I just saw a man risk a sure fire fight
On the two hour ride
Back home with his current wife
At the Banquet Table
Category: An Opinion On Anything
If You Must Loathe Yourself
Self-loathing is a trademarked attribute associated not exclusive to me. This path is taken not for the want to be liked but for the want to find a way to like the existing self. There’s no need to expound on motivation any further, as by doing so only subject us to teeter a tightrope that always lead to a tragic fall midway into the pit of ignorance. The imbalance is caused by ignorance, as it tries to qualify an elitist, divisive and corrosive pursuit to brandishing some semblance of uniqueness or establish an exclusive club.
Instead, I wish to explore why
Better Guitar
At a work interview I was asked, “Tell me something about yourself that we do not know about you?” to which I fumbled the answer, big time, by hastily responding what could be inside my heart and launched recklessly to the top of my head “I’m a better guitar player than a card dealer!”
Now, of course, the worst thing that can happen to an interview is to turn it into an interrogation. Ideally you want to use this period to lift yourself up, sometimes you dig yourself a hole.
All I wanted to say was that I am better at being creative than being a cog in a machine.
Pop Radio Once
“So, who’s your favorite dj?” Pan, with the voice of god, asked. We were kids talking shop. Talking about pop radio history since when we started paying attention to it. I froze because Louie D. and Jude Rocha is kiss-ass obvious. It was 2002, Chico and Del just left RX, so that may be a spot that either of us would want to discuss with mostly innuendo and 3rd hand information. Besides, I was just 2 weeks in to the internship glamorously named “student jock”. My real answer was Hill-Billy Willy, the first name that came to mind; him with Rudolph Rivera and voice characters the Count, and Grover, shamelessly ripped-off Sesame Street by smile radio, 93.9 DWKC.
DWKC is a precursor of the mass-radio format prevalent today. Yet, the archaic format of KC would sound too “pa-class” with the current FM mass-radio genre, most of which would probably attribute their style with Martin D. of ABS-CBN’s DWRR. But today’s version try to outdo each other as a better incarnation/abomination that is Love Radio.
By luck or circumstance, WKC was able to liberally play Andrew E.’s
I Still Have to Water the Plants
Her empty room, my tear filled heart
<p>I walk slowly
Slowly into
To your empty room
All thoughts of you come flooding in
I close my eyes
Open my heart
Calling out your ghost
You are nowhere near my truth
I’d stay, but more like left behind
I’d stay and water the plants
I remember you telling me
I can wake up late
Saturdays til noon
Sweep the yard at dawn
Come back to bed
Still, I’d have to water the plants
I’d stay and water the plants…
Last Day
I first punched in at PAGCOR on March 25, 2004. Jumping in between call centers, PAGCOR dialed in to ask if I was still interested in pursuing a career as a card dealer. I wish I knew how I got in as the only one who survived the I.Q. test from a cast of 35. It made me feel that I accomplished something and was set to achieve more. On the first break of my first day on duty, I wanted to quit and go home. The job is too fast, too intense and yet too mundane to actually mean anything. Dealing feels like you’re perpetually chipping away at this thick boulder with small ball peen hammer and a 4 inch concrete nail. Eventually, you’ll break your will first before you break the rock.
Trapped in Trapik
Nobody on the road is much douche-ier than hazard lights leading an expensive car pass through tight traffic flow. Flanked by pair of police patrol motorcycles, it doesn’t matter if they weave by you with or without their sirens blaring. It’s not as if their arrogance and misplaced sense of entitlement get muted when they only use blinking lights to announce their importance. I’d rather let them use their “wang wangs” so that it can drown out the invectives hurled at their direction.
Sidekicking
Magic Johnson played with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for 10 years and went to the NBA finals 8 times where they won 5 (Magic, who played for 13 seasons went to the Finals once more, after Kareem retired, to pass the torch to a certain Michael Jeffrey Jordan). Nobody called him a sidekick despite being paired with the greatest scorer the league has ever had who, just dominated the preceding decade by winning MVP 6 times (71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 80). Maybe it helped that Magic’s rivalry with Larry Bird was so captivating, it catapulted them as the face of the league.
Also, in their decade long partnership, Magic won 3 season MVPs and another 3 Finals MVP (Kareem won one of each, but nobody’s gonna call him sidekick)
It’s Free to Feed Your Soul
The struggle between good and evil has been going silently for occupation of my soul for the last 13 years every time I pass by Padre Burgos Ave. It is a chronic heartfelt intention to visit the National Museum; a prayer that always gets drowned out by the reality that spending 3 hours in traffic just to get to the Philippine senate’s former august halls (when they used to define august, one may say) and view an elitist time capsule may not be worth a day off.
This time I have kids, whom I may have spoiled enough to articulate a strong opinion
Premium
I ride the UV Express to work because I’m beginning to think that the stress that Manila traffic entails can be life shortening and may easily be quantified like a stick of cigarette (1 stick = -5mins of your life; 1hour stuck in traffic = losing half a day of sanity, something like that). Of course, driving in your own car is an insulation from all harm and comfort is what one primarily sacrifices when taking public transport. Especially if you choose to be crammed with 18 others in a tin can that can fit 14 comfortably. In the end, you are not paying for a fee just to get to your destination, you are paying for a leg room.
danDAman 