Pogi or not, you are welcome to come!  There will a book signing for ‘Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me’, my first collection of humor essays, on November 22 (Saturday) 5pm at Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street, Taguig.  I will be reading excerpts from the book and also some excerpts from my upcoming collection, “I Do or I Die!”  We will also be selling limited edition “My Yaya thinks I’m Pogi” and “My Yaya thinks I’m Seksi” t-shirts.

(Originally published on November 12, 2008 in the Philippine Star)

Who says true love is hard to come by?  All you need is some olive oil, some acrylic yarn and an oversized Hello Kitty doll.  

Over the undas (All Saints’ Day), I learned that the thousands of words I have spewed out in this column have just been pure drivel.  All that muckety muck about learning pick up lines and reading body language and buying gayumas (love charms) outside of Baclaran church are just as effective on the opposite sex as filing impeachment charges is against the President. Why dab yourself with expensive cologne or don your China-made Rolex or flash your surgically-enhanced pwet just to catch the attention of that woman you have been obsessing over when all you needed to do was mosey on over to your neighborhood sari-sari store for some eye of newt and toe of frog? 

If there is one thing that I learned from Tony Perez’s book Mga Panibagong Kulam sa Pag-Ibig (The New Spells for Love), it is that the government does not have a monopoly in making magic.  This book is the royal straight flush in the poker game of love, where you can stack all the cards in your favor. After you have mastered this book, all you No Girlfriends Since Birth (NGSB) can finally forego the use of your one-armed bandit.

However, what do we really know about kulam that we except for preconceived notions tht we have learned from Bible-thumping conservatives, from our yayas and from movies starring Judy Ann Santos?    What exactly is a kulam and how does it work?  According to Tony Perez, a kulam is simply a creative form of prayer using ingredients. And when you brew together the right amount of ingredients, it’s the equivalent of sending a text message to the ‘higher ups’ asking them to be your tulay (bridge) to spell-bounded love.    

But if this explanation doesn’t satisfy you, then maybe some geometry will: Imagine yourself as a dot.  Now imagine the woman, whether existent or blown up, as the other dot.  Imagine that there is a dotted line connecting both of you.   Imagine that to turn that dotted line into a straight line, you need to perform a kulam.  Now imagine that kulam is like bidding for a government contract.      

There are many spirits, diwatas (fairies), dwendes (dwarves), kapres and congressmen, who have their own agendas, and they may either want to help (tagahatid) or hinder (tagaharang) your kulam from reaching your intended victim, este, beloved.  Imagine your kulam passes through several of these go-betweens who give you the run around, so much so that you have no choice but to overprice the newt eyes and frog toes, without any assurance that the kulam will reach the target, este, woman in the first place. If karma is on your side, your kulam will reach her faster than tsismis on the Buzz.  But if karma would like to stick a hot poker up your pwet, your kulam will reach her slower than oil price rollbacks of multinational oil companies.  But take comfort in the fact that when the kulam reaches your woman, whether it takes five minutes or fifty years, you will have definitely smitten the woman of your dreams. Or you may have smitten a manananggal. 

The kulams that Tony Perez advocates are relatively easy to perform and, thankfully, none of these spells require the drawing of pig’s blood, dancing naked while beating your chest (much to my dismay) or sacrificing a virgin or two.  These would have been particularly daunting tasks, especially if we had to look for virgins.  And, if I may digress my three female readers, there is an interesting factoid about virgins:  There is a misconception that for spells to be potent, they must be performed by people who have not yet field-tested their potency. In other words, spells must be performed by certified virgins (which would make the purchase of the kulam book by DOMs an exercise in futility).  The only thing that that needs to remain chaste for a spell, Tony Perez clarifies, are the ingredients - which means they should not be used for any other purpose except for the spell, whether that purpose is hygienic or otherwise.  But even if these spells required virgins, my NGSB readers would have had no problem with that.    

For most of these kulams, there is a basic five-step process which must be strictly adhered to unless you plan to grow an extra nipple:       

1. Kasangkapan (ingredients).  The most exotic ingredient here might probably be isaw (chicken entrails), only because it is good pulutan (appetizer) while preparing the love spells.  Otherwise, the ingredients for most of these spells are fairly innocuous and can be found in most households, hardware stores and wet markets.  Among these ingredients are vigil candles, candle holders, matches, potpourri bowls, heart shaped nighlights, hair brushes, lipstick cases, hand mirrors, cologne, forks, knives, a chopping block, a pair of tongs, fresh kalamansi, coconuts, biscuit boxes, empty mayonnaise bottles, a pair of scissors, wax crayons, modeling clay, plastic canisters, your passport photo, a domino set, a pair of dice, towel, a pair of tsinelas (slippers), assorted bathrooms sundries and, the most important ingredient, toilet paper (most NGSBs know what to do with the toilet paper).  After gathering all these ingredients, you aren’t quite sure on the onset if you will perform a spell, go on a romantic date, bake some pastries, attend an art class, or take a shower. 

Second, most of these ingredients for the kulams must be monochromatic. Because love spells are nothing if not fashionable.  Therefore, try to gather red apples, red roses, red ink ballpens, red envelopes, red straps, red stamp pads, red soap boxes, red balloons, red birthday candles, rose-colored glasses, red piggy banks, red sugar, the esoteric bagol ng limang sentimos (made from red copper, which supposedly makes the spells more efficacious), and finally, the most mahiwaga (mysterious) of them all, the rose-colored post-it notes (Really).  

And lastly, you are advised to scrub the ingredients with salt, especially if these ingredients have not yet been used for magical, alchemical or world domination purposes.  The salt scrub also leaves these ingredients well-exfoliated and with a nice afterglow.

1. Ang Pagtatalaga ng mga Kasangkapan (Dedication of the ingredients). Before you conduct the kulam, the ingredients are dedicated to magic by bathing them under the light of (preferably) the third full moon for three hours.  As the exfoliated ingredients get a nice moonlit tan, you can choose to bask in the moonlight as well. According to the book, it is untrue that bathing underneath the moonlight will drive you to lunacy. But if you do notice yourself developing a very sharp overbite, or body hair where it doesn’t belong, or are seized by the desire to dine on human viscera, it is best that you go back into the house, lock yourself in your room and then shoot yourself with a silver bullet.  After you conduct the dedication, there is no need for a repeat performance when you cast future kulams.     
2. Pagkokonsagra sa Magica ng mga Kasankapan (Consecration of the ingredients to magic). Every time you conduct a kulam, you need to consecrate the ingredients.  You can consecrate the ingredients by dabbing extra-virgin olive oil on your right thumb and index finger then proceed to smear it all over the ingredients.  Please do not eat the ingredients.  If you are clueless as to where you can find extra-virgin coconut oil, do not fret, just look for a patch of ugly olives (That joke was sponsored by Gary Lising).  If you want quicker results for your kulam, you may want to try using motor oil.  
3. Ritwal (Ritual).  After being bathed, color-coordinated, exfoliated, and moisturized, the ingredients are now ready for their close up.  The ritual is the actual step-by-step spell-casting process, which may or may not involve some blowing of the ingredients. Let us not get into that discussion without having a couple of drinks. 

The spells in the book do not appear in any particular order. In fact, the book recommends you to do a bit of self-diagnosis: there are a grocery list of spells that you can choose from, based on the level of your desperation, hopelessness and medication.  There are very helpful spells that are great for self-medication (i.e. First-Aid for Love), for gardening (i.e. Zen Garden of Love) and for building a strong investment portfolio (i.e. Piggy Bank of Love).

Several of these spells will also help cement your friendships with the “higher ups” who will escort (tagahatid) your message of love to the intended casualty, este, woman.  These “higher ups” include the moon goddess, the earth, wind and fire elementals (when they are not on tour) and diwatang kalachuchis (frangifani (yes, that’s kalachuchi in English) fairies), who can be found on flowering trees.  Although I do hear from reliable sources that you can also meet a lot of diwatang kalachuchis in select bars around the metropolis.

Aside from those “higher ups”, you will also be making barkadas with fruit seeds, Barbie and Ken dolls and “power” cats (between Garfield and Hello Kitty, choose the one with better merchandising material) whom you can help make palakas (peddle their influence) on our behalf to the “higher ups”.  In case you do not have a direct internet connection to love, then there are other alternative forms of communication that you can use - such as the whistle of love, the paper boat of love, the Valentine’s day card of love, or the potentially trademark-infringing starbox of love (really).

If you already know whom you wish to enslave, este, enrapture in the folds of your love handles but are unable to get through to her because of court orders, then there are some love spells which will require you to be more stealthy than police generals returning from an international conference. You can scavenge for personal items that you have, ehem, obtained from her -her picture (clue to NGSBs: you can download their picture from Facebook mwahahahaha), cigarette butts she has thrown away, chewing gum she has spat on your face, buttons from her shirt (remember, the buttons must be acquired through legally defensible means) and the temporary restraining order she filed against you – and store them in a special box which will have the magical effect of bringing her close to you. But also remember that this box can also be presented as evidence in court.

Meanwhile, if you still do not know whom you wish to eventually procreate with, there are other spells that allow you to see the face of your future paramour in the melted remains of birthday candles (which are, of course, red).  And, finally, there are spells that require to make biyak (split open) some mani (peanuts). Let’s not get into that one without a couple of more drinks.

1. Orasyon (Oration). You must recite the oration with ooompha loooompha if you want it to be picked up by the ether and broadcast to the “higher ups”.  I know it might feel rather awkward at first, but just think of an oration like a potential pop or novelty song.   

Imagine Christian Bautista crooning these lines to make a woman want to exercise her biological imperative with you:  

“Ito, ang Pag-ibig, (This love)

Magbubuklod sa ating dalawa (Which binds us)

Magpakailanman (Forevermore).”

Or Jay-R humming this potential chart-topping hit to make the woman as hopelessly irrational as you:

“Ako, (fill in name of NGSB here) (I)

Ang iyong palad (I am your fortune),

Ang iyong tadhana (I am your fate),

Ang iyong katarungan (I am your equity),

Ang iyong biyaya (I am your blessing),

Magpakailanman (Forevermore).

Or, my favorite, the oration to the power pussycat:

“Pusa, pusa (Little cat, little cat)

Ikaw ay magkusa (It’s all up to you)

Huwag mong ipaubaya (Don’t leave things to fate)

Na ako ay lumuha (Or else I’ll go boohoo).”

I can hear Willie Revillame singing it in my head right now. Or Phoebe from Friends.  

By time you’ve labored through every spell outlined in the book, you will be excreting so much love from your pores that Cupid will have to look for another line of work.  However, the kulam book does have a disclaimer: the same way that our prayers are not always answered, kulams are not always guaranteed to work.

When this happens, there is no need to curse the heavens, grab that consecrated knife and turn yourself into a eunuch just yet. Find a way to keep yourself entertained.  After all, since most of the ingredients were household items, you can always recycle them. With all that art material you bought, you can always make a sculpture out of paper-mache.  With all the olive oil you bought, you will never be in need of salad dressing.  And with all the dolls that you bought, you can always find other NGSBs that you can play with. 

If there is absolutely nobody who will give love to you voluntarily, then you can always try casting the love spells again. If worse comes to worse, you can always give love to yourself.      

Mga Panibagong Kulam sa Pag-Ibig by Anvil Publishing is available at National Bookstore and Fully Booked. 

There’s nothing quite so potent that indicates to the opposite sex that we want to exchange bodily fluids with them other than taking them out for a dinner date.

Seriously.

“Huwhaaatt!!” screamed the three female readers who read Manual Magazine.  “You men are aaaaanimals!!!”

‘Animals?’ the men smirk to themselves.  Animals indeed.

According to Dr. Helen Fisher, author of the book The Anatomy of Love, the dinner date is a terribly obvious courting signal that is part of the larger human mating ritual. If a man shells out money to pay for her Value Meal, the woman should instinctively know that the man would like to study her anatomy. In fact, there is no more widespread courtship ploy than to offer food in the hopes of gaining sexual favors in exchange (And the operative word here is hope).

Let’s call a spade a spade: This isn’t a dinner date.  This is courtship feeding.  

Courtship feeding has a very important and primal reproductive function.  By providing food to the opposite sex, it not only boasts of our abilities as hunters and providers, but it also indicates that we are possible sperm donors as well.    

But before you barge out of your office cubicle, hunt down a wild cow, slaughter it and then tenderize it into beef patty, remember this about the female of the species: there is a thin line between offering them food and becoming their food.  

Don’t take it from me, though.  Take it from the male wolf spider. When the male wolf spider enters the long dark lair of the female spider with a tasty fly morsel, he must do this slowly and methodically.  If the male wolf spider gets a tid bit overeager, then the female promptly devours him. And this is not meant in any metaphorical sense. 

And I always thought that any devouring of body parts should be mutually pleasurable activity.

Moving on to things of more inconsequence, I am reiteraing my invitation for all three of you who read this blog to come to my book signing event for “Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me, RJ Ledesma’s Imaginary Guide to Whine and Women” at Fully Booked, Bonifacio Hight Street on November 22, Saturday at 5 pm. Here are some of the critically-praised imaginary reviews for the book:

“I love it, I bought five hundred copies and gave it to all my friends!” – RJ’s mom. 

“It’s required reading! Especially for the editors of Manual Magazine!” – Alora Guerrero, PJ Cana, Mela de Luna, Suki Salvador and Monch Lopez.

“Go to confession after reading this.” – Pastoral statement by the CBCP.

“We will be calling an investigation.” – Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez.

“I am filing libel charges.” – RJ’s wife. 

“Saan yung commission ko?” – RJ’s yaya. 

Lies My Yaya Should Have Told to Me, RJ Ledesma’s Imaginary Guide to Whine and Women (Anvil Publishing) is a compilation of my former columns on dating and mating at The Manila Times and my current column at The Philippine Star.  Read it at your own risk.  Available at National Bookstore and Powerbooks nationwide.  Please buy a copy now and help me pay for my credit card bills. 

(Originally published in Manual Magazine June 2008)

This is when clocks stop, when sweat pumps, when pulses race, and when cuss words fly,   No, this is not the middle of a prostrate exam.  This is not waiting for the results of a pregnancy test. This is not getting caught watching a porn movie by your parents.  This is a bout with UAAP seasonal fever. And two times in every regular season, this fever hits boiling point levels.

This is a fever that postpones Senate hearings, closes down offices in the Central Business District, and helps Adidas meet profit margins. This is a fever that turns prim and proper rosary bead-clutching kolehiyalas into fierce cheerleaders pumping their middle fingers in the air.  This is a fever that reduces men to brash khaki pants wearing schoolboys making hamon (calling out) each other to suntukan (fistfight) at the back of the school. 

We are talking about a rivalry that is as entrenched as the New York Yankees versus the Boston Red Sox.  As blood spattered as Toyota versus Crispa.  And as scathing as Noranians versus the Vilmanians. 

It is Katipunan versus Taft.  Eagle versus Archer.  Gary Lising versus Johnny Litton.  It is Ateneo versus La Salle.  When both schools do battle, school is out and green and blue alike are being given a lesson in aerodynamics at the Araneta Center.  

These are the games that are visceral in nature. Tribal in essence. Epic in scale.  And amplified through merchandising.  It is a rivalry where your shine or shame after the game becomes a subject of national concern.  And - because the cosmic scales of balance demanded it – the fiercest of rivals faced off in this year’s UAAP basketball finals. 

And, this season, it just had to be raining hard during Game Two. 

Argh. The agony. 

But despite the frustration, despite the heartbreak, and despite the hair loss, I continue to revel in this rivalry as much as the next hardcore Archer or diehard Eagle.  And I’m as hardcore as you can practically get.  I’m third generation strong, sixteen years berde and proud of it.  This rivalry has been programmed into my DNA as I am sure it has it has been twined into the double helix of those who have blue gushing in their veins.  When our boys won last year, I howled like a banshee and my body was spitting out so much alpha-male testosterone I was worried my wife might grow chest hair. But, this year, when the Iglesia ni Chris Tiu overcame our Church of Casio, I felt my heart crumple and implode as I went into voluntary sensory deprivation. I couldn’t bear to watch the news or read the papers or even check my email because any tidbit of news replaying the Katipunero victory was like an anathema to green bloods like me. It got so bad that even my yaya couldn’t comfort me.     

But, dear God, we love this rivalry don’t we?  From debate to golf to jack en poy, all you have to do is slap on that imprimatur of the Society of Jesus (SJ) or the Fratres Scholarum Christianarum (FSC), and both sides start painting on their war colors.  And this rivalry hits its crescendo when we duke it out on the hard court.  Our rubber matches are the few times that we can be unapologetically blue and green.  We invest so much of ourselves in school pride (some even invested P25,000 to score a ticket on E-bay), that it is very easy to lose ourselves in the rivalry. 

And why not?  After all, we’re only human.

I’d like to think that our rivalry was borne out of a healthy respect for a competitor that pushes us to better ourselves.  Whenever I see both our players on the court, I cannot even imagine the scale of responsibility that rests on the shoulders of these young men who carry the hopes and dreams of thousands of students and alumni.  But it is also from the hopes and dreams of their supporters, scattered through the generations and across the globe, from which the players draw their extra-dimensional source of ooomph for that archer sting or eagle bite.  These are the type of supporters whose relationship to our players is so intimate that they have the tenacity to watch the games live every heart-stopping time. ‘Screw the statistics’, they say.  ‘To hell with the predictions’, they proclaim.  “Any Ateneo-La Salle game is do or die time. And my boys need me there.”

As a result, these young men, armed with sinew and flushed with adrenaline, have only one mantra running through their minds during the game - “I cannot lose to THAT school.”  When this happens, our amateur cagers do not possess fighting spirit.  They are our fighting spirit.  

We all relish the passion, the zest and the loss of bladder control that this rivalry brings to the humdrum of our daily lives.  In fact, we want to be overtaken by our passions.  We want to be seized by the moment.  We want to be swept away by the experience.   And I can see why: In a world where uncertainty is the norm - where we are unsure as to where global economy is heading, when we are clueless as to which government official is telling us the truth and when we don’t know who will win in Survivor Philippines - our basketball games are the ultimate escapist fantasies.  During the hard court battle, the lines are clearly drawn.  We know who deserve our cheers and who deserve our jeers.  We know who is the hero and who is the villain. We know who is the victor and who is the vanquished.  Yes, these games truly bring out the best in us.     

And, sometimes, it brings out the beast in us as well.   

And why not?  We’re only human.

When we have a rivalry as impassioned as ours, it’s almost too easy to tumble over the slippery slope that keeps our rivalry in the pink of health.  In the wake of this year’s championships, I’ve heard some things and I’ve seen some things and I’ve read some things (yes, my bout with sensory deprivation is now over) that would infuriate those of us who bleed blue or green.  These things I came across don’t bear repeating in this column, for either of our sakes.  But, needless to say, some of these acts denigrate the respect for our rivalry.

Whenever somebody from ‘one side’ steps out of line, this step can be magnified in the eyes of some from the ‘other side’ who take it as a cue that the actions of some speak for the rest of his institution.  When this happens, there is the tendency  to jump to the conclusion that whatever negative stereotypes we’ve heard about our opposite number is automatically justified.   

And there are also some from both camps who believe that a certain degree of animosity must exist between our schools. And I admit that I know how this feels like because I’ve been in that space, too.  I can’t help but think, though, that being in that space prevented me from appreciating that some ‘one’ from the ‘other side’ of the fence could not only be a great rival, but a great person as well. 

Ever since I lost my parental financing and reluctantly entered the workforce, there are many Ateneans I’ve encountered over the years whom I have come to respect, to admire and to trade friendly barbs with.  And there are many of us who have had siblings and relatives and friends who we ‘lost’ to the ‘other’ school.  But after many an Ateneo-La Salle game, we often get together with those ‘lost’ people from the ‘other school’ so we can share a beer, engage in some good-natured and slightly off-colored ribbing, and maybe throw a couple of wayward punches at each other while we’re at it (my sister packs a mean wallop).  And as we enjoy the camaraderie, I can’t bring myself to think: Are the same people from the ‘other school’ who disparage our basketball players, who put down our alma mater and who ridicule the caliber of our education?

Even if they are from the ‘other side’, I know that we both cross ourselves and offer a prayer before the start of every game.  I know that we both fervently sing our alma mater song whether we win or we lose.  And I know that we both try to remain humble in victory and gracious in defeat.  But, sometimes, even when we try our best to be humble or gracious, it just doesn’t work out that way.   

After all, we’re only human. 

I think one of the greatest lessons I have gleaned from this rivalry is the opportunity for us to become more human for each other.  How living up to the value of our rivalry helps us build each other up instead of take each other apart. How we can be men for others for La Sallians and how we can be Christian achievers for God and country for Ateneans.  In the end, we aren’t really poles apart: we take pride in our players.  We take pride in our schools.  We take pride that our schools give us an opportunity to become part of this ongoing rivalry. In the end, our principles know no color. Our respect knows no color.  And our faith embraces both colors.   

I have always wondered what those on top of our respective alma maters think about all this rivalry business.  And I do mean all the way to the top.  Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit the Mother House of the De La Salle Brothers in Rome where I met Br. Alvaro Rodriguez Echeverria, FSC, the superior general.  Because I couldn’t rein in my kakulitan, I just had to ask the Brother Superior about his global take on our beloved adversaries. 

“Brother, what do you think about this rivalry between the Jesuit and the Christian Brothers schools in the Philippines?” I asked him playfully.  Br. Alvaro laughed. “We are very good friends with the Jesuits. Both the La Salle brothers and the Jesuits are some of the largest religious orders in the world.  God needs all the help he can get.”  he smiled.  “In fact, when Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, SJ (the Jesuit Superior General) visits the Vatican next week, he will drop by the Mother House to celebrate mass.”

But I’m still going to be cheering myself hoarse for good ol’ De La Salle in next year’s season.  My rivals would expect nothing less.       

So, am I worried about how our boys are going to fare next season?  Hell, I’m worried about how our boys are going to fare for the next fifty seasons.

But I know that there will be a season for everyone. And for everything.

(Originally published in Philippine Star on October 29, 2008)

Admit it. We’re all a bit petrified of Jessica Zafra.

And for those who are woefully unaware of her existence, please remember that you will be damned to watch an eternal loop of Kris Aquino’s entire run on Game Ka Na Ba until you pick your brains out of your nose. But if you plead for forgiveness now to the omnipotence that is Jessica, you will only be made to watch an eternal loop of Edu Manzano dancing the “papaya” on Game Ka Na Ba. Her omnipotence first materialized during the heathen Backstreet Boy ‘90s when she began spewing bile in her weekly column “Twisted” (which appeared in the Today newspaper, now the Manila Standard Today); she followed this up by terrorizing Manila with manananggals, indoctrinating those of lesser wills by co-hosting the television show Points Of View on Studio 23, managing the biggest El Bimbos, D’Eraserheads, for all of four months, outlining her blueprint for World Domination in her eight-issue-long magazine Flip, vacationing in hell and being unceremoniously deported back to earth for fear that she might shift the balance of power and, finally and most importantly, judging cat shows.   

I daresay that there would be no abnormal brain growth sufficient enough to produce my very own column without previous exposure to her omnipotence’s radioactive bile back in the early ‘90s. And though I tread on blasphemy, I would like to think of myself as a spawn of “Twisted.” In fact, I find my whole body of work to be shamefully derivative of her body of “Twisted” work. Consider these parallels. She speaks of world domination, I speak of being dominated by my yaya. She doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and I am a gladly suffering fool.   She talks about her three cats Saffy, Mat and Koosie, and I talk about my three amorphous female readers, whose names cannot be revealed publicly because of a court order. She has a strange compulsion to pull the hair on her scalp: I have a strange feeling that my body is eating away at the hair on my scalp. Will my sniveling attempts at flattery secure for me the position of Boss Chief of Yayas in her new world order? Or will I just be puréed into another flavor of cat food with orange pulp bits?

Back in the ‘90s, when I still had a niggling showbiz career by way of hawking carbonated oranges, I excitedly dragged my yaya to join me as a guest on the earliest iteration of Jessica’s Twisted morning radio show (when it was still on NU107). When I entered the studio and first beheld her gloriously cynical countenance, I had to tie my panties (that’s what my yaya calls underwear) into a knot to prevent myself from regressing into an effusive, salivating groupie who wanted to be ridiculed by her omnipotence in the most incendiary way possible if only to boast that “I didn’t just get put down, I got put down by Jessica Zafra!” This privilege would be right up there with being a blind item on The Buzz. Then I’d know that I’d made it in the annals of Pinoy pop culture. While I was on the show, I was mortified that if I missyllabicated, mispronounced a word, or made a grammatical faux pas, she would unsheathe a knife hidden in her glasses and turn my tongue into steak tartar. Which she would then use to feed Saffy, Mat and Koosie, of course.

So when Her Omnipotence asked, nay commanded, me to review her newest compilation of columns, Twisted 8, I took it to be a great honor to salivate all over her preview copy and write her praises worthy of a North Korean bureaucrat to Kim Jong-Il. And her omnipotence doesn’t disappoint. And, of course, she never disappoints (please don’t hurt me, Jessica.  My fiancée will kill me. Again.). 

Twisted 8 is like being privy to Jessica’s stream of consciousness, except that in her case the stream has been replaced by molten lava. She is in her best form as our resident rant-conteur, which she does this time around with a bit more aplomb, a bit more snark and a bit more hydrochloric acid. As we peruse the pages, we are reminded that we are not just her readers, we are her minions. Take heed of her panty-twisting revelations, and you may yet be spared from a future of being turned into kitty litter.     

Things I have learned about World Domination from reading Twisted 8:

1. Jessica Zafra owns the world (as if you didn’t know already). And cats own Jessica Zafra. And just to make this point clearer than catnip, Jessica relates that when she was leaving for the  US, her cats suffered separation anxiety and ended up peeing on her suitcase. (Now, you don’t want to know who pees on my suitcase when I leave the country.)

2. Jessica has simple dreams for world domination. These consist of winning Wimbledon, writing a novel, bagging a Pulitzer, seducing Colin Farrell and then dumping him right after, and finally and single-handedly ending all conflict in the world. I have had similar dreams. Except for winning Wimbledon.

3. Jessica actually likes fools. She likes to eviscerate them, pulp them and turn them into fodder for her writing. Be thankful if you grace her writing as you will be immortalized as a smudge of ink.   

4. Jessica doesn’t think that all of us are lesser mortals. Even you deserve praise — as long as you are Andre Agassi, Maria Sharapova, James Blake  Andy Roddick, Marat Safin, Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer (especially if you are Roger Federer), Colin Farrell and the late Italian painter Caravaggio. Or if you are a cat. (I’m sorry, Sting, she has spiritually divorced you. You can now enjoy your six-hour-long orgasms all by yourself.)

5. Jessica is the Alpha Geek. She is the geek that all aspire to become. She is articulate, well-read and sports the ultimate in atomic-proof horn-rimmed glasses. Me? I’m a pretend geek. All I have is an encyclopedic knowledge of all the superheroes in DC Comics and a vast library of ‘80s porn (which will soon be excommunicated by my fiancée). I can only ever aspire to be one-eighth the geek she is. But her omnipotence plans to remedy this by making sure that all her minions read one book a week by eliminating television from their daily schedule. But I’m not sure if I could live without Oprah. (Or, God help me, Kris Aquino.)    

6. Jessica wants us to recycle. Our omnipotence has masterfully conceived of a way that combines our current obsession with celebrities with the popularity of liposuction into an entrepreneurial venture that even Joey Concepcion will fear. For the non-Buzz watching members of the reading public, celebrities now openly endorse and discuss liposuction as part of their beauty regimen. But why simply toss away their greasy blobs of fat as hospital waste — when these are greasy blobs of famous people? Why let all that celebrity waste go to waste when you can make a tidy profit from selling bottles of pickled celebrity fat and display it in your living rooms, next to your framed picture of “The Last Supper”? As you parade your guests around your vinyl-wrapped couches, you can brag, “Look, that’s the bilbil of (blank for reasons of libel) in Patikim ng  Patatas  Mo? And those were the thighs of (blank for reasons of childhood adulation) in Bagets 3: Sobrang Bigat Na. Sigh… those greasy blobs of fat really bring back memories.” Hey, you can even mix and match your favorite greasy blobs of fat, congeal them in one jar and create your own favorite imaginary love team.  

7. Jessica plays with tongues. Our would-be world conqueror moonlights in the stimulating profession of writing English subtitles for Tagalog movies, a profession that all literature majors aspire to do aside from telemarketing (Hey, we’re channeling Jessica Zafra, okay? A sense of irony is a prerequisite). And the truly captivating nature of this raket includes the reshaping of idiomatic expressions into their English counterparts without losing the richness of their meaning. And aside from the word balato, the biggest challenge so far was the translation of the word (ahem, ahem) kepyas — a word that repeatedly appears in my collection of DVDs. How do we artfully capture the idiosyncrasy, the nuance and the sheer kalaswaan of that word into the English language? Only Our Omnipotence can weave her globe-trotting magic on such words and master even more challenging movie titles like Umaga na nang Hinugot (imaginary movie title, courtesy of Jessica, not me.   Promise.) 

8. Jessica does not fall in love, she becomes romantically afflicted (or inflicted, whatever is more painful). Romance is nothing more than a bunch of annoying chemicals demanding that she replicate. However, our beloved cat-lover is not without her feminine wiles. Although rarely used, Jessica does have “girl powers,” but they only seem to work outside of the Philippines. If her girl powers are used here, it might cause a small-scale nuclear explosion. She learned of this ability during a visit to the Sundance Festival in Utah.   The trick, according to her omnipotence, is a) to speak very rapidly, preferably in an octave higher than normal (it is the same squeaky high-pitched voice used by Kris Aquino and Mahal) and b) to make your eyes as big and round as possible (it is the same wide-eyed look that we see in Angelina Jolie and the sexually androgynous Tweety). We hear that  Utah is still recovering from the devastation.    

9. Jessica is not a language expert. She concedes that honor to the cunning wordsmith and language provocateur that is Melanie “Do not judge my brother, he is not a book” Marquez. But hot on the hells, I mean, hot on the heels of our favorite Placenta endorser is first runner-up Cesar Montano who used this soon-to-be classic line referring to one of the movies he directed, “Essential yung eksena, so dapat tantamount yung level niya.” But now, we come to the practical application of this term. Try to pepper your daily conversation with variations on this Montano-ism. For example, “Is your T-shirt tantamount to your pants?” or “Is your soft drink tantamount to your fries?” or “Is Brazil tantamount to the Philippines?” (An in-joke for the tsismoso in you.)

10. Jessica has discovered the true purpose of tsinelas. Whether Havaianas or Sunbeach sandals, her inner Alpha Geek discovered that tsinelas are very good for two things: to wear in the shower and to kill cockroaches. And Jessica is the Buffy (or in Pinoyspeak the Enteng Kabisote) of Cockroach slayers. Tsinelas are the only reliable cockroach-termination weapon. In fact, she has officially decided that cockroach-slaying would be her greatest contribution to the benefit of humanity. (I am now officially worried about my reincarnation.)

11. Jessica wants to hurt you, ‘80s style. If you continue to annoy Jessica by breathing, she will personally mail to you a copy of D’Jeepney driver’s greatest hits — songs from Queen, Abba, the Scorpions and (God forbid) Nazareth. Jessica wants you to relive the moving torture she experienced in the ‘80s as being bombarded by  Nazareth’s walang kamatayang Love Hurts (Editor: It’s actually a ‘70s remake of a 1960 Everly Brothers song). And just to make the torture more exquisite, she will throw in Starship’s We Built This City several hundred times. (Have mercy on the children.)

12. And finally, in Jessica’s new world order, you have nothing to be worried about. As long as you are a cat. Or Roger Federer.   

In the end, we are glad that Jessica continues to write a column and a blog documenting her rantings. Jessica’s musings reveal to all of my three female readers what we already know about ourselves: in our mundane little lives, we can always be left a little bit mangled, a little bit misshapen, and a little bit twisted.   

And we need Jessica to keep on writing. Not only because her writing has contributed to our collective cynicism. Not only because she wields irony like a weapon of mass destruction.  And not only because her writing is a subliminal form of hypnosis preparing us for alien invasion. No, because if Jessica does not keep on writing what she writes, she may just go postal and kill us all. In other words, mag-aamok siya. 

And what she cannot take down with her prose, she will take down with a well-hurled pair of tsinelas. And her three cats. 

Post-script: According to a rather ardent blogger who describes himself as a bibliophile who dreams of world domination (I am not sure if Jessica is aware of this), I am a China-produced clone of Jessica Zafra.  How right you are my friend, how right you are.

From Bendz of http://bendzg.com/2008/08/21/bibliophilic-orgy-cebu/

His book, a compilation of news paper columns of some softdrink endorser in the early eighties who’s trying hard to sound like Jessica Zafra (just like someone I know…). It’s more of a trash than a book. I think I was drunk when I brought that book to the counter as i would never shell out 5 dollars for a piece of literary crap. I could have just read a Dean Koonts, who’s literary prowess is equal to that of a pothead. (Now someone would loathe RJ Ledesma with me.)

* * *

Twisted 8 is now available at National Bookstore and soon at Powerbooks. Her previous Twisted collections and her other books are still in print and available wherever would-be world conquerors perpetuate mind control. She continues to espouse pan-galactic domination on her blog  www.jessicarulestheuniverse.com and has a Friday column in The Philippine STAR called “Emotional Weather Report.”

(originally published in Philippine Star on January 16, 2008)

I am a rabid comics collecting fan. I have been reading, breathing and snorting down comic books before I even grew pubic hair (which is not too long ago).  I think all the sweldo that I plunked down for my comic book collection was probably enough to buy me a congressional seat.  My day starts by checking out all the comic book related websites, and I wet my pants every time Wednesday rolls along because that is New Comics Day.  I am hooked and withdrawal is nowhere in site. 

So I thought that I could share some of my giddiness with the rest of you.  This is an article I originally wrote for the Manila Times on July 17, 2005, the first time comics god Neil Gaiman visited the Philippines. 

And for the comic geeks out there, Komikon is on November 22, 2008 at the UP Bahay Ng Alumni.  Comic geeks, be loud, be proud, geek out! 

If I may geek out for just a moment here.

I’ve been a rabid comics-collecting fan for the past 20 years (much to the detriment of my savings account), and as such, my knowledge of comics border almost on the pseudo-encyclopedic. Just by looking over a comic panel, I could name both the artist and the inker. By discussing a story line, I could tell who penned the story and what year it was written in. And I mark significant moments in my life, like graduation and break ups by what issue of the Justice League of America came out that month.

Thus, asking me to cram the work and wit of comics’ fiction writer Neil Gaiman into 800 words is like asking Neil Gaiman to cram the story of The Sandman, his modern graphic opus of 2,000 pages written over 9 years, into 15 words. However, during a writers workshop where the idol himself decided to grace us with his omnipresence, he handily summed up his most famous work in a single sentence: “The Lord of Dreams learns to change or die, and has to make a decision.”

Neil Gaiman, the bard of modern myth, materialized in town for a series of book signing sessions sponsored by the specialty store, Fully Booked. For those of us who were cunning enough to secure a pass, we had a chance to eschew the kilometric lines that manifested in all three of his book signing sessions and joined his British Council-sponsored dharshan (holy sighting) and writers’ workshop at the Music Museum. Gaiman was welcomed by the booming applause of fans who whooped like giddy teenagers.

For the uninitiated, Gaiman reimagined an obscure 1940s throwaway character from DC Comics (the publishing company of Superman and Batman) named Sandman, a World War II vigilante who donned a cloak, gas mask and a tranquilizing gas gun and fought crime with his sidekick, Sandy (yes, Sandy) that DC wanted to spin for a new “horror” line they were planning to launch. Gaiman thankfully took all but the Sandman name and junked comic-book story conventions—no secret identities, no “super powers,” and no underwear on the outside. He reimagined the Sandman into a character named Morpheus or Dream, a being who is lord over an intangible piece of real estate called “The Dreaming.” Dream was a family member of the eternal race known as the Endless—Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Destruction and Delirium—anthropomorphic beings who were birthed at creation and would continue to exist until the last living thing had passed when Death would claim Destiny, and then finally herself, at the end of time.

Along with fellow comics visionary Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman used Sandman to bring “literariness” into comics, introducing literary devices such as sub text, symbolism and complex characterization. These two men paved the way for more comics writers to realize the full potential of the medium rather than for the medium to be forever mired in hackneyed stories of two-dimensional spandex fetishists who beat each other into ground beef. His work on a single issue of Sandman, “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” garnered for him the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story in 1991, the first and only comic book to win the award. (The rules of the award have since been changed to prevent another comic book from winning.)

It was quite obvious that the charming and self-effacing Gaiman was enthused to see his Pinoy fans overtly fanatical and Richter-scale kinesthetic. (Gaiman related how he couldn’t recall a signing where his fans asked for a hug and a kiss after they got his autograph). After all, he was once like us—a fan. Although he devoured comics as a teenager, he traitorously abandoned our ranks when he turned 17 years old to pursue girls and put up a band (which explains the Duran Duran haircut). At least we know that in his pre-Simon Le Bon days, he had an exquisite taste in comic-book artists—the Pinoy artists. During the 1970s, an exodus of komiks artists to the US introduced Filipino sensibilities to American comics, and Gaiman recalled these artists with much admiration. Comics fans in the Music Museum were filled with pride when Gaiman dropped their names—Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala and Alex Nino, whose art the master described as having, “beautiful line work, elegant lines, beauty and proportion, a sense of quirkiness and beauty.”

Gaiman’s respect for an artist’s signature style is obvious in his current comics work. If truth be told, he is one of the few comic writers who is not only able to choose which artist he can work with, but who also tailors a story that builds on the artist’s aesthetic strengths to ensure that the comics work is not uneven. After all, the literary genre of comics is a collaborative process. In fact, Gaiman returned to script another prose tale of the Dream King called “The Dream Hunters” after the end of his monthly series, because of the opportunity to work with Yoshitaka Amano, the famed designer of the Final Fantasy game series.

Immensely prolific, Neil Gaiman’s body of work has transcended the comics sphere and diffused across literary mediums. That is because when Gaiman tethers onto a story from ideas pace and gives it form, he doesn’t discriminate what fictional medium the story takes shape in. The story chooses the shape it takes.

During the writers’ workshop, Neil anecdotally recounted how fans from different countries were unaware of his versatility. In Poland and China, for example, he is a hugely popular children’s book author, but they had no idea that he had written comics. Meanwhile in Sweden, fans were asking how Gaiman could possibly escape the “shadow” of his Sandman work as his novels were totally alien to them.

As the workshop drew to a close, Gaiman was quizzed if he would return to his Sandman work and resolve the mysteries surrounding the Endless. In particular, a fan asked about Delirium, who was once known as Delight, but due to an unexplained incident eons ago turned her into a new aspect called Delirium. Although Gaiman pondered on resolving this mystery, he declined from crafting a new story. “The more I reveal,” he intimated, “the more questions will be left hanging.” Besides, Gaiman added, he likes his readers to create their own personal mythologies of the Sandman’s realm, by weaving their own stories.

And that is the magic of Neil Gaiman, dream weaver. He makes writers out of all of us.