that's just some ignorant bitch (shit)

photo from the great library of Tumblr

Karugtong ito ng nakaraan kong post tungkol sa membership shopping.

Kanina lang ito nangyari at natuwa ako sa kinalabasan. Habang naghihimas ako ng tiyan pagtapos mag-agahan ay naisipan kong buksan ang telebisyon, inaasahan ko kasing aabutan ko pa ang umagang balita at tignan kung anong anggulo na naman ang gagamitin upang mambulag, mangmanipula at magpabago ng persepsyon ng mga tao ang mga tv networks. 

Yun lang e hindi ko na inabutan ang balita, ang saktong lumabas sa screen ay ang Kris TV. Nakakatuwa dahil kagabi lang, habang nagbabasa ng dyaryo sa aking personal space and time na tinatawag kong 'poopoo time' eh nabasa ko ang isang artikulo ni Frank Cimatu tungkol sa isang libro. Guess what, bida si Kris dun, gaya ng marami pang librong satire na naisulat dahil makulay nga naman ang personalidad ng nakababatang kapatid ng kasalukuyang pangulo.

Mabalik ako sa aking kwento, nakita ko na nagpapamigay si Kris ng mga papremyo sa kanyang mga studio audience. Guess what uli, kasama sa papremyo nya ang 42K worth of grocery items from S&R. Hindi ko alam kung ano ang relevance ng number 42 kung bakit yung ang napili pero ang tingin ko kasi 42 na si Kris. 

Anyhow, that's 'world class shopping' right there. And you've got 42,000 blingy pesos to spend for you and your family's needs. Nice. Ang nakakatawa talaga dun ay narinig ko si Melay sa background, sabi nya "Pangmayaman ang groceries dyan!" Hindi naman ako sensitive na tao dahil alam ko namang nanggaling rin sa hirap si Melay bago siya sumikat sa pagaartista at dala rin siguro iyon ng pagiging artista nya kung kaya't kailangan nyang magsalita ng mga ganoong bagay.

"Pangmayaman." Ewan ko pero quantifying at identifying ang tunog ng salitang iyon para sa akin. Ewan ko talaga.

Dagdag pa sa kwento ko ay iyong isang karansan ko noong nakaraang sabado. Kailangan kasi bumili ng donuts ng kasama ko sa J.Co para pampasalubong. Iniisip ko naman, ok lang kasi hindi naman siguro pipilahan yung pagbili duon, matagal na rin naman kasi ang brand na iyon tulad ng Krispy Kreme. Lintek, mali. Naknamputang haba ng pila ang sumalubong samin sa tindahan nila sa TriNoMa, as in 1 and a half hours ng pila. Ang nakakatanga sa nangyari noon eh ang mga tao mismo, hype yun e! Grabeng pagtitiis para lamang sa isang ideyang ibinebenta sa paraan ng magmumukha kang mayaman pag may hawak kang box ng overpriced donuts. 

Peste, pero masarap nga naman raw yung donuts sabi nung kasama ko. Ang sabi ko naman, masarap nga e male-late ka naman sa trip mo papuntang Baguio. 2pm kasi ang byahe nya pero 1:30 eh andun pa rin kami at naghihintay na matapos bilangin ang mga klase ng donuts na inorder namin. Taragis. nagkakagulo ang mga tao sa loob ng tindahan. Parang palengkeng de-aircon at sa halip na isda, karne, manok, gulay, itlog, mantika, bigas, lumpia wrapper at mga spartan at rambo na tsinelas ang ibinebenta ay mga donuts na avocado, almonds, pink ewan at kung ano-ano pang fancy names.

Paglingon ko habang nasa loob kami ng tindahan ay muli na namang may mga biktima sa labas, nakapila, naiinip at naiinitan pero nagtitiis para makatikim lamang ng pansamantalang ligayang dala ng isang pangangailangang magpanggap at maging katanggap tanggap sa isang komunidad na mapagpanggap rin.

Buti pa ang Dunkin' Donuts, may mga magandang alaalang dala ng mga munchkins, cute na mga boxes at saya dahil tuwing uuwi ang mga magulang ko noon ay may pasalubong sila sakin. 

S&R

Please hold as I gather my thoughts.

Alright, this is about that membership shopping that I was wanting to write about. What prodded me to write this was the overwhelming feeling of being inside a warehouse full of expensive shit made "affordable" just so we could taste the American way of life. I may be overacting here but that's what I really felt, up until now.

Back in the day when I was a wee little lad in a catholic elementary school, they always told us to be proud nationalists. Patriot, I thought, was a word that the Americans often use to portray their fervor for keeping true to the red white and blue. Who wouldn't want that, right? It's the green, green grass of future homes. They taught us how to show nationalism, how to support local products, how to keep our belief systems in line with what our ancestry tells us. It's good thing to learn at school but something never really explained the idea of wanting the American way of things.

As you enter the warehouse, you'll be quite amazed at how it resembles a plane hangar. You can imagine how Boeings and fighter jets sit on the grounds, instead, there are high rise isles of product and imported fantasies. I may be drawing from my past media studies lessons or popular culture modules but something rang. Chocolates, with their out-from-the-balikbayan-box musk are lined up in varying conditions of flavor, packaging and certain sweetness and richness of the cacao that was used to supply us the sugar rush of fine edible gold. I wasn't sure how I would react at first, everything was just so big. It felt like I was back in grade school when I felt small if compared to a white dude thousands of miles away. Everything was blown up into a ratio of a heavy set viking: not slices of pizza but overstuffed banners of meat, sauce and bread, bags of chips fit for a whole barkada but is good enough for a single sitting of a season of The Walking Dead.

I got a buzz out of it, though. The liquor section offered a tempting bottle of fine whiskey. It's somehow a doublestandard for me since I was questioning everything ever since I walked in. The queue to the register just equally ridiculous as well. Carts and carts full of product are lined up, you'd probably think they were buying for a mini-grocery store. 

Everyone was just sold with the idea that we get to be fancy and Americanized if we buy this or that. I'm not mad at Americans for selling that idea, it's part of the consumer-capitalist relationship/theory/principle/way of life that we all know, love, live, die and kill for. We are sold this message because this is what their marketing research team had found out with all the surveys, interviews and studies they put out. What hurts the most is that we truly enjoy it. We get the idea that a certain product has this amount of verifiable and quantifiable amount of utils that we'd gladly buy twice the amount of what we need just because the tag says "save as much as up to xx-amount of Dollars!" (which is something that adds to the problem since we don't even use $$ for our daily commute and alms for the poor.)

I don't know if I should be offended by that or I should accept it as marketing hype. Slowly, we identify the brands we want to be identified with and the flags that we represent. So, we really shouldn't be so mad when they criticize the country and our heritage since we really don't have brown skin anymore, plus, we rep the star spangled banner, they have good deals at the local flag store.

I am almost reminded that we are indeed "global citizens."

Simple enough

"Legalize the fuck out of this shit."

Sometimes, there are still gold nuggets on YouTube comment sections.

Mad props to Macklemore. Spitting rhymes never sounded so good and true.

peek-a-boo

I'll try to re-write what I've accidentally deleted a while back. Fuck.

Well, my story started with how much tv series and movies I've been watching recently and that I can't seem to enjoy the plots that much because of something I've read. It's about a tip or interview of some sort that Vonnegut gave and it was about writing. The main idea was to let something miserable happen to your characters whenever you're writing. It just stuck all the way though up to now.

So, when everything's going diddly fine on Breaking Bad, Girls or Boardwalk Empire, I automatically assume that the grim part of the script is just waiting at the turn, waiting to blind side you and just depress the fuck out of your fictional world. Yes, they are written superbly by people who are just plain great, genius even though Calvin Weir Harris wouldn't like to hear that word around him or used to refer to him. That sounded fragmented.

Well, the thing is I automatically assume that the characters are on a suffering race and that it's just a matter of time until the next big thing bursts their bubble. The conflict is amazing, however. The weaving of the stories and how they all end up tangled in the end, just fucking brilliant. I sometimes catch myself thinking why I didn't think of that shit? It's always safe to think that someone's going to get shot and turned into human goo in a plastic barrel. 

Vonnegut made sure I thought of that. Though it still makes you itch to see what happens and it makes you want to feel surprised about how the next punch to the gonads is going to wrapped and packaged. Will it be subtle and striking or in your face brass knuckles to shuffle all your teeth out type of way? We don't know that, only the idea that when something gets all high up in one point, the crash is sure to come. Talk about being a pessimist even in the fictional world.

Hell, what is the world without struggle, right? It's just one struggle after another. You never run out of those things. If you do, it's either you're dead or in a coma.

Watching Ruby Sparks and One Day made me feel that thing with the highs and lows and all that roller coaster of emotions and shit. What will happen after Calvin and Ruby's perfect relationship? What happens next, now that Em and Dex are finally together? It's a Russian Roulette and the bullet always ends up in your chamber. It waits for the final click of the hammer.

Fuck, yea. Naisulat ko uli pero nawala ang karamihan sa train of thought.

photos were taken from the internet

So, there's that.

Yeah, bitch! Wireless keyboards and mouse! Stepping up! Nah, not really. Just left my laptop at home since it's n...

Fuck. I deleted a whole entry without saving it. Fuck, I want to hit this nice wide-ass screen so badly. Fuck.

talk about dicks

This post belongs to a series of posts that I've recently worked on. You probably have the idea on what the central theme is. And it is very narcissistic and selfish.

Writers have the egos of small children when they are compared with other writers of greater or equal talent and exposure. Sometimes the measure is not in the volume of the pages sifted by the audience but by notoriety, fame and even controversy. They claw and boast that their castles are bigger, more fortified, more grandeur than others’. They explain in terms that only they understand and at the end of the play day they just leave their tiny big forts there to crumble only to be built up from make shift foundations for show and tell time on another day.

Then, there is the intro of the ego of adults that when they meet people, actual people of age and even preference or standpoint that they find attractive or seek attention from, they all act simple and human to the point of low. 

They want to be seen as someone who they are. They want people to like what they like, have the same traits, have the same tastes in wine, coffee and genres of reading. Not to the point of leagues-deep of literary understanding and interpretation – it is one thing that all writers take pride in: their ability to make sure that no other lesser writer can match the depth at which they understand literature.

They want the feeling that people do when they think that they are reading their selves in a novel. I am that character. I’m a secret misogynist who pretends I love women and their rights but I only want them for their physicality. I am that great musician who takes pride in my level of artistry. I am that handy man who is totally ripped and scarred by life but is gentle once you get to know me and notice the dimples at my back. I am that woman who is nothing but independent and success-driven and yet I melt at the image of a cuddle in bed weather days. 

They want that flattery because they know that they can deliver it in ways that will keep people up for nights without end. They are asshole sweet talkers and they want to be sweet talked in a way that is not asskissing but romantic and totally blunt and hurtful in perfect harmony.

To say all those things is very cruel. Yes, but the writer levels him/herself to the point as humanly possible to show that they, too are products of small egos. They want to be loved for who and what they are, but they want it done their own way.

Well, that’s that. It’s a stereotype deconstruction of a stereotype that we call “writers.” Dicks.

plastic sheeting

I promise, this will be the last snip for the day.

What we get from the feeling of finishing a very interesting article, story or post we write is something that varies in shade, intensity and purity. We can never put it in words with such quantification and precision, the essence is not contained in a jar in its entirety. Writing has been an escape from the real. Writing has been the  reality for the imagined. Writing has been the instrument to bend and break. Writing has been the wall which many have leaned on when they have rubber legs from all the whiskey they drank. The feeling is fleeting in its sense that we don't know that what we may write is some sort of magic for others. And that the magic in itself is not knowing that we've made real some things that have not been real for a long time.

I don't know about this post but I just want to write it. Maybe it's just the cold getting in between my toes.

15-seconder

"If he doesn't read your stories, he doesn't read you."

Dialogue from Girls, season 2.

Makes you think, really. About the person you're trying to open up to. And the ego that you are feeding. Writers have small, big egos. 

Humblebrag, motherfucker.

olympia

The problem with writing in a euphoric state is that you get too attached to the feeling that when it flutters away, you close your hand into a clench that you end up with only a dusty glitter of what you had. Trying to write a good story is one thing. Living it, that's an entirely different script.

I need to find myself a typewriter.

stupid things, really

Finally.

There are a lot of things that I haven't been able to do lately. And I shall make a list of it in this post. Sorry for the unread blog entries, especially to those who are put up on my bloglist. I am truly sorry for not being able to read any of your shares, ideas and other importantly thought provoking things. Yea.

1. Write an entry about membership shopping. There are a lot of things to write about it, really. And I am lost at a standpoint and the choice of which perspective to use to present it clearly and effectively. I am done with just the profanity but they still feel so damn good.

2. Write an entry about the thought of not knowing the most important things in your family's history. Like, the reason they don't even teach you the history because maybe there is none. I just recently discovered the date of my parents' wedding anniversary, but it was washed down with a bottle of hard liquor. Story of my life.

3. Write an entry about how much my mind deteriorates at a somehow (alarmingly) quick rate. That is how I think of it since I happen to always forget how much I want to write more entries for this blog, along with the salient points of life and their translation to digital codes so this blog may continue to be a straggler. I need a tickler for my quickly lost thoughts.

4. Start a blog about drink-worthy booze. Yea, that's right, friends. It's an excuse to keep on being a rip-roaring alcoholic.

5. Move out and get a place of my own. It keeps getting hard to stay home since it is so good to be home but things just gets so crazy livin life gets hard to do and sunday morning rain is falling and im calling out to you~

6. Quit my job and apply for another. I am working on that. Be my own boss and get tatted up.

7. Kick up and get werking. Fuck, it's hard.

8. Get business up and running. Teach me how to squeegee.

9. Start writing a novel. Yea.

10. I already forgot about the many things that have bugged me for the better part of the new year.

As you can see, these are all very trivial things to a somewhat very trivial life. I'm sorry guys. It's just hard to figure out how to do things and answer the question why you do it. I think I'll keep on making lists here so there is a strong motivator to do them - public shaming. I swear to God, there's supposed to be more than 10 things on this list.