< romantic experiment >

   Like every good Filipino romantic film, "A Love Story" apparently revolves around two rather profound existential questions: when does a mistress become a wife, and when does a wife become a mistress?

   Now if I were Aga Muhlach (pardon me while I commit suicide through laughter), I'd choose Angelica Panganiban for extremely obvious reasons.  I have nothing against Maricel Soriano: I'm very sure that she's a very beautiful woman herself.  The thing is that any man in the position of Aga would make no qualms about choosing Angelica for extremely obvious reasons.  Never mind that she confessed about being a chain-smoker, or if her sexy pictorials in men's magazines would make her a babaeng mababa ang lipad: while my parents would probably disown me if I ever did become Angelica Panganiban's boyfriend, groom or husband (pardon me while I laugh myself to death again), there is nothing profound or existential about such a question.  It's extremely obvious: with a face and a body like that, who (other than extremely jealous menfolk) cares?

   The thing about the trailers to "A Love Story" is that it strikes me as an "existential dilemma" of choice.  While it would appeal to the C.S. Lewis or Jean-Paul Sartre found in every Filipino moviegoer, it sometimes strikes me as a questionable question.  If it were indeed existential, the idea would be that the question is limiting.  What keeps you from a ménage-à-trois if "love" is indeed the object of conflict here?  Why have one when you can have both?  If you love them both, why bother subjecting yourself to moral choice when there are no choices in the first place?  Why contemplate on happiness when there is perfect happiness in, so to speak, being always somewhere in between?

   Extremely obvious reasons, Aga.  Don't let your heart control your, uh, head.

< wearing the jester's hat >

   Shoutouts go to Shari Cruz of Misteryosa.com, who is celebrating her 20th birthday today.  Welcome to the twentysomething club.

   Anyways, now that the first draft of my thesis is over and done with, the idea is for me to relax until my adviser finishes reading my draft.  I should be temporarily out of "thesis mode," which means eliminating any thought process that has anything to do with my thesis.  Besides, my draft is 50 pages long single-spaced: had I double-spaced it, I would have just typed out a conclusion for the preliminary data analysis, printed the whole shebang out, and passed it off as complete.

   I don't know if I'm alienated or if I have overworked, but I seem to can't pry myself away from the thought processes involved in thesis writing.  My waking moments are spent contemplating the ideas I adopted and employed for my thesis: Edward Sapir, Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Taylor and Roland Barthes, among others (I have yet to touch on Jacques Derrida).

   I was reading blogs today when a thought crossed my mind, much like the question that has been bugging me for the past three months: is there an inextricable link between blogger and blog?  Does our understanding of a blog come from our understanding of the blogger, and vice-versa?

*      *      *

   Based on my research, there is a tradition in French poststructuralist theory called the philosophy of "différance."  In my interpretation (which is completely worthless to people doing research), différance is a metaphysics of absence: that there is no functional (one-to-one) correspondence between the phenomenon and presence.  To Derrida, there is no presence or binary opposition: there is différance.  The relationship between something like "black" and "evil," or "white" and "good," is (in the tradition of de Saussure) arbitrary and conventional.

   This brings me to the question at hand.  It is a mistaken notion to associate the "death of the author" thesis to Derrida: instead, the seminal essay was written by Roland Barthes.  To Barthes (again, in my interpretation which is completely worthless for purposes of research), the association between "author" and "text" is an association of convenience.  The text is "eternally written:" it is read in the absence of the author (or in his terms, the "scriptor").  The author takes the character of a tyrant: you can look at a text as a monologue from the author that "silences" voices.  There is no way we can understand the intentions of the author because he/she is "not there:" as such, our understanding of the text is independent of our understanding of the author.  The term "death of the author" is to "disentangle" this relationship in the text: to bring the "reader" into the text, hence you have literary criticism (which is something closely associated with Barthes).

   But how does this extend to blogs?  Let's take mine for example: it is often the notion that I write about myself, but in essence, I'm writing about things.  Like every blogger, there is no way the intentions of an entry (a text) can be derived from an understanding of who the blogger is.  People read my blog in my absence: if I wrote about myself, it would just be a "thing" to other people, and that it is subject to interpretation.  Asking the question of why I wrote something, for example, is irrelevant.

   Derrida reminds us that "there is no meaning outside of the text," which is essentially deconstruction (to bastardize Derrida).  The text I (the author) write, for example, is that which you (the reader) don't experience.  It is non-coincidental: what I write is not what I am, and what I am is not what I write.

*      *      *

   But bleeding ourselves to death over an understanding of postmodernism and/or poststructuralism won't do anything if we do not understand.  What I'm trying to point out is that text - be it a poem, a novel, a newspaper article, a Friendster profile or a blog - is a monologue of the author.  The "birth of the reader," though, is easier said than done.  You tell me how.

< showbiz sunday >

   As a casual follower of Pinoy showbiz, I know of one thing: if the show goes on, so must the intriga.

   It's not that I don't care, but I think that maybe this whole issue of Angel Locsin jumping ship from GMA-7 to ABS-CBN is blown way, way out of proportion.  It kind of makes me think what would happen to Lolit Solis and Ali Sotto if they retracted and/or apologized for calling Angel a "traitor" and an "ingrate:" my guess is that they'll turn into pillars of salt.  To be honest, I find pillars of salt more credible and important than a podunk professional gossip-mongering pissant in Lolit Solis, and a trying-hard Korina Sanchez with a podunk news and public affairs show in Ali Sotto.  I'm just being honest: I never got anything from being honest anyway.

   I think I need to make my biases clear: to be perfectly honest, while I'm not a "Kapamilya" by its strictest definition, I have no idea who the GMA-7 celebrities are, which means that I do not know who this Dennis Trillo fellow is, and I laugh whenever I see Janno Gibbs on TV (more on that tomorrow).  Whenever someone from ABS-CBN jumps ship to GMA-7, I get the gut feeling that their careers are dead, or at least heaving for their last breaths.  Marvin Agustin apparently became a male carbon copy of Anne Curtis in "Kampanerang Kuba," Patrick Garcia is only so far embroiled in a love-quarrel with Jennylyn Mercado, Pauleen Luna is hosting "Eat Bulaga" to the tune of being sideswiped constantly by a camera-hog in Pia Guanio (another "transferee"), and Joseph Bitangcol is, well... there.

   (To be honest, the only GMA-7 celebrity I like is Marian Rivera, simply because she's hotter than high noon in a desert, bundled in a fur coat, walking over smoldering coals while carrying the Olympic torch.  She's that hot.)

   In Kim Possible's terms, here's the cinch: I think that Angel Locsin does not owe GMA-7.  It is evident that when Angel moved stations, her fans followed her.  If Angel is indeed a "traitor" or an "ingrate," she should have turned her back on her fans.  I'd like to correct Ali Sotto in saying that GMA-7 didn't make Angel Locsin the big star that she is: the fans made Angel Locsin the big star that she is.  The fans took Angel into their homes and into their hearts, posted her pictures in their walls and in their scrapbooks.  The contract Angel had with GMA-7 may have been expired, but the contract Angel had with her fans didn't.  There's a very big difference between a Kapuso and a fan of Angel Locsin.  The fans made Angel Locsin.

   So there.  Sue away: like I said, I never gained anything from being honest, and I won't start now.

< i'm crazy >

   What passes for "investigative reporting" in the Philippines is quite a sad state of affairs.  Take Mike Enriquez and "Imbestigador:" it's enough that you have to put up with Mike's hectoring (it's funny at first, then it gets annoying), but undercover video of unsanitary chicharon is figuratively and literally in bad taste.  Not to be outdone, "XXX" - hosted by Julius Babao, Karen Davila, and Henry Omaga-Diaz - is full of sting operations that involve everything from adulterated LPG to penis implants.

   Too often, "investigative reporting" in the Philippines takes the character of reality television.  A case in point here is "SOCO" hosted by Gus Abelgas: the crappy local version of the American hit suspense-drama "CSI."  It's not "wrong," but there's just something "not right" with it: the heroics involved with news reporters playing to the role of crime-busting bounty-hunting heroes dressed in khaki vests, descending from helicopters, or coming to the crime scene escorted by police cruisers.  It's a compulsion - nay, an obsession - with criminal "exposés" that defines Filipino news media today.

   But I think the exemplar of crime-busting bounty-hunting heroics in Filipino investigative reporting is Erwin Tulfo's now-defunct exposé show, "Mission-X."  I'm not a journalist, but I think that "Mission-X" represented a low point in Filipino news media.  Speaking from a personal standpoint, it was one of the biggest pieces of journalistic crap I have ever seen broadcast on national television.

   If you haven't watched "Mission-X" before, it's basically your traditional crime exposé-sting operation format made famous by the Tulfo brothers.  Ramon, Ben, Raffy and Erwin Tulfo made names for themselves for being aggressive crime reporters who won't hesitate to opine about (and even curse) corrupt officials and damn criminals to Hell during their radio shows, TV shows and newspaper columns.  All Tulfo brothers have a claim to both extremes of fame and notoriety: they would not hesitate to throw a figurative and literal punch if need be.

   "Mission-X" opens with Erwin Tulfo riding his handsome-looking Japanese import motorbike (usually a black Norkis Yamaha) into the set and opens up the spiel about how he busted a crime or raided a criminal syndicate's headquarters through the aid of "agents" known only through a pseudonym (like "Agent Dakila").  The raids themselves are often very dramatic: a fleet of police cruisers will descend into the criminal headquarters as part of a sting operation, Tulfo comes in riding his bike, and starts to chastise and run down the suspects with a sermon laced with profanities and condescension, just like his brothers.  The show ends with Tulfo proclaiming his "mission:" that he's out there to fight crime.

   To me, "Mission-X" is just representative of a virus contracted by many Filipino news reporters and journalists: that virus being a propensity and inclination to play hero.  It is often the case that the substance of what passes for "news reporting" today are crimes, modus operandi, and so on.  This is all well and good, but the objectivity and honesty expected in journalistic reportage is taken over by a tendency to go beyond the expectations and necessities of journalism, to step over the line.

   In my view, when you put the term "journalist" in your general description of yourself, it defines you in some way, if not that it defines your very whole.  Never mind that you like bikes, or if you have a black belt in some martial art, or if you can throw a punch: these are things that are completely beside the point when it comes to the imperative of objective, honest and fair reporting.  The fact that you're a journalist means that your opinions are definitely influential, but they have a place.  These places are not accorded to ordinary people: they don't have the privilege of an opinion column, an editorial page, or a radio/TV show where personal opinions are not barred by virtue of stipulations in a contract.

   The need for fair reporting must take precedence, but how many times have we seen campus journalists join rallies while covering them?  How many times have we read tabloid stories that are so obviously skewed and biased that they no longer take the character of real, honest-to-goodness news?  How many times have we seen "investigative reporters" in a crime exposé show feed the public their opinions outside of a completely tasteless sting operation that only serves to boost ratings and bolster their popularity?

   But I'm not a journalist: I quit calling myself one because I don't want my opinions interfering with my old job to write for the student paper.  To me, quitting the school paper because I had personal opinions, and because everyone else has an opinion, was a choice I had to make.  If I'm going to play hero, or even have a subjective notion that I am a hero, I should only do it if there are no expectations and demands of objectivity on my part.

   Somehow, I think that if you don't act as a journalist in the strictest sense of the word, you might as well resign and take some other job.  When as a journalist, you lose even the smallest fraction of the public trust, quit your job.  When your journalism starts to take the character of the reality show, face up to the reality that you're no longer doing journalism and take "journalist" out of your job title.

   Take it from "Mission-X:" the show was cancelled before it even began to rise up, because it never really rose up to the ocassion.  Erwin Tulfo rides his Yamaha into the abyss of unemployment, the flashing rear blinkers becoming a grim reminder of what passes for "investigative reporting" - and even journalism - in the Philippines today.

< hmmm... >

   "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him."

- Proverbs 13:24, RSV

   When we were kids, my dad didn't believe in sparing the rod, but he was not an abusive father either.  The early to mid-1990s wasn't a time for ad campaigns against child abuse and corporeal punishment: sense was beaten unto a misbehaving child through a rubber slipper, a leather belt or a wooden ruler.  At least we weren't caned with the bamboo stick: it was just there for display purposes, that any child who doesn't learn his/her lesson from the whipping of a leather belt will have to learn it from a caning with the bamboo stick.

   Nowadays, the brouhaha surrounding the rights of the child makes it almost impossible to whip a misbehaving brat even with a lowly rubber slipper.  Spank a rowdy child and you're off to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for a count of child abuse.  Laying the ruler on the hands of a noisy schoolkid would cost you your job in most schools.  The norm nowadays is "positive reinforcement:" that rather than actually punishing the child for misbehaving, he/she must instead be consoled and reminded that what he/she is doing is wrong.

   I wouldn't make a "Father of the Year" if I was to get married and have kids of my own: I think that children who do wrong should be punished according to the degree of the offense.  I wouldn't rule out whipping obedience into my kids or dealing out tough love.

   I'm not one to believe that hitting a child hurts the parent more: what hurts more is to see that child grow up on the fast lane rather than the straight and narrow.  "Positive reinforcement" will only make a brat out of your child, but beating your child up frequently will result in rebellion.  It's not a matter of a "perfect balance" between consolation and tough love, but a matter of justice: if I were a parent, my children will not get a tongue-lashing if they shoplift or disrespect their mother.  Instead, they will get a lashing from the next available malleable object.  But if they fight over TV time, I'll drop the rod.

   Will this make me a bad father?  Try answering that one.

< hmmm... >

   I left Freshie Night early.  For some odd reason, I can't stand watching it, even if this Freshie Night is supposed to be my last one before I shoo on over to the real world.  I think that my true calling when it comes to Freshie Night is to be there not in the capacity of a viewer, but in the capacity of a non-viewer.  I've marshalled the event for five years that somehow, it just seems so wrong for me to be jeering at the stands... or at least playing Emperor Nero, keeping my thumb perpetually down.

   This being my last Freshie Night, I kind of think if I truly went beyond the role I played on Freshie Night six years ago.  A lot has changed since then: while I'm still around, I kind of changed radically from being the young radical that I was when I was still in the process of growing up.  Back then, I was an unrepentant idealist: now I turned into an unrepentant skeptic.  Growing up among all sorts of people made me aware of so many changes... that things never changed.

   Freshie Night became sort of a microcosm for this rather sweeping generalization: it seems that there will always be special effects, smoke machines, dance numbers, and so on.  Every rendition of "Tatsulok" will be played in the name of social relevance.  Things no longer take the character of cliché, but sheer and utter boredom.  Even TABAK's performance bombed: I'd rather have that performance to be an isolated case than a harbinger of things to come.

   Take this as a "drama mode:" I'd rather be unrepentantly Marocharim.

< hmmm... >

   The UP Baguio tradition that is Freshman Night necessitates that I have to go through a tradition of my own: that is, moving chairs and equipment from UP Baguio across the road to Baguio Convention Center.  I may want to reconsider: after all, my ankle sprain hasn't fully recovered yet and perhaps they should find someone else to "Spiderman" the projection screen (for all intents and purposes, it's a white cheesecloth) onto the left stage wall of the Convention Center.  It's a pretty odd position to put a screen: it takes a brave soul to climb up a rickety 12-foot ladder perched precariously on a step of the stage's stairs and the floor, with a staple gun on one hand and a corner of the cloth in the other.

   My friend Jordan, who happens to be a Councilor in the Student Council, happened to come down with a bad case of food poisoning, though (according to my friend and his frat brother Mhik, Jordan ate a plate of pancit bought from Tea House that went bad because it wasn't refrigrated).  Somehow, I feel even more obliged to help out: few people would push an old construction dolly with a bockety right wheel into the path of speeding Victory Liner buses en route to Convention Center.  But I'm definitely not interested in being a marshall again: this being my last Freshie Night, I think I need to do more watching than fielding a horde of rowdy, drunk upperclassmen demanding entry when a performance is going on.

   I think I'm growing really old, though: somehow, Freshie Night practice has become somewhat of a lost tradition to many freshmen blocks.  Back in the day, the performance of the block is kept so secret: rooms are reserved, the windows plastered with copies of the UP Forum to prevent "espionage."  In the absence of a room, blocks would go to the house of a blockmate or to some secluded area: preferably the parking area beside Convention Center near where the Wax Museum used to be.  You can even sneak practices at the dark, dank and musty basements of Convention Center.  In the case of my block (SSD III: The SuperBlock), we practiced at my friend Paul's rowhouse at a remote subdivision in Marcos Highway.  After what passed for "practice," Paul and I would head for the store for a few big bottles of Red Horse and two small packs of peanuts.  Me, Paul, Patrick, Stan, Sierra and Echo would then proceed to down the drink, conserve the peanuts, and be driven to our respective homes aboard Paul's van.  Needless to say, we placed third to the last, but it didn't matter to us anyway.  The important thing is that our block didn't fight over Freshman Night: we only got drunk.

   Six years later, I've seen five freshie blocks try to hype themselves out... and fail miserably in the exercise of artistic expression (like we did before).  I've marshalled three Freshie Nights because everytime I watch a Freshie Night nowadays, I see nothing more than a gaudy display of light effects, smoke effects, and dance numbers involving the whole goddamned block (the dance numbers themselves are socially-relevant).  I think it started with our block: to conclude our miserable skit, our block decided that it would be good to do an interpretative dance number to the tune of Buklod's "Tatsulok."  Had I been the man I am today, I would have shot myself watching the song danced in a Frankenstein of samba, swing and tango.

   What makes it worse is that freshman blocks are practicing out in the open.  Rather than conceal their performances from the prying eyes of other blocks and the jeering and snickering of upperclassmen, they practice on open space.  No surprise, I've watched a grand total of 15 unique blocks practicing at the Galerya, the Auditorium and the new CSS complex.  I know exactly what they are going to do.

   Yet Freshie Night brought me my first girlfriend and my first date (at goddamned Dunkin' Donuts).  Freshie Night also brought me to the awareness that I can control a massive stampede of drunken upperclassmen demanding entry: after taking swigs of their bribes (brandy mixed with Coke... I didn't resist) they formed a straight queue and made a beeline for their seats.  Last year's Freshie Night was also supposed to be my chance to dance before the entire UP Baguio student population as a matter of "hazing" for me winning a seat in the Student Council, but I opted not to do so and instead went back to my marshalling duties until I was called up on stage (a few hecklers demanded that I dance, but I can't flick the bird in that situation).

   Whenever I'm appointed to be a marshall, I'm usually pointed out to be the head honcho or the big kahuna "bouncer:" owing to the fact that no infraction goes unchecked on my watch.  Usually, I'm posted on the front entrance: not only do I control the surging mass of people by demanding tickets and identification, I can also smoke freely.  If I fail as a social scientist, I can work as a security guard.

   I'm definitely looking forward to this year's Freshman Night... I mean, light show.

< announcement before entry >

   It's not that I'm moving blog hosting services, it's just that I think that I need another blog to experiment on.  Thanks to my overblown ego, I suppose that I wouldn't have problems if I maintained two blogs, not just TMX.

   Of course, since this is an "experiment," the idea is to write the entries in longhand first, then post them on the site.  Here in TMX, the "hypothesis" is to write everything under one hour without notes, without limits in topics.  In the new writing experiment, the "experiment" is to write everything in longhand, centered around the theme of my hallucinations.  The idea is therapy: I think that if I'm going to live with hallucinations, I might as well write about them.

   Visit my new writing project on Project Hallucinosis:

   projecthallucinosis.blogspot.com

   Why Blogspot?  Something for a change: after all, I have a Google account.  Don't forget to pass by the Project.

< for now >

   In the tradition of the old days of TMX where I spoofed lyrics, here's one.

*      *      *

Asawa
From "Manila" by Hotdog

Maraming beses ko na siyang linayasan
Iniwanan at iba ang inuwian
Ang babaeng mahirap talagang kalimutan
Ikaw lamang ang aking laging binabalikan...

Asawa, I keep coming back to Asawa
Simply no one like Asawa
Asawa I'm comin' home

I've been to every bar and disco
I got drunk in Naguilian
Sang karaoke in Legarda
Somehow I feel like I must go home

Hinahanap ako ng aking Asawa
Ang ingay niyang kay sakit sa tenga
Mga plato na nagliliparan
Mga pintuan na nagbabagsakan
Take me back in your arms Asawa
And promise me you'll never let go
Promise me you'll never let go

Hinahanap mo daw ako, Asawa
At may babae daw akong kasama
Bakit ka kasi nakipagtsismisan
Puro naman kasinungalingan
Take me back in our house Asawa
And promise me you'll never let go
Promise me you'll never let go

Asawa, Asawa
Miss you like hell, Asawa
Simply no girl like Asawa
I'm coming home to stay...

< good lord >

   So there I was: this morning, at exactly 2:15 AM, and I was poring over my fancy-looking thesis draft (the things you can do with Office 2007), my impressive-looking Excel 2007 spreadsheets detailing those Friendster users who lied about their ages and have rather complicated genders (what's so "it's complicated" about your genitals, I do not know), and Johnny Cash playing on the background.  By the time old Johnny fell through the ring of fire, the power went out.

   Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it seems that my older brother forgot to connect the CPU's power wire into the uninterruptible power supply (UPS), connecting it directly into the surge strip.  While there was no damage done, the real damage was found in me forgetting to save my draft.  By some fluke, Word didn't recover the file.  What used to be a 72-page draft (single-spaced) was reverted back to the original 52-page draft I saved a week ago.  At least the eye-candy (that I made myself: I didn't use AutoContent) was preserved.  But who cares about eye-candy when you have to do things all over again?

   Usually I'm not overcome by sudden outbursts of frustration: it takes a lot for things and people to get to my nerves.  I'm not exactly a Zen master: I'm a bomb with a very long fuse.

   Anyway, I got the job done: rebooting from Windows Vista to Windows XP every now and then to play those games that seem to only work with WinXP... which means every game I have.  Living under the deluded idea that I could probably work with *.docx file extensions in good old WordPad, I tried - and failed - to do so.  Working with two different operating systems may sound bad, but at least I can exercise some measure of discipline in working with my thesis and my thesis alone whenever I'm in Vista, unless the urge to play the Comfy Cakes game in Purble Place: the annoying entertainment pack for Vista.

   Now pardon me while I go back home with this ream of bond paper.  I have a lot of printing to do: about 80 pages.