I haven’t posted anything on my The Real “The Filipino Channel” page in a long time.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because the nostalgia from watching the footage keeps me hooked like my other PASTIMES do.  All my trips back to the motherland have been so precious but none like the trip I took back in 2007 when what was supposed to be a one-month leave of absence quickly shaped into a six-month life changing debaucherous extravaganza.  When I got back from my trip, I was homeless, broke, and without a job.  But I can assure you looking back that it was all worth it.

Growing up in a small suburb of Los Angeles in the 90’s, it was the FILIPINO kids who were amongst the smartest, fashionable, and most popular at school and all the other surrounding schools.  It was a pretty difficult task, in my opinion, to be part of their group.  You didn’t necessarily have to be Filipino, you just had to live up to their standards in order to obtain that respectability.  For one, you had to either have the God given ability to sing or dance.  I was screwed because the only dancing I knew was from Sonic Youth or FRANK BLACK from the Pixies.   If you didn’t have either, you’re automatically cut.  You had to sport the current styles, whether it was karate shoes, or the Gumby fade haircut.  And your GPA had to be above 3.5.

This created a barrier between the Flips and I.  I think it’s safe to say I was as popular with the Flips as LEVI JOHNSTON is popular in ALASKA.  Besides the food I sometimes ate at home, I didn’t feel any relationship to anything Filipino.  That meant no history, I lacked any sense of cultural literacy, and I most definitely did not speak any of the many dialects I was exposed to as a child.  But sooner or later that all had to change.

This video took place in the last days during my six-month vacation.  In a final hurrah, I gathered a few mountaineer buddies from Cebu and set out to one of the most mysterious islands in the Philippines.  It’s called Siquijor and it is the third smallest province in the Philippines.  Siquijor is said to have many Albularyo inhabitants (also known as witch doctors).  There is also a church where priests were supposedly enslaved and tortured hundreds of years ago.  If you’re lucky, you can see a headless priest’s ghost in the hallways of one of the churches.  Luckily for me, I didn’t believe in any of that baloney but I just wanted to see it for myself.

It took quite a while to travel to the island by boat.  We had multiple stops in different provinces and the heat was quite nasty.  But as you will see, it didn’t suck the life out of us one bit.  The only thing I regret was not having my little hessian buddy JERICHO with me.  He’s a little person that fronts a Cebuano death metal band.  So this video is dedicated to Jericho, Jules (my mountaineer guide with a Jew fro), David and Suzanne (the white people in the video), all the Fil-Ams like myself, and anyone who is looking for an alternative to TFC (The Filipino Channel).