the blog commandments.


got this off another blog (thanks, jeff ooi!).
http://www.lawgazette.com.sg/2005-11/Nov05-feature1.htm
useful stuff to know...

A Little Dawn


a little dawn and then
the stars winked out one by one
leaving the dimming night
to cloak in blankets of baby blue
wispy cotton clouds for their pillows

hastily, i creep along
thumbing my nose at the now-dawning day
the crowning of light

no sun over the line yet
the dawn peels away the dregs of night,
that a rabid tingling begins
at the top of my scalp
running down my body, down my neck, shoulders
to the back of my thighs

the cool wind, a chill.

as dawn runners zip by in a sweat
it dawns on me
that dawn is you waiting.

reviewing the remains of the day.


i've got my work cut out for me and i've spent more time that what i should actually be spending working on it.

editing the work of wordsmiths who indulge in their passion for poetry can be a catch-22. where do you start mouthing the oaths and remaining true to your editorial oath? the crux of the problem is that these poets are more learned than i am. i just happened to be copyediting the content they wrote for their site.

man, it looks ugly. but that's how copy looks like when it's been laid out in the sun long enough. soon, the wrinkles around the eyes begin to show, creases become more pronounced. a third person's point of view is always damning. in this case, damnable. how do i contend with editing their content? knowing how some writers may feel, i could be redlining a lot of lines feverishly carved out of pure passion. writing IS a solitary art. no one should be so lucky as to edit the work of the introspect.

nearly finished with my site review. complained briefly to my project manager. she smiles in a ym sort of way and says that she understands and she'll try to explain the collateral damage. but, be prepared for righteous vindication (simple indignation may be a tad too weak a recourse).

no kidding.

ataya....



.... nganu buwak man ni akong header image?

rediscovering music of the spheres.


i met an old friend of mine from elementary and told him about this blog, and how i've written a few articles about some local bands. man... it's been a while since i've written anything at all!!! :(

should look him up one of these days... wake up this blog before it reeks of online mildew....

john campbell, thanks for the title.

into the bowels of a poetry site and the hack writer behind the veneer.

  What is well known is the writing on the wall, never the hand that pierces the blank and impresses thought so that even passersby may guess and expect that “Bawal Umihi Dito” is the beginnings of an ode great.
                ---- an idea hatched for a section in the site that features poets -- their bios, careers, and poetic track record,so to speak. i'm feeling it may pass my boss' critique.

hello old friend. long time since i've been here.

touch the desk and dust clings. hm.
maybe my old mongol pencil is still around here somewhere --- ah...


be back in a few minutes.

DEKALIBERATION: The 10th year of the Bob Marley Fest

In a metropolis where the Jamaican tri-color and reggae are ubiquitous --- seen painted jeepneys, on shirts and bags; tamhats worn by people of all ages; weekly reggae radio programs; and the occasional passerby humming “I Shot The Sheriff --- Cebu has become the hub for reggae music, and all things reggae. And so it’s no surprise that the reggae revolution culminates its decade-long celebration with Dekaliberation: The 10^th year of The Bob Marley Fest, on March 19, 2005, at the Offroads Café parking area, in Panagdait, Mabolo, Cebu City.

This year’s celebration promises to be the grandest, yet. After the big success of last year’s festival, the 10^th anniversary is no less than a celebration of music, art and cultural concern and freedom, as deeply imbibed by the music of Bob Marley. More bands are expected to take part in the celebration. The current line of reggae musicians and bands has grown since the genesis of the annual festival. Bands like Herbs, Bambu Spliff, Jr. Kilat, Budbrowniz and their fellow artists have initiated the journey to bringing reggae music among the Visayan islands and in Mindanao, to new levels of musicality, artistry and originality.

Since its inception in 2000, The Harambe Foundation, Inc. has continued to bring reggae music to the mainstream, as well as creating awareness and advocating social and ecological-related causes. What started as a tribute concert in memory of the Rastafarian legend back in 1994, when the Jah People Socity held its first Bob Marley Festival, has now bloomed into a larger group composed of bands, individual artists, and reggae enthusiasts that not only organizes the annual fest and other yearly events, but also acts as a mother organization where bands can converge to promote reggae music and the dissemination of the core values embedded in both in the music and its culture. Apart from the annual fest, Harambe also organizes a Christmas benefit concert dubbed “Rasta Claus,” where entrance passes are usually ‘sold’ not with hard currency but with donations of rice, foodstuffs, or old clothing and anything else concert goers can bring along. The food and supplies gathered are then distributed to the urban poor, after the concert.

Reggae music among the Visayan islands and in Mindanao has experienced a revival of sorts, with more bands from across these two regions coming to participate in the annual celebration. The thrust, as Budoy, of Jr. Kilat, and one of the prime movers behind the coming celebration, is always an emphasis on music artistry and originality. Naturally, Marley classics are the norm for the event, relates Budoy. But he quickly adds that the surge of new bands and the strive for original music and composition is something he is excited about. “Dili lang covers ang kasagarang madungog nimo karun, hilabi na nga ang kada banda naghimu ug dako nga effort nga makasuwat ug makatukar ug ilahang kaugalingong mga kanta,” says Budoy. “Makalipay ug kaayo ni para sa reggae diri sa Bisayas, diri sa Pilipinas.”

Dekaliberation, the 10^th Bob Marley Fest, will begin at 2PM. Tickets are available at Php50 from 2 to 9:59PM. From 10PM till dawn, tickets are tagged at Php100 each. For tickets, inquiries and particulars about the celebration, one may call or text Errol Marabiles at 0920.635.2003.

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Do You Déjà Vu?

Déjà vu. The feeling that you've been through a particular situation, event, or general feeling before. It's like a slap from an old girlfriend: You still feel it --- even your cheek begins to redden. Uh-huh. A déjà vu is like an itch: No matter how you scratch at it, it's still there, and you're nowhere closer than relieving yourself of it.

Years ago, a friend of mine posits over seminary supper grub that experiencing déjà vu is like getting a second chance to make up for a past mistake; that when the feeling comes over you, you can, within that particular day, correct a past mistake. Years later, banging away at my office PC, trying to make great (not just good) copy for a dating website --- at the office, we all lovingly point out that our site is the first secure and primary online matchmaking service based in Cebu City --- it was then that I realized I never got around to asking him one important question: If déjà vu is a sign that I’ve got a second chance to correct a past mistake, how am I supposed to know which mistake it was? If it follows that a déjà vu is a peremptory sign that something within your day is bound to happen 'again' and you're supposed to watch out for it to avoid committing the same mistake again (or correcting it), there has to be a specific and overt sign that should alert me to whatever situation may occur --- again. If a cat and a newspaper were left at my front door, I wouldn't mind at all. At least it would get me somewhere.

Usually, when we make mistakes, we thump ourselves over the head and try to remember not to make the same mistake again, in some far off circumstance in the future. But this does not help answer the dilemma déjà vu presents: Which part of my day am I supposed to correct and make good at? If only déjà vu's would point out as clear as it can, which mistake is bound to happen during my day --- again --- then, I could probably prepare for it --- but it doesn't! Ah, woe is me!

Every one of us would give up something meaningful if given the chance make something right. I know I would. I know I'd give anything just to go back to that time when I blew my pot of gold on some fleeting purchases, so I could buy Joyce a decent engagement ring. I’m not romantic per se, but it's the thought (d’oh!) and the propriety of the thing that counts. Man, was I a stupid dolt!

I know I would've gone back to moment when my aunts came to visit and I didn't bother meeting them. Later, I was told that they ganged up on my mom and called her a bad mother because she couldn't provide for my younger brother. A few days later, her pressure shot through the roof and she had to be confined. Never mind that they promised to send her help when she needed it --- they had the gall to call her a bad mother when they didn't even send a single centavo and take care of their own business. Talk about relatives --- Sheesh! I wish I could go back in time and point out where they all went wrong ---- my mom and my aunts. Maybe then, they'd realize that we, myself included, all had a fault in that particular family matter. All is fair in relating with blood relations, I guess.

I know would've have given anything to bring back Puffy, our Jap Spitz, or Sushi, our pet Labrador puppy.

Age has a way of putting things in perspective. Three, four, even five years ago, I wouldn't have hesitated and would've done things my way. Sure, we all question our motives, weigh things and think things through till migraine sets in. But in my case, it was never about doing things because I had to (I left the seminary for a lot of reasons, and this was one big part of it). I did things because I wanted to. I wanted to experience. Somewhere along the way, in the haste and flurry of it all, when we are caught in the moment, there are no regrets and no culpability and other people get hurt in the process.

I think the whole point of a déjà vu is this: That we live each day, trying to do our best, work hard, do good instead of harm, and spread a little joy and love around and make the people around us feel good. That way, déjà vu’s won't become an all too-familiar feeling to us. Because by then we would be faced with something else: A whole new day to look forward to. A day that is unique. It becomes something we may not have encountered since we were kids: An adventure of a lifetime. I did have a déjà vu a couple of days ago. I was on my afternoon cigarette break when the sight of street bum carrying a bulging sack on his back caught my eye. A cold shiver ran down my back and somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought that this scene, this particular moment, felt so familiar. As strange as it was, it felt really familiar. So I quickly rummaged through my mind, trying to think what it was I had to correct. But it never came to me. I was standing in front of our building, watching the street bum pick his way through a garbage can and then move on. A slight drizzle completed the picture.

The shiver passed again.

Déjà vu? That, or cold rainwater dripping down my back.

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Wrote the following in response to alvin's "impromptu thoughts" (see smokemyganja.multiply.com). thought it apt to lift his spirits up. though, he usually does that for the lot of us most of the time.

*sigh* even jesters get the blues....


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live dangerously. announce it to the world. make love precariously --- atop a speeding minivan enroute to carcar. write poetry as if you were making love; make love as if you were writing poetry. live life as if you had one more day to live --- be with friends who matter, and enjoy the closeness and occasional entropy that your loving family provides --- therein lies the earthy essence of diversity --- dealing with the relatives. live, love and lust like there's no tomorrow, for only in living will you see what life is all about. ordinary was coined by people cloistered behind their mama's skirts, and their consuming fear of living. they feel that if they keep themselves intact, nothing can break, or can harm them in any sort of way.

then, they commit suicide.

live, love and lust. do not be afraid to announce your virility and hunger --- your lust --- for knowledge, for life, for and love. life has only one purpose: to allow us to break the barriers of "ordinary-ness" and aim for the glory of the divine. then, when we see things as angels see them, we will find that it's pathetically easy to live life. for now, rage, rage against ordinary living, against normal conditions and against simple intent. live, love and lust like the human beings we are!

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moving pictures.

i wonder why so few people liked the village, the signs, the others and a host of other different movies that, well, don't behave like other hollywood movies. why they don't behave as such is truly beyond me. because while we read about Hollywood's maniacal insistence on 'formula, formula, formula,' there are a few that, well, have not followed the hollywoodian path to enlightenment and box-office records, but have come out well-received, well-loved, and watched by a following numbered less than thousands, more than once.

i asked a few friends of mine, and they said that the village, in particular, stood out as one movie they truly wasted money on. They didn't like the twist, all the while thinking it was a period film of some half-forgotten Amish-like community caught in the jaws of an hungry, vindictive, unmentionable and unseeable mess of woodland mega-creatures out to wreak vengeance for whatever mistake they imagined the villagers were guilty of. But then, we all know what happened in the end. Interesting ending, really.

And perhaps, that's where we all count our money on: a predictable ending, thinly iced over with variety so as not to be exposed as part of the formula. if a movie does not conform to this code, it's not a guaranteed hit. i like movies that make a nuisance out of being different. probably that's my own thing, but i like it. i don't really care if they are well received, or not. y tu mama tambien is one. sassy girl is another. but they're not Hollywood movies, so let's use as examples some movies that, i hope, being an average moviegoer and all, everyone can relate to.

everyone should watch fern gully. it still rates as one of my fave movies of all time. nope, there was no love story, no sexual tension (okay, so there was a teeny bit, but i don't we can go tolkien on this one.) and it had some sort of moral to it after all. this, in the time when everybody else was going to the boondocks to get themselves rich harvesting trees that natural watersheds relied on. copland was an amazing movie, if i do say so myself. and while no one bothered to watched samuel jackson kill one of his errant students, 187 is still vivid in my mind and ranks high on my Christmas DVD list. a local favorite of mine is a friend's school project and ccp awardee dubbed binaliw. nice.

twist-ridden endings, betrayals of trust in the formula, open-ended hangers and moral-bound stories seem to be the angst of the publice viewer at large. and i can't blame them. Because as the case may be, when one hands over the rectangular perforated stub to a guy in an evening party suit, or a girl dolled up like a bank teller, and enters into a darkened hall where on a fourth wall, moving pictures regale all, we know that we're in neverland; where the endings are always what we guessed it would be; where we cringe in fright, yet safely seated in our cushioned chairs; where the real world is mimicked, but NOT told. we hate twists and non-formulaic stories because they mirror the REAL --- that our daily lives don't follow a formula, and the twists at the end of our day, aren't what we guessed it to be.