Citizens, witness my weeping whistleblower asshole

I can’t help but feel that this is a country where serious (dare we say) political issues only start to matter when the opportunity to make a spectacle of oneself arises from the situation; when there are loud crowds to join and cameras to cry in front of. It makes you lose respect for everyone involved, even those who are in it for the sincere betterment of the situation.

Personally, I think Lozada is a duplicitous prick and is out to milk this country’s dire need for a hero for all its worth. If he goes to jail, then I’ll have to worry about seeing his flat shiny tear streaked face plasteed on tarps across Edsa with claims to his nobility and so-called honesty. Remorse is overrated. I’m not surpised that Lozada is touted the way he is because in this country where we need the approval of the catholic church before taking to the streets, a few tears and lip quivers go a long way. I remember reading an article wherein juries were proven to show more mercy to the accused once they showed a little remorse on the stand. A puffy teary eyed face works best when the story needs someone to tag as its protagonist. Heck, it works for me every time I get caught for swerving. ” see?

The fact that he was a witness is enough to implicate a key role in the scandal (NO SHIT). So what do you do when you realize that this could all come to light? Whip around and point the finger with tears streaming down your cheeks, hide behind someone who can guard whatever moral high ground you would otherwise have no business laying claim to, and try to make everybody look worse than you while downplaying whatever part you played. So what else is new, right? Is a whistleblower even necessary for this one? I mean, aren’t we–as a nation, as an electorate–perfectly aware of the pistol aimed up our asses every time we turn in our votes, every time we pay our taxes?

We’ve been through several governments since the first Edsa and it’s the same thing every time; somehow the government is no longer to blame because of the systemic problems that make it far too easy to fuck us over again and again. Is there ever even going to be a last straw, because the cycle is too fucking obvious already. My friend and I talked about something tangentially related the other day, about how John Locke said that a second marriage is the triumph of hope over reason. (You have to trust him, he’s John Locke) So in this case, what can be regarded as reason? We’ve been through the second, third, and fourth marriage–if there is an alternative, then what the fuck is it.

Anyway, check out the whale. See the whale? Hahaha whale!

After Finishing my 250-track Playlist on my Sister’s iPod

I’d like to think that my taste in music is the equivalent of an Adrian Tomine strip: a series of emotional purges void of the usual high mindedness and technical facility that preoccupies a lot of artists. That doesn’t really explain why I like Battles and Stereolab, but it does explain why most of the things I like are about as depressing as the current state of Filipino mass culture.

Last night Baki asked me why all the short stories I’ve been making him read are depressing. That’s not the first time someone’s asked me that question, but it never really hit me until now that I’m not sad but my taste revolves around things that are. When I told my sister about it, she just snorted and said, “I could have told you that myself, I mean the music we listen to is sad.” to which I got all defensive and started wanting to quote Polyphonic Spree songs.

Quality time with my dad was spent watching war movies with “Nowhere Man” playing in the background, so at this point it’s like being knee deep in crap long enough to no longer notice the stench. What happens there is the early fascination with things that are totally grounded in this reality, not to say that the only real thing in this world is war, but it shows how there’s enough in this world that will forever be beyond your comprehension, leaving very little of an excuse to escape to another one. And a guy with a guitar doesn’t always provide the best soundtrack for this reality, but he could deliver a pretty good one.

A few hours ago, I was reading about this guy who wrote a paper on the economy of the world of Ever Quest and how it translates to real world terms–mainly the equivalent of a platinum piece when sold on eBay to other gamers. Basically Ever Quest comes in with a GNP higher than that of India, it has the 77th strongest economy and it doesn’t even exist. I got that far before realizing that I don’t care. Sure, Ever Quest is ust a hop, skip, and an internet connection away and I may die without ever seeing India, but I will still always find trouble caring about things that do not really exist. Like hobbits and zombies.

So…yeah, maybe I’m the least imaginative person I know.

I do love a good remix, though. From time to time I like a gang chorus, a string section, and an unnecessarily long drum solo thrown in; but the constant is a person with a melody and a lovely, superhumanly articulate way of telling you exactly how something happened, if you find it depressing then dig out some Spice Girls and go fuck yourself.

Tita Maite

“Her limbs weren’t moving any more, now she was still, her head back, and just the breathing, like a sort of uneven snoring…We stayed up all day and night because you did not know. We moved chairs close, curled them in and slept, held her hand, and soon the tide came in. It started with a different sound in the snoring. Something ounder, more liquid. Then almost a gurgling. Her breaths became more strained, pulling both air and also these bubbles–what was that sound?…The breaths were pulling more and more. And the gurgling, the bubbles became more prominent in the breathing, she was pulling at a tub of water, then a lake, a sea, an ocean, pulling at it– The fluid kept coming in, the tide inside her rising, rising, her breaths shorter, like someone being filled as the water climbs and there is no longer anywhere to–

But there was intelligence in that breathing, and passion in that breathing, everything there, we could take that breathing and hold its hand, sit on its lap while watching TV, the breaths were quicker and shorter, quicker and shorter, then shallow, shallow, and that’s when I loved her as much as any other time, when I knew her as I thought I knew her…”

– Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

My mom’s friend died of a heart attack last Friday. The night before, I watched her unload the contents of our car’s trunk. I was outside seeing Baki off and she came out to tell me that my mom needed a glass of water. And the next morning she didn’t wake up. It’s too simple to just say that we’re all sad, we’re all mourning, but the truth it that not all of us liked her that much and it was one of those rocky relationships where it was all hit or miss, where one moment was wonderful only to be knocked down by the shitstorm that would follow. She never shut up, if I came out of my room and she was there at the dining table, she would start talking to me, through me, or at me even if I was several yards away.
And she really liked Mikey. It offended me to a certain extent that she kept asking about him even after we broke up, even after I had already started seeing someone else.
What I realize now is that we were friends that way. She had a way of immersing you in her stories, even if they were almost all about people you didn’t know, but somewhere in that deluge, we learned a lot about each other. I guess it comes with the fact that she lived with us for the past 4 years. She celebrated birthdays and christmases with us. She knew when I was pissed because with her, I was more up front about my emotions than I ever was with my own mom.
She liked strawberries, and I always got her things with strawberries, just because. I gave her a watch with a ticking strawberry as the second hand and she would wear it even if she was already wearing a watch. She’d wear it next to another timepiece even if it had a bright green rubber strap and it would be there on her wrist next to her heavier, more “serious” looking watch. At the dining table she’d hold up her wrist and show them off, “This one here is my Technomarine blablabla it’s expensive, it’s made for pilots, blablabla, and this one over here was given by my neice.”
That’s all. I’ll miss buying her strawberry covered stuff. Heck, I’ll even miss hearing about her guns even if I didn’t understand any of it.