Destination Unknown

Ladies and gentlemen, let me present one of this year’s entries for
MMFF. Directed by Paul Wilson Gardon, it stars Ruffa Gutierrez, Rufa
Mae Quinto, Iza Calzado and Marian Rivera, and it is about four women
who… ah what the heck writing synopsis is so boring, so please just
read it elsewhere.

I give you, Desperadas. Click that link, view the trailer, read the synopsis, and then come back to me.

My thoughts?

This is a fantastic showmanship of creative
prowess! It totally does not remind me of Desperate Housewives. In
fact, this movie’s name couldn’t resemble that sitcom less!

Seriously, what is the deal?! Movies like this are made, and then nominated for MMFF (which should stand for Many Mucus Festering Forward)?
Should I be saddened that the Philippine cinema is, once again after a
Billion times, imitating another popular Hollywood show? Should I be
amused that this particular movie is aping a show that has not been very kind to Filipinos?
Should I laugh at how movies like this are considered "worthy of
accolades"? Or should I be angry that it stars Ruffa Gutierrez, an
obnoxious celebrity hall-of-(in)famer? Gee I am so ambivalent SOMEBODY
PLEASE HELP ME DEVELOP MY EQ WALA AKONG
E-KYOOOOOO!!!!!!!111111111111111

It’s bewildering how a lot of Filipino directors
refuse to pitch in any original ideas, and instead they are content on
copying international films. Why? Don’t they feel any shame? It’s like
none of them ever want to take risks and make movies that change
people, and all they do is create formulaic "sure box office hits" that
do not have any relevant messages, but will sell anyway because people
will eat them up so they could see all these sexy actresses and corny
scenarios. "Nevermind that we’re giving our film industry a
negative image, as long as we can earn money and party on Embassy who
cares about creativity and all that jazz, right?!" Huzzah! And
speaking of sexy actresses, I wonder if Marian Rivera wasn’t selected
because of her timely popularity. If this movie made last year, would
the director even choose her and not Angel Locsin? DING! Didn’t think
so myself; I guess the only thing important these days is if the
actress appears on Men’s Magazines or not.

You know what, we need a Desperate Housewives
episode that has Teri Hatcher saying, "OK, before we go any further,
can I check these scripts? Just to make sure they aren’t, like, from
some film studio in the Philippines?" And then cue the picket lines of
outraged Filipinos crying "racism" and "bigotry", the blogs tossing
highfaluting vocabulary (or is it vogue-call-bull-gallery?) to spite
American producers for not understanding our real talent, and the
fandom-ish comments saying Americans are "gaytards". Then the American
producers will counterattack by presenting "Lupin, Asian Treasures,
Marimar, and Zaido" as evidence, but Filipinos will curse them anyway
for their insensitivity, until someone from the government will "level"
the debate by delivering a boring ass speech! Everyone will kiss and
make up, and it’s back to business for everyone. That will be something
worth watching, definitely better than wasting your bucks on Desperadas.

I wonder if we’ll get Bayani or Dr. Bahay or Tulak Sampaguita next year.

23,

Do you remember yesterday when I stayed up until
midnight just to watch you go? It reminded me of the poignant airport
scene where two friends wave goodbyes to each other before going their
separate ways, uncertain if they will ever see each other again. In our
case, we won’t, and this is a hard goodbye. That’s why I’m writing to
you to mark the occasion.

Oftentimes when two friends know that it’s their
last day together, they would try their best to make it a memorable
one. One way they do this is by going to places that meant something to
them. Another way is to go somewhere they’ve never been to before so
that they can for one last day savor the joy of discovery.
Unfortunately for yesterday, none of this was possible. We had to
attend someone’s wedding, and you know very well that that’s an
experience I don’t enjoy (except if it’s MY wedding, which you did not
bless me with, but that’s okay).

You also know that I don’t like it, not because I
am jealous of other’s successes, and not because I hate mushy
whatever-there-is’s (though I tolerate only certain extents of it). I
like seeing people at peace and in love with each other, and what has
happened is indeed a blessing for yesterday’s bride and groom. I don’t
like attending weddings because, specifically, I don’t like the
traditional wedding banquets. Yesterday’s was no exception.

Remember that? Looking back, a lot of
unintentionally funny things happened, although they’re the kind of
"funny" that infuriates more than amuses. Let’s start with the edible
stuff they’re trying to pass off as food. 23, if it won’t burden you
much, please pass a message to people who you are connected to. If
they’re non-vegetarians, ask them to be vegetarians. And if they’re
already vegetarians, tell them to avoid asking seafood restaurant chefs
to prepare foods for them. We vegetarians don’t eat meat because of
health issues and/or animal compassion. Just because we have an extent
of asceticism does not mean that we don’t enjoy great-tasting foods.

For some reasons, chefs of seafood restaurants
believe that vegetarians enjoy gastronomic torture. And so what they do
every time - believe me, it’s not just today - is they just sauté
vegetables that do not even go well with one another, and then cram
overwhelming number of mushrooms to hide just how bland-tasting their
preparations are. I must’ve eaten more mushrooms today than the Super
Mario Brothers do in all their games. Eating these foods is like
cramming your stomach with the residual "soup" from Del Monte’s canned
fruits. Needless to say, that does not feel so good.

Oh, and what’s a wedding banquet without the
generic schmaltzy "love ballads" from Jim Brickman, David Pomeranz, or
Barry Manilow? Good thing only a few of them were played today, and we
didn’t have to endure some lazy ass "jazz" of "Careless Whispers", "It
Might Be You" or "My Heart Will Go On" with soprano sax’s overdubbing
the original instrumentations. So what do we get instead? Some kitschy
"Bossa Nova" renditions of "I Didn’t Know I Was Looking For Love" (and
similar songs) sung by fastfood divas who "honor" Astrud Gilberto in
their liner notes but don’t know how to sing like her (and if you’ve
ever seen them live, watch out for those trumpeters or saxophonists who
tilt their hat, slick back their hair and wear smug expressions to look
like Frank Sinatra. Ugh). Bland music gives bland foods added depths of
blandness.

And was it noisy! Gee, we must’ve been in a room
with a lot of frustrated percussionists, what with all the
spoon-to-glass banging that happens every 5 seconds. And how could we
forget the SUCKAZ EMCEE, who cannot deliver a speech without being
trite, evidenced from his lame-o Romeo and Juliet to his
Ivanhoe-found-his-love (!) analogy. How come none of these zzz-rate
wedding emcees realizes that Romeo and Juliet died an untimely death?
Talk about trying to deliver a good omen. I’m also very curious about
what particular girl Ivanhoe "married". If only the emcee tried even
harder to sound literate, perhaps he may claim that Ivanhoe’s "damsel"
is, who, Dulcinea? Remember that time, 23? We were so embarrassed, that
we left the room for 20 full minutes.

Although the banquet was mediocre, we were happy
about the newlyweds. They are terrific, and they deserve each other.
Yesterday began a new phase of their lives, and though I won’t claim
this event to be as grand as theirs, 24’s arrival today also begins a
new phase for me.

23, we had a lot of good times. We went to
Boracay. We took up web design. We saved money. We read a lot of great
books. We created a new blog and earned a few new readers. We solved
cases with Phoenix Wright (Do I hear you saying "Just what the hell are
Harry Potter, Star Wars and Transformers"?).  We met new friends. We
learned of who cherishes us and who doesn’t. We watched Death Note. We
saw Riza Santos and drooled. We listened to Gil Scott-Heron and cried.
We contributed to the society the best we can. We gave gifts and
learned what a wonderful deed that is. And I’m sure we did a lot of
things I haven’t enumerated here.

So I will miss you. I only hope that you can also
grace other’s lives with your presence, and grant them an important
year. I will remember the important lessons you and all that came
before you have taught, as I embrace 24 in hopes of growing wiser and
living younger.

Hey, do you recall a time when Friendster’s bulletin boards were
filled to the brim with funny, sensible and insightful people? Feels
like an era past, doesn’t it? Nowadays all I ever see are people
selling bags, surveys from people with the IQ of Paris Hilton (not you,
Chester. Hahaha), ANNOYING RED-HERRING CHAIN MAILS ABOUT GETTING
MARRIED, dalagas complaining about how awful their yearbooks are, or whiners who post multiple messages whining about people spamming the bulletin board (see the irony there?).

But a particularly retch-worthy one, sadly, came from one of my
closer real-life friends. Her bulletin post’s title read "My
Personalized Licensed Plate Number Says ‘BITCH’".

Why are so many girls tagging themselves with that word lately? I
suspect that they don’t know what bitch means and that they’re just
using it because Tata Young (with her song "Sexy Naughty Bitchy Me")
and her contemporaries - i.e. pop icons with no brains or sensibilities
whatsoever - made it trendy. It just reminds me of Sean Krapston
trivializing the word "suicide" (don’t get me started on this!). Upon
reading my friend’s bulletin post, my reaction was, "Great, just
another in the long line of girls who think bitch is a word of
female-empowerment."

If she actually bothered to read the dictionary (and try etymology) before using that word indiscriminately, this is what she’ll find:

bitch

–noun 

1.	a female dog.

2.	a female of canines generally.

3.	Slang. a. a malicious, unpleasant, selfish person, esp. a woman. b. a lewd woman.

4.	Slang. a. a complaint. b. anything difficult or unpleasant: The test was a bitch. c. anything memorable, esp. something exceptionally good: That last big party he threw was a real bitch.

  –verb (used without object) 

5.	Slang. to complain; gripe: They bitched about the service, then about the bill.

  –verb (used with object) 

6.	Slang. to spoil; bungle (sometimes fol. by up): He bitched the job completely. You really bitched up this math problem.

I know that bitch has recently become a slang denoting a woman who, according to Urban Dictionary,
don’t give a flying f*ck anymore and that can and will be cruel to man.
And hey, it’s cool if a woman wants verbally slam the male sex - even
if males are conceived and parented by females (see the irony again?) -
and instead of bad parenting she blames males’ shortcomings to hiphop
videos and Sly Stallone movies. What do I know, right? That still does
not justify using of the b-word. She can use "dominator" or
"dominatrix" or "menefreghista" or "misandrist" or "bad girl"
for all I care. Why does she have call herself bitch - a word so
thoroughly reviled, that people may interpret it as whores? Would she also want to be called puta? Or should we, like always, favor the anglicized (harrrrr)? 

Girls, if you advocate equal rights, you owe your gender more
dignity than to call yourselves bitches. Otherwise, please do not react
when you hear Isiah Thomas’s moronic remarks.

In case you didn’t know, he said "It’s acceptable for a black man to call a black woman a bitch." 

Life’s a bitch, innit?

(If time allows, I’ll post a couple of new entries this week. So stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, I’m doing a survey as a kind of intermission.)                               

If I looked in your purse/wallet, what would I find?
- Cash, receipts, cards and ID’s.

Do you go to the bathroom with the door open or closed?
~ Why would I want to have my door opened anyway? What kind of idiot does that?

Sleep on your back or stomach?
~ Back, so I can have a good view of the ceiling.

What would I find if I looked under your bed?
~ Haha sorry you won’t find any naughty magazines. In fact, don’t bother as you won’t find anything.

Something that happened today that has made you mad?
~ Well, it’s still early.

What were you doing before this survey?
~ Checking my emails and today’s work, I guess.

What will you do after this survey?
~ Go back to work.

First thing you do when you wake up?
~ I usually wake up pretty
grumpy, particularly if it’s on weekdays and most especially if I feel
like I haven’t slept enough. So no looking at the cellphone unlike that
chatty friend where I got this survey from (and boy is that guy chatty.
Hahaha!)

Why do you like the person you like?
~ Because she has no idea
how much she rocks my world. Err, yeah, I don’t know. I just do, okay?
Do I have to justify my preferences all the time?

When you shut off your alarm clock, do you tend to fall back asleep?
~ I put it on snooze a couple of time before I finally wake up (or, like, resign for the rest of the night)

If you were given the chance to take care of a monkey for a weekend, would
you?
~ No freakin’ way! My bedroom’s already "teenager-like" with me in it!

What is the current annoyance?
~ You’ll read about this in my next entry, but in a nutshell, it’s about a girl.

When will you turn 50?
~ When pigs fly.

Where do you wish you were right now?
~ Inside my secret base in volcano plotting world conquest.

What song are you currently listening to?
~ I ain’t listening to any song at the moment.

Have you ever passed out from drinking?
~ Nope

What time did you wake up this morning?
~ 7

What makes you laugh?
~ Your face. Hahaha. Kidding.

Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
~ I don’t remember. I don’t do phone sex.

What is the WORST subject they teach in school?
~
Electromagnetics Theory, bar none. I mean, it’s bad enough that this
subject is about things YOU CAN’T FRIGGIN SEE, but the teacher’s even
worse, often digressing for 30-plus minutes (out of 90) talking about
his LOVE LIFE WITH A LADY HE MET IN THE INTERNET AND HAS NEVER MET IN
REAL LIFE and SINGING "When I Fall In Love" WITH THIS FINGER-IN-HIS-ASS
EXPRESSION. Arrgh!

How many times have you seen your favorite movie?
~ 7

How was your past weekend?
~ Ehh, average.

Is someone on your mind right now?
~ Yep

Can you say the alphabet backwards?
~ It’s a corny stuff to do. Sorry.

What color is your toothbrush?
~ Green

Do you like the beach?
~ I like it but I’m not sure I like seeing
half-naked fat bum dudes with hairy legs and chest accompanied by his
mail-order wives.

Can you whistle?
~Nope.