(i won't be a part of the) lost generation

/more than poetry, it is a statement. a statement on how you can influence the changing norms of society. paradigm shift to yourself, later on you will realize, everybody's on the same page. this is a strong message and this will be appended on my long-term goals. thanks to jonathan reed, a film studies major at georgia state university, who won second place in a video contest with this piece of work. thanks to penelope for reading this aloud to me in the virtual space./

i am part of a lost generation

and i refuse to believe that

i can change the world

i realize this may be a shock but

“happiness comes from within.”

is a lie, and

“money will make me happy.”

so in 30 years i will tell my children

they are not the most important thing in my life

my employer will know that

i have my priorities straight because

work

is more important than

family

i tell you this

once upon a time

families stayed together

but this will not be true in my era

this is a quick fix society

experts tell me

30 years from now, i will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of my divorce

i do not concede that

i will live in a country of my own making

in the future

environmental destruction will be the norm

no longer can it be said that

my peers and i care about this earth

it will be evident that

my generation is apathetic and lethargic

it is foolish to presume that

there is hope.

and all of this will come true unless we choose to reverse it .

read the message, then read it again in reverse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA

###

slumdogs slam 'em all

everybody loves a rags-to-riches story. who doesn't? moisturize with romance, it makes an even flawless texture. but wait there's more, spice it up with some bollywood-style movie making, you have a frenzy.

jamal is a mess. add another musketeer, his brother salim makes it twice the mess. worse, they're at the bottom pit of india's stratified society. orphaned when their mother was violently bludgeoned to death during a hindu-muslim conflict. adopted by a notorious syndicate that deploys children to the streets. even blinding them as these blind kiddie beggars singing india's novelty are a boon to his business. salim couldn't take this anymore and escaped with his brother leaving their third musketeer, latika, jamal's one true love, at the whims of their loathed foster father-slash-slumdog master. life has changed since and getting latika back safely became jamal's mission. the primary reason he joined the worldwide phenom game show, 'who wants to be a millionaire?'. and yeah, the indian version.

to be nonchalant about it, he aced his way to 20 million rupees, the game show's top prize. ooops, spoiler! =P but the more thrilling about his winning are the impressing references to the highlights of his destitute yet colorful life to each game's question. incredibly unbelievable, you may say. you will ponder its believability after you watch the movie. but it's a visual feast and a fine cinematic experience, nevertheless. hats off to danny boyle and co-director loveleen tandan. boyle's last pride was trainspotting which was eons ago.

what's more striking about the movie is its inference of india to the world, bollywood to the world to be exact. although, they have already gained quite a following outside india, me included**, this movie will cause a stir to world cinema. hollywood can't beat the largest film producer in the world. best if they collaborate. and that infusion of both production powerhouses is imminent in this movie.

notably though, despite the economic boom in india, it hardly blemishes the decrepit condition of its poor, the movie is very successful in presenting their appalling situation. brutal and survival of the fittest. another note is its striking parallelism to filipino poverty, except that they're more in india. above all, love is a central theme to most of bollywood movies i have seen. love despite strife and struggle on life's challenges. in the end, love prevails. with a dance number.

but did he find his one true love? 

D. it is written.

will this movie merit an oscar?

E. my take, no. but oscar will, perhaps.

blink

sunshine, peering through the hems

hawed the glory of morning

tangerine hues along silver lines

warmth casts asunder, like chaos

a beautiful mess.

dust settles, leaves crisp with each step

the puddle foretells, merely daunting

ripples, smudges-smeared leather

coffee wafting like city perfume

should be a fine weather, mr.beaver

gripping on the cold metal

fives, ones and quarters aplenty

bargain through the daily ropes

sea of faces, gripped to hope

in unison, heading everywhere

not wanting to be found

until hope sets, rises.

###

cnn quoted me saying

"filipinos look in awe and envy with america's victory. our brand of politics have gone to the dogs. nevertheless, obama is indeed an inspiration to the world."

this is the coolest election coverage ever. technology interfacing with history, totally nifty. facebook statuses from members around the globe stream per millisecond screaming to the whole world what they feel on this historic moment while a blow-by-blow flash video coverage by cnn reels on the side. and my status caught in the site for a few milliseconds with a statistically improbable hope that it will be read by the cnn anchors. from the metrics, 2000 status messages per minute. phew!

he's not a rockstar. nor a tennis hotshot. he just happens to be the president of the united states of america. the first african-american at that. but why the hype? aside from the previous point, people see him as an instrument for change. he will step in the bigger political arena with a tall order. it's gonna be a tough job but somebody's got to do it. obama is the man of the moment. and for the moments to come.

the inauguration of barrack obama is a success story. watching the coverage with waves of americans swarming the lincoln memorial is an awe-inspiring sight for me as a filipino. politically, america is everything we're not. watching them beaming with pride as they strut their flags makes me wonder, when will we be proud of our country again? but if they can, i dare say, yes, the filipino can.

now back to the coverage...

###

cold feet

sunday morning and a bag of bagel

those toes that thumped, releasde a shudder

oh, mary fairy mayweather

such sight may slight the feather

stoop and slow down, hands dipped the slits

not a morsel, not a dime

stealing glances, taking chances

ah! snippets of her reveal a fortune

the wind, combing the length of her crowning glory

like the sea that surfs to the shore

snap the nut! of pine droppings

a scoundrel to my pining

out of the way, out, out and about!

with great zeal, released a force did i

zing, zing, zing, zoom it went

fluttered with might it did

lost in the wind, mired with fraud

boom! like a seed on a forehead, oh no!

summon the birds, hear me

peck the heck out of that beauty

my face, my face

i can never show my face.

###

the ultimate freedom: going nowhere, not be found

"there is pleasure in the pathless woods;

there is a rapture on the lonely shore;

there is society where none intrudes;

by the deep sea, and music in its roar;

i love the man not less, but nature more."

- lord byron

christopher johnson mccandless led a convenient life - a father who works at nasa and a mother, in the same industry, grew up in the upscale suburbs of virginia. but despite the material wealth, he is tormented by fear of a broken family especially when his parents spite each other because of money, not the lack of it but acquiring more. this emotional sadness intensified his idealism and became more athletic. as captain of cross-country team in high school, he treats running as a spiritual exercise as if he were "running against the forces of darkness...of all evil in the world" and shared this thought with his team. his idealism is further nurtured by the characters of tolstoy, jack london and especially thoreau - his inspiration for his solitary introspection-cum-adventure, an emancipation from material society. he graduated from emory university in 1990 with majors in history and anthropology. he got an honors invite from phi beta kappa society but he declined the association on the premise does not need titles, honors to be happy. two months after graduation, he would turn his life around.

and so when he finally decided to embark on his adventure, he did it with 'characteristic immoderation'. he burned his social security id, discarded his credit cards and other identifications; donated his life savings of $24,000 to oxfam - an organization founded to provide lasting solutions to poverty and injustice. armed with his backpack of clothes and shoes, at first he did not know where to go. along the way he would find his resolve - to go and live in the alaskan wilderness. determined to stick to his ideals, he burned his remaining money and only relies on what nature can offer him. "i don't need money, it makes people cautious," he says. casting away his old identity, he christened himself with a new one - alexander supertramp. from now on, i will call him alex.

alex's travails include arizona, california and south dakota, where he worked at a granary. the farmers here taught him how to hunt and preserve the meat, which later turned out to be a bad advise. in northern california, he met gypsy couple, jan and rainey, who moves around in their truck. his interaction with the couple immersed himself with the modern nomads and the hippies. he was also able to paddle a canoe from colorado river to the gulf of mexico without a license. but more than the places, the people he met were inspired by his youth, his ideals, his zest on proclaiming them. some listened to his wisdom, some did put more wisdom on it. ron franz, an old man he met in southern california, became his pseudo-foster father for a while. they grew accustomed to each other and found they are on the same spectrum of solitude but on different perspectives - one hides his grief, the loss of his family, for the longest time in his leather shop, the other wants to go out and shun organized society. 

unanimously, they persuade alex from proceeding to his alaskan adventure without proper planning and tools. but society has probably taken its toll on this young man and he's already firm on his resolve. ron contributed some of his supplies, jan gave him a knitted hat, and more than that, the wealth of experience he had with these people. so off he went to alaska.

along his trail, he found a derelict and abandoned bus, he called it magic bus 140. it became his address in the alaskan nowhere. a total of 112 days out there feeding on berries and other fruits, hunting game. once he killed a moose, as advised he smoked the meat and found out to be spoilt later. he regrets killing the moose, never killed one again. in his camp, he's also nourished by the books he brought along, kept a journal of his experience. inevitably, nature can just be still and stand watching you suffer. he ate a wild potato root which can paralyze its victim. alex weakened and no longer find the right nourishment. his loose clothes were a testament to his affliction. as each belt hole adjusted inwards, his feet gravely sunk deeper into the ground. when his vision of the world slowly waned, he saw himself in the arms of his parents, happy to have him again - what if. he didn't close his eyes, tears fell in slow motion, then he finally experienced a whole new light.

at his last breath, he revised his mantra: happiness only real when shared.

found in his august 12, 1992 journal entry entitled 'beautiful blueberries' was a torn page with an excerpt from robinson jeffers' poem 'wise men in their bad hours':

death's a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made

something more equal to centuries

than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.

the mountains are dead stone, the people

admire or hate their stature, their insolent quietness,

the mountains are not softened or troubled

and a few dead men's thoughts have the same temper.

at the back of the page, he wrote and signed it with his right name:

"I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!"

- Christopher Johnson Mccandless

he needed to experience this odyssey to define his freedom, what makes him happy. too bad, his realizations became too late. and the best experience of his life happened on the brink of death. his experience need not be experienced by anyone.

i am quite drawn to his story which is explained by the length of the artik and the good 90 minutes spent writing it. i even traced his trail via google earth. and boy, was that amazing, he almost walked all of america! i have an eccentricity of my own - that experience of travelling incognito, experiencing new human relations excites me, but not as extreme as chris'. i really loved the film adaptation.