dahon.typepad.com

Where Love Meets.

Santa Cruz, California Summer of 2011

Outside the ideas of right doing and wrong doing there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

- Rumi. 

Johnny with Depth.

Arrested for trashing a New York hotel room. Depp claimed that an armadillo was responsible, saying that he had found the animal hidden in a closet and it had gone crazy, wrecking the hotel room before leaping out the window.

On August 20, 2005, in a private ceremony, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon to the tune of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." The cannon was placed atop a 153-foot (47 m) tower of his own design, in the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button originally used in Hunter S. Thompson's 1970 campaign for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado. Red, white, blue, and green fireworks were launched along with his ashes. According to his widow Anita, Thompson's funeral was financed by actor Johnny Depp, a close friend of Thompson. Depp told the Associated Press, "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."

We had been shooting [Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ] for about a month, and I was beginning to get nervous because there weren't any phone calls. I called my agent and asked, "Has no one called from the studio to complain or say, 'Hey, what's he doing?' or 'Hey, he's freaking us out?' " And when she said, "No", I thought, "Christ, I'm not doing enough! Something's wrong!" Then some of the studio brass came over to the set, and they were sitting in my trailer and I was all decked out as Wonka with the little bangs. And I just had to know. So I said, "Okay, who was the first one, when you started seeing the dailies, that got a little worried?" And there was this beautiful 30-second silence. And [Warner Bros. president] Alan F. Horn finally said, "Yeah, that was me". I felt better instantly. 

My sister Christi had a baby when I was 17, and I had just heard about crib death. The horrible thing was that it wasn't understood. For some unknown reason the baby would stop breathing. So I would sneak into where the baby was sleeping and put my hand in her crib, hold her little finger, and I'd sleep on the floor like that. It was stupid, I'm sure. But I thought the warmth of my hand might help, that maybe if she felt my pulse it would remind her to breathe. 

Johnny the loyal and the quirky.  He once said in an interview - "I maintain a hunger but not an ambition." I think he has found the meaning of life.  Here's to the actor I like both for what he delivers on screen and what the stories people tell about him offscreen.

Saludos 2011!

Same time last year I posted:

Looking forward to 2011!  Latin America backpacking, New Orleans, living abroad,  already on my planning list!

Here's a little something we were asked to prepare for our family reunion especially that we are miles away...but I decided to share it as it could also be my thank you to some of the people who made it a deliciously great year for me, for making all that I wished for last year happened and to thank the void, Universe, God...the blessings are immensely appreciated, I thank with open arms, humbled and jumping for joy. 

 

Forgive the elementary video editing....so pressed for time. Okay, even if not pressed for time, it would still turn out that way - amateurish hehe! :)

Imagination Is Your Currency.

 

 

"As people grow older, they become more rigid in their ways of thinking. They make up more excuses. They make the assumption that they can only leave their house and go overseas if they have a lot of time and money. My whole philosophy is that imagination is your currency, not the money you have in your wallet. " - Phil Keogan, Amazing Race Host.  

 

Highly recommended to read his short article here.  If I had a kid, I'll follow what my travel buddy Nikki would give  her kids when they go to college: they will get round trip tickets to anywhere they want to go.  And If I do have a kid/s, they won't get a car. I want them to be street smart. Cars they can buy on their own, ha!

This picture was taken of me of good friend Tin at Red Top Mountain, just some less than 100 miles here in Georgia.  I am learning to hike.  I don't like running/walking/hiking/trekking - I find them very evasive to my body, but for this year, I'll see how I can stretch myself more.

Rachel Zoe (one of my favorite "characters"), having branched out to designing clothes,  was quoted as saying, "I plan on styling Jennifer Garner even when I'm 75 years old." At her core, styling is always her passion and I guess, that's how it is. You always go back to what you really love doing, no matter the distractions.  For me, that's traveling -- seeing new things and meeting new people and making fun of myself along the way.  

I’ve found out that having a passport ultimately isn’t so much about the places that it allows you to go as the people who want to share their world with you. When people travel, they do talk about the postcard images they’ve seen of, say, Patagonia, but what they really remember is the human connections they make  - Still Phil.  

 Cheers to travel, and connecting with people!

Anne Our Girl.

 

Among my generation's artists, I like her and Zooey Deschanel a lot.  Anne Hathaway is so luminuous, almost god-like,  but she comes off as  downright girl next door - makes fun of herself and finds humor in everything.  My favorite moment was when she was guesting in Oprah show for Brokeback Mountain and she was all giddy just because she was a guest at Oprah.  I like down to earth people. 

HANDLER: What do you think your best quality as an artist is?

HATHAWAY: Work ethic. I heard Elia Kazan once said of Vivien Leigh—which I couldn't believe, because they worked together on A Streetcar Named Desire [1951], and she gives the most amazing performance as Blanche DuBois. But I guess he was pretty tough on his actresses, so he said that she's not the best actress in the world, but she'd have crawled over broken glass if she thought it would help her performance. That's how I see myself as an actress. I may not be the best in the world, but I love my craft more than just about anything, and I will give everything I have to it, whatever the cost . . . I feel like such a jerk when I say "my craft," but I do feel that way.

Read more here.  And if you're curious about that Marcel the Shell (of which I also adore, another reason why I'm so kin to love Anne), link above does it for you.

The Liberal and Cerebral kind of Lunacy.

I remember a restaurant I went to with friends here, it's called the Lunacy Black Market and I was completely charmed by the place, the food and most especially the chef.  

The place is simply bad-ass eclectic.

The food is served in small servings, perfect for me, who can never finish an american-sized plating. And it's very affordable and most importantly, juicy and delicious.  Eating a bite makes me wonder there must be a thousand flavors somewhere in there.  Is it too juvenile to say, "yummy"? It was really yummy! 

And why I love the chef the most.  He took the time to sit down and chat with us, asked us about the food (Yummy!) and where we come from, told us stories about that side of the city, about the US in general,  how the society has changed into one for oneself, more than for each other.  Seldom do you meet interesting, thinking people - the one that you could easily have a 5-minute conversation and still have a huge mental take-away. 

I appreciate the discussion actually. I shared with him how I like the servings in his restaurant, very small and served intimately.  We all devoured the food in one plate and I told him I like that in our culture, where we pick food from each other's plate, like it's meant to be shared.  In other culture, or even in high society Manila, you're not supposed to do that, it's bad manners to pick food from another's plate. 

He told me  we lost a sense of that, we're so ingrained with protocols, that we don't even know why it is so and we lose the human connection. And he punctuated it with do whatever you feel like doing because at its core human beings have no intention to hurt. 

He is my inspiration that red wine should not always go with red meat.  Drink whatever fits you. That florals can match  stripes and still look stunning.  Everything is in the eye of the beholder. 

It was 3-hour lunch, exactly what I always wanted my Sunday lunches to last and more. Chef Paul Luna is a famous Chef and he will run for mayor of Atlanta in 2013.  He's added in my list of inspiring people. 

I went there the second time with new people to introduce the restaurant to and he remembered me.  Chef Paul spontaneously made us a filling paella, not even on menu.  This time, he told us stories about the paintings hanging on the wall, who made it, how those were all given to him and we asked him about his vision of the city.

As I listened, I wish that I could vote.   

Motorcycle Diaries.

You could live a life like that because people adore you. Somehow it almost became expected for big actors to have a certain arrogance.

People pay us an enormous amount of money for us to do what we do so I think we should be there on time and do our work. Sometimes the more money they get paid, the less they care about their behavior, that’s true. It is a kind of embarrassing attitude if one thinks that he is the next royal, the next prince or princess of Hollywood. But those kinds of demands are embarrassing to me.

I will forever support Ewan McGregor, because of this.  He will not take me - as a paying audience -  for granted.   Read the very short interview here. 

 

Quirkiness Meets Execution.

 

Elsie & Jeremy | May 15th 2011 from Goodwin Films on Vimeo.  Found via StylemyPretty

The most uniquely charming celebration I have seen - you could see the character of the celebrants with the whole shebang: Both are likely creative individuals,  quirky, playful, smart, dares to be different, and personal.  The color just bursts and I love the headbands! My favorite picture is the bridesmaid who is a pug and styled to the nines.   The bride: " When Jeremy and I envisioned our wedding day, we wanted it to be really personal. I’m a designer and he’s a song writer, so we spent a lot of time and energy on pretty visuals and our music selection. I own a boutique and we chose to host our ceremony on the third floor of our building, above my shop. The space is open with huge windows and peeling wallpaper. The ceilings are partially exposed. It’s a really amazing old building. We loved the idea of holding our ceremony here because we knew we’d be the first couple ever to get married in that spot! Our aisle was covered in white feathers and the flower girls threw colored feathers as they walked down the aisle."

Yoga! Hotta!

So I discovered Atlanta's version of Bikram yoga and it's incredible how I could have missed experiencing this before. I've never done Bikram in Manila, no matter how some of my friends have invited me to do it and it's been in my list to do ever since. What is Bikram yoga? Basically it's yoga in a heated room, designed that way to rejuvenate the body. According to the discoverer, when you exposed the body to heat, it makes it less susceptible to injury and makes your immune system better. And your heart tend to race more, so your heart pumps more blood, and I guess it's like exercise for your internal organs.  

I tried this out today at Red Hot Yoga, in the Buckhead Area in Atlanta.  I can count the few times in my life that I perspired and this experience tops it.   Just to compare, I ran an aquathlon and I did not perspire :).  And no siree, in this case, I did not perspire right after the practice, I poured sweat the whole friggin' time I was inside the studio.  We're still on breathing exercise and I was already perspiring, can you believe it, me with a body that already declared since its birth that sweating is an absurd activity, a once in a blue moon function.  

By the middle of the session,  I'm dripping of sweat, my  mat was drenched! It was glorious! I drank water after each pose, and at the beginning of each pose, my head goes something like: I'll be dead by the time I finish this pose.  And see, there was pain in those poses, you stretch your groggy muscles until it awakens, and you can feel it crying out loud.  Of course there will be pain.

Blood rushed through my head when I bent myself forward from hips down.  When I came back up, oh god, death at my door. But then again, the human capacity to stretch itself to a point of breaking without breaking - it is amazing.  It's like re-birth everytime. 

At the end, I was so thirsty, I felt like I can down the whole sewerage system  of Atlanta. But also I felt energized and weirdly flexible, like I can bend myself to kingdom come, like that spoon in The Matrix. It was kick-ass adrenalin rush.    

I'll be coming back, of course! I truly believe that deep inside of us, there is a little sadist wanting to be fed.  Namaste. 

Faves in Estados Unidos - Part Two

• Right-on Customer Service.  One day, the wireless receiver of my mouse got overheated (surreal, i know) and would no longer work.  I called Microsoft (were you surprised it is MS?) to report the incident  and no questions asked, they told me they will ship a new version with nary the burning hazard feature and it will arrive brand new in the color of my liking.  Call wrapped up in 5 minutes. Amazing, yes? Wait - here's more!  My work laptop hinted to crash lately and just yesterday it intermittently booted up, barely breathing.  I reported this to our customer service and they verified that it was 3.5 computer years old already which basically means  90 years old in human years.  I was about to cry because my laptop is the cornerstone of my staying productive (or the look of  being productive) and I badly need to salvage my data.  Guess what our customer service did? Here is a picture of my new laptop 15 feet from my doorstep, less than 24 hours after I called them up.  They sent me a new one - overnight shipping! Hallelujah! Isn't it amazing?

 I have observed that this whole concept of quality in customer service seems to be bounded by a good infrastructure - excellent and reliable postal services, sufficient supply of products and good trust with the customer - a naive kind of trust that customers would not abuse the suppliers, because the moment significant number of people do, the whole thing crumbles.  Companies invest on customer service because their business, in this information age, rely heavily on word of mouth, and as what Eric Schmidt (ex-CEO of Google) said (and I paraphrase), the moment we breach the trust of our users, we cease to be reliable, and people would  no longer trust our brand. 

And this kind of simple, all-in, fast and responsive customer service is what I like about the culture here in US.  Would it work in my home country? Yes, of course, we could even be better because we generally are built for service.  But it requires a culture change and more. 

Maybe trust is a good foundation for anything.