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)

http://jasonmagbanua.com/blog/2008/03/09/rj-ledesma-and-vanessa-pastor/

I thought you guys might get a kick out of watching the very first Royal Tru Orange commercial that came out waaaaaaayyyyy back in 1988 (yup, twenty friggin’ years ago). This is the link to that website.  You guys might be interested to note that the first set of Royal commercials were directed by the late great Lino Brocka.

Ah, nostalgia always brings back the fizz in me.  

This commercial was posted by Jason Magbanua, an excellent wedding videographer who captured my wedding last March 7, 2008.  Incidentally, the link to Jason’s site also includes the photo montage and onsite video from our wedding day.  If you want to read more about the wedding, check out the blog entitled Heavensent.

Since we are on the subject of weddings, let me share with you pictures from our wedding by (insert your favorite superlative) Pat Dy.  Aside from wedding photography, Pat Dy is an excellent wedding photographer. He has has shot several covers for me in Manual Magazine, and he also shot the cover of my book, ‘Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me’. 

http://blog.patdyphotography.com/?p=519

By the by, my wife Vanessa also did her share of commercials in the day. She was one of the Penshoppe models back in 1994 along with then-unknowns Paolo Bediones and Ryan Agoncillo.  Her ‘love team’ in the commercial was Paolo Bediones.  Check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TULwbpk9f6c

Care to share your memories of the eighties, if its not too traumatic?

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.”

 And when seventeen-year-old Janina San Miguel, pranced in front of the stage, wide-grinned and cocksure, little did she know that her answer to a seemingly benign question would impale itself into the pop culture landscape, be remixed into a hit song, and cause a shudder to run down the spine of Melanie Marquez. 

Vivienne Tan: The question is, what role did your family play to you as candidate to Binibining Pilipinas?

Janina San Miguel: Well, my family’s role for me is so important b’coz there was..the wa- they’re, they was the one who’s… (the audience starts heckling) very…Hahahaha… Oh I’m so sorry, Ahhmm…My pamily… My family… Oh my God..I’m… Ok, I’m so sorry… I… I told you that I’m so confident…Eto, Ahhmm, Wait… Hahahaha, Ahmmm, Sorry guys because this was really my first pageant ever b’coz I’m only 17 years old and ahahaha I, I did not expect that I came from, I came from one of the tough (presumably the word was “top”) 10. Hmmm, so… but I said that (pronounced as “DAWT”) my family is the most important persons in my life. Thank you.

No, Janina. Thank you.

And, although not too obvious from her swimsuit, this young feisty lady has one set of cojones.  Most women, wait scratch that, most anybody who is jeered by a beauty pageant audience would have most likely turned catatonic, melted into a puddle of goo and needed to be scraped off the stage.  But what does Janina do?  She laughs. Wait, scratch that. She doesn’t just laugh. She cackles.  She cackles at those b#$%^&# in the audience who are heckling her. ‘Your laughter means nothing to me.’ she tells herself, ‘Because I’m not feeling any pressure right now.’

And now?  Janina’s cackling herself all the way to Miss World 2008. 

From a relative standpoint, her answer wasn’t all that bad.  Yes, it won’t win her the Nobel Prize, but it certainly isn’t the worse ever answer that has ever been blurted out by a beauty pageant contestant.

That honor belongs Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 Lauren Caitlin Upton. Lauren is a native English speaker (or so we are led to believe) who has single-handedly managed to massacre the English language, but also common sense along with it. 

Behold her answer to this question:

Judge:  Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map. Who do you think this is?

Lauren: I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.

Miss Lauren, I would like to invite you the Philippines so that you can hone your communication skills with Melanie Marquez.  

Ok, ok.  I am still getting the hang of transcribing mental diarrhea onto the blogosphere. So, to my three female readers, please bear with me. 

I’ve had the privilege of writing professionally for the past three years.  It all started off in February 2005 with (what was supposed to be) a weekly dating advice column that appeared every Sunday in The Manila Times entitled (ehem, ehem) Playing With My Tools. 

After abusing my tool box for a year, I moved over to The Philippine Star in May 2006 and became one of their regular columnists for their weekly M section that comes out every Wednesday in a column entitled Pogi from A Parallel Universe. 

Aside from my column work, I’ve also had the opportunity to serve as the Editor-in-Chief of MANUAL Magazine since October 2005.

Early this year, I was fortunate enough to have Anvil Publishing publish my first compilation of articles from The Times in a book lovingly called Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me, RJ Ledesma’s Imaginary Guide to Whine and Women.  By the way, the book is currently available at National Bookstore and PowerBooks.  And if you you live abroad, you can order the book from www.nationalbookstore.com.  I hope you guys can pick up a copy or two or five and help me subsidize my credit card bills.

Over the past three years, there were columns I’ve written that I’m pretty damned proud of and there are some columns I’ve written that were pretty damned to begin with. But, what the hell, I say let it all hang out.  After all, what’s past is prologue.  And, in this blog, we’re going to see a lot of prologue going on.

I hope to come out with a second book in early 2009 that collects the last half of my columns from The Manila Times, along with a couple of articles that I’ve written for MANUAL.   In the meantime, I’ve had requests from family, friends and readers to reprint some of my older columns and other previously published work.  So, by way of this blog, I plan to do the following:

1.  Post the older columns that haven’t seen print since they were first published;

2.  Post my current columns a week after they come out in the Star; 

3.  Post some articles that I’ve written for MANUAL;

4.  Post columns that, for one reason or another, did not get published. 

I also plan to post some totally random stuff as well – recommendations, ramblings, general lunacy.  You know the drill. 

Lastly, I also hope to use this blog as a sounding board to develop ideas for future columns and articles.  So if you’ve got any ideas that you think would make for an interetsting column, please feel free to drop me a line. I would love to hear from you guys.   

Namaste.