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Bulletin of the Jake Letts, Letts Hug It Out Fan Club, Volume I, No. 1

Jake Letts, photo by JZ.

There’s an article on the national rugby players, particularly the Letts and Saunders brothers, in the December 2010 issue of Lifestyle Asia magazine which now on the stands. The piece was written in July. Since then more information on Jake Letts has come to light, such as this statement from a former assistant manager of the Philippine Volcanoes.

“Since 2005 when he represented the Philippines for the first time at the Philippines SEA games Rugby 7s, Jake Letts has regularly organised visits to the Tuloy Foundation orphanage to meet and play with the orphans and run workshops to encourage their rugby. He started his visits without being asked, which speaks volumes of where this young man’s heart is!”

Something the subject neglected to mention during our interview. Sorry Jake, the truth is out: You’re a mensch.

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The photos that accompanied my article “The Unexpected Champions” were erroneously attributed to me. My apologies to the real photographers; I had no intention of grabbing credit for their work. The national men’s 15s team photo is courtesy of the PRFU, the photo of Michael Letts came from Jaime Augusto Zobel, and the photos of the Saunderses and Lettses in India are by Nigel Saunders.

Jake and Michael Letts on a break from the A5N Division 2 Championships in New Delhi, photograph by Nigel Saunders

Again, ten thousand apologies. I labelled those pictures.

* * * * *

About the T-shirts: Due to the holiday chaos and general craziness we’ve decided to postpone production of the official Jakelettes T-shirt to January 2011. This means you may still order your shirts. brewhuh23 is in charge; post your orders in Comments. (P.S. Please add one for Jake.)

We need a volunteer to maintain this monthly bulletin. Why don’t you elect a Minister of Information? Nominate yourselves and explain why you should be the one to keep in touch with your sweetheart and report on his projects.

The other day I had lunch with my old friends Michel and Bernard-Henri (not French, just snobs). We were discussing Amigo, the movie set in the Philippine-American War, written, edited, produced and directed by John Sayles. I saw an early cut months ago and the finished version last week.

– After seeing it again I have the overwhelming urge to watch THE movie of the Philippine-American War, Virgin Forest.

– Why thank you.

– Yeah it needs editing but it’s brilliant.

– Virgin Forest embodies a basic truth of the cinema: No historical-political discussion is so profound that it can’t be enhanced by a threesome in the woods.

– Mother Lily made us put that in.

– Haha, I bet Peque pitched it to Regal as a sex epic with virgins being raped in a forest.

– After we screened it for Mother Lily she turned to me and said, “Ako ba talaga ang nag-produce ng pelikulang yan?” (Did I really produce that movie?) I decided to take it as a compliment.

– Amigo has no threesome in the woods.

– What it’s missing is a mad war correspondent character a la Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now who speaks lines from Mark Twain’s anti-imperialist rants.

– I’m reading Mark Twain’s autobiography. He left instructions that it be published 100 years after his death, so it just came out.

– Write your autobiography, and I’ll publish it 100 years after your death.

– Have you seen the Blu-ray edition of Easy Rider? It’s beautiful. They transferred it to digital, cleaned it up, color-graded it. I remember that the original movie was grainy; this transfer is clear and beautiful.

– Who directed Easy Rider, was it Peter Fonda?

– No! Dennis Hopper!

– Now that Dennis Hopper is gone, who will take over the wild man roles?

– Has to be someone who would get through that scene in Blue Velvet without laughing.

– I know, Crispin Glover.

Though from what I’ve heard, he wouldn’t have to act crazy.

– James Franco? He looks like James Dean and James Dean was Dennis Hopper’s friend.

– Matt Dillon. Someone needs to take him aside and say, “Matt, it’s time for the next phase in your career. The matinee idol thing was great, but let’s move on.”

– I thought his performance in There’s Something About Mary signalled a shift in his career direction.

– I know who can take over the Dennis Hopper roles! Dennis Hopper was genius but there is another!

Spader!

* * * * *

At dinner I put the question to Ernie and Bert.

– Here’s a feasible candidate: the current Mel Gibson. The eyes of a wild man.

For context, here is the old Mel Gibson, the beautiful one.

– I know who can do the Dennis Hopper roles. There can be only one.

Shokota Fanning. Previously known as “Dame Judi Dench, watch out!” We are huge fans.

So our readers want beefcake. So they don’t get why we love you. So they find your looks and your drunken bear who escaped from the circus voice weird. We don’t care. We get you, and you get us. Don’t ever stop singing.

This is the song whose title I ripped off for my newspaper column.

Photo from the Filipino Football blog.

Philippines humbles defending champ Vietnam in Suzuki Cup

The Azkals will face Myanmar next on Wednesday while Vietnam and Singapore square off in a knockout encounter.

Welcome to the fourth series of the Weekly LitWit Challenge, a literary competition that tests your writing skills, your powers of invention under duress, your sense of absurdity, and your self-esteem. And your ability to “read” the Yucch-meter’s mind, because the criteria for judging are arbitrary and more than slightly influenced by the Yucch-meter’s serotonin/endorphin levels. If you are the emotionally-fragile, artsy sort who needs someone to hold your hand and give you a gold star for your “creative self-expression”, Go Away. We write, we are serious, shut up and begin.

This is Dino Ignacio, one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. He lives in San Francisco where he works at Electronic Arts. He designed the user interface of Dead Space and Dante’s Inferno. Dino founded the Webby Award-winning site Bert Is Evil and produced the animated Maritess vs The Superfriends. (I watched it yesterday for the first time in many years—it’s still hilarious.) He also designed my first website, twisted.com.ph.

While watching Maritess I suddenly remembered the time Dino found a box containing a full Jollibee mascot costume on the sidewalk in Greenhills. Reret and I tried to convince him to put on the mascot outfit, go to McDonald’s, and challenge Hamburglar to a duel.

We haven’t seen each other in ages, but yesterday when I sent him a hologram that began, “General Dino, years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars,” he answered immediately. It’s good to know that the Jedi remain solid.

If you live in the Bay area you may have seen Dino shopping for groceries in his complete Star Wars Imperial Stormtrooper uniform. This is Dino in his 2009: A Space Grocery outfit.

Here are your instructions for LitWit Challenge 4.1.

An extraterrestrial being lands in the metropolitan Manila area.
Maximum 1,000 words.
Deadline: 11.59pm, Sunday, 12 December 2010.
If you have any questions, best to keep them to yourself.
The prize: It’s a surprise. Oh all right it’s this.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.

Serves you right for not visiting National Bookstore at Power Plant Rockwell regularly.

We were wandering around the mall when we saw this crowd in front of National Bookstore. (“Ano yan, may artista ba?” “Artista na nagbabasa ng libro?! Kailangang kodakan!”)

Turns out it was Free Comic Book Day at the bookstore.

These were the titles they were giving away, absolutely free to anyone who showed up, no purchase necessary.

National Bookstore’s Power Plant branch has the best display of comic books in town: titles are arranged according to publisher. On Free Comic Book Day, there was a 20 percent discount on all graphic novels.

I like the Santa Claus committing suicide theme of the Xmas decor.