Under the terms of the scholarship I should’ve majored in the sciences, but I had empirical proof of my unfitness. I majored in Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. I haven’t actually graduated from college because I lack two units of PE. Someone told me that when you hit 30 you’re exempted from PE, so technically I can apply for graduation. But if I get my diploma that would make me an adult, and I intend to cling to my childhood forever.
I paid for college by writing cover stories for a weekly women’s magazine. I interviewed dozens of actresses, models and celebrities of no particular definition (or talent). Since this entailed plenty of waiting in studios and strange living rooms, I got a lot of reading done. Let no one say that showbiz doesn’t promote literacy. I read half of The Brothers Karamazov while waiting for Nora Aunor to come out of her bedroom and White Mischief while waiting for Maricel Soriano.
After college I continued to contribute to the magazine. I wrote weekly profiles of interesting eligible bachelors, which sounds like a dream gig until you realize that many of them were neither interesting nor eligible, and then you understand why they were bachelors. My editor rewarded my fortitude by giving me a column. I called it "Womenagerie."
I was a staff writer for the journal of the Philippine Computer Society for about a year. It was the only job I’ve ever had that required me to show up every day, unless you count the two weeks I spent as a copywriter in an ad agency (that did not go well at all).
I was a freelance writer, meaning I wrote press releases for public relations agencies, and provided content for corporate in-house publications. This paid the rent on my first apartment. Rent is a great motivator.
In 1991 I won a Palanca award for the short story. In the local literary scene, a Palanca means that you exist. The following year my first book, Manananggal Terrorizes Manila, a collection of short stories I’d written in college, was published. Recently I read an academic essay about me which concluded that I had wasted my life by producing only one book of fiction. My entire career judged on the basis of stuff I scribbled while not listening in class! I should be so lucky. Anyway, that essay catapulted me into the front ranks of the Lifetime Underachievement Awards. My friend appears to have an insurmountable, Federer-esque lead over the rest of the contenders, which he has built up by viciously editing his own filmography, but I still have a few decades in which to achieve absolute zilch.
In 1994 my column "Twisted" began appearing thrice weekly in the much-lamented newspaper Today. The first Twisted compilation was published a year later. A new compilation appears every year or so. The column ran until 2002, when I decided to take a break from cannibalizing my life and pursue other interests.
In 1995 I did an FM radio talk show called Twisted in the Morning. It was on every Monday from 6 to 10 a.m., which explains why I always sounded cranky and bilious. In ’96 the show became Twisted on a Sunday Afternoon, and since I didn’t have to get up early I was in a far better mood, but I still sounded cranky and bilious. The show ran until 2001, I think.
Occasionally I gave talks and did book signings. Once I even did a bar tour, a kind of unfunny standup act.
My first TV gigs were guest shots on talk shows. In ’96 I started doing a weekly five-minute segment on a cable news channel. Later I moved my shtick to a morning show. It was taped, so I didn’t have to appear and yell at anyone.
Other, concurrent gigs: band manager, film festival entourage, contributing columnist to Newsweek, editor-at-large of a fashion magazine, recording artist (it was a spoken-word album).
From 1998 to 2002, I hosted a weekly current affairs talk show called Points of View on Studio 23 with Dong Puno/Mar Roxas/ Teddy Boy Locsin/Cher Calvin and Mo Twister/Gabe Mercado. To this day people stop me at the mall to tell me that they watch the show every week. I don’t know how this is possible unless they live in a different galaxy and it takes years for the transmission to reach them.
In 1999 I went to Yale for a seminar on American Studies. Hmmm, maybe I should start claiming to be a Yalie.
In 2002 my friends and I started a magazine called Flip: The Official Guide to World Domination. We managed to put out eight issues before we ran out of money. Hang on to your copies, they’re now collector’s items.
Since 2003 I’ve been producing and editing books, subtitling Tagalog movies in English, and writing for the Hong Kong Standard. I’ve co-written a screenplay for an excruciatingly violent French-Filipino movie, as yet unproduced. I edit a magazine called Manila Envelope.
I said I would never blog because 98 percent of blogs are crap anyway, then I started blogging last year. JessicaRulesTheUniverse.com.
I’ve written a novel, but I can’t bear to look at it, much less show it to anyone.
My job description is "Professional Self-Cannibalizer."
You can e-mail me at emotionalweatherreport@gmail.com