PAWNING JESUS

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I was thinking up of a weird creative escape via selling Jesus pendant.

I did not realize it is worth much until I had it appraised.

Hmmmm, I said.

They rejected Him though. It was a funny twist of the jagged edge: He got turned down.

Anyhow, the education I had under my mentors yielded these results over misplaced choices. My son was already writing about the divide even before. I was so adamant in defending my chosen musicians, providing pestilence and drought threats. I never understood him before. Now I do.

So, I am putting a disclaimer to what I had been lousily praising before but who, in upclose mundane encounters, are simple duds.

Naming names is an open area of frankness (anyhow, they had been whacking me with "we shall rape you" kind of clothed threats----them who had been singing their way to beerhouses).

I do not like the band Eraserheads anymore. Of course, this band disbanded over creative differences in the past. Homegrown: they were bred from a national university whose roots started from riding in jeepneys and lugging their guitars over sweaty shirts.

Last time I heard, they are sporting coolie cars out of their rock star status and that is admirable. Their recent individual outputs had changed the musical landscape in terms of musical progressions: they have good, quality, sound engineering and it saddened me that they lost their will to be revolutionary in a proper kind of way. Something was lost in these kids: they adored their benefactors more than their muses this time and it shows: the temerity and qualitative slants in their music had gone sour and slid, off skidding, in some slope somewhere. Also, I saw their vampire video done hastily over mug of beers I suppose and it was played over and over again amid their claims of superiority. It was an ugly realization. They have feet of clay and are not much to hear even. Check this out: Vampire song done by its guitarist I suppose and see its world class texture. Admirable. If only it did not sound and look so nubile and sub-par.

For me, I say: "Ang bilis bumaliktad sa pagkatha dahil sa broom!". I am wondering who their mentors are now. They have grown much and had grown somewhat dead in spirit. I do not like this band anymore. For the record. It has lost its lustre for me. Even their individual outputs seem lame and done by people on the block just seeking for cheap scores. In short: they sound craggy, old, used up, sold.

Some writers I had looked up to in the past had been dented too. They are so unlike the words they write. They could write women empowerment on papers but are the latent aggressors of inhumanity in real-life settings. Beneath their cloak of mountainous clinging lay hearts that actually beat for Calgary sojourns and anything snow-bound. They profess to hate the West but at the instance of travel, they head to lush springfileds and proudly smile for the Canon, perhaps, befuddled by the fact that in the country where they spray paint and create "fictional" chaos, the real suffering people do not even see their botoxed asses. You question these preferences not because of envy. You question these misplaced representations for their hypocritical leanings.

My father, of the writing demographic, has written these too. He is hated by both the right and the left for being too left of center. In the medium of visuals, he got his final say: "Woe me! Give me tears! Give me creativity! Show me your perfect talent!" over montages of slurring gatherings in red light districts and questionable hiring procedures. I think you have to get naked first for them to say you are a talent. Dads say it best. His works even got turned down, over exclusivity of principles. Damn. Libertarians on the outside, dictators on the inside. So tsu.

Of course, they will not change. They shall continue doing that because they love their country above self; they love the poor above their Lamborghinis; their hearts beat for the flooded more than their hidden houses in lucrative places; they do not beat up their wives black and blue in dazed trances when in drug zones; they open up their multi media facilities to the real struggling craftsmen of the country.

Now that the government is giving these marginalized artists the necessary push and support, of better alternatives even, of course, we welcome it like breezes of wind. What ought to be public must remain in public. It is not a privatized privilege.

That was given back for a cause, not for maintaining mediocrity.

Word.

What happened to these people? They do this to save their lifestyles. It is worth emulating. It is a principled choice. It is a productive way to earn a place in a decaying universe.

Sorry is not a word. It is an action. It pains me to know sons of illustruous people paying off their fathers' legacies and foundations for excellence over secretive dalliances for the bilked ones.

You chew on and you chew more: what drove them to greed?

Scriptwriters: there's YOUR story.

I once read that the evilness of some industry people (entertainment, politics) are fit for the boondocks but I never believed that before. Now, I know.

Yes, that's a better movie.

COMING IN FOR THE FAST LANE

By: Iris P. Concepcion

Once upon a time, there lived a group of people with extraordinary skills they planned to rule the world. Somewhere along the road, they forgot about their goals and decided to do personal things. They frequented beerhouses, travelled in places in lieu of country work and produced things they often pass off as splendid outputs (they are not). In short, they forgot about the......................world.

Something like this then emerges from this heap of observation:

I just came from a mass that has a very noisy layman giving hosts to a flock. I think he was having terrible problems with his nails. Anyhow, the youth, lots of them, started lining up on front of him and just muttered the very powerful "Laban" mantra. It delighted me to watch his face: that red-pocked face that did not know how to parry the influx of young men and women chanting the L world. It is one for the movies.

Sometimes too, we create an environment of mistrust to suit our own ends. When caught with our trespasses, we blame everything to everyone except ourselves: that sly, stuttering defense of the trapped "goodness." I have a premise for this:

It is always a thorny issue to be dubbed mediocre in this island filled with holy people basking in their own crowns. There are not enough people brave enough to tell them: you can do it better.

How to discern though, I got this from one of my sons.

He was writing then about the limited access to brilliance due to closed patronages. I did not understand then why he was nitpicking the inputs of what I regarded then as exceptional outputs. I never realized, he has travelled far and wide, is exposed to the richness of the craft, has a long lineage to show for it. I thought then that he was malignantly arrogant: his choices were delimited; he was not praising much.

Last night though, I finally learned what he had been telling me over the years. He was keen on telling me I had been fed crap even in my list of music and letters and perhaps, I deserve more expansive outlets for my passion.

Gladly, he did provide me that silently: trodding along paths of unique education, hooking me up with people without monetarial motive except to further my craft. Believe me, there are lurking impotents out there dangling you (insulting even) with things that hover between stupidity and callousness (like their facelifted faces). SAMple: "You must be amenable to amorous advances or the ticket shall not be yours."

As if my son is not richer than the danglers. But that is beside the point. I mean, I say this as a figure of speech. Just to spite: I am a sucker for lineage. Perhaps, I shall be tried spitefully for this too but take it as it is: a braggart's way has its own equivalent booty.

Of course, you want to get some rifle and shoot it just below the leg of this injured man's misplaced haughtiness. The things they write for free facelifts.

Anyhow to this malevolent son, I write:

Thank you for enlarging the capacities of my mind; for widening the patience of my soul even for the plain obnoxious; for allowing me to see a world that could be improved without the noise. Thank you for the reward of limitless offers of visual magic, far beyond what my imagination can even conjure. You did not give me light: you gave me a shining one. You did not give me courage to pursue my own dream: you gave me a weird environment to finetune my bravery.

You thrust upon myself a potpourri of creative individuals I dare not thought I could bump into: but they were there, in live theaters, showing me a potent connectivity to the kindred club. I envy your lushness of creative charity, to myself who had been poorly given choices of the substandard ones.

Thank you for providing the love of this corn's cob a wider latitude to show what he is capable of: him who had been put through a lot by reason of my candor but I am not a tightlipped crab, am I?

So many times, you had been mimicked and pruned and cloned but any glance of this track, you easily shift: to the edges of greatness, you tilt.

Continue flying, embrace the winds, soar more.

Your surrogate mother did not have wings to see you off alone. He is doing it with you.

FACING THE GREATEST WORK OF MANKIND

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I was gladdened when some of the people I look up to are already enmeshed with women empowering works, are making sure we shall have a solid sense of business structures and are eating $54 hotdog lunch treats for staff instead of paying tickets for tennis conferences while at work and do Maiu as a sense of creative brainstorming.

I likewise received a message from someone with a good sense of brain in between her ears:

"Great women talk about ideas.....average women talk about random things. Insecure women talk about other women. Jealous women try to death to be the center of attention. But we pretty women? We never talk. We just smile, flip our hair and everyone notices us."

I had been dubbed haughty for the things I air but somehow, the universe makes a quality sensibility and connectivity to what I had been doing. I had been proud when the film series created a creative "reality" interaction that does not depend on questionable multi-media facilities. I couldn't be more prouder when scriptwriters I had revered from afar pop out and mention this writer's name over splendid reel of incisive ads about seashells, flying. Of orange kites travelling and zeroing in on the beautiful atmosphere of inspirational journeys that give back to writers their worth of exceptional works.

I am happy to have a President who creates this kind of scribbling environment without much fluff of P.R. work. One commentator said he needs not much P.R. machinery since he speaks straight. I think, this transparency to fix the country is his best asset. Those who hire much for covering up must have sinned a lot. Remember too that he is the brother of a sassy sibling who had taken much punches from these same set of world-renowned experts but is now smarter for standing it up on her own.

More often than not, you'd know you have done well when they pick on your hair, armpits and mouth to defend their turf of reliability. They have truly adored nationalist slants with in-depth research work. Perhaps, guitar picking is better than weeping.

I wish I could speak about the conversations reserved only for discussing ideas I had with women who did not speak much but had done much, much more for people. They are sweeter, much more life-changing than the kibitzer of noise that cast nothing more than a dent of amusement and "who, them?" kind of chutzpah.

Evelyn Amore: I have always known you as a creative supporter of the medium. Knowing you upclose is one of the best gifts the directorial headquarter has done for this corn. While the bubbling breasts (those who get emotional when they see snow peaks and mountain tops--ohh the hasty exits and growling sounds they make when guilt strikes in unholy hours) try hard to get noticed, you gave me your sense of smart grace.

Thank you for allowing me to fly, sister of the kindred one. You are beautiful, truly.

I SOCITI IGNOTI

(Persons Unknown)

Chaplin Takes The Bike

By: Iris P. Concepcion

As an icing to a smorgasbord of caviar (even food need to get mixed up), the recently wrapped up European Festival skewered a visual hilarity that is as craniumly deep as Einstein.

Done in a Charlie Chaplin celluloid execution, it is slapstick but with a brain dragging on every frame like a piece of conscience prickler.

A story about reformed convicts planned a burglary ( a house filled with art collectibles) and bungled it. The protagonists drilled a hole in the beautiful wall and a leaking water burst forth in a shocking surprise. I let out a huge laughter as I did with the ladies on my back following my lead laughter. There were bursting pipes with injured arms passing by them, and heavy luggages seen being sported around. This is my kick: I thought I'd be the only miserable fellow laughing over it but these ladies joined in that guttural fest like a hybrid bunch of chipmunks.

It feels good to poke fun at ourselves sometimes. The striking chord in confronting ourselves over misdeeds, past and present, is best spooled from the point of view of a truly piercing, laughing, tricky camera.

Everyone wanted forgiveness in the end but are afraid for their pride to crash that is why they continue being blind to these indiscretions. But we discern the seemingly wicked manner of looking at ourselves via a knowing audience gallery in spectral shock and awe. But only with the right script and material can you achieve these things. They do not grow on trees overnight.

This is a perfectly dubbed film with banters from people who can laugh at themselves while in transformation process without even realizing that thay might have saved the world for it.

One thing about this fest, it does not discriminate. It invites people of disparate ideologies to participate in the creative process, of being poked at personally that go straight to the conscience. I have seen people water their eyes for identifying themselves with the actors in the reel: the their real excesses were put to them in a tactful, soul-searching manner.

One of my retarded sons is one haughty craftsman and he of the proud mind once wrote that he knows only two writers: Nick Joaquin and Brillantes. I harangued him via Hotmail e-mail a piece discrediting his claim: I said, unknown Filipinos have been writing streams of consciousness materials ever since but are not given breaks for them. I just did not expect his lead will follow a much, much deeper cinematic interaction that spoke more in silence than noise. Even the ads and trailers were potent enough to drill holes in the mind like cockroaches crawling in the ground.

Shut and dazed. It is no fluke then that the opposing goodness and evilness of mankind get fair treatment in their textures. These people do not shut out people who oppose them. They get the best seats and crowd.

Then, they went out teary-eyed and thinly argumentative in the comfort room and you look into their eyes with a knowingness of decaying souls trapped in denial.

You want to say, "Hey, it is okay to sin" but out of that situation, they elongate their protruding breasts and show them amply in defiance.

You never see them again as poor souls but as people in transit, of the once cold winter nights spent in a faraway world, groping for truths about their own selves.

The ones who listened are not from here. The ones who eventually listened are the thespians I had admired singly over the years.

They spoke one name when I pass by: Iris.

I never get star-struck. They are just ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

They also happen to read this blog with enough familiarity.

Thank you for that gift of medium; for that seemingly blighted but opulent reward of having been understood in an array of useless noise and blah and threats.

I had been validated because of that.

WHEN THE REAL LOUISE GOT CUDDLED BY THE SWEDISH PRESIDENT

By: Iris P. Concepcion

The ongoing film series, subject of my review in this corn's previous entry, yielded a lot of reactions both from the celluloid cloth (they get talked back a lot but the visual language always wins as I had observed) and the armchaired audience.

In one movie, I saw my teacher changing seats, training her eyes to a, well, maybe a member of a flock that had gone awry. Lo and behold, she sat beside an equally elegant lady who had likewise been frequenting (is this a word?) the theater all by her lonesome. I wondered what kind of conversation they had exchanged while the reel was flowing like waves in the ocean. I just heard one, loud, offbeat word and was awed by its echoing reverberations inside the cinema.

As I said, in my interaction, I have learned about passion, about soul-searching, about institutional systems and about men in general in less than one hundred words. If you were anywhere near this visual stadium, consider it a privilege if you had been a.) dressed down tactfully b.) given advice randomly c.) reviewed hourly and was chosen as seatmate in that group of 500 million friends (who are nonetheless bound to have enemies, as is expected, as one poster had placed it). I am familiar with this environment. I grew up with a father who was demanding that kind of authority even since I was weaned out from my mother's womb.

I have seen many eyes turn weepy, perhaps, as the medium excised some truths about ourselves in a salacious manner. Believe me, I was not spared from this if some nitpick about this august chance of mingling with your somewhat ordinary but brilliant people. This teacher even pointed out a scene of one semi-erogenous angle and commented on it casually as : "Oh, that's you."

Of course, I bit my lips because I wanted so much to let out a guffaw in my bellyaching manner of chortling. Like, who would have thought.

Often, we find it boggling why we are drawn to earthlings so different from ourselves. Then the reality strikes: we are all united in our own humanity. They never change nor vary: compassion, laughter, madness, happiness. We speak of families, of the food we eat, on how we cope with various instances of living progressions and we strike a chord of familiarity, upfront, without even trying too hard.

I now have an answer why I am comfortable this way. Without any pretense, these people say it as is i.e. "You need not worry about what clothes you wear, just be discerning of what is decent and what is not under the given circumstances"; or "You look like you are going to an Oscar awards, what gives?".

Compare this with the decent members of the reformed class: "(Expletive), I am the one earning, sampalin kaya kita sa kayabangan mo" and you already know how William Golding's Lord Of The Flies got its bearing from this aggressive behavior. You just need to deal with them on equal terms, on the same mold.

There are those types who got mad easily over nonsense stuff like the size of extremities. I have experienced one almost pushing me out from a vehicle because of the music I was listening to. Everyone can be emotional if a competition has, say, 10 inches shoe size. I mean, it is already terrible to be listening to all that shallow skirmish but you get the drift: those who are tight-lipped almost always wins the battle ahead. By the way, the losing guy here elbowed me, shoved my hand and God knows what hideous physical beatings women near him might have experienced owing to this misplaced gratitude. It is senseless, pointless, stupid.

In case you wonder why my title is eerily crafted that way, blame it on one film. The Swedish President took pity on the crying tot so he held her on his arms.

Louise got inside the castle not because of the wail but because of her motivational innocence this time.

Yeah. It is soooooo Laban.

And now, a quote from Jessica Zafra:

"Like, totally, whatever, Filipinos in general seem to have the ability to absorb the speeach of other nationalities and recite it back to them. I suspect it is an adaptive survival mechanism, the result of having to deal with a succession of colonizers. As my friend put it: "Nausukan lang ng tambucho ng British Airways, nagka British accent na."

UNIVERSITY OF LIFE

By: Iris P. Concepcion

Show me a film that can expand my visceral and tactile functions and I shall brave any storm to look for it.

There is an ongoing film festival (European Cinema Fest) that shows how splicing can be good for the psyche, that it could be an art form, that it actually speaks straight to the brain without even trying hard.

I have thus far experienced an alternative form of education on creativity, politics and let us just say, human relations in general.

My top picks in the ongoing series are Philanthropy (The Baron). An eternally elegant lady was giving a spontaneous critique while the reel was being shown as I did my own talking contribution in that mutual sense of familiarity and respect for the medium (I watched this twice; the first one an eye-opener; the second one, a feel of visceral burst).

This is a story about a man who had been racking up on bills, is not enjoying the good varieties of life simply because he was writing literature. A reverse, blunt essay to the creative soul, I was struck most by its Shakespearean parlay of communicating this lack of sense for the truly essential: it stares us right through our eyes and wouldn't even dare give it a blink.

A maestro is thus put into the celluloid as a (good) Devil's advocate with his splendid harangue of verbal laments that turned into a comical, lunatic even, soul-knifing dialogue. Here, the man, that most benevolent benefactor of truth, spoke to the craftsman: "Please, make me move, give me tears, write about your apartment!" as waste is done outside spent on booze and fancy eating and excessive sexual sojourns. One is not lost by the fact that art, in this paradoxical beauty, is its biggest casualty.

He saved his best crippling sentences to those who had lost their creative trances to senseless unuse of the brilliant medium: "What, pity you creep? I am a beggar's writer. It is better to beg than to steal."

Or something to that effect. Catch this students: it is being reshown in future dates. This could make you compose, create, think, live better than before as I shall do.

The next movies I liked are these:

An Education (United Kingdom). I like this film as the woman thrust upon choices followed her own heart and eventually got what she had aspired on her own terms. A student wanted to learn cello but was instead dangled by the riches of the world. She became desolate for it. She talked back to the teachers ("Show me the life that I must create", she seems to be saying, "and I shall show you my brilliancy!"----Rocket, am giving that line for you for free) and made her choice finally. Music came after her, humming wildly and freely.

El Greco . The resurgence of the nagging Maestro again: He wanted himself painted but the painter could only give him a substandard pittance worth of brushstrokes. I laughed out loud and it seems, only me and the culprits would nod to this familiarity of the sublime.

Soul At Peace. A moving, gut-wrenching confessional of a man's spiritual transformation that speaks of in-your-face sincerity.

I was once advised to enter a classroom to feed my words their lilt, stroke, action and nerve. It is not that I am not open to these possibilities but this time around, I am having it from the pavements of streets, from every spoon of soup and dish fed to my mouth, from the mind entrenching encounters with unique strangers who had given me lessons about life, spirit and transformation and even, funnily, from people who speak candidly about how to build strong legs.

If I had travelled luxuriously, I would give back to this country the richness of these experiences in various mediums only in exceptional, if not perfect, renditions. That is being demanded for every creator and for every man who dreams of altering, giving this world even, a little paint here and there, for a sunshiny embrace of life: no poor nor rich man can argue with this, that is the essential thing you must not blink out on.

The kids I am writing about here know best the works for they have experienced them: they have been there and are incorporating this in their practical life. My appreciation then, dear readers, is not founded on false grounds.

They DO create.

NAMING NAMES

By: Iris P. Concepcion

(If you read this yesterday, read this again today: new words came visiting after a night's worth of melodic trances):

My countrymen,

It's been a while: my fingers are itching not from word drips but out of boredom.

My writing pieces get stuck in note pads. There is a recent running gag in my own universe involving names. It has been my waterloo ever since. Whenever I write my own brand of fiction, I find it difficult baptizing my characters. I once read that John Updike keeps a journal of dates and names (some he culls from the Bible) to facilitate this writer's memory hunchback.

I need not go to the Bible this time to look for names. My dwarf ward (who kicks me often when falling asleep) has this hilarious way of naming people she meets on the block. Sample:

"Si Baldo yan."

If she does not know the name of the person asked, she will gladly supply some creative alternative name like : "Si Perpetual yan." She would readily supply the traits of this person i.e. : "May dalawang ngipin yan. Bulok at di bulok."

Obviously, the man she speaks about works at Perpetual Hospital.

She has names like Pilay, Ompong, Manong Vakla and some other identification tags I find hilarious.

Or if she misses a tag, she says this: "Nakalimutan mo yung matandang duling."

This kid has taken on some challenging tasks too. She could spell difficult words (she is only in prep school) like rendezvous, beautiful, trophy and restaurant but is clueless when you ask her to spell, say, bag. If it is easy, she tells me off the bat: "That is not difficult enough."

When the rest of the world gets frenzy over Internet messages, checking Facebook accounts often by hour, I sometimes shut down these mechanical connections and deal with people themselves, in actual flesh to flesh verbal combats. Some of their quirks do get into my creative psyche that they haunt and populate my next-envisioned fictional works. Surely they shall involve kids and their snots and their delirious logic that defy not only gravity but hypocrisy.

And yes, Rocketman, S. Adler does seem to be an interesting new fold to our way of life. Your being inclusive despite everything is a classic act worth the hear or read. As I said, I want to tell the world: "Have him touch you and your vocal chords: he shall change not only how you approach voice but your manner of thinking."

He is into disco beats right now and they are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Hear the girls sing and sing happily. He gives gifts (cheap ones but indelibly poignant) to his oppressors and says "thank you" after every performance.

That, to me, is not breeding. It is an Omnipresent act.

In my melodic sojourn last night, I overheard some wonderfully arranged ditties that used only one instrument. My son, as always, improved on them. Even the lyrics are Iris-ian (he wants me to take credit for things I do not even see as my contribution: I feel it obscene to be yapping about myself unless it is for self-catharsis sessions). I was in middle slumber but it made me smile. Here:

"Daddy knows you are an airplane."

It is not even inside, or above, or on, or in, or beside the airplane but YOU ARE an airplane.

I could no have strung it any better: I need not even scout melodies for that, it is already poetic as it is.

God meant it this way: once you lose yourself into something, make sure you lose it for a worthwhile but happy cause.

I did and came out calmer for it.

Sincerely yours,

A Citizen

WHAT IS (SOMETIMES) WRONG WITH OUR RACE

By: Iris P. Concepcion

There is only one way to dampen this clique of street outworkers conducting their ways of innovativeness in uninked communication.

There are a lot of things to uproot in the system and one of them is not even organizational in nature.

It is the psyche. This numbness to truthful insults and conscience-pricking visual modes---are normally the apt wake-up calls to rattle some hornet's prideful nest. It is sometimes difficult to get these messages across, especially when they are reached to 50 years old and above.

Age does not guarantee nor assure one of rightness, rank, nor title. Trying to knock down these walls is always an option to explore. This could not be disregarded.

What is wrong with our race then that we could not detach ourselves from the comforts of excess?

There are people who get it at the first ray of light. Upclose, they seem happier for it. I have seen them move on to other productive works that feel freer: loftier even. Once they start talking about the beauty slants on the lips of their children instead of their spreadsheets, I know from my gut, they have finally found their inner peace and calling.

And I am more than honored to have been the recipient of these various humanist confessions. I will not trade it (that proud, content face, the confidence of a free, breathing man) for a bungee jumping in whatever nook that lens may have followed at this point in time.

It is the psychological make-up. It is difficult to admit that we have sometimes trespassed the sanctity of selfhood for ego: all for what? Fear of rejection, fear of feedback, fear of crumbling image.

Filipinos tend to hold on to deteriorating things out of these: pride and ego. Those who had extracted themselves out from this constriction have learned it the hard way: freedom is sweeter when seized from within.

I have also observed that Filipinos do have huge ideas and concepts. Few, nonetheless, will take the brave, bold world to jump out from this realm of deadened "brainstorming."

We pay much more (figuratively and literally) to boardroom conceptualizations and reward ourselves in some outback adventure without following through projects that could materially redound to the larger sectors of society.

Lackluster performance in actual work becomes the name of the game. There is always a bogged down pipe somewhere in the middle just because there is a slack somewhere and nobody wants to pick up the scattered and shattering mess.

People who come in to remove these are always heroes before my eyes.

Lastly, we seem to be a rare breed of sore losers. We think of ourselves as infallible. It is more of pride than to a strong attachment of hardwon principles.

Everyone works for a common, noble cause: losing or winning is not even a consideration in these matters.

Simply put, one does or does not do, or join advocacies, to rise above one's self, much grander than your family's or friends' welfare. You do it for your country, you do it for the world.

Think of the millions who had been duped: this could include floating children amid heaps of floodwater.

Perhaps, with this in mind, decisions to correct things may be easier.