Saturday, August 1, 2015
It Is What It Is
-A phrase often uttered by Ibrahim, my roommate at the Micro-UN, in reference to I forget what, and something said about the difficult nature of our job by my co-worker Mike
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Father vs. an Actual Real-Life Father
"Respect strength, never power" - Arundhati Roy
I've told this story only twice, once to Hoopistan, and once to G-Sis. Hoopistan and Da Bear told me that perhaps it was my own ego and pride influencing my thoughts.
Never in my life had I wanted to push, punch, or kick anyone as when my little boy, Basti, was being baptized.
He was barely 2 months old. We chose the godparents kind of quickly, barely the week of the baptism.
Da Bear wanted to baptize him as quickly as possible because she wanted his soul to be saved in case anything happened to him. I was actually a little p'd off because even if I was agnostic, I kinda wanted to bring the rest of the "fam" together, and this seemed like a way to exclude them. Tatay had actually also been in my ear about getting the family together as well, and so this whole she-bang wasn't ideal for him. I understood that he wanted as many godparents as possible because it would tie different people to our son.
But not being particularly religious kinda hurts your arguments and your voice in church matters with your deeply religious wife who was going to the convent.
Father Pedro Inglaterra, being her old boss when she worked at the church in Wilmington, offered to baptize him for free.
I mean great. Free is almost always great. To boot he'd even given us $1000 to help with the fact that she was still recovering from the aftereffects of pregnancy. That was generous but I knew that something like that would never happen if it were just me and a wife he did not know/or was publicly atheist or agnostic.
The whole baptism process was fast just because Da Bear was once very close to Father Inglaterra. To me it seemed like a father-daughter relationship that she craved and so dearly wanted.
I'd actually been curious who Father Inglaterra was. All I know is that he was a big Beatles fan, which is strange given that the Beatles were pretty outwardly atheist. I searched newspaper articles about him; found out that he had actually been a popular priest in the SF Valley. One LA Times article was about him was about trying to ban a brothel in Wilmington. He was used to being in communities of color and could speak fluent Spanish.
He was well-known and well-spoken about his pro-life beliefs. He organized many a candle-light vigil in front of various Planned Parenthood offices, or as he would call them "abortion mills." It's quite the 180 degree turn from the Summer days of 2011 when I would hear Suree tell me about what the pro-lifers did to her and her compatriots now.
Despite whatever misgivings I had of Father, I wasn't about to tear Da Bear apart from him. I guess I just needed to know more about him and find commonalities.
The day of, everything happened quickly, and in a rush. The baptism was schedule for 10 AM.
We barely got there on time, but we got there at around 9:50 AM. We saw Company Flow and Jose trying to enter the church while we were driving in. Maria and Weyo were waiting in the parking lot behind the church along with Phew, the main godparents and Da Bear's parents were there. Now, for my side.
"Where are you?" I called the Bums.
"Were near…uh...Western?" Western on PCH is about 3-5 miles from where we were.
"Oh god. Well, hurry up and get here," I commanded my sister and by implication Tatay's driving.
I did not think they would make it considering a few things: they'd never been to this church, they were at least 20 minutes away, the Baptism would not take more than 10 minutes, and it was probably already 9:55.
We all made our way into church hoping the rest of the godparents would show up. They trickled in, as Father Inglaterra summoned us into the church and explained the process. He made an effort to get to know the main godparents, Maria and Weyo, less so Company Flow and Jose, which I didn't really mind considering I knew that he was kind of a judgmental stripe. Judgmental meaning "this and that is definitely wrong" and "this and that is definitely right" type of attitude.
(I know that this is my story and of course I along with many many people the world over would prefer to be the good guy saving the day at the end in our own stories, while painting others with adjectives as inherently bad or evil, but I think that this is counterproductive as well because you become blind to the things that they can do well. I use "judgmental" because that was a visceral feeling that he elicits).
We are seated in the last two rows of the church as Father Inglaterra explains the process. He explains that all cameras are to be turned off.
Near the front of the church, I see three all-too-familiar shadow/silhouette/bodies of Tatay, Oodles, and Bums getting here just in the nick of time. As Comads, Isaac Crewton, and Lyles filed in also from the front, I stand up and usher them all to the back of the church where proceedings have already begun. Everything was alright with the world. To that point.
I had been tense and nervous the whole time; I was just hoping to get through and be done with it already. Now the basics of everyone who was anyone was in place.
There was a little hiccup when Basti started crying. I looked at Da Bear then Father Inglaterra --- it meant he wanted bottle. Father Inglaterra said kind of understanding the situation, "I'm not the one to get it," so I went to our car, took his baby bag out, found the formula, poured some into his stubby little bottle, and combined it with some hot water from the thermos. I was in and out for about 5 minutes, and found my way to the back of the church.
Father Inglaterra was giving instructions and Basti was still crying and squirming.
Basti even managed to lay a fart to which Father Inglaterra jokingly replied, "I've heard it all."
Father Inglaterra began to preach about what baptism meant.
Somewhere in there he began a rant against Muslims. He asked out loud if anyone was Muslim, which of course Company Flow was/had been a more outwardly obvious one until fairly recently.
This is when I began to cringe. I asked myself if it was necessary at all to attack another faith in a ceremony introducing someone to a particular one. Later, after the event, even Da Bear felt the need to apologize to Company Flow, to which CF gave a reply about expecting it from institutions, which sounded vaguely Foucauldian.
But wait there's more.
A few months ago, when Da Bear was still preggo with Basti, I was at my parent's house in the Valley. For the first time, I watched a video of my own baptism, over 30 years ago. It was before my dad had a camcorder.
If anyone knows Tatay, it's that he's always some type of video recording device for all our life events. What he lacked in warmth, he tried to make up for by playing camera man in life's events. Life's events meaning everything from birthday parties, Christmas sing-alongs at school, graduations, school plays, sporting events. Sure enough we had plenty of bad fights from adolescence to my mid-20s, which all had to do with him being never wrong (in his mind). He didn't look like nor seem like the American TV dad, but he was always there.
On this day, he had my mom's device, a Samsung tablet her gift for her birthday last year. Once again, but for the first time as a grandfather, he felt called to the role of camera man.
While Father Inglaterra was talking, my dad was standing in the background playing camera man. He had missed Father Inglaterra's announcement.
Father Inglaterra spotting my father in the background asked out loud in the middle of his speech, "Am I going to be a YouTube star? Is this going viral in the Philippines?" I thought it was just his typical way of relating to people, and I let out some nervous laughter and responded with a "Yeah, I think so." Hahahahahah.
Father Inglaterra's speech continued.
Tatay continued filming and somewhere in between stopped filming. Then his device starting making noise. It was glaringly obvious, and Da Bear nudged me to tell him to stop. Even though we were amongst our close friends and family, I didn't really want to go up to him and tell him to shut it down. I just thought we'd ignore it and keep on proceeding with the ceremony.
Father Inglaterra then took it upon himself to directly call Tatay out and said in front of everyone, "Excuse me, can you please turn that off? It's very distracting."
If that were anyone else, my dad would have raged in anger.
But in the house of god, it's probably a sin to strangle a priest.
Instead, all my dad could get was embarrassed.
He put his head down and said in a muffled defeated voice, "I'm sorry, I'm going to leave," and left his grandson's baptism. I knew he would be seething inside.
Father Inglaterra remarked off the cuff, whether it was to dial down his calling my pops out or whatever, said "It's not a sin…"
I was just mad and trying to keep my composure the rest of the ceremony. But it was difficult. I felt the same way when bullies at high school would do, say, or threaten me with things, and all I felt was powerless.
I was surprised at how Oodles and Bums could keep their composure. I was wondering why they weren't more mad, but it did occur to me that they have told me on separate occasions how they could not tolerate his temper.
Afterward in the parking lot and a few pictures, I immediately sought out my dad. Jose actually tried to convince my dad before I could go outside. He was in his CRV, crestfallen and appeared to be reading a passage from the bible.
My dad in recent years alongside my mom had become more involved in our local Catholic church and even the one I'd grown up in.
When I tried to say something, he said, "No! It's all your fault!" He backed the car up from the parking lot and turned away.
FUCK! Fuck that priest! Taking his fucking grandfather away from his grandson.
Some kind of re-affirming pro-life movement that was.
I've told this story only twice, once to Hoopistan, and once to G-Sis. Hoopistan and Da Bear told me that perhaps it was my own ego and pride influencing my thoughts.
Never in my life had I wanted to push, punch, or kick anyone as when my little boy, Basti, was being baptized.
He was barely 2 months old. We chose the godparents kind of quickly, barely the week of the baptism.
Da Bear wanted to baptize him as quickly as possible because she wanted his soul to be saved in case anything happened to him. I was actually a little p'd off because even if I was agnostic, I kinda wanted to bring the rest of the "fam" together, and this seemed like a way to exclude them. Tatay had actually also been in my ear about getting the family together as well, and so this whole she-bang wasn't ideal for him. I understood that he wanted as many godparents as possible because it would tie different people to our son.
But not being particularly religious kinda hurts your arguments and your voice in church matters with your deeply religious wife who was going to the convent.
Father Pedro Inglaterra, being her old boss when she worked at the church in Wilmington, offered to baptize him for free.
I mean great. Free is almost always great. To boot he'd even given us $1000 to help with the fact that she was still recovering from the aftereffects of pregnancy. That was generous but I knew that something like that would never happen if it were just me and a wife he did not know/or was publicly atheist or agnostic.
The whole baptism process was fast just because Da Bear was once very close to Father Inglaterra. To me it seemed like a father-daughter relationship that she craved and so dearly wanted.
I'd actually been curious who Father Inglaterra was. All I know is that he was a big Beatles fan, which is strange given that the Beatles were pretty outwardly atheist. I searched newspaper articles about him; found out that he had actually been a popular priest in the SF Valley. One LA Times article was about him was about trying to ban a brothel in Wilmington. He was used to being in communities of color and could speak fluent Spanish.
He was well-known and well-spoken about his pro-life beliefs. He organized many a candle-light vigil in front of various Planned Parenthood offices, or as he would call them "abortion mills." It's quite the 180 degree turn from the Summer days of 2011 when I would hear Suree tell me about what the pro-lifers did to her and her compatriots now.
Despite whatever misgivings I had of Father, I wasn't about to tear Da Bear apart from him. I guess I just needed to know more about him and find commonalities.
The day of, everything happened quickly, and in a rush. The baptism was schedule for 10 AM.
We barely got there on time, but we got there at around 9:50 AM. We saw Company Flow and Jose trying to enter the church while we were driving in. Maria and Weyo were waiting in the parking lot behind the church along with Phew, the main godparents and Da Bear's parents were there. Now, for my side.
"Where are you?" I called the Bums.
"Were near…uh...Western?" Western on PCH is about 3-5 miles from where we were.
"Oh god. Well, hurry up and get here," I commanded my sister and by implication Tatay's driving.
I did not think they would make it considering a few things: they'd never been to this church, they were at least 20 minutes away, the Baptism would not take more than 10 minutes, and it was probably already 9:55.
We all made our way into church hoping the rest of the godparents would show up. They trickled in, as Father Inglaterra summoned us into the church and explained the process. He made an effort to get to know the main godparents, Maria and Weyo, less so Company Flow and Jose, which I didn't really mind considering I knew that he was kind of a judgmental stripe. Judgmental meaning "this and that is definitely wrong" and "this and that is definitely right" type of attitude.
(I know that this is my story and of course I along with many many people the world over would prefer to be the good guy saving the day at the end in our own stories, while painting others with adjectives as inherently bad or evil, but I think that this is counterproductive as well because you become blind to the things that they can do well. I use "judgmental" because that was a visceral feeling that he elicits).
We are seated in the last two rows of the church as Father Inglaterra explains the process. He explains that all cameras are to be turned off.
Near the front of the church, I see three all-too-familiar shadow/silhouette/bodies of Tatay, Oodles, and Bums getting here just in the nick of time. As Comads, Isaac Crewton, and Lyles filed in also from the front, I stand up and usher them all to the back of the church where proceedings have already begun. Everything was alright with the world. To that point.
I had been tense and nervous the whole time; I was just hoping to get through and be done with it already. Now the basics of everyone who was anyone was in place.
There was a little hiccup when Basti started crying. I looked at Da Bear then Father Inglaterra --- it meant he wanted bottle. Father Inglaterra said kind of understanding the situation, "I'm not the one to get it," so I went to our car, took his baby bag out, found the formula, poured some into his stubby little bottle, and combined it with some hot water from the thermos. I was in and out for about 5 minutes, and found my way to the back of the church.
Father Inglaterra was giving instructions and Basti was still crying and squirming.
Basti even managed to lay a fart to which Father Inglaterra jokingly replied, "I've heard it all."
Father Inglaterra began to preach about what baptism meant.
Somewhere in there he began a rant against Muslims. He asked out loud if anyone was Muslim, which of course Company Flow was/had been a more outwardly obvious one until fairly recently.
This is when I began to cringe. I asked myself if it was necessary at all to attack another faith in a ceremony introducing someone to a particular one. Later, after the event, even Da Bear felt the need to apologize to Company Flow, to which CF gave a reply about expecting it from institutions, which sounded vaguely Foucauldian.
But wait there's more.
A few months ago, when Da Bear was still preggo with Basti, I was at my parent's house in the Valley. For the first time, I watched a video of my own baptism, over 30 years ago. It was before my dad had a camcorder.
If anyone knows Tatay, it's that he's always some type of video recording device for all our life events. What he lacked in warmth, he tried to make up for by playing camera man in life's events. Life's events meaning everything from birthday parties, Christmas sing-alongs at school, graduations, school plays, sporting events. Sure enough we had plenty of bad fights from adolescence to my mid-20s, which all had to do with him being never wrong (in his mind). He didn't look like nor seem like the American TV dad, but he was always there.
On this day, he had my mom's device, a Samsung tablet her gift for her birthday last year. Once again, but for the first time as a grandfather, he felt called to the role of camera man.
While Father Inglaterra was talking, my dad was standing in the background playing camera man. He had missed Father Inglaterra's announcement.
Father Inglaterra spotting my father in the background asked out loud in the middle of his speech, "Am I going to be a YouTube star? Is this going viral in the Philippines?" I thought it was just his typical way of relating to people, and I let out some nervous laughter and responded with a "Yeah, I think so." Hahahahahah.
Father Inglaterra's speech continued.
Tatay continued filming and somewhere in between stopped filming. Then his device starting making noise. It was glaringly obvious, and Da Bear nudged me to tell him to stop. Even though we were amongst our close friends and family, I didn't really want to go up to him and tell him to shut it down. I just thought we'd ignore it and keep on proceeding with the ceremony.
Father Inglaterra then took it upon himself to directly call Tatay out and said in front of everyone, "Excuse me, can you please turn that off? It's very distracting."
If that were anyone else, my dad would have raged in anger.
But in the house of god, it's probably a sin to strangle a priest.
Instead, all my dad could get was embarrassed.
He put his head down and said in a muffled defeated voice, "I'm sorry, I'm going to leave," and left his grandson's baptism. I knew he would be seething inside.
Father Inglaterra remarked off the cuff, whether it was to dial down his calling my pops out or whatever, said "It's not a sin…"
I was just mad and trying to keep my composure the rest of the ceremony. But it was difficult. I felt the same way when bullies at high school would do, say, or threaten me with things, and all I felt was powerless.
I was surprised at how Oodles and Bums could keep their composure. I was wondering why they weren't more mad, but it did occur to me that they have told me on separate occasions how they could not tolerate his temper.
Afterward in the parking lot and a few pictures, I immediately sought out my dad. Jose actually tried to convince my dad before I could go outside. He was in his CRV, crestfallen and appeared to be reading a passage from the bible.
My dad in recent years alongside my mom had become more involved in our local Catholic church and even the one I'd grown up in.
When I tried to say something, he said, "No! It's all your fault!" He backed the car up from the parking lot and turned away.
FUCK! Fuck that priest! Taking his fucking grandfather away from his grandson.
Some kind of re-affirming pro-life movement that was.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
MC Naval: The Master of Video Games
It was either 1989, 1990, or 1991.
Buried deep in a 2-story blue-carpeted house in suburban San Diego.
All of us kids were situated around a television and a Nintendo.
I saw their collection of video games. One of them was what appeared to be the original Super Mario Bros. game though bearing a different logo than the one I had a home. I thought maybe that the game was somehow different because of that logo. I was too scared to ask to play.
The only one who appeared to be allowed to play: MC Naval.
We all watched him pass level by level on this video game with a kid who had some kind of powers. It didn't look all that interesting to me.
He was something of a wizard with video games. Something that I thought about a lot when the time came for me to face Super Mario Bros 3 on my own. Where would MC Naval be then?
Only he could guarantee completion of the video game; I was too young to beat video games or go that far.
At that time when he was playing his video game, it seemed that Mario Bros. was the farthest thing from his mind despite the fact that his dad had the same name.
Buried deep in a 2-story blue-carpeted house in suburban San Diego.
All of us kids were situated around a television and a Nintendo.
I saw their collection of video games. One of them was what appeared to be the original Super Mario Bros. game though bearing a different logo than the one I had a home. I thought maybe that the game was somehow different because of that logo. I was too scared to ask to play.
The only one who appeared to be allowed to play: MC Naval.
We all watched him pass level by level on this video game with a kid who had some kind of powers. It didn't look all that interesting to me.
He was something of a wizard with video games. Something that I thought about a lot when the time came for me to face Super Mario Bros 3 on my own. Where would MC Naval be then?
Only he could guarantee completion of the video game; I was too young to beat video games or go that far.
At that time when he was playing his video game, it seemed that Mario Bros. was the farthest thing from his mind despite the fact that his dad had the same name.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
The Day Loot Bags Died
We were discussing plans for my birthday.
9-10-11-12 years old. I can't remember anymore, but my old blog says that I was about to be 12 or something like that.
Oodles, my mom, was throwing out various plans and suggestions. She was being my cheery, ever-enthusiastic mom. I was being what a growing pre-teen was supposed to be.
She suggested: how about a party with loot bags?
"What do you think I am mom? Twelve is old enough to drive in the Philippines." I thought in my head.
I said something to the effect of a resounding no probably mixed with some slight derision with the idea that my response would completely snuff out that idea.
It worked.
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