Trains

Unfortunately it rained today and my supposed fill of beerhouse hits while contemplating inside a jeep has to take a backseat in favor of the relative comfort of the MRT and FX. While yesterday's pleasant travel was due largely to the heavy dose of nostalgic sentiments I had during the ride, the one I've had a few hours ago in the MRT was for the humor books. I've been meaning to write about it for sometime but never really got down to it. Apparently the MRT management upgraded its services for the relative comfort of its commuters. No, they didn't fix the perpetual escalator problem in the North Avenue station nor improved the airconditioning system of most of the trains in operation; nothing outlandish like that. Time travel will be invented before those things are fixed for good. They just launched the MRT FM radio.


When the doors opened as I was getting ready to board a blast of latin music spewed forth along with the disembarking passengers. The first thing that came to mind was Tita Luz. Now that was enough to make me laugh out loud but I bit my lip as hard as I can. I didn't want the other passengers thinking they had a dope addict in their midst. Tita Luz, bless her soul, has a penchant for old 50s latin-flavored pinoy music and Filipiniana selections whose cassette tapes I suspect she bought at Nayong Pilipino. The kind with an Amorsolo-type painting in the cover, depicting the pastoral way of life in some barrio complete with bahay kubos and baro't sayas. She used to play those nonstop in the car everytime we came to visit her. For the life of me I couldn't understand how she and my father could have polar opposite tastes when it came to music or any other art forms for that matter.

I can vividly remember the "WAN! TU! TRI! POR!" of some (probably) middle-aged male band member before seguing to a crazy polyrhythmic assault of an undeniably pinoy version of latin dance music. My parents, sister and I always have a good laugh everytime we remember that. We weren't ridiculing her taste in music, but the fact that we already heard the same songs more than fifty times since we were in her car (a cab actually, with MUY BIEN plastred at the sides of both doors) and the ridiculousness of the "WAN! TU! TRI! POR!" did it. Professional comedians say things in threes are funny. Try listening to something ridiculous more than 20 times with people who have a healthy sense of humor and you'll have a riot.

That was what I was thinking when I entered the train. And even if the humidity inside was oppressive I couldn't help but let a little chuckle out every now and then. The music, coupled with the irritated and blank expressions of the passengers created a weird sort of music video.

Crazy.

I hear the the drums echoing tonight

I took a jeep home to break the routine a little. As much as I would like to go home as fast as I possibly can most of the time, there are also instances when I find myself in the mood for a little joyride and basically just enjoying the trip. It was late in the afternoon---dusk on the way to twilight---and boomboxes inside PUVs are already playing timeless classics from the 70s and the 80s. The weather was nice, cool and pleasant and the last rays of the sun receding and giving in to shadows, and the jeep was comfortable and not too packed. Toto's "Africa" was on, as it always is during this hour on all FM stations. Of all the singles released by Toto, this song in my opinion is their best; even better than the melodramatic guilty pleasure of "I'll Be Over You". When the all-too familiar first chords of the synthesizers blared from the speakers I was instantly taken over by nostalgia.

Suddenly I was a little boy again. Barely six and torturing hapless insects by pulling out their hind legs and wings and marvelling at their complex anatomical structures and "Africa" was playing in some nearby store in the town I grew up in. It was relatively a genuine happiness specially for a child of five to be alive at that time and then---

---I was a highschool sophomore--- on the way home from the city inside a Guimbal jeep passing by Oton, on that part of the highway where there's vast empty fields on either side, full of grass and devoid of houses. One side leads to the ocean, and the other to the mountains. This is the part of the ride where one can feel heroic and serene just by staring at it and "Africa" is playing to complete the picture. Cold and bleak-sounding yet strangley comforting and pleasant and---

---I'm back at the jeep. Staring outside observing various activities people do when twilight is upon them as I passed by. All the hassles of the day and problems for the future vanishes, replaced by serenity and pleasantness.

Hope it won't rain tomorrow.

Joke's on you

Surfing the internet I came across an article about the sequel for Batman Begins. Of all the Batman treatments that have been shown--- from the hyper-campy AdamWest-television version of the 60s (Holy sardines Batman!) to the goth fairy tale tratment of Tim Burton, and its eventual degradation in the hands of Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever/Batman and Robin)---Christopher Nolan's treatment had fans who were turned off by the recent films hoping again. And casting Christian Bale in the title role was the most appropriate casting choice I have seen in the comic book movie adaptation genre in the last few years. Having seen Memento and Insomnia from Nolan, and Bale's portrayal of brooding and mentally unstable characters from Equilibrium and American Psycho respectively, I was confident this production team could pull it off. And pulled it off they did. It was like watching an excellent graphic novel that several die-hard fanboys of the comic told me they actually clapped after the screening.

The Dark Knight, the sequel, looks very promising from what I've read. We'll be introduced to The Batman's arch-nemesis The Joker. Most people are confused by this, saying The Joker died in the Tim Burton version. That's why the first film was called Batman Begins-it has no relationship whatsoever in the previous films; a sort of reset if you may. Heath Ledger would be the clown prince of crime though I would have preferred Back To The Future's Crispin Glover. He even looks like The Joker without any make-up on. I actually even signed an on-line petition so the studio would take him. But I guess an Oscar award speaks volumes. But hell, I'd even watch it if they got Vin Diesel for the part.

What I like most about Nolan's treatment of the material is that he has reverence for what the character as he is popularly known by comic-book fans; something that is also not unlike what Sam Raimi did for the SpiderMan series. The Tim Burton version was okay but the one by Joel Schumacher, specially the one with George Clooney in it practically looked so moronic that it could have been any nut in a Batsuit trading insults and trashtalk with the badguys (Batman is not particularly known for his sense of humor). With the Bale version, you'd actually believe the guy's motivation for wearing a costume and jump on rooftops at night instead of dating supermodels and driving sports cars. The sequel, in addition, has the feel and overall look of one of the best Batman graphic novels called The Killing Joke written by Watchmen and V For Vendetta's Alan Moore.

In any case, along with Spiderman, it's still the best superhero movie adaptation i have seen so far.