Unbounded

So my Japanese partner says to me, “You learn about a culture from its television. My maid does nothing all day but watch Kapamilya (ABS-CBN). Isn’t it ironic that they’re just beginning to show liquor commercials again just when we’ve decided to observe something else ^_^ ?”

Anyway, today I am going to perform a great service for all you compulsive consumers. I am going to watch television all day, and shine insights about some of the commercial ads that we have today.

My name is Michael, and I may be gone for a little while.

_____

Here are my top 4 male deodorant commercials that caught my attention the fastest, and kept my attention to the point that I would finish the commercial and even look forward to watching it again (Okay, I’m cheating a little. This is really a requirement, but I’m typing this one out of sheer boredom):

Axe Click (4th)

This quirky commercial is about Ben Affleck with his ego running about in the city, meeting women of various professions and ages, and driving all of them wet – with perspiration. It begins with a truck passing by Ben (drat. The truck driver missed his target) and him looking all smug.

While frolicking around town, he meets various women (and man). Nurses, waitresses, soccer playing teenyboppers, even a bald African-American boutique salesperson. For a blind lawyer, Ben’s a lucky bastard.

As a testament to his hotness (and male dominance behavior by showing off), he brings his clicker and counts just how many individuals (I’m referring to these people loosely now) were smitten by him. *Click click click.*

And who could forget this suggestive snippet?
[link]

Rawr. Two clicks for that. *Click click.*

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t gender oppression end sometime in the golden 50’s and the swinging 60’s, when valiant valkyries burned their bra’s in an act of defiance (maybe against the sun, because the heat makes their bra-wearing uncomfortable)?

And because of that, we now have equal gender voting rights, equal opportunity employment, and spring break wet t-shirt contests. (*Click click!*)

As if women who advocate feminine empowerment didn’t gasp as to how a multinational fast moving consumer group corporation would fulfill men’s fantasy (tsk tsk, men. *shudders*) of having women irresistibly flirting with him, and ultimately treating these smitten kittens as objects that you can merely count and tally with a clicker, Ben ends his day when he enters a small elevator in a bar and pompously shows his haul to your average Joe elevator boy.

One hundred and three women ogled over my rugged good looks and fantasized me naked. I’m sure Jenny won’t mind.

I can’t think of a pun right now, but the gist (as if you don’t know) was that Ben got out-‘clicked’ by the Joe, because he sprayed his Click before he started his day. End of story.

Rexona First day Funk (3rd)

The trend with our local male deodorant commercial ‘revolution’ (aghast! I still cannot get that Powerboys’ “wala ba kayong mga kamay?” commercial and catch-phrase out of my mind!) started with this retroesque commercial-cum-jingle-cum-cult phenom.

It’s basically an account of how the new guy went about his first day, chumming up with the professor, high-fiving with his newfound friends, actively reciting in class, shrugging his shoulders when he didn’t know the answers, and being a responsible student by erasing the whiteboard.

Had the new guy didn’t sniffed on his crack that he mistook for his powdered talc before he went to school, this entire surreal ditty wouldn’t have happened. How else would you explain the Olympian god-sized hallucinations of Parokya Ni Edgar band members giving advice on his first day in college?

I like the fact that funk here (and in the entirety of this commercial for that matter) both meant first day retro grooves on how to gel well with everyone, and first day body odor.

Rexona First Day High (2nd)

I also like the concept that they improved the First Day Funk commercial into a semi-sequel wherein they featured archetypes of typical highschoolers, complete with their Sentai colors. Pre-teens would finally feel that they could relate with these archetypes (no wonder the film version of this was a box office hit) whenever they put on their deodorants.

Wait, wasn’t the nice guy a freshmen college student already in the canon, prior to this?

Axe Vice (1st)

My number one has to go with Axe Vice. What initially caught my attention with this was that it deliberately wants to be different from all the other commercials (well, here in the country at least). It’s like a danish, densely sprinkled with dry male grunt sesame seed elements: the gritty hard-boil noir feel, with its pouring rain in an eternal dark, starless sky (except for one road chase scene), and the long, drawn-out introspective and pessimistic speeches by that Morgan Freeman look-alike detective, spraying monologues after monologues of clichés.

No other commercial catches the male fantasy in the male product category than this commercial. What typical Joe wouldn’t want to be smothered by hot women to the point of obsession? (That cheap pass for a luxury cigarette Hope wouldn’t pass for a close second. It’s pure delusion brought about by chain smoking. Try snapping your finger at that, hah!)

You can't escape it. It's like a thick fog in London, swirling all around you. It permeates the theme and gives it depth. This commercial exudes the message “fatal attraction”.

Good evening, my dirty little city.

I’m here in my room, typing madly on my laptop for a paper that’s due tomorrow evening, cramming every possible personal experience that’s relevant to the topic, and rewriting it so that it will pathetically pass as a sorry social commentary, drawn from classical psychological articles (the one I’m currently writing about is on Alfred Binet and his additional methods on determining subnormal schoolchildren – a raw precursor to his Simon-Binet intelligence test, and in turn, the Stanford-Binet intelligence test).

As I’m typing, I’m currently more aware of my surroundings - the calming humming sound of the fan, the dark hallway that can be seen from the open door of my room, the shadows cast from my reading lamp, and the wind whispering through the windows, making the curtains dance, which I would have to say, is driving me fucking crazy.

Why all of this? Why the heightened sense of my surroundings? It’s because I’m Blattaphobic.

(OH FUCK!! Another one just crawled behind the fan as I’m typing this sentence! I twitched out of my makeshift computer table as it crawled on the dresser drawer. I then helplessly called for help to put an end to the monstrous vermin's sorry existence.)

Just a couple of minutes ago, I was happily typing in my office, with my Miniature Pinscher Chi-chi accompanying me, churning out in what was supposed to be my magnum opus for Ms. Vivienne. I was suddenly distracted as she scrambled and went below my executive swivel chair.

And there, being poked by Chi-chi’s paw, with its belly facing me, six legs frantically swinging in the air, feigning death from time to time, and with its most unmistakable pungent whiff, my dread.

..I can’t kill one even if my life depended on it. My heart thumped heavily as I hurriedly folded my laptop and my copy of Vonnegut’s Hocus Pocus (since I have to finish what I’m typing or else I’m screwed), and hysterically transferred to my room.

When I came back from opening the lights in my room, it was nowhere to be found. Chi-chi was comfortably resting on her red bed, with arms crossed on her bone shaped pillow, BUT IT WAS STILL NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!...

So here I am again, with my laptop resting on a swivel chair, and me, sitting on a small, red monobloc armchair and ultimately looking silly, paranoid of all the dark spots around me (it doesn’t take a shrink to know that I have associated dark spots with it), imagining the fluttering sound of its crunchy translucent brown wings, and delirious that one might just be crawling somewhere (hopefully not behind me or on my foot), taunting, scheming, with all of his friends, to come out all at once and scare the crap out of me.

I went to a 2-day seminar for student professional organization leaders once (I think it was two years ago). While on the bus ride going to Antipolo, I chummied up with Englicom’s president (Englicom’s equivalent to Ateneo’s Celadon).

I asked him about the meaning of the organization’s name.

Guy: “Englicom means English, Liberal Arts, and Commerce. Those were the colleges in DLSU then.”

Me: ”Well, that’s nice to know (I was being honest about it).

Then the guy added this for no reason:

Guy: “you know, it’s really a misnomer to name Englicom as a Filipino-Chinese organization. It’s really a Filipino and Chinese organization. We accept Filipino members just as much as we accept Chinese (he means Filipino-Chinese) members.”

Me: “That’s also nice to know (bullshit).

I lost my interest in making friends with each organization’s presidents and vice presidents from hearing that bullshit concoction to win more members (and ultimately more money from their membership fees. You see, in DLSU, organization recruitment doesn’t involve screening. All you need is the green). I acted like an ass, played cards and beat the crap out of them. I didn’t socialize with them and I slept early at night.

God damn fakers.

I didn’t make any friends in that 2 day seminar except for Chelly (my boss), and Marlon (my roomie and the president of one of them engineering organizations). Nice fellows.

That’s the back story of why I’m such an unpopular executive vice president.

It’s Wednesday again. Time to get my lazy ass up, effort to rewrite my notes for the evening, walk about three blocks to catch my ride, and to talk for three hours on something that I’m half-baked at. Yup, Wednesday class.

Today’s a little different. It’s Ash Wednesday. From the point of view of someone who’s born as a Roman Catholic, who traces his roots in Mindanao, who is schooled in an Evangelist Protestant primary and secondary institution, whose parents are Buddhist (Well, dad’s really the one. While mum’s a Catholic, she’s also a practicing Buddhist. Same goes with the rest of my mother side kin and honestly, majority of the Filipino-Chinese community), and of course, proselytized in college, by its wolves and hyenas (it’s a personal affectionate term to describe the Youth for Christ group in college who’s active in Gawad Kalinga work. Proselytizers and blind zealots, really.), being pious means just as much as being confused. So, I’d like to better orient myself as a non-denominational Christian.

Now, can we talk about your religious convictions?

While my ride was stopping at Quiapo church to drop and pick up new passengers, I found myself gazing blankly at the newly painted statues of saints, and the bi-colored plastic and tarpaulin tents of street hawkers. Candle melters (Ooohh. I’ll have to write about that), bootleg media vendors (dibidisir, dibidi...), fortune tellers, vegetable sellers, mystic artifact (and remedy) merchants, and of course, hobos, all run abound. And to complete this vivid and picturesque scene, a huge TV screen on the Mercury Drug building. Times Square, baby.

It’s been a while since my mum pulled and nagged me to accompany her to go to Quiapo. I miss that. I miss going to the mass with her (and get dizzy while in the middle of the mass since there’s not much air circulation in churches), buy red candles and red wax figurines of my late pappy and granny on mum’s side of the family to be melted, shop around for the cheapest vegetables, and browse around at the newest collection of pirated media. Basically, I miss being immersed in that gritty masa (common people) environment. Commuting to Tutuban, Divisoria mall, 168 (which I have to embarrassingly admit that I haven’t been there yet) doesn’t count.

While my mind was wandering about that, I also cannot stop reminisce about this instant message conversation that I had with a particularly interesting and eloquent friend (whose name I’m not mentioning, heh) about her religious beliefs, her ambitions, as well as her frustrations, and our opinions on what’s going around with the community. She’s a very devout Christian - kind, good spirited, and very eloquent. She writes, and she’s the type of gal that’ll leave you feeling good every time you think of not only her, but of the abstract thought of how she thinks. And of course, definitely one who you would be proud to be bring to dinner with your parents. I hope I can meet and marry one like her some day.

So as not to digress (Since I’m getting carried away), part of what we talked about was on Gawad Kalinga.

I have nothing against the organization per se. In fact, I’m all for it. It’s a very ambitious vision and tries to reach that goal nobly - In theory.

Let me explain (for the benefit of all you Tony Meloto worhippers out there). What I hate about it is that the way it’s being packaged in my alma mater. It’s so skewed. It’s being promoted as bandwagon hip socio-civic work, where YFC people would proselytize you to being one of them, before you get to understand and appreciate the principle of the organization that it wants to build and sustain a community.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t that many volunteers from the Muslim (as you can see, I have sympathy bias for them since I also hail from the south), nor from the Protestant community. I (based on my personal experience) wouldn’t choose to be affiliated to one organization wherein the environment would frown upon you if you were different. On the other hand, I would be pessimistically surprised if these charismatic youth leaders (with their blind, half-wit donkey followers) would attempt to approach the “marginalized” religious community and invite them to have a healthy supercommunity of people towards a common good.

I'm sorry. Is that too harsh an observation for you? Does that sound too much like the truth?

I have the utmost respect towards my fellow unrepresented for not making a fuss about it, and seeing everything from a good light. Huge respect to them.

I pray to the One Above that He (and big J of course) would give these people the strength for them to realize their condescending mindset.

To end, a quote from HL Mencken comes into mind: “The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians”.

Hullo. This time, I’ll be babbling on the underground economy of barkers.

Dirty Laundery

The journalist inside me (tabloid?) sparked again when I first wrote about the existence and prevalence of barkers in the metropolis, gleefully shouting and pretending to help my fellow commuters, free from apprehension, and more noticeably, free from the arms of the law (ehem, to sidetrack, I was told that barkers are now required to get their licensees. As to licensures to do what, I do not have a clue. And we psychologists have been battling it out in our country’s legislation to get our practice license).

Anywho, I interviewed a jeepney driver in Manila and asked about these schmucks. He revealed to me that barkers are actually in cahoots with the law (isn’t that something new), that the money they get from tips serves two purposes: that one, they are indeed tips given by FX and jeepney drivers as appreciation for their help in facilitating passenger boarding; and (a darker one) two, that it also serves as dirty money, somewhat a bribery to the law (well, not really to the law but to the policemen covering these road areas), so that they would turn a blind eye to colorum public transports.

In other words, barkers serve as kotong launderers.

Another interesting note to be taken is that the (eloquent)driver that I talked to specifically mentioned that a barker (together with hisno good police friends or corrupt people in the barangay) would be able to fill up a bucketful of coins from their day’s worth of racket. As to how much? Five hundred pesos worth (assuming that the law already got their cut) - well more than enough to buy themselves bottles of their local cheap gin to disinfect their livers with every night.

Well now, isn’t that something? An organized underground economy of kotong laundering.

I wasn’t content with what that jeepney driver said that day so I sought out to do some statistical analysis. Yep, I’m serious. I was able to compute and test whether a barker would be able to earn 500 pesos worth of tips a day using inferential statistical analysis (t-test).

Counting Change

I used a two tailed t-test inferential statistical analysis to see whether it’s true or not.

Of course, one would have to take liberties as to the “workhours” of a barker, since no one in his right mind would ask him about his set schedule of labor. So, I assumed that a barker would assume his duty (as a euphemism for “work”), about five (5) hours aday (intermittently from 1pm to 10pm, from my fragmented observations), for five hours a week.

Now, consider this observation matrix that I made on barker tips:

[link]

Filling in the blanks, assuming Mondays and Fridays as peak days (wherein more tips would be given at less amount of time, the mean tip amount / hour a barker would receive on a day would be arithmetic mean = P54.67 / 60 min

[link]

t = 0.6173, by conventional criteria (α = 0.05 levels ofsignificance), this difference is considered to be not statisticallysignificant. This means that the computed data of a barker earning of about P546.70 in ten hours (a day) is neither significantly bigger nor smaller from the P500/ day that the jeepney driver shared. This suggests that 1: it is possible to reach a P500 / day quota, and 2: that the actual data computed is probably smaller that what is actually being collected. Why? Think about the cuts the police and the kagawads would take before you are left with the assumed P500 peso-bucketful of coins for cheap gin story.

So there. I leave this one open for your inputs and interpretations.

If I were to direct the upcoming transformers movie, I’d change the one-dimensional characterization of those robots and keep up to date with the themes explored in today’s superhero and graphic novels in introspection.

I’d portray Galvatron and Optimus Prime as middle-aged generals of their respective factions having existential and metaphysical crises. That’ll be cool. If they are sentient, they should be conscious and at least try to rationalize some phenomena in their universe.

Imagine. Galvatron consults Starscream: “Have you ever wondered how a multi-ton robot could transform into a small German Luger handgun? Where does the extra mass go?”

Optimus Prime confides to Hot Rod: “You know, I’ve always wondered where my container attachment goes whenever I transform into a humanoid robot. It goes outside of the frame and vanishes, yet it reattaches on cue.”

Half-baked

The most recent reports that several distinguished personalities in the field of show business and in sports, whom yours truly would have to stress their lack of background in political science, experience, and in a more sensitive sub-issue, the doubts about their intellectual capacities, reasoning abilities, and rhetoric, have taken their oaths to run for public office in their respective niches.

These are Richard Gomez, Cesar Montano, Rico J. Puno, for the senatorial positions; Alma Moreno, and German Moreno, for councilor positions; and of course, Manny Pacquiao for the Mayor of General Santos City, just to name a few.

There are no apprehensions as far as this writer is concerned for the said individuals to run, per se, that lines should be drawn whether one is capable of holding positions requiring mere responsibilities of executions (as with councilor positions) or of legislature.

Half-breed

Another discouraging observation that should be mentioned is the total purposelessness of our government multi-party system. What was once an exhibition of integrity by the politicians of yesteryears in their polar ideological alignments (eg. LP vs. NP), is now bastardized by each parties’ fragmentization, and the emergence of pragmatic coalitions (see related editorial article on PDI [link]) to suit the current need for bandwagon identities. Indeed, candidates today should be seen, not based on their affiliations, but for their personal abilities (see Federico Pascual Jr’s opinion [link]). With conviction, this is a huge insult, not only to the maturity of Philippine politics, but also, and ultimately, to the aptitude of the Filipino people (and by people, I am both referring to the educated voters and also to the masses).

Strategic moves set about by the likes of Sen. Teresa Aquino-Oreta (whom readers should be reminded, is the sister of Benigno), and Vicente Sotto III (who is an entertainment personality) are but indications of the decrepit and deteriorating state of our ideological convictions, from honor, to opportunism.

Considering the current progression (and the term is used loosely) of the current constitution and local laws after the Marcos oust, isn’t it time to review the necessity to return to a bi-partisan party system, or are ulterior motives (or to put it more bluntly, fears) being felt by the incumbent legislators? Apprehensions of loss of political power are difficult not to conceive.

Half-buried

Now, consider this conspiracy theory. Could it be possible that with all these distractions (referring to these ill-equipped candidates), who are very likely to align themselves with the Unity Ticket (for my friends at home or abroad, who have not kept up with our nation’s current events, the Unity Ticket is a government coalition equivalent to the administration stable, as opposed to the UNO, or United Opposition) are strategic moves weaved by the incumbent administration for the promotion, and ultimately for the success of changing our form of government from the republic to the parliamentary position?

It will be a vicious circle considering we, the people will be the ones putting these senatoriables, and others into their royal velvet padded seats. Realizing that inept buffoons would be incapable of writing effective laws, moves to endorse charter change will yet again come to pass.

For further reading, try to consider reading Crisline Torres (who’s this proud writer’s aunt by the way) paper on the parliamentary and presidential debate, at the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism website ([link]).

And yes, that was a shameless plug.

Half-hearted

Finally, what do we have in all of this? This leaves the Filipino voter unenthusiastic, to exercise their right to elect. Wouldn’t it be the perfect time for say, our Department of Health secretary, Dr. Francisco T. Duque, to advocate abstinence?

An analogy is all but left in the end, that our country is like a half-baked cake, baked by a half-hearted chef. And best of all, who could not resist all the nuts that’s sprinkled on top of it?

Why is it that every time when you’re running late, commuting, the sun will always be at its brightest, hottest, that the air conditioning of the car you’re riding will always be broken, that the driver will always drive slow, and that there will always be a whining, crying baby/kid right beside you (with drool and sticky baby/kid sweat)?

So I was running terribly late yesterday, helplessly realizing that Fridays along Espana and Quiapo will always be packed with cars, an hour and a half in the ride (damn devouts!), when all of these happened (I’m not exaggerating, heh).

But wait, it gets worse (or better, depending whether you hate me or like me lol).

Two snooty cono gals got on the back of the white FX (this happened when we were stranded beside the Quiapo Church) where I was in (at the back as well). Funny thing is that, at that time, middle seats were spacious and that we were three guys full at the back. To make the long story short, five sweaty people were cramped at the back of the car when there’s perfectly no reason for it. Oh yeah, one last thing, the two gals were full-figured. Well, imagine that…

******

On a related note, Jeco, can you please explain to me the Economics behind barkers? You guys know what I’m talking about. I’m referring to those arrogant rag-tag, ex-convict looking, burly looking guys (who could well put their physique into better use by, say, working at the wet market carrying goods, or be hitmen, lol) who does nothing whole day except shout and pretend that they’re helping passengers look for the FX destinations that they need. And in turn, drivers mandatorily give tips (or alms in my eyes) to them.

I absolutely fucking hate them. They serve no purpose and their existence should not be promoted, tolerated even.

I’d like to see the day where drivers would go insane and visualize barkers to be pylon roadblocks.

The Master And Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)
The Lord of The Flies (William Golding)
Hannibal Rising (Thomas Harris)
The Little Endless Storybook (Jill Thompson)
Absolute Sandman Vol. I (Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, and Charles Vess)
The Facts In The Case Of The Departure Of Miss Finch (Neil Gaiman, Michael Zulli)
This Earth of Mankind (Pramoedya Ananta Toer)
All I need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (Robert Fuhlgum)
Super System II (Doyle Brunson)
Death Jr. vol. I & II(Gary Whitta and Ted Naifeh)
Parasite Eve (I've just read that the english translation for the japanese novel ten years ago just came out. Hideaki Sena)
The Nasty Bits (Anthony Bourdain)
Kitchen Confidential (Anthony Bourdain)