Pounding The Keyboard

"Komiks? Meron pa ba niyan?" --Ruben R. Marcelino, former Komiks Writer Last Friday, 18th of December, me, KC Cordero , Randy Valiente and Ronald Tabuzo met in Quezon City. Randy, finally, was able to hand me the complimentary copy of his Pinoy Komiks Rebyu. If you love local comics, (especially the ones created by GASI and Atlas eons ago) and its artists, you’re going to love Pinoy Komiks Rebyu. It is very informative and very entertaining. Interesting interviews with writers Ofelia Concepcion and Ruben Marcelino can be read in its first issue. Randy publishes it with Fermin Salvador, another former komiks writer back when GASI and Atlas still rule the local comics world. Its roster of contributing writers includes me, KC, Arman Francisco and Jose Mari Lee . You can find copies of the magazine at the following outlets: branches of Comics Odyssey, Popular Bookstore in Tomas Morato, QC. Nameless Shop and Monkeyman, both in Recto, Manila (near Sogo Hotel, Randy’s favor...

Last Sunday, December 6, my brother, a brother-in-law and a cousin, for want of better things to do, dragged me to Carmona, Cavite, the home of San Lazaro Leisure Club, the foremost racetrack in the Philippines today. The racetrack had been there for many years now but it was only our third time to the place. We arrived at around one thirty in the afternoon and quickly found out that the food there remained priced exorbitantly. The club was packed with not only the racing program-wielding kareristas but also with their families (their wives and their small children). It was the day of Presidential Gold Cup, the biggest and most prestigious event in Philippine horseracing—the prize money for the winner was a whopping two and a half millions pesos, and one of the horses running in that event was owned by the boss of my brother-in-law. The Presidential Gold Cup ran at around five in the afternoon and was won by a superhorse named Don Enrico, the favorite horse in the race, beating ...

Last week, an LBC delivery man knocked on our door, bringing me a magazine and a comic book. Since LBC men are famous (or infamous) for their spelling wizardry (they even made a TV commercial showcasing this skill), I put the delivery man to test. “Spell hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia ,” I challenged him. He smiled condescendingly, “It’s easy, it’s spelled L-B-C,” and off he flew on his motorcycle. The magazine he brought me was ASAP! a magazine solely, I think, distributed in England. I wrote a few articles in its first few issues while the comic book was KC Cordero’s Comicspotting, which contained fours stories, three of them illustrated and one in prose. All four stories are very good but my favorite is Kriminal! , a story of a delinquent who after being mishandled by a petty thief cunningly provoked two crooked cops into avenging him—cruelly and unintentionally. It is one of those stories I wish I had written myself.

"Manny picked a wrong man to fight for a seventh wold championship..." ---Miguel Cotto Manny Pacquiao keeps enthralling not only the Filipino people but also the whole world. Who would’ve thought that this pugilist who began fighting at 106 lbs more than a decade ago would grab a welterweigth (141-147 lbs) title in style? Yesterday, he demolished Miguel Cotto—said to be one of the finest welterweight fighters to grace the sport—in an awe-inspiring fashion that made his fellow Pinoys breathless and proud. At the packed moviehouse where we watched the thoroughly exciting –at least up to the eight round; Cotto did nothing but run and backpedal at the later rounds—fight, the audience would scream and shriek with delight with every landed Pacquiao punch while there’d always be a collective nervous gasp whenever Cotto would connect. We arrived at the mall at nine in the morning and the fight ended at past two in the afternoon (the supporting bouts were quit...

I wasn’t able to attend the Komikon last month that was held in SM Mega Mall, which resulted in me not getting my complimentary copy of my friend Randy Valiente's Pinoy Komiks Rebyu where I wrote a little article. I also failed to buy some comics/books which I was intending to feature/review here in my blog. We were planning to attend the said occasion but a series of unfortunate events derailed it. I’ll probably just hunt those materials someplace else. Much to my chagrin, a few more unfortunate events occurred, some of them had catastrophic effects that would be felt not just by me but by the whole nation. Two weeks ago, my computer monitor broke down. When I turned it on that fateful morning, it emitted an ear-piercing sound like it was going to explode so I jumped out of the window. Luckily, it didn’t blow up. It was my emaciated wallet which blasted when I bought a replacement—a Samsung LCD. A few days after that and it was our stereo/DVD player’s turn to collapse...

For few days now, my sister had been trying to empty our closet and it really wasn’t hard to do since we really didn’t have many clothes (the last time I bought a new shirt was, ahmm, wait... Fidel V. Ramos was still president). My sister was looking for clothes to donate to Typhoon Ondoy’s victims. They say it was a flood of biblical proportion, it’s just that Noah or his ark was missing. Our place in Manila wasn’t really affected—thank God— but that fateful Saturday, the cell phones in the house wouldn’t stop beeping and ringing. Some friends and relatives were asking for help because the flood was threatening to sweep them to kingdom come and since nobody in the house could fly, we weren't really of help. “Every one who can afford to give must give,” my ever charitable sister said as she was taking a peek at my empty wallet. And I wholeheartedly agree with her. “Give” is the word these days and everyone should spread it. And it is heartening to know that a lot of Pinoys kno...

I was up to my neck in work lately and I wasn’t planning to update this blog site when I stumbled upon this tragic news on the internet. In that senseless tragedy, a man was killed because he didn’t know the Korean song “Nobody.” Witnesses said that one of the four suspects was singing “Nobody” (by Wonder Girls) when the victim approached him and asked naively, “Pare, ano ‘yang kinakanta mo?” I asked a friend to tell me more about the news and he said that according to the newspaper he read, the suspects first thought that the victim was just joking but they were all aghast, one of them even trembled, when they realized that the victim didn’t really know the song. What kind of a man is this? the suspects murmured to themselves. The suspects probably thought that since the victim didn’t know the song, he didn’t deserve to live. My friend added that every Filipino who heard about the news was appalled, not with the brutal killing but the victim’s ignorance about the song. ...

“Ponyo loves Sosuke!” Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea is a 2008 Japanese animated film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki (world-famous for his magnificent animations like Spirited Away , My Neighbour Totoro and Princess Mononoke ) and is certainly one of the sweetest animated films you’ll ever see. Ponyo is a fish who yearns to be human while Sosuke is a five year old boy who rescued her when she tried to swim ashore and got caught inside a jar. Ponyo licks the blood off Sosuke’s little wound and it helps her turn into a little girl. Unfortunately, her sorcerer father tracks her down and brings her back to the sea. The scene where Ponyo is reunited with Sosuke is priceless. She jumps off a big fish, stares at him with wide, excited eyes, unmindful of everything around her including a raging storm, while he is stupefied, she runs to him, leaps towards him and embraces him tightly. You’ll thank whoever invented cinema for that scene. There are no villains in this...

Many months ago, I was having an animated conversation with a friend when our topic shifted to Carlo J. Caparas (who at that time was a recent recipient of an award; I forgot what award). Let’s call my friend Totoy Buto (he’s quite thin) and this is how our historic conversation went: Totoy: Na-meet mo ba si Carlo J no’ng nagsusulat ka pa sa komiks, pre? Me: Hindi, hindi na yata siya nagsusulat no’n. Busy na siya sa movies. Totoy: Pansin ko lang, parang panay ang tanggap niya ng award ngayon. Me: A, oo, mula nang maupo si GMA, parang naging award magnet na siya. Totoy: May ibig kang sabihin? Me: Wala. Totoy: Tingin mo ba, deserving siya sa mga awards niya? Me: Hindi ko alam, hindi ko alam kung ano mga criteria do’n. Totoy: Parang malakas siya ke GMA, ‘no? Me: Mukha. Totoy: Papasok siguro sa pulitika ‘yan, solid nga naman ang magiging credentials mo kung marami kang awards. Me: Puwede. Totoy: Sabagay, mga minor awards lang naman ‘yon. Magiging kasindak-sindak siguro kung manana...

Totoy Bato is one of my favorite Carlo J Caparas comics characters. I only managed to read few parts of the novels ( it was hard to find a copy until now) but I watched its movie versions which starred FPJ. I remember watching it as a kid in a seedy moviehouse (which showed two old films at a price of one) near our house where intermittent shouts of Balut! and Yosi! interrupted your pleasurable viewing experience. Yes, balut and cigarette vendors were allowed inside that movie house. My mother wanted to kill me when she learned that I entered that moviehouse. “’Buti’t ‘di kayo nabiktima ng gumagalang mga bakla ro’n!” she scolded me. When I heard that Robin Padilla was going to play Totoy Bato in TV, I vowed that I’d be watching it. I have always been a fan of boxing and anything related to it. And i have always liked Robin as an actor. But something disappointing happened on my way to watching its first few episodes, the other persons in our house preferred watching DVDs at ...

"What will you get if you crossbreed a bulldog and shih tzu?" "A bullshiht!" The movie Marley & Me reminded me of my former pet dogs namely Egan, Floyd, Bono and Relic. It is a film about a young couple and their pet dog, an oddly stubborn and troublesome but lovable Labrador retriever named Marley, who is called the world’s worst dog. Marley doesn’t just play or destroy things but eats them. Sofa, carpets, jewelries, tables, bed sheets, computer printer, answering machine, name it and he will eat it. My first dog, Egan, was already old when I got him. After a few years of being with me, he started showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease. There were times then when I’d talk to him and he’d only stare at me blankly like trying to remember who I was. Sometimes he wouldn’t bark all day and would just read the newspaper which always led me to think that he’d probably temporarily forgotten that he’s a dog. One day, he didn’t wake up anymore. Floyd came next....

I was hibernating under a huge rock in a mountain when I was jolted by the news that the king of pop, Michael Jackson, succumbed to cardiac arrest. The whole world is now mourning. I am really not a huge fan but everytime he'd be on TV, when he was still alive, I'd stop whatever I was doing and watch him. He, with his soft voice, shy demeanor and wild and crazy antics, was always amusing in his interviews. And he was mesmerizing whenever he performed. You can't help but be vastly entertained by him. He was a first class entertainer--methinks he was the best dancer in the world-- and a genuine music icon, not unlike Elvis Presley and John Lennon. His album, Thriller, continues to be the best-selling album of all time. And I still think that his moonwalk , alongside television and cell phone, is one of the greatest inventions of all time.

Damien Rice is a very good singer/songwriter. Why? Because almost all his songs will unfailingly depress you and push you to the brink of utter helplessness. Don’t listen to any of his songs while you’re drunk and heartbroken because it will break your heart more. You will be very lonely that the idea of you hanging from a ceiling with a rope tightly wound around your neck will start to look titillating. This song, Rootless Tree , is one of my favorite Damien Rice songs. You can sing it in a videoke bar and you can dedicate it to an ex-wife who left you for a lesbian, or to an ex-girlfriend who dumped you to marry a rich seventy eight year old man who’s starting to show signs of Alzheimer’s disease, to that girl who chose a married drug addict over you, to Hayden Kho for being in that videos instead of you, to the politicians who continue to screw the nation, to your neighbor who spreads rumors that you eat dog food with ketchup, to Globe and Smart for stealing your prepaid cell ph...

I was rearranging the books in my shelf when I stumbled upon this Lan Medina illustration sandwiched between two books ( 1,000 Street Foods You Must Eat Before You Die and How To Treat Women With Respect (While Secretly Videotaping Them) by former MD Hayden Kho). It turned out to be an ad for a komiks novel I was supposed to write for Super Fantasy Komiks. The main character, Kastigo, a mysteriously dark, ultra-violent but funny superhero, was a creation by Ronald Estacio (then editor of Super Fantasy) but the villains, we discussed and brainstomed. Lan Medina was picked to illustrate it. Mr. Estacio had grand plans for Kastigo, it would have its own komiks entitled Kastigo (it would be 30+ pages long) and a small website would be devoted to it. I’ve already started writing the script when an uprising erupted inside the publishing house. Incidentally, the owners of the company were of Spanish-descent while the writers and the illustrators were true-blooded katipuneros, er, Pino...

The Philippines is a great country but it can’t be denied that some strange creatures are inhabiting it. Only in this country where you can find a former president, one who was kicked out his office by the people and who is a convicted plunderer, having the bravado to say, in effect, that he’ll run again for president if no worthwhile candidate, someone who is better than him, will emerge. This convicted thief was reportedly even quoted as saying that, “Ang kailangan ng bansang ito ay isang lider na matapat, hindi nangungupit sa kaban ng bayan, walang bisyo at tapat sa kanyang asawa!” Hundreds of lightnings allegedly streaked from the skies while he was being quoted but unfortunately, not a single lightning hit the former president. And according to the latest surveys, Mr. Estrada is one of the frontrunners in the race to the presidency in 2010. It is probably only in the Philippines where a government official/respected celebrity can make several commercials teaching impres...

Komikon was held yesterday (May 16) and much as I wanted, I wasn’t able to attend because it coincided with a family occasion. I was with some relatives and we were trying to a make a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label history when someone in our group threw this intriguing question, “Hey, has anyone of you fallen in love with a married woman?” I didn’t answer; I wasn’t always wont to talk about my personal things even to my relatives but yes, I had fallen in love with a married woman. Really, no kidding. It happened many years ago, I was still young then and the law of gravity was yet to be discovered then. She was already married when we met but in spite of it, we still became quite close. We would talk almost everyday and would go out once in a while. But I soon realized that what I was feeling then was bad and decided to suppress it. I made that painful decision after that fateful night when I uttered this short prayer, “ Dear God, please, let her husband die in an accide...