bambina writes

Queen Bees and Wannabes

You gotta love our country. The land where Kafka wears a smile, while tripping on Zoloft in between marathon cocaine speedball sessions. And where the scandales keep on coming like the gift that never stops giving.

Forget the NBN-ZTE scandale. All of Manila - and beyond - is riveted by the ongoing revelations of the former Australian gay lover of some lifestyle columnist with a penchant for snorting the white stuff up his nose and defrauding boyfriends. His partners in crime - allegedly - are some of Manila's IT boys and girls collectively known as the Gucci Gang. Whether self-styled, self-proclaimed and self-advertised I won't say; you be the judge.

White Mischief

A few weeks back, my friend Mons Tantoco-Romulo asked me to answer the question of the week for her column in the Philippine Star. I'm flattered that Mons thinks of me every now and then despite my being away from Manila, but I'm afraid the replies I've given her over the years are rarely as profoundly introspective as everyone else's. Perhaps her respondents like to see her column as a chance to go all Deepak, but believe me, if your life the past four years has been anything like mine, with its never-ending circus of assessments and pre-trial conferences, you'd be Deepak-ed out.

So Mon's question, ironically put to me a week before Valentine's Day, was: "How do you move on after a heartbreak?"

Rhythm and Bruise

This was a question published recently in Parade magazine from a reader named Mike Waldo:

Ike Turner died of a cocaine overdose. Did ex-wife Tina attend the funeral?

I don't read Parade magazine, but California writer Tod Goldberg does, if only to lambaste the idiotic letters sent in by clueless readers. Tod Goldberg's blog, which I absolutely adore, is not for the faint-hearted. Punctuated with f-words, it seethes with his vicious brand of satire, aimed mainly at the inanity of pop culture. His main mission - admittedly futile and quixotic - is to rid the world of what he calls "fucktards". And for some reason, he believes, the readership of Parade magazine is awash with such fucktards.

Being There

If I were back home right now, I KNOW I would have been at the interfaith rally yesterday along Ayala Avenue in Makati, calling for the resignation of the Midget. Even if I was raised in a household where we ate politics for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I grew up largely apolitical. I simply didn't care. Men like Jose Rizal, Apolinario Mabini, Manuel Quezon, Ninoy Aquino and Pepe Diokno... to me they seemed to be freaks of genetics that our national DNA managed to produce every few generations through some fluke of history and chromosomes.

Revenge of the Nerds

If you're a TV junkie like me with a penchant for late night talk shows, then you know about Sarah Silverman's hilarious surprise video gift to her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel in which she tells him and the whole world she's f*cking People's Sexiest Man Alive, Matt Damon. There's a running joke between Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon - the Bourne Ultimatum star was a guest on the show once and never got his five minutes of airtime because time had run out.

Lost and Found

The other night was unusually hectic, socially speaking. A fashion show and reception at 4 pm, followed by a farewell drinks party from 8 pm to whenever, in two different cities 35 minutes away from each other.

Anyway, the fashion show, in which I participated as a reluctant model, patriotism clearly over-riding common sense, featured the stunning jewel-toned wraps and tops made from delicate yet sturdy banana silk fibers by Manila designer Dita Sandico-Ong, who was en route to Cape Town.

UPDATE: Dita's merchandise - around $12,000 worth, was stolen from her car in Cape Town. Welcome to Crime Central...

The it was back to Joburg for a party at a venue which turned out to be the ultimate frat boy's hangout. It was wall-to-wall university students and those who wished to relive their university days, plus girls who've never had to diet a day in their lives - yet - all chugging down beers and Jagermeister shots. Most of them were old enough to be my children, had I actually shed enough of my ingrained Catholic guilt in my late teens, I might have actually given birth to one of them. As it is, that Catholic guilt and the fear of my parents' fury kept me chaste for some time after my teenage years.

It's About Time

If you think about it, it's been a good month for the Philippines - a civil servant gained a conscience and shed light on the extent of corruption in the government, the bishops admitted their shameful complicity in the ouster of a democratically elected president and the installation into power of a dwarf-sized devil, and protests against a rapacious regime have begun to pick up momentum.

But that's not all.

Filipino fashion blogger Bryanboy, the Third World's most outrageous fag, received the fashionista's highest honor: Marc Jacobs has named an ostrich bag from his Fall/Winter 08 collection "BB", after him.

And finally, an in-depth look at luxury retail in the Philippines came out in Tuesday's Women's Wear Daily, authored by... me! The stories appeared in a special section called Asia In Depth.

The first story, Manila: On the Retail Radar, focuses on the key players in the luxury retail industry, including Ayala Land. In a country saturated with malls, their own Greenbelt, particularly Greenbelt 4 & 5, truly is a world-class retail showcase. Talk about a case of "if you build it, they will come"!

Forced Sterilization

The best anti-GMA protest slogan I've seen so far, courtesy of Corinna Lopa, who attended last Friday's rally and yesterday's mass at La Salle Greenhills.

Extermination seems to me a sound solution. Henceforth all members of GMA's cabinet, all her hangers-on, all her sycophants, and all relatives to the third degree should be sterilized to prevent further propagation of the species Ethnicanus rapax as well as the species Pseudo-Caucasanus arrogans.

Neri, the wimp, should just be castrated. Malacanang already has him by the balls, so he should just offer his shrivelled cojones to them on a silver platter. However, they may just find their way into the pride of Wack-Wack's kitchens, Abalos' "borjers".

Please, would you really buy a hamburger from that man?

Threesome

I have to confess: I don't sleep alone.

Yes, I share my bed with two other people. No, they're not related to me. And yes, they're underage. One's a 19 year-old boy, and the other a 16 year-old girl.

We're a threesome. I know, shocking. Scandalous.

It's been going on for months now. Every single night, and most days, even. Well, mostly. Let's just say there was a bit of a break sometime in January. But otherwise they're with me all the time, swirling in my mind, breathing in my skin, whispering in my ears...

Spelling with Fergie

lHow my kids learned to spell G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S, or as Perez Hilton says, Fergie is H-U-M-O-R-O-U-S!

Maybe the Midget's Presidential Legal Counsel Serge Apostol should join the spelling bee. His word: WITNESS. His answer: W-E-T-N-E-S-S.The Midget's own vocabulary is limited at the moment. N-B-N, Z-T-E, K-I-D-N-A-P.

Pretty soon, she'll be begging for A-M-N-E-S-T-Y. I hope the next president (a legitimate one this time) will tell her to go to H-E-L-L.