The Seven Deadly Sins and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

I’ve been slightly remiss with my blog. I haven’t posted anything since May. Ok, I suppose that’s not being “slightly remiss.” I’ve been a lazy bastard. Laziness; one of the 7 Deadly Sins. I was busy working on the other 6. So I guess I wasn’t really that lazy.

Funnily enough, Deadly as those Seven Sins threaten to be, they don’t really kill you, do they?

Let's take a look at them. The 7 Deadly Sins: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Greed, Anger, and Laziness. Now, whoever thought of calling those delicious deeds “DEADLY” may not have been lacking in drama, but he certainly was lacking in accuracy. I find nothing more life-affirming than the deadly delights of Gluttony and Lust. Marshmallow pies and wide-open thighs.

An Egyptian monk named “Evagrius” was purported to have conceived and developed the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins. He must have been a right laugh at the pub. (Hey, who doesn’t fancy a plateful of guilt to go with their Guinness after all?) Somewhere along the way, the pharmaceutical industry decided to get back at Evagrius for being the biggest party-pooper of the 4th century. So they took his name, bastardized it, gave it a spin of dyslexia, and voila, the cheeky monkey is renamed as a pill that gives the oldest and least stamina’d of men a boner. Still deadly after all these years, you rascal.

All these years indeed.

About 40 odd years ago, Gluttony and Lust, shorn of its deadly horns of hate and anger, took on a kinder and gentler form. It was the 1960’s, and Julia Childs (chef, food pioneer, and excessively tall woman with funny accent) was seen on public television teaching us how to cook in the French way. Gluttony, with the help of a few ingredients, became Gourmet.

And the Beatles came to Manila (July 4, 1966) and told us that All You Need is Love (even if Imelda, famous shoe-slut, had the Fab Four beaten up for not visiting her at her Palace). This led us to the year 1967; The Summer of Love. And Lust, with the help of John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, became Love and Lovemaking.

In San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, colours became psychedelic, girls wore flowers in their hair and LSD led to free love and a free mind that saw visions of tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Gluttony and Lust was stripped of its malice and became Food and Sex, which was given a kind human touch and a compassionate physical form, thus becoming Gourmet and Love.

The 1960's. Julia Childs and the Beatles. Food and Sex. Gourmet and Love.
Strawberry Fields forever...

Holden CaulFlip in Makati

Seven-thirty in the morning and how’d you like to be called a hermaphrodite to go with your pancakes and sausage. That’s how my day starts in the Philippines. Smiley-faced cashier (she almost resembled an umlaut "U") at McDonald’s spat out her morning bonjours.
"Good morning, ‘Ma’am-Sir!"
Well aren't you just a bucketful of good cheer, and butterflies, and zebras, and moonbeams for someone who just transgendered me.

Honestly, who started this cheeky trend. Is this the result of the fastfood world’s latest time-motion study to get your meal faster to you? Save about 2.6 seconds of time required to identify your gender by calling every Tom, Dick, and Mary "Ma’am-Sir." This sort of gender-encompassing greeting is ingrained in the entire Philippine sales culture. So expect to be insulted from the time you order a happy meal to the check-out line after a Midnight Madness shopping spree. "Thank you, Ma’am-Sir."

Prior to being called a she-male, I had to get past two shotgun-armed security guards at the entrance. Armed professionals at the entrance of fast-food franchises are de rigueur throughout the country. What gives? I mean, I can see the logic and sense behind those Armalite-strapped security guards at the KFC down the road. They’ve gotta protect the Colonel’s secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices after all. Given a choice, I’d personally park the aircraft-carrier U.S.S. Eisenhower as added defence. As for McDonald’s, I see absolutely no justification for security personnel. I highly doubt Osama Bin Laden’s working out how to bomb the hash brown deep-fryer to the left of the soft-serve ice cream machine. Mind you, those french fries are combustible on their own without Al-Qaeda assistance.

Finally got to work and had to put up with the unruly ilk of secretaries and the even more dangerous breed of animal -- mid-level managers -- that loiter elevator lobbies. The day wasn’t starting out right. I missed the express elevator which meant I got into an elevator that stopped at all floors. And lo and behold, the yoga-lady hops in and presses the button to the second floor. See, hard as I try, I can’t figure that one out. Here’s a woman who willingly contorts her pelvic bone towards her left nostril, launches into an upside-down position, and holds that uncomfortable pose for about 7 weeks and 3 days, but she cannot run up a flight of 15 steps to get to her office? I am certain that those are grounds for death by ants-in-your-pants in more highly-evolved cultures.

Anyway, managed to get to my cubicle after 3 centuries inside the lift, and did my "work" –- the period of time and pantomine that interrupts my day. I went through the newspaper and saw the movie ad for Basic Instinct 2. It’s showing today. The 50-year old Sharon Stone once again boasts about birthday-suiting ("full frontal nudity" in cinematic parlance) throughout the entire film. She’s 50.
Fifty.
Sorry, I’m no math genius, but I’m not going to part with 150 pesos to ogle at what literally amounts to
a half-century old crotch.
I’m using it to get the Go Big Time BigMac lunch at McDonalds, thank you very much Ma’am-Sir.

In defence of Cows

Why are fat women pejoratively called "cows?"

You’ve heard the comments before. Or authored them.

There’s one that boasts of bovine knowledge:
"Will you check out that bit of hefty womanhood over there. A right growling heifer, that one."

Or the more economical:
"What a cow!"

Hasn’t the humble bovine already been subjected to its allotment of indignities? Take for instance the squeezing of its nipples just so human beings can fulfill their daily calcium requirements. That’s the raison d’etre of the dairy cow as dictated by earthlings. Here’s how the pecking order functions:
The Supreme Pontiff’s calling? It’s the salvation of mankind’s souls.
The Guernsey cow’s? It’s to get its teats fisted for man’s breakfast beverage.
There seems to be a distinctly pronounced discrepancy in both those creatures’ life-roles now, isn’t there?

Were cows to make protest, there is legitimate foundation in asking Man to seek his nutritional sustenance and lactose appetites from alternative sources that perhaps don’t involve stretching one’s paps and twirling the areola counter-clockwise. It has been mentioned that broccoli may be a better, if less theatrical, source for calcium than manhandling cow-boobs.

The Industrial Revolution elevated cow harassment to an even higher plane. Current automated milking practises entails the use of a stainless steel mechanism with 4 suction pumps (resembling a robotic octopus on steroids) clamped to a cow’s breasts and powered by electricity or an internal combustion engine. Mind you, but undergoing the process of having motorised suction pumps feasting on your udders must be, at the very least, monumentally inconvenient. Is it still then necessary to bludgeon cattledom’s self-worth further by making its female demographic serve as the metaphoric equivalent of a fat slag with varicose veins stretching from here to Jupiter?

Consider, as well, the allegorical dishonesty in that comparison. No literary licence, no matter how liberal or pharmaceutically-induced, will see merit in a small-eared 4-legged creature pasturing on grass and with a propensity for saying "Moo" being compared to, say,…a woman with a rear-end responsible for the last solar eclipse.

Honourable mention also goes to the sharp fellow who initially thought of mutilating cow flesh, frying it, and somehow conceived that the tortured byproduct went surprisingly well with lettuce, tomato, and two sesame seed buns. Torquemada's chambers seem like a day-care centre, in comparison.

One the other hand, it’s only absolutely right that women of easy virtue are slighted with the sobriquet for female dogs. Canines are a horrific lot. And quite frankly, should be eaten. Pass the kechup.

Tapas and Pintxos: Hors d'Oeuvres in Hermes

She sits alluringly, a teasing siren of edible delight. Not too long ago, an absolute swine fattened daily on fifteen kilos of foraged food. And now, a marbled beauty; tender , slim, and unaffected. The casual elegance perches on a white cushion and lounges beside a long-stemmed glass of cider wine. So it is that the tapas of bread and paper-thin Iberian ham tastes as good as it looks. The savoury harlot.

Tapas are the ubiquitous finger foods of Spain. From tiny bars in Cordoba to the Viennese-café refinement of San Sebastian pubs, it appears in a glorious spectrum of attires and attitudes. There’s the indolent summer languour of thinly-cut ham (jamon iberico), the Vizcayan modesty of salted cod (bacalao), and the flamenco theatricality of seared duck liver with red currants. Tapas are hors d’oeuvres in Prada; dimsum in Dolce & Gabbana.

Meaning "to cover" in Spanish (from the verb "tapar"), the putative history of Tapas is as varied as the food itself. The most popular version recounts how in 19th century Southern Spain, in the region known as Andalucia (a place as wistfully romantic as the melody of its spoken name suggests), innkeepers used sliced bread to cover their clientele’s sherry glasses keeping away fruit flies. As time crawled and glasses turned to bottles and bottles to casks, an inebriated traveller reckoned the bit of bread looked rather lonely sitting there by its lonesome and ascertained that it would delight in the company of a good bit of cured ham, olives, or peppers. This bit of intoxicated inspiration served the dual purpose of introducing a superb new dish to the epicurean world as well as elevating sliced bread’s station in life beyond that of a bouncer for two-winged insects. And so it was that Tapas leapt into the world.

Tapas, today, are an expression of gastronome style and substance all throughout Spain. Be it in the northeastern Catalan region and down to Castille and Andalucia, Tapas have become a canvas for sybaritic invention. The gourmand is offered a ludicrous array limited only by the chef’s creativity and, others claim, insanity. As such, we see a diverse range of ingredients ranging from artichokes, sardines, angulas, mushrooms, peppers, baby squid, and even the occasional 1967 Ford Mustang.

In the Philippines, a Spanish-colony for 400 odd years, Tapas have taken the form of a stubborn morsel of sweetened meat and is called by its singular form (Tapa), regardless of how many strips of bovine happen to be sitting on the plate. Masticating the filipino tapa into edible portions requires the employ of all bicuspids and molars…and a John Deere forklift. That it has attained mass acceptance is of little doubt as it is proffered in the local MacDonald’s breakfast menu, has its own reality-TV show, and is popularly used in place of unleaded gasoline.

It is, however, in San Sebastian, the elegant seaside resort town in Northern Spain’s Basque country, that Tapas have scaled new heights of design and, more importantly, seduction (It also takes on its Basque name "Pintxos," -- meaning "toothpicks" -- as the pointed accoutrement installs the chosen viand onto the bread). Consider La Cuchara de San Telmo, a tapas bar of cozy brick cladding and snuggled in a docile corner of the old town. The knowledgeable famished consisting of backpackers, food connoisseurs, boisterous students, swaggering surfers, and a stunner named Ainhoa attired in mystery and unreachability, feast on pintxos that are sexy as they are inordinately good. Under the alimental prestidigitation of its owners, the Basque Inaqi Gulin and the Catalan Alex Montiel, the scandalously delicious repast (costing 2-3 Euros per serving) includes roast duck confit with orange, slices of roasted rabbit, foie gras ravioli that’s caramelised, tempura bacalao, and pork ribs with balsamic vinegar resulting from a preparation process that takes 48 hours. As such, it lasts exponentially longer than most relationships. This passion, spiritedness, and motivation are the amourous ingredients that spice and season the love affair for Tapas for a heapful of time.

Magallanes and his Ides of March

Roughly about 485 years ago today (March 16, 1521), Fernando de Magallanes docked on the island of Homonhon in the Philippines. He got quite excited and hoppity with what he saw and thought it a good idea to take his ships and crew on an all-expense paid beach and island-hopping escapade around his newly discovered land. Well obviously he got no argument from anyone. Unfortunately, his little hedonistic caprice left him rather dead in the hands of the warrior, Lapu-Lapu, only a few days later. This incident of great historical magnitude gave rise to the school of thought that not only was skin cancer the primary enemy amidst warm sun, white sand, and bluewater, there was the inhospitable spear-wielding tribal chieftain to deal with as well.

Magallanes was originally from Portugal (where he was known as Fernão de Magalhães) and earned his keep there by doing occasional odd-jobs for the royal court: be it installing a viceroy in some Tanzania or other, participating in Spice Islands battles that saw the decline of the Ottoman Empire, getting his knee ligaments torn in North African skirmishes, and other campy stuff. In his spare time, he traded illegally with the Moors. The Portuguese king was terribly unimpressed with Magallanes’ enterprising ways (and the pox on Ferdinand’s curiculum vitae of controlling equatorial nations or demolishing Asia Minor kingdoms), so he fired the navigator.

Magallanes spent little time sulking and self-pitying over the loss of health and dental coverage while unemployed. In fact, he dreamt up a grand plan the properties of which involved taking three cutting-edge designed ships on an around-the-world cruise, filling it up with his best mates and whatever slaves they snatched along the way, naming straits and other bodies of water after himself or whatever he fancied, apportioning a good percentage of the lands, spices, and gems he found along the journey, and above all else, getting a government and king to pay for his little party. So he journeyed East to where matters concerning pillage, party, and debauchery are met with seriousness and religious fervour: Spain.

It was at this occupational crossroad that Magallanes found himself in the very heart of Spanish artistry and culture, Andalucia. Specifically, in the major port city of Seville: spiritual home to flamenco, bullfights, the barber, and above all, tapas. He became a naturalised Spaniard and garnered a generous sponsor in Carlos V, Spanish King, Holy Roman Emperor.

In Andalucian architecture, Carlos V is best known as having violated the architectural hymen of the Mezquita in Cordoba (a 10th century mosque of 1000 ornate columns of marble, granite, and onyx and considered the most beautiful structure in Moorish Spain) by lacerating a hole in its very centre, and injecting a Renaissance cathedral into it. This is the culinary equivalent of splattering Heinz ketchup on foie gras. Carlos V was by no means aesthetically blind, however. And upon seeing the horrific result of his architectural commission commented something akin to, "well…that doesn’t look quite right now does it?" And so it is that Carlos V (son of Juana la Loca or Joanna the Mad) was benefactor to Fernando de Magallanes as the latter sought to attempt violations of an international order.

The rest, as they say, is history…or at least history as told by the victors. The crew docks in the island archipelago. The islands are named after Philip II by one Ruy Lopez: a man better known for an opening move in chess. And what of Fernão de Magalhães or Fernando de Magallanes? Well he is perpetually condemned to suffer a fate worse than that of a eunuch with an open credit card in a Czech brothel; he is known by many under a German name: Ferdinand Magellan.

Namecalling

You know how some people look like their names? Well not my nephew Mikey. He was given the rather impressive nomenclatural obligation "Miguel Inigo Leonardo Mario." As such, he’s put in precarious balance between the Scylla that is the The Great Renaissance artist and the Charibdes that is the challenge of delivering pizza while negotiating his way through obstacles only video games can confect. Rather hefty demands for a 7 year old kid whose professional aspirations currently fall within the modest dimensions of a fire engine ladder operator on the one and a pinball machine designer on the other.

Then, there is that diminutive nickname "Mikey" (notorious cereal consumer) that could cause him to crash upon turns between both rocks (and many laughs) as, in proper Philippine form, he is compelled to carry his baby name from conception to the tender age of 436. Filipino parents still have to learn that some nicknames are like diapers; they’re cute at the age of 2, but perhaps ill-advised at 32.

See, on the basis of how he looks, Mikey’s not really a Mikey, nor a Miguel (nor the rest of his names ad nauseum.) The brown hair in clear defiance of au courant fashion and gravity, the pummelled nose that adheres to gravity, the eyes that are as suspicious as they are naughty, the smile that hides mischief and malice, all point to the empirical fact that he is, in fact, a "Dennis." Which Mikey finds quite cool and apropos. Save for the stray letter "S" in the name which Mikey doesn’t quite fancy. He finds "S" too suspicious, sly, even slithering. And he claims, he’s certainly none of those. Kids know who they are and what they want these days.

Mikey has thought of the perfect name for his younger sister Isabel. She of the million questions, the stubborn eyes, the pouting mouth, and the comedic genius who put his hand in hot water while he slept (resulting in sleepless nights tormented by bedwetting accusations), there’s only one name for her. Mildred. Mil-Dread. Dreadful, a thousand times a million times over.

Dennis, age 7. Mildred, age 5. The days we reminisce about with longing. Rainbows, lollipops, and blankets that keep the ghosts away.