Looking for Jose for Dummies 2.0

the last time i did not take a shower before braving the tiny shopping district of den haag, i was followed around a shop, obviously taken for a shoplifter. a few hours ago, jo parfitt thought i was not good enough for her writing workshop. and i am fucking livid.

i was at the american book center, filthy and on a caffeine-induced euphoria. after several minutes of browsing the stephen king and memoirs section, i went upstairs to check for bargains. barbara kingsolver’s the poisonwood bible greeted me again, and begged to be picked up. the cover looked a bit pretentious and i am not the one to follow an old saying. 

right in the middle of the room was a malnourished table with some flyers scattered on it. manning the table (or so it seemed) were two women, the shell wives type (shell has its offices here in the hague). i remembered that it’s the kickoff of the NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) at the bookstore so I headed to the table to ask for some information and possibly, sign up. the workshops are being led a jo parfitt, an author, apparently.

and so i stood in front of them, reading two sheets of flyer and waiting to be acknowledged by either of the two. i started to bring my acting one notch higher and strained myself to look very engrossed in the workshops offered and their prices. they did not even look my way. i am checking in at 90 kilos, made even wider by my winter coat and they did not notice me. i smiled.

the emaciated of the two, started to talk. it went like:

“i always wanted to write but there’s something wrong with me. after theo van gogh was murdered, i was just so affected by it that I don’t know where to start…”

theo van gogh was murdered in amsterdam on november 2004. this woman has some fucking serious problem. it’s fucking 2008.

the other woman listened attentively, absorbing every drop of shit energy flowing around them. i could not help it—i had to say something.

“excuse me, but are these the courses being offered currently?” i ran my finger through the list.

the healthy woman looked at me and did not bother to hide her annoyance. she channeled heavy hangover quite perfectly. 

“yes…yada yada yada yada..they are already writing yada yada. i am yada yada”

“so..you are jo parfitt?”

“yes. just get the flyers that you need.” with a slight flick of her hand, i was turned away. and as if i was never there, she turned to the emaciated woman again and resume their conversation.

i returned the flyers i was holding and turned my back on them.

embarassed, i went back downstairs and thumbed through taschen’s the big penis book. saw john holmes’ dick and rubbed it for good luck.

i tell everybody who has seen me turn periwinkle after yawning this: i am in pain. 

it started a bit more than a year ago that i noticed a slight discomfort in my right shoulder every time i yawned. weeks passed and it grew to more than just your “hangin lang ‘yan*” discomfort—it felt like i was being stabbed right there in the joint. and as the pain grew, came the scary temporary paralysis of my abdomen, rendering me gasping for air. that explains the lovely periwinkle shade i put on when yawning. 

not wanting to distract the country’s remaining doctors from fixing tetay’s std, i taught myself how not to yawn instead. if you have the same ailment as i do, best tip on how to stop yawning is to get proper sleep and not believe in post-lunch energy dips. Or, just clamp your mouth shut whenever you feel one’s coming.

without a terrible actress’ chlamydia to bog down the country’s health system, i decided to see my doctor here in holland. 

the guy wheezed. or at least he looked like he did. he’s probably close to retirement and his white lab coat always looked totally out of place on him. he talked like he was drunk and typed on his keyboard like his intention was to drive his fingers through. 

in all fairness, he admitted right away that he did not know what was wrong with me. he asked for x-rays and apparently, nothing’s lose inside so, while smashing through his keyboards, he asked me to go to a physiotherapist. 

for four weeks, i saw the physio guy. i was stretched, cracked, stretched and cracked some more and well, massaged. yawning was still an ordeal.

not wanting to accept defeat, he gave me muscle relaxants. after a few wikipedia checking, i found out that those pretty pills were usually used as anti-depressants. okay…in the philippines, you don’t get depressed. you get sad. depression is something that happens to famous people followed on E! and tyra’s guests. not filipinos. was i supposed to feel happy because i was prescribed anti-depressants?

i took the pills. slurred my speech. made me sleepy all day (therefore made me yawn more). gave me headaches. made me withdrawn. i felt less pain. and i was happy no matter which shit consistency you threw at the fan. but i still was not cured.

two weeks later, i went back and this time, he looked frustrated. he was incoherent, mumbling through the thick bush of hair above his upper lip. the pounding on his keyboard became more furious…more forceful. i was frustrated too. 

after a few minutes of silence, he turned the monitor of his computer around so we both could see it.

in the google search box, he typed “shoulder + pain + yawning”. 

he’s probably still searching.

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^again, pic not mine. 

* “hangin lang ‘yan” literally means, “that just air (in your body causing you pain)”—my mom’s answer most pain complaints.

nobody told me that when you’re 9 and breaking the scales at 40 kilos, you’re not supposed to be proud that your mother is on a rampage feeding you one more pack of instant noodles than your every next classmate. to cut that run-on sentence in a few words, i was fat. while every teacher in the school thought of me as the healthiest, i was silently screaming in disagreement. i couldn’t run two steps without heaving and sweating like a pig, dammit.

and pig, i was called.

17 years later, i had to go to the gym.   

signed up at slimmer’s world and went everyday during my lunch time. distraction came in the form of rustom padilla working out a sweat on a stationary bike. aside from him and me, the place smelled of a geriatric ward. either that or sanitary napkins. most of the people who worked out there were octogenarians trying to ward off arthritis and women in their 40’s trying to save that marriage. surprisingly, the men who went there did not look gay. totally. the shower stalls were actual stalls with flimsy gay doors but they served the purpose. 

fast forward three years later and now waddling on the other side of the world, i took the courage (actually, on an impulse) to sign back in and get myself into shape. the place looked promising…hourly training with a well-meaning jock and state of the art machines that if given the proper combinations, could also fight mothra for you. there were also no mirrors to keep the scary bodybuilders away. bottled water’s for free. clean place. 

first night, i headed towards the locker room to change and nothing could have prepared me for the scene. in front of me were dicks of all shapes and sizes floating–or well, happily sashaying back and forth. some were hanging on to dear life, clutching at the bushes, some, limply pointing to the floor, slapping a pair of knees, while the rest were unbelievably unremarkable. i swear, i did not stare.

honestly, i never take showers there.

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*pic not mine. however, i think it’s a shot inside a gym here in holland where they prefer doing things a la nude.

the guy behind the glass window at the embassy had to ask my mother, “why is your son not with you today?”

without missing a beat, the woman who once paid for hundreds of sachets of cream silk so my hair could give off halos, stared at him, bared her teeth and hissed, “he’s currently having lunch with the president!”

i am quite confident that it was not as dramatic as i imagined it to be, but she was telling the truth about the lunch and well, my hair did give off halos.

meet lemuel: finished 8th place at the recent board exams for physicians. et cetera. listing down his achievements here will just crash your browser.  and as he was one of the first gentleman’s scholars, a lunch was bound to happen. it just was. and i was invited.

next to the table where i was sitting, julie yap-daza was being the goddess that she is. in my religion, if you have the balls to ask richard gomez on your late-night show if he’d do you for a night, i’ll say your novenas. and yeah, charito planas was there. i did not like her.

mike arroyo, face heavy with face powder and lips blinding from too much shiny lipstick, arrived on time for the occasion. a few made a beeline towards him and well, lubricated themselves in. cameras flashed. smiles painted on. then something happened. he started to approach me. now, while this was all going on, i was busy texting my amazing fag hag, asking her what i was supposed to do with the cutlery placed above my plate. i am usually fine with spoons, forks, knives, scalpels and microwave ovens so long as they are neatly lined up on either side of the plate. place any of them somewhere else and i get anxiety attacks.

and it was too late to ask cathy how i was supposed to address the better-half of the country’s bite-sized powerhouse.

his crotch was a few inches from my face and his hand was sticking out, waiting for me to take it. still sitting, i grabbed his hand and said, “hi, nice meeting you.” stupid. stupid. stupid.

lem, should you be reading this, please do not forget to invite me for the oslo or the copenhagen version of that ceremony. i’ll come with a script.

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pic from: http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1063341778565_2003/09/12/13wldarroyo.jpg

grew up in general santos city, where there are more tunas than pretty whores to waste your money on. so, when visiting my city, don’t wish to get laid. go to santiago boulevard. order tuna hot off the grill and drink and be merry. you may not die after all, as they say.

last time i was in gensan was about three long years ago. i had a small, green knapsack on my back and a black mailman’s bag slung across my shoulder and the guts to leave the city whose streets i know like every fruit you shouldn’t see in a bowl of fruit salad. february of that same year saw me being devastated by the loss of a woman who cooked cow-brain patties so well. not only that, while my mother’s mother was lying in coma, they burned kimball plaza down. the grief was too much to bear, especially to those who existed on the store’s fresh breads  at the ground floor. along with the conflagration went the popular belief that it housed a man-snake who ate fair-skinned shoppers who later on pass through its digestive track as bars of gold.

i was there when they bombed fitmart. well, sort of. i was eating my cheese muffin and staring at my second cup of dunkin’ donuts coffee in pioneer avenue when we heard the blast. after a few minutes, i saw a woman without her shoes on dragging a little boy behind her. she was nearly hysterical and told me bits of what happened at the department store. my friend dinah’s father died that afternoon. and also roy’s mother and father. the blast broke the glass windows of my favorite cafe just in front of the store.

i danced on the streets of gensan. i marched on her streets, carrying my high school’s banner. i got drunk in a small bar along roxas ave. i got even more drunk and had fun at santiago boulevard. i miss the garlic spaghetti from giacomino’s.

the library beside the oval plaza was my sanctuary. it provided me a good escape from the noise of a hundred tricycles that plied every nook of the city. crown book store along roxas ave made me wish i had money to buy all the books wrapped in sticky plastic sheets, waiting to be devoured. their xerox was excellent.

jo-ann’s along pedro acharon boulevard and the golden silangan bakeshop provided me my fix of palabok and egg pie. kcc’s fastfood never failed to amaze me with their coleslaw. did not eat a lot at gaisano though. 

always had fun at tropicana’s. one morning, after a whole night’s worth of soaking up the waters of sarangani bay, we belted out our own version of bon jovi’s ‘it’s my life’. he would have hated it, but it was saved by rassey’s guitar.

dunno when i will be home again. but then, when i get back there, i will play cheer’s theme and drink a bottle of san mig. and toast to old times.

*photo from http://www.philippinebusiness.com.ph/geographics/gensan.htm

I always said that he died to soon for me to meet him. Drowned in a bowl of soup. A very pathetic way to die, is it not?

He is not dead, I think. He’s probably somewhere in the metro, eating corned beef with diced potatoes every once in a while. Or mowing the lawn, if he’s got one. Or wondering what happened to his ID card back in 82. I had the card before. I don’t know where it is now. In the card was a 1X1 picture of him, smiling at the camera. In black and white. I liked how he looked at the camera. Full of confidence; looked like he could rule a world. Too bad he wasn’t there to watch me rule mine.

He liked Panchito. Dunno who Panchito was. They don’t show his movies these days and quite frankly, I think I wouldn’t have liked him anyway. I mean, Panchito.

Can’t say I have been searching for him for years. Tried Google. Nothing. Asked around, got a lead but it led me nowhere. Somebody said I should be a somebody first before I dare meet him. So I have something to brag about. I am a nobody yet so perhaps I won’t be meeting him some time soon. But I don’t wanna brag, really. I’d be glad enough just to see him and say hello. Nothing else.

He should have heard her tell stories about him. He should have seen her smile at every single drip of memory that she could snatch. He should have been there to see her cry at every single movie she saw on tv and at the cinema. It should have been more fun.

But I bet he saw another woman cry at every single movie she saw. He saw the same woman smile at him. And reminisce with him. I don’t mind that. Whatever works.

Damn you, Joe. Still got the tumor on your back?

*1st photo from http://urbanartdealers.com/cart/images

Suffering the buggy last song syndrome for a couple of hours is heaven compared to me afflicted of such for thirteen years. And I did not know the lyrics much more the title. I could hum the tune but it always comes up totally different from the one in my head. I dare you to beat that.

Remember former Secret Service agent Frank Farmer signing up as pop star Rachel Marron’s bodyguard? Well, Rachel looked and belted out songs as Whitney Houston would but, no, the song was not Whitney’s. However, for the release in the Philippines, they plagued our tv sets with rapid shots from the flick while this strangely dark piece played on the background. To put it simply, a huge ensemble was singing it and sounded like one of those songs Gregorian Chant released.

I became sick that day. The song kept playing that day in my head and it was debilitating. I asked people around, ran to the music store to see if the track was included in the OST. No. Nothing. A few years later, MTV put up one of those shows where they hand out glued pieces of scrap metal to clueless Milli Vanillis. And they opened that damn show with a huge choir singing THAT DAMN SONG. I was crying from grief. I still did not know the title.

But of course, luck comes to those who fart seven times a day. Browsing on iFilm, I streamed a video for Carlton beer’s latest tv plug. Called “The Big Ad” where 300 guys plus several other computer-generated drunkards singing my damn song! I was having visions, hallucinations, spontaneous orgasms and blissful paroxysms shooting through me. Yep. I knew that an ad this huge could spawn lengths of threads in forums and I also knew that the song, being a huge part of the ad, somebody is bound to ask for the title and some beer guzzling male human who knows his music will eventually answer.

Look for “O Fortuna” from Carmina Burana.

The girl with the pearl earring was staring back at me and all I could do was let out a silent fart out of excitement and pure bliss. Crowded around her were people from every nook and cranny of Japan led by a deranged woman busily pointing out the cracks on the surface of the painting. I swear somebody said something like sashimi or sushi.

We were at the Mauritshuis in The Hague where the Girl With the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer (also called the Mona Lisa of the North…I mean the painting, not Vermeer) was being housed temporarily for an exhibit of Vermeeer’s works while he was in Austria. He was originally from Delft, a quaint little town bombarded these days by noisy tourists.

I was expecting a huge wall of a face to stare back at me. But after minutes of milling around the circle of the Japanese tourists, I was surprised to see the 40 x 46 cm masterpiece. I dunno. There was something in that pic. Too bad the hype is on Mona Lisa and the movie with Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson did not do much publicity for the painting. Well, I guess it doesnt need any publicity.

Dunno what to say, really. So I just glued her on my desktop.