Caustic Thoughts

Random funny thoughts with a taste of Pinoy and a hint of acid.

Free Writer to Go

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My parents raised me to be so independent that I rarely ask for help for anything even when College Algebra nearly killed me. I mostly get by on my own steam which explains why I’m still lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on an antique steam boat. My independent streak is the reason why I’ve never gotten used to people asking me for help especially when they define help as, “do everything for me for free.” Since I got married though, I found out that I also married a set of protocols including the requirement to put arms, legs and soul at the disposal of kin and connections.

Because I have only one obvious skill (my other skills are hidden behind a veneer of sarcasm), there is only one kind of help people ask from me. They ask me to write. I’ve written reports, assignments, love letters, resignation letters and fake excuses all in the name of kinship. People apparently think that, just because I know my letters better than my numbers, I can sit in front of a keyboard blindfolded and write a thousand page philosophical exposition on mice and men.

As every writer would know though, writing is never easy. Since I’ve had to write so much lately, every extra piece I have to do is as appealing as a pail of vomit. Every time I write it feels like a brain cell just expanded and went “pop.” If I had to lose my brain cells with such certainty, I’d really rather get paid in cash or in ego credits.

Do you want to know how to write so you can spare that poor crippled bastard whose been doing your reports for you for free? I have one piece of advice: READ like a rabid reader and then you will learn how to write and then maybe you’ll understand too what it feels like to be asked to die slowly for free.

By the way, I’m not as unfriendly and as unaccommodating as I sound. I happily help people who can help themselves to some extent first.

Take Me to Your Leader

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I am a Star Trek fan but will never really talk about being one simply because very few can relate to me. While my classmates talked about the latest foreign prancing units of testosterone and romantic literature of the popular and forbidden kind, I sat across my imaginary friend and talked about traveling at the speed of light, life in other planets and how William Shatner’s hairline got abducted by aliens. I was so enamored with the show that my invisible friend soon convinced me that I would one day navigate the stars too even if my mathematical abilities never went beyond addition and subtraction and my physics teacher came close to certifying me an idiot.

When the local T.V. station, that had more static snow than clear broadcasts, dropped the show because it was earning them the equivalent of a black hole, I had to settle for more popular science fiction fare on the big screen. You know, the type where the earth either always gets swamped in catastrophic floods and you can almost hear Noah whispering “I told you so” over your shoulder or always gets invaded by aliens with issues and America always saves the day. 
If the earth really got invaded I wonder what the rest of the world would be doing. While America sends off its baldest bad ass former/wannabe NASA astronaut into outer space to incapacitate the mother ship and save the world once more would we Filipinos be:
a. smiling and laughing as if the end of the world was the most natural thing?
b. showing those menacing aliens the way to the Batasang Pambansa or to Malacanang?
c. drafting a memorandum of understanding for the aliens to consider?
d. drinking San Miguel beer to dull the pain?
e. watching Wowowee because Angel and Piolo will be lip synching on stage off key? 
I would probably be on a rooftop with a placard screaming, “Take me with you.”
P.S. Incidentally, would anyone know if there is any truth to the War of the Worlds story? I was told that when H.G. Wells’ classic was first adapted for the radio over a century ago, the people of London were said to have believed that there really was an invasion and began to panic. Fortunately, nuclear technology wasn’t invented yet and no half crazed balding scientist ever thought of nuking the earth to get rid of those long-limbed bastards.

She’s So Very Piang

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Would somebody tell me what in blue blazes is piang?

Why oh why among all the nations of the world have we Filipinos been cruelly selected to suffer this medically incomprehensible condition? Piang clearly does not refer to a full bone fracture or a strained muscle. Otherwise, the poor victim would be unable to manage even the faintest glimmer of the famed Filipino jollity in the worst of adversities. I have been repeatedly told though that if a piang is left untreated by a manghihilot (quack doctor + masseuse of sorts?) the afflicted individual will suffer from innumerable aches and pains for the rest of his miserable existence, whereby he will wonder if he had been chosen by a gang of invisible magical dwarves to play tricks on.
My parents must have been from an alternate dimension where the Philippines is the dominant world power and where Filipinos sit in garden cafes drinking tea, discussing Plato’s Republic and plotting total world domination. They don’t believe in piang and the manghihilot. By virtue of association, neither do I. But my in-laws do and dinner conversations occasionally take a bad turn whenever my daughter is ill for unknown reasons. 
* There’s no question about it. She has piang.
** [staring down at my MSG laced dish; no comment]
* We must bring her immediately to the manghihilot.
** [if my eyes had laser beams, there’d be a hole on my plate]
Of course, I do acknowledge that modern medicine cannot comprehend or solve everything. In a few hundred years when much will be understood, our current methods of healing by cutting, stitching and chemical bombardment will be met with no small measure of shock by the people of the future. While little is understood today, the traditions of old must be referred to for additional wisdom. There must be some truth to piang and hilot but I just wish there was at least some sort of explanation for them. Even the most obscure of eastern medical methods hazard some explanation behind their curative claims no matter how improbably mystical. No one however has ever explained what piang is. 
I’m going to go crazy if I have to bear another dinner conversation about this unknown condition that the old ones say plagues my daughter every time she has fever or an upset stomach. Somebody save me.
*Photo Credit: Webweaver

Cut and Paste

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I once got into trouble with a coworker because I made the mistake of wearing my brains on my sleeve and announcing my undying aversion to Filipino romantic melodrama. She declared me unpatriotic (oh, and I can almost hear someone from a mile away accusing me of just being pa-sosyal right about now). In the interest of promoting corporate peace and harmony (I was in charge of employee relations), I offered my apologies, shut my mouth and went on hating Piolo and company in the comfort and privacy of my other secret self. What I should have told her was that watching the polar ice caps melting from Sharon Cuneta’s eyes does not constitute patriotism. There is no excuse to love your own when it’s only capital is its appeal to the tear ducts.

Besides, how can I be unpatriotic when I stayed glued every afternoon to my grandmother’s TV set marveling at the beauty that was Tita Duran and Pancho Magallona in black and white? I loved FPJ’s smacks and kapows too far better than those by the dynamic duo in colored tights. Heck, I even went so far as to patronize the two hour song and dance movie numbers by German Moreno’s scholars in polka dots and ribbons because my yayas were my barkada and they told me Janno and Manilyn would make me a happy, psychologically balanced, socially agreeable girl. 
But that was it. I can’t offer the same love and dedication to the current stable of gooey weepers. The titles alone of today’s movies are discouraging enough. Is it just me or are almost all of today’s romantic movies prolonged cut and paste elaborations of pop songs? It’s as if all of the Filipino creative title makers had died in a nuclear explosion leaving the producers with no choice but to fish for movie titles in a vat of stale, radioactive lyrics from foreign top ten songs making the rest of the nation forever prone to the last chorus syndrome.
Did you notice too that foreign backdrops are becoming all the rage? When a story can’t carry itself with enough dignity, the prospect of seeing some actress’ breath freezing over in front of a European building is enough to justify parting with half your day’s wages at the cinema booth. So long as I retain some measure of sanity, I cannot follow John Lloyd, Bea, Angel, Piolo, KC, Richard, Sam and Toni to Milan, Paris, Venice, Santorini, Australia or even Mars. 
I’ve promised myself though to be more “patriotic.” I will watch Filipino romantic movies someday when they stop whatever they’re doing right now or when they make a movie out of Don’t Touch My Birdie.

Gunpoint

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This week there will be no brilliant displays of sarcastic wit. I woke up in the morning of August 18 to the sound of the radio blaring. The usually high-strung radio host of Bombo Radyo was screaming a couple of decibels louder. While I struggled to convince myself that the morning was my friend, I heard him mention a jumble of words that contained Kauswagan, MILF and gunshots. My blood turned cold and ran out of me. Did he mean Kauswagan that was right beside the barangay where I lived in?

After an hour or so of excruciating anxiety, I gathered that he meant another Kauswagan, one that was two hours away in Lanao del Norte, a province next to ours. I could almost touch my sense of relief but it would be short lived. A mere two hours away was a place where people were dying. If the MILF who had surrendered after the incident were telling the truth, they were apparently ordered to kill anyone and everyone in sight including children. I suspect that the kind of anxiety and grief that drove people insane would be with me forever.

When I lived in faraway Baguio and Cebu, there had already been similar reports from various provinces and regions in Mindanao. It was not odd that I felt detached. Miles of land and water separated me from the horrors and reality of a decades old liberation war. Now that I am really a neighbor to the conflict, the feeling has changed. For the first time I understood what it was to really grieve for the men, women and children who had died at gunpoint and to fear for my family’s life. A two year old child was chopped to death in a field by retreating rebels. If that had been my toddler, I would have volunteered to die.

Our city was in red alert for a day or two but people walked the streets like it was a normal sunny day. For Kagayanons, it really was a normal day. They had gotten used to this. It has happened many times before. The people of Cagayan de Oro are also certain that the city, by the power of Vice Mayor Emano or some other worldly protection, will never taste the bitterness of violence. They say I’d be a fool to worry. I hope they’re right.

The Culling

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Thanks to online writing I am fast becoming a Jill of all trades. I’ve learned nearly everything from achieving transcendence to convincing fellow females to go out with me. This week, my assignment has made me an unlikely expert of horse breeds, 75 of them to be exact. Most of these breeds are the result of human intervention. Human meddling in equine affairs has sometimes been so extreme that there have been horses as short as 17 inches and as tall as 6 feet.

Breeders decide which horses can give and deliver reproductive fluids to create horses with physical attributes, performance traits and temperaments that are ideal for whatever specific purpose the breed will be used for. Those that don’t make the cut are culled. That’s just a fancy way of saying Simon (or Wyngard) says they have no talent, earning them unlimited passes to the pastures of the afterlife. Of course, other breeders simply prefer castrating undesirable specimens or locking them away from the company of the opposite gender.

For some strange reason, that is probably the result of my own unusual breeding, horse breeding reminds me of the Olympics. I got the connection after standing on my head for a couple of hours. Try it. The truth is though is that the perceived connection is a hypothetical one. I was wondering if the Olympics could have been used as a “breed” tester of sorts if solid proof had been found to support racist theories. Would the Filipino race have been gradually culled because of the lack of desirable attributes that could lead to a gold medal? As matters stand, most of our champions have already bowed out in Beijing.

But there is no basis for racist beliefs. The Human Genome Project says we are all 99.9% similar. Although the small fraction that points to our differences may have critical implications in disease treatment, environmental adaptability and PERHAPS even specific task performance (which means slight genetic differences should not be taken lightly in the interest of political correctness), I would like to think that Filipino athletes could have an equal crack at collecting gold in events where we naturally excel in if we had the same opportunity for training as athletes in other countries do. Our failure to go for gold has nothing to do with our “breed.” I highly suspect that if culling had to be imposed, the ones who diverted the funds for sports training should be the first ones in line.

Note: For an interesting account on genetic mapping and the controversy of racial differences, check Race and the Human Genome

Photo Credit: Download-Free-Pictures.com

Career Shift Part 2

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Just when I was about to raise the white flag on my dream of becoming an industrial slave, a company noticed my desperate display of colorful feathers and invited me for an interview. Although the company is admittedly miles away from my preferred companies of milk and honey, I thought its aroma of artificial sweeteners is the closest I can ever get to what I want. So I charged into the thick of the city smog in my borrowed heels that cut deep into my sensitive, rubber shoe-pampered feet to be on time for my appointment with executive intimidation.

In the course of my interview, quite a number of hypothetical questions were thrown in that the executive and I may have hypothetically gotten into each others’ nerves. I’ve been through worse though and thanks to experience, I made sure I did not throw too many barbs at a potential employer. Unfortunately, I did not emerge completely unscathed. The truth, which both my interviewer and I arrived at, got to me.
I’m not referring to the obvious fact that no shoe made for female feet will ever fit mine. I am referring to the fact that 1) high paying HR jobs in Cagayan de Oro are rarer than white elephants; 2) numerous employers continue to flout the most basic labor laws including the rule on minimum wages; and 3) in many companies, the HR department is still viewed as either the department of perpetual help where petitions for better benefits are lodged or the ax committee where difficult and undesirable employees, that is, those that are not really 5’2 and with pleasing personalities, are deposited for elimination. 
The first two realizations are old facts of life in the Philippines but the third one still surprises me and gets my goat. It has already been a couple of decades since Personnel Departments have been renamed Human Resources Departments. That means they are no longer just the company police that are out to get delinquent slackers. The HR department however should not occupy the other end of the spectrum where they follow the general trend of complaining beyond reasonable demand, shying short of putting up pickets too. I still believe the role of HR is in the middle ground (no man’s land where anyone is shot to death?) between management and the work force. HR bears the role of promoting what is fair, right, reasonable and lawful. What is right and fair? The Labor Code and anything above it is fair. 
I can almost hear my old dragon of a boss breathing down my neck like an inebriated call center agent, “It’s all about the people.” It seems though that it all depends on whether you care more for the people above or below. If companies with a skewed perspective of HR management are all I can hope for in my little corner of the world, I seriously wonder if I truly belong in the field of industrial HR management. This might yet again be another sign that it is time for a different calling, unless of course a certain multi billion dollar shipyard investment pushes through in which case I shall risk life and limb for the chance to be enslaved.

Career Shift

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That’s it. I need a back up plan. It’s been more than a year and I’m still in my little workspace beside my bed. It hasn’t been for lack of trying. I’ve gotten browner and I’ve lost the soles of my shoes to the heat of concrete pavements, once nearly walking barefoot in an industrial jungle. It was after a hopeful chat with yet another weary executive who probably wished he could’ve swapped soles with me if it meant a moment of freedom from the rigors of his suit and brick cage.

I am about to give up my dream of working in the industry. I’ve been told that unemployment, unhappy employment and poorly compensated employment have become epidemics. Well, I am earning but not just in the manner and place I would have wanted. But I cannot endure in the current exercise of mindlessness which I have had to bear for the sake of survival. Nor can I wait longer for the right industry to have myself enslaved to. I can feel the whiteness invading the roots of my hair. I must act now or I will have a lot of regrets to mull over as I sit on my rocking chair, absently rubbing my tongue over toothless gums. 
I’m thinking of shifting careers. Tell me, is web design and internet marketing really as horrific as I think it is or will I fit right in? There were a few subjects in high school that made my bowels harden and loosen in turns— math, physics, entrepreneurship and computer programming. All required my teachers to close their eyes in pity so their pens could stray and let me pass. But at least I retained some measure of comprehension for the first three subjects. Computer programming however left me comatose and in limbo. From the first day of class to the last, I understood nothing. I wonder how I ever got a numerical grade when the equivalent of nothing is nothing. My teacher must have had her eyes shut really tight or she must have been related to David Blaine. 
I’d like to suspect that it wasn’t really my fault. Am I really such an idiot or did I just have a skunk for a teacher? There’s only one way to find out. If I really am an idiot, my bowel movement will tell me so as soon as I read my first tutorial.
The question is where do I begin?

Bird Training

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There are a lot of important circumstances to direct our attentions to such as climate change, poverty, hunger, terrorism and talks of a Dela Hoya-Pacquiao bout. I however, have chosen to postpone sitting under some tree of enlightenment to attempt to find a solution to these weighty matters so I can focus on animal welfare, that is, one animal’s welfare.

I had no choice. They had to cut down a coconut tree that had been showering its bountiful blessings on the roof of a long suffering neighbor. I was in my work station fabricating more lies for the online community in behalf of a client when my toddler showed up by my window all sweaty and dirty holding up what appeared to be a bird’s nest from the tree. I knew at that point that I had a responsibility to refrain from spitting unholy words at the sight of the little creature I had to clean up and to save the other little creature that had just been abandoned by its mother in the house of twigs (Excuse me for using “IT.” I have no idea if the bird is male or female).
It is true that birds and animals don’t think or feel in the same elevated levels as humans do but I don’t think that justifies leaving the baby bird at the mercy of a toddler who hasn’t yet mastered the finer points of motor control. It occurred to me that if I were the one lost and afraid and a baby alien with superior intellect came by and found me, I wouldn’t appreciate it if he squished the life out of me simply because I hadn’t mastered calculus or grasped the meaning of life. 
In short, I have adopted the bird until it can fly off on its own. My husband says this bird belongs to a species that is capable of committing suicide in moments of distress. The fact that it hasn’t stuck its legs up yet is an indication that it must be happy and healthy.
My problem is that it has grown too happy. It is not kept in a cage and pecks and poops where it will. It has no desire to live outside in the little makeshift condo we made for it and it has no skill whatsoever when it comes to scavenging. It flies towards people, toddlers, cats and chickens rather than away from them and I swear, if it had a longer tongue, it would stick it out and lick my face. I want the bird to fly away because it is supposed to and because I do not like the idea of collecting generous amounts of poop and mediating between the bird and a kid with a firm grip. 
If you have suggestions on how to teach the bird that I am not its mother, that cats are not its friends and that it should live in a tree, please feel free to help me out.

The Reaping

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I have a preoccupation with death. If I earned merits for every time I thought or spoke about death, I would have been promoted to the rank of Death’s assistant. One friend who has managed not to run away from me thinks this is irritating. She feels I owe it to the Creator to sing and dance with glee at the prospect of waking up in the morning to the sound of birds twittering, the sight of the sun rising and the smell of bad breath emanating from within. She shouldn’t really be alarmed though. My fixation may seem abnormal but it is really the harmless side effect of years of reading Russian literature.

I think death may be fixated on me too. In the past five years, I have had to deal with five deaths of people who were either related or close to me. That’s an average of one death per year! Go figure. I have no idea why Death has been indiscriminately waving his scythe on significant people in my life.
* * *
It was probably because of the scent/stench of death around me that Yahoo’s link to a photo slideshow of young dead Hollywood personalities caught my eye. The great Heath Ledger was there of course but I did not expect Jonathan Brandis to have a frame of his own too. He hanged himself at the age of 27.
Brandis was the kid in Never Ending Story 2 and the teen genius in Sea Quest DSV. He was the guy whose face was perpetually brought to our attention by the teen magazines of the 90s. Of course, I NEVER owned any of those magazines because I had a reputation for being the antithesis of adolescence. My classmates however brought volumes of those magazines to school to drool over on lazy afternoons when our physics teacher was being particularly nasty. 
It’s always tragic when a young person dies especially by his own hand. What is even more tragic though is what people think or say after. It’s easy to make simple assumptions about a person’s reasons for committing suicide. It’s easy to conclude that he hanged himself because his girlfriend broke up with him or he shot himself because he lost his cat of eight years. But isn’t suicide really precipitated by deeper inner demons, the loss of meaning and purpose, the incomprehensible inherent lack of delight in sunshine and morning breath?
One thing I’ve learned from my preoccupation with death is that people are never simple. Sure, there will always be those individuals who will think in straight cause and effect lines but even they have the potential to shift and sink into inner complex mazes they never even knew existed. The sheer complexity of the human psyche and its demons forbid human judgment. 
One of those deaths I witnessed was the result of suicide. If the dead person’s grandmother didn’t have friends in high places, the Church would have declined to say mass for the dead and socialite tongues would have kept on wagging. 
Death is death. You’ll never really know till you get to the other side whether you passed away correctly and on time. Truly, who am I to judge? I leave that difficult responsibility to whoever is on the receiving end.