Deluge of Chaos

Asexuality


Chainsaws and axes
gritting the pavements
Of naked thoughts
Scraped off welts
with blood dripping
Drenched bandages
Tourniquets of void
Chaos and promise
Of death gripping
Fear of freedom
Hypocrisy at the height
A moral dilemma
Social disparity
gaping in genuine
lust and passion
Lightyears worth
of questions
Universes of blood
stigma, pus
Of sensations only
Honored by its own
In far-flung
pathways of galaxies
Of millenia about to be
A metamorphosis
of a kindred
No, there's no man
No, woman, nothing between
Gender is a piece of each
Our mind's
assiduous dream.

Looking Back to My Tequila Adventure with Barry

I'm now looking down to a deep pit, where I just found myself lately. Been wanting for that spirit in a bottle to drown me in my most needful moments. It finally showed its head to me last Saturday.
I couldn't say I didn't enjoy every emotion that ran through my neurons down to the tiniest veins of my bloodstreams. I had one hell of a drinking session, one that had me drunk all my fears of people. Yep, I finally put an end to that thought that I can please all people, by being the goody-two-shoes that others would want me to be. I just am not that at all. I've always been so attached to my reality, one that I almost always curtail brought by the demands of the workplace, etiquette, norms, and social responsibility, the other side of myself. I had to free it to regain what I lost, a restoraton of a reservoir of fervor and zeal.
So it was when I was about to lose my normal self did I find the real me, the angst-ridden, unfulfilled adult with an adolescent heart. Barry Hibionada's tequila led me to that depth of myself which I had never been, and that brought me to familiarity with the guy. While sipping that crystal-clear liquor, memories and scenes way back whirled around me in a tapestry of emotions played up by alcohol. I yearned for someone who would be with me until I bare all, and I realized it's good to be free in someone's company, especially when one feels belonging, and being a part of, even when things are as muddled as my thoughts were.
Right on the sand particles that I played with my toes, and the beat from the blasting speakers, I dreamt of myself and my inner desires, and it was way beyond the bottle's spirit or the music's erotic beat; it was greater than myself, greater than anything else that happened that night, it's love, the genuine thing from somebody who's real, full, and strong, whoever, wherever, but now. That feeling of wanting and being wanted, that in every thing I do, it leads me to a greater feat, of creating greatness in another's heart. That bottle led me back on solid ground; it made me fight for my truth, the bare-all reality of my battles alone. Barry had his way when he asked for a drinking spree, but I aced him in everything else.

Editing Overload

One day at a time when sleeplessness deprives me of a clear and functional brain, I escape from the lines of scribbles found in an unknown author's manuscript. I travel to dreamlike places and shake hands with iridescent people, mostly inscribing an illusory reminiscence of the past, and make peace with brooding and unpretentious fears of the future. The following words were laid down, acclaiming real tidbits of imagination as they find their way to reality.

Seaside Revolt (Inspired by the memories in Baybay Alliance waters)


In that starlit night
Where thoughts fall
as rapidly as sand
washed to shore
by mighty waves
Torrent of desires
Held captive by needs
Leaves me abandoned
In a memory
of drifters, clingers,
idolaters
Thrust in a vacuum
where undercurrents
exist in a time warp
Lost in the vicissitudes
of stones, sand, weeds
I caress my mind, my feet,
My luminous soul
Braving the dark
Facing the wind
Salty air on lips
Untarnished remains
of yesteryears
stumble in reverie
alone, unashamed, free.

Tessa Jazmines: A Recall of the Persona

I met her during the junior years of my Diliman days. One look at her, I knew that we would hit it off together. Who can doubt her sincere and smart-aleck attitude, one who could snap at a stubborn guard "Kaya kayo binabaril eh!" once when we weren't allowed to attend Mass in Greenhills for lack of IDs, but still she could manage to warrant respect from her colleagues and students.

Ms. Tessa had been the greatest influence during those crucial years of my college life. For a person who loves variety, it only took one class session from her for me to decide having my on-the-job training in her public relations firm. And I was never wrong in my gut feeling. During those drab days of lull when client calls are hard to come by, and we wait for our crafts to be published for days, she always has ways to perk up every member of the team. She would ask for large orders of canton and whatnot, just to keep us from leaving the office. She's not the intellectual snob who would throw you a barrage of theories instead of lend you a book.

In fact, it never came to my mind that she was then the associate professor of the UP College of Mass Communication Journalism department. She never acted like one; though I still remember how generous she was of her experiences and ideas that I thought she was too trusting, especially for a business enterprise where ideas are the most prized asset. Can you just imagine how one day I got my copy of the Diliman newsletter and found out that she's already the vice president for academic affairs. Then I realized, despite all her media and corporate contacts and engagements, first and foremost she is an academic; and that's what makes her firm grounded on value formation the academic environment provides.

I got to read her works just this afternoon while taking a break from a back-breaking job of correcting misplaced commas and semicolons in my latest manuscript. Upon reading even just the first few of her articles gave me a clearer understanding of what public relations is all about. But what amazes me most is the variety of her topics; from one sector to another, she appears to be keen in research and gathering accurate information from the right sources.

A friend of mine said our dean, Luis V. Teodoro, doesn't consider PR as journalism. I was a bit overtaken by disappointment in my lifelong dream of having my own PR firm because of that; but when I read Ms. Tessa's works, I got to see a lot of chances for PR to redeem its name of being inclined to business or corporate interests rather than performing its function of bridging the gap of one social sector to another through communication channels. PR is not stright news journalism or not even the investigative PCIJ-type of reportage, but it is even more difficult. It functions as a buffer zone among usually warring entities, like media and a private company asking for government support for its projects.

Indeed, it's still a long way to go before public relations would be totally understod by laymen. But until then for as long as we have people like Ms. Tessa Jazmines, then we wouldn't have to doubt if we can make use of PR to achieve our patriotic goals for the country.

Intellectual Braggadocio

This would serve as a sequel to my blog with regard to Nick Joaquin's speech in his acceptance of the Ramon Magsaysay award. A matter-of-factly, I found solace in his words, that of concluding the rivalry between literature and journalism, instead linking one to the other. If only that most writers would adhere to the idea, then we wouldn't be seeing people with the right faculty and creativity to write but are so into themselves that they lose that force to connect with their readers.

I have seen and suffered from these people for so many times already, and I can say there are still more coming. I don't know if I reached the last point of protecting myself through emotional immunity. I'd say I'm probably too intoxicated with reality weaved into fictional style, that I forgot how it is to deal with people who have that self-flattering perception of their craft.

Just this afternoon, I got myself caught in its cobwebs. From out of the blue, while we were killing time near the workplace's lobby, I resorted to editing a tarp displayed in front aloud, knowing that the people who designed it were probably a stone's throw away. I felt quite so full of myself, so arrogant, after I finished talking though in the end I did something as a futile attempt to save face. More than anything else, I don't want to have that reputation of being high up on air. I've always loved the ground, and I always check myself if I'm still on it or if I'm somewhere else.

I don't want to name names or put some of my friends in bad light. But there is one thing I have to say. Most of the people I emulate are those who tend to shy away from compliments and stick to their ideas, without the need to shove it down anyone's throat. Why is that? Because they are the ones who are more successful and profound in thinking, not to say with a humanity that feeds life instead of curtail it.

A writer-designer friend of mine once told me that writers are waxing egoists. It's probably true, but for somebody who grew up in the company of media personalities and writers, it's easy to tell when humility is fake and pride genuine and in-depth. Somehow along the way while reading Joaquin's speech, I gained the respect for my chosen degree which is journalism, it being at par with the respect I have for the works of art, especially those pertaining to language.

I can finally say to those snobbish literateurs that fiction will only mean the death of reality when one is cut off from experience. So for writers and wanna-bes, be with people, be the people, and understand people; it's the only way for truth and fiction to lose each other in themselves.

Counterstike: An Appeal for Violence

Just this morning, a ex-reporter friend told me to browse Yahoo news for a story about a new killing in Virginia. He said what startled him was that that the heinous crime was inspired by a computer game, which has been popular among teens and even young professionals long enough to have versions of it.

The game is called counterstrike. The Wikipedia has it: Counter-Strike, commonly abbreviated to CS, is a team-based, tactical first-person shooter video game which originated from a Half-Life mod of the same developers, Minh "Gooseman" Le and "Cliffe", featuring real-world weapons and shootouts. The game has been expanded into a series since its original release, which currently includes Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike: Source.

If I'm not mistaken, it's the same computer game that got my brother hooked to the extent that he almost flunked out in all his subjects. After a few months, the government approved an ordinance on Internet cafes not to accept student customers during school hours. I don't know if that was only in our small barangay in Surigao; but I still recall that it has become a national concern.

I also remember clearly the Columbine High School massacre in the United States, wherein the psycho killers were students of the same school, one of the duo was hooked into a very violent computer game. After both of them died, a journal landed on the authority's hands. It was clear in its entries that the owner was so much consumed by ideas of violence and angst, which to put it straight is a natural phenomenon for those in puberty, brought about by hormonal imbalance and other physical and psycho-behavioral changes.

If there's one thing that the adult world can do to compensate for the detriment that advance technology can do for morality and social consciousness of the young, then it is perhaps that of teaching them to distinguish what is worth reading and not. It is important that they may know how freedom is at their hands in the World Wide Web but then no matter how advance technology can be, it still boils down to the age-old adage that Freedom Comes with Responsibility.

In fact, once they learn this adage by heart, it will extend more to other aspects and not just the use of time for worthwhile activities. It will become a mantra for life to them, and their every act would be defined by it.

The Silence of the Pen

Lately, I got these issues of Philippine Journalism Review from a friend who lent it to me. The timing was just impeccable. It happened in the time when I was sold out that I'm going to be a public relations practitioner. I've always thought of myself as creative, and I didn't think that would fit in my being a journalist in profession. I always thought of journalism as straight facts, killing that instinct to present views in ways that are nearer to the heart rather than the mind alone.

The other night I read Nick Joaquin's speech during the Ramon Magsaysay awards. It's entitled Journalism versus Literature. It hit me like lightning, when I read that part when he said "So, the question of Journalism versus Literature? No longer has to be asked. The old feud is over and the two rivals are now more or less on even terms. If journalism has been upgraded to literature, literature is being reinvented as a species of reportage. In the some five decades I have been in journalism, those are the developments that I find most moving—because my own writing career has moved in the same direction: from fiction to reportage, and from reportage to non-fiction as literature."

He gave me another perspective at this point in my life when marriage is out of the question and a good career break is a long time coming. In fact until now I'm still on that phase of sking myself if I were to be what I dream of or if there's something awaiting me, something I've been running away from ever since.

Back to the PJR copies, I read the paper in the office just this afternoon, and it really struck me as to how fulfilling it would be to be writing for truth, and that nothing beats the feeling of having done something bigger than yourself, in pursuit of a task whose impact is immortal.

And right now, I'm back to my confused self, but I keep on praying that I would have the enlightenment I so long need. I know it has been my frustration, not having worked for a publication. Perhaps that the only link that's missing for me to be able to finally call this life productive and myself a true citizen.

Just Out of the Blue

Just recovered from a day's work of editing philosiphical doctrines. I thought of romanticism as one way to unbridle my thoughts. It's for your reading pleasure: the works of an art enthusiast, or so I think. Read on . . .

Cold Feet

I walked around the corner
Dancing in the shadows of my fear
Listening to the beating of the drums
As they rumbled on the pavement

My fear was losing
That thin thread of lining
Between what's real and make-believe
Our hearts are pining

I can't tell you the words
Nor can I confirm my actions
I let them fly in every chance
Let them tread the dungeons
Of a long-lost emotion

I waited in that corner
Drinking the acid of fear
Eyes adamant for that ride
To free me to the stars.