El Clasico: September 2006

Errand Sunday

I woke up early today to do some errands in London. The bus service from Middle Earth to London finally has free wifi. It's about time! I can finally fritter away money on online gambling sites and scour the deep bowels of the web for Pinoy 'Porn' while commuting.

Condemn me to hell, but Pinoy 'Porn' is hardly erotic. It's beri beri pani. Even Palanca-awardee Clinton has a copy of the classic "Sinong Nanay Mo?" audio file - "Oooh aray. What is that? Is that your peanut? Oh my god! Is beri beri beeeg. Too big yang titi mo! Ay dyus ku, yu Pilipino pancit-eating mother humper. Ang sakit! Aaaah. Aahhh. Ano na? Is dat your tongue? Oh, yis the tang, yus the tang. Not the pinger! Not the pinger. Yess the pinger! Potang-enang shet. Sinong nanay mo? Seeenong nanaay mo? Aaaay naku...aaah. Sandali, let mi wayp your mouth." Man, google this audio file and laugh till your veins pop.

Anyways, I arrived in Notting Hill to launder money via PNB and pay my Flipino life insurance before being stranded at evil McDonald's because of the strong downpour. How tragic that I'm having my morning coffee here instead of Portobello Road.

His Royal Orangeness Karl Willem and I are flying to Marrakech on Tuesday. From there, we will be heading to the High Atlas for our traditional Autumn hiking. We do this every year to reboot our brain's temporal-parietal lobe.

I am the least equipped hiker out there. I don't have a swiss knife, I've never needed a compass, and I don't like climbing as part of a group. I can get by with the right clothes, comfy 4-season boots, solitude, and a map. But then again, my hiking experience has so far been limited to the Cordilleras, Scotland, and the Swiss/Italian Alps. North Africa will be a whole new world. My goal is to reach the 4,167m peak of Jbel Toubkal and get some much needed hallucinogenic oxygen deprivation. If I get too crazy, I will get as close as I can to the Algerian border.

HRO Karl Willem's sponsor, Helly Hansen, finally got the colour of the jacket right. Orange it is!

So, the first stop was specialist map and travel store Stanford's. I was looking for 1:50,000 scale topographic survey maps of the Toubkal Massif but they were out of stock. Oh well, I will just cross my fingers that I can get one in Morocco. Then, to the outdoor stores to get some basic safety gear like led lamps, an emergency blanket, water purification tablets, and an extra water bottle. I want to travel extremely light as always. I got an expedition shirt allegedly coated in high tech 'nanoparticles' which are supposed to keep the shirt 'stink free' for days. Not that it matters, I am after all Flipinoy and my religion requires me to take one shower everyday no matter how cold the water is.

To make things a lot more exciting, Ramadan has started. Out of respect, I will try my best to do as the locals and fast during the daylight hours. I will probably be hungry long before sunset.

HRO Karl Willem and PA/PR Gromit unwrap their new toy.

I also dropped by Steve Jobs' store to get a Macbook. My blog diary is now being read by 10 loyal fans of both HRO Karl Willem and The Nashman. You, dear reader, deserve a better multimedia experience. I will upgrade my blog diary soon.

I got a 14% discount and a 2GB iPod nano for practically free. I don't need the iPod nano and I'll probably trade it for a pink bicycle.

On the bus back to Middle Earth, I was eye-flirting with this pretty young thang. (Really, I shouldn't be redundant. When I say I 'flirted' it's obviously with someone pretty. Baket naman ako makikilandian sa panget???? Anong mapapala ko sa chaka-doodle-do?) Anyways, she returned my malalagkit na tingin with a smile. We could have spoken to each other but the best love affairs are fleeting and unconsummated. When we got back to Middle Earth, we exchanged one last glance and went our separate ways. I've never felt so good in a long time.

Finally, we Baguio people have looooooooooooong sausages.............

Hundreds of Baguio nutters fondling their 4.3km long sausage in public. (Photos by Andy Zapata Jr. of the Baguio Press.)

You too would be smiling if you had yummy brown sausage in your hands.....

Errand Sunday

Hundreds of Baguio nutters fondling their 4.3km long sausage in public. (Photos by Andy Zapata Jr. of the Baguio Press.)

You too would be smiling if you had yummy brown sausage in your hands.....

We Interrupt This Program

Milenyo, a big muthafucka of a typhoon, has blown my beloved Las Islas Filipinas back into the glory days of D-batteries and the transistor radio.

So, I don't need to post anything for now on my blog because my loyal most number one reader, my mother, the main reason why this blog was put up, has no internet connection. Ooooh, poor you. You can finally knit that blue sweater I keep begging you to do for me.

We Interrupt This Program

Random Rants

It's official, semen makes you happy.

In a 2000 study by Dr. Gordon Gallup, it was suggested that women who got shagged by their partners without a condom were less depressed.

Well, it shouldn't be that surprising given that semen has mood uplifting hormones such as testosterone, estrogen, prolactin, and prostaglandins. It turns out that these natural uppers are absorbed more effectively and quickly through the vaginal walls.

So that's another reason to ditch condoms. (You only ever need them when you are shagging someone extremely fugly, which means you are desperate, and which means all the more reason for contraception. The world needs less fugly and desperate people adding to the population.)

Anyways, condom manufacturers have tried to use this discovery to their advantage by introducing......

Vitamin fortified condoms!.....

How do you like your vitamins? Orally or vaginally?

Whatever, the lesson you should take from this scientific revelation is that the vaginal wall is just as good a receptor as any other. So the next time your gf/wife/mistress tells you you can't have a nookie because she has a headache, print a copy of Dr. Gallup's study and crush two tablets of Biogesic and sprinkle them over your penis......

For Ashley, my favourite faggot: No corresponding studies have been published to determine if this effect occurs for anal sex. Although I very much doubt that seminal hormones can be absorbed through the anal walls. Because when you think about it, if it were so, that means that some chemical components of the shit that comes out would also be absorbed through the anal walls. The toxicity would kill you. So my advice to you since you normally take it where the sun don't shine is to always wear rubber....I mean have your partner (who is probably blind) wear rubber.

My good friend Lorraine asked me over dinner tonight why I'm not dating anyone......

Even then, I am neither good in bed nor rich....

Two reasons basically,
1. I am fugly and I admit it.
2. I'm dirt poor.

What girl in his right frame of mind would even entertain the thought of getting hitched with me?

Well, on the bright side, I may be stupid at times but at least I have a higher IQ than Dubya....

How is it that someone whose annual income is greater than the GDP of a failed African state, and who can jet off to Milan just to have lunch with her 'special friend' (who just happens to be one of the heirs of the Benetton fortune) and come back on the same day just in time to have dinner with me thinks it is appropriate to take me out on a 'romantic get-together evening' to.........

Kentucky frigging Fried frigging Chicken!!!!!!

But wait!

Before that, she asks me to help her look for toilet cleaner at the grocery which she makes me carry all the way to K frigging F frigging C.

Yes, I am very frugal. I am not wasteful and I am always grateful for my dear friends who invite me to dinner while half of the world is starving....but for crying out loud - I don't eat junk food!

Anyways, my friend with the annual income that dwarfs the GDP of...Chad...and...The Congo....got me a £3.99 Zinger meal while she had the £3.99 Colonel's Special.

Being a proper gentleman, I did not impose my choice of eatery and let the lady have her way.

And so, a great night out eating heart attack-inducing reconstituted chicken surrounded by plastic furniture and by people on the other tables speaking loudly.

But, I have a threshold for noise and the guilty conscience. (I had already been to McDonald's the day before and two fastfood junk meals in a row is past my monthly quota of junkfood.)
So I dragged her for organic hot chocolate and triple distilled Kazakhstani vodka into the more sombre and refined surroundings of that snooty private club frequented by thespians on Turl Street called QI. (I still made her foot the bill of course.)

And for the first time in my life, I brought a friend up to the Members Only dining area on the third floor by using my charm to get in without a booking. And my beloved friend had the temerity to say she was a bit ashamed because I was wearing flipflops and everyone else was in stuffy tweed jackets, bespoke shoes, and smoking pipe cigars. Hello? She was carrying that grocery bag with the toilet disinfectant!!!! Minus 10,000,000,0000,000 pogi points kaya yun. Tsaka yung tsinelas ko kaya ay Havainas na Islander na lemeted edetion!

Anyways, we had a nice long chat which I thoroughly enjoyed. I listened to her man problems and gave expert advice. (Why is it that all my girl friends ask me for lovelife advice? Do I look like 'Dear Tita Helen'? Is a singleton like me even qualified to give answers on the affairs of the heart?)

Oh well, just another day in the life of an unloved and under-appreciated hobbit...

Random Rants

Before I Burn In Hell, Let Me Tell You A Story........

PA/PR Gromit whispers to His Royal Orangeness Karl Willem's ear as they wait for The Nashman to come out of the confession box....

Four nuns were cycling across the cobblestone streets when one nun says to another "Ooh, I've never come this way before"

Then, one nun to other nuns riding bicycle across cobblestones "OK, girls, that's enough, back on with the saddles this time."

Suddenly, after turning a corner, one of the nuns was manhandled by two drunk men wearing skin tight costumes.

"Holy Toledo Batman! We finally caught the Penguin" shouted the boy with the red vest, green leggings, and yellow cape.

The three remaining nuns took rest in a park when a flasher came up to them. The first nun had a stroke. The second nun had a stroke. The third nun wouldn't touch him.

"I already had a stroke with the Parish Priest this morning" she said. "I shouldn't have but the Bishop has taken the altar boys for a camping trip".

The nuns were on their way back to the convent but they were abducted by enormous gangsters who took them to a dark alley and sexually assaulted them.

"Forgive them Father for they know not what they are doing" prayed one nun.
"But sister, this one does!" said the other nun, blushing.

When the gang members left, the nuns dressed up quickly and went to the market to buy lime to suck on to wipe the smile off their faces.

"What will Mother Superior say when we tell her we were raped twice?" asked one nun.
"But we were only raped once" replied another, bewildered.
"Aren't we cycling up the cobbled hill on our way back?" explained the other nun.

As they reached the base of the hill, the nuns took off their saddles once more before cycling uphill.

"I like coming here" one nun she said.
"Yes, I come here quite often" added the other nun.
"It's like going up to heaven" revealed the third nun.

The Cardinal saw the nuns coming and stopped them.

"Have you seen my cock?" asked the Cardinal stroking his cock carefully and waving it proudly.
"Yes, I see it every morning playing with Mother Superior's pussy." said one nun.
"Your cock doesn't look lively though, but I guess that's because Mother Superior's pussy stinks most of the time." she added.
"Your cock has very craggy skin and its head is drooping." admitted the second nun.
"Maybe it's time we had your cock for dinner your Holiness." suggested the third nun.
"Yes, I'll come along tonight and you can have my cock." relented the Cardinal.

When they reached the convent and told Mother Superior about the rape, she was angry and ordered them all to wash and purify their offending body parts with Holy Water.

Squatting and about to cleanse their fannies in the fountain of Holy Water, they were stopped by another nun screaming and waving her arms

"Wait! I need to gargle in that first!" she said.

Before dinner, Mother Superior calls all the nuns together and says unto them: "I must tell you all something. We have a case of gonorrhea in the convent."

"Thank God," says an elderly nun at the back of the room, "I'm so tired of Chardonnay."

Th...tha.....tha....tha...thaat's all folks....(PA/PR Gromit is still in his Cowboy phase. Silly dog.)

Before I Burn In Hell, Let Me Tell You A Story........

Th...tha.....tha....tha...thaat's all folks....(PA/PR Gromit is still in his Cowboy phase. Silly dog.)

What A Difference $149M Makes

My first experience of a movie set was for the obviously D-movie "Babae" (or something... it was that forgettable). I was in 5th grade and these guys were filming an 'ambush' scene in the mean slums of Baguio where I lived. Starlet comes out of the door with leading man (I think it was Philip Salvador) then suddenly this cheap speeding box-type dispensable car comes to a screeching stop and fugly baddies come out strafing leading man and starlet with M16 fire. Amazingly, despite the hail of bullets, leading man manages to return fire with his 45 calibre handgun killing baddies instantly. It was amazing because both leading man and starlet are left unscathed despite baddies shooting at them with a machine gun from a looooong distance of 20 feet!

I remember it well because I stood directly in front of the M16-totting baddie who dispensed one round of bullets in the typical baddie stance - fugly growling countenance, shooting from the hip from left to right and NOT aiming. The gun was firing blanks of course but whenever I think of how Brandon Lee died because one live bullet wasn't prepped properly during filming 'The Crow' that he actually got shot and I remember that the two firearms prep guys on this set of 'Babae' looked really dodgy and incompetent (they were actually hammering away at the tips of the live bullets before twisting the casings with a pair of pliers!!!!), I can only sigh and raise my hands to high heavens and say "I is Alive! Thank God!"

Aaaaanywho, even for a 5th grader like me, I can smell a bad straight-to-betamax tape movie from a mile away that I didn't linger on the set. Besides, the starlet was not really an actress that it took 5 boring retakes of her coming out of the door. How hard can that be??

Since then, interesting life experiences have happened to me whenever I unwittingly stumble on a movie set. There's my "Before Sunrise" affair with pretty Jali on the set of "Volando Voy" (I miss her already), Lorraine throwing a diva tantrum on the set of Harry Potter 3, and me crashing my bike with my front wheel ending up like a potato chip on the set of "Cambridge Spies".

("Cambridge Spies" tells the true story of the five KGB spies recruited at Cambridge. My favourite faggot friend Ashley announced "Ako rin, magiging spy". To this my only reply is "Hindi naman dahil sa hindi ka maalam ng ibang lengwahe or dahil hindi ka athletic, or dahil badichi ka na hindi alam ang pagkakaiba ng Ferragamo sa Prada (in fact, the Cambridge Spies were all gay) pero sa buong history ng espionage, wala pa talagang Paaaaangeeeeet na spy. Kelangan kse sa trabaho ang hetsura. Sorry nalang. Join ka nalang sa ABC-5 baka ikaw ang mageng next Pelepen Idol")

Aaaaaanyway, this past couple of weeks film crews were all over Middle Earth. One crew was filming the Inspector Morse spinoff "Lewis", another the Brit-Indian indie film about lesbians and arranged marriages "I Can't Think Straight", and another the Kidman-Craig-Pullman movie "His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass."

Now, I'm just curious as to how a $1M production compares to another with a budget 150 times that.

Presenting........

Mamang duleng, Can yu espot the deperens?....

Let's begin with the low budget indie film....

Oh, the backbreaking manual work - two people need to hold on to the end of the camera rig...

Get this man outta here...Security! Security! Hello?? No budget for a full security cordon - Filming gets interrupted by tourists materialising out of nowhere for a photo-op thus ruining the shot and requiring another take. This picture makes me cry in laughter. While the director was concentrating on the sequence, this guy just inched his way closer, and closer, and closer while his partner took a photo. The director was startled of course when he realised this man wasn't supposed to be there.....Ang Bollywood film na naging Kung Fu epic....

You call that catering??? Hello? I'm a movie star. Where is my personal coconut juice holder??? It's really skint when the crew need to make their own instant coffee....

The personal alalay got his bag from ebay. Well, at least the star still has her own PA. That girl sitting is either Sheethal Seth or Lisa Ray (one of them was Miss World (?) and the other is included in the "Top 10 Most Beautiful Women In India" list). Did I mention that this was a film about lesbians? Anyways, she was beautiful but I wasn't that captivated with her movie make-up on. However, when I saw the VTR playback, the star was extremely photogenic! Notice also that the VTR monitor is placed on top of a green monobloc chair.

The night shot - Just two small spot lights eh?

Now, what does $150M afford you?.....................

A fully articulated camera crane with three degrees of freedom.....

No homemade VTR secured with packing tape on a green monobloc chair here....

Security was quick to prevent me from taking pictures of the set (or more precisely the frigging props.) Nicole Kidman had just entered the Fellows Garden of Exeter for a shoot while I came out of the covered market for lunch but was too surprised that there she was to bring out my camera. It turns out, I wasn't security's main concern, (after all I have a right to be here because live here!!) paparazzi with looooooong lenses were behind me. Although I could getthisclose to the set, they asked me not to take any more pictures....but I should tell you that Nicole does LIKE short men. That, or I'm just a charming hobbit.

This is a night sequence. They've installed big-ass lights on top of my Middle Earth home. That crane is more than 100 feet high.

Add some smoke effects and Middle Earth is transported into a parallel universe.

The view from my hiding crib as the crew continues with principal photography till the wee hours.