hello, can i rob you? sure, be my guest.
oh. my. god. something that hasn't happened in more than 16 years is bound to happen again. the up board of regents is planning to jack up tuition rates by more than 200 percent.
if the bor gets its way, incoming up freshmen will have to pay P1,000 per unit in up diliman (where i go to school, byy the way). which, by the way, is waaaay far from the current P300. so if right now, the average tuition for a up student is P5,400 for an 18-unit load, the tenetative charge for the next year's up freshman would more or less go to P18,000 or more, if he/she wants to take in more units.
now this might look puny to the six-digit tuition other students may have at the ateneo, la salle or ua&p, and you might buy in the stupid argument that the government does not have enough money to provide for education. but let me stop playing devil's advocate here and tell you why this could just be the biggest sin the bor can commit against the up community, and by association, the country.
first of all, up is a state university. meaning, the government should provide for the university. like, allot a budget. and if the government in question is decent/effective enough, it should place education on top of its priorities. but with the fucked-up government we have right now (lorded by that shorty parrot over there who has no sense of discretion or conscience), the only excuse up students have been getting is that the government has no money.
yeah right.
how about putting more than 80 percent (this is a 2005 figure; not sure about the final statistics for this year) of the national budget to paying ONLY the country's interest in world bank-imf loans? and how about putting the remainder to it to the military? and how about the last morsels of it to corruption and "presidential funds," which mostly go to the cronies? and where the hell does education factor in this picture. ask the kids who had to hold umbrellas when they go to class.
however, under any and all circumstances, the government is under obligation, whether it likes it or not, to fund education as a human right. the government has no right to condone, worse to instigate, the commercialization of education. bwecause then it would only benefit those who have the money to do so.
second (addendum to the last point), education is a universal human right, that's why state universities such as up exist. and being a state u, it caters to all social classes. if you introduce higher tuition, how is it supposed to benefit the students who have to take out loans now that tuition is still at 300? what are they supposed to do? drop out? quit? file an indefinite leave? whore themselves? where's your mandate in that picture?
third, if the justification is that the fees will be "at par" with that of more exclusive schools, it's total bullshit. you cannot measure education by the size of your school bill, in the same vein that you cannot measure the intelligence of a child by the size of his/her parents' bank account. if the goal is to keep the university at par with the others that it's always comaring itself with, why waste your time with such artificial/cosmetic change? it's like repainting the facade of the up health service just to make it look like it can do brain surgery now. it's preposterous at best, insipid at worst.
and fifth, it sets a precedent. if they can raise tuition like that, then they can raise labfees like that. sooner or later, they can have an sb 2587-ish charter ratified in congress and relieve the government of its obligations. and then the university will no longer be any more respectable than the diploma mill colleges advertised and scattered all over the metro.
the last time such a drastic tuition increase took place was in 1989, when then up president edgardo angara (never forget the name) jacked up tuition from P40 to P300. more than 500 percent! atty. victor avecilla (my mass media law professor at cmc, and one of the people i greatly respect) filed a case against the bastards, but the supreme court ruled on angara's favor. the not-so-original rationale was that the fee increase was supposed to put up at par with ateneo and foreign universities, and because the budget was going down.
but if you want to get back the teachers who left, the facilities that have disintegrated with disuse, give the students better quality education, we go back to the core argument: IT'S THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY TO PROVIDE FOR EDUCATION. BECAUSE EDUCATION IS A UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHT. say no to budget cut!
all of this, while i attended a book launch at the university of the philippines press, where the academic elite were there and the new logo (which i didn't really like. i like the alibata logo better) revealed. they acted as if up was your typical brady bunch university where all is bright, happy and gay. i wanted to strangle them one by one, but i had to keep my composure.
putang ina bakit nila ginagawa sa atin ito?
xanananananananana
fucking rich people
today is a day of pure, unabashed debauchery.
i was supposed to meet jay at power plant mall, rockwell, to do a photo shoot on the budji layug showroom at bel-air makati, but i went to rockwell 3 hours early, so i decided to run some errands. and some shopping.
like i said in my earlier blog post, i officially downsized to a 33, so i had to have some pants altered, and some jeans downsized. first stop: levi's, where i got my favorite pair, square cut 522 slims in broken-in wash (second to brand new wash) in 33. the 34 was falling off, and i could no longer wear it without a belt, so that was a go-signal for me to change sizes. anyway.
since the levi's store is attached to dockers (and the fitting area's at the dockers side), i couldn't help but stare at a couple trying on pants at the dockers area. the guy's an expat, and based on his accent i could guess he was french, and he was with his filipina girlfriend, a woman who's 5 inches smaller than him, and just couldn't keep her arms off his waist. she was carrying three shopping bags: one from lacoste, another from zara, and still another from french connection. it's obvious that the bags contained girly items, and it's obvious from the impression she's giving everyone that the money came from her expat boyfriend. the guy was acting all tough, macho and mighty against the staff, flinging the pants he already tried on, acting all arrogant and bitchy to the manager (who i managed to befriend over the many times i've been to the store), while the girl played second fiddle to him.
i don't know, but there's something just awfully wrong with this scenario. first, there's that racial and sexist metaphor that a filipina woman can never have enough money to buy her own stuff, so she's clinging on the white trash bitch. second, just because the staff can't buy their own jeans is no basis for them to lose their humanity. in my case, i always make sure i fold back everything i touch, and never try on more than 4 items at a time. i know what it's like for the staff, so i try not to be a bother as much as possible, even if i buy P8,000 worth of jeans.
but attitude towards the staff isn't really the issue here. it's the whole system of power play we have in this urbanized society. the state apparatuses have been working double time to make sure we never get the idea to survive on our own, that the nationalization of local industries is only gonna make us all broke, and that pinay women should be whores to rich expats to move up the class ladder. but wait. there's more.
after we did the shoot and interview (it's for another blog post), jay dropped me off to greenbelt 4 where i trudged to louis vuitton to get my mom the spring/summer 2006 catalog. and just as when i finished looking at the P24,000 coin purse, i saw a woman, with an older guy, carrying four big shopping bags of prada, yves saint laurent (rive gauche), gucci, and, surprise surprise, louis vuitton. i got depressed for a second (that they have more cash [or credit] than i do), and guilty (why the hell am i basking myself in the bastion of those who have robbed those belonging to the socio-economic peripheries of the right to live decently), and agitated.
i went to diesel at greenbelt 3, to check out their new jeans. and tried on the lemmon jean that's part of their new wave collection for s/s 2006. the denim shitload costs P14,000. the fit is perfect. the details are convincingly genuine. the fabric is durable. but at that price, either the target market's crazy or the store won't be moving inventory too soon. but no! when i asked their in-store concierge if there were still stocks for lemmon, she told me it was the last piece. all 25 other pieces were sold out. in a week. for a minute i asked myself: who the hell buys these fucknig jeans? then i remember: who the hell owns the country's wealth right now? smackdown logic.
i decided to take the mrt instead of having anyone fetch me at the ayala/makati area, since it was raining hard and if i did call someone, it'd take longer for me to get home. it was 8p, and i was pressed against the bodies of a shitload of other men in an mrt that can only be compared to a sardine can. i thank myself for having had the mrt to take me near home faster than a bus or jeep. then i remember: whatever revenue the stores i went to generate is more than enough to support another wage hike. and another. and another.
and then going home from gateway, i listened to the car's am tuned to dzmm. guillermo luz, donald dee and the rest of the business "community" are complaining that the wage hikes are not gonna help their businesses stay "afloat." which means they might have to lay off people. but one of them (i forgot) was wearing balenciaga the last time i saw him. the other one, prada. this, while some people go around town with only a couple of sets of clothes on heavy rotation. so heavy, their seams are unraveling faster than they can say "sastre."
fucking rich people can do whatever they want in this society. they can do whatever they want in manila. hell, they can do whatever they want in the country. they have it by the neck.
putang ina. it's all i can say. but i guess putang ina alone's not gonna feed anyone a decent meal.
xanananananana
tired, but ready
in a few hours today, i'll be doing a photo shoot/interview for budji layug's be@home showroom at bel-air, makati, for this magazine i'm writing for (while i'm doing me thesis, to balance things out, ya know). i should be excited over this gig, since it took us ages before we got through to budji's pr person. but i don't know. i'm just tired now.
maybe i'll do the interview like how i've always done it in my past articles with this magazine. maybe i'll make them feel like they're absolutely not giving me a hard time (because in my mental disposition by then, i won't be feeling that at all). maybe i'll have a ball. maybe i'll even have time to get myself some new jeans (for levi's square cut jeans, by the way, i've officially downsized to a 33. bitch's got his groove back!) at rockwell, since i'll be meeting jay the photographer there. maybe that's something i can look forward to. and i will. (yuck, i can be so emotionally ambivalent sometimes). but these past few days, i end up going home tired.
it's like my schedule's on crack every time. i sleep early (well, except for now!), like 9p or something. but i wake up EXACTLY one hour before my morning class, which i get to 15-30 minutes late. and then i waste my time with 3-hour breaks smoking and lounging in a not-so-loungeable place (aka cmc lobby). i can't work the phones like i should do, i figure going home to do that is useless and tiring, so i stay. but my mind gets so distracted by the people i meet and the proportion of my smoked-out dunhills to the coke light i'm using for a chaser that i find no time to study.
then i go to class and end the day at 4p. but there'll be meetings and org duties and then i'll have to stay until 5.30p. until i have to get home finally about 6p. and then i'll have to work out to keep my size to a humane minimum. i'll end at 8.30, in which case i will have absolutely no staying power to study. i may go online (like i'm doing now), but instead of working google to get info on my thesis, i stick around bloghopping, checking out spring/summer 2007 collections (dolce and gabbana rocks!), reply to fun-to-reply emails, and download songs. and then i stick around until 1a, when i'll have to sleep. and the cycle repeats itself.
it's been going on for the past 2 weeks, since school opened. i hate my bowlie-inspired long 'do right now (a provisionary style since i have no time in the morning to work the hair dryer), i'm wearing the same jeans and shirts on rotation, i'm perpetually broke, and i feel shackled.
i need to break through something to end this bullshit.
suffice to say, i'm ready for this semester, thesis pressure and all. i just don't know how to cope right now.
maybe spring cleaning could help this. but i already did that to my closet one month ago. and there's no "spring" in the philippines (yea, if you talk about the humidity and the rain, it's always spring here).
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i was bloghopping around, and i found the blog of an old flame. we never ended on a note that suggested closure. i still don't know what we are, or how we are, or if it's even okay for me to say hi to him. or send him a casual text. last i checked he deleted me from his phonebook. but we never fought till violence. we never did. he just sent a longish message and told me he's still not ready, and that's it. i never spoke to him since. and he never did as well, but it left me with a big question mark. something i still can't answer till today. i guess that's what you could call, "drifted apart"?
many times we'd be in situations where we'd bump into each other. many times i ignored him, but secretly longed for small talk. even the plasticky "how are you" ones. i'd take that, just because it means hearing his voice addressed to me. i'd grab a friend and make it look like i'm doing good, but secretly i'm dying inside. he doesn't know it because i always play the role of the cold, heartless bitch (i can be/have been that sometimes) in front of him. i've always had delusions of him feeling the same way. but i'll never know for sure. maybe he doesn't. maybe i don't exist to him anymore. maybe it's self-inflicted, like my actions placed it upon myself that he'll be that way, so i shouldn't complain. but i now know what i did wrong. i was cold, insensitive, selfish and calculated in my ways. i loved loving him more than him as a person. i loved the situation, not the person. i'm very sorry i did that. i've acknowledged my mistakes, and i want to start over. maybe he knows that, he's just waiting for my next move. but does that mean we're on a clean slate? does that mean we can start over, like the past never happened? never existed?
maybe this is why i never liked working while lugging around a heavy backpack. i always leave it somewhere. and then i move around. same thing here. i've been carrying this baggage for so long, it's getting too heavy for comfort. it's weighing me down so bad that the the plates i load at the gym pale in comparison. i really want to start over and prove myself again to him and everything that he represents in my collective imagination, but where do i begin? and how do i begin?
i need to break through something to end this madness. i'm tired, but i'm ready.
xanananananananana
public service announcement, before i go to the gym
to the one who this blog thingie alludes to: shy ka ba? don't be shy. you know what i want. okay lang, i don't bite. i just lick. nyahahahaha!
hit me baby one more time! nyahahahahahaha
just a nonsense post for now. i'm liking this day. i only have one class, i can afford to slack around (for the meantime), and i'm catching up with friends online. add a bowl of creme brulée by my side and some coke light, i'm so gonna be dead when i get to the gym later.
xanananananana
beautiful: the bitter life
after i slept the entire day (i'm in hibernation mode this weekend; will officially start official thesis work this week), i dragged myself to my pc to check mail and reply to some. and in my routine of checking out news websites, i came across this beautiful retrospective of hacienda luisita at gma news. check out www.gmanews.tv and click on bitter life: hacienda luisita revisited by jes aznar.
maybe beautiful is not the most apt word to describe how jes aznar repainted hacienda luisita, but rather poignant. in a 52-slide flash presentation, he stirs you with photographs (beautiful at that) of how the workers managed to live every day while in the hands of the tyrant cojuangcos, and makes you remember how, despite having won the battle over the hacienda, the war is still far from over.
i really don't really know how to describe how i feel when i see the photos. maybe it's the music, or how the military trucks were arranged on one of the photos that makes suffering in itself, in a perverted way, a beautiful form of resistance. i say beautiful more times in this post that in anything because the photos make it look so beautiful that you want to be there, but you very well know that it's far from it.
i guess the best form of beauty is the kind that agitates you, and rouses you from the slumber of complacency to act, fight, and create something new. in the case of jes aznar's photographs, i suddenly remember how i felt when i heard the news of some 9 farmers (including a couple of children) were killed while military troops were trying to disperse the rallyists. and it makes me guilty that i'm not in their position. that my material circumstances don't allow me to feel their pain up close. that everytime i feel something that vaguely resembles how they felt for so long it sometimes feels so fake, because then when i feel it, and it gets a rise out of me, i'll get a text message that tells me to take an air-conditioned cab from covering a morayta rally so i could meet my mom at the podium because i would have to go home with her. because really, just my covering rallies entails a great deal of negotiating her and my dad, which makes me feel bitter about not being able to "transcend my inner contradictions" as much as i want to, or can.
maybe that's why i fought to keep this thesis. so many times my parents convinced me to change topics because they're scared of what might happen to me when i finish this, have it bound and have everyone in the college read it. so many times i was offered a different topic, something that's way easier and could get me in a couple of cocktail parties, or let me do a couple of days off doing shopping in my spare time. so many times i felt this topic was getting me nowhere. so many times my parents would make me feel like this topic will get me nowhere.
but i made a promise to the victims, to their families, to my thesis advisers (one who suggested me the topic, the other my official thesis adviser) who both were victims of the system that bore personalities like him. i made a promise to the stakeholders of this issue. i made a promise to myself, that once and for all, i won't fail them.
so many times i failed different people in my life, simply because i felt powerless. maybe that's why i hold such high regard to this thesis, to this time that i'm doing it. because this is the best time that i can prove to myself that i'm not powerless before my own failures. that i am equally as capable of not failing myself as i would.
that i won't fail myself this time. no, not this time.
thank you, jes aznar, for making me feel this rise again in my spirit.
i know agitation should be something that's within, something that's easy to invoke in one snap. i think i've invoked mine.
i'm charging on.
xananananananananana
when i rant, i bitch
no, this is nothing really serious. the title's just there to get your attention. nyahahahaha
after what's been a pretty long time coming, i finally had the energy to pick up the remote and turn on the tv. i finally saw the hed and shoulders ad my brother daniel was telling me about. the one where the likes of sugarfree and up dharma down, among bands that i and my brother really like (and actually listen to on my mp3 player) singing in chorus (and in turns) about some cheesy guy liking angel locsin because of her dandruff-free hair or something to that effect. which reminds me of the song-and-dance phenomenon in manila's advertising.
i'd like to compare the parallels of this to others, including nina for goldilocks (who can forget that nail-scratching, silently caterwauling voice making birit "happy birthday"? scary), rocksteddy for close-up (i like the visual styling in this ad, except for sam milby. he's quickly turning into a jay-r. and not in a good way), the hellomoto bus (featuring a shitload of bands. i like how they did the whole graf-art thing to the styling of the ad, but it just gives me this cartoonish aura. i'm just not sure). and of course who can forget barbie almalbis' slightly annoying "summer day" for sunsilk? i liked her when she was in barbie's cradle. i have all her cds. but when she turned away, gone solo, and married that honasan scion, things just weren't the same. and not in a good way. (it somehow makes me want to believe that the aiza rumors were true. and make her go back to that stage. then again, it's an equally scary thought a well)
i'd like to reiterate a point i made earlier. the whole song-and-dance thing in most ads i see this season just give me this whole cartoonish vibe, like the filipino target market is one big bunch of "conservative," shallow, tight-wedgies who had too much okay ka fairy ko, estdyante blues and mid-80s commercial movies where no 30 minutes would pass without a production number a la bjork's "it's oh so quiet," except thati t would be done with no sense of taste. (btw, that eight o clock ad with the kid prancing all over the place like she was on red bull and steroids? definitely "oh so quiet." no question). it's not a bad thing to have a little light(headed) fun, but when it's too much, it's just too much.
but there are better ads i've been seeing these days, like that new hapee vignette about kids absenteeing themselves and eventually dropping out from school because of (gasp) toothaches and tooth decay. reminds me of a michel gondry visual styling with sofia coppola melodrama. except that this one found a connection with dental care without looking like it tried really hard to. and it didn't even act like a sneaky press release with an arrested climax and an abrupt hardsell of the product. no,they didn't do that. it just showed the logo. and i like the subtlety.
and now that we're on the hapee subject, there was another campaign that preceded that one, the a la joucy fruit smile campaign, where supposedly poor people (minimum wagers like you and me) try to allay the frustrations of the comfortable middle class by making an air-stenciled smile. i really like how it tried to do a class act while at the same time stayed true to its target market.
hapee is so cool for me now, that i might just forget the horrible "smile mo, kita ko" jingle ad nauseam days of rainier castillo (when he still looked like a circuit queen with that trying-hard f4 hair) and angel locsin. it was so horrible, i found myself singing the jingle to class. it's that bad.
what agency worked on the new campaigns? anyone who knows, please drop me a line. hapee's so cool now, i might buy a tube just to demostrate that the ads were really good.
of course, nothing still beats alice dixson's "i can feel it" days, back when palmolive wasn't corny.
when i flipped the channels to fashion tv, i chanced upon the campari ad i've been seeing in a while, one where a female model pours campari cabernet sauvignon all over the tuxedo shirt of a willing male model, licks part of the shirt, and gives the guy a dirty, cheeky grin. the ad is so racy yet to sophisticated that it's almost a sin to let my eyes see it in song-and-dance philippines. in fairness to us, there have been really nifty attempts at sophistication, like fita (remember the red sports car?), pepsi (bamboo's almost-pleading eyes are just hot), and dove (the cucumber bar ad just oozes classy to me). but the rest? look at krim stix, magic creams, that holiday thing (with the fat guy playing second fiddle to his friend, who was ignoring him because he's with his girlfriend), and well, many freaking others.
just got home from the freshman orientation party, where i spent the remaining 1/4th of the program smoking my lungs out with dunhill lights while catching up with longtime (pero definitely not freshie) friends ina, jean, ana a. and mike (kuya, may ginto na ba po sa bahaghari ninyo? i just love that line. sorry took it out on you. hehehe). when i had to do online work and surrender the den remote to my dad, daniel told me on my way to my room that there's this new ad by dennis trillo for some brandy (i forgot) that's allegedly kinda bad, like in the tradition of emperador brandy with the vignette of contrived, convoluted portraits of excess in a country full of abcesses. i won't have time for that right now. maybe tomorrow, when i accidentally flip the channel to star talk and wait for the commercial gap.
god, i'm so outdated right now. this thesis is driving me nuts. so i'm taking it out on the ads. nyahahahahaha
xanananananana
more favorite ad campaigns
okay, maybe this is just one. for now. this is from levi's square cut jeans in malaysia. for the record, levi's square cut jeans are my favorite jeansline ever, and probably the only jeans i can (and possibly will) buy from levi's, apart from their redloop range (which i already have a couple of pairs of in 34. never thought i'd say i'd fit into a 34 again). first of all, i'm a fat-ass person, so the low waist and wide waistband give really generously to my hips and butt. second, the details really give you that oomph, especially the "money pocket" (in place of the watch pocket) in 523 a-type jeans, which are apparently sold as "limited edition" jeans here but get replenished regularly in malaysia. third, the stitching and tailoring just makes me look thinner and better than i really look.
and fourth, the washes really look natural, not stenciled like they can get in other brands. and lastly, they're priced humanely; i got my 522 slims in broken-in dark wash for just php2,250, and the 523 a-type for just php3,000. i checked diesel the other time at powerplant rockwell, and the same wash goes for over php11,000. that's just their spring-summer "new wave" range. even if it doesn't cover the others, the price is too obscene for me. (the redloop's a litle more expensive at php5,800, but it's still more humanely-priced than diesels or armani exchange jeans, which i learned, are "sensitive". now, jeans aren't supposed to be sensitivec, should it?)
i get the "sampayan" metaphor in the local levi's square cut campaign, but their
website's just horrible to navigate. the "balloons" are irritating, and the upside-down models look like they're asphyxiated. at least in the malaysian campaign the
website's fun to navigate.
here's a snippet of the campaign:
that's the malaysia one. here's the local campaign (taken from the website):
although the local campaign is, in the technical sense, better strategically and idea-wise than the malaysian campaign, the malaysian one's visual styling pretty bowled me over to their direction.
kinda makes me a little disappointed with the way advertising's going here. like, cg-to-death shampoo commercials, mongrel-breed models, young-and-struggling bands singing to the tune of a dandruff shampoo to stay afloat. is pandering the new trend in campaigns that make it past the client pitch? can good advertising just get consummated with a powerful visual, with no need for long copy with nothingness words? can we lay off the song-and-dance for a change? can we use curly-haired girls instead of rebond/plancha to death retocada mongrels for shampoo ads?
just musings from this direction. anyway, i nicked the photo from a good blog i found a while ago. check
this out. really good campaigns. it'll make you pee you pants. the campaigns, i mean. ha!
xanananananana
a quick, friendly, cracked-up snippet of a blog post before i go to the gym
i'm officially a bar ho: i now officially barhop for a living. then again, not really! after the debauchery of last time's foray into conspiracy, corik's and m cafe for THE magazine i now predominantly write for, i was called back to do another round of interviews with 2 more bars (well, the other one was a resto), di' mark's along tomas morato, and the still-fresh manila dj club beside zirkoh, greenhills. i'll upload my reviews as soon as i get them done, but all i can say from this gig is, i have to work hard to get my body back to 145. i ate so much stuff (di' mark's pasta, i like. di' mark's big "22" pizza, i love! one small slice is a meal. i can live one day with the small order. it's that filling) i started to second-guess my skinny-fit purple shirt. mdc's obligatory vodka bull sure did crack me up.
sorry no photos, can't camwhore at "work." then again, you can always get the august issue of mabuhay magazine to see how our aventura looked like.
______________________
random quote from one of my classes this sem (specifically, soc sci 3: sexuality and gender something under dr. margie holmes):
"is there a possibility that a straight guy fall for a gay guy, and not just because of money?"
i can't help but crack up inside laughing. so what are gay men now, piggy banks for the straight gigolos? azucarera de papá? there are loads of others i can't say for fear of the academic firing squad. i haven't outed myself yet in this class, but being the rhumcake that i am (a term my brother coined to describe my campness. think fruitcake, just a little more butch.), i'll drop hints here and there like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. watch out!
______________________
as much of an iconoclast as i am (or believe myself to be), i'm a sucker for haute couture ad campaigns. my recent shopping sprees have largely been dictated by ad campaigns. style ideas now come from metaphors i, as a creative person for an ad agency at some point, used to draft ideas for ad campaigns. the brands i choose are dictated by 1. tailoring, 2. quality, 3. ad campaign. my recent music collection's been influenced by ad campaigns the strike my fancy (i.e., rjd2's "the horror" is used in the european tv adverts for levi's "moonbathing" campaign). check salvatore ferragamo's "i love salvatore" campaign, for instance:
i think that's jessica stam. that snarly-lipped model reminds me of a classy avril lavigne.
or the classic - dior:
kate moss this time.
of course, havaianas ads are ALWAYS very witty. i wonder why beach walk/islander never thought of doing these kinds of campaigns:
i'll add more photos, especially that kate spade ad where the photo kinda mimicked newton's apple or something. but these are what strike me right now.
except that i'll have no real use for advertising/creatives for the next couple of months: i'll officially start with my thesis.
turns out, it's my adviser's last semester in the university. for real this time. meaning, i'm his last thesis advisee. and he knows a lot more about my subject that i do.
alta presión. omg.
need to hit the gym and get this pressure off. except that i'll only get home tired and nauseated.
xanananananana
the last supper, painted by marithé et françois girbaud
i was flipping around the web today, and i came across this photo, supposedly as an ad campaign for the girbaud brand in italy and france. the premises, as far as the advertisers are concerned, were plain and simple: for the longest time now, women cna only be equal to men if they shed all traces of femininity (think mulan or something), so much that this ad campaign wants to celebrate that femininity by putting women, as feminine as they are, in a position of power and placing men in "a position of fragility."
turns out, not only is manila too hung up on anything that makes a satire of the christian "sacred." the ad was rejected by the adboard in italy for the most obvious reasons: that it trivialized the "drama" of the last supper by replacing the apostles with "female fashion models."
i smell condescension in the adboard's tone here. girbaud has long been known for producing racy ad campaigns, but could it have finally struck a vein with the conservatives? could it have hit that bigotry and sexism, which, if you ask me, is no lesser offense than racism or homophobia, with needle-sharp precision that it was just too hot to handle?
let's backtrack a bit to the da vinci code. when mary magdalene finally wasn't a whore, but the argued queen (who demands respect and not flogging), people started talking. and the tight-wedgy people started screaming "heresy" and all that. is it because the leader has no cock?
why is it that the only acceptable form of female empowerment is dressing girls skanky, ditzy and fragile (think of the high heels. i tried walking on them for 5 minutes on a dare. i then had a deep respect for ramp models everywhere)? or why is it that the standards of strength for women are patterned to those of men? do women still have to be both butch or slutty to be accepted? why can't women have their own identity in this fucking society?
i'm a man (so maybe it's not socially acceptable for me to ask these questions), but my mom raised me well.
to see it full-size, check this
link out.
xanananananananana
i've been duped: the case of the fake samsonite phone case
roughly a month or so ago, i lost my trusty ol' tiangge phone case (where i keep my rare siemens c60 scratch and scot-free. don't ask me yet why i refuse to upgrade. it's another blog post) in a jeepney while i was texting someone that i won't be late in a business meeting. that trusty tiangge case is made of black canvas, with a zip-up seal and a aluminum beelayer snap. it keeps the phone space in my pocket so small without compromising scratch protection.
oh well, so i lost it. so i needed to get myself another one. i tried the velvet pouches they sell at the quezon avenue gutter. my phone kept sliding off. i tried the kipling-ish snap cases they sell at mrt stations. too bulky and tacky. i tried the mesh pouch. too sleazy.
so i gave up and tried to look for a case in megamall. and in one of the cyberzone stores there, i got a velcro case made of faux nyltex weave and airmesh material. for P300. i thought i had a fuckin cool phone case. industrial design, clean, smart, a little cracked up yet sohpisticated. until four weeks later when one of the seams broke down, and i had to put on mighty bond to seal it, which made it even worse and hardened the rip into what looks (and feels) like a plastic glass shard. so off i go again in my phone case search.
enter gateway mall aka gay-way. i went to levi's store (to have some jeans altered), guess (i needed some socks) and nike park to run some personal and family errands. and at nike park, i saw this really cool-looking arm wallet that can safely house my mp3 player when i do my cardio, and can also double as a cellphone case. it even has an id slot inside where i can put in my phone number, tax number and stuff. and it's soo cheap at P600 something.
but because the strap is permanently sewn in, and because the wallet is too bulky to lug around (and there's no other way of wearing it than to strap it in my arms), i figured i'd kinda look stupid and too fasyon (in a bad way) in it. so i had the nice saleslady reserve it for 15 minutes while i scoured some other shops.
until i reached travel club. i knew samsonite and victorinox make phone cases and stuff, so i figured i could check them out before i finally get the stupid-looking arm wallet. and when i scoured the case racks, you can only paint the horror in my face when i saw a samsonite case with the same design as the case i got in megamall a month or so ago.
this is what i got at that el cheapo knockoff store-slash-welfare-center for snatched cellphones with fake hello kitty covers:
and this is what i got at travel club, the REAL THING:
at least the megamall case didn't pretend it was a samsonite or whatever, but both cases were really the same in design (they even used the same fuckin airmesh material!). except the samsonite case had a different nyltex weave to the ersatz one, which was harder and used pathetic black felt board to hold it together. goddammit, both holster cases even had the same bias tape sewn at the inside seams, except the the faker used felt paper on the inside, while the genuine article used padded polyester with a repeating logo.
this fakester, with FELT PAPER, of all conceivable inside seams....
or this original digital loot bag, with premium-looking polyester padding?
the sammynite case, i also noticed, took some effort when opening the velcro, while the samsonite velcro was easy to open. and the belt band of the original was also softer than the fakey, which apparently didn't want me to stick it on anything.
and the hardest part of it all: while the megamall shit cost me P300, the real samsonite only cost me P430, with a surprise 10 percent discount because of the mall wide sale (and because i was nice to teresa, the really nice saleslady at travel club. you should get your next jansport, samsonite or victorinox bags from her!). and the real samsonite had a 10-year warranty (meaning, if the seams get ripped off, i don't have to put mighty bond on; i'll just bring it to the samsonite brand store in either podium or rockwell, and they'll do the repairs for free). i didn't even get a fucking receipt on the fake!
at least the fakey didn't pretend to be anything; there were no tags, brands, or misspelled bezels on it. just a clean face, which enamored me to it. but still, that was P300 worth of nonsense. i could've seen three films with that, or gotten a good book with that, or paid a unit of my tuition with that. the whole incident just sucks.
moral of the story: follow my mantra: it's either all highbrow brand, or no brand at all. no fakes!
seriously, this has been my shopping mantra for a loong time. i guess that's why i love thrift/secondhand/ukay stores. if i go to an upscale mall, look for me at the specialty stores (m&s, diesel, florsheim, nautica, lacoste, levi's, the list goes on) looking for premium items at top peso prices (after a good pair of khakis i got on irregular sale broke down on me after a couple dozen wearings, i will never buy an irregular/defected item on sale again!). if i go to "u.k.", look for me in the no-brand/young fabulous and broke t-shirt section. but you'll never see me at divisoria trying to get a good deal for an ersatz lv. i tried to wing it before, but it just doesn't work. trust me. REAL THING, OR UNBRANDED AT ALL. it's not really about the brand you wear, but whether or not it fits your body, your way of thinking, your budget and the weather report. in short, your PERSONAL STYLE.
at least i had my good friends commiserating with me. i saw camille, tj, mark m, mark u, and josh while i was doing my solo shit in gateway, and they helped me forget that i did such a stooopid stooopid thing like this.
my best bitches (from left: camille, josh, and yo):
and my best bitches, batch 2 (from left, clockwise: mark m, tj, mark u, and camille [again!:-)]):
(thanks josh, for sending me the photos! i know i should get myself a new digicam to replace my busted old one, but with the shitload of options out there, i just never have the time. ;-))
the night ended well for all of us. we busted our throats caterwauling "wannabe," "thank god i found you," "dreaming of you," "that don't impress me much," "through the rain" and all our other guilty pleasures at timezone until the mall closed down on us. but not until we hogged dozens of restaurants looking for that perfect dinner. they had the jamaican patties, donuts, and that sickeningly sweet taco bell non-alcoholic margarita drink. i had doppio iced mocha at gloria jean's with ysl lights. the caffeine and cigarettes diet works, people!
(i like this photo, i look so butch in here, and it shows off my newly-recovered jawline nice, although i still have that irritating cheek fat. but now that i'm back at the gym, gaunt workout-bullimic overtrained male model look, here i come!)
(one of these things (a large gloria jean's iced white mocha) will get all your day's calories. and with a pack of ysls handy, who needs food?)
btw, really sorry if you can't hear anything in this blog. my radio blog server's down at the moment. i just contacted the nice people at global web, and it looks like they're doing maintenance work. anyway, it'll be back up soon. patience is a virtue. coming from someone with no concept of patience, ha!
xananananana
the best watering holes in the metro a.k.a., bar reviews!
i did this as a commisssioned piece for the same magazine i'm doing cd reviews for, for next month's issue. this is what kept me busy last week, with all the barhopping stuff and stuff. i must've smoked an entire ream of yves saint laurents last week, because everytime i finish an interview with the owners, i couldn't help but step out and light a stick. i know it's bad for my health, but i can't help it. cigs are the ultimate stress reliever. at least it's waaaay better than crack or crystal meth, or those pathetic poppers. and besides, ysl makes smoking look sooo glamorous. hehehehe
(btw, after marl lights, this is my next preferred brand. it's soo light on the nicotine like capris, but with the same kick as average marls. think of it as like marlboro ultralights silver, only in more glam packaging. i'm swearing off davidoffs because they give too much kick, and dunhills make me want to throw up after 3 sticks)
enjoy
xanananananana
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Maybe you’re bored with your surround sound. Maybe your ears are dying for a break from your 10-year-old headphones. Maybe some of your mp3s have that pathetic cracking sound with the slow bitrate. Or maybe you’re perfectly happy with your sound system, but you need to save your atrophying social skills. At any rate, it’s time to head to the very few places in the metro where iPods are useless, and beer bottles may offer you something more profound than a screaming hangover.
Conspiratorial
A sparsely-lit driveway with a black sign for an entrance may make Conspiracy look like a sublime watering hole to the casual outsider. But like its name suggests, Conspiracy’s great details are bursting inside. Conspiracy is the three-year-old brainchild of “conspirators” and Pinoy music greats Joey Ayala, Gary Granada, Noel Cabangon, Cynthia Alexander, Bayang Barrios and even Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Conrado de Quiros, who turned this former Italian restaurant into a regular tambayan (hangout) and outlet of both established and up-and-coming artists, writers and musicians. The name attracted so much attention and intrigue in the past that police, thinking Conspiracy meant some code for an underground meeting place, almost raided it when a political group staged its press conference there. But Conspiracy is anything but a cold and sinister underground. This place combines an al fresco grill and dining area, an open art exhibit, a music room, and a bar/café in a free-flowing Filipino ethnic/bohemian-inspired space that encourages people to move around, be friendly and lose all pretension.
Although Conspiracy aims to be more of a “dining” place now, it still doesn’t run out of great music, with nightly gigs by the “conspirators” themselves and the occasional big band gigs (Parokya Ni Edgar/ Edgar’s Parish, Brownman Revival and Rivermaya are equally popular acts). The artsy crowd will find a home in this place, with weekly exhibits and open poetry reading sessions. And where there’s great music, there’s great food: Conspiracy’s specialties include crispy pork tadyang (thigh), creamy chicken cordon bleu (chicken cutlets filled with ham and cheese), and the classic “balut” (unhatched duck embryo). Conspiracy is one secret you won’t doubt sharing.
Conspiracy is located at 59 Visayas Avenue, Quezon City, Tel. +63 2 453-2170
Open everyday, 4p onwards; Php 100 entrance fee (music room only)
Writer’s night sessions most Tuesdays
Conspiracy serves Appetizers (Php 25 – 180), Grilled specials (Php 55 – 150), and Dishes for sharing ( Php 110 – 320), and vegetarian dishes Php 50 – 150
Drinks start at Php 30 (beer)
Where the world meets Corik’s
A dispenser of irreverent punch-in-the-gut humor and “kilig (swoon) to the bones” music, Corik’s prides itself in its very diverse clientele. With the slogan “where the world meets” proudly emblazoned in the bar’s neon-lit entrance, Corik’s proves the sign by having expats, politicians, students, yuppies, and celebrities packed together and enjoying the antics and jam sessions of its owner, Pinoy music legend Rico J. Puno (Corik’s is Puno’s nickname, given and used by his friends). This former pastry shop plays trendy acoustic, jazz and alternative beats most days with the likes of up-and-coming group Metafour and Pure N Simple. You can even do karaoke here. But come any given night, and you might just be pleasantly surprised with an impromptu jam session by Puno and his friends, among others fellow Pinoy music icons Hajji Alejandro and Nonoy Zuñiga. And if Puno’s sharp-witted antics aren’t enough for you, there are the bar’s well humored signs (check out the witty “Wiwi” (Pinoy childspeak for “pee”) room). The humor extends to the names of bar’s specials, among them the Macho Guapito (vodka, orange juice, and three parts grenadine syrup), Dirty Sucks (blue Curacao, orange juice, apricot brandy, and cherry brandy), and the Bartender’s Midnight Kiss (vodka, tonic water, three shots Tequila Hombre, and cherry brandy).
There are no entrance fees for regular gigs, although for those who have something else in mind, Corik’s holds special shows at least once a month. Everyone knows everyone in this place, but Corik’s runs under the guiding principle that a bar should never intimidate the customer, especially the first-timers. So even if you’re just a newbie, you’ll surely be treated like you been there from the get-go.
Corik’s Bar & Café is located at G/F Kingswood Condominiums, Vito Cruz corner Chino Roces Avenue (formerly Pasong Tamo), Makati City.
Open everyday, 6p onwards
Corik’s serves chicken, pork, beef, goat and seafood dishes (Php 220 – 380), sizzling dishes (Php 240 – 250), apéritif (Php 100 – 240), pasta (Php 200) and salads (Php 120 – 280)
Drinks start at Php 50 – 75 (beer)
Kitchen art
By the power of suggestion, M Café (or Museum Café) is a place for those who want to see and to be seen. The artsy factor is not the only one behind this (it’s next door to the iconic Ayala Museum), or its sheer location (it’s right smack in the middle of Greenbelt 4, haven to Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton fans this side of the planet). M’s ultra-modern interiors by designer Budji Layug, architect Royal Pineda, and original artwork by design group Movement 8 command instant sophistication the minute you walk in, making you want to check if you wore your Fake London top or Goyard bag right. But the apparent high-fashion vibe of the place is immediately balanced out with the domestic comfort of its Modern Asian cuisine specials, which happen to be cutting-edge marriages of Filipino and Western-style food. Prepared by Filipino chef and culinary artist Sau del Rosario, special must-tries at M Café include the guava scallop sinigang teapot and the chicken adobo foie gras. The innovation doesn’t stop at desserts, though, which include the Choc-Nut Valrhona cake and the jackfruit Sans Rival.
Although as a fine dining place M Café is cool enough, it’s not until Friday that M Café gets really hip and happening. Transforming into Kiss MyHOUSE every Friday night, the café epitomizes its high-fashion reputation and hosts a sexy house party spearheaded by resident DJs Elian habayeb and Mark Cali-Jentes, with drinks (“liquid art”) courtesy of M Café chef and owner Martin Wisniewski. If you’re lucky enough, you might even step into special gigs by renowned artists and musicians the world over. And when it’s time to cool down, M Café dishes out soothing live jazz and mellow music on Sunday afternoons. But when you’re in a café this sophisticated, any setting, any situation gives you a high, like walking into prized artwork.
M Café is located at the G/F Ayala Museum, Greenbelt 4, De La Rosa St., corner Makati Avenue, Makati City, Tel. +63 2 757-6000
Open from 8a-12mn (weekdays), closes later on weekends
Kiss MyHOUSE every Friday, 10p onwards; Jazz Sunday Brunch every Sunday, 10a-3p
M Café serves aperitifs (Php 225-460), soups and salads (Php 110-260), wok dishes (Php 240-275), sandwiches (Php 120-275) and main dishes (meat, seafood, rice, poultry, curry and vegetarian; Php 220- 550)
Drinks start at Php 70 (iced tea), Php 75 (beer)
Cigarettes start at Php 65 (Dunhill)
xanana ventura, now with streaming audio!
yaay! no more mp3-emailing for me! hehehehe. anyway, i really wanted to stream my music (i.e., the exact hard-to-find songs i have in my mp3 player) into my blog, but the youtube/bolt/49media codes are fucking up the layout. so finally, i found a way. thank god for radio blog!
it was hard to set it up at first, since i know close to nothing about rbs file conversions, rbs-compatible hosts, and all that stuff. i also had to do some ftp uploading (because the files were waay too huge for a browser transfer) and remember some of my html classes before i can finally set it up. but, the effort was worth it. now you can listen to what i listen to, and let me know what you think.
btw, the player's configured to automatically play goldfrapp's "ride a white horse," a 2006 cover/homage to t-rex's "ride a white swan," and one of my biggest obsessions to date. if you like the song, and notice that it plays a little shorter than you expected, just try clicking on it over and over. when you hang around in my blog long enough (ha! self-promotion), pretty soon the connection will iron itself out and the song will play in whole.
so far, the player's in its beta stages, but over the next few days i'll add a few more songs to the mix (now that i know what i'm doing), notably my trademark hed kandi/stéphane pompougnac classics, and that paris hilton song. if there's anything you want me to add, hit me up and i'll try to consider it.
in the meantime, enjoy the songs! and while you're at it, visit my website,
www.danotingcungco.tk. this is pambubugaw to the maxxx!
later
xananananananana
so you thought they were prissy back then...
... i don't think so!
from the same
flickr site , vintage caronia, in pussy pink!
i love that color!
this picture paints a million words
just gone bloghopping last night (as a diversion from the intense writing load i have this weekend, which involves barhopping as a form of work, not of leisure), and from the archives of
chuvaness (
chuvaness.livejournal.com), i found this foto
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/thirstyfish/1368965) :
di kinaya ng powers ko ito. priceless!
