Heroic Times

"Men wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

Burning the Benjamins

Well, not really. I don't really have any cash to burn. But I'm supposed to have it, only that things bigger than me decided to conspire against me--credit bureaus mainly--and decided to keep from being financially stable. First task of adulthood, and I've proven myself incapable of handling the pressure. First sign of having to swallow my pride and borrow money from other people, and I have a meltdown. How do people do it? Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it. But how do people get used to thinking about financial troubles? My situation isn't even financial trouble, just cash shortage. But it's still pretty difficult, having to go about it the first time around.

Black and Blue

Like any good Filipino tonight, I watched Manny "Pac Man" Pacquiao beat Marco Antonio "Baby Face Assasin" Barrera in twelve, somewhat boring rounds. After hearing about all the snipets of touching back stories the commentator like to insert to keep the interest for the fight up, I was reminded of the definitive American boxing film: not Rocky, or the snoozer Million Dollar Baby, but Hard Times (Walter Hill, 1975). In it, Hill wisely made his boxing hero a "wandering stranger." But this doesn't mean the movie is a cold, emotionless work. In fact, I think it's like a boxing slow motion sequence, where they analyze a punch and you can see blood spurt or skin ripple from the punch, elongated into a ninety-minute movie. But instead of learning stories and pitying/sympathizing boxers despite the violence of their profession, Hill derived his emotions from the fight itself. It's a great piece of work (and Hill's debut), and allows for greater appreciation of a sport so invested in having a competitor beat the living shit out of another--and having people all around them cheer them on.

Unfaithful VHS Tape

Here I am, fixing a videotape of Peque Gallaga's Unfaithful Wife (1986) I found at a local video store. The electronic tape inside was broken, but thankfully the part that has the electronic signal wasn't itself broken. Instead, the clear part of the tape that attaches it to the take-up reel was pulled out, so all I had to do was reattach it using regular adhesive tape. It won't last long, but it certainly played well when I played it on my VCR. The movie was OK, had all of Gallaga's visual flourishes, but was not as engaging as I hoped it would be. At the very least, it was good training on how to fix VHS tapes.

Desperate Nurses: The Revenge

Everybody's losing their goddamn mind. First, it was the intrepid viewers (who were dumb enough to watch the show and treat it too seriously to begin with). Then the issue went all the way up to the Philippine government demanding apology, and a community leader saying "An apology is not enough. ABC should have an episode describing that Filipino nurses and doctors are some of the best."

Sigh. It's a fucking comedy.

You see, Filipinos are great when it comes to making fun of other races, but can't take it when the joke's on them. Have you ever heard of the story of how God created the Filipino? First, he gave an angel some dough and ordered him to bake him some human beings. The first batch came out undercooked, and thus white people. The second batch came out burned, and thus blacks. The third batch came out perfectly brown, and thus Filipinos. From last I heard, Imelda bribed God for the cookie dough and is now safely kept in one of her numerous Swiss accounts under the name "Ima Dumas."

Or, if that story isn't enough, just tune into a Tagalog channel if you have one (or in my family, two) and just wait for it. You'll either find a Chinese person with a flunky accent, an actor in black face, or the myriad parodies of people from the countryside by Manilenos. It's ridiculous. The ultimate irony of course is Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago--the Philippine senator who just recently stated, in an official senate panel investigation, that the Chinese invented corruption--is now saying that the apology was not enough. I dunno if the humor of all of this just kindly escaped the people most actively seeking somebody--anybody's--head, or they really are just dumb as rocks, but I think this whole business is making a bigger buffoon of Filipinos than anything Terry Hatchett could have ever said.

To be fair though, the Philippines have something very big at stake in this whole thing, namely the credibility of the healthcare cottage industry that the country specializes in. The Philippines is one of the biggest exporter of human workers, especally in the health services, and anything that threatens this could mean a big blow to the industry. Not really to the lowly common worker, because let's admit it as hard as one may work it's all the same in the Philippines: your ass will stay poor and you know it. I think it's more on the politicians and the bigwigs making all the noise. Any downturn in the industry means less bribe money (you know, the lifeblood of Filipino politics) from companies allowed to basically suck the country dry of its most precious assets. Besides, the industry really isn't in danger of collapsing any time soon. There is such little appeal in becoming nurses abroad that the ecstatic willingness of Filipinos to clean pus, poop, and puke is an anomaly in the international market. Again, it all points to companies in the Philippiens expecting something fo their money. Well, that and politicians simply wanting to get their name known by loudmouthing as as much as they can.

Hitting the Road

Well, not yet. In two weeks, I'm leaving Los Angeles for Chicago, then from Chicago I'm making a stop at Poughkeepsie (to visit some of my friends still around Vassar), NYC, Morgantown in West Virginia (to visit one of my buddies from LDAC), Memphis (just because), the finally to Ft. Sill, OK to finally start this whole Army career. It's daunting, and I'm scared shitless. Not because it's another round of butt-scraping training where NCOs get their last chance to scare the new LTs without getting in trouble. I'm scared because unlike college, this move's pretty much for real. After this, it's adulthood, real paycheck (yay!), real bills (...shit...). The days of sitting around, watching movies endlessly, and going to the gym whenever I please are over. To a large extent, I'm happy. These uneventful days are getting old. It's like college, but you don't go to parties, you don't score free liquor, and you don't go to class. And you're too old to ever feel comfortable living that college existence. No, I'm ready to leave. And 'm ready to get all the training out of the way and finally get to Germany! But still...there's something about familiarity and the comfort of living within it. How do people do it? How do they just step out and live a completely new life just like that? And why can't I do it?