Saturday, April 12, 2014

Saturday Fun

April 12-18

Magic Morning
Ice Age
Iron Lady
The Gunslinger

Magic Morning
March 1, 2014
Saturday

"Something stronger than the moon above..."

I went home seven hours after I got off from work. The song, from the soundtrack of my life, was playing on the radio.

It's the start of the weekend that I intend to make meaningful.

Somebody asked why did I treat seven people for breakfast.

"Karma," I said. "I'm doing good to offset the bad things I've done in the past,"

Just like glimpses of the secrets of the universe, it just happened like it's a random, isolated event though I knew it wasn't. There's no such thing.

Some of my office colleagues were going out for breakfast after our graveyard shift. They invited me and my buddies to come. I don't have to be a telepath to know they'd asked me to treat them.

"Sure," I said.

It was also a test. I wanted to see who would share, since it's pay day anyway, and who would take advantage. What I saw is what I've predicted. I'm blessed blessed with the gift of clear discernment of character.

I haven't lost my touch, I thought.

"Johnny can afford it because he has no responsibilities," one of them said.

I found that remark exteremely disgusting it made my blood boil. But I kept my cool and forced myself to ignore it. These people don't know anything about me yet they're convinced they knew everything.

I have a lot of responsibilities that I don't tell people for the simple reason that confiding to them is tantamount to an invition to intrude into my personal life. The inner sanctum of my soul is forbidden ground.

After they all left, I went back to the office building, confirming with my buddies JC and NJ about our boys night-out tomorrow evening in Lapu-Lapu after I finish my short film on Mactan Shrine.

My plan was to watch cable movies on the pantry while resting before going to the gym. When I came in, some employees on their break were watching some fashion reality show. I was glad when they left and I switched the TV to Ice Age Meltdown on HBO.

I was laughing with the many funny lines and scenes like when Sid was kidnapped by a tribe of sloths and worshipped as the Fire God-- then was thrown down a volcano as a sacrifice.

One of my favorite scenes is the vultures in a visually spectacular production like a Broadway musical.

"Food, glorious food..."

I can also identify with how Manny felt when he thought he was the only mammoth left as the ground beneath them continued to melt.

I know the emotional abyss of being alone in the world. Somehow, you want to believe that there's someone like you somewhere out there. It's what gives you hope even as the world as you know it is being destroyed right before your very eyes. 

Ice Age Meltdown


I'm not afraid of growing old.

Only those with low breeding and inferior character make fun of age.

But I'd rather die young than suffer the mental torture of Alzheimer's as Margaret Thatcher did in Iron Lady, which was the next feature.

I hope that my mind can transcend it if it comes. I can only hope. Destiny hides even from clairvoyants.

"You are not Prime Minister anymore," her daughter had to remind her," and Dad is dead."

But how many of us really understand that we can never again return to the world where we belong?

"It used to be about doing something," Thatcher said in a moment of clarity. "Now it's about trying to be somebody!"

"You want to change the country?" a friend challenged her. "Then lead it!"

The Iron Lady


I have no desire for fame or political power. I can take center stage in a musical but not in an arena that breeds betrayal and compromises of principles. In that sense, I will not say I'm a leader, though I've had evidences to the contrary throughout my life. But I'm nobody's follower either. I like to think that I still retain the glowing embers of the valiant idealism of my youth.

Yet, if I want to change the world, I will find another way, away from the eyes that see only prejudice. I've lost my faith in humanity. When all is said and done, it all amounts to nothing. I may sound cynical, but the label is not mine, and I'll be damned if I apologize for that.

I seem to be going through a stage of evolution in the past week, I texted my friend CB as my text message became the next chapter in my saga. I told him I was in the gym around noon after my movie marathon, my first workout in over a week.

It's crazy how random slices of ideas you haven't really thought about suddenly come together to form a vision, like pieces of a puzzle. In a flash, you come face to face with a new crossroad in life, a new direction into a more alien landscape, a portal into an alternate reality.

I just finished Stephen King's The Gunslinger last night, I went on in my text message epic.

I'm on a higher quest than Roland's pursuit of The Man In Black. There have been times when my journey has taken me, if at times in metaphor, to wastelands enchanted by evil and ghoulish towns possessed by religious zeal as scorching as the eternal fires of hell.

There are forces more ancient than this world, more malevolent than the human mind could possibly conceive.

"It will be sad to see you broken and set into a blind path," the teacher Cort told Roland. "But the world has moved on."

"I don't like people," says Jake, the young boy who came from a land as strange as that world. "They fuck me up." Same here.

The Gunslinger confronted the succubus who had seduced him and Jake.

"God damn you!"

"No god damned me," said the demon. 

Stephen King's
"The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower"
(Read February 28, 2014)

Roland: Huggybear
Jake: Freddie Highmore
The Man In Black: Tommy Lee Jones
Alice: Julianne Moore
Brown:  Taylor Kitsch
Cort: Michael Chiklis
Kennerly: Tom Wilkinson
Sheb: Donnie Wahlberg
Sylvia Pittson: Shannon Beiste
Roland's Father: Kevin Costner
Roland's Mother: Miranda Otto
Marten The Enchanter: Christian Bale
The Man Touched By God: Donald Sutherland
The Young Roland: Daniel Radcliffe

"In a world that's full of strangers..."

Got To Believe In Magic
David Pomeranz
[Theme from Zapped]


"But I don't think time is gonna heal this broken heart," went the next song on this inexplicable day. It's more significant to me, one that brings me poignant memories of lives gone by. "No I don't see how it can when it's broken all apart..."

Broken-Hearted Me
Anne Murray


"A million miracles could never stop the pain,
I put all the pieces together again..."


9 comments:

Jonathan Aquino said...

Anong oras ka papasok? Eto yung text ko sa isang kaibigan ko sa trabaho nung ika-10 ng Abril, 6:57 ng gabi, Huwebes. Katatapos ko lang maligo, nagbibihis na ako. Dun na ako magha-hapunan sa canteen at sana may magandang pelikula sa cable. Sana The Amazing Spiderman o kaya Ninja Assasin. Nakaka-relate kasi ako sa mga bida na parang medyo payat pero malakas at maliksi ang katawan. Tinuturing silang iba sa karamihan at hindi sila nababagay kasama ang mga plastik at ganid tulad ng mga buraot na naikwento ko sa yo kahapon. Di bale na lang kung ang palabas ay yung mga reality show tungkol sa mga chef at mga fashion model na hindi naman ako nakaka-relate. Mabuti pa yung mga pelikula sa Cinemalaya dahil nakikita mo ang realidad mula sa ibang pananaw. Kung bold ang palabas, di naman ako tutol kasi naiintindihan ko ang pinagdadaanan ng mga bida. Sumasalamin ito sa tutuong buhay.

Jonathan Aquino said...

Naririnig ko ngayon ang kantang Pangako mula sa bandang Kindred Garden. Bumalik sa isipan ko ang kabataan ko noong dekada 90. Kapanahunan ko yun. Naalala ko ang pelikulang Flames. Yan yung theme sa episode nina Rico Yan at Claudine Barretto. Sumasayaw sila sa fiesta. (Abril 8, 2014 10:28 p.m.)

Jonathan Aquino said...

This is my Kentucky Fried Chicken Cebu Story. Right now, at 9:12 p.m., Friday, April 11, 2014, I'm with CB in KFC in Ayala where we're discussing my search for a new apartment. Last week I was with NJ in KFC Park Mall where we danced Move Like Jagger in an amusement arcade afterwards. Last month I was with JC in KFC Fuente OsmeƱa when he got his latest credit card. Two months ago I was with HI in KFC I.T. Park when he was just starting in his new company. So many stories have happened since then. It will take a lifetime to tell all the tales.

Jonathan Aquino said...

Wednesday night, ten thirty, April 9, 2014. I'm finally watching Sleepy Hollow. Benjamin Franklin has a lamp that cast out demons. George Washington has written a spell, hidden with magic, four days after he had died.

Jonathan Aquino said...

I just featured Peabo Bryson on the previous midweek edition. It's worth the wait. I was happy to find the original MTV of Tonight I Celebrate My Love For You, which he sang with Roberta Flack. I thought they also sang You Are The Love of My Life. I can't help singing that to the a woman I haved loved in late 2012 which is an epic story in itself.

The guy is actually George Benson. I remember singing In Your Eyes when it first aired on radio I was kid during the late eighties. I still do.

"Don't you know that love's just like thread
that keeps unraveling but then
it ties us back together in the end..."

So today I took my George Benson Page and made it better, adding that duet and new videos. The new banner photo is from WikiMedia.org. I now have here George's original version of The Greatest Love of All. I love this song and how Whitney Houston reworked it is just amazing. I could have written this.

"I decided long ago
never to walk in anyone's shadow,
if I fail, if I succeed,
at least I lived as I believed..."

(See our musical specials featuring Whitney Houston and Peabo Bryson here on 2Rivers.)

Jonathan Aquino said...

Last Saturday morning after my graveyard shift where I'm currently working to save up for my next journey, I went to the office pantry to avoid the elevator crowds. I needed a moment of silence to focus my mind and gather strength for the things I planned to do over the weekend. The pantry TV was on StarMovies. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was just starting. So I watched it again.

I'm like Bilbo, a homebody who loves his garden and his books. But inside his heart lies the strength that takes you higher than what you have limited yourself, just like in mine. The little man with the big heart runs after the wizard and the elves: "I'm going off to an adventure!"

Jonathan Aquino said...

"If you're efforting then you haven't done the pre-paving work. Efforting is like deciding the you will surf today and then because there is no wave in the ocean you decide that you will create a wave with your effort so that you can surf! Today I would like to see the evidence of things working out for me. You can make things happen with your action, but the momentum that you create with your action is puny compared to the momentum that you create with your thought - so rather than take action first, get in alignment first and then take the action that is inspired by the alignment."

~Abraham Hicks, The Effort Factor, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6JZf7Kt7HY

Jonathan Aquino said...

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."

~Henry Ford

Jonathan Aquino said...

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"Something stronger than the moon above..."

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