Culture gastronomy, mid-year

"O, di ba mas maganda kung may ART sa buhay mo?" CCP once asked. And I agreed. So much so that one of my "resolutions" for 2010 was to increase on my "culture spending." And 2010 started free actually when BFF Eon and I went to Pasinaya, CCP's preview festival in February. Now the following months will definitely culturally gastronomic (see below).

22 June - 04 July
THE VIRGIN LABFEST VI
Untried, Untested, Unstaged Plays
A festival of new, unpublished, unstaged works by Philippine playwrights.

25 June - 27 June
PAMUNUAN: KARANGYAAN AT KADAKILAAN
Rituals of Leadership and Prestige in the Philippines
(Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group)

02 July - 04 July
WI-FI: INDEPENDENT CONTEMPORARY DANCE FESTIVAL 5
(The CCP and Choreographers’ Network)

09 July - 18 July
CINEMALAYA: Philippine Independent Film Festival 2010

23 July - 22 August
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “CATS: NOW AND FOREVER”
(Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, David Atkins Enterprises, Concertus and All Youth Channels in association with The Really Useful Company Asia Pacific.)

For the complete line-up of CCP events click HERE (June) and HERE (July).

Now, the remaining challenge is how to manage the moolah for all these. (Wala rin naman ganda kung walang pera.) And there are things that are simply way out of my league such as Cats. (Hindi kailangan mag-ambisyon ng sobrang kagandahan.)

Dancin' in the moonlight

IllumiDANCE: The Lunar White Party

Task Force Pride Philippines brings you Manila's 9th Annual White Party on Maria Orosa strip 10pm, Saturday, June 26, 2010.

Celebrate LGBT PRIDE under the brilliant full moon! Come in your fiercest and most luminous white costumes and celebrate love, laughter and life in this annual and global celebration of PRIDE!

Donate and support Task Force Pride Philippines in making this year's Manila PRIDE in December the biggest, the bestest and the gayest PRIDE march ever!

Presented by eZ Lubricating Jelly and Frenzy Condoms

In Partnership with BED, Che'lu, Home, Lookal, O Bar, Silya , Smart Venue

For more info, visit Task Force Pride. Also on Facebook and Twitter.

[Received in Facebook inbox, 2010-06-21; helping out colleagues, in solidarity with the community.]

Homeless intimacy

Just one of those impromptu drunken nights with friends in Malate. En route from Nakpil alcohol-driven fabulosities to Aristocrat gastro-binge, at the edge of Remedios Circle, Gregg and his bagbag, in a spur-of-the-moment strange, emoted inspiration with (and for) the "real horrors" of Manila streetlife.

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Consumerist, colorful, cute

I dunno. I'm such a sucker for cuteness and color. In store displays, I'm easily drawn to "rainbow" line-ups. I discovered these inside Surplus Shop in SM Makati. The subject matter was kinda apt at the time as well: I was on my way to meeting up some BM guys at yet another SM mall, Megamall. Bridging two malls, there's the MRT.

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Silhouette in blue

There's really so much blue glow around Music Match in Tomas Morato, where BM have spent several of its videoke-cum-socializations recently. Stole a quick snap at true-blue chaser raiko, who for much of the night kept on doing this: drink, laugh, chatter, sing along, then walk out the door, pose and chat on the phone. Must be bluffing on his whereabouts or some sorta. In fairness, whoever was on the other end of the line must not be buying the bluff. *lol* Don't worry, I could've said, raiko's with me and I'm one of the "good" guys. *lol*

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(Just) a strip of blue light

My homage to Dan Flavin. (Or simply yet another spur of the moment snap on a specially drunken, chockfull of videoke night out with the guys at BM.) In my light reading moments, usually care of coffee-table art books bought at Booksale, I once discovered what really minimalism really meant and Flavin's work could probably be the best examples for appreciation to heretofore dunzo on anything art.

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Soulless frolic

Went with BM neighbor-friends for dinner in Megamall. Passed by an exhibit at the Art Center. Found the sculpture striking, not solely for its menage a trois starkness, but also probably for how seemingly it represented some "unpleasant" experience and interesting juxtaposition of meanings offered by other works in the collection.

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My own "24"

In the TV series "24," the lead character portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland will save someone or resolve something in a narrative time-lapse worth 24 hours every episode. There are days like this in my so-called professional life. Such was October 20 when I had again one of those marathon trips in line with official work, and some more for volunteer work, i.e. work to help out friends. I was up and about from 7AM, October 20 til 7AM the following day. What did I actually resolve? After several weeks of being in limbo with the second phase of the Global Fund project, we were suddenly jolted into having things start moving again; we were asked to make haste despite much of project modalities still being help up in air. Hay naku! All rush and tension were three-layer-cake-slicing thick in the air...

Whom did I actually save a la Kiefer/24 (though I could never compare myself to Kief's gracefully ageing beauty, but ageing nonetheless)? In an ambitious effort to up the ante on their Bohemian Fridays project at Rainbow Project in Malate, Gregg and other friends decided to enrich their project with a bit more art and activity. One was a photo exhibit, another was safer sex advocacy by way of condom distribution, on top of reading of erotic poetry. We were able to involve Dominique James into the stint, and he was so generous to offer us several of his work... I underscore generous here as he offered us 30 digital photography artpieces. For my part, I had my staff in Lucena (while we were meeting on the nitty-gritties of the Global Fund) assemble 100 condom sample packs not unlike a brisk cottage industry.

After the Lucena meeting, I rushed back to Manila, straight to Malate, a plastic bag of condoms on one hand, dirt and grime imported from Laguna and Quezon on clothes, face and god-knows-where-else. I was essentially in deflated, silent attendance during the Bohemian Friday activity (themed "Skin Light Words"). But the Milenyo-inspired curatorship of the artwork did catch my attention, glaring and pleading for justice. I gave Gregg my unsolicited two-cents and volunteered to help in redoing some curatorials, silently thanking DJ was then in New York doing pictorials. As matter of courtesy, and protection of fragile friendships, let some of the photos here clue in as to what happened as I was studying/reworking the curatorials. I was on the verge of accusing dear, sweet but bullying Gregg as the hell-bent, hell-sent curator. Sweet, regardless.

So beyond the 24-hour real-time time-lapse of our own real-life drama, reworking the art collection took several more nights, each night an ambitious attempt to finish all but only to realize later that attempts remained just ambition. Each night also had some unraveling scenarios that I'd rather not enumerate now, but have mentally reserved for potential slapstick sitcom racket material. In fairness, I was able to revisit some of the up-and-down challenges of volunteer work. I haven't been in a volunteer role for quite some time now. Doing it and being one helped me relearn some things I could factor in for management of future volunteerism in TLF SHARE. And oh, there was a lot of partying too... other than the usual weekend gay-time riot, our work serendipitously coincided with the G4M party and the "medieval" Halloween party.

Despite all exhaustion, frustration and prime-grade irritainment, I think the most saving that happened in my own version of 24 was my relationships with friends. Renewed connections, shared endeavors and moments, and new acquaintances have resuscitated my social life... it really felt wonderful to be back in the loop. I don't mind all that work (and there are surely a lot more pending); I like contributing my talent and skills when I know they're needed. Now, if only I could match my renewed social life with more sustainable funding - jusko, ang mahal na palang mag-socialize ngayon!

A posting post the post

Gregg was right. I was totally the different person when we met later in the night, after I wrote that awful, desperate and whiny post about I having nothing of urbane civility left almost a week after Milenyo. Writing seemed to have purged all the angst. I asked him to join me in Malate while at home, enveloped in the now-familiar sticky heat darkness, after realizing that I don't need to endure another depressing candlelit night. We, which later also included Mark, hung out at Chelu and drank for no special occasion... well, maybe except for one, my liberation from all anger and anxiety of the previous days. Or maybe this night marked the last stage before grieving for my destituted existence could genuinely begin. We drank, got modestly drunk, and I wasn't too modest about spending my dwindling savings on luxuries like beer. We also ate, we ate a lot while Gregg complained about needing to lose the weight he's packing in between bites of balot, chicken skin and all other sorts of street food fare.

At one point, Mark realized that we haven't been together like this for a long, long time, us being essentially what's left of our Gen Gali/Mr. Piggy's peer group. What was intended to be a simple night of needing to get drunk so I could sleep for much longer, ended up in anticipation for Sunshine Dizon (that's gayspeak for sunrise). Back home, morning sunlight was already beginning to pour in my room, on my bed. How to sleep in bright daylight and the heat of the day microwaving you in the bedroom? Well, I didn't sleep much. Again.

Then the day before power was restored - and the fallen billboard was cleared - I flew to Davao to attend the Philippine National Convention on HIV and AIDS, for the first time held outside Metro Manila. PNAC was sponsoring two community fora during the convention; I was supposed to facilitate small group workshop sessions during one of the fora. The fora didn't bring results we expected, and I feel that the organizers would have to explain their "interference." (But I'm not going into this - at least, not right now.) But the best thing I got from this trip was sleep. When I settled in the hotel on the first night (some cheap but functional inn near Davao Doctors Hospital), I was already asleep 8PM (which is very early for me) and slept 12 hours straight. I had an itchy throat the morning after though; I ran the A/C full blast directly on me all night. Talk about depravity.

When I got back in Manila, the first week of restored electricity also little by little restored our normal activities. That meant getting back on the oh-so-many concerns from within the office to PNAC and to wherever else. I haven't submitted that ADB proposal yet, after learning that I have more time until the deadline for the second round of submission. I once promised myself to finish it as soon as power was restored and life normalized again but *sigh* the momentum somehow was lost, I mean, that frenzied, fierce and inspired drive to write and beat the deadline. Crammers from all corners of the Earth would know what I mean.

I didn't have a particular angle when I started this post, I'm not sure what my point is. Maybe this is an assurance that I'm still a sane person after all insanity. Maybe this is a closure that attempts to be dignified, after having exposed oneself as an embarassingly, half-crazed whine-bag. Or maybe, quite simply, this being the posting post the despondency post is itself the angle.