Oh gods oh gods, are you there? [text message banter during an unexpected april shower]

I just had to share these exchanges through text... It lifted my mood a little -considering the the week i have been having [having being the operative word], and give or take that the person on the other end was located in central luzon for that matter. Here goes:

Drake: Yehey! Mahal talaga ako ni Bro, ang lakas ng ulan, migs!

Niki: Teka lang, tatawagan ko si Bro ha, baka kasi si Shiva o si Vishnu ang may gawa.

Drake: Si Hades daw. Hehehe!

Niki: Mali, si Horus daw may gawa. Nadapa at nadali yung pitsel ni Santa Martha kaya bumuhos ang ulan.

Drake: Nabitawan nga ni Horus yung jug sa Pampanga. Lakas ulan may bits of ice pa o.

Niki: Nagalit si Santa Martha, best pitcher daw niya yon... Hahatawin yata si Horus ng basket of grapes.

Drake: Ako heto, sobrang tuwa. Sarap pakinggan ng mga kulog at makita Thunder bolts ni Tatay Zeus.



Well, primera lluve de mayo [the first rain of May] is hopefully around the corner... Here's praying to the heavens that this insufferable heat will pass... Soon.



Thus spake the Barefoot Baklesa

Holy Week My Way...

While the rest of Gay-dom had made plans for the hedonism that is to be expected of Good Friday at places like Bora and Puerto Galera -or wherever it is where the well-earning gays of the day are flocking during the holy week break, the Barefoot Baklesa was up to his neck trying to make sure the Niki de los Reyes-Torres Carroza Challenge 2010 was no less than fabulous [it doesn't get any gayer than that, using the word fabulous, I mean]

I remember my friend Sandro [the one responsible for the nomenclature of "The Barefoot Baklesa"] telling me what his grandfather once said, "Oh, you have a gay friend who collects Virgins? You do realize the irony in that?" ~Well, it's one of those things that just confuse people about me. That same friend whom I miss dearly and might leave for the land of the Kiwis soon ~Okay, I'm getting distracted again.

I guess in that list of contradictions that is me, the creature that I become come Lent and Holy Week is one thing that I enjoy metamorphosing into. And thank goodness for my theater background that I am able to achieve certain things which -I think- even at my idle wanderings into the realm of imagination would never have passed my mind. But I miraculously do... Beauty, intention, texture, effects, and awe are but few of the things that sum up a good job come procession time. And I'm thankful to have more than a few hands to help me achieve that. My cousins being my partners in crime, make the experience an enjoyable one ~sans the stress and the last minute crunch.

Lately, I felt as if my year actually begins after the rites of Easter Dawn.... If that is the case, then I welcome it.


Thus spake The Barefoot Baklesa

The Niki de los Reyes-Torres Carroza Challenge Year 3: Saying Goodbye to an old Friend

I haven't posted anything regarding this year's Carroza Challenge due to the really hectic schedule I had to juggle as of late. I still had to do a last minute check on the deliveries for a mall before my flight. This proved to be more than a challenge but also a series of miracles. [for the benefit of the readers who have no idea what a Carroza is, a Carroza is a tiered, decorated platform upon which images of Roman Catholic Saints are placed/mounted, usually with wheels, used in processions for holy week and certain feast days and days of ritual significance.]



Since the Carroza we have been using before has succumbed to termites and rotting, we had to build the wooden tiered platform from scratch once again -had it built in pieces to be bolted once it arrives at our ancestral home in Antique province. The pieces had to travel by ship and almost did not make it through, but the divine has ways.

So as i bid goodbye to the old one, here's to the rush of the new... Like many things, the impermanent remind us that if we don't take care of what we have, we might just lose it -and that applies to a lot of things in life as well.




Still a long way to go before the Maundy Thursday Procession...Breathe...


Thus spake the Barefoot Baklesa

Can i just Say?

I slept in rather late, my body was a little worse for wear from the day before -unusually cold summer day that went all humid on me- But i woke up a while ago feeling as if the world is going my way. And that nothing, not even Uncle FreUd with a few lose screws in his head, can ruin this day...

I'd like to share this wallpaper from Bon Bon Underwear which pretty much sums up what I feel today...Enjoy!!!



Thus spake the Barefoot Baklesa

that's one way of looking at it...

This was a posted by a dear friend, colleague-in-the-arts, and fellow kakulitan, Sir Mike Villanueva about my Santino post; and he is quoted thus:

"Duno if this connects. But lately I've been toying w/ the thought that Filipinos/the Philippines in general is as Catholic/Christian as it is Democratic - translation: only in name.
That being christian & democratic are fashionable masks worn and beneath this thin veneer is a face the nation is collectively ashamed of so there is an unspoken collective effort to keep it under wraps.

Prof of mine is of the opinion that the country has a nature that's sort of Schizotypal: pervasive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior.

Or in a nutshell, saying/proclaiming one thing and doing the exact opposite. This would conform w/ a study I heard the KBP did over 10 years ago.
They determined the mental age of Filipinos in general and concluded that as a whole the Philippine population has the collective mental maturity of a 10-year old and so game shows, fast-paced, colorful, no-brainer production became the norm for a race that IN GENERAL struggles to differentiate fact from fantasy as well as holds on to Hope to the point of being Delusional.
Gee, my comment is longer than your blog. ;D"

i will have much to say about this soon; yet the easiest for the time being is I AGREE...


thus spake the Barefoot Baklesa