Thursday, January 31, 2008

Tarsier in Excelsis

Actual Cockpit Transcript

Roger Murdock: Flight 2-0-9'er, you are cleared for take-off.
Captain Oveur: Roger!
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Tower voice: L.A. departure frequency, 123 point 9'er.
Captain Oveur: Roger!
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Victor Basta: Request vector, over.
Captain Oveur: What?
Tower voice: Flight 2-0-9'er cleared for vector 324.
Roger Murdock: We have clearance, Clarence.
Captain Oveur: Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?
Tower voice: Tower's radio clearance, over!
Captain Oveur: That's Clarence Oveur. Over.
Tower voice: Over.
Captain Oveur: Roger.
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Tower voice: Roger, over!
Roger Murdock: What?
Captain Oveur: Huh?
Victor Basta: Who?

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Fischer's Last Words: “Nothing eases suffering like human touch”

" Bókin, or The Book, is essentially a 1950s version of New York’s Strand Bookstore. Besides the books stacked head-high, under card tables, and on plywood shelves, the first thing you notice about Bókin is its smell, decayed and airless. Walking inside the 35-year-old establishment is like entering a Parisian flea market without the noise: overwhelming, a paralysis of the senses. But it was here, between narrow aisles lined with thousands of fraying biographies and history books, sitting in an ordinary chair whose varnish had worn thin, where Bobby Fischer could be alone in his thoughts. It was here where he could contemplate his place in history by poring through books on outlaws and rebels from Russia, Britain, Libya, and the Soviet Union with whom he could relate. And it was here, beneath the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights above, where Bobby Fischer could, for at least a few hours a day, seem to live a normal life."
An endearing account of Fischer's last days in Iceland reading books at the back of The Book.

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Photo Cat-alog



Hai!
I'm Fritz! A German cat. I took that photo and the rest of my portfolio can be found here

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Santi Bose aka Santa Rose

I received this email from Bob Boyles:

In San Francisco, in 1976, while waiting on my flight to Osan AFB, Korea, I struck up a conversation whith a retired Air Force Master Sgt. on his way back to the Phillipines. We parted ways at Travis AFB, California and he presented me with a handmade pen and pencil holder for my desk that I would occupy in Korea. It is in the shape of a Valentine type heart, obviously handmade, with two holes on the top of the heart for pens or pencils. It appears to have been glazed in a kiln (?) with hand painted reddish orange braid around the top-left edge of the heart and blue-green braid around the right edge.
On the right side of the heart is handlettered
SOUVENIR
BAGUIO CITY
1969
On the left side of the heart is handlettered
MAY '69
I don't recall the name of the man who gave it to me in 1976 but he had told me he had gotten it from a "kid about 17 or 18 years old named Santa Rose" while he had been stationed with the USAF in the Phillipines in 1969. I was 27 yrs. old in '76 and I just stuck the heart in my duffle bag and somehow the heart has manged to stay wiht me through all these years and many, many moves.
There's no name on the heart but I came across the heart yesterday while showing my 11 year old granson some of my Air Force and travel keepsakes. My grandson is a pretty clever kid ( not just because he's mine ) so he wanted himself and I to research Baguio City. When we looked Baguio City up on the internet we also came across " Santi Bose " which, to me, was very close to " Santa Rose " that the man had called the "kid" that made it in 1969 (?).
That's all I can recall about how, where and from whom I obtained my Baguio City 1969 heart but my grandson and I are letting our curiosity get the best of us. Will you please take a moment or two to share your thoughts on my ( now, according to my grandson ) OUR small treasure which is 3 inches by 2 and 1/2 inches in size.
Thanks for taking the time to read this "book" that I've written here but a reply would thrill us both.
~~Bob Boyles and James Ferguson ( 11 yrs. )

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Tarantino Starbucked and Provoked by Paparazzo to Do Something Wild


Go! Hit me! Go for it again! Cmon! Quentin, come back to the Philippines! We will ignore you. Come back! Oh man!
Now if you agree with QT, here's a bonus: how to take off pen marks (even Sharpie) from your hand

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Voting through Fonts

The Life of a Blog


You write your blog. Then hit "Publish." Do you know where your blog goes? You have no idea

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The Reason He Hates Chicken

Police in Malda, India, were battling avian flu by
conducting a poultry massacre. "We have planned to
collect 'backyard chickens' from the houses in the evening
and kill all of them late at night," said the district's
deputy director of animal-resources development,
N. K. Shit
.

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Blandie


Know what? The global warming also makes your vegetables less nutritious than normal. Weird, because you have the greenhouse to protect your veggies from Nature and then it turns out, greenhouse effect make them less palatable. Max Taub of Southwestern U in Texas made the study analyzing 200 experiments:
Taub's analysis, detailed in the March issue of the journal Global Change Biology, found that when grown in elevated carbon dioxide levels, potatoes showed almost a 14 percent decrease in protein. Protein concentrations decreased by more than 15 percent in barley and almost 10 percent in wheat and rice. Soybeans had the smallest protein reduction at 1.4 percent.
The paranoid in me knew it that Wyeth, Dupont and other Chemical Brothers are behind this global warming to sell their products. Anyway to all you beer drinkers out there, here's the SCIENTIFIC way to make your friends think they are having more beers that they are actually quaffing.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Fischer-Pascual

In 1967, Robert James Fischer played simul chess at the University of Mindanao in Davao City. He, playing white, beat Pascual with the Sicilian Sozin in 28 moves. The game is a classic because Pascual's king pawn went on a rampage eating Fischer's knight and bishop until it reached the seventh rank and even checked Fischer's king. Pascual's name was not even mentioned (was he the Jose Pascual who won the 1962 Philippine Chess Open?) but he's here in posterity.

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Of all People! Japanese Come up With Heartbreak Leave


Yes, Japanese surprise me. A market research group in Tokyo is offering shitsuren kyuka, paid leave if you just got over a relationship or got busted. What happened to the reserved, nasa loob ang kulo, the tempest in the teapot Japanese? And the older you get, the longer your heartbreak leave. I don't believe this. I think the boss just wants to know who has a broken heart so he can be the Dennis Rodman, the rebound king. Because if you are nursing a broken heart and you took the leave, people would be watching your every move. Now grief takes stages to recover. They even say that a losing political candidate would take six months to recover. A 6-month heartbreak leave? If it is indeed true, then the dumper must pay for the leave of the dumpee. Fair enough.

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Hate Ledger and the Idiots for Christ

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Your Campaign Music Defines You

I'm Currently Listening to Vinyl



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Wikipedia-Free News

The Agence France Presse (AFP) announced last week that it will no longer allow reporters to use Wikipedia and Facebook as sources. What should the standard be when it comes to using online sources? Does your news organization allow for the use of online sources such as Wikipedia? What can be done to ensure that information obtained from such sites is accurate and unbiased? Make yourself heard.

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Monday, January 28, 2008

Karma

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Madame Auring is in Da Hauz!

In the spirit of the Year of the Rat, I will read the fortunes of the first commenters/commentators in this blog. Hey, don't push me off. I was one of the best fortune readers eight years ago. Ask Nonette B and Willi. I jsut stopped because of the bad karma of the ones I read. Plus when I get the travel card in the tarot, I get traumatized because these people really LEAVE me. My methods are reading your intestines after you seppuku. He he. OK, fortune reading by cards and palm reading. Send me your hand or I read your cards. Give me your email or we Googletalk, as long as there are no people walking or standing behind your back. And don't smoke while I read you. Ok? Ok? Free. I don't like anonymous sources.

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Robert Capa's Negatives: The Implications

The Mexican suitcase is finally found. New York Times wrote:
The discovery has sent shock waves through the photography world, not least because it is hoped that the negatives could settle once and for all a question that has dogged Capa’s legacy: whether what may be his most famous picture — and one of the most famous war photographs of all time — was staged. Known as “The Falling Soldier,” it shows a Spanish Republican militiaman reeling backward at what appears to be the instant a bullet strikes his chest or head on a hillside near Córdoba in 1936. When the picture was first published in the French magazine Vu, it created a sensation and helped crystallize support for the Republican cause.

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Wanted: Author of "Requiem" Poem

This is a poem submitted to Roland T for the "Mondo Marcos." We don't know the poet and if you do, please tell us immediately or else we have no choice but to drop this poem:


Requiem

Memory is a mosaic of tongues licking dirt, of lies embroidered to protect the King of Martial Law.

He was born. He is risen. He will kill again. And his kingdom will have no end.

Memory is a 1972 machine gun fired on Sunday morning. Four bodies on the edge of a dirt road. An act of suspended drowning.

This is a cup of his blood, the new and everlasting covenant.

Memory is a woman who howls wolf past curfew. Late night dinner parties and spilled champagne.

She drinks it so that their sins may be forgiven.

Memory is a spinning bottle, a top with no base, a mad pack of white dogs eating brown tails, brown dogs eating spotted tails.

She breaks the bread, gives it to their disciples, and says, Eat this in memory of us.

Memory is an archipelago of closed-view coffins, eaten calmly like sugared fingers of bread.

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When the Column About the Poems that Came Back to Haunt You Also Came Back to Haunt You

While looking for the author of a poem which we wanted included in "Mondo Marcos," I came upon my poetry column in Sun Star five years ago. This was written in Nov 26, 2002:

When your poems come back to haunt you
By Frank Cimatu

LAST Friday, I got a copy of my old poems. These were made more than 10 years ago. Many of these poems I have not seen since sending them to Palanca. I was still using those huge, really floppy disks then and using Wordstar 5. They were killed by primitive viruses and molds. Anyway, my poems looked primitive now with those ribbon printers. Some of the poems I didn't know I submitted.

And the typos! I was surprised these poems won the Palanca. For one, my Filipino poems were titled Desaparacido/Desparadico. It should be "Desaparadico" but in my haste, I forgot the crucial "a." Then looking at them last Friday, I realized it should be "Desaparadiso." How I want to creep into the Palanca office and edit my poems.

Because I have the worst filing system in Baguio, I have no copies of many of these poems and the sight of them is similar to a passage I recalled about an archeologist opening a tomb unopened for centuries. When he opened the lid, the body was intact and right before the archeologist's eyes, the body collapsed upon contact with air, leaving a tempest of dust. It was so Spielberg.

When I saw my early poems, I was so filled with pride seeing those twist of lines and rhymes. And then the air filled these poems as you recall those attempts of revisions filling at least five spiral notebooks. And then you see the grammatical errors, waylaid commas and semicolons, and a line (in one instance, a crucial stanza) that you forgot to put in. How can I be so stupid! How can the judges not see these? Then your poems collapsed in front of you.

In the case of the archeologist, he was left with dust and also, the fine battle uniform and the jewels. At least I have my old poems, that I have to edit and rework until they look fine again. Or until the next long-time-no-see.

I remember Jun Cruz Reyes, the Raymond Carver of Philippine literature, saying that he has some things that some of our great writers would die to retrieve from him. He has their works which they submitted to the UP National Writer's Workshop. Now don't get me wrong! The UP workshop is the most prestigious rite-of-passage in the country and getting there is no easy task. Talent, or even the occasional brilliant flash-in-the-pan is not enough.

Sometimes, I think the panelists bring in some fellows who has some potential but is still not of workshop caliber. Or some of the usual suspects. You know your Sun Tzu - you kill a rooster to scare the monkeys. Bring in a fellow who is really terrible and slaughter him or her in front of the other people. Watch them cringe and swear literature off their bodies for the rest of their lives.

I attended the UP workshop in 1988 (yes, The Great Batch of 1988) and believe me, it was a bloodshed, not like the patronizing ones I observed later.

Philippine literature is looking for those rare ones who rise from the trenches and eventually become the greatest of their generation.

Let us not be ashamed of our juvenilias. Except for a few exceptions, and I assure you it's not the brand of baby milk that made the difference, all of us were terrible ones. Some of us are enfant terribles, others remained terrible and infantile while the rest rose from the ranks.

It's not easy to be a writer. You need your formulas: Three Ps (persistence, patience, peskiness), Three Rs (read, revise and revise again) and others.

You need your muses (Don't marry them. The unrequited ones are more ideal) and your succubi and incubi.. You need to love and fall in love and when you fall, fall down hard. (I remember writing a review on the Eraserheads' Cutterpillow and telling them to find more heartbreaks for your own good. Last year, I got an email from another rocker saying he clipped that review and highlighted that particular advice. Told you I am better than Joe D'Mango).

Release your poems and let them live by themselves. When they come back to you like what some of them did last Friday, you feel like the prodigal father who had to serve a feast for them. That's why I have to pay the bill even if I didn't order what you ate and drank (Tes, Etot, Day, Mary, Vince and Evie), it's because my poems had come home (Thanks, Grace).

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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Let There Be Light and Jesus Just Loves the Little Children


A sad story of a Jesus switch cover that accidentally became profane.

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Heath as Nick Drake

mtv.com came out with Ten Things You Don't Know About Heath Ledger and they uncovered things which will cast doubts about the accidental angle of his death:

3. He was obsessed with Nick Drake. Nick Drake was a British singer/songwriter who died in 1974 at age 26 after overdosing on antidepressants. One of Ledger's final artistic statements was a music video for Drake's song "Black Eyed Dog" that he directed and in which he starred. At the end of the clip, Heath depicts himself drowning in a bathtub.

"[In] ancient Greek culture, drowning was the worst possible death simply because your body couldn't be found," Dames said. "For a while in the 19th century, there was a fascination with drowning. ... Virginia Woolf comes to mind. ... There is this fascination [with drowning] as a method of suicide because it comes from Shakespeare."

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The Filipino Song in Mothra vs Gojira



The lyrics are:
Naintindihan mo
Naiintindihan mo ba?
Mayroon ba doon?
Pumunta ka lang dito.
Halika't maupo.


Translated thus: Did you understand? Is there something there? You just come here. Come and sit. Of course, they made it "Japanese" by lenghtening the "na-i-i-intindihan mo." Thanks Ed Lejano for the very important trivia (ergo, no longer trivial)
The two girls are two tiny twin girls known as the Shojobin. They are trying to explain that the egg found by the three heroes came from Mothra Island and that the egg must be returned at all cost. So Mothra went on to destroy Tokyo. Why? Because the Shojobin were singing in Tagalog and people from the Mothra Island (re: Wengweng Island) are better left ignored.
This is all I got from the musical director Akira Ikufube. He was a composer of classical music. Note among his works: Overture to the Nation of Philippines (1944). Twenty years later, he came back with this haunting music in Mothra vs Gojira.

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Jinky Ong, where are you? US3 M waiting for you

This seven year old daughter of chess superpower Bobby Fischer is set to inherit US$3 million.
Former Benguet Gov. Raul "Rocky" Molintas, director of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines, said that somebody connected with the estate of Fischer told them that the heir of Fischer is entitled with this windfall. Fischer died of kidney failure in Iceland at the age of 64.
Molintas said that they needed the birth certificate and other documents that can ascertain that the father of the heir is indeed the eccentric but brilliant Fischer. Justine Ong's birth certificate was reportedly filed at a hospital in Baguio. Molintas said that they have started looking for Jinky and her mother, Justine, in Davao City, their last known where-abouts.
One problem is that a national newspaper printed the wrong name and a NCFP official in Davao started looking for Fischer's surrogate wife as Marilyn Young. That started the confusion in NCFP.
Jinky Ong was born in early 2001. Reports about her are sketchy and her whereabouts are known only to close friends of Fischer like Filipino grandmaster Eugene Torre.
Tim Krabbe, Dutch writer and chess champion, once wrote about Jinky.
Krabbe said that in May 2000, Fischer came to Baguio from Japan and sought the help of friends about perpetuating his genes.
Krabbe said that Fischer's friend, Gene, set him up with possible candidates including a 22-year-old lady named Justine Ong.
"A contract was signed, Justine received the genes, and nine months later she gave birth to a girl, who now grows up in Davao City, under the name of Jinky Ong," Krabbe wrote.
Rene Chun, a New York-based journalist, also said that Jinky Ong does exist.
In his Atlantic Monthly article last December 2002 and entitled "Bobby Ficher's Pathetic Endgame," Chun described Justine as the girlfriend of Fischer.
Chun said that Justine was a twenty-two year old (in 2002) Chinese-Filipina from Manila "who couldn't care less about chess and had no intention of writing a tell-all memoir."
He also said that Fischer's friend tried to keep his fatherhood a secret and hoped that he would change.
Fischer visited his daughter every one and a half months until his detention in Japan in 2004.
While in Japan, Fischer's supposed relationship with Miyoko Watai, 64, a four-time Japan chess champion, was brought out in the open.
Watai said that they have been living together since 2000 whenever Fischer was in Japan. When Fischer went on exile in Iceland, Watai followed.
Iceland was where Fischer beat Russian grandmaster for the World Chess Championship in 1972. It was the height of the Cold War between the US and Russia and Fischer's victory was played up to the fullest by the West. Fischer failed to defend his title against Russian challenger Anatoli Karpov in 1975 because of the American's eccentric requests which were not granted.
Karpov's successful defense of the crown against Viktor Korchnoi of Switzerland was held here at the Baguio Convention Center in 1978 after 43 games, making it the longest ever.
Fischer had slid into obscurity, although in some instances, most notoriously right after Sept. 11, 2001, Fischer riled against the US and the Jews using Bombo Radyo in Baguio.
Because of his Cold War victory, Fischer was called the most powerful chessplayer by the New York Times in their obituary.
Watai in news reports disputed claims that Fischer has a wife and child in the Philippines.
There are indeed doubts whether Justine was married or even a girlfriend of Fischer but the existence of Jinky is most certain. Only, her hereabouts remained unknown.
Because if Ong is not found, an Icelandic newspaper said that Watai is set to inherit the money.
Visir, an Icelandic newspaper, said that Watai will get 140 million Icelandic Kronur (about $2.1 million) plus his apartment there. Most of the money came from the prize money worth almost $3.5 million which he got for a rematch with Spassky in 1992 in Yugoslavia. Fischer won but he lost his American citizenship because he fought in a disputed area.
The money is deposited in a Swiss bank, Visar said.

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Arnel Salgado's Favorite Phrase


purple prose (PUR-puhl proz) noun

An overly ornate piece of writing.

[Two synonyms of the term are 'purple passage' and 'purple patch'. The idea comes
from Latin pannus purpureus (purple patch), a phrase used by the poet
Horace in
his Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry) to suggest a patch of royal
fabric on an
ordinary cloth, a brilliant piece of writing in an overall
dull work.
Purple was the color of choice by the royalty as the purple dye
was the most rare
and hence most expensive.]

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Friday, January 25, 2008

HItchcock's "The Birds" Reality TV News Style: Ack! Ack! Water!

How sweet it is!

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Gas Price Around the World


As Nash would say in the next blog (Hey, I'm in San Juan. Don't disturb), look at Venezuela. Maybe Hugo is doing something right.

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Let's Surf Before the World Ends at the End of the Month

Para Ti, Nash

Toytown Traumas

Julie Burchil on the topics that hound our fiction:

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Art on 45 and 33 1/3

Bringing Up (Marcos) Baby

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Pinoy Crimes Around The World

Cellphone is dangerous to your life. No, not the message nor the signal. It's the charger wire.
Filipinos in Hawaii golfcourse dognapped and ate a pet puppy.
Boy Bastos blogger Mark Verzo, the first Pinoy blogger to be arrested for porn, is the first Pinoy to earn from AdSense
After the Sumilao farmers appealed to Angelina Jolie to help them in their plight, it's now Filipino fishermen asking George Clooney to mediate for them regarding the peace talks between the government and the communist insurgents. The AP report did not give the obvious reason why Clooney was chosen. How about Oceans 11, 12 and 13?
Its a Crime to be A Filipino in America, Bulosan said. But worse, not to be in Hollywood. Yes, Finally. An Online Petition to Bring Renaldo Lapuz to Hollywood.

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Bacolod Air Gun Hunting Club: To call them bird-brained is to insult birds


Yes, this stupid gun club (redundant) found it "sporting" to be shooting endemic and threatened birds like they own them. And even if they own them, they are not allowed to do so. Tell them that these birds which they killed are far more valuable than them. Sign this petition.

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Watch the Oscar Nominees for Animation Shorts

The first two can still be found in YouTube until I don't know when. So be the judge and give me your winners.

Even Pigeons go to heaven (Meme Les Pigeons Vont Au Paradis) (Samuel Tourneux)

I Met the Walrus (Josh Raskin)

The rest are trailers for Madame Tutli-Putli (NFB, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski),
My Love (Maya Lyubov) and Peter and the Wolf (Suzie Templeton)


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Dana Batnag: I Am But A Small Voice

Our friend Dana Batnag is now the news. She is being tagged by anonymous PNP intelligence (oxymoron!) sources as the one aiding and abetting a rebel military leader so he can escape from Manila Pen last November. She was supposed to be handing him a press ID (Aha! so we are carrying blank IDs all the while!) so he can leave the premises as a media person and escape the eagle eyes of 1,500 police officers.
Dana was tagged for having long curly hair. Ha ha ha. We know Dana for a long, long time. Sometimes I tease her by singing "I Am But A Small Voice." When she was in elementary, she composed this poem that won a UN contest. Roger Whittaker turned it into a song which he included in his Greatest Hits. I remember her being interviewed and she said she wanted to be a police detective. He he he. It was also in Channel 9. Maybe they find that old footage and use it against you. Her father was from Besao, Mountain Province and her mother is with a national language commission. Dana has a sister who was a journalist for Daily Globe. Dana worked with Philippine Graphics before becoming the one-person news agency bureau known as Jiji Press which is based in Japan. She also teaches at UP Diliman. Oh boy! Dana B, sikat ka na naman.
Part of her winning poem goes:
May ngiti sa araw
At kung umuulan
Makapagtampisaw
Malayang daigdig
Ng kawalang malay

The sun is smiling and when it's raining, we can wade on the
puddles
without any care for the world.
Yes, we knew that part of our youth


But stupid police.


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Titivation

I was relieved to find no grotesque images of Philippines in the book below. Except for the captions. As an example, here's the caption for this photo:


TRINKETS AND TITIVATION



From the fringe down her forehead to the bangles on her wrist this siren of the Agusan valley is dressed to break hearts. A betel nut used as chewing-gum incarnadines her lips



















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Where You Are Destined

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Why I Chose Cate Blanchett in the Oscars

Because I believe in probability and there is a study made by sociologists Nicole Esparza of Harvard University and Gabriel Rossman of the University of California, Los Angeles using the Internet Movie Database (yes, the IMDB which you surf for a chance that you will find your name there) for every Oscar-eligible film made between the founding of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 1927 and 2005.
They said that an Oscar nod can be ascertained before the cameras whirred.
So one unsurprising thing, you make them laugh? Sorry. You have nine times more chances if you make them cry. No chance at all if you wanted to make them cry but the audience ended up laughing.
The studies next observation is so obvious: the fewer movies shown, the bigger your chance to be nominated. Actresses were more than twice as likely to be nominated as actors for any given performance, so Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie had it so good. But the real reason is still probability: there were fewer roles for women.
Now the billing factor.
"Actors and actresses were also more likely to receive a nomination if they had a history of being named at the top of the credits, had been nominated for an Oscar before or if they appeared with previously nominated writers and directors."
So there: Cate Blanchett.


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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Norbit Wins, Because I Said So

Of course, the most exciting part is choosing the worst movie last year. Vulture, using the list of Washington Post and Village Voice and a bit of their own compiled this list:

The worst movie of the year: Norbit. Eddie Murphy played multiple roles in this misbegotten spring comedy, the awfulness of which is widely thought to have scuttled Murphy's Oscar campaign for Dreamgirls.

2. Because I Said So
Diane Keaton, Lauren Graham, and Mandy Moore are all cute as bugs, but they couldn't save this romantic comedy from being one of the worst of the year.

3. License to Wed
Robin Williams plays a creepy priest intruding on the lives of John Krasinski and poor, poor Mandy Moore, who clearly needs to fire her agent. Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Hunter liked it, though, which we counted as another vote against it.

4. The Number 23
Remember this one, with Jim Carrey as an obsessive Goth saxophonist who becomes obsessed with Michael Jordan's number? No? Lucky you.

5. Hostel: Part II
Eli Roth's movie was dead on arrival, like so many of his victims, when it became the poster child for critics' revulsion at "torture porn."

6. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
It's hard to believe that Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor are credited screenwriters on this gay-panic masterpiece. Hard to believe … but true.

7. Evan Almighty
Steve Carell is normally sure-footed in his choice of material — even his crappy romantic comedies, like Dan in Real Life, turn out surprisingly good — but this overbudget sequel was adrift from the start.

8. 300
This abs-and-ass-kicking epic was hurt by a lot of worst-film votes in the Village Voice poll. In honestly, the film might not have been so horrible, but its enormous success was.

9. The Bucket List
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play aging cancer patients out for one final fling. No, no, that's not our sarcastic description — that's the sales pitch.

10. Southland Tales
Richard Kelly's crapterpiece, so memorably described as "like watching Howard the Duck with a high fever," is this year's love-it-or-hate-it movie for critics. (Eleven voters placed it among the best of the year in the Voice poll, and that doesn't even include Manohla Dargis!) But the ones who hated it really hated it.

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Heath

It's a sad day at Wright Park at Pacdal Circle when I passed by. Heath Ledger is dead and the brokebackers or the dark knights are in mourning here. Plus there are only Korean tourists riding the pinked ponies.
Also I felt bad for Atonement and Into The Wild (Sean Penn as director!) for getting snubbed and Angelina Jolie for A Mighty Heart.
And then the long search for Filipino representation in Best Foreign Language Movie continues. Should have chosen Anak ni Kumander by Manny Pacquiao as our choice instead.

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My Choices for the Oscars

For Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood (insurance bet: Johnny Depp for shooting My Left Foot)
For Best Actress: Julie Christie, Away From Her (insurance bet: Marion Cotillard for The French Nora Aunor)
For Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men (insurance bet: Seymour for Truman Capote's War)
For Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in I'm Not There (insurance bet: Ruby Dee if Barrack would be leading)
For Best Director: The Coen brothers for No Country for Old Men (insurance bet: Paul Thomas Anderson)
For Best Animated Movie: Ratatouille (insurance bet: Persepolis)

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Weapons


THE top ten weapons in film:

1. Lightsabre (Star Wars)
2. .44 Magnum (Dirty Harry)
3. Bullwhip (Indiana Jones)
4. Samurai sword (Kill Bill)
5. Chainsaw (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
6. Golden Gun (James Bond - The Man With The Golden Gun)
7. Bow and arrow (Robin Hood)
8. Machine gun (Scarface)
9. The Death Star (Star Wars)
10. Bowler hat (James Bond - Goldfinger)

The problem with this list is Number 9. Death Star is a planet. Or more precisely, a planet-sized battle station. Don't tell me the 2,000 moviegoers surveyed for this list didn't know that.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Sleepless in SMS

This is the title of the study: The Effects of 884 MHz GSM Wireless Communication Signals on Self-reported Symptom and Sleep (EEG)- An Experimental Provocation Study
Now, the "TEO884MHZGSMWCSOSSS(EEG)-AEPS for Idiots" : If you don't shut off your cellphone while sleeping, you will not sleep much. Or you will have headaches after. It's not even the messages, it's the signal.

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Dead at 64

Fischer tried to abandon chess but chess refused to abandon him. He died, like Nabokov's character in "The Defense" at 64. Only non-chess playing writers would not see the poetry there. We talk about his anti-Americanism now but if you were a young boy still learning the ropes, his games are the best you can find because they go against the logic and so directed at winning. He may lose a queen but the opponent's king would be pathetically pinned down by a knight and bishop. At 13 years old, he was already KO'ing greats like Donald Byrne with this move (after Byrne's 17th move 17. Ke1-f1):
Fischer moved not his threatened queen but his bishop to e5. Quiet move. So after 18. Bxb6 (thanks for the Queen), Fischer gets the lowly bishop and checks. B's King moves to g1 and F's knight checks him at E2. So it was pinning back and forth (20. Kf1 Nxd4+ 21. Kg1 Ne2+ 22. Kf1 Nc3+ 23. Kg1 axb6). How great was that? A year after that game, Fischer won his first US championship. He would win seven more times including the 1963 to 1964 where he won 11 times with no tie or loss. That was US championship level!
Of course, out of the playing board, Fischer was another story.

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Re(y)naldo Over to the Maximum

Had he made it, Re(y)naldo would have been the oldest to make it at 44 years. No, he is actually Renaldo. He used to belong to a band called "The Creepers." His other songs are Basted (not about barbeque but the Pinoy of "busted" or "dumped") and Samahan. In the Fox interview, he said "I don't know what to wore" because the announcement said "dress to impress." He thought of "The Gladiator" and went to the mall to assemble what could be the most important fashion decision ever by an Idol contestant. In the interview, he also used the so-Pinoy "over to the maximum of happiness." Happy Happy Joy Joy.
My Madame Auring Moment: THE CEBU INMATES DANCING TO "YOU ARE MY BROTHER" WILL MAKE IT TO MTV

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Monday, January 21, 2008

Faster, Tarantino! Padyak! Padyak!


Hey, Manila lover Quentin Tarantino said that he will be remaking Russ Meyer's classic (and the only non-NSFW), Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! with Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian and Eva Mendez in the mammaquatian roles. I hope he goes on location in the Philippines, in Paoay for the desert scenes. And remembering that he once rode the traysikad (Pinoy rickshaw) while he was here, I hope he brings that up also in his remake. Well, would it be Britney as the Blonde (once played by Lori Williams)? Eva as the Ethnic Lesbo and Kim as Varla, the dominatrix in black stretch jumpsuit once played by Tura Sutana. What casting coup! And remember when the old man said (this was in 1965): Women! They let 'em vote, smoke and drive - even put 'em in pants! And what happens? A Democrat for president!
It's so now, because a woman president from the Democratic party just might be it.

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Renaldo Fever


Those in the Philippines would answer:
1) Good twin of evil John Lapuz
2) Casino dealer channelled by Liberace
3) Pinoy Big Brother Forever
4) Latest incarnation of Bob Dylan
5) Former Olongapo (from San Simon town that's why he has Simon on his hat) pimp

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The Filipino Liberace


Viewed 300,000 times. He already has his own website. Want a Brothers Forever Tshirt?

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G.K. Chesterton on why Chess Players and Literary Critics Go Crazy and Great Poets Don't

There is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man's mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologically unreliable; and generally there is a vague association between wreathing laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it. Facts and history utterly contradict this view. Most of the very great poets have been not only sane, but extremely business-like; and if Shakespeare ever really held horses, it was because he was much the safest man to hold them. Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. Artistic paternity is as wholesome as physical paternity. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that when a poet really was morbid it was commonly because he had some weak spot of rationality on his brain. Poe, for instance, really was morbid; not because he was poetical, but because he was specially analytical. Even chess was too poetical for him; he disliked chess because it was full of knights and castles, like a poem. He avowedly preferred the black discs of draughts, because they were more like the mere black dots on a diagram. Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health. He could sometimes forget the red and thirsty hell to which his hideous necessitarianism dragged him among the wide waters and the white flat lilies of the Ouse. He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved by John Gilpin. Everywhere we see that men do not go mad by dreaming. Critics are much madder than poets. Homer is complete and calm enough; it is his critics who tear him into extravagant tatters. Shakespeare is quite himself; it is only some of his critics who have discovered that he was somebody else. And though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators. The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens.

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Fischer in Lowwwwve

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Cellphone Novels

Rin, a Japanese girl, was in the subway with minutes to spare. She texted a few passage and sent it to an sms hotline. She did this everyday until she came out with enough for a novel about a tragic friendship. "If You" made it to Japan's Top Ten Books. Nothing new about that: five of the novels on that list are so-called cellphone novels. New York Times described these cellphone novels as "mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels." Yet they sell and it opened a debate in Japan.
"The affordability of cellphones coincided with the coming of age of a generation of Japanese for whom cellphones, more than personal computers, had been an integral part of their lives since junior high school. So they read the novels on their cellphones, even though the same Web sites were also accessible by computer. They punched out text messages with their thumbs with blinding speed, and used expressions and emoticons, like smilies and musical notes, whose nuances were lost on anyone over the age of 25," NYT said.
Japan is imagining a million cellphone novels.
Hey, we are the texting capital of the world. We are married to our CPs. Why can't we churn out our own cellphone novels?
Or maybe I'm talking to paneity. Sorry.

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Mondo Marcos Update 5

We have whittled down the shortlist into 45 contributors with some submitting 2 or more pieces. We will email those who made it.

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Ichiro vs Bobby Fischer

"Ichiro has no business playing in the US and for a US team," Fischer says in his 2004 rdio interview with Bombo Radio. "Point two: The game has changed so much, the ball's livelier, the bats are livelier. The old records were much harder to make. Point three: I believe this has been staged between the Japanese and US governments. They could easily have stopped him from breaking the record, simply by giving him walks. Let's say he had been originally from Cuba and still pro-Castro. Do you think they would have let him break the record like that? No way. They would have given him walks or tried to hit him with the ball. I saw [Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro] Koizumi on TV congratulating Ichiro. Me he has put into prison, him and Bush working in conspiracy. That's perfectly okay for him. But he would never dream of putting Ichiro into prison, on an immigration charge."

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Words in Memory of Fischer

Actually, terms. Now you can't be at a loss for words while basorexing or tubicinating or playing dirty chess:
Amomaxia
(AM-uh-MAX-see-uh) - Love-making in a parked car.
Amychesis
(AM-i-KEE-sis) - The involuntary act of scratching or clawing your partner in the heat of passion.
Agelast
(AJ-uh-last) - A person that never laughs
Anorchous (an-ORK-us) - Devoid or deprived of testicles; in colloquial lingo, "has no balls.
Ascian (ASH-ee-in) - A person without a shadow
Brassirothesauriast (bruh-zeer-oh-thuh-SAW-ree-ast) - A person who collects brassieres or pictures of women wearing them.
Basorexia
(BAY-zuh-REK-see-uh) - An overwhelming desire to kiss or neck.

Buccula (BUHK-yuu-luh) - A double chin.
Coitobalnism (KOH-i-toh-BAL-niz'm) - Sex in the bath or shower.
Cacocallia (KAK-uh-KAL-shee-uh) - The paradoxical state of being ugly but at the same time sexually desireable
Colpocoquette (KAHL-puh-koh-KET) - A woman who knows she has an attractive bosom, and who makes good use of its allure.
Cingulomania (SING-gyoo-loh-MAY-nee-uh) - A strong desire to hold a person in your arms.
Dysania (dis-AY-nee-uh) - The state of having a rough time waking up and dragging yourself out of bed in the morning.
Dactylion (dak-TIL-ee-ahn) - The tip of the middle finger.
Erotographomania (e-RAHT-uh-GRAF-uh-MAY-nee-uh) - A mania from writing ardent love letters, or an obsession with erotic riting.
Horripilate (hahr-RIP-uh-layt) - To get goose bumps.
Hirsutophilia (hur-S(Y)OOT-uh-FIL-ee-uh) - Attraction to hairy men.
Krukolibidinous
(KROO-koh-li-BID-i-nus) - Crotch-watching; having one's gaze fixated on the crotch.
Litch (LIH-ch) - A mass of tangled, matted hair.
Lalochezia (LAL-uh-KEE-zee-uh) - The use of foul or abusive language to relieve stress
Latrinalia (LA-tri-NAY-lee-uh) - Bathroom graffiti.
Mammaquatia (MAM-uh-KWAY-shee-uh) - The bobbing or jiggling of a woman's breasts when she walks, dances, or exercises.
Melolagnia (MEL-uh-LAG-nee-uh) - Amorous feelings inspired by music.
Medectasia (MED-ek-TAY-zhee-uh) - The bulge seen through a man's clothing created by his genetalia.
Misomaniac (Mis-oh-MAY-nee-ak) - A person who hates everything.
Noeclexis (NOH-i-KLEK-sis) - The practice of selecting a partner based on intellegence and character without regard for physical attractiveness.
Onychophagy (AHN-i-KAHF-uh-jee) - The habit of biting one's fingernails.
Ozoamblyrosis (OH-zoh-AM-bli-ROH-sis) - Loss of sexual apetite because your partner has wicked B.O.
Paneity (pun-NEE-i-tee) - The state of being bread.
Polylogize (puh-LIL-uh-jyz) - To talk excessivley.
Peotomy (pee-AHT-uh-mee) - Amputation of the penis.
Sphallolalia (SFAL-oh-LAY-lee-yuh) - Flirtatious talk that does not lead to amorous action.
Sacifricosis (SAK-oh-fri-KOH-sis) - The practice of absentmindedly fiddling with your genetalia through your pants pockets. "playing pocket pool" or "pocket hockey"
Typhlobasia (TIF-luh-BAY-zee-uh) - Kissing with the eyes closed.
Timotrudia (TIM-uh-TROO-dee-uh) - Sexual timidity or bashfulness.
Tripsolagnophilia (TRIP-suh-LAG-nuh-FIL-ee-uh) - The desire to obtain sexual pleasure from massage
Trichotillomania (TRIK-oh-TIL-uh-MAY-nee-uh) - A compulsion to pull out one's hair.
Tubicination (t (y)oo-BIS-i-NAY-shin) - The act of blowing on a brass wind instrument.
Viricapnity (VI-ri-KAP-ni-tee) - The aura of virile sexuality presumed to emanate from a man who is smoking.
Witzelsucht (VITS-ul-suukt) - A feeble attempt at humor.
Zoanthropy (zoh-An-thruh-pee) - The delusion that one is an animal.



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Saturday, January 19, 2008

The Infamous Sept. 12 Bombo Radio Interview with Bobby Fischer

12 minutes of blitzkrieg
Then anecdotes about Fischer, Torre and sex from Chessmoso's Frank Pestano
The Atlantic Monthly Dec 2002 article of Rene Chun where he mentioned that Fischer had a daughter with a 22-year-old Chinoy from Manila in 2000.]
And then, please stop finding the romantic side of Fischer. There is even a blog saying that Fischer hated women, starting with his mom. Maybe the reason for his anti-Jew stance.
Then I found this: the mother's name of his daughter is Justine Ong (named by Chun) and their daughter is Jinky Ong Fischer

Tim Krabbe writes:

206. 9 March 2003: How Jinky Ong came into the world

In May 2000 Robert Nemenyi, a 57-year old Hungarian-American Jew, arrived in the Philippines, fresh from a Japanese jail, where he had spent some time after being caught at Narita Airport with some hemp he had tried to import from Germany.
He was looking for a woman who would cooperate in fulfilling his long-felt wish to perpetuate his genes. Eight years earlier, Nemenyi's genes had almost returned to their roots when he impregnated a young Hungarian woman (heavens no, not one of them), but on second thought, she had gotten rid of these genes.
This time however, a Filipino friend of Nemenyi's, whom we will call Gene for the occasion, set him up in a cottage in Baguio City, and presented him with a series of willing gene-carriers, from whom Nemenyi chose 22-year old Justine Ong. A contract was signed, Justine received the genes, and nine months later she gave birth to a girl, who now grows up in Davao City, under the name of Jinky Ong.

Life in Numbers


Unless you were Bobby Fischer, you would have forged 1,700 friendships within your lifetime. More if you have a Friendster account. You would have spoken 123,205,750 words and dreamt 104,390 dreams. You, however, would have used 198 bottles of shampoo (trickier because we use sachets as part of our travelling job). You would have made love less than 5,000 times (actually 4,239) unless you are like some of my friends who had that in a year. Yes, Harley, you will drink 10,351 pints of beer and vomited a total volume of 140 liters. You made 59 holiday trips unless you are a wanderlust journalist where you add trips with pleasure. You would have eaten 1,200 chickens and four-and-a-half cows. How can you justify that?

Bizarre Chess: Bobby, Eugene and Pablo

January 14, 1999 radio interview between Bobby Fischer (who died yesterday), first Asian GM Eugene Torre (a long-time Baguio resident) and Pablo Mercado, news anchor of Bombo Radyo. This was before the now infamous Sept 11, 2001 radio interview which is now under review under the War Against Terrorism (Twat)

Pablo Mercado: (???) Bobby Fischer. You can just lift the. Eugene you can just lift the phone and let's put it on the air, that's easy, ok?
Eugene Torre: Bobby? Yeah, This is Eugene. I'm here beside Mr. Pablo Mercado.
Bobby Fischer: Yes
Eugene Torre: He's the radio announcer here in Bomba Radio in Baguio. So good morning Bobby, how are you?
Bobby Fischer: Ok, Mr. Bomba is it?
Eugene Torre: Wait wait. Mr. Pablo Mercado - here wait.
Bobby Fischer: Oh, pardon me, Mr. Pablo Mercado of Bomba Radio, excuse me, ya
Pablo Mercado: Yes, uh, how are you Bobby?
Bobby Fischer: Thank you, very well, yes.
Pablo Mercado: You've very well. You see, Eugene Torre is here with us right now and he related to us your present problem regarding your memorabilias in the States. Can you tell us something about it Bobby?
Bobby Fischer: Yes, well, umm, this is just the latest in a long line of crimes against me by the World Jewry and the Jew controlled United States of America.
Pablo Mercado: Uh huh. Why is it so? Why is it so? Why are they doing this to you?
Bobby Fischer: They don't like me.
Pablo Mercado: *laugh* as simple as that. as simple as that that they don't like you.
Bobby Fischer: Ya.
Pablo Mercado: All right. Which of these properties that you have are now being sold by the States?
Bobby Fischer: No .. they're already been sold. They're gone.
Pablo Mercado: Really?
Bobby Fischer: Ya ya. They said I owe them a few hundred dollars which is, you know, without contacting me, nothing. they just sold it all off - stuff that it took me a lifetime to accumulate. I had it in. They broke open my safes and they broke open my file cabinets and everything. and just sold off everything. sold off like a hundred boxes of my stuff and sold off my photo album, my letters from President Marcos, my photo album with President Marcos, everything.
Pablo Mercado: Uh huh
Bobby Fischer: This is just a conspiracy against me by the Jews.
Pablo Mercado: Why? Why?
Bobby Fischer: Those filthy filthy bastards. You know they've trying to take over the world.
Pablo Mercado: Why?
Bobby Fischer: You know they invented the Holocaust story. There's no such. There was no holocaust of the Jews in World War II.
Pablo Mercado: Really?
Bobby Fischer: They've been pulling this shit from time immemorial about persecution. They're a filthy lying bastard people. That's all they ever do. that's all they'll ever be.
Pablo Mercado: Why do you have this thing about the Jews?
Bobby Fischer: I have no thing.. They have a thing about me.
Pablo Mercado: *laugh*
Bobby Fischer: Study the history.
Pablo Mercado: Really?
Bobby Fischer: Are you a Christian?
Pablo Mercado: Yes, I am.
Bobby Fischer: Well, you know. The Catholic Church taught for a long time about that they're guilty of the murder of Christ, right?
Pablo Mercado: Yes. So? *laugh*
Bobby Fischer: You know.
Pablo Mercado: *laugh* Anyway, Bob, this memorabilia that has been sold that you owed.
Bobby Fischer: That I owned? I still own it. This is all stolen property, you know?
Pablo Mercado: All right. all right. uhhh would you?
Bobby Fischer: I have spent on this .. just in storage fees alone over 10,000 dollars. I have spent in buying the custom made safes, custom made file cabinets, with secret built in safes in the file cabinets, another file cabinet, a safe with special drill proof doors, with a second door inside, combination locks, both timers, in case somebody tries to force you to open it. The works! to preserve my memorabilia. My stuff from Marcos, my letters from President Nixon, books dedicated to me by President Nixon, former President Nixon when he dedicated the books, but he was President Nixon when he wrote to me. All kinds of stuff, photo albums, statues, the works! They have stole every fucking thing and sold if off. The dirty Jews that want to put me in prison for 10 years. They have sold off all of my memorabilia which I collected over years. They have confiscated, they have stolen my book My 60 Memorable Games. They have come out with the illegal movie called Searching for Bobby Fischer which is exploiting my name for money. They've made tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on this movie. I never get a penny of it. They came out with the illegal. the Jews have come out with the illegal CD-ROM called Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. Zero for me. I get nothing. even from the legitimate edition of My 60 Memorable Games. Nothing. These fucking Jews are thieves, they are liars, they are mother fuckers, and it's time we took care of these bastards.

This goes on until Pablo brings out Eugene to the topic.

Bobby Fischer: Ya ya, Hi Eugene.
Eugene Torre: Hi Hi Bobby. Well, uhh, not much questions. I think you have expressed, uhh, quite good your side, and exposed these people, you know? *laugh*
Bobby Fischer: Hey Eugene, what's the difference between a good Jew and a bad Jew?
Eugene Torre: Yeah. What's the difference between a good Jew and bad Jew?
Bobby Fischer: The good Jew fucks you slower.
*All laugh*
Eugene Torre: OK. so.. It's ok, Bobby. I think it should be over now, and
Bobby Fischer: OK
Eugene Torre: and I have good news. I was able to contact. anyway, maybe you can get in touch with me later, ok?
Bobby Fischer: OK, I'll call you at home, OK?
Eugene Torre: OK, ya, and uhh
Bobby Fischer: OK, what time, I'll call you what, in about 10 minutes, half an hour?
Eugene Torre: Maybe in half an hour, ya.
Bobby Fischer: OK. OK. did we go out live? did we go out live?
Eugene Torre: This is live. This is live Bobby. Everybody hears. .. ..
Bobby Fischer: OK, good. you know, because that's the only way to go, you know. I don't like to be edited, you know.
Eugene Torre: No no. no editing here. Here, it's live.
Bobby Fischer: Get a copy. Get a copy of this, ok?
Eugene Torre: Ya, I got already here a tape of this conversation, this interview, ok? So give me a call after thirty or one hour, no?
Bobby Fischer: OK, take it easy
Eugene Torre: OK, Bye.

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