clocking in

Great writers, who are known to be the pillars of this adored but left out profession are all gone. Though there are some who are still standing, I think the prospect of being immortalized in the cult following of the literary world is one to die for. Look at David Foster Wallace, for example. His untimely and self-imposed time out from this life only made Jonathan Franzen look bad. Not that Franzen sucks at making worlds out of paper and ink (he’s one of my favourite) but DFW’s demise only made readers want to know more. It’s like there’s a vacuum of necessity that pulls reader to the dead authors. The lost are celebrated in more grandeur and regard than those who are yet to write their best works.

Ian Flowers, a respected tattoo artist in the U.K. said that he still hasn’t found his best work yet. Maybe, he never will. Another good point. Maybe it’s not death that truly gives way to the best works in the eyes of the author or artist. Though, what makes something a genuine success or a hit? Maybe there are more than a few classification or unit of measure. You just have to churn out more pages if you still haven’t found it yet. It’s always a good practice to outdo yourself every time. A scarcity of pats on the back is something that every creator must live with. It is in the presence of mundane and undeserved praise that makes mediocre work and ballooning egos.

This fascination with people who left a great deal of an impression in literature maybe comes from a series of unresolved conflicts. The lost always make a great topic. You can almost always fit it in everything you say, think or create. I’m afraid I am part of the “lost generation” as coined by John J. Hypocrite. I am part of an era that loses delight in hard work – though I think, I have a problem with it. I’ve forgotten how it is to work for something I wanted. It has taken too long to be reminded of the more important things. Work felt like it stemmed from need and not from the desire of a better day. As I am writing this now, there is a gap in what I want to put in and what I need to say. Help. I am lost.

I am just rambling. 

J.J. Hypocrite is long gone, too. His last peek was into the barrel of his own gun. It is far from over. I haven’t completed my hard work yet. It is not yet time to collect my social security nor cash in my retirement pay. Doomed generation, that was Hypocrite’s exact words. I got too stuck on the less precise word “lost.” I’ve just punched in.

The 26th

My personal marker. Serves as a reminder. Sorry, Ma.
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."
~ Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut

It is nearly the 26th of the month. It'll be the first death anniversary of Tita Mila's passing. It feels passe to say 'How fast. It's been a year already?' She wouldn't want that. She would want to see us enjoying at McDonald's with all the fast food amenities and saturated fat. She was nice like that.

I remember reading a story on the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It was from a column and I've forgotten all too well, the details of the story, the author, the name of the column and when I had read it. The gist was actually a question: "Why do we celebrate deaths and failures?" It was a baffling question for me at that point in my life, having lost no one.. YET. Well, no one important.

I remember the point of the article and it goes something like this: we celebrate deaths and failures so we remember a somewhat silver lining, we remember the Fall of Bataan to remind ourselves of the good that it has brought to us as a people, we remember the deaths of loved ones to remind us how happy we have been to have had them touch our lives, we remember tragedies to remind us that everything we touch in this life is but transient in material space but immortal in a dimension that we all share and pass on to the next seeds of our generations. Well, something like that. 

For many, this time of year, they count the days until Christmas. I do, too. I just wish that wherever Tita spends her time now, they have Christmas there, too. So she may recieve my greetings and gifts. I hope that Vonnegut was right that when we pass, we never really die but only pass on to a different dimension. A dimension where the physical senses are not enough to make us believe that we exist, we just know that we do.

Merry Christmas, Tita. And happy anniversary on your arrival at your own personal and non- physical dimension. 

Bandwagoning with Bad Medicine

This is my first Sunday entry. All other entries in the past have been written during the weekdays and maybe on Saturdays, too, but never Sundays. The thing is, I'm still at work and about 6 hours and a paycheck away from home. I don't mind being away from home if I need to. But as a dear friend always says: "Charge it to experience." And so I shall.

I don't really want to jump on the bandwagon but the celebration of dead loved ones is upon us. As a nation, we religiously follow this tradition and culture. We bring candles, flowers and sometimes food (those who have northern roots will know the significance of "Atang" as well as our Chinese kin by bringing food to the resting place of the deceased.) Filipinos really do value the notion of honoring the dead. I think that WE believe that it's the appropriate thing to do since a vast majority of us only see the dead's importance as they pass on. Well, that's just my opinion.

Keeping true to the topic of this post, a hearse drove by me just a while ago as I picked up my laundry. The hearse didn't have a casket in it and I think the driver just finished gassing up at the station. Funny or maybe, peculiar thing about it is that it was booming. Yes, the slow drive to the final resting place has annoyed many if not most of us one time or another. The slow pace, the wailing people and the traffic that they sometimes cause are a few things (not essentially bad things since WE do honor the dead as I said earlier) that can somewhat irk us.

Going back to my story, the hearse was playing real loud music. Nothing unusual about that, right? It played Bad Medicine. Pretty badass, I thought. Going out in that glorious glam rock tune? I'd say that'll be pretty memorable aside from the capricious pink casket that a local funeral service uses as a peg for promotion and sales. Just imagine the procession of loved ones as they parade your lifeless shell into its final destination. They're all dressed in glam rock attires with all the shiny neon prints and tight ass pants while rocking two-tone electric mullets. 

In view of honoring our dead, we go through lengths to make sure their final wishes are obeyed. Theatrics and culture: they can intertwine maybe even as we enter the afterlife.

Writer's Block #6 - Why Must They Go?

Cue in: Audra Mae's cover of "Forever Young"

We have been living in the age of TV series. We have the different genres hitting different notes for the spectrum of emotions and preferences we viewers have. Rom-coms, science lab comedies, bar tales, zombie apocalypse, blood baths and so much more. But to tinker the aperture a little bit, let's focus on the more serious series to date, those of guns and booze and swords and dragons.

TV series are governed by the principles of entertainment, inspiration and fishing. For one, entertainment is possibly one of the greatest commodities that the human race consumes. For the part of killing time, it is an escape out of the usual.

Second, inspiration strikes the audience with similarities in their lives along with personal styles that are feather-tickled by the concepts and ideas of the series.

Lastly, fishing is an important part, since all of the viewers are hooked by the dramatic, climatic and explosive episodes, not to mention the season finales that we have all so dreaded, loved and missed dearly.

To give a few examples of my more favorite series, Sons of Anarchy had Half Sack, Boardwalk Empire had Jimmy and Game of Thrones had Ned Stark. They have many things in common actually. All are cool, solid guys but aside from that...they are all dead. I was destroyed as I saw these men fall from the ranks of their brethren, gang and club they all so loved. "F*ck, they really died!"

Writers of the said TV series are brilliant: Sutter, Winter and others, Benioff, Weiss and so on. Inception of these series are just gold in their purest sense. And no doubt, when they said these characters must die, they will and they will stay that way.

It's hard to accept but I guess these characters must have had a reason to pass on to the other realm. The three were war veterans in their own accord, bayonets, bullets and great swords couldn't keep them down back in the day. But the story did in one way- the script. Such is the power of the script, dragons may lay waste to the kingdoms, alcohol be the death of all and the gun running be the end of dear Sam Crow. Their stories will continue and their deaths could not have possibly been in vain. They are remembered, with or without tombstones.

Their stories will live on: Stark's Ice, Jimmy's trench knife and Half Sack's err... ball. They must go because having them in the story could be good but their demise had the series hanging in a better way. The writers knew how to quit while they were still ahead. Cool guys always die fast.

To the lost!