembled her own limited resources to build him a decent house--- nothing, not even credit, asked for in return---but the island’s perennially salty air had since then eaten through the roof. 

We went to visit the old man, and found out he was hard of hearing, and didn’t completely understand what was happening, except that for the second time in his latter life he was surrounded by strangers fixing up his home. We were in the middle of trying to introduce ourselves when we heard there was a yaru happening a few meters away.

In these parts, whenever disaster strikes and the usual havoc is wreaked, people do not sit around blaming the government. People voluntarily get together and start rebuilding---a gracious Ivatan practice known as yaru.

            This time, a group of men and two women, under the guidance of their barangay captain, were building a low wall to prevent further erosion.    

            When the Spanish missionaries came to Batanes near the end of the 1600’s and exchanged the Ivatans’ gods with theirs, they also replaced the Ivatans’ wooden and thick cogon houses with the famous lime and stone wall structures Batanes is famous for today. These houses were built, stone by stone, painstakingly carried from the sea, cooked and stacked and left to dry over extended periods of time. Needless to say, people helped each other build these mortar dwellings, as with most anything done in these islands. Until today, people spontaneously come to lend a hand whenever a task arises, from planting to repairing to building. No compensation; nothing asked for in return. Just kinship, camaraderie, and perhaps a hearty meal of native chicken stewed in vegetables with steamed uvi (white kamote, the more common food staple before rice came along) afterwards, just like one we were invited to, after the small congregation who helped the old man rebuild his roof was done.

            The Ivatans do not lust for money, hence they are uncorrupted by its effects. In Sabtang, the former mayor was wheeling around in an extremely old and rusty bicycle--- his burnt, robust face content under a full white moustache, a safari hat perched on his head. It was sent to him, he explained, by his son working in a hotel somewhere in the Carribean.

The provincial governor, we discovered---as we dropped in one night for a chat on the cosmos (care of Bob) and several cups of tea---lives in a modest, unassuming house, absurd anywhere else in the Philippines.

Public schools and hospitalization is free. Student-teacher ratio is at 1:12. The people leave their doors open, their bicycles on the sides of the road. Gidgeon, a fellow traveller who I had met on the trip, told me of how he had lost his wallet on the streets the last time he was in Basco. The people announced it over Radyo ng Bayan, the local station and within minutes, he had his wallet back, everything in tact.

In fact, one only needed to visit Honesty Café, a tiny store alongside the road in Ivana to understand the tremendous faith the Ivatans had in their fellow man.

            In this    café, there are no storekeepers. Instead, there is a cheerful sign on the wall telling people to simply take what they wanted and drop the prescribed amount inside the cash box. There is a list of prices and a logbook where you had to jot down what you took and its corresponding price. The owners worked in their fields, as with most Ivatans, and did not have the time to physically man their store. It’s a small store, but tourists love the place; loved the chance to partake in the Ivatan trust and do something noble.

Now that direct flights have opened up Batanes to the mainland, it is

disquieting to think of what full-blown tourism could do to upset this balance. The influx of big money from tourists wanting airconditioning, concrete structures, spacious balconies and roped-off hectares of sand and cliffs is frankly, terrifying.

“You have to be careful of tourists,” As Senor Lacoma, a Spanish pintor travelling with us warned Sabtang’s current mayor, in his thick, lilting accent. “They are not always good for a place.”

Robert Bastillo, himself a proud Ivatan, is doing what he can as Batanes Eco-Cultural Tourism consultant to preserve the island’s harmony.

“The trick is to get the right tourists. Those who will come to respect Batanes’ heritage, its deep cultural roots and how nature has shaped these people to become what they are,” he explains. “We are not going for quantity. We want quality tourists--- the people who will marvel not only in its astounding geographical landscape, but in the Ivatan way of life, in their cultural landscape which is perhaps even more amazing.” 

            Their best project is the concept of homestays: apart from checking in a hotel, a tourist lives in a traditional Ivatan house---the centuries-old limestone abodes built in the Spanish era---and be plunged into the genuine, beating heart of Batanes. With this, the gains of tourism trickle down to the common people, and more significantly, the Ivatans are encouraged to retain their stone houses. Despite this archipelago’s timelessness, modernism has set in many parts.  Already, more people are abandoning their 18^th century lime stones and tough cogon grass for cement and paint and galvanized iron roofs that the harsh sea would inevitably corrode in three years’ time.

            The idea is to build a tourism industry that would heighten the Ivatan culture instead of obliterating it, to promote pride in the Batanes folk for what they have, instead of inclining them towards what they don’t---and don’t need.

            Lola Fiorestida, 88, understands this well. She is the current occupant of the oldest stone house in Batanes, the House of Dakay. Her relatives are now living in concrete houses beside her, and I asked her if she would ever want to move in with them. “No,” she says, her gracefully-lined face resolute. “These walls keep me warm during cold days and cool during hot days. I wouldn’t change anything.” And she welcomes all visitors to her humble, little home, speaking to us in Filipino, English and Ivatan. In the background, Bob’s staff fussed over the place. It would be a prime tourist spot, and repairs had to be done.

             I had decided to spend a night in Sabtang, where a good portion of the houses remained impervious to the more contemporary designs of their neighbors. I sat down on a low, stone wall and watched the sun slowly set over the stone streets and hedges, the dark grays and blacks contrasting sharply among the lush green of the grass. Chickens strutted everywhere, and the children played unconsciously, wearing tiny sweaters and coats and caps to ward off the late afternoon chill. Fathers pedalled by in bicycles, their little ones hugging them from behind. The colors, the wind, the ancient windows, the voices. I must have stayed there for hours, watching, awed at how everything just was.

            And I knew, the next time I come, I would never leave again.

 

           

 

 

Posted by: Hoon at 09:04 | link | comments

It is certainly no longer cute that I---all of 27 years and 3 months----could still pass out at 4 in the morning and completely forget a 6 am flight. Flashback to yesternight.  Amidst the flashing visages of Porky Manotocs, Ping Medinas, Bon Roccocos and Sanya Smiths I distinctly remember Camoi and I---in our shortened tresses and sensible flats--- swigging beer and grandly declaring to all who would listen that the year is now 2008, and thus all fatty deposits of years elapsed are no longer deemed significant, viz. Irresponsibility and spur-of-the moment manlocks. I also remember, in no particular order:

 

1)      JC Edillor-- who I spotted happily having a photo opp with parked policecreatures outside the halls of Embassy;

2)      Amy Rosalyn---who does not have a boyfriend but has boys;

3)      Che Ramos---who was wondering what she was doing in there;

4)      Arvin and Nat-nat---who smelled like America;

5)      Calat Jones—who spent a great part of the night shoving a broken drumstick into people’s bellies (and bopping me over the head after a particularly curdling rendition of Alone, by Heart).

6)      Camoi---who successfully sequestered stick from CJ and then spent a greater part of the night poking the stick at estimated erogenous points of gathered people (including Porky).

7)      Bubi---whose nipples, despite his name, was not efficiently tracked by Camoi;

8)      Sanya Smee--- who, despite Lestat-like features, is fun

9)      Maki Brilliant--- who, at the onset of a couple of pounds, is now officially big-brother-like and thus deserving to be awarded such traits: dependable, approachable, etc.

10)  Tomas Jose--- with his two thousand and third girlfriend.

11)  Ira----who, to the dismay of brother Carlo and the delight of other men, took off her fur jacket to reveal----a braless number.

12)  LC de leon---who challenged me---ME!--- to an 80’s duel

13)  Kat---who was refused entry in the premises despite kasikatan due to lack of identity card

14)  Quark Henares---who appeared briefly, like a vision;

15)  Tuts---who was giggly and wiggly and generally un-Tuts-like in manner the entire night

16)  Auds---who was perpetually smiling and rotund and generally Auds-like

17)  Bobi D—who, with all sincere intentions, offered his ID license for me to flash at bouncer because, he reasons, the picture is blurred and bouncer will not notice.

18)  Bibumf--- of Hercules street! Not Zeus!!!

19)  Patrick Pulumbarit – toot toot!    

20)  Simms--- who is about 8 feet tall; offering vodka and diving lessons;

 

 It was great to see everyone again. I missed the general waywardness of it all, the occupying of space for no other reason than to drink, invent games, and confuse people.

I’m just not sure all the shrieking and squawking was worth missing my Batanes trip for.

Oh fuch. It wasn’t. Even if Porky pulled his shirt up for us.

Posted by: Hoon at 14:04 | link | comments

 BARANGAY PANSOL

Yesterday I was sitting on Nanay Nelly’s thin wooden bench, watching her and another old woman skilfully slice two green papayas into tiny pieces. Chenet, Lady Mae and I had walked to Barangay Irukan earlier; we brought Jen, Kristal and their schoolteacher “parent” along and we all went to Lady Mae’s old school---ducking under a barbed-wire fence as a shortcut--- where Ms. Atienza taught Grade 3.

         It was a lovely school: all bright reds and yellows and blues for the lower grades and afternoon brown for the higher ones. A chico tree near the nipa hut busily bore fruit for the children, and Mae picked me a ripe one. She said she misses the school and her old classmates badly---although most of them go to the same high school, many had turned unpleasant. She and Rexie sat on the nipa hut, naming who used to sit where, and turned nostalgic.

         We crossed the road to our primary objective: to pick a couple of papayas for lunch. Chenet looked for a long stick to poke the papayas with, and grabbed one sticking straight out from the ground. It was the stick used to hold up the electric wires, and the black cord came looping down as the women yelped and laughed but still refused to stand up from their respective positions on the pavement. Jen had sat down beside an old woman on the street, with Rexie. Two other women were lined on the front steps of a house beside the papaya tree, I was moving here and there, and Chenet was still trying to cross the wall that led to the garden. Lady Mae ended up picking three papayas with the stick, Chenet was laughing too much and could not jump the wall. The papayas were small and unripe, and because they would not grow any bigger, were called Papayang Tagalog.

The women wanted us to try Linupak, a sweet camote dish made by grinding butter, sugar, peanut butter and all sorts of ingredients together. Everyone wanted us to try Linupak: Ate Baby from the store was most excited about it. She wanted to bring some to the river, but we never got around to making it. She wasn’t able to come with us when we trooped down to the river either.

        Chenet, Rexie, Lady Mae and I walked back to our little house carrying the three papayas. The “terrace” was filled with people as usual: the kids AJ and Ashley and Diane and Nash and that older kid who always carried him and the adults Jhoane with her baby Totoy, her Kuya, Chenet’s Kuya, and a bunch of women who were sewing---creating lace patterns on white cloth for export. The terrace rang with their shouts and guffaws and teasing. It was barely 10 am.

       Like the day before, I had woken up at 6. Nanay made me fix myself some 3-in-1 coffee and eat bananas and bread. Chenet swept the leaves on the road and I took my mug out in the terrace and watched Lolo and a friend hang out on the cemented bench out front. Their accents were so thick I couldn’t really make out what they were saying, but they repeated their concern pertinently enough that I sort of understood. I think they were complaining how they could not find a container for vinegar…they sat there for a long time, interchanging phrases in thick Batangueno accents as I watched, sipping my coffee, amused, enamored and thinking all of life’s wisdom lay in those two men: one absently fingering his bolo, the other digging his cane into the dirt.

         The two women in the kitchen knew life, too. They cut through their vegetables and chatted quietly, turning the three papayas into a bowlful of strips. I went with Nanay to her cousin’s on the other side of the road to gather talbos. Her cousin was sitting on their front porch like she was doing yesterday, in a real nipa hut with bamboo steps you climbed and gigantic windows you never had to close. Her cousin climbed down and sat with her husband to watch us, smiling as Nanay plucked shoots and vines from their camote field and Mae ran off to look for ripe chico and I tried to get their small dog to come near me.

You had to rinse the talbos and strip off the fine hair on its outer stems. Mae taught me how to do it while Chenet sliced the papaya that could not be made into the soup. The riper ones should be eaten with vinegar and salt instead, and it tasted like buro. We popped them into our mouths as Nanay prepared the tomatoes and the garlic, taking out the seeds and crushing the heads. Then she put salt over the papaya and rinsed them in. We were making Bolanglang---boiled vegetable soup over a wooden fire.

I had forgotten people still used wood to cook. Nanay used matches, paper and plastic to build a small fire in her hearth, then expertly arranged chunks of wood around it. It was a tiny ceremony, a long process for each dish she would cook. When the mango branches caught fire, she placed the pot of water on two iron grills atop the fire. I was impatient unlike she was, so I would alternate going off into the terrace and playing with Totoy with going back to the kitchen to check on the pot. Nanay had to call me in when the pot was boiling. Then we put in the tomatoes and the garlic, the papaya, waited for it to cook, and then the stems of the talbos, and then when it was almost ready, the leaves. It tasted wonderful.

We ate the bolanglang with fried tapa---Kapitan had butchered a pig yesterday and gave us a kilo of meat, along with dinuguan he had cooked from its blood and innards. We had atsara--- shredded papaya cooked in vinegar--- which we had taken home from a birthday party we attended earlier. We had fish boiled in patis and vinegar---a better tasting version of my favourite canned mackerel, and a whole pot of rice---cooked over wood and fire. We ate with our hands, and I sat there on the table for a good hour, the fat cat mewling by my foot, Zoey the dog darting in and then out when chased with the broom.

Tito Charlie swooped in a little later to grab some talbos; he was going to make sinigang na tilapia, he explained. He had lemon grass with him, and told me to come eat with them after I was finished. That, I promptly do.

It was an amazing three days in Barangay Pansol. I remember coming back from Kagawad Joreng’s house, where we had the loveliest plate of chiko and where I first saw the kaong tree spouting vinegar, and I saw a neighbour casually plucking plants of Nanay Nelly’s front yard to cook. I could not imagine a more perfect way to live. Boys set out with big baskets and bolos to gather grass for their cattle. Mothers set out with pails and soap and clothes to clean and bathe in the river. The plants grew, the trees bore fruit, the land is fertile, the air is fresh, the mountains gave water, children ran free, the women sat sewing, the men worked, the girls sang, the boys played rough, everyone stopped to chat. My first night there, Jhoane had told me how after her wedding, they set up a tent outside their house for the reception, and absolutely everyone---anyone who came at all---was fed. In these parts, nobody gave a bull about invitations because everybody was free to come.

Before we went to sleep on my last night, I had told Nanay Nelly it was amazing how everybody just kept their doors open the entire day, and people just sauntered in and out of everyone’s homes, eating and chatting and laughing. I’d forgotten people still lived real lives, free from TV, schedules, meetings, grocery lists, wants and paychecks. Being Manila-born, envy is but natural, but never had I felt it churn more achingly than with these people.

Posted by: Hoon at 02:17 | link | comments

my baby's waging a war with fruit flies. he's lord of the flies.
here's his account:
 
oh babylove!

Got home around 2am from studio. Stanley and I were starting to really feel exhaustion after working, especially after soundtripping on 90's grunge bands and reminiscing good 'ol highschool days.

Anyway, been waging a war against these fucking fruit flies in the kitchen for the past few days. Most of my roomates are gone so I'm left to deal this alone. Tevon and his friend hung out at the apartment a few nights ago and left their dishes in the sink, and the oven top was kinda gross. He usually cleans up afterwards but either forgot or just didn't have the time. I wouldn't want to judge him because that happens to me, too. The democratic policy of the apartment has its pros and cons. Really, I like it. I think its cool. Basic rule is, just clean your own shit. And if it ain't yours, just clean it anyway. Good karma comes around. The con being that sometimes you end up cleaning someone else's shit. But people notice. Couple of times they cleaned my dishes, too. No one really complains about anything and everyone respects their own spaces. I like it. Main reason I've been in this apartment for that long - 4 1/2 years. Thats pretty long in NY standards.

Yesterday, Saturday morning, I was in a cleaning mood. Woke up in the morning and fucking fruity flies in the kitchen. I got this water-based Flying Insect spray from Walgreen's the night before. Sprayin' at them the whole morning. Them flies are pretty sturdy, I'd have to say. I was spraying at this one fly pointblank, it was already covered in foam and I could swear it was giving me the finger. I have no idea how they keep multiplying! (considering I already killed a bunch last night) I have to find the source. It should be somewhere in the kitchen, of course. So I looked around, and lo and behold, I was moving around bags of flour on our topshelf and more fucking flies came outta somewhere. I looked behind the flourbags and I saw this plastic bag, and I remember, were potatoes our old roomate (and I meant our past roomate, holy shit) forgot to throw away. It smelled really funky and I could tell theres a whole city of them flies in there. I put it in a plastic bag, tied it tight and dumped it in our trashcan inside the kitchen (which came out to be a big mistake). So thinking I took care of the problem, and continually killed the remaining flies with my spray and Havaianas sandals - yeah! (its proabably real hard to swat flies using Crocs)

And the whole morning I cleaned the oventop, the sink, mopped the floor, even cleaned the toilet, and bathroom sink. Nice. I actually like cleaning. Lumalabas pa lalo ang pagka-OCD ko when I start cleaning, especially if you have the tools. Sarap dito sa States they have every possible cleaning material you could have, and I love using them. From sink degreasers, to soap scum eliminators, to oven top gunk destroyer, to toilet water tablet disinfectants - its amazing. They're like drugs! Amphetamines, Morphines, Quaaludes, etc.

So I went to the studio that late Saturday afternoon and worked.

Next day, Sunday. Gorgeous fucking day. Perfect Fall weather, sunny, good breeze. Oh its a beautiful day. We could spend the whole day in the park (walking distance from here) reading books and canoodling on the grass. Air is so fresh and clean. Oh its perfect. I can't wait for this to happen, I'm telling ya. Went to the bathroom to pee, turned on lights, and boom - fucking fruit fly gang! Fucking A! Took the spray and foamed up the bathroom! I'm furious. I checked out the trashcan where I threw away the old potatoes, opened the lid, and a whole gang came out! Aw Fuck! I immediately threw that bunch o' trash outside the house, sprayed even more, swatted even more...and then I realized how amazing these creatures came out to be. I swatted them, and there's blood! Blood! These tiny creatures came out to be in this world, all with their tiny working organs, blood, nerves, from old rotting potatoes. Can you imagine that, more "life" after rotting "dead" potatoes. It was kinda amazing. These flies almost came out from nothing! The persistence of life. Ain't that wonderful. And here I am sending them to their next lives and they haven't even started to appreciate their brief moments on this planet, at least in our kitchen. Who am I? God? Well at least IN MY KITCHEN because I'm paying rent! So fuck you flies and get outta here, 'cause I wanna eat breakfast!

Moral of the story? I love you very much babes and I want to be with you forever.

e

Posted by: Hoon at 12:34 | link | comments