Mother Studies (#1): The airconditioner.

I am never impressed by air-conditioned houses.


In the Philippines, a tropical country, where climate is relatively easier to adapt to, majority still dream of building fortresses made comfortable with at least 3 dozens air-conditioner, after which they will go around bragging how wise their choice of lifestyle is, and how moneyed they are, being able to pay monthly electric bills of at least P10,000 pesos.


What makes the choice more enticing to these people is the myth that air-conditioning makes one's skin fairer, flawless and retards signs of ageing. So these P10,000-worth-of-electric-bill-paying households would stuff their houses with more aircons hoping they could save money from not having to go to their nearby Doktora Belo. You imbeciles, don't you see, it's the lack of sunlight that made you look like the next leading matrona of the brain-numbing Twilight series.


I would not say that my family thinks otherwise. After all, my parents were raised in one of the poorest provinces in the country where the major industry is exportation of human resource, documented or not. As apparent of all other small towns with 60% of population living under the care of their family's delegated milking cows (40% remains poorest farmers), each milking-cow-reared family compete in the most intricately decorated, aircon-stuffed, floor-to-ceiling-curtained house. Usually the most baduy of them all wins. As a result, the neighbor of this most baduy house would coerce his/her child to the OFW-bestseller course in college in hopes that they too, could someday build the baduy fortress of their own that could send this reigning most baduy house in town scrambling on its footing.


They once tried to convince me, my parents, I mean, and failed. The thought of badly designed molu-modern houses made me cringe and gave me sleepless nights. And also because I do not want to be a milking cow. OF COURSE.


I almost thought my family would break that tradition. After all, all of the children dreaded being matched with a seaman but no. No no no no. We just have to fit in, conform a little bit. One apostate in the family is enough and therefore: THE AIRCON.


There, I was told, it sit oh so queenly at the western side of the house. The western side of the room used to have a mahogany door. This door led to a terrace, which also functions as a garden for the potted plants. During hot and humid summers, that door, once opened lets cool summer breeze in and allow us a view of the part of yard. Summers ago when I still lived there, we had nice breakfast in that terrace. Apparently, that beautiful terrace will be one useless piece of concrete following the permanent closure of its access door. Right now, it is still being used as a 3 square-meter plant display area but one can predictably say it will deteriorate just like any abandoned architecture.


I believe that one’s house always depicts a more graphic presentation of how a person really is, regardless of the materials used. Houses are also good examples of how hypocritical and pretentious a person is. I am not saying that houses commissioned to star architects, “starchitects”, are good because starchitects do not always make star houses. I have been, and slept, in a house, so simple but so clean and so extensively, carefully maintained I went on interviewing the lady of the house about her very, very shiny and smooth bamboo slats floor. They were poor haven’t had higher education. Both husband and wife have never been to a university but their house is in a much better state, much better designed than most educated people I know, my family included. They perfectly knew how to use the breeze to their advantage, the earth, the sun, everything. While my family, on the other hand, encases its house in concrete and stuff it with aircon. After all, who can really live in the house that is at least 2 degrees hotter and more humid than the temperature outside? Who can?


I won't. I can’t. And I don't think I would ever want a similar house to myself.

On Richard G.

May 14, 2010

I don't really know how to begin this as I haven't written like this in a long time, but the news of Richard's passing away triggered some distant memories my friends and I have of one of our favorite band figures here in the city. No, we were not very close to Richard, we barely even knew of his personal life. I'm not even sure if he remembers our names. We only shared a short time together in some concerts here around 1996-1997, just laughing over some silly stuffs. I remember us calling him "Tita" because his acting out gay was our favorite antic. But of course, there were interviews with his former band Souls of Leash (SOL) for our former do-it-yourself zine, La Puztizo (LP), so I thought of going over my old stuffs to see if we had a long interview with the band just to remember how Richard was before.



Surprisingly though, there was no long interview with SOL. The feature on them was just a short section, but highlights the question "Why SOL (as name for band)?" to which their answer was, "Ambot kay Richard! Islan tani namon amon ngalan galing kay too late na." Richard's name, though, can be seen repeatedly in some small sections of several other issues of the zine, like in a gig review, "Richard says Unan (a song of SOL, FYI to those who forgot/don't know) is about an unwashed awfully smelling" and in another article called Skeletons in the Closet, we wrote, "We used to label SOL as no. 1 in our list of bands we would love to send to Pluto (Chard, forgive us) because... we don't know." Yeah, no offense to Johann, Kim, Tata, and the late Scott, but Richard was our favorite SOL member it seems. ;) And Richard was one of the few band figures who still greeted us even after almost a decade of not seeing each other.



I was about to give up on my search when in the second to the last issue of LP I looked in, in a section entitled Mushy Mushee (our different take on Valentine's), I caught sight of Richard's name again. There was a poem written in Joy's handwriting and at the end was the caption "By Raymond Ja_____, ah, uhm (Chard, ano to gani ah? Nalipat kami)." I remember Rej saying that he did give us something for the zine, but how he came to give it to us, if we coerced him or what, I can't remember anymore. I do remember him saying not to put his name as the author, but to put his cousin's name, Raymond Javelosa (if I remember it right, Rej? Joy?). When I read the entire poem, well... I was looking for something and this was not what I expected, yet it seemed to be the exact thing I needed to find. I don't know if I'm just overreacting because the news of Richard's demise is still fresh, but you be the judge. So I'm sharing this with everyone who knew him in some way or another... this poem deserves a better place than hiding in my old and dusty shoebox, don't you think?

Written by Bles Garachico

co-Honcho of LaPuztizo fanzine and Tattletale 

memoir-ing

After party crashing at RACI's post-polls party and finishing the last remaining pages of The Tender Bar (Wide White Spacers (April 2010), you should get this), getting home around 11pm, i still amazingly found time to stay up till one 1am to write write write drafts for the long overdue assignment.

i am terribly past deadline but not quite shaken. Alfredo will understand. Recalling the pasts is as difficult as a kindergarten trying to learn the linear equation. It is to me.

The next day, i surrendered to Keith the Book (The Tender Bar) because he "expressed" interest to read and "and maybe also do some writing" and join the workshops. (Oh, yes.)

Late again for office, but has managed to find some time for facebook, i came across Blesela's message, a very long thread of our private, personal chitchats. the final entry was: "Shyet, napatay si Richard!!!" which was totally out of topic because 1.) the thread wasn't about him; 2) the thread was about manila people 3) the thread has mutated into a discussion on zynga-facebook rift and the horrors it will bring to facebook gamers like Blesela. So Richard died -- rich--WHO? Somebody we knew. Not our friend, but somebody we knew. and somebody of our age range.

Last April 12, my friend, and fellow graduate student Cornelio (Kune) also died. he had congenital heart problem and apparently died from heart attack. He had been suffering from "lain pamatyag" few days back but i don't think he really was expecting he'd die from "lain pamatyag". But he did and it shocked me. (just like somebody actually dies from pasmo...pasmism)

(I didn't fo to his wake. I don't like going to wakes. I even avoid attending the wakes and funerals of my relatives.)

It';s sad, how, it seems, that every month a friend, an acquaintance, an ex-friend, fellow varsity player, a schoolmate, dies as if 30-ish has become the average life span of a Filipino.

30 is the new 70. now that's scary.

(do i look like i'm 70??!)

In late March of this year, a fellow UP schoolmate died from cardiac arrest as a result of lymphoma. more than a year ago, we also thought my sister was gonna die from a rare, malignant and aggressive breast tumor, Phyllodes. But she probably is a "masamang damo" and everything turned out fine as the tumor hasn't yet metastasized. Just as her daughter turned 4 months, she had her mastectomy.

So this May, Richard, the polio-tic drummer of some college band i liked, well, we liked, my friends and I, died of heart attack. he's not so much older than i am, also 30-ish. I remember their guitarist, Scott, also died in a motorcycle accident some years ago. Then there was Benjie, not their band member but some close friend of theirs (who became one of my friend's friend in the university) who also died from a vehicular accident. Some more years back, in the late 90's another one of their friend (or maybe he was just their acquaintance, who knows?), Sym, died from massive brain hemorrhage after he crashed his head on the pavement when their motorcycle collided with the center island. They were just coming home from a gig in a fiesta somewhere, lacking sleep and apparently still groggy from alcohol. They didn't know they were overspeeding and life stopped when their bikes crashed.

i was excited to come to office and write about the rest of my drafts after the writing frenzy last night but apparently this death thing changed it all and i can't concentrate anymore. Over the election vacation i dug through my old journals (found tickets of a river maya concert i attended in 1995, nostalgia galore), brought the more recent notebooks/journals back to Jaro hoping that i, in the mighty glory and power of the journals i'm beholden to, will be given enough memory to write. But no, richard died and all the 90s memories came rushing in and i have no material! gaddamit, no material to write on. so the drafts, the writing flow had to be revised because my brain wants to recall things from another decade.

(who was i with in my first Sigabong..clash what??--1994...noreen? WHat concert did i first meet you Bles? Last concert i went to in UPV grounds...what Sigabong was rained on--was it even sigabong or some other band. ANd why was i not able to attend the The Youth concert? something whent wrong with Dodong Cruz's strings in the middle of the song, supernova. Who came first, eraserheads in west of rivermaya in San ag? GRRRRR. pi-ang pa si kitoy sang nag tambay kami upod ni mokie antes sang what fucking concert or battle of da band was that again???)

I will get my materials this weekend, from Bles, apparently who, without telling me, burned all the letters from her correspondents during our zinester days. how are we -- am i -- supposed to write about it now then? because i don;t want to write fiction. No. No fiction.

(my sister said: mabait na kabayo, madaling mamatay." that's why she survived, because she's not a kabayo -- i mean, she is not mabait.)

and meanwhile, recalling my aunt's house form the 2005 visit, there seems to be a big wad of envelopes in one corner of her house. and those letters were mine. and now they are probably gone also. she probably threw them out. after all, only the crazies like me and Blesela keep them yellowing decade-old letters, the concert tickets and the posters we stole weeks before the gig actually began. so now how am i gonna know who i wrote to being reji tattletale?

projects...projects.

this weekend. will start one. and finish two.

tree hugging

Ira, my friend and high school schoolmate, took pictures of the red shower of the firetree in UPV Iloilo City campus, few days ago.

i will attach the thread of the facebook discussion here.

later.

AND.

[7 days laterzzzz......]

i'm sorry it will strain your eyes...and even if you click on the thread pix it won't make it any better.

anyhoooo. below is the picture of the firetree (Delonix regia) that we want to replant around UPV City campus, and eventually gain back the nostalgia, romance and beauty that the campus once have.

We will start it once the rainy season begins (hopefully in july of this year). If proven successful, I hope we can inspire the Ilonggos to re-plant the firetrees in the plantable areas of Gen. Luna, and for the the street to regain it flamboyance, retain its part of history that the ignorant leaders and planners of this beautiful city has so long taken for granted.

for firetree enthusiasts, please leave your comments.

IRA and I will greatly appreciate it.