Foruming - Furry Sex

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Responses - Mikko

The following have read or are following my blog.

1. Yna
2. Pau
3. Anlo
4. Marianne
5. Mikko
6. Ma'am Frances
7. Jai

And yes, it's depressing to find out that what you're really toiling on has only been noticed by seven people--and all of them are your friends. Anyway, at least most of them read my entries thoroughly and have given positive feedback, considerable comments or interesting questions.

If you've read my previous post, I'm running out of things to write about, and thanks to the responses from my readers, now I have something to write about--or rather to respond to. The following content in Verdana is from Mikko--a friend of mine who's a devout Catholic (but it seems to me he's a devout Christian).

---

i always believed that God let us have free will that we may understand things in our own way. if God just wanted us to believe and do everything strictly according to what He wants, then what's the use of free will, just so he can see us burn for choosing the wrong choices?

That's one of the inconsistencies in Catholic doctrine--that free will is a gift, but followers must follow God's plan. Therefore, free will is a gift that must be returned.*

But then again, what's even more distressing is the thought that free will is more trouble than we think. For starters, it's the reason why people actually stray from God's path. One answer is that, since men are created in the likeness of God, and since God is free, so is man. But then again, God isn't really free either because since God is all good, he can't do bad things. If you follow that logic, then you can infer that God is not all good because he has done bad things, such as the case with Noah. Most people would argue that he's doing it for the better of man. Then again, he advocated meaningless slaughter in some books in the Old Testament. (It's likely that nobody knows about this because this info has been repressed.)

Let's go back to Genesis. So, Adam and Eve were made with free will. What if they weren't created with free will? The problem with not creating them without it is that they wouldn't be like God, but then again, I've already pointed out that there are holes regarding likeness and free wil. The problem with giving them free will is that they are prone to deterring from God's will. The case with Eden and free will is probably the first case of being stuck between Charybdis and Scylla--or in modern terms, a rock and a hard place.**

maybe its God's idea for a good laugh?

One version of Faust ponders on the possibility that humans are God's play things.

well, i dunno, i don't think so. i think the reason we have free will is so that we could believe and understand God in our own way, so that our connection to him is that much more personal and important.

There's a problem with having a personal God, especially if you're Catholic. Catholicism is a religion that asserts absolute views, and if things are absolute, there is little, if not none at all, room for relative understanding. Organized religion has constantly failed to understand that, and so, there fails to be a clear message when one priest preaches this message, and another preaches a contradictory one.

But that's just the case if you're straight-out Catholic. If you tend to cherrypick the stuff you believe in from Christianity, then it's probably alright. There's some stuff that Jesus says that I like.

i always believed that the bible, and other church stuff, are just guidelines to live by, but not really mandates of heaven to "obey or die". the thing is, i think people are taking christianity way out of context, and because of that, most people are either dogmatic hypocrites or pretenders as you say.

Speaking of taking Christianity way out of context. It turns out that the gospels are inconsistent. Harper Collins discusses in his book, Jesus Interrupted, how the crucifixion is rendered differently in all of the four gospels. In Mark (if I remember right), Christ is seen as confused and wondering why all of this is happening, and in the end, exclaims "My God, why have you forsaken me?" In Luke (again, if I remember right), he is calmer and tells God "Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing." I don't remember what's special with John (but I do remember that it's the newest among the four) and Matthew, but I do remember that he said that what Catholicism is doing is meshing the four together.

Here's an abstract from the book:
(http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780061173936/Jesus_Interrupted/index.aspx)

• The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works
• The New Testament contains books that were forged in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later
• Jesus, Paul, Matthew, and John all represented fundamentally different religions
• Established Christian doctrines—such as the suffering messiah, the divinity of Jesus, and the trinity—were the inventions of still later theologians

Oh, and did you know that the first Gospel was written 33 years after Christ's death?

you might think my post is not related sorta, but it really is...and i'm sleepy so magulo yung statements ko haha.

vic, don't lose faith in the religion, if anything, consider yourself the real believer for knowing what's wrong and what to do about it. even if you say you don't believe anymore, if you look at it from my point of view, you've been living your life just as the bible would say you should, even if you're just being yourself. you know why?

cuz you care.

I find it hard believing the Bible. For starters, the Old Testament is just brimming with misogyny, sexism, violence and sex. There's also the probems with the gospels, as Collins pointed out. But don't worry, as I said, there are some words in the Bible that I believe in, but only some.

p.s. vic, masturbators can be good christians too. take it from me. ^_^ LOL I LIEK BUTTZ

I bet you do.

Endnotes

* COPYRIGHTED BY VIC BAUTISTA COPYRIGHTED BY VIC BAUTISTA COPYRIGHTED BY VIC BAUTISTA COPYRIGHTED BY VIC BAUTISTA COPYRIGHTED BY VIC BAUTISTA

** Again, COPYRIGHTED BY VIC BAUTISTA. As for Scylla and Charybdis, it's a fig of speech obtained from The Oddysey.

Monday at Home

The maid is loudly singing the songs she has always sang. It overpowers the weak speakers on my laptop, and it's pissing me off. I clutch the back of my head and put my head down on the desk, and go "augh."

I have a couple of options.
1. I could tell her to shut up. She either complains loudly that she's just singing or she gets offended or hurt and stops.
2. I could wait for her to stop singing. After all, it's just probably ten or so minutes. I listen to music almost the whole day, and I sing too, and I sing the same songs over and over again.

On a tab on my browser is Arthur Schopenhauer's "On Noise." What the fuck, I am clearly overreacting to and overthinking the maid's obnoxious noise.

Blog interrupted

I'm in the living room. On the desk is the laptop, a cold cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun bitten once. I'm frustrated.

I stare at the white screen on my blog, and it's a fucking reminder that I'm running out of stuff to write about. Wait a sec, I'll recap my possible blog posts:

1. The wisdom of Nokia
2. Bahala

Sounds good, right? I don't know what's really stopping me. Maybe the new, uber-fast internet connection? Maybe the ningas kugon has finally caught up on my blogging? Maybe writer's block? I don't really know.

I was thinking of posting a blog entry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, that is until I went dry. To think, the first two weeks my blog was on, it was on fire--sometimes I would post two posts in a day.

Who would I be disappointing anyway? About five people take my blog seriously, and I get good reviews for it. But then again, I'm still clinging to the hope that I'll get a wider readership, or maybe this will get published. No, I shouldn't think like this. It should be less about the readers and more about the writing. Also, I shouldn't count my eggs before they've hatched.

I was thinking about writing about religion again, but I've somehow decided that it's a challenge for me to write about something else, but then again, more or less, every writer has his forte topic, right?

Ang titik V

Rules: Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag at least 10 people including me. (I have multiple personalities. 5 to be exact. I made another 5 because I'm too lazy to tag 5 other real people.)

Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following.

If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. What is your name:
Vic

2. A four Letter Word:
(Shit, ang hirap 'pag 'V') Vovo

3. A boy's Name:
Vich

4. A girl's Name:
Vich

5. An occupation:
Voltes 5 operator

6. A thing you own:
Valium? (Damn you, letter V!)

7. Something you wear:
V-shaped thong

8. A food:
Violet grapes

9. Something found in the bathroom:
Vajeyjey D:


10. A place:
Victory Liner terminal

11. A reason for being late:
VOLOLOLOLOLOL

12. Something you shout:
VAAAAAAAAAAZINGEEEEEEEEEER ZEEEEEEEEEE

13. A movie title:
V for Vendetta

14. Something you drink:
Violet grape. Juice.

15. A musical group:
VST and co.

16. An animal:
Vitch

17. A street name:
Verdant?

18. A type of car:
Victory Liner

19. A song title:
Volutesu Faivu niiiii

20. A verb:
Volt in!

On Religion - Extended

I said in my last post on religion that the fifth installment would be the last, but then again, I got this comment from my friend-reader, Pau, and it was too good a reply to not be noticed and--err--replied to.

---

hm. i knew this long ago. the goddess Hel.. how people made contributions that molded this ideology..

and the part with: “If you don’t behave for the rest of your life, you’re going to burn in hell!” (hsb. which i think is related to my professor talking about how elders would scare their children by saying, "don't go there, may mumu" instead of just saying that it's dangerous)

And that reminds me of all the times when children play with things on the ground, and their parents would exclaim "Dirty! Dirty!" I swear it's so fucking retarded because the kids would do it again in a matter of seconds. It's either the parents keep stopping them until the kids finally get sick of it and stop altogether or it's either the kids keep getting their hands "dirty" until the parents finally get sick of it. If I get a kid, I'll call his attention and say "This is what you can do" and then dig my palms onto the ground and then wipe it with a handkerchief or whatever.

I remember then that for almost everyday in my life, my mother nags at the maid. "Do this, don't do that" (and that would be a far too simple and too inaccurate way of putting what she actually says) which is more or less a form of "Dirty, dirty!" I told her one night to try a different approach. She told me she tried doing so, and the day after things didn't change a bit. I think I told her a few days after to try that approach for a week or so, but then I realize, do I have the right to tell her to do that when I don't even want to try to keep telling her that for a week or so?

In my case then, it's either I advise her for a week (or a year--or ten) until she gets sick of it and does what I want her to do, or she keeps telling the maid to don't do this and do that, but the maid doesn't get sick of it and does what she wants her to do--she--and I--get used to it, and we get invisible earplugs. Oh, how the adult world and the world of children are so similar--yet different.

as for what i am doing? well, i can't really include the fact that we participate in world vision (which is kind of supporting one child through financial donations yearly) http://www.worldvision.org/home.nsf/index.htm
because i'm not the one who's donating money-mom is.

When I opened the link and saw the face of that little kid smiling, it made me go "Oh shit"--and in a good way. I wanted to try joining one of those programs wherein you give P500 a week to a charity. I was thinking that I could do it, but it'd take a fourth off my allowance. Well, it's either you spend it on comics or you spend it on helping a poor kid. And you can probably guess what I decided. Hopefully, I get to do that when I get a job.

On a side note, if ever you decide to donate to an organization, as much as possible, avoid giving to an org that just feeds. You know the saying "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; teach him how to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime", right? So, it'd probably be better if you help an org that gives people jobs or kids education or something like that. (Side note: Got the idea when I remembered that author of "Dead Aid," a book that argues that the help people are giving to Africa is done wrong.)

besides, i don't think people only need finnancial help. i'll try helping in little ways like comforting people and giving them hope and prayers. a smile can also lift people's worries.

don't worry about it, i'm sure there are many christians who are trying to help. :D

I'm afraid that by "many" you mean "a lot, but not most." And that reminds me how Jesus said in the Bible that the road to damnation is wide, but the one to salvation is narrow.

Thirty years and weak arms

Thirty years into the future, it is April 16, 2039. I am forty-eight years old. I have written three non-fiction books: one is about Sophocles’ Oedipus and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the second is a book that manages to launch the minority of atheists and agnostics in the nation into unifying to criticize the faults of religion and the Philippine church and the last one is an anthology containing essays, fragments and blog entries on various subjects such as psychology, philosophy and literature. I have also come up with three successful novels: a book chronicling the conflicts revolving around my workaholic mother (perhaps the postmodern version of D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers), another about a child, who once saw Christ’s face on the fog in a window but eventually grows up to be a god that attacks heaven and the last one about the obscure journal of an alcoholic writer. One night, as I am drunk, a man loaded on cocaine stabs me and I die unable to decide whether to say “Einmal ist keinmal”* or “Es muss seine!”** (It is pointless, since there is no one else in the alley.) I ask for my ashes to be made into a champagne supernova in the sky.

Thirty years back into the present, it is April 16, 2009. I am eighteen years old. My mother enters my room and loudly asks the maid what happened to the installation of the TV cables. They exit, and her angry voice and the maid’s weak replies are muffled by music. The dog is under my desk, beside my feet, where he is safe from the banal absurdity of my mother’s daily squabbles. Without warning, she comes in again. I look back and greet her from my seat, but she only looks at the ceiling lamp and takes the radio from my room. (Yesterday, she was complaining about how I didn’t greet her anymore.)

I pause, out of things to write. I sigh.

Earlier today, I was at an internet cafe, and I finally manage to update my blog once more. I ask my usual readers to give my new entry a read. One of my friends told me that she commented on the story I posted, and I saw that it was, once again, positive feedback. She later tells me that she likes reading my entries because they’re insightful.

Minutes before, two fortuities (opening my e-mail and seeing an old friend’s invite) direct me to go back to Gaia Online. I first came to that place as a starry-eyed, conservative Christian. I stop visiting when a pro-life post of my mine is gutted by several pro-choice activists. I come back a sceptical, ultra-liberal agnostic.

About fifteen minutes later, I think of advertising my blog on Gaia through my forum signature. I fear that some bored intellectual would click it, and it, brimming with my new, unconventional beliefs, would still be gutted, not because of starry-eyed, conservative bull-kitsch^ but because of horrible form.

Now, I consider that it might be highly unlikely that it would happen as such.

I’m beckoned to dinner. I finished quickly, and my dad asked me why I finished so soon. (He asked because we ate burgers together this afternoon and because he was still eating when I was about to return to my room.) I answer him that I hurried because I was writing when they called me.

I return to my desk, and suddenly, I find myself unable to write. I close my eyes and I see the little me in my mind trying to grab my fleeting thoughts—some are flying, some are running and some are sinking. I feel my bones getting weaker and weaker. In one imagination, I kneel; gazing into the light shining from above and turning my dead palms to the illumination, I turn into stone. In another, I turn into an infant, and on my face is an expression of seriousness and worry—a look that only an adult can assume.

“Write, write,” I tell myself. “Write, write,” I tell myself.

There is a familiar rigor in my arms, and I don’t know exactly why I go like this from time to time. It is like being in a pool of tar, with my fingertips and my face free from it. Above me is a plume and I know if I take it, it shall take me away from the mud, but there is the chance that even though I’m out of it, some might still remain on my shoulders. It is also like being a puppet on strings for a giant shadow of me.

From below the depths of the tar, an ominous and terrifying voice does a deep laugh and tells me “Many times, I have made your writing inconsistent or horrible.” It seems that the plume is giggling at me, but it does not emit a feel of terror, but that of strange reassurance.

I do not dance, and I know I shouldn’t, but the giant shadow makes me do so. At first, it feels awkward and forced, but eventually it feels refreshing and liberating. I look at the giant spotlight that casts itself on me, as I wilfully take that bow of unique irony.

Thirty years into the future, it is April 16, 2039. I am forty-eight years old. I have written three non-fiction books and three novels. Most of these stop making sense at some point, because my arms begin to feel weak, because it becomes inconsistent or horrible because of a living abyss of tar or a giant shadow of me or because I turn into stone or into an infant with a worried expression. The examination of Oedipus and Hamlet becomes a surreal tale of two kindred souls, with hands entwined, dancing into the white nothingness. The critique of Philippine religion becomes a story of how a mischievous yet intelligent adult teases and plays with a naive, spoiled child dressed in a bishop’s outfit. The anthology of essays spirals into an anthology of whimsy. The manuscript of the novel about the workaholic mother ends up slammed into a garbage can, and upon close examination, the last page contains scratches from my nails. The one about the child who saw Christ’s face on the fog in the window concludes with the god and God doing a high five and drinking beer together. One day, an alcoholic writer, already drunk, goes onto the top floor of a thirty story building with his material in hand. He dances and prances and leaps into the air, as he falls, he gleefully watches the pages of his writing gently floating. He has no last words. With the living abyss of tar, the floating plume and the giant shadow of him, he laughs at the thought that a stone man with dead palms facing upward will end up shattered on the ground or that an infant’s face will no longer exude worrying.

---

* Einmal ist keinmal – A phrase used many times in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It’s a German phrase that means whatever happens once might as well not have happened at all.

** Es muss seine! – Also appears recurrently in the same book. It’s a famous line from a composition by Beethoven. It means “It must be!”

^ Kitsch – Kundera says it’s “the absolute denial of shit, in both and literal and figurative senses of the word; [it] excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.” According to Microsoft Word’s thesaurus, it means tasteless, brash or outlandish (which is probably why he also said that “repeated use... has obliterated its original metaphysical meaning.”)

On Religion - Final

So, this one is pretty much overdue. The plan for it was that I was supposed to write about religion every day until the Holy Week ended, but I wasn't able to do so because there's no internet in the condo (I now live in Mandaluyong.)

On a side note, I think the ningas kugon is beginning to catch on with my blogging. If you're one of my 3 or so followers, maybe you could help me in writing. Gimme a topic and I'll think about it and maybe I'll write about it too. (Contributors get a free hug.)

The man who lost his morality

I remember this one time in CCF class we were talking about how morality was a God-given, spiritual gift that you can never remove. I remembered this article I read in Newsweek (or was it Time?) about morality. A mild-mannered average Joe was in a train station and was just minding his own business when suddenly something went wrong with a train and a huge, steel part of it just hit him really, really hard on the front of his head—or in other words, his frontal lobe—the part of your brain that’s responsible for morality. After a while he was able to go on even though his frontal lobe was severely fucked up. The thing is that he was able to kill people without ever feeling that it was wrong—in other words, he didn’t feel guilty about it. I did more than just remember it; I told it to the teacher and asked what he thought about it, and he just shoved the same answer to my face over and over and over again: “It’s what you’re fed.”
I’m fed science, and I think he’s implying that it’s wrong.

Lucifer leaves hell

My favourite Sandman arc is “Season of Mists”—the one where Morpheus has to go to hell to get back whatsername. He goes all sentimental and goes all “I might never come back” with all of his buddies because he’s afraid that Lucifer will kick, torture and brutally gut out the stuffing out of him. When he gets there, no—nothing—hell’s empty.
Fortunately, I have a copy of the last issue of Lucifer (for the record, I’m not a Satanist) which is a wonderfully woven Sandman spinoff by Mike Carey. The following conversation is more or less where the spinoff started, but it was written by Neil Gaiman.

---

Lucifer: There. Those were the last of them. We’re the only entities left in hell, Morpheus. I was the first one here, and it looks like I’m going to be the last.

Morpheus (inside of those black, squiggly speech bubbles): Lucifer, what is HAPPENING?

Lucifer: I keep telling you, Dream Lord. It’s over. I am leaving. And I have closed down hell.
Morpheus: How? How can you even--?

Lucifer: Easy. Ten billion years, I’ve spent in this place. That’s a long time. And we’ve all changed since the beginning.... I’m tired, Morpheus. So tired.

Morpheus: You knew me when I was an angel. What was I like?

Lucifer: You were very PROUD, Samael. But you were also very BEAUTIFUL, and wise—and PASSIONATE.

Morpheus: Was I? Yes. Yes, I was. I cared about so many things. I suppose that was why everything began to go wrong.

Lucifer: You know—I still wonder how much of it was planned. How much of it he knew in advance? ... I thought I was rebelling. I thought I was defying his rule. No. I was merely fulfilling another tiny segment of his great and powerful plan.... But I am woolgathering. I apologize. You don’t mind if I work as we talk? There are no more entities left within the bounds infernal, but I need to secure the last gates.

You also rule a world, Morpheus. A world of sleepers, and dreamers, of stories. A simple place compared to hell. I envy you.... Can you imagine what it was like? Ten billion years spent providing a place for dead mortals to torture themselves? And like all masochists, they called the shots. “Burn me.” “Freeze me.” “Eat me.” “Hurt me.” And we did.... Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spent my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive.... “The devil made me do it.” I have never made one of them do anything. Never.

And then they die, and they come here, having transgressed against what they believed to be right. And expect us to fulfil their desire for pain and retribution. I don’t make them come here. They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul?

No, they belong to themselves. They just hate to have to face up to it.*

Yes, I rebelled. It was a long time ago. How long was I meant to pay for that one action? So now it’s over. I’ve sent all of them away. All of hell’s inhabitants.

Morpheus: Where—have you sent them?

Lucifer: Away. I don’t care where they’ve gone. Heaven. Earth. Limbo. The far realms. Who knows? But they won’t be coming here anymore.

Morpheus: And what YOU do now?

Lucifer: I don’t know. To be honest, Dream Lord, I haven’t given it much thought. I couldn’t return to the Silver City---even if I wished to. I could never again be an angel. Innocence, once lost, can never be regained. What will I do now? I could lie on a beach somewhere, perhaps? Build a house? Learn how to dance or play the piano? It matters not. I have had my fill of the old life, and that is all I care about. Perhaps this is the ultimate freedom, eh, Dream Lord? The freedom to leave.

---

And I know what you good lot of Catholics are thinking, "Oh, those are lies. That's what the devil wants you to think."

Well, here’s what Christianity first thought about the devil.


The origin of Satan

I heard most of this from my English blockmate. I suppose he got it from Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion or some show from the Discovery channel. ^

Hell started off as Hel—she was the goddess of the underworld. Sure, the underworld was a hot place back then too, but a hot place isn’t bad considering that the Nordic lands were really, really cold. Hel’s pad wasn’t always a place of burning forevermore; it used to be a warm place to rest in peace.

So how did it end up the most unpleasant place in all of human imagination? Christianity faced a lot of persecution in its early days. There was nothing in Christ’s teachings to stop the Roman guards from beating the crap out of them, so one day, they had an idea: “I know, let’s make a horrible, horrible place where these douchebags will go after they die!” Hence, hell.

In other words, hell was an invention made by humans (as if religion isn’t already one) to keep people in line. In a way, it’s an equivalent of spanking a kid. Instead of “If you don’t behave, I’m going to spank you!” you have “If you don’t behave for the rest of your life, you’re going to burn in hell!”

A world without religion

(It'd be awesome if you read this part while listening to John Lennon's "Imagine")

If we don’t have religion, then how else is society going to function properly? Where would mankind be without questions such as “WWJD” (What would Jesus do?) or “What do I do and don’t do so I won’t go to hell?”

It just so happens that mankind has something called empathy. It’s much more believable and it’s much more natural, and it just so happens that we’ve lost touch of it. How? We lost it to laughing at mindless violence: Saw or Final Destination or Ogrish or whatever shit that involves uncannily gruesome and bloody acts. We’re desensitized. We’re high on sedatives like consumerism and hedonism (which again, ironically, is against Christian doctrine). We’re high on the idea that everything is alright, and that everything will be alright.

Religion-wise, people are drunk on the idea that if they just pray every damn day of their lives, they’ll go to heaven. Well, it doesn’t work that way. Didn’t Francis of Assisi (Am I right with this one?) say that “Faith without action is dead”? Nah, you’re doing something. Yes, you good Christians are. I’m sure Jesus appreciates the change you donate every Sunday. ** Yes, yes he does. I know that change will do oh so plenty to help all the people in the world who live on less than a dollar. How many you ask? Oh, I thought you knew!^^ Silly me! NEARLY HALF THE WORLD’S POPULATION LIVES ON A DOLLAR OR LESS. Oh, they’re too far you say? They’re from Africa or some other part of the third world? Well, we live in a fucking third world country. Damn it, you could at least sign up for Gawad Kalinga or some Youth For Christ stuff!
Now, if Jesus doesn’t tell you to help that half of the world (and I bet you do, oh so good Catholic), how else are we going to do it?

That’s the challenge.

As for the rest of you: happy Easter, you hypocrites. Jesus rose from the dead to weep till the next Black Saturday comes.


Endnotes

* My bold and italics
^ I have to check the sources. Augh.
** The money actually ends up in poor parishes. I’d like to assume that people in slums and street kids don’t go to church. On another note, I’d like to repeat the case of the tax collector who was willing to give up 10% of his income. There are a lot of organizations around the Philippines in which you can donate a minimum of P500 a month (or was it a week?). One of them is Children’s Hour, wherein you donate just an hour’s worth of your salary in a week (or a month?) to help poor kids. I’d like hundreds of Catholic donators to shove into my face that they actually help orgs like these. Till then, I’ll laugh at their faces.
^^ (Too many endnotes. Augh.) I’d like at least ten or at least five or LESS Catholics to tell me that they actually know this prior to reading the post, and I’d like them to tell me what they’re actually doing.

The Bar Circle

First words

I wanna give a tip of the hat to Bessi who gave me some cool encouragement.

Shit, getting this story from the depths of my laptop is like digging up skeletons for me.

Oh, why didn't I post my stories and my poetry on the internet? I was always afraid somebody would take them from me. It's so easy to just copy-paste somebody else's work and call it your own. I mean, I wouldn't even know!

How many great people got famous from plagiarizing? H.G. Wells, T.S. Eliot and Martin Luther King. (I'm not implying that my work's great though.) (Side note: Got that from www.cracked.com/article_17198_5-great-men-who-built-their-careers-on-plagiarism.html)

Anyway, here it is.

The Bar Circle
A Short Story
By Victor Bautista

It was an unusually hot season. So unusual that it made me think that nobody would ever want to die on a day as hot as this. It makes one mad, and nobody, but madmen would want to part from this world in a disgusting fit.
On a fateful day, I went along with the lunacy of the sun (or did I escape it?) and went to a tavern. It was, of course, empty and only the bartender and a lone man were there. Ah, this man’s a failure or a drunkard, I supposed. Either way, he was a fool. Going to places like these in broad daylight leaves one with a lingering, terrible impression. It was a good thing it was just the three of us.

I placed myself a stool from the greasy man, and then I asked for a beer from the good chap (the bartender, I mean). I asked for a tall one, so he could leave us be and take a rest since most nights, the bar would be set ablaze with men on fire. It made me wonder who’s better off among these two fellows.

The bad chap lifted his heavy, drunken head and pointed it at me, but the black of his eyes was nowhere. By Jove! It was if he was in some kind of indulgent enlightenment! He was more fascinating than I first assumed.

After noticing that, I noticed that he had an extremely thick moustache with a messy head of short hair. His forehead had wrinkles. He had bags under his eyes, and while the ivory look of his eyes seemed mighty erudite, his mouth exuded a contrast with a deplorable dumbness.

He shook his head violently and came to his senses. Now, he saw me. Ah, that bloody bastard! He put his head down, and when it came up again, he just grinned and began his monologue. His speech was amazing, and I didn’t know myself if it was naughty or meaningful; either way, I listened to that coot (though I had to take a step or two back from the odour of his breath).

“Damn! Damn the university and their elitist sciences! Ha! What rubes! They think they’re angels from up above who give everybody the right to say what they ought to say and who give the power for everybody to have some kind of wonderful, never-before understanding. Well, they’re wrong!”

He paused for a while, as if he were flabbergasted with himself and didn’t know what to say next. I took that time to cram down a big gulp—refreshing.

He sighed then started again, “Damn the university for not taking me in! Damn them! They say they stand for art; they say they stand for the Lady, yet—My God!—all they do is shut us out. Their intentions, their intentions are for you and for me and for everybody to just read the stuff that everybody can understand. But what about the rest of us? The philosophers, the scientists and the intellectuals? What about the bloody brilliant deviants? Art for art’s sake. Phoo! I’ve never heard such distasteful lies in my life! Art ain’t for art’s sake, or it just can’t stand on its own... stake, somebody else has to see it! You know what you’ve done? You know what you’ve done, you bloody bastards; you just put a limit.”

He stood up and took a deep breath, and like a lion pouncing, kicked the stool (but it didn’t fling too far). He shouted with all his might, taking out all the air from his tired lungs, “YOU THINK YOU’RE TAKING DOWN WALLS; YOU’RE JUST MAKING ‘EM!”

Slowly, he crouched; his palms pointed upward.

Damn me. After that wonderful experience (despite the potent stench at the end), I had a sincere grin on my face. Once I noticed, my head went hard and my face turned blank. Sobriety... I drank the rest of my drink bottoms-up.

After that, the good chap came out of the room behind the liquor cabinet. On the other side, the bad chap’s face had suddenly turned blank like mine. The fun was over; we both knew it. Suddenly, his eyes returned to that lofty look—which now looked distant, not smart. The bartender lifted the stool and put it in its right place, and he did that with the drunkard too. He held him by the shoulders and propped his back on the bar. In a quiet whisper, “Alright, old friend, just rest easy.” It was as if he let a stray animal in and allowed the poor creature to rest its weary bones.

“Terribly sorry, mate,” he said. I wanted to ask about the wild fellow, and he knew that from the serious look in my brow. In polite aversion, he offered a free drink and apologized for the “over-the-topity of it all” (it became the prayer of this sordid temple).

I gave him a wide, sad smile and refused.

But I liked the scenery here. The cool, empty room apart from the blithering heat. The lethal kindness of that bartender with a black apron. The obscure complexity of that wanton scholar. That’s why I replied, “I’ll be back tomorrow.” I liked it here, and that was the only reason I came back.

And so, I did. Everything lost its lustre from that point on, the amusement was gone and it was replaced with an intense (perhaps scientific) despising of him, that instead of repulsed me, attracted me instead.

From time to time from that day on, I had a feeling that I would have liked to asked him what his problem was, but I was afraid he would bite. And if he did, it would be utterly, terribly infectious—deadly even. That fear made me half the man I was. Utterly pitiful of me. Good thing it’s just in this limbo, and it’s a better thing the good chap had good alcohol.

By the third day, I found the joke within this entire predicament. Peeps go to the tavern in the night to forget and be merry. But here I am. The furious sun’s outside. My only friends are a madman and a bartender that takes in strays.

Damn, the fact that it went by so hastily was the most over-the-top; I got along this deplorable line so fast, and the sad part was that I was assimilated—and beyond that, I could’ve sworn I almost did his weird eye movement sublimely and that the bottles seemed to look down upon me—like idols (gods even) upon lowly worshipers.

By the seventh day, I had a potent urge to set this man straight. By this time, he felt like a distant cousin from a distant land, hence, the call for duty.

Maybe I had too much or had too little. I set my head down.

It was such a conundrum, this dilemma. I was so disgusting! Why couldn’t I get out of this place? Why? Why?

I knocked a lot at the bar, and when my friend came out, I asked for a drink that would hit me hard in a second. I fell like a brick afterwards. The last thing I remember was sounds of buzzing up high and tapping on the floor.

By the second week, I got totally used to it and it became a habit. Shouldn’t have.

By the fifteenth day, he finally broke out of that disgusting cycle. But only for a while! Damn it, only for a while! “P... P...,” I was going to utter something. It could have meant everything or nothing, but, anyway, I kept my mouth shut. As his head was tucked away from the sun, he mumbled the only words that made sense, and I reckon he was saying how tedious and pointless this circle was, and I was tipsy then.

Heights and Lows

First words

I want give a tip of my hat to Pau who gave kudos to my blog (it made me go OH MY GOD SHIT) and to another friend who didn't dig my posts for all its swearing. For the record, this one here has considerably less cussing.

I want to write about something else tonight.

Something else

I've never really read my posts again. I seldom look at them to see if there are any grammatical errors or if this sentence would sound better if it were written this way other than that. When I was thinking about it, I remembered what Maria Elena said to Christina* when she was breaking up with the threesome--err--the couple: "Chronic dissatisfaction, that's what your problem is--chronic dissatisfaction." It just rang in my ears.

I don't think I'm suffering from chronic dissatisfaction, but I do believe I'm suffering from something else that's chronic--a fear in the back of my head. It used to speak to me, clearly and it just makes me freeze. Now, it's gone, but faint whispers still echo in my mind.

I've always lived with a fear that my work will never be good enough. I might work hours and hours on it, but then again, some other person in class will get a better grade--and he/she barely worked on it.

I think it all started off with that week in my first semester in Ateneo.

Heights and Lows

I applied for Heights, the literary publication of the ADMU. And I thought, I'd get in real easy. After all, I take great photos and I have a great background working from the Seton Notes, my high school's newspaper.

(At this point of my writing, I'm just sighing, and it's all coming back to me, and augh, it's as if my bones are getting weak just from remembering it. So, here's how I'll tell it...)

It was a complete disaster. They asked what were the greatest works I've ever read, and I list a couple of graphic novels. It turns out that we're supposed to analyze a poem by a Filipino, and I did the opposite, and even the review I did for the wrong poem was just horrible. Just horrible. It was a poem about Claude Monet, and I read "Monet" as "Monette."

And after I failed, I was just so fucking bitter about it that I started writing about how much I hated them. And it made no fucking sense! No sense at all! But at that time, it just seemed so true--truly it did. I wanted to give it to them, slip it into their office. But no, it finally came to me that it was idiotic.^

I also passed a story called The Bar Circle to them. I left it in the room, and there was nobody there and I didn't put it in an envelope like I was supposed to. It didn't get in, and I don't know if it was because it was bad, or if it was because I didn't put it in an envelope.

I got mixed reviews for it. A friend of mine loudly expressed her distaste for it. Another called it deep. A professor said it was okay.

And I thought it was the best story I've ever written.

I haven't written anything good since then. Ever since, I've tried to escape form and convention. And I mark my work as "raw" or "postmodern" just to justify its... whatever....

At this point, things slow down, and that rigor takes hold again. And I begin to think of my dreams of being great, and I think of how I may die obscure and without accomplishing anything great, how I disappear from earth completely because I have nothing to leave to it.

But then again, right now there is only one choice to make: read my posts, or carry on.


* Forgot to say it's from Woody Allen's Vicky Christian Barcelona, which totally rocks my socks.

^ Side note: I made a short film about it called -sta-

On Religion, Four

First words

By now, a number of my friends have already read my blog. I got some mixed responses. A friend of mine likes it and asks me about my updates, another commented that I'm not really attacking religion but only pointing out its flaws and another exclaimed (in all caps) that reading my blog gave her a headache because I had too many complaints.

I don't really know if I can write a recent post. For some reason, I feel irritable. I don't really know why. It's just this feeling I have: my eyebrows slant down and there's like this gray cloud in the center of my brain that just suffocates my brain. I should be watching a movie right now; I'm set to watch Gran Torino and The Wind Will Carry Us and a couple of episodes of Honey and Clover, but I'm afraid I'm far too angry to do that. So, I might as well let some steam off through blogging.

Edit

I had another friend read my stuff, and she said that again, it is full of complaints.

What's a complaint? I asked her. She didn't respond, so I asked teh all-knowing internets.

an expression of grievance or resentment
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

In general use, a complaint is an expression of displeasure, such as poor service at a store, or from a local government, etc. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint

What these definitions fail to attribute to my posts is my contempt and my criticism. Sure, it may be fucking blatant because of the fucking swearing, but still, it's pointing out its fucking flaws.

Now, if you want to relieve me of my grievance, my resentment or my displeasure, then by all means:

PROVE ME WRONG.*

The Afterlife

In heaven, there's a big file cabinet containing an organized anthology of all my thoughts. Everything I wanted to write but wasn't able to is there, and I get to read it all for the rest of eternity. I'm in a perfect situation to know myself. When I get sick of it, I throw it all down to earth and it ends up in the heads of other people. I leave the small, white storage room, and then I go to a theater and turn on the TV and then I see a DVD's on. Scene selection: every moment in my life is there and I can relive it. Options: I can choose to live it again with the knowledge I have right now, or I can choose to live it again without it--the same way I lived it before. I can rewrite every moment in my life: I can forever keep the women I lost, I can be however great or worthless I want to be. and I can try killing somebody.... An infinite realm of possibilities, and I won't get sick of it because at the end of every scene, I take a cup of water--and then I forget. It all starts over again.

But then again, that's just a fantasy. A personal myth. But if I were a god (or had the capability and the nerve to trick people into thinking I'm a prophet), I could make a cult--a religion that the afterlife is like that.

And it makes me wonder why do I believe in the god of the deists. Why do I believe in a god that leaves after the Big Bang? What difference does it have from atheism? How do we marvel at a god that isn't there after we are long gone? On a personal note: why do I believe in that god when I have a notion of heaven? I don't really know. I'm still looking for myself and for the god that seems alien to me.

God after god after god. I left the God of the Covenant who does not admit that he made evil so he could be good. I leave the God of the Deists because it seems pointless to believe in him. A fork in the road: one path leads to atheism and the other to something similar to paganism.

Big words. Big words. They all seem so hollow and alien to me.



"Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell."

Emily Dickinson

---

* 4-9-09 Edit: Nobody, NO CHRISTIAN has bothered to do so. Way to take one for the team!

On Religion, Three

Fear

I used to force myself to listen to mass with all my heart before. But every now and then, I can't help but lose my attention. Now that I look back on it, I can forgive myself for losing interest in the parts that are just repeated week after week after week, but then again, no forgiving should be done. I've ceased to believe.

I've laid it out very clearly on almost all of my posts up to this one that I have lost my faith in religion. And every time I write about my anger, my contempt and my criticism at the church of irony, I fear. I'm afraid that my mother would click the link out of curiosity or perhaps my cousin in America (who knows me as a devout young man.) I ask myself: if I know reason is on my side, then why should I be afraid? Because religion is never equal to reason. They didn't believe in Galileo's proof on the Copernican hypothesis. They don't believe that dinosaurs existed in the beginning; the Garden of Eden used to be there. They don't believe that homosexuals are that way by birth. Well, they may have ceased believing in those ideas after a loooooooong time, but that would be forsaking the Bible, wouldn't it? Yes. Yes, it is. It's in the Old Testament.

Hell, I think they don't even know that.

Maybe they're different. But they're old people, and old dogs can't learn new tricks. Especially dogs like them. They live within the norms of society.

(But my parents are loose, in a lot of ways, and I'm thankful for that.)

Being thankful

I was watching the news about the earthquake in Italy. 33 dead among around 250 or so in a small town, and there was a woman who lost her 18-year-old son in the quake. Force of habit, I thought: God bless you, ma'am. But no, the God I believe in now doesn't work like that. Yeah. That's one of religion's perks: if you can't do anything about it (or if you think you can't do anything about it), you just pray. But no, I can't do that anymore. I have to do something. I can't just wait for the apple to fall for me. The report ended with them showing us how we could help.

Did I even try helping? No.

Jeep

I was on my way to SM Sucat when I suddenly realized that all my knowledge about scripture helped me lose my faith.

Final words

Old Testament

There can be no mercy without suffering. Hence, Lucifer fell.

New Testament
There can be no suffering without betrayal. Hence, Judas forsook.

Toned down?

Oh, and I remembered in mass last Sunday. The psalm was "My God, why have you abandoned me?"

And I kept telling myself, "It's forsaken, damn it! Forsaken!"

On Religion, Two

Now, at least two people have checked out my blog: one's an Agnostic and the other's a devout Catholic. Well, good enough, I suppose.

Now

Do you want to do something this Holy Week so your faith will deepen? Look no more and see what's in this blog. Now, what's here, you can mostly classify as blasphemy, and I think that condemning is a gift. (On one side, Christians blurt out: "Go to hell!", on the other Christ said: "Let he who has no sin cast the first stone.") After all, they called Galileo a blasphemer when he said that the earth revolved around the sun, after all some verse in Joshua said that a prophet commanded the sun to stop moving.* Well, he had reason, but you good Christians all know that truth is in blind, blind, blind faith.^ Right?

Now get your blindfolds out and debunk this instead of going to your holidays. Asses.

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him?
If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future?
If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers?
If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?
If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?
If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them?
If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him?
If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable?
If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees?
If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him?
If he has spoken, why is the universe not convinced?
If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest?

Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Necessity of Atheism

On Galileo and the apparent

Humans are inclined to what is apparent. We want wealth because it's easy to notice the Rolex, the Gucci handbag, the Prada shirt or the BMW. We want looks because it's hard to find out if somebody is insightful. We didn't believe in Galileo because apparently the sun moved and the earth stood still. We don't care much about global warming because it's not that apparent--it isn't as threatening as a terrorist attack.

And how we lose ourselves to all these masks.

---

* Got that from the Colbert Report. Edit as of April 9: Today the Jews celebrate the returning of the sun to the position where it was created. In other words, Jews believe (or are supposed to believe) that the sun is the one moving. (Side note: Got that from the Colbert Report too.)

^ 4-9-09 Edit: I remember a poem my Fil prof Yol Jamendang (akosiyol.blogspot.com) read out:

"God is love.
Love is blind."

Do the logic, people.

On Religion, One

The Pretenders

They are fucking everywhere. And they're a reason why I've lost faith in religion. When I go to church, and I see loads of men lining up for communion, I get sick because I know they're a bunch of fucking masturbators. I go to Greenbelt Church (I barely know what the real name of that place is), and it is a place of sheer irony. It's surrounded by malls (I wonder how Jesus would've wrecked it all if he were alive today)--by stores of high class brands that are owned by dipshit rich people who pretend to be Christian. And Jesus said, leave everything and be poor. And another thing, even the tax collector guy in the Gospels was willing to shell out 10% of his income, and what do people dish out every week? 20 peso bills? Change? What the fuck?

I can go on and on and on ranting about the people in the church. I do that every fucking Sunday.

The Pretenders are everywhere. God gave them a face and they put a mask on it.* Sometimes the mask becomes their real face, and the real one is muffled--lost forever.

You make me sick, because I value sincerity. At least be true to yourself.

Honestly, I can't seem to make a decent rant about you hypocrites because I get too pissed. My anger gets in the way.

"You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies — which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world — what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose."

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Holy Week Test of Faith

Oh, Holy Week right now. Well, oh God's great bearers of truth debunk this:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Get out your Bibles and do some close reading instead of going to your fucking holidays. Asses.



* Hamlet, aka, my Bible

Random thoughts (aka The post with the title sure to turn off readers)

Absurd

Hello, whoever the hell you are, and welcome to yet another post of my absurd blog. Absurd. No visitors. No organization. That's one thing I have to tell you: I would like to justify all the posts in this blog with randomness. Yes, randomness. I want it raw. I want it raw because I've feared order and I have done much to try to defy it. I write my thoughts on tiny post-its and then I stick them on the wall. Nothing else--for now.

"For now?"
--Yeah, for now.
"I highly doubt you're gonna do anything else in the future.
--...
"You wanted to write a novel. You wanted to be live Gustave Flaubert--he spent up to seven hours on a single page. You don't have the fucking patience. You don't have the fucking concentration."
--Shut up.

Fuck

Oh, if you're not part of my regular circle of friends, then you may be shocked with the cussing. I have indeed started swearing. I would like to start off the topic by saying this:

Fuck you, normative society and your fucking norms. How you condone swearing publicly, and how you forbid your esteemed representatives from doing it, and how you do it in the safety of privacy.

Kids shouldn't swear. No, that is not adultcentrist shit and that is not a statement of hypocrisy.

I'm gonna tell you my justification for my cussing. So sexual drives. They're in the id--the biggest and deepest part of the psyche. Think of it as... shit or piss or sweat or whatever it is that you have to excrete. Now, if you don't let it out you're going to rot. Think of swearing as the tiny beads of sweat you have to let go so you won't overheat. Where did I get that? Richard Randall's book about porn. Can't remember the title. He got it from Freud, if I remember it right.

Why shouldn't kids cuss? Kids shouldn't think about sex too early. They've spent a good deal of their infancy unconsciously repressing their oedipal thoughts, and cussing would release it back too early. They wouldn't be able to handle it.

Random story

And it's annoying to boot. I was in Netopia and there was this kid playing Special Forces. He didn't have his headphones on, but it was on full blast and on his shoulders. God, it was so annoying that you hear "Fire in the hole!" over and over and over and over again. And to add to that, you hear him swearing with his pompous, eight-year-old voice.

What I was hearing at that time is more or less like this:

"Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!" "Fire in the hole!" "Putang ina mo!"

For half an hour or so.

Half-baked crap poem

(And that title was brought to you by all-new "postmodern" Inferiority Complex--now with sass!)

My mind is like a factory
that I send far too many of my resources.
It works and works all day,
and its only product is smoke
that disappears into the aether.

Commentary

"Teacher, how is that a poem?"

It's a poem because the writer... umm... pressed the enter key every now and then when he wrote it.

"Where there enter keys in ancient times?"

Yes.


AW YEAH I'M GONNA BE AN AWESOME TEACHER ONE DAY.

First

Here I go again with another blog. I've done it all before. I made a blog on my Multiply, and I managed to make some people laugh, and to catch the attention of some of my friends. How did that end? Ah, there's the last post that I forgot to put before I set it aside like my Friendster (in retrospect, it seems like a piece of hipster shit to me--kinda like those tacky scarfs everybody wears, augh). It ended with a whimper, not a bang.

And it's probably gonna be the same with this blog.

I mean, what the fuck, what if lives all around the world were like this too? You start off really hot, starry-eyed, ready to take on the world. And then a year or two later, you change. For the worse. That hot streak goes cold. Those starry eyes get taken by cold disillusionment. You realize that the world is too big a place--too many people to compete with, too many obstacles--too many, too many, too many.

But then again, you can blame it--no, fuck no. I'm a fucking existentialist, and I will not use the word 'blame' in such a way. Ahem. Excuse me.

Now, you can--err--one thing that makes us go like this is ningas kugon. You know, that bad Philippine attitude. Hot start, meh finish. It's happened to me quite too often. I write a poem, and tell it, "I'll edit you later, don't worry" in a tone as if I were its dad. Well, I'm a fuck-up of a father. I was cleaning up stuff in my room because we had to move when I saw loads of my poems--on yellow pads, bond paper and size one sheets. God, what the fuck have I done? I've forsaken my work--and myself! "No, no," those are the only words I can utter. They do not exude denial, but regret--or grief.

Let me continue talking about ningas kugon. I think what's happening to the Philippines is a case of massive ningas kugon. We were awesome around the time of Marcos, and we know the nation all pitched in during the Edsa Rev and even after. It all went downhill after that. As in really downhill. I don't have all the facts to back it up (augh, I know).... Hmm. The government's a joke.

The government's a joke. Oh, that's another thing. (Side note: At this point, I'm starting to feel that ningas kugon catching on.) I remember the the time when I got caught at Ayala for not turning on my headlight. I forgot. So they stop me over, and give me two offenses: reckless driving and lack of proper use of signal. Latter: P150, Former: P600. And we all know I shouldn't get the second. I didn't beat the red light. I didn't swerve. 'Di ako naging kaskasero. Look at it this way. If walking were a crime, they'd be charging me for walking AND using my legs.

So, yeah. It's fucked up. And Panfilo fucking Lacson is running for president. Ping Lacson. Used to be a small-time cop, and now he has cars and a big house. Or whatever. I don't want to try recalling the other cases. It's hot, and I don't want to get pissed as it is.

Anyway. (Side note: Oh my God, this is so fucking long. -- In retrospect: it's not that long.)

Shall I vote when this country's politicians really seem like many blood sucking tics? (Poly-tics, heh.) Well, I remember I was listening to Good Times on 89.9 one day, and they had some lady senator on. I can't remember who. Jamby Madrigal? Whatever. Anyway, whoever she was, she was cool, because when Moe asked her if it's impossible not to be corrupt, she answered with a story that one time she got offered cash for a project or what not, and she turned it down. Well, it could be bullshit, but I believed it (In retrospect: Alangan naman aminin niya sa radyo na oo imposeble 'yun. Saying 'yes' would put her in a hot seat--maybe one in a courthouse.)

The Nirvana Fallacy

It's one of the good things I learned from Cracked.Com. Just because things aren't going to go perfect, doesn't mean we shouldn't act. Because if we thought like that, well, nothing would really happen, right?

If you've read up to here, oh my God. You are either really bored, or this post is more interesting than I thought. Or you skipped ahead because you saw this: SEX. SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX.

(For women:
GAY SEX. GAY SEX. GAY SEX. GAY SEX. GAY SEX. GAY SEX. GAY SEX. GAY SEX.)