What is love??

It being almost valentine's and all, here are a few love lessons we should all learn, courtesy of haddaway:

What is love?

In this song, Haddaway attempts to answer the age old question, “What is love?”. The lyrics, while seemingly simple and trite to the point of being inane, actually provide deep insight to love and human nature... let’s examine some of the lyrics...



What is love? [ a statement of the question]

Baby don’t hurt me don’t hurt me no more
[the first word of this line is used to remind us that, when faced with love, we are all infants in our helplessness and innocence. This line is purposely made colloquial to underscore one of the contradictions of love: that it is accessible to the masses, that it can be in the everyday, and yet it’s manifestations are still quite extraordinary] .

Baby don’t hurt me don’t hurt me no more
[A repetition of the previous line for emphasis]

What is love Yeah
[this directs us back to the question and invites us to once more ponder upon it]

Oh, I don't know why you're not there
I give you my love, but you don't care
So what is right and what is wrong
Gimme a sign
[This verse is designed to convey the confusion that love brings about. Here we are left to guess who the singer is addressing, is it a lover? God? Himself? Or is he addressing love itself? The interpretation is left up to us.
The third line of the verse illustrates the futility of searching for black and white morality in matters of love. To be in love is to be in the gray area between right and wrong.
In the fourth line, the author uses the word “Gimme” which is a portmanteau of “give” and “me”, this is symbolic of the power of love to unite previously distinct objects and people. ]

...
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
[ This verse signifies the singer’s surrender to love. He is left without words and resorts to primal utterances of awe and joy. It should also be noted that “Whoa” is used here as a homophone of “woe” which denotes that love is a double edged sword, it inspires wonder but at the same time brings about unspeakable misery. This verse also conveys the final message of the song which is that love cannot be described in words, it must just be experienced and embraced]

I’ve Got Way Too Much Free Time

A few days ago, during my usual afternoon ritual of staring vacantly at a wall while listening to 80’s power ballads, I had a vision… A vision of my future… A vision of my future with Richard Quest, my super hot business traveling beacon of hope and my window to current events around the world.

With some Photoshop diligence, I made some visuals of my glorious epiphany..

Here’s what our wedding would look like.

This is me and RQ smiling for the photographers after the 5 minute ceremony at the Little Church of the West Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. Aww, we’re so happy!

This is our two tier wedding cake.. it will be made out of marble and won’t actually be edible, but it will taste like peaches if you lick it.

And here’s a picture of us with my newly acquired family at the reception. My two step sons Johnny (black shirt on the right) and Hadji (turban on the right). Their nanny Race Banon and dog Bandit are on the left beside Hadji. And that’s a lizard man there in the middle with The Canon of Happiness and Prosperity. I smell a Happy Ever After!!

Signs that you've been out of work for too long

1. The highlight of your day is doing your laundry (which incidentally isn’t much since you only ever wear that one oversized Cat Gas LPG t-shirt to lounge around the house all week)

2. You’re beginning to get a tan from being exposed to TV light so much

3. You find yourself repeatedly watching Hallmark movies w/ titles like “My Son is Not a Murderer”, “Love’s Abiding Joy” and “Fatal Error” (which is a movie about a deadly virus that’s spread through computer monitors and stars Antonio Sabato Jr. and some actress girl) and sobbing hysterically the whole time.

4. You’re beginning to get bed sores from lying on your ass all day.

5. You eat breakfast food for every meal since you always think its morning after waking up from your 5 hour naps.

6. You’ve been sending messages to all your exes, both real and imagined (those restraining orders didn’t give any restrictions on sending messages now did they?? So suck on that!!), out of sheer boredom (or desperation, who knows?).

7. You start getting really good at using Photoshop to paste your face onto pictures of parties and vacations so you can post them on Friendster and fake having your fantasy life of being a rich socialite crime solving psychic.

8. You go shopping for three hours and end up buying only soap and toothpaste since, aside from being broke, you don’t have anything to wear new clothes, shoes or accessories to. So you lock yourself in a mall fitting room and sob hysterically while drawing a warts and body hair on your reflection with lipstick until mall security kicks you out.

9. Your eyebrows are now non existent since you’ve taken to compulsively plucking them during your idle time.. which is all the time since you quit your job.

10. The only other time you’ve left the house in the past three weeks is when you had to go to the hospital for tetanus and rabies shots after the neighbors dog bit you for trying to lure him with tasty bread and then kidnap him and then maybe kill him.. or marry him.. it depends on your mood really.

So you survived Valentines day....

... congratulations on your new borderline personality disorder! Have a Carebear! (they’re absolutely scrumptious)

But don’t shift into your manic state just yet.. First make sure you’ve crossed off everything on this post valentines to-do list

- Put away all your emo CDs, take a bath, eat a decent meal and sack up! After valentines, being all weepy and lovelorn is just annoying
- Check if any of the cuts you made on yourself are still bleeding one day after you made them. Any excessive bleeding might mean you either nicked a major artery or have diabetes or something, in which case you probably need to call an ambulance… right now. Remember, self mutilation is only cool when nobody dies… (otherwise its just suicide and that was only cool for 5 minutes back in 1997)
- If you’re one of those budget conscious people who live by the “Break up before Christmas, make up after Valentine’s day” rule, it’s time to give your ex a call..
- Get rid of all that chocolate you ate (summer is barely 2 months away, silly!) Here’s a handy tip from wikihow.com:
Trigger your gag reflex by pressing your index and middle finger onto the very back of your tongue, almost into your throat. Then start stroking the back of your throat. At this point most people will just gag and cough, keeping this up will eventually cause vomiting. Doing this should induce vomiting within 2 minutes
- Bone up on you test taking skills.. Get a pregnancy test, an ELISA test, a Tzanck test and a Wassermann test
- Save yourself unnecessary stress and remember that the age of consent in the
Philippinesis 12 years old.
- Tip the hooker you woke up next to generously, it was valentines for the sake of Pete! People should be generous!
- Don’t forget to ask your customer you woke up next to for a big fat tip. It was valentines for the sake of Pete! People should be generous!

I Know What I Did Last Saturday

Adam and I have never been around Malate on foot before. We thought what better way to soak up the scene than to join a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride March that was going around the area? The good people at Lesbian Advocates Philippines were nice enough to let us help them carry their banner and let us in on some parade action.
And really, there’s no better way to get around an area; we passed by the church my parents got married in, saw a lot of quaint restaurants and antique shops, met some really interesting people, got cheered on by pedestrians and campaigned for gay rights all in one afternoon!
So anyways, here are some pictures taken with my camera yesterday…

These are the members of the Golden Gays, its an organization that takes care of the gay elderly. The rightmost guy at the top row walked the whole parade in three inch heels.

Adam and the pastel priest. You gotta give the guy some credit for being so patient with us photo whores.


Aww, its a bashful twink in pink.. Reminds Adam of himself a few years back.

The fabulous gyrating ati-atihan dancers... although they're just standing around in this picture.

The tireless Amnesty International Pilipinas beauty queens. They hooked me up (and almost every pedestrian we passed) with a really nifty Gay Rights temporary tattoos.

The women of LeAP. Nice asses ladies!

And of course me, adam helping the LeAP girls carry their wonderfully ornate (its got sequins and dyed pink rock salt stuck to it!) banner. Fun, fun, fun for all!!

Yay November 8!!

Today’s post is about a very special day of the year called “November 8” (which, incidentally, is also my birthday). I would have posted this yesterday (when it actually was November 8) except I spent the whole day curled up in a corner, sobbing hysterically over my wasted youth (why did I waste my money on Nips and Twin popsies back then when I could have been saving up for a quarterly botox and liposuction combo?!).

Unbeknownst to many, this is actually one of the most significant dates of modern history. So many people who’ve shaped modern society were born on this one special day; the 20th century’s movers, shakers and … um… candlestick makers

Here are just a few of the cornerstones of modern civilization born on the eighth of November.

Ace Vergel
Nov. 8, 1952

Ace “bad boy” Vergel was a 90’s Action Star Deluxe. Not content with his stellar performance in Kamusta Ka, Hudas? and Killer vs. Ninjas, Ace kept pushing the envelope for Filipino method acting. His devotion to the authentic portrayal of his characters (usually the tormented man driven to violence) is so extreme that he was sentenced to 4 years in prison for possession of methamphetamines and pot following a buy and bust operation by the NBI in 1995.

Well played Ace! As all the other reindeer said, “You’ll go down in history”, maybe more as a convict than an actor, but who really cares right?

Tara Reid
Nov. 8, 1975

No introduction or explanation necessary…

Sergev Ivasovic
Nov. 8, 1980

A truly gifted man, he has defined film editing as a higher art form. Who could forget his exquisite editing of Trinaest Stoljeca Hrvatske Kulture (circa 1993) or his work in the gripping political drama Zanimanje Izbjeglica (circa 2000)? Podivuhodný! (Slavic—it’s what all the cool kids are speaking today)

(note: that picture isn’t really of Sergev. I couldn’t find a picture of him so I just typed “some guy” in google pictures and that’s the first thing that came up.)

Chi Chi La Rue
Nov. 8, 1959

Everybody’s favorite plus sized, transvestite porn director. Where would we be without gems of hardcore adult cinema like How the West Was Hung (circa 2000), Hole Patrol (circa 2004) and Itty Bitty Titty Committee (circa1989)?

Do 5 “Adult Video News” GAYVN Awards for best director awards spell greatness? You bet your sweet bippi it does!

The Most Pointless Post Ever

Happy birthday Mike “the miracle man” Velarde! Let’s hear it for the man with the freaky suit jackets!

To celebrate the occasion, I’ve been sitting in the office for the past 12 hours eating zero carb chocolate bars and listening to old Wham mp3s (can you think of a better way to spend your Saturday? I know I can’t!).
While waiting for something to go wrong at the Brother’s birthday bash (which is sort of my job… don’t ask…), I tried Googling for some interesting trivia about our favorite religious leader.
I came up with an IMDB listing about a Mike Velarde that composed the musical score for the movies Back Door to Hell (starring a young Jack Nicholson, circa 1964) and Horror of the Blood Monsters (a B-movie about space traveling vampires partially shot in the Philippines, circa 1970). However, although Brother Mike used to produce movies in his previous life (one of which was called “Young Cowboys”, Brokeback Mountain anyone?), turns out this was a different Mike Velarde; apparently there was a Filipino composer in the 70’s name Miguel “Mike” Velarde. Shoot, wouldn’t it have been so cool if it had been him?!


O well, whatever..


Rock on Brother Mike! You’ll always be number one in my book, even if your career didn’t start out in B-movies… Okay maybe not…