Visions of Noise

 Reeling from a brewing hangover, he watched her walk avay. She had hinted that they spend the night but he chose to stay--for whatever reason, just so he could give her the "sunrise" he promised. When she was gone, not only did he feel the emptiness but more so, the stupidity of what he had done. "Who the fuck turns down an invitation to pillow?" That single idiotic act would haunt him for years. It was the itch he never scratched. It was that unkind word one could never take back. It was the perpetual wondering and the unending, "What ifs?" that would never find an answer. Someone once told him, "Lessons can be expensive." Almost 3 decades since, he was still emotionally bankrupt. Relationships didn't seem to work out the way he dreamed they would. Women came and went and with each failed encounter, a part of him died and it was better to forfeit the memories than to cling to the pain.  Serendipity was not the first and certainly not the la...

 It's almost sunrise And I'm a day behind I'd imagine  You'd be getting up by now And I've got some sleep  To attend to The bed is As it was when I left it And I am all but dead Sunrise Reminds me of you Your smile  Keeps me warm And I can't wait Till sunset To be with you And so I dream I'd like to offer you More than  Just ink and paper But Sunrise Just isn't mine to give.

I am truly amazed at how people these days totally disregard life. It's difficult to miss the fact that 9 out of 10 people in a room will be glued to their smartphone screens, "doom-scrolling" for hours on end.  Being part of a generation when life was tactile and experiential, I cannot help but fear the digital future ahead. I remember when I was a whole lot younger, every moment was meant to be experienced. I would stare out the car window while my Papa drove us around the city or take a trip to Baguio. I would sit on the balcony of our home in Happy Glen and watch people, learning to read body language and making assessments of characters.  I was always hungry for knowledge and forever curious about what makes the world tick.  Back in the day, this was not difficult. Most everything was manual-powered or as I like to say, "tao-matic". Rotary dials, mailboxes, painted posters, the knife sharpening guy who carried around a bicycle-like contraption that spun a g...

 It's been a few weeks now and although I still feel the burn, I have already taken my first baby steps into recovery. In many ways, I am no longer the person I used to be only just a few months ago. Realistically, I am not the same person I used to be yesterday and I may not be the same person tomorrow. When you're down a deep, dark hole, getting back up and out of it can be daunting and often it may seem easier just to sit and do nothing about your circumstances.  I choose to climb out, reassured by the fact that the only person who truly cares about me is myself. I recognize that only I have the power to change--not the things around me, but how I perceive things and make my own internal transformation.  Historically, I only sat down to write when things were really down and I think it still holds true today. I often wrote about my pain and it somehow made me feel better albeit in a melancholic sense. This piece is written under the same inspiration.  Today, I cho...

 I was just coming up from the basement after taking a cigarette break. My guest coordinator was frantically rushing me over to the studio which I understood as a sign that the guests for that night's show had arrived. Settling down into my makeshift desk, I opened my laptop and sent my script to the printer for the guests to look over then went back out to the pantry to make a cup of coffee. As I returned, the control booth section had been blacked out. My producer thought it would be a good idea to show only a silhouette of the special guest as the topic for the show was rather sensitive and at the time, socially unacceptable. We aired our talkshow in a tiny studio within a satellite office in a busy, cosmopolitan section of the metropolis. There was barely any real estate to move around especially when changing camera angles. Even the barking of my executive producer would be heard on the floor and it was very disconcerting to the host and the crew. So, a corner of the room was...

  Ever since I learned photography, I had always been fascinated by cameras and for the longest time, I dreamed of getting my own because since I took my first frames in 1976, I had been using borrowed equipment. My Pop would take home a Canon Ftb, mechanical 35mm SLR which belonged to the company he worked for so that I could get to practice. Over the years it would be upgraded to a Canon AE-1 at about the time I took on my first, "paid" assignment in the summer of 1986. It was with the AE-1 that I fully understood the intricacies of photography and the discipline of using a single, 50mm 1.4 prime lens to shoot weddings, tabletop layouts and runway fashion. Unlike the fully-mechanical Ftb, the AE-1 depended on a battery for the metering and shutter activation. I had to learn how to maintain and keep a fresh battery with me when I went out to shoot. In 1988, I got hold of a second hand, Canon AE-1Program which also served me well, having used it to attend a short term course ...