Saturday, February 22, 2014

Dreaming Pepe Smith

February 22-28 Edition

Harrison Ford
Eating Vegetables
My Lifestyle
Pepe Smith

Harrison Ford

My story, "The Art of Solving Problems," got published September 15, 2013 in Philippine Panorama

This is the cover letter

Near the end of the 70s, a young struggling actor named Harrison Ford was having a problem.

In between projects, he works as a carpenter, and was fixing Francis Ford Coppola's studio door when George Lucas asked him to read the male parts for the girls auditioning for Princess Leia.

But he realized he'll never get a part because he had been in Lucas' American Graffiti and the filmmaker was looking for new faces.

Harrison grew defiant, showing exactly the kind of swashbuckling attitude that landed him the role of the space smuggler Han Solo.

Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill 
Casting for Star Wars 


A problem, by its very nature, is something to be solved. My new story, The Art of Solving Problems, is about the mindset of effective problem-solving. This is what peak performance guru Tony Robbins shares in his Awakening The Giant Within.

The principles are illustrated with anecdotes of the unforgettable Dr. Seuss, the Ironman 2013 champion John Philip Dueñas, the explorer and myth buster Benedict Allen, President Barack Obama's mother and the true story that inspired the 1963 war classic The Great Escape starring Steve McQueen.

The Great Escape
Steve McQueen's Motorcycle Scene


Lucas and Steven Spielberg, after making box office history with the phenomenal success of Star Wars and E.T. The Extraterrestrial, joined forces and transformed Hollywood forever. They were searching for who to cast in Raiders of The Lost Ark. Indiana Jones is a "scruffy playboy" and "outlaw archaeologist," says Dale Pollock in The Life and Films of George Lucas. They needed a "rebellious" but "gruffly romantic and ruggedly handsome" buccaneer and treasure hunter, someone "like Harrison Ford."

Ford wanted the role but he played it cool.

"They," he said, "could find me if they wanted me!"

Han Solo vs Indiana Jones


Eating Vegetables

December 23, 2013
Monday Morning

I believe flashes of creativity come from the same place as poetry and music.

So I won't claim them as my own.

I'm glad I got an idea on how to get myself to eat more vegetables. I've been practicing food combining for the last three weeks. I felt the huge difference: I feel a sense of lightness and physical well-being just by not mixing starch and protein in the same meal. My main diet now is fruits.

But vegetables is a different kind of animal, pardon the pun. I was never into vegetables. When I was kid, my grandmother tended to spoil me, probably because of pity since my parents died when I was a baby and I was the only child. So I grew up on salami, hotdogs, meatloaf, hamburgers and all the "imported" meat kids love.

If there's one advice I can give to parents, it's this: teach your child to eat veggies while they're still young because it would serve them in good stead throughout their lives. This means letting it be a part of their lifestyle, and not some grim dietary obligation that would really turn them off.

Now it's time to be a leaf-chomper. I admire people who eat all kinds of veggies and I want to be like them too. But there are only a few that I can eat with rice, such as mongo, torta (grilled eggplants omellette) and laing (a Bicol dish of taro leaves in coconut milk). I also like pechay or cabbage when it's mixed with sardines. I would eat all vegetables in chicken tinola, beef nilaga and pork sinigang, like kangkong leaves and stringbeans, but I had to do it with meat. Same goes for chopsuey: I can eat it only with fried chicken or grilled porkchop.

Sad to say, but I'm happy to have known, that eating rice or bread (starch) with meat or fish (protein) is a bad digestive combination. I love fresh lumpia, a mix of half a dozen vegetables inside a steamed lumpia wrapper and lathered with local gravy made from cornstarch and brown sugar. But I can only have it by itself. (The best is from Pampanga, which is, haha, famous for the best processed red meat products in the country: tocino and longganisa sausages). For most of the other veggie dishes, I find them hard to swallow, not just figuratively, with rice.

So I was happy to get an new idea just now: take them instead with pancit (rice noodles), either the bihon or canton variety. I'm talking about the pancit cooked with veggies in all the eateries in the archipelago and not those popular instant products we see in groceries. I just put it into practice just now: as I write this on 6:53 a.m., I just had traditional pancit canton and a separate order of Baguio beans. It's not food for the gods, but it's healthy and compatible.

Speaking of getting more veggies, one idea I got the other week is to eat more pork and beans. I love it with rice despite my radical carb reduction. I also loved it as a kid. I still do, and I guess I always will. In this ever-changing world, I'm happy that some things from my happy childhood is still here.

Popeye
The All-New Popeye Show Intro


My Lifestyle

December 21, 2013
9:59 p.m., Saturday

I've been reading books all my life. But I also learned about the importance of balance.

So my physical life is very active too: I've spent two hours at the gym earlier after work.

For the past week alone, I've been working out everyday after my shift except for last Wednesday when I helped decorate our office. I'm now in Winter Wonderland with a Snowman behind me and a sleigh full of teddy bears above my station, although there's never been snow here in the Philippines.

When I got home, I continued Harold Kushner's Who Needs God and Robert Pirsig's Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I have books in the office which I read while waiting for my buddies: John Farris' Son of The Endless Night and William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

I have a book that I'm re-reading everyday: Food Combining For Health by Doris Grant and Jean Joice. I'm in the transition where my body's metabolism is radically transforming since I started the way I eat. My breakfast earlier is pure coconut water and it's white meat. What I had for dinner last night is an orange and two ripe yellow mangoes. I finished the book on the last week of November 2013 together with L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics.

Then on the first weeks of December, I read Leo Buscalia's The Way of The Bull, Julian May's Jack The Bodiless, William Goldman's Brothers and Sylvia Brown's Phenomenon: Everything You Need To Know About The Paranormal. I'm going to write essays about them, some as magazine articles, some as blog posts, but all of them timeless.

My intellectual and physical life is richly rewarding. There are some things in my personal life that brings me a gratifying sense of happiness. I'm filled with humility and gratitude that I find my life "soaring with joy," in the words of Rabbi Kushner. He's really opening my eyes and giving me greater strength as I continue my quest for spiritual enlightenment and an even stronger connection with God.

Pepe Smith

December 21, 2013
Saturday

I dreamed about Pepe Smith.

I told him that I just saw the latest behind-the-scenes video diary of Above The Clouds, Pepe Diokno's film being shot in the mystical Sagada mountains with him and young actor Ruru Madrid.

Above the Clouds
Behind the Scenes : Logistics



I really am looking forward to watching it even when they get to finish it, I told the musical icon and "Father of Pinoy Rock."

Pepe's Myth
Excerpt from Howie Severino's Pepe Smith documentary


We were in a men's room. I was fussing with my hair, which I always do in my waking life, and he's in front of a urinal. He told me to drop by the pantry where he hangs out. It seems we're on our first 15-minute break. Apparently we're call center agents.

In another dream scene, I was walking in a extremely narrow corridor of an abandoned building. Huge metal pipes slithered overhead like a dead octopus.

There was someone following me.

The corridor ended. There was a door. I came in. I found myself in a men's room. I made way for the guy behind me to enter so I could use the only urinal, inconveniently placed beside the door.

I'm not sure what's the significance of all this. I got the impression that the guy behind me wanted me to hurry. That's okay, if even dream phantoms need to heed nature's call.

Then he vanished.

What I found remarkable is that I never felt any fear even if I somehow knew I don't know him. I never even saw his face.


Saturday, February 15, 2014

Super Storm Haiyan Stories

February 15-21 Edition

Fisherboy
Super Storm Haiyan 
Northgate Diary
Living In Gratitude

Jonathan Aquino's
Fisherboy :
Imaginarily Directed By Ishmael Bernal

My novel "Fisherboy: Imaginarily Directed By Ishmael Bernal" is published October 12, 2013 on SmashWords

This is the story behind the story

A coming-of-age tale about a boy and his tragic rite of passage from innocence to acceptance of the mysterious forces that guide the destinies of men Less

Jay was a 15-year old homeless orphan who was adopted by an old bachelor, Prudy. On their first night together, he had his first sexual awakening.

Jay became fascinated with being a fisherman when Prudy took him to Bicol. Prudy wanted him to send him to school but the boy refused. Prudy, fearing that Jay would rebel like his late ward Arman, agreed. Jay experienced the harsh realities of being a fisherman.

The boy became close with Orlando, a young man who advised him to finish school and not waste his youth. Among the fishermen, Orlando was the loudest in denouncing the use of dynamite in fishing.

Then one day, Jay, was traumatized for life as he saw Orlando, whom he saw as the brother he never had, died when Orlando's boat got blown away from dynamite

As human beings, we all respond to the emotional cadences of our collective music, as this story also deals with the unbearable pain of losing a loved one, showing that courage often shows itself in the little things we do in our day-to-day existence.

It is based on true events.


Haiyan Stories

November 7, 2013
7:15 p.m.

Haiyan, locally known as "Super Typhoon" Yolanda, is about to hit us tonight.

I'm writing this in one of the office cafeterias, with a plastic cup of warm water.

Rain began to fall softly.

President Noynoy Aquino had a live broadcast on the evening news just a couple of minutes ago. The government is making preparations for what meteorologists predict to be the strongest storm in recent Philippine history.

The Western Visayas region, which includes Cebu where I am now, could face signal Number Four, which is totally unheard of in decades. I heard news of people panicking and going on mad grocery binges. Of course they would.

Now, on the brink of a giant storm with catastrophic proportions, I'm in the pantry watching the doomsday movie 2012.

2012



November 25, 2013

             I was in Tacloban, in the neigbhoring island of Leyte, before coming here to Cebu earlier this this year.

             This is where Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the Allied Forces for the Far East during the Second World War, landed shortly before the Japanese surrendered in 1945.

I have always wondered why they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and not on Hitler. MacArthur was with Carlos P. Romulo, who would eventually become the first Filipino to head the United Nations General Assembly and the first Filipino to win the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism for his war chronicles. With them is the exiled Philippine President and Cebu's most distinguished native son -- Sergio Osmeña.

"I shall return!" goes MacArthur's famous sound byte. Let historians tell us why he had to leave in the first place, and why the reinforcements for our soldiers in Corregidor was diverted to Australia. But it's all now in the past.

The entire city of Tacloban almost disappeared just over a week ago. Typhoon Haiyan, a.k.a. Yolanda, has virtually erased it from the map. The devastation was total. I've been following CNN's live broadcasts on the TV at the office pantry during the second week of November.

I saw the aftermath of one the biggest tragedies in recent times.

"These soldiers have no idea what they're up against," says correspondent Anna Coren, as the Philippine military arrived for aid and rescue.

No one had any idea that the damage would be so overwhelming.

The people of Tacloban, she says, "have lost everything."


      Senior Correspondent John Paton Walsh was with the mayor, Alfredo Romualdez, as they drove around the demolished ghost town. Romualdez, whom everybody heard had died at the first onslaught, was showing how his sea-side house was destroyed in a blink of an eye. "Boom!" he says, describing the sound the walls made when they collapsed and the raging waters came in.

       Anderson Cooper was besieged with cries for help as he reports from a crowded hospital. The casualties was mounting, and that's just the reported cases. Those who had survived are traumatized for life. The people were on the verge of panic as food and potable water steadily dwindled. There was no time to bury the dead. The body of an unidentified young man lay forlorn in a gurney in the corridor.

I've seen worse, but that's one of the most poignant scenes I've ever came across. Nobody deserves to die abandoned like that.

But there was no time to even mourn.

Jonathan Aquino's
Northgate Diary

December 8, 2012
11:51 p.m., Saturday

This is my first night in my new rented room, still in CENA in Northgate, Alabang, at the back of Wilcon.

My new room is cheaper and bigger; and I even got a real desk which I borrowed and I'm sitting on a chair which I just bought earlier in the evening. I found the room this morning and have moved all my things in less than half an hour.

I've lived in lots of different places and I'm grown used to, but still excited by, moving into a new place.

It's a family compound, and the landlady is really nice and she's not greedy, unlike my last landlady who plays the stereo super duper loudly; God told her to disturb other people by playing gospel songs for His glory.

Here, in my place. it's quiet, the neighbors are considerate and seems close to each other. It feels like a community. The landlady's husband is nice too.

When I entered the gate lugging the chair, they were watching MMK in the open terrace, the softly-playing unforgettable theme wafting in the air and going along with me.

 I feel like I'm on an episode. 

 I went to the place where, at least for now, I call home.


Maalaala Mo Kaya
Dulce


It's nice to be here.

As I write this line, Bread's Make It With You began playing on the radio, following the acoustic medley of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and What A Wonderful World, one of my favorite songs ever, and the theme from Finding Forrester.

(See my story on Finding Forrester)

Bread's Make It With You

  
Living In Gratitude

November 17, 2013

Gratitude fills my entire being.

I've seen for myself, since I started my personal quest for spiritual enlightenment a year ago, that our lives are govern by the law of attraction.

Everything that happens to us is a result of what we have done.

Our actions comes from our decisions and these are what we have decided to take, in this and in all our previous lifetimes.

I'm harvesting good karma. There are some things I needed to do, and I got to do them today with the help of a friend whom I have helped ease out of a tight spot last night. What I gave him is crucial to his situation. I know what he's going through because I've been there.

The positive reaction of the powers of the universe blew my mind. I got more than I expected. All the more humbling because I expect nothing in return.

Blessed be.

Over The Rainbow/ What A Wonderful World
Israel "Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole


"Someday I'll wish upon a star,
wake up where the clouds are far behind me,
where trouble melts like lemon drops,
high above the chimney tops,
that's where you'll find me..."


Saturday, February 08, 2014

Surviving Cebu's Earthquake

February 8-14 Edition

Jukebox
Emotional Renewal
Cebu Earthquake
Reading Auras


Jonathan Aquino's
"Jukebox"


My novel "Jukebox" is published September 13, 2013 on SmashWords. This is the story behind the story


A love story between a girl and the boys from her different worlds

The greatest stories ever told, like the heroism of Christopher Reeve and the triumph of Victor Frankl (not to mention the salvation of Jesus Christ), happened in real life.

Jukebox is about a young woman, Jo, and the young men who shaped her character and changed her life: Leandro, Rico and Wally.

The reader will share their joys and feel their pain. In the end, the characters become part of the reader's life, as real and unforgettable as family and friends.

Jukebox is about family and lovers. It is about the power of courage and the glory of love. It is about facing your humanity and finding your place in this world.

Jukebox, after all is said and done, is the story of us all.

This is based on a true story

Download "Jukebox"

Emotional Renewal

November 4, 2013
4:15 a.m., Monday

I feel born again. Being away from the city refreshed my mind and renewed my spirit.

I woke up a few hours earlier, meditated and did yoga and martial arts practice. The rest of the world is asleep.

A light rain is blessing the earth.

Now in the silence of the early morning hours before dawn, I'm contemplating my role in the world. There's only a few things I need for myself. I already have written down all that I need to do for the next three salaries, and mostly they're for other people and for my own personal development.

I want to be the best that I can be so I can useful to the world and, hopefully, be a ray of hope for others. My philosophy is continuous improvement. I'm now further streamlining my life to focus on just two things: bringing out the best in me and being as helpful to others as best as I can.

For myself, I will take my spiritual life to a higher level, pardon the pun. I will go back to the basics and change the way I meditate. I'm also focusing on perfect health and physical excellence to achieve balance. My present lodging is perfect for yoga and gym work, and I sincerely desire it can rise to the challenge.

This balance is about my Oneness with Supreme Intelligence. In other words, my relationship with God. What I seek is an ineffable state of union that transcends religion and embraces the entire universe.

For others, I'll go full-blast in being proactively helpful. The people who know me well all have proven that my friendship is true and loyal. I'm now being methodical: I can be selfless but I don't want to be treated as Santa Claus. The way I do that is to plan my budget ahead, with my obligations and my assistance in perfect harmony.

In the end, what people will remember are the acts of kindness, not your gadgets and trophies. But I don't expect to be remembered. I don't even expect anything in return at all . In fact, my most painful experiences came from expecting other people to keep their word, because I always do and I've always been there for them.

"Coz that's what friends are supposed to do..."

Count On Me
Bruno Mars


"You can on me
like one, two, three,
I'll be there,
and I know when I need it
I can count on you
like four, three, two,
you'll be there..."


Cebu Earthquake


October 15, 2013
Tuesday

I was shaken awake this morning.

My first impression is that somebody next door is reaching climax.

"This is the worst hangover I had in my life," I thought as I noticed that my entire apartment is shaking.

I heard the screams below my balcony. It was then that I realized it was an earthquake. I would learn later that it was magnitude 7 on the Richter, with the epicenter in the neighboring island of Bohol.

"There's a personal reason why I have the absolute conviction that no harm will ever come to me," I told Chad and Harvey when we got together for lunch. "And I have proven that to myself many times."

I went down just in case the second floor where I was would collapse. No point in courting disaster. I saw people outside panicking and weeping, holding on to each other as if the world was ending.

"The worse the situation gets, the calmer I become," I said later. "That just goes to show that I'm not normal."

November 10, 2013

"I just survived Super Typhoon Yolanda and before that, the Intensity 7.4 earthquake," I told my friend Chris via text message.

Chris, a filmmaker conducting an acting workshop in Manila using my scripts, was glad I'm safe. Me too.

Both events converged on Cebu, where I am now living, and the rest of the Western Visayas region of the Philippines. The quake's epicenter was in Bohol, just across the sea from my adopted home in Talisay, about 30 kms. south of the provincial capital.

I was physically untouched by the disasters. But it affected me emotionally deeper than I first thought. It's really frustrating that whatever help I gave for relief operations, like for the #Bangon SugBohol campaign, is not enough to ease the sufferings of the victims. Worse, I know I could have done more if I weren't going through some personal issues. It's hard to be a superhero when you're struggling with your own personal demons.

On the day of the October 15th quake, I got together with my Cebu friends Chad, Harvey and Jeanno. We went downtown to see the extent of the damage.

The Colon district was a ghostown.

We stood before the ruins of the historic sixteenth century Santo Niño Basilica.

The towers lay scattered on the street.

  That church, more than anything, is the symbol of Cebu.

I feel empathy for my friends: the damage also goes to the soul of their culture.


 Amidst the rubble, we met a famous Cebu character but I forgot his name. He goes around selling really delicious homemade munchkins. I was told his story has appeared on the local paper Sun Star. Apparently, he went to the Philippines to get married but it didn't work out. Instead of going back to Europe, he stayed in the country for good. I would hear later than he also got featured on Kapuso Mo: Jessica Soho, a news-magazine TV show. 

My friends and I went to Plaza Independencia, where my photo in front of the V-shaped memorial for veterans was taken. We felt the earth move from the relentless aftershocks.

Beside the park, there's a big building named GMC, where the entire fourth level has collapsed.

People ran, shouting, whenever the ground began to shake.

A firetruck stood nearby, ready to face the onslaught of nature like a sandcastle againts a tsunami. Its domelights blazed in the coming of the night.

Reading Auras

December 13, 2013
Friday The 13th

I found only one person where I'm currently working who actually loves to read printed books.

Coincidentally, she's also interested in paranormal phenomena.

So I gave her, among others, my rare copy of How To Read The Aura by W.E.B. Butler.

The author, a renowned clairvoyant, was once invited to a spiritual healing session early last century in Glasgow, Scotland.

He can see the aura surrounding the patient like a "deep blue cloud," he writes. But it's just hovering there outside the body. The healer rubbed some blessed oil on the patient's forehead.  

"At once things begin to happen," he recalls. "To my sight it was as though a vortex was set up over the forehead of the subject, and the deep blue light seemed to pour down this in almost exactly the same way as the water in the bath or sink disappears when the plug is removed. Within a short time, all the energy had been absorbed into d patients body. Not only did she say she felt much better, it was clearly evident that she was brighter n more alert, and appeared to be much improved.”

How do know if what's you're seeing is the real thing? What if it's just your imagination? Or it might be just wishful thinking.

 Wishful Thinking
China Crisis


 "It is important that anyone who is attempting to develop and train extrasensory perceptions should start by cultivating the most scrupulous honesty," says Butler.

Healing through the aura is a serious business. Henry Steel Alcott, one of the founders of the Theosophical Society, has learned the art of magnetic healing during his travels to India. But the energy needed to project the healing force left him weakened. His Indian guru taught him to draw strength from trees. I do that too.

He was lucky. On the other hand, another healer, the orthodox priest Fr. John of Kronstadt, died when his life force drained.

"The answer," says Butler, "is that although there may be an inexhaustible supply, unless the channels through which that power is drawn into the human personality of the healer is sufficiently clear and open enough to allow all the power needed to flow in, there will be a gradual depletion of the healer's personal energies, and the only solution, at least for the short term outlook, is to stop doing healing work until the stock of energy has been renewed."

A spiritual person's aura, says Butler, is shown by its "clearness of form" and "strength of charge."

The aura has many levels. One is the etheric, the same stuff which ghostly specters are made of. This is where a person's mental and physical conditions can be seen.

"In Search Of..."
Hosted By Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy
Episode: "The Human Aura"

(Part 1 of 2)


(Part 2 of 2)


But there's more than meets the Third Eye.

"It is difficult to correctly asses the true level of character of anyone by simply reading his aura, unless one has built up by practice the ability to watch the permanent aura, when the nature is being subjected to stress. It is under these conditions that the true character of a person can be discerned."


Friday, February 07, 2014

December 2013 Diaries (2 of 2)

February 8-14 Edition


Jonathan Aquino's Journals

December 5, 2013

Thursday I came to the funeral of the grandfather of my friend N. A lot of people are afraid of peering into caskets.

I'm not.

I think it's normal in the same way that some people are afraid of snakes.

I'm not.

The wake is in the unpaved basketball court of a labyrinthine residential  area tucked off Jones Avenue. We had to pass through a small opening in the wall that encloses the open court.

Once there, I felt a touch of rural serenity, while mixing a cup of instant coffee, looking at the large trees and the old houses beyond them. Maybe I'm romanticizing the place, perfectly natural if it's your first time. But in this small pocket of nature in the heart of the city, the air seems to be purified by the early morning stillness.

A man was sleeping in a wooden hammock on the outside free-throw line.

That's nice, I thought. I've always loved the outdoors.

My friend and I got a table under the trees. He taught me some card games as we waited for his girlfriend who was on the way. One was Monkey Monkey, where you plunk down all the pairs of you have, like two Jacks, two Queens and so on. Then, you take a card from another player, looking for a pair from your your remaining cards. The idea is: whoever first gets rid of all of his cards wins.

It's the same with Carcar De Boro, where you put down a card with the same suit as the starting card. If yours is higher, like an Ace Spade over a King Spade, then you get to choose the next suit. But if yours is lower, then you have to get a card from the deck til you find one. He chose a Diamond, which I don't have, so I began to collect cards as the newborn sun began to emerge from the infinite womb of the sky.

All around us, birds are singing madrigals like a celebration, reminding me that, even in the face of death, the world will still go on.

December 6, 2013

It was a beautiful early morning as I sat vaping at the balcony of the office building after my shift. The clouds are like the mountains of an enchanted land where sprites and fairies cavort. There was the feeling of anticipation for a new day even more full of hope. I then went to the gym and had two solid hours of cardio and full body workout.

My life is overflowing with blessings.

I was doing inclined bench presses when I heard the breaking news from the gym TV tuned to CNN: Nelson Mandela has died. He was one of the most inspiring figures in our generation, becoming a symbol of freedom againts apartheid and racial discrimination.

He spent almost three decades in prison but his spirit was never broken. That, to me, is the very essence of heroism. I'm going to write a story about Mandela in one of my next magazine articles- a timeless tribute that's worthy of one of the greatest men who ever lived.

December 7, 2013

Saturday. It's 5:43 in the morning. The sky is like a beautiful tapestry of the finest Persian rug. A coppery orange cloud forms a circle across the sky. It's the weekend I've been waiting for to rest my body, mind and spirit for my life outside work. Everything would have been perfect  except that a friend of mine is sick. But with time comes healing.

In the horizon a mass of clouds emanates with the bright aura of the sun behind them. I can't see the sun, but I know its there. No matter how the world turns, it will always be there, and it will be waiting for me everytime I welcome the morning of each brand new day.

December 9, 2013

A teenage boy was sitting on the open back of the white minicab. He was leaning on the spare wheel attached to the customized steel railing at the back of the pick-up bed. There's a man standing beside the minicab, parked in the dark, his hand caressing the boy's thigh.

I went out past three in the morning, looking for food. I just finished cleaning and organizing my stuff in my little rented room in Cebu City.

It was fiesta in our street, with those traditional buntings hanging like multicolored clotheslines across the street.

The basketball court was turned into a disco with blinding strobe lights and mirror balls. Club music was blasting from giant speakers. A lot of people are out, just hanging around, waiting for nothing.

I found an open eatery on the adjacent corner. The radio was playing Pag-Ibig Ko Sa 'Yo 'Di Magbabago. That song is the "love theme" of one of my closest friends in Manila, dedicated for his lover.

Pag-Ibig Ko Sa'yo Di Magbabago
Men Oppose


I have a total of five male friends in Manila who have confided in me that they're  gay. I have no issues with that. But I take it as a sign of honor that people trust me to enter the inner sanctum of their lives.

“If you need somebody to share your pain, I’ll be there," as I wrote in my article The Courage of Your Convictions, which got published in Panorama on February 2011 and will appear on my upcoming third book. "And you’ll know that I’ll never break your trust, and no one will ever know your secrets,”

I went home, passing the minicab scene.


Saturday, February 01, 2014

December 2013 Diaries (1 of 2)

February 1-7 Edition

Jonathan Aquino's Journal

December 1, 2013

I've been very physically active since I started gymming again last week.

Funny, I also noticed lately that I tend to sleep more. I think it's my body's way of telling me that I needed rest.

Balance and harmony: that's the goal.

One of my other personal projects is perfecting my metabolism through food combining. I found a copy of the now out-of-print classic Food Combining For Health by Doris Grant and Jean Joice, based on the breakthrough discoveries of Dr. William Hay in the early twentieth century.

It's serendipity that I found it, or it found me, last week at the perfect time - just when I'm going back to the fundamentals and deconstructing everything in my life to build a better one.

I went to Elizabeth Mall in downtown Cebu yesterday and bought a vape. I think of it as my transition device, like a baby weaning away from breast milk to infant formulas. It makes me think of how some people who are dealing with alcohol issues would have a bottle of brandy hidden somewhere.

The idea is: it's not about the temptation, it's how you overcome it especially when you know it's there. It's called Control.

December 3, 2013

The few vehicles down the street flowed smoothly. There was a bit of a cold breeze as the advent of Christmas looms. I was sitting on the fifth floor balcony of the building where I'm currently working, vaping. It was near midnight.

The stars were a bit more alive. My original plan is to stay here for a year. So I'll be here until at least September 2014. Only then will I make a decision to leave or stay. If I stay, then I might gun for a higher position. But then, I can't even imagine myself having to enforce rules. That would be totally out of character.

So chances are, I'll go on my way. I may go to a different country or just in a different part of this one. Can't stay here forever. I can if I want to, but I don't. But I want to have my self-imposed year first. I'm still enjoying my work; my morale is still high. My good performance is a matter of public record. I try to find meaning in my work.

"I'm an artist," I told my buddy Jeric last night, as we walked to a convenience store past the dark and deserted mall grounds in the early morning hours. "I know I don't belong in the corporate world." All I want is to write. Reality bites: I have to earn a living because my passion can't give me what I need. Not yet, anyway. What a long strange trip it has been, to quote the Grateful Dead, and every mile is worth the while.

Truckin'
Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead
Live at the Shoreline Amphitheatre



"Sometimes the lights all shinin on me,
other times I can barely see;
lately it occurs to me 
what a long, strange trip it's been..."

December 4, 2013

So many good things are happening. I got home around seven in the morning after an intensive workout on the gym after my graveyard shift. I really enjoy my present job, and I'm getting better, showing the numbers for it. I had wheat bread for breakfast, slept around eight after meditating then woke up around one.

After my corned tuna lunch, I finished Brothers by William Goldman, which brought a lot of good memories.

I first read it when I was a kid in the early ninetees while I was in Morong, a small idyllic town nestled in the mountains of Rizal Province about 70 kilometers east of Manila.

So it's like a nice blast from the past that I found a copy the other day, and I devoured it during my work breaks and before going to bed, cancelling out the other books I'm reading.

I remember the characters so well. I can relate to Scylla, the preternaturally gifted assasin with greased lightning reflexes, on a deeper level now. I thrive on solitude just like him.

He spent years alone in an uncharted Caribbean island polishing his deadly skills. Everybody thought he was dead. In a way, he was. At the same, he's living in the fullest because he's the best at what he does, even if he's surrounded by people who think they're better than everybody else.

He is the nearest thing to perfection. But his exile in paradise was cut short. He was summoned by Division, the secret intelligence agency he used to work for. There would be a massive terrorist strike simultaneously in major cities around the globe. Only he can stop it because no one knows he's still alive.

With the fate of the civilized in his hands, he can't even see the one person in the world that matters to him: his kid brother, Babe, without putting the young man's life in danger.

William Goldman's "Brothers"

Scylla: Huggybear
Perkins: Bill Murray
Beverage: Terence Stamp 
Uncle Arky: Donald Sutherland
Milo Standish: Ian McKellen
The Blond: Chris Hemsworth
Cheetah: Daniel Craig
Hondo: Jeremy Renner
Fountain: Oliver Platt
Babe: David Mendenhall
Melissa: Katherine Heigl
Connie: Scarlett Johanssen
Arnie: Taylor Lautner
Scout: Alex Pettyfer
Audrey: Amanda Siegfried
Givens: Ted Levine
Fern: Meryl Streep
Baylor: Samuel L. Jackson
Martha Anne: Janeane Garofalo
The Stick: Snoop Dog

                "I said I wanted you to save the world," Perkins, the only other man in the world he can trust, tells him. "I never said it was worth saving."