Project 52 (20/52): On IDAHO (And Why "Walang Basagan Ng Trip" Is A Valid Ethical Rule Of Thumb)

Note: pictures will be added to this once I get around to it, so yeah, the post is still up for a few edits.

.:Project 52 (20/52): On IDAHO (And Why "Walang Basagan Ng Trip" Is A Valid
Ethical Rule Of Thumb):.

Today, we celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia, or IDAHO for short. Given what a hot-button topic homosexuality has been lately, it's kind of a big deal. Despite the leaps and bounds we may have made over the years all over the world, there is no question for the LGBT community and their allies that there is still so much left to do. That much is pretty obvious, what with all the x-phobic things going on, and being hurled in their direction, not to mention the subsequent attempts by x-phobic people in general to silence anyone with dissenting opinions.

This is very old news, ladies and gentlemen. derailing tactics are very common and  used because people don't want to come to terms with the realization that maybe, just maybe, they're actually every bit as bigoted as they happen to not want to be. It's an uncomfortable feeling, especially when most of us hetero-normative people are so used to the privilege of hardly ever being questioned for our romantic choices the way LGBT people happen to be.

Well, boo-freaking-hoo: if a little discomfort makes you cry "foul," then maybe you haven't given enough thought to the discomfort LGBT people feel when their life greatly entails having a precarious and eternal dance of treading on eggshells, always unsure about the exact limits of the tolerance their cisgendered counterparts are exhibiting while in their presence.

I've come to realize that religious reasons are now the only remaining reasons we have to remain adamantly against same-sex marriage. Barack Obama's call for marriage equality doubtlessly raised quite a ruckus in America, and its effects can be felt even here in the Philippines: a shockwave that hit the whole world radically, as we now begin to question long-held beliefs that only obstinate, blind, fundamentalist religion currently finds defensible. Interracial marriage? Female suffrage? Racial segregation? As the Bible became less of a static manual believers need to follow and more of a living, breathing word that Christians grew with, history has proven those on the other side of the fence wrong more than once.

Nowadays, they expect gay marriage to somehow be the exception to the rule.

Based on what grounds? The Bible? That's patently, woefully faulty as grounds, given that in America and the Philippines, we are supposed to be secular. Thus, while the Catholic church, for example, may choose to maintain a hardline stance against gay marriage (As they are expected to.), they cannot force their stance on an entire nation. As such, the separation of state and church, to put it bluntly, allows them to remain as bigoted and as discriminatory as they would like to be on the marriage issue, so long as those outside their jurisdiction are not obliged to follow suit. Cool. It's not perfect, but I think that's a perfectly livable solution: nobody's going to force priests to marry gay couples, and gay couples can either leave a church that discriminates against them or simply avail of the legal, and thus, secular equivalent.

So what else? The law? Well, in American constitutional law, anti-gay marriage advocates are SOL: the law doesn't define marriage as between a man and a woman, after all. In the Philippines, on the other hand, the Family Code is rather specific about that. Well, I guess gay marriage may need to wait in line after the RH Bill and the Divorce Bill, but obviously, the Family Code can be subjected to revisions. Personally, I'm cool with that: the RH Bill is sadly being forgotten in favor of multiple other causes, and what needs to be done at this point is to focus. One step at a time. Not everyone can handle these things pouring in wholesale.

What else, then? Tradition? We've already seen how the traditions of slavery, lack of female rights to suffrage, and racial segregation didn't go over too well despite being pretty longstanding traditions. And if we look far back enough, the tradition of marriage has evolved quite a lot. It wasn't always man and woman in a few cases, and a lot of it sure wasn't even about love, but simply more of a social contract. So given the spotty tradition argument, gay marriage does have pretty solid backing, too.

But really, why do we even care if people love who they love? If they are of age and of right mind, if it is mutually consensual, who cares if they're both dudes? How will the union of two men ruin another heterosexual couple's marriage, unless you're secretly afraid that every single person is actually gay and only pretending to be straight to conform in a heteronormative society? When people cheat and divorce each other willy-nilly, is that not the destruction of a family, as opposed to two people, straight or gay, entering into a lifelong commitment with each other?

I realize it's pretty easy to use scare words to really get people to fall in line. After all, if the fabric of morality in a nation will unravel when two dudes are legally recognized as married, then I guess removing that makes up for all the adultery, murder, hate speech, and discrimination already going on in the world? First of all, they're not even comparable. Two people getting married and that marriage working out is an awesome thing. Adultery, murder, hate speech, discrimination? Not so much.

Last night, while I was at 70's Bistro and watching the Itchyworms and Radioactive Sago Project, the latter had this new song entitled "Walang Basagan Ng Trip," which roughly translates to "No raining in on someone else's parade." It was an awesome song, and the message was very clear: if it's not hurting you, if it's not hurting them, then who the fuck are you to tell them to cut it out?!?

People lose sight of this because they're too busy debating on insignificant points like whether Manny Pacquiao just disagrees with gay marriage or actually wants gays put to death. Way to miss the forest for the trees! Even I fell for it: I apologized to him because I misattributed something to him, but a less benign form of bigotry is still bigotry. If people are offended for being called bigots, well, they can try not being a bigot and maybe that would help remove that feeling of guilt that you now want to project on the guy who made you feel guilty.

And that's the awesome thing about it: you can actually try to stop being a bigot. Meanwhile, if you were black, you can't try to stop being black. If you were gay, you can't try to stop being gay. And you certainly can't just pray the gay away.

"So wait," someone who suspects they may be a bigot might be asking. "Are you saying that just because we don't want gay marriage because our Bible said so, we're already bigots?"

Yes. Yes, you are. Let's rephrase that question, and maybe you'd understand why.

"So wait," someone who suspects they may be a bigot might be asking. "Are you saying that just because we don't want to give other people the same rights that we privileged lot enjoy because a book that they may or may not believe in arbitrarily said so, we're already bigots?"

Yes. Yes, you are.

In case you haven't realized, that's precisely what bigots are. Furthermore, seeing as bigots are privileged and not the marginalized sector in this picture by any stretch of imagination, you can't really be bigoted towards bigots, even if you tried. If you don't believe me, here's an exhaustive piece to explain why you can't.

So yeah, if this hit you, then yes, you're a bigot. Do you hate that feeling of being made to feel inherently evil when this was how you were for the longest time? Then you now share something in common with a lot of gay people who are normally used as props by straight friends who use them as proof positive that said friends are not homophobic at all, no siree. "I have gay friends, so I can't be homophobic!" Riiiiggghhhhttt. That's like saying you're health-conscious because you had a diet coke to go with your baconator and french fries.

Meanwhile, the underlying hint of "yeah, we tolerate your disgusting, hellbound behavior" gives these people daily cause for discomfort that, being gay and being born that way, they have absolutely no way of changing. Bigots, on the other hand, can choose to stop being bigoted, and it'd actually make for a nice change of pace.

Fret not, though: it's not like your bigotry is the only facet to you! Nobody's perfect! Sure, bigotry is a pretty bad thing, but it doesn't make you a bad person. It sounds kinda like the exact same logic bigots use on gay people to justify their homophobia, doesn't it? Welcome to their world.

But yeah, it's a free country, and if you really want to, you can be as bigoted as you want to be. It's only when your bigotry is already hurting other people that it becomes a problem. And that's where the "Walang Basagan Ng Trip" ethical rule of thumb comes into play.

Someone wants to buy sorta-kinda expensive ice cream because Magnum seems like such a cool thing right now. Cool (literally)! Walang basagan ng trip.

Some girl posts pictures of her purchasing this sorta-kinda expensive ice cream, and even shares the receipt on the picture. It's a bit tacky, but it doesn't hurt anybody, so cool. Walang basagan ng trip.

Thousands of people call said girl an "attention whore" and a host of other mostly gendered insults. These thousands of people don't know her, have probably never met her, and are in no way affected by her having Magnum. They claim "so what?" and they "don't care" so much that they spend hours of their time just to cyber-bully this poor girl. Hold on a minute! What did she ever do to you guys? Walang basagan ng trip!

People with actual good taste in music decided that they would rather not watch Lady Gaga. Cool, go ahead and not watch. I'm sure NKOTBSB will be much, much better, anyways. Walang basagan ng trip.

Hardline Christian groups take one look at Lady Gaga's songs "Born This Way" and "Judas," and petition to have Lady Gaga's concert actually canceled. Unless she's having sex onstage, and unless little kids are expressly allowed to attend a concert that should clearly not be for all ages, hold on a minute there! Walang basagan ng trip.

Gay people want equal rights and to be free from discrimination. That sounds fair to me. Cool. Walang basagan ng trip.

Straight people don't want to get married to people of the same sex. Well, it's not like accepting homosexuality as perfectly fine means you're also homosexual, so that makes sense. Cool. Walang basagan ng trip.

The government is going to let any two consenting adults, regardless of creed, race, or sexual orientation, get married. Marriage as a union of mutual love? I'm all for that! Cool! Walang basagan ng trip.

The government is going to insist that in order to deal with the population explosion, for the next decade, only same-sex marriages will be allowed. That's not gonna fly. Hold on a minute there! Walang basagan ng trip!

The Catholic church, being a religious institution people may freely choose to participate or not participate in, will remain steadfastly against gay marriage. Cool, they are free to do that. Walang basagan ng trip.

The Catholic church will threaten lawmakers with excommunication or with the non-existent "Catholic voting bloc" so that they would not make laws like the RH Bill. Are you seriously going to let 11 women die in childbirth everyday without a fight just to honor your Bible? A Bible that not everyone, not even your own leadership, subscribes to and interprets universally? Walang basagan ng trip!

Had I written my thesis based on this principle instead of focusing on Levinas, I have a feeling I'd have ended up all the better for it, and I'd probably have a PhD by now. Then again, maybe not, but it was just a stray thought I had to mention.

Am I saying that all these choices people make are the right choices to make (Although again, homosexuality isn't a choice, but the other examples mostly stand.)? Of course not! It's just that the whole point of human beings having free will simply means that if any of these choices, such as marrying or not marrying, watching or not watching Lady Gaga, using or not using contraception, turn out to be wrong, then it's part and parcel of the human condition to realize the rightness or wrongness of these decisions.

To remove these options, to remove the possibility of making these choices or even mistakes, that is when it becomes patently wrong, and that is when it crosses the threshold into basag-trip territory. If all this TL;DR text hasn't made that point clear enough yet, that's a very, very bad thing.

Kung ang trip mo, hindi naman bumabasag sa trip ng ibang tao, walang karapatan ang sinumang basagin ang iyong trip.

Thank you very much, Lourd De Veyra.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's hard to go wrong with a simple ethical rule of thumb like this. For as long as your own inclinations do not trample upon other's inclinations, then by all means, hold onto them for all you want. You can be as straightedge as you want so long as you don't shove the straightedge lifestyle down anyone's throats. You can drink all you want so long as your drinking poses no danger to other people (Hint: you're not driving.), and you're ready to deal with the consequences of drinking. You can even be as bigoted as you want so long as you don't hurt anyone else with your bigotry!

That last one's a little bit tricky though, isn't it? Guess you still need to work on that, then, but don't worry about it. We accept you for who you are. ;)

This Is How I Bon Chon!

.:This Is How I Bon Chon!:.

Ever since Denise introduced me to the wonders of Bon Chon chicken, I’ve been hooked, always making it a point to grab a two-thigh meal with large iced tea whenever a branch without a snaking line was within reach. With branches in Katipunan (Where I live.), Makati (Where I work.), and even The Fort (Where I *used* to work.), there didn’t really seem to be a problem for me in that department. Ask anybody: I was a fan, and it showed.

So imagine my excitement when I was cordially invited by Bon Chon to their blogger’s day, which wasn’t just an excuse to stuff us with enough chicken until Sunday, but to even let us know that they now have Ko-Yo, that is, Korean Frozen yogurt, on top of their already delectable menu. I don't think I could have contained my excitement at all if I tried. 

Food so good, even the ketchup brings on the smiles!

So yeah, it was a great time, as I met some old blogger friends who also appreciate Bon Chon chicken. It was quite the reunion, to say the least, and the sumptuous feast we had to stare down that entire afternoon. We even had a nice lesson on how to best enjoy chicken wings, for that matter! From now on, I will no longer fear chicken wings because I found a simple and painless way of going at them.

After all the amazing chicken and the delectable calamari (My new favourite item!!!), we finally got to try out their Ko-Yo, and let me just say it was wonderful! At 70 bucks a pop, it really satisfied my craving for yogurt, since for quite a while, I almost had Fro-Yo from different places on a daily basis, all of them decidedly more expensive than Ko-Yo.

Pictured: a happy Bon Chonner! Can we call people that?

Well, after everything has been said and done, I couldn’t eat another bite. Bon Chon just gave us bloggers an amazing experience not just because they had great food (I’ve been eating there long before, after all.), but even the slice of life stories we had with the owners as they introduced us to the origins of Bon Chon. It was just such a casual moment that the whole thing took me back to 2007, back in the day when we were doing events for our blogs, not doing blogs to get to events. It was just a great time all around.

So yeah, Bon Chon has a lot of branches all over the metro, and even a branch in Visayas and another in Mindanao soon to open.

Before The Week Begins...

.:Exhilarated:.

It’s a new chapter in my life, and I’m happy to be along for the ride. And true, the change of scenery yields a bit of uncertainty for me at the moment, yet in spite of that, I’m very optimistic about what lies ahead.

It’s a perfect storm and surprisingly, the year of change I expected 2011 to be. I’m not complaining at all.

That being said, there’s just so much to say and so much to do at this point that I’m a bit overwhelmed. My blogging in the past few weeks has been honestly stilted, and I couldn’t be bothered enough to write articles for the POC or the Filipino Freethinkers in quite a while, probably because I’m just far more focused on handling the things that need to be handled in my life offline. With most of the things slowly settling down, you can probably expect me to normalize sooner rather than later.

I’ve also been thinking about what to do with this blog, as I’m fast approaching ten years of blogging with, quite honestly, very minimal fanfare. I recognize I’m far from the most well-read blog on the internet, but I’d like to think that over the past decade, I’ve definitely come up  with some good insights and some entries worth reading and sharing. It’s with this realization that I consider doing a very simple contest sometime between September to October to mark the 10^th year of this blog, and give back to the readers I’ve had over the years who appreciate the things I do in my own little corner of cyberspace.

Yes, all five of you!

.:iBlog 8, Coming Right Up!:.

Well, it seems I’m going to be part of the panel discussion for iBlog 8 on the second day.  As the years have gone by, I have never missed a year of iBlog, but what makes this one pretty interesting is that this is only my second time at being a speaker for the forum, and I decided to touch on comedy writing for the not-naturally-funny as my topic, which is every bit as uncharted territory as my previous talk five years ago, when I covered creative thinking and problem awareness for the blog setting.

Throughout the years, iBlog has had its share of ups and downs, from definite highlights to controversies that have given the whole thing so much spice for the past eight years. I am definitely happy and honoured to have been witness to most of them, and will do my utmost best to continue being so.

Having said that, I went with a benign topic this year because despite the fact that I actually am very qualified to discuss a more touchy subject such as blogger ethics, I decided to not court controversy and instead contribute to good vibes because picking on unqualified people who talk about ethics while promptly breaking the very same rules they set is just way too easy (And way too fun, but I digress.). It’s also an interesting point to note that while the last three years, I felt obliged to protect my former company by holding my tongue when it came to matters like that, this time around, there is no need for me to protect anyone any longer, so if the situation ever came up while on my time, you can be sure I won’t be the one to mince words on the topic.

Project 52 (19/52): On Being Straight Edge (And Why I Like It That Way)

.:Project 52 (19/52): On Being Straight Edge (And Why I Like It That Way):.

 If you’re a pro wrestling fan currently, then you have to admit one thing: CM Punk made being straight edge cool. For those of you who are uninitiated, being straight edge means one doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, or do drugs. Often, it’s been ridiculed and poked fun at for being a lifestyle choice for squares, one that is meant for people who just don’t know how to enjoy life.

Let the groans commence.

Quite frankly, they couldn’t be more wrong if they tried.

 Obviously, one doesn’t need to drink, smoke, or do drugs just to have fun. It isn’t about being a square: Hades, some of the hardcore sXe people I know are heavily involved in the rocker lifestyle, and it just so happens that they’re every bit as hip as they are being “square.” I know, shocking. But you’d be surprised how common it actually is, what with quite a notable representation and even an actual community for straight edge people.

 As a straight edge person, I made it my lifestyle choice a long time ago to simply not do these things, and even threw in some other stuff I willingly gave up because I can. People who become straight edge do it for their own reasons, and they can be quite diverse. Some do it for health reasons, some for religious reasons.

Fact of the matter is, the key word is that it’s a choice people make, and it’s every bit as valid as wanting to drink, smoke, or do drugs. I fail to see what’s wrong with not wanting to do any of these things. At times, it does boggle my mind when people look at me in shock and think that I must be stupid or something to not want to, say, drink. I mean, at no point did I ever really force them into my lifestyle, so I’m not particularly stoked about being forced into theirs. It just doesn’t work for me. I never liked the taste of alcohol. I have zero interest in taking drugs. I hate even just the smell of tobacco.

Whenever people ask me how I managed to pull this off, I’m a bit dumbstruck because it’s always been easy for me. It simply is. I have no desire to pontificate and ask people to subscribe to a lifestyle I chose for myself, nor do I so much as believe that I gain any sort of superiority whatsoever by being straight edge, even if it does sound cool to say “I’m straight edge, so I’m better than you.” It’s fine, really. All I’m asking by writing this is for people to simply respect the choice I make and not try to “tempt” me with things that never even appealed to me, to begin with. 

It isn't a big, life-changing event that led me to this decision. It isn't years upon years of indoctrination by my parents that made me feel being straight edge is the way to go. Sure, I've seen my share of cautionary tales to living the life of a junkie, but it's not like every single smoker, drinker, or even drug user is an uncontrollable junkie who has zero self-control. It isn't even that. I'm just simply fine with how I am at this point, when it comes to all this stuff.

Ultimately, it’s all about respecting one’s lifestyle choices, and I’m pretty bloody sure that my lifestyle choice doesn’t hurt anyone at all. It’s not like the alcohol, tobacco, or drug industries are hurting for profit by my lack of contribution to their coffers. I think they’re gonna be juuuust fine.

I’ve never had a problem with people not living a straight edge lifestyle like I do. I didn’t choose this lifestyle to be a role model, either. It simply is a valid way of life, and the sooner people realize that and stop assuming that every straight edge person is a target in need of corrupting, then maybe we’d all live in a slightly better world.

Man, what a crazy week this has been.

Project 52 (18/52): On The Ms. Universe Conundrum (And Why Miriam Quiambao Should Shut It)

.:Project 52 (18/52): On The Ms. Universe Conundrum (And Why Miriam Quiambao Should Shut It):.

All hail homophobia!

The last time Miriam Quiambao was relevant, she was down on her knees. Now, before I make a wildly sexist joke and thus make this blog an unsafe place for women, I think I’ll leave my opening statement at that.

In a completely surprising and unexpected move, Donald Trump recently announced that Ms. Universe will start allowing transgendered women to join the pageant beginning next year. That sounds mighty progressive, until you realize that one, you have to be legally a woman in your country of origin to be allowed to join, and two, if you’re past 27, married, or with child, you’re SOL as far as joining Ms. Universe.

Not that there should be anything ascendant about joining a beauty pageant, what with it being the continued upholding of patriarchal conceptions of beauty and empty motherhood statements reflexive of beliefs born from indoctrination. I wouldn’t outright say it’s exploitative (Even some feminists might debate that it’s fine if the woman really wanted to join one.), but I sure as Hades wouldn’t call it liberating or empowering. Only in co-opting the system and making it work to their advantage could something like Ms. Universe be liberating or empowering, and not the system itself.

Last Tuesday, I had an interesting conversation about this with Chuck Gomez, a member of the LGBT community, who spoke about the topic with a clear measure of disinterest. First of all, he pointed out that this discussion, as far as the Philippines is concerned, is completely moot: transgendered women are not legally recognized as women in the Philippines, so there is no way we would be sending any transgendered Ms. Universe delegates for a loooong while, what with the RH Bill still up for debate to this very moment.

So really, how progressive is this move by Donald Trump anyway? And how meaningful is it, in the long run, when after everything has been said and done, Ms. Universe is a private entity or foundation, and can make the rules as it pleases? If Trump declared tomorrow that female pigs could join Ms. Universe, who can stop him, really? It’s his show, it’s his foundation, it’s his money. What we think about who should and shouldn’t be allowed in the competition is just irrelevant after everything has been said and done.

Despite that, what is relevant though, is that this discussion has been a futile distraction of what is clearly a first world problem: a nation like Canada, with its superb health care and its standard of living, can afford to answer questions about whether or not a legally recognized transgendered woman has any right to join a beauty pageant. In the Philippines, a transgendered woman who has to live with a predominantly Catholic mindset that coins patronizing statements to justify their discrimination against her lifestyle, wouldn’t even bother thinking about whether or not she can legally join Bb. Pilipinas, when she has to worry about feeding her family first, and worrying about daily oppression for her sexual orientation or the fact that she used to biologically be a man.,

Ever noticed that there is no single secular reason to be homophobic? It happens in nature. It happens without any statistical risk to forever preventing a species from propagating because everyone happened to be homosexual. Only when you use religious reasoning does homophobia become a tangible concept, and being in the Philippines, it makes you wonder why we are using a supposedly loving and almighty God to justify our hating people for what they do in their bedroom.

As far as I’m concerned, the issue of Ms. Universe is a question we really shouldn’t even waste time asking about. Truth be told, when it has zero effect on us because our laws don’t recognize the transgendered as women, when our own level of progressiveness is nowhere near many of the Western nations we just blindly aspire to emulate, then maybe the right question to ask is: what is beautiful, really? Is it the patriarchal conceptions we attach to these pageants, akin to how dog shows grade dogs based on hard and fast criteria based on the expected look of their breed?

And really, when it comes to Miriam Quiambao, I honestly don’t have anything good to say about her at this point, particularly because for the longest time, it boggles my mind how easy it is for people to pick and choose which verses of the Bible should be taken literally and which shouldn’t. We’ve seen this argued or even joked about so many times already, but the Bible also prohibits eating shrimp, planting two different crops on the same soil, interwoven and mixed fabrics, and recommends a lot of stoning to death for people who break a lot of these laws.

Wow, Another Randomicity Post, After Ages!

.:Focusing On What Comes Next:.

I wasn't jobless for very long, and am starting work again on Monday.

I know, I've been a bit delinquent with the blogging lately, but can you blame me? I've been preparing for my next job, and I must say, it's gonna be a blast.

There's just so much to do and so much to get prepared for. I'm pretty stoked.

.:Brock Lesnar Needs To See A Doctor...:.

I don't know about you, but Brock Lesnar's return to the WWE is something I was pretty excited about. It's just that... I don't think he's ready to go yet, unless he has himself checked out with a doctor soon...

That's pretty severe, Brock.

I know a lot of people feel that he's just doing this for the paycheck and he has no love for the business. Far as I'm concerned, so long as he's a true professional while he's at it, it doesn't matter what his motivations for going back to the WWE are. Not everyone needs to be some guy bleeding heart and soul for the wrestling business, and with Brock, what you see is what you get. You either like him or hate him, and he's not out to change anyone's opinions on that.

.:Still On An Avengers High:.

Despite the fact that it felt like such a whimper of a last day at Nuffnang (For my well-being, I will just gloss over the multiple instances I felt very unappreciated and worse that night.), there is no question that The Avengers was, without a doubt, an amazing film, from top to bottom.

While I would normally want to write a film review about it, I think I can put doing that off until I watch it a second time first.

For now, let me just say that this is an action film that hits all the right notes properly: excellent pacing (The Dark Knight had issues with this.), characterization, plot, and thematic consistency. For an ensemble cast, everyone involved had ample crowning moments of awesome, and character arcs. Even the normals like Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Captain America were given opportunities to prove how badass they happen to be, not just physically, but in Black Widow's case, even cerebrally.

Also, this interview on Russian TV just needs to be shared:

I want to just keep watching this movie again and again. It was brilliant, funny, and quite an experience.

Also, Agent Coulson being just the best at what he does in this bonus scene from the Captain America Blu-Ray:

Just Another Magic Monday (Okay, Fine, Wednesday): A Dark Cloud Over The World Of Magic...

.:Just Another Magic Monday (Okay, Fine, Wednesday): A Dark Cloud Over The World Of Magic...:.

For the sake of prudence, I won't use a single photograph in this post. I think it would be for the best.

It's really not a good time to be a magician in the Philippines right now. Not only has there been a saturation in the market with dime-a-dozen magicians crawling out of the woodwork and giving stiff competition to more established magicians solely based on their price point, but the PR beating magic has taken has been insurmountable as of late.

Sure, among magicians, Bearwin Meily's exposure of magic secrets on TV 5 has been quite a big deal, what with even Ellusionist denouncing any connection with the apparent exposure. That affected magicians, but the average person couldn't care less.

There was also a bit of cheapening for magic and mentalism that happened during the whole Mind Master brouhaha where mentalism ended up being put in the same league as the Madame Auring's and the Jojo Acuin's of our society, and overall turning an art form into outright exploitation of the willingness of people to believe in something otherwordly instead of their own capacities.

All of this has yielded a marked difficulty in taking magic seriously, and ironically, utilizing my Laughs And Gasps approach, mixing magic and comedy in a way that makes no attempt to insult the intelligence of the audience, has managed to keep me afloat, personally. Other magicians of sterner stuff than the average have similarly found their own ways to move past exposure and bastardization and still continue to be forces to reckon with in the entertainment world. Hades, Erik Mana is opening for Rex Navarette and Mike Unson tomorrow for Rex's comedy show, so that definitely says a lot about Erik's longevity as a performer.

No, these aren't why I'm saying it's tough to be a magician right now.

I'm saying it's tough to be a magician right now because of what happened last April 3.

I was one of the last people to find out about this. In fact, I found out only last Sunday, from my friend and mentor, Tito Bing Lim-It. To this very moment, I'm still in shock, because I remember having shared the stage with Alakim just sometime last year, and even finding my picture in the newspapers along with his, when Ms. Giselle Sanchez wrote about us for her column in Manila Bulletin. I spoke very highly of Alakim as a professional, then, and I even met his wife during that one time we shared the stage for Ms. Giselle's party.

Later that year, I even met him again as he judged TSC's closeup magic competition, where I was asked to be a host. I have never had a single unpleasant experience with Alakim, and though I cannot speak to how he sees me, I always considered him a friend in the industry.

I guess that's precisely why I still can't believe what happened, and why I simply don't know what to make of this. I will not even try to play an armchair CSI agent and assume Alakim's guilt, because I personally believe in the presumption of innocence until he is proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I withhold any judgment on the man, simply because I feel it is unnecessary and uncalled for at this point. I am not an expert, nor would I pretend to be, and the last thing a potentially innocent man needs is yet another person accusing him of killing his wife, when he actually didn't.

Despite that, it is a very dark day for the magic community when a tragedy like this happens. Maricar was prominent enough for most of the magicians who made acquaintance with Alakim to know her, as well. Aside from that, it's difficult to see one of our luminaries have his career snuffed out like that. Guilty or innocent, this will affect Alakim in ways I cannot even begin to predict, much in the way that Ted Failon, despite being exonerated of any suspicions of killing his wife, still has people insisting that he was guilty, as if they were there when his wife died.

If innocent, Alakim is ruined. He is not quite like Ted Failon on the totem pole, after all. If guilty, Alakim ruined himself. Either way, magicians in the Philippines are affected by this, and the biggest parallel I can draw isn't even to the case of Ted Failon, but to a grislier one: Chris Benoit's double-murder and suicide case, which has affected and shaped the pro wrestling industry in ways nobody thought possible. To this day, Chris Benoit never so much as gets mentioned on WWE programming, and all his accolades as a pro wrestler are forever overshadowed by what he has done to his wife and son.

Alakim's actions, or even his circumstances, in no way reflects the actions or circumstances of any other magician in the Philippines. Yet with this case, all magicians, regardless of Alakim's guilt or innocence, will now possibly be viewed more warily purely by association. It's uncomfortable and it's terrible, but nowhere nearly as terrible as having a life snuffed out so needlessly last April 3.

I don't want to end on a note that makes it seem I'm more concerned about the reputation of Philippine magic than about the family that Maricar de Paz left behind. This day is a dark day for the Philippine magic brotherhood far less because of how the average person would look at magicians from this day on (And for all I know, maybe they wouldn't even know about it.), but more so because on that day, we lost two people: Maricar, and Alakim. No matter what happened on that fateful day of April 3, two people who were near and dear to a lot of us are taken away from us, and we end up asking ourselves what happened and why this had to be.

Rest in peace, Maricar. We ever met only once, but I won't ever forget you and the zest for life you had during that one time. May the truth come out and may it lay your soul to rest, and then and only then would I choose to speak about Alakim. They both at least deserve that much.

Project 52 2012 (17/52): On How You Can Never Please Gamers (No Matter What You Do)

.:Project 52 2012 (17/52): On How You Can Never Please Gamers (No Matter What You Do):.

I recently bought a copy of Street Fighter x Tekken for the PS3, and I was very pleased about it. I mean, wow. 38 characters from two of the best fighting game franchises in the gaming world! Playing the game, I definitely felt a rush, because the game simply handled like a dream. Oodles upon oodles of different flavors across the cast, and a host of other features that add a whole lot of depth to the game. My favorite SFIV character, Makato, isn't in the game, but no game is perfect, I guess.

It was a great game, and I was more than happy to pay full price for the game because, hey, I knew going in that I was going to have 38 characters to play with, and a few more to come in a few months via DLC.

And then gamers far and wide found out that the DLC was already there in the data of the disk, just locked out from play. Oh, noes!

Now, a furor has been raised about this "issue." Clearly, Capcom is being greedy and wants to make money! How dare a company selling video games want to do something as unthinkable as make money? I mean, obviously, 38 characters aren't enough, and we want those other 12 characters like, right now, for freeeee!

If you find this kind of thinking ridiculous and, well, entitled, welcome to the world of gamers, who hate on the very games they love to play.

Let me take you on a trip down memory lane as we remember the history of Capcom's fighting games from the very first Street Fighter II that hit the arcades. For its time, it was a revolutionary game, inspiring a relentless number of knock-offs from other companies. When it was sold on the SNES more or less two decades ago, cartridges were available at $79.99 a pop or so. It had eight characters. If you got lucky, maybe you could find the game at $59.99, the exact same prices brand new games are in 2012.

Wow! Eight characters who don't have the exact same movesets unlike Street Fighter 1? Sign me up!

Sure, advances in technology and whatnot, but let's look at that again: $60 to $80 for a game 20 years ago. You get eight characters.

In contrast, Street Fighter X Tekken is approximately $60 in today's prices, and you get 38 characters.

So when SFII: Champion Edition came out and had the exact same price point, did we hear fanboys complain? Probably not, since the internet didn't exist yet, but really, weren't the four "new" characters in this game just you having access to the four boss characters already in SFII: World Warrior, to begin with? Doesn't this mean that the data for these guys is already, ahem, on the cartridge? I don't know about you, but if you found nothing wrong with paying $60 for an extra four characters you were already playing against, I fail to see how whining about an extra $20 to get three times as many extra characters is worth complaining about. And for those complaining about the fact that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 came out with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and rendering the first MVC3 obsolete in nine months, well, guess when SFII's SNES Champion Edition (Actually titled SFII: Turbo) came out? SFII: The World Warrior came out in June 1992. SFII Turbo came out in July of the same year. A month. Can you imagine how an early adopter who bought World Warrior for $80 would've felt back then?

What? Can't we just unlock this content on our cartridges via... err, something?!?

Then SFII: Turbo came out, and boy! Not a single new character! Just a bunch of new moves for some characters and some balance tweaks and who cares, right? But lo and behold, it was very well-received, and this version is often considered the best version of the SFII era next only to its final iteration of Super SFII: Turbo.

And Honda slapping Sagat around? Lies!!!

Super SFII with four new characters and terrible, terrible balance that undid so much of the good SFII Turbo made? That's another $60 to $80, guys. Fork 'em over.

Can't we just DLC this on our cartridges?!?

Super Street Fighter II was pretty poorly received, and it had to be fixed with Super SFII: Turbo. This was by far the best iteration of the game, bar none: new balance tweaks including new moves, the now-common Super combo meter, the now-vital throw break mechanic, and even a hidden, 17th character who was considered too powerful and broken for competitive play. It was, for all intents and purposes, a great update, except for one problem: it wasn't available on the SNES at all. This meant it would cost you $700 for a Panasonic 3DO, where the game was exclusively available at the time, and $50 for the game, since finally, we hit the CD era of gaming, where games were "cheaper" for a while, and then came games running on 2 or more CD's...

What? Just one new character?!? And these Super combos are just so playskool and baby shoes!

So, the pinnacle of fighting in the 90's, a game being played even up to this very day, would've cost a gamer $750, and each previous iteration of the game would've cost them $60 for the most part, which meant, SFII, SFII Turbo, and SSFII, so an additional $180. And even that high point for fighting games had... 17 characters?

And... Street Fighter X Tekken has 38 characters, and we're complaining?!?

What a swindle!

I'm not saying that we should go back to the days of only 8 to 17 characters, although with new but excellebnt fighting games like Skullgirls having only 10, that isn't such a horrible thing, either. What I'm trying to do is show some perspective here. We got so spoiled with 56 characters from Marvel vs. Capcom 2, which actually mostly consisted of rehashed sprites from older games, that we ended up expecting the same number of characters from every succeeding fighting game already.

In fact, when Super SFIV came out, and it added about 10 characters, we had people scoffing and saying "What? Just 10 characters, some new stages, balance tweaks, and new Ultra combos? That's already a new release? What a rip-off!!!"

This is ignoring the fact that an update precisely consists of either balance tweaks, new stages, new characters, or new moves, and all of that was included in the Super SFIV package. You take all that away, then you have exactly the same game, so I don't think anyone whining about this "not" being an update actually knows what the word means.

There is no promise that without DLC, we were going to get those 50 characters on Street Fighter X Tekken. They could functionally have done the same thing they did during SFIV to Super SFIV or Marvel vs Capcom 3 to UMVC3, where they came up with another disc release instead of making the game available via DLC. Rest assured that would probably cause a lot more rage than the current situation we are faced with instead, since even at a discounted price of $40, that would be double the $20 they plan to charge us with for the DLC characters.

Granted, X-Box users have every right to gripe about the fact that certain promised features were not included for them, such as co-op online, but to assume that not developing those 12 DLC characters to instead deliver these features, as if the character designers would be the same people as the game system designers, is bordering on ridiculous. Furthermore, to ignore the convenience of having DLC content locked away on your disc instead of downloading it on a hard drive with limited space when it was clear from the get-go that: 1. The game was going to have DLC you were gonna pay for anyway, and 2. The original game was being marketed as a 38-character game, then you can see how being a stickler for semantics on the notion of "downloadable content" and all this bull about "developing cycles" and whatnot is just fanboys playing armchair game developers without understanding the first thing about it: games are designed to make money for the game designers.

Do I wish I had 50 characters and got the extra 12 right now, if not for free? Of course I do! Do I expect it from Capcom? Of course not! At no point did they promise any of these things to me, so at no point do I feel entitled to something I was not promised, even if it happens to be locked away on my disc. If I really had a problem with this practice, I simply wouldn't buy the game. I wouldn't buy the game knowing full well it's for 38 characters, find out about the 12 extra hidden on my disc, then proceed to whine why I don't have access to those 12 and completely ignore the fact that nobody from Capcom said I was going to get those 12 for free or right now. Ever.

So with that in mind, I simply cannot fault Capcom for this move. They promised us 38 characters + DLC, and we didn't complain. We found out that a simple line or two of code (Simple as it may be, 99.99% of you reading this, like myself, wouldn't know how to write it, much less where to put it, anyways.), and all of a sudden Capcom is the devil? Really? For what? For wanting to save a little money since they pay for data storage whenever they make DLC available, when this on-disc thing doesn't really affect us any which way? I mean, seriously.

And sure, of course people have a right to complain. Nobody has the right to stop them. But if you really, really hate Capcom and all that they stand for, maybe you should stop buying their games then whining afterwards? Being critical of Capcom's business practices is one thing. Being a hypocrite while you're at it is another.

Case in point: "Freemium" games on iOS, particularly those that come from Glu. If you feel compelled and swindled to pay your way to play their games, then yeah, maybe you shouldn't even be playing those games if you weren't willing to pay for it in the first place. I learned this the hard way when I plunked over $100 into that stupid Blood and Glory game, which, while free to download, was impossibly hard without making in-app purchases. What made this thing even worse was the game was a ripoff of a game I already had: the infinitely better Infinity Blade, which wasn't a free download, and cost an astronomical $7.


$7 versus $100? Yeah, I think that taught me quite a lesson, all right, and I have no reason to ever blame Glu games for it, because I willingly walked into that trap, hook, line and sinker. It just means they're never seeing another cent from me ever again, because hey, I actually hate their business practices, and am letting my wallet speak for itself, although $100 too late.

Otherwise, I'd continue plunking money into Blood and Glory while whining about Glu's unfair practices, and wouldn't that just be the height of not just hypocrisy, but stupidity?

But still, screw you, Glu Games. That felt cathartic to say.