Saturday, After the Rain

Just one of those days where the rain makes everything smell like wet wool, and I can smell the yellowness of the second-hand Rushdie paperback in my hands, and I have never deserved a Marlboro more than now, and dreams are not limited by timelines or Visa or age, and dreams are not piled on by the bills in the mailbox, and it's cool to improvise lyrics to French jazz songs, and every stranger is stranger than you.

Letter to the Management of All Things

To The Management of All Things
In Heaven, Hell, and the Philosophies of Man,

Dear God,

This is with regards to the recent storylines in the on-going series "Life Under Siege", and my dissatisfaction with said developments.

As someone who have been part of the project since it's--rather, my-- conception, I can confidently claim that I am discussing this with nothing but the best interest for everyone involved in my mind. I have soldiered on through the most convoluted plot twists, I have weathered through the craziest storms.

I believe my recent performance handling the very tricky "Unholy Trinity" plotline should impress on you the kind of dedication I have for good storytelling.

However, quite recently, You have taken it upon Yourself to introduce a new character whose role is, as of current episode, growing in significance. Upon careful analysis of possible trajectories in which we can take the plot, I have come to the conclusion that this is a tragic, if not pathetic, course. We are all bound for a hot mess, and I refuse to participate in this storyline any further.

Having said that, I would like to express my eagerness for the next plotline which we would rather pursue. I still believe that there's a very, very big story coming up in the next few episodes, and the anticipation of that is why I keep hanging on.

Thank you, and hoping for your kind consideration.

Yours,
Siege Malvar

The Value of Pretty

Something someone said on Facebook caught my attention a few days ago. One of my social network peers was apparently offended by something someone on his network said about him, along the lines of "being nothing but just fair skinned".

To defend himself, my peer insisted on being "pretty" no matter what shade of skin he wears. It went on to raise other points, most of them arguing about his relative beauty against others. It was a superficial, petty quarrel that piqued my interest for its anthropological implications.

First: why is there a need to defend, and argue for, someone's beauty? Regardless if it's yours, or of someone you care about. An attack on one's physical attractiveness deserves no reply by my books. It's a ridiculous debate to determine who is beautiful and who is not because of a multitude of reasons, some of the ones I can throw from the top of my head are:

- Beauty is a social construct. What is "beautiful" for us "now" is a matter of what society grew to agree on as beautiful. What society agrees on is temporary, like territorial lines, and most moral systems. This means that you are "beautiful" only because most people "say" so TODAY, and RIGHT HERE. That doesn't make you "beautiful" THEN or FOR ETERNITY, and even for EVERYWHERE.

- Being pretty is a matter of genetic lottery. Bragging about your height, or your cheekbones, or your flawless skin, or your full lips is like being proud your father won a raffle draw. You absolutely HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. You are just a product of two sets of genes mixing together in your mother's womb, and coming out right for a particular here and now* (see argument above).


Also, what perplexed me with their online debacle is the issue it implies: What is the value of beauty?

Indeed, what is "being pretty" for?

I'm really baffled by the amount of money we throw to people who stood above the median height of the population, and the opportunities that we offer to people simply because they look foreign enough to be "uncommon".

"Being pretty" is pretty useless. You cannot create anything out of your cuteness. It is not creative, it is not productive, it is not useful to be pretty, or cute. You will achieve nothing out of your cuteness.

Even if you win the argument, and has indeed defended the honor of your physical attractiveness, in the end, you fought for something temporary and useless.

You cannot achieve any of your goals by looking pretty; unless you goal is to have a large set of options for mating purposes.

You do not become a better person just because you look good. What you DO is what makes you a good person.

You do not earn people's respect because you look hot. How you treat others is what will.

When you define yourself by how you look, you put limitations on yourself because you ignore what it is you CAN DO. By focusing on your physical attributes, you shortchange your potential. You are wasting your life by defining your life with your looks.

But then again, why should you care about what I think? You look good, and that's all that matters.

Hipsters Under Siege

One thing about social networking sites like Facebook, you get to see what idiots the people you know are. Some people you kinda like from a distance, occasionally they will surprise you with their unique insights.

But sometimes, people you respect go online, and they just post the stupidest shit.

I'm talking about certain people in my network. In small doses, their passion for standing up for their beliefs is admirable. In moderation, they can be helpful.

But when they're riled up, they're really fckin riled up, man.

And they say the dumbest, stupidest shit. Here are some quick rebuttals on some dumb issues that dumb people on my network are so riled up about.

I. Glorifying Suicide

There is NO NOBILITY in giving up. It's the most desperate form of emotional blackmail. It's fingerpointing at its worst. It's victim is the crime's own perpetrator. It wants to lay blame on another party for a crime that the victim himself committed.

Worse, some people think this is the best illustration of an unjust society victimizing its citizens.

It's not.

There's no nobility in it. It belittles the struggle of everyone else who survived. Just because I didn't take a bullet into my own head doesn't mean that my problems are less than those who did. Just because I can fight back doesn't make my struggles any lesser.

STOP JUSTIFYING SUICIDE. Already we are seeing the ill effects of that dumb thing you guys did. A couple of students recently killed themselves for having low grades. That's just dumb. Those are just grades, man. They don't measure how much you've learned. They only quantify how much you adhered to the educational system that your teacher was trying to force on you.

II. ANTI MASA SENTIMENTS

What I really, really, really hate about hipsters is their lack of critical thinking.

They think they are above the mainstream because they do no adhere to trends. "HIP" is defined by your appreciation of the obscure, the "difficult", the "sublime".

Oh, god. Some people even think being "dense" is a good quality for a work to have. Like a really 'dense' novel counts for what is the height of literature. Like a really 'dense' poem is what you should bring to the weekly poetry reading attended by the same old people who were there probably because they were in the line up.

Then, there's that anti-masa article. No surprise, no less than the hippest of the hipster crowd in my network shared it on my newsfeed.

I am a big fan of the masa culture. I like my noontime shows LOUD, and ridiculous. I like my movies predictable, and if there's a scene where Eugene Domingo steals the show, I'm on my feet applauding. I like Bob Ong--he has a certain way of cutting down the bullshit, and slapping people hard with his insights. I like FM radio stations that play silly rap songs. I know the words to "Pusong Bato". 

Hipster culture is basically an umbrella term for kids who are too weird to be with other people, so they form circle jerks around common passion points (80's cinema, climate-inappropriate fashion, academe approved literature, poetry nights, Cubao X) in order to validate the importance of their aesthetic choices.

These miseducated hipsters have mistaken exposure for education. They think their access to works beyond the mainstream places them in an elevated position to dismiss the "masa", the "mainstream", as something passe, of bad taste.

Here's the thing. Your dumb hipster choices are just as narrowminded. In making your dumb hipster choices, you fail at one thing: the exercise of critical thinking. You have blindly accepted everything Western, everything "not mainstream" as good. You did not take the experience and process it into your own set of aesthetic standards.

So you end up with a subculture of people sharing the SAME STANDARDS FOR WHAT IS HIP. You like the same set of independent cinema, read the same post modern novels, admire the same set of unsigned bands.

At the end of the day, YOU ALL SAY THE SAME. And this is something you must realize about yourself: That you are no better than the masses you abhor. You are no better than sheeps, except you're the sheep wearing the polyester beret.

Also, you btches haven't published shit. So suck it.

Let's Skip This Rerun

"NO," I pleaded. "Please don't."

And he didn't.

"Ok," I said, after taking a deep breath. "Go. Wait. Ok, go. Wait, let me just..." I took another breath, deeper, slower. "All right, give it to me."

And Jamie did. "You'll hate me for this. You have my permission to punch me afterwards."

"Just give it to me," I said. "Tell me all about it."

"It" happened in high school. Jamie and I were classmates, as we always were through high school. Jamie was part of the swim team, and was groomed to lead us as the Corp Commander of our CAT-1. I was a malnourished, awkward guy who creeped out most people with my anti-social charms. How we ended up as friends may be attributed more to proximity than choice.

That doesn't mean to say I don't love him. Because I do. Jamie and I are kindred souls, both passionate storytellers. He is now a filmmaker whose ideas are really amazing, and I write product launches scripts so celebrities can help multi-million peso brands sell more SIM cards. Tomato, Potato.

"You were writing someone a letter. Probably Carizza," Jamie said. "I was watching you writing this letter, and it got me really curious because you crumpled it up, and threw it away."

"So of course," he continued. "I went to the trash and fished it out."

Me in high school.

"Oh my god," I said. "What was in the letter?"

"Well," he said. "You were telling her about a wet dream you had."

"That does sound like me," I agreed.

"It was a wet dream you had about Alexander (not his real name). You wrote 'I was with him and things got out of hand and I woke up covered in...' uhm. You know what covers you when you're having a wet dream?"

The event we were talking about happened way over a decade ago. But still, hearing it from Jamie made me wince. Cringe. Shove my face up in my hands, and want to stab myself with the barbecue stick of the Chicken Inasal we were eating.

"I had a wet dream with a guy. How can I not remember this?" I asked, muffled by the hands I want to choke myself with.

"Well, that's not all..."

Jamie Dumancas in high school.

I whipped my head up in panic. "Please tell me you didn't tell him."

Jamie was silent. He took a sip from his Sola iced tea.

"Oh, god, Jamie. What did you do?"

"I kindof told everyone." He raised his hands. "I told you you can punch me afterwards."

"Everyone?" I shrieked, alarming everyone in the restaurant. "Who is everyone?"

"Everyone who read it in the bulletin board."

"WHAT BULLETIN BOARD?"

"The one where I posted your letter on."

I felt colors draining from my face.

"You didn't talk to me for a week after that. I'm really sorry I did that," Jamie said. His tone suggested otherwise. His tone said, "Isn't that the funniest thing we did together?"

I calmed myself down. Sliced a piece of chicken meat, and ate in silence.

"This is sooooo going in Life Under Siege, my upcoming collection of hilarious essays about my life," I told him matter-of-factly.