Parental Guidance Is Advised

Hunter S. Thompson is metal

"All you need to do is figure out what your action is and hang on, no matter what they tell you. And even if you never make it, you'll feel better trying instead of giving up and going along with the noise crowd. But right now you don't  have to worry about what you're going to do. The important thing is follow your instincts about what you aren't going to do. Most people wind up going against their instincts, and it makes them miserable for the rest of their lives."  ------ Hunter S. Thompson in a 1965 letter to his brother Jim, then 15 years old

Nothing like the words of Gonzo Journalism's creator to make me feel like a cheap coward. Just finished reading The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, which is a collection of HST's correspondence from 1955 to 1967, and as in the case with his other works, it put me in a mood for some deep introspection about following my instincts vs. following the "noise crowd."

A room with a hundred doors

Finished reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance over the weekend. Good book — inspiring at first, gloomy and depressing later on, but all in all thought provoking. A book one experiences rather than reads.

Now comes the exciting part: picking from the more than a hundred books in my backlog what to read next.

I always liken this to being in a room with more than a hundred doors,  with each door promising a different adventure into a different world. Some of these doors may take me on spiritual journeys, some into darkness and others into fantasy worlds. Dirty alleys in New York, misty mountaintops in Asia, quaint little coffeeshops in Europe, even inside a serial killer's mind — these doors take me just where I want to be.

No wonder I like it here, in this room, amongst all these doors.

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Photo: Latest finds from Booksale, each for P45.

Weekends are for movies & shit

Weekend was friends, food and family. And movies, too: In one Johnny Depp looks like a bloated Charles Manson impersonator, in another Jennifer Love Hewitt is a reluctant prostitute. It was a fine two-day break I had, and today it's back to work, and it sucks considering the fine weather outside, all clouds and wind, perfect for books, coffee and cuddling.

My two cents about The Tourist starring Depp and Angelina Jolie: It's not as bad as what some people and online reviews had led me to expect. On the contrary, I dug almost everything in it: the funny dialogue, the quirky plot, the European setting, even the faux Hitchcockian vibe. Cool entertainment to wile away two hours on a Friday night, when the mind shuts down for the weekend. 

In other news, kudos to Boojie Basilio for emailing me a PDF version of The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal, the book from which the movie The Social Network was based. The timing couldn't have been more perfect: I'm less than 100 pages away from finishing Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, and couldn't decide what ebook to pick next for my Kingdle (imitation Kindle from CDR-King). Before Accidental... I was considering either Salman Rushdie's Fury or the fifth Harry Potter. Thanks to a kindred spirit, that problem was solved. (Supplemental reading: Neil Gaiman on ebooks here.)

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The Tourist photo from www.heyuguys.co.uk

And now for the traditional year-end book blog

Finished reading Sandman: Book of Dreams last week. Since I'll be busy with all sorts of holiday shit in the last six days of 2010, I guess it's safe to say that the Neil Gaiman-edited anthology featuring Gene Wolfe, Susanna Clarke, and Caitlin Kiernan, among others, will be my last for the year.

Which means it's time to pick from the 34 books I've read this year (a stark improvement from last year's 19) the one to remember 2010 for. And that'd be:

No profound explanation here, just timing. This was the book I was reading during the two weeks in October when I was waiting for the results of the tests done on the liquid drained from my right lung — a toss between cancer and not cancer. This book steered my mind off  the grim possibility at hand and instead inspired me to write fiction again, which I did, and the result was a short story called "Two Guys at Two A.M." (or "The Two A.m. Guys," I'm still making up my mind about the title). I'm still inspired to this day, actually. It's time that I lack.

Other notables were John Irving's The 158-Pound Marriage (steamy, I remember reading it one late night and having un-Catholic thoughts); David Walton's Ride (touching); Elliott Baker's A Fine Madness (hilarious, must see the movie version starring Sean Connery); and Don Delillio's Libra (bleak).

Of course there were those that fell short of expectation (Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma, Elmore Leonard's Road Dogs, and the aforementioned Sandman anthology), and one that was flat-out boring (Jay Anson's The Amityville Horror).  These books made the month/s I was reading them seem to drag on forever, but I'm patting myself on the back for having the patience to finish them up to the last word.

There. Glad that's done and over with. Here's to more interesting reads next year.

Proud of my seven inches

Courtesy of my father, whose online wanderings led him one fateful day to this blog. The rest, as they say, is history. Thanks, Dad! And Merry Christmas!

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Photo courtesy of Charmaine G. Kaufman

What I want for Christmas, birthday

A multi-media ebook reader from CD-R King.

At P3,990 and with video and music playback capabilities, this for me is the best alternative for the Kindle 3 that my good friend and fellow book geek Boojie Basilio has been hyping about. Check out its other cool features here.

The Lords of Chaos made me do it

In the world of bookworms, I am a proud, flag-carrying troglodyte. I'm not waging war against technology — why should I when it makes porn as accessible as oxygen? — I just prefer reading something I can carry to bed or park or even in the john. Call me old school, in the same league with those stubborn geeks who prefer typewriters over computers (or tapes over CDs), but it's just the way it is, for me. Unless, of course, a wad of cash falls on my lap, making me capable of scoring an Amazon Kindle. Until then: books. The printed ones. The ones that give you paper cuts. The ones that make termites lick their lips.

Be that as it may, my current reading includes an electronic version of this book, downloaded from one of those kick-ass Blogspot accounts that also offer heavy metal discographies:

Considering the subject matter of this book — the "early Norwegian black metal scene with focus on the string of church burnings and murders that occurred in the country around 1993" (Wikipedia) — I just can't muster the patience to wait for it to appear on local bookshelves. So yes, in the name of those bloody  bastards in Norway, with their silly corpse-paint and their paeans to all things dark, evil, and misanthropic, I'll forsake my old ways even for a couple of unholy pages.

Another nut to check out

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Um, I don't know the dude. But a quick peek on Wikipedia showed me that Wallace was an American writer who committed suicide by hanging himself on September 12, 2008. (Man, why am I always associated with nuts?) I found a short story of him called "Wiggle Room" in The New Yorker website, and I intend to read it when I have time. Right now I'm at work, and there is simply no time for it. Later . . .

This bee thinks Justin Bieber sucks egg

I will not be surprised if his favorite song is Ugly Kid Joe's "Busy Bee." 

Lame jokes aside, I'm currently downloading Sixx A.M.'s The Heroin Diaries, the "official soundtrack" of Nikki Sixx's diary/biography with the same title. I'm halfway through the book now, and somewhat lukewarm to it. Nikki Sixx, that evil, whoring, junkie bassist of Motley Crue, writing a diary? C'mon. I can't even picture him holding a pen. But the book's an easy reading, and the naked chicks that grace most of its pages earn it a few extra points.

Discovery of the day: Children of Bodom's Alexi Laiho played guitar on Sinergy's 2002 album Suicide by my Side. So that explains those amazing solos. Great album, by the way.

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Photo taken from Raven's first birthday celebration last June 27.

Lotski in Beat country

In my previous entry I mentioned of interesting people I met through Multiply. Lot Deleste is one of them. A fellow Kerouac and Bukowski fan, she recently went to City Lights, the San Francisco bookstore founded by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and is widely popular for its association with the so-called Beat Generation, a group of American writers notorious in the 1950s for their nonconformist attitude and decidedly Dionysian lifestyle.

These, as well as dozens of other interesting photos of Lot's trip to Beat country, are posted on her Facebook account. (I think you have to add her to be able to see them. I'm not really sure.) Looking at them gave me a mission: to visit the place before I shake hands with the Grim Reaper. I'll make it a priority. Hungary and Prince Vlad's castle in Romania can wait.