Kulo

Yesterday, the Philippine Senate, predominantly inutile as they are, spent another working day on their grand but utterly useless inquiries.  Senate inquiries, aimed mostly for publicity and grandstanding and usually done "in aid of legislation" is 98% of the time an expensive and futile exercise.  I don't want to elaborate on the practices so save it for another day but just to make a point ask yourself whatever happened to the Hello Garci inquiry, the Eurogenerals, the C5 road extension scandal of Manny Villar, the GOCC heads, the ZTE-NBN deal inquiry and dozens upon dozens more inquiries that the Senate did, of which caused a temporary uproar from the people eventually dying a natural death when another controversy arises for new "inquiry".  But so much for the Senate and their mindless self-serving press releases.  I want to speak my mind about the topic of yesterday's inquiry.

The "Kulo" exhibit of visual contemporary artist Mideo Cruz has drawn serious flak from mostly the religious of a predominantly Catholic country for a couple of weeks until the CCP eventually decided to close down the exhibit to appease the ardent protesters and probably save the artist from blind and fanatical violence.  As soon as the protests from the religious sectors rose to a boiling point, artists of different backgrounds came out to defend art and the supposed repression of freedom of expression by the Church.  They once more upheld the separation of church and state and that censorship of one's right to express himself through art is backward and senseless.  The verbal combat between the two parties never receded since then. 

For the artists, they claimed that art should be something that opens the mind to something new; it is provocative; it is transformative.  It is meant to change your view of the world, eventhough the change may not necessarily be in a positive way.  They argue that you should view the whole exhibit in its entirety and reflect on what the artist really wants to express and not just on the superficial material.  They argue that just like in anything in life people have choices and you are not required to go to the CCP and view the exhibit if you find it offensive.  You have freedom of choice, to view it, be furious and flirt with a cerebrovascular event or don't view it and spare yourself the stress. 

And so came to the artist's defense tour guide extraordinaire Carlos Celdran, brilliant filmmaker Jose Javier Reyes and National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbrera.  Yours truly personally doesn't know the works of Mr Lumbrera for I haven't read any of them but for the former two, I quite have a little knowledge about them.  Jose Javier Reyes is a brilliant director and scriptwriter and for those who don't know it yet is also a rather an upfront and thought-provoking essayist. I have read some of his work and I personally am a fan.  I question though, his motive of fully supporting Mideo Cruz.  I remember years back when bomba films in the country sprout like mushrooms after a thunderstormy night and Mr Reyes made a softporn called Live Show.  The film was lambasted so hard by the Catholic Church and other civic groups prompting the MTRCB to scrap the film entirely.  Mr Reyes marched to the streets and called the act "a blast back to the Jurassic Era".  Yep, I agree, though I am ignorant of the law, that was censorship and that was wrong.  Next, Carlos Celdran brought the house down when he entered the Manila Cathedral during a Mass and called the priest Damaso to protest the church's interference in the passage of the RH Bill.  He stressed a point that if you don't want people to interfere with your religious activities then please don't interfere with the affairs of the state.  Mr Celdran was jailed and open-minded people like me cheered for him.  I still am a supporter of his with regards to the RH bill but with this Kulo thing, I think Mr Celdran has gone too far.  It's as if he just wants to oppose the Catholic Church for the sake of opposing it.

Now, let me put my two cents on the matter as this blog entry is getting longer than usual. I don't want to take sides on the matter.  On one hand, I consider myself an artist like Mideo Cruz.  And yes, I am proud to say that what I cannot paint with brush and palette, I do with words.  On the other hand,  I am also Catholic and I love my God.  To say it bluntly, I am offended by the Kulo exhibit. Yes, I haven't seen the entire exhibit and I understand that art is meant to provoke both thought and emotion.  But art that is meant only to provoke and nothing but is trash.  National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose thinks so too.  Veteran film, TV and stage actor Pen Medina thinks so too.  If Mideo Cruz wanted to express his dissatisfaction at the church or religion itself, he could've done so in many more ways.  Not this:

 And certainly not sticking an ashtray carved to the shape of a phallic symbol on a picture of Christ.  Nevermind the blasphemy, if you're not offended, but I will mind that it is downright irresponsible.  Why do it on the holy images of what Christians associate with the divine?  Why attempt to incite anger and hatred from Christians?  Because you think you can get away with it because Christianity is a passive non-violent religion?  I dare these artists exuding fiery bravado to do the same thing with Islam.  Will they be courageous enough to defend their art once jihad is called upon them?  Will they still claim unjust censorship when their exhibit is closed down to prevent escalation of violence towards the artists themselves?

In the end, you can be creative and yet preserve a sense of responsibility and cultural sensitivity.  Art is something to provoke, true, but it is also something that could transform.  But don't judge me, I know nothing about visual art.  I do know, however, that whatever and however the society may see it, freedom per se is something that is never for free.

Atheist

The wine and whine extraordinaire experience afterwork last Thursday was very refreshing as we hadn't had real wine together since the board review has started.  As expected, the main topic was how we did in the recent boards, how we can improve it, etc.  Until we reached the topic of how people deal with failures such as this one.  And a question was raised: If you prepared so long, so hard for something and everything fell apart, would you blame God?

Question is: Do you really believe in God?

Well I have been a rebel without a cause most of my life.  I have been born and raised a Catholic, went from kindergarten to college (and still am) in a Catholic college.  At some point in my life I have turned atheist, then agnostic, the back to being Catholic.  I was never devout mind you, just a regular Catholic who doesn't know his Bible but follow religious dogma somewhat religiously.  But yes, I do believe in God.

During that somewhat drunken moment, I realized atheism is just for the intelligent and the utterly dumb.  Only those who sit at the far end of the spectrum.  I have met many intelligent people who are atheists.  And die-hard atheists are among the worst drinking companions ever.  Having sat at many booze tables in my life there are few topics that I consider taboo unless you talk to someone who is level-headed and up for a truly enlightening discussion: politics, religion and finances.  So when I get these hard-ass atheists with me on the table, I don't argue with them or make any discussion with them.  I just nod my head and sip my beer, hoping to dissuade them from pursuing that topic and move on to the next one.  I do not want to argue if God exists, or why the church is this and that or why the Bible is a compilation of fairytales.  If your mind is fixed on something, nothing can change it.  So what's the point?

I am not a defender of the faith or the church.  I don't know if the Creation story in the Bible is fact or fiction (probably the latter).  I don't know if the other unpublished gospels are to be believed in.  I don't know if what Dan Brown and his likes wrote are to be believed in ( well I wouldn't really know since I don't read crap like that).  But I do believe in God.  It's because there is a God.  I don't have to prove it to you that He exists.  I just know.

Atheists read the Bible so that they can find fault in it.  Atheists learn religion and its history, so they can find fault in it.  Atheists study science so that they can prove it is more superior than faith and dogma. And when the opportunity comes they will drown you in all these arguments trying to confuse you and change your point of views.  This is why to be an atheist you have to be smart or no one will believe you.  You have to be smart so you will understand the Bible and its flaws and to put them side by side compare them and present them to mostly skeptic non-atheists.You have to be smart  to be believable.

I told you that in order for you to be an atheist you either have to be very intelligent or be utterly dumb, right?  Well dumb people do dumb things and since they want to continue doing dumb things they'll argue that there is no god so that they'll be spared from any responsibility, moral and spiritual, from their dumb actions.  Either way, only the smart ones will try to convert you, the dumb ones will just continue to annoy you. 

At the end of the day, when these smart atheists start to argue and confuse me with their almost fanatical beliefs, I just shut down and completely ignore them.  At the back of my mind though, : If you don't really give a damn about God, why spend all your energy trying to make others believe that there's no God?  If you don't really give a damn about God, why are you bothered that so many people believe in Him?  If He is truly nothing to you, then I suppose He wouldn't even need a single moment of your time.  After all, as in showbusiness, any form of publicity, good or bad, is still publicity.

One of Those TV Moments

My last post was about a life wasted by synthetic concoctions that numb and dumb. We usually hear or read about them if they're famous people and completely brush them aside as low-life scum if they aren't.  Drugs have victimized many stars and futilized many talents. It's like a bad dream you can't forget, a shadow always on your tail. Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, Chet Baker, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Brittany Murphy. Their lives and deaths are always reminding us to stay away from drugs.  But no, the best things in life are either illegal, unhealthy, unethical, immoral or taboo.  More and more people try and get hooked on drugs everyday and the painful Russian roulette between drug addiction and society itself continues. 

Druggies would justify that it's their bodies and they have the right to do whatever they want with it.  What they don't realize, or most probably choose not to, is that they are an epicenter of destruction sending shockwaves of despair and grief to those around them.  Drugs kill, that's a fact.  But it doesn't only kill you, it kills everyone else around you.

Of all the reality crap that MTV shows, I was able to catch one that is actually inspiring.  Since my cable company no longer subscribes to MTV, this particular show I caught on Velvet.  The show's title is here:

I watched but a couple episodes of this since I don't know its timeslot and I found at first that the show was stupid.  It's like watching a retreat on TV with people sharing, leaders giving inspiring speeches, people exposing their and their family's dirty laundry for everyone to hear and see, stuff like that.  Stuff that my usual cynicism feeds on for mockery.  After all, it's just all about teenagers and their teenage drama: I feel so alone, I wanna belong, I don't know who I am, all those crap.  But this particular episode touched me deeply.  And I would've written asap after watching the show only if there was no power outage.  Here is the only picture of the girl I'm talking about, I don't know what her name is but her story was incredible:

She shocked her core group when she revealed that she has a mental disorder, bipolar and she has had bouts with severe depression.  She lives in a broken home, with her drug addicted father who verbally abused her to the point of breaking down.  Her own father, the one supposed to protect her, cherish her, love her, encourage her, was the one who raged that she was crazy, that she was no good, that nothing will ever come out of her miserable life.  He stepped on her when she was so down, when she needed his love and support most.  Blame it on his own personal misery, his hatred of himself, his drug use.  But damn it, it crushed her fragile teenage spirit.  She recalled that a friend of hers, who also has the same sickness as her, joined her in committing suicide on Christmas day.  Fortunately, her parents found them and brought them to the hospital for treatment.  She tearfully recalled that a family friend, who has no business at all to attend to her, offered her help.  She now lives with that family friend, who she fondly calls her 'aunt'.  She said that was the only time she felt she was wanted and she was loved.

Her story shocked not only her core discussion group but her other schoolmates who participated in that sharing.  One of them said she was amazed how anybody could have survived that kind of treatment.  One of them said she wanted to hug her each time she crossed the blue line.  Overall, I think not only was it an eye-opener for everyone there (jock, prom queen, loser, nerd, bully, etc) that they can live side by side, pass each other on the hallways without truly knowing one another, how each one really felt, it could have been the last lifeline of that girl.  It was cathartic to have shared her demons so they can leave her, so that everyone can see her now, no longer invisible but with the support of once-strangers-turned-friends. 

Yes, drugs would destroy people around you, those who love you.  But hope springs eternal.  We can get back, we can regain what we lost, we can save lives.  We can find time, time to listen, time to care, just a few minutes to really listen to someone who says "If you really knew me...."

Goodbye Amy

And so pass one of the greatest voices to ever have graced the airwaves in recent memory, Amy Winehouse.

It probably was an OD, a tragedy waiting to happen for someone so dependent, so addicted to her cocktails of poison.  She infused herself with drugs and alcohol as easily as she can breathe out a soulful tune so effortlessly.  It is so sad to lose someone of so much talent by being a drug addict.  Russell Brand said this about Amy and other addicts out there:  "All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they're not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his ‘speedboat' there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they're looking through you to somewhere else they'd rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anesthetize the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief."

I, too, have lost a childhood friend due to drug addiction.  We were in second year college when he ODed.  We were able to visit him in the ICU at St Paul while he was comatose.  Several classmates told us that when they visited John Mark, they were crying feeling sorry for him wanting him to come back to us.  They said a tear fell from the corner of his closed eyes.  The following morning, we heard they news, he's gone.

 Amy Winehouse is a testament to what Bill Gates famously quoted (which I will rephrase): I wish everyone was rich and famous, so that they will know that that it will not bring them true happiness.  Amy Winehouse was at the top of her game four, five years ago.  She won five Grammy's and was tabloid trash for her tumultuous domestic life and her utterly destructive lifestyle.  But how, when sober, can she wow audiences with her soulful and effortless contralto.  She's one of those singers who can just stand there and sing.  Just stand there and amaze you. No need to flap around like a chicken or climb up and down boxes or show off skin and abs to get attention like what Gaga, Britney or Keisha do.  Few artists can do it like Amy Winehouse (read: a sober stonefree Amy Winehouse). Just stand there and sing: Adele, Duffy, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, our very own Kuh Ledesma, among others. 

I'm one of Amy Winehouse's biggest fans and I would surely miss her.  But her addiction ultimately led to her untimely but predictable demise.  Many more artists will come and go and Amy, amazing as she is a singer/songwriter, was not able to establish herself as one of the greatest and given less than five years she will be forgotten.  Like a haunting memory, I will be one of those who will not forget.   Her music will live on like these few lines from her song Wake Up Alone:
If I was my heart
I'd rather be restless
The second I stop the sleep catches up and I'm breathless
This ache in my chest
As my day is done now
The dark covers me and I cannot run now

Her music will live on.  Her demons are gone now.  They've won, you see.  There's no running now.  It's over. The final curtain has dropped.

And so pass one of the greatest voices to ever have graced the airwaves in recent memory, Amy Winehouse. With all her talents and potential perhaps that is all she'll ever be.  A memory.

Here!Here!

This is one song I always listen to when I'm too tired, too disheartened or too cynical of love and life.  I hope you enjoy it too.

By the way, don't forget to turn my playlist off before you click on the video. :-)

Thief

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. So goes the saying.  I believe what other know-it-alls believe in, happiness lies in the self and not on others.  By that, you do not let others judge you, you ignore their presumptions, you do not bend to their will, they do not dictate who you should or ought to become. The key to bliss is to appreciate the good in what others say and forget about the bad stuff. So what if they think you're not as beautiful as you think you are? So what if they think you're cheap? So what if they think you're a loser? Hard as you try though, you cannot block everything out.  You can only be deaf, blind and downright insensitive just long enough before you break down.  You can never be that strong, that numb, just because like all of us you're human.  You feel.  You hurt. You break down.

Last week, I was informed about an incident of stealing in one of the classrooms.  A student lost 2,700 in cash, the alleged thief: a female classmate.Many of them believe this certain "classmate" was also involved in several other similar incidences in the past.  Without concrete, definitive evidence, her classmates who strongly believe she was the culprit condemned her, the air tasting stale and thick as they sold her out, ostracizing her like a leper, all forms of association and friendship thrown out of the window.

  I vaguely remember when one of our classmates was also stealing from others. It was sacrilegious,  the worst form of betrayal in a closely knit us-against-the-world family.  The illusion of security was shattered and suddenly everybody kept looking over their shoulders making sure he never leaves anything valuable while she was around.  Like the girl now, she was scorned, branded for life a thief.  However, she was not someone you could easily hate. She was nice, sweet and friendly with an unassuming personality and a somewhat adorable childishness. She started stealing when things got so bad she got desperate.  I felt sorry for her then.  I feel sorry for this girl now, too.  I do not condemn these people but I certainly condemn their actions.  I wonder, how can you survive for the next 2 semesters in an environment where every quick glance at you becomes meaningful, when every body thinks you're just waiting to strike again.  Can the bridges you burnt during the drama ever be fixed? Can trust be regained?

Ever since, I will allow people to call me and brand me anything they want to.  Call me anything you want, just don't call me a thief. A "thief" is a reputation that takes a long time to be shaken off.  It's something that you can just learn to adjust to but not completely erase.  It's something that you can ignore only for so long before the pain sets in.  You feel.  You hurt.  You breakdown

Hunger Pangs

I had a mid-afternoon lunch at a Korean turo-turo which was immensely disappointing.  I think it was a complete rip-off with just spicy chili soup and Maggi-like noodles.  It wasn't even seasoned well.  So to keep me in a better mood, I decided to grab some iced coffee at Madge's (arguably the best coffee haus in the entire city easily besting Starbuck's and Coffeebreak).  So while sipping and puffing my cancer sticks, a certain craving washed over me.  I missed my kiddie comfort food. Right then and there, I thought about 5 of my most favorite as a kid.

Pritos Ring

You place one one each finger and slowly munch your way in.  I don't know if this stuff has had the longevity of PeeWee or Cheez It but I no longer see it even in sari-sari stores so I assume I'll be picking them off my fingers only in memory.  (By the way, Squid Rings can also be eaten that way)

Bobot

Sugar-coated peanut with a cheap brass ring that turns your ring finger green or gray.  Bobot triggers a lot of fun memories as this is what I usually get during Crack the Pot in birthday parties.  Other kids always get the good stuff, I get crap. Bobot that is.

Haw Flakes

Hail the almighty Haw Flakes! Until now, I still grab some whenever I feel like it.  As a kid, it made you perform priestly duties to your friends or to your self by ministering the host like a holy communion.  Come to think of it, was that considered a venial sin?

Kiamoy

 

 

I used to be disgusted by this stuff until I willed myself to like it.  Eventually, I did and there is no stopping me.  Turned my lips, teeth and tongue orange-y each time.  My favorite part was when Paddy grabs some giant kiamoys from his candy stall at Marymart Mall and we stuff one whole big kiamoy to our mouths until our eyes welled up from the salt-fix.  Must have traumatized my kidneys bigtime.

Chocnut

I remember when Dunkin'Donuts first opened here in Iloilo.  Everybody wanted to taste it.  My parents asked me if I wanted to go to Mass with them one Sunday.  I said no, knowing they will give me 5 pesos for my snacks that afternoon (enough to buy me a 3 chocnuts and a couple Marvel cards for my collection.  I found out later that they all ate out at Dunkin' and didn't even bother to take some home for me "to teach me a lesson".  I almost died right then and there.  Ugh!  Talk about social injustice.