one day in your life

If you squint really hard, you can see me and Steph Song making out in the back. Also, you have to use your imagination.

So I went to this 54-40 concert at the Commodore Ballroom last month and somehow ended up experiencing my own version of a Native American Vision Quest (and I’m almost completely positive it wasn’t the beer making me see things). Needless to say, I picked up a handful of life-changing realizations along the way, such as:

• This was actually the first concert I ever went to (that wasn’t a Broadway musical or a Tchaikovsky ballet, anyway).
• This was also the first time I ever won free concert tickets to anything.
• Beer gives me terrible gas.
• I had no idea who the hell 54-40 was until the day before the concert.
• You can still enjoy a concert even if you don’t particularly care for the music, as long as you can feel the energy from the performance. And wow, what a performance that was.
• I have no idea how to take pictures in the dark.
• On an unrelated note, I’m still stuck in a creative and emotional rut. It’s been what, six months now? Being an adult sucks.

Later, chilluns!

 

sana’y malasing mo kami

I want people to forget my birthday. I want them to remember me.

 

come again another day

Hey, loyal Google-bots! After many months of experiencing yet another funk of Dave Chappelle proportions, the zem is back. Maybe just for the meantime because life’s being a bitch, but he’s back nonetheless. So nyah. But anyway.

By now, everyone’s probably heard of how the disastrous typhoon Ondoy all but wiped out Metro Manila from the face of the map. I feel compelled to comment on it–partly because my hometown of Cainta, Rizal practically disappeared under the deluge, but partly because I feel like I’m missing out on the action somehow…

Inappropriate, misplaced nostalgia? Maybe.

Mind you, it’s not that I’m envious of the victims of the flood who lost their homes, their possessions, and even their loved ones. Far from it. It’s just that there’s all this chaos, and the raw human emotions that are born out of it, and somehow I feel like I have no place in it. It’s like when your friends go to this awesome party and they tell you, “Man, you should’ve been there!” and they tell you about all the awesome stuff that happened, and all you can do is nod and say, “That’s whatever-you-said for ya.” Except, you know, instead of a party, it was a catastrophic natural disaster.

Joking aside, the best I can do right now is–and I hate to admit it–some halfhearted sympathy for the people affected by the flood. I never really did like the concept of sympathy. It’s too… forced, I suppose. There’s more honesty to be found in empathy. As the saying goes, you can only cry and laugh with a person if you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Or something like that. Or in this case, swimming to the rescue of a family of five stranded on a rooftop. Whatever. The point is, I can’t share these strong emotions my (ex-)fellow Filipinos are experiencing even if I forced myself to, and I feel horrible for it. I’d like to think that I used to, but I wonder about that too nowadays. Regardless, my prayers are with them, for all the good it may do.

Maybe I’m just left starry-eyed by the idea of that unbelievably dramatic rescue that actor Richard Gutierrez did for fellow actress Cristine Reyes when the latter and her family got stranded on the rooftop of their home. And he did it with a military speedboat, no less.

 

i’m a freakin’ genius!

I told you not to expect Owl Comics #2. As you can see, it’s not here yet. Maybe ever. Or not. I’m terribly capricious, you see.

Anyway. I haven’t been blogging too much lately. Grown-up matters have been keeping me busy, you see. Work, bills, investment banking… you know, the usual. Except without the things that actually make being a grown-up fun. Like sex.

It’s slowly starting to sink in–short of either working myself to death or giving up my day job, I can’t make a full-fledged comic book epic–or at least get anywhere with it significantly.  I have the bestest story ever just flailing wildly inside my head, and I can’t find the time to get it out! At this rate, I’ll hit the big Three-Oh without ever accomplishing anything awesome with my life (and by awesome, I mean Jack Black bodacious).

Unlike this precocious little bastard scamp!

And then he'll hit the big Three-Oh and he'll be like, "Where did my childhood go?", at which point he'll open up his own amusement park and dress up as Peter Pan.

11-year-old Moshe Kai Cavalin is set to graduate from college by the end of June, and by gum, has he got grandiose plans in store for his bright future! Taken from NBC LA:

“I feel it’s a waste of time playing video games because it’s not helping humanity in any way,” says the 11-year-old, who wants to use his knowledge to change the world.

Well. I bet this kid is real popular at parties.

But congratulations nonetheless. Since we already have Michael Kearney working on a cure for cancer, I suggest that Moshe here should start drafting up the ultimate economic reform plan that’ll turn every person on the planet into a happy millionaire by 2015. (That wasn’t sarcasm, by the way. I’m watching you, kid!)

Yyyeah... No.

So! While Mr. Cavalin here is busy gearing up to be the god of the new world, the rest of us gamers will just sit here in the corner and play Left 4 Dead, because apparently we don’t give a darn about helping humanity!

Speaking of things that are a waste of humanity’s time… I’m still working on my comic. Really.

 

Owl Comics #1

Right then. Webcomics for everyone! In this very first ultra-special super mega sexy issue, I discuss the finer points of patting oneself in the back.

Warning: This comic has been known to induce barfing in focus groups. Reader discretion is advised. (Click for full size!)

So does the #1 on the title signify another issue coming next week? Don’t hold your breath, kids!

 

stayin’ alive

I got the fever, boy… and unfortunately I’m not talking about Saturday Night Fever. I’m currently down with the flu, or probably just a nasty case of head colds, or maybe a terminal illness in disguise. Either way, I had to ditch work as a result and will probably be out of commission for the next couple of days… meaning I’ll be leaking money out of my pockets as much as I’m leaking mysterious green fluids from my bodily orifices. (I apologize terribly for the mental image.)

Then again, I was supposed to work six days in a row this week. That couldn’t have been healthy for me either. So I’ll just take my throbbing headache and body cramps and imminent feeling of vomiting as a blessing in disguise. See? That’s positive thinking. I’m not all gloom and doom as you may think. Ha!

In any case, no sketches today. Sorry! Maybe I’ll show you something kewl next time. Also: Philippine animation! Stay tuned, or I’ll go over to your house and pull a Boomer on you.

 

un-break my heart

I refuse to be bitter on Valentine’s Day based on the fact that I am repulsive to women and will most likely die alone. No sirree. I have plenty of other reasons to be bitter on Valentine’s Day! Money, health, and family matters–worrying about one’s love life is just petty bellyaching at this point (and so is talking about your laptop’s battery life… not that I know anything about any of that). Not to say that I envy you and your respective lives right now, my friends. Your lives are probably just as horrible as mine, what with the economic recession and whatnot, so we can always derive a bit of Schadenfreude from each others’ misery. Hahaha! …I just made myself sad.

Anyway. You know how people usually wore red clothing during Valentine’s Day in the past? Well, today was different. Everyone I rode with on the SkyTrain, myself included, was wearing black from head to toe! It was eerie. And I didn’t notice it just because it was Valentine’s Day, mind you. You’d think everyone just came from a funeral or something. And on my part, it wasn’t even a conscious fashion choice–I just felt like wearing black for some reason. Is our collective subconscious reflecting the state of these troubled times? How deliciously depressing!

Speaking of troubled times… I wonder if the Philippine animation industry is ever going to get past its fledgling phase? Just when we were finally starting to make progress with stuff such as Urduja and Dayo, the whole recession thing happens! I mean, it’s amazing how these animators actually got enough funding to make full-length animated features back then with the country in general being as poor as it already was, and now? BAM! Recession time. Forget about it.

I still haven’t had my fill discussing Philippine animation yet (thinking about Captain Planet just got me fired up for some reason), so more on that next time! I beg you to chime in! In the meantime, take a gander below for a sketch. It’s a woeful tale of heartbreak (possibly autobiographical, and drawn immediately after the fact, perhaps) that I was planning to animate for Valentine’s Day last year, but it fell through just like most of my grand schemes. Maybe next time…

Read clockwise from bottom right for drama! (Click pic for full size)

Valentine’s Day still sucks, by the way.

 

you’ll pay for this, captain planet!

So an open forum regarding an obscure piece of odd news about a girls’ basketball team and moderated by an even more obscure blogger (i.e., me) doesn’t exactly foster intellectual discussion. Didn’t see that coming.

In any case, I’ve been taking a stroll down memory lane lately, and one of the (un)fortunate memories I dredged up was about Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Everyone knows this show, right? Five teens, each wielding one of the four elements–Earth, Fire, Wind and Water (except the South American kid who apparently represents the power of Heart, whatever the dickens that is)–combine their powers to form the considerably underdressed, chrome-skinned, green-mullet-haired environmental hero Captain Planet!!! to fight the forces of pollution. Fascinating stuff.

Let our powers combine to form... a Benetton ad!

When I was a little boy, I was often hospitalized for lung problems, and there I was stuck in bed watching Captain Planet marathons on Cartoon Network. It wasn’t exactly the best of shows (read: it was pretty darn boring) and the message it was conveying was none too subtle, but it, uh… You know, I’m not sure where I was going with this.

Now it did boast a number of celebrity guest actors with the likes of Jeff Goldblum, Tim Curry, Martin Sheen and Meg Ryan voicing the villains.Whoopi Goldberg played Gaia, the Planeteers’ mentor and Spirit of the Earth, and was apparently replaced by Margot Kidder midway through the series. Not that it mattered to me back then, because I just found out about this recently on Wikipedia.

So let me get this straight... You arranged a potluck, but nobody brought anything to eat?!

Apart from the environmental issues, the show did also tackle a number of social issues, such as racism, street gangs, AIDS, and even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (The last one was in the same episode that tackled the Catholic-Protestant tension in Ireland. Huh.) Say what you will about that, but thanks to this show nine-year-olds like myself back then already knew what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was. I’d like to see today’s children’s programming beat that!

Fun fact: Captain Planet and the Planeteers was made in an animation studio in the Philippines. We actually lived in a condo right across the street from it–a literal stone’s throw away. I wonder if they’re still in business?

And that’s it for now. I was going to use this as a segue to discuss Philippine animation but this post is getting too long so I’ll save it for next time. Also: sketches! Until then, the power is YOURS! Captain Planet!!!

 

no time for losers

Here’s some old news that I still can’t get out of my system. I’ll give you a couple minutes to read it, then head back over here if you still feel like dwelling on it like I am right now.

…

Oh, you came back? Good for you. And in case you were too gripped by my powerful prose to bother clicking on the article link, it’s basically about how this one Texan girls’ basketball team trounced an opposing team, scoring 100 points while the latter got zero points through the entire match. Yikes. Now that sounds interesting enough to merit news coverage, sure, but what’s more interesting is when the winning team, The Covenant School, decided to forfeit their victory to the not-one-single-win-after-four-seasons Dallas Academy.

Now honestly, you can read so much into what Covenant just did there, but the official statement is that they did it in the spirit of sportsmanship. More specifically, the fact that Covenant’s team won by such a large margin (and with the opponent at zero points, no less) was not “a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition,” as their own dean puts it.

So let me get this straight… These girls were scoring points and playing the game like they were supposed to–and, as far as I know, did not cheat or bribe their way to victory–and for that, they’re un-Christ-like and dishonorable?! For crying out loud, your girls won! Show them some love! Don’t go telling them Jesus hates them because they trounced their opponents! This is a sports competition, people–what were they supposed to do, turn the other cheek? Apparently so. As one of the mothers of the Dallas players puts it: “At some point, they should have backed off.” Um, sure…?

Speaking of poor sports... You lost the game of love, zem. You lost the girl. Get over it already! (Click pic for full size)

Covenant clearly did this so as not to appear as bullies in the eyes of the media. Nobody likes bullies, right? Everyone roots for the underdog! (So root for zemzelett!) Speaking of which, Covenant’s dean went on to praise “each member of the Dallas Academy Varsity Girls Basketball team for their strength, composure and fortitude in a game in which they clearly emerged the winner.”

No. That does NOT sound like something you’d say in the spirit of sportsmanship or fair play. That’s just plain patronizing. It just makes Dallas look even more pathetic. Like I keep telling my good friend Earl Einarson (right before he gave me the worst ever advice on girls that ended with me being on the “Avoid At All Costs” list of you-probably-know-who), “No need to patronize me, dammit! I’d rather hear what people really think of my work.” (At that point, Earl just laughed, most likely at the thought of me bawling my head off after a hypothetical round of honest criticism, just because he knew I couldn’t take it.)

But hey! Whatever gives people a happy ending, right? If only real life were like that. But it’s not. So just let people say whatever helps them sleep at night. Speaking of which, one of the players from the losing team had this to say: “Even if you are losing, you might as well keep playing. Keep trying, and it’s going to be OK.” Spoken like a true loser… er, I mean, like a true sport.

It may sound like I’m just bellyaching here, but I’m really interested in what other people think about this whole mess. So why not drop me a line and tell me what you think?

In other matters, zemzelett wants to do a personal status check! Comics in progress: check. Ass still in danger of getting laid off: check. Tired: check. Still pretending that sentient beings are actually reading his blog: check. (Sigh. Here I am, defending Covenant’s right to victory, when I could easily be in Dallas Academy’s sorry-ass position right now.) And that’s all she wrote. More sketches next week, perhaps. We’ll keep on fighting ’til the end!

 

hail to the chief

Greetings, citizens. I’ve actually been back in Canada since the 13th, but being the lazy lump that I am, decided that sleep was more important than doing anything relevant and career-advancing with my life. But here I am in any case, back from the United States with a ton of stories that I’d rather not bore you with. (On a side note, here: if you follow the school of thought that Canada is the 51st United State, does that mean I never left the country at all? Whatever.)

So maybe I’ll just make a photo journal for you guys on my new Flickr account, which, if you noticed, now has a place on my widget bar on the right. I just can’t figure out how to get those darn thumbnails to show up. Or do you have to pay extra for that? As if.

Speaking of career advancement, I better get back to work on my comic book project(s). I keep giving myself tight deadlines and I keep promising you stuff but dammit, I just can’t keep up trying to build a career with no friends and no charisma while trying not to get fired from my precious little job just to stay economically afloat during these troubling times! But enough with the whining! In the spirit of my trip to the United States, scroll down further for a video on Japan’s own take on the recent American elections, featuring Obama-kun and Hillary-chan!

There are so many things wrong with this picture, I don’t even know where to begin.

Hopefully that’s distracted you enough while I make my getaway… er, I mean, while I make my comic.