Caustic Thoughts

On The Expendables 2 and Meeting Expectations

September 10, 2012 by witandwisdom

This was this year’s best movie for non-thinkers with a story fueled entirely by guns, knives, mixed martial arts and heavy foreign accents. The movie’s plot you could very well write on a square piece of tissue paper with a drop of your own blood, but nobody cared. No one came to the movie house to think. They came to see all those big names together. I did too.

Sly Stallone figured that out of course, long before he drafted the story on his shred of tissue. Really though, he should have just called the movie The Reunion or The Predictable or even The Arthritis Club. None of the big names were truly expendable (except for Jet Li whose character, to my dismay was thrown out of a plane ten minutes through the movie) and you knew even before the first scene what to expect from the story and the actors.


Starring Barney, er… I meant Stallone.

Because Stallone said so, his was the role of the reluctant hero even if the slick Jason Statham could have acted his way through the role better. Heck, a bag of potatoes could’ve done better than Stallone. If I died and Stallone gave me the same eulogy he gave to his slain comrade, I’d have gotten up from the grave and laughed.

Not even his action moves could save him. Stallone’s character is incidentally named Barney and when he does a barrel roll, what comes to mind is not macho Rambo but his purple/fuchsia/magenta dinosaur namesake rolling while suffering from arthritis.

He was surpassed only by Dolph Lundgren as a purveyor of the “stoned” expression, but Lundgren I can excuse if only because a man who looks prehistoric but has a degree in chemical engineering deserves respect.

Liam Hemsworth was the dead good guy. As soon as he started telling his sob story and his dreams of a better life, you knew there was already an advance party sent to the hills to dig him a nice grave.

What’s-her-name-with-the-irritating-tendency-to-tilt-her-head-to-the-direction-of-her-sideways-split-hair was the obvious token love interest. What you probably didn’t anticipate was the distance you’d be able to hurl your lunch with that suggestion. I can accept Sly’s aspirations of becoming a geriatric action star but he is no Hugh Hefner.

Chuck Norris was perhaps the only oddity on set. Could he have been placed there merely to showcase his antiquated facial hair? I can’t explain why but he made me think of wild ducks. That’s probably because his thick, perfectly combed beard probably looks more fitting on animals in the wild that need it to survive.

Poor duck. Oh why when I see Norris I think of thee? (Mallard Duck by FinlayCox143)

The one thing I wanted that wasn’t there were Van Damme’s trademark split legs. Then again, at his age, such a stunt could only land him in the infirmary.

We got exactly what we knew we’d get and I bet we’d go for a third ride if there was one but Schwarzenegger’s reference to retirement at the end of the movie is appropriate advice. The grandfathers of action deserve to enjoy the remaining years of their lives without broken bones.

Fruit Shakes and Fries with Aurora Representative Sonny Angara

September 5, 2012 by witandwisdom

Government officials are guilty until proven innocent. That is the inherent difficulty of working for the public. People assume there is some impropriety going on, like public funds being appropriated for the upkeep of ten wives or, in the case of a certain district representative of the City of Purple Structures, the purchase of the services of a foreign beauty whose job is to convince constituents that her man doesn’t live in a closet wearing a tutu, only a tutu (this is a blind item in case you’re wondering).

So how do elected officials and representatives prove their innocence or at least create positive images for themselves?

They have a couple of time and tested options:

a. Die an early and tragic death so their political party mates can belatedly lionize them thereby exposing all their good deeds.

b. Find space to plaster their diamond-toned faces in tarpaulins for every birthday, christening and fiesta in town so people can confuse their visibility with actual work accomplished.

c. Kiss babies.

d. Dance to Nikki Minaj’s latest blasphemy, despite being grandfatherly and having four left feet, during election campaigns so people can confuse looking stupid in public with concern for public welfare.

But all they really should be doing is to sit and talk. There’s nothing like a casual chat to reveal if a politician has sense and if he has his own opinions about things that matter rather than relying on speech writers to supply them copied words from well written blog content and Wikipedia articles.

Enter the subject of our video above, first term Aurora Representative Juan Edgardo “Sonny” M. Angara who graciously sat with a group of bloggers and gave his opinion on matters ranging from the RH Bill to the definition of love, which, in the heady mixture of fruit shakes and fries morphed into defining Mar Roxas.

Of course, it’s impossible to completely measure a man through just one conversation but this beats having to determine how worthy he is by virtue of a digitally enhanced tarpaulin or his dancing skills.

If you want to find out more about Sonny Angara and his achievements, refer to Google. There’s enough there about who he is and what he’s done, but if you want to really hear him speak, watch the video. If he ran for senate next year, would you vote for him?

Rep. Sonny Angara with bloggers. Photo by Ding.

Where Can We Find Another Jesse Robredo?

August 22, 2012 by witandwisdom

Screenshot of Robredo tribute page – gov.ph/salamatjesse/

The problem with spineless people is that they have no feelings from the ego down. It is therefore a matter of national interest that before we elect a candidate into public office, we should take the time to determine if he has two essential body parts, a spine and balls.

In a country where government officials are anatomically challenged, the death of DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo is a great loss. I do not know the man personally and cannot offer firsthand testimony, but from everything else that’s written about him, you will find a simple man who did not cheat, steal (public funds or the work of bloggers to fill his speaches:P) or misuse tax money. The stories will reveal too that he quiety loved his country, eschewing fanfare as he labored to ensure transparency, encourage people participation and promote a system of productivity in government.

We only have to look at Naga City, a former third class city that has Robredo to thank for its elevation into first class to understand his value. As its mayor at the age of 29, he worked to streamline internal systems, demolish illegal businesses and eliminate the culture of indolence in government offices. When we look at what he has accomplished, we can only weep at this other mayor whose most astounding achievement is to come out of the closet in his pink slippers.

Robredo was only beginning to work his skillful hands in the DILG when he was taken away. In the words of Lourd de Veyra, who did not publicly attribute this statement to anyone in particular but is fitting to this tragedy anyway, “Bakit ganun? Kung sino pa ang mga kupal, sila pa ang nagtatagal sa mundo– at may pambayad pa ng stem cell treatment.” (Why is it that it’s the as*ho*** who live long — and can even afford stem cell treatment?)

But there must have been some good in this tragedy. Prior to his death, people in my circles didn’t know who he was. Now that his life has been told in public, we all know what he did for the country.

Where can we find another Jesse Robredo?

Perhaps there are some 29-year old would be mayors out there who have been so enthralled by the secretary’s story that they will have started growing the appropriate body parts ideal for public service.

Metro Manila Floods Again – What You Can Do After

August 14, 2012 by witandwisdom

Mordor? Metro Manila in a state of calamity. -Photo from Louieda Oviedo

Last week, NASA’s rover Curiosity finally confirmed that Mars is a barren, desolate land with a surplus of rocks and no green men to recruit to play the Martian Manhunter in the movie adaptation of the Justice League. They had to spend billions of dollars to confirm that because scientists had reason to believe the Martians could really be hiding behind boulders knitting mittens.

In other news on Earth, it has also been confirmed that the Olympics was really just the U.S. vs. China with Usain Bolt as special guest. The final word was, “China you cannot have London too,” as the U.S. topped the medals race.

In the Philippines, people hardly paid attention to these events. We were all glued to Metro Manila and its neighboring provinces. Forget Atlantis. Metro Manila’s cities were so flooded they were almost eligible for underwater exploration.

If the Bourne Legacy production filmed last week instead of months ago, they would have had to change the title to Bourne Underwater and Aaron Cross would not have just been virally enhanced but bacterially enhanced as well with Leptospira.

I can afford to make fun now probably because shortly after the news broke, photos of the happy Filipino, flashing pearly whites and yellows, started filtering through social networks faster than instant noodles cooking. There were kids diving, men drinking, couples getting hitched and people just banding together to help amidst all the water.

So I knew the Filipino would get up yet again and get on with life as if floods were the most common thing in life. The Filipino spirit has even proven to be contagious, with foreign nationals taking to the streets, er… urban rivers to take a dip with the locals.

Pinoy: Do you think it’s safe sir?
Aussie: Ah.. No.

He goes on and takes a splash anyway with a bunch of Pinoy kids.

The Filipino’s ability to grab calamity by the throat and whack the devastation out of it is undoubtedly admirable, but it’s important to ask: How long before the next great flood? How long before we swim, laugh and pack relief goods again? Do you honestly want another chance to look adversity in the eye and spit at it?

What about the cesspool of poverty, corruption and ignorance brewing underneath all the water? Those will rear their ugly heads again too the next time this happens.

We can’t change how our country’s systems work now but why don’t we start by knocking some sense into ourselves so we can pass some sense onto our kids and the people we can influence.

Here are four action steps for you to start with:

Stop throwing trash like you had massive eye boogers that keep you from seeing trash bins. No fairies will magically appear and pick up after you.
Educate yourself so you’ll understand that these floods aren’t from God. They’re the result of the stupidity of human beings.
Strive to prosper. It is not okay to wait for Noynoy in blue leotards and a red cape to rescue you from under the bridge or the minimum wage.
Do not vote for the sardines you see below and their cousins in tarpaulins. They will keep people poor following the principles of patronage politics.

Want politicians in tomato sauce? -Photo from Dr. John Ortiz Teope’s page

Teach your kids these action points and pass it on to others. This is how you groom future citizens who will have the heart to fix our waterlogged cities.

Lie to Me Korean Drama Review

July 31, 2012 by witandwisdom

I disappeared for a week to watch sixteen episodes of a Korean romantic comedy. I needed a shot of feel good nonsense to deal with life. Now my family will disown me. Telenovelas are a crime here.

Of course I’ve seen bits and pieces of telenovelas before. In this drama obsessed country, they’re unavoidable. Remember the time when those flower boys, who had smoother armpits than real females, were on TV? They were so ever present that even the tattooed musclemen at the wet market secretly watched their show, but even then I did not watch in full. This series I’d watched recently was the first I’d completed.

I’m guilty. I watched this drama. Feel free to disown me now.

My official excuse is that I was stressed out. I engage in so much mental weightlifting that I’m convinced my brain now has a six pack. I needed some form of therapy that didn’t have to make me think, hence, my venture into this Korean drama.

Lie to Me is the story of Gong Ah Jung, a civil servant who lies to her friends about being married. By some misunderstanding, it becomes widely circulated that she is married to the rich, stuck up business executive Hyun Ki Joon. The lie spirals out of control, turning their lives upside down.

In Korea, the story hit rock bottom ratings and some say it’s because of the implausibility of the plot. I’d argue though that viewers really look for the implausible. Otherwise, a show would approach real life so closely it’d have the appeal of a root canal. I dare say the secret to a series’ success is in the proper execution of the implausible.

This is where the series fails. Even the love story which is at the core of it all is forced upon our consciousness like Dionisia Pacquio in her latest gown disaster. The struggling civil servant and the snobbish executive are given little excuse to fall in love but we are required to accept it.

The rest of the characters and their relationships are equally underdeveloped, served uncooked to viewers, thereby causing some fair amount of food poisoning. To make matters worse, there is so much drinking going on that the show deserves the award for most characters under the influence of alcohol in a romantic comedy. It increasingly looked like the abundance of alcohol was a precursor to the crying parts. No alcohol, no crying.

Still, there must have been something in it to have made me watch up to the end. I must give the credit to Kang Ji Hwan (Ki Joon) and Yoon Eun Hye (Ah Jung). Ji Hwan is the anti thesis of the meek, feminine boys that are now taken as a standard for male beauty and yet he is smooth as silk himself. All of a sudden you realize that this is how you want your man to be, not some kid who’d gone gung-ho over his mom’s waxing kit.

If I were asked, “When did you realize you were female?” I’d say it was right when I discovered Kang Ji Hwan in Lie to Me. Prior to this I had no clue of my gender.

Eun Hye, though seemingly overpowered at times by the physically and emotionally charged Ji Hwan, is at her element and promptly makes short work of the comic relief that is her job to dispense like an old veteran.

Then there’s Jeju Island which they shamelessly exploit to set the mood for the perfect romantic close. The running from opposite directions to meet at the middle of a cliff overlooking the sea scene makes you want to hurl the writer (or director) over the cliff as a sacrificial offering to Poseidon, but Jeju ultimately tugs at your appetite for scenic beauty and before the credits roll, you’ve forgiven the writer.

But I would have forgiven the writer anyway even without Jeju Island because I know that the show’s primary goal is to entertain. If I wanted something more real, I would have just watched the six o’clock news.

Twenty Seconds of Chiz Escudero in Cagayan de Oro

July 14, 2012 by witandwisdom

Where’s Chiz? Can you help me find him? (Photo by Ding)

Last week I asked to be excused from work. I’m proud to say I told the truth and none of that “I’m sick” excuse, which is a dangerous excuse by the way. There’s always a chance you’ll slip and use an illness as an excuse twice, and of course, there’s Facebook, where pictures just have a way of getting around, especially bikini pictures.

Not that I was going to the beach in a bikini. The ample layer of organic insulation (a.k.a. fat) that has mysteriously accumulated around my torso will have made that a frightful sight. I took a leave from work because my blogger pal, Irene, arranged for the CDO Bloggers to meet Senator Chiz Escudero, an event more to my liking than a beach party actually.

We were reminded of course, to think of intelligent questions. To conserve the energy needed to generate intelligence, I simply typed “intelligent questions” on Google. First on its search results was a site in which the first intelligent question listed was, “You are participating in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you in?”

I doubt if that would have impressed Escudero, so I simply recalled the usual saying Filipinos subscribe to when intelligence and perseverance fail, “Bahala na (The heck with it).”

Fortunately (or unfortunately) we weren’t given the chance to astound him with our mental acuity, or the lack thereof. We were told he’d be unable to keep his engagement with us due to a more pressing meeting in Davao but that we’d be allowed to at least see him in person if we hurried.

What followed was a handful of bloggers attempting to set the record for fastest bath in the rush to prepare to meet him. I’d hazard to say that some of us might have even considered the splashing of cologne as a quick bath.

In my case, all attempts to smell nice and look presentable were in vain. I had to tear through three locations to make it in time to see him. By the time he was within reach, I was coated with a thin film of sweat and lightly sprinkled with dust, a battered blogger ready for frying.

My fellow bloggers and I kept a little distance, perhaps afraid he’d smell us, but there was nothing polite about it. We stared at him (timidly of course) and if eyes could chew, he’d have been digested.

He smiled, said sorry for the cancelled meeting and promised to return for us.

Charming.

Someone coughed up the courage to say “picture” and in the blink of an eye, we smothered him. In all the eagerness, we didn’t even notice we nearly pushed him out of the picture as he craned his neck from behind. It was almost a photo opportunity with Escudero without Escudero and the final group shot was aptly captioned, “Where’s Chiz? Can you help me find him?”

We were treated to lunch with his staff, but after, there was no sense surmising on what he would have said about the divorce bill, election 2013, the territorial dispute with China, the selection of the new chief justice, K to 12 education and world peace. So we got ourselves drunk with coffee and shot a clip of two of our bloggers using the iTraylet instead.

Yes, this post is all drivel, totally lacking in depth and is veering towards nonsense but I had to write about the experience. After all, it was the highlight of my week, meeting a famous person who was the reason I finally got to park my normally overworked brain for a day and got some physical exercise for a change .

The next time Escudero drops by Cagayan de Oro, my brain will be back on duty and he better be ready for the full force of my intelligent questions.

Warts and Other Tales Featuring Lance Duggan

July 2, 2012 by witandwisdom

Woe to the commercial model who becomes the face of warts removal.

Who the hell is Lance Duggan? I have no idea but after seeing his face on the Mendez Medical Group’s promotional poster, I had this sudden urge to search for his name online to find out if he really had warts.

If you were a commercial model, would you seriously volunteer to be a model for a warts removal service? That’s tantamount to admitting you have them. Your name will forever be associated with the condition and people will think of you when they think of warts.

Lance should change his name. “The name’s Duggan, Warts Duggan.”

I suspect though that Lance didn’t exactly jump up and down with hand raised to volunteer to be the face of the service. I suspect Mendez randomly picked whose face goes to which service. “Oh look here, Lance gets the warts.” I bet the other models breathed a collective sigh of relief.

While we’re on the topic of a cosmetic issue and its solution, I wonder how far I would go to fix a cosmetic issue.

You know how it is when you meet casual acquaintances. In my experience, after the mandatory peck on the cheek and the “Hi, how are yous” there is nothing left to talk about so the conversation invariably turns to how much larger I’ve become and how my skin tone has drastically changed.

I almost want to say, “Call me the ugly Hulk why dontcha?”

My main physical woes are my eye bags the size of Saturn and my bum the size of Jupiter. The dark rings I can easily hide with tinted glasses but no clothing, save for a mascot’s costume, can disguise my well-endowed behind. It’s gotten so out of hand that my little daughter says she gets suffocated when she’s behind me. I suppose if a hippo needed a bum double, I would qualify.

Manong pulis here can teach me how to exercise properly.

If I had the money, would I pay for a surgical procedure? Maybe, as long as they don’t make me the bum reduction model. Oh wait, there’s also this thing called exercise. I might try that first if I manage to extricate myself from my designated snack bench in front of Lance’s poster. I bet the policemen who’ll be exercising at the park with me can teach me a thing or two about keeping fit through physical exertion.

If Only Kids Were Self-Developed

June 14, 2012 by witandwisdom


Can human kids self-develop too?

After reading Arnel Pineda’s story, I concluded that nearly everyone has abilities they can use to become successful. Even young stars who sing in the key of O (as in Off) have the uncanny ability to send teens into fits of delirium with the judicious introduction of dimples in a chorus. But just when I decided to take a shot at fame and fortune, life throws a wrench into my plans.

My bid for success will have to wait because my two kids and their nanny got food poisoned. Faster than we could sing, “I ate that moldy piece of beef and I liked it,” their bodies attempt to flush out the toxins and then it’s me with a cleaning cloth versus an endless gush of bodily solids, liquids and gases.

I hadn’t seen so many Xs since high school algebra.

It didn’t take long before we had to rush one kid to the hospital for rectal bleeding and severe dehydration. We were required to force both kids to consume so much medication that I hadn’t seen so many Xs (from the Rx) since high school algebra. Since then, my eye bags have begun to grow in layers as if the first layers gave birth to second layers and had grand kids, the third layers.

I now know that being a parent is THE full time job. Everything else from pursuing a career to brushing my teeth must be done on my free time. Even when the kids aren’t sick, it takes so much time, effort, patience and resources to take care of them and raise them right.

In my case, it’s tempting to be a bad parent and resort to shortcut parenting. By that I mean:

*When my daughter asks for help with math problems involving numbers above ten
Response: Go ask your father.

*When my kid asks where babies come from
Response: The FedEx guy just leaves them in doorsteps.

*When my toddler is still having difficulty forming words
Solution: Turn on the TV and let him watch Justice League for hours until he can say Batman flawlessly.

*When the kids fight downstairs while I’m working upstairs
Solution: I scream to the top of my lungs, “What’s going on?” Followed by, “Whatever that is, NO!”

*When kids get frightened by a gigantic prehistoric looking cockroach
Solution: Run to the hills and hope someone else kills it.

I suppose this was what our moms were trying to warn us about when they told us, “Don’t get married and have kids before you’re physically, mentally, emotionally and financially ready.”

But you know how messages get delivered between moms and their grownup children. Somewhere in the space between our mothers’ mouths and our ears, the warning not to have kids unprepared got translated to, “I’ll nag you every single day about this.” So we left and had kids of our own.

Kids aren’t born self-developed like Prony from Bohol. All they come packaged with are extra doses of cuteness, but that kinda helps. Every time things get difficult I see how adorable and cute they are and somehow I lose the heart to go ballistic or use shortcut parenting.

Lessons from Arnel Pineda

May 29, 2012 by witandwisdom

The courage to rock!

Growing up, I wanted to be a rock star. That was until I found out I was afflicted with such a chronic form of shyness that I could only really sing to inanimate objects like rocks, trees and a husband watching NBA.

Fine, I thought. I’d be happy to just be a bar singer instead, but I realized that compared to the existing talent pool, my voice sounds like the croaking of a frog with a sore throat and a blocked windpipe.

So I gave up on my dream, determined to make life bearable by looking forward to the breakfasts, lunches and dinners that are the main diversions to my endless workdays. I now only trawl YouTube on weekends for songs to sing when there’s no one within hearing range to cripple with my croaking.

It was on one of these closet singing sessions that I first came across Arnel Pineda’s cover of Heart’s Alone, a song that elicits pity when brave but less gifted singers start to look like they’re about to spit out their tonsils or lose their sanity. As soon as Pineda flawlessly belts out the heart attack inducing wail, AAAAHHLLOOOWNNN… I was a goner and what followed was two days of watching all his videos.

Of course I heard the news when he became Journey’s lead vocalist but other than rejoicing in his good fortune, I paid little attention. I WAS not a Journey fan. I once likened the experience of listening to their overplayed ballads to overdosing on hard cheese.

His life story was therefore a fairly recent discovery for me: homeless and living on scraps at 13; singing in bars at 15; descending into vice and losing his voice at 27; rallying to patch up his life and attempting to start a career but giving up the dream at 40. Enter Neal Schon who finds his cover videos online and invites him for an audition. He gets the job.

Happily ever after? Not quite for this Cinderella in tight pants and leather boots on the other end of the gender spectrum. Listen to his interviews and you’ll realize this is not a simple success story.

A poor man from Manila gets plucked from obscurity and is thrust before rock demigods. Not long after that, he is made to sing before 18,000 live viewers for the first time, a figure that dramatically dwarfs his usual bar audience.

After this initial trial by fire, he repeatedly performs before thousands more, including unforgiving and vocal critics who cannot accept his presence in an all American band and that he is wearing the shoes of the legendary Steve Perry.

All of a sudden you realize that his life isn’t an invitation for everyone with a dream to upload videos of themselves singing (or hyperventilating) to Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You. It isn’t a suggestion that you “don’t stop believin’” you’ll eventually hit those notes if you squint your eyes just a little more.

The message is a lot simpler than that. Courage. Nothing will happen to your life if you do not have the foresight to recognize opportunity and the courage to go after it.

I’ll probably never be a rock star now but I have other talents besides inducing ear infections among my listeners. I resolve to have the courage to chase my happiness. I deserve to give myself a chance.

A Series of Unfortunate Events – Santiago, Barretto, Tulfo Airport Brawl

May 14, 2012 by witandwisdom

Talk about unflattering angles.

Last week’s alarming news that Chinese ships were patrolling Scarborough (Panatag) Shoal was promptly eclipsed by the tussle that transpired over the airport floor. Instead of updates about the conflict with China, we were assaulted by replays of a rumble that had been shown in every conceivable angle, left, right, over and under.

The video of the scuffle had so often been repeated, I can now almost memorize the size of Claudine’s hips as they appeared on the clip. It was more than a mere fist fight, mind you. There were legs, feet and other body parts flying in violence everywhere, which probably explains its greater mass appeal over serious discussions about our diplomatic relations with China.

Like a record in perpetual loop, the story repeats itself in our heads. Cebu Pacific offloads the luggage of showbiz couple Claudine Barretto and Raymart Santiago. Barretto confronts ground staff and is photographed in the act by broadcaster Mon Tulfo. The couple face off with Tulfo and a fight ensues. The scene is so violent, it should have found its way into the final cut of the Hunger Games.

Santiago wraps his arm around Tulfo and we are treated to the sight of Barretto’s generous backside as she and her friend descend upon their prey to pound an all natural patch over his eye.

The series of unfortunate events don’t end there. Because of what happened, Santiago’s children are in a state of shock, the berated clerk is in a sad emotional state, security guards may lose their jobs and Tulfo’s broadcaster brothers were suspended over public threats against the couple.

At the end of it all, they’re all more traumatized than nuns in a Lady Gaga concert, so much so that they all now require counseling, probably including the executives of TV5 who have temporarily lost a show and 3 anchors.

Enter netizens who, since the birth of social media, now feel the urge to constantly display their knack for bad grammar, lack of breeding and abundant ignorance in the guise of exercising their right to their opinions — “Tulfo s sach a jerk. Santiago must bows to his olders and Barretto should keep away from extra rice.”

My take in all this? Suspend judgment. You weren’t there. You didn’t see it. You weren’t involved and even if you were, there’s no telling if you’d act in a less disgraceful manner or if you’d look more videogenic than Barretto. We should all just donate some cash for the purchase of a CCTV camera for the airport.

While we were all glued to this drama by the way, did anyone notice that new Chinese flag flying over Panatag Shoal?