I CAME TO PASS THE WORLD OF FORKS

By: Iris P. Concepcion

Whenever there is a spooked-out eventuality in my periphery of optical absorption, I credit people who are camera-savvy to give my cellphone a necessary boost.

Even my innocent fork could wreck some lense's purpose. I also know that I have done something right when everyone directs me to be wrong. This sense of balance has always made me suspect for things I never would have imagined I shall give myself credit for i.e., rattling some old rhino skin.

When pushed, my daddies multiply by the hundreds and tell me to leave the rudiments of ugly politics. They advise me to just...............eat, laugh and write. If you have seen their recent photographs, guard your conscience; they do not look like humans.

They are actually fun to watch.

The silliest of course are those who stake you out for relationship twirls; I have not paid enough attention to that in the past. It is irrelevant that I must start hyperventilating over things I know are just there for some cheap, vengeful artwork. I am not so sure if this is a calisthenics of publicity work but I really, really, do not buy that crap. I am too old and wisened up by the better other in the world of lying and deceitful affection. If you love money, try doing business. Besides, I own a happy but riotous mane now and not much of a display.

So, here.

If they hate robots or German frankfurters, you could not make me say "no" to them just because I am not partial to furry boots. If I like your sentences, do not shove down on me your lifestyle of choice or your wonderful people. I always discover people based on my own standards of Richter-scale finding. If they are wonderful, I'd know.

My true friends are borderliners: they do not know what I do, or what I listen to. They are foulmouthed without offending me. They say things like:

"You have a period? You might stain my car seat." Then we go to the nearest church and ask for God's assistance.

They give me ditties I always seek even if they deliver it to me after seven years.

One of the corn's sons had managed to excavate an old Saturday Night Fever album cut I immensely adore. Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You." (I insist on the original, vinyl recording). These children are this writer's best friends now. They are ugly at their worst and super fabulous at their best.

Anyhow, I woke up the other day singing to this cut and it gladdened me.

I shall show you my fork next time when nobody is getting piqued over sense, sensibility and pure pride.

WRITING THE LETTER N

By: Iris P. Concepcion

"How do you write n?" the kid asked me one lazy afternoon.

She is again doing a ravaging manifestation of creative outbreak running afoul to her height, plugged closely in between her fingers. Like a shroud molten from the gallery of Egyptian mummies, she has a latent fascination for the name of the caricatured guy (again, this fixation astounds).

That is me, of course, again, enshrined with a chaotic and berserk mane.

I instructed her to write "and" between the couple.

"What is in?" she prodded on.

Since kids are exceptionally more introspective than their counterpart adults, she sketched this not-so-plain-dummy fluke once more.

Anyone who writes, even forwards, that the egg is rotten is either a recovering chiropractor patient or a bungee jumping finalist. An eggerian beauty is not a sight, it is a renewal of self.

It is not exceptional gift that we seek. It keeps on repeating itself though. On our plate, like a peerless and unscratched vintage record.

Fancy a sleeping marathon as I wind up scoring a point by removing a dirty cuticle off my feet.

The kid who drew this is still in prep school.

Imagine the possibilities of the future where she could shape the world as she herself wishes under her monster and galactical pencil.

I, as an adult, engage myself in atrophies meant to sound silly. I could not compete with the brilliancy of these kids, always. Once in a while though, I keep questions to myself.

I call them Questions Of The Underworld And The Divertly Slighted:

1. Why do first-class countries hide their electrical lines? Why do they invest more in efficient, faster, speedier mass transport than horribly maintain inefficient and pollutant vehicles?

2. Why do poor countries pay much power for posts that had seen better days?

3. Where do the hidden charges in your water and power bills really go?

4. What social benefits (free, socialized amenities) have I truly gained access to in the past 40 years in exchange for tax payments? Within that span of unobliterated power, what have I done much in terms of social aesthetics and/or listening to/influencing others to implement these?

5. What winter trips, vacation leaves and writing workshops would I give up to sit down with a retarded person who needs a roof under his head?

6. What opening lines do you often utter during coffee conversations ("I offered marijuana to my mistress' friend, hahahahaha [old, sensible, respected hag] or "Do draft me a franchise proposal Iris." ). No brainer.

7. Have I patronized/ helped propel companies that do not give back to the government what is due it or do I see public institutions as bleeding, easy fund sources?

8. When pushed to the wall, would I go to the gym or adopt a kid?

9. Given a situation, do I stick it out with a family in need of medical or familial attention or would I seek another company ONLY because it gives me instant freebies?

10. How well have I treated people in the past when I do not get my own way? Am I vengeful, bitter or sulking? What have I done to inspire a person's creative growth? Better put, have I been a pain-in-the-ass to someone to uplift my image to the world better than it actually is?

GREGARIOUS AND MARINATED
By: Iris P. Concepcion

Suddenly, sky clears up where clowns drowned Frostville for impressive scenarios.

A pressing line. A sigh. A sentence erupts.

"That is an ugly footbridge," a man who is too polite to remind his seasoned company that his school's restroom had been severely vandalized by Norwegian-bound students in decades and remained as that, stained, blurted out a lament in his winter clothes.

He is referring to a structure that was not even existent since Marco Polo circumnavigated the world. Blue and yellow never had this thing explicitly nuanced.

The woman, receiving the tirade, looked at him straightfaced. She thought of the mentor who dared break the uncreative mold with not much nag nor prodding. The visionary took on the challenge and built the footbridge. The woman calmly absorbed the definitive defense of specialized work.

Painted and as unobtrusely cluttering as a scattering muck, the woman could not imagine how he could have missed the point.

They (public footbridges) just appeared with nary a thick cloud nor wind breaking their loud engineering apparitions.

The woman thought of the hours, errogeneously, spent under dim lights, snowboarding, basketball tours, pricey sneakers, copied slogans, stupid resort pools and aquarium-ed women cages. Talks on how to spend a miniscule apportionment on kiddie playgrounds for displaced kids in their own ghetto surroundings.

"If that is ugly, I do not know WHAT to call your own Emperor's Clothes. Excellent, perhaps?" I smiled through my teeth.

Woman kept on walking, fast strides, tiptoeing on the comforts of these "ugly" footbridges and left the man who has more pipelines to improve on.

There are far better-built edifices, surely sprawling, that are not burnt on Ipods and buying wires/headsets. For much of the people wallowing in the lower strata of pyramidian humanity, the woman continued thinking, this is a respite. They could not go to the malls surely, to enjoy the fruits of social fundings. At least some people used it for pustisos. More functional.

The ugly detonator could not have browsed the Internet and sought the advices (or bilked ideas for free) of some errant novice for this. He has classier things to contribute to widespread grammatical errors of unused school textbooks and faux identification cards to buff up a mob arsenal. And there are more videos to shoot that the mass can have access to without paying much.

That is culture.

"What creative good is there to build when profound people deface it?" another take on the coach of long-ranged, football dreams.

Woman takes pictures of these comforts minus the defacement and spoke thus, with freaking tears on her angry eyes:

"Judge for your self."

As last note: "Distractions are the only weapons left for people who are desperate."

PAIRING IN PARADISE

By: Iris P. Concepcion

Kids in this warped and parallel universe are acting in a freakish, war mode. They are grubby (but retaining the plumpness and supernatural beauties inherent in their blood), ill-tempered and are eating this cold delicacy called scramble like elfin lunatics.

I asked the curly-haired one what possible topic I could write as an excuse for my blog entry today. I am sure I could whip sentences even under the word snot.

The curly-haired jewel said I must write about the guy she herself had caricatured above.

That is him beside me (explanation later) in this drawing.

She drew this one over a box of chocolate biscuits. By a stroke of luck, I was Ben Cabbed like a Beatle. I ended up looking like a cross-over mix of God's Only Begotten Son, Lennon and de Quiros. Skewered like a tofu, I could not complain much about the brilliant representation of myself in this on-the-spot museum activity teachers must adopt in classrooms once in a while.

I do not know why I want kids having their way whenever they eat or play. I want them to gobble their desserts all by themselves; never mind the smudges on their faces. I want them to roam under the rain like they are mobile pails.

Often, when you bring them to pricey places, they, too, shall act accordingly. They use the napkins and utensils properly. And they act more mature than the old, loud people.

One time, I had a bad chow deal in that I was served food quite smaller than the usual serving sizes. I complained politely. Since I brought along my dwarf young 'un, I told her to plant a kiss on the waiter's cheeks, him who had served me. It evened out the battle of manners in the long run.

Kids are the best accessories you can tag along in extremely hostile places.

This guy in the caricature? He is pretty much this carefree kid you can dutifully place on a high chair and he would stay there like a crowned king without a whimper.

He does look better than me in this picture.

Way far better looking than myself. The artist-kid has this answer why it is so:

"I can't draw you as you are. You are difficult to draw."

Amen to that.

On another note:

I am glad there was a huge howl over the tourism campaign slogan of the country. We have seen so much of the great works of copying and rewarding people hellbent on doing mediocre things. We have heard this exceptionality on radio, fashion, films and even the very psyche of noontime mental upgrade.

Case in point: there is so much blah regarding better services in our midst. Whenever I look up the streets though, I see the ugly electrical lines almost hitting the buses' roofs: they look like they have not been changed since the 1940's. You often wonder if the additional charges on your monthly bills are worth the punch.

Also, I have seen the footbridges in Quezon City vandalized by all these spray-painting people and I often wonder why there is a concerted effort to foment ugliness instead of just cleaning up the streets. Perhaps, that is one way of building up a fallen credibility: you have seen how these people are often bombed by their non-existent works and their exceptional public works in the past.

We often question expertise when it merely copies, goes to Rome and sits on excessive bonuses spent on violins and substandard rondalla gatherings. We deserve to be called a Third World country if we aim not for excellence but mediocrity. Enough of Psalm corporate hooginalism and more of affordable but quality services.

Hence, if new businessmen players want to enter and improve these things, aesthetically, sure as firehell, let us take them in and embrace them like our parents.

In a span of one day too, I encounter people who beg on the streets; I know for a fact (sometimes) that they are in there for the hustling haul. Some may surely need it, some just a kick to bilk some minor fun into their life.

This is my observation (like Conrad de Quiros' stake also): those who have do take a long time to part with even a meager five bucks for someone without a clothing. It is suspect, always. Those who are hard up, more often than not, cough up more.

I devised a new way of testing the waters. Just a while ago, I jumped into a jeepney filled with yacking teenagers in rubbers. Anyway, they were whining about someone who had slashed their salaries, taunting someone (named) as without any money. An urchin climbed onto the vehicle and distributed envelopes.

I told the kid : "Give them to these two smart ones. They have more money."

Repeatedly, this happens: they pretend the kids do not exist. They just go on their business yacking about the state of someone else's affairs. I wonder: if they could not even allot one peso for some begging hand, then, rest assured, pretty much of the cycle would revolve just around that. It is my way to shush them up.

Somehow, you find comfort that kids draw me precisely as another person's face. The equivalent factor for the gift: a much more authentic take on the realm of creativity that is no fluke.

I think that trade-off is much, much better.

WHY EIGHT IS SEXY

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I would like to be especially instructed on why people are drawn to certain people in any given circumstance.

I have not liked the number 8 in the past. It looks like a waist had just been tied up in a knot for boy scouts, impaling the zeros in haste. Now, however, it is the sexiest mathematical symbol for me. When asked why, these are my reasons:

1. 8 looks like he had been sired from extremely pliable parents. The types who would drag their kids to have their hair and teeth done, or start them early on savings for travels abroad as opposed to leeching up to airline owners for a list on the "free rides". The world is not a freebie; it is a journey planned.

2. Mighty proud to do things with siblings who are sexy like him. Rapport is important, transparency in relationships even a must.

3. Is advised by parents to stick it out with partners no matter what kind of storm may be broiling. And definitely, does not bring his mistress conquests to cheap motels with cockroaches and the like. What he does is present his girl to his family in big presentations of dinners and communal affairs. He builds roads for the girl. He is never insecure about his place in the universe. 8 hates to kill time by squiring dancers midday instead of thinking about alternative energy programs.

4. The first thing 8 does not do is call up his friends when in distress. 8, instead, calls up his parents so as not to get swayed by outside, evil forces. He has a sense of familial loyalty that does not falter when another bikini passes by.

4. Is courteous and civilized even in the face of a pompous worms. You never hear from him a "sanggano" kind of talk that is usually a guilty man's defense against an illegally-driven life. Anyone who can lie to his family can lie about his country bigtime.

5. 8 talks about power plants, about Japanese trading, about the unnecessary purchase of cars (his answer: the garage is full, why need more?) and loyalty to roots.

6. 8 implores his family members to be closer to whom he loves. He does not aggravate circumstances, does not need constant facelifts to buff up a swollen face, does not talk back when presented with a legitimate issue, never treats a woman like a rug.

7. 8 is one hell of a goodlooking person with a power punch in both his fists. He is not dramatic and does not say he would commit suicide when flustered. Being ill is not his form of blackmail. Instead, 8 asks people to improve structures where everyone can laugh merrily and heartily.

8. He never uses money to squire people. His words are as good as his statements. People who splurge to buy confidence are in there for something else, not fostering human foundations.

9. 8 is never insecure. He wakes up in the morning with a smile on his face. It is irksome that the first thing he does when he is up early in the morning is thinking of ways on how to improve people's conditions. That is sexier than a leg wax.

10. He hates lounging in malls during office hours. He thinks it is a waste of time.

I heard a man say last night, they are now after Manny Pacquiao. A great man through and through.

I think he is the 8th wealthiest man in the Forbes list right now. He vows to fight poverty in line with the President's program. Last year, I saw him line up ahead to pay his taxes. He and the President's sister have something in common this way. He eats malunggay and is avoiding fastfood chicken I learned.

Eight is sexy precisely because he is not 2, or 3 or even a 6.

A MICROCOSM OF A FUTURE ROADIE SIDESHOW
By: Iris P. Concepcion

As people yacked about the state of pusons, hair and nails in staggering, unequivocal fashion of the greatest, a lot of noise came up on a street.

Noise of working men.

I have seen all sorts of cement mixers. I think they are building a............building.

A nephew of mine had always been so fascinated with all these huge trucks: Vakhoe (spelling) and payloaders that he inserted his own lanky body underneath a truck one time just to watch its mechanical innards.

It is especially important that construction workers eat good food also: the toilers spread and thus plied the street with their luscious kakanins that are quite priced steeply. Normally, they buy food from where I normally take my lunch.

I was in awe of these massive objects that grinded fast. There was no smoke from where they were cement steaming. I guess, they used these marvelous things in my town(superb quality, finished in less than a year). It is really better than a Kubrick film. I get my hormonal wows when people put their sweat to blue collar work in achieving dreams, delivered in this non-diversionary, quality way.

I have not much time for small chatter on pigments and warts. I prefer seeing men buckling down to work with minimal time frame. They actually eat vegetables a lot. Lots of water too. And they just, simply, do.

Thus, I take it corporeally personal when they pick on this present President with "tsu". I do not mind getting this flak, it is my badge for speaking out loud sometimes.

Somehow, I forget the taunt and like my nephew, I am starting to fall in love with these gadgets of real builders.

AKI IN WONDERLAND

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I have often wondered how the manufacturers of words operate within their environment. Pruning sentences, clipping the commas, slicing the paragraphs and the like.

In another blink of the reverse, I was brought to this seat of language formulators and found myself looking at gifts wrapped on the walls.

I often end up asking the obvious questions. I do expect concise answers i.e., the circulation, members of the writing community, editorial slant, the usual boring stuff I like to grill in some barbecue foyer. I get disappointed when people in the know stutter when they are clueless how many publications are published by their own publishing house.

It comes close to strangling i.e. : "I worship your editor and you do not have a clue what magazine he is manning?"

Of course, I need not continue my line of cross examination. I can cite my favorite retard's first article on David Bowie and how it was placed in a column. I demand the same fastidiousness from his staff (hehehehe). I know how he looks like in briefs and how his nose flares. I am so into the details.

I got excited by this nonetheless. I asked the good guy what their entertainment magazine is. He did not flutter his eyes this time, he answered it with a fluency I deeply admired.

I came out laughing as I took the elevator. I surmised, I need to watch a horror film after this.

So I did.

This is where the "Aki" film streamed. It was horrible and dumb and terrible that it ended up being Akroydish than myself. Everyone is an actor and I have seen the most nuanced, unnamed performers thus far.

Eventually, the men and women you had been struggling to get into, crack their brains or whatnot, are up in the celluloid, acting so horribly.

And the stupid retard got out from theater as he surrounded himself with awful-looking midgets as they chorused: "Aki, Aki, Aki."

Weird.

You wake up the day after with positive policies chartering the course of the country to new, scaling heights and I go: this is what life is made of.

COMING OFF THE BRANCH OF A FLOWER

By: Iris P. Concepcion

"Gaining power

In the aquaduct

Of flowing liquid

I sought the hand

Of a dry soil

And stood there, gaping."

Then I gazed at the flowers, the previous communique of humanity sapping my eye sockets with new dimensions of comprehension. I had met Formula One racing great Schumacher in one of my mind forays and thought he was better than a seasoned comedian from the Vaudeville.

If you have been in the Quiapo area, you might want to look for things that are likewise completely outside their inertia of existing.

They are called products.

1.) Sewing machine, petite as a stapler---It is shaped like a stapler and punched like one. When pressed on a cloth though, it leaves off a sewing machine embroidery, a pattern both Jungian as it is Requiestaseque. Science meets domesticity: the profound drama of innovation! This should land a cover page in TIME magazine.

2.) A phallic-something, cucumber-like object---I do not know why they sell this sexual gadget alongside candles and junk food but you know you've hit corpus recados town when you see this wrinkly symbol of the male alpha. It never fails to make me laugh. It is like a windmill for the male organ. What the hell is this product?

3.) Swing---They sell "duyans" here. Who needs marketing strategists for this direct affront to advertising logic?

Walking far off from the topsy-turvy area, you can buy a banana muffin that costs five pesos but tastes like a hundred bucks. When terribly thirsty already, gulp down a black sago and gulaman for just ten pesos.

Everything is so cheap but functional here.

The nearby church tolled its bell for the merchants and buyers, both sides grinning from coming out alive in that warped manner of street haggling and trading.

TIME FOR ROACH TO WHACK HIS HANDS ON THE ALPS

By: Iris P. Concepcion

Spunky women always get my attention. I mean, not the bitchiness springing from an upset world, nor a shaking of things within her serene environment.

I refer to frank women with lots of balls hiding behind their ears.

The wife of my VP bet Mar Roxas, the recently prime-time reinstated Korina Sanchez, had written about the 8th Wonder Of The World, Manny Pacquiao. She took offense over the issue of Pacquiao's coach being hit for his Parkinson's disease. She scribbled that she hoped Margarito shall quiver (he got knocked silly----as things go) if only for that completely unintelligent remark.

The trainor must be grinning from ear to ear by this time. The lady also wrote that you'd know if the opponent is panicking and you are extremely winning if he already hits you first, personally. Like sizing up the genitals, posting terrible pictures and just spinning your life out of hand. It starts from dishing you out with fear factor remarks and undermining your state.

I wonder how Margarito is faring as a severely bruised person. I do not even know him before this fight. Nobody does in this country. Pacquiao lent credibility to his name. I think it was even unevenly matched. Pacquiao deserved a better-named fighter.

Perhaps, Ms. Sanchez knows more things than I do in terms of news content. I think she was also booted out once in her field of expertise but never said anything. That is what I admire about her husband too. Trained as a gentleman, he took the vice-presidential loss gracefully: he did not even raise a howl nor create an unruly mob to clean his.....well......tarnished name. I said: physical handicap has nothing to do with mental training, nor the capacity of the fighter to fight back in a big, big way.

I would say, look at the papers and be the judge who is truly bitter over this shameful loss after the huge blah of power. Perhaps, wearing pink or tangerine instead of his staple, pirate black shade would make him look meaner.

This guy lost huge. And I presume, nobody would like to hear from him anymore after this fierce battle of the brawn.

Everyone wants to get it head-on with Pacquiao. That is a privilege earned via a commendable track record.

He is the king of the ring and his name brings prestige to the field. As simple as that.

Let the losers sulk, again, again and again.

For when a wail is earned, truth swarms it with a hankie.

CONGRATULATIONS TO A TRUE CHAMPION WHO NEVER RESTED ON HIS LAURELS (an ad of a cellular phone company)

By: Iris P. Concepcion

As Mr. PACMAN blew the heads off his opponent yesterday, I was having lunch with old friends over shrimps and fish concoctions that were a huge delight to the palate and taste buds. The vicinity was quiet as it was historic.

I was getting my blow-by-blow account of the ring from a friend-texter who had the most salacious comments about the fight. Like: "A true gentleman at heart, Pacman could have knocked down his opponent but he still showed mercy and spared him the kick."

I was asking for a t.v. set but the waiter just smiled at me. I was mouthing the text messages loudly and everyone would go "Oh, how many rounds again?"

It was a great experience. Getting your tummy and mind and mouth filled up by talk and food and some music that is as parody as the height of Mt. Everest. The creme de la creme was when the final blow was given.

The hubby's party host spoke, thus: "Tell him to come over for lunch. Pacquiao already beat Margarito."

Before everyone can make bogus calls that the huger, bigger and buffer opponent is ahead, some angel from heaven just delivered that cold, hard, sweet fact as that: straightforward as it should be.

What makes Pacman great?

I shall tell you what. He surrounds himself with people who are genuinely tough. They are well-rounded, direct, never limelight conscious. They are quite difficult to get duped. They are products of the hood, having seen grime, dirt and all. I mean, from the ground. They can hit on all fronts. I mean, you want them to belt out songs? They too, can do that. They are genuinely talented without having to get refurbished by photoshops and techno maneuverings.

And they are truly the best finishers. They are the only people I know who allow their opponents to take center stage, mic and all. After which, they throw away books with stories so beautiful that I get to intone out loud and boom, whack, zing, everything is snuffed.

I went out from that place full and fulfilled. I need to buy something from a drugstore and I took a pee there. They had a Laban sign and it was cool. I felt safe and at home.

I hung out with two buddies after.

Our friend-driver said: "Let us visit the church, show our respect."

There was a wedding, the Black Nazarene on the door, getting his space in his glassed, coffin-like resting place.

And I saw a van with some beloved moment's face. The village was serene as it was filled with yellows and greens and extremely forthright people. No senseless hollering and shouting here (products of misplaced creativity).

"Coffee?" the buddy said.

We headed to the Dome where the open air was more splendid than the indoor set-up. We devoured the free taste samplings of potatoes (patatas) that I highly recommend to everyone. From the Korean barbeque outlet.

Margarito is a wuzz, period. All talk, no punch. His handlers have big mouths, exchanging buff for substance. I have heard some of these guys talk bitterly, ahead of their bragging "we are heftier" claims. Whenever I hear these things, I'd know something good is coming. Like a big blow on the face smash. I was proven right in my silence.

Pacman, on the other hand, is the Eight Wonder Of The World. 8 crowns under his belt in his entire career. That is a difficult task to even compete with.

Then, we talked about electromuscular and bone ailments (this buddy is an Israelian-trained medical practitioner). He said that he had cured athletes who had been injured by sports activities like ski sloping or rock climbing. He spoke of bandages. I ate my snow cone that he paid for in glee. He said that only Pacman remains uninjured. He gave me his calling card.

We talked about building roads, economics, donations, school improvements, entertainment, videoke singing and snowmen.

He asked: "Is that just power?"

I answered: " If you show them how to do things better and you actually do it, that is the only best revenge, ever."

He nodded.

Pacman wins because he reaches that destination, always, with class.

Just like this monkish, hair-patched buddy of mine.

WEIRD SIGNAGE

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I took the picture above a long, long time ago in a galaxy, far, far away.

I remember I was up very early in the morning for brisk strides in downtown Quiapo where fruits, I discovered, are huger than the rest of the marketplaces. See their bananas. They look like baseball bats.

I shall never understand the third item no matter how much I juggle my brain with symbolisms of the comfort kind. I understand that taking a dump is equivalent to a ten peso payment at the door; some pissing, five pesos, but the word tenant: just what IS this privilege that you need to shell out three pesos for? I can only surmise:

1.) You can take a nap inside the CR's cubicles for that price;

2.) You can put up a tent inside where you can perhaps, take a dump or urinate for free, for as long as you bring your own pail;

3.) Just hang around inside to monitor if the urinators are not actually duping a piss for a dump (say you pay five pesos but you take a planetary dump there that costs, in current market value, 100 pesos). Violators shall be apprehended, handcuffed and brought to the police station. Violation: dump lying.

I just wrote some funny sentences, I think.

One of the finer things when you walk instead of ride are these mini installations of oddities that would make you think twice.

In some form, a lot of pages now are devoted to the closure of the rock station NU 107. I caught its last airing and had fun listening to the farewell messages. Lots and lots of buckets of tears. I presume some of the corn's children were in the booth watching by the sidelines, showing off their goofy teeth and new parody pants.

They never say anything these days. I cut off their tongues and attached them all to my face. They are busy. Busy untongued kids.

Anyway, the film maker among the lot has a lot of hacking to do in this playlist of fantasy nusicdom: they had been copied and I take it as a respect for their warped originality. They take after myself after all.

You should not miss all that great music though. Lately, I am listening to two Chewbaccas exchanging views about relationships and they are hilarious as hell. I do not know where they get their music from: they have sandy music, spectacular comic timings and what is wonderful, they speak in Tagalog. If you see my imaginary kids, tell them they had been had. I do not know what station this is: I apportion my dials to the corn children's names. One time I heard they made one for me: Iris Sattelite. You could not get it at first click though, the DJ has a severe speech problem.

If that is substandard for your taste, just dig their music. Extra natural. They get all these unnamed singers from the concaves and wombs of unknown women but they sound like a billion worth of enormous vocal pipes.

I leave out a lot. They must truly be discovered as they are. No advertisements needed.

By: Iris P. Concepcion

The quote from above could very well use a powerful electricity alternative to touch my real, writing home base.

The other day, while the former U.S. President was in the country for a talk about "embracing common humanity", I was out on the road looking for a coffee stand and some doughnut. I bought the cheapest, instant HOT COFFEE variety, unbranded, and it tasted like a P100 plus equivalent of a named nook.

I was anticipating a repeat performance of Eggers' heartbreaking book where the author carried his brother Toph to the Capitol to catch a glimpse of Bill Clinton's inaugural ceremony---only, I did not carry a trophy child this time and I instead found myself swinging in a ------- swing.

I share this with the better other: we normally could not locate where these finds are, having some little light, but we have a serendipity kind of direction that eventually bodes well for us in the end. We get the power plant and it feels good to share this like mutant ninja turtles. We do not have brands for what we eat often times but they taste like having been concocted from God's kitchen. He had been sharing lovely things of late about living: we both adore unnamed places.

It was raining hard that day in that whole hub stretch and I saw some men jogging under the heavy downpour.

I went to a vacant swing bench that had a conspicuous bag nestled in one of its pews.

It belonged to two fishermen. They bought worms earlier for the fish to catch (priced at 60-70).

The older guy had a blue raincoat on and he did not mind so much the hard drizzles fogging the ocean view. I asked him questions which he answered equally with important points: the bait technique, what kind of fishes get caught on what particular time of the day and what his weird-looking gadgets were for. In this technological-savvy world, his wares were a little offbeat. Pan de Sal named Tiffany's (like the jewels) and some smart travel kits he bound in wires with some styro squares.

He washed his spread out hands from the ground and I saw his ring: his teeth was whiter than white. He seemed to be a very important man. We kept on talking about the nature of the sea---how the river (unsalted) eventually went inside sea water (salted) which made the fishes snob their own swimming habitat.

I asked him what the crawling things re. He replied: Bulati. In that cadence.

I saw some products inserted in plastic bags and his fishing companion told me: "Those are not ours."

This encounter reminds me so much of that A.E. short story about mail parcels, talking envelopes and guys exchanging pleasantries in one hostel like palm readers.

This is the stuff of a dialogue exchanged on higher plane: concise, straightforward, uncluttered.

They examined the waters like some placid people out for the hunt: they bid me goodbye with a fair, firm handshake from the older guy's companion. They told me to take care of myself; that it was good having been met.

I said the same to the two guys.

They walked, like two persons united with a common mission, under their umbrella like my own.

One thing got stuck in my mind as I left the place though: the old man said, no salt could really touch........us.

Perhaps, I had just experienced what Clinton's theme was: humanity is shared even with random strangers.

That day, there were a lot of them in common acknowledgment, prowling the streets, somewhat making sure everything is safe for wanderers like myself.

SHE ATTENDED HER OWN FUNERAL

By: Iris P. Concepcion

In a superlative mix of the Edgar Allan Poe-ish twist of the off-kilt macabre world, I found myself stuck in a church (I take seriously my church visits: I had been reared this way by both my dead parents) to attend a necrological service for a revered poet I had written about in this blog.

I was her student in Literature in college but she never knew me. Her name: Ophelia A. Dimalanta.

I had ostensibly missed her service attended by real "poets" the night before and instead caught the day after affair with members of the academe.

I wonder how the poet, with her frank and erotic word domains, would assess the people around. There were words of apology, of word celebrations, of poetry. I knew the names of some speakers. It was later a literary eureka realization though.

In a church filled with hundreds, people are actually magnified via persona mixes: my favorite authors assumed several faces draped in bodies of people familiar to me. Neil Gaiman (who I suspect would have been a protege of the revered poet had he been Filipino) would have written, pronto, a novel of the supernatural kind in this live ouvre of the bewitched.

I think I saw the person in the casket viewing her own remains.

That is the convoluted, nickly, brilliant but cryptic foray into my real friends' lives.

One sang: he was not a tenor alright but how can you miss his confessional backdrop: the appeal to the sensible for singing the tunes of the times. And I too cried a tear for this sacrifice. They were apologizing for the deeds committed by those who are too proud to accept that their transgressions had severely crippled creative spirits. Their greed is a given; their compunction to commit it, a big no. It would have been a path taken by the poet herself, this smirk to all that mediocrity.

I am a believer humanity and of free choice and these are the people who had given me an avenue to make sure I go by this path.

I had seen the best of errant creatives; those that only Tim Burton can spruce. I had been accustomed to greatness thus far, brilliancy rare. But when I do, these people make sure I do not get them via commercial mediums: just as I like it.

What I do know is geniuses are not plucked from trees overnight. The wards of this easy path often chime in irregularity in that balanced psyche of creativity. Alcohol is not an excuse for mastery unless you are a Ginsberg or a Joaquin. Then, you have all the bragging rights in the world despite that booze bubbling bubbles in the head. And yes, they can be better and that is why the eulogy speakers are around: to improve the substandard box-office hits into best productions as what that lady in the coffin would have demanded herself.

It is a hand helping, even when uncalled for. It shall continue to reach out until you give something seminal and innovative to a country that you had bled dry of its impressive originality, sapped its creative vibe via myopic visions and late night karaoke singing. It is a wide play for collaborations. You need not travel to be inspired for this.

Beware though: these people only want perfection. When avenues are not made available, they shall create one. They wouldn't irk, annoy nor push to find their own, better, niche.

Geniuses are products of the pavements and unselfish nurturing (or the absence thereof). The shallow coercions do not count in their growth. That is the reason why you see their products as people possessing with unwavering strength: they had bettered my creative curls without hatred for the world that I am living in.

Cowards hurl demeaning words when trapped: real men create and they do create big, masterful, almost perfect renditions of the craft.

Do meet these lady poet's wards: a mere second with them is a lifetime of experience.

And she, as truthful as the swishing wind, might have smirked at the little spaceships of light surrounding her resting house.

I wondered if she had seen little aliens inside them and allowed them to, well, f*ck.

THE PENGUIN MISSING THE PULPIT.....AND WALKING
By: Iris P. Concepcion

There used to be a column in a paper I worked for before assessing the sermons of priests like movie reviews.

I am doing the route of this church-thingy film since I have experienced of late some flock yawning from the pulpit. How bad the homily is delivered is directly commensurate to the amount of tithing the churchgoers give to the priest. I even heard a man of the robe using the podium as an angst absorber of his own doppeldanger persona. He eventually got drowned by the beautiful choir and one kid heckler.

Majority of my mass attendance, nonetheless, has spectacular members of the clergy mouthing wisdom and real moral questions that you can carry till you head to the bed at night.

Sermons can be literature by themselves: that lush and opulent cave of biblical characterizations and moral interplays. All stories, fiction or otherwise, may be traced to Bible passages, or so I was told, by a brilliant man of letters from the past.

I hate it when the microphone conks out or when the sermon is garbled by inadequate sound system. I also look for great intonations like I would my music. I likewise look for originality like I would an orator: it behooves me creepy when their gist comes astray from the main spiritual theme.

What saved yesterday's mass is not exactly the presence of God paving my way for redemption: it is when I saw three people walking down the sidestreet like the Beatles in Abbey would. All their hair have little scrapes on the back like what our President is sporting. I veered my gaze to the entities and again, the gift is there on the fabulous undertone of the wild, the unspoken and the ascent of immaculate and subdued hues. I am discovering friends I never thought I had: they have provided me of late the creative slants of my mind. They do inspire me to better my outlook in life with some hilarious, kickass grants.

Yes, the Penguin is a rotund little piece of elf in search of a better gait: but it has got to be the best stride I have seen in years.

Last night too, I had been privvy to what really goes on in these audition sites. I was appalled that even the most brilliant people get rejections just because they do not grease the palms, or egos, of the producers. When this valve of information came forth, everyone shushed. Nobody, as I said, can argue with exceptional works: they speak for themselves. In legal parlance, this is called res ipsa loquitor.

The person they called "our discoverer" crumbled like a bag of chips in wet tinfoil: they really push forward the indeterminate world of refurbishings and image. It sucked. Even their raw copies sounded elementary. And thus, some silence cut through silk like a windpipe: all that soft touch hardened. To say the least, it was an eventual eye-opener for the untutored.

I do not buy the idea that you need to churn out garbage because people patronize them anyway. What if all these people demand only good productions from everyone and not delimit them to instant music manufacturers of the booze night crawlings. A soul is good when present, but we also need perfection at times. OPM sometimes get killed because our revered flag-raising, nation-hugging compatriots tend to look outside instead of looking in: our shores have plenty of shells that is why I do not understand why we have to dose ourselves with daily kimchi. It is good for variation, sure (and I love Korean food) but why not embrace our own pooridge servings this time?

Actually, it is just an excuse for a lame creative malaise: it is easier to produce but with great returns. Not much is likewise demanded from artists. They just sit and it is already art. They never demand superiority in pipes, or even musical content.

Case in point: I have seen some horrible horror flicks of the Asian mold in the past. I normally laugh whenever blood oozes in. One time though, I caught a Korean flick that is a real, better-looped, reeled-one. Acting is superb, execution thrilling. No big names splashed. I credit always a good director for a smorgasbord of superiority like this one. When he could make a wanderer act, he could have sharpened his creative case already. The megman merely showed how it is to wire these lenses better, and with exceptional results.

Lately, I have seen some of the people I looked up to wither and it saddens me; these great people being unhallowed. Without being mean of course. The better produced ones simply put their wares out there and they offer them, for comparison. And thus, I now discern better.

These underground lunies are, sorry to put it upfront, winning this war.

MY HAPPY HALLOWEEN
By: Iris P. Concepcion

I asked a child to draw my face.

She pencilled me in this wonderful sketch.

"From where he had walked, came a supreme realization of taste: sachets are uncool in coffee. He prefers grips." A fan in need is a fan in deed.

And thus, we had confessed to the tradition of Bayvees and Buttwheat in the armory of NY-driven theater tableau.

I had been receiving openings for writing jobs with employers not providing their addresses. I find it weird as is. I went to news outlets and had instead spoken with people who painted rooftops or are members of security personnel. I think I had left my manuscripts in this area. That is the reason I am not heaving an "Oh, I just lost the purpose of my life" panicky trance. I think they are safe in the company of writers much more lustruous and brilliant than this corn cob.

That is worth five years of my writing sojourn. The duplicates are at home, gathering moss in some disc I suppose. This rattles me into starting to scribble new stories, of the idling nooks and combined breathing Epistles of street pulpits. An ally who had been making Houdini escapes in live performing stage admonished thus: "She knows who is spreading lies and hounding her. She is not dumb NOT knowing it."

Silent retards had made more impact in this psyche of the creative world, thank God. We had dropped words for common acknowledgments.

I had a heyday looking at a person looking at a roof being painted and in Bigfoot underlings and giants alike, I was not lost in translation. I was merely astonished he cupped the platform like he did in that seminal Japanese-background flick I had adored so much. He is beyond Oscar. Oscaresque death zapper. Much more than his spocked-laden face, a silvery- peppered man walked leisurely in scarf as if prowling in snow. He is kind of...........taking..........slow..........steps. He is my visional hand.

Then came in a bony man with the longest chin on Earth: it is shaped like a half-moon. It is distressing to watch its length move but is is worth a 1 1/2 hours of Howardian comedy. It is perfect.

Days later, in far, far away world of the warped, another ghost catcher was eyeing lady handbags in that most deadpan face you'll ever encounter. He had the coolest leg rings you could view in eternal envy. His upper torso: macho. His ankle: happily gay. Wonderful, wonderful man. He was inside this corn's "bf" place (this is hilarious as it is Cannes in nature--yes, he IS still this writer's center) and mouthing "Tagalog" lines left and right. Outside, you can see Bencab's picture as captured by old-fashioned Kodak.

The stalkers in the end get more star-strucked by this amalgamation.

I thank God for it.

And Spiderman's creator too.