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Carlo the Dessert Diva arrives bearing a large cake box done up in black ribbon with a big bow.

Jessica: Dapat ba talagang naka-black ribbon yan?

Carlo: Yes, that’s their order. Why?

Jessica: Isn’t that how the NPA delivers death threats? Packages tied in black ribbon?

Carlo: That’s exactly what my mother said!

Ricky: Ganyan ba ang death threat? Ang Pilipino talaga, kahit death threat, over-styled! Masyadong madrama!

Ricky goes to a music store to look for a CD.

Ricky: Do you have the album by Feist?
Salesperson: Yes sir, the Sfice Girls.

Here’s a serious topic: Who was your first crush? I thought mine was Parker Stevenson of The Hardy Boys, but that was in a giggly, “Let’s braid each other’s hair” way. The crush who actually triggered puberty was Warren Beatty, whom I saw on TV in Splendor In The Grass. I had already seen a couple of Woody Allen movies by then, and I said, “Oy.”

My gay friends’ first crushes were: Matthew Laborteaux in Little House On The Prairie, a seatmate in the second grade, Joe Hardy of The Hardy Boys—the fictional character but not Shaun Cassidy, Shaun Cassidy, the guy in James At 15, and Johnny and Scott of Sigmund and The Sea Monsters, except that we couldn’t remember which one was Johnny and which one was Scott. Then Carlo remembered that he had a crush on Gulliver in the cartoon series The Adventures Of Gulliver (only loosely based on Jonathan Swift’s opus), and it turns out we all had a crush on Gulliver. Making a cartoon character everybody’s first crush.

“Didn’t he have a love interest in that cartoon?” Ricky asked. “A tiny Lilliputian girl? What was her name?”

“Flirtatia,” I said. “You know, I worried about that relationship. I mean, how were they supposed to even kiss?”

“Me too!” everyone cried.

Later someone walked past the restaurant carrying a tiny dog and Noel asked, “What happens if a Doberman mates with a teacup chihuahua?” And everyone chorused: “Gulliver”.

Our first crush explains A Lot.

I hadn’t seen my friend Michael in nearly a decade. We used to hang out in college. Rather, I used to hang out at his and Din’s lab in the UP Chemistry department while they worked on their graduate research project. As far as I could tell there wasn’t much work going on: I just assumed they were distilling liquor, but then I barely passed high school chem. (My lab partner Alec, whose chem grades were probably worse than mine, is now a partner at a big architectural firm in New York, so take that, periodic table of elements.) The one tangible result of my loitering in a lab was a short story that ended up in my first book, Manananggal Terrorizes Manila. It’s a fairly awful story, but I enjoyed writing it, and I used Michael’s and Din’s real names. (You cannot sue me, you haven’t copyrighted your names, haha.)

The last time I saw Michael he was teaching at a state university in North Carolina. “What are you doing now?” I said.

“I live in New York, I teach at NYU.”

“What!”

“I’m the Dorothy Schiff Professor of Genomics.”

“What! Who’s the most famous scientist you’ve ever met?”

“I met James Watson at a party.”

“The poor man.”

“And Francis Crick, and Jared Diamond who wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel.”

“Have you written any popular science books?”

“No, but I have a publisher. I have a groupie in New Zealand.”

“Whatever.”

“I got a Guggenheim fellowship.”

“What!” (Must break news to Vince, who used to be the only Pinoy Guggenheim fellow we knew of.)

Michael said he wanted to see I Am Legend because it was shot near his apartment. Filming took place in mid-2006. The special effects team torched a line of cars in Washington Square Park. When the cars were set on fire, giant rats the size of basketballs burst out of the bushes, hundreds of them, and they all ran to the south end of the park. In the morning the tourists would see the burnt automotive wreckage and wonder why the riot wasn’t in the news.

I said, “Are you insane enough to keep a car in New York?”

“Well I have my midlife crisis car, I can’t get rid of it.”

“What!”

“It’s a silver Mercedes roadster.”

“What!”

“I got it before my divorce.”

“What!” This is what happens when you don’t keep in touch with old friends: they overachieve and have midlife crises. This only reinforces my commitment to underachievement and immaturity.

Uro’s father died in his sleep on the morning of the 25th. He was in his 80s and had been ill for some time. Butch was thinking of driving to Lucban, Quezon for the wake. “On the way there, we could stop at Ernest Santiago’s restaurant for lunch.” The restaurant had opened about a month before Ernest’s death.

“Great idea,” I said. “Two wakes on the same day, way to spend the holidays.” I never met Ernest Santiago, but I’ve heard many stories about him and the Cocobanana era. Joey Reyes recalled how Ernest used to turn away would-be customers at the velvet rope by saying, “Go away, it’s not your year.”

“And on the way back, we could go to Adrian Cristobal’s wake.”

“Making it three wakes on Boxing Day,” I pointed out. “The Road Trip of Death.” I had met Adrian Cristobal, but never got to know him, much to my regret. He chaired the board of judges for the English short story at the Palanca awards the year my story won. According to Isagani Cruz, Adrian had championed my story over the second prize winner, which was perfect, the more accomplished work. Adrian said my story “grabs you by the neck”—very apt description, as that is how I try to write. In fact that is how I conduct my relationships, which probably explains why most of them run shrieking for their lives. So Portents got the first, and at the awards dinner Adrian broke about twenty fingers of my right hand and boomed, “You don’t look old enough to know what portents are!” That was as good as it got for me at the Palancas; I joined a couple more times and got two thirds, then I decided to quit while I was ahead.

The car’s brakes were shot, so the road trip was cancelled. Instead we had lunch with Tina at Szechuan House at the Aloha Hotel, where David Byrne stayed when he was in Manila, in case you’re a fan. When Dick Baldovino the photographer was alive, we would visit the Norte and Chinese cemeteries after Christmas. It was the best antidote to the enforced gaiety of the season: the reminder that we were mortal.

In which we do the opposite of our annual rants about evil cabbies growing horns during the holiday season, and document encounters with Nice taxi drivers. (But if you meet some orcs driving taxis, post your story anyway.)

All my usual sources of kitty litter had run out of stock, so I had to go to the pet shop on Jupiter. I was standing on the side of the road, hailing cabs at noon, six days before Xmas. Traffic was heavy, all the taxis were taken, and one driver pretended I was invisible. Then a guy walked up to me and said his taxi was in the gas station across the street if I needed one. A strange and wondrous occurrence in the middle of Xmas chaos. And the name of the taxi was Versailes (with one L).

Here is a video of Bob from Ohio riding a razor in the Greenbelt area while wearing an Igorot bahag. (I fixed the link.) What do you think?
A. That’s amazing! No traffic on the corner of De la Rosa Street?!
B. It’s a metaphor for the clash of civilizations, the collision of the traditional and the modern as expressed by Bob’s barely-covered ass.
C. Ano ba yan, may mga tao talagang walang magawa. What the hell, some people have too much time on their hands.
D. Kulang sa pansin ang lalaking yan. Ibigay mo sa kin ang number niya at papansinin ko siya. That guy clearly needs attention. Give me his number, I’ll give him attention.
E. Yucch, exhibitionist! Someone has to give him a lecture on proper decorum and etiquette. These foreigners think they can just come here and display their decadent ways, it’s a disgrace.
F. Same as E, plus Give me his number, he has to be taught a lesson.
G. Kainggit, I wish I had no issues about my body.
H. (Your personal reaction here.)

Went to Cine Europa at Shangri-La last night to catch the two French movies. I’d gone early, expecting a crowd, but there were fewer people than usual—I think the recent event has made people a little leery of malls, or maybe they were all crammed into Megamall for the weekend sale.

You know how many people mentioned the bombing to me today? One. Everyone else went, “That was awful” and changed the topic, cause what the hell are we supposed to do. No one claims responsibility for the blast, so we just assume the usual suspects. There’s a bit from Casablanca that sums up the state of things around here (Hmm that’s two references to that movie in three days). Police captain Louis (Claude Rains) orders Rick’s closed, ostensibly for gambling. “I’m shocked, SHOCKED that there’s gambling on the premises,” he declares, then the croupier hands him a stack of cash and says, “Your winnings, sir.”

I’ve seen The Umbrellas of Cherbourg on DVD, and I wanted to view it on the big screen with the lush colors and the big, swoony Michel Legrand music. Turns out they’re projecting from the DVD at the festival, but if you haven’t seen Jacques Demy’s musical, catch it anyway. Umbrellas addresses the basic absurdity of the movie musical—people bursting into song—by having the actors sing all their lines. So Catherine Deneuve and her mom are arguing in song, and the postman interrupts with the mail, and he sings as he hands it over. The mom sums up the movie thus: People only die of love in the movies. In other words, You may feel like love will kill you, but most likely you will go on living.

Next I saw La Mome, the Edith Piaf biopic (US title: La vie en rose) starring Marion Cotillard, who’s brilliant and will likely be Oscar-nominated. I sat with Ronald, Raymond, and the Lav Diaz, who recently won a prize at the Venice festival. Piaf: What a life, pink is the last color I would associate with it. I realized that Piaf’s songs must be played very loud in order to get their full visceral impact. She is not a crooner or a whisperer; she’s in your face, you can smell the wine on her breath.

Afterwards we got to talking about how Piaf’s life was so Extreme Nora Aunor, and how singing icons like Piaf, Judy Garland, and Nora Aunor have histories that rival the most outrageous movie melodramas. Apparently you have to plumb the emotional depths, get battered by life and endure the kind of shit that would kill a lesser mortal. You don’t just sing the pain, YOU HAVE TO BE THE SONG. Hmm, a Nora Aunor biopic produced by Ronald Arguelles, written by Raymond Lee, directed by Lav Diaz—there’s a 15-hour movie.

Then Raymond, Ronald and I ran into Eric Ramos, who’s setting up the local edition of Playboy, and I offered to write for him. That’s when we established definitively that if you’re thinking of potential Playboy covers, don’t ask two gay guys and a girl for suggestions. I don’t think a Temptation Island (Jennifer Cortes! Bambi Arambulo!) 30th anniversary reunion would work in a men’s magazine, although we had some spectacular ideas for Playgirl.

At midnight Raymond and I headed to Martinis Bar and gatecrashed Martin’s birthday party. Alright, I was invited, but gatecrashing sounds more fun. I learned that it’s best to show up late, when everyone is already hilariously drunk. I have to check with legal before I blog the party, but Manny, you gave us a blank cheque, don’t think we’re not going cash it as soon as we figure out how many zeroes.

- Budjette’s impression of Brad Pitt in Se7en.

This gets filed under Pointless Anecdotes or Stuff I’d Forgotten I Wrote.
We were looking for the house of Graciano Lopez Jaena. According to the map of Iloilo City, the Lopez Jaena birthplace—which I’d assumed was a house—was not far from the Lopez Jaena monument in the Bellfry Plaza. Yes, with two L’s.

In Bellfry Plaza there is a fountain whose waters were reportedly miraculous. The fountain has been enclosed in a steel fence because some people took to washing their dirty laundry in it.

On our first attempt to find the Lopez Jaena place, the map was rather vague and Ruth decided to ask for directions. She was the designated asker for directions, as she speaks Ilonggo. She approached this guy in an undershirt. Not the guy I would’ve picked to get directions from: his eyeballs were in constant motion, and he had a demented grin. She repeated the question twice, then showed him the map; he gawked at the map, then pointed to the distance. She thanked him. He punched her in the arm in a friendly manner, then walked off, twitching like Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo.

Graciano Lopez Jaena was editor of La Solidaridad  and a noted orator. The marker on his monument said he died in Barcelona in 1896. Where was  the house he was born in?

There was a small crowd gathered on the edge of the plaza. Oh no, I thought, an evangelist with an amplifier.

It wasn’t a Bible-thumper, it was a guy with a wooden box like shoeshine boys carry. He opened the box and extracted a large mottled brown snake. It was a python, about seven feet long. The guy jabbered into a microphone in Ilonggo. The audience laughed appreciatively. He “interviewed” the python about its habits, and it “answered” his questions. The audience applauded. I don’t think they were clapping because they believed him; more likely they were being nice to him.

I don’t know exactly what the snake-guy was doing—my impression was that he was going to segue into a sales pitch. Snake oil maybe, or matching shoes and handbags. After a few minutes he put the snake back in the box. It leapt out and tried to strike him. “Ooh, he’s in a bad mood,” the guy said. “I’ll pray over him.” He recited an oracion  in pig Latin.

The snake promptly shot out of the box again, barely missing him. “Maybe he didn’t get the Latin,” the guy cheerfully announced. “Let’s try again, this time in Ilonggo.” He recited another prayer. The snake tried to strike him again.

Snake-guy turned to his assistant. “Did you feed him today?” The boy gaped at him and slowly shook his head. “That rat we caught this morning, you should have fed it to the snake.” The boy responded with a look of pure duh.

I would’ve stayed to watch some more, but the sun was beating down. Off we went in search of Lopez Jaena’s house.