Joey Albert & Norman Mitchell in Sydney

Caricature feature
It was typhoon-friendly Manila a few weeks ago, now it's good to be back in rainy Sydney despite missing that rare duststorm which left a strange layer of dust all over the guitars and piano.


It seemed I was only 7 days away from weather disturbances from here and there. A week after touching down Manila, typhoon Ondoy's big flood sunk Marikina and suburbs. I was staying in Pasay where it was half-a-femur deep. The water receded after a week and so as originally planned, we (family) was ready to scale up Baguio to see BenCab and his museum. However we procrastinated because of typhoon Pepeng and decided not to. That same week Pepeng assaulted the Pine City and caused a lot of havoc and fatalities. In Kennon Rd alone there were 80 landslides that trapped a lot of tourists. Then only a week after I left Manila all flights were cancelled because of typhoon Santi.

It's all over now that I'm in Sydney's arms but it's kind of hilarious to think that typhoons are following me, (this time the entertainment kind) so here are caricatures of two talented guests, Joey Albert and Norman Mitchell who were promised to blow Sydney away. They are being brought here by Apo Jim Paredes who seems not to run out of talented friends.

Well, lucky us Sydneysiders; Joey is a fine singer who has received Dreamgirl Filipina, Tinig and Awit awards and made famous the song "Iisa Pa Lamang".

I asked Joey:

1-Why Sydney?

an answered prayer... thanks to Jim Paredes

2-inspiration?

my children... my family... my music... my God.

3-Dreams?

"Carnegie Hall Presents Joey Albert and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra"

4-Filipinos?

worth sacrificing for... have the greatest sense of humor and the greatest sense of hope...

5-Filipinos abroad?

hardworking... integrate well... should all acquire dual citizenship so they can all vote and get corrupt politicians out of government...

Apo Jim assured us "of a night of lovely singing and the 'laughingest' night of your life. Joey Albert will serenade you with her timeless hits like 'Tell me', "I remember the boy", 'Minsan pa', 'Yakapin mo ako', 'Larger than life', 'Points of view', 'Ikaw lang ang mamahalin', and many others. Joey has performed with the APO on many tours and each time, she delivers to her crowd with grace, generosity, charm and feeling. What can I say? They simply fall in love with her each time!.."

Visit Joey's site: http://www.joeyalbert.com/

Norman Mitchell (above), is a stand-up comedian and musician and is special guest of the concert. I asked him, too:

-why Sydney? to bring happiness to my fellow kababayan, give them a good laugh..

-inspiration? my family and my 2 grandson.

-dreams? good health for me and for my family..more blessings.

-Filipinos? to have a very good leader,good economy.

-Filipinos abroad? to be with their loved one's, that they will not have to leave the country just to have a good life.

Here's more good words from Jim .. "Norman Mitchell will show his uber talent in comedy that has earned him the fear and respect of many established artists he has performed with. My APO friends and I have performed with Norman in the many shows and we know that we better be in top form when he fronts for us because he can outshine us if we are not careful! I have watched him many times and have laughed so much my tummy and jaws actually hurt. To me, he is the funniest comedian in Philippine entertainment."

Okay guys, don't miss Joey and Norman. Should be a fun night. I'm also here to help friend/neighbour Apo Jim spread the word. No worries, mate!

Details here about the concert: http://haringliwanag.pansitan.net/?p=895

Pinoy Chopper in Sydney

Alwin Reamillo's Thuringowa Helicopter


Alas, half a lifetime spent in NSW, Australia and I never had a chance to meet him. He migrated to Western Australia in 1995. (Is Fremantle really that far away from Sydney?)

I'm sure most of you reader guys are in FaceBook, and yes I met Alwin there when he "Walled" me and asked if I was from Sydney (He's FB friend of a friend of a friend just like most of us:) Marami akong kaFBgan (I have many FB friends:)

Since that virtual handshake I asked Alwin to come visit me in Sydney and so he caught the train for an hour ride to my home studio.


It was quite surreal for me to find him just a few days later beating my drum set at home, jamming with muso friends and..

..crashing in for the night; and then a passenger in my ancient Merc (driven by good partner who just needed a nice Annie Lennox Pershing cap and in a sleek, white uniform)..

.. to be just in time for my Cartoon Talk for the Filipino Sydney Press Group organised by Jimmy Pimentel.
I also did caricatures of those who attended (photo collage by Menchie Maneze)


His name is Alwin Reamillo, 45, son of a Filipino inventor and grand piano maker.

He's currently in Sydney for his exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

He whirred in town to rebirth a helicopter that triggered a dialogue with my intrigued son.

A helicopter?

Yes, a chopper.
Does it fly?

No.

Why not?

Well it's just made of bamboo, rattan, crabshells, Hill's Hoist, ropes, etc.

Are you pulling my leg?

No; it doesn't fly because it is installed.

Installed? Like a washing machine?

Near but not quite, unless you're Duchamp.

Let me explain, it's just symbolic, a thing that looks like a helicopter.

It is called installation art, and as defined, it could be site-specific, 3-dimensional and intended to transform one's perception about an interior space (exterior interventions are called Land art). It has a statement to say, maybe a story, a dream, a concept and often embedded with emotions the creator would like to share.

Alwin told me of the news that he has an exhibit at the MCA. He has lived in Western Australia since 1995 and did a lot of installation art projects in Australia initially as an Arts Exchange student in Perth in 1992.

He also had exhibits in the Philippines and several other countries.

He seemed to be a very energetic guy with rotor blades that spun and slashed the air around him.

I also interviewed him for Radio Sandigan and from it I learned about his beloved Thuringowa Helicopter Project.

Of course I was intrigued. He is kindred spirit and his works echo old craftsmanship patterned to contemporary objects and concepts.

Alwin likes to call his projects social sculptures and are collaborative.

He enjoins different indigenous communities to take part in the creative process while unselfishly sharing his skills to delighted participants.

The exhibit will be up until the 11th of November so don't miss Alwin's Thuringowa Helicopter Project at the Museum of Contemporary Art!

Here's a very informative interview given by Alwin to Asiart Archive (photos not part of interview):

Diaaalogue editor, Susan Acret spoke with West-Australian-based Filipino artist Alwin Reamillo about his collaborative works and social sculptures; his peripatetic life and philosophical journeys.

Susan Acret: You have lived in Perth, Western Australia, since 1995. Can you tell us something about your decision to move from the Philippines to Australia?

Alwin Reamillo : I first came to Perth in 1992 to take part in the Artist Regional Exchange (ARX3), where I met my former partner, Australian artist Juliet Lea. Juliet was also a participating artist in the event.

We collaborated on many projects and called our collaborative art/life partnership Reamillo & Juliet. As we were to become parents, the decision to move to Western Australia became a practical option. As a growing multicultural society, Australia could provide a good and safe environment for a young family. As practicing artists, Perth also seemed to provide opportunities for creative work.

S.A: Has arts infrastructure and opportunities for artists in the Philippines improved since you left?

A.R: I’m not quite sure if things have improved significantly. Before I left the country, I was based up north in Baguio City. The early 1990s was an exciting time to be living and working there. There was a vibrant artist community, the Baguio Arts Guild, which was lead mostly by established senior artists who had relocated there from elsewhere. While this small community of artists was already active in the mid 1980s, it was really in the next decade that it blossomed. Many acknowledge that it was the 7.8 earthquake that hit Baguio in 1990 which really consolidated the group. This tragic event would catalyse the creative energies of the arts community, prompting the artists to take charge in organizing themselves to set up soup kitchens, music events, art exhibitions and workshops for traumatized kids, etc. The Baguio Arts Festival (BAF) was born out this tragedy and it was to develop as an international arts festival, becoming a major venue for Filipino contemporary art. It has significantly rejuvenated the local tourism industry and attracted international curators and visitors to the city. I mention this because it is one indicator of the changing attitudes at the time, a collective response to bureaucratic lethargy and chronic government inaction.

S.A: You’ve participated in many exhibitions in Australia and the Philippines, and in a number of other Asian countries. Can you tell us about the joys and challenges involved in constantly working in different cultures and environments? Is your work a means of working through the journeys you make in life?

A.R: I’ve always been interested in travelling to different places and to experience and learn more about the diversity of cultures. My artistic practice is fundamentally grounded in understanding the dynamics of trans-cultural movement and mobility and how art can shape new ways of thinking.

A great number of my conceptual works deal with building collaborative sculptures that allow movement, dialogue and exchange in different cultural contexts and meeting and engaging with people. I guess you could say that I like the sense of anticipation and uncertainty in encountering the unknown. And the various challenges and, perhaps quite unexpected realisations that come about as I am forced to adapt to the communities and contexts I find myself within.

One always gains a new perspective in every cultural encounter. One also experiences a heightened awareness of one’s self in a context of difference, but this sense of antagonism that arises doesn’t necessarily remain fixed; through constant engagement one soon realizes that there are many more commonalities that differences.

Ideas of travel, migration or movement are reflected in my play on the relationships of meaning generated in terms such as craft, or vessel, or vehicle. Craft referring to a process of making a creative form of some sort, but also referring to sea/water vessels. I create works that are vessels, vehicles, or crafts, fusing these literal meanings or states with these alternative references. The art-cars or helicopters are vehicles, quite literally in the form they take, but also become vessels of culture, and projects that mobilize communities, becoming vehicles of change.

S.A: I’ve read you describe your work as ‘social sculpture’. Your works are collaborative and involve working with local communities. Can you talk about the processes involved in creating such work?

A.R: I started borrowing this Beuysian term ‘social sculpture’ when I was a young art teacher at the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA). There was a book on Joseph Beuys in the school library, which stood out in the visual arts section among books on more traditional painters and painting. Nobody seemed interested in borrowing the book but I found his multi-disciplinary approach as an artist/educator/activist quite appealing. Beuys’ radical notion of ‘sculpture as an evolutionary process — everyone is an artist’ — had a profound impact on my thinking. The notion that any individual has the potential to be a truly empowered, creative and productive being and thus can participate in the shaping of human society; this idea of creative empowerment through active participation in society appealed to me, given the kind of uneven society we have in the Philippines.

Social sculpture emerges out of a cultural context of engagement, it is dialogical, immersive, and participatory. The artist’s role is pivotally hinged on his capacity as facilitator. For the past 7 years I have been involved in initiating cross-cultural collaborative projects in various contexts, mostly in the shape of large-scale sculptures. I now call these cross-cultural bayanihan projects.

S.A: Can you explain the meaning of the Filipino word bayanihan in this context?

A.R: Well, the popular usage of the word generally refers to the traditional practice of community group work. Traditionally referring to a community’s coming together to physically relocate/lift a family’s bamboo/wooden house in rural Philippines. Bayanihan has more recently been used to promote a positivist image of Filipino culture and has circulated in the national imagination. As we become more urbanized or upwardly mobile we tend to lose the sense of community spirit in the meaning. In relation to my practice, I aim to reinvigorate the more traditional meaning of the term, whereby I actually try to generate a situation of collective action to achieve a common goal. This is directly related to the voluntary group work I hope to involve in the creation of the projects. Through the process of collaboratively creating an artwork, the sense of community spirit begins to emerge.

S.A: Your father was a piano maker whose company operated for more than 30 years and was the only manufacturer of grand pianos in Philippines, until the company closed in 1997. For the Mang Emo + Mang-himo Grand Piano Project you found the company’s original craftsmen and re-established the company in 2007. Can you tell us about this project? And also about the title?

A.R: The Mang Emo + Mag-himo Grand Piano Project (ME+MHGPP) initially began in 2005, to commemorate the 20 years that had past since my father’s death. It was conceived as a conceptual portrait of a gifted but unsung piano maker. Decimo Zabala Reamillo, or Mang Emo as he was fondly called, was the primary maker, inventor and creative backbone of the Javincello + Company, maker of Wittemberg Pianos, a company he co-founded in 1961 with his brother Cervantes and nephew Marciano Reamillo Jacela.

Looking back, I think he was an artist who dedicated himself to his art and craft more than anything else. Through the years, the company established its reputation as a leading maker of quality upright pianos in the Philippines and the only maker of grand pianos. The company has probably produced around 2000 upright pianos. The production line of grand pianos came later in the early1980s. When Mang Emo passed away in 1985, Javincello & Company continued with its operation and managed to sustain the production of upright pianos, though the quality of the instruments began to decline. When the country was hit by the Asian financial crisis the company ceased its operation.

To develop the project I had to track down three of the former piano technicians who worked with Mang Emo: Jaime Pastorfide, who was my father’s technical assistant; Rabino Sabas, a master carpenter; and Tranquilino Tosio, our varnisher. They had been forced to abandon their professions as skilled crafts people and take up jobs in street food stalls or industries such as construction or cabinet making.

The piano for my work was made from remnant structural parts of the last grand piano unit that was left unfinished when the company closed down: a cast-iron plate/frame, a wooden backpost and lyre pedal and a leg. That was it. We were lucky to find a 1989 Wittemberg parlour grand at PHSA, which the school loaned us for a month so we could use it as a template model for new measurements. As we had to start from scratch, it was really amazing to see the piano makers improvise with what was available. From the old Wittemberg grand, I retraced and re measured the dimensions/specifications of the keys and had the whole action and keyboard fabricated in Japan. The piano action was fabricated by the company’s former supplier, Watanabe Musical Instruments in Hamamatsu.

The project title included the word Mag-himo, a word from the Waray language, my parents’ first language and spoken in eastern Visayas in Central Philippines. Mag-himo means to make, to create, to craft, which I used to emphasize what my father’s memory meant for me: his passion as a creative maker and his ability to bring people to work together to craft instruments that create beautiful music. This project was a way of paying tribute, not only to his creative spirit, but also to the unsung makers from our family workshop.

S.A: I understand that the Piano project is an ongoing one that has taken place in several countries, and currently Nicanor Abelardo Grand Piano Project is on show at the UP Vargas Museum in the Philippines. Can you tell us something about this particular re-incarnation?

A.R: The Nicanor Abelardo Grand Piano Project (NAGPP) project breathes life into the musical legacy of one of the leading composers of the Philippines, Nicanor Abelardo. Nicanor Abelardo pioneered in the research of traditional Tagalog folk music, and he is considered the country’s first modernist composer and wrote the first piano sonata.

Like the ME+MHGPP, the project takes the form of an installation, which also functions as a stage/workshop space for the restoration of three found pianos and their transformation as art case instruments. The pianos being transformed also function as conceptual portraits of the composer. For the project, we found 2 Wittemberg upright pianos built in the early 1990s and a dis-used Grotrian Steinweg parlour grand from the UP College of Music. This project is part of an artist residency at the UP Jorge B Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center to celebrate the Centenary of the University of the Philippines, where Abelardo also attended and lectured.

The installation thematically focuses on Abelardo’s classical work, ‘Mutya ng Pasig’ (Muse of Pasig), which is animated through text, objects, found piano parts and imagery drawn from photographs and popular culture. The grand piano will be developed in September when I return to Manila and will be launched for an all-Abelardo concert, performed by distinguished alumni and students of the university and other guest pianists.

S.A: Are you working on other projects/exhibitions, or is this one all consuming?

A.R: I am writing this interview from my current location in Townsville, North Queensland, where I have returned to mentor/collaborate with a group of artists who participated in the Thuringowa Helicopter Project in October 2007. The artists have been working with similar community groups to develop a new project, which will culminate in performances and exhibitions in August/September 2008. This is an important project as I am able to return to a region where I have previously worked to observe the developments that have taken place as a result of the initial project. The project is based around the creation of a submersible deep-sea exploration vessel and a shadow play based on the exploration of concepts and experiences that lie beneath the surface; of individuals, society and the world around us. The Thuringowa Helicopter Project is also currently being prepared for a national tour around capital cities in Australia as part of 2009 Kultour

--

photo credits: Alwin Reamillo, Menchie Maneze, Jimmy Pimentel, (Maria via) Violi Calvert & Edd Aragon

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more info links:

http://www.aaa.org.hk/newsletter_detail.aspx?newsletter_id=541

http://philippineartscene.blogspot.com/2007/05/mang-emo-mag-himo-grand-piano-project.html

Global Pinoy Song

In 2004 I wrote some lyrics that begged for a reggae beat and so I opted for the tune of Englishman in New York. I asked a friend to do the vocals, guitars and keyboard while I mixed in my solo blues harp. I finished the mix and saved the song in some vague folders in my pc. Five years passed when I discovered the song file! With fervent nationalism gripping the country, I decided to make a video using the song as soundtrack. This is dedicated to all Filipinos abroad aching to visit Motherland. Hope you like it.

Islao Palitao

Once in a while there are bees buzzing under my bonnet, as one good friend has put it; so I'm introducing Islao Palitao in my blog. I'll let him express whatever comic strip idea I have in mind (sigh, I miss doing comic strips for Manila daily newspapers back in late 70's).

http://www.alanguilan.com/museum/liwv2n155.html

The name is similar to Islaw Palitaw which is a 1946 cartoon character by Larry Alcala ..and yes, he's still not given the title of National Artist, not even posthumously. What a shame! Oh well, I shall worry not for I like to think that a person given an unworthy gold medal bigger and heavier than his own weight and ego shall carry around his neck a lifelong burden; his creations a mute cry in the wilderness begging for an audience already wisened up by the deceipt of status quo.

The Glo-Magic Wand (A Plug-in tool:)

Adobe-thick Delicadeza

What happens if a President abuses the privilege to choose (or delete from list) National Artists? Howls of protest, naturally! Van Gogh's ear would have bled again, Frida Kahlo's eyebrows would have joined in unison; the last drip to have broken Pollock's back, Ocampo would have snapped his favorite brush, Legaspi would have burnt his curtain mural..all in disgust!


View from Sydney (above image)

A nation's flag a stylized Japanese where yellow turned black at the Center. It was the day I've opened emails and news and felt terribly sad and wronged as someone who grew up in the Philippines.

Black is symbolic of mourning by Filipino artists in protest of this year's scandalous selection of National Artists Awards, waving but not drowning amid a sea of yellow flags that bade Cory Aquino farewell.

Struth! Me mates are up in arms and I'm no doob not to empathize. Ah, Australia, proud of an adopted land that nurtured and influenced half a lifetime of relentless cultural learning; a country which encouraged new citizens to integrate but not to forget positive traits and national heritage they had to offer; and inspirited universal values practised by a community of democratic nations.

Corruption is vehemently frowned upon and emphatically asserts that no one is above the law. Decency rules.

So what has happened to Philippine delicadeza, a Filipino trait that meant refinement and decency? Politics in the National Artist Awards?

I heard of the terrible news from voluminous emails, FaceBook posts and online papers that the process of selection was anomalous..

..that is to say, a presidential privelege had rudely interfered with the NCCA 's (National Commission for Culture and Arts) logical selection process.

The Adobo PhoneyShop (Lutong-Macao)

Let's pretend we're a team doing a digital painting. Not too complicated, just objective, honest and has quality of intent to create a digital artistic scenario of a nation proud to the world.

Well you know, let's GoogleSketch a monument there by Tolentino, Cut & Paste a canvas there by Amorsolo or Luz, print out a BenCab there, vector down some beautiful libraries behind the trees designed by Nakpil or Locsin..and where we could read a Joaquin or Villa.

Around here would be moviehouses that would play old Brockas and Bernals, let's embed audios of Kasilag or Celerio..

..and high up there would be museums and galleries where we could relish the intoxicating legacies of people who have sacrificed a lot of personal time, energy and priveleges for generations to come.

Then "Wham!" As we were confidently immersed in the most basic, unpirated version of a third-world PhotoShop, there was this weird, selective tool that interfaced and interfered, and in the process deleted the creations of fair dinkum Filipino artists.

It was a malware of a bloody plug-in; a political magic wand with a forced tolerance of 100%.

We then protested politely against the use of the presidential magic wand where the selection seemed random (not to mention Control+A), A for abuse.

Random means erratic, undiscerning and uncaring! Alas! Just pressing shortcut keys Control + Shift+I on the Presidential keyboard instantly reversed the selection process (eeriely the shortcut keys are also qualities of a leadership which is controlling, shifty and egotistic).. then horror!..

..the Delete button sunk with a clunk and with much impugnity; totally aloof to the painting's outcome.

Heritage areas were surrounded by selective marching ants that excitedly danced and overwhelmed the landscape.

But wait, there's more! Control + V and splack! (Whadda?!)

Something was suddenly pasted from the unseen Presidential clipboard!

It was strange, alien and heavy like watered-down acrylic paint.

Damn, it was too late. Somebody had flattened the image while no one's looking; that was when everyone rolled their eyes.

Sorry, no Control+Z, no undo's here, History was cleared! Kaput!

The final landscape painting looked horrible yet it was Saved in the Presidential folder.

Everyone of us in the art team/committee looked at each other dazed..then walked out in disgust.

It was to add insult to the pain of a Cory-less nation.

Talk is cheap? So here are photos all over this blog entry.

Just faces of artists and our National Artists who have significantly helped shape the nation's cultural and artistic landscape.

All photos taken at the CCP in this blog entry were by Tilak Hettige (who gave permission via BenCab)..

..and Ige Ramos who gave permission via FaceBook. Thanks guys. Mabuhay kayo!

F. Sionil Jose, Arturo Luz, Bienvenido Lumbera, Napoleon Abueva, Virgilio Almario, Salvador Bernal, & BenCab led artists & community in a Necrological Service & Funeral March for the National Artist Awards last Friday August 7-2009 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

The planting of black ribbons on CCP front lawn was Jun Yee's art installation concept but everyone joined in, including Tilak.

Read my other blog entry on National Artist BenCab.

Hex, Lies & Videos

Here's our National Heavyweight on YouTube; plus a 3-part video of Che-Che Lazaro's Media in Focus (ANC)

Just received a new video from a friend. Indeed, everyone needs a refreshment:)

Cry Yellow!

(above image) my caricature of Cory published in Sandigan (Filipino-Australian) newspaper, May 1988.

Today Filipinos are crying yellow as they grieve for the demise of the Philippines' 11th president. Cory Aquino aka Mrs. President died today, August 1, 2009; the first female president of the Philippines and Asia's first female president.

(above photo: Vics Magsaysay, Banggaan Art Group)

Yellow was her preferred color even before she was installed as president, people inspired by a popular American song Tie a Yellow Ribbon which they sang and did to welcome her husband Benigno Aquino at the Manila Airport.

Alas, poor Ninoy never made it to the streets of Manila after years of exile in America, for he was horribly gunned down at the airport's tarmac. Until now, the mastermind has not been brought to justice.

(above photo: Rod Samonte, Banggaan Art Group)

His death choked like yellow mustard gas and gripped tight the airpipes of a people already gasping for the life-giving breath of democracy; and the welcoming yellow ribbon tied loosely around every freedom-loving Filipino became a tight noose when it was abruptly stained thick by blood. It caked dry and strained the elasticity of the constricted veins of a nation forsaken. The pressure was too much and the patience exploded thus the EDSA revolution, now known around the world as People Power.

People Power Monument, Philippines (web image)

Yellow then became flavor of the reclaimed democracy, wrested away by the people from the militaristic regime .

(above image: People Power, South Africa)

Overnight the connotation of the word as cowardice vanished; suddenly the jaundiced masses that wallowed in poverty for years under an oppressive dictatorship took a healthier color..

(above image: People Power, Thailand)

..and the battle for freedom began and still unfinished today.

The rest of the world afterall has plenty of time to catch up; for freedom will never be served on a yellow, picnic platter.

(above image) my illustration for The Australian, Aug. 21, 1986

Today August 1st is also President Manuel Quezon's death anniversary. He died of tuberculosis in 1944 in Saranac Lake, New York.

http://blog.calaveracomics.com/2007/03/some-new-stuff.html

Today Cory Aquino chose to leave Earth to join the late husband she sorely missed.

Today is also death anniversary of my father Manuel who passed away in 1998.

Today is also the birthday of my youngest son who was born in 1994.

August 1st indeed is always a cocktail of emotions for this writer.

Here Dad, wherever you are, I'd like to show you the palette of bright colors in my heart. You were part of it.

The yellow seeds you've planted in my consciousness are fast yellowing ripe, keeping abreast of my age. I've acknowledged long ago that Life is a painting, and it was really up to me to use dull or bright colors, warm or cool, or just plain black and white. Thank you for the yellow warning light you shone on me everytime I was about to go astray.

Life, I found out is just too short for us to be able to use all the colors in the rainbow. The trick I thought was to use one, or two, or..okay.. three, but not more. One color for the mind, another for the body and one for the spirit.Then I mix them all up to a dark mass and use it as black for the linear elements to draw Life's pattern which I then fill in with hues of all gradations, one color dominant over the rest. My Life's painting has been in process for the past 6 decades, when to put the last brush stroke of Yellow is a mystery I'm not yet keen to find out.

Perhaps, an individual is like a nation that carefully chooses the colors in its flag. For outsiders, the color symbolism may not be big deal; but for those born and educated inside the archipelago, the idealism was inspired by heavenly bodies.

Today the yellow sun burns brightly in the middle of the stellar-cornered, white pyramid of the nation's flag, aloft halfway to its mast, with its blue and red wings drenched by Manila rain, heavy and in sorrow for the demise of the leader of the People Power revolt.

As someone said, at times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. I thank Cory. I thank my Dad.

Nature and human nature is one and the same afterall. Nature nurtures. Nature is us. The color of yellow could be as fragrant as a free spirit, sweet like Guimaras mangoes or as obnoxious as yellow sulphur. We have the choice, nature could only provide and guide us towards a healthy mind and being. Man shall forever avoid the toxicity of nature that can harm him. Likewise to live in a society free of toxic political decadence is delicious and much desired.

But in its vexillology and all, the nation's flag could not all be yellow yet (even if emotions relentlessly pour out for Cory); not just yet for it will still be undeserving. A solid yellow flag shall only mean one thing ..clean; just like the international maritime signal flag where a solidly yellow flag denotes the letter "Q" (which means a ship asserts that it does not need to be quarantined).

(web image: Yellow Flag Iris)

The nation still has a lot to do to isolate the yellow fever of corruption and greed that incapacitated and drained the country's fragile economy. Until then shall yellow flags bloom and blanket the nation in blissful peace. Only then shall we see everything in glorious yellow; and we shall experience delirious fun, almost like being inside a yellow submarine, or even other modes of transport.

(above photo) web image

At the beginning of our lives, there were no colors for at least nine months as we only felt the warm, liquid darkness of primeval innocence, ignorant of colors and was delightfully swimming in it.

It was like awareness trapped inside a coconut, surrounded and protected by the pureness of its thick meat of inner white walls yet it seemed darkness had to obliterate the light to let knowledge evolve inside without getting burnt to a crisp. Something inside seemed restless and waiting for a time when someone gives it a precise, clean stroke of a machete to expose the nourishing Grace.

Upon rupture, it was rapture. Perhaps the color yellow was introduced to my infantile life when I first saw the yellow incandescent light; as the nurse pulled away my yellowcaked diaper; or was impressed on me as I blasted a pressurised stream of yellow to the faces of those I've fancied. Why, according to my mother, even my big, grotesque head that had sparse, velvety black hair was covered with a thin layer of icky, yellow slime. Yellow, yellow all around me so therefore I naturally gravitated to my favourite color... Blue.

You'd think I'm kidding. Blue afterall is not too far away from Yellow. Well in printer's ink term, process yellow was based on a colorant that reflects the preponderance of red and green light, and absorbed most blue light. Painters meanwhile traditionally regarded the complement of yellow as blue (or indigo) because of various characteristics of paint pigments and different color wheels used.

How many of us know that the word yellow comes from the Old English geolu (or geolwe which derived from the Proto-Germanic word gelwaz)? The color had a long history and nations have long adopted the solar hue in their own right. Some might have offensive and non-offensive racial overtones. What with an East Asian born in outback Australia? Shall we call him a yellow ocker? Do you see any peril? What if he's of Italian lineage..Naples yellow? There's Indian yellow, Chinese yellow (arsenic trisulfide) and there's Gamboge yellow, the name derived from Cambodia. And now we have the Philippine yellow, and the whole world knows of its meaning.

Rest in Peace, Cory...and Dad.

--

Here are three timely videos:

-Part 1 of Cory Aquino's historic speech before the US Congress (Sept. 1986)

-Bayan Ko featuring the images of Fernando Amorsolo and the voice of Kuh Ledesma

-Heber Bartolome and Banyuhay (Katotohanan Lamang), Tribute to Cory

Antipolo Scared Me Shirtless

Last year's trip to Manila swept me off my feet and produced a lot of photos . All were taken from inside young brother's Expedition which made our travel snappy and comfortable.

The vehicle's windows provided a glassy, azurite filter between camera and outside scenarios; and something was cooking.

Blue skies dominated Manila and suburbs, puffing out smiles while Zeus cried lavish rain in other cities of the world. Ah, to see and explore the old city high and dry was a luxury on a bright day while lazy nebulas paraded above my hazy head. A bit shaken, I absorbed with maximum tolerance my childhood's traffic noise that seemed to have tripled in intensity.

Please have a seat, offered the displayed cane furniture oblivious to dust. Good it wasn't raining, otherwise those elegant rattancraft would be back hidden in their dark hangars.

However, wet Manila is another beautiful story drenched by an array of darkened monochromes.

What excited me most was my rediscovery of Antipolo (26 kms east of Manila) where mangoes and suman (wrapped sticky rice rolls) still reigned sweetly..

..and where cash and cashew nuts were delightfully trading.

..and where watermelons lined up like bowlings balls that threathened to escape from their makeshift shelves.

Locals perhaps suffered from translation-fatigue as they explained to tourists that the word Antipolo didn't mean a half-nude guy or somebody against Prince Charles' favourite sport..

..that the airy dress code was just practical for a coastal race that fished and farmed for centuries in the hot and humid islands.

Back at the beaches of Australia, they also teem with half nude people who escaped the red desert heat; while here, the country's 7,100 islands were all perimetered by lovely beaches. There's no such thing as inland. Beaches were all around only a few kilometers from one's doorsteps.

The medal of indecency may well fit around the steep and sharp collar of the country's social pyramid. (While on the subject, here's a pyramid pose of a photo with old buddies that met up for the AraulloHi'66 Antipolo Reunion with special guest Heber Bartolome of Banyuhay. April 2008)

The city was made famous by a folksong we sang as kids, Tayo na sa Antipolo! (Let's go to Antipolo!). It didn't change much. The structures and habits were stubbornly intact.

Somehow it was same line of emerald-green trees that guided us in a late 50s family excursions; and if I were to imaginatively put back the traditional elements, like say..that pedicab to be replaced by a carabao sled-cart, the tin rooves by thatched nipa palm leaves and that mobile phone by stationery, then I'm back to my mother's side as she held my hand trudging up Antipolo for mass..

www.davestravelcorner.com/ photos/fruit/

..kasuy, pili nuts, mangga, suman, religious estampitas..

(above; circa late 60s photo sent in by bespectacled Rod Samonte (USA) with fellow artists; Hinulugang Taktak in the bkgd)

..and the Hinulugang Taktak waterfalls. Indeed, I sorely missed the past.

www.pbase.com/ uteh/image/43817704

Each suman I saw was a wrapped anecdote of history. To unravel each was to expose the painful truth.."The past is always a rebuke to the present."

Well? Ola! ..and talking about the ancient past, it was in 1578 that the first Franciscan missionaries arrived in Antipolo where they asked some native guys to help them build a church in Boso-Boso. The great grand children of those first church builders are here with us today, praying to the Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje de Antipolo (Tagalog: "Ang Mahal na Birhen ng Kapayapaan at Mabuting Paglalayag"; "Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage") and perhaps peacefully dreaming of travel and landing a job in Dubai.

Then the Jesuits came and organized the village into a parish in 1591 where they built a chapel at Sitio Sta. Cruz. By 1601 there were some 3,000 Christians in Antipolo.

flickr.com/photos/ 24443965@N08/2937290514/

Soon the peaceful Negrito population dwindled, as they travelled up higher the green mountains.. bitter, scared shirtless and confused.

There was no escape. I looked into the past and acknowledged the passing generation in front of me; and it scared me shirtless of their future prospects. It was the same vague empathy towards the minority tribesmen of ancient Antipolo which had similar predicament back in the 1600s.. cruelly displaced in their own native land.

Hunted, I sought the protective canopy of mental images of childhood Antipolo that fleeted about unseen but were pricking my skin with tactile precision.

Inside me was a running passion to connect to the hive of mental central, to get a ticket and ride the trains of thought that buzzed above. It was singlemindedness on a monorail and an urge to isolate prevailing doctrines that promoted control but ironically bred non-discipline. There were wingless approximations of mutiny which hovered anxiously but not to stray too far away from the hive of network that sheltered and fed them the intoxicating honey of docility..

..so as to sustain their unwritten mission to work hard and take care of the growing larvaes..the next generation of worker bees.

My camera stalked aloof pedestrians that crossed and dodged the rococo-painted jeepneys that enclosed passengers in deep thought..

..and surveyed with gusto stretches of graffiti that "un-defaced" tired, cracked walls that hankered to crumble. The primate in me hungered for more surprises.

The speed of the vehicle varied so I tried to compensate for the shutter lag by shooting ahead in varying split-second increments.

I cried victorious when I hit the target spot on.

Sometimes I didn't look at the digicam's lcd screen at all and just randomly took a series at various angles.

Often I was a clown juggling an acrobat-cam . No film, no worries, so I kept shooting as if my third eye was hardwired to the lens.

Photoshop, our loyal friend helped me saturate the colors of the day, blur the non-dramatic peripherals, sharpen the intriguing warning signs and brighten up unfolding dramas pressed at the core of tedium.

To outsiders perhaps the scenes demonstrated the wretchedness of poor, urban living; where tourists were unable to decode the language of struggle written on the hearts and faces of a nation of people that bore no malice to nature's resources despite a few breaking the laws of human decency.

Men, women and a lot of children nonchalantly trudged along graveled banks edged out by wide concreted rivers that stretched into infinity.

The roads perhaps were naturally compacted by outbound heavily-laden trucks that drained and carried off resources away from Antipolo Hills and beyond. Red and green golf parasols seemed to wave goodbye to trucks that faded away inside the inky fumes of diesel.

Scenes were a clash of ubiquitous signage that warned, promoted political narcissism, sold and repaired car parts and those that directed traffic towards sanity.

Roads were clean but the rules lax.

"Argh, Ricky, you got some laxative bro'?.. ugh..my stomach.."

"Why, was it the cashews?"

"No!" blurted the worried me. I told him I just saw a small motorbike that scooted past us, and it carried five, an infant held in one arm by woman while driver had one child infront of him and one behind the woman. There were two helmets for everyone that only exposed morbid fatalism due to lack.

"Don't worry Kuya (big brother) Edd, it's quite common."

I confessed that I took the sight as obscene for I was genuinely concerned for the safety of those fragile, pillion-riding kids, and I felt forsaken. The compassion begged to register but was ignored as a Manila radio station revved up horrible statistics that two-wheeled transport were most vulnerable on the roads resulting to exposed marrows mixed in with bloodied lives.

I mused, the round concrete casino chips were the hardened but brittle lives thrown in the roulette table in exchange for some paltry economic gain.

What of taxis and buses that loaded and offloaded three-deep to the dismay of yellow-sashed grey ghosts? Welcome to my beloved Manila.

But no matter, it was all admiration from this prodigal visitor as I looked at the photos of electric cables that screenprinted the skies like a barcode..

..and storefronts walled in by plastic crates and drums. Everything afterall is just a facade, for the moments digitally frozen revealed more of the hidden.

The people made do.

They survived the harsh, destitute reality under an awkward and devalued governmental leadership.

No blurry photos shall hide the heroism of a people that struggled for a good, simple yet nourishing life even back before the days of Dr. Jose Rizal, the country's national martyr.

From the cracked, oppressive walls perhaps shall emerge a new wave of idealism that shall engulf the toxicity of dreadful living.

In the blink of an eye, I was back from Antipolo to antipodean Australia jamming with friends (photo: neighbour Jim Paredes on vocals). The transition was surreal.

Life’s a Doodle, Dude

                                                read article relating to image above        

The Gene-isis

Do you doodle? You do? Great! I do, too; and so we do.. and we wonder of its whys and origins.

Primordial doodles perhaps were the impermanent sand drawings made by ghost crabs and by my great, great uncle Hominid; and when the surf was up, the drawings were transferred and redrawn on cave walls; and the crabs got eaten.  Then agriculture was invented, wheat grew..and ET doodles (e.g. crop circles) were born:)

                                  www.gfkovach.net/ Australia/Australia1.html

Eons may have long been gone but what if we looked down thru a biological lens and find the past-time of doodling still well-preserved in our genes or DNAs? I like to think that doodles are visual manifestations of something behavioural and the phenomenon betrayed by a very mobile sperm cell that first etched the fleeting swim paths in the soupy albumen of Life.

Like a simple, animated doodle with own volition and sentient, the spermatozoa’s head was the penhead nib and the tail a hand that steered; and when the tadpole exploded in delight as it victoriously made contact with the huge egg cell of a canvas; the headstrong wild oat (incidentally it's tao if read backwards, meaning human to Filipinos) was instantly rewarded with a chance to evolve into something more complicated yet simply designed, beautiful, magical, interesting and precious. Perhaps a painting.... perhaps a human being.

 (above image) "keeping-in-touch"  doodle I've sent my family in Manila in 1984

Doodles, I might say,  are manifestations of both the conscious and the subconscious mind. They maybe dysfunctional and functional; and could lend well to reverse engineering; like sometimes I doodle for no reason at all and if I like what I saw, I chuck it into the scanner then enhanced in Photoshop. Sometimes the doodle ended up to be a fine reference image for a future painting; or a finished art for framing once printed out on those glossy photopaper or even faux canvas vinyl sheets (Ugh! Hate them, it's aesthetic deceit. I say leave the photo alone as a photo and a painting as a painting; and never the twain shall meet).

                                                                          www.deichmann-photo.com/

(Sorry, I lost the plot there for awhile:) Okay guys, this might need a little eye-rubbing but try to imagine the first doodler pick up a charcoal from last night’s reptilian roast, still drunk with dinopiss, crudely and rudely doodled on the cave wall the next day’s quarry to a very much impressed, excited and unshaven Cro-Magnon hunting mob. Then a few eons later some smarty-pants Neanderthal guy barged in the cave and asked “Ugh-ugh..hey boss, ‘aven’t ya ‘eard of Wacom Cintiq? Snort..ugh-ugh.”

Could it be that the significant, historical past of doodling is the unseen soul of softwares programmed inside all those much- glorified doodle hardware?

Call it a victory for vectors and lossiness for jpegs but we do owe charcoal sticks of the ancient Past and our brains may still be hard-wired to it.

We call professional and clever doodlers craftsmen while some seemingly mock plain doodlers as draftsmen. Drafts, rough studies, doodles, nothing more and some guys believe they can't evolve. Too bad, the latter's belief shall only push our potential talents and capabilities back to the Stone Age.

There's also this perception that artists are born; not made. How wrong! How unfair to judge ourselves in such a simplistic manner. We can make artists of ourselves, no matter the age. Just acknowledging life and love are actually colours that could fill in the voids inside lifeless doodles.

A great majority of us landed on earth with full -growth potential, mind and body; and nobody's going to devolve nor get stuck in idle mode. No such thing. Life is always active, the heart beating even if we're asleep; and the hand doodling even if we don't think about it. It's similar to but not auto-writing. We just enjoy the spontaneity of pen-skating.

No Fine Art involved here,  just a natural thing when trapped by situations; (e.g. time-killing, boredom, hunger, stress, etc.) Doodles are beadless worry beads. Some guys in orange robes might agree with me..when we doodle, we are actually in meditation, even for a brief moment.

Kids' drawings we call doodles because as adults  we perceive their creations as..err..childish. But no matter, their concepts are pure and pristine albeit technically challenged. Their doodles betray their pure desires that are inaccessible due to their age. But the intent is there. Therefore that kid's lopsided house, ovate sun and cars with weird wheels have potentials to become a mansion, a sun accurately drawn with flares and spots, and a nice Foose Chevy, respectively.

 So let the kids in us come out of the closet because..

Even Presidents do!

Take for example that famous Obama doodle (above image) that the media spun as being sold to someone for more than $2,000. Yeah right. Of course it was not about the doodle, it was  the doodler afterall, and the money went to charity while the doodle collector guy had a guilt-free tax deduction. 

Why even a doodle could appear treacherous like this guy who doodled something that looked like a design for an iron gate.  Who did da doodle? (above image;  flip image for answer)

This one (above) by another U.S. president. It looked like a battleship heavy on the waterline. I think it's an overworked doodle. Poor sailors.

                                                       images from www.presidentialdoodles.com/

What about this one (above) by an early American president who probably liked watermelons (refer to mouth and body) and what looked like a crude version of the Roadrunner cartoon (and what a good time for Wile E. Coyote to pounce on its nemesis:)

Make a Living out of Doodling? Mad! (Can we really?)

(Image from this site)

Mad! Remember the magazine? I was a kid fan of this famous American comics, its cultist influence almost evident on my face which slowly began to look like Alfred E. Neuman. I was an angry, pubescent, young man, ready to lose a tooth for the latest imported Mad monthly edition!

Copies were rare but available in Manila, mainly sold as pocketbooks. Tony Bautista, a beloved senior friend, Pasay neighbour and amateur doodler, introduced me to Mad owing to his vast collection. He read them during work breaks inside the Manila Bay Floating Casino where he worked as a card dealer. The diarrheaic Bic ballpoint pen playfully held by his doodling hand was replaced by playing cards.

                                                                                    image from this site    

    A cartographic doodle plan of Old Manila (+ 60's floating casino:)

Tony loved the graveyard shift and wearing his elegant and sleak work uniform--a couple of expensive and finely woven Barong Tagalog! Then boom! He suddenly died of a heart attack. I sobbed for days. I lost an older and favorite friend. Inside, I was fuming mad, angry for the  loss. I've now healed and each time I see a copy of Mad, it wasn't Alfred E.'s face; I missed my funny but soft-spoken friend.. and his crazy doodles.

                photo © BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons

My Pluralistic Namesake:)

One favourite Mad cartoonist was Sergio Aragones, a Spaniard who studied in Mexico, landed in America in 1962 with $20 in his carta y moneda, spoke little English and ached for a cartooning job. He heard of Mad, went to its Madison offices in New York; the editors liked what they saw and he was hired on-the-spot. Que suerte! 

                                                                                              www.collectingfool.com

His silent cartoons were a brilliant idea, no English balloon captions, no dialogues and no full-page drawings were assigned to him (at that time)...perfecto! That way he also avoided hiring translators. Clever Spaniard! He might be first in America (or the world) to make a lucrative profession out of doing little, silly doodles.

                                              www.collectingfool.com

Soon blank white margins and panel dividers of the popular comic pulp became his playground and a new word was coined for his radical creations. Marginals!

This mad blogger posing proud in his equally mad XXL Mad straitjacket (very rare;-)

Truly a bleeding layout yet independent enough not to interfere with the regular comic frames.  What a bold move for Mad editors; and soon enough the page ed had to consider the page edge; while mesmerised young readers began inverting and flipping the magazine to make sense of his drawings. The magazine somehow symbolized free America. If its cheeky brand of humor were to appear in comic stands of non-democratic countries, the editors could easily become desaparicidos overnight.

 Mad cartoonist Sergio Aragones rubbing shoulders with this blogger Aragon;)

Back in 1991, a dream came true. Dios Mio! Como esta Señor Aragones?! He was guest during a gala night organized by the Australian Black & White Artists (cartoonist club) where I was a member.

                   http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Aragon%C3%A9s

The Mad artist defied the straitjacket of a formal occasion, a big guy and muy amicable. I was fortunate to have conversed with my Mad idol (albeit using my crooked Spanish) and to have shaken his legendary doodling hand.

Dengcoy Miel (editorial cartoonist of Singapore Strait Times) with Sergio Aragones (2002, Cancun, Mexico)

I (and Dengcoy) hope to see him again in Manila this October where I'll be one of guest speakers and exhibitors at the First Philippine International Cartoon, Comics and Animation (PICCA) festival. It runs from October 15 to 18, Thursday to Sunday at SM Megamall. Come!

During that time with Sergio, I also met Rolf Harris, a celebrity Australian, also known for his BBC tv portrait painting programs. Recently the ghost crab of his doodling past haunted him again for his controversial lyrics of his popular Aussie song Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport. 

Rolf was sincerely friendly and even drew a caricature of me. What a great guy. (Argh, and now I couldn’t find his drawing..if ever, I shall update this blog entry). 

                            Australian Mad cover by Edd Aragon, 1989

Then Australian Mad was published sometime in 1989. Steve Lopes, then editor invited me to do a cover art for them, lampooning the movie Men In Black (MIB) (above image)

In the early Seventies, my doodles grew up  and became editorial cartoons for our college paper (PCC) under the editorship of Jimmy Flor Cruz (who is now anchorman for CNN’s Beijing Bureau). Doodling earned me an automatic scholarship in college, plus a spare academic one. Perfecto!

Then I animated my doodles for animation projects of Nonoy Marcelo. In '77 and '78 my comic strip doodles were published in major Philippine papers (Phil. Bulletin Today and Phil. Daily Express). 

In the eighties I landed in Australia and quickly found a newspaper doodling job; was given a break by The Australian; then later I moved to The Sydney Morning Herald.

I guess I'll be doodling 'til the day I die. Why, only last night I dreamt I was famous than Jackson Pollock, was big-headed and brandished a squiggly tail!;)

The Singer, Not the Song

Wisconsin Historical Images - Singer Advertising Card - Philippine Islands "Manila" (illustration based on an 1892 photograph)

Vivid! I still remember Mother's first Singer sewing machine in early 50s. Over the open cabinet of the machine she hummed Philippine folksongs; and when cabinet was closed and machine magically hidden, it became a table for her to write stories, poems and prayers. One day the one-toothed ogre caught my thumb, I let out a shriek and mother came to the rescue really worried. It was almost painless yet I was more amused by the crimson drop that slowly spurted out of my thumbnail.

The machine became her life. She patched, hemmed and created dresses for my siblings; and the only thing that worried her was sight of almost-empty wooden thread spools. The empties became wheels for my cardboard cars and airplanes.

Man, I was only about 5 or 6 when I playfully inserted a tennis ball inside the machine's wheel cage; mom was unaware and stepped hard on pedal that spun ball to my delight. Then ..gasp..I was shocked when ball wedged between a spoke and Titanic-kind of a brittle metal cage! It cracked and fell off! Mother turned white and let out a scream that would've blown a hole through ceiling and lifted corrugated iron roofing of our Pasay abode; LOL!)

Then Dad arrived home after a hard day of driving one of Manila's first Mercedes Benz taxi cabs (Manila Golden) and was fuming mad; but Nanay's hug shielded me while she explained to him that it still worked even without the safety cage.

At age 14, after briefly enrolling in a community tailoring course, I've sewn my first pair of pants. It wasn't easy but I felt like an engineer who stood on the edge of a just-finished Hoover Dam:)

However my romance with a flat, waxy, orange chalk that I used to draw patterns on cheap denim cloth ended as I thought there wasn't enough challenge in it; and I drifted to drawing comics. There was this eerie similarity in clothesmaking and drawing amateur comics. The principles that governed the elements that made storytelling flow smoothly and effectively remained the same.The intent, the yarn, patterns, colours, padding, anxiety, drama, texture, design, stitching and sometimes reverse engineering--it was delightfully visual but often cruelly formatted ; like a tight pair of jeans worn after a long winter hibernation; an anecdote I could wear but without busting the top waist button:).

In the 60's our eldest sister found office work at Singer in Port Area, Manila.

Ok Singer, let's call it quits;). Image above (Mother's First Singer) is one of new merbau experimental painting series I've been drawing from memory for the past year. Nowhere in my web search have I found anybody seriously using merbau (a natural, transluscent stain derived from merbau trees, (also called Ipil or Taal in the Philippines) as medium for painting due to the fact that merbau is only produced commercially to stain wooden furniture. Thus I believe I'm first to try this. It was very frustrating at first for it took me 8 layers to darken areas. It's like working on watercolours, although much more unpredictable. This natural stain is brilliant as it shows unique golden hues and streak when dry, unmatched by any polyemer or acrylic paint.

(Singer Sewing Machine photos from my web search)

more info here about top image

We Are the World (sniff:(

Saw off CNN the beautiful memorial service for Michael Jackson. I was moved by Jermaine, him almost breaking up with his bold rendition of such a delicate song by Charlie Chaplin for dearest brother.

Here's my humble tribute to the Man (above). Rest In Peace MJ.

The Adobo Scandal

Forget those video sex scandals, here's one that should need a Philippine Senate hearing:) and could make Mama Sita and Knorr squirm in horror.

Filipinos have cooked Adobo for more than three centuries and the dish has became globally popular through our hard-working Pinoy immigrants and overseas workers. As a matter of fact the dish (or the sauce) is now a highly commercialized and lucrative business earning motherland millions of pesos exporting canned Adobo-laced morsels and snacks.

But why on earth would a Filipino restaurateur in Sydney label the obviously Philippine National Dish something else?

It all started when a friend/cooking columnist recently reported in a local press group that she discovered in Stanmore (suburb east of Sydney) a Filipino restaurant (the name of which nary gives away the cultural background of the owner) that served Adobo but had labeled it as Pork In Soy Sauce! Asked why, he said it was for marketing purposes.

Here was my response to the group thread. You be the judge whether I'm just blowing it up and getting hyper-ventilated:) Well it really did touch a raw (rather cooked)nerve. My gastronomic tendons stretched tight upon learning of this cultural culinary slack right under our noses:

-----

Excerpt from friend's email:
...."Just heard that there is a Filipino in Stanmore who owns a restaurant and serves ADOBO in the menu BUT calls it PORK IN SOY SAUCE. Asked why not use the word ADOBO. Answer is for MARKETING purpose kuno. How sad!"...

..and here's my knee-jerk email response:

.."Sad indeed about adobo being cooked and sold as a generic cuisine.
I really take it as an insult to all Australians of Filipino lineage especially when the culprits are
Filipinos themselves. How dare them cook something they owed our Spanish-influenced culinary tradition and not name it as such. 333 years written off by a generic label when a simple closed bracketed translation under the label adobo would have sufficed.

Of course, consumers have the right to know what they put in their mouths thus the need for description of what could be exotic dishes to them. Aussies don't go inside Filipino restaurants to eat Black Stump t-bones, do they?

Philippine Adobo (as different from the South American or Chinese varieties; e.g. above image:) is uniquely Filipino-styled from the Spanish adobado and to generically label it as pork with soy sauce trivializes the legacy of our cooking skills, the recipe, timing, amount of garlic, vinegar, salt, etc.

My oh my, a teaspoonful of soy sauce doesn't make the dish at all! (some don't even use toyo or soya sauce). May i ask, have we seen Italians sell pizza in this country labeling it as flat, round bread with a variety of toppings?

OMG, sino ba nagpapasok sa mga pinoy na iyan dito?! To translate: DKP (Diyos Ko Po), who let those Filipinos in? Har-har wonder if this adobo scandal shall intrigue Balitang Australia, Adobo Nation, Philippine news sites and blogs;-)

Hey Stanmore, wake up, grow up and boycott that joint before they label our sisig as chop-chop and kare-kare as oxtail & tripe swimming in peanut butter. Oh how I wish that Filipino restaurants in Sydney become successful and not even one of them mentally blacklisted or avoided by the community because of misguided labeling. It's never too late to correct mistakes.

Mabuhay ang Adobo, mabuhay ang mga lutuing Pinoy! (Long Live Adobo, long live Filipino cuisine!)

Here's a quick ditty I wrote to give you an idea of the name of that Filipino shop:)

Holy Mollie!
Cuddle me pink,
Owner is pork king
or the missing link:)

Enjoy Adobo everyone. Learn to cook (YouTube how-to's below) and relish the Philippine National Dish (without getting any heart trouble. Just make sure to exercise and knock off those extra cholesterol (which are naturally-occuring in our body anyway).

I can smell the garlic! Here's charming Travis with his Adobong Mah-nack;-)

Here's a brief history of adobo.

Sarimanok on Terra Australis

What's this Manok (chicken) thing with the brothers Roces? First, there's older Alejandro with his book Something to Crow About ( which then became a critically-acclaimed theatrical play); while our younger Alfredo (aka Ding) installed (with the help of Fil-Aus community) a giant Sarimanok  proudly cocked side-by-side with The Rainbow Serpent designed by Australian-Aboriginal artist Kevin Duncan. The Land Art could be seen and  best appreciated  from above an aircraft or balloon. (or maybe a kite-cam above it?:)

Man I guess has a natural fascination of things flying, from a pterodactyl to UFOs. We do get a buzz from time to time. Wonder if an ancient Maranao man while drinking from a primeval stream witnessed an eagle catch a fish with a single swoop. Sarimanok told tales even before an Islamic legend where Muhammad found a rooster in the first of the seven heavens.

In a single swoop Terrigal was right on the doorsteps of Ding. The fish was incredibly too heavy a load for an eagle-eyed me. It was a big project (involving installation of landscaping materials) first appointed (rather proposed:) to this cane-using, sprain/tendonitis/gout-incapacitated blogger but offer was politely declined due to busy preparations for an overseas exhibit; (and obviously the inability to walk and concentrate whilst tortured by pain). And what would have I done if I ever did accept the project? I don't think the community would like it (proposed image below:)

   Sari-Manic (Edd's Pain Art sponsored over-the-counter by Voltaren;-)

I often add "t"  to end the word pain; it seems painting was my only way to increase threshold and thus save my precious kidney from those helpful but nasty painkillers (tho' a little, sweetly pink Voltaren tablet was heaven-sent for moi to enjoy a 60th bash sans an indiscreet limp).

 Participants in the early morning opening of Land Art 2009

Ding obviously came to mind as best guy to represent our charming Filipino-Australian community tho' I had early apprehensions that passing the ball  might be perceived by him in a different manner.

                                                 Terrigal Beach, Gosford

But then no, he got excited as my partner broke him the news. 

      Mr. Roces hard at work to the disappointment of fans of crop circles:)

Thank God the man had an old, noble dream and the universe conspired to have him standing during the wee hours of a damp morning in a beach town called Terrigal. 

   Violi Calvert, one active community leader in front of the huge artwork

Ding drew his first Sari-Manok 50 years ago as a front cover on an Australian magazine (at the time when he hasn't even migrated to Australia yet.) Then this opportunity came to have it drawn once more proved irresistible.

                                        Kevin Duncan during the opening ritual

The Sari-Manok has risen again like a Phoenix out of the ashes of cultural obscurity. This time our Southern Philippine brothers (particularly the Maranao) have somehow magically connected to another race of ancient people farther south, Terra Australis, where the Southern Cross stars reign supreme.

Ding and Kevin, inside the serpent's head.

Ah, the romantic splendour of the seduction of the Sarimanok by the Rainbow Serpent shall now be forever part of the myths surrounding two mythical creatures of the South.

  The CCP logo (as originally designed by Ding Roces in the late 60's)

Ding is no amateur designer; how many of us know that he designed the logo of the Cultural Centre of the Philippines? (It was commissioned by Mrs. Imelda Marcos but credit was never given much to the artist! OMG, pati logo natangay!:) 

    Irene Roces made over for the opening ritual.

Earlier I warned Ding (while doing the design he kept secret;) about the possible danger, composition-wise, of the Sarimanok being swallowed by Kevin's Rainbow Serpent! Indeed he made sure it didn't afterall.

It was an early morning ritual of an opening I missed but then news and photos trickled in my Gmail inbox. Ding announced kinda excitedly:

"It was raining most of the time but it was a truly fabulous day! We started at six with the moon still hanging in the sky on the Skillion and ended late afternoon exhausted but exhilarated with the pounding of dozens of drums at the beach in Terrigal.Wow! Magic! Being alive! Wish you had all been there." 

Follow this link to read first-person account by artist himself:

http://alfredo-roces.blogspot.com/

Photo Credits: Mario Aldeguer, Jimmy Pimentel, Violi Calvert & Alfredo Roces 

If you're still with me, here was an article published in a magazine just before the opening last Saturday, 20th of June.

Five Lands Walk to unite Gavi and Ding
9/06/2009 4:00:00 AM COASTING MAGAZINE

PREPARATIONS are in full swing for the 2009 Five Lands Walk from MacMasters Beach to Terrigal later this month, where a Central Coast minority culture will be featured for the first time. 

The walk will see diverse cultures come together on Saturday, June 20, from 5am. 
For the first time the event will showcase the contribution and influence of the Filipino culture a minority culture on the Central Coast. This involvement will be highlighted throughout the day's activities. 

In a unique arrangement, local Aboriginal artist Kevin 'Gavi' Duncan will be joined by Filipino artist Alfredo 'Ding' Roces to feature an artistic collaboration as the event's land art centrepiece at The Skillion, Terrigal. 

The collaboration will feature the sari-manok bird. To the lake dwelling Maranao in Southern Philippines, the sari-manok is a mythical bird; a messenger of the gods. The colourful magical bird (known as a kingfisher to some) sometimes grasps a fish in its claws. The fish conveys the message of love, good fortune and prosperity. 
Celebrated artist from the Gomilaroi people, Kevin Duncan, is excited to create a collaboration that is reflective of the two identities. 

"Alfredo Roce's sari-manok and his traditional Filipino interpretation of the mythical bird being a messenger of the Gods inspired my traditional Aboriginal interpretation of Gurrea, the Rainbow Serpent,"Mr Duncan said. 

"She too is regarded as a mythical creature and messenger in Aboriginal Lore and Creation. 
"There are many connections between the Indigenous Filipino deity and Aboriginal deity in the spirit world as Bathala and Bayami both Gods being responsible for the interaction with the sari-manok and Gurrea in the creation of man and woman," Mr Duncan said. 

Co-collaborator Alfredo 'Ding' Roces, has had more than 20 one-man shows, received numerous accolades, worked as a journalist for the Manila Times and is now an award-winning freelance art writer. 

The renowned Filipino artist is also passionate about the opportunity to be involved in the project. 

"It is a great honour and privilege to work with Aboriginal artist Gavi Duncan while also representing the Filipino community with this sari-manok artwork," Mr Roces said. 
In addition to the land art installation, the event will feature a kite flying demonstration, musical performances and dances by members of the Filipino community. 

The Five Lands Walk is an initiative of Gosford City Council and developed with community organisations and local Aboriginal people. 

It is a cultural, physical and spiritual journey comprising a 9km walk through the five lands: Macmasters Beach, Copacabana, Avoca Beach, North Avoca and Terrigal. 

It is also seen as a means of preserving and appreciating the unique heritage of the Gosford City region and its people. 

For more information on the Five Lands Walk go to: www.gosford.nsw.gov.au 
 

Criselda

Criselda is a beautiful 21-y.o. Filipino-Australian.  She visited my studio yesterday with her parents and patiently posed for a canvas painting.

Her gentle face etched deep on every brush stroke.


A picture of reflection and serenity everytime I look at her, as she radiated an aura of wisdom despite her youth. It seemed every picture taken is already a painting. Truly a painter's delight!

Took the photos for further studio work and I'm hoping to include the painting in process in a future exhibit.

--

A few days after Criselda's pose, I've finished an initial acrylic study (inspired by a nagging pain in my right ankle). Here are some photos taken by partner.

Degas muna! (Hang on, Degas!)

Ding Roces and I were just about to take a photo of Degas' little ballerinas when the guard (who looked Pinoy) seemed to tell me with a Taser-arresting look "Dega' muna pare, bawal magkodak dito" (hang on mate, no snapshots allowed here). But instead he smiled when I asked if we could and said "Thanks for asking anyway but we do apologise; we used to allow it but now with high resolution digital cameras, y'know..please enjoy  Degas." Ding, Mario Aldeguer and I looked at each other puzzled. What are we going to do with these light but bulky cameras we brought specifically to shoot Degas? Sacre bleu how on earth can i blog Degas without images of his exhibited works?

I looked around..aha! There lied the answer on the west wing of the gallery- The Degas merchandise shop!. Still no photography allowed here tho' Mario and I were able to sneak some in the foyer.

On sale with Degas theme were French-striped folding chairs and shirts (more of Monet painting elements tho), books, posters, bookmarkers and POSTCARDS (way to go captain obvious, they're hot sellers in camera-unfriendly galleries ;).



So here are scanned Degas postcards I bought from the NGA shop (all across this blog entry) courtesy of my feisty scanner to compensate for the photo eclipse in the National Gallery of Australia (C'mon guys, you must allow photography! It's good for tourism, it promotes your artists (dead or alive). Can you imagine my souveneir photo of my visit in Paris without the Eiffel crane in the background? Inimaginable!

What about those commercial spy cameras that can be hidden in eyeglasses, neckties or in my dentures (like I can snap a picture everytime I smile:). So are you thinking of frisking everyone? That would be such a turn-off!

So I tell you forbidding photography in your gallery is quite futile. Didn't you know that Google Images can regurgitate most of Degas' works in good print resolution? So what's the big deal?

People come to galleries to see the paintings and harmless snapshots shouldn't be of much concern. Gatekeepers of the arts must not stifle the public's natural behaviour to record events! It's the same desire that also compelled Degas to use a camera, albeit using a pinhole. Nevertheless we witnessed Degas' photographic works, his subjects often his friends (including sculptor Auguste Rodin!) However If I were to grade his photographic works I shall fail him! LOL! The shadows were too dark, the poses were rigid, the lighting was hopeless and my phone camera can do a better job (just kidding!:) Of course during his era his works were considered awesome! But did it bother him that one day the camera shall render his paintings obsolete? No, and that's why his paintings still tour the  globe for his fans to hold on for inspiration.



Can't help but agree that tourists look better with a big Degas painting in the background:) I guess NGA should be more worried about theft and so they should focus more on their security cameras and not the public's! People's snapshots are poor copies of the genuine. Humanity always find a way to copy or record reality using the best technology of the time. And that's why Nokia installed cameras in mobile phones. Heh-heh take a hint gallery people, to succeed in business, you should know what people want. Why even Degas said:

C'est très bien de copier ce qu'on voit, c'est beaucoup mieux de dessiner ce que l'on ne voit plus que dans son mémoire. C'est une transformation pendant laquelle l'ingéniosité collabore avec la mémoire. Vous ne reproduisez que ce qui vous a frappé, c'est-à-dire le nécessaire. 
Meaning: It is very good to copy what one sees; it is much better to draw what you can't see any more but is in your memory. It is a transformation in which imagination and memory work together. You only reproduce what struck you, that is to say the necessary.
(Quoted in Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979)


Well  Degas' images did  strike me and urge me to reproduce  the necessary using a scanner:)

We left Sydney early in the morning and with the skillful driving of Mario it took only a little less than 3 hours to see the welcome sign of Canberra. Lene, his wife, held a GPS and so losing our way in a remote place was quite remote. It was a smooth drive inside an almost new Toyota Tarago (Australian aboriginal word for country) hired for the six of us, seven if Jim Paredes was able to come (busy with Jon Santos' April show in Sydney).

First to intrigue visitors is a metallic sculpture  (above image) with random shapes welded together to form a globe. It hung  above the facade of the NGA with thin wires and was a meshwork of art made more intriguing by the intrusion of a bird's nest. It looked symbolic as an editorial cartoon floating in the sky, the statement something like man and nature can co-exist.

A group of excited schoolchildren went past before me like a moving curtain to reveal the horse racing images of Degas. I was taken back in time. I was looking at the primordial images of horse racing. The ancestral Phar Laps of an ancient Melbourne Cup were all in detail. Did you know one goes inside and become part of a painting to appreciate it? Ding had keenly observed the works and discussed the deliberate cropping of his painting composition, like half a human image here and half a horsecarriage there. It's like him saying "Hey I need not paint the whole potato if you know part of it is a potato!" Fair enough I thought. Indeed the master was an experimentalist, a shaker for change.

But where are the people? Street scenes with two or three pedestrians on the road seemed common. It was a sunny Thursday (usually payday) afternoon and it's the city's rush hour!:) I stuck out my head outside the vehicle and addressed the grey buildings and empty streets with a muffled scream: Wake up Canberra! It's recession, not hibernation!

Lemon grass is good! Tanlad in Filipino, it's a common ingredient of Thai cuisine. Earlier I showed Irene (Ding's green-thumbed wife) my little pot of lemon grass growing in my garden near a saba banana tree which they gifted me last year. Lemon Grass is also the name of a Thai restaurant in middle of Canberra's CBD. After seeing the exhibit courtesy of some generous souls who held concession tickets, we walked around and scanned the restaurant block. Somewhat like a Russian roulette we found ourselves sat inside this Thai restaurant that looked more like a British pub. It must be the tanlad's residual image in our mind that ushered us in.

Pud Thai and satay woke up my restless taste buds with a series of delicious explosions of spicy flavours downed by an ice-cold favourite cola. The stained-glass windows filtered the Degas skies and caressed the glassware on our table. That red pepper garnished on garlic rice reminded me of the bright red ribbons of Degas' ballet dancers.



Later we split the bill but my Menchay was worried about a possible anomaly while she calculated mentally our total bill. After much apology the cashier returned some money for charging us double for my Pud Thai (I murmured "Satay-faction guaranteed pero pudthai kang bata ka!" Now how do you translate that? How about: "That's how to make a killing, kid!":)

Radyo, TV at mga Lumang Komiks

Can you identify these caricatures I made of Filipino singers who visited Sydney? (top image)

Back in the 80's the Filipino community in Australia was high on imported Filipino talents. Pilita, Reycard duet, Willie Nepomuceno and many more came to visit us. It was a period before FaceBook  and text messaging, when people eyeballed (met eye-to-eye) to get updated with gossip and business deals. Email at that time referred to a company in Australia that manufactured white goods.

Pinoys often went out at night to have fun (e.g. Manila Disco at Kings Cross) or play poker machines in RSL clubs after dining at Intramuros, Lambat or that  chinoy Vicente's Philippine Restaurant at Elizabeth St near the Philippine Consulate.

Sometimes these nocturnal trysts ended with Leggo parties using mahjong tiles.The Pinoy community became a beggar for fun due to rarity of traditional Manila "gimmicks". 

Homesickness as usual assaulted the psyche of Sydney Pinoys and so alert producers went all out to bring in entertainment.  Why I even joined the fray, aesthetically-speaking, for I designed a few stage sets for them and sometimes drew caricatures of talents then projected onto big  screens.

"Radyo, TV at mga lumang komiks, wala nang ibang mapaglibangan..." goes the classic song by APO Hiking Society (Pumapatak Na Naman ang Ulan; translation: here comes the rain again..yet the Eurythmics wasn't born yet.



No doubt concert tickets were sold out as the thirst for adrenaline was sated by  imported Pinoy talents.

Back then I also drew comics for some local Filipino-Australian newspapers. Here's one I did in 1985. I love doing comics. It was another branch of expression for me to tell stories about life in Sydney where I often lampooned entertainment events.

Not sure if these images were included in my early Jep book published that same year for I can't find my last copy of Jep, Ang Pinoy sa Ostrelya! Am thinking of reprinting and include many other unpublished Jep material.

 The original drawing is already yellowing and so I was compelled to scan and save the image digitally before it deteriorated like an ancient papyrus.



After scanning I brought it to PhotoShop where I cleaned and tinted it with light colours (I'd have it printed in color but comics only became black and white out of frugality (because the printers charge too much on colored works). Now our monitors and home printers don't care much about colors or neutral grey. I also retyped some handwritten script using Comics Sans font.

(I've subdivided the boxed strip into grouped and individual frames to fit format of this blog entry)

During a recession people don't want to spend, so naturally they go back to basics including inexpensive fun.


Why, only the other day I was in an art supply store in Westfield, Blacktown and the girl (after I commented that it seemed I'm the only person buying paint in her store while everyone else are doing digital art), said that au contraire, people are going back to painting after losing their jobs (employment in Australia about to hit the bell at 7 %). Now I'm not sure if I should be glad or not:)

Some of my Jep characters might snort upon Pinoy entertainers like these guys in this video (below) but then we're all homesick for the 70's!;-) Might as well enjoy life of a meat today and sandwich it between top half bread of tomorrow and bottom half of the past. Enjoy our recession-hit pan de sal sandwich.

Jon Santos Faces Sydney

Caricature of Jon (above) where I used a ballpoint pen, scanned and brought to PhotoShop.

Apo Jim Paredes, friend and neighbour excitedly broke the news.

-Hey Edd, I’m bringing Jon Santos to Sydney! He’s good! Really good!

-Good on yer Jim, that’s awesome!

Being such a good neighbour like Jim, we’ll help spread the word to welcome to Sydney impersonator-comedian Jon Santos, who, I confess, I’m not too familiar with. But I trust Jim...and his daughter Ala who saw Jon live in Manila and really loved it. They need not convince me for I trust the taste of creative people... : )

For us who haven’t seen Jon live on stage, aren’t we jealous yet, fellow Pinoy Sydneysiders? This time Jim’s Handog is specifically for our Fil-Aus community. Point is, good entertainment for homesick Pinoys is a rare gift, quality of which enhanced by rare and gifted entertainers who come to Sydney.

I’ve spent half of my life in Australia and I can’t help but be cynical when the little imp in me murmurs “It’s about time our mutilated, Van Gogh-eared community is weaned away from professional “karaokists” (it’s just mic abuse:-) and beat up themes of a stand-up faux pax pugilist. And don’t you poke your wang at me nor laugh if I define ai-ai as a pair of three-toed sloths. There were times I couldn’t escape from a fine-woven straitjacket of mediocrity if I had to watch another Pinoy comedian do a clinical, chocolate-covered, nightsoil humour.

One need not be a sociologist to acknowledge that a community’s evolution relies on the community’s perceived intelligence, hence it’s a two-way affair. It would have been funnier if we were still in the days of Charlie Chaplin when we could slap the stick on ourselves and roar out laughing (and they called it the Silent Movies!).



I love impersonators. Don’t we? Why is that? Well I think our brains were trained early to identify familiar people (along with objects; e.g. props) and if our grey matter are able to polarize all the information presented to us by the mimic aka impersonator and then we’re taken hook, line and sinker; then we think it’s funny. We laugh at ourselves as we vicariously connect and adore the performer who has perfected his craft, a fine art of fleeting camouflage. Reality takes a beating from clever people! It’s like a magic performance; the miracle of transformation that catches our attention; and like a trompe l’oeil (trick-of-the-eye) painting, it’s the seeming realism of the illusion that gives us joy.



Since the seventies Filipinos had a few, good impersonators. Well there’s good, ol’ Willie Nepumoceno who had performed in Australia a number of times, and Gary Bautista who for me is just a blur owing to my exodus to Australia, where impersonators like Sir Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna Everage) are endemic. Comedy as social phenomenon is universal..err..more of global, but it could only effectively serve well local humor for culture and language vary.

Wonder how hard it is to be an impersonator and be funny. Have you tried impersonating your teacher in high school? Did you get a good score from your schoolmates? I tried in my younger days but I didn’t think I had the courage to stand up on stage and make people laugh as a mimic. ..and that’s why I chose to do comic strips for newspapers instead. So how hard is the process of impersonation and trying to make people laugh?



What if they don’t buy your joke? What if they throw their shoes at me? Unimaginable! So let’s just leave it to the professionals and ask Jon about it before he lands in Sydney this April.

EA: 19 years you’ve been making people laugh! Is it hard?

JS: Anyone who has attempted to do professional comedy will tell you it is harder than drama, action, horror, or any other entertainment expression. Woody Allen called comedy ‘tragedy plus time’. An Italian saying claimed, people laughed ‘so they wouldn’t have to cry’. The paradox is that comedy is almost always about pain. On the physical side, one immediately notices 19 years worth of ‘stress lines’ on my face, as this particular ‘branch’ of comedy is dependent on so much make-up and sometimes prosthetics. Next to them, though, are ‘laugh lines” . The work is intensely rewarding as it is tough.

EA: I learned you worked with Willie Nepomuceno before (this author’s friend and colleague in the student movement against the Marcos dictatorship). How was it?
JS: Willie Nepomuceno is a legend in a way that I can only dream. I was lucky to belong to the last post-Marcos socio-political stand-up generation spawned by Willie and Tessie Tomas. After us came the Comedy Club batch. And the local comedy generations continue in ever-changing ways.

EA: Do Filipinos mock or love Filipino stereotyped personalities you might be prone to lampoon?

JS: As oxygen is to combustion, comedy can never happen without love. It is simply impossible to make people laugh on the basis of pure bile. Even in the darkest of Marcos underground comedy, it was never about condemning them as much as it was about exposing their folly to the light, to diminish its power. Nowadays, comedy club ad-libs seem to focus on deriving punch lines from the audience, but it serves its live audience well. Imagine, after a whole workday of political correctness, and sucking-it-all-in, at least everyone gets to laugh, at themselves, and with each other, without restraint.

EA: What type of audience challenges you? (e.g. insular or insolent?:)

JS: All audiences are equally, if not unpredictably, challenging. Sometimes I can have worse jitters tickling salesmen than presidents. The insolent customer is just as dissatisfied as the insular customer, and the challenge to the performer is to think quickly, and, with everything he’s got, work on restoring that connection.

EA: Stand-up comedy is quite a fearsome career. I admire your courage. Were you born or made?

JS: The unthreatening face with genes of expressiveness, the good memory, verbal speed – definitely born with it. But the rest: The childhood pains that drove one to compensate through laughter, the effort to sponge up all comic devices and styles by working with the best mentors– definitely made. But the fact that one survives, one does not faint or crumble in front of a grim crowd, the laughter and applause – miracle, pure miracle.

EA: How can humour contribute to society’s ills?

JS: Mitch (a lot of people remember her as Maya) Valdes, a colleague I truly admire, believes that the Pinoy humour saves us from killing ourselves, and each other. The Pinoy comic has also been compared with the boy in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ – the one who says what we all really want to say, but couldn’t, because we, as a people, are very non-confrontational by nature. I have to verify if we really do have low suicide rates, but one thing’s for sure- we are the best looking Asians. Many believe that it’s a double-edged-sword-situation, though. Our propensity for using laughter as relief , as escape, prevents us from acting on our country’s problems.

EA: Gender preference is not an issue, but does it play a significant part in your performance?

JS: Everything that can be an issue plays a part in a comic performance. Laughter is a reaction to the absurd, the uncomfortable, the taboo, the things that may not be spoken. A laughing man is the universal metaphor for subversion.

EA: What makes you happy and at peace?

JS: Whew! At last, a question that I did not have to sweat for. Of course, family, friends, love and what else, laughter!

EA: What do Filipino-Australians like me expect to remember after watching a night of your performance?

JS: You mean, aside from remembering to invite me again? Seriously, rather than remember, I rather you forget. I hope you forget for a while the tough times we are experiencing. Forget for a moment that some of you may be far from home and family. Or that it had been a rough day, week or year. Forget awhile, and laugh. Laugh out loud , but better yet, laugh quietly from the heart. And afterwards, remember that life is beautiful.



EA: Any kind words for (them) us?

JS: In our heart of hearts, we are all Pinoys. Kami ay panauhin ninyo at may utang na loob sa inyo na na- anyaya sa amin. We are honored to be standing in front of you and be accorded the attention. Even greater honor is the fact that we are performing to the modern heroes of our country, keeping our country vibrant with your spirit of enterprise, your hard work and your courage, bringing the Philippines to another spot on the globe, staking your claim for us Filipinos. I can only speak with admiration for you guys.

EA: Salamat Jon. Looking forward to see you in Sydney!

JS: Salamat din. See you all.
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More about Jon (from the net)
“Nineteen years ago, Tessie Tomas was invited as guest speaker for Jon’s Junior Marketing Association in UP. He went up for an autograph and upon the cajoling of friends, impersonated the master impersonator herself. Entertained, Tessie invited him to join her group.

He had just accepted a teaching post (Economics. Yikes!), when, again, Tessie urged him to try the comic circuit for a year, and he never stopped. He has since campaigned with Ralph Recto for Ate Vi, exchanged small talk with former president Fidel Ramos over cigars, made Charo Santos realize that having been impersonated by Jon, She Has Arrived. And after doing countless personalities, Jon Santos has been busy more often as himself, setting up a little bed and breakfast on Boracay Island and taking his “characters” along with him for special comedy shows abroad.

In the Philippine scene, nobody is anybody until he or she is done by Jon Santos. Having perfected the art of costume and make-up, Jon becomes the person; a better version in fact, because it’s a much, much funnier version. Even bureaucratic bores who somehow land on the news become hilarious, endearing creatures in the hands of Jon Santos (Actually, in the hands, face, body and voice of Jon). So just think what a riot he creates with the already colourful or absurd……

Jon has been impersonating and imitating people for nineteen (19) years now. His material thrives on who’s hot at the moment, but some of his best-loved characters are the classics: “Ate Vi”, “Basana Roces”, “Armida Sigyon-Makareyna”, “Sherap Espada (& his wife, “Sen. Lhoy”) Shawie”, “Bro. Mike Volare”, “Tita Kory”, “Sen. Juan Flavor”, “Sen. Meeryam”, “Pres. Gloring”, “Krissy Anino”, “Ara”, “Joyce”, “Mawee Tailor-ing” and the latest addition to the repertoire, “Okrah Weenfree”.



But these are samples of Jon on paper – and don’t even capture half the adlibs, the brilliant spur-of-the-moment remarks that add tons to the character that he is at the moment. We don’t see the costume, the make-up nor hear the voice and the delivery that keep audiences laughing for 30 or so minutes non-stop. As they say, everybody in the Philippines is a comedian.”
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HA-NEP! (Check out my interview with Willie Nepomuceno)

Album Covered

Photo update! Hey guys, check out readers' contributions at the end of this blog entry. Show us your vinyls and we'll tell you who you are! (i.e. Music lovers are beautiful people!:)



Claro of our Banggaan art group sent us an email showing various photographs of people cleverly holding cover albums of their favourite old, vinyl records. The idea tho' old as the records themselves, was fun; and if you still have them unsold at eBay, why not ask a friend to take snapshots of you cleverly holding those treasured albums?

Here are some old ones pulled out from my baul! (top image) I was hamming it up with joy when my partner agreed to take photos below.


Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, CBS 1962



Bob Marley and the Wailers, Catch A Fire, 1973 Island Records



Santana, Santana's Greatest Hits, 1974 CBS



Sly Dunbar, Simple Sly Man, 1974 Virgin Records


John Lennon & Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, 1971 Ono Music

Okay, have fun. Send me those album photos (not photo albums:) all right guys?

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Here's from Dennis M. of OzPinoyRock yahoogroup. Thanks bud, keep rockin'!




--
Now here's from Banggaan artist Rod Samonte of Hollywood, California.He took all day shooting these photos. Thanks Rod.

Fleetwood Mac


Barry Manilow, One Voice


Ringo Starr, Rotogravure

Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers

The Beatles


Pilita rocks and contorts!:) She was front act of The Beatles' Manila concert at the Rizal Memorial Stadium in 1966.

--

Now here's from Claro Cortes IV whose email lit the fire for this album cover fad. I think the idea has a sense of a Magritte painting (e.g. top images). The illusion is unpretentious yet intriguing.

These covers (below) are cd's (photos by Claro's kid). Nevertheless we'll take exception for they are versions of the original vinyl albums. Thanks guys!


Chico Hamilton, The Dealer



Bob Marley, Legend


Bob Dylan, Tell Tale Signs


Bob Dylan, Completely Unplugged

Goodbye Rock Goddess

"She figures as one of the most important female musicians in our local industry, having worked with such bands as Tropical Depression, Electrikoolaid, and Analog. More than that, she is a great inspiration to many people, because she lives her life with such vigor and intensity, doing her best in everything that she does, be it as a focused, hard-working writer and editor, or as a dedicated mother to young 12-year-old Mischaela, or as a dutiful daughter and sister, or as an absolute whiz in the kitchen, or as a caring, loving friend..." - from a FB online support group for Anabel while she was undergoing brain surgery.

Frozen moments (in May last year at the Oarhouse in Manila) with Anabel Bosch who passed away at 4:30 a.m. today, 11th of January of this New Year.

May She Rest in Peace.

Anabel's blog: http://dizzychick76.multiply.com/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42910948527&ref=nf

Rock for Anabel!

Guys, here's some info from FaceBook about various fundraising gigs for Anabel:

From Marlies, via SMS, at 4:30 A.M. on January 11:



Anabel has chosen to rest now. 

Details of her wake are being discussed, and once they have been finalized they will be posted here. Thank you for keeping her in your thoughts and prayers. 

Update as of 13th Jan.

WAKE DETAILS

You may pay your respects to Anabel and her family during the wake at the Bosch family compound at 350 Protacio St., Lemuria Compound, Pasay City. On the ninth day of the wake, January 19, there will be a final mass for Anabel. Once details of this have been finalized, we will post them here.


From Katrina:

I'd like to ask you all to PLEASE ATTEND AS MANY BENEFIT GIGS AS YOU CAN. Whatever happens, we will push through with them all. The family badly needs financial support for the escalating medical bills. And, if there's anything left over, it will go towards Mishka's scholarship fund.

...so please check the gig sched on this site, then head over to the different venues, and have fun with the terrific lineup of bands! Just make sure you take a photo of yourself in a way that makes it clear you were at the right venues on the right dates, and show proof that you've somehow spread the word on the gigs. Let's Rock Bosch!

GIGS! GIGS! GIGS! (as of 1:39 AM January 9)

Bands and musicians are welcome to perform at any or all of these gigs, and the many other fundraising events that are to follow. Please email the corresponding contact persons for these gigs. 

If you would like to help set up another benefit show for Anabel, please email Isabelle Ramos at isabelle.ramos@gmail.com or PM her on Multiply (http://isabetlog.multiply.com).

3 Jan, Saturday - BIG SKY MIND
The Dawn, Cambio, Chillitees, Peryodiko + more!
9.30pm, P100 entrance
contact gang@rockedphilippines.org

7 Jan, Wednesday - Mag:Net HIGH STREET
Tropical Depression, Cocojam, Coffeebreak Island, Hinlalato + more!

9 Jan, Friday - SAGUIJO
Sandwich, Pupil, Itchyworms, Sugarfree, South Superhighway, Top Junk + tarot readings by Karen K. + more!
9.30pm, entrance P100
contact gang@rockedphilippines.org

9 Jan, Friday - CHECKPOINT, Bicutan
Playphonics, Kjwan, DRT, Razorback
9 pm, P200 Entrance

9 Jan, Friday - TEN 02
Noel Cabangon - Johnny Alegre (Affinity), Akasha (Mar Dizon, Henry K., Dave Harder), Lynn Sherman and Skarlet, Balooze (Ricky Gonzalez’s jazz quartet), Corporate Lo Fi, Helen, Reklamo, Color It Red, Ms. Emee Fortuno (wife of the legendary Ed “Bosyo” Fortuno)
contact wamjammin@yahoo.com



10 Jan, Saturday - HOBBIT HOUSE
http://www.hobbithousemanila.com
Jook Jam (feat. Delta Slim), Blue Jean Junkies, Blue Rats, the Jerks, K.O. Jones, Coco Jam & MISHKA BOSCH
8 pm, P300 entrance
contact apa.ongpin@gmail.com


11 Jan, Sunday - 19 EAST, Sukat
Playphonics, Wally Gonzales, Kjwan, DRT, Razorback
8 pm

14 Jan, Wednesday - TEN 02
Classic Rock Night for Anabel
DRT, Kjwan, The Dawn(tentative), Playphonics and Razorback
contact wamjammin@yahoo.com

15 Jan, Thursday - TEN 02
Reggae Night for Anabel
Reggae Mistress, Spy, Coffee Break Island, and many more
contact wamjammin@yahoo.com

15 Jan, Thursday - ROUTE 196
The Ronnies, Bagetsafonik, Analog with Waya Gallardo on vocals, The Late Isabel, Slave Drum, Pedicab, Imago, Sugarfree. Robert Alejandro, graphic artist and poet will also be doing portraits.
9pm
contact route196rocks@gmail.com or isabelle.ramos@gmail.com

17 Jan, Saturday – 19 EAST
Razorback
9 pm, P250 entrance
*Part of the proceeds will go to Anabel and her family.

19 Jan, Monday - ROUTE 196
The Jerks, Duster, Kaktooz, Paramita, Ciudad, Archipelago, The Dorques, Blue Jean Junkies
9pm
contact route196rocks@gmail.com or isabelle.ramos@gmail.com

20 Jan, Tuesday - CONSPIRACY
Romancing Venus poets + more!
7-9pm

20 Jan, Tuesday - SAGUIJO
Hayag Production feat. Treastone, Datus Tribe, Dr. Mindbender, Ursaminor and Menaya.

21 Jan, Wednesday - CLUB DREDD
Anabel's Birthday Gig!
Romancing Venus poets (Karen Kunawicz, Kooky Tuason, Ginny Mata, Charms Tianzon, Nina Terol, Raul Roco, Jr., Maegan Aguilar, Katrina Pallon of Scarlet Tears, Monique Obligacion, Juddha Paolo), Joniver Robles, Lynn Sherman and Koyang, Kenyo, Color It Red (TBC), Ronnies.



30 Jan, Friday - MAG:NET HIGH STREET
The Camerawalls, Archipelago, Join the Club, Layag, The Ronnies + more
contact isabelle.ramos@gmail.com

31 Jan, Saturday - CONSPIRACY
Mike Unson live, feat. Uli Oposa & Stanley Chi, with special guest Charms Tianzon
9 pm, P100 entrance

6 Feb, Friday, SAGUIJO
Sweetspot artists
contact isabelle.ramos@gmail.com

*Taken By Cars, 6 Cycle Mind, Nyko Maca + PLAYgROUND + Juno Oebanda, Macky of Tribo Manila + others will also be playing during one of these dates.

*More dates and events to be announced as soon as we are able to confirm them.

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(Photos of venues sourced from the net)

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Band vocalist succumbs to brain aneurysm

By Pocholo Concepcion
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 17:59:00 01/11/2009

 
 MANILA, Philippines—A female band vocalist succumbed to brain aneurysm Saturday.

Anabel Bosch, lead singer of such bands as Elektrikcoolaid, Spy and Analog and backup vocalist of Tropical Depression, passed away 10 days after she was rushed to the Makati Medical Center. On New Year’s Eve, Bosch complained of a severe headache and was vomiting before she was brought to the Makati hospital.

Doctors diagnosed brain aneurysm and recommended immediate surgery. Bosch slipped into a coma after the operation and never recovered. She died early Saturday morning in a hospital private room. She was 32.

Bosch is survived by her husband Jamie Wilson and daughter, Mishka.

Bosch was well loved by the local rock community for her friendliness and generosity. Dozens of bands joined at least six benefit gigs to raise funds for her hospital expenses while she was confined.

Bosch was a niece of counterculture figure Pepito Bosch, whose ancestral house in Pasay City was a creative refuge of bands such as Cocojam and Jun Lopito. This influenced Bosch to train her sights on a musical career. When she was in high school, Bosch was already a regular at the original Club Dredd along Timog Avenue in Quezon City.

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A Poem by Joni Mercado (Wife of Mario, Banggaan-USA)

Please convey our condolences to Anabel's family members, as well.
 
 THE LOVELY SOUL THAT PASSED ON
 
 A lovely soul departed
 When it was time to go
 An angel came a calling
 To the sleeping soul below
 The spirit rose and floated off
 To reach its destination
 A journey it would travel
 Far beyond all comprehension
 And all the souls it left behind
 Felt sad this soul had gone
 But what remained were memories
 To comfort everyone.
 
 
 With heartfelt Condolences,
Joni Mercado

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To end this blog entry, here's a video by duo called 2 O'clock (shared to us by Banggaan art group member Ed Labadia).

May I dedicate this beautiful song In My Life to the memory of Anabel Bosch.

Oh Nine!

Happy 09-09-09 everyone! (blog update Sept. 09, '09) Interesting article from Banggaan buddy Claro Cortes IV about significance of today (at the end of this blog entry).


Holy Novenary! Was it 9 p.m. on the 9th of September of 1979 and when there’s about 9 more animation frames to finish? ..and it was hot and that old wall air conditioner sounded like a broken rotor blade. Yep, at that time we were in an animation film studio set up by Nonoy Marcelo for television projects of Imee Marcos.

One thing I truly remembered (and believed was totally irrelevant to producing animated films) was when my late marital godfather Nonoy walked away laughing after one of the animation in-betweener guys rotated his unfinished plate of Lambat Restaurant morsels. Well, you know, old school Filipinos do that every time one has to leave the food table while the rest still partakes. I still vividly hear his voice: “Malas raw ang maniwala sa pamahiin!” (They say it’s bad luck to believe in superstitions!). Then quiet. We were waiting for his punchline.. we then realised that was the punchline! We were rolling all over the cel-covered floor. Oh how I miss Ninong Nonoy’s simply-Matisse-like wit that only supplemented his artistic and literary genius.

Oops, before anything else, Happy 2009 readers! Still have that nagging apprehension how the year’s going to treat us? Will it be good luck or bad? Well if we should need some trivial guidelines, the horses have already bolted 9 ends-of-the-world ago (that was 9 layers of extreme and climactic earth upheavals detected from deep-drill ice tubes taken from the Antarctic).

Now if we have to refer to the Chinese calendar and numerology, then it’s lucky! Nine (pinyin jiǔ) is considered a good number in Chinese culture because it sounds the same as the word "longlasting" (pinyin jiǔ). For an added tikoy of a bonus, it's also the Chinese year of the Ox on our Pinoy faces (Whaa..they’ve included me for I was born in fortyNINE!) It’s going to be lucky for the 9 dragons of Kowloon though; but do I hear “Hey what about us Filipinos; what’s in store for us in ’09?” Will it be a year of oxtail kare-kare? Ssssh, my friend, take a deep breath...ahh..let the prana out...let go..and let the superstitious take over the planet; otherwise the dragons shall breathe fire and melt your 9 Ghz hard disc. But this is scary..according to the Mayan calendar, we will be just 3 years away from the End of the World (2012)! Damn! I still have to finish that 5-year painting!

The way I look at it, early scientists, mathematicians and engineers (sometimes they are all one and the same) should be blamed for all superstitions known by Man. Hey check out those Aztec guys whose calendars were so precise, all encrypted and carved in stone. I pondered, when the Moon struck 8 pm, i.e., when the horizon and earth’s first satellite cross-haired in that little Aztec adobe window, it’s time then for Montezuma, the ninth Aztec emperor, to chew his coca leaf, perhaps to make Mrs. Montezuma happy; thereafter the next morning he could announce to his wretched proletariats that they could sow their wild corn oats on the ninth appearance of the moon to avoid damaging frost.. but wait.. like any mail-order product tv barker will say.. there’s more! They have to sacrifice nine virgins on the ninth week! And only then shall the land be rich with nourishing protein from the red liquid that flowed down the Holy Stairs pyramid.

If your Chinese friend tells you that Nine is Purity, is he being superstitious? Not really. It’s scientific. Nine is a method of grading purity of fine precious metals; e.g. platinum, gold and silver which is based on millesimal system of fineness (a metal is said to be one nine or one nine fine if it is 900 fine, or 90% pure.

Mathematicians! Oh how I despise mathematics but I couldn’t live without it. See the very computer I’m using to write this article down relies on Nine! Uptime is a measure of the time a computer system has been "up" and running. Similar to the unit of metallic purity, "Five nines" means 99.999% availability, which translates to a total downtime of approximately five minutes and fifteen seconds per year. It is often used as a measure of computer operating system‘s reliability and stability, in that this time represents time a computer can be left unattended without crashing, or needing to be rebooted for administrative or maintenance purposes. Conversely, long uptime can indicate negligence, because critical updates can sometimes require reboots. Here’s another superstition.. they say if you’re using a Mac, it could be a different story!:) No more frequent crashes and rebooting! Waah I want my MacPro!

How do Toyota makers perceive 2009? Well,with the current recession and stagnant car sales, it’s no wonder the Japanese consider 9 unlucky because it sounds similar to the Japanese word for "pain" or "distress" (kunrei ku). Arigato Wikipedia-San.

Relax, it’s not all bad luck. And don’t be turned off by Anton LaVey who applied the number to Satan. He’s the guy who authored the Satanic Bible. Struth! I reckon he’s got a big eeeee-go! Get a life, man!

Religions also have knowingly or unknowingly revered number nine. Are you Hindu, hindi? (no?) Well if you are, you might as well consider numeral 9 as a completely divine number because it represents the end of a cycle in the decimal system, which originated from the Indian subcontinent as early as 3000 BC. Now that’s old!

Oh you’re a Buddhist? Well you’ll have to email and eyeball 8 other colleagues because your rituals usually involve nine monks.


We all know Pinoys are predominantly Christians..and so we should know that In the Christian angelic hierarchy there are 9 choirs of angels ( Angelica Panganiban not included; she can’t sing!:)

What do you call a Bahay-Kubo with nine bamboo posts? Bahá'í Kubo! Seriously, Nine, as the highest single-digit number (in base ten), symbolizes completeness in the Bahá'í Faith. A 9-pointed star symbolizes the faith (and what’s this 5-pointed asterisk doing in my keyboard?:)

Nine is a significant number in Norse Mythology. Odin hung himself on an ash tree for nine days to learn the runes; which reminded me of a Banggaan yahoo art group member who did the same (hanging by his toes unaided) up on a torii (Japanese gate) for about 9 minutes. Really!

Oh and if you’re a Pinoy Muslim, you would of course know that the Ramadan is ninth month of Islamic calendar.

So then how could have Nine influenced all our lives? (I don’t mean our Australian TV channel!:) I refer to our very lives that we’re supposed to carry on through this year. Well, ask our mothers! After all she was the one who carried each one of us for nine laborious months. We're out alive and kicking and we're lucky!:) And that’s Naegele's Rule! Pardon me? Oh, it is a standard way of calculating the due date for a pregnancy. (named after that German obstetrician Franz Karl Naegele who invented the rule. Clever guy, hey Naegele, my mother carried me for nine years! (that was after I was born:)

And so that was the year that was, we’re on the move now..listen..there’s John Lennon repeatedly calling number nine while I play Revolution 9 of their White Album. For the President-elect Obama, it’s time for change after being punished by 2008! Believe it or not, Robert Ripley said "A cat-o'-nine-tails suggests perfect punishment and atonement."

We are in the Now, like Nature who just keeps doing what it needs to do. Mother Nature sometimes could be perceived as superstitious, too. She loves number Nine! You could see it wagging while the happy sow has her tail upright; find it swaying in the wind at the end of vine tendrils of your Wisteria;

find it in the spiral of life itself whose signature is still intact from an extinct ammonite to a humble cartoon of 9 as a big headed, intellectual man (unlike 6 with a heavy stomach:) which could stand and balance itself, thrown in the air and still landing on its feet like a feline with 9 lives.

Before the year ended, this writer was at Jim Paredes' place on Christmas Day and just about New Year's Eve at Ding Roces’ abode whereupon after a lovely dinner he showed us his collection of superstition-empowered metals! They were beautifully stamped or crafted anting-anting (amulets). There were books and shirts where Latin words were written. And did you know that number 9 is used to translate Cyrillic to Latin?

Nona (Latin for nine)..err..No9 Marcelo would be in Cloud 9 if he were to wear that old Latin-peppered white singlet. He’s too mental I suppose. Very inspiring fellow and so here’s a “digital” image of him with superimposed symbols of the glyph 9 dating back to an ancient Indian civilization. (image below)

I believe we are responsible to what we bring into our lives, be it good or bad. So take care of your health and throw away that 9-day old turon in your fridge:)

To end this blog entry, here are some good moments in Manila last year. Goodbye '08!
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090909 update:

Why 09/09/09 Is So Special

Heather Whipps
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.com heather Whipps
special To Livescience
livescience.com – Tue Sep 8, 10:46 am ET

Have special plans this 09/09/09?

Everyone from brides and grooms to movie studio execs are celebrating the upcoming calendrical anomaly in their own way.

In Florida, at least one county clerk's office is offering a one-day wedding special for $99.99. The rarity of this Sept. 9 hasn't been lost on the creators of the iPod, who have moved their traditional Tuesday release day to Wednesday to take advantage of the special date. Focus Features is releasing their new film "9," an animated tale about the apocalypse, on the 9th.

Not only does the date look good in marketing promotions, but it also represents the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we'll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), or a millennium (mark your calendars for January 1, 3001), depending on how you want to count it.

Though technically there's nothing special about the symmetrical date, some concerned with the history and meaning of numbers ascribe powerful significance to 09/09/09.

For cultures in which the number nine is lucky, Sept. 9 is anticipated - while others might see the date as an ominous warning.

Math magic

Modern numerologists - who operate outside the realm of real science - believe that mystical significance or vibrations can be assigned to each numeral one through nine, and different combinations of the digits produce tangible results in life depending on their application.

As the final numeral, the number nine holds special rank. It is associated with forgiveness, compassion and success on the positive side as well as arrogance and self-righteousness on the negative, according to numerologists.

Though usually discredited as bogus, numerologists do have a famous predecessor to look to. Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician and father of the famous theorem, is also credited with popularizing numerology in ancient times.

"Pythagoras most of all seems to have honored and advanced the study concerned with numbers, having taken it away from the use of merchants and likening all things to numbers," wrote Aristoxenus, an ancient Greek historian, in the 4th century B.C.

As part of his obsession with numbers both mathematically and divine, and like many mathematicians before and since, Pythagoras noted that nine in particular had many unique properties.

Any grade-schooler could tell you, for example, that the sum of the two-digits resulting from nine multiplied by any other single-digit number will equal nine. So 9x3=27, and 2+7=9.

Multiply nine by any two, three or four-digit number and the sums of those will also break down to nine. For example: 9x62 = 558; 5+5+8=18; 1+8=9.

Sept. 9 also happens to be the 252nd day of the year (2 + 5 +2)...

Loving 9

Both China and Japan have strong feelings about the number nine. Those feelings just happen to be on opposite ends of the spectrum.

The Chinese pulled out all the stops to celebrate their lucky number eight during last year's Summer Olympics, ringing the games in at 8 p.m. on 08/08/08. What many might not realize is that nine comes in second on their list of auspicious digits and is associated with long life, due to how similar its pronunciation is to the local word for long-lasting (eight sounds like wealth).

Historically, ancient Chinese emperors associated themselves closely with the number nine, which appeared prominently in architecture and royal dress, often in the form of nine fearsome dragons. The imperial dynasties were so convinced of the power of the number nine that the palace complex at Beijing's Forbidden City is rumored to have been built with 9,999 rooms.

Japanese emperors would have never worn a robe with nine dragons, however.

In Japanese, the word for nine is a homophone for the word for suffering, so the number is considered highly unlucky - second only to four, which sounds like death.

Many Japanese will go so far as to avoid room numbers including nine at hotels or hospitals, if the building planners haven't already eliminated them altogether.

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some info from Wikipedia (mostly italicised portions)

Joint Victory

It was a joint victory for Obama and Biden!

However there's a different story (Clinton mentioned) for which cartoon (above) was made. Read Herald article.