Living in the Shadow of Affirmative Action

Perhaps because I am not Caucasian. some friends and colleagues have been asking for my opinion on the broiling brouhaha over the whitewashed Oscar nominations for 2016.  To one such query, I replied cryptically, “People should stop whining, and just get on with it.”   Not surprisingly, my politically incorrect response was met with uncomfortable…

Grant Goodman Exposes Sex Slaves

Nearly two years after his death, Grant K. Goodman’s scholarly research on the subject of “comfort women,” a euphemism for the sex slaves working in the official brothels established throughout Southeast Asia by the Japanese Imperial Army for the pleasure of its soldiers during World War II, continues to provide key evidence that such atrocities…

Bowie, Burroughs and Me

David Bowie died on 10 January 2016.  He was 69 years old, three years younger than I am.  The only album of his that I owned was Ziggy Stardust back in 1972 and, later, I was a big fan of three of his movies—The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), The Hunger (1983), and Merry…

If I Had a Gun…

For 24 years, the whole time I was in the Philippines prior to leaving for the United States, I knew that my father owned a gun.  I can’t tell you what kind it is, or what it looks like, because I never actually saw it.  I only heard it. Because, every New Year’s Eve, my…

Steve Harvey’s Epistle to the Philippians

Never mind that host Steve Harvey mistakenly referred to people from the Philippines as Philippians.  The recent brouhaha over the crowning of the wrong Miss Universe is a good time to reflect on other memorable beauty pageants for Filipinos.  Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach is not the first Miss Philippines to go on and win the coveted…

My Life As A Publicist (?!?!!)

Back in 1959, when my all-male Catholic high school in Manila staged The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial by Herman Wouk, the Christian Brother (F.S.C.) in charge of the drama club arbitrarily assigned me to take care of publicity.  I was all of fifteen years old.  What did I know about writing press releases, or how to…

My Life As An Actor (?!?!!)

For some unfathomable reason, in the summer of 1969, when I was a new student at the University of Kansas, I decided to audition for a couple of Shakespeare plays being presented on the main stage at Murphy Hall.  On the form that I filled out at the audition, I indicated that I did not want…

Thanks Be to G(rant).

Growing up as I did in Manila, even with the all-pervasive colonial influence of the United States, the yearly gross consumption of food on the last Thursday in November simply was not part of our cultural appetite.  Hard to imagine Filipinos as Pilgrims, not even as Filgrims, except perhaps on the receiving end.  But, after…

My Academy Awards Story

It happened over twelve years ago.  I remember it was a Sunday afternoon.  I was working in my stuffy little office in the bowels of Wescoe Hall at the University of Kansas.  No one else was around, so I left open the door to 1070 Wescoe even though it doesn’t help to increase the air…