IT IS almost impossible to move forward—without looking back… How I mischievously stuck my head out of life’s speeding train, played possum with the tempestuous wind, got severely wounded—yet I survived it all. I am still standing… I have so many memories to process in me that I find it hard to imagine conflicts and characters and plot points in my book. All I have in me are memories of real feelings, real pains, real joys. I need to re-seize and re-capture those moments… I need to write them—otherwise, what’s the point in surviving it all?
"PEOPLE always ask me, what's 'Bonfires for Peace'? Just hearing the word 'peace,' they say it's political. But, it's not," (Pasckie) Pascua says. "It's simply a community gathering… If you have music, if you have food, if you have dancing, you don't have much time to argue," he says. "You just have fun." [Asheville’s Mountain Xpress interview/article, 2010]
I’M EASY… I get along with the homeless of Pritchard Park and the rich of West Central Park… anarchist punks in Baltimore, born-again Christians in Irvine CA, hippies in Venice Beach, LGBTs in Frisco, socialists in Echo Park LA... I eat Mickey Dees, hummus, escargots, babyback ribs. I drink PBRs and organic beers and Dom Perignons. I rode in limousines and “pimp car” Chevys and Maserati. I sleep on huge beds with bronze headboards and Craigslist-free couches and Greyhound benches… I am easy.
LADY GAGA… But I am not really fond of circus confections. Two, all those glittery bombast vis-à-vis media hypes have been used and abused before—albeit with loads and loads of unmistakable graceful grit. Elton John, Liberace, David Bowie, and Bjork were fun and fascination because beyond the gaudy glam and outrageous wardrobes—flawless talent and timeless wit reside in their work…
DREAMING (while asleep) is intriguing. I dream a full story… Two nights ago, I dreamed that I was hangin’ out with Johnny Depp on Jack Sparrow costume, the night before last night with Ethan Hawke, last night with a bunch of Merrie Melodies characters. Many times I dream about my dear departed mother—but she’s always very young in those episodes… sometimes I dream about having fun with my longtime Filipino friends (in Manila) but the location is in the US. When I wake up, I seem to figure out: “Where am I?”
WHEN I perform onstage—I spontaneously lose myself in a controlled haze, sort of. Whether it’s 3 or 300 facing me in the dark, I only see one person in front me. All the others are shadows of just one person. I communicate with that person. It’s very intimate, very personal, very private. If I fail to cut my message across that one individual, my art fails altogether.
I SEEM to ignite virulent creative fire and excise renewed physical energy from my being—at night, late nights. The dark ushers a feline peacefulness and generous quiet—like insistent waves on an ocean’s breast heaving and crawling through a sleepless shore. It’s a nagging kind of sensual provocation, a ferocious seduction that bites the senses and leaves me spellbound in a good way: my moondance keeps on gyrating, waltzing, rocking. Until the sun wakes up.
I AM NOT really good at winning writing contests. I did win some in the past, but that time—I was very conscious about winning. I had to conform with what I perceived were the judges’ paradigms… For me, writing fails if it doesn’t speak with more people; more people than 5 judges. Most poems that gave me prizes don’t connect out there. That worried me. Yet the poems that I wrote with the sole purpose of reading it before a random audience, I get applause and respect. I want to be remembered that way. I don’t want my work to gather dust in some library. I want to leave my work in the heart of the people—let them live, let them rock. I don’t care if they forgot my name—as long as they remember the words, I’m cool.
AS A child, I witnessed how a river was wasted to serve as dump for a mining plant’s bowels. As a 14-year old reporter, I interviewed a broken man who allegedly murdered a store owner for a kilo of rice. Then I was assigned to cover killer floods and deadly typhoons—and civilians caught in the crossfire of the government’s Communist counter-insurgency war. Deaths, lots of death: the backdrop of my life’s love stories. Love, like a wounded dove, inches out of the dark of my nights, the cold of my days—and keeps on struggling to fly out of my heart. I kiss like it could be my last, hold like it’s the only warmth I ever knew, make love like she’s the only pleasure I could taste… I love like life is about to snuff out of my world: I keep it deep, so deeply embedded in my being…
I MISS those days when I cringed over a broken heart, stared at the muted phone, scribbled silly poems on textbook back covers amidst a class lecture on trigonometry… feel such bittersweet ache with “How Deep is Your Love” by the Bee Gees. Days when little sweet nothings like flowers on her kitchen counter when she comes home from work makes the night lovelier… Yes, when loving weren’t so politically-correct or intellectualized/rationalized. When loving is all about a long, lingering kiss… and just being together.
I AM an oblique traditionalist—a Robinson Crusoe on laptop a-front cable TV. I am very indifferent to cellphones and cars and I do enjoy my tilapia with a head, oh yes... But when it comes to Facebook and internet search engines, I definitely don’t rock with skeptics. Lost privacy? Come on! In here, I chat with my childhood buddy that I haven’t seen in decades. I am able to read through my kids’ minds without making them feel invaded by parental scrutiny—and well, check it out, friends from Slovenia, Singapore, Nigeria and Russia read my poems!
THE VIRULENT fire in my chest has simmered down—although I am still in the process of taming my raging tempest. But as I softly flow onto my twilight, I have also begun to deeply cherish moments of calm and quiet. From the wild gallop of youth’s 15-minute sexual bliss, I come to relax in the quiet pleasures of our hands sweating together; our tired legs finding respite in each other’s nocturnal peace. I must admit, my stormbringer co-rider has evolved into an astute critic in the kitchen and a patient poetry audience on the hammock. Indeed, our bodies’ burning roars have just wafted in a synergy of warm spirits, watching the sun sets and rises, hand in hand…
I AM an asshole more than a cool dude, I think… I had my own bad boy days: bar brawls, parking lot fights, stuff. I can say 20 F words in 10 seconds when I’m really pissed and aggravated. I am not the average nice guy that any sane young lady could introduce to her parents without worrying I might mess up the table napkin. I mean, ah—you know what I mean… But then, I am capable of doing cool stuff, too. But I’m not going to enumerate them here. My friend says I talk smack all the time. All I’m saying is—I am both cool and uncool, good and bad. But I try my best to be more cool than uncool each day. I believe coolness is inherent in the human heart… We just have to keep on trying. (Oh, I wish I can easily quit cussing each time I realize I… oh, forget it.)
MY fundamental reflex and human response, my sociopolitical awareness—were nurtured and nourished by a wounded wisdom that I scrounged from my past. There’s so much anger and resignation over political strife and abject poverty… I needed to go past that cold and dark to be able to live in peace and quiet the rest of my life. To be able to love with sincere intensity and spiritual depth, I needed to go past the dark side… Sometimes, I feel it’s too late, that I’m running out of time. But then, as long as we’re here, it’s never too late. Love sets us free…
MY GIFTS of LIFE: BELIEF in GOD and LOVE, I thought I lost it in the midst of my youth’s cold and darkness, and then I found rebirth; MY DEAR DEPARTED MOTHER, I could have been a stone in a forgotten ridge or moss below a dead sea—without my mother; BIRTH of my KIDS, there’s no other more sublime present that emanate from human fertility than the endowment of children; AWAKENING to ACTIVISM, not after I read Marx or Mao, but after I witnessed several mountain tribes’ right to harvest was cut because a river was wasted to serve as trash bin for a mining plant’s bowels; MY POETRY, these words that flow like blood, fall like tears, and exalt like laughter from my being—continue to offer new meanings to my life’s penultimate journey.
MY MEDIA career kicked off, rocked `n rolled, and crashed-and-nearly burned in the Philippines, then and now—the most dangerous country for journalists to ply their trade (according to Amnesty Intl and Guinness Records). A number of my equally-fiery college buddies who also opted to be committed newspaper crazies didn’t make it to Facebook/Twitter era, so to say. But I did! Indeed, I extremely enjoyed the profession. I get to question a diverse plethora of humanity: from street thieves to harlequin senators, sex workers to urban guerrillas, movie starlets who couldn’t focus to a cassava farmer who slept with goats… I wielded some kinda enviable power, you what I’m saying? I get to pore deep into people’s souls and throw them piercing questions. Sometimes I pissed them off, sometimes I made them laugh—but always, it was fun.
I HAVE experienced and covered/wrote about many devastating and unimaginable natural disasters in the Philippines and Asia. Words are insufficient to capture the tragedy and misery that linger beyond human comprehension… Every year, gruesome typhoons, floods and landslides pummel the Philippines—on its wake (after property destruction and human lives lost) are widespread epidemics, breakdown of law and order etc. The 8.9 magnitude quake that rocked Japan and sent a tsunami crashing through land make me so worried… Japan is very near the Philippines’ main island of Luzon (see map) where my family lives…
MY fundamental reflex and human response, my sociopolitical awareness—were nurtured and nourished by a wounded wisdom that I scrounged from my past. There’s so much anger and resignation over political strife and abject poverty… I needed to go past that cold and dark to be able to live in peace and quiet the rest of my life. To be able to love with sincere intensity and spiritual depth, I needed to go past the dark side… Sometimes, I feel it’s too late, that I’m running out of time. But then, as long as we’re here, it’s never too late. Love sets us free…
CONTRADICTIONS are more in sync with our gut human nature—than with our desire for consistency. I am both hot and cold, provocation and restraint, attached and detached. I act in consonance with my brain’s deductive faculties but my heart debunks that—as it reacts more on fluctuating, rollercoaster condition of human reflex. Many times I am so good at projecting my heart’s feline tenderness but my mind’s ego-driven, rational drive totally confuses my being—hence my honest, sincere intents get wasted. Now, I understand why most writers choose to be reclusive…
YEARS AGO, I climbed up the mountains and wandered in the woods—in search of peace and quiet. I meditated and prayed days and nights, amidst battering storms and burning heat. And then, as I floated in transcendent bliss, I saw raging floods washed away homes and lives—the stench of corpses floating on river beds numbed the scent of incense on my hair, the cries of agony and anger muted my euphoric chants of love… So I packed up and followed the voices. I wanted to feel life as it pierced my flesh, give love as warm as my blood. I still prayed and meditated and chanted—but that time, I was beside the dying and the dead, the wounded and the hungry. That time, I still remember, I finally found peace and quiet…
I FEEL I had a pretty cool life, after all… I had fun chasing life’s perfections around my humanity’s imperfections, got into a thousand rollercoaster rides with love yet I did hold on without falling apart (a few bruises here and there but my heart’s still in one piece). I had my own share of cool parties—yet so lucky that I’m still a 3-beers, basically non-smoking, and “never-tried drugs” kind of dude… I saw awesome places and rediscovered the world on my beaten Converse all-star’s muddy soles. I met and savored beautiful faces and experienced glorious souls. I ran around mazes yet I still managed to come home to where my crazy heart feels it… Life’s been good. I mean, I’m just 150 years young—still got a few years to rock.
WHEN it comes to my sublime madnesses, I don’t dream—I keep my feet firmly planted on the ground. I founded the Traveling Bonfires—not after I saw a monumental movie about people’s struggles or after I read a book. I felt this need taking shape so urgently, albeit wounded and bleeding, in my heart… There was only one way possible to heal such monstrous agony brought about by natural disasters and human insensitivity: be inside, be around, and rebuild from within, not without… If I couldn’t put up Bonfires in one city or town, I don’t grieve. The world is a community. There will always be places to rebuild warmth in humanity’s heart, more strong spirits to rediscover…
DESPITE falling in love with books and magazines at a very early age, I spent most of my childhood and teenage years playing street games and neighborhood sports. There were a lot of physical exertions, as well—walking to school and public market and church, chopping firewood, fetching water at a community pump, laundry by hand, climbing trees, hiking in the woods. Lots of sweating… I cherish those years—it’s not just because it was good exercise, it was also very beneficial to the mind. When I ran miles for hours, it was meditation. Each time I sweat, I appreciated my body more. I felt cleansed. When I did laundry as rain fell, it was heaven, believe me…
OUR PARADOXES, OUR LIVES. I am the most perplexed and puzzled by my own contradictions---more than the person next to me. I have covered more geography in the world than the average human being—yet, I continually refuse to drive a vehicle. I am reclusive, aloof—I tend to get panicky inside when caught amidst a crowd. Yet I have organized so many people, villages and organizations, festivals and concerts—since I was in grade school… I traveled far and wide, within and around risky circumstances to gather people, though I don’t socialize much.
WHEN I speak (or try to talk) in American English language, I first instinctively process/distill/filter words in my cramped little brain translations in multiple languages (that I also know)—in a matter of seconds—then, I try to talk like Snoop Dogg’s apprentice pimp. English is the most common language in the Philippines but I also speak/write in conventional Spanish, Tagalog (main native tongue in the islands), and 6 or 7 more tribal/provincial vernaculars. Plus, I learned some French as a result of my many arguments with ex-French girlfriends… So when you hear me to talk and ramble 500 English words in broken syntax in 5 minutes and still couldn’t get what the hell I am babbling about, I am sorry. I am as confused as you are…
I GHOSTWROTE love letters for my eldest sister and aunt when I was 12. In high school, I earned money writing love poems for the boys—who eventually got the girls—while I stayed glued to my books… I didn’t know how to say “Hello…” to a girl, without scaring her away with my thick-rimmed glasses up snug, dangling upon my weird-looking nose… When I grew older and developed some confidence, I still bungle first dates by misreading words like, “Do you want to stretch a bit in my room” or “I want to go to bed now…” I still don’t know what is cool, after all these years—all I know is I feel like a lost child or a subservient server to her: I cuddle a lot, or I treat her like she’s a queen (well, as long as I don’t piss her off after a few days).
IT CAN be confused or confusing, I know… When I was young, I stayed on the far left end of the ideological spectrum; then, I ferociously navigated a spiritual firestorm, so to say—yet I ended up straddling my own undefined, misaligned truths. After all these years, I can say—I finally found my comfort zone, although one might reckon, it’s pretty convoluted… I have a very conservative stance on home and family (despite my turbulent unmarried/single father’s journey), sensuality and sexuality (despite the obvious fact that love and sex enflame my words and work), and spirituality and faith (despite not being a follower or member of any church). At the same time, I am very radical in terms of sociopolitical issues and community activism…
DESPITE my long journalism life—punctuated by a virulent wanderlust/traveling madness—I feel I more interested in the intrigue and fascination of people than when I was actually out there mingling with humanity. I am less judgmental about people’s character and truths although I am more upfront in speaking my mind and heart out… Thing is, I am more interested and considerate of what/how people are—I am more attuned with the specific beauty and private wisdom of their stories and history… Life has become more a blessing than a given.
YEARS AGO, you were a rock star. You had astounding energy, amazing spunk. You had young well-endowed hips at your beck and call, you could juggle love and lust like apples and clubs. You were flawless… Now, your back hurts each time you reach for the remote… You suddenly become so concerned that you must have lost all your magic. But it’s okay—as long as you have her to help adjust your hearing aid or navigate your driving when the GPS acts up, or remind you to lay off the Reese’s and do the morning tai-chi… things are still great. You’re still cool.
THREE THINGS I MISS SO MUCH ON CHRISTMAS DAY: (1) My Family. Christmas makes us feel, deep in our soul, that family matters a lot. Nothing could replace the sublime intimacy of sharing this day with family; (2) Gift Giving. I love giving gifts—the only sweet expectation that I ask for are smiles on faces of those who receive my gifts. Sadly, this day—I won’t be able to enjoy most of those gestures; (3) Ceasefire. Back in Philippine countrysides, warring government troops and rebel guerrillas lay down their arms on Christmas Day to spend the holidays with loved ones and family.
CHEAP beers, cheap stuff. Beer consumption should be cheap. These are not necessities of life. Stuff and things that occupy the lowest rung on grocery buy list, or nada. They need to be inexpensive, hence—consumed in moderation. It’s hard to be addicted with cheap stuff… I am not afraid about consuming “bad” foodstuff though—because I don’t get addicted to those stuff and things, anyways. If I am scared to die of toxic food, I guess—I’d die faster by inhaling air pollution, fossil fuel fumes, the moment I step out of the batcave…
WHEN I’M 64—or 74, 84, 94… Let me dream: maybe I’ll be married by then, owns a huge ranch with 200 buffaloes grazin’ around, goofin’ around with grandkids, cooking for my wife, traveling to promote my books, growing flowers, painting/sculpting, and makin’ love a lot without benefit of Viagra.
I ALWAYS am a bungling, erratic dude when it comes to flirting… I don’t know how to pick up ladies. I don’t know signals. I once asked a woman in a gallery: “I like you, you are so beautiful. Would you want to come over to my apartment and have dinner with me? I love to cook…” (I wasn’t meaning to have sex, I just wanted to share food.) Then one time, a gorgeous lady bought me a drink in a bar. I approached her and courteously said, “Thanks! How much was it?” I handed her ten dollars and went back to my seat. Bad, bad.
I JUMPED off a cliff when I was 5… “Playtime” was hike to the woods on stormy days. I was a police beat reporter at age 14—covered drug deals, gang wars etc… I covered war in countrysides, organized workers. Survived the dictatorship. I almost died in 1995… Then I saw myself in many places in 4 continents. Then I roamed America via Greyhounds. I risked my limbs like I had 9 lives… I will do it again. But in each of my life’s journeys, the one risk that is always so scary to take is falling in love...
OUR KIDS have grown. I thought I grew up so fast in my days: news reporter at 14, editor at 22, political consultant at 27 etc etc. My eldest founded her own investments/IT firm at 23, my son produced paintings for exhibition at 21, another daughter wrote two novels at 16, the other had a baby at 18…
DESPITE my perceived facility with (written) English, I still find myself pretty confused with the language. When told, “See you later…” I ask, “Are we seeing each other later?” I get confused… Or when a lady tells me, “I like you!” I respond, “I like you, too.” And she says, “I REALLY like you!” Then, I get confused again. Many idioms: Out of the woodwork, suck it up, shut your pie hole… And why is it there’s always the word ASS in most phrases, and LOVE is said all the time—but it wasn’t meant the way I knew it in a galaxy so far away where I came from…
SOMEHOW, I feel blessed that I was born a long time ago when life and living were so pristine and uncomplicated: walking towards the open market where purchase can be negotiated right there, when fish heads were food, cooking was through firewood, dishwashing and laundry were done by hand, communication was word of mouth, books and newspapers were pages on my hand… meetings were eye to eye, laughter and tears were heard by human ears and hearts, and “I love you” meant forever.
I AM the most perplexed and puzzled by my own contradictions---more than the person next to me. I have covered more geography in the world than the average human being—yet, I continually refuse to drive a vehicle. I am reclusive, aloof—I tend to get panicky inside when caught amidst a crowd. Yet I have organized so many people and organizations, festivals and concerts—since I was in grade school… I traveled far and wide, within and around risky circumstances to gather people, though I don’t socialize much.
WHAT if no soul’s willing to help the Traveling Bonfires anymore? Look, I covered more geography, and made people happy, than an average dude anywhere—without a car, cellphone and credit card. I build, people come. Good is inherent in the human heart… people will not stop helping.
