Some Novel Words to Bask In This Sunday

an essay by Roger B Rueda

Learning new vocables takes us beyond ourselves. We broaden our points of view, gain knowledge of new facts, and come to a better understanding of the world and our place in it. Vocables can support us when we are exchanging a few words to other people. Here are a number of vocables of uproarious importance (perhaps) I have come across this week:

ART BUM. A person who is on the edge of doing art work, be it writing, acting, playing music, or otherwise. Even though this person thinks about being artsy and doing art incessantly, he or she hardly ever does it. That art bum thinks she'll be the next Picasso, but all she does is have her head in the clouds.

BLAMESTORMING. (1) A meeting intended to find out why a cut-off date was missed or a task failed, and who was to blame. I just got out of a three hour blamestorming meeting with IT about the server collapse last week. Someone's going to end up in joblessness over this. (2) Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who is responsible. Oh, great, we lost the transaction. Time for some more blamestorming.

BREAKING THE SEAL. Your first piss at the pub, usually after two hours of drinking. After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the restroom will be required every ten or fifteen minutes for the rest of the night. I broke the seal in bogs, after that there was no stopping me.

CLOSET BITCH. A girl who appears to be very nice and pleasant but is secretly tremendously hateful and dislikes everyone who she pretends to be nice to. Ronelo was convinced Cynthia was an angel until she slapped him in the face for no apparent reason, that's when he realised she was a closet bitch.

CUBE FARM. (1) A cluster of cubicles in a workplace. From the top down, they look like an art farm or bee nest, hiving productive little workers into their cells. I'm glad I have my own office now, escaping the dreaded cube farm. (2) The vain attempt to produce privacy in an otherwise open-office layout through the placement of shared partitions in a box-like arrangement around each adjoining work area. This lousy office hive is nothing but one big fucking cube farm!

FILIPINO PAINT JOB. After the completion of sloppy anal sex, the faeces remaining on the penis of the ‘painter,’ are smeared on the back of the recipient. It is then ‘white washed’ with the semen of the painter. Two hours after eating at Blue Ocean, and fifteen minutes into some hot anal action, Jet pulled out and gave that whore a Filipino paint job.

404-UNABLE TO WOO. When a geek tries to hit on someone out of his or her league and gets rejected. The geek is then unable to woo the person he or she is hitting on. It frequently comes in the form of a disgusted facial expression or the person walking away from the geek looking like he or she saw a ghost. It was named after the notorious 404 web page error that occurs when the page is unavailable. Manuel tried to offer the woman a beer but instead got a 404-unable to woo when he approached her.

GAY AND A HALF. When someone is acting so brainless and capricious that you can't simply call them ‘gay.’ Hey, Clem, look at me stick these straws up my nose! ~Alexis, you're gay and a half!

GAY AS A FISH. A guy who is visibly and indubitably gay. It is more often than not used to alert another dude who's blind to the clues and doesn't take in is being picked up by him. Martin: Hey Rafy, have you met Ricky? He's such a cool guy. Rafy: Is that the guy in your class? Martin: Yeah! He and his roommates are throwing a party at his place and he said we're invited. Rafy: Dude, this guy is gay as a fish. If I were you, I'd watch my back.

GOING FOR A MCSHIT. When you go into McDonalds for the only intention of using the lavatory. Please note: If challenged by the spotty staff member, then your declaration that you will buy food afterwards is a McShit with lies.

GOSSIP VULTURE. A person who only befriends you to learn gossip, and then passes it on. An accepted journalistic activity, but also widespread somewhere else. Frances is a true gossip vulture. I told her about Luis and she's mistreated me since.

JOHNNY-NO-STARS. A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The 'no-stars' comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.

MONKEY BATH. A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: ‘Oo! Oo! Oo! Aa!Aa!Aa!’ Martin in bathroom: ‘Oo! Oo! Oo! Aa!Aa!Aa!’ Edmond: ‘Haha sounds like Martin is having a monkey bath!’

MYSTERY FRUIT. A person who may or may not be ‘closet gay.’ Jimmy: So did Ricky ever come out? Prince: No, he's still a mystery fruit.

SEAGULL MANAGER. A manager who flies in, makes a great deal of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves. Rafy never accomplishes anything. All he does is come in here every now and then, complain about deadlines, puts more work on us, then goes back to surfing the intraweb. He's such a seagull manager.

SHOPPERLIFTED. When a cashier forgets to put items in a customer's shopping bag and they depart the store without them. Again and again, the shopper will return home, empty out their goods, and find out in outrage the lack of certain items. I thought I just bought toilet paper?! ~Haha, it looks like you just got shopperlifted.

SWAMP-DONKEY. An incredibly unsightly, usually fat girl or gay who hangs about in pubs and clubs waiting to sexually assault males who are too drunk to defend themselves. Damn! Look at her! What a swamp donkey!

TARTANGLE. To feel mortified for someone in a cinema film even though you are not part of the scene. Oh my god the entire ‘She's the Man’ is a giant tartangle!

TESTICULATING. Waving your arms around and talking total bollocks. It is best for use when managers, advertising types, or TV producers start spiralling out of control. Stop testiculating and give me a straight answer, if you can.

UGLOID. A very ugly person. No, I am not going out with that ugloid!

UGLORABLE. When describing something that is all together ugly and adorable. The vocable that results from the combination of the words ‘ugly’ and ‘adorable.’ Oh, that pigmy hippopotamus is absolutely uglorable!/Panay News Sunday

Looking Back on the People Power Revolution

essay by Roger B Rueda

I was all of six then when the People Power Revolution came to pass, but I have vivid memories of it, though, to some, it’s just a dim memory for them now. Every time I hear the People Power songs Magkaisa (by Virna Lisa Loberiza) and Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo (by Apo Hiking Society), their tunes really bring back memories. They awaken poignant memories of vicious days.  That is, those I saw on TV, newspapers, and magazines. I have a very vivid picture of the first time I saw former president Corazon Aquino on TV. Later on, after 10 years, I buried myself in one of her magazine articles I set aside in my baul. I realised how brilliant, remarkable, cool her ideas were. I’ve really thought highly of her phraseology.

Our history books and oral history, by the way, put us in the picture that it was a string of passive revolutions and prayerful street protests in the Philippines that suggested itself in 1986. It marked the refurbishment of our country’s democracy. It is, now and then, described as the Yellow Revolution owing to yellow ticker tapes during the coming of president Benigno Aquino III’s father, Benigno, Jnr, the senator who could perhaps put back president Ferdinand Marcos but was snuffed out at the tarmac. These protests were the finale of a long crusade of civil struggle by the people against the 20-year running relentless, tyrannical government of authoritarian president Marcos.

The greater part of the demonstrations took place at Edsa in Quezon City, and drawn in over two million Filipino civilians on top of several political, military, and religious figures. The protests, fueled by a battle and antagonism of years of shady ascendancy by former president Marcos, occurred in February 1986, when Marcos took off Malacañang Palace to the Hawaii and conceded to Corazon Aquino, Asia's first female president, as the lawful leader of this country. Just last year, the then president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said: Cory Aquino helped lead a revolution that restored democracy and the rule of law to our nation at a time of great peril. She picked up the standard from the fallen warrior Ninoy and helped lead our nation to a brighter day.

Some military leaders, dismayed by the evident election irregularities, set into motion an attempt of coup d'état against Marcos. The early plan was for a squad to beat up Malacañang Palace and take Ferdinand Marcos into custody.

When Marcos, however, learned about the scheme, he ordered the apprehension of the mutinous leaders, and presented to the international and local journalists some of the captured conspirators.

On the 22nd of February, as dawn was breaking, Juan Ponce Enrile, then AFP chief of staff, and Fidel Ramos, his vice chief,  publicised that they had given up their their positions in Marcos's cabinet and were withdrawing support from his administration. Marcos himself in a while conducted his own news conference calling on Enrile and Ramos to capitulate.

Cardinal Sin urged Filipinos to come to the aid of the mutinous leaders by going to Edsa stucked between camps Crame and Aguinaldo and giving emotional support, foodstuff, and other provisions. For many, this looked as if a risky choice since civilians would not stand a chance against dispersion by government troops. Nonetheless, a lot of people, mainly priests and nuns, came to Edsa in droves. It was believed that the radio, Radio Veritas, had played a decisive role during the civil disobedience.

Marcos talked to US senator Paul Laxalt, asking for counsel from the White House. Laxalt advised him to cut and cut cleanly, to which Marcos expressed his dissatisfaction following a short awkward moment. At 9 in the evening, the Marcoses and their allies were transferred by four US Navy helicopters to Clark Air Base in Angeles City about 83 kilometres north of Manila, before getting on US Air Force C-130 planes heading for Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, and lastly to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii at which the Marcoses arrived on the 26th of February.

As the news of Marcos's going away was relayed around, a lot of people expressed joy and bopped to the music in the streets. The protesters were finally able to go into Malacañang Palace, long denied to ordinary Filipinos in the past decade. Works of art were pillaged from the palace, but by and large people moseyed on down to every corner of the palace, looking at the place where all the pronouncements that changed the course of Philippine history had been made.

A lot of people around the world were glad and passed on good wishes to Filipinos they knew.

The 25th of February 1986, a notable Metro Manila event that has been carved in the hearts and minds of all Filipinos, be it in person or on TV or the radio, gives us a strong sense of pride especially that other countries had tried to follow what we have made known in the world of the true power of a democratic system, such as in Egypt, shown on the BBC just two weeks ago. It was a day that drawn all Filipinos together in unity with bravery and devotion to win through democracy in this country. It was the power of the people, who assembled in Edsa, which brought back the free Philippines, ending the unfair Marcos rule.

Now, far away in the north of this country, the corpse of the former president Marcos, who departed this life in exile in Hawaii in 1989 after being removed from power in the popular protests, lies in a refrigerated vault.

For years, his wife, Imelda, has campaigned for his remains to be given state honours and a hero's burial.

Marcos is so discredited - and his wife so maligned in the press for her lavish lifestyle and corrupt associations - that she has little chance of ever realising her goal. Is it not anachronistic and ridiculous?  Can there be no general rule about how a dead exile leader is to be treated?  Well, it all depends upon the judgement the present society passes on him. Indignity or ignominy, it is better to dispose of the mortal remains without much ado. If I were his wife, I’d have him buried in remote plots of land without fanfare. Let’s bear no animosity towards president Marcos.

Anyway, Happy People Power Revolution Day!/Panay News Sunday

The Forbes Bridge under the Iloilo River

a poem by Roger B Rueda

1996.
As I looked down into the river
at the sound
of the boat
while I was crossing
the Forbes Bridge,
the water stared
blankly at me,
discarded
toothbrushes,
combs, cups,
and plastic
water bottles
so colourful
iridescence,
two young men
sitting side by side
at the back
of the raft,
chatting
and enjoying
the river view
while sending out.
2011.
Every time I look
down into the river
at the sound
of the boat
while I am crossing
the Forbes Bridge,
the waterway
is dotted
with shrubbery,
buildings,
and hoardings
that pierce
into the sky beneath.
I watch a flock
of birds
flapping their wings
under the bridge,
leaves whirling eddies behind.

Love

an essay by Roger B Rueda

Eons have gone by, relationships and affairs have come into flower and so has love. No one, nonetheless, can describe what love is, carefully. Personally, love is intimacy bubbling over for others. Perhaps, love is like good fortune, you have to go all the way to get it. In spite of how we delineate it or consider it, love is the timeless truth in the times past of humans.

As if by magic, love is serene and soft. It has no resentment, nor it sings its own praises and it is never swollen with pride. It expresses joy over malevolence and tries to find the truth. It saves from harm and preserves and wishes for the positive facet of life. It is like the dream coming true.  It can come about amidst us. It can bond us and connect us in a unified tie of belief, familiarity, and interdependence. The relationship can perk up at it. It relieves the soul. Love should be felt. The strength of love cannot be measured: take a look at the relationship between a mother and a baby. The mother loves the baby absolutely and it cannot be measured humanly. A dissimilar facet can be attained between any relationships with the enchantment of love. Love can be created. You just need to concentrate on the kindness of the other person. If this can be done by far, then you can also love by far. And commit to memory that we all have some positive aspect in us, regardless of how ghastly our deeds possibly, as God affirmed: Love each and every one.

Love is deep, intense, and continuous. It is shared on a very close and interpersonal bond. It is also matter of great warmth. It is more of craving, fondness, and way of thinking. Love has profundity, versatility, and intricacy. It helps us to experience ourselves again. It is like small gestures that speak volumes about how much we are concerned.

Every so often, the very existence of love is questioned. A few say it is artificial and pointless. It seems it never exists, as there have been countless instances of abhorrence and cruelty in relationships. The history of our world has seen scores of such events. There has been loathing amongst brothers, sisters, parents, and buddies. Associates have been disloyal to each other. The son has killed his parents for the throne, the estimate is infinite. Even the modern generation is also facing with such a catch-22 every day. But love is not at fault for that. It is us, the people, who have closed the eyes to the essence of love and have undertaken such shocking indifference.

Love has, for ever and a day, ruled, in letters. (Here are a few: (1) Love Story by Erich Segal, (2) Message in a Bottle by Nicholas Sparks, (3) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, (4) The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough, (5) The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (6) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre, (7) Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, (8) Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, (9) Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, (10) A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks, (11) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, (12) Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson, (13) Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (14) The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, (15) My Antonia by Willa Cather  (16) Mistral's Daughter by Judith Krantz, (17) Persuasion by Jane Austen, (18) Love in Another Town by Barbara Taylor Bradford (19) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, (20) A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.)

Love is a far above the ground form of forbearance. It consists of compatibility. But it is more of voyage to the beggaring description when the conception of compatibility comes into picture. Perhaps, the person who we see in front of us, may be slightest like-minded than the person who is miles away. We might talk to each other and reveal that we love each other, but virtually we do not end up into any relationship. Also in compatibility, the means is to think about the long term flourishing relationship, not a short voyage. We need to be aware of each other and must always remember that not a soul is just the thing.

Love can make us placid, uncomplaining, compassionate, self-effacing, thankful, selfless, understanding, and giving. It is what keeps us from being insufferable, mean, green with envy, full of ourselves, pompous, worthless, and discourteous. It helps us not to clamour for having our own way repeatedly, and it helps us not to be tetchy or spiteful.

Love helps us judge with our hearts and not with our minds.  It is considerate towards others, is not hurtful or condemnatory, and it gives us the strength to excuse others. If we let love cross the threshold our hearts, we can see more of the good in others and do not see as many faults.  All the things that seemed wide of the mark to us begin to look right again when we look at it through the smoothness of love's tender luminosity.

We need to be in somebody's company, share our delight and grief, understand each other, provide freedom to each other, but always be there for each other's need. And for sure love will come into bud to strengthen our relationship with our matter of affection. Then it’ll grow and come into flower. Its terrific beauty will shine from the rest. Its radiant fragrance will hang around aloft. We’ll see then it is colourful but has a prickly stem when you lay a hand on it. Though we sense the twinge, we should still keep hold of it tighter time after time. Happy Valentine’s Day!/Panay News Sunday

Fictionists

a poem by Roger B Rueda

I want to know the whole lot about you,
what brand names of shampoo
and soap you avail yourselves of,
what cars you drive,
what shirts and denims
you show off,
which cafés you eat in.
All this and more
by a hair's breadth matters
and makes
a difference to my life.
No. Certain episodes, I mean,
in your voyage
which brought you
closer to the aspirations
when shared,
and help me in my mission, are.
That’s what your writings
are all about.
They are nothing but a foretaste
into your spirits. They are you.
I am not thinking likely
to story of your lives.
There will come
a point, though, in your lives
when you don’t feel like
hiding anything from view.
They are standing by
to share their deepest secrets
as their mind is forbearing.
That is an incalculable incident.
Possibly that will happen
to you. I hope before long.
No one will always recognise
everything
about us, there is providentially
a small repository in our heart
that only lets out
what we want to let out.
I have buried myself in you.
I definitely read about him
in all the books I have read no further,
I read between the lines,
and try to catch the meaning
of the sentiment he
is trying to put across,
which I on occasion am aware of
is more well-defined
in his own vocables.
His judgement is challenging,
and I think he still has lots
of questions,
more than answers.
Not all, again, but people
who feel you as friends,
gracious souls to civilisation
shouldn’t be dismayed
about your voyage
as it is part
of your cultural occurrence
in life. The consequence
is you and that is
what we feel close to
as much as to feel you
as friends. Real friends
don’t judge all actions,
instead they just
hold close and lend each other a hand.

Storytelling

a poem by Roger B Rueda

It is the only granny knot left, we know,
or only some of us,
once we see this coming to blows
of the world.
We share our souls through it,
through prose, through texts
like black water set in paper
or vocables haunted
by the spirit of thoughts.
It has stacks of resonance.
When she buried herself in a work,
she had to stop as she was
taken aback. She thought
How could he know
about me?
Why has this work come
into my life?
She felt like it was about her time
and had to stop
and let her kindred spirit know about it.
She met her kindred spirit
when she was all of ten,
they were family friends,
but she never recognised him.
But she remembers, even then,
longing
for her kindred spirit.
It wasn’t until she was all
of twenty seven
and had loads of experiences
where she thought she had met him
but to find it not so,
that she saw her kindred spirit
after many years of not seeing him
and only hearing about him
and rarely running into him.
She got news, sad news, and went
to see his family.
When she saw him, she felt the pull
of the cosmos to go to him
and hold him close,
so she did. It was like the world stopped,
the crammed full room
with peering eyes
were as nothing
and he was the only one
in the room. She saw luminosity
in him,
she saw all.
She felt like she never
understood life
till that moment.
As they held in each other’s arms
she heard a voice utter
he is the one,
he is the man
you will get hitched at some point.
You’ve by now been
married, in fact. She felt the shock,
incredulity,
wholesome delight.
How could this man
she had known most of her life be
who he was?
He looked at her absorbedly
and she knew he was experiencing
it, too.
It took ages of struggle
and even interlude of peace
to believe
him and he to her.
She felt from that day
she saw him that
there was no one
in the world she could be
in love with
more and she needed to be a piece
of his life,
that he was a part of her, too.
They wound up
in a link of consequence,
but not anything could bring
their flame
to a halt,
not even themselves.
They rarely spoke,
and if they did they broke silence
through the idiom of the cosmos,
their vigour. She knew
when he needed her even
when he was miles away
and he to her.
Now, her kindred spirit
and she smooth the way
to go behind their dream and
hound their own fairy tale.
He really is a little bit of her
and she to him,
their connection is sacred,
substantial, caringly,
absolute, just right.
The tale came into her life
when she, too, was searching
for the augurs of the world.
She had been trying to chance upon
understanding of things
that she couldn’t realise
(like her kindred spirit’s being
and link).
She had been talking
to her kindred spirit about moving
somewhere far-flung.
She had felt like
that was their home.
She had had a very strong tie
with a pernickety part and felt
a connection with the surowanos
many centuries ago.
When she buried herself
in the hardback,
it was like lights going off.
She finally understood
her need to go there be there,
the dreams she had been having
and also her surowano links,
the design straight off,
as she didn’t believe.
That same voice from many years
before rang
that in a past life
she was a surowano.
She knows this is an incredible legend,
but that is why she is sharing it.
Her belief and her whole lot
she was taught to believe went
against the idea of rebirth.
But how could she disagree with it
after meeting
her kindred spirit from a past life?
If she had one life with him
and reminiscences
of surowano life then anything
was realistic.
She is grateful to the person behind
the work
for helping her
to agree to and be glad about
the magic in her life.
She believes the work was a book
from her creator to her.
Her kindred spirit and she
will be going out somewhere
far-flung
to follow a dream.
Their life is justly magical,
beautiful,
superb, to them. This is her tale,
it doesn’t have to be anyone
else’s, but she knows and
can make clear to you
that kindred spirits
do keep their heads
above water,
that if you are looking
for yours, you shouldn’t
ever bow out.
This enraptures my heart
and rivets my mind,
it states virtue in the smoothness
of sentiment, it turns into truth
in the billows of perplexity
and trickery.
Is it to have reality
the uppermost emergence
of magnificence? Perhaps.
Love and audacity are born from it.

Magic

a poem by Roger B Rueda

Is it the belief of our heart,
of the mind's eye,
or of the delight
that we bring
to the world?
Is it magical
to sense a spirit
on other people?
Now and again I am
at a seaside
beyond belief,
watching
a piece of life
like a tree, sparkling,
whispering
its secrets,
or a butterfly,
flittering
from blossom
to blossom,
every so often pausing
to have nectar
or rest its wings.
Are these magic
flashes,
not being a piece
of the world, but
more like
being a piece
of glory, and
I could have
my home
there undyingly,
colourful
chitin shells
entertaining
the eye and
delighting
my soul?
Is it a viaduct
stuck between
the substantial
and the hidden?
This bound
slouches
itself in awfully bare ways.

Life

a poem by Roger B Rueda

What drives it? Is it its end that drives it,
the imprint that defines it
after it's long gone,
its impact on this civilisation,
though it’s barely a fleck?
Or is it nature,
nature makes well and nature drives,
as we know?
Or is it to go behind the signs?
The signs, to some of us, are our lot and idea,
we know that after every sign,
we will have the chance
to take a bit from the world
and also give a bit to the world.
We always go after the signs,
perceptibly:
they go in front of us to our creator.
We trust in our signs and, thus,
we trust in ourselves.
One day we’ll be so close
to our intention
that we’ll have the get-up-and-go
to make thousands of people
feel providential and at ease,
and we’ll have so much love
to give
that we’ll be in this world for others:
that is the only life worth to live.
The next good morning
of each beautiful day
is our vigour of life.
Or does it seem to be transformed
to keep us wide awake
and make our life feel out
of the everyday
and lifting enough?
I´m not clear in my mind
if that is fine!
We just need to rock the boat!
Is it that we want to live
as we know our loved ones
want to see us live to tell the tale?