Caustic Thoughts

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

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.

Blissfully Clueless

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I was on my usual pointless foot trip one day when a heavenly scent abruptly penetrated my nasal passages and nearly sent me into a pleasurable seizure of epileptic proportions. The scent held characteristics that betrayed its edible origins. Being the gustatory slave that I am, I had considered ending my agony and letting my nose lead me to whatever secret sanctuary was sending off the irresistible aroma. But I had to hesitate. There were precious few establishments in sight that I could suspect of being the source of the olfactory signal. It had to be the popular street kitchenette that had been around for ages.

A recent paint job has given the kitchenette a makeover. In its old unpainted version however, I remember getting a glimpse from the street of an old yellowing counter over which rows of dishes covered with plastic bowls were arranged. To the left of the counter was a kitchen, viewed on the outside through a small, screened, decrepit window that looked more like a dust and insect filter. A casual peek revealed a couple of men in various states of dress and undress, sweating over mysterious dishes that sent off divine-smelling smoke.

The rest that was and still is unseen is left to the imagination. My husband’s friend sums it all up by concluding that this is the place “where people are clueless.” Rumor has it that the kitchen has assistants that have more than two legs, are each less than an inch tall and are gray or brown in color. They say that these assistants hold the secret to the oh so yummy goodness of every dish served by the kitchenette. The loyal patrons of the kitchenette however don’t seem to care or to want to know the place’s culinary secrets. It’s enough that they get their fill of cheap delicious food.

I suppose this kitchenette isn’t the only one of its kind. Take for example the old chicken stand somewhere in Cebu that’s shrouded in darkness and is accessible only through a single narrow foot path. Their delectable chickens have bones that can glow in some spots if you happen to catch a glimpse of the slim white crawlers that have been burrowing through the meat long before your first bite. And then there’s that little eatery somewhere in Manila that’s almost like a makeshift sauna in the middle of the day because of its plain, heat-enhancing corrugated roof. Their house specialty is THE BALLS of cattle immersed in oil-saturated broth and mixed with pepper and other unidentified animal parts. I can go on naming other delightful culinary pit stops but there are places and dishes that defy description.

But therein lies the beauty of Philippine underground cuisine. It’s an adventure to remember, full of flavor, mystery and opportunities to eat all you can of creatures you normally wouldn’t even think of licking. If you are a foreigner, a balikbayan or a local aristocratic snob, then dimly lit street eateries should be your next stop as soon as you’ve hurdled the balut challenge. These are perfect venues to train for the next million dollar Fear Factor-ish reality show. (Incidentally, I always thought that, with the kind of food our humblest of citizens eat, we would have won any Fear Factor food challenge in a heartbeat).

The Dead Shall Bury the Dead

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I just came back from burying the dead. I had been gone too long but it couldn’t be helped. I needed time to accomodate the wealth of Filipino customs and traditions that I had no idea accompanied funerals and burials. It seems Christ’s biblical exhortation to let the dead bury the dead is unheeded in this largely Catholic nation. 

Nonetheless, I deeply respect tradition and I have chosen to follow its requirements among people who believe in them. Besides, Filipino SOPs for the dead are interesting cultural elements to mull over. 
 

Tradition begins as soon as embalming ends. The body is dressed in white or cream. Shoes are also prescribed but are only placed beside the body and not worn on the feet. It is believed that the wearing of shoes will encourage the soul to roam in the dead of the night which could cause some of the weak-hearted relatives to suffer from heart attacks. Aside from a rosary around the wrist, jewelry and accessories are not included. This is not because of any known superstition but because the relatives know that desperate gravediggers would rather risk a visit from the incensed soul than pass up the chance to pawn what the dead cannot bring to heaven or use as a bargaining chip in hell. 
At this point, even before the deceased gets his make-up and forced smile in place, family feuds can begin. Arguments can range from the proper placement of the water dispenser in the funeral parlor to who should get the largest cut in whatever is left of the dead person’s backyard poultry. In the meantime, while the war over dispensers and pigs rages on, the wake commences. In remote areas, the wake can last for as long as nine days. In urban areas, the body can be buried after 3-4 days but the final vigil is often held in the family home and nine days of prayer and sleepless nights continue to be observed. On these days, a local prayer leader recites nightly prayers at the speed of light in a seemingly esoteric language that only the most ancient in the assembly can make sense of. 
After the prayers, the family of the dead is expected to serve refreshements. Since the sense of loss is magnified by the day due to dwindling funds, the cheapest food options are often resorted to. That would mean serving biscuits that taste like pure sugar and instant juices that only taste like real orange juice but don’t really contain the pictured fruits on the packs. The food is a gentle reminder of how and why the deceased died of the complications of diabetes. 
While family and friends gobble up all the sugar and artificial flavors, they recount the dead person’s numerous merits and final days of agony while discretely wondering why so and so didn’t die instead. What follows after is hours of drinking bottomless coffee or alcohol accompanied by small time gambling. This, they say is the living’s way of accompanying the dead on his final journey. For many though, the noise, the presence of many and the entertainment are really the living’s way of dulling the pain, escaping real or imagined visits from the dead, speeding their own demise and winning a few coins for the trip back home. In the morning, those who stayed up all night invert their biological clocks by sleeping.
On the ninth day, a small feast is prepared. In some cases, small plans have to be abandoned on the spot. This is tha day that relatives to the nth degree and acquiantances that family members can hardly remember encountering can suddenly pop up to offer their condolences and partake of the feast. The change of plans might require the early death of the chickens in the backyard. The alternative is to break the piggy bank to buy more food in which case filing for bankruptcy must follow.
On the day of the burial, family members dress in white or black. Black used to be the traditional color. Thanks to the Chinese and the infernal Philippine climate, white has become the preferrred color. Before the procession to the cemetery, the casket is lifted in front of the house entrance and everyone in the house is asked to pass under and never look back. I did look back. I surmise that I am now to expect years of bad luck. (This is already to be expected though even if I were not cursed. The current state of affairs in our country has placed everyone in perpetual bad luck).
In the cemetery, a mass is held before the body is buried. Current financial limitations have forced many families to let their dead rot one over the other in individual cemented cases. My colleague’s relatives however believe that stacking can lead to successive deaths in the family. This is why the family has had to deplete their resources even more for a separate single lot in a memorial park that’s excrusciatingly posh. The figures in pesos can harden the arteries.
As the casket is lowered, a few relatives wail uncontrollably, vowing to follow their beloved soon, just not on that day, although a little forward step can easily send some of the more violently afflicted right into double internment. After the soil is shovelled in, names of the family members written in decorative ribbons are burned over the topsoil in an effort to yet again avert bad luck and tragedy (If every bereaved Filipino family did this, maybe the country can be saved from sinking). Everyone is afterwards treated to more food. None of the extra food is to be brought home. Fresh food is prepared at home and eating resumes.
After the burial and the nine days of prayer, forty days are counted from the day of death. On the fortieth day, more prayers and food are prepared. More of that on the first year death anniversary afterwhich the grieving family members can begin to pick up the pieces and start living again while waiting for their turns to fertilize the soil or pollute it depending on the amount of chemicals their bodies have accumulated in their lifetimes.
Throughout everything, the old and the young are in separate mental and emotional quarters. They all miss the dead but the new generation resents the ever growing number of required customs, traditions and superstitions while the old feel slighted by the rebellious disbelief of the young. It’s obvious. When all the old ones pass away, the young will begin to kill tradition and superstition. This is after all a day and age when logic is expected, where a reason for everything is required and where people are asked to report back to work 3-5 days after losing a loved one. The time will come when the dead will truly have to bury their own.

Death By Diabetes

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Dear Readers,

Someone close to me just died because of the complications of diabetes. My take on the preferred Filipino disease however, and my discovery of the real reason why poor folks in the Philippines apparently have less costly diseases and preludes to death than rich folks are for another post entirely. Right now, I simply wish to inform you that I shall be taking a brief break from serving the freshest wit and sarcasm known to man.

I am now currently knee deep in making my services available to the bereaved family. I do this even if I still do not fully understand why we must stay up all night playing mahjong and drinking killer spirits when most of us in the room are also diabetic; wear white when we are not Chinese and pray on the 9th and 40th nights when half of what the manalabtan (prayer leader of sorts?) is saying is in a tongue seemingly foreign to all known life including her own. I shall be back next week when I am done with propagating tradition, staying awake for the rest of the week, raising my blood sugar level, musing over the meaning of life and bidding my fellow being a great afterlife.

Godspeed.

Gracia El Caustica

Exclusive

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It has been a week since the Ces Drilon kidnapping incident. As her mother station has suggested, it would be best for everyone not to make conjectures or even educated guesses on the matter.

But people have been making comments if not particularly about the incident then generally about the state of the nation. The internet is bursting at the seams with socio-political commentaries running along the lines of lamenting the gross lack of national stability on all fronts that has rendered our country inhospitable and nearly uninhabitable. This flies smack against the basic tenets of freedom and democracy for which our government still calls itself a champion of. How can we be free if we cannot go where we want to without fearing for life and limb and without having to pay ransom which is now officially known as non-ransom-mandatory-board-and-lodging-or-you’re-dead fees? Which is a better form of government, one that openly espouses tyrannical order or one that only puts up appearances of espousing democracy and the greater good?

There is no need to even think of an answer. All the sources of collective national grief (conspiracies not excluded) have already been excessively dissected. I shall leave other greater minds to look for new angles to old issues to rant and lament over. My only issue now is the media giants’ bid for exclusivity. Are the current real life dangers faced by our media avoidable circumstances that are willingly sought because of the mad scramble for something exclusive to feed the judges of the evening ratings?

Justice League of the Philippines

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Princesses who lived happily ever after are never welcome in my home. It’s not because I have anything against two dimensional singing characters in pink and baby blue. My daughter just never liked them herself. Despite my genuine attempts to appeal to her toddler logic that Disney’s perpetually optimistic heroines and now trying hard feminists can be viewed in moderation without any risk of brain damage, she has chosen to set her own preferences. She has ditched the ladies in long gowns and pitch perfect voices for radioactive turtles, the arachnid with four limbs, the knight with bat ears and the man of steel in red underwear.

Call me a bad mother if you must but I am having a hard time weaning her from men, women and aliens in spandex. The worst part is that I’ve gotten hooked too. While I do put up a front and exert my full authority to manage her viewing time and habits, I do sneak to my own room with her discs to watch her heroes wreak havoc to prevent havoc. My current favorite is the Justice League, well, the one that includes the rest of the world and not just America in its agenda.

While I do still wonder how metropolis can withstand the endless cycle of being destroyed and rebuilt, why superheroes think there’s nothing funny about living with other people in colored tights, why DC superheroes have such unimaginative names, why Superman and Batman can’t wear their underwear underneath their tights and what happens to Wonder Woman’s clothes when she spins into her star spangled undies, I appreciate the controlled depth of the Justice League stories. Who would have thought that these characters, who badly need a fashion consultant, could have such a deep grasp of life’s realities and still be entertaining?

In this week’s episode, Batman unintentionally sums up a Filipino reality. After he and his colleagues return to their regular adult forms after having been magically transformed to their kid selves, Wonder Woman comments that it felt nice to have become a kid again. Batman retorts, “I haven’t been a kid since I was eight.”

At least the eight year old Bruce Wayne probably had all the bonbons he could eat while he was mulling over his business empire’s financial documents and while learning to jump gracefully, mysteriously and safely from 70 storey buildings. The eight year old kid I buy corn from every afternoon is no Bruce Wayne. My friend would probably have to endure more days of trudging underneath the heat of a tropical sun with a basket of corn, not to mention more experiences of hardship that will test his will and motivation to surpass poverty and the lack of education. Right now, he can barely even endure not being a child as he cranes his neck from outside to get a glimpse of the Justice League on our television set.

My friend is not the only one. Watch Wish Ko Lang every Saturday and you will realize how many other Filipino children have stopped being kids at the age of eight. They are everywhere selling goods, polishing shoes, massaging tourists, clinging on jeeps and picking pockets. How much more emotional and physical trauma do they have to endure before they can transform into masked heroes to save themselves and their families from the poverty of Filipino life?

If only these kids could all surpass the tragedies of life to become Bruce Waynes, Clark Kents and Dianas. We sorely need a Justice League of the Philippines.

Sensational News

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I don’t remember a lot of news stories from the past. What I do remember though were the men and women of the media— the dead ones to be exact. Even before I found out the shocking truth that fairy tales, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are really adult inventions designed to trick kids into believing that life is beautiful and that there are no inane politicians that plague our country, I was already made aware of stories of journalists who disappeared into the night and appeared the following morning in ditches with bullet holes in their heads. Unfortunately, some journalists continue to suffer the same gruesome fate today. It seems the current invertebrates in power still have dirty secrets to keep so the guardians of truth must be silenced.

This is probably why despite my obvious inability to tell the difference between algebra and gibberish, I would have chosen Engineering over Mass Communications if they were the only two courses left in college. Obviously, I am not a brave soul and I do not want to suffer the same slow, painful prelude to death that I suppose many journalists have had to endure.

My own cowardice however only serves to heighten my admiration for the people of print and broadcast media. It is not just their courage that I find amazing. It is also the fact that many of those employed by provincial newspapers and radio stations continue to risk their necks and limbs for a pittance. Why on earth would they want to court danger when they can’t even afford to buy a bulletproof vest or insurance? Their outright disregard for their safety could only mean that they have such deep passion for the truth that, rather than bury the truth, they would have themselves buried instead.

Apparently though, the dawn of the ratings war in radio and television has changed the face of journalism forever. It is no longer just about accuracy and integrity. It is also about who has the whitest smile, the best pose and the most impressive overemphatic articulation. I thought I would never see the day when journalists would pose in front of cameras displaying false gravity and atrocious fashion.

I suppose though that sensationalizing the exterior of journalists and their news shows would have been bearable considering that different stations and channels do report the same events so the only real way to draw viewers and advertisers would be to parade like peacocks. What is thoroughly unacceptable though is when the news too gets painted. With due respect to the men and women of the media, they do continue to report the facts. The many different angles in which they do so however have shaped exaggerated public opinions.

Case in point: I once admired a radio broadcaster for his fiery attacks on a corrupt government official who had been reaping the benefits of construction job contracts. The broadcaster was so good at spewing fire, brimstone and spittle that within a few years, he had turned a great number of people to his side. People believed in him so much that he got himself elected to a government position from where he continued to throw stones at his political target.

After a few more months of aggressive monologues on air, the broadcaster began receiving death threats. His car got shot at a couple of times and the service vehicle of his station got torched. He hasn’t been heard on air ever since. For a moment I thought he had finally gone belly up and his loyal supporters would finally have to don black shirts bearing his face, take to the streets and irritate stalled motorists in the name of justice. Rumor has it though that the broadcaster turned politician had to resign from his job as a broadcaster because it was found out that he had been the one sending himself death threats. Apparently, he was also the one who stuck bullets on his own car and burned his station’s vehicle.

I don’t know if all the rumors are true but if they are, that would make me feel like shit. He reminds me of Spiderman’s Jonah Jameson, nearly turning an entire city against the Crocodileman in city hall, but the similarity ends there. Jonah never went hunting for spiderwebs to lie on and claim victim status. Isn’t it a pity that a former guardian of truth is now as diseased as his political adversary?

Hurricane Fiesta

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There were a lot of things to write about last week. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss blogging about the government plot to convince people that they are stupider than they really are, the captive chickens in my in-law’s backyard, the tragedy that is American Idol and the reasons why Wyngard and Jolina shouldn’t be spewing pieces of advice and diluted expletives in Pinoy Idol. Yeah, I should have written about all that but I’ve been busy reserving all of my physical and mental energies for an expected social calamity— the town fiesta.

I grew up in a family whose idea of fun is waking up and falling asleep surrounded by books written by people who became worm fodder centuries ago. You must therefore excuse me if I still find fiestas a bit jarring. This particular fiesta isn’t anything like the city fiesta I wrote about a year ago. This one is right smack in the middle of the little village I live in and I have no choice but to be in the line of fire. 
Oh, I love the saint in whose honor all this uncontrolled eating is encouraged. I learned to love him because I found out that I have been given the license to keep on eating non-stop too. I do think though that eating loads of free food is really just a method of fattening the cow before the kill. Oh, yes, the hours after all the eating is done has a way of gradually killing you. The dishes can pile up faster than you can burp. There is also of course the floor to ceiling devastation to clean up after the tail of the hurricane has left. I suppose, it will take another week before everything is set right.
The most irritating aspect of fiestas however is the countless alcohol-saturated undead populating every street, corner, nook and cranny. It feels like being right in the middle of the set of I Am Legend with a couple of extras that really did get infected with a virus. If you aren’t careful, they’ll get you and force six liters of beer down your throat until you become an infected one too. Nightfall during fiestas is never the time to venture out of your steel reinforced fortress.
I’ve written too much. My batteries are running low cleaning starts in a couple of hours … must save… gasp… energy…