I met Erap today. And I have no proof!
Posted: March 3, 2009 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool, philippine culture | Tags: baguio, erap, philippines, politics, president Leave a comment »A good friend from high school is deposed president Erap Estrada’s spokesperson. (Don’t ask me about hows or whys.) If you’re not Filipino you may not know that he was an actor-turned-mayor-turned-president who was impeached on corruption charges. He also inspired a revolution by the poor, then was imprisoned by the current president’s administration. For the longest time, he was also the country’s most popular punch line, via emails and text messages.
My father would send out Erap jokes daily (“Why does Erap like a BMW better than a Volkswagen? He can spell BMW.”) so it was ironic/surreal when M texted me: “Do you want to meet Erap? Meet me outside the Cafe in 5 minutes.”
The traffic was pretty horrible so I waited for about 20 minutes. I wondered what ex-president’s cars looked like. Of course he had a wangwang and a siren, and two escorts (front and back) that stopped traffic before the car (a black Mercedes Benz) pulled up in front of me. M got out, and so did Erap.
We got introduced amidst gawking passersby (hey, how often do you have a presidential sighting on a Baguio sidewalk near jeepney stands?). On his left hand, he wore his signature wristband, white, with a gold presidential seal. (Why does Erap wear a wristband? So he can tell his left from his right.) I shook that hand.
I thanked him for bringing my friend to the Cafe and invited him to dinner, but he said he already had a dinner date and politely refused.
Then, as M and I were walking away, I realized I missed a photo op, so we ran back to the car. M asked Erap to roll down the window so she could take our photo, but his car started moving, so she only got this:
a photo of me and erap's ... car
At the restaurant, M called him again to thank him for dropping her off. She added, laughing, “Sir, kilig na kilig yung kaibigan ko dahil na-meet ka nya, hindi na daw sha maghuhugas ng kamay FOREVER!” (“Sir, my friend was so thrilled to meet you that she said she’s not going to wash her hands EVER.”)
Erap started laughing, then replied: “Gusto nya, next time, halikan ko nalang sha para hindi na sha maghugas ng bibig!” (“Next time I’ll just kiss her so she’ll never wash her mouth!”)
14 days left in Milwaukee. 24 days left in the States.
Posted: October 18, 2008 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool, music, philippine culture | Tags: amir motlagh, california, film, philippines Leave a comment »How apt, that while I am preparing for a lengthy trip back to the Philippines, Amir calls me with news that he produced an abridged version of the film we made four years ago, “my break ups into a million pieces.†(He directed/edited/produced, I wrote/produced/was in it.)
Parts of it — stuff I said and thought, my clothes, my hair, who I was with, what I felt about race relations — make me cringe now. I feel so far removed from it, and yet at the same time it kind of feels like I’m watching my high school diary. I always did maintain that moving to the U.S. induced a second (cultural?) adolescence for me.
Other parts — the music, shots of the Bassland studio, the memory of shooting it with a group of people who’ve since then gone crazy, killed themselves, stopped talking to each other or fought drug addictions — make me nostalgic. And proud, at the same time. Like, I lived through this.
Like a high school diary, the short is a flashback of what my life in Orange County was like when my life was 180 degrees different from my life today. I had a band, I lived with a group of musicians, I lived in California, I lived in a community where the minority was the majority, surrounded by art and music. I had never owned a coat, barely drank beer, and had no idea what it was like to work in a newspaper. And now that my life is changing again, maybe I should say I’m 270 degrees different — I’m already on my way back to a full circle.
Anyway, the abridged version is every bit as good as the original. Please watch it, then vote for it.
The lola song
Posted: July 1, 2008 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool | Tags: carlo diaz, dennis diaz, kapampangan, lola, random ninjas, stella's notch, x-syndrome 3 Comments »Dennis and Carlo are so funny. This is like a Flip version of ‘Flight of the Conchords.’ But funnier cause it’s Dennis and Carlo. Dennis was my roommate for a year or something. He makes good salmon steak.
Ed and I update old skool idioms
Posted: June 8, 2008 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool | Tags: ed geronia, idioms 3 Comments »1. “You sound like a broken record.” – “You sound like you’re stuck in repeat mode.”
2. “He’s like a walking encyclopedia.” – “He’s like a walking Wikipedia.”
3. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” – “Dont judge a book by its thumbnail.”
4. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” – “A pixel is worth a thousand word docs.”
5. “Pag may tiyaga may hiwaga.” – “Pag may tiyaga naka dial-up.”
6. “The writing’s on your wall.” – “The writing’s on your rss feed.”
7. “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.” – “A chain is no stronger than its weakest hyperlink.”
8. “Aanhin pa ang damo kung kung patay na ang kabayo.” – “Aanhin pa ang connection kung patay na ang computer.”
9. “The early bird gets the worm.” – “The early registrant gets the domain.”
10. “Mabilis pa sa alaskwatro.” – “Mabilis pa sa t1.”
11. “Daig pa ng maagap ang nagliliveblog”
12. “Push the envelope” – “Push the manila envelope (to wit, the macbook air pushed the manila envelope)”
13. “Nothing is certain but death and taxes” – “Nothing is certain but death and Google”
14. “Para kang tindahan na bukas sa lahat” – “Para kang hotspot na walang WEP key”
15. “To make the long story short” – “To make a long story a stub” or “to twitter a story”
barackandroll.com
Posted: June 6, 2008 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool | Tags: barack obama, barackandroll, kyle, orange county 1 Comment »
shirts from kyle, originally uploaded by lille.
My friend Kyle is a GENIUS. He makes slogan shirts for Barack Obama on Barackandroll.com. I overestimated how big I was and got a large Barack to the Future shirt, which is too big for me, but awesome nonetheless.
Me and Fab are going to have a good time
Posted: June 3, 2008 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool | Tags: comic, erik rose, justin shady, mr. fabulous, the roberts, wayne chinsang 1 Comment »I found a Shady blog by accident today. I knew he was writing one but I didn’t think to ask if it was up yet.
While there, I found the cover of his latest book, drawn in blood. “The Roberts” is about two serial killers who were never caught, and instead grow old together in an old-age home. I saw two pages in a preview, and I must say it is breathtakingly awesome.
I write about this because I am dogsitting Justin’s dog, A.K.A. the best dog in the universe, Mr. Fabulous. For five whole days this week, while they in LA. Mr. Fab is such a good dog that I have dreams that we’re off in Batangas surfing and sunbathing. Kathy and Justin think it’s creepy. I think it’s LOVE.
P.S. 
A few minutes after originally posting this, Kathy sent me this picture message! HOW CUTE!
Oranges are not the only fruit
Posted: May 17, 2008 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool | Tags: apol, france, friends, manila 3 Comments »Years ago, when I was an editor at a beauty magazine in the Philippines, my life consisted of going to events, yoga class and getting goodie bags from makeup companies. The women I met at that publishing house (who edited titles like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, etc) were strong, brilliant, waaay smart, all talented and beautiful.
A bunch of us lived minutes away from our office building; we called it the ‘single girls’ strip.’ We often got together often and dreamed about different things: living on the beach, writing novels, living for art. But at the time everything we were doing was glitzy and glamourous. We loved our jobs and loved our lifestyles.
Most of us don’t live in Manila anymore. Maya is in Singapore editing a travel magazine. Apol lives in the south of France. I am in the Midwest. I think about my past life with nostalgia, mostly. Obviously I don’t remember the traffic, how claustrophobic Manila society was, how doing the most inane tasks took forever.
But this post is about Apol, who, after being editor-in-chief of Good Housekeeping and Real Living, hied off to France to write and sew. Being that she IS brilliant and talented, though, her being low-key still means high profile accolades for her writing and sewing. Her Etsy shop contains “little objects that tell stories and make you dream” — all handmade and filled with awesomeness.
Dwell on this
Posted: May 17, 2008 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool | Tags: friends, milwaukee 1 Comment »
Speaking of friends’ sites, I really love Dwellephant’s blog. It’s like peeking over his shoulder and looking at his diary, which the voyeur in me quite likes.
Drink. Pee. Repeat. Get the T-shirt
Posted: May 12, 2008 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool 1 Comment »
Drink. Pee. Repeat. Get the T-shirt, originally uploaded by cigelske.
Tim Cigelske sits three feet away from me. He also is the purveyor of recycled shirts at Teecycle.org, where he finds cool recycled tees and sells them on his site for $7. Of that, a dollar goes to the River Revitalization Foundation. Shipping is an additional $3.
The whole concept is appealing for a variety of reasons: The shirts are displayed with well-written stories about where they’re from and how the shirts were found. They’re cheap. They’re ecologically sound. They’re actually cool in an I’d-definitely-wear-that sense. And part of the proceeds go to saving Milwaukee’s rivers! How great is that?
A bunch of media outlets and blogs are noticing too:
Even Ninjas Like Radiohead
Posted: October 22, 2007 Filed under: all my friends are fucking cool, music | Tags: carlo diaz, radiohead, random ninjas Leave a comment »Guitar shredder Full Metal Ninja (real name: Carlo Diaz), of the anime-inspired, ninja band Random Ninjas, stealthily answered our survey all the way from Los Angeles, proving that even though their music sounds a lot more like a more pop, more Japanese version of Linkin Park, everyone could use a good dose of Radiohead once in a while.
1. What are your Radiohead memories?
a. I saw “Creep” on MTV. I thought it was so-so until they got to the distorted-guitar-noise-attacks leading up to the chorus. I’ve heard parts of the song on the radio before I saw the video, but for some reason I always missed the distorted-guitar-noise-attacks. Yes, I call them that. D-G-N-A for short. It almost looks like a chord progression.
b. Another memory is when me and this girl were arguing about the song “Creep,” and how she kept saying that there was no D-G-N-A in the song. I kept saying that the D-G-N-A sound is what makes the song great. She kept arguing how it wasn’t there to begin with, and how she looked at me weird for imitating the sound while doing an air guitar version of it. Then we both figured out that we weren’t talking about the same song. She was talking about another “Creep” made by another band whose initials are the same as a certain fuel & oil additive. (a.k.a. Stone Temple Pilots — Lille )
2. How much would you pay for downloading “In Rainbows?”
I can’t decide. That’s why I haven’t downloaded it yet.
3. “OK Computer” or “Kid A?”
“OK Computer”
4. What’s your most hated Radiohead song?
None
5. Three words to describe Radiohead’s music.
Overrated and Underrated
6. What do you think of Ed O’Brien’s music?
I never heard his solo work, but I probably would’nt have listened to Radiohead if he wasn’t in the band.
7. If you were given the chance to sing a Radiohead song with the whole band backing you up (Thom Yorke doing his crazy dancing in the sidelines), what would it be?
I don’t really want to sing. What I REALLY want to do with the band is play “Creep” on guitar just so I can do the distorted-guitar-noise-attacks. I can do that all day.
8. What would be a better band name for Radiohead?
Paranoid Android And The Distorted Guitar Noise Attacks!
Or maybe PAATDGNA?
9. Ok, fine, what’s your top 3 Radiohead songs?
“Paranoid Android”
“Idioteque”
“Creep” (Nothing really beats the distorted-guitar-noise-attacks hahha)
10. Ok, fine, your favourite Radiohead line.
I don’t have a favorite.