UNO Magazine Version 2.0 June 2009

It began with the Japanese Monster Sex Show.

This was what a rather harmless looking baby-faced man with a perennial scowl, a slight paunch and a predilection to wearing rock music t-shirts two sizes too large for his baby damulag body recommended, nay, demanded that I use as the title of the monthly music column that he would write for me in my previous stint as an Editor-in-chief of a now defunct men’s magazine (Although I still fail to see what the title of his column had to do with music unless the squeals of three hundred foot tall monsters in the throes of love sounded like heavy metal).

But I trusted this man and his monster of a writing ability.  Because this man was as brilliant as he was quirky, as visionary as he was obsessive, and as sane as he could be without medication.  This man, whose squinty-eyed countenance had been peering at me from his Philippine Star column ‘Outside’ for the part thirteen or so years, was Erwin Romulo: editor, writer, and a fan of musicians with names like Throbbing Gristle, Millions of Dead Cops and Dr. Octagon (Actually, Mr. Romulo used a more potent Japanese term for ‘sex show’ called b!@#$&*.  And this type of show is quite popular among adult movie connoisseurs, dibidi vendors and sex offenders.)

I was on the brink of saying yes to Erwin’s recommended column name until I went online to surf for the English translation to b!@#$&*. Suddenly, my monitor was showered (almost literally) by several hundred definitions of this word along with explicit visual support.  When my wife saw all those images penetrate my monitor, she set me on fire with her Godzilla breath.

As soon as I exorcised my laptop, went to confession, and was flogged several hundred times, I called Erwin “Let’s call your column ‘Just The Two Of Us’ because you are writing it with your heterosexual life partner and soft porn peddler Quark Henares.  And, by the way,” I cleared my throat “You are paying for my physical therapy.”

Unfortunately, after pounding out a few columns, Erwin disappeared on like a radioactive lizard plunging back into the depths of the ocean while Quark went AWOL after he was put on the hit list MTRCB censors. Months later, Erwin resurfaced as an editor slash writer besieging another publication. Then in another.  And another.  It seemed as if everybody wanted several hundred words from prolific writing journeyman. At this point, I knew that Erwin was no longer a man. He was now a gremlin in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

What made this Palanca award-winning literary sumo wrestler leave my stable of writers?  Was it because of the lack of oomph in the title of the column?  Was it because of creative ennui? Was it because of the call of another Japanese monster in heat? I will never know.  But, I knew that one day, I would be able to give him the liberty to pursue his Japanese monster sex show. And that he would be in my thrall again.

Fast forward three-and-a-half years later: Erwin and I were grizzly, este, grizzled veterans of the local magazine industry. And although we felt that our best work was still way ahead of us, the global economy had a contrary perspective: We were both out of our respective magazine jobs (Well, at least I was.  But misery is always better when it is equitably distributed).  When I was freshly unemployed, I tried touching base with Erwin to find out if he could spare me some writing assignments in his magazine. Much to my surprise, Erwin was trying to reach me for some writing assignments as well.

Aha!  This was divine synchronous madness at work. After sending each other a flurry of mutually gratifying texts that bordered on bromance (a bromance much like that of Marc Nelson and Rovilson Fernandez but without the abs and the product endorsements), we reckoned it would be best if we worked together in another men’s magazine that would allow us more leeway for the catch-all phrase ‘creative experimentation’. A men’s magazine that would unflinchingly hand us the editorial leash so that we could tighten our own nooses.  And a men’s magazine that would finally allow Erwin a column for a Japanese monster sex show.

And we found a men’s magazine of that mettle with UNO magazine.

Now here we were: RJ “Joker” Ledesma and Erwin “The Riddler” Romulo.  The dysfunctional duo. Now all we needed was one more arch-villain so that we could put up our very own Arkham Asylum.  And we found it in a sliver of a man named Juan Caguicla: part-photographer, part-artist, part-tattoo, quarter metal and one eighth metal chopstick.  This man had “artist” written all over his body parts, quite literally.  When Erwin first introduced me to Juan, his presence was so intimidating that he could cause small animals and little children to scamper away.  I know that I had involuntary bladder discharge when I first men him.

But when Juan first exposed his portfolio to me, I knew he was going to be our “Two-Face”. For those unfamiliar with his work, this is what In-Print Magazine (September 2005) had to say about Juan’s photographic prowess, ‘his work will suck you in and spit you out feeling as if you were momentarily blinded, wondering what the hell it was that robbed you of your sight for a split-second. There is a story to every photograph but not every story is worth remembering. In Juan’s case, his photographs paint stories that will haunt you leaving you imagining a million different possibilities for endings.”

And when you see the Juan sucks and spits you through the visual artistry (yes, artistry) of the rebooted UNO magazine, you will believe that this tattooed man knows the crevices of women bodies like he knows the crevices his camera lens.

Once the three of us were on board, we filled up our asylum with our favorite lunatic fringe with the singular goal of world domination. Or, at the very least, free Krispy Kreme donuts, unlimited brewed coffee and wi-fi for everyone.   And nobody will stop us from seeing our plans to fruition. Not North Korea. Not the UN Security Council. Not the Boazanian invasion force. Well, except maybe for maybe Jessica Zafra.

UNO will be the anthropologists that trawl the underbelly, the overbelly, and the bilbil of our evolving Pinoy pop culture as it makes out with the rest of the pop-mad global culture.  Our madhouse team of writers, photographers, artists and convicts plan to construct a Byzantine structure of words and images that speak unabashedly to those of us who grew up wearing Voltes V underwear, gorging on sweetened spaghetti and drinking Royal Tru Orange, while watching the Saturday showdown on That’s Entertainment.

So when you read the June issue of our publication, we’ll be rubbing your brains harder than a masseuse in Quezon Avenue.  Don’t believe me?  Let’s put it this way, the topics that have plagued our creative forums via email groups would have had us arrested in less democratic countries:

PG Porn. Kool Aid flavors. Pick up artists summits. Evil yayas.  Avant garde fashion shoots.  Voltes V. Guest editors. Sex scandal videos. Eskrima. Weaponized swine flu.  Animated covers.  Morrisey.  Bebigirls versus Supergirls. Sturgeon faces. The tunay na lalake blogspot. Alan Moore. Never-ending haiku beat downs.   Kinatay.  Male brazilian waxes.  Star Wars themed marriages. Parkour.  Cross-dressing Japanese teenage boys.  Grant Morrison.  Sasha Grey.  Underwater hockey.  The electric friendship generator. Tony Perez.  Codpieces. J.G. Ballard. Stalker blogs. Jail bitch names. Evil robots.  Japanese game shows. Warren Ellis. Ultimate surrender.  Recessionista gays.  Superhero fashion emergencies. Tantric sex.

We are just waiting to be called to the next Senate investigation.

But, hold on to your laser sword, that’s just one half of the UNO formula. Because we’d be certifiable if we thought that we could pump out a men’s magazine that didn’t depict the fine female form. And the operative words here are a fine depiction of that form.  Instead of being fined for our depiction of that form.

Don’t get me wrong.  We appreciate the aesthetics of the female form as much as the other male magazines that parade the newsstands.  In fact, many of us grew up and grew assymetrical forearms seeing how these finer magazines showed us in garish detail how to appreciate aesthetics that had been technologically enhanced, airbrushed and photoshopped.  However, we also think that there is still room in the men’s magazine market to portray female geography free of baby oil, of nipple tape, of fig leafs and of whatever fruits are in season.  And hopefully free of some photoshop as well.

We at UNO Version 2.0 want to celebrate the sexiness of the female form as much as the next testosterone-addled male. But we think we can portray the fairer and less hairier sex as something more than just a set of biological signals that gets blood pumping into body parts that Viagra can effortlessly reach. We firmly believe that women are sexy beyond mere biology (But we do enjoy biology as much as the next male high school student. And Juan, God bless every little tattooed inch of him, will make sure of that). Now, we won’t be bold enough (pun, uhm, intended) to proclaim that we’ve figured out how women can be sexy beyond biology, but we’re willing to give a crack (Uhm, pun not intended either) at it.  You see, sexy can be an experience.  Sexy can be an attitude. Sexy can be a philosophy. Sexy can be a way of being. And a sexy woman who is an artful, chaotic mishmash of all these attributes, she can be more complex than chaos theory.

Welcome then, every all, to the evolution of sexy.

And to start off this grand singular experiment in sexy, we’re getting some electroshock therapy from another Philippine Star columnist who will grace the cover of our revamped magazine. And here’s a clue: You can count your cocktails that’s its not fellow columnist Scott Garceau (or else his wife would have used her Godzilla fire breath on him).

So do we know what we expect from magazine in the next couple of months?  Hell, neither do I.  But I’m willing to be taken for a ride.  So hang on for dear life, bring along some clean underwear and we promise to arouse, to arise and to surprise.

Because this is Voltes team volting in.

This is Narda choking on a magic pebble

This is Billy Batson wailing Shazam.

This is Hot Rod when he gripped the Matrix in Transformers the Movie.

This is Japanese Monster sex show, baby.

This is the all-new, all-different UNO Magazine.

And we are going to blow your away like no Japanese monster ever could.

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)

Dear blogging community,

The shameless self-promotion continues!  In preparation for the book signing of “Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me’, my first collection of humor articles from Anvil Publishing, on November 22 (Saturday) at Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street, Taguig, I scoured and stalked out several blogs to see what they had to say about me and my yaya.

Apparently, bloggers have a lot of nice things to say. About my yaya.

Spread the word!

Namaste,

RJ

From XT of  http://xteaboi.multiply.com/reviews/item/21 (originally posted on Oct 13, 2008)

Witty! Funny!Despite the ambient lighting of the coffee shop, I decided to keep the aviator glasses to maintain anonymity as I was enjoying my time laughing hard through the pages of this book. I know somebody from the other table was calling someone from the Mental health institute to gun me with a tranquilizer. Bakit ba? nag order naman ako ah!

 From Jaslil of http://jaslil.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/lies-my-yaya-should-have-told-me/ (originally posted on September 16, 2008)

One of my favorite pastimes on weekends is to “tambay” in NBS. I can’t control my urges whenever I get my hands on books. Guilty pleasures, I call it.

I was actually looking for the book, “The 500 People You Meet in Hell” when an orange book from an obscure area caught my eye. Hmmm, RJ Ledesma — I have never heard of him before. Tita Jas said that he’s that little boy from the soda  commercial back in 80’s. Haha, I’m not that old to even remember!

Oh well, hearing Tessa Arriola’s critique of the man is already a guarantee of my money’s worth.

This guy is very articulate, not to mention the effortless gab he writes which makes his readers laugh out loud. I never thought that a man as smart as him could be a manservant for the one who has his heart (Arrrgghh! I’m jealous!) and would do whatever his yaya tells him to do. He exaggerates stories but I don’t find him corny in any way.

I hope he wouldn’t mind if I post this part that really really really made my tummy cramp. Boy! I thought I’d die laughing! This is by Tim Tayag.

If (the girl) emits a high-pitched, song-like laugh like “Ahihihihihi” after you crack a joke, it means, “The only chance you’ll get to sleep with me is when we have paid the national debt.”

If she emits a nasal and snort-like laugh like “Hyuck hyuck hyuck” it means, “Oh my God, I am strangely attracted to you even if you resemble a body part that is best hidden from public view, but I’m not ready to sleep with you.”

If she emits an unmelodic and grunt-like laugh that sounds like she is choking on her own saliva: “Ahug ahug ngef gaak” it means, “I am soooo going to make your eyes pop out of your head tonight… TWICE.”

Surely, RJ doesn’t need a cartoon to tell his story. And of course, what more can I say about his theories about love god-knows-where he got them! LOL

From Bendz of http://bendzg.com/2008/08/21/bibliophilic-orgy-cebu/ (originally posted on August 21, 2008)

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.)

From Pols in http://pols.blog.friendster.com/2008/06/lies-my-yaya-told-me-not/ (originally posted in June 24, 2008)

Lies My Yaya Told Me – Not

For those who have been reading my blog, you may be familiar with the title of this blog artcle. I had written about wanting to read this book by RJ Ledesma but was surprised by the shipping fee that was quoted in National Bookstore. However, NP read about the story while she was vacationing in the Philippines and offered to get me the book. I am thankful for the kind offer and am now able to give a partial review of the book.

I say partial since I’m about halfway reading the book. As my title implies, the book may have been titled lies my yaya should have told me but the content and subject of the book is not about that. I’m having mixed feelings about the book since my initial belief about the subject of the book were wrong, I felt a little bit misled. Having said that, there were some statements that were tongue in cheek funny specially the irreverent use of people in the social scene as well as stuff that were familiar to my generation eg the aquanet hairspray which brings back some funny memories. Some of the subject matter are borderline bastos – if I were unmarried, I would suspect that these are the stuff young men would talk about amongst themselves when womenfolk are not around. Eg, he calls PMS – Permissible Manslaughter and the talks about the subject of Victoria’s Secret.

The way he writes stuff is akin to reading a blog but he writes the comedy directed mostly to himself and his girlfriend as well as some portions directed at the yaya.

From Nikko of http://maallen.multiply.com/reviews/item/2 (originally posted on June 3, 2008)

okay.i think the book’s quite good. every pages will make you smile though not all of them will make you laugh out loud.:p hnn..but yes, it will definitely make you understand the opposite sex more.this book’s got some green content and i suggest that only the open-minded people read it..or those who are trying to open their mind.:))

btw, RJ ledesma, the author, is a host from the show The Men’s Room.:) what a very self-centered guy..sya lang nakita kong sinama ang kanyang picture sa cover ng libro nya.iba to.iba.

so there.over all, this book is good, i should say, even if it doesn’t make you laugh out loud since you’ll still learn something from it.:)

 From blue of http://chinablue16.multiply.com/reviews/item/17 (originally posted on April 20, 2008)

Entertaining. Hilarious … as in.

 From Madonnarrific of http://madonnarrific.multiply.com/reviews/item/49 (originally posted on April 13, 2008)

After reading this book, I am convinced that RJ Ledesma is the voice of straight men everywhere. He writes what most Filipino men fear to even think, with a witty sense of humor that rivals that of Jessica Zafra. In fact, RJ Ledesma could possibly be the Filipino’s answer to the fictional Carrie Bradshaw.A known funnyman, RJ Ledesma proves he is all that in this book. He has the wit and charm of a horny teenage Catholic school boy [which I highly believe], but an intelligent horny teenage Catholic school boy at that. His essays are not only funny [it's one punchline after another], but it is cleverly written as well.

Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me is a godsend to boyfriends. It is an anthology of his essays that were published in the Manila Times, but more importantly, a comedic manual that deals with the most mysterious creature in the universe – girls.

From JC of http://jcbpbayan.multiply.com/reviews/item/11 (originally posted on April 1, 2008)

If you’re looking for tips on dating in the 21st century, or just about anything about the opposite sex, this small book is perfect for you.Basically a compilation of his articles in the Manila Times and The Philippine Star, RJ Ledesma dishes out a definitive (and at the same time drop-dead hilarious) masterpiece, lavishly sprinkled with his unique style of humor writing. Also, it’s primarily dedicated to one of the most influential persons in his life (up to now!), his yaya. To get a first taste of how he writes (and how he just adores and loves his yaya) you’d want to read his column at The Star on Wednesdays (where I first discovered his prose).

Funny, witty, and informative, his style of intelligent humor, rare as it is nowadays, will definitely sneak up on you and tickle even your deadest brain cells. Even if you don’t have a yaya anymore.

 From http://deeya-07.blog.friendster.com/2008/03/lies-my-yaya-should-have-told-me/ (originally posted on March 20, 2008)

No, I didn’t have a yaya growing up. It’s a book by RJ Ledesma. We first heard about it on TFC in an interview by Ricky Carandang. I promised my sister I’d send a copy as soon as I get back to Manila and I did. I’ve only procured a copy for myself a week later upon my sister’s prodding and now I know why.

Been reading RJ Ledesma’s (Yes, the Royal Tru-Orange guy from the commercial in the 80’s) book which claims to be an “Imaginary Guide to Whine and Women” and I am totally laughing my head off.

He writes so vivid and hits me very close to the heart. Personally, I feel very enlightened. Enlightened in the sense that I have an idea what my boyfriend/fiance could be feeling/thinking during my “crazy” periods, confirming that what RJ’s plight as a man is shared.

Permissible Manslaughter and Anger Mismanagement are two of my favorite entries. I don’t want to spoil it for you so buy a copy and laugh your heart out.

Now books classified under humor (that’s where I found it in National Bookstore) are not always informative but you’d be fascinated with the facts he inserts here and there in his article. I found myself saying “ohhh” and “ahhhh” while reading and I’ve never heard myself say that with medical books.

It’s a good read. A little steep for a newsprint copy but I do feel it’s worth the entertainment you’ll get from it.

From Jessica of http://badgefenol.multiply.com/reviews/item/6 (originally posted on February 13, 2008)

I had the opportunity to meet the writer (and have my copy signed), thanks to my job! haha. Anyway, its a fun read, quite scientific (yes, mind you with scientific basis). A collection of thw writer’s broadsheet articles on modern dating, and of course women.

I suggest ladies should read it, you’ll get a lot of (helpful) information on this one. Aside from the most memorable line “Men are imbeciles”, there are a few which seems inculcated in my mind. There’s a meaning to the way a woman laughs, the high-heeled reality about being sexy and a lot more fun stuff that’ll give you a good laugh. I’ve personally learned a lot from this book (honest!).

This might sound like a promo rather than a review, but i’ll say it anyway, quoting the author “If you wanted to forget about the problems and the government for a while, you should read LIES MY YAYA SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME by Rj Ledesma”.

 From Christma Anne of http://prettyxma.multiply.com/reviews/item/25 (originally posted on February 13, 2008)

It is intelligent humor at its best. A guide to men dating in the 21st century.

From http://iamnotfrodo.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/pseudo-bookworm-on-overdrive/ (originally posted on February 4, 2008)

The word “yaya” is Filipino for “nanny”.

I believe this is RJ Ledesma’s first book. This is apparently a compilation of his newspaper column articles and a few essays.

I actually had a lot of high expectations for this book. First, because the author is a co-star of the now defunct “The Men’s Room” on Studio 23, which was an uber-funny show in its prime. Second, the cover, which showcases Ledesma and his goofy smirk, makes for the impression that it’s a funny, funny read. And third, it was a really thin book and yet it cost more than my Zafra books.

So anyway, after reading the whole thing, I thought it drastically fell short of being hilarious. I’ve read better stuff here! It would’ve been so much funnier, should it have been written by one of the editors of The Man-Blog. Sadly, it seemed that the Ledesma I knew from The Men’s Room days are gone. Either that, or he can’t fully translate that perverted sense of humor of his on paper.

Also, the articles didn’t really have much lies and “yaya” stuff on them as I thought, which could’ve been funny. Which is kind of stupid, I know, but hey, I’m a simple-minded guy. What can I do?

Because I am a shameless self promoter, I would like to repost in my blog several of the full book reviews I came across of ‘Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me’ that came out both in print and online.

And hopefully, this gets you excited enough to show up to my book signing at Fully Booked, Bonifacio Hi Street, Taguig on November 22 (Saturday).

Thanks again for the support! Namaste.

From Carlomar Arcangel Daoana of The Daily Tribune (originally published on February 14, 2008) 

RJ Ledesma’s take on love and all things similar

Since the publication of Kitty Go’s two delightful volumes on the foibles of high society, there has been no “funny” read to emerge that can actually balance the tightrope between acute observation and simply rollicking humor, that is until RJ Ledesma’s Lies my Yaya should have told Me was launched last Thursday in Archeology in Rockwell.

The book, published by Anvil, is something we have been expecting from RJ all along, if I may hazard a guess. His must-read ruminations on love, dating and things similar in the 21^st century, as chronicled by two dailies, plus his energizing touch that  transformed Manual into the only irreverently smart men’s magazine in the country, had left us guessing what RJ can do with the format of a book.

Lies my Yaya should have told Me is, simply put, a suave masterwork to this juggler of many careers. The first chapter “Love is a Four-Letter Word” blurts out what may be a fundamental truth about men: “They confuse sex for love.” From here, the author darts toward assembling objects that curiously set the mood for sex, which men believe they have wrapped in smokescreen. The author, as a fact-seeking journalist, takes a quick jaunt to Victoria Court and cyber-cruises in dating sites to report first-hand the nitty-gritty of love’s nether regions.

 His vivisection of Christian Bautista’s “Hands to Heaven” is, however, the crux of this chapter, as it betrays the underlying message in the song’s refrain repeated five times: “Tonight I need your sweet caress,/Hold me in the darkness/Tonight you calm my restlessness/You relieve my sadness.” What looks like an innocuous string of words is actually deceptive. Warning the “three female readers of my column,” RJ decodes the lyrics as: “I want to go at it with you five times but I hope you don’t make me feel guilty in the morning when I give you a call.”

The second chapter, “The thin line between love and insanity,” ventures into terra incognita: the wrath of a woman.  The “rusty pliers,” a character that will evolve to Darth Vader proportions as one reads along, makes its initial appearance here. Essentially, the stories in the chapter are meant to make sense of woman’s a senselessness when she is fuming mad. RJ, in a stroke of genius, realizes that “she has the divine right to get angry at you about anything because it is entire your fault.”  He spirals into another Dante Alighieri hell by knowing the fury connected with PMS and ovulation. I have never read anything as reverential when it comes to woman’s body rhythms.

Dating, as seen through the eyes of RJ, gets demystified in the third chapter, “Mating Games.” His almost anthropological approach to the anatomy of flirting (ditto the svelte seduction of stilettos), which RJ concludes as a failure of interpretations, is juxtaposed with a she says/he says repartee on the nature of woman’s weight, all meant to save a man’s precious extremities once the conversation actually creeps up. Describing blind dates as “the Russian roulettes of the courtship world,” RJ reasons that “men shouldn’t be allowed to go on speed dating without a license” and “women shouldn’t go on speed dating without alcohol.”

The raison d’etre isn’t served until the last chapter, “The Parent Trap,” which reads like a somnambulist’s recollection of a guy meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time while simultaneously glimpsing a vision of his death. It’s incisive, not to mention hilarious, in a way that it exposes the nuances of the uniquely Pinoy phenomenon called dalaw, the prelude to the actual pamamanhikan.

“According to the book The Filipino Family,” the author writes, “tradition dictates that parents command their daughters to stay in their rooms and plug their ears full of cotton so that they can face the young man and pulverize him without restraint.  And, even if your dangle has yet to cause collateral damage, the Q&A serves as a preemptive strike to ensure the preservation of virgin territory.”

 In Lies my Yaya should have told Me, RJ’s strength lies more on hyperbole than irony. There’s nothing to read between the lines and all the scenes are meant to be imaginatively relished (yes, even the dog fornicating with the author’s leg in a beach) and in some instances, cringed upon, especially when rusty tools creep up as a warning against men’s nonsense and such. It’s evident that the author dips his foot into the territory of fiction, but not only for effect: he finagles truths about the human condition—chiefly, the eternal interplay between a man and a woman—by enlarging and sculpting situations to suit his end.

 As the book engages with Philippine contemporary life, the reader will not miss the deft tirades of the author on politics. RJ describes GMA’s approval ratings as “scant as the outfits” which “nubile starlets” wore in his TV show.  It’s commentary that doesn’t leave a bad taste in the mouth, but interests just the same because it is so left-field, so dripping with humor.

For some, the author may even be considered as a feminist—a self-deprecating figure prostate on the altar of Venus. But he is, deep down, just an ordinary bloke who is man enough to admit, recognize, even celebrate the importance of women—not merely for pro-creation purposes, mind you. Because of this, RJ may come across as merely earnest. But if earnestness is his vice, so be it.

From Paolo Lorenzana of Philippine Star’s Supreme (originally published on March 1, 2008)

Randomonium

Welcome to the 21st century, where the sexual revolution has revolved off into absurdity—and where a Pinoy guy in his 30s can unflinchingly write about his inadequacies and pay homage to the woman who constantly provides him wisdom, mis-education, and towels to wipe his pawis: his yaya.

Sure, any guy would have reaped emotional scars from hawking Royal Tru Orange in an ‘80s commercial that takes totoy to an unprecedented level, but that colorful blip in a man’s life only proves to add to the wisecracking, utterly self-deprecating persona of Rene “RJ” Ledesma, which is what prodded me to purchase Lies my Yaya Should have Told Me: RJ Ledesma’s Imaginary Guide to Whine and Women over Pulutan from the Soldier’s Kitchen, a bar chow cookbook compiled by two Oakwood mutineers-turned-gourmands who’ve whipped-up productivity from incarceration—the former, way tastier than a serving of adobong hito sa gata.

A collection of his columns from the Manila Times (“Playing With My Tools”) and The Philippine Star (“Pogi from a Parallel Universe”), Lies my Yaya Should have told Me chronicles its author’s testicle tickling—and kicking—travails in the savage lands of the female species; one presided over by a girlfriend who’s privy to the law (she’s a barrister) and won’t think twice about pummeling his man-parts with a gavel, a mother who’s amusingly overbearing, and, of course, a yaya who acts as the cackling entity looming over his manhood and the bastion of his subservience to the fairer sex.

No, the holy trinity of girlfriend-mother-yaya doesn’t really stand behind RJ holding cold gun barrels against his head as in Iraqi captive execution, but all the campy imagination makes for a riotous read, anyway; RJ writing of the 21st century Pinoy man’s concerns (Victoria Court motels and chloroform, boys’ nights out and KTVs, and all the blood-pumping dilemmas of having a d*ck) from the hazards of dating and the task of appeasing girlfriends we don’t seem to deserve, no matter how smart, funny, and rightfully geeky a man is. Whether it’s weathering women through “permissible manslaughter” (PMS) and irrationale (“She has the divine right to get angry at you about anything because it is your entire fault”) or having to learn the secret art of listening, RJ channels Steve Martin, Dolphy, and pre-Duplex Ben Stiller—especially when he meets his girlfriend’s parents in an essay entitled “Let Sleeping Pickles Lie”, an allusion to slipping some discretion to a mate’s parents to avoid the pickling of one’s testicles.

We’re all pretty much on the same train to men-only Auschwitz when we deal with the women in our lives, but with RJ as our crash test dummy fumbling for propriety and his girlfriend’s graces, we can stand at the sidelines rubbing our bellies and laughing nervously at how much of an absolutely clueless and lesser sex we are. Ledesma’s Lies makes for great pulutan for the imbecile’s soul (that means all hetero wielders of the schlong) and it’s good to see one guy, as they say, taking it like a man.

From Rome Jorge of Manila Times (originally published on April 3, 2008)

RJ Ledesma tells all about his Yaya, The Tru-Orange kid and his expose about his nanny

He started his literary career here at The Manila Times. His column, “Playing with My Tools,” reintroduced Filipinos readers to RJ Ledesma, then better known for being that kid, Joey, in the Royal Tru Orange commercial (if you’re old enough to remember, you’re old—like RJ and I are) who was sent by his mommy to buy some suka [vinegar, not puke].

He also co-hosted for that FHM-like TV show Men’s Room. In his column entries, he intimated: his fixation with supermodel Phoemela Barranda; his dependence on his yaya [nanny/wet nurse], belying any similarity of television commercial persona with his true self—that of a scion of real estate development empire, Ledesco; and his supposedly henpecked and Catholic-guilt-stricken relationship with Vanessa, now his wife. Read it and weep:

The Comet that Killed the Dinosaurs [RJ Ledesma’s pet name for his girlfriend, specifically when she’s pissed at him]: Why do you keep writing about Phoemela Barranda!? You think I find that funny!? Every week it’s Phoem this and Phoem that! It’s enough already that I have to compete with your yaya sleeping beside you at night, then Phoem pa!

RJ the dead idiot: What does this have to do with what we’re talking about? Love, you know I’m just writing about Phoem for humorous exaggeration, and you didn’t have to let the readers know about my yaya . . .

- Playing With My Tools, The Manila Times, May 29, 2005

Later, Ledesma became Editor in Chief of Manual Magazine. And then he left to us to write for that other newspaper filled with star columnists. Arrgh. The turncoat! But we know the dirt on Ledesma. And so does everyone, thanks to his new book, Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me: RJ Ledesma’s Imaginary Guide to Whine and Women.

They say it’s a bestseller, most especially after it was allegedly mandated as required reading for the rank and file of Ledesco. Friends of Ledesma (as well as complete and utter strangers) can expect to receive copies of his book for Christmas, Valentine’s, Halloween, and on their wedding, baptism, confirmation and circumcision. Sources allege that this is but the first in Ledesma’s quest for ultimate power.

Rumor has it that a movie musicale based on the book (starring Barranda no less and the dashing Andrew E as Ledesma) is set to be released shortly before the campaign season of the next elections, where Ledesma is said to run for President under a platform of free government-subsidized soft drinks, a ban on all meat products and calls for an orange revolution.

Oh, about the book. It’s kind’a funny.

Be on the lookout for special copies with centerfold spread photos of Ledesma and nanny. Do not open—not unless you value the meal you ate beforehand.

In it as well are insights into the Pinoy psyche—at least the psyche of Pinoy who’s a vegan yoga instructor, real estate magnate, Couples for Christ member and men’s magazine editor. Definitely, the author is your typical guy.

Already, literary critics have lavished praise on the book:

“It made me cry.” -RJ Ledesma

Kidding aside, the book delivers oodles on the science behind romance such as the biochemistry of pheromones and oxytocins. It also delivers realistic situationers about romance and relationship for 21st century Pinoys—like Catholic guilt about premarital sex and skulking about drive-in motels just the same.

It’s a must read, especially for employees of Ledesco.

From Gmeleen Faye B. Tomboc of Clickthecity.com (originally posted on February 11, 2008)

Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me

If you walk into a book launch graced by Mayor Binay and members of the diplomatic corps, you could have mistaken it for the launching of a coffee table book. However, once I spotted Gary Lising and DJ Mo Twister milling around, I knew there was something else to it.

On a Thursday night, RJ Ledesma (aka that guy in the Royal Tru Orange commercial) unveiled his first compilation “Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me: RJ Ledesma’s Imaginary Guide to Whine and Women.” Gary Lising, DJ Mo Twister, Nancy Castiglione, Sam Oh, and Jojo “All the Way” Alajar were on hand to read out excerpts. Those familiar with his late-night show with stand-up comedian Tim Tayag (“The Men’s Room”) would definitely know what to expect from this paperback – tongue-in-cheek humor.

The book is a compilation of his essays from his previous column in the Manila Times called “Playing With My Tools,” and his current column for the Philippine Star called “Pogi from a Parallel Universe.” The observations on pick-up lines, dating, courtship, and certain life-changing events, such as dealing with the parents of your girlfriend, are razor-sharp, laugh-out-loud (not just chuckle) funny, and most of the time, embarrassingly true. How else can you explain this passage: “In their more complex minds, women mistakenly ‘boys’ night out’ with cheap beer, voluptuous women, and really lousy singing. They’re wrong you know- the beer isn’t cheap.”

Surprisingly, there’s a fair amount of research that went into each column- RJ cites sources running the gamut of the president of the American Board of Sexology to books such as “Shoes: A Celebration of Pumps, Sandals and Slippers.” There are also sprinklings of political innuendo thrown in: “(My) girlfriend informed me that I had first to ask her parents’ permission to accompany her to the United States. If there’s anything that scares me more than GMA’s mole, it is her parents.”

Of course, the evening could not have been complete without RJ’s yaya, who gamely hammed it up for the camera with her ward. There are more observations on everything else than on what RJ’s yaya actually told (or did not tell) him. But after going through all 107 pages, you wouldn’t mind.

This paperback is a fun read because RJ isn’t afraid to poke fun at himself; in one essay, he describes himself this way: “I was already a thirty something who had suffered his first bald spot (oh, the indignity!) and finally gained the privilege to watch porn movies guilt-free (but I still lock my door).” RJ shares, “The nice thing about humor is that you’re able to tell the truth in a way that you can accept it. Luckily I’m someone who has a very low threshold of embarrassment.”

Whenever I listen to a ‘hit’ FM radio station, I feel like a musical Neanderthal.  I am clueless as to what are those chart-topping songs that are piercing my eardrums. But I am even more clueless when it comes to the bands behind these hit songs.  When I hear band names like Fall-Out Boy and My Chemical Romance and Panic at the Disco, I am unsure as to whether these are band names or movie titles or designer drugs.

Man, how I long for the prehistoric days of the eighties when my world was Rick Astley.  During high school dances, I remember how the kikay cheerdancer gossip girl alpha-female with three-feet high hair and padded shoulders would squeal like gutted pigs and drag their siga little mustachioed boytoys with excessive hairgel and nighttime shades to the dance floor and wiggle to the walang kamatayang tracks of “Bizarre Love Triangle”, “The Promise” (NOT the prayer version, thank God), “Sahara Nights” and Mike Francis’ “Let Me In” (some songs are best left to the eighties).  But when I asked these nubile young things to the dance floor when the DJs played “Never Gonna Give You Up” while doing my best Roderick Paulate-ized version of the Rick Astley spastic, arm blending dance shuffle, all I received was a sneer from those too-cool-for-school chickadees while the testosterone-addled sigas would take turns using my face to wipe the dance floor.  Agh. High school memories repeat on me like bad Chinese food. 

But much has changed since I was a sniveling Catholic schoolboy geek who was humiliated on the dance floor.  I am no longer a Catholic schoolboy. 

And my musical repertoire has broadened since then. Musical heathen that I was, I discovered Sting (Jessica Zafra’s ex-flame) and U2 only after I graduated college. But between Rick Astley and Sting, I was a nomad roaming the eskinitas of musical geek-dom. My carefully guarded mix tape (yes, mix tape, playlists only existed in Steve Jobs’ imagination) of early eighties Gary Valenciano songs, Kalapana, Fra Lippo Lippi, Swing Out Sister, and (deep breath) Jose Mari Chan (Don’t be a hypocrite, I know you can sing ‘Beautiful Girl’ from memory).  I was even one of those willing few who relished listening to the Side A band regurgitate cover songs into highly processed cheese at the now defunct Music Hall on Annapolis Street, Greenhills.  But God forbid I venture into the former Club Dredd on Edsa, a musical hangout where the regulars would be more than happy to devour me for protein and use my intestines for guitar strings.      

Little did I know, if my balls were just an inch wider in circumference back in college, my college mix tape would have been altered irrevocably if I was exposed to the early ultraelectromagnetic music of Ely Buendia, Raimund Marasigan, Buddy Zabala and Marcus Adoro.   

We could be sniveling geeks and enjoy the Erasherheads.  We could be prissy kolehiyalas and enjoy the Eraserheads. We could be vice-addled basaguleros and enjoy the Eraserheads. Hell, we could be DOMS and enjoy the Eraserheads.  And this is because the E-heads carved a laser sword of irreverence into the overly serious beast fighter that was nineties pop music.  Manila sound hadn’t been rocked with this much irreverence since The Hotdog band went all bongga on us back in the seventies.  The local music scene had mutated once again, and the Eraserheads were the atomic bomb. 

Channeling d’late great Yoyoy Villame and d’original bastos Rico J. Puno, the Eraserheads churned out frenetic beats and playful ditties spoke to an entire generation that had grown up amidst the backdrop of ill-conceived coup attempts, natural disasters and a slew of Joey De Leon slash Rene Requiestas movies: From the astig to the baduy.  From the cono to the jologs. From the sosyal to the kanto boy. The themes of their songs were as grounded as an electric shock.  Our iskolars ng bayan were not just tarantado, they were the God-kings of katarantaduhan.  (And how inelegantly perfect that Rico J. crooned ‘Ang Huling El Bimbo’ in their tribute album. Rico was probably the only singer who delivered the song with gravitas, which I hear goes very well with cheese).

The themes of their songs didn’t just reverberate among our generation, they registered on the Richter scale. And when it came to dishing out romance Pinoy-style, they captured our sentiments not in the language of Florante at Laura, but that of John en Marsha. For those of us whose love muscles has been dragged through broken softdrink bottles by scheming vixens, their song ‘O Pare Ko’ was our national anthem.  True confessions now: who among you hasn’t warbled this song while in an almost drunken stupor at your neighborhood KTV after being basted by a girl whom you feverishly dedicated six months of your life to (Damn you kikay cheerdancer gossip girl alpha-female with three-feet high hair and padded shoulders)!?    Songs like these gave lyrics to the pain of our cavity-filled love lives.    

You could daresay that our favorite pencil ends unwittingly sired our current rock scene. After all, these state-bred university boys produced songs that crisscrossed musical genres – from Pinoy rock to alternative rock to pop music to reggae to synth rock.  And all their love children owe a debt of gratitude to the band that had the temerity to turn Bahay Kubo into a pop rock song – from the alternative rock banks to the Pogi rockers to the novelty bands and even to the (God forgive them) acoustic acts.   

Six years after the band went pudpod, our God-kings have found themselves living with Mongols, returning as pupils, gorging themselves on sandwiches, making cambio, escaping to a planet filled with garapatas, playing with squids, ushering in a new dawn and racing down Markus highway.  Yet, despite their attempts to blend incestuously into a scene that they themselves had spawned, our fruitcake-crazy generation were still clamoring for their unique brand of kataranduhan to make a comeback.  The tribute album just didn’t cut it.  (Well, except maybe for Rico J.)

So on that muggy Saturday evening, thousands of brainwashed pencil ends converged in the Fort to hear the reunion of their favorite pop machines.  As the indoctrinated streamed into the venue, many of us were still incredulous that the concert was actually going to take place.  This comeback seemed to be as likely as the president stepping down in 2010. After all, the series of events leading up to this one-off affair was melodramatic enough to merit its own teleserye – from an ambiguous break up to conflicting schedules to Ely’s  health problems to disappearing concert sponsors to the passing of Ely’s mom.  How much more melodramatic could this concert get?   

And then they came onstage.  Wow. This was going to be rock and roll hanggang umaga.    

What would be next? A Sharon-Gabby reunion movie?

Yeah, yeah, so some of us can choose to gripe –that the concert was riddled by technical gaffes or that the band failed to exchange witty banter or that they were merely going through the motions.  But, like many of the E-headonists that evening, this reunion concert wasn’t really so much about the band, but more about how the songs of their band told the story of our generation. We’ve all got that primal Eraserheads song that punctuates some point in our mundane young adult lives. Our successes and our failures.  Our break ups and our break downs.  Our loves and our loves we’ve lost.  These were our stories.  And our stories converged one night with our story-tellers. 

Towards the tail end of the band’s first set, Ely bopped his head so vigorously that his shades toppled from his face while he belted (who woulda thunk it?) ‘Shake Your Head’.  His eyes appeared to dilate as he took in the thousands who continued to indulge in his kataranduhan six years after he himself had given it up.  “Ang dami n’yo pala. (There’s so many of you)” Ely quipped.  As the first set burst to a close, Ely dropped to his knees and slumped on his guitar.  After an ominously long twenty minute intermission, Ely’s sister, Lally, swaggered onto the stage and read a hastily prepared message.  Ely was rushed to the hospital.  Ah, the melodrama of our teleserye lives.  How utterly Pinoy.  How utterly Eraserheads. 

So we didn’t get to dance with Paraluman.  We didn’t get to ogle our dirty magasins. We didn’t get to holler ‘letseng pag-ibig ‘to’.  We didn’t even see the boys engage in a group hug.  But so f&%$#@g what.  We had the E-heads on stage, baby.  We got our voices back, even if only for fourteen songs. 

Ely, Raimund, Buddy and Marcus, we’re waiting for the next set.