hey, you are wearing my drink!

from the AV club section of the onion, america’s finest news source, comes an ad about yet another indie band that’s doomed to fail upon selling an album (the trend nowadays is to listen to bands that doesn’t exist yet – trust me, i am not making this shit up. album = suicide is the equation of the NY music scene and my guess, anywhere else. where is vampire weekend now? exactly).

but at least one member got his shirt right. gods, i miss pale pilsen.

two days before the pacquiao-hatton fight, i saw a caucasian wearing a team pacquiao shirt on the subway. yesterday, i saw another white man wearing a team manila shirt. but this – even though it is just on print – by far is the coolest evah.

itaas mo!

dispatches from madam hysteria

“the strain” has kept me awake until around 4 in the ayem. all that’s needed is the howling wind and a little flashlight and it would be like reading poe as a child. had del toro and hogan pushed the crafting onto the atmospheric, it would have been as creepy as “the terror”, “the house of leaves”, even. i guess books written with the screen has no other choice but to do it with the camera in mind. nevertheless, a good, gripping read. i hope this gets screened during the last installment of the “twilight” atrocity.

* * *

kaaron warren, the author of “slights” will be reading at the KGB bar next month. a small victory, hadn’t set foot in the bar since last fall. might score a copy of “the painting and the city” too, if i arrive early and have a few dolyares to spare.

* * *

time to face the oven.

* * *

addendum: this from the web. the article is entitled: vampires suck. actually, they don’t. and that’s the problem.

http://www.slate.com/id/2223486/

enjoy.

* * *

addendum, part deux: my favorite author alive writes and i quote: I will say, I have half a mind to write the most balls-to-the-wall, blood-and-guts vampire novel possible. Something that would make Near Dark and 30 Days of Night look tame. Just as a personal “fuck you” to Stephanie Meyer and the Mormons. The hard part would be not to lapse into the idiocies of “splatterpunk.”

of course she has already done “the five of cups”, her very first novel. but another real vampire novel wouldn’t hurt. here’s to hoping she would.

as i swiped the image above from amazon.com, the price for the book is up at a ridiculous 125 US $ as this was a limited run. my copy is a hardbound, signed, numbered edition. when e-readers take over the world, i wonder how that copy and the rest of the first editions by the likes of the gaimans and melvilles of this world would fetch. just a thought. as peter straub has said, sometimes wealth is measured by the records and the books you have. nothing could be truer.

from the library

there is not enough time to read all these, but at least i have to try. “the strain” is of course, a must but the two anthologies should be devoured morsel by chosen morsel. “dark delicacies II” have all the usual suspects, but “inferno” should be combed through.

and while reading, there’s a lot to be done – the gazillion dot coms and the shorts for submission calls, one for the money, the other for the show – before things really pile up. i have to deserve the coming schedules too, the new orleans for my birthday this september, the florida for u2 with sunnnya and rica this october, and of course, the metallica this november. but first, words must be baked lest the wifey discovers my scam and sends me home.

things are popping up into my head and a title just came up which i have to wrestle onto the blank page for the rest of the words. i have no choice, really, in this matter because it is either that or the insomnia.

speaking of titles, mary shelley’s “frankenstein” has been bugging the shit out of me lately. honestly now, don’t we all think at first impression that the name of the monster is frankenstein? then upon all those required readings and papers, we come to know that he is the doctor and that the monster is unnamed. and then after 20 years or more the title suddenly comes up and lo and behold like a freight strain on speed, the genius in the title is revealed: that no, frankenstein, the doctor is the godsdamn monster in the tale, that he is the freak whose thoughts could conceive such creature and whose actions could gave birth to the monstrosity. ohmyfuckinggods! amazing, isn’t it? and i’m not even drunk or on meds.

the cult of the tape

any creative who’s been in the business pre-cellphone era knows that marcelo serpa did not invent the visual. this thought came into my head when i saw this ginormous billboard at times square, while coffeeeing with louie. there’s the  missing lamp, but you get the idea. the best part is that this visual is now in every maxell packaging. ha! media arts anyone?

* * *

went to blockbuster and rented “tokyo!” the bundle of 3 shorts with gondry in one. there’s a surprise waiting for me. there are now books on the shelves and not just the ones that hollywood is ruining but the bestsellers as well. this could be a product of recession, a good one.

* * *

“the strain” is already at the library waiting for me. fuck, this is what i love about new york. can’t wait to read it.

beering for breakfast

i live for the weekend as it is the only two days that i am excused from kitchen duty. bagel for breakfast from the nearest deli or brunch from the diners and dives littering the neighborhood, the usual egg and sausage combo.

today, we tried doc watsons, an irish bar that serves breakfast. same menu except for the choice of drinks: two beers with every order instead of the usual juice or coffee. and there is stella on the choices. sold. joy had a couple of mimosas, leading to an unavoidable extra order of coffee and juice.

the waitresses were more than enough given the floorspace, and none of them were in a hurry and for the first time, we have to get her attention to ask for the bill. something disconcerting, but nice in the land of impatient waitresses who are too eager to shove the bill in your face the moment you stay beyond 30 minutes (i know they live for tips but eating out shouldn’t be a sport).

we even got a garden view with a real view – the trees reminding us that summer will soon be over – another thing that’s hard to come by nowadays.

cheers!

three films

the very first films that i’ve ever seen. in the province of course where the cinema is a smoking space and there are double features. there are also surots in the seats, and softdrinks can be had by the bottle. there PG and X ratings are merely loose suggestions as both the public and the person manning the entrance have no concept of meaning of these letters. policemen can come and go as they please. the screen becomes a public service announcement medium by writing a message like “elvin, magsaing ka na raw sabi ng nanay mo” and bribing the projectionist to flash it onscreen – preferably during trailers but more interesting during the feature screening. but the most memorable aside from the films are eating chicharon baboy with sawsawing suka in the dark.

i’ve seen these films before i first set foot in a school or a dentist chair, so i could say, that i knew what to expect from life before getting my very first kicking.

if the poster is wild, the film is wider. maybe this is where i got my b-movie fetish.

let loose the kraken!

my heart condition could be traced to my rock ‘n roll lifestyle. and also to this film. i’ve never felt being shitless before and had nightmares for month to rival what i first visualized upon reading the book of revelations – the one about the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. remember that row upon row of eggs? that i couldn’t understand the film because i was too scared to follow the narrative made it all the more terrifying.

fuckyouweather

two weeks of rain says the weather site, starting today.

everything is wet and a cold wind  is blowing outside the apartment. people in boots and jackets and umbrellas greeted me this morning as i went out with louie to do something in SoHO.

over beer and burger for lunch, it dawned on me that after over a year, i will again dip my pen in someone else’s corporate ink. i don’t even know if i can assemble a powerpoint deck anymore, but extra money is always welcome. the other thing to consider is how to get the important writing done and the super secret project going. and with this weather which is a constant reminder that fall will be upon as anytime soon, the familiar footsteps of panic at the door couldn’t be ignored. there’s also the laundry and the cooking and the marketing, of course, my official occupation as stamped on the visa.

on the bright side, these things can be handled if only the sun would shine. it’s always the cold that will get you.

* * *

“one” arrived early and i have started reading it guerrilla-style  (at the toilet, before i sleep, on the subway) before “slights”.

i hope this gets book gets optioned. with the same screening sched as “the road”. that would really rule. because finally mccarthy’s story would make sense, in the i-got-my-money’s-worth kind of sense, because i just can’t imagine watching two hour’s worth of grey concrete, grey skies, grey gun, and gray father and son. although lav diaz might disagree that he can imagine nine hours of greyness.

* * *

i am not a fan of both the books and the films but the latest harry potter film is almost there. certainly way better than the previous installment who repeated the theme of “happy thoughts” which, while entirely not being original, was also made the centerpiece of a previous potter film besides. at least this one has the feel of jame’s bond’s “quantom of solace” where events are unfolding left and right without any apologies. the downer is that there’s the good wizard dying and without reading the book, i’ll bet my financial stability – all of the twenty dollars in my tattered wallet – that he will rise again with a shining glory anytime soon. see, you don’t need lit crit to know about this things, just tolkien. and they say that j.k. rowling is the greatest writer in britain alive today… but then again it could just be emily watson, whose unshaven pubes as she attended her 18th birthday made the rounds of the usual unsavory sites. daniel radcliffe must be waving his wand vigorously. lousy pun, i know.

from the same guy who zombified austen

sunny would running to the bookstores right now.

* * *

speaking janes and austens, there’s this NY dating agency called AUSTEN’S JANES that offers, and i’m not making this shit up, “chaste dating for cash”.

lifting from the article:

For $60 an hour, the agency arranges for a smart young woman to accompany you, laugh at your jokes, and make you feel interesting and special. It may sound like just another escort service—with additional sex services available by negotiation—but it’s not.

The young women who set up the agency are adamant about this, and they spell it out on their website: “If there are any attempts at sexual activity, the girl has the right to end the date immediately.”

the agency prides itself with women conversant on melville (the dead melville), proust, and yeats and other topics worthy of stimulation of the intellectual kind. who says brains are not sexy?

doing a jeptha

an amazon package arrived today and it was something i’ve already forgotten.

“slights” kaaron warren (an australian, i think) published by angry robot (hooray for small press, only they can have cool names), from the UK, hence the shipping time and the forgetting. bought this book primarily for the cover, although the blurb is not bad.

next to come would be “one” by the brit scaremiester, conrad williams. there’s post-apocalyptic and there’s post-apocalyptic. after suffering mccarthy’s “the road”, i guess this would make a nice palate cleanser. i hope this ships faster as amazon US has a stock.

both books are mass market paperback, the very compact, stash-in-your-cargo size. if there only are plastic covers for sale here in the isteyts.

so i guess my vow of not buying books – after devouring “the angel’s game” – was short-lived, although i did survive avoiding barnes (easy) and borders (easy) and the strand (very hard). well, atonement would be utilizing the library more, especially now that the online catalogue has been upgraded. we shall see.

* * *

i’ve recently made up my summer soundtrack after rediscovering both albums by slash’s snakepit. “it’s five o’clock somewhere” and “ain’t life grand”. not quite glam rock, not quite cock rock either. there are no filler tracks (at least to me) so it’s just one continuous loop like an unlimited subway ride.

because when i thirst

the insight came from the wife. it’s this: that i seldom have someone to drink with that i take whatever chance that may come to really get smashed. the thinking maybe true except that i also drink even when i’m alone. as what the bumper sticker says: i’m a drunk. alcoholics go to meetings.

so.

louie has been doing some serious shit for his plans that i’m getting stressed just watching him. this one is getting no rest. calling accountants and lawyers and suppliers and shit that i’m beginning to think that maybe i need to charge him for commercial rental fee. after cooking breakfast and lunch, there’s only one solution. beer for dinner.

dive bars with cheap beer, loud girls, and nigger slaves (at least in mentality. and words. and behavior. the empirical proof to the argument that the mental shackles will always be there and for one second, one is almost tempted to believe that der fuhrer is korekto mundo). when it is unavoidable, there is the lethal combination of wine and rhum from the ref. sing-amats pero di sing mahal.

but.

the benchmark is still the x-file abduction stupor with costello, the irish.

ooops, excuse me while i liberate the jack from the stash.

all the weather, all the time

low 60s since we came back. the only consolation is that the sun is at least shining, but it is very disconcerting to see people wearing jackets. i am getting depressed just thinking of winter. there’s still fall to look forward to but with this temperature, winter will surely be a bitch.

***

meanwhile, luck is not giving me break for the online lottery tickets to shakespeare at the park and lining up at 5 ayem in the cold is just unthinkable. but it seems i will have no choice, lest i pass away the chance to see anne hathaway with some girl to girl action in the flesh, tongue sucking and all. the things we have to do for shakespeare.

***

louie with all his plans is at new york already and has slept at the house for a night. we had a couple of pitchers of the piss being sold as beer and onion blooms talking about stuff, about life in the province and new york chicks. we had a laugh when the topic shifted to advertising, from basic to mccann to tbwa. it made me think that he is the one person from the business that i’ve met who has the biggest balls of them all. he may not be a genius (and he doesn’t claim to be in his thoughts, actions, and words) but he has some major cajones. i hope his dreams really fly and i swore that i will do what i can (be it cooking lunch or ordering beer or preparing the sofabed) for it to at least take off.

***

we talked about supposed or self-proclaimed geniuses in the philippine advertising industry and agreed that all of it are just masks for insecurity, lunacy, and lack of breeding by maledukadong parents. i don’t know if it’s a provinciano thing but we both share the belief that the way one behaves at the office reflects the way one was raised at home. and yet…

***

email alerts and junk mails are already speaking of fall previews. now i’m really in the mood to drink. fuck the writing and whatever it is that needs to be done.

traps

the first thing i noticed is how everything is clean, how everything is manicured, how everything is displayed. even the currency uses the font eurostile. it instantaneously made me miss manila, the quiapo and divisoria parts where crossing the street would get you killed if your mind wanders a few feet from your body.

we did the tourist traps because, frankly, there is nothing else to do aside from officially making the word beer a verb.

by the time i saw the trash of new york, only did i wake up from the stupor that is canada.

the first two photos are the best reasons to go to canada – extreme irony alert.

and the rest are the places that robbed me of precious time i could never, ever get back.

now it’s time to bake some major voodoo, sayeth the oven, while outside, the weather is being fast forwarded to fall.

into the land of angry women

i would rather spend the long weekend on a beach upstate. or at the jersey shores. or just staying put watching the fireworks if it doesn’t rain. there are also other options that includes hauling ass outside manhattan. like vegas. or new orleans.

but the missus would rather go and exorcise some ghosts.

and i’m all for exorcising ghosts.

so bags must be packed once again and passports secured and off to toronto we go.

that city where both anthony bourdain and andrew zimmer hasn’t even filmed a single episode. i’ve read both time out toronto and lonely planet toronto but aside from blank screens, there’s not a squawk adventure.

but.

there’s maple syrup and some angry vaginas. think allanis and her spawn, avril.

you oughtta know it’s complicated.

exorcising.

joy, and by extension, me are supposed to be in toronto today had the market not shifted. and it’s not that we are so set to go to toronto but when the wind has changed, all she got was a letter that cancelled her job assignment with the explanation and i quote “…because as you know, the market has shifted.”

this after she has resigned from the manila office.

coming home from a 23-hour shoot to find your wife crying while your gout is having a field day is not an experience worthy of saving in one’s brain hard drive. i was tempted to reply “…yes, we understand, but as you know, we’re taking this shit to a labor lawyer named jovito salonga.”

well, we did sort of sent the firm’s partner and the human resources manager a letter listing all sorts of inconveniences from giving up the apartment lease to liposuctioning our savings account for the visa application. including taxi and meals and desserts and the occasional, okay, all movies showing that month tucked under the meal and the taxi expense. we even padded it with the cost of selling three parcels of arable land in the province, a dozen cows, a fish pond, a texas breed of seven prized cock fighters, and three harvests of 45-days chicken because we have pinned out hopes of making it to canada. and she got a hefty sort of settlement which i spent no time in spending.

but still she was jobless.

the happy ending is that she immediately sent that day – i must have drank 3 gallons of coffee to stand upright by her side – an email blast to all corners of the world from london to milan to johannesburg to new york and all replied to send her an application link. from the same firm or its competitors.

so a week after, we are pretty much set that jologizing new york will happen anytime soon. and she even got  a consultancy stint at smart telecom which, aside from the relaxed IT company atmosphere, seemed to be hemorrhaging so much money they have to invent names like summer and back-to-school and emergency bonuses (smart is also the only philippine company that’s not in the pharma business to give its employees a proper health benefit to rival europe: all things health related are free – from doctor exams to prescriptions – no matter how long it would take and no matter how much would it cost. your smart ID is your health card. last aside since i only got this from reading why americans are iffy about health care: the only way for healthcare to work is when the pay-per-visit is taken out of the equation because, since that doctor is not earning on your visits he would rather get rid of you immediately and the only way to do this is to make sure you get well ASAP and stay healthy.). it also gave her an idea of her true professional worth.

now. a year plus after, we will be setting foot in the office that dumped her. and speaking of dumping, all i ask is a chance to be given access to the executive washroom. insert evil laughter here.

ohmyfuckinggods!

woke up at 4 ayem, took a piss, then browsed the app store. photography, of course. this japanese genius has an app called toy camera ($1.99) that does all sort of wonderful shit.

he also has an editing software for free that, according to his website, needs zero editing knowledge. sold!

i tried the software (as it is still too dark to take pictures outside) using a canned pic from the march.

lo and behold. wonder, mere mortals at my artistic powers.

tried another pic just to see if this really works.

and here’s the result.

a small victory for someone who can’t do photoshop even if my life, or the isteyts economy depended on it.

*** U P D A T E ***

was finally able to take a stroll at the park, despite an overcast sky and a hint of rain. let’s see how this looks on the web.

incidentally, there’s an NY times send-your-phone-camera-masterpiece at: http://submit.nytimes.com/cameraphone

13 books

meme go again. something that’s not for facebook.

1. SILK by CAITLIN R. KIERNAN

i’ve been saying this forever. this is my “the catcher in the rye”.  when i read this book, i felt that every word has been set down only for me. i still read it once a year before halloween the way i watch “the crow” every november 1st. this has been my guidebook for life because in between the pages is the wisdom that when life kicks you in the teeth, it’s not all that bad. it’s actually a great deal worse.

2. WORMWOOD by POPPY Z. BRITE

i have no choice but to copy – word for word – the blurb: poppy z. brite writes like a cathedral on fire. amen.

3. THE WOMAN WITH TWO NAVELS by NICK JOAQUIN

having grown up with sionel jose’s and carlos bolusan’s in the house, i could say that this is the first filipino book that is actually readable. there is none of that pretense infesting all other filipino books that are considered and so- called literary.

4. THE ISLAND OF THE DAY BEFORE by UMBERTO ECO

there are his first two novels but this one kicks ass in a different way.

5. THE SCAR by CHINA MIEVILLE

a big book with big ideas. like his first book, this one gave tolkien clones a run for their money. what’s really mindbending aside from the places and the peoples and the plots is how he leaves one thing unresolved. genuis.

7. KINK by KATHE KOJA

art and madness and everything in between. and still makes sense.

8. THE ANATOMIST by FEDERICO ANDAHAZI

i will steal two closing lines from the prologue: this is a story of a comedy. this is a story of a tragedy.

9. SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by RAY BRADBURY

one of the best things living in the isteyts is that i got to experience autumn and breathe the scent of decaying leaves and hear the crack of dried twigs under my shoes as a chill crawls up my spine. thank you mr. bradbury and more wickedness this way please.

10. KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL by ANTHONY BOURDAIN

someone studying the culinary arts lent the title to me and said that it is hardcore. it was. i only returned the book when i got a first edition hardback at the fifth floor of national bookstore in cubao.

11. THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE by THOMAS HARDY

there’s nothing like a story that ends in tears. even shakespeare would agree.

12. PATTERN RECOGNITION by WILLIAM GIBSON

the man who coined the term “cyber” finally writes something that’s based in real life set in real time but stil manages to keep that dystopian tinge to it. there are whispers that blue ant is modeled after the ad agency strawberry frog.

13. THE COLLECTED TALES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE by EDGAR ALLAN POE

read aloud by my father over gasera during power outages in the province. the cask of amontillado and the tell-tale heart are unanimous favorites.