JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

The guys have gone home. Justin was the last to leave, on Saturday night. “They confiscated my stretch band at the airport in case I was planning to strangle someone on the plane. I’ve taken my shoes off three times and I’m pretty sure I’ve been raped twice.” Our new advice columnist, ladies and gentlemen. Keep posting your questions here and the Jeepney will send us the answers every week.

(Ned is around till the 10th I think. You might run into him in Alabang. If you do, I don’t think Ned would mind very much if you kissed him. As long as you’re cute.)

I’m sad because I won’t see them for a while, and I’m happy because I can address my massive work backlog.

Thanks to my editors at the Star for allowing me to skip a couple of deadlines while I was in Guam and then KK; to Ronald and Dwight at Cinema One for letting me work on the catalogue long-distance; and to Mike Alkaloid for not firing me from the movie despite my bizarre excuse (“A continuous good mood is so counterproductive”).

My cats are certainly happy to have me home. While I was away Saffy barfed and peed all over the house. The cleaner came on Sunday and cleaned up the mess. When I got home on Monday night Saffy had re-barfed and re-peed all over the place.

Here’s the thing. Kermit informs me that in the week that we were covering the national rugby team at the Borneo 7s, the readership on this site increased by 50 to 60 percent. We’d like to keep those extra numbers. Also, we’ve noticed that whenever we write about our regular subjects—books, movies, art—we get fewer readers and even fewer comments. We like hearing from our readers, they’re insane (although some really are not sane). What are we going to do?

Simple. We will continue to cover our regular subjects—books, movies, art, cats, tennis, travel, politics when we get really angry, music, And rugby. And we have enough Jocks With Books photos to post every Wednesday until 2011.

Think of the Volcanoes as our international correspondents. Fortunately we have a solid ideological foundation for supporting the Philippine rugby team—see our Theory of World Domination. The Volcanoes fall under the Genomics component of the theory.

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Jakelettes, is this your doing?

I drop by National Bookstore at Rockwell and what do I see but a stack of copies of Shantaram, which as we reported is one of Jake Letts’s favorite books. Apparently a lot of people had been requesting it, and now the store has it in stock. Are you that “lot of people”? If you are, Very Good. See? Our reading campaign is working. All people really need to pick up the reading habit is the sight of a lovely man reading a book.

Meanwhile, Jake’s legions have sent in more designs for the official fan club shirt. Yes, you love him, you really love him.

Shall we put this to a vote? Wait, here’s a better idea: We ask Jake to pick the winner.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, is anyone going to Italy? Specifically Rovigo in the Veneto region, near Venice and Padua?

We got Gaz Holgate this map shirt with his name embroidered on the right chest.

It’s a Get Well Soon present, a Thank-You for taking it off, and a Darling, We’re So Sorry Your Fans Are Such Lazy Bums, We’ll Just Keep You For Ourselves. Plus it’s something new to take off.

Thank you to Collezione C2 and to Niko at Buensalido & Associates for the shirts for our Jocks With Books.

If you’re going to Italy, could you deliver this to Gaz? And then take a photo of him wearing it (or not)? Otherwise we’d have to mail it, and that takes weeks.

* * * * *

You’ve got mail from Jake Letts. (Cue seismic Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.)

Apologies for the late reply, in heavy study mode due to exams. I am a bit shell-shocked with the t-shirt getting made up! :) It’s quite funny, however if that’s what they want, that’s fine with me :)

If there are any shirts for the Gaz, Harry, and Flying Jeepney fan clubs getting made up put an order down for me!!!!!

There are ants crawling across my screen, you lucky Jakelettes.

I won’t lie to you: it started with the shorts. As a tennis fan I am appalled by the length of the shorts on the ATP men’s tour. Why don’t they just wear white flannel trousers while they’re at it? Understand that I grew up in the McEnroe era, when Wimbledon finals were contested by men wearing hot pants.

The Rugby Chronicles part 1 in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Philippine Star.

For maximum appreciation, get hard copy. Buy ten copies of the Star now!

Thanks to my editors for the front-page announcement,

and the full-page treatment.

Watch out for the second part, which appears this week.

Justin and Harry were staying at a hotel near Makati Avenue. My all-knowing friend and personal travel agent Kermit booked it for them. Patrice was expected at a friend’s house, but decided to crash in their room for the night.

When I rang the bell the next day Patrice opened the door. “Allo, did you sleep well?” I asked.

“They make me sleep on the floor,” Patrice said solemnly.

“No we didn’t, we said he could sleep on the bed!!!”

“Right there, see?” Patrice pointed to the rug between the twin beds.

“You horrible people, how could you make the child sleep on the floor?”

“No we didn’t! He’s making it up!”

This is the chaos I walked into.

Harry rooted among the boxes and proceeded to eat leftover pizza. “Pizza’s great in the morning,” he shrugged. Then he drank the warm, soupy remains of a milkshake. “That’s disgusting,” Justin said. I felt like Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist.

“When you’re decent you can take me to lunch at Rockwell,” I said. “What am I saying, let’s go.”

Justin

Justin wanted to buy those shoes that look like gloves. Apparently they cost twice as much where he lives. Then they went to all the sporting goods stores but couldn’t find shoes in their sizes.

Harry and Patrice

We had lunch where I always have lunch: Wild Ginger. Adobo, kare-kare, and Patrice wanted sinigang. Tennis Mike turned up and said lunch was on him. Thanks, Mike.

While we waited for our orders to arrive Harry and Justin taught Patrice how to make his man-boobs move.

Patrice and Justin.

Some of my friends walked by, including James who made the earrings I was wearing. “All my friends are gay,” I pointed out.

“Really,” Justin said, “We hadn’t noticed. But you’re not—”

“You like guys, right?” Harry said.

“Of course I like guys. But I’m practically a guy.”

“Are you thinking of sex right now?”

“I’m not saying.”

“Then you’re not a guy,” Harry concluded. “What does Adidas mean?”

“It’s a contraction of ‘Adi Dassler’, the name of the founder.” Nerd.

“No, it means All day I dream about sex.”

The only heterosexual guys I hang out with are film nerds, and sometimes days go by before I speak to a straight guy, so this was educational.

Patrice and a blur.

Then we went to buy underwear and they wore the underpants on their heads.

Harry

We asked you to send in your designs for the official Jake Letts, Letts Hug It Out fan club T-shirt. This is what you’ve sent so far.

You like? If you don’t, can you do better? Send your designs to saffron.safin@gmail.com. When all the Jakelettes have agreed on the look, we’ll start taking orders. We know a t-shirt maker who’ll accept small volumes.

How many Jakelettes are there? Could you raise your hands in Comments so we know how many shirts to order? (Obviously the more shirts, the cheaper the cost per piece.)

* * * * *

You can’t order the shirts from me, I am not the store.
You all have to decide on one design, in one color combination, and say how many shirts in total. Then I direct you to the manufacturer. Get a grip.

The last stop for the Philippine national men’s rugby sevens team before they returned to their jobs and regular lives was the Bahay Bata Orphanage in Angeles, Pampanga, where they had a training session with the kids from the Bahay Bata and Tuloy orphanages.

The Philippine Rugby Football Union provides sports training and assistance to these institutions; some of the kids are now members of the national under-20s rugby team.

Obvious question: What about the language barrier? The rugby players have limited Tagalog (though Andrews Farrar and Wolff and David Carman speak it fluently) and the kids have limited English. It didn’t matter at all.

The guys taught the kids the principles of the scrum,

the basics of tackling,

and put them through various drills.

“Heartwarming” doesn’t begin to describe it. The kids were thrilled, and the guys looked so happy. Maybe it was because they were only recently kids themselves, maybe it was knowing that these kids have nothing but are capable of such joy. It just puts everything into perspective.

With that, we close our exclusive coverage of the Borneo Sevens rugby tournament. I want to thank the PRFU, Coach Matt Cullen and physio Damian Raper for allowing me to join the trip and giving me total access, and Jaime Augusto Zobel for making it possible. Most of all I want to thank the Volcanoes for letting a total stranger in their midst and putting her completely at ease.

I’ve covered and travelled with scores of subjects, and I’ve never met a more generous bunch of people—they told their stories unfiltered, they hid nothing, they put it all out there. This kind of trust a writer can only dream of. Although the team did not get the result they were hoping for, they showed the rugby nations that the Philippines is the future of rugby.

Harry, Wolfie, Andrew, Andrew Evro, JC, Noel (and his lovely wife Lucy, my viewing and dining companion), Chris, DC, Mark, Ned, Patrice, Jonny (“I feel kind of dorky, but I actually got your Dune analogy”—He’s read Dune!), I’m proud to know you. As far as I’m concerned you’re 100 percent Filipino.

So I went to Borneo with a bunch of good-looking jocks, and I returned to Manila with twelve friends. It’s very bad journalism if you think about it, and I don’t care.

This exclusive coverage of the Philippine Volcanoes at the Borneo 7s was brought to you by JessicaRulestheUniverse.com and Globe Telecom.

Unlike in football (soccer to Americans), acting talent is not required in rugby. No one falls down clutching his leg, screaming in pain. A game of sevens lasts 14 minutes; there just isn’t time to acknowledge your pain. The opponents are prepared to kill themselves and each other on the pitch, but off it they are friendly: who understands you better than your enemy?

What Wolfie is doing: bad acting.

There’s something I have to tell you about Andrew Farrar.

That. I asked him if he was committed to the tail (buntot). He said his girlfriend likes it so he’s keeping it.

Harry believes the Philippines could’ve beaten and will beat Japan, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan with certain vital adjustments. The RP team has to play together regularly and often. So Justin, Patrice and Harry are looking for a European rugby team that will take all three of them.

At the closing dinner each team handed out awards to its players. Justin was named the Coach’s Player, Noel (who is himself the manager of the Cebu Dragons rugby club) the Manager’s Player, and Patrice the Players’ Player.

Ned had his picture taken with all the girls. Ned is a teenage boy.

After the closing dinner Chris and Andrew Everingham hung out with their dad, who had flown in from Australia to watch the tournament. I’ll have to check this factoid, but I think every Philippine rugby team has had at least one set of brothers in it, be it the Lettses, Duhigs, Saunderses, Morrises, Zappias, Everinghams and so on.

Our exclusive coverage of the Philippine Volcanoes at the Borneo 7s, brought to you by JessicaRulestheUniverse.com and Globe Telecom, ends tomorrow. What ever shall we do until the next tournament.