FUBARgenre: The Genre of Fubar

I used to write for a now defunct inter-university paper that was also a monthly supplement for the national broadsheet Today. [Few remember that magazine, and the ones who do probably wrote for the publication at one point or the other. Oh, well.]

As Section Editor, I occasionally wrote the magazine’s We Said column, a pseudo-editorial section that consisted of short, perky openers. Here are some examples: [NOTE: The perkiness in me died a long time ago.]

Published June 1998—Volume 6, Issue 2

College is one big buffet. In one spread are various dishes—hors d’oeuvres, desserts, and what-have-yous—provocatively laid out to taunt your taste buds. The average student can’t wait to pile his plate up with all of the sumptuous goodies, eager to sample every delight on the table. More often than not, however, indigestion (and sometimes diarrhea) sends him reeling to the bathroom halfway through the meal—and way before he gets the chance to go back for second helpings.

The trick? Never eat pickles with your ice cream, or put mustard on your pasta, and you’ll do just fine. And oh, portion size is important. Bingeing on the lechon might bloat your stomach before you get to help yourself to the cake. (As you may have noticed, we couldn’t care less about the calories.)

Indeed, College is a gourmand’s paradise. And every student is a gourmand of life. Buffets are all the more tempting simply because one has complete freedom to sample all the entrées—and go back for more.

We too are insatiable, but we’ve been here long enough to know that not every dish is as good as it looks. Textbooks can only teach as much, and we certainly didn’t learn that garnishes can do wonders from Culinary Arts classes. Nor will you, in all probability.

Nonetheless, with plate in hand, we welcome you to the banquet.

Published: April 1998—Volume 5, Issue 4
Thumbing Through

Like most of you, we anticipate our initiation into the Philippine electoral process. Not so much because we are overly eager to cast our votes, but because we can’t wait to see the stamp ink on our thumbs. We intend to flaunt our ink stains to the world with a simple syllogism: we voted, our votes count, therefore, we count.

As May nears, the excitement grows. But along with it is the fear of making the wrong choices. Our opinions will finally matter, but what if they’re all wrong? What if the presidentiable we voted for turns out to be a pain in the country’s backside? What if the sector we choose is a dummy sector erected by a tradpol? What if we spell our candidates’ names all wrong? For all of Dr. Jose Rizal’s faith in us, we honestly see ourselves more as pseudo-adults than as “the hope of the future.”

We have no way of determining which politician is telling the truth, or which fairy tale is closest to reality, but we do have a way of distracting ourselves from our fears: focusing on the symbolical thumb strain that will seal our passage into the world of voters, of adults, of decision-makers.

On election day, let’s all get our thumbs dirty.

Published: May 1998—Volume 6, Issue 5

Juan Tamad supposedly loathes the heat. When the sun is at its fiercest, it is easy to picture him on his hammock, snoring loudly and dreaming indolent dreams in the shade of an acacia tree. He would lie there all day and wait for the last rays to retreat and the first breezes to arrive.

Sigh, summer. How much it reveals the Juan Tamad in all of us. How much it tempts us to lie on our own duyans beneath our own acacias and anticipate the coming of dusk. How much it distracts us from our tasks, prompting us to think our own indolent thoughts.

And yes, we’ve given in to these whims more than once—playing hooky in summer school, sneaking off and dodging our chores, skipping a few barkada gimiks.

Of course, nowadays, we have couches in lieu of hammocks. Instead of waiting for the evasive breeze, we simply turn on our electric fans and air conditioners to ward off the heat. Plus—and here’s an added bonus—TV sets do the job of feeding us indolent thoughts, leaving our brain muscles with little, if any, work.

As dusk falls on our duyans, however, we remember that Juan Tamad is not a symbol of indolence, but of vivacity. He represents a people who recognizes the need to unwind and relax after a day of being torched by the sun. Rather than letting the heat get to him, he goes to his acacia to bask in its shade. He knows that the heat—and probably all the problems in the world—cease to exist once the wind blows upon its duyan.
That, and not his so-called indolence, makes him—and each of us—truly Filipino.