What ticks me off

Venting out because that's what occasional blogs are for, right?

It frustrates me when I try with all my strength and mindfulness to explain a very important point that represents the crux of my concerns. I find it irritating when a person simply shuts me off while claiming they did not understand anything I said. (If it's my failure to communicate that confuses or overwhelms people, why do others use this limitation to avoid important arguments? Why can't people for a second just stop and really listen. An urgent call comes in all unintelligible forms and yet its "incommunicability" doesn't cancel the fact that something is very wrong.) Worst of all, it angers me when these people dismiss my concerns for another petty "overreading" that's narrow/irrelevant/uncalled for. 

I beg to differ.

I think a person shuts off at the precise moment they stop seeing their own flaws. They turn a blind eye to their own errors, seeing flaws only in others, without correcting their own. The double-standards begin with the bias we have for ourselves. People commit "harmless errors" all too often that the errors become nothing more than "harmless habits." People even justify their actions by arguing that "other people have validated it and are doing it too." (I guess that's the price our society pays for perpetuating a stunted democracy in the age of severely deteriorating attention spans.) It annoys me how they can be so stubborn. They stop listening the moment someone calls them out on their misgivings. 

The most frustrating part?

They don't even acknowledge they were wrong (even in some shady aspect of the word). Hell, they would rather ride in their innocent delusion thinking nothing is wrong. If this form of denial is keeping them sane, I'd rather be swathed in madness! One day the walls of their delusion will crumble due to this unacknowledged internal defect they never bothered to address. 

I find it difficult to reconcile my emotions towards these kinds of people. We're all walking contradictions, I know, but that doesn't give any of us the excuse to 1) stop being good individuals 2) stop learning 3) stop listening. Your age and experience is not an excuse either. 

Wet Wet Wet Round# 4

For the final round, Riley and Shirl went ahead so there's just three of us trying to fill-out the blank page. And so, this is how we concluded our Spazzio evening. 

Below is a transcribed version of our drunken free writing activity.

The necessary form of release-- Eh, ano ngayon? This is NOT poetry!

You can also click on the audio to listen to this glorious garb of gibberish.

Round 4 07262011 Spazzio - JOV by Amber_Light


Round #4, 1st line by Cor – read by Jov

I’ve been creeping in crevices
beneath your head, where
is your soul? Not beneath
my heart but throughout my life which
is where I have expressed myself in
whole. Where do I get out?
The same crevices where
I crept in? Or do I
stay? Can I wait for
something? Always, you
and I will find something.
Anything. Enough that it
will suffice for the short
lives that we were meant
to live. And so I ask,
do you dare to stay?

Stay there? When you could
find other creeks and cracks in which
you could live a life so unexpectant.
You’ll never know what’ll come next.
Take the risk, enjoy the journey
on the path you walk. Live the
dream.
Live the dream. Even at
times they turn into night-
mares. The important thing
is, you wake up. Sooner
or later.
Wait just enough for the
change you need, want,
live for, to occur. Nobody
said you shouldn’t, you
have a choice. We must
live, it is not enough
to survive a menial
existence. All you have to do
is strive. Strive on that energy
a life support line… but what
if it runs out? You’ll never
know when it’ll strike until that
last moment. Then you’ll realize
that what you have lived was
more than just a life. It’s
a memory embedded in your
dead mind and living on in
the memory of others. You’re
a part of something more.
You’ve slowly helped the world
become what it is today.
Complete the uninspired.
Put a period to what is
hanging. Stop what lingers.
Live. But know when to
halt thy breath and
rest.

Cor, Shane, Jov

(Jov read, hoo-raaaah! Can't believe we did all this in one night. All this mental literary diarrhea on four pages. I felt so light coming home. Thank you (ala Natalie Portaman. lol.) Cheers to the night we felt alive.)

Spazzio July 26, 2011

Wet Wet Wet Round# 3

Below is a transcribed version of our drunken free writing activity.
The necessary form of release-- Eh, ano ngayon? This is NOT poetry!

You can also click on the audio to listen to this glorious garb of gibberish.

Round 3 07262011 Spazzio - SHANE by Amber_Light


Round #3, 1st line by Riley – read by Shane

It is not the best nor the worst of times.
I never said I’d bring the flowers. And
please, don’t call me ‘Ishmael’. I am merely
black ink on a tide of salty volume.
This is not the ocean
either. Nor is this the mountains.
This is just space—with
all the textures, with all
the flavors. With all the
“ifs”. Vast and undefined,
like the soft lines of your
palms, the curb of your
brows, the air that we breathe.
There is solace in all things
unnamed. I love the uncertainty
and utterance you bring forth
amidst all this static. But who
knows if we’re not far from the end.
From what we have heard, we’re not
far away, with every day… now I pray.
I confess to all the wrong I have done
and at the same time hope to see
the morning sun. For us, life as
we know it might be coming to an
end. I trust myself enough that
I won’t bend. I still want to
cherish every moment, as much as
I have unnoticeably lived by Shakespeare’s
every sonnet. As much as I love to
live, even just to give. I’ve learn’t
to love everybody as if they were
my own kid.

Ah! I know. I am cigarettes. Yeah, cigarettes. Or that awkward moment when a guy knocks on the men’s room door when you’re taking a leak. Yeah. Yeah. That.

                                                  _________This is not text on top of a line.___

Leaking. Licking. Lacking.
After that what?
Bad wet fucking?
Again I start,
depth-devoid logic,
shallow reasoning.
Meta my fuckin’
arse, I’m stickin’.
To all this graphic, sporadic,
to cadence. I create my own
world, exist in my mind, em-
brace my human mecha-
nism, acknowledge frailty.
It is necessary to deal with such
things: our complacence,
the final thought which haunts
us before sleeping. But still I
dream. Dream of a time where
there were no problems only
imaginary completeness. Nor
a problem in the world, just
happiness. Just love.
          If I were corporeal, even at least,
even if my ink were to sink, if I
were a whole, a shell to house my
memory, would it all change? Would
I sink or swim? Would my words dance
on the page or would they simply
bubble up the surface?


Riley, Jov, Cor, Shane


(Shane had to cuss by the time he read my part because my penmanship was growing harder by the hour to decipher. I'm sorry, dude. I blame it all on the Red Horse. Thanks for trying to read this though.)

Spazzio July 26, 2011

Wet Wet Wet Round# 2

 Below is a transcribed version of our drunken free writing activity.
The necessary form of release-- Eh, ano ngayon? This is NOT poetry!

You can also click on the audio to listen to this glorious garb of gibberish.

Round 2 07262011 Spazzio - COR by Amber_Light



Round #2, 1st line by Shane – read by Cor

I see a car at my feet.
Silently begging for scrap to eat
I give him a shroom and as
he swallows he starts to swoon.
reminds me of the world today.
Is this really why we live, just
to stay?

            And then there’s this chef wanting
to optimize his time in cooking. A lot
of tasks, a lot of recipes. Given the dish
on the stove & the list of dishes
that are in line to be cooked, what
dish should be cooked next?

            Sex.
Like orgasms mixed? Like
orgasms fakely fixed? I need
a good dish. I’m starving.
Foreplay is it? Like cutting
onions while you weep?
Wail in pleasure. Moan in great
Rapture for something new.
Unanticipated, unfamiliar,
UNSCATHED. Serve me
the purest dish you can muster
and I will consume it up to
the last piece. Make me
glad.
and the reward I shall grant
will be of the highest. Not
me, or my virginity. Something
more pure, but my whole true
love. For you to do with as
you wish. It may be something
as "malansa" as would be fish
but so full of flavor. It would
be more than what you could
ever wish.
           Today was a rainy day
Many cats are playing
Many cocks are
Fighting.1

            Fighting to get to the
same hour first. As if
the minutes don’t matter.
As if the seconds are
mere adjectives in a purple
prose—a purple prose that
doesn’t last. A feverish
one which inflicts. You may recover,
forget, feign robust enlightenment.
This I give you: clean air, space for
you to connect. But as you grow
older and connect, you learn. You
realize you’re lonely for more than just you
but others
too.


Shane, Shirl, Riley, Jov, Cor
________________________________
1 This is a footnote.
[[In the sense of conflict?]]


Spazzio July 26, 2011

Awfully Wet Wet Wet Tuesday

We all ended up at Spazzio due to the frustratingly erratic stormy Tuesday of July 26, 2011.
x – classes
x – work
x – Cinemalaya
CHECK!!! – beer

And the afternoon’s winning lines were:

Deelaytful Riley on his play, Six Boys and a Slut
“And in the end, all the boys didn’t care that she didn’t come.”

Shirl opening up about her high school daze with Riley (as Riley feigns ignorance)
“Nagtanung ka kaya kung pwede mo ‘ko ligawan!”

Jov to Riley while waiting for SRO tickets to watch Cinemalaya films
“Papapasukin ba tayo sa Septick Tank?”

Cor dipping every pulutan in ultra-spicy soy chili-mansi sauce prepared by Shane
“I can’t feel my tongue. I can’t feel my tongue.” (Hala sige, saw-saw pa!)

Shane after coming from the men’s room, telling Cor and Jov
“Na-realize ko may sili pala sa batok ko. Tapos, nag-CR ako. May sili pa pala yung kamay ko.” xD

Below is a transcribed version of our drunken free writing activity.

The necessary form of release-- Eh, ano ngayon? This is NOT poetry!

You can also click on the audio to listen to this glorious garb of gibberish.

Round 1 07262011 Spazzio - RILEY by Amber_Light



Round# 1, 1st line by Jov – read by Riley

Today is like one bad wet fuck.
It’s slippery as hell, but every time
I think I’ll make it, I never come.
The cigarettes are never enough,
do you give a damn?
But all’s well ends well they say.
Even though I have not seen that
happy ending, I’m sure that short
slip will bring me into a state
of sudden realization. A realization
I’m not yet ready to see, a realization
that is full of pretention.

I want to shout out to the old dog,
jump off the trapeze, pull the
plug that connects love and death.
Dumb old dog, had his neck caught by the plug
during the plunge. Dumb
old dog doesn’t fall, he
just hangs. The way snagged
sparrows hang on cables, the way
the child hangs on the cliff
when the catcher in the rye
fails to save him. We hang on
strings that can get cut at
any moment. I like hanging-
out in the goddamn mall.

Can’t sleep can’t eat can’t talk can’t walk
Just think and drink and smoke and
shot. Go out at night never in the
day to spend all the cash I’ve worked
so hard to gain. I can’t clearly see
while I still live. The only reason
-- the love I give. For the depth
of my heart can run so deep. You
can sometimes see hell coz that
cliff is so steep. But from
hell when you look high above
you’ll always spot where I
safe keep your love. Whether
for me it means life of death
please think with your heart, and
not with your head.

             I’ve been trying for so long to get your attention, trying
so hard hoping you’d accept me. But despite you close your door
for me. I’d still be here. I won’t fight. I’ll just stick around
coz I know we’ll soon be together, maybe next year,
the other year or the afterlife.

Alas, no. Oh, alas, oh no.
Alas, yes. Socks still wet,
hair still drips. Let me
start again, today is like
a bad fuck –
all wet. All sweat nothing
more nothing less.
All is lost, we all examine the
mess. Still that door will be there
where I will linger. Hang. Rest.
Ruminate. Because there is nothing
more.

Jov, Cor, Shane, Shirl, and Riley


***

I just listened to / read this madness we gave birth to. What a day. Frustrated much? 

I will post the next 3 rounds of our free writing madness with its corresponding audio. It will be great to laugh over this years later. Thanks for making this terrible terrible day alright. 

Cheers to more nights we'll feel alive!