When I die, I want someone to rush over to my room and plant objects and media of such indescribable perversion and ludicrousness that people will be talking about it for years. I’m talking about inflatable goats with electrified nipple clamps weird.
This person will be sorta like a "reverse porn buddy".
And butt plugs... There should be a liberal sprinkling of vibrating butt plugs, harnesses and rainbow-colored feather boas. To get people talking.
Of Goats and Clown Shows
I saw a clown show in the SM Bacolod foodcourt the other day. Clown shows are of course, for kids and there were a lot of those there. Kids, I mean. And by kids, I mean human children, not young goats.
There was an old goat present though. And by old goat, I don't mean an over-the-hill horned mammal of the pellet-pooping persuasion but an elderly man.
The old man was way up front, and what was strange was that while most of the kids looked bored with the clown's act (indeed, some of the children looked scared witless), the old man was absolutely enthralled at the proceedings. His eyes were smiling and unlike his body, full of life and vitality. His toothless mouth was agape in wonder. He in fact, looked more child-like than the children.
It's times like these that make you wish you had a camera.
What exactly are we dictated by norms to feel in a situation like this? At first, I felt like laughing. After all, humor is derived from the deviation of what is expected.
And that was pretty damn funny.
There was an old goat present though. And by old goat, I don't mean an over-the-hill horned mammal of the pellet-pooping persuasion but an elderly man.
The old man was way up front, and what was strange was that while most of the kids looked bored with the clown's act (indeed, some of the children looked scared witless), the old man was absolutely enthralled at the proceedings. His eyes were smiling and unlike his body, full of life and vitality. His toothless mouth was agape in wonder. He in fact, looked more child-like than the children.
It's times like these that make you wish you had a camera.
What exactly are we dictated by norms to feel in a situation like this? At first, I felt like laughing. After all, humor is derived from the deviation of what is expected.
And that was pretty damn funny.
Late Review for Sugarfree's Tala-Arawan
Sugarfree just came up on the radio. I like them. They are much better than many people realize. So much better than most would give them credit for. I bought "Tala-Arawan" last January and have been intermittently itching to give it a review since I got it.
"Tala-Arawan" is their third and possibly last album, did not make significant waves in local music. It's their least popular 'Pop' album yet. The band makes very 'pang-masa' but surprisingly clever songs, in contrast to what most consider to be 'pang-masa'. I won't get into the down and dirty details of describing and reviewing each song, and I'll say why in a bit.
Ebe Dancel's songwriting and vocals are so earnest and heartfelt that I can't help but get completely involved in whatever he is trying to convey. The songwriting is definitely a step above the already excellent songwriting of the previous two albums (well, not so much the second). In this outing, he is almost as good as, if not as good as Morrissey when it comes to bringing on the introspective angst.
The replacement of the old drummer did not make as much of a difference as I thought it would. One of the reasons I love Sugarfree is their tight rhythm section and though it's not as 'meshed' (I'm probably hallucinating) as it was previously, the result by my estimation is completely acceptable within the context of the entire album.
The themes are nothing weird or out of the ordinary. They are in fact all pretty familiar and universal. Family, friends, love, that sort of thing. The track with the most unusual subject would be "Ang Pinakamagaling Na Tao sa Balat Ng Lupa", which is a witty and sarcastic swipe at a know-it-all. then again, it wouldn't be too unusual because we all know people like this.
The album as a whole is a finely engineered, supremely melodic, gut-bustingly honest piece of work, from beginning till end. It exceeded my expectations by a mile.
Now, back to why I couldn't review each song. Two reasons:
First, I'm kind of lazy and this room doesn't have air conditioning.
Second, I think this album is perfect. Each song is right where it has to be on the track listing. Every track properly segues into another track in a way that feels as if you are actually reading a 'tala-arawan' (Diary? Journal? correct me if my Tagalog fails me). To try to use any of the album tracks as a single would not work very well. Take 'Dear Kuya', the song I heard on the radio. It wasn't a smash hit, though it had fair listener recall. If I had not heard Sugarfree's prior work and just heard that song, I wouldn't have bought 'Tala-Arawan'.
But I'm glad I did.
"Tala-Arawan" might very well be THE overlooked pop masterpiece of our generation. A proof of genius that will be largely unheard and eventually forgotten.
"Tala-Arawan" is their third and possibly last album, did not make significant waves in local music. It's their least popular 'Pop' album yet. The band makes very 'pang-masa' but surprisingly clever songs, in contrast to what most consider to be 'pang-masa'. I won't get into the down and dirty details of describing and reviewing each song, and I'll say why in a bit.
Ebe Dancel's songwriting and vocals are so earnest and heartfelt that I can't help but get completely involved in whatever he is trying to convey. The songwriting is definitely a step above the already excellent songwriting of the previous two albums (well, not so much the second). In this outing, he is almost as good as, if not as good as Morrissey when it comes to bringing on the introspective angst.
The replacement of the old drummer did not make as much of a difference as I thought it would. One of the reasons I love Sugarfree is their tight rhythm section and though it's not as 'meshed' (I'm probably hallucinating) as it was previously, the result by my estimation is completely acceptable within the context of the entire album.
The themes are nothing weird or out of the ordinary. They are in fact all pretty familiar and universal. Family, friends, love, that sort of thing. The track with the most unusual subject would be "Ang Pinakamagaling Na Tao sa Balat Ng Lupa", which is a witty and sarcastic swipe at a know-it-all. then again, it wouldn't be too unusual because we all know people like this.
The album as a whole is a finely engineered, supremely melodic, gut-bustingly honest piece of work, from beginning till end. It exceeded my expectations by a mile.
Now, back to why I couldn't review each song. Two reasons:
First, I'm kind of lazy and this room doesn't have air conditioning.
Second, I think this album is perfect. Each song is right where it has to be on the track listing. Every track properly segues into another track in a way that feels as if you are actually reading a 'tala-arawan' (Diary? Journal? correct me if my Tagalog fails me). To try to use any of the album tracks as a single would not work very well. Take 'Dear Kuya', the song I heard on the radio. It wasn't a smash hit, though it had fair listener recall. If I had not heard Sugarfree's prior work and just heard that song, I wouldn't have bought 'Tala-Arawan'.
But I'm glad I did.
"Tala-Arawan" might very well be THE overlooked pop masterpiece of our generation. A proof of genius that will be largely unheard and eventually forgotten.
"Planet Terror" Review
Last Tuesday, I went to watch "Planet Terror" the first half of the Robert Rodriguez /Quentin Tarantino double feature "Grindhouse", which has been split into two separate screenings in the Philippine market, thus negating the whole 'double feature' idea. Upon entering the theater, I noticed that there was exactly ONE person inside, a patron, who gave me an uncomfortable look. There was no need for an usher in this case, it would have been totally moot in this situation.
I found an aisle seat near the front so I could take in the entire screen. Having read a few reviews in the past few months, I knew what to expect more or less. There was a reasonable expectation that I'd be entertained. I'm no movie nerd or whatever, but the presence of Rodriguez and Tarantino is the only reason I watched. I had, in fact, planned to watch this early LAST year when I knew they'd be making a double feature together.
Not to sound intentionally elitist, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino make some of the stuff I love the most but their films don't find a wide audience in this country. True, the local literati often find time to give these directors (especially Tarantino) praise both deserved and undeserved. But still, the masses would rather watch a formulaic love-team flick.
Remember when Tarantino came here a few months back? The local cinema crowd, some of the media and Malacanang went all out to give him a welcome. But most people here don't 'get' him. I tried bringing up the visit as a conversation topic but most people here I talked to, even the ones who I presumed would understand where I was coming from didn't understand why I thought his work was so different from most current 'mainstream' directors. Tarantino's recent movies have all been homages to pieces of pop culture (ergo grindhouse and exploitation cinema), both American and foreign (to Americans) as filtered by situations present in the US during Tarantino's early years.
This is the same case with Robert Rodriguez. In fact, 'Planet Terror' is a culmination of his love for zombie exploitation cinema, flavored with a generous dose of B-movie related humor.
Filipinos who aren't exposed to the percolated culture that influenced the makers of 'Grindhouse' through the lack of direct experience and/or reading/movie-watching simply can't be expected to understand his films and all the in-jokes present. Especially when you consider the fact that the majority of people in the Philippines are under 30 and read very little. Most are simply too young and too ill-read to understand 'Grindhouse'. And 'Grindhouse' (the half I saw, anyway) was all about in-jokes and foreign pop-culture references from the 60's, 70's and early 80's that are quite removed from the wider Filipino experience. Plus quite a large number of people of all ages couldn't tell when some things are made to be taken as jokes, homages, parodies.
Predictably upon release, this combination of intentional awfulness, bad timing for the release and lack of audience understanding most likely led to poor word of mouth and in turn, poor attendance. This despite the glowing reviews I read in local newspapers and blogs. I'm pretty sure piracy did it's part too, but then again they affect all movies, so piracy can't completely explain why this particular film's run was so dismal.
Which brings us back to the movie proper. I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time. The fake trailer at the beginning was awesome; we should hope someone gives Danny Trejo a line of Charles Bronson-type movies. The movie itself was head-splitting. It's intentionally bad, for fun. And if I didn't have fun, I have no idea what I had. It was an endorphin dose that's gonna last me a week. But still I wonder how it would have turned out if the filmmakers had a budget similar to the movies they were parodying/making a homage to.
All things considered, I haven't been this entertained AND bewildered in a long while. I let out geeky giggles and snorts now and then whenever I understood an in-joke or whenever something willfully stupid and outrageous happened. It was like the longest Late Night with Conan O'Brien sketch that I've ever seen, only it was injected with a lot of grim segments unpredictably scattered all throughout.
In the end, I loved most of it. Quentin Tarantino's vanity appearance in his buddy's movie bothered me the most. He's a great director but a terrible actor. Which works in this context, I guess.
After seeing the entire thing, I went outside to warm up. The lack of bodies in the theater make for a VERY cold movie watching experience. As I was stamping my feet and rubbing my hands together like an idiot in the lobby a question came to mind: Why did they release it here in the first place?
If I were some bigshot movie distributer here in the Philippines, I wouldn't have released "Planet Terror" as widely. Definitely not in Bacolod. I saw the low appeal for Filipinos the minute I knew what 'Grindhouse' was all about. Hell! Most people I knew didn't didn't get what Kill Bill was all about and you sure as heck didn't need to know the exploitation movie references to enjoy it.
To whichever movie distributor had the bad business sense to have this half of 'Grindhouse' released in Bacolod, thank you. I really mean it. I hope you'll continue to give market forces the finger and distribute the other half.
I found an aisle seat near the front so I could take in the entire screen. Having read a few reviews in the past few months, I knew what to expect more or less. There was a reasonable expectation that I'd be entertained. I'm no movie nerd or whatever, but the presence of Rodriguez and Tarantino is the only reason I watched. I had, in fact, planned to watch this early LAST year when I knew they'd be making a double feature together.
Not to sound intentionally elitist, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino make some of the stuff I love the most but their films don't find a wide audience in this country. True, the local literati often find time to give these directors (especially Tarantino) praise both deserved and undeserved. But still, the masses would rather watch a formulaic love-team flick.
Remember when Tarantino came here a few months back? The local cinema crowd, some of the media and Malacanang went all out to give him a welcome. But most people here don't 'get' him. I tried bringing up the visit as a conversation topic but most people here I talked to, even the ones who I presumed would understand where I was coming from didn't understand why I thought his work was so different from most current 'mainstream' directors. Tarantino's recent movies have all been homages to pieces of pop culture (ergo grindhouse and exploitation cinema), both American and foreign (to Americans) as filtered by situations present in the US during Tarantino's early years.
This is the same case with Robert Rodriguez. In fact, 'Planet Terror' is a culmination of his love for zombie exploitation cinema, flavored with a generous dose of B-movie related humor.
Filipinos who aren't exposed to the percolated culture that influenced the makers of 'Grindhouse' through the lack of direct experience and/or reading/movie-watching simply can't be expected to understand his films and all the in-jokes present. Especially when you consider the fact that the majority of people in the Philippines are under 30 and read very little. Most are simply too young and too ill-read to understand 'Grindhouse'. And 'Grindhouse' (the half I saw, anyway) was all about in-jokes and foreign pop-culture references from the 60's, 70's and early 80's that are quite removed from the wider Filipino experience. Plus quite a large number of people of all ages couldn't tell when some things are made to be taken as jokes, homages, parodies.
Predictably upon release, this combination of intentional awfulness, bad timing for the release and lack of audience understanding most likely led to poor word of mouth and in turn, poor attendance. This despite the glowing reviews I read in local newspapers and blogs. I'm pretty sure piracy did it's part too, but then again they affect all movies, so piracy can't completely explain why this particular film's run was so dismal.
Which brings us back to the movie proper. I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time. The fake trailer at the beginning was awesome; we should hope someone gives Danny Trejo a line of Charles Bronson-type movies. The movie itself was head-splitting. It's intentionally bad, for fun. And if I didn't have fun, I have no idea what I had. It was an endorphin dose that's gonna last me a week. But still I wonder how it would have turned out if the filmmakers had a budget similar to the movies they were parodying/making a homage to.
All things considered, I haven't been this entertained AND bewildered in a long while. I let out geeky giggles and snorts now and then whenever I understood an in-joke or whenever something willfully stupid and outrageous happened. It was like the longest Late Night with Conan O'Brien sketch that I've ever seen, only it was injected with a lot of grim segments unpredictably scattered all throughout.
In the end, I loved most of it. Quentin Tarantino's vanity appearance in his buddy's movie bothered me the most. He's a great director but a terrible actor. Which works in this context, I guess.
After seeing the entire thing, I went outside to warm up. The lack of bodies in the theater make for a VERY cold movie watching experience. As I was stamping my feet and rubbing my hands together like an idiot in the lobby a question came to mind: Why did they release it here in the first place?
If I were some bigshot movie distributer here in the Philippines, I wouldn't have released "Planet Terror" as widely. Definitely not in Bacolod. I saw the low appeal for Filipinos the minute I knew what 'Grindhouse' was all about. Hell! Most people I knew didn't didn't get what Kill Bill was all about and you sure as heck didn't need to know the exploitation movie references to enjoy it.
To whichever movie distributor had the bad business sense to have this half of 'Grindhouse' released in Bacolod, thank you. I really mean it. I hope you'll continue to give market forces the finger and distribute the other half.
Rain, Pants, and Zombies
The five day weather forecast on Yahoo predicts a 60% chance of scattered thunderstorms all throughout. It's been raining buckets for the past 4 days and the skies have been mostly overcast for longer than that.
Everything is saturated in atmospheric moisture. Even things that are kept far from the windows have become half-wet, half dry and some things have started to become 'icky' to say the least.The pages of the paperback I've been reading have lost their dry, old-timey crispness and taken the texture of communion wafers. The stack of old newspapers in a corner kept around for the odd project have taken on a musty smell. Taking Leleina out of her box is something I haven't done for a week; her strings and hardware would surely start to corrode after being exposed this air. Madeleine and Eunice aren't so lucky since they lack cases, necessitating daily oilings and wipedowns.
I am also beginning to regret an experiment that I've undertaken. But before I can say what it is I have to explain some things first.
There's a pair of old jeans that I found while snooping around the house 8 years ago. They were left behind by some boarders from a few years back and since nobody's claimed them, I kept them for myself. For some time, they were my only casual pants. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, since I don't go out much. But when I was 4th year high school, I flunked Filipino. That meant I had to show up for summer school, which was scheduled six days a week for six weeks. That meant 36 days of sweating my ass off in one pair of jeans, since back then, I rather not go anywhere if I had to wear shorts. More than 36 actually, since I often had to go someplace on Sundays.
I literally wore the same pants without washing for that entire period. As a concession to hygiene, I'd hang them up in the sun to air out every week or so. But that really didn't help much. They smelled like dead rats and blue cheese no matter how long they were in the sun. The intensity might be lessened but the smell was always there. But when finally I had them washed, the fade was pretty. Really pretty. It's times like these I get convinced my mother raised me to be gay.
Now more than five years on, I'm doing the same thing again. I've resolved to wear those pants at least thrice a week until New Year's Day 2008. This time I don't HAVE to do it. Besides, I'm a guy and I'm allowed my fair share of hygienic indiscretions. I just want to see what will happen. The backside and the crotch have holes in them, which for the sake of propriety, I patched up. The knees are really frayed now but I plan on patching them up as well, when they get torn through.
They REALLY stink now. The rain and the resulting moisture have all contributed to create something that smells like a wet Rastafarian hanging on a chair beside my bed. There has literally been no direct sunlight over our place for the past few days which means all the nasty fungi or whatever sunlight-averse thing that creates musk smells has free reign of the house and my pants.
Anyway, on an unrelated topic, I plan on looking for a dentist today. And catch the first part of 'Grindhouse' , 'Planet Terror'. Not only has the Philippine release of 'Grindhouse' been long delayed, it's been cut up into two for the local movie going market. There also isn't any guarantee that local distributors will choose to show the second part, 'Death Proof'. Perhaps in this case, movie pirates will once again prove their worth.
Everything is saturated in atmospheric moisture. Even things that are kept far from the windows have become half-wet, half dry and some things have started to become 'icky' to say the least.The pages of the paperback I've been reading have lost their dry, old-timey crispness and taken the texture of communion wafers. The stack of old newspapers in a corner kept around for the odd project have taken on a musty smell. Taking Leleina out of her box is something I haven't done for a week; her strings and hardware would surely start to corrode after being exposed this air. Madeleine and Eunice aren't so lucky since they lack cases, necessitating daily oilings and wipedowns.
I am also beginning to regret an experiment that I've undertaken. But before I can say what it is I have to explain some things first.
There's a pair of old jeans that I found while snooping around the house 8 years ago. They were left behind by some boarders from a few years back and since nobody's claimed them, I kept them for myself. For some time, they were my only casual pants. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, since I don't go out much. But when I was 4th year high school, I flunked Filipino. That meant I had to show up for summer school, which was scheduled six days a week for six weeks. That meant 36 days of sweating my ass off in one pair of jeans, since back then, I rather not go anywhere if I had to wear shorts. More than 36 actually, since I often had to go someplace on Sundays.
I literally wore the same pants without washing for that entire period. As a concession to hygiene, I'd hang them up in the sun to air out every week or so. But that really didn't help much. They smelled like dead rats and blue cheese no matter how long they were in the sun. The intensity might be lessened but the smell was always there. But when finally I had them washed, the fade was pretty. Really pretty. It's times like these I get convinced my mother raised me to be gay.
Now more than five years on, I'm doing the same thing again. I've resolved to wear those pants at least thrice a week until New Year's Day 2008. This time I don't HAVE to do it. Besides, I'm a guy and I'm allowed my fair share of hygienic indiscretions. I just want to see what will happen. The backside and the crotch have holes in them, which for the sake of propriety, I patched up. The knees are really frayed now but I plan on patching them up as well, when they get torn through.
They REALLY stink now. The rain and the resulting moisture have all contributed to create something that smells like a wet Rastafarian hanging on a chair beside my bed. There has literally been no direct sunlight over our place for the past few days which means all the nasty fungi or whatever sunlight-averse thing that creates musk smells has free reign of the house and my pants.
Anyway, on an unrelated topic, I plan on looking for a dentist today. And catch the first part of 'Grindhouse' , 'Planet Terror'. Not only has the Philippine release of 'Grindhouse' been long delayed, it's been cut up into two for the local movie going market. There also isn't any guarantee that local distributors will choose to show the second part, 'Death Proof'. Perhaps in this case, movie pirates will once again prove their worth.
For the want of 10K
Sasha, our pitbull has heartworm. For those of you who've never heard of of this before, it's an infestation of a certain type of mosquito-borne parasite that literally eats mammalian cardiac muscle tissue. Fortunately, these critters can't survive in humans. However, as any serious dog owner can attest, they can be a dire threat to pooches.
We've known Sasha had heartworm for almost a year now. We took her to the vet to have her checked for a fungus and the vet mistakenly gave her a heartworm test intended for some other dog. The test result came back positive. The treatment was to be a series of injections that would cost around 2k each, with an estimated 4-5 necessary injections. Another caveat is, there was no guarantee of success. Funny thing is, heartworm is easily preventable with dirt cheap monthly meds. But when your dog DOES get it, it can be expensive to treat.
Precisely because it would set us back 10K, we didn't have her treated. We need that money to live, not to mention my dad still has a helluva lot of things left unpaid. Besides, my sister Melissa, who technically owns Sasha, isn't willing to help with some of the cost. I considered using my savings to have her treated, but without the guarantee of success, it wasn't something I was willing to do, given my lack of employment.
We knew what was eventually going to happen. She started to become more and more sluggish; a consequence of her circulatory system not functioning as it should. Then she started aging prematurely. Now she just sits in a corner of the house the whole day, with just her eyes looking up to people passing by and just the occasional wag of her tail. Once, she would relish greeting people she knew, the way dogs do, even if those people were gone for but a few minutes. But unlike other dogs, she has this curious habit of grunting like a pig and then howling at these events. She rarely barks.
We're thinking of having her euthanized now. It feels awful to have to consider this. She really is a sweet dog. And I mean that in every sense of the word. She's not what I expected a pitbull to be.
When she gently but deliberately rests her muzzle on my lap and looks up at me with her brown eyes while I'm using the computer or sitting outside drinking coffee just so she can get a scratch behind the ears or a kind word, I just melt. Her face has this... i don't know how to put it. Not all dogs have this quality. I'm one of the last people I'd expect to anthropomorphize animals but her face just begs for her to be loved. To be touched. To be recognized as something that needs; as something that feels.
I have to admit, when she was brought here last year, I was not taken to her immediately. She was kind of vicious to other dogs, though she seemed to like humans, even strangers, more than most dogs did. She was scared of a lot of things. Plastic bags. Jackets. Lit candles. Turkeys. Geese. Electric fans. Drinking straws. A/C vents. Loud noises. Lots of stuff I can't recall. The point is, she was and is kind of neurotic. And like I said before, she rarely barks. She's never barked at anyone that I can recall. She's more likely to run away than to attack an intruder and hence, made a terrible guard dog. But other dogs were a different matter. She could cow Max, our 100lb rottweiler when she was little more than half his weight. Whenever she met a strange dog, she has the disconcerting habit of moving more deliberately, furrowing her brow and becoming another animal entirely. One that was full of purpose and a frightening knack for putting her teeth into other canine's jugulars. She looks kind of demonic when this happens, actually.
But then the sight of her when she was just being her silly, clownish, cowardly self changed the way I acted towards her. We have to admit, cowards are hilarious.
Sometimes when she's on the floor lying down, I'd lie down beside her and give her a hug. A real one. The kind where you squeeze until it almost hurts. She'll ALWAYS grunt with appreciation, like a pig (I have to note that i always bathe after doing this) and she'll always seem disappointed when I stop. Don't ask me what a disappointed dog looks like, ok? It just seems that way.
She also likes being scratched under her chin for some reason. Whenever she's scratched there, she would literally plop down with a 'THUD' on the floor and roll on her back with her head held rearward so you could better scratch her chin.
Now I see her lying in one corner, constantly hyperventilating, her tongue pallid and her brown eyes barely responsive. It makes me tear up to think of how she's suffering. She's given us her love unconditionally. She deserves better than what she's getting. But she's just a dumb animal, right? She doesn't really know what's happening; surely she can't love. Or so I'd like to think. Because I know damn well what's happening. It's killing me a bit inside.
...
We've known Sasha had heartworm for almost a year now. We took her to the vet to have her checked for a fungus and the vet mistakenly gave her a heartworm test intended for some other dog. The test result came back positive. The treatment was to be a series of injections that would cost around 2k each, with an estimated 4-5 necessary injections. Another caveat is, there was no guarantee of success. Funny thing is, heartworm is easily preventable with dirt cheap monthly meds. But when your dog DOES get it, it can be expensive to treat.
Precisely because it would set us back 10K, we didn't have her treated. We need that money to live, not to mention my dad still has a helluva lot of things left unpaid. Besides, my sister Melissa, who technically owns Sasha, isn't willing to help with some of the cost. I considered using my savings to have her treated, but without the guarantee of success, it wasn't something I was willing to do, given my lack of employment.
We knew what was eventually going to happen. She started to become more and more sluggish; a consequence of her circulatory system not functioning as it should. Then she started aging prematurely. Now she just sits in a corner of the house the whole day, with just her eyes looking up to people passing by and just the occasional wag of her tail. Once, she would relish greeting people she knew, the way dogs do, even if those people were gone for but a few minutes. But unlike other dogs, she has this curious habit of grunting like a pig and then howling at these events. She rarely barks.
We're thinking of having her euthanized now. It feels awful to have to consider this. She really is a sweet dog. And I mean that in every sense of the word. She's not what I expected a pitbull to be.
When she gently but deliberately rests her muzzle on my lap and looks up at me with her brown eyes while I'm using the computer or sitting outside drinking coffee just so she can get a scratch behind the ears or a kind word, I just melt. Her face has this... i don't know how to put it. Not all dogs have this quality. I'm one of the last people I'd expect to anthropomorphize animals but her face just begs for her to be loved. To be touched. To be recognized as something that needs; as something that feels.
I have to admit, when she was brought here last year, I was not taken to her immediately. She was kind of vicious to other dogs, though she seemed to like humans, even strangers, more than most dogs did. She was scared of a lot of things. Plastic bags. Jackets. Lit candles. Turkeys. Geese. Electric fans. Drinking straws. A/C vents. Loud noises. Lots of stuff I can't recall. The point is, she was and is kind of neurotic. And like I said before, she rarely barks. She's never barked at anyone that I can recall. She's more likely to run away than to attack an intruder and hence, made a terrible guard dog. But other dogs were a different matter. She could cow Max, our 100lb rottweiler when she was little more than half his weight. Whenever she met a strange dog, she has the disconcerting habit of moving more deliberately, furrowing her brow and becoming another animal entirely. One that was full of purpose and a frightening knack for putting her teeth into other canine's jugulars. She looks kind of demonic when this happens, actually.
But then the sight of her when she was just being her silly, clownish, cowardly self changed the way I acted towards her. We have to admit, cowards are hilarious.
Sometimes when she's on the floor lying down, I'd lie down beside her and give her a hug. A real one. The kind where you squeeze until it almost hurts. She'll ALWAYS grunt with appreciation, like a pig (I have to note that i always bathe after doing this) and she'll always seem disappointed when I stop. Don't ask me what a disappointed dog looks like, ok? It just seems that way.
She also likes being scratched under her chin for some reason. Whenever she's scratched there, she would literally plop down with a 'THUD' on the floor and roll on her back with her head held rearward so you could better scratch her chin.
Now I see her lying in one corner, constantly hyperventilating, her tongue pallid and her brown eyes barely responsive. It makes me tear up to think of how she's suffering. She's given us her love unconditionally. She deserves better than what she's getting. But she's just a dumb animal, right? She doesn't really know what's happening; surely she can't love. Or so I'd like to think. Because I know damn well what's happening. It's killing me a bit inside.
...
Barely Interesting
This is the B Phrygian Mode. I like playing around with Phrygian and Phrygian-Dominant scales because they make me sound a lot better than I actually am. No foolin'. On a side note, a big "up yours" to all those guitar players who won't teach the concept of modes and scales because they're afraid of newbies getting the best of them eventually. Yes, there are people like that out there. I've met some of them. I hope you guys burn in hell. But don't die until I get my myself a JCM800. So I can beat you to death with it. Well, I would. But I'm kinda scrawny. So....
This Ride is Whack
Wouldn't it be great if you could use plastic surgery on a white horse, so that it would look like a unicorn? That'd be sweet! Granted, it won't be a 'real' unicorn and it won't require virginity or purity of heart to see, but what the hey.
If that happened, it would be too awesome for words. No... Wait... There is a word. Pimp. Yes. It would be so freakin' pimp to go downtown on top of your white unicorn.
There the only thing more pimp than a unicorn, and that's a PINK unicorn. If you can afford a horse and associated costs of plastic surgery to make it a unicorn, surely you can afford enough pink dye/paint to color it. Or at the very least, you could buy an economy sized pack of unsweetened strawberry Kool-Aid for that purpose every few days or so.
Then if your unicorn could take it, you could have a 15,000W sound system installed on the saddle packs. Now, you might be thinking "but everyone has those these days!"... Not on a pink unicorn, they don't! When most losers cruise around at night with their audio systems on full, many people they pass by often find themselves wishing for their slow and painful deaths. When you're on a pink unicorn, they'll be so stunned they won't realize you've actually been playing 'Extasi Extano'.
What would even be more nifty is if you owned an entire barangay. Then you'd have people who could throw rose petals ahead of you when you're strutting around, looking pimp on top of your unicorn. You could make your ka-barangay push objects and other people out of your way. Now not only it that pimp, it's gangsta!
Man. I sort of wish I wish I were black, now. Then I could use 'pimp' and 'gangsta' without sounding stupid. I'm painful to listen to when I say those words, believe me. It's even more cringe-worthy than Ali-G, I tells ya!
Bah.
If that happened, it would be too awesome for words. No... Wait... There is a word. Pimp. Yes. It would be so freakin' pimp to go downtown on top of your white unicorn.
There the only thing more pimp than a unicorn, and that's a PINK unicorn. If you can afford a horse and associated costs of plastic surgery to make it a unicorn, surely you can afford enough pink dye/paint to color it. Or at the very least, you could buy an economy sized pack of unsweetened strawberry Kool-Aid for that purpose every few days or so.
Then if your unicorn could take it, you could have a 15,000W sound system installed on the saddle packs. Now, you might be thinking "but everyone has those these days!"... Not on a pink unicorn, they don't! When most losers cruise around at night with their audio systems on full, many people they pass by often find themselves wishing for their slow and painful deaths. When you're on a pink unicorn, they'll be so stunned they won't realize you've actually been playing 'Extasi Extano'.
What would even be more nifty is if you owned an entire barangay. Then you'd have people who could throw rose petals ahead of you when you're strutting around, looking pimp on top of your unicorn. You could make your ka-barangay push objects and other people out of your way. Now not only it that pimp, it's gangsta!
Man. I sort of wish I wish I were black, now. Then I could use 'pimp' and 'gangsta' without sounding stupid. I'm painful to listen to when I say those words, believe me. It's even more cringe-worthy than Ali-G, I tells ya!
Bah.
I'm Lousy at Making Titles
That means exactly what it says. I should hang my head in shame. The last title to this blog was "They Should make Guns Out Of Chocolate More Often". I mean, how stupid is that? Well, pretty stupid, I guess.
I was renting a computer in an internet cafe when I opened this account and was pressed for time. I simply couldn't think up of a good title. Incidentally, I read a Jack Handey one liner about chocolate guns and stuck with it. If you haven't heard of Jack Handey, you should look him up. Teh Google is teh shiznit on teh intarweb machione LOL!!!111!
Now the title is 'Faute De Mieux'. It's lifted from a line I read in Naked Lunch, which means 'for the lack of anything better', so you can put two and two together* and understand why I decided to use this title instead of the other one. Besides, the stuff made by William S. Burroughs is probably more highbrow than Jack Handey's**. See? That goes to show how unoriginal I really am. Thankfully, no has deigned it appropriate for their blog title.
It's apt, for now methinks. I really thought the previous title was stupid, and so did quite a few other people but I never found the time to change it. I did have the time, but blogging isn't really my priority these days.
Now I have a non-catchy but somewhat less stupid title. And it it's in Français! Any classier and you'll probably have to wear a tux when you read this.
*the answer is four, moron!
** I personally don't think so.
UPDATE! Googling for blogs with 'Faute De Mieux' as a title has turned up a Blogspot account titled 'Faute-De-Mieux'. Dammit! Well, the owner might be dead or something. it was last updated 2005. But STILL! ARGHHHH!!!
I was renting a computer in an internet cafe when I opened this account and was pressed for time. I simply couldn't think up of a good title. Incidentally, I read a Jack Handey one liner about chocolate guns and stuck with it. If you haven't heard of Jack Handey, you should look him up. Teh Google is teh shiznit on teh intarweb machione LOL!!!111!
Now the title is 'Faute De Mieux'. It's lifted from a line I read in Naked Lunch, which means 'for the lack of anything better', so you can put two and two together* and understand why I decided to use this title instead of the other one. Besides, the stuff made by William S. Burroughs is probably more highbrow than Jack Handey's**. See? That goes to show how unoriginal I really am. Thankfully, no has deigned it appropriate for their blog title.
It's apt, for now methinks. I really thought the previous title was stupid, and so did quite a few other people but I never found the time to change it. I did have the time, but blogging isn't really my priority these days.
Now I have a non-catchy but somewhat less stupid title. And it it's in Français! Any classier and you'll probably have to wear a tux when you read this.
*the answer is four, moron!
** I personally don't think so.
UPDATE! Googling for blogs with 'Faute De Mieux' as a title has turned up a Blogspot account titled 'Faute-De-Mieux'. Dammit! Well, the owner might be dead or something. it was last updated 2005. But STILL! ARGHHHH!!!
