Faking Both Ends (Of The) Meat

The day before yesterday, two collectors from our blasted TV cable provider went to our apartment to disconnect the line. We haven’t paid them for some time. It’s their fault, said The Spouse. They failed to send us the bills on time. This blasted TV cable company has been harassing us with disonnection notices and visits these past few weeks, and so The Spouse had been on a war with them. Nonetheless, I told her, in the end they’d win; we really owe them money. And so that day, they did arrive, but at an inopportune time. Me and The Spouse came from the office, and were both drunk. We were already in the bathroom with Krystal who we picked up at school. I was already eager to feel the warmth of her flesh afterwards. But those bastards arrived. The Spouse’s tipsiness suddenly transformed into rage. The next thing I know, I was already lying on the bathroom floor, eager not to puke (man, I’ve never been drunk like that for quite some time). My wifey was already on her way out to pay the bills, but not after giving the disconnecting assholes a piece of her drunken mind.

Blasted cable company thinks they’re the best in our town. Bah, humbug! Actually, by standards, they are. Damn. But after booting out Jack TV and its associate channels,  I rarely use it save for occasional TVE programming that’s beginning to become a bore — that freakin’ channel’s got nothing interesting during the day but boring news and anchorwomen with bad hair. Only Jack TV offers up-to-date episodes of my favorite TV programming of all time: World Wrestling Entertainment! Been watching it since I was uncircumcised. Now I’m searching for another company in our dirty trying-to-be-urban provincial town which offers McMahon’s twisted concept.

If I ever find an alternative company which offers Jack TV, TVE, EWTN, and Nickelodeon and Disney Channel for the kids, then it’s bye-bye for good to our blasted cable company which doesn’t give a hoot of a recognition to its loyal patrons.

Now that it has been settled, I move on to yesterday. Hurray! Our water was disconnected! We were caught by surprise, but The Spouse was at fault; she forgot that it was already due! The man who was sent by our water supplier refused to accept payment, nor did he allow wifey’s excuse that she’d pay it right at that moment. He said that orders are orders. He still went on with the disconnection.

We sent the maid to the main office to have the bills paid. She texted back, saying that it requires a P300 reconnection fee. Blast it! And the main office wasn’t even that near our place. It was nearly four in the afternoo. And the dishes from lunch weren’t even done yet. And my kids are running around like rats, with foodstuff in their mouth and hands all over the floor – my wife is very finicky; she has OCD (which in time I also acquired from her), so that for us is a big problem.

After that has been taken care of, wifey decided to settle our Meralco bill as well, sending off our maid to a nearby office. She brought with her more than P3,000 grand.

After around an hour, which was unusually long because the office was very near our place, she went back on the verge of tears.

She was victimized by the notorious hypnotists/robbers: budól-budól gang! I will not jot down how our stupid maid was victimized. Anyway, I couldn’t understand her explanation since her Tagalog’s halting and convoluted (perhaps due to nervousness or her being Visaya).

How nice, ¿no?. Yesterday was such an “awesome” day. Now we only have around P500 left. And my salary’s due to arrive this Tuesday (still far away). I tried to cry it all out but couldn’t. I tried to get some sleep as well since I have work later that night. But all I did was recite and memorize Nick Joaquín’s jazz chant Consumerismo with Krystal. Kept on grabbing books, browsing, and then skipping on the floor. Looking out of the door towards the darkened streets. Don’t know what to do. Wanted to write, nor read to say the least. But so agitated and restless I was. I grabbed me a glass of Coke to avoid hypotension.

Sigh. We keep on losing money. We occasionally lose them to a couple of lowlifes (pickpockets, etc), A few years ago, the people tending to our upstart piggery tricked us out of our hard-earned money. Now this. Now this? Is this all part of “you reap what you sow?” Goodness gracious, I just don’t know how to react.

Such an aspiring artist I make with such a disastrous day like that. Oh boy. What’s next?

I Couldn’t Even Think Of A Title For This One. Any Suggestions?

Recently, I’ve been thinking seriously of ending all this shit about writing. It’s just driving me crackers because nothing’s happening. Should I just remain a simple citizen, just remain floating in the shallowness of the crowd? Or perhaps just train my kids to become writers, the kind that I never became?

I think I’d never be a writer. Well, I’d still be able to continue writing this way, upholding the “morals” of this mine blog. But not in the caliber of top scribblers of my hopeful land such as Eric Gamalinda, Cirilo F. Bautista, Jessica Zafra, etc. Even rocker poet Lourd de Veyra, despite his radioactive mainstream sago status, requires serious literary attention. But me, here I am in this fairly young website, wallowing in my own sty, too shameful to even declare my own name. The e-scribbler? How gay.

“Publish or perish! Publish or perish!” Lest I get published, I’ll remain this way — nothing.

But how can I publish without even having ample time to hone my, uh, craft? I got three playful kids and a hot wife who never fails to entice and tease and titillate the innards of my hot masculine flesh (no offense to ultraconservative feminists). Aside from work, they take up much of my time. I don’t try to blame them as the cause of my lack of time to write. In a way, well, they are, hehe. But fuck it, I don’t even dare imagine them out of my life: I think that if even one of them disappears from my life, I’d go totally nuts.

Now going back, how can I get published, nor to say the least, how can I write if, during my freetime, I’m already mentally exhausted from taking in phone calls during the night? Yep, you guessed it. That’s how I earn money — in a call center taking in both English and Spanish calls. They pay me more than peanuts. But what I earn can never translate into good writing. But I’m tied to it, alas, perhaps for a long time until I find a suitable way for me to earn money for my family without sacrificing my intellectuality (how conceited! but hey, this is my fucking blog, my little cozy world, my twisted playground – you don’t even have the right to argue if I say that Aga Muhlach or Richard Gómez couldn’t hold a candle to me, hyuk-yuk-yuk!).

Is this the curse I get for stealing hundreds upon hundreds of books over the past years? Up to now, I’m still hounded by guilt over stealing tomes of various titles from my friends, libraries, even my relatives. The greatest thievery that I’ve ever done is when I robbed my mentor, my friend, a person whom I consider my “father”, of his rare Filipiniana books. It began when I learned that he’s going to bequeath all of his books to his alma mater. I was alarmed, aghast, disappointed. I was expecting him to bequeath all of his books to me. He could not give them away not even to his very own son because, according to him, his son is not interested in the things that we are interested in, which is history, literature, culture. Besides, his son was a former drug addict.

I was too young back then. I once had the nerve to ask his permission if I could continue his patriotic work. He was elated, said yes. But I’m not even half the intellectual that he is. I needed his books to become like him. I was freakin’ jobless at that time, and he was the one who gave me a job: as his personal assistant and typist. He didn’t pay me big, just a hundred or so pesos per day. But he helped me nonetheless. The most generous person in the world. Yet I robbed him.

My wife became pregnant at that time with our second. It was unplanned. And I was technically jobless. Me, my wife, and our daughter were still living with a relative who was rude to us. We were living in a decrepit former mini-house-turned-bodega. And I was then an atheist-turned-agnostic with a great dream of hitting it big in Philipine literature. It was during these sad, hungry days that I produced some of my best poems. And then suddenly, like I said, my wife became pregnant. An unplanned pregnancy. And I was penniless. I insisted of terminating it. She almost said yes. And then a miracle happened: I got a personal message from God not to do it. It was the start of my transformation. But that’s for another post.

Thus, when I found out that she’s pregnant, I thought to myself, I wouldn’t be able to write anymore. What was it that promising writer Joe Bert told me a few years back? “I was surprised when I learned that you and Jennifer were married. I said to myself, ‘man, getting married is one big headache!’” I knew what he meant. One can never serve two masters at the same time, especially in my situation back then. And since I felt that I was a goner, I started stealing books from my master.

“These books I have represent the true history of our country,” said he, pointing to his shelves while he was lying on his bed. This mentor of mine was then already an old man, yet strong of mind and muscle. I did him a foolish, perhaps an unforgivable sin. I betrayed him everyday during those months that I went to his house to work for him. Each night that I go home from his place in Makati City, I brought with me several of these precious historical books home. I said to myself, I already have much of his intellect, his philosophy, in me. But I will not allow that to fester and spoil. And it would be a great disservice to the nation to have those books stashed in some faraway university in the south.

I did partake of those books fruits. Even my children, I think they’re starting to learn. But it pains me up to now just to think that my intellect and my children’s intellect come from stolen materials. All because of my foolishness. I already confessed this robbery to a priest when I was converted to Catholicism last 2003. The priest told me I was forgiven, but he didn’t advice me to return those stolen books. My close friends, even my wife, suggested that I return the books. But I couldn’t anymore. I thought it best to share its knowledge (but I still refrain from lending it to people who needs them; stupid me).

What good is a book, if it will remain in a school library? That was the perennial mantra running in my head. My defensive line whenever guilt hounds my peace.

Now, going back to the original problem…

How can I get published if I’m a nobody? And why the desire? Why the need to become known? And if already a superstar, what good would it do for me? Will that even make me worthy to kiss God’s feet?

And why keep on asking questions like these if I couldn’t even determine if there’s any answer for them?

And to whom am I addressing these questions? Papansín. What a sore loser. A thief of a fucking loser. Heck, nobody reads this blog but me.

Nobody… yet…

It’s All About Writing

The problem with this chosen craft –writing– is that it is indeed the loneliest art. And what is queer is that, in reality, it is not really I who chose it. What had happened was in the reverse.

I do not enjoy writing. Who does? National Artist F. Sionil José once wrote that whoever claimed to have read James Joyce’s Ulysses in its totality is either a masochist or a bloody liar. That is what I feel towards any writer who claims to enjoy writing. Worse, some of them might even claim to do it as a hobby. Reading is fun. But putting into print what’s going on in the imagination is a bloody herculean effort.

Speaking of imagination, I don’t think I have a good one. I may conjure up humorous quips and comical back jabs against some co-workers and other funny-looking/acting people that I know, but I don’t know if that qualifies as part of the literary-imaginative process. Basically, I harmlessly make fun of some people just to make friends or family members cringe with laughter.

I mentioned imagination here because, naturally, it is a crucible force behind writing, particularly creative writing. Writing is about ideas, and even the most trite-looking political essay must have the essentials of a vivid and lively imagination so as to garner interest. But the necessary imagination to mold fiction, that I admit I don’t have. I have written a couple of short-stories, but most of them are still unfinished. And those that were completed never saw print at all. I pursued, instead, poetry and essay with much ardor and zeal and focus. With both, I think I achieved a considerable amount of recognition back in college. I won first prize in a poetry contest. Some of my essays were used as oratorical pieces, thanks to the trust and support of my alma mater’s English Department (now known as, regrettably, the Foreign Languages Department). However, looking back at those poetically fruitful years (I was writing verses almost every week if not everyday!), there is still discontent.

Why?

*******

Here I reproduce my award-winning poetry:
OF SPACE AND PSYCHE

At the forefront

The scraggly surface collected

A small pool of quiescent glaze

Pulsating a history of

A thousand graves singeing

This placid pool reminiscent

Of Romulus mending walls

In the eyes of a storm

The Watcher.

A hyperbolic scream:

A worm interposing

Squished in the warmth

Embrace of this Deluge

In minute form

Yet with that same idiotic form

Until this drop drops

And like glass

Came crashing, shriveled, screaming

               smiting and cutting

The wherewithal of things to come.

Here comes finality

Simulating this broken image

To that of tap water

And next door neighbors quarrelling

And crying engines, horns, laughs

Here comes the

Ululation of the urge

The urge and imprisonment.

Get out of here

Swim through the air

Resolute of nothing

But finality

Therefore the clarity

Still shrouded in misery

The urge to trap

The stillness of this all

Ripping it afterwards

Racking the flesh

For the buzzards to feast

               come here, all of you

Here is finality

Let the cold dry the

Wetness, no towel

Will hurt the skin no

More, lying down

On the floor

Eyes of water

Eyes of glass

Another drop

               it will come to pass.
Two renowned instructors in my alma mater, literary maestro Radney Ranario and historian José Mª Bonifacio Escoda, commended this work. They were the judges of the said contest, Istakel, the 3rd San Marcelino Literary Awards (2003). As prize, I received a small trophy, a signpen (which I lost, dammit), and Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Mr. Ranario, who now bears the torch of our university’s unsung poetess, the late Amelita Málig, did have a few criticisms which, unfortunately, we were never able to talk about. But he did write a favorable critique of some of my poems included with my winning piece, which was subsequently published in our student publication. For his part, Mr. Escoda encouraged me to continue using more imagery, which of course creates more pictures in the mind as the poetry is read. Thus, it creates subliminal joy inside one’s mind.

But up to now, I don’t feel great pride with this poem. I could not understand it now. Could it be because I haven’t written that much for years now? I do believe so. Writing, as in all other art forms, requires constant, regular practice. And need I say discipline here (and as I input this text into wordpress.com, there’s another window opened up for porn. I may cry…).

Is it because my focus to write has been captivated by yet another language? Like all Filipinos, I was trained to read, speak, and write in a colonial tongue: English. I’m a native Tagalog, although I also speak and write in Spanish which I’m now “relearning,” having realized not too long ago that it’s actually a Filipino and not a foreign language. I do not know how to write in Tagalog, nor will I ever pursue it with much dexterity of the mind as I do with the English language which I dearly love. But I hope that I am not branded as a traitor for choosing to study yet another language, French, instead of mastering Tagalog.

And after French, next in line is Latin. But enough about tongues for a while.

But you know, if I didn’t stop writing years ago, would I still be able to understand the subconscious meaning of OF SPACE AND PSYCHE.

A useless question, because there is no concrete answer to it.

But what I would like to emphasize here is my discontent. Whenever I visit bookstores and happen to find books on Philippine poetry (I seldom read foreign literature anymore), I stop to wonder: what makes these poets, especially those unheard of, get published? Some of them are so young, barely out of their teens! Is it because they have as professors renowned men of letters such as Cirilo Bautista, Edith Tiempo, Roberto Añonuevo, Butch Dalisay, Jr.? Is it because they come from more reputable schools such as the Ateneo de Manila or De La Salle? Do they have connections.

Right now, all I could do is wonder and whine and wince in jealousy. I could grumble all day, but that wouldn’t be poetic anymore.

And I haven’t even succeeded in finalizing what this essay is all about. What I little I do know is that all this ranting is all about writing.