The Thin Line

The Hidden Life of Inanimate Objects

I remember this scene back in the Bay Area. I visited a friend and former co-worker and I was at his cubicle. I remarked on a couple of things. 

First was about a studio picture of his girlfriend: "Why do people walk into studios fully-made-up and have their pictures taken?" It doesn't feel spontaneous, I said. It seemed artificial.

He replies: "People just want their photos taken. What's the matter with you?"

The second was a mocking remark about a little cube-like object that was a freebie from a recent company meeting: "That's it? It's just a cube. It doesn't do anything."

My friend replies with equivalent sarcasm:

"You expect too much from inanimate objects."

That was most of what I remember from that scene. Well, there's also the part where my friend says, "Are you eating those chips by yourself or are you sharing it with the carpet? You're such a messy eater."

. . .

This was over 10 years ago back at the Netscape Communications (R.I.P.) Building 1. I'm sorry to say that those things haven't changed.

Ok, so I'm not that messy an eater. I just tend to somehow spill some sauce or crumbs more than the usual person, maybe. But just a little. But then I took up photography years later from then, and even now, I still dislike those fake studio shots with the generic mottled back-drop.

I also still expect too much from inanimate objects.

And thus, I have a confession to make: I'm stuck on the things I own. 

Sure, I figured out what to bring with me in case of a fire or calamity. I'd bring almost none of what I own except essential documents, etc. I'm not that stuck on these things. But it's just in normal everyday life, these inanimate objects have a life of their own.

It's not as bad as you think. The thing is, I don't have that much stuff. Yes, my camera equipment is worth a lot more than my car -- but how much is a 1999 Civic Sedan nowadays? I've read a lot of books, but I don't own a lot of them. I don't have much furniture. I only started shopping for clothes more frequently the past couple of years (I used to buy myself clothes only around Christmas; I have 6-year old sweaters that are somewhat frayed at the edges, but I still wear them).

But I just told you my problem: It's not that I love material things. I would just say that I like some minor conveniences. I drink 4 to 7 cups of coffee a day. Maybe later, I'll upgrade to a Nespresso at home just to try it out. And I like certain niche things -- like classic cameras. But I don't really buy too many of them.

So, no, the problem is not that I love material things. But I love the material things that I already have. 

A couple of my friends in Manila were somewhat surprised that I still drove the same car. That was four or five years ago. They'd probably be even more surprised now. In Manila, they seem to change cars every three to four years or so. 

It's not that I should go out and get a car upgrade tomorrow morning. It really isn't worth it to get a really nice car because I park in the street. But the time will come when it's unsafe to drive my old car then, and... I actually feel sad selling and leaving old Blue with someone else to get a new car -- which will likely be called Blue 2 or Blue II -- assuming it will be blue (note that my car's official color is "Iced Teal Pearl" but it's corny to call it "Ice" and it's a bit gay to call it "Teal" or "Pearl"). It's almost like leaving an old friend because he's not useful to you anymore.

Sure, I traded in my beat-up Blackberry Pearl for an Android phone. But this was because even my boss recommended that I get one because of my line of work ("If not for your personal enjoyment, for professional reasons"). But I still have the Pearl -- you know -- as a back-up.

I was furious when I heard my mom donated our old set of encyclopedia to a local library in the province. Those are my books, I declared -- as if they were mine alone. Well, maybe that's somewhat true. I probably used them more than anyone in the house and I literally tried to read through them (there was nothing much to do back then, really).

Sometimes, maybe it's just sheer fascination. Do you know how complicated a Rolleiflex twin lens camera is, for instance? I saw the exploded diagram of a model that I own. There are very few people in the U.S. who can properly service a Rolleiflex. And yet, those things can come from far back as the 50's (it can be older, but anything older would not be that usable) and I can still produce great photos with them. A Rolleiflex is an over-engineered, hand-crafted, fully-mechanical camera. It's just very, very well-made. That, and it looks beautiful.

Still, it's the personal aspect -- the sentiment -- that makes them special. The Nikon D200 outperforms the D70... but wait... some of my all-time favorite photos were taken on the D70. I have a Rolleiflex 2.8F, but I loved the photos I took with the Rolleiflex 3.5E2 -- even though the "F" models are said to be the pinnacle of Rollei design while the "E" models are one model back. In reality though, none of this means anything. They all just take photos, that's all.

My car has a name. It has a personality. It's ultra-realiable (and I heard the newer Hondas and Toyotas are not as much anymore). I mockingly say that my car will eject people it dislikes but dare ride it (Read: my car will eject people that I dislike but dare ride with me). Or, at least I wish it can do that. Like maybe eject people onto the freeway or off a bridge in a cartoony and non-lethal fashion (if that's possible).

The Leica point-and-shoot is the lighter back-up to the large Nikons. The tiny Canon I bought months ago is the even tinier back-up to my Leica p&s. 

Or so I say. It sounds fine in my head -- now if only I were actually still taking pictures with any of those cameras. 

I still have that old Macbook laptop that I don't use. Sure, it paid for itself many times over with one short job contract. But I rarely use it. And potential buyers failed to see what a good value it was. So it's there, as a, uhm... backup to the iMac I'm using right now -- the iMac that I should soon replace because it's dying. It's boot time is about 7 minutes. The hard-drive will blow up soon. The video card's a mess. It hangs like a PC on Windows 98 sometimes. But I can't just work on a tiny laptop, right? I'll have to get another desktop with a large display. So will I finally then get rid of laptop or will I need it as backup? I wonder...

 

"You expect too much from inanimate objects."

Yes, I do. And you know what? Most of the time, these objects deliver.

I always say that my Civic has never let me down. This is more than I can say for actual human beings in my life. This is more than I can say about how I am to those human beings in my life. Truly, friends: It's a mystery why we hurt the ones we love -- and for this, people make up valid reasons in their head. It's either that, or they totally deny their fault.

It's a sad realization. And so, maybe you think I'm just rambling on about nothing and I'm just trying to be funny. This post is a sad commentary on the human condition.

Ok, I just made that up on-the-fly, but it's worth a thought, right?

Objects cannot deny any faults. They break down. You have them repaired. If they're irrepairable, then they become display pieces or archive samples. Maybe spare parts? Recyclables? Maybe you just throw them out?

These objects -- these things -- are like substitute pets. Pets don't ever disappoint you, they have no will to disappoint you. An object is like your dog greeting you when you come home from school or work. Dogs are happy to see you (it means they get attention and food).

But the difference, of course, is that with these objects -- these mere products of human hands (which will become for us the Bread of Life, blessed be God forever...)  -- it's not that we can say they're happy or sad at all, or that they would have the capability to summon an emotion that human beings don't project on them. Objects are just there. They just are.

[sigh].

I now need to rest and lie on my trusty, old couch.

Oh, and let me tell you about this couch...

 

Rediscovering the Point and Shoot Camera: The Canon Powershot 300 HS

 

Well now, here's a photography-related story. Just bear with me. I haven't talked about anything photographic in a while...

It's been quite a journey, and it feels like I've come full circle:

2002 - Bought my first digital camera -- the 4 Megapixel Canon Powershot S40

2004 - Realized the limitation of the point and shoot while trying to do the very basic blurring of the background. Bought my first SLR camera, the Nikon D70

2004-2006 - Bought thousands of dollars worth of equipment for the D70

2006 - Coughed up more cash to upgrade to a Nikon D200. Spent even more moolah for more lenses and equipment

2007-2008 - Scorned the fact that everyone now has a DSLR. Interest in photography stagnated.

2009 - Got jaded with people shooting with smart phones. Fell in love with film and twin lens reflex (TLR) cameras. Bought a 30-year old Yashica Mat 124G and a 50-year old Rolleiflex 3.5E2 and started shooting square film and scanning. :)

2010 - Bought a Rolleiflex 2.8F 12/24 -- the pinnacle of Rollei TLRs. Also bought the Leica D-Lux 4. Still snobby about quality and resolution.

2011 - Handled the tiny Canon SD1400 IS point-and-shoot at a party. Ended up buying what seems to be its successor -- the Canon 300 HS.

 

Ok. That's a strange turn. But it makes sense.

When I became jaded with every DSLR-toting tourist walking around Rockefeller Center, I turned to film. But it was really because I got to handle a large-format camera (and indeed, in 2009, I was tempted to buy a large-format camera but ended up just buying TLRs. MY DSLRs took a vacation.

But with the novelty of TLR shooting (think hanging around by the water till sunset, listening to music, and then shooting 3 rolls of film till nightfall), I started becoming weary of weight. Maybe it's the TLR's balanced look and boxiness. My DSLRs seemed clunky by comparison, although obviously they're quite a bit more practical and usable.

So I started craving for some sleekness, which led me to the Leica D-Lux 4. I've gotten some good use from it so far, but it's still too bulky for an everyday camera.

Then one night, at Brendan Perrin's birthday party, Bren's fiancee Joy handed me this tiny Canon to take a few group pics. This piqued my curiosity.

I knew that the tiny thing cannot hold a candle to my D-Lux 4 in the same way the D-Lux 4 can't possibly compete with even my ancient Nikon D70. But that is if we're talking about resolution and image quality. We're talking about sensor sizes here (and while I'm at it -- the medium format film I used with the Rolleiflexes can be scanned to an equivalent 50-megapixel photo...).

But here was the problem: I didn't bring my Leica to Bren's party. In fact, I had no camera at all.

So then I asked about the camera (the actual owner is Bren and Joy's friend, Michelle) which led me to its predecessor.

Now see the pic of it above.

The net effect so far is that I'm simply loving it. After spending so much on camera equipment, I'm exhilarated by buying a relatively cheap device and then finding it actually encourages me to shoot.

It's not only that. Becoming interested in P&S cameras, I rediscovered my D-Lux 4 and I went ahead and bought a custom grip and a few more accessories. One problem I have with the Leica is that it's quite substantial that it really begs for a better grip (akin to that of a DSLR or one of the Ricoh point-and-shoots that directly compete with my Leica). Also, it is a Leica, and quite beautiful and expensive for what it does. I'd hate to even scratch it -- which is counter-productive to actually using it as often as I should.

So now, the Canon 300 HS. How's the image quality though?

Well in fact, my officemate who brings the Panasonic equivalent of my Leica (the LX3 or LX4) starts taking test shots with it, and after a while, I was like "Yo, it's just a camera. Quit obsessing over it." And he kept mumbling about how it was so great with low-light shooting and that he was tempted to get the camera himself.

So there you have it. In some ways, it even competes with the Leica.

But for me, it's the handling. What caught my attention was the texture, actually. My fear of most point-and-shoots is that a lot of them feel too small and at the same time often slippery (think of those Sonys and past Canon Elph cams). The ones with nice grips tend to be bulky (think of those old Nikons and Fujis from years back). And quite often flimsy-feeling (Nikon [sigh...])

Now this Canon feels sturdy and its handling is reminiscent of a Ricoh GR/GRD camera -- my D-Lux's rival, which IMHO, beats most if not all small cameras for sheer feel (those Ricohs are the closest you can get to the feel off an SLR). But it's even tinier and lighter. The controls are logical and the ergonomics are not bad.

Again, it feels small even with its grippiness. But at subway stations, I quickly turn it on, I shoot, and quickly turn it off. Then I'm on the train with the camera in my front pants pocket or my jacket. Very cool.

And those scene modes. Really, I just shoot aperture-priority most of the time with my DSLRs and the D-Lux 4. But I finally found some scene modes fun. There's that fake Fish Eye, and then the Toy Camera mode's nice. I have yet to try most of the features and maybe then I'll post videos from it.

Sure, I'm a newbie to these consumer features as I usually ignore them, but it amused me so much that I actually pulled out my Leica's manual and started reading it. What I used to love about the Leica is its low-light perrformance. But now I saw a pinhole feature. I found out that it has two baby modes. You can enter the age of up to two babies, and as you shoot through the years, it also records the babies age in the file (not that recording babies apply to me right now, but how's that for a feature?). It also has a pet mode (with a dog icon) similar to the baby mode. Really. I never knew. It has a food mode. Although now I'm sure the new Canon will be in charge of shooting food from now on...

I'm beginning to sound like an idiot, I'm sure. Scene modes? Other people may suspect that I've lost it -- that I'll just be displaying the Rolleis in a glass case and then I'll start selling off my Nikon equipment.

Never. That's not the point. In the end, cameras are just tools. The Rolleis will wipe the floor with all my other cameras if it's sheer quality and black and white shooting. The Nikons will win with versatility and prro/semi-pro usage.

But now I have cameras for almost anything I want to do, including those dinners and occasional parties.

 

DISTANT FUTURE: 20?? --

Wildlife shooting, maybe? The only thing I haven't really done with photography is shoot photos of animals in the wild. When will that happen? I don't know, but I'm sure I won't be approaching a lion up to four feet with the Leica or the Canon point-and-shoots and then attempt to shoot it with the fish-eye mode. I'm sure lions in the wild won't find that too amusing. So I have to hold on to my Nikon gear.

 

The Agent Marvs 1997-1998 Mix CD

In 1999, there was the Semisonic Feeling Strangely Fine CD in the car. There was a CD of Beethoven's 5th and 7th symphonies conducted by Carlos Kleiber (possibly the best-conducted ever of these symphonies). There was the Depeche Mode For the Masses tribute album. And then two Nirvana CDs (Never Mind and In Utero). Also, Third Eye Blind. And then Sarah McLachlan. Then later, Dido (who was a bit like McLachlan minus all the misery).

But in the shoulder rest of my trusty old Civic named Blue, (well then a brand new, scratch-free, always-waxed Civic) and forever enshrined in a cheesy portion of my heart was the Agent Marvs mix CD. It's a semi-random compilation of songs that was burned during that time before iTunes as well as wide-spread illegal peer-to-peer music downloads. The piracy had to be done as a favor (or for a nominal fee) by a real DJ at an actual radio station. 

I have my old roommates to thank for the title of the album. I can still hear them snickering as they hand me the CD (I think it was a Judel Uy idea). "Agent Marvs" was a private joke among them -- something to do with Agent Mulder and Scully (They thought it fit to project their devotion to the X-Files to me for whatever reason; I only really watched the show when they were watching it. I think it was really Ralph Lumo who was the die-hard fan.)

I only just found the Agent Marvs compilation a few weeks ago, and I painstakingly put in meta information for each song as I imported the CD to my iTunes library. The songs are below. Let me explain a little how they found their way into my list. 

Coolness, sentimentalism, cheese and some great music. I miss the 90's sometimes.

. ~ .~ . ~ .

1. Tubthumping - Chumbawumba

This is memorable because I choreographed a dance with it during my first job (in Manila). By "choreographed", I meant I cobbled together whatever steps I remembered from another dance performance that I'd seen an old college friend of mine perform with other people who can actually dance (the Company of Ateneo Dancers, or CADS). Or rather, the steps were a semblance of the original number, which I had to simplify even further because everyone at work had two left feet and we had about 2 or 3 practice sessions. We didn't leave our day jobs to pursue careers as professional dancers, but it was really fun and it was a good lesson about going out of your comfort zone. 

 

2. Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind

"I believe in the sand between my toes. The beach gives a feeling, an earthy feeling. I believe in a faith that grows. And the four right chords can make me cry. When I'm with you, I feel like I could die and that would be alright... I want something else to get me through this life."

This is a cool song. Once upon a time, pop music wasn't about someone bringing Sexyback, telling people to evacuate the dance floor, waking up feeling like P. Diddy and then brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack (who really does that?), pleading to please don't stop the music over and over while stealing a riff from a Michael Jackson song, or telling people you're "so fly" and then comparing yourself to a luxury private plane.

Youthful songs just ten years ago, far from just sounding stupid, could actually be sensitive, honest, angst-ridden and still sound cool. Without sounding too emo.

 

3. Say What You Want - Texas

Texas and her clones in the video. While it's another catchy song, and you can sing it, but you won't want someone to sing it to you. Otherwise, it's a perfect first song as you start your car to go for a drive on a lazy weekend morning in sunny weather.

 

 

4. Fly - Sugar Ray

It featured Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath preening onscreen feeling really high on himself and singing "all around the world, statues crumble for me, who knows how long I've loved you". The song just a festive ballad / party song. The singer brags while at the same time being self-deprecatingly lovelorn. I think it was a perfect club / summer road trip / day at the beach song back in the day.

 

 

5. I Don't Wanna Wait - Paula Cole

Remember this was back in those times when it was actually worth it to see Katie Holmes's dimples onscreen as we watched mostly 20-something actors play the parts of teen-agers in Dawson's Creek. Admit it, you've watched the show yourself.

 

6. Who Wants to Know - Jimmy Ray

I don't know how this got in there. I think one of my roommates, Popoy Velasco, put it there because Jimmy Ray's hairstyle really cracked him up every time he saw the video. I only manage to listen to this song absent-mindedly while driving through Bay Area traffic back in 1999, otherwise, I hit "skip". I think this is an awful precursor to Will Smith's "Willenium" and other annoyingly egotistical songs (another such song is "Backtreet's Back" or whatever the title was).

 

7. Gettin' Jiggy Wit It - Will Smith

Ah, this was prior to that Willenium farce when Will Smith for whatever reason thought he was the biggest thing that happened to music during that time. This suspiciously sounded like something was mixed into that old "Men in Black" song (which is based on a much older song, "Forget me Nots"). But it's just a really fun song and everyone seemed to know its signature dance step from the video. 

 

8. Dreams - The Corrs

This is a cover of the Fleetwood Mac original (which itself is a great song). Watch the video below and try to remember why the Philippines fell in love with The Corrs (long before they even had a valid hit in the U.S.).

 

9. Don't Say You Love Me - The Corrs

I'm not sure why this Corrs song got in here. Really.

 

 

10. What Can I Do? - The Corrs

Ok, so I had this thrown in because a friend of mine loved this and I was going to let her borrow the mix CD. Honest. But the song grew on me. It's for those moments when no one within a 10-mile radius is more mellow than me, which happened pretty often. So I seldom hit "skip" on this one.

 

11. Runaway - The Corrs

I have to say this song is beautiful. I really liked hearing the violin theme. Great keyboard work, too (try listening to the unplugged version below). Mix it with Andrea Corr's gorgeous voice, and you have a winner. This is especially useful for those times when you want to trail off to a peaceful nap while stuck in a bus under the Lincoln Tunnel (so sure, I had it in my iPod years later when I was already in New York). The Corrs are just so pleasing to my ears -- and this particular song, even more so than their other hits.

 

12. Barely Breathing - Duncan Sheik

It seems copyright law is really tight with Duncan Sheik's posse, so no videos. Good driving song. Possibly a good karaoke song as well. It's a song about Duncan Sheik tasting saline solution from a woman's tears. I forgot the rest of the lyrics, but if I remember correctly, I think the song is sadder than it's relatively upbeat melody. We don't know much about the guy character in the song except that he seems to be holding his breath a lot or he resides at an altitude high enough to lack sufficient oxygen. We don't know much about the woman, but with the saline line, it's clear that she wore contacts and cried a lot during the relationship.

 

13. Brick - Ben Folds Five

This is an abortion song, hence, a bit depressing-sounding. It's great if you're in a self-loathing mood. Only recently did I find out that "Ben Folds" is actually someone's full name. I thought maybe there was a guy named Ben trying to fold five of something (maybe laundry or origami -- I didn't care that much to find out what it was).

 

14. Iris - Goo Goo Dolls

Yes, no video embedding allowed again.

I doubt there are people in my email mailing list who haven't seen that Nick Cage-Meg Ryan movie.Cage was an angel wearing a black trench coat. He hears music every morning while watching the sunrise at the beach. He falls in love with Meg Ryan. Meg Ryan, of course, dies a horrific death as she rides her bicycle in front of a truck carrying massive wooden logs just as the angel decided to "give up forever" to be with her. I actually didn't expect that ending, but I was still young and naive and I listened to the Goo Goo Dolls a lot. And sure, I bought the GGD album that contained this song and it was one of my favorite CDs when driving to the city (San Francisco at the time). 

15. Truly Madly Deeply - Savage Garden

I think this song was based on an English movie of the same title. The movie was said to be a European version of the Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore movie, "Ghost". Actually, Truly, Madly, Deeply (the Movie) was required material for a Filipino class back at the Ateneo. I forgot why. But it was a great film.

I won't belabor an explanation as to how it got into my mixed CD. I actually forgot if I put it on the list myself. But I like the song now, so I probably loved it then. Else, by default, any overly-sentimental song should be attributed as Ralph Lumo's secret contribution.

 

 

16. Wishful Thinking - China Crisis

How did this get into a 90's music compilation? Even I am actually a bit too young when this song came out, but I love and still love 80's music. I also know people who were babies in the 80's but went back to listening to 80's music as well.

Still a great song. There is a live version of this somewhere. In fact, I think I have it in another mixed CD...

 

17. Push - Matchbox Twenty

This song came out after Rob Thomas left his career as a roofer (i.e. a guy who puts roofs on houses -- and he swore in an interview that it was the toughest thing he did and would never go back to that sort of life). He was in a band called Matchbox Twenty. Anyone else remember them? 

Too bad Rob Thomas went solo. Listen to the video below as Thomas denies that the song has anything to do with misogyny. 

 

 

God and Country

I have two significant memories from when I was in college at the Ateneo de Manila:

Every so often, there's a special Mass held at the quad. Now there was this one time, as I was crossing the quad to get to class, the timing was perfect for a hymn from the cantor. There was no choir; there was just this young lady whom I knew was a member of the glee club.  

I stopped dead in my tracks. I thought this cantor just had this gorgeous singing voice. I don't even remember the girl's name anymore (I have some imagery in my head -- and she's possibly this girl in my English class -- but I don't trust that part of the memory). But I remember that moment.

If God does exist, He just had to be listening then. (And if God wasn't listening to this girl's hymn, then I think the cacophony of my prayers are even less likely to be heard.)

I walked into class half-way through the period (well, that was nothing new anyway).

The second memory happened early one morning. I was walking down from the Residence Halls, just a few feet away from crossing the road to the path to Berchman's Hall. Then, the most absolutely ordinary thing happened: The Philippine national anthem was announced and then started playing. 

(This was a rare occasion for me. I'm rarely awake that early in the morning when I was in college. That had to be 7am.)

Everyone within sight just stopped -- including the cars on the road.

I placed my right palm on my chest and started singing softly. I observed a few other people do the same, or else they just stood quietly at attention, facing the general direction of the college quad.

 

Companies collapse, organizations falter, and even people whom we regarded as friends can sell us out. But one that gives me some hope is the knowledge that there are people for whom love of God and love of country are not just philosophical imperatives. It's the only way to live.

 

Could It Be Magic?

So I was set on going back to piano lessons -- it's one of those random epiphanies I've been having lately.

I started learning the piano in second grade. Piano lessons were an alternative to a certain other homeroom type of class (I forgot which, but I remember being thankful that my parents opted to put me in a music class instead). I took lessons only for a little over two years, I think.

I went through three teachers. But my last piano teacher -- who used to go to my family's house to give me and my sister lessons -- decided to focus on the Yamaha programs. So he informed my family that he would no longer be doing home visits and if his students were interested in continuing lessons, we would have to go to this large, sprawling hall full of pianos inside the Diwa ng Tarlac (which was a nice venue back then; I don't even know if it still exists).

I was also offered a Yamaha scholarship (supposedly, I was a fast learner). To cut the long story short, I refused, and I stopped taking lessons altogether (and so did my sister). My parents did not pressure me. They're very laissez faire as parents and never forced me into anything -- hobbies, school, nothing. (In retrospect, I wish they forced me to take the scholarship and further piano training.)

I continued to practice by myself. Then I started learning new music pieces. Eventually, I got to my big sister's pieces. I got through those, started learning newer pieces. To cut this long story short, high school came and my priorities changed (friends and shenanigans). I stopped playing altogether and the piano became just another piece of furniture (my sister had long stopped playing also).

So now, two decades later, I have this piano in my apartment that I barely played for the years I've had it, and I told myself: "I spend so much money on so much garbage, I might as well spend it on self-improvement, on things that cannot be taken away from me." The fact that I can't play much tennis or do much running this year because of knee problems put any counter-arguments to rest.

Now, one piece that haunted me a long time ago was the long intro to a Barry Manilow song, "Could It Be Magic?", so I looked up the song on Youtube.

And wouldn't you know it... The intro is actually Frederic Chopin's Prelude in C Minor. In fact, the whole song was inspired by it (based on another Youtube video where Barry Manilow himself explained how he came up with the song -- it was inspired by Chopin's work).

And it's a short, slow piece. I downloaded the piece already and, as slow as I am in reading, I can probably play it well enough with little practice...

So there. It must be fate, right? I'm having the piano tuned this Saturday and I'll probably take night lessons at Julliard (not alongside young piano prodigies, but with other older folks in the continuing education programs :).

And here's some mush for you, and be sure to listen to the embedded Youtube video (uploaded by another Pinoy, no less). The song sounds like it was pulled out of the playlist of my old college friend, Ralph Lumo (You sort of knew that was coming, right?).

Come into my arms
Let me know the wonder of all of you

And hopefully, this isn't another one of my wishy-washy seasonal hobbies. Wish me luck.

 

Work, Part 9: Lost

I have a question for my friends, but first, I'll relate what I've done so far in my career.

I started in a fledgling division (I used to refer to it as "experimental" division) in a book publishing subsidiary of a software consulting company (Software Ventures). We were mostly kids fresh out of college back then. The web was young, the work seemed meaningful. We worked on "multimedia" (everything is multimedia nowadays, so the term is pretty much obsolete in the field). We worked on the web. One of the bigger projects was to promote Philippine tourism and of course, also find a way to monetize the idea. It didn't really fly, but it was great fun and it seemed like a good cause.

I went to California partly to try to start a career there and I ended up working for the company that produced the first graphical web browser -- Netscape Communications. People were on fire and were in love with the company. The ones who were lucky and early enough made a lot of money, sure, but the work had meaning as well. As far as I can remember, most of us were relatively young and a lot of us thought we could change the world.

This continued to a start-up company, Elance, where I picked a job out of four offers (yes, those were the days), and I picked it because it presented the best challenge. I expected to be go home any time soon and I wanted to maximize learning, so I left my cushy job at Netscape and jumped to a start-up for the excitement and frantic pace. Elance, I thought, was special, as the business model was set-up around freelancers and small businesses, i.e. the little guy. Beyond that, it was a hell of a ride... which eventually turned out just plain hellish once the dotcom bubble burst and everyone became miserable. Work lost its meaning in the day-to-day and I walked into an office one with my boss about to relate some work issues. Instead, I changed my mind and just said:

"I think I'm quitting."

"What?"

"I quit. I just don't look forward to work anymore."

"I don't really have that many resources right now..."

"And I'm not asking for anything," I continued. "I just want you to know."

I left early that day and drove to my place of solace -- this old Borders bookstore branch I frequented in Union City. Two of my old teammates called me to persuade me not to quit, stating the job market was bad, etc. No dice.

About two weeks later, I left for New York.

So then, I took a job at a Japanese shipping company, NYK Line, and it was great. The people were, uhm, interesting (I thought a lot of people were too in-your-face all the time -- my first slice of the East Coast) and I loved the experience for a while. I was back in a large company and of course, I like Japanese culture. Work became mundane, but all in all, always relevant. I maintained the global website, edited shipping routes in a convoluted series of steps that I mastered. I did both coding and design here and there.

And then I got bored. I was there too long without really innovating myself. My personal life came crashing in also. For my last year there or so, I was at work but not really at work. The company that struck me as relevant every time I saw its logo -- whether floating at sea somewhere in the East Coast or on the road in Manila -- became irrelevant to me, and I left the job I could have possibly kept for life. It actually hurt to leave, but it felt right somehow.

And oh, how wrong I was... I went back to AOL, figuring that was the same company that bought Netscape and, while that sent people fleeing, my memories of an AOL-acquired Netscape were pretty good. The AOL now -- I disliked the dynamics in my team -- everyone seemed too competitive, even in meetings where we're supposed to learn from each other. My new boss and I were never in sync. Though I loved user experience design, I never got really comfortable in the role of a specialist. Or maybe it was because I never got comfortable working for AOL? In any case, that didn't end well.

Less than a year later, I'm in Time, Inc. as a consultant and I was in an identity crisis. I was a specialist again, but this time, I seemed out of my league. I was starting over and I felt so behind. I had experience in a few other fields within the web industry but that didn't seem that useful.

But I worked on a lot of websites and I was becoming more comfortable. But then work stopped coming in, and the economy collapsed. This was just last year.

I found myself in UNICEF for a fleeting three months. I was over-worked, but I managed to wear most of my hats again. I loved the idea of working for UNICEF -- a privilege probably mostly forgotten by my peers who've worked there for years (although, to be fair, I worked with the possibly the most agreeable team there).

After spending the rest of winter trying to enjoy the downtime, my old boss at Time, Inc., who was promoted, recommended me to the new manager in charge, and I was back there, missing all the company restructuring chaos. Months later, I'm an employee again.

And I love Time, Inc as a company and as an idea. I like its legacy. I like walking around the different floors and seeing old and new photos -- not just of typical Americana but also pictures evocative of human history in general. My co-workers are great. The bosses are cool. I have a few friends at work again. I work on health.com nowadays (and never mind the irony that I'm always whining about not feeling well...).

And yet lately, I've been finding it all meaningless. It's almost like AOL again. We work for clicks and ad impressions. You can argue that this is the same as Google's bread and butter (only no one profits from it as much as Google does).

It's become meaningless -- this field. I was watching a feature on Google and thought how cool it would be to work there. And then my mood turns dark again. This can be all bad -- this interconnectedness or our so-called social networks, this intrusion of privacy, etc. And I'm part of it.

I dreamed of the web putting people together ever since Netscape Navigator 1.0 (or actually, its predecessor, the Mosaic browser and even the text-only Lynx). I avoided the typical path my classmates and Computer Science took and tried to delve into the more creative side of the web. I loved it for a while. I did it for more than a decade.

If I had a better business sense, a more brilliant mind, or even just a ton of luck, I could be retired with a few million by now. But my ride through my career and my field's history is just pedestrian. I did well enough and I'm not starving. Work was good enough to keep me interested. Until now. It became meaningless. Just a bunch of clicks.

I know I should be thankful for all the blessings given to me. I should be thankful I even have a job. But I'm just not that happy. While all my jobs are general in the same field, it also seems like my foray into a variety of jobs and companies can be construed as a failure to actually build on anything solid in life. I feel lost.

So my question is -- what am I doing wrong?

And what else am I missing in life?

Work, Part 1

I wanted to share a little story during my first week of work in California...

I was in my cubicle as a temp worker at Netscape. It was a simple HTML job.  Back then, a lot of editing work in big portals weren't even handled by large content management systems that allowed the editors to make changes to their respective channels without having to know HTML. So, a team of people like me served that purpose, and our skills ranged from HTML to some old-school JavaScript to back-end Perl scripting (this was 1999).

So it was my first week on the job, and I was still in awe of my new corporate culture (weird people, beer bashes, dogs at work, khaki shorts, sandals, Nerf gun wars) but I was also still groping around American culture in general.

One morning -- possibly in my second day of work -- one of my new teammates introduced herself and also handed me a couple of chocolate chip cookies in a napkin. I just wolfed down the cookies when she left. Then, like in a timely scene in a TV sitcom, my boss, Jeff, also dropped by my cubicle to introduce me to his boss, Hugh.

"Hey Marvin, good morning... Hugh, this is Marvin, our new Content Specialist."

And there I was barely able to smile and much less able to talk. I couldn't open my mouth because of a half-chewed cookie, and I felt like some character in a "Got Milk?" commercial as I was trying to desperately swallow the rest of the cookie quickly while extending my hand for a handshake. I merely managed a wide-eyed nod. Hugh shook my hand and smiled but also had a look of concern on his face. "He's just a little quiet," my manager told his boss as they moved on.

Later that morning, my liaison in the temping agency, Lisa,  gave me a call. Apparently, Jeff reported that Hugh was concerned that I may not be fit for the job because I seemed too quiet and shy and I was about to be "thrown in the lion's den" (apparently that was the exact phrase that Hugh used to describe working with web producers and editors, though honestly, some of them were actually very sweet people). I explained the cookie incident to Lisa and told her that I would try to drop Jeff a note. I wanted to reassure him I was not too much of a wuss or an idiot for the job.

So, an hour or so later, Lisa called me and the tone of her voice switched from concern to amusement.

"I don't know what email you sent but Jeff was laughing when he called me and said 'Marvin just dropped me this really funny note' and then he just said, 'He'll be fine here'. Good job!"

The email I sent went something like this:

"Hi Jeff,

"Lisa told me about your concerns about me being too quiet. The truth is that I'm actually still in the stage of observation and adjustment. Also, as you know, I'm new to the country in general, and currently my vocabulary consists mainly of four-letter expletives and Seinfeld episodes, but I should be fine soon."


. . .



That short note may have captured the cowboy attitude of the new frontier and gold rush I was in -- the tech boom in the Silicon Valley. The truth is probably closer to the fact that I was really just being a smart-ass -- but I think it showed that I could fit in and would actually have fun in the company. So I kept my first job and launched my modest career in the web industry.

Sometimes, I look back and think that I was probably a better person when I was 23 years old. Although I was also prone to over-analyze and be miserable, I also had more guts and a sense of adventure. I was more tenacious. Most importantly, I was able to laugh at adversity and failure, and then recover gracefully (most of the time).

Music and Getting Old

Last month, after attending the USTA Sectional Championships in Syracuse, I found myself hitching a ride with one of my doubles partners -- this older guy who was familiar with bands from the 70's to the early 80's (Styx, Eagles, etc.). By "familiar", I mean "downright nostalgic". Deep inside, I was chuckling to myself saying, "Haha, he's old..."

But then he made the same remark that I've been saying to myself lately... To paraphrase:

"They don't write songs like that anymore. Everything on the radio's just rap and hip-hop, right?"

He seemed a little sad when he made the remark. And I totally agreed.

So then, I started feeling old myself.

But if feeling old means wanting songs with a decent melody, a memorable guitar riff, etc. then I guess, I feel good about feeling old.

It's not just the melody and instrumentation, either. The poetry of lyric writing seems to be a dying art. Everything seems to be about being cool. Songs -- if you can refer to them as such -- seem to be too derivative of past work with little hint of apology or credit. Everything's just too pretentious and egotistical. Where is the earnestness, the honesty, the cheese (and I don't mean over-melodramatic R&B cheese, mind you)? Where is the love?

"Bla bla bla," whined the old man.

Maybe I'm biased and I just never liked hip-hop that much. But I never liked hip-hop even when I was younger. I enjoyed some hip-hop up to that time it overlapped with electronica and Boy Band material, but that was before hip-hop culture became so relevant that it's just taken for granted.

Yes, I liked some electronica as much as some other genres (although maybe not in the way Ralph Lumo probably secretly enjoyed Boy Bands). I'm not even hard-core into techno (remember those ravers?), but I was annoyed when Kanye West used Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger". All I could hear in Kanye's piece was "What what what what doesn't kill me/Can only make me stronger." The rest of the song was just Daft Punk (I hope Kanye paid them a lot for that). Again, contemporary hip-hop to me seems to be mostly attitude and ego. It used to be more fun.

[Incidentally, the title of the song where Kanye mixed in Daft Punk material is simply called "Stronger".  This is probably because the emotional quotient of most of his fans probably won't facilitate saying "Harder Better Faster Stronger" in one breath -- or at least not in the correct order of words every time.]

I remember a couple of my favorite radio stations during my Silicon Valley days:

"Music from the 80's, 90's and today!"

"Music for the rest of us!"

"For those of us whose pants are securely fastened around our waist."

[P. S. Right now, I just rediscovered OPM when I heard Kitchie Nadal's song "Wag na Wag Mong Sasabihin". Apparently, it's a very old song, and I discovered that I already had it in my Itunes library. I must have imported it from someone else's CD a while back.]

Lower Your Tolerances: God Does Not Give You Anything You Cannot Handle

A strange thing happened last week. I caught a cough, cold and fever -- the symptoms of which were sneaking up on me for days -- and then I mysteriously got well the following night.

This sounds like a pretty mundane detail in my life (possibly because life has been pretty uneventful lately) but the last time I became sick was actually a few years ago with flu-like symptoms (high fever, aches and pains, etc.), a bad cold and a really bad cough (the kind that makes you feel you're developing a six-pack along the way, which actually would have been a nice side-effect...). I usually get sick for a full week.

But now that I'm looking back, I haven't really caught any major bug in my past ten years in the US. Last year, I had a false cancer alarm (I changed my main physician since). I've had no major injuries also. Knock on wood.

Last week, I was dismissing the cold symptoms, even as I felt the fever coming in. The day I decided that I was sick and not just having a bad day, I started Googling for swine flu symptoms. A website stated that high fever was sometimes absent -- which alarmed me because my fever was mild or non-existent. The other symptoms that I didn't have were vomiting, loss of appetite and muscle weakness.

So that night, I ruled out vomiting and loss of appetite. Since I didn't exert any substantial physical effort that Wednesday, I propped my Iron Gym at my room's doorway ("turns every door into your own personal gym!" -- I laughed for probably a full minute when I heard that line). Pull-ups are difficult for me  -- I usually start at 8 repetitions and settle for 7 or 6 for the next two sets. So I did just 7, felt normal, stopped obsessing over swine flu symptoms, and went to bed.

This turned out to be a pretty silly test, because the following day, Thursday, I was sore with flu-like aches and pains -- but then I couldn't figure out if my arms and back were sore because of the flu or because I did pull-ups.

The cold, coughing and slight fever went on for during Wednesday, and I avoided interaction with people as much as I could -- warning people who, I had to talk to in person, trying not to hold on to things like elevator walls and cubicle partitions, etc. I busied myself with work and browsing for anything related to Rolleiflexes and twin lens cameras, colognes, etc. (my current obsessions the past few months or so).

Evening was coming and for the first time and I was starting to feel the cold. I looked out of my window down the street and it was sunny, so I turned up the temperature in the room. I concluded my fever actually got worse.

So in the evening when I got off the subway close to home, I was quite a bit weaker and colder but I forced myself to buy orange juice and some bread. I took Theraflu and passed out by 9pm even as my landlord was knocking on my door and ringing my phone to remind me to leave the keys for the superintendent who was going to fix my bathroom faucet the following day.

I had this vision that one of the stuffed animals in my apartment were volunteering to buy more medicine -- nothing unusual -- and then dozed off in sweat pants and a fleece sweater under a comforter.

I woke up an hour earlier because of the discomfort of sweating, cleaned myself up, and went back to bed normally. I was rehearsing in my head what excuse I was going to use to either not come to work or be at work really late.

Then, the following morning, I was almost perfectly well. It must have been the 10 hours of sleep or the Theraflu.

My current theory is that because I've been sick so often from my childhood to my adult years (from minor colds, to delirious flu, bronchitis, etc.) that I slowly developed some capacity to fix myself fairly rapidly (by my standards, not by Wolverine-mutant standards). It seems I'm not gifted with the immunity of some people; I complain fairly often - headaches, fever-like symptoms, weakness and dizziness, etc.

Some of my friends say that I just complain too often about little things, but now I'm thinking I always do tend to catch something. But it only turns out to be a false alarm.

Yes, that's probably it. My body has been coping after all. By age 40, I'll have superhuman healing abilities.

. . .

My last conversation with my cousin Anna -- God rest her soul -- was about sickness and pain. I was wondering how she could take all the pain needed to survive her very aggressive form of cancer. I usually called her for a chat at least during the middle of the week (usually on Fridays during my bus ride home) because she had her chemo on Mondays, and common sense told me that you'll usually feel weak and be unable to interact much till the following day.

So, the day after she died in May, I was dazed by the absurdity of the death. Of course, her death, like a lot of other things, was probably absurd only to me (her mom gave me this really weird look when I expressed that I thought she was going to last a little longer). The truth was that she survived for quite a long time, and that she suffered for so long that it was easy to rationalize her passing as a gift. But my logic was that she still had so much to live for. And how come I was always relatively fit and healthy? In my clouded mind, I thought I didn't actually deserve these extra years on earth.

This thought sometimes turns into something darker: People who pass away suffer no more. We people who are still alive are still doing our time. Death was not really the question I was trying to answer. Pain was.

I came to a conclusion on just one thing: God does not give you anything you cannot handle.

Thus, on the tennis court one spring day, when I was asking God how come I was relatively healthy and fit while "better" people suffered all sorts of ailments and problems, I might as well have a looked up at the sky and the clouds would read "because you're a big sissy and you complain too much".

In an absurd sort of way, it made sense. It doesn't take much to beat me down. Some knee pain and a corneal scratch easily reminds me of how fragile our bodies are. I can raise a huge stink about having a mild fever, make faces while drinking Theraflu, and then inconvenience a lot of people by making a big production out of some mild illness.

This jives well with the theory that God hasn't been kind to me because I've been such a great guy. God has been kind to me possibly because my mom -- who's a much better person -- requests it every morning at church and every night while praying the rosary. In the same vein, God keeps me relatively fit and well -- though scaring me with paper bags scraping an eye and cancer false positives -- because I would be a really big baby to everyone around me otherwise. I can live with that.

Moral of the story: Don't be like the biblical Job. Lower your standards and tolerances and don't be so brave in life. Brilliant.

LYRICS: They All Laughed

They all laughed at Christopher Columbus
When he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother
When they said that man could fly

They told Marconi
Wireless was a phony
It's the same old cry
They laughed at me wanting you
Said I was reaching for the moon
But oh, you came through
Now they'll have to change their tune

They all said we never could be happy
They laughed at us and how!
But ho, ho, ho!
Who's got the last laugh now?

They all laughed at Rockefeller Center
Now they're fighting to get in
They all laughed at Whitney and his cotton gin
They all laughed at Fulton and his steamboat
Hershey and his chocolate bar

Ford and his Lizzie
Kept the laughers busy
That's how people are
They laughed at me wanting you
Said it would be, "Hello, Goodbye."
And oh, you came through
Now they're eating humble pie

They all said we'd never get together
Darling, let's take a bow
For ho, ho, ho!
Who's got the last laugh?
Hee, hee, hee!
Let's at the past laugh
Ha, ha, ha!
Who's got the last laugh now?"