BETTER LIVING THROUGH FIREARMS

This is my bedside at night since I started living alone (or almost alone) at a renovated pad. When you step out the gate a major road greets you with all the traffic both human and vehicular something like that entails. The noise and the hum of the city is just so close that it took some getting used to the first few months I started sleeping there.

The trouble with sleep eventually went away but not the sense of danger. Hence, sleeping with a .45 near at hand with my nighttime reading and a container of water. Especially since, recently, a roving band of ghetto kids have been terrorizing the neighborhood, trying to break into houses for general theft, mischief and anarchy. When I say kids I mean mostly young boys aged nine through twelve.

The police (who are stationed at the intersection of our street and another major thoroughfare, for the frequent trouble and crimes in the area, I suppose) have probably broken up fights and/or picked up somebody four times in the past two months for stuff related to these gang kids. The ones, I've noticed, at the least.

"Parang City of God!" exclaims my lawyer, the time she and her husband drove me home, spotting a congregation gathered round a police car several houses down.

While I'm no great advocate of firearms I feel better with the darned thing beside vulnerable, sleeping me. Like the redneck says: "It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it." Dreams of killer children leaning over me while am tied up and gagged, notwithstanding.

While the gun IS licensed, it ain't mine. Which will explain its rusted condition and lack of general upkeep Also, having hollow-point bullets as ammo increases one's sense of security exponentially (look up any number of military/cop movies/TV shows to see the effects of hollow-points on flesh). The fact that there are also several airsoft guns in the pad that look just like the real ones (and are heavier, in some cases) is also a great thing.

So am (we are) equally prepared for a home invasion or a plague of zombies. The undead will find us ready to lock and load -- say hello to our little friends!

Still, the gun has caused some consternation with my girlfriend when, coming into the room, as quietly as she could one night, caused me to wake up and instantly think of a home invasion. You take a woman seriously when she tells you not to point the gun at her again or booty will forever be revoked. Okay. Sorry. Putting the gun away now. When I sleep alone though I prep the gun after brushing and before fluffing my pillows. The gun stays because the kids are NOT alright. I resist giving it a name, though.

Oh, and if you haven't watched the Brazilian film City of God, I suggest you check it out. It is, hands down next to Trainspotting, the shit.







~ 30

A NEW BEAST or FLY ASWANG'S DEVIANT ART SITE

FLY ASWANG, or that BESWANG SERIES PROJECT I co-wrote with local animation stalwart Ate Mina Caliguia (may the dearly departed RIP), has a deviant art page now, made by animation director Mark Galvez which features some of the gorgeous concept and marketing art used for the series.

Needless to say, it looks great. Especially the posters. Dig the "Pray After Meals" one above and the main series poster below.



Asteg di ba? Below is Mark's introduction, but please do check out the site over here: http://flyaswang.deviantart.com/

* * *
hi and hello

We are Creative Media and Film Society of the Philippines(CreaM for short). We are pleased to present you the artworks from our very first project entitled FlyAswang.

Fly Aswang is a story about an Aswang Family from the Philippines that migrated in the states. Against their mother's(Bessie Badilla) warning not to go to the Philippines, the three filipina-american daughters travel to manila for a cousin's wedding. Instead they are trapped in an Aswang ritual and their family's history of supernatural power until Bessie comes to save them.

This year we have finished a half hour pilot animation and a 120 pages manga/comic book for Fly Aswang.

CreaM is spearheaded by Ms. Imee Marcos [link]

Fly Aswang original concept by Bessie Badilla [link]

Written by Mina Caliguia of Artfarm Asia and Karl De Mesa [link]

Animation Directed by Mark Galvez
Supervising animator Juvy Amistoso
Manga penciled, inked and toned by :iconjurak: , :iconryuuen: and Julius Sanchez
pin up posters and backgrounds for animation by noel ferraris, Cheyenne Quintana :iconshaiyan: , Joana Pauline Ampayo :iconolei: and Joel Chua :iconjoelchua:
Technical director :iconjunotenbatsu:
Sound and music arranged at BlueSonic studios Ann Angala

GHOSTS OF THE HINTERLAND

Or, in this case, just one ghost.

Biscochong Halimaw has a song titled "Ghosts of the Hinterland" where an army of headless wraiths wander the lonely mountain paths accosting people and trying to ask them where the heck their heads are and get them to help in the search. Of course since they can't communicate, this just scares the shit out of people. Its both terrifying and funny. And if you've ever actually walked at night on an open mountain road with just an emergency lantern or a flashlight you'll understand the terror part quite well.

And so, apropos of nothing, I found a news item on PDI (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20090120-184497/White-Lady-appears-on-cops-video) that had this White Lady accidentally shot on-cam while the police were conducting a mapping operation off some hills (yep, the hills have eyes and some hot girls in nothing but white see, through gowns).

Stop the video at around 0:05 and voila! There she is, mon freres. The cops said there wasn't nobody there at all. Creepy eh?

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON NATALIE

TYBS returns to its regular programming after a mountain-load of work that just had to be decimated.

To get us moving again please dig the video below of gorgeous, amazing, direct to your viscera Natalie Portman in an SNL short, rapping (yes, rapping) about what she does on a regular day. Trust me, you'll enjoy it. Fo' shizzle.

Oh, yeah, happy yuletide ; )

CREATURE FEATURE! (ON-LINE AND ANIMATED)

ON ROUTE 666, BABY
Two of my minimalists came out recently in the Microhorror site edited by Neil Rosen. I think it's for the Hallowe'en ish `cause the rules said the word count shouldn't exceed 666 words. How wasak is that? Hehe ; ) Thanks Mr. Rosen!

Anyhoo here's the link to "The Phantasma". . .
http://www.microhorror.com/microhorror/author/karl-r-de-mesa/the-phantasma/

. . .and "Lilith, The Unconsoled", part of the short novel Angelorio, which is in turn part of my forthcom ing second book of collected short novels.
http://www.microhorror.com/microhorror/author/karl-r-de-mesa/lilith-the-unconsoled/


FLY ASWANG (OR THAT "BESWANG" PROJECT) SET FOR RELEASE
In other news, an animation project I got signed on to earlier this year looks like it's all set for release. Basically this was made under CreaM Inc, a film company owned and run by Imee Marcos (yep, the senator), comissioned by the Badilla family to do a "superhero comics meets Nickelodeon's Totally Spies meets local lower mythology" with former supermodel Bessie Badilla and her children as protagonists in one of the coolest genre clashes ever.

This is an aswang caper, billed as an original Pinoy anime adventure, you won't soon forget.

I wrote the dialogues for this and basically acted as their, uhm, supernatural affairs consultant for the first two episodes. Since animation takes a gruelling several months to finish the product you see here, to look good as it does, was definitely done with much blood, sweat and sleepless nights by project director Mark Galvez and his legion of digital savants. In any case it looks way better than many of the recent animated movies made locally. Actually, it looks pretty amazing.

If you like it kindly support us by posting your comments on the Youtube thread. Now, dig this:

TRAILER


EXTENDED TRAILER WITH BEHIND THE SCENES

TRUTH IN SHREDDING

Because I'm in a fantasy metal phase right now and because I'm well and truly horrified at the amount of practice and work these guys must put in in order to perfectly burn the fretboard this way you must watch the Dragonforce video below. While I lean more to the neo-psychedelia repetition, grunge riffing and atmospheric minimalism school of axe thought (sometimes virtuoso wankery just depresses me), this still leaves me in total awe.

Hmmm, on the other hand the guy I bought a Line6 Ubermetal from told me Dragonforce's axemen are less than reliable live. Apprently because of the copious amounts of alcohol they consume to bolster their courage before a show. That may be but just for the shredding caliber, this is still an audacious way to compose and execute a song.

I mean, whoa.

SKULLDUGGERY, OR THIS IS A TRADITIONAL DAGGER AND PURSE HOLD UP

Hey, it's been a while.

One of the best book series I remember reading was Thieves’ World edited by hubby and wife team Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey.

This is the series that made me like rogues and thieves so much that I almost exclusively played them as characters in D&D (yeah, inabutan ko pa D&D ni Gygax before we switched to AD&D, still can’t make heads or tails of fourth ed rules though). Lots of my rogue characters have since ascended to become gods of death and destruction but the memory of imagining their blades slip unawares into mighty foes still gets me nostalgic. Ah, Moreau Nightshade, praised be yer dark name.

Anyway, TW back then smacked to me of being the coolest thing since the Nintendo Family Computer -- which sat very close to sliced bread, mind. While I thought I was just easily impressed as a teen, it proves that the idea of TW still is a thing of beauty and groundbreaking magnificence in the genre up to now.

This is where I learned that fantasy need not be safe or peopled by goody two shoe knights and paladins for story balance. This is how I learned that fantasy and transgressive fiction could be comfortable bedmates while sharing illegal pharmaceuticals. In TW fantasy could be wasak AND cool.

TW is basically it’s twelve books with three books each per major plot arch set in the city of Sanctuary, with the more popular nickname of Thieves’ World or The Maze. As you can probably tell from its name it’s a pretty dangerous city. People get mugged and killed on a daily basis. The garbage collectors routinely gather dead bodies in the morning. Strength in arms or magic is the only assurance of safety – sometimes not even then).

Actually, it reminds me a lot of Metro Manila. Even now I imagine the Bazaar as Quiapo, the red light district as Malate and the Governor’s Palce as a more fortified Malcanang. Maybe only a third world country can accurately mimic Sanctuary’s squalor and eloquence?

It had four major selling points:

One, it was a shared-world series where a bunch of high caliber fantasy writers got together and played what-if with a cast of characters, a gamut of godly pantheons, city institutions, criminal organizations, territories, companies, police and military, guilds and whatever else it took to get a city like Sanctuary to actually run with the semblance of a royally mandated civil government. The fact that the authors shared characters and did what they wanted to with them (within editorial limits, of course) and the ensuing events becoming the basis of future books still smacks of major audacity to me.

Talk about editorial jurisdiction (No, you can’t do that because there ARE no sewers to speak of, dummy). Talk about fights among writers (Tell me you didn’t just say you’re going to kill my avatar warlord with a bread knife?!). Talk about the expansive potential, baby (A dozen heads are better than one). Of course, it probably helped immensely that the editors had degrees in medieval history and that the people who created the godly pantheons and the city also have apt backgrounds in religion, sociology and urban planning.

Two, the writers that they conscripted to write the stories of Sanctuary are some pretty heavy names in the field. Lemme see, they got John Brunner, CJ Cherry, Andre Offut, Diana Paxson, Janet Morris, Diane Duane and even Philip Jose Farmer to name a few. You can probably tell that the stories in the series are never of the average variety. Oh, did I say they got Philip Jose Farmer?

Three, they had the coolest characters and settings in the city. Any fantasy series that’s got a bar called The Vulgar Unicorn (oooh, phallic AND fantastique!), a cocksure thief named Hanse Shadowspawn, a nearly immortal warlord named Tempus Thales, an incestuous mercenary band called the Stepsons, a beautiful vampire witch called Ischade and a fecund war god called Vashanka has got loads of grit going for it. The fact that they made a RPG out of it means the setting and story canon was rich enough to take in all comers and fans.

Fourth was the art. Will you just look at the paintings by Gary Ruddell? That shit gets your imagination all aspark. I never thought basilisks could be that magnificent and terrible. I never thought magical combat could be as beautiful as a lightning storm. It seems that the painter also did work for lots of other sci-fi and fantasy books but has since turned to gallery work. Even his exhibit stuff is worthy of praise. Just check out the paintings “Litany Against Fear 1 and 2” below.

Wow. To think Asprin and Abbey created this way back in 1978. While they did complete the 12 books series now known as the Thieves’ World canon, they divorced by the mid-1980s and the whole thing fell apart like their marriage. In any case, after 2002 Lynn Abbey (who apparently got editorial proprietorship for TW after the divorce proceedings) decided to tie up loose strings with a novel to wipe the slate clean and then start with new anthologies containing new characters. There have also been a number of spin-off novels and a comics series since the end of the 12 original books.

I never got to collect all the 12 books but, re-reading the stories now, I find layers, subtleties and stuff I just plain overlooked as a teen hiding in plain sight. I’m now trying to find the rest of the books I missed to complete my collection. I now appreciate just how brave the editors were, just how much of genius the series is and how influential it is to me.

~ 30