That's Melbourne on the left and Sydney on the right. 6 months old and it's like raising twin boys - every 15 seconds we have to check what the ruckus is!
What's with the names? Jun and I both love Australia but Jun likes Melbourne better, while I like Sydney. So there. Standby for Tokyo...
Sometimes when you least expect it, life throws the ball your way and you just need to make the split-second decision to catch it.
Never would have thought of joining the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. It's not only that I didn't think I'd win, I didn't think I'd ever be able to put together an entry!
Last May, Jun told me that Palanca extended the deadline for entries. My reaction was something like, "okay, so?" He told me I should try. I laughed it off. I'm not the literary type and in college my writing gave me a C+ at best (except for that one film review that I did for Dr. Zhivago that got me an A even though I didn't even see the film!) Still, Jun egged me on. I had about 4 days til deadline. He said I can write a one-act play in that time, easy.
Easy? I don't even watch plays!
But day 1 and day 2 passed and for some reason, despite tons of work stuff to do, I did think about it - and wound up with a story. I just disregarded the fact that I don't watch plays and that I have never joined any writing competition before. I just thought of a story that I had a fair chance of telling: a comic book story.
I called it "Secret Identities" and it's about a closeted gay superhero and the day his boyfriend decided its time for them to get married.
And so, that was it. Day 3 and 4 saw me madly typing. And to cut a long story short, I didn't just make it to the deadline, I got Second Prize! Not bad at all for a first time writer!
Unfortunately, i couldn't upload a pdf file of it here so I'm posting the first 10 pages as jpegs. If you want to read the rest, just leave me a comment and let me know if you want me to email the pdf file to you.\
My mom stood us up on her own birthday party! She turned 81 recently and I joked that it will be her debutante ball in reverse. So we spent a good part of the week calling relatives and booking the venue, Pilita’s -- which is perfect for her because not only is it cozy with good food, you’ve got entertainment courtesy of the owner, Asia’s Queen of Song, Pilita Corrales herself! My mom and everyone in her generation loved it last time we were there (for her 80th birthday).
Yesterday, the day of the party, my mom got dressed as early as 4pm (for a 7:30pm party). All was set. Then at 6:30, I get a call from my sister that my mom wasn’t feeling well. Nothing serious, she just wasn’t feeling up to going out. Just like that. It freaked me and my sisters out because we had guests on the way to the Pilita’s and no birthday celebrant!
So my sister and I tagged team. She took my dad and went to the venue to meet the guests. Meanwhile, I went to my mom’s house and tried to convince her. When I got there, my mom was complaining of muscle pain but she looked ok – at least she looked ok enough to me that she could stand up and easily have gotten into my car and to the venue and be with her guests. But no. So while all the guests at her party were eating paella, there I was with my mom having take-out chicken at our dining table. After about an hour and a half of trying to reason with her, I gave up. She just said, we should enjoy the party.
So I called my sister and we decided to look for one of my mom’s guests who had a birthday closest to my mom’s! Fortunately an uncle of mine just had his birthday just 2 days before. When I got to the party, Pilita was already onstage and asked me in front of everyone where’s my mom, I shrugged and said she can’t make it… but hey, we have another celebrant: my uncle! So there was my uncle, really surprised and in a bit of a shock when Pilita started singing him Happy Birthday and for the rest of the night, it became his birthday party!
As with most family drama, all’s well that ends well. We all had a good time. My uncle and some relatives even sang with Pilita onstage. We called my mom on the phone and kept her posted on what’s going on and she was laughing.
We decided that we’re throwing my uncle a party every year now. Hopefully my mom attends so we can celebrate her birthday then.
“Ultimate Spiderman” is a fairly recent guilty pleasure. It’s been sitting there on bookstore shelves for a while but I thought it was a story I already knew. Peter Parker bit by a spider shooting his webs away. It’s the movie right? But not told with so much wit and humor as how Brian Michael Bendis wrote this. Here you really get involved with Peter’s life and how crappy it can actually be. He's juggling school, a job, a girlfriend and saving a city that hates him. He has to buy ingredients for and mix his own web fluid. He has to wash his costume and ask Mary Jane to help stitch it together after every fight. His Aunt May can be a right bitch at times. And worse, he had to actually endure having a Hollywood movie made out of him that he didn’t get a dime for. 
It also has some moments that do make you think, like this scene (my partner’s favorite). In volume 8, “Cats and Kings,” Peter asks a teacher how come the courts allowed the Kingpin to be set free despite being caught on tape murdering someone. The teacher just replies “I think that our judicial system has it’s flaws, but it does serve us well, you have to look at the bigger picture… I guess, well, he does a lot of good for the city as well.” Enraged, Peter lashes out “When does it happen exactly? During college? After college? When you turn thirty? When do you just give up? To the point where you can actually look me in the eye and say ‘sure he murders, but he’s got good qualities too.'” And for that Peter gets kicked out of class.
I read this around the time a very famous political figure who, ousted from office 7 years ago, found guilty of his crimes, was then suddenly pardoned by (of all people) the very person he was ousted for. For healing, she says.
So, when did it happen exactly?
“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.” – Dream, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (from “Dream Country”)
“The Sandman” is how I got started again in comics (er, graphic novels). Prior to this, I think my last comic was Archie and Jughead. Then, here I was, in the Pearl Jam-era 90s, seeing all my drama in an equally angst-ridden Dream and his Endless siblings: Death, Destiny, Desire, Despair, Delirium and uhm, one more that has gone missing. Written by Neil Gaiman, at-the-time god of my idolatry...until he started visiting Manila a lot and I discovered I wasn’t so special anymore. You want to feel profound and serious and raise your cool factor, go for this one. Not always a linear story so don't expect light reading. Lots of story arcs that seem to go nowhere, then some of it resurfaces about 10,000 years later, literally. 
My favorite volumes: “Seasons of Mist” in which Lucifer quits Hell, “Fables and Reflections” with the short stories of the first and only Emperor of the United States and the story of the Wise King of Baghdad who wanted his city to live forever, and “Dream Country” where one cat tries to rally a thousand cats to change the world.
“So what I want to know is, when I’m asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?” – Chloe Russel to Dream (from "Brief Lives")
“It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.” – Dream (from “The Kindly Ones” where he caught one of his staff mocking him behind his back)
I haven’t finished a book in years. I always say it’s because of my eyes – after a page or two my eyes get tired. Something to do with wearing glasses since I was 5 years old. The sentences all blur together after a while. So it’s amazing that I even finish reading books like Lord of the Rings, The Once and Future King and those Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles that go on and on with descriptions about the décor in each and every room.
But now I’ve come to admit, it’s not my eyes as it is my impatience. Sometime in my early 20s, I rediscovered the joy of reading comics (ok, graphic novels, just to sound a bit more mature). After all, what I have to read through an entire paragraph to get an image of, I can just glance at one panel. Worth a thousand words.
So, in over a decade, the late bloomer that I am in comics (er, graphic novels) now has stacks of trade paperbacks and hardcovers and single issues. I won’t say I’m a comic-con level expert at comics (er, graphic novels). But I do know what I like. And for those who have always been curious where to start, I decided to start dedicating a series of blogs on the titles I would recommend. (Don’t worry, I will do my best not to put spoilers.)
Here's the updated trailer with some rather interesting quotes from those who watched at UP Film Center last October. You have to watch Roxxxanne! Opens Feb. 2 at Robinson's Galleria IndieSine, Metro Manila, Philippines. For more info, please check out writer-director-producer jun lana's site. (Oh and yes, I agree, it's better than Y Tu Mama Tambien!)
This weekend, our first Philippine Idol Mau Marcelo will be competing with 5 other Idols from Asia (Indonesia's Mike Mohede, Malaysia's Jaclyn Victor, Vietnam's Phuong Vy, Singapore's Hady Mirza and India's Abhijeet Sawant) for the title Asian Idol.
For about two years, Idol has been a roller coaster ride for me and I'm actually excited about it ending with Asian Idol this weekend. Last year, we mounted the first Philippine Idol. It was a huge undertaking for a network that had just been relaunched and for a production team that has not been producing live programs for a long time. We had many a technical glitch and even got hit by a typhoon once. But hey, the show did go on.
In my years in TV, I've also never had a show that got so much feedback. I am just in awe at how many blogs and forums have been dedicated to Philippine Idol up to now. And then there's all the press! What kept us on our feet was that we got a fair share of good and bad comments - which I took note of and accepted constructively. But the important thing is, everybody seemed to keep talking about it from the time we launched it in February 2006 until the finale that made newspaper headlines in December 2006.
This year, quite publicly, we found ourselves in a tug of war with another network for the second season of Philippine Idol. It was all in the papers too when it was announced in September that we lost. Everybody kept asking me what happened and was consoling me like it was a personal tragedy. Of course, it was quite frustrating. But it's the way the cookie crumbles, I said. And at least, not only did we get a chance to do it, we also seemed to do it so well (or to be modest, let's say that at least we showed its potential) that it became desirable to someone else, right?
But then, like the rollercoaster that fools you as it slows down only to pick up speed again, Idol came back into our lives. Quietly first, when Elliott Yamin came to Manila and we were the partner network in September. Then, to everyone's surprise, we got the broadcast rights to Asian Idol on our network and chose to support our first Philippine Idol's bid to win it. Like I said in a press interview, it is a fitting finale to our Idol run.
And so here we are, counting down the days. I decided not to go to Jakarta to watch Asian Idol there because I have to man the fort here - and personally, I just want to be here at home to see the show beamed via satellite. Besides, it's out of my hands now. Sorry to mix metaphors midstream, but I daresay I'm like a parent who has given birth to a child and reared it and sent it to school. Asian Idol is graduation day. And on graduation day, the parents' role is merely to sit down, take pictures and applaud. It's the child's moment, not ours.
I hope Mau does well. I hope she comes home with the crown. And I hope everyone who supported us and Mau will tune in and vote. But for me, it will be time for this rollercoaster to finally slow down to a halt. Whatever the outcome, my Idol journey will end here. I will get off with legs still shaking and (hopefully when Mau wins) with a big grin on my face. And I will walk away and move on to other things - and I'm already eager to go on what rollercoaster ride the next one will be.
Tune in to Asian Idol on ABC 5 in the Philippines this Saturday, Dec. 15, 8pm and on Sunday, Dec. 16, 9pm. If you're in Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and India, check screening times here. Oh and please vote for Mau, she's really good.
And yet again, a page off the Perci journal...thankfully not as traumatic as the last one but in case you want to know what I've been doing in Sydney apart from being under dodgy ceilings...
Yes, it's a Sunday afternoon and I'm at the office. Why? Because I'm a loser who can't finish his work on regular office hours!!! But not a total loser, I'm proud to say. In the tradition of the Perci Intalan "Work Hard, Play Hard, Rest Well" guide to sane living... I did the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb today!
Yup, I actually paid to climb up over 1,500 or so steps to go to the very top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge! It was quite a thrill. Not quite as death defying as it sounds (and heaven knows I've got a new definition for death defying)
Phylis, a friend of my boss was in town this weekend. I met her in HK a couple of times and we went to parties together, so that made her sort of my friend already too. Anyway, she emailed me and I said she can crash at my place while she's here.
So from last Friday 'til this afternoon I was with her. It was a bit awkward because we weren't really close at first. But we went out for dinner and clubbing Friday. Had breakfast with her and showed her my favorite beach hike on Saturday morning. Left her at the beach on Saturday afternoon - while I went back home to do my laundry. Then Saturday night we went for dinner and clubbing til 3am. Chatted at the apartment til 4am, then this morning we were up by 7:30 to go climb a bridge for 3 hours!
now for the 80s popstar outfit part...
I love watching trailers. I’m fortunate enough to land a job out of college that let me do something similar – writing promos for TV shows. A few years later, I got the chance to make actual trailers for local movies (two of which were scripted by my then yet-to-meet and yet-to-be life partner!) And after leaving that line of work to concentrate on program production for 6 years, I still opted to come back to head up the promo team at my current job.
You know my guilty pleasure in making promos and trailers? It’s making good ones out of bad shows and movies! Hah! I swear, the worst stuff on my show reel are for shows I do like. I think it’s the pressure of distilling a good show down to a 30 seconder - and the fact that with so many good scenes you get so lost in editing that whatever you wind up with is never good enough. And if it doesn’t rate or make money, then you will always get blamed. But bad titles? Hey, 1 or 2 good scenes is a blessing! And if people do watch the show and hate it, they say they were fooled by the trailer...which becomes a feather in your cap!
Why am I talking about all this? Because I saw this brilliant trailer on You Tube that really reminded me just why it is that I love what I do. You can make a good show look bad. You can make a bad show look good. And with a bit of patience and a lot of imagination, you can make a show that everybody has seen and loved into something they’d want to watch all over – or never ever – again.
Earlier, I was at the 9th day mass of my uncle who passed away. His sons honored him afterwards by throwing a party for him, commemorating the day their dad, as our faith tells us, has gone to heaven. Coincidentally, I was sitting with my own dad at dinner. There, as we ate our "kakanin" for dessert, he told me how he used to make these rice cakes when he was young. This triggered bits and pieces of memories that he began to share, which slowly made me appreciate even more what a remarkable man he is.
My dad was around 15 years old during World War II. At the time, he had to stop schooling and was making rice cakes that his younger siblings would sell at the movie house nearby (where incidentally, my Dad also hung out with the projectionist like Toto in my favorite movie “Cinema Paradiso”). His family lived right next to an old school, which the Japanese turned into their garrison.
His war stories are quite diverse. Once he was almost mistakenly identified as a Filipino guerrilla soldier. Fortunately he was on the good side of a Japanese soldier who was running a rice plantation, so he was able to claim that he worked there and was spared from being arrested. He also told me how once the Japanese assigned him and some kids nearby to patrol the perimeter of their camp, holding nothing more than sharpened sticks. Another time, when his family had to flee their homes because bombs were being dropped on the camps, he walked miles and miles just to go back… so he can use the toilet he was ‘accustomed’ to.
When the war ended he went back to school. To make up for lost time they had to do continuous schooling with no summer breaks. While studying he juggled working on the weekends with the loftier pursuits of any teenage guy…courting girls. One girl lived close to my dad’s house, but was from the province. He told me that he would find time to still take her to visit her sister in Pampanga. What today is about a 2 hours’ drive from where we live was quite a long and dangerous trip back then - what with the insurgents hiding in the area during the ‘50s. And still he would make it back by night so his mother won’t know.
He married this girl and was expecting a child when he was only on his third year in college. But sadly, she died in childbirth, leaving my dad a widower and a single father to my eldest sister at the age of 23. While my grandparents helped take care of her, my dad finished school and went to work. He’s the eldest child and so what he earned had to go not just to raising my sister, but also to helping his younger siblings through school.
It would take him over half a decade to marry again, this time to a girl he met at the office - my mother. He loved her so much that even though they were properly engaged, they secretly exchanged vows at a civil wedding 4 months before their actual church wedding.
He worked more than one job to sustain the 5 more kids that he would raise with my mom. On the same land he patrolled at the perimeter of the Japanese camp, he built a house of wood then a house of stone. He earned enough for a car, then two. He earned enough to see each child finish college. And even after I, the youngest, have gone and made a living of my own, he still kept going to work Mondays through Saturdays - up to this very day.
I write this now as a story, but it was all told in bits and pieces – some over tonight’s rice cakes, others in a drive through traffic or while waiting for a waiter in a restaurant. You never know when memories are triggered. They come best when they are not forced.
But from all this I realize now that whenever my dad recounts stories from his past, it is always with a half smile. More than just nostalgia, it is from a sense of fulfillment. From the little I have gathered, it is already quite a life. And even now, as he approaches his 81st year, indeed he is living it well.
Here's an excellent PSA that speaks to every gay guy who has gone through, or is going through, this fabulous life's many misadventures!
Just sharing a song I've been playing a lot today and the really cool video that goes with it.
Okay so I got an iPhone. Yeah, it’s a long story how I got one, but here it is and here I am – about a week into owning one and having a love-hate relationship with it. Don’t get me wrong. It is still the sexiest little thing you could hold in your hand. (Well, okay, so maybe that's debatable.)
Let’s start with the love part. I love how you can literally scroll through your messages and phone book. And the way pictures tilt to landscape view when you turn the phone to its side. I love zooming into pictures and webpages by just “expanding” it with two fingers on the screen, and pinching the screen to make it smaller. And I love how text messages appear as cartoon cloud conversations so you know who said what last.
But here are the top 5 things that I hate:
5. I hate it that for a phone that is also an iPod, you can’t just use your songs as ringtones - unless you hack the phone.
4. I hate it that I can’t customize my message alerts - unless you hack the phone.
3. I hate it that there’s no way to forward text messages! What would Apple do if those chain messages are true and something bad happens because I didn’t forward one to 8 other people!
2. I hate it that I cannot send business cards! So all of you who plan to ask if I have the number of so and so, pray that I have the patience to write the number down by hand and type it all in a text message to you – because it’s so NOT going to happen often.
And what's number 1? I hate it that for some friggin’ reason, some calls only appear as numbers… not names. Then I figure out that it’s because I saved the numbers with the country code +63, but the calls are local calls so they just start with 0. Hello! Even my first-ever, brick-weighing Nokia cellphone can detect this and recognize that it’s the same number! It’s sooo annoying! So now I have to go and rejig all my numbers sans country code -- and just figure out what to do when I go out of the country and have to call them on an international call!
Frustrating huh? Add to that the usual Apple birth pains of having to buy this or that cable and this or that case or this or that protective thing – each of which costs the equivalent of my phone bill.
But then, 1 week later and I’m still using it. It’s like that Pulp song about a bad relationship: “like a car crash that I see but I just can’t avoid / like a plane I’ve been told I never should board / like a film that’s so bad but I have to stay 'til the end…” Because despite all its rather MAJOR flaws, at the end of the day when you board a crowded elevator, nothing beats the gasps you hear when you take it out of your pocket and start casually scrolling through your phonebook.
Two years ago, my parents celebrated their golden anniversary. This year, both of them turned 80. Both of them are still active and healthy. My dad still goes to work like he is years away from retiring age. My mom doesn't look a day over 60.
These days, you just can't imagine living a life that full - let alone living it with the same person for 50 years. But I guess that's us thinking that happily ever after is what we dreamed it would be: hand in hand, walking into the sunset, music playing as the credits roll.
In truth, from what I see in my parents, it's just living a simple life with simple joys. Sundays at home. My dad driving my mom to family reunions. Little fights here and there because someone didn't wait for the other to start dinner. Dad calling my Mom when he's only 5 minutes away from the house. They're not even the romantic type, nor could I say that they are each other's best friend or confidante. They are just really content with each other. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it's that simple. Ultimately, I guess that's as happy ever after as any two people can get.
After the much talked about UP Film Center screening, Filipino writer-director Jun Lana's "Roxxxanne" was a hit at Robinson's Galleria. More screenings to come!
