< oh boy >

   A few months ago, I promised myself that I'm not going to be emotional with whatever I write here.  People read me after their own emotionally taxing episodes: students and call center agents who have really bad days come here just so that they can take their minds off the things that trouble them.  Every time I write here, I wear my mask: I try my very best to be the online version of Advil, or Bozo.  Whenever the urge to write about my bad day, my frustrations and my bitter thoughts surfaces, I change the subject.  I send in the clowns.

   But as much as I like to clown around, there are just those times where I wonder if I have a right to be a clown, if I am all about distraction, or if I can talk about my frustrations.  By all means I should, but all too often, I find somebody else with a greater frustration than I have, that my own bitterness pales in comparison with others.  It's there that I play the part of the clown: I juggle thoughts, pull an endless handkerchief of so many ideas, pull rabbits out of hats, and ocassion, abuse myself just so that other people can distract themselves from their own bitter thoughts for even just a short while.

   Too often, I find myself consoling the grief and agony of other people, drawing from the well of strength deep within me.  Many people have cried on my shoulder over the years: but when the time comes for me to cry, I cry over my own shoulder, hiding my bitterness and frustrations from the face of the people who expect me to get things over quickly.  Then as quickly as I started to cry, I get up, wipe the tears from my eyes and don my mask again.

   People fault me for it, and even I fault myself for it.  When the time comes for me to be bitter and frustrated, I am always exhorted and pressured to move on because they haven't seen beyond my mask.  It seems to them that I'm strong when in fact I'm weak.  I always become the victim of the prejudices of others not because they're bigoted, but because I wear the mask of the clown and the garb of the clown, I ride the unicycle of the clown and play the part of the clown every day of my life.  There are other people out there who either are the stars of the show or claim to be the stars of the show.  I'm just the clown.

   I've always been misunderstood: not just from romance, but also on a day-to-day basis where I have to interact with a lot of people who are pissed off in their own right.  I once bought into the claim that I didn't want to be understood, or the claim that I just have a rather strange "wavelength."  But now, I believe that I'm misunderstood because I'm the clown.  You don't understand the clown: you laugh at it, you demean it like every sideshow freak, and no matter what you do at the end of the day, the clown will always have a smile on its face.

   But as embittered and frustrated as I am in reality, I waive my right to bitterness and frustration every time I'm in the circus tent that is life.  The show must go on: life cannot wait for me to get over with my personal troubles, the demons that haunt me, and the crosses I bear.  I'm the clown, not the star of the show.  I put smiles on faces, not frowns.  In the end, I wear my mask because I am that mask.  The world is far too beautiful and far too funny for me to remain forever in bitterness, frustration and self-doubt.

   When they boo the star, they send in the clowns.

   I leave you with Judy Collins' "Send in the Clowns:"

*      *      *

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air...
Where are the clowns?

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move...
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns...

Just when I'd stopped opening doors,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours.
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines...
No one is there.

Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want...
Sorry, my dear...
And where are the clowns
Send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here.

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late in my career.
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns...
Well, maybe next year.

< well then >

   A few hours ago, I was at the Library working on my thesis when I came across a copy of the Outcrop, our official student publication.  To say that the relationship between me and Outcrop is "rocky" is a gross underestimation: it has become a matter of making enemies out of institutions, between the figurative "institution" that I am and the actual institution that is Outcrop.  I was scanning the paper - I don't read it anymore - when I came across the blind item section.  To cut a long story short, I'm now an item: a blind item, that is.

   I don't know much about libel laws: in order to establish a degree of reasonable doubt in malice, the benefit of the doubt (like all cases) always rests with the accused.  It's all a matter of justice being retroactive and reciprocal.  Because I'm not a journalism student, I don't know if it is journalistically ethical to write a blind item.  After all, I'm a bad journalist.

   But if I got a 1.25 back in Ethics class, I should be very well aware of ethics that involve human beings in general.  We are not dealing with amoeba with ethical predispositions towards being the subject of blind items, we are dealing with human beings.  Human beings who have a conception of self, human beings who are Other to the rest of humanity.

   As much as I would like to write about this in terms of ethics per se, I'd rather use practical examples.  Even the worst showbiz tabloids frown upon blind items: Lolit Solis and Cristy Fermin even go so far as to stake their reputations every time they publish indiscretions and intrigue on celebrities, whom they even name.  It's not that I believe everything Manay Lolit and Nanay Cristy say in their gossip columns, but it takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to name the subject of your intrigue and write it under your name.

   Here's the thing: we are all free to impinge upon and violate the egos of people.  It's not because we affirm the idea of radical existential freedom, but because to be honest, it's fun to pick on people.  It's one of those fallibilities that makes human beings human.  But the fun stops when it impinges upon and violates the responsible exercise of our actions.  When you don't have a responsibility to be responsible, you're free to throw pie on people's faces.  But when you have a responsibility to be responsible - whether you're a politician, a journalist, a celebrity, or if you feel that you're accountable to the public - your freedom to pick on people becomes a qualified action: that you should pick on people responsibly.  The fact that you are (or you placed yourself) on a higher plane than the rest of society means that your responsibilities - and the expectations of people towards your responsibilities - are magnified.

   Of course, I'm willing to stand corrected.  Blind items should only be read - and written - by the blind.

< some politics >

   Personally, I'm not very well-versed with Philippine politics.  Like I said before, I'm more of a Lolit Solis of politics than an actual political scientist.  The brouhaha surrounding political issues is something I could talk about in terms of high-minded high-brow political-scientific "discourses," but I prefer to look at things in terms of the sensibilities of the common.

   Hmmm... I think we should legalize the Communist Party of the Philippines.

   I'm not saying let's let bygones be bygones when it comes to the CPP.  I'm just saying that maybe the time has come to allow Communists to participate in national politics.  In Japan, for example, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) is a formidable force in the opposition.  We can do the same here in the Philippines, so as not to corroborate McCarthyist suspicions that leftist party-list representatives like Satur Ocampo, Teddy Casiño and Crispin Beltran are really Communists.  But outside of that, I think that the nation can benefit a lot in having Communist representation in the political system.

   I don't buy into the paranoid theory that legalizing the CPP would lead into the Communists taking over the Philippines: on the contrary, it serves as a venue for legitimating whatever claims of support the Communists have over the proletariat.  I think we could benefit from having a strong oppositionist bloc led and made up by Communist politicians.  If it's all a matter of "changing the system," the Communists could start by working within the system: it's just like Karl Marx's First International.

   Furthermore, I don't buy into the claims of some Communists that the "higher calling" or the "maximum call" is to consolidate the countryside and encircle the urban areas in order to launch an offensive.  As much as a war is very appealing to me personally, keeping a war protracted will only serve not only to erode trust in the CPP, but also in the ideology it espouses.  The point behind a "protracted war" is to bleed people dry (figuratively), but it obviously isn't working.  I could rant about geopolitics right here, but in a nutshell, Maoist war doesn't work if the nation in question is archipelagic in character.

   The point I'm trying to make is that we are confronted with an ever-expanding envelope of ideologies and political ideals which we can put forth to the table in the forum of public debate.  The world has changed.

< hmmm... >

   I'm no environmentalist, much less an environmental advocate, but I think we should at least be concerned with climate change.  Lately, newspapers are full of photos and news on the Angat Dam falling to critical levels, that islets can now be seen poking out of the water's surface.  There are pictures of rice paddies in La Union literally cracking up from lack of water.  Here in Baguio, the torrential rain is kind of unusual, in the way that the sky can't "make up its mind" on whether or not it will be sunny or rainy.  I attribute it to Mother Nature's PMS.

   I'm no expert, but I kind of see this whole water-shortage thing along the lines of Mad Max movies, except that the breakdown of civilization will be caused by drought.  We will all be fighting over scarce water resources while we're wearing spike-covered football padding.  Aquaman will be the common idea of God.  We will literally kill over water.  The Nightrider will be a water-cooled suicide machine: the rocker, the roller, the out-of-controller.  And everything will be still pretty much powered by pig dung.

   The way I see it, all the political will in the world will not save us from the far and distant future where we literally quench our thirsts with blood (after all, there's no water).  Politicians cannot save the world from the inevitable post-Apocalyptic scenario brought about by climate change and global warming.  Take it from me: I once had this great idea of combining pure hydrogen gas and pure oxygen gas in a chamber and then we would have instant water.  When I mentioned this to a friend of mine who's far more well-versed in Chemistry than I am, he said that the end result will definitely be an explosion.  It's not one of my best ideas, but I'm not a chemist.

   Anyway, I shouldn't have a problem with water as long as there's Coke.  In all honesty, though, I urge you all to conserve water.  Unless, of course, you want to be strapped to trapezes in Thunderdome.

< hmmm... >

   The younger crowd often ask me what it's like to be an overstaying student.  I kind of balk, since there's really nothing good about overstaying: I'm not the best role-model at school.  Mostly, whatever lesson there is in overstaying, those are lessons that I had to learn the hard way.  But somehow, overstaying has given me a whole new perspective: by the time I graduate, I won't use "I survived UP" as a mere slogan on a souvenir T-shirt.  I really did survive, but not without so many insights that four years of schooling will bring you.

   Sometimes I wonder why I didn't get kicked out.  After all, I'm a delinquent in every sense of the word.  For the past six years, I scanned the list of delinquent students posted either in front of the Registrar's Office or at the enrollment desk.  My name and my student number wasn't called up to report to the Registrar to get the "blue form," or to go to the Chancellor's Office to appeal for readmission.  For six years, I was always around.  It's not that I'm invulnerable or immune from rules, but I almost always seem to stick around.  I'm like woodstain on a white shirt.

   I'm no stranger: I've seen all sorts of UP students for the course of six years.  Unlike others, I don't remember the really good students.  My memory fails me on the lot of cum laude graduates because after their shot in the limelight, I never heard from them ever again.  The promise of national development is lost in the lot of UP Baguio alumni who work in obscure jobs at banks and call centers.  I really can't blame them: it is the economy, after all.

   But then there's the crowd: those statistics, those student numbers gifted with a face.  People who happen to be like me: they're just there.  Just there to fill a classroom, to give life to the IB lobby, to populate a tambayan.

   They're just there.

< hmmm... >

   I have a rather stereotypical notion of a "comedy bar:" it's a seedy sing-along place with gay stand-up comedians who make a living out of mocking people.  It seems to me that a culture of mockery is a culture of that defines the Filipino gay, that we all share in a common stereotype of what "gay" seems to be.  Not that I'm uptight or anything, but I don't see anything remotely funny about gay people and the kind of humor associated with homosexuality.

   Often, gay humor is defended because it qualifies as "satire."  I'm not an expert on comedy, and I'm not a funny person, but what makes satire different from other forms of humor is that it is grounded on wit: it is intelligent humor.  Aristophanes' "Clouds" is a satire: in the play, Socrates is portrayed as a ranting old man lying down on a hammock, tied between the ground and the moon.  Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy" is a satire: sinners like soothsayers and fortune tellers suffering in Hell have their heads turned backwards.  Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report" is a satirical show that pokes fun at conservative punditry in American news media.  Whenever Jon Santos, Tessie Tomas and Willie Nepomuceno do their impersonations of politicians and public figures, they do satire.  The common denominator in these few examples of satire is that they are witty and intelligent forms of comedy.

   I'm not saying that gay comedians lack wit and intelligence, but it is often the case that the material passed off as "satire" comes across more as mockery.  The same goes with showbiz columnists in tabloids, blind items on weekend afternoon showbiz shows, and the "humor" section of our school paper.  The fact that we can't laugh at every joke also means that we can't make jokes out of everything.  We can't make a clown of ourselves every time as much as we can't make clowns out of others.

   This brings me back to gay humor.  Personally, I think that as a people, we haven't fully articulated the idea of being "gay."  It's just me, but I think that as far as homosexuality being humorous, we cannot really delineate or define the scope of the humor.  Just what exactly are we laughing at when it comes to watching a gay comedian on a comedy bar, or reading something written in gay language?  Are we laughing at the material, at the comedian, at the person the comedian is poking fun at, or at the whole idea of being gay?

   I'm not gay, but I think that there is something more to being gay than gayspeak and gay humor.  All too often, our misconstructions and misinterpretations of what gay is "supposed to be" is the consequence of the actions and language of gay people themselves.  There seems to be an emphasis in things that pertain to celebrities, genitalia, celebrity genitalia and the celebrity as genitalia.  Honestly, I don't find it funny.  I don't even find jokes made at the expense of others funny, whether or not those others are gay or not.

   When they say that laughter is the best medicine, it must be the best medicine for everyone regardless of what you are, what your gender is, or what you're sick of.  Some people may laugh at sick jokes, but they are often jokes that make you sicker than you already are.  Think about that next time you listen to a gay comedian in a comedy bar.

< since i apparently write like crap, let's talk about crap >

   The tell-tale symptoms that I'm coming down with another of those recurring cases of mild cholera is something that worries my mom a lot.  After all, I defy the one-to-one correspondence between the cause and the disease: whenever I eat food in upscale places, I often come down with the stomach flu.  But I don't get the same in the places where I patronize: roadside mami stands, eateries infested with cockroaches and rats, and streetfood stalls.  You can feed me all the barbecued chicken intestines filled partially-digested feed and I won't wake up at 3 AM vomiting water down the toilet, or dazed in the toilet with my pants down my calves while I wait out that steady stream of diarrhea pass down my colon.

   If anything, though, I avoid all trips to the hospital when it comes to the state of my digestive system.  Maybe it's that heroic complex that many men suffer from: we men would rather ride out the pain.  I don't have such a pronounced complex, though: I just don't like to have to give my doctor my stool samples.

   Now I know that you can get to know a lot of things from a load of shit, but I always thought of that in the figurative sense.  My father once said that there's nothing more humiliating for a man than a prostate exam, but I have yet to experience the humiliation of having a doctor stick a gloved finger up my rectum and feel around for irregularities in my prostate.

   The thing is that my gastroenterologist always reminds me of how I should take my stool samples, owing to the fact that I frequently visit the hospital emergency room whenever I come down with a bad case of gastroenteritis or something.  I should literally catch a sample of my watery stool.  As much as I don't want to go into details, this involves a bit of visualization: the idea is to literally catch a sample of stool into a vial as the stool shoots out (or spews out, whatever the case may be) of my ass.  This is easier said than done: I don't have a third eye somewhere in the vicinity of my backside.

   It's a good thing I scrapped the idea of going to college to be a medical technician: analyzing stool samples may be all part of the job, but tinkering around with stool is not something I'd like to do for a living, to actually know shit.

   Hmmm... gotta stop here.

*      *      *

   Anyway, on a side note, I just made a Twitter account, and I can be found at www.twitter.com/marocharim.  Feel free to read around and reply, especially if you hate reading long entries.

< politics >

   I didn't vote for Antonio Trillanes IV, although I did vote for Victor Wood.  I think that the Senate could benefit from a political ignoramus who happens to be videoke royalty.  Besides, Trillanes is out to impeach Gloria Arroyo: it's not that I turned pro-GMA all of a sudden (take her to the pillory, I say), it's just that impeachment is not something we as a nation really need right now.

   Of course, now that Trillanes is "in the Senate," the question is how to get him to be physically in the Senate.  Trillanes is still pretty much in "jail" (military custody) for his leading role in the 2004 Oakwood Mutiny.  The problem, though, is being raised in the idea of whether or not Trillanes should be allowed some form of amnesty, immunity or be freed outright: after all, it is the will of the people that made him Senator.  Therefore, he should be allowed to be physically present in the Senate floor.

   On the other hand, one can make a case against allowing Trillanes to be physically in the Senate.  Zamboanga Rep. Romeo Jalosjos served his Congressional term in the Bilibid after his conviction over charges of child molestation and rape.  This was a matter of the Supreme Court laying down the law... although it must be noted that Jalosjos had a tennis court, a hamburger stand, cable TV, computers and all the amenities "necessary for a Congressman to perform his duties."

   Now if our august members of the Senate engaged in a fistfight or wrestling match to determine whether or not Trillanes should be allowed to sit at his desk at the Senate, then it would be so interesting.  The problem is that I don't really like watching two old, senile and aging Senators like Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel and Joker Arroyo duke it out in a duel.  Besides, our legislature is composed of a bunch of pussies.

   I envy the South Koreans and the Taiwanese, since they really fight for their beliefs: by "fight" I mean haymaker punches, water bottles flying out of nowhere, and the obligatory kick in the groin.  Here in the Philippines, the worst we've gone is the Joseph Estrada impeachment trial, when solons tossed files and papers through the air.  And oh yeah, Maguindanao Rep. Didagen "Digs" Dilangalen told everyone to "shut up," and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago berated and publicly humiliated her hecklers in the Senate's gallery who gave her the old flick of the dirty finger.  The thing with Miriam is that she doesn't have to resort to a completely arbitrary hand gesture to make her point: whatever she says in a fit of anger is the verbal equivalent of a middle finger.

   Going back to Trillanes: I'm not an expert, but I have a rather unique solution.  Let's just say that for all intents and purposes, Trillanes' physical presence in the Senate is necessary: we can't just put a webcam and headphones in Trillanes' cell and have him interpellate, debate or pass resolutions via Yahoo! Messenger or mIRC.  The solution, I think, is more obvious: let's just declare Trillanes' desk a prison cell.  If that's not enough, maybe we could put up iron bars around his chair and his desk.

   I know it's a dumb idea, but it's a pretty good one.

< continuing from yesterday >

   There's an old tree back in the auditorium in our school that has almost been dubbed as "Marx's Tree."  It's not that the tree is mine, but I always looked up to that tree as the seat of all learning: it was there where I was almost always certainly found smoking, contemplating on some consuming thought, reading books I checked out from the library.  Back in the day when I was still a campus journalist, it was my informal office: I edited articles there when the weather permits.  I either edited in the pine-shaded daylight or the pale glow of a cheap cigarette lighter.

   Really, I don't know what to do with those staffers who disrespected me last night in the multilateral forum for student institutions to make their excuses.  I was damn angry, but somehow I thought that I might do something stupid like physically hurt somebody.  Some of them have really crossed the line and intruded upon the sanctity of my self-respect.

   But I kind of look to that tree in a fond way: that it was there where I taught them their first lessons in the Marxist critique of capitalist society.  They all sat in that concrete ledge, my cigarette acting as a (rather effective) mosquito repellent, as I walked and gesticulated about like a madman lost in thought.  I think that if I taught any one of them a better lesson than an ideological idea of social revolution, it's that things will never be what they already seem to be: that all too often, knowledge begins with a doubt that leads to a question.

   Things aren't that way now: I think that the three of them forgot why I chose to give them a shortened version of Philippine Society and Revolution under the shade of a pine tree teeming with sugar ants, mosquitoes, aphids and woolly bears.  In my view, the world is much too vast and complicated that we always have to ask questions, that we sometimes have to be bitten by the insects of life.  We will itch, we will scratch, we will be annoyed, and we damn sure will be asking questions of why we itch, why we scratch, and why we are annoyed.  That the most important thing about a revolution is not to ask how it's done, what it is, or when it will be: but why it's done, why it is what it is, and why it's still not here.

   Perhaps I saw those tell-tale signs way before: that they scratched, they itched, and that they demanded that the lecture be moved into a classroom free of mosquitoes, gnats and grime.  Perhaps that's the reason why they can't answer a question, ask a question, or accommodate things that question their very questions and even questions to their answers.

   Perhaps they forgot that all these months that I have been gone, I noticed that nobody sat on my old place underneath the shade of the learning tree.

< man, am i angry >

   I think it's time I brought out the old dueling glove from the days of yore: my honor has been insulted.  I demand satisfaction.

   I have always been disrespected, and suffice to say, I welcome disrespect.  Disrespect gives me the assurance that I have a lot in the way of earning my share of respect.  But I've observed that anyone and everyone who disrespects me is far more honorable and respectable than I am.  These are people who disrespect me honorably, or dishonor me respectfully.  These are people who really command respect.  These are people who make it so evident that they have earned their respect so much so that they are in the capacity to even demand it.

   I welcome disrespect from people who have earned their respect.  I am willing, even happy, to be disrespected by people far more honorable and respected than I am.  I recognize these people are so honorable and respected that they can actually give away respect.  However, I will not tolerate, accept or even welcome disrespect from those of lesser minds.

   The thing about respect is that it's not something you get from being old, or out of a title you assume to add to your name.  It's not about having a position or having extra digits whenever you check your bank account.  Respect is something you earn.  It's something you constantly reaffirm to other people by respecting them.  Now I'm not the most respectable or honorable man in the whole expanse of known humanity, but a lot of people tell me that my sense of honor is something to be respected, and that my sense of respect is something to be honored.

*      *      *

   However, there are just some people out there who would go so far as to insult what little intelligence I have and what minute sense of honor I have.  Like I said, I get disrespected, but nobody ever violated my intelligence and my sense of honor.  Whenever I engage in real honest-to-goodness cursing, I make sure that the person actually deserves to be cursed, and that person deserves the cursing.  I won't call anyone the offspring of a female dog if that person doesn't exhibit the moral characteristics and ethical judgments that only dogs make.

   Really, I don't demand a lot of respect from people: I don't demand that they kiss my feet, venerate me with a statue, or hold week-long feasts in my name.  I believe - and a lot of people believe - that I have earned a kind of respect that's beyond the most rudimentary.

   I don't take care of a lot of things: I don't take care of my grades, I don't take care of my health, and I certainly don't take care of my sanity.  But I'm extremely protective of the family name: nobody, and I mean NOBODY, uses the name of my father and my father's father in an air of condescension.  Anyone who does that can meet me in the blood-stained battlefield and arm themselves with every weapon made through the ages, for I will descend upon them with the wrath of the most extreme concept of Hell itself.

*      *      *

   Through the years, I have always been disrespected by other people.  I have been dishonored by the most honorable of men.  But in the end, they all have one thing to say...

   Respect Marocharim.