rebirth

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

muddle-fuddle...

brainless. that is the word for today.

i seem to have left that one, maybe even sole, piece of ego in the sleep room upstairs. if you can imagine it... think of a mattress, deathly white, with a human brain right smack in the middle of it, all shiny and slimy, twisted convolutions running all around its bulk, writhing, throbbing, oozing whatever it is that brains ooze...

at least my imagination seems to have accompanied me still.

is there a distinction between those who just don't think at the moment and those we consider imbeciles? maybe, in the sense that the latter presupposes an inability to think, or an outright refusal to engage in that oh so prolific an activity. but does this not encompass the former as well? i wonder which is the subset of which.

i am led to believe one can actually survive without thinking. indeed there are moments when i find even myself without the facility of thought. but i shudder to think that i would remain that way. no, thank you ma'am. there is no better activity for me than to think, and think i shall.

how do other people find it, i wonder? do they feel as if the world is passing by them, leaving them in a daze? as i am right now? or is it a case of more profundity than that?

a friend of mine said, you make things more complicated than they actually are. i ask you. is it a curse? or is it a blessing?

Out of the ashes of bennet at 06:39 am
2 arose from ashes... What burns in you...

Monday, August 30, 2004

feedback...

i've lost 1/7th of my world. my ears have finally given up, at least one ear has. subjecting it to frequent and often excessively tuned up rock music effectively does that, i guess.

i have a question. why is it that when a rock band practices, it has to do so with the volume knob on the amplifiers cranked to maximum?

so now i go around with this constant ringing in my right ear. it is like the sound of... er... crickets on a cold, moonlit night coupled with the static that you get switching between radio stations, with a healthy dose of amplifier feedback mixed in. soundwaves do not just pass from one ear to another now, not like how they did when i was listening to my parents dole out their lengthy pieces of advice about growing up. i wonder how they are now? but that's a question to be answered in another year or so.

i now am a certified sound carrier. my right ear can collect the extraneous sound from this one place, add it to the cacophony that it already lugs around, lugs it around some more, and spreads it out through my brain for ... me to listen to.

or is this what they actually mean by a deafening silence?

Out of the ashes of bennet at 06:21 am
What burns in you...

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

alay-lakad...

i find it incongruous to find an alay-lakad plate on a vehicle... very...

Out of the ashes of bennet at 12:06 am
What burns in you...

Sunday, August 22, 2004

traffic jam blues...

sometimes a traffic jam is good. it provides an interesting view on how other people react to frustrating circumstances like this. well, at least what i can gather from their faces anyway.

i used to roll down my window whenever i'd be stuck in traffic, light a cigarette, smile, and start looking inside the vehicles around me. over there to the right is the quintessential business man, sitting in the back of a volvo with clear windows, all suits and ties looking at his gold-plated watch every now and then, giving instructions to his driver. to my left is the tail end of a bus. a mustachioed bald guy is leaning out the window and staring for as far as the horizon to determine the length of the traffic jam, no doubt willing with his gaze and muttered curses for the bus to move. good luck, thinks i. behind him is a young man driving a honda civic with gaudy colors, high spoiler in the back, chrome plated wheel rims, and a cacophony of bass booms, high pitched squealing, incomprehensible lyrics and intermittent repetitions of "uh... uh..." emanating from it. he's wearing his visor-cap backwards, head bobbing to and fro to the 'music,' i could see the silver chain on his neck flap about his oversized jersey. he no doubt wears a pair of pants the size of a blanket, i mused. there's a sour-faced woman in the toyota behind him with four kids jumping around the backseat. directly behind me is a pair of women laughing and talking. behind the business man is a vehicle with privacy windows, but i could just see the driver using his cellphone through the lesser tint of the windshield. directly in front of me is a utility van with a sticker on its rear door that says "Caution! I Drive Like You Do."

not last night though. seems like driving from Marikina to Bicutan via C5 is not a good idea on friday nights. especially coming from band practice, your arms shaking, your eyes half-blind from the salty sweat that washed over it earlier, and your car without air conditioning. good thing i thought to escape it via Shaw then Edsa. otherwise, seeing as how the cars were almost immobile at the South superhighway exit of C5, i'd still be stuck in that traffic jam today.

Out of the ashes of bennet at 01:05 am
1 arose from ashes... What burns in you...

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

triple x...

there's a survey running around the team right now, asking dum dum questions about your ex's and stuff. fascinating how some people are actually enlivened by the idea, moving around in their chairs, swapping stories, exchanging advice and whatnots.

the behaviours of hew-mons are particularly interesting to watch in social interactions like these. but as they laugh and banter and tell their jokes, i wonder what actually goes in their minds. are they hiding behind that facade of uproarious laughter and teeth flashing all their memories of how they became fragile and broken once?

hmmm...

a passing thought... and then i go back to my game.

Out of the ashes of bennet at 06:23 am
What burns in you...

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

while eating siopao at 711...

your absence sings to my mind,
landing gently as a butterfly on rose petals,
yet it bears the weight of a hundred tears,
that quiver and shake and never dry.

it floats away, a homeless note,
chasing after your image,
the vision of which, wavers in the shaded streets,
and leaves the tune without a home.

you have been gone far too long,
and your shadow ne'er darkened this dark alley,

do you fain continue this journey,

into obscurity and never return?

Out of the ashes of bennet at 03:41 am
5 arose from ashes... What burns in you...

vanity...

why is it that when a man becomes vain, he becomes so to the exclusion of any other label? is it due to the one-trackedness of the male thought process? or is it because males bury their mate calling instincts so deep that when it finally breaks out...

just an idle thought.

Out of the ashes of bennet at 01:05 am
1 arose from ashes... What burns in you...

Sunday, August 15, 2004

please submit your bags for inspection...

a friend of mine said that the level of security measures varies directly with the length of hair. let me call this Shiro's law of Inspections.

i find it interesting to notice how our bungling boys in white and blue waive their usual cursory inspection when the object of their attentions is me. gone is the poke and wishy-wash motion of their wandlike inspection piece like they were stirring some sort of broth. instead, it turns into a poke-poke, wishy-wash, wishy-wash, poke-poke-poke motion... and they actually look inside my bags too.

i don't mind. i find it amusing even. ours is a society that thrives upon stereotypes. a society which finds that long-haired, torn-denimed, scowl-faced, pink-shoed gringo a terorista. tough luck for me i guess. can't say i'm immune to stereotyping myself. at least i only have one - puny humans.

sometimes i could not help thinking that there should be a law to have all men grow their hair past shoulder length. that should reduce the threat of bombings and terrorist attacks. but then, i wouldn't be an oddity, would i not? when that time comes i guess, shiro's law would be falsified and we'd need to create a new one.

but then again, these guys wouldn't recognize terrorist paraphernalia if it bit them in the nose.

Out of the ashes of bennet at 02:04 am
What burns in you...

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

rack your minds..

here i am, staring at the pieces of paper i've posted on the walls of my cubicle, blankly. there was this one thought that i had earlier. i have forgotten how it went though. rack, tack, my mind a weather-worn shack, all is black... crap. cannot remember.

ugh. nevermind. it's all lost in the wells again. or maybe it never sank in.

and what was the tune that Bugs Bunny used to hum when she was building her fortress against Yosemite Sam's attacks? does Bugs even have a gender? what is it with carrots and rabbits?

is Goofy really a dog? why does it drive a car?

am i being anally-retentive in wondering about these?

Out of the ashes of bennet at 10:00 pm
1 arose from ashes... What burns in you...

Saturday, August 07, 2004

today...

bennet's official schedule for the day....

i should change this.

Out of the ashes of bennet at 11:18 pm
4 arose from ashes... What burns in you...