As much as I hate making political jokes in this day and age, I think I can't afford to sit around and grind my teeth any longer. So here goes...
You know, when the revolution finally happens and the terrorists have won, the first group of people that I hope they round up to face the firing squads in Mendiola and Luneta are all the pretentious artsy people who have been writing for the fashion and music sectors of the local media.
Not the editors themselves, mind you. Some of them are really cool. But I'm talking about those annoying people who write for the papers and the magazines as if they're God's gift to the English-speaking world, the ones who obviously are not taking the hint that Anna Wintour and Robert Christgau are not interested in reading their CV's - let alone pirating them from their God-forsaken writing jobs as their precious words are wasted on the masa, some of which don't even read their articles unless they're waiting to have their hair and nails done.
Oh, so you think I'm being harsh, eh? You think they are the ones I should respect, for being so refreshingly contrarian and anti-mainstream? You think I should just take it astride when some snobby fashion editor type dismisses Filipino fashion as nothing more than boring rip-offs of American retail sportswear, or some music-critic wannabe wastes my morning newspaper-reading time by whining about which band sold out for what reason? Heck, no. I'm mad as hell, and I can't take it any more.
People, when the terrorists finally arrive to depose whoever happens to be in power, they're not going to care if your Nicolas Ghesquiere pants make our Gap and Bench jeans look like crap, and they're not going to give a flying cow if you believe Jane's Addiction was a better band than Motley Crue and the APO Hiking Society combined. They're not even going to be terribly impressed with the articulate and witty way that you give out back-handed complements to your own countrymen here in the Philippines - yes, people like us - and the way we folk don't seem to run things in the exact same way that you wish we'd do. They will, however, be more than willing to expedite the process of making Jackson Pollock-inspired designs from what remains of your innards, if you annoy them enough.
And don't look at me like it's going to happen, yo. Why did you think I finally gave up when I started earning my own money in the States?
As E. Annie Proulx once wrote, before the fame went to her head: "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it." And if you can't stand it... well, we'll be more than willing to tell you where you can go.
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