How and Why I Won a Philippines Free Press Literary Award
…Is a goddamn mystery.
Last Wednesday, my story, “Blind Spot,” landed on second place [which I’ve uploaded on the Skirmisher
for the uninhibited reading pleasure of the morbidly curious] in this
year’s Philippines Free Press Literary Awards held at the Mandarin
Oriental Hotel in Makati. I wasn’t there, but my sister was.
It’s
one of those genuine surprises that only rarely come. It’s like those
times you’re facing a horde of Eastern Europeans with a silver MAC-10
Elite ready and loaded in your hand, only to be instantly shotgunned to
death by somebody who had sneaked up behind you [Black].
Or running across no-man’s land and storming a bunker, grenades ready
in your teeth, and suddenly you kick the bunker door open and Lo! There’s
the smoking muzzle of a machine gun with a sniggering Nazi behind it,
who proceeds in blasting you to a thousand little yucky pieces [Call of Duty: Finest Hour] [I’ll try to come up with pleasant similies next time once I get to play pleasant games].
The surprise of winning felt more or less like those things, only in this real-world instance, it felt good. Really good.
I never took “Blind Spot” seriously. I realize maybe all writers who win something always say they didn’t take their winning works seriously, but I’m stepping out of the shadows to say I really
didn’t take it seriously. But so what? Big deal. It won. It probably
has something that I’m just too blind to see, which is bad for me: this
means I can never be trusted when it came to judging literary worth.
Which means I’m a chronic hitter and misser, mostly misser. Which means
this is one gaping, bleeding tsamba.
The first surprise was when Paolo Manalo
emailed me several months ago that “Blind Spot” was in the short list.
I didn’t even know it was accepted and published. I had emailed it I
think in February 2005 without even bothering to tighten it in places.
When I received no reply from the Philippines Free Press
(which usually is either the bad “Oh no, please, no” or the good “We’re
publishing this something, something, something”), I just shrugged it
off and moved on. Last week, Paolo emailed me again and this time, it
was a shotgun blast to the face: he said something like, You won, dude.
Usually, I’d gush. What Paolo didn’t see was that I was laughing my head off in genuine disbelief.
I have two reasons why I’m so happy winning in the Free Press.
One, it’s the shit when you’re a guy with nothing to do but write down
some daydream that hit you while doing some non-amazing household
chore. Oh, did I say “chore?” Replace that with “mission.” That’s
better.
Second is, aside from being one of this country’s most
respected, most desired, oldest annual literary competitions, it also
pays pretty good prize money – 40 grand for “Blind Spot.” Forty
thousand bucks for some daydream you wrote one boring afternoon is like
shit hitting the fan and discovering yeah, you can eat that shit and
even like it. Ask anybody
around and they’ll tell you forty grand is forty grand is forty grand.
And there’s the trophy, made of glass, which my sister says is so cool
it’s almost “sacred.” Like you could kneel before it and pray ten Hail
Marys and feel guilty about the profanity. What makes it cool is that
it says something about me having made a “great contribution to
Philippine literature.” Say something like that to Gina my Guinea Pig
here, and she’ll bite your testicles to make you swallow back whatever
nice things you say about me. That is, if Gina were human and allowed
to have some scrap of an opinion. I’m saying this because I know my pet
detests me so much; whenever she sees me, she suddenly stops chewing
her food and glares at me. I also stop chewing my food and glare back
at her; we’re like Newman and Seinfeld greeting each other in mutual
disgust. But we both know I’m boss, so I tell her things just to rub
that fact in like, “One day I’m gonna sacrifice you in the name of science,” or “You know, in Peru, they fry their guinea pigs alive.”
The
feel-good is double because for many Filipino writers, or maybe this is
me speaking for myself, writing fiction is like fishing – you do it in
your spare time. You do it when you’re through with the bathroom, when
you’re done with the girlfriend, after all the day’s crap and real
work. You do it when that very rare moment actually arrives where
there’s only you and a blinking cursor, a tumbler of iced tea/mug of
coffee/beer and old Brazilian jazz. And that’s rare. Which even makes
the feel-good triple.
After I was told I won in the Free Press,
my head grew so enormous you could see it from outer space. I realized
it got very large and swollen when I tried walking out the door moments
after reading the wonderful emails from Sarge Lacuesta (Free Press incumbent literary editor) and Paolo Manalo (Free Press
former literary editor); I couldn’t go out because the sides of my head
wouldn’t fit through the door. When I managed to somehow slip through
by using many jars of KY Jelly and a handy chainsaw, some girl at the
fastfood was so shocked at the size of my goddamn head she ran out
screaming.
The old lady in the line with me tipped her eyeglasses and looked me over. She asked, How’d your head get so swollen like that?
How big you think this is, I asked, because I had no idea how grotesque my head had become.
She said, I think that’s even bigger than the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
I
shrugged, in that awkward, tottering way anybody with an enormous head
could be able to shrug. I told her I’m a chauvinist male pig and that
when my ego gets inflated, it’s literal. I told her I just won in the Free Press.
Free what?
I said never mind.
I later tried the time-honored cure of getting my ass kicked in Fight Night
by the likes of Erik Morales and Muhammad Ali. I haven’t discovered the
strategy with this game yet. So I always end up a bleeding pulp on the
canvass, the world spinning all around me, Mr. Padilla the referee
counting, “8…9…10… You’re out!”
I took a long, cold shower. I
paid Gina my Guinea Pig a visit to annoy her by scratching her nipples.
She hates it. Touch her nipples and she flies up in the air, squeaking
and grumbling like an old lady.
I then checked the blog, and
checked the progress of my other two “top-secret” web projects whose
content will be “magically” supplied purely by algorithm, just like Techmeme.
Then I asked my sister “remotely” for pictures of the event.
She
said she forgot to bring the necessary gadgets. She told me there was
Up Dharma Down’s female vocalist, who’s very pretty in person, but who
would believe her without at least some pictures that she could email
me?
My sister’s the type who impulsively gets off the bus on
Roxas Boulevard to take snapshots of dead fish and ugly birds on
Baywalk. On ordinary days, she takes pictures of her friends straddling
some lamp post in Luneta and pretending to be hookers. You send her to
an important event at some swanky hotel, you tell her it’s some fucking
big deal for me to vicariously see it, and she doesn’t even bring at
least a camera phone. She should’ve at least sketched the whole thing
on a napkin. She should have stolen some ashtray, or one of those
gold-plated metal things you always see on tables of respectable places
(my office drawer in my former job was half full of Eastwood City
silverware from those years of doing PR work–slash–stealing shiny
things on tables—slash–convincing my female officemates to do the
same—slash–assembling pirate ship made of stolen silverware inside a
bottle). But no, nothing.
So I asked her, Did Cristina Hidalgo
bring with her that niece or daughter or whoever that was with her at
Jorge Bocobo Museum some years ago, some girl who oozed with so much
hotness she gave off her own sunstorms? A girl who looked so good she
probably sometimes fainted whenever she saw herself in the mirror?
She said, Who’s Cristina Hidalgo?
I said never mind. Then I either went back to Gina to snap a rubberband on her nipple, or tried reading Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom,
I just don’t remember which. My head was fast deflating back to normal
size, and I felt dizzy and depressed and acutely caffeine-starved.
Windows Users’ “Stab One of Those Mac Users in the Eye with a Lit Cigarette or Something” Mantra
So-called hacker David Maynor’s soon-to-become-immortal words,
“”…If you watch those ‘Get a Mac’ commercials enough, it eventually
makes you want to stab one of those users in the eye with a lit
cigarette or something” peppers a comment thread on Techdirt that strangely makes you feel it’s hilariously taking on some sort of a There Are Motherfucking Snakes on the Motherfucking Plane life of its own.
It didn’t matter that the Macbook version Maynor and fellow hacker Jon Ellch supposedly hacked was later found to be modified, “hackable” versions
cooked up specifically for the duo’s hyped “How to hack a Mac in 60
seconds” circus some weeks ago. What boiled up was the decades old,
operating system divide between “complacent” Windows users and “smug”
Mac users.
“Frankly, I don’t like all the round corners and “breathing” lights,
the flashy graphics and that half eaten apple should be mighty rotten
by now,” says one Windows user.
“”All the windows idiots should keep their great market share, poor
quality OS and overbloated software, viruses and hackers galore — all
to themselves. Stay the fuck out of the mac world morons. When want to
run some game or win-only app, I’ll virtualize or boot camp it. You can
have fun with the rest of the garbage all to yourselves,” says a fellow from the other side.
It’s fun to watch both camps express their deep affection for one
another like Arabs would with Jews. But sometimes, you feel like
stabbing all of ‘em in the eye with a lit cigarette or something.
God-booger: the new planet
What exactly is a planet?
This may sound a ridiculous question, but I assure you it’s serious. So serious that hordes of astronomers are in Prague right at this very moment to debate on the subject of Pluto’s status as a planet.
The question, “What is a planet?” is currently right up there along with other recently fashionable questions like, “Is google a verb?“, “Oh my God, y’all, Bush reads?” and “Why did Sploid ‘xplode?”
The highly controversial new definition, proposed by the
International Astronomical Union, has simple terms: anything that is
round BUT small is a “dwarf planet”; anything that is the size of pluto
and even smaller is a planet, only it’s called “pluton”.
This is maybe some sort of compromise between those who don’t want
to “demote” Pluto into non-planet status, and those who take a look at
Pluto’s moon Charon and whimper, “Poor small, icy-cold heavenly object.
Isn’t she cute? Can’t we do something like make her a planet?”
The new definition also somehow puts in a questionable position
other round heavenly objects that are sufficiently big (like our very
own moon, which is bigger than Pluto), or those other huge moons
circling ’round the gas giants. If Charon is pluton, then our moon is
pluton. Who’s going to pay now for the reprinting of all those
textbooks?
If the smart guys would ask me, I’d say, ditch the whole planet
thing and use a shiny, brand new term. Instead of “planet”, why not
just use the word “God-booger” to refer to heavenly bodies of
questionable status?
It’s like the classic answer to classic questions such as, “Who
created the universe?” God. “Why do all those Sri Lankan kids have to
die?” It’s God’s will.
Now, “What is that, a planet or what?” It’s God-booger. “What are
those two topless astronauts doing there in the backseat of the pod?”
It’s a God-booger thing. No more questions.
So very clever.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)The Philippines Should Go Web 2.0
If Iran’s president could blog, why not Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?
He’s boiling nukes in his backyard, Bush (who everybody knows is
such a terrifying badass) lovingly thinks specifically about him as the American rancher so carefully reads Albert Camus’s tale
about “killing an arab,” he’s unloved by Western governments for his
exciting views on the Holocaust and Israel — Mahmood Ahmadinejad must
be a terribly busy man.
Yet he can blog. Not only that, his blog is also using icons by the same designer as Styleboost, with some AJAX bling thrown in. Cool.
So I believe this is a fairly legitimate question: Why not the Philippines’ president go the web 2.0-ish way?
Eliminate the middle man. Chuck the press secretary. All the kids in
the Philippines — yes, those “pesky activists” — will be able to read
her innermost thoughts and undying hope just moments after
accomplishing one non-achievement after another, and maybe eventually,
there’s a morning when all these non-admirers begin seeing her way. The
blindly blazing, sugar-crusted, over-self-edited, web 2.0-ish way.
If she’d blog about her diarrhea and alcoholism in lurid, juicy details, I’m subscribing to that feed.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)The Email Conundrum
I’m a guy with a short fuse. There are many things that could
suddenly piss me off, and my reactions to these things have become sort
of “legendary.” So when I began using email six years ago, I discovered
to my disappointment that email plus my temper could be a bad mix.
Very bad, indeed.
There have been countless times when I’d check email in the morning,
I’d see something that gets my goat, then I’d mindlessly fire off with
whatever garbage that comes to mind. It’s so easy—you just make some
mouse-clicks and there you go. The problem is, I’d usually end up
regretting the stupid things I’d send.
Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall said in an interview several
months ago that emails are the most dangerous form of communication
because of its peculiar character: email “compels” the recipient to
send an answer immediately, and with usually a huge number of emails
waiting in our inbox, we usually end up saying things we wouldn’t say
in person or on the phone.
“I remember when I worked for Lewis Leakey,” Jane said. “He was very
impulsive. He’d get a letter in the mail, and he would open it, and it
would be perhaps something from a scientist he thought was quite
ridiculous. You could hear him muttering ‘Bosh! Rubbish!’ The poor bit
of paper would be scored with his marks, and he’d turn to me and say
‘Get so and so on the phone!’ I got very wise to his moods, so I would
pretend the number was engaged, or the man wasn’t there, and then an
hour or two later, he was rational again.”
That kind of distance, that sort of emotional buffer, is banished in
the form of communication email provides. Everything is instant. That’s
the ugly thing. The first human reaction is usually the honest one. But
the human brain has built-in prejudice. Compound that with the so-called Reptilian Complex, add some temper into the mix, and you get a fair picture of how ugly impulsive human reactions could be.
Unfortunately, the technology around us panders to such impulses.
There is probably profit to be earned in keeping people from digesting
things and allowing them to think first, before swiping that credit
card or clicking that Send button to fire off some angry missive. If
Joseph Dobbie didn’t use email to confess his love for Kate, for example, he wouldn’t have found himself in deep shit (on second thought, maybe he didn’t really mind).
In a way, email and all these new ways to “communicate” have even
made it harder, more confusing to reach out to the Other. We’re all
engaged in a daily balancing act of sending thought from one place to
another. And while the “tight rope” seems to have gotten easier and
faster, it has also become much more fragile that it can snap at any
moment—leaving us tottering in an insecure place where we might just
find ourselves destroying bridges in a zap, instead of building them.
There’s a Close-up TV ad that drove home the point of
technology having made us more connected, but not necessarily closer.
Although we usually enjoy it and we don’t mind, technology probably is
smothering us more than we care to think.
But it’s also utterly foolish to pine for the good old “innocent”
days. Personally, I’d still choose technology over throwing the
proverbial sabot. But maybe, what’s required of us is to face these
new, increasingly ubiquitous things with a sense of control and a
greater presence of mind. Like avoiding checking your email every 10
minutes, or sticking to a schedule. Or remembering that not because
“it’s there” that you can access it as often as your impulses demand.
These days, whenever I’m checking my mail, I make sure there’s
something posted near my desk that reminds me to take things easy and
never react as swift as lightning to “provocative” emails. Something
like a Post-it note that says, “Back off” or “Take it easy,” or “Count
100 electric sheep” or “Stupid mails can get you fucked”—and I realize
these small things can make a whole world of difference. These small
reminders buy me enough time to think it over first. And they help me
make sure I won’t be burning the things that are increasingly becoming
more and more fragile.
Like the few bridges I haven’t destroyed yet.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Reverse Superheroism
I think the happiest people on earth are the “bad” guys, the super
villains. You see them on TV, in movies, in comic books. You know that
they’re fine specimens of persistent optimism because they always
laugh, even when they’re plotting against superheroes who they know, in
the pit of their guts, they’ll never ever defeat.
I can’t think of any villain that doesn’t have that peculiar laugh.
My head is full of memories of villains chortling on screen. There’s
the Joker, the Riddler, Lex Luthor, Dr Evil, my old professor in
advertising. I don’t have a long list with me, I don’t remember every
name, but I recall faces and always that laughter. Always that
unsinkable optimism.
Take Penguin. The guy would scheme an elaborate plan to blow up
Gotham City, and when I say elaborate, I’m talking about
Rube-Goldberg-machine elaborate. Of course, we all know he fucks up
each of his attempts. But that’s okay; he has his birds, his monocle,
money, liver. When the shit hits the fan, he just laughs and escapes
and vows to return…again and again and again.
Something tells me a guy like Penguin should instead be emulated by
kids as some sort of “idol.” He’s the champion of the fat and short,
the patron saint of the ugly and miserable but happy, the de facto hero
of people who never win but who never cave in. Penguin should be
mentioned by authors of self-help books. Oprah should guest him. Bush
and Blair should have photo-ops with him as some sort of reinforcing
hope in hopeless situations like Iraq and Michael Jackson’s face.
Somebody should whisper to Fidel Castro’s ear as he’s lying on his
deathbed (assuming that he did come close to lying on a death bed, and
that somebody actually wants him to remain alive), “Remember the Penguin.” Celine Dion and Charlotte Church should mention the Penguin in one of their saccharine songs.
Penguin and Joker and the Riddler—that’s some holy trinity, if you’d
ask me—should be the poster boys of shrinks so that shrinks could talk
about them with patients. “Look at them fabulous wankers,” the shrink
would tell some manic-depressive during rare lulls in a session. “They
always fuck up. Is Gotham City destroyed? No. But are they giving up?
No, no, and no. They’re still at it in all these years. Shining
examples of positive-thinking, never-say-die individuals. And here you
are, all you think and talk about is your aches and pains, your Xanax,
your Prozac, your ‘they don’t understand me’ bullshit.”
Maybe the shrink would never say “pain” to a patient’s face, but you get the picture.
The funny thing is, these villains are mortals: they go about their
honest business of trying to destroy the world by the sheer power of
their wit, cunning, and humor. I remember jumping up and down at home
chanting “Lionel Luthor! Lionel Luthor!” after the guy survived for the
umpteenth time in a Smallville episode, then realizing a
piece of wisdom I’ll pass on to my great grandkids: Lionel Luthor is
very die-able, yet he survives. Superman is invincible by default, and
of course, he will always survive. Between the two of them, who do you
think I’ll give my candy?
Which brings us to the subject of Lex Luthor, who is also awesome.
Does anybody have any idea how tough it is to travel all the way to the
Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica, in the middle of fucking nowhere,
just to snoop in on Superman? If there’s anything we know, it’s that
going to Antarctica when you’re bald and a weakling is a fucking
superhuman feat.
Shoot a bullet through Luthor’s head and he’ll die; do that to Superman, and he’ll just flash a Colgate-y, American Dental Association smile. Which reminds me of a line in the film Angus. Angus’s grandfather tells him one night why Superman is the biggest coward in the world. So Angus asks, How is that so?
The grandpop says something like, It’s because Superman does not
know fear; he’s immortal, indestructible, kryptonite notwithstanding.
He has no capacity to be brave. Courage is the territory of guys who
can feel physical pain, who can be hurt, who can and will in fact die;
courage is doing something you know will kill you but you do it anyway
for the sake of something you believe in. Not Superman. He’s forever
out of the whole bravery business.
Grandpoppy words of wisdom you’ll always love to live by. But here’s my question:
Who’s the dumb motherfucker responsible for Superman’s outfit?
And why?
The best answer gets candy, too.
Uncategorized | Comment (0)Julius Babao Demonstrates How to be a Real Jerk Without Anybody Noticing It
Cheryl Sarate, a 16-year-old girl from Davao, Philippines joined Lord and Lady of Utopia beauty pageant,
but her fairytale-inspired costume caught fire from a candle on the
catwalk. She burned as everybody in the hall stared in shock. Three
days later, the girl died at the hospital.
And today, on early morning TV, I’d find Julius Babao asking the girl’s mother very “emphatic” questions.
Julius: Cheryl seemed a young girl with high ambition. What were her dreams before this accident happened?
Mother: [some standard lines like Cheryl wanted to finish college to go abroad, etc, etc.]
Julius: And now, what do you think will happen to those dreams?
Let’s all pause to ponder the wisdom behind these questions; this is the part where you have to scratch your head.
Time for some flash back.
[Flashback; music: “Maalaala mo kaya”]
July 16, 1990 earthquake: a reporter shoves a microphone to somebody
pinned down by a huge rubble from a destroyed hotel in Baguio. The
reporter asks awesome questions like, “What do you feel? Is it painful?”
The interviewee couldn’t even answer; there’s a huge boulder on his
back and he’s gasping. It’s clear as daylight that he’s “fine and well
and happy” in his situation. His face surely says, More Questions
Please.
He’s dead many hours later, still trapped under the boulder. Oh, the reporter wove that into a touching narrative, too.
March 1996, Ozone disco fire: a smooth-skined reporter asks one of
the burn victims, whose face looks like a horribly melted candle that
sort of reminds you of Audrey, Jr. from the Little Shop of Horrors: one look at him and you know his life will never be the same again.
The reporter asks, “How do you feel now that you’ve been burned [implied: “and you look disgusting”] and your life will never be the same again?”
The interviewee tries to speak, but nobody could understand him.
It’s tough to mouth out words when your lips have melted and you have
no mouth to speak of (and to speak with). So the reporter interprets
the burn-victim-with-no-lips language for the benefit of the audience
eating dinner in their homes.
[end of sentimental flashback and music]
Julius asks the mother: Now that she’s gone, what do you think will happen to her dreams?
It’s a “very important” question; one that Julius had to ask. A question that instantly made me dance around the room, yapping: yeah, rub it in, baby, rub it in. Until it’s raw and there’s no blood left. Drive it home for her the fucking magnitude of her loss. Make her actually say it, you shitbag.
Julius Babao’s “innocent, malice-free” questions make me sorely miss
the vocation I’ve chosen not to take. All those good old days of
“journalism.” I say, Bravo! I say, continue doing all that shit in the
name of “uncovering” truth and justice and inserting fingers in
somebody else’s deepest wounds. I say, more of these in-your-face
MTV-like interviews with the dying and grieving for the benefit of us
millions of insulated, safely-distanced voyeurs. We absolutely love
that. We crave for that kind of stimulation every now and then.
If there’s a day in the future I might choose to be a “journalist”
again, just to see for myself how far I could go with my own stunts,
there’s nothing more reassuring than the likes of Julius Babao to keep
me inspired and full of faith and hope for humanity. And yeah, throw in
some of the Tulfos, too.
Bush + Excrement = “Bushturd”
For the past year, mounds of dog poop around public parks in Germany
have been painstakingly lavished with miniature flag portraits of that
wonderful man, George W. Bush.
The beautification campaign, completely done anonymously by
thoughtful people, has led park officials to ponder the possibility of
George Bush’s character strengths having anything to do with the
quality of the excrement, which are remarkable for being tough and hard
on the outside, and soft and chewy on the inside. Not that anybody,
especially park officials, has tried chewing any of it.
“This has been going on for about a year now, and there must be
2,000 to 3,000 piles of excrement that have been claimed during that
time,” said happily by Josef Oettl, parks administrator for Bayreuth.
He’s evidently excited for more of these good things.
This selfless campaign by still-unknown crusaders should be emulated
by shit-flingers everywhere, especially with the absence of any law
against using feces as a flag stand. Especially when said flag stands
are to be used in connection with mighty, honorable men of vision.
