Moments

Halloween Party and the Confusion on Sexiness

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:59:15 +0800

Two weeks ago, a colleague from a hundred years ago invited me to an event...the launching of her new product... a “cooler”, some drink of little alcohol with a sugary taste supposedly having something to do with fruits from abused forests. Because Kara knows that parties and hootch and loud music do not thrill me, she had to remind me---not so subtly---of the FREE PR she had given me to compel me into going.

And so did I go. I did not read the email invite. Only when I got to the place did I learn of the Halloween de rigueur.

“Sorry but this is a costume party...” said the hostess to stop me from taking another step forward. I normally would find that loathsome but because I was looking for every reason not to go, it was delightful.

Just as I was about to say “I understand. Could you just get word to Ms. Sanders that I was here and...?” and turn around and leave, there she was...about a meter behind screaming on top of her lungs (loud enough for everyone to hear despite all the noise) “He’s dressed as Steve jobs.”

To my disgust, they let me in.
***
No sooner did I take a few moments to scan my surroundings than unmistakably fathom that I was in a place perfect for those who can’t do anything to put their time to better use. I couldn’t have been more of a fish out bowl. “Find your center” that’s what John, a friend and Buddhist Monk, always tells me when I’m losing my sense of inner solace. But finding your center requires that you “harmonize” from within, something that requires one to “be in a serene place” regardless where one actually is. To be in such, you’ve got to have a sense of beauty. A sense of art.

The moment was so repugnant I remember wishing under my breath for a beautiful reminder of anything.
***
(Note to Kara: You know I love you and your PR’s brilliant but I cannot write anything untrue.)

My mind-body connection is superior to most people. On longer than usual days like this one (talking and thinking excessively, simultaneously in 4 meetings and one presentation), I normally would cap it off by retreating to a quiet dinner with my wife (and kids when Geraldine can’t break free from them). So when I “felt” out of sorts, I knew it was just my body telling me that I was doing something I’d much rather not.

And besides what honorable human being wouldn’t feel violated with all the boisterous music (if you can call it that), faux mist and darkness with freakishly moving lights? But in this place, not a lot. Obviously.

I am uncommonly well-versed in History. I know Halloween pretty well and what the Celts have to do with it (it’s pronounced as KELTS not SELTS, as bastardized by Americans...sorry again Kara). So when I attended a Halloween party the last time (5 years ago), I paid homage by being in my best costume (Dracula, what else?) and listened attentively and contributed selflessly during Ghost stories.

There’s nothing Halloween-ish in this party! Not by any stretch of the word.

Most guys were slovenly in their oversized red-black plaid shirts. With tattoos and metals on their pierced faces, I wondered who they came to party as: a sloshed Tom Hanson or a mummified Jack Sparrow?

“What are they portraying?” I asked Kara about 5 decibels louder of the girls wearing skimpy leather shorts/skirts and knee-high leather boots.

“They’re just trying to be sexy.” was her appalling reply.
***
Kara’s brilliant and one of the two women I know who are obsessed with diction. So by no means did she use the word “sexy” inappropriately the way most dimwitted people would!

Sexy? Try slut.

Last month, I was at the mall where there was a junket at a bookstore honoring a distinguished photographer. A good 200 fans came and brought books for signing. Most held coffee table books entitled “Ermita”. Ermita in the 80s isn’t the Ermita of today (It used to be Manila’s Bois de Boulogne). The photographer “lived” with the prostitutes and studied their culture and put together her collection of their photos in “action” in “Ermita”.

The book is a rarity! In her foreword, she said something so thought-provoking which is so telling of what sexiness is...

“Having been around them for longer than a year, I began to grasp why promiscuous women hardly find romance and why men desperately seek pros and some even espouse them. At the start, they’re driven by poverty. But in the end, it’s their understanding of sensuality in ways we never could that makes them masters of their craft.

Promiscuity leads to self-destruction. There’s dignity in prostitution”

Translation: Sluts are morons. Prostitutes have wisdom!

(Above: A few sexy photos from the book. The scanned images do not do justice to the photos in the book, which is so artful.)

***
I don’t know how it happened but they awarded me the best costume for male attendee. If I respected Kara any less, I wouldn’t have gone to the party much less gone up the stage and get the prize. First of all, what I was wearing was hardly Jobsian. It’s my usual black long sleeve round neck shirt, jeans and sneakers and not mock black turtle and New Balance Running Shoes. I have absolutely no doubt that the award committee is formed by windows users. Secondly, like billions of people around the world, I respect Steve Jobs and thirdly, like the few hundreds of people who really understand his place in history, I admire Steve for the esoteric business and artistic reason and know that he’s not one you go to a Halloween party dressed as.

It’s perhaps the longest 1.5 hours I had to endure. They turned the decent lights back on and the PA was saying something I had no interest in. Lest I’d get vertigo attack from the abrupt brightness, I hurriedly walked toward Kara to kiss and tell her that I was leaving.

They finally were playing real music, “Love Will Keep Us Together”. The effect of the music was magical: I was upbeat all of a sudden. About 10 meters from the door, in walked someone wearing a costume not Halloweenish but a reminder of something profoundly beautiful: Wonder Woman.

The Captain & Tennile. Wonder Woman. 24 May.
***

The Druids from 3,000 years ago heard and gave me my wish. (If you had to Google that, you just gave me an idea what you donned for your Halloween party)
***

Friends, Donsol & “Butanding”

Mon, 9 Apr 2012 09:54:45 +0800

Going to Donsol (see photos here) is a trip I’ve always planned but couldn’t get it done for a number of reasons but none more important than finding the right people to make the trip with. For the past 8 years, at least, I’ve done everything humanly possible to cajole Geraldine into even considering the possibility of going. But there’s always something that precludes her. So when I tossed the idea to Doctors Sheila and Joie (my clients and friends) and their eyes lit up in apparent excitement, Geraldine was more than happy that I was finally going and hopefully it would satiate a desire that’s developing into a pathological obsession. And knowing that it was Tita Alice’s (Sheila’s mom) way of celebrating her birthday, it made the trip all the more meaningful.
***
It’s not indigenous to any part of the world but we Filipinos feel that whale sharks (Butanding) are our own. It’s no surprise Donsol---where whale sharks are seen throughout the year and in droves from February to May---is dubbed “Whale Shark capital of the world”. For one, nowhere else can you swim and have an intimate interaction with these Gentle Monsters that are 25-30 feet in length. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s a lot less costly to see it here than, say, in Africa or Australia.
***
We arrived in Legaspi on Friday, March 30 and went to Donsol the following day. If tales of locals and those who’ve been to Donsol before portends anything, seeing whale sharks right around this time should be a cinch. But history also says that weather in Bicol is as unpredictable as any part of the archipelago. And talk of bad timing...heavy rains have been incessant for days just before our trip.

So as I’ve always done when I needed it, I decreed/guaranteed to anyone who’d care to listen, against all odds, that the Sun will be up during our entire stay. And, to Sheila’s amazement, it backed / obeyed me. But I forgot to command forces of nature to clear the waters. As a result, the seas were murky, augmenting the challenge of spotting anything that can be remotely called fish. There were folks before us whose successive expeditions, exhausting all of six hours, saw nothing! (you only have the boat to your group for three hours)

But I couldn’t have been with a better group. Sheila and Joie and, maybe, even Tita Alice, share my borderline-lunacy determination to see and swim with the whale sharks.

In a lot of ways, looking for whale sharks was a more daunting challenge than finding a leopard in Masai Mara. In Africa, with all the amazing flora and fauna, you’ll forget of the time. Not so in Donsol. You’ll need friends to support and give you a boost.

On the first thirty minutes, we were monkeying on the boat, talking and joking to the crew (Captain, guide, spotter) about their experience, basically just whiling the time. After nearly an hour we were jokingly thinking of what excuses to give for not seeing one: Joie, in a mocked a disgust, cleverly said “Who says anything about Donsol? I said I was going to Pansol, Laguna. I even have espasol for you.” (If you’re a Filipino and unpretentious, you’d get the joke). Then after about an hour and a half, our conversation turned to “if we don’t see any, let’s just extend until we see one...We are not leaving until mission is accomplished”

But there’s nothing like a Mother’s prayer. Tita Alice who, perhaps after seeing that I was really serious about the trip, said a prayer before we embarked and this time, after sensing our despondence, she got on a wai position and said a prayer again. I forgot exactly what she said but minutes later, the spotter hollered and motioned for all of us to get ready.
***
After nearly two hours, it was time for the encounter.

From some distance, I could vaguely see an image, an enormous silhouette of something, approaching us at a speed of 18-20 kph.

Although you’re not to touch them, your experience with the butanding is nothing unless you’re near enough to touch them. That’s why the crew you to be up close which could only happen if you timed your jump perfectly. And it’s not easy: too soon could agitate its line of sight and change course as too late could very well make you chase it forever. And no one knows the butanding and the seas better than these gallant people, so when they say “go” or “jump”, you do just that.

Moments later, it’s not just a silhouette I’m seeing. With clearer waters, the spots of the shark were visible. At the same speed, it’s now about 10 feet from us. Then I heard someone shout “jump!”. For a split second, after waiting for this moment forever, I was second guessing. Meanwhile, Joie, who confessed to never overcoming his fear of water, who I guided to snorkel the previous day, jumped even before anyone did! Everyone followed suit.

I jumped off.

You can read all the articles and watch all the National Geographic episodes on whale sharks as I have and still fail to be nonchalant in the face of one! It was monstrous! The mouth was about 3-3.5 meters wide, yes it could swallow you. Easily!

We immediately went back to the boat after the first jump which was so chaotic. But the second and third? It’s what we all went to Donsol for. And a little more for me.
***
It was spiritual. Sure I was in awe, like everyone else, of everything about the Butanding experience---its enormity, the regal movement, the thrill of swimming next to it, the majestic view when you’re above it---it was indescribable! But to me---for someone as impatient, exacting and controlling as I am---it was the uncertainty that made it extraordinary. It was a meditation without being in lotus position, on a mat or watching sunset at UCC Westgate Alabang. I had that rare unplanned meditative moment immediately after jumping off the boat, swimming in the vast seas or just staring at plain waters. There’s really something about Bicol. :-)

We waited two hours to spot a butanding. I’ve been waiting almost three years for that distinct feeling. So when I jumped, it wasn’t only into the water. It was into a field of infinite possibilities in the universe. Two hours. Three years. It was well worth the wait. There was no time. There was no space. There was just you, The Universe.
***
Mission Accomplished.

Una’s 7th Birthday

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:35:48 +0800

Boracay

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:49:49 +0800

Perfect Vision

Mon, 7 Feb 2011 15:49:13 +0800