Saturday, November 10, 2012

November 10-17



Ariel Ureta

I first saw Ariel Ureta, the veteran actor, TV and radio host, in person when I went to the studio of DZMM Teleradyo to follow up on a script I've submitted for another ABS-CBN program around Feb 2012. He was taller than me, in a hurry, didn't see me 

On another occasion, I was standing in the corridor looking up at the display of trophies when Winnie Cordero, his co-host in their afternoon radio-TV show  Todo Todo Walang Preno and the consumer issues correspondent for the TV Patrol evening news, passed by. I greeted her and she smiled: she's nice. 


Anyway, I happened to be tuned in last Sept. 13, 2012 and Ariel was sharing a really clever article he saw in the Internet. 

Is a hammer male or female? It's male because "it hasn't evolved much in five thousand years but still useful to have around." 

Is a zip lock pouch (those transparent bags where you put sandwiches and evidences from crime scenes) male or female? It's male because  "it keeps everything in but you can always see through them." 

Are kidneys male or female? They're female because they "always go to the bathroom in pairs." 

Is a TV remote control male or female? It's female because it "gives men pleasure," and men "dont know what buttons to push but they keep trying." 

Is a Swiss knife male or female? It's male because it "looks useful at first but they spend the rest of their lives opening bottles." 

Here's my favorite: Is a subway male or female? It's male because it "uses the same old lines to pick up people."






Chinkee Tan

It revives my faith in human nature everytime I see someone who has successfully reinvented himself. Chinkee Tan was a comedian in the 90s and now he's an author, public speaker and financial management guru. I was tuned in to his Sunday morning radio-TV show Chink Positive on 92.3 NewsFM on Oct. 28, 2012. Coincidentally, the night before, I bumped into a long-lost friend, Shantel, who has gotten rich in real estate, and who inspired me to try it. This is perhaps God's answer to my prayer on how to raise money for an aunt who's in a nursing home and for my first project as a filmmaker but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

This is my text message to Chinkee's show, read on air by his co-host Christina Lazo: I love your show, very insightful. The ideas are practical and timeless. What the world needs now is a sense of empowerment and renewed purpose. Cheers! 


Full ANC Shoptalk episode featuring Chinkee Tan




The guest was Jayson Lo, a public speaker, book author and a born-entrepreneur who earned his first million when he was only 21 years old. I can deeply relate to his story on getting up again after a major setback, focusing on repaying all debts to regain that sense of freedom. 

He categorizes people's personalities into four major types, DISC, symbolized by animals commonly found in the Philippines: Dominant (eagle); Influential (rooster); Steady (carabao) and Corrective (tarsier). The tarsier is an indigenous monkey with big spooky eyes. The idea is: they see everything). 

I'm following all of Jayson's advice: "Focus on your strength." Value the 3 Cs: Character, Competence and Christ. "Love God, love others, and give your best everytime!" 

Full ANC Shoptalk episode featuring Jayson Lo


The show ends with the favorite song of the guests. In this episode, it's Hanging By A Moment by Lifehouse





Charlie's Angels  

Aug. 25, 2012: My housemates where I'm currently staying went to the 8.30 a.m. Mass. Got the house to myself. I marinated some shirts, socks and briefs in water mixed with detergent powder. I cooked scrambled egg in the microwave. They have a DVD collection of 70s cop shows, and I watched an episode of Charlie's Angels and S.W.A.T., having already seen Starsky & Hutch. Then I did some push-ups, squats and sit-ups. By the time they arrived, I've already rinsed my laundry and marinated them in fabric conditioner. A productive hour. Not bad for a Sunday morning. Now it's time to take it easy. Chill!


Susie is a popular race car driver in an all-female circuit. Unexpectedly, she dies when her engine failed. The car owner, Jerry Adams, thinks it's sabotage, so he goes to Charlie's private detective agency for help. 

Through a speaker, the elusive Charlie gives the assignment to his his right hand, Bosley (David Doyle) and his three girl sleuths 

Kelly (Jacklyn Jose) talks to Susie's parents. Sabrina (Kate Jackson) will join the race as cover. Bosley and Jill (Farrah Fawcett Majors) pretends to be traveling Christian revivalists to keep an eye on things, using their trailer as their headquarters. 

They find that the bad guys, Dirko and Wells, will use the Corbin to Baja race to smuggle diamonds across the border. Their hired mechanic, Kale, kidnaps Jill as Sabrina races againts the dirty-playing speed demon, Bloody Mary 





Batman Forever

Could it be that your nightmares are caused by painful that you subconsciously repressed? asked the psychologist Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) to her patient, Bruce Wayne (Val Kilmer). The billionaire-philantropist gestures to the photos and magazine articles on Batman scattered on her desk. "Maybe I should leave the two of you alone," he says, avoiding the topic, with an air of indifference but with an aura of mystery that she finds fascinating


***


The young acrobat Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnel) witnessed his entire family murdered by the schitzphronic gangster Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones). The boy was adopted by Bruce, who knew exacty how it feels to see your parents killed in cold blood. 

But "Broken wings mend in time," Alfred (Michael Gough), Bruce's loyal butler, tells the boy. Soon, he says, you'll be flyin again!


***

Alfred calls Bruce, the butler's face appearing on his watch, with alarming news about Dick. Bruce didn't get it at first. So okay, Dick took the car. No, it's the Jaguar. Nope, it's the Bentley either. 

"No, sir," insists Alfred. "The other car." 

Then it finally dawns on him: the boy took a joyride with the Batmobile! 


***

"What are you protecting Bruce?" challenged Chase, wanting his patient to come out of his shell. 

"Maybe we are all two people," he says. There is no way to tell what he means or what he feels. He's too inscrutable. 

***

Let me join you and make me your partner! Dick almost pleads. Bruce turns to him. Then what? he answered him. 

"You make the kill, but the pain doesn't go away!" he says. 

Then one day, Bruce continues, you'll just wake to realize that "revenge has become your life." 

Then you be will be alone, Bruce went on "like me. 


***

After his parents were murdered, Bruce tells Chase, he found his father's journal. Suddenly, during the funeral, he felt it was important for him to run away, clutching his father's journal, alone in the rain.  The earth swallowed him, and he found himself  in an underground cave. There was a light at the end of a tunnel. 

The boy squinted, and almost screamed when he saw the vampire-like creature flying towards him.

"I used that image," he tells Chase, "to strike terror," at the hearts of evil men, "ensuring what happened to me won't happen to others!"







From the journal of Jonathan Aquino, aka Huggybear 

October 17, 2012, Wednesday, 8:46 morning: 

This is one of the happiest periods in my life. I've established my own personal schedule, revolving around my fixed graveyard shift. As I write this, I'm a call center worker bee in APAC (which has just been renamed EGS) for Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey account, in Northgate Cyberpark in Alabang, about a little less than 20 kms. south of Manila. I would do some dumbell workouts and do some writing when I wake up in the afternoon. I live in CENA village, 5 minutes from work, my route under the trees with grassy vacant lots on both sides in the seldom-used wide avenue jogging lane behind Bellevue Hotel makes me feel I'm back at the U.P. Diliman campus again. Good vibes! 


When I go home the next morning, I'd spent two hours, just for me, before going to sleep; this is when I'd listen to music on headphones and read, mostly aloud, with Bronx, Texas, Ohio, Brisbane, Belfast and Tennessee accents. 

I just finished Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire. I'm now reading, all at once: Shirley MacLaine's Out On A Limb, John Grisham's The Runaway Jury and a super-rare copy of Thomas Sugrue's There Is A River: The Story of Edgar Cayce 

I'm living now to correct the karmic balance from my previous lifetimes, wanting to reach a higher level of spiritual consciousness which has absolutely nothing to do with religion. For the first time, I'm now giving time to myself, giving myself permission to be all I can be, free from the need to please others. 

It calls to mind the theme from the 80s Saturday afternoon drama series Coney Reyes On Camera, which my late beloved grandmother used to watch, and one of my earliest happy memories was lying down on the sofa with my head on her lap just to be with her. "It's my turn, to see what I can see, I hope you'll understand, this time's just for me..."




(Huggybear's photo taken Nov. 5, 2012)


9 comments:

Jonathan Aquino said...

I went out to get prepaid mobile phone load and midnight snack past 10 on the night of Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012, so when I got back home, I only caught the last few minutes of Kasindak-Sindak. There was a story about an old woman in a remote village in Infanta town in Quezon province who can foretell the exact date and time of a person's death. Everybody in the village is afraid of her. Her relatives say that it isn't a innate gift (or curse, depending on who you ask) but something she learned from a "black book" containing rituals only she knows. The spookiest thing is: she has never been wrong in her warnings. They all died exactly on time, just as she said they would.

Jonathan Aquino said...

(See the Huggybear story on Kasindak-Sindak and the additional stories that I posted today on the Comments section on our Oct. 27 issue)

Jonathan Aquino said...

Muzy.com montage photos courtesy of article.wn.com (Ariel Ureta); (Chinkee Tan); moviegoods.com (Charlie's Angels TV show); dvdsreleasedates.com (Batman Forever)
Story photos courtesy of pep.ph (Ariel Ureta); article.wn.com (Chinkee Tan); (Charlie's Angels TV show); dubosden.blogspot.com (Batman Forever)

Lalah said...

i remember that coney reyes may lovingly yours, helen pa nga noon diba? hahaha

Jonathan Aquino said...

Yeah, Lovingly Yours, Helen on channel 7! These timeless weekly dramas of Coney and Helen are the precursor of Maalaala Mo Kaya (which I'll be writing about in a special MMK edition). That was when the Anna Lisa and Flor De Luna series reigned on prime time, and speaking of which, you can also see my favorite soap operas in our Slumbook page!

Here in 2Rivers, just revived from the archive, are some of my favorite TV shows from the 80s. You can watch full episodes of Voyagers! Valerie, The Wonder Years, Knight Rider and The Greatest American Hero! Plus classic cartoons shows like Spiderman, Superboy, Transformers and of course, The Superfriends! Welcome to the 2Rivers Fun Machine!! Watch out for more shows and episodes in the future! Keep the happy memories forever!

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Jonathan Aquino said...

"Change your thoughts and you change your world."

~Norman Vincent Peale

Jonathan Aquino said...

From The Huggybear Show:

"The soul comes back in another body, like, a robber comes back as a fox?”
“No. A robber comes back as a victim.”
“How come I don’t remember my past lives?”
“It is all in the mind.”
“So how do you get out of this merry-go-round?” asked Huggybear.
“Ye must become perfect.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Is it? It is like solving a crosswords puzzle, Huggybear. Sometimes, thou art right, sometimes thou art wrong. Sometimes ye face a blank. But ye still go on,” said Leon.
“Trial and error?”
“Yes. The scientific method. If ye persevere, ye will come to a place where every letter just falls into place. Suddenly, thou art gazing at what was not there before. But if ye really think about it, it has been there all along,” said Leon

Jonathan Aquino said...

From The Huggybear Show:

"The soul comes back in another body, like, a robber comes back as a fox?”
“No. A robber comes back as a victim.”
“How come I don’t remember my past lives?”
“It is all in the mind.”
“So how do you get out of this merry-go-round?” asked Huggybear.
“Ye must become perfect.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Is it? It is like solving a crosswords puzzle, Huggybear. Sometimes, thou art right, sometimes thou art wrong. Sometimes ye face a blank. But ye still go on,” said Leon.
“Trial and error?”
“Yes. The scientific method. If ye persevere, ye will come to a place where every letter just falls into place. Suddenly, thou art gazing at what was not there before. But if ye really think about it, it has been there all along,” said Leon