Strictly from a Third-Party Perspective (I. after 27 days on Earth)

Aside from soiling washable cloth diapers and disposable diapers, he’s essentially into sucking into his mother’s burst-into-porn-star proportions-milk-manufacturing boobies. His lullabies include music from the Smashing Pumpkins, Eggstone, Whitest Boy Alive, Sigur Ros, Jeff Buckley and yeah those obscure (only because they are not-so-heard-of) bands that comprise what they call Post-Rock Instrumental. He also gets a usual blast of Chopin, some classical and his mother’s wonderful singing.

He likes being read to, and so far has not been violently reactive when the passages from Daddy’s books are a little too nebulous, or not exactly recommended by the Infant Censorship Board.

Oh, and he’d be probably be rich as Croesus if he got a cent for every snapshot his parents took, or if he took a cent from friends and relatives who thought he was cute.

His other legitimate activities include burping, hiccupping and finally - farting, wet and loud.

An Organic, Fair-Trade and Sweet Disposition

A rather simple surprise for the wife, who had some success in using washable cloth diapers for our newborn child, our own recyclable canvas bags for our groceries, and generally attempting to be aligned with the more sensible, more environment-conscious trajectory of our times.

The Pilot Sonic Tour: Towards the Expansion of your Musical Palate

ain't it funny how we pretend we're still a child
softly stolen under our blanket skies
and rescue me from me, and all that i believe

Some Determinists postulate that all of life is either already laid out in your genes, or in softer versions – the rest of your life will be determined by how the first few years go about. Some of them will believe that it has to do with the kind of reinforcements you receive. Others will believe that you are either in the stage of subconscious-formation that will go on until your latent years, or that you are immersed in a collective consciousness – with all the world’s historical and cultural archetypes.

The Determinists probably haven’t figured out who among them is right, if at all. But here and now, your parents will have to hand down patrimonies and the building blocks of your dreams.

In the womb, you’ve already been acquainted to the music of the world. In your first few days on earth, we set you off to your first serious sonic trip. Every morning, you still had your dose of classical music with Chopin clinging tightly to the notches of our ITunes “Most Played.” Your mother sang religious songs often, and your father thought that today, you were ready for the Smashing Pumpkin’s Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness.



It’s our pick for the what-would-you-bring-if-you-were-stuck-on-a-desert-island? album.

carve out your heart for keeps in an old oak tree
and hold me for goodbyes-and-whispered lullabyes
and tell me i am still

Of course we only sang/played pre-selected tracks with what we thought were the Pumpkin’s child-friendly dreamily gentle lyrics.

and if i can't sleep, can you hold my life
and all i see is you
take my hand, i lost where i began
in my heart i know all of my faults
will you help me understand
and i believe in you
you're the other half of me
soothe and heal...
when you sleep, when you dream,
i'll be there if you need me, whenever i hear you sing...
there is a sun, it'll come, the sun, i hear them call me down
i held you once, a love that once, and life had just begun
and you're all i see...
and trumpets blew, and angels flew on the other side
and you're all i see, and you're all i'll need
there's a love that god puts in your heart

Really, fuck that Baby Einstein shit.

i've journeyed here and there and back again
but in the same old haunts i still find my friends
mysteries not ready to reveal
sympathies i'm ready to return
i'll make the effort, love can last forever
graceful swans of never topple to the earth
tomorrow's just an excuse
and you can make it last, forever you
you can make it last, forever you

We couldn’t believe that something as wonderful and beautiful as you came out of us.

beautiful, you're beautiful, as beautiful as the sun
wonderful, you're wonderful, as wonderful as they come
and i can't help but feel attached
to the feelings i can't even match
…
don't let your life wrap up around you
don't forget to call, whenever
i'll be here just waiting for you
i'll be under your stars forever
neither here nor there just right beside you
i'll be under the stairs forever
neither here nor there just right beside you

They say you grow up fast. So for all the time we’ve had you thus far, we barely slept and just stared at you.

by starlight i'll kiss you
and promise to be your one and only
i'll make you feel happy
and leave you to be lost in mine
and where will we go, what will we do?
soon said i, will know
dead eyes, are you just like me?

You slept quite fitfully and seemed to share your parent’s tastes.

The Bloody Brilliant Birthing Process, then broken into mobile status messages

23 June, the year of our Lord 2010. It's also the year of the Johannesburg World Cup (and having you felt like a golden goal). A few days after your birth, our country will inagurate our 15th President. In your coming-into-this-world we are compelled to believe not only in the hope of our country's progress, but in a grand gesture of hope, in a re-affirmation of life in general. Even if I grew up reading some Schopenhauer, a lot of people nowadays, myself included, are concentrating on what's workable and positive.

These are very interesting times, I.

Aside from the plethora of new technology, we've also empowered women, we've somehow quelled racism, and we've elevated our environmental consciousness. There's a lot of good music, good books, good places to go to and good goddamn beer. There's alot of posts: post-rock instrumental and postmodernism, post-colonialism, post-event parties, post-fight interviews, Facebook wall posts. There's always a new gadget here and there that has made the world a global village. Somehow we've also built these invisible bridges that allowed us to observe each other microscopically. We've created virtual spaces and a proximity that make us love one another just a little bit more intensely.

And there's a lot of nostalgia to come back to what once has been. Postcards, old architecture, revival music, bound pages yellowed with age, anything that would bring back or make us cling to that fine mesh of authenticity and a wonderful memory.

There's still a lot of povery to alleviate, and there's still lot of violence, hunger, ignorance, cruelty and basically just a lot of sick bastards out there.

But obviously, anak, when you were born your parents were on a high. Fortunately for you, unlike the hippies of the Sixties or Seventies we aren't drugged (anesthesia excluded) or hallucinating and giving you names like Dust, Dharma or Dream. Not that those names are bad.

We are lucid. When you first sniffed the air today, you've also opened a door to a new perception (to borrow from Jim Morrison).

From here on out, our lives are going to take a pivotal turn. And one day, (to borrow from your mother's favorite Chilean poet), you'll make your own way - deciphering that fire.

-----------------------------------------

Sunny, golden, luminous and enlightening as a good novel's ending. It's your last day in the womb. See you in a bit!
June 23 at 7:56am

Admitted to the birthing room and still all-smiles, but will not be too posh to push today.
June 23 at 9:56am

Labor's official. Dilated at 5cm.
June 23 at 10:30am

J. is wearing an oversized scrub suit and listening to the baby's heartbeat on the live monitor.
June 23 at 11:13am

It's going to be bloody brilliant!
June 23 at 11:29am

Still laboring. D.'s been managing powerful contractions so well. Man, I'm married to a very strong woman.
June 23 at 3:53pm

Very shortly now, a miracle's going to happen.
June 23 at 4:42pm

I., 7.87 lbs strong, arrived shortly before sunset on 23 June, 2010. Hello World.

Notes from the Call Center Piece I

Historical Background

It’s 11:15pm in the year 2001. I’m twenty years old and fresh out of a top and therefore overpriced University where I earned a Philosophy degree. I’m aboard a cab en route to the Valero Entrance of PhilAm Life Tower in Makati. The driver’s tuned in to an AM station. Other than AM and the mechanized hum of vehicles and rubber rolling on the asphalt, the streets turn tranquil. It’s a few minutes before midnight and I’m neat as a necktie-wearing 9am-5am office worker. Except that I don’t have to wear long sleeves and a tie. We’re probably the only office in the building who allows (if preferred) their employees to come dressed in shorts, beach sandals, hats, or in the most or least amount of clothing.

Like most obtrusive cabbies, this one asks, what’s my line of work? In 2001, nobody’s ever heard of a call center before. It was a pain to explain. Who would have thought that so much business from the land of milk and honey would come to Ayala corner Paseo through the thick undersea pipes and cables of broadband technology? So I try not to sound condescending and just say,

“Computer.”

With a brush of the familiar, the cabbie lets out a knowing “Ahhhhh.”

“This is only temporary.”

It’s 2010. I, for one, have been working in this billion-dollar “Sunshine Industry” for over nine years. More than being a thriving milking cow, the call-center lifestyle has been re-interpreted in music, literature, invented its own fashion, and even has its own college curriculum. Nowadays there are kids who dream of becoming call-center agents.

We were unknowingly creating a new sub-culture, my so-called wave-mates and I – newly grads who were all riding these cabs or driving their parent’s cars to Valero back in 2001.

Now the cabbies are all over where the call centers are, and I no longer need to explain what my line of work is. Now the conventions are sketched less vaguely.

As call center tunes play along, everyone still thinks this is only temporary.

I also once wrote, “In the trickle of time’s eternal hourglass, in this little existence of mine, something must have even a smidgen of significance; something else must be worth trying.” Oh, I’m going to be a philosopher, sure.

I’m part of an industry that sowed its beginnings in my own time and I often wish I didn’t have anything to do with it. Slowly, wearily, I’m scaling myself down and realizing that this is probably what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.

Nine grueling years. Like all the once wannabe-or-never-was-artists, writers, engineers, nurses, rockstars, architects, and all the ex-real estate agents, airline-reservationists, teachers, we are all literally going to endure the long, long night.

A Nice Manicure

Our country just progressively stepped into the digital age. We've got to give credit to everyone involved – the Commission on Elections, the creators of the PCOS machine, school teachers, the voting public, or even the current and the worst President this country had, for that matter.

The new electoral process is a first solid fix to one of the root causes of corruption and we just hurdled a huge hindrance to progress. Sooner or later we will choose the right leaders and do what we're really suposed to during elections.

It's probably indicative of a hope - that our children will have it better. We might not need to behead our leaders.