This is not an article

I hate deadlines; yet I can’t live without them. They impose order on randomness. They’re immediate, they’re imposing and – in most cases – very deadly indeed. So, if one is writing a column, and is stuck for an idea – what is one to do?

In my case, I just miss them. I tell my editors my five readers wouldn’t mind. (Of course, there are really only two: the others are imaginary, I believe.) But if I do decide to jot down anything, it’ll more or less be a rambling mess. I’ve quit alcohol and stopped taking Zoloft so maybe everything I just wanted to say about anything is gone, into the ether…that it was all the right kind of drug abuse (and legal) that provided the spark, the inspiration, the chemical balance. I feel spent, content – as the late wife of my grand uncle Carlos P. Romulo said – to glow faintly in the shadow of my more famous wife.

There’s an idea. Talk about my wife – God knows I’ve done a lot of that in this column. But what else can I say about her that would really capture how amazing she really is? Yvonne – that’s her name (as if you five didn’t already know) – is possibly the greatest woman who has ever and will ever live! She’s a sonnet by Shakespeare, a Dalinian fried egg and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle – a person I sometimes imagine I dreamed up and became true. Only problem is, I’m not that imaginative.

So far I have 262 words and it’s touching to me that it only took me that long to understand that I really can’t say anymore about her that would possibly add to her magnificence. I love the girl, that’s that.

Actually, if you’re puzzled or even disgusted by how this piece has shaped up – I point the guilty finger at Radioactive Sago Project’s Lourd de Veyra. (Buy their sophomore album "Urban Gulaman" at all quality record stores.) Being the mischievous bastard that he is, he put me up to just ranting. He does it on stage at every show and every one of his seven male groupies seems to dig it. (The same bunch shows up at every gig.) Hey, this is how I earn a living and, at least, I’m not a telemarketer.

To make up for the preceding mess, I can tell readers that Neil Gaiman is indeed coming and our good friends at Fully Booked have set up interviews for the press. If you’re really dying to ask Gaiman something you can e-mail your questions to the e-mail address below and I’ll see if I can ask them. Remember, Gaiman is the most profiled and interviewed comics figure in the history of the medium so best send more interesting questions than, (in a nasal, annoying, sycophantic voice) Where’d you get the idea for Sandman? For more details, visit any one of Fully Booked branches either in the Powerplant Rockwell or Gateway in Cubao. Keep your radios tuned to NU 107.5 because Ramon, Quark and myself will ask the man himself to play DJ. (It’s taped elsewhere so don’t bother coming to the station.)

(That’s 522 words; is that enough?)

I’ve lost the ability to watch porn. Malek Lopez of Rubber Inc. has told me that this is due to the fact that I also write and direct porn. To elucidate, I was involved (i.e. scriptwriting, scoring, sound-designing) in a Viva Hot Babes flick and did an independent feature that contained – drum roll please – one sex scene! Until now, despite the film being an hour and a half long, people including friends and peers like Alexis Tioseco just remember that one scene! I think Igan D’ Bayan liked it particularly (but he’d never admit it if Becca was in the vicinity). Maybe I’ll e-mail and ask him – since he’s always out of the country, it’ll be a lot cheaper than calling him at the MTV Europe Awards.

I started this at eleven o’clock and now 677 words later it’s already morning. Even though I don’t usually listen to fusion while writing, I decided to play Mahavishnu Orchestra’s "Inner Worlds" when I started because I felt I needed to hear a guitar played by John McLaughlin (either that or it was Geddy Lee’s yelping) on my iTunes. I barely could get beyond a few words as John Zorn’s Masada clicked in and was well about to give up until I hear that welcome cry that opens the title song of MC5’s debut: It’s time to kick out the jams, motherf***ers! Pumped, I punched the keys as if I were a black thug toting a machine gun. I fire randomly into the crowd and take a couple of innocent bystanders. Seeing the blood on my hands, I decide to take a piss and head back for a rewrite…

Six hours behind the deadline and no sleep. The writing’s not smooth but it’s getting there. By the time, the computer plays Milli Vanilli’s Girl, You Know It’s True I get all sentimental about Yvonne and decide to add a few more things to describe her beauty: she’s both a Gabby Barredo kinetic sculpture and the opening chords to the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter, the word "too" in HP Lovecraft’s stories and the taste of warm taho in the morning…again, I fail to convey anything close to her.

The stereo hooked up to my computer is playing a new album by Awit Award winning soul-jazz musician Mishka Adams called "God Bless the Child." Released by Candid Records, Adams beat out more popular artists like Kitchie Nadal and Rachel Ann Go and that is something to be happy about. It’s a smattering of standards like Autumn Leaves, Somewhere Over The Rainbow and Summertime with the young ingénue’s own compositions. It’s Adam’s original compositions that impress that there is definitely talent to be reckoned here. On an otherwise overcast and bleak morning in Pasig, Adams invites us to get lost in Marrakech and Mama’s Garden, opening fresh vistas to see past the smog that colors our mornings.

Managing to sneak a little mini-review in this jumble is something I’m proud of. It’s all smoke and mirrors, this magic. Maybe I’m not spent after all and maybe this is how this column should be conducted from here on. (I hear my editors groan.) At this point, we’ve gone beyond a thousand words and my deadline is fast approaching. And they might be showing another rerun of my favorite show ED on ETC so I guess I’ll just take a bow and leave the stage for now.

Be sure to pick up your litter on your way out.

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Send comments and reactions to: erwin_romulo@hotmail.com.