ok. so i am 'balik'-ing to canada. i am returning, so to speak, to my home and native land of canada...eh. i'm taking a 9 month contract at much music where i will not be 'direk' but i will be a pr-editor. editor plus producer. preditor vs aliens part 3. while toronto feels the same, i know i'm not. so we'll see how this experiment goes. i figure i will treat this contract as a 9 month paid scholarship in mass media, avid editing, working in a 'team' environment, and whatever else much more music has to teach. anyways. my chest has been hurting for the last week at the prospect of leaving my wonderful life, family and friends in manila, but there were too many serendipitous (sp?) events that conspired to keep my ass in canada, with wifey, family, snow etc. i'm also feeling i'm meant to bring back to the pinoys ober here all the things i learned ober der. i am gonna keep the apartment (to the tune of papa don't preach...i'm gonna keep my baby). ohhh...gonna keep the apartment. anyways. almost done my humber gig. going now.

had fun today at work. this is my composer/musical director gig for the graduating class of Humber College theatre students. it's fun because i can be as much of a delinquent as i want because i'm neither student or teacher. of course i deliver the goods, but i play by my own rules. school rules! coming from the university drop out... it's funny because education is the way my dad made it out of paranaque manila. and his eldest child is a drop out who is building a career in the philippines. i figure i have the equivalent of a couple of degrees. there was once a day when i was an enthusiastic theatre student at york. woah. i wonder who from my class is doing it. god. theatre...well...it's paying my bills so yeay theatre. toronto is freezing.

at home playing guitar hero on ps2 with my sisters. this game is totally the most addictive. i'm typing to still my eyes. sony... i'm so happy to be in frigid small town kingston. happy to be with the family in the home i spent my youth in. so grounding. so humbling. i type this in a warm, plush, electronic reclining chair. slowly it leans back and is perfect posture. this was nans chair. it still smells like her. just saw the movie perfume, and was reminded the power of scent. nan is so tangible in this smell. more than in a picture or video. it's comforting. in kingston i feel like time stills. like i can step out of life and enter this one, which is more and more feeling like a dream sequence. god bless everyone this christmas. through our trials and joys.

hay naku. again, just when faith was being restored in manila...a bomb goes off. literally. got a text from my roommate that a bomb went off in glorietta mall..he saw people screaming, crying, and this is not in the far reaches of the philippines. this is just there...in what is our equivalent of 'the eatons centor'. man. and its so weird how casual people are about it. how people are already laughing. how people don't even miss a beat. god, i know if this shit happened in toronto, the whole city would stop. anyways, to all those who hear about it and are wondering if i'm ok. i'm ok. i'm working. i'm healthy. i'm fine. but wow. bombs at the mall. song title... kawawa our nation. r

me and odie were nominated for urian awards for our work on Ang Pamana. that's nice, me as editor, odie as d.p., but our sound should have been nominated...if anything, our sound and niccos performance. anyways...but we will rep every single person who worked on it. even if we don't win and i'm asleep in the audience by best supporting actor...i go for all of us. if it was just for me i would skip it...but if there's a chance that i can big up everyone if i get to the podium...i will. http://www.gawadurian.com/ anyways...that's that.

my BFF sent me this. everyone needs to see this. very important. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNLcwqUOXfQ. noel, if you're reading this, jotham needs to see it!

the new doc is up. smokey mountain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5ybvqE94K4 it's nice. i put it up not really having any expectations on response, and i received a note from someone who i went to elementary school with in kingston ontario, where the film worked like a 'wake up' call to her material problems. anyways, you'd think that i would stop stressing over financials after seeing something like that...anyways. enjoy and pass it around. - r

i'm trapped in the apartment because of the rainy rains. instead of going crazy, i have been working on music stuff. new podcast. number 4. rain songs. http://romeocandido.podomatic.com/

there is a typhoon coming. so things have slowed down. i don't think i did anything productive today. i was really thinking hard about it too. no songs to sing. no stories to write. so maybe a blog for whoever. it kind of feels like the calm before the storm. i hope it's that way for the work. so, in the past week, me and ria pitched our new film to star cinema. this is the 5th in a series of pitches that have escalated through the ranks of the star cinema studio. i was nervous. i think i might have been underprepared. i dunno. anyways, we pitched our concept which most of them liked, however, it is 'high concept' and unlike anything they've 'ever' done, as it is a film for the 'massa', anyways, fingers crossed. we'll see. i'm just doing my best to be open to whatever. recently the new 'motivations' are to be purposeful, thankful, detached and devoted. is that what it was? i swear, the other day i repeated it while walking on the baywalk during sunset. anyways, i guess detachment to old mantras is in full effect. here's a performance from last week. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpHokSeRQKI

ew. i just saw a bunch of filipino transvestites performing bebot on tv. there's just something wrong when they were saying 'somebody say hooooo...say ho ho...say hooooo...say ho ho'... had another random run in with imelda marcos. when i first saw her i thought she was a unicorn. now, she's just around. so crazy. have a studio pitch on friday...send good vibes. here's some pics.

NEW VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu7knlNW8Vk enjoy

you know. i'm really always trying to take the zen road when it comes to conflict resolution. work, life, spiritual, emotional, social, whatever-al. but when relationships, working or otherwise, are meant to end, they will end, no matter what. people come, and go, and come and go, and some leave to not be heard of again. you know, for someone who does his best to resolve differences, i'm always in the middle of drama. maybe, if i cause drama, then i'll be too busy to be embroiled in other people's cuz i will just be caught up in my own. or not. buddha says that life is suffering, and bruce lee says to be like water, and chow king has the best halo halo in town. and then, i'm working on a documentary on smokey mountain, and all my problems are wala lang and i should be grateful for everything i have. which i am. ok...i'm fine. what we should really be thankful for is 'transformers'. did you see that sh**?

http://romeocandido.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-07-01T09_43_00-07_00 the new podcast. lucky number 3rd.

it's sunday in hong kong. i am staying at the parklane hotel, a nice swishy hotel at causway bay. it is the only day off for many filipina and indonesian domestic workers, who gather at victoria park, for picnic, gossip, and hang out time with people who are their family and home away from home. i know i cannot even compare my struggles to these women and workers, but i am in solidarity with them, in having to leave their family and loved ones in pursuit of economic opportunities elsewhere. there are so many of them, it's like the philippines, but here in the middle of hong kong. it made me sad actually, which is probably why my blogpost isn't all about how cool it is in hong kong (which it totally is), but more about my sunday lonliness away from my family. i don't know why sundays make me miss home so much, but it does. when i was young i was always so bitter at 'having' to spend sundays at home, but that conditioning is deeply ingrained, so now, when i don't have that feeling of family on sunday, i just feel the void. and so i look at all these workers, with no place to call their own, other than a blanket, banig, plastic on the ground, finding comfort in eachother. they are happy together, getting a once in a week break from their work as caregivers, home-maintainers, hotel staff and god knows what. i joke about being an ofw alot. its a joke, mostly because it's such a ridiculous comment when i oftentimes get to live in the lap of luxury, especially now, as i use the wifi in the nice marble floored hotel lobby. but the longing is the same. anyways, love to everyone on the other side of the world. in my head i am laying out a blanket / banig in victoria park where we can have our sunday hangtime and laugh our weekly troubles away.

when do you know what you're supposed to let go of and when to do it? how are we supposed to know if the things that were once good for us are still good for us?

http://romeocandido.podomatic.com. malate 2007

new song is up 'baby' http://www.myspace.com/thebalikbayan enjoy

of late i have been asking questions. firstly, what defines me? is it my family? my wife? my work? my cultural identity? my age? my sprituality, or sometimes lack thereof? i've been asking these questions because i was far from the things that gave me definition. when i'm working i'm 'direk'. when i'm with caroline, i'm 'arje'. when i'm getting paid, i'm 'rich bitch'. when i'm in kingston i'm 'my mothers son and my sisters kuya'. when i'm by myself...then what? so i turn to music, i turn to the internet, i turn to my video cameras and gear. so then i create something, i write a letter, i film something to make me feel, productive. it's easy to say that i am defined by the things i create. but once they are created, they are merely footprints i am leaving in the world, on websites in blogs, on youtubes. recently i have been going to church again. not to go to mass, cuz dudes...i fall asleep...but just to feel some kind of 'connection', maybe not even that, maybe it's familiarity...maybe it brings me back to the time when i thought god was actually in church, and that the only way to get his (when god was a he with a beard) attention, was to go to the 'house that god built'. mom was telling me that alot of my new good fortune is coming from the fact that i have been going to church. but i'm feeling more and more church is everywhere, like the living room with the windows open and the wind blowing through it. like the baywalk during sunset. like trapped in traffic when the sounds drown out. it's been hard being away from the things that define me. leaving me to either fill the void, or realize that life is already full in its incompleteness. they always say it's the 'journey' not the destination and all that. it's hard to be in awareness of that, especially in such a goal oriented world. especially when i've been sooo goal oriented for so long. there was an old school new age statement to 'be still and know'...i'm trying to grasp that again, because for me it's 'be still and go manic'. maybe for the kids it should be 'be chill and grow'. whatever. but more importantly, anyone watch quinton jackson kick chuck lidells butt the other day?

ok. i went to smokey mountain today. smokey mountain was made famous in the 70s and 80s when footage of families foraging and suviving off of this huge pile of garbage in manila went on air. i'm starting a new documentary. and i still kinda don't know how to feel. ok, so i went to tondo. i'm just a tourist there for sure. i felt weird having my video camera pulled out. my god. the conditions. i really felt like i was in one of those unicef tv shows...the ones where they are begging for money...'for the cost of a cup of a coffee you can...'. but when i started looking through those first world prejudices, i was just in awe. the people and the children were smiling, warm, friendly. of course, at night time i have to get the heck out of there, but in the day, there was just a spirit there amidst the burning trash, amidst the oppressive conditions, and the heat, oh lord the heat. i go back on friday and more times to do interviews with people. i still kind of don't know how to feel, and i wish i had pictures to share. but at the end, i will have a short documentary for it. and it feels good, to not just be hustling for commercial gigs, and to do something for 'the people'.

i guess god is the best painter. and there's really no more proof than all the sunsets here in manila bay. just outside my window. a one and a half minute walk. i miss home. my friends and family. i share all these sunsets with you. This is from April 10-17