Dear all,

Please check out my new book from Anvil Publishing, “I Do or I Die! RJ Ledesma’s Imaginary Guide to Getting Married and Other Man-Made Disasters (As Told to him by his Yaya” now available at National Bookstores and Powerbooks nationwide! Please buy a copy and help me pay for my baby’s diapers!

I am reprinting the foreword to my book written by my former Creative Writing professor and mentor Dr. Isagani Cruz.  Thanks again Dr. Cruz for the great foreword!

The forgettable 1921 novel Scaramouche opens with these unforgettable lines: “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” All Filipinos were born with a gift of laughter, but very few realize that the world is mad.

For the world – at least the world that Filipinos live in – is mad, not in the American sense that It is a Mad Mad Mad Mad World nor in the African sense that The Gods Must Be Crazy nor in the Latin American magic / magical / marvelous realist sense, but in a distinctively Filipino, laugh-while-your-house-is-burning sense, the only sense that has made Filipinos treat a coup d’état as a revolution and a fiesta at the same time, enjoying junk food while kicking out an acknowledged dictator or a perceived degenerate, later forgiving and forgetting all personal and political hurts, grinning while posing for photos with record-breaking thieves and erstwhile objects of collective hatred, lying down and enjoying being literally or figuratively raped and boasting about it.

You cannot get any weirder than in the Philippines, and RJ Ledesma (http://rjledesma.net/) knows it. Using the oldest trick in the literary book, which is to create a character who is a character, he has raised his nanny (called a yaya in the Philippines, with a complete subculture built on the name, including a language codified by professional linguists as “Yaya English”) to the level of an icon.

All this sounds much too serious in an introduction to a book that calls out not to be taken seriously, but comedy is much too funny to be left to people with a sense of humor.

Aristotle, the great brain that he was and even with his too-valued two-valued logic, could not make heads or non-heads out of comedy. He wrote some random notes, realized that his reputation two centuries hence would be ruined if the notes would be discovered, and promptly ate the notes. Yes, ate them. (Since everything he wrote was preserved by his followers, it is safe to say that, to prevent his fans from overzeal, he himself ensured the non-survival of his notes on comedy by eating them. It was the only way to frustrate those wishing to sink their teeth into everything he wrote. It was also a way not to have to eat his words in the future against his will. To prove me wrong, you would have to build a time machine and, even then, you would have to catch Aristotle at the very moment he was composing the missing treatise on comedy. I could have painted a more probable scenario, but it would be toilet humor, quite unbecoming a professor.)

A number of otherwise sober people have since pontificated about comedy, among them Henri Bergson, who famously quipped that man is the animal that laughs, conveniently ignoring the loud laughter of women at such a sexist, exclusivist, anti-feminist, politically incorrect outburst. Real-life life-and-death medical doctors, led by Robin Williams’ fictional Patch Adams (not the real Patch Adams, born Hunter Campbell Adams, who set up a very serious clinic in West Virginia that is leading a very serious war against very serious medical insurance but, yes, is better known for traveling around the world with his doctor-friends dressed up as clowns healing children just by looking silly), have also been continually coming up with evidence that laughter, as Reader’s Digest discovered zillions of issues ago, is the best medicine.

There is no end to writers that attempt to write comedy. Many comics are funny, but few are hilarious. Ledesma is, well, hilarious.

What makes him even more hilarious than most writers of comedy (and there are not, sadly enough, too many of them in the Philippines, at least not as many as the grim-and-determined, anti-feudalist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-Manila, anti-English, anti-Malacañang constipated types) is that he finds even things familiar to us funny.

Ledesma was my student in creative writing at De La Salle University. In the beginning, he fancied himself an economist, taking up an undergraduate degree in economics. I like to flatter myself by saying that I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by making him go the route of underpaid, unpaid, unappreciated, unwanted creative writers instead of the yellow brick road leading to, perhaps, a reign as the country’s economic czar or even a small-but-terrible economics-major president (as you read the book, you will see how many times the most unliked president in the history of the nation gets ridiculed). Of course, Ledesma is not really small, unless you believe everything he says about himself.

In my creative writing classes, despite my having been educated as a poststructuralist, postcolonial, postfeminist, postmarxist, post-post-something or other, I revert back to formalism and recite as my mantra the underrated dictum of the Russian Formalists, namely, that creative writers should make the familiar unfamiliar (there’s even a long, coined word for it, but it smacks of pretentiousness, so I only whisper it to my students when I catch them texting or doodling or otherwise not paying close attention to every profound syllable I utter). “Defamiliarization” is a word guaranteed to make even the dumbest basketball player in class sit up and pretend to listen, if only because it sounds obscene.

Ledesma makes everything seem unfamiliar, from the conventional rituals of getting married to going on a foreign trip to realizing that one is balding. That is the secret of his humor: he makes his fellowmen (yes, men as in male gender, not men as in all men are created equal or are mortal) laugh at themselves. Not being a woman nor even inclined to become one, despite that being the fashion among macho men these days, I cannot even guess at how a woman will react to the continuous ribbing aimed at what we unreconstructed males used to regard as the gentle sex before a decidedly ungentle widow accused an even more decidedly ungentle woman of stealing the presidency not once, but twice. Hell hath no fury and all that, but why, in heaven’s name, can men no longer talk about women in disdainful terms without being hauled to court for sexual harassment, political discrimination, misogyny, or whatever? I am sure women, when they are alone, have all kinds of nasty things to say about men, but men, being the denser sex, do not have an inkling of what is really going on. But I am only guessing.

Ledesma is also always only guessing. His ribbing is never not in jest, but where there is comic smoke, there is bound to be tragic truth. Or so the philosophers say, or should say, or should have said. In any case, it will not pay to take Ledesma too seriously, though it makes perfect sense to pay for this book you are reading, in case you just borrowed it, or are just browsing through it in a bookstore, or stole it at gunpoint from someone not willing to give up a cellphone but willing to give up what gives much more pleasure than the latest ringtone or the received message “I love you too,” which happens to be a template on many cellphones (and like most templates, totally meaningless).

Not at all meaningless is the love that these pages clearly reflect, a love not three removes from reality (as that other Greek philosopher without a sense of humor liked to characterize anything he disliked) but very, very real, even more real than a reality television show. Ledesma’s love for his significant other oozes out of the laughter, exactly like the Tagalized Spanish “karinyo brutal,” a bit like imported, expensive chocolate that melts in your mouth and surprises you with some kind of nut inside. Not that Ledesma is a nut, though I suppose he himself would not hesitate to call himself that. As my student, he cannot not be a non-nut, since I always pride myself on being better than my students at anything, even in being a nut.

At the end of the day, I am very proud of RJ Ledesma, one of the best students I have ever had in my creative writing classes. I do not mean that in terms of grades; I do not even remember if he got a good grade, though he must have or he would not have invited me to write this foreword. What I mean is that he has parlayed the little he learned from my class into something I myself would never be able to accomplish – a set of lovely essays bordering on creative nonfiction, classic comedy, and – to use the L word – literature. Needless to say, I am sick with envy. I mean, I would do anything to have written this book, which is about how to live happily before, during, and even after a fairy-tale wedding.

Now that I am old and bald and living in surrealist Philippines, I still laugh out loud, and I laugh loudest when I encounter the comic spurts of genius that Ledesma exhibits in this book, as well as in his earlier book, in his columns, and in his blog.

What more can an aging professor want? Now, let me show you the first two hundred items in my bucket list, beginning with writing a book like this one you are holding in your hands …

Isagani R. Cruz
Professor Emeritus
De La Salle University

He is a journalist, an award-winning creative writer, a playwright, a lyricist, a painter, a fiber artist, and an illustrator.  And he is also a practicing magician.    

But this is not the same kind of magic as David Blaine.  Or Barrack Obama.  Or even Jocjoc Bolante.  Tony Perez is the real wand-twirling deal.  He can turn your cellphone into a wand, he can even turn your Batman action figure into a power toy, and he can turn your bodily fluids into a charm (Uhm, let him tell you more about it later).  Tony knows magic best, because he’s been playing with his wand since he was thirteen years old.

As the current adviser of the Spirit Questors, Tony Perez and his Scooby gang have heard things, has seen things and have done things that is enough to shock your public hair straight.  And because my hair is curly enough as it is, I chose to interview with regard to his to love spells. (Because if he told me that kapres, manananggals and tikbalangs were for real, I will never be able to sleep with lights off again).  

Tony is the SM of love spells – from hook up to courtship to relationship to break up – he’s got it all for you.   But, more importantly, Tony also answers the P728 Million peso question: How do you know if you are really in love, or if you’ve been the victim of kulam?   The only way to find out, my three female readers, is in the way you smell.  Confused? Then read at your own risk.

A vocabulary lesson

Sir Tony, when you hear the word kulam, there is usually a negative association attached to it. My yaya warned me never to try making kulam because something might fly away or fall off.

It’s because of the word kulam.  There is no such word (close to it) in Tagalog except magica, which is of course Spanish. Kulam has become associated with voodoo, which is not the way that I use it.   

So is kulam a negative thing, a positive thing, a neutral thing, a monochromatic thing? 

Is prayer positive or negative?  It can be both, right?  One can pray for vengeance, in which case the prayer becomes negative.

When someone sends out a negative kulam, does this mean the person is tip-toeing towards the dark side of the force?  And when you do send out a negative kulam, does the cosmos say ‘Ay naku, I have to set the balance straight.  Something negative will also happen to you.’

They say that the negative kulam comes back to you three-fold.  But for me, that is a generalization.  I think that everybody has a credit card for negativity. And every credit card has a ceiling where you can spend what you wish until you hit the ceiling.

Let’s not even get started on credit cards. I’m using one card to pay off another.

If I have to cast a negative spell, I make sure that I pay good karma first.  And it can be done through charitable works or compassionate acts.

I’m curious, what are these negative kulams that you could send out?

Like when somebody has done me an injustice. Or when a murder victim needs its murderer captured and we have to give clues to the NBI or to the police.  Or when we encounter very negative tricksters like the tikbalang who no longer negotiate for co-existence of harmony. We have no choice but to either bind it or entrap it in a piece of jewelry.   

I don’t think I’m ever going to a sanglaan (pawnshop) again.

Spelling machine

By employing your love spells, does that mean you can make ANYBODY fall in love with you? Man or woman?  Attached or unattached? Housebroken or not housebroken? 

Yes, of course.  My definition of magic is to effect a change in the environment by means of the will.  Therefore, the act of making someone fall in love with you is an act of magic in itself. 

If that is the case, can you make lamon (gorge) in the buffet of love?  Can you cast several spells over several women at the same time?

The answer is yes, but I would describe you as a very irresponsible and immoral person. It’s not my fault that you used my spell. It’s your fault.

Uhm, sir, can you excuse me for a moment?  I have to warn Gary Lising.  Now how do you when love spells should be employed to ensnare a woman’s heart? When she no longer replies to your texts?  When bribing her yaya no longer works? When she has impaled you on a stake and left you for dead?

It’s intuitive. If someone has a crush on a person and cannot catch that person’s attention through ordinary means, then magic can be involved.  But having said that, the person who casts the spell must continue with that burden of responsibility. You don’t cast a spell and leave it at that. You must work hard to keep the relationship going.

Sigh.  That’s what I tell my wife all the time.

Love in the time of nausea

Most of the love spells you’ve concocted involve the color red. Is that because true love is a fashionista?  

That’s because of the heart chakra (Sanskrit for “disc”, chakras are energy centers for the human body -RJ) which is color green on the outside, but when it is unfolded it is color pink inside.  The color pink is associated with love, and affection and nurturing. That is why most of the colors used are of that nature. 

I always use my pink parts to express affection. A lot of your love spells required dolls and stuffed toys and action figures. When I gathered all the toys, I didn’t know whether to cast a spell or to abuse Barney the Dinosaur.    

You can even make a doll out of clay.  You gouge a hole in the stomach or heart area of your clay doll, and then put inside something of yourself – such as saliva or semen or blood.

A lot of No Girlfriends Since Birth (NGSBs) are going to enjoy making clay statues.   

Then cover up the hole again.  That doll is what you call an elementary.  An elementary can be used like a servant that can travel astrally to perform duties.  For example, you can tell an elementary please go to your friend whom you are supposed to meet and tell him you’re going to be late for one hour.    

My friends will never come on time.  Ever again.  So when you send out a love spell, is it similar to sending out a text message?  Let’s say you send out a love spell but the recipient is in an area with a bad signal. What happens to that spell? Does it end up in some occult backlog or does it get re-routed to a diwatang kalachuchi (frangifani flower fairies) who would like to turn you into a fairy in more ways than one?

It depends on the state of the person that you are sending the spell to.  The person must be in a state of alpha, as you are in a state of alpha while casting a spell.  That is why it is more effective to cast a spell at night when the person is at rest and when the person’s defense mechanisms are down.

No wonder many dirty old men (DOMs) do their best work at night.    

You must go into a meditative state.  But the state of relaxation is not really equivalent to the state of alpha.  It’s an altered state where you often have to get into a highly emotional state. It is the emotion that fuels both prayer and magic.

I have a lot of single male friends who get into a highly emotional state late at night when they are all by their lonesome.  But I don’t think it would qualify as meditation.  

Punch drunk love

How exactly does a kulam affect the target of the love spell?  Does it make them irrational?  Does it erase their will to live? Does it make them want to defend the administration?

No. It makes you, the spellcaster, become a more loving person. (When you conduct a spell) this is the image of yourself that you communicate to the person and that is what the person will pick up.  There is no such thing as consoling or manipulating someone else.

But how do you know if you are really in love with that person or you were the subject of a kulam?  I noticed kasi that yaya has a doll in her room that strangely resembles me. 

Well, you can’t. Because a kulam simply jumpstarts something.  What counts, in the final analysis, is how sincere the relationship has become: how it is developing, what direction it is taking and what is the quality of the relationship.  In which case, the magical spell no longer really counts.

Ah, I see. So you have to eventually graduate from kulam.  And then learn how to use gayuma. 

Love is a battlefield

What if, after you cast a love spell, you realize that the woman you have been pining for has an Adam’s apple? Can you make bawi (take back) the love spell?

Of course you can, all you have to do is let the spell go.  Remember that spells are performed over a period of time, so all you have to do is discontinue casting the spell. Then nothing will happen.

Thank God there are no disconnection charges.  Can you also cast a spell on that witch-tramp who squooshed your heart in high school and left you for your best friend? Sometimes kasi praying for vengeance just isn’t enough.  

There are negative spells which are called binding spells.   You can write the person’s name, put it in a bag of a certain color, then put it in a corner of your freezer. 

May she grow hair where it doesn’t belong. Is there a way naman to protect yourself from being the target of a love spell?   There are some matronas I met during my wayward bachelorhood whose intentions I am still wary of.  Can you hide under a blanket? Can you wear an agimat (magic charm)? Can you travel to the US, have your visa revoked, and languish in a federal prison for several years?

Yes, there are what you call warding acts. You can cast warding acts on objects or yourself. One warding act is to wear a pocket mirror in your shirt pocket, and make sure that the mirror is facing outwards. You can also visualize yourself covered by a white light.  Those acts negate any spell, positive or negative, that come to you. But if you do these acts, you ward off anything. You will find that you will have no friends, that people will ignore you, that people will stay away from you, and that sometimes prosperity won’t come to you.  Because you’ve warded yourself against everything. 

So that’s what it must feel like to be the President.  Are these warding acts the equivalent of turning off your psychic cellphone?

What I’m saying is that it’s good to remain vulnerable, no matter how hurt you become. One must be vulnerable all the time, even if you are rejected, laughed at, or frustrated. It’s alright to get hurt.   If you’ve been hurt a hundred times before, what is a hundred times more?

Stop, please stop. I’m having flashbacks of high school.   

You know, it’s much more exciting and fulfilling to remain vulnerable, and to remain willing to take risks. I think that is what life is all about.  It’s not about protecting one’s self, its about taking risks

I agree.  It’s always good to remain vulnerable. That’s why I always leave my pink parts exposed. Which brings me to the most important question in this interview: If you don’t know whether or not you are with your partner right now because of a love spell, is there way for you to tell.  And, consequently, is there a way for you to get out of it?

 Yes, it’s called tawas (alum).

I see. Anti-perspirant is really the ultimate protection. Your armpits will never lie.  

You can get in touch with Tony Perez at studioantenor@yahoo.com. 

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.”