Wrist Watch

My left wrist hurts. Finished 130 levels of the Mugenjo and Hidden Mugenjo in the new Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress! PSP game. (That's a lot of colon.)

I've been doing less copywriting work. It's not that I have less work; it's really just the age of imagery (in advertising). The pictures come first lately. At work and in my head, I'm not hearing myself think. I'm seeing myself in different situations. My thoughts have this over-the-shoulder point of view. I'm scoping and surveying the landscape. I'm plotting tactical courses and pinning down time stamps on this map in my head. It's the Mugenjo's working.

I'm not thinking in words anymore.

This old fart

And this how we tackle creative briefings.

I like it a little complex and apparently so do most of the guys in our creative team. Besides, it is something of a given in advertising. Communicate with wit. Be playful. Contrast for clarity. With an explosion of trickery in your exposition. But not everyone goes for it. A few are amused and applaud the effort. Most just want it straightforward. Say it as it is. Simple.

And I keep hearing this: People don't have the time to think anymore. So keep it simple.

Really?

Are we all just reflexes now? Dismissing things that demand a little of our time? And I'm also getting tired of blaming the usual suspects: technology, the immediacy of the net, Paris Hilton. Kung gusto mo, aalamin mo.

But curiosity itself (as an impulse) has become rare. I watch the kids that I'm in contact with and they have no sense of history. It's mostly all the now, and never the how or what came before. And there's a lot of who and what came before in music, comic books, literature, art, etc. Endless volumes.

This is old fart peeve at work.

So yeah, I'm peeved.

The rejects but aren't they a great looking bunch?

I had high hopes for these and I never learn (not to hope). We lost the bid so at least I get to post these lovely rejects. Brilliant art direction by Arne.

The Coming Cold

Raindrops keep falling on my head. Every time I step out the office building, there it goes again, falling on my head like a memory. Right as rain, never did get that.

I've often told friends that I need my sunshine, a spoonful of sunshine everyday in my world. A day of hovering clouds, fat and dark, and I'm swirling down the drain of depression. Romantic depressive. Not giving up the ghost, as foolish as it may seem. Bring on the Sinatra, the glass blower's daughter, and the invisible ink. Jump in my drink.

And here I am, naming toothbrushes. It's actually cool. The client wanted us to assign them personalities, like the Spice Girls. So I went looking for some synonyms of "sporty." "Whorish" came up.

Whorish Blue. With Flexi-Grip.

Friday Night Light

...is a flickering TV screen. And a computer screen, without the flickering of course because that would mean spending. Spending is the enemy right now. So I could spend more in the very near future.

W's away on a trip so I teach myself how to add headers to my blog, I sing along to Tilly and the Wall's "Rainbows in the Dark," and catch up on the third season of Project Runaway. I'm really getting good, very good, at wasting time. I can practically teach it to a class, write a book about it---wait, there's a book out on that topic already and it's called The Seven People You Meet in Heaven. Or Want to Meet in Heaven. Why not The Gazillion People You Want to Meet in Heaven? One practically has his entire after life meeting up with dead people. Waste of time to read that book is what I'm trying to say.

Exceptionally temperamental today. It's the trying to cut down with the smokes. Bought nicotine chewing gum and I'm almost done with the first pack. Helps a lot with the craving. But not with the irritability, which is a scientifically acknowledged symptom of cutting down on cigarettes. Yay, me! License to bitch at this guy from another agency who wanted "edgy" on an SM ad. Shoe Mart, mga friendships. Kahit na hindi edgy ang copy ko, bungal ka pa rin.

Grr.

Great. Worked myself up to a hissy fit. Time for take-out food. You all have a great weekend.

My Space

There it is. My own private. Mornings are the best. Most of the people come in late so that means music, coffee and cigs at my desk, my thoughts to myself. Not full-blown thought balloons of to-do's but shuffled ideas.


Tail-ends or very much middle of the road ideas as I go through the day's job orders. Two today. And highlighted at the bottom: Must not be copy heavy.

It's going to be a good day.

Speaking of dickheads

It's a breath of fresh air. A walk in the park. I'm just waiting for all the little birdies to sing outside the window. And what a fucking relief.

No dickheads in this office.

Or maybe I'm the only one. Heh.

A far cry from the daily tug-of-war at my previous workplace where an actual Dwight exists. I didn't mind much the watchful eyes. They can watch me all they want. But when Dwight-ess started picking on my people, pressuring them, well, bullying them behind my back, well that's a different story. I didn't even know there was a problem until someone came out in the open and showed me the emails. Then the claims of lazyness, lying, and non-performance. And all this went directly to the boss. I could've handled it. If I knew about it.

So it was like that. Every fucking day. As much as I love most of the people I worked with, it wasn't enough to keep me on board. I hate fighting silent wars. It's just too time consuming. I catch only a couple of hours sleep and still I'm way behind on my TV shows and comic books.

Now back in advertising. At ThreeSixty Design, Inc. Late nights, sure. But also rubbershoes, shirts, shitloads of cash (I'm exaggerating) and people who work hard but also don't give a fuck with whatever you do with your time as long as you deliver. And it feels fucking great.

(Metal Men cover from Superdickery.com)

Quitter

The first time I quit a job it was because I didn’t like the job. PR. Nothing really detestable. It was just. Boring. Writing was limited to a sheet or two, quite automatic. I lasted two months.

The second time was for a better offer. Two years in advertising and I already had an offer. Whoa! Or so I thought. I ended up writing coupon text. 50% discount on selected items. Limited offer only. Very limiting.

So I went back to my ex, mostly for sentimental reasons. The organization was opening a new department and the boss was someone I had always wanted to work with. Fucking brilliant. And a sad drunk. It was almost love. But then, he quit. And so.

Looking back now, job #5 was a highlight. Top of the pops because I was high most of the time. And drunk. And dancing to Incognito and M People in Venetia. Cocktails over ice over lunch. Dated compulsively. I started listening to hip-hop and house music and acid jazz. I was twenty-five and foolish but was making really good friends. We signed on each other’s vodka bottle; absolut scribbling of well wishes and confessions.

No wonder I burned out. But I had fun along the way.

Didn’t work for a year. Never really had a break. I was on my second job when I officially graduated. Marched. Took summer classes and was done with college on the first semester of my senior year. And not more than a two-week break since then.

So the millennium came and I was jobless. But I was in love. The freelance thing didn’t really work out for me. I spun records for my boyfriend’s café so I could earn enough to buy CDs. Just waiting for the right job to come along.



The one I’m quitting right now.

Five and a half years. A feat, really. It felt right most of the time. Never really thought of myself as a sales type of worker, but the job turned me into one. I had to meet quotas, had to wear barong, had compute annual budgets. But I was working in a library so it didn’t really matter. Until things changed.

So I’m starting the year with a trip to Hong Kong and Civil War #6. The rest I’ll figure out along the way.

Waiting to exhale

There. I've said it.

32

Quiet Saturday at work. Carpet cleaning's the only thing happening. And the waiting for the carpet to dry so I can eat properly in the pantry. The staff set up a make-shift dining table at the reception area right across the bookshop. So it's "Hello books! Hello hungry people!" as soon as you enter. The place is so quiet you can actually hear the chewing. I'm kidding. A little bit. If you really try hard to listen...

Brought my comics with me. Catching up on the All-New Atom and the Irredeemable Ant-Man. Come to think of it, I do have a thing for shrinking men...

The rest of the afternoon is purposely drawn blank. Looking forward to going to Rockwell. The boyfriend will be shopping for an outfit for his exhibit opening (Ayala Museum, have ta look extra spiffy) while I will be wandering the aisles of Fully Booked. I do wander. It's my thing. I walk around aimlessly first, grabbing titles along the way. Surveying, so to speak. Then, the hunt with a mission begins. Followed by the checking of the wallet, and the weeding of titles. My very own Glorious Mystery. This has been my ritual since I was in school, but mostly in discount book shops. The beloved Booksale, from where I have completed my Stephen King and Clive Barker titles...

So.

32 years old.

It's all happening man. It's all happening.

Fight or Flight

IT'S A BIRD...Written by Steven T. Seagle; Art and Cover by Teddy Kristiansen

It has been a week for advanced birthday presents. Early bird was the Hawkman-JUSTICE action figure from Faye, and just last Saturday, two trades from W---Busiek's Astrocity: Family Album, and Seagle's It's a Bird...---which I'm writing about now because I can't sleep.

Because the language was elegant, the lessons delicate. Because I prefer reading comic books over drinking beer nowadays. Because I have been angry for the past two months. Because I am leaving my job. Because I don't mind losing. Because there's always something next. Just like a Superman comic book, Seagle says.

I have accepted who I am and who I'm never becoming. And what I want.

I will always have fun with words. I prefer geeking out at home over the company of people, corduroys over slacks, gray over black, gameboy over a cellphone, love over lust, comics over poetry, watching TV in a hotel room over sunbathing, Hong Kong over Singapore, god over religion.

I will never prescribe hows or whys or whats. Some people see it as too kind. Or lackadaisical. I call it realization. Making decisions. Growing up.

Of course, there are doubts, practically nations of them, but Faye made it really simple for me: whatever makes you happy, wherever you are happy is what makes work work.

So I'm getting myself a ticket to somewhere sunnier.

Look up in the sky.

Work it out

7:30 in the morning is downtime (coffee, comicbook) when THE lecture series starts. Actually, these are the good old days, the Big Brother (the TV show) bitching boxed and shipped like last year's files. Sometimes work, plain as a phone call, is comforting this way.

8:00 and the participants are working on last night's assignments. From a personal essay to a memo. Sounds tough but they seem to be enjoying the task in a quiet, absorbed kind of way. I guess, they too miss work, plain as penmanship.

Breathing Lessons

As children, we were taught at school the greatest secret to life. Breathe in. Breathe out. Bees do it. Even your average weed in the garden do it. From physical education classes in our shorty shorts to stuffy classrooms with our hands folded neatly on the desk, we have been constantly told to inhale, exhale. Before the morning prayer. Before a game. Before exams.

As we grow older, the exercise of inhaling and exhaling becomes more necessary. To regain composure after a stumble. To restrain yourself from strangling a client. To take a puff from a cigarette. Deeper inhales after smoking too much. Beathing calisthenics as you reach orgasm. Rhythmic exhales when one is pushing a life out to this world.

Struggling to breathe as we grow older.

Breathing is natural. As natural as breathing, the saying goes. It's the only task our brain tells us to do when we're sleeping. And still, it sometimes feels like we have forgotten to. Let's take a breather, we usually say. As if we've stopped processing oxygen. As if we've held our breaths in the middle of meetings, arguments, breakdowns.

I am exhausted.

It's time for that breathing exercise. In Hong Kong. Will be leaving this Tuesday with W. Vacation?, people are inclined to ask.

Just taking a breather folks.

The Ex

Tiring, tiring week. Tiring good. Almost.

Most of the week was spent planning and shooting a documentary with Dodobird. High expectations on this one. Mainly because the man we're doing this for is a demigod. Nearing historic proportions. Built a city is all. But poof went anxiety. The shots were great. The interviews brilliant. But the feet hurt like hell.

Was hoping to get out of this marketing meeting yesterday because unless they're teaching us hypnosis or granting us funding (for hypnosis classes) then there's really a rare chance that I'll learn anything new from all the big talk. Come on. Target market, situational analysis, anyone?

But the dreaded thing was moved to today. So no excuse. And guess what? It was advertising 101.

For babies.

In a coma.

(Sorry. But I do love babies. But I don't want one of my own. And brain-deadness should never be wished upon on anyone. Because it already occurs often enough at Cable Car)

Same textbook scribbling from way back in 1995 at the DAP when Mabi, Felice and I --- out of ass numbing boredom --- wrote "The Ubiquitous Cup" across a styrofoam cup and rotated it around the room, from table to chair to another table, until it reached the back of the room.

Advertising is like the ex-boyfriend that rings and puts the receiver down with a bang when you answer. The bad sex you'll keep comparing other bad fucks to. The big idea that never was.

Don't get me wrong. I actually loved the work, the brainstorming, the AE bashing, the wordplay. But I hated, HATED the posturing. The JOs. The Jar-Jar Gon. And this time the Ubiquitous Cup wasn't around to save us.