waterworks

i'm still hurting, actually. i've accepted the fact that i could cry on cue.

it would be heartwarming to go home during these times. see the young brothers. let the tears roll and visit my parents at the hills. but nah, i'm stuck in one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world, absorbing all the rumbles and gripes of the frivolous sandbars. i know all my contacts in the wide universe are stamped with daily precariousness, making it so impossible to compose a very simple e-mail. the climate is filled with stress and tension. in every frown and unnecessary squawks, there sometimes lies a lucid and sunny disposition. but it's very rare. it's sweet to meet a generous soul. an unselfish persona who tinkers the mind not only with the numbers and the words, the elusive louis vuittons, the obsessive pursual for leonardo dicaprio's (or his ilk's) unbridled devotion (brad pitt is a boring interview) and to reach the top of the career ladder which could be stifled when a subordinate wins tens of millions in one lottery. there are certainly entities who value the style and symmetry of the human spirit. our lives could be in direr straits.

my eyes are now aching badly. but i still got a warm body to hug.

procrastination 101

after all the vexations it has wrought, my cough, particularly my cold is now over. i still feel weak in certain aspects, it's just maybe due to my perpetual laziness or i'm floating in my self-inflicted malaise. both blogging and house chores took a beating. i didn't like missing work as i've surely missed tons this year. this is what a change of season does to me, it's probably nature's way of saying i should change my eating habits --- eliminate some carbo loaded foods, include more fruits and vegetables in the diet.

since i'm imprisoned inside the comforts of my nest, i get to wallow in my inner bakya persona (i should use jologs, but i exteremely hate that term). baduy is my other favorite word. that's what i have always been, bakya, baduy. i was a vilmanian when i was one and a half (roughly that age), then after viewing all the nora aunor classics (post guy and pip) on cinema one in the early part of this decade, i've seen daylight and caught on with the critics. there's no replacement for good acting, whether she's a superstar, megastar, a character actress. what is sad though is the dearth of filipino films these days. was it only the last decade when there was at least a pinoy movie opening every week? i wasn't much of a fan of action pictures, but they provide a vehicle to ease the burden of the unemployment crunch. i didn't mind a tito, vic and joey or a dolphy starrer, though i've never paid on my own to watch a pinoy comedy on the big screen. not even okay ka fairy ko, the movie, whose tv rendition i was glued into during its decade-long run on three channels. i don't watch ai-ai or a spoof comedy film whether in the movies or on tv.

as i unearth tidbits from my memory reel, i go back in time when i was ten, i was bawling my tears for yagit the movie, venting my animosity on gretchen in 14 going steady (janice was flordeluna and i used to dig her big time), sat in the front of the theater for bagets 2 ( i was already 11 then), observed that eddie garcia was in one movie every week. but that was 1984 (1985 for bagets 2), and the marcoses were still in power. eat bulaga was the number one noontime variety show. fast forward to 2007, eat bulaga is still around, holding firm in this age of constant flux. these days, it's considered good business if there's a filipino film opening every month.

but despite the lack of pinoy movies being made ( i still have to dip my feet into cinemalaya indies) tons of actor-wannabes are being discovered through reality shows, ie -- big brother, one of the endemol-produced programs whose uk version is totally unpalatable (that's just me talking). before thalia's marimar conquered pinoy tv in 1995, not a single primetime local soap was in existence. now there are tons -- drama and fantasy. a dramedy soap started and ended with luv ko si babes. thanks to all the pangako sa yo coinage, the term teleserye was born. i like the term soap opera better as it's more universal.

bumping into a clip of pinoy marimar recently, made me shudder. i'm not into the network wars. perhaps i've been spoiled with the nora-vilma, even sharon, maricel characterizations of my youth, but i know bad acting when i see one. lured by the flawless skins of venezuelan actors in la traidora, i followed the dubbed exploits of marimar on rpn 9. most of the interiors were shot in a studio -- the santibanez house, the aldama mansion, event the resort's office. but the pace and specially the acting was convincing. probably that was the magic of thalia, who was also effective in maria la del barrio and rosalinda. the GMA writers maimed the story arc a bit. in the original, angelica was never sergio's ex-girlfriend, she was merely a young stepmom. plus sergio was not taken with the chutzpah of bella aldama and had a son with another woman.

but rags to riches stories are always a great fodder for a country in earnest third world image, specially the capital, metro manila. our psych is still concentrated on the appeal of the white skin or the knock-out figure of those babes on FHM. our market is flooded with whitening lotions and creams that never work. that's the attraction of marimar -- marian rivera's bikini-beauty fair skin, definitely not the acting. add to that manilans or the the whole urban luzon, no longer swayed by the conjurations of the lopez network. who cares about a fine performance when we all want to be white (while a tanned skin is such a charm for the whites)? it's not my ysabella subconscious talking. i don't watch judy ann santos for her body type. i hate confrontational scenes which are always a feature in her starrers most especially ysabella. but i can't see any of juday's "quickie" acting habits, picked up in soaps and anthologies, as interminably pointed out by nestor torre all these years. are those habits pertain to her facial tics and expressions, or the diction in delivery? i've read torre's article again and again and i still couldn't find any fault in judy ann santos' renditions, though i download ysabella everyday. what i see are her expressive eyes and with those bold and precarious tears, one can easily feel her pain.

through the fascinating atrributes of web video, i get stuck impairing my eyesights staring at the computer screen, as usual. i've forgotten tv. four episodes of ugly betty are still waiting. i'm now ruing having missed the elimination round of university challenge. it wouldn't hurt maybe if i'll play one episode through sky plus -- another product of the rupert murdoch domain, here at medieval britain, his son james is in-charge of cable operations.

one of these days, i'll watch tv.

autumn twist

it's during times like these when i miss my mom. she was so adept with her social skills that it makes me wonder why i still could not labor successfully in the ice age. my friend gee's mom once uttered that "taking care of sick people is merely common sense." my daytime subsistence is not rocket science. it's harder to construct a profound short story or compose deep, meaningful poetry. but in every workplace there is bitchiness and it takes more than poise and solid grounding to survive a deluge of pompous behavior.

my head is killing me as i'm writing these, one of those moments i'm not lingering, lying haplessly in bed drooling in elevated temperature. the change of weather (or the monotonous countdown to the next summer) did me in as well as the hubby's cold which took him a week to conquer. i'm slowly finishing off the world's supply of tissue paper in my sniffling state and with all the green imbroglio hugging the headlines and al gore becoming a nobel laureate, i've decided that zac goldsmith is an overprivileged toff.

in my bed, are the accumulated newspapers -- owned by the same company, metro (yes, my friends, the free paper) and the evening standard, i have started dipping into them but not in its entirety. i forgot i've got to clip the christian slater interview (is tamara mellon a keeper?) and bookmark the liar by fry that is taking me months to finish. i haven't tinkered the television remote since my parents left us, in sombre tones, except perhaps some tweaking with the web for shows uploaded by fellow members of select fan clubs. then there's the glee in embedding shakespeare in one's thoughts -- patrick stewart, ian mckellen and jude law aka macbeth (i'm definitely going), king lear and hamlet. i couldn't wait. but the jury is still out with the off duty.

but the highly-addictive blogs i've crashed into accidentally have kept me going for the reviews and tiered, rindered observations of current issues of the day. hopefully some colleagues would join the blogosphere. then it would be politically-correct to ask if its all about the writing, the uploads, or the photos. we could wipe away all the gossips, the senseless grandstanding, all the smudges that affect the universe by reading more and practice expressing our emotions through highly-evolved letter-strings. if only i can stop coughing and snorting. i don't like having a cold. not at all.

a bleacher view of garnett

i got stumped on ray allen. the nba star was shooting three's from all corners that i became curious of his transfer. why the switch to the celtics? i even had to text my brother about his drafting history, never mind philippine time. my intuition goes blank about the nba and basketball in general these days that the only wolves players i recognized from the roster were mark madsen ( the former shaq back-up was in a suit, injured, obviously only in london for the free tour) and juwan howard who only attempted a few shots that it's mind-boggling he once had a huge contract. our seats were all the way back. was it the undoing of the mystical corporates who made the tickets vanish too quickly? i was submerged (and still am) in my tears during the last few months that i wasn't aware of the seating plan.

the game was enjoyable, the O2 center was huge and impressive. garnett committed turnovers after turnovers. but from tip-off, pundits and pseudo- hoop experts were all aware there was no way the celtics would be vanquished by garnett's former team. the nba is defined by super players. there should be a star in every position and a very reliable second team in addition to an all-star sixth man. i wasn't able to spot an illegal defense violation. i was brushing myself with the rules as though i was eight again. in light of being in close proximity to european games the last few years, all the waiting times in the huddle during timeouts have made my subconscious linger in eternal stupor. north american sports are too long. i've never thought halftime entertainment could powder off my bittersweet langour. my husband and i structured a hasty exit with tons of time left, just to avoid the nerve-racking crowd. but the nba experience was still an exhilarating, joyous occasion. someday we will watch the lakers, hopefully also in london so that magic johnson could get to travel.

flaxseed

i can't say i was shocked. there was always this hint of doubt. perhaps it's near impossible to be intimately involved with two prominent track and field athletes who admitted to steroid use without being lured yourself to the inflammable highs of further career propulsions. for world class athletes or even minor jocks, the appeal of greater stamina in training, building more muscles, clocking even faster times is too much of a draw. but marion jones was not kelli white. she was a cover girl. she was flo jo a decade later. when flo jo passed away in 1998, i was in singapore, it didn't cause a ripple nor a stir in our tiny 105 flat. sports is not that huge amongst my contemporary female acquaintances. perhaps if merely a little of our concentration is afforded on sports, we would have had our first olympic gold medal and the writers of desperate housewives or the daily mail readers, wouldn't have to blurt out, "you're from the third world? yuck." but america, already submerged in the citius, altius, fortius (swifter, higher, stronger) creed still gets greedy and those who fell from grace, the likes of jones and floyd landis, succinctly illustrates that all that glitters is not gold.

query baseball fan

there would be no baseball playoffs for me this october. the padres needed one run. but nah, that didn't materialize against the rockies. no wildcard berth. nothing. i have to wait for march again, the beginning of the 2008 season. i've been a baseball fickle since the braves dropped maddux. who knows which team i'm going to root for next year. yeah, there should be a law against that. at least i'm no longer a blatant glory-hunter (mlb photo).

my bacolod heart

bacolod will always be home, wherever i might be in the world. manila, in contrast, could not conjure a similar magical fascination. the longest i've stayed in manila was two weeks. these days, in my london hub, the only time i get to utter my dearest hiligaynon dialect is when i talk to my brothers on the phone. it's all tagalog with fellow pinoys at work, the language spoken by the tv people when i was a child.

as the capital of negros occidental province, bacolod city lies 24 kilometers to the south from bago city. to the north is talisay (city), only seven kilometers from baranggay bata. murcia is just nearby mansilingan, but i'm not exactly sure how far it is from the city. this might be like an abstract maze to a non-negrense, but it irks me when i'm in the lift and some pinoys think (through small talk) that bacolod is another name for the province of negros occidental. bacolod is the city capital. negros occidental is the province. if only it's as easy a conundrum as iloilo. but that's another matter.

my hometown may not be as cosmopolitan as cebu or manila but we get by. i envy cebu and bohol of their white sand beaches. but in every angle, the city of smiles is home. the masskara festival this october will once again ignite the city to a frenzy. chicken inasal (it's just called inasal to us natives) is our contribution to filipino cuisine. before there was only manukan, now there's chicken deli, chicken house and every dining establishment who serves chicken on a stick (as my husband refers to inasal). i don't think inasal is that unhealthy. it's not cordial to the arteries. but who says we shouldn't eat laswa? where would i find piaya in north london? a colleague once spewed, "naku mabibili lang iyan sa megamall." it's not the same, folks.

my generation didn't have the malls in our innocent years. it's more vibrant during these present times, as if the quality of existence is defined by boutiques, shops, eateries, cinemas, a department store and a supermarket in one building. lest we forget the parking lot. for me it's always the bookstore. a national bookstore branch may have sprung up too late for my bacolod heart, but it makes every homecoming extra sweeter knowing its there.

i still speak my tagalog with an ilonggo accent. there are ilonggos who speak ilonggo with a tagalog accent but they're ilonggos. i don't know why it's an issue that "parehos man lang kamu ilonggo nga-a ma-tinagalog pa kamu? te abi." contrary to the stereotype in filipino culture, we're not that backward in the south. our lives are just little less chaotic.

now for the video :

game plan was one of my favorite programs during the late 90's. but i wasn't able to tag the show during its studio 23 years. but now there's probe tv and thank goodness for this tiny bits of thrill.