The Mendiola Narratives

The Cats in the Cradle

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad
You know I'm gonna be like you"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Help me find this guy....

I am writing this sentence. Well, actually, I'm typing it. Not very efficiently I might add. I never really formally learned to type. I usually use just 3 fingers on each hand, it feels a bit awkward, I can feel a little struggle, but it works for me. Yep... So... why am I talking about this nonsense? Simple, I thought I'd take a little exercise in writing, er... typing. It's been ages since I've done this, or at least, wanted to do this. To be honest, I am forcing myself a bit, pushing in some effort where my body refuses to naturally flow it. This is a filler sentence.

I used to be passionate about blogging, I'd take the time to remember all the interesting points of my day and try to talk about it as wittily as possible. So yeah I mentioned passion, well passion's gone friends. Not just for blogging, or writing, or anything for that matter. I've lost passion for everything. I've become... a zombie if you will, wake up, get on the computer, do mindless things, kill time. Do I enjoy it? Yes, to an extent, it entertains me, keeps me "happy". Hell, I don't even go to school, or work, or do anything productive, I just leech off of my hardworking mother. She doesn't even know that I haven't been to school in about a year. I'm a great liar like that. She'll eventually find out the truth, I'll probably get kicked out of my house and I would most likely just kill myself. "ZOMG WHY!?!?", you ask? Well, the easy answer is, I've given up on life, on living, on all this good stuff. I just drift on day to day without purpose, yep that's what I'm doing. You see, people usually have this thing that gets them through life, I think it was called ambition... Or was it dreams... No that's kinda homo, let's just call it... a metaphorical fire under their ass. Mine went out a while ago, so here I am sitting in a pile of ashes rotting. Ooooh, I just deleted a couple sentences that were supposed to be here. Hehe, they were garbage anyway, a forced attempt at being witty/smart/funny you know, the things the ladies like. Man, I've failed, I've gotten bored of typing. I thought that maybe if I tried hard enough, I could get a little something going on and just throw all my garbage issues out in the form of digital letters and be cured of my lack of everything. Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.

I found this rant in a blog on livejournal written on 5/27/2008. Waht an emotional pierce of work...it reveals a lot about what this guy is going through... I've been there, and i've done these things... I feel a lot like him..I hope he eventually goes home to find himself..

This is a piece written by somebody who is lost...He lives with his mom somewhere in California. Please help me find him...he can still learn a lot...from us from his brotyher and his little sister....

He is my long-lost son...Lyle If you know him , pls. tell him we are here.

Tomorrow is the end of the world

I remember that when i was young and I used read comic books, i always see an illustration of soomsdat pr and we should all be scared.....but if you see signs That read " Even Good Guys Do BAD THINGS" then it could be worse

Luis by Harold Buck Pago

just this image

The woman with the R2M

Aperture 2.1

I have been very excited to use Apple's aperture for a long time since hearing about it, but when i tried the version 1.5, I was turned off.The learning curve was too much for me and i found the interface not too intuitive. When i used Adobe's Lightroom for the first time...I got hooked. The workflow was perfect for me, and I found it very easy to import images from my cf card, rate my photos, and quickly batch edit the images for exporting to my target sizes and burning it for submission to my clients.Color corrections and global enhancements was a breeze. The Aperture program just lay there on my hard disk like a fat lazy something...when the 2,0,1 came out I installed the 30-day demo version and renamed my licensed version. I started enjoying it more because it adopted my favorite tool, Lightroom's vignette, highlight recovery, etc.

When I stumbled on the featured video of Nat Geo's Jim Richardson explaining his workflow using Aperture... i was really amazed! I didn't realize that it was the tool I'll ever need in doing photo stories. i will be using it more from now on.. especially since the 2.1 version came pre-installed with a dodge and burn" plugin...Awesome!!

the fields

When I was a kid, i always looked forward to the afternoons when after school, my neighbors would play "agawan base", hide and seek, camping and all konds of games inside a vacant lot in front of our house in Quezon City.There we hid among the talahib... ran after hundreds of dragonflies, and made small huts where we lit-up bonfires and exchanged tall tales with the elders. The vacant lot was a paradise filled with Santol, guava,Avocado, star apple, Aratilis and other fruit-bearing trees. It was really fun while it lasted.We soon grew up and the other kids slowly vanished as more and more of the neighbors started moving elsewhere.That was yesterday
Today, I spent a few days in Iloilo city on a documentary assignment, I came across this kids playing near the sea. I learned that every afternoon, they would play in this patch of land by the sea, a virtual fishpond for the community,,, sadly in a few months , if conditions permit, a huge coal-fired power plant would take it's place... right beside the existing Diesel power plant in the far background. Soon after the kids happy memories of their childhood will be wiped out by dark clouds of dirty coal exhausts and toxic heavy metal by-products of the future.

South Cotabato: Hot Days, cold nights

I spent a few days in North and South Cotabato chasing KC Concepcion, US Ambassador Kenney, and the MILF brothers.Being a predominantly muslim province, I literally spent cold nights inside my hotel hugging my cameras for company. The days were really hot and humid . I ate a lot of Deep-fried Dalag with rice and Tolang dalag for breakfast and fresh kinilaw na isda, seaweeds, shrimp and sometimes fat crabs for lunch.The MILF politburo on the other hand never failed to bathe us in piping-hot native brewed coffee even under that raging hot sun.

The WIld Wild West

About two decades ago, these children playing without a care in the world wouldn't have been possible. These kids live in a mining community on Mt. Diwalwal which in the not too distant pasr was populated by denizens of the underworld, lost commands, and anybody who in some way have lost their will to live among us and chose to search for gold elsewhere. In the 1980's a gold rush in Mt. Diwalwal gave birth to a town where guns and gold ruled. Gun duels were everyday fare and the death toll kept rising. It was a survival of the fittest.
Today , there is peace and women and children need not live in fear.There is a schoolhouse. a health center, and an economy built on gold revenues.
The only real problem is with iver a 100,000 population and without a real eco-government policy, Mt.Diwalwal might soon become an ecological nightmare.

Mere propagenda or truth?

inside the dressing room

details will follow....

Bureau of Internal Refugees

This are images taken during a photo visi with Tudla Productions to the railroad tracks where demolitions and relocations are ongoing. The people living in small houses alongside the railroad tracks are being driven away to various relocation centers outside the city to find themselves trekking back to the city on account of poor living conditions, lack of jobs and services. These people may be squatters but they it is disheartening to know that they are part of the growing number of Internal refugees in our homeland,

These images are part of the documentation using a Fuji GW670 medium-format rangefinder camera and 220 size Porta film and scanned

Southern Exposure

For a lttle less than two weeks, I went on a trip with a Video Journalist Aaron Goodman, s canadian based in Bangkok. I was fixing for him. This means I have to be the assistant cameraman, gadder, PA, researcher,translator ,etc.I don't remember the last time O did this sort of thing. It was hard work for me coz' we had to work 8-15 hours a day and in the evenings, I spent a lot of time brainstorming the next day's shoot. There was no time to shoot stills for myself. Most importantly though,,, I had witnessed a lot of real things, Mothers losing their beloved husbands by extra-judicial killing, very old farmers with bent-backs toiling their landm peaceful villagers tacing the impending land-grabbing of their titled lands. human rights workers teaching the masses their basic human rights, daughters and children facing up to the loss and grief of losing their fathers and grandparents whoo were summarily killed, simple folk and sof being communists, intelligence agents swarmiaround us while we were doing doc were also the sights of dally life. Sights of hope and optimism. Here are just simple snippets of life in Southern Tagalog region as witnessed them.

Macapagal Tenement Building in Tondo

Aura and Chris, a couple of really good artists give the dilapidated and condemned building a fresh coat of hope and vigor by painting the whole central area of the buildings 4th floor with heroes abd other characters. They were helped by supportive young residents.

Found:

A dear friend, fellow photographer Alan Dejecacion from San Francisco found this old image he took of me in the mid 90's when we went to see "The great John Lee Hooker" (as far as i can recall) at Yoshi's blues bar in Oakland.Taken with a Leica M6.This image really gives me the blues.

Walking home from the barber shop

Walking home from the barber and still reeling from the frustration of the crappy hair cut I got, this scene washed away all my anger. I need to have a cool shower too.

Healers

These people are fixtures of Quiapo and it's sub-culture

Quiapo Hula

Standing out in the crowd, this young woman patirntly waits fro her fortune and destiny to be foretold by the Fortune tellers of Quiapo

Honky tonk woman

it's so dark inside...but the lighting is so irresistible that I took a shot the focussing was off but what the heck!! I like the psychedelic pinks and violets plus the orange.

The lightbearer

A team shoot while winding down after the SONA of PGMA..We had nothing else to do so we turned on our slave strobes and started jumping around Commonwealth avenue at dusk.John Javellana,Gil Nartea, Jes Aznar,Akira Liwanag, Buck Pago were all there.(photographed by Jes Aznar)

SONA preview

Quiapo Fridays

It's a Friday and I spent the whole day shooting an assignment for my agency.. before I knew it, the nightlife began to unfold as I was walking the streets of Quiapo. I've long missed doing this stuff . I think this starts something

Makati avenue.

A boy watches early morning traffic

FHM 100 sexiest

FHM GANGSTA article

LINK to my photos on FHM

The Leica Freedom Train

Cross posting

I don't know that Multiply is such fun.I have not bee updating this site for a long time because initially I found it hard to maintain. This is just a test.

A growing family

Open Source: The Fed-2 and Linux...you can't go wrong

Cigarette Vendor 2007: M4-2, J-12 lens

Sunday's Best

Pantranco QC- Leica, Jupiter-8, Lucky film.
I was about to go up the footbridge..in the corner of my eye, a solitary figure in a long white dress was lurking in the shadows. I Pre-focused my lens ,shot a frame, and moved on.

Baclaran

Leica,Jupiter-8, Lucky SHD 100

Just when everybody else goes....Di.....

Just when almost everybody has gone digital... here I am dabbling with BW film. Well I am trying out this new FSU (former Soviet Union) lens. It's a Jupiter-8 50 mm f2.0 lens. It is a little soft at the largest opening but it peoduces a certain character that I like. If not for the end of the Cold war, It would not have landed into my hands. I will push the envelope of these lenses.

J-8

Baclaran Market

malate

REMEDIOS PARK

Rangefinder Day

Photo by Buck

RF users hanging out at the Remedios Circle photo by Buck

First image during the RFP walkabout at Malate Manila.
(Jupiter-12 100 asa )

smiling mom (J-3 50mm lens )

Nina@EarthDay Jam 2007 (J-12 35mm lens

The kids hanging out on a hot summer day
taken with a Jupiter012 lens

White Beach,Puerto Galera 2007

Comments are most welcome

Vote for this pls.

Aftermath of typhoon Durian