TO THE MOON AND BLACK:
A trip to the stars without seeing them
BAMBOO JAMS WITH JAM!
What could bring my cassette recorder back to life? A text from the former Ad Create president herself asking me to record Bamboo’s Jam sessions at Jam 88.3. Lucky, I was able to find a blank tape which was one of the collections I had back in high school that I used during our school plays – of which I was the perpetual musical director. I had approximately 15 of them, and using both sides of the tape, I had enough space for for 30 distinct scenes. I ruled the control room then but lived harmoniously as well with the lighting director. Our section was what they call the cream of the crop and there was always no doubt about who would win the school play competition. And we always did to the jealousy of some sections who did nothing but shout, “Luto nanaman!” Every practice day was so much fun. JC, who was probably the corniest person I’ve ever met, was a brilliant director. My twin sister Doni (we have the same birthdate) the gayest gay to grace the halls of the high school building, may be super brassy but he’s clever enough to know when to be vulgar and when to be wholesome (or so that’s what I like to think). He brought the class to a state of perkiness when in a trance over a crammed up exam or a seemingly insolveable math problem during practice hours. That was the high school thingie. The thing I missed and cried over at our retreat in Caleruega, which was not really what I cried for but the fact that I thought nobody cared for me and listened to me. I thought no one took me seriously even my fury over something or someone was laughed at because I was Jam, and I had no right to get mad. I was only welcome if I was sort of happy or if I had a corny joke. But of course that was nothing. That was something I just took for granted because that was the only way I could be happy.
MALATE’S PRIDE
I’ve always had a high regard for homosexuals but this year they earned my respect even more. Why they’re always in a state of bliss even if the world is against them. Well not all the world completely because all-the-world is made up of a huge fraction of them besides. These people carry a burden, so permanent that they live with it. If I had to carry the same burden myself, I would have died early due to some whatever complications.
Last Friday, Kat and I went for a presentation. Her client is a Spa situated at the heart of Malate and I just went with her because I didn’t want to stay in the office. And besides, originally I had 3 gimmick choices that I couldn’t go to. Might as well make my night productive right? So there we went. The meeting was 6pm but was moved to 7. We dropped by UST to get something to eat. When we arrived at the Spa, we were late and were gently reprimanded, “Oh you’re SO LATE! Why?” and then Kat had to make some excuse that was half truth. The client was cold at first. Moreover, he was gay and you know how gays fare with an irritating situation like this – they get annoyed so easily! But when we got further into a comfortable conversation, my heartbeat and Kat’s slowed down a bit. The client really doesn’t do advertising. They get featured on travel tv shows and magazines all the time and when they get invited for sponsorships they always do ex-deals. Uh oh… an ex-deal? Might get a negative reaction from our boss. But then he introduced us to another business of his that needs an online store.
“Do you do e-commerce websites?”
“Yes we do sir, as a matter of fact we have an online shop right now.”
“Kasi I have another shop and I want it to have an online store eh. You can drop by there and ask [this guy] to tour you around. You’ll find interesting items there. And maybe you have heard of it. It’s called Pride Exchange.”
“Ah yeah, I already heard it. It got featured in some TV show.”
“It gets featured all the time. Maybe you can drop by, you know, look around and see what you can do with it. It’s in this street….”
And so we did go there. And then here goes our little friend Kat who agreed she knew where the place was exactly but we ended up touring every street and asking every doting security guard where the place was. Then at last we arrived. Pride Exchange is the home of fashionable clothes and accessories and of kinky items and novelty sex toys – the main items Pride Exchange is known for. Then we saw on display the different brands of condoms lined up in a shelf. We identified each one. The dotted, ultra thin, and so forth and so on. One brand is our current client, while the relatively new one will be our future account if our boss insists on presenting the same campaign for it, the one we plan on doing with the other one. You see, our boss is not only insane. He is autistic. He is too business minded to think appropriately. Unethical, unprofessional... name a trait a loser and a failure has and he has it! If we gain that account of the SAME TM, practically of similar positioning, either we suffer from temporary insanity or the company’s credibility suffers.
“Uy may bago! Ano to, from Japan?”
“Opo from Japan, eto naman from India. Pero mas manipis to kasi eto .5 lang ito.”
“Ah, pero mas mahal sya ano?”
“Oo mas mahal to. Pero bago palang kasi sa market, baka mag mura rin yan pag tumagal”
“Pero ano po pinakamabili dito sa mga to?”
I can’t believe we were asking these questions! Please understand, I’ve been studying the condom industry, about the old and new players, about safe sex, family planning etc. and you can’t blame me if this is how curious I am.
MALAMIG SA OPISINA NGAYON
Jam: “Alam mo Katbau, sana pala nagdala ako ng jacket!”
Katbau: “Bakit?”
Jam: “Kasi it’s so cold in here eh!”
Just our little joke on how our boss was giving us the cold shoulder since we arrived from Cebu. Nakakahalata na yata na pinagkakaisahan at pinupulutan namin sya. Hahahahahah!!!! And I won’t forget the day I exploded and said,
“Ano ba talaga trabaho ko dito?? Nakakahalata na ako na parang sinusulit nyo ‘ko eh!”
If I was in a big company, I would have been given a memo already… a bad record! A bad treatment as well, something I deserve more than what my previous company was giving me. But because I had my back up like Kat and Julius, I was able to make myself understood. Napuno lang naman kasi ako. It’s just a small thing really but then when it added up to all the things I feel, I became me – JAMKABLAM! To cite some instances why we hate our boss will just give me a headache and my doctor says it’s bad for me. So it’s better to skip that part. Just to summarize him though... our boss is a rich but a social climber, name dropper maximum loser who tells everyone that everyone is his friend. Not to mention, he’s also a liar. When he offered me… I mean us the job, there were some things written that were really not true about the company. All the more confused I became that I wanted to leave the company as soon as I realized it. But of course it’s hard to lose your job before Christmas right? They also have a new employee in the company who is mentally imbalanced. So that makes our company an institution. A ______ institution – just fill in the blanks. ;p
YAHOO! Dot com is visiting our office tomorrow and I hope the office is in order. But I won’t be in the office because I have a presentation at the Port Area and I’m so happy because my boss won’t be coming with me!! Why? Because that boss of ours has the tendency to ruin an intelligent presentation with his hard-selling tongue and his Chinese way of bargaining. Just to gain a project he lowers the cost to the extent that in the middle of that project he says to the artist:
“Huwag mo na pagandahin yan, mababa lang naman magbayad yan eh! Simplehan mo lang!”
O diba?? How can you eh everytime he presents he gives a super low cost! So that will make all of our projects done with poor quality. Cause he prevents it kasi nga mababa lang magbayad. Oops, tumataas nanaman presyon ko. Sige I’ll stop this na. Whew!
What could bring my cassette recorder back to life? A text from the former Ad Create president herself asking me to record Bamboo’s Jam sessions at Jam 88.3. Lucky, I was able to find a blank tape which was one of the collections I had back in high school that I used during our school plays – of which I was the perpetual musical director. I had approximately 15 of them, and using both sides of the tape, I had enough space for for 30 distinct scenes. I ruled the control room then but lived harmoniously as well with the lighting director. Our section was what they call the cream of the crop and there was always no doubt about who would win the school play competition. And we always did to the jealousy of some sections who did nothing but shout, “Luto nanaman!” Every practice day was so much fun. JC, who was probably the corniest person I’ve ever met, was a brilliant director. My twin sister Doni (we have the same birthdate) the gayest gay to grace the halls of the high school building, may be super brassy but he’s clever enough to know when to be vulgar and when to be wholesome (or so that’s what I like to think). He brought the class to a state of perkiness when in a trance over a crammed up exam or a seemingly insolveable math problem during practice hours. That was the high school thingie. The thing I missed and cried over at our retreat in Caleruega, which was not really what I cried for but the fact that I thought nobody cared for me and listened to me. I thought no one took me seriously even my fury over something or someone was laughed at because I was Jam, and I had no right to get mad. I was only welcome if I was sort of happy or if I had a corny joke. But of course that was nothing. That was something I just took for granted because that was the only way I could be happy.
MALATE’S PRIDE
I’ve always had a high regard for homosexuals but this year they earned my respect even more. Why they’re always in a state of bliss even if the world is against them. Well not all the world completely because all-the-world is made up of a huge fraction of them besides. These people carry a burden, so permanent that they live with it. If I had to carry the same burden myself, I would have died early due to some whatever complications.
Last Friday, Kat and I went for a presentation. Her client is a Spa situated at the heart of Malate and I just went with her because I didn’t want to stay in the office. And besides, originally I had 3 gimmick choices that I couldn’t go to. Might as well make my night productive right? So there we went. The meeting was 6pm but was moved to 7. We dropped by UST to get something to eat. When we arrived at the Spa, we were late and were gently reprimanded, “Oh you’re SO LATE! Why?” and then Kat had to make some excuse that was half truth. The client was cold at first. Moreover, he was gay and you know how gays fare with an irritating situation like this – they get annoyed so easily! But when we got further into a comfortable conversation, my heartbeat and Kat’s slowed down a bit. The client really doesn’t do advertising. They get featured on travel tv shows and magazines all the time and when they get invited for sponsorships they always do ex-deals. Uh oh… an ex-deal? Might get a negative reaction from our boss. But then he introduced us to another business of his that needs an online store.
“Do you do e-commerce websites?”
“Yes we do sir, as a matter of fact we have an online shop right now.”
“Kasi I have another shop and I want it to have an online store eh. You can drop by there and ask [this guy] to tour you around. You’ll find interesting items there. And maybe you have heard of it. It’s called Pride Exchange.”
“Ah yeah, I already heard it. It got featured in some TV show.”
“It gets featured all the time. Maybe you can drop by, you know, look around and see what you can do with it. It’s in this street….”
And so we did go there. And then here goes our little friend Kat who agreed she knew where the place was exactly but we ended up touring every street and asking every doting security guard where the place was. Then at last we arrived. Pride Exchange is the home of fashionable clothes and accessories and of kinky items and novelty sex toys – the main items Pride Exchange is known for. Then we saw on display the different brands of condoms lined up in a shelf. We identified each one. The dotted, ultra thin, and so forth and so on. One brand is our current client, while the relatively new one will be our future account if our boss insists on presenting the same campaign for it, the one we plan on doing with the other one. You see, our boss is not only insane. He is autistic. He is too business minded to think appropriately. Unethical, unprofessional... name a trait a loser and a failure has and he has it! If we gain that account of the SAME TM, practically of similar positioning, either we suffer from temporary insanity or the company’s credibility suffers.
“Uy may bago! Ano to, from Japan?”
“Opo from Japan, eto naman from India. Pero mas manipis to kasi eto .5 lang ito.”
“Ah, pero mas mahal sya ano?”
“Oo mas mahal to. Pero bago palang kasi sa market, baka mag mura rin yan pag tumagal”
“Pero ano po pinakamabili dito sa mga to?”
I can’t believe we were asking these questions! Please understand, I’ve been studying the condom industry, about the old and new players, about safe sex, family planning etc. and you can’t blame me if this is how curious I am.
MALAMIG SA OPISINA NGAYON
Jam: “Alam mo Katbau, sana pala nagdala ako ng jacket!”
Katbau: “Bakit?”
Jam: “Kasi it’s so cold in here eh!”
Just our little joke on how our boss was giving us the cold shoulder since we arrived from Cebu. Nakakahalata na yata na pinagkakaisahan at pinupulutan namin sya. Hahahahahah!!!! And I won’t forget the day I exploded and said,
“Ano ba talaga trabaho ko dito?? Nakakahalata na ako na parang sinusulit nyo ‘ko eh!”
If I was in a big company, I would have been given a memo already… a bad record! A bad treatment as well, something I deserve more than what my previous company was giving me. But because I had my back up like Kat and Julius, I was able to make myself understood. Napuno lang naman kasi ako. It’s just a small thing really but then when it added up to all the things I feel, I became me – JAMKABLAM! To cite some instances why we hate our boss will just give me a headache and my doctor says it’s bad for me. So it’s better to skip that part. Just to summarize him though... our boss is a rich but a social climber, name dropper maximum loser who tells everyone that everyone is his friend. Not to mention, he’s also a liar. When he offered me… I mean us the job, there were some things written that were really not true about the company. All the more confused I became that I wanted to leave the company as soon as I realized it. But of course it’s hard to lose your job before Christmas right? They also have a new employee in the company who is mentally imbalanced. So that makes our company an institution. A ______ institution – just fill in the blanks. ;p
YAHOO! Dot com is visiting our office tomorrow and I hope the office is in order. But I won’t be in the office because I have a presentation at the Port Area and I’m so happy because my boss won’t be coming with me!! Why? Because that boss of ours has the tendency to ruin an intelligent presentation with his hard-selling tongue and his Chinese way of bargaining. Just to gain a project he lowers the cost to the extent that in the middle of that project he says to the artist:
“Huwag mo na pagandahin yan, mababa lang naman magbayad yan eh! Simplehan mo lang!”
O diba?? How can you eh everytime he presents he gives a super low cost! So that will make all of our projects done with poor quality. Cause he prevents it kasi nga mababa lang magbayad. Oops, tumataas nanaman presyon ko. Sige I’ll stop this na. Whew!
