Monthly Archives: July 2023

laundry therapy, musings

clearing out the clutter of life

So this post was written in March 12, 2015. and i havent been able to post it, i dont know why. it sat in drafts folder for the last 8 years basically. so im posting this today.

My name is benjamin. I am a hoarder.

It is important to understand one’s weaknesses in order to overcome it. With years of experience, i have no qualms about keeping things that mean something to me. And years after that reason has expired, i still have those items and they have accumulated to a mountain load.

My name is benjamin. I am a pack rat. yes

find the missing dog caption
find the missing dog

it was almost never an issue how i would keep things and not throw anything away when i was young. my mother let me rip up tissue napkins and fill up facebook is a treasure trove and one of those days back in march, traction was building up for one marie kondo, a japanese guru on organizing stuff. i began reading up about her work and tried to get a copy of her book, the life-changing magic of tidying up.

my pirated dvd collection in drawers. now all gone
my pirated dvd collection in drawers. now all gone
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ET heads a treasure hunt!
ET heads a treasure hunt (stories ive written when i was maybe 8 or 9 years old). please dont sue me for copyright infringement lol and dont turn grammar nazi on my 10 year old self, you monster.
photos from high school and college. laugh trip.
photos from high school and college. laugh trip. and some from family (old BW pics)
selected books on display. maybe in a month ill go through them again and throw out more.
selected books on display. maybe in a month ill go through them again and throw out more.
organizing my papers and some books in plastic crate boxes
organizing my papers and some books in plastic crate boxes
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ive let go of most of my physical DVDs.
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so as ive said, this post was written in 2015. im now adding to this post and it’s 2023. i was successful in throwing out loads of stuff over the years, im also successful in keeping the few items that still spark joy. ive also have moved out of our katipunan apartment from 3 years ago and as you can imagine i need to be strategic on what i can keep and what i need to let go because condo spaces are generally small. storage will always be a problem.

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one good thing is that i am a production designer for film. i can still keep some items and the rest i donate to my work as a designer. i get to be a hoarder as a designer haha i cant be a hoarder as a person but my work can be that person for me. lol.

so my condo space is a nice curation of items that carlo and i keep (mostly mine) and the rest are out in our work bodega warehouse. over the years too we needed to move warehouses and especially during the pandemic, we had to give up 80% of our stuff coz i couldnt afford the warehouse after 2 years of no clear work.

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time to grow up. time to shake off the material wealth that will weigh us down. char! you dont need these in heaven. haha but your time on earth is always more colorful when surrounded by a few carefully selected book collection and small hand-written stories you made when you were 8, like 7 presidents ago.

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musings

dream state

i cant really explain it but for the last two months, i always have vivid dreams right before i wake up.

every day.

carlo and i get to bed at maybe 10 or 11PM every night. before sleeping we usually watch a few youtube videos (conspiracy theories, erwann’s wonderful featr videos, or pimple-popping or ingrown nail surgeries) or binge-watch series from netflix (superstore), prime video (the boys), or disney (watching encanto the nth time) . we start to really sleep around 2 or 3AM and i know i often have to get up to pee around 4 or 5AM (and sometimes because i need to tuck frida back in her blanket when she returns from peeing in the kitchen).

this means i start dreaming maybe 6 or 7AM. and i kinda wake up at 8am and then when i drift back to sleep for another hour, my dream transitions to another episode or a totally different movie. most of the time these 2 months, my dreams involve work, either preparing to shoot or actual filming. cast of characters differ everyday but involves family, friends, and even a few celebrities (tony danza, wtf).

filming in vigo, spain

locations are also very varied and strange and more often than not, i havent been to those in real life BUT it feels very familiar and nostalgic, like a cousin’s house or a childhood classroom. like there was a dream that i was at home (it felt like my house and my bedroom etc) but visually, the house was sprawling and ive never been in anything like it BUT it looked like a home in indonesia and a mix of blumentritt (my lola’s old house), the gusa house (of my tito), and our house in rer. it just feels comfortable. ive never been to indonesia.

sometimes, i tend to be running around doing tasks for a shoot the next day, and im meeting with my sisters or cousins at the same time and swimming in weird pools (if those pools were in brazil or mexico) or beside my high school (if my school was sliced in the middle by a huge earthquake and looked like a coliseum in italy). sometimes i go around a maze of rooms trying to find my artdep staff and chance upon other university friends who need to ride on a big off-road vehicle and all the lighting in the rooms are purple and im suddenly holding a meeting in another side of the metro.

the other day, i dreamt my penis bled while i was asleep so i had like dark dried rings of blood on my arms from trying to cover my erect uncircumcised penis (im circumcised irl) and i was going around my house without pants but all sorts of guests kept arriving. and id just cover my groin with my hands (i dont know why i didnt just dress up haha).

every day i dream of crazy situations that feel like a 90-minute movie or a 1-time episode or spin-off. when i wake up, i try to remember the dream. id try to tell carlo about them but im left with just fragments and the more i partake of my morning coffee, the less i remember what transpired.

coffee with locally milled sugar from bacolod, negros occidental

so, later when i sleep it’s another opportunity to dream, right? till then. cheers!

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filmmaking, food trip, laundry therapy, musings, travel

it’s 2023

i havent been able to blog on anything since 2020. the pandemic happened and COVID-19 beat the hell out of me and everyone. while we survived, the government did a shitty job handling the whole thing. and the elections happened and we all know how things went down south. my mental health went batshit and it’s been a slow climb back out of 2022. in 2023, events surrounding us were still crazy so im just trying to keep afloat really.

so let’s just fill ourselves with some personal updates via photos from early 2022 to now. while we all know a picture is worth a thousand words, we still need 140 characters or so to defend their posting. ive been keeping a 25 foot distance from facebook since 2021 and elon is killing twitter so looks like i might blog for a bit.

got involved in a production designers group since 2020. although the movement basically started 201, the prod designers only got to convene during the pandemic. it’s been a generally slow burn kind of thing pero i guess that’s the only way we can work our way around still doing full time shoots and organizing a guild kind of thing. since the pandemic, everybody has been extremely busy hence no more time for org work but we recognize it doesnt mean theyre deadma na to the goals of the group. birthing pains for sure.

we made it to sagrada familia in barcelona. the unfinished church is indeed a masterpiece, created by people who have a vision for the future. that came along with planning how barcelona itself was built. we want that kind of vision for the Philippines. it was tricky staying in our conqueror’s place. we suffered 300 years under them but also basically learned nothing from them. choz.

ive spoken on twitter about what was one of the things that made me realize i was gay. in my young life, my only access to things were underwear packages in department stores. i didnt understand it then, i was 5 years old after all but those pictures of torsos in their briefs made me all tingly inside. this magazine ad of fruit of the loom in his beautiful teal briefs cemented the realization that i liked men. and undies. and penises hidden behind teal briefs. like, i was 10 at that time. so yes, madlang people. bakla na ako bago ko pa nalaman ano ang bakla.

there’s also a photo of me with a superman poster in our family bedroom. again, as a kid i couldnt explain it but those red briefs were my kryptonite. and also whatever was hidden behind those red briefs. lol

how are we so far? ive begun to loathe toxic positivity during the pandemic and facebook is so full of it. trying to live life off social media because of that. outside work, ive been keeping myself with film guild stuff and laundry. if we had money, carlo and i would be traveling all the time haha but also just thankful we’ve been able to see dipolog, madrid, barcelona, and jeollanam-do korea this year because of work.

ive always been a vampire fan, esp with stoker and rice’s vampire lore. the tv series for anne rice’s interivew with the vampire was amazing and thrilling and sensual like it was in the books. this is the definitive vampire chronicles.

im happy our condo community has a recycling program wherein we surrender clean and washed waste to B.E.S.T. im made a habit out of washing all dirty plastics before segregating, and trying to keep paper clean too. i send the stuff every 4 weeks. this august 2022 trash is an accumulation of i think 2 or 3 months (coz we were shooting and i didnt have time to bring them down). here’s how much trash ive set aside not going to the payatas landfill.

we survived shooting a film (IN MY MOTHER’S SKIN, dir kenneth dagatan) in the gaston house in bacolod city in june 2022. the house was also used as location for peque gallaga’s oro, plata, mata, in 1981. as per the owners, the house was used as shoot location very few times (peque used it twice, and then law fajardo, and then one more local filmmaker) before us.

we had the wonderful experience and privilege to film in this complex. the house owner, monsignor gaston, and his staff, headed by yaya francis, and the monsignor’s family were very welcoming. we were able to ask yaya francis not to cut grass for 2 months and boy did all the weeds grow. wonderful! haha

looking back at all these pictures, my year was colorful din naman. experience was enough to say, it had its moments. and some not so good ones. looking forward to other things because there is no way to go but up, right?

cheers everyone! #LAVANLUNGS

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