Siege Malvar

Early Monday morning, I e-mailed my publisher the “Delta” draft of my next novel. Tentatively titled “Crash”, it’s the second book in a series of novels for young adults under the Not Quite Unreal universe. Some fans assumed it’s going to be called “The NEXT Not Quite Unreal Novel” or “A Not Quite Unreal Sequel”, but in my mind, Crash is simply another “Not Quite Unreal Novel”.

Crash takes on a few days after where we have left off in Roles. I don’t want to think of it as a ’sequel’ or the ‘2nd book’ because both books can stand-alone for themselves. Although several “issues” run across the books in the series, each Not Quite Unreal adventure is a self-contained narrative in itself.

It has been over a year since Roles came out in the market. Initially, I had a 6-month writing schedule for “Crash”, but things got in the way. Mostly unimportant, Facebook-related things. Also, several languorous naps.

Of the 18-or-so months that I was writing “Crash” majority of those where spent conceptualizing. I was invited to speak in a “Writing for Young Adults” class once and I was asked if I do plot outlines. I do, but not in the manner how outlines were taught to be like in high school Business English class. What I do is randomly jot down plot points, character motivations, then I’d encircle them if I like them a lot, and draw arrows to visually remind me of how each plot points and character motivations are related. Some of them may be causal, some coincidental. The hardest thing to pull in fiction are the plot points which are coincidental. In real life, we can blame God or fate for those coincidences; in fiction, the author’s responsible.

The hardest part in process is the revision. After I wrote the “final” paragraph in the manuscript’s “Alpha” version, I sent copies to 2 critics whose opinions I value for their notorious objectivity: my friend Riyel and my sister Astrud. Their support for my writing is so priceless, it will be an insult to offer them anything that can be blatantly misconstrued as compensation. I shall be looking for subtle ways to pay them back this valuable favor. Their initial reactions were positive, but somehow, I wasn’t happy. I felt like there were still some energy left that wasn’t detonated in Crash and would be out of place in the next book. So, days after writing “The End”, I worked on a fresh, blank page I simply titled as “Crash – Additional Materials”.

The resulting document (”Additional Materials”) turned out to be almost as long as the original “Crash” manuscript. With two documents of the same manuscript in my hard drive, I began the painstaking process of “remixing” them. I shuffled scenes and chapters, I deleted those I thought redundant, I wrote in bits to weave the transitions more seamless. When the “Beta” draft was done, I had a manuscript twice as long as Roles.

Taking into heart Stephen King’s formula for revisions (2nd draft = 1st draft – 10%), I braved the Beta draft and tasked myself with deleting over 4,000 words. Imagine that task. Just to make a point, this blog entry at THIS point is now slightly over 540 words. That means that for every 10 words I have written, I must drop one. So, this is what I did.

Using the “Find” function on my word processor, I deleted all instances of the word “suddenly”, and “instantly”. The preceding passages prior to their appearance should make the use of these words needless, or I am a failure as a writer. I also deleted instances of the word “really”, but spared those that appeared in dialogue (”Really? That’s how you want to play this, bitch?”). Now that I have declared war against adverbs in -ly form, I had all of the “sarcastically”-’s lined up. However, I decided to spare them as well because I’m writing for young adults, and non-native speakers; the linguistic sophistication of sarcasm in written words might fail if I don’t indicate it explicitly. I showed no mercy in my relentless quest to get rid my documents of adverbs in the -ly form.

Then, complex and compound sentences were also subjected to my close scrutiny. Those clauses conjoined by and’s and but’s were reduced or rewritten to more basic structures, giving my pacing a much needed boost. I’m very happy with that decision. The rhythm of my prose now sounds better, more definitive, more natural, actually.

Linguistically, I believe “Crash” is a more mature work than “Roles”. I have grown so much in the year in between their writing. I learned about the economy of words in my brief stint as copywriter for mobiusgames, and I think Speechless helped me come to terms better with my role as “writer” and renewed my faith in the craft of weaving words together to form images, and realities.

Having said that, here’s a little caveat for writers out there: REVISION IS HELL.

It’s the part of the process that I hate the most. I hate that part right there. I dread revising my own work. If I win the lottery, I’ll hire a professional proofreader to go through my works zealously.

Revising a manuscript means reading your work several times until you are so bored with it, you start getting serious doubts about its worth. After three readings of “Crash” in its entirety (all 44,+++ words of it), I’m ready to hit the DEL button. I was so sick of reading about all these teenage drama, all these angst, sexual awakenings, and other crazy as fuck shit that the students of the M of the A and P are getting themselves into. Seriously. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say. Try reading a novel 5 times in one week.

Doing revisions take the magic out of the whole experience. After repeatedly reading the manuscript, passages I have written and fallen in love with now sound so banal and mundane. Dialogue I thought was clever sounded boring, descriptions I thought was powerful was now blah.

Revising a manuscript is what happens after Ever After, and the tax forms have to be filled out, the bills have to paid. It’s waking up to the same person in bed for twenty years, wearing the same set of shirts for ages, going to the same workplace every day. It’s boring, it’s arduous, it’s not exciting.

But as a writer, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Writing is the rarest of professions in that we get the privilege of doing over our mistakes through this boring process of revision. Surgeons don’t get to crack open skulls after they’ve scrubbed out of an operation, and go “Hmm… this could use a little more nipping.” Movie stars don’t get to yell “CUT! Let me do that again…” after the director calls it a wrap. Chefs don’t “edit” out an ingredient when they have peppered in a dash too much.

Revisions, for all of their nips and tucks, cuts and pastes, may not seem like a creative endeavor, but it is. There’s nothing more creative than reducing a manuscript of incessant rambling into a slim volume of terrifying beauty– and that’s all in the revision, baby.

So, you want to be a writer? Knock yourself out. Pound those keys, elaborate a point, shimmer under the sun. But if you want to be read, then be prepared to take a pair of garden shears to your babies’ necks, and nip, nip, nip.

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Siege Malvar writes fiction and poetry. He has performed all over the Philippines, Korea, and the U.K. He gives a free on-air workshop on performance poetry and creative writing every 3rd Saturday of the month on Kooky Tuason’s radio program “Bigkas Pilipinas” ( Saturdays, 9-10pm/Jam 88.3 FM). His novels Bloody Mary, and Roles: A Not Quite Unreal Novel are available in bookstores everywhere, and via http://www.pinoypocketbooks.com.

So, last Sunday, I went to the UP to join the Bigkas Pilipinas usual suspects and play patintero. Yabang Pinoy organized the said event to promote the appreciation of Philippine games in the youth nowadays. In the University of the Philippines, there is actually a Phys. Ed. class that involves a whole semester of playing Philippine games.

Patintero is a game of agility, and strategy. Two opposing teams play on a grid. The objective is to traverse across the grid AND BACK while avoiding getting tagged by the players of the other team who are all stationed all over the grid. The team guarding the grid can only move on the gridlines. Once a player trying to get across the grid is tagged, the teams trade roles. A point is earned for every successful journey back and forth the grid. It’s like basketball without the ball.

Growing up in Grace Park, Kalookan, I used to play Patintero with other street urchins. I’m hardcore like that. Despite half of my childhood being spent in Sampaloc, I don’t recall playing on the crazy street of Sobriedad as a kid. Probably because there’s a makeshift basketball court in every corner of Sampaloc to make playing any other games on the streets a possibility.

So, when lots were drawn and Bigkas Pilipinas was pitted against a team of Atenistas (Team Kho), I thought we had the advantage. After all, I grew up dirt poor, I was so poor, we couldn’t afford an Atari so I had to improvise and make up some shit with my crew. We used to go running after with plastic water pistols (we’d lace the water with hot sauce for extra sting. We be hardcore mothafuckas at 8 y.o.).

Well, let’s just say that at the end of the first match, we learned a very valuable lesson.

It’s not whether you win or lose…

It’s YOUR fault, eh!!!

To see more photos, you might want to check out the Yabang Pinoys Multiply Album of the event. I think it’s great when advocate groups exert effort to make their events worthwhile to participate in. Kudos, YabangPinoy.com.

Also, after another tier of eliminations, the warring teams were trimmed down to two rival groups, both alike in dignity. The bloody matter was settled through an age-old duel known as…

Bato-Bato-Pic.

Witness the most extreme Bato-Bato-Pic match in history ever!!!

Every once in a while, we chance upon an artist so talented that we can’t help but fall in awe of them. If not for the total randomness of the internet (more specifically, Youtube.com), I wouldn’t have heard of this amazing musician. Jay Brannan writes from the heart and sings to the soul. If you’re in the US, please check out Jay’s website for info on his tour dates, and how you can get copies of his albums. (And if you’re in the US and are planning on dropping by the Philippines some time in the near future, I’d really jizz my pants in your honor if you can get me a copy of any of his albums.)

I’m known more for my political-philosophical satires, and hearing Jay Brannan’s lyrics bourne by his enchanting music makes me feel insecure about my own poetics. I wish I can sound as sincere as he is. If his opening lines (“applying moisturizer in the microwave window/for the tenth time, he shouldve called me an hour ago” ) don’t evoke something in you, you’re probably a zombie. Powerful images, and emotions stripped bare. Jay Brannan is poetry.

Lyrics:

cant have it all
music and lyrics by jay brannan

applying moisturizer in the microwave window
for the tenth time, he shouldve called me an hour ago
would he be here with flowers if i lived in arizona?

they say theres no love left in the big cities, its kinda true
i guess youll find me coming soon to a small town near you
ill sell my guitar so i can by myself a tractor

fuck this, this cant be my life
i moisturized ten times tonight
why cant i sit down and write,
bring this question to light?

chorus
do you want a lover, or do you want a life?
one hand or the other, the butter or the bread knife?
do you choose winter, spring, summer, or fall?
its driving me crazy that i cant have it all

if these walls could talk, theyd probably cry out for mercy
til im outlined in chalk, ill be romantically thirsty
so i drink and drink from the proverbial time sink

fuck this, this cant be my life
tears flowing in full force tonight
why cant i sit down and write,
bring this question to light?

chorus

do we hold the future, or does it come in peace?
and if its in my hands, are you sure it should be in brittle hands like these?
life, love, and the pursuit of all the things they promised me
can i have all of the above? are the best things in life truly free?

chorus

© 2008 great depression publishing

You’ve all seen the ads. Celebrity endorsers pledging crazy shits beginning with the phrase “Ako Mismo”. This enigmatic “advocacy” aims to instill in the youth a sense of volunteerism, and people are suspicious: Who are behind this, and how do I get one of those cool dog tags?

Well, thanks to the internet, various ‘bloggers’ have been investigating this campaign. Some think it’s a selfless campaign that we should support fully, some are more careful, and some suspects this is one big scam to get people’s information to be used on the coming 2010 election.

I think people worry too much.

Ok, fine, Ako Mismo requires for too many “personal information” upon registration, and YES, there’s a big risk of their site getting hacked and thus giving hackers (and who ever’s willing to pay these hackers the dough for the info) the priceless database of all the information submitted by their users. YES, Ako Mismo may turn out to be one big scam after all (I’m not saying it is, though).

But so is every website asking for your personal information.Everytime you register to play a game, or you sign-up to create a profile on social networking sites, you provide information about yourself.

The question here really is HOW DUMB ARE YOU TO GIVE THEM YOUR REAL INFO? If a website asks for your birthday, do you really give them your actual date of birth hoping they’d remember and send you a card every year? When they want to know your mobile number, do you really give them the mobile number you personally use to communicate with your family and friends?

People lie. We lie everyday. We lie about our age, we lie about our social status, we lie about our relationships, we lie about intentions.

So why are people so worried about a site that’s potentially gathering demographics for use on the coming 2010 election? So what if they are? I don’t care.

YES, people, you have to tick that stupid box that says all of the information you submit are true, but then again, we’re talking about the internet here, identity is the easiest thing to manufacture here. That’s the flimsiest, most illogical, waiver/document you can sign. When you say “YES, THE INFORMATION I SUBMIT HERE IS TRUE” who does the “I” in that statement pertain to? What if you sign-up as “Bruce Wayne”, and you put your address as “The Bat Cave, Gotham City”, won’t that be equally true? And who will know better?

So, people, I suggest we all sign-up for Ako Mismo. Fuck, we should all sign-up 5 TIMES for Ako Mismo, and troll around their site. If they’re planning on fucking us, we should fuck back. The world is filled with fuckers, and you can choose to be a pussy and get fucked, or be a dick and fuck back.

Like the following users. Check this out, someone signed-up as the Pambansang Ina:

And, yeah, notice the mobile number provided? That’s the hotline to the LTFRB.

You may want to check out the following “committments”:

[1] Guess what Rosell Chavez is supporting.

[2] How touching.

[3] Promise daw. Promise.

[4] Pampahaba ng buhay.

[5] Well, at least he tells it like it is.

[6] Honga naman. Wala naman siyang sinabing siya din tatapos, di ba?

And just in case you’re wondering why I’m encouraging people to troll around the website, it’s for that STUPID, STUPID BIT WHERE YOU HAD A GUY SAY “Ako Mismo… hindi magbloblog ng ikasasama ng bansa ko.”

WHAT THE FUCK?

Who came up with that shit?

I think copywriters who write shit like “Ako mismo hindi magbloblog ng ikakasama ng bansa ko” should disappear, preferably after a midnight visit from Army officials. Seriously.

Also, I’m suspicious of anything that needs THAT much celebrity endorsements to get their message across. If there’s one thing Filipino celebrities are good at, it’s not logical thinking. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in Philippine showbiz. They’d pick up a trade. Like dental tech, or secretarial training. Or bartending. Whatever.

The title to this entry doesn’t make any sense, so forget it.

Anyway, I have just seen the series finale of FOX’s Prison Break. I have seen every episode of Prison Break, and if it helps you get to sleep at night, I’ve seen it in a perfectly legal, and free, way: I saw it on TV.

Ok, well, maybe the TV’s connected to a DVD player, but that’s all I’m saying.

Prison Break is an action-suspense-thriller drama series. It has grown so much since its first episode. The information briefly summarizing what the show is about can be found through various online sites such as IMDB and Wikipedia, and since I have already done the legwork of watching it in its entirety, do a little reading of your own.

Better yet, don’t take my word for it and find a way to watch it. Original DVDs of Prison Break are on sale in most malls, and some ‘malls’ are selling ‘original’ copies for much cheaper prices. But then again, why pay for it when you can watch Prison Break for free on TV?

Anyway, it’s mindblowing. I don’t watch Prison Break until whatever current season it’s at had had its run because I can never get enough of it, I swear. Watching it on a weekly basis will kill me, and I already have trouble functioning normally in society as it is. Prison Break is mindblowing, let me just say that again.

The writing is amazing. The first season is structured within a ticking-bomb framework. One brother must break the other out of prison before the latter gets the chair. In each episode, they characters kept running into complications in their plans with the situation escalating as the day of one brother’s execution coming nearer. It ended with a successful prisonbreak from the Fox River penitentiary, although not without severe costs and sacrifices.

The second season follows the fugitives as they dodge, crawl, outrun the authorities on their way to the second part of their plan: disappearing from the face of the Earth via Panama. Drastically different from the 1st season’s structure, the 2nd season’s manhunt pitted the brothers against a formidable foe (and eventual ally), a disturbed and obsessive FBI agent. Not exactly the series’s strongest season, but a recharging story arch that pumped the adrenaline nonetheless.

The 3rd season, personally, is the series’s weakest. Thrown into the “worst” prison the world, the series takes the story back to where it started: inside breaking out. Although it was refreshing to see brilliant additions to the cast (and the merciless elimination of characters gone stale from the 2nd season), it dragged the narrative for an entire season unnecessarily. The pacing went slack, the plot lines became predictable, the characters uninteresting. It did turn the tables on the brothers, with Linc on the other side of the wire fence for a change, but what exactly did we get in Panama other than an extended run under the sun?

The 4th and final season totally makes up for it. In each and every episode, there’s a gamechanger that took the narrative into another direction. It’s like 8 different seasons crammed into 24 solid episodes. The brilliant thing about it is that the producers managed to pull it off without the story feeling rushed. Every jaw dropping twist, every OMG, every WTF, was cleverly executed. The performances were consistently amazing, convincingly unnerving. You’ll get tired trying to jump ahead. Just when you thought you have the story arch figured out, BAM!, all bets are off, someone drops dead, and there goes deal. Absolutely nerve wracking, relentlessly exhausting.

And that’s the thing. The writing is exciting, very, very intriguing. There’s a lot of creative writing lessons that one can learn from watching Prison Break. As Kurt Vonnegut said, “Make every character should want something, even if it’s just a glass of water.” In Prison Break, people will kill you for that glass of water. In fact, your own mother will give you that glass of water, and then shoot you just as you are reaching for it.

Prison Break may be preposterous, incredulous, ridiculous, absurd, over the top. But it’s one hell of a fun ride. One that has lots of explosions, and the only loyalty that matters is the one you swore to yourself that you’ll get that fuckin’ glass of fuckin’ water, no matter what, no matter how. Safe writing is boring, and no one reads them. Throw all your characters together in one room, and leave them with just one glass of water, and see who walks out there alive.

Probably the one who broke the glass of water, fashioned a knife out of a large shard, and slit the throats of the other thirsty bastards.

Hey, guys! I’ll be really, really happy if you can pass along this information to people who may be interested (if you’re not).

This Saturday, JUNE 20, I’ll be on Kookie Tuason’s show again to give a free on-air workshop on Creative Writing. Tune in: Jam 88.3, from 9 to 10pm. Spread the word. I’m sure you know someone who’s interested in writing and literature, and this might be a great time to let them know there’s a show like Bigkas Pilipinas on air .

Then, this Sunday, I’ll join the Bigkas Pilipinas crew on this Todo Patintero event at the UP. I’m not exactly sure what it’s for, but I see some people online talking about it, so it must be a big deal. If you’re going to the same event, drop me a line here, or tap my shoulders there. I’m approachable, and I swear I won’t ask you money for my autograph.

On Monday, there’s an event at Mag:Net Katipunan which I might go to. I won’t be performing, but since I’ll be there to enjoy poetry and the spoken word, you might come along if you want.

Then on Tuesday, I have a gig at the Conspiracy, Visayas ave. From 7 to 9pm, Bigkas Pilipinas takes the stage. It’s going to be a very relaxed, very chill, gathering of poets and other collaborators. Drop by, listen to the MC’s and poets. Drag a friend with you.

See yah!

Ok, so I mentioned something about Sun Cellular’s e-mail via SMS service, and some people have been asking questions because apparently, there isn’t much info on it online or off-. Anyway, I feel their frustrations because I myself had to call their customer service several times last week before I realized what I was doing wrong.

Error message: ‘Buy’ Not A Valid Keyword:

Most blogsites will tell you that to enroll in Sun Cellular’s ‘Sun Alertz’ service, you need to use the keywords “Buy [Number of Days” and send it to 2555. This WAS the previous system in use, and it still is the instructions you will receive if you send HELP to 2555 (FOR MORE INFO). However, due to some recent changes in their system, whenever I would try to do that, I get the message ‘Buy is not a Valid Keyword’, which is the shizznitz, y’all.

Here’s what you need to do. Log on to www.SunAlertz.com. If you don’t have a password in, key-in your Sun mobile number, wait, and log-on with the password you will receive on your phone. Accessing Sun Alertz using your internet browser, you will get to control your Sun Alertz experience via their dashboard. 1st thing you should do is change/customize your password to one you will easily remember.

Sun Alertz helps you update your Facebook and Twitter status, as well as receive updates from your Facebook and Twitter networks, via your Sun Cell mobile phone. It will also let you send and receive e-mails using your phone. If you’re on the road a lot, or if you’re a twitterwhore, then you will be very pleased to hear that subscription to Sun Alertz services is ridiculously low. It ranges from php15/day, php50/7days, and php150/30days. Now, that’s DIRT CHEAP!

On the Sun Alertz dashboard, CLICK on the link that says ‘Renew’ for each service that you would like to subscribe to. You will then be asked for the number of days you would like to be subscribed. Choose, and confirm. You will then receive a message on your phone asking for confirmation. Reply to that message with “OK”, and you’re all set.

I subscribe to Sun Cell’s SMS2EMAIL service because it lets me update SiegeMalvar.net/lite on the go. It’s hosted by Wordpress, so I enabled the ‘Update via e-mail’ option, and I use sms2email to blog. The character limit’s at 450, which is thrice as long as a Twitter status, so it’s more fun!

Check out SiegeMalvar.net/lite for more candid, more personal, more random updates. You don’t need to be on Twitter or on Facebook to leave me messages there! The fun part is I get to blog totally random stuff even when I’m away from the internet, and there’s no wi-fi access. For me, blogging at SiegeMalvar.net/lite via Sun Cell’s sms2email is very refreshing because I can update as much as I want without flooding the people on my network.

I think RED Mobile can take a cue from Sun Cellular. When Sun Cellular was launched years ago, it wasn’t simply reacting to its competitor. Instead, it addressed a need in the market: that of affordability, and reliability of services. Whoever’s handling the PR of Red mobile is getting seriously buttfucked. Stop merely reacting to what the competition is offering, instead, ANTICIPATE the market, or at least CREATE a need in the market.

Red mobile, being the latest telecom provider in the RP, should study the market and see the trend. More and more people are getting hooked into social networking sites, and sites like Facebook are basically offering everything on their sites now. Through Facebook, you can play games, watch videos, listen to music, send messages to your contact, share photos. Our online lives can now basically be experience on Facebook ALONE. This is something that Red mobile should look into. Sun Cell’s already doing a fantastic job offering unlimited call and texts to their subscribers, and there’s no way you can beat that. NO WAY. Even if Red mobile starts offering unlimited call and texts NOW, Sun Cell has already established a solid network of users. People with Globe and Smart phones are still using Sun Cell.

Red mobile was launched via several blogging events. I’m really, really sorry to say this, but despite our hopes in the past few years, blogging as a marketing medium is losing its viability. Ads on social networking sites (SNS) are more effective, they get higher visibility. Now, only bloggers are reading other bloggers. Bloggers are giving other bloggers awards that only bloggers care for, and guess what, Red mobile, you may have given free sims to bloggers last year, but I still don’t know anyone who’s gone Red.

BTW, that’s a catchy tagline: “Go Red”. It’s simple, it appeals to the Filipino spirit of brainless and unthinking solidarity, it’s effective. GO RED.  Then get as many celebrity endorsers as you can on a single 30-sec TVC wearing as much red couture as they can. Get people to associate the color RED with your services. Stop talking about your stupid .50 cent a minute rate because there’s no way that can compete with Sun Cell’s unlimited calls and text. Then, get really aggressive. Like CLEAR did 3 years ago. No one really needs another anti-dandruff shampoo in their lives, but Clear went as invasive as the US Army, as aggressive as the paparazzi, as pervasive as the cancer, and now they’re the market leader.

So, there. That’s free advise. Thank me later.

Today, after dropping off my sister at her college, I went to the mall to get inspired. I’ve hit a particularly tricky snag in my writing, and in lieu of deciduous forests to stroll around in, what I do is immerse myself in the crowd, and what better crowd to drown at than the meandering mass of mallrats pointlessly walking around in Trinoma. I do this because sometimes, as a writer, I find nuggets of telling details that spark Something in my creative process. There’s no telling what that Something will be; it can be a character, a plot, or just a scene.

Having skipped breakfast, I went to Ristorante Bigoli for lunch after picking up some pocketbooks from National Bookstore. By pocketbooks, I mean locally published romance novels that come in “Popular Tagalog”, the publishing industry’s jargon for narration that mixes and switches between Tagalog and English.

Why, you ask? Why would I subject myself to reading these thin volumes of romance novels popular with household helps?

Why the hell not?

So, I went to Ristorante Bigoli with two pocketbooks in a red National Bookstore plastic bag. Fortunately, I was in time for Ristorante Bigoli’s Eat-All-You-Can Pizza for 199 promo. According to their scoreboard, “JoGar” Garcia of UST ate 25 slices of pizza.

25 slices of pizza? That’s nothing!

Or so I thought.

So, I went in, asked the counter for the promo, and signed my name as SiegeMalvar.NET because I’m shameless like that, bitches. I would have taken a picture of me eating all the pizza I can, but a jobless 25 year old man pigging out on pizza is not a sight for educated people to behold. Anyway, at 199php, it was really a good deal, considering that includes bottomless drinks.

There I was. An endless supply of pizza coming my way, and a tall, iced-filled glass of iced tea that never goes empty.

And two pocketbooks.

I finished reading “My So-Called Boyfriend” while stuffing my face with pizza. It’s written by Monica Bautista and published by Bookware Publishing. Its plot goes something like this: Elleine is a 30 year old virgin, Jarius is a babydaddy running away from a girl he got knocked up, and two other ladies he was screwing with at the same time. Elleine is a freelance artist, Jarius is a high-profile financial consultant. Elleine’s Aunt dared her to bring a boyfriend in their coming family reunion, and forced by her friends (and under threat of the family curse that any woman born with a mole under her left eye grows old and dies alone an old maid), Elleine and Jarius works out an elaborate plan pretending to be a couple just for the day.

And yes, if you’re wondering, they hate each other’s guts.

Now, that may sound simple enough for you, but a quarter into the novel, Monica Bautista throws us a curveball. On their way home from the reunion, the duo gets into a car accident causing Jarius to lose all of his memory.

“My So-Called Boyfriend” is an interesting read. At times, it gets meta-conscious, sarcastic even of ‘romantic-comedies’ as a genre: tired of constantly bickering with each other, Elleine refrained from “exchanging witty repartee” with Jarius on the ride home. What initially sounds as a cliche premise that dates back to Shakespearean comedies of mistaken identities, collaborators, and Lotharios running away from obligations, Monica Bautista’s refreshing narrative voice, breakneck pacing, and relentless energy make the telling worth reading. Despite several near-misses where her main protagonists risk sounding annoying with their vaudevillian verbal jousting, Bautista manages to imbibe her writing with wit, humor, and a healthy dose of sarcasm.

However, what “My So-Called Boyfriend” lacks is the build-up of how the romance between Jarius and Elleine developed. With nothing but forced proximity (due to circumstances) as the foundation of love between these two lovers, one can’t help but wonder how far and where would life take them. Elleine knows nothing about Jarius (because he had an amnesia before she can know him better), and all the two of them do while trying to regain his memories are eat, paint murals, and order pizza. At some point, Elleine even confesses she was falling in love with Jarius not for who he was, but for “how she feels” while they are together. Uhm, bad idea, sister. The dude could be jizzing his pants for furry midgets, for all you know.

But then again, when did romance ever need a good build up? When did love ever need logic, and reason? When did two beautiful people ever need any other reason to fall in love with each other than the fact that they are two beautiful people?

Overall, I give this book 8 and a half slices pizza out of 10. (8.5/10) : Points for humor, freshness, and pacing. Minus points for not using the characters’ nuances and quirks to better advance the plot. Potentially memorable, definitely enjoyable.

So now, I’m challenging you, dear readers. Pick up a book next time you’re in the bookstores. Make sure that it’s not something you usually read.  You get plus points from me if it’s locally published. All right? Have fun!

(And just in case you’re wondering, I did 7 slices of pizza. I was 5 slices short of getting on the leader board. Sorry. Next time?)

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“My So-Called Boyfriend” and other Popular Tagalog pocketbooks can now be ordered online via www. PinoyPocketbooks.com. They deliver anywhere in the Philippines, and even all over the world. Except Iraq, and Nigeria, Afghanistan, and North Korea. Too bad, because I heard I have a lot of Nigerian fans who can all relate to my breakthrough novel “Roles”. Make sure to check out the Visprint shelf in their online store. Wherever you are, you can now get a copy of Kapitan Sino (Bob Ong’s latest book) through PinoyPocketbooks.com.

Related Link: Riyel Mangali’s review of Bob Ong’s Kapitan Sino: The Cur[es/se] of a Nation.

Pearl of Disorient: The Workshop

Antoine Dupree scans the faces in a semi-circle in front of him. Antoine is an actor, his body is his tool. His face is not pretty enough to be on TV or in the movies, so what Antoine does is teach acting workshops in the State University every summer.

“All right,” Antoine begins. “Before I begin my critique, let’s all give ourselves a warm hand of applause.” He means a warm round of applause, of course. Antoine, whenever confronted of his malapropisms, would usually say he’s an actor, and not a “rocket surgeonman”. His mother wanted him to be a policeman. His father wanted him dead. “Fantastic performances, everybody!”

The semi-circle facing Antoine clap their hands.

“Now,” Antoine continues. “You all did magnificently in your monologue exercises, and I’m really happy everyone brought their own personalities to the table. This is not just an exercise on playwriting, acting, and diction, but an exercise on individual souls as well.”

Everyone nods, despite no one understanding what Antoine just said.

“First, Clarita Mahalay,” Antoine says. “Your performance, darling, is absolutely heartbreaking!”

A young woman wearing dark glasses, and a bob cut beams self-consciously from her seat.

“Clarita Mahalay,” Antoine continues. “Your monologue piece is about a girl who was raped—first by an American soldier, then by a Korean doctor, and then by the President of its own country—who then, after crying rape, retracts everything she fought for in order to get a job as a prostitute in Sepulveda Boulevard in Hollywood. Darling, what do you call that piece again?”

“Portrait of the Artist as a Filipina Fucking Herself Over,” Clarita Mahalay answers. “And Over Again.”

“Lovesit!” Antoine exclaims. “What I love about your performance is how convincing you are with your pain and anguish. As an audience, I felt like you were really violated. You did a good job victimizing yourself, and I no longer doubt your competence as the lead star of that soap opera where you play a rape victim out to extract revenge on her abusers. How did you research for the role?”

“The women from MELCHORA helped me a lot,” Clarita Mahalay answers. MELCHORA is a gender-rights group that likes making big deals out of nothing. “They’re very helpful, especially because I’m a woman. No questions asked, no screening process. I just walked in there and asked for help, and they gave me all the help a whore like me can ask for.”

“Excuse me, did you say ‘whore’?” Antoine asks.

“Huh?” Clarita wonders. “I said ‘girl’. A ‘girl like me can ask for’.”

“I thought you called yourself a whore.”

“Me? A whore? Of course not. Why would I call myself a whore? Just because I make money selling sex on TV, on movies, in magazines, and in bars, doesn’t make me a whore.” Clarita Mahalay makes the sign of a cross. She’s a Catholic. “Dios ko, Lord. I’m a Filipina!” she says indignantly.

“Sorry, my bad,” Antoine apologizes profusely. He’s afraid of MELCHORA. Everyone’s afraid of MELCHORA. They all wear buzz cuts, and use timber to get themselves to climax. “Of course, you’re right. How can a Filipina be a whore, when there are no whores in this country. This is the Philippines, and no one has to be a mail-order-bride, or leave their families to work abroad, or be a prostitute, or go hungry in this country. We’re the best, we’re awesome, and no one can make jokes about us.”

They all nod their heads. Cries of “That’s right!” and “Oo nga!” erupt.

“So, where are you planning on performing that piece, darling?” Antoine asks, making a note in his clipboard.

“In the Senate,” Clarita Mahalay answers with pride. “I have been invited by a committee in aid of legislation!”

Congratulatory applause ensues from the participants of the workshop. People wow around. Every actor in the Philippines dreams of going to the Senate.

“I’m going to perform in the Senate in aid of legislation. Apparently, they’re making this bill about rape.” Clarita looks around the semi-circle, nodding her head in a I’m-Not-Kidding gesture. “It’s bad to rape.”

“But we already have a law against rape. Why would they—“

“I dunno. I’m an actress, not a rocket surgeongirl,” Clarita answers dismissively.

Antoine writes some notes on his clipboard. “All right. That’s an excellent segue to our next workshop participant, Senator K. Palmuks.”

A greasy, overweight sonofabitch waves to the other workshop participants. This is Senator K. Palmuks, and there is no limit to how low he will go. His mother is a whore, his father is a whore, and his wife is a whore. His mother’s mother was a whore. His father’s father was a whore. There is no single member of his lineage that is not a whore. His unborn child would have been a whore, but his whore of a wife aborted it with the help of Senator K. Palmuk’s sister (who, needless to say, is a whore). Everyone knows Senator K. Palmuks, his PR firm makes sure of that. A PR firm is basically what the Securities and Exchange Commission calls a whorehouse for tax purposes. Senator K. Palmuks doesn’t hire whores for his sexual pleasure because it’s incestuous for him to fuck a whore. What he does instead is cruise in his Pajero around public high schools, spotting virginal teens, and offering them new mobile phones to get aboard his pimpship. They are never seen again after that, his family-owned crematorium makes sure of that.

“Senator,” Antoine says. “I am surprise at how much talent you have! I never thought you have it in you! Bravo, Senator, bravo! You are an exceptionally brilliant actor worthy of Broadway, West End, and pornographer and Palme D’or-awardee Diamante Mendrazo’s films!”

Senator K. Palmuks grins arrogantly. This is one motherfucker who loves himself more than anything, except fucking his own mom, and paying for it.

“What’s your piece called again?” Antoine says, checking his clipboard. “Ah, yes. ‘Untitled Campaign Speech’. Correct?”

“That’s right, Anton,” Senator K. Palmuks says.

“Senator, it’s actually pronounced as [ahn-thwan],” Antoine corrects, unwittingly risking his life. “Anyway, let me just say that your piece, first and foremost, is complicatedly structured, and I think it’s great so. It can be broken down in what us people in the theatre calls ‘movement’. The first movement in your speech is how adamant you are against the current administration. When your ‘persona’ went to the rally in the fictional placed called ‘Edsa’, you sounded really, really sincere in decrying the current president of the republic, despite her being your godmother.”

Senator K. Palmuks bows.

“And then,” Antoine continues, consulting the notes on his clipboard. “In the middle of your hate speech against the president, you improvised by saying—and I quote—‘Putangina mo! Sasagasaan kita ng pedicab ko, putangina mo!’ which I think is very fitting. I can sense that in that moment, you were feeling actual emotions, and you are no longer acting, but simply being. You were improvising, and that’s the mark of a great actor.” Antoine fastened his pen under the clip. “How does it feel to improvise in the middle of your rehearsed speech?”

“Well, honestly, Anton, it feels great,” Senator K. Palmuks shares. “I feel like it was a great moment to say ‘Putangina’ because when I asked my PR firm to write me a campaign speech, I told them to make it stupid enough to be understood by the masa. We all know how stupid the masa is. When I got the script, as I was going through it with my aide, we both agreed that it sounds too smart, so we translated it into Filipino. And then, it still sounds too smart, so we translated it into Taglish. Then, because we were having difficulties dumbing down the speech waaaaaay below our actual intelligence just to level it with the masa, we decided to rewrite the campaign speech into TXTspeake. At that moment when I improvised and said ‘Putangina’, I was really feeling it, eh. I feel like I’m one of the masa, and we all know that the masa is uneducated, so I had to let go of my breeding and education, and screamed ‘putangina’ at the heat of the moment. It feels… liberating. It feels more natural when you’re talking to the masa and you say ‘putangina’ a lot.”

Antoine nods, keeping his gaze steady with the Senator’s. Antoine understands how it feels to improvise, especially whenever his landlady knocks on his door to collect rent.

“However, Senator,” Antoine continues when the Senator stopped. “I feel like the second and third movement of your piece lacks… gravitas. I just wasn’t feeling it. You said you care for women’s rights because Naomi Campbell threw her mobile phone at her Filipina maid 48 years ago, and it offends you that Hollywood is doing that to Filipinas, but personally, I wasn’t feeling it. I don’t think it’s dramatic enough. So, what I have here is a challenge for you. A new exercise. I want you to pair up with Ms. Clarita Mahalay, and you two work on a scene where she pretends she is abused, and you stands up to fight for her, like the action-hero that you are. I need you two to feed on each other’s energy. Acting is all about give and take. You give energy, you take energy. You can’t be selfish and take all the energy, and you can’t just keep giving energy, or you’ll be drained. You need to be conscious of the other actors with you on stage. You have to be aware of your ‘space’, and the context of your ‘space’ with other people’s spaces.”

They all listen intensely.

“If you’re going to perform for the public, you need to respect your audience. Keep that in mind. Respect your audience. Your audience is stupid, your audience doesn’t know anything about the legal system, your audience are not rocket surgeonpeople. But they’re the audience, and they’re giving you their money to see you do your job. Note these down: people want consistency. If you’re going to be a rape victim, be consistent until the end, or they will think you’re playing a whole new character. A whore character. Don’t confuse them. If you want to play a character that’s pro-masa, you have to be pro-masa until the end. Be consistent. Ride pedicabs, watch Wowowee with them, wear flip-flops to Starbucks with them. You need to connect with the audience by losing your own identity, and becoming the audience. You have to let go of everything you are, so you can be one of them.”

Antoine’s mobile phone rings. His ringtone is Careless Whispers. From her seat, Clarita Mahalay struggles to keep herself from gyrating. Senator K. Palmuks takes the opportunity to fish a massive booger from his bulbous nose. The other workshop participants check their phones.

Antoine checks the time on his mobile phone. “Well, class, that’s it for now. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to discuss all of your individual performances. We continue again next week, beginning with my critic of Cholo Pascual’s performance called ‘Wiz Aketch Baklush, Mudra! Witchella!’, moving on to Vice-President Rolly De Gasco’s moving piece about a man who was turned into a driftwood, and stopped doing any actions—very subtle acting there, Mr. Vice-President. Almost imperceptible. Then, we go through the group performance by The Bloggers Collective called ‘Bloggers kami, Mahalaga kami, Listen to us, Please, or We Will Blog Against You!’, and then finally, we sit back and enjoy how Senator K. Palmuks and Clarita Mahalay will tackle the scene assignment I’ve given them. All right. Have a nice week, everybody!”

They all clap their hands, pleased with themselves.

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Pearl of Disorient is a webseries created by author Carlos Malvar. It is a work of fiction, and thus, all connections and relations with real life is purely imagined, and coincidental. The events, and the people appearing in this work of fiction are impossible, and improbable. This series is not about the Philippines, nor is it about the political and social situation of the Philippines. Unless, of course, you are VAIN and you think this is ABOUT YOU. Again, THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU.

It was a place that broke me, shattered me.

It was a place where I was subjected to the worst kind of humiliation. I was made to suffer discrimination in the eyes of my own people. People whose reality, whose consciousness, whose brown skin and dark eyes, I share. People I call my own. People I risk my life to fight for.

This happened a couple of years ago: It was a day like any other. No ominous signs, no doomsday portents. It was an ordinary day, and I was an ordinary boy. Until I had to enter That Place. I don’t want to recall anymore the sordid details. It was painful, and it still is. Thinking about how I was subjected to that level of humiliation is excruciating, like picking on scabbed wounds.

It was so traumatic that I reacted ugly. YES. I must admit this. In my moment of weakness, in that particular moment when I was being threatened and abused, I reacted less than honorable. I went to my blog and RANTED UGLY STUFF ABOUT MY ABUSERS. I stepped on to my pedestal and looked down on them, not knowing I wasn’t “rising above” them, but letting me get dragged into their level. How I reacted in THOSE DAYS can only be called ugly, irresponsible, and immature. That, I admit. I have no excuses, and all I can offer is the assurance to the public that adores me that I have grown so much since then, and that I regret laying the “U.P.” card on the table. I was under duress, and the presence of unjust vexation is undeniable.

Anyway, since that traumatic incident, I have avoided That Place at all cost. It wasn’t a matter of pride, but of pain. I couldn’t go back and risk another incident of the same sort to happen.

Until one day last week, looking for a decent coffeeshop to while away time in, I turned around and found myself by the doors of That Place.

(continue reading…)